Assignment 57 full log

Build Scaffold for Assignment 57

assignment 57 has no c++ directory

Build Answer for Assignment 57

Compiling c++_answer/ for assignment in ../assignmentdb/57-BookAnalysis/c++_answer
rm book_analysis.o
rm book_analysis
rm: cannot remove 'book_analysis': No such file or directory
make: [Makefile:32: clean] Error 1 (ignored)
g++ -g  -std=c++14 -I /home/bridges-testing/bridges-cxx-install/include/ -c book_analysis.cpp -o book_analysis.o
g++ -o book_analysis book_analysis.o -g -L /home/bridges-testing/bridges-cxx-install/lib/ -pthread -lcurl -l bridges

Run Answer for Assignment 57

Guessing ./book_analysis is the right binary file where main is

Querying Mark Twain
http://bridges-data-server-gutenberg-t.bridgesuncc.org//search?search=Mark%20Twain&type=author
Querying Shakespeare, William
http://bridges-data-server-gutenberg-t.bridgesuncc.org//search?search=Shakespeare%2C%20William&type=author
Querying Dickens, Charles
http://bridges-data-server-gutenberg-t.bridgesuncc.org//search?search=Dickens%2C%20Charles&type=author
Querying Homer
http://bridges-data-server-gutenberg-t.bridgesuncc.org//search?search=Homer&type=author
Retrieved books:
	The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson
	Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven
	A Horse's Tale
	Plus fort que Sherlock Holmès
	A Tramp Abroad
	The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg
	The $30,000 Bequest, and Other Stories
	Mark Twain: Tri Noveloj
	The Prince and the Pauper
	De Lotgevallen van Tom Sawyer
	Extracts from Adam's Diary, translated from the original ms.
	Editorial Wild Oats
	Chapters from My Autobiography
	Mark Twain: Tri Ceteraj Noveloj
	Is Shakespeare Dead?
From My Autobiography
	Life on the Mississippi
	On the Decay of the Art of Lying
	Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc — Volume 1
	Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc — Volume 2
	The Works of Mark Twain: An Index of all Project Gutenberg Editions
	The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
	Shakespeare's Sonnets
	Venus and Adonis
	The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623
	The First Part of Henry the Sixth
	The Second Part of King Henry the Sixth
	The Third Part of King Henry the Sixth
	King Richard III
	The Comedy of Errors
	The Sonnets
	The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus
	The Taming of the Shrew
	The Two Gentlemen of Verona
	Love's Labour's Lost
	King John
	King Richard the Second
	The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet
	A Midsummer Night's Dream
	The Merchant of Venice
	The First Part of King Henry the Fourth
	Bleak House
	Three Ghost Stories
	Aventures de Monsieur Pickwick, Vol. I
	The Seven Poor Travellers
	The Holly-Tree
	Great Expectations
	The Perils of Certain English Prisoners
	A Message from the Sea
	Tom Tiddler's Ground
	Somebody's Luggage
	Doctor Marigold
	Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings
	Mugby Junction
	Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy
	Going into Society
	No Thoroughfare
	Miscellaneous Papers
	The Wreck of the Golden Mary
	Some Christmas Stories
	Aventures de Monsieur Pickwick, Vol. II
	Burnham Breaker
	A Collection of College Words and Customs
	Stories from the Odyssey
	A Book of Exposition
	L'Iliade
	L'Odyssée
	The Iliad of Homer
Translated into English Blank Verse by William Cowper
	The Story of Troy
	The Odyssey
Rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the original
	The Odyssey of Homer
	Army Boys on the Firing Line; or, Holding Back the German Drive
	The Iliad
	The Iliad of Homer (1873)
	The Odyssey of Homer
	Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons
A Personal Experience, 1864-5
	Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca
Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece
	The Flag
	The Bridge of the Gods
A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition.
	The Iliad
	Ομήρου Οδύσσεια Τόμος Α
Checking the cache: Hash url: gutenberg102
Hitting data URL: http://bridges-data-server-gutenberg-t.bridgesuncc.org//book?id=102
{"102":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE TRAGEDY OF PUDD'NHEAD WILSON\n\nby Mark Twain\n\n\n\n\nA WHISPER TO THE READER\n\n     _There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can\n     be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless.\n     Observe the ass, for instance: his character is about\n     perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler\n     animals, yet see what ridicule has brought him to. Instead\n     of feeling complimented when we are called an ass, we are\n     left in doubt._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\nA person who is ignorant of legal matters is always liable to make\nmistakes when he tries to photograph a court scene with his pen; and so I\nwas not willing to let the law chapters in this book go to press without\nfirst subjecting them to rigid and exhausting revision and correction by\na trained barrister--if that is what they are called. These chapters are\nright, now, in every detail, for they were rewritten under the immediate\neye of William Hicks, who studied law part of a while in southwest\nMissouri thirty-five years ago and then came over here to Florence for\nhis health and is still helping for exercise and board in Macaroni\nVermicelli's horse-feed shed, which is up the back alley as you turn\naround the corner out of the Piazza del Duomo just beyond the house where\nthat stone that Dante used to sit on six hundred years ago is let into\nthe wall when he let on to be watching them build Giotto's campanile and\nyet always got tired looking as Beatrice passed along on her way to get a\nchunk of chestnut cake to defend herself with in case of a Ghibelline\noutbreak before she got to school, at the same old stand where they sell\nthe same old cake to this day and it is just as light and good as it was\nthen, too, and this is not flattery, far from it. He was a little rusty\non his law, but he rubbed up for this book, and those two or three legal\nchapters are right and straight, now. He told me so himself.\n\nGiven under my hand this second day of January, 1893, at the Villa\nViviani, village of Settignano, three miles back of Florence, on the\nhills--the same certainly affording the most charming view to be found\non this planet, and with it the most dreamlike and enchanting sunsets to\nbe found in any planet or even in any solar system--and given, too, in\nthe swell room of the house, with the busts of Cerretani senators and\nother grandees of this line looking approvingly down upon me, as they\nused to look down upon Dante, and mutely asking me to adopt them into my\nfamily, which I do with pleasure, for my remotest ancestors are but\nspring chickens compared with these robed and stately antiques, and it\nwill be a great and satisfying lift for me, that six hundred years will.\n\nMark Twain.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 1 -- Pudd'nhead Wins His Name\n\n     _Tell the truth or trump--but get the trick._ --Pudd'nhead\n     Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nThe scene of this chronicle is the town of Dawson's Landing, on the\nMissouri side of the Mississippi, half a day's journey, per steamboat,\nbelow St. Louis.\n\nIn 1830 it was a snug collection of modest one- and two-story frame\ndwellings, whose whitewashed exteriors were almost concealed from sight\nby climbing tangles of rose vines, honeysuckles, and morning glories.\nEach of these pretty homes had a garden in front fenced with white\npalings and opulently stocked with hollyhocks, marigolds, touch-me-nots,\nprince's-feathers, and other old-fashioned flowers; while on the\nwindowsills of the houses stood wooden boxes containing moss rose plants\nand terra-cotta pots in which grew a breed of geranium whose spread of\nintensely red blossoms accented the prevailing pink tint of the rose-clad\nhouse-front like an explosion of flame. When there was room on the ledge\noutside of the pots and boxes for a cat, the cat was there--in sunny\nweather--stretched at full length, asleep and blissful, with her furry\nbelly to the sun and a paw curved over her nose. Then that house was\ncomplete, and its contentment and peace were made manifest to the world\nby this symbol, whose testimony is infallible. A home without a cat--and\na well-fed, well-petted, and properly revered cat--may be a perfect\nhome, perhaps, but how can it prove title?\n\nAll along the streets, on both sides, at the outer edge of the brick\nsidewalks, stood locust trees with trunks protected by wooden boxing, and\nthese furnished shade for summer and a sweet fragrancer in spring, when\nthe clusters of buds came forth. The main street, one block back from\nthe river, and running parallel with it, was the sole business street.\nIt was six blocks long, and in each block two or three brick stores,\nthree stories high, towered above interjected bunches of little frame\nshops. Swinging signs creaked in the wind the street's whole length.\nThe candy-striped pole, which indicates nobility proud and ancient along\nthe palace-bordered canals of Venice, indicated merely the humble\nbarbershop along the main street of Dawson's Landing. On a chief corner\nstood a lofty unpainted pole wreathed from top to bottom with tin pots\nand pans and cups, the chief tinmonger's noisy notice to the world (when\nthe wind blew) that his shop was on hand for business at that corner.\n\nThe hamlet's front was washed by the clear waters of the great river; its\nbody stretched itself rearward up a gentle incline; its most rearward\nborder fringed itself out and scattered its houses about its base line of\nthe hills; the hills rose high, enclosing the town in a half-moon curve,\nclothed with forests from foot to summit.\n\nSteamboats passed up and down every hour or so. Those belonging to the\nlittle Cairo line and the little Memphis line always stopped; the big\nOrleans liners stopped for hails only, or to land passengers or freight;\nand this was the case also with the great flotilla of \"transients.\"\nThese latter came out of a dozen rivers--the Illinois, the Missouri, the\nUpper Mississippi, the Ohio, the Monongahela, the Tennessee, the Red\nRiver, the White River, and so on--and were bound every whither and\nstocked with every imaginable comfort or necessity, which the\nMississippi's communities could want, from the frosty Falls of St.\nAnthony down through nine climates to torrid New Orleans.\n\nDawson's Landing was a slaveholding town, with a rich, slave-worked grain\nand pork country back of it. The town was sleepy and comfortable and\ncontented. It was fifty years old, and was growing slowly--very slowly,\nin fact, but still it was growing.\n\nThe chief citizen was York Leicester Driscoll, about forty years old,\njudge of the county court. He was very proud of his old Virginian\nancestry, and in his hospitalities and his rather formal and stately\nmanners, he kept up its traditions. He was fine and just and generous.\nTo be a gentleman--a gentleman without stain or blemish--was his only\nreligion, and to it he was always faithful. He was respected, esteemed,\nand beloved by all of the community. He was well off, and was gradually\nadding to his store. He and his wife were very nearly happy, but not\nquite, for they had no children. The longing for the treasure of a child\nhad grown stronger and stronger as the years slipped away, but the\nblessing never came--and was never to come.\n\nWith this pair lived the judge's widowed sister, Mrs. Rachel Pratt, and\nshe also was childless--childless, and sorrowful for that reason, and not\nto be comforted. The women were good and commonplace people, and did\ntheir duty, and had their reward in clear consciences and the community's\napprobation. They were Presbyterians, the judge was a freethinker.\n\nPembroke Howard, lawyer and bachelor, aged almost forty, was another old\nVirginian grandee with proved descent from the First Families. He was a\nfine, majestic creature, a gentleman according to the nicest requirements\nof the Virginia rule, a devoted Presbyterian, an authority on the \"code\",\nand a man always courteously ready to stand up before you in the field if\nany act or word of his had seemed doubtful or suspicious to you, and\nexplain it with any weapon you might prefer from bradawls to artillery.\nHe was very popular with the people, and was the judge's dearest friend.\n\nThen there was Colonel Cecil Burleigh Essex, another F.F.V. of formidable\ncaliber--however, with him we have no concern.\n\nPercy Northumberland Driscoll, brother to the judge, and younger than he\nby five years, was a married man, and had had children around his\nhearthstone; but they were attacked in detail by measles, croup, and\nscarlet fever, and this had given the doctor a chance with his effective\nantediluvian methods; so the cradles were empty. He was a prosperous\nman, with a good head for speculations, and his fortune was growing. On\nthe first of February, 1830, two boy babes were born in his house; one to\nhim, one to one of his slave girls, Roxana by name. Roxana was twenty\nyears old. She was up and around the same day, with her hands full, for\nshe was tending both babes.\n\nMrs. Percy Driscoll died within the week. Roxy remained in charge of the\nchildren. She had her own way, for Mr. Driscoll soon absorbed himself in\nhis speculations and left her to her own devices.\n\nIn that same month of February, Dawson's Landing gained a new citizen.\nThis was Mr. David Wilson, a young fellow of Scotch parentage. He had\nwandered to this remote region from his birthplace in the interior of the\nState of New York, to seek his fortune. He was twenty-five years old,\ncollege bred, and had finished a post-college course in an Eastern law\nschool a couple of years before.\n\nHe was a homely, freckled, sandy-haired young fellow, with an intelligent\nblue eye that had frankness and comradeship in it and a covert twinkle of\na pleasant sort. But for an unfortunate remark of his, he would no doubt\nhave entered at once upon a successful career at Dawson's Landing. But he\nmade his fatal remark the first day he spent in the village, and it\n\"gaged\" him. He had just made the acquaintance of a group of citizens\nwhen an invisible dog began to yelp and snarl and howl and make himself\nvery comprehensively disagreeable, whereupon young Wilson said, much as\none who is thinking aloud:\n\n\"I wish I owned half of that dog.\"\n\n\"Why?\" somebody asked.\n\n\"Because I would kill my half.\"\n\nThe group searched his face with curiosity, with anxiety even, but found\nno light there, no expression that they could read. They fell away from\nhim as from something uncanny, and went into privacy to discuss him. One\nsaid:\n\n\"'Pears to be a fool.\"\n\n\"'Pears?\" said another. \"_Is,_ I reckon you better say.\"\n\n\"Said he wished he owned _half_ of the dog, the idiot,\" said a third.\n\"What did he reckon would become of the other half if he killed his half?\nDo you reckon he thought it would live?\"\n\n\"Why, he must have thought it, unless he IS the downrightest fool in the\nworld; because if he hadn't thought it, he would have wanted to own the\nwhole dog, knowing that if he killed his half and the other half died, he\nwould be responsible for that half just the same as if he had killed that\nhalf instead of his own. Don't it look that way to you, gents?\"\n\n\"Yes, it does. If he owned one half of the general dog, it would be so;\nif he owned one end of the dog and another person owned the other end, it\nwould be so, just the same; particularly in the first case, because if\nyou kill one half of a general dog, there ain't any man that can tell\nwhose half it was; but if he owned one end of the dog, maybe he could\nkill his end of it and--\"\n\n\"No, he couldn't either; he couldn't and not be responsible if the other\nend died, which it would. In my opinion that man ain't in his right\nmind.\"\n\n\"In my opinion he hain't _got_ any mind.\"\n\nNo. 3 said: \"Well, he's a lummox, anyway.\"\n\n\"That's what he is;\" said No. 4. \"He's a labrick--just a Simon-pure\nlabrick, if there was one.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, he's a dam fool. That's the way I put him up,\" said No. 5.\n\"Anybody can think different that wants to, but those are my sentiments.\"\n\n\"I'm with you, gentlemen,\" said No. 6. \"Perfect jackass--yes, and it\nain't going too far to say he is a pudd'nhead. If he ain't a pudd'nhead,\nI ain't no judge, that's all.\"\n\nMr. Wilson stood elected. The incident was told all over the town, and\ngravely discussed by everybody. Within a week he had lost his first\nname; Pudd'nhead took its place. In time he came to be liked, and well\nliked too; but by that time the nickname had got well stuck on, and it\nstayed. That first day's verdict made him a fool, and he was not able to\nget it set aside, or even modified. The nickname soon ceased to carry\nany harsh or unfriendly feeling with it, but it held its place, and was\nto continue to hold its place for twenty long years.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 2 -- Driscoll Spares His Slaves\n\n     _Adam was but human--this explains it all. He did not want\n     the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it\n     was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the\n     serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent._ --Pudd'nhead\n     Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nPudd'nhead Wilson had a trifle of money when he arrived, and he bought a\nsmall house on the extreme western verge of the town. Between it and\nJudge Driscoll's house there was only a grassy yard, with a paling fence\ndividing the properties in the middle. He hired a small office down in\nthe town and hung out a tin sign with these words on it:\n\nD A V I D W I L S O N\n\nATTORNEY AND COUNSELOR-AT-LAW\n\nSURVEYING, CONVEYANCING, ETC.\n\nBut his deadly remark had ruined his chance--at least in the law. No\nclients came. He took down his sign, after a while, and put it up on his\nown house with the law features knocked out of it. It offered his\nservices now in the humble capacities of land surveyor and expert\naccountant. Now and then he got a job of surveying to do, and now and\nthen a merchant got him to straighten out his books. With Scotch patience\nand pluck he resolved to live down his reputation and work his way into\nthe legal field yet. Poor fellow, he could foresee that it was going to\ntake him such a weary long time to do it.\n\nHe had a rich abundance of idle time, but it never hung heavy on his\nhands, for he interested himself in every new thing that was born into\nthe universe of ideas, and studied it, and experimented upon it at his\nhouse. One of his pet fads was palmistry. To another one he gave no\nname, neither would he explain to anybody what its purpose was, but\nmerely said it was an amusement. In fact, he had found that his fads\nadded to his reputation as a pudd'nhead; there, he was growing chary of\nbeing too communicative about them. The fad without a name was one which\ndealt with people's finger marks. He carried in his coat pocket a\nshallow box with grooves in it, and in the grooves strips of glass five\ninches long and three inches wide. Along the lower edge of each strip\nwas pasted a slip of white paper. He asked people to pass their hands\nthrough their hair (thus collecting upon them a thin coating of the\nnatural oil) and then making a thumb-mark on a glass strip, following it\nwith the mark of the ball of each finger in succession. Under this row\nof faint grease prints he would write a record on the strip of white\npaper--thus:\n\nJOHN SMITH, right hand--\n\nand add the day of the month and the year, then take Smith's left hand on\nanother glass strip, and add name and date and the words \"left hand.\" The\nstrips were now returned to the grooved box, and took their place among\nwhat Wilson called his \"records.\"\n\nHe often studied his records, examining and poring over them with\nabsorbing interest until far into the night; but what he found there--if\nhe found anything--he revealed to no one. Sometimes he copied on paper\nthe involved and delicate pattern left by the ball of the finger, and\nthen vastly enlarged it with a pantograph so that he could examine its\nweb of curving lines with ease and convenience.\n\nOne sweltering afternoon--it was the first day of July, 1830--he was at\nwork over a set of tangled account books in his workroom, which looked\nwestward over a stretch of vacant lots, when a conversation outside\ndisturbed him. It was carried on in yells, which showed that the people\nengaged in it were not close together.\n\n\"Say, Roxy, how does yo' baby come on?\" This from the distant voice.\n\n\"Fust-rate. How does _you_ come on, Jasper?\" This yell was from close\nby.\n\n\"Oh, I's middlin'; hain't got noth'n' to complain of, I's gwine to come\na-court'n you bimeby, Roxy.\"\n\n\"_You_ is, you black mud cat! Yah--yah--yah! I got somep'n' better to\ndo den 'sociat'n' wid niggers as black as you is. Is ole Miss Cooper's\nNancy done give you de mitten?\" Roxy followed this sally with another\ndischarge of carefree laughter.\n\n\"You's jealous, Roxy, dat's what's de matter wid you, you\nhussy--yah--yah--yah! Dat's de time I got you!\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, _you_ got me, hain't you. 'Clah to goodness if dat conceit o'\nyo'n strikes in, Jasper, it gwine to kill you sho'. If you b'longed to\nme, I'd sell you down de river 'fo' you git too fur gone. Fust time I\nruns acrost yo' marster, I's gwine to tell him so.\"\n\nThis idle and aimless jabber went on and on, both parties enjoying the\nfriendly duel and each well satisfied with his own share of the wit\nexchanged--for wit they considered it.\n\nWilson stepped to the window to observe the combatants; he could not work\nwhile their chatter continued. Over in the vacant lots was Jasper,\nyoung, coal black, and of magnificent build, sitting on a wheelbarrow in\nthe pelting sun--at work, supposably, whereas he was in fact only\npreparing for it by taking an hour's rest before beginning. In front of\nWilson's porch stood Roxy, with a local handmade baby wagon, in which sat\nher two charges--one at each end and facing each other. From Roxy's\nmanner of speech, a stranger would have expected her to be black, but she\nwas not. Only one sixteenth of her was black, and that sixteenth did not\nshow. She was of majestic form and stature, her attitudes were imposing\nand statuesque, and her gestures and movements distinguished by a noble\nand stately grace. Her complexion was very fair, with the rosy glow of\nvigorous health in her cheeks, her face was full of character and\nexpression, her eyes were brown and liquid, and she had a heavy suit of\nfine soft hair which was also brown, but the fact was not apparent\nbecause her head was bound about with a checkered handkerchief and the\nhair was concealed under it. Her face was shapely, intelligent, and\ncomely--even beautiful. She had an easy, independent carriage--when she\nwas among her own caste--and a high and \"sassy\" way, withal; but of\ncourse she was meek and humble enough where white people were.\n\nTo all intents and purposes Roxy was as white as anybody, but the one\nsixteenth of her which was black outvoted the other fifteen parts and\nmade her a Negro. She was a slave, and salable as such. Her child was\nthirty-one parts white, and he, too, was a slave, and by a fiction of law\nand custom a Negro. He had blue eyes and flaxen curls like his white\ncomrade, but even the father of the white child was able to tell the\nchildren apart--little as he had commerce with them--by their clothes;\nfor the white babe wore ruffled soft muslin and a coral necklace, while\nthe other wore merely a coarse tow-linen shirt which barely reached to\nits knees, and no jewelry.\n\nThe white child's name was Thomas a Becket Driscoll, the other's name was\nValet de Chambre: no surname--slaves hadn't the privilege. Roxana had\nheard that phrase somewhere, the fine sound of it had pleased her ear,\nand as she had supposed it was a name, she loaded it on to her darling.\nIt soon got shorted to \"Chambers,\" of course.\n\nWilson knew Roxy by sight, and when the duel of wits begun to play out,\nhe stepped outside to gather in a record or two. Jasper went to work\nenergetically, at once, perceiving that his leisure was observed. Wilson\ninspected the children and asked:\n\n\"How old are they, Roxy?\"\n\n\"Bofe de same age, sir--five months. Bawn de fust o' Feb'uary.\"\n\n\"They're handsome little chaps. One's just as handsome as the other,\ntoo.\"\n\nA delighted smile exposed the girl's white teeth, and she said:\n\n\"Bless yo' soul, Misto Wilson, it's pow'ful nice o' you to say dat,\n'ca'se one of 'em ain't on'y a nigger. Mighty prime little nigger, _I_\nal'ays says, but dat's 'ca'se it's mine, o' course.\"\n\n\"How do you tell them apart, Roxy, when they haven't any clothes on?\"\n\nRoxy laughed a laugh proportioned to her size, and said:\n\n\"Oh, _I_ kin tell 'em 'part, Misto Wilson, but I bet Marse Percy\ncouldn't, not to save his life.\"\n\nWilson chatted along for awhile, and presently got Roxy's fingerprints\nfor his collection--right hand and left--on a couple of his glass strips;\nthen labeled and dated them, and took the \"records\" of both children, and\nlabeled and dated them also.\n\nTwo months later, on the third of September, he took this trio of finger\nmarks again. He liked to have a \"series,\" two or three \"takings\" at\nintervals during the period of childhood, these to be followed at\nintervals of several years.\n\nThe next day--that is to say, on the fourth of September--something\noccurred which profoundly impressed Roxana. Mr. Driscoll missed another\nsmall sum of money--which is a way of saying that this was not a new\nthing, but had happened before. In truth, it had happened three times\nbefore. Driscoll's patience was exhausted. He was a fairly humane man\ntoward slaves and other animals; he was an exceedingly humane man toward\nthe erring of his own race. Theft he could not abide, and plainly there\nwas a thief in his house. Necessarily the thief must be one of his\nNegros. Sharp measures must be taken. He called his servants before him.\nThere were three of these, besides Roxy: a man, a woman, and a boy\ntwelve years old. They were not related. Mr. Driscoll said:\n\n\"You have all been warned before. It has done no good. This time I will\nteach you a lesson. I will sell the thief. Which of you is the guilty\none?\"\n\nThey all shuddered at the threat, for here they had a good home, and a\nnew one was likely to be a change for the worse. The denial was general.\nNone had stolen anything--not money, anyway--a little sugar, or cake, or\nhoney, or something like that, that \"Marse Percy wouldn't mind or miss\"\nbut not money--never a cent of money. They were eloquent in their\nprotestations, but Mr. Driscoll was not moved by them. He answered each\nin turn with a stern \"Name the thief!\"\n\nThe truth was, all were guilty but Roxana; she suspected that the others\nwere guilty, but she did not know them to be so. She was horrified to\nthink how near she had come to being guilty herself; she had been saved\nin the nick of time by a revival in the colored Methodist Church, a\nfortnight before, at which time and place she \"got religion.\" The very\nnext day after that gracious experience, while her change of style was\nfresh upon her and she was vain of her purified condition, her master\nleft a couple dollars unprotected on his desk, and she happened upon that\ntemptation when she was polishing around with a dustrag. She looked at\nthe money awhile with a steady rising resentment, then she burst out\nwith:\n\n\"Dad blame dat revival, I wisht it had 'a' be'n put off till tomorrow!\"\n\nThen she covered the tempter with a book, and another member of the\nkitchen cabinet got it. She made this sacrifice as a matter of religious\netiquette; as a thing necessary just now, but by no means to be wrested\ninto a precedent; no, a week or two would limber up her piety, then she\nwould be rational again, and the next two dollars that got left out in\nthe cold would find a comforter--and she could name the comforter.\n\nWas she bad? Was she worse than the general run of her race? No. They\nhad an unfair show in the battle of life, and they held it no sin to take\nmilitary advantage of the enemy--in a small way; in a small way, but not\nin a large one. They would smouch provisions from the pantry whenever\nthey got a chance; or a brass thimble, or a cake of wax, or an emery bag,\nor a paper of needles, or a silver spoon, or a dollar bill, or small\narticles of clothing, or any other property of light value; and so far\nwere they from considering such reprisals sinful, that they would go to\nchurch and shout and pray the loudest and sincerest with their plunder in\ntheir pockets. A farm smokehouse had to be kept heavily padlocked, or\neven the colored deacon himself could not resist a ham when Providence\nshowed him in a dream, or otherwise, where such a thing hung lonesome,\nand longed for someone to love. But with a hundred hanging before him,\nthe deacon would not take two--that is, on the same night. On frosty\nnights the humane Negro prowler would warm the end of the plank and put\nit up under the cold claws of chickens roosting in a tree; a drowsy hen\nwould step on to the comfortable board, softly clucking her gratitude,\nand the prowler would dump her into his bag, and later into his stomach,\nperfectly sure that in taking this trifle from the man who daily robbed\nhim of an inestimable treasure--his liberty--he was not committing any\nsin that God would remember against him in the Last Great Day.\n\n\"Name the thief!\"\n\nFor the fourth time Mr. Driscoll had said it, and always in the same hard\ntone. And now he added these words of awful import:\n\n\"I give you one minute.\" He took out his watch. \"If at the end of that\ntime, you have not confessed, I will not only sell all four of you,\nBUT--I will sell you DOWN THE RIVER!\"\n\nIt was equivalent to condemning them to hell! No Missouri Negro doubted\nthis. Roxy reeled in her tracks, and the color vanished out of her face;\nthe others dropped to their knees as if they had been shot; tears gushed\nfrom their eyes, their supplicating hands went up, and three answers came\nin the one instant.\n\n\"I done it!\"\n\n\"I done it!\"\n\n\"I done it!--have mercy, marster--Lord have mercy on us po' niggers!\"\n\n\"Very good,\" said the master, putting up his watch, \"I will sell you\n_here_ though you don't deserve it. You ought to be sold down the\nriver.\"\n\nThe culprits flung themselves prone, in an ecstasy of gratitude, and\nkissed his feet, declaring that they would never forget his goodness and\nnever cease to pray for him as long as they lived. They were sincere, for\nlike a god he had stretched forth his mighty hand and closed the gates of\nhell against them. He knew, himself, that he had done a noble and\ngracious thing, and was privately well pleased with his magnanimity; and\nthat night he set the incident down in his diary, so that his son might\nread it in after years, and be thereby moved to deeds of gentleness and\nhumanity himself.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 3 -- Roxy Plays a Shrewd Trick\n\n     _Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is,\n     knows how deep a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first\n     great benefactor of our race. He brought death into the\n     world._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nPercy Driscoll slept well the night he saved his house minions from\ngoing down the river, but no wink of sleep visited Roxy's eyes. A\nprofound terror had taken possession of her. Her child could grow up and\nbe sold down the river! The thought crazed her with horror. If she dozed\nand lost herself for a moment, the next moment she was on her feet flying\nto her child's cradle to see if it was still there. Then she would gather\nit to her heart and pour out her love upon it in a frenzy of kisses,\nmoaning, crying, and saying, \"Dey sha'n't, oh, dey _sha'nt'!'_--yo' po'\nmammy will kill you fust!\"\n\nOnce, when she was tucking him back in its cradle again, the other child\nnestled in its sleep and attracted her attention. She went and stood\nover it a long time communing with herself.\n\n\"What has my po' baby done, dat he couldn't have yo' luck? He hain't done\nnuth'n. God was good to you; why warn't he good to him? Dey can't sell\n_you_ down de river. I hates yo' pappy; he hain't got no heart--for\nniggers, he hain't, anyways. I hates him, en I could kill him!\" She\npaused awhile, thinking; then she burst into wild sobbings again, and\nturned away, saying, \"Oh, I got to kill my chile, dey ain't no yuther\nway--killin' _him_ wouldn't save de chile fum goin' down de river. Oh, I\ngot to do it, yo' po' mammy's got to kill you to save you, honey.\" She\ngathered her baby to her bosom now, and began to smother it with\ncaresses. \"Mammy's got to kill you--how _kin_ I do it! But yo' mammy\nain't gwine to desert you--no, no, _dah_, don't cry--she gwine _wid_\nyou, she gwine to kill herself too. Come along, honey, come along wid\nmammy; we gwine to jump in de river, den troubles o' dis worl' is all\nover--dey don't sell po' niggers down the river over _yonder_.\"\n\nShe stared toward the door, crooning to the child and hushing it; midway\nshe stopped, suddenly. She had caught sight of her new Sunday gown--a\ncheap curtain-calico thing, a conflagration of gaudy colors and fantastic\nfigures. She surveyed it wistfully, longingly.\n\n\"Hain't ever wore it yet,\" she said, \"en it's just lovely.\" Then she\nnodded her head in response to a pleasant idea, and added, \"No, I ain't\ngwine to be fished out, wid everybody lookin' at me, in dis mis'able ole\nlinsey-woolsey.\"\n\nShe put down the child and made the change. She looked in the glass and\nwas astonished at her beauty. She resolved to make her death toilet\nperfect. She took off her handkerchief turban and dressed her glossy\nwealth of hair \"like white folks\"; she added some odds and ends of rather\nlurid ribbon and a spray of atrocious artificial flowers; finally she\nthrew over her shoulders a fluffy thing called a \"cloud\" in that day,\nwhich was of a blazing red complexion. Then she was ready for the tomb.\n\nShe gathered up her baby once more; but when her eye fell upon its\nmiserably short little gray tow-linen shirt and noted the contrast\nbetween its pauper shabbiness and her own volcanic eruption of infernal\nsplendors, her mother-heart was touched, and she was ashamed.\n\n\"No, dolling mammy ain't gwine to treat you so. De angels is gwine to\n'mire you jist as much as dey does yo' mammy. Ain't gwine to have 'em\nputt'n dey han's up 'fo' dey eyes en sayin' to David and Goliah en dem\nyuther prophets, 'Dat chile is dress' to indelicate fo' dis place.'\"\n\nBy this time she had stripped off the shirt. Now she clothed the naked\nlittle creature in one of Thomas `a Becket's snowy, long baby gowns, with\nits bright blue bows and dainty flummery of ruffles.\n\n\"Dah--now you's fixed.\" She propped the child in a chair and stood off\nto inspect it. Straightway her eyes begun to widen with astonishment and\nadmiration, and she clapped her hands and cried out, \"Why, it do beat\nall! I _never_ knowed you was so lovely. Marse Tommy ain't a bit\nputtier--not a single bit.\"\n\nShe stepped over and glanced at the other infant; she flung a glance\nback at her own; then one more at the heir of the house. Now a strange\nlight dawned in her eyes, and in a moment she was lost in thought. She\nseemed in a trance; when she came out of it, she muttered, \"When I 'uz\na-washin' 'em in de tub, yistiddy, he own pappy asked me which of 'em was\nhis'n.\"\n\nShe began to move around like one in a dream. She undressed Thomas `a\nBecket, stripping him of everything, and put the tow-linen shirt on him.\nShe put his coral necklace on her own child's neck. Then she placed the\nchildren side by side, and after earnest inspection she muttered:\n\n\"Now who would b'lieve clo'es could do de like o' dat? Dog my cats if it\nain't all _I_ kin do to tell t' other fum which, let alone his pappy.\"\n\nShe put her cub in Tommy's elegant cradle and said:\n\n\"You's young Marse _Tom_ fum dis out, en I got to practice and git used\nto 'memberin' to call you dat, honey, or I's gwine to make a mistake\nsometime en git us bofe into trouble. Dah--now you lay still en don't\nfret no mo', Marse Tom. Oh, thank de lord in heaven, you's saved, you's\nsaved! Dey ain't no man kin ever sell mammy's po' little honey down de\nriver now!\"\n\nShe put the heir of the house in her own child's unpainted pine cradle,\nand said, contemplating its slumbering form uneasily:\n\n\"I's sorry for you, honey; I's sorry, God knows I is--but what _kin_ I\ndo, what _could_ I do? Yo' pappy would sell him to somebody, sometime,\nen den he'd go down de river, sho', en I couldn't, couldn't, _couldn't_\nstan' it.\"\n\nShe flung herself on her bed and began to think and toss, toss and think.\nBy and by she sat suddenly upright, for a comforting thought had flown\nthrough her worried mind--\n\n\"'T ain't no sin--_white_ folks has done it! It ain't no sin, glory to\ngoodness it ain't no sin! _Dey's_ done it--yes, en dey was de biggest\nquality in de whole bilin', too--_kings!\"_\n\nShe began to muse; she was trying to gather out of her memory the dim\nparticulars of some tale she had heard some time or other. At last she\nsaid--\n\n\"Now I's got it; now I 'member. It was dat ole nigger preacher dat tole\nit, de time he come over here fum Illinois en preached in de nigger\nchurch. He said dey ain't nobody kin save his own self--can't do it by\nfaith, can't do it by works, can't do it no way at all. Free grace is de\n_on'y_ way, en dat don't come fum nobody but jis' de Lord; en _he_ kin\ngive it to anybody He please, saint or sinner--_he_ don't kyer. He do\njis' as He's a mineter. He s'lect out anybody dat suit Him, en put\nanother one in his place, and make de fust one happy forever en leave t'\nother one to burn wid Satan. De preacher said it was jist like dey done\nin Englan' one time, long time ago. De queen she lef' her baby layin'\naroun' one day, en went out callin'; an one 'o de niggers roun'bout de\nplace dat was 'mos' white, she come in en see de chile layin' aroun', en\ntuck en put her own chile's clo's on de queen's chile, en put de queen's\nchile's clo'es on her own chile, en den lef' her own chile layin' aroun',\nen tuck en toted de queen's chile home to de nigger quarter, en nobody\never foun' it out, en her chile was de king bimeby, en sole de queen's\nchile down de river one time when dey had to settle up de estate. Dah,\nnow--de preacher said it his own self, en it ain't no sin, 'ca'se white\nfolks done it. DEY done it--yes, DEY done it; en not on'y jis' common\nwhite folks nuther, but de biggest quality dey is in de whole bilin'.\n_Oh_, I's _so_ glad I 'member 'bout dat!\"\n\nShe got lighthearted and happy, and went to the cradles, and spent what\nwas left of the night \"practicing.\" She would give her own child a light\npat and say humbly, \"Lay still, Marse Tom,\" then give the real Tom a pat\nand say with severity, \"Lay _still_, Chambers! Does you want me to take\nsomep'n _to_ you?\"\n\nAs she progressed with her practice, she was surprised to see how\nsteadily and surely the awe which had kept her tongue reverent and her\nmanner humble toward her young master was transferring itself to her\nspeech and manner toward the usurper, and how similarly handy she was\nbecoming in transferring her motherly curtness of speech and\nperemptoriness of manner to the unlucky heir of the ancient house of\nDriscoll.\n\nShe took occasional rests from practicing, and absorbed herself in\ncalculating her chances.\n\n\"Dey'll sell dese niggers today fo' stealin' de money, den dey'll buy\nsome mo' dat don't now de chillen--so _dat's_ all right. When I takes de\nchillen out to git de air, de minute I's roun' de corner I's gwine to\ngaum dey mouths all roun' wid jam, den dey can't _nobody_ notice dey's\nchanged. Yes, I gwine ter do dat till I's safe, if it's a year.\n\n\"Dey ain't but one man dat I's afeard of, en dat's dat Pudd'nhead Wilson.\nDey calls him a pudd'nhead, en says he's a fool. My lan, dat man ain't\nno mo' fool den I is! He's de smartes' man in dis town, lessn' it's\nJedge Driscoll or maybe Pem Howard. Blame dat man, he worries me wid dem\nornery glasses o' his'n; _I_ b'lieve he's a witch. But nemmine, I's gwine\nto happen aroun' dah one o' dese days en let on dat I reckon he wants to\nprint a chillen's fingers ag'in; en if HE don't notice dey's changed, I\nbound dey ain't nobody gwine to notice it, en den I's safe, sho'. But I\nreckon I'll tote along a hoss-shoe to keep off de witch work.\"\n\nThe new Negros gave Roxy no trouble, of course. The master gave her\nnone, for one of his speculations was in jeopardy, and his mind was so\noccupied that he hardly saw the children when he looked at them, and all\nRoxy had to do was to get them both into a gale of laughter when he came\nabout; then their faces were mainly cavities exposing gums, and he was\ngone again before the spasm passed and the little creatures resumed a\nhuman aspect.\n\nWithin a few days the fate of the speculation became so dubious that Mr.\nPercy went away with his brother, the judge, to see what could be done\nwith it. It was a land speculation as usual, and it had gotten\ncomplicated with a lawsuit. The men were gone seven weeks. Before they\ngot back, Roxy had paid her visit to Wilson, and was satisfied. Wilson\ntook the fingerprints, labeled them with the names and with the date\n--October the first--put them carefully away, and continued his chat with\nRoxy, who seemed very anxious that he should admire the great advance in\nflesh and beauty which the babes had made since he took their\nfingerprints a month before. He complimented their improvement to her\ncontentment; and as they were without any disguise of jam or other stain,\nshe trembled all the while and was miserably frightened lest at any\nmoment he--\n\nBut he didn't. He discovered nothing; and she went home jubilant, and\ndropped all concern about the matter permanently out of her mind.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 4 -- The Ways of the Changelings\n\n     _Adam and Eve had many advantages, but the principal one\n     was, that they escaped teething._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's\n     Calendar\n\n     _There is this trouble about special providences--namely,\n     there is so often a doubt as to which party was intended to\n     be the beneficiary. In the case of the children, the bears,\n     and the prophet, the bears got more real satisfaction out of\n     the episode than the prophet did, because they got the\n     children._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nThis history must henceforth accommodate itself to the change which\nRoxana has consummated, and call the real heir \"Chambers\" and the\nusurping little slave, \"Thomas `a Becket\"--shortening this latter name to\n\"Tom,\" for daily use, as the people about him did.\n\n\"Tom\" was a bad baby, from the very beginning of his usurpation. He would\ncry for nothing; he would burst into storms of devilish temper without\nnotice, and let go scream after scream and squall after squall, then\nclimax the thing with \"holding his breath\"--that frightful specialty of\nthe teething nursling, in the throes of which the creature exhausts its\nlungs, then is convulsed with noiseless squirmings and twistings and\nkickings in the effort to get its breath, while the lips turn blue and\nthe mouth stands wide and rigid, offering for inspection one wee tooth\nset in the lower rim of a hoop of red gums; and when the appalling\nstillness has endured until one is sure the lost breath will never\nreturn, a nurse comes flying, and dashes water in the child's face,\nand--presto! the lungs fill, and instantly discharge a shriek, or a yell,\nor a howl which bursts the listening ear and surprises the owner of it\ninto saying words which would not go well with a halo if he had one. The\nbaby Tom would claw anybody who came within reach of his nails, and pound\nanybody he could reach with his rattle. He would scream for water until\nhe got it, and then throw cup and all on the floor and scream for more.\nHe was indulged in all his caprices, howsoever troublesome and\nexasperating they might be; he was allowed to eat anything he wanted,\nparticularly things that would give him the stomach-ache.\n\nWhen he got to be old enough to begin to toddle about and say broken\nwords and get an idea of what his hands were for, he was a more\nconsummate pest than ever. Roxy got no rest while he was awake. He would\ncall for anything and everything he saw, simply saying, \"Awnt it!\" (want\nit), which was a command. When it was brought, he said in a frenzy, and\nmotioning it away with his hands, \"Don't awnt it! don't awnt it!\" and the\nmoment it was gone he set up frantic yells of \"Awnt it! awnt it!\" and\nRoxy had to give wings to her heels to get that thing back to him again\nbefore he could get time to carry out his intention of going into\nconvulsions about it.\n\nWhat he preferred above all other things was the tongs. This was because\nhis \"father\" had forbidden him to have them lest he break windows and\nfurniture with them. The moment Roxy's back was turned he would toddle\nto the presence of the tongs and say, \"Like it!\" and cock his eye to one\nside or see if Roxy was observed; then, \"Awnt it!\" and cock his eye\nagain; then, \"Hab it!\" with another furtive glance; and finally, \"Take\nit!\"--and the prize was his. The next moment the heavy implement was\nraised aloft; the next, there was a crash and a squall, and the cat was\noff on three legs to meet an engagement; Roxy would arrive just as the\nlamp or a window went to irremediable smash.\n\nTom got all the petting, Chambers got none. Tom got all the delicacies,\nChambers got mush and milk, and clabber without sugar. In consequence\nTom was a sickly child and Chambers wasn't. Tom was \"fractious,\" as Roxy\ncalled it, and overbearing; Chambers was meek and docile.\n\nWith all her splendid common sense and practical everyday ability, Roxy\nwas a doting fool of a mother. She was this toward her child--and she\nwas also more than this: by the fiction created by herself, he was\nbecome her master; the necessity of recognizing this relation outwardly\nand of perfecting herself in the forms required to express the\nrecognition, had moved her to such diligence and faithfulness in\npracticing these forms that this exercise soon concreted itself into\nhabit; it became automatic and unconscious; then a natural result\nfollowed: deceptions intended solely for others gradually grew\npractically into self-deceptions as well; the mock reverence became real\nreverence, the mock homage real homage; the little counterfeit rift of\nseparation between imitation-slave and imitation-master widened and\nwidened, and became an abyss, and a very real one--and on one side of it\nstood Roxy, the dupe of her own deceptions, and on the other stood her\nchild, no longer a usurper to her, but her accepted and recognized\nmaster. He was her darling, her master, and her deity all in one, and in\nher worship of him she forgot who she was and what he had been.\n\nIn babyhood Tom cuffed and banged and scratched Chambers unrebuked, and\nChambers early learned that between meekly bearing it and resenting it,\nthe advantage all lay with the former policy. The few times that his\npersecutions had moved him beyond control and made him fight back had\ncost him very dear at headquarters; not at the hands of Roxy, for if she\never went beyond scolding him sharply for \"forgett'n' who his young\nmarster was,\" she at least never extended her punishment beyond a box on\nthe ear. No, Percy Driscoll was the person. He told Chambers that under\nno provocation whatever was he privileged to lift his hand against his\nlittle master. Chambers overstepped the line three times, and got three\nsuch convincing canings from the man who was his father and didn't know\nit, that he took Tom's cruelties in all humility after that, and made no\nmore experiments.\n\nOutside the house the two boys were together all through their boyhood.\nChambers was strong beyond his years, and a good fighter; strong because\nhe was coarsely fed and hard worked about the house, and a good fighter\nbecause Tom furnished him plenty of practice--on white boys whom he\nhated and was afraid of. Chambers was his constant bodyguard, to and\nfrom school; he was present on the playground at recess to protect his\ncharge. He fought himself into such a formidable reputation, by and by,\nthat Tom could have changed clothes with him, and \"ridden in peace,\" like\nSir Kay in Launcelot's armor.\n\nHe was good at games of skill, too. Tom staked him with marbles to play\n\"keeps\" with, and then took all the winnings away from him. In the winter\nseason Chambers was on hand, in Tom's worn-out clothes, with \"holy\" red\nmittens, and \"holy\" shoes, and pants \"holy\" at the knees and seat, to\ndrag a sled up the hill for Tom, warmly clad, to ride down on; but he\nnever got a ride himself. He built snowmen and snow fortifications under\nTom's directions. He was Tom's patient target when Tom wanted to do some\nsnowballing, but the target couldn't fire back. Chambers carried Tom's\nskates to the river and strapped them on him, then trotted around after\nhim on the ice, so as to be on hand when he wanted; but he wasn't ever\nasked to try the skates himself.\n\nIn summer the pet pastime of the boys of Dawson's Landing was to steal\napples, peaches, and melons from the farmer's fruit wagons--mainly on\naccount of the risk they ran of getting their heads laid open with the\nbutt of the farmer's whip. Tom was a distinguished adept at these\nthefts--by proxy. Chambers did his stealing, and got the peach stones,\napple cores, and melon rinds for his share.\n\nTom always made Chambers go in swimming with him, and stay by him as a\nprotection. When Tom had had enough, he would slip out and tie knots in\nChamber's shirt, dip the knots in the water and make them hard to undo,\nthen dress himself and sit by and laugh while the naked shiverer tugged\nat the stubborn knots with his teeth.\n\nTom did his humble comrade these various ill turns partly out of native\nviciousness, and partly because he hated him for his superiorities of\nphysique and pluck, and for his manifold cleverness. Tom couldn't dive,\nfor it gave him splitting headaches. Chambers could dive without\ninconvenience, and was fond of doing it. He excited so much admiration,\none day, among a crowd of white boys, by throwing back somersaults from\nthe stern of a canoe, that it wearied Tom's spirit, and at last he shoved\nthe canoe underneath Chambers while he was in the air--so he came down on\nhis head in the canoe bottom; and while he lay unconscious, several of\nTom's ancient adversaries saw that their long-desired opportunity was\ncome, and they gave the false heir such a drubbing that with Chamber's\nbest help he was hardly able to drag himself home afterward.\n\nWhen the boys was fifteen and upward, Tom was \"showing off\" in the river\none day, when he was taken with a cramp, and shouted for help. It was a\ncommon trick with the boys--particularly if a stranger was present--to\npretend a cramp and howl for help; then when the stranger came tearing\nhand over hand to the rescue, the howler would go on struggling and\nhowling till he was close at hand, then replace the howl with a sarcastic\nsmile and swim blandly away, while the town boys assailed the dupe with a\nvolley of jeers and laughter. Tom had never tried this joke as yet, but\nwas supposed to be trying it now, so the boys held warily back; but\nChambers believed his master was in earnest; therefore, he swam out, and\narrived in time, unfortunately, and saved his life.\n\nThis was the last feather. Tom had managed to endure everything else,\nbut to have to remain publicly and permanently under such an obligation\nas this to a nigger, and to this nigger of all niggers--this was too\nmuch. He heaped insults upon Chambers for \"pretending\" to think he was in\nearnest in calling for help, and said that anybody but a blockheaded\nnigger would have known he was funning and left him alone.\n\nTom's enemies were in strong force here, so they came out with their\nopinions quite freely. They laughed at him, and called him coward, liar,\nsneak, and other sorts of pet names, and told him they meant to call\nChambers by a new name after this, and make it common in the town--\"Tom\nDriscoll's nigger pappy,\"--to signify that he had had a second birth into\nthis life, and that Chambers was the author of his new being. Tom grew\nfrantic under these taunts, and shouted:\n\n\"Knock their heads off, Chambers! Knock their heads off! What do you\nstand there with your hands in your pockets for?\"\n\nChambers expostulated, and said, \"But, Marse Tom, dey's too many of\n'em--dey's--\"\n\n\"Do you hear me?\"\n\n\"Please, Marse Tom, don't make me! Dey's so many of 'em dat--\"\n\nTom sprang at him and drove his pocketknife into him two or three times\nbefore the boys could snatch him away and give the wounded lad a chance\nto escape. He was considerably hurt, but not seriously. If the blade had\nbeen a little longer, his career would have ended there.\n\nTom had long ago taught Roxy \"her place.\" It had been many a day now\nsince she had ventured a caress or a fondling epithet in his quarter.\nSuch things, from a \"nigger,\" were repulsive to him, and she had been\nwarned to keep her distance and remember who she was. She saw her\ndarling gradually cease from being her son, she saw THAT detail perish\nutterly; all that was left was master--master, pure and simple, and it\nwas not a gentle mastership, either. She saw herself sink from the\nsublime height of motherhood to the somber depths of unmodified slavery,\nthe abyss of separation between her and her boy was complete. She was\nmerely his chattel now, his convenience, his dog, his cringing and\nhelpless slave, the humble and unresisting victim of his capricious\ntemper and vicious nature.\n\nSometimes she could not go to sleep, even when worn out with fatigue,\nbecause her rage boiled so high over the day's experiences with her boy.\nShe would mumble and mutter to herself:\n\n\"He struck me en I warn't no way to blame--struck me in de face, right\nbefore folks. En he's al'ays callin' me nigger wench, en hussy, en all\ndem mean names, when I's doin' de very bes' I kin. Oh, Lord, I done so\nmuch for him--I lif' him away up to what he is--en dis is what I git for\nit.\"\n\nSometimes when some outrage of peculiar offensiveness stung her to the\nheart, she would plan schemes of vengeance and revel in the fancied\nspectacle of his exposure to the world as an imposter and a slave; but in\nthe midst of these joys fear would strike her; she had made him too\nstrong; she could prove nothing, and--heavens, she might get sold down\nthe river for her pains! So her schemes always went for nothing, and she\nlaid them aside in impotent rage against the fates, and against herself\nfor playing the fool on that fatal September day in not providing herself\nwith a witness for use in the day when such a thing might be needed for\nthe appeasing of her vengeance-hungry heart.\n\nAnd yet the moment Tom happened to be good to her, and kind--and this\noccurred every now and then--all her sore places were healed, and she was\nhappy; happy and proud, for this was her son, her nigger son, lording it\namong the whites and securely avenging their crimes against her race.\n\nThere were two grand funerals in Dawson's Landing that fall--the fall of\n1845. One was that of Colonel Cecil Burleigh Essex, the other that of\nPercy Driscoll.\n\nOn his deathbed Driscoll set Roxy free and delivered his idolized\nostensible son solemnly into the keeping of his brother, the judge, and\nhis wife. Those childless people were glad to get him. Childless people\nare not difficult to please.\n\nJudge Driscoll had gone privately to his brother, a month before, and\nbought Chambers. He had heard that Tom had been trying to get his father\nto sell the boy down the river, and he wanted to prevent the scandal--for\npublic sentiment did not approve of that way of treating family servants\nfor light cause or for no cause.\n\nPercy Driscoll had worn himself out in trying to save his great\nspeculative landed estate, and had died without succeeding. He was hardly\nin his grave before the boom collapsed and left his envied young devil of\nan heir a pauper. But that was nothing; his uncle told him he should be\nhis heir and have all his fortune when he died; so Tom was comforted.\n\nRoxy had no home now; so she resolved to go around and say good-by to her\nfriends and then clear out and see the world--that is to say, she would\ngo chambermaiding on a steamboat, the darling ambition of her race and\nsex.\n\nHer last call was on the black giant, Jasper. She found him chopping\nPudd'nhead Wilson's winter provision of wood.\n\nWilson was chatting with him when Roxy arrived. He asked her how she\ncould bear to go off chambermaiding and leave her boys; and chaffingly\noffered to copy off a series of their fingerprints, reaching up to their\ntwelfth year, for her to remember them by; but she sobered in a moment,\nwondering if he suspected anything; then she said she believed she didn't\nwant them. Wilson said to himself, \"The drop of black blood in her is\nsuperstitious; she thinks there's some devilry, some witch business about\nmy glass mystery somewhere; she used to come here with an old horseshoe\nin her hand; it could have been an accident, but I doubt it.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 5 -- The Twins Thrill Dawson's Landing\n\n     _Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond;\n     cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college\n     education._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n     _Remark of Dr. Baldwin's, concerning upstarts: We don't care\n     to eat toadstools that think they are truffles._\n     --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nMrs. York Driscoll enjoyed two years of bliss with that prize,\nTom--bliss that was troubled a little at times, it is true, but bliss\nnevertheless; then she died, and her husband and his childless sister,\nMrs. Pratt, continued this bliss-business at the old stand. Tom was\npetted and indulged and spoiled to his entire content--or nearly that.\nThis went on till he was nineteen, then he was sent to Yale. He went\nhandsomely equipped with \"conditions,\" but otherwise he was not an object\nof distinction there. He remained at Yale two years, and then threw up\nthe struggle. He came home with his manners a good deal improved; he had\nlost his surliness and brusqueness, and was rather pleasantly soft and\nsmooth, now; he was furtively, and sometimes openly, ironical of speech,\nand given to gently touching people on the raw, but he did it with a\ngood-natured semiconscious air that carried it off safely, and kept him\nfrom getting into trouble. He was as indolent as ever and showed no very\nstrenuous desire to hunt up an occupation. People argued from this that\nhe preferred to be supported by his uncle until his uncle's shoes should\nbecome vacant. He brought back one or two new habits with him, one of\nwhich he rather openly practiced--tippling--but concealed another, which\nwas gambling. It would not do to gamble where his uncle could hear of\nit; he knew that quite well.\n\nTom's Eastern polish was not popular among the young people. They could\nhave endured it, perhaps, if Tom had stopped there; but he wore gloves,\nand that they couldn't stand, and wouldn't; so he was mainly without\nsociety. He brought home with him a suit of clothes of such exquisite\nstyle and cut in fashion--Eastern fashion, city fashion--that it filled\neverybody with anguish and was regarded as a peculiarly wanton affront.\nHe enjoyed the feeling which he was exciting, and paraded the town serene\nand happy all day; but the young fellows set a tailor to work that night,\nand when Tom started out on his parade next morning, he found the old\ndeformed Negro bell ringer straddling along in his wake tricked out in a\nflamboyant curtain-calico exaggeration of his finery, and imitating his\nfancy Eastern graces as well as he could.\n\nTom surrendered, and after that clothed himself in the local fashion. But\nthe dull country town was tiresome to him, since his acquaintanceship\nwith livelier regions, and it grew daily more and more so. He began to\nmake little trips to St. Louis for refreshment. There he found\ncompanionship to suit him, and pleasures to his taste, along with more\nfreedom, in some particulars, than he could have at home. So, during the\nnext two years, his visits to the city grew in frequency and his\ntarryings there grew steadily longer in duration.\n\nHe was getting into deep waters. He was taking chances, privately, which\nmight get him into trouble some day--in fact, _did_.\n\nJudge Driscoll had retired from the bench and from all business\nactivities in 1850, and had now been comfortably idle three years. He was\npresident of the Freethinkers' Society, and Pudd'nhead Wilson was the\nother member. The society's weekly discussions were now the old lawyer's\nmain interest in life. Pudd'nhead was still toiling in obscurity at the\nbottom of the ladder, under the blight of that unlucky remark which he\nhad let fall twenty-three years before about the dog.\n\nJudge Driscoll was his friend, and claimed that he had a mind above the\naverage, but that was regarded as one of the judge's whims, and it failed\nto modify the public opinion. Or rather, that was one of the reasons why\nit failed, but there was another and better one. If the judge had stopped\nwith bare assertion, it would have had a good deal of effect; but he made\nthe mistake of trying to prove his position. For some years Wilson had\nbeen privately at work on a whimsical almanac, for his amusement--a\ncalendar, with a little dab of ostensible philosophy, usually in ironical\nform, appended to each date; and the judge thought that these quips and\nfancies of Wilson's were neatly turned and cute; so he carried a handful\nof them around one day, and read them to some of the chief citizens. But\nirony was not for those people; their mental vision was not focused for\nit. They read those playful trifles in the solidest terms, and decided\nwithout hesitancy that if there had ever been any doubt that Dave Wilson\nwas a pudd'nhead--which there hadn't--this revelation removed that doubt\nfor good and all. That is just the way in this world; an enemy can partly\nruin a man, but it takes a good-natured injudicious friend to complete\nthe thing and make it perfect. After this the judge felt tenderer than\never toward Wilson, and surer than ever that his calendar had merit.\n\nJudge Driscoll could be a freethinker and still hold his place in society\nbecause he was the person of most consequence to the community, and\ntherefore could venture to go his own way and follow out his own notions.\nThe other member of his pet organization was allowed the like liberty\nbecause he was a cipher in the estimation of the public, and nobody\nattached any importance to what he thought or did. He was liked, he was\nwelcome enough all around, but he simply didn't count for anything.\n\nThe Widow Cooper--affectionately called \"Aunt Patsy\" by everybody--lived\nin a snug and comely cottage with her daughter Rowena, who was nineteen,\nromantic, amiable, and very pretty, but otherwise of no consequence.\nRowena had a couple of young brothers--also of no consequence.\n\nThe widow had a large spare room, which she let to a lodger, with board,\nwhen she could find one, but this room had been empty for a year now, to\nher sorrow. Her income was only sufficient for the family support, and\nshe needed the lodging money for trifling luxuries. But now, at last, on\na flaming June day, she found herself happy; her tedious wait was ended;\nher year-worn advertisement had been answered; and not by a village\napplicant, no, no!--this letter was from away off yonder in the dim great\nworld to the North; it was from St. Louis. She sat on her porch gazing\nout with unseeing eyes upon the shining reaches of the mighty\nMississippi, her thoughts steeped in her good fortune. Indeed it was\nspecially good fortune, for she was to have two lodgers instead of one.\n\nShe had read the letter to the family, and Rowena had danced away to see\nto the cleaning and airing of the room by the slave woman, Nancy, and the\nboys had rushed abroad in the town to spread the great news, for it was a\nmatter of public interest, and the public would wonder and not be pleased\nif not informed. Presently Rowena returned, all ablush with joyous\nexcitement, and begged for a rereading of the letter. It was framed thus:\n\nHONORED MADAM: My brother and I have seen your advertisement, by chance,\nand beg leave to take the room you offer. We are twenty-four years of\nage and twins. We are Italians by birth, but have lived long in the\nvarious countries of Europe, and several years in the United States. Our\nnames are Luigi and Angelo Capello. You desire but one guest; but, dear\nmadam, if you will allow us to pay for two, we will not incommode you.\nWe shall be down Thursday.\n\n\"Italians! How romantic! Just think, Ma--there's never been one in this\ntown, and everybody will be dying to see them, and they're all OURS!\nThink of that!\"\n\n\"Yes, I reckon they'll make a grand stir.\"\n\n\"Oh, indeed they will. The whole town will be on its head!\nThink--they've been in Europe and everywhere! There's never been a\ntraveler in this town before, Ma, I shouldn't wonder if they've seen\nkings!\"\n\n\"Well, a body can't tell, but they'll make stir enough, without that.\"\n\n\"Yes, that's of course. Luigi--Angelo. They're lovely names; and so\ngrand and foreign--not like Jones and Robinson and such. Thursday they\nare coming, and this is only Tuesday; it's a cruel long time to wait.\nHere comes Judge Driscoll in at the gate. He's heard about it. I'll go\nand open the door.\"\n\nThe judge was full of congratulations and curiosity. The letter was read\nand discussed. Soon Justice Robinson arrived with more congratulations,\nand there was a new reading and a new discussion. This was the beginning.\nNeighbor after neighbor, of both sexes, followed, and the procession\ndrifted in and out all day and evening and all Wednesday and Thursday.\nThe letter was read and reread until it was nearly worn out; everybody\nadmired its courtly and gracious tone, and smooth and practiced style,\neverybody was sympathetic and excited, and the Coopers were steeped in\nhappiness all the while.\n\nThe boats were very uncertain in low water in these primitive times. This\ntime the Thursday boat had not arrived at ten at night--so the people\nhad waited at the landing all day for nothing; they were driven to their\nhomes by a heavy storm without having had a view of the illustrious\nforeigners.\n\nEleven o'clock came; and the Cooper house was the only one in the town\nthat still had lights burning. The rain and thunder were booming yet,\nand the anxious family were still waiting, still hoping. At last there\nwas a knock at the door, and the family jumped to open it. Two Negro men\nentered, each carrying a trunk, and proceeded upstairs toward the guest\nroom. Then entered the twins--the handsomest, the best dressed, the most\ndistinguished-looking pair of young fellows the West had ever seen. One\nwas a little fairer than the other, but otherwise they were exact\nduplicates.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 6 -- Swimming in Glory\n\n     _Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even\n     the undertaker will be sorry._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's\n     Calendar\n\n     _Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by\n     any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time._\n     --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nAt breakfast in the morning, the twins' charm of manner and easy and\npolished bearing made speedy conquest of the family's good graces. All\nconstraint and formality quickly disappeared, and the friendliest feeling\nsucceeded. Aunt Patsy called them by their Christian names almost from\nthe beginning. She was full of the keenest curiosity about them, and\nshowed it; they responded by talking about themselves, which pleased her\ngreatly. It presently appeared that in their early youth they had known\npoverty and hardship. As the talk wandered along, the old lady watched\nfor the right place to drop in a question or two concerning that matter,\nand when she found it, she said to the blond twin, who was now doing the\nbiographies in his turn while the brunette one rested:\n\n\"If it ain't asking what I ought not to ask, Mr. Angelo, how did you come\nto be so friendless and in such trouble when you were little? Do you mind\ntelling? But don't, if you do.\"\n\n\"Oh, we don't mind it at all, madam; in our case it was merely\nmisfortune, and nobody's fault. Our parents were well to do, there in\nItaly, and we were their only child. We were of the old Florentine\nnobility\"--Rowena's heart gave a great bound, her nostrils expanded, and\na fine light played in her eyes--\"and when the war broke out, my father\nwas on the losing side and had to fly for his life. His estates were\nconfiscated, his personal property seized, and there we were, in Germany,\nstrangers, friendless, and in fact paupers. My brother and I were ten\nyears old, and well educated for that age, very studious, very fond of\nour books, and well grounded in the German, French, Spanish, and English\nlanguages. Also, we were marvelous musical prodigies--if you will allow\nme to say it, it being only the truth.\n\n\"Our father survived his misfortunes only a month, our mother soon\nfollowed him, and we were alone in the world. Our parents could have\nmade themselves comfortable by exhibiting us as a show, and they had many\nand large offers; but the thought revolted their pride, and they said\nthey would starve and die first. But what they wouldn't consent to do,\nwe had to do without the formality of consent. We were seized for the\ndebts occasioned by their illness and their funerals, and placed among\nthe attractions of a cheap museum in Berlin to earn the liquidation\nmoney. It took us two years to get out of that slavery. We traveled all\nabout Germany, receiving no wages, and not even our keep. We had to be\nexhibited for nothing, and beg our bread.\n\n\"Well, madam, the rest is not of much consequence. When we escaped from\nthat slavery at twelve years of age, we were in some respects men.\nExperience had taught us some valuable things; among others, how to take\ncare of ourselves, how to avoid and defeat sharks and sharpers, and how\nto conduct our own business for our own profit and without other people's\nhelp. We traveled everywhere--years and years--picking up smatterings\nof strange tongues, familiarizing ourselves with strange sights and\nstrange customs, accumulating an education of a wide and varied and\ncurious sort. It was a pleasant life. We went to Venice--to London,\nParis, Russia, India, China, Japan--\"\n\nAt this point Nancy, the slave woman, thrust her head in at the door and\nexclaimed:\n\n\"Ole Missus, de house is plum' jam full o' people, en dey's jes\na-spi'lin' to see de gen'lemen!\" She indicated the twins with a nod of\nher head, and tucked it back out of sight again.\n\nIt was a proud occasion for the widow, and she promised herself high\nsatisfaction in showing off her fine foreign birds before her neighbors\nand friends--simple folk who had hardly ever seen a foreigner of any\nkind, and never one of any distinction or style. Yet her feeling was\nmoderate indeed when contrasted with Rowena's. Rowena was in the clouds,\nshe walked on air; this was to be the greatest day, the most romantic\nepisode in the colorless history of that dull country town. She was to\nbe familiarly near the source of its glory and feel the full flood of it\npour over her and about her; the other girls could only gaze and envy,\nnot partake.\n\nThe widow was ready, Rowena was ready, so also were the foreigners.\n\nThe party moved along the hall, the twins in advance, and entered the\nopen parlor door, whence issued a low hum of conversation. The twins took\na position near the door, the widow stood at Luigi's side, Rowena stood\nbeside Angelo, and the march-past and the introductions began. The widow\nwas all smiles and contentment. She received the procession and passed\nit on to Rowena.\n\n\"Good mornin', Sister Cooper\"--handshake.\n\n\"Good morning, Brother Higgins--Count Luigi Capello, Mr. Higgins\"\n--handshake, followed by a devouring stare and \"I'm glad to see ye,\"\non the part of Higgins, and a courteous inclination of the head and a\npleasant \"Most happy!\" on the part of Count Luigi.\n\n\"Good mornin', Roweny\"--handshake.\n\n\"Good morning, Mr. Higgins--present you to Count Angelo Capello.\"\nHandshake, admiring stare, \"Glad to see ye\"--courteous nod, smily \"Most\nhappy!\" and Higgins passes on.\n\nNone of these visitors was at ease, but, being honest people, they didn't\npretend to be. None of them had ever seen a person bearing a title of\nnobility before, and none had been expecting to see one now, consequently\nthe title came upon them as a kind of pile-driving surprise and caught\nthem unprepared. A few tried to rise to the emergency, and got out an\nawkward \"My lord,\" or \"Your lordship,\" or something of that sort, but the\ngreat majority were overwhelmed by the unaccustomed word and its dim and\nawful associations with gilded courts and stately ceremony and anointed\nkingship, so they only fumbled through the handshake and passed on,\nspeechless. Now and then, as happens at all receptions everywhere, a\nmore than ordinary friendly soul blocked the procession and kept it\nwaiting while he inquired how the brothers liked the village, and how\nlong they were going to stay, and if their family was well, and dragged\nin the weather, and hoped it would get cooler soon, and all that sort of\nthing, so as to be able to say, when he got home, \"I had quite a long\ntalk with them\"; but nobody did or said anything of a regrettable kind,\nand so the great affair went through to the end in a creditable and\nsatisfactory fashion.\n\nGeneral conversation followed, and the twins drifted about from group to\ngroup, talking easily and fluently and winning approval, compelling\nadmiration and achieving favor from all. The widow followed their\nconquering march with a proud eye, and every now and then Rowena said to\nherself with deep satisfaction, \"And to think they are ours--all ours!\"\n\nThere were no idle moments for mother or daughter. Eager inquiries\nconcerning the twins were pouring into their enchanted ears all the time;\neach was the constant center of a group of breathless listeners; each\nrecognized that she knew now for the first time the real meaning of that\ngreat word Glory, and perceived the stupendous value of it, and\nunderstood why men in all ages had been willing to throw away meaner\nhappiness, treasure, life itself, to get a taste of its sublime and\nsupreme joy. Napoleon and all his kind stood accounted for--and\njustified.\n\nWhen Rowena had at last done all her duty by the people in the parlor,\nshe went upstairs to satisfy the longings of an overflow meeting there,\nfor the parlor was not big enough to hold all the comers. Again she was\nbesieged by eager questioners, and again she swam in sunset seas of\nglory. When the forenoon was nearly gone, she recognized with a pang\nthat this most splendid episode of her life was almost over, that nothing\ncould prolong it, that nothing quite its equal could ever fall to her\nfortune again. But never mind, it was sufficient unto itself, the grand\noccasion had moved on an ascending scale from the start, and was a noble\nand memorable success. If the twins could but do some crowning act now\nto climax it, something usual, something startling, something to\nconcentrate upon themselves the company's loftiest admiration, something\nin the nature of an electric surprise--\n\nHere a prodigious slam-banging broke out below, and everybody rushed down\nto see. It was the twins, knocking out a classic four-handed piece on\nthe piano in great style. Rowena was satisfied--satisfied down to the\nbottom of her heart.\n\nThe young strangers were kept long at the piano. The villagers were\nastonished and enchanted with the magnificence of their performance, and\ncould not bear to have them stop. All the music that they had ever heard\nbefore seemed spiritless prentice-work and barren of grace and charm when\ncompared with these intoxicating floods of melodious sound. They realized\nthat for once in their lives they were hearing masters.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 7 -- The Unknown Nymph\n\n     _One of the most striking differences between a cat and a\n     lie is that a cat has only nine lives._ --Pudd'nhead\n     Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nThe company broke up reluctantly, and drifted toward their several\nhomes, chatting with vivacity and all agreeing that it would be many a\nlong day before Dawson's Landing would see the equal of this one again.\nThe twins had accepted several invitations while the reception was in\nprogress, and had also volunteered to play some duets at an amateur\nentertainment for the benefit of a local charity. Society was eager to\nreceive them to its bosom. Judge Driscoll had the good fortune to secure\nthem for an immediate drive, and to be the first to display them in\npublic. They entered his buggy with him and were paraded down the main\nstreet, everybody flocking to the windows and sidewalks to see.\n\nThe judge showed the strangers the new graveyard, and the jail, and where\nthe richest man lived, and the Freemasons' hall, and the Methodist\nchurch, and the Presbyterian church, and where the Baptist church was\ngoing to be when they got some money to build it with, and showed them\nthe town hall and the slaughterhouse, and got out the independent fire\ncompany in uniform and had them put out an imaginary fire; then he let\nthem inspect the muskets of the militia company, and poured out an\nexhaustless stream of enthusiasm over all these splendors, and seemed\nvery well satisfied with the responses he got, for the twins admired his\nadmiration, and paid him back the best they could, though they could have\ndone better if some fifteen or sixteen hundred thousand previous\nexperiences of this sort in various countries had not already rubbed off\na considerable part of the novelty in it.\n\nThe judge laid himself out hospitality to make them have a good time, and\nif there was a defect anywhere, it was not his fault. He told them a good\nmany humorous anecdotes, and always forgot the nub, but they were always\nable to furnish it, for these yarns were of a pretty early vintage, and\nthey had had many a rejuvenating pull at them before. And he told them\nall about his several dignities, and how he had held this and that and\nthe other place of honor or profit, and had once been to the legislature,\nand was now president of the Society of Freethinkers. He said the\nsociety had been in existence four years, and already had two members,\nand was firmly established. He would call for the brothers in the\nevening, if they would like to attend a meeting of it.\n\nAccordingly he called for them, and on the way he told them all about\nPudd'nhead Wilson, in order that they might get a favorable impression of\nhim in advance and be prepared to like him. This scheme succeeded--the\nfavorable impression was achieved. Later it was confirmed and solidified\nwhen Wilson proposed that out of courtesy to the strangers the usual\ntopics be put aside and the hour be devoted to conversation upon ordinary\nsubjects and the cultivation of friendly relations and good-fellowship--a\nproposition which was put to vote and carried.\n\nThe hour passed quickly away in lively talk, and when it was ended, the\nlonesome and neglected Wilson was richer by two friends than he had been\nwhen it began. He invited the twins to look in at his lodgings\npresently, after disposing of an intervening engagement, and they\naccepted with pleasure.\n\nToward the middle of the evening, they found themselves on the road to\nhis house. Pudd'nhead was at home waiting for them and putting in his\ntime puzzling over a thing which had come under his notice that morning.\nThe matter was this: He happened to be up very early--at dawn, in fact;\nand he crossed the hall, which divided his cottage through the center,\nand entered a room to get something there. The window of the room had no\ncurtains, for that side of the house had long been unoccupied, and\nthrough this window he caught sight of something which surprised and\ninterested him. It was a young woman--a young woman where properly no\nyoung woman belonged; for she was in Judge Driscoll's house, and in the\nbedroom over the judge's private study or sitting room. This was young\nTom Driscoll's bedroom. He and the judge, the judge's widowed sister Mrs.\nPratt, and three Negro servants were the only people who belonged in the\nhouse. Who, then, might this young lady be? The two houses were\nseparated by an ordinary yard, with a low fence running back through its\nmiddle from the street in front to the lane in the rear. The distance\nwas not great, and Wilson was able to see the girl very well, the window\nshades of the room she was in being up, and the window also. The girl had\non a neat and trim summer dress, patterned in broad stripes of pink and\nwhite, and her bonnet was equipped with a pink veil. She was practicing\nsteps, gaits and attitudes, apparently; she was doing the thing\ngracefully, and was very much absorbed in her work. Who could she be, and\nhow came she to be in young Tom Driscoll's room?\n\nWilson had quickly chosen a position from which he could watch the girl\nwithout running much risk of being seen by her, and he remained there\nhoping she would raise her veil and betray her face. But she\ndisappointed him. After a matter of twenty minutes she disappeared and\nalthough he stayed at his post half an hour longer, she came no more.\n\nToward noon he dropped in at the judge's and talked with Mrs. Pratt about\nthe great event of the day, the levee of the distinguished foreigners at\nAunt Patsy Cooper's. He asked after her nephew Tom, and she said he was\non his way home and that she was expecting him to arrive a little before\nnight, and added that she and the judge were gratified to gather from his\nletters that he was conducting himself very nicely and creditably--at\nwhich Wilson winked to himself privately. Wilson did not ask if there was\na newcomer in the house, but he asked questions that would have brought\nlight-throwing answers as to that matter if Mrs. Pratt had had any light\nto throw; so he went away satisfied that he knew of things that were\ngoing on in her house of which she herself was not aware.\n\nHe was now awaiting for the twins, and still puzzling over the problem of\nwho that girl might be, and how she happened to be in that young fellow's\nroom at daybreak in the morning.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 8 -- Marse Tom Tramples His Chance\n\n     _The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady\n     and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a\n     whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money._ --Pudd'nhead\n     Wilson's Calendar\n\n     _Consider well the proportions of things. It is better to be\n     a young June bug than an old bird of paradise._ --Pudd'nhead\n     Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nIt is necessary now to hunt up Roxy.\n\nAt the time she was set free and went away chambermaiding, she was\nthirty-five. She got a berth as second chambermaid on a Cincinnati boat\nin the New Orleans trade, the _Grand Mogul_. A couple of trips made her\nwonted and easygoing at the work, and infatuated her with the stir and\nadventure and independence of steamboat life. Then she was promoted and\nbecome head chambermaid. She was a favorite with the officers, and\nexceedingly proud of their joking and friendly way with her.\n\nDuring eight years she served three parts of the year on that boat, and\nthe winters on a Vicksburg packet. But now for two months, she had had\nrheumatism in her arms, and was obliged to let the washtub alone. So she\nresigned. But she was well fixed--rich, as she would have described it;\nfor she had lived a steady life, and had banked four dollars every month\nin New Orleans as a provision for her old age. She said in the start\nthat she had \"put shoes on one bar'footed nigger to tromple on her with,\"\nand that one mistake like that was enough; she would be independent of\nthe human race thenceforth forevermore if hard work and economy could\naccomplish it. When the boat touched the levee at New Orleans she bade\ngood-by to her comrades on the _Grand Mogul_ and moved her kit ashore.\n\nBut she was back in a hour. The bank had gone to smash and carried her\nfour hundred dollars with it. She was a pauper and homeless. Also\ndisabled bodily, at least for the present. The officers were full of\nsympathy for her in her trouble, and made up a little purse for her. She\nresolved to go to her birthplace; she had friends there among the Negros,\nand the unfortunate always help the unfortunate, she was well aware of\nthat; those lowly comrades of her youth would not let her starve.\n\nShe took the little local packet at Cairo, and now she was on the\nhomestretch. Time had worn away her bitterness against her son, and she\nwas able to think of him with serenity. She put the vile side of him out\nof her mind, and dwelt only on recollections of his occasional acts of\nkindness to her. She gilded and otherwise decorated these, and made them\nvery pleasant to contemplate. She began to long to see him. She would go\nand fawn upon him slavelike--for this would have to be her attitude, of\ncourse--and maybe she would find that time had modified him, and that he\nwould be glad to see his long-forgotten old nurse and treat her gently.\nThat would be lovely; that would make her forget her woes and her\npoverty.\n\nHer poverty! That thought inspired her to add another castle to her\ndream: maybe he would give her a trifle now and then--maybe a dollar,\nonce a month, say; any little thing like that would help, oh, ever so\nmuch.\n\nBy the time she reached Dawson's Landing, she was her old self again; her\nblues were gone, she was in high feather. She would get along, surely;\nthere were many kitchens where the servants would share their meals with\nher, and also steal sugar and apples and other dainties for her to carry\nhome--or give her a chance to pilfer them herself, which would answer\njust as well. And there was the church. She was a more rabid and devoted\nMethodist than ever, and her piety was no sham, but was strong and\nsincere. Yes, with plenty of creature comforts and her old place in the\namen corner in her possession again, she would be perfectly happy and at\npeace thenceforward to the end.\n\nShe went to Judge Driscoll's kitchen first of all. She was received\nthere in great form and with vast enthusiasm. Her wonderful travels, and\nthe strange countries she had seen, and the adventures she had had, made\nher a marvel and a heroine of romance. The Negros hung enchanted upon a\ngreat story of her experiences, interrupting her all along with eager\nquestions, with laughter, exclamations of delight, and expressions of\napplause; and she was obliged to confess to herself that if there was\nanything better in this world than steamboating, it was the glory to be\ngot by telling about it. The audience loaded her stomach with their\ndinners, and then stole the pantry bare to load up her basket.\n\nTom was in St. Louis. The servants said he had spent the best part of\nhis time there during the previous two years. Roxy came every day, and\nhad many talks about the family and its affairs. Once she asked why Tom\nwas away so much. The ostensible \"Chambers\" said:\n\n\"De fac' is, ole marster kin git along better when young marster's away\nden he kin when he's in de town; yes, en he love him better, too; so he\ngives him fifty dollahs a month--\"\n\n\"No, is dat so? Chambers, you's a-jokin', ain't you?\"\n\n\"'Clah to goodness I ain't, Mammy; Marse Tom tole me so his own self. But\nnemmine, 'tain't enough.\"\n\n\"My lan', what de reason 'tain't enough?\"\n\n\"Well, I's gwine to tell you, if you gimme a chanst, Mammy. De reason it\nain't enough is 'ca'se Marse Tom gambles.\"\n\nRoxy threw up her hands in astonishment, and Chambers went on:\n\n\"Ole marster found it out, 'ca'se he had to pay two hundred dollahs for\nMarse Tom's gamblin' debts, en dat's true, Mammy, jes as dead certain as\nyou's bawn.\"\n\n\"Two--hund'd dollahs! Why, what is you talkin' 'bout?\nTwo--hund'd--dollahs. Sakes alive, it's 'mos' enough to buy a tol'able\ngood secondhand nigger wid. En you ain't lyin', honey? You wouldn't lie\nto you' old Mammy?\"\n\n\"It's God's own truth, jes as I tell you--two hund'd dollahs--I wisht I\nmay never stir outen my tracks if it ain't so. En, oh, my lan', ole Marse\nwas jes a-hoppin'! He was b'ilin' mad, I tell you! He tuck 'n'\ndissenhurrit him.\"\n\n\"Disen_whiched_ him?\"\n\n\"Dissenhurrit him.\"\n\n\"What's dat? What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Means he bu'sted de will.\"\n\n\"Bu's--ted de will! He wouldn't _ever_ treat him so! Take it back, you\nmis'able imitation nigger dat I bore in sorrow en tribbilation.\"\n\nRoxy's pet castle--an occasional dollar from Tom's pocket--was tumbling\nto ruin before her eyes. She could not abide such a disaster as that;\nshe couldn't endure the thought of it. Her remark amused Chambers.\n\n\"Yah-yah-yah! Jes listen to dat! If I's imitation, what is you? Bofe of\nus is imitation _white_--dat's what we is--en pow'ful good imitation,\ntoo. Yah-yah-yah! We don't 'mount to noth'n as imitation _niggers_; en\nas for--\"\n\n\"Shet up yo' foolin', 'fo' I knock you side de head, en tell me 'bout de\nwill. Tell me 'tain't bu'sted--do, honey, en I'll never forgit you.\"\n\n\"Well, _'tain't_--'ca'se dey's a new one made, en Marse Tom's all right\nag'in. But what is you in sich a sweat 'bout it for, Mammy? 'Tain't\nnone o' your business I don't reckon.\"\n\n\"'Tain't none o' my business? Whose business is it den, I'd like to\nknow? Wuz I his mother tell he was fifteen years old, or wusn't I?--you\nanswer me dat. En you speck I could see him turned out po' and ornery on\nde worl' en never care noth'n' 'bout it? I reckon if you'd ever be'n a\nmother yo'self, Valet de Chambers, you wouldn't talk sich foolishness as\ndat.\"\n\n\"Well, den, ole Marse forgive him en fixed up de will ag'in--do dat\nsatisfy you?\"\n\nYes, she was satisfied now, and quite happy and sentimental over it. She\nkept coming daily, and at last she was told that Tom had come home. She\nbegan to tremble with emotion, and straightway sent to beg him to let his\n\"po' ole nigger Mammy have jes one sight of him en die for joy.\"\n\nTom was stretched at his lazy ease on a sofa when Chambers brought the\npetition. Time had not modified his ancient detestation of the humble\ndrudge and protector of his boyhood; it was still bitter and\nuncompromising. He sat up and bent a severe gaze upon the face of the\nyoung fellow whose name he was unconsciously using and whose family\nrights he was enjoying. He maintained the gaze until the victim of it\nhad become satisfactorily pallid with terror, then he said:\n\n\"What does the old rip want with me?\"\n\nThe petition was meekly repeated.\n\n\"Who gave you permission to come and disturb me with the social\nattentions of niggers?\"\n\nTom had risen. The other young man was trembling now, visibly. He saw\nwhat was coming, and bent his head sideways, and put up his left arm to\nshield it. Tom rained cuffs upon the head and its shield, saying no\nword: the victim received each blow with a beseeching, \"Please, Marse\nTom!--oh, please, Marse Tom!\" Seven blows--then Tom said, \"Face the\ndoor--march!\" He followed behind with one, two, three solid kicks. The\nlast one helped the pure-white slave over the door-sill, and he limped\naway mopping his eyes with his old, ragged sleeve. Tom shouted after\nhim, \"Send her in!\"\n\nThen he flung himself panting on the sofa again, and rasped out the\nremark, \"He arrived just at the right moment; I was full to the brim with\nbitter thinkings, and nobody to take it out of. How refreshing it was!\nI feel better.\"\n\nTom's mother entered now, closing the door behind her, and approached her\nson with all the wheedling and supplication servilities that fear and\ninterest can impart to the words and attitudes of the born slave. She\nstopped a yard from her boy and made two or three admiring exclamations\nover his manly stature and general handsomeness, and Tom put an arm under\nhis head and hoisted a leg over the sofa back in order to look properly\nindifferent.\n\n\"My lan', how you is growed, honey! 'Clah to goodness, I wouldn't\na-knowed you, Marse Tom! 'Deed I wouldn't! Look at me good; does you\n'member old Roxy? Does you know yo' old nigger mammy, honey? Well now, I\nkin lay down en die in peace, 'ca'se I'se seed--\"\n\n\"Cut it short, Goddamn it, cut it short! What is it you want?\"\n\n\"You heah dat? Jes the same old Marse Tom, al'ays so gay and funnin' wid\nde ole mammy. I'uz jes as shore--\"\n\n\"Cut it short, I tell you, and get along! What do you want?\"\n\nThis was a bitter disappointment. Roxy had for so many days nourished\nand fondled and petted her notion that Tom would be glad to see his old\nnurse, and would make her proud and happy to the marrow with a cordial\nword or two, that it took two rebuffs to convince her that he was not\nfunning, and that her beautiful dream was a fond and foolish variety, a\nshabby and pitiful mistake. She was hurt to the heart, and so ashamed\nthat for a moment she did not quite know what to do or how to act. Then\nher breast began to heave, the tears came, and in her forlornness she was\nmoved to try that other dream of hers--an appeal to her boy's charity;\nand so, upon the impulse, and without reflection, she offered her\nsupplication:\n\n\"Oh, Marse Tom, de po' ole mammy is in sich hard luck dese days; en she's\nkinder crippled in de arms and can't work, en if you could gimme a\ndollah--on'y jes one little dol--\"\n\nTom was on his feet so suddenly that the supplicant was startled into a\njump herself.\n\n\"A dollar!--give you a dollar! I've a notion to strangle you! Is _that_\nyour errand here? Clear out! And be quick about it!\"\n\nRoxy backed slowly toward the door. When she was halfway she stopped,\nand said mournfully:\n\n\"Marse Tom, I nussed you when you was a little baby, en I raised you all\nby myself tell you was 'most a young man; en now you is young en rich, en\nI is po' en gitt'n ole, en I come heah b'leavin' dat you would he'p de\nole mammy 'long down de little road dat's lef' 'twix' her en de grave,\nen--\"\n\nTom relished this tune less than any that he had preceded it, for it\nbegan to wake up a sort of echo in his conscience; so he interrupted and\nsaid with decision, though without asperity, that he was not in a\nsituation to help her, and wasn't going to do it.\n\n\"Ain't you ever gwine to he'p me, Marse Tom?\"\n\n\"No! Now go away and don't bother me any more.\"\n\nRoxy's head was down, in an attitude of humility. But now the fires of\nher old wrongs flamed up in her breast and began to burn fiercely. She\nraised her head slowly, till it was well up, and at the same time her\ngreat frame unconsciously assumed an erect and masterful attitude, with\nall the majesty and grace of her vanished youth in it. She raised her\nfinger and punctuated with it.\n\n\"You has said de word. You has had yo' chance, en you has trompled it\nunder yo' foot. When you git another one, you'll git down on yo' knees\nen _beg_ for it!\"\n\nA cold chill went to Tom's heart, he didn't know why; for he did not\nreflect that such words, from such an incongruous source, and so solemnly\ndelivered, could not easily fail of that effect. However, he did the\nnatural thing: he replied with bluster and mockery.\n\n\"_You'll_ give me a chance--_you_! Perhaps I'd better get down on my\nknees now! But in case I don't--just for argument's sake--what's going\nto happen, pray?\"\n\n\"Dis is what is gwine to happen, I's gwine as straight to yo' uncle as I\nkin walk, en tell him every las' thing I knows 'bout you.\"\n\nTom's cheek blenched, and she saw it. Disturbing thoughts began to chase\neach other through his head. \"How can she know? And yet she must have\nfound out--she looks it. I've had the will back only three months, and\nam already deep in debt again, and moving heaven and earth to save myself\nfrom exposure and destruction, with a reasonably fair show of getting the\nthing covered up if I'm let alone, and now this fiend has gone and found\nme out somehow or other. I wonder how much she knows? Oh, oh, oh, it's\nenough to break a body's heart! But I've got to humor her--there's no\nother way.\"\n\nThen he worked up a rather sickly sample of a gay laugh and a hollow\nchipperness of manner, and said:\n\n\"Well, well, Roxy dear, old friends like you and me mustn't quarrel.\nHere's your dollar--now tell me what you know.\"\n\nHe held out the wildcat bill; she stood as she was, and made no movement.\nIt was her turn to scorn persuasive foolery now, and she did not waste\nit. She said, with a grim implacability in voice and manner which made\nTom almost realize that even a former slave can remember for ten minutes\ninsults and injuries returned for compliments and flatteries received,\nand can also enjoy taking revenge for them when the opportunity offers:\n\n\"What does I know? I'll tell you what I knows, I knows enough to bu'st\ndat will to flinders--en more, mind you, _more!_\"\n\nTom was aghast.\n\n\"More?\" he said, \"What do you call more? Where's there any room for\nmore?\"\n\nRoxy laughed a mocking laugh, and said scoffingly, with a toss of her\nhead, and her hands on her hips:\n\n\"Yes!--oh, I reckon! _co'se_ you'd like to know--wid yo' po' little ole\nrag dollah. What you reckon I's gwine to tell _you_ for?--you ain't got\nno money. I's gwine to tell yo' uncle--en I'll do it dis minute,\ntoo--he'll gimme FIVE dollahs for de news, en mighty glad, too.\"\n\nShe swung herself around disdainfully, and started away. Tom was in a\npanic. He seized her skirts, and implored her to wait. She turned and\nsaid, loftily:\n\n\"Look-a-heah, what 'uz it I tole you?\"\n\n\"You--you--I don't remember anything. What was it you told me?\"\n\n\"I tole you dat de next time I give you a chance you'd git down on yo'\nknees en beg for it.\"\n\nTom was stupefied for a moment. He was panting with excitement. Then he\nsaid:\n\n\"Oh, Roxy, you wouldn't require your young master to do such a horrible\nthing. You can't mean it.\"\n\n\"I'll let you know mighty quick whether I means it or not! You call me\nnames, en as good as spit on me when I comes here, po' en ornery en\n'umble, to praise you for bein' growed up so fine and handsome, en tell\nyou how I used to nuss you en tend you en watch you when you 'uz sick en\nhadn't no mother but me in de whole worl', en beg you to give de po' ole\nnigger a dollah for to get her som'n' to eat, en you call me\nnames--_names_, dad blame you! Yassir, I gives you jes one chance mo',\nand dat's _now_, en it las' on'y half a second--you hear?\"\n\nTom slumped to his knees and began to beg, saying:\n\n\"You see I'm begging, and it's honest begging, too! Now tell me, Roxy,\ntell me.\"\n\nThe heir of two centuries of unatoned insult and outrage looked down on\nhim and seemed to drink in deep draughts of satisfaction. Then she said:\n\n\"Fine nice young white gen'l'man kneelin' down to a nigger wench! I's\nwanted to see dat jes once befo' I's called. Now, Gabr'el, blow de hawn,\nI's ready . . . Git up!\"\n\nTom did it. He said, humbly:\n\n\"Now, Roxy, don't punish me any more. I deserved what I've got, but be\ngood and let me off with that. Don't go to uncle. Tell me--I'll give\nyou the five dollars.\"\n\n\"Yes, I bet you will; en you won't stop dah, nuther. But I ain't gwine\nto tell you heah--\"\n\n\"Good gracious, no!\"\n\n\"Is you 'feared o' de ha'nted house?\"\n\n\"N-no.\"\n\n\"Well, den, you come to de ha'nted house 'bout ten or 'leven tonight, en\nclimb up de ladder, 'ca'se de sta'rsteps is broke down, en you'll find\nme. I's a-roostin' in de ha'nted house 'ca'se I can't 'ford to roos'\nnowher's else.\" She started toward the door, but stopped and said,\n\"Gimme de dollah bill!\" He gave it to her. She examined it and said,\n\"H'm--like enough de bank's bu'sted.\" She started again, but halted\nagain. \"Has you got any whisky?\"\n\n\"Yes, a little.\"\n\n\"Fetch it!\"\n\nHe ran to his room overhead and brought down a bottle which was\ntwo-thirds full. She tilted it up and took a drink. Her eyes sparkled\nwith satisfaction, and she tucked the bottle under her shawl, saying,\n\"It's prime. I'll take it along.\"\n\nTom humbly held the door for her, and she marched out as grim and erect\nas a grenadier.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 9 -- Tom Practices Sycophancy\n\n     _Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a\n     funeral? It is because we are not the person involved._\n     --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n     _It is easy to find fault, if one has that disposition.\n     There was once a man who, not being able to find any other\n     fault with his coal, complained that there were too many\n     prehistoric toads in it._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nTom flung himself on the sofa, and put his throbbing head in his hands,\nand rested his elbows on his knees. He rocked himself back and forth and\nmoaned.\n\n\"I've knelt to a nigger wench!\" he muttered. \"I thought I had struck the\ndeepest depths of degradation before, but oh, dear, it was nothing to\nthis. . . . Well, there is one consolation, such as it is--I've struck\nbottom this time; there's nothing lower.\"\n\nBut that was a hasty conclusion.\n\nAt ten that night he climbed the ladder in the haunted house, pale, weak,\nand wretched. Roxy was standing in the door of one of the rooms,\nwaiting, for she had heard him.\n\nThis was a two-story log house which had acquired the reputation a few\nyears ago of being haunted, and that was the end of its usefulness.\nNobody would live in it afterward, or go near it by night, and most\npeople even gave it a wide berth in the daytime. As it had no\ncompetition, it was called _the_ haunted house. It was getting crazy and\nruinous now, from long neglect. It stood three hundred yards beyond\nPudd'nhead Wilson's house, with nothing between but vacancy. It was the\nlast house in the town at that end.\n\nTom followed Roxy into the room. She had a pile of clean straw in the\ncorner for a bed, some cheap but well-kept clothing was hanging on the\nwall, there was a tin lantern freckling the floor with little spots of\nlight, and there were various soap and candle boxes scattered about,\nwhich served for chairs. The two sat down. Roxy said:\n\n\"Now den, I'll tell you straight off, en I'll begin to k'leck de money\nlater on; I ain't in no hurry. What does you reckon I's gwine to tell\nyou?\"\n\n\"Well, you--you--oh, Roxy, don't make it too hard for me! Come right out\nand tell me you've found out somehow what a shape I'm in on account of\ndissipation and foolishness.\"\n\n\"Disposition en foolishness! NO sir, dat ain't it. Dat jist ain't\nnothin' at all, 'longside o' what _I_ knows.\"\n\nTom stared at her, and said:\n\n\"Why, Roxy, what do you mean?\"\n\nShe rose, and gloomed above him like a Fate.\n\n\"I means dis--en it's de Lord's truth. You ain't no more kin to ole\nMarse Driscoll den I is! _dat's_ what I means!\" and her eyes flamed\nwith triumph.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Yassir, en _dat_ ain't all! You's a _nigger!_--_bawn_ a nigger and a\n_slave!_--en you's a nigger en a slave dis minute; en if I opens my mouf\nole Marse Driscoll'll sell you down de river befo' you is two days older\nden what you is now!\"\n\n\"It's a thundering lie, you miserable old blatherskite!\"\n\n\"It ain't no lie, nuther. It's just de truth, en nothin' _but_ de truth,\nso he'p me. Yassir--you's my _son_--\"\n\n\"You devil!\"\n\n\"En dat po' boy dat you's be'n a-kickin' en a-cuffin' today is Percy\nDriscoll's son en yo' _marster_--\"\n\n\"You beast!\"\n\n\"En _his_ name is Tom Driscoll, en _yo's_ name's Valet de Chambers, en\nyou ain't GOT no fambly name, beca'se niggers don't _have_ em!\"\n\nTom sprang up and seized a billet of wood and raised it, but his mother\nonly laughed at him, and said:\n\n\"Set down, you pup! Does you think you kin skyer me? It ain't in you,\nnor de likes of you. I reckon you'd shoot me in de back, maybe, if you\ngot a chance, for dat's jist yo' style--_I_ knows you, throo en\nthroo--but I don't mind gitt'n killed, beca'se all dis is down in writin'\nand it's in safe hands, too, en de man dat's got it knows whah to look\nfor de right man when I gits killed. Oh, bless yo' soul, if you puts yo'\nmother up for as big a fool as _you_ is, you's pow'ful mistaken, I kin\ntell you! Now den, you set still en behave yo'self; en don't you git up\nag'in till I tell you!\"\n\nTom fretted and chafed awhile in a whirlwind of disorganizing sensations\nand emotions, and finally said, with something like settled conviction:\n\n\"The whole thing is moonshine; now then, go ahead and do your worst; I'm\ndone with you.\"\n\nRoxy made no answer. She took the lantern and started for the door. Tom\nwas in a cold panic in a moment.\n\n\"Come back, come back!\" he wailed. \"I didn't mean it, Roxy; I take it\nall back, and I'll never say it again! Please come back, Roxy!\"\n\nThe woman stood a moment, then she said gravely:\n\n\"Dat's one thing you's got to stop, Valet de Chambers. You can't call me\n_Roxy_, same as if you was my equal. Chillen don't speak to dey mammies\nlike dat. You'll call me ma or mammy, dat's what you'll call\nme--leastways when de ain't nobody aroun'. _Say_ it!\"\n\nIt cost Tom a struggle, but he got it out.\n\n\"Dat's all right, don't you ever forgit it ag'in, if you knows what's\ngood for you. Now den, you had said you wouldn't ever call it lies en\nmoonshine ag'in. I'll tell you dis, for a warnin': if you ever does say\nit ag'in, it's de LAS' time you'll ever say it to me; I'll tramp as\nstraight to de judge as I kin walk, en tell him who you is, en _prove_\nit. Does you b'lieve me when I says dat?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" groaned Tom, \"I more than believe it; I _know_ it.\"\n\nRoxy knew her conquest was complete. She could have proved nothing to\nanybody, and her threat of writings was a lie; but she knew the person\nshe was dealing with, and had made both statements without any doubt as\nto the effect they would produce.\n\nShe went and sat down on her candle box, and the pride and pomp of her\nvictorious attitude made it a throne. She said:\n\n\"Now den, Chambers, we's gwine to talk business, en dey ain't gwine to be\nno mo' foolishness. In de fust place, you gits fifty dollahs a month;\nyou's gwine to han' over half of it to yo' ma. Plank it out!\"\n\nBut Tom had only six dollars in the world. He gave her that, and\npromised to start fair on next month's pension.\n\n\"Chambers, how much is you in debt?\"\n\nTom shuddered, and said:\n\n\"Nearly three hundred dollars.\"\n\n\"How is you gwine to pay it?\"\n\nTom groaned out: \"Oh, I don't know; don't ask me such awful questions.\"\n\nBut she stuck to her point until she wearied a confession out of him: he\nhad been prowling about in disguise, stealing small valuables from\nprivate houses; in fact, he made a good deal of a raid on his fellow\nvillagers a fortnight before, when he was supposed to be in St. Louis;\nbut he doubted if he had sent away enough stuff to realize the required\namount, and was afraid to make a further venture in the present excited\nstate of the town. His mother approved of his conduct, and offered to\nhelp, but this frightened him. He tremblingly ventured to say that if\nshe would retire from the town he should feel better and safer, and could\nhold his head higher--and was going on to make an argument, but she\ninterrupted and surprised him pleasantly by saying she was ready; it\ndidn't make any difference to her where she stayed, so that she got her\nshare of the pension regularly. She said she would not go far, and would\ncall at the haunted house once a month for her money. Then she said:\n\n\"I don't hate you so much now, but I've hated you a many a year--and\nanybody would. Didn't I change you off, en give you a good fambly en a\ngood name, en made you a white gen'l'man en rich, wid store clothes\non--en what did I git for it? You despised me all de time, en was al'ays\nsayin' mean hard things to me befo' folks, en wouldn't ever let me forgit\nI's a nigger--en--en--\"\n\nShe fell to sobbing, and broke down. Tom said: \"But you know I didn't\nknow you were my mother; and besides--\"\n\n\"Well, nemmine 'bout dat, now; let it go. I's gwine to fo'git it.\" Then\nshe added fiercely, \"En don't ever make me remember it ag'in, or you'll\nbe sorry, _I_ tell you.\"\n\nWhen they were parting, Tom said, in the most persuasive way he could\ncommand:\n\n\"Ma, would you mind telling me who was my father?\"\n\nHe had supposed he was asking an embarrassing question. He was mistaken.\nRoxy drew herself up with a proud toss of her head, and said:\n\n\"Does I mine tellin' you? No, dat I don't! You ain't got no 'casion to\nbe shame' o' yo' father, _I_ kin tell you. He wuz de highest quality in\ndis whole town--ole Virginny stock. Fust famblies, he wuz. Jes as good\nstock as de Driscolls en de Howards, de bes' day dey ever seed.\" She put\non a little prouder air, if possible, and added impressively: \"Does you\n'member Cunnel Cecil Burleigh Essex, dat died de same year yo' young\nMarse Tom Driscoll's pappy died, en all de Masons en Odd Fellers en\nChurches turned out en give him de bigges' funeral dis town ever seed?\nDat's de man.\"\n\nUnder the inspiration of her soaring complacency the departed graces of\nher earlier days returned to her, and her bearing took to itself a\ndignity and state that might have passed for queenly if her surroundings\nhad been a little more in keeping with it.\n\n\"Dey ain't another nigger in dis town dat's as highbawn as you is. Now\nden, go 'long! En jes you hold yo' head up as high as you want to--you\nhas de right, en dat I kin swah.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 10 -- The Nymph Revealed\n\n     _All say, \"How hard it is that we have to die\"--a strange\n     complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to\n     live._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n     _When angry, count four; when very angry, swear._\n     --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nEvery now and then, after Tom went to bed, he had sudden wakings out of\nhis sleep, and his first thought was, \"Oh, joy, it was all a dream!\"\nThen he laid himself heavily down again, with a groan and the muttered\nwords, \"A nigger! I am a nigger! Oh, I wish I was dead!\"\n\nHe woke at dawn with one more repetition of this horror, and then he\nresolved to meddle no more with that treacherous sleep. He began to\nthink. Sufficiently bitter thinkings they were. They wandered along\nsomething after this fashion:\n\n\"Why were niggers _and_ whites made? What crime did the uncreated first\nnigger commit that the curse of birth was decreed for him? And why is\nthis awful difference made between white and black? . . . How hard the\nnigger's fate seems, this morning!--yet until last night such a thought\nnever entered my head.\"\n\nHe sighed and groaned an hour or more away. Then \"Chambers\" came humbly\nin to say that breakfast was nearly ready. \"Tom\" blushed scarlet to see\nthis aristocratic white youth cringe to him, a nigger, and call him\n\"Young Marster.\" He said roughly:\n\n\"Get out of my sight!\" and when the youth was gone, he muttered, \"He has\ndone me no harm, poor wretch, but he is an eyesore to me now, for he is\nDriscoll, the young gentleman, and I am a--oh, I wish I was dead!\"\n\nA gigantic eruption, like that of Krakatoa a few years ago, with the\naccompanying earthquakes, tidal waves, and clouds of volcanic dust,\nchanges the face of the surrounding landscape beyond recognition,\nbringing down the high lands, elevating the low, making fair lakes where\ndeserts had been, and deserts where green prairies had smiled before.\nThe tremendous catastrophe which had befallen Tom had changed his moral\nlandscape in much the same way. Some of his low places he found lifted to\nideals, some of his ideas had sunk to the valleys, and lay there with the\nsackcloth and ashes of pumice stone and sulphur on their ruined heads.\n\nFor days he wandered in lonely places, thinking, thinking, thinking\n--trying to get his bearings. It was new work. If he met a friend, he\nfound that the habit of a lifetime had in some mysterious way vanished\n--his arm hung limp, instead of involuntarily extending the hand for a\nshake. It was the \"nigger\" in him asserting its humility, and he blushed\nand was abashed. And the \"nigger\" in him was surprised when the white\nfriend put out his hand for a shake with him. He found the \"nigger\" in\nhim involuntarily giving the road, on the sidewalk, to a white rowdy and\nloafer. When Rowena, the dearest thing his heart knew, the idol of his\nsecret worship, invited him in, the \"nigger\" in him made an embarrassed\nexcuse and was afraid to enter and sit with the dread white folks on\nequal terms. The \"nigger\" in him went shrinking and skulking here and\nthere and yonder, and fancying it saw suspicion and maybe detection in\nall faces, tones, and gestures. So strange and uncharacteristic was\nTom's conduct that people noticed it, and turned to look after him when\nhe passed on; and when he glanced back--as he could not help doing, in\nspite of his best resistance--and caught that puzzled expression in a\nperson's face, it gave him a sick feeling, and he took himself out of\nview as quickly as he could. He presently came to have a hunted sense\nand a hunted look, and then he fled away to the hilltops and the\nsolitudes. He said to himself that the curse of Ham was upon him.\n\nHe dreaded his meals; the \"nigger\" in him was ashamed to sit at the white\nfolk's table, and feared discovery all the time; and once when Judge\nDriscoll said, \"What's the matter with you? You look as meek as a\nnigger,\" he felt as secret murderers are said to feel when the accuser\nsays, \"Thou art the man!\" Tom said he was not well, and left the table.\n\nHis ostensible \"aunt's\" solicitudes and endearments were become a terror\nto him, and he avoided them.\n\nAnd all the time, hatred of his ostensible \"uncle\" was steadily growing\nin his heart; for he said to himself, \"He is white; and I am his chattel,\nhis property, his goods, and he can sell me, just as he could his dog.\"\n\nFor as much as a week after this, Tom imagined that his character had\nundergone a pretty radical change. But that was because he did not know\nhimself.\n\nIn several ways his opinions were totally changed, and would never go\nback to what they were before, but the main structure of his character\nwas not changed, and could not be changed. One or two very important\nfeatures of it were altered, and in time effects would result from this,\nif opportunity offered--effects of a quite serious nature, too. Under the\ninfluence of a great mental and moral upheaval, his character and his\nhabits had taken on the appearance of complete change, but after a while\nwith the subsidence of the storm, both began to settle toward their\nformer places. He dropped gradually back into his old frivolous and\neasygoing ways and conditions of feeling and manner of speech, and no\nfamiliar of his could have detected anything in him that differentiated\nhim from the weak and careless Tom of other days.\n\nThe theft raid which he had made upon the village turned out better than\nhe had ventured to hope. It produced the sum necessary to pay his gaming\ndebts, and saved him from exposure to his uncle and another smashing of\nthe will. He and his mother learned to like each other fairly well. She\ncouldn't love him, as yet, because there \"warn't nothing _to_ him,\" as\nshe expressed it, but her nature needed something or somebody to rule\nover, and he was better than nothing. Her strong character and\naggressive and commanding ways compelled Tom's admiration in spite of the\nfact that he got more illustrations of them than he needed for his\ncomfort. However, as a rule her conversation was made up of racy tales\nabout the privacies of the chief families of the town (for she went\nharvesting among their kitchens every time she came to the village), and\nTom enjoyed this. It was just in his line. She always collected her\nhalf of his pension punctually, and he was always at the haunted house to\nhave a chat with her on these occasions. Every now and then, she paid\nhim a visit there on between-days also.\n\nOccasions he would run up to St. Louis for a few weeks, and at last\ntemptation caught him again. He won a lot of money, but lost it, and\nwith it a deal more besides, which he promised to raise as soon as\npossible.\n\nFor this purpose he projected a new raid on his town. He never meddled\nwith any other town, for he was afraid to venture into houses whose ins\nand outs he did not know and the habits of whose households he was not\nacquainted with. He arrived at the haunted house in disguise on the\nWednesday before the advent of the twins--after writing his Aunt Pratt\nthat he would not arrive until two days after--and laying in hiding there\nwith his mother until toward daylight Friday morning, when he went to his\nuncle's house and entered by the back way with his own key, and slipped\nup to his room where he could have the use of the mirror and toilet\narticles. He had a suit of girl's clothes with him in a bundle as a\ndisguise for his raid, and was wearing a suit of his mother's clothing,\nwith black gloves and veil. By dawn he was tricked out for his raid, but\nhe caught a glimpse of Pudd'nhead Wilson through the window over the way,\nand knew that Pudd'nhead had caught a glimpse of him. So he entertained\nWilson with some airs and graces and attitudes for a while, then stepped\nout of sight and resumed the other disguise, and by and by went down and\nout the back way and started downtown to reconnoiter the scene of his\nintended labors.\n\nBut he was ill at ease. He had changed back to Roxy's dress, with the\nstoop of age added to the disguise, so that Wilson would not bother\nhimself about a humble old women leaving a neighbor's house by the back\nway in the early morning, in case he was still spying. But supposing\nWilson had seen him leave, and had thought it suspicious, and had also\nfollowed him? The thought made Tom cold. He gave up the raid for the\nday, and hurried back to the haunted house by the obscurest route he\nknew. His mother was gone; but she came back, by and by, with the news of\nthe grand reception at Patsy Cooper's, and soon persuaded him that the\nopportunity was like a special Providence, it was so inviting and\nperfect. So he went raiding, after all, and made a nice success of it\nwhile everybody was gone to Patsy Cooper's. Success gave him nerve and\neven actual intrepidity; insomuch, indeed, that after he had conveyed his\nharvest to his mother in a back alley, he went to the reception himself,\nand added several of the valuables of that house to his takings.\n\nAfter this long digression we have now arrived once more at the point\nwhere Pudd'nhead Wilson, while waiting for the arrival of the twins on\nthat same Friday evening, sat puzzling over the strange apparition of\nthat morning--a girl in young Tom Driscoll's bedroom; fretting, and\nguessing, and puzzling over it, and wondering who the shameless creature\nmight be.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 11 -- Pudd'nhead's Thrilling Discovery\n\n     _There are three infallible ways of pleasing an author, and\n     the three form a rising scale of compliment: 1--to tell him\n     you have read one of his books; 2--to tell him you have read\n     all of his books; 3--to ask him to let you read the\n     manuscript of his forthcoming book. No. 1 admits you to his\n     respect; No. 2 admits you to his admiration; No. 3 carries\n     you clear into his heart._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n     _As to the Adjective: when in doubt, strike it out._\n     --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nThe twins arrived presently, and talk began. It flowed along chattily\nand sociably, and under its influence the new friendship gathered ease\nand strength. Wilson got out his Calendar, by request, and read a\npassage or two from it, which the twins praised quite cordially. This\npleased the author so much that he complied gladly when they asked him to\nlend them a batch of the work to read at home. In the course of their\nwide travels, they had found out that there are three sure ways of\npleasing an author; they were now working the best of the three.\n\nThere was an interruption now. Young Driscoll appeared, and joined the\nparty. He pretended to be seeing the distinguished strangers for the\nfirst time when they rose to shake hands; but this was only a blind, as\nhe had already had a glimpse of them, at the reception, while robbing the\nhouse. The twins made mental note that he was smooth-faced and rather\nhandsome, and smooth and undulatory in his movements--graceful, in fact.\nAngelo thought he had a good eye; Luigi thought there was something\nveiled and sly about it. Angelo thought he had a pleasant free-and-easy\nway of talking; Luigi thought it was more so than was agreeable. Angelo\nthought he was a sufficiently nice young man; Luigi reserved his\ndecision. Tom's first contribution to the conversation was a question\nwhich he had put to Wilson a hundred times before. It was always cheerily\nand good-natured put, and always inflicted a little pang, for it touched\na secret sore; but this time the pang was sharp, since strangers were\npresent.\n\n\"Well, how does the law come on? Had a case yet?\"\n\nWilson bit his lip, but answered, \"No--not yet,\" with as much\nindifference as he could assume. Judge Driscoll had generously left the\nlaw feature out of Wilson's biography which he had furnished to the\ntwins. Young Tom laughed pleasantly, and said:\n\n\"Wilson's a lawyer, gentlemen, but he doesn't practice now.\"\n\nThe sarcasm bit, but Wilson kept himself under control, and said without\npassion:\n\n\"I don't practice, it is true. It is true that I have never had a case,\nand have had to earn a poor living for twenty years as an expert\naccountant in a town where I can't get a hold of a set of books to\nuntangle as often as I should like. But it is also true that I did\nmyself well for the practice of the law. By the time I was your age,\nTom, I had chosen a profession, and was soon competent to enter upon it.\"\nTom winced. \"I never got a chance to try my hand at it, and I may never\nget a chance; and yet if I ever do get it, I shall be found ready, for I\nhave kept up my law studies all these years.\"\n\n\"That's it; that's good grit! I like to see it. I've a notion to throw\nall my business your way. My business and your law practice ought to\nmake a pretty gay team, Dave,\" and the young fellow laughed again.\n\n\"If you will throw--\" Wilson had thought of the girl in Tom's bedroom,\nand was going to say, \"If you will throw the surreptitious and\ndisreputable part of your business my way, it may amount to something,\"\nbut thought better of it and said,\n\n\"However, this matter doesn't fit well in a general conversation.\"\n\n\"All right, we'll change the subject; I guess you were about to give me\nanother dig, anyway, so I'm willing to change. How's the Awful Mystery\nflourishing these days? Wilson's got a scheme for driving plain window\nglass panes out of the market by decorating it with greasy finger marks,\nand getting rich by selling it at famine prices to the crowned heads over\nin Europe to outfit their palaces with. Fetch it out, Dave.\"\n\nWilson brought three of his glass strips, and said:\n\n\"I get the subject to pass the fingers of his right hand through his hair,\nso as to get a little coating of the natural oil on them, and then press\nthe balls of them on the glass. A fine and delicate print of the lines\nin the skin results, and is permanent, if it doesn't come in contact with\nsomething able to rub it off. You begin, Tom.\"\n\n\"Why, I think you took my finger marks once or twice before.\"\n\n\"Yes, but you were a little boy the last time, only about twelve years\nold.\"\n\n\"That's so. Of course, I've changed entirely since then, and variety is\nwhat the crowned heads want, I guess.\"\n\nHe passed his fingers through his crop of short hair, and pressed them\none at a time on the glass. Angelo made a print of his fingers on\nanother glass, and Luigi followed with a third. Wilson marked the\nglasses with names and dates, and put them away. Tom gave one of his\nlittle laughs, and said:\n\n\"I thought I wouldn't say anything, but if variety is what you are after,\nyou have wasted a piece of glass. The hand print of one twin is the same\nas the hand print of the fellow twin.\"\n\n\"Well, it's done now, and I like to have them both, anyway,\" said Wilson,\nreturned to his place.\n\n\"But look here, Dave,\" said Tom, \"you used to tell people's fortunes, too,\nwhen you took their finger marks. Dave's just an all-round genius--a\ngenius of the first water, gentlemen; a great scientist running to seed\nhere in this village, a prophet with the kind of honor that prophets\ngenerally get at home--for here they don't give shucks for his\nscientifics, and they call his skull a notion factory--hey, Dave, ain't\nit so? But never mind, he'll make his mark someday--finger mark, you\nknow, he-he! But really, you want to let him take a shy at your palms\nonce; it's worth twice the price of admission or your money's returned at\nthe door. Why, he'll read your wrinkles as easy as a book, and not only\ntell you fifty or sixty things that's going to happen to you, but fifty\nor sixty thousand that ain't. Come, Dave, show the gentlemen what an\ninspired jack-at-all-science we've got in this town, and don't know it.\"\n\nWilson winced under this nagging and not very courteous chaff, and the\ntwins suffered with him and for him. They rightly judged, now, that the\nbest way to relieve him would be to take the thing in earnest and\ntreat it with respect, ignoring Tom's rather overdone raillery; so Luigi\nsaid:\n\n\"We have seen something of palmistry in our wanderings, and know very\nwell what astonishing things it can do. If it isn't a science, and one\nof the greatest of them too, I don't know what its other name ought to\nbe. In the Orient--\"\n\nTom looked surprised and incredulous. He said:\n\n\"That juggling a science? But really, you ain't serious, are you?\"\n\n\"Yes, entirely so. Four years ago we had our hands read out to us as if\nour plans had been covered with print.\"\n\n\"Well, do you mean to say there was actually anything in it?\" asked Tom,\nhis incredulity beginning to weaken a little.\n\n\"There was this much in it,\" said Angelo: \"what was told us of our\ncharacters was minutely exact--we could have not have bettered it\nourselves. Next, two or three memorable things that have happened to us\nwere laid bare--things which no one present but ourselves could have\nknown about.\"\n\n\"Why, it's rank sorcery!\" exclaimed Tom, who was now becoming very much\ninterested. \"And how did they make out with what was going to happen to\nyou in the future?\"\n\n\"On the whole, quite fairly,\" said Luigi. \"Two or three of the most\nstriking things foretold have happened since; much the most striking one\nof all happened within that same year. Some of the minor prophesies have\ncome true; some of the minor and some of the major ones have not been\nfulfilled yet, and of course may never be: still, I should be more\nsurprised if they failed to arrive than if they didn't.\"\n\nTom was entirely sobered, and profoundly impressed. He said,\napologetically:\n\n\"Dave, I wasn't meaning to belittle that science; I was only chaffing\n--chattering, I reckon I'd better say. I wish you would look at their\npalms. Come, won't you?\"\n\n\"Why certainly, if you want me to; but you know I've had no chance to\nbecome an expert, and don't claim to be one. When a past event is\nsomewhat prominently recorded in the palm, I can generally detect that,\nbut minor ones often escape me--not always, of course, but often--but I\nhaven't much confidence in myself when it comes to reading the future. I\nam talking as if palmistry was a daily study with me, but that is not so.\nI haven't examined half a dozen hands in the last half dozen years; you\nsee, the people got to joking about it, and I stopped to let the talk die\ndown. I'll tell you what we'll do, Count Luigi: I'll make a try at your\npast, and if I have any success there--no, on the whole, I'll let the\nfuture alone; that's really the affair of an expert.\"\n\nHe took Luigi's hand. Tom said:\n\n\"Wait--don't look yet, Dave! Count Luigi, here's paper and pencil. Set\ndown that thing that you said was the most striking one that was foretold\nto you, and happened less than a year afterward, and give it to me so I\ncan see if Dave finds it in your hand.\"\n\nLuigi wrote a line privately, and folded up the piece of paper, and\nhanded it to Tom, saying:\n\n\"I'll tell you when to look at it, if he finds it.\"\n\nWilson began to study Luigi's palm, tracing life lines, heart lines, head\nlines, and so on, and noting carefully their relations with the cobweb of\nfiner and more delicate marks and lines that enmeshed them on all sides;\nhe felt of the fleshy cushion at the base of the thumb and noted its\nshape; he felt of the fleshy side of the hand between the wrist and the\nbase of the little finger and noted its shape also; he painstakingly\nexamined the fingers, observing their form, proportions, and natural\nmanner of disposing themselves when in repose. All this process was\nwatched by the three spectators with absorbing interest, their heads bent\ntogether over Luigi's palm, and nobody disturbing the stillness with a\nword. Wilson now entered upon a close survey of the palm again, and his\nrevelations began.\n\nHe mapped out Luigi's character and disposition, his tastes, aversions,\nproclivities, ambitions, and eccentricities in a way which sometimes made\nLuigi wince and the others laugh, but both twins declared that the chart\nwas artistically drawn and was correct.\n\nNext, Wilson took up Luigi's history. He proceeded cautiously and with\nhesitation now, moving his finger slowly along the great lines of the\npalm, and now and then halting it at a \"star\" or some such landmark, and\nexamining that neighborhood minutely. He proclaimed one or two past\nevents, Luigi confirmed his correctness, and the search went on.\nPresently Wilson glanced up suddenly with a surprised expression.\n\n\"Here is a record of an incident which you would perhaps not wish me\nto--\"\n\n\"Bring it out,\" said Luigi, good-naturedly. \"I promise you sha'n't\nembarrass me.\"\n\nBut Wilson still hesitated, and did not seem quite to know what to do.\nThen he said:\n\n\"I think it is too delicate a matter to--to--I believe I would rather\nwrite it or whisper it to you, and let you decide for yourself whether\nyou want it talked out or not.\"\n\n\"That will answer,\" said Luigi. \"Write it.\"\n\nWilson wrote something on a slip of paper and handed it to Luigi, who\nread it to himself and said to Tom:\n\n\"Unfold your slip and read it, Mr. Driscoll.\"\n\nTom said:\n\n\"'IT WAS PROPHESIED THAT I WOULD KILL A MAN. IT CAME TRUE BEFORE THE\nYEAR WAS OUT.'\"\n\nTom added, \"Great Scott!\"\n\nLuigi handed Wilson's paper to Tom, and said:\n\n\"Now read this one.\"\n\nTom read:\n\n\"'YOU HAVE KILLED SOMEONE, BUT WHETHER MAN, WOMAN, OR CHILD, I DO NOT\nMAKE OUT.'\"\n\n\"Caesar's ghost!\" commented Tom, with astonishment. \"It beats anything\nthat was ever heard of! Why, a man's own hand is his deadliest enemy!\nJust think of that--a man's own hand keeps a record of the deepest and\nfatalest secrets of his life, and is treacherously ready to expose\nhimself to any black-magic stranger that comes along. But what do you\nlet a person look at your hand for, with that awful thing printed on it?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Luigi, reposefully, \"I don't mind it. I killed the man for\ngood reasons, and I don't regret it.\"\n\n\"What were the reasons?\"\n\n\"Well, he needed killing.\"\n\n\"I'll tell you why he did it, since he won't say himself,\" said Angelo,\nwarmly. \"He did it to save my life, that's what he did it for. So it was\na noble act, and not a thing to be hid in the dark.\"\n\n\"So it was, so it was,\" said Wilson. \"To do such a thing to save a\nbrother's life is a great and fine action.\"\n\n\"Now come,\" said Luigi, \"it is very pleasant to hear you say these\nthings, but for unselfishness, or heroism, or magnanimity, the\ncircumstances won't stand scrutiny. You overlook one detail; suppose I\nhadn't saved Angelo's life, what would have become of mine? If I had let\nthe man kill him, wouldn't he have killed me, too? I saved my own life,\nyou see.\"\n\n\"Yes, that is your way of talking,\" said Angelo, \"but I know you--I\ndon't believe you thought of yourself at all. I keep that weapon yet\nthat Luigi killed the man with, and I'll show it to you sometime. That\nincident makes it interesting, and it had a history before it came into\nLuigi's hands which adds to its interest. It was given to Luigi by a\ngreat Indian prince, the Gaikowar of Baroda, and it had been in his\nfamily two or three centuries. It killed a good many disagreeable people\nwho troubled the hearthstone at one time or another. It isn't much too\nlook at, except it isn't shaped like other knives, or dirks, or whatever\nit may be called--here, I'll draw it for you.\" He took a sheet of paper\nand made a rapid sketch. \"There it is--a broad and murderous blade, with\nedges like a razor for sharpness. The devices engraved on it are the\nciphers or names of its long line of possessors--I had Luigi's name added\nin Roman letters myself with our coat of arms, as you see. You notice\nwhat a curious handle the thing has. It is solid ivory, polished like a\nmirror, and is four or five inches long--round, and as thick as a large\nman's wrist, with the end squared off flat, for your thumb to rest on;\nfor you grasp it, with your thumb resting on the blunt end--so--and lift\nit along and strike downward. The Gaikowar showed us how the thing was\ndone when he gave it to Luigi, and before that night was ended, Luigi had\nused the knife, and the Gaikowar was a man short by reason of it. The\nsheath is magnificently ornamented with gems of great value. You will\nfind a sheath more worth looking at than the knife itself, of course.\"\n\nTom said to himself:\n\n\"It's lucky I came here. I would have sold that knife for a song; I\nsupposed the jewels were glass.\"\n\n\"But go on; don't stop,\" said Wilson. \"Our curiosity is up now, to hear\nabout the homicide. Tell us about that.\"\n\n\"Well, briefly, the knife was to blame for that, all around. A native\nservant slipped into our room in the palace in the night, to kill us and\nsteal the knife on account of the fortune encrusted on its sheath,\nwithout a doubt. Luigi had it under his pillow; we were in bed together.\nThere was a dim night-light burning. I was asleep, but Luigi was awake,\nand he thought he detected a vague form nearing the bed. He slipped the\nknife out of the sheath and was ready and unembarrassed by hampering\nbedclothes, for the weather was hot and we hadn't any. Suddenly that\nnative rose at the bedside, and bent over me with his right hand lifted\nand a dirk in it aimed at my throat; but Luigi grabbed his wrist, pulled\nhim downward, and drove his own knife into the man's neck. That is the\nwhole story.\"\n\nWilson and Tom drew deep breaths, and after some general chat about the\ntragedy, Pudd'nhead said, taking Tom's hand:\n\n\"Now, Tom, I've never had a look at your palms, as it happens; perhaps\nyou've got some little questionable privacies that need--hel-lo!\"\n\nTom had snatched away his hand, and was looking a good deal confused.\n\n\"Why, he's blushing!\" said Luigi.\n\nTom darted an ugly look at him, and said sharply:\n\n\"Well, if I am, it ain't because I'm a murderer!\" Luigi's dark face\nflushed, but before he could speak or move, Tom added with anxious haste:\n\"Oh, I beg a thousand pardons. I didn't mean that; it was out before I\nthought, and I'm very, very sorry--you must forgive me!\"\n\nWilson came to the rescue, and smoothed things down as well as he could;\nand in fact was entirely successful as far as the twins were concerned,\nfor they felt sorrier for the affront put upon him by his guest's\noutburst of ill manners than for the insult offered to Luigi. But the\nsuccess was not so pronounced with the offender. Tom tried to seem at\nhis ease, and he went through the motions fairly well, but at bottom he\nfelt resentful toward all the three witnesses of his exhibition; in fact,\nhe felt so annoyed at them for having witnessed it and noticed it that he\nalmost forgot to feel annoyed at himself for placing it before them.\nHowever, something presently happened which made him almost comfortable,\nand brought him nearly back to a state of charity and friendliness. This\nwas a little spat between the twins; not much of a spat, but still a\nspat; and before they got far with it, they were in a decided condition\nof irritation while pretending to be actuated by more respectable\nmotives. By his help the fire got warmed up to the blazing point, and he\nmight have had the happiness of seeing the flames show up in another\nmoment, but for the interruption of a knock on the door--an interruption\nwhich fretted him as much as it gratified Wilson. Wilson opened the\ndoor.\n\nThe visitor was a good-natured, ignorant, energetic middle-aged Irishman\nnamed John Buckstone, who was a great politician in a small way, and\nalways took a large share in public matters of every sort. One of the\ntown's chief excitements, just now, was over the matter of rum. There\nwas a strong rum party and a strong anti-rum party. Buckstone was\ntraining with the rum party, and he had been sent to hunt up the twins\nand invite them to attend a mass meeting of that faction. He delivered\nhis errand, and said the clans were already gathering in the big hall\nover the market house. Luigi accepted the invitation cordially. Angelo\nless cordially, since he disliked crowds, and did not drink the powerful\nintoxicants of America. In fact, he was even a teetotaler sometimes\n--when it was judicious to be one.\n\nThe twins left with Buckstone, and Tom Driscoll joined the company with\nthem uninvited.\n\nIn the distance, one could see a long wavering line of torches drifting\ndown the main street, and could hear the throbbing of the bass drum, the\nclash of cymbals, the squeaking of a fife or two, and the faint roar of\nremote hurrahs. The tail end of this procession was climbing the market\nhouse stairs when the twins arrived in its neighborhood; when they\nreached the hall, it was full of people, torches, smoke, noise, and\nenthusiasm. They were conducted to the platform by Buckstone--Tom\nDriscoll still following--and were delivered to the chairman in the midst\nof a prodigious explosion of welcome. When the noise had moderated a\nlittle, the chair proposed that \"our illustrious guests be at once\nelected, by complimentary acclamation, to membership in our ever-glorious\norganization, the paradise of the free and the perdition of the slave.\"\n\nThis eloquent discharge opened the floodgates of enthusiasm again, and\nthe election was carried with thundering unanimity. Then arose a storm\nof cries:\n\n\"Wet them down! Wet them down! Give them a drink!\"\n\nGlasses of whisky were handed to the twins. Luigi waves his aloft, then\nbrought it to his lips; but Angelo set his down. There was another storm\nof cries.\n\n\"What's the matter with the other one?\" \"What is the blond one going\nback on us for?\" \"Explain! Explain!\"\n\nThe chairman inquired, and then reported:\n\n\"We have made an unfortunate mistake, gentlemen. I find that the Count\nAngelo Capello is opposed to our creed--is a teetotaler, in fact, and was\nnot intending to apply for membership with us. He desires that we\nreconsider the vote by which he was elected. What is the pleasure of the\nhouse?\"\n\nThere was a general burst of laughter, plentifully accented with\nwhistlings and catcalls, but the energetic use of the gavel presently\nrestored something like order. Then a man spoke from the crowd, and said\nthat while he was very sorry that the mistake had been made, it would not\nbe possible to rectify it at the present meeting. According to the\nbylaws, it must go over to the next regular meeting for action. He would\nnot offer a motion, as none was required. He desired to apologize to the\ngentlemen in the name of the house, and begged to assure him that as far\nas it might lie in the power of the Sons of Liberty, his temporary\nmembership in the order would be made pleasant to him.\n\nThis speech was received with great applause, mixed with cries of:\n\n\"That's the talk!\" \"He's a good fellow, anyway, if he _is_ a teetotaler!\"\n\"Drink his health!\" \"Give him a rouser, and no heeltaps!\"\n\nGlasses were handed around, and everybody on the platform drank Angelo's\nhealth, while the house bellowed forth in song:\n\n\n      For he's a jolly good fel-low,\n      For he's a jolly good fel-low,\n      For he's a jolly good fe-el-low,\n      Which nobody can deny.\n\nTom Driscoll drank. It was his second glass, for he had drunk Angelo's\nthe moment that Angelo had set it down. The two drinks made him very\nmerry--almost idiotically so, and he began to take a most lively and\nprominent part in the proceedings, particularly in the music and catcalls\nand side remarks.\n\nThe chairman was still standing at the front, the twins at his side. The\nextraordinarily close resemblance of the brothers to each other suggested\na witticism to Tom Driscoll, and just as the chairman began a speech he\nskipped forward and said, with an air of tipsy confidence, to the\naudience:\n\n\"Boys, I move that he keeps still and lets this human philopena snip you\nout a speech.\"\n\nThe descriptive aptness of the phrase caught the house, and a mighty\nburst of laughter followed.\n\nLuigi's southern blood leaped to the boiling point in a moment under the\nsharp humiliation of this insult delivered in the presence of four\nhundred strangers. It was not in the young man's nature to let the\nmatter pass, or to delay the squaring of the account. He took a couple of\nstrides and halted behind the unsuspecting joker. Then he drew back and\ndelivered a kick of such titanic vigor that it lifted Tom clear over the\nfootlights and landed him on the heads of the front row of the Sons of\nLiberty.\n\nEven a sober person does not like to have a human being emptied on him\nwhen he is not doing any harm; a person who is not sober cannot endure\nsuch an attention at all. The nest of Sons of Liberty that Driscoll\nlanded in had not a sober bird in it; in fact there was probably not an\nentirely sober one in the auditorium. Driscoll was promptly and\nindignantly flung on the heads of Sons in the next row, and these Sons\npassed him on toward the rear, and then immediately began to pummel the\nfront row Sons who had passed him to them. This course was strictly\nfollowed by bench after bench as Driscoll traveled in his tumultuous and\nairy flight toward the door; so he left behind him an ever-lengthening\nwake of raging and plunging and fighting and swearing humanity. Down went\ngroup after group of torches, and presently above the deafening clatter\nof the gavel, roar of angry voices, and crash of succumbing benches, rose\nthe paralyzing cry of \"_fire!_\"\n\nThe fighting ceased instantly; the cursing ceased; for one distinctly\ndefined moment, there was a dead hush, a motionless calm, where the\ntempest had been; then with one impulse the multitude awoke to life and\nenergy again, and went surging and struggling and swaying, this way and\nthat, its outer edges melting away through windows and doors and\ngradually lessening the pressure and relieving the mass.\n\nThe fireboys were never on hand so suddenly before; for there was no\ndistance to go this time, their quarters being in the rear end of the\nmarket house, There was an engine company and a hook-and-ladder company.\nHalf of each was composed of rummies and the other half of anti-rummies,\nafter the moral and political share-and-share-alike fashion of the\nfrontier town of the period. Enough anti-rummies were loafing in quarters\nto man the engine and the ladders. In two minutes they had their red\nshirts and helmets on--they never stirred officially in unofficial\ncostume--and as the mass meeting overhead smashed through the long row of\nwindows and poured out upon the roof of the arcade, the deliverers were\nready for them with a powerful stream of water, which washed some of them\noff the roof and nearly drowned the rest. But water was preferable to\nfire, and still the stampede from the windows continued, and still the\npitiless drenching assailed it until the building was empty; then the\nfireboys mounted to the hall and flooded it with water enough to\nannihilate forty times as much fire as there was there; for a village\nfire company does not often get a chance to show off, and so when it does\nget a chance, it makes the most of it. Such citizens of that village as\nwere of a thoughtful and judicious temperament did not insure against\nfire; they insured against the fire company.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 12 -- The Shame of Judge Driscoll\n\n     _Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear--not absence\n     of fear. Except a creature be part coward, it is not a\n     compliment to say it is brave; it is merely a loose\n     misapplication of the word. Consider the flea!--incomparably\n     the bravest of all the creatures of God, if ignorance of\n     fear were courage. Whether you are asleep or awake he will\n     attack you, caring nothing for the fact that in bulk and\n     strength you are to him as are the massed armies of the\n     earth to a sucking child; he lives both day and night and\n     all days and nights in the very lap of peril and the\n     immediate presence of death, and yet is no more afraid than\n     is the man who walks the streets of a city that was\n     threatened by an earthquake ten centuries before. When we\n     speak of Clive, Nelson, and Putnam as men who \"didn't know\n     what fear was,\" we ought always to add the flea--and put him\n     at the head of the procession._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's\n     Calendar\n\n\nJudge Driscoll was in bed and asleep by ten o'clock on Friday night, and\nhe was up and gone a-fishing before daylight in the morning with his\nfriend Pembroke Howard. These two had been boys together in Virginia\nwhen that state still ranked as the chief and most imposing member of the\nUnion, and they still coupled the proud and affectionate adjective \"old\"\nwith her name when they spoke of her. In Missouri a recognized\nsuperiority attached to any person who hailed from Old Virginia; and this\nsuperiority was exalted to supremacy when a person of such nativity could\nalso prove descent from the First Families of that great commonwealth.\nThe Howards and Driscolls were of this aristocracy. In their eyes, it\nwas a nobility. It had its unwritten laws, and they were as clearly\ndefined and as strict as any that could be found among the printed\nstatutes of the land. The F.F.V. was born a gentleman; his highest duty in\nlife was to watch over that great inheritance and keep it unsmirched. He\nmust keep his honor spotless. Those laws were his chart; his course was\nmarked out on it; if he swerved from it by so much as half a point of the\ncompass, it meant shipwreck to his honor; that is to say, degradation\nfrom his rank as a gentleman. These laws required certain things of him\nwhich his religion might forbid: then his religion must yield--the laws\ncould not be relaxed to accommodate religions or anything else. Honor\nstood first; and the laws defined what it was and wherein it differed in\ncertain details from honor as defined by church creeds and by the social\nlaws and customs of some of the minor divisions of the globe that had got\ncrowded out when the sacred boundaries of Virginia were staked out.\n\nIf Judge Driscoll was the recognized first citizen of Dawson's Landing,\nPembroke Howard was easily its recognized second citizen. He was called\n\"the great lawyer\"--an earned title. He and Driscoll were of the same\nage--a year or two past sixty.\n\nAlthough Driscoll was a freethinker and Howard a strong and determined\nPresbyterian, their warm intimacy suffered no impairment in consequence.\nThey were men whose opinions were their own property and not subject to\nrevision and amendment, suggestion or criticism, by anybody, even their\nfriends.\n\nThe day's fishing finished, they came floating downstream in their skiff,\ntalking national politics and other high matters, and presently met a\nskiff coming up from town, with a man in it who said:\n\n\"I reckon you know one of the new twins gave your nephew a kicking last\nnight, Judge?\"\n\n\"Did WHAT?\"\n\n\"Gave him a kicking.\"\n\nThe old judge's lips paled, and his eyes began to flame. He choked with\nanger for a moment, then he got out what he was trying to say:\n\n\"Well--well--go on! Give me the details!\"\n\nThe man did it. At the finish the judge was silent a minute, turning\nover in his mind the shameful picture of Tom's flight over the\nfootlights; then he said, as if musing aloud,\n\n\"H'm--I don't understand it. I was asleep at home. He didn't wake me.\nThought he was competent to manage his affair without my help, I reckon.\"\nHis face lit up with pride and pleasure at that thought, and he said with\na cheery complacency, \"I like that--it's the true old blood--hey,\nPembroke?\"\n\nHoward smiled an iron smile, and nodded his head approvingly. Then the\nnews-bringer spoke again.\n\n\"But Tom beat the twin on the trial.\"\n\nThe judge looked at the man wonderingly, and said:\n\n\"The trial? What trial?\"\n\n\"Why, Tom had him up before Judge Robinson for assault and battery.\"\n\nThe old man shrank suddenly together like one who has received a death\nstroke. Howard sprang for him as he sank forward in a swoon, and took\nhim in his arms, and bedded him on his back in the boat. He sprinkled\nwater in his face, and said to the startled visitor:\n\n\"Go, now--don't let him come to and find you here. You see what an\neffect your heedless speech has had; you ought to have been more\nconsiderate than to blurt out such a cruel piece of slander as that.\"\n\n\"I'm right down sorry I did it now, Mr. Howard, and I wouldn't have done\nit if I had thought; but it ain't slander; it's perfectly true, just as I\ntold him.\"\n\nHe rowed away. Presently the old judge came out of his faint and looked\nup piteously into the sympathetic face that was bent over him.\n\n\"Say it ain't true, Pembroke; tell me it ain't true!\" he said in a weak\nvoice.\n\nThere was nothing weak in the deep organ tones that responded:\n\n\"You know it's a lie as well as I do, old friend. He is of the best\nblood of the Old Dominion.\"\n\n\"God bless you for saying it!\" said the old gentleman, fervently. \"Ah,\nPembroke, it was such a blow!\"\n\nHoward stayed by his friend, and saw him home, and entered the house with\nhim. It was dark, and past supper-time, but the judge was not thinking\nof supper; he was eager to hear the slander refuted from headquarters,\nand as eager to have Howard hear it, too. Tom was sent for, and he came\nimmediately. He was bruised and lame, and was not a happy-looking\nobject. His uncle made him sit down, and said:\n\n\"We have been hearing about your adventure, Tom, with a handsome lie\nadded for embellishment. Now pulverize that lie to dust! What measures\nhave you taken? How does the thing stand?\"\n\nTom answered guilelessly: \"It don't stand at all; it's all over. I had\nhim up in court and beat him. Pudd'nhead Wilson defended him--first\ncase he ever had, and lost it. The judge fined the miserable hound five\ndollars for the assault.\"\n\nHoward and the judge sprang to their feet with the opening sentence\n--why, neither knew; then they stood gazing vacantly at each other.\nHoward stood a moment, then sat mournfully down without saying anything.\nThe judge's wrath began to kindle, and he burst out:\n\n\"You cur! You scum! You vermin! Do you mean to tell me that blood of\nmy race has suffered a blow and crawled to a court of law about it?\nAnswer me!\"\n\nTom's head drooped, and he answered with an eloquent silence. His uncle\nstared at him with a mixed expression of amazement and shame and\nincredulity that was sorrowful to see. At last he said:\n\n\"Which of the twins was it?\"\n\n\"Count Luigi.\"\n\n\"You have challenged him?\"\n\n\"N--no,\" hesitated Tom, turning pale.\n\n\"You will challenge him tonight. Howard will carry it.\"\n\nTom began to turn sick, and to show it. He turned his hat round and\nround in his hand, his uncle glowering blacker and blacker upon him as\nthe heavy seconds drifted by; then at last he began to stammer, and said\npiteously:\n\n\"Oh, please, don't ask me to do it, uncle! He is a murderous devil--I\nnever could--I--I'm afraid of him!\"\n\nOld Driscoll's mouth opened and closed three times before he could get it\nto perform its office; then he stormed out:\n\n\"A coward in my family! A Driscoll a coward! Oh, what have I done to\ndeserve this infamy!\" He tottered to his secretary in the corner,\nrepeated that lament again and again in heartbreaking tones, and got out\nof a drawer a paper, which he slowly tore to bits, scattering the bits\nabsently in his track as he walked up and down the room, still grieving\nand lamenting. At last he said:\n\n\"There it is, shreds and fragments once more--my will. Once more you\nhave forced me to disinherit you, you base son of a most noble father!\nLeave my sight! Go--before I spit on you!\"\n\nThe young man did not tarry. Then the judge turned to Howard:\n\n\"You will be my second, old friend?\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"There is pen and paper. Draft the cartel, and lose no time.\"\n\n\"The Count shall have it in his hands in fifteen minutes,\" said Howard.\n\nTom was very heavyhearted. His appetite was gone with his property and\nhis self-respect. He went out the back way and wandered down the obscure\nlane grieving, and wondering if any course of future conduct, however\ndiscreet and carefully perfected and watched over, could win back his\nuncle's favor and persuade him to reconstruct once more that generous\nwill which had just gone to ruin before his eyes. He finally concluded\nthat it could. He said to himself that he had accomplished this sort of\ntriumph once already, and that what had been done once could be done\nagain. He would set about it. He would bend every energy to the task,\nand he would score that triumph once more, cost what it might to his\nconvenience, limit as it might his frivolous and liberty-loving life.\n\n\"To begin,\" he says to himself, \"I'll square up with the proceeds of my\nraid, and then gambling has got to be stopped--and stopped short off.\nIt's the worst vice I've got--from my standpoint, anyway, because it's\nthe one he can most easily find out, through the impatience of my\ncreditors. He thought it expensive to have to pay two hundred dollars to\nthem for me once. Expensive--_that!_ Why, it cost me the whole of his\nfortune--but, of course, he never thought of that; some people can't\nthink of any but their own side of a case. If he had known how deep I am\nin now, the will would have gone to pot without waiting for a duel to\nhelp. Three hundred dollars! It's a pile! But he'll never hear of it,\nI'm thankful to say. The minute I've cleared it off, I'm safe; and I'll\nnever touch a card again. Anyway, I won't while he lives, I make oath to\nthat. I'm entering on my last reform--I know it--yes, and I'll win; but\nafter that, if I ever slip again I'm gone.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 13 -- Tom Stares at Ruin\n\n     _When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I\n     know have gone to a better world, I am moved to lead a\n     different life._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n     _October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to\n     speculate in stocks in. The others are July, January,\n     September, April, November, May, March, June, December,\n     August, and February._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nThus mournfully communing with himself, Tom moped along the lane past\nPudd'nhead Wilson's house, and still on and on between fences enclosing\nvacant country on each hand till he neared the haunted house, then he\ncame moping back again, with many sighs and heavy with trouble. He sorely\nwanted cheerful company. Rowena! His heart gave a bound at the thought,\nbut the next thought quieted it--the detested twins would be there.\n\nHe was on the inhabited side of Wilson's house, and now as he approached\nit, he noticed that the sitting room was lighted. This would do; others\nmade him feel unwelcome sometimes, but Wilson never failed in courtesy\ntoward him, and a kindly courtesy does at least save one's feelings, even\nif it is not professing to stand for a welcome. Wilson heard footsteps at\nhis threshold, then the clearing of a throat.\n\n\"It's that fickle-tempered, dissipated young goose--poor devil, he find\nfriends pretty scarce today, likely, after the disgrace of carrying a\npersonal assault case into a law-court.\"\n\nA dejected knock. \"Come in!\"\n\nTom entered, and dropped into a chair, without saying anything. Wilson\nsaid kindly:\n\n\"Why, my boy, you look desolate. Don't take it so hard. Try and forget\nyou have been kicked.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear,\" said Tom, wretchedly, \"it's not that, Pudd'nhead--it's not\nthat. It's a thousand times worse than that--oh, yes, a million times\nworse.\"\n\n\"Why, Tom, what do you mean? Has Rowena--\"\n\n\"Flung me? _No_, but the old man has.\"\n\nWilson said to himself, \"Aha!\" and thought of the mysterious girl in the\nbedroom. \"The Driscolls have been making discoveries!\" Then he said\naloud, gravely:\n\n\"Tom, there are some kinds of dissipation which--\"\n\n\"Oh, shucks, this hasn't got anything to do with dissipation. He wanted\nme to challenge that derned Italian savage, and I wouldn't do it.\"\n\n\"Yes, of course he would do that,\" said Wilson in a meditative\nmatter-of-course way, \"but the thing that puzzled me was, why he didn't\nlook to that last night, for one thing, and why he let you carry such a\nmatter into a court of law at all, either before the duel or after it.\nIt's no place for it. It was not like him. I couldn't understand it.\nHow did it happen?\"\n\n\"It happened because he didn't know anything about it. He was asleep\nwhen I got home last night.\"\n\n\"And you didn't wake him? Tom, is that possible?\"\n\nTom was not getting much comfort here. He fidgeted a moment, then said:\n\n\"I didn't choose to tell him--that's all. He was going a-fishing before\ndawn, with Pembroke Howard, and if I got the twins into the common\ncalaboose--and I thought sure I could--I never dreamed of their slipping\nout on a paltry fine for such an outrageous offense--well, once in the\ncalaboose they would be disgraced, and uncle wouldn't want any duels with\nthat sort of characters, and wouldn't allow any.\n\n\"Tom, I am ashamed of you! I don't see how you could treat your good old\nuncle so. I am a better friend of his than you are; for if I had known\nthe circumstances I would have kept that case out of court until I got\nword to him and let him have the gentleman's chance.\"\n\n\"You would?\" exclaimed Tom, with lively surprise. \"And it your first\ncase! And you know perfectly well there never would have _been_ any case\nif he had got that chance, don't you? And you'd have finished your days\na pauper nobody, instead of being an actually launched and recognized\nlawyer today. And you would really have done that, would you?\"\n\n\"Certainly.\"\n\nTom looked at him a moment or two, then shook his head sorrowfully and\nsaid:\n\n\"I believe you--upon my word I do. I don't know why I do, but I do.\nPudd'nhead Wilson, I think you're the biggest fool I ever saw.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\"\n\n\"Don't mention it.\"\n\n\"Well, he has been requiring you to fight the Italian, and you have\nrefused. You degenerate remnant of an honorable line! I'm thoroughly\nashamed of you, Tom!\"\n\n\"Oh, that's nothing! I don't care for anything, now that the will's torn\nup again.\"\n\n\"Tom, tell me squarely--didn't he find any fault with you for anything\nbut those two things--carrying the case into court and refusing to\nfight?\"\n\nHe watched the young fellow's face narrowly, but it was entirely\nreposeful, and so also was the voice that answered:\n\n\"No, he didn't find any other fault with me. If he had had any to find,\nhe would have begun yesterday, for he was just in the humor for it. He\ndrove that jack-pair around town and showed them the sights, and when he\ncame home he couldn't find his father's old silver watch that don't keep\ntime and he thinks so much of, and couldn't remember what he did with it\nthree or four days ago when he saw it last, and when I suggested that it\nprobably wasn't lost but stolen, it put him in a regular passion, and he\nsaid I was a fool--which convinced me, without any trouble, that that\nwas just what he was afraid _had_ happened, himself, but did not want to\nbelieve it, because lost things stand a better chance of being found\nagain than stolen ones.\"\n\n\"Whe-ew!\" whistled Wilson. \"Score another one the list.\"\n\n\"Another what?\"\n\n\"Another theft!\"\n\n\"Theft?\"\n\n\"Yes, theft. That watch isn't lost, it's stolen. There's been another\nraid on the town--and just the same old mysterious sort of thing that has\nhappened once before, as you remember.\"\n\n\"You don't mean it!\"\n\n\"It's as sure as you are born! Have you missed anything yourself?\"\n\n\"No. That is, I did miss a silver pencil case that Aunt Mary Pratt gave\nme last birthday--\"\n\n\"You'll find it stolen--that's what you'll find.\"\n\n\"No, I sha'n't; for when I suggested theft about the watch and got such a\nrap, I went and examined my room, and the pencil case was missing, but it\nwas only mislaid, and I found it again.\"\n\n\"You are sure you missed nothing else?\"\n\n\"Well, nothing of consequence. I missed a small plain gold ring worth\ntwo or three dollars, but that will turn up. I'll look again.\"\n\n\"In my opinion you'll not find it. There's been a raid, I tell you. Come\n_in!_\"\n\nMr. Justice Robinson entered, followed by Buckstone and the town\nconstable, Jim Blake. They sat down, and after some wandering and\naimless weather-conversation Wilson said:\n\n\"By the way, We've just added another to the list of thefts, maybe two.\nJudge Driscoll's old silver watch is gone, and Tom here has missed a gold\nring.\"\n\n\"Well, it is a bad business,\" said the justice, \"and gets worse the\nfurther it goes. The Hankses, the Dobsons, the Pilligrews, the Ortons,\nthe Grangers, the Hales, the Fullers, the Holcombs, in fact everybody\nthat lives around about Patsy Cooper's had been robbed of little things\nlike trinkets and teaspoons and suchlike small valuables that are easily\ncarried off. It's perfectly plain that the thief took advantage of the\nreception at Patsy Cooper's when all the neighbors were in her house and\nall their niggers hanging around her fence for a look at the show, to\nraid the vacant houses undisturbed. Patsy is miserable about it;\nmiserable on account of the neighbors, and particularly miserable on\naccount of her foreigners, of course; so miserable on their account that\nshe hasn't any room to worry about her own little losses.\"\n\n\"It's the same old raider,\" said Wilson. \"I suppose there isn't any\ndoubt about that.\"\n\n\"Constable Blake doesn't think so.\"\n\n\"No, you're wrong there,\" said Blake. \"The other times it was a man;\nthere was plenty of signs of that, as we know, in the profession, though\nwe never got hands on him; but this time it's a woman.\"\n\nWilson thought of the mysterious girl straight off. She was always in\nhis mind now. But she failed him again. Blake continued:\n\n\"She's a stoop-shouldered old woman with a covered basket on her arm, in\na black veil, dressed in mourning. I saw her going aboard the ferryboat\nyesterday. Lives in Illinois, I reckon; but I don't care where she\nlives, I'm going to get her--she can make herself sure of that.\"\n\n\"What makes you think she's the thief?\"\n\n\"Well, there ain't any other, for one thing; and for another, some nigger\ndraymen that happened to be driving along saw her coming out of or going\ninto houses, and told me so--and it just happens that they was _robbed_,\nevery time.\"\n\nIt was granted that this was plenty good enough circumstantial evidence.\nA pensive silence followed, which lasted some moments, then Wilson said:\n\n\"There's one good thing, anyway. She can't either pawn or sell Count\nLuigi's costly Indian dagger.\"\n\n\"My!\" said Tom. \"Is _that_ gone?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Well, that was a haul! But why can't she pawn it or sell it?\"\n\n\"Because when the twins went home from the Sons of Liberty meeting last\nnight, news of the raid was sifting in from everywhere, and Aunt Patsy\nwas in distress to know if they had lost anything. They found that the\ndagger was gone, and they notified the police and pawnbrokers everywhere.\nIt was a great haul, yes, but the old woman won't get anything out of it,\nbecause she'll get caught.\"\n\n\"Did they offer a reward?\" asked Buckstone.\n\n\"Yes, five hundred dollars for the knife, and five hundred more for the\nthief.\"\n\n\"What a leather-headed idea!\" exclaimed the constable. \"The thief das'n't\ngo near them, nor send anybody. Whoever goes is going to get himself\nnabbed, for their ain't any pawnbroker that's going to lose the chance\nto--\"\n\nIf anybody had noticed Tom's face at that time, the gray-green color of\nit might have provoked curiosity; but nobody did. He said to himself:\n\"I'm gone! I never can square up; the rest of the plunder won't pawn or\nsell for half of the bill. Oh, I know it--I'm gone, I'm gone--and this\ntime it's for good. Oh, this is awful--I don't know what to do, nor\nwhich way to turn!\"\n\n\"Softly, softly,\" said Wilson to Blake. \"I planned their scheme for them\nat midnight last night, and it was all finished up shipshape by two this\nmorning. They'll get their dagger back, and then I'll explain to you how\nthe thing was done.\"\n\nThere were strong signs of a general curiosity, and Buckstone said:\n\n\"Well, you have whetted us up pretty sharp, Wilson, and I'm free to say\nthat if you don't mind telling us in confidence--\"\n\n\"Oh, I'd as soon tell as not, Buckstone, but as long as the twins and I\nagreed to say nothing about it, we must let it stand so. But you can take\nmy word for it, you won't be kept waiting three days. Somebody will apply\nfor that reward pretty promptly, and I'll show you the thief and the\ndagger both very soon afterward.\"\n\nThe constable was disappointed, and also perplexed. He said:\n\n\"It may all be--yes, and I hope it will, but I'm blamed if I can see my\nway through it. It's too many for yours truly.\"\n\nThe subject seemed about talked out. Nobody seemed to have anything\nfurther to offer. After a silence the justice of the peace informed\nWilson that he and Buckstone and the constable had come as a committee,\non the part of the Democratic party, to ask him to run for mayor--for the\nlittle town was about to become a city and the first charter election was\napproaching. It was the first attention which Wilson had ever received\nat the hands of any party; it was a sufficiently humble one, but it was a\nrecognition of his debut into the town's life and activities at last; it\nwas a step upward, and he was deeply gratified. He accepted, and the\ncommittee departed, followed by young Tom.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 14 -- Roxana Insists Upon Reform\n\n     _The true Southern watermelon is a boon apart, and not to be\n     mentioned with commoner things. It is chief of this world's\n     luxuries, king by the grace of God over all the fruits of\n     the earth. When one has tasted it, he knows what the angels\n     eat. It was not a Southern watermelon that Eve took: we know\n     it because she repented._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nAbout the time that Wilson was bowing the committee out, Pembroke Howard\nwas entering the next house to report. He found the old judge sitting\ngrim and straight in his chair, waiting.\n\n\"Well, Howard--the news?\"\n\n\"The best in the world.\"\n\n\"Accepts, does he?\" and the light of battle gleamed joyously in the\nJudge's eye.\n\n\"Accepts? Why he jumped at it.\"\n\n\"Did, did he? Now that's fine--that's very fine. I like that. When is\nit to be?\"\n\n\"Now! Straight off! Tonight! An admirable fellow--admirable!\"\n\n\"Admirable? He's a darling! Why, it's an honor as well as a pleasure to\nstand up before such a man. Come--off with you! Go and arrange\neverything--and give him my heartiest compliments. A rare fellow, indeed;\nan admirable fellow, as you have said!\"\n\n\"I'll have him in the vacant stretch between Wilson's and the haunted\nhouse within the hour, and I'll bring my own pistols.\"\n\nJudge Driscoll began to walk the floor in a state of pleased excitement;\nbut presently he stopped, and began to think--began to think of Tom.\nTwice he moved toward the secretary, and twice he turned away again; but\nfinally he said:\n\n\"This may be my last night in the world--I must not take the chance. He\nis worthless and unworthy, but it is largely my fault. He was entrusted\nto me by my brother on his dying bed, and I have indulged him to his\nhurt, instead of training him up severely, and making a man of him, I\nhave violated my trust, and I must not add the sin of desertion to that.\nI have forgiven him once already, and would subject him to a long and\nhard trial before forgiving him again, if I could live; but I must not\nrun that risk. No, I must restore the will. But if I survive the duel, I\nwill hide it away, and he will not know, and I will not tell him until he\nreforms, and I see that his reformation is going to be permanent.\"\n\nHe redrew the will, and his ostensible nephew was heir to a fortune\nagain. As he was finishing his task, Tom, wearied with another brooding\ntramp, entered the house and went tiptoeing past the sitting room door.\nHe glanced in, and hurried on, for the sight of his uncle was nothing but\nterrors for him tonight. But his uncle was writing! That was unusual at\nthis late hour. What could he be writing? A chill of anxiety settled\ndown upon Tom's heart. Did that writing concern him? He was afraid so.\nHe reflected that when ill luck begins, it does not come in sprinkles,\nbut in showers. He said he would get a glimpse of that document or know\nthe reason why. He heard someone coming, and stepped out of sight and\nhearing. It was Pembroke Howard. What could be hatching?\n\nHoward said, with great satisfaction:\n\n\"Everything's right and ready. He's gone to the battleground with his\nsecond and the surgeon--also with his brother. I've arranged it all with\nWilson--Wilson's his second. We are to have three shots apiece.\"\n\n\"Good! How is the moon?\"\n\n\"Bright as day, nearly. Perfect, for the distance--fifteen yards. No\nwind--not a breath; hot and still.\"\n\n\"All good; all first-rate. Here, Pembroke, read this, and witness it.\"\n\nPembroke read and witnessed the will, then gave the old man's hand a\nhearty shake and said:\n\n\"Now that's right, York--but I knew you would do it. You couldn't leave\nthat poor chap to fight along without means or profession, with certain\ndefeat before him, and I knew you wouldn't, for his father's sake if not\nfor his own.\"\n\n\"For his dead father's sake, I couldn't, I know; for poor Percy--but you\nknow what Percy was to me. But mind--Tom is not to know of this unless I\nfall tonight.\"\n\n\"I understand. I'll keep the secret.\"\n\nThe judge put the will away, and the two started for the battleground. In\nanother minute the will was in Tom's hands. His misery vanished, his\nfeelings underwent a tremendous revulsion. He put the will carefully back\nin its place, and spread his mouth and swung his hat once, twice, three\ntimes around his head, in imitation of three rousing huzzahs, no sound\nissuing from his lips. He fell to communing with himself excitedly and\njoyously, but every now and then he let off another volley of dumb\nhurrahs.\n\nHe said to himself: \"I've got the fortune again, but I'll not let on\nthat I know about it. And this time I'm going to hang on to it. I take no\nmore risks. I'll gamble no more, I'll drink no more, because--well,\nbecause I'll not go where there is any of that sort of thing going on,\nagain. It's the sure way, and the only sure way; I might have thought of\nthat sooner--well, yes, if I had wanted to. But now--dear me, I've had a\nscare this time, and I'll take no more chances. Not a single chance\nmore. Land! I persuaded myself this evening that I could fetch him\naround without any great amount of effort, but I've been getting more and\nmore heavyhearted and doubtful straight along, ever since. If he tells\nme about this thing, all right; but if he doesn't, I sha'n't let on.\nI--well, I'd like to tell Pudd'nhead Wilson, but--no, I'll think about\nthat; perhaps I won't.\" He whirled off another dead huzzah, and said,\n\"I'm reformed, and this time I'll stay so, sure!\"\n\nHe was about to close with a final grand silent demonstration, when he\nsuddenly recollected that Wilson had put it out of his power to pawn or\nsell the Indian knife, and that he was once more in awful peril of\nexposure by his creditors for that reason. His joy collapsed utterly, and\nhe turned away and moped toward the door moaning and lamenting over the\nbitterness of his luck. He dragged himself upstairs, and brooded in his\nroom a long time, disconsolate and forlorn, with Luigi's Indian knife for\na text. At last he sighed and said:\n\n\"When I supposed these stones were glass and this ivory bone, the thing\nhadn't any interest for me because it hadn't any value, and couldn't help\nme out of my trouble. But now--why, now it is full of interest; yes, and\nof a sort to break a body's heart. It's a bag of gold that has turned to\ndirt and ashes in my hands. It could save me, and save me so easily, and\nyet I've got to go to ruin. It's like drowning with a life preserver in\nmy reach. All the hard luck comes to me, and all the good luck goes to\nother people--Pudd'nhead Wilson, for instance; even his career has got a\nsort of a little start at last, and what has he done to deserve it, I\nshould like to know? Yes, he has opened his own road, but he isn't\ncontent with that, but must block mine. It's a sordid, selfish world, and\nI wish I was out of it.\" He allowed the light of the candle to play upon\nthe jewels of the sheath, but the flashings and sparklings had no charm\nfor his eye; they were only just so many pangs to his heart. \"I must not\nsay anything to Roxy about this thing,\" he said. \"She is too daring. She\nwould be for digging these stones out and selling them, and then--why,\nshe would be arrested and the stones traced, and then--\" The thought made\nhim quake, and he hid the knife away, trembling all over and glancing\nfurtively about, like a criminal who fancies that the accuser is already\nat hand.\n\nShould he try to sleep? Oh, no, sleep was not for him; his trouble was\ntoo haunting, too afflicting for that. He must have somebody to mourn\nwith. He would carry his despair to Roxy.\n\nHe had heard several distant gunshots, but that sort of thing was not\nuncommon, and they had made no impression upon him. He went out at the\nback door, and turned westward. He passed Wilson's house and proceeded\nalong the lane, and presently saw several figures approaching Wilson's\nplace through the vacant lots. These were the duelists returning from the\nfight; he thought he recognized them, but as he had no desire for white\npeople's company, he stooped down behind the fence until they were out of\nhis way.\n\nRoxy was feeling fine. She said:\n\n\"Whah was you, child? Warn't you in it?\"\n\n\"In what?\"\n\n\"In de duel.\"\n\n\"Duel? Has there been a duel?\"\n\n\"Co'se dey has. De ole Jedge has be'n havin' a duel wid one o' dem\ntwins.\"\n\n\"Great Scott!\" Then he added to himself: \"That's what made him remake\nthe will; he thought he might get killed, and it softened him toward me.\nAnd that's what he and Howard were so busy about. . . . Oh dear, if the\ntwin had only killed him, I should be out of my--\"\n\n\"What is you mumblin' 'bout, Chambers? Whah was you? Didn't you know dey\nwas gwine to be a duel?\"\n\n\"No, I didn't. The old man tried to get me to fight one with Count\nLuigi, but he didn't succeed, so I reckon he concluded to patch up the\nfamily honor himself.\"\n\nHe laughed at the idea, and went rambling on with a detailed account of\nhis talk with the judge, and how shocked and ashamed the judge was to\nfind that he had a coward in his family. He glanced up at last, and got\na shock himself. Roxana's bosom was heaving with suppressed passion, and\nshe was glowering down upon him with measureless contempt written in her\nface.\n\n\"En you refuse' to fight a man dat kicked you, 'stid o' jumpin' at de\nchance! En you ain't got no mo' feelin' den to come en tell me, dat\nfetched sich a po' lowdown ornery rabbit into de worl'! Pah! it make me\nsick! It's de nigger in you, dat's what it is. Thirty-one parts o' you\nis white, en on'y one part nigger, en dat po' little one part is yo'\n_soul_. 'Tain't wuth savin'; 'tain't wuth totin' out on a shovel en\nthrowin' en de gutter. You has disgraced yo' birth. What would yo' pa\nthink o' you? It's enough to make him turn in his grave.\"\n\nThe last three sentences stung Tom into a fury, and he said to himself\nthat if his father were only alive and in reach of assassination his\nmother would soon find that he had a very clear notion of the size of his\nindebtedness to that man, and was willing to pay it up in full, and would\ndo it too, even at risk of his life; but he kept this thought to himself;\nthat was safest in his mother's present state.\n\n\"Whatever has come o' yo' Essex blood? Dat's what I can't understan'.\nEn it ain't on'y jist Essex blood dat's in you, not by a long\nsight--'deed it ain't! My great-great-great-gran'father en yo'\ngreat-great-great-great-gran'father was Ole Cap'n John Smith, de highest\nblood dat Ole Virginny ever turned out, en _his_ great-great-gran'mother,\nor somers along back dah, was Pocahontas de Injun queen, en her husbun'\nwas a nigger king outen Africa--en yit here you is, a slinkin' outen a\nduel en disgracin' our whole line like a ornery lowdown hound! Yes, it's\nde nigger in you!\"\n\nShe sat down on her candle box and fell into a reverie. Tom did not\ndisturb her; he sometimes lacked prudence, but it was not in\ncircumstances of this kind, Roxana's storm went gradually down, but it\ndied hard, and even when it seemed to be quite gone, it would now and\nthen break out in a distant rumble, so to speak, in the form of muttered\nejaculations. One of these was, \"Ain't nigger enough in him to show in\nhis fingernails, en dat takes mighty little--yit dey's enough to pain\nhis soul.\"\n\nPresently she muttered. \"Yassir, enough to paint a whole thimbleful of\n'em.\" At last her ramblings ceased altogether, and her countenance began\nto clear--a welcome sight to Tom, who had learned her moods, and knew she\nwas on the threshold of good humor now. He noticed that from time to time\nshe unconsciously carried her finger to the end of her nose. He looked\ncloser and said:\n\n\"Why, Mammy, the end of your nose is skinned. How did that come?\"\n\nShe sent out the sort of wholehearted peal of laughter which God had\nvouchsafed in its perfection to none but the happy angels in heaven and\nthe bruised and broken black slave on the earth, and said:\n\n\"Dad fetch dat duel, I be'n in it myself.\"\n\n\"Gracious! did a bullet do that?\"\n\n\"Yassir, you bet it did!\"\n\n\"Well, I declare! Why, how did that happen?\"\n\n\"Happened dis-away. I 'uz a-sett'n' here kinder dozin' in de dark, en\n_che-bang!_ goes a gun, right out dah. I skips along out towards t'other\nend o' de house to see what's gwine on, en stops by de ole winder on de\nside towards Pudd'nhead Wilson's house dat ain't got no sash in it--but\ndey ain't none of 'em got any sashes, for as dat's concerned--en I stood\ndah in de dark en look out, en dar in the moonlight, right down under me\n'uz one o' de twins a-cussin'--not much, but jist a-cussin' soft--it 'uz\nde brown one dat 'uz cussin,' 'ca'se he 'uz hit in de shoulder. En\nDoctor Claypool he 'uz a-workin' at him, en Pudd'nhead Wilson he 'uz\na-he'pin', en ole Jedge Driscoll en Pem Howard 'uz a-standin' out yonder\na little piece waitin' for 'em to get ready agin. En treckly dey squared\noff en give de word, en _bang-bang_ went de pistols, en de twin he say,\n'Ouch!'--hit him on de han' dis time--en I hear dat same bullet go\n_spat!_ ag'in de logs under de winder; en de nex' time dey shoot, de twin\nsay, 'Ouch!' ag'in, en I done it too, 'ca'se de bullet glance' on his\ncheekbone en skip up here en glance' on de side o' de winder en whiz\nright acrost my face en tuck de hide off'n my nose--why, if I'd 'a'\nbe'n jist a inch or a inch en a half furder 't would 'a' tuck de whole\nnose en disfiggered me. Here's de bullet; I hunted her up.\"\n\n\"Did you stand there all the time?\"\n\n\"Dat's a question to ask, ain't it! What else would I do? Does I git a\nchance to see a duel every day?\"\n\n\"Why, you were right in range! Weren't you afraid?\"\n\nThe woman gave a sniff of scorn.\n\n\"'Fraid! De Smith-Pocahontases ain't 'fraid o' nothin', let alone\nbullets.\"\n\n\"They've got pluck enough, I suppose; what they lack is judgment. _I_\nwouldn't have stood there.\"\n\n\"Nobody's accusin' you!\"\n\n\"Did anybody else get hurt?\"\n\n\"Yes, we all got hit 'cep' de blon' twin en de doctor en de seconds. De\nJedge didn't git hurt, but I hear Pudd'nhead say de bullet snip some o'\nhis ha'r off.\"\n\n\"'George!\" said Tom to himself, \"to come so near being out of my trouble,\nand miss it by an inch. Oh dear, dear, he will live to find me out and\nsell me to some nigger trader yet--yes, and he would do it in a minute.\"\nThen he said aloud, in a grave tone:\n\n\"Mother, we are in an awful fix.\"\n\nRoxana caught her breath with a spasm, and said:\n\n\"Chile! What you hit a body so sudden for, like dat? What's be'n en gone\nen happen'?\"\n\n\"Well, there's one thing I didn't tell you. When I wouldn't fight, he\ntore up the will again, and--\"\n\nRoxana's face turned a dead white, and she said:\n\n\"Now you's _done!_--done forever! Dat's de end. Bofe un us is gwine to\nstarve to--\"\n\n\"Wait and hear me through, can't you! I reckon that when he resolved to\nfight, himself, he thought he might get killed and not have a chance to\nforgive me any more in this life, so he made the will again, and I've\nseen it, and it's all right. But--\"\n\n\"Oh, thank goodness, den we's safe ag'in!--safe! en so what did you want\nto come here en talk sich dreadful--\"\n\n\"Hold ON, I tell you, and let me finish. The swag I gathered won't half\nsquare me up, and the first thing we know, my creditors--well, you know\nwhat'll happen.\"\n\nRoxana dropped her chin, and told her son to leave her alone--she must\nthink this matter out. Presently she said impressively:\n\n\"You got to go mighty keerful now, I tell you! En here's what you got to\ndo. He didn't git killed, en if you gives him de least reason, he'll\nbust de will ag'in, en dat's de _las'_ time, now you hear me! So--you's\ngot to show him what you kin do in de nex' few days. You got to be pison\ngood, en let him see it; you got to do everything dat'll make him b'lieve\nin you, en you got to sweeten aroun' ole Aunt Pratt, too--she's pow'ful\nstrong with de Jedge, en de bes' frien' you got. Nex', you'll go 'long\naway to Sent Louis, en dat'll _keep_ him in yo' favor. Den you go en make\na bargain wid dem people. You tell 'em he ain't gwine to live long--en\ndat's de fac', too--en tell 'em you'll pay 'em intrust, en big intrust,\ntoo--ten per--what you call it?\"\n\n\"Ten percent a month?\"\n\n\"Dat's it. Den you take and sell yo' truck aroun', a little at a time,\nen pay de intrust. How long will it las'?\"\n\n\"I think there's enough to pay the interest five or six months.\" \"Den\nyou's all right. If he don't die in six months, dat don't make no\ndiff'rence--Providence'll provide. You's gwine to be safe--if you\nbehaves.\" She bent an austere eye on him and added, \"En you IS gwine to\nbehave--does you know dat?\"\n\nHe laughed and said he was going to try, anyway. She did not unbend. She\nsaid gravely:\n\n\"Tryin' ain't de thing. You's gwine to _do_ it. You ain't gwine to\nsteal a pin--'ca'se it ain't safe no mo'; en you ain't gwine into no bad\ncomp'ny--not even once, you understand; en you ain't gwine to drink a\ndrop--nary a single drop; en you ain't gwine to gamble one single\ngamble--not one! Dis ain't what you's gwine to try to do, it's what\nyou's gwine to DO. En I'll tell you how I knows it. Dis is how. I's\ngwine to foller along to Sent Louis my own self; en you's gwine to come\nto me every day o' your life, en I'll look you over; en if you fails in\none single one o' dem things--jist _one_--I take my oath I'll come\nstraight down to dis town en tell de Jedge you's a nigger en a slave--en\n_prove_ it!\" She paused to let her words sink home. Then she added,\n\"Chambers, does you b'lieve me when I says dat?\"\n\nTom was sober enough now. There was no levity in his voice when he\nanswered:\n\n\"Yes, Mother, I know, now, that I am reformed--and permanently.\nPermanently--and beyond the reach of any human temptation.\"\n\n\"Den g'long home en begin!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 15 -- The Robber Robbed\n\n     _Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits._\n     --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n     _Behold, the fool saith, \"Put not all thine eggs in the one\n     basket\"--which is but a manner of saying, \"Scatter your\n     money and your attention\"; but the wise man saith, \"Put all\n     your eggs in the one basket and--WATCH THAT BASKET!\"_\n     --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nWhat a time of it Dawson's Landing was having! All its life it had been\nasleep, but now it hardly got a chance for a nod, so swiftly did big\nevents and crashing surprises come along in one another's wake: Friday\nmorning, first glimpse of Real Nobility, also grand reception at Aunt\nPatsy Cooper's, also great robber raid; Friday evening, dramatic kicking\nof the heir of the chief citizen in presence of four hundred people;\nSaturday morning, emergence as practicing lawyer of the long-submerged\nPudd'nhead Wilson; Saturday night, duel between chief citizen and titled\nstranger.\n\nThe people took more pride in the duel than in all the other events put\ntogether, perhaps. It was a glory to their town to have such a thing\nhappen there. In their eyes the principals had reached the summit of\nhuman honor. Everybody paid homage to their names; their praises were in\nall mouths. Even the duelists' subordinates came in for a handsome share\nof the public approbation: wherefore Pudd'nhead Wilson was suddenly\nbecome a man of consequence. When asked to run for the mayoralty Saturday\nnight, he was risking defeat, but Sunday morning found him a made man and\nhis success assured.\n\nThe twins were prodigiously great now; the town took them to its bosom\nwith enthusiasm. Day after day, and night after night, they went dining\nand visiting from house to house, making friends, enlarging and\nsolidifying their popularity, and charming and surprising all with their\nmusical prodigies, and now and then heightening the effects with samples\nof what they could do in other directions, out of their stock of rare and\ncurious accomplishments. They were so pleased that they gave the\nregulation thirty days' notice, the required preparation for citizenship,\nand resolved to finish their days in this pleasant place. That was the\nclimax. The delighted community rose as one man and applauded; and when\nthe twins were asked to stand for seats in the forthcoming aldermanic\nboard, and consented, the public contentment was rounded and complete.\n\nTom Driscoll was not happy over these things; they sunk deep, and hurt\nall the way down. He hated the one twin for kicking him, and the other\none for being the kicker's brother.\n\nNow and then the people wondered why nothing was heard of the raider, or\nof the stolen knife or the other plunder, but nobody was able to throw\nany light on that matter. Nearly a week had drifted by, and still the\nthing remained a vexed mystery.\n\nOn Sunday Constable Blake and Pudd'nhead Wilson met on the street, and\nTom Driscoll joined them in time to open their conversation for them. He\nsaid to Blake: \"You are not looking well, Blake; you seem to be annoyed\nabout something. Has anything gone wrong in the detective business? I\nbelieve you fairly and justifiably claim to have a pretty good reputation\nin that line, isn't it so?\"--which made Blake feel good, and look it;\nbut Tom added, \"for a country detective\"--which made Blake feel the other\nway, and not only look it, but betray it in his voice.\n\n\"Yes, sir, I _have_ got a reputation; and it's as good as anybody's in\nthe profession, too, country or no country.\"\n\n\"Oh, I beg pardon; I didn't mean any offense. What I started out to ask\nwas only about the old woman that raided the town--the stoop-shouldered\nold woman, you know, that you said you were going to catch; and I knew\nyou would, too, because you have the reputation of never boasting,\nand--well, you--you've caught the old woman?\"\n\n\"Damn the old woman!\"\n\n\"Why, sho! you don't mean to say you haven't caught her?\"\n\n\"No, I haven't caught her. If anybody could have caught her, I could;\nbut nobody couldn't, I don't care who he is.\"\n\n\"I am sorry, real sorry--for your sake; because, when it gets around that\na detective has expressed himself confidently, and then--\"\n\n\"Don't you worry, that's all--don't you worry; and as for the town, the\ntown needn't worry either. She's my meat--make yourself easy about that.\nI'm on her track; I've got clues that--\"\n\n\"That's good! Now if you could get an old veteran detective down from\nSt. Louis to help you find out what the clues mean, and where they lead\nto, and then--\"\n\n\"I'm plenty veteran enough myself, and I don't need anybody's help. I'll\nhave her inside of a we--inside of a month. That I'll swear to!\"\n\nTom said carelessly:\n\n\"I suppose that will answer--yes, that will answer. But I reckon she is\npretty old, and old people don't often outlive the cautious pace of the\nprofessional detective when he has got his clues together and is out on\nhis still-hunt.\"\n\nBlake's dull face flushed under this gibe, but before he could set his\nretort in order Tom had turned to Wilson, and was saying, with placid\nindifference of manner and voice:\n\n\"Who got the reward, Pudd'nhead?\"\n\nWilson winced slightly, and saw that his own turn was come.\n\n\"What reward?\"\n\n\"Why, the reward for the thief, and the other one for the knife.\"\n\nWilson answered--and rather uncomfortably, to judge by his hesitating\nfashion of delivering himself:\n\n\"Well, the--well, in face, nobody has claimed it yet.\"\n\nTom seemed surprised.\n\n\"Why, is that so?\"\n\nWilson showed a trifle of irritation when he replied:\n\n\"Yes, it's so. And what of it?\"\n\n\"Oh, nothing. Only I thought you had struck out a new idea, and invented\na scheme that was going to revolutionize the timeworn and ineffectual\nmethods of the--\" He stopped, and turned to Blake, who was happy now\nthat another had taken his place on the gridiron. \"Blake, didn't you\nunderstand him to intimate that it wouldn't be necessary for you to hunt\nthe old woman down?\"\n\n\"'B'George, he said he'd have thief and swag both inside of three days\n--he did, by hokey! and that's just about a week ago. Why, I said at the\ntime that no thief and no thief's pal was going to try to pawn or sell a\nthing where he knowed the pawnbroker could get both rewards by taking HIM\ninto camp _with_ the swag. It was the blessedest idea that ever I\nstruck!\"\n\n\"You'd change your mind,\" said Wilson, with irritated bluntness, \"if you\nknew the entire scheme instead of only part of it.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said the constable, pensively, \"I had the idea that it wouldn't\nwork, and up to now I'm right anyway.\"\n\n\"Very well, then, let it stand at that, and give it a further show. It\nhas worked at least as well as your own methods, you perceive.\"\n\nThe constable hadn't anything handy to hit back with, so he discharged a\ndiscontented sniff, and said nothing.\n\nAfter the night that Wilson had partly revealed his scheme at his house,\nTom had tried for several days to guess out the secret of the rest of it,\nbut had failed. Then it occurred to him to give Roxana's smarter head a\nchance at it. He made up a supposititious case, and laid it before\nher. She thought it over, and delivered her verdict upon it. Tom said\nto himself, \"She's hit it, sure!\" He thought he would test that verdict\nnow, and watch Wilson's face; so he said reflectively:\n\n\"Wilson, you're not a fool--a fact of recent discovery. Whatever your\nscheme was, it had sense in it, Blake's opinion to the contrary\nnotwithstanding. I don't ask you to reveal it, but I will suppose a\ncase--a case which you will answer as a starting point for the real thing\nI am going to come at, and that's all I want. You offered five hundred\ndollars for the knife, and five hundred for the thief. We will suppose,\nfor argument's sake, that the first reward is _advertised_ and the second\noffered by _private letter_ to pawnbrokers and--\"\n\nBlake slapped his thigh, and cried out:\n\n\"By Jackson, he's got you, Pudd'nhead! Now why couldn't I or _any_ fool\nhave thought of that?\"\n\nWilson said to himself, \"Anybody with a reasonably good head would have\nthought of it. I am not surprised that Blake didn't detect it; I am only\nsurprised that Tom did. There is more to him than I supposed.\" He said\nnothing aloud, and Tom went on:\n\n\"Very well. The thief would not suspect that there was a trap, and he\nwould bring or send the knife, and say he bought it for a song, or found\nit in the road, or something like that, and try to collect the reward,\nand be arrested--wouldn't he?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Wilson.\n\n\"I think so,\" said Tom. \"There can't be any doubt of it. Have you ever\nseen that knife?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Has any friend of yours?\"\n\n\"Not that I know of.\"\n\n\"Well, I begin to think I understand why your scheme failed.\"\n\n\"What do you mean, Tom? What are you driving at?\" asked Wilson, with a\ndawning sense of discomfort.\n\n\"Why, that there _isn't_ any such knife.\"\n\n\"Look here, Wilson,\" said Blake, \"Tom Driscoll's right, for a thousand\ndollars--if I had it.\"\n\nWilson's blood warmed a little, and he wondered if he had been played\nupon by those strangers; it certainly had something of that look. But\nwhat could they gain by it? He threw out that suggestion. Tom replied:\n\n\"Gain? Oh, nothing that you would value, maybe. But they are strangers\nmaking their way in a new community. Is it nothing to them to appear as\npets of an Oriental prince--at no expense? Is it nothing to them to be\nable to dazzle this poor town with thousand-dollar rewards--at no\nexpense? Wilson, there isn't any such knife, or your scheme would have\nfetched it to light. Or if there is any such knife, they've got it yet.\nI believe, myself, that they've seen such a knife, for Angelo pictured it\nout with his pencil too swiftly and handily for him to have been\ninventing it, and of course I can't swear that they've never had it; but\nthis I'll go bail for--if they had it when they came to this town,\nthey've got it yet.\"\n\nBlake said:\n\n\"It looks mighty reasonable, the way Tom puts it; it most certainly\ndoes.\"\n\nTom responded, turning to leave:\n\n\"You find the old woman, Blake, and if she can't furnish the knife, go\nand search the twins!\"\n\nTom sauntered away. Wilson felt a good deal depressed. He hardly knew\nwhat to think. He was loath to withdraw his faith from the twins, and\nwas resolved not to do it on the present indecisive evidence; but--well,\nhe would think, and then decide how to act.\n\n\"Blake, what do you think of this matter?\"\n\n\"Well, Pudd'nhead, I'm bound to say I put it up the way Tom does. They\nhadn't the knife; or if they had it, they've got it yet.\"\n\nThe men parted. Wilson said to himself:\n\n\"I believe they had it; if it had been stolen, the scheme would have\nrestored it, that is certain. And so I believe they've got it.\"\n\nTom had no purpose in his mind when he encountered those two men. When he\nbegan his talk he hoped to be able to gall them a little and get a trifle\nof malicious entertainment out of it. But when he left, he left in great\nspirits, for he perceived that just by pure luck and no troublesome labor\nhe had accomplished several delightful things: he had touched both men\non a raw spot and seen them squirm; he had modified Wilson's sweetness\nfor the twins with one small bitter taste that he wouldn't be able to get\nout of his mouth right away; and, best of all, he had taken the hated\ntwins down a peg with the community; for Blake would gossip around\nfreely, after the manner of detectives, and within a week the town would\nbe laughing at them in its sleeve for offering a gaudy reward for a\nbauble which they either never possessed or hadn't lost. Tom was very\nwell satisfied with himself.\n\nTom's behavior at home had been perfect during the entire week. His uncle\nand aunt had seen nothing like it before. They could find no fault with\nhim anywhere.\n\nSaturday evening he said to the Judge:\n\n\"I've had something preying on my mind, uncle, and as I am going away,\nand might never see you again, I can't bear it any longer. I made you\nbelieve I was afraid to fight that Italian adventurer. I had to get out\nof it on some pretext or other, and maybe I chose badly, being taken\nunawares, but no honorable person could consent to meet him in the field,\nknowing what I knew about him.\"\n\n\"Indeed? What was that?\"\n\n\"Count Luigi is a confessed assassin.\"\n\n\"Incredible.\"\n\n\"It's perfectly true. Wilson detected it in his hand, by palmistry, and\ncharged him with it, and cornered him up so close that he had to confess;\nbut both twins begged us on their knees to keep the secret, and swore\nthey would lead straight lives here; and it was all so pitiful that we\ngave our word of honor never to expose them while they kept the promise.\nYou would have done it yourself, uncle.\"\n\n\"You are right, my boy; I would. A man's secret is still his own\nproperty, and sacred, when it has been surprised out of him like that.\nYou did well, and I am proud of you.\" Then he added mournfully, \"But I\nwish I could have been saved the shame of meeting an assassin on the\nfield of honor.\"\n\n\"It couldn't be helped, uncle. If I had known you were going to\nchallenge him, I should have felt obliged to sacrifice my pledged word in\norder to stop it, but Wilson couldn't be expected to do otherwise than\nkeep silent.\"\n\n\"Oh, no, Wilson did right, and is in no way to blame. Tom, Tom, you have\nlifted a heavy load from my heart; I was stung to the very soul when I\nseemed to have discovered that I had a coward in my family.\"\n\n\"You may imagine what it cost ME to assume such a part, uncle.\"\n\n\"Oh, I know it, poor boy, I know it. And I can understand how much it\nhas cost you to remain under that unjust stigma to this time. But it is\nall right now, and no harm is done. You have restored my comfort of\nmind, and with it your own; and both of us had suffered enough.\"\n\nThe old man sat awhile plunged in thought; then he looked up with a\nsatisfied light in his eye, and said: \"That this assassin should have\nput the affront upon me of letting me meet him on the field of honor as\nif he were a gentleman is a matter which I will presently settle--but not\nnow. I will not shoot him until after election. I see a way to ruin them\nboth before; I will attend to that first. Neither of them shall be\nelected, that I promise. You are sure that the fact that he is an\nassassin has not got abroad?\"\n\n\"Perfectly certain of it, sir.\"\n\n\"It will be a good card. I will fling a hint at it from the stump on the\npolling day. It will sweep the ground from under both of them.\"\n\n\"There's not a doubt of it. It will finish them.\"\n\n\"That and outside work among the voters will, to a certainty. I want you\nto come down here by and by and work privately among the rag-tag and\nbobtail. You shall spend money among them; I will furnish it.\"\n\nAnother point scored against the detested twins! Really it was a great\nday for Tom. He was encouraged to chance a parting shot, now, at the\nsame target, and did it.\n\n\"You know that wonderful Indian knife that the twins have been making\nsuch a to-do about? Well, there's no track or trace of it yet; so the\ntown is beginning to sneer and gossip and laugh. Half the people believe\nthey never had any such knife, the other half believe they had it and\nhave got it still. I've heard twenty people talking like that today.\"\n\nYes, Tom's blemishless week had restored him to the favor of his aunt and\nuncle.\n\nHis mother was satisfied with him, too. Privately, she believed she was\ncoming to love him, but she did not say so. She told him to go along to\nSt. Louis now, and she would get ready and follow. Then she smashed her\nwhisky bottle and said:\n\n\"Dah now! I's a-gwine to make you walk as straight as a string,\nChambers, en so I's bown, you ain't gwine to git no bad example out o'\nyo' mammy. I tole you you couldn't go into no bad comp'ny. Well, you's\ngwine into my comp'ny, en I's gwine to fill de bill. Now, den, trot\nalong, trot along!\"\n\nTom went aboard one of the big transient boats that night with his heavy\nsatchel of miscellaneous plunder, and slept the sleep of the unjust,\nwhich is serener and sounder than the other kind, as we know by the\nhanging-eve history of a million rascals. But when he got up in the\nmorning, luck was against him again: a brother thief had robbed him while\nhe slept, and gone ashore at some intermediate landing.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 16 -- Sold Down the River\n\n     _If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he\n     will not bite you. This is the principal difference between\n     a dog and a man._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n     _We all know about the habits of the ant, we know all about\n     the habits of the bee, but we know nothing at all about the\n     habits of the oyster. It seems almost certain that we have\n     been choosing the wrong time for studying the oyster._\n     --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nWhen Roxana arrived, she found her son in such despair and misery that\nher heart was touched and her motherhood rose up strong in her. He was\nruined past hope now; his destruction would be immediate and sure, and he\nwould be an outcast and friendless. That was reason enough for a mother\nto love a child; so she loved him, and told him so. It made him wince,\nsecretly--for she was a \"nigger.\" That he was one himself was far from\nreconciling him to that despised race.\n\nRoxana poured out endearments upon him, to which he responded\nuncomfortably, but as well as he could. And she tried to comfort him, but\nthat was not possible. These intimacies quickly became horrible to him,\nand within the hour he began to try to get up courage enough to tell her\nso, and require that they be discontinued or very considerably modified.\nBut he was afraid of her; and besides, there came a lull now, for she had\nbegun to think. She was trying to invent a saving plan. Finally she\nstarted up, and said she had found a way out. Tom was almost suffocated\nby the joy of this sudden good news. Roxana said:\n\n\"Here is de plan, en she'll win, sure. I's a nigger, en nobody ain't\ngwine to doubt it dat hears me talk. I's wuth six hund'd dollahs. Take\nen sell me, en pay off dese gamblers.\"\n\nTom was dazed. He was not sure he had heard aright. He was dumb for a\nmoment; then he said:\n\n\"Do you mean that you would be sold into slavery to save me?\"\n\n\"Ain't you my chile? En does you know anything dat a mother won't do for\nher chile? Day ain't nothin' a white mother won't do for her chile. Who\nmade 'em so? De Lord done it. En who made de niggers? De Lord made 'em.\nIn de inside, mothers is all de same. De good lord he made 'em so. I's\ngwine to be sole into slavery, en in a year you's gwine to buy yo' ole\nmammy free ag'in. I'll show you how. Dat's de plan.\"\n\nTom's hopes began to rise, and his spirits along with them. He said:\n\n\"It's lovely of you, Mammy--it's just--\"\n\n\"Say it ag'in! En keep on sayin' it! It's all de pay a body kin want in\ndis worl', en it's mo' den enough. Laws bless you, honey, when I's slav'\naroun', en dey 'buses me, if I knows you's a-sayin' dat, 'way off yonder\nsomers, it'll heal up all de sore places, en I kin stan' 'em.\"\n\n\"I DO say it again, Mammy, and I'll keep on saying it, too. But how am I\ngoing to sell you? You're free, you know.\"\n\n\"Much diff'rence dat make! White folks ain't partic'lar. De law kin sell\nme now if dey tell me to leave de state in six months en I don't go. You\ndraw up a paper--bill o' sale--en put it 'way off yonder, down in de\nmiddle o' Kaintuck somers, en sign some names to it, en say you'll sell\nme cheap 'ca'se you's hard up; you'll find you ain't gwine to have no\ntrouble. You take me up de country a piece, en sell me on a farm; dem\npeople ain't gwine to ask no questions if I's a bargain.\"\n\nTom forged a bill of sale and sold his mother to an Arkansas cotton\nplanter for a trifle over six hundred dollars. He did not want to commit\nthis treachery, but luck threw the man in his way, and this saved him the\nnecessity of going up-country to hunt up a purchaser, with the added risk\nof having to answer a lot of questions, whereas this planter was so\npleased with Roxy that he asked next to none at all. Besides, the\nplanter insisted that Roxy wouldn't know where she was, at first, and\nthat by the time she found out she would already have been contented.\n\nSo Tom argued with himself that it was an immense advantaged for Roxy to\nhave a master who was pleased with her, as this planter manifestly was.\nIn almost no time his flowing reasonings carried him to the point of even\nhalf believing he was doing Roxy a splendid surreptitious service in\nselling her \"down the river.\" And then he kept diligently saying to\nhimself all the time: \"It's for only a year. In a year I buy her free\nagain; she'll keep that in mind, and it'll reconcile her.\" Yes; the\nlittle deception could do no harm, and everything would come out right\nand pleasant in the end, anyway. By agreement, the conversation in\nRoxy's presence was all about the man's \"up-country\" farm, and how\npleasant a place it was, and how happy the slaves were there; so poor\nRoxy was entirely deceived; and easily, for she was not dreaming that her\nown son could be guilty of treason to a mother who, in voluntarily going\ninto slavery--slavery of any kind, mild or severe, or of any duration,\nbrief or long--was making a sacrifice for him compared with which death\nwould have been a poor and commonplace one. She lavished tears and\nloving caresses upon him privately, and then went away with her owner\n--went away brokenhearted, and yet proud to do it.\n\nTom scored his accounts, and resolved to keep to the very letter of his\nreform, and never to put that will in jeopardy again. He had three\nhundred dollars left. According to his mother's plan, he was to put that\nsafely away, and add her half of his pension to it monthly. In one year\nthis fund would buy her free again.\n\nFor a whole week he was not able to sleep well, so much the villainy\nwhich he had played upon his trusting mother preyed upon his rag of\nconscience; but after that he began to get comfortable again, and was\npresently able to sleep like any other miscreant.\n\nThe boat bore Roxy away from St. Louis at four in the afternoon, and she\nstood on the lower guard abaft the paddle box and watched Tom through a\nblur of tears until he melted into the throng of people and disappeared;\nthen she looked no more, but sat there on a coil of cable crying till far\ninto the night. When she went to her foul steerage bunk at last, between\nthe clashing engines, it was not to sleep, but only to wait for the\nmorning, and, waiting, grieve.\n\nIt had been imagined that she \"would not know,\" and would think she was\ntraveling upstream. She! Why, she had been steamboating for years. At\ndawn she got up and went listlessly and sat down on the cable coil again.\nShe passed many a snag whose \"break\" could have told her a thing to break\nher heart, for it showed a current moving in the same direction that the\nboat was going; but her thoughts were elsewhere, and she did not notice.\nBut at last the roar of a bigger and nearer break than usual brought her\nout of her torpor, and she looked up, and her practiced eye fell upon\nthat telltale rush of water. For one moment her petrified gaze fixed\nitself there. Then her head dropped upon her breast, and she said:\n\n\"Oh, de good Lord God have mercy on po' sinful me--I'S SOLE DOWN DE\nRIVER!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 17 -- The Judge Utters Dire Prophesy\n\n     _Even popularity can be overdone. In Rome, along at first,\n     you are full of regrets that Michelangelo died; but by and\n     by, you only regret that you didn't see him do it._\n     --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n     _JULY 4. Statistics show that we lose more fools on this day\n     than in all the other days of the year put together. This\n     proves, by the number left in stock, that one Fourth of July\n     per year is now inadequate, the country has grown so._\n     --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nThe summer weeks dragged by, and then the political campaign opened\n--opened in pretty warm fashion, and waxed hotter and hotter daily. The\ntwins threw themselves into it with their whole heart, for their\nself-love was engaged. Their popularity, so general at first, had\nsuffered afterward; mainly because they had been TOO popular, and so a\nnatural reaction had followed. Besides, it had been diligently whispered\naround that it was curious--indeed, VERY curious--that that wonderful\nknife of theirs did not turn up--IF it was so valuable, or IF it had ever\nexisted. And with the whisperings went chucklings and nudgings and winks,\nand such things have an effect. The twins considered that success in the\nelection would reinstate them, and that defeat would work them\nirreparable damage. Therefore they worked hard, but not harder than\nJudge Driscoll and Tom worked against them in the closing days of the\ncanvass. Tom's conduct had remained so letter-perfect during two whole\nmonths now, that his uncle not only trusted him with money with which to\npersuade voters, but trusted him to go and get it himself out of the safe\nin the private sitting room.\n\nThe closing speech of the campaign was made by Judge Driscoll, and he\nmade it against both of the foreigners. It was disastrously effective.\nHe poured out rivers of ridicule upon them, and forced the big mass\nmeeting to laugh and applaud. He scoffed at them as adventurers,\nmountebanks, sideshow riffraff, dime museum freaks; he assailed their\nshowy titles with measureless derision; he said they were back-alley\nbarbers disguised as nobilities, peanut peddlers masquerading as\ngentlemen, organ-grinders bereft of their brother monkey. At last he\nstopped and stood still. He waited until the place had become absolutely\nsilent and expectant, then he delivered his deadliest shot; delivered it\nwith ice-cold seriousness and deliberation, with a significant emphasis\nupon the closing words: he said he believed that the reward offered for\nthe lost knife was humbug and bunkum, and that its owner would know where\nto find it whenever he should have occasion TO ASSASSINATE SOMEBODY.\n\nThen he stepped from the stand, leaving a startled and impressive hush\nbehind him instead of the customary explosion of cheers and party cries.\n\nThe strange remark flew far and wide over the town and made an\nextraordinary sensation. Everybody was asking, \"What could he mean by\nthat?\" And everybody went on asking that question, but in vain; for the\njudge only said he knew what he was talking about, and stopped there; Tom\nsaid he hadn't any idea what his uncle meant, and Wilson, whenever he was\nasked what he thought it meant, parried the question by asking the\nquestioner what HE thought it meant.\n\nWilson was elected, the twins were defeated--crushed, in fact, and left\nforlorn and substantially friendless. Tom went back to St. Louis happy.\n\nDawson's Landing had a week of repose now, and it needed it. But it was\nin an expectant state, for the air was full of rumors of a new duel.\nJudge Driscoll's election labors had prostrated him, but it was said that\nas soon as he was well enough to entertain a challenge he would get one\nfrom Count Luigi.\n\nThe brothers withdrew entirely from society, and nursed their humiliation\nin privacy. They avoided the people, and went out for exercise only late\nat night, when the streets were deserted.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 18 -- Roxana Commands\n\n     _Gratitude and treachery are merely the two extremities of\n     the same procession. You have seen all of it that is worth\n     staying for when the band and the gaudy officials have gone\n     by._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n     _THANKSGIVING DAY. Let us all give humble, hearty, and\n     sincere thanks now, but the turkeys. In the island of Fiji\n     they do not use turkeys; they use plumbers. It does not\n     become you and me to sneer at Fiji._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's\n     Calendar\n\n\nThe Friday after the election was a rainy one in St. Louis. It rained\nall day long, and rained hard, apparently trying its best to wash that\nsoot-blackened town white, but of course not succeeding. Toward midnight\nTom Driscoll arrived at his lodgings from the theater in the heavy\ndownpour, and closed his umbrella and let himself in; but when he would\nhave shut the door, he found that there was another person\nentering--doubtless another lodger; this person closed the door and\ntramped upstairs behind Tom. Tom found his door in the dark, and entered\nit, and turned up the gas. When he faced about, lightly whistling, he\nsaw the back of a man. The man was closing and locking his door from\nhim. His whistle faded out and he felt uneasy. The man turned around, a\nwreck of shabby old clothes, sodden with rain and all a-drip, and showed\na black face under an old slouch hat. Tom was frightened. He tried to\norder the man out, but the words refused to come, and the other man got\nthe start. He said, in a low voice:\n\n\"Keep still--I's yo' mother!\"\n\nTom sunk in a heap on a chair, and gasped out:\n\n\"It was mean of me, and base--I know it; but I meant it for the best, I\ndid indeed--I can swear it.\"\n\nRoxana stood awhile looking mutely down on him while he writhed in shame\nand went on incoherently babbling self-accusations mixed with pitiful\nattempts at explanation and palliation of his crime; then she seated\nherself and took off her hat, and her unkept masses of long brown hair\ntumbled down about her shoulders.\n\n\"It warn't no fault o' yo'n dat dat ain't gray,\" she said sadly, noticing\nthe hair.\n\n\"I know it, I know it! I'm a scoundrel. But I swear I meant it for the\nbest. It was a mistake, of course, but I thought it was for the best, I\ntruly did.\"\n\nRoxana began to cry softly, and presently words began to find their way\nout between her sobs. They were uttered lamentingly, rather than\nangrily.\n\n\"Sell a pusson down de river--DOWN DE RIVER!--for de bes'! I wouldn't\ntreat a dog so! I is all broke down en wore out now, en so I reckon\nit ain't in me to storm aroun' no mo', like I used to when I 'uz trompled\non en 'bused. I don't know--but maybe it's so. Leastways, I's suffered\nso much dat mournin' seem to come mo' handy to me now den stormin'.\"\n\nThese words should have touched Tom Driscoll, but if they did, that\neffect was obliterated by a stronger one--one which removed the heavy\nweight of fear which lay upon him, and gave his crushed spirit a most\ngrateful rebound, and filled all his small soul with a deep sense of\nrelief. But he kept prudently still, and ventured no comment. There was\na voiceless interval of some duration now, in which no sounds were heard\nbut the beating of the rain upon the panes, the sighing and complaining\nof the winds, and now and then a muffled sob from Roxana. The sobs became\nmore and more infrequent, and at last ceased. Then the refugee began to\ntalk again.\n\n\"Shet down dat light a little. More. More yit. A pusson dat is hunted\ndon't like de light. Dah--dat'll do. I kin see whah you is, en dat's\nenough. I's gwine to tell you de tale, en cut it jes as short as I kin,\nen den I'll tell you what you's got to do. Dat man dat bought me ain't a\nbad man; he's good enough, as planters goes; en if he could 'a' had his\nway I'd 'a' be'n a house servant in his fambly en be'n comfortable: but\nhis wife she was a Yank, en not right down good lookin', en she riz up\nagin me straight off; so den dey sent me out to de quarter 'mongst de\ncommon fiel' han's. Dat woman warn't satisfied even wid dat, but she\nworked up de overseer ag'in' me, she 'uz dat jealous en hateful; so de\noverseer he had me out befo' day in de mawnin's en worked me de whole\nlong day as long as dey'uz any light to see by; en many's de lashin's I\ngot 'ca'se I couldn't come up to de work o' de stronges'. Dat overseer\nwuz a Yank too, outen New Englan', en anybody down South kin tell you\nwhat dat mean. DEY knows how to work a nigger to death, en dey knows how\nto whale 'em too--whale 'em till dey backs is welted like a washboard.\n'Long at fust my marster say de good word for me to de overseer, but dat\n'uz bad for me; for de mistis she fine it out, en arter dat I jist\nketched it at every turn--dey warn't no mercy for me no mo'.\"\n\nTom's heart was fired--with fury against the planter's wife; and he said\nto himself, \"But for that meddlesome fool, everything would have gone all\nright.\" He added a deep and bitter curse against her.\n\nThe expression of this sentiment was fiercely written in his face, and\nstood thus revealed to Roxana by a white glare of lightning which turned\nthe somber dusk of the room into dazzling day at that moment. She was\npleased--pleased and grateful; for did not that expression show that her\nchild was capable of grieving for his mother's wrongs and of feeling\nresentment toward her persecutors?--a thing which she had been doubting.\nBut her flash of happiness was only a flash, and went out again and left\nher spirit dark; for she said to herself, \"He sole me down de river--he\ncan't feel for a body long; dis'll pass en go.\" Then she took up her tale\nagain.\n\n\"'Bout ten days ago I 'uz sayin' to myself dat I couldn't las' many mo'\nweeks I 'uz so wore out wid de awful work en de lashin's, en so\ndownhearted en misable. En I didn't care no mo', nuther--life warn't\nwuth noth'n' to me, if I got to go on like dat. Well, when a body is in\na frame o' mine like dat, what do a body care what a body do? Dey was a\nlittle sickly nigger wench 'bout ten year ole dat 'uz good to me, en\nhadn't no mammy, po' thing, en I loved her en she loved me; en she come\nout whah I 'uz workin' en she had a roasted tater, en tried to slip it to\nme--robbin' herself, you see, 'ca'se she knowed de overseer didn't give\nme enough to eat--en he ketched her at it, en giver her a lick acrost de\nback wid his stick, which 'uz as thick as a broom handle, en she drop'\nscreamin' on de groun', en squirmin' en wallerin' aroun' in de dust like\na spider dat's got crippled. I couldn't stan' it. All de hellfire dat\n'uz ever in my heart flame' up, en I snatch de stick outen his han' en\nlaid him flat. He laid dah moanin' en cussin', en all out of his head,\nyou know, en de niggers 'uz plumb sk'yred to death. Dey gathered roun'\nhim to he'p him, en I jumped on his hoss en took out for de river as\ntight as I could go. I knowed what dey would do wid me. Soon as he got\nwell he would start in en work me to death if marster let him; en if dey\ndidn't do dat, they'd sell me furder down de river, en dat's de same\nthing, so I 'lowed to drown myself en git out o' my troubles. It 'uz\ngitt'n' towards dark. I 'uz at de river in two minutes. Den I see a\ncanoe, en I says dey ain't no use to drown myself tell I got to; so I\nties de hoss in de edge o' de timber en shove out down de river, keepin'\nin under de shelter o' de bluff bank en prayin' for de dark to shet down\nquick. I had a pow'ful good start, 'ca'se de big house 'uz three mile\nback f'om de river en on'y de work mules to ride dah on, en on'y niggers\nride 'em, en DEY warn't gwine to hurry--dey'd gimme all de chance dey\ncould. Befo' a body could go to de house en back it would be long pas'\ndark, en dey couldn't track de hoss en fine out which way I went tell\nmawnin', en de niggers would tell 'em all de lies dey could 'bout it.\n\n\"Well, de dark come, en I went on a-spinnin' down de river. I paddled\nmo'n two hours, den I warn't worried no mo', so I quit paddlin' en\nfloated down de current, considerin' what I 'uz gwine to do if I didn't\nhave to drown myself. I made up some plans, en floated along, turnin'\n'em over in my mine. Well, when it 'uz a little pas' midnight, as I\nreckoned, en I had come fifteen or twenty mile, I see de lights o' a\nsteamboat layin' at de bank, whah dey warn't no town en no woodyard, en\nputty soon I ketched de shape o' de chimbly tops ag'in' de stars, en den\ngood gracious me, I 'most jumped out o' my skin for joy! It 'uz de GRAN'\nMOGUL--I 'uz chambermaid on her for eight seasons in de Cincinnati en\nOrleans trade. I slid 'long pas'--don't see nobody stirrin' nowhah--hear\n'em a-hammerin' away in de engine room, den I knowed what de matter\nwas--some o' de machinery's broke. I got asho' below de boat and turn'\nde canoe loose, den I goes 'long up, en dey 'uz jes one plank out, en I\nstep' 'board de boat. It 'uz pow'ful hot, deckhan's en roustabouts 'uz\nsprawled aroun' asleep on de fo'cas'l', de second mate, Jim Bangs, he sot\ndah on de bitts wid his head down, asleep--'ca'se dat's de way de second\nmate stan' de cap'n's watch!--en de ole watchman, Billy Hatch, he 'uz\na-noddin' on de companionway;--en I knowed 'em all; en, lan', but dey did\nlook good! I says to myself, I wished old marster'd come along NOW en\ntry to take me--bless yo' heart, I's 'mong frien's, I is. So I tromped\nright along 'mongst 'em, en went up on de b'iler deck en 'way back aft to\nde ladies' cabin guard, en sot down dah in de same cheer dat I'd sot in\n'mos' a hund'd million times, I reckon; en it 'uz jist home ag'in, I tell\nyou!\n\n\"In 'bout an hour I heard de ready bell jingle, en den de racket begin.\nPutty soon I hear de gong strike. 'Set her back on de outside,' I says\nto myself. 'I reckon I knows dat music!' I hear de gong ag'in. 'Come\nahead on de inside,' I says. Gong ag'in. 'Stop de outside.' gong ag'in.\n'Come ahead on de outside--now we's pinted for Sent Louis, en I's outer\nde woods en ain't got to drown myself at all.' I knowed de MOGUL 'uz in\nde Sent Louis trade now, you see. It 'uz jes fair daylight when we\npassed our plantation, en I seed a gang o' niggers en white folks huntin'\nup en down de sho', en troublin' deyselves a good deal 'bout me; but I\nwarn't troublin' myself none 'bout dem.\n\n\"'Bout dat time Sally Jackson, dat used to be my second chambermaid en\n'uz head chambermaid now, she come out on de guard, en 'uz pow'ful glad\nto see me, en so 'uz all de officers; en I tole 'em I'd got kidnapped en\nsole down de river, en dey made me up twenty dollahs en give it to me, en\nSally she rigged me out wid good clo'es, en when I got here I went\nstraight to whah you used to wuz, en den I come to dis house, en dey say\nyou's away but 'spected back every day; so I didn't dast to go down de\nriver to Dawson's, 'ca'se I might miss you.\n\n\"Well, las' Monday I 'uz pass'n by one o' dem places in fourth street\nwhah deh sticks up runaway nigger bills, en he'ps to ketch 'em, en I seed\nmy marster! I 'mos' flopped down on de groun', I felt so gone. He had\nhis back to me, en 'uz talkin' to de man en givin' him some bills--nigger\nbills, I reckon, en I's de nigger. He's offerin' a reward--dat's it.\nAin't I right, don't you reckon?\"\n\nTom had been gradually sinking into a state of ghastly terror, and he\nsaid to himself, now: \"I'm lost, no matter what turn things take! This\nman has said to me that he thinks there was something suspicious about\nthat sale; he said he had a letter from a passenger on the GRAND MOGUL\nsaying that Roxy came here on that boat and that everybody on board knew\nall about the case; so he says that her coming here instead of flying to\na free state looks bad for me, and that if I don't find her for him, and\nthat pretty soon, he will make trouble for me. I never believed that\nstory; I couldn't believe she would be so dead to all motherly instincts\nas to come here, knowing the risk she would run of getting me into\nirremediable trouble. And after all, here she is! And I stupidly swore\nI would help find her, thinking it was a perfectly safe thing to promise.\nIf I venture to deliver her up, she--she--but how can I help myself?\nI've got to do that or pay the money, and where's the money to come from?\nI--I--well, I should think that if he would swear to treat her kindly\nhereafter--and she says, herself, that he is a good man--and if he would\nswear to never allow her to be overworked, or ill fed, or--\"\n\nA flash of lightning exposed Tom's pallid face, drawn and rigid with\nthese worrying thoughts. Roxana spoke up sharply now, and there was\napprehension in her voice.\n\n\"Turn up dat light! I want to see yo' face better. Dah now--lemme look\nat you. Chambers, you's as white as yo' shirt! Has you see dat man? Has\nhe be'n to see you?\"\n\n\"Ye-s.\"\n\n\"When?\"\n\n\"Monday noon.\"\n\n\"Monday noon! Was he on my track?\"\n\n\"He--well, he thought he was. That is, he hoped he was. This is the bill\nyou saw.\" He took it out of his pocket.\n\n\"Read it to me!\"\n\nShe was panting with excitement, and there was a dusky glow in her eyes\nthat Tom could not translate with certainty, but there seemed to be\nsomething threatening about it. The handbill had the usual rude woodcut\nof a turbaned Negro woman running, with the customary bundle on a stick\nover her shoulder, and the heading in bold type, \"$100 REWARD.\" Tom read\nthe bill aloud--at least the part that described Roxana and named the\nmaster and his St. Louis address and the address of the Fourth street\nagency; but he left out the item that applicants for the reward might\nalso apply to Mr. Thomas Driscoll.\n\n\"Gimme de bill!\"\n\nTom had folded it and was putting it in his pocket. He felt a chilly\nstreak creeping down his back, but said as carelessly as he could:\n\n\"The bill? Why, it isn't any use to you, you can't read it. What do you\nwant with it?\"\n\n\"Gimme de bill!\" Tom gave it to her, but with a reluctance which he\ncould not entirely disguise. \"Did you read it ALL to me?\"\n\n\"Certainly I did.\"\n\n\"Hole up yo' han' en swah to it.\"\n\nTom did it. Roxana put the bill carefully away in her pocket, with her\neyes fixed upon Tom's face all the while; then she said:\n\n\"Yo's lyin'!\"\n\n\"What would I want to lie about it for?\"\n\n\"I don't know--but you is. Dat's my opinion, anyways. But nemmine 'bout\ndat. When I seed dat man I 'uz dat sk'yerd dat I could sca'cely wobble\nhome. Den I give a nigger man a dollar for dese clo'es, en I ain't be'in\nin a house sence, night ner day, till now. I blacked my face en laid hid\nin de cellar of a ole house dat's burnt down, daytimes, en robbed de\nsugar hogsheads en grain sacks on de wharf, nights, to git somethin' to\neat, en never dast to try to buy noth'n', en I's 'mos' starved. En I\nnever dast to come near dis place till dis rainy night, when dey ain't no\npeople roun' sca'cely. But tonight I be'n a-stanin' in de dark alley\never sence night come, waitin' for you to go by. En here I is.\"\n\nShe fell to thinking. Presently she said:\n\n\"You seed dat man at noon, las' Monday?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I seed him de middle o' dat arternoon. He hunted you up, didn't he?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Did he give you de bill dat time?\"\n\n\"No, he hadn't got it printed yet.\"\n\nRoxana darted a suspicious glance at him.\n\n\"Did you he'p him fix up de bill?\"\n\nTom cursed himself for making that stupid blunder, and tried to rectify\nit by saying he remembered now that it WAS at noon Monday that the man\ngave him the bill. Roxana said:\n\n\"You's lyin' ag'in, sho.\" Then she straightened up and raised her\nfinger:\n\n\"Now den! I's gwine to ask you a question, en I wants to know how you's\ngwine to git aroun' it. You knowed he 'uz arter me; en if you run off,\n'stid o' stayin' here to he'p him, he'd know dey 'uz somethin' wrong\n'bout dis business, en den he would inquire 'bout you, en dat would take\nhim to yo' uncle, en yo' uncle would read de bill en see dat you be'n\nsellin' a free nigger down de river, en you know HIM, I reckon! He'd\nt'ar up de will en kick you outen de house. Now, den, you answer me dis\nquestion: hain't you tole dat man dat I would be sho' to come here, en\nden you would fix it so he could set a trap en ketch me?\"\n\nTom recognized that neither lies nor arguments could help him any\nlonger--he was in a vise, with the screw turned on, and out of it there\nwas no budging. His face began to take on an ugly look, and presently he\nsaid, with a snarl:\n\n\"Well, what could I do? You see, yourself, that I was in his grip and\ncouldn't get out.\"\n\nRoxy scorched him with a scornful gaze awhile, then she said:\n\n\"What could you do? You could be Judas to yo' own mother to save yo'\nwuthless hide! Would anybody b'lieve it? No--a dog couldn't! You is de\nlowdownest orneriest hound dat was ever pup'd into dis worl'--en I's\n'sponsible for it!\"--and she spat on him.\n\nHe made no effort to resent this. Roxy reflected a moment, then she\nsaid:\n\n\"Now I'll tell you what you's gwine to do. You's gwine to give dat man\nde money dat you's got laid up, en make him wait till you kin go to de\njudge en git de res' en buy me free agin.\"\n\n\"Thunder! What are you thinking of? Go and ask him for three hundred\ndollars and odd? What would I tell him I want it for, pray?\"\n\nRoxy's answer was delivered in a serene and level voice.\n\n\"You'll tell him you's sole me to pay yo' gamblin' debts en dat you lied\nto me en was a villain, en dat I 'quires you to git dat money en buy me\nback ag'in.\"\n\n\"Why, you've gone stark mad! He would tear the will to shreds in a\nminute--don't you know that?\"\n\n\"Yes, I does.\"\n\n\"Then you don't believe I'm idiot enough to go to him, do you?\"\n\n\"I don't b'lieve nothin' 'bout it--I KNOWS you's a-goin'. I knows it\n'ca'se you knows dat if you don't raise dat money I'll go to him myself,\nen den he'll sell YOU down de river, en you kin see how you like it!\"\n\nTom rose, trembling and excited, and there was an evil light in his eye.\nHe strode to the door and said he must get out of this suffocating place\nfor a moment and clear his brain in the fresh air so that he could\ndetermine what to do. The door wouldn't open. Roxy smiled grimly, and\nsaid:\n\n\"I's got the key, honey--set down. You needn't cle'r up yo' brain none\nto fine out what you gwine to do--_I_ knows what you's gwine to do.\" Tom\nsat down and began to pass his hands through his hair with a helpless and\ndesperate air. Roxy said, \"Is dat man in dis house?\"\n\nTom glanced up with a surprised expression, and asked:\n\n\"What gave you such an idea?\"\n\n\"You done it. Gwine out to cle'r yo' brain! In de fust place you ain't\ngot none to cle'r, en in de second place yo' ornery eye tole on you.\nYou's de lowdownest hound dat ever--but I done told you dat befo'. Now\nden, dis is Friday. You kin fix it up wid dat man, en tell him you's\ngwine away to git de res' o' de money, en dat you'll be back wid it nex'\nTuesday, or maybe Wednesday. You understan'?\"\n\nTom answered sullenly: \"Yes.\"\n\n\"En when you gits de new bill o' sale dat sells me to my own self, take\nen send it in de mail to Mr. Pudd'nhead Wilson, en write on de back dat\nhe's to keep it tell I come. You understan'?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Dat's all den. Take yo' umbreller, en put on yo' hat.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Beca'se you's gwine to see me home to de wharf. You see dis knife? I's\ntoted it aroun' sence de day I seed dat man en bought dese clo'es en it.\nIf he ketch me, I's gwine to kill myself wid it. Now start along, en go\nsof', en lead de way; en if you gives a sign in dis house, or if anybody\ncomes up to you in de street, I's gwine to jam it right into you.\nChambers, does you b'lieve me when I says dat?\"\n\n\"It's no use to bother me with that question. I know your word's good.\"\n\n\"Yes, it's diff'rent from yo'n! Shet de light out en move along--here's\nde key.\"\n\nThey were not followed. Tom trembled every time a late straggler brushed\nby them on the street, and half expected to feel the cold steel in his\nback. Roxy was right at his heels and always in reach. After tramping a\nmile they reached a wide vacancy on the deserted wharves, and in this\ndark and rainy desert they parted.\n\nAs Tom trudged home his mind was full of dreary thoughts and wild plans;\nbut at last he said to himself, wearily:\n\n\"There is but the one way out. I must follow her plan. But with a\nvariation--I will not ask for the money and ruin myself; I will ROB the\nold skinflint.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 19 -- The Prophesy Realized\n\n     _Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of\n     a good example._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n     _It were not best that we should all think alike; it is\n     difference of opinion that makes horse races._ --Pudd'nhead\n     Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nDawson's Landing was comfortably finishing its season of dull repose and\nwaiting patiently for the duel. Count Luigi was waiting, too; but not\npatiently, rumor said. Sunday came, and Luigi insisted on having his\nchallenge conveyed. Wilson carried it. Judge Driscoll declined to fight\nwith an assassin--\"that is,\" he added significantly, \"in the field of\nhonor.\"\n\nElsewhere, of course, he would be ready. Wilson tried to convince him\nthat if he had been present himself when Angelo told him about the\nhomicide committed by Luigi, he would not have considered the act\ndiscreditable to Luigi; but the obstinate old man was not to be moved.\n\nWilson went back to his principal and reported the failure of his\nmission. Luigi was incensed, and asked how it could be that the old\ngentleman, who was by no means dull-witted, held his trifling nephew's\nevidence in inferences to be of more value than Wilson's. But Wilson\nlaughed, and said:\n\n\"That is quite simple; that is easily explicable. I am not his doll--his\nbaby--his infatuation: his nature is. The judge and his late wife never\nhad any children. The judge and his wife were past middle age when this\ntreasure fell into their lap. One must make allowances for a parental\ninstinct that has been starving for twenty-five or thirty years. It is\nfamished, it is crazed with hunger by that time, and will be entirely\nsatisfied with anything that comes handy; its taste is atrophied, it\ncan't tell mud cat from shad. A devil born to a young couple is\nmeasurably recognizable by them as a devil before long, but a devil\nadopted by an old couple is an angel to them, and remains so, through\nthick and thin. Tom is this old man's angel; he is infatuated with him.\nTom can persuade him into things which other people can't--not all\nthings; I don't mean that, but a good many--particularly one class of\nthings: the things that create or abolish personal partialities or\nprejudices in the old man's mind. The old man liked both of you. Tom\nconceived a hatred for you. That was enough; it turned the old man\naround at once. The oldest and strongest friendship must go to the ground\nwhen one of these late-adopted darlings throws a brick at it.\"\n\n\"It's a curious philosophy,\" said Luigi.\n\n\"It ain't philosophy at all--it's a fact. And there is something\npathetic and beautiful about it, too. I think there is nothing more\npathetic than to see one of these poor old childless couples taking a\nmenagerie of yelping little worthless dogs to their hearts; and then\nadding some cursing and squawking parrots and a jackass-voiced macaw; and\nnext a couple of hundred screeching songbirds, and presently some fetid\nguinea pigs and rabbits, and a howling colony of cats. It is all a\ngroping and ignorant effort to construct out of base metal and brass\nfilings, so to speak, something to take the place of that golden treasure\ndenied them by Nature, a child. But this is a digression. The unwritten\nlaw of this region requires you to kill Judge Driscoll on sight, and he\nand the community will expect that attention at your hands--though of\ncourse your own death by his bullet will answer every purpose. Look out\nfor him! Are you healed--that is, fixed?\"\n\n\"Yes, he shall have his opportunity. If he attacks me, I will respond.\"\n\nAs Wilson was leaving, he said:\n\n\"The judge is still a little used up by his campaign work, and will not\nget out for a day or so; but when he does get out, you want to be on the\nalert.\"\n\nAbout eleven at night the twins went out for exercise, and started on a\nlong stroll in the veiled moonlight.\n\nTom Driscoll had landed at Hackett's Store, two miles below Dawson's,\njust about half an hour earlier, the only passenger for that lonely spot,\nand had walked up the shore road and entered Judge Driscoll's house\nwithout having encountered anyone either on the road or under the roof.\n\nHe pulled down his window blinds and lighted his candle. He laid off his\ncoat and hat and began his preparations. He unlocked his trunk and got\nhis suit of girl's clothes out from under the male attire in it, and laid\nit by. Then he blacked his face with burnt cork and put the cork in his\npocket. His plan was to slip down to his uncle's private sitting room\nbelow, pass into the bedroom, steal the safe key from the old gentleman's\nclothes, and then go back and rob the safe. He took up his candle to\nstart. His courage and confidence were high, up to this point, but both\nbegan to waver a little now. Suppose he should make a noise, by some\naccident, and get caught--say, in the act of opening the safe? Perhaps\nit would be well to go armed. He took the Indian knife from its hiding\nplace, and felt a pleasant return of his wandering courage. He slipped\nstealthily down the narrow stair, his hair rising and his pulses halting\nat the slightest creak. When he was halfway down, he was disturbed to\nperceive that the landing below was touched by a faint glow of light.\nWhat could that mean? Was his uncle still up? No, that was not likely;\nhe must have left his night taper there when he went to bed. Tom crept\non down, pausing at every step to listen. He found the door standing\nopen, and glanced in. What he saw pleased him beyond measure. His uncle\nwas asleep on the sofa; on a small table at the head of the sofa a lamp\nwas burning low, and by it stood the old man's small cashbox, closed.\nNear the box was a pile of bank notes and a piece of paper covered with\nfigures in pencil. The safe door was not open. Evidently the sleeper had\nwearied himself with work upon his finances, and was taking a rest.\n\nTom set his candle on the stairs, and began to make his way toward the\npile of notes, stooping low as he went. When he was passing his uncle,\nthe old man stirred in his sleep, and Tom stopped instantly--stopped, and\nsoftly drew the knife from its sheath, with his heart thumping, and his\neyes fastened upon his benefactor's face. After a moment or two he\nventured forward again--one step--reached for his prize and seized it,\ndropping the knife sheath. Then he felt the old man's strong grip upon\nhim, and a wild cry of \"Help! help!\" rang in his ear. Without hesitation\nhe drove the knife home--and was free. Some of the notes escaped from his\nleft hand and fell in the blood on the floor. He dropped the knife and\nsnatched them up and started to fly; transferred them to his left hand,\nand seized the knife again, in his fright and confusion, but remembered\nhimself and flung it from him, as being a dangerous witness to carry away\nwith him.\n\nHe jumped for the stair-foot, and closed the door behind him; and as he\nsnatched his candle and fled upward, the stillness of the night was\nbroken by the sound of urgent footsteps approaching the house. In another\nmoment he was in his room, and the twins were standing aghast over the\nbody of the murdered man!\n\nTom put on his coat, buttoned his hat under it, threw on his suit of\ngirl's clothes, dropped the veil, blew out his light, locked the room\ndoor by which he had just entered, taking the key, passed through his\nother door into the black hall, locked that door and kept the key, then\nworked his way along in the dark and descended the black stairs. He was\nnot expecting to meet anybody, for all interest was centered in the other\npart of the house now; his calculation proved correct. By the time he\nwas passing through the backyard, Mrs. Pratt, her servants, and a dozen\nhalf-dressed neighbors had joined the twins and the dead, and accessions\nwere still arriving at the front door.\n\nAs Tom, quaking as with a palsy, passed out at the gate, three women came\nflying from the house on the opposite side of the lane. They rushed by\nhim and in at the gate, asking him what the trouble was there, but not\nwaiting for an answer. Tom said to himself, \"Those old maids waited to\ndress--they did the same thing the night Stevens's house burned down next\ndoor.\" In a few minutes he was in the haunted house. He lighted a candle\nand took off his girl-clothes. There was blood on him all down his left\nside, and his right hand was red with the stains of the blood-soaked\nnotes which he has crushed in it; but otherwise he was free from this\nsort of evidence. He cleansed his hand on the straw, and cleaned most of\nthe smut from his face. Then he burned the male and female attire to\nashes, scattered the ashes, and put on a disguise proper for a tramp. He\nblew out his light, went below, and was soon loafing down the river road\nwith the intent to borrow and use one of Roxy's devices. He found a\ncanoe and paddled down downstream, setting the canoe adrift as dawn\napproached, and making his way by land to the next village, where he kept\nout of sight till a transient steamer came along, and then took deck\npassage for St. Louis. He was ill at ease until Dawson's Landing was behind\nhim; then he said to himself, \"All the detectives on earth couldn't trace\nme now; there's not a vestige of a clue left in the world; that homicide\nwill take its place with the permanent mysteries, and people won't get\ndone trying to guess out the secret of it for fifty years.\"\n\nIn St. Louis, next morning, he read this brief telegram in the\npapers--dated at Dawson's Landing:\n\n      Judge Driscoll, an old and respected citizen, was assassinated\n      here about midnight by a profligate Italian nobleman or a\n      barber on account of a quarrel growing out of the recent\n      election. The assassin will probably be lynched.\n\n\"One of the twins!\" soliloquized Tom. \"How lucky! It is the knife that\nhas done him this grace. We never know when fortune is trying to favor\nus. I actually cursed Pudd'nhead Wilson in my heart for putting it out\nof my power to sell that knife. I take it back now.\"\n\nTom was now rich and independent. He arranged with the planter, and\nmailed to Wilson the new bill of sale which sold Roxana to herself; then\nhe telegraphed his Aunt Pratt:\n\n      Have seen the awful news in the papers and am almost\n      prostrated with grief. Shall start by packet today. Try to\n      bear up till I come.\n\nWhen Wilson reached the house of mourning and had gathered such details\nas Mrs. Pratt and the rest of the crowd could tell him, he took command\nas mayor, and gave orders that nothing should be touched, but everything\nleft as it was until Justice Robinson should arrive and take the proper\nmeasures as coroner. He cleared everybody out of the room but the twins\nand himself. The sheriff soon arrived and took the twins away to jail.\nWilson told them to keep heart, and promised to do his best in their\ndefense when the case should come to trial. Justice Robinson came\npresently, and with him Constable Blake. They examined the room\nthoroughly. They found the knife and the sheath. Wilson noticed that\nthere were fingerprints on the knife's handle. That pleased him, for the\ntwins had required the earliest comers to make a scrutiny of their hands\nand clothes, and neither these people nor Wilson himself had found any\nbloodstains upon them. Could there be a possibility that the twins had\nspoken the truth when they had said they found the man dead when they ran\ninto the house in answer to the cry for help? He thought of that\nmysterious girl at once. But this was not the sort of work for a girl to\nbe engaged in. No matter; Tom Driscoll's room must be examined.\n\nAfter the coroner's jury had viewed the body and its surroundings, Wilson\nsuggested a search upstairs, and he went along. The jury forced an\nentrance to Tom's room, but found nothing, of course.\n\nThe coroner's jury found that the homicide was committed by Luigi, and\nthat Angelo was accessory to it.\n\nThe town was bitter against the misfortunates, and for the first few days\nafter the murder they were in constant danger of being lynched. The\ngrand jury presently indicted Luigi for murder in the first degree, and\nAngelo as accessory before the fact. The twins were transferred from the\ncity jail to the county prison to await trial.\n\nWilson examined the finger marks on the knife handle and said to himself,\n\"Neither of the twins made those marks. Then manifestly there was\nanother person concerned, either in his own interest or as hired\nassassin.\"\n\nBut who could it be? That, he must try to find out. The safe was not\nopened, the cashbox was closed, and had three thousand dollars in it.\nThen robbery was not the motive, and revenge was. Where had the murdered\nman an enemy except Luigi? There was but that one person in the world\nwith a deep grudge against him.\n\nThe mysterious girl! The girl was a great trial to Wilson. If the motive\nhad been robbery, the girl might answer; but there wasn't any girl that\nwould want to take this old man's life for revenge. He had no quarrels\nwith girls; he was a gentleman.\n\nWilson had perfect tracings of the finger marks of the knife handle; and\namong his glass records he had a great array of fingerprints of women and\ngirls, collected during the last fifteen or eighteen years, but he\nscanned them in vain, they successfully withstood every test; among them\nwere no duplicates of the prints on the knife.\n\nThe presence of the knife on the stage of the murder was a worrying\ncircumstance for Wilson. A week previously he had as good as admitted to\nhimself that he believed Luigi had possessed such a knife, and that he\nstill possessed it notwithstanding his pretense that it had been stolen.\nAnd now here was the knife, and with it the twins. Half the town had\nsaid the twins were humbugging when they claimed they had lost their\nknife, and now these people were joyful, and said, \"I told you so!\"\n\nIf their fingerprints had been on the handle--but useless to bother any\nfurther about that; the fingerprints on the handle were NOT theirs--that\nhe knew perfectly.\n\nWilson refused to suspect Tom; for first, Tom couldn't murder anybody--he\nhadn't character enough; secondly, if he could murder a person he\nwouldn't select his doting benefactor and nearest relative; thirdly,\nself-interest was in the way; for while the uncle lived, Tom was sure of\na free support and a chance to get the destroyed will revived again, but\nwith the uncle gone, that chance was gone too. It was true the will had\nreally been revived, as was now discovered, but Tom could not have been\naware of it, or he would have spoken of it, in his native talky,\nunsecretive way. Finally, Tom was in St. Louis when the murder was done,\nand got the news out of the morning journals, as was shown by his\ntelegram to his aunt. These speculations were unemphasized sensations\nrather than articulated thoughts, for Wilson would have laughed at the\nidea of seriously connecting Tom with the murder.\n\nWilson regarded the case of the twins as desperate--in fact, about\nhopeless. For he argued that if a confederate was not found, an\nenlightened Missouri jury would hang them; sure; if a confederate was\nfound, that would not improve the matter, but simply furnish one more\nperson for the sheriff to hang. Nothing could save the twins but the\ndiscovery of a person who did the murder on his sole personal account--an\nundertaking which had all the aspect of the impossible. Still, the\nperson who made the fingerprints must be sought. The twins might have no\ncase WITH them, but they certainly would have none without him.\n\nSo Wilson mooned around, thinking, thinking, guessing, guessing, day and\nnight, and arriving nowhere. Whenever he ran across a girl or a woman he\nwas not acquainted with, he got her fingerprints, on one pretext or\nanother; and they always cost him a sigh when he got home, for they never\ntallied with the finger marks on the knife handle.\n\nAs to the mysterious girl, Tom swore he knew no such girl, and did not\nremember ever seeing a girl wearing a dress like the one described by\nWilson. He admitted that he did not always lock his room, and that\nsometimes the servants forgot to lock the house doors; still, in his\nopinion the girl must have made but few visits or she would have been\ndiscovered. When Wilson tried to connect her with the stealing raid, and\nthought she might have been the old woman's confederate, if not the very\nthief disguised as an old woman, Tom seemed stuck, and also much\ninterested, and said he would keep a sharp eye out for this person or\npersons, although he was afraid that she or they would be too smart to\nventure again into a town where everybody would now be on the watch for a\ngood while to come.\n\nEverybody was pitying Tom, he looked so quiet and sorrowful, and seemed\nto feel his great loss so deeply. He was playing a part, but it was not\nall a part. The picture of his alleged uncle, as he had last seen him,\nwas before him in the dark pretty frequently, when he was away, and\ncalled again in his dreams, when he was asleep. He wouldn't go into the\nroom where the tragedy had happened. This charmed the doting Mrs. Pratt,\nwho realized now, \"as she had never done before,\" she said, what a\nsensitive and delicate nature her darling had, and how he adored his poor\nuncle.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 20 -- The Murderer Chuckles\n\n     _Even the clearest and most perfect circumstantial evidence\n     is likely to be at fault, after all, and therefore ought to\n     be received with great caution. Take the case of any pencil,\n     sharpened by any woman; if you have witnesses, you will find\n     she did it with a knife; but if you take simply the aspect\n     of the pencil, you will say she did it with her teeth._\n     --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nThe weeks dragged along, no friend visiting the jailed twins but their\ncounsel and Aunt Patsy Cooper, and the day of trial came at last--the\nheaviest day in Wilson's life; for with all his tireless diligence he had\ndiscovered no sign or trace of the missing confederate. \"Confederate\"\nwas the term he had long ago privately accepted for that person--not as\nbeing unquestionably the right term, but as being the least possibly the\nright one, though he was never able to understand why the twins did not\nvanish and escape, as the confederate had done, instead of remaining by\nthe murdered man and getting caught there.\n\nThe courthouse was crowded, of course, and would remain so to the finish,\nfor not only in the town itself, but in the country for miles around, the\ntrial was the one topic of conversation among the people. Mrs. Pratt, in\ndeep mourning, and Tom with a weed on his hat, had seats near Pembroke\nHoward, the public prosecutor, and back of them sat a great array of\nfriends of the family. The twins had but one friend present to keep\ntheir counsel in countenance, their poor old sorrowing landlady. She sat\nnear Wilson, and looked her friendliest. In the \"nigger corner\" sat\nChambers; also Roxy, with good clothes on, and her bill of sale in her\npocket. It was her most precious possession, and she never parted with\nit, day or night. Tom had allowed her thirty-five dollars a month ever\nsince he came into his property, and had said that he and she ought to be\ngrateful to the twins for making them rich; but had roused such a temper\nin her by this speech that he did not repeat the argument afterward. She\nsaid the old judge had treated her child a thousand times better than he\ndeserved, and had never done her an unkindness in his life; so she hated\nthese outlandish devils for killing him, and shouldn't ever sleep\nsatisfied till she saw them hanged for it. She was here to watch the\ntrial now, and was going to lift up just one \"hooraw\" over it if the\ncounty judge put her in jail a year for it. She gave her turbaned head a\ntoss and said, \"When dat verdic' comes, I's gwine to lif' dat ROOF, now,\nI TELL you.\"\n\nPembroke Howard briefly sketched the state's case. He said he would show\nby a chain of circumstantial evidence without break or fault in it\nanywhere, that the principal prisoner at the bar committed the murder;\nthat the motive was partly revenge, and partly a desire to take his own\nlife out of jeopardy, and that his brother, by his presence, was a\nconsenting accessory to the crime; a crime which was the basest known to\nthe calendar of human misdeeds--assassination; that it was conceived by\nthe blackest of hearts and consummated by the cowardliest of hands; a\ncrime which had broken a loving sister's heart, blighted the happiness of\na young nephew who was as dear as a son, brought inconsolable grief to\nmany friends, and sorrow and loss to the whole community. The utmost\npenalty of the outraged law would be exacted, and upon the accused, now\npresent at the bar, that penalty would unquestionably be executed. He\nwould reserve further remark until his closing speech.\n\nHe was strongly moved, and so also was the whole house; Mrs. Pratt and\nseveral other women were weeping when he sat down, and many an eye that\nwas full of hate was riveted upon the unhappy prisoners.\n\nWitness after witness was called by the state, and questioned at length;\nbut the cross questioning was brief. Wilson knew they could furnish\nnothing valuable for his side. People were sorry for Pudd'nhead Wilson;\nhis budding career would get hurt by this trial.\n\nSeveral witnesses swore they heard Judge Driscoll say in his public\nspeech that the twins would be able to find their lost knife again when\nthey needed it to assassinate somebody with. This was not news, but now\nit was seen to have been sorrowfully prophetic, and a profound sensation\nquivered through the hushed courtroom when those dismal words were\nrepeated.\n\nThe public prosecutor rose and said that it was within his knowledge,\nthrough a conversation held with Judge Driscoll on the last day of his\nlife, that counsel for the defense had brought him a challenge from the\nperson charged at the bar with murder; that he had refused to fight with\na confessed assassin--\"that is, on the field of honor,\" but had added\nsignificantly, that he would be ready for him elsewhere. Presumably\nthe person here charged with murder was warned that he must kill or be\nkilled the first time he should meet Judge Driscoll. If counsel for the\ndefense chose to let the statement stand so, he would not call him to the\nwitness stand. Mr. Wilson said he would offer no denial. [Murmurs in the\nhouse: \"It is getting worse and worse for Wilson's case.\"]\n\nMrs. Pratt testified that she heard no outcry, and did not know what woke\nher up, unless it was the sound of rapid footsteps approaching the front\ndoor. She jumped up and ran out in the hall just as she was, and heard\nthe footsteps flying up the front steps and then following behind her as\nshe ran to the sitting room. There she found the accused standing over\nher murdered brother. [Here she broke down and sobbed. Sensation in the\ncourt.] Resuming, she said the persons entered behind her were Mr. Rogers\nand Mr. Buckstone.\n\nCross-examined by Wilson, she said the twins proclaimed their innocence;\ndeclared that they had been taking a walk, and had hurried to the house\nin response to a cry for help which was so loud and strong that they had\nheard it at a considerable distance; that they begged her and the\ngentlemen just mentioned to examine their hands and clothes--which was\ndone, and no blood stains found.\n\nConfirmatory evidence followed from Rogers and Buckstone.\n\nThe finding of the knife was verified, the advertisement minutely\ndescribing it and offering a reward for it was put in evidence, and its\nexact correspondence with that description proved. Then followed a few\nminor details, and the case for the state was closed.\n\nWilson said that he had three witnesses, the Misses Clarkson, who would\ntestify that they met a veiled young woman leaving Judge Driscoll's\npremises by the back gate a few minutes after the cries for help were\nheard, and that their evidence, taken with certain circumstantial\nevidence which he would call the court's attention to, would in his\nopinion convince the court that there was still one person concerned in\nthis crime who had not yet been found, and also that a stay of\nproceedings ought to be granted, in justice to his clients, until that\nperson should be discovered. As it was late, he would ask leave to defer\nthe examination of his three witnesses until the next morning.\n\nThe crowd poured out of the place and went flocking away in excited\ngroups and couples, taking the events of the session over with vivacity\nand consuming interest, and everybody seemed to have had a satisfactory\nand enjoyable day except the accused, their counsel, and their old lady\nfriend. There was no cheer among these, and no substantial hope.\n\nIn parting with the twins Aunt Patsy did attempt a good-night with a gay\npretense of hope and cheer in it, but broke down without finishing.\n\nAbsolutely secure as Tom considered himself to be, the opening\nsolemnities of the trial had nevertheless oppressed him with a vague\nuneasiness, his being a nature sensitive to even the smallest alarms; but\nfrom the moment that the poverty and weakness of Wilson's case lay\nexposed to the court, he was comfortable once more, even jubilant. He\nleft the courtroom sarcastically sorry for Wilson. \"The Clarksons met an\nunknown woman in the back lane,\" he said to himself, \"THAT is his case!\nI'll give him a century to find her in--a couple of them if he likes. A\nwoman who doesn't exist any longer, and the clothes that gave her her sex\nburnt up and the ashes thrown away--oh, certainly, he'll find HER easy\nenough!\" This reflection set him to admiring, for the hundredth time,\nthe shrewd ingenuities by which he had insured himself against\ndetection--more, against even suspicion.\n\n\"Nearly always in cases like this there is some little detail or other\noverlooked, some wee little track or trace left behind, and detection\nfollows; but here there's not even the faintest suggestion of a trace\nleft. No more than a bird leaves when it flies through the air--yes,\nthrough the night, you may say. The man that can track a bird through the\nair in the dark and find that bird is the man to track me out and find\nthe judge's assassin--no other need apply. And that is the job that has\nbeen laid out for poor Pudd'nhead Wilson, of all people in the world!\nLord, it will be pathetically funny to see him grubbing and groping after\nthat woman that don't exist, and the right person sitting under his very\nnose all the time!\" The more he thought the situation over, the more the\nhumor of it struck him. Finally he said, \"I'll never let him hear the\nlast of that woman. Every time I catch him in company, to his dying day,\nI'll ask him in the guileless affectionate way that used to gravel him so\nwhen I inquired how his unborn law business was coming along, 'Got on her\ntrack yet--hey, Pudd'nhead?'\" He wanted to laugh, but that would not\nhave answered; there were people about, and he was mourning for his\nuncle. He made up his mind that it would be good entertainment to look\nin on Wilson that night and watch him worry over his barren law case and\ngoad him with an exasperating word or two of sympathy and commiseration\nnow and then.\n\nWilson wanted no supper, he had no appetite. He got out all the\nfingerprints of girls and women in his collection of records and pored\ngloomily over them an hour or more, trying to convince himself that that\ntroublesome girl's marks were there somewhere and had been overlooked.\nBut it was not so. He drew back his chair, clasped his hands over his\nhead, and gave himself up to dull and arid musings.\n\nTom Driscoll dropped in, an hour after dark, and said with a pleasant\nlaugh as he took a seat:\n\n\"Hello, we've gone back to the amusements of our days of neglect and\nobscurity for consolation, have we?\" and he took up one of the glass\nstrips and held it against the light to inspect it. \"Come, cheer up, old\nman; there's no use in losing your grip and going back to this child's\nplay merely because this big sunspot is drifting across your shiny new\ndisk. It'll pass, and you'll be all right again\"--and he laid the glass\ndown. \"Did you think you could win always?\"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" said Wilson, with a sigh, \"I didn't expect that, but I can't\nbelieve Luigi killed your uncle, and I feel very sorry for him. It makes\nme blue. And you would feel as I do, Tom, if you were not prejudiced\nagainst those young fellows.\"\n\n\"I don't know about that,\" and Tom's countenance darkened, for his memory\nreverted to his kicking. \"I owe them no good will, considering the\nbrunet one's treatment of me that night. Prejudice or no prejudice,\nPudd'nhead, I don't like them, and when they get their deserts you're not\ngoing to find me sitting on the mourner's bench.\"\n\nHe took up another strip of glass, and exclaimed:\n\n\"Why, here's old Roxy's label! Are you going to ornament the royal\npalaces with nigger paw marks, too? By the date here, I was seven months\nold when this was done, and she was nursing me and her little nigger cub.\nThere's a line straight across her thumbprint. How comes that?\" and Tom\nheld out the piece of glass to Wilson.\n\n\"That is common,\" said the bored man, wearily. \"Scar of a cut or a\nscratch, usually\"--and he took the strip of glass indifferently, and\nraised it toward the lamp.\n\nAll the blood sank suddenly out of his face; his hand quaked, and he\ngazed at the polished surface before him with the glassy stare of a\ncorpse.\n\n\"Great heavens, what's the matter with you, Wilson? Are you going to\nfaint?\"\n\nTom sprang for a glass of water and offered it, but Wilson shrank\nshuddering from him and said:\n\n\"No, no!--take it away!\" His breast was rising and falling, and he moved\nhis head about in a dull and wandering way, like a person who had been\nstunned. Presently he said, \"I shall feel better when I get to bed; I\nhave been overwrought today; yes, and overworked for many days.\"\n\n\"Then I'll leave you and let you get to your rest. Good night, old man.\"\nBut as Tom went out he couldn't deny himself a small parting gibe:\n\"Don't take it so hard; a body can't win every time; you'll hang somebody\nyet.\"\n\nWilson muttered to himself, \"It is no lie to say I am sorry I have to\nbegin with you, miserable dog though you are!\"\n\nHe braced himself up with a glass of cold whisky, and went to work again.\nHe did not compare the new finger marks unintentionally left by Tom a few\nminutes before on Roxy's glass with the tracings of the marks left on the\nknife handle, there being no need for that (for his trained eye), but\nbusied himself with another matter, muttering from time to time, \"Idiot\nthat I was!--Nothing but a GIRL would do me--a man in girl's clothes\nnever occurred to me.\" First, he hunted out the plate containing the\nfingerprints made by Tom when he was twelve years old, and laid it by\nitself; then he brought forth the marks made by Tom's baby fingers when\nhe was a suckling of seven months, and placed these two plates with the\none containing this subject's newly (and unconsciously) made record.\n\n\"Now the series is complete,\" he said with satisfaction, and sat down to\ninspect these things and enjoy them.\n\nBut his enjoyment was brief. He stared a considerable time at the three\nstrips, and seemed stupefied with astonishment. At last he put them down\nand said, \"I can't make it out at all--hang it, the baby's don't tally\nwith the others!\"\n\nHe walked the floor for half an hour puzzling over his enigma, then he\nhunted out the other glass plates.\n\nHe sat down and puzzled over these things a good while, but kept\nmuttering, \"It's no use; I can't understand it. They don't tally right,\nand yet I'll swear the names and dates are right, and so of course they\nOUGHT to tally. I never labeled one of these thing carelessly in my\nlife. There is a most extraordinary mystery here.\"\n\nHe was tired out now, and his brains were beginning to clog. He said he\nwould sleep himself fresh, and then see what he could do with this\nriddle. He slept through a troubled and unrestful hour, then\nunconsciousness began to shred away, and presently he rose drowsily to a\nsitting posture. \"Now what was that dream?\" he said, trying to recall\nit. \"What was that dream? It seemed to unravel that puz--\"\n\nHe landed in the middle of the floor at a bound, without finishing the\nsentence, and ran and turned up his light and seized his \"records.\" He\ntook a single swift glance at them and cried out:\n\n\"It's so! Heavens, what a revelation! And for twenty-three years no man\nhas ever suspected it!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 21 -- Doom\n\n     _He is useless on top of the ground; he ought to be under\n     it, inspiring the cabbages._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n     _APRIL 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what\n     we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four._\n     --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nWilson put on enough clothes for business purposes and went to work\nunder a high pressure of steam. He was awake all over. All sense of\nweariness had been swept away by the invigorating refreshment of the\ngreat and hopeful discovery which he had made. He made fine and accurate\nreproductions of a number of his \"records,\" and then enlarged them on a\nscale of ten to one with his pantograph. He did these pantograph\nenlargements on sheets of white cardboard, and made each individual line\nof the bewildering maze of whorls or curves or loops which consisted of\nthe \"pattern\" of a \"record\" stand out bold and black by reinforcing it\nwith ink. To the untrained eye the collection of delicate originals made\nby the human finger on the glass plates looked about alike; but when\nenlarged ten times they resembled the markings of a block of wood that\nhas been sawed across the grain, and the dullest eye could detect at a\nglance, and at a distance of many feet, that no two of the patterns were\nalike. When Wilson had at last finished his tedious and difficult work,\nhe arranged his results according to a plan in which a progressive order\nand sequence was a principal feature; then he added to the batch several\npantograph enlargements which he had made from time to time in bygone\nyears.\n\nThe night was spent and the day well advanced now. By the time he had\nsnatched a trifle of breakfast, it was nine o'clock, and the court was\nready to begin its sitting. He was in his place twelve minutes later\nwith his \"records.\"\n\nTom Driscoll caught a slight glimpse of the records, and nudged his\nnearest friend and said, with a wink, \"Pudd'nhead's got a rare eye to\nbusiness--thinks that as long as he can't win his case it's at least a\nnoble good chance to advertise his window palace decorations without any\nexpense.\" Wilson was informed that his witnesses had been delayed, but\nwould arrive presently; but he rose and said he should probably not have\noccasion to make use of their testimony. [An amused murmur ran through\nthe room: \"It's a clean backdown! he gives up without hitting a lick!\"]\nWilson continued: \"I have other testimony--and better. [This compelled\ninterest, and evoked murmurs of surprise that had a detectable ingredient\nof disappointment in them.] If I seem to be springing this evidence upon\nthe court, I offer as my justification for this, that I did not discover\nits existence until late last night, and have been engaged in examining\nand classifying it ever since, until half an hour ago. I shall offer it\npresently; but first I wish to say a few preliminary words.\n\n\"May it please the court, the claim given the front place, the claim most\npersistently urged, the claim most strenuously and I may even say\naggressively and defiantly insisted upon by the prosecution is this--that\nthe person whose hand left the bloodstained fingerprints upon the handle\nof the Indian knife is the person who committed the murder.\" Wilson\npaused, during several moments, to give impressiveness to what he was\nabout to say, and then added tranquilly, \"WE GRANT THAT CLAIM.\"\n\nIt was an electrical surprise. No one was prepared for such an\nadmission. A buzz of astonishment rose on all sides, and people were\nheard to intimate that the overworked lawyer had lost his mind. Even the\nveteran judge, accustomed as he was to legal ambushes and masked\nbatteries in criminal procedure, was not sure that his ears were not\ndeceiving him, and asked counsel what it was he had said. Howard's\nimpassive face betrayed no sign, but his attitude and bearing lost\nsomething of their careless confidence for a moment. Wilson resumed:\n\n\"We not only grant that claim, but we welcome it and strongly endorse it.\nLeaving that matter for the present, we will now proceed to consider\nother points in the case which we propose to establish by evidence, and\nshall include that one in the chain in its proper place.\"\n\nHe had made up his mind to try a few hardy guesses, in mapping out his\ntheory of the origin and motive of the murder--guesses designed to fill\nup gaps in it--guesses which could help if they hit, and would probably\ndo no harm if they didn't.\n\n\"To my mind, certain circumstances of the case before the court seem to\nsuggest a motive for the homicide quite different from the one insisted\non by the state. It is my conviction that the motive was not revenge,\nbut robbery. It has been urged that the presence of the accused brothers\nin that fatal room, just after notification that one of them must take\nthe life of Judge Driscoll or lose his own the moment the parties should\nmeet, clearly signifies that the natural instinct of self-preservation\nmoved my clients to go there secretly and save Count Luigi by destroying\nhis adversary.\n\n\"Then why did they stay there, after the deed was done? Mrs. Pratt had\ntime, although she did not hear the cry for help, but woke up some\nmoments later, to run to that room--and there she found these men\nstanding and making no effort to escape. If they were guilty, they ought\nto have been running out of the house at the same time that she was\nrunning to that room. If they had had such a strong instinct toward\nself-preservation as to move them to kill that unarmed man, what had\nbecome of it now, when it should have been more alert than ever. Would\nany of us have remained there? Let us not slander our intelligence to\nthat degree.\n\n\"Much stress has been laid upon the fact that the accused offered a very\nlarge reward for the knife with which this murder was done; that no thief\ncame forward to claim that extraordinary reward; that the latter fact was\ngood circumstantial evidence that the claim that the knife had been\nstolen was a vanity and a fraud; that these details taken in connection\nwith the memorable and apparently prophetic speech of the deceased\nconcerning that knife, and the final discovery of that very knife in\nthe fatal room where no living person was found present with the\nslaughtered man but the owner of the knife and his brother, form an\nindestructible chain of evidence which fixed the crime upon those\nunfortunate strangers.\n\n\"But I shall presently ask to be sworn, and shall testify that there was\na large reward offered for the THIEF, also; and it was offered secretly\nand not advertised; that this fact was indiscreetly mentioned--or at\nleast tacitly admitted--in what was supposed to be safe circumstances,\nbut may NOT have been. The thief may have been present himself. [Tom\nDriscoll had been looking at the speaker, but dropped his eyes at this\npoint.] In that case he would retain the knife in his possession, not\ndaring to offer it for sale, or for pledge in a pawnshop. [There was a\nnodding of heads among the audience by way of admission that this was not\na bad stroke.] I shall prove to the satisfaction of the jury that there\nWAS a person in Judge Driscoll's room several minutes before the accused\nentered it. [This produced a strong sensation; the last drowsy head in\nthe courtroom roused up now, and made preparation to listen.] If it\nshall seem necessary, I will prove by the Misses Clarkson that they met a\nveiled person--ostensibly a woman--coming out of the back gate a few\nminutes after the cry for help was heard. This person was not a woman,\nbut a man dressed in woman's clothes.\" Another sensation. Wilson had his\neye on Tom when he hazarded this guess, to see what effect it would\nproduce. He was satisfied with the result, and said to himself, \"It was\na success--he's hit!\"\n\n\"The object of that person in that house was robbery, not murder. It is\ntrue that the safe was not open, but there was an ordinary cashbox on the\ntable, with three thousand dollars in it. It is easily supposable that\nthe thief was concealed in the house; that he knew of this box, and of\nits owner's habit of counting its contents and arranging his accounts at\nnight--if he had that habit, which I do not assert, of course--that he\ntried to take the box while its owner slept, but made a noise and was\nseized, and had to use the knife to save himself from capture; and that\nhe fled without his booty because he heard help coming.\n\n\"I have now done with my theory, and will proceed to the evidences by\nwhich I propose to try to prove its soundness.\" Wilson took up several of\nhis strips of glass. When the audience recognized these familiar\nmementos of Pudd'nhead's old time childish \"puttering\" and folly, the\ntense and funereal interest vanished out of their faces, and the house\nburst into volleys of relieving and refreshing laughter, and Tom chirked\nup and joined in the fun himself; but Wilson was apparently not\ndisturbed. He arranged his records on the table before him, and said:\n\n\"I beg the indulgence of the court while I make a few remarks in\nexplanation of some evidence which I am about to introduce, and which I\nshall presently ask to be allowed to verify under oath on the witness\nstand. Every human being carries with him from his cradle to his grave\ncertain physical marks which do not change their character, and by which\nhe can always be identified--and that without shade of doubt or question.\nThese marks are his signature, his physiological autograph, so to speak,\nand this autograph can not be counterfeited, nor can he disguise it or\nhide it away, nor can it become illegible by the wear and mutations of\ntime. This signature is not his face--age can change that beyond\nrecognition; it is not his hair, for that can fall out; it is not his\nheight, for duplicates of that exist; it is not his form, for duplicates\nof that exist also, whereas this signature is each man's very own--there\nis no duplicate of it among the swarming populations of the globe! [The\naudience were interested once more.]\n\n\"This autograph consists of the delicate lines or corrugations with which\nNature marks the insides of the hands and the soles of the feet. If you\nwill look at the balls of your fingers--you that have very sharp\neyesight--you will observe that these dainty curving lines lie close\ntogether, like those that indicate the borders of oceans in maps, and\nthat they form various clearly defined patterns, such as arches, circles,\nlong curves, whorls, etc., and that these patterns differ on the different\nfingers. [Every man in the room had his hand up to the light now, and\nhis head canted to one side, and was minutely scrutinizing the balls of\nhis fingers; there were whispered ejaculations of 'Why, it's so--I never\nnoticed that before!'] The patterns on the right hand are not the same as\nthose on the left. [Ejaculations of 'Why, that's so, too!'] Taken finger\nfor finger, your patterns differ from your neighbor's. [Comparisons were\nmade all over the house--even the judge and jury were absorbed in this\ncurious work.] The patterns of a twin's right hand are not the same as\nthose on his left. One twin's patterns are never the same as his fellow\ntwin's patterns--the jury will find that the patterns upon the finger\nballs of the twins' hands follow this rule. [An examination of the\ntwins' hands was begun at once.] You have often heard of twins who were\nso exactly alike that when dressed alike their own parents could not tell\nthem apart. Yet there was never a twin born in to this world that did not\ncarry from birth to death a sure identifier in this mysterious and\nmarvelous natal autograph. That once known to you, his fellow twin could\nnever personate him and deceive you.\"\n\nWilson stopped and stood silent. Inattention dies a quick and sure death\nwhen a speaker does that. The stillness gives warning that something is\ncoming. All palms and finger balls went down now, all slouching forms\nstraightened, all heads came up, all eyes were fastened upon Wilson's\nface. He waited yet one, two, three moments, to let his pause complete\nand perfect its spell upon the house; then, when through the profound\nhush he could hear the ticking of the clock on the wall, he put out his\nhand and took the Indian knife by the blade and held it aloft where all\ncould see the sinister spots upon its ivory handle; then he said, in a\nlevel and passionless voice:\n\n\"Upon this haft stands the assassin's natal autograph, written in the\nblood of that helpless and unoffending old man who loved you and whom you\nall loved. There is but one man in the whole earth whose hand can\nduplicate that crimson sign\"--he paused and raised his eyes to the\npendulum swinging back and forth--\"and please God we will produce that\nman in this room before the clock strikes noon!\"\n\nStunned, distraught, unconscious of its own movement, the house half\nrose, as if expecting to see the murderer appear at the door, and a\nbreeze of muttered ejaculations swept the place. \"Order in the\ncourt!--sit down!\" This from the sheriff. He was obeyed, and quiet\nreigned again. Wilson stole a glance at Tom, and said to himself, \"He is\nflying signals of distress now; even people who despise him are pitying\nhim; they think this is a hard ordeal for a young fellow who has lost his\nbenefactor by so cruel a stroke--and they are right.\" He resumed his\nspeech:\n\n\"For more than twenty years I have amused my compulsory leisure with\ncollecting these curious physical signatures in this town. At my house I\nhave hundreds upon hundreds of them. Each and every one is labeled with\nname and date; not labeled the next day or even the next hour, but in the\nvery minute that the impression was taken. When I go upon the witness\nstand I will repeat under oath the things which I am now saying. I have\nthe fingerprints of the court, the sheriff, and every member of the jury.\nThere is hardly a person in this room, white or black, whose natal\nsignature I cannot produce, and not one of them can so disguise himself\nthat I cannot pick him out from a multitude of his fellow creatures and\nunerringly identify him by his hands. And if he and I should live to be a\nhundred I could still do it. [The interest of the audience was steadily\ndeepening now.]\n\n\"I have studied some of these signatures so much that I know them as well\nas the bank cashier knows the autograph of his oldest customer. While I\nturn my back now, I beg that several persons will be so good as to pass\ntheir fingers through their hair, and then press them upon one of the\npanes of the window near the jury, and that among them the accused may\nset THEIR finger marks. Also, I beg that these experimenters, or others,\nwill set their fingers upon another pane, and add again the marks of the\naccused, but not placing them in the same order or relation to the other\nsignatures as before--for, by one chance in a million, a person might\nhappen upon the right marks by pure guesswork, ONCE, therefore I wish to\nbe tested twice.\"\n\nHe turned his back, and the two panes were quickly covered with\ndelicately lined oval spots, but visible only to such persons as could\nget a dark background for them--the foliage of a tree, outside, for\ninstance. Then upon call, Wilson went to the window, made his\nexamination, and said:\n\n\"This is Count Luigi's right hand; this one, three signatures below, is\nhis left. Here is Count Angelo's right; down here is his left. Now for\nthe other pane: here and here are Count Luigi's, here and here are his\nbrother's.\" He faced about. \"Am I right?\"\n\nA deafening explosion of applause was the answer. The bench said:\n\n\"This certainly approaches the miraculous!\"\n\nWilson turned to the window again and remarked, pointing with his finger:\n\n\"This is the signature of Mr. Justice Robinson. [Applause.] This, of\nConstable Blake. [Applause.] This of John Mason, juryman. [Applause.]\nThis, of the sheriff. [Applause.] I cannot name the others, but I have\nthem all at home, named and dated, and could identify them all by my\nfingerprint records.\"\n\nHe moved to his place through a storm of applause--which the sheriff\nstopped, and also made the people sit down, for they were all standing\nand struggling to see, of course. Court, jury, sheriff, and everybody\nhad been too absorbed in observing Wilson's performance to attend to the\naudience earlier.\n\n\"Now then,\" said Wilson, \"I have here the natal autographs of the two\nchildren--thrown up to ten times the natural size by the pantograph, so\nthat anyone who can see at all can tell the markings apart at a glance.\nWe will call the children A and B. Here are A's finger marks, taken at\nthe age of five months. Here they are again taken at seven months. [Tom\nstarted.] They are alike, you see. Here are B's at five months, and also\nat seven months. They, too, exactly copy each other, but the patterns\nare quite different from A's, you observe. I shall refer to these again\npresently, but we will turn them face down now.\n\n\"Here, thrown up ten sizes, are the natal autographs of the two persons\nwho are here before you accused of murdering Judge Driscoll. I made these\npantograph copies last night, and will so swear when I go upon the\nwitness stand. I ask the jury to compare them with the finger marks of\nthe accused upon the windowpanes, and tell the court if they are the\nsame.\"\n\nHe passed a powerful magnifying glass to the foreman.\n\nOne juryman after another took the cardboard and the glass and made the\ncomparison. Then the foreman said to the judge:\n\n\"Your honor, we are all agreed that they are identical.\"\n\nWilson said to the foreman:\n\n\"Please turn that cardboard face down, and take this one, and compare it\nsearchingly, by the magnifier, with the fatal signature upon the knife\nhandle, and report your finding to the court.\"\n\nAgain the jury made minute examinations, and again reported:\n\n\"We find them to be exactly identical, your honor.\"\n\nWilson turned toward the counsel for the prosecution, and there was a\nclearly recognizable note of warning in his voice when he said:\n\n\"May it please the court, the state has claimed, strenuously and\npersistently, that the bloodstained fingerprints upon that knife handle\nwere left there by the assassin of Judge Driscoll. You have heard us\ngrant that claim, and welcome it.\" He turned to the jury: \"Compare the\nfingerprints of the accused with the fingerprints left by the\nassassin--and report.\"\n\nThe comparison began. As it proceeded, all movement and all sound\nceased, and the deep silence of an absorbed and waiting suspense settled\nupon the house; and when at last the words came, \"THEY DO NOT EVEN\nRESEMBLE,\" a thundercrash of applause followed and the house sprang to\nits feet, but was quickly repressed by official force and brought to\norder again. Tom was altering his position every few minutes now, but\nnone of his changes brought repose nor any small trifle of comfort. When\nthe house's attention was become fixed once more, Wilson said gravely,\nindicating the twins with a gesture:\n\n\"These men are innocent--I have no further concern with them. [Another\noutbreak of applause began, but was promptly checked.] We will now\nproceed to find the guilty. [Tom's eyes were starting from their\nsockets--yes, it was a cruel day for the bereaved youth, everybody\nthought.] We will return to the infant autographs of A and B. I will\nask the jury to take these large pantograph facsimilies of A's marked\nfive months and seven months. Do they tally?\"\n\nThe foreman responded: \"Perfectly.\"\n\n\"Now examine this pantograph, taken at eight months, and also marked A.\nDoes it tally with the other two?\"\n\nThe surprised response was:\n\n\"NO--THEY DIFFER WIDELY!\"\n\n\"You are quite right. Now take these two pantographs of B's autograph,\nmarked five months and seven months. Do they tally with each other?\"\n\n\"Yes--perfectly.\"\n\n\"Take this third pantograph marked B, eight months. Does it tally with\nB's other two?\"\n\n\"BY NO MEANS!\"\n\n\"Do you know how to account for those strange discrepancies? I will tell\nyou. For a purpose unknown to us, but probably a selfish one, somebody\nchanged those children in the cradle.\"\n\nThis produced a vast sensation, naturally; Roxana was astonished at this\nadmirable guess, but not disturbed by it. To guess the exchange was one\nthing, to guess who did it quite another. Pudd'nhead Wilson could do\nwonderful things, no doubt, but he couldn't do impossible ones. Safe?\nShe was perfectly safe. She smiled privately.\n\n\"Between the ages of seven months and eight months those children were\nchanged in the cradle\"--he made one of this effect--collecting pauses,\nand added--\"and the person who did it is in this house!\"\n\nRoxy's pulses stood still! The house was thrilled as with an electric\nshock, and the people half rose as if to seek a glimpse of the person who\nhad made that exchange. Tom was growing limp; the life seemed oozing out\nof him. Wilson resumed:\n\n\"A was put into B's cradle in the nursery; B was transferred to the\nkitchen and became a Negro and a slave [Sensation--confusion of angry\nejaculations]--but within a quarter of an hour he will stand before you\nwhite and free! [Burst of applause, checked by the officers.] From\nseven months onward until now, A has still been a usurper, and in my\nfinger record he bears B's name. Here is his pantograph at the age of\ntwelve. Compare it with the assassin's signature upon the knife handle.\nDo they tally?\"\n\nThe foreman answered:\n\n\"TO THE MINUTEST DETAIL!\"\n\nWilson said, solemnly:\n\n\"The murderer of your friend and mine--York Driscoll of the generous hand\nand the kindly spirit--sits in among you. Valet de Chambre, Negro and\nslave--falsely called Thomas a Becket Driscoll--make upon the window the\nfingerprints that will hang you!\"\n\nTom turned his ashen face imploring toward the speaker, made some\nimpotent movements with his white lips, then slid limp and lifeless to\nthe floor.\n\nWilson broke the awed silence with the words:\n\n\"There is no need. He has confessed.\"\n\nRoxy flung herself upon her knees, covered her face with her hands, and\nout through her sobs the words struggled:\n\n\"De Lord have mercy on me, po' misasble sinner dat I is!\"\n\nThe clock struck twelve.\n\nThe court rose; the new prisoner, handcuffed, was removed.\n\n\n\nCONCLUSION\n\n     _It is often the case that the man who can't tell a lie\n     thinks he is the best judge of one._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's\n     Calendar\n\n     _OCTOBER 12, THE DISCOVERY. It was wonderful to find\n     America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it._\n     --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nThe town sat up all night to discuss the amazing events of the day and\nswap guesses as to when Tom's trial would begin. Troop after troop of\ncitizens came to serenade Wilson, and require a speech, and shout\nthemselves hoarse over every sentence that fell from his lips--for all\nhis sentences were golden, now, all were marvelous. His long fight\nagainst hard luck and prejudice was ended; he was a made man for good.\nAnd as each of these roaring gangs of enthusiasts marched away, some\nremorseful member of it was quite sure to raise his voice and say:\n\n\"And this is the man the likes of us have called a pudd'nhead for more\nthan twenty years. He has resigned from that position, friends.\"\n\n\"Yes, but it isn't vacant--we're elected.\"\n\nThe twins were heroes of romance, now, and with rehabilitated\nreputations. But they were weary of Western adventure, and straightway\nretired to Europe.\n\nRoxy's heart was broken. The young fellow upon whom she had inflicted\ntwenty-three years of slavery continued the false heir's pension of\nthirty-five dollars a month to her, but her hurts were too deep for money\nto heal; the spirit in her eye was quenched, her martial bearing departed\nwith it, and the voice of her laughter ceased in the land. In her church\nand its affairs she found her only solace.\n\nThe real heir suddenly found himself rich and free, but in a most\nembarrassing situation. He could neither read nor write, and his speech\nwas the basest dialect of the Negro quarter. His gait, his attitudes, his\ngestures, his bearing, his laugh--all were vulgar and uncouth; his\nmanners were the manners of a slave. Money and fine clothes could not\nmend these defects or cover them up; they only made them more glaring and\nthe more pathetic. The poor fellow could not endure the terrors of the\nwhite man's parlor, and felt at home and at peace nowhere but in the\nkitchen. The family pew was a misery to him, yet he could nevermore enter\ninto the solacing refuge of the \"nigger gallery\"--that was closed to him\nfor good and all. But we cannot follow his curious fate further--that\nwould be a long story.\n\nThe false heir made a full confession and was sentenced to imprisonment\nfor life. But now a complication came up. The Percy Driscoll estate was\nin such a crippled shape when its owner died that it could pay only sixty\npercent of its great indebtedness, and was settled at that rate. But the\ncreditors came forward now, and complained that inasmuch as through an\nerror for which THEY were in no way to blame the false heir was not\ninventoried at the time with the rest of the property, great wrong and\nloss had thereby been inflicted upon them. They rightly claimed that\n\"Tom\" was lawfully their property and had been so for eight years; that\nthey had already lost sufficiently in being deprived of his services\nduring that long period, and ought not to be required to add anything to\nthat loss; that if he had been delivered up to them in the first place,\nthey would have sold him and he could not have murdered Judge Driscoll;\ntherefore it was not that he had really committed the murder, the guilt\nlay with the erroneous inventory. Everybody saw that there was reason in\nthis. Everybody granted that if \"Tom\" were white and free it would be\nunquestionably right to punish him--it would be no loss to anybody; but\nto shut up a valuable slave for life--that was quite another matter.\n\nAs soon as the Governor understood the case, he pardoned Tom at once, and\nthe creditors sold him down the river.\n\n\n\n\n\nAUTHOR'S NOTE TO \"THOSE EXTRAORDINARY TWINS\"\n\nA man who is not born with the novel-writing gift has a troublesome time\nof it when he tries to build a novel. I know this from experience. He\nhas no clear idea of his story; in fact he has no story. He merely has\nsome people in his mind, and an incident or two, also a locality, and he\ntrusts he can plunge those people into those incidents with interesting\nresults. So he goes to work. To write a novel? No--that is a thought\nwhich comes later; in the beginning he is only proposing to tell a little\ntale, a very little tale, a six-page tale. But as it is a tale which he\nis not acquainted with, and can only find out what it is by listening as\nit goes along telling itself, it is more than apt to go on and on and on\ntill it spreads itself into a book. I know about this, because it has\nhappened to me so many times.\n\nAnd I have noticed another thing: that as the short tale grows into the\nlong tale, the original intention (or motif) is apt to get abolished and\nfind itself superseded by a quite different one. It was so in the case\nof a magazine sketch which I once started to write--a funny and fantastic\nsketch about a prince and a pauper; it presently assumed a grave cast of\nits own accord, and in that new shape spread itself out into a book. Much\nthe same thing happened with PUDD'NHEAD WILSON. I had a sufficiently\nhard time with that tale, because it changed itself from a farce to a\ntragedy while I was going along with it--a most embarrassing\ncircumstance. But what was a great deal worse was, that it was not one\nstory, but two stories tangled together; and they obstructed and\ninterrupted each other at every turn and created no end of confusion and\nannoyance. I could not offer the book for publication, for I was afraid\nit would unseat the reader's reason, I did not know what was the matter\nwith it, for I had not noticed, as yet, that it was two stories in one.\nIt took me months to make that discovery. I carried the manuscript back\nand forth across the Atlantic two or three times, and read it and studied\nover it on shipboard; and at last I saw where the difficulty lay. I had\nno further trouble. I pulled one of the stories out by the roots, and\nleft the other--a kind of literary Caesarean operation.\n\nWould the reader care to know something about the story which I pulled\nout? He has been told many a time how the born-and-trained novelist\nworks; won't he let me round and complete his knowledge by telling him\nhow the jackleg does it?\n\nOriginally the story was called THOSE EXTRAORDINARY TWINS. I meant to\nmake it very short. I had seen a picture of a youthful Italian\n\"freak\"--or \"freaks\"--which was--or which were--on exhibition in our\ncities--a combination consisting of two heads and four arms joined to a\nsingle body and a single pair of legs--and I thought I would write an\nextravagantly fantastic little story with this freak of nature for\nhero--or heroes--a silly young miss for heroine, and two old ladies and\ntwo boys for the minor parts. I lavishly elaborated these people and\ntheir doings, of course. But the tale kept spreading along and spreading\nalong, and other people got to intruding themselves and taking up more\nand more room with their talk and their affairs. Among them came a\nstranger named Pudd'nhead Wilson, and a woman named Roxana; and presently\nthe doings of these two pushed up into prominence a young fellow named\nTom Driscoll, whose proper place was away in the obscure background.\nBefore the book was half finished those three were taking things almost\nentirely into their own hands and working the whole tale as a private\nventure of their own--a tale which they had nothing at all to do with, by\nrights.\n\nWhen the book was finished and I came to look around to see what had\nbecome of the team I had originally started out with--Aunt Patsy Cooper,\nAunt Betsy Hale, and two boys, and Rowena the lightweight heroine--they\nwere nowhere to be seen; they had disappeared from the story some time or\nother. I hunted about and found them--found them stranded, idle,\nforgotten, and permanently useless. It was very awkward. It was awkward\nall around, but more particularly in the case of Rowena, because there\nwas a love match on, between her and one of the twins that constituted\nthe freak, and I had worked it up to a blistering heat and thrown in a\nquite dramatic love quarrel, wherein Rowena scathingly denounced her\nbetrothed for getting drunk, and scoffed at his explanation of how it had\nhappened, and wouldn't listen to it, and had driven him from her in the\nusual \"forever\" way; and now here she sat crying and brokenhearted; for\nshe had found that he had spoken only the truth; that it was not he, but\nthe other of the freak that had drunk the liquor that made him drunk;\nthat her half was a prohibitionist and had never drunk a drop in his\nlife, and altogether tight as a brick three days in the week, was wholly\ninnocent of blame; and indeed, when sober, was constantly doing all he\ncould to reform his brother, the other half, who never got any\nsatisfaction out of drinking, anyway, because liquor never affected him.\nYes, here she was, stranded with that deep injustice of hers torturing\nher poor torn heart.\n\nI didn't know what to do with her. I was as sorry for her as anybody\ncould be, but the campaign was over, the book was finished, she was\nsidetracked, and there was no possible way of crowding her in, anywhere.\nI could not leave her there, of course; it would not do. After spreading\nher out so, and making such a to-do over her affairs, it would be\nabsolutely necessary to account to the reader for her. I thought and\nthought and studied and studied; but I arrived at nothing. I finally saw\nplainly that there was really no way but one--I must simply give her the\ngrand bounce. It grieved me to do it, for after associating with her so\nmuch I had come to kind of like her after a fashion, notwithstanding she\nwas such an ass and said such stupid, irritating things and was so\nnauseatingly sentimental. Still it had to be done. So at the top of\nChapter XVII I put a \"Calendar\" remark concerning July the Fourth, and\nbegan the chapter with this statistic:\n\n\"Rowena went out in the backyard after supper to see the fireworks and\nfell down the well and got drowned.\"\n\nIt seemed abrupt, but I thought maybe the reader wouldn't notice it,\nbecause I changed the subject right away to something else. Anyway it\nloosened up Rowena from where she was stuck and got her out of the way,\nand that was the main thing. It seemed a prompt good way of weeding out\npeople that had got stalled, and a plenty good enough way for those\nothers; so I hunted up the two boys and said, \"They went out back one\nnight to stone the cat and fell down the well and got drowned.\" Next I\nsearched around and found old Aunt Patsy and Aunt Betsy Hale where they\nwere around, and said, \"They went out back one night to visit the sick\nand fell down the well and got drowned.\" I was going to drown some\nothers, but I gave up the idea, partly because I believed that if I kept\nthat up it would arouse attention, and perhaps sympathy with those people,\nand partly because it was not a large well and would not hold any more\nanyway.\n\nStill the story was unsatisfactory. Here was a set of new characters who\nwere become inordinately prominent and who persisted in remaining so to\nthe end; and back yonder was an older set who made a large noise and a\ngreat to-do for a little while and then suddenly played out utterly and\nfell down the well. There was a radical defect somewhere, and I must\nsearch it out and cure it.\n\nThe defect turned out to be the one already spoken of--two stories in\none, a farce and a tragedy. So I pulled out the farce and left the\ntragedy. This left the original team in, but only as mere names, not as\ncharacters. Their prominence was wholly gone; they were not even worth\ndrowning; so I removed that detail. Also I took the twins apart and made\ntwo separate men of them. They had no occasion to have foreign names now,\nbut it was too much trouble to remove them all through, so I left them\nchristened as they were and made no explanation.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"1044":"\n\n\n\nTranscribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk\n\n\n\n\nExtract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\n\n\nWell, when I had been dead about thirty years I begun to get a\nlittle anxious.  Mind you, had been whizzing through space all that\ntime, like a comet.  LIKE a comet!  Why, Peters, I laid over the\nlot of them!  Of course there warn't any of them going my way, as a\nsteady thing, you know, because they travel in a long circle like\nthe loop of a lasso, whereas I was pointed as straight as a dart\nfor the Hereafter; but I happened on one every now and then that\nwas going my way for an hour or so, and then we had a bit of a\nbrush together.  But it was generally pretty one-sided, because I\nsailed by them the same as if they were standing still.  An\nordinary comet don't make more than about 200,000 miles a minute.\nOf course when I came across one of that sort--like Encke's and\nHalley's comets, for instance--it warn't anything but just a flash\nand a vanish, you see.  You couldn't rightly call it a race.  It\nwas as if the comet was a gravel-train and I was a telegraph\ndespatch.  But after I got outside of our astronomical system, I\nused to flush a comet occasionally that was something LIKE.  WE\nhaven't got any such comets--ours don't begin.  One night I was\nswinging along at a good round gait, everything taut and trim, and\nthe wind in my favor--I judged I was going about a million miles a\nminute--it might have been more, it couldn't have been less--when I\nflushed a most uncommonly big one about three points off my\nstarboard bow.  By his stern lights I judged he was bearing about\nnortheast-and-by-north-half-east.  Well, it was so near my course\nthat I wouldn't throw away the chance; so I fell off a point,\nsteadied my helm, and went for him.  You should have heard me whiz,\nand seen the electric fur fly!  In about a minute and a half I was\nfringed out with an electrical nimbus that flamed around for miles\nand miles and lit up all space like broad day.  The comet was\nburning blue in the distance, like a sickly torch, when I first\nsighted him, but he begun to grow bigger and bigger as I crept up\non him.  I slipped up on him so fast that when I had gone about\n150,000,000 miles I was close enough to be swallowed up in the\nphosphorescent glory of his wake, and I couldn't see anything for\nthe glare.  Thinks I, it won't do to run into him, so I shunted to\none side and tore along.  By and by I closed up abreast of his\ntail.  Do you know what it was like?  It was like a gnat closing up\non the continent of America.  I forged along.  By and by I had\nsailed along his coast for a little upwards of a hundred and fifty\nmillion miles, and then I could see by the shape of him that I\nhadn't even got up to his waistband yet.  Why, Peters, WE don't\nknow anything about comets, down here.  If you want to see comets\nthat ARE comets, you've got to go outside of our solar system--\nwhere there's room for them, you understand.  My friend, I've seen\ncomets out there that couldn't even lay down inside the ORBITS of\nour noblest comets without their tails hanging over.\n\nWell, I boomed along another hundred and fifty million miles, and\ngot up abreast his shoulder, as you may say.  I was feeling pretty\nfine, I tell you; but just then I noticed the officer of the deck\ncome to the side and hoist his glass in my direction.  Straight off\nI heard him sing out--\"Below there, ahoy!  Shake her up, shake her\nup!  Heave on a hundred million billion tons of brimstone!\"\n\n\"Ay-ay, sir!\"\n\n\"Pipe the stabboard watch!  All hands on deck!\"\n\n\"Ay-ay, sir!\"\n\n\"Send two hundred thousand million men aloft to shake out royals\nand sky-scrapers!\"\n\n\"Ay-ay, sir!\"\n\n\"Hand the stuns'ls!  Hang out every rag you've got!  Clothe her\nfrom stem to rudder-post!\"\n\n\"Ay-ay, sir!\"\n\nIn about a second I begun to see I'd woke up a pretty ugly\ncustomer, Peters.  In less than ten seconds that comet was just a\nblazing cloud of red-hot canvas.  It was piled up into the heavens\nclean out of sight--the old thing seemed to swell out and occupy\nall space; the sulphur smoke from the furnaces--oh, well, nobody\ncan describe the way it rolled and tumbled up into the skies, and\nnobody can half describe the way it smelt.  Neither can anybody\nbegin to describe the way that monstrous craft begun to crash\nalong.  And such another powwow--thousands of bo's'n's whistles\nscreaming at once, and a crew like the populations of a hundred\nthousand worlds like ours all swearing at once.  Well, I never\nheard the like of it before.\n\nWe roared and thundered along side by side, both doing our level\nbest, because I'd never struck a comet before that could lay over\nme, and so I was bound to beat this one or break something.  I\njudged I had some reputation in space, and I calculated to keep it.\nI noticed I wasn't gaining as fast, now, as I was before, but still\nI was gaining.  There was a power of excitement on board the comet.\nUpwards of a hundred billion passengers swarmed up from below and\nrushed to the side and begun to bet on the race.  Of course this\ncareened her and damaged her speed.  My, but wasn't the mate mad!\nHe jumped at that crowd, with his trumpet in his hand, and sung\nout--\n\n\"Amidships! amidships, you! {1} or I'll brain the last idiot of\nyou!\"\n\nWell, sir, I gained and gained, little by little, till at last I\nwent skimming sweetly by the magnificent old conflagration's nose.\nBy this time the captain of the comet had been rousted out, and he\nstood there in the red glare for'ard, by the mate, in his shirt-\nsleeves and slippers, his hair all rats' nests and one suspender\nhanging, and how sick those two men did look!  I just simply\ncouldn't help putting my thumb to my nose as I glided away and\nsinging out:\n\n\"Ta-ta! ta-ta!  Any word to send to your family?\"\n\nPeters, it was a mistake.  Yes, sir, I've often regretted that--it\nwas a mistake.  You see, the captain had given up the race, but\nthat remark was too tedious for him--he couldn't stand it.  He\nturned to the mate, and says he--\n\n\"Have we got brimstone enough of our own to make the trip?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Sure?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir--more than enough.\"\n\n\"How much have we got in cargo for Satan?\"\n\n\"Eighteen hundred thousand billion quintillions of kazarks.\"\n\n\"Very well, then, let his boarders freeze till the next comet\ncomes.  Lighten ship!  Lively, now, lively, men!  Heave the whole\ncargo overboard!\"\n\nPeters, look me in the eye, and be calm.  I found out, over there,\nthat a kazark is exactly the bulk of a HUNDRED AND SIXTY-NINE\nWORLDS LIKE OURS!  They hove all that load overboard.  When it fell\nit wiped out a considerable raft of stars just as clean as if\nthey'd been candles and somebody blowed them out.  As for the race,\nthat was at an end.  The minute she was lightened the comet swung\nalong by me the same as if I was anchored.  The captain stood on\nthe stern, by the after-davits, and put his thumb to his nose and\nsung out--\n\n\"Ta-ta! ta-ta!  Maybe YOU'VE got some message to send your friends\nin the Everlasting Tropics!\"\n\nThen he hove up his other suspender and started for'ard, and inside\nof three-quarters of an hour his craft was only a pale torch again\nin the distance.  Yes, it was a mistake, Peters--that remark of\nmine.  I don't reckon I'll ever get over being sorry about it.  I'd\n'a' beat the bully of the firmament if I'd kept my mouth shut.\n\n\nBut I've wandered a little off the track of my tale; I'll get back\non my course again.  Now you see what kind of speed I was making.\nSo, as I said, when I had been tearing along this way about thirty\nyears I begun to get uneasy.  Oh, it was pleasant enough, with a\ngood deal to find out, but then it was kind of lonesome, you know.\nBesides, I wanted to get somewhere.  I hadn't shipped with the idea\nof cruising forever.  First off, I liked the delay, because I\njudged I was going to fetch up in pretty warm quarters when I got\nthrough; but towards the last I begun to feel that I'd rather go\nto--well, most any place, so as to finish up the uncertainty.\n\nWell, one night--it was always night, except when I was rushing by\nsome star that was occupying the whole universe with its fire and\nits glare--light enough then, of course, but I necessarily left it\nbehind in a minute or two and plunged into a solid week of darkness\nagain.  The stars ain't so close together as they look to be.\nWhere was I?  Oh yes; one night I was sailing along, when I\ndiscovered a tremendous long row of blinking lights away on the\nhorizon ahead.  As I approached, they begun to tower and swell and\nlook like mighty furnaces.  Says I to myself--\n\n\"By George, I've arrived at last--and at the wrong place, just as I\nexpected!\"\n\nThen I fainted.  I don't know how long I was insensible, but it\nmust have been a good while, for, when I came to, the darkness was\nall gone and there was the loveliest sunshine and the balmiest,\nfragrantest air in its place.  And there was such a marvellous\nworld spread out before me--such a glowing, beautiful, bewitching\ncountry.  The things I took for furnaces were gates, miles high,\nmade all of flashing jewels, and they pierced a wall of solid gold\nthat you couldn't see the top of, nor yet the end of, in either\ndirection.  I was pointed straight for one of these gates, and a-\ncoming like a house afire.  Now I noticed that the skies were black\nwith millions of people, pointed for those gates.  What a roar they\nmade, rushing through the air!  The ground was as thick as ants\nwith people, too--billions of them, I judge.\n\nI lit.  I drifted up to a gate with a swarm of people, and when it\nwas my turn the head clerk says, in a business-like way--\n\n\"Well, quick!  Where are you from?\"\n\n\"San Francisco,\" says I.\n\n\"San Fran--WHAT?\" says he.\n\n\"San Francisco.\"\n\nHe scratched his head and looked puzzled, then he says--\n\n\"Is it a planet?\"\n\nBy George, Peters, think of it!  \"PLANET?\" says I; \"it's a city.\nAnd moreover, it's one of the biggest and finest and--\"\n\n\"There, there!\" says he, \"no time here for conversation.  We don't\ndeal in cities here.  Where are you from in a GENERAL way?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" I says, \"I beg your pardon.  Put me down for California.\"\n\nI had him AGAIN, Peters!  He puzzled a second, then he says, sharp\nand irritable--\n\n\"I don't know any such planet--is it a constellation?\"\n\n\"Oh, my goodness!\" says I.  \"Constellation, says you?  No--it's a\nState.\"\n\n\"Man, we don't deal in States here.  WILL you tell me where you are\nfrom IN GENERAL--AT LARGE, don't you understand?\"\n\n\"Oh, now I get your idea,\" I says.  \"I'm from America,--the United\nStates of America.\"\n\nPeters, do you know I had him AGAIN?  If I hadn't I'm a clam!  His\nface was as blank as a target after a militia shooting-match.  He\nturned to an under clerk and says--\n\n\"Where is America?  WHAT is America?\"\n\nThe under clerk answered up prompt and says--\n\n\"There ain't any such orb.\"\n\n\"ORB?\" says I.  \"Why, what are you talking about, young man?  It\nain't an orb; it's a country; it's a continent.  Columbus\ndiscovered it; I reckon likely you've heard of HIM, anyway.\nAmerica--why, sir, America--\"\n\n\"Silence!\" says the head clerk.  \"Once for all, where--are--you--\nFROM?\"\n\n\"Well,\" says I, \"I don't know anything more to say--unless I lump\nthings, and just say I'm from the world.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" says he, brightening up, \"now that's something like!  WHAT\nworld?\"\n\nPeters, he had ME, that time.  I looked at him, puzzled, he looked\nat me, worried.  Then he burst out--\n\n\"Come, come, what world?\"\n\nSays I, \"Why, THE world, of course.\"\n\n\"THE world!\" he says.  \"H'm! there's billions of them! . . . Next!\"\n\nThat meant for me to stand aside.  I done so, and a sky-blue man\nwith seven heads and only one leg hopped into my place.  I took a\nwalk.  It just occurred to me, then, that all the myriads I had\nseen swarming to that gate, up to this time, were just like that\ncreature.  I tried to run across somebody I was acquainted with,\nbut they were out of acquaintances of mine just then.  So I thought\nthe thing all over and finally sidled back there pretty meek and\nfeeling rather stumped, as you may say.\n\n\"Well?\" said the head clerk.\n\n\"Well, sir,\" I says, pretty humble, \"I don't seem to make out which\nworld it is I'm from.  But you may know it from this--it's the one\nthe Saviour saved.\"\n\nHe bent his head at the Name.  Then he says, gently--\n\n\"The worlds He has saved are like to the gates of heaven in number-\n-none can count them.  What astronomical system is your world in?--\nperhaps that may assist.\"\n\n\"It's the one that has the sun in it--and the moon--and Mars\"--he\nshook his head at each name--hadn't ever heard of them, you see--\n\"and Neptune--and Uranus--and Jupiter--\"\n\n\"Hold on!\" says he--\"hold on a minute!  Jupiter . . . Jupiter . . .\nSeems to me we had a man from there eight or nine hundred years\nago--but people from that system very seldom enter by this gate.\"\nAll of a sudden he begun to look me so straight in the eye that I\nthought he was going to bore through me.  Then he says, very\ndeliberate, \"Did you come STRAIGHT HERE from your system?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" I says--but I blushed the least little bit in the world\nwhen I said it.\n\nHe looked at me very stern, and says--\n\n\"That is not true; and this is not the place for prevarication.\nYou wandered from your course.  How did that happen?\"\n\nSays I, blushing again--\n\n\"I'm sorry, and I take back what I said, and confess.  I raced a\nlittle with a comet one day--only just the least little bit--only\nthe tiniest lit--\"\n\n\"So--so,\" says he--and without any sugar in his voice to speak of.\n\nI went on, and says--\n\n\"But I only fell off just a bare point, and I went right back on my\ncourse again the minute the race was over.\"\n\n\"No matter--that divergence has made all this trouble.  It has\nbrought you to a gate that is billions of leagues from the right\none.  If you had gone to your own gate they would have known all\nabout your world at once and there would have been no delay.  But\nwe will try to accommodate you.\"  He turned to an under clerk and\nsays--\n\n\"What system is Jupiter in?\"\n\n\"I don't remember, sir, but I think there is such a planet in one\nof the little new systems away out in one of the thinly worlded\ncorners of the universe.  I will see.\"\n\nHe got a balloon and sailed up and up and up, in front of a map\nthat was as big as Rhode Island.  He went on up till he was out of\nsight, and by and by he came down and got something to eat and went\nup again.  To cut a long story short, he kept on doing this for a\nday or two, and finally he came down and said he thought he had\nfound that solar system, but it might be fly-specks.  So he got a\nmicroscope and went back.  It turned out better than he feared.  He\nhad rousted out our system, sure enough.  He got me to describe our\nplanet and its distance from the sun, and then he says to his\nchief--\n\n\"Oh, I know the one he means, now, sir.  It is on the map.  It is\ncalled the Wart.\"\n\nSays I to myself, \"Young man, it wouldn't be wholesome for you to\ngo down THERE and call it the Wart.\"\n\nWell, they let me in, then, and told me I was safe forever and\nwouldn't have any more trouble.\n\nThen they turned from me and went on with their work, the same as\nif they considered my case all complete and shipshape.  I was a\ngood deal surprised at this, but I was diffident about speaking up\nand reminding them.  I did so hate to do it, you know; it seemed a\npity to bother them, they had so much on their hands.  Twice I\nthought I would give up and let the thing go; so twice I started to\nleave, but immediately I thought what a figure I should cut\nstepping out amongst the redeemed in such a rig, and that made me\nhang back and come to anchor again.  People got to eying me--\nclerks, you know--wondering why I didn't get under way.  I couldn't\nstand this long--it was too uncomfortable.  So at last I plucked up\ncourage and tipped the head clerk a signal.  He says--\n\n\"What! you here yet?  What's wanting?\"\n\nSays I, in a low voice and very confidential, making a trumpet with\nmy hands at his ear--\n\n\"I beg pardon, and you mustn't mind my reminding you, and seeming\nto meddle, but hain't you forgot something?\"\n\nHe studied a second, and says--\n\n\"Forgot something? . . . No, not that I know of.\"\n\n\"Think,\" says I.\n\nHe thought.  Then he says--\n\n\"No, I can't seem to have forgot anything.  What is it?\"\n\n\"Look at me,\" says I, \"look me all over.\"\n\nHe done it.\n\n\"Well?\" says he.\n\n\"Well,\" says I, \"you don't notice anything?  If I branched out\namongst the elect looking like this, wouldn't I attract\nconsiderable attention?--wouldn't I be a little conspicuous?\"\n\n\"Well,\" he says, \"I don't see anything the matter.  What do you\nlack?\"\n\n\"Lack!  Why, I lack my harp, and my wreath, and my halo, and my\nhymn-book, and my palm branch--I lack everything that a body\nnaturally requires up here, my friend.\"\n\nPuzzled?  Peters, he was the worst puzzled man you ever saw.\nFinally he says--\n\n\"Well, you seem to be a curiosity every way a body takes you.  I\nnever heard of these things before.\"\n\nI looked at the man awhile in solid astonishment; then I says--\n\n\"Now, I hope you don't take it as an offence, for I don't mean any,\nbut really, for a man that has been in the Kingdom as long as I\nreckon you have, you do seem to know powerful little about its\ncustoms.\"\n\n\"Its customs!\" says he.  \"Heaven is a large place, good friend.\nLarge empires have many and diverse customs.  Even small dominions\nhave, as you doubtless know by what you have seen of the matter on\na small scale in the Wart.  How can you imagine I could ever learn\nthe varied customs of the countless kingdoms of heaven?  It makes\nmy head ache to think of it.  I know the customs that prevail in\nthose portions inhabited by peoples that are appointed to enter by\nmy own gate--and hark ye, that is quite enough knowledge for one\nindividual to try to pack into his head in the thirty-seven\nmillions of years I have devoted night and day to that study.  But\nthe idea of learning the customs of the whole appalling expanse of\nheaven--O man, how insanely you talk!  Now I don't doubt that this\nodd costume you talk about is the fashion in that district of\nheaven you belong to, but you won't be conspicuous in this section\nwithout it.\"\n\nI felt all right, if that was the case, so I bade him good-day and\nleft.  All day I walked towards the far end of a prodigious hall of\nthe office, hoping to come out into heaven any moment, but it was a\nmistake.  That hall was built on the general heavenly plan--it\nnaturally couldn't be small.  At last I got so tired I couldn't go\nany farther; so I sat down to rest, and begun to tackle the\nqueerest sort of strangers and ask for information, but I didn't\nget any; they couldn't understand my language, and I could not\nunderstand theirs.  I got dreadfully lonesome.  I was so down-\nhearted and homesick I wished a hundred times I never had died.  I\nturned back, of course.  About noon next day, I got back at last\nand was on hand at the booking-office once more.  Says I to the\nhead clerk--\n\n\"I begin to see that a man's got to be in his own Heaven to be\nhappy.\"\n\n\"Perfectly correct,\" says he.  \"Did you imagine the same heaven\nwould suit all sorts of men?\"\n\n\"Well, I had that idea--but I see the foolishness of it.  Which way\nam I to go to get to my district?\"\n\nHe called the under clerk that had examined the map, and he gave me\ngeneral directions.  I thanked him and started; but he says--\n\n\"Wait a minute; it is millions of leagues from here.  Go outside\nand stand on that red wishing-carpet; shut your eyes, hold your\nbreath, and wish yourself there.\"\n\n\"I'm much obliged,\" says I; \"why didn't you dart me through when I\nfirst arrived?\"\n\n\"We have a good deal to think of here; it was your place to think\nof it and ask for it.  Good-by; we probably sha'n't see you in this\nregion for a thousand centuries or so.\"\n\n\"In that case, o revoor,\" says I.\n\nI hopped onto the carpet and held my breath and shut my eyes and\nwished I was in the booking-office of my own section.  The very\nnext instant a voice I knew sung out in a business kind of a way--\n\n\"A harp and a hymn-book, pair of wings and a halo, size 13, for\nCap'n Eli Stormfield, of San Francisco!--make him out a clean bill\nof health, and let him in.\"\n\nI opened my eyes.  Sure enough, it was a Pi Ute Injun I used to\nknow in Tulare County; mighty good fellow--I remembered being at\nhis funeral, which consisted of him being burnt and the other\nInjuns gauming their faces with his ashes and howling like\nwildcats.  He was powerful glad to see me, and you may make up your\nmind I was just as glad to see him, and feel that I was in the\nright kind of a heaven at last.\n\nJust as far as your eye could reach, there was swarms of clerks,\nrunning and bustling around, tricking out thousands of Yanks and\nMexicans and English and Arabs, and all sorts of people in their\nnew outfits; and when they gave me my kit and I put on my halo and\ntook a look in the glass, I could have jumped over a house for joy,\nI was so happy.  \"Now THIS is something like!\" says I.  \"Now,\" says\nI, \"I'm all right--show me a cloud.\"\n\nInside of fifteen minutes I was a mile on my way towards the cloud-\nbanks and about a million people along with me.  Most of us tried\nto fly, but some got crippled and nobody made a success of it.  So\nwe concluded to walk, for the present, till we had had some wing\npractice.\n\nWe begun to meet swarms of folks who were coming back.  Some had\nharps and nothing else; some had hymn-books and nothing else; some\nhad nothing at all; all of them looked meek and uncomfortable; one\nyoung fellow hadn't anything left but his halo, and he was carrying\nthat in his hand; all of a sudden he offered it to me and says--\n\n\"Will you hold it for me a minute?\"\n\nThen he disappeared in the crowd.  I went on.  A woman asked me to\nhold her palm branch, and then SHE disappeared.  A girl got me to\nhold her harp for her, and by George, SHE disappeared; and so on\nand so on, till I was about loaded down to the guards.  Then comes\na smiling old gentleman and asked me to hold HIS things.  I swabbed\noff the perspiration and says, pretty tart--\n\n\"I'll have to get you to excuse me, my friend,--_I_ ain't no hat-\nrack.\"\n\nAbout this time I begun to run across piles of those traps, lying\nin the road.  I just quietly dumped my extra cargo along with them.\nI looked around, and, Peters, that whole nation that was following\nme were loaded down the same as I'd been.  The return crowd had got\nthem to hold their things a minute, you see.  They all dumped their\nloads, too, and we went on.\n\nWhen I found myself perched on a cloud, with a million other\npeople, I never felt so good in my life.  Says I, \"Now this is\naccording to the promises; I've been having my doubts, but now I am\nin heaven, sure enough.\"  I gave my palm branch a wave or two, for\nluck, and then I tautened up my harp-strings and struck in.  Well,\nPeters, you can't imagine anything like the row we made.  It was\ngrand to listen to, and made a body thrill all over, but there was\nconsiderable many tunes going on at once, and that was a drawback\nto the harmony, you understand; and then there was a lot of Injun\ntribes, and they kept up such another war-whooping that they kind\nof took the tuck out of the music.  By and by I quit performing,\nand judged I'd take a rest.  There was quite a nice mild old\ngentleman sitting next me, and I noticed he didn't take a hand; I\nencouraged him, but he said he was naturally bashful, and was\nafraid to try before so many people.  By and by the old gentleman\nsaid he never could seem to enjoy music somehow.  The fact was, I\nwas beginning to feel the same way; but I didn't say anything.  Him\nand I had a considerable long silence, then, but of course it\nwarn't noticeable in that place.  After about sixteen or seventeen\nhours, during which I played and sung a little, now and then--\nalways the same tune, because I didn't know any other--I laid down\nmy harp and begun to fan myself with my palm branch.  Then we both\ngot to sighing pretty regular.  Finally, says he--\n\n\"Don't you know any tune but the one you've been pegging at all\nday?\"\n\n\"Not another blessed one,\" says I.\n\n\"Don't you reckon you could learn another one?\" says he.\n\n\"Never,\" says I; \"I've tried to, but I couldn't manage it.\"\n\n\"It's a long time to hang to the one--eternity, you know.\"\n\n\"Don't break my heart,\" says I; \"I'm getting low-spirited enough\nalready.\"\n\nAfter another long silence, says he--\n\n\"Are you glad to be here?\"\n\nSays I, \"Old man, I'll be frank with you.  This AIN'T just as near\nmy idea of bliss as I thought it was going to be, when I used to go\nto church.\"\n\nSays he, \"What do you say to knocking off and calling it half a\nday?\"\n\n\"That's me,\" says I.  \"I never wanted to get off watch so bad in my\nlife.\"\n\nSo we started.  Millions were coming to the cloud-bank all the\ntime, happy and hosannahing; millions were leaving it all the time,\nlooking mighty quiet, I tell you.  We laid for the new-comers, and\npretty soon I'd got them to hold all my things a minute, and then I\nwas a free man again and most outrageously happy.  Just then I ran\nacross old Sam Bartlett, who had been dead a long time, and stopped\nto have a talk with him.  Says I--\n\n\"Now tell me--is this to go on forever?  Ain't there anything else\nfor a change?\"\n\nSays he--\n\n\"I'll set you right on that point very quick.  People take the\nfigurative language of the Bible and the allegories for literal,\nand the first thing they ask for when they get here is a halo and a\nharp, and so on.  Nothing that's harmless and reasonable is refused\na body here, if he asks it in the right spirit.  So they are\noutfitted with these things without a word.  They go and sing and\nplay just about one day, and that's the last you'll ever see them\nin the choir.  They don't need anybody to tell them that that sort\nof thing wouldn't make a heaven--at least not a heaven that a sane\nman could stand a week and remain sane.  That cloud-bank is placed\nwhere the noise can't disturb the old inhabitants, and so there\nain't any harm in letting everybody get up there and cure himself\nas soon as he comes.\n\n\"Now you just remember this--heaven is as blissful and lovely as it\ncan be; but it's just the busiest place you ever heard of.  There\nain't any idle people here after the first day.  Singing hymns and\nwaving palm branches through all eternity is pretty when you hear\nabout it in the pulpit, but it's as poor a way to put in valuable\ntime as a body could contrive.  It would just make a heaven of\nwarbling ignoramuses, don't you see?  Eternal Rest sounds\ncomforting in the pulpit, too.  Well, you try it once, and see how\nheavy time will hang on your hands.  Why, Stormfield, a man like\nyou, that had been active and stirring all his life, would go mad\nin six months in a heaven where he hadn't anything to do.  Heaven\nis the very last place to come to REST in,--and don't you be afraid\nto bet on that!\"\n\nSays I--\n\n\"Sam, I'm as glad to hear it as I thought I'd be sorry.  I'm glad I\ncome, now.\"\n\nSays he--\n\n\"Cap'n, ain't you pretty physically tired?\"\n\nSays I--\n\n\"Sam, it ain't any name for it!  I'm dog-tired.\"\n\n\"Just so--just so.  You've earned a good sleep, and you'll get it.\nYou've earned a good appetite, and you'll enjoy your dinner.  It's\nthe same here as it is on earth--you've got to earn a thing, square\nand honest, before you enjoy it.  You can't enjoy first and earn\nafterwards.  But there's this difference, here:  you can choose\nyour own occupation, and all the powers of heaven will be put forth\nto help you make a success of it, if you do your level best.  The\nshoe-maker on earth that had the soul of a poet in him won't have\nto make shoes here.\"\n\n\"Now that's all reasonable and right,\" says I.  \"Plenty of work,\nand the kind you hanker after; no more pain, no more suffering--\"\n\n\"Oh, hold on; there's plenty of pain here--but it don't kill.\nThere's plenty of suffering here, but it don't last.  You see,\nhappiness ain't a THING IN ITSELF--it's only a CONTRAST with\nsomething that ain't pleasant.  That's all it is.  There ain't a\nthing you can mention that is happiness in its own self--it's only\nso by contrast with the other thing.  And so, as soon as the\nnovelty is over and the force of the contrast dulled, it ain't\nhappiness any longer, and you have to get something fresh.  Well,\nthere's plenty of pain and suffering in heaven--consequently\nthere's plenty of contrasts, and just no end of happiness.\"\n\nSays I, \"It's the sensiblest heaven I've heard of yet, Sam, though\nit's about as different from the one I was brought up on as a live\nprincess is different from her own wax figger.\"\n\n\nAlong in the first months I knocked around about the Kingdom,\nmaking friends and looking at the country, and finally settled down\nin a pretty likely region, to have a rest before taking another\nstart.  I went on making acquaintances and gathering up\ninformation.  I had a good deal of talk with an old bald-headed\nangel by the name of Sandy McWilliams.  He was from somewhere in\nNew Jersey.  I went about with him, considerable.  We used to lay\naround, warm afternoons, in the shade of a rock, on some meadow-\nground that was pretty high and out of the marshy slush of his\ncranberry-farm, and there we used to talk about all kinds of\nthings, and smoke pipes.  One day, says I--\n\n\"About how old might you be, Sandy?\"\n\n\"Seventy-two.\"\n\n\"I judged so.  How long you been in heaven?\"\n\n\"Twenty-seven years, come Christmas.\"\n\n\"How old was you when you come up?\"\n\n\"Why, seventy-two, of course.\"\n\n\"You can't mean it!\"\n\n\"Why can't I mean it?\"\n\n\"Because, if you was seventy-two then, you are naturally ninety-\nnine now.\"\n\n\"No, but I ain't.  I stay the same age I was when I come.\"\n\n\"Well,\" says I, \"come to think, there's something just here that I\nwant to ask about.  Down below, I always had an idea that in heaven\nwe would all be young, and bright, and spry.\"\n\n\"Well, you can be young if you want to.  You've only got to wish.\"\n\n\"Well, then, why didn't you wish?\"\n\n\"I did.  They all do.  You'll try it, some day, like enough; but\nyou'll get tired of the change pretty soon.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Well, I'll tell you.  Now you've always been a sailor; did you\never try some other business?\"\n\n\"Yes, I tried keeping grocery, once, up in the mines; but I\ncouldn't stand it; it was too dull--no stir, no storm, no life\nabout it; it was like being part dead and part alive, both at the\nsame time.  I wanted to be one thing or t'other.  I shut up shop\npretty quick and went to sea.\"\n\n\"That's it.  Grocery people like it, but you couldn't.  You see you\nwasn't used to it.  Well, I wasn't used to being young, and I\ncouldn't seem to take any interest in it.  I was strong, and\nhandsome, and had curly hair,--yes, and wings, too!--gay wings like\na butterfly.  I went to picnics and dances and parties with the\nfellows, and tried to carry on and talk nonsense with the girls,\nbut it wasn't any use; I couldn't take to it--fact is, it was an\nawful bore.  What I wanted was early to bed and early to rise, and\nsomething to DO; and when my work was done, I wanted to sit quiet,\nand smoke and think--not tear around with a parcel of giddy young\nkids.  You can't think what I suffered whilst I was young.\"\n\n\"How long was you young?\"\n\n\"Only two weeks.  That was plenty for me.  Laws, I was so lonesome!\nYou see, I was full of the knowledge and experience of seventy-two\nyears; the deepest subject those young folks could strike was only\na-b-c to me.  And to hear them argue--oh, my! it would have been\nfunny, if it hadn't been so pitiful.  Well, I was so hungry for the\nways and the sober talk I was used to, that I tried to ring in with\nthe old people, but they wouldn't have it.  They considered me a\nconceited young upstart, and gave me the cold shoulder.  Two weeks\nwas a-plenty for me.  I was glad to get back my bald head again,\nand my pipe, and my old drowsy reflections in the shade of a rock\nor a tree.\"\n\n\"Well,\" says I, \"do you mean to say you're going to stand still at\nseventy-two, forever?\"\n\n\"I don't know, and I ain't particular.  But I ain't going to drop\nback to twenty-five any more--I know that, mighty well.  I know a\nsight more than I did twenty-seven years ago, and I enjoy learning,\nall the time, but I don't seem to get any older.  That is, bodily--\nmy mind gets older, and stronger, and better seasoned, and more\nsatisfactory.\"\n\nSays I, \"If a man comes here at ninety, don't he ever set himself\nback?\"\n\n\"Of course he does.  He sets himself back to fourteen; tries it a\ncouple of hours, and feels like a fool; sets himself forward to\ntwenty; it ain't much improvement; tries thirty, fifty, eighty, and\nfinally ninety--finds he is more at home and comfortable at the\nsame old figure he is used to than any other way.  Or, if his mind\nbegun to fail him on earth at eighty, that's where he finally\nsticks up here.  He sticks at the place where his mind was last at\nits best, for there's where his enjoyment is best, and his ways\nmost set and established.\"\n\n\"Does a chap of twenty-five stay always twenty-five, and look it?\"\n\n\"If he is a fool, yes.  But if he is bright, and ambitious and\nindustrious, the knowledge he gains and the experiences he has,\nchange his ways and thoughts and likings, and make him find his\nbest pleasure in the company of people above that age; so he allows\nhis body to take on that look of as many added years as he needs to\nmake him comfortable and proper in that sort of society; he lets\nhis body go on taking the look of age, according as he progresses,\nand by and by he will be bald and wrinkled outside, and wise and\ndeep within.\"\n\n\"Babies the same?\"\n\n\"Babies the same.  Laws, what asses we used to be, on earth, about\nthese things!  We said we'd be always young in heaven.  We didn't\nsay HOW young--we didn't think of that, perhaps--that is, we didn't\nall think alike, anyway.  When I was a boy of seven, I suppose I\nthought we'd all be twelve, in heaven; when I was twelve, I suppose\nI thought we'd all be eighteen or twenty in heaven; when I was\nforty, I begun to go back; I remember I hoped we'd all be about\nTHIRTY years old in heaven.  Neither a man nor a boy ever thinks\nthe age he HAS is exactly the best one--he puts the right age a few\nyears older or a few years younger than he is.  Then he makes that\nideal age the general age of the heavenly people.  And he expects\neverybody TO STICK at that age--stand stock-still--and expects them\nto enjoy it!--Now just think of the idea of standing still in\nheaven!  Think of a heaven made up entirely of hoop-rolling,\nmarble-playing cubs of seven years!--or of awkward, diffident,\nsentimental immaturities of nineteen!--or of vigorous people of\nthirty, healthy-minded, brimming with ambition, but chained hand\nand foot to that one age and its limitations like so many helpless\ngalley-slaves!  Think of the dull sameness of a society made up of\npeople all of one age and one set of looks, habits, tastes and\nfeelings.  Think how superior to it earth would be, with its\nvariety of types and faces and ages, and the enlivening attrition\nof the myriad interests that come into pleasant collision in such a\nvariegated society.\"\n\n\"Look here,\" says I, \"do you know what you're doing?\"\n\n\"Well, what am I doing?\"\n\n\"You are making heaven pretty comfortable in one way, but you are\nplaying the mischief with it in another.\"\n\n\"How d'you mean?\"\n\n\"Well,\" I says, \"take a young mother that's lost her child, and--\"\n\n\"Sh!\" he says.  \"Look!\"\n\nIt was a woman.  Middle-aged, and had grizzled hair.  She was\nwalking slow, and her head was bent down, and her wings hanging\nlimp and droopy; and she looked ever so tired, and was crying, poor\nthing!  She passed along by, with her head down, that way, and the\ntears running down her face, and didn't see us.  Then Sandy said,\nlow and gentle, and full of pity:\n\n\"SHE'S hunting for her child!  No, FOUND it, I reckon.  Lord, how\nshe's changed!  But I recognized her in a minute, though it's\ntwenty-seven years since I saw her.  A young mother she was, about\ntwenty two or four, or along there; and blooming and lovely and\nsweet? oh, just a flower!  And all her heart and all her soul was\nwrapped up in her child, her little girl, two years old.  And it\ndied, and she went wild with grief, just wild!  Well, the only\ncomfort she had was that she'd see her child again, in heaven--\n'never more to part,' she said, and kept on saying it over and\nover, 'never more to part.'  And the words made her happy; yes,\nthey did; they made her joyful, and when I was dying, twenty-seven\nyears ago, she told me to find her child the first thing, and say\nshe was coming--'soon, soon, VERY soon, she hoped and believed!'\"\n\n\"Why, it's pitiful, Sandy.\"\n\nHe didn't say anything for a while, but sat looking at the ground,\nthinking.  Then he says, kind of mournful:\n\n\"And now she's come!\"\n\n\"Well?  Go on.\"\n\n\"Stormfield, maybe she hasn't found the child, but _I_ think she\nhas.  Looks so to me.  I've seen cases before.  You see, she's kept\nthat child in her head just the same as it was when she jounced it\nin her arms a little chubby thing.  But here it didn't elect to\nSTAY a child.  No, it elected to grow up, which it did.  And in\nthese twenty-seven years it has learned all the deep scientific\nlearning there is to learn, and is studying and studying and\nlearning and learning more and more, all the time, and don't give a\ndamn for anything BUT learning; just learning, and discussing\ngigantic problems with people like herself.\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"Stormfield, don't you see?  Her mother knows CRANBERRIES, and how\nto tend them, and pick them, and put them up, and market them; and\nnot another blamed thing!  Her and her daughter can't be any more\ncompany for each other NOW than mud turtle and bird o' paradise.\nPoor thing, she was looking for a baby to jounce; _I_ think she's\nstruck a disapp'intment.\"\n\n\"Sandy, what will they do--stay unhappy forever in heaven?\"\n\n\"No, they'll come together and get adjusted by and by.  But not\nthis year, and not next.  By and by.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n\n\nI had been having considerable trouble with my wings.  The day\nafter I helped the choir I made a dash or two with them, but was\nnot lucky.  First off, I flew thirty yards, and then fouled an\nIrishman and brought him down--brought us both down, in fact.\nNext, I had a collision with a Bishop--and bowled him down, of\ncourse.  We had some sharp words, and I felt pretty cheap, to come\nbanging into a grave old person like that, with a million strangers\nlooking on and smiling to themselves.\n\nI saw I hadn't got the hang of the steering, and so couldn't\nrightly tell where I was going to bring up when I started.  I went\nafoot the rest of the day, and let my wings hang.  Early next\nmorning I went to a private place to have some practice.  I got up\non a pretty high rock, and got a good start, and went swooping\ndown, aiming for a bush a little over three hundred yards off; but\nI couldn't seem to calculate for the wind, which was about two\npoints abaft my beam.  I could see I was going considerable to\nlooard of the bush, so I worked my starboard wing slow and went\nahead strong on the port one, but it wouldn't answer; I could see I\nwas going to broach to, so I slowed down on both, and lit.  I went\nback to the rock and took another chance at it.  I aimed two or\nthree points to starboard of the bush--yes, more than that--enough\nso as to make it nearly a head-wind.  I done well enough, but made\npretty poor time.  I could see, plain enough, that on a head-wind,\nwings was a mistake.  I could see that a body could sail pretty\nclose to the wind, but he couldn't go in the wind's eye.  I could\nsee that if I wanted to go a-visiting any distance from home, and\nthe wind was ahead, I might have to wait days, maybe, for a change;\nand I could see, too, that these things could not be any use at all\nin a gale; if you tried to run before the wind, you would make a\nmess of it, for there isn't anyway to shorten sail--like reefing,\nyou know--you have to take it ALL in--shut your feathers down flat\nto your sides.  That would LAND you, of course.  You could lay to,\nwith your head to the wind--that is the best you could do, and\nright hard work you'd find it, too.  If you tried any other game,\nyou would founder, sure.\n\nI judge it was about a couple of weeks or so after this that I\ndropped old Sandy McWilliams a note one day--it was a Tuesday--and\nasked him to come over and take his manna and quails with me next\nday; and the first thing he did when he stepped in was to twinkle\nhis eye in a sly way, and say,--\n\n\"Well, Cap, what you done with your wings?\"\n\nI saw in a minute that there was some sarcasm done up in that rag\nsomewheres, but I never let on.  I only says,--\n\n\"Gone to the wash.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he says, in a dry sort of way, \"they mostly go to the wash--\nabout this time--I've often noticed it.  Fresh angels are powerful\nneat.  When do you look for 'em back?\"\n\n\"Day after to-morrow,\" says I.\n\nHe winked at me, and smiled.\n\nSays I,--\n\n\"Sandy, out with it.  Come--no secrets among friends.  I notice you\ndon't ever wear wings--and plenty others don't.  I've been making\nan ass of myself--is that it?\"\n\n\"That is about the size of it.  But it is no harm.  We all do it at\nfirst.  It's perfectly natural.  You see, on earth we jump to such\nfoolish conclusions as to things up here.  In the pictures we\nalways saw the angels with wings on--and that was all right; but we\njumped to the conclusion that that was their way of getting around-\n-and that was all wrong.  The wings ain't anything but a uniform,\nthat's all.  When they are in the field--so to speak,--they always\nwear them; you never see an angel going with a message anywhere\nwithout his wings, any more than you would see a military officer\npresiding at a court-martial without his uniform, or a postman\ndelivering letters, or a policeman walking his beat, in plain\nclothes.  But they ain't to FLY with!  The wings are for show, not\nfor use.  Old experienced angels are like officers of the regular\narmy--they dress plain, when they are off duty.  New angels are\nlike the militia--never shed the uniform--always fluttering and\nfloundering around in their wings, butting people down, flapping\nhere, and there, and everywhere, always imagining they are\nattracting the admiring eye--well, they just think they are the\nvery most important people in heaven.  And when you see one of them\ncome sailing around with one wing tipped up and t'other down, you\nmake up your mind he is saying to himself:  'I wish Mary Ann in\nArkansaw could see me now.  I reckon she'd wish she hadn't shook\nme.'  No, they're just for show, that's all--only just for show.\"\n\n\"I judge you've got it about right, Sandy,\" says I.\n\n\"Why, look at it yourself,\" says he.  \"YOU ain't built for wings--\nno man is.  You know what a grist of years it took you to come here\nfrom the earth--and yet you were booming along faster than any\ncannon-ball could go.  Suppose you had to fly that distance with\nyour wings--wouldn't eternity have been over before you got here?\nCertainly.  Well, angels have to go to the earth every day--\nmillions of them--to appear in visions to dying children and good\npeople, you know--it's the heft of their business.  They appear\nwith their wings, of course, because they are on official service,\nand because the dying persons wouldn't know they were angels if\nthey hadn't wings--but do you reckon they fly with them?  It stands\nto reason they don't.  The wings would wear out before they got\nhalf-way; even the pin-feathers would be gone; the wing frames\nwould be as bare as kite sticks before the paper is pasted on.  The\ndistances in heaven are billions of times greater; angels have to\ngo all over heaven every day; could they do it with their wings\nalone?  No, indeed; they wear the wings for style, but they travel\nany distance in an instant by WISHING.  The wishing-carpet of the\nArabian Nights was a sensible idea--but our earthly idea of angels\nflying these awful distances with their clumsy wings was foolish.\n\n\"Our young saints, of both sexes, wear wings all the time--blazing\nred ones, and blue and green, and gold, and variegated, and\nrainbowed, and ring-streaked-and-striped ones--and nobody finds\nfault.  It is suitable to their time of life.  The things are\nbeautiful, and they set the young people off.  They are the most\nstriking and lovely part of their outfit--a halo don't BEGIN.\"\n\n\"Well,\" says I, \"I've tucked mine away in the cupboard, and I allow\nto let them lay there till there's mud.\"\n\n\"Yes--or a reception.\"\n\n\"What's that?\"\n\n\"Well, you can see one to-night if you want to.  There's a\nbarkeeper from Jersey City going to be received.\"\n\n\"Go on--tell me about it.\"\n\n\"This barkeeper got converted at a Moody and Sankey meeting, in New\nYork, and started home on the ferry-boat, and there was a collision\nand he got drowned.  He is of a class that think all heaven goes\nwild with joy when a particularly hard lot like him is saved; they\nthink all heaven turns out hosannahing to welcome them; they think\nthere isn't anything talked about in the realms of the blest but\ntheir case, for that day.  This barkeeper thinks there hasn't been\nsuch another stir here in years, as his coming is going to raise.--\nAnd I've always noticed this peculiarity about a dead barkeeper--he\nnot only expects all hands to turn out when he arrives, but he\nexpects to be received with a torchlight procession.\"\n\n\"I reckon he is disappointed, then.\"\n\n\"No, he isn't.  No man is allowed to be disappointed here.\nWhatever he wants, when he comes--that is, any reasonable and\nunsacrilegious thing--he can have.  There's always a few millions\nor billions of young folks around who don't want any better\nentertainment than to fill up their lungs and swarm out with their\ntorches and have a high time over a barkeeper.  It tickles the\nbarkeeper till he can't rest, it makes a charming lark for the\nyoung folks, it don't do anybody any harm, it don't cost a rap, and\nit keeps up the place's reputation for making all comers happy and\ncontent.\"\n\n\"Very good.  I'll be on hand and see them land the barkeeper.\"\n\n\"It is manners to go in full dress.  You want to wear your wings,\nyou know, and your other things.\"\n\n\"Which ones?\"\n\n\"Halo, and harp, and palm branch, and all that.\"\n\n\"Well,\" says I, \"I reckon I ought to be ashamed of myself, but the\nfact is I left them laying around that day I resigned from the\nchoir.  I haven't got a rag to wear but this robe and the wings.\"\n\n\"That's all right.  You'll find they've been raked up and saved for\nyou.  Send for them.\"\n\n\"I'll do it, Sandy.  But what was it you was saying about\nunsacrilegious things, which people expect to get, and will be\ndisappointed about?\"\n\n\"Oh, there are a lot of such things that people expect and don't\nget.  For instance, there's a Brooklyn preacher by the name of\nTalmage, who is laying up a considerable disappointment for\nhimself.  He says, every now and then in his sermons, that the\nfirst thing he does when he gets to heaven, will be to fling his\narms around Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and kiss them and weep on\nthem.  There's millions of people down there on earth that are\npromising themselves the same thing.  As many as sixty thousand\npeople arrive here every single day, that want to run straight to\nAbraham, Isaac and Jacob, and hug them and weep on them.  Now mind\nyou, sixty thousand a day is a pretty heavy contract for those old\npeople.  If they were a mind to allow it, they wouldn't ever have\nanything to do, year in and year out, but stand up and be hugged\nand wept on thirty-two hours in the twenty-four.  They would be\ntired out and as wet as muskrats all the time.  What would heaven\nbe, to THEM?  It would be a mighty good place to get out of--you\nknow that, yourself.  Those are kind and gentle old Jews, but they\nain't any fonder of kissing the emotional highlights of Brooklyn\nthan you be.  You mark my words, Mr. T.'s endearments are going to\nbe declined, with thanks.  There are limits to the privileges of\nthe elect, even in heaven.  Why, if Adam was to show himself to\nevery new comer that wants to call and gaze at him and strike him\nfor his autograph, he would never have time to do anything else but\njust that.  Talmage has said he is going to give Adam some of his\nattentions, as well as A., I. and J.  But he will have to change\nhis mind about that.\"\n\n\"Do you think Talmage will really come here?\"\n\n\"Why, certainly, he will; but don't you be alarmed; he will run\nwith his own kind, and there's plenty of them.  That is the main\ncharm of heaven--there's all kinds here--which wouldn't be the case\nif you let the preachers tell it.  Anybody can find the sort he\nprefers, here, and he just lets the others alone, and they let him\nalone.  When the Deity builds a heaven, it is built right, and on a\nliberal plan.\"\n\nSandy sent home for his things, and I sent for mine, and about nine\nin the evening we begun to dress.  Sandy says,--\n\n\"This is going to be a grand time for you, Stormy.  Like as not\nsome of the patriarchs will turn out.\"\n\n\"No, but will they?\"\n\n\"Like as not.  Of course they are pretty exclusive.  They hardly\never show themselves to the common public.  I believe they never\nturn out except for an eleventh-hour convert.  They wouldn't do it\nthen, only earthly tradition makes a grand show pretty necessary on\nthat kind of an occasion.\"\n\n\"Do they an turn out, Sandy?\"\n\n\"Who?--all the patriarchs?  Oh, no--hardly ever more than a couple.\nYou will be here fifty thousand years--maybe more--before you get a\nglimpse of all the patriarchs and prophets.  Since I have been\nhere, Job has been to the front once, and once Ham and Jeremiah\nboth at the same time.  But the finest thing that has happened in\nmy day was a year or so ago; that was Charles Peace's reception--\nhim they called 'the Bannercross Murderer'--an Englishman.  There\nwere four patriarchs and two prophets on the Grand Stand that time-\n-there hasn't been anything like it since Captain Kidd came; Abel\nwas there--the first time in twelve hundred years.  A report got\naround that Adam was coming; well, of course, Abel was enough to\nbring a crowd, all by himself, but there is nobody that can draw\nlike Adam.  It was a false report, but it got around, anyway, as I\nsay, and it will be a long day before I see the like of it again.\nThe reception was in the English department, of course, which is\neight hundred and eleven million miles from the New Jersey line.  I\nwent, along with a good many of my neighbors, and it was a sight to\nsee, I can tell you.  Flocks came from all the departments.  I saw\nEsquimaux there, and Tartars, Negroes, Chinamen--people from\neverywhere.  You see a mixture like that in the Grand Choir, the\nfirst day you land here, but you hardly ever see it again.  There\nwere billions of people; when they were singing or hosannahing, the\nnoise was wonderful; and even when their tongues were still the\ndrumming of the wings was nearly enough to burst your head, for all\nthe sky was as thick as if it was snowing angels.  Although Adam\nwas not there, it was a great time anyway, because we had three\narchangels on the Grand Stand--it is a seldom thing that even one\ncomes out.\"\n\n\"What did they look like, Sandy?\"\n\n\"Well, they had shining faces, and shining robes, and wonderful\nrainbow wings, and they stood eighteen feet high, and wore swords,\nand held their heads up in a noble way, and looked like soldiers.\"\n\n\"Did they have halos?\"\n\n\"No--anyway, not the hoop kind.  The archangels and the upper-class\npatriarchs wear a finer thing than that.  It is a round, solid,\nsplendid glory of gold, that is blinding to look at.  You have\noften seen a patriarch in a picture, on earth, with that thing on--\nyou remember it?--he looks as if he had his head in a brass\nplatter.  That don't give you the right idea of it at all--it is\nmuch more shining and beautiful.\"\n\n\"Did you talk with those archangels and patriarchs, Sandy?\"\n\n\"Who--_I_?  Why, what can you be thinking about, Stormy?  I ain't\nworthy to speak to such as they.\"\n\n\"Is Talmage?\"\n\n\"Of course not.  You have got the same mixed-up idea about these\nthings that everybody has down there.  I had it once, but I got\nover it.  Down there they talk of the heavenly King--and that is\nright--but then they go right on speaking as if this was a republic\nand everybody was on a dead level with everybody else, and\nprivileged to fling his arms around anybody he comes across, and be\nhail-fellow-well-met with all the elect, from the highest down.\nHow tangled up and absurd that is!  How are you going to have a\nrepublic under a king?  How are you going to have a republic at\nall, where the head of the government is absolute, holds his place\nforever, and has no parliament, no council to meddle or make in his\naffairs, nobody voted for, nobody elected, nobody in the whole\nuniverse with a voice in the government, nobody asked to take a\nhand in its matters, and nobody ALLOWED to do it?  Fine republic,\nain't it?\"\n\n\"Well, yes--it IS a little different from the idea I had--but I\nthought I might go around and get acquainted with the grandees,\nanyway--not exactly splice the main-brace with them, you know, but\nshake hands and pass the time of day.\"\n\n\"Could Tom, Dick and Harry call on the Cabinet of Russia and do\nthat?--on Prince Gortschakoff, for instance?\"\n\n\"I reckon not, Sandy.\"\n\n\"Well, this is Russia--only more so.  There's not the shadow of a\nrepublic about it anywhere.  There are ranks, here.  There are\nviceroys, princes, governors, sub-governors, sub-sub-governors, and\na hundred orders of nobility, grading along down from grand-ducal\narchangels, stage by stage, till the general level is struck, where\nthere ain't any titles.  Do you know what a prince of the blood is,\non earth?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Well, a prince of the blood don't belong to the royal family\nexactly, and he don't belong to the mere nobility of the kingdom;\nhe is lower than the one, and higher than t'other.  That's about\nthe position of the patriarchs and prophets here.  There's some\nmighty high nobility here--people that you and I ain't worthy to\npolish sandals for--and THEY ain't worthy to polish sandals for the\npatriarchs and prophets.  That gives you a kind of an idea of their\nrank, don't it?  You begin to see how high up they are, don't you?\njust to get a two-minute glimpse of one of them is a thing for a\nbody to remember and tell about for a thousand years.  Why,\nCaptain, just think of this:  if Abraham was to set his foot down\nhere by this door, there would be a railing set up around that\nfoot-track right away, and a shelter put over it, and people would\nflock here from all over heaven, for hundreds and hundreds of\nyears, to look at it.  Abraham is one of the parties that Mr.\nTalmage, of Brooklyn, is going to embrace, and kiss, and weep on,\nwhen he comes.  He wants to lay in a good stock of tears, you know,\nor five to one he will go dry before he gets a chance to do it.\"\n\n\"Sandy,\" says I, \"I had an idea that _I_ was going to be equals\nwith everybody here, too, but I will let that drop.  It don't\nmatter, and I am plenty happy enough anyway.\"\n\n\"Captain, you are happier than you would be, the other way.  These\nold patriarchs and prophets have got ages the start of you; they\nknow more in two minutes than you know in a year.  Did you ever try\nto have a sociable improving-time discussing winds, and currents\nand variations of compass with an undertaker?\"\n\n\"I get your idea, Sandy.  He couldn't interest me.  He would be an\nignoramus in such things--he would bore me, and I would bore him.\"\n\n\"You have got it.  You would bore the patriarchs when you talked,\nand when they talked they would shoot over your head.  By and by\nyou would say, 'Good morning, your Eminence, I will call again'--\nbut you wouldn't.  Did you ever ask the slush-boy to come up in the\ncabin and take dinner with you?\"\n\n\"I get your drift again, Sandy.  I wouldn't be used to such grand\npeople as the patriarchs and prophets, and I would be sheepish and\ntongue-tied in their company, and mighty glad to get out of it.\nSandy, which is the highest rank, patriarch or prophet?\"\n\n\"Oh, the prophets hold over the patriarchs.  The newest prophet,\neven, is of a sight more consequence than the oldest patriarch.\nYes, sir, Adam himself has to walk behind Shakespeare.\"\n\n\"Was Shakespeare a prophet?\"\n\n\"Of course he was; and so was Homer, and heaps more.  But\nShakespeare and the rest have to walk behind a common tailor from\nTennessee, by the name of Billings; and behind a horse-doctor named\nSakka, from Afghanistan.  Jeremiah, and Billings and Buddha walk\ntogether, side by side, right behind a crowd from planets not in\nour astronomy; next come a dozen or two from Jupiter and other\nworlds; next come Daniel, and Sakka and Confucius; next a lot from\nsystems outside of ours; next come Ezekiel, and Mahomet, Zoroaster,\nand a knife-grinder from ancient Egypt; then there is a long\nstring, and after them, away down toward the bottom, come\nShakespeare and Homer, and a shoemaker named Marais, from the back\nsettlements of France.\"\n\n\"Have they really rung in Mahomet and all those other heathens?\"\n\n\"Yes--they all had their message, and they all get their reward.\nThe man who don't get his reward on earth, needn't bother--he will\nget it here, sure.\"\n\n\"But why did they throw off on Shakespeare, that way, and put him\naway down there below those shoe-makers and horse-doctors and\nknife-grinders--a lot of people nobody ever heard of?\"\n\n\"That is the heavenly justice of it--they warn't rewarded according\nto their deserts, on earth, but here they get their rightful rank.\nThat tailor Billings, from Tennessee, wrote poetry that Homer and\nShakespeare couldn't begin to come up to; but nobody would print\nit, nobody read it but his neighbors, an ignorant lot, and they\nlaughed at it.  Whenever the village had a drunken frolic and a\ndance, they would drag him in and crown him with cabbage leaves,\nand pretend to bow down to him; and one night when he was sick and\nnearly starved to death, they had him out and crowned him, and then\nthey rode him on a rail about the village, and everybody followed\nalong, beating tin pans and yelling.  Well, he died before morning.\nHe wasn't ever expecting to go to heaven, much less that there was\ngoing to be any fuss made over him, so I reckon he was a good deal\nsurprised when the reception broke on him.\"\n\n\"Was you there, Sandy?\"\n\n\"Bless you, no!\"\n\n\"Why?  Didn't you know it was going to come off?\"\n\n\"Well, I judge I did.  It was the talk of these realms--not for a\nday, like this barkeeper business, but for twenty years before the\nman died.\"\n\n\"Why the mischief didn't you go, then?\"\n\n\"Now how you talk!  The like of me go meddling around at the\nreception of a prophet?  A mudsill like me trying to push in and\nhelp receive an awful grandee like Edward J. Billings?  Why, I\nshould have been laughed at for a billion miles around.  I\nshouldn't ever heard the last of it.\"\n\n\"Well, who did go, then?\"\n\n\"Mighty few people that you and I will ever get a chance to see,\nCaptain.  Not a solitary commoner ever has the luck to see a\nreception of a prophet, I can tell you.  All the nobility, and all\nthe patriarchs and prophets--every last one of them--and all the\narchangels, and all the princes and governors and viceroys, were\nthere,--and NO small fry--not a single one.  And mind you, I'm not\ntalking about only the grandees from OUR world, but the princes and\npatriarchs and so on from ALL the worlds that shine in our sky, and\nfrom billions more that belong in systems upon systems away outside\nof the one our sun is in.  There were some prophets and patriarchs\nthere that ours ain't a circumstance to, for rank and\nillustriousness and all that.  Some were from Jupiter and other\nworlds in our own system, but the most celebrated were three poets,\nSaa, Bo and Soof, from great planets in three different and very\nremote systems.  These three names are common and familiar in every\nnook and corner of heaven, clear from one end of it to the other--\nfully as well known as the eighty Supreme Archangels, in fact--\nwhere as our Moses, and Adam, and the rest, have not been heard of\noutside of our world's little corner of heaven, except by a few\nvery learned men scattered here and there--and they always spell\ntheir names wrong, and get the performances of one mixed up with\nthe doings of another, and they almost always locate them simply IN\nOUR SOLAR SYSTEM, and think that is enough without going into\nlittle details such as naming the particular world they are from.\nIt is like a learned Hindoo showing off how much he knows by saying\nLongfellow lives in the United States--as if he lived all over the\nUnited States, and as if the country was so small you couldn't\nthrow a brick there without hitting him.  Between you and me, it\ndoes gravel me, the cool way people from those monster worlds\noutside our system snub our little world, and even our system.  Of\ncourse we think a good deal of Jupiter, because our world is only a\npotato to it, for size; but then there are worlds in other systems\nthat Jupiter isn't even a mustard-seed to--like the planet Goobra,\nfor instance, which you couldn't squeeze inside the orbit of\nHalley's comet without straining the rivets.  Tourists from Goobra\n(I mean parties that lived and died there--natives) come here, now\nand then, and inquire about our world, and when they find out it is\nso little that a streak of lightning can flash clear around it in\nthe eighth of a second, they have to lean up against something to\nlaugh.  Then they screw a glass into their eye and go to examining\nus, as if we were a curious kind of foreign bug, or something of\nthat sort.  One of them asked me how long our day was; and when I\ntold him it was twelve hours long, as a general thing, he asked me\nif people where I was from considered it worth while to get up and\nwash for such a day as that.  That is the way with those Goobra\npeople--they can't seem to let a chance go by to throw it in your\nface that their day is three hundred and twenty-two of our years\nlong.  This young snob was just of age--he was six or seven\nthousand of his days old--say two million of our years--and he had\nall the puppy airs that belong to that time of life--that turning-\npoint when a person has got over being a boy and yet ain't quite a\nman exactly.  If it had been anywhere else but in heaven, I would\nhave given him a piece of my mind.  Well, anyway, Billings had the\ngrandest reception that has been seen in thousands of centuries,\nand I think it will have a good effect.  His name will be carried\npretty far, and it will make our system talked about, and maybe our\nworld, too, and raise us in the respect of the general public of\nheaven.  Why, look here--Shakespeare walked backwards before that\ntailor from Tennessee, and scattered flowers for him to walk on,\nand Homer stood behind his chair and waited on him at the banquet.\nOf course that didn't go for much THERE, amongst all those big\nforeigners from other systems, as they hadn't heard of Shakespeare\nor Homer either, but it would amount to considerable down there on\nour little earth if they could know about it.  I wish there was\nsomething in that miserable spiritualism, so we could send them\nword.  That Tennessee village would set up a monument to Billings,\nthen, and his autograph would outsell Satan's.  Well, they had\ngrand times at that reception--a small-fry noble from Hoboken told\nme all about it--Sir Richard Duffer, Baronet.\"\n\n\"What, Sandy, a nobleman from Hoboken?  How is that?\"\n\n\"Easy enough.  Duffer kept a sausage-shop and never saved a cent in\nhis life because he used to give all his spare meat to the poor, in\na quiet way.  Not tramps,--no, the other sort--the sort that will\nstarve before they will beg--honest square people out of work.\nDick used to watch hungry-looking men and women and children, and\ntrack them home, and find out all about them from the neighbors,\nand then feed them and find them work.  As nobody ever saw him give\nanything to anybody, he had the reputation of being mean; he died\nwith it, too, and everybody said it was a good riddance; but the\nminute he landed here, they made him a baronet, and the very first\nwords Dick the sausage-maker of Hoboken heard when he stepped upon\nthe heavenly shore were, 'Welcome, Sir Richard Duffer!'  It\nsurprised him some, because he thought he had reasons to believe he\nwas pointed for a warmer climate than this one.\"\n\n\nAll of a sudden the whole region fairly rocked under the crash of\neleven hundred and one thunder blasts, all let off at once, and\nSandy says,--\n\n\"There, that's for the barkeep.\"\n\nI jumped up and says,--\n\n\"Then let's be moving along, Sandy; we don't want to miss any of\nthis thing, you know.\"\n\n\"Keep your seat,\" he says; \"he is only just telegraphed, that is\nall.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"That blast only means that he has been sighted from the signal-\nstation.  He is off Sandy Hook.  The committees will go down to\nmeet him, now, and escort him in.  There will be ceremonies and\ndelays; they won't he coming up the Bay for a considerable time,\nyet.  It is several billion miles away, anyway.\"\n\n\"_I_ could have been a barkeeper and a hard lot just as well as\nnot,\" says I, remembering the lonesome way I arrived, and how there\nwasn't any committee nor anything.\n\n\"I notice some regret in your voice,\" says Sandy, \"and it is\nnatural enough; but let bygones be bygones; you went according to\nyour lights, and it is too late now to mend the thing.\"\n\n\"No, let it slide, Sandy, I don't mind.  But you've got a Sandy\nHook HERE, too, have you?\"\n\n\"We've got everything here, just as it is below.  All the States\nand Territories of the Union, and all the kingdoms of the earth and\nthe islands of the sea are laid out here just as they are on the\nglobe--all the same shape they are down there, and all graded to\nthe relative size, only each State and realm and island is a good\nmany billion times bigger here than it is below.  There goes\nanother blast.\"\n\n\"What is that one for?\"\n\n\"That is only another fort answering the first one.  They each fire\neleven hundred and one thunder blasts at a single dash--it is the\nusual salute for an eleventh-hour guest; a hundred for each hour\nand an extra one for the guest's sex; if it was a woman we would\nknow it by their leaving off the extra gun.\"\n\n\"How do we know there's eleven hundred and one, Sandy, when they\nall go off at once?--and yet we certainly do know.\"\n\n\"Our intellects are a good deal sharpened up, here, in some ways,\nand that is one of them.  Numbers and sizes and distances are so\ngreat, here, that we have to be made so we can FEEL them--our old\nways of counting and measuring and ciphering wouldn't ever give us\nan idea of them, but would only confuse us and oppress us and make\nour heads ache.\"\n\nAfter some more talk about this, I says:  \"Sandy, I notice that I\nhardly ever see a white angel; where I run across one white angel,\nI strike as many as a hundred million copper-colored ones--people\nthat can't speak English.  How is that?\"\n\n\"Well, you will find it the same in any State or Territory of the\nAmerican corner of heaven you choose to go to.  I have shot along,\na whole week on a stretch, and gone millions and millions of miles,\nthrough perfect swarms of angels, without ever seeing a single\nwhite one, or hearing a word I could understand.  You see, America\nwas occupied a billion years and more, by Injuns and Aztecs, and\nthat sort of folks, before a white man ever set his foot in it.\nDuring the first three hundred years after Columbus's discovery,\nthere wasn't ever more than one good lecture audience of white\npeople, all put together, in America--I mean the whole thing,\nBritish Possessions and all; in the beginning of our century there\nwere only 6,000,000 or 7,000,000--say seven; 12,000,000 or\n14,000,000 in 1825; say 23,000,000 in 1850; 40,000,000 in 1875.\nOur death-rate has always been 20 in 1000 per annum.  Well, 140,000\ndied the first year of the century; 280,000 the twenty-fifth year;\n500,000 the fiftieth year; about a million the seventy-fifth year.\nNow I am going to be liberal about this thing, and consider that\nfifty million whites have died in America from the beginning up to\nto-day--make it sixty, if you want to; make it a hundred million--\nit's no difference about a few millions one way or t'other.  Well,\nnow, you can see, yourself, that when you come to spread a little\ndab of people like that over these hundreds of billions of miles of\nAmerican territory here in heaven, it is like scattering a ten-cent\nbox of homoeopathic pills over the Great Sahara and expecting to\nfind them again.  You can't expect us to amount to anything in\nheaven, and we DON'T--now that is the simple fact, and we have got\nto do the best we can with it.  The learned men from other planets\nand other systems come here and hang around a while, when they are\ntouring around the Kingdom, and then go back to their own section\nof heaven and write a book of travels, and they give America about\nfive lines in it.  And what do they say about us?  They say this\nwilderness is populated with a scattering few hundred thousand\nbillions of red angels, with now and then a curiously complected\nDISEASED one.  You see, they think we whites and the occasional\nnigger are Injuns that have been bleached out or blackened by some\nleprous disease or other--for some peculiarly rascally SIN, mind\nyou.  It is a mighty sour pill for us all, my friend--even the\nmodestest of us, let alone the other kind, that think they are\ngoing to be received like a long-lost government bond, and hug\nAbraham into the bargain.  I haven't asked you any of the\nparticulars, Captain, but I judge it goes without saying--if my\nexperience is worth anything--that there wasn't much of a hooraw\nmade over you when you arrived--now was there?\"\n\n\"Don't mention it, Sandy,\" says I, coloring up a little; \"I\nwouldn't have had the family see it for any amount you are a mind\nto name.  Change the subject, Sandy, change the subject.\"\n\n\"Well, do you think of settling in the California department of\nbliss?\"\n\n\"I don't know.  I wasn't calculating on doing anything really\ndefinite in that direction till the family come.  I thought I would\njust look around, meantime, in a quiet way, and make up my mind.\nBesides, I know a good many dead people, and I was calculating to\nhunt them up and swap a little gossip with them about friends, and\nold times, and one thing or another, and ask them how they like it\nhere, as far as they have got.  I reckon my wife will want to camp\nin the California range, though, because most all her departed will\nbe there, and she likes to be with folks she knows.\"\n\n\"Don't you let her.  You see what the Jersey district of heaven is,\nfor whites; well, the Californian district is a thousand times\nworse.  It swarms with a mean kind of leather-headed mud-colored\nangels--and your nearest white neighbor is likely to be a million\nmiles away.  WHAT A MAN MOSTLY MISSES, IN HEAVEN, IS COMPANY--\ncompany of his own sort and color and language.  I have come near\nsettling in the European part of heaven once or twice on that\naccount.\"\n\n\"Well, why didn't you, Sandy?\"\n\n\"Oh, various reasons.  For one thing, although you SEE plenty of\nwhites there, you can't understand any of them, hardly, and so you\ngo about as hungry for talk as you do here.  I like to look at a\nRussian or a German or an Italian--I even like to look at a\nFrenchman if I ever have the luck to catch him engaged in anything\nthat ain't indelicate--but LOOKING don't cure the hunger--what you\nwant is talk.\"\n\n\"Well, there's England, Sandy--the English district of heaven.\"\n\n\"Yes, but it is not so very much better than this end of the\nheavenly domain.  As long as you run across Englishmen born this\nside of three hundred years ago, you are all right; but the minute\nyou get back of Elizabeth's time the language begins to fog up, and\nthe further back you go the foggier it gets.  I had some talk with\none Langland and a man by the name of Chaucer--old-time poets--but\nit was no use, I couldn't quite understand them, and they couldn't\nquite understand me.  I have had letters from them since, but it is\nsuch broken English I can't make it out.  Back of those men's time\nthe English are just simply foreigners, nothing more, nothing less;\nthey talk Danish, German, Norman French, and sometimes a mixture of\nall three; back of THEM, they talk Latin, and ancient British,\nIrish, and Gaelic; and then back of these come billions and\nbillions of pure savages that talk a gibberish that Satan himself\ncouldn't understand.  The fact is, where you strike one man in the\nEnglish settlements that you can understand, you wade through awful\nswarms that talk something you can't make head nor tail of.  You\nsee, every country on earth has been overlaid so often, in the\ncourse of a billion years, with different kinds of people and\ndifferent sorts of languages, that this sort of mongrel business\nwas bound to be the result in heaven.\"\n\n\"Sandy,\" says I, \"did you see a good many of the great people\nhistory tells about?\"\n\n\"Yes--plenty.  I saw kings and all sorts of distinguished people.\"\n\n\"Do the kings rank just as they did below?\"\n\n\"No; a body can't bring his rank up here with him.  Divine right is\na good-enough earthly romance, but it don't go, here.  Kings drop\ndown to the general level as soon as they reach the realms of\ngrace.  I knew Charles the Second very well--one of the most\npopular comedians in the English section--draws first rate.  There\nare better, of course--people that were never heard of on earth--\nbut Charles is making a very good reputation indeed, and is\nconsidered a rising man.  Richard the Lion-hearted is in the prize-\nring, and coming into considerable favor.  Henry the Eighth is a\ntragedian, and the scenes where he kills people are done to the\nvery life.  Henry the Sixth keeps a religious-book stand.\"\n\n\"Did you ever see Napoleon, Sandy?\"\n\n\"Often--sometimes in the Corsican range, sometimes in the French.\nHe always hunts up a conspicuous place, and goes frowning around\nwith his arms folded and his field-glass under his arm, looking as\ngrand, gloomy and peculiar as his reputation calls for, and very\nmuch bothered because he don't stand as high, here, for a soldier,\nas he expected to.\"\n\n\"Why, who stands higher?\"\n\n\"Oh, a LOT of people WE never heard of before--the shoemaker and\nhorse-doctor and knife-grinder kind, you know--clodhoppers from\ngoodness knows where that never handled a sword or fired a shot in\ntheir lives--but the soldiership was in them, though they never had\na chance to show it.  But here they take their right place, and\nCaesar and Napoleon and Alexander have to take a back seat.  The\ngreatest military genius our world ever produced was a brick-layer\nfrom somewhere back of Boston--died during the Revolution--by the\nname of Absalom Jones.  Wherever he goes, crowds flock to see him.\nYou see, everybody knows that if he had had a chance he would have\nshown the world some generalship that would have made all\ngeneralship before look like child's play and 'prentice work.  But\nhe never got a chance; he tried heaps of times to enlist as a\nprivate, but he had lost both thumbs and a couple of front teeth,\nand the recruiting sergeant wouldn't pass him.  However, as I say,\neverybody knows, now, what he WOULD have been,--and so they flock\nby the million to get a glimpse of him whenever they hear he is\ngoing to be anywhere.  Caesar, and Hannibal, and Alexander, and\nNapoleon are all on his staff, and ever so many more great\ngenerals; but the public hardly care to look at THEM when HE is\naround.  Boom!  There goes another salute.  The barkeeper's off\nquarantine now.\"\n\n\nSandy and I put on our things.  Then we made a wish, and in a\nsecond we were at the reception-place.  We stood on the edge of the\nocean of space, and looked out over the dimness, but couldn't make\nout anything.  Close by us was the Grand Stand--tier on tier of dim\nthrones rising up toward the zenith.  From each side of it spread\naway the tiers of seats for the general public.  They spread away\nfor leagues and leagues--you couldn't see the ends.  They were\nempty and still, and hadn't a cheerful look, but looked dreary,\nlike a theatre before anybody comes--gas turned down.  Sandy says,-\n-\n\n\"We'll sit down here and wait.  We'll see the head of the\nprocession come in sight away off yonder pretty soon, now.\"\n\nSays I,--\n\n\"It's pretty lonesome, Sandy; I reckon there's a hitch somewheres.\nNobody but just you and me--it ain't much of a display for the\nbarkeeper.\"\n\n\"Don't you fret, it's all right.  There'll be one more gun-fire--\nthen you'll see.\n\nIn a little while we noticed a sort of a lightish flush, away off\non the horizon.\n\n\"Head of the torchlight procession,\" says Sandy.\n\nIt spread, and got lighter and brighter:  soon it had a strong\nglare like a locomotive headlight; it kept on getting brighter and\nbrighter till it was like the sun peeping above the horizon-line at\nsea--the big red rays shot high up into the sky.\n\n\"Keep your eyes on the Grand Stand and the miles of seats--sharp!\"\nsays Sandy, \"and listen for the gun-fire.\"\n\nJust then it burst out, \"Boom-boom-boom!\" like a million\nthunderstorms in one, and made the whole heavens rock.  Then there\nwas a sudden and awful glare of light all about us, and in that\nvery instant every one of the millions of seats was occupied, and\nas far as you could see, in both directions, was just a solid pack\nof people, and the place was all splendidly lit up!  It was enough\nto take a body's breath away.  Sandy says,--\n\n\"That is the way we do it here.  No time fooled away; nobody\nstraggling in after the curtain's up.  Wishing is quicker work than\ntravelling.  A quarter of a second ago these folks were millions of\nmiles from here.  When they heard the last signal, all they had to\ndo was to wish, and here they are.\"\n\nThe prodigious choir struck up,--\n\n\nWe long to hear thy voice,\nTo see thee face to face.\n\n\nIt was noble music, but the uneducated chipped in and spoilt it,\njust as the congregations used to do on earth.\n\nThe head of the procession began to pass, now, and it was a\nwonderful sight.  It swept along, thick and solid, five hundred\nthousand angels abreast, and every angel carrying a torch and\nsinging--the whirring thunder of the wings made a body's head ache.\nYou could follow the line of the procession back, and slanting\nupward into the sky, far away in a glittering snaky rope, till it\nwas only a faint streak in the distance.  The rush went on and on,\nfor a long time, and at last, sure enough, along comes the\nbarkeeper, and then everybody rose, and a cheer went up that made\nthe heavens shake, I tell you!  He was all smiles, and had his halo\ntilted over one ear in a cocky way, and was the most satisfied-\nlooking saint I ever saw.  While he marched up the steps of the\nGrand Stand, the choir struck up,--\n\n\nThe whole wide heaven groans,\nAnd waits to hear that voice.\"\n\n\nThere were four gorgeous tents standing side by side in the place\nof honor, on a broad railed platform in the centre of the Grand\nStand, with a shining guard of honor round about them.  The tents\nhad been shut up all this time.  As the barkeeper climbed along up,\nbowing and smiling to everybody, and at last got to the platform,\nthese tents were jerked up aloft all of a sudden, and we saw four\nnoble thrones of gold, all caked with jewels, and in the two middle\nones sat old white-whiskered men, and in the two others a couple of\nthe most glorious and gaudy giants, with platter halos and\nbeautiful armor.  All the millions went down on their knees, and\nstared, and looked glad, and burst out into a joyful kind of\nmurmurs.  They said,--\n\n\"Two archangels!--that is splendid.  Who can the others be?\"\n\nThe archangels gave the barkeeper a stiff little military bow; the\ntwo old men rose; one of them said, \"Moses and Esau welcome thee!\"\nand then all the four vanished, and the thrones were empty.\n\nThe barkeeper looked a little disappointed, for he was calculating\nto hug those old people, I judge; but it was the gladdest and\nproudest multitude you ever saw--because they had seen Moses and\nEsau.  Everybody was saying, \"Did you see them?--I did--Esau's side\nface was to me, but I saw Moses full in the face, just as plain as\nI see you this minute!\"\n\nThe procession took up the barkeeper and moved on with him again,\nand the crowd broke up and scattered.  As we went along home, Sandy\nsaid it was a great success, and the barkeeper would have a right\nto be proud of it forever.  And he said we were in luck, too; said\nwe might attend receptions for forty thousand years to come, and\nnot have a chance to see a brace of such grand moguls as Moses and\nEsau.  We found afterwards that we had come near seeing another\npatriarch, and likewise a genuine prophet besides, but at the last\nmoment they sent regrets.  Sandy said there would be a monument put\nup there, where Moses and Esau had stood, with the date and\ncircumstances, and all about the whole business, and travellers\nwould come for thousands of years and gawk at it, and climb over\nit, and scribble their names on it.\n\n\n\nFootnotes:\n\n{1}  The captain could not remember what this word was.  He said it\nwas in a foreign tongue.\n\n\n\n"}
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{"1086":"\n\n\n\n                          [Picture: Book cover]\n\n [Picture: \u201cBuffalo Bill took me on Soldier Boy to Thunder-Bird\u2019s Camp\u201d]\n\n\n\n\n\n                              A Horse\u2019s Tale\n\n\n                                    BY\n                                Mark Twain\n\n                              ILLUSTRATED BY\n                             LUCIUS HITCHCOCK\n\n                      [Picture: Decorative graphic]\n\n                           LONDON AND NEW YORK\n                            HARPER & BROTHERS\n                           PUBLISHERS .. MCMVII\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n                Copyright, 1906, by Harper & Brothers.\n\n                               * * * * *\n\n                         _All rights reserved_\n\n                       Published October, 1907.\n\n                  _Printed in United States of America_.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n\n\n\nContents\n\nCHAP.                                                             PAGE\n       I.  SOLDIER BOY\u2014PRIVATELY TO HIMSELF                          1\n      II.  LETTER FROM ROUEN\u2014TO GENERAL ALISON                      12\n     III.  GENERAL ALISON TO HIS MOTHER                             19\n      IV.  CATHY TO HER AUNT MERCEDES                               25\n       V.  GENERAL ALISON TO MERCEDES                               33\n      VI.  SOLDIER BOY AND THE MEXICAN PLUG                         56\n     VII.  SOLDIER BOY AND SHEKELS                                  82\n    VIII.  THE SCOUT-START.  BB AND LIEUTENANT-GENERAL              88\n           ALISON\n      IX.  SOLDIER BOY AND SHEKELS AGAIN                            90\n       X.  GENERAL ALISON AND DORCAS                               100\n      XI.  SEVERAL MONTHS LATER.  ANTONIO AND THORNDIKE            116\n     XII.  MONGREL AND THE OTHER HORSE                             129\n    XIII.  GENERAL ALISON TO HIS MOTHER                            133\n     XIV.  SOLDIER BOY\u2014TO HIMSELF                                  145\n      XV.  GENERAL ALISON TO MRS. DRAKE, THE COLONEL\u2019S WIFE        149\n\n\n\n\nIllustrations\n\n\u201cBuffalo Bill took me on Soldier Boy to                 _Frontispiece_\nThunder-Bird\u2019s Camp\u201d\n\u201cLook at that file of cats in your chair\u201d                        p. 48\n\u201cEvery morning they go clattering down into the                     66\nplain\u201d\n\u201cThere was nothing to do but stand by\u201d                              92\n\u201cHis strength failed and he fell at her feet\u201d                      150\n\n\n\n\nAcknowledgements\n\n\nAlthough I have had several opportunities to see a bull-fight, I have\nnever seen one; but I needed a bull-fight in this book, and a trustworthy\none will be found in it.  I got it out of John Hay\u2019s _Castilian Days_,\nreducing and condensing it to fit the requirements of this small story.\nMr. Hay and I were friends from early times, and if he were still with us\nhe would not rebuke me for the liberty I have taken.\n\nThe knowledge of military minuti\u00e6 exhibited in this book will be found to\nbe correct, but it is not mine; I took it from _Army Regulations_, ed.\n1904; _Hardy\u2019s Tactics_\u2014_Cavalry_, revised ed., 1861; and _Jomini\u2019s\nHandbook of Military Etiquette_, West Point ed., 1905.\n\nIt would not be honest in me to encourage by silence the inference that I\ncomposed the Horse\u2019s private bugle-call, for I did not.  I lifted it, as\nAristotle says.  It is the opening strain in _The Pizzicato_ in _Sylvia_,\nby Delibes.  When that master was composing it he did not know it was a\nbugle-call, it was I that found it out.\n\nAlong through the book I have distributed a few anachronisms and unborn\nhistorical incidents and such things, so as to help the tale over the\ndifficult places.  This idea is not original with me; I got it out of\nHerodotus.  Herodotus says, \u201cVery few things happen at the right time,\nand the rest do not happen at all: the conscientious historian will\ncorrect these defects.\u201d\n\nThe cats in the chair do not belong to me, but to another.\n\nThese are all the exceptions.  What is left of the book is mine.\n\n                                                               MARK TWAIN.\n\nLONE TREE HILL, DUBLIN,\nNEW HAMPSHIRE, _October_, 1905.\n\n\n\n\nPart I\n\n\nI\nSOLDIER BOY\u2014PRIVATELY TO HIMSELF\n\n\nI AM Buffalo Bill\u2019s horse.  I have spent my life under his saddle\u2014with\nhim in it, too, and he is good for two hundred pounds, without his\nclothes; and there is no telling how much he does weigh when he is out on\nthe war-path and has his batteries belted on.  He is over six feet, is\nyoung, hasn\u2019t an ounce of waste flesh, is straight, graceful, springy in\nhis motions, quick as a cat, and has a handsome face, and black hair\ndangling down on his shoulders, and is beautiful to look at; and nobody\nis braver than he is, and nobody is stronger, except myself.  Yes, a\nperson that doubts that he is fine to see should see him in his beaded\nbuck-skins, on my back and his rifle peeping above his shoulder, chasing\na hostile trail, with me going like the wind and his hair streaming out\nbehind from the shelter of his broad slouch.  Yes, he is a sight to look\nat then\u2014and I\u2019m part of it myself.\n\nI am his favorite horse, out of dozens.  Big as he is, I have carried him\neighty-one miles between nightfall and sunrise on the scout; and I am\ngood for fifty, day in and day out, and all the time.  I am not large,\nbut I am built on a business basis.  I have carried him thousands and\nthousands of miles on scout duty for the army, and there\u2019s not a gorge,\nnor a pass, nor a valley, nor a fort, nor a trading post, nor a\nbuffalo-range in the whole sweep of the Rocky Mountains and the Great\nPlains that we don\u2019t know as well as we know the bugle-calls.  He is\nChief of Scouts to the Army of the Frontier, and it makes us very\nimportant.  In such a position as I hold in the military service one\nneeds to be of good family and possess an education much above the common\nto be worthy of the place.  I am the best-educated horse outside of the\nhippodrome, everybody says, and the best-mannered.  It may be so, it is\nnot for me to say; modesty is the best policy, I think.  Buffalo Bill\ntaught me the most of what I know, my mother taught me much, and I taught\nmyself the rest.  Lay a row of moccasins before me\u2014Pawnee, Sioux,\nShoshone, Cheyenne, Blackfoot, and as many other tribes as you please\u2014and\nI can name the tribe every moccasin belongs to by the make of it.  Name\nit in horse-talk, and could do it in American if I had speech.\n\nI know some of the Indian signs\u2014the signs they make with their hands, and\nby signal-fires at night and columns of smoke by day.  Buffalo Bill\ntaught me how to drag wounded soldiers out of the line of fire with my\nteeth; and I\u2019ve done it, too; at least I\u2019ve dragged _him_ out of the\nbattle when he was wounded.  And not just once, but twice.  Yes, I know a\nlot of things.  I remember forms, and gaits, and faces; and you can\u2019t\ndisguise a person that\u2019s done me a kindness so that I won\u2019t know him\nthereafter wherever I find him.  I know the art of searching for a trail,\nand I know the stale track from the fresh.  I can keep a trail all by\nmyself, with Buffalo Bill asleep in the saddle; ask him\u2014he will tell you\nso.  Many a time, when he has ridden all night, he has said to me at\ndawn, \u201cTake the watch, Boy; if the trail freshens, call me.\u201d  Then he\ngoes to sleep.  He knows he can trust me, because I have a reputation.  A\nscout horse that has a reputation does not play with it.\n\nMy mother was all American\u2014no alkali-spider about _her_, I can tell you;\nshe was of the best blood of Kentucky, the bluest Blue-grass aristocracy,\nvery proud and acrimonious\u2014or maybe it is ceremonious.  I don\u2019t know\nwhich it is.  But it is no matter; size is the main thing about a word,\nand that one\u2019s up to standard.  She spent her military life as colonel of\nthe Tenth Dragoons, and saw a deal of rough service\u2014distinguished service\nit was, too.  I mean, she _carried_ the Colonel; but it\u2019s all the same.\nWhere would he be without his horse?  He wouldn\u2019t arrive.  It takes two\nto make a colonel of dragoons.  She was a fine dragoon horse, but never\ngot above that.  She was strong enough for the scout service, and had the\nendurance, too, but she couldn\u2019t quite come up to the speed required; a\nscout horse has to have steel in his muscle and lightning in his blood.\n\nMy father was a bronco.  Nothing as to lineage\u2014that is, nothing as to\nrecent lineage\u2014but plenty good enough when you go a good way back.  When\nProfessor Marsh was out here hunting bones for the chapel of Yale\nUniversity he found skeletons of horses no bigger than a fox, bedded in\nthe rocks, and he said they were ancestors of my father.  My mother heard\nhim say it; and he said those skeletons were two million years old, which\nastonished her and made her Kentucky pretensions look small and pretty\nantiphonal, not to say oblique.  Let me see. . . . I used to know the\nmeaning of those words, but . . . well, it was years ago, and \u2019tisn\u2019t as\nvivid now as it was when they were fresh.  That sort of words doesn\u2019t\nkeep, in the kind of climate we have out here.  Professor Marsh said\nthose skeletons were fossils.  So that makes me part blue grass and part\nfossil; if there is any older or better stock, you will have to look for\nit among the Four Hundred, I reckon.  I am satisfied with it.  And am a\nhappy horse, too, though born out of wedlock.\n\nAnd now we are back at Fort Paxton once more, after a forty-day scout,\naway up as far as the Big Horn.  Everything quiet.  Crows and Blackfeet\nsquabbling\u2014as usual\u2014but no outbreaks, and settlers feeling fairly easy.\n\nThe Seventh Cavalry still in garrison, here; also the Ninth Dragoons, two\nartillery companies, and some infantry.  All glad to see me, including\nGeneral Alison, commandant.  The officers\u2019 ladies and children well, and\ncalled upon me\u2014with sugar.  Colonel Drake, Seventh Cavalry, said some\npleasant things; Mrs. Drake was very complimentary; also Captain and Mrs.\nMarsh, Company B, Seventh Cavalry; also the Chaplain, who is always kind\nand pleasant to me, because I kicked the lungs out of a trader once.  It\nwas Tommy Drake and Fanny Marsh that furnished the sugar\u2014nice children,\nthe nicest at the post, I think.\n\nThat poor orphan child is on her way from France\u2014everybody is full of the\nsubject.  Her father was General Alison\u2019s brother; married a beautiful\nyoung Spanish lady ten years ago, and has never been in America since.\nThey lived in Spain a year or two, then went to France.  Both died some\nmonths ago.  This little girl that is coming is the only child.  General\nAlison is glad to have her.  He has never seen her.  He is a very nice\nold bachelor, but is an old bachelor just the same and isn\u2019t more than\nabout a year this side of retirement by age limit; and so what does he\nknow about taking care of a little maid nine years old?  If I could have\nher it would be another matter, for I know all about children, and they\nadore me.  Buffalo Bill will tell you so himself.\n\nI have some of this news from over-hearing the garrison-gossip, the rest\nof it I got from Potter, the General\u2019s dog.  Potter is the great Dane.\nHe is privileged, all over the post, like Shekels, the Seventh Cavalry\u2019s\ndog, and visits everybody\u2019s quarters and picks up everything that is\ngoing, in the way of news.  Potter has no imagination, and no great deal\nof culture, perhaps, but he has a historical mind and a good memory, and\nso he is the person I depend upon mainly to post me up when I get back\nfrom a scout.  That is, if Shekels is out on depredation and I can\u2019t get\nhold of him.\n\n\n\nII\nLETTER FROM ROUEN\u2014TO GENERAL ALISON\n\n\n_MY dear Brother-in-Law_,\u2014Please let me write again in Spanish, I cannot\ntrust my English, and I am aware, from what your brother used to say,\nthat army officers educated at the Military Academy of the United States\nare taught our tongue.  It is as I told you in my other letter: both my\npoor sister and her husband, when they found they could not recover,\nexpressed the wish that you should have their little Catherine\u2014as knowing\nthat you would presently be retired from the army\u2014rather than that she\nshould remain with me, who am broken in health, or go to your mother in\nCalifornia, whose health is also frail.\n\nYou do not know the child, therefore I must tell you something about her.\nYou will not be ashamed of her looks, for she is a copy in little of her\nbeautiful mother\u2014and it is that Andalusian beauty which is not\nsurpassable, even in your country.  She has her mother\u2019s charm and grace\nand good heart and sense of justice, and she has her father\u2019s vivacity\nand cheerfulness and pluck and spirit of enterprise, with the\naffectionate disposition and sincerity of both parents.\n\nMy sister pined for her Spanish home all these years of exile; she was\nalways talking of Spain to the child, and tending and nourishing the love\nof Spain in the little thing\u2019s heart as a precious flower; and she died\nhappy in the knowledge that the fruitage of her patriotic labors was as\nrich as even she could desire.\n\nCathy is a sufficiently good little scholar, for her nine years; her\nmother taught her Spanish herself, and kept it always fresh upon her ear\nand her tongue by hardly ever speaking with her in any other tongue; her\nfather was her English teacher, and talked with her in that language\nalmost exclusively; French has been her everyday speech for more than\nseven years among her playmates here; she has a good working use of\ngoverness\u2014German and Italian.  It is true that there is always a faint\nforeign fragrance about her speech, no matter what language she is\ntalking, but it is only just noticeable, nothing more, and is rather a\ncharm than a mar, I think.  In the ordinary child-studies Cathy is\nneither before nor behind the average child of nine, I should say.  But I\ncan say this for her: in love for her friends and in high-mindedness and\ngood-heartedness she has not many equals, and in my opinion no superiors.\nAnd I beg of you, let her have her way with the dumb animals\u2014they are her\nworship.  It is an inheritance from her mother.  She knows but little of\ncruelties and oppressions\u2014keep them from her sight if you can.  She would\nflare up at them and make trouble, in her small but quite decided and\nresolute way; for she has a character of her own, and lacks neither\npromptness nor initiative.  Sometimes her judgment is at fault, but I\nthink her intentions are always right.  Once when she was a little\ncreature of three or four years she suddenly brought her tiny foot down\nupon the floor in an apparent outbreak of indignation, then fetched it a\nbackward wipe, and stooped down to examine the result.  Her mother said:\n\n\u201cWhy, what is it, child?  What has stirred you so?\u201d\n\n\u201cMamma, the big ant was trying to kill the little one.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd so you protected the little one.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, mamma, because he had no friend, and I wouldn\u2019t let the big one\nkill him.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut you have killed them both.\u201d\n\nCathy was distressed, and her lip trembled.  She picked up the remains\nand laid them upon her palm, and said:\n\n\u201cPoor little anty, I\u2019m so sorry; and I didn\u2019t mean to kill you, but there\nwasn\u2019t any other way to save you, it was such a hurry.\u201d\n\nShe is a dear and sweet little lady, and when she goes it will give me a\nsore heart.  But she will be happy with you, and if your heart is old and\ntired, give it into her keeping; she will make it young again, she will\nrefresh it, she will make it sing.  Be good to her, for all our sakes!\n\nMy exile will soon be over now.  As soon as I am a little stronger I\nshall see my Spain again; and that will make me young again!\n\n                                                                 MERCEDES.\n\n\n\nIII\nGENERAL ALISON TO HIS MOTHER\n\n\nI AM glad to know that you are all well, in San Bernardino.\n\n. . . That grandchild of yours has been here\u2014well, I do not quite know\nhow many days it is; nobody can keep account of days or anything else\nwhere she is!  Mother, she did what the Indians were never able to do.\nShe took the Fort\u2014took it the first day!  Took me, too; took the\ncolonels, the captains, the women, the children, and the dumb brutes;\ntook Buffalo Bill, and all his scouts; took the garrison\u2014to the last man;\nand in forty-eight hours the Indian encampment was hers, illustrious old\nThunder-Bird and all.  Do I seem to have lost my solemnity, my gravity,\nmy poise, my dignity?  You would lose your own, in my circumstances.\nMother, you never saw such a winning little devil.  She is all energy,\nand spirit, and sunshine, and interest in everybody and everything, and\npours out her prodigal love upon every creature that will take it, high\nor low, Christian or pagan, feathered or furred; and none has declined it\nto date, and none ever will, I think.  But she has a temper, and\nsometimes it catches fire and flames up, and is likely to burn whatever\nis near it; but it is soon over, the passion goes as quickly as it comes.\nOf course she has an Indian name already; Indians always rechristen a\nstranger early.  Thunder-Bird attended to her case.  He gave her the\nIndian equivalent for firebug, or fire-fly.  He said:\n\n\u201c\u2019Times, ver\u2019 quiet, ver\u2019 soft, like summer night, but when she mad she\nblaze.\u201d\n\nIsn\u2019t it good?  Can\u2019t you see the flare?  She\u2019s beautiful, mother,\nbeautiful as a picture; and there is a touch of you in her face, and of\nher father\u2014poor George! and in her unresting activities, and her fearless\nways, and her sunbursts and cloudbursts, she is always bringing George\nback to me.  These impulsive natures are dramatic.  George was dramatic,\nso is this Lightning-Bug, so is Buffalo Bill.  When Cathy first\narrived\u2014it was in the forenoon\u2014Buffalo Bill was away, carrying orders to\nMajor Fuller, at Five Forks, up in the Clayton Hills.  At mid-afternoon I\nwas at my desk, trying to work, and this sprite had been making it\nimpossible for half an hour.  At last I said:\n\n\u201cOh, you bewitching little scamp, _can\u2019t_ you be quiet just a minute or\ntwo, and let your poor old uncle attend to a part of his duties?\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019ll try, uncle; I will, indeed,\u201d she said.\n\n\u201cWell, then, that\u2019s a good child\u2014kiss me.  Now, then, sit up in that\nchair, and set your eye on that clock.  There\u2014that\u2019s right.  If you\nstir\u2014if you so much as wink\u2014for four whole minutes, I\u2019ll bite you!\u201d\n\nIt was very sweet and humble and obedient she looked, sitting there,\nstill as a mouse; I could hardly keep from setting her free and telling\nher to make as much racket as she wanted to.  During as much as two\nminutes there was a most unnatural and heavenly quiet and repose, then\nBuffalo Bill came thundering up to the door in all his scout finery,\nflung himself out of the saddle, said to his horse, \u201cWait for me, Boy,\u201d\nand stepped in, and stopped dead in his tracks\u2014gazing at the child.  She\nforgot orders, and was on the floor in a moment, saying:\n\n\u201cOh, you are so beautiful!  Do you like me?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, I don\u2019t, I love you!\u201d and he gathered her up with a hug, and then\nset her on his shoulder\u2014apparently nine feet from the floor.\n\nShe was at home.  She played with his long hair, and admired his big\nhands and his clothes and his carbine, and asked question after question,\nas fast as he could answer, until I excused them both for half an hour,\nin order to have a chance to finish my work.  Then I heard Cathy\nexclaiming over Soldier Boy; and he was worthy of her raptures, for he is\na wonder of a horse, and has a reputation which is as shining as his own\nsilken hide.\n\n\n\nIV\nCATHY TO HER AUNT MERCEDES\n\n\nOH, it is wonderful here, aunty dear, just paradise!  Oh, if you could\nonly see it! everything so wild and lovely; such grand plains, stretching\nsuch miles and miles and miles, all the most delicious velvety sand and\nsage-brush, and rabbits as big as a dog, and such tall and noble\njackassful ears that that is what they name them by; and such vast\nmountains, and so rugged and craggy and lofty, with cloud-shawls wrapped\naround their shoulders, and looking so solemn and awful and satisfied;\nand the charming Indians, oh, how you would dote on them, aunty dear, and\nthey would on you, too, and they would let you hold their babies, the way\nthey do me, and they _are_ the fattest, and brownest, and sweetest little\nthings, and never cry, and wouldn\u2019t if they had pins sticking in them,\nwhich they haven\u2019t, because they are poor and can\u2019t afford it; and the\nhorses and mules and cattle and dogs\u2014hundreds and hundreds and hundreds,\nand not an animal that you can\u2019t do what you please with, except uncle\nThomas, but _I_ don\u2019t mind him, he\u2019s lovely; and oh, if you could hear\nthe bugles: _too\u2014too\u2014too-too\u2014too\u2014too_, and so on\u2014perfectly beautiful!  Do\nyou recognize that one?  It\u2019s the first toots of the _reveille_; it goes,\ndear me, _so_ early in the morning!\u2014then I and every other soldier on the\nwhole place are up and out in a minute, except uncle Thomas, who is most\nunaccountably lazy, I don\u2019t know why, but I have talked to him about it,\nand I reckon it will be better, now.  He hasn\u2019t any faults much, and is\ncharming and sweet, like Buffalo Bill, and Thunder-Bird, and Mammy\nDorcas, and Soldier Boy, and Shekels, and Potter, and Sour-Mash,\nand\u2014well, they\u2019re _all_ that, just angels, as you may say.\n\nThe very first day I came, I don\u2019t know how long ago it was, Buffalo Bill\ntook me on Soldier Boy to Thunder-Bird\u2019s camp, not the big one which is\nout on the plain, which is White Cloud\u2019s, he took me to _that_ one next\nday, but this one is four or five miles up in the hills and crags, where\nthere is a great shut-in meadow, full of Indian lodges and dogs and\nsquaws and everything that is interesting, and a brook of the clearest\nwater running through it, with white pebbles on the bottom and trees all\nalong the banks cool and shady and good to wade in, and as the sun goes\ndown it is dimmish in there, but away up against the sky you see the big\npeaks towering up and shining bright and vivid in the sun, and sometimes\nan eagle sailing by them, not flapping a wing, the same as if he was\nasleep; and young Indians and girls romping and laughing and carrying on,\naround the spring and the pool, and not much clothes on except the girls,\nand dogs fighting, and the squaws busy at work, and the bucks busy\nresting, and the old men sitting in a bunch smoking, and passing the pipe\nnot to the left but to the right, which means there\u2019s been a row in the\ncamp and they are settling it if they can, and children playing _just_\nthe same as any other children, and little boys shooting at a mark with\nbows, and I cuffed one of them because he hit a dog with a club that\nwasn\u2019t doing anything, and he resented it but before long he wished he\nhadn\u2019t: but this sentence is getting too long and I will start another.\nThunder-Bird put on his Sunday-best war outfit to let me see him, and he\nwas splendid to look at, with his face painted red and bright and intense\nlike a fire-coal and a valance of eagle feathers from the top of his head\nall down his back, and he had his tomahawk, too, and his pipe, which has\na stem which is longer than my arm, and I never had such a good time in\nan Indian camp in my life, and I learned a lot of words of the language,\nand next day BB took me to the camp out on the Plains, four miles, and I\nhad another good time and got acquainted with some more Indians and dogs;\nand the big chief, by the name of White Cloud, gave me a pretty little\nbow and arrows and I gave him my red sash-ribbon, and in four days I\ncould shoot very well with it and beat any white boy of my size at the\npost; and I have been to those camps plenty of times since; and I have\nlearned to ride, too, BB taught me, and every day he practises me and\npraises me, and every time I do better than ever he lets me have a\nscamper on Soldier Boy, and _that\u2019s_ the last agony of pleasure! for he\nis the charmingest horse, and so beautiful and shiny and black, and\nhasn\u2019t another color on him anywhere, except a white star in his\nforehead, not just an imitation star, but a real one, with four points,\nshaped exactly like a star that\u2019s hand-made, and if you should cover him\nall up but his star you would know him anywhere, even in Jerusalem or\nAustralia, by that.  And I got acquainted with a good many of the Seventh\nCavalry, and the dragoons, and officers, and families, and horses, in the\nfirst few days, and some more in the next few and the next few and the\nnext few, and now I know more soldiers and horses than you can think, no\nmatter how hard you try.  I am keeping up my studies every now and then,\nbut there isn\u2019t much time for it.  I love you so! and I send you a hug\nand a kiss.\n\n                                                                    CATHY.\n\nP.S.\u2014I belong to the Seventh Cavalry and Ninth Dragoons, I am an officer,\ntoo, and do not have to work on account of not getting any wages.\n\n\n\nV\nGENERAL ALISON TO MERCEDES\n\n\nSHE has been with us a good nice long time, now.  You are troubled about\nyour sprite because this is such a wild frontier, hundreds of miles from\ncivilization, and peopled only by wandering tribes of savages?  You fear\nfor her safety?  Give yourself no uneasiness about her.  Dear me, she\u2019s\nin a nursery! and she\u2019s got more than eighteen hundred nurses.  It would\ndistress the garrison to suspect that you think they can\u2019t take care of\nher.  They think they can.  They would tell you so themselves.  You see,\nthe Seventh Cavalry has never had a child of its very own before, and\nneither has the Ninth Dragoons; and so they are like all new mothers,\nthey think there is no other child like theirs, no other child so\nwonderful, none that is so worthy to be faithfully and tenderly looked\nafter and protected.  These bronzed veterans of mine are very good\nmothers, I think, and wiser than some other mothers; for they let her\ntake lots of risks, and it is a good education for her; and the more\nrisks she takes and comes successfully out of, the prouder they are of\nher.  They adopted her, with grave and formal military ceremonies of\ntheir own invention\u2014solemnities is the truer word; solemnities that were\nso profoundly solemn and earnest, that the spectacle would have been\ncomical if it hadn\u2019t been so touching.  It was a good show, and as\nstately and complex as guard-mount and the trooping of the colors; and it\nhad its own special music, composed for the occasion by the bandmaster of\nthe Seventh; and the child was as serious as the most serious war-worn\nsoldier of them all; and finally when they throned her upon the shoulder\nof the oldest veteran, and pronounced her \u201cwell and truly adopted,\u201d and\nthe bands struck up and all saluted and she saluted in return, it was\nbetter and more moving than any kindred thing I have seen on the stage,\nbecause stage things are make-believe, but this was real and the players\u2019\nhearts were in it.\n\nIt happened several weeks ago, and was followed by some additional\nsolemnities.  The men created a couple of new ranks, thitherto unknown to\nthe army regulations, and conferred them upon Cathy, with ceremonies\nsuitable to a duke.  So now she is Corporal-General of the Seventh\nCavalry, and Flag-Lieutenant of the Ninth Dragoons, with the privilege\n(decreed by the men) of writing U.S.A. after her name!  Also, they\npresented her a pair of shoulder-straps\u2014both dark blue, the one with F.\nL. on it, the other with C. G.  Also, a sword.  She wears them.  Finally,\nthey granted her the _salute_.  I am witness that that ceremony is\nfaithfully observed by both parties\u2014and most gravely and decorously, too.\nI have never seen a soldier smile yet, while delivering it, nor Cathy in\nreturning it.\n\nOstensibly I was not present at these proceedings, and am ignorant of\nthem; but I was where I could see.  I was afraid of one thing\u2014the\njealousy of the other children of the post; but there is nothing of that,\nI am glad to say.  On the contrary, they are proud of their comrade and\nher honors.  It is a surprising thing, but it is true.  The children are\ndevoted to Cathy, for she has turned their dull frontier life into a sort\nof continuous festival; also they know her for a stanch and steady\nfriend, a friend who can always be depended upon, and does not change\nwith the weather.\n\nShe has become a rather extraordinary rider, under the tutorship of a\nmore than extraordinary teacher\u2014BB, which is her pet name for Buffalo\nBill.  She pronounces it _beeby_.  He has not only taught her seventeen\nways of breaking her neck, but twenty-two ways of avoiding it.  He has\ninfused into her the best and surest protection of a\nhorseman\u2014_confidence_.  He did it gradually, systematically, little by\nlittle, a step at a time, and each step made sure before the next was\nessayed.  And so he inched her along up through terrors that had been\ndiscounted by training before she reached them, and therefore were not\nrecognizable as terrors when she got to them.  Well, she is a daring\nlittle rider, now, and is perfect in what she knows of horsemanship.\nBy-and-by she will know the art like a West Point cadet, and will\nexercise it as fearlessly.  She doesn\u2019t know anything about side-saddles.\nDoes that distress you?  And she is a fine performer, without any saddle\nat all.  Does that discomfort you?  Do not let it; she is not in any\ndanger, I give you my word.\n\nYou said that if my heart was old and tired she would refresh it, and you\nsaid truly.  I do not know how I got along without her, before.  I was a\nforlorn old tree, but now that this blossoming vine has wound itself\nabout me and become the life of my life, it is very different.  As a\nfurnisher of business for me and for Mammy Dorcas she is exhaustlessly\ncompetent, but I like my share of it and of course Dorcas likes hers, for\nDorcas \u201craised\u201d George, and Cathy is George over again in so many ways\nthat she brings back Dorcas\u2019s youth and the joys of that long-vanished\ntime.  My father tried to set Dorcas free twenty years ago, when we still\nlived in Virginia, but without success; she considered herself a member\nof the family, and wouldn\u2019t go.  And so, a member of the family she\nremained, and has held that position unchallenged ever since, and holds\nit now; for when my mother sent her here from San Bernardino when we\nlearned that Cathy was coming, she only changed from one division of the\nfamily to the other.  She has the warm heart of her race, and its lavish\naffections, and when Cathy arrived the pair were mother and child in five\nminutes, and that is what they are to date and will continue.  Dorcas\nreally thinks she raised George, and that is one of her prides, but\nperhaps it was a mutual raising, for their ages were the same\u2014thirteen\nyears short of mine.  But they were playmates, at any rate; as regards\nthat, there is no room for dispute.\n\nCathy thinks Dorcas is the best Catholic in America except herself.  She\ncould not pay any one a higher compliment than that, and Dorcas could not\nreceive one that would please her better.  Dorcas is satisfied that there\nhas never been a more wonderful child than Cathy.  She has conceived the\ncurious idea that Cathy is _twins_, and that one of them is a boy-twin\nand failed to get segregated\u2014got submerged, is the idea.  To argue with\nher that this is nonsense is a waste of breath\u2014her mind is made up, and\narguments do not affect it.  She says:\n\n\u201cLook at her; she loves dolls, and girl-plays, and everything a girl\nloves, and she\u2019s gentle and sweet, and ain\u2019t cruel to dumb brutes\u2014now\nthat\u2019s the girl-twin, but she loves boy-plays, and drums and fifes and\nsoldiering, and rough-riding, and ain\u2019t afraid of anybody or anything\u2014and\nthat\u2019s the boy-twin; \u2019deed you needn\u2019t tell _me_ she\u2019s only _one_ child;\nno, sir, she\u2019s twins, and one of them got shet up out of sight.  Out of\nsight, but that don\u2019t make any difference, that boy is in there, and you\ncan see him look out of her eyes when her temper is up.\u201d\n\nThen Dorcas went on, in her simple and earnest way, to furnish\nillustrations.\n\n\u201cLook at that raven, Marse Tom.  Would anybody befriend a raven but that\nchild?  Of course they wouldn\u2019t; it ain\u2019t natural.  Well, the Injun boy\nhad the raven tied up, and was all the time plaguing it and starving it,\nand she pitied the po\u2019 thing, and tried to buy it from the boy, and the\ntears was in her eyes.  That was the girl-twin, you see.  She offered him\nher thimble, and he flung it down; she offered him all the doughnuts she\nhad, which was two, and he flung them down; she offered him half a paper\nof pins, worth forty ravens, and he made a mouth at her and jabbed one of\nthem in the raven\u2019s back.  That was the limit, you know.  It called for\nthe other twin.  Her eyes blazed up, and she jumped for him like a\nwild-cat, and when she was done with him she was rags and he wasn\u2019t\nanything but an allegory.  That was most undoubtedly the other twin, you\nsee, coming to the front.  No, sir; don\u2019t tell _me_ he ain\u2019t in there.\nI\u2019ve seen him with my own eyes\u2014and plenty of times, at that.\u201d\n\n\u201cAllegory?  What is an allegory?\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t know, Marse Tom, it\u2019s one of her words; she loves the big ones,\nyou know, and I pick them up from her; they sound good and I can\u2019t help\nit.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat happened after she had converted the boy into an allegory?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, she untied the raven and confiscated him by force and fetched him\nhome, and left the doughnuts and things on the ground.  Petted him, of\ncourse, like she does with every creature.  In two days she had him so\nstuck after her that she\u2014well, _you_ know how he follows her everywhere,\nand sets on her shoulder often when she rides her breakneck rampages\u2014all\nof which is the girl-twin to the front, you see\u2014and he does what he\npleases, and is up to all kinds of devilment, and is a perfect nuisance\nin the kitchen.  Well, they all stand it, but they wouldn\u2019t if it was\nanother person\u2019s bird.\u201d\n\nHere she began to chuckle comfortably, and presently she said:\n\n\u201cWell, you know, she\u2019s a nuisance herself, Miss Cathy is, she _is_ so\nbusy, and into everything, like that bird.  It\u2019s all just as innocent,\nyou know, and she don\u2019t mean any harm, and is so good and dear; and it\nain\u2019t her fault, it\u2019s her nature; her interest is always a-working and\nalways red-hot, and she can\u2019t keep quiet.  Well, yesterday it was\n\u2018Please, Miss Cathy, don\u2019t do that\u2019; and, \u2018Please, Miss Cathy, let that\nalone\u2019; and, \u2018Please, Miss Cathy, don\u2019t make so much noise\u2019; and so on\nand so on, till I reckon I had found fault fourteen times in fifteen\nminutes; then she looked up at me with her big brown eyes that can plead\nso, and said in that odd little foreign way that goes to your heart,\n\n\u201c\u2019Please, mammy, make me a compliment.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd of course you did it, you old fool?\u201d\n\n\u201cMarse Tom, I just grabbed her up to my breast and says, \u2018Oh, you po\u2019\ndear little motherless thing, you ain\u2019t got a fault in the world, and you\ncan do anything you want to, and tear the house down, and yo\u2019 old black\nmammy won\u2019t say a word!\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, of course, of course\u2014_I_ knew you\u2019d spoil the child.\u201d\n\nShe brushed away her tears, and said with dignity:\n\n\u201cSpoil the child? spoil _that_ child, Marse Tom?  There can\u2019t _anybody_\nspoil her.  She\u2019s the king bee of this post, and everybody pets her and\nis her slave, and yet, as you know, your own self, she ain\u2019t the least\nlittle bit spoiled.\u201d  Then she eased her mind with this retort: \u201cMarse\nTom, she makes you do anything she wants to, and you can\u2019t deny it; so if\nshe could be spoilt, she\u2019d been spoilt long ago, because you are the very\n_worst_!  Look at that pile of cats in your chair, and you sitting on a\ncandle-box, just as patient; it\u2019s because they\u2019re her cats.\u201d\n\n          [Picture: \u201c\u2018Look at that pile of cats in your chair\u2019\u201d]\n\nIf Dorcas were a soldier, I could punish her for such large frankness as\nthat.  I changed the subject, and made her resume her illustrations.  She\nhad scored against me fairly, and I wasn\u2019t going to cheapen her victory\nby disputing it.  She proceeded to offer this incident in evidence on her\ntwin theory:\n\n\u201cTwo weeks ago when she got her finger mashed open, she turned pretty\npale with the pain, but she never said a word.  I took her in my lap, and\nthe surgeon sponged off the blood and took a needle and thread and began\nto sew it up; it had to have a lot of stitches, and each one made her\nscrunch a little, but she never let go a sound.  At last the surgeon was\nso full of admiration that he said, \u2018Well, you _are_ a brave little\nthing!\u2019 and she said, just as ca\u2019m and simple as if she was talking about\nthe weather, \u2018There isn\u2019t anybody braver but the Cid!\u2019  You see? it was\nthe boy-twin that the surgeon was a-dealing with.\n\n\u201cWho is the Cid?\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t know, sir\u2014at least only what she says.  She\u2019s always talking\nabout him, and says he was the bravest hero Spain ever had, or any other\ncountry.  They have it up and down, the children do, she standing up for\nthe Cid, and they working George Washington for all he is worth.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo they quarrel?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo; it\u2019s only disputing, and bragging, the way children do.  They want\nher to be an American, but she can\u2019t be anything but a Spaniard, she\nsays.  You see, her mother was always longing for home, po\u2019 thing! and\nthinking about it, and so the child is just as much a Spaniard as if\nshe\u2019d always lived there.  She thinks she remembers how Spain looked, but\nI reckon she don\u2019t, because she was only a baby when they moved to\nFrance.  She is very proud to be a Spaniard.\u201d\n\nDoes that please you, Mercedes?  Very well, be content; your niece is\nloyal to her allegiance: her mother laid deep the foundations of her love\nfor Spain, and she will go back to you as good a Spaniard as you are\nyourself.  She has made me promise to take her to you for a long visit\nwhen the War Office retires me.\n\nI attend to her studies myself; has she told you that?  Yes, I am her\nschool-master, and she makes pretty good progress, I think, everything\nconsidered.  Everything considered\u2014being translated\u2014means holidays.  But\nthe fact is, she was not born for study, and it comes hard.  Hard for me,\ntoo; it hurts me like a physical pain to see that free spirit of the air\nand the sunshine laboring and grieving over a book; and sometimes when I\nfind her gazing far away towards the plain and the blue mountains with\nthe longing in her eyes, I have to throw open the prison doors; I can\u2019t\nhelp it.  A quaint little scholar she is, and makes plenty of blunders.\nOnce I put the question:\n\n\u201cWhat does the Czar govern?\u201d\n\nShe rested her elbow on her knee and her chin on her hand and took that\nproblem under deep consideration.  Presently she looked up and answered,\nwith a rising inflection implying a shade of uncertainty,\n\n\u201cThe dative case?\u201d\n\nHere are a couple of her expositions which were delivered with tranquil\nconfidence:\n\n\u201c_Chaplain_, diminutive of chap.  _Lass_ is masculine, _lassie_ is\nfeminine.\u201d\n\nShe is not a genius, you see, but just a normal child; they all make\nmistakes of that sort.  There is a glad light in her eye which is pretty\nto see when she finds herself able to answer a question promptly and\naccurately, without any hesitation; as, for instance, this morning:\n\n\u201cCathy dear, what is a cube?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, a native of Cuba.\u201d\n\nShe still drops a foreign word into her talk now and then, and there is\nstill a subtle foreign flavor or fragrance about even her exactest\nEnglish\u2014and long may this abide! for it has for me a charm that is very\npleasant.  Sometimes her English is daintily prim and bookish and\ncaptivating.  She has a child\u2019s sweet tooth, but for her health\u2019s sake I\ntry to keep its inspirations under check.  She is obedient\u2014as is proper\nfor a titled and recognized military personage, which she is\u2014but the\nchain presses sometimes.  For instance, we were out for a walk, and\npassed by some bushes that were freighted with wild goose-berries.  Her\nface brightened and she put her hands together and delivered herself of\nthis speech, most feelingly:\n\n\u201cOh, if I was permitted a vice it would be the _gourmandise_!\u201d\n\nCould I resist that?  No.  I gave her a gooseberry.\n\nYou ask about her languages.  They take care of themselves; they will not\nget rusty here; our regiments are not made up of natives alone\u2014far from\nit.  And she is picking up Indian tongues diligently.\n\n\n\nVI\nSOLDIER BOY AND THE MEXICAN PLUG\n\n\n\u201cWHEN did you come?\u201d\n\n\u201cArrived at sundown.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhere from?\u201d\n\n\u201cSalt Lake.\u201d\n\n\u201cAre you in the service?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo.  Trade.\u201d\n\n\u201cPirate trade, I reckon.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat do you know about it?\u201d\n\n\u201cI saw you when you came.  I recognized your master.  He is a bad sort.\nTrap-robber, horse-thief, squaw-man, renegado\u2014Hank Butters\u2014I know him\nvery well.  Stole you, didn\u2019t he?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, it amounted to that.\u201d\n\n\u201cI thought so.  Where is his pard?\u201d\n\n\u201cHe stopped at White Cloud\u2019s camp.\u201d\n\n\u201cHe is another of the same stripe, is Blake Haskins.\u201d  (_Aside_.)  They\nare laying for Buffalo Bill again, I guess.  (_Aloud_.)  \u201cWhat is your\nname?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhich one?\u201d\n\n\u201cHave you got more than one?\u201d\n\n\u201cI get a new one every time I\u2019m stolen.  I used to have an honest name,\nbut that was early; I\u2019ve forgotten it.  Since then I\u2019ve had thirteen\n_aliases_.\u201d\n\n\u201cAliases?  What is alias?\u201d\n\n\u201cA false name.\u201d\n\n\u201cAlias.  It\u2019s a fine large word, and is in my line; it has quite a\nlearned and cerebrospinal incandescent sound.  Are you educated?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, no, I can\u2019t claim it.  I can take down bars, I can distinguish\noats from shoe-pegs, I can blaspheme a saddle-boil with the college-bred,\nand I know a few other things\u2014not many; I have had no chance, I have\nalways had to work; besides, I am of low birth and no family.  You speak\nmy dialect like a native, but you are not a Mexican Plug, you are a\ngentleman, I can see that; and educated, of course.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, I am of old family, and not illiterate.  I am a fossil.\u201d\n\n\u201cA which?\u201d\n\n\u201cFossil.  The first horses were fossils.  They date back two million\nyears.\u201d\n\n\u201cGr-eat sand and sage-brush! do you mean it?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, it is true.  The bones of my ancestors are held in reverence and\nworship, even by men.  They do not leave them exposed to the weather when\nthey find them, but carry them three thousand miles and enshrine them in\ntheir temples of learning, and worship them.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is wonderful!  I knew you must be a person of distinction, by your\nfine presence and courtly address, and by the fact that you are not\nsubjected to the indignity of hobbles, like myself and the rest.  Would\nyou tell me your name?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou have probably heard of it\u2014Soldier Boy.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat!\u2014the renowned, the illustrious?\u201d\n\n\u201cEven so.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt takes my breath!  Little did I dream that ever I should stand face to\nface with the possessor of that great name.  Buffalo Bill\u2019s horse!  Known\nfrom the Canadian border to the deserts of Arizona, and from the eastern\nmarches of the Great Plains to the foot-hills of the Sierra!  Truly this\nis a memorable day.  You still serve the celebrated Chief of Scouts?\u201d\n\n\u201cI am still his property, but he has lent me, for a time, to the most\nnoble, the most gracious, the most excellent, her Excellency Catherine,\nCorporal-General Seventh Cavalry and Flag-Lieutenant Ninth Dragoons,\nU.S.A.,\u2014on whom be peace!\u201d\n\n\u201cAmen.  Did you say _her_ Excellency?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe same.  A Spanish lady, sweet blossom of a ducal house.  And truly a\nwonder; knowing everything, capable of everything; speaking all the\nlanguages, master of all sciences, a mind without horizons, a heart of\ngold, the glory of her race!  On whom be peace!\u201d\n\n\u201cAmen.  It is marvellous!\u201d\n\n\u201cVerily.  I knew many things, she has taught me others.  I am educated.\nI will tell you about her.\u201d\n\n\u201cI listen\u2014I am enchanted.\u201d\n\n\u201cI will tell a plain tale, calmly, without excitement, without eloquence.\nWhen she had been here four or five weeks she was already erudite in\nmilitary things, and they made her an officer\u2014a double officer.  She rode\nthe drill every day, like any soldier; and she could take the bugle and\ndirect the evolutions herself.  Then, on a day, there was a grand race,\nfor prizes\u2014none to enter but the children.  Seventeen children entered,\nand she was the youngest.  Three girls, fourteen boys\u2014good riders all.\nIt was a steeplechase, with four hurdles, all pretty high.  The first\nprize was a most cunning half-grown silver bugle, and mighty pretty, with\nred silk cord and tassels.  Buffalo Bill was very anxious; for he had\ntaught her to ride, and he did most dearly want her to win that race, for\nthe glory of it.  So he wanted her to ride me, but she wouldn\u2019t; and she\nreproached him, and said it was unfair and unright, and taking advantage;\nfor what horse in this post or any other could stand a chance against me?\nand she was very severe with him, and said, \u2018You ought to be ashamed\u2014you\nare proposing to me conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.\u2019  So\nhe just tossed her up in the air about thirty feet and caught her as she\ncame down, and said he was ashamed; and put up his handkerchief and\npretended to cry, which nearly broke her heart, and she petted him, and\nbegged him to forgive her, and said she would do anything in the world he\ncould ask but that; but he said he ought to go hang himself, and he\n_must_, if he could get a rope; it was nothing but right he should, for\nhe never, never could forgive himself; and then _she_ began to cry, and\nthey both sobbed, the way you could hear him a mile, and she clinging\naround his neck and pleading, till at last he was comforted a little, and\ngave his solemn promise he wouldn\u2019t hang himself till after the race; and\nwouldn\u2019t do it at all if she won it, which made her happy, and she said\nshe would win it or die in the saddle; so then everything was pleasant\nagain and both of them content.  He can\u2019t help playing jokes on her, he\nis so fond of her and she is so innocent and unsuspecting; and when she\nfinds it out she cuffs him and is in a fury, but presently forgives him\nbecause it\u2019s him; and maybe the very next day she\u2019s caught with another\njoke; you see she can\u2019t learn any better, because she hasn\u2019t any deceit\nin her, and that kind aren\u2019t ever expecting it in another person.\n\n\u201cIt was a grand race.  The whole post was there, and there was such\nanother whooping and shouting when the seventeen kids came flying down\nthe turf and sailing over the hurdles\u2014oh, beautiful to see!  Half-way\ndown, it was kind of neck and neck, and anybody\u2019s race and nobody\u2019s.\nThen, what should happen but a cow steps out and puts her head down to\nmunch grass, with her broadside to the battalion, and they a-coming like\nthe wind; they split apart to flank her, but _she_?\u2014why, she drove the\nspurs home and soared over that cow like a bird! and on she went, and\ncleared the last hurdle solitary and alone, the army letting loose the\ngrand yell, and she skipped from the horse the same as if he had been\nstanding still, and made her bow, and everybody crowded around to\ncongratulate, and they gave her the bugle, and she put it to her lips and\nblew \u2018boots and saddles\u2019 to see how it would go, and BB was as proud as\nyou can\u2019t think!  And he said, \u2018Take Soldier Boy, and don\u2019t pass him back\ntill I ask for him!\u2019 and I can tell you he wouldn\u2019t have said that to any\nother person on this planet.  That was two months and more ago, and\nnobody has been on my back since but the Corporal-General Seventh Cavalry\nand Flag-Lieutenant of the Ninth Dragoons, U.S.A.,\u2014on whom be peace!\u201d\n\n     [Picture: Every morning they go clattering down into the plain]\n\n\u201cAmen.  I listen\u2014tell me more.\u201d\n\n\u201cShe set to work and organized the Sixteen, and called it the First\nBattalion Rocky Mountain Rangers, U.S.A., and she wanted to be bugler,\nbut they elected her Lieutenant-General and Bugler.  So she ranks her\nuncle the commandant, who is only a Brigadier.  And doesn\u2019t she train\nthose little people!  Ask the Indians, ask the traders, ask the soldiers;\nthey\u2019ll tell you.  She has been at it from the first day.  Every morning\nthey go clattering down into the plain, and there she sits on my back\nwith her bugle at her mouth and sounds the orders and puts them through\nthe evolutions for an hour or more; and it is too beautiful for anything\nto see those ponies dissolve from one formation into another, and waltz\nabout, and break, and scatter, and form again, always moving, always\ngraceful, now trotting, now galloping, and so on, sometimes near by,\nsometimes in the distance, all just like a state ball, you know, and\nsometimes she can\u2019t hold herself any longer, but sounds the \u2018charge,\u2019 and\nturns me loose! and you can take my word for it, if the battalion hasn\u2019t\ntoo much of a start we catch up and go over the breastworks with the\nfront line.\n\n\u201cYes, they are soldiers, those little people; and healthy, too, not\nailing any more, the way they used to be sometimes.  It\u2019s because of her\ndrill.  She\u2019s got a fort, now\u2014Fort Fanny Marsh.  Major-General Tommy\nDrake planned it out, and the Seventh and Dragoons built it.  Tommy is\nthe Colonel\u2019s son, and is fifteen and the oldest in the Battalion; Fanny\nMarsh is Brigadier-General, and is next oldest\u2014over thirteen.  She is\ndaughter of Captain Marsh, Company B, Seventh Cavalry.\nLieutenant-General Alison is the youngest by considerable; I think she is\nabout nine and a half or three-quarters.  Her military rig, as\nLieutenant-General, isn\u2019t for business, it\u2019s for dress parade, because\nthe ladies made it.  They say they got it out of the Middle Ages\u2014out of a\nbook\u2014and it is all red and blue and white silks and satins and velvets;\ntights, trunks, sword, doublet with slashed sleeves, short cape, cap with\njust one feather in it; I\u2019ve heard them name these things; they got them\nout of the book; she\u2019s dressed like a page, of old times, they say.  It\u2019s\nthe daintiest outfit that ever was\u2014you will say so, when you see it.\nShe\u2019s lovely in it\u2014oh, just a dream!  In some ways she is just her age,\nbut in others she\u2019s as old as her uncle, I think.  She is very learned.\nShe teaches her uncle his book.  I have seen her sitting by with the book\nand reciting to him what is in it, so that he can learn to do it himself.\n\n\u201cEvery Saturday she hires little Injuns to garrison her fort; then she\nlays siege to it, and makes military approaches by make-believe trenches\nin make-believe night, and finally at make-believe dawn she draws her\nsword and sounds the assault and takes it by storm.  It is for practice.\nAnd she has invented a bugle-call all by herself, out of her own head,\nand it\u2019s a stirring one, and the prettiest in the service.  It\u2019s to call\n_me_\u2014it\u2019s never used for anything else.  She taught it to me, and told me\nwhat it says: \u2018_It is I_, _Soldier\u2014come_!\u2019 and when those thrilling notes\ncome floating down the distance I hear them without fail, even if I am\ntwo miles away; and then\u2014oh, then you should see my heels get down to\nbusiness!\n\n\u201cAnd she has taught me how to say good-morning and good-night to her,\nwhich is by lifting my right hoof for her to shake; and also how to say\ngood-bye; I do that with my left foot\u2014but only for practice, because\nthere hasn\u2019t been any but make-believe good-byeing yet, and I hope there\nwon\u2019t ever be.  It would make me cry if I ever had to put up my left foot\nin earnest.  She has taught me how to salute, and I can do it as well as\na soldier.  I bow my head low, and lay my right hoof against my cheek.\nShe taught me that because I got into disgrace once, through ignorance.\nI am privileged, because I am known to be honorable and trustworthy, and\nbecause I have a distinguished record in the service; so they don\u2019t\nhobble me nor tie me to stakes or shut me tight in stables, but let me\nwander around to suit myself.  Well, trooping the colors is a very solemn\nceremony, and everybody must stand uncovered when the flag goes by, the\ncommandant and all; and once I was there, and ignorantly walked across\nright in front of the band, which was an awful disgrace: Ah, the\nLieutenant-General was so ashamed, and so distressed that I should have\ndone such a thing before all the world, that she couldn\u2019t keep the tears\nback; and then she taught me the salute, so that if I ever did any other\nunmilitary act through ignorance I could do my salute and she believed\neverybody would think it was apology enough and would not press the\nmatter.  It is very nice and distinguished; no other horse can do it;\noften the men salute me, and I return it.  I am privileged to be present\nwhen the Rocky Mountain Rangers troop the colors and I stand solemn, like\nthe children, and I salute when the flag goes by.  Of course when she\ngoes to her fort her sentries sing out \u2018Turn out the guard!\u2019 and then . . .\ndo you catch that refreshing early-morning whiff from the\nmountain-pines and the wild flowers?  The night is far spent; we\u2019ll hear\nthe bugles before long.  Dorcas, the black woman, is very good and nice;\nshe takes care of the Lieutenant-General, and is Brigadier-General\nAlison\u2019s mother, which makes her mother-in-law to the Lieutenant-General.\nThat is what Shekels says.  At least it is what I think he says, though I\nnever can understand him quite clearly. He\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cWho is Shekels?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe Seventh Cavalry dog.  I mean, if he _is_ a dog.  His father was a\ncoyote and his mother was a wild-cat.  It doesn\u2019t really make a dog out\nof him, does it?\u201d\n\n\u201cNot a real dog, I should think.  Only a kind of a general dog, at most,\nI reckon.  Though this is a matter of ichthyology, I suppose; and if it\nis, it is out of my depth, and so my opinion is not valuable, and I don\u2019t\nclaim much consideration for it.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt isn\u2019t ichthyology; it is dogmatics, which is still more difficult and\ntangled up.  Dogmatics always are.\u201d\n\n\u201cDogmatics is quite beyond me, quite; so I am not competing.  But on\ngeneral principles it is my opinion that a colt out of a coyote and a\nwild-cat is no square dog, but doubtful.  That is my hand, and I stand\npat.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, it is as far as I can go myself, and be fair and conscientious.  I\nhave always regarded him as a doubtful dog, and so has Potter.  Potter is\nthe great Dane.  Potter says he is no dog, and not even poultry\u2014though I\ndo not go quite so far as that.\n\n\u201cAnd I wouldn\u2019t, myself.  Poultry is one of those things which no person\ncan get to the bottom of, there is so much of it and such variety.  It is\njust wings, and wings, and wings, till you are weary: turkeys, and geese,\nand bats, and butterflies, and angels, and grasshoppers, and flying-fish,\nand\u2014well, there is really no end to the tribe; it gives me the heaves\njust to think of it.  But this one hasn\u2019t any wings, has he?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, then, in my belief he is more likely to be dog than poultry.  I\nhave not heard of poultry that hadn\u2019t wings.  Wings is the _sign_ of\npoultry; it is what you tell poultry by.  Look at the mosquito.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat do you reckon he is, then?  He must be something.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, he could be a reptile; anything that hasn\u2019t wings is a reptile.\u201d\n\n\u201cWho told you that?\u201d\n\n\u201cNobody told me, but I overheard it.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhere did you overhear it?\u201d\n\n\u201cYears ago.  I was with the Philadelphia Institute expedition in the Bad\nLands under Professor Cope, hunting mastodon bones, and I overheard him\nsay, his own self, that any plantigrade circumflex vertebrate bacterium\nthat hadn\u2019t wings and was uncertain was a reptile.  Well, then, has this\ndog any wings?  No.  Is he a plantigrade circumflex vertebrate bacterium?\nMaybe so, maybe not; but without ever having seen him, and judging only\nby his illegal and spectacular parentage, I will bet the odds of a bale\nof hay to a bran mash that he looks it.  Finally, is he uncertain?  That\nis the point\u2014is he uncertain?  I will leave it to you if you have ever\nheard of a more uncertainer dog than what this one is?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, I never have.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, then, he\u2019s a reptile.  That\u2019s settled.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, look here, whatsyourname\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cLast alias, Mongrel.\u201d\n\n\u201cA good one, too.  I was going to say, you are better educated than you\nhave been pretending to be.  I like cultured society, and I shall\ncultivate your acquaintance.  Now as to Shekels, whenever you want to\nknow about any private thing that is going on at this post or in White\nCloud\u2019s camp or Thunder-Bird\u2019s, he can tell you; and if you make friends\nwith him he\u2019ll be glad to, for he is a born gossip, and picks up all the\ntittle-tattle.  Being the whole Seventh Cavalry\u2019s reptile, he doesn\u2019t\nbelong to anybody in particular, and hasn\u2019t any military duties; so he\ncomes and goes as he pleases, and is popular with all the house cats and\nother authentic sources of private information.  He understands all the\nlanguages, and talks them all, too.  With an accent like gritting your\nteeth, it is true, and with a grammar that is no improvement on\nblasphemy\u2014still, with practice you get at the meat of what he says, and\nit serves. . . Hark!  That\u2019s the reveille. . . .\n\n               [Picture: Music score for The Reveille] {80}\n\n\u201cFaint and far, but isn\u2019t it clear, isn\u2019t it sweet?  There\u2019s no music\nlike the bugle to stir the blood, in the still solemnity of the morning\ntwilight, with the dim plain stretching away to nothing and the spectral\nmountains slumbering against the sky.  You\u2019ll hear another note in a\nminute\u2014faint and far and clear, like the other one, and sweeter still,\nyou\u2019ll notice.  Wait . . . listen.  There it goes!  It says, \u2018_It is I_,\n_Soldier\u2014come_!\u2019 . . .\n\n            [Picture: Soldier Boy\u2019s Bugle Call [music score]]\n\n. . . Now then, watch me leave a blue streak behind!\u201d\n\n\n\nVII\nSOLDIER BOY AND SHEKELS\n\n\n\u201cDID you do as I told you?  Did you look up the Mexican Plug?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, I made his acquaintance before night and got his friendship.\u201d\n\n\u201cI liked him.  Did you?\u201d\n\n\u201cNot at first.  He took me for a reptile, and it troubled me, because I\ndidn\u2019t know whether it was a compliment or not.  I couldn\u2019t ask him,\nbecause it would look ignorant.  So I didn\u2019t say anything, and soon liked\nhim very well indeed.  Was it a compliment, do you think?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, that is what it was.  They are very rare, the reptiles; very few\nleft, now-a-days.\u201d\n\n\u201cIs that so?  What is a reptile?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is a plantigrade circumflex vertebrate bacterium that hasn\u2019t any\nwings and is uncertain.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, it\u2014it sounds fine, it surely does.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd it _is_ fine.  You may be thankful you are one.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am.  It seems wonderfully grand and elegant for a person that is so\nhumble as I am; but I am thankful, I am indeed, and will try to live up\nto it.  It is hard to remember.  Will you say it again, please, and say\nit slow?\u201d\n\n\u201cPlantigrade circumflex vertebrate bacterium that hasn\u2019t any wings and is\nuncertain.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is beautiful, anybody must grant it; beautiful, and of a noble sound.\nI hope it will not make me proud and stuck-up\u2014I should not like to be\nthat.  It is much more distinguished and honorable to be a reptile than a\ndog, don\u2019t you think, Soldier?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, there\u2019s no comparison.  It is awfully aristocratic.  Often a duke\nis called a reptile; it is set down so, in history.\u201d\n\n\u201cIsn\u2019t that grand!  Potter wouldn\u2019t ever associate with me, but I reckon\nhe\u2019ll be glad to when he finds out what I am.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou can depend upon it.\u201d\n\n\u201cI will thank Mongrel for this. He is a very good sort, for a Mexican\nPlug.  Don\u2019t you think he is?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is my opinion of him; and as for his birth, he cannot help that.  We\ncannot all be reptiles, we cannot all be fossils; we have to take what\ncomes and be thankful it is no worse.  It is the true philosophy.\u201d\n\n\u201cFor those others?\u201d\n\n\u201cStick to the subject, please.  Did it turn out that my suspicions were\nright?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, perfectly right.  Mongrel has heard them planning.  They are after\nBB\u2019s life, for running them out of Medicine Bow and taking their stolen\nhorses away from them.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, they\u2019ll get him yet, for sure.\u201d\n\n\u201cNot if he keeps a sharp look-out.\u201d\n\n\u201c_He_ keep a sharp lookout!  He never does; he despises them, and all\ntheir kind.  His life is always being threatened, and so it has come to\nbe monotonous.\u201d\n\n\u201cDoes he know they are here?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh yes, he knows it.  He is always the earliest to know who comes and\nwho goes.  But he cares nothing for them and their threats; he only\nlaughs when people warn him.  They\u2019ll shoot him from behind a tree the\nfirst he knows.  Did Mongrel tell you their plans?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes.  They have found out that he starts for Fort Clayton day after\nto-morrow, with one of his scouts; so they will leave to-morrow, letting\non to go south, but they will fetch around north all in good time.\u201d\n\n\u201cShekels, I don\u2019t like the look of it.\u201d\n\n\n\nVIII\nTHE SCOUT-START.  BB AND LIEUTENANT-GENERAL ALISON\n\n\nBB (_saluting_).  \u201cGood! handsomely done!  The Seventh couldn\u2019t beat it!\nYou do certainly handle your Rangers like an expert, General.  And where\nare you bound?\u201d\n\n\u201cFour miles on the trail to Fort Clayton.\u201d\n\n\u201cGlad am I, dear!  What\u2019s the idea of it?\u201d\n\n\u201cGuard of honor for you and Thorndike.\u201d\n\n\u201cBless\u2014your\u2014_heart_!  I\u2019d rather have it from you than from the\nCommander-in-Chief of the armies of the United States, you incomparable\nlittle soldier!\u2014and I don\u2019t need to take any oath to that, for you to\nbelieve it.\u201d\n\n\u201cI _thought_ you\u2019d like it, BB.\u201d\n\n\u201c_Like_ it?  Well, I should say so!  Now then\u2014all ready\u2014sound the\nadvance, and away we go!\u201d\n\n\n\nIX\nSOLDIER BOY AND SHEKELS AGAIN\n\n\n\u201cWELL, this is the way it happened.  We did the escort duty; then we came\nback and struck for the plain and put the Rangers through a rousing\ndrill\u2014oh, for hours!  Then we sent them home under Brigadier-General\nFanny Marsh; then the Lieutenant-General and I went off on a gallop over\nthe plains for about three hours, and were lazying along home in the\nmiddle of the afternoon, when we met Jimmy Slade, the drummer-boy, and he\nsaluted and asked the Lieutenant-General if she had heard the news, and\nshe said no, and he said:\n\n\u201c\u2018Buffalo Bill has been ambushed and badly shot this side of Clayton, and\nThorndike the scout, too; Bill couldn\u2019t travel, but Thorndike could, and\nhe brought the news, and Sergeant Wilkes and six men of Company B are\ngone, two hours ago, hotfoot, to get Bill.  And they say\u2014\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018_Go_!\u2019 she shouts to me\u2014and I went.\u201d\n\n\u201cFast?\u201d\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t ask foolish questions.  It was an awful pace.  For four hours\nnothing happened, and not a word said, except that now and then she said,\n\u2018Keep it up, Boy, keep it up, sweetheart; we\u2019ll save him!\u2019  I kept it up.\nWell, when the dark shut down, in the rugged hills, that poor little chap\nhad been tearing around in the saddle all day, and I noticed by the slack\nknee-pressure that she was tired and tottery, and I got dreadfully\nafraid; but every time I tried to slow down and let her go to sleep, so I\ncould stop, she hurried me up again; and so, sure enough, at last over\nshe went!\n\n            [Picture: \u201cThere was nothing to do but stand by\u201d]\n\n\u201cAh, that was a fix to be in I for she lay there and didn\u2019t stir, and\nwhat was I to do?  I couldn\u2019t leave her to fetch help, on account of the\nwolves.  There was nothing to do but stand by.  It was dreadful.  I was\nafraid she was killed, poor little thing!  But she wasn\u2019t.  She came to,\nby-and-by, and said, \u2018Kiss me, Soldier,\u2019 and those were blessed words.  I\nkissed her\u2014often; I am used to that, and we like it.  But she didn\u2019t get\nup, and I was worried.  She fondled my nose with her hand, and talked to\nme, and called me endearing names\u2014which is her way\u2014but she caressed with\nthe same hand all the time.  The other arm was broken, you see, but I\ndidn\u2019t know it, and she didn\u2019t mention it.  She didn\u2019t want to distress\nme, you know.\n\n\u201cSoon the big gray wolves came, and hung around, and you could hear them\nsnarl, and snap at each other, but you couldn\u2019t see anything of them\nexcept their eyes, which shone in the dark like sparks and stars.  The\nLieutenant-General said, \u2018If I had the Rocky Mountain Rangers here, we\nwould make those creatures climb a tree.\u2019  Then she made believe that the\nRangers were in hearing, and put up her bugle and blew the \u2018assembly\u2019;\nand then, \u2018boots and saddles\u2019; then the \u2018trot\u2019; \u2018gallop\u2019; \u2018charge!\u2019  Then\nshe blew the \u2018retreat,\u2019 and said, \u2018That\u2019s for you, you rebels; the\nRangers don\u2019t ever retreat!\u2019\n\n\u201cThe music frightened them away, but they were hungry, and kept coming\nback.  And of course they got bolder and bolder, which is their way.  It\nwent on for an hour, then the tired child went to sleep, and it was\npitiful to hear her moan and nestle, and I couldn\u2019t do anything for her.\nAll the time I was laying for the wolves.  They are in my line; I have\nhad experience.  At last the boldest one ventured within my lines, and I\nlanded him among his friends with some of his skull still on him, and\nthey did the rest.  In the next hour I got a couple more, and they went\nthe way of the first one, down the throats of the detachment.  That\nsatisfied the survivors, and they went away and left us in peace.\n\n\u201cWe hadn\u2019t any more adventures, though I kept awake all night and was\nready.  From midnight on the child got very restless, and out of her\nhead, and moaned, and said, \u2018Water, water\u2014thirsty\u2019; and now and then,\n\u2018Kiss me, Soldier\u2019; and sometimes she was in her fort and giving orders\nto her garrison; and once she was in Spain, and thought her mother was\nwith her.  People say a horse can\u2019t cry; but they don\u2019t know, because we\ncry inside.\n\n\u201cIt was an hour after sunup that I heard the boys coming, and recognized\nthe hoof-beats of Pomp and C\u00e6sar and Jerry, old mates of mine; and a\nwelcomer sound there couldn\u2019t ever be.\n\nBuffalo Bill was in a horse-litter, with his leg broken by a bullet, and\nMongrel and Blake Haskins\u2019s horse were doing the work.  Buffalo Bill and\nThorndike had lolled both of those toughs.\n\n\u201cWhen they got to us, and Buffalo Bill saw the child lying there so\nwhite, he said, \u2018My God!\u2019 and the sound of his voice brought her to\nherself, and she gave a little cry of pleasure and struggled to get up,\nbut couldn\u2019t, and the soldiers gathered her up like the tenderest women,\nand their eyes were wet and they were not ashamed, when they saw her arm\ndangling; and so were Buffalo Bill\u2019s, and when they laid her in his arms\nhe said, \u2018My darling, how does this come?\u2019 and she said, \u2018We came to save\nyou, but I was tired, and couldn\u2019t keep awake, and fell off and hurt\nmyself, and couldn\u2019t get on again.\u2019  \u2018You came to save me, you dear\nlittle rat?  It was too lovely of you!\u2019  \u2018Yes, and Soldier stood by me,\nwhich you know he would, and protected me from the wolves; and if he got\na chance he kicked the life out of some of them\u2014for you know he would,\nBB.\u2019  The sergeant said, \u2018He laid out three of them, sir, and here\u2019s the\nbones to show for it.\u2019  \u2018He\u2019s a grand horse,\u2019 said BB; \u2018he\u2019s the grandest\nhorse that ever was! and has saved your life, Lieutenant-General Alison,\nand shall protect it the rest of his life\u2014he\u2019s yours for a kiss!\u2019  He got\nit, along with a passion of delight, and he said, \u2018You are feeling better\nnow, little Spaniard\u2014do you think you could blow the advance?\u2019  She put\nup the bugle to do it, but he said wait a minute first.  Then he and the\nsergeant set her arm and put it in splints, she wincing but not\nwhimpering; then we took up the march for home, and that\u2019s the end of the\ntale; and I\u2019m her horse.  Isn\u2019t she a brick, Shekels?\n\n\u201cBrick?  She\u2019s more than a brick, more than a thousand bricks\u2014she\u2019s a\nreptile!\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a compliment out of your heart, Shekels.  God bless you for it!\u201d\n\n\n\nX\nGENERAL ALISON AND DORCAS\n\n\n\u201cTOO much company for her, Marse Tom.  Betwixt you, and Shekels, the\nColonel\u2019s wife, and the Cid\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cThe Cid?  Oh, I remember\u2014the raven.\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2014and Mrs. Captain Marsh and Famine and Pestilence the baby _coyotes_,\nand Sour-Mash and her pups, and Sardanapalus and her kittens\u2014hang these\nnames she gives the creatures, they warp my jaw\u2014and Potter: you\u2014all\nsitting around in the house, and Soldier Boy at the window the entire\ntime, it\u2019s a wonder to me she comes along as well as she does.  She\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cYou want her all to yourself, you stingy old thing!\u201d\n\n\u201cMarse Tom, you know better.  It\u2019s too much company.  And then the idea\nof her receiving reports all the time from her officers, and acting upon\nthem, and giving orders, the same as if she was well!  It ain\u2019t good for\nher, and the surgeon don\u2019t like it, and tried to persuade her not to and\ncouldn\u2019t; and when he _ordered_ her, she was that outraged and indignant,\nand was very severe on him, and accused him of insubordination, and said\nit didn\u2019t become him to give orders to an officer of her rank.  Well, he\nsaw he had excited her more and done more harm than all the rest put\ntogether, so he was vexed at himself and wished he had kept still.\nDoctors _don\u2019t_ know much, and that\u2019s a fact.  She\u2019s too much interested\nin things\u2014she ought to rest more.  She\u2019s all the time sending messages to\nBB, and to soldiers and Injuns and whatnot, and to the animals.\u201d\n\n\u201cTo the animals?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, sir.\u201d\n\n\u201cWho carries them?\u201d\n\n\u201cSometimes Potter, but mostly it\u2019s Shekels.\u201d\n\n\u201cNow come! who can find fault with such pretty make-believe as that?\u201d\n\n\u201cBut it ain\u2019t make-believe, Marse Tom.  She does send them.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, I don\u2019t doubt that part of it.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo you doubt they get them, sir?\u201d\n\n\u201cCertainly.  Don\u2019t you?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, sir.  Animals talk to one another.  I know it perfectly well, Marse\nTom, and I ain\u2019t saying it by guess.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat a curious superstition!\u201d\n\n\u201cIt ain\u2019t a superstition, Marse Tom.  Look at that Shekels\u2014look at him,\n_now_.  Is he listening, or ain\u2019t he?  _Now_ you see! he\u2019s turned his\nhead away.  It\u2019s because he was caught\u2014caught in the act.  I\u2019ll ask\nyou\u2014could a Christian look any more ashamed than what he looks now?\u2014_lay\ndown_!  You see? he was going to sneak out.  Don\u2019t tell _me_, Marse Tom!\nIf animals don\u2019t talk, I miss _my_ guess.  And Shekels is the worst.  He\ngoes and tells the animals everything that happens in the officers\u2019\nquarters; and if he\u2019s short of facts, he invents them.  He hasn\u2019t any\nmore principle than a blue jay; and as for morals, he\u2019s empty.  Look at\nhim now; look at him grovel.  He knows what I am saying, and he knows\nit\u2019s the truth.  You see, yourself, that he can feel shame; it\u2019s the only\nvirtue he\u2019s got.  It\u2019s wonderful how they find out everything that\u2019s\ngoing on\u2014the animals.  They\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cDo you really believe they do, Dorcas?\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t only just believe it, Marse Tom, I know it.  Day before\nyesterday they knew something was going to happen.  They were that\nexcited, and whispering around together; why, anybody could see that\nthey\u2014 But my! I must get back to her, and I haven\u2019t got to my errand\nyet.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat is it, Dorcas?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, it\u2019s two or three things.  One is, the doctor don\u2019t salute when he\ncomes . . . Now, Marse Tom, it ain\u2019t anything to laugh at, and so\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, then, forgive me; I didn\u2019t mean to laugh\u2014I got caught unprepared.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou see, she don\u2019t want to hurt the doctor\u2019s feelings, so she don\u2019t say\nanything to him about it; but she is always polite, herself, and it hurts\nthat kind for people to be rude to them.\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019ll have that doctor hanged.\u201d\n\n\u201cMarse Tom, she don\u2019t _want_ him hanged.  She\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, then, I\u2019ll have him boiled in oil.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut she don\u2019t _want_ him boiled.  I\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, very well, very well, I only want to please her; I\u2019ll have him\nskinned.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, _she_ don\u2019t want him skinned; it would break her heart.  Now\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cWoman, this is perfectly unreasonable.  What in the nation _does_ she\nwant?\u201d\n\n\u201cMarse Tom, if you would only be a little patient, and not fly off the\nhandle at the least little thing.  Why, she only wants you to speak to\nhim.\u201d\n\n\u201cSpeak to him!  Well, upon my word!  All this unseemly rage and row about\nsuch a\u2014a\u2014 Dorcas, I never saw you carry on like this before.  You have\nalarmed the sentry; he thinks I am being assassinated; he thinks there\u2019s\na mutiny, a revolt, an insurrection; he\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cMarse Tom, you are just putting on; you know it perfectly well; I don\u2019t\nknow what makes you act like that\u2014but you always did, even when you was\nlittle, and you can\u2019t get over it, I reckon.  Are you over it now, Marse\nTom?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, well, yes; but it would try anybody to be doing the best he could,\noffering every kindness he could think of, only to have it rejected with\ncontumely and . . . Oh, well, let it go; it\u2019s no matter\u2014I\u2019ll talk to the\ndoctor.  Is that satisfactory, or are you going to break out again?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, sir, it is; and it\u2019s only right to talk to him, too, because it\u2019s\njust as she says; she\u2019s trying to keep up discipline in the Rangers, and\nthis insubordination of his is a bad example for them\u2014now ain\u2019t it so,\nMarse Tom?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, there _is_ reason in it, I can\u2019t deny it; so I will speak to him,\nthough at bottom I think hanging would be more lasting.  What is the rest\nof your errand, Dorcas?\u201d\n\n\u201cOf course her room is Ranger headquarters now, Marse Tom, while she\u2019s\nsick.  Well, soldiers of the cavalry and the dragoons that are off duty\ncome and get her sentries to let them relieve them and serve in their\nplace.  It\u2019s only out of affection, sir, and because they know military\nhonors please her, and please the children too, for her sake; and they\ndon\u2019t bring their muskets; and so\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve noticed them there, but didn\u2019t twig the idea.  They are standing\nguard, are they?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, sir, and she is afraid you will reprove them and hurt their\nfeelings, if you see them there; so she begs, if\u2014if you don\u2019t mind coming\nin the back way\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cBear me up, Dorcas; don\u2019t let me faint.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere\u2014sit up and behave, Marse Tom.  You are not going to faint; you are\nonly pretending\u2014you used to act just so when you was little; it does seem\na long time for you to get grown up.\u201d\n\n\u201cDorcas, the way the child is progressing, I shall be out of my job\nbefore long\u2014she\u2019ll have the whole post in her hands.  I must make a\nstand, I must not go down without a struggle.  These encroachments. . . .\nDorcas, what do you think she will think of next?\u201d\n\n\u201cMarse Tom, she don\u2019t mean any harm.\u201d\n\n\u201cAre you sure of it?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, Marse Tom.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou feel sure she has no ulterior designs?\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t know what that is, Marse Tom, but I know she hasn\u2019t.\u201d\n\n\u201cVery well, then, for the present I am satisfied.  What else have you\ncome about?\u201d\n\n\u201cI reckon I better tell you the whole thing first, Marse Tom, then tell\nyou what she wants.  There\u2019s been an emeute, as she calls it.  It was\nbefore she got back with BB.  The officer of the day reported it to her\nthis morning.  It happened at her fort.  There was a fuss betwixt\nMajor-General Tommy Drake and Lieutenant-Colonel Agnes Frisbie, and he\nsnatched her doll away, which is made of white kid stuffed with sawdust,\nand tore every rag of its clothes off, right before them all, and is\nunder arrest, and the charge is conduct un\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, I know\u2014conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman\u2014a plain case,\ntoo, it seems to me.  This is a serious matter.  Well, what is her\npleasure?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, Marse Tom, she has summoned a court-martial, but the doctor don\u2019t\nthink she is well enough to preside over it, and she says there ain\u2019t\nanybody competent but her, because there\u2019s a major-general concerned; and\nso she\u2014she\u2014well, she says, would you preside over it for her? . . . Marse\nTom, _sit_ up!  You ain\u2019t any more going to faint than Shekels is.\u201d\n\n\u201cLook here, Dorcas, go along back, and be tactful.  Be persuasive; don\u2019t\nfret her; tell her it\u2019s all right, the matter is in my hands, but it\nisn\u2019t good form to hurry so grave a matter as this.  Explain to her that\nwe have to go by precedents, and that I believe this one to be new.  In\nfact, you can say I know that nothing just like it has happened in our\narmy, therefore I must be guided by European precedents, and must go\ncautiously and examine them carefully.  Tell her not to be impatient, it\nwill take me several days, but it will all come out right, and I will\ncome over and report progress as I go along.  Do you get the idea,\nDorcas?\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t know as I do, sir.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, it\u2019s this.  You see, it won\u2019t ever do for me, a brigadier in the\nregular army, to preside over that infant court-martial\u2014there isn\u2019t any\nprecedent for it, don\u2019t you see.  Very well.  I will go on examining\nauthorities and reporting progress until she is well enough to get me out\nof this scrape by presiding herself.  Do you get it now?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, yes, sir, I get it, and it\u2019s good, I\u2019ll go and fix it with her.\n_Lay down_! and stay where you are.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, what harm is he doing?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, it ain\u2019t any harm, but it just vexes me to see him act so.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat was he doing?\u201d\n\n\u201cCan\u2019t you see, and him in such a sweat?  He was starting out to spread\nit all over the post.  _Now_ I reckon you won\u2019t deny, any more, that they\ngo and tell everything they hear, now that you\u2019ve seen it with yo\u2019 own\neyes.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, I don\u2019t like to acknowledge it, Dorcas, but I don\u2019t see how I can\nconsistently stick to my doubts in the face of such overwhelming proof as\nthis dog is furnishing.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere, now, you\u2019ve got in yo\u2019 right mind at last!  I wonder you can be\nso stubborn, Marse Tom.  But you always was, even when you was little.\nI\u2019m going now.\u201d\n\n\u201cLook here; tell her that in view of the delay, it is my judgment that\nshe ought to enlarge the accused on his parole.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, sir, I\u2019ll tell her.  Marse Tom?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell?\u201d\n\n\u201cShe can\u2019t get to Soldier Boy, and he stands there all the time, down in\nthe mouth and lonesome; and she says will you shake hands with him and\ncomfort him?  Everybody does.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a curious kind of lonesomeness; but, all right, I will.\u201d\n\n\n\nXI\nSEVERAL MONTHS LATER.  ANTONIO AND THORNDIKE\n\n\n\u201cTHORNDIKE, isn\u2019t that Plug you\u2019re riding an asset of the scrap you and\nBuffalo Bill had with the late Blake Haskins and his pal a few months\nback?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, this is Mongrel\u2014and not a half-bad horse, either.\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve noticed he keeps up his lick first-rate.  Say\u2014isn\u2019t it a gaudy\nmorning?\u201d\n\n\u201cRight you are!\u201d\n\n\u201cThorndike, it\u2019s Andalusian! and when that\u2019s said, all\u2019s said.\u201d\n\n\u201cAndalusian _and_ Oregonian, Antonio!  Put it that way, and you have my\nvote.  Being a native up there, I know.  You being Andalusian-born\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cCan speak with authority for that patch of paradise?  Well, I can.  Like\nthe Don! like Sancho!  This is the correct Andalusian dawn now\u2014crisp,\nfresh, dewy, fragrant, pungent\u2014\u201d\n\n    \u201c\u2018What though the spicy breezes\n    Blow soft o\u2019er Ceylon\u2019s isle\u2014\u2019\n\n\u2014_git_ up, you old cow! stumbling like that when we\u2019ve just been praising\nyou! out on a scout and can\u2019t live up to the honor any better than that?\nAntonio, how long have you been out here in the Plains and the Rockies?\u201d\n\n\u201cMore than thirteen years.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a long time.  Don\u2019t you ever get homesick?\u201d\n\n\u201cNot till now.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy _now_?\u2014after such a long cure.\u201d\n\n\u201cThese preparations of the retiring commandant\u2019s have started it up.\u201d\n\n\u201cOf course.  It\u2019s natural.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt keeps me thinking about Spain.  I know the region where the Seventh\u2019s\nchild\u2019s aunt lives; I know all the lovely country for miles around; I\u2019ll\nbet I\u2019ve seen her aunt\u2019s villa many a time; I\u2019ll bet I\u2019ve been in it in\nthose pleasant old times when I was a Spanish gentleman.\u201d\n\n\u201cThey say the child is wild to see Spain.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s so; I know it from what I hear.\u201d\n\n\u201cHaven\u2019t you talked with her about it?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo.  I\u2019ve avoided it.  I should soon be as wild as she is.  That would\nnot be comfortable.\u201d\n\n\u201cI wish I was going, Antonio.  There\u2019s two things I\u2019d give a lot to see.\nOne\u2019s a railroad.\u201d\n\n\u201cShe\u2019ll see one when she strikes Missouri.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe other\u2019s a bull-fight.\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve seen lots of them; I wish I could see another.\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t know anything about it, except in a mixed-up, foggy way,\nAntonio, but I know enough to know it\u2019s grand sport.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe grandest in the world!  There\u2019s no other sport that begins with it.\nI\u2019ll tell you what I\u2019ve seen, then you can judge.  It was my first, and\nit\u2019s as vivid to me now as it was when I saw it.  It was a Sunday\nafternoon, and beautiful weather, and my uncle, the priest, took me as a\nreward for being a good boy and because of my own accord and without\nanybody asking me I had bankrupted my savings-box and given the money to\na mission that was civilizing the Chinese and sweetening their lives and\nsoftening their hearts with the gentle teachings of our religion, and I\nwish you could have seen what we saw that day, Thorndike.\n\n\u201cThe amphitheatre was packed, from the bull-ring to the highest\nrow\u2014twelve thousand people in one circling mass, one slanting, solid\nmass\u2014royalties, nobles, clergy, ladies, gentlemen, state officials,\ngenerals, admirals, soldiers, sailors, lawyers, thieves, merchants,\nbrokers, cooks, housemaids, scullery-maids, doubtful women, dudes,\ngamblers, beggars, loafers, tramps, American ladies, gentlemen,\npreachers, English ladies, gentlemen, preachers, German ditto, French\nditto, and so on and so on, all the world represented: Spaniards to\nadmire and praise, foreigners to enjoy and go home and find fault\u2014there\nthey were, one solid, sloping, circling sweep of rippling and flashing\ncolor under the downpour of the summer sun\u2014just a garden, a gaudy,\ngorgeous flower-garden!  Children munching oranges, six thousand fans\nfluttering and glimmering, everybody happy, everybody chatting gayly with\ntheir intimates, lovely girl-faces smiling recognition and salutation to\nother lovely girl-faces, gray old ladies and gentlemen dealing in the\nlike exchanges with each other\u2014ah, such a picture of cheery contentment\nand glad anticipation! not a mean spirit, nor a sordid soul, nor a sad\nheart there\u2014ah, Thorndike, I wish I could see it again.\n\n\u201cSuddenly, the martial note of a bugle cleaves the hum and murmur\u2014clear\nthe ring!\n\n\u201cThey clear it.  The great gate is flung open, and the procession marches\nin, splendidly costumed and glittering: the marshals of the day, then the\npicadores on horseback, then the matadores on foot, each surrounded by\nhis quadrille of _chulos_.  They march to the box of the city fathers,\nand formally salute.  The key is thrown, the bull-gate is unlocked.\nAnother bugle blast\u2014the gate flies open, the bull plunges in, furious,\ntrembling, blinking in the blinding light, and stands there, a\nmagnificent creature, centre of those multitudinous and admiring eyes,\nbrave, ready for battle, his attitude a challenge.  He sees his enemy:\nhorsemen sitting motionless, with long spears in rest, upon blindfolded\nbroken-down nags, lean and starved, fit only for sport and sacrifice,\nthen the carrion-heap.\n\n\u201cThe bull makes a rush, with murder in his eye, but a picador meets him\nwith a spear-thrust in the shoulder.  He flinches with the pain, and the\npicador skips out of danger.  A burst of applause for the picador, hisses\nfor the bull.  Some shout \u2018Cow!\u2019 at the bull, and call him offensive\nnames.  But he is not listening to them, he is there for business; he is\nnot minding the cloak-bearers that come fluttering around to confuse him;\nhe chases this way, he chases that way, and hither and yon, scattering\nthe nimble banderillos in every direction like a spray, and receiving\ntheir maddening darts in his neck as they dodge and fly\u2014oh, but it\u2019s a\nlively spectacle, and brings down the house!  Ah, you should hear the\nthundering roar that goes up when the game is at its wildest and\nbrilliant things are done!\n\n\u201cOh, that first bull, that day, was great!  From the moment the spirit of\nwar rose to flood-tide in him and he got down to his work, he began to do\nwonders.  He tore his way through his persecutors, flinging one of them\nclear over the parapet; he bowled a horse and his rider down, and plunged\nstraight for the next, got home with his horns, wounding both horse and\nman; on again, here and there and this way and that; and one after\nanother he tore the bowels out of two horses so that they gushed to the\nground, and ripped a third one so badly that although they rushed him to\ncover and shoved his bowels back and stuffed the rents with tow and rode\nhim against the bull again, he couldn\u2019t make the trip; he tried to\ngallop, under the spur, but soon reeled and tottered and fell, all in a\nheap.  For a while, that bull-ring was the most thrilling and glorious\nand inspiring sight that ever was seen.  The bull absolutely cleared it,\nand stood there alone! monarch of the place.  The people went mad for\npride in him, and joy and delight, and you couldn\u2019t hear yourself think,\nfor the roar and boom and crash of applause.\u201d\n\n\u201cAntonio, it carries me clear out of myself just to hear you tell it; it\nmust have been perfectly splendid.  If I live, I\u2019ll see a bull-fight yet\nbefore I die.  Did they kill him?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh yes; that is what the bull is for.  They tired him out, and got him\nat last.  He kept rushing the matador, who always slipped smartly and\ngracefully aside in time, waiting for a sure chance; and at last it came;\nthe bull made a deadly plunge for him\u2014was avoided neatly, and as he sped\nby, the long sword glided silently into him, between left shoulder and\nspine\u2014in and in, to the hilt.  He crumpled down, dying.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh, Antonio, it _is_ the noblest sport that ever was.  I would give a\nyear of my life to see it.  Is the bull always killed?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes.  Sometimes a bull is timid, finding himself in so strange a place,\nand he stands trembling, or tries to retreat.  Then everybody despises\nhim for his cowardice and wants him punished and made ridiculous; so they\nhough him from behind, and it is the funniest thing in the world to see\nhim hobbling around on his severed legs; the whole vast house goes into\nhurricanes of laughter over it; I have laughed till the tears ran down my\ncheeks to see it.  When he has furnished all the sport he can, he is not\nany longer useful, and is killed.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, it is perfectly grand, Antonio, perfectly beautiful.  Burning a\nnigger don\u2019t begin.\u201d\n\n\n\nXII\nMONGREL AND THE OTHER HORSE\n\n\n\u201cSAGE-BRUSH, you have been listening?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes.\u201d\n\n\u201cIsn\u2019t it strange?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, no, Mongrel, I don\u2019t know that it is.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy don\u2019t you?\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve seen a good many human beings in my time.  They are created as they\nare; they cannot help it.  They are only brutal because that is their\nmake; brutes would be brutal if it was _their_ make.\u201d\n\n\u201cTo me, Sage-Brush, man is most strange and unaccountable.  Why should he\ntreat dumb animals that way when they are not doing any harm?\u201d\n\n\u201cMan is not always like that, Mongrel; he is kind enough when he is not\nexcited by religion.\u201d\n\n\u201cIs the bull-fight a religious service?\u201d\n\n\u201cI think so.  I have heard so.  It is held on Sunday.\u201d\n\n(_A reflective pause_, _lasting some moments_.)  Then:\n\n\u201cWhen we die, Sage-Brush, do we go to heaven and dwell with man?\u201d\n\n\u201cMy father thought not.  He believed we do not have to go there unless we\ndeserve it.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nPart II\nIN SPAIN\n\n\nXIII\nGENERAL ALISON TO HIS MOTHER\n\n\nIT was a prodigious trip, but delightful, of course, through the Rockies\nand the Black Hills and the mighty sweep of the Great Plains to\ncivilization and the Missouri border\u2014where the railroading began and the\ndelightfulness ended.  But no one is the worse for the journey; certainly\nnot Cathy, nor Dorcas, nor Soldier Boy; and as for me, I am not\ncomplaining.\n\nSpain is all that Cathy had pictured it\u2014and more, she says.  She is in a\nfury of delight, the maddest little animal that ever was, and all for\njoy.  She thinks she remembers Spain, but that is not very likely, I\nsuppose.  The two\u2014Mercedes and Cathy\u2014devour each other.  It is a rapture\nof love, and beautiful to see.  It is Spanish; that describes it.  Will\nthis be a short visit?\n\nNo.  It will be permanent.  Cathy has elected to abide with Spain and her\naunt.  Dorcas says she (Dorcas) foresaw that this would happen; and also\nsays that she wanted it to happen, and says the child\u2019s own country is\nthe right place for her, and that she ought not to have been sent to me,\nI ought to have gone to her.  I thought it insane to take Soldier Boy to\nSpain, but it was well that I yielded to Cathy\u2019s pleadings; if he had\nbeen left behind, half of her heart would have remained with him, and she\nwould not have been contented.  As it is, everything has fallen out for\nthe best, and we are all satisfied and comfortable.  It may be that\nDorcas and I will see America again some day; but also it is a case of\nmaybe not.\n\nWe left the post in the early morning.  It was an affecting time.  The\nwomen cried over Cathy, so did even those stern warriors, the Rocky\nMountain Rangers; Shekels was there, and the Cid, and Sardanapalus, and\nPotter, and Mongrel, and Sour-Mash, Famine, and Pestilence, and Cathy\nkissed them all and wept; details of the several arms of the garrison\nwere present to represent the rest, and say good-bye and God bless you\nfor all the soldiery; and there was a special squad from the Seventh,\nwith the oldest veteran at its head, to speed the Seventh\u2019s Child with\ngrand honors and impressive ceremonies; and the veteran had a touching\nspeech by heart, and put up his hand in salute and tried to say it, but\nhis lips trembled and his voice broke, but Cathy bent down from the\nsaddle and kissed him on the mouth and turned his defeat to victory, and\na cheer went up.\n\nThe next act closed the ceremonies, and was a moving surprise.  It may be\nthat you have discovered, before this, that the rigors of military law\nand custom melt insensibly away and disappear when a soldier or a\nregiment or the garrison wants to do something that will please Cathy.\nThe bands conceived the idea of stirring her soldierly heart with a\nfarewell which would remain in her memory always, beautiful and unfading,\nand bring back the past and its love for her whenever she should think of\nit; so they got their project placed before General Burnaby, my\nsuccessor, who is Cathy\u2019s newest slave, and in spite of poverty of\nprecedents they got his permission.  The bands knew the child\u2019s favorite\nmilitary airs.  By this hint you know what is coming, but Cathy didn\u2019t.\nShe was asked to sound the \u201creveille,\u201d which she did.\n\n                    [Picture: Reveille [music score]]\n\nWith the last note the bands burst out with a crash: and woke the\nmountains with the \u201cStar-Spangled Banner\u201d in a way to make a body\u2019s heart\nswell and thump and his hair rise!  It was enough to break a person all\nup, to see Cathy\u2019s radiant face shining out through her gladness and\ntears.  By request she blew the \u201cassembly,\u201d now. . . .\n\n                  [Picture: The Assembly [music score]]\n\n. . . Then the bands thundered in, with \u201cRally round the flag, boys,\nrally once again!\u201d  Next, she blew another call (\u201cto the Standard\u201d) . . .\n\n                 [Picture: To the Standard [music score]]\n\n. . . and the bands responded with \u201cWhen we were marching through\nGeorgia.\u201d  Straightway she sounded \u201cboots and saddles,\u201d that thrilling\nand most expediting call. . . .\n\n                [Picture: Boots and Saddles [music score]]\n\nand the bands could hardly hold in for the final note; then they turned\ntheir whole strength loose on \u201cTramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are\nmarching,\u201d and everybody\u2019s excitement rose to blood-heat.\n\nNow an impressive pause\u2014then the bugle sang \u201cTAPS\u201d\u2014translatable, this\ntime, into \u201cGood-bye, and God keep us all!\u201d for taps is the soldier\u2019s\nnightly release from duty, and farewell: plaintive, sweet, pathetic, for\nthe morning is never sure, for him; always it is possible that he is\nhearing it for the last time. . . .\n\n                      [Picture: Taps [music score]]\n\n. . . Then the bands turned their instruments towards Cathy and burst in\nwith that rollicking frenzy of a tune, \u201cOh, we\u2019ll all get blind drunk\nwhen Johnny comes marching home\u2014yes, we\u2019ll all get blind drunk when\nJohnny comes marching home!\u201d and followed it instantly with \u201cDixie,\u201d that\nantidote for melancholy, merriest and gladdest of all military music on\nany side of the ocean\u2014and that was the end.  And so\u2014farewell!\n\nI wish you could have been there to see it all, hear it all, and feel it:\nand get yourself blown away with the hurricane huzza that swept the place\nas a finish.\n\nWhen we rode away, our main body had already been on the road an hour or\ntwo\u2014I speak of our camp equipage; but we didn\u2019t move off alone: when\nCathy blew the \u201cadvance\u201d the Rangers cantered out in column of fours, and\ngave us escort, and were joined by White Cloud and Thunder-Bird in all\ntheir gaudy bravery, and by Buffalo Bill and four subordinate scouts.\nThree miles away, in the Plains, the Lieutenant-General halted, sat her\nhorse like a military statue, the bugle at her lips, and put the Rangers\nthrough the evolutions for half an hour; and finally, when she blew the\n\u201ccharge,\u201d she led it herself.  \u201cNot for the last time,\u201d she said, and got\na cheer, and we said good-bye all around, and faced eastward and rode\naway.\n\n_Postscript_.  _A Day Later_.  Soldier Boy was stolen last night.  Cathy\nis almost beside herself, and we cannot comfort her.  Mercedes and I are\nnot much alarmed about the horse, although this part of Spain is in\nsomething of a turmoil, politically, at present, and there is a good deal\nof lawlessness.  In ordinary times the thief and the horse would soon be\ncaptured.  We shall have them before long, I think.\n\n\n\nXIV\nSOLDIER BOY\u2014TO HIMSELF\n\n\nIT is five months.  Or is it six?  My troubles have clouded my memory.  I\nhave been all over this land, from end to end, and now I am back again\nsince day before yesterday, to that city which we passed through, that\nlast day of our long journey, and which is near her country home.  I am a\ntottering ruin and my eyes are dim, but I recognized it.  If she could\nsee me she would know me and sound my call.  I wish I could hear it once\nmore; it would revive me, it would bring back her face and the mountains\nand the free life, and I would come\u2014if I were dying I would come!  She\nwould not know _me_, looking as I do, but she would know me by my star.\nBut she will never see me, for they do not let me out of this shabby\nstable\u2014a foul and miserable place, with most two wrecks like myself for\ncompany.\n\nHow many times have I changed hands?  I think it is twelve times\u2014I cannot\nremember; and each time it was down a step lower, and each time I got a\nharder master.  They have been cruel, every one; they have worked me\nnight and day in degraded employments, and beaten me; they have fed me\nill, and some days not at all.  And so I am but bones, now, with a rough\nand frowsy skin humped and cornered upon my shrunken body\u2014that skin which\nwas once so glossy, that skin which she loved to stroke with her hand.  I\nwas the pride of the mountains and the Great Plains; now I am a scarecrow\nand despised.  These piteous wrecks that are my comrades here say we have\nreached the bottom of the scale, the final humiliation; they say that\nwhen a horse is no longer worth the weeds and discarded rubbish they feed\nto him, they sell him to the bull-ring for a glass of brandy, to make\nsport for the people and perish for their pleasure.\n\nTo die\u2014that does not disturb me; we of the service never care for death.\nBut if I could see her once more! if I could hear her bugle sing again\nand say, \u201cIt is I, Soldier\u2014come!\u201d\n\n\n\nXV\nGENERAL ALISON TO MRS. DRAKE, THE COLONEL\u2019S WIFE\n\n\nTO return, now, to where I was, and tell you the rest.  We shall never\nknow how she came to be there; there is no way to account for it.  She\nwas always watching for black and shiny and spirited horses\u2014watching,\nhoping, despairing, hoping again; always giving chase and sounding her\ncall, upon the meagrest chance of a response, and breaking her heart over\nthe disappointment; always inquiring, always interested in sales-stables\nand horse accumulations in general.  How she got there must remain a\nmystery.\n\nAt the point which I had reached in a preceding paragraph of this\naccount, the situation was as follows: two horses lay dying; the bull had\nscattered his persecutors for the moment, and stood raging, panting,\npawing the dust in clouds over his back, when the man that had been\nwounded returned to the ring on a remount, a poor blindfolded wreck that\nyet had something ironically military about his bearing\u2014and the next\nmoment the bull had ripped him open and his bowls were dragging upon the\nground: and the bull was charging his swarm of pests again.  Then came\npealing through the air a bugle-call that froze my blood\u2014\u201c_It is I_,\n_Soldier\u2014come_!\u201d  I turned; Cathy was flying down through the massed\npeople; she cleared the parapet at a bound, and sped towards that\nriderless horse, who staggered forward towards the remembered sound; but\nhis strength failed, and he fell at her feet, she lavishing kisses upon\nhim and sobbing, the house rising with one impulse, and white with\nhorror!  Before help could reach her the bull was back again\u2014\n\n         [Picture: His strength failed, and he fell at her feet]\n\nShe was never conscious again in life.  We bore her home, all mangled and\ndrenched in blood, and knelt by her and listened to her broken and\nwandering words, and prayed for her passing spirit, and there was no\ncomfort\u2014nor ever will be, I think.  But she was happy, for she was far\naway under another sky, and comrading again with her Rangers, and her\nanimal friends, and the soldiers.  Their names fell softly and\ncaressingly from her lips, one by one, with pauses between.  She was not\nin pain, but lay with closed eyes, vacantly murmuring, as one who dreams.\nSometimes she smiled, saying nothing; sometimes she smiled when she\nuttered a name\u2014such as Shekels, or BB, or Potter.  Sometimes she was at\nher fort, issuing commands; sometimes she was careering over the plain at\nthe head of her men; sometimes she was training her horse; once she said,\nreprovingly, \u201cYou are giving me the wrong foot; give me the left\u2014don\u2019t\nyou know it is good-bye?\u201d\n\nAfter this, she lay silent some time; the end was near.  By-and-by she\nmurmured, \u201cTired . . . sleepy . . . take Cathy, mamma.\u201d  Then, \u201cKiss me,\nSoldier.\u201d  For a little time, she lay so still that we were doubtful if\nshe breathed.  Then she put out her hand and began to feel gropingly\nabout; then said, \u201cI cannot find it; blow \u2018taps.\u2019\u201d  It was the end.\n\n                      [Picture: Taps [music score]]\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n\n{80}  At West Point the bugle is supposed to be saying:\n\n    \u201cI can\u2019t get \u2019em up,\n    I can\u2019t get \u2019em up,\n    I can\u2019t get \u2019em up in the morning!\u201d\n\n\n\n"}
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{"11622":"Proofreaders. This file was produced from images generously made\navailable by the Biblioth\u00e8que nationale de France (BnF/Gallica) at\nhttp://gallica.bnf.fr.\n\n\n\n\n\nMARK TWAIN\n\nPlus fort que Sherlock Holm\u00e8s\n\n\nTRADUIT PAR FRAN\u00c7OIS DE GAIL\n\nDEUXI\u00c8ME \u00c9DITION\n\n\nMCMVII\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPREMI\u00c8RE PARTIE\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nLa premi\u00e8re sc\u00e8ne se passe \u00e0 la campagne dans la province de Virginie,\nen l'ann\u00e9e 1880.\n\nUn \u00e9l\u00e9gant jeune homme de vingt-six ans, de fortune m\u00e9diocre, vient\nd'\u00e9pouser une jeune fille tr\u00e8s riche. Mariage d'amour \u00e0 premi\u00e8re vue,\npr\u00e9cipitamment conclu, mais auquel le p\u00e8re de la jeune personne, un\nveuf, s'est oppos\u00e9 de toutes ses forces.\n\nLe mari\u00e9 appartient \u00e0 une famille ancienne mais peu estim\u00e9e, qui avait\n\u00e9t\u00e9 contrainte \u00e0 \u00e9migrer de Sedgemoor, pour le plus grand bien du roi\nJacques. C'\u00e9tait, du moins, l'opinion g\u00e9n\u00e9rale; les uns le disaient avec\nune pointe de malice, les autres en \u00e9taient intimement persuad\u00e9s.\n\nLa jeune femme a dix-neuf ans et est remarquablement belle. Grande,\nbien tourn\u00e9e, sentimentale, extr\u00eamement fi\u00e8re de son origine et tr\u00e8s\n\u00e9prise de son jeune mari, elle a brav\u00e9 pour l'\u00e9pouser la col\u00e8re de son\np\u00e8re, support\u00e9 de durs reproches, repouss\u00e9 avec une in\u00e9branlable fermet\u00e9\nses avertissements et ses pr\u00e9dictions; elle a m\u00eame quitt\u00e9 la maison\npaternelle sans sa b\u00e9n\u00e9diction, pour mieux affirmer aux yeux du monde la\nsinc\u00e9rit\u00e9 de ses sentiments pour ce jeune homme.\n\nUne cruelle d\u00e9ception l'attendait le lendemain de son mariage. Son mari,\npeu sensible aux caresses que lui prodiguait sa jeune \u00e9pouse, lui tint\nce langage \u00e9trange:\n\n\u00abAsseyez-vous, j'ai \u00e0 vous parler. Je vous aimais avant de demander\nvotre main \u00e0 votre p\u00e8re, son refus ne m'a nullement bless\u00e9; j'en ai\nfait, d'ailleurs, peu de cas. Mais il n'en est pas de m\u00eame de ce qu'il\nvous a dit sur mon compte. Ne cherchez pas \u00e0 me cacher ses propos \u00e0 mon\n\u00e9gard; je les connais par le menu, et les tiens de source authentique.\n\n\u00abIl vous a dit, entre autres choses aimables, que mon caract\u00e8re est\npeint sur mon visage; que j'\u00e9tais un individu faux, dissimul\u00e9, fourbe,\nl\u00e2che, en un mot une parfaite brute sans le moindre coeur, un vrai \u00abtype\nde Sedgemoor\u00bb, a-t-il m\u00eame ajout\u00e9.\n\n\u00abTout autre que moi aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 le trouver et l'aurait tu\u00e9 chez lui comme\nun chien. Je voulais le faire, j'en avais bien envie, mais il m'est venu\nune id\u00e9e que j'estime meilleure. Je veux l'humilier, le couvrir de\nhonte, le tuer \u00e0 petites doses: c'est l\u00e0 mon plan. Pour le r\u00e9aliser, je\nvous martyriserai, vous, son idole! C'est pour cela que je vous ai\n\u00e9pous\u00e9e, et puis... Patience! vous verrez bient\u00f4t si je m'y entends.\u00bb\n\nPendant trois mois \u00e0 partir de ce jour, la jeune femme subit toutes les\nhumiliations, les vilenies, les affronts que l'esprit diabolique de son\nmari put imaginer; il ne la maltraitait pas physiquement; au milieu de\ncette \u00e9preuve, sa grande fiert\u00e9 lui vint en aide et l'emp\u00eacha de trahir\nle secret de son chagrin. De temps \u00e0 autre son mari lui demandait: \u00abMais\npourquoi donc n'allez-vous pas trouver votre p\u00e8re et lui raconter ce que\nvous endurez?...\u00bb\n\nPuis il inventait de nouvelles m\u00e9chancet\u00e9s, plus cruelles que les\npr\u00e9c\u00e9dentes et renouvelait sa m\u00eame question. Elle r\u00e9pondait\ninvariablement: \u00abJamais mon p\u00e8re n'apprendra rien de ma bouche.\u00bb Elle en\nprofitait pour le railler sur son origine, et lui rappeler qu'elle\n\u00e9tait, de par la loi, l'esclave d'un fils d'esclaves, qu'elle ob\u00e9irait,\nmais qu'il n'obtiendrait d'elle rien de plus. Il pouvait la tuer s'il\nvoulait, mais non la dompter; son sang et l'\u00e9ducation qui avait form\u00e9\nson caract\u00e8re l'emp\u00eacheraient de faiblir.\n\nAu bout de trois mois, il lui dit d'un air courrouc\u00e9 et sombre: \u00abJ'ai\nessay\u00e9 de tout, sauf d'un moyen pour vous dompter\u00bb; puis il attendit la\nr\u00e9ponse.\n\n--Essayez de ce dernier, r\u00e9pliqua-t-elle en le toisant d'un regard plein\nde d\u00e9dain.\n\nCette nuit-l\u00e0, il se leva vers minuit, s'habilla, et lui commanda:\n\n\u00abLevez-vous et appr\u00eatez-vous \u00e0 sortir.\u00bb\n\nComme toujours, elle ob\u00e9it sans un mot.\n\nIl la conduisit \u00e0 un mille environ de la maison, et se mit \u00e0 la battre\nnon loin de la grande route. Cette fois elle cria et chercha \u00e0 se\nd\u00e9fendre. Il la b\u00e2illonna, lui cravacha la figure, et excita contre\nelle ses chiens, qui lui d\u00e9chir\u00e8rent ses v\u00eatements; elle se trouva nue.\nIl rappela ses chiens et lui dit:\n\n\u00abLes gens qui passeront dans trois ou quatre heures vous trouveront dans\ncet \u00e9tat et r\u00e9pandront la nouvelle de votre aventure. M'entendez-vous?\nAdieu. Vous ne me reverrez plus.\u00bb Il partit.\n\nPleurant sous le poids de sa honte, elle pensa en elle-m\u00eame:\n\n\u00abJ'aurai bient\u00f4t un enfant de mon mis\u00e9rable mari, Dieu veuille que ce\nsoit un fils.\u00bb\n\nLes fermiers, t\u00e9moins de son horrible situation, lui port\u00e8rent secours,\net s'empress\u00e8rent naturellement de r\u00e9pandre la nouvelle. Indign\u00e9s d'une\ntelle sauvagerie, ils soulev\u00e8rent le pays et jur\u00e8rent de venger la\npauvre jeune femme; mais le coupable \u00e9tait envol\u00e9. La jeune femme se\nr\u00e9fugia chez son p\u00e8re; celui-ci, an\u00e9anti par son chagrin, ne voulut plus\nvoir \u00e2me qui vive; frapp\u00e9 dans sa plus vive affection, le coeur bris\u00e9,\nil d\u00e9clina de jour en jour, et sa fille elle-m\u00eame accueillit comme une\nd\u00e9livrance la mort qui vint mettre fin \u00e0 sa douleur.\n\nElle vendit alors le domaine et quitta le pays.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nEn 1886, une jeune femme vivait retir\u00e9e et seule dans une petite maison\nd'un village de New England: sa seule compagnie \u00e9tait un enfant\nd'environ cinq ans. Elle n'avait pas de domestiques, fuyait les\nrelations et semblait sans amis. Le boucher, le boulanger et les autres\nfournisseurs disaient avec raison aux villageois qu'ils ne savaient rien\nd'elle; on ne connaissait, en effet, que son nom \u00abStillmann\u00bb et celui de\nson fils qu'elle appelait Archy. Chacun ignorait d'o\u00f9 elle venait, mais\n\u00e0 son arriv\u00e9e on avait d\u00e9clar\u00e9 que son accent \u00e9tait celui d'une Sudiste.\nL'enfant n'avait ni compagnons d'\u00e9tudes ni camarades de jeux; sa m\u00e8re\n\u00e9tait son seul professeur. Ses le\u00e7ons \u00e9taient claires, bien comprises:\nce r\u00e9sultat la satisfaisait pleinement; elle en \u00e9tait m\u00eame tr\u00e8s fi\u00e8re.\nUn jour, Archy lui demanda:\n\n--Maman, suis-je diff\u00e9rent des autres enfants?\n\n--Mais non, mon petit, pourquoi?\n\n--Une petite fille qui passait par ici m'a demand\u00e9 si le facteur \u00e9tait\nvenu, et je lui ai r\u00e9pondu que oui; elle m'a demand\u00e9 alors depuis\ncombien de temps je l'avais vu passer; je lui ai dit que je ne l'avais\npas vu du tout. Elle en a \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9tonn\u00e9e, et m'a demand\u00e9 comment je pouvais\nle savoir puisque je n'avais pas vu le facteur; je lui ai r\u00e9pondu que\nj'avais flair\u00e9 ses pas sur la route. Elle m'a trait\u00e9 de fou et s'est\nmoqu\u00e9e de moi. Pourquoi donc?\n\nLa jeune femme p\u00e2lit et pensa: \u00abVoil\u00e0 bien la preuve certaine de ce que\nje supposais: mon fils a la puissance olfactive d'un limier.\u00bb\n\nElle saisit brusquement l'enfant et le serra passionn\u00e9ment dans ses\nbras, disant \u00e0 haute voix: \u00abDieu me montre le chemin.\u00bb Ses yeux\nbrillaient d'un \u00e9clat extraordinaire, sa poitrine \u00e9tait haletante, sa\nrespiration entrecoup\u00e9e. \u00abLe myst\u00e8re est \u00e9clairci maintenant,\npensa-t-elle; combien de fois me suis-je demand\u00e9 avec stup\u00e9faction\ncomment mon fils pouvait faire des choses impossibles dans l'obscurit\u00e9.\nJe comprends tout maintenant.\u00bb\n\nElle l'installa dans sa petite chaise et lui dit:\n\n--Attends-moi un instant, mon ch\u00e9ri, et nous causerons ensemble.\n\nElle monta dans sa chambre et prit sur sa table de toilette diff\u00e9rents\nobjets qu'elle cacha; elle mit une lime \u00e0 ongles par terre sous son lit,\ndes ciseaux sous son bureau, un petit coupe-papier d'ivoire sous son\narmoire \u00e0 glace. Puis elle retourna vers l'enfant et lui dit:\n\n--Tiens! j'ai laiss\u00e9 en haut diff\u00e9rents objets que j'aurais d\u00fb\ndescendre; monte donc les chercher et tu me les apporteras,\najouta-t-elle, apr\u00e8s les lui avoir \u00e9num\u00e9r\u00e9s.\n\nArchy se h\u00e2ta et revint quelques instants apr\u00e8s portant les objets\ndemand\u00e9s.\n\n--As-tu \u00e9prouv\u00e9 une difficult\u00e9 quelconque, mon enfant, \u00e0 trouver ces\nobjets?\n\n--Aucune, maman, je me suis simplement dirig\u00e9 dans la chambre en suivant\nvotre trace.\n\nPendant son absence, elle avait pris sur une \u00e9tag\u00e8re plusieurs livres\nqu'elle avait ouverts; puis elle effleura de la main plusieurs pages\ndont elle se rappela les num\u00e9ros, les referma et les remit en place.\n\n--Je viens de faire une chose en ton absence, Archy, lui dit-elle.\nCrois-tu que tu pourrais la deviner?\n\nL'enfant alla droit \u00e0 l'\u00e9tag\u00e8re, prit les livres, et les ouvrit aux\npages touch\u00e9es par sa m\u00e8re.\n\nLa jeune femme assit son fils sur ses genoux et lui dit:\n\n--Maintenant, je puis r\u00e9pondre \u00e0 ta question de tout \u00e0 l'heure, mon\nch\u00e9ri; je viens de d\u00e9couvrir en effet que sous certains rapports tu n'es\npas comme tout le monde. Tu peux voir dans l'obscurit\u00e9, flairer ce que\nd'autres ne sentent pas; tu as toutes les qualit\u00e9s d'un limier. C'est un\ndon pr\u00e9cieux, inestimable que tu poss\u00e8des, mais gardes-en le secret,\nsois muet comme une tombe \u00e0 ce sujet. S'il \u00e9tait d\u00e9couvert, on te\nsignalerait comme un enfant bizarre, un petit ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne, et les autres\nse moqueraient de toi ou te donneraient des sobriquets.\n\nDans ce monde, vois-tu, il faut \u00eatre comme le commun des mortels, si\nl'on ne veut provoquer ni moqueries, ni envie, ni jalousie. La\nparticularit\u00e9 que tu as re\u00e7ue en partage est rare et enviable, j'en\nsuis heureuse et fi\u00e8re, mais pour l'amour de ta m\u00e8re, tu ne d\u00e9voileras\njamais ce secret \u00e0 personne, n'est-ce pas?\n\nL'enfant promit, mais sans comprendre. Pendant tout le cours de la\njourn\u00e9e, le cerveau de la jeune femme fut en \u00e9bullition; elle formait\nles projets les plus fantastiques, forgeait des plans, des intrigues,\ntous plus dangereux les uns que les autres et tr\u00e8s effrayants par leurs\ncons\u00e9quences. Cette perspective de vengeance donnait \u00e0 son visage une\nexpression de joie f\u00e9roce et de je ne sais quoi de diabolique. La fi\u00e8vre\nde l'inqui\u00e9tude la gagnait, elle ne pouvait ni rester en place, ni lire,\nni travailler. Le mouvement seul, \u00e9tait un d\u00e9rivatif pour elle. Elle\nfondait sur le don particulier de son fils les plus vives esp\u00e9rances et\nse r\u00e9p\u00e9tait sans cesse en faisant allusion au pass\u00e9:\n\n--Mon mari a fait mourir mon p\u00e8re de chagrin, et voil\u00e0 des ann\u00e9es que,\nnuit et jour, je cherche en vain le moyen de me venger, de le faire\nsouffrir \u00e0 son tour. Je l'ai trouv\u00e9 maintenant. Je l'ai trouv\u00e9, ce\nmoyen.\n\nLorsque vint la nuit, son agitation ne fit que cro\u00eetre. Elle continua\nses exp\u00e9riences; une bougie \u00e0 la main elle se mit \u00e0 parcourir sa maison\nde la cave au grenier, cachant des aiguilles, des \u00e9pingles, des bobines\nde fil, des ciseaux sous les oreillers, sous les tapis, dans les fentes\ndes murs, dans le coffre \u00e0 charbon, puis elle envoya le petit Archy les\nchercher dans l'obscurit\u00e9; il trouva tout, et semblait ravi des\nencouragements que lui prodiguait sa m\u00e8re en le couvrant de caresses.\n\nA partir de ce moment, la vie lui apparut sous un angle nouveau;\nl'avenir lui semblait assur\u00e9; elle n'avait plus qu'\u00e0 attendre le jour de\nla vengeance et jouir de cette perspective. Tout ce qui avait perdu de\nl'int\u00e9r\u00eat \u00e0 ses yeux se prit \u00e0 rena\u00eetre. Elle s'adonna de nouveau \u00e0 la\nmusique, aux langues, au dessin, \u00e0 la peinture, et aux plaisirs de sa\njeunesse si longtemps d\u00e9laiss\u00e9s. De nouveau elle se sentait heureuse, et\nretrouvait un semblant de charme \u00e0 l'existence. A mesure que son fils\ngrandissait, elle surveillait ses progr\u00e8s avec une joie indescriptible\net un bonheur parfait.\n\nLe coeur de cet enfant \u00e9tait plus ouvert \u00e0 la douceur qu'\u00e0 la duret\u00e9.\nC'\u00e9tait m\u00eame \u00e0 ses yeux son seul d\u00e9faut. Mais elle sentait bien que son\namour et son adoration pour elle auraient raison de cette\npr\u00e9disposition.\n\nPourvu qu'il sache ha\u00efr! C'\u00e9tait le principal; restait \u00e0 savoir s'il\nserait aussi tenace et aussi ancr\u00e9 dans son ressentiment que dans son\naffection. Ceci \u00e9tait moins s\u00fbr.\n\nLes ann\u00e9es passaient. Archy \u00e9tait devenu un jeune homme \u00e9l\u00e9gant, bien\ncamp\u00e9, tr\u00e8s fort \u00e0 tous les exercices du corps; poli, bien \u00e9lev\u00e9, de\nmani\u00e8res agr\u00e9ables il portait un peu plus de seize ans. Un soir, sa m\u00e8re\nlui d\u00e9clara qu'elle voulait aborder avec lui un sujet important,\najoutant qu'il \u00e9tait assez grand et raisonnable pour mener \u00e0 bien un\nprojet difficile qu'elle avait con\u00e7u et m\u00fbri pendant de longues ann\u00e9es.\nPuis elle lui raconta sa lamentable histoire dans tous ses d\u00e9tails. Le\njeune homme semblait terroris\u00e9; mais, au bout d'un moment, il dit \u00e0 sa\nm\u00e8re:\n\n--Je comprends maintenant; nous sommes des Sudistes; le caract\u00e8re de son\nodieux crime ne comporte qu'une seule expiation possible. Je le\nchercherai, je le tuerai.\n\n--Le tuer? Non. La mort est un repos, une d\u00e9livrance; c'est un bienfait\ndu ciel! il ne le m\u00e9rite pas. Il ne faut pas toucher \u00e0 un cheveu de sa\nt\u00eate!\n\nLe jeune homme r\u00e9fl\u00e9chit un instant, puis reprit:\n\n--Vous \u00eates tout pour moi, m\u00e8re; votre volont\u00e9 doit \u00eatre la mienne; vos\nd\u00e9sirs sont imp\u00e9ratifs pour moi. Dites-moi ce que je dois faire, je le\nferai.\n\nLes yeux de Mme Stillmann \u00e9tincelaient de joie.\n\n--Tu partiras \u00e0 sa recherche, dit-elle. Depuis onze ans je connais le\nlieu de sa retraite; il m'a fallu cinq ans et plus pour le d\u00e9couvrir,\nsans compter l'argent que j'ai d\u00fb d\u00e9penser. Il est dans une situation\nais\u00e9e et exploite une mine au Colorado. Il habite Denver et s'appelle\nJacob Fuller. Voil\u00e0. C'est la premi\u00e8re fois que j'en parle depuis cette\nnuit inoubliable. Songe donc! ce nom aurait pu \u00eatre le tien, si je ne\nt'avais \u00e9pargn\u00e9 cette honte en t'en donnant un plus respectable. Tu\nl'arracheras \u00e0 sa retraite, tu le traqueras, tu le poursuivras, et cela\ntoujours sans rel\u00e2che, ni tr\u00eave; tu empoisonneras son existence en lui\ncausant des terreurs folles, des cauchemars angoissants, si bien qu'il\npr\u00e9f\u00e9rera la mort et aura le courage de se suicider. Tu feras de lui un\nnouveau Juif errant; il faut qu'il ne connaisse plus un instant de repos\net que, m\u00eame en songe, son esprit soit pers\u00e9cut\u00e9 par le remords. Sois\ndonc son ombre, suis-le pas \u00e0 pas, martyrise-le en te souvenant qu'il a\n\u00e9t\u00e9 le bourreau de ta m\u00e8re et de mon p\u00e8re.\n\n--M\u00e8re, j'ob\u00e9irai.\n\n--J'ai confiance, mon fils. Tout est pr\u00eat, j'ai tout pr\u00e9vu pour ta\nmission. Voici une lettre de cr\u00e9dit, d\u00e9pense largement; l'argent ne doit\npas \u00eatre compt\u00e9. Tu auras besoin de d\u00e9guisements sans doute et de\nbeaucoup d'autres choses auxquelles j'ai pens\u00e9.\n\nElle tira du tiroir de sa table plusieurs carr\u00e9s de papier portant les\nmots suivants \u00e9crits \u00e0 la machine:\n\n10.000 DOLLARS DE PRIME\n\n\u00abOn croit qu'un certain individu qui s\u00e9journe ici est vivement recherch\u00e9\ndans un \u00c9tat de l'Est.\n\n\u00abEn 1880, pendant une nuit, il aurait attach\u00e9 sa jeune femme \u00e0 un arbre,\npr\u00e8s de la grand'route, et l'aurait cravach\u00e9e avec une lani\u00e8re de cuir;\non assure qu'il a fait d\u00e9chirer ses v\u00eatements par ses chiens et l'a\nlaiss\u00e9e toute nue au bord de la route. Il s'est ensuite enfui du pays.\nUn cousin de la malheureuse jeune femme a recherch\u00e9 le criminel pendant\ndix-sept ans (adresse... Poste restante). La prime de dix mille dollars\nsera pay\u00e9e comptant \u00e0 la personne qui, dans un entretien particulier,\nindiquera au cousin de la victime la retraite du coupable.\u00bb\n\n--Quand tu l'auras d\u00e9couvert et que tu seras s\u00fbr de bien tenir sa piste,\ntu iras au milieu de la nuit placarder une de ces affiches sur le\nb\u00e2timent qu'il occupe; tu en poseras une autre sur un \u00e9tablissement\nimportant de la localit\u00e9. Cette histoire deviendra la fable du pays.\nTout d'abord, il faudra par un moyen quelconque, que tu le forces \u00e0\nvendre une partie de ce qui lui appartient: nous y arriverons peu \u00e0 peu,\nnous l'appauvrirons graduellement, car si nous le ruinions d'un seul\ncoup, il pourrait, dans un acc\u00e8s de d\u00e9sespoir chercher \u00e0 se tuer.\n\nElle prit dans le tiroir quelques sp\u00e9cimens d'affiches diff\u00e9rentes,\ntoutes \u00e9crites \u00e0 la machine, et en lut une:\n\n\u00abA Jacob Fuller... Vous avez... jours pour r\u00e9gler vos affaires. Vous ne\nserez ni tourment\u00e9 ni d\u00e9rang\u00e9 pendant ce temps qui expirera \u00e0... heures\ndu matin le... 18... A ce moment pr\u00e9cis il vous faudra d\u00e9m\u00e9nager. Si\nvous \u00eates encore ici \u00e0 l'heure que je vous fixe comme derni\u00e8re limite,\nj'afficherai votre histoire sur tous les murs de cette localit\u00e9, je\nferai conna\u00eetre votre crime dans tous ses d\u00e9tails, en pr\u00e9cisant les\ndates et tous les noms, \u00e0 commencer par le v\u00f4tre. Ne craignez plus\naucune vengeance physique; dans aucun cas, vous n'aurez \u00e0 redouter une\nagression. Vous avez \u00e9t\u00e9 inf\u00e2me pour un vieillard, vous lui avez tortur\u00e9\nle coeur. Ce qu'il a souffert, vous le souffrirez \u00e0 votre tour.\u00bb\n\n--Tu n'ajouteras aucune signature. Il faut qu'il re\u00e7oive ce message \u00e0\nson r\u00e9veil, de bonne heure, avant qu'il connaisse la prime promise, sans\ncela, il pourrait perdre la t\u00eate et fuir sans emporter un sou.\n\n--Je n'oublierai rien.\n\n--Tu n'auras sans doute besoin d'employer ces affiches qu'au d\u00e9but;\npeut-\u00eatre m\u00eame une seule suffira. Ensuite, lorsqu'il sera sur le point\nde quitter un endroit, arrange-toi pour qu'il re\u00e7oive un extrait du\nmessage commen\u00e7ant par ces mots: \u00abIl faut d\u00e9m\u00e9nager, vous avez...\njours.\u00bb Il ob\u00e9ira, c'est certain.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nEXTRAITS DE LETTRES A SA M\u00c8RE\n\n\nDenver, 3 avril 1897.\n\nJe viens d'habiter le m\u00eame local que Jacob Fuller pendant plusieurs\njours. Je tiens sa trace maintenant; je pourrais le d\u00e9pister et le\nsuivre \u00e0 travers dix divisions d'infanterie. Je l'ai souvent approch\u00e9 et\nl'ai entendu parler. Il poss\u00e8de un bon terrain et tire un parti\navantageux de sa mine; mais, malgr\u00e9 cela, il n'est pas tr\u00e8s riche. Il a\nappris le travail de mineur en suivant la meilleure des m\u00e9thodes, celle\nqui consiste \u00e0 travailler comme un ouvrier \u00e0 gages. Il para\u00eet assez gai\nde caract\u00e8re, porte gaillardement ses quarante-quatre ans; il semble\nplus jeune qu'il n'est, et on lui donnerait \u00e0 peine trente-six ou\ntrente-sept ans. Il ne s'est jamais remari\u00e9 et passe ici pour veuf. Il\nest bien pos\u00e9, consid\u00e9r\u00e9, s'est rendu populaire et a beaucoup d'amis.\nMoi-m\u00eame j'\u00e9prouve une certaine sympathie pour lui; c'est \u00e9videmment la\nvoix du sang qui crie en moi!\n\nCombien aveugles, insens\u00e9es et arbitraires sont certaines lois de la\nnature, la plupart d'entre elles au fond! Ma t\u00e2che est devenue bien\np\u00e9nible maintenant. Vous le saisissez, n'est-ce pas? et vous me\npardonnerez ce sentiment? Ma soif de vengeance du d\u00e9but s'est un peu\napais\u00e9e, plus m\u00eame que je n'ose en convenir devant vous; mais je vous\npromets de mener \u00e0 bien la mission que vous m'avez confi\u00e9e. J'\u00e9prouverai\npeut-\u00eatre moins de satisfaction, mais mon devoir reste imp\u00e9rieux: je\nl'accomplirai jusqu'au bout, soyez-en s\u00fbre. Je ressens pourtant un\nprofond sentiment d'indignation lorsque je constate que l'auteur de ce\ncrime odieux est le seul qui n'en ait pas souffert. Son action inf\u00e2me a\ntourn\u00e9 enti\u00e8rement \u00e0 son avantage, et au bout du compte il est heureux.\nLui, criminel, s'est vu \u00e9pargner toutes les souffrances; vous,\nl'innocente victime, vous les supportez avec une r\u00e9signation admirable.\nMais rassurez-vous, il r\u00e9coltera sa part d'amertumes, je m'en charge.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSilver Gulch, 19 mai...\n\nJ'ai placard\u00e9 l'affiche n\u00b0 1 le 3 avril \u00e0 minuit; une heure plus tard,\nj'ai gliss\u00e9 sous la porte de sa chambre l'affiche n\u00b0 2, lui signifiant\nde quitter Denver la nuit du 14 avant 11 h. 50.\n\nQuelque vieux roublard de reporter m'a vol\u00e9 une affiche; en furetant\ndans toute la ville, il a d\u00e9couvert ma seconde qu'il a \u00e9galement\nsubtilis\u00e9e. Ainsi, il a fait ce qu'on appelle en terme professionnel \u00abun\nbon scoop\u00bb, c'est-\u00e0-dire qu'il a su se procurer un document pr\u00e9cieux, en\ns'arrangeant pour qu'aucun autre journal que le sien n'ait le m\u00eame\n\u00abtuyau\u00bb. Ce scoop a permis \u00e0 son journal, le principal de l'endroit,\nd'imprimer la nouvelle en gros caract\u00e8res en t\u00eate de son article de fond\ndu lendemain matin; venait ensuite un long dithyrambe sur notre malheur\naccompagn\u00e9 de violents commentaires sur le coupable; en m\u00eame temps, le\njournal ouvrait une souscription de 1.000 dollars pour renforcer la\nprime d\u00e9j\u00e0 promise. Les feuilles publiques de ce pays s'entendent\nmerveilleusement \u00e0 soutenir une noble cause... surtout lorsqu'elles\nentrevoient une bonne affaire.\n\nJ'\u00e9tais assis \u00e0 table comme de coutume, \u00e0 une place choisie pour me\npermettre d'observer et de d\u00e9visager Jacob Fuller; je pouvais en m\u00eame\ntemps \u00e9couter ce qui se disait \u00e0 sa table. Les quatre-vingts ou cent\npersonnes de la salle commentaient l'article du journal en souhaitant la\nd\u00e9couverte de cette canaille qui infectait la ville de sa pr\u00e9sence. Pour\ns'en d\u00e9barrasser, tous les moyens \u00e9taient bons; on avait le choix du\nproc\u00e9d\u00e9: une balle, une canne plomb\u00e9e, etc.\n\nLorsque Fuller entra, il avait dans une main l'affiche (pli\u00e9e), dans\nl'autre le journal. Cette vue me stup\u00e9fia et me donna des battements de\ncoeur. Il avait l'air sombre et semblait plus vieux de dix ans, en m\u00eame\ntemps que tr\u00e8s pr\u00e9occup\u00e9; son teint \u00e9tait devenu terreux. Et songez un\npeu, ma ch\u00e8re maman, \u00e0 tous les propos qu'il dut entendre! Ses propres\namis, qui ne le soup\u00e7onnaient pas, lui appliquaient les \u00e9pith\u00e8tes et les\nqualificatifs les plus inf\u00e2mes, en se servant du vocabulaire tr\u00e8s\nrisqu\u00e9 des dictionnaires dont la vente est permise ici. Et, qui plus\nest, il dut prendre part \u00e0 la discussion et partager les appr\u00e9ciations\nv\u00e9h\u00e9mentes de ses amis. Cette circonstance le mettait mal \u00e0 l'aise, et\nil ne parvint pas \u00e0 me le dissimuler; je remarquai facilement qu'il\navait perdu l'app\u00e9tit et qu'il grignotait pour se donner contenance. A\nla fin, un des convives d\u00e9clara:\n\n--Il est probable que le vengeur de ce forfait est parmi nous dans cette\nsalle et qu'il partage notre indignation g\u00e9n\u00e9rale contre cet\ninqualifiable sc\u00e9l\u00e9rat. Je l'esp\u00e8re, du moins.\n\nAh! ma m\u00e8re! Si vous aviez vu la mani\u00e8re dont Fuller grima\u00e7ait et\nregardait effar\u00e9 autour de lui. C'\u00e9tait vraiment pitoyable! N'y pouvant\nplus tenir, il se leva et sortit.\n\nPendant quelques jours, il donna \u00e0 entendre qu'il avait achet\u00e9 une mine\n\u00e0 Mexico et voulait liquider sa situation \u00e0 Denver pour aller au plus\nt\u00f4t s'occuper de sa nouvelle propri\u00e9t\u00e9 et la g\u00e9rer lui-m\u00eame.\n\nIl joua bien son r\u00f4le, annon\u00e7a qu'il emporterait avec lui quarante mille\ndollars, un quart en argent, le reste en billets; mais comme il avait\ngrandement besoin d'argent pour r\u00e9gler sa r\u00e9cente acquisition, il \u00e9tait\nd\u00e9cid\u00e9 \u00e0 vendre \u00e0 bas prix pour r\u00e9aliser en esp\u00e8ces. Il vendit donc son\nbien pour trente mille dollars. Puis, devinez ce qu'il fit.\n\nIl exigea le paiement en monnaie d'argent, pr\u00e9textant que l'homme avec\nlequel il venait de faire affaire \u00e0 Mexico \u00e9tait un natif de\nNew-England, un maniaque plein de lubies qui pr\u00e9f\u00e9rait l'argent \u00e0 l'or\nou aux traites. Le motif parut \u00e9trange, \u00e9tant donn\u00e9 qu'une traite sur\nNew-York pouvait se payer en argent sans la moindre difficult\u00e9. On jasa\nde cette originalit\u00e9 pendant un jour ou deux, puis ce fut tout, les\nsujets de discussion ne durent d'ailleurs jamais plus longtemps dans ce\nbeau pays de Denver.\n\nJe surveillais mon homme sans interruption; d\u00e8s que le march\u00e9 fut conclu\net qu'il eut l'argent en poche, ce qui arriva le 11, je m'attachai \u00e0 ses\npas, sans perdre de vue le moindre de ses mouvements. Cette nuit-l\u00e0, ou\nplut\u00f4t le 12 (car il \u00e9tait un peu plus de minuit), je le filai jusqu'\u00e0\nsa chambre qui donnait sur le m\u00eame corridor que la mienne, puis, je\nrentrai chez moi; j'endossai mon d\u00e9guisement sordide de laboureur, me\nmaquillai la figure en cons\u00e9quence, et m'assis dans ma chambre obscure,\ngardant \u00e0 port\u00e9e de ma main un sac plein de v\u00eatements de rechange. Je\nlaissai ma porte entreb\u00e2ill\u00e9e, me doutant bien que l'oiseau ne tarderait\npas \u00e0 s'envoler. Au bout d'une demi-heure, une vieille femme passa; elle\nportait un sac. Un coup d'oeil rapide me suffit pour reconna\u00eetre Fuller\nsous ce d\u00e9guisement; je pris mon baluchon et le suivis.\n\nIl quitta l'h\u00f4tel par une porte de c\u00f4t\u00e9; et, tournant au coin de\nl'\u00e9tablissement, il prit une rue d\u00e9serte qu'il remonta pendant quelques\ninstants, sans se pr\u00e9occuper de l'obscurit\u00e9 et de la pluie. Il entra\ndans une cour et monta dans une voiture \u00e0 deux chevaux qu'il avait\ncommand\u00e9e \u00e0 l'avance; sans permission, je grimpe derri\u00e8re, sur le coffre\n\u00e0 bagages, et nous part\u00eemes \u00e0 grande allure. Apr\u00e8s avoir parcouru une\ndizaine de milles, la voiture s'arr\u00eata \u00e0 une petite gare. Fuller en\ndescendit et s'assit sur un chariot remis\u00e9 sous la v\u00e9randa, \u00e0 une\ndistance calcul\u00e9e de la lumi\u00e8re; j'entrai pour surveiller le guichet des\nbillets. Fuller n'en prenant pas, je l'imitai. Le train arriva: Fuller\nse fit ouvrir un compartiment; je montai dans le m\u00eame wagon \u00e0 l'autre\nextr\u00e9mit\u00e9, et suivant tranquillement le couloir, je m'installai derri\u00e8re\nlui. Lorsqu'il paya sa place au conducteur, il fallut bien indiquer sa\ngare de destination; je me glissai alors un peu plus pr\u00e8s de lui pendant\nque l'employ\u00e9 lui rendait sa monnaie.\n\nQuand vint mon tour de payer, je pris un billet pour la m\u00eame station que\nFuller, situ\u00e9e \u00e0 environ cent milles vers l'Ouest. A partir de ce\nmoment-l\u00e0, et pendant une semaine, j'ai d\u00fb mener une existence\nimpossible. Il poussait toujours plus loin dans la r\u00e9gion Ouest. Mais,\nau bout de vingt-quatre heures, il avait cess\u00e9 d'\u00eatre une femme. Devenu\nun bon laboureur comme moi, il portait de grands favoris roux. Son\n\u00e9quipement \u00e9tait parfait, et il pouvait jouer son personnage mieux que\ntout autre, puisqu'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 r\u00e9ellement un ouvrier \u00e0 gages. Son\nmeilleur ami ne l'aurait pas reconnu. A la fin, il s'\u00e9tablit ici, dans\nun camp perdu sur une petite montagne de Montana; il habite une maison\nprimitive et va prospecter tous les jours; du matin au soir, il \u00e9vite\ntoute relation avec ses semblables.\n\nJ'ai pris pension \u00e0 une guinguette de mineurs. Vous ne pouvez vous\nfigurer le peu de confortable que j'y trouve. Rien n'y manque: les\npunaises, la salet\u00e9, la nourriture infecte.\n\nVoil\u00e0 quatre semaines que nous sommes ici, et pendant tout ce temps, je\nne l'ai aper\u00e7u qu'une fois; mais, chaque nuit, je suis \u00e0 la trace ses\nall\u00e9es et venues de la journ\u00e9e et me mets en embuscade pour l'observer.\nD\u00e8s qu'il a eu lou\u00e9 une hutte ici, je me suis rendu \u00e0 cinquante mille\nd'ici pour t\u00e9l\u00e9graphier \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel de Denver de garder mes bagages\njusqu'\u00e0 nouvel ordre. Ici je n'ai besoin que de quelques chemises de\nrechange que j'ai eu soin d'apporter avec moi.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSilver Gulch, 12 juin.\n\nJe crois que l'\u00e9pisode de Denver n'a pas eu son \u00e9cho jusqu'ici. Je\nconnais presque tous les habitants du Camp et ils n'y ont pas encore\nfait la moindre allusion, du moins, devant moi. Sans aucun doute, Fuller\nse trouve tr\u00e8s heureux; il a lou\u00e9 \u00e0 deux milles d'ici, dans un coin\nretir\u00e9 de la montagne, une concession qui promet un bon rendement et\ndont il s'occupe tr\u00e8s s\u00e9rieusement. Mais, malgr\u00e9 cela, il est\nm\u00e9tamorphos\u00e9 d'aspect! Jamais plus il ne sourit, il se concentre en\nlui-m\u00eame et vit comme un ours, lui qui \u00e9tait si sociable et si gai, il y\na \u00e0 peine deux mois! Je l'ai vu passer plusieurs fois ces derniers\njours, abattu, triste, et l'air d\u00e9prim\u00e9. Il fait peine \u00e0 voir. Il\ns'appelle maintenant David Wilson.\n\nJe m'imagine qu'il restera ici, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que nous le d\u00e9logions de\nnouveau. Puisque vous le voulez, je continuerai \u00e0 le pers\u00e9cuter, mais je\nne vois pas en quoi il peut \u00eatre plus malheureux qu'\u00e0 pr\u00e9sent. Je\nretournerai \u00e0 Denver, m'accorder une saison de repos et d'agr\u00e9ment; je\nm'offrirai une nourriture meilleure, un lit plus confortable et des\nv\u00eatements plus propres; puis je prendrai mes bagages et ferai d\u00e9m\u00e9nager\nle malheureux Wilson.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nDenver, 19 juin.\n\nTout le monde le regrette ici. On esp\u00e8re qu'il fait fortune \u00e0 Mexico;\nles voeux qu'on forme pour lui sont tr\u00e8s sinc\u00e8res, et viennent du coeur.\nJe m'en rends parfaitement compte: je m'attarde \u00e0 plaisir ici, je\nl'avoue; mais si vous \u00e9tiez \u00e0 ma place vous auriez piti\u00e9 de moi. Je sens\nbien ce que vous allez penser de moi; vous avez cent fois raison au\nfond. Si j'\u00e9tais \u00e0 votre place, et si je portais dans mon coeur une\ncicatrice aussi profonde!!!... C'est d\u00e9cid\u00e9. Je prendrai demain le train\nde nuit.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nDenver 20 juin.\n\nDieu me pardonne, m\u00e8re! nous sommes sur une fausse piste; nous\npourchassons un innocent! Je n'en ai pas dormi de la nuit; le jour\ncommence \u00e0 poindre et j'attends impatiemment le train du matin!... Mais\nque les minutes me semblent longues, longues...\n\nCe Jacob Fuller est un cousin du coupable! Comment n'avons-nous pas\nsuppos\u00e9 plus t\u00f4t que le criminel ne porterait plus jamais son vrai nom\napr\u00e8s son m\u00e9fait? Le Fuller de Denver a quatre ans de moins que l'autre;\nil est venu ici \u00e0 vingt et un ans, en 1879, et \u00e9tait veuf un an avant\nvotre mariage; les preuves \u00e0 l'appui de ce que j'avance sont\ninnombrables. Hier soir, j'ai longuement parl\u00e9 de lui \u00e0 des amis qui le\nconnaissaient depuis le jour de son arriv\u00e9e. Je n'ai pas bronch\u00e9, mais\nmon opinion est bien arr\u00eat\u00e9e: dans quelques jours, je le rapatrierai en\nayant soin de l'indemniser de la perte qu'il a subie en vendant sa mine;\nen son honneur je donnerai un banquet, une retraite aux flambeaux et une\nillumination dont les frais retomberont sur moi seul; on me traitera\npeut-\u00eatre \u00abd'esbrouffeur\u00bb, mais cela m'est \u00e9gal. Je suis tr\u00e8s jeune,\nvous le savez bien, et c'est l\u00e0 mon excuse. Dans quelque temps on ne\npourra plus me traiter en enfant.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSilver Gulch, 2 juillet.\n\nM\u00e8re! Il est parti! Parti sans laisser aucun indice. Sa trace \u00e9tait\nrefroidie \u00e0 mon arriv\u00e9e; je n'ai pu la retrouver. Je me l\u00e8ve aujourd'hui\npour la premi\u00e8re fois depuis cet \u00e9v\u00e9nement. Mon Dieu! comme je voudrais\navoir quelques ann\u00e9es de plus pour mieux supporter les \u00e9motions. Tout le\nmonde croit qu'il est parti pour l'Ouest; aussi vais-je me mettre en\nroute ce soir; je gagnerai en voiture la gare la plus voisine \u00e0 deux ou\ntrois heures d'ici; je ne sais pas bien o\u00f9 je vais, mais je ne puis\nplus tenir en place; l'inaction en ce moment me met \u00e0 la torture.\n\nBien entendu, il se cache sous un faux nom et un nouveau d\u00e9guisement.\nCeci me fait supposer que j'aurai peut-\u00eatre \u00e0 parcourir le monde entier\npour le trouver! C'est du moins ce que je crois. Voyez-vous, m\u00e8re! le\nJuif errant, en ce moment: c'est moi. Quelle ironie! Et dire que nous\navions r\u00e9serv\u00e9 \u00abce r\u00f4le \u00e0 un autre\u00bb!\n\nToutes ces difficult\u00e9s seraient aplanies si je pouvais placarder une\nnouvelle affiche. Mais je me sens incapable de trouver dans mon cerveau\nun proc\u00e9d\u00e9 qui n'effraye pas le pauvre fugitif. Ma t\u00eate est pr\u00eate \u00e0\n\u00e9clater. J'avais song\u00e9 \u00e0 cette affiche:\n\n\u00abSi le Monsieur qui a derni\u00e8rement achet\u00e9 une mine \u00e0 Mexico et en a\nvendu une \u00e0 Denver veut bien donner son adresse\u00bb (mais \u00e0 qui la donner?)\n\u00abil lui sera expliqu\u00e9 comment il y a eu m\u00e9prise \u00e0 son sujet; on lui fera\ndes excuses et on r\u00e9parera le tort qui lui a \u00e9t\u00e9 caus\u00e9 en l'indemnisant\naussi largement que possible.\u00bb\n\nMais comprenez-vous la difficult\u00e9? Il croira \u00e0 un pi\u00e8ge; c'est tout\nnaturel, d'ailleurs! Je pourrais encore \u00e9crire: \u00abIl est maintenant\nav\u00e9r\u00e9 que la personne recherch\u00e9e n'est pas celle qu'on a trouv\u00e9e; il\nexistait une similitude de nom; mais il y a eu \u00e9change pour des raisons\nsp\u00e9ciales.\u00bb Cela pourrait-il aller? Je crains que les soup\u00e7ons des gens\nde Denver ne soient \u00e9veill\u00e9s. Ils ne manqueront pas de dire en se\nrappelant les particularit\u00e9s de son d\u00e9part: Pourquoi s'est-il enfui s'il\nn'\u00e9tait pas coupable? Si je ne r\u00e9ussis pas \u00e0 le trouver, il sera perdu\ndans l'estime des gens de Denver qui le portent tr\u00e8s haut. Vous qui avez\nplus d'exp\u00e9rience et d'imagination que moi, venez \u00e0 mon aide, ma ch\u00e8re\nm\u00e8re!\n\nJe n'ai qu'une clef, une clef unique, je connais son \u00e9criture; s'il\ninscrit son nouveau nom sur un registre d'h\u00f4tel sans prendre le soin de\nla contrefaire tr\u00e8s bien, je pourrai la reconna\u00eetre, mais il faut pour\ncela que le hasard me fasse rencontrer le fugitif.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSan-Francisco, 28 juin 1898.\n\nVous savez avec quel soin j'ai fouill\u00e9 tous les \u00c9tats du Colorado au\nPacifique, et comment j'ai failli toucher au but. Eh bien! je viens\nencore d'\u00e9prouver un nouvel \u00e9chec et cela pas plus tard qu'hier. J'avais\nretrouv\u00e9 dans la rue sa trace encore chaude qui me conduisit vers un\nh\u00f4tel de second ordre. Je me suis tromp\u00e9; j'ai d\u00fb suivre le contre-pied;\nles chiens le font bien! Mais je ne poss\u00e8de malheureusement qu'une\npartie des instincts du chien, et souvent je me laisse induire en erreur\npar mes facult\u00e9s d'homme. Il a quitt\u00e9 cet h\u00f4tel depuis dix jours,\nm'a-t-on dit. Je sais maintenant qu'il ne s\u00e9journe plus nulle part\ndepuis les six ou huit derniers mois, qu'il est pris d'un grand besoin\nde mouvement et ne peut plus rester tranquille. Je partage ce sentiment\net sais combien il est p\u00e9nible! Il continue \u00e0 porter le nom qu'il avait\ninscrit au moment o\u00f9 j'\u00e9tais si pr\u00e8s de le pincer, il y a neuf mois:\n\u00abJames Walker\u00bb; c'est aussi celui qu'il avait adopt\u00e9 en fuyant Silver\nGulch. Il ne fait pas d'effort d'imagination et a d\u00e9cid\u00e9ment peu de go\u00fbt\npour les noms de fantaisie. Il m'a \u00e9t\u00e9 facile de reconna\u00eetre son\n\u00e9criture tr\u00e8s l\u00e9g\u00e8rement d\u00e9guis\u00e9e.\n\nOn m'assure qu'il vient de partir en voyage sans laisser d'adresse et\nsans dire o\u00f9 il allait; qu'il a pris un air effar\u00e9 lorsqu'on le\nquestionnait sur ses projets; il n'avait, para\u00eet-il, qu'une valise\nordinaire pour tout bagage et il l'a emport\u00e9e \u00e0 la main. \u00abC'est un\npauvre petit vieux, a-t-on ajout\u00e9, dont le d\u00e9part ne fera pas grand tort\n\u00e0 la maison.\u00bb\n\nVieux! Je suppose qu'il l'est devenu maintenant, mais n'en sais pas plus\nlong, car je ne suis pas rest\u00e9 assez longtemps. Je me suis pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9 sur\nsa trace; elle m'a conduit \u00e0 un quai. M\u00e8re! La fum\u00e9e du vapeur qui\nl'emportait se perdait \u00e0 l'horizon! J'aurais pu gagner une demi-heure en\nprenant d\u00e8s le d\u00e9but la bonne direction; mais il \u00e9tait m\u00eame trop tard\npour fr\u00e9ter un remorqueur et courir la chance de rattraper son bateau!\nIl est maintenant en route pour Melbourne!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHope Canyon, Californie.\n\n3 octobre 1900.\n\nVous \u00eates en droit de vous plaindre. Une lettre en un an: c'est trop\npeu, j'en conviens; mais comment peut-on \u00e9crire lorsqu'on n'a \u00e0\nenregistrer que des insucc\u00e8s? Tout le monde se laisserait d\u00e9monter;\npour ma part, je n'ai plus de coeur \u00e0 rien.\n\nJe vous ai racont\u00e9, il y a longtemps, comment je l'avais manqu\u00e9, \u00e0\nMelbourne, puis comment je l'avais pourchass\u00e9 pendant des mois en\nAustralie. Apr\u00e8s cela, je l'ai suivi aux Indes, je crois m\u00eame l'avoir\naper\u00e7u \u00e0 Bombay; j'ai refait derri\u00e8re lui tout son voyage, \u00e0 Baroda,\nRawal, Pindi, Lucknow, Lahore, Cawnpore, Allahabad, Calcutta, Madras,\nsemaine par semaine, mois par mois, sous une chaleur torride et dans une\npoussi\u00e8re! Je le traquais de pr\u00e8s, et croyais le tenir; mais il s'est\ntoujours \u00e9chapp\u00e9. Puis, \u00e0 Ceylan, puis \u00e0...\n\nMais je vous raconterai tout cela en d\u00e9tail. Il m'a ramen\u00e9 en\nCalifornie, puis \u00e0 Mexico, et de l\u00e0 il retourna en Californie. Depuis ce\nmoment-l\u00e0, je l'ai pourchass\u00e9 dans tous les pays, depuis le 1er janvier\njusqu'au mois dernier. Je suis presque certain qu'il se tient pr\u00e8s de\nHope Canyon. J'ai suivi sa trace jusqu'\u00e0 trente milles d'ici, mais je\nl'ai perdue; pour moi, quelqu'un a d\u00fb l'enlever en voiture.\n\nMaintenant je me repose de mes recherches infructueuses. Je suis\n\u00e9reint\u00e9, m\u00e8re! d\u00e9courag\u00e9 et bien souvent pr\u00e8s de perdre mon dernier\nespoir. Pourtant, les mineurs de ce pays sont de braves gens; leurs\nmani\u00e8res affables que je connais de longue date et leur franchise\nd'allures sont bien faites pour me remonter le moral et me faire oublier\nmes ennuis. Voil\u00e0 plus d'un mois que je suis ici. Je partage la cabane\nd'un jeune homme d'environ vingt-cinq ans, \u00abSammy Hillyer\u00bb, comme moi\nfils unique d'une m\u00e8re qu'il idol\u00e2tre et \u00e0 qui il \u00e9crit r\u00e9guli\u00e8rement\nchaque semaine (ce dernier trait me ressemble moins). Il est timide, et\nsous le rapport de l'intelligence... certes... il ne faudrait pas lui\ndemander de mettre le feu \u00e0 une rivi\u00e8re; \u00e0 part cela, je l'aime\nbeaucoup; il est bon camarade, assez distingu\u00e9, et je b\u00e9nis le ciel de\nme l'avoir donn\u00e9 pour ami; je peux au moins \u00e9changer avec lui mes\nimpressions; c'est une grande satisfaction, je vous assure. Si seulement\n\u00abJames Walker\u00bb avait cette compensation, lui qui aime la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 et la\nbonne camaraderie. Cette comparaison me fait penser \u00e0 lui, \u00e0 la derni\u00e8re\nentrevue que nous avons eue. Quel chaos que tout cela, lorsque j'y\nsonge!\n\nA cette \u00e9poque, je luttais contre ma conscience pour m'attacher \u00e0 sa\npoursuite! Le coeur de Sammy Hillyer est meilleur que le mien, meilleur\nque tous ceux de cette petite r\u00e9publique, j'imagine; car il se d\u00e9clare\nle seul ami de la brebis galeuse du camp, un nomm\u00e9 Flint Buckner. Ce\ndernier n'adresse la parole \u00e0 personne en dehors de Sammy Hillyer.\n\nSammy pr\u00e9tend qu'il conna\u00eet l'histoire de Flint, que c'est le chagrin\nseul qui l'a rendu aussi sombre et que pour ce motif on devrait \u00eatre\npour lui aussi charitable que possible. Un coeur d'or seul peut\ns'accommoder du caract\u00e8re de Flint Buckner, d'apr\u00e8s tout ce que\nj'entends dire de lui. Le d\u00e9tail suivant vous donnera d'ailleurs une\nid\u00e9e plus exacte du bon coeur de Sammy que tout ce que je pourrais vous\nraconter. Au cours d'une de nos causeries, il me dit \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s ceci:\n\n\u00abFlint est un de mes compatriotes et me confie tous ses chagrins; il\nd\u00e9verse dans mon coeur le trop plein de ses tristesses quand il sent que\nle sien est pr\u00e8s d'\u00e9clater. Il est impossible de rencontrer une homme\nplus malheureux, je t'assure, Archy Stillmann: sa vie n'est qu'un tissu\nde mis\u00e8res morales qui le font para\u00eetre beaucoup plus vieux que son\n\u00e2ge. Il a perdu depuis bien des ann\u00e9es d\u00e9j\u00e0 la notion du repos et du\ncalme. Il n'a jamais connu la chance; c'est un mythe pour lui et je lui\nai souvent entendu dire qu'il soupirait apr\u00e8s l'enfer de l'autre monde\npour faire diversion aux mis\u00e8res de cette vie.\u00bb\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nC'\u00e9tait par une matin\u00e9e claire et fra\u00eeche du commencement d'octobre. Les\nlilas et les cytises, illumin\u00e9s par un radieux soleil d'automne, avaient\ndes reflets particuliers et formaient une vo\u00fbte ininterrompue que la\nnature aimable mettait \u00e0 la disposition des \u00eatres qui habitent la r\u00e9gion\ndes hautes branches. Les m\u00e9l\u00e8zes et les grenadiers profilaient leurs\nformes rouges et jaunes et jetaient une teinte de gaiet\u00e9 sur cet oc\u00e9an\nde verdure; le parfum enivrant des fleurs \u00e9ph\u00e9m\u00e8res embaumait\nl'atmosph\u00e8re en d\u00e9lire; bien haut dans les airs un grand oiseau\nsolitaire planait, majestueux et presque immobile; partout r\u00e9gnaient le\ncalme, la s\u00e9r\u00e9nit\u00e9 et la paix des r\u00e9gions \u00e9th\u00e9r\u00e9es. Ceci se passe en\noctobre 1900, \u00e0 Hope-Canyon, et nous sommes sur un terrain de mines\nargentif\u00e8res dans la r\u00e9gion d'Esm\u00e9ralva. Solitaire et recul\u00e9, l'endroit\nest de d\u00e9couverte r\u00e9cente; les nouveaux arriv\u00e9s le croient riche en\nm\u00e9tal (il suffira de le prospecter pendant un an ou deux pour \u00eatre fix\u00e9\nsur sa valeur). Comme habitants, le camp se compose d'environ deux cents\nmineurs, d'une femme blanche avec son enfant, de quelques blanchisseurs\nchinois, d'une douzaine d'Indiens plus ou moins nomades, qui portent des\nv\u00eatements en peaux de lapin, des chapeaux de li\u00e8ge et des colliers de\nbimbeloterie. Il n'y a ici ni moulins, ni \u00e9glise, ni journaux. Le camp\nn'existe que depuis deux ans et la nouvelle de sa fondation n'a pas fait\nsensation; on ignore g\u00e9n\u00e9ralement son nom et son emplacement.\n\nDes deux c\u00f4t\u00e9s de Hope-Canyon, les montagnes se dressent \u00e0 pic, formant\nune muraille de trois mille pieds, et la longue file des huttes qui\ns'\u00e9chelonnent au fond de cet entonnoir ne re\u00e7oit gu\u00e8re qu'une fois par\njour, vers midi, la caresse passag\u00e8re du soleil. Le village s'\u00e9tend sur\nenviron deux milles en longueur et les cabanes sont assez espac\u00e9es l'une\nde l'autre. L'auberge est la seule maison vraiment organis\u00e9e; on peut\nm\u00eame dire qu'elle repr\u00e9sente la seule maison du camp. Elle occupe une\nposition centrale et devient, le soir, le rendez-vous de la population.\nOn y boit, on y joue aux cartes et aux dominos: il existe un billard\ndont le tapis coutur\u00e9 de d\u00e9chirures a \u00e9t\u00e9 r\u00e9par\u00e9 avec du taffetas\nd'Angleterre. Il y a bien quelques queues, mais sans proc\u00e9d\u00e9s; quelques\nbilles fendues qui, en roulant, font un bruit de casserole f\u00eal\u00e9e et ne\ns'arr\u00eatent que par soubresauts, et m\u00eame un morceau de craie \u00e9br\u00e9ch\u00e9e; le\npremier qui arrive \u00e0 faire six carambolages de suite peut boire tant\nqu'il veut, aux frais du bar.\n\nLa case de Flint Buckner \u00e9tait au sud, la derni\u00e8re du village; sa\nconcession \u00e9tait \u00e0 l'autre extr\u00e9mit\u00e9, au nord, un peu au-del\u00e0 de la\nderni\u00e8re hutte dans cette direction. Il \u00e9tait d'un caract\u00e8re cassant,\npeu sociable, et n'avait pas d'amis. Ceux qui essayaient de frayer avec\nlui ne tardaient pas \u00e0 le regretter et lui faussaient compagnie au bout\nde peu de temps. On ne savait rien de son pass\u00e9. Les uns croyaient que\nSammy Hillyer savait quelque chose sur lui: d'autres affirmaient le\ncontraire. Si on le questionnait \u00e0 ce sujet, Sammy pr\u00e9tendait toujours\nignorer son pass\u00e9. Flint avait \u00e0 ses gages un jeune Anglais de seize\nans, tr\u00e8s timide et qu'il traitait durement, aussi bien en public que\ndans l'intimit\u00e9. Naturellement, on s'adressait \u00e0 ce jeune homme pour\navoir des renseignements sur son patron, mais toujours sans succ\u00e8s.\nFetlock Jones (c'est le nom du jeune Anglais) racontait que Flint\nl'avait recueilli en prospectant une autre mine, et comme lui-m\u00eame\nn'avait en Am\u00e9rique ni famille ni amis, il avait trouv\u00e9 sage d'accepter\nles propositions de Buckner; en retour du labeur p\u00e9nible qui lui \u00e9tait\nimpos\u00e9, Jones recevait pour tout salaire du lard et des haricots.\nC'\u00e9tait tout ce que ce jeune homme voulait raconter sur son ma\u00eetre.\n\nIl y avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 un mois que Fetlock \u00e9tait riv\u00e9 au service de Flint; son\napparence d\u00e9j\u00e0 ch\u00e9tive pouvait inspirer de jour en jour de s\u00e9rieuses\ninqui\u00e9tudes, car on le voyait d\u00e9p\u00e9rir sous l'influence des mauvais\ntraitements que lui faisait subir son ma\u00eetre. Il est reconnu, en effet,\nque les caract\u00e8res doux souffrent am\u00e8rement de la moindre brutalit\u00e9,\nplus am\u00e8rement peut-\u00eatre que les caract\u00e8res fortement tremp\u00e9s qui\ns'emportent en paroles et se laissent m\u00eame aller aux voies de fait\nquand leur patience est \u00e0 bout et que la coupe d\u00e9borde. Quelques\npersonnes compatissantes voulaient venir en aide au malheureux Fetlock\net l'engageaient \u00e0 quitter Buckner; mais le jeune homme accueillit cette\nid\u00e9e avec un effroi mal dissimul\u00e9 et r\u00e9pondit qu'il ne l'oserait jamais.\n\nPat Riley insistait en disant:\n\n--Quittez donc ce maudit harpagon et venez avec moi. N'ayez pas peur, je\nme charge de lui faire entendre raison, s'il proteste.\n\nFetlock le remercia les larmes aux yeux, mais se mit \u00e0 trembler de tous\nses membres en r\u00e9p\u00e9tant qu'il n'oserait pas, parce que Flint se\nvengerait s'il le retrouvait en t\u00eate \u00e0 t\u00eate au milieu de la nuit. \u00abEt\npuis, voyez-vous, s'\u00e9criait-il, la seule pens\u00e9e de ce qui m'arriverait\nme donne la chair de poule, M. Riley.\u00bb\n\nD'autres lui conseillaient: \u00abSauvez-vous, nous vous aiderons et vous\ngagnerez la c\u00f4te une belle nuit.\u00bb Mais toutes les suggestions ne\npouvaient le d\u00e9cider; Fetlock pr\u00e9tendait que Flint le poursuivrait et le\nram\u00e8nerait pour assouvir sa vengeance.\n\nCette id\u00e9e de vengeance, personne ne la comprenait. L'\u00e9tat mis\u00e9rable du\npauvre gar\u00e7on suivait son cours et les semaines passaient. Il est\nprobable que les amis de Fetlock se seraient rendu compte de la\nsituation, s'ils avaient connu l'emploi de ses moments perdus. Il\ncouchait dans une hutte voisine de celle de Flint et passait ses nuits \u00e0\nr\u00e9fl\u00e9chir et \u00e0 chercher un moyen infaillible de tuer Flint sans \u00eatre\nd\u00e9couvert. Il ne vivait plus que pour cela; les heures pendant\nlesquelles il machinait son complot \u00e9taient les seuls moments de la\njourn\u00e9e auxquels il aspirait avec ardeur et qui lui donnaient l'illusion\ndu bonheur.\n\nIl pensa au poison. Non, ce n'\u00e9tait pas possible; l'enqu\u00eate r\u00e9v\u00e9lerait\no\u00f9 il l'avait pris et qui le lui avait vendu. Il eut l'id\u00e9e de lui loger\nune balle dans le dos quand il le trouverait entre quatre yeux, un soir\no\u00f9 Flint rentrerait chez lui vers minuit, apr\u00e8s sa promenade accoutum\u00e9e.\n\nMais quelqu'un pourrait l'entendre et le surprendre. Il songea bien \u00e0 le\npoignarder pendant son sommeil. Mais sa main pourrait trembler, son coup\nne serait peut-\u00eatre pas assez s\u00fbr; Flint alors s'emparerait de lui. Il\nimagina des centaines de proc\u00e9d\u00e9s vari\u00e9s; aucun ne lui paraissait\ninfaillible; car les moyens les plus secrets pr\u00e9sentaient toujours un\ndanger, un risque, une possibilit\u00e9 pour lui d'\u00eatre trahi. Il ne s'arr\u00eata\ndonc \u00e0 aucun.\n\nMais il \u00e9tait d'une patience sans borne. Rien ne presse, se disait-il.\nIl se promettait de ne quitter Flint que lorsqu'il l'aurait r\u00e9duit \u00e0\nl'\u00e9tat de cadavre; mieux valait prendre son temps, il trouverait bien\nune occasion d'assouvir sa vengeance. Ce moyen existait et il le\nd\u00e9couvrirait, d\u00fbt-il pour cela subir toutes les hontes et toutes les\nmis\u00e8res.\n\nOui! il trouverait s\u00fbrement un proc\u00e9d\u00e9 qui ne laisserait aucune trace de\nson crime, pas le plus petit indice; rien ne pressait: mais quand il\nl'aurait trouv\u00e9, oh! alors, quelle joie de vivre pour lui!\n\nEn attendant, il \u00e9tait prudent de conserver religieusement intacte sa\nr\u00e9putation de douceur, et il s'effor\u00e7ait plus que jamais de ne pas\nlaisser entendre le moindre mot de son ressentiment ou de sa col\u00e8re\ncontre son oppresseur.\n\nDeux jours avant la matin\u00e9e d'octobre \u00e0 laquelle nous venons de faire\nallusion, Flint avait achet\u00e9 diff\u00e9rents objets qu'il rapportait \u00e0 sa\ncabane, aid\u00e9 par Fetlock: une caisse de bougies, qu'ils plac\u00e8rent dans\nun coin, une bo\u00eete de poudre explosible qu'ils log\u00e8rent au-dessus des\nbougies, un petit baril de poudre qu'ils d\u00e9pos\u00e8rent sous la couchette de\nFlint et un \u00e9norme chapelet de fus\u00e9es qu'ils accroch\u00e8rent \u00e0 un clou.\n\nFetlock en conclut que le travail du pic allait bient\u00f4t faire place \u00e0\ncelui de la poudre et que Flint voulait commencer \u00e0 faire sauter les\nblocs. Il avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 assist\u00e9 \u00e0 ce genre d'explosions, mais n'en\nconnaissait pas la pr\u00e9paration. Sa supposition \u00e9tait exacte; le temps de\nfaire sauter la mine \u00e9tait venu.\n\nLe lendemain matin, ils port\u00e8rent au puits les fus\u00e9es, les forets, et la\nbo\u00eete \u00e0 poudre. Le trou avait \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s huit pieds de profondeur, et\npour arriver au fond comme pour en sortir, il fallait se servir d'une\npetite \u00e9chelle. Ils descendirent donc; au commandement, Fetlock tint le\nforet (sans savoir comment s'en servir) et Flint se mit \u00e0 cogner. Au\npremier coup de marteau, le foret \u00e9chappa des mains de Fetlock et fut\nprojet\u00e9 de c\u00f4t\u00e9.\n\n--Maudit fils de n\u00e8gre, vocif\u00e9ra Flint, en voil\u00e0 une mani\u00e8re de tenir\nun foret! Ramasse-le et t\u00e2che de tenir ton outil! Je t'apprendrai ton\nm\u00e9tier, attends! Maintenant charge.\n\nLe jeune homme commen\u00e7a \u00e0 verser la poudre.\n\n--Idiot, grommela Flint, en lui appliquant sur la m\u00e2choire un grand coup\nde crosse, qui lui fit perdre l'\u00e9quilibre. L\u00e8ve-toi! Tu ne vas pas\nrester par terre, je pense. Allons, mets d'abord la m\u00e8che, maintenant la\npoudre; assez; assez! Veux-tu remplir tout le trou? Esp\u00e8ce de poule\nmouill\u00e9e! Mets de la terre, du gravier et tasse le tout. Tiens! grand\nimb\u00e9cile, sors de l\u00e0.\n\nIl lui arracha l'instrument et se mit \u00e0 damer la charge lui-m\u00eame en\njurant et blasph\u00e9mant comme un forcen\u00e9. Puis il alluma la m\u00e8che, sortit\ndu puits et courut \u00e0 cinquante m\u00e8tres de l\u00e0, suivi de Fetlock. Ils\nattendirent quelques instants: une \u00e9paisse fum\u00e9e se produisit et des\nquartiers de roche vol\u00e8rent en l'air avec un fracas d'explosion; une\npluie de pierres retomba et tout rentra dans le calme.\n\n--Quel malheur que tu ne te sois pas trouv\u00e9 l\u00e0-dedans, s'\u00e9cria le\npatron.\n\nIls redescendirent dans le puits, le nettoy\u00e8rent, pr\u00e9par\u00e8rent un\nnouveau trou et recommenc\u00e8rent la m\u00eame op\u00e9ration:\n\n--Regarde donc ce que tu fais au lieu de tout gaspiller: Tu ne sais donc\npas r\u00e9gler une charge?\n\n--Non, ma\u00eetre!\n\n--Tu ne sais pas? Ma foi! je n'ai jamais rien vu d'aussi b\u00eate que toi.\n\nIl sortit du puits et cria \u00e0 Fetlock qui restait en bas:\n\n--Eh bien! idiot! Vas-tu rester l\u00e0 toute la journ\u00e9e! Coupe la m\u00e8che et\nallume-la!\n\nLe pauvre gar\u00e7on r\u00e9pondit tout tremblant:\n\n--Ma\u00eetre, je ferai comme il vous plaira.\n\n--Comment? tu oses me r\u00e9pondre, \u00e0 moi? Coupe, allume, te dis-je!\n\nLe jeune gar\u00e7on fit ce qui lui \u00e9tait command\u00e9.\n\n--Sacrebleu, hurla Flint; tu coupes une m\u00e8che aussi courte... je\nvoudrais que tu sautes avec...\n\nDans sa col\u00e8re, il retira l'\u00e9chelle et s'enfuit.\n\nFetlock resta terroris\u00e9.\n\n--Oh! mon Dieu! mon Dieu! au secours! Je suis perdu, criait-il. Que\nfaire? que faire?\n\nIl s'adossa au mur et s'y cramponna comme il put: le p\u00e9tillement de la\npoudre qui s'allumait l'emp\u00eachait d'articuler un son; sa respiration\ns'arr\u00eata, il \u00e9tait l\u00e0 sans force et inerte; encore deux ou trois\nsecondes, et il volerait en l'air avec les blocs de pierre. Une\ninspiration subite lui vint. Il allongea le bras, saisit la m\u00e8che et\ncoupa l'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 qui d\u00e9passait d'un pouce au-dessus du sol; il \u00e9tait\nsauv\u00e9! Il tomba \u00e0 moiti\u00e9 \u00e9vanoui et mort de peur, murmurant avec un\nsourire sur les l\u00e8vres:\n\n--Il m'a montr\u00e9! Je savais bien qu'avec de la patience, j'y arriverais!\n\nCinq minutes apr\u00e8s, Buckner se glissa furtivement au puits, l'air g\u00ean\u00e9\net inquiet, et en examina le fond. Il comprit la situation et vit ce qui\n\u00e9tait arriv\u00e9; il descendit l'\u00e9chelle. Fetlock put remonter malgr\u00e9 son\ngrand affaiblissement et son \u00e9motion. Il \u00e9tait livide; sa mine\neffrayante parut impressionner Buckner qui essaya de lui t\u00e9moigner un\nregret et un semblant de sympathie; mais ces deux sentiments lui \u00e9taient\ntrop inconnus pour qu'il s\u00fbt les exprimer.\n\n--C'est un accident, lui dit-il. N'en parle \u00e0 personne, n'est-ce pas?\nJ'\u00e9tais \u00e9nerv\u00e9 et ne savais plus tr\u00e8s bien ce que je faisais. Tu me\nparais fatigu\u00e9, tu as trop travaill\u00e9 aujourd'hui. Va \u00e0 ma cabane et\nmange tout ce que tu voudras; ensuite, repose-toi bien.\n\nN'oublie pas que cet accident est d\u00fb \u00e0 mon seul \u00e9nervement.\n\n--Vous m'avez bien effray\u00e9, lui dit Fetlock en s'en allant, mais j'ai au\nmoins appris quelque chose, je ne le regrette pas.\n\n--Pas difficile \u00e0 contenter, marmotta Buckner en l'observant du coin de\nl'oeil. Je me demande s'il en parlera; l'osera-t-il? Quelle guigne qu'il\nn'ait pas \u00e9t\u00e9 tu\u00e9!\n\nFetlock ne pensa pas \u00e0 se reposer pendant le cong\u00e9 qui lui avait \u00e9t\u00e9\naccord\u00e9; il l'employa \u00e0 travailler avec ardeur et \u00e0 pr\u00e9parer,\nfi\u00e9vreusement, son plan de vengeance. Des broussailles \u00e9paisses\ncouvraient la montagne du c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la demeure de Flint. Fetlock s'y cacha\net adopta cette retraite pour machiner son complot. Ses derniers\npr\u00e9paratifs devaient se faire dans le bouge qui lui servait de hutte.\n\n--S'il a le moindre soup\u00e7on \u00e0 mon endroit, pensa-t-il, il a bien tort\nde croire que je raconterai ce qui s'est pass\u00e9; d'ailleurs, il ne le\ncroira pas longtemps; bient\u00f4t il sera fix\u00e9. Demain je ne me d\u00e9partirai\npas de ma douceur et de ma timidit\u00e9 habituelles qu'il croit\ninalt\u00e9rables. Mais apr\u00e8s-demain, au milieu de la nuit, sa derni\u00e8re heure\naura sonn\u00e9 sans que personne au monde puisse soup\u00e7onner l'auteur de sa\nmort et la mani\u00e8re dont elle sera survenue. Le piquant de la chose est\nque lui-m\u00eame m'en ait sugg\u00e9r\u00e9 l'id\u00e9e.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nLe jour suivant s'\u00e9coula sans aucun incident. Minuit va sonner et, dans\npeu d'instants, une nouvelle journ\u00e9e commencera. La sc\u00e8ne se passe au\nbar, dans la salle de billard. Des hommes d'aspect commun, aux v\u00eatements\ngrossiers, coiff\u00e9s de chapeaux \u00e0 larges bords, portent leurs pantalons\nserr\u00e9s dans de grosses bottes, ils sont tous en veston et se tiennent\ngroup\u00e9s autour d'un po\u00eale de fonte qui, bourr\u00e9 de charbon, leur\ndistribue une g\u00e9n\u00e9reuse chaleur; les billes de billard roulent avec un\nson f\u00eal\u00e9; \u00e0 l'int\u00e9rieur de la salle, on n'entend pas d'autre bruit;\nmais, au dehors, la temp\u00eate mugit. Tous paraissent ennuy\u00e9s et dans\nl'attente.\n\nUn mineur, aux \u00e9paules carr\u00e9es, entre deux \u00e2ges, avec des favoris\ngrisonnants, l'oeil dur et la physionomie maussade, se l\u00e8ve sans mot\ndire, il passe son bras dans un rouleau de m\u00e8che, ramasse quelques\nobjets lui appartenant et sort sans prendre cong\u00e9 de ses compagnons.\nC'est Flint Buckner. A peine la porte est-elle referm\u00e9e sur lui que la\nconversation, g\u00ean\u00e9e par sa pr\u00e9sence, reprend avec entrain.\n\n--Quel homme r\u00e9gl\u00e9! il vaut une pendule, dit Jack Parker, le forgeron,\nsans tirer sa montre; on sait qu'il est minuit quand il se l\u00e8ve pour\nsortir.\n\n--Sa r\u00e9gularit\u00e9 est bien la seule qualit\u00e9 qu'il poss\u00e8de, r\u00e9pliqua le\nmineur Peter Hawes, je ne lui en connais pas d'autre; vous non plus, que\nje sache?\n\n--Il fait tache parmi vous, dit Ferguson, l'associ\u00e9 de Well-Fargo. Si\nj'\u00e9tais propri\u00e9taire de cet \u00e9tablissement, je le forcerais bien \u00e0 se\nd\u00e9museler un jour ou l'autre, qu'il le veuille ou pas!\n\nEn m\u00eame temps il lan\u00e7a un regard significatif au patron du bar qui fit\nsemblant de ne pas comprendre, car l'homme en question \u00e9tait une bonne\npratique, et rentrait chaque soir chez lui apr\u00e8s avoir consomm\u00e9 un\nstock de boissons vari\u00e9es servies par le bar.\n\nDites donc, les amis, demanda le mineur Ham Sandwich, l'un de vous se\nsouvient-il que Buckner lui ait jamais offert un cocktail?\n\n--Qui? lui? Flint Buckner? Ah! non certes!\n\nCette r\u00e9ponse ironique sortit avec un ensemble parfait de la bouche de tous\nles assistants.\n\nApr\u00e8s un court silence, Pat Riley, le mineur, reprit:\n\n--Cet oiseau-l\u00e0 est un vrai ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne. Et son aide tout autant que lui.\nMoi, je ne les comprends ni l'un ni l'autre; je donne ma langue au chat!\n\n--Vous \u00eates pourtant un malin, r\u00e9pondit Ham Sandwich, mais, ma foi, les\n\u00e9nigmes que sont ces deux individus restent impossibles \u00e0 deviner. Le\nmyst\u00e8re qui entoure le patron enveloppe \u00e9galement son acolyte. C'est\nbien votre avis n'est-ce pas?\n\n--Pour s\u00fbr!\n\nChacun acquies\u00e7a. Un seul d'entre eux gardait le silence. C'\u00e9tait le\nnouvel arrivant, Peterson. Il commanda une tourn\u00e9e de rafra\u00eechissements\npour tous et demanda si, en dehors de ces deux types \u00e9tranges, il\nexistait au camp un troisi\u00e8me ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne.\n\n--Nous oublions Archy Stillmann, r\u00e9pondirent-ils tous.\n\nCelui-l\u00e0 aussi est donc un dr\u00f4le de pistolet? demanda Peterson.\n\n--On ne peut pas vraiment dire que cet Archy Stillmann soit un\nph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne, continua Ferguson, l'employ\u00e9 de Well-Fargo; il me fait plut\u00f4t\nl'effet d'un toqu\u00e9!\n\nFerguson avait l'air de savoir ce qu'il disait. Et comme Peterson\nd\u00e9sirait conna\u00eetre tout ce qui concernait Stillmann, chacun se d\u00e9clara\npr\u00eat \u00e0 lui raconter sa petite histoire. Ils commenc\u00e8rent tous \u00e0 la fois,\nmais Billy Stevens, le patron du bar, rappela tout le monde \u00e0 l'ordre,\nd\u00e9clarant qu'il valait mieux que chacun parl\u00e2t \u00e0 son tour.\n\nIl distribua les rafra\u00eechissements et donna la parole \u00e0 Ferguson.\n\nCelui-ci commen\u00e7a:\n\n--Il faut d'abord vous dire qu'Archy n'est qu'un enfant, c'est tout ce\nque nous savons de lui; on peut chercher \u00e0 le sonder, mais c'est peine\nperdue; on n'en peut rien tirer; il reste compl\u00e8tement muet sur ses\nintentions et ses affaires personnelles; il ne dit m\u00eame pas d'o\u00f9 il est\net d'o\u00f9 il vient. Quant \u00e0 deviner la nature du myst\u00e8re qu'il cache,\nc'est impossible, car il excelle \u00e0 d\u00e9tourner les conversations qui le\ng\u00eanent. On peut supposer tout ce que l'on veut; chacun est libre, mais \u00e0\nquoi cela m\u00e8ne-t-il? A rien, que je sache!\n\nQuel est, en fin de compte, son trait de caract\u00e8re distinctif?\nPoss\u00e8de-t-il une qualit\u00e9 sp\u00e9ciale? La vue peut-\u00eatre, l'ou\u00efe, ou\nl'instinct? La magie, qui sait? Choisissez, jeunes et vieux, femmes et\nenfants. Les paris sont ouverts. Eh bien, je vais vous \u00e9difier sur ses\naptitudes; vous pouvez venir ici, dispara\u00eetre, vous cacher, o\u00f9 vous\nvoudrez, n'importe o\u00f9; pr\u00e8s ou loin, il vous trouvera toujours et mettra\nla main sur vous.\n\n--Pas possible?\n\n--Comme j'ai l'honneur de vous le dire. Le temps ne compte pas pour lui,\nl'\u00e9tat des \u00e9l\u00e9ments le laisse bien indiff\u00e9rent, il n'y pr\u00eate aucune\nattention; rien ne le d\u00e9range!\n\n--Allons donc! et l'obscurit\u00e9? la pluie? la neige?\n\n--Hein?\n\n--Tout cela lui est bien \u00e9gal. Il s'en moque.\n\n--Et le brouillard?\n\n--Le brouillard! ses yeux le percent comme un boulet de canon! Tenez,\njeunes gens. Je vais vous raconter quelque chose de plus fort. Vous me\ntraiterez de blagueur!\n\n--Non, non, nous vous croyons, cri\u00e8rent-ils tous en choeur. Continuez,\nWell-Fargo.\n\n--Eh bien! messieurs, supposez que vous laissiez Stillmann ici en train\nde causer avec vos amis: sortez sans rien dire, dirigez-vous vers le\ncamp et entrez dans une cabane quelconque de votre choix; prenez-y un\nlivre, plusieurs si vous voulez, ouvrez-les aux pages qu'il vous plaira\nen vous rappelant leurs num\u00e9ros; il ira droit \u00e0 cette cabane et ouvrira\nle ou les livres aux pages touch\u00e9es par vous; il vous les d\u00e9signera\ntoutes sans se tromper.\n\n--Ce n'est pas un homme, c'est un d\u00e9mon.\n\n--Je suis de votre avis. Et maintenant, je vous raconterai un de ses\nexploits les plus merveilleux.\n\n--La nuit derni\u00e8re, il a...\n\nIl fut interrompu par une grande rumeur au dehors; la porte s'ouvrit\nbrusquement et une foule en \u00e9moi se pr\u00e9cipita dans le bar entourant la\nseule femme blanche du camp qui criait et pleurait:\n\n--Ma fille! ma fille! partie! perdue! Pour l'amour du ciel, dites-moi o\u00f9\nest Archy Stillmann, nous ne savons plus o\u00f9 chercher.\n\n--Asseyez-vous, Mrs Hogan, lui dit le patron du bar. Asseyez-vous et\ncalmez-vous, Stillmann est ici depuis trois heures; il a engag\u00e9 une\nchambre apr\u00e8s avoir r\u00f4d\u00e9 toute la journ\u00e9e \u00e0 la recherche d'une piste,\nsuivant sa bonne habitude. Il est ensuite mont\u00e9 se coucher. Ham\nSandwich, va donc le r\u00e9veiller et am\u00e8ne-le; il est au num\u00e9ro 14.\n\nArchy fut vite habill\u00e9 et en bas. Il demanda des d\u00e9tails \u00e0 Mrs Hogan.\n\n--H\u00e9las! mon ami, je n'en ai pas. Si j'en poss\u00e9dais seulement! Je\nl'avais couch\u00e9e \u00e0 sept heures et lorsque je suis rentr\u00e9e, il y a une\nheure, plus personne! Je me suis pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9e chez vous; vous n'y \u00e9tiez\npas; depuis, je vous cherche partout, frappant \u00e0 toutes les portes; je\nviens ici en d\u00e9sespoir de cause, folle, \u00e9pouvant\u00e9e, le coeur bris\u00e9.\nDieu merci, je vous ai trouv\u00e9 enfin! et vous me d\u00e9couvrirez mon enfant!\nVenez vite! vite!\n\n--Je suis pr\u00eat, Madame, je vous suis; mais regagnez d'abord votre\nlogement.\n\nTous les habitants du camp avaient envie de prendre part \u00e0 la chasse.\nCeux de la partie Sud du village \u00e9taient sur pied, et une centaine\nd'hommes vigoureux balan\u00e7aient dans l'obscurit\u00e9 les faibles lueurs de\nleurs lanternes vacillantes. Ils se form\u00e8rent en groupes de trois ou\nquatre, pour s'\u00e9chelonner plus facilement le long du chemin, et\nembo\u00eet\u00e8rent rapidement le pas des guides. Bient\u00f4t, ils arriv\u00e8rent \u00e0 la\nmaisonnette des Hogan.\n\n--Passez-moi une lanterne, dit Archy.\n\nIl la posa sur la terre durcie et s'agenouilla en ayant l'air d'examiner\nle sol attentivement.\n\n--Voil\u00e0 sa trace, dit-il en indiquant du doigt deux ou trois marques sur\nle sol. La voyez-vous?\n\nQuelques-uns d'entre les mineurs s'agenouill\u00e8rent et \u00e9carquill\u00e8rent\nleurs yeux pour mieux voir. Les uns s'imagin\u00e8rent apercevoir quelque\nchose, les autres durent avouer, en secouant la t\u00eate de d\u00e9pit, que la\nsurface tr\u00e8s unie ne portait aucune marque perceptible \u00e0 leurs yeux.\n\n--Il se peut, dit l'un, que le pied de l'enfant ait laiss\u00e9 son\nempreinte, mais je ne la vois pas.\n\nLe jeune Stillmann sortit, tenant toujours la lampe pr\u00e8s de la terre; il\ntourna \u00e0 gauche, et avan\u00e7a de quelques pas en examinant le sol\nsoigneusement.\n\n--Je tiens la trace, venez maintenant, et que quelqu'un prenne la\nlanterne.\n\nIl se mit en route, d'un pas all\u00e8gre, dans la direction du Sud, escort\u00e9\npar les curieux, et suivit, en d\u00e9crivant des courbes, toutes les\nsinuosit\u00e9s de la gorge pendant une lieue environ. Ils arriv\u00e8rent \u00e0 une\nplaine couverte de sauges, vaste et obscure. Stillmann commanda: Halte,\najoutant:\n\n--Il ne s'agit pas de partir sur une fausse piste, orientons-nous de\nnouveau dans la bonne direction.\n\nIl reprit la lanterne et examina la route sur une longueur de vingt\nm\u00e8tres environ.\n\n--Venez, dit-il, tout va bien.\n\nIl se remit en route, fouillant les buissons de sauge, pendant un quart\nde mille et obliquant toujours \u00e0 droite; puis il prit une autre\ndirection, fit un grand circuit, repartit droit devant lui et marcha\nr\u00e9solument vers l'ouest pendant un demi-mille. Il s'arr\u00eata, disant:\n\n--Elle s'est repos\u00e9e ici, la pauvre petite. Tenez la lanterne et\nregardez; c'est l\u00e0 qu'elle s'est assise.\n\nA cet endroit, le sol \u00e9tait net comme une plaque d'acier et il fallait\nune certaine audace pour pr\u00e9tendre reconna\u00eetre sur ce miroir uni la\nmoindre trace r\u00e9v\u00e9latrice. La malheureuse m\u00e8re, reprise de\nd\u00e9couragement, tomba \u00e0 genoux, baisant la terre et sanglotant.\n\n--Mais o\u00f9 est-elle alors? demanda quelqu'un. Elle n'est pourtant pas\nrest\u00e9e ici; nous la verrions, je pense.\n\nStillmann continua \u00e0 tourner en rond sur place, sa lanterne \u00e0 la main;\nil paraissait absorb\u00e9 dans ses recherches.\n\n--Eh bien! dit-il, sur un ton maussade. Je ne comprends plus.\n\nIl examina encore.\n\n--Il n'y a pas \u00e0 en douter, elle s'est arr\u00eat\u00e9e ici, mais elle n'en est\npas repartie. J'en r\u00e9ponds! Reste \u00e0 trouver l'\u00e9nigme.\n\nLa pauvre m\u00e8re se d\u00e9solait de plus en plus.\n\n--Oh! mon Dieu! et vous Vierge Marie! venez \u00e0 mon aide! Quelque animal\nl'a emport\u00e9e! C'est fini! je ne la reverrai jamais, jamais plus!\n\n--Ne perdez pas espoir, madame, lui dit Archy. Nous la retrouverons, ne\nvous d\u00e9couragez pas.\n\n--Dieu vous b\u00e9nisse pour ces bonnes paroles de consolation, monsieur\nArchy, et elle prit sa main quelle couvrit de baisers.\n\nPeterson, le dernier arriv\u00e9, chuchota avec ironie \u00e0 l'oreille de\nFerguson:\n\n--En voil\u00e0 une merveille d'avoir d\u00e9couvert cet endroit. Vraiment pas la\npeine de venir si loin, tout de m\u00eame; le premier coin venu nous en\naurait appris autant. Nous voil\u00e0 bien renseign\u00e9s, maintenant!\n\nL'insinuation n'\u00e9tait pas du go\u00fbt de Ferguson, qui r\u00e9pondit sur un ton\nemball\u00e9:\n\n--Vous allez peut-\u00eatre chercher \u00e0 nous faire croire que l'enfant n'est\npas venue ici? Je vous d\u00e9clare que cette petite a pass\u00e9 par ici; si vous\nvoulez vous attirer de s\u00e9rieux ennuis, vous n'avez qu'\u00e0...\n\n--Tout va bien! cria Stillmann. Venez tous ici et regardez bien. La\ntrace nous crevait les yeux et nous n'y avons rien vu les uns et les\nautres.\n\nTous s'accroupirent avec ensemble \u00e0 l'endroit suppos\u00e9 o\u00f9 l'enfant avait\nd\u00fb s'asseoir et se mirent \u00e0 \u00e9carquiller les yeux en fixant le point\nd\u00e9sign\u00e9 par le doigt d'Archy. Apr\u00e8s une pause suivie de profonds soupirs\nde d\u00e9couragement, Pat Riley et Ham Sandwich r\u00e9pondirent ensemble:\n\n--Eh bien, Archy? Nous n'avons rien vu!\n\n--Rien? vous appelez cela rien?\n\nEt avec son doigt il fit sur le sol un signe cabalistique.\n\n--L\u00e0, la reconnaissez-vous maintenant la trace d'Injin Billy? C'est lui\nqui a l'enfant.\n\n--Dieu soit lou\u00e9! s'\u00e9cria la m\u00e8re.\n\n--Reprenez la lanterne. Je tiens de nouveau la bonne direction.\nSuivez-moi.\n\nIl partit comme un trait, traversant rapidement les buissons de sauge,\npuis disparut derri\u00e8re un monticule de sable; les autres avaient peine \u00e0\nsuivre: ils le rejoignirent et le retrouv\u00e8rent assis tranquillement en\ntrain de les attendre. A dix pas plus loin on apercevait une hutte\nmis\u00e9rable, un pauvre abri informe, fait de vieux chiffons et de\ncouvertures de chevaux en loques qui laissaient filtrer une lumi\u00e8re \u00e0\npeine tamis\u00e9e.\n\n--Prenez le commandement, Mrs Hogan, dit le jeune homme. Vous avez le\ndroit d'entrer la premi\u00e8re.\n\nTous la suivirent et purent voir le spectacle qu'offrait l'int\u00e9rieur de\ncette hutte: Injin Billy \u00e9tait assis par terre, l'enfant dormait \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9\nde lui. Sa m\u00e8re la prit dans ses bras et l'\u00e9touffa de caresses; son\ncoeur d\u00e9bordait de reconnaissance pour Archy Stillmann; elle pleurait \u00e0\nchaudes larmes. D'une voix \u00e9trangl\u00e9e par l'\u00e9motion, elle laissa \u00e9chapper\nun flot de ces paroles attendries, de ces accents chauds et ardents que\nseul peut trouver un coeur irlandais.\n\n--Je l'ai trouv\u00e9e vers dix heures, expliqua Billy. Elle s'\u00e9tait\nendormie, tr\u00e8s fatigu\u00e9e, la figure humect\u00e9e de larmes, je suppose; je\nl'ai ramen\u00e9e ici, et l'ai nourrie, car elle mourait de faim; depuis ce\nmoment elle n'a cess\u00e9 de dormir.\n\nDans un \u00e9lan de reconnaissance sans bornes, l'heureuse femme l'embrassa\nlui aussi, l'appelant \u00able Messager du ciel\u00bb. En admettant qu'il soit un\nmessager du ciel, il \u00e9tait certainement un ange d\u00e9guis\u00e9 et grim\u00e9, car\nson accoutrement bizarre n'avait rien de s\u00e9raphique.\n\nA une heure et demie du matin, le cort\u00e8ge rentra au village en chantant\nun refrain triomphal et en brandissant des torches; c'\u00e9tait une vraie\nretraite aux flambeaux. Ils n'oubli\u00e8rent pas de boire tout le long de la\nroute et, pour tuer les derni\u00e8res heures de cette nuit mouvement\u00e9e, ils\ns'entass\u00e8rent au bar en attendant le jour.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDEUXI\u00c8ME PARTIE\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nSHERLOCK HOLM\u00c8S ENTRE EN SC\u00c8NE\n\n\nLe jour suivant, une rumeur sensationnelle circula au village. Un\n\u00e9tranger de haute marque, \u00e0 l'air grave et imposant, \u00e0 la tournure tr\u00e8s\ndistingu\u00e9e, venait d'arriver \u00e0 l'auberge. Il avait inscrit sur le\nregistre le nom magique de:\n\nSHERLOCK HOLM\u00c8S\n\nLa nouvelle se r\u00e9pandit de hutte en hutte, de bouche en bouche dans la\nmine; chacun planta l\u00e0 ses outils pour courir aux vrais renseignements.\nUn mineur qui passait par la partie Sud du village annon\u00e7a la nouvelle \u00e0\nPat Riley, dont la concession touchait \u00e0 celle de Flint Buckner.\nFetlock Jones parut tr\u00e8s affect\u00e9 de cet \u00e9v\u00e9nement et murmura m\u00eame:\n\n--L'oncle Sherlock! Quelle guigne!\n\nIl arrive juste au moment o\u00f9... Puis il se mit \u00e0 r\u00eavasser, se disant \u00e0\nlui-m\u00eame:\n\n--Apr\u00e8s tout, pourquoi avoir peur de lui? Tous ceux qui le connaissent\ncomme moi, savent bien qu'il n'est capable de d\u00e9couvrir un crime\nqu'autant qu'il a pu pr\u00e9parer son plan \u00e0 l'avance, classer ses arguments\net accumuler ses preuves.\n\nAu besoin il se procure (moyennant finances) un complice de bonne\nvolont\u00e9 qui ex\u00e9cute le crime point par point comme il l'a pr\u00e9vu!... Eh\nbien! cette fois Sherlock sera tr\u00e8s embarrass\u00e9; il manquera de preuve et\nn'aura rien pu pr\u00e9parer. Quant \u00e0 moi, tout est pr\u00eat. Je me garderai bien\nde diff\u00e9rer ma vengeance... non certainement pas! Flint Buckner quittera\nce bas monde cette nuit et pas plus tard, c'est d\u00e9cid\u00e9!\n\nPuis il r\u00e9fl\u00e9chit:\n\n--L'oncle Sherlock va vouloir, ce soir, causer avec moi de notre\nfamille; comment arriverai-je \u00e0 m'esquiver de lui? Il faut absolument\nque je sois dans ma cabine vers huit heures, au moins pour quelques\ninstants.\n\nCe point \u00e9tait embarrassant et le pr\u00e9occupait fort. Mais une minute de\nr\u00e9flexion lui donna le moyen de tourner la difficult\u00e9.\n\n--Nous irons nous promener ensemble et je le laisserai seul sur la route\nune seconde pendant laquelle il ne verra pas ce que je ferai: le\nmeilleur moyen d'\u00e9garer un policier est de le conserver aupr\u00e8s de soi\nquand on pr\u00e9pare un coup. Oui, c'est bien le plus s\u00fbr, je l'emm\u00e8nerai\navec moi.\n\nPendant ce temps, la route \u00e9tait encombr\u00e9e, aux abords de la taverne,\npar une foule de gens qui esp\u00e9raient apercevoir le grand homme. Mais\nHolm\u00e8s s'obstinait \u00e0 rester enferm\u00e9 dans sa chambre et ne paraissait pas\nau plus grand d\u00e9sappointement des curieux. Ferguson, Jake Parker le\nforgeron, et Ham Sandwich, seuls, eurent plus de chance. Ces fanatiques\nadmirateurs de l'habile policier lou\u00e8rent la pi\u00e8ce de l'auberge qui\nservait de d\u00e9barras pour les bagages et qui donnait au-dessus d'un\npassage \u00e9troit sur la chambre de Sherlock Holm\u00e8s; ils s'y embusqu\u00e8rent\net pratiqu\u00e8rent quelques judas dans les persiennes.\n\nLes volets de M. Holm\u00e8s \u00e9taient encore ferm\u00e9s, mais il les ouvrit\nbient\u00f4t. Ses espions tressaillirent de joie et d'\u00e9motion lorsqu'ils se\ntrouv\u00e8rent face \u00e0 face avec l'homme c\u00e9l\u00e8bre qui \u00e9tonnait le monde par\nson g\u00e9nie vraiment surnaturel. Il \u00e9tait assis l\u00e0 devant eux, en\npersonne, en chair et en os, bien vivant. Il n'\u00e9tait plus un mythe pour\neux et ils pouvaient presque le toucher en allongeant le bras.\n\n--Regarde-moi cette t\u00eate, dit Ferguson d'une voix tremblante d'\u00e9motion.\nGrand Dieu! Quelle physionomie!\n\n--Oh oui, r\u00e9pondit le forgeron d'un air convaincu, vois un peu ses yeux\net son nez! Quelle intelligente et \u00e9veill\u00e9e physionomie il a!\n\n--Et cette p\u00e2leur! reprit Ham Sandwich, qui est la caract\u00e9ristique de\nson puissant cerveau et l'image de sa nette pens\u00e9e.\n\n--C'est vrai: ce que nous prenons pour la pens\u00e9e n'est souvent qu'un\nd\u00e9dale d'id\u00e9es informes.\n\n--Tu as raison, Well-Fargo; regarde un peu ce pli accus\u00e9 au milieu de\nson front; c'est le sillon de la pens\u00e9e, il l'a creus\u00e9 \u00e0 force de\ndescendre au plus profond des choses. Tiens je parie qu'en ce moment il\nrumine quelque id\u00e9e dans son cerveau infatigable.\n\n--Ma foi oui, on le dirait; mais regarde donc cet air grave, cette\nsolennit\u00e9 impressionnante! On dirait que chez lui l'esprit absorbe le\ncorps! Tu ne te trompes pas tant, en lui pr\u00eatant les facult\u00e9s d'un pur\nesprit; car il est d\u00e9j\u00e0 mort quatre fois, c'est un fait av\u00e9r\u00e9: il est\nmort trois fois naturellement et une fois accidentellement. J'ai entendu\ndire qu'il exhale une odeur d'humidit\u00e9 glaciale et qu'il sent le\ntombeau; on dit m\u00eame que...\n\n--Chut, tais-toi et observe-le. Le voil\u00e0 qui encadre son front entre le\npouce et l'index, je parie qu'en ce moment il est en train de creuser\nune id\u00e9e.\n\n--C'est plus que probable. Et maintenant il l\u00e8ve les yeux au ciel en\ncaressant sa moustache distraitement. Le voil\u00e0 debout; il classe ses\narguments en les comptant sur les doigts de sa main gauche avec l'index\ndroit, vois-tu? Il touche d'abord l'index gauche, puis le m\u00e9dium,\nensuite l'annulaire.\n\n--Tais-toi!\n\n--Regarde son air courrouc\u00e9! Il ne trouve pas la clef de son dernier\nargument, alors il...\n\n--Vois-le sourire maintenant d'un rire f\u00e9lin; il compte rapidement sur\nses doigts sans la moindre nervosit\u00e9. Il est s\u00fbr de son affaire; il\ntient le bon bout. Cela en a tout l'air! J'aime autant ne pas \u00eatre celui\nqu'il cherche \u00e0 d\u00e9pister.\n\nM. Holm\u00e8s approcha sa table de la fen\u00eatre, s'assit en tournant le dos\naux deux observateurs et se mit \u00e0 \u00e9crire. Les jeunes gens quitt\u00e8rent\nleur cachette, allum\u00e8rent leurs pipes et s'install\u00e8rent confortablement\npour causer. Ferguson commen\u00e7a avec conviction:\n\n--Ce n'est pas la peine d'en parler. Cet homme est un prodige, tout en\nlui le trahit.\n\n--Tu n'as jamais mieux parl\u00e9, Well-Fargo, r\u00e9pliqua Parquer. Quel dommage\nqu'il n'ait pas \u00e9t\u00e9 ici hier soir au milieu de nous!\n\n--Mon Dieu oui, r\u00e9pliqua Ferguson. Du coup, nous aurions assist\u00e9 \u00e0 une\ns\u00e9ance scientifique, \u00e0 une exhibition d'\u00abintellectualit\u00e9 toute pure\u00bb, la\nplus \u00e9lev\u00e9e qu'on puisse r\u00eaver. Archy est d\u00e9j\u00e0 bien \u00e9tonnant et nous\naurions grand tort de chercher \u00e0 diminuer son talent, mais la facult\u00e9\nqu'il poss\u00e8de n'est qu'un don visuel: il a, me semble-t-il, l'acuit\u00e9 de\nregard de la chouette. C'est un don naturel, un instinct inn\u00e9, o\u00f9 la\nscience n'entre pas en jeu. Quant au caract\u00e8re surprenant du don\nd'Archy, il ne peut \u00eatre nullement compar\u00e9 au g\u00e9nie de Sherlock Holm\u00e8s,\npas plus que... Tiens, laisse-moi te dire ce qu'aurait fait Holm\u00e8s dans\ncette circonstance. Il se serait rendu tout bonnement chez les Hogan et\naurait simplement regard\u00e9 autour de lui dans la maison. Un seul coup\nd'oeil lui suffit pour tout voir jusqu'au moindre d\u00e9tail; en cinq\nminutes il en saurait plus long que les Hogan en sept ans. Apr\u00e8s sa\ncourte inspection, il se serait assis avec calme et aurait pos\u00e9 des\nquestions \u00e0 Mme Hogan... Dis donc, Ham, imagine-toi que tu es Mme Hogan;\nje t'interrogerai, et tu me r\u00e9pondras.\n\n--Entendu, commence.\n\n--Permettez, Madame, s'il vous pla\u00eet. Veuillez pr\u00eater une grande\nattention \u00e0 ce que je vais vous demander: Quel est le sexe de l'enfant?\n\n--Sexe f\u00e9minin, Votre Honneur.\n\n--Hum! f\u00e9minin, tr\u00e8s bien! tr\u00e8s bien! L'\u00e2ge?\n\n--Six ans pass\u00e9s.\n\n--Hum! jeune... faible... deux lieues. La fatigue a d\u00fb se faire sentir.\nElle se sera assise, puis endormie. Nous la trouverons au bout de deux\nlieues au plus. Combien de dents?\n\n--Cinq, Votre Honneur, et une sixi\u00e8me en train de pousser.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s bien, tr\u00e8s bien, parfait!--Vous voyez, jeunes gens, il ne laisse\npasser aucun d\u00e9tail et s'attache \u00e0 ceux qui paraissent les plus petites\nv\u00e9tilles.--Des bas, madame, et des souliers?\n\n--Oui, Votre Honneur, les deux.\n\n--En coton, peut-\u00eatre? en maroquin?\n\n--Coton, Votre Honneur, et cuir.\n\n--Hum! cuir? Ceci complique la question. Cependant, continuons; nous\nnous en tirerons. Quelle religion?\n\n--Catholique, Votre Honneur.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s bien, coupez-moi un morceau de la couverture de son lit, je vous\nprie. Merci!\n\nMoiti\u00e9 laine, et de fabrication \u00e9trang\u00e8re. Tr\u00e8s bien. Un morceau de\nv\u00eatement de l'enfant, s'il vous pla\u00eet? Merci, en coton et d\u00e9j\u00e0 pas mal\nusag\u00e9. Un excellent indice, celui-ci. Passez-moi, je vous prie, une\npellet\u00e9e de poussi\u00e8re ramass\u00e9e dans la chambre. Merci! oh! grand merci!\n\nAdmirable, admirable! Maintenant, nous tenons le bon bout, je crois.\nVous le voyez, jeunes gens, il a en main tous les fils et se d\u00e9clare\npleinement satisfait. Apr\u00e8s cela, que fera cet homme prodigieux? Il\n\u00e9talera les lambeaux d'\u00e9toffe et cette poussi\u00e8re sur la table, et il\nrapprochera ces objets disparates et les examinera en se parlant \u00e0 voix\nbasse et en les palpant d\u00e9licatement:\n\n\u00abF\u00e9minin, six ans, cinq dents, plus une sixi\u00e8me qui pousse; catholique.\nCoton, cuir! Que le diable emporte ce cuir!\u00bb Puis il range le tout, l\u00e8ve\nles yeux vers le ciel, passe la main dans ses cheveux, la repasse\nnerveusement en r\u00e9p\u00e9tant: \u00abAu diable, le cuir!\u00bb Il se l\u00e8ve alors, fronce\nle sourcil et r\u00e9capitule ses arguments en comptant sur ses doigts; il\ns'arr\u00eate \u00e0 l'annulaire, une minute seulement, puis sa physionomie\ns'illumine d'un sourire de satisfaction. Il se l\u00e8ve alors, r\u00e9solu et\nmajestueux, et dit \u00e0 la foule: \u00abQue deux d'entre vous prennent une\nlanterne et s'en aillent chez Injin Billy, pour y chercher l'enfant, les\nautres n'ont qu'\u00e0 rentrer se coucher. Bonne nuit, bonne nuit, jeunes\ngens!\u00bb Et ce disant, il aurait salu\u00e9 l'assistance d'un air solennel, et\nquitt\u00e9 l'auberge.\n\nVoil\u00e0 sa mani\u00e8re de proc\u00e9der. Elle est unique dans son genre,\nscientifique et intelligente; un quart d'heure lui suffit et il n'a pas\nbesoin de fouiller les buissons et les routes pendant des heures\nenti\u00e8res au milieu d'une population effar\u00e9e et tumultueuse.\n\nMessieurs, qu'en dites-vous? Avez-vous compris son proc\u00e9d\u00e9?\n\n--C'est prodigieux, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9, r\u00e9pondit Ham Sandwich. Well-Fargo, tu as\nmerveilleusement compris le caract\u00e8re de cet homme, ta description vaut\ncelle d'un livre, du livre le mieux fait du monde. Il me semble le voir\net l'entendre. N'est-ce pas votre avis, Messieurs?\n\n--C'est notre avis. Ce topo descriptif d'Holm\u00e8s vaut une photographie et\nune fameuse!\n\nFerguson \u00e9tait ravi de son succ\u00e8s; l'approbation g\u00e9n\u00e9rale de ses\ncamarades le rendait triomphant. Il restait assis tranquille et\nsilencieux pour savourer son bonheur.\n\nIl murmura pourtant, d'une voix inqui\u00e8te:\n\n--C'est \u00e0 se demander comment Dieu a pu cr\u00e9er un pareil ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne.\n\nAu bout d'un moment Ham Sandwich r\u00e9pondit:\n\n--S'il l'a cr\u00e9\u00e9, il a d\u00fb s'y prendre \u00e0 plusieurs fois, j'imagine!\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nVers huit heures du soir, \u00e0 la fin de ce m\u00eame jour, par une nuit\nbrumeuse, deux personnes marchaient \u00e0 t\u00e2tons du c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la hutte de\nFlint Buckner. C'\u00e9tait Sherlock Holm\u00e8s et son neveu.\n\n--Attendez-moi un instant sur le chemin, mon oncle, je vous prie, dit\nFetlock; je cours \u00e0 ma hutte, j'en ai pour deux minutes \u00e0 peine.\n\nIl demanda quelque chose \u00e0 son oncle qui le lui donna et disparut dans\nl'obscurit\u00e9; mais il fut bient\u00f4t de retour, et leur causerie reprit son\ncours avec leur promenade. A neuf heures, leur marche errante les avait\nramen\u00e9s \u00e0 la taverne. Ils se fray\u00e8rent un chemin jusqu'\u00e0 la salle de\nbillard, o\u00f9 une foule compacte s'\u00e9tait group\u00e9e dans l'espoir\nd'apercevoir l'\u00abHomme Illustre\u00bb. Des vivats fr\u00e9n\u00e9tiques l'accueillirent;\nM. Holm\u00e8s remercia en saluant aimablement et au moment o\u00f9 il sortit,\nson neveu s'adressa \u00e0 l'assembl\u00e9e, disant:\n\n--Messieurs, mon oncle Sherlock a un travail pressant \u00e0 faire qui le\nretiendra jusqu'\u00e0 minuit ou une heure du matin, mais il reviendra d\u00e8s\nqu'il pourra, et esp\u00e8re bien que quelques-uns d'entre vous seront encore\nici pour trinquer avec lui.\n\n--Par saint Georges! Quel g\u00e9n\u00e9reux seigneur!\n\n--Mes amis! Trois vivats \u00e0 Sherlock Holm\u00e8s, le plus grand homme qui ait\njamais v\u00e9cu, cria Ferguson. \u00abHip, hip, hip!!!\u00bb \u00abHurrah! hurrah! hurrah!\u00bb\n\n--Ces clameurs tonitruantes secou\u00e8rent la maison, tant les jeunes gens\nmettaient de coeur \u00e0 leur r\u00e9ception. Arriv\u00e9 dans sa chambre, Sherlock\ndit \u00e0 son neveu, sans mauvaise humeur:\n\n--Que diable! Pourquoi m'avez-vous mis cette invitation sur les bras?\n\n--Je pense que vous ne voulez pas vous rendre impopulaire, mon oncle? Il\nserait f\u00e2cheux de ne pas vous attirer les bonnes gr\u00e2ces de tout ce camp\nde mineurs. Ces gars vous admirent; mais si vous partiez sans trinquer\navec eux, ils prendraient votre abstention pour du \u00absnobisme\u00bb. Et du\nreste, vous nous avez dit que vous aviez une foule de choses \u00e0 nous\nraconter, de quoi nous tenir \u00e9veill\u00e9s une partie de la nuit.\n\nLe jeune homme avait raison et faisait preuve de bon sens. Son oncle le\nreconnut. Il servait en m\u00eame temps ses propres int\u00e9r\u00eats et fit cette\nr\u00e9flexion pratique dans son for int\u00e9rieur:\n\n--Mon oncle et les mineurs vont \u00eatre fameusement commodes pour me cr\u00e9er\nun alibi qui ne pourra \u00eatre contest\u00e9.\n\nL'oncle et le neveu caus\u00e8rent dans leur chambre pendant trois heures.\nPuis, vers minuit, Fetlock descendit seul, se posta dans l'obscurit\u00e9 \u00e0\nune douzaine de pas de la taverne et attendit. Cinq minutes apr\u00e8s, Flint\nBuckner sortait en se dandinant de la salle de billard, il l'effleura\npresque de l'\u00e9paule en passant. \u00abJe le tiens\u00bb, pensa le jeune gar\u00e7on.\n\nEt il se dit \u00e0 lui-m\u00eame, en suivant des yeux l'ombre de la silhouette:\n\u00abAdieu, mon ami, adieu pour tout de bon, Flint Buckner! Tu as trait\u00e9 ma\nm\u00e8re de... c'est tr\u00e8s bien, mais rappelle-toi que tu fais aujourd'hui ta\nderni\u00e8re promenade!\u00bb\n\nIl rentra, sans se presser, \u00e0 la taverne, en se faisant cette\nr\u00e9flexion: \u00abIl est un peu plus de minuit, encore une heure \u00e0 attendre;\nnous la passerons avec les camarades... ce sera fameux pour l'alibi.\u00bb\n\nIl introduisit Sherlock Holm\u00e8s dans la salle de billard qui \u00e9tait comble\nde mineurs, tous impatients de le voir arriver. Sherlock commanda les\nboissons, et la f\u00eate commen\u00e7a. Tout le monde \u00e9tait content et de bonne\nhumeur; la glace fut bient\u00f4t rompue. Chansons, anecdotes, boissons se\nsucc\u00e9d\u00e8rent (les minutes elles aussi se passaient).\n\nA une heure moins six la gaiet\u00e9 \u00e9tait \u00e0 son comble:\n\nBoum! un bruit d'explosion suivi d'une commotion.\n\nTous se turent instantan\u00e9ment. Un roulement sourd arrivait en grondant\ndu c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la colline; l'\u00e9cho se r\u00e9percuta dans les sinuosit\u00e9s de la\ngorge et vint mourir pr\u00e8s de la taverne. Les hommes se pr\u00e9cipit\u00e8rent \u00e0\nla porte, disant:\n\n--Quelque chose vient de sauter.\n\nAu dehors une voix criait dans l'obscurit\u00e9:\n\n--C'est en bas dans la gorge, j'ai vu la flamme.\n\nLa foule se porta de ce c\u00f4t\u00e9: tous, y compris Holm\u00e8s, Fetlock, Archy\nStillmann. Ils firent leur mille en quelques minutes. A la lumi\u00e8re d'une\nlanterne, ils reconnurent l'emplacement en terre battue o\u00f9 s'\u00e9levait la\nhutte de Flint Buckner; de la cabine elle-m\u00eame, il ne restait pas un\nvestige, pas un chiffon, pas un \u00e9clat de bois. Pas trace non plus de\nFlint. On le chercha tout autour; tout \u00e0 coup quelqu'un cria:\n\n--Le voil\u00e0!\n\nC'\u00e9tait vrai. A cinquante m\u00e8tres plus bas, ils l'avaient trouv\u00e9 ou\nplut\u00f4t ils avaient d\u00e9couvert une masse informe et inerte qui devait le\nrepr\u00e9senter. Fetlock Jones accourut avec les autres et regarda.\n\nL'enqu\u00eate fut l'affaire d'un quart d'heure. Ham Sandwich, chef des\njur\u00e9s, rendit le verdict, sous une forme plut\u00f4t primitive qui ne\nmanquait pas d'une certaine gr\u00e2ce litt\u00e9raire, et sa conclusion \u00e9tablit\nque le d\u00e9funt s'\u00e9tait donn\u00e9 la mort ou bien qu'il fallait l'attribuer \u00e0\nune ou plusieurs personnes inconnues du jury; il ne laissait derri\u00e8re\nlui ni famille, ni h\u00e9ritage; pour tout inventaire une hutte qui avait\nsaut\u00e9 en l'air. Que Dieu ait piti\u00e9 de lui! C'\u00e9tait le voeu de tous.\n\nApr\u00e8s cette courte oraison fun\u00e8bre, le jury s'empressa de rejoindre le\ngros de la foule o\u00f9 se trouvait l'attraction g\u00e9n\u00e9rale personnifi\u00e9e dans\nSherlock Holm\u00e8s. Les mineurs se tenaient en demi-cercle en observant un\nsilence respectueux; au centre de ce demi-cercle, se trouvait\nl'emplacement de la hutte maintenant d\u00e9truite. Dans cet espace vide\ns'agitait Holm\u00e8s, l'homme prodigieux, assist\u00e9 de son neveu qui portait\nune lanterne. Il prit avec un ruban d'arpentage les mesures des\nfondations de la hutte, releva la distance des ajoncs \u00e0 la route, la\nhauteur des buissons d'ajoncs et prit encore d'autres mesures.\n\nIl ramassa un chiffon d'un c\u00f4t\u00e9, un \u00e9clat de bois d'un autre, une pinc\u00e9e\nde terre par ici, les consid\u00e9ra attentivement et les mit de c\u00f4t\u00e9 avec\nsoin. Il d\u00e9termina la longitude du lieu au moyen d'une boussole de poche\nen \u00e9valuant \u00e0 deux secondes les variations magn\u00e9tiques. Il prit l'heure\ndu Pacifique \u00e0 sa montre et lui fit subir la correction de l'heure\nlocale. Il mesura \u00e0 grands pas la distance de l'emplacement de la hutte\nau cadavre en tenant compte de la diff\u00e9rence de la mar\u00e9e. Il nota\nl'altitude, la temp\u00e9rature avec un an\u00e9ro\u00efde et un thermom\u00e8tre de poche.\nEnfin, il d\u00e9clara magistralement en saluant de la t\u00eate:\n\n--C'est fini, vous pouvez rentrer, messieurs!\n\nIl prit la t\u00eate de la colonne pour regagner la taverne, suivi de la\nfoule qui commentait cet \u00e9v\u00e9nement et vouait \u00e0 l'\u00abhomme prodigieux\u00bb un\nvrai culte d'admiration, tout en cherchant \u00e0 deviner l'origine et\nl'auteur de ce drame.\n\n--Savez-vous, camarades, que nous pouvons nous estimer heureux d'avoir\nSherlock au milieu de nous? dit Ferguson.\n\n--C'est vrai, voil\u00e0 peut-\u00eatre le plus grand \u00e9v\u00e9nement du si\u00e8cle! reprit\nHam Sandwich. Il fera le tour du monde, souvenez-vous de ce que je vous\ndis.\n\n--Parions! dit Jake Parker le Forgeron, qu'il va donner un grand renom\nau camp. N'est-ce pas votre avis, Well-Fargo?\n\n--Eh bien, puisque vous voulez mon opinion l\u00e0-dessus je puis vous dire\nceci:\n\nHier, j'aurais vendu ma concession sans h\u00e9siter \u00e0 deux dollars le pied\ncarr\u00e9; aujourd'hui, je vous r\u00e9ponds que pas un d'entre vous ne la\nvendrait \u00e0 seize dollars.\n\n--Vous avez raison, Well-Fargo! Nous ne pouvions pas r\u00eaver un plus grand\nbonheur pour le camp. Dites donc, l'avez-vous vu collectionner ces\nchiffons, cette terre, et le reste? Quel oeil il a! Il ne laisse\n\u00e9chapper aucun d\u00e9tail; il veut tout voir, c'est plus fort que lui.\n\n--C'est vrai! Et ces d\u00e9tails qui paraissent des niaiseries au commun des\nmortels, repr\u00e9sentent pour lui un livre grand ouvert imprim\u00e9 en gros\ncaract\u00e8res. Soyez bien persuad\u00e9s que ces petits riens rec\u00e8lent de\nmyst\u00e9rieux secrets; ils ont beau croire que personne ne pourra les leur\narracher; quand Sherlock y met la main, il faut qu'ils parlent, qu'ils\nrendent gorge.\n\n--Camarades, je ne regrette plus qu'il ait manqu\u00e9 la partie de chasse \u00e0\nl'enfant; ce qui vient de se passer ici est beaucoup plus int\u00e9ressant et\nplus complexe; Sherlock va pouvoir \u00e9taler devant nous son art et sa\nscience dans toute leur splendeur.\n\nInutile de dire que nous sommes tous contents de la fa\u00e7on dont l'enqu\u00eate\na tourn\u00e9.\n\n--Contents! Par saint Georges! ce n'est pas assez dire!\n\nArchy aurait mieux fait de rester avec nous et de s'instruire en\nregardant comment Sherlock proc\u00e8de. Mais non, au lieu de cela, il a\nperdu son temps \u00e0 fourrager dans les buissons et il n'a rien vu du tout.\n\n--Je suis bien de ton avis, mais que veux-tu; Archy est jeune. Il aura\nplus d'exp\u00e9rience un peu plus tard.\n\n--Dites donc, camarades, qui, d'apr\u00e8s vous, a fait le coup?\n\nLa question \u00e9tait embarrassante; elle provoqua une s\u00e9rie de suppositions\nplus ou moins plausibles. On d\u00e9signa plusieurs individus consid\u00e9r\u00e9s\ncomme capables de commettre cet acte, mais ils furent \u00e9limin\u00e9s un \u00e0 un.\nPersonne, except\u00e9 le jeune Hillyer, n'avait v\u00e9cu dans l'intimit\u00e9 de\nFlint Buckner; personne ne s'\u00e9tait r\u00e9ellement pris de querelle avec lui;\nil avait bien eu des diff\u00e9rends avec ceux qui essayaient d'assouplir son\ncaract\u00e8re, mais il n'en \u00e9tait jamais venu \u00e0 des disputes pouvant amener\nune effusion de sang. Un nom br\u00fblait toutes les langues depuis le d\u00e9but\nde la conversation, mais on ne le pronon\u00e7a qu'en dernier ressort:\nc'\u00e9tait celui de Fetlock Jones. Pat Riley le mit en avant.\n\n--Ah! oui, dirent les camarades. Bien entendu nous avons tous pens\u00e9 \u00e0\nlui, car il avait un million de raisons pour tuer Flint Buckner;\nj'ajoute m\u00eame que c'\u00e9tait un devoir pour lui, mais tout bien consid\u00e9r\u00e9,\ndeux choses nous surprennent: d'abord, il ne devait pas h\u00e9riter du\nterrain; ensuite, il \u00e9tait \u00e9loign\u00e9 de l'endroit o\u00f9 s'est produite\nl'explosion.\n\n--Parfaitement, dit Pat. Il \u00e9tait dans la salle de billard avec nous au\nmoment de l'explosion. Et il y \u00e9tait m\u00eame une heure avant.\n\n--C'est heureux pour lui; sans cela on l'aurait imm\u00e9diatement soup\u00e7onn\u00e9.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nLes meubles de la salle \u00e0 manger de la taverne avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 enlev\u00e9s, \u00e0\nl'exception d'une longue table de sapin et d'une chaise. On avait\nrepouss\u00e9 la table dans un coin et pos\u00e9 la chaise par-dessus.\n\nSherlock Holm\u00e8s \u00e9tait assis sur cette chaise, l'air grave, imposant et\npresque impressionnant. Le public se tenait debout et remplissait la\nsalle. La fum\u00e9e du tabac obscurcissait l'air et l'assistance observait\nun silence religieux.\n\nSherlock Holm\u00e8s leva la main pour concentrer sur lui l'attention du\npublic et il la garda en l'air un moment; puis, en termes brefs,\nsaccad\u00e9s, il posa une s\u00e9rie de questions, soulignant les r\u00e9ponses de\n\u00abHums\u00bb significatifs et de hochements de t\u00eate; son interrogatoire fut\ntr\u00e8s minutieux et porta sur tout ce qui concernait Flint Buckner: son\ncaract\u00e8re, sa conduite, ses habitudes et l'opinion que les gens avaient\nde lui. Il comprit bien vite que son propre neveu \u00e9tait le seul dans le\ncamp qui e\u00fbt pu vouer \u00e0 Flint Buckner une haine mortelle. M. Holm\u00e8s\naccueillit ces t\u00e9moignages avec un sourire de piti\u00e9 et demanda sur un\nton indiff\u00e9rent:\n\n--Y a-t-il quelqu'un parmi vous, messieurs, qui puisse dire o\u00f9 se\ntrouvait votre camarade Fetlock Jones au moment de l'explosion?\n\nTous r\u00e9pondirent en choeur: \u00abIci m\u00eame.\u00bb\n\n--Depuis combien de temps y \u00e9tait-il? demanda M. Holm\u00e8s.\n\n--Depuis une heure environ.\n\n--Bon! une heure \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s? Quelle distance s\u00e9pare cet endroit du\nth\u00e9\u00e2tre de l'explosion?\n\n--Une bonne lieue.\n\n--Ceci est un alibi, il est vrai, mais m\u00e9diocre.\n\nUn immense \u00e9clat de rire accueillit cette r\u00e9flexion. Tous se mirent \u00e0\ncrier: ma parole, voil\u00e0 qui est raide! vous devez regretter maintenant,\nSandy, ce que vous venez de dire?\n\nLe t\u00e9moin confus baissa la t\u00eate en rougissant et parut constern\u00e9 du\nr\u00e9sultat de sa d\u00e9position.\n\n--La connexion quelque peu douteuse entre le nomm\u00e9 Jones et cette\naffaire (rires) ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 examin\u00e9e, reprit Holm\u00e8s, appelons maintenant\nles t\u00e9moins oculaires de la trag\u00e9die et interrogeons-les.\n\nIl exhiba ses fragments r\u00e9v\u00e9lateurs et les rangea sur une feuille de\ncarton \u00e9tal\u00e9e sur ses genoux. Toute la salle retenait sa respiration et\n\u00e9coutait.\n\n--Nous poss\u00e9dons la longitude et la latitude avec la correction des\nvariations magn\u00e9tiques et nous connaissons ainsi le lieu exact du drame.\nNous avons l'altitude, la temp\u00e9rature et l'\u00e9tat hygrom\u00e9trique du lieu;\nces renseignements sont pour nous des plus pr\u00e9cieux, puisqu'ils nous\npermettent d'estimer avec pr\u00e9cision le degr\u00e9 de l'influence que ces\nconditions sp\u00e9ciales ont pu exercer sur l'humeur et la disposition\nd'esprit de l'assassin \u00e0 cette heure de la nuit. (Brouhaha d'admiration,\nr\u00e9flexions chuchot\u00e9es. Par saint Georges, quelle profondeur d'esprit!)\n\nHolm\u00e8s saisit entre ses doigts les pi\u00e8ces \u00e0 conviction.\n\n--Et maintenant, demandons \u00e0 ces t\u00e9moins muets de nous dire ce qu'ils\nsavent:\n\nVoici un sac de toile vide. Que nous r\u00e9v\u00e8le-t-il? Que le mobile du\ncrime a \u00e9t\u00e9 le vol et non la vengeance. Qu'indique-t-il encore? Que\nl'assassin \u00e9tait d'une intelligence m\u00e9diocre ou, si vous pr\u00e9f\u00e9rez, d'un\nesprit l\u00e9ger et peu r\u00e9fl\u00e9chi? Comment le savons-nous? Parce qu'une\npersonne vraiment intelligente ne se serait pas amus\u00e9e \u00e0 voler Buckner,\nun homme qui n'avait jamais beaucoup d'argent sur lui. Mais l'assassin\naurait pu \u00eatre un \u00e9tranger? Laissez encore parler le sac. J'en retire\ncet objet: c'est un morceau de quartz argentif\u00e8re. C'est singulier.\nExaminez-le, je vous prie, chacun \u00e0 tour de r\u00f4le.\n\nMaintenant rendez-le-moi, s'il vous pla\u00eet.\n\nIl n'existe dans ce district qu'un seul filon qui produise du quartz\nexactement de cette esp\u00e8ce et de cette couleur. Ce filon rayonne sur une\nlongueur d'environ deux milles et il est destin\u00e9, d'apr\u00e8s ma conviction,\n\u00e0 conf\u00e9rer \u00e0 cet endroit dans un temps tr\u00e8s rapproch\u00e9 une c\u00e9l\u00e9brit\u00e9 qui\nfera le tour du monde; les deux cents propri\u00e9taires qui se partagent son\nexploitation acquerront des richesses qui surpassent tous les r\u00eaves de\nl'avarice. D\u00e9signez-moi ce filon par son nom, je vous prie.\n\n\u00abLa Science chr\u00e9tienne consolid\u00e9e et Mary-Ann!\u00bb lui r\u00e9pondit-on sans\nh\u00e9siter.\n\nUne salve fr\u00e9n\u00e9tique de hurrahs retentit aussit\u00f4t, chaque homme prit le\nfragment des mains de son voisin et le serra avec des larmes\nd'attendrissement dans les yeux; Well-Fargo et Ferguson s'\u00e9cri\u00e8rent:\n\n--Le \u00abFlush\u00bb est sur le filon et la cote monte \u00e0 cent cinquante dollars\nle pied. Vous m'entendez!\n\nLorsque le calme fut revenu, Holm\u00e8s reprit:\n\n--Nous constatons donc que trois faits sont nettement \u00e9tablis, savoir:\nque l'assassin \u00e9tait d'un esprit l\u00e9ger, qu'il n'\u00e9tait pas \u00e9tranger; que\nson mobile \u00e9tait le vol et non la vengeance. Continuons. Je tiens dans\nma main un petit fragment de m\u00e8che qui conserve encore l'odeur r\u00e9cente\ndu feu. Que prouve-t-il? Si je rapproche ce fragment de m\u00e8che de\nl'\u00e9vidence du quartz, j'en conclus que l'assassin est un mineur. Je dis\nplus, Messieurs, j'affirme que l'assassinat a \u00e9t\u00e9 commis en recourant \u00e0\nl'explosion. Je crois pouvoir avancer que l'engin explosif a \u00e9t\u00e9 pos\u00e9\nsur le c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la hutte qui borde la route \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s au milieu, car je\nl'ai trouv\u00e9 \u00e0 six pieds de ce point.\n\nJe tiens dans mes doigts une allumette su\u00e9doise, de l'esp\u00e8ce de celles\nqu'on frotte sur les bo\u00eetes de s\u00fbret\u00e9. Je l'ai trouv\u00e9e sur la route, \u00e0\nsix cent vingt-deux pieds de la case d\u00e9truite; que prouve-t-elle? Que la\nm\u00e8che a \u00e9t\u00e9 allum\u00e9e \u00e0 ce m\u00eame endroit. J'ajoute que l'assassin \u00e9tait\ngaucher. Vous allez me demander \u00e0 quel signe je le vois. Il me serait\nimpossible de vous l'expliquer, Messieurs, car ces indices sont si\nsubtils, que seules une longue exp\u00e9rience et une \u00e9tude approfondie\npeuvent rendre capable de les percevoir. Mais, les preuves restent l\u00e0;\nelles sont encore renforc\u00e9es par un fait que vous avez d\u00fb remarquer\nsouvent dans les grands r\u00e9cits policiers, c'est que tous les assassins\nsont gauchers.\n\n--Ma parole, c'est vrai, dit Ham Sandwich en se frappant bruyamment la\ncuisse de sa lourde main; du diable si j'y avais pens\u00e9 avant.\n\n--Ni moi non plus, cri\u00e8rent les autres; rien ne peut d\u00e9cid\u00e9ment \u00e9chapper\n\u00e0 cet oeil d'aigle.\n\n--Messieurs, malgr\u00e9 la distance qui s\u00e9parait l'assassin de sa victime,\nle premier n'est pas demeur\u00e9 enti\u00e8rement sain et sauf. Ce d\u00e9bris de bois\nque je vous pr\u00e9sente maintenant a atteint l'assassin en l'\u00e9gratignant\njusqu'au sang. Il porte certainement sur son corps la marque r\u00e9v\u00e9latrice\nde l'\u00e9clat qu'il a re\u00e7u. Je l'ai ramass\u00e9 \u00e0 l'endroit o\u00f9 il devait se\ntenir lorsqu'il alluma la m\u00e8che fatale.\n\nIl regarda l'auditoire du haut de son si\u00e8ge \u00e9lev\u00e9, et son attitude\ns'assombrit imm\u00e9diatement: levant lentement la main, il d\u00e9signa du doigt\nun assistant en disant:\n\n--Voici l'assassin!\n\nA cette r\u00e9v\u00e9lation, l'assistance fut frapp\u00e9e de stupeur puis vingt voix\ns'\u00e9lev\u00e8rent criant \u00e0 la fois:\n\n--Sammy Hillyer? Ah! diable, non! Lui? C'est de la pure folie!\n\n--Faites attention, Messieurs, ne vous emportez pas! regardez: il porte\nau front la marque du sang!\n\nHillyer devint bl\u00eame de peur. Pr\u00eat \u00e0 \u00e9clater en sanglots, il se tourna\nvers l'assistance en cherchant sur chaque visage de l'aide et de la\nsympathie; il tendit ses mains suppliantes vers Holm\u00e8s, et implora sa\npiti\u00e9 disant:\n\n--De gr\u00e2ce, non, de gr\u00e2ce! ce n'est pas moi, je vous en donne ma parole\nd'honneur. Cette blessure que j'ai au front vient de...\n\n--Arr\u00eatez-le, agent de police, cria Holm\u00e8s. Je vous en donne l'ordre\nformel.\n\nL'agent s'avan\u00e7a \u00e0 contre-coeur, h\u00e9sita, et s'arr\u00eata.\n\nHillyer jeta un nouvel appel.\n\n--Oh! Archy, ne les laissez pas faire; ma m\u00e8re en mourrait! Vous savez\nd'o\u00f9 vient cette blessure. Dites-le-leur et sauvez-moi. Archy,\nsauvez-moi!\n\nStillmann per\u00e7a la foule et dit:\n\n--Oui, je vous sauverai. N'ayez pas peur.\n\nPuis s'adressant \u00e0 l'assembl\u00e9e:\n\n--N'attachez aucune importance \u00e0 cette cicatrice, qui n'a rien \u00e0 voir\navec l'affaire qui nous occupe.\n\n--Dieu vous b\u00e9nisse, Archy, mon cher ami!\n\n--Hurrah pour Archy, camarades! cria l'assembl\u00e9e.\n\nTous mouraient d'envie de voir innocenter leur compatriote Sammy; ce\nloyal sentiment \u00e9tait d'ailleurs tr\u00e8s excusable dans leur coeur.\n\nLe jeune Stillmann attendit que le calme se f\u00fbt r\u00e9tabli, puis il reprit:\n\n--Je prierai Tom Jeffries de se tenir \u00e0 cette porte et l'agent Harris\nde rester \u00e0 l'autre en face, ils ne laisseront sortir personne.\n\nAussit\u00f4t dit, aussit\u00f4t fait.\n\n--Le criminel est parmi nous, j'en suis persuad\u00e9. Je vous le prouverai\navant longtemps, si, comme je le crois, mes conjectures sont exactes.\nMaintenant, laissez-moi vous retracer le drame du commencement jusqu'\u00e0\nla fin:\n\nLe mobile n'\u00e9tait pas le vol, mais la vengeance, le meurtrier n'\u00e9tait\npas un esprit l\u00e9ger. Il ne se tenait pas \u00e9loign\u00e9 de six cent vingt-deux\npieds. Il n'a pas \u00e9t\u00e9 atteint par un \u00e9clat de bois. Il n'a pas pos\u00e9\nl'explosif contre la case. Il n'a pas apport\u00e9 un sac avec lui. J'affirme\nm\u00eame qu'il n'est pas gaucher. A part cela, le rapport de notre h\u00f4te\ndistingu\u00e9 sur cette affaire est parfaitement exact.\n\nUn rire de satisfaction courut dans l'assembl\u00e9e; chacun se faisait signe\nde la t\u00eate et semblait dire \u00e0 son voisin: \u00abVoil\u00e0 le fin mot de\nl'histoire: Archy Stillmann est un brave gar\u00e7on, un bon camarade! Il n'a\npas baiss\u00e9 pavillon devant Sherlock Holm\u00e8s.\u00bb La s\u00e9r\u00e9nit\u00e9 de ce dernier\nne paraissait nullement troubl\u00e9e. Stillmann continua:\n\n--Moi aussi, j'ai des t\u00e9moins oculaires et je vous dirai tout \u00e0 l'heure\no\u00f9 vous pouvez en trouver d'autres.\n\nIl exhiba un morceau de gros fil de fer. La foule tendit le cou pour\nvoir.\n\n--Il est recouvert d'une couche de suif fondu. Et voici une bougie qui\nest br\u00fbl\u00e9e jusqu'\u00e0 moiti\u00e9. L'autre moiti\u00e9 porte des traces d'incision\nsur une longueur de trois centim\u00e8tres. Dans un instant, je vous dirai o\u00f9\nj'ai trouv\u00e9 ces objets. Pour le moment, je laisserai de c\u00f4t\u00e9 les\nraisonnements, les arguments, les conjectures plus ou moins\nenchev\u00eatr\u00e9es, en un mot toute la mise en sc\u00e8ne qui constitue le bagage\ndu \u00abd\u00e9tective\u00bb, et je vous dirai, dans des termes tr\u00e8s simples et sans\nd\u00e9tours, comment ce lamentable \u00e9v\u00e9nement est arriv\u00e9.\n\nIl s'arr\u00eata un moment pour juger de l'effet produit et pour permettre \u00e0\nl'assistance de concentrer sur lui toute son attention.\n\n--L'assassin, reprit-il, a eu beaucoup de peine \u00e0 arr\u00eater son plan, qui\n\u00e9tait d'ailleurs bien compris et tr\u00e8s ing\u00e9nieux; il d\u00e9note une\nintelligence v\u00e9ritable et pas du tout un esprit faible. C'est un plan\nparfaitement combin\u00e9 pour \u00e9carter tout soup\u00e7on de son auteur. Il a\ncommenc\u00e9 par marquer des points de rep\u00e8re sur une bougie de trois en\ntrois centim\u00e8tres, il l'a allum\u00e9e en notant le temps qu'elle mettait \u00e0\nbr\u00fbler. Il trouva ainsi qu'il fallait trois heures pour en br\u00fbler douze\ncentim\u00e8tres. Je l'ai moi-m\u00eame exp\u00e9riment\u00e9 l\u00e0-haut pendant une\ndemi-heure, il y a un moment de cela, pendant que M. Holm\u00e8s proc\u00e9dait \u00e0\nl'enqu\u00eate sur le caract\u00e8re et les habitudes de Flint Buckner. J'ai donc\npu relever le temps qu'il faut \u00e0 une bougie pour se consumer lorsqu'elle\nest prot\u00e9g\u00e9e du vent. Apr\u00e8s son exp\u00e9rience, l'assassin a \u00e9teint la\nbougie, je crois vous l'avoir d\u00e9j\u00e0 dit, et il en a pr\u00e9par\u00e9 une autre.\n\nIl fixa cette derni\u00e8re dans un bougeoir de fer-blanc. Puis, \u00e0 la\ndivision correspondante \u00e0 la cinqui\u00e8me heure, il per\u00e7a un trou avec un\nfil de fer rougi. Je vous ai d\u00e9j\u00e0 montr\u00e9 ce fil de fer recouvert d'une\nmince couche de suif; ce suif provient de la fusion de la bougie.\n\nAvec peine, grande peine m\u00eame, il grimpa \u00e0 travers les ajoncs qui\ncouvrent le talus escarp\u00e9 situ\u00e9 derri\u00e8re la maison de Flint Buckner; il\ntra\u00eenait derri\u00e8re lui un baril vide qui avait contenu de la farine. Il\nle cacha \u00e0 cet endroit parfaitement s\u00fbr et pla\u00e7a le bougeoir \u00e0\nl'int\u00e9rieur. Puis il mesura environ trente-cinq pieds de m\u00e8che,\nrepr\u00e9sentant la distance du baril \u00e0 la case. Il pratiqua un trou sur le\nc\u00f4t\u00e9 du baril, et voici m\u00eame la grosse vrille dont il s'est servi pour\ncela. Il termina sa pr\u00e9paration macabre, et quand tout fut achev\u00e9, un\nbout de la m\u00e8che aboutissait \u00e0 la case de Buckner, l'autre extr\u00e9mit\u00e9,\nqui portait une cavit\u00e9 destin\u00e9e \u00e0 recevoir de la poudre, \u00e9tait plac\u00e9e\ndans le trou de la bougie; la position de ce trou \u00e9tait calcul\u00e9e de\nmani\u00e8re \u00e0 faire sauter la hutte \u00e0 une heure du matin, en admettant que\ncette bougie ait \u00e9t\u00e9 allum\u00e9e vers huit heures hier soir et qu'un\nexplosif reli\u00e9 \u00e0 cette extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 de la m\u00e8che ait \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9pos\u00e9 dans la\ncase. Bien que je ne puisse le prouver, je parie que ce dispositif a \u00e9t\u00e9\nadopt\u00e9 \u00e0 la lettre.\n\nCamarades, le baril est l\u00e0 dans les ajoncs, le reste de la bougie a \u00e9t\u00e9\nretrouv\u00e9 dans le bougeoir de fer-blanc; la m\u00e8che br\u00fbl\u00e9e, nous l'avons\nreconnue dans le trou perc\u00e9 \u00e0 la vrille; l'autre bout est \u00e0 l'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9\nde la c\u00f4te, \u00e0 l'emplacement de la case d\u00e9truite. J'ai retrouv\u00e9 tous ces\nobjets, il y a une heure \u00e0 peine pendant que ma\u00eetre Sherlock Holm\u00e8s se\nlivrait \u00e0 des calculs plus ou moins fantaisistes et collectionnait des\nreliques qui n'avaient rien \u00e0 voir avec l'affaire.\n\nIl s'arr\u00eata. L'auditoire en profita pour reprendre haleine, et d\u00e9tendre\nses nerfs fatigu\u00e9s par une attention soutenue.\n\n--Du diable, dit Ham Sandwich, en \u00e9clatant de rire, voil\u00e0 pourquoi il\ns'est promen\u00e9 seul de son c\u00f4t\u00e9 dans les ajoncs, au lieu de relever des\npoints et des temp\u00e9ratures avec le professeur. Voyez-vous, camarades,\nArchy n'est pas un imb\u00e9cile.\n\n--Ah! non, certes...\n\nMais Stillmann continua:\n\n--Pendant que nous \u00e9tions l\u00e0-bas, il y a une heure ou deux, le\npropri\u00e9taire de la vrille et de la bougie d'essai les enleva de\nl'endroit o\u00f9 il les avait d'abord plac\u00e9es, la premi\u00e8re cachette n'\u00e9tant\npas bonne; il les d\u00e9posa \u00e0 un autre endroit qui lui paraissait meilleur,\n\u00e0 deux cents m\u00e8tres dans le bois de pins, et les cacha en les recouvrant\nd'aiguilles. C'est l\u00e0 que je les ai trouv\u00e9es. La vrille est juste de la\nmesure du trou du baril. Quant \u00e0 la...\n\nHolm\u00e8s l'interrompit, disant avec une certaine ironie:\n\n--Nous venons d'entendre un tr\u00e8s joli conte de f\u00e9es, messieurs, certes\ntr\u00e8s joli, seulement je voudrais poser une ou deux questions \u00e0 ce jeune\nhomme.\n\nL'assistance parut impressionn\u00e9e.\n\nFerguson marmotta:\n\n--J'ai peur qu'Archy ne trouve son ma\u00eetre cette fois.\n\nLes autres ne riaient plus, et paraissaient anxieux. Holm\u00e8s prit donc la\nparole \u00e0 son tour:\n\n--P\u00e9n\u00e9trons dans ce conte de f\u00e9es d'un pas s\u00fbr et m\u00e9thodique, par\nprogression g\u00e9om\u00e9trique, si je puis m'exprimer ainsi; encha\u00eenons les\nd\u00e9tails et montons \u00e0 l'assaut de cette citadelle d'erreur (pauvre joujou\nde clinquant) en soutenant une allure ferme, vive et r\u00e9solue. Nous ne\nrencontrons devant nous que l'\u00e9lucubration fantasque d'une imagination \u00e0\npeine \u00e9close. Pour commencer, jeune homme, je d\u00e9sire ne vous poser que\ntrois questions.\n\nSi j'ai bien compris, d'apr\u00e8s vous, cette bougie aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 allum\u00e9e hier\nsoir vers huit heures?\n\n--Oui, monsieur, vers huit heures!\n\n--Pouvez-vous dire huit heures pr\u00e9cises?\n\n--\u00c7a non! je ne saurais \u00eatre aussi affirmatif.\n\n--Hum! Donc, si une personne avait pass\u00e9 par l\u00e0 juste \u00e0 huit heures,\nelle aurait infailliblement rencontr\u00e9 l'assassin. C'est votre avis?\n\n--Oui, je le suppose.\n\n--Merci, c'est tout. Pour le moment cela me suffit; oui, c'est tout ce\nque je vous demande pour le quart d'heure.\n\n--Diantre! il tape ferme sur Archy, remarqua Ferguson.\n\n--C'est vrai, dit Ham Sandwich. Cette discussion ne me promet rien qui\nvaille.\n\nStillmann reprit, en regardant Holm\u00e8s:\n\n--J'\u00e9tais moi-m\u00eame par l\u00e0 \u00e0 huit heures et demie, ou plut\u00f4t vers neuf\nheures.\n\n--Vraiment? Ceci est int\u00e9ressant, tr\u00e8s int\u00e9ressant. Peut-\u00eatre avez-vous\nrencontr\u00e9 vous-m\u00eame l'assassin?\n\n--Non, je n'ai rencontr\u00e9 personne.\n\n--Ah! alors, pardonnez-moi cette remarque, je ne vois pas bien la valeur\nde votre renseignement.\n\n--Il n'en a aucune \u00e0 pr\u00e9sent. Je dis, notez-le bien, pour le moment.\n\nStillmann continua:\n\n--Je n'ai pas rencontr\u00e9 l'assassin, mais je suis sur ses traces, j'en\nr\u00e9ponds; je le crois m\u00eame dans cette pi\u00e8ce. Je vous prierai tous de\npasser individuellement devant moi, ici, \u00e0 la lumi\u00e8re pour que je puisse\nvoir vos pieds.\n\nUn murmure d'agitation parcourut la salle et le d\u00e9fil\u00e9 commen\u00e7a.\n\nSherlock regardait avec la volont\u00e9 bien arr\u00eat\u00e9e de conserver son\ns\u00e9rieux. Stillmann se baissa, couvrit son front avec sa main et examina\nattentivement chaque paire de pieds qui passaient. Cinquante hommes\nd\u00e9fil\u00e8rent lentement sans r\u00e9sultat. Soixante, soixante-dix. La c\u00e9r\u00e9monie\ncommen\u00e7ait \u00e0 devenir ridicule et Holm\u00e8s remarqua avec une douce ironie:\n\n--Les assassins se font rares, ce soir.\n\nLa salle comprit le piquant et \u00e9clata d'un bon rire franc. Dix ou douze\nautres candidats pass\u00e8rent ou plut\u00f4t d\u00e9fil\u00e8rent en dansant des\nentrechats comiques qui excit\u00e8rent l'hilarit\u00e9 des spectateurs.\n\nSoudain, Stillmann allongea le bras et cria:\n\n--Voici l'assassin!\n\n--Fetlock Jones! par le grand Sanh\u00e9drin! hurla la foule en accompagnant\ncette explosion d'\u00e9tonnement de remarques et de cris confus qui\nd\u00e9notaient bien l'\u00e9tat d'\u00e2me de l'auditoire.\n\nAu plus fort du tumulte, Holm\u00e8s \u00e9tendit le bras pour imposer silence.\nL'autorit\u00e9 de son grand nom et le prestige de sa personnalit\u00e9\n\u00e9lectris\u00e8rent les assistants qui ob\u00e9irent imm\u00e9diatement. Et au milieu du\nsilence complet qui suivit, ma\u00eetre Sherlock prit la parole, disant avec\ncomponction:\n\n--Ceci est trop grave! Il y va de la vie d'un innocent, d'un homme dont\nla conduite d\u00e9fie tout soup\u00e7on. \u00c9coutez-moi, je vais vous en donner la\npreuve palpable et r\u00e9duire au silence cette accusation aussi mensong\u00e8re\nque coupable. Mes amis, ce gar\u00e7on ne m'a pas quitt\u00e9 d'une semelle\npendant toute la soir\u00e9e d'hier.\n\nCes paroles firent une profonde impression sur l'auditoire; tous\ntourn\u00e8rent les yeux vers Stillmann avec des regards inquisiteurs.\n\nLui, l'air rayonnant, se contenta de r\u00e9pondre:\n\n--Je savais bien qu'il y avait un autre assassin!!!\n\nEt ce disant, il s'approcha vivement de la table et examina les pieds\nd'Holm\u00e8s; puis, le regardant bien dans les yeux, il lui dit:\n\n--Vous \u00e9tiez avec lui! Vous vous teniez \u00e0 peine \u00e0 cinquante pas de lui\nlorsqu'il alluma la bougie qui mit le feu \u00e0 la m\u00e8che (sensation). Et,\nqui plus est, c'est vous-m\u00eame qui avez fourni les allumettes!\n\nCette r\u00e9v\u00e9lation stup\u00e9fia Holm\u00e8s; le public put s'en apercevoir, car\nlorsqu'il ouvrit la bouche pour parler, ces mots entrecoup\u00e9s purent \u00e0\npeine sortir:\n\n--Ceci... ha!... Mais c'est de la folie... C'est...\n\nStillmann sentit qu'il gagnait du terrain et prit confiance. Il montra\nune allumette carbonis\u00e9e.\n\n--En voici une, je l'ai trouv\u00e9e dans le baril, tenez, en voici une\nautre!\n\nHolm\u00e8s retrouva imm\u00e9diatement l'usage de la parole.\n\n--Oui! Vous les avez mises l\u00e0 vous-m\u00eame!\n\nLa riposte \u00e9tait bien trouv\u00e9e, chacun le reconnut, mais Stillmann\nreprit:\n\n--Ce sont des allumettes de cire, un article inconnu dans ce camp. Je\nsuis pr\u00eat \u00e0 me laisser fouiller pour qu'on cherche \u00e0 d\u00e9couvrir la bo\u00eete\nsur moi. \u00cates-vous pr\u00eat, vous aussi?\n\nL'h\u00f4te restait stup\u00e9fait. C'\u00e9tait visible aux yeux de tous. Il remua les\ndoigts; une ou deux fois, ses l\u00e8vres s'entr'ouvrirent, mais les paroles\nne venaient pas. L'assembl\u00e9e n'en pouvait plus et voulait \u00e0 tout prix\nvoir le d\u00e9nouement de cette situation. Stillmann demanda simplement:\n\n--Nous attendons votre d\u00e9cision, monsieur Holm\u00e8s.\n\nApr\u00e8s un silence de quelques instants, l'h\u00f4te r\u00e9pondit \u00e0 voix basse:\n\n--Je d\u00e9fends qu'on me fouille.\n\nIl n'y eut aucune d\u00e9monstration bruyante, mais dans la salle chacun dit\n\u00e0 son voisin:\n\n--Cette fois, la question est tranch\u00e9e! Holm\u00e8s n'en m\u00e8ne plus large\ndevant Archy.\n\nQue faire, maintenant? Personne ne semblait le savoir. La situation\ndevenait embarrassante, car les \u00e9v\u00e9nements avaient pris une tournure si\ninattendue et si subite que les esprits s'\u00e9taient laiss\u00e9 surprendre et\nbattaient la breloque comme une pendule qui a re\u00e7u un choc. Mais, peu \u00e0\npeu, le m\u00e9canisme se r\u00e9tablit et les conversations reprirent leurs\ncours; formant des groupes de deux \u00e0 trois, les hommes se r\u00e9unirent et\nessay\u00e8rent d'\u00e9mettre leur avis sous forme de propositions. La majorit\u00e9\n\u00e9tait d'avis d'adresser \u00e0 l'assassin un vote de remerciements pour avoir\nd\u00e9barrass\u00e9 la communaut\u00e9 de Flint Buckner: cette action m\u00e9ritait bien\nqu'on le laiss\u00e2t en libert\u00e9. Mais les gens plus r\u00e9fl\u00e9chis protest\u00e8rent,\nall\u00e9guant que les cervelles mal \u00e9quilibr\u00e9es des \u00c9tats de l'Est\ncrieraient au scandale et feraient un tapage \u00e9pouvantable si on\nacquittait l'assassin.\n\nCette derni\u00e8re consid\u00e9ration l'emporta donc et obtint l'approbation\ng\u00e9n\u00e9rale.\n\nIl fut d\u00e9cid\u00e9 que Fetlock Jones serait arr\u00eat\u00e9 et passerait en jugement.\n\nLa question semblait donc tranch\u00e9e et les discussions n'avaient plus\nleur raison d'\u00eatre maintenant. Au fond, les gens en \u00e9taient enchant\u00e9s,\ncar tous dans leur for int\u00e9rieur avaient envie de sortir et de se\ntransporter sur les lieux du drame pour voir si le baril et les autres\nobjets y \u00e9taient r\u00e9ellement. Mais un incident impr\u00e9vu prolongea la\ns\u00e9ance et amena de nouvelles surprises.\n\nFetlock Jones, qui avait pleur\u00e9 silencieusement, passant presque\ninaper\u00e7u au milieu de l'excitation g\u00e9n\u00e9rale et des sc\u00e8nes \u00e9mouvantes qui\nse succ\u00e9daient depuis un moment, sortit de sa torpeur lorsqu'il entendit\nparler de son arrestation et de sa mise en jugement; son d\u00e9sespoir\n\u00e9clata et il s'\u00e9cria:\n\n--Non! ce n'est pas la peine! Je n'ai pas besoin de prison ni de\njugement. Mon ch\u00e2timent est assez dur \u00e0 l'heure qu'il est; n'ajoutez\nrien \u00e0 mon malheur, \u00e0 mes souffrances. Pendez-moi et que ce soit fini!\nMon crime devait \u00eatre d\u00e9couvert, c'\u00e9tait fatal; rien ne peut me sauver\nmaintenant. Il vous a tout racont\u00e9, absolument comme s'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 avec\nmoi, et m'avait vu. Comment le sait-il? c'est pour moi un prodige, mais\nvous trouverez le baril et les autres objets. Le sort en est jet\u00e9: je\nn'ai plus une chance de salut! Je l'ai tu\u00e9; et vous en auriez fait\nautant \u00e0 ma place, si, comme moi, vous aviez \u00e9t\u00e9 trait\u00e9 comme un chien;\nn'oubliez pas que j'\u00e9tais un pauvre gar\u00e7on faible, sans d\u00e9fense, sans un\nami pour me secourir.\n\n--Et il l'a bigrement m\u00e9rit\u00e9, s'\u00e9cria Ham Sandwich.\n\n_Des voix_.--\u00c9coutez camarades!\n\n_L'agent de police_.--De l'ordre, de l'ordre, Messieurs.\n\n_Une voix_.--Votre oncle savait-il ce que vous faisiez?\n\n--Non, il n'en savait rien.\n\n--\u00cates-vous certain qu'il vous ait donn\u00e9 les allumettes?\n\n--Oui, mais il ne savait pas l'usage que j'en voulais faire.\n\n--Lorsque vous \u00e9tiez occup\u00e9 \u00e0 pr\u00e9parer votre coup, comment avez-vous pu\noser l'emmener avec vous, lui, un d\u00e9tective? C'est inexplicable!\n\nLe jeune homme h\u00e9sita, tripota les boutons de sa veste d'un air\nembarrass\u00e9 et r\u00e9pondit timidement:\n\n--Je connais les d\u00e9tectives, car j'en ai dans ma famille, et je sais que\nle moyen le plus s\u00fbr de leur cacher un mauvais coup, c'est de les avoir\navec soi au moment psychologique.\n\nL'explosion de rires qui accueillit ce na\u00eff aveu ne fit qu'augmenter\nl'embarras du pauvre petit accus\u00e9.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nFetlock Jones a \u00e9t\u00e9 mis sous les verrous dans une cabane inoccup\u00e9e pour\nattendre son jugement. L'agent Harris lui a donn\u00e9 sa ration pour deux\njours, en lui recommandant de ne pas faire fi de cette nourriture; il\nlui a promis de revenir bient\u00f4t pour renouveler ses provisions.\n\nLe lendemain matin, nous part\u00eemes quelques-uns avec notre ami Hillyer,\npour l'aider \u00e0 enterrer son parent d\u00e9funt et peu regrett\u00e9, Flint\nBuckner; je remplissais les fonctions de premier assistant et tenais les\ncordons du po\u00eale; Hillyer conduisait le cort\u00e8ge. Au moment o\u00f9 nous\nfinissions notre triste besogne, un \u00e9tranger loqueteux, \u00e0 l'air\nnonchalant, passa devant nous; il portait un vieux sac \u00e0 main, marchait\nla t\u00eate basse et boitait. Au m\u00eame instant, je sentis nettement l'odeur \u00e0\nla recherche de laquelle j'avais parcouru la moiti\u00e9 du globe. Pour mon\nespoir d\u00e9faillant, c'\u00e9tait un parfum paradisiaque.\n\nEn une seconde, je fus pr\u00e8s de lui, et posai ma main doucement sur son\n\u00e9paule. Il s'affala par terre comme si la foudre venait de le frapper\nsur son chemin. Quand mes compagnons arriv\u00e8rent en courant, il fit de\ngrands efforts pour se mettre \u00e0 genoux, leva vers moi ses mains\nsuppliantes, et de ses l\u00e8vres tremblotantes me demanda de ne plus le\npers\u00e9cuter.\n\n--Vous m'avez pourchass\u00e9 dans tout l'univers, Sherlock Holm\u00e8s, et\ncependant Dieu m'est t\u00e9moin que je n'ai jamais fait de mal \u00e0 personne!\n\nEn regardant ses yeux hagards, il \u00e9tait facile de voir qu'il \u00e9tait fou.\nVoil\u00e0 mon oeuvre, ma m\u00e8re! La nouvelle de votre mort pourra seule un\njour renouveler la tristesse que j'\u00e9prouvai \u00e0 ce moment; ce sera ma\nseconde \u00e9motion.\n\nLes jeunes gens relev\u00e8rent le vieillard, l'entour\u00e8rent de soins et\nfurent pleins de pr\u00e9venance pour lui; ils lui prodigu\u00e8rent les mots les\nplus touchants et cherch\u00e8rent \u00e0 le consoler en lui disant de ne plus\navoir peur, qu'il \u00e9tait maintenant au milieu d'amis, qu'ils le\nsoigneraient, le prot\u00e9geraient et pendraient le premier qui porterait\nla main sur lui. Ils sont comme les autres hommes, ces rudes mineurs,\nquand on ranime la chaleur de leur coeur; on pourrait les croire des\nenfants insouciants et irr\u00e9fl\u00e9chis jusqu'au moment o\u00f9 quelqu'un fait\nvibrer les fibres de leur coeur. Ils essay\u00e8rent de tous les moyens pour\nle r\u00e9conforter, mais tout \u00e9choua jusqu'au moment o\u00f9 l'habile strat\u00e9giste\nqu'est Well-Fargo prit la parole et dit:\n\n--Si c'est uniquement Sherlock Holm\u00e8s qui vous inqui\u00e8te, inutile de vous\nmettre martel en t\u00eate plus longtemps.\n\n--Pourquoi? demanda vivement le malheureux fou.\n\n--Parce qu'il est mort!\n\n--Mort! mort! Oh! ne plaisantez pas avec un pauvre naufrag\u00e9 comme moi!\nEst-il mort? Sur votre honneur, jeunes gens, me dit-il la v\u00e9rit\u00e9?\n\n--Aussi vrai que vous \u00eates l\u00e0! dit Ham Sandwich, et ils soutinrent\nl'affirmation de leur camarade, comme un seul homme.\n\n--Ils l'ont pendu \u00e0 San Bernardino la semaine derni\u00e8re, ajouta\nFerguson, tandis qu'il \u00e9tait \u00e0 votre recherche. Ils se sont tromp\u00e9s et\nl'ont pris pour un autre. Ils le regrettent, mais n'y peuvent plus rien.\n\n--Ils lui \u00e9l\u00e8vent un monument, continua Ham Sandwich de l'air de\nquelqu'un qui a vers\u00e9 sa cotisation et est bien renseign\u00e9.\n\nJames Walker poussa un grand soupir, \u00e9videmment un soupir de\nsoulagement; il ne dit rien, mais ses yeux perdirent leur expression\nd'effroi; son attitude sembla plus calme et ses traits se d\u00e9tendirent un\npeu. Nous regagn\u00e2mes tous nos cases et les jeunes gens lui pr\u00e9par\u00e8rent\nle meilleur repas que pouvaient fournir nos provisions; pendant qu'ils\ncuisinaient, nous l'habill\u00e2mes des pieds \u00e0 la t\u00eate, Hillyer et moi; nos\nv\u00eatements neufs lui donnaient un air de petit vieux bien tenu et\nrespectable. \u00abVieux\u00bb est bien le mot, car il le paraissait avec son\naffaissement, la blancheur de ses cheveux, et les ravages que les\nchagrins avaient faits sur son visage; et, pourtant, il \u00e9tait dans la\nforce de l'\u00e2ge. Pendant qu'il mangeait, nous fumions et causions;\nlorsqu'il eut fini, il retrouva enfin l'usage de la parole et, de son\nplein gr\u00e9, nous raconta son histoire. Je ne pr\u00e9tends pas reproduire ses\npropres termes, mais je m'en rapprocherai le plus possible dans mon\nr\u00e9cit:\n\nHISTOIRE D'UN INNOCENT\n\n\u00abVoici ce qui m'arriva:\n\n\u00abJ'\u00e9tais \u00e0 Denver, o\u00f9 je vivais depuis de longues ann\u00e9es: quelquefois,\nje retrouve le nombre de ces ann\u00e9es, d'autres fois, je l'oublie, mais\npeu m'importe. Seulement, on me signifia d'avoir \u00e0 partir, sous peine\nd'\u00eatre accus\u00e9 d'un horrible crime commis il y a bien longtemps, dans\nl'Est. Je connaissais ce crime, mais je ne l'avais pas commis; le\ncoupable \u00e9tait un de mes cousins, qui portait le m\u00eame nom que moi.\n\n\u00abQue faire? Je perdais la t\u00eate, ne savais plus que devenir. On ne me\ndonnait que tr\u00e8s peu de temps, vingt-quatre heures, je crois. J'\u00e9tais\nperdu si mon nom venait \u00e0 \u00eatre connu. La population m'aurait lynch\u00e9 sans\nadmettre d'explications. C'est toujours ce qui arrive avec les\nlynchages; lorsqu'on d\u00e9couvre qu'on s'est tromp\u00e9 on se d\u00e9sole, mais il\nest trop tard... (vous voyez que la m\u00eame chose est arriv\u00e9e pour M.\nHolm\u00e8s). Alors, je r\u00e9solus de tout vendre, de faire argent de tout, et\nde fuir jusqu'\u00e0 ce que l'orage f\u00fbt pass\u00e9; plus tard, je reviendrais avec\nla preuve de mon innocence. Je partis donc de nuit, et me sauvai bien\nloin, dans la montagne, o\u00f9 je v\u00e9cus, d\u00e9guis\u00e9 sous un faux nom.\n\n\u00abJe devins de plus en plus inquiet et anxieux; dans mon trouble je\nvoyais des esprits, j'entendais des voix et il me devenait impossible de\nraisonner sainement sur le moindre sujet; mes id\u00e9es s'obscurcirent\ntellement que je dus renoncer \u00e0 penser, tant je souffrais de la t\u00eate.\nCet \u00e9tat ne fit qu'empirer. Toujours des voix, toujours des esprits\nm'entouraient. Au d\u00e9but, ils ne me poursuivaient que la nuit, bient\u00f4t ce\nfut aussi le jour. Ils murmuraient \u00e0 mon oreille autour de mon lit et\ncomplotaient contre moi; je ne pouvais plus dormir et me sentais bris\u00e9\nde fatigue.\n\n\u00abUne nuit, les voix me dirent \u00e0 mon oreille: \u00abJamais nous n'arriverons \u00e0\nnotre but parce que nous ne pouvons ni l'apercevoir, ni par cons\u00e9quent\nle d\u00e9signer au public.\u00bb\n\n\u00abElles soupir\u00e8rent, puis l'une dit: \u00abIl faut que nous amenions Sherlock\nHolm\u00e8s; il peut \u00eatre ici dans douze jours.\u00bb Elles approuv\u00e8rent,\nchuchot\u00e8rent entre elles et gambad\u00e8rent de joie.\n\n\u00abMon coeur battait \u00e0 se rompre; car j'avais lu bien des r\u00e9cits sur\nHolm\u00e8s et je pressentais quelle chasse allait me donner cet homme avec\nsa t\u00e9nacit\u00e9 surhumaine et son activit\u00e9 infatigable.\n\n\u00abLes esprits partirent le chercher; je me levai au milieu de la nuit et\nm'enfuis, n'emportant que le sac \u00e0 main qui contenait mon argent: trente\nmille dollars. Les deux tiers sont encore dans ce sac. Il fallut\nquarante jours \u00e0 ce d\u00e9mon pour retrouver ma trace. Je lui \u00e9chappai. Par\nhabitude, il avait d'abord inscrit son vrai nom sur le registre de\nl'h\u00f4tel, puis il l'avait effac\u00e9 pour mettre \u00e0 la place celui de \u00abDagget\nBarclay\u00bb. Mais la peur vous rend perspicace. Ayant lu le vrai nom,\nmalgr\u00e9 les ratures, je filai comme un cerf.\n\n\u00abDepuis trois ans et demi, il me poursuit dans les \u00c9tats du Pacifique,\nen Australie et aux Indes, dans tous les pays imaginables, de Mexico \u00e0\nla Californie, me donnant \u00e0 peine le temps de me reposer; heureusement,\nle nom des registres m'a toujours guid\u00e9, et j'ai pu sauver ma pauvre\npersonne!\n\n\u00abJe suis mort de fatigue! Il m'a fait passer un temps bien cruel, et\npourtant, je vous le jure, je n'ai jamais fait de mal ni \u00e0 lui, ni \u00e0\naucun des siens.\u00bb\n\nAinsi se termina le r\u00e9cit de cette lamentable histoire qui bouleversa\ntous les jeunes gens; quant \u00e0 moi, chacune de ces paroles me br\u00fbla le\ncoeur comme un fer rouge. Nous d\u00e9cid\u00e2mes d'adopter le vieillard, qui\ndeviendrait mon h\u00f4te et celui d'Hyllyer. Ma r\u00e9solution est bien arr\u00eat\u00e9e\nmaintenant; je l'installerai \u00e0 Denver et le r\u00e9habiliterai.\n\nMes camarades lui donn\u00e8rent la vigoureuse poign\u00e9e de main de bienvenue\ndes mineurs et se dispers\u00e8rent pour r\u00e9pandre la nouvelle.\n\nA l'aube, le lendemain matin, Well-Fargo, Ferguson et Ham Sandwich nous\nappel\u00e8rent \u00e0 voix basse et nous dirent confidentiellement:\n\n--La nouvelle des mauvais traitements endur\u00e9s par cet \u00e9tranger s'est\nr\u00e9pandue aux alentours et tous les camps des mineurs se soul\u00e8vent. Ils\narrivent en masse de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s, et vont lyncher le professeur. L'agent\nHarry a une frousse formidable et a t\u00e9l\u00e9phon\u00e9 au sh\u00e9riff.\n\n--Allons, venez!\n\nNous part\u00eemes en courant. Les autres avaient le droit d'interpr\u00e9ter\ncette aventure \u00e0 leur fa\u00e7on. Mais dans mon for int\u00e9rieur, je souhaitais\nvivement que le sh\u00e9riff p\u00fbt arriver \u00e0 temps, car je n'avais nulle envie\nd'assister de sang-froid \u00e0 la pendaison de Sherlock Holm\u00e8s. J'avais\nentendu beaucoup parler du sh\u00e9riff, mais j'\u00e9prouvai quand m\u00eame le besoin\nde demander: \u00abEst-il vraiment capable de contenir la foule?\u00bb\n\n--Contenir la foule! lui, Jack Fairfak, contenir la foule! Mais vous\nplaisantez! Vous oubliez que cet \u00e9nergum\u00e8ne a dix-neuf scalps \u00e0 son\nacquit, oui! dix-neuf scalps!\n\nEn approchant nous entend\u00eemes nettement des cris, des g\u00e9missements, des\nhurlements qui s'accentu\u00e8rent \u00e0 mesure que nous avancions; ces cris\ndevinrent de plus en plus forts, et lorsque nous atteign\u00eemes la foule\nmass\u00e9e sur la place devant la taverne, le bruit nous assourdit\ncompl\u00e8tement.\n\nPlusieurs gaillards de \u00abDalys Gorge\u00bb s'\u00e9taient brutalement saisis de\nHolm\u00e8s, qui pourtant affectait un calme imperturbable.\n\nUn sourire de m\u00e9pris se dessinait sur ses l\u00e8vres et, en admettant que\nson coeur de Breton ait pu un instant conna\u00eetre la peur de la mort, son\n\u00e9nergie de fer avait vite repris le dessus et ma\u00eetrisait tout autre\nsentiment.\n\n--Venez vite voter, vous autres! cria Shadbelly Higgins, un compagnon de\nla bande Daly: vous avez le choix entre pendu ou fusill\u00e9!\n\n--Ni l'un ni l'autre! hurla un de ses camarades. Il ressusciterait la\nsemaine prochaine! le br\u00fbler, voil\u00e0 le seul moyen de ne plus le voir\nrevenir.\n\nLes mineurs, dans tous les groupes, r\u00e9pondirent par un tonnerre\nd'applaudissements et se port\u00e8rent en masse vers le prisonnier; ils\nl'entour\u00e8rent en criant: \u00abAu b\u00fbcher! Au b\u00fbcher!\u00bb Puis ils le tra\u00een\u00e8rent\nau poteau, l'y adoss\u00e8rent en l'encha\u00eenant et l'entour\u00e8rent jusqu'\u00e0 la\nceinture de bois et de pommes de pin. Au milieu de ces pr\u00e9paratifs, sa\nfigure ferme ne bronchait pas et le m\u00eame sourire de d\u00e9dain restait\nesquiss\u00e9 sur ses l\u00e8vres fines.\n\n--Une allumette! Apportez une allumette!\n\nShadbelly la frotta, abrita la flamme de sa main, se baissa et alluma\nles pommes de pin. Un silence profond r\u00e9gnait sur la foule; le feu prit\net une petite flamme l\u00e9cha les pommes de pin. Il me sembla entendre un\nbruit lointain de pas de chevaux. Ce bruit se rapprocha et devint de\nplus en plus distinct, mais la foule absorb\u00e9e paraissait ne rien\nentendre.\n\nL'allumette s'\u00e9teignit. L'homme en frotta une autre, se baissa et de\nnouveau la flamme jaillit. Cette fois elle courut rapidement au travers\ndes brins de bois. Dans l'assistance, quelques hommes d\u00e9tourn\u00e8rent la\nt\u00eate. Le bourreau tenait \u00e0 la main son allumette carbonis\u00e9e et\nsurveillait la marche du feu. Au m\u00eame instant, un cheval d\u00e9boucha \u00e0\nplein galop du tournant des rochers, venant dans notre direction.\n\nUn cri retentit:\n\n--Le sh\u00e9riff!\n\nFendant la foule, le cavalier se fraya un passage jusqu'au b\u00fbcher;\narriv\u00e9 l\u00e0, il arr\u00eata son cheval sur les jarrets et s'\u00e9cria:\n\n--Arri\u00e8re, tas de vauriens!\n\nTous ob\u00e9irent \u00e0 l'exception du chef qui se campa r\u00e9solument et saisit\nson revolver. Le sh\u00e9riff fon\u00e7a sur lui, criant:\n\n--Vous m'entendez, esp\u00e8ce de forcen\u00e9. \u00c9teignez le feu, et enlevez au\nprisonnier ses cha\u00eenes.\n\nIl finit par ob\u00e9ir. Le sh\u00e9riff prit la parole, rassemblant son cheval\ndans une attitude martiale; il ne s'emporta pas et parla sans v\u00e9h\u00e9mence,\nsur un ton compass\u00e9 et pond\u00e9r\u00e9, bien fait pour ne leur inspirer aucune\ncrainte.\n\n--Vous faites du propre, vous autres! Vous \u00eates tout au plus dignes de\nmarcher de pair avec ce gredin de Shadbelly Higgins, cet inf\u00e2me...\nreptile qui attaque les gens par derri\u00e8re et se croit un h\u00e9ros.\n\nCe que je m\u00e9prise par-dessus tout, c'est une foule qui se livre au\nlynchage. Je n'y ai jamais rencontr\u00e9 un homme \u00e0 caract\u00e8re. Il faut en\n\u00e9liminer cent avant d'en trouver un qui ait assez de coeur au ventre\npour oser attaquer seul un homme m\u00eame infirme. La foule n'est qu'un\nramassis de poltrons et quatre-vingt-dix-neuf fois sur cent le sh\u00e9riff\nlui-m\u00eame est le roi des l\u00e2ches.\n\nIl s'arr\u00eata, \u00e9videmment pour savourer ces derni\u00e8res paroles et juger de\nl'effet produit, puis il reprit:\n\n--Le sh\u00e9riff qui abandonne un prisonnier \u00e0 la fureur aveugle de la foule\nest le dernier des l\u00e2ches. Les statistiques constatent qu'il y a eu cent\nquatre-vingt-deux sh\u00e9riffs, l'ann\u00e9e derni\u00e8re, qui ont touch\u00e9 des\nappointements injustement gagn\u00e9s. Au train o\u00f9 marchent les choses, on\nverra bient\u00f4t figurer une nouvelle maladie dans les livres de m\u00e9decine\nsous le nom de \u00abmal des sh\u00e9riffs\u00bb.\n\nLes gens demanderont: \u00abLe sh\u00e9riff est encore malade?\u00bb\n\nOui! il souffre toujours de la m\u00eame maladie incurable.\n\nOn ne dira plus: \u00abUn tel est all\u00e9 chercher le sh\u00e9riff du comit\u00e9 de\nRapalso!\u00bb mais: un tel est all\u00e9 chercher le \u00abfroussard\u00bb de Rapalso! Mon\nDieu! qu'il faut donc \u00eatre l\u00e2che pour avoir peur d'une foule en train de\nlyncher un homme!\n\nIl regarda le prisonnier du coin de l'oeil et lui demanda:\n\n--\u00c9tranger, qui \u00eates-vous et qu'avez-vous fait?\n\n--Je m'appelle Sherlock Holm\u00e8s; je n'ai rien \u00e0 me reprocher.\n\nCe nom produisit sur le sh\u00e9riff une impression prodigieuse. Il se remit\n\u00e0 haranguer la foule, disant que c'\u00e9tait une honte pour le pays\nd'infliger un outrage aussi ignominieux \u00e0 un homme dont les exploits\n\u00e9taient connus du monde entier pour leur caract\u00e8re merveilleux, et dont\nles aventures avaient conquis les bonnes gr\u00e2ces de tous les lecteurs par\nle charme et le piquant de leur exposition litt\u00e9raire. Il pr\u00e9senta \u00e0\nHolm\u00e8s les excuses de toute la nation, le salua tr\u00e8s courtoisement et\nordonna \u00e0 l'agent Harris de le ramener chez lui, lui signifiant qu'il le\nrendrait personnellement responsable si Holm\u00e8s \u00e9tait de nouveau\nmaltrait\u00e9. Se tournant ensuite vers la foule, il s'\u00e9cria:\n\n--Regagnez vos tanni\u00e8res, tas de racailles!\n\nIls ob\u00e9irent; puis s'adressant \u00e0 Shadbelly:\n\n--Vous, suivez-moi, je veux moi-m\u00eame r\u00e9gler votre compte. Non, gardez ce\njoujou qui vous sert d'arme; le jour o\u00f9 j'aurai peur de vous sentir\nderri\u00e8re moi avec votre revolver, il sera temps pour moi d'aller\nrejoindre les cent quatre-vingt-deux poltrons de l'ann\u00e9e derni\u00e8re.--Et,\nce disant, il partit au pas de sa monture suivi de Shadbelly.\n\nEn rentrant chez nous vers l'heure du d\u00e9jeuner, nous appr\u00eemes que\nFetlock Jones \u00e9tait en fuite; il s'\u00e9tait \u00e9vad\u00e9 de la prison et battait\nla campagne. Personne n'en fut f\u00e2ch\u00e9 au fond. Que son oncle le\npoursuive, s'il veut; c'est son affaire; le camp tout entier s'en lave\nles mains.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nLE JOURNAL REPREND\n\n\nDix jours plus tard.\n\n\u00abJames Walker\u00bb va bien physiquement, et son cerveau est en voie de\ngu\u00e9rison. Je pars avec lui pour Denver demain matin.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLa nuit suivante.\n\nQuelques mots envoy\u00e9s \u00e0 la h\u00e2te d'une petite gare. En me quittant, ce\nmatin, Hillyer m'a chuchot\u00e9 \u00e0 l'oreille:\n\n--Ne parlez de ceci \u00e0 Walker que quand vous serez bien certain de ne pas\nlui faire de mal en arr\u00eatant les progr\u00e8s de son r\u00e9tablissement. Le crime\nancien auquel il a fait allusion devant nous a bien \u00e9t\u00e9 commis, comme\nil le dit, par son cousin.\n\nNous avons enterr\u00e9 le vrai coupable l'autre soir, l'homme le plus\nmalheureux du si\u00e8cle, Flint Buckner. Son v\u00e9ritable nom \u00e9tait \u00abJacob\nFuller\u00bb.\n\nAinsi, ma ch\u00e8re m\u00e8re, ma mission est termin\u00e9e. Je viens d'accomplir mon\nmandat. Sans m'en douter, j'ai conduit \u00e0 sa derni\u00e8re demeure votre mari,\nmon p\u00e8re. Qu'il repose en paix!\n\n\nFIN\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCANNIBALISME EN VOYAGE\n\n\nJe revenais derni\u00e8rement de visiter Saint-Louis, lorsqu'\u00e0 la bifurcation\nde Terre-Haute (territoire d'Indiana), un homme de quarante \u00e0 cinquante\nans, \u00e0 la physionomie sympathique, aux mani\u00e8res affables, monta dans mon\ncompartiment et s'assit pr\u00e8s de moi; nous caus\u00e2mes assez longtemps pour\nme permettre d'appr\u00e9cier son intelligence et le charme de sa\nconversation. Lorsqu'au cours de notre entretien, il apprit que j'\u00e9tais\nde Washington, il se h\u00e2ta de me demander des \u00abtuyaux\u00bb sur les hommes\npolitiques, sur les affaires gouvernementales; je m'aper\u00e7us d'ailleurs\ntr\u00e8s vite qu'il \u00e9tait au courant de tous les d\u00e9tails, de tous les\ndessous politiques, et qu'il en savait tr\u00e8s long sur les faits et gestes\ndes s\u00e9nateurs et des repr\u00e9sentants des Chambres aux Assembl\u00e9es\nl\u00e9gislatives. A une des stations suivantes deux hommes s'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent pr\u00e8s\nde nous et l'un d'eux dit \u00e0 l'autre:\n\n\u00abHarris, si vous faites cela pour moi, je ne l'oublierai de ma vie.\u00bb\n\nLes yeux de mon nouveau compagnon de voyage brill\u00e8rent d'un singulier\n\u00e9clat; \u00e0 n'en pas douter, ces simples mots venaient d'\u00e9voquer chez lui\nquelque vieux souvenir. Ensuite son visage redevint calme, presque\npensif. Il se tourna vers moi et me dit:\n\n--Laissez-moi vous conter une histoire, vous d\u00e9voiler un chapitre secret\nde ma vie, une page que j'avais enterr\u00e9e au fin fond de moi-m\u00eame.\n\u00c9coutez-moi patiemment, et ne m'interrompez pas.\n\nJe promis de l'\u00e9couter; il me raconta l'aventure suivante, avec des\nalternatives d'animation et de m\u00e9lancolie, mais toujours avec beaucoup\nde persuasion et un grand s\u00e9rieux.\n\nR\u00e9cit de cet \u00e9tranger:\n\n\u00abLe 19 d\u00e9cembre 1853, je quittai Saint-Louis par le train du soir qui va\n\u00e0 Chicago. Tous compris, nous n'\u00e9tions que vingt-quatre voyageurs\nhommes; ni femmes ni enfants; nous f\u00eemes vite connaissance et comme\nnous paraissions tous de bonne humeur, une certaine intimit\u00e9 ne tarda\npas \u00e0 s'\u00e9tablir entre nous.\n\n\u00abLe voyage s'annon\u00e7ait bien; et pas un d'entre nous ne pouvait\npressentir les horribles instants que nous devions bient\u00f4t traverser.\n\n\u00abA 11 heures, il neigeait ferme. Peu apr\u00e8s avoir quitt\u00e9 le village de\nWelden, nous entr\u00e2mes dans les interminables prairies d\u00e9sertes qui\ns'\u00e9tendent horriblement monotones pendant des lieues et des lieues; le\nvent soufflait avec violence, car il ne rencontrait aucun obstacle sur\nsa route, ni arbres, ni collines, ni m\u00eame un rocher isol\u00e9; il chassait\ndevant lui la neige qui tombait en rafales et formait sous nos yeux un\ntapis \u00e9pais. Elle tombait dru, cette neige, et le ralentissement du\ntrain nous indiquait assez que la locomotive avait peine \u00e0 lutter contre\nla r\u00e9sistance croissante des \u00e9l\u00e9ments. Le train stoppa plusieurs fois et\nnous v\u00eemes au-dessus de nos t\u00eates un double rempart de neige aveuglant\nde blancheur, triste comme un mur de prison.\n\n\u00abLes conversations cess\u00e8rent; la gaiet\u00e9 fit place \u00e0 l'angoisse; la\nperspective d'\u00eatre mur\u00e9s par la neige au milieu de la prairie d\u00e9serte,\n\u00e0 cinquante lieues de toute habitation, se dressait comme un spectre\ndevant chacun de nous et jetait une note de tristesse sur notre bande\ntout \u00e0 l'heure si joyeuse.\n\n\u00abA deux heures du matin, je fus tir\u00e9 de mon sommeil agit\u00e9 par un arr\u00eat\nbrusque. L'horrible v\u00e9rit\u00e9 m'apparut dans toute sa nudit\u00e9 hideuse: nous\n\u00e9tions bloqu\u00e9s par la neige. \u00abTous les bras \u00e0 la rescousse!\u00bb On se h\u00e2ta\nd'ob\u00e9ir. Chacun redoubla d'efforts sous la nuit noire et la tourmente de\nneige, parfaitement convaincu qu'une minute perdue pouvait causer notre\nmort \u00e0 tous. Pelles, planches, mains, tout ce qui pouvait d\u00e9placer la\nneige fut r\u00e9quisitionn\u00e9 en un instant.\n\n\u00abQuel \u00e9trange spectacle de voir ces hommes lutter contre les neiges\namoncel\u00e9es, et travailler d'arrache-pied, les uns plong\u00e9s dans une\nobscurit\u00e9 profonde, les autres \u00e9clair\u00e9s par la lueur rouge\u00e2tre du\nr\u00e9flecteur de la machine!\n\n\u00abAu bout d'une heure, nous \u00e9tions fix\u00e9s sur l'inutilit\u00e9 compl\u00e8te de nos\nefforts; car la temp\u00eate remplissait en rafales les tranch\u00e9es que nous\navions pratiqu\u00e9es. Pour comble de malheur, on d\u00e9couvrit que les bielles\nde la locomotive s'\u00e9taient bris\u00e9es sous la r\u00e9sistance du poids \u00e0\nd\u00e9placer. La route, e\u00fbt-elle \u00e9t\u00e9 libre, devenait impraticable pour\nnous!!\n\n\u00abNous remont\u00e2mes dans le train, fatigu\u00e9s, mornes et d\u00e9courag\u00e9s; nous\nnous r\u00e9un\u00eemes autour des po\u00eales pour examiner l'\u00e9tat de notre situation.\nNous n'avions pas de provisions de bouche; c'\u00e9tait l\u00e0 le plus clair de\nnotre d\u00e9sastre! Largement approvisionn\u00e9s de bois, nous ne risquions pas\nde mourir de froid. C'\u00e9tait d\u00e9j\u00e0 une consolation.\n\n\u00abApr\u00e8s une longue d\u00e9lib\u00e9ration, nous reconn\u00fbmes que le conducteur du\ntrain disait vrai: en effet quiconque se serait risqu\u00e9 \u00e0 parcourir \u00e0\npied les cinquante lieues qui nous s\u00e9paraient du village le plus\nrapproch\u00e9 aurait certainement trouv\u00e9 la mort. Impossible de demander du\nsecours, et l'eussions-nous demand\u00e9, personne ne serait venu \u00e0 nous. Il\nnous fallait donc nous r\u00e9signer et attendre patiemment du secours ou la\nmort par la faim; je puis certifier que cette triste perspective\nsuffisait \u00e0 \u00e9branler le coeur le plus sto\u00efque.\n\n\u00abNotre conversation, pourtant bruyante, produisait l'illusion d'un\nmurmure vague, qu'on distinguait \u00e0 peine au milieu des rafales de vent;\nla clart\u00e9 des lampes diminua peu \u00e0 peu, et la plus grande partie des\n\u00abnaufrag\u00e9s\u00bb se turent, les uns pour r\u00e9fl\u00e9chir, les autres pour chercher\ndans le sommeil l'oubli de leur situation tragique.\n\n\u00abCette nuit nous parut \u00e9ternelle; l'aurore glac\u00e9e et grise commen\u00e7a \u00e0\npoindre \u00e0 l'est; \u00e0 mesure que le jour grandissait, les voyageurs se\nr\u00e9veill\u00e8rent et se donn\u00e8rent du mouvement pour essayer de se r\u00e9chauffer;\nl'un apr\u00e8s l'autre, ils \u00e9tir\u00e8rent leurs membres raidis par le sommeil,\net regard\u00e8rent par les fen\u00eatres le spectacle horrible qui s'offrait \u00e0\nleurs yeux. Horrible! il l'\u00e9tait en effet, ce spectacle. Pas une\nhabitation! pas un atome vivant autour de nous! partout le d\u00e9sert, blanc\ncomme un linceul; la neige, fouett\u00e9e en tous sens par le vent,\ntourbillonnait en flocons dans l'espace.\n\n\u00abNous err\u00e2mes toute la journ\u00e9e dans les wagons, parlant peu, absorb\u00e9s\ndans nos pens\u00e9es; puis vint une seconde nuit, longue, monotone, pendant\nlaquelle la faim commen\u00e7a \u00e0 se faire sentir.\n\n\u00abLe jour reparut; silencieux et triste, nous faisions le guet,\nattendant un secours qui ne pouvait pas venir; une autre nuit lui\nsucc\u00e9da, agit\u00e9e de r\u00eaves fantastiques pendant lesquels des festins\nsomptueux et les f\u00eates bacchiques d\u00e9filaient sous nos yeux! Le r\u00e9veil\nn'en fut que plus p\u00e9nible! Le quatri\u00e8me et le cinqui\u00e8me jour parurent!\nCinq jours de v\u00e9ritable captivit\u00e9! La faim se lisait sur tous les\nvisages d\u00e9prim\u00e9s qui accusaient l'obsession d'une m\u00eame id\u00e9e fixe, d'une\npens\u00e9e \u00e0 laquelle nul n'osait ni ne voulait s'arr\u00eater. Le sixi\u00e8me jour\ns'\u00e9coula, et le septi\u00e8me se leva sur notre petite troupe haletante,\nterrifi\u00e9e \u00e0 l'id\u00e9e de la mort qui nous guettait. Il fallait pourtant en\nfinir et parler. Les l\u00e8vres de chacun \u00e9taient pr\u00eates \u00e0 s'entr'ouvrir\npour exprimer les sombres pens\u00e9es qui venaient de germer dans nos\ncerveaux. La nature, trop longtemps comprim\u00e9e, demandait sa revanche et\nfaisait entendre un appel imp\u00e9rieux!\n\n\u00abRichard H. Gaston, de Minnesota, grand, d'une p\u00e2leur de spectre, se\nleva. Nous savions ce qui allait sortir de sa bouche; un grand calme,\nune attention recueillie avaient remplac\u00e9 l'\u00e9motion, l'excitation\nfactice des jours pr\u00e9c\u00e9dents.\n\n\u00ab--Messieurs, il est impossible d'attendre davantage! L'heure a sonn\u00e9.\nIl nous faut d\u00e9cider lequel d'entre nous mourra pour servir de\nnourriture aux autres.\n\n\u00abM. John J. Villiams, de l'Illinois, se leva \u00e0 son tour:--Messieurs,\ndit-il, je propose pour le sacrifice le R\u00e9v\u00e9rend James Sawyer de\nTennessee.\n\n\u00ab--Je propose M. Daniel Hote de New-York, r\u00e9pondit M. W. R. Adams,\nd'Indiana.\n\n\u00abM. Charles Langdon:--Que diriez-vous de M. Samuel Bowen de\nSaint-Louis?\n\n\u00ab--Messieurs, interrompit M. Hote, j'opine plut\u00f4t en faveur du jeune\nJohn A. Van Nostrand, de New-Jersey.\n\n\u00abH. Gaston:--S'il n'y a pas d'objection, on acc\u00e9dera au d\u00e9sir de M.\nHote.\n\n\u00abM. Van Nostrand ayant protest\u00e9, la proposition de M. Hote fut\nrepouss\u00e9e, celles de MM. Sawyer et Bowen ne furent pas accept\u00e9es\ndavantage.\n\n\u00abM. A.-L. Bascom, de l'Ohio, se leva:--Je suis d'avis de clore la liste\ndes candidatures et de laisser l'Assembl\u00e9e proc\u00e9der aux \u00e9lections par\nvote.\n\n\u00abM. Sawyer:--Messieurs, je proteste \u00e9nergiquement contre ces proc\u00e9d\u00e9s\nirr\u00e9guliers et inacceptables. Je propose d'y renoncer imm\u00e9diatement, et\nde choisir un pr\u00e9sident \u00e0 l'Assembl\u00e9e; nous pourrons ensuite poursuivre\nnotre oeuvre sans violer les principes immuables de l'\u00e9quit\u00e9.\n\n\u00abM. Bell, de Iowa:--Messieurs, je proteste. Ce n'est pas le moment de\ns'arr\u00eater \u00e0 des formalit\u00e9s absurdes. Voil\u00e0 huit jours que nous ne\nmangeons pas; et chaque minute perdue en discussions vaines rend notre\nsituation plus critique. Les propositions pr\u00e9c\u00e9dentes me satisfont\nenti\u00e8rement (ces messieurs en pensent autant, je crois); pour ma part,\nje ne vois donc pas pourquoi nous ne nous arr\u00eaterions pas \u00e0 l'une\nd'elles, il faut en finir au plus vite.\n\n\u00abM. Gaston:--De toutes fa\u00e7ons, l'\u00e9lection nous demanderait au moins\nvingt-quatre heures, et c'est justement ce retard que nous voulons\n\u00e9viter. Le citoyen de New-Jersey...\n\n\u00abM. Van Nostrand:--Messieurs, je suis un \u00e9tranger parmi vous; je n'ai\ndonc aucun droit \u00e0 l'honneur que vous me faites, et j'\u00e9prouve une\ncertaine g\u00eane \u00e0...\n\n\u00abM. Morgan d'Alabama, l'interrompant:--Je demande que la question soit\nsoumise au vote g\u00e9n\u00e9ral. Ainsi fut fait, et le d\u00e9bat prit fin, bien\nentendu. Un conseil fut constitu\u00e9, M. Gaston nomm\u00e9 pr\u00e9sident, M. Blake\nsecr\u00e9taire, MM. Holcomb, Baldwin et Dyer firent partie de \u00abla Commission\ndes candidatures\u00bb; M. R.-M. Howland, en sa qualit\u00e9 de pourvoyeur, aida\nla Commission \u00e0 faire son choix.\n\n\u00abLa Commission s'accorda un repos d'une demi-heure avant de proc\u00e9der \u00e0\nses grands travaux. L'Assembl\u00e9e se r\u00e9unit, et le comit\u00e9 porta son choix\nsur quelques candidats: MM. George Ferguson, de Kentucky, Lucien\nHerrman, de la Louisiane, et W. Messick, du Colorado. Ce choix fut\nratifi\u00e9.\n\n\u00abM. Rogers, de Missouri, se leva:--Monsieur le Pr\u00e9sident, les d\u00e9cisions\nayant \u00e9t\u00e9 prises maintenant selon les r\u00e8gles, je propose l'amendement\nsuivant, en vue de substituer au nom de M. Herrman celui de M. Lucius\nHarris, de Saint-Louis, qui est honorablement connu de tous ici. Je ne\nvoudrais en quoi que ce soit amoindrir les grandes qualit\u00e9s de ce\ncitoyen de la Louisiane, loin de l\u00e0. J'ai pour lui toute l'estime et la\nconsid\u00e9ration que m\u00e9ritent ses vertus. Mais il ne peut \u00e9chapper \u00e0\npersonne d'entre nous que ce candidat a maigri \u00e9tonnamment depuis le\nd\u00e9but de notre s\u00e9jour ici. Cette consid\u00e9ration me porte \u00e0 affirmer que\nle comit\u00e9 s'est fourvoy\u00e9 en proposant \u00e0 nos suffrages un candidat dont\nla valeur morale est incontestable, mais dont les qualit\u00e9s nutritives\nsont...\n\n\u00abLe Pr\u00e9sident:--Le citoyen du Missouri est pri\u00e9 de s'asseoir; le\nPr\u00e9sident ne peut admettre que les d\u00e9cisions du comit\u00e9 soient critiqu\u00e9es\nsans suivre la voie r\u00e9guli\u00e8re.\n\n\u00abQuel accueil fera l'Assembl\u00e9e \u00e0 la proposition de ce citoyen?\n\n\u00abM. Halliday, de Virginie:--Je propose un second amendement visant la\nsubstitution de M. Harvey Davis, de l'Or\u00e9gon, \u00e0 M. Messick. Vous\nestimerez sans doute avec moi que les labeurs et les privations de la\nvie de fronti\u00e8re ont d\u00fb rendre M. Davis quelque peu coriace; mais,\nMessieurs, pouvons-nous, \u00e0 un moment aussi tragique, ergoter sur la\nqualit\u00e9 de la chair humaine? Pouvons-nous discuter sur des pointes\nd'aiguilles? Avons-nous le droit de nous arr\u00eater \u00e0 des consid\u00e9rations\nsans importance? Non, Messieurs; la corpulence, voil\u00e0 tout ce que nous\ndemandons; l'embonpoint, le poids sont \u00e0 nos yeux les principales\nqualit\u00e9s requises: le talent, le g\u00e9nie, la bonne \u00e9ducation, tout cela\nnous est indiff\u00e9rent. J'attire votre attention sur le sens de mon\namendement.\n\n\u00abM. Morgan (_tr\u00e8s agit\u00e9_):--Monsieur le Pr\u00e9sident, en principe, je suis\npour ma part absolument oppos\u00e9 \u00e0 cet amendement. Le citoyen de l'Or\u00e9gon\nest vieux; de plus, il est fortement charpent\u00e9, et tr\u00e8s peu dodu. Que\nces Messieurs me disent s'ils pr\u00e9f\u00e8rent le pot-au-feu \u00e0 une alimentation\nsubstantielle? et s'ils se contenteraient de \u00abce spectre de l'Or\u00e9gon\u00bb\npour assouvir leur faim? Je demande \u00e0 M. Halliday, de Virginie, si la\nvue de nos visages d\u00e9cav\u00e9s, de nos yeux hagards ne lui fait pas horreur;\ns'il aura le courage d'assister plus longtemps \u00e0 notre supplice en\nprolongeant la famine qui d\u00e9chire nos entrailles et en nous offrant le\npaquet d'os que repr\u00e9sente le citoyen en question? Je lui demande s'il\nr\u00e9fl\u00e9chit \u00e0 notre triste situation, \u00e0 nos angoisses pass\u00e9es, \u00e0 notre avenir\neffroyable; va-t-il persister \u00e0 nous jeter en p\u00e2ture cette ruine, cette\n\u00e9pave, ce vagabond mis\u00e9rable et dess\u00e9ch\u00e9, des rives inhospitali\u00e8res de\nl'Or\u00e9gon? Non! il ne l'osera pas! (_Applaudissements._)\n\n\u00abLa proposition fut mise aux voix et repouss\u00e9e apr\u00e8s une discussion\nviolente. M. Harris restait d\u00e9sign\u00e9, en conformit\u00e9 du premier\namendement. Le scrutin fut ouvert. Il y eut cinq tours sans r\u00e9sultat. Au\nsixi\u00e8me, M. Harris fut \u00e9lu, tous les votes, sauf le sien, s'\u00e9tant port\u00e9s\nsur son nom. Il fut alors propos\u00e9 que ce scrutin serait ratifi\u00e9 par un\nvote unanime \u00e0 mains lev\u00e9es; mais l'unanimit\u00e9 ne put \u00eatre obtenue, M.\nHarris votant encore contre lui-m\u00eame.\n\n\u00abM. Radiway proposa alors que l'assembl\u00e9e f\u00eet son choix parmi les\nderniers candidats, et que l'\u00e9lection e\u00fbt lieu sans faute pour le\nd\u00e9jeuner. Cette proposition fut accept\u00e9e.\n\n\u00abAu premier tour, il y eut scission: les uns penchaient en faveur d'un\ncandidat r\u00e9put\u00e9 tr\u00e8s jeune; les autres lui pr\u00e9f\u00e9raient un autre homme de\nbelle stature. Le vote du pr\u00e9sident fit incliner la balance du c\u00f4t\u00e9 du\ndernier, M. Messick; mais cette solution d\u00e9plut fortement aux partisans\nde M. Ferguson, le candidat battu; on songea m\u00eame un instant \u00e0 demander\nun nouveau tour de scrutin; bref, tous d\u00e9cid\u00e8rent d'ajourner la\nsolution, et la s\u00e9ance fut lev\u00e9e de suite.\n\n\u00abLes pr\u00e9paratifs du repas d\u00e9tourn\u00e8rent l'attention du parti Ferguson et\nau moment o\u00f9 le fil de la discussion allait reprendre, on annon\u00e7a en\ngrande pompe _que M. Harris \u00e9tait servi_. Cette nouvelle produisit un\nsoulagement g\u00e9n\u00e9ral.\n\n\u00abLes tables furent improvis\u00e9es avec les dossiers de fauteuils des\ncompartiments, et nous nous ass\u00eemes, la joie au coeur, en pensant \u00e0 ce\nr\u00e9gal apr\u00e8s lequel nous soupirions depuis une grande semaine. En\nquelques instants, nous avions pris une tout autre physionomie. Tout \u00e0\nl'heure le d\u00e9sespoir, la mis\u00e8re, la faim, l'angoisse fi\u00e9vreuse, \u00e9taient\npeints sur nos visages; maintenant une s\u00e9r\u00e9nit\u00e9, une joie indescriptible\nr\u00e9gnaient parmi nous; nous d\u00e9bordions de bonheur. J'avoue m\u00eame sans\nfausse honte que cette heure de soulagement a \u00e9t\u00e9 le plus beau moment de\nma vie d'aventures.\n\n\u00abLe vent hurlait au dehors et fouettait la neige autour de notre prison,\nmais nous n'en avions plus peur maintenant.\n\n\u00abJ'ai assez aim\u00e9 Harris. Il aurait pu \u00eatre mieux cuit, sans doute, mais\nen toute justice, je dois reconna\u00eetre qu'aucun homme ne m'agr\u00e9a jamais\nautant que Harris et ne me procura autant de satisfaction. Messick ne\nfut pas pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment mauvais, bien qu'un peu trop haut en go\u00fbt; mais pour\nla saveur et la d\u00e9licatesse de la chair, parlez-moi de Harris.\n\n\u00abMessick avait certainement des qualit\u00e9s que je ne lui contesterai pas,\nmais il ne convenait pas plus pour un petit d\u00e9jeuner qu'une momie (ceci\nsoit dit sans vouloir l'offenser). Quelle maigreur!! mon Dieu! et dur!!\nAh! vous ne vous imaginerez jamais \u00e0 quel point il \u00e9tait coriace! Non\njamais, jamais!\n\n--Me donnez-vous \u00e0 entendre que r\u00e9ellement vous...?\n\n--Ne m'interrompez pas, je vous en prie.\n\n\u00abApr\u00e8s ce frugal d\u00e9jeuner, il fallait songer au d\u00eener; nous port\u00e2mes\nnotre choix sur un nomm\u00e9 Walker, originaire de D\u00e9troit. Il \u00e9tait\nexcellent; je l'ai d'ailleurs \u00e9crit \u00e0 sa femme un peu plus tard. Ce\nWalker! je ne l'oublierai de ma vie! Quel d\u00e9licieux morceau! Un peu\nmaigre, mais succulent malgr\u00e9 cela. Le lendemain, nous nous offr\u00eemes\nMorgan de l'Alabama pour d\u00e9jeuner. C'\u00e9tait un des plus beaux hommes que\nj'aie jamais vus, bien tourn\u00e9, \u00e9l\u00e9gant, distingu\u00e9 de mani\u00e8res; il\nparlait couramment plusieurs langues; bref un gar\u00e7on accompli, qui nous\na fourni un jus plein de saveur. Pour le d\u00eener, on nous pr\u00e9para ce vieux\npatriarche de l'Or\u00e9gon. L\u00e0, nous re\u00e7\u00fbmes un superbe \u00abcoup de\nfusil\u00bb;--vieux, dess\u00e9ch\u00e9, coriace, il fut impossible \u00e0 manger. Quelle\nnavrante surprise pour tous! A tel point que je finis par d\u00e9clarer \u00e0 mes\ncompagnons:--Messieurs, faites ce que bon vous semble; moi, je pr\u00e9f\u00e8re\nje\u00fbner en attendant meilleure ch\u00e8re.\n\n\u00abGrimes, de l'Illinois, ajouta:--Messieurs, j'attends, moi aussi.\nLorsque vous aurez choisi un candidat qui soit \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s \u00abd\u00e9gustable\u00bb,\nje serai enchant\u00e9 de m'asseoir \u00e0 votre table.\n\n\u00abIl devint \u00e9vident que le choix de l'homme de l'Or\u00e9gon avait provoqu\u00e9 le\nm\u00e9contentement g\u00e9n\u00e9ral. Il fallait \u00e0 tout prix ne pas rester sur cette\nmauvaise impression, surtout apr\u00e8s le bon souvenir que nous avait laiss\u00e9\nHarris. Le choix se porta donc sur Baker, de G\u00e9orgie.\n\n\u00abUn fameux morceau celui-l\u00e0! Ensuite, nous nous offr\u00eemes Doolittle,\nHawkins, Mac Elroy,--ce dernier, trop petit et maigre, nous valut\nquelques protestations. Apr\u00e8s, d\u00e9fil\u00e8rent Penrol, les deux Smiths et\nBailey; ce dernier avec sa jambe de bois nous donna du d\u00e9chet, mais la\nqualit\u00e9 \u00e9tait irr\u00e9prochable; ensuite un jeune Indien, un joueur d'orgue\nde Barbarie, un nomm\u00e9 Bukminster,--pauvre diable de vagabond, d\u00e9charn\u00e9;\nil \u00e9tait vraiment indigne de figurer \u00e0 notre table.\n\n\u00abComme consolation d'une si maigre pitance, nous pouvons nous dire que\nce mauvais d\u00e9jeuner a pr\u00e9c\u00e9d\u00e9 de peu notre d\u00e9livrance.\n\n--L'heure de la d\u00e9livrance sonna donc enfin pour vous?\n\n--Oui, un beau matin, par un beau soleil, au moment o\u00f9 nous venions\nd'inscrire John Murphy sur notre menu. Je vous assure que ce John Murphy\ndevait \u00eatre un \u00abmorceau de roi\u00bb; j'en mettrais ma main au feu. Le destin\nvoulut que John Murphy s'en retourn\u00e2t avec nous dans le train qui vint \u00e0\nnotre secours. Quelque temps apr\u00e8s il \u00e9pousa la veuve de Harris!!...\n\n--La victime de...?\n\n--La victime de notre premi\u00e8re \u00e9lection. Il l'a \u00e9pous\u00e9e, et maintenant\nil est tr\u00e8s heureux, tr\u00e8s consid\u00e9r\u00e9 et a une excellente situation. Ah!\ncette histoire est un vrai roman, je vous assure! Mais me voici arriv\u00e9,\nmonsieur, il faut que je vous quitte. N'oubliez pas, lorsque vous aurez\nquelques instants \u00e0 perdre, qu'une visite de vous me fera toujours le\nplus grand plaisir. J'\u00e9prouve pour vous une r\u00e9elle sympathie, je dirai\nm\u00eame plus, une sinc\u00e8re affection. Il me semble que je finirais par vous\naimer autant que Harris. Adieu monsieur, et bon voyage.\u00bb\n\nIl descendit; je restai l\u00e0, m\u00e9dus\u00e9, abasourdi, presque soulag\u00e9 de son\nd\u00e9part. Malgr\u00e9 son affabilit\u00e9, j'\u00e9prouvais un certain frisson en sentant\nse poser sur moi son regard affam\u00e9. Aussi, lorsque j'appris qu'il\nm'avait vou\u00e9 une affection sinc\u00e8re, et qu'il me mettait dans son estime\nsur le m\u00eame pied que feu Harris, mon sang se gla\u00e7a dans mes veines!\n\nJ'\u00e9tais litt\u00e9ralement transi de peur. Je ne pouvais douter de sa\nv\u00e9racit\u00e9; d'autre part il e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 parfaitement d\u00e9plac\u00e9 d'interrompre par\nune question inopportune un r\u00e9cit aussi dramatique, pr\u00e9sent\u00e9 sous les\nauspices de la plus grande sinc\u00e9rit\u00e9. Malgr\u00e9 moi, ces horribles d\u00e9tails\nme poursuivaient et hantaient mon esprit de mille id\u00e9es confuses. Je vis\nque le conducteur m'observait; je lui demandai: Qui est cet homme?\n\nJ'appris qu'il faisait autrefois partie du Congr\u00e8s et qu'il \u00e9tait un\ntr\u00e8s brave homme. Un beau jour, pris dans une tourmente de neige et \u00e0\ndeux doigts de mourir de faim, il a \u00e9t\u00e9 tellement \u00e9branl\u00e9 par le froid\net r\u00e9volutionn\u00e9, que deux ou trois mois apr\u00e8s cet incident, il devenait\ncompl\u00e8tement fou. Il va bien maintenant, para\u00eet-il, mais la monomanie le\ntient et lorsqu'il enfourche son vieux \u00abdada\u00bb, il ne s'arr\u00eate qu'apr\u00e8s\navoir d\u00e9vor\u00e9 en pens\u00e9e tous ses camarades de voyage. Tous y auraient\ncertainement pass\u00e9, s'il n'avait d\u00fb descendre \u00e0 cette station; il sait\nleurs noms sur le bout de ses doigts. Quand il a fini de les manger\ntous, il ne manque pas d'ajouter: \u00abL'heure du d\u00e9jeuner \u00e9tant arriv\u00e9e,\ncomme il n'y avait plus d'autres candidats, on me choisit. \u00c9lu \u00e0\nl'unanimit\u00e9 pour le d\u00e9jeuner, je me r\u00e9signai. Et me voil\u00e0.\u00bb\n\nC'est \u00e9gal! j'\u00e9prouvai un fameux soulagement en apprenant que je venais\nd'entendre les \u00e9lucubrations folles d'un malheureux d\u00e9s\u00e9quilibr\u00e9 et non\nle r\u00e9cit des prouesses d'un cannibale avide de sang.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nL'HOMME AU MESSAGE POUR LE DIRECTEUR G\u00c9N\u00c9RAL\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nIl y a quelques jours, au commencement de f\u00e9vrier 1900, je re\u00e7us la\nvisite d'un de mes amis qui vint me trouver \u00e0 Londres o\u00f9 je r\u00e9side en ce\nmoment. Nous avons tous deux atteint l'\u00e2ge o\u00f9, en fumant une pipe pour\ntuer le temps, on parle beaucoup moins volontiers du charme de la vie\nque de ses propres ennuis. De fil en aiguille, mon ami se mit \u00e0\ninvectiver le D\u00e9partement de la Guerre. Il para\u00eet qu'un de ses amis\nvient d'inventer une chaussure qui pourrait \u00eatre tr\u00e8s utile aux soldats\ndans le Sud Africain.\n\nC'est un soulier l\u00e9ger, solide et bon march\u00e9, imperm\u00e9able \u00e0 l'eau et qui\nconserve merveilleusement sa forme et sa rigidit\u00e9. L'inventeur voudrait\nattirer sur sa d\u00e9couverte l'attention du Gouvernement, mais il n'a pas\nd'accointances et sait d'avance que les grands fonctionnaires ne\nferaient aucun cas d'une demande qu'il leur adresserait.\n\n--Ceci montre qu'il n'a \u00e9t\u00e9 qu'un maladroit, comme nous tous d'ailleurs,\ndis-je en l'interrompant. Continuez.\n\n--Mais pourquoi dites-vous cela? Cet homme a parfaitement raison.\n\n--Ce qu'il avance est faux, vous dis-je. Continuez.\n\n--Je vous prouverai qu'il...\n\n--Vous ne pourrez rien prouver du tout. Je suis un vieux bonhomme de\ngrande exp\u00e9rience. Ne discutez pas avec moi. Ce serait tr\u00e8s d\u00e9plac\u00e9 et\nd\u00e9sobligeant. Continuez.\n\n--Je veux bien, mais vous serez convaincu avant longtemps. Je ne suis\npas un inconnu, et pourtant il m'a \u00e9t\u00e9 aussi impossible qu'\u00e0 mon ami, de\nfaire parvenir cette communication au Directeur G\u00e9n\u00e9ral du D\u00e9partement\ndes Cuirs et chaussures.\n\n--Ce deuxi\u00e8me point est aussi faux que le premier. Continuez!\n\n--Mais, sur mon honneur, je vous assure que j'ai \u00e9chou\u00e9.\n\n--Oh! certainement, je le savais, vous n'aviez pas besoin de me le dire.\n\n--Alors? o\u00f9 voyez-vous un mensonge?\n\n--C'est dans l'affirmation que vous venez de me donner de\nl'impossibilit\u00e9 o\u00f9 vous croyez \u00eatre d'attirer l'attention du Directeur\nG\u00e9n\u00e9ral sur le rapport de votre ami. Cette affirmation constitue un\nmensonge; car moi je pr\u00e9tends que vous auriez pu faire agr\u00e9er votre\ndemande.\n\n--Je vous dis que je n'ai pas pu. Apr\u00e8s trois mois d'efforts; je n'y\nsuis pas arriv\u00e9.\n\n--Naturellement. Je le savais sans que vous preniez la peine de me le\ndire. Vous auriez pu attirer son attention imm\u00e9diatement si vous aviez\nemploy\u00e9 le bon moyen, j'en dis autant pour votre ami.\n\n--Je vous affirme que j'ai pris le bon moyen.\n\n--Je vous dis que non.\n\n--Comment le savez-vous? Vous ignorez mes d\u00e9marches.\n\n--C'est possible, mais je maintiens que vous n'avez pas pris le bon\nmoyen, et en cela je suis certain de ce que j'avance.\n\n--Comment pouvez-vous en \u00eatre s\u00fbr, quand vous ne savez pas ce que j'ai\nfait?\n\n--Votre insucc\u00e8s est la preuve certaine de ce que j'avance. Vous avez\npris, je le r\u00e9p\u00e8te, une fausse direction. Je suis un homme de grande\nexp\u00e9rience, et...\n\n--C'est entendu, mais vous me permettrez de vous expliquer comment j'ai\nagi pour mettre fin \u00e0 cette discussion entre nous.\n\n--Oh, je ne m'y oppose pas; continuez donc, puisque vous \u00e9prouvez le\nbesoin, de me raconter votre histoire. N'oubliez pas que je suis un\nvieux bonhomme...\n\n--Voici: J'ai donc \u00e9crit au Directeur G\u00e9n\u00e9ral du D\u00e9partement des Cuirs\net chaussures une lettre des plus courtoises, en lui expliquant...\n\n--Le connaissez-vous personnellement?\n\n--Non.\n\n--Voil\u00e0 d\u00e9j\u00e0 un point bien clair. Vous avez d\u00e9but\u00e9 par une maladresse.\nContinuez...\n\n--Dans ma lettre, j'insistais sur l'avenir assur\u00e9 que promettait\nl'invention, vu le bon march\u00e9 de ces chaussures, et j'offrais...\n\n--D'aller le voir. Bien entendu, c'est ce que vous avez fait. Et de\ndeux!\n\n--Il ne m'a r\u00e9pondu que trois jours apr\u00e8s.\n\n--Naturellement! Continuez.\n\n--Il m'a envoy\u00e9 trois lignes tout juste polies, en me remerciant de la\npeine que j'avais prise, et en me proposant...\n\n--Rien du tout.\n\n--C'est cela m\u00eame. Alors je lui \u00e9crivis plus de d\u00e9tails sur mon\ninvention...\n\n--Et de trois!\n\n--Cette fois je... n'obtins m\u00eame pas de r\u00e9ponse. A la fin de la semaine,\nje revins \u00e0 la charge et demandai une r\u00e9ponse avec une l\u00e9g\u00e8re pointe\nd'aigreur.\n\n--Et de quatre! et puis apr\u00e8s?\n\n--Je re\u00e7us une r\u00e9ponse me disant que ma lettre n'\u00e9tait pas arriv\u00e9e; on\nm'en demandait un double. Je recherchai la voie qu'avait suivie ma\nlettre et j'acquis la certitude qu'elle \u00e9tait bien arriv\u00e9e; j'en envoyai\nquand m\u00eame une copie sans rien dire. Quinze jours se pass\u00e8rent sans\nqu'on accord\u00e2t la moindre attention \u00e0 ma demande; pendant ce temps, ma\npatience avait singuli\u00e8rement diminu\u00e9 et j'\u00e9crivis une lettre tr\u00e8s\nraide. Je proposais un rendez-vous pour le lendemain et j'ajoutai que si\nje n'avais pas de r\u00e9ponse, je consid\u00e9rerais ce silence du Directeur\ncomme un acquiescement \u00e0 ma demande.\n\n--Et de cinq!\n\n--J'arrivai \u00e0 midi sonnant; on m'indiqua une chaise dans l'antichambre\nen me priant d'attendre. J'attendis jusqu'\u00e0 une heure et demie, puis je\npartis, humili\u00e9 et furieux. Je laissai passer une semaine pour me\ncalmer. J'\u00e9crivis ensuite et donnai un nouveau rendez-vous pour\nl'apr\u00e8s-midi du lendemain.\n\n--Et de six!\n\n--Le Directeur m'\u00e9crivit qu'il acceptait. J'arrivai ponctuellement et\nrestai assis sur ma chaise jusqu'\u00e0 deux heures et demie. \u00c9coeur\u00e9 et\nfurieux, je sortis de cette antichambre maudite, jurant qu'on ne m'y\nreverrait jamais plus. Quant \u00e0 l'incurie, l'incapacit\u00e9 et l'indiff\u00e9rence\npour les int\u00e9r\u00eats de l'arm\u00e9e que venait de t\u00e9moigner le Directeur\nG\u00e9n\u00e9ral du D\u00e9partement des Cuirs et chaussures, elles \u00e9taient\nd\u00e9cid\u00e9ment au-dessus de tout.\n\n--Permettez! Je suis un vieil homme de grande exp\u00e9rience et j'ai vu bien\ndes gens passant pour intelligents qui n'avaient pas assez de bon sens\npour mener \u00e0 bonne fin une affaire aussi simple que celle dont vous\nm'entretenez. Vous n'\u00eates pas pour moi le premier \u00e9chantillon de ce\ntype, car j'en ai connu personnellement des millions et des milliards\nqui vous ressemblaient. Vous avez perdu trois mois bien inutilement;\nl'inventeur les a perdus aussi, et les soldats n'en sont pas plus\navanc\u00e9s; total: neuf mois. Eh bien, maintenant je vais vous lire une\nanecdote que j'ai \u00e9crite hier soir, et demain dans la journ\u00e9e vous irez\nenlever votre affaire chez le Directeur G\u00e9n\u00e9ral.\n\n--Je veux bien, mais le connaissez-vous?\n\n--Du tout, \u00e9coutez seulement mon histoire.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nCOMMENT LE RAMONEUR GAGNA L'OREILLE DE L'EMPEREUR\n\n\n\nI\n\nL'\u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9tait venu; les plus robustes \u00e9taient harass\u00e9s par la chaleur\ntorride; les plus faibles, \u00e0 bout de souffle, mouraient comme des\nmouches. Depuis des semaines, l'arm\u00e9e \u00e9tait d\u00e9cim\u00e9e par la dysenterie,\ncette plaie du soldat; et personne n'y trouvait un rem\u00e8de. Les m\u00e9decins\nne savaient plus o\u00f9 donner de la t\u00eate; le succ\u00e8s de leur science et de\nleurs m\u00e9dicaments (d'une efficacit\u00e9 douteuse, entre nous), \u00e9tait dans le\ndomaine du pass\u00e9, et risquait fort d'y rester enfoui \u00e0 tout jamais.\n\nL'empereur appela en consultation les sommit\u00e9s m\u00e9dicales les plus en\nrenom, car il \u00e9tait profond\u00e9ment affect\u00e9 de cette situation. Il les\ntraita fort s\u00e9v\u00e8rement, et leur demanda compte de la mort de ses\nhommes; connaissaient-ils leur m\u00e9tier, oui ou non? \u00e9taient-ils des\nm\u00e9decins ou simplement de vulgaires assassins? Le plus haut en grade de\nces assassins, qui \u00e9tait en m\u00eame temps le doyen des m\u00e9decins du pays et\nle plus consid\u00e9r\u00e9 aux environs, lui r\u00e9pondit ceci:\n\n\u00abMajest\u00e9, nous avons fait tout notre possible, et nos efforts sont\nrest\u00e9s infructueux. Ni un m\u00e9dicament, ni un m\u00e9decin ne peut gu\u00e9rir cette\nmaladie; la nature et une forte constitution seules peuvent triompher de\nce mal maudit. Je suis vieux, j'ai de l'exp\u00e9rience. Ni m\u00e9decine, ni\nm\u00e9dicaments ne peuvent en venir \u00e0 bout, je le dis et je le r\u00e9p\u00e8te.\nQuelquefois ils semblent aider la nature, mais en g\u00e9n\u00e9ral ils ne font\nqu'aggraver la maladie.\u00bb\n\nL'empereur, qui \u00e9tait un homme incr\u00e9dule, emport\u00e9, invectiva les\ndocteurs des \u00e9pith\u00e8tes les plus malsonnantes et les renvoya brutalement.\nVingt-quatre heures apr\u00e8s, il \u00e9tait pris, lui aussi, de ce mal cruel. La\nnouvelle vola de bouche en bouche, et remplit le pays de consternation.\nOn ne parlait plus que de cette catastrophe et le d\u00e9couragement \u00e9tait\ng\u00e9n\u00e9ral; on commen\u00e7ait \u00e0 perdre tout espoir. L'empereur lui-m\u00eame \u00e9tait\ntr\u00e8s abattu et soupirait en disant:\n\n\u00abQue la volont\u00e9 de Dieu soit faite. Qu'on aille me chercher ces\nassassins, et que nous en finissions au plus vite.\u00bb\n\nIls accoururent, lui t\u00e2t\u00e8rent le pouls, examin\u00e8rent sa langue, et lui\nfirent avaler un jeu complet de drogues, puis ils s'assirent patiemment\n\u00e0 son chevet, et attendirent.\n\n(Ils \u00e9taient pay\u00e9s \u00e0 l'ann\u00e9e et non \u00e0 la t\u00e2che, ne l'oublions pas!)\n\n\n\nII\n\nTommy avait seize ans; c'\u00e9tait un gar\u00e7on d'esprit, mais il manquait de\nrelations; sa position \u00e9tait trop humble pour cela et son emploi trop\nmodeste. De fait, son m\u00e9tier ne pouvait pas le mettre en \u00e9vidence; car\nil travaillait sous les ordres de son p\u00e8re et vidait les puisards avec\nlui; la nuit, il l'aidait \u00e0 conduire sa voiture. L'ami intime de Tommy\n\u00e9tait Jimmy, le ramoneur; un gar\u00e7on de quatorze ans, d'apparence gr\u00eale;\nhonn\u00eate et travailleur, il avait un coeur d'or et faisait vivre sa m\u00e8re\ninfirme, de son travail dangereux et p\u00e9nible.\n\nL'empereur \u00e9tait malade depuis d\u00e9j\u00e0 un mois, lorsque ces deux jeunes\ngens se rencontr\u00e8rent un soir vers neuf heures. Tommy \u00e9tait en route\npour sa besogne nocturne; il n'avait naturellement pas endoss\u00e9 ses\nhabits des jours de f\u00eate, et ses sordides v\u00eatements de travail \u00e9taient\nloin de sentir bon! Jimmy rentrait d'une journ\u00e9e ardue; il \u00e9tait d'une\nnoirceur inimaginable; il portait ses balais sur son \u00e9paule, son sac \u00e0\nsuie \u00e0 la ceinture; pas un trait de sa figure n'\u00e9tait d'ailleurs\nreconnaissable; on n'apercevait au milieu de cette noirceur que ses yeux\n\u00e9veill\u00e9s et brillants.\n\nIls s'assirent sur la margelle pour causer; bien entendu ils abord\u00e8rent\nl'unique sujet de conversation: le malheur de la nation, la maladie de\nl'empereur. Jimmy avait con\u00e7u un projet et il br\u00fblait du d\u00e9sir de\nl'exposer.\n\nIl confia donc son secret \u00e0 son ami:\n\n--Tommy, dit-il, je puis gu\u00e9rir Sa Majest\u00e9; je connais le moyen.\n\nTommy demanda stup\u00e9fait:\n\n--Comment, toi?\n\n--Oui, moi.\n\n--Mais, petit serin, les meilleurs m\u00e9decins n'y arrivent pas.\n\n--Cela m'est \u00e9gal, moi j'y arriverai. Je puis le gu\u00e9rir en un quart\nd'heure.\n\n--Allons, tais-toi. Tu dis des b\u00eatises.\n\n--La v\u00e9rit\u00e9. Rien que la v\u00e9rit\u00e9!\n\nJimmy avait un air si convaincu que Tommy se ravisa et lui demanda:\n\n--Tu m'as pourtant l'air s\u00fbr de ton affaire, Jimmy. L'es-tu vraiment?\n\n--Parole d'honneur.\n\n--Indique-moi ton proc\u00e9d\u00e9. Comment pr\u00e9tends-tu gu\u00e9rir l'empereur?\n\n--En lui faisant manger une tranche de melon d'eau.\n\nTommy, \u00e9bahi, se mit \u00e0 rire \u00e0 gorge d\u00e9ploy\u00e9e d'une id\u00e9e aussi absurde.\nIl essaya pourtant de ma\u00eetriser son fou rire, lorsqu'il vit que Jimmy\nallait le prendre au tragique. Il lui tapa amicalement sur les genoux,\nsans se pr\u00e9occuper de la suie, et lui dit:\n\n--Ne t'offusque pas, mon cher, de mon hilarit\u00e9. Je n'avais aucune\nmauvaise intention, Jimmy, je te l'assure. Mais, vois-tu, elle semblait\nsi dr\u00f4le, ton id\u00e9e. Pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment dans ce camp o\u00f9 s\u00e9vit la dysenterie, les\nm\u00e9decins ont pos\u00e9 une affiche pour pr\u00e9venir que ceux qui y\nintroduiraient des melons d'eau seraient fouett\u00e9s jusqu'au sang.\n\n--Je le sais bien, les idiots! dit Jimmy, sur un ton d'indignation et de\ncol\u00e8re. Les melons d'eau abondent aux environs et pas un seul de ces\nsoldats n'aurait d\u00fb mourir.\n\n--Voyons, Jimmy, qui t'a fourr\u00e9 cette lubie en t\u00eate?\n\n--Ce n'est pas une lubie, c'est un fait reconnu. Connais-tu le vieux\nZulu aux cheveux gris? Eh bien, voil\u00e0 longtemps qu'il gu\u00e9rit une masse\nde nos amis; ma m\u00e8re l'a vu \u00e0 l'oeuvre et moi aussi. Il ne lui faut\nqu'une ou deux tranches de melon; il ne s'inqui\u00e8te pas si le mal est\nenracin\u00e9 ou r\u00e9cent; il le gu\u00e9rit s\u00fbrement.\n\n--C'est tr\u00e8s curieux. Mais si tu dis vrai, Jimmy, l'empereur devrait\nconna\u00eetre cette particularit\u00e9 sans retard.\n\n--Tu es enfin de mon avis? Ma m\u00e8re en a bien fait part \u00e0 plusieurs\npersonnes, esp\u00e9rant que cela lui serait r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9, mais tous ces gens-l\u00e0 ne\nsont que des travailleurs ignorants qui ne savent pas comment parvenir \u00e0\nl'empereur.\n\n--Bien entendu, ils ne savent pas se d\u00e9brouiller, ces empaill\u00e9s,\nr\u00e9pondit Tommy avec un certain m\u00e9pris. Moi j'y parviendrais.\n\n--Toi? Un conducteur de voitures nocturnes, qui empestes \u00e0 cent lieues \u00e0\nla ronde?\n\nEt \u00e0 son tour, Jimmy se tordait de rire; mais Tommy r\u00e9pliqua avec\nassurance:\n\n--Ris si tu veux, je te dis que j'y arriverai.\n\nIl paraissait si convaincu, que Jimmy en fut frapp\u00e9 et lui demanda avec\ngravit\u00e9.\n\n--Tu connais donc l'empereur?\n\n--Moi le conna\u00eetre, tu es fou? Bien s\u00fbr que non.\n\n--Alors comment t'en tireras-tu?\n\n--C'est tr\u00e8s simple. Devine. Comment proc\u00e9derais-tu, Jimmy?\n\n--Je lui \u00e9crirais. J'avoue que je n'y avais jamais pens\u00e9 auparavant;\nmais je parie bien que c'est ton syst\u00e8me?\n\n--Pour s\u00fbr que non. Et ta lettre, comment l'enverrais-tu?\n\n--Par le courrier, pardi!\n\nTommy haussa les \u00e9paules et lui dit:\n\n--Allons, tu ne te doutes donc pas que tous les gaillards de l'Empire en\nfont autant. Voyons! Tu ne me feras pas croire que tu n'y avais pas\nr\u00e9fl\u00e9chi.\n\n--Eh bien, non, r\u00e9pondit Jimmy \u00e9bahi.\n\n--C'est vrai, j'oublie, mon cher, que tu es tr\u00e8s jeune et par cons\u00e9quent\ninexp\u00e9riment\u00e9. Un exemple, Jimmy; quand un simple g\u00e9n\u00e9ral, un po\u00e8te, un\nacteur ou quelqu'un qui jouit d'une certaine notori\u00e9t\u00e9 tombe malade,\ntous les loustics du pays encombrent les journaux de rem\u00e8des\ninfaillibles, de recettes merveilleuses qui le doivent gu\u00e9rir. Que\npenses-tu qu'il arrive s'il s'agit d'un empereur?\n\n--Je suppose qu'il en re\u00e7oit encore plus, dit Jimmy tout penaud.\n\n--Ah! je te crois! \u00c9coute-moi, Jimmy; chaque nuit nous ramassons \u00e0 peu\npr\u00e8s la valeur de six fois la charge de nos voitures, de ces fameuses\nlettres, qu'on jette dans la cour de derri\u00e8re du Palais, environ\nquatre-vingt mille lettres par nuit. Crois-tu que quelqu'un s'amuse \u00e0\nles lire? Pouah! Pas une \u00e2me! C'est ce qui arriverait \u00e0 ta lettre si tu\nl'\u00e9crivais; tu ne le feras pas, je pense bien?\n\n--Non, soupira Jimmy, d\u00e9concert\u00e9.\n\n--\u00c7a va bien, Jimmy; ne t'inqui\u00e8te pas et pars de ce principe qu'il y a\nmille mani\u00e8res diff\u00e9rentes d'\u00e9corcher un chat. Je lui ferai savoir la\nchose, je t'en r\u00e9ponds.\n\n--Oh, si seulement, tu pouvais, Tommy! Je t'aimerais tant!\n\n--Je le ferai, je te le r\u00e9p\u00e8te. Ne te tourmente pas et compte sur moi.\n\n--Oh! oui. J'y compte Tommy, tu es si roublard et beaucoup plus malin\nque les autres. Mais comment feras-tu, dis-moi?\n\nTommy commen\u00e7ait \u00e0 se rengorger. Il s'installa confortablement pour\ncauser, et entreprit son histoire:\n\n--Connais-tu ce pauvre diable qui joue au boucher en se promenant avec\nun panier contenant du mou de veau et des foies avari\u00e9s? Eh bien, pour\ncommencer, je lui confierai mon secret.\n\nJimmy, de plus en plus m\u00e9dus\u00e9, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n--Voyons, Tommy, c'est m\u00e9chant de te moquer de moi. Tu sais combien j'y\nsuis sensible et tu es peu charitable de te payer ma t\u00eate comme tu le\nfais.\n\nTommy lui tapa amicalement sur l'\u00e9paule et lui dit:\n\n--Ne te tourmente donc pas, Jimmy, je sais ce que je dis, tu le verras\nbient\u00f4t. Cette esp\u00e8ce de boucher racontera mon histoire \u00e0 la marchande\nde marrons du coin; je le lui demanderai d'ailleurs, parce que c'est sa\nmeilleure amie. Celle-ci \u00e0 son tour en parlera \u00e0 sa tante, la riche\nfruiti\u00e8re du coin, celle qui demeure deux p\u00e2t\u00e9s de maisons plus haut; la\nfruiti\u00e8re le dira \u00e0 son meilleur ami, le marchand de gibier, qui le\nr\u00e9p\u00e9tera \u00e0 son parent, le sergent de ville. Celui-ci le dira \u00e0 son\ncapitaine, le capitaine au magistrat; le magistrat \u00e0 son beau-fr\u00e8re, le\njuge du comt\u00e9; le juge du comt\u00e9 en parlera au sh\u00e9rif, le sh\u00e9rif au\nlord-maire, le lord-maire au pr\u00e9sident du Conseil, et le pr\u00e9sident du\nConseil le dira \u00e0...\n\n--Par saint Georges! Tommy, c'est un plan merveilleux, comment as-tu\npu...\n\n--... Au contre-amiral qui le r\u00e9p\u00e9tera au vice-amiral; le vice-amiral le\ntransmettra \u00e0 l'amiral des Bleus, qui le fera passer \u00e0 l'amiral des\nRouges; celui-ci en parlera \u00e0 l'amiral des Blancs; ce dernier au premier\nlord de l'amiraut\u00e9, qui le dira au pr\u00e9sident de la Chambre. Le pr\u00e9sident\nde la Chambre le dira...\n\n--Continue, Tommy, tu y es presque.\n\n--... Au piqueur en chef; celui-ci le racontera au premier groom; le\npremier groom au grand \u00e9cuyer; le grand \u00e9cuyer au premier lord de\nservice; le premier lord de service au grand chambellan; le grand\nchambellan \u00e0 l'intendant du palais; l'intendant du palais le confiera au\npetit page favori qui \u00e9vente l'empereur; le page enfin se mettra \u00e0\ngenoux et chuchotera la chose \u00e0 l'oreille de Sa Majest\u00e9... et le tour\nsera jou\u00e9!!!\n\n--Il faut que je me l\u00e8ve pour t'applaudir deux fois, Tommy, voil\u00e0 bien\nla plus belle id\u00e9e qui ait jamais \u00e9t\u00e9 con\u00e7ue. Comment diable as-tu pu\nl'avoir?\n\n--Assieds-toi et \u00e9coute; je vais te donner de bons principes, tu ne les\noublieras pas tant que tu vivras. Eh! bien, qui est ton plus cher ami,\ncelui auquel tu ne pourrais, ni ne voudrais rien refuser?\n\n--Comment, Tommy? Mais c'est toi, tu le sais bien.\n\n--Suppose un instant que tu veuilles demander un assez grand service au\nmarchand de mou de veau. Comme tu ne le connais pas, il t'enverrait\npromener \u00e0 tous les diables, car il est de cette esp\u00e8ce de gens; mais il\nse trouve qu'apr\u00e8s toi, il est mon meilleur ami, et qu'il se ferait\nhacher en menus morceaux pour me rendre un service, n'importe lequel.\nApr\u00e8s cela, je te demande, quel est le moyen le plus s\u00fbr: d'aller le\ntrouver toi-m\u00eame et de le prier de parler \u00e0 la marchande de marrons de\nton rem\u00e8de de melon d'eau, ou bien de me demander de le faire pour toi?\n\n--Il vaudrait mieux t'en charger, bien s\u00fbr. Je n'y aurais jamais pens\u00e9,\nTommy, c'est une id\u00e9e magnifique.\n\n--C'est de la haute philosophie, tu vois; le mot est somptueux, mais\njuste. Je me base sur ce principe que: chacun en ce monde, petit ou\ngrand, a un ami particulier, un ami de coeur \u00e0 qui il est heureux de\nrendre service. (Je ne veux parler naturellement que de services rendus\navec bonne humeur et sans rechigner).\n\nAinsi peu m'importe ce que tu entreprends; tu peux toujours arriver \u00e0\nqui tu veux, m\u00eame si, personnage sans importance, tu t'adresses \u00e0\nquelqu'un de tr\u00e8s haut plac\u00e9. C'est bien simple; tu n'as qu'\u00e0 trouver un\npremier ami porte-parole; voil\u00e0 tout, ton r\u00f4le s'arr\u00eate l\u00e0. Cet ami en\ncherche un autre, qui \u00e0 son tour en trouve un troisi\u00e8me et ainsi de\nsuite, d'ami en ami, de maille en maille, on forme la cha\u00eene; libre \u00e0\ntoi d'en suivre les maillons en montant ou en descendant \u00e0 ton choix.\n\n--C'est tout simplement admirable, Tommy!\n\n--Mais aussi simple et facile que possible; c'est l'A B C; pourtant,\nas-tu jamais connu quelqu'un sachant employer ce moyen? Non, parce que\nle monde est inepte. On va sans introduction trouver un \u00e9tranger, ou\nbien on lui \u00e9crit; naturellement on re\u00e7oit une douche froide, et ma foi,\nc'est parfaitement bien fait. Eh! bien, l'empereur ne me conna\u00eet pas,\npeu importe; il mangera son melon d'eau demain. Tu verras, je te le\npromets. Voil\u00e0 le marchand de mou de veau. Adieu, Jimmy, je vais le\nsurprendre.\n\nIl le surprit en effet, et lui demanda:\n\n--Dites-moi, voulez-vous me rendre un service?\n\n--Si je veux? en voil\u00e0 une question! Je suis votre homme. Dites ce que\nvous voulez, et vous me verrez voler.\n\n--Allez dire \u00e0 la marchande de marrons de tout planter l\u00e0, et de vite\nporter ce message \u00e0 son meilleur ami; recommandez-lui de prier cet ami\nde faire la boule de neige.\u00bb\n\nIl exposa la nature du message, et le quitta en disant: \u00abMaintenant,\nd\u00e9p\u00eachez-vous.\u00bb\n\nUn instant apr\u00e8s, les paroles du ramoneur \u00e9taient en voie de parvenir \u00e0\nl'empereur.\n\n\n\nIII\n\nLe lendemain, vers minuit, les m\u00e9decins \u00e9taient assis dans la chambre\nimp\u00e9riale et chuchotaient entre eux, tr\u00e8s inquiets, car la maladie de\nl'empereur semblait grave. Ils ne pouvaient se dissimuler que chaque\nfois qu'ils lui administraient une nouvelle drogue, il s'en trouvait\nplus mal. Cette constatation les attristait, en leur enlevant tout\nespoir. Le pauvre empereur \u00e9maci\u00e9 somnolait, les yeux ferm\u00e9s. Son page\nfavori chassait les mouches autour de son chevet et pleurait doucement.\nTout \u00e0 coup le jeune homme entendit le l\u00e9ger froufrou d'une porti\u00e8re\nqu'on \u00e9carte; il se retourna et aper\u00e7ut le lord grand-ma\u00eetre du palais\nqui passait la t\u00eate par la porti\u00e8re entreb\u00e2ill\u00e9e et lui faisait signe de\nvenir \u00e0 lui. Vite le page accourut sur la pointe des pieds vers son cher\nami le grand-ma\u00eetre; ce dernier lui dit avec nervosit\u00e9:\n\n--Toi seul, mon enfant, peux le persuader. Oh! n'y manque pas. Prends\nceci, fais-le lui manger et il est sauv\u00e9.\n\n--Sur ma t\u00eate, je le jure il le mangera.\n\nC'\u00e9taient deux grosses tranches de melon d'eau, fra\u00eeches, succulentes\nd'aspect.\n\n\n\nIV\n\nLe lendemain matin, la nouvelle se r\u00e9pandit partout que l'empereur \u00e9tait\nhors d'affaire et compl\u00e8tement remis. En revanche, il avait fait pendre\nles m\u00e9decins. La joie \u00e9clata dans tout le pays, et on se pr\u00e9para \u00e0\nilluminer magnifiquement.\n\nApr\u00e8s le d\u00e9jeuner, Sa Majest\u00e9 m\u00e9ditait dans un bon fauteuil: l'empereur\nvoulait t\u00e9moigner sa reconnaissance infinie, et cherchait quelle\nr\u00e9compense il pourrait accorder pour exprimer sa gratitude \u00e0 son\nbienfaiteur.\n\nLorsque son plan fut bien arr\u00eat\u00e9, il appela son page et lui demanda s'il\navait invent\u00e9 ce rem\u00e8de. Le jeune homme dit que non, que le grand ma\u00eetre\ndu palais le lui avait indiqu\u00e9.\n\nL'empereur le cong\u00e9dia et se remit \u00e0 r\u00e9fl\u00e9chir:\n\nLe grand-ma\u00eetre avait le titre de comte: il allait le cr\u00e9er duc, et lui\ndonnerait de vastes propri\u00e9t\u00e9s qu'il confisquerait \u00e0 un membre de\nl'opposition. Il le fit donc appeler et lui demanda s'il \u00e9tait\nl'inventeur du rem\u00e8de. Mais le grand-ma\u00eetre, qui \u00e9tait un honn\u00eate homme,\nr\u00e9pondit qu'il le tenait du grand chambellan. L'empereur le renvoya et\nr\u00e9fl\u00e9chit de nouveau: le chambellan \u00e9tait vicomte; il le ferait comte,\net lui donnerait de gros revenus. Mais le chambellan r\u00e9pondit qu'il\ntenait le rem\u00e8de du premier lord de service.\n\nIl fallait encore r\u00e9fl\u00e9chir. Ceci indisposa un peu Sa Majest\u00e9 qui songea\n\u00e0 une r\u00e9compense moins magnanime. Mais le premier lord de service\ntenait le rem\u00e8de d'un autre gentilhomme! L'empereur s'assit de nouveau\net chercha dans sa t\u00eate une r\u00e9compense plus modeste et mieux\nproportionn\u00e9e \u00e0 la situation de l'inventeur du rem\u00e8de.\n\nEnfin de guerre lasse, pour rompre la monotonie de ce travail imaginatif\net h\u00e2ter la besogne, il fit venir le grand chef de la police, et lui\ndonna l'ordre d'instruire cette affaire et d'en remonter le fil, pour\nlui permettre de remercier dignement son bienfaiteur.\n\nDans la soir\u00e9e, \u00e0 neuf heures, le grand chef de la police apporta la\nclef de l'\u00e9nigme. Il avait suivi le fil de l'histoire, et s'\u00e9tait ainsi\narr\u00eat\u00e9 \u00e0 un jeune gars, du nom de Jimmy, ramoneur de profession.\nL'empereur s'\u00e9cria avec une profonde \u00e9motion.\n\n--C'est ce brave gar\u00e7on qui m'a sauv\u00e9 la vie! il ne le regrettera pas.\n\nEt... il lui envoya une de ses paires de bottes, celles qui lui\nservaient de bottes num\u00e9ro deux!\n\nElles \u00e9taient trop grandes pour Jimmy, mais chaussaient parfaitement le\nvieux Zulu. A part cela, tout \u00e9tait bien!!!\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nCONCLUSION DE L'HISTOIRE DE L'HOMME AU MESSAGE\n\n\n--Maintenant, saisissez-vous mon id\u00e9e?\n\n--Je suis oblig\u00e9 de reconna\u00eetre que vous \u00eates dans le vrai. Je suivrai\nvos conseils et j'ai bon espoir de conclure mon affaire demain. Je\nconnais intimement le meilleur ami du directeur g\u00e9n\u00e9ral. Il me donnera\nune lettre d'introduction avec un mot explicatif sur l'int\u00e9r\u00eat que peut\npr\u00e9senter mon affaire pour le gouvernement. Je le porterai moi-m\u00eame sans\navoir pris de rendez-vous pr\u00e9alable et le ferai remettre au directeur\navec ma carte. Je suis s\u00fbr que je n'aurai pas \u00e0 attendre une\ndemi-minute.\n\nTout se passa \u00e0 la lettre, comme il le pr\u00e9voyait, et le gouvernement\nadopta les chaussures.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLES GEAIS BLEUS\n\n\nLes animaux causent entre eux; personne n'en peut douter, mais je crois\nque peu de gens comprennent leur langage. Je n'ai jamais connu qu'un\nhomme poss\u00e9dant ce don particulier; mais je suis certain qu'il le\nposs\u00e8de, car il m'a fortement document\u00e9 sur la question.\n\nC'\u00e9tait un mineur d'\u00e2ge moyen, au coeur simple; il avait v\u00e9cu longtemps\ndans les for\u00eats et les montagnes solitaires de la Californie, \u00e9tudiant\nles moeurs de ses seuls voisins, les animaux et les oiseaux; il parvint\nainsi \u00e0 traduire fid\u00e8lement leurs gestes et leurs attitudes. Il\ns'appelait Jim Baker. Selon lui, quelques animaux ont une \u00e9ducation des\nplus sommaires et n'emploient que des mots tr\u00e8s simples, sans\ncomparaisons ni images fleuries; d'autres, au contraire, poss\u00e8dent un\nvocabulaire \u00e9tendu, un langage choisi, et jouissent d'une \u00e9nonciation\nfacile; ces derniers sont naturellement plus bavards, ils aiment\nentendre le son de leur voix et sont ravis de produire leur petit effet.\nApr\u00e8s une m\u00fbre observation, Baker conclut que les geais bleus sont les\nplus beaux parleurs de tous les oiseaux et animaux. Voici ce qu'il\nraconte:\n\n\u00abLe geai bleu est tr\u00e8s sup\u00e9rieur aux autres animaux; mieux dou\u00e9 qu'eux,\nil a des sentiments plus affin\u00e9s et plus \u00e9lev\u00e9s, et il sait les exprimer\ntous, dans un langage \u00e9l\u00e9gant, harmonieux et tr\u00e8s fleuri. Quant \u00e0 la\nfacilit\u00e9 d'\u00e9locution, vous ne voyez jamais un geai bleu rester \u00e0 court\nde mots. Ils lui viennent tout naturellement d'abord \u00e0 l'esprit, ensuite\nau bout de la langue. Autre d\u00e9tail: j'ai observ\u00e9 bien des animaux, mais\nje n'ai jamais vu un oiseau, une vache ou aucune autre b\u00eate parler une\nlangue plus irr\u00e9prochable que le geai bleu. Vous me direz que le chat\ns'exprime merveilleusement. J'en conviens, mais prenez-le au moment o\u00f9\nil entre en fureur, au moment o\u00f9 il se cr\u00eape le poil avec un autre chat,\nau milieu de la nuit; vous m'en direz des nouvelles, la grammaire qu'il\nemploie vous donnera le t\u00e9tanos!\n\n\u00abLes profanes s'imaginent que les chats nous agacent par le tapage\nqu'ils font en se battant; profonde erreur! en r\u00e9alit\u00e9, c'est leur\nd\u00e9plorable syntaxe qui nous exasp\u00e8re. En revanche, je n'ai jamais\nentendu un geai employer un mot d\u00e9plac\u00e9; le fait est des plus rares, et\nquand ils se rendent coupables d'un tel m\u00e9fait, ils sont aussi honteux\nque des \u00eatres humains; ils ferment le bec imm\u00e9diatement et s'\u00e9loignent\npour ne plus revenir.\n\n\u00abVous appelez un geai un oiseau: c'est juste, car il a des plumes et\nn'appartient au fond \u00e0 aucune paroisse; mais \u00e0 part cela, je le d\u00e9clare\nun \u00eatre aussi humain que vous et moi. Je vous en donnerai la raison: les\nfacult\u00e9s, les sentiments, les instincts, les int\u00e9r\u00eats des geais sont\nuniversels. Un geai n'a pas plus de principes qu'un d\u00e9put\u00e9 ou un\nministre: il ment, il vole, il trompe, et trahit avec la m\u00eame\nd\u00e9sinvolture, et quatre fois sur cinq il manquera \u00e0 ses engagements les\nplus solennels. Un geai n'admet jamais le caract\u00e8re sacr\u00e9 d'une parole\ndonn\u00e9e. Autre trait caract\u00e9ristique: le geai jure comme un mineur. Vous\ntrouvez d\u00e9j\u00e0 que les chats jurent comme des sapeurs; mais donnez \u00e0 un\ngeai l'occasion de sortir son vocabulaire au grand complet, vous m'en\ndirez des nouvelles: il battra le chat, haut la main, dans ce record\nsp\u00e9cial. Ne cherchez pas \u00e0 me contredire: je suis trop au courant de\nleurs moeurs. Autre particularit\u00e9: le geai bleu surpasse toute cr\u00e9ature\nhumaine ou divine dans l'art de gronder: il le fait simplement avec un\ncalme, une mesure, et une pond\u00e9ration parfaite. Oui, monsieur, un geai\nvaut un homme. Il pleure, il rit, et prend des airs contrits; je l'ai\nentendu raisonner, se disputer et discuter; il aime les histoires, les\npotins, les scandales; avec cela plein d'esprit, il sait reconna\u00eetre ses\ntorts aussi bien que vous et moi. Et maintenant je vais vous raconter\nune histoire de geais bleus, parfaitement authentique:\n\n\u00abLorsque je commen\u00e7ai \u00e0 comprendre leur langage, il survint ici un petit\nincident. Le dernier homme qui habitait la r\u00e9gion avec moi, il y a sept\nans, s'en alla. Vous voyez d'ailleurs sa maison. Elle est rest\u00e9e vide\ndepuis; elle se compose d'une hutte en planches, avec une grande pi\u00e8ce\net voil\u00e0 tout; un toit de chaume et pas de plafond. Un dimanche matin,\nj'\u00e9tais assis sur le seuil de ma hutte, et je prenais l'air avec mon\nchat; je regardais le ciel bleu, en \u00e9coutant le murmure solitaire des\nfeuilles, et en songeant, r\u00eaveur, \u00e0 mon pays natal dont j'\u00e9tais priv\u00e9 de\nnouvelles depuis treize ans; un geai bleu parut sur cette maison\nd\u00e9serte; il tenait un gland dans son bec, et se mit \u00e0 parler: \u00abTiens,\ndisait-il, je viens de me heurter \u00e0 quelque chose.\u00bb Le gland tomba de\nson bec, roula par terre; il n'en parut pas autrement contrari\u00e9 et resta\ntr\u00e8s absorb\u00e9 par son id\u00e9e. Il avait vu un trou dans le toit; il ferma un\noeil, tourna la t\u00eate successivement des deux c\u00f4t\u00e9s, et essaya de voir ce\nqu'il y avait au fond de ce trou; je le vis bient\u00f4t relever la t\u00eate, son\noeil brillait. Il se mit \u00e0 battre des ailes deux ou trois fois, ce qui\nest un indice de grande satisfaction, et s'\u00e9cria: \u00abC'est un trou ou je\nne m'y connais pas; c'est s\u00fbrement un trou.\u00bb\n\n\u00abIl regarda encore; son oeil s'illumina, puis, battant des ailes et de\nla queue, il s'\u00e9cria: \u00abJ'en ai, une veine! C'est un trou, et un trou des\nmieux conditionn\u00e9s.\u00bb D'un coup d'aile, il plongea, ramassa le gland et\nle jeta dans le trou; sa physionomie exprimait une joie indescriptible,\nlorsque soudain son sourire se figea sur son bec, et fit place \u00e0 une\nprofonde stupeur: \u00abComment se fait-il, dit-il, que je ne l'aie pas\nentendu tomber?\u00bb Il regarda de nouveau, et resta tr\u00e8s pensif; il fit le\ntour du trou en tous sens, bien d\u00e9cid\u00e9 \u00e0 percer ce myst\u00e8re; il ne trouva\nrien. Il s'installa alors sur le haut du toit, et se prit \u00e0 r\u00e9fl\u00e9chir en\nse grattant la t\u00eate avec sa patte. \u00abJe crois que j'entreprends l\u00e0 un\ntravail colossal; le trou doit \u00eatre immense, et je n'ai pas le temps de\nm'amuser.\u00bb\n\n\u00abIl s'en alla \u00e0 tire d'aile, ramassa un autre gland, le jeta dans le\ntrou et essaya de voir jusqu'o\u00f9 il \u00e9tait tomb\u00e9, mais en vain; alors il\npoussa un profond soupir. \u00abLe diable s'en m\u00eale, dit-il, je n'y comprends\nplus rien, mais je ne me laisserai pas d\u00e9courager pour si peu.\u00bb Il\nretourna chercher un gland et recommen\u00e7a son exp\u00e9rience, sans arriver \u00e0\nun r\u00e9sultat meilleur.\n\n\u00abC'est curieux, marmotta-t-il; je n'ai jamais vu un trou pareil; c'est\n\u00e9videmment un nouveau genre de trou.\u00bb Il commen\u00e7ait pourtant \u00e0\ns'\u00e9nerver. Persuad\u00e9 qu'il avait affaire \u00e0 un trou ensorcel\u00e9, il\nsecouait la t\u00eate en ronchonnant; il ne perdit pas cependant tout espoir\net ne se laissa pas aller au d\u00e9couragement. Il arpenta le toit de long\nen large, revint au trou et lui tint ce langage: \u00abVous \u00eates un trou\nextraordinaire, long, profond; un trou peu banal, mais j'ai d\u00e9cid\u00e9 de\nvous remplir; j'y arriverai co\u00fbte que co\u00fbte, duss\u00e9-je peiner des\nann\u00e9es.\u00bb\n\nIl se mit donc au travail; je vous garantis que vous n'avez jamais vu un\noiseau aussi actif sous la calotte des cieux. Pendant deux heures et\ndemie, il ramassa et jeta des glands avec une ardeur d\u00e9vorante, sans\nm\u00eame prendre le temps de regarder o\u00f9 en \u00e9tait son ouvrage. Mais la\nfatigue l'envahit et il lui sembla que ses ailes pesaient cent kilos\nchacune. Il jeta un dernier gland et soupira: \u00abCette fois je veux \u00eatre\npendu si je ne me rends pas ma\u00eetre de ce trou.\u00bb Il regarda de pr\u00e8s son\ntravail. Vous allez me traiter de blagueur, lorsque je vous dirai que je\nvis mon geai devenir p\u00e2le de col\u00e8re.\n\n\u00abComment, s'\u00e9cria-t-il, j'ai r\u00e9uni l\u00e0 assez de glands pour nourrir ma\nfamille pendant trente ans et je n'en vois pas la moindre trace. Il n'y\na pas \u00e0 en douter: si j'y comprends quelque chose, je veux que l'on\nm'empaille, qu'on me bourre le ventre de son et qu'on me loge au mus\u00e9e.\u00bb\nIl eut \u00e0 peine la force de se tra\u00eener vers la cr\u00eate du toit et de s'y\nposer, tant il \u00e9tait bris\u00e9 de fatigue et de d\u00e9couragement. Il se\nressaisit pourtant et rassembla ses esprits.\n\n\u00abUn autre geai passa; l'entendant invoquer le ciel, il s'enquit du\nmalheur qui lui arrivait. Notre ami lui donna tous les d\u00e9tails de son\naventure. \u00abVoici le trou, lui dit-il, et si vous ne me croyez pas,\ndescendez vous convaincre vous-m\u00eame.\u00bb Le camarade revint au bout d'un\ninstant: \u00abCombien avez-vous enfoui de glands l\u00e0-dedans?\u00bb\ndemanda-t-il.--\u00abPas moins de deux tonneaux.\u00bb\n\n\u00abLe nouveau venu retourna voir, mais, n'y comprenant rien, il poussa un\ncri d'appel qui attira trois autres geais. Tous, r\u00e9unis, proc\u00e9d\u00e8rent \u00e0\nl'examen du trou, et se firent raconter de nouveau les d\u00e9tails de\nl'histoire; apr\u00e8s une discussion g\u00e9n\u00e9rale leurs opinions furent aussi\ndivergentes que celles d'un comit\u00e9 de notables humains r\u00e9unis pour\ntrancher d'une question grave. Ils appel\u00e8rent d'autres geais; ces\nvolatiles accoururent en foule si compacte que leur nombre finit par\nobscurcir le ciel. Il y en avait bien cinq mille; jamais de votre vie\nvous n'avez entendu des cris, des querelles et un carnage semblables.\nChacun des geais alla regarder le trou; en revenant, il s'empressait\nd'\u00e9mettre un avis diff\u00e9rent de son pr\u00e9d\u00e9cesseur. C'\u00e9tait \u00e0 qui\nfournirait l'explication la plus abracadabrante. Ils examin\u00e8rent la\nmaison par tous les bouts. Et comme la porte \u00e9tait entr'ouverte, un geai\neut enfin l'id\u00e9e d'y p\u00e9n\u00e9trer. Le myst\u00e8re fut bien entendu \u00e9clairci en\nun instant: il trouva tous les glands par terre. Notre h\u00e9ros battit des\nailes et appela ses camarades: \u00abArrivez! arrivez! criait-il; ma parole!\ncet imb\u00e9cile n'a-t-il pas eu la pr\u00e9tention de remplir toute la maison\navec des glands?\u00bb Ils vinrent tous en masse, formant un nuage bleu; en\nd\u00e9couvrant la clef de l'\u00e9nigme ils s'esclaff\u00e8rent de la b\u00eatise de leur\ncamarade.\n\n\u00abEh bien! monsieur, apr\u00e8s cette aventure, tous les geais rest\u00e8rent l\u00e0\nune grande heure \u00e0 bavarder comme des \u00eatres humains. Ne me soutenez donc\nplus qu'un geai n'a pas l'esprit grivois; je sais trop le contraire. Et\nquelle m\u00e9moire aussi! Pendant trois ann\u00e9es cons\u00e9cutives, je vis\nrevenir, chaque \u00e9t\u00e9, une foule de geais des quatre coins des \u00c9tats-Unis:\ntous admir\u00e8rent le trou, d'autres oiseaux se joignirent \u00e0 ces p\u00e8lerins,\net tous se rendirent compte de la plaisanterie, \u00e0 l'exception d'une\nvieille chouette originaire de Nova-Scotia. Comme elle n'y voyait que du\nbleu, elle d\u00e9clara qu'elle ne trouvait rien de dr\u00f4le \u00e0 cette aventure;\nelle s'en retourna, et regagna son triste logis tr\u00e8s d\u00e9sappoint\u00e9e.\u00bb\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCOMMENT J'AI TU\u00c9 UN OURS\n\n\nOn a racont\u00e9 tant d'histoires invraisemblables sur ma chasse \u00e0 l'ours de\nl'\u00e9t\u00e9 dernier, \u00e0 Adirondack, qu'en bonne justice je dois au public, \u00e0\nmoi-m\u00eame et aussi \u00e0 l'ours, de relater les faits qui s'y rattachent avec\nla plus parfaite v\u00e9racit\u00e9. Et d'ailleurs il m'est arriv\u00e9 si rarement de\ntuer un ours, que le lecteur m'excusera de m'\u00e9tendre trop longuement\npeut-\u00eatre sur cet exploit.\n\nNotre rencontre fut inattendue de part et d'autre. Je ne chassais pas\nl'ours, et je n'ai aucune raison de supposer que l'ours me cherchait. La\nv\u00e9rit\u00e9 est que nous cueillions des m\u00fbres, chacun de notre c\u00f4t\u00e9, et que\nnous nous rencontr\u00e2mes par hasard, ce qui arrive souvent. Les voyageurs\nqui passent \u00e0 Adirondack ont souvent exprim\u00e9 le d\u00e9sir de rencontrer un\nours; c'est-\u00e0-dire que tous voudraient en apercevoir un, de loin, dans\nla for\u00eat; ils se demandent d'ailleurs ce qu'ils feraient en pr\u00e9sence\nd'un animal de cette esp\u00e8ce. Mais l'ours est rare et timide et ne se\nmontre pas souvent.\n\nC'\u00e9tait par une chaude apr\u00e8s-midi d'ao\u00fbt; rien ne faisait supposer qu'un\n\u00e9v\u00e9nement \u00e9trange arriverait ce jour-l\u00e0. Les propri\u00e9taires de notre\nchalet eurent l'id\u00e9e de m'envoyer dans la montagne, derri\u00e8re la maison,\npour cueillir des m\u00fbres. Pour arriver dans les bois, il fallait\ntraverser des prairies en pente, tout entrecoup\u00e9es de haies, vraiment\nfort pittoresques. Des vaches p\u00e2turaient paisibles, au milieu de ces\nhaies touffues dont elles broutaient le feuillage. On m'avait\naimablement muni d'un seau, et pri\u00e9 de ne pas m'absenter trop longtemps.\n\nPourquoi, ce jour-l\u00e0, avais je pris un fusil? Ce n'est certes pas par\nintuition, mais par pur amour-propre. Une arme, \u00e0 mon avis, devait me\ndonner une contenance masculine et contrebalancer l'effet d\u00e9plorable\nproduit par le seau que je portais; et puis, je pouvais toujours faire\nlever un perdreau (au fond j'aurais \u00e9t\u00e9 tr\u00e8s embarrass\u00e9 de le tirer au\nvol, et surtout de le tuer). Beaucoup de gens emploient des fusils pour\nchasser le perdreau; moi je pr\u00e9f\u00e8re la carabine qui mutile moins la\nvictime et ne la crible pas de plombs. Ma carabine \u00e9tait une \u00abSharps\u00bb,\nfaite pour tirer \u00e0 balle. C'\u00e9tait une arme excellente qui appartenait \u00e0\nun de mes amis; ce dernier r\u00eavait depuis des ann\u00e9es de s'en servir pour\ntuer un cerf. Elle portait si juste qu'il pouvait,--si le temps \u00e9tait\npropice et l'atmosph\u00e8re calme,--atteindre son but \u00e0 chaque coup. Il\nexcellait \u00e0 planter une balle dans un arbre \u00e0 condition toutefois que\nl'arbre ne f\u00fbt pas trop \u00e9loign\u00e9. Naturellement, l'arbre devait aussi\noffrir une certaine surface!\n\nInutile de dire que je n'\u00e9tais pas \u00e0 cette \u00e9poque un chasseur \u00e9m\u00e9rite.\nIl y a quelques ann\u00e9es, j'avais tu\u00e9 un rouge-gorge dans des\ncirconstances particuli\u00e8rement humiliantes. L'oiseau se tenait sur une\nbranche tr\u00e8s basse de cerisier. Je chargeai mon fusil, me glissai sous\nl'arbre, j'appuyai mon arme sur la haie, en pla\u00e7ant la bouche \u00e0 dix pas\nde l'oiseau, je fermai les yeux et tirai! Lorsque je me relevai pour\nvoir le r\u00e9sultat, le malheureux rouge-gorge \u00e9tait en miettes,\n\u00e9parpill\u00e9es de tous les c\u00f4t\u00e9s, et si imperceptibles que le meilleur\nnaturaliste n'aurait jamais pu d\u00e9terminer \u00e0 quelle famille appartenait\nl'oiseau.\n\nCet incident me d\u00e9go\u00fbta \u00e0 tout jamais de la chasse; si j'y fais allusion\naujourd'hui, c'est uniquement pour prouver au lecteur que malgr\u00e9 mon\narme je n'\u00e9tais pas un ennemi redoutable pour l'ours.\n\nOn avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu des ours dans ces parages, \u00e0 proximit\u00e9 des m\u00fbriers.\nL'\u00e9t\u00e9 pr\u00e9c\u00e9dent, notre cuisini\u00e8re n\u00e8gre, accompagn\u00e9e d'une enfant du\nvoisinage, y cueillait des m\u00fbres, lorsqu'un ours sortit de la for\u00eat, et\nvint au-devant d'elle. L'enfant prit ses jambes \u00e0 son cou et se sauva.\nLa brave Chlo\u00e9 fut paralys\u00e9e de terreur; au lieu de chercher \u00e0 courir,\nelle s'effondra sur place, et se mit \u00e0 pleurer et \u00e0 hurler au perdu.\nL'ours, terroris\u00e9 par ces simagr\u00e9es, s'approcha d'elle, la regarda, et\nfit le tour de la bonne femme en la surveillant du coin de l'oeil. Il\nn'avait probablement jamais vu une femme de couleur, et ne savait pas\nbien au fond si elle ferait son affaire; quoi qu'il en soit, apr\u00e8s\nr\u00e9flexion, il tourna les talons et regagna la for\u00eat. Voil\u00e0 un exemple\nauthentique de la d\u00e9licatesse d'un ours, beaucoup plus remarquable que\nla douceur du lion africain envers l'esclave auquel il tend la patte\npour se faire extirper une \u00e9pine. Notez bien que mon ours n'avait pas\nd'\u00e9pine dans le pied.\n\nLorsque j'arrivai au haut de la colline, je posai ma carabine contre un\narbre, et me mis en devoir de cueillir mes m\u00fbres, allant d'une haie \u00e0\nl'autre, et ne craignant pas ma peine pour remplir consciencieusement\nmon seau. De tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s, j'entendais le tintement argentin des\nclochettes des vaches, le craquement des branches qu'elles cassaient en\nse r\u00e9fugiant sous les arbres pour se mettre \u00e0 l'abri des mouches et des\ntaons. De temps \u00e0 autre, je rencontrais une vache paisible qui me\nregardait avec ses grands yeux b\u00eates, et se cachait dans la haie. Je\nm'habituai tr\u00e8s vite \u00e0 cette soci\u00e9t\u00e9 muette, et continuai \u00e0 cueillir mes\nm\u00fbres au milieu de tous ces bruits de la campagne; j'\u00e9tais loin de\nm'attendre \u00e0 voir poindre un ours. Pourtant, tout en faisant ma\ncueillette, mon cerveau travaillait et, par une \u00e9trange co\u00efncidence, je\nforgeai dans ma t\u00eate le roman d'une ourse qui, ayant perdu son ourson,\naurait, pour le remplacer, pris dans la for\u00eat une toute petite fille,\net l'aurait emmen\u00e9e tendrement dans une grotte pour l'\u00e9lever au miel et\nau lait. En grandissant, l'enfant mue par l'instinct h\u00e9r\u00e9ditaire, se\nserait \u00e9chapp\u00e9e, et serait revenue un beau jour chez ses parents qu'elle\naurait guid\u00e9s jusqu'\u00e0 la demeure de l'ourse. (Cette partie de mon\nhistoire demandait \u00e0 \u00eatre approfondie, car je ne vois pas bien \u00e0 quoi\nl'enfant aurait pu reconna\u00eetre son p\u00e8re et dans quel langage elle se\nserait fait comprendre de lui.)\n\nQuoi qu'il en soit, le p\u00e8re avait pris son fusil, et, suivant l'enfant\ningrate, \u00e9tait entr\u00e9 dans la for\u00eat; il avait tu\u00e9 l'ourse qui ne se\nserait m\u00eame pas d\u00e9fendue; la pauvre b\u00eate en mourant avait adress\u00e9 un\nregard de reproche \u00e0 son meurtrier. La morale suivante s'imposait \u00e0 mon\nhistoire:\n\n\u00abSoyez bons envers les animaux.\u00bb\n\nJ'\u00e9tais plong\u00e9 dans ma r\u00eaverie, lorsque par hasard, je levai les yeux et\nvis devant moi \u00e0 quelques m\u00e8tres de la clairi\u00e8re... un ours! Debout sur\nses pattes de derri\u00e8re, il faisait comme moi, il cueillait des m\u00fbres:\nd'une patte il tirait \u00e0 lui les branches trop hautes, tandis que de\nl'autre il les portait \u00e0 sa bouche; m\u00fbres ou vertes, peu lui importait,\nil avalait tout sans distinction. Dire que je fus surpris, constituerait\nune expression bien plate. Je vous avoue en tout cas bien sinc\u00e8rement\nque l'envie de me trouver nez \u00e0 nez avec un ours me passa\ninstantan\u00e9ment. D\u00e8s que cet aimable gourmand s'aper\u00e7ut de ma pr\u00e9sence,\nil interrompit sa cueillette, et me consid\u00e9ra avec une satisfaction\napparente. C'est tr\u00e8s joli d'imaginer ce qu'on ferait en face de tel ou\ntel danger, mais en g\u00e9n\u00e9ral, on agit tout diff\u00e9remment; c'est ce que je\nfis. L'ours retomba lourdement sur ses quatre pattes, et vint \u00e0 moi \u00e0\npas compt\u00e9s. Grimper \u00e0 un arbre ne m'e\u00fbt servi \u00e0 rien car l'ours \u00e9tait\ncertainement plus adroit que moi \u00e0 cet exercice. Me sauver? Il me\npoursuivrait, et bien qu'un ours coure plus vite \u00e0 la mont\u00e9e qu'\u00e0 la\ndescente, je pensai que dans les terres lourdes et embroussaill\u00e9es, il\nm'aurait bien vite rattrap\u00e9.\n\nIl se rapprochait de moi; je me demandais avec angoisse comment je\npourrais l'occuper jusqu'\u00e0 ce que j'aie rejoint mon fusil laiss\u00e9 au pied\nd'un arbre. Mon seau \u00e9tait presque plein de m\u00fbres excellentes, bien\nmeilleures que celles cueillies par mon adversaire. Je posai donc mon\nseau par terre, et reculai lentement en fixant mon ours des yeux \u00e0 la\nmani\u00e8re des dompteurs. Ma tactique r\u00e9ussit.\n\nL'ours se dirigea vers le seau et s'arr\u00eata. Fort peu habitu\u00e9 \u00e0 manger\ndans un ustensile de ce genre, il le renversa et fouilla avec son museau\ndans cet amas informe de m\u00fbres, de terre et de feuilles. Certes, il\nmangeait plus salement qu'un cochon. D'ailleurs lorsqu'un ours ravage\nune p\u00e9pini\u00e8re d'\u00e9rables \u00e0 sucre, au printemps, on est toujours s\u00fbr qu'il\nrenversera tous les godets \u00e0 sirops, et gaspillera plus qu'il ne mange.\nA ce point de vue, il ne faut pas demander \u00e0 un ours d'avoir des\nmani\u00e8res \u00e9l\u00e9gantes!\n\nD\u00e8s que mon adversaire eut baiss\u00e9 la t\u00eate, je me mis \u00e0 courir; tout\nessouffl\u00e9, tremblant d'\u00e9motion, j'arrivai \u00e0 ma carabine. Il n'\u00e9tait que\ntemps. J'entendais l'ours briser les branches qui le g\u00eanaient pour me\npoursuivre. Exasp\u00e9r\u00e9 par le stratag\u00e8me que j'avais employ\u00e9, il marchait\nsur moi avec des yeux furibonds.\n\nJe compris que l'un de nous deux allait passer un mauvais quart d'heure!\nLa lucidit\u00e9 et la pr\u00e9sence d'esprit dans les circonstances path\u00e9tiques\nde la vie sont faits assez connus pour que je les passe sous silence.\nToutes les id\u00e9es qui me travers\u00e8rent le cerveau pendant que l'ours\nd\u00e9valait sur moi auraient eu peine \u00e0 tenir dans un gros in-octavo. Tout\nen chargeant ma carabine, je passai rapidement en revue mon existence\nenti\u00e8re, et je remarquai avec terreur qu'en face de la mort on ne trouve\npas une seule bonne action \u00e0 son acquit, tandis que les mauvaises\naffluent d'une mani\u00e8re humiliante. Je me rappelai, entre autres fautes,\nun abonnement de journal que je n'avais pas pay\u00e9 pendant longtemps,\nremettant toujours ma dette d'une ann\u00e9e \u00e0 l'autre; il m'\u00e9tait h\u00e9las!\nimpossible de r\u00e9parer mon ind\u00e9licatesse car l'\u00e9diteur \u00e9tait d\u00e9c\u00e9d\u00e9 et le\njournal avait fait faillite.\n\nEt mon ours approchait toujours! Je cherchai \u00e0 me rem\u00e9morer toutes les\nlectures que j'avais faites sur des histoires d'ours et sur des\nrencontres de ce genre, mais je ne trouvai aucun exemple d'homme sauv\u00e9\npar la fuite. J'en conclus alors que le plus s\u00fbr moyen de tuer un ours\n\u00e9tait de le tirer \u00e0 balle, quand on ne peut pas l'assommer d'un coup de\nmassue. Je pensai d'abord \u00e0 le viser \u00e0 la t\u00eate, entre les deux yeux,\nmais ceci me parut dangereux. Un cerveau d'ours est tr\u00e8s \u00e9troit, et \u00e0\nmoins d'atteindre le point vital, l'animal se moque un peu d'avoir une\nballe de plus ou de moins dans la t\u00eate.\n\nApr\u00e8s mille r\u00e9flexions pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9es, je me d\u00e9cidai \u00e0 viser le corps de\nl'ours sans chercher un point sp\u00e9cial.\n\nJ'avais lu toutes les m\u00e9thodes de Creedmoore, mais il m'\u00e9tait difficile\nd'appliquer s\u00e9ance tenante le fruit de mes \u00e9tudes scientifiques. Je me\ndemandai si je devais tirer couch\u00e9, \u00e0 plat ventre, ou sur le dos, en\nappuyant ma carabine sur mes pieds. Seulement dans toutes ces positions,\nje ne pourrais voir mon adversaire que s'il se pr\u00e9sentait \u00e0 deux pas de\nmoi; cette perspective ne m'\u00e9tait pas particuli\u00e8rement agr\u00e9able. La\ndistance qui me s\u00e9parait de mon ennemi \u00e9tait trop courte, et l'ours ne\nme donnerait pas le temps d'examiner le thermom\u00e8tre ou la direction du\nvent. Il me fallait donc renoncer \u00e0 appliquer la m\u00e9thode Creedmoore, et\nje regrettai am\u00e8rement de n'avoir pas lu plus de trait\u00e9s de tir.\n\nL'ours approchait de plus en plus! A ce moment, je pensai, la mort dans\nl'\u00e2me, \u00e0 ma famille; comme elle se compose de peu de membres, cette\nrevue fut vite pass\u00e9e. La crainte de d\u00e9plaire \u00e0 ma femme ou de lui\ncauser du chagrin dominait tous mes sentiments. Quelle serait son\nangoisse en entendant sonner les heures et en ne me voyant pas revenir!\nEt que diraient les autres, en ne recevant pas leurs m\u00fbres \u00e0 la fin de\nla journ\u00e9e; Quelle douleur pour ma femme, lorsqu'elle apprendrait que\nj'avais \u00e9t\u00e9 mang\u00e9 par un ours! Cette seule pens\u00e9e m'humilia: \u00eatre la\nproie d'un ours! Mais une autre pr\u00e9occupation hantait mon esprit! On\nn'est pas ma\u00eetre de son cerveau \u00e0 ces moments-l\u00e0! Au milieu des dangers\nles plus graves, les id\u00e9es les plus saugrenues se pr\u00e9sentent \u00e0 vous.\nPressentant en moi-m\u00eame le chagrin de mes amis, je cherchai \u00e0 deviner\nl'\u00e9pitaphe qu'ils feraient graver sur ma tombe, et arr\u00eatai mon choix sur\ncette derni\u00e8re:\n\nCI-GIT UN TEL\n\nMANG\u00c9 PAR UN OURS\n\nLE 20 AOUT 1877.\n\nCette \u00e9pitaphe me parut triviale et malsonnante. Ce \u00abmang\u00e9 par un ours\u00bb\nm'\u00e9tait profond\u00e9ment d\u00e9sagr\u00e9able, et me ridiculisait. Je fus pris de\npiti\u00e9 pour notre pauvre langue; en effet ce mot \u00abmang\u00e9\u00bb demandait une\nexplication; signifiait-il que j'avais \u00e9t\u00e9 la proie d'un cannibale ou\nd'un animal? Cette m\u00e9prise ne saurait exister en allemand, o\u00f9 le mot\n\u00abessen\u00bb veut dire mang\u00e9 par un homme et \u00abfressen\u00bb par un animal. Comme\nla question se simplifierait en allemand!\n\nHIER LIEGT\n\nHOCHWOHLGEBOREN\n\nHERR X.\n\nGEFRESSEN\n\nAUGUST 20. 1877.\n\n\nCeci va de soi. Il saute aux yeux d'apr\u00e8s cette inscription que le Herr\nX... a \u00e9t\u00e9 la victime d'un ours, animal qui jouit d'une r\u00e9putation bien\n\u00e9tablie depuis le proph\u00e8te Elis\u00e9e.\n\nEt l'ours approchait toujours! ou plus exactement, il \u00e9tait \u00e0 deux pas\nde moi. Il pouvait me voir dans le blanc des yeux! Toutes mes\nr\u00e9flexions pr\u00e9c\u00e9dentes dansaient dans ma t\u00eate avec incoh\u00e9rence. Je\nsoulevai mon fusil, je mis en joue et je tirai.\n\nPuis, je me sauvai \u00e0 toutes jambes. N'entendant pas l'ours me\npoursuivre, je me retournai pour regarder en arri\u00e8re; l'ours \u00e9tait\ncouch\u00e9. Je me rappelai que la prudence recommande au chasseur de\nrecharger son fusil aussit\u00f4t qu'il a tir\u00e9. C'est ce que je fis sans\nperdre de vue mon ours. Il ne bougeait pas. Je m'approchai de lui avec\npr\u00e9caution, et constatai un tremblement dans ses pattes de derri\u00e8re; en\ndehors de cela, il n'esquissait pas le moindre mouvement. Qui sait s'il\nne jouait pas la com\u00e9die avec moi? Un ours est capable de tout! Pour\n\u00e9viter ce nouveau danger je lui tirai \u00e0 bout portant une balle dans la\nt\u00eate; cela me parut plus s\u00fbr. Je me trouvais donc d\u00e9barrass\u00e9 de mon\nredoutable adversaire. La mort avait \u00e9t\u00e9 rapide et sans douleur, et\ndevant le beau calme de mon ennemi, je me sentis impressionn\u00e9.\n\nJe rentrai chez moi, tr\u00e8s fier d'avoir tu\u00e9 un ours.\n\nMalgr\u00e9 ma surexcitation bien naturelle, j'essayai d'opposer une\nindiff\u00e9rence simul\u00e9e aux nombreuses questions qui m'assaillirent.\n\n--O\u00f9 sont les m\u00fbres?\n\n--Pourquoi avez-vous \u00e9t\u00e9 si longtemps dehors?\n\n--Qu'avez-vous fait du seau?\n\n--Je l'ai laiss\u00e9.\n\n--Laiss\u00e9? o\u00f9? pourquoi?\n\n--Un ours me l'a demand\u00e9.\n\n--Quelle stupidit\u00e9!\n\n--Mais non, je vous affirme que je l'ai offert \u00e0 un ours.\n\n--Allons donc! vous ne nous ferez pas croire que vous avez vu un ours?\n\n--Mais si, j'en ai vu un!\n\n--Courait-il?\n\n--Oui, il a couru apr\u00e8s moi!\n\n--Ce n'est pas vrai. Qu'avez-vous fait?\n\n--Oh! rien de particulier,--je l'ai tu\u00e9.\n\nCris surhumains: \u00abPas vrai!\u00bb--\u00abO\u00f9 est-il?\u00bb\n\n--Si vous voulez le voir, il faut que vous alliez dans la for\u00eat. Je ne\npouvais pas l'emporter tout seul.\n\nApr\u00e8s avoir satisfait toutes les curiosit\u00e9s de la maisonn\u00e9e et calm\u00e9\nleurs craintes r\u00e9trospectives \u00e0 mon endroit, j'allai demander de l'aide\naux voisins. Le grand chasseur d'ours, qui tient un h\u00f4tel en \u00e9t\u00e9, \u00e9couta\nmon histoire avec un sourire sceptique; son incr\u00e9dulit\u00e9 gagna tous les\nhabitants de l'h\u00f4tel et de la localit\u00e9. Cependant comme j'insistais sans\nle faire \u00e0 la pose, et que je leur proposais de les conduire sur le\nth\u00e9\u00e2tre de mon exploit, une quarantaine de personnes accept\u00e8rent de me\nsuivre et de m'aider \u00e0 ramener l'ours. Personne ne croyait en trouver\nun; pourtant chacun s'arma dans la crainte d'une f\u00e2cheuse rencontre, qui\nd'un fusil, d'un pistolet, un autre d'une fourche, quelques-uns de\nmatraques et de b\u00e2tons; on ne saurait user de trop de pr\u00e9cautions.\n\nMais lorsque j'arrivai \u00e0 l'endroit psychologique et que je montrai mon\nours, une esp\u00e8ce de terreur s'empara de cette foule incr\u00e9dule. Par\nJupiter! c'\u00e9tait un ours v\u00e9ritable; quant aux ovations qui salu\u00e8rent le\nh\u00e9ros de l'aventure... ma foi, par modestie, je les passe sous silence.\nQuelle procession pour ramener l'ours! et quelle foule pour le\ncontempler lorsqu'il fut d\u00e9pos\u00e9 chez moi! Le meilleur pr\u00e9dicateur\nn'aurait pas r\u00e9uni autant de monde pour \u00e9couter un sermon, le dimanche.\n\nAu fond, je dois reconna\u00eetre que mes amis, tous sportsmen accomplis, se\nconduisirent tr\u00e8s correctement \u00e0 mon \u00e9gard. Ils ne contest\u00e8rent pas\nl'identit\u00e9 de l'ours, mais ils le trouv\u00e8rent tr\u00e8s petit. M. Deane, en sa\nqualit\u00e9 de tireur et de p\u00eacheur \u00e9m\u00e9rite, reconnut que j'avais fait l\u00e0 un\njoli coup de fusil; son opinion me flatta d'autant plus que personne n'a\njamais pris autant de saumons que lui aux \u00c9tats-Unis et qu'il passe pour\nun chasseur tr\u00e8s remarquable.\n\nPourtant il fit remarquer, sans succ\u00e8s d'ailleurs, apr\u00e8s examen de la\nblessure de l'ours, qu'il en avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu d'analogues caus\u00e9es par des\ncornes de vache!!\n\nA ces paroles m\u00e9prisantes, j'opposai le parapluie de mon indiff\u00e9rence.\nLorsque je me couchai ce soir-l\u00e0, ext\u00e9nu\u00e9 de fatigue, je m'endormis sur\ncette pens\u00e9e d\u00e9licieuse: \u00abAujourd'hui, j'ai tu\u00e9 un ours!\u00bb\n\n\n\n\n\n\nUN CHIEN A L'\u00c9GLISE\n\n\nApr\u00e8s le chant du cantique, le R\u00e9v\u00e9rend Sprague se retourna et lut une\nliste interminable \u00abd'annonces\u00bb, de r\u00e9unions, d'assembl\u00e9es, de\nconf\u00e9rences, selon le curieux usage qui se perp\u00e9tue en Am\u00e9rique, et qui\nsubsiste m\u00eame dans les grandes villes o\u00f9 les nouvelles sont donn\u00e9es dans\ntous les journaux.\n\nCela fait, le ministre du Seigneur se mit \u00e0 prier; il formula une\ninvocation longue et g\u00e9n\u00e9reuse qui embrassait l'Univers entier, appelant\nles b\u00e9n\u00e9dictions du ciel sur l'\u00c9glise, les petits enfants, les autres\n\u00e9glises de la localit\u00e9, le village, le comt\u00e9, l'\u00c9tat, les officiers\nminist\u00e9riels de l'\u00c9tat, les \u00c9tats-Unis, les \u00e9glises des \u00c9tats-Unis, le\ncongr\u00e8s, le pr\u00e9sident, les officiers du gouvernement, les pauvres marins\nballott\u00e9s par les flots, les millions d'opprim\u00e9s qui souffrent de la\ntyrannie des monarques europ\u00e9ens et du despotisme oriental; il pria pour\nceux qui re\u00e7oivent la Lumi\u00e8re et la Bonne Parole, mais qui n'ont ni yeux\nni oreilles pour voir et comprendre; pour les pauvres pa\u00efens des \u00eeles\nperdues de l'oc\u00e9an, et il termina en demandant que sa pr\u00e9dication porte\nses fruits et que ses paroles s\u00e8ment le bon grain dans un sol fertile\ncapable de donner une opulente moisson. Amen.\n\nIl y eut alors un froufrou de robes, et l'assembl\u00e9e, debout pour la\npri\u00e8re, s'assit. Le jeune homme \u00e0 qui nous devons ce r\u00e9cit ne\ns'associait nullement \u00e0 ces exercices de pi\u00e9t\u00e9; il se contentait de\nfaire acte de pr\u00e9sence... et pr\u00eatait une attention des plus m\u00e9diocres \u00e0\nl'office qui se d\u00e9roulait. Il \u00e9tait rebelle \u00e0 la d\u00e9votion, et comme il\nne suivait la pri\u00e8re que d'une oreille distraite, connaissant par le\nmenu le programme du pasteur, il \u00e9coutait de l'autre les bruits\n\u00e9trangers \u00e0 la c\u00e9r\u00e9monie. Au milieu de la pri\u00e8re une mouche s'\u00e9tait\npos\u00e9e sur le banc devant lui, il s'absorba dans la contemplation de ses\nmouvements; il la regarda se frotter les pattes de devant, se gratter\nla t\u00eate avec ces m\u00eames pattes, et la faire reluire comme un parquet\ncir\u00e9; elle se frottait ensuite les ailes et les astiquait comme si elles\neussent \u00e9t\u00e9 des pans d'habit; toute cette toilette se passait tr\u00e8s\nsimplement, et sans la moindre g\u00eane; la mouche \u00e9videmment se sentait en\nparfaite s\u00e9curit\u00e9. Et elle l'\u00e9tait en effet, car, bien que Tom mour\u00fbt\nd'envie de la saisir, il n'osa pas, convaincu qu'il perdrait\nirr\u00e9m\u00e9diablement son \u00e2me, s'il commettait une action pareille pendant la\npri\u00e8re. Mais \u00e0 peine l'\u00abAmen\u00bb fut-il prononc\u00e9, Tom avan\u00e7a sa main\nlentement et s'empara de la mouche.\n\nSa tante, qui vit le mouvement, lui fit l\u00e2cher prise.\n\nLe pasteur commen\u00e7a son pr\u00eache et s'\u00e9tendit si longuement sur son sujet\nque peu \u00e0 peu les t\u00eates tomb\u00e8rent; Dieu sait pourtant que la conf\u00e9rence\n\u00e9tait palpitante d'int\u00e9r\u00eat, car il promettait la r\u00e9compense finale \u00e0 un\nnombre d'\u00e9lus si restreint qu'il devenait presque inutile de chercher \u00e0\natteindre le but.\n\nTom compta les pages du sermon; en sortant de l'\u00e9glise il ne se doutait\nm\u00eame pas du sujet du pr\u00eache, mais il en connaissait minutieusement le\nnombre des feuillets. Cependant cette fois-ci il prit plus d'int\u00e9r\u00eat au\ndiscours. Le ministre esquissa un tableau assez path\u00e9tique de la fin du\nmonde, \u00e0 ce moment supr\u00eame o\u00f9 le lion et l'agneau couch\u00e9s c\u00f4te \u00e0 c\u00f4te se\nlaisseront guider par un enfant. Mais la le\u00e7on, la conclusion morale \u00e0\ntirer de cette description grandiose ne frapp\u00e8rent pas le jeune\nauditeur; il ne comprit pas le symbole de cette image, et se confina\ndans un r\u00e9alisme terre \u00e0 terre; sa physionomie s'illumina et il r\u00eava\nd'\u00eatre cet enfant, pour jouer avec ce lion apprivois\u00e9.\n\nMais lorsque les conclusions arides furent tir\u00e9es, son ennui reprit de\nplus belle. Tout d'un coup, une id\u00e9e lumineuse lui traversa l'esprit; il\nse rappela qu'il poss\u00e9dait dans sa poche une bo\u00eete qui renfermait un\ntr\u00e9sor: un \u00e9norme scarab\u00e9e noir \u00e0 la m\u00e2choire arm\u00e9e de pinces\npuissantes. D\u00e8s qu'il ouvrit la bo\u00eete, le scarab\u00e9e lui pin\u00e7a\nvigoureusement le doigt; l'enfant r\u00e9pondit par une chiquenaude\nvigoureuse; le scarab\u00e9e se sauva et tomba sur le dos, pendant que\nl'enfant su\u00e7ait son doigt. Le scarab\u00e9e restait l\u00e0, se d\u00e9battant sans\nsucc\u00e8s sur le dos. Tom le couvait des yeux, mais il \u00e9tait hors de son\natteinte. D'autres fid\u00e8les, peu absorb\u00e9s par le sermon, trouv\u00e8rent un\nd\u00e9rivatif dans ce l\u00e9ger incident et s'int\u00e9ress\u00e8rent au scarab\u00e9e. Sur ces\nentrefaites, un caniche entra lentement, l'air triste et fatigu\u00e9 de sa\nlongue r\u00e9clusion; il guettait une occasion de se distraire; elle se\npr\u00e9senta \u00e0 lui sous la forme du scarab\u00e9e; il le fixa du regard en\nremuant la queue. Il se rapprocha de lui en le couvant des yeux comme un\ntigre qui convoite sa proie, le flaira \u00e0 distance, se promena autour de\nlui, et s'enhardissant, il le flaira de plus pr\u00e8s; puis, relevant ses\nbabines \u00e9paisses, il fit un mouvement pour le happer, mais il le manqua.\nLe jeu lui plaisait \u00e9videmment, car il recommen\u00e7a plusieurs fois, plus\ndoucement; petit \u00e0 petit il approcha sa t\u00eate, et toucha l'ennemi avec\nson museau, mais le scarab\u00e9e le pin\u00e7a; un cri aigu de douleur retentit\ndans l'\u00e9glise pendant que le scarab\u00e9e allait s'abattre un peu plus loin,\ntoujours sur le dos, les pattes en l'air. Les fid\u00e8les qui observaient le\njeu du chien se mirent \u00e0 rire, en se cachant derri\u00e8re leurs \u00e9ventails ou\nleurs mouchoirs; Tom exultait de bonheur. Le caniche avait l'air b\u00eate\net devait se sentir idiot, mais il gardait surtout au coeur un sentiment\nde vengeance. Se rapprochant du scarab\u00e9e, il recommen\u00e7a la lutte,\ncabriolant de tous les c\u00f4t\u00e9s, le poursuivant, cherchant \u00e0 le prendre\navec ses pattes ou entre ses dents; mais ne parvenant pas \u00e0 son but, il\nse lassa, s'amusa un instant d'une mouche, d'une demoiselle, puis d'une\nfourmi, et abandonna la partie, d\u00e9courag\u00e9 de n'arriver \u00e0 rien. Enfin,\nd'humeur moins belliqueuse, il se coucha... sur le scarab\u00e9e. On entendit\nun cri per\u00e7ant, et on vit le caniche courir comme un fou dans toute\nl'\u00e9glise, de la porte \u00e0 l'autel, de l'autel vers les bas-c\u00f4t\u00e9s; plus il\ncourait, plus il hurlait. Enfin, fou de douleur il vint se r\u00e9fugier sur\nles genoux de son ma\u00eetre, qui l'expulsa honteusement par la porte; sa\nvoix se perdit bient\u00f4t dans le lointain.\n\nPendant ce temps, l'assistance \u00e9touffait ses rires et le pasteur\ns'interrompit au milieu de son discours. Il le reprit ensuite tant bien\nque mal en cherchant ses mots, mais dut renoncer \u00e0 produire le moindre\neffet sur l'auditoire; le recueillement des fid\u00e8les s'\u00e9tait \u00e9vanoui, les\nplus graves conseils du pasteur \u00e9taient re\u00e7us par eux avec une l\u00e9g\u00e8ret\u00e9\nmal dissimul\u00e9e et tr\u00e8s peu \u00e9difiante.\n\nLorsque la c\u00e9r\u00e9monie fut termin\u00e9e, et la b\u00e9n\u00e9diction donn\u00e9e, chacun se\nsentit heureux et soulag\u00e9.\n\nTom Sawyer rentra chez lui tr\u00e8s satisfait, pensant qu'apr\u00e8s tout le\nservice divin avait du bon, lorsque de l\u00e9g\u00e8res distractions venaient\nl'agr\u00e9menter. Une seule chose le contrariait: il admettait bien que le\nchien se f\u00fbt amus\u00e9 avec son scarab\u00e9e, mais il avait vraiment abus\u00e9 de la\npermission en le faisant s'envoler par la fen\u00eatre.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nUNE VICTIME DE L'HOSPITALIT\u00c9\n\n\n--Monsieur, dis-je, ne m'en voulez pas si je vous ai amen\u00e9 dans ma\nmaison aussi glaciale et aussi triste!\n\nIl faut vous dire tout d'abord que j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 assez fou pour amener chez\nmoi un ami, et qui plus est, un malade. Assis en chemin de fer en face\nde ce monsieur, j'eus l'id\u00e9e diaboliquement \u00e9go\u00efste de lui faire\npartager avec moi le froid de cette nuit brumeuse.\n\nJ'allai \u00e0 lui et lui tapai sur l'\u00e9paule: \u00abAh!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria-t-il \u00e9tonn\u00e9.\n\n--Venez, lui dis-je, sur un ton engageant et parfaitement hypocrite, et\nque ma maison soit la v\u00f4tre. Il n'y a personne en ce moment, nous y\npasserons d'agr\u00e9ables moments. Venez donc avec moi.\n\nAguich\u00e9 par mon amabilit\u00e9, cet homme accepta. Mais lorsque nous e\u00fbmes\ncaus\u00e9 quelques instants dans la biblioth\u00e8que, nous sent\u00eemes le froid.\n\n--Allons, dis-je, faisons un beau feu clair et prenons du th\u00e9 bien\nchaud; cela nous mettra de bonne humeur. Permettez-moi de vous laisser\nseul pour tout pr\u00e9parer, et distrayez-vous en mon absence. Il faut que\nj'aille jusque chez Palmer pour lui demander de m'aider. Tout ira tr\u00e8s\nbien.\n\n--Parfait, me r\u00e9pondit mon h\u00f4te.\n\nPalmer est mon bras droit. Il habite \u00e0 quelques centaines de m\u00e8tres de\nma maison, une vieille ferme qui servait de taverne pendant la\nR\u00e9volution. Cette ferme s'est beaucoup d\u00e9labr\u00e9e depuis un si\u00e8cle; les\nmurs, les planchers ont perdu la notion de la ligne droite et l'all\u00e9e\nqui m\u00e8ne \u00e0 la maison a presque compl\u00e8tement disparu; aussi le b\u00e2timent\npara\u00eet-il tout de travers; quant aux chemin\u00e9es, elles semblent fortement\nendommag\u00e9es par le vent et la pluie. Pourtant c'est une de ces vieilles\nmaisons d'apparence solide qui avec tant soit peu de r\u00e9parations\nbraveraient les intemp\u00e9ries pendant encore cent ans et m\u00eame plus. Devant\nla ferme s'\u00e9tend une grande pelouse, et on aper\u00e7oit dans la cour un\npuits ancien qui a d\u00e9salt\u00e9r\u00e9 des g\u00e9n\u00e9rations de gens et de b\u00eates. L'eau\nen est d\u00e9licieusement pure et limpide. Lorsque s\u00e9virent les chaleurs de\nl'\u00e9t\u00e9 dernier, j'y puisai bien souvent de l'eau, me rencontrant avec les\nmendiants qui venaient se d\u00e9salt\u00e9rer d'une gorg\u00e9e d'eau claire avant de\ncontinuer leur route. Certes, vos vins capiteux peuvent faire briller de\nconvoitise les yeux des convives qui se r\u00e9unissent autour de tables\nsomptueusement servies; il n'en reste pas moins vrai que l'eau pure et\ncristalline constitue une boisson exquise pour les pauvres d\u00e9sh\u00e9rit\u00e9s de\nl'existence.\n\nEn arrivant \u00e0 la ferme, je m'aper\u00e7us qu'il n'y avait pour tout \u00e9clairage\nqu'une triste bougie \u00e0 la porte, et je frappai discr\u00e8tement. On ouvrit\naussit\u00f4t.\n\n--Palmer est-il l\u00e0? demandai-je.\n\n--Non, John est absent; il ne reviendra qu'apr\u00e8s dimanche.\n\nH\u00e9las! h\u00e9las! il ne me restait qu'\u00e0 m'en retourner; reprenant \u00e0 t\u00e2tons\nla route que je distinguais \u00e0 peine dans le brouillard au milieu des\np\u00eachers, je rentrai dans ma lugubre maison.\n\nMon h\u00f4te malade paraissait tr\u00e8s affect\u00e9.\n\n--Allons! lui dis-je en lui tapant doucement sur l'\u00e9paule,--le secouer\nplus vigoureusement e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 tr\u00e8s d\u00e9plac\u00e9 dans le cas pr\u00e9sent,--il faut\nnous d\u00e9brouiller nous-m\u00eames; je n'ai trouv\u00e9 personne \u00e0 la ferme.\n\nAllons! reprenons courage et ayons un peu d'entrain. Remontons-nous le\nmoral, et allumons le feu; mon voisin est absent, mais nous saurons bien\nnous passer de lui.\n\nJ'allumai donc ma lampe astrale, ma lampe \u00e0 globe, veux-je dire, dont le\npi\u00e8tre fonctionnement est une honte pour l'inventeur. Il faut lever la\nm\u00e8che tr\u00e8s haut pour qu'elle donne un peu de lumi\u00e8re, et au bout d'un\nmoment elle fume si bien que la pi\u00e8ce est pleine d'une suie \u00e9paisse qui\nvous prend \u00e0 la gorge. Au diable cette vilaine invention! Comme\nj'aimerais l'envoyer au diable!\n\nJe me rappelai que je trouverais des fagots sous le hangar; j'en rapportai\ndonc et les mis dans le fourneau de la cuisine que j'allumai; ensuite je\npris la bouilloire, j'allai au puits la remplir, la mis sur le fourneau et\nj'attendis. Lorsque l'eau fut bien bouillante, je pris la bo\u00eete \u00e0 th\u00e9, et\ncoupai dans un gros pain carr\u00e9 des tranches que je fis griller. Au bout de\ntrois quarts d'heure qui me parurent un si\u00e8cle, je retournai vers mon ami.\n\u00abLe th\u00e9 est pr\u00eat\u00bb, lui dis-je. Nous nous transport\u00e2mes silencieusement \u00e0 la\ncuisine. Je r\u00e9citai le benedicite; la lampe fumait, le feu flambait\ndifficilement, le th\u00e9 \u00e9tait froid; mon ami tremblait de froid (on me\nraconta plus tard qu'il avait m\u00e9dit de mon hospitalit\u00e9. Ingrat\npersonnage!) Apr\u00e8s le th\u00e9, la principale chose \u00e0 faire \u00e9tait de nous\nr\u00e9chauffer pour ne pas nous laisser mourir. Au fond, mon ami se montra\nassez vaillant, et lorsqu'il s'agit de bourrer le po\u00eale plusieurs fois,\nil me proposa son aide. Il essayait de para\u00eetre gai, mais sa physionomie\nrestait triste. Pour ma part je riais int\u00e9rieurement comme un homme qui\nvient de faire une bonne affaire en achetant un cheval. Et dire que les\ngens viennent chez vous pour trouver de l'agr\u00e9ment! Lorsqu'ils sont sous\nvotre toit, vous leur devez le confort sous toutes ses formes. Ils\ns'attendent \u00e0 \u00eatre f\u00eat\u00e9s, soign\u00e9s, cajol\u00e9s et bord\u00e9s dans leur lit le\nsoir. Le temps qu'ils passent chez les autres repr\u00e9sente pour eux un\ndoux \u00abfarniente\u00bb. Avec quelle satisfaction ils s'effondrent dans un\nfauteuil, et regardent vos tableaux et vos albums. Comme ils aiment \u00e0 se\npromener en baguenaudant, humant avec d\u00e9lices la brise parfum\u00e9e! Que la\npeste les \u00e9touffe! Comme ils attendent le d\u00eener avec un app\u00e9tit aiguis\u00e9.\nLe d\u00eener! Quelquefois le menu en est bien difficile \u00e0 composer, et\npendant que les invit\u00e9s sont dans un \u00e9tat de b\u00e9atitude c\u00e9leste, le\nma\u00eetre de maison se creuse la t\u00eate dans une perplexit\u00e9 douloureuse! Oh!\nquelle d\u00e9licieuse vengeance lorsqu'on peut troubler un peu leur\nqui\u00e9tude, et qu'on les voit essayer de dissimuler leur m\u00e9contentement le\njour o\u00f9 l'hospitalit\u00e9 qu'ils re\u00e7oivent chez vous ne r\u00e9pond pas \u00e0 leur\nattente. \u00abMauvaise maison, pensent-ils; on ne me reprendra pas dans une\ngal\u00e8re pareille; j'irai ailleurs \u00e0 l'avenir, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 je serai mieux\ntrait\u00e9!\u00bb\n\nLorsque je vois cela, je me paye la t\u00eate de mes invit\u00e9s et m'amuse\nfollement de leur d\u00e9confiture. C'est tout naturel, et je trouve tr\u00e8s\nlogique qu'ils partagent mes ennuis de ma\u00eetre de maison. Avec notre\nnature il nous faut des signes visibles et ext\u00e9rieurs de bont\u00e9;\nl'accueil du coeur ne nous suffit pas. Si vous offrez \u00e0 un ami un bon\nd\u00eener ou un verre de vin, s'il a chaud et est bien \u00e9clair\u00e9 chez vous, il\nreviendra; sans cela vous ne le reverrez plus; la nature humaine est\nainsi faite; moi, du moins, je me juge ainsi. Mais ici j'\u00e9tablis une\ndistinction. Si votre ami fait des avantages mat\u00e9riels qu'il peut\ntrouver chez vous plus de cas que des charmes intellectuels, s'il\nd\u00e9daigne votre amiti\u00e9 parce qu'il ne trouve pas chez vous tout le luxe\net le confort qu'il aime, alors, ne l'honorez pas du nom d'\u00abAmi!\u00bb\n\n--Allons nous coucher, proposai-je.\n\n--Parfait, r\u00e9pondit mon invit\u00e9.\n\n--Pas si vite, mon cher, r\u00e9pliquai-je; les lits ne sont pas faits; il\nn'y a pas de femme de chambre dans la maison. Mais qu'est-ce que cela\nfait? Cela n'a aucune importance. Je vais m'absenter un instant pendant\nque vous entretiendrez le feu.\n\nJe monte dans la chambre d'ami; je n'y trouve rien. Au bout d'une\ndemi-heure, je d\u00e9couvre des oreillers, des draps et des couvertures. Je\nredescends et je tape joyeusement sur l'\u00e9paule de mon ami toujours\ntransi de froid, et je lui dis aimablement: \u00abVenez dans le nid qui vous\nattend. Vous y dormirez comme un bienheureux et demain vous vous\nsentirez mieux.\u00bb\n\nJe le d\u00e9shabille, le couche, et en le voyant la t\u00eate sur l'oreiller, je\nlui souhaite: \u00abBonsoir, bons r\u00eaves.\u00bb\n\n--Bonsoir, me r\u00e9pond-il avec un faible sourire.\n\nApr\u00e8s avoir regard\u00e9 le temps par la fen\u00eatre, je gagnai mon lit, qui\n\u00e9tait fait \u00e0 la diable. Oh! l'horrible lune, froide et lugubre! Phoeb\u00e9,\nDiane ou Lune, je te supplie par le nom que tu voudras de ne pas\np\u00e9n\u00e9trer dans ma chambre et de ne pas inonder mes yeux de ton p\u00e2le\nsourire! Au diable ta figure blafarde qui trouble le sommeil et les doux\nr\u00eaves!\n\nLe lendemain matin, j'allai chez mon ami et le traitant comme un prince\nou un personnage de marque, je lui demandai avec force d\u00e9tails des\nnouvelles de sa nuit. Comme c'est un homme int\u00e8gre, incapable d'alt\u00e9rer\nla v\u00e9rit\u00e9, il m'avoua qu'il avait eu un peu froid. Insupportable\npersonnage! Je lui avais pourtant donn\u00e9 toutes les couvertures de la\nmaison!\n\nNous tombions juste sur un dimanche; or, mon ami qui est un fin rimeur\na beaucoup chant\u00e9 les charmes et la po\u00e9sie du dimanche \u00e0 la campagne;\ncomme le feu n'\u00e9tait pas encore allum\u00e9, je le pris par le bras, et lui\nproposai une promenade sur le gazon; mais le gazon \u00e9tait couvert de\nros\u00e9e, et il rentra transi pour se r\u00e9chauffer pr\u00e8s du po\u00eale \u00e9teint.\nL'heure du d\u00e9jeuner approchait, mais je n'avais pas encore solutionn\u00e9\ncette question embarrassante. Tout d'un coup, me frappant le front comme\nsi une \u00e9tincelle en e\u00fbt jailli, je me pr\u00e9cipitai hors de la cuisine, en\ntraversant le jardin au galop, et je frappai \u00e0 la porte de la ferme.\n\nL'excellente fermi\u00e8re \u00e9tait heureusement visible.\n\n--Madame, lui dis-je, je suis dans un grand embarras. J'ai un ami chez\nmoi, et ne dispose de personne pour nous faire la cuisine; je n'ai pas\nla moindre provision; pouvez-vous me rendre le service de nous pr\u00e9parer\nle d\u00e9jeuner, le d\u00eener et le th\u00e9 pour la journ\u00e9e?\n\nTr\u00e8s obligeamment elle y consentit, et au bout d'une demi-heure, je\nconduisis triomphalement mon po\u00e8te dans cette vieille maison; la nappe\nblanche \u00e9tait mise, une chaleur exquise r\u00e9gnait dans la pi\u00e8ce; du coup,\nmon ami retrouva toute sa gaiet\u00e9.\n\nNous all\u00e2mes \u00e0 l'\u00e9glise, et au retour, son sang, fouett\u00e9 par la marche,\nlui avait rendu sa bonne humeur; lorsqu'il s'assit dans le fauteuil \u00e0\nbascule pour attendre le poulet r\u00f4ti, il me donna l'illusion du\n\u00abBien-\u00eatre en personne\u00bb.\n\nJ'\u00e9tais presque furieux de lui avoir procur\u00e9 un tel confort!\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLES DROITS DE LA FEMME\n\nPAR\n\nARTHEMUS WARD\n\n\nL'ann\u00e9e derni\u00e8re, j'avais plant\u00e9 ma tente dans une petite ville\nd'Indiana. Je me tenais sur le seuil de la porte pour recevoir les\nvisiteurs, lorsque je vis arriver une d\u00e9putation de femmes; elles me\nd\u00e9clar\u00e8rent qu'elles faisaient partie de l'Association f\u00e9ministe et\nr\u00e9formiste des droits de la femme de Bunkumville, et me demand\u00e8rent\nl'autorisation d'entrer dans ma tente sans payer.\n\n--Je ne saurais vous accorder cette faveur, r\u00e9pondis-je; mais vous\npouvez payer sans entrer.\n\n--Savez-vous qui nous sommes? cria l'une de ces femmes, cr\u00e9ature\nimmense, \u00e0 l'air r\u00e9barbatif, qui portait une ombrelle de cotonnade\nbleue sous le bras; savez-vous bien qui nous sommes, monsieur?\n\n--Autant que j'en puis juger \u00e0 premi\u00e8re vue, r\u00e9pondis-je, il me semble\nque vous \u00eates des femmes.\n\n--Sans doute, monsieur, reprit la m\u00eame femme sur un ton non moins\nrev\u00eache; mais nous appartenons \u00e0 la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 protectrice des droits de la\nfemme; cette soci\u00e9t\u00e9 croit que la femme a des droits sacr\u00e9s, et qu'elle\ndoit chercher \u00e0 \u00e9lever sa condition.\n\n--Dou\u00e9e d'une intelligence \u00e9gale \u00e0 celle de l'homme, la femme vit\nperp\u00e9tuellement m\u00e9pris\u00e9e et humili\u00e9e; il faut rem\u00e9dier \u00e0 cette\nsituation, et notre soci\u00e9t\u00e9 a pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment pour but de lutter avec une\n\u00e9nergie constante contre les agissements des hommes orgueilleux et\nautoritaires.\n\nPendant qu'elle me tenait ce discours, cette cr\u00e9ature excentrique me\nsaisit par le col de mon pardessus et agita violemment son ombrelle\nau-dessus de ma t\u00eate.\n\n--Je suis loin de mettre en doute, madame, lui dis-je en me reculant,\nl'honorabilit\u00e9 de vos intentions; cependant je dois vous faire observer\nque je suis le seul homme ici, sur cette place publique; ma femme (car\nj'en ai une) est en ce moment chez elle, dans mon pays.\n\n--Oui, vocif\u00e9ra-t-elle, et votre femme est une esclave! Ne r\u00eave-t-elle\njamais de libert\u00e9? Ne pensera-t-elle donc jamais \u00e0 secouer le joug de la\ntyrannie? \u00e0 agir librement, \u00e0 voter...? Comment se fait-il que cette\nid\u00e9e ne lui vienne pas \u00e0 l'esprit?\n\n--C'est tout bonnement, r\u00e9pondis-je un peu agac\u00e9, parce que ma femme est\nune personne intelligente et pleine de bon sens.\n\n--Comment? comment? hurla mon interlocutrice, en brandissant toujours\nson ombrelle; \u00e0 quel prix, d'apr\u00e8s vous, une femme doit-elle acheter sa\nlibert\u00e9?\n\n--Je ne m'en doute pas, r\u00e9pondis-je; tout ce que je sais, c'est que pour\nentrer sous ma tente, il faut payer quinze cents par personne.\n\n--Mais les membres de notre association ne peuvent-ils pas entrer sans\npayer? demanda-t-elle.\n\n--Non, certes. Pas que je sache.\n\n--Brute, brute que vous \u00eates! hurla-t-elle en \u00e9clatant en sanglots.\n\n--Ne me laisserez-vous pas p\u00e9n\u00e9trer? demanda une autre de ces\nexcentriques en me prenant la main doucement et avec c\u00e2linerie: \u00abOh!\nlaissez-moi entrer! Mon amie, voyez-vous, n'est qu'une enfant terrible.\u00bb\n\n--Qu'elle soit ce qu'elle voudra, r\u00e9pondis-je, furieux de voir se\nprolonger cette fac\u00e9tie, je m'en fiche! L\u00e0-dessus elles recul\u00e8rent\ntoutes et me trait\u00e8rent d'\u00abanimal\u00bb toutes en choeur.\n\n--Mes amies, dis-je, avant votre d\u00e9part, je voudrais vous dire quelques\nmots bien sentis: \u00e9coutez-moi bien: La femme est une des plus belles\ninstitutions de ce bas monde; nous pouvons nous en glorifier. Nul ne\npeut se passer de la femme. S'il n'y avait pas de femmes sur terre, je\nne serais pas ici \u00e0 l'heure actuelle. La femme est pr\u00e9cieuse dans la\nmaladie; pr\u00e9cieuse dans l'adversit\u00e9 comme dans le bonheur! O femme!\nm'\u00e9criai-je sous l'effluve d'un souffle po\u00e9tique, tu es un ange quand tu\nne cherches pas \u00e0 sortir de tes attributions; mais quand tu pr\u00e9tends\nintervertir les r\u00f4les et porter la culotte (ceci soit dit au figur\u00e9);\nlorsque tu d\u00e9sertes le foyer conjugal et que, la t\u00eate farcie des\nth\u00e9ories f\u00e9ministes, tu t'\u00e9lances comme une lionne en courroux, en qu\u00eate\nd'une proie \u00e0 d\u00e9vorer; lorsque, dis-je, tu veux te substituer \u00e0 l'homme,\ntu deviens un \u00eatre infernal et n\u00e9faste!\n\n--Mes amies! continuai-je en les voyant partir indign\u00e9es, n'oubliez pas\nce que Arth\u00e9mus Ward vous dit!\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTABLE\n\n\n\n\nPLUS FORT QUE SHERLOCK HOLM\u00c8S\n\nCANNIBALISME EN VOYAGE\n\nL'HOMME AU MESSAGE POUR LE DIRECTEUR G\u00c9N\u00c9RAL\n\nLES GEAIS BLEUS\n\nCOMMENT J'AI TU\u00c9 UN OURS\n\nUN CHIEN A L'\u00c9GLISE\n\nUNE VICTIME DE L'HOSPITALIT\u00c9\n\nLES DROITS DE LA FEMME\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"119":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\nA TRAMP ABROAD, Part 1\n\nBy Mark Twain\n\n(Samuel L. Clemens)\n\nFirst published in 1880\n\nIllustrations taken from an 1880 First Edition\n\n * * * * * *\n\nILLUSTRATIONS:\n\n\n     1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR\n     2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0TITIAN'S MOSES\n     3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0THE AUTHOR'S MEMORIES\n     4.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0THE BLACK KNIGHT\n     5.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0OPENING HIS VIZIER\n     6.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0THE ENRAGED EMPEROR\n     7.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0THE PORTIER\n     8.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0ONE OF THOSE BOYS\n     9.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0SCHLOSS HOTEL\n     10.\u00a0\u00a0IN MY CAGE\n     11.\u00a0\u00a0HEIDELBERG CASTLE\n     12.\u00a0\u00a0HEIDELBERG CASTLE, RIVER FRONTAGE\n     13.\u00a0\u00a0THE RETREAT\n     14.\u00a0\u00a0JIM BAKER\n     15.\u00a0\u00a0\"A BLUE FLUSH ABOUT IT\"\n     16.\u00a0\u00a0COULD NOT SEE IT\n     17.\u00a0\u00a0THE BEER KING\n     18.\u00a0\u00a0THE LECTURER'S AUDIENCE\n     19.\u00a0\u00a0INDUSTRIOUS STUDENTS\n     20.\u00a0\u00a0IDLE STUDENT\n     21.\u00a0\u00a0COMPANIONABLE INTERCOURSE\n     22.\u00a0\u00a0AN IMPOSING SPECTACLE\n     23.\u00a0\u00a0AN ADVERTISEMENT\n     24.\u00a0\u00a0\"UNDERSTANDS HIS BUSINESS\"\n     25.\u00a0\u00a0THE OLD SURGEON\n     26.\u00a0\u00a0THE FIRST WOUND\n     27.\u00a0\u00a0THE CASTLE COURT\n     28.\u00a0\u00a0WOUNDED\n     29.\u00a0\u00a0FAVORITE STREET COSTUME\n     30.\u00a0\u00a0INEFFACEABLE SCARS\n     31.\u00a0\u00a0PIECE OF SWORD\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I A Tramp over Europe--On the\nHolsatia--Hamburg--Frankfort-on-the- Main--How it Won its Name--A Lesson\nin Political Economy--Neatness in Dress--Rhine Legends--\"The Knave\nof Bergen\" The Famous Ball--The Strange Knight--Dancing with the\nQueen--Removal of the Masks--The Disclosure--Wrath of the Emperor--The\nEnding\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II At Heidelberg--Great Stir at a Hotel--The Portier--Arrival\nof the Empress--The Schloss Hotel--Location of Heidelberg--The River\nNeckar--New Feature in a Hotel--Heidelberg Castle--View from the\nHotel--A Tramp in the Woods--Meeting a Raven--Can Ravens Talk?--Laughed\nat and Vanquished--Language of Animals--Jim Baker--Blue-Jays\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III Baker's Blue-Jay Yarn--Jay Language--The Cabin--\"Hello, I\nreckon I've struck something\"--A Knot Hole--Attempt to fill it--A Ton\nof Acorns--Friends Called In--A Great Mystery--More Jays called A Blue\nFlush--A Discovery--A Rich Joke--One that Couldn't See It\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV Student Life--The Five Corps--The Beet King--A Free\nLife--Attending Lectures--An Immense Audience--Industrious\nStudents--Politeness of the Students--Intercourse with the Professors\nScenes at the Castle Garden--Abundance of Dogs--Symbol of Blighted\nLove--How the Ladies Advertise\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V The Students' Dueling Ground--The Dueling Room--The Sword\nGrinder--Frequency of the Duels--The Duelists--Protection against\nInjury--The Surgeon--Arrangements for the Duels--The First\nDuel--The First Wound--A Drawn Battle--The Second Duel--Cutting and\nSlashing--Interference of the Surgeon\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI The Third Duel--A Sickening Spectacle--Dinner between\nFights--The Last Duel--Fighting in Earnest--Faces and Heads\nMutilated--Great Nerve of the Duelists--Fatal Results not\nInfrequent--The World's View of these Fights\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII Corps--laws and Usages--Volunteering to Fight--Coolness\nof the Wounded--Wounds Honorable--Newly bandaged Students around\nHeidelberg--Scarred Faces Abundant--A Badge of Honor--Prince Bismark\nas a Duelist--Statistics--Constant Sword Practice--Color of the\nCorps--Corps Etiquette\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\n[The Knighted Knave of Bergen]\n\n\nOne day it occurred to me that it had been many years since the world\nhad been afforded the spectacle of a man adventurous enough to undertake\na journey through Europe on foot. After much thought, I decided that\nI was a person fitted to furnish to mankind this spectacle. So I\ndetermined to do it. This was in March, 1878.\n\nI looked about me for the right sort of person to accompany me in the\ncapacity of agent, and finally hired a Mr. Harris for this service.\n\nIt was also my purpose to study art while in Europe. Mr. Harris was in\nsympathy with me in this. He was as much of an enthusiast in art as\nI was, and not less anxious to learn to paint. I desired to learn the\nGerman language; so did Harris.\n\nToward the middle of April we sailed in the HOLSATIA, Captain Brandt,\nand had a very pleasant trip, indeed.\n\nAfter a brief rest at Hamburg, we made preparations for a long\npedestrian trip southward in the soft spring weather, but at the\nlast moment we changed the program, for private reasons, and took the\nexpress-train.\n\nWe made a short halt at Frankfort-on-the-Main, and found it an\ninteresting city. I would have liked to visit the birthplace of\nGutenburg, but it could not be done, as no memorandum of the site of the\nhouse has been kept. So we spent an hour in the Goethe mansion instead.\nThe city permits this house to belong to private parties, instead\nof gracing and dignifying herself with the honor of possessing and\nprotecting it.\n\nFrankfort is one of the sixteen cities which have the distinction of\nbeing the place where the following incident occurred. Charlemagne,\nwhile chasing the Saxons (as HE said), or being chased by them (as THEY\nsaid), arrived at the bank of the river at dawn, in a fog. The enemy\nwere either before him or behind him; but in any case he wanted to get\nacross, very badly. He would have given anything for a guide, but none\nwas to be had. Presently he saw a deer, followed by her young, approach\nthe water. He watched her, judging that she would seek a ford, and he\nwas right. She waded over, and the army followed. So a great Frankish\nvictory or defeat was gained or avoided; and in order to commemorate the\nepisode, Charlemagne commanded a city to be built there, which he named\nFrankfort--the ford of the Franks. None of the other cities where this\nevent happened were named for it. This is good evidence that Frankfort\nwas the first place it occurred at.\n\nFrankfort has another distinction--it is the birthplace of the German\nalphabet; or at least of the German word for alphabet --BUCHSTABEN.\nThey say that the first movable types were made on birch\nsticks--BUCHSTABE--hence the name.\n\nI was taught a lesson in political economy in Frankfort. I had brought\nfrom home a box containing a thousand very cheap cigars. By way of\nexperiment, I stepped into a little shop in a queer old back street,\ntook four gaily decorated boxes of wax matches and three cigars, and\nlaid down a silver piece worth 48 cents. The man gave me 43 cents\nchange.\n\nIn Frankfort everybody wears clean clothes, and I think we noticed that\nthis strange thing was the case in Hamburg, too, and in the villages\nalong the road. Even in the narrowest and poorest and most ancient\nquarters of Frankfort neat and clean clothes were the rule. The little\nchildren of both sexes were nearly always nice enough to take into a\nbody's lap. And as for the uniforms of the soldiers, they were newness\nand brightness carried to perfection. One could never detect a smirch\nor a grain of dust upon them. The street-car conductors and drivers wore\npretty uniforms which seemed to be just out of the bandbox, and their\nmanners were as fine as their clothes.\n\nIn one of the shops I had the luck to stumble upon a book which has\ncharmed me nearly to death. It is entitled THE LEGENDS OF THE RHINE FROM\nBASLE TO ROTTERDAM, by F. J. Kiefer; translated by L. W. Garnham, B.A.\n\nAll tourists MENTION the Rhine legends--in that sort of way which\nquietly pretends that the mentioner has been familiar with them all his\nlife, and that the reader cannot possibly be ignorant of them--but no\ntourist ever TELLS them. So this little book fed me in a very hungry\nplace; and I, in my turn, intend to feed my reader, with one or\ntwo little lunches from the same larder. I shall not mar Garnham's\ntranslation by meddling with its English; for the most toothsome thing\nabout it is its quaint fashion of building English sentences on the\nGerman plan--and punctuating them accordingly to no plan at all.\n\nIn the chapter devoted to \"Legends of Frankfort,\" I find the following:\n\n\"THE KNAVE OF BERGEN\" \"In Frankfort at the Romer was a great mask-ball,\nat the coronation festival, and in the illuminated saloon, the clanging\nmusic invited to dance, and splendidly appeared the rich toilets and\ncharms of the ladies, and the festively costumed Princes and Knights.\nAll seemed pleasure, joy, and roguish gaiety, only one of the numerous\nguests had a gloomy exterior; but exactly the black armor in which he\nwalked about excited general attention, and his tall figure, as well as\nthe noble propriety of his movements, attracted especially the regards\nof the ladies.\n\n\nWho the Knight was? Nobody could guess, for his Vizier was well closed,\nand nothing made him recognizable. Proud and yet modest he advanced to\nthe Empress; bowed on one knee before her seat, and begged for the favor\nof a waltz with the Queen of the festival. And she allowed his request.\nWith light and graceful steps he danced through the long saloon, with\nthe sovereign who thought never to have found a more dexterous and\nexcellent dancer. But also by the grace of his manner, and fine\nconversation he knew to win the Queen, and she graciously accorded him\na second dance for which he begged, a third, and a fourth, as well as\nothers were not refused him. How all regarded the happy dancer, how\nmany envied him the high favor; how increased curiosity, who the masked\nknight could be.\n\n\"Also the Emperor became more and more excited with curiosity, and with\ngreat suspense one awaited the hour, when according to mask-law, each\nmasked guest must make himself known. This moment came, but although all\nother unmasked; the secret knight still refused to allow his features\nto be seen, till at last the Queen driven by curiosity, and vexed at the\nobstinate refusal; commanded him to open his Vizier.\n\n\nHe opened it, and none of the high ladies and knights knew him. But from\nthe crowded spectators, 2 officials advanced, who recognized the black\ndancer, and horror and terror spread in the saloon, as they said who the\nsupposed knight was. It was the executioner of Bergen. But glowing with\nrage, the King commanded to seize the criminal and lead him to death,\nwho had ventured to dance, with the queen; so disgraced the Empress,\nand insulted the crown. The culpable threw himself at the Emperor, and\nsaid--\n\n\n\"'Indeed I have heavily sinned against all noble guests assembled here,\nbut most heavily against you my sovereign and my queen. The Queen is\ninsulted by my haughtiness equal to treason, but no punishment even\nblood, will not be able to wash out the disgrace, which you have\nsuffered by me. Therefore oh King! allow me to propose a remedy, to\nefface the shame, and to render it as if not done. Draw your sword and\nknight me, then I will throw down my gauntlet, to everyone who dares to\nspeak disrespectfully of my king.'\n\n\"The Emperor was surprised at this bold proposal, however it appeared\nthe wisest to him; 'You are a knave,' he replied after a moment's\nconsideration, 'however your advice is good, and displays prudence, as\nyour offense shows adventurous courage. Well then,' and gave him the\nknight-stroke 'so I raise you to nobility, who begged for grace for your\noffense now kneels before me, rise as knight; knavish you have acted,\nand Knave of Bergen shall you be called henceforth,' and gladly the\nBlack knight rose; three cheers were given in honor of the Emperor, and\nloud cries of joy testified the approbation with which the Queen danced\nstill once with the Knave of Bergen.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nHeidelberg\n\n[Landing a Monarch at Heidelberg]\n\n\nWe stopped at a hotel by the railway-station. Next morning, as we sat in\nmy room waiting for breakfast to come up, we got a good deal interested\nin something which was going on over the way, in front of another hotel.\nFirst, the personage who is called the PORTIER (who is not the PORTER,\nbut is a sort of first-mate of a hotel) [1. See Appendix A] appeared\nat the door in a spick-and-span new blue cloth uniform, decorated with\nshining brass buttons, and with bands of gold lace around his cap and\nwristbands; and he wore white gloves, too.\n\n\nHe shed an official glance upon the situation, and then began to give\norders. Two women-servants came out with pails and brooms and brushes,\nand gave the sidewalk a thorough scrubbing; meanwhile two others\nscrubbed the four marble steps which led up to the door; beyond these we\ncould see some men-servants taking up the carpet of the grand staircase.\nThis carpet was carried away and the last grain of dust beaten and\nbanged and swept out of it; then brought back and put down again. The\nbrass stair-rods received an exhaustive polishing and were returned to\ntheir places. Now a troop of servants brought pots and tubs of blooming\nplants and formed them into a beautiful jungle about the door and the\nbase of the staircase. Other servants adorned all the balconies of the\nvarious stories with flowers and banners; others ascended to the\nroof and hoisted a great flag on a staff there. Now came some more\nchamber-maids and retouched the sidewalk, and afterward wiped the marble\nsteps with damp cloths and finished by dusting them off with feather\nbrushes. Now a broad black carpet was brought out and laid down the\nmarble steps and out across the sidewalk to the curbstone. The PORTIER\ncast his eye along it, and found it was not absolutely straight; he\ncommanded it to be straightened; the servants made the effort--made\nseveral efforts, in fact--but the PORTIER was not satisfied. He finally\nhad it taken up, and then he put it down himself and got it right.\n\nAt this stage of the proceedings, a narrow bright red carpet was\nunrolled and stretched from the top of the marble steps to the\ncurbstone, along the center of the black carpet. This red path cost the\nPORTIER more trouble than even the black one had done. But he patiently\nfixed and refixed it until it was exactly right and lay precisely in the\nmiddle of the black carpet. In New York these performances would have\ngathered a mighty crowd of curious and intensely interested spectators;\nbut here it only captured an audience of half a dozen little boys who\nstood in a row across the pavement, some with their school-knapsacks on\ntheir backs and their hands in their pockets, others with arms full of\nbundles, and all absorbed in the show. Occasionally one of them skipped\nirreverently over the carpet and took up a position on the other side.\nThis always visibly annoyed the PORTIER.\n\n\nNow came a waiting interval. The landlord, in plain clothes, and\nbareheaded, placed himself on the bottom marble step, abreast the\nPORTIER, who stood on the other end of the same steps; six or eight\nwaiters, gloved, bareheaded, and wearing their whitest linen, their\nwhitest cravats, and their finest swallow-tails, grouped themselves\nabout these chiefs, but leaving the carpetway clear. Nobody moved or\nspoke any more but only waited.\n\nIn a short time the shrill piping of a coming train was heard, and\nimmediately groups of people began to gather in the street. Two or three\nopen carriages arrived, and deposited some maids of honor and some male\nofficials at the hotel. Presently another open carriage brought the\nGrand Duke of Baden, a stately man in uniform, who wore the handsome\nbrass-mounted, steel-spiked helmet of the army on his head. Last came\nthe Empress of Germany and the Grand Duchess of Baden in a closed\ncarriage; these passed through the low-bowing groups of servants and\ndisappeared in the hotel, exhibiting to us only the backs of their\nheads, and then the show was over.\n\nIt appears to be as difficult to land a monarch as it is to launch a\nship.\n\nBut as to Heidelberg. The weather was growing pretty warm,--very warm,\nin fact. So we left the valley and took quarters at the Schloss Hotel,\non the hill, above the Castle.\n\n\nHeidelberg lies at the mouth of a narrow gorge--a gorge the shape of\na shepherd's crook; if one looks up it he perceives that it is about\nstraight, for a mile and a half, then makes a sharp curve to the\nright and disappears. This gorge--along whose bottom pours the swift\nNeckar--is confined between (or cloven through) a couple of long, steep\nridges, a thousand feet high and densely wooded clear to their summits,\nwith the exception of one section which has been shaved and put under\ncultivation. These ridges are chopped off at the mouth of the gorge\nand form two bold and conspicuous headlands, with Heidelberg nestling\nbetween them; from their bases spreads away the vast dim expanse of the\nRhine valley, and into this expanse the Neckar goes wandering in shining\ncurves and is presently lost to view.\n\nNow if one turns and looks up the gorge once more, he will see the\nSchloss Hotel on the right perched on a precipice overlooking the\nNeckar--a precipice which is so sumptuously cushioned and draped with\nfoliage that no glimpse of the rock appears. The building seems very\nairily situated. It has the appearance of being on a shelf half-way\nup the wooded mountainside; and as it is remote and isolated, and very\nwhite, it makes a strong mark against the lofty leafy rampart at its\nback.\n\nThis hotel had a feature which was a decided novelty, and one which\nmight be adopted with advantage by any house which is perched in a\ncommanding situation. This feature may be described as a series of\nglass-enclosed parlors CLINGING TO THE OUTSIDE OF THE HOUSE, one against\neach and every bed-chamber and drawing-room. They are like long, narrow,\nhigh-ceiled bird-cages hung against the building. My room was a corner\nroom, and had two of these things, a north one and a west one.\n\n\nFrom the north cage one looks up the Neckar gorge; from the west one he\nlooks down it. This last affords the most extensive view, and it is one\nof the loveliest that can be imagined, too. Out of a billowy upheaval\nof vivid green foliage, a rifle-shot removed, rises the huge ruin\nof Heidelberg Castle, [2. See Appendix B] with empty window arches,\nivy-mailed battlements, moldering towers--the Lear of inanimate\nnature--deserted, discrowned, beaten by the storms, but royal still,\nand beautiful. It is a fine sight to see the evening sunlight suddenly\nstrike the leafy declivity at the Castle's base and dash up it and\ndrench it as with a luminous spray, while the adjacent groves are in\ndeep shadow.\n\n\nBehind the Castle swells a great dome-shaped hill, forest-clad, and\nbeyond that a nobler and loftier one. The Castle looks down upon the\ncompact brown-roofed town; and from the town two picturesque old bridges\nspan the river. Now the view broadens; through the gateway of the\nsentinel headlands you gaze out over the wide Rhine plain, which\nstretches away, softly and richly tinted, grows gradually and dreamily\nindistinct, and finally melts imperceptibly into the remote horizon.\n\nI have never enjoyed a view which had such a serene and satisfying charm\nabout it as this one gives.\n\nThe first night we were there, we went to bed and to sleep early; but\nI awoke at the end of two or three hours, and lay a comfortable while\nlistening to the soothing patter of the rain against the balcony\nwindows. I took it to be rain, but it turned out to be only the murmur\nof the restless Neckar, tumbling over her dikes and dams far below, in\nthe gorge. I got up and went into the west balcony and saw a wonderful\nsight. Away down on the level under the black mass of the Castle, the\ntown lay, stretched along the river, its intricate cobweb of streets\njeweled with twinkling lights; there were rows of lights on the bridges;\nthese flung lances of light upon the water, in the black shadows of the\narches; and away at the extremity of all this fairy spectacle blinked\nand glowed a massed multitude of gas-jets which seemed to cover acres of\nground; it was as if all the diamonds in the world had been spread\nout there. I did not know before, that a half-mile of sextuple\nrailway-tracks could be made such an adornment.\n\n\nOne thinks Heidelberg by day--with its surroundings--is the last\npossibility of the beautiful; but when he sees Heidelberg by night, a\nfallen Milky Way, with that glittering railway constellation pinned to\nthe border, he requires time to consider upon the verdict.\n\nOne never tires of poking about in the dense woods that clothe all\nthese lofty Neckar hills to their tops. The great deeps of a boundless\nforest have a beguiling and impressive charm in any country; but German\nlegends and fairy tales have given these an added charm. They have\npeopled all that region with gnomes, and dwarfs, and all sorts of\nmysterious and uncanny creatures. At the time I am writing of, I had\nbeen reading so much of this literature that sometimes I was not sure\nbut I was beginning to believe in the gnomes and fairies as realities.\n\nOne afternoon I got lost in the woods about a mile from the hotel, and\npresently fell into a train of dreamy thought about animals which talk,\nand kobolds, and enchanted folk, and the rest of the pleasant legendary\nstuff; and so, by stimulating my fancy, I finally got to imagining I\nglimpsed small flitting shapes here and there down the columned\naisles of the forest. It was a place which was peculiarly meet for the\noccasion. It was a pine wood, with so thick and soft a carpet of brown\nneedles that one's footfall made no more sound than if he were treading\non wool; the tree-trunks were as round and straight and smooth as\npillars, and stood close together; they were bare of branches to a point\nabout twenty-five feet above-ground, and from there upward so thick with\nboughs that not a ray of sunlight could pierce through. The world was\nbright with sunshine outside, but a deep and mellow twilight reigned in\nthere, and also a deep silence so profound that I seemed to hear my own\nbreathings.\n\nWhen I had stood ten minutes, thinking and imagining, and getting\nmy spirit in tune with the place, and in the right mood to enjoy the\nsupernatural, a raven suddenly uttered a horse croak over my head. It\nmade me start; and then I was angry because I started. I looked up, and\nthe creature was sitting on a limb right over me, looking down at me.\nI felt something of the same sense of humiliation and injury which\none feels when he finds that a human stranger has been clandestinely\ninspecting him in his privacy and mentally commenting upon him. I eyed\nthe raven, and the raven eyed me. Nothing was said during some seconds.\nThen the bird stepped a little way along his limb to get a better point\nof observation, lifted his wings, stuck his head far down below his\nshoulders toward me and croaked again--a croak with a distinctly\ninsulting expression about it. If he had spoken in English he could not\nhave said any more plainly than he did say in raven, \"Well, what do YOU\nwant here?\" I felt as foolish as if I had been caught in some mean act\nby a responsible being, and reproved for it. However, I made no reply;\nI would not bandy words with a raven. The adversary waited a while, with\nhis shoulders still lifted, his head thrust down between them, and\nhis keen bright eye fixed on me; then he threw out two or three more\ninsults, which I could not understand, further than that I knew a\nportion of them consisted of language not used in church.\n\n\nI still made no reply. Now the adversary raised his head and\ncalled. There was an answering croak from a little distance in the\nwood--evidently a croak of inquiry. The adversary explained with\nenthusiasm, and the other raven dropped everything and came. The two sat\nside by side on the limb and discussed me as freely and offensively as\ntwo great naturalists might discuss a new kind of bug. The thing became\nmore and more embarrassing. They called in another friend. This was too\nmuch. I saw that they had the advantage of me, and so I concluded to get\nout of the scrape by walking out of it. They enjoyed my defeat as much\nas any low white people could have done. They craned their necks and\nlaughed at me (for a raven CAN laugh, just like a man), they squalled\ninsulting remarks after me as long as they could see me. They were\nnothing but ravens--I knew that--what they thought of me could be a\nmatter of no consequence--and yet when even a raven shouts after you,\n\"What a hat!\" \"Oh, pull down your vest!\" and that sort of thing, it\nhurts you and humiliates you, and there is no getting around it with\nfine reasoning and pretty arguments.\n\nAnimals talk to each other, of course. There can be no question about\nthat; but I suppose there are very few people who can understand them.\nI never knew but one man who could. I knew he could, however, because he\ntold me so himself. He was a middle-aged, simple-hearted miner who had\nlived in a lonely corner of California, among the woods and mountains,\na good many years, and had studied the ways of his only neighbors, the\nbeasts and the birds, until he believed he could accurately translate\nany remark which they made. This was Jim Baker. According to Jim Baker,\nsome animals have only a limited education, and some use only simple\nwords, and scarcely ever a comparison or a flowery figure; whereas,\ncertain other animals have a large vocabulary, a fine command of\nlanguage and a ready and fluent delivery; consequently these latter talk\na great deal; they like it; they are so conscious of their talent,\nand they enjoy \"showing off.\" Baker said, that after long and careful\nobservation, he had come to the conclusion that the bluejays were the\nbest talkers he had found among birds and beasts. Said he:\n\n\"There's more TO a bluejay than any other creature. He has got more\nmoods, and more different kinds of feelings than other creatures; and,\nmind you, whatever a bluejay feels, he can put into language. And\nno mere commonplace language, either, but rattling, out-and-out\nbook-talk--and bristling with metaphor, too--just bristling! And as for\ncommand of language--why YOU never see a bluejay get stuck for a word.\nNo man ever did. They just boil out of him! And another thing: I've\nnoticed a good deal, and there's no bird, or cow, or anything that uses\nas good grammar as a bluejay. You may say a cat uses good grammar. Well,\na cat does--but you let a cat get excited once; you let a cat get to\npulling fur with another cat on a shed, nights, and you'll hear grammar\nthat will give you the lockjaw. Ignorant people think it's the NOISE\nwhich fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain't so; it's\nthe sickening grammar they use. Now I've never heard a jay use bad\ngrammar but very seldom; and when they do, they are as ashamed as a\nhuman; they shut right down and leave.\n\n\n\"You may call a jay a bird. Well, so he is, in a measure--but he's got\nfeathers on him, and don't belong to no church, perhaps; but otherwise\nhe is just as much human as you be. And I'll tell you for why. A jay's\ngifts, and instincts, and feelings, and interests, cover the whole\nground. A jay hasn't got any more principle than a Congressman. A jay\nwill lie, a jay will steal, a jay will deceive, a jay will betray; and\nfour times out of five, a jay will go back on his solemnest promise. The\nsacredness of an obligation is such a thing which you can't cram into\nno bluejay's head. Now, on top of all this, there's another thing; a\njay can out-swear any gentleman in the mines. You think a cat can swear.\nWell, a cat can; but you give a bluejay a subject that calls for his\nreserve-powers, and where is your cat? Don't talk to ME--I know too much\nabout this thing; in the one little particular of scolding--just good,\nclean, out-and-out scolding--a bluejay can lay over anything, human or\ndivine. Yes, sir, a jay is everything that a man is. A jay can cry,\na jay can laugh, a jay can feel shame, a jay can reason and plan and\ndiscuss, a jay likes gossip and scandal, a jay has got a sense of humor,\na jay knows when he is an ass just as well as you do--maybe better. If\na jay ain't human, he better take in his sign, that's all. Now I'm going\nto tell you a perfectly true fact about some bluejays.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nBaker's Bluejay Yarn\n\n[What Stumped the Blue Jays]\n\n\n\"When I first begun to understand jay language correctly, there was a\nlittle incident happened here. Seven years ago, the last man in this\nregion but me moved away. There stands his house--been empty ever since;\na log house, with a plank roof--just one big room, and no more; no\nceiling--nothing between the rafters and the floor. Well, one Sunday\nmorning I was sitting out here in front of my cabin, with my cat, taking\nthe sun, and looking at the blue hills, and listening to the leaves\nrustling so lonely in the trees, and thinking of the home away yonder in\nthe states, that I hadn't heard from in thirteen years, when a bluejay\nlit on that house, with an acorn in his mouth, and says, 'Hello, I\nreckon I've struck something.' When he spoke, the acorn dropped out of\nhis mouth and rolled down the roof, of course, but he didn't care; his\nmind was all on the thing he had struck. It was a knot-hole in the roof.\nHe cocked his head to one side, shut one eye and put the other one to\nthe hole, like a possum looking down a jug; then he glanced up with\nhis bright eyes, gave a wink or two with his wings--which signifies\ngratification, you understand--and says, 'It looks like a hole, it's\nlocated like a hole--blamed if I don't believe it IS a hole!'\n\n\"Then he cocked his head down and took another look; he glances up\nperfectly joyful, this time; winks his wings and his tail both, and\nsays, 'Oh, no, this ain't no fat thing, I reckon! If I ain't in luck!\n--Why it's a perfectly elegant hole!' So he flew down and got that\nacorn, and fetched it up and dropped it in, and was just tilting his\nhead back, with the heavenliest smile on his face, when all of a\nsudden he was paralyzed into a listening attitude and that smile faded\ngradually out of his countenance like breath off'n a razor, and the\nqueerest look of surprise took its place. Then he says, 'Why, I didn't\nhear it fall!' He cocked his eye at the hole again, and took a long\nlook; raised up and shook his head; stepped around to the other side of\nthe hole and took another look from that side; shook his head again. He\nstudied a while, then he just went into the Details--walked round and\nround the hole and spied into it from every point of the compass.\nNo use. Now he took a thinking attitude on the comb of the roof and\nscratched the back of his head with his right foot a minute, and finally\nsays, 'Well, it's too many for ME, that's certain; must be a mighty long\nhole; however, I ain't got no time to fool around here, I got to \"tend\nto business\"; I reckon it's all right--chance it, anyway.'\n\n\"So he flew off and fetched another acorn and dropped it in, and tried\nto flirt his eye to the hole quick enough to see what become of it,\nbut he was too late. He held his eye there as much as a minute; then he\nraised up and sighed, and says, 'Confound it, I don't seem to understand\nthis thing, no way; however, I'll tackle her again.' He fetched\nanother acorn, and done his level best to see what become of it, but he\ncouldn't. He says, 'Well, I never struck no such a hole as this before;\nI'm of the opinion it's a totally new kind of a hole.' Then he begun\nto get mad. He held in for a spell, walking up and down the comb of the\nroof and shaking his head and muttering to himself; but his feelings got\nthe upper hand of him, presently, and he broke loose and cussed himself\nblack in the face. I never see a bird take on so about a little thing.\nWhen he got through he walks to the hole and looks in again for half a\nminute; then he says, 'Well, you're a long hole, and a deep hole, and\na mighty singular hole altogether--but I've started in to fill you, and\nI'm damned if I DON'T fill you, if it takes a hundred years!'\n\n\n\"And with that, away he went. You never see a bird work so since you was\nborn. He laid into his work like a nigger, and the way he hove acorns\ninto that hole for about two hours and a half was one of the most\nexciting and astonishing spectacles I ever struck. He never stopped to\ntake a look anymore--he just hove 'em in and went for more. Well, at\nlast he could hardly flop his wings, he was so tuckered out. He comes\na-dropping down, once more, sweating like an ice-pitcher, dropped his\nacorn in and says, 'NOW I guess I've got the bulge on you by this time!'\nSo he bent down for a look. If you'll believe me, when his head come up\nagain he was just pale with rage. He says, 'I've shoveled acorns enough\nin there to keep the family thirty years, and if I can see a sign of one\nof 'em I wish I may land in a museum with a belly full of sawdust in two\nminutes!'\n\n\"He just had strength enough to crawl up on to the comb and lean his\nback agin the chimbly, and then he collected his impressions and\nbegun to free his mind. I see in a second that what I had mistook for\nprofanity in the mines was only just the rudiments, as you may say.\n\n\"Another jay was going by, and heard him doing his devotions, and stops\nto inquire what was up. The sufferer told him the whole circumstance,\nand says, 'Now yonder's the hole, and if you don't believe me, go and\nlook for yourself.' So this fellow went and looked, and comes back and\nsays, 'How many did you say you put in there?' 'Not any less than\ntwo tons,' says the sufferer. The other jay went and looked again. He\ncouldn't seem to make it out, so he raised a yell, and three more jays\ncome. They all examined the hole, they all made the sufferer tell\nit over again, then they all discussed it, and got off as many\nleather-headed opinions about it as an average crowd of humans could\nhave done.\n\n\"They called in more jays; then more and more, till pretty soon this\nwhole region 'peared to have a blue flush about it. There must have been\nfive thousand of them; and such another jawing and disputing and ripping\nand cussing, you never heard. Every jay in the whole lot put his eye to\nthe hole and delivered a more chuckle-headed opinion about the mystery\nthan the jay that went there before him. They examined the house all\nover, too. The door was standing half open, and at last one old jay\nhappened to go and light on it and look in. Of course, that knocked the\nmystery galley-west in a second. There lay the acorns, scattered all\nover the floor.. He flopped his wings and raised a whoop. 'Come here!'\nhe says, 'Come here, everybody; hang'd if this fool hasn't been trying\nto fill up a house with acorns!' They all came a-swooping down like a\nblue cloud, and as each fellow lit on the door and took a glance, the\nwhole absurdity of the contract that that first jay had tackled hit him\nhome and he fell over backward suffocating with laughter, and the next\njay took his place and done the same.\n\n\"Well, sir, they roosted around here on the housetop and the trees for\nan hour, and guffawed over that thing like human beings. It ain't any\nuse to tell me a bluejay hasn't got a sense of humor, because I know\nbetter. And memory, too. They brought jays here from all over the United\nStates to look down that hole, every summer for three years. Other\nbirds, too. And they could all see the point except an owl that come\nfrom Nova Scotia to visit the Yo Semite, and he took this thing in on\nhis way back. He said he couldn't see anything funny in it. But then he\nwas a good deal disappointed about Yo Semite, too.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nStudent Life\n\n[The Laborious Beer King]\n\n\nThe summer semester was in full tide; consequently the most frequent\nfigure in and about Heidelberg was the student. Most of the students\nwere Germans, of course, but the representatives of foreign lands\nwere very numerous. They hailed from every corner of the globe--for\ninstruction is cheap in Heidelberg, and so is living, too. The\nAnglo-American Club, composed of British and American students, had\ntwenty-five members, and there was still much material left to draw\nfrom.\n\nNine-tenths of the Heidelberg students wore no badge or uniform;\nthe other tenth wore caps of various colors, and belonged to social\norganizations called \"corps.\" There were five corps, each with a color\nof its own; there were white caps, blue caps, and red, yellow, and green\nones. The famous duel-fighting is confined to the \"corps\" boys. The\n\"KNEIP\" seems to be a specialty of theirs, too. Kneips are held, now and\nthen, to celebrate great occasions, like the election of a beer king,\nfor instance. The solemnity is simple; the five corps assemble at night,\nand at a signal they all fall loading themselves with beer, out\nof pint-mugs, as fast as possible, and each man keeps his own\ncount--usually by laying aside a lucifer match for each mug he empties.\n\n\nThe election is soon decided. When the candidates can hold no more, a\ncount is instituted and the one who has drank the greatest number of\npints is proclaimed king. I was told that the last beer king elected\nby the corps--or by his own capabilities--emptied his mug seventy-five\ntimes. No stomach could hold all that quantity at one time, of\ncourse--but there are ways of frequently creating a vacuum, which those\nwho have been much at sea will understand.\n\nOne sees so many students abroad at all hours, that he presently begins\nto wonder if they ever have any working-hours. Some of them have, some\nof them haven't. Each can choose for himself whether he will work or\nplay; for German university life is a very free life; it seems to have\nno restraints. The student does not live in the college buildings, but\nhires his own lodgings, in any locality he prefers, and he takes his\nmeals when and where he pleases. He goes to bed when it suits him, and\ndoes not get up at all unless he wants to. He is not entered at the\nuniversity for any particular length of time; so he is likely to change\nabout. He passes no examinations upon entering college. He merely pays\na trifling fee of five or ten dollars, receives a card entitling him to\nthe privileges of the university, and that is the end of it. He is now\nready for business--or play, as he shall prefer. If he elects to\nwork, he finds a large list of lectures to choose from. He selects the\nsubjects which he will study, and enters his name for these studies; but\nhe can skip attendance.\n\n\nThe result of this system is, that lecture-courses upon specialties\nof an unusual nature are often delivered to very slim audiences,\nwhile those upon more practical and every-day matters of education are\ndelivered to very large ones. I heard of one case where, day after day,\nthe lecturer's audience consisted of three students--and always the\nsame three. But one day two of them remained away. The lecturer began as\nusual--\n\n\"Gentlemen,\" --then, without a smile, he corrected himself, saying--\n\n\"Sir,\" --and went on with his discourse.\n\nIt is said that the vast majority of the Heidelberg students are hard\nworkers, and make the most of their opportunities; that they have\nno surplus means to spend in dissipation, and no time to spare for\nfrolicking. One lecture follows right on the heels of another, with very\nlittle time for the student to get out of one hall and into the next;\nbut the industrious ones manage it by going on a trot. The professors\nassist them in the saving of their time by being promptly in their\nlittle boxed-up pulpits when the hours strike, and as promptly out again\nwhen the hour finishes. I entered an empty lecture-room one day just\nbefore the clock struck. The place had simple, unpainted pine desks and\nbenches for about two hundred persons.\n\n\nAbout a minute before the clock struck, a hundred and fifty students\nswarmed in, rushed to their seats, immediately spread open their\nnotebooks and dipped their pens in ink. When the clock began to strike,\na burly professor entered, was received with a round of applause, moved\nswiftly down the center aisle, said \"Gentlemen,\" and began to talk as he\nclimbed his pulpit steps; and by the time he had arrived in his box and\nfaced his audience, his lecture was well under way and all the pens were\ngoing. He had no notes, he talked with prodigious rapidity and\nenergy for an hour--then the students began to remind him in certain\nwell-understood ways that his time was up; he seized his hat, still\ntalking, proceeded swiftly down his pulpit steps, got out the last word\nof his discourse as he struck the floor; everybody rose respectfully,\nand he swept rapidly down the aisle and disappeared. An instant rush for\nsome other lecture-room followed, and in a minute I was alone with the\nempty benches once more.\n\n\nYes, without doubt, idle students are not the rule. Out of eight hundred\nin the town, I knew the faces of only about fifty; but these I saw\neverywhere, and daily. They walked about the streets and the wooded\nhills, they drove in cabs, they boated on the river, they sipped beer\nand coffee, afternoons, in the Schloss gardens. A good many of them wore\ncolored caps of the corps. They were finely and fashionably dressed,\ntheir manners were quite superb, and they led an easy, careless,\ncomfortable life. If a dozen of them sat together and a lady or a\ngentleman passed whom one of them knew and saluted, they all rose\nto their feet and took off their caps. The members of a corps always\nreceived a fellow-member in this way, too; but they paid no attention\nto members of other corps; they did not seem to see them. This was not\na discourtesy; it was only a part of the elaborate and rigid corps\netiquette.\n\nThere seems to be no chilly distance existing between the German\nstudents and the professor; but, on the contrary, a companionable\nintercourse, the opposite of chilliness and reserve. When the professor\nenters a beer-hall in the evening where students are gathered together,\nthese rise up and take off their caps, and invite the old gentleman to\nsit with them and partake. He accepts, and the pleasant talk and the\nbeer flow for an hour or two, and by and by the professor, properly\ncharged and comfortable, gives a cordial good night, while the students\nstand bowing and uncovered; and then he moves on his happy way homeward\nwith all his vast cargo of learning afloat in his hold. Nobody finds\nfault or feels outraged; no harm has been done.\n\n\nIt seemed to be a part of corps etiquette to keep a dog or so, too.\nI mean a corps dog--the common property of the organization, like the\ncorps steward or head servant; then there are other dogs, owned by\nindividuals.\n\nOn a summer afternoon in the Castle gardens, I have seen six students\nmarch solemnly into the grounds, in single file, each carrying a bright\nChinese parasol and leading a prodigious dog by a string. It was a very\nimposing spectacle. Sometimes there would be as many dogs around the\npavilion as students; and of all breeds and of all degrees of beauty and\nugliness. These dogs had a rather dry time of it; for they were tied\nto the benches and had no amusement for an hour or two at a time except\nwhat they could get out of pawing at the gnats, or trying to sleep and\nnot succeeding. However, they got a lump of sugar occasionally--they\nwere fond of that.\n\n\nIt seemed right and proper that students should indulge in dogs; but\neverybody else had them, too--old men and young ones, old women and\nnice young ladies. If there is one spectacle that is unpleasanter than\nanother, it is that of an elegantly dressed young lady towing a dog by a\nstring. It is said to be the sign and symbol of blighted love. It seems\nto me that some other way of advertising it might be devised, which\nwould be just as conspicuous and yet not so trying to the proprieties.\n\n\nIt would be a mistake to suppose that the easy-going pleasure-seeking\nstudent carries an empty head. Just the contrary. He has spent nine\nyears in the gymnasium, under a system which allowed him no freedom, but\nvigorously compelled him to work like a slave. Consequently, he has left\nthe gymnasium with an education which is so extensive and complete, that\nthe most a university can do for it is to perfect some of its profounder\nspecialties. It is said that when a pupil leaves the gymnasium, he not\nonly has a comprehensive education, but he KNOWS what he knows--it is\nnot befogged with uncertainty, it is burnt into him so that it will\nstay. For instance, he does not merely read and write Greek, but speaks\nit; the same with the Latin. Foreign youth steer clear of the gymnasium;\nits rules are too severe. They go to the university to put a mansard\nroof on their whole general education; but the German student already\nhas his mansard roof, so he goes there to add a steeple in the nature of\nsome specialty, such as a particular branch of law, or diseases of the\neye, or special study of the ancient Gothic tongues. So this German\nattends only the lectures which belong to the chosen branch, and drinks\nhis beer and tows his dog around and has a general good time the rest of\nthe day. He has been in rigid bondage so long that the large liberty\nof the university life is just what he needs and likes and thoroughly\nappreciates; and as it cannot last forever, he makes the most of it\nwhile it does last, and so lays up a good rest against the day that must\nsee him put on the chains once more and enter the slavery of official or\nprofessional life.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nAt the Students' Dueling-Ground\n\n[Dueling by Wholesale]\n\n\nOne day in the interest of science my agent obtained permission to bring\nme to the students' dueling-place. We crossed the river and drove up\nthe bank a few hundred yards, then turned to the left, entered a narrow\nalley, followed it a hundred yards and arrived at a two-story public\nhouse; we were acquainted with its outside aspect, for it was visible\nfrom the hotel. We went upstairs and passed into a large whitewashed\napartment which was perhaps fifty feet long by thirty feet wide and\ntwenty or twenty-five high. It was a well-lighted place. There was no\ncarpet. Across one end and down both sides of the room extended a row of\ntables, and at these tables some fifty or seventy-five students [1. See\nAppendix C] were sitting.\n\nSome of them were sipping wine, others were playing cards, others chess,\nother groups were chatting together, and many were smoking cigarettes\nwhile they waited for the coming duels. Nearly all of them wore colored\ncaps; there were white caps, green caps, blue caps, red caps, and\nbright-yellow ones; so, all the five corps were present in strong\nforce. In the windows at the vacant end of the room stood six or eight,\nnarrow-bladed swords with large protecting guards for the hand, and\noutside was a man at work sharpening others on a grindstone.\n\n\nHe understood his business; for when a sword left his hand one could\nshave himself with it.\n\nIt was observable that the young gentlemen neither bowed to nor spoke\nwith students whose caps differed in color from their own. This did not\nmean hostility, but only an armed neutrality. It was considered that\na person could strike harder in the duel, and with a more earnest\ninterest, if he had never been in a condition of comradeship with his\nantagonist; therefore, comradeship between the corps was not permitted.\nAt intervals the presidents of the five corps have a cold official\nintercourse with each other, but nothing further. For example, when the\nregular dueling-day of one of the corps approaches, its president calls\nfor volunteers from among the membership to offer battle; three or more\nrespond--but there must not be less than three; the president lays their\nnames before the other presidents, with the request that they furnish\nantagonists for these challengers from among their corps. This is\npromptly done. It chanced that the present occasion was the battle-day\nof the Red Cap Corps. They were the challengers, and certain caps of\nother colors had volunteered to meet them. The students fight duels in\nthe room which I have described, TWO DAYS IN EVERY WEEK DURING SEVEN\nAND A HALF OR EIGHT MONTHS IN EVERY YEAR. This custom had continued in\nGermany two hundred and fifty years.\n\nTo return to my narrative. A student in a white cap met us and\nintroduced us to six or eight friends of his who also wore white caps,\nand while we stood conversing, two strange-looking figures were led in\nfrom another room. They were students panoplied for the duel. They were\nbareheaded; their eyes were protected by iron goggles which projected an\ninch or more, the leather straps of which bound their ears flat against\ntheir heads were wound around and around with thick wrappings which\na sword could not cut through; from chin to ankle they were padded\nthoroughly against injury; their arms were bandaged and rebandaged,\nlayer upon layer, until they looked like solid black logs. These weird\napparitions had been handsome youths, clad in fashionable attire,\nfifteen minutes before, but now they did not resemble any beings one\never sees unless in nightmares. They strode along, with their arms\nprojecting straight out from their bodies; they did not hold them out\nthemselves, but fellow-students walked beside them and gave the needed\nsupport.\n\nThere was a rush for the vacant end of the room, now, and we followed\nand got good places. The combatants were placed face to face, each with\nseveral members of his own corps about him to assist; two seconds, well\npadded, and with swords in their hands, took their stations; a student\nbelonging to neither of the opposing corps placed himself in a good\nposition to umpire the combat; another student stood by with a watch and\na memorandum-book to keep record of the time and the number and nature\nof the wounds; a gray-haired surgeon was present with his lint, his\nbandages, and his instruments.\n\n\nAfter a moment's pause the duelists saluted the umpire respectfully,\nthen one after another the several officials stepped forward, gracefully\nremoved their caps and saluted him also, and returned to their places.\nEverything was ready now; students stood crowded together in the\nforeground, and others stood behind them on chairs and tables. Every\nface was turned toward the center of attraction.\n\nThe combatants were watching each other with alert eyes; a perfect\nstillness, a breathless interest reigned. I felt that I was going to\nsee some wary work. But not so. The instant the word was given, the two\napparitions sprang forward and began to rain blows down upon each other\nwith such lightning rapidity that I could not quite tell whether I saw\nthe swords or only flashes they made in the air; the rattling din of\nthese blows as they struck steel or paddings was something wonderfully\nstirring, and they were struck with such terrific force that I could not\nunderstand why the opposing sword was not beaten down under the assault.\nPresently, in the midst of the sword-flashes, I saw a handful of hair\nskip into the air as if it had lain loose on the victim's head and a\nbreath of wind had puffed it suddenly away.\n\nThe seconds cried \"Halt!\" and knocked up the combatants' swords with\ntheir own. The duelists sat down; a student official stepped forward,\nexamined the wounded head and touched the place with a sponge once or\ntwice; the surgeon came and turned back the hair from the wound--and\nrevealed a crimson gash two or three inches long, and proceeded to bind\nan oval piece of leather and a bunch of lint over it; the tally-keeper\nstepped up and tallied one for the opposition in his book.\n\n\nThen the duelists took position again; a small stream of blood was\nflowing down the side of the injured man's head, and over his shoulder\nand down his body to the floor, but he did not seem to mind this. The\nword was given, and they plunged at each other as fiercely as before;\nonce more the blows rained and rattled and flashed; every few moments\nthe quick-eyed seconds would notice that a sword was bent--then they\ncalled \"Halt!\" struck up the contending weapons, and an assisting\nstudent straightened the bent one.\n\nThe wonderful turmoil went on--presently a bright spark sprung from\na blade, and that blade broken in several pieces, sent one of its\nfragments flying to the ceiling. A new sword was provided and the fight\nproceeded. The exercise was tremendous, of course, and in time the\nfighters began to show great fatigue. They were allowed to rest a\nmoment, every little while; they got other rests by wounding each other,\nfor then they could sit down while the doctor applied the lint and\nbandages. The law is that the battle must continue fifteen minutes if\nthe men can hold out; and as the pauses do not count, this duel was\nprotracted to twenty or thirty minutes, I judged. At last it was decided\nthat the men were too much wearied to do battle longer. They were led\naway drenched with crimson from head to foot. That was a good fight, but\nit could not count, partly because it did not last the lawful fifteen\nminutes (of actual fighting), and partly because neither man was\ndisabled by his wound. It was a drawn battle, and corps law requires\nthat drawn battles shall be refought as soon as the adversaries are well\nof their hurts.\n\nDuring the conflict, I had talked a little, now and then, with a young\ngentleman of the White Cap Corps, and he had mentioned that he was to\nfight next--and had also pointed out his challenger, a young gentleman\nwho was leaning against the opposite wall smoking a cigarette and\nrestfully observing the duel then in progress.\n\nMy acquaintanceship with a party to the coming contest had the effect of\ngiving me a kind of personal interest in it; I naturally wished he might\nwin, and it was the reverse of pleasant to learn that he probably would\nnot, because, although he was a notable swordsman, the challenger was\nheld to be his superior.\n\nThe duel presently began and in the same furious way which had marked\nthe previous one. I stood close by, but could not tell which blows told\nand which did not, they fell and vanished so like flashes of light. They\nall seemed to tell; the swords always bent over the opponents' heads,\nfrom the forehead back over the crown, and seemed to touch, all the\nway; but it was not so--a protecting blade, invisible to me, was always\ninterposed between. At the end of ten seconds each man had struck twelve\nor fifteen blows, and warded off twelve or fifteen, and no harm done;\nthen a sword became disabled, and a short rest followed whilst a new one\nwas brought. Early in the next round the White Corps student got an ugly\nwound on the side of his head and gave his opponent one like it. In the\nthird round the latter received another bad wound in the head, and the\nformer had his under-lip divided. After that, the White Corps student\ngave many severe wounds, but got none of the consequence in return.\nAt the end of five minutes from the beginning of the duel the surgeon\nstopped it; the challenging party had suffered such injuries that any\naddition to them might be dangerous. These injuries were a fearful\nspectacle, but are better left undescribed. So, against expectation, my\nacquaintance was the victor.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\n[A Sport that Sometimes Kills]\n\n\nThe third duel was brief and bloody. The surgeon stopped it when he saw\nthat one of the men had received such bad wounds that he could not fight\nlonger without endangering his life.\n\nThe fourth duel was a tremendous encounter; but at the end of five or\nsix minutes the surgeon interfered once more: another man so severely\nhurt as to render it unsafe to add to his harms. I watched this\nengagement as I watched the others--with rapt interest and strong\nexcitement, and with a shrink and a shudder for every blow that laid\nopen a cheek or a forehead; and a conscious paling of my face when I\noccasionally saw a wound of a yet more shocking nature inflicted.\nMy eyes were upon the loser of this duel when he got his last and\nvanquishing wound--it was in his face and it carried away his--but no\nmatter, I must not enter into details. I had but a glance, and then\nturned quickly, but I would not have been looking at all if I had known\nwhat was coming. No, that is probably not true; one thinks he would not\nlook if he knew what was coming, but the interest and the excitement are\nso powerful that they would doubtless conquer all other feelings; and\nso, under the fierce exhilaration of the clashing steel, he would yield\nand look after all. Sometimes spectators of these duels faint--and it\ndoes seem a very reasonable thing to do, too.\n\nBoth parties to this fourth duel were badly hurt so much that the\nsurgeon was at work upon them nearly or quite an hour--a fact which is\nsuggestive. But this waiting interval was not wasted in idleness by\nthe assembled students. It was past noon, therefore they ordered their\nlandlord, downstairs, to send up hot beefsteaks, chickens, and such\nthings, and these they ate, sitting comfortable at the several tables,\nwhilst they chatted, disputed and laughed. The door to the surgeon's\nroom stood open, meantime, but the cutting, sewing, splicing, and\nbandaging going on in there in plain view did not seem to disturb\nanyone's appetite. I went in and saw the surgeon labor awhile, but could\nnot enjoy; it was much less trying to see the wounds given and received\nthan to see them mended; the stir and turmoil, and the music of the\nsteel, were wanting here--one's nerves were wrung by this grisly\nspectacle, whilst the duel's compensating pleasurable thrill was\nlacking.\n\nFinally the doctor finished, and the men who were to fight the closing\nbattle of the day came forth. A good many dinners were not completed,\nyet, but no matter, they could be eaten cold, after the battle;\ntherefore everybody crowded forth to see. This was not a love duel, but\na \"satisfaction\" affair. These two students had quarreled, and were here\nto settle it. They did not belong to any of the corps, but they were\nfurnished with weapons and armor, and permitted to fight here by the\nfive corps as a courtesy. Evidently these two young men were unfamiliar\nwith the dueling ceremonies, though they were not unfamiliar with the\nsword. When they were placed in position they thought it was time\nto begin--and then did begin, too, and with a most impetuous energy,\nwithout waiting for anybody to give the word. This vastly amused the\nspectators, and even broke down their studied and courtly gravity and\nsurprised them into laughter. Of course the seconds struck up the swords\nand started the duel over again. At the word, the deluge of blows began,\nbut before long the surgeon once more interfered--for the only reason\nwhich ever permits him to interfere--and the day's war was over. It was\nnow two in the afternoon, and I had been present since half past nine in\nthe morning. The field of battle was indeed a red one by this time;\nbut some sawdust soon righted that. There had been one duel before I\narrived. In it one of the men received many injuries, while the other\none escaped without a scratch.\n\nI had seen the heads and faces of ten youths gashed in every direction\nby the keen two-edged blades, and yet had not seen a victim wince, nor\nheard a moan, or detected any fleeting expression which confessed the\nsharp pain the hurts were inflicting. This was good fortitude, indeed.\nSuch endurance is to be expected in savages and prize-fighters, for they\nare born and educated to it; but to find it in such perfection in these\ngently bred and kindly natured young fellows is matter for surprise.\nIt was not merely under the excitement of the sword-play that this\nfortitude was shown; it was shown in the surgeon's room where an\nuninspiring quiet reigned, and where there was no audience. The doctor's\nmanipulations brought out neither grimaces nor moans. And in the fights\nit was observable that these lads hacked and slashed with the same\ntremendous spirit, after they were covered with streaming wounds, which\nthey had shown in the beginning.\n\nThe world in general looks upon the college duels as very farcical\naffairs: true, but considering that the college duel is fought by boys;\nthat the swords are real swords; and that the head and face are exposed,\nit seems to me that it is a farce which had quite a grave side to it.\nPeople laugh at it mainly because they think the student is so covered\nup with armor that he cannot be hurt. But it is not so; his eyes and\nears are protected, but the rest of his face and head are bare. He\ncan not only be badly wounded, but his life is in danger; and he would\nsometimes lose it but for the interference of the surgeon. It is\nnot intended that his life shall be endangered. Fatal accidents are\npossible, however. For instance, the student's sword may break, and the\nend of it fly up behind his antagonist's ear and cut an artery which\ncould not be reached if the sword remained whole. This has happened,\nsometimes, and death has resulted on the spot. Formerly the student's\narmpits were not protected--and at that time the swords were pointed,\nwhereas they are blunt, now; so an artery in the armpit was sometimes\ncut, and death followed. Then in the days of sharp-pointed swords, a\nspectator was an occasional victim--the end of a broken sword flew five\nor ten feet and buried itself in his neck or his heart, and death ensued\ninstantly. The student duels in Germany occasion two or three deaths\nevery year, now, but this arises only from the carelessness of the\nwounded men; they eat or drink imprudently, or commit excesses in the\nway of overexertion; inflammation sets in and gets such a headway that\nit cannot be arrested. Indeed, there is blood and pain and danger\nenough about the college duel to entitle it to a considerable degree of\nrespect.\n\nAll the customs, all the laws, all the details, pertaining to the\nstudent duel are quaint and naive. The grave, precise, and courtly\nceremony with which the thing is conducted, invests it with a sort of\nantique charm.\n\nThis dignity and these knightly graces suggest the tournament, not the\nprize-fight. The laws are as curious as they are strict. For instance,\nthe duelist may step forward from the line he is placed upon, if he\nchooses, but never back of it. If he steps back of it, or even leans\nback, it is considered that he did it to avoid a blow or contrive an\nadvantage; so he is dismissed from his corps in disgrace. It would seem\nnatural to step from under a descending sword unconsciously, and against\none's will and intent--yet this unconsciousness is not allowed. Again:\nif under the sudden anguish of a wound the receiver of it makes a\ngrimace, he falls some degrees in the estimation of his fellows; his\ncorps are ashamed of him: they call him \"hare foot,\" which is the German\nequivalent for chicken-hearted.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\n[How Bismark Fought]\n\n\nIn addition to the corps laws, there are some corps usages which have\nthe force of laws.\n\nPerhaps the president of a corps notices that one of the membership who\nis no longer an exempt--that is a freshman--has remained a sophomore\nsome little time without volunteering to fight; some day, the president,\ninstead of calling for volunteers, will APPOINT this sophomore\nto measure swords with a student of another corps; he is free to\ndecline--everybody says so--there is no compulsion. This is all\ntrue--but I have not heard of any student who DID decline; to decline\nand still remain in the corps would make him unpleasantly conspicuous,\nand properly so, since he knew, when he joined, that his main\nbusiness, as a member, would be to fight. No, there is no law against\ndeclining--except the law of custom, which is confessedly stronger than\nwritten law, everywhere.\n\n\nThe ten men whose duels I had witnessed did not go away when their hurts\nwere dressed, as I had supposed they would, but came back, one after\nanother, as soon as they were free of the surgeon, and mingled with the\nassemblage in the dueling-room. The white-cap student who won the second\nfight witnessed the remaining three, and talked with us during the\nintermissions. He could not talk very well, because his opponent's sword\nhad cut his under-lip in two, and then the surgeon had sewed it together\nand overlaid it with a profusion of white plaster patches; neither could\nhe eat easily, still he contrived to accomplish a slow and troublesome\nluncheon while the last duel was preparing. The man who was the worst\nhurt of all played chess while waiting to see this engagement. A good\npart of his face was covered with patches and bandages, and all the rest\nof his head was covered and concealed by them.\n\n\nIt is said that the student likes to appear on the street and in other\npublic places in this kind of array, and that this predilection often\nkeeps him out when exposure to rain or sun is a positive danger for\nhim. Newly bandaged students are a very common spectacle in the public\ngardens of Heidelberg. It is also said that the student is glad to\nget wounds in the face, because the scars they leave will show so well\nthere; and it is also said that these face wounds are so prized that\nyouths have even been known to pull them apart from time to time and\nput red wine in them to make them heal badly and leave as ugly a scar\nas possible. It does not look reasonable, but it is roundly asserted\nand maintained, nevertheless; I am sure of one thing--scars are plenty\nenough in Germany, among the young men; and very grim ones they are,\ntoo. They crisscross the face in angry red welts, and are permanent and\nineffaceable.\n\n\nSome of these scars are of a very strange and dreadful aspect; and the\neffect is striking when several such accent the milder ones, which form\na city map on a man's face; they suggest the \"burned district\" then. We\nhad often noticed that many of the students wore a colored silk band\nor ribbon diagonally across their breasts. It transpired that this\nsignifies that the wearer has fought three duels in which a decision\nwas reached--duels in which he either whipped or was whipped--for drawn\nbattles do not count. [1] After a student has received his ribbon, he\nis \"free\"; he can cease from fighting, without reproach--except some one\ninsult him; his president cannot appoint him to fight; he can volunteer\nif he wants to, or remain quiescent if he prefers to do so. Statistics\nshow that he does NOT prefer to remain quiescent. They show that the\nduel has a singular fascination about it somewhere, for these free\nmen, so far from resting upon the privilege of the badge, are always\nvolunteering. A corps student told me it was of record that Prince\nBismarck fought thirty-two of these duels in a single summer term when\nhe was in college. So he fought twenty-nine after his badge had given\nhim the right to retire from the field.\n\n1. FROM MY DIARY.--Dined in a hotel a few miles up the Neckar, in a room\nwhose walls were hung all over with framed portrait-groups of the Five\nCorps; some were recent, but many antedated photography, and were\npictured in lithography--the dates ranged back to forty or fifty years\nago. Nearly every individual wore the ribbon across his breast. In one\nportrait-group representing (as each of these pictures did) an entire\nCorps, I took pains to count the ribbons: there were twenty-seven\nmembers, and twenty-one of them wore that significant badge.\n\nThe statistics may be found to possess interest in several particulars.\nTwo days in every week are devoted to dueling. The rule is rigid that\nthere must be three duels on each of these days; there are generally\nmore, but there cannot be fewer. There were six the day I was present;\nsometimes there are seven or eight. It is insisted that eight duels a\nweek--four for each of the two days--is too low an average to draw\na calculation from, but I will reckon from that basis, preferring an\nunderstatement to an overstatement of the case. This requires about four\nhundred and eighty or five hundred duelists a year--for in summer the\ncollege term is about three and a half months, and in winter it is four\nmonths and sometimes longer. Of the seven hundred and fifty students in\nthe university at the time I am writing of, only eighty belonged to the\nfive corps, and it is only these corps that do the dueling; occasionally\nother students borrow the arms and battleground of the five corps in\norder to settle a quarrel, but this does not happen every dueling-day.\n[2] Consequently eighty youths furnish the material for some two hundred\nand fifty duels a year. This average gives six fights a year to each\nof the eighty. This large work could not be accomplished if the\nbadge-holders stood upon their privilege and ceased to volunteer.\n\n2. They have to borrow the arms because they could not get them\nelsewhere or otherwise. As I understand it, the public authorities, all\nover Germany, allow the five Corps to keep swords, but DO NOT ALLOW THEM\nTO USE THEM. This is law is rigid; it is only the execution of it that\nis lax.\n\nOf course, where there is so much fighting, the students make it a point\nto keep themselves in constant practice with the foil. One often sees\nthem, at the tables in the Castle grounds, using their whips or canes to\nillustrate some new sword trick which they have heard about; and between\nthe duels, on the day whose history I have been writing, the swords were\nnot always idle; every now and then we heard a succession of the keen\nhissing sounds which the sword makes when it is being put through its\npaces in the air, and this informed us that a student was practicing.\nNecessarily, this unceasing attention to the art develops an expert\noccasionally. He becomes famous in his own university, his renown\nspreads to other universities. He is invited to Goettingen, to fight\nwith a Goettingen expert; if he is victorious, he will be invited\nto other colleges, or those colleges will send their experts to him.\nAmericans and Englishmen often join one or another of the five corps. A\nyear or two ago, the principal Heidelberg expert was a big Kentuckian;\nhe was invited to the various universities and left a wake of victory\nbehind him all about Germany; but at last a little student in Strasburg\ndefeated him. There was formerly a student in Heidelberg who had picked\nup somewhere and mastered a peculiar trick of cutting up under instead\nof cleaving down from above. While the trick lasted he won in sixteen\nsuccessive duels in his university; but by that time observers had\ndiscovered what his charm was, and how to break it, therefore his\nchampionship ceased.\n\nA rule which forbids social intercourse between members of different\ncorps is strict. In the dueling-house, in the parks, on the street,\nand anywhere and everywhere that the students go, caps of a color group\nthemselves together. If all the tables in a public garden were crowded\nbut one, and that one had two red-cap students at it and ten vacant\nplaces, the yellow-caps, the blue-caps, the white caps, and the green\ncaps, seeking seats, would go by that table and not seem to see it, nor\nseem to be aware that there was such a table in the grounds. The student\nby whose courtesy we had been enabled to visit the dueling-place, wore\nthe white cap--Prussian Corps. He introduced us to many white caps, but\nto none of another color. The corps etiquette extended even to us, who\nwere strangers, and required us to group with the white corps only, and\nspeak only with the white corps, while we were their guests, and keep\naloof from the caps of the other colors. Once I wished to examine some\nof the swords, but an American student said, \"It would not be quite\npolite; these now in the windows all have red hilts or blue; they will\nbring in some with white hilts presently, and those you can handle\nfreely.\" When a sword was broken in the first duel, I wanted a piece\nof it; but its hilt was the wrong color, so it was considered best and\npolitest to await a properer season.\n\n\nIt was brought to me after the room was cleared, and I will now make\na \"life-size\" sketch of it by tracing a line around it with my pen, to\nshow the width of the weapon. [Figure 1] The length of these swords is\nabout three feet, and they are quite heavy. One's disposition to cheer,\nduring the course of the duels or at their close, was naturally strong,\nbut corps etiquette forbade any demonstrations of this sort. However\nbrilliant a contest or a victory might be, no sign or sound betrayed\nthat any one was moved. A dignified gravity and repression were\nmaintained at all times.\n\nWhen the dueling was finished and we were ready to go, the gentlemen of\nthe Prussian Corps to whom we had been introduced took off their caps\nin the courteous German way, and also shook hands; their brethren of the\nsame order took off their caps and bowed, but without shaking hands; the\ngentlemen of the other corps treated us just as they would have treated\nwhite caps--they fell apart, apparently unconsciously, and left us an\nunobstructed pathway, but did not seem to see us or know we were there.\nIf we had gone thither the following week as guests of another corps,\nthe white caps, without meaning any offense, would have observed the\netiquette of their order and ignored our presence.\n\n[How strangely are comedy and tragedy blended in this life! I had not\nbeen home a full half-hour, after witnessing those playful sham-duels,\nwhen circumstances made it necessary for me to get ready immediately to\nassist personally at a real one--a duel with no effeminate limitation in\nthe matter of results, but a battle to the death. An account of it, in\nthe next chapter, will show the reader that duels between boys, for fun,\nand duels between men in earnest, are very different affairs.]\n\n\n\n\n\nA TRAMP ABROAD, Part 2\n\nBy Mark Twain\n\n(Samuel L. Clemens)\n\nFirst published in 1880\n\nIllustrations taken from an 1880 First Edition\n\n * * * * * *\n\n\nILLUSTRATIONS:\n\n\n     1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR\n     2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0TITIAN'S MOSES\n     3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0THE AUTHOR'S MEMORIES\n     32.\u00a0\u00a0FRENCH CALM\n     33.\u00a0\u00a0THE CHALLENGE ACCEPTED\n     34.\u00a0\u00a0A SEARCH\n     35.\u00a0\u00a0HE SWOONED PONDEROUSLY\n     36.\u00a0\u00a0I ROLLED HIM OVER\n     37.\u00a0\u00a0THE ONE I HIRED\n     36.\u00a0\u00a0THE MARCH TO THE FIELD\n     39.\u00a0\u00a0THE POST OF DANGER\n     40.\u00a0\u00a0THE RECONCILIATION\n     41.\u00a0\u00a0AN OBJECT OF ADMIRATION\n     42.\u00a0\u00a0WAGNER\n     43.\u00a0\u00a0RAGING\n     44.\u00a0\u00a0ROARING\n     45.\u00a0\u00a0SHRIEKING\n     46.\u00a0\u00a0A CUSTOMARY THING\n     47.\u00a0\u00a0ONE OF THE \"REST\"\n     48.\u00a0\u00a0A CONTRIBUTION BOX\n     49.\u00a0\u00a0CONSPICUOUS\n     50.\u00a0\u00a0TAIL PIECE\n     51.\u00a0\u00a0ONLY A SHRIEK\n     52.\u00a0\u00a0\"HE ONLY CRY\"\n     53.\u00a0\u00a0LATE COMERS CARED FOR\n     54.\u00a0\u00a0EVIDENTLY DREAMING\n     55.\u00a0\u00a0\"TURN ON MORE RAIN\"\n     56.\u00a0\u00a0HARRIS ATTENDING THE OPERA\n     57.\u00a0\u00a0PAINTING MY GREAT PICTURE\n     58.\u00a0\u00a0OUR START\n     59.\u00a0\u00a0AN UNKNOWN COSTUME\n     60.\u00a0\u00a0THE TOWER\n     61.\u00a0\u00a0SLOW BUT SURE\n     62.\u00a0\u00a0THE ROBBER CHIEF\n     63.\u00a0\u00a0AN HONEST MAN\n     64.\u00a0\u00a0THE TOWN BY NIGHT\n     65.\u00a0\u00a0GENERATIONS OF BAREFEET\n     66.\u00a0\u00a0OUR BEDROOM\n     67.\u00a0\u00a0PRACTICING\n     68.\u00a0\u00a0PAWING AROUND\n     69.\u00a0\u00a0A NIGHT'S WORK\n     70.\u00a0\u00a0LEAVING HEILBRONN\n     71.\u00a0\u00a0THE CAPTAIN\n     72.\u00a0\u00a0WAITING FOR THE TRAIN\n\n\nCONTENTS:\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII The Great French Duel--Mistaken Notions--Outbreak in the\nFrench Assembly--Calmness of M Gambetta--I Volunteer as Second--Drawing\nup a Will--The Challenge and its Acceptance--Difficulty in Selection\nof Weapons--Deciding on Distance--M. Gambetta's Firmness--Arranging\nDetails--Hiring Hearses--How it was Kept from the Press--March to the\nField--The Post of Danger--The Duel--The Result--General Rejoicings--The\nonly One Hurt--A Firm Resolution\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX At the Theatre--German Ideal--At the Opera--The\nOrchestra--Howlings and Wailings--A Curious Play--One Season of\nRest--The Wedding Chorus--Germans fond of the Opera--Funerals Needed\n--A Private Party--What I Overheard--A Gentle Girl--A\nContribution--box--Unpleasantly Conspicuous\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X Four Hours with Wagner--A Wonderful Singer, Once--\" Only a\nShriek\"--An Ancient Vocalist--\"He Only Cry\"--Emotional Germans--A\nWise Custom--Late Comers Rebuked--Heard to the Last--No Interruptions\nAllowed--A Royal Audience--An Eccentric King--Real Rain and More of\nIt--Immense Success--\"Encore! Encore!\"--Magnanimity of the King\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI Lessons in Art--My Great Picture of Heidelberg Castle--Its\nEffect in the Exhibition--Mistaken for a Turner--A Studio--Waiting\nfor Orders--A Tramp Decided On--The Start for Heilbronn--Our Walking\nDress--\"Pleasant march to you\"--We Take the Rail--German People on\nBoard--Not Understood--Speak only German and English--Wimpfen--A Funny\nTower--Dinner in the Garden--Vigorous Tramping--Ride in a Peasant's\nCart--A Famous Room\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII The Rathhaus--An Old Robber Knight, Gotz Von\nBerlichingen--His Famous Deeds--The Square Tower--A Curious old\nChurch--A Gay Turn--out--A Legend--The Wives' Treasures--A Model\nWaiter--A Miracle Performed--An Old Town--The Worn Stones\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII Early to Bed--Lonesome--Nervous Excitement--The Room We\nOccupied--Disturbed by a Mouse--Grow Desperate--The Old Remedy--A Shoe\nThrown--Result--Hopelessly Awake--An Attempt to Dress--A Cruise in the\nDark--Crawling on the Floor--A General Smash-up--Forty-seven Miles'\nTravel\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV A Famous Turn--out--Raftsmen on the Neckar--The Log\nRafts--The Neckar--A Sudden Idea--To Heidelberg on a Raft--Chartering\na Raft--Gloomy Feelings and Conversation--Delicious Journeying--View of\nthe Banks--Compared with Railroading\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nThe Great French Duel\n\n[I Second Gambetta in a Terrific Duel]\n\n\nMuch as the modern French duel is ridiculed by certain smart people, it\nis in reality one of the most dangerous institutions of our day. Since\nit is always fought in the open air, the combatants are nearly sure\nto catch cold. M. Paul de Cassagnac, the most inveterate of the French\nduelists, had suffered so often in this way that he is at last a\nconfirmed invalid; and the best physician in Paris has expressed\nthe opinion that if he goes on dueling for fifteen or twenty years\nmore--unless he forms the habit of fighting in a comfortable room where\ndamps and draughts cannot intrude--he will eventually endanger his life.\nThis ought to moderate the talk of those people who are so stubborn\nin maintaining that the French duel is the most health-giving of\nrecreations because of the open-air exercise it affords. And it\nought also to moderate that foolish talk about French duelists and\nsocialist-hated monarchs being the only people who are immortal.\n\nBut it is time to get at my subject. As soon as I heard of the late\nfiery outbreak between M. Gambetta and M. Fourtou in the French\nAssembly, I knew that trouble must follow. I knew it because a long\npersonal friendship with M. Gambetta revealed to me the desperate and\nimplacable nature of the man. Vast as are his physical proportions,\nI knew that the thirst for revenge would penetrate to the remotest\nfrontiers of his person.\n\nI did not wait for him to call on me, but went at once to him. As I had\nexpected, I found the brave fellow steeped in a profound French calm.\nI say French calm, because French calmness and English calmness have\npoints of difference.\n\n\nHe was moving swiftly back and forth among the debris of his furniture,\nnow and then staving chance fragments of it across the room with his\nfoot; grinding a constant grist of curses through his set teeth; and\nhalting every little while to deposit another handful of his hair on the\npile which he had been building of it on the table.\n\nHe threw his arms around my neck, bent me over his stomach to his\nbreast, kissed me on both cheeks, hugged me four or five times, and\nthen placed me in his own arm-chair. As soon as I had got well again, we\nbegan business at once.\n\nI said I supposed he would wish me to act as his second, and he said,\n\"Of course.\" I said I must be allowed to act under a French name, so\nthat I might be shielded from obloquy in my country, in case of fatal\nresults. He winced here, probably at the suggestion that dueling was not\nregarded with respect in America. However, he agreed to my requirement.\nThis accounts for the fact that in all the newspaper reports M.\nGambetta's second was apparently a Frenchman.\n\n\nFirst, we drew up my principal's will. I insisted upon this, and stuck\nto my point. I said I had never heard of a man in his right mind going\nout to fight a duel without first making his will. He said he had never\nheard of a man in his right mind doing anything of the kind. When he had\nfinished the will, he wished to proceed to a choice of his \"last words.\"\nHe wanted to know how the following words, as a dying exclamation,\nstruck me:\n\n\"I die for my God, for my country, for freedom of speech, for progress,\nand the universal brotherhood of man!\"\n\nI objected that this would require too lingering a death; it was a good\nspeech for a consumptive, but not suited to the exigencies of the field\nof honor. We wrangled over a good many ante-mortem outbursts, but I\nfinally got him to cut his obituary down to this, which he copied into\nhis memorandum-book, purposing to get it by heart:\n\n\"I DIE THAT FRANCE MIGHT LIVE.\"\n\nI said that this remark seemed to lack relevancy; but he said relevancy\nwas a matter of no consequence in last words, what you wanted was\nthrill.\n\nThe next thing in order was the choice of weapons. My principal said he\nwas not feeling well, and would leave that and the other details of the\nproposed meeting to me. Therefore I wrote the following note and carried\nit to M. Fourtou's friend:\n\nSir: M. Gambetta accepts M. Fourtou's challenge, and authorizes me to\npropose Plessis-Piquet as the place of meeting; tomorrow morning at\ndaybreak as the time; and axes as the weapons.\n\nI am, sir, with great respect,\n\nMark Twain.\n\nM. Fourtou's friend read this note, and shuddered. Then he turned to me,\nand said, with a suggestion of severity in his tone:\n\n\"Have you considered, sir, what would be the inevitable result of such a\nmeeting as this?\"\n\n\"Well, for instance, what WOULD it be?\"\n\n\"Bloodshed!\"\n\n\"That's about the size of it,\" I said. \"Now, if it is a fair question,\nwhat was your side proposing to shed?\"\n\nI had him there. He saw he had made a blunder, so he hastened to explain\nit away. He said he had spoken jestingly. Then he added that he and his\nprincipal would enjoy axes, and indeed prefer them, but such weapons\nwere barred by the French code, and so I must change my proposal.\n\nI walked the floor, turning the thing over in my mind, and finally it\noccurred to me that Gatling-guns at fifteen paces would be a likely way\nto get a verdict on the field of honor. So I framed this idea into a\nproposition.\n\nBut it was not accepted. The code was in the way again. I proposed\nrifles; then double-barreled shotguns; then Colt's navy revolvers. These\nbeing all rejected, I reflected awhile, and sarcastically suggested\nbrickbats at three-quarters of a mile. I always hate to fool away a\nhumorous thing on a person who has no perception of humor; and it filled\nme with bitterness when this man went soberly away to submit the last\nproposition to his principal.\n\nHe came back presently and said his principal was charmed with the idea\nof brickbats at three-quarters of a mile, but must decline on account of\nthe danger to disinterested parties passing between them. Then I said:\n\n\"Well, I am at the end of my string, now. Perhaps YOU would be good\nenough to suggest a weapon? Perhaps you have even had one in your mind\nall the time?\"\n\nHis countenance brightened, and he said with alacrity:\n\n\"Oh, without doubt, monsieur!\"\n\n\nSo he fell to hunting in his pockets--pocket after pocket, and he had\nplenty of them--muttering all the while, \"Now, what could I have done\nwith them?\"\n\nAt last he was successful. He fished out of his vest pocket a couple\nof little things which I carried to the light and ascertained to be\npistols. They were single-barreled and silver-mounted, and very dainty\nand pretty. I was not able to speak for emotion. I silently hung one of\nthem on my watch-chain, and returned the other. My companion in crime\nnow unrolled a postage-stamp containing several cartridges, and gave me\none of them. I asked if he meant to signify by this that our men were\nto be allowed but one shot apiece. He replied that the French code\npermitted no more. I then begged him to go and suggest a distance, for\nmy mind was growing weak and confused under the strain which had been\nput upon it. He named sixty-five yards. I nearly lost my patience. I\nsaid:\n\n\"Sixty-five yards, with these instruments? Squirt-guns would be deadlier\nat fifty. Consider, my friend, you and I are banded together to destroy\nlife, not make it eternal.\"\n\nBut with all my persuasions, all my arguments, I was only able to\nget him to reduce the distance to thirty-five yards; and even this\nconcession he made with reluctance, and said with a sigh, \"I wash my\nhands of this slaughter; on your head be it.\"\n\nThere was nothing for me but to go home to my old lion-heart and tell my\nhumiliating story. When I entered, M. Gambetta was laying his last lock\nof hair upon the altar. He sprang toward me, exclaiming:\n\n\"You have made the fatal arrangements--I see it in your eye!\"\n\n\"I have.\"\n\nHis face paled a trifle, and he leaned upon the table for support. He\nbreathed thick and heavily for a moment or two, so tumultuous were his\nfeelings; then he hoarsely whispered:\n\n\"The weapon, the weapon! Quick! what is the weapon?\"\n\n\"This!\" and I displayed that silver-mounted thing. He cast but one\nglance at it, then swooned ponderously to the floor.\n\n\nWhen he came to, he said mournfully:\n\n\"The unnatural calm to which I have subjected myself has told upon my\nnerves. But away with weakness! I will confront my fate like a man and a\nFrenchman.\"\n\nHe rose to his feet, and assumed an attitude which for sublimity has\nnever been approached by man, and has seldom been surpassed by statues.\nThen he said, in his deep bass tones:\n\n\"Behold, I am calm, I am ready; reveal to me the distance.\"\n\n\"Thirty-five yards.\" ...\n\n\nI could not lift him up, of course; but I rolled him over, and poured\nwater down his back. He presently came to, and said:\n\n\"Thirty-five yards--without a rest? But why ask? Since murder was that\nman's intention, why should he palter with small details? But mark you\none thing: in my fall the world shall see how the chivalry of France\nmeets death.\"\n\nAfter a long silence he asked:\n\n\"Was nothing said about that man's family standing up with him, as\nan offset to my bulk? But no matter; I would not stoop to make such\na suggestion; if he is not noble enough to suggest it himself, he is\nwelcome to this advantage, which no honorable man would take.\"\n\nHe now sank into a sort of stupor of reflection, which lasted some\nminutes; after which he broke silence with:\n\n\"The hour--what is the hour fixed for the collision?\"\n\n\"Dawn, tomorrow.\"\n\nHe seemed greatly surprised, and immediately said:\n\n\"Insanity! I never heard of such a thing. Nobody is abroad at such an\nhour.\"\n\n\"That is the reason I named it. Do you mean to say you want an\naudience?\"\n\n\"It is no time to bandy words. I am astonished that M. Fourtou should\never have agreed to so strange an innovation. Go at once and require a\nlater hour.\"\n\nI ran downstairs, threw open the front door, and almost plunged into the\narms of M. Fourtou's second. He said:\n\n\"I have the honor to say that my principal strenuously objects to the\nhour chosen, and begs you will consent to change it to half past nine.\"\n\n\"Any courtesy, sir, which it is in our power to extend is at the service\nof your excellent principal. We agree to the proposed change of time.\"\n\n\"I beg you to accept the thanks of my client.\" Then he turned to a\nperson behind him, and said, \"You hear, M. Noir, the hour is altered to\nhalf past nine.\" Whereupon M. Noir bowed, expressed his thanks, and went\naway. My accomplice continued:\n\n\"If agreeable to you, your chief surgeons and ours shall proceed to the\nfield in the same carriage as is customary.\"\n\n\"It is entirely agreeable to me, and I am obliged to you for mentioning\nthe surgeons, for I am afraid I should not have thought of them. How\nmany shall I want? I supposed two or three will be enough?\"\n\n\"Two is the customary number for each party. I refer to 'chief'\nsurgeons; but considering the exalted positions occupied by our clients,\nit will be well and decorous that each of us appoint several consulting\nsurgeons, from among the highest in the profession. These will come in\ntheir own private carriages. Have you engaged a hearse?\"\n\n\n\"Bless my stupidity, I never thought of it! I will attend to it right\naway. I must seem very ignorant to you; but you must try to overlook\nthat, because I have never had any experience of such a swell duel as\nthis before. I have had a good deal to do with duels on the Pacific\ncoast, but I see now that they were crude affairs. A hearse--sho! we\nused to leave the elected lying around loose, and let anybody cord\nthem up and cart them off that wanted to. Have you anything further to\nsuggest?\"\n\n\"Nothing, except that the head undertakers shall ride together, as is\nusual. The subordinates and mutes will go on foot, as is also usual. I\nwill see you at eight o'clock in the morning, and we will then arrange\nthe order of the procession. I have the honor to bid you a good day.\"\n\nI returned to my client, who said, \"Very well; at what hour is the\nengagement to begin?\"\n\n\"Half past nine.\"\n\n\"Very good indeed. Have you sent the fact to the newspapers?\"\n\n\"SIR! If after our long and intimate friendship you can for a moment\ndeem me capable of so base a treachery--\"\n\n\"Tut, tut! What words are these, my dear friend? Have I wounded you? Ah,\nforgive me; I am overloading you with labor. Therefore go on with the\nother details, and drop this one from your list. The bloody-minded\nFourtou will be sure to attend to it. Or I myself--yes, to make certain,\nI will drop a note to my journalistic friend, M. Noir--\"\n\n\"Oh, come to think of it, you may save yourself the trouble; that other\nsecond has informed M. Noir.\"\n\n\"H'm! I might have known it. It is just like that Fourtou, who always\nwants to make a display.\"\n\n\nAt half past nine in the morning the procession approached the field of\nPlessis-Piquet in the following order: first came our carriage--nobody\nin it but M. Gambetta and myself; then a carriage containing M. Fourtou\nand his second; then a carriage containing two poet-orators who did not\nbelieve in God, and these had MS. funeral orations projecting from their\nbreast pockets; then a carriage containing the head surgeons and their\ncases of instruments; then eight private carriages containing consulting\nsurgeons; then a hack containing a coroner; then the two hearses; then a\ncarriage containing the head undertakers; then a train of assistants\nand mutes on foot; and after these came plodding through the fog a long\nprocession of camp followers, police, and citizens generally. It was a\nnoble turnout, and would have made a fine display if we had had thinner\nweather.\n\nThere was no conversation. I spoke several times to my principal, but\nI judge he was not aware of it, for he always referred to his note-book\nand muttered absently, \"I die that France might live.\"\n\nArrived on the field, my fellow-second and I paced off the thirty-five\nyards, and then drew lots for choice of position. This latter was but\nan ornamental ceremony, for all the choices were alike in such weather.\nThese preliminaries being ended, I went to my principal and asked him\nif he was ready. He spread himself out to his full width, and said in a\nstern voice, \"Ready! Let the batteries be charged.\"\n\nThe loading process was done in the presence of duly constituted\nwitnesses. We considered it best to perform this delicate service with\nthe assistance of a lantern, on account of the state of the weather. We\nnow placed our men.\n\nAt this point the police noticed that the public had massed themselves\ntogether on the right and left of the field; they therefore begged a\ndelay, while they should put these poor people in a place of safety.\n\nThe request was granted.\n\nThe police having ordered the two multitudes to take positions behind\nthe duelists, we were once more ready. The weather growing still more\nopaque, it was agreed between myself and the other second that before\ngiving the fatal signal we should each deliver a loud whoop to enable\nthe combatants to ascertain each other's whereabouts.\n\nI now returned to my principal, and was distressed to observe that he\nhad lost a good deal of his spirit. I tried my best to hearten him. I\nsaid, \"Indeed, sir, things are not as bad as they seem. Considering\nthe character of the weapons, the limited number of shots allowed, the\ngenerous distance, the impenetrable solidity of the fog, and the added\nfact that one of the combatants is one-eyed and the other cross-eyed and\nnear-sighted, it seems to me that this conflict need not necessarily be\nfatal. There are chances that both of you may survive. Therefore, cheer\nup; do not be downhearted.\"\n\nThis speech had so good an effect that my principal immediately\nstretched forth his hand and said, \"I am myself again; give me the\nweapon.\"\n\nI laid it, all lonely and forlorn, in the center of the vast solitude\nof his palm. He gazed at it and shuddered. And still mournfully\ncontemplating it, he murmured in a broken voice:\n\n\"Alas, it is not death I dread, but mutilation.\"\n\nI heartened him once more, and with such success that he presently\nsaid, \"Let the tragedy begin. Stand at my back; do not desert me in this\nsolemn hour, my friend.\"\n\nI gave him my promise. I now assisted him to point his pistol toward the\nspot where I judged his adversary to be standing, and cautioned him to\nlisten well and further guide himself by my fellow-second's whoop.\nThen I propped myself against M. Gambetta's back, and raised a rousing\n\"Whoop-ee!\" This was answered from out the far distances of the fog, and\nI immediately shouted:\n\n\"One--two--three--FIRE!\"\n\nTwo little sounds like SPIT! SPIT! broke upon my ear, and in the same\ninstant I was crushed to the earth under a mountain of flesh. Bruised\nas I was, I was still able to catch a faint accent from above, to this\neffect:\n\n\n\"I die for... for ... perdition take it, what IS it I die for? ... oh,\nyes--FRANCE! I die that France may live!\"\n\nThe surgeons swarmed around with their probes in their hands, and\napplied their microscopes to the whole area of M. Gambetta's person,\nwith the happy result of finding nothing in the nature of a wound. Then\na scene ensued which was in every way gratifying and inspiriting.\n\nThe two gladiators fell upon each other's neck, with floods of proud and\nhappy tears; that other second embraced me; the surgeons, the\norators, the undertakers, the police, everybody embraced, everybody\ncongratulated, everybody cried, and the whole atmosphere was filled with\npraise and with joy unspeakable.\n\nIt seems to me then that I would rather be a hero of a French duel than\na crowned and sceptered monarch.\n\n\nWhen the commotion had somewhat subsided, the body of surgeons held a\nconsultation, and after a good deal of debate decided that with proper\ncare and nursing there was reason to believe that I would survive my\ninjuries. My internal hurts were deemed the most serious, since it was\napparent that a broken rib had penetrated my left lung, and that many of\nmy organs had been pressed out so far to one side or the other of where\nthey belonged, that it was doubtful if they would ever learn to perform\ntheir functions in such remote and unaccustomed localities. They then\nset my left arm in two places, pulled my right hip into its socket\nagain, and re-elevated my nose. I was an object of great interest,\nand even admiration; and many sincere and warm-hearted persons had\nthemselves introduced to me, and said they were proud to know the only\nman who had been hurt in a French duel in forty years.\n\nI was placed in an ambulance at the very head of the procession;\nand thus with gratifying 'ECLAT I was marched into Paris, the most\nconspicuous figure in that great spectacle, and deposited at the\nhospital.\n\n\nThe cross of the Legion of Honor has been conferred upon me. However,\nfew escape that distinction.\n\nSuch is the true version of the most memorable private conflict of the\nage.\n\nI have no complaints to make against any one. I acted for myself, and I\ncan stand the consequences.\n\nWithout boasting, I think I may say I am not afraid to stand before a\nmodern French duelist, but as long as I keep in my right mind I will\nnever consent to stand behind one again.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\n[What the Beautiful Maiden Said]\n\n\nOne day we took the train and went down to Mannheim to see \"King Lear\"\nplayed in German. It was a mistake. We sat in our seats three whole\nhours and never understood anything but the thunder and lightning; and\neven that was reversed to suit German ideas, for the thunder came first\nand the lightning followed after.\n\nThe behavior of the audience was perfect. There were no rustlings, or\nwhisperings, or other little disturbances; each act was listened to in\nsilence, and the applauding was done after the curtain was down. The\ndoors opened at half past four, the play began promptly at half past\nfive, and within two minutes afterward all who were coming were in their\nseats, and quiet reigned. A German gentleman in the train had said that\na Shakespearian play was an appreciated treat in Germany and that\nwe should find the house filled. It was true; all the six tiers were\nfilled, and remained so to the end--which suggested that it is not only\nbalcony people who like Shakespeare in Germany, but those of the pit and\ngallery, too.\n\nAnother time, we went to Mannheim and attended a shivaree--otherwise an\nopera--the one called \"Lohengrin.\" The banging and slamming and booming\nand crashing were something beyond belief. The racking and pitiless pain\nof it remains stored up in my memory alongside the memory of the time\nthat I had my teeth fixed.\n\n\nThere were circumstances which made it necessary for me to stay through\nthe four hours to the end, and I stayed; but the recollection of that\nlong, dragging, relentless season of suffering is indestructible. To\nhave to endure it in silence, and sitting still, made it all the harder.\nI was in a railed compartment with eight or ten strangers, of the two\nsexes, and this compelled repression; yet at times the pain was so\nexquisite that I could hardly keep the tears back.\n\n\nAt those times, as the howlings and wailings and shrieking of the\nsingers, and the ragings and roarings and explosions of the vast\norchestra rose higher and higher, and wilder and wilder, and fiercer and\nfiercer, I could have cried if I had been alone. Those strangers would\nnot have been surprised to see a man do such a thing who was being\ngradually skinned, but they would have marveled at it here, and made\nremarks about it no doubt, whereas there was nothing in the present case\nwhich was an advantage over being skinned.\n\n\nThere was a wait of half an hour at the end of the first act, and I\ncould have gone out and rested during that time, but I could not trust\nmyself to do it, for I felt that I should desert to stay out. There was\nanother wait of half an hour toward nine o'clock, but I had gone through\nso much by that time that I had no spirit left, and so had no desire but\nto be let alone.\n\n\nI do not wish to suggest that the rest of the people there were like\nme, for, indeed, they were not. Whether it was that they naturally\nliked that noise, or whether it was that they had learned to like it\nby getting used to it, I did not at the time know; but they did like\nit--this was plain enough. While it was going on they sat and looked as\nrapt and grateful as cats do when one strokes their backs; and whenever\nthe curtain fell they rose to their feet, in one solid mighty multitude,\nand the air was snowed thick with waving handkerchiefs, and hurricanes\nof applause swept the place. This was not comprehensible to me. Of\ncourse, there were many people there who were not under compulsion to\nstay; yet the tiers were as full at the close as they had been at the\nbeginning. This showed that the people liked it.\n\nIt was a curious sort of a play. In the manner of costumes and scenery\nit was fine and showy enough; but there was not much action. That is\nto say, there was not much really done, it was only talked about; and\nalways violently. It was what one might call a narrative play. Everybody\nhad a narrative and a grievance, and none were reasonable about it, but\nall in an offensive and ungovernable state. There was little of that\nsort of customary thing where the tenor and the soprano stand down by\nthe footlights, warbling, with blended voices, and keep holding out\ntheir arms toward each other and drawing them back and spreading both\nhands over first one breast and then the other with a shake and a\npressure--no, it was every rioter for himself and no blending. Each sang\nhis indictive narrative in turn, accompanied by the whole orchestra of\nsixty instruments, and when this had continued for some time, and one\nwas hoping they might come to an understanding and modify the noise, a\ngreat chorus composed entirely of maniacs would suddenly break forth,\nand then during two minutes, and sometimes three, I lived over again all\nthat I suffered the time the orphan asylum burned down.\n\n\nWe only had one brief little season of heaven and heaven's sweet ecstasy\nand peace during all this long and diligent and acrimonious reproduction\nof the other place. This was while a gorgeous procession of people\nmarched around and around, in the third act, and sang the Wedding\nChorus. To my untutored ear that was music--almost divine music. While\nmy seared soul was steeped in the healing balm of those gracious sounds,\nit seemed to me that I could almost resuffer the torments which had\ngone before, in order to be so healed again. There is where the deep\ningenuity of the operatic idea is betrayed. It deals so largely in pain\nthat its scattered delights are prodigiously augmented by the contrasts.\nA pretty air in an opera is prettier there than it could be anywhere\nelse, I suppose, just as an honest man in politics shines more than he\nwould elsewhere.\n\nI have since found out that there is nothing the Germans like so much as\nan opera. They like it, not in a mild and moderate way, but with their\nwhole hearts. This is a legitimate result of habit and education. Our\nnation will like the opera, too, by and by, no doubt. One in fifty of\nthose who attend our operas likes it already, perhaps, but I think a\ngood many of the other forty-nine go in order to learn to like it, and\nthe rest in order to be able to talk knowingly about it. The latter\nusually hum the airs while they are being sung, so that their neighbors\nmay perceive that they have been to operas before. The funerals of these\ndo not occur often enough.\n\n\nA gentle, old-maidish person and a sweet young girl of seventeen sat\nright in front of us that night at the Mannheim opera. These people\ntalked, between the acts, and I understood them, though I understood\nnothing that was uttered on the distant stage. At first they were\nguarded in their talk, but after they had heard my agent and me\nconversing in English they dropped their reserve and I picked up many\nof their little confidences; no, I mean many of HER little\nconfidences--meaning the elder party--for the young girl only listened,\nand gave assenting nods, but never said a word. How pretty she was,\nand how sweet she was! I wished she would speak. But evidently she was\nabsorbed in her own thoughts, her own young-girl dreams, and found a\ndearer pleasure in silence. But she was not dreaming sleepy dreams--no,\nshe was awake, alive, alert, she could not sit still a moment. She was\nan enchanting study. Her gown was of a soft white silky stuff that clung\nto her round young figure like a fish's skin, and it was rippled over\nwith the gracefulest little fringy films of lace; she had deep, tender\neyes, with long, curved lashes; and she had peachy cheeks, and a\ndimpled chin, and such a dear little rosebud of a mouth; and she was so\ndovelike, so pure, and so gracious, so sweet and so bewitching. For long\nhours I did mightily wish she would speak. And at last she did; the red\nlips parted, and out leaps her thought--and with such a guileless and\npretty enthusiasm, too: \"Auntie, I just KNOW I've got five hundred fleas\non me!\"\n\nThat was probably over the average. Yes, it must have been very much\nover the average. The average at that time in the Grand Duchy of Baden\nwas forty-five to a young person (when alone), according to the official\nestimate of the home secretary for that year; the average for older\npeople was shifty and indeterminable, for whenever a wholesome young\ngirl came into the presence of her elders she immediately lowered their\naverage and raised her own. She became a sort of contribution-box.\n\n\nThis dear young thing in the theater had been sitting there\nunconsciously taking up a collection. Many a skinny old being in our\nneighborhood was the happier and the restfuler for her coming.\n\nIn that large audience, that night, there were eight very conspicuous\npeople. These were ladies who had their hats or bonnets on. What a\nblessed thing it would be if a lady could make herself conspicuous in\nour theaters by wearing her hat.\n\n\nIt is not usual in Europe to allow ladies and gentlemen to take bonnets,\nhats, overcoats, canes, or umbrellas into the auditorium, but in\nMannheim this rule was not enforced because the audiences were largely\nmade up of people from a distance, and among these were always a few\ntimid ladies who were afraid that if they had to go into an anteroom to\nget their things when the play was over, they would miss their train.\nBut the great mass of those who came from a distance always ran the risk\nand took the chances, preferring the loss of a train to a breach of good\nmanners and the discomfort of being unpleasantly conspicuous during a\nstretch of three or four hours.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\n[How Wagner Operas Bang Along]\n\n\nThree or four hours. That is a long time to sit in one place, whether\none be conspicuous or not, yet some of Wagner's operas bang along for\nsix whole hours on a stretch! But the people sit there and enjoy it all,\nand wish it would last longer. A German lady in Munich told me that a\nperson could not like Wagner's music at first, but must go through the\ndeliberate process of learning to like it--then he would have his sure\nreward; for when he had learned to like it he would hunger for it and\nnever be able to get enough of it. She said that six hours of Wagner was\nby no means too much. She said that this composer had made a complete\nrevolution in music and was burying the old masters one by one. And\nshe said that Wagner's operas differed from all others in one notable\nrespect, and that was that they were not merely spotted with music here\nand there, but were ALL music, from the first strain to the last. This\nsurprised me. I said I had attended one of his insurrections, and found\nhardly ANY music in it except the Wedding Chorus. She said \"Lohengrin\"\nwas noisier than Wagner's other operas, but that if I would keep on\ngoing to see it I would find by and by that it was all music, and\ntherefore would then enjoy it. I COULD have said, \"But would you advise\na person to deliberately practice having a toothache in the pit of his\nstomach for a couple of years in order that he might then come to enjoy\nit?\" But I reserved that remark.\n\nThis lady was full of the praises of the head-tenor who had performed in\na Wagner opera the night before, and went on to enlarge upon his old and\nprodigious fame, and how many honors had been lavished upon him by the\nprincely houses of Germany. Here was another surprise. I had attended\nthat very opera, in the person of my agent, and had made close and\naccurate observations. So I said:\n\n\"Why, madam, MY experience warrants me in stating that that tenor's\nvoice is not a voice at all, but only a shriek--the shriek of a hyena.\"\n\n\n\"That is very true,\" she said; \"he cannot sing now; it is already many\nyears that he has lost his voice, but in other times he sang, yes,\ndivinely! So whenever he comes now, you shall see, yes, that the theater\nwill not hold the people. JAWOHL BEI GOTT! his voice is WUNDERSCHOEN in\nthat past time.\"\n\nI said she was discovering to me a kindly trait in the Germans which\nwas worth emulating. I said that over the water we were not quite so\ngenerous; that with us, when a singer had lost his voice and a jumper\nhad lost his legs, these parties ceased to draw. I said I had been to\nthe opera in Hanover, once, and in Mannheim once, and in Munich\n(through my authorized agent) once, and this large experience had nearly\npersuaded me that the Germans PREFERRED singers who couldn't sing. This\nwas not such a very extravagant speech, either, for that burly Mannheim\ntenor's praises had been the talk of all Heidelberg for a week before\nhis performance took place--yet his voice was like the distressing noise\nwhich a nail makes when you screech it across a window-pane. I said so\nto Heidelberg friends the next day, and they said, in the calmest and\nsimplest way, that that was very true, but that in earlier times his\nvoice HAD been wonderfully fine. And the tenor in Hanover was just\nanother example of this sort. The English-speaking German gentleman who\nwent with me to the opera there was brimming with enthusiasm over that\ntenor. He said:\n\n\"ACH GOTT! a great man! You shall see him. He is so celebrate in all\nGermany--and he has a pension, yes, from the government. He not obliged\nto sing now, only twice every year; but if he not sing twice each year\nthey take him his pension away.\"\n\nVery well, we went. When the renowned old tenor appeared, I got a nudge\nand an excited whisper:\n\n\"Now you see him!\"\n\nBut the \"celebrate\" was an astonishing disappointment to me. If he\nhad been behind a screen I should have supposed they were performing a\nsurgical operation on him. I looked at my friend--to my great surprise\nhe seemed intoxicated with pleasure, his eyes were dancing with eager\ndelight. When the curtain at last fell, he burst into the stormiest\napplause, and kept it up--as did the whole house--until the afflictive\ntenor had come three times before the curtain to make his bow. While the\nglowing enthusiast was swabbing the perspiration from his face, I said:\n\n\"I don't mean the least harm, but really, now, do you think he can\nsing?\"\n\n\"Him? NO! GOTT IM HIMMEL, ABER, how he has been able to sing twenty-five\nyears ago?\" [Then pensively.] \"ACH, no, NOW he not sing any more, he\nonly cry. When he think he sing, now, he not sing at all, no, he only\nmake like a cat which is unwell.\"\n\n\nWhere and how did we get the idea that the Germans are a stolid,\nphlegmatic race? In truth, they are widely removed from that. They are\nwarm-hearted, emotional, impulsive, enthusiastic, their tears come at\nthe mildest touch, and it is not hard to move them to laughter. They are\nthe very children of impulse. We are cold and self-contained, compared\nto the Germans. They hug and kiss and cry and shout and dance and sing;\nand where we use one loving, petting expression, they pour out a score.\nTheir language is full of endearing diminutives; nothing that they love\nescapes the application of a petting diminutive--neither the house, nor\nthe dog, nor the horse, nor the grandmother, nor any other creature,\nanimate or inanimate.\n\nIn the theaters at Hanover, Hamburg, and Mannheim, they had a wise\ncustom. The moment the curtain went up, the light in the body of the\nhouse went down. The audience sat in the cool gloom of a deep twilight,\nwhich greatly enhanced the glowing splendors of the stage. It saved gas,\ntoo, and people were not sweated to death.\n\nWhen I saw \"King Lear\" played, nobody was allowed to see a scene\nshifted; if there was nothing to be done but slide a forest out of the\nway and expose a temple beyond, one did not see that forest split itself\nin the middle and go shrieking away, with the accompanying disenchanting\nspectacle of the hands and heels of the impelling impulse--no, the\ncurtain was always dropped for an instant--one heard not the least\nmovement behind it--but when it went up, the next instant, the forest\nwas gone. Even when the stage was being entirely reset, one heard no\nnoise. During the whole time that \"King Lear\" was playing the curtain\nwas never down two minutes at any one time. The orchestra played until\nthe curtain was ready to go up for the first time, then they departed\nfor the evening. Where the stage waits never reach two minutes there is\nno occasion for music. I had never seen this two-minute business between\nacts but once before, and that was when the \"Shaughraun\" was played at\nWallack's.\n\nI was at a concert in Munich one night, the people were streaming in,\nthe clock-hand pointed to seven, the music struck up, and instantly\nall movement in the body of the house ceased--nobody was standing, or\nwalking up the aisles, or fumbling with a seat, the stream of incomers\nhad suddenly dried up at its source. I listened undisturbed to a piece\nof music that was fifteen minutes long--always expecting some tardy\nticket-holders to come crowding past my knees, and being continuously\nand pleasantly disappointed--but when the last note was struck, here\ncame the stream again. You see, they had made those late comers wait in\nthe comfortable waiting-parlor from the time the music had begun until\nit was ended.\n\n\nIt was the first time I had ever seen this sort of criminals denied the\nprivilege of destroying the comfort of a house full of their betters.\nSome of these were pretty fine birds, but no matter, they had to tarry\noutside in the long parlor under the inspection of a double rank of\nliveried footmen and waiting-maids who supported the two walls with\ntheir backs and held the wraps and traps of their masters and mistresses\non their arms.\n\nWe had no footmen to hold our things, and it was not permissible to take\nthem into the concert-room; but there were some men and women to take\ncharge of them for us. They gave us checks for them and charged a fixed\nprice, payable in advance--five cents.\n\nIn Germany they always hear one thing at an opera which has never yet\nbeen heard in America, perhaps--I mean the closing strain of a fine solo\nor duet. We always smash into it with an earthquake of applause. The\nresult is that we rob ourselves of the sweetest part of the treat; we\nget the whiskey, but we don't get the sugar in the bottom of the glass.\n\nOur way of scattering applause along through an act seems to me to be\nbetter than the Mannheim way of saving it all up till the act is ended.\nI do not see how an actor can forget himself and portray hot passion\nbefore a cold still audience. I should think he would feel foolish. It\nis a pain to me to this day, to remember how that old German Lear raged\nand wept and howled around the stage, with never a response from that\nhushed house, never a single outburst till the act was ended. To\nme there was something unspeakably uncomfortable in the solemn dead\nsilences that always followed this old person's tremendous outpourings\nof his feelings. I could not help putting myself in his place--I thought\nI knew how sick and flat he felt during those silences, because I\nremembered a case which came under my observation once, and which--but I\nwill tell the incident:\n\nOne evening on board a Mississippi steamboat, a boy of ten years lay\nasleep in a berth--a long, slim-legged boy, he was, encased in quite\na short shirt; it was the first time he had ever made a trip on a\nsteamboat, and so he was troubled, and scared, and had gone to bed\nwith his head filled with impending snaggings, and explosions, and\nconflagrations, and sudden death. About ten o'clock some twenty ladies\nwere sitting around about the ladies' saloon, quietly reading, sewing,\nembroidering, and so on, and among them sat a sweet, benignant old dame\nwith round spectacles on her nose and her busy knitting-needles in her\nhands. Now all of a sudden, into the midst of this peaceful scene burst\nthat slim-shanked boy in the brief shirt, wild-eyed, erect-haired, and\nshouting, \"Fire, fire! JUMP AND RUN, THE BOAT'S AFIRE AND THERE AIN'T A\nMINUTE TO LOSE!\" All those ladies looked sweetly up and smiled, nobody\nstirred, the old lady pulled her spectacles down, looked over them, and\nsaid, gently:\n\n\"But you mustn't catch cold, child. Run and put on your breastpin, and\nthen come and tell us all about it.\"\n\nIt was a cruel chill to give to a poor little devil's gushing vehemence.\nHe was expecting to be a sort of hero--the creator of a wild panic--and\nhere everybody sat and smiled a mocking smile, and an old woman made fun\nof his bugbear. I turned and crept away--for I was that boy--and never\neven cared to discover whether I had dreamed the fire or actually seen\nit.\n\n\nI am told that in a German concert or opera, they hardly ever encore\na song; that though they may be dying to hear it again, their good\nbreeding usually preserves them against requiring the repetition.\n\nKings may encore; that is quite another matter; it delights everybody to\nsee that the King is pleased; and as to the actor encored, his pride and\ngratification are simply boundless. Still, there are circumstances in\nwhich even a royal encore--\n\nBut it is better to illustrate. The King of Bavaria is a poet, and has a\npoet's eccentricities--with the advantage over all other poets of being\nable to gratify them, no matter what form they may take. He is fond\nof opera, but not fond of sitting in the presence of an audience;\ntherefore, it has sometimes occurred, in Munich, that when an opera has\nbeen concluded and the players were getting off their paint and finery,\na command has come to them to get their paint and finery on again.\nPresently the King would arrive, solitary and alone, and the players\nwould begin at the beginning and do the entire opera over again with\nonly that one individual in the vast solemn theater for audience. Once\nhe took an odd freak into his head. High up and out of sight, over\nthe prodigious stage of the court theater is a maze of interlacing\nwater-pipes, so pierced that in case of fire, innumerable little\nthread-like streams of water can be caused to descend; and in case\nof need, this discharge can be augmented to a pouring flood. American\nmanagers might want to make a note of that. The King was sole audience.\nThe opera proceeded, it was a piece with a storm in it; the mimic\nthunder began to mutter, the mimic wind began to wail and sough, and\nthe mimic rain to patter. The King's interest rose higher and higher; it\ndeveloped into enthusiasm. He cried out:\n\n\"It is very, very good, indeed! But I will have real rain! Turn on the\nwater!\"\n\nThe manager pleaded for a reversal of the command; said it would ruin\nthe costly scenery and the splendid costumes, but the King cried:\n\n\"No matter, no matter, I will have real rain! Turn on the water!\"\n\nSo the real rain was turned on and began to descend in gossamer lances\nto the mimic flower-beds and gravel walks of the stage. The richly\ndressed actresses and actors tripped about singing bravely and\npretending not to mind it. The King was delighted--his enthusiasm grew\nhigher. He cried out:\n\n\"Bravo, bravo! More thunder! more lightning! turn on more rain!\"\n\n\nThe thunder boomed, the lightning glared, the storm-winds raged, the\ndeluge poured down. The mimic royalty on the stage, with their soaked\nsatins clinging to their bodies, slopped about ankle-deep in water,\nwarbling their sweetest and best, the fiddlers under the eaves of the\nstage sawed away for dear life, with the cold overflow spouting down the\nbacks of their necks, and the dry and happy King sat in his lofty box\nand wore his gloves to ribbons applauding.\n\n\"More yet!\" cried the King; \"more yet--let loose all the thunder, turn\non all the water! I will hang the man that raises an umbrella!\"\n\nWhen this most tremendous and effective storm that had ever been\nproduced in any theater was at last over, the King's approbation was\nmeasureless. He cried:\n\n\"Magnificent, magnificent! ENCORE! Do it again!\"\n\nBut the manager succeeded in persuading him to recall the encore, and\nsaid the company would feel sufficiently rewarded and complimented\nin the mere fact that the encore was desired by his Majesty, without\nfatiguing him with a repetition to gratify their own vanity.\n\nDuring the remainder of the act the lucky performers were those whose\nparts required changes of dress; the others were a soaked, bedraggled,\nand uncomfortable lot, but in the last degree picturesque. The stage\nscenery was ruined, trap-doors were so swollen that they wouldn't work\nfor a week afterward, the fine costumes were spoiled, and no end of\nminor damages were done by that remarkable storm.\n\nIt was a royal idea--that storm--and royally carried out. But observe\nthe moderation of the King; he did not insist upon his encore. If he had\nbeen a gladsome, unreflecting American opera-audience, he probably would\nhave had his storm repeated and repeated until he drowned all those\npeople.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\n[I Paint a \"Turner\"]\n\n\nThe summer days passed pleasantly in Heidelberg. We had a skilled\ntrainer, and under his instructions we were getting our legs in the\nright condition for the contemplated pedestrian tours; we were well\nsatisfied with the progress which we had made in the German language,\n[1. See Appendix D for information concerning this fearful tongue.] and\nmore than satisfied with what we had accomplished in art. We had had the\nbest instructors in drawing and painting in Germany--Haemmerling, Vogel,\nMueller, Dietz, and Schumann. Haemmerling taught us landscape-painting.\nVogel taught us figure-drawing, Mueller taught us to do still-life,\nand Dietz and Schumann gave us a finishing course in two\nspecialties--battle-pieces and shipwrecks. Whatever I am in Art I owe to\nthese men. I have something of the manner of each and all of them;\nbut they all said that I had also a manner of my own, and that it\nwas conspicuous. They said there was a marked individuality about my\nstyle--insomuch that if I ever painted the commonest type of a dog, I\nshould be sure to throw a something into the aspect of that dog which\nwould keep him from being mistaken for the creation of any other artist.\nSecretly I wanted to believe all these kind sayings, but I could not; I\nwas afraid that my masters' partiality for me, and pride in me, biased\ntheir judgment. So I resolved to make a test. Privately, and unknown to\nany one, I painted my great picture, \"Heidelberg Castle Illuminated\"--my\nfirst really important work in oils--and had it hung up in the midst\nof a wilderness of oil-pictures in the Art Exhibition, with no name\nattached to it. To my great gratification it was instantly recognized\nas mine. All the town flocked to see it, and people even came from\nneighboring localities to visit it. It made more stir than any other\nwork in the Exhibition. But the most gratifying thing of all was, that\nchance strangers, passing through, who had not heard of my picture, were\nnot only drawn to it, as by a lodestone, the moment they entered the\ngallery, but always took it for a \"Turner.\"\n\n\nApparently nobody had ever done that. There were ruined castles on the\noverhanging cliffs and crags all the way; these were said to have their\nlegends, like those on the Rhine, and what was better still, they had\nnever been in print. There was nothing in the books about that lovely\nregion; it had been neglected by the tourist, it was virgin soil for the\nliterary pioneer.\n\nMeantime the knapsacks, the rough walking-suits and the stout\nwalking-shoes which we had ordered, were finished and brought to us.\nA Mr. X and a young Mr. Z had agreed to go with us. We went around one\nevening and bade good-by to our friends, and afterward had a little\nfarewell banquet at the hotel. We got to bed early, for we wanted to\nmake an early start, so as to take advantage of the cool of the morning.\n\nWe were out of bed at break of day, feeling fresh and vigorous, and took\na hearty breakfast, then plunged down through the leafy arcades of the\nCastle grounds, toward the town. What a glorious summer morning it was,\nand how the flowers did pour out their fragrance, and how the birds did\nsing! It was just the time for a tramp through the woods and mountains.\n\n\nWe were all dressed alike: broad slouch hats, to keep the sun off; gray\nknapsacks; blue army shirts; blue overalls; leathern gaiters buttoned\ntight from knee down to ankle; high-quarter coarse shoes snugly laced.\nEach man had an opera-glass, a canteen, and a guide-book case slung over\nhis shoulder, and carried an alpenstock in one hand and a sun-umbrella\nin the other. Around our hats were wound many folds of soft white\nmuslin, with the ends hanging and flapping down our backs--an idea\nbrought from the Orient and used by tourists all over Europe. Harris\ncarried the little watch-like machine called a \"pedometer,\" whose\noffice is to keep count of a man's steps and tell how far he has walked.\nEverybody stopped to admire our costumes and give us a hearty \"Pleasant\nmarch to you!\"\n\n\nWhen we got downtown I found that we could go by rail to within five\nmiles of Heilbronn. The train was just starting, so we jumped aboard and\nwent tearing away in splendid spirits. It was agreed all around that we\nhad done wisely, because it would be just as enjoyable to walk DOWN the\nNeckar as up it, and it could not be needful to walk both ways. There\nwere some nice German people in our compartment. I got to talking some\npretty private matters presently, and Harris became nervous; so he\nnudged me and said:\n\n\"Speak in German--these Germans may understand English.\"\n\nI did so, it was well I did; for it turned out that there was not a\nGerman in that party who did not understand English perfectly. It is\ncurious how widespread our language is in Germany. After a while some of\nthose folks got out and a German gentleman and his two young daughters\ngot in. I spoke in German of one of the latter several times, but\nwithout result. Finally she said:\n\n\"ICH VERSTEHE NUR DEUTCH UND ENGLISHE,\"--or words to that effect. That\nis, \"I don't understand any language but German and English.\"\n\nAnd sure enough, not only she but her father and sister spoke English.\nSo after that we had all the talk we wanted; and we wanted a good deal,\nfor they were agreeable people. They were greatly interested in our\ncustoms; especially the alpenstocks, for they had not seen any before.\nThey said that the Neckar road was perfectly level, so we must be going\nto Switzerland or some other rugged country; and asked us if we did not\nfind the walking pretty fatiguing in such warm weather. But we said no.\n\nWe reached Wimpfen--I think it was Wimpfen--in about three hours, and\ngot out, not the least tired; found a good hotel and ordered beer and\ndinner--then took a stroll through the venerable old village. It was\nvery picturesque and tumble-down, and dirty and interesting. It had\nqueer houses five hundred years old in it, and a military tower 115 feet\nhigh, which had stood there more than ten centuries. I made a little\nsketch of it. I kept a copy, but gave the original to the Burgomaster.\n\n\nI think the original was better than the copy, because it had more\nwindows in it and the grass stood up better and had a brisker look.\nThere was none around the tower, though; I composed the grass myself,\nfrom studies I made in a field by Heidelberg in Haemmerling's time. The\nman on top, looking at the view, is apparently too large, but I found\nhe could not be made smaller, conveniently. I wanted him there, and I\nwanted him visible, so I thought out a way to manage it; I composed the\npicture from two points of view; the spectator is to observe the man\nfrom bout where that flag is, and he must observe the tower itself from\nthe ground. This harmonizes the seeming discrepancy. [Figure 2]\n\nNear an old cathedral, under a shed, were three crosses of stone--moldy\nand damaged things, bearing life-size stone figures. The two thieves\nwere dressed in the fanciful court costumes of the middle of the\nsixteenth century, while the Saviour was nude, with the exception of a\ncloth around the loins.\n\nWe had dinner under the green trees in a garden belonging to the hotel\nand overlooking the Neckar; then, after a smoke, we went to bed. We had\na refreshing nap, then got up about three in the afternoon and put\non our panoply. As we tramped gaily out at the gate of the town, we\novertook a peasant's cart, partly laden with odds and ends of cabbages\nand similar vegetable rubbish, and drawn by a small cow and a smaller\ndonkey yoked together. It was a pretty slow concern, but it got us into\nHeilbronn before dark--five miles, or possibly it was seven.\n\n\nWe stopped at the very same inn which the famous old robber-knight\nand rough fighter Goetz von Berlichingen, abode in after he got out of\ncaptivity in the Square Tower of Heilbronn between three hundred and\nfifty and four hundred years ago. Harris and I occupied the same room\nwhich he had occupied and the same paper had not quite peeled off the\nwalls yet. The furniture was quaint old carved stuff, full four hundred\nyears old, and some of the smells were over a thousand. There was a hook\nin the wall, which the landlord said the terrific old Goetz used to hang\nhis iron hand on when he took it off to go to bed. This room was very\nlarge--it might be called immense--and it was on the first floor; which\nmeans it was in the second story, for in Europe the houses are so\nhigh that they do not count the first story, else they would get tired\nclimbing before they got to the top. The wallpaper was a fiery red, with\nhuge gold figures in it, well smirched by time, and it covered all the\ndoors. These doors fitted so snugly and continued the figures of the\npaper so unbrokenly, that when they were closed one had to go feeling\nand searching along the wall to find them. There was a stove in the\ncorner--one of those tall, square, stately white porcelain things that\nlooks like a monument and keeps you thinking of death when you ought to\nbe enjoying your travels. The windows looked out on a little alley, and\nover that into a stable and some poultry and pig yards in the rear of\nsome tenement-houses. There were the customary two beds in the room,\none in one end, the other in the other, about an old-fashioned\nbrass-mounted, single-barreled pistol-shot apart. They were fully\nas narrow as the usual German bed, too, and had the German bed's\nineradicable habit of spilling the blankets on the floor every time you\nforgot yourself and went to sleep.\n\nA round table as large as King Arthur's stood in the center of the room;\nwhile the waiters were getting ready to serve our dinner on it we\nall went out to see the renowned clock on the front of the municipal\nbuildings.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\n[What the Wives Saved]\n\n\nThe RATHHAUS, or municipal building, is of the quaintest and most\npicturesque Middle-Age architecture. It has a massive portico and steps,\nbefore it, heavily balustraded, and adorned with life-sized rusty iron\nknights in complete armor. The clock-face on the front of the building\nis very large and of curious pattern. Ordinarily, a gilded angel\nstrikes the hour on a big bell with a hammer; as the striking ceases, a\nlife-sized figure of Time raises its hour-glass and turns it; two golden\nrams advance and butt each other; a gilded cock lifts its wings; but the\nmain features are two great angels, who stand on each side of the dial\nwith long horns at their lips; it was said that they blew melodious\nblasts on these horns every hour--but they did not do it for us. We were\ntold, later, that they blew only at night, when the town was still.\n\nWithin the RATHHAUS were a number of huge wild boars' heads, preserved,\nand mounted on brackets along the wall; they bore inscriptions telling\nwho killed them and how many hundred years ago it was done. One room in\nthe building was devoted to the preservation of ancient archives. There\nthey showed us no end of aged documents; some were signed by Popes,\nsome by Tilly and other great generals, and one was a letter written and\nsubscribed by Goetz von Berlichingen in Heilbronn in 1519 just after his\nrelease from the Square Tower.\n\n\nThis fine old robber-knight was a devoutly and sincerely religious\nman, hospitable, charitable to the poor, fearless in fight, active,\nenterprising, and possessed of a large and generous nature. He had in\nhim a quality of being able to overlook moderate injuries, and being\nable to forgive and forget mortal ones as soon as he had soundly\ntrounced the authors of them. He was prompt to take up any poor devil's\nquarrel and risk his neck to right him. The common folk held him dear,\nand his memory is still green in ballad and tradition. He used to go on\nthe highway and rob rich wayfarers; and other times he would swoop down\nfrom his high castle on the hills of the Neckar and capture passing\ncargoes of merchandise. In his memoirs he piously thanks the Giver of\nall Good for remembering him in his needs and delivering sundry such\ncargoes into his hands at times when only special providences could have\nrelieved him. He was a doughty warrior and found a deep joy in battle.\nIn an assault upon a stronghold in Bavaria when he was only twenty-three\nyears old, his right hand was shot away, but he was so interested in the\nfight that he did not observe it for a while. He said that the iron hand\nwhich was made for him afterward, and which he wore for more than half a\ncentury, was nearly as clever a member as the fleshy one had been. I was\nglad to get a facsimile of the letter written by this fine old German\nRobin Hood, though I was not able to read it. He was a better artist\nwith his sword than with his pen.\n\nWe went down by the river and saw the Square Tower. It was a very\nvenerable structure, very strong, and very ornamental. There was no\nopening near the ground. They had to use a ladder to get into it, no\ndoubt.\n\nWe visited the principal church, also--a curious old structure, with a\ntowerlike spire adorned with all sorts of grotesque images. The inner\nwalls of the church were placarded with large mural tablets of copper,\nbearing engraved inscriptions celebrating the merits of old Heilbronn\nworthies of two or three centuries ago, and also bearing rudely painted\neffigies of themselves and their families tricked out in the queer\ncostumes of those days. The head of the family sat in the foreground,\nand beyond him extended a sharply receding and diminishing row of\nsons; facing him sat his wife, and beyond her extended a low row of\ndiminishing daughters. The family was usually large, but the perspective\nbad.\n\nThen we hired the hack and the horse which Goetz von Berlichingen used\nto use, and drove several miles into the country to visit the place\ncalled WEIBERTREU--Wife's Fidelity I suppose it means. It was a feudal\ncastle of the Middle Ages. When we reached its neighborhood we found\nit was beautifully situated, but on top of a mound, or hill, round and\ntolerably steep, and about two hundred feet high. Therefore, as the sun\nwas blazing hot, we did not climb up there, but took the place on trust,\nand observed it from a distance while the horse leaned up against a\nfence and rested. The place has no interest except that which is lent it\nby its legend, which is a very pretty one--to this effect:\n\nTHE LEGEND\n\nIn the Middle Ages, a couple of young dukes, brothers, took opposite\nsides in one of the wars, the one fighting for the Emperor, the other\nagainst him. One of them owned the castle and village on top of the\nmound which I have been speaking of, and in his absence his brother\ncame with his knights and soldiers and began a siege. It was a long and\ntedious business, for the people made a stubborn and faithful defense.\nBut at last their supplies ran out and starvation began its work;\nmore fell by hunger than by the missiles of the enemy. They by and\nby surrendered, and begged for charitable terms. But the beleaguering\nprince was so incensed against them for their long resistance that he\nsaid he would spare none but the women and children--all men should be\nput to the sword without exception, and all their goods destroyed. Then\nthe women came and fell on their knees and begged for the lives of their\nhusbands.\n\n\"No,\" said the prince, \"not a man of them shall escape alive; you\nyourselves shall go with your children into houseless and friendless\nbanishment; but that you may not starve I grant you this one grace,\nthat each woman may bear with her from this place as much of her most\nvaluable property as she is able to carry.\"\n\nVery well, presently the gates swung open and out filed those women\ncarrying their HUSBANDS on their shoulders. The besiegers, furious at\nthe trick, rushed forward to slaughter the men, but the Duke stepped\nbetween and said:\n\n\"No, put up your swords--a prince's word is inviolable.\"\n\nWhen we got back to the hotel, King Arthur's Round Table was ready for\nus in its white drapery, and the head waiter and his first assistant, in\nswallow-tails and white cravats, brought in the soup and the hot plates\nat once.\n\nMr. X had ordered the dinner, and when the wine came on, he picked up\na bottle, glanced at the label, and then turned to the grave, the\nmelancholy, the sepulchral head waiter and said it was not the sort of\nwine he had asked for. The head waiter picked up the bottle, cast his\nundertaker-eye on it and said:\n\n\"It is true; I beg pardon.\" Then he turned on his subordinate and calmly\nsaid, \"Bring another label.\"\n\n\nAt the same time he slid the present label off with his hand and laid it\naside; it had been newly put on, its paste was still wet. When the new\nlabel came, he put it on; our French wine being now turned into German\nwine, according to desire, the head waiter went blandly about his other\nduties, as if the working of this sort of miracle was a common and easy\nthing to him.\n\nMr. X said he had not known, before, that there were people honest\nenough to do this miracle in public, but he was aware that thousands\nupon thousands of labels were imported into America from Europe every\nyear, to enable dealers to furnish to their customers in a quiet and\ninexpensive way all the different kinds of foreign wines they might\nrequire.\n\nWe took a turn around the town, after dinner, and found it fully as\ninteresting in the moonlight as it had been in the daytime. The streets\nwere narrow and roughly paved, and there was not a sidewalk or a\nstreet-lamp anywhere. The dwellings were centuries old, and vast enough\nfor hotels. They widened all the way up; the stories projected further\nand further forward and aside as they ascended, and the long rows\nof lighted windows, filled with little bits of panes, curtained with\nfigured white muslin and adorned outside with boxes of flowers, made a\npretty effect.\n\n\nThe moon was bright, and the light and shadow very strong; and nothing\ncould be more picturesque than those curving streets, with their rows\nof huge high gables leaning far over toward each other in a friendly\ngossiping way, and the crowds below drifting through the alternating\nblots of gloom and mellow bars of moonlight. Nearly everybody was\nabroad, chatting, singing, romping, or massed in lazy comfortable\nattitudes in the doorways.\n\nIn one place there was a public building which was fenced about with a\nthick, rusty chain, which sagged from post to post in a succession of\nlow swings. The pavement, here, was made of heavy blocks of stone. In\nthe glare of the moon a party of barefooted children were swinging on\nthose chains and having a noisy good time. They were not the first ones\nwho have done that; even their great-great-grandfathers had not been the\nfirst to do it when they were children. The strokes of the bare feet\nhad worn grooves inches deep in the stone flags; it had taken many\ngenerations of swinging children to accomplish that.\n\n\nEverywhere in the town were the mold and decay that go with antiquity,\nand evidence of it; but I do not know that anything else gave us so\nvivid a sense of the old age of Heilbronn as those footworn grooves in\nthe paving-stones.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\n[My Long Crawl in the Dark]\n\n\nWhen we got back to the hotel I wound and set the pedometer and put\nit in my pocket, for I was to carry it next day and keep record of the\nmiles we made. The work which we had given the instrument to do during\nthe day which had just closed had not fatigued it perceptibly.\n\nWe were in bed by ten, for we wanted to be up and away on our tramp\nhomeward with the dawn. I hung fire, but Harris went to sleep at once.\nI hate a man who goes to sleep at once; there is a sort of indefinable\nsomething about it which is not exactly an insult, and yet is an\ninsolence; and one which is hard to bear, too. I lay there fretting\nover this injury, and trying to go to sleep; but the harder I tried, the\nwider awake I grew. I got to feeling very lonely in the dark, with no\ncompany but an undigested dinner. My mind got a start by and by, and\nbegan to consider the beginning of every subject which has ever been\nthought of; but it never went further than the beginning; it was touch\nand go; it fled from topic to topic with a frantic speed. At the end of\nan hour my head was in a perfect whirl and I was dead tired, fagged out.\n\nThe fatigue was so great that it presently began to make some head\nagainst the nervous excitement; while imagining myself wide awake, I\nwould really doze into momentary unconsciousness, and come suddenly out\nof it with a physical jerk which nearly wrenched my joints apart--the\ndelusion of the instant being that I was tumbling backward over a\nprecipice. After I had fallen over eight or nine precipices and thus\nfound out that one half of my brain had been asleep eight or nine times\nwithout the wide-awake, hard-working other half suspecting it, the\nperiodical unconsciousnesses began to extend their spell gradually over\nmore of my brain-territory, and at last I sank into a drowse which grew\ndeeper and deeper and was doubtless just on the very point of being a\nsolid, blessed dreamless stupor, when--what was that?\n\nMy dulled faculties dragged themselves partly back to life and took a\nreceptive attitude. Now out of an immense, a limitless distance, came\na something which grew and grew, and approached, and presently was\nrecognizable as a sound--it had rather seemed to be a feeling, before.\nThis sound was a mile away, now--perhaps it was the murmur of a storm;\nand now it was nearer--not a quarter of a mile away; was it the muffled\nrasping and grinding of distant machinery? No, it came still nearer; was\nit the measured tramp of a marching troop? But it came nearer still,\nand still nearer--and at last it was right in the room: it was merely\na mouse gnawing the woodwork. So I had held my breath all that time for\nsuch a trifle.\n\n\nWell, what was done could not be helped; I would go to sleep at once and\nmake up the lost time. That was a thoughtless thought. Without intending\nit--hardly knowing it--I fell to listening intently to that sound, and\neven unconsciously counting the strokes of the mouse's nutmeg-grater.\nPresently I was deriving exquisite suffering from this employment, yet\nmaybe I could have endured it if the mouse had attended steadily to\nhis work; but he did not do that; he stopped every now and then, and I\nsuffered more while waiting and listening for him to begin again than\nI did while he was gnawing. Along at first I was mentally offering a\nreward of five--six--seven--ten--dollars for that mouse; but toward\nthe last I was offering rewards which were entirely beyond my means. I\nclose-reefed my ears--that is to say, I bent the flaps of them down\nand furled them into five or six folds, and pressed them against the\nhearing-orifice--but it did no good: the faculty was so sharpened\nby nervous excitement that it was become a microphone and could hear\nthrough the overlays without trouble.\n\nMy anger grew to a frenzy. I finally did what all persons before me have\ndone, clear back to Adam,--resolved to throw something. I reached down\nand got my walking-shoes, then sat up in bed and listened, in order to\nexactly locate the noise. But I couldn't do it; it was as unlocatable as\na cricket's noise; and where one thinks that that is, is always the very\nplace where it isn't. So I presently hurled a shoe at random, and with\na vicious vigor. It struck the wall over Harris's head and fell down on\nhim; I had not imagined I could throw so far. It woke Harris, and I was\nglad of it until I found he was not angry; then I was sorry. He soon\nwent to sleep again, which pleased me; but straightway the mouse began\nagain, which roused my temper once more. I did not want to wake Harris\na second time, but the gnawing continued until I was compelled to throw\nthe other shoe.\n\n\nThis time I broke a mirror--there were two in the room--I got the\nlargest one, of course. Harris woke again, but did not complain, and\nI was sorrier than ever. I resolved that I would suffer all possible\ntorture before I would disturb him a third time.\n\nThe mouse eventually retired, and by and by I was sinking to sleep, when\na clock began to strike; I counted till it was done, and was about to\ndrowse again when another clock began; I counted; then the two great\nRATHHAUS clock angels began to send forth soft, rich, melodious blasts\nfrom their long trumpets. I had never heard anything that was so lovely,\nor weird, or mysterious--but when they got to blowing the quarter-hours,\nthey seemed to me to be overdoing the thing. Every time I dropped\noff for the moment, a new noise woke me. Each time I woke I missed my\ncoverlet, and had to reach down to the floor and get it again.\n\nAt last all sleepiness forsook me. I recognized the fact that I was\nhopelessly and permanently wide awake. Wide awake, and feverish and\nthirsty. When I had lain tossing there as long as I could endure it, it\noccurred to me that it would be a good idea to dress and go out in the\ngreat square and take a refreshing wash in the fountain, and smoke and\nreflect there until the remnant of the night was gone.\n\nI believed I could dress in the dark without waking Harris. I had\nbanished my shoes after the mouse, but my slippers would do for a summer\nnight. So I rose softly, and gradually got on everything--down to one\nsock. I couldn't seem to get on the track of that sock, any way I could\nfix it. But I had to have it; so I went down on my hands and knees, with\none slipper on and the other in my hand, and began to paw gently around\nand rake the floor, but with no success. I enlarged my circle, and went\non pawing and raking. With every pressure of my knee, how the floor\ncreaked! and every time I chanced to rake against any article, it seemed\nto give out thirty-five or thirty-six times more noise than it would\nhave done in the daytime. In those cases I always stopped and held\nmy breath till I was sure Harris had not awakened--then I crept along\nagain. I moved on and on, but I could not find the sock; I could not\nseem to find anything but furniture. I could not remember that there was\nmuch furniture in the room when I went to bed, but the place was alive\nwith it now --especially chairs--chairs everywhere--had a couple of\nfamilies moved in, in the mean time? And I never could seem to GLANCE on\none of those chairs, but always struck it full and square with my head.\nMy temper rose, by steady and sure degrees, and as I pawed on and on, I\nfell to making vicious comments under my breath.\n\n\nFinally, with a venomous access of irritation, I said I would leave\nwithout the sock; so I rose up and made straight for the door--as I\nsupposed--and suddenly confronted my dim spectral image in the unbroken\nmirror. It startled the breath out of me, for an instant; it also showed\nme that I was lost, and had no sort of idea where I was. When I realized\nthis, I was so angry that I had to sit down on the floor and take hold\nof something to keep from lifting the roof off with an explosion of\nopinion. If there had been only one mirror, it might possibly have\nhelped to locate me; but there were two, and two were as bad as a\nthousand; besides, these were on opposite sides of the room. I could see\nthe dim blur of the windows, but in my turned-around condition they were\nexactly where they ought not to be, and so they only confused me instead\nof helping me.\n\nI started to get up, and knocked down an umbrella; it made a noise\nlike a pistol-shot when it struck that hard, slick, carpetless floor;\nI grated my teeth and held my breath--Harris did not stir. I set the\numbrella slowly and carefully on end against the wall, but as soon as\nI took my hand away, its heel slipped from under it, and down it came\nagain with another bang. I shrunk together and listened a moment in\nsilent fury--no harm done, everything quiet. With the most painstaking\ncare and nicety, I stood the umbrella up once more, took my hand away,\nand down it came again.\n\nI have been strictly reared, but if it had not been so dark and solemn\nand awful there in that lonely, vast room, I do believe I should have\nsaid something then which could not be put into a Sunday-school book\nwithout injuring the sale of it. If my reasoning powers had not been\nalready sapped dry by my harassments, I would have known better than to\ntry to set an umbrella on end on one of those glassy German floors in\nthe dark; it can't be done in the daytime without four failures to one\nsuccess. I had one comfort, though--Harris was yet still and silent--he\nhad not stirred.\n\nThe umbrella could not locate me--there were four standing around the\nroom, and all alike. I thought I would feel along the wall and find the\ndoor in that way. I rose up and began this operation, but raked down\na picture. It was not a large one, but it made noise enough for a\npanorama. Harris gave out no sound, but I felt that if I experimented\nany further with the pictures I should be sure to wake him. Better give\nup trying to get out. Yes, I would find King Arthur's Round Table once\nmore--I had already found it several times--and use it for a base of\ndeparture on an exploring tour for my bed; if I could find my bed I\ncould then find my water pitcher; I would quench my raging thirst and\nturn in. So I started on my hands and knees, because I could go faster\nthat way, and with more confidence, too, and not knock down things. By\nand by I found the table--with my head--rubbed the bruise a little, then\nrose up and started, with hands abroad and fingers spread, to balance\nmyself. I found a chair; then a wall; then another chair; then a sofa;\nthen an alpenstock, then another sofa; this confounded me, for I had\nthought there was only one sofa. I hunted up the table again and took a\nfresh start; found some more chairs.\n\nIt occurred to me, now, as it ought to have done before, that as the\ntable was round, it was therefore of no value as a base to aim from; so\nI moved off once more, and at random among the wilderness of chairs and\nsofas--wandering off into unfamiliar regions, and presently knocked a\ncandlestick and knocked off a lamp, grabbed at the lamp and knocked\noff a water pitcher with a rattling crash, and thought to myself,\n\"I've found you at last--I judged I was close upon you.\" Harris shouted\n\"murder,\" and \"thieves,\" and finished with \"I'm absolutely drowned.\"\n\nThe crash had roused the house. Mr. X pranced in, in his long\nnight-garment, with a candle, young Z after him with another candle; a\nprocession swept in at another door, with candles and lanterns--landlord\nand two German guests in their nightgowns and a chambermaid in hers.\n\nI looked around; I was at Harris's bed, a Sabbath-day's journey from my\nown. There was only one sofa; it was against the wall; there was only\none chair where a body could get at it--I had been revolving around it\nlike a planet, and colliding with it like a comet half the night.\n\n\nI explained how I had been employing myself, and why. Then the\nlandlord's party left, and the rest of us set about our preparations for\nbreakfast, for the dawn was ready to break. I glanced furtively at my\npedometer, and found I had made 47 miles. But I did not care, for I had\ncome out for a pedestrian tour anyway.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\n[Rafting Down the Neckar]\n\n\nWhen the landlord learned that I and my agents were artists, our party\nrose perceptibly in his esteem; we rose still higher when he learned\nthat we were making a pedestrian tour of Europe.\n\nHe told us all about the Heidelberg road, and which were the best places\nto avoid and which the best ones to tarry at; he charged me less than\ncost for the things I broke in the night; he put up a fine luncheon\nfor us and added to it a quantity of great light-green plums, the\npleasantest fruit in Germany; he was so anxious to do us honor that he\nwould not allow us to walk out of Heilbronn, but called up Goetz von\nBerlichingen's horse and cab and made us ride.\n\nI made a sketch of the turnout. It is not a Work, it is only what\nartists call a \"study\"--a thing to make a finished picture from. This\nsketch has several blemishes in it; for instance, the wagon is not\ntraveling as fast as the horse is. This is wrong. Again, the person\ntrying to get out of the way is too small; he is out of perspective,\nas we say. The two upper lines are not the horse's back, they are the\nreigns; there seems to be a wheel missing--this would be corrected in a\nfinished Work, of course. This thing flying out behind is not a flag,\nit is a curtain. That other thing up there is the sun, but I didn't get\nenough distance on it. I do not remember, now, what that thing is that\nis in front of the man who is running, but I think it is a haystack or a\nwoman. This study was exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1879, but did not\ntake any medal; they do not give medals for studies.\n\n\nWe discharged the carriage at the bridge. The river was full of\nlogs--long, slender, barkless pine logs--and we leaned on the rails\nof the bridge, and watched the men put them together into rafts. These\nrafts were of a shape and construction to suit the crookedness and\nextreme narrowness of the Neckar. They were from fifty to one hundred\nyards long, and they gradually tapered from a nine-log breadth at their\nsterns, to a three-log breadth at their bow-ends. The main part of the\nsteering is done at the bow, with a pole; the three-log breadth there\nfurnishes room for only the steersman, for these little logs are not\nlarger around than an average young lady's waist. The connections of the\nseveral sections of the raft are slack and pliant, so that the raft\nmay be readily bent into any sort of curve required by the shape of the\nriver.\n\nThe Neckar is in many places so narrow that a person can throw a dog\nacross it, if he has one; when it is also sharply curved in such places,\nthe raftsman has to do some pretty nice snug piloting to make the turns.\nThe river is not always allowed to spread over its whole bed--which is\nas much as thirty, and sometimes forty yards wide--but is split into\nthree equal bodies of water, by stone dikes which throw the main\nvolume, depth, and current into the central one. In low water these neat\nnarrow-edged dikes project four or five inches above the surface, like\nthe comb of a submerged roof, but in high water they are overflowed. A\nhatful of rain makes high water in the Neckar, and a basketful produces\nan overflow.\n\nThere are dikes abreast the Schloss Hotel, and the current is violently\nswift at that point. I used to sit for hours in my glass cage, watching\nthe long, narrow rafts slip along through the central channel, grazing\nthe right-bank dike and aiming carefully for the middle arch of the\nstone bridge below; I watched them in this way, and lost all this time\nhoping to see one of them hit the bridge-pier and wreck itself sometime\nor other, but was always disappointed. One was smashed there one\nmorning, but I had just stepped into my room a moment to light a pipe,\nso I lost it.\n\nWhile I was looking down upon the rafts that morning in Heilbronn, the\ndaredevil spirit of adventure came suddenly upon me, and I said to my\ncomrades:\n\n\"I am going to Heidelberg on a raft. Will you venture with me?\"\n\nTheir faces paled a little, but they assented with as good a grace as\nthey could. Harris wanted to cable his mother--thought it his duty to\ndo that, as he was all she had in this world--so, while he attended to\nthis, I went down to the longest and finest raft and hailed the captain\nwith a hearty \"Ahoy, shipmate!\" which put us upon pleasant terms at\nonce, and we entered upon business. I said we were on a pedestrian tour\nto Heidelberg, and would like to take passage with him. I said this\npartly through young Z, who spoke German very well, and partly through\nMr. X, who spoke it peculiarly. I can UNDERSTAND German as well as the\nmaniac that invented it, but I TALK it best through an interpreter.\n\nThe captain hitched up his trousers, then shifted his quid thoughtfully.\nPresently he said just what I was expecting he would say--that he had no\nlicense to carry passengers, and therefore was afraid the law would be\nafter him in case the matter got noised about or any accident happened.\nSo I CHARTERED the raft and the crew and took all the responsibilities\non myself.\n\n\nWith a rattling song the starboard watch bent to their work and hove\nthe cable short, then got the anchor home, and our bark moved off with a\nstately stride, and soon was bowling along at about two knots an hour.\n\nOur party were grouped amidships. At first the talk was a little gloomy,\nand ran mainly upon the shortness of life, the uncertainty of it, the\nperils which beset it, and the need and wisdom of being always prepared\nfor the worst; this shaded off into low-voiced references to the dangers\nof the deep, and kindred matters; but as the gray east began to redden\nand the mysterious solemnity and silence of the dawn to give place\nto the joy-songs of the birds, the talk took a cheerier tone, and our\nspirits began to rise steadily.\n\nGermany, in the summer, is the perfection of the beautiful, but nobody\nhas understood, and realized, and enjoyed the utmost possibilities of\nthis soft and peaceful beauty unless he has voyaged down the Neckar on\na raft. The motion of a raft is the needful motion; it is gentle,\nand gliding, and smooth, and noiseless; it calms down all feverish\nactivities, it soothes to sleep all nervous hurry and impatience; under\nits restful influence all the troubles and vexations and sorrows that\nharass the mind vanish away, and existence becomes a dream, a charm,\na deep and tranquil ecstasy. How it contrasts with hot and perspiring\npedestrianism, and dusty and deafening railroad rush, and tedious\njolting behind tired horses over blinding white roads!\n\nWe went slipping silently along, between the green and fragrant banks,\nwith a sense of pleasure and contentment that grew, and grew, all the\ntime. Sometimes the banks were overhung with thick masses of willows\nthat wholly hid the ground behind; sometimes we had noble hills on one\nhand, clothed densely with foliage to their tops, and on the other hand\nopen levels blazing with poppies, or clothed in the rich blue of\nthe corn-flower; sometimes we drifted in the shadow of forests, and\nsometimes along the margin of long stretches of velvety grass, fresh and\ngreen and bright, a tireless charm to the eye. And the birds!--they were\neverywhere; they swept back and forth across the river constantly, and\ntheir jubilant music was never stilled.\n\nIt was a deep and satisfying pleasure to see the sun create the new\nmorning, and gradually, patiently, lovingly, clothe it on with splendor\nafter splendor, and glory after glory, till the miracle was complete.\nHow different is this marvel observed from a raft, from what it is when\none observes it through the dingy windows of a railway-station in some\nwretched village while he munches a petrified sandwich and waits for the\ntrain.\n\n\n\n\n\nA TRAMP ABROAD, Part 3.\n\nBy Mark Twain\n\n(Samuel L. Clemens)\n\nFirst published in 1880\n\nIllustrations taken from an 1880 First Edition\n\n * * * * * *\n\n\nILLUSTRATIONS:\n\n     1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR\n     2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0TITIAN'S MOSES\n     3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0THE AUTHOR'S MEMORIES\n     73.\u00a0\u00a0A DEEP AND TRANQUIL ECSTACY\n     74.\u00a0\u00a0\"WHICH ANSWERED JUST AS WELL\"\n     75.\u00a0\u00a0LIFE ON A RAFT\n     76.\u00a0\u00a0LADY GERTRUDE\n     77.\u00a0\u00a0MOUTH OF THE CAVERN\n     78.\u00a0\u00a0A FATAL MISTAKE\n     79.\u00a0\u00a0TAIL PIECE\n     80.\u00a0\u00a0RAFTING ON THE NECKAR\n     81.\u00a0\u00a0THE LORELEI\n     82.\u00a0\u00a0THE LOVER's FATE\n     84.\u00a0\u00a0THE UNKNOWN KNIGHT\n     85.\u00a0\u00a0THE EMBRACE\n     86.\u00a0\u00a0PERILOUS POSTTION\n     87.\u00a0\u00a0THE RAFT IN A STORM\n     88.\u00a0\u00a0ALL SAFE ON SHORE\n     89.\u00a0\u00a0\"IT WAS THE CAT\"\n     90.\u00a0\u00a0TAILPIECE\n     91.\u00a0\u00a0BREAKFAST IN THE GARDEN 162\n     92.\u00a0\u00a0EASILY UNDERSTOOD\n     93.\u00a0\u00a0EXPERIMENTING THROUGH HARRIS\n     94.\u00a0\u00a0AT THE BALL ROOM DOOR\n     95.\u00a0\u00a0THE TOWN OF DILSBERG\n     96.\u00a0\u00a0OUR ADVANCE ON DILSBERG\n     97.\u00a0\u00a0INSIDE THE TOWN\n     95.\u00a0\u00a0THE OLD WELL\n     99.\u00a0\u00a0SEND HITHER THE LORD ULRICH\n     100.\u00a0\u00a0LEAD ME TO HER GRAVE\n     102.\u00a0\u00a0AN EXCELLENT PILOT, ONCE\n     103.\u00a0\u00a0SCATTERATION\n     104.\u00a0\u00a0THE RIVER BATH\n     101.\u00a0\u00a0ETRUSCAN TEAR JUG\n     106.\u00a0\u00a0HENRI II. PLATE\n     l07.\u00a0\u00a0OLD BLUE CHINA\n     108.\u00a0\u00a0A REAL ANTIQUE\n     109.\u00a0\u00a0BRIC-A-BRAC SHOP\n     110.\u00a0\u00a0\"PUT IT THERE\"\n     111.\u00a0\u00a0THE PARSON CAPTURED\n     112.\u00a0\u00a0TAIL PIECE\n     113.\u00a0\u00a0A COMPREHENSIVE YAWN\n     114.\u00a0\u00a0TESTING THE COIN\n     115.\u00a0\u00a0BEAUTY AT THE BATH\n     116.\u00a0\u00a0IN THE BATH\n     117.\u00a0\u00a0JERSEY INDIANS\n     118.\u00a0\u00a0NOT PARTICULARLY SOCIABLE\n\n\nCONTENTS:\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV Down the River--German Women's Duties--Bathing as We Went--A\nHandsome Picture: Girls in the Willows--We Sight a Tug--Steamers on the\nNeckar--Dinner on Board--Legend \"Cave of the Spectre \"--Lady Gertrude\nthe Heiress--The Crusader--The Lady in the Cave--A Tragedy\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI An Ancient Legend of the Rhine--\"The Lorelei\"--Count\nHermann--Falling in Love--A Sight of the Enchantress--Sad Effect\non Count Hermann--An Evening visit--A Sad Mistake--Count Hermann\nDrowned--The Song and Music--Different Trans lations--Curiosities in\nTitles\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII Another Legend--The Unconquered Monster--The Unknown Knight\n--His Queer Shaped Knapsack--The Knight Pitied and Advised--He Attacks\nthe Monster--Victory for the Fire Extinguisher--The Knight rewarded--His\nStrange Request----Spectacles Made Popular--Danger to the Raft--Blasting\nRocks--An Inglorious Death in View--Escaped--A Storm Overtakes\nus--GreatDanger--Man Overboard--Breakers Ahead--Springing a Leak--Ashore\nSafe--A General Embracing--A Tramp in the Dark--The Naturalist Tavern--A\nNight's Troubles--\"It is the Cat\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII Breakfast in a Garden--The Old Raven--Castle of\nHirschhorn--Attempt to Hire a Boat--High Dutch--What You Can Find out\nby Enquiring--What I Found out about the Students--A good German\nCustom--Harris Practices It--AnEmbarrassing Position--A Nice Party--At a\nBall--Stopped at the Door--Assistance at Hand and Rendered--Worthy to be\nan Empress\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX Arrive at Neckarsteinach--Castle of Dilsberg--A Walled\nTown--On a Hill--Exclusiveness of the People--A Queer Old Place--An\nAncient Well--An Outlet Proved--Legend of Dilsberg Castle--The\nHaunted Chamber--The Betrothed's request--The Knight's Slumbers\nand Awakening--Horror of the Lover--The Wicked Jest--The Lover a\nManiac--Under the Linden--Turning Pilot--Accident to the Raft--Fearful\nDisaster\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX Good News--\"Slow Freight\"--Keramics--My Collection of Bric-a-\nbrac--My Tear Jug--Henri II. Plate--Specimen of Blue China--Indifference\nto the Laugh of the World--I Discover an Antique En-route to\nBaden--Baden--Meeting an Old Acquaintance--A young American--Embryo\nHorse Doctor--An American, Sure--A Minister Captured\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI Baden--Baden--Energetic Girls--A Comprehensive Yawn--A\nBeggar's Trick--Cool Impudence--The Bath Woman--Insolence of Shop\nKeepers--Taking a Bath--Early and Late Hours--Popular Belief Regarding\nIndians--An Old Cemetery--A Pious Hag--Curious Table Companions\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\n[Charming Waterside Pictures]\n\n\nMen and women and cattle were at work in the dewy fields by this time.\nThe people often stepped aboard the raft, as we glided along the grassy\nshores, and gossiped with us and with the crew for a hundred yards or\nso, then stepped ashore again, refreshed by the ride.\n\nOnly the men did this; the women were too busy. The women do all kinds\nof work on the continent. They dig, they hoe, they reap, they sow, they\nbear monstrous burdens on their backs, they shove similar ones long\ndistances on wheelbarrows, they drag the cart when there is no dog or\nlean cow to drag it--and when there is, they assist the dog or cow. Age\nis no matter--the older the woman the stronger she is, apparently.\nOn the farm a woman's duties are not defined--she does a little of\neverything; but in the towns it is different, there she only does\ncertain things, the men do the rest. For instance, a hotel chambermaid\nhas nothing to do but make beds and fires in fifty or sixty rooms, bring\ntowels and candles, and fetch several tons of water up several flights\nof stairs, a hundred pounds at a time, in prodigious metal pitchers. She\ndoes not have to work more than eighteen or twenty hours a day, and\nshe can always get down on her knees and scrub the floors of halls and\nclosets when she is tired and needs a rest.\n\nAs the morning advanced and the weather grew hot, we took off our\noutside clothing and sat in a row along the edge of the raft and enjoyed\nthe scenery, with our sun-umbrellas over our heads and our legs dangling\nin the water.\n\n\nEvery now and then we plunged in and had a swim. Every projecting grassy\ncape had its joyous group of naked children, the boys to themselves and\nthe girls to themselves, the latter usually in care of some motherly\ndame who sat in the shade of a tree with her knitting. The little boys\nswam out to us, sometimes, but the little maids stood knee-deep in the\nwater and stopped their splashing and frolicking to inspect the raft\nwith their innocent eyes as it drifted by. Once we turned a corner\nsuddenly and surprised a slender girl of twelve years or upward, just\nstepping into the water. She had not time to run, but she did what\nanswered just as well; she promptly drew a lithe young willow bough\nathwart her white body with one hand, and then contemplated us with a\nsimple and untroubled interest. Thus she stood while we glided by. She\nwas a pretty creature, and she and her willow bough made a very\npretty picture, and one which could not offend the modesty of the most\nfastidious spectator. Her white skin had a low bank of fresh green\nwillows for background and effective contrast--for she stood against\nthem--and above and out of them projected the eager faces and white\nshoulders of two smaller girls.\n\n\nToward noon we heard the inspiriting cry,--\n\n\"Sail ho!\"\n\n\"Where away?\" shouted the captain.\n\n\"Three points off the weather bow!\"\n\nWe ran forward to see the vessel. It proved to be a steamboat--for they\nhad begun to run a steamer up the Neckar, for the first time in May.\nShe was a tug, and one of a very peculiar build and aspect. I had often\nwatched her from the hotel, and wondered how she propelled herself, for\napparently she had no propeller or paddles. She came churning along,\nnow, making a deal of noise of one kind or another, and aggravating it\nevery now and then by blowing a hoarse whistle. She had nine keel-boats\nhitched on behind and following after her in a long, slender rank. We\nmet her in a narrow place, between dikes, and there was hardly room for\nus both in the cramped passage. As she went grinding and groaning by, we\nperceived the secret of her moving impulse. She did not drive herself up\nthe river with paddles or propeller, she pulled herself by hauling on\na great chain. This chain is laid in the bed of the river and is only\nfastened at the two ends. It is seventy miles long. It comes in over the\nboat's bow, passes around a drum, and is payed out astern. She pulls\non that chain, and so drags herself up the river or down it. She has\nneither bow or stern, strictly speaking, for she has a long-bladed\nrudder on each end and she never turns around. She uses both rudders\nall the time, and they are powerful enough to enable her to turn to\nthe right or the left and steer around curves, in spite of the strong\nresistance of the chain. I would not have believed that that impossible\nthing could be done; but I saw it done, and therefore I know that there\nis one impossible thing which CAN be done. What miracle will man attempt\nnext?\n\nWe met many big keel-boats on their way up, using sails, mule power, and\nprofanity--a tedious and laborious business. A wire rope led from the\nforetopmast to the file of mules on the tow-path a hundred yards ahead,\nand by dint of much banging and swearing and urging, the detachment of\ndrivers managed to get a speed of two or three miles an hour out of the\nmules against the stiff current. The Neckar has always been used as a\ncanal, and thus has given employment to a great many men and animals;\nbut now that this steamboat is able, with a small crew and a bushel or\nso of coal, to take nine keel-boats farther up the river in one hour\nthan thirty men and thirty mules can do it in two, it is believed\nthat the old-fashioned towing industry is on its death-bed. A second\nsteamboat began work in the Neckar three months after the first one was\nput in service. [Figure 4]\n\nAt noon we stepped ashore and bought some bottled beer and got some\nchickens cooked, while the raft waited; then we immediately put to sea\nagain, and had our dinner while the beer was cold and the chickens hot.\nThere is no pleasanter place for such a meal than a raft that is\ngliding down the winding Neckar past green meadows and wooded hills, and\nslumbering villages, and craggy heights graced with crumbling towers and\nbattlements.\n\n\nIn one place we saw a nicely dressed German gentleman without any\nspectacles. Before I could come to anchor he had got underway. It was a\ngreat pity. I so wanted to make a sketch of him. The captain comforted\nme for my loss, however, by saying that the man was without any doubt a\nfraud who had spectacles, but kept them in his pocket in order to make\nhimself conspicuous.\n\nBelow Hassmersheim we passed Hornberg, Goetz von Berlichingen's old\ncastle. It stands on a bold elevation two hundred feet above the surface\nof the river; it has high vine-clad walls enclosing trees, and a peaked\ntower about seventy-five feet high. The steep hillside, from the castle\nclear down to the water's edge, is terraced, and clothed thick with\ngrape vines. This is like farming a mansard roof. All the steeps along\nthat part of the river which furnish the proper exposure, are given\nup to the grape. That region is a great producer of Rhine wines. The\nGermans are exceedingly fond of Rhine wines; they are put up in tall,\nslender bottles, and are considered a pleasant beverage. One tells them\nfrom vinegar by the label.\n\nThe Hornberg hill is to be tunneled, and the new railway will pass under\nthe castle. THE CAVE OF THE SPECTER Two miles below Hornberg castle is\na cave in a low cliff, which the captain of the raft said had once been\noccupied by a beautiful heiress of Hornberg--the Lady Gertrude--in the\nold times. It was seven hundred years ago. She had a number of rich and\nnoble lovers and one poor and obscure one, Sir Wendel Lobenfeld. With\nthe native chuckleheadedness of the heroine of romance, she preferred\nthe poor and obscure lover.\n\n\nWith the native sound judgment of the father of a heroine of romance,\nthe von Berlichingen of that day shut his daughter up in his donjon\nkeep, or his oubliette, or his culverin, or some such place, and\nresolved that she should stay there until she selected a husband from\namong her rich and noble lovers. The latter visited her and persecuted\nher with their supplications, but without effect, for her heart was\ntrue to her poor despised Crusader, who was fighting in the Holy Land.\nFinally, she resolved that she would endure the attentions of the rich\nlovers no longer; so one stormy night she escaped and went down\nthe river and hid herself in the cave on the other side. Her father\nransacked the country for her, but found not a trace of her. As the\ndays went by, and still no tidings of her came, his conscience began to\ntorture him, and he caused proclamation to be made that if she were yet\nliving and would return, he would oppose her no longer, she might marry\nwhom she would. The months dragged on, all hope forsook the old man, he\nceased from his customary pursuits and pleasures, he devoted himself to\npious works, and longed for the deliverance of death.\n\nNow just at midnight, every night, the lost heiress stood in the mouth\nof her cave, arrayed in white robes, and sang a little love ballad which\nher Crusader had made for her. She judged that if he came home alive the\nsuperstitious peasants would tell him about the ghost that sang in the\ncave, and that as soon as they described the ballad he would know that\nnone but he and she knew that song, therefore he would suspect that she\nwas alive, and would come and find her. As time went on, the people of\nthe region became sorely distressed about the Specter of the Haunted\nCave. It was said that ill luck of one kind or another always overtook\nany one who had the misfortune to hear that song. Eventually, every\ncalamity that happened thereabouts was laid at the door of that music.\nConsequently, no boatmen would consent to pass the cave at night; the\npeasants shunned the place, even in the daytime.\n\n\nBut the faithful girl sang on, night after night, month after month, and\npatiently waited; her reward must come at last. Five years dragged by,\nand still, every night at midnight, the plaintive tones floated out over\nthe silent land, while the distant boatmen and peasants thrust their\nfingers into their ears and shuddered out a prayer.\n\nAnd now came the Crusader home, bronzed and battle-scarred, but bringing\na great and splendid fame to lay at the feet of his bride. The old lord\nof Hornberg received him as his son, and wanted him to stay by him\nand be the comfort and blessing of his age; but the tale of that young\ngirl's devotion to him and its pathetic consequences made a changed\nman of the knight. He could not enjoy his well-earned rest. He said his\nheart was broken, he would give the remnant of his life to high deeds in\nthe cause of humanity, and so find a worthy death and a blessed reunion\nwith the brave true heart whose love had more honored him than all his\nvictories in war.\n\nWhen the people heard this resolve of his, they came and told him there\nwas a pitiless dragon in human disguise in the Haunted Cave, a dread\ncreature which no knight had yet been bold enough to face, and begged\nhim to rid the land of its desolating presence. He said he would do it.\nThey told him about the song, and when he asked what song it was, they\nsaid the memory of it was gone, for nobody had been hardy enough to\nlisten to it for the past four years and more.\n\nToward midnight the Crusader came floating down the river in a boat,\nwith his trusty cross-bow in his hands. He drifted silently through the\ndim reflections of the crags and trees, with his intent eyes fixed upon\nthe low cliff which he was approaching. As he drew nearer, he discerned\nthe black mouth of the cave. Now--is that a white figure? Yes. The\nplaintive song begins to well forth and float away over meadow and\nriver--the cross-bow is slowly raised to position, a steady aim is\ntaken, the bolt flies straight to the mark--the figure sinks down, still\nsinging, the knight takes the wool out of his ears, and recognizes the\nold ballad--too late! Ah, if he had only not put the wool in his ears!\n\n\nThe Crusader went away to the wars again, and presently fell in battle,\nfighting for the Cross. Tradition says that during several centuries the\nspirit of the unfortunate girl sang nightly from the cave at midnight,\nbut the music carried no curse with it; and although many listened for\nthe mysterious sounds, few were favored, since only those could hear\nthem who had never failed in a trust. It is believed that the singing\nstill continues, but it is known that nobody has heard it during the\npresent century.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nAn Ancient Legend of the Rhine [The Lorelei]\n\n\nThe last legend reminds one of the \"Lorelei\"--a legend of the Rhine.\nThere is a song called \"The Lorelei.\"\n\nGermany is rich in folk-songs, and the words and airs of several of them\nare peculiarly beautiful--but \"The Lorelei\" is the people's favorite. I\ncould not endure it at first, but by and by it began to take hold of me,\nand now there is no tune which I like so well.\n\nIt is not possible that it is much known in America, else I should have\nheard it there. The fact that I never heard it there, is evidence that\nthere are others in my country who have fared likewise; therefore, for\nthe sake of these, I mean to print the words and music in this chapter.\nAnd I will refresh the reader's memory by printing the legend of the\nLorelei, too. I have it by me in the LEGENDS OF THE RHINE, done into\nEnglish by the wildly gifted Garnham, Bachelor of Arts. I print the\nlegend partly to refresh my own memory, too, for I have never read it\nbefore. THE LEGEND Lore (two syllables) was a water nymph who used to\nsit on a high rock called the Ley or Lei (pronounced like our word LIE)\nin the Rhine, and lure boatmen to destruction in a furious rapid\nwhich marred the channel at that spot. She so bewitched them with her\nplaintive songs and her wonderful beauty that they forgot everything\nelse to gaze up at her, and so they presently drifted among the broken\nreefs and were lost.\n\nIn those old, old times, the Count Bruno lived in a great castle near\nthere with his son, the Count Hermann, a youth of twenty. Hermann had\nheard a great deal about the beautiful Lore, and had finally fallen very\ndeeply in love with her without having seen her. So he used to wander to\nthe neighborhood of the Lei, evenings, with his Zither and \"Express his\nLonging in low Singing,\" as Garnham says. On one of these occasions,\n\"suddenly there hovered around the top of the rock a brightness of\nunequaled clearness and color, which, in increasingly smaller circles\nthickened, was the enchanting figure of the beautiful Lore.\n\n\n\"An unintentional cry of Joy escaped the Youth, he let his Zither fall,\nand with extended arms he called out the name of the enigmatical Being,\nwho seemed to stoop lovingly to him and beckon to him in a friendly\nmanner; indeed, if his ear did not deceive him, she called his name with\nunutterable sweet Whispers, proper to love. Beside himself with delight\nthe youth lost his Senses and sank senseless to the earth.\"\n\nAfter that he was a changed person. He went dreaming about, thinking\nonly of his fairy and caring for naught else in the world. \"The old\ncount saw with affliction this changement in his son,\" whose cause he\ncould not divine, and tried to divert his mind into cheerful channels,\nbut to no purpose. Then the old count used authority. He commanded the\nyouth to betake himself to the camp. Obedience was promised. Garnham\nsays:\n\n\"It was on the evening before his departure, as he wished still once to\nvisit the Lei and offer to the Nymph of the Rhine his Sighs, the\ntones of his Zither, and his Songs. He went, in his boat, this time\naccompanied by a faithful squire, down the stream. The moon shed her\nsilvery light over the whole country; the steep bank mountains appeared\nin the most fantastical shapes, and the high oaks on either side bowed\ntheir Branches on Hermann's passing. As soon as he approached the\nLei, and was aware of the surf-waves, his attendant was seized with an\ninexpressible Anxiety and he begged permission to land; but the Knight\nswept the strings of his Guitar and sang:\n\n     \"Once I saw thee in dark night,\n     In supernatural Beauty bright;\n     Of Light-rays, was the Figure wove,\n     To share its light, locked-hair strove.\n\n\n     \"Thy Garment color wave-dove\n     By thy hand the sign of love,\n     Thy eyes sweet enchantment,\n     Raying to me, oh! enchantment.\n\n\n     \"O, wert thou but my sweetheart,\n     How willingly thy love to part!\n     With delight I should be bound\n     To thy rocky house in deep ground.\"\n\nThat Hermann should have gone to that place at all, was not wise; that\nhe should have gone with such a song as that in his mouth was a most\nserious mistake. The Lorelei did not \"call his name in unutterable\nsweet Whispers\" this time. No, that song naturally worked an instant\nand thorough \"changement\" in her; and not only that, but it stirred the\nbowels of the whole afflicted region around about there--for--\n\n\"Scarcely had these tones sounded, everywhere there began tumult and\nsound, as if voices above and below the water. On the Lei rose flames,\nthe Fairy stood above, at that time, and beckoned with her right hand\nclearly and urgently to the infatuated Knight, while with a staff in\nher left hand she called the waves to her service. They began to mount\nheavenward; the boat was upset, mocking every exertion; the waves rose\nto the gunwale, and splitting on the hard stones, the Boat broke into\nPieces. The youth sank into the depths, but the squire was thrown on\nshore by a powerful wave.\"\n\n\nThe bitterest things have been said about the Lorelei during many\ncenturies, but surely her conduct upon this occasion entitles her to our\nrespect. One feels drawn tenderly toward her and is moved to forget her\nmany crimes and remember only the good deed that crowned and closed her\ncareer.\n\n\"The Fairy was never more seen; but her enchanting tones have often been\nheard. In the beautiful, refreshing, still nights of spring, when the\nmoon pours her silver light over the Country, the listening shipper\nhears from the rushing of the waves, the echoing Clang of a wonderfully\ncharming voice, which sings a song from the crystal castle, and with\nsorrow and fear he thinks on the young Count Hermann, seduced by the\nNymph.\"\n\nHere is the music, and the German words by Heinrich Heine. This song has\nbeen a favorite in Germany for forty years, and will remain a favorite\nalways, maybe. [Figure 5]\n\nI have a prejudice against people who print things in a foreign language\nand add no translation. When I am the reader, and the author considers\nme able to do the translating myself, he pays me quite a nice\ncompliment--but if he would do the translating for me I would try to get\nalong without the compliment.\n\nIf I were at home, no doubt I could get a translation of this poem, but\nI am abroad and can't; therefore I will make a translation myself. It\nmay not be a good one, for poetry is out of my line, but it will serve\nmy purpose--which is, to give the unGerman young girl a jingle of words\nto hang the tune on until she can get hold of a good version, made by\nsome one who is a poet and knows how to convey a poetical thought from\none language to another.\n\n     THE LORELEI\n\n\n     I cannot divine what it meaneth,\n     This haunting nameless pain:\n     A tale of the bygone ages\n     Keeps brooding through my brain:\n\n\n     The faint air cools in the glooming,\n     And peaceful flows the Rhine,\n     The thirsty summits are drinking\n     The sunset's flooding wine;\n\n\n     The loveliest maiden is sitting\n     High-throned in yon blue air,\n     Her golden jewels are shining,\n     She combs her golden hair;\n\n\n     She combs with a comb that is golden,\n     And sings a weird refrain\n     That steeps in a deadly enchantment\n     The list'ner's ravished brain:\n\n\n     The doomed in his drifting shallop,\n     Is tranced with the sad sweet tone,\n     He sees not the yawning breakers,\n     He sees but the maid alone:\n\n\n     The pitiless billows engulf him!--\n     So perish sailor and bark;\n     And this, with her baleful singing,\n     Is the Lorelei's gruesome work.\n\nI have a translation by Garnham, Bachelor of Arts, in the LEGENDS OF THE\nRHINE, but it would not answer the purpose I mentioned above, because\nthe measure is too nobly irregular; it don't fit the tune snugly enough;\nin places it hangs over at the ends too far, and in other places one\nruns out of words before he gets to the end of a bar. Still, Garnham's\ntranslation has high merits, and I am not dreaming of leaving it out of\nmy book. I believe this poet is wholly unknown in America and England; I\ntake peculiar pleasure in bringing him forward because I consider that I\ndiscovered him:\n\n     THE LORELEI\n\n     Translated by L. W. Garnham, B.A.\n\n     I do not know what it signifies.\n     That I am so sorrowful?\n     A fable of old Times so terrifies,\n     Leaves my heart so thoughtful.\n\n\n     The air is cool and it darkens,\n     And calmly flows the Rhine;\n     The summit of the mountain hearkens\n     In evening sunshine line.\n\n\n     The most beautiful Maiden entrances\n     Above wonderfully there,\n     Her beautiful golden attire glances,\n     She combs her golden hair.\n\n\n     With golden comb so lustrous,\n     And thereby a song sings,\n     It has a tone so wondrous,\n     That powerful melody rings.\n\n\n     The shipper in the little ship\n     It effects with woe sad might;\n     He does not see the rocky slip,\n     He only regards dreaded height.\n\n\n     I believe the turbulent waves\n     Swallow the last shipper and boat;\n     She with her singing craves\n     All to visit hermagic moat.\n\nNo translation could be closer. He has got in all the facts; and in\ntheir regular order, too. There is not a statistic wanting. It is as\nsuccinct as an invoice. That is what a translation ought to be; it\nshould exactly reflect the thought of the original. You can't SING\n\"Above wonderfully there,\" because it simply won't go to the tune,\nwithout damaging the singer; but it is a most clingingly exact\ntranslation of DORT OBEN WUNDERBAR--fits it like a blister. Mr.\nGarnham's reproduction has other merits--a hundred of them--but it is\nnot necessary to point them out. They will be detected.\n\nNo one with a specialty can hope to have a monopoly of it. Even Garnham\nhas a rival. Mr. X had a small pamphlet with him which he had bought\nwhile on a visit to Munich. It was entitled A CATALOGUE OF PICTURES IN\nTHE OLD PINACOTEK, and was written in a peculiar kind of English. Here\nare a few extracts:\n\n\"It is not permitted to make use of the work in question to a\npublication of the same contents as well as to the pirated edition of\nit.\"\n\n\"An evening landscape. In the foreground near a pond and a group of\nwhite beeches is leading a footpath animated by travelers.\"\n\n\"A learned man in a cynical and torn dress holding an open book in his\nhand.\"\n\n\"St. Bartholomew and the Executioner with the knife to fulfil the\nmartyr.\"\n\n\"Portrait of a young man. A long while this picture was thought to be\nBindi Altoviti's portrait; now somebody will again have it to be the\nself-portrait of Raphael.\"\n\n\"Susan bathing, surprised by the two old man. In the background the\nlapidation of the condemned.\"\n\n(\"Lapidation\" is good; it is much more elegant than \"stoning.\")\n\n\"St. Rochus sitting in a landscape with an angel who looks at his\nplague-sore, whilst the dog the bread in his mouth attents him.\"\n\n\"Spring. The Goddess Flora, sitting. Behind her a fertile valley\nperfused by a river.\"\n\n\"A beautiful bouquet animated by May-bugs, etc.\"\n\n\"A warrior in armor with a gypseous pipe in his hand leans against a\ntable and blows the smoke far away of himself.\"\n\n\"A Dutch landscape along a navigable river which perfuses it till to the\nbackground.\"\n\n\"Some peasants singing in a cottage. A woman lets drink a child out of a\ncup.\"\n\n\"St. John's head as a boy--painted in fresco on a brick.\" (Meaning a\ntile.)\n\n\"A young man of the Riccio family, his hair cut off right at the end,\ndressed in black with the same cap. Attributed to Raphael, but the\nsignation is false.\"\n\n\"The Virgin holding the Infant. It is very painted in the manner of\nSassoferrato.\"\n\n\"A Larder with greens and dead game animated by a cook-maid and two\nkitchen-boys.\"\n\nHowever, the English of this catalogue is at least as happy as that\nwhich distinguishes an inscription upon a certain picture in Rome--to\nwit:\n\n\"Revelations-View. St. John in Patterson's Island.\"\n\nBut meanwhile the raft is moving on.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\n[Why Germans Wear Spectacles]\n\n\nA mile or two above Eberbach we saw a peculiar ruin projecting above the\nfoliage which clothed the peak of a high and very steep hill. This ruin\nconsisted of merely a couple of crumbling masses of masonry which bore\na rude resemblance to human faces; they leaned forward and touched\nforeheads, and had the look of being absorbed in conversation. This\nruin had nothing very imposing or picturesque about it, and there was no\ngreat deal of it, yet it was called the \"Spectacular Ruin.\"\n\nLEGEND OF THE \"SPECTACULAR RUIN\" The captain of the raft, who was as\nfull of history as he could stick, said that in the Middle Ages a most\nprodigious fire-breathing dragon used to live in that region, and made\nmore trouble than a tax-collector. He was as long as a railway-train,\nand had the customary impenetrable green scales all over him. His breath\nbred pestilence and conflagration, and his appetite bred famine. He ate\nmen and cattle impartially, and was exceedingly unpopular. The German\nemperor of that day made the usual offer: he would grant to the\ndestroyer of the dragon, any one solitary thing he might ask for; for he\nhad a surplusage of daughters, and it was customary for dragon-killers\nto take a daughter for pay.\n\nSo the most renowned knights came from the four corners of the earth and\nretired down the dragon's throat one after the other. A panic arose and\nspread. Heroes grew cautious. The procession ceased. The dragon became\nmore destructive than ever. The people lost all hope of succor, and fled\nto the mountains for refuge.\n\nAt last Sir Wissenschaft, a poor and obscure knight, out of a far\ncountry, arrived to do battle with the monster. A pitiable object he\nwas, with his armor hanging in rags about him, and his strange-shaped\nknapsack strapped upon his back. Everybody turned up their noses at him,\nand some openly jeered him. But he was calm. He simply inquired if\nthe emperor's offer was still in force. The emperor said it was--but\ncharitably advised him to go and hunt hares and not endanger so precious\na life as his in an attempt which had brought death to so many of the\nworld's most illustrious heroes.\n\n\nBut this tramp only asked--\"Were any of these heroes men of science?\"\nThis raised a laugh, of course, for science was despised in those days.\nBut the tramp was not in the least ruffled. He said he might be a little\nin advance of his age, but no matter--science would come to be honored,\nsome time or other. He said he would march against the dragon in the\nmorning. Out of compassion, then, a decent spear was offered him, but\nhe declined, and said, \"spears were useless to men of science.\" They\nallowed him to sup in the servants' hall, and gave him a bed in the\nstables.\n\nWhen he started forth in the morning, thousands were gathered to see.\nThe emperor said:\n\n\"Do not be rash, take a spear, and leave off your knapsack.\"\n\nBut the tramp said:\n\n\"It is not a knapsack,\" and moved straight on.\n\nThe dragon was waiting and ready. He was breathing forth vast volumes\nof sulphurous smoke and lurid blasts of flame. The ragged knight\nstole warily to a good position, then he unslung his cylindrical\nknapsack--which was simply the common fire-extinguisher known to modern\ntimes--and the first chance he got he turned on his hose and shot the\ndragon square in the center of his cavernous mouth. Out went the fires\nin an instant, and the dragon curled up and died.\n\n\nThis man had brought brains to his aid. He had reared dragons from the\negg, in his laboratory, he had watched over them like a mother, and\npatiently studied them and experimented upon them while they grew. Thus\nhe had found out that fire was the life principle of a dragon; put out\nthe dragon's fires and it could make steam no longer, and must die.\nHe could not put out a fire with a spear, therefore he invented the\nextinguisher. The dragon being dead, the emperor fell on the hero's neck\nand said:\n\n\"Deliverer, name your request,\" at the same time beckoning out behind\nwith his heel for a detachment of his daughters to form and advance. But\nthe tramp gave them no observance. He simply said:\n\n\"My request is, that upon me be conferred the monopoly of the\nmanufacture and sale of spectacles in Germany.\"\n\nThe emperor sprang aside and exclaimed:\n\n\"This transcends all the impudence I ever heard! A modest demand, by my\nhalidome! Why didn't you ask for the imperial revenues at once, and be\ndone with it?\"\n\nBut the monarch had given his word, and he kept it. To everybody's\nsurprise, the unselfish monopolist immediately reduced the price of\nspectacles to such a degree that a great and crushing burden was removed\nfrom the nation. The emperor, to commemorate this generous act, and to\ntestify his appreciation of it, issued a decree commanding everybody to\nbuy this benefactor's spectacles and wear them, whether they needed them\nor not.\n\nSo originated the wide-spread custom of wearing spectacles in Germany;\nand as a custom once established in these old lands is imperishable,\nthis one remains universal in the empire to this day. Such is the legend\nof the monopolist's once stately and sumptuous castle, now called the\n\"Spectacular Ruin.\"\n\nOn the right bank, two or three miles below the Spectacular Ruin, we\npassed by a noble pile of castellated buildings overlooking the water\nfrom the crest of a lofty elevation. A stretch of two hundred yards of\nthe high front wall was heavily draped with ivy, and out of the mass\nof buildings within rose three picturesque old towers. The place was in\nfine order, and was inhabited by a family of princely rank. This castle\nhad its legend, too, but I should not feel justified in repeating it\nbecause I doubted the truth of some of its minor details.\n\nAlong in this region a multitude of Italian laborers were blasting away\nthe frontage of the hills to make room for the new railway. They were\nfifty or a hundred feet above the river. As we turned a sharp corner\nthey began to wave signals and shout warnings to us to look out for the\nexplosions. It was all very well to warn us, but what could WE do? You\ncan't back a raft upstream, you can't hurry it downstream, you can't\nscatter out to one side when you haven't any room to speak of, you won't\ntake to the perpendicular cliffs on the other shore when they appear to\nbe blasting there, too. Your resources are limited, you see. There is\nsimply nothing for it but to watch and pray.\n\nFor some hours we had been making three and a half or four miles an hour\nand we were still making that. We had been dancing right along until\nthose men began to shout; then for the next ten minutes it seemed to me\nthat I had never seen a raft go so slowly. When the first blast went\noff we raised our sun-umbrellas and waited for the result. No harm\ndone; none of the stones fell in the water. Another blast followed, and\nanother and another. Some of the rubbish fell in the water just astern\nof us.\n\n\nWe ran that whole battery of nine blasts in a row, and it was certainly\none of the most exciting and uncomfortable weeks I ever spent, either\naship or ashore. Of course we frequently manned the poles and shoved\nearnestly for a second or so, but every time one of those spurts of dust\nand debris shot aloft every man dropped his pole and looked up to get\nthe bearings of his share of it. It was very busy times along there for\na while. It appeared certain that we must perish, but even that was\nnot the bitterest thought; no, the abjectly unheroic nature of the\ndeath--that was the sting--that and the bizarre wording of the resulting\nobituary: \"SHOT WITH A ROCK, ON A RAFT.\" There would be no poetry\nwritten about it. None COULD be written about it. Example:\n\nNOT by war's shock, or war's shaft,--SHOT, with a rock, on a raft.\n\nNo poet who valued his reputation would touch such a theme as that. I\nshould be distinguished as the only \"distinguished dead\" who went down\nto the grave unsonneted, in 1878.\n\nBut we escaped, and I have never regretted it. The last blast was a\npeculiarly strong one, and after the small rubbish was done raining\naround us and we were just going to shake hands over our deliverance, a\nlater and larger stone came down amongst our little group of pedestrians\nand wrecked an umbrella. It did no other harm, but we took to the water\njust the same.\n\nIt seems that the heavy work in the quarries and the new railway\ngradings is done mainly by Italians. That was a revelation. We have\nthe notion in our country that Italians never do heavy work at all, but\nconfine themselves to the lighter arts, like organ-grinding, operatic\nsinging, and assassination. We have blundered, that is plain.\n\nAll along the river, near every village, we saw little station-houses\nfor the future railway. They were finished and waiting for the rails and\nbusiness. They were as trim and snug and pretty as they could be. They\nwere always of brick or stone; they were of graceful shape, they had\nvines and flowers about them already, and around them the grass was\nbright and green, and showed that it was carefully looked after. They\nwere a decoration to the beautiful landscape, not an offense. Wherever\none saw a pile of gravel or a pile of broken stone, it was always heaped\nas trimly and exactly as a new grave or a stack of cannon-balls; nothing\nabout those stations or along the railroad or the wagon-road was\nallowed to look shabby or be unornamental. The keeping a country in such\nbeautiful order as Germany exhibits, has a wise practical side to\nit, too, for it keeps thousands of people in work and bread who would\notherwise be idle and mischievous.\n\nAs the night shut down, the captain wanted to tie up, but I thought\nmaybe we might make Hirschhorn, so we went on. Presently the sky became\novercast, and the captain came aft looking uneasy. He cast his eye\naloft, then shook his head, and said it was coming on to blow. My party\nwanted to land at once--therefore I wanted to go on. The captain said we\nought to shorten sail anyway, out of common prudence. Consequently, the\nlarboard watch was ordered to lay in his pole. It grew quite dark, now,\nand the wind began to rise. It wailed through the swaying branches of\nthe trees, and swept our decks in fitful gusts. Things were taking on an\nugly look. The captain shouted to the steersman on the forward log:\n\n\"How's she landing?\"\n\nThe answer came faint and hoarse from far forward:\n\n\"Nor'-east-and-by-nor'--east-by-east, half-east, sir.\"\n\n\"Let her go off a point!\"\n\n\"Aye-aye, sir!\"\n\n\"What water have you got?\"\n\n\"Shoal, sir. Two foot large, on the stabboard, two and a half scant on\nthe labboard!\"\n\n\"Let her go off another point!\"\n\n\"Aye-aye, sir!\"\n\n\"Forward, men, all of you! Lively, now! Stand by to crowd her round the\nweather corner!\"\n\n\"Aye-aye, sir!\"\n\n\nThen followed a wild running and trampling and hoarse shouting, but the\nforms of the men were lost in the darkness and the sounds were distorted\nand confused by the roaring of the wind through the shingle-bundles. By\nthis time the sea was running inches high, and threatening every moment\nto engulf the frail bark. Now came the mate, hurrying aft, and said,\nclose to the captain's ear, in a low, agitated voice:\n\n\"Prepare for the worst, sir--we have sprung a leak!\"\n\n\"Heavens! where?\"\n\n\"Right aft the second row of logs.\"\n\n\"Nothing but a miracle can save us! Don't let the men know, or there\nwill be a panic and mutiny! Lay her in shore and stand by to jump with\nthe stern-line the moment she touches. Gentlemen, I must look to you to\nsecond my endeavors in this hour of peril. You have hats--go forward and\nbail for your lives!\"\n\nDown swept another mighty blast of wind, clothed in spray and thick\ndarkness. At such a moment as this, came from away forward that most\nappalling of all cries that are ever heard at sea:\n\n\"MAN OVERBOARD!\"\n\nThe captain shouted:\n\n\"Hard a-port! Never mind the man! Let him climb aboard or wade ashore!\"\n\nAnother cry came down the wind:\n\n\"Breakers ahead!\"\n\n\"Where away?\"\n\n\"Not a log's length off her port fore-foot!\"\n\nWe had groped our slippery way forward, and were now bailing with the\nfrenzy of despair, when we heard the mate's terrified cry, from far aft:\n\n\"Stop that dashed bailing, or we shall be aground!\"\n\nBut this was immediately followed by the glad shout:\n\n\"Land aboard the starboard transom!\"\n\n\"Saved!\" cried the captain. \"Jump ashore and take a turn around a tree\nand pass the bight aboard!\"\n\nThe next moment we were all on shore weeping and embracing for joy,\nwhile the rain poured down in torrents. The captain said he had been a\nmariner for forty years on the Neckar, and in that time had seen storms\nto make a man's cheek blanch and his pulses stop, but he had never,\nnever seen a storm that even approached this one. How familiar that\nsounded! For I have been at sea a good deal and have heard that remark\nfrom captains with a frequency accordingly.\n\n\nWe framed in our minds the usual resolution of thanks and admiration\nand gratitude, and took the first opportunity to vote it, and put it\nin writing and present it to the captain, with the customary speech. We\ntramped through the darkness and the drenching summer rain full three\nmiles, and reached \"The Naturalist Tavern\" in the village of Hirschhorn\njust an hour before midnight, almost exhausted from hardship, fatigue,\nand terror. I can never forget that night.\n\nThe landlord was rich, and therefore could afford to be crusty and\ndisobliging; he did not at all like being turned out of his warm bed to\nopen his house for us. But no matter, his household got up and cooked\na quick supper for us, and we brewed a hot punch for ourselves, to keep\noff consumption. After supper and punch we had an hour's soothing smoke\nwhile we fought the naval battle over again and voted the resolutions;\nthen we retired to exceedingly neat and pretty chambers upstairs that\nhad clean, comfortable beds in them with heirloom pillowcases most\nelaborately and tastefully embroidered by hand.\n\nSuch rooms and beds and embroidered linen are as frequent in German\nvillage inns as they are rare in ours. Our villages are superior\nto German villages in more merits, excellences, conveniences, and\nprivileges than I can enumerate, but the hotels do not belong in the\nlist.\n\n\"The Naturalist Tavern\" was not a meaningless name; for all the halls\nand all the rooms were lined with large glass cases which were filled\nwith all sorts of birds and animals, glass-eyed, ably stuffed, and set\nup in the most natural eloquent and dramatic attitudes. The moment we\nwere abed, the rain cleared away and the moon came out. I dozed off to\nsleep while contemplating a great white stuffed owl which was looking\nintently down on me from a high perch with the air of a person who\nthought he had met me before, but could not make out for certain.\n\n\nBut young Z did not get off so easily. He said that as he was sinking\ndeliciously to sleep, the moon lifted away the shadows and developed\na huge cat, on a bracket, dead and stuffed, but crouching, with every\nmuscle tense, for a spring, and with its glittering glass eyes aimed\nstraight at him. It made Z uncomfortable. He tried closing his own eyes,\nbut that did not answer, for a natural instinct kept making him open\nthem again to see if the cat was still getting ready to launch at\nhim--which she always was. He tried turning his back, but that was a\nfailure; he knew the sinister eyes were on him still. So at last he had\nto get up, after an hour or two of worry and experiment, and set the cat\nout in the hall. So he won, that time.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\n\n[The Kindly Courtesy of Germans]\n\n\nIn the morning we took breakfast in the garden, under the trees, in the\ndelightful German summer fashion. The air was filled with the fragrance\nof flowers and wild animals; the living portion of the menagerie of the\n\"Naturalist Tavern\" was all about us. There were great cages populous\nwith fluttering and chattering foreign birds, and other great cages and\ngreater wire pens, populous with quadrupeds, both native and foreign.\nThere were some free creatures, too, and quite sociable ones they were.\nWhite rabbits went loping about the place, and occasionally came and\nsniffed at our shoes and shins; a fawn, with a red ribbon on its neck,\nwalked up and examined us fearlessly; rare breeds of chickens and doves\nbegged for crumbs, and a poor old tailless raven hopped about with\na humble, shamefaced mein which said, \"Please do not notice my\nexposure--think how you would feel in my circumstances, and be\ncharitable.\" If he was observed too much, he would retire behind\nsomething and stay there until he judged the party's interest had found\nanother object. I never have seen another dumb creature that was\nso morbidly sensitive. Bayard Taylor, who could interpret the dim\nreasonings of animals, and understood their moral natures better than\nmost men, would have found some way to make this poor old chap forget\nhis troubles for a while, but we have not his kindly art, and so had to\nleave the raven to his griefs.\n\n\nAfter breakfast we climbed the hill and visited the ancient castle of\nHirschhorn, and the ruined church near it. There were some curious old\nbas-reliefs leaning against the inner walls of the church--sculptured\nlords of Hirschhorn in complete armor, and ladies of Hirschhorn in\nthe picturesque court costumes of the Middle Ages. These things are\nsuffering damage and passing to decay, for the last Hirschhorn has been\ndead two hundred years, and there is nobody now who cares to preserve\nthe family relics. In the chancel was a twisted stone column, and the\ncaptain told us a legend about it, of course, for in the matter of\nlegends he could not seem to restrain himself; but I do not repeat his\ntale because there was nothing plausible about it except that the Hero\nwrenched this column into its present screw-shape with his hands --just\none single wrench. All the rest of the legend was doubtful.\n\nBut Hirschhorn is best seen from a distance, down the river. Then\nthe clustered brown towers perched on the green hilltop, and the old\nbattlemented stone wall, stretching up and over the grassy ridge and\ndisappearing in the leafy sea beyond, make a picture whose grace and\nbeauty entirely satisfy the eye.\n\nWe descended from the church by steep stone stairways which curved this\nway and that down narrow alleys between the packed and dirty tenements\nof the village. It was a quarter well stocked with deformed, leering,\nunkempt and uncombed idiots, who held out hands or caps and begged\npiteously. The people of the quarter were not all idiots, of course, but\nall that begged seemed to be, and were said to be.\n\nI was thinking of going by skiff to the next town, Necharsteinach; so I\nran to the riverside in advance of the party and asked a man there if\nhe had a boat to hire. I suppose I must have spoken High German--Court\nGerman--I intended it for that, anyway--so he did not understand me. I\nturned and twisted my question around and about, trying to strike that\nman's average, but failed. He could not make out what I wanted. Now Mr.\nX arrived, faced this same man, looked him in the eye, and emptied this\nsentence on him, in the most glib and confident way: \"Can man boat get\nhere?\"\n\nThe mariner promptly understood and promptly answered. I can comprehend\nwhy he was able to understand that particular sentence, because by mere\naccident all the words in it except \"get\" have the same sound and the\nsame meaning in German that they have in English; but how he managed to\nunderstand Mr. X's next remark puzzled me. I will insert it, presently.\nX turned away a moment, and I asked the mariner if he could not find\na board, and so construct an additional seat. I spoke in the purest\nGerman, but I might as well have spoken in the purest Choctaw for all\nthe good it did. The man tried his best to understand me; he tried, and\nkept on trying, harder and harder, until I saw it was really of no use,\nand said:\n\n\"There, don't strain yourself--it is of no consequence.\"\n\nThen X turned to him and crisply said:\n\n\"MACHEN SIE a flat board.\"\n\nI wish my epitaph may tell the truth about me if the man did not answer\nup at once, and say he would go and borrow a board as soon as he had lit\nthe pipe which he was filling.\n\n\nWe changed our mind about taking a boat, so we did not have to go. I\nhave given Mr. X's two remarks just as he made them. Four of the five\nwords in the first one were English, and that they were also German was\nonly accidental, not intentional; three out of the five words in the\nsecond remark were English, and English only, and the two German ones\ndid not mean anything in particular, in such a connection.\n\nX always spoke English to Germans, but his plan was to turn the sentence\nwrong end first and upside down, according to German construction, and\nsprinkle in a German word without any essential meaning to it, here and\nthere, by way of flavor. Yet he always made himself understood. He could\nmake those dialect-speaking raftsmen understand him, sometimes, when\neven young Z had failed with them; and young Z was a pretty good German\nscholar. For one thing, X always spoke with such confidence--perhaps\nthat helped. And possibly the raftsmen's dialect was what is called\nPLATT-DEUTSCH, and so they found his English more familiar to their ears\nthan another man's German. Quite indifferent students of German can read\nFritz Reuter's charming platt-Deutch tales with some little facility\nbecause many of the words are English. I suppose this is the tongue\nwhich our Saxon ancestors carried to England with them. By and by I will\ninquire of some other philologist.\n\nHowever, in the mean time it had transpired that the men employed to\ncalk the raft had found that the leak was not a leak at all, but only\na crack between the logs--a crack that belonged there, and was not\ndangerous, but had been magnified into a leak by the disordered\nimagination of the mate. Therefore we went aboard again with a good\ndegree of confidence, and presently got to sea without accident. As we\nswam smoothly along between the enchanting shores, we fell to swapping\nnotes about manners and customs in Germany and elsewhere.\n\nAs I write, now, many months later, I perceive that each of us, by\nobserving and noting and inquiring, diligently and day by day, had\nmanaged to lay in a most varied and opulent stock of misinformation. But\nthis is not surprising; it is very difficult to get accurate details in\nany country. For example, I had the idea once, in Heidelberg, to find\nout all about those five student-corps. I started with the White Cap\ncorps. I began to inquire of this and that and the other citizen, and\nhere is what I found out:\n\n1. It is called the Prussian Corps, because none but Prussians are\nadmitted to it.\n\n2. It is called the Prussian Corps for no particular reason. It has\nsimply pleased each corps to name itself after some German state.\n\n3. It is not named the Prussian Corps at all, but only the White Cap\nCorps.\n\n4. Any student can belong to it who is a German by birth.\n\n5. Any student can belong to it who is European by birth.\n\n6. Any European-born student can belong to it, except he be a Frenchman.\n\n7. Any student can belong to it, no matter where he was born.\n\n8. No student can belong to it who is not of noble blood.\n\n9. No student can belong to it who cannot show three full generations of\nnoble descent.\n\n10. Nobility is not a necessary qualification.\n\n11. No moneyless student can belong to it.\n\n12. Money qualification is nonsense--such a thing has never been thought\nof.\n\nI got some of this information from students themselves--students who\ndid not belong to the corps.\n\nI finally went to headquarters--to the White Caps--where I would\nhave gone in the first place if I had been acquainted. But even at\nheadquarters I found difficulties; I perceived that there were things\nabout the White Cap Corps which one member knew and another one didn't.\nIt was natural; for very few members of any organization know ALL that\ncan be known about it. I doubt there is a man or a woman in Heidelberg\nwho would not answer promptly and confidently three out of every five\nquestions about the White Cap Corps which a stranger might ask; yet\nit is a very safe bet that two of the three answers would be incorrect\nevery time.\n\nThere is one German custom which is universal--the bowing courteously\nto strangers when sitting down at table or rising up from it. This\nbow startles a stranger out of his self-possession, the first time\nit occurs, and he is likely to fall over a chair or something, in his\nembarrassment, but it pleases him, nevertheless. One soon learns to\nexpect this bow and be on the lookout and ready to return it; but to\nlearn to lead off and make the initial bow one's self is a difficult\nmatter for a diffident man. One thinks, \"If I rise to go, and tender my\nbow, and these ladies and gentlemen take it into their heads to ignore\nthe custom of their nation, and not return it, how shall I feel, in case\nI survive to feel anything.\" Therefore he is afraid to venture. He sits\nout the dinner, and makes the strangers rise first and originate the\nbowing. A table d'h\u00f4te dinner is a tedious affair for a man who seldom\ntouches anything after the three first courses; therefore I used to do\nsome pretty dreary waiting because of my fears. It took me months to\nassure myself that those fears were groundless, but I did assure myself\nat last by experimenting diligently through my agent. I made Harris get\nup and bow and leave; invariably his bow was returned, then I got up and\nbowed myself and retired.\n\n\nThus my education proceeded easily and comfortably for me, but not for\nHarris. Three courses of a table d'h\u00f4te dinner were enough for me, but\nHarris preferred thirteen.\n\nEven after I had acquired full confidence, and no longer needed the\nagent's help, I sometimes encountered difficulties. Once at Baden-Baden\nI nearly lost a train because I could not be sure that three young\nladies opposite me at table were Germans, since I had not heard them\nspeak; they might be American, they might be English, it was not safe\nto venture a bow; but just as I had got that far with my thought, one of\nthem began a German remark, to my great relief and gratitude; and before\nshe got out her third word, our bows had been delivered and graciously\nreturned, and we were off.\n\nThere is a friendly something about the German character which is very\nwinning. When Harris and I were making a pedestrian tour through the\nBlack Forest, we stopped at a little country inn for dinner one day;\ntwo young ladies and a young gentleman entered and sat down opposite us.\nThey were pedestrians, too. Our knapsacks were strapped upon our backs,\nbut they had a sturdy youth along to carry theirs for them. All parties\nwere hungry, so there was no talking. By and by the usual bows were\nexchanged, and we separated.\n\nAs we sat at a late breakfast in the hotel at Allerheiligen, next\nmorning, these young people entered and took places near us without\nobserving us; but presently they saw us and at once bowed and smiled;\nnot ceremoniously, but with the gratified look of people who have found\nacquaintances where they were expecting strangers. Then they spoke of\nthe weather and the roads. We also spoke of the weather and the roads.\nNext, they said they had had an enjoyable walk, notwithstanding the\nweather. We said that that had been our case, too. Then they said they\nhad walked thirty English miles the day before, and asked how many we\nhad walked. I could not lie, so I told Harris to do it. Harris told\nthem we had made thirty English miles, too. That was true; we had \"made\"\nthem, though we had had a little assistance here and there.\n\nAfter breakfast they found us trying to blast some information out\nof the dumb hotel clerk about routes, and observing that we were not\nsucceeding pretty well, they went and got their maps and things, and\npointed out and explained our course so clearly that even a New York\ndetective could have followed it. And when we started they spoke out a\nhearty good-by and wished us a pleasant journey. Perhaps they were more\ngenerous with us than they might have been with native wayfarers because\nwe were a forlorn lot and in a strange land; I don't know; I only know\nit was lovely to be treated so.\n\nVery well, I took an American young lady to one of the fine balls in\nBaden-Baden, one night, and at the entrance-door upstairs we were halted\nby an official--something about Miss Jones's dress was not according to\nrule; I don't remember what it was, now; something was wanting--her back\nhair, or a shawl, or a fan, or a shovel, or something. The official was\never so polite, and ever so sorry, but the rule was strict, and he could\nnot let us in. It was very embarrassing, for many eyes were on us. But\nnow a richly dressed girl stepped out of the ballroom, inquired into the\ntrouble, and said she could fix it in a moment. She took Miss Jones to\nthe robing-room, and soon brought her back in regulation trim, and then\nwe entered the ballroom with this benefactress unchallenged.\n\n\nBeing safe, now, I began to puzzle through my sincere but ungrammatical\nthanks, when there was a sudden mutual recognition --the benefactress\nand I had met at Allerheiligen. Two weeks had not altered her good face,\nand plainly her heart was in the right place yet, but there was such\na difference between these clothes and the clothes I had seen her in\nbefore, when she was walking thirty miles a day in the Black Forest,\nthat it was quite natural that I had failed to recognize her sooner. I\nhad on MY other suit, too, but my German would betray me to a person who\nhad heard it once, anyway. She brought her brother and sister, and they\nmade our way smooth for that evening.\n\nWell--months afterward, I was driving through the streets of Munich in a\ncab with a German lady, one day, when she said:\n\n\"There, that is Prince Ludwig and his wife, walking along there.\"\n\nEverybody was bowing to them--cabmen, little children, and everybody\nelse--and they were returning all the bows and overlooking nobody, when\na young lady met them and made a deep courtesy.\n\n\"That is probably one of the ladies of the court,\" said my German\nfriend.\n\nI said:\n\n\"She is an honor to it, then. I know her. I don't know her name, but I\nknow HER. I have known her at Allerheiligen and Baden-Baden. She ought\nto be an Empress, but she may be only a Duchess; it is the way things go\nin this way.\"\n\nIf one asks a German a civil question, he will be quite sure to get a\ncivil answer. If you stop a German in the street and ask him to direct\nyou to a certain place, he shows no sign of feeling offended. If the\nplace be difficult to find, ten to one the man will drop his own matters\nand go with you and show you.\n\nIn London, too, many a time, strangers have walked several blocks with\nme to show me my way.\n\nThere is something very real about this sort of politeness. Quite often,\nin Germany, shopkeepers who could not furnish me the article I wanted\nhave sent one of their employees with me to show me a place where it\ncould be had.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX\n\n[The Deadly Jest of Dilsberg]\n\n\nHowever, I wander from the raft. We made the port of Necharsteinach in\ngood season, and went to the hotel and ordered a trout dinner, the same\nto be ready against our return from a two-hour pedestrian excursion to\nthe village and castle of Dilsberg, a mile distant, on the other side\nof the river. I do not mean that we proposed to be two hours making two\nmiles--no, we meant to employ most of the time in inspecting Dilsberg.\n\nFor Dilsberg is a quaint place. It is most quaintly and picturesquely\nsituated, too. Imagine the beautiful river before you; then a few rods\nof brilliant green sward on its opposite shore; then a sudden hill--no\npreparatory gently rising slopes, but a sort of instantaneous hill--a\nhill two hundred and fifty or three hundred feet high, as round as a\nbowl, with the same taper upward that an inverted bowl has, and with\nabout the same relation of height to diameter that distinguishes a\nbowl of good honest depth--a hill which is thickly clothed with green\nbushes--a comely, shapely hill, rising abruptly out of the dead level\nof the surrounding green plains, visible from a great distance down the\nbends of the river, and with just exactly room on the top of its head\nfor its steepled and turreted and roof-clustered cap of architecture,\nwhich same is tightly jammed and compacted within the perfectly round\nhoop of the ancient village wall.\n\nThere is no house outside the wall on the whole hill, or any vestige of\na former house; all the houses are inside the wall, but there isn't room\nfor another one. It is really a finished town, and has been finished a\nvery long time. There is no space between the wall and the first circle\nof buildings; no, the village wall is itself the rear wall of the first\ncircle of buildings, and the roofs jut a little over the wall and\nthus furnish it with eaves. The general level of the massed roofs is\ngracefully broken and relieved by the dominating towers of the ruined\ncastle and the tall spires of a couple of churches; so, from a distance\nDilsberg has rather more the look of a king's crown than a cap. That\nlofty green eminence and its quaint coronet form quite a striking\npicture, you may be sure, in the flush of the evening sun.\n\n\nWe crossed over in a boat and began the ascent by a narrow, steep path\nwhich plunged us at once into the leafy deeps of the bushes. But they\nwere not cool deeps by any means, for the sun's rays were weltering hot\nand there was little or no breeze to temper them. As we panted up the\nsharp ascent, we met brown, bareheaded and barefooted boys and girls,\noccasionally, and sometimes men; they came upon us without warning, they\ngave us good day, flashed out of sight in the bushes, and were gone\nas suddenly and mysteriously as they had come. They were bound for the\nother side of the river to work. This path had been traveled by many\ngenerations of these people. They have always gone down to the valley to\nearn their bread, but they have always climbed their hill again to eat\nit, and to sleep in their snug town.\n\n\nIt is said that the Dilsbergers do not emigrate much; they find that\nliving up there above the world, in their peaceful nest, is pleasanter\nthan living down in the troublous world. The seven hundred inhabitants\nare all blood-kin to each other, too; they have always been blood-kin to\neach other for fifteen hundred years; they are simply one large family,\nand they like the home folks better than they like strangers, hence they\npersistently stay at home. It has been said that for ages Dilsberg\nhas been merely a thriving and diligent idiot-factory. I saw no idiots\nthere, but the captain said, \"Because of late years the government has\ntaken to lugging them off to asylums and otherwheres; and government\nwants to cripple the factory, too, and is trying to get these\nDilsbergers to marry out of the family, but they don't like to.\"\n\nThe captain probably imagined all this, as modern science denies that\nthe intermarrying of relatives deteriorates the stock.\n\nArrived within the wall, we found the usual village sights and life. We\nmoved along a narrow, crooked lane which had been paved in the Middle\nAges. A strapping, ruddy girl was beating flax or some such stuff in\na little bit of a good-box of a barn, and she swung her flail with a\nwill--if it was a flail; I was not farmer enough to know what she was\nat; a frowsy, barelegged girl was herding half a dozen geese with\na stick--driving them along the lane and keeping them out of the\ndwellings; a cooper was at work in a shop which I know he did not make\nso large a thing as a hogshead in, for there was not room. In the front\nrooms of dwellings girls and women were cooking or spinning, and ducks\nand chickens were waddling in and out, over the threshold, picking up\nchance crumbs and holding pleasant converse; a very old and wrinkled\nman sat asleep before his door, with his chin upon his breast and his\nextinguished pipe in his lap; soiled children were playing in the dirt\neverywhere along the lane, unmindful of the sun.\n\n\nExcept the sleeping old man, everybody was at work, but the place was\nvery still and peaceful, nevertheless; so still that the distant\ncackle of the successful hen smote upon the ear but little dulled\nby intervening sounds. That commonest of village sights was lacking\nhere--the public pump, with its great stone tank or trough of limpid\nwater, and its group of gossiping pitcher-bearers; for there is no well\nor fountain or spring on this tall hill; cisterns of rain-water are\nused.\n\nOur alpenstocks and muslin tails compelled attention, and as we moved\nthrough the village we gathered a considerable procession of little boys\nand girls, and so went in some state to the castle. It proved to be an\nextensive pile of crumbling walls, arches, and towers, massive, properly\ngrouped for picturesque effect, weedy, grass-grown, and satisfactory.\nThe children acted as guides; they walked us along the top of the\nhighest walls, then took us up into a high tower and showed us a wide\nand beautiful landscape, made up of wavy distances of woody hills, and\na nearer prospect of undulating expanses of green lowlands, on the one\nhand, and castle-graced crags and ridges on the other, with the shining\ncurves of the Neckar flowing between. But the principal show, the chief\npride of the children, was the ancient and empty well in the grass-grown\ncourt of the castle. Its massive stone curb stands up three or four feet\nabove-ground, and is whole and uninjured. The children said that in the\nMiddle Ages this well was four hundred feet deep, and furnished all the\nvillage with an abundant supply of water, in war and peace. They said\nthat in the old day its bottom was below the level of the Neckar, hence\nthe water-supply was inexhaustible.\n\nBut there were some who believed it had never been a well at all, and\nwas never deeper than it is now--eighty feet; that at that depth a\nsubterranean passage branched from it and descended gradually to a\nremote place in the valley, where it opened into somebody's cellar or\nother hidden recess, and that the secret of this locality is now lost.\nThose who hold this belief say that herein lies the explanation that\nDilsberg, besieged by Tilly and many a soldier before him, was\nnever taken: after the longest and closest sieges the besiegers were\nastonished to perceive that the besieged were as fat and hearty as ever,\nand were well furnished with munitions of war--therefore it must be\nthat the Dilsbergers had been bringing these things in through the\nsubterranean passage all the time.\n\nThe children said that there was in truth a subterranean outlet down\nthere, and they would prove it. So they set a great truss of straw on\nfire and threw it down the well, while we leaned on the curb and watched\nthe glowing mass descend. It struck bottom and gradually burned out. No\nsmoke came up. The children clapped their hands and said:\n\n\"You see! Nothing makes so much smoke as burning straw--now where did\nthe smoke go to, if there is no subterranean outlet?\"\n\n\nSo it seemed quite evident that the subterranean outlet indeed existed.\nBut the finest thing within the ruin's limits was a noble linden, which\nthe children said was four hundred years old, and no doubt it was. It\nhad a mighty trunk and a mighty spread of limb and foliage. The limbs\nnear the ground were nearly the thickness of a barrel.\n\nThat tree had witnessed the assaults of men in mail--how remote such a\ntime seems, and how ungraspable is the fact that real men ever did fight\nin real armor!--and it had seen the time when these broken arches and\ncrumbling battlements were a trim and strong and stately fortress,\nfluttering its gay banners in the sun, and peopled with vigorous\nhumanity--how impossibly long ago that seems!--and here it stands yet,\nand possibly may still be standing here, sunning itself and dreaming its\nhistorical dreams, when today shall have been joined to the days called\n\"ancient.\"\n\nWell, we sat down under the tree to smoke, and the captain delivered\nhimself of his legend: THE LEGEND OF DILSBERG CASTLE It was to this\neffect. In the old times there was once a great company assembled at the\ncastle, and festivity ran high. Of course there was a haunted chamber\nin the castle, and one day the talk fell upon that. It was said that\nwhoever slept in it would not wake again for fifty years. Now when a\nyoung knight named Conrad von Geisberg heard this, he said that if the\ncastle were his he would destroy that chamber, so that no foolish person\nmight have the chance to bring so dreadful a misfortune upon himself\nand afflict such as loved him with the memory of it. Straightway, the\ncompany privately laid their heads together to contrive some way to get\nthis superstitious young man to sleep in that chamber.\n\nAnd they succeeded--in this way. They persuaded his betrothed, a lovely\nmischievous young creature, niece of the lord of the castle, to help\nthem in their plot. She presently took him aside and had speech with\nhim. She used all her persuasions, but could not shake him; he said his\nbelief was firm, that if he should sleep there he would wake no more for\nfifty years, and it made him shudder to think of it. Catharina began to\nweep. This was a better argument; Conrad could not hold out against it.\nHe yielded and said she should have her wish if she would only smile and\nbe happy again. She flung her arms about his neck, and the kisses she\ngave him showed that her thankfulness and her pleasure were very real.\nThen she flew to tell the company her success, and the applause she\nreceived made her glad and proud she had undertaken her mission, since\nall alone she had accomplished what the multitude had failed in.\n\nAt midnight, that night, after the usual feasting, Conrad was taken to\nthe haunted chamber and left there. He fell asleep, by and by.\n\nWhen he awoke again and looked about him, his heart stood still with\nhorror! The whole aspect of the chamber was changed. The walls were\nmoldy and hung with ancient cobwebs; the curtains and beddings were\nrotten; the furniture was rickety and ready to fall to pieces. He sprang\nout of bed, but his quaking knees sunk under him and he fell to the\nfloor.\n\n\"This is the weakness of age,\" he said.\n\nHe rose and sought his clothing. It was clothing no longer. The colors\nwere gone, the garments gave way in many places while he was putting\nthem on. He fled, shuddering, into the corridor, and along it to\nthe great hall. Here he was met by a middle-aged stranger of a kind\ncountenance, who stopped and gazed at him with surprise. Conrad said:\n\n\"Good sir, will you send hither the lord Ulrich?\"\n\nThe stranger looked puzzled a moment, then said:\n\n\"The lord Ulrich?\"\n\n\"Yes--if you will be so good.\"\n\n\nThe stranger called--\"Wilhelm!\" A young serving-man came, and the\nstranger said to him:\n\n\"Is there a lord Ulrich among the guests?\"\n\n\"I know none of the name, so please your honor.\"\n\nConrad said, hesitatingly:\n\n\"I did not mean a guest, but the lord of the castle, sir.\"\n\nThe stranger and the servant exchanged wondering glances. Then the\nformer said:\n\n\"I am the lord of the castle.\"\n\n\"Since when, sir?\"\n\n\"Since the death of my father, the good lord Ulrich more than forty\nyears ago.\"\n\nConrad sank upon a bench and covered his face with his hands while he\nrocked his body to and fro and moaned. The stranger said in a low voice\nto the servant:\n\n\"I fear me this poor old creature is mad. Call some one.\"\n\nIn a moment several people came, and grouped themselves about, talking\nin whispers. Conrad looked up and scanned the faces about him wistfully.\n\nThen he shook his head and said, in a grieved voice:\n\n\"No, there is none among ye that I know. I am old and alone in the\nworld. They are dead and gone these many years that cared for me. But\nsure, some of these aged ones I see about me can tell me some little\nword or two concerning them.\"\n\nSeveral bent and tottering men and women came nearer and answered his\nquestions about each former friend as he mentioned the names. This one\nthey said had been dead ten years, that one twenty, another thirty. Each\nsucceeding blow struck heavier and heavier. At last the sufferer said:\n\n\"There is one more, but I have not the courage to--O my lost Catharina!\"\n\nOne of the old dames said:\n\n\"Ah, I knew her well, poor soul. A misfortune overtook her lover, and\nshe died of sorrow nearly fifty years ago. She lieth under the linden\ntree without the court.\"\n\nConrad bowed his head and said:\n\n\"Ah, why did I ever wake! And so she died of grief for me, poor child.\nSo young, so sweet, so good! She never wittingly did a hurtful thing in\nall the little summer of her life. Her loving debt shall be repaid--for\nI will die of grief for her.\"\n\nHis head drooped upon his breast. In the moment there was a wild burst\nof joyous laughter, a pair of round young arms were flung about Conrad's\nneck and a sweet voice cried:\n\n\"There, Conrad mine, thy kind words kill me--the farce shall go no\nfurther! Look up, and laugh with us--'twas all a jest!\"\n\nAnd he did look up, and gazed, in a dazed wonderment--for the disguises\nwere stripped away, and the aged men and women were bright and young and\ngay again. Catharina's happy tongue ran on:\n\n\"'Twas a marvelous jest, and bravely carried out. They gave you a heavy\nsleeping-draught before you went to bed, and in the night they bore you\nto a ruined chamber where all had fallen to decay, and placed these rags\nof clothing by you. And when your sleep was spent and you came forth,\ntwo strangers, well instructed in their parts, were here to meet you;\nand all we, your friends, in our disguises, were close at hand, to see\nand hear, you may be sure. Ah, 'twas a gallant jest! Come, now, and make\nthee ready for the pleasures of the day. How real was thy misery for the\nmoment, thou poor lad! Look up and have thy laugh, now!\"\n\nHe looked up, searched the merry faces about him in a dreamy way, then\nsighed and said:\n\n\n\"I am aweary, good strangers, I pray you lead me to her grave.\"\n\nAll the smile vanished away, every cheek blanched, Catharina sunk to the\nground in a swoon.\n\nAll day the people went about the castle with troubled faces, and\ncommuned together in undertones. A painful hush pervaded the place which\nhad lately been so full of cheery life. Each in his turn tried to arouse\nConrad out of his hallucination and bring him to himself; but all the\nanswer any got was a meek, bewildered stare, and then the words:\n\n\"Good stranger, I have no friends, all are at rest these many years;\nye speak me fair, ye mean me well, but I know ye not; I am alone and\nforlorn in the world--prithee lead me to her grave.\"\n\nDuring two years Conrad spent his days, from the early morning till the\nnight, under the linden tree, mourning over the imaginary grave of his\nCatharina. Catharina was the only company of the harmless madman. He was\nvery friendly toward her because, as he said, in some ways she reminded\nhim of his Catharina whom he had lost \"fifty years ago.\" He often said:\n\n\"She was so gay, so happy-hearted--but you never smile; and always when\nyou think I am not looking, you cry.\"\n\nWhen Conrad died, they buried him under the linden, according to his\ndirections, so that he might rest \"near his poor Catharina.\" Then\nCatharina sat under the linden alone, every day and all day long, a\ngreat many years, speaking to no one, and never smiling; and at last her\nlong repentance was rewarded with death, and she was buried by Conrad's\nside.\n\nHarris pleased the captain by saying it was good legend; and pleased him\nfurther by adding:\n\n\"Now that I have seen this mighty tree, vigorous with its four hundred\nyears, I feel a desire to believe the legend for ITS sake; so I will\nhumor the desire, and consider that the tree really watches over those\npoor hearts and feels a sort of human tenderness for them.\"\n\nWe returned to Necharsteinach, plunged our hot heads into the trough at\nthe town pump, and then went to the hotel and ate our trout dinner in\nleisurely comfort, in the garden, with the beautiful Neckar flowing at\nour feet, the quaint Dilsberg looming beyond, and the graceful towers\nand battlements of a couple of medieval castles (called the \"Swallow's\nNest\" [1] and \"The Brothers.\") assisting the rugged scenery of a bend\nof the river down to our right. We got to sea in season to make the\neight-mile run to Heidelberg before the night shut down. We sailed by\nthe hotel in the mellow glow of sunset, and came slashing down with\nthe mad current into the narrow passage between the dikes. I believed I\ncould shoot the bridge myself, and I went to the forward triplet of logs\nand relieved the pilot of his pole and his responsibility.\n\n   1. The seeker after information is referred to Appendix E\n  for our captain's legend of the \"Swallow's Nest\" and\n  \"The Brothers.\"\n\n\nWe went tearing along in a most exhilarating way, and I performed the\ndelicate duties of my office very well indeed for a first attempt;\nbut perceiving, presently, that I really was going to shoot the bridge\nitself instead of the archway under it, I judiciously stepped ashore.\nThe next moment I had my long-coveted desire: I saw a raft wrecked. It\nhit the pier in the center and went all to smash and scatteration like a\nbox of matches struck by lightning.\n\n\nI was the only one of our party who saw this grand sight; the others\nwere attitudinizing, for the benefit of the long rank of young ladies\nwho were promenading on the bank, and so they lost it. But I helped to\nfish them out of the river, down below the bridge, and then described it\nto them as well as I could.\n\nThey were not interested, though. They said they were wet and felt\nridiculous and did not care anything for descriptions of scenery. The\nyoung ladies, and other people, crowded around and showed a great deal\nof sympathy, but that did not help matters; for my friends said they did\nnot want sympathy, they wanted a back alley and solitude.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX\n\n[My Precious, Priceless Tear-Jug]\n\n\nNext morning brought good news--our trunks had arrived from Hamburg\nat last. Let this be a warning to the reader. The Germans are very\nconscientious, and this trait makes them very particular. Therefore if\nyou tell a German you want a thing done immediately, he takes you\nat your word; he thinks you mean what you say; so he does that thing\nimmediately--according to his idea of immediately--which is about a\nweek; that is, it is a week if it refers to the building of a garment,\nor it is an hour and a half if it refers to the cooking of a trout. Very\nwell; if you tell a German to send your trunk to you by \"slow freight,\"\nhe takes you at your word; he sends it by \"slow freight,\" and you\ncannot imagine how long you will go on enlarging your admiration of the\nexpressiveness of that phrase in the German tongue, before you get that\ntrunk. The hair on my trunk was soft and thick and youthful, when I\ngot it ready for shipment in Hamburg; it was baldheaded when it reached\nHeidelberg. However, it was still sound, that was a comfort, it was\nnot battered in the least; the baggagemen seemed to be conscientiously\ncareful, in Germany, of the baggage entrusted to their hands. There\nwas nothing now in the way of our departure, therefore we set about our\npreparations.\n\nNaturally my chief solicitude was about my collection of Ceramics. Of\ncourse I could not take it with me, that would be inconvenient, and\ndangerous besides. I took advice, but the best brick-a-brackers were\ndivided as to the wisest course to pursue; some said pack the collection\nand warehouse it; others said try to get it into the Grand Ducal Museum\nat Mannheim for safe keeping. So I divided the collection, and followed\nthe advice of both parties. I set aside, for the Museum, those articles\nwhich were the most frail and precious.\n\nAmong these was my Etruscan tear-jug. I have made a little sketch of\nit here; that thing creeping up the side is not a bug, it is a hole.\nI bought this tear-jug of a dealer in antiquities for four hundred and\nfifty dollars. It is very rare. The man said the Etruscans used to keep\ntears or something in these things, and that it was very hard to get\nhold of a broken one, now.\n\n\nI also set aside my Henri II. plate. See sketch from my pencil; it is\nin the main correct, though I think I have foreshortened one end of it\na little too much, perhaps. This is very fine and rare; the shape is\nexceedingly beautiful and unusual. It has wonderful decorations on it,\nbut I am not able to reproduce them. It cost more than the tear-jug, as\nthe dealer said there was not another plate just like it in the\nworld. He said there was much false Henri II ware around, but that the\ngenuineness of this piece was unquestionable.\n\n\nHe showed me its pedigree, or its history, if you please; it was a\ndocument which traced this plate's movements all the way down from its\nbirth--showed who bought it, from whom, and what he paid for it--from\nthe first buyer down to me, whereby I saw that it had gone steadily up\nfrom thirty-five cents to seven hundred dollars. He said that the whole\nCeramic world would be informed that it was now in my possession and\nwould make a note of it, with the price paid. [Figure 8]\n\nThere were Masters in those days, but, alas--it is not so now. Of course\nthe main preciousness of this piece lies in its color; it is that old\nsensuous, pervading, ramifying, interpolating, transboreal blue which is\nthe despair of modern art. The little sketch which I have made of this\ngem cannot and does not do it justice, since I have been obliged to\nleave out the color. But I've got the expression, though.\n\n\nHowever, I must not be frittering away the reader's time with these\ndetails. I did not intend to go into any detail at all, at first, but\nit is the failing of the true ceramiker, or the true devotee in any\ndepartment of brick-a-brackery, that once he gets his tongue or his pen\nstarted on his darling theme, he cannot well stop until he drops from\nexhaustion. He has no more sense of the flight of time than has any\nother lover when talking of his sweetheart. The very \"marks\" on the\nbottom of a piece of rare crockery are able to throw me into a gibbering\necstasy; and I could forsake a drowning relative to help dispute about\nwhether the stopple of a departed Buon Retiro scent-bottle was genuine\nor spurious.\n\n\nMany people say that for a male person, bric-a-brac hunting is about as\nrobust a business as making doll-clothes, or decorating Japanese pots\nwith decalcomania butterflies would be, and these people fling mud at\nthe elegant Englishman, Byng, who wrote a book called THE BRIC-A-BRAC\nHUNTER, and make fun of him for chasing around after what they choose to\ncall \"his despicable trifles\"; and for \"gushing\" over these trifles;\nand for exhibiting his \"deep infantile delight\" in what they call his\n\"tuppenny collection of beggarly trivialities\"; and for beginning his\nbook with a picture of himself seated, in a \"sappy, self-complacent\nattitude, in the midst of his poor little ridiculous bric-a-brac junk\nshop.\"\n\nIt is easy to say these things; it is easy to revile us, easy to despise\nus; therefore, let these people rail on; they cannot feel as Byng and\nI feel--it is their loss, not ours. For my part I am content to be a\nbrick-a-bracker and a ceramiker--more, I am proud to be so named. I am\nproud to know that I lose my reason as immediately in the presence of a\nrare jug with an illustrious mark on the bottom of it, as if I had\njust emptied that jug. Very well; I packed and stored a part of my\ncollection, and the rest of it I placed in the care of the Grand Ducal\nMuseum in Mannheim, by permission. My Old Blue China Cat remains there\nyet. I presented it to that excellent institution.\n\n\nI had but one misfortune with my things. An egg which I had kept back\nfrom breakfast that morning, was broken in packing. It was a great pity.\nI had shown it to the best connoisseurs in Heidelberg, and they all said\nit was an antique. We spent a day or two in farewell visits, and then\nleft for Baden-Baden. We had a pleasant trip to it, for the Rhine valley\nis always lovely. The only trouble was that the trip was too short. If\nI remember rightly it only occupied a couple of hours, therefore I judge\nthat the distance was very little, if any, over fifty miles. We\nquitted the train at Oos, and walked the entire remaining distance to\nBaden-Baden, with the exception of a lift of less than an hour which\nwe got on a passing wagon, the weather being exhaustingly warm. We came\ninto town on foot.\n\nOne of the first persons we encountered, as we walked up the street,\nwas the Rev. Mr. ------, an old friend from America--a lucky encounter,\nindeed, for his is a most gentle, refined, and sensitive nature, and his\ncompany and companionship are a genuine refreshment. We knew he had been\nin Europe some time, but were not at all expecting to run across him.\nBoth parties burst forth into loving enthusiasms, and Rev. Mr. ------\nsaid:\n\n\"I have got a brimful reservoir of talk to pour out on you, and an empty\none ready and thirsting to receive what you have got; we will sit up\ntill midnight and have a good satisfying interchange, for I leave here\nearly in the morning.\" We agreed to that, of course.\n\nI had been vaguely conscious, for a while, of a person who was walking\nin the street abreast of us; I had glanced furtively at him once or\ntwice, and noticed that he was a fine, large, vigorous young fellow,\nwith an open, independent countenance, faintly shaded with a pale and\neven almost imperceptible crop of early down, and that he was clothed\nfrom head to heel in cool and enviable snow-white linen. I thought I had\nalso noticed that his head had a sort of listening tilt to it. Now about\nthis time the Rev. Mr. ------ said:\n\n\"The sidewalk is hardly wide enough for three, so I will walk behind;\nbut keep the talk going, keep the talk going, there's no time to lose,\nand you may be sure I will do my share.\" He ranged himself behind us,\nand straightway that stately snow-white young fellow closed up to the\nsidewalk alongside him, fetched him a cordial slap on the shoulder with\nhis broad palm, and sung out with a hearty cheeriness:\n\n\"AMERICANS for two-and-a-half and the money up! HEY?\"\n\nThe Reverend winced, but said mildly:\n\n\"Yes--we are Americans.\"\n\n\"Lord love you, you can just bet that's what _I_ am, every time! Put it\nthere!\"\n\n\nHe held out his Sahara of his palm, and the Reverend laid his diminutive\nhand in it, and got so cordial a shake that we heard his glove burst\nunder it.\n\n\"Say, didn't I put you up right?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes.\"\n\n\"Sho! I spotted you for MY kind the minute I heard your clack. You been\nover here long?\"\n\n\"About four months. Have you been over long?\"\n\n\"LONG? Well, I should say so! Going on two YEARS, by geeminy! Say, are\nyou homesick?\"\n\n\"No, I can't say that I am. Are you?\"\n\n\"Oh, HELL, yes!\" This with immense enthusiasm.\n\nThe Reverend shrunk a little, in his clothes, and we were aware, rather\nby instinct than otherwise, that he was throwing out signals of distress\nto us; but we did not interfere or try to succor him, for we were quite\nhappy.\n\nThe young fellow hooked his arm into the Reverend's, now, with the\nconfiding and grateful air of a waif who has been longing for a friend,\nand a sympathetic ear, and a chance to lisp once more the sweet accents\nof the mother-tongue--and then he limbered up the muscles of his mouth\nand turned himself loose--and with such a relish! Some of his words were\nnot Sunday-school words, so I am obliged to put blanks where they occur.\n\n\"Yes indeedy! If _I_ ain't an American there AIN'T any Americans, that's\nall. And when I heard you fellows gassing away in the good old American\nlanguage, I'm ------ if it wasn't all I could do to keep from hugging\nyou! My tongue's all warped with trying to curl it around these ------\nforsaken wind-galled nine-jointed German words here; now I TELL you it's\nawful good to lay it over a Christian word once more and kind of let the\nold taste soak it. I'm from western New York. My name is Cholley Adams.\nI'm a student, you know. Been here going on two years. I'm learning to\nbe a horse-doctor! I LIKE that part of it, you know, but ------these\npeople, they won't learn a fellow in his own language, they make him\nlearn in German; so before I could tackle the horse-doctoring I had to\ntackle this miserable language.\n\n\"First off, I thought it would certainly give me the botts, but I don't\nmind now. I've got it where the hair's short, I think; and dontchuknow,\nthey made me learn Latin, too. Now between you and me, I wouldn't give a\n------for all the Latin that was ever jabbered; and the first thing _I_\ncalculate to do when I get through, is to just sit down and forget it.\n'Twon't take me long, and I don't mind the time, anyway. And I tell\nyou what! the difference between school-teaching over yonder and\nschool-teaching over here--sho! WE don't know anything about it! Here\nyou've got to peg and peg and peg and there just ain't any let-up--and\nwhat you learn here, you've got to KNOW, dontchuknow --or else you'll\nhave one of these ------ spavined, spectacles, ring-boned, knock-kneed\nold professors in your hair. I've been here long ENOUGH, and I'm getting\nblessed tired of it, mind I TELL you. The old man wrote me that he was\ncoming over in June, and said he'd take me home in August, whether I was\ndone with my education or not, but durn him, he didn't come; never said\nwhy; just sent me a hamper of Sunday-school books, and told me to\nbe good, and hold on a while. I don't take to Sunday-school books,\ndontchuknow--I don't hanker after them when I can get pie--but I READ\nthem, anyway, because whatever the old man tells me to do, that's the\nthing that I'm a-going to DO, or tear something, you know. I buckled\nin and read all those books, because he wanted me to; but that kind of\nthing don't excite ME, I like something HEARTY. But I'm awful homesick.\nI'm homesick from ear-socket to crupper, and from crupper to hock-joint;\nbut it ain't any use, I've got to stay here, till the old man drops the\nrag and give the word--yes, SIR, right here in this ------ country\nI've got to linger till the old man says COME!--and you bet your bottom\ndollar, Johnny, it AIN'T just as easy as it is for a cat to have twins!\"\n\nAt the end of this profane and cordial explosion he fetched a prodigious\n\"WHOOSH!\" to relieve his lungs and make recognition of the heat, and\nthen he straightway dived into his narrative again for \"Johnny's\"\nbenefit, beginning, \"Well, ------it ain't any use talking, some of those\nold American words DO have a kind of a bully swing to them; a man\ncan EXPRESS himself with 'em--a man can get at what he wants to SAY,\ndontchuknow.\"\n\n\nWhen we reached our hotel and it seemed that he was about to lose the\nReverend, he showed so much sorrow, and begged so hard and so earnestly\nthat the Reverend's heart was not hard enough to hold out against the\npleadings--so he went away with the parent-honoring student, like a\nright Christian, and took supper with him in his lodgings, and sat in\nthe surf-beat of his slang and profanity till near midnight, and then\nleft him--left him pretty well talked out, but grateful \"clear down\nto his frogs,\" as he expressed it. The Reverend said it had transpired\nduring the interview that \"Cholley\" Adams's father was an extensive\ndealer in horses in western New York; this accounted for Cholley's\nchoice of a profession. The Reverend brought away a pretty high opinion\nof Cholley as a manly young fellow, with stuff in him for a useful\ncitizen; he considered him rather a rough gem, but a gem, nevertheless.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI\n\n[Insolent Shopkeepers and Gabbling Americans]\n\n\nBaden-Baden sits in the lap of the hills, and the natural and artificial\nbeauties of the surroundings are combined effectively and charmingly.\nThe level strip of ground which stretches through and beyond the town is\nlaid out in handsome pleasure grounds, shaded by noble trees and adorned\nat intervals with lofty and sparkling fountain-jets. Thrice a day a fine\nband makes music in the public promenade before the Conversation\nHouse, and in the afternoon and evening that locality is populous with\nfashionably dressed people of both sexes, who march back and forth past\nthe great music-stand and look very much bored, though they make a\nshow of feeling otherwise. It seems like a rather aimless and stupid\nexistence. A good many of these people are there for a real purpose,\nhowever; they are racked with rheumatism, and they are there to stew it\nout in the hot baths. These invalids looked melancholy enough, limping\nabout on their canes and crutches, and apparently brooding over all\nsorts of cheerless things. People say that Germany, with her damp stone\nhouses, is the home of rheumatism. If that is so, Providence must have\nforeseen that it would be so, and therefore filled the land with the\nhealing baths. Perhaps no other country is so generously supplied with\nmedicinal springs as Germany. Some of these baths are good for one\nailment, some for another; and again, peculiar ailments are conquered\nby combining the individual virtues of several different baths. For\ninstance, for some forms of disease, the patient drinks the native hot\nwater of Baden-Baden, with a spoonful of salt from the Carlsbad springs\ndissolved in it. That is not a dose to be forgotten right away.\n\nThey don't SELL this hot water; no, you go into the great Trinkhalle,\nand stand around, first on one foot and then on the other, while two or\nthree young girls sit pottering at some sort of ladylike sewing-work\nin your neighborhood and can't seem to see you --polite as three-dollar\nclerks in government offices.\n\n\nBy and by one of these rises painfully, and \"stretches\"--stretches fists\nand body heavenward till she raises her heels from the floor, at the\nsame time refreshing herself with a yawn of such comprehensiveness that\nthe bulk of her face disappears behind her upper lip and one is able to\nsee how she is constructed inside--then she slowly closes her\ncavern, brings down her fists and her heels, comes languidly forward,\ncontemplates you contemptuously, draws you a glass of hot water and sets\nit down where you can get it by reaching for it. You take it and say:\n\n\"How much?\"--and she returns you, with elaborate indifference, a\nbeggar's answer:\n\n\"NACH BELIEBE\" (what you please.)\n\nThis thing of using the common beggar's trick and the common beggar's\nshibboleth to put you on your liberality when you were expecting a\nsimple straightforward commercial transaction, adds a little to your\nprospering sense of irritation. You ignore her reply, and ask again:\n\n\"How much?\"\n\n--and she calmly, indifferently, repeats:\n\n\"NACH BELIEBE.\"\n\nYou are getting angry, but you are trying not to show it; you resolve\nto keep on asking your question till she changes her answer, or at least\nher annoyingly indifferent manner. Therefore, if your case be like mine,\nyou two fools stand there, and without perceptible emotion of any kind,\nor any emphasis on any syllable, you look blandly into each other's\neyes, and hold the following idiotic conversation:\n\n\"How much?\"\n\n\"NACH BELIEBE.\"\n\n\"How much?\"\n\n\"NACH BELIEBE.\"\n\n\"How much?\"\n\n\"NACH BELIEBE.\"\n\n\"How much?\"\n\n\"NACH BELIEBE.\"\n\n\"How much?\"\n\n\"NACH BELIEBE.\"\n\n\"How much?\"\n\n\"NACH BELIEBE.\"\n\nI do not know what another person would have done, but at this point I\ngave up; that cast-iron indifference, that tranquil contemptuousness,\nconquered me, and I struck my colors. Now I knew she was used to\nreceiving about a penny from manly people who care nothing about the\nopinions of scullery-maids, and about tuppence from moral cowards; but\nI laid a silver twenty-five cent piece within her reach and tried to\nshrivel her up with this sarcastic speech:\n\n\"If it isn't enough, will you stoop sufficiently from your official\ndignity to say so?\"\n\nShe did not shrivel. Without deigning to look at me at all, she\nlanguidly lifted the coin and bit it!--to see if it was good. Then she\nturned her back and placidly waddled to her former roost again, tossing\nthe money into an open till as she went along. She was victor to the\nlast, you see.\n\n\nI have enlarged upon the ways of this girl because they are typical;\nher manners are the manners of a goodly number of the Baden-Baden\nshopkeepers. The shopkeeper there swindles you if he can, and insults\nyou whether he succeeds in swindling you or not. The keepers of baths\nalso take great and patient pains to insult you. The frowsy woman who\nsat at the desk in the lobby of the great Friederichsbad and sold bath\ntickets, not only insulted me twice every day, with rigid fidelity\nto her great trust, but she took trouble enough to cheat me out of a\nshilling, one day, to have fairly entitled her to ten. Baden-Baden's\nsplendid gamblers are gone, only her microscopic knaves remain.\n\n\nAn English gentleman who had been living there several years, said:\n\n\"If you could disguise your nationality, you would not find any\ninsolence here. These shopkeepers detest the English and despise the\nAmericans; they are rude to both, more especially to ladies of your\nnationality and mine. If these go shopping without a gentleman or\na man-servant, they are tolerably sure to be subjected to petty\ninsolences--insolences of manner and tone, rather than word, though\nwords that are hard to bear are not always wanting. I know of an\ninstance where a shopkeeper tossed a coin back to an American lady with\nthe remark, snappishly uttered, 'We don't take French money here.' And\nI know of a case where an English lady said to one of these shopkeepers,\n'Don't you think you ask too much for this article?' and he replied with\nthe question, 'Do you think you are obliged to buy it?' However, these\npeople are not impolite to Russians or Germans. And as to rank, they\nworship that, for they have long been used to generals and nobles. If\nyou wish to see what abysses servility can descend, present yourself\nbefore a Baden-Baden shopkeeper in the character of a Russian prince.\"\n\nIt is an inane town, filled with sham, and petty fraud, and snobbery,\nbut the baths are good. I spoke with many people, and they were all\nagreed in that. I had the twinges of rheumatism unceasingly during three\nyears, but the last one departed after a fortnight's bathing there,\nand I have never had one since. I fully believe I left my rheumatism in\nBaden-Baden. Baden-Baden is welcome to it. It was little, but it was\nall I had to give. I would have preferred to leave something that was\ncatching, but it was not in my power.\n\nThere are several hot springs there, and during two thousand years they\nhave poured forth a never-diminishing abundance of the healing water.\nThis water is conducted in pipe to the numerous bath-houses, and is\nreduced to an endurable temperature by the addition of cold water. The\nnew Friederichsbad is a very large and beautiful building, and in it one\nmay have any sort of bath that has ever been invented, and with all\nthe additions of herbs and drugs that his ailment may need or that the\nphysician of the establishment may consider a useful thing to put into\nthe water. You go there, enter the great door, get a bow graduated to\nyour style and clothes from the gorgeous portier, and a bath ticket and\nan insult from the frowsy woman for a quarter; she strikes a bell and\na serving-man conducts you down a long hall and shuts you into a\ncommodious room which has a washstand, a mirror, a bootjack, and a sofa\nin it, and there you undress at your leisure.\n\n\nThe room is divided by a great curtain; you draw this curtain aside, and\nfind a large white marble bathtub, with its rim sunk to the level of the\nfloor, and with three white marble steps leading down to it. This tub\nis full of water which is as clear as crystal, and is tempered to 28\ndegrees Re'aumur (about 95 degrees Fahrenheit). Sunk into the floor, by\nthe tub, is a covered copper box which contains some warm towels and a\nsheet. You look fully as white as an angel when you are stretched out\nin that limpid bath. You remain in it ten minutes, the first time,\nand afterward increase the duration from day to day, till you reach\ntwenty-five or thirty minutes. There you stop. The appointments of the\nplace are so luxurious, the benefit so marked, the price so moderate,\nand the insults so sure, that you very soon find yourself adoring the\nFriederichsbad and infesting it.\n\nWe had a plain, simple, unpretending, good hotel, in Baden-Baden--the\nH\u00f4tel de France--and alongside my room I had a giggling, cackling,\nchattering family who always went to bed just two hours after me and\nalways got up two hours ahead of me. But this is common in German\nhotels; the people generally go to bed long after eleven and get up\nlong before eight. The partitions convey sound like a drum-head, and\neverybody knows it; but no matter, a German family who are all kindness\nand consideration in the daytime make apparently no effort to moderate\ntheir noises for your benefit at night. They will sing, laugh, and talk\nloudly, and bang furniture around in a most pitiless way. If you knock\non your wall appealingly, they will quiet down and discuss the matter\nsoftly among themselves for a moment--then, like the mice, they fall to\npersecuting you again, and as vigorously as before. They keep cruelly\nlate and early hours, for such noisy folk.\n\nOf course, when one begins to find fault with foreign people's ways, he\nis very likely to get a reminder to look nearer home, before he gets far\nwith it. I open my note-book to see if I can find some more information\nof a valuable nature about Baden-Baden, and the first thing I fall upon\nis this:\n\n\"BADEN-BADEN (no date). Lot of vociferous Americans at breakfast\nthis morning. Talking AT everybody, while pretending to talk among\nthemselves. On their first travels, manifestly. Showing off. The usual\nsigns--airy, easy-going references to grand distances and foreign\nplaces. 'Well GOOD-by, old fellow--if I don't run across you in Italy,\nyou hunt me up in London before you sail.'\"\n\nThe next item which I find in my note-book is this one:\n\n\"The fact that a band of 6,000 Indians are now murdering our\nfrontiersmen at their impudent leisure, and that we are only able\nto send 1,200 soldiers against them, is utilized here to discourage\nemigration to America. The common people think the Indians are in New\nJersey.\"\n\n\nThis is a new and peculiar argument against keeping our army down to a\nridiculous figure in the matter of numbers. It is rather a striking\none, too. I have not distorted the truth in saying that the facts in\nthe above item, about the army and the Indians, are made use of to\ndiscourage emigration to America. That the common people should be\nrather foggy in their geography, and foggy as to the location of the\nIndians, is a matter for amusement, maybe, but not of surprise.\n\nThere is an interesting old cemetery in Baden-Baden, and we spent\nseveral pleasant hours in wandering through it and spelling out the\ninscriptions on the aged tombstones. Apparently after a man has laid\nthere a century or two, and has had a good many people buried on top\nof him, it is considered that his tombstone is not needed by him any\nlonger. I judge so from the fact that hundreds of old gravestones have\nbeen removed from the graves and placed against the inner walls of the\ncemetery. What artists they had in the old times! They chiseled angels\nand cherubs and devils and skeletons on the tombstones in the most\nlavish and generous way--as to supply--but curiously grotesque and\noutlandish as to form. It is not always easy to tell which of the\nfigures belong among the blest and which of them among the opposite\nparty. But there was an inscription, in French, on one of those old\nstones, which was quaint and pretty, and was plainly not the work of any\nother than a poet. It was to this effect:\n\nHere Reposes in God, Caroline de Clery, a Religieuse of St. Denis aged\n83 years--and blind. The light was restored to her in Baden the 5th of\nJanuary, 1839\n\nWe made several excursions on foot to the neighboring villages, over\nwinding and beautiful roads and through enchanting woodland scenery.\nThe woods and roads were similar to those at Heidelberg, but not\nso bewitching. I suppose that roads and woods which are up to the\nHeidelberg mark are rare in the world.\n\nOnce we wandered clear away to La Favorita Palace, which is several\nmiles from Baden-Baden. The grounds about the palace were fine; the\npalace was a curiosity. It was built by a Margravine in 1725, and\nremains as she left it at her death. We wandered through a great many\nof its rooms, and they all had striking peculiarities of decoration.\nFor instance, the walls of one room were pretty completely covered\nwith small pictures of the Margravine in all conceivable varieties of\nfanciful costumes, some of them male.\n\nThe walls of another room were covered with grotesquely and elaborately\nfigured hand-wrought tapestry. The musty ancient beds remained in the\nchambers, and their quilts and curtains and canopies were decorated with\ncurious handwork, and the walls and ceilings frescoed with historical\nand mythological scenes in glaring colors. There was enough crazy and\nrotten rubbish in the building to make a true brick-a-bracker green with\nenvy. A painting in the dining-hall verged upon the indelicate--but then\nthe Margravine was herself a trifle indelicate.\n\nIt is in every way a wildly and picturesquely decorated house, and\nbrimful of interest as a reflection of the character and tastes of that\nrude bygone time.\n\nIn the grounds, a few rods from the palace, stands the Margravine's\nchapel, just as she left it--a coarse wooden structure, wholly barren\nof ornament. It is said that the Margravine would give herself up to\ndebauchery and exceedingly fast living for several months at a time,\nand then retire to this miserable wooden den and spend a few months in\nrepenting and getting ready for another good time. She was a devoted\nCatholic, and was perhaps quite a model sort of a Christian as\nChristians went then, in high life.\n\nTradition says she spent the last two years of her life in the strange\nden I have been speaking of, after having indulged herself in one final,\ntriumphant, and satisfying spree. She shut herself up there, without\ncompany, and without even a servant, and so abjured and forsook the\nworld. In her little bit of a kitchen she did her own cooking; she wore\na hair shirt next the skin, and castigated herself with whips--these\naids to grace are exhibited there yet. She prayed and told her beads,\nin another little room, before a waxen Virgin niched in a little box\nagainst the wall; she bedded herself like a slave.\n\nIn another small room is an unpainted wooden table, and behind it sit\nhalf-life-size waxen figures of the Holy Family, made by the very worst\nartist that ever lived, perhaps, and clothed in gaudy, flimsy drapery.\n[1] The margravine used to bring her meals to this table and DINE WITH\nTHE HOLY FAMILY. What an idea that was! What a grisly spectacle it must\nhave been! Imagine it: Those rigid, shock-headed figures, with corpsy\ncomplexions and fish glass eyes, occupying one side of the table in the\nconstrained attitudes and dead fixedness that distinguish all men that\nare born of wax, and this wrinkled, smoldering old fire-eater occupying\nthe other side, mumbling her prayers and munching her sausages in the\nghostly stillness and shadowy indistinctness of a winter twilight. It\nmakes one feel crawly even to think of it.\n\n  [1] The Savior was represented as a lad of about fifteen\n  years of age. This figure had lost one eye.\n\n\nIn this sordid place, and clothed, bedded, and fed like a pauper, this\nstrange princess lived and worshiped during two years, and in it she\ndied. Two or three hundred years ago, this would have made the poor den\nholy ground; and the church would have set up a miracle-factory there\nand made plenty of money out of it. The den could be moved into some\nportions of France and made a good property even now.\n\n\n\n\n\nA TRAMP ABROAD, Part 4.\n\nBy Mark Twain\n\n(Samuel L. Clemens)\n\nFirst published in 1880\n\nIllustrations taken from an 1880 First Edition\n\n * * * * * *\n\n\nILLUSTRATIONS:\n\n\n     1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR\n     2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0TITIAN'S MOSES\n     3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0THE AUTHOR'S MEMORIES\n     119.\u00a0\u00a0BLACK FOREST GRANDEE\n     120.\u00a0\u00a0THE GRANDEE'S DAUGHTER\n     121.\u00a0\u00a0RICH OLD HUSS\n     122.\u00a0\u00a0GRETCHEN\n     123.\u00a0\u00a0PAUL HOCH\n     124.\u00a0\u00a0HANS SCHMIDT\n     125.\u00a0\u00a0ELECTING A NEW MEMBER\n     126.\u00a0\u00a0OVERCOMING OBSTACLES\n     127.\u00a0\u00a0FRIENDS\n     128.\u00a0\u00a0PROSPECTING\n     129.\u00a0\u00a0TAIL PIECE\n     130.\u00a0\u00a0A GENERAL HOWL\n     131.\u00a0\u00a0SEEKING A SITUATION\n     132.\u00a0\u00a0STANDING GUARD\n     133.\u00a0\u00a0RESULT OF A JOKE\n     134.\u00a0\u00a0DESCENDING A FARM\n     155.\u00a0\u00a0A GERMAN SABBATH\n     136.\u00a0\u00a0AN OBJECT OF SYMPATHY\n     137.\u00a0\u00a0A NON-CLASSICAL STYLE\n     138.\u00a0\u00a0THE TRADITIONAL CHAMOIS\n     139.\u00a0\u00a0HUNTING CHAMOIS THE TRUE WAY\n     140.\u00a0\u00a0CHAMOIS HUNTER AS REPORTED\n     141.\u00a0\u00a0MARKING ALPENSTOCKS\n     142.\u00a0\u00a0IS SHE EIGHTEEN OR TWENTY\n     143.\u00a0\u00a0I KNEW I WASN'T MISTAKEN\n     144.\u00a0\u00a0HARRIS ASTONISHED\n     145.\u00a0\u00a0TAIL PIECE\n     146.\u00a0\u00a0THE LION OF LUCERNE\n     147.\u00a0\u00a0HE LIKED CLOCKS\n     148.\u00a0\u00a0\"I WILL TELL YOU\"\n     149.\u00a0\u00a0COULDN'T WAIT\n     150.\u00a0\u00a0DIDN'T CARE FOR STYLE\n     151.\u00a0\u00a0A PAIR BETTER THAN FOUR\n     152.\u00a0\u00a0TWO WASN'T NECESSARY\n     153.\u00a0\u00a0JUST THE TRICK\n     154.\u00a0\u00a0GOING TO MAKE THEM STARE\n     155.\u00a0\u00a0NOT THROWN AWAY\n     156.\u00a0\u00a0WHAT THE DOCTOR RECOMMENDED\n     157.\u00a0\u00a0WANTED TO FEEL SAFE\n     158.\u00a0\u00a0PREFERRED TO TRAMP ON FOOT\n     159.\u00a0\u00a0DERN A DOG, ANYWAY\n     160.\u00a0\u00a0TAIL PIECE\n     161.\u00a0\u00a0THE GLACIER GARDEN\n     162.\u00a0\u00a0LAKE AND MOUNTAINS (MONT PILATUS)\n     163.\u00a0\u00a0MOUNTAIN PATHS\n     164.\u00a0\u00a0\"YOU'RE AN AMERICAN--SO AM I\"\n     165.\u00a0\u00a0ENTERPRISE\n     166.\u00a0\u00a0THE CONSTANT SEARCHER\n     167.\u00a0\u00a0THE MOUNTAIN BOY\n     168.\u00a0\u00a0THE ENGLISHMAN\n     169.\u00a0\u00a0THE JODLER\n     170.\u00a0\u00a0ANOTHER VOCALIST\n     171.\u00a0\u00a0THE FELSENTHOR\n     172.\u00a0\u00a0A VIEW FROM THE STATION\n     173.\u00a0\u00a0LOST IN THE MIST\n     174.\u00a0\u00a0THE RIGI-KULM HOTEL\n     175.\u00a0\u00a0WHAT AWAKENED US\n     176.\u00a0\u00a0A SUMMIT SUNRISE\n     177.\u00a0\u00a0TAIL PIECE\n\n\nCONTENTS:\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII The Black Forest--A Grandee and his Family--The Wealthy\nNabob--A New Standard of Wealth--Skeleton for a New Novel--Trying\nSituation--The Common Council--Choosing a New Member Studying Natural\nHistory--The Ant a Fraud--Eccentricities of the Ant--His Deceit and\nIgnorance--A German Dish--Boiled Oranges\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII Off for a Day's Tramp--Tramping and Talking--Story\nTelling--Dentistry in Camp--Nicodemus Dodge--Seeking a Situation--A\nButt for Jokes--Jimmy Finn's Skeleton--Descending a Farm--Unexpected\nNotoriety\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV Sunday on the Continent--A Day of Rest--An Incident\nat Church--An Object of Sympathy--Royalty at Church--Public Grounds\nConcert--Power and Grades of Music--Hiring a Courier\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV Lucerne--Beauty of its Lake--The Wild Chamois--A Great\nError Exposed--Methods of Hunting the Chamois--Beauties of Lucerne--The\nAlpenstock--Marking Alpenstocks--Guessing at Nationalities--An American\nParty--An Unexpected Acquaintance--Getting Mixed Up--Following Blind\nTrails--A Happy Half--hour--Defeat and Revenge\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI Commerce of Lucerne--Benefits of Martyrdom--A Bit of\nHistory--The Home of Cuckoo Clocks--A Satisfactory Revenge--The Alan\nWho Put Up at Gadsby's--A Forgotten Story--Wanted to be Postmaster--A\nTennessean at Washington--He Concluded to Stay A While--Application of\nthe Story\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVII The Glacier Garden--Excursion on the Lake--Life on the\nMountains--A Specimen Tourist--\"Where're you From?\"--An Advertising\nDodge--A Righteous Verdict--The Guide-book Student--I Believe that's All\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII The Rigi-Kulm--Its Ascent--Stripping for Business--A\nMountain Lad--An English Tourist--Railroad up the Mountain--Villages and\nMountain--The Jodlers--About Ice Water--The Felsenthor--Too Late--Lost\nin the Fog--The Rigi-Kulm Hotel--The Alpine Horn--Sunrise at Night\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII\n\n[The Black Forest and Its Treasures]\n\n\nFrom Baden-Baden we made the customary trip into the Black Forest. We\nwere on foot most of the time. One cannot describe those noble woods,\nnor the feeling with which they inspire him. A feature of the feeling,\nhowever, is a deep sense of contentment; another feature of it is a\nbuoyant, boyish gladness; and a third and very conspicuous feature of\nit is one's sense of the remoteness of the work-day world and his entire\nemancipation from it and its affairs.\n\nThose woods stretch unbroken over a vast region; and everywhere they are\nsuch dense woods, and so still, and so piney and fragrant. The stems of\nthe trees are trim and straight, and in many places all the ground is\nhidden for miles under a thick cushion of moss of a vivid green color,\nwith not a decayed or ragged spot in its surface, and not a fallen leaf\nor twig to mar its immaculate tidiness. A rich cathedral gloom pervades\nthe pillared aisles; so the stray flecks of sunlight that strike a trunk\nhere and a bough yonder are strongly accented, and when they strike the\nmoss they fairly seem to burn. But the weirdest effect, and the most\nenchanting is that produced by the diffused light of the low afternoon\nsun; no single ray is able to pierce its way in, then, but the diffused\nlight takes color from moss and foliage, and pervades the place like\na faint, green-tinted mist, the theatrical fire of fairyland. The\nsuggestion of mystery and the supernatural which haunts the forest at\nall times is intensified by this unearthly glow.\n\nWe found the Black Forest farmhouses and villages all that the Black\nForest stories have pictured them. The first genuine specimen which\nwe came upon was the mansion of a rich farmer and member of the Common\nCouncil of the parish or district. He was an important personage in the\nland and so was his wife also, of course.\n\n\nHis daughter was the \"catch\" of the region, and she may be already\nentering into immortality as the heroine of one of Auerbach's novels,\nfor all I know. We shall see, for if he puts her in I shall recognize\nher by her Black Forest clothes, and her burned complexion, her plump\nfigure, her fat hands, her dull expression, her gentle spirit,\nher generous feet, her bonnetless head, and the plaited tails of\nhemp-colored hair hanging down her back.\n\n\nThe house was big enough for a hotel; it was a hundred feet long and\nfifty wide, and ten feet high, from ground to eaves; but from the eaves\nto the comb of the mighty roof was as much as forty feet, or maybe even\nmore. This roof was of ancient mud-colored straw thatch a foot thick,\nand was covered all over, except in a few trifling spots, with a\nthriving and luxurious growth of green vegetation, mainly moss. The\nmossless spots were places where repairs had been made by the insertion\nof bright new masses of yellow straw. The eaves projected far down, like\nsheltering, hospitable wings. Across the gable that fronted the road,\nand about ten feet above the ground, ran a narrow porch, with a wooden\nrailing; a row of small windows filled with very small panes looked upon\nthe porch. Above were two or three other little windows, one clear up\nunder the sharp apex of the roof. Before the ground-floor door was a\nhuge pile of manure. The door of the second-story room on the side of\nthe house was open, and occupied by the rear elevation of a cow. Was\nthis probably the drawing-room? All of the front half of the house from\nthe ground up seemed to be occupied by the people, the cows, and the\nchickens, and all the rear half by draught-animals and hay. But the\nchief feature, all around this house, was the big heaps of manure.\n\nWe became very familiar with the fertilizer in the Forest. We fell\nunconsciously into the habit of judging of a man's station in life\nby this outward and eloquent sign. Sometimes we said, \"Here is a poor\ndevil, this is manifest.\" When we saw a stately accumulation, we said,\n\"Here is a banker.\" When we encountered a country-seat surrounded by an\nAlpine pomp of manure, we said, \"Doubtless a duke lives here.\"\n\nThe importance of this feature has not been properly magnified in the\nBlack Forest stories. Manure is evidently the Black-Forester's main\ntreasure--his coin, his jewel, his pride, his Old Master, his ceramics,\nhis bric-a-brac, his darling, his title to public consideration, envy,\nveneration, and his first solicitude when he gets ready to make his\nwill. The true Black Forest novel, if it is ever written, will be\nskeletoned somewhat in this way:\n\nSKELETON FOR A BLACK FOREST NOVEL\n\nRich old farmer, named Huss.\n\n\nHas inherited great wealth of manure, and by diligence has added to it.\nIt is double-starred in Baedeker. [1] The Black forest artist paints\nit--his masterpiece. The king comes to see it. Gretchen Huss,\ndaughter and heiress. Paul Hoch, young neighbor, suitor for Gretchen's\nhand--ostensibly; he really wants the manure.\n\n\nHoch has a good many cart-loads of the Black Forest currency himself,\nand therefore is a good catch; but he is sordid, mean, and without\nsentiment, whereas Gretchen is all sentiment and poetry. Hans Schmidt,\nyoung neighbor, full of sentiment, full of poetry, loves Gretchen,\nGretchen loves him. But he has no manure. Old Huss forbids him in the\nhouse. His heart breaks, he goes away to die in the woods, far from the\ncruel world--for he says, bitterly, \"What is man, without manure?\"\n\n1. When Baedeker's guide-books mention a thing and put two stars (**)\nafter it, it means well worth visiting. M.T.\n\n[Interval of six months.]\n\n\nPaul Hoch comes to old Huss and says, \"I am at last as rich as you\nrequired--come and view the pile.\" Old Huss views it and says, \"It is\nsufficient--take her and be happy,\"--meaning Gretchen.\n\n[Interval of two weeks.]\n\nWedding party assembled in old Huss's drawing-room. Hoch placid and\ncontent, Gretchen weeping over her hard fate. Enter old Huss's head\nbookkeeper. Huss says fiercely, \"I gave you three weeks to find out why\nyour books don't balance, and to prove that you are not a defaulter;\nthe time is up--find me the missing property or you go to prison as\na thief.\" Bookkeeper: \"I have found it.\" \"Where?\" Bookkeeper\n(sternly--tragically): \"In the bridegroom's pile!--behold the thief--see\nhim blench and tremble!\" [Sensation.] Paul Hoch: \"Lost, lost!\"--falls\nover the cow in a swoon and is handcuffed. Gretchen: \"Saved!\" Falls over\nthe calf in a swoon of joy, but is caught in the arms of Hans Schmidt,\nwho springs in at that moment. Old Huss: \"What, you here, varlet? Unhand\nthe maid and quit the place.\" Hans (still supporting the insensible\ngirl): \"Never! Cruel old man, know that I come with claims which even\nyou cannot despise.\"\n\n\nHuss: \"What, YOU? name them.\"\n\nHans: \"Listen then. The world has forsaken me, I forsook the world, I\nwandered in the solitude of the forest, longing for death but finding\nnone. I fed upon roots, and in my bitterness I dug for the bitterest,\nloathing the sweeter kind. Digging, three days agone, I struck a manure\nmine!--a Golconda, a limitless Bonanza, of solid manure! I can buy you\nALL, and have mountain ranges of manure left! Ha-ha, NOW thou smilest a\nsmile!\" [Immense sensation.] Exhibition of specimens from the mine. Old\nHuss (enthusiastically): \"Wake her up, shake her up, noble young man,\nshe is yours!\" Wedding takes place on the spot; bookkeeper restored to\nhis office and emoluments; Paul Hoch led off to jail. The Bonanza king\nof the Black Forest lives to a good old age, blessed with the love of\nhis wife and of his twenty-seven children, and the still sweeter envy of\neverybody around.\n\nWe took our noon meal of fried trout one day at the Plow Inn, in a very\npretty village (Ottenhoefen), and then went into the public room to rest\nand smoke. There we found nine or ten Black Forest grandees assembled\naround a table. They were the Common Council of the parish. They had\ngathered there at eight o'clock that morning to elect a new member, and\nthey had now been drinking beer four hours at the new member's expense.\n\n\nThey were men of fifty or sixty years of age, with grave good-natured\nfaces, and were all dressed in the costume made familiar to us by the\nBlack Forest stories; broad, round-topped black felt hats with the brims\ncurled up all round; long red waistcoats with large metal buttons, black\nalpaca coats with the waists up between the shoulders. There were no\nspeeches, there was but little talk, there were no frivolities; the\nCouncil filled themselves gradually, steadily, but surely, with beer,\nand conducted themselves with sedate decorum, as became men of position,\nmen of influence, men of manure.\n\nWe had a hot afternoon tramp up the valley, along the grassy bank of a\nrushing stream of clear water, past farmhouses, water-mills, and no end\nof wayside crucifixes and saints and Virgins. These crucifixes, etc.,\nare set up in memory of departed friends, by survivors, and are almost\nas frequent as telegraph-poles are in other lands.\n\nWe followed the carriage-road, and had our usual luck; we traveled under\na beating sun, and always saw the shade leave the shady places before we\ncould get to them. In all our wanderings we seldom managed to strike\na piece of road at its time for being shady. We had a particularly hot\ntime of it on that particular afternoon, and with no comfort but what we\ncould get out of the fact that the peasants at work away up on the steep\nmountainsides above our heads were even worse off than we were. By and\nby it became impossible to endure the intolerable glare and heat\nany longer; so we struck across the ravine and entered the deep cool\ntwilight of the forest, to hunt for what the guide-book called the \"old\nroad.\"\n\nWe found an old road, and it proved eventually to be the right one,\nthough we followed it at the time with the conviction that it was the\nwrong one. If it was the wrong one there could be no use in hurrying;\ntherefore we did not hurry, but sat down frequently on the soft moss and\nenjoyed the restful quiet and shade of the forest solitudes. There\nhad been distractions in the carriage-road--school-children, peasants,\nwagons, troops of pedestrianizing students from all over Germany--but we\nhad the old road to ourselves.\n\nNow and then, while we rested, we watched the laborious ant at his work.\nI found nothing new in him--certainly nothing to change my opinion of\nhim. It seems to me that in the matter of intellect the ant must be a\nstrangely overrated bird. During many summers, now, I have watched him,\nwhen I ought to have been in better business, and I have not yet come\nacross a living ant that seemed to have any more sense than a dead one.\nI refer to the ordinary ant, of course; I have had no experience of\nthose wonderful Swiss and African ones which vote, keep drilled armies,\nhold slaves, and dispute about religion. Those particular ants may be\nall that the naturalist paints them, but I am persuaded that the\naverage ant is a sham. I admit his industry, of course; he is the\nhardest-working creature in the world--when anybody is looking--but\nhis leather-headedness is the point I make against him. He goes out\nforaging, he makes a capture, and then what does he do? Go home? No--he\ngoes anywhere but home. He doesn't know where home is. His home may be\nonly three feet away--no matter, he can't find it. He makes his capture,\nas I have said; it is generally something which can be of no sort of\nuse to himself or anybody else; it is usually seven times bigger than\nit ought to be; he hunts out the awkwardest place to take hold of it;\nhe lifts it bodily up in the air by main force, and starts; not toward\nhome, but in the opposite direction; not calmly and wisely, but with a\nfrantic haste which is wasteful of his strength; he fetches up against\na pebble, and instead of going around it, he climbs over it backward\ndragging his booty after him, tumbles down on the other side, jumps up\nin a passion, kicks the dust off his clothes, moistens his hands, grabs\nhis property viciously, yanks it this way, then that, shoves it ahead\nof him a moment, turns tail and lugs it after him another moment,\ngets madder and madder, then presently hoists it into the air and goes\ntearing away in an entirely new direction; comes to a weed; it never\noccurs to him to go around it; no, he must climb it; and he does climb\nit, dragging his worthless property to the top--which is as bright\na thing to do as it would be for me to carry a sack of flour from\nHeidelberg to Paris by way of Strasburg steeple; when he gets up there\nhe finds that that is not the place; takes a cursory glance at the\nscenery and either climbs down again or tumbles down, and starts off\nonce more--as usual, in a new direction. At the end of half an hour, he\nfetches up within six inches of the place he started from and lays his\nburden down; meantime he has been over all the ground for two yards\naround, and climbed all the weeds and pebbles he came across. Now he\nwipes the sweat from his brow, strokes his limbs, and then marches\naimlessly off, in as violently a hurry as ever. He does not remember to\nhave ever seen it before; he looks around to see which is not the way\nhome, grabs his bundle and starts; he goes through the same adventures\nhe had before; finally stops to rest, and a friend comes along.\nEvidently the friend remarks that a last year's grasshopper leg is a\nvery noble acquisition, and inquires where he got it.\n\n\nEvidently the proprietor does not remember exactly where he did get\nit, but thinks he got it \"around here somewhere.\" Evidently the friend\ncontracts to help him freight it home. Then, with a judgment peculiarly\nantic (pun not intended), they take hold of opposite ends of that\ngrasshopper leg and begin to tug with all their might in opposite\ndirections. Presently they take a rest and confer together. They decide\nthat something is wrong, they can't make out what. Then they go at\nit again, just as before. Same result. Mutual recriminations follow.\nEvidently each accuses the other of being an obstructionist. They lock\nthemselves together and chew each other's jaws for a while; then they\nroll and tumble on the ground till one loses a horn or a leg and has to\nhaul off for repairs. They make up and go to work again in the same old\ninsane way, but the crippled ant is at a disadvantage; tug as he may,\nthe other one drags off the booty and him at the end of it. Instead\nof giving up, he hangs on, and gets his shins bruised against every\nobstruction that comes in the way. By and by, when that grasshopper leg\nhas been dragged all over the same old ground once more, it is finally\ndumped at about the spot where it originally lay, the two perspiring\nants inspect it thoughtfully and decide that dried grasshopper legs\nare a poor sort of property after all, and then each starts off in a\ndifferent direction to see if he can't find an old nail or something\nelse that is heavy enough to afford entertainment and at the same time\nvalueless enough to make an ant want to own it.\n\nThere in the Black Forest, on the mountainside, I saw an ant go through\nwith such a performance as this with a dead spider of fully ten times\nhis own weight. The spider was not quite dead, but too far gone to\nresist. He had a round body the size of a pea. The little ant--observing\nthat I was noticing--turned him on his back, sunk his fangs into his\nthroat, lifted him into the air and started vigorously off with him,\nstumbling over little pebbles, stepping on the spider's legs and\ntripping himself up, dragging him backward, shoving him bodily ahead,\ndragging him up stones six inches high instead of going around them,\nclimbing weeds twenty times his own height and jumping from their\nsummits--and finally leaving him in the middle of the road to be\nconfiscated by any other fool of an ant that wanted him. I measured the\nground which this ass traversed, and arrived at the conclusion that what\nhe had accomplished inside of twenty minutes would constitute some\nsuch job as this--relatively speaking--for a man; to wit: to strap two\neight-hundred-pound horses together, carry them eighteen hundred feet,\nmainly over (not around) boulders averaging six feet high, and in the\ncourse of the journey climb up and jump from the top of one precipice\nlike Niagara, and three steeples, each a hundred and twenty feet high;\nand then put the horses down, in an exposed place, without anybody to\nwatch them, and go off to indulge in some other idiotic miracle for\nvanity's sake.\n\n\nScience has recently discovered that the ant does not lay up anything\nfor winter use. This will knock him out of literature, to some extent.\nHe does not work, except when people are looking, and only then when the\nobserver has a green, naturalistic look, and seems to be taking notes.\nThis amounts to deception, and will injure him for the Sunday-schools.\nHe has not judgment enough to know what is good to eat from what isn't.\nThis amounts to ignorance, and will impair the world's respect for\nhim. He cannot stroll around a stump and find his way home again. This\namounts to idiocy, and once the damaging fact is established, thoughtful\npeople will cease to look up to him, the sentimental will cease to\nfondle him. His vaunted industry is but a vanity and of no effect, since\nhe never gets home with anything he starts with. This disposes of the\nlast remnant of his reputation and wholly destroys his main usefulness\nas a moral agent, since it will make the sluggard hesitate to go to him\nany more. It is strange, beyond comprehension, that so manifest a humbug\nas the ant has been able to fool so many nations and keep it up so many\nages without being found out.\n\nThe ant is strong, but we saw another strong thing, where we had not\nsuspected the presence of much muscular power before. A toadstool--that\nvegetable which springs to full growth in a single night--had torn loose\nand lifted a matted mass of pine needles and dirt of twice its own bulk\ninto the air, and supported it there, like a column supporting a shed.\nTen thousand toadstools, with the right purchase, could lift a man, I\nsuppose. But what good would it do?\n\nAll our afternoon's progress had been uphill. About five or half past we\nreached the summit, and all of a sudden the dense curtain of the forest\nparted and we looked down into a deep and beautiful gorge and out over a\nwide panorama of wooded mountains with their summits shining in the sun\nand their glade-furrowed sides dimmed with purple shade. The gorge under\nour feet--called Allerheiligen--afforded room in the grassy level at its\nhead for a cozy and delightful human nest, shut away from the world and\nits botherations, and consequently the monks of the old times had not\nfailed to spy it out; and here were the brown and comely ruins of their\nchurch and convent to prove that priests had as fine an instinct seven\nhundred years ago in ferreting out the choicest nooks and corners in a\nland as priests have today.\n\nA big hotel crowds the ruins a little, now, and drives a brisk trade\nwith summer tourists. We descended into the gorge and had a supper which\nwould have been very satisfactory if the trout had not been boiled.\nThe Germans are pretty sure to boil a trout or anything else if left to\ntheir own devices. This is an argument of some value in support of the\ntheory that they were the original colonists of the wild islands of the\ncoast of Scotland. A schooner laden with oranges was wrecked upon one\nof those islands a few years ago, and the gentle savages rendered the\ncaptain such willing assistance that he gave them as many oranges as\nthey wanted. Next day he asked them how they liked them. They shook\ntheir heads and said:\n\n\"Baked, they were tough; and even boiled, they warn't things for a\nhungry man to hanker after.\"\n\nWe went down the glen after supper. It is beautiful--a mixture of sylvan\nloveliness and craggy wildness. A limpid torrent goes whistling down\nthe glen, and toward the foot of it winds through a narrow cleft between\nlofty precipices and hurls itself over a succession of falls. After one\npasses the last of these he has a backward glimpse at the falls which\nis very pleasing--they rise in a seven-stepped stairway of foamy and\nglittering cascades, and make a picture which is as charming as it is\nunusual.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII\n\n[Nicodemus Dodge and the Skeleton]\n\n\nWe were satisfied that we could walk to Oppenau in one day, now that\nwe were in practice; so we set out the next morning after breakfast\ndetermined to do it. It was all the way downhill, and we had the\nloveliest summer weather for it. So we set the pedometer and then\nstretched away on an easy, regular stride, down through the cloven\nforest, drawing in the fragrant breath of the morning in deep refreshing\ndraughts, and wishing we might never have anything to do forever but\nwalk to Oppenau and keep on doing it and then doing it over again.\n\nNow, the true charm of pedestrianism does not lie in the walking, or\nin the scenery, but in the talking. The walking is good to time the\nmovement of the tongue by, and to keep the blood and the brain stirred\nup and active; the scenery and the woodsy smells are good to bear in\nupon a man an unconscious and unobtrusive charm and solace to eye and\nsoul and sense; but the supreme pleasure comes from the talk. It is no\nmatter whether one talks wisdom or nonsense, the case is the same, the\nbulk of the enjoyment lies in the wagging of the gladsome jaw and the\nflapping of the sympathetic ear.\n\nAnd what motley variety of subjects a couple of people will casually\nrake over in the course of a day's tramp! There being no constraint,\na change of subject is always in order, and so a body is not likely to\nkeep pegging at a single topic until it grows tiresome. We discussed\neverything we knew, during the first fifteen or twenty minutes, that\nmorning, and then branched out into the glad, free, boundless realm of\nthe things we were not certain about.\n\nHarris said that if the best writer in the world once got the slovenly\nhabit of doubling up his \"haves\" he could never get rid of it while he\nlived. That is to say, if a man gets the habit of saying \"I should\nhave liked to have known more about it\" instead of saying simply and\nsensibly, \"I should have liked to know more about it,\" that man's\ndisease is incurable. Harris said that his sort of lapse is to be found\nin every copy of every newspaper that has ever been printed in English,\nand in almost all of our books. He said he had observed it in Kirkham's\ngrammar and in Macaulay. Harris believed that milk-teeth are commoner in\nmen's mouths than those \"doubled-up haves.\"\n\nI do not know that there have not been moments in the course of the\npresent session when I should have been very glad to have accepted the\nproposal of my noble friend, and to have exchanged parts in some of our\nevenings of work.--[From a Speech of the English Chancellor of the\nExchequer, August, 1879.]\n\nThat changed the subject to dentistry. I said I believed the average\nman dreaded tooth-pulling more than amputation, and that he would yell\nquicker under the former operation than he would under the latter. The\nphilosopher Harris said that the average man would not yell in either\ncase if he had an audience. Then he continued:\n\n\"When our brigade first went into camp on the Potomac, we used to be\nbrought up standing, occasionally, by an ear-splitting howl of anguish.\nThat meant that a soldier was getting a tooth pulled in a tent. But the\nsurgeons soon changed that; they instituted open-air dentistry. There\nnever was a howl afterward--that is, from the man who was having the\ntooth pulled. At the daily dental hour there would always be about five\nhundred soldiers gathered together in the neighborhood of that dental\nchair waiting to see the performance--and help; and the moment the\nsurgeon took a grip on the candidate's tooth and began to lift, every\none of those five hundred rascals would clap his hand to his jaw and\nbegin to hop around on one leg and howl with all the lungs he had!\nIt was enough to raise your hair to hear that variegated and enormous\nunanimous caterwaul burst out!\n\n\nWith so big and so derisive an audience as that, a sufferer wouldn't\nemit a sound though you pulled his head off. The surgeons said that\npretty often a patient was compelled to laugh, in the midst of his\npangs, but that they had never caught one crying out, after the open-air\nexhibition was instituted.\"\n\nDental surgeons suggested doctors, doctors suggested death, death\nsuggested skeletons--and so, by a logical process the conversation\nmelted out of one of these subjects and into the next, until the topic\nof skeletons raised up Nicodemus Dodge out of the deep grave in my\nmemory where he had lain buried and forgotten for twenty-five years.\nWhen I was a boy in a printing-office in Missouri, a loose-jointed,\nlong-legged, tow-headed, jeans-clad countrified cub of about sixteen\nlounged in one day, and without removing his hands from the depths of\nhis trousers pockets or taking off his faded ruin of a slouch hat, whose\nbroken rim hung limp and ragged about his eyes and ears like a bug-eaten\ncabbage leaf, stared indifferently around, then leaned his hip against\nthe editor's table, crossed his mighty brogans, aimed at a distant\nfly from a crevice in his upper teeth, laid him low, and said with\ncomposure:\n\n\"Whar's the boss?\"\n\n\"I am the boss,\" said the editor, following this curious bit of\narchitecture wonderingly along up to its clock-face with his eye.\n\n\"Don't want anybody fur to learn the business, 'tain't likely?\"\n\n\"Well, I don't know. Would you like to learn it?\"\n\n\n\"Pap's so po' he cain't run me no mo', so I want to git a show somers if\nI kin, 'taint no diffunce what--I'm strong and hearty, and I don't turn\nmy back on no kind of work, hard nur soft.\"\n\n\"Do you think you would like to learn the printing business?\"\n\n\"Well, I don't re'ly k'yer a durn what I DO learn, so's I git a chance\nfur to make my way. I'd jist as soon learn print'n's anything.\"\n\n\"Can you read?\"\n\n\"Yes--middlin'.\"\n\n\"Write?\"\n\n\"Well, I've seed people could lay over me thar.\"\n\n\"Cipher?\"\n\n\"Not good enough to keep store, I don't reckon, but up as fur as\ntwelve-times-twelve I ain't no slouch. 'Tother side of that is what gits\nme.\"\n\n\"Where is your home?\"\n\n\"I'm f'm old Shelby.\"\n\n\"What's your father's religious denomination?\"\n\n\"Him? Oh, he's a blacksmith.\"\n\n\"No, no--I don't mean his trade. What's his RELIGIOUS DENOMINATION?\"\n\n\"OH--I didn't understand you befo'. He's a Freemason.\"\n\n\"No, no, you don't get my meaning yet. What I mean is, does he belong to\nany CHURCH?\"\n\n\"NOW you're talkin'! Couldn't make out what you was a-tryin' to git\nthrough yo' head no way. B'long to a CHURCH! Why, boss, he's ben the\npizenest kind of Free-will Babtis' for forty year. They ain't no pizener\nones 'n what HE is. Mighty good man, pap is. Everybody says that. If\nthey said any diffrunt they wouldn't say it whar I wuz--not MUCH they\nwouldn't.\"\n\n\"What is your own religion?\"\n\n\"Well, boss, you've kind o' got me, there--and yit you hain't got me so\nmighty much, nuther. I think 't if a feller he'ps another feller when\nhe's in trouble, and don't cuss, and don't do no mean things, nur\nnoth'n' he ain' no business to do, and don't spell the Saviour's name\nwith a little g, he ain't runnin' no resks--he's about as saift as he\nb'longed to a church.\"\n\n\"But suppose he did spell it with a little g--what then?\"\n\n\"Well, if he done it a-purpose, I reckon he wouldn't stand no chance--he\nOUGHTN'T to have no chance, anyway, I'm most rotten certain 'bout that.\"\n\n\"What is your name?\"\n\n\"Nicodemus Dodge.\"\n\n\"I think maybe you'll do, Nicodemus. We'll give you a trial, anyway.\"\n\n\"All right.\"\n\n\"When would you like to begin?\"\n\n\"Now.\"\n\nSo, within ten minutes after we had first glimpsed this nondescript he\nwas one of us, and with his coat off and hard at it.\n\nBeyond that end of our establishment which was furthest from the street,\nwas a deserted garden, pathless, and thickly grown with the bloomy and\nvillainous \"jimpson\" weed and its common friend the stately sunflower.\nIn the midst of this mournful spot was a decayed and aged little \"frame\"\nhouse with but one room, one window, and no ceiling--it had been a\nsmoke-house a generation before. Nicodemus was given this lonely and\nghostly den as a bedchamber.\n\nThe village smarties recognized a treasure in Nicodemus, right away--a\nbutt to play jokes on. It was easy to see that he was inconceivably\ngreen and confiding. George Jones had the glory of perpetrating the\nfirst joke on him; he gave him a cigar with a firecracker in it and\nwinked to the crowd to come; the thing exploded presently and swept away\nthe bulk of Nicodemus's eyebrows and eyelashes. He simply said:\n\n\"I consider them kind of seeg'yars dangersome,\"--and seemed to suspect\nnothing. The next evening Nicodemus waylaid George and poured a bucket\nof ice-water over him.\n\nOne day, while Nicodemus was in swimming, Tom McElroy \"tied\" his\nclothes. Nicodemus made a bonfire of Tom's by way of retaliation.\n\nA third joke was played upon Nicodemus a day or two later--he walked\nup the middle aisle of the village church, Sunday night, with a staring\nhandbill pinned between his shoulders. The joker spent the remainder\nof the night, after church, in the cellar of a deserted house, and\nNicodemus sat on the cellar door till toward breakfast-time to make\nsure that the prisoner remembered that if any noise was made, some rough\ntreatment would be the consequence. The cellar had two feet of stagnant\nwater in it, and was bottomed with six inches of soft mud.\n\n\nBut I wander from the point. It was the subject of skeletons that\nbrought this boy back to my recollection. Before a very long time\nhad elapsed, the village smarties began to feel an uncomfortable\nconsciousness of not having made a very shining success out of their\nattempts on the simpleton from \"old Shelby.\" Experimenters grew scarce\nand chary. Now the young doctor came to the rescue. There was delight\nand applause when he proposed to scare Nicodemus to death, and explained\nhow he was going to do it. He had a noble new skeleton--the skeleton of\nthe late and only local celebrity, Jimmy Finn, the village drunkard--a\ngrisly piece of property which he had bought of Jimmy Finn himself, at\nauction, for fifty dollars, under great competition, when Jimmy lay very\nsick in the tan-yard a fortnight before his death. The fifty dollars had\ngone promptly for whiskey and had considerably hurried up the change of\nownership in the skeleton. The doctor would put Jimmy Finn's skeleton in\nNicodemus's bed!\n\nThis was done--about half past ten in the evening. About Nicodemus's\nusual bedtime--midnight--the village jokers came creeping stealthily\nthrough the jimpson weeds and sunflowers toward the lonely frame den.\nThey reached the window and peeped in. There sat the long-legged pauper,\non his bed, in a very short shirt, and nothing more; he was dangling\nhis legs contentedly back and forth, and wheezing the music of \"Camptown\nRaces\" out of a paper-overlaid comb which he was pressing against his\nmouth; by him lay a new jewsharp, a new top, and solid india-rubber\nball, a handful of painted marbles, five pounds of \"store\" candy, and\na well-gnawed slab of gingerbread as big and as thick as a volume of\nsheet-music. He had sold the skeleton to a traveling quack for three\ndollars and was enjoying the result!\n\n\nJust as we had finished talking about skeletons and were drifting into\nthe subject of fossils, Harris and I heard a shout, and glanced up the\nsteep hillside. We saw men and women standing away up there looking\nfrightened, and there was a bulky object tumbling and floundering down\nthe steep slope toward us. We got out of the way, and when the object\nlanded in the road it proved to be a boy. He had tripped and fallen, and\nthere was nothing for him to do but trust to luck and take what might\ncome.\n\nWhen one starts to roll down a place like that, there is no stopping\ntill the bottom is reached. Think of people FARMING on a slant which is\nso steep that the best you can say of it--if you want to be fastidiously\naccurate--is, that it is a little steeper than a ladder and not quite\nso steep as a mansard roof. But that is what they do. Some of the little\nfarms on the hillside opposite Heidelberg were stood up \"edgeways.\"\nThe boy was wonderfully jolted up, and his head was bleeding, from cuts\nwhich it had got from small stones on the way.\n\n\nHarris and I gathered him up and set him on a stone, and by that time\nthe men and women had scampered down and brought his cap.\n\nMen, women, and children flocked out from neighboring cottages\nand joined the crowd; the pale boy was petted, and stared at, and\ncommiserated, and water was brought for him to drink and bathe his\nbruises in. And such another clatter of tongues! All who had seen the\ncatastrophe were describing it at once, and each trying to talk louder\nthan his neighbor; and one youth of a superior genius ran a little way\nup the hill, called attention, tripped, fell, rolled down among us, and\nthus triumphantly showed exactly how the thing had been done.\n\nHarris and I were included in all the descriptions; how we were coming\nalong; how Hans Gross shouted; how we looked up startled; how we saw\nPeter coming like a cannon-shot; how judiciously we got out of the way,\nand let him come; and with what presence of mind we picked him up and\nbrushed him off and set him on a rock when the performance was over.\nWe were as much heroes as anybody else, except Peter, and were so\nrecognized; we were taken with Peter and the populace to Peter's\nmother's cottage, and there we ate bread and cheese, and drank milk and\nbeer with everybody, and had a most sociable good time; and when we left\nwe had a handshake all around, and were receiving and shouting back LEB'\nWOHL's until a turn in the road separated us from our cordial and kindly\nnew friends forever.\n\nWe accomplished our undertaking. At half past eight in the evening\nwe stepped into Oppenau, just eleven hours and a half out of\nAllerheiligen--one hundred and forty-six miles. This is the distance by\npedometer; the guide-book and the Imperial Ordinance maps make it only\nten and a quarter--a surprising blunder, for these two authorities are\nusually singularly accurate in the matter of distances.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV\n\n[I Protect the Empress of Germany]\n\n\nThat was a thoroughly satisfactory walk--and the only one we were ever\nto have which was all the way downhill. We took the train next morning\nand returned to Baden-Baden through fearful fogs of dust. Every seat was\ncrowded, too; for it was Sunday, and consequently everybody was taking\na \"pleasure\" excursion. Hot! the sky was an oven--and a sound one,\ntoo, with no cracks in it to let in any air. An odd time for a pleasure\nexcursion, certainly!\n\nSunday is the great day on the continent--the free day, the happy day.\nOne can break the Sabbath in a hundred ways without committing any sin.\n\nWe do not work on Sunday, because the commandment forbids it; the\nGermans do not work on Sunday, because the commandment forbids it. We\nrest on Sunday, because the commandment requires it; the Germans rest on\nSunday because the commandment requires it. But in the definition of\nthe word \"rest\" lies all the difference. With us, its Sunday meaning\nis, stay in the house and keep still; with the Germans its Sunday and\nweek-day meanings seem to be the same--rest the TIRED PART, and never\nmind the other parts of the frame; rest the tired part, and use the\nmeans best calculated to rest that particular part. Thus: If one's\nduties have kept him in the house all the week, it will rest him to\nbe out on Sunday; if his duties have required him to read weighty and\nserious matter all the week, it will rest him to read light matter on\nSunday; if his occupation has busied him with death and funerals all the\nweek, it will rest him to go to the theater Sunday night and put in two\nor three hours laughing at a comedy; if he is tired with digging ditches\nor felling trees all the week, it will rest him to lie quiet in the\nhouse on Sunday; if the hand, the arm, the brain, the tongue, or any\nother member, is fatigued with inanition, it is not to be rested by\naddeding a day's inanition; but if a member is fatigued with exertion,\ninanition is the right rest for it. Such is the way in which the Germans\nseem to define the word \"rest\"; that is to say, they rest a member by\nrecreating, recuperating, restoring its forces. But our definition is\nless broad. We all rest alike on Sunday--by secluding ourselves and\nkeeping still, whether that is the surest way to rest the most of us or\nnot. The Germans make the actors, the preachers, etc., work on Sunday.\nWe encourage the preachers, the editors, the printers, etc., to work on\nSunday, and imagine that none of the sin of it falls upon us; but I do\nnot know how we are going to get around the fact that if it is wrong for\nthe printer to work at his trade on Sunday it must be equally wrong for\nthe preacher to work at his, since the commandment has made no exception\nin his favor. We buy Monday morning's paper and read it, and thus\nencourage Sunday printing. But I shall never do it again.\n\n\nThe Germans remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy, by abstaining\nfrom work, as commanded; we keep it holy by abstaining from work, as\ncommanded, and by also abstaining from play, which is not commanded.\nPerhaps we constructively BREAK the command to rest, because the resting\nwe do is in most cases only a name, and not a fact.\n\nThese reasonings have sufficed, in a measure, to mend the rent in my\nconscience which I made by traveling to Baden-Baden that Sunday. We\narrived in time to furbish up and get to the English church before\nservices began. We arrived in considerable style, too, for the landlord\nhad ordered the first carriage that could be found, since there was no\ntime to lose, and our coachman was so splendidly liveried that we were\nprobably mistaken for a brace of stray dukes; why else were we honored\nwith a pew all to ourselves, away up among the very elect at the left of\nthe chancel? That was my first thought. In the pew directly in front of\nus sat an elderly lady, plainly and cheaply dressed; at her side sat\na young lady with a very sweet face, and she also was quite simply\ndressed; but around us and about us were clothes and jewels which it\nwould do anybody's heart good to worship in.\n\nI thought it was pretty manifest that the elderly lady was embarrassed\nat finding herself in such a conspicuous place arrayed in such cheap\napparel; I began to feel sorry for her and troubled about her. She\ntried to seem very busy with her prayer-book and her responses, and\nunconscious that she was out of place, but I said to myself, \"She is\nnot succeeding--there is a distressed tremulousness in her voice which\nbetrays increasing embarrassment.\" Presently the Savior's name was\nmentioned, and in her flurry she lost her head completely, and rose and\ncourtesied, instead of making a slight nod as everybody else did. The\nsympathetic blood surged to my temples and I turned and gave those fine\nbirds what I intended to be a beseeching look, but my feelings got the\nbetter of me and changed it into a look which said, \"If any of you pets\nof fortune laugh at this poor soul, you will deserve to be flayed for\nit.\" Things went from bad to worse, and I shortly found myself mentally\ntaking the unfriended lady under my protection. My mind was wholly upon\nher. I forgot all about the sermon. Her embarrassment took stronger\nand stronger hold upon her; she got to snapping the lid of her\nsmelling-bottle--it made a loud, sharp sound, but in her trouble she\nsnapped and snapped away, unconscious of what she was doing. The last\nextremity was reached when the collection-plate began its rounds; the\nmoderate people threw in pennies, the nobles and the rich contributed\nsilver, but she laid a twenty-mark gold piece upon the book-rest before\nher with a sounding slap! I said to myself, \"She has parted with all her\nlittle hoard to buy the consideration of these unpitying people--it is a\nsorrowful spectacle.\" I did not venture to look around this time; but\nas the service closed, I said to myself, \"Let them laugh, it is their\nopportunity; but at the door of this church they shall see her step into\nour fine carriage with us, and our gaudy coachman shall drive her home.\"\n\n\nThen she rose--and all the congregation stood while she walked down the\naisle. She was the Empress of Germany!\n\nNo--she had not been so much embarrassed as I had supposed. My\nimagination had got started on the wrong scent, and that is always\nhopeless; one is sure, then, to go straight on misinterpreting\neverything, clear through to the end. The young lady with her imperial\nMajesty was a maid of honor--and I had been taking her for one of her\nboarders, all the time.\n\nThis is the only time I have ever had an Empress under my personal\nprotection; and considering my inexperience, I wonder I got through\nwith it so well. I should have been a little embarrassed myself if I had\nknown earlier what sort of a contract I had on my hands.\n\nWe found that the Empress had been in Baden-Baden several days. It is\nsaid that she never attends any but the English form of church service.\n\nI lay abed and read and rested from my journey's fatigues the remainder\nof that Sunday, but I sent my agent to represent me at the afternoon\nservice, for I never allow anything to interfere with my habit of\nattending church twice every Sunday.\n\nThere was a vast crowd in the public grounds that night to hear the band\nplay the \"Fremersberg.\" This piece tells one of the old legends of the\nregion; how a great noble of the Middle Ages got lost in the mountains,\nand wandered about with his dogs in a violent storm, until at last\nthe faint tones of a monastery bell, calling the monks to a midnight\nservice, caught his ear, and he followed the direction the sounds came\nfrom and was saved. A beautiful air ran through the music, without\nceasing, sometimes loud and strong, sometimes so soft that it could\nhardly be distinguished--but it was always there; it swung grandly along\nthrough the shrill whistling of the storm-wind, the rattling patter of\nthe rain, and the boom and crash of the thunder; it wound soft and low\nthrough the lesser sounds, the distant ones, such as the throbbing\nof the convent bell, the melodious winding of the hunter's horn, the\ndistressed bayings of his dogs, and the solemn chanting of the monks;\nit rose again, with a jubilant ring, and mingled itself with the country\nsongs and dances of the peasants assembled in the convent hall to\ncheer up the rescued huntsman while he ate his supper. The instruments\nimitated all these sounds with a marvelous exactness. More than one man\nstarted to raise his umbrella when the storm burst forth and the sheets\nof mimic rain came driving by; it was hardly possible to keep from\nputting your hand to your hat when the fierce wind began to rage and\nshriek; and it was NOT possible to refrain from starting when those\nsudden and charmingly real thunder-crashes were let loose.\n\n\nI suppose the \"Fremersberg\" is a very low-grade music; I know, indeed,\nthat it MUST be low-grade music, because it delighted me, warmed me,\nmoved me, stirred me, uplifted me, enraptured me, that I was full of\ncry all the time, and mad with enthusiasm. My soul had never had such a\nscouring out since I was born. The solemn and majestic chanting of the\nmonks was not done by instruments, but by men's voices; and it rose\nand fell, and rose again in that rich confusion of warring sounds, and\npulsing bells, and the stately swing of that ever-present enchanting\nair, and it seemed to me that nothing but the very lowest of low-grade\nmusic COULD be so divinely beautiful. The great crowd which the\n\"Fremersberg\" had called out was another evidence that it was low-grade\nmusic; for only the few are educated up to a point where high-grade\nmusic gives pleasure. I have never heard enough classic music to be able\nto enjoy it. I dislike the opera because I want to love it and can't.\n\nI suppose there are two kinds of music--one kind which one feels, just\nas an oyster might, and another sort which requires a higher faculty,\na faculty which must be assisted and developed by teaching. Yet if base\nmusic gives certain of us wings, why should we want any other? But we\ndo. We want it because the higher and better like it. We want it without\ngiving it the necessary time and trouble; so we climb into that upper\ntier, that dress-circle, by a lie; we PRETEND we like it. I know several\nof that sort of people--and I propose to be one of them myself when I\nget home with my fine European education.\n\nAnd then there is painting. What a red rag is to a bull, Turner's \"Slave\nShip\" was to me, before I studied art. Mr. Ruskin is educated in art\nup to a point where that picture throws him into as mad an ecstasy of\npleasure as it used to throw me into one of rage, last year, when I was\nignorant. His cultivation enables him--and me, now--to see water in that\nglaring yellow mud, and natural effects in those lurid explosions\nof mixed smoke and flame, and crimson sunset glories; it reconciles\nhim--and me, now--to the floating of iron cable-chains and other\nunfloatable things; it reconciles us to fishes swimming around on top\nof the mud--I mean the water. The most of the picture is a manifest\nimpossibility--that is to say, a lie; and only rigid cultivation can\nenable a man to find truth in a lie. But it enabled Mr. Ruskin to do\nit, and it has enabled me to do it, and I am thankful for it. A Boston\nnewspaper reporter went and took a look at the Slave Ship floundering\nabout in that fierce conflagration of reds and yellows, and said it\nreminded him of a tortoise-shell cat having a fit in a platter\nof tomatoes. In my then uneducated state, that went home to my\nnon-cultivation, and I thought here is a man with an unobstructed eye.\nMr. Ruskin would have said: This person is an ass. That is what I would\nsay, now.\n\nMonths after this was written, I happened into the National Gallery in\nLondon, and soon became so fascinated with the Turner pictures that I\ncould hardly get away from the place. I went there often, afterward,\nmeaning to see the rest of the gallery, but the Turner spell was too\nstrong; it could not be shaken off. However, the Turners which attracted\nme most did not remind me of the Slave Ship.\n\nHowever, our business in Baden-Baden this time, was to join our courier.\nI had thought it best to hire one, as we should be in Italy, by and by,\nand we did not know the language. Neither did he. We found him at the\nhotel, ready to take charge of us. I asked him if he was \"all fixed.\" He\nsaid he was. That was very true. He had a trunk, two small satchels,\nand an umbrella. I was to pay him fifty-five dollars a month and railway\nfares. On the continent the railway fare on a trunk is about the same\nit is on a man. Couriers do not have to pay any board and lodging. This\nseems a great saving to the tourist--at first. It does not occur to the\ntourist that SOMEBODY pays that man's board and lodging. It occurs to\nhim by and by, however, in one of his lucid moments.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV\n\n[Hunted by the Little Chamois]\n\n\nNext morning we left in the train for Switzerland, and reached Lucerne\nabout ten o'clock at night. The first discovery I made was that the\nbeauty of the lake had not been exaggerated. Within a day or two I made\nanother discovery. This was, that the lauded chamois is not a wild goat;\nthat it is not a horned animal; that it is not shy; that it does not\navoid human society; and that there is no peril in hunting it.\n\n\nThe chamois is a black or brown creature no bigger than a mustard seed;\nyou do not have to go after it, it comes after you; it arrives in vast\nherds and skips and scampers all over your body, inside your clothes;\nthus it is not shy, but extremely sociable; it is not afraid of man, on\nthe contrary, it will attack him; its bite is not dangerous, but neither\nis it pleasant; its activity has not been overstated --if you try to put\nyour finger on it, it will skip a thousand times its own length at one\njump, and no eye is sharp enough to see where it lights. A great deal\nof romantic nonsense has been written about the Swiss chamois and the\nperils of hunting it, whereas the truth is that even women and children\nhunt it, and fearlessly; indeed, everybody hunts it; the hunting is\ngoing on all the time, day and night, in bed and out of it. It is poetic\nfoolishness to hunt it with a gun; very few people do that; there is\nnot one man in a million who can hit it with a gun. It is much easier to\ncatch it than it is to shoot it, and only the experienced chamois-hunter\ncan do either. Another common piece of exaggeration is that about the\n\"scarcity\" of the chamois. It is the reverse of scarce. Droves of one\nhundred million chamois are not unusual in the Swiss hotels. Indeed,\nthey are so numerous as to be a great pest. The romancers always dress\nup the chamois-hunter in a fanciful and picturesque costume, whereas the\nbest way to hunt this game is to do it without any costume at all.\n\n\nThe article of commerce called chamois-skin is another fraud; nobody\ncould skin a chamois, it is too small. The creature is a humbug in\nevery way, and everything which has been written about it is sentimental\nexaggeration. It was no pleasure to me to find the chamois out, for he\nhad been one of my pet illusions; all my life it had been my dream to\nsee him in his native wilds some day, and engage in the adventurous\nsport of chasing him from cliff to cliff. It is no pleasure to me to\nexpose him, now, and destroy the reader's delight in him and respect for\nhim, but still it must be done, for when an honest writer discovers an\nimposition it is his simple duty to strip it bare and hurl it down from\nits place of honor, no matter who suffers by it; any other course would\nrender him unworthy of the public confidence.\n\nLucerne is a charming place. It begins at the water's edge, with a\nfringe of hotels, and scrambles up and spreads itself over two or three\nsharp hills in a crowded, disorderly, but picturesque way, offering\nto the eye a heaped-up confusion of red roofs, quaint gables, dormer\nwindows, toothpick steeples, with here and there a bit of ancient\nembattled wall bending itself over the ridges, worm-fashion, and here\nand there an old square tower of heavy masonry. And also here and there\na town clock with only one hand--a hand which stretches across the dial\nand has no joint in it; such a clock helps out the picture, but you\ncannot tell the time of day by it. Between the curving line of hotels\nand the lake is a broad avenue with lamps and a double rank of low shade\ntrees. The lake-front is walled with masonry like a pier, and has\na railing, to keep people from walking overboard. All day long the\nvehicles dash along the avenue, and nurses, children, and tourists sit\nin the shade of the trees, or lean on the railing and watch the schools\nof fishes darting about in the clear water, or gaze out over the lake\nat the stately border of snow-hooded mountain peaks. Little pleasure\nsteamers, black with people, are coming and going all the time; and\neverywhere one sees young girls and young men paddling about in fanciful\nrowboats, or skimming along by the help of sails when there is any wind.\nThe front rooms of the hotels have little railed balconies, where one\nmay take his private luncheon in calm, cool comfort and look down upon\nthis busy and pretty scene and enjoy it without having to do any of the\nwork connected with it.\n\nMost of the people, both male and female, are in walking costume, and\ncarry alpenstocks. Evidently, it is not considered safe to go about in\nSwitzerland, even in town, without an alpenstock. If the tourist forgets\nand comes down to breakfast without his alpenstock he goes back and gets\nit, and stands it up in the corner. When his touring in Switzerland is\nfinished, he does not throw that broomstick away, but lugs it home\nwith him, to the far corners of the earth, although this costs him\nmore trouble and bother than a baby or a courier could. You see, the\nalpenstock is his trophy; his name is burned upon it; and if he has\nclimbed a hill, or jumped a brook, or traversed a brickyard with it, he\nhas the names of those places burned upon it, too.\n\n\nThus it is his regimental flag, so to speak, and bears the record of his\nachievements. It is worth three francs when he buys it, but a bonanza\ncould not purchase it after his great deeds have been inscribed upon it.\nThere are artisans all about Switzerland whose trade it is to burn\nthese things upon the alpenstock of the tourist. And observe, a man is\nrespected in Switzerland according to his alpenstock. I found I could\nget no attention there, while I carried an unbranded one. However,\nbranding is not expected, so I soon remedied that. The effect upon\nthe next detachment of tourists was very marked. I felt repaid for my\ntrouble.\n\nHalf of the summer horde in Switzerland is made up of English people;\nthe other half is made up of many nationalities, the Germans leading and\nthe Americans coming next. The Americans were not as numerous as I had\nexpected they would be.\n\nThe seven-thirty table d'h\u00f4te at the great Schweitzerhof furnished\na mighty array and variety of nationalities, but it offered a better\nopportunity to observe costumes than people, for the multitude sat\nat immensely long tables, and therefore the faces were mainly seen in\nperspective; but the breakfasts were served at small round tables,\nand then if one had the fortune to get a table in the midst of the\nassemblage he could have as many faces to study as he could desire.\nWe used to try to guess out the nationalities, and generally succeeded\ntolerably well. Sometimes we tried to guess people's names; but that\nwas a failure; that is a thing which probably requires a good deal of\npractice. We presently dropped it and gave our efforts to less difficult\nparticulars. One morning I said:\n\n\"There is an American party.\"\n\nHarris said:\n\n\"Yes--but name the state.\"\n\nI named one state, Harris named another. We agreed upon one thing,\nhowever--that the young girl with the party was very beautiful, and\nvery tastefully dressed. But we disagreed as to her age. I said she was\neighteen, Harris said she was twenty. The dispute between us waxed warm,\nand I finally said, with a pretense of being in earnest:\n\n\"Well, there is one way to settle the matter--I will go and ask her.\"\n\n\nHarris said, sarcastically, \"Certainly, that is the thing to do. All you\nneed to do is to use the common formula over here: go and say, 'I'm an\nAmerican!' Of course she will be glad to see you.\"\n\nThen he hinted that perhaps there was no great danger of my venturing to\nspeak to her.\n\nI said, \"I was only talking--I didn't intend to approach her, but I see\nthat you do not know what an intrepid person I am. I am not afraid of\nany woman that walks. I will go and speak to this young girl.\"\n\nThe thing I had in my mind was not difficult. I meant to address her\nin the most respectful way and ask her to pardon me if her strong\nresemblance to a former acquaintance of mine was deceiving me; and when\nshe should reply that the name I mentioned was not the name she bore, I\nmeant to beg pardon again, most respectfully, and retire. There would be\nno harm done. I walked to her table, bowed to the gentleman, then turned\nto her and was about to begin my little speech when she exclaimed:\n\n\"I KNEW I wasn't mistaken--I told John it was you! John said it probably\nwasn't, but I knew I was right. I said you would recognize me presently\nand come over; and I'm glad you did, for I shouldn't have felt much\nflattered if you had gone out of this room without recognizing me.\nSit down, sit down--how odd it is--you are the last person I was ever\nexpecting to see again.\"\n\n\nThis was a stupefying surprise. It took my wits clear away, for an\ninstant. However, we shook hands cordially all around, and I sat down.\nBut truly this was the tightest place I ever was in. I seemed to vaguely\nremember the girl's face, now, but I had no idea where I had seen it\nbefore, or what name belonged with it. I immediately tried to get up a\ndiversion about Swiss scenery, to keep her from launching into topics\nthat might betray that I did not know her, but it was of no use, she\nwent right along upon matters which interested her more:\n\n\"Oh dear, what a night that was, when the sea washed the forward boats\naway--do you remember it?\"\n\n\"Oh, DON'T I!\" said I--but I didn't. I wished the sea had washed the\nrudder and the smoke-stack and the captain away--then I could have\nlocated this questioner.\n\n\"And don't you remember how frightened poor Mary was, and how she\ncried?\"\n\n\"Indeed I do!\" said I. \"Dear me, how it all comes back!\"\n\nI fervently wished it WOULD come back--but my memory was a blank. The\nwise way would have been to frankly own up; but I could not bring myself\nto do that, after the young girl had praised me so for recognizing her;\nso I went on, deeper and deeper into the mire, hoping for a chance clue\nbut never getting one. The Unrecognizable continued, with vivacity:\n\n\"Do you know, George married Mary, after all?\"\n\n\"Why, no! Did he?\"\n\n\"Indeed he did. He said he did not believe she was half as much to blame\nas her father was, and I thought he was right. Didn't you?\"\n\n\"Of course he was. It was a perfectly plain case. I always said so.\"\n\n\"Why, no you didn't!--at least that summer.\"\n\n\"Oh, no, not that summer. No, you are perfectly right about that. It was\nthe following winter that I said it.\"\n\n\"Well, as it turned out, Mary was not in the least to blame --it was all\nher father's fault--at least his and old Darley's.\"\n\nIt was necessary to say something--so I said:\n\n\"I always regarded Darley as a troublesome old thing.\"\n\n\"So he was, but then they always had a great affection for him, although\nhe had so many eccentricities. You remember that when the weather was\nthe least cold, he would try to come into the house.\"\n\nI was rather afraid to proceed. Evidently Darley was not a man--he\nmust be some other kind of animal--possibly a dog, maybe an elephant.\nHowever, tails are common to all animals, so I ventured to say:\n\n\"And what a tail he had!\"\n\n\"ONE! He had a thousand!\"\n\nThis was bewildering. I did not quite know what to say, so I only said:\n\n\"Yes, he WAS rather well fixed in the matter of tails.\"\n\n\"For a negro, and a crazy one at that, I should say he was,\" said she.\n\nIt was getting pretty sultry for me. I said to myself, \"Is it possible\nshe is going to stop there, and wait for me to speak? If she does, the\nconversation is blocked. A negro with a thousand tails is a topic which\na person cannot talk upon fluently and instructively without more or\nless preparation. As to diving rashly into such a vast subject--\"\n\nBut here, to my gratitude, she interrupted my thoughts by saying:\n\n\"Yes, when it came to tales of his crazy woes, there was simply no\nend to them if anybody would listen. His own quarters were comfortable\nenough, but when the weather was cold, the family were sure to have his\ncompany--nothing could keep him out of the house. But they always bore\nit kindly because he had saved Tom's life, years before. You remember\nTom?\n\n\"Oh, perfectly. Fine fellow he was, too.\"\n\n\"Yes he was. And what a pretty little thing his child was!\"\n\n\"You may well say that. I never saw a prettier child.\"\n\n\"I used to delight to pet it and dandle it and play with it.\"\n\n\"So did I.\"\n\n\"You named it. What WAS that name? I can't call it to mind.\"\n\nIt appeared to me that the ice was getting pretty thin, here. I would\nhave given something to know what the child's was. However, I had the\ngood luck to think of a name that would fit either sex--so I brought it\nout:\n\n\"I named it Frances.\"\n\n\"From a relative, I suppose? But you named the one that died, too--one\nthat I never saw. What did you call that one?\"\n\nI was out of neutral names, but as the child was dead and she had\nnever seen it, I thought I might risk a name for it and trust to luck.\nTherefore I said:\n\n\"I called that one Thomas Henry.\"\n\nShe said, musingly:\n\n\"That is very singular ... very singular.\"\n\nI sat still and let the cold sweat run down. I was in a good deal of\ntrouble, but I believed I could worry through if she wouldn't ask me\nto name any more children. I wondered where the lightning was going to\nstrike next. She was still ruminating over that last child's title, but\npresently she said:\n\n\"I have always been sorry you were away at the time--I would have had\nyou name my child.\"\n\n\"YOUR child! Are you married?\"\n\n\"I have been married thirteen years.\"\n\n\"Christened, you mean.\"\n\n`\"No, married. The youth by your side is my son.\"\n\n\"It seems incredible--even impossible. I do not mean any harm by it, but\nwould you mind telling me if you are any over eighteen?--that is to say,\nwill you tell me how old you are?\"\n\n\"I was just nineteen the day of the storm we were talking about. That\nwas my birthday.\"\n\nThat did not help matters, much, as I did not know the date of the\nstorm. I tried to think of some non-committal thing to say, to keep up\nmy end of the talk, and render my poverty in the matter of reminiscences\nas little noticeable as possible, but I seemed to be about out of\nnon-committal things. I was about to say, \"You haven't changed a bit\nsince then\"--but that was risky. I thought of saying, \"You have improved\never so much since then\"--but that wouldn't answer, of course. I was\nabout to try a shy at the weather, for a saving change, when the girl\nslipped in ahead of me and said:\n\n\"How I have enjoyed this talk over those happy old times--haven't you?\"\n\n\"I never have spent such a half-hour in all my life before!\" said I,\nwith emotion; and I could have added, with a near approach to truth,\n\"and I would rather be scalped than spend another one like it.\" I was\nholily grateful to be through with the ordeal, and was about to make my\ngood-bys and get out, when the girl said:\n\n\"But there is one thing that is ever so puzzling to me.\"\n\n\"Why, what is that?\"\n\n\"That dead child's name. What did you say it was?\"\n\nHere was another balmy place to be in: I had forgotten the child's name;\nI hadn't imagined it would be needed again. However, I had to pretend to\nknow, anyway, so I said:\n\n\"Joseph William.\"\n\nThe youth at my side corrected me, and said:\n\n\"No, Thomas Henry.\"\n\nI thanked him--in words--and said, with trepidation:\n\n\"O yes--I was thinking of another child that I named--I have named\na great many, and I get them confused--this one was named Henry\nThompson--\"\n\n\"Thomas Henry,\" calmly interposed the boy.\n\nI thanked him again--strictly in words--and stammered out:\n\n\"Thomas Henry--yes, Thomas Henry was the poor child's name. I named\nhim for Thomas--er--Thomas Carlyle, the great author, you know--and\nHenry--er--er--Henry the Eighth. The parents were very grateful to have\na child named Thomas Henry.\"\n\n\"That makes it more singular than ever,\" murmured my beautiful friend.\n\n\"Does it? Why?\"\n\n\"Because when the parents speak of that child now, they always call it\nSusan Amelia.\"\n\nThat spiked my gun. I could not say anything. I was entirely out of\nverbal obliquities; to go further would be to lie, and that I would not\ndo; so I simply sat still and suffered--sat mutely and resignedly there,\nand sizzled--for I was being slowly fried to death in my own blushes.\nPresently the enemy laughed a happy laugh and said:\n\n\"I HAVE enjoyed this talk over old times, but you have not. I saw very\nsoon that you were only pretending to know me, and so as I had wasted a\ncompliment on you in the beginning, I made up my mind to punish you. And\nI have succeeded pretty well. I was glad to see that you knew George and\nTom and Darley, for I had never heard of them before and therefore could\nnot be sure that you had; and I was glad to learn the names of those\nimaginary children, too. One can get quite a fund of information out\nof you if one goes at it cleverly. Mary and the storm, and the sweeping\naway of the forward boats, were facts--all the rest was fiction. Mary\nwas my sister; her full name was Mary ------. NOW do you remember me?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, \"I do remember you now; and you are as hard-headed as you\nwere thirteen years ago in that ship, else you wouldn't have punished me\nso. You haven't changed your nature nor your person, in any way at all;\nyou look as young as you did then, you are just as beautiful as you were\nthen, and you have transmitted a deal of your comeliness to this fine\nboy. There--if that speech moves you any, let's fly the flag of truce,\nwith the understanding that I am conquered and confess it.\"\n\nAll of which was agreed to and accomplished, on the spot. When I went\nback to Harris, I said:\n\n\"Now you see what a person with talent and address can do.\"\n\n\"Excuse me, I see what a person of colossal ignorance and simplicity can\ndo. The idea of your going and intruding on a party of strangers, that\nway, and talking for half an hour; why I never heard of a man in his\nright mind doing such a thing before. What did you say to them?\"\n\n\n\"I never said any harm. I merely asked the girl what her name was.\"\n\n\"I don't doubt it. Upon my word I don't. I think you were capable of it.\nIt was stupid in me to let you go over there and make such an exhibition\nof yourself. But you know I couldn't really believe you would do such an\ninexcusable thing. What will those people think of us? But how did you\nsay it?--I mean the manner of it. I hope you were not abrupt.\"\n\n\"No, I was careful about that. I said, 'My friend and I would like to\nknow what your name is, if you don't mind.'\"\n\n\"No, that was not abrupt. There is a polish about it that does you\ninfinite credit. And I am glad you put me in; that was a delicate\nattention which I appreciate at its full value. What did she do?\"\n\n\"She didn't do anything in particular. She told me her name.\"\n\n\"Simply told you her name. Do you mean to say she did not show any\nsurprise?\"\n\n\"Well, now I come to think, she did show something; maybe it was\nsurprise; I hadn't thought of that--I took it for gratification.\"\n\n\"Oh, undoubtedly you were right; it must have been gratification; it\ncould not be otherwise than gratifying to be assaulted by a stranger\nwith such a question as that. Then what did you do?\"\n\n\"I offered my hand and the party gave me a shake.\"\n\n\"I saw it! I did not believe my own eyes, at the time. Did the gentleman\nsay anything about cutting your throat?\"\n\n\"No, they all seemed glad to see me, as far as I could judge.\"\n\n\"And do you know, I believe they were. I think they said to themselves,\n'Doubtless this curiosity has got away from his keeper--let us amuse\nourselves with him.' There is no other way of accounting for their\nfacile docility. You sat down. Did they ASK you to sit down?\"\n\n\"No, they did not ask me, but I suppose they did not think of it.\"\n\n\"You have an unerring instinct. What else did you do? What did you talk\nabout?\"\n\n\"Well, I asked the girl how old she was.\"\n\n\"UNdoubtedly. Your delicacy is beyond praise. Go on, go on--don't mind\nmy apparent misery--I always look so when I am steeped in a profound and\nreverent joy. Go on--she told you her age?\"\n\n\"Yes, she told me her age, and all about her mother, and her\ngrandmother, and her other relations, and all about herself.\"\n\n\"Did she volunteer these statistics?\"\n\n\"No, not exactly that. I asked the questions and she answered them.\"\n\n\"This is divine. Go on--it is not possible that you forgot to inquire\ninto her politics?\"\n\n\"No, I thought of that. She is a democrat, her husband is a republican,\nand both of them are Baptists.\"\n\n\"Her husband? Is that child married?\"\n\n\"She is not a child. She is married, and that is her husband who is\nthere with her.\"\n\n\"Has she any children.\"\n\n\"Yes--seven and a half.\"\n\n\"That is impossible.\"\n\n\"No, she has them. She told me herself.\"\n\n\"Well, but seven and a HALF? How do you make out the half? Where does\nthe half come in?\"\n\n\"There is a child which she had by another husband--not this one\nbut another one--so it is a stepchild, and they do not count in full\nmeasure.\"\n\n\"Another husband? Has she another husband?\"\n\n\"Yes, four. This one is number four.\"\n\n\"I don't believe a word of it. It is impossible, upon its face. Is that\nboy there her brother?\"\n\n\"No, that is her son. He is her youngest. He is not as old as he looked;\nhe is only eleven and a half.\"\n\n\"These things are all manifestly impossible. This is a wretched\nbusiness. It is a plain case: they simply took your measure, and\nconcluded to fill you up. They seem to have succeeded. I am glad I am\nnot in the mess; they may at least be charitable enough to think there\nain't a pair of us. Are they going to stay here long?\"\n\n\"No, they leave before noon.\"\n\n\"There is one man who is deeply grateful for that. How did you find out?\nYou asked, I suppose?\"\n\n\"No, along at first I inquired into their plans, in a general way, and\nthey said they were going to be here a week, and make trips round about;\nbut toward the end of the interview, when I said you and I would tour\naround with them with pleasure, and offered to bring you over and\nintroduce you, they hesitated a little, and asked if you were from the\nsame establishment that I was. I said you were, and then they said they\nhad changed their mind and considered it necessary to start at once and\nvisit a sick relative in Siberia.\"\n\n\"Ah, me, you struck the summit! You struck the loftiest altitude of\nstupidity that human effort has ever reached. You shall have a monument\nof jackasses' skulls as high as the Strasburg spire if you die before\nI do. They wanted to know I was from the same 'establishment' that you\nhailed from, did they? What did they mean by 'establishment'?\"\n\n\"I don't know; it never occurred to me to ask.\"\n\n\"Well I know. They meant an asylum--an IDIOT asylum, do you understand?\nSo they DO think there's a pair of us, after all. Now what do you think\nof yourself?\"\n\n\"Well, I don't know. I didn't know I was doing any harm; I didn't MEAN\nto do any harm. They were very nice people, and they seemed to like me.\"\n\nHarris made some rude remarks and left for his bedroom--to break some\nfurniture, he said. He was a singularly irascible man; any little thing\nwould disturb his temper.\n\nI had been well scorched by the young woman, but no matter, I took it\nout on Harris. One should always \"get even\" in some way, else the sore\nplace will go on hurting.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI\n\n[The Nest of the Cuckoo-clock]\n\n\nThe Hofkirche is celebrated for its organ concerts. All summer long the\ntourists flock to that church about six o'clock in the evening, and pay\ntheir franc, and listen to the noise. They don't stay to hear all of\nit, but get up and tramp out over the sounding stone floor, meeting late\ncomers who tramp in in a sounding and vigorous way. This tramping\nback and forth is kept up nearly all the time, and is accented by\nthe continuous slamming of the door, and the coughing and barking and\nsneezing of the crowd. Meantime, the big organ is booming and crashing\nand thundering away, doing its best to prove that it is the biggest and\nbest organ in Europe, and that a tight little box of a church is the\nmost favorable place to average and appreciate its powers in. It is\ntrue, there were some soft and merciful passages occasionally, but the\ntramp-tramp of the tourists only allowed one to get fitful glimpses of\nthem, so to speak. Then right away the organist would let go another\navalanche.\n\nThe commerce of Lucerne consists mainly in gimcrackery of the souvenir\nsort; the shops are packed with Alpine crystals, photographs of\nscenery, and wooden and ivory carvings. I will not conceal the fact that\nminiature figures of the Lion of Lucerne are to be had in them. Millions\nof them. But they are libels upon him, every one of them. There is a\nsubtle something about the majestic pathos of the original which the\ncopyist cannot get. Even the sun fails to get it; both the photographer\nand the carver give you a dying lion, and that is all. The shape is\nright, the attitude is right, the proportions are right, but that\nindescribable something which makes the Lion of Lucerne the most\nmournful and moving piece of stone in the world, is wanting.\n\nThe Lion lies in his lair in the perpendicular face of a low cliff--for\nhe is carved from the living rock of the cliff. His size is colossal,\nhis attitude is noble. His head is bowed, the broken spear is sticking\nin his shoulder, his protecting paw rests upon the lilies of France.\nVines hang down the cliff and wave in the wind, and a clear stream\ntrickles from above and empties into a pond at the base, and in the\nsmooth surface of the pond the lion is mirrored, among the water-lilies.\n\n\nAround about are green trees and grass. The place is a sheltered,\nreposeful woodland nook, remote from noise and stir and confusion--and\nall this is fitting, for lions do die in such places, and not on granite\npedestals in public squares fenced with fancy iron railings. The Lion of\nLucerne would be impressive anywhere, but nowhere so impressive as where\nhe is.\n\nMartyrdom is the luckiest fate that can befall some people. Louis XVI\ndid not die in his bed, consequently history is very gentle with him;\nshe is charitable toward his failings, and she finds in him high virtues\nwhich are not usually considered to be virtues when they are lodged in\nkings. She makes him out to be a person with a meek and modest spirit,\nthe heart of a female saint, and a wrong head. None of these qualities\nare kingly but the last. Taken together they make a character which\nwould have fared harshly at the hands of history if its owner had had\nthe ill luck to miss martyrdom. With the best intentions to do the right\nthing, he always managed to do the wrong one. Moreover, nothing could\nget the female saint out of him. He knew, well enough, that in national\nemergencies he must not consider how he ought to act, as a man, but how\nhe ought to act as a king; so he honestly tried to sink the man and be\nthe king--but it was a failure, he only succeeded in being the female\nsaint. He was not instant in season, but out of season. He could not be\npersuaded to do a thing while it could do any good--he was iron, he was\nadamant in his stubbornness then--but as soon as the thing had reached a\npoint where it would be positively harmful to do it, do it he would, and\nnothing could stop him. He did not do it because it would be harmful,\nbut because he hoped it was not yet too late to achieve by it the good\nwhich it would have done if applied earlier. His comprehension was\nalways a train or two behindhand. If a national toe required amputating,\nhe could not see that it needed anything more than poulticing; when\nothers saw that the mortification had reached the knee, he first\nperceived that the toe needed cutting off--so he cut it off; and he\nsevered the leg at the knee when others saw that the disease had reached\nthe thigh. He was good, and honest, and well meaning, in the matter of\nchasing national diseases, but he never could overtake one. As a private\nman, he would have been lovable; but viewed as a king, he was strictly\ncontemptible.\n\nHis was a most unroyal career, but the most pitiable spectacle in it was\nhis sentimental treachery to his Swiss guard on that memorable 10th of\nAugust, when he allowed those heroes to be massacred in his cause, and\nforbade them to shed the \"sacred French blood\" purporting to be flowing\nin the veins of the red-capped mob of miscreants that was raging around\nthe palace. He meant to be kingly, but he was only the female saint once\nmore. Some of his biographers think that upon this occasion the spirit\nof Saint Louis had descended upon him. It must have found pretty cramped\nquarters. If Napoleon the First had stood in the shoes of Louis XVI that\nday, instead of being merely a casual and unknown looker-on, there would\nbe no Lion of Lucerne, now, but there would be a well-stocked Communist\ngraveyard in Paris which would answer just as well to remember the 10th\nof August by.\n\nMartyrdom made a saint of Mary Queen of Scots three hundred years ago,\nand she has hardly lost all of her saintship yet. Martyrdom made a saint\nof the trivial and foolish Marie Antoinette, and her biographers\nstill keep her fragrant with the odor of sanctity to this day, while\nunconsciously proving upon almost every page they write that the only\ncalamitous instinct which her husband lacked, she supplied--the instinct\nto root out and get rid of an honest, able, and loyal official, wherever\nshe found him. The hideous but beneficent French Revolution would have\nbeen deferred, or would have fallen short of completeness, or even\nmight not have happened at all, if Marie Antoinette had made the unwise\nmistake of not being born. The world owes a great deal to the French\nRevolution, and consequently to its two chief promoters, Louis the Poor\nin Spirit and his queen.\n\nWe did not buy any wooden images of the Lion, nor any ivory or ebony\nor marble or chalk or sugar or chocolate ones, or even any photographic\nslanders of him. The truth is, these copies were so common, so\nuniversal, in the shops and everywhere, that they presently became as\nintolerable to the wearied eye as the latest popular melody usually\nbecomes to the harassed ear. In Lucerne, too, the wood carvings of\nother sorts, which had been so pleasant to look upon when one saw them\noccasionally at home, soon began to fatigue us. We grew very tired\nof seeing wooden quails and chickens picking and strutting around\nclock-faces, and still more tired of seeing wooden images of the alleged\nchamois skipping about wooden rocks, or lying upon them in family\ngroups, or peering alertly up from behind them. The first day, I would\nhave bought a hundred and fifty of these clocks if I had the money--and\nI did buy three--but on the third day the disease had run its course,\nI had convalesced, and was in the market once more--trying to sell.\nHowever, I had no luck; which was just as well, for the things will be\npretty enough, no doubt, when I get them home.\n\nFor years my pet aversion had been the cuckoo clock; now here I was, at\nlast, right in the creature's home; so wherever I went that distressing\n\"HOO'hoo! HOO'hoo! HOO'hoo!\" was always in my ears. For a nervous man,\nthis was a fine state of things. Some sounds are hatefuler than others,\nbut no sound is quite so inane, and silly, and aggravating as the\n\"HOO'hoo\" of a cuckoo clock, I think. I bought one, and am carrying it\nhome to a certain person; for I have always said that if the opportunity\never happened, I would do that man an ill turn.\n\n\nWhat I meant, was, that I would break one of his legs, or something of\nthat sort; but in Lucerne I instantly saw that I could impair his mind.\nThat would be more lasting, and more satisfactory every way. So I bought\nthe cuckoo clock; and if I ever get home with it, he is \"my meat,\" as\nthey say in the mines. I thought of another candidate--a book-reviewer\nwhom I could name if I wanted to--but after thinking it over, I didn't\nbuy him a clock. I couldn't injure his mind.\n\nWe visited the two long, covered wooden bridges which span the green and\nbrilliant Reuss just below where it goes plunging and hurrahing out\nof the lake. These rambling, sway-backed tunnels are very attractive\nthings, with their alcoved outlooks upon the lovely and inspiriting\nwater. They contain two or three hundred queer old pictures, by old\nSwiss masters--old boss sign-painters, who flourished before the\ndecadence of art.\n\nThe lake is alive with fishes, plainly visible to the eye, for the water\nis very clear. The parapets in front of the hotels were usually fringed\nwith fishers of all ages. One day I thought I would stop and see a\nfish caught. The result brought back to my mind, very forcibly, a\ncircumstance which I had not thought of before for twelve years. This\none:\n\nTHE MAN WHO PUT UP AT GADSBY'S\n\nWhen my odd friend Riley and I were newspaper correspondents in\nWashington, in the winter of '67, we were coming down Pennsylvania\nAvenue one night, near midnight, in a driving storm of snow, when the\nflash of a street-lamp fell upon a man who was eagerly tearing along in\nthe opposite direction. \"This is lucky! You are Mr. Riley, ain't you?\"\n\nRiley was the most self-possessed and solemnly deliberate person in the\nrepublic. He stopped, looked his man over from head to foot, and finally\nsaid:\n\n\"I am Mr. Riley. Did you happen to be looking for me?\"\n\n\"That's just what I was doing,\" said the man, joyously, \"and it's the\nbiggest luck in the world that I've found you. My name is Lykins. I'm\none of the teachers of the high school--San Francisco. As soon as I\nheard the San Francisco postmastership was vacant, I made up my mind to\nget it--and here I am.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Riley, slowly, \"as you have remarked ... Mr. Lykins ... here\nyou are. And have you got it?\"\n\n\"Well, not exactly GOT it, but the next thing to it. I've brought a\npetition, signed by the Superintendent of Public Instruction, and all\nthe teachers, and by more than two hundred other people. Now I want you,\nif you'll be so good, to go around with me to the Pacific delegation,\nfor I want to rush this thing through and get along home.\"\n\n\"If the matter is so pressing, you will prefer that we visit the\ndelegation tonight,\" said Riley, in a voice which had nothing mocking in\nit--to an unaccustomed ear.\n\n\"Oh, tonight, by all means! I haven't got any time to fool around. I\nwant their promise before I go to bed--I ain't the talking kind, I'm the\nDOING kind!\"\n\n\"Yes ... you've come to the right place for that. When did you arrive?\"\n\n\"Just an hour ago.\"\n\n\"When are you intending to leave?\"\n\n\"For New York tomorrow evening--for San Francisco next morning.\"\n\n\"Just so.... What are you going to do tomorrow?\"\n\n\"DO! Why, I've got to go to the President with the petition and the\ndelegation, and get the appointment, haven't I?\"\n\n\"Yes ... very true ... that is correct. And then what?\"\n\n\"Executive session of the Senate at 2 P.M.--got to get the appointment\nconfirmed--I reckon you'll grant that?\"\n\n\"Yes ... yes,\" said Riley, meditatively, \"you are right again. Then\nyou take the train for New York in the evening, and the steamer for San\nFrancisco next morning?\"\n\n\"That's it--that's the way I map it out!\"\n\nRiley considered a while, and then said:\n\n\"You couldn't stay ... a day ... well, say two days longer?\"\n\n\"Bless your soul, no! It's not my style. I ain't a man to go fooling\naround--I'm a man that DOES things, I tell you.\"\n\nThe storm was raging, the thick snow blowing in gusts. Riley stood\nsilent, apparently deep in a reverie, during a minute or more, then he\nlooked up and said:\n\n\"Have you ever heard about that man who put up at Gadsby's, once? ...\nBut I see you haven't.\"\n\nHe backed Mr. Lykins against an iron fence, buttonholed him, fastened\nhim with his eye, like the Ancient Mariner, and proceeded to unfold\nhis narrative as placidly and peacefully as if we were all stretched\ncomfortably in a blossomy summer meadow instead of being persecuted by a\nwintry midnight tempest:\n\n\n\"I will tell you about that man. It was in Jackson's time. Gadsby's was\nthe principal hotel, then. Well, this man arrived from Tennessee\nabout nine o'clock, one morning, with a black coachman and a splendid\nfour-horse carriage and an elegant dog, which he was evidently fond\nof and proud of; he drove up before Gadsby's, and the clerk and the\nlandlord and everybody rushed out to take charge of him, but he said,\n'Never mind,' and jumped out and told the coachman to wait--\n\n\nsaid he hadn't time to take anything to eat, he only had a little claim\nagainst the government to collect, would run across the way, to\nthe Treasury, and fetch the money, and then get right along back to\nTennessee, for he was in considerable of a hurry.\n\n\"Well, about eleven o'clock that night he came back and ordered a bed\nand told them to put the horses up--said he would collect the claim in\nthe morning. This was in January, you understand--January, 1834--the 3d\nof January--Wednesday.\n\n\n\"Well, on the 5th of February, he sold the fine carriage, and bought\na cheap second-hand one--said it would answer just as well to take the\nmoney home in, and he didn't care for style.\n\n\"On the 11th of August he sold a pair of the fine horses--said he'd\noften thought a pair was better than four, to go over the rough mountain\nroads with where a body had to be careful about his driving--and there\nwasn't so much of his claim but he could lug the money home with a pair\neasy enough.\n\n\n\"On the 13th of December he sold another horse--said two warn't\nnecessary to drag that old light vehicle with--in fact, one could snatch\nit along faster than was absolutely necessary, now that it was good\nsolid winter weather and the roads in splendid condition.\n\n\n\"On the 17th of February, 1835, he sold the old carriage and bought a\ncheap second-hand buggy--said a buggy was just the trick to skim along\nmushy, slushy early spring roads with, and he had always wanted to try a\nbuggy on those mountain roads, anyway.\n\n\n\"On the 1st August he sold the buggy and bought the remains of an old\nsulky--said he just wanted to see those green Tennesseans stare and gawk\nwhen they saw him come a-ripping along in a sulky--didn't believe they'd\never heard of a sulky in their lives.\n\n\n\"Well, on the 29th of August he sold his colored coachman--said he\ndidn't need a coachman for a sulky--wouldn't be room enough for two in\nit anyway--and, besides, it wasn't every day that Providence sent a man\na fool who was willing to pay nine hundred dollars for such a third-rate\nnegro as that--been wanting to get rid of the creature for years, but\ndidn't like to THROW him away.\n\n\n\"Eighteen months later--that is to say, on the 15th of February,\n1837--he sold the sulky and bought a saddle--said horseback-riding was\nwhat the doctor had always recommended HIM to take, and dog'd if he\nwanted to risk HIS neck going over those mountain roads on wheels in the\ndead of winter, not if he knew himself.\n\n\n\"On the 9th of April he sold the saddle--said he wasn't going to risk\nHIS life with any perishable saddle-girth that ever was made, over a\nrainy, miry April road, while he could ride bareback and know and feel\nhe was safe--always HAD despised to ride on a saddle, anyway.\n\n\n\"On the 24th of April he sold his horse--said 'I'm just fifty-seven\ntoday, hale and hearty--it would be a PRETTY howdy-do for me to be\nwasting such a trip as that and such weather as this, on a horse, when\nthere ain't anything in the world so splendid as a tramp on foot through\nthe fresh spring woods and over the cheery mountains, to a man that IS\na man--and I can make my dog carry my claim in a little bundle, anyway,\nwhen it's collected. So tomorrow I'll be up bright and early, make my\nlittle old collection, and mosey off to Tennessee, on my own hind legs,\nwith a rousing good-by to Gadsby's.'\n\n\n\"On the 22d of June he sold his dog--said 'Dern a dog, anyway, where\nyou're just starting off on a rattling bully pleasure tramp through the\nsummer woods and hills--perfect nuisance--chases the squirrels, barks\nat everything, goes a-capering and splattering around in the fords--man\ncan't get any chance to reflect and enjoy nature--and I'd a blamed sight\nruther carry the claim myself, it's a mighty sight safer; a dog's\nmighty uncertain in a financial way--always noticed it--well, GOOD-by,\nboys--last call--I'm off for Tennessee with a good leg and a gay heart,\nearly in the morning.'\"\n\n\nThere was a pause and a silence--except the noise of the wind and the\npelting snow. Mr. Lykins said, impatiently:\n\n\"Well?\"\n\nRiley said:\n\n\"Well,--that was thirty years ago.\"\n\n\"Very well, very well--what of it?\"\n\n\"I'm great friends with that old patriarch. He comes every evening to\ntell me good-by. I saw him an hour ago--he's off for Tennessee early\ntomorrow morning--as usual; said he calculated to get his claim through\nand be off before night-owls like me have turned out of bed. The tears\nwere in his eyes, he was so glad he was going to see his old Tennessee\nand his friends once more.\"\n\nAnother silent pause. The stranger broke it:\n\n\"Is that all?\"\n\n\"That is all.\"\n\n\"Well, for the TIME of night, and the KIND of night, it seems to me the\nstory was full long enough. But what's it all FOR?\"\n\n\"Oh, nothing in particular.\"\n\n\"Well, where's the point of it?\"\n\n\"Oh, there isn't any particular point to it. Only, if you are not in\nTOO much of a hurry to rush off to San Francisco with that post-office\nappointment, Mr. Lykins, I'd advise you to 'PUT UP AT GADSBY'S' for a\nspell, and take it easy. Good-by. GOD bless you!\"\n\nSo saying, Riley blandly turned on his heel and left the astonished\nschool-teacher standing there, a musing and motionless snow image\nshining in the broad glow of the street-lamp.\n\nHe never got that post-office.\n\nTo go back to Lucerne and its fishers, I concluded, after about\nnine hours' waiting, that the man who proposes to tarry till he sees\nsomething hook one of those well-fed and experienced fishes will find\nit wisdom to \"put up at Gadsby's\" and take it easy. It is likely that\na fish has not been caught on that lake pier for forty years; but no\nmatter, the patient fisher watches his cork there all the day long, just\nthe same, and seems to enjoy it. One may see the fisher-loafers just as\nthick and contented and happy and patient all along the Seine at Paris,\nbut tradition says that the only thing ever caught there in modern times\nis a thing they don't fish for at all--the recent dog and the translated\ncat.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVII\n\n[I Spare an Awful Bore]\n\n\nClose by the Lion of Lucerne is what they call the \"Glacier Garden\"--and\nit is the only one in the world. It is on high ground. Four or five\nyears ago, some workmen who were digging foundations for a house came\nupon this interesting relic of a long-departed age. Scientific men\nperceived in it a confirmation of their theories concerning the glacial\nperiod; so through their persuasions the little tract of ground was\nbought and permanently protected against being built upon. The soil was\nremoved, and there lay the rasped and guttered track which the ancient\nglacier had made as it moved along upon its slow and tedious journey.\nThis track was perforated by huge pot-shaped holes in the bed-rock,\nformed by the furious washing-around in them of boulders by the\nturbulent torrent which flows beneath all glaciers. These huge round\nboulders still remain in the holes; they and the walls of the holes are\nworn smooth by the long-continued chafing which they gave each other in\nthose old days.\n\n\nIt took a mighty force to churn these big lumps of stone around in that\nvigorous way. The neighboring country had a very different shape, at\nthat time--the valleys have risen up and become hills, since, and the\nhills have become valleys. The boulders discovered in the pots had\ntraveled a great distance, for there is no rock like them nearer than\nthe distant Rhone Glacier.\n\nFor some days we were content to enjoy looking at the blue lake\nLucerne and at the piled-up masses of snow-mountains that border it all\naround--an enticing spectacle, this last, for there is a strange and\nfascinating beauty and charm about a majestic snow-peak with the sun\nblazing upon it or the moonlight softly enriching it--but finally we\nconcluded to try a bit of excursioning around on a steamboat, and a dash\non foot at the Rigi. Very well, we had a delightful trip to Fluelen, on\na breezy, sunny day. Everybody sat on the upper deck, on benches, under\nan awning; everybody talked, laughed, and exclaimed at the wonderful\nscenery; in truth, a trip on that lake is almost the perfection of\npleasuring.\n\n\nThe mountains were a never-ceasing marvel. Sometimes they rose straight\nup out of the lake, and towered aloft and overshadowed our pygmy steamer\nwith their prodigious bulk in the most impressive way. Not snow-clad\nmountains, these, yet they climbed high enough toward the sky to meet\nthe clouds and veil their foreheads in them. They were not barren and\nrepulsive, but clothed in green, and restful and pleasant to the eye.\nAnd they were so almost straight-up-and-down, sometimes, that one could\nnot imagine a man being able to keep his footing upon such a surface,\nyet there are paths, and the Swiss people go up and down them every day.\n\n\nSometimes one of these monster precipices had the slight inclination of\nthe huge ship-houses in dockyards--then high aloft, toward the sky, it\ntook a little stronger inclination, like that of a mansard roof--and\nperched on this dizzy mansard one's eye detected little things like\nmartin boxes, and presently perceived that these were the dwellings of\npeasants--an airy place for a home, truly. And suppose a peasant should\nwalk in his sleep, or his child should fall out of the front\nyard?--the friends would have a tedious long journey down out of those\ncloud-heights before they found the remains. And yet those far-away\nhomes looked ever so seductive, they were so remote from the troubled\nworld, they dozed in such an atmosphere of peace and dreams--surely no\none who has learned to live up there would ever want to live on a meaner\nlevel.\n\nWe swept through the prettiest little curving arms of the lake, among\nthese colossal green walls, enjoying new delights, always, as the\nstately panorama unfolded itself before us and rerolled and hid itself\nbehind us; and now and then we had the thrilling surprise of bursting\nsuddenly upon a tremendous white mass like the distant and dominating\nJungfrau, or some kindred giant, looming head and shoulders above a\ntumbled waste of lesser Alps.\n\nOnce, while I was hungrily taking in one of these surprises, and doing\nmy best to get all I possibly could of it while it should last, I was\ninterrupted by a young and care-free voice:\n\n\"You're an American, I think--so'm I.\"\n\nHe was about eighteen, or possibly nineteen; slender and of medium\nheight; open, frank, happy face; a restless but independent eye; a snub\nnose, which had the air of drawing back with a decent reserve from\nthe silky new-born mustache below it until it should be introduced; a\nloosely hung jaw, calculated to work easily in the sockets. He wore a\nlow-crowned, narrow-brimmed straw hat, with a broad blue ribbon\naround it which had a white anchor embroidered on it in front; nobby\nshort-tailed coat, pantaloons, vest, all trim and neat and up with the\nfashion; red-striped stockings, very low-quarter patent-leather shoes,\ntied with black ribbon; blue ribbon around his neck, wide-open collar;\ntiny diamond studs; wrinkleless kids; projecting cuffs, fastened with\nlarge oxidized silver sleeve-buttons, bearing the device of a dog's\nface--English pug. He carried a slim cane, surmounted with an English\npug's head with red glass eyes. Under his arm he carried a German\ngrammar--Otto's. His hair was short, straight, and smooth, and presently\nwhen he turned his head a moment, I saw that it was nicely parted\nbehind. He took a cigarette out of a dainty box, stuck it into a\nmeerschaum holder which he carried in a morocco case, and reached for my\ncigar. While he was lighting, I said:\n\n\"Yes--I am an American.\"\n\n\n\"I knew it--I can always tell them. What ship did you come over in?\"\n\n\"HOLSATIA.\"\n\n\"We came in the BATAVIA--Cunard, you know. What kind of passage did you\nhave?\"\n\n\"Tolerably rough.\"\n\n\"So did we. Captain said he'd hardly ever seen it rougher. Where are you\nfrom?\"\n\n\"New England.\"\n\n\"So'm I. I'm from New Bloomfield. Anybody with you?\"\n\n\"Yes--a friend.\"\n\n\"Our whole family's along. It's awful slow, going around alone--don't\nyou think so?\"\n\n\"Rather slow.\"\n\n\"Ever been over here before?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I haven't. My first trip. But we've been all around--Paris and\neverywhere. I'm to enter Harvard next year. Studying German all the\ntime, now. Can't enter till I know German. I know considerable French--I\nget along pretty well in Paris, or anywhere where they speak French.\nWhat hotel are you stopping at?\"\n\n\"Schweitzerhof.\"\n\n\"No! is that so? I never see you in the reception-room. I go to\nthe reception-room a good deal of the time, because there's so many\nAmericans there. I make lots of acquaintances. I know an American as\nsoon as I see him--and so I speak to him and make his acquaintance. I\nlike to be always making acquaintances--don't you?\"\n\n\"Lord, yes!\"\n\n\"You see it breaks up a trip like this, first rate. I never got bored on\na trip like this, if I can make acquaintances and have somebody to\ntalk to. But I think a trip like this would be an awful bore, if a body\ncouldn't find anybody to get acquainted with and talk to on a trip like\nthis. I'm fond of talking, ain't you?\n\n\"Passionately.\"\n\n\"Have you felt bored, on this trip?\"\n\n\"Not all the time, part of it.\"\n\n\"That's it!--you see you ought to go around and get acquainted, and\ntalk. That's my way. That's the way I always do--I just go 'round,\n'round, 'round and talk, talk, talk--I never get bored. You been up the\nRigi yet?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Going?\"\n\n\"I think so.\"\n\n\"What hotel you going to stop at?\"\n\n\"I don't know. Is there more than one?\"\n\n\"Three. You stop at the Schreiber--you'll find it full of Americans.\nWhat ship did you say you came over in?\"\n\n\"CITY OF ANTWERP.\"\n\n\"German, I guess. You going to Geneva?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"What hotel you going to stop at?\"\n\n\"H\u00f4tel de l'\u00c9cu de G\u00e9n\u00e8ve.\"\n\n\"Don't you do it! No Americans there! You stop at one of those big\nhotels over the bridge--they're packed full of Americans.\"\n\n\"But I want to practice my Arabic.\"\n\n\"Good gracious, do you speak Arabic?\"\n\n\"Yes--well enough to get along.\"\n\n\"Why, hang it, you won't get along in Geneva--THEY don't speak Arabic,\nthey speak French. What hotel are you stopping at here?\"\n\n\"Hotel Pension-Beaurivage.\"\n\n\"Sho, you ought to stop at the Schweitzerhof. Didn't you know the\nSchweitzerhof was the best hotel in Switzerland?-- look at your\nBaedeker.\"\n\n\"Yes, I know--but I had an idea there warn't any Americans there.\"\n\n\"No Americans! Why, bless your soul, it's just alive with them! I'm in\nthe great reception-room most all the time. I make lots of acquaintances\nthere. Not as many as I did at first, because now only the new ones stop\nin there--the others go right along through. Where are you from?\"\n\n\"Arkansaw.\"\n\n\"Is that so? I'm from New England--New Bloomfield's my town when I'm at\nhome. I'm having a mighty good time today, ain't you?\"\n\n\"Divine.\"\n\n\"That's what I call it. I like this knocking around, loose and easy, and\nmaking acquaintances and talking. I know an American, soon as I see him;\nso I go and speak to him and make his acquaintance. I ain't ever bored,\non a trip like this, if I can make new acquaintances and talk. I'm awful\nfond of talking when I can get hold of the right kind of a person, ain't\nyou?\"\n\n\"I prefer it to any other dissipation.\"\n\n\"That's my notion, too. Now some people like to take a book and sit\ndown and read, and read, and read, or moon around yawping at the lake or\nthese mountains and things, but that ain't my way; no, sir, if they like\nit, let 'em do it, I don't object; but as for me, talking's what I like.\nYou been up the Rigi?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"What hotel did you stop at?\"\n\n\"Schreiber.\"\n\n\"That's the place!--I stopped there too. FULL of Americans, WASN'T it?\nIt always is--always is. That's what they say. Everybody says that. What\nship did you come over in?\"\n\n\"VILLE DE PARIS.\"\n\n\"French, I reckon. What kind of a passage did ... excuse me a minute,\nthere's some Americans I haven't seen before.\"\n\nAnd away he went. He went uninjured, too--I had the murderous impulse to\nharpoon him in the back with my alpenstock, but as I raised the weapon\nthe disposition left me; I found I hadn't the heart to kill him, he was\nsuch a joyous, innocent, good-natured numbskull.\n\nHalf an hour later I was sitting on a bench inspecting, with strong\ninterest, a noble monolith which we were skimming by--a monolith not\nshaped by man, but by Nature's free great hand--a massy pyramidal rock\neighty feet high, devised by Nature ten million years ago against the\nday when a man worthy of it should need it for his monument. The time\ncame at last, and now this grand remembrancer bears Schiller's name in\nhuge letters upon its face. Curiously enough, this rock was not degraded\nor defiled in any way. It is said that two years ago a stranger let\nhimself down from the top of it with ropes and pulleys, and painted all\nover it, in blue letters bigger than those in Schiller's name, these\nwords: \"Try Sozodont;\" \"Buy Sun Stove Polish;\" \"Helmbold's Buchu;\" \"Try\nBenzaline for the Blood.\" He was captured and it turned out that he was\nan American. Upon his trial the judge said to him:\n\n\"You are from a land where any insolent that wants to is privileged\nto profane and insult Nature, and, through her, Nature's God, if by\nso doing he can put a sordid penny in his pocket. But here the case is\ndifferent. Because you are a foreigner and ignorant, I will make your\nsentence light; if you were a native I would deal strenuously with\nyou. Hear and obey: --You will immediately remove every trace of\nyour offensive work from the Schiller monument; you pay a fine of ten\nthousand francs; you will suffer two years' imprisonment at hard labor;\nyou will then be horsewhipped, tarred and feathered, deprived of your\nears, ridden on a rail to the confines of the canton, and banished\nforever. The severest penalties are omitted in your case--not as a grace\nto you, but to that great republic which had the misfortune to give you\nbirth.\"\n\n\nThe steamer's benches were ranged back to back across the deck. My back\nhair was mingling innocently with the back hair of a couple of\nladies. Presently they were addressed by some one and I overheard this\nconversation:\n\n\"You are Americans, I think? So'm I.\"\n\n\"Yes--we are Americans.\"\n\n\"I knew it--I can always tell them. What ship did you come over in?\"\n\n\"CITY OF CHESTER.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes--Inman line. We came in the BATAVIA--Cunard you know. What kind\nof a passage did you have?\"\n\n\"Pretty fair.\"\n\n\"That was luck. We had it awful rough. Captain said he'd hardly seen it\nrougher. Where are you from?\"\n\n\"New Jersey.\"\n\n\"So'm I. No--I didn't mean that; I'm from New England. New Bloomfield's\nmy place. These your children?--belong to both of you?\"\n\n\"Only to one of us; they are mine; my friend is not married.\"\n\n\"Single, I reckon? So'm I. Are you two ladies traveling alone?\"\n\n\"No--my husband is with us.\"\n\n\"Our whole family's along. It's awful slow, going around alone--don't\nyou think so?\"\n\n\"I suppose it must be.\"\n\n\n\"Hi, there's Mount Pilatus coming in sight again. Named after Pontius\nPilate, you know, that shot the apple off of William Tell's head.\nGuide-book tells all about it, they say. I didn't read it--an American\ntold me. I don't read when I'm knocking around like this, having a good\ntime. Did you ever see the chapel where William Tell used to preach?\"\n\n\"I did not know he ever preached there.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, he did. That American told me so. He don't ever shut up\nhis guide-book. He knows more about this lake than the fishes in it.\nBesides, they CALL it 'Tell's Chapel'--you know that yourself. You ever\nbeen over here before?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I haven't. It's my first trip. But we've been all around--Paris and\neverywhere. I'm to enter Harvard next year. Studying German all the time\nnow. Can't enter till I know German. This book's Otto's grammar. It's a\nmighty good book to get the ICH HABE GEHABT HABEN's out of. But I don't\nreally study when I'm knocking around this way. If the notion takes me,\nI just run over my little old ICH HABE GEHABT, DU HAST GEHABT, ER HAT\nGEHABT, WIR HABEN GEHABT, IHR HABEN GEHABT, SIE HABEN GEHABT--kind of\n'Now-I-lay-me-down-to-sleep' fashion, you know, and after that, maybe\nI don't buckle to it for three days. It's awful undermining to the\nintellect, German is; you want to take it in small doses, or first you\nknow your brains all run together, and you feel them sloshing around in\nyour head same as so much drawn butter. But French is different; FRENCH\nain't anything. I ain't any more afraid of French than a tramp's afraid\nof pie; I can rattle off my little J'AI, TU AS, IL A, and the rest of\nit, just as easy as a-b-c. I get along pretty well in Paris, or anywhere\nwhere they speak French. What hotel are you stopping at?\"\n\n\"The Schweitzerhof.\"\n\n\"No! is that so? I never see you in the big reception-room. I go in\nthere a good deal of the time, because there's so many Americans there.\nI make lots of acquaintances. You been up the Rigi yet?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Going?\"\n\n\"We think of it.\"\n\n\"What hotel you going to stop at?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"Well, then you stop at the Schreiber--it's full of Americans. What ship\ndid you come over in?\"\n\n\"CITY OF CHESTER.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, I remember I asked you that before. But I always ask everybody\nwhat ship they came over in, and so sometimes I forget and ask again.\nYou going to Geneva?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"What hotel you going to stop at?\"\n\n\"We expect to stop in a pension.\"\n\n\"I don't hardly believe you'll like that; there's very few Americans in\nthe pensions. What hotel are you stopping at here?\"\n\n\"The Schweitzerhof.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes. I asked you that before, too. But I always ask everybody what\nhotel they're stopping at, and so I've got my head all mixed up with\nhotels. But it makes talk, and I love to talk. It refreshes me up\nso--don't it you--on a trip like this?\"\n\n\"Yes--sometimes.\"\n\n\"Well, it does me, too. As long as I'm talking I never feel bored--ain't\nthat the way with you?\"\n\n\"Yes--generally. But there are exception to the rule.\"\n\n\"Oh, of course. I don't care to talk to everybody, MYSELF. If a person\nstarts in to jabber-jabber-jabber about scenery, and history, and\npictures, and all sorts of tiresome things, I get the fan-tods mighty\nsoon. I say 'Well, I must be going now--hope I'll see you again'--and\nthen I take a walk. Where you from?\"\n\n\"New Jersey.\"\n\n\"Why, bother it all, I asked you THAT before, too. Have you seen the\nLion of Lucerne?\"\n\n\"Not yet.\"\n\n\"Nor I, either. But the man who told me about Mount Pilatus says it's\none of the things to see. It's twenty-eight feet long. It don't seem\nreasonable, but he said so, anyway. He saw it yesterday; said it was\ndying, then, so I reckon it's dead by this time. But that ain't any\nmatter, of course they'll stuff it. Did you say the children are\nyours--or HERS?\"\n\n\"Mine.\"\n\n\"Oh, so you did. Are you going up the ... no, I asked you that. What\nship ... no, I asked you that, too. What hotel are you ... no, you told\nme that. Let me see ... um .... Oh, what kind of voy ... no, we've\nbeen over that ground, too. Um ... um ... well, I believe that is all.\nBONJOUR--I am very glad to have made your acquaintance, ladies. GUTEN\nTAG.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII\n\n[The Jodel and Its Native Wilds]\n\n\nThe Rigi-Kulm is an imposing Alpine mass, six thousand feet high, which\nstands by itself, and commands a mighty prospect of blue lakes, green\nvalleys, and snowy mountains--a compact and magnificent picture\nthree hundred miles in circumference. The ascent is made by rail, or\nhorseback, or on foot, as one may prefer. I and my agent panoplied\nourselves in walking-costume, one bright morning, and started down\nthe lake on the steamboat; we got ashore at the village of Waeggis;\nthree-quarters of an hour distant from Lucerne. This village is at the\nfoot of the mountain.\n\nWe were soon tramping leisurely up the leafy mule-path, and then the\ntalk began to flow, as usual. It was twelve o'clock noon, and a breezy,\ncloudless day; the ascent was gradual, and the glimpses, from under\nthe curtaining boughs, of blue water, and tiny sailboats, and beetling\ncliffs, were as charming as glimpses of dreamland. All the circumstances\nwere perfect--and the anticipations, too, for we should soon be\nenjoying, for the first time, that wonderful spectacle, an Alpine\nsunrise--the object of our journey. There was (apparently) no real need\nfor hurry, for the guide-book made the walking-distance from Waeggis to\nthe summit only three hours and a quarter. I say \"apparently,\" because\nthe guide-book had already fooled us once--about the distance from\nAllerheiligen to Oppenau--and for aught I knew it might be getting\nready to fool us again. We were only certain as to the altitudes--we\ncalculated to find out for ourselves how many hours it is from the\nbottom to the top. The summit is six thousand feet above the sea, but\nonly forty-five hundred feet above the lake. When we had walked half an\nhour, we were fairly into the swing and humor of the undertaking, so we\ncleared for action; that is to say, we got a boy whom we met to carry\nour alpenstocks and satchels and overcoats and things for us; that left\nus free for business. I suppose we must have stopped oftener to stretch\nout on the grass in the shade and take a bit of a smoke than this boy\nwas used to, for presently he asked if it had been our idea to hire him\nby the job, or by the year? We told him he could move along if he was\nin a hurry. He said he wasn't in such a very particular hurry, but he\nwanted to get to the top while he was young.\n\n\nWe told him to clear out, then, and leave the things at the uppermost\nhotel and say we should be along presently. He said he would secure us a\nhotel if he could, but if they were all full he would ask them to build\nanother one and hurry up and get the paint and plaster dry against we\narrived. Still gently chaffing us, he pushed ahead, up the trail, and\nsoon disappeared. By six o'clock we were pretty high up in the air,\nand the view of lake and mountains had greatly grown in breadth and\ninterest. We halted awhile at a little public house, where we had bread\nand cheese and a quart or two of fresh milk, out on the porch, with the\nbig panorama all before us--and then moved on again.\n\n\nTen minutes afterward we met a hot, red-faced man plunging down the\nmountain, making mighty strides, swinging his alpenstock ahead of him,\nand taking a grip on the ground with its iron point to support these\nbig strides. He stopped, fanned himself with his hat, swabbed the\nperspiration from his face and neck with a red handkerchief, panted\na moment or two, and asked how far to Waeggis. I said three hours. He\nlooked surprised, and said:\n\n\"Why, it seems as if I could toss a biscuit into the lake from here,\nit's so close by. Is that an inn, there?\"\n\nI said it was.\n\n\"Well,\" said he, \"I can't stand another three hours, I've had enough\ntoday; I'll take a bed there.\"\n\nI asked:\n\n\"Are we nearly to the top?\"\n\n\"Nearly to the TOP? Why, bless your soul, you haven't really started,\nyet.\"\n\nI said we would put up at the inn, too. So we turned back and ordered a\nhot supper, and had quite a jolly evening of it with this Englishman.\n\nThe German landlady gave us neat rooms and nice beds, and when I and my\nagent turned in, it was with the resolution to be up early and make the\nutmost of our first Alpine sunrise. But of course we were dead tired,\nand slept like policemen; so when we awoke in the morning and ran to the\nwindow it was already too late, because it was half past eleven. It\nwas a sharp disappointment. However, we ordered breakfast and told the\nlandlady to call the Englishman, but she said he was already up and off\nat daybreak--and swearing like mad about something or other. We could\nnot find out what the matter was. He had asked the landlady the altitude\nof her place above the level of the lake, and she told him fourteen\nhundred and ninety-five feet. That was all that was said; then he lost\nhis temper. He said that between ------fools and guide-books, a man\ncould acquire ignorance enough in twenty-four hours in a country like\nthis to last him a year. Harris believed our boy had been loading him\nup with misinformation; and this was probably the case, for his epithet\ndescribed that boy to a dot.\n\nWe got under way about the turn of noon, and pulled out for the summit\nagain, with a fresh and vigorous step. When we had gone about two\nhundred yards, and stopped to rest, I glanced to the left while I was\nlighting my pipe, and in the distance detected a long worm of black\nsmoke crawling lazily up the steep mountain. Of course that was the\nlocomotive. We propped ourselves on our elbows at once, to gaze, for we\nhad never seen a mountain railway yet. Presently we could make out the\ntrain. It seemed incredible that that thing should creep straight up a\nsharp slant like the roof of a house--but there it was, and it was doing\nthat very miracle.\n\nIn the course of a couple hours we reached a fine breezy altitude where\nthe little shepherd huts had big stones all over their roofs to hold\nthem down to the earth when the great storms rage. The country was wild\nand rocky about here, but there were plenty of trees, plenty of moss,\nand grass.\n\nAway off on the opposite shore of the lake we could see some villages,\nand now for the first time we could observe the real difference between\ntheir proportions and those of the giant mountains at whose feet they\nslept. When one is in one of those villages it seems spacious, and\nits houses seem high and not out of proportion to the mountain that\noverhangs them--but from our altitude, what a change! The mountains were\nbigger and grander than ever, as they stood there thinking their solemn\nthoughts with their heads in the drifting clouds, but the villages\nat their feet--when the painstaking eye could trace them up and find\nthem--were so reduced, almost invisible, and lay so flat against the\nground, that the exactest simile I can devise is to compare them to\nant-deposits of granulated dirt overshadowed by the huge bulk of a\ncathedral. The steamboats skimming along under the stupendous precipices\nwere diminished by distance to the daintiest little toys, the sailboats\nand rowboats to shallops proper for fairies that keep house in the cups\nof lilies and ride to court on the backs of bumblebees.\n\n\nPresently we came upon half a dozen sheep nibbling grass in the spray\nof a stream of clear water that sprang from a rock wall a hundred feet\nhigh, and all at once our ears were startled with a melodious \"Lul ...\nl ... l l l llul-lul-LAhee-o-o-o!\" pealing joyously from a near but\ninvisible source, and recognized that we were hearing for the first\ntime the famous Alpine JODEL in its own native wilds. And we recognized,\nalso, that it was that sort of quaint commingling of baritone and\nfalsetto which at home we call \"Tyrolese warbling.\"\n\n\nThe jodeling (pronounced yOdling--emphasis on the O) continued, and\nwas very pleasant and inspiriting to hear. Now the jodeler appeared--a\nshepherd boy of sixteen--and in our gladness and gratitude we gave him\na franc to jodel some more. So he jodeled and we listened. We moved\non, presently, and he generously jodeled us out of sight. After about\nfifteen minutes we came across another shepherd boy who was jodeling,\nand gave him half a franc to keep it up. He also jodeled us out of\nsight. After that, we found a jodeler every ten minutes; we gave the\nfirst one eight cents, the second one six cents, the third one four, the\nfourth one a penny, contributed nothing to Nos. 5, 6, and 7, and during\nthe remainder of the day hired the rest of the jodelers, at a franc\napiece, not to jodel any more. There is somewhat too much of the\njodeling in the Alps.\n\nAbout the middle of the afternoon we passed through a prodigious natural\ngateway called the Felsenthor, formed by two enormous upright rocks,\nwith a third lying across the top. There was a very attractive little\nhotel close by, but our energies were not conquered yet, so we went on.\n\n\nThree hours afterward we came to the railway-track. It was planted\nstraight up the mountain with the slant of a ladder that leans against a\nhouse, and it seemed to us that man would need good nerves who proposed\nto travel up it or down it either.\n\nDuring the latter part of the afternoon we cooled our roasting interiors\nwith ice-cold water from clear streams, the only really satisfying water\nwe had tasted since we left home, for at the hotels on the continent\nthey merely give you a tumbler of ice to soak your water in, and that\nonly modifies its hotness, doesn't make it cold. Water can only be made\ncold enough for summer comfort by being prepared in a refrigerator or\na closed ice-pitcher. Europeans say ice-water impairs digestion. How do\nthey know?--they never drink any.\n\nAt ten minutes past six we reached the Kaltbad station, where there is\na spacious hotel with great verandas which command a majestic expanse of\nlake and mountain scenery. We were pretty well fagged out, now, but as\nwe did not wish to miss the Alpine sunrise, we got through our dinner\nas quickly as possible and hurried off to bed. It was unspeakably\ncomfortable to stretch our weary limbs between the cool, damp sheets.\nAnd how we did sleep!--for there is no opiate like Alpine pedestrianism.\n\n\nIn the morning we both awoke and leaped out of bed at the same instant\nand ran and stripped aside the window-curtains; but we suffered a bitter\ndisappointment again: it was already half past three in the afternoon.\n\nWe dressed sullenly and in ill spirits, each accusing the other of\noversleeping. Harris said if we had brought the courier along, as we\nought to have done, we should not have missed these sunrises. I said he\nknew very well that one of us would have to sit up and wake the\ncourier; and I added that we were having trouble enough to take care\nof ourselves, on this climb, without having to take care of a courier\nbesides.\n\nDuring breakfast our spirits came up a little, since we found by this\nguide-book that in the hotels on the summit the tourist is not left to\ntrust to luck for his sunrise, but is roused betimes by a man who goes\nthrough the halls with a great Alpine horn, blowing blasts that would\nraise the dead. And there was another consoling thing: the guide-book\nsaid that up there on the summit the guests did not wait to dress much,\nbut seized a red bed blanket and sailed out arrayed like an Indian. This\nwas good; this would be romantic; two hundred and fifty people grouped\non the windy summit, with their hair flying and their red blankets\nflapping, in the solemn presence of the coming sun, would be a striking\nand memorable spectacle. So it was good luck, not ill luck, that we had\nmissed those other sunrises.\n\nWe were informed by the guide-book that we were now 3,228 feet above\nthe level of the lake--therefore full two-thirds of our journey had been\naccomplished. We got away at a quarter past four P.M.; a hundred yards\nabove the hotel the railway divided; one track went straight up the\nsteep hill, the other one turned square off to the right, with a very\nslight grade. We took the latter, and followed it more than a mile,\nturned a rocky corner, and came in sight of a handsome new hotel. If we\nhad gone on, we should have arrived at the summit, but Harris\npreferred to ask a lot of questions--as usual, of a man who didn't know\nanything--and he told us to go back and follow the other route. We did\nso. We could ill afford this loss of time.\n\nWe climbed and climbed; and we kept on climbing; we reached about forty\nsummits, but there was always another one just ahead. It came on to\nrain, and it rained in dead earnest. We were soaked through and it\nwas bitter cold. Next a smoky fog of clouds covered the whole region\ndensely, and we took to the railway-ties to keep from getting lost.\nSometimes we slopped along in a narrow path on the left-hand side of the\ntrack, but by and by when the fog blew aside a little and we saw that we\nwere treading the rampart of a precipice and that our left elbows were\nprojecting over a perfectly boundless and bottomless vacancy, we gasped,\nand jumped for the ties again.\n\n\nThe night shut down, dark and drizzly and cold. About eight in the\nevening the fog lifted and showed us a well-worn path which led up a\nvery steep rise to the left. We took it, and as soon as we had got far\nenough from the railway to render the finding it again an impossibility,\nthe fog shut down on us once more.\n\nWe were in a bleak, unsheltered place, now, and had to trudge right\nalong, in order to keep warm, though we rather expected to go over a\nprecipice, sooner or later. About nine o'clock we made an important\ndiscovery--that we were not in any path. We groped around a while on our\nhands and knees, but we could not find it; so we sat down in the mud and\nthe wet scant grass to wait.\n\nWe were terrified into this by being suddenly confronted with a vast\nbody which showed itself vaguely for an instant and in the next instant\nwas smothered in the fog again. It was really the hotel we were after,\nmonstrously magnified by the fog, but we took it for the face of a\nprecipice, and decided not to try to claw up it.\n\nWe sat there an hour, with chattering teeth and quivering bodies, and\nquarreled over all sorts of trifles, but gave most of our attention to\nabusing each other for the stupidity of deserting the railway-track. We\nsat with our backs to the precipice, because what little wind there was\ncame from that quarter. At some time or other the fog thinned a little;\nwe did not know when, for we were facing the empty universe and the\nthinness could not show; but at last Harris happened to look around, and\nthere stood a huge, dim, spectral hotel where the precipice had been.\nOne could faintly discern the windows and chimneys, and a dull blur of\nlights. Our first emotion was deep, unutterable gratitude, our next was\na foolish rage, born of the suspicion that possibly the hotel had been\nvisible three-quarters of an hour while we sat there in those cold\npuddles quarreling.\n\n\nYes, it was the Rigi-Kulm hotel--the one that occupies the extreme\nsummit, and whose remote little sparkle of lights we had often seen\nglinting high aloft among the stars from our balcony away down yonder\nin Lucerne. The crusty portier and the crusty clerks gave us the\nsurly reception which their kind deal out in prosperous times, but by\nmollifying them with an extra display of obsequiousness and servility\nwe finally got them to show us to the room which our boy had engaged for\nus.\n\nWe got into some dry clothing, and while our supper was preparing we\nloafed forsakenly through a couple of vast cavernous drawing-rooms,\none of which had a stove in it. This stove was in a corner, and densely\nwalled around with people. We could not get near the fire, so we moved\nat large in the artic spaces, among a multitude of people who sat\nsilent, smileless, forlorn, and shivering--thinking what fools they were\nto come, perhaps. There were some Americans and some Germans, but one\ncould see that the great majority were English.\n\nWe lounged into an apartment where there was a great crowd, to see\nwhat was going on. It was a memento-magazine. The tourists were eagerly\nbuying all sorts and styles of paper-cutters, marked \"Souvenir of the\nRigi,\" with handles made of the little curved horn of the ostensible\nchamois; there were all manner of wooden goblets and such things,\nsimilarly marked. I was going to buy a paper-cutter, but I believed\nI could remember the cold comfort of the Rigi-Kulm without it, so I\nsmothered the impulse.\n\nSupper warmed us, and we went immediately to bed--but first, as Mr.\nBaedeker requests all tourists to call his attention to any errors which\nthey may find in his guide-books, I dropped him a line to inform him he\nmissed it by just about three days. I had previously informed him of his\nmistake about the distance from Allerheiligen to Oppenau, and had also\ninformed the Ordnance Depart of the German government of the same error\nin the imperial maps. I will add, here, that I never got any answer to\nthose letters, or any thanks from either of those sources; and, what is\nstill more discourteous, these corrections have not been made, either in\nthe maps or the guide-books. But I will write again when I get time, for\nmy letters may have miscarried.\n\nWe curled up in the clammy beds, and went to sleep without rocking. We\nwere so sodden with fatigue that we never stirred nor turned over till\nthe blooming blasts of the Alpine horn aroused us.\n\n\nIt may well be imagined that we did not lose any time. We snatched on\na few odds and ends of clothing, cocooned ourselves in the proper red\nblankets, and plunged along the halls and out into the whistling wind\nbareheaded. We saw a tall wooden scaffolding on the very peak of the\nsummit, a hundred yards away, and made for it. We rushed up the stairs\nto the top of this scaffolding, and stood there, above the vast outlying\nworld, with hair flying and ruddy blankets waving and cracking in the\nfierce breeze.\n\n\n\"Fifteen minutes too late, at last!\" said Harris, in a vexed voice. \"The\nsun is clear above the horizon.\"\n\n\"No matter,\" I said, \"it is a most magnificent spectacle, and we will\nsee it do the rest of its rising anyway.\"\n\nIn a moment we were deeply absorbed in the marvel before us, and dead to\neverything else. The great cloud-barred disk of the sun stood just above\na limitless expanse of tossing white-caps--so to speak--a billowy chaos\nof massy mountain domes and peaks draped in imperishable snow, and\nflooded with an opaline glory of changing and dissolving splendors,\nwhile through rifts in a black cloud-bank above the sun, radiating\nlances of diamond dust shot to the zenith. The cloven valleys of the\nlower world swam in a tinted mist which veiled the ruggedness of their\ncrags and ribs and ragged forests, and turned all the forbidding region\ninto a soft and rich and sensuous paradise.\n\nWe could not speak. We could hardly breathe. We could only gaze in\ndrunken ecstasy and drink in it. Presently Harris exclaimed:\n\n\"Why--nation, it's going DOWN!\"\n\nPerfectly true. We had missed the MORNING hornblow, and slept all day.\nThis was stupefying.\n\nHarris said:\n\n\"Look here, the sun isn't the spectacle--it's US--stacked up here on top\nof this gallows, in these idiotic blankets, and two hundred and fifty\nwell-dressed men and women down here gawking up at us and not caring\na straw whether the sun rises or sets, as long as they've got such a\nridiculous spectacle as this to set down in their memorandum-books. They\nseem to be laughing their ribs loose, and there's one girl there that\nappears to be going all to pieces. I never saw such a man as you before.\nI think you are the very last possibility in the way of an ass.\"\n\n\"What have I done?\" I answered, with heat.\n\n\"What have you done? You've got up at half past seven o'clock in the\nevening to see the sun rise, that's what you've done.\"\n\n\"And have you done any better, I'd like to know? I've always used to\nget up with the lark, till I came under the petrifying influence of your\nturgid intellect.\"\n\n\"YOU used to get up with the lark--Oh, no doubt--you'll get up with the\nhangman one of these days. But you ought to be ashamed to be jawing\nhere like this, in a red blanket, on a forty-foot scaffold on top of the\nAlps. And no end of people down here to boot; this isn't any place for\nan exhibition of temper.\"\n\nAnd so the customary quarrel went on. When the sun was fairly down, we\nslipped back to the hotel in the charitable gloaming, and went to bed\nagain. We had encountered the horn-blower on the way, and he had tried\nto collect compensation, not only for announcing the sunset, which we\ndid see, but for the sunrise, which we had totally missed; but we said\nno, we only took our solar rations on the \"European plan\"--pay for what\nyou get. He promised to make us hear his horn in the morning, if we were\nalive.\n\n\n\n\n\nA TRAMP ABROAD, Part 5.\n\nBy Mark Twain\n\n(Samuel L. Clemens)\n\nFirst published in 1880\n\nIllustrations taken from an 1880 First Edition\n\n * * * * * *\n\n\nILLUSTRATIONS:\n\n\n     1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR\n     2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0TITIAN'S MOSES\n     3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0THE AUTHOR'S MEMORIES\n     178.\u00a0\u00a0EXCEEDINGLY COMFORTABLE\n     179.\u00a0\u00a0THE SUNRISE\n     180.\u00a0\u00a0THE RIGI-KULM\n     181.\u00a0\u00a0AN OPTICAL ILLUSION\n     182.\u00a0\u00a0TAIL PIECE\n     183.\u00a0\u00a0RAILWAY DOWN THE MOUNTAIN\n     184.\u00a0\u00a0SOURCE OF THE RHONE\n     185.\u00a0\u00a0A GLACIER TABLE\n     186.\u00a0\u00a0GLACIER OF GRINDELWALD\n     187.\u00a0\u00a0DAWN ON THE MOUNTAINS\n     188.\u00a0\u00a0TAIL PIECE\n     189.\u00a0\u00a0NEW AND OLD STYLE\n     190.\u00a0\u00a0ST NICHOLAS, AS A HERMIT\n     191.\u00a0\u00a0A LANDSLIDE\n     192.\u00a0\u00a0GOLDAU VALLEY BEFORE AND AFTER THE LANDSLIDE\n     193.\u00a0\u00a0THE WAY THEY DO IT\n     194.\u00a0\u00a0OUR GALLANT DRIVER\n     195.\u00a0\u00a0A MOUNTAIN PASS\n     196.\u00a0\u00a0\"I'M OFUL DRY\"\n     197.\u00a0\u00a0IT'S THE FASHION\n     198.\u00a0\u00a0WHAT WE EXPECTED\n     199.\u00a0\u00a0WE MISSED THE SCENERY\n     200.\u00a0\u00a0THE TOURISTS\n     201.\u00a0\u00a0THE YOUNG BRIDE\n     202.\u00a0\u00a0\"IT WAS A FAMOUS VICTORY\n     203.\u00a0\u00a0PROMENADE IN INTERLAKEN\n     204.\u00a0\u00a0THE JUNGFRAU BY M.T.\n     205.\u00a0\u00a0STREET IN INTERLAKEN\n     206.\u00a0\u00a0WITHOUT A COURIER\n     207.\u00a0\u00a0TRAVELING WITH A COURIER\n     208.\u00a0\u00a0TAIL PIECE\n     209.\u00a0\u00a0GRAPE AND WHEY PATIENTS\n     210.\u00a0\u00a0SOCIABLE DRIVERS\n     211.\u00a0\u00a0A MOUNTAIN CASCADE\n     212.\u00a0\u00a0THE GASTERNTHAL\n     213.\u00a0\u00a0EXHILARATING SPORT\n     214.\u00a0\u00a0FALLS\n     215.\u00a0\u00a0WHAT MIGHT BE\n     216.\u00a0\u00a0AN ALPINE BOUQUET\n     217.\u00a0\u00a0THE END OF THE WORLD\n     218.\u00a0\u00a0THE FORGET-ME-NOT\n     219.\u00a0\u00a0A NEEDLE OF ICE\n     220.\u00a0\u00a0CLIMBING THE MOUNTAIN\n     221.\u00a0\u00a0SNOW CREVASSES\n     222.\u00a0\u00a0CUTTING STEPS\n     223.\u00a0\u00a0THE GUIDE\n     224.\u00a0\u00a0VIEW FROM THE CLIFF\n     225.\u00a0\u00a0GEMMI PASS AND LAKE DAUBENSEE\n     226.\u00a0\u00a0ALMOST A TRAGEDY\n     227.\u00a0\u00a0THE ALPINE LITTER\n     228.\u00a0\u00a0SOCIAL BATHERS\n     229.\u00a0\u00a0DEATH OF COUNTESS HERLINCOURT\n     230.\u00a0\u00a0THEY'VE GOT IT ALL\n     231.\u00a0\u00a0MODEL FOR AN EMPRESS\n     232.\u00a0\u00a0BATH HOUSES AT LEUKE\n     233.\u00a0\u00a0THE BATHERS AT LEUKE\n     234.\u00a0\u00a0RATTIER MIXED UP\n     235.\u00a0\u00a0TAIL PIECE\n\n\nCONTENTS:\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIX Everything Convenient--Looking for a Western\nSunrise--Mutual Recrimination--View from the Summit--Down the\nMountain--Railroading--Confidence Wanted and Acquired\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXX A Trip by Proxy--A Visit to the Furka Regions--Deadman's\nLake--Source of the Rhone--Glacier Tables--Storm in the Mountains--At\nGrindelwald--Dawn on the Mountains--An Explanation Required--Dead\nLanguage--Criticism of Harris's Report\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXI Preparations for a Tramp--From Lucerne to Interlaken--The\nBrunig Pass--Modern and Ancient Chalets--Death of Pontius Pilate--Hermit\nHome of St Nicholas--Landslides--Children Selling Refreshments--How they\nHarness a Horse--A Great Man--Honors to a Hero--A Thirsty Bride--For\nBetter or Worse--German Fashions--Anticipations--Solid Comfort--An\nUnsatisfactory Awakening--What we had Lost--Our Surroundings\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXII The Jungfrau Hotel--A Whiskered Waitress--An Arkansas\nBride--Perfection in Discord--A Famous Victory--A Look from a\nWindow--About the Jungfrau\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIII The Giesbach Falls--The Spirit of the Alps--Why People\nVisit Them--Whey and Grapes as Medicines--The Kursaal--A Formidable\nUndertaking--From Interlaken to Zermatt on Foot--We Concluded to take\na Buggy--A Pair of Jolly Drivers--We meet with Companions--A Cheerful\nRide--Kandersteg Valley--An Alpine Parlor--Exercise and Amusement--A\nRace with a Log\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIV An Old Guide--Possible Accidents--Dangerous\nHabitation--Mountain Flowers--Embryo Lions--Mountain Pigs--The End\nof The World--Ghastly Desolation--Proposed Adventure--Reading-up\nAdventures--Ascent of Monte Rosa--Precipices and Crevasses--Among\nthe Snows--Exciting Experiences--lee Ridges--The Summit--Adventures\nPostponed\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXV A New Interest--Magnificent Views--A Mule's\nPrefereoces--Turning Mountain Corners--Terror of a Horse--Lady\nTourists--Death of a young Countess--A Search for a Hat--What We Did\nFind--Harris's Opinion of Chamois--A Disappointed Man--A Giantess--Model\nfor an Empress--Baths at Leuk--Sport in the Water--The Gemmi\nPrecipices--A Palace for an Emperor--The Famous Ladders--Considerably\nMixed Up--Sad Plight of a Minister\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIX\n\n[Looking West for Sunrise]\n\n\nHe kept his word. We heard his horn and instantly got up. It was dark\nand cold and wretched. As I fumbled around for the matches, knocking\nthings down with my quaking hands, I wished the sun would rise in the\nmiddle of the day, when it was warm and bright and cheerful, and one\nwasn't sleepy. We proceeded to dress by the gloom of a couple sickly\ncandles, but we could hardly button anything, our hands shook so.\nI thought of how many happy people there were in Europe, Asia, and\nAmerica, and everywhere, who were sleeping peacefully in their beds,\nand did not have to get up and see the Rigi sunrise--people who did\nnot appreciate their advantage, as like as not, but would get up in the\nmorning wanting more boons of Providence. While thinking these thoughts\nI yawned, in a rather ample way, and my upper teeth got hitched on a\nnail over the door, and while I was mounting a chair to free myself,\nHarris drew the window-curtain, and said:\n\n\"Oh, this is luck! We shan't have to go out at all--yonder are the\nmountains, in full view.\"\n\n\nThat was glad news, indeed. It made us cheerful right away. One could\nsee the grand Alpine masses dimly outlined against the black firmament,\nand one or two faint stars blinking through rifts in the night. Fully\nclothed, and wrapped in blankets, and huddled ourselves up, by the\nwindow, with lighted pipes, and fell into chat, while we waited in\nexceeding comfort to see how an Alpine sunrise was going to look by\ncandlelight. By and by a delicate, spiritual sort of effulgence spread\nitself by imperceptible degrees over the loftiest altitudes of the snowy\nwastes--but there the effort seemed to stop. I said, presently:\n\n\"There is a hitch about this sunrise somewhere. It doesn't seem to go.\nWhat do you reckon is the matter with it?\"\n\n\"I don't know. It appears to hang fire somewhere. I never saw a sunrise\nact like that before. Can it be that the hotel is playing anything on\nus?\"\n\n\"Of course not. The hotel merely has a property interest in the sun, it\nhas nothing to do with the management of it. It is a precarious kind of\nproperty, too; a succession of total eclipses would probably ruin this\ntavern. Now what can be the matter with this sunrise?\"\n\nHarris jumped up and said:\n\n\"I've got it! I know what's the matter with it! We've been looking at\nthe place where the sun SET last night!\"\n\n\"It is perfectly true! Why couldn't you have thought of that sooner? Now\nwe've lost another one! And all through your blundering. It was exactly\nlike you to light a pipe and sit down to wait for the sun to rise in the\nwest.\"\n\n\"It was exactly like me to find out the mistake, too. You never would\nhave found it out. I find out all the mistakes.\"\n\n\"You make them all, too, else your most valuable faculty would be wasted\non you. But don't stop to quarrel, now--maybe we are not too late yet.\"\n\nBut we were. The sun was well up when we got to the exhibition-ground.\n\n\nOn our way up we met the crowd returning--men and women dressed in\nall sorts of queer costumes, and exhibiting all degrees of cold and\nwretchedness in their gaits and countenances. A dozen still remained on\nthe ground when we reached there, huddled together about the scaffold\nwith their backs to the bitter wind. They had their red guide-books open\nat the diagram of the view, and were painfully picking out the several\nmountains and trying to impress their names and positions on their\nmemories. It was one of the saddest sights I ever saw.\n\nTwo sides of this place were guarded by railings, to keep people from\nbeing blown over the precipices. The view, looking sheer down into\nthe broad valley, eastward, from this great elevation--almost a\nperpendicular mile--was very quaint and curious. Counties, towns, hilly\nribs and ridges, wide stretches of green meadow, great forest tracts,\nwinding streams, a dozen blue lakes, a block of busy steamboats--we saw\nall this little world in unique circumstantiality of detail--saw it just\nas the birds see it--and all reduced to the smallest of scales and as\nsharply worked out and finished as a steel engraving. The numerous toy\nvillages, with tiny spires projecting out of them, were just as the\nchildren might have left them when done with play the day before; the\nforest tracts were diminished to cushions of moss; one or two big lakes\nwere dwarfed to ponds, the smaller ones to puddles--though they did not\nlook like puddles, but like blue teardrops which had fallen and lodged\nin slight depressions, conformable to their shapes, among the moss-beds\nand the smooth levels of dainty green farm-land; the microscopic\nsteamboats glided along, as in a city reservoir, taking a mighty time to\ncover the distance between ports which seemed only a yard apart; and the\nisthmus which separated two lakes looked as if one might stretch out on\nit and lie with both elbows in the water, yet we knew invisible wagons\nwere toiling across it and finding the distance a tedious one. This\nbeautiful miniature world had exactly the appearance of those \"relief\nmaps\" which reproduce nature precisely, with the heights and depressions\nand other details graduated to a reduced scale, and with the rocks,\ntrees, lakes, etc., colored after nature.\n\n\nI believed we could walk down to Waeggis or Vitznau in a day, but I knew\nwe could go down by rail in about an hour, so I chose the latter method.\nI wanted to see what it was like, anyway. The train came along about the\nmiddle of the afternoon, and an odd thing it was. The locomotive-boiler\nstood on end, and it and the whole locomotive were tilted sharply\nbackward. There were two passenger-cars, roofed, but wide open all\naround. These cars were not tilted back, but the seats were; this\nenables the passenger to sit level while going down a steep incline.\n\nThere are three railway-tracks; the central one is cogged; the \"lantern\nwheel\" of the engine grips its way along these cogs, and pulls the\ntrain up the hill or retards its motion on the down trip. About the same\nspeed--three miles an hour--is maintained both ways. Whether going up or\ndown, the locomotive is always at the lower end of the train. It pushes\nin the one case, braces back in the other. The passenger rides backward\ngoing up, and faces forward going down.\n\nWe got front seats, and while the train moved along about fifty yards\non level ground, I was not the least frightened; but now it started\nabruptly downstairs, and I caught my breath. And I, like my neighbors,\nunconsciously held back all I could, and threw my weight to the rear,\nbut, of course, that did no particular good. I had slidden down the\nbalusters when I was a boy, and thought nothing of it, but to slide down\nthe balusters in a railway-train is a thing to make one's flesh creep.\nSometimes we had as much as ten yards of almost level ground, and this\ngave us a few full breaths in comfort; but straightway we would turn a\ncorner and see a long steep line of rails stretching down below us, and\nthe comfort was at an end. One expected to see the locomotive pause,\nor slack up a little, and approach this plunge cautiously, but it\ndid nothing of the kind; it went calmly on, and went it reached the\njumping-off place it made a sudden bow, and went gliding smoothly\ndownstairs, untroubled by the circumstances.\n\nIt was wildly exhilarating to slide along the edge of the precipices,\nafter this grisly fashion, and look straight down upon that far-off\nvalley which I was describing a while ago.\n\nThere was no level ground at the Kaltbad station; the railbed was as\nsteep as a roof; I was curious to see how the stop was going to be\nmanaged. But it was very simple; the train came sliding down, and when\nit reached the right spot it just stopped--that was all there was \"to\nit\"--stopped on the steep incline, and when the exchange of passengers\nand baggage had been made, it moved off and went sliding down again. The\ntrain can be stopped anywhere, at a moment's notice.\n\nThere was one curious effect, which I need not take the trouble to\ndescribe--because I can scissor a description of it out of the railway\ncompany's advertising pamphlet, and save my ink:\n\n\n\"On the whole tour, particularly at the Descent, we undergo an optical\nillusion which often seems to be incredible. All the shrubs, fir trees,\nstables, houses, etc., seem to be bent in a slanting direction, as by an\nimmense pressure of air. They are all standing awry, so much awry that\nthe chalets and cottages of the peasants seem to be tumbling down. It\nis the consequence of the steep inclination of the line. Those who\nare seated in the carriage do not observe that they are going down a\ndeclivity of twenty to twenty-five degrees (their seats being adapted\nto this course of proceeding and being bent down at their backs). They\nmistake their carriage and its horizontal lines for a proper measure of\nthe normal plain, and therefore all the objects outside which really\nare in a horizontal position must show a disproportion of twenty to\ntwenty-five degrees declivity, in regard to the mountain.\"\n\nBy the time one reaches Kaltbad, he has acquired confidence in the\nrailway, and he now ceases to try to ease the locomotive by holding\nback. Thenceforth he smokes his pipe in serenity, and gazes out upon the\nmagnificent picture below and about him with unfettered enjoyment. There\nis nothing to interrupt the view or the breeze; it is like inspecting\nthe world on the wing. However--to be exact--there is one place where\nthe serenity lapses for a while; this is while one is crossing the\nSchnurrtobel Bridge, a frail structure which swings its gossamer frame\ndown through the dizzy air, over a gorge, like a vagrant spider-strand.\n\nOne has no difficulty in remembering his sins while the train is\ncreeping down this bridge; and he repents of them, too; though he sees,\nwhen he gets to Vitznau, that he need not have done it, the bridge was\nperfectly safe.\n\nSo ends the eventual trip which we made to the Rigi-Kulm to see an\nAlpine sunrise.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXX\n\n[Harris Climbs Mountains for Me]\n\n\nAn hour's sail brought us to Lucerne again. I judged it best to go to\nbed and rest several days, for I knew that the man who undertakes to\nmake the tour of Europe on foot must take care of himself.\n\nThinking over my plans, as mapped out, I perceived that they did not\ntake in the Furka Pass, the Rhone Glacier, the Finsteraarhorn, the\nWetterhorn, etc. I immediately examined the guide-book to see if these\nwere important, and found they were; in fact, a pedestrian tour of\nEurope could not be complete without them. Of course that decided me at\nonce to see them, for I never allow myself to do things by halves, or in\na slurring, slipshod way.\n\nI called in my agent and instructed him to go without delay and make a\ncareful examination of these noted places, on foot, and bring me back a\nwritten report of the result, for insertion in my book. I instructed\nhim to go to Hospenthal as quickly as possible, and make his grand start\nfrom there; to extend his foot expedition as far as the Giesbach fall,\nand return to me from thence by diligence or mule. I told him to take\nthe courier with him.\n\nHe objected to the courier, and with some show of reason, since he was\nabout to venture upon new and untried ground; but I thought he might\nas well learn how to take care of the courier now as later, therefore I\nenforced my point. I said that the trouble, delay, and inconvenience\nof traveling with a courier were balanced by the deep respect which a\ncourier's presence commands, and I must insist that as much style be\nthrown into my journeys as possible.\n\nSo the two assumed complete mountaineering costumes and departed. A week\nlater they returned, pretty well used up, and my agent handed me the\nfollowing: Official Report\n\nOF A VISIT TO THE FURKA REGION.\n\nBY H. HARRIS, AGENT About seven o'clock in the morning, with perfectly\nfine weather, we started from Hospenthal, and arrived at the MAISON on\nthe Furka in a little under QUATRE hours. The want of variety in the\nscenery from Hospenthal made the KAHKAHPONEEKA wearisome; but let none\nbe discouraged; no one can fail to be completely R'ECOMPENS'EE for his\nfatigue, when he sees, for the first time, the monarch of the Oberland,\nthe tremendous Finsteraarhorn. A moment before all was dullness, but\na PAS further has placed us on the summit of the Furka; and exactly in\nfront of us, at a HOPOW of only fifteen miles, this magnificent mountain\nlifts its snow-wreathed precipices into the deep blue sky. The inferior\nmountains on each side of the pass form a sort of frame for the picture\nof their dread lord, and close in the view so completely that no other\nprominent feature in the Oberland is visible from this BONG-A-BONG;\nnothing withdraws the attention from the solitary grandeur of the\nFinsteraarhorn and the dependent spurs which form the abutments of the\ncentral peak.\n\n\nWith the addition of some others, who were also bound for the Grimsel,\nwe formed a large XHVLOJ as we descended the STEG which winds round the\nshoulder of a mountain toward the Rhone Glacier. We soon left the path\nand took to the ice; and after wandering amongst the crevices UN PEU, to\nadmire the wonders of these deep blue caverns, and hear the rushing of\nwaters through their subglacial channels, we struck out a course toward\nL'AUTRE C\u00d4TE and crossed the glacier successfully, a little above the\ncave from which the infant Rhone takes its first bound from under the\ngrand precipice of ice. Half a mile below this we began to climb the\nflowery side of the Meienwand. One of our party started before the rest,\nbut the HITZE was so great, that we found IHM quite exhausted, and lying\nat full length in the shade of a large GESTEIN. We sat down with him\nfor a time, for all felt the heat exceedingly in the climb up this very\nsteep BOLWOGGOLY, and then we set out again together, and arrived at\nlast near the Dead Man's Lake, at the foot of the Sidelhorn. This lonely\nspot, once used for an extempore burying-place, after a sanguinary\nBATTUE between the French and Austrians, is the perfection of\ndesolation; there is nothing in sight to mark the hand of man, except\nthe line of weather-beaten whitened posts, set up to indicate the\ndirection of the pass in the OWDAWAKK of winter. Near this point the\nfootpath joins the wider track, which connects the Grimsel with the head\nof the Rhone SCHNAWP; this has been carefully constructed, and leads\nwith a tortuous course among and over LES PIERRES, down to the bank of\nthe gloomy little SWOSH-SWOSH, which almost washes against the walls of\nthe Grimsel Hospice. We arrived a little before four o'clock at the end\nof our day's journey, hot enough to justify the step, taking by most of\nthe PARTIE, of plunging into the crystal water of the snow-fed lake.\n\n\nThe next afternoon we started for a walk up the Unteraar glacier, with\nthe intention of, at all events, getting as far as the H\u00fctte which is\nused as a sleeping-place by most of those who cross the Strahleck Pass\nto Grindelwald. We got over the tedious collection of stones and D\u00c9BRIS\nwhich covers the PIED of the GLETCHER, and had walked nearly three hours\nfrom the Grimsel, when, just as we were thinking of crossing over to the\nright, to climb the cliffs at the foot of the hut, the clouds, which had\nfor some time assumed a threatening appearance, suddenly dropped, and\na huge mass of them, driving toward us from the Finsteraarhorn, poured\ndown a deluge of HABOOLONG and hail. Fortunately, we were not far from\na very large glacier-table; it was a huge rock balanced on a pedestal\nof ice high enough to admit of our all creeping under it for GOWKARAK.\nA stream of PUCKITTYPUKK had furrowed a course for itself in the ice\nat its base, and we were obliged to stand with one FUSS on each side of\nthis, and endeavor to keep ourselves CHAUD by cutting steps in the steep\nbank of the pedestal, so as to get a higher place for standing on,\nas the WASSER rose rapidly in its trench. A very cold BZZZZZZZZEEE\naccompanied the storm, and made our position far from pleasant; and\npresently came a flash of BLITZEN, apparently in the middle of our\nlittle party, with an instantaneous clap of YOKKY, sounding like a large\ngun fired close to our ears; the effect was startling; but in a few\nseconds our attention was fixed by the roaring echoes of the thunder\nagainst the tremendous mountains which completely surrounded us. This\nwas followed by many more bursts, none of WELCHE, however, was so\ndangerously near; and after waiting a long DEMI-hour in our icy prison,\nwe sallied out to talk through a HABOOLONG which, though not so heavy\nas before, was quite enough to give us a thorough soaking before our\narrival at the Hospice.\n\nThe Grimsel is CERTAINEMENT a wonderful place; situated at the bottom\nof a sort of huge crater, the sides of which are utterly savage GEBIRGE,\ncomposed of barren rocks which cannot even support a single pine ARBRE,\nand afford only scanty food for a herd of GMWKWLLOLP, it looks as if\nit must be completely BEGRABEN in the winter snows. Enormous avalanches\nfall against it every spring, sometimes covering everything to the depth\nof thirty or forty feet; and, in spite of walls four feet thick, and\nfurnished with outside shutters, the two men who stay here when the\nVOYAGEURS are snugly quartered in their distant homes can tell you that\nthe snow sometimes shakes the house to its foundations.\n\nNext morning the HOGGLEBUMGULLUP still continued bad, but we made up our\nminds to go on, and make the best of it. Half an hour after we started,\nthe REGEN thickened unpleasantly, and we attempted to get shelter under\na projecting rock, but being far to NASS already to make standing at\nall AGR\u00c9ABLE, we pushed on for the Handeck, consoling ourselves with the\nreflection that from the furious rushing of the river Aar at our\nside, we should at all events see the celebrated WASSERFALL in GRANDE\nPERFECTION. Nor were we NAPPERSOCKET in our expectation; the water\nwas roaring down its leap of two hundred and fifty feet in a most\nmagnificent frenzy, while the trees which cling to its rocky sides\nswayed to and fro in the violence of the hurricane which it brought down\nwith it; even the stream, which falls into the main cascade at right\nangles, and TOUTEFOIS forms a beautiful feature in the scene, was now\nswollen into a raging torrent; and the violence of this \"meeting of the\nwaters,\" about fifty feet below the frail bridge where we stood, was\nfearfully grand. While we were looking at it, GL\u00dcECKLICHEWEISE a gleam\nof sunshine came out, and instantly a beautiful rainbow was formed by\nthe spray, and hung in mid-air suspended over the awful gorge.\n\nOn going into the CHALET above the fall, we were informed that a BRUECKE\nhad broken down near Guttanen, and that it would be impossible to\nproceed for some time; accordingly we were kept in our drenched\ncondition for EIN STUNDE, when some VOYAGEURS arrived from Meiringen,\nand told us that there had been a trifling accident, ABER that we could\nnow cross. On arriving at the spot, I was much inclined to suspect that\nthe whole story was a ruse to make us SLOWWK and drink the more at the\nHandeck Inn, for only a few planks had been carried away, and though\nthere might perhaps have been some difficulty with mules, the gap was\ncertainly not larger than a MMBGLX might cross with a very slight leap.\nNear Guttanen the HABOOLONG happily ceased, and we had time to walk\nourselves tolerably dry before arriving at Reichenback, WO we enjoyed a\ngood DIN\u00c9 at the Hotel des Alps.\n\n\nNext morning we walked to Rosenlaui, the BEAU ID\u00c9AL of Swiss scenery,\nwhere we spent the middle of the day in an excursion to the glacier.\nThis was more beautiful than words can describe, for in the constant\nprogress of the ice it has changed the form of its extremity and formed\na vast cavern, as blue as the sky above, and rippled like a frozen\nocean. A few steps cut in the WHOOPJAMBOREEHOO enabled us to walk\ncompletely under this, and feast our eyes upon one of the loveliest\nobjects in creation. The glacier was all around divided by numberless\nfissures of the same exquisite color, and the finest wood-ERDBEEREN were\ngrowing in abundance but a few yards from the ice. The inn stands in a\nCHARMANT spot close to the C\u00d4T\u00c9 DE LA RIVI\u00c8RE, which, lower down, forms\nthe Reichenbach fall, and embosomed in the richest of pine woods,\nwhile the fine form of the Wellhorn looking down upon it completes the\nenchanting BOPPLE. In the afternoon we walked over the Great Scheideck\nto Grindelwald, stopping to pay a visit to the Upper glacier by the way;\nbut we were again overtaken by bad HOGGLEBUMGULLUP and arrived at the\nhotel in a SOLCHE a state that the landlord's wardrobe was in great\nrequest.\n\nThe clouds by this time seemed to have done their worst, for a lovely\nday succeeded, which we determined to devote to an ascent of the\nFaulhorn. We left Grindelwald just as a thunder-storm was dying away,\nand we hoped to find GUTEN WETTER up above; but the rain, which had\nnearly ceased, began again, and we were struck by the rapidly increasing\nFROID as we ascended. Two-thirds of the way up were completed when\nthe rain was exchanged for GNILLIC, with which the BODEN was thickly\ncovered, and before we arrived at the top the GNILLIC and mist became\nso thick that we could not see one another at more than twenty POOPOO\ndistance, and it became difficult to pick our way over the rough and\nthickly covered ground. Shivering with cold, we turned into bed with a\ndouble allowance of clothes, and slept comfortably while the wind\nhowled AUTOUR DE LA MAISON; when I awoke, the wall and the window looked\nequally dark, but in another hour I found I could just see the form\nof the latter; so I jumped out of bed, and forced it open, though with\ngreat difficulty from the frost and the quantities of GNILLIC heaped up\nagainst it.\n\nA row of huge icicles hung down from the edge of the roof, and anything\nmore wintry than the whole ANBLICK could not well be imagined; but the\nsudden appearance of the great mountains in front was so startling\nthat I felt no inclination to move toward bed again. The snow which\nhad collected upon LA F\u00caNTRE had increased the FINSTERNISS ODER DER\nDUNKELHEIT, so that when I looked out I was surprised to find that the\ndaylight was considerable, and that the BALRAGOOMAH would evidently rise\nbefore long. Only the brightest of LES E'TOILES were still shining; the\nsky was cloudless overhead, though small curling mists lay thousands of\nfeet below us in the valleys, wreathed around the feet of the mountains,\nand adding to the splendor of their lofty summits. We were soon dressed\nand out of the house, watching the gradual approach of dawn, thoroughly\nabsorbed in the first near view of the Oberland giants, which broke\nupon us unexpectedly after the intense obscurity of the evening before.\n\"KABAUGWAKKO SONGWASHEE KUM WETTERHORN SNAWPO!\" cried some one, as that\ngrand summit gleamed with the first rose of dawn; and in a few moments\nthe double crest of the Schreckhorn followed its example; peak after\npeak seemed warmed with life, the Jungfrau blushed even more beautifully\nthan her neighbors, and soon, from the Wetterhorn in the east to the\nWildstrubel in the west, a long row of fires glowed upon mighty altars,\ntruly worthy of the gods.\n\n\nThe WLGW was very severe; our sleeping-place could hardly be DISTINGUE\u00c9\nfrom the snow around it, which had fallen to a depth of a FLIRK during\nthe past evening, and we heartily enjoyed a rough scramble EN BAS to\nthe Giesbach falls, where we soon found a warm climate. At noon the day\nbefore Grindelwald the thermometer could not have stood at less than 100\ndegrees Fahr. in the sun; and in the evening, judging from the icicles\nformed, and the state of the windows, there must have been at least\ntwelve DINGBLATTER of frost, thus giving a change of 80 degrees during a\nfew hours.\n\nI said:\n\n\"You have done well, Harris; this report is concise, compact, well\nexpressed; the language is crisp, the descriptions are vivid and not\nneedlessly elaborated; your report goes straight to the point, attends\nstrictly to business, and doesn't fool around. It is in many ways an\nexcellent document. But it has a fault--it is too learned, it is much\ntoo learned. What is 'DINGBLATTER'?\n\n\"'DINGBLATTER' is a Fiji word meaning 'degrees.'\"\n\n\"You knew the English of it, then?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes.\"\n\n\"What is 'GNILLIC'?\n\n\"That is the Eskimo term for 'snow.'\"\n\n\"So you knew the English for that, too?\"\n\n\"Why, certainly.\"\n\n\"What does 'MMBGLX' stand for?\"\n\n\"That is Zulu for 'pedestrian.'\"\n\n\"'While the form of the Wellhorn looking down upon it completes the\nenchanting BOPPLE.' What is 'BOPPLE'?\"\n\n\"'Picture.' It's Choctaw.\"\n\n\"What is 'SCHNAWP'?\"\n\n\"'Valley.' That is Choctaw, also.\"\n\n\"What is 'BOLWOGGOLY'?\"\n\n\"That is Chinese for 'hill.'\"\n\n\"'KAHKAHPONEEKA'?\"\n\n\"'Ascent.' Choctaw.\"\n\n\"'But we were again overtaken by bad HOGGLEBUMGULLUP.' What does\n'HOGGLEBUMGULLUP' mean?\"\n\n\"That is Chinese for 'weather.'\"\n\n\"Is 'HOGGLEBUMGULLUP' better than the English word? Is it any more\ndescriptive?\"\n\n\"No, it means just the same.\"\n\n\"And 'DINGBLATTER' and 'GNILLIC,' and 'BOPPLE,' and 'SCHNAWP'--are they\nbetter than the English words?\"\n\n\"No, they mean just what the English ones do.\"\n\n\"Then why do you use them? Why have you used all this Chinese and\nChoctaw and Zulu rubbish?\"\n\n\"Because I didn't know any French but two or three words, and I didn't\nknow any Latin or Greek at all.\"\n\n\"That is nothing. Why should you want to use foreign words, anyhow?\"\n\n\"They adorn my page. They all do it.\"\n\n\"Who is 'all'?\"\n\n\"Everybody. Everybody that writes elegantly. Anybody has a right to that\nwants to.\"\n\n\"I think you are mistaken.\" I then proceeded in the following scathing\nmanner. \"When really learned men write books for other learned men\nto read, they are justified in using as many learned words as they\nplease--their audience will understand them; but a man who writes a book\nfor the general public to read is not justified in disfiguring his pages\nwith untranslated foreign expressions. It is an insolence toward the\nmajority of the purchasers, for it is a very frank and impudent way of\nsaying, 'Get the translations made yourself if you want them, this\nbook is not written for the ignorant classes.' There are men who know\na foreign language so well and have used it so long in their daily\nlife that they seem to discharge whole volleys of it into their English\nwritings unconsciously, and so they omit to translate, as much as\nhalf the time. That is a great cruelty to nine out of ten of the man's\nreaders. What is the excuse for this? The writer would say he only uses\nthe foreign language where the delicacy of his point cannot be conveyed\nin English. Very well, then he writes his best things for the tenth man,\nand he ought to warn the nine other not to buy his book. However, the\nexcuse he offers is at least an excuse; but there is another set of\nmen who are like YOU; they know a WORD here and there, of a foreign\nlanguage, or a few beggarly little three-word phrases, filched from the\nback of the Dictionary, and these are continually peppering into their\nliterature, with a pretense of knowing that language--what excuse can\nthey offer? The foreign words and phrases which they use have their\nexact equivalents in a nobler language--English; yet they think they\n'adorn their page' when they say STRASSE for street, and BAHNHOF for\nrailway-station, and so on--flaunting these fluttering rags of poverty\nin the reader's face and imagining he will be ass enough to take\nthem for the sign of untold riches held in reserve. I will let your\n'learning' remain in your report; you have as much right, I suppose, to\n'adorn your page' with Zulu and Chinese and Choctaw rubbish as others of\nyour sort have to adorn theirs with insolent odds and ends smouched from\nhalf a dozen learned tongues whose A-B ABS they don't even know.\"\n\nWhen the musing spider steps upon the red-hot shovel, he first exhibits\na wild surprise, then he shrivels up. Similar was the effect of these\nblistering words upon the tranquil and unsuspecting Agent. I can be\ndreadfully rough on a person when the mood takes me.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXI\n\n[Alp-scaling by Carriage]\n\n\nWe now prepared for a considerable walk--from Lucerne to Interlaken,\nover the Bruenig Pass. But at the last moment the weather was so good\nthat I changed my mind and hired a four-horse carriage. It was a huge\nvehicle, roomy, as easy in its motion as a palanquin, and exceedingly\ncomfortable.\n\nWe got away pretty early in the morning, after a hot breakfast, and\nwent bowling over a hard, smooth road, through the summer loveliness of\nSwitzerland, with near and distant lakes and mountains before and about\nus for the entertainment of the eye, and the music of multitudinous\nbirds to charm the ear. Sometimes there was only the width of the road\nbetween the imposing precipices on the right and the clear cool water on\nthe left with its shoals of uncatchable fish skimming about through the\nbars of sun and shadow; and sometimes, in place of the precipices, the\ngrassy land stretched away, in an apparently endless upward slant,\nand was dotted everywhere with snug little chalets, the peculiarly\ncaptivating cottage of Switzerland.\n\nThe ordinary chalet turns a broad, honest gable end to the road, and\nits ample roof hovers over the home in a protecting, caressing way,\nprojecting its sheltering eaves far outward. The quaint windows are\nfilled with little panes, and garnished with white muslin curtains,\nand brightened with boxes of blooming flowers. Across the front of the\nhouse, and up the spreading eaves and along the fanciful railings of\nthe shallow porch, are elaborate carvings--wreaths, fruits, arabesques,\nverses from Scripture, names, dates, etc. The building is wholly of\nwood, reddish brown in tint, a very pleasing color. It generally has\nvines climbing over it. Set such a house against the fresh green of the\nhillside, and it looks ever so cozy and inviting and picturesque, and is\na decidedly graceful addition to the landscape.\n\nOne does not find out what a hold the chalet has taken upon him, until\nhe presently comes upon a new house--a house which is aping the town\nfashions of Germany and France, a prim, hideous, straight-up-and-down\nthing, plastered all over on the outside to look like stone, and\naltogether so stiff, and formal, and ugly, and forbidding, and so out of\ntune with the gracious landscape, and so deaf and dumb and dead to the\npoetry of its surroundings, that it suggests an undertaker at a picnic,\na corpse at a wedding, a puritan in Paradise.\n\n\nIn the course of the morning we passed the spot where Pontius Pilate is\nsaid to have thrown himself into the lake. The legend goes that after\nthe Crucifixion his conscience troubled him, and he fled from Jerusalem\nand wandered about the earth, weary of life and a prey to tortures\nof the mind. Eventually, he hid himself away, on the heights of Mount\nPilatus, and dwelt alone among the clouds and crags for years; but rest\nand peace were still denied him, so he finally put an end to his misery\nby drowning himself.\n\nPresently we passed the place where a man of better odor was born. This\nwas the children's friend, Santa Claus, or St. Nicholas. There are some\nunaccountable reputations in the world. This saint's is an instance. He\nhas ranked for ages as the peculiar friend of children, yet it appears\nhe was not much of a friend to his own. He had ten of them, and when\nfifty years old he left them, and sought out as dismal a refuge from the\nworld as possible, and became a hermit in order that he might reflect\nupon pious themes without being disturbed by the joyous and other noises\nfrom the nursery, doubtless.\n\n\nJudging by Pilate and St. Nicholas, there exists no rule for the\nconstruction of hermits; they seem made out of all kinds of material.\nBut Pilate attended to the matter of expiating his sin while he was\nalive, whereas St. Nicholas will probably have to go on climbing down\nsooty chimneys, Christmas eve, forever, and conferring kindness on other\npeople's children, to make up for deserting his own. His bones are kept\nin a church in a village (Sachseln) which we visited, and are naturally\nheld in great reverence. His portrait is common in the farmhouses of\nthe region, but is believed by many to be but an indifferent likeness.\nDuring his hermit life, according to legend, he partook of the bread\nand wine of the communion once a month, but all the rest of the month he\nfasted.\n\n\nA constant marvel with us, as we sped along the bases of the steep\nmountains on this journey, was, not that avalanches occur, but that they\nare not occurring all the time. One does not understand why rocks\nand landslides do not plunge down these declivities daily. A landslip\noccurred three quarters of a century ago, on the route from Arth to\nBrunnen, which was a formidable thing. A mass of conglomerate two miles\nlong, a thousand feet broad, and a hundred feet thick, broke away from a\ncliff three thousand feet high and hurled itself into the valley below,\nburying four villages and five hundred people, as in a grave.\n\n\nWe had such a beautiful day, and such endless pictures of limpid lakes,\nand green hills and valleys, and majestic mountains, and milky cataracts\ndancing down the steeps and gleaming in the sun, that we could not help\nfeeling sweet toward all the world; so we tried to drink all the\nmilk, and eat all the grapes and apricots and berries, and buy all the\nbouquets of wild flowers which the little peasant boys and girls offered\nfor sale; but we had to retire from this contract, for it was too heavy.\n\nAt short distances--and they were entirely too short--all along the\nroad, were groups of neat and comely children, with their wares nicely\nand temptingly set forth in the grass under the shade trees, and as soon\nas we approached they swarmed into the road, holding out their baskets\nand milk bottles, and ran beside the carriage, barefoot and bareheaded,\nand importuned us to buy. They seldom desisted early, but continued to\nrun and insist--beside the wagon while they could, and behind it until\nthey lost breath. Then they turned and chased a returning carriage back\nto their trading-post again. After several hours of this, without any\nintermission, it becomes almost annoying. I do not know what we should\nhave done without the returning carriages to draw off the pursuit.\nHowever, there were plenty of these, loaded with dusty tourists and\npiled high with luggage. Indeed, from Lucerne to Interlaken we had\nthe spectacle, among other scenery, of an unbroken procession of\nfruit-peddlers and tourists carriages.\n\nOur talk was mostly anticipatory of what we should see on the down-grade\nof the Bruenig, by and by, after we should pass the summit. All our\nfriends in Lucerne had said that to look down upon Meiringen, and the\nrushing blue-gray river Aar, and the broad level green valley; and\nacross at the mighty Alpine precipices that rise straight up to the\nclouds out of that valley; and up at the microscopic chalets perched\nupon the dizzy eaves of those precipices and winking dimly and fitfully\nthrough the drifting veil of vapor; and still up and up, at the superb\nOltschiback and the other beautiful cascades that leap from those rugged\nheights, robed in powdery spray, ruffled with foam, and girdled with\nrainbows--to look upon these things, they say, was to look upon the last\npossibility of the sublime and the enchanting. Therefore, as I say,\nwe talked mainly of these coming wonders; if we were conscious of any\nimpatience, it was to get there in favorable season; if we felt any\nanxiety, it was that the day might remain perfect, and enable us to see\nthose marvels at their best.\n\nAs we approached the Kaiserstuhl, a part of the harness gave way.\n\nWe were in distress for a moment, but only a moment. It was the\nfore-and-aft gear that was broken--the thing that leads aft from the\nforward part of the horse and is made fast to the thing that pulls the\nwagon. In America this would have been a heavy leathern strap; but, all\nover the continent it is nothing but a piece of rope the size of\nyour little finger--clothes-line is what it is. Cabs use it, private\ncarriages, freight-carts and wagons, all sorts of vehicles have it. In\nMunich I afterward saw it used on a long wagon laden with fifty-four\nhalf-barrels of beer; I had before noticed that the cabs in Heidelberg\nused it--not new rope, but rope that had been in use since Abraham's\ntime --and I had felt nervous, sometimes, behind it when the cab was\ntearing down a hill. But I had long been accustomed to it now, and had\neven become afraid of the leather strap which belonged in its place. Our\ndriver got a fresh piece of clothes-line out of his locker and repaired\nthe break in two minutes.\n\nSo much for one European fashion. Every country has its own ways. It may\ninterest the reader to know how they \"put horses to\" on the continent.\nThe man stands up the horses on each side of the thing that projects\nfrom the front end of the wagon, and then throws the tangled mess of\ngear forward through a ring, and hauls it aft, and passes the other\nthing through the other ring and hauls it aft on the other side of the\nother horse, opposite to the first one, after crossing them and bringing\nthe loose end back, and then buckles the other thing underneath the\nhorse, and takes another thing and wraps it around the thing I spoke\nof before, and puts another thing over each horse's head, with broad\nflappers to it to keep the dust out of his eyes, and puts the iron thing\nin his mouth for him to grit his teeth on, uphill, and brings the ends\nof these things aft over his back, after buckling another one around\nunder his neck to hold his head up, and hitching another thing on\na thing that goes over his shoulders to keep his head up when he is\nclimbing a hill, and then takes the slack of the thing which I mentioned\na while ago, and fetches it aft and makes it fast to the thing that\npulls the wagon, and hands the other things up to the driver to steer\nwith. I never have buckled up a horse myself, but I do not think we do\nit that way.\n\n\nWe had four very handsome horses, and the driver was very proud of his\nturnout. He would bowl along on a reasonable trot, on the highway, but\nwhen he entered a village he did it on a furious run, and accompanied it\nwith a frenzy of ceaseless whip-crackings that sounded like volleys of\nmusketry. He tore through the narrow streets and around the sharp curves\nlike a moving earthquake, showering his volleys as he went, and before\nhim swept a continuous tidal wave of scampering children, ducks, cats,\nand mothers clasping babies which they had snatched out of the way of\nthe coming destruction; and as this living wave washed aside, along the\nwalls, its elements, being safe, forgot their fears and turned their\nadmiring gaze upon that gallant driver till he thundered around the next\ncurve and was lost to sight.\n\nHe was a great man to those villagers, with his gaudy clothes and his\nterrific ways. Whenever he stopped to have his cattle watered and fed\nwith loaves of bread, the villagers stood around admiring him while\nhe swaggered about, the little boys gazed up at his face with humble\nhomage, and the landlord brought out foaming mugs of beer and conversed\nproudly with him while he drank. Then he mounted his lofty box, swung\nhis explosive whip, and away he went again, like a storm. I had not\nseen anything like this before since I was a boy, and the stage used to\nflourish the village with the dust flying and the horn tooting.\n\n\nWhen we reached the base of the Kaiserstuhl, we took two more horses; we\nhad to toil along with difficulty for an hour and a half or two hours,\nfor the ascent was not very gradual, but when we passed the backbone and\napproached the station, the driver surpassed all his previous efforts in\nthe way of rush and clatter. He could not have six horses all the time,\nso he made the most of his chance while he had it.\n\nUp to this point we had been in the heart of the William Tell region.\nThe hero is not forgotten, by any means, or held in doubtful veneration.\nHis wooden image, with his bow drawn, above the doors of taverns, was a\nfrequent feature of the scenery.\n\nAbout noon we arrived at the foot of the Bruenig Pass, and made a\ntwo-hour stop at the village hotel, another of those clean, pretty, and\nthoroughly well-kept inns which are such an astonishment to people\nwho are accustomed to hotels of a dismally different pattern in remote\ncountry-towns. There was a lake here, in the lap of the great mountains,\nthe green slopes that rose toward the lower crags were graced with\nscattered Swiss cottages nestling among miniature farms and gardens,\nand from out a leafy ambuscade in the upper heights tumbled a brawling\ncataract.\n\n\nCarriage after carriage, laden with tourists and trunks, arrived, and\nthe quiet hotel was soon populous. We were early at the table d'h\u00f4te and\nsaw the people all come in. There were twenty-five, perhaps. They were\nof various nationalities, but we were the only Americans. Next to me sat\nan English bride, and next to her sat her new husband, whom she called\n\"Neddy,\" though he was big enough and stalwart enough to be entitled to\nhis full name. They had a pretty little lovers' quarrel over what wine\nthey should have. Neddy was for obeying the guide-book and taking the\nwine of the country; but the bride said:\n\n\"What, that nahsty stuff!\"\n\n\"It isn't nahsty, pet, it's quite good.\"\n\n\"It IS nahsty.\"\n\n\"No, it ISN'T nahsty.\"\n\n\"It's Oful nahsty, Neddy, and I shahn't drink it.\"\n\nThen the question was, what she must have. She said he knew very well\nthat she never drank anything but champagne.\n\nShe added:\n\n\"You know very well papa always has champagne on his table, and I've\nalways been used to it.\"\n\nNeddy made a playful pretense of being distressed about the expense,\nand this amused her so much that she nearly exhausted herself with\nlaughter--and this pleased HIM so much that he repeated his jest a\ncouple of times, and added new and killing varieties to it. When the\nbride finally recovered, she gave Neddy a love-box on the arm with her\nfan, and said with arch severity:\n\n\"Well, you would HAVE me--nothing else would do--so you'll have to make\nthe best of a bad bargain. DO order the champagne, I'm Oful dry.\"\n\n\nSo with a mock groan which made her laugh again, Neddy ordered the\nchampagne.\n\nThe fact that this young woman had never moistened the selvedge edge of\nher soul with a less plebeian tipple than champagne, had a marked and\nsubduing effect on Harris. He believed she belonged to the royal family.\nBut I had my doubts.\n\nWe heard two or three different languages spoken by people at the\ntable and guessed out the nationalities of most of the guests to our\nsatisfaction, but we failed with an elderly gentleman and his wife and\na young girl who sat opposite us, and with a gentleman of about\nthirty-five who sat three seats beyond Harris. We did not hear any of\nthese speak. But finally the last-named gentleman left while we were not\nnoticing, but we looked up as he reached the far end of the table. He\nstopped there a moment, and made his toilet with a pocket comb. So he\nwas a German; or else he had lived in German hotels long enough to catch\nthe fashion. When the elderly couple and the young girl rose to leave,\nthey bowed respectfully to us. So they were Germans, too. This national\ncustom is worth six of the other one, for export.\n\n\nAfter dinner we talked with several Englishmen, and they inflamed our\ndesire to a hotter degree than ever, to see the sights of Meiringen from\nthe heights of the Bruenig Pass. They said the view was marvelous, and\nthat one who had seen it once could never forget it. They also spoke of\nthe romantic nature of the road over the pass, and how in one place it\nhad been cut through a flank of the solid rock, in such a way that the\nmountain overhung the tourist as he passed by; and they furthermore said\nthat the sharp turns in the road and the abruptness of the descent would\nafford us a thrilling experience, for we should go down in a flying\ngallop and seem to be spinning around the rings of a whirlwind, like a\ndrop of whiskey descending the spirals of a corkscrew.\n\n\nI got all the information out of these gentlemen that we could need; and\nthen, to make everything complete, I asked them if a body could get hold\nof a little fruit and milk here and there, in case of necessity. They\nthrew up their hands in speechless intimation that the road was simply\npaved with refreshment-peddlers. We were impatient to get away, now, and\nthe rest of our two-hour stop rather dragged. But finally the set time\narrived and we began the ascent. Indeed it was a wonderful road. It was\nsmooth, and compact, and clean, and the side next the precipices was\nguarded all along by dressed stone posts about three feet high, placed\nat short distances apart. The road could not have been better built if\nNapoleon the First had built it. He seems to have been the introducer of\nthe sort of roads which Europe now uses. All literature which describes\nlife as it existed in England, France, and Germany up to the close\nof the last century, is filled with pictures of coaches and carriages\nwallowing through these three countries in mud and slush half-wheel\ndeep; but after Napoleon had floundered through a conquered kingdom he\ngenerally arranged things so that the rest of the world could follow\ndry-shod.\n\nWe went on climbing, higher and higher, and curving hither and thither,\nin the shade of noble woods, and with a rich variety and profusion of\nwild flowers all about us; and glimpses of rounded grassy backbones\nbelow us occupied by trim chalets and nibbling sheep, and other glimpses\nof far lower altitudes, where distance diminished the chalets to toys\nand obliterated the sheep altogether; and every now and then some\nermined monarch of the Alps swung magnificently into view for a moment,\nthen drifted past an intervening spur and disappeared again.\n\nIt was an intoxicating trip altogether; the exceeding sense of\nsatisfaction that follows a good dinner added largely to the enjoyment;\nthe having something especial to look forward to and muse about, like\nthe approaching grandeurs of Meiringen, sharpened the zest. Smoking\nwas never so good before, solid comfort was never solider; we lay back\nagainst the thick cushions silent, meditative, steeped in felicity. *\n* * * * * * * I rubbed my eyes, opened them, and started. I had been\ndreaming I was at sea, and it was a thrilling surprise to wake up and\nfind land all around me. It took me a couple seconds to \"come to,\" as\nyou may say; then I took in the situation. The horses were drinking at\na trough in the edge of a town, the driver was taking beer, Harris was\nsnoring at my side, the courier, with folded arms and bowed head, was\nsleeping on the box, two dozen barefooted and bareheaded children were\ngathered about the carriage, with their hands crossed behind, gazing up\nwith serious and innocent admiration at the dozing tourists baking there\nin the sun. Several small girls held night-capped babies nearly as big\nas themselves in their arms, and even these fat babies seemed to take a\nsort of sluggish interest in us.\n\n\nWe had slept an hour and a half and missed all the scenery! I did not\nneed anybody to tell me that. If I had been a girl, I could have cursed\nfor vexation. As it was, I woke up the agent and gave him a piece of\nmy mind. Instead of being humiliated, he only upbraided me for being\nso wanting in vigilance. He said he had expected to improve his mind by\ncoming to Europe, but a man might travel to the ends of the earth with\nme and never see anything, for I was manifestly endowed with the very\ngenius of ill luck. He even tried to get up some emotion about that\npoor courier, who never got a chance to see anything, on account of my\nheedlessness. But when I thought I had borne about enough of this kind\nof talk, I threatened to make Harris tramp back to the summit and make a\nreport on that scenery, and this suggestion spiked his battery.\n\nWe drove sullenly through Brienz, dead to the seductions of its\nbewildering array of Swiss carvings and the clamorous HOO-hooing of\nits cuckoo clocks, and had not entirely recovered our spirits when we\nrattled across a bridge over the rushing blue river and entered the\npretty town of Interlaken. It was just about sunset, and we had made the\ntrip from Lucerne in ten hours.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXII\n\n[The Jungfrau, the Bride, and the Piano]\n\n\nWe located ourselves at the Jungfrau Hotel, one of those huge\nestablishments which the needs of modern travel have created in every\nattractive spot on the continent. There was a great gathering at dinner,\nand, as usual, one heard all sorts of languages.\n\nThe table d'h\u00f4te was served by waitresses dressed in the quaint and\ncomely costume of the Swiss peasants. This consists of a simple gros de\nlaine, trimmed with ashes of roses, with overskirt of scare bleu ventre\nsaint gris, cut bias on the off-side, with facings of petit polonaise\nand narrow insertions of p\u00e2te de foie gras backstitched to the mise\nen sce`ne in the form of a jeu d'esprit. It gives to the wearer a\nsingularly piquant and alluring aspect.\n\nOne of these waitresses, a woman of forty, had side-whiskers reaching\nhalf-way down her jaws. They were two fingers broad, dark in color,\npretty thick, and the hairs were an inch long. One sees many women on\nthe continent with quite conspicuous mustaches, but this was the only\nwoman I saw who had reached the dignity of whiskers.\n\nAfter dinner the guests of both sexes distributed themselves about the\nfront porches and the ornamental grounds belonging to the hotel, to\nenjoy the cool air; but, as the twilight deepened toward darkness, they\ngathered themselves together in that saddest and solemnest and most\nconstrained of all places, the great blank drawing-room which is the\nchief feature of all continental summer hotels. There they grouped\nthemselves about, in couples and threes, and mumbled in bated voices,\nand looked timid and homeless and forlorn.\n\nThere was a small piano in this room, a clattery, wheezy, asthmatic\nthing, certainly the very worst miscarriage in the way of a piano that\nthe world has seen. In turn, five or six dejected and homesick ladies\napproached it doubtingly, gave it a single inquiring thump, and\nretired with the lockjaw. But the boss of that instrument was to come,\nnevertheless; and from my own country--from Arkansaw.\n\nShe was a brand-new bride, innocent, girlish, happy in herself and her\ngrave and worshiping stripling of a husband; she was about eighteen,\njust out of school, free from affectations, unconscious of that\npassionless multitude around her; and the very first time she smote\nthat old wreck one recognized that it had met its destiny. Her stripling\nbrought an armful of aged sheet-music from their room--for this bride\nwent \"heeled,\" as you might say--and bent himself lovingly over and got\nready to turn the pages.\n\n\nThe bride fetched a swoop with her fingers from one end of the keyboard\nto the other, just to get her bearings, as it were, and you could see\nthe congregation set their teeth with the agony of it. Then, without\nany more preliminaries, she turned on all the horrors of the \"Battle of\nPrague,\" that venerable shivaree, and waded chin-deep in the blood of\nthe slain. She made a fair and honorable average of two false notes in\nevery five, but her soul was in arms and she never stopped to correct.\nThe audience stood it with pretty fair grit for a while, but when the\ncannonade waxed hotter and fiercer, and the discord average rose to\nfour in five, the procession began to move. A few stragglers held their\nground ten minutes longer, but when the girl began to wring the true\ninwardness out of the \"cries of the wounded,\" they struck their colors\nand retired in a kind of panic.\n\n\nThere never was a completer victory; I was the only non-combatant left\non the field. I would not have deserted my countrywoman anyhow, but\nindeed I had no desires in that direction. None of us like mediocrity,\nbut we all reverence perfection. This girl's music was perfection in its\nway; it was the worst music that had ever been achieved on our planet by\na mere human being.\n\nI moved up close, and never lost a strain. When she got through, I\nasked her to play it again. She did it with a pleased alacrity and a\nheightened enthusiasm. She made it ALL discords, this time. She got an\namount of anguish into the cries of the wounded that shed a new light on\nhuman suffering. She was on the war-path all the evening. All the time,\ncrowds of people gathered on the porches and pressed their noses against\nthe windows to look and marvel, but the bravest never ventured in.\nThe bride went off satisfied and happy with her young fellow, when her\nappetite was finally gorged, and the tourists swarmed in again.\n\n\nWhat a change has come over Switzerland, and in fact all Europe, during\nthis century! Seventy or eighty years ago Napoleon was the only man in\nEurope who could really be called a traveler; he was the only man who\nhad devoted his attention to it and taken a powerful interest in it; he\nwas the only man who had traveled extensively; but now everybody goes\neverywhere; and Switzerland, and many other regions which were unvisited\nand unknown remotenesses a hundred years ago, are in our days a buzzing\nhive of restless strangers every summer. But I digress.\n\nIn the morning, when we looked out of our windows, we saw a wonderful\nsight. Across the valley, and apparently quite neighborly and close at\nhand, the giant form of the Jungfrau rose cold and white into the clear\nsky, beyond a gateway in the nearer highlands. It reminded me, somehow,\nof one of those colossal billows which swells suddenly up beside one's\nship, at sea, sometimes, with its crest and shoulders snowy white, and\nthe rest of its noble proportions streaked downward with creamy foam.\n\nI took out my sketch-book and made a little picture of the Jungfrau,\nmerely to get the shape.\n\nI do not regard this as one of my finished works, in fact I do not rank\nit among my Works at all; it is only a study; it is hardly more than\nwhat one might call a sketch. Other artists have done me the grace to\nadmire it; but I am severe in my judgments of my own pictures, and this\none does not move me.\n\n\nIt was hard to believe that that lofty wooded rampart on the left which\nso overtops the Jungfrau was not actually the higher of the two, but it\nwas not, of course. It is only two or three thousand feet high, and of\ncourse has no snow upon it in summer, whereas the Jungfrau is not much\nshorter of fourteen thousand feet high and therefore that lowest verge\nof snow on her side, which seems nearly down to the valley level, is\nreally about seven thousand feet higher up in the air than the summit\nof that wooded rampart. It is the distance that makes the deception.\nThe wooded height is but four or five miles removed from us, but the\nJungfrau is four or five times that distance away.\n\n\nWalking down the street of shops, in the fore-noon, I was attracted by\na large picture, carved, frame and all, from a single block of\nchocolate-colored wood. There are people who know everything. Some of\nthese had told us that continental shopkeepers always raise their prices\non English and Americans. Many people had told us it was expensive to\nbuy things through a courier, whereas I had supposed it was just the\nreverse. When I saw this picture, I conjectured that it was worth more\nthan the friend I proposed to buy it for would like to pay, but still it\nwas worth while to inquire; so I told the courier to step in and ask\nthe price, as if he wanted it for himself; I told him not to speak in\nEnglish, and above all not to reveal the fact that he was a courier.\nThen I moved on a few yards, and waited.\n\nThe courier came presently and reported the price. I said to myself, \"It\nis a hundred francs too much,\" and so dismissed the matter from my\nmind. But in the afternoon I was passing that place with Harris, and the\npicture attracted me again. We stepped in, to see how much higher\nbroken German would raise the price. The shopwoman named a figure just\na hundred francs lower than the courier had named. This was a pleasant\nsurprise. I said I would take it. After I had given directions as to\nwhere it was to be shipped, the shopwoman said, appealingly:\n\n\"If you please, do not let your courier know you bought it.\"\n\nThis was an unexpected remark. I said:\n\n\"What makes you think I have a courier?\"\n\n\"Ah, that is very simple; he told me himself.\"\n\n\"He was very thoughtful. But tell me--why did you charge him more than\nyou are charging me?\"\n\n\"That is very simple, also: I do not have to pay you a percentage.\"\n\n\"Oh, I begin to see. You would have had to pay the courier a\npercentage.\"\n\n\"Undoubtedly. The courier always has his percentage. In this case it\nwould have been a hundred francs.\"\n\n\"Then the tradesman does not pay a part of it--the purchaser pays all of\nit?\"\n\n\"There are occasions when the tradesman and the courier agree upon a\nprice which is twice or thrice the value of the article, then the two\ndivide, and both get a percentage.\"\n\n\"I see. But it seems to me that the purchaser does all the paying, even\nthen.\"\n\n\"Oh, to be sure! It goes without saying.\"\n\n\"But I have bought this picture myself; therefore why shouldn't the\ncourier know it?\"\n\nThe woman exclaimed, in distress:\n\n\"Ah, indeed it would take all my little profit! He would come and demand\nhis hundred francs, and I should have to pay.\"\n\n\"He has not done the buying. You could refuse.\"\n\n\"I could not dare to refuse. He would never bring travelers here again.\nMore than that, he would denounce me to the other couriers, they would\ndivert custom from me, and my business would be injured.\"\n\nI went away in a thoughtful frame of mind. I began to see why a courier\ncould afford to work for fifty-five dollars a month and his fares. A\nmonth or two later I was able to understand why a courier did not have\nto pay any board and lodging, and why my hotel bills were always larger\nwhen I had him with me than when I left him behind, somewhere, for a few\ndays.\n\nAnother thing was also explained, now, apparently. In one town I had\ntaken the courier to the bank to do the translating when I drew some\nmoney. I had sat in the reading-room till the transaction was finished.\nThen a clerk had brought the money to me in person, and had been\nexceedingly polite, even going so far as to precede me to the door and\nholding it open for me and bow me out as if I had been a distinguished\npersonage. It was a new experience. Exchange had been in my favor ever\nsince I had been in Europe, but just that one time. I got simply the\nface of my draft, and no extra francs, whereas I had expected to get\nquite a number of them. This was the first time I had ever used the\ncourier at the bank. I had suspected something then, and as long as he\nremained with me afterward I managed bank matters by myself.\n\nStill, if I felt that I could afford the tax, I would never travel\nwithout a courier, for a good courier is a convenience whose value\ncannot be estimated in dollars and cents. Without him, travel is a\nbitter harassment, a purgatory of little exasperating annoyances, a\nceaseless and pitiless punishment--I mean to an irascible man who has no\nbusiness capacity and is confused by details.\n\n\nWithout a courier, travel hasn't a ray of pleasure in it, anywhere; but\nwith him it is a continuous and unruffled delight. He is always at hand,\nnever has to be sent for; if your bell is not answered promptly--and it\nseldom is--you have only to open the door and speak, the courier will\nhear, and he will have the order attended to or raise an insurrection.\nYou tell him what day you will start, and whither you are going--leave\nall the rest to him. You need not inquire about trains, or fares, or car\nchanges, or hotels, or anything else. At the proper time he will put you\nin a cab or an omnibus, and drive you to the train or the boat; he has\npacked your luggage and transferred it, he has paid all the bills. Other\npeople have preceded you half an hour to scramble for impossible places\nand lose their tempers, but you can take your time; the courier has\nsecured your seats for you, and you can occupy them at your leisure.\n\nAt the station, the crowd mash one another to pulp in the effort to get\nthe weigher's attention to their trunks; they dispute hotly with these\ntyrants, who are cool and indifferent; they get their baggage billets,\nat last, and then have another squeeze and another rage over the\ndisheartening business of trying to get them recorded and paid for, and\nstill another over the equally disheartening business of trying to get\nnear enough to the ticket office to buy a ticket; and now, with their\ntempers gone to the dogs, they must stand penned up and packed together,\nladen with wraps and satchels and shawl-straps, with the weary wife and\nbabies, in the waiting-room, till the doors are thrown open--and then\nall hands make a grand final rush to the train, find it full, and have\nto stand on the platform and fret until some more cars are put on. They\nare in a condition to kill somebody by this time. Meantime, you have\nbeen sitting in your car, smoking, and observing all this misery in the\nextremest comfort.\n\n\nOn the journey the guard is polite and watchful--won't allow anybody to\nget into your compartment--tells them you are just recovering from the\nsmall-pox and do not like to be disturbed. For the courier has made\neverything right with the guard. At way-stations the courier comes to\nyour compartment to see if you want a glass of water, or a newspaper,\nor anything; at eating-stations he sends luncheon out to you, while the\nother people scramble and worry in the dining-rooms. If anything breaks\nabout the car you are in, and a station-master proposes to pack you and\nyour agent into a compartment with strangers, the courier reveals to him\nconfidentially that you are a French duke born deaf and dumb, and the\nofficial comes and makes affable signs that he has ordered a choice car\nto be added to the train for you.\n\nAt custom-houses the multitude file tediously through, hot and\nirritated, and look on while the officers burrow into the trunks and\nmake a mess of everything; but you hand your keys to the courier and sit\nstill. Perhaps you arrive at your destination in a rain-storm at ten\nat night--you generally do. The multitude spend half an hour verifying\ntheir baggage and getting it transferred to the omnibuses; but the\ncourier puts you into a vehicle without a moment's loss of time, and\nwhen you reach your hotel you find your rooms have been secured two or\nthree days in advance, everything is ready, you can go at once to bed.\nSome of those other people will have to drift around to two or three\nhotels, in the rain, before they find accommodations.\n\nI have not set down half of the virtues that are vested in a good\ncourier, but I think I have set down a sufficiency of them to show that\nan irritable man who can afford one and does not employ him is not a\nwise economist. My courier was the worst one in Europe, yet he was a\ngood deal better than none at all. It could not pay him to be a better\none than he was, because I could not afford to buy things through him.\nHe was a good enough courier for the small amount he got out of his\nservice. Yes, to travel with a courier is bliss, to travel without one\nis the reverse.\n\nI have had dealings with some very bad couriers; but I have also had\ndealings with one who might fairly be called perfection. He was a young\nPolander, named Joseph N. Verey. He spoke eight languages, and seemed\nto be equally at home in all of them; he was shrewd, prompt, posted,\nand punctual; he was fertile in resources, and singularly gifted in the\nmatter of overcoming difficulties; he not only knew how to do everything\nin his line, but he knew the best ways and the quickest; he was handy\nwith children and invalids; all his employer needed to do was to take\nlife easy and leave everything to the courier. His address is, care of\nMessrs. Gay & Son, Strand, London; he was formerly a conductor of Gay's\ntourist parties. Excellent couriers are somewhat rare; if the reader is\nabout to travel, he will find it to his advantage to make a note of this\none.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIII\n\n[We Climb Far--by Buggy]\n\n\nThe beautiful Giesbach Fall is near Interlaken, on the other side of\nthe lake of Brienz, and is illuminated every night with those gorgeous\ntheatrical fires whose name I cannot call just at this moment. This was\nsaid to be a spectacle which the tourist ought by no means to miss. I\nwas strongly tempted, but I could not go there with propriety, because\none goes in a boat. The task which I had set myself was to walk over\nEurope on foot, not skim over it in a boat. I had made a tacit contract\nwith myself; it was my duty to abide by it. I was willing to make boat\ntrips for pleasure, but I could not conscientiously make them in the way\nof business.\n\nIt cost me something of a pang to lose that fine sight, but I lived down\nthe desire, and gained in my self-respect through the triumph. I had\na finer and a grander sight, however, where I was. This was the mighty\ndome of the Jungfrau softly outlined against the sky and faintly\nsilvered by the starlight. There was something subduing in the influence\nof that silent and solemn and awful presence; one seemed to meet the\nimmutable, the indestructible, the eternal, face to face, and to feel\nthe trivial and fleeting nature of his own existence the more sharply\nby the contrast. One had the sense of being under the brooding\ncontemplation of a spirit, not an inert mass of rocks and ice--a spirit\nwhich had looked down, through the slow drift of the ages, upon a\nmillion vanished races of men, and judged them; and would judge a\nmillion more--and still be there, watching, unchanged and unchangeable,\nafter all life should be gone and the earth have become a vacant\ndesolation.\n\nWhile I was feeling these things, I was groping, without knowing it,\ntoward an understanding of what the spell is which people find in the\nAlps, and in no other mountains--that strange, deep, nameless influence,\nwhich, once felt, cannot be forgotten--once felt, leaves always\nbehind it a restless longing to feel it again--a longing which is like\nhomesickness; a grieving, haunting yearning which will plead, implore,\nand persecute till it has its will. I met dozens of people, imaginative\nand unimaginative, cultivated and uncultivated, who had come from far\ncountries and roamed through the Swiss Alps year after year--they could\nnot explain why. They had come first, they said, out of idle curiosity,\nbecause everybody talked about it; they had come since because they\ncould not help it, and they should keep on coming, while they lived, for\nthe same reason; they had tried to break their chains and stay away, but\nit was futile; now, they had no desire to break them. Others came nearer\nformulating what they felt; they said they could find perfect rest and\npeace nowhere else when they were troubled: all frets and worries and\nchafings sank to sleep in the presence of the benignant serenity of the\nAlps; the Great Spirit of the Mountain breathed his own peace upon their\nhurt minds and sore hearts, and healed them; they could not think base\nthoughts or do mean and sordid things here, before the visible throne of\nGod.\n\nDown the road a piece was a Kursaal--whatever that may be--and we joined\nthe human tide to see what sort of enjoyment it might afford. It was the\nusual open-air concert, in an ornamental garden, with wines, beer, milk,\nwhey, grapes, etc.--the whey and the grapes being necessaries of life to\ncertain invalids whom physicians cannot repair, and who only continue to\nexist by the grace of whey or grapes. One of these departed spirits told\nme, in a sad and lifeless way, that there is no way for him to live but\nby whey, and dearly, dearly loved whey, he didn't know whey he did, but\nhe did. After making this pun he died--that is the whey it served him.\n\n\nSome other remains, preserved from decomposition by the grape system,\ntold me that the grapes were of a peculiar breed, highly medicinal in\ntheir nature, and that they were counted out and administered by the\ngrape-doctors as methodically as if they were pills. The new patient,\nif very feeble, began with one grape before breakfast, took three\nduring breakfast, a couple between meals, five at luncheon, three in the\nafternoon, seven at dinner, four for supper, and part of a grape just\nbefore going to bed, by way of a general regulator. The quantity was\ngradually and regularly increased, according to the needs and capacities\nof the patient, until by and by you would find him disposing of his one\ngrape per second all the day long, and his regular barrel per day.\n\nHe said that men cured in this way, and enabled to discard the grape\nsystem, never afterward got over the habit of talking as if they were\ndictating to a slow amanuensis, because they always made a pause between\neach two words while they sucked the substance out of an imaginary\ngrape. He said these were tedious people to talk with. He said that men\nwho had been cured by the other process were easily distinguished from\nthe rest of mankind because they always tilted their heads back, between\nevery two words, and swallowed a swig of imaginary whey. He said it was\nan impressive thing to observe two men, who had been cured by the two\nprocesses, engaged in conversation--said their pauses and accompanying\nmovements were so continuous and regular that a stranger would think\nhimself in the presence of a couple of automatic machines. One finds\nout a great many wonderful things, by traveling, if he stumbles upon the\nright person.\n\nI did not remain long at the Kursaal; the music was good enough, but it\nseemed rather tame after the cyclone of that Arkansaw expert. Besides,\nmy adventurous spirit had conceived a formidable enterprise--nothing\nless than a trip from Interlaken, by the Gemmi and Visp, clear to\nZermatt, on foot! So it was necessary to plan the details, and get ready\nfor an early start. The courier (this was not the one I have just been\nspeaking of) thought that the portier of the hotel would be able to tell\nus how to find our way. And so it turned out. He showed us the whole\nthing, on a relief-map, and we could see our route, with all its\nelevations and depressions, its villages and its rivers, as clearly as\nif we were sailing over it in a balloon. A relief-map is a great thing.\nThe portier also wrote down each day's journey and the nightly hotel on\na piece of paper, and made our course so plain that we should never be\nable to get lost without high-priced outside help.\n\nI put the courier in the care of a gentleman who was going to Lausanne,\nand then we went to bed, after laying out the walking-costumes and\nputting them into condition for instant occupation in the morning.\n\nHowever, when we came down to breakfast at 8 A.M., it looked so much\nlike rain that I hired a two-horse top-buggy for the first third of the\njourney. For two or three hours we jogged along the level road which\nskirts the beautiful lake of Thun, with a dim and dreamlike picture of\nwatery expanses and spectral Alpine forms always before us, veiled in\na mellowing mist. Then a steady downpour set in, and hid everything but\nthe nearest objects. We kept the rain out of our faces with umbrellas,\nand away from our bodies with the leather apron of the buggy; but the\ndriver sat unsheltered and placidly soaked the weather in and seemed\nto like it. We had the road to ourselves, and I never had a pleasanter\nexcursion.\n\nThe weather began to clear while we were driving up a valley called the\nKienthal, and presently a vast black cloud-bank in front of us dissolved\naway and uncurtained the grand proportions and the soaring loftiness of\nthe Blumis Alp. It was a sort of breath-taking surprise; for we had not\nsupposed there was anything behind that low-hung blanket of sable cloud\nbut level valley. What we had been mistaking for fleeting glimpses of\nsky away aloft there, were really patches of the Blumis's snowy crest\ncaught through shredded rents in the drifting pall of vapor.\n\nWe dined in the inn at Frutigen, and our driver ought to have dined\nthere, too, but he would not have had time to dine and get drunk\nboth, so he gave his mind to making a masterpiece of the latter, and\nsucceeded. A German gentleman and his two young-lady daughters had been\ntaking their nooning at the inn, and when they left, just ahead of us,\nit was plain that their driver was as drunk as ours, and as happy\nand good-natured, too, which was saying a good deal. These rascals\noverflowed with attentions and information for their guests, and with\nbrotherly love for each other. They tied their reins, and took off\ntheir coats and hats, so that they might be able to give unencumbered\nattention to conversation and to the gestures necessary for its\nillustration.\n\n\nThe road was smooth; it led up and over and down a continual succession\nof hills; but it was narrow, the horses were used to it, and could\nnot well get out of it anyhow; so why shouldn't the drivers entertain\nthemselves and us? The noses of our horses projected sociably into the\nrear of the forward carriage, and as we toiled up the long hills our\ndriver stood up and talked to his friend, and his friend stood up and\ntalked back to him, with his rear to the scenery. When the top was\nreached and we went flying down the other side, there was no change\nin the program. I carry in my memory yet the picture of that forward\ndriver, on his knees on his high seat, resting his elbows on its back,\nand beaming down on his passengers, with happy eye, and flying hair, and\njolly red face, and offering his card to the old German gentleman while\nhe praised his hack and horses, and both teams were whizzing down a\nlong hill with nobody in a position to tell whether we were bound to\ndestruction or an undeserved safety.\n\nToward sunset we entered a beautiful green valley dotted with chalets, a\ncozy little domain hidden away from the busy world in a cloistered nook\namong giant precipices topped with snowy peaks that seemed to float like\nislands above the curling surf of the sea of vapor that severed them\nfrom the lower world. Down from vague and vaporous heights, little\nruffled zigzag milky currents came crawling, and found their way to the\nverge of one of those tremendous overhanging walls, whence they plunged,\na shaft of silver, shivered to atoms in mid-descent and turned to an air\npuff of luminous dust. Here and there, in grooved depressions among the\nsnowy desolations of the upper altitudes, one glimpsed the extremity of\na glacier, with its sea-green and honeycombed battlements of ice.\n\n\nUp the valley, under a dizzy precipice, nestled the village of\nKandersteg, our halting-place for the night. We were soon there, and\nhoused in the hotel. But the waning day had such an inviting influence\nthat we did not remain housed many moments, but struck out and followed\na roaring torrent of ice-water up to its far source in a sort of little\ngrass-carpeted parlor, walled in all around by vast precipices and\noverlooked by clustering summits of ice. This was the snuggest little\ncroquet-ground imaginable; it was perfectly level, and not more than a\nmile long by half a mile wide. The walls around it were so gigantic, and\neverything about it was on so mighty a scale that it was belittled, by\ncontrast, to what I have likened it to--a cozy and carpeted parlor. It\nwas so high above the Kandersteg valley that there was nothing between\nit and the snowy-peaks. I had never been in such intimate relations with\nthe high altitudes before; the snow-peaks had always been remote and\nunapproachable grandeurs, hitherto, but now we were hob-a-nob--if one\nmay use such a seemingly irreverent expression about creations so august\nas these.\n\nWe could see the streams which fed the torrent we had followed issuing\nfrom under the greenish ramparts of glaciers; but two or three of these,\ninstead of flowing over the precipices, sank down into the rock and\nsprang in big jets out of holes in the mid-face of the walls.\n\n\nThe green nook which I have been describing is called the Gasternthal.\nThe glacier streams gather and flow through it in a broad and rushing\nbrook to a narrow cleft between lofty precipices; here the rushing\nbrook becomes a mad torrent and goes booming and thundering down\ntoward Kandersteg, lashing and thrashing its way over and among monster\nboulders, and hurling chance roots and logs about like straws. There\nwas no lack of cascades along this route. The path by the side of\nthe torrent was so narrow that one had to look sharp, when he heard a\ncow-bell, and hunt for a place that was wide enough to accommodate a cow\nand a Christian side by side, and such places were not always to be had\nat an instant's notice. The cows wear church-bells, and that is a\ngood idea in the cows, for where that torrent is, you couldn't hear\nan ordinary cow-bell any further than you could hear the ticking of a\nwatch.\n\nI needed exercise, so I employed my agent in setting stranded logs and\ndead trees adrift, and I sat on a boulder and watched them go whirling\nand leaping head over heels down the boiling torrent. It was a\nwonderfully exhilarating spectacle. When I had had enough exercise, I\nmade the agent take some, by running a race with one of those logs. I\nmade a trifle by betting on the log.\n\n\nAfter dinner we had a walk up and down the Kandersteg valley, in the\nsoft gloaming, with the spectacle of the dying lights of day playing\nabout the crests and pinnacles of the still and solemn upper realm\nfor contrast, and text for talk. There were no sounds but the dulled\ncomplaining of the torrent and the occasional tinkling of a distant\nbell. The spirit of the place was a sense of deep, pervading peace; one\nmight dream his life tranquilly away there, and not miss it or mind it\nwhen it was gone.\n\nThe summer departed with the sun, and winter came with the stars. It\ngrew to be a bitter night in that little hotel, backed up against a\nprecipice that had no visible top to it, but we kept warm, and woke in\ntime in the morning to find that everybody else had left for Gemmi\nthree hours before--so our little plan of helping that German family\n(principally the old man) over the pass, was a blocked generosity.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIV\n\n[The World's Highest Pig Farm]\n\n\nWe hired the only guide left, to lead us on our way. He was over\nseventy, but he could have given me nine-tenths of his strength and\nstill had all his age entitled him to. He shouldered our satchels,\novercoats, and alpenstocks, and we set out up the steep path. It was hot\nwork. The old man soon begged us to hand over our coats and waistcoats\nto him to carry, too, and we did it; one could not refuse so little a\nthing to a poor old man like that; he should have had them if he had\nbeen a hundred and fifty.\n\nWhen we began that ascent, we could see a microscopic chalet perched\naway up against heaven on what seemed to be the highest mountain near\nus. It was on our right, across the narrow head of the valley. But when\nwe got up abreast it on its own level, mountains were towering high\nabove on every hand, and we saw that its altitude was just about that of\nthe little Gasternthal which we had visited the evening before. Still it\nseemed a long way up in the air, in that waste and lonely wilderness of\nrocks. It had an unfenced grass-plot in front of it which seemed about\nas big as a billiard-table, and this grass-plot slanted so sharply\ndownward, and was so brief, and ended so exceedingly soon at the verge\nof the absolute precipice, that it was a shuddery thing to think of a\nperson's venturing to trust his foot on an incline so situated at all.\nSuppose a man stepped on an orange peel in that yard; there would be\nnothing for him to seize; nothing could keep him from rolling; five\nrevolutions would bring him to the edge, and over he would go.\n\n\nWhat a frightful distance he would fall!--for there are very few birds\nthat fly as high as his starting-point. He would strike and bounce, two\nor three times, on his way down, but this would be no advantage to him.\nI would as soon take an airing on the slant of a rainbow as in such\na front yard. I would rather, in fact, for the distance down would be\nabout the same, and it is pleasanter to slide than to bounce. I could\nnot see how the peasants got up to that chalet--the region seemed too\nsteep for anything but a balloon.\n\nAs we strolled on, climbing up higher and higher, we were continually\nbringing neighboring peaks into view and lofty prominence which had been\nhidden behind lower peaks before; so by and by, while standing before a\ngroup of these giants, we looked around for the chalet again; there it\nwas, away down below us, apparently on an inconspicuous ridge in the\nvalley! It was as far below us, now, as it had been above us when we\nwere beginning the ascent.\n\nAfter a while the path led us along a railed precipice, and we looked\nover--far beneath us was the snug parlor again, the little Gasternthal,\nwith its water jets spouting from the face of its rock walls. We could\nhave dropped a stone into it. We had been finding the top of the world\nall along--and always finding a still higher top stealing into view in\na disappointing way just ahead; when we looked down into the Gasternthal\nwe felt pretty sure that we had reached the genuine top at last, but it\nwas not so; there were much higher altitudes to be scaled yet. We were\nstill in the pleasant shade of forest trees, we were still in a region\nwhich was cushioned with beautiful mosses and aglow with the many-tinted\nluster of innumerable wild flowers.\n\nWe found, indeed, more interest in the wild flowers than in anything\nelse. We gathered a specimen or two of every kind which we were\nunacquainted with; so we had sumptuous bouquets. But one of the chief\ninterests lay in chasing the seasons of the year up the mountain, and\ndetermining them by the presence of flowers and berries which we were\nacquainted with. For instance, it was the end of August at the level\nof the sea; in the Kandersteg valley at the base of the pass, we found\nflowers which would not be due at the sea-level for two or three weeks;\nhigher up, we entered October, and gathered fringed gentians. I made\nno notes, and have forgotten the details, but the construction of the\nfloral calendar was very entertaining while it lasted.\n\n\nIn the high regions we found rich store of the splendid red flower\ncalled the Alpine rose, but we did not find any examples of the ugly\nSwiss favorite called Edelweiss. Its name seems to indicate that it is a\nnoble flower and that it is white. It may be noble enough, but it is not\nattractive, and it is not white. The fuzzy blossom is the color of bad\ncigar ashes, and appears to be made of a cheap quality of gray plush. It\nhas a noble and distant way of confining itself to the high altitudes,\nbut that is probably on account of its looks; it apparently has no\nmonopoly of those upper altitudes, however, for they are sometimes\nintruded upon by some of the loveliest of the valley families of wild\nflowers. Everybody in the Alps wears a sprig of Edelweiss in his hat. It\nis the native's pet, and also the tourist's.\n\nAll the morning, as we loafed along, having a good time, other\npedestrians went staving by us with vigorous strides, and with the\nintent and determined look of men who were walking for a wager. These\nwore loose knee-breeches, long yarn stockings, and hobnailed high-laced\nwalking-shoes. They were gentlemen who would go home to England or\nGermany and tell how many miles they had beaten the guide-book every\nday. But I doubted if they ever had much real fun, outside of the mere\nmagnificent exhilaration of the tramp through the green valleys and the\nbreezy heights; for they were almost always alone, and even the finest\nscenery loses incalculably when there is no one to enjoy it with.\n\nAll the morning an endless double procession of mule-mounted tourists\nfiled past us along the narrow path--the one procession going, the\nother coming. We had taken a good deal of trouble to teach ourselves the\nkindly German custom of saluting all strangers with doffed hat, and we\nresolutely clung to it, that morning, although it kept us bareheaded\nmost of the time and was not always responded to. Still we found an\ninterest in the thing, because we naturally liked to know who were\nEnglish and Americans among the passers-by. All continental natives\nresponded of course; so did some of the English and Americans, but, as\na general thing, these two races gave no sign. Whenever a man or a woman\nshowed us cold neglect, we spoke up confidently in our own tongue and\nasked for such information as we happened to need, and we always got a\nreply in the same language. The English and American folk are not less\nkindly than other races, they are only more reserved, and that comes of\nhabit and education. In one dreary, rocky waste, away above the line of\nvegetation, we met a procession of twenty-five mounted young men, all\nfrom America. We got answering bows enough from these, of course, for\nthey were of an age to learn to do in Rome as Rome does, without much\neffort.\n\nAt one extremity of this patch of desolation, overhung by bare and\nforbidding crags which husbanded drifts of everlasting snow in their\nshaded cavities, was a small stretch of thin and discouraged grass, and\na man and a family of pigs were actually living here in some shanties.\nConsequently this place could be really reckoned as \"property\"; it had\na money value, and was doubtless taxed. I think it must have marked\nthe limit of real estate in this world. It would be hard to set a money\nvalue upon any piece of earth that lies between that spot and the empty\nrealm of space. That man may claim the distinction of owning the end\nof the world, for if there is any definite end to the world he has\ncertainly found it.\n\n\nFrom here forward we moved through a storm-swept and smileless\ndesolation. All about us rose gigantic masses, crags, and ramparts of\nbare and dreary rock, with not a vestige or semblance of plant or tree\nor flower anywhere, or glimpse of any creature that had life. The frost\nand the tempests of unnumbered ages had battered and hacked at these\ncliffs, with a deathless energy, destroying them piecemeal; so all the\nregion about their bases was a tumbled chaos of great fragments which\nhad been split off and hurled to the ground. Soiled and aged banks of\nsnow lay close about our path. The ghastly desolation of the place was\nas tremendously complete as if Dor\u00e9 had furnished the working-plans\nfor it. But every now and then, through the stern gateways around us\nwe caught a view of some neighboring majestic dome, sheathed with\nglittering ice, and displaying its white purity at an elevation compared\nto which ours was groveling and plebeian, and this spectacle always\nchained one's interest and admiration at once, and made him forget there\nwas anything ugly in the world.\n\nI have just said that there was nothing but death and desolation in\nthese hideous places, but I forgot. In the most forlorn and arid and\ndismal one of all, where the racked and splintered debris was thickest,\nwhere the ancient patches of snow lay against the very path, where\nthe winds blew bitterest and the general aspect was mournfulest and\ndreariest, and furthest from any suggestion of cheer or hope, I found\na solitary wee forget-me-not flourishing away, not a droop about it\nanywhere, but holding its bright blue star up with the prettiest and\ngallantest air in the world, the only happy spirit, the only smiling\nthing, in all that grisly desert. She seemed to say, \"Cheer up!--as long\nas we are here, let us make the best of it.\" I judged she had earned a\nright to a more hospitable place; so I plucked her up and sent her to\nAmerica to a friend who would respect her for the fight she had made,\nall by her small self, to make a whole vast despondent Alpine desolation\nstop breaking its heart over the unalterable, and hold up its head and\nlook at the bright side of things for once.\n\n\nWe stopped for a nooning at a strongly built little inn called the\nSchwarenbach. It sits in a lonely spot among the peaks, where it is\nswept by the trailing fringes of the cloud-rack, and is rained on, and\nsnowed on, and pelted and persecuted by the storms, nearly every day of\nits life. It was the only habitation in the whole Gemmi Pass.\n\nClose at hand, now, was a chance for a blood-curdling Alpine adventure.\nClose at hand was the snowy mass of the Great Altels cooling its topknot\nin the sky and daring us to an ascent. I was fired with the idea, and\nimmediately made up my mind to procure the necessary guides, ropes,\netc., and undertake it. I instructed Harris to go to the landlord of the\ninn and set him about our preparations. Meantime, I went diligently to\nwork to read up and find out what this much-talked-of mountain-climbing\nwas like, and how one should go about it--for in these matters I\nwas ignorant. I opened Mr. Hinchliff's SUMMER MONTHS AMONG THE ALPS\n(published 1857), and selected his account of his ascent of Monte Rosa.\n\nIt began:\n\n\"It is very difficult to free the mind from excitement on the evening\nbefore a grand expedition--\"\n\nI saw that I was too calm; so I walked the room a while and worked\nmyself into a high excitement; but the book's next remark --that the\nadventurer must get up at two in the morning--came as near as anything\nto flatting it all out again. However, I reinforced it, and read on,\nabout how Mr. Hinchliff dressed by candle-light and was \"soon down among\nthe guides, who were bustling about in the passage, packing provisions,\nand making every preparation for the start\"; and how he glanced out into\nthe cold clear night and saw that--\n\n\n\"The whole sky was blazing with stars, larger and brighter than they\nappear through the dense atmosphere breathed by inhabitants of the lower\nparts of the earth. They seemed actually suspended from the dark vault\nof heaven, and their gentle light shed a fairylike gleam over the\nsnow-fields around the foot of the Matterhorn, which raised its\nstupendous pinnacle on high, penetrating to the heart of the Great Bear,\nand crowning itself with a diadem of his magnificent stars. Not a sound\ndisturbed the deep tranquillity of the night, except the distant roar\nof streams which rush from the high plateau of the St. Theodule glacier,\nand fall headlong over precipitous rocks till they lose themselves in\nthe mazes of the Gorner glacier.\"\n\nHe took his hot toast and coffee, and then about half past three his\ncaravan of ten men filed away from the Riffel Hotel, and began the steep\nclimb. At half past five he happened to turn around, and \"beheld the\nglorious spectacle of the Matterhorn, just touched by the rosy-fingered\nmorning, and looking like a huge pyramid of fire rising out of the\nbarren ocean of ice and rock around it.\" Then the Breithorn and the Dent\nBlanche caught the radiant glow; but \"the intervening mass of Monte Rosa\nmade it necessary for us to climb many long hours before we could hope\nto see the sun himself, yet the whole air soon grew warmer after the\nsplendid birth of the day.\"\n\nHe gazed at the lofty crown of Monte Rosa and the wastes of snow that\nguarded its steep approaches, and the chief guide delivered the opinion\nthat no man could conquer their awful heights and put his foot upon that\nsummit. But the adventurers moved steadily on, nevertheless.\n\nThey toiled up, and up, and still up; they passed the Grand Plateau;\nthen toiled up a steep shoulder of the mountain, clinging like flies to\nits rugged face; and now they were confronted by a tremendous wall\nfrom which great blocks of ice and snow were evidently in the habit of\nfalling. They turned aside to skirt this wall, and gradually ascended\nuntil their way was barred by a \"maze of gigantic snow crevices,\"--so\nthey turned aside again, and \"began a long climb of sufficient steepness\nto make a zigzag course necessary.\"\n\n\nFatigue compelled them to halt frequently, for a moment or two. At one\nof these halts somebody called out, \"Look at Mont Blanc!\" and \"we were\nat once made aware of the very great height we had attained by actually\nseeing the monarch of the Alps and his attendant satellites right over\nthe top of the Breithorn, itself at least 14,000 feet high!\"\n\nThese people moved in single file, and were all tied to a strong rope,\nat regular distances apart, so that if one of them slipped on those\ngiddy heights, the others could brace themselves on their alpenstocks\nand save him from darting into the valley, thousands of feet below. By\nand by they came to an ice-coated ridge which was tilted up at a sharp\nangle, and had a precipice on one side of it. They had to climb this, so\nthe guide in the lead cut steps in the ice with his hatchet, and as fast\nas he took his toes out of one of these slight holes, the toes of the\nman behind him occupied it.\n\n\n\"Slowly and steadily we kept on our way over this dangerous part of the\nascent, and I dare say it was fortunate for some of us that attention\nwas distracted from the head by the paramount necessity of looking after\nthe feet; FOR, WHILE ON THE LEFT THE INCLINE OF ICE WAS SO STEEP THAT\nIT WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE FOR ANY MAN TO SAVE HIMSELF IN CASE OF A SLIP,\nUNLESS THE OTHERS COULD HOLD HIM UP, ON THE RIGHT WE MIGHT DROP A PEBBLE\nFROM THE HAND OVER PRECIPICES OF UNKNOWN EXTENT DOWN UPON THE TREMENDOUS\nGLACIER BELOW.\n\n\"Great caution, therefore, was absolutely necessary, and in this exposed\nsituation we were attacked by all the fury of that grand enemy of\naspirants to Monte Rosa--a severe and bitterly cold wind from the north.\nThe fine powdery snow was driven past us in the clouds, penetrating the\ninterstices of our clothes, and the pieces of ice which flew from the\nblows of Peter's ax were whisked into the air, and then dashed over the\nprecipice. We had quite enough to do to prevent ourselves from being\nserved in the same ruthless fashion, and now and then, in the more\nviolent gusts of wind, were glad to stick our alpenstocks into the ice\nand hold on hard.\"\n\nHaving surmounted this perilous steep, they sat down and took a brief\nrest with their backs against a sheltering rock and their heels dangling\nover a bottomless abyss; then they climbed to the base of another\nridge--a more difficult and dangerous one still:\n\n\"The whole of the ridge was exceedingly narrow, and the fall on each\nside desperately steep, but the ice in some of these intervals between\nthe masses of rock assumed the form of a mere sharp edge, almost like a\nknife; these places, though not more than three or four short paces\nin length, looked uncommonly awkward; but, like the sword leading true\nbelievers to the gates of Paradise, they must needs be passed before\nwe could attain to the summit of our ambition. These were in one or two\nplaces so narrow, that in stepping over them with toes well turned\nout for greater security, ONE END OF THE FOOT PROJECTED OVER THE AWFUL\nPRECIPICE ON THE RIGHT, WHILE THE OTHER WAS ON THE BEGINNING OF THE\nICE SLOPE ON THE LEFT, WHICH WAS SCARCELY LESS STEEP THAN THE ROCKS. On\nthese occasions Peter would take my hand, and each of us stretching as\nfar as we could, he was thus enabled to get a firm footing two paces\nor rather more from me, whence a spring would probably bring him to the\nrock on the other side; then, turning around, he called to me to come,\nand, taking a couple of steps carefully, I was met at the third by his\noutstretched hand ready to clasp mine, and in a moment stood by his\nside. The others followed in much the same fashion. Once my right foot\nslipped on the side toward the precipice, but I threw out my left arm in\na moment so that it caught the icy edge under my armpit as I fell, and\nsupported me considerably; at the same instant I cast my eyes down the\nside on which I had slipped, and contrived to plant my right foot on\na piece of rock as large as a cricket-ball, which chanced to protrude\nthrough the ice, on the very edge of the precipice. Being thus anchored\nfore and aft, as it were, I believe I could easily have recovered\nmyself, even if I had been alone, though it must be confessed the\nsituation would have been an awful one; as it was, however, a jerk from\nPeter settled the matter very soon, and I was on my legs all right in an\ninstant. The rope is an immense help in places of this kind.\"\n\n\nNow they arrived at the base of a great knob or dome veneered with ice\nand powdered with snow--the utmost, summit, the last bit of solidity\nbetween them and the hollow vault of heaven. They set to work with their\nhatchets, and were soon creeping, insectlike, up its surface, with their\nheels projecting over the thinnest kind of nothingness, thickened up a\nlittle with a few wandering shreds and films of cloud moving in a lazy\nprocession far below. Presently, one man's toe-hold broke and he fell!\nThere he dangled in mid-air at the end of the rope, like a spider, till\nhis friends above hauled him into place again.\n\nA little bit later, the party stood upon the wee pedestal of the very\nsummit, in a driving wind, and looked out upon the vast green expanses\nof Italy and a shoreless ocean of billowy Alps.\n\nWhen I had read thus far, Harris broke into the room in a noble\nexcitement and said the ropes and the guides were secured, and asked if\nI was ready. I said I believed I wouldn't ascend the Altels this time. I\nsaid Alp-climbing was a different thing from what I had supposed it was,\nand so I judged we had better study its points a little more before we\nwent definitely into it. But I told him to retain the guides and order\nthem to follow us to Zermatt, because I meant to use them there. I said\nI could feel the spirit of adventure beginning to stir in me, and was\nsure that the fell fascination of Alp-climbing would soon be upon me. I\nsaid he could make up his mind to it that we would do a deed before\nwe were a week older which would make the hair of the timid curl with\nfright.\n\nThis made Harris happy, and filled him with ambitious anticipations. He\nwent at once to tell the guides to follow us to Zermatt and bring all\ntheir paraphernalia with them.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXV\n\n[Swindling the Coroner]\n\n\nA great and priceless thing is a new interest! How it takes possession\nof a man! how it clings to him, how it rides him! I strode onward from\nthe Schwarenbach hostelry a changed man, a reorganized personality. I\nwalked into a new world, I saw with new eyes. I had been looking\naloft at the giant show-peaks only as things to be worshiped for their\ngrandeur and magnitude, and their unspeakable grace of form; I looked\nup at them now, as also things to be conquered and climbed. My sense of\ntheir grandeur and their noble beauty was neither lost nor impaired; I\nhad gained a new interest in the mountains without losing the old ones.\nI followed the steep lines up, inch by inch, with my eye, and noted the\npossibility or impossibility of following them with my feet. When I saw\na shining helmet of ice projecting above the clouds, I tried to imagine\nI saw files of black specks toiling up it roped together with a gossamer\nthread.\n\nWe skirted the lonely little lake called the Daubensee, and presently\npassed close by a glacier on the right--a thing like a great river\nfrozen solid in its flow and broken square off like a wall at its mouth.\nI had never been so near a glacier before.\n\nHere we came upon a new board shanty, and found some men engaged in\nbuilding a stone house; so the Schwarenbach was soon to have a rival. We\nbought a bottle or so of beer here; at any rate they called it beer, but\nI knew by the price that it was dissolved jewelry, and I perceived by\nthe taste that dissolved jewelry is not good stuff to drink.\n\n\nWe were surrounded by a hideous desolation. We stepped forward to a sort\nof jumping-off place, and were confronted by a startling contrast: we\nseemed to look down into fairyland. Two or three thousand feet below us\nwas a bright green level, with a pretty town in its midst, and a silvery\nstream winding among the meadows; the charming spot was walled in on all\nsides by gigantic precipices clothed with pines; and over the pines, out\nof the softened distances, rose the snowy domes and peaks of the Monte\nRosa region. How exquisitely green and beautiful that little valley down\nthere was! The distance was not great enough to obliterate details, it\nonly made them little, and mellow, and dainty, like landscapes and towns\nseen through the wrong end of a spy-glass.\n\nRight under us a narrow ledge rose up out of the valley, with a green,\nslanting, bench-shaped top, and grouped about upon this green-baize\nbench were a lot of black and white sheep which looked merely like\noversized worms. The bench seemed lifted well up into our neighborhood,\nbut that was a deception--it was a long way down to it.\n\n\nWe began our descent, now, by the most remarkable road I have ever seen.\nIt wound its corkscrew curves down the face of the colossal precipice--a\nnarrow way, with always the solid rock wall at one elbow, and\nperpendicular nothingness at the other. We met an everlasting procession\nof guides, porters, mules, litters, and tourists climbing up this steep\nand muddy path, and there was no room to spare when you had to pass a\ntolerably fat mule. I always took the inside, when I heard or saw the\nmule coming, and flattened myself against the wall. I preferred the\ninside, of course, but I should have had to take it anyhow, because\nthe mule prefers the outside. A mule's preference--on a precipice--is a\nthing to be respected. Well, his choice is always the outside. His life\nis mostly devoted to carrying bulky panniers and packages which rest\nagainst his body--therefore he is habituated to taking the outside edge\nof mountain paths, to keep his bundles from rubbing against rocks or\nbanks on the other. When he goes into the passenger business he absurdly\nclings to his old habit, and keeps one leg of his passenger always\ndangling over the great deeps of the lower world while that passenger's\nheart is in the highlands, so to speak. More than once I saw a mule's\nhind foot cave over the outer edge and send earth and rubbish into the\nbottom abyss; and I noticed that upon these occasions the rider, whether\nmale or female, looked tolerably unwell.\n\nThere was one place where an eighteen-inch breadth of light masonry had\nbeen added to the verge of the path, and as there was a very sharp\nturn here, a panel of fencing had been set up there at some time, as\na protection. This panel was old and gray and feeble, and the light\nmasonry had been loosened by recent rains. A young American girl came\nalong on a mule, and in making the turn the mule's hind foot caved all\nthe loose masonry and one of the fence-posts overboard; the mule gave a\nviolent lurch inboard to save himself, and succeeded in the effort, but\nthat girl turned as white as the snows of Mont Blanc for a moment.\n\n\nThe path was simply a groove cut into the face of the precipice; there\nwas a four-foot breadth of solid rock under the traveler, and four-foot\nbreadth of solid rock just above his head, like the roof of a narrow\nporch; he could look out from this gallery and see a sheer summitless\nand bottomless wall of rock before him, across a gorge or crack a\nbiscuit's toss in width--but he could not see the bottom of his own\nprecipice unless he lay down and projected his nose over the edge. I did\nnot do this, because I did not wish to soil my clothes.\n\nEvery few hundred yards, at particularly bad places, one came across\na panel or so of plank fencing; but they were always old and weak,\nand they generally leaned out over the chasm and did not make any rash\npromises to hold up people who might need support. There was one of\nthese panels which had only its upper board left; a pedestrianizing\nEnglish youth came tearing down the path, was seized with an impulse to\nlook over the precipice, and without an instant's thought he threw his\nweight upon that crazy board. It bent outward a foot! I never made a\ngasp before that came so near suffocating me. The English youth's face\nsimply showed a lively surprise, but nothing more. He went swinging\nalong valleyward again, as if he did not know he had just swindled a\ncoroner by the closest kind of a shave.\n\nThe Alpine litter is sometimes like a cushioned box made fast between\nthe middles of two long poles, and sometimes it is a chair with a back\nto it and a support for the feet. It is carried by relays of strong\nporters. The motion is easier than that of any other conveyance. We met\na few men and a great many ladies in litters; it seemed to me that most\nof the ladies looked pale and nauseated; their general aspect gave me\nthe idea that they were patiently enduring a horrible suffering. As a\nrule, they looked at their laps, and left the scenery to take care of\nitself.\n\n\nBut the most frightened creature I saw, was a led horse that overtook\nus. Poor fellow, he had been born and reared in the grassy levels of the\nKandersteg valley and had never seen anything like this hideous place\nbefore. Every few steps he would stop short, glance wildly out from\nthe dizzy height, and then spread his red nostrils wide and pant as\nviolently as if he had been running a race; and all the while he quaked\nfrom head to heel as with a palsy. He was a handsome fellow, and he\nmade a fine statuesque picture of terror, but it was pitiful to see him\nsuffer so.\n\n\nThis dreadful path has had its tragedy. Baedeker, with his customary\nover terseness, begins and ends the tale thus:\n\n\"The descent on horseback should be avoided. In 1861 a Comtesse\nd'Herlincourt fell from her saddle over the precipice and was killed on\nthe spot.\"\n\nWe looked over the precipice there, and saw the monument which\ncommemorates the event. It stands in the bottom of the gorge, in a place\nwhich has been hollowed out of the rock to protect it from the torrent\nand the storms. Our old guide never spoke but when spoken to, and then\nlimited himself to a syllable or two, but when we asked him about this\ntragedy he showed a strong interest in the matter. He said the Countess\nwas very pretty, and very young--hardly out of her girlhood, in fact.\nShe was newly married, and was on her bridal tour. The young husband was\nriding a little in advance; one guide was leading the husband's horse,\nanother was leading the bride's.\n\nThe old man continued:\n\n\"The guide that was leading the husband's horse happened to glance back,\nand there was that poor young thing sitting up staring out over the\nprecipice; and her face began to bend downward a little, and she put\nup her two hands slowly and met it--so,--and put them flat against her\neyes--so--and then she sank out of the saddle, with a sharp shriek, and\none caught only the flash of a dress, and it was all over.\"\n\n\nThen after a pause:\n\n\"Ah, yes, that guide saw these things--yes, he saw them all. He saw them\nall, just as I have told you.\"\n\nAfter another pause:\n\n\"Ah, yes, he saw them all. My God, that was ME. I was that guide!\"\n\nThis had been the one event of the old man's life; so one may be sure he\nhad forgotten no detail connected with it. We listened to all he had to\nsay about what was done and what happened and what was said after the\nsorrowful occurrence, and a painful story it was.\n\nWhen we had wound down toward the valley until we were about on the last\nspiral of the corkscrew, Harris's hat blew over the last remaining\nbit of precipice--a small cliff a hundred or hundred and fifty feet\nhigh--and sailed down toward a steep slant composed of rough chips and\nfragments which the weather had flaked away from the precipices. We went\nleisurely down there, expecting to find it without any trouble, but we\nhad made a mistake, as to that. We hunted during a couple of hours--not\nbecause the old straw hat was valuable, but out of curiosity to find\nout how such a thing could manage to conceal itself in open ground where\nthere was nothing left for it to hide behind. When one is reading in\nbed, and lays his paper-knife down, he cannot find it again if it is\nsmaller than a saber; that hat was as stubborn as any paper-knife could\nhave been, and we finally had to give it up; but we found a fragment\nthat had once belonged to an opera-glass, and by digging around and\nturning over the rocks we gradually collected all the lenses and the\ncylinders and the various odds and ends that go to making up a complete\nopera-glass. We afterward had the thing reconstructed, and the owner can\nhave his adventurous lost-property by submitting proofs and paying costs\nof rehabilitation. We had hopes of finding the owner there, distributed\naround amongst the rocks, for it would have made an elegant paragraph;\nbut we were disappointed. Still, we were far from being disheartened,\nfor there was a considerable area which we had not thoroughly searched;\nwe were satisfied he was there, somewhere, so we resolved to wait over a\nday at Leuk and come back and get him.\n\nThen we sat down to polish off the perspiration and arrange about what\nwe would do with him when we got him. Harris was for contributing him to\nthe British Museum; but I was for mailing him to his widow. That is the\ndifference between Harris and me: Harris is all for display, I am all\nfor the simple right, even though I lose money by it. Harris argued in\nfavor of his proposition against mine, I argued in favor of mine and\nagainst his. The discussion warmed into a dispute; the dispute warmed\ninto a quarrel. I finally said, very decidedly:\n\n\"My mind is made up. He goes to the widow.\"\n\nHarris answered sharply:\n\n\"And MY mind is made up. He goes to the Museum.\"\n\nI said, calmly:\n\n\"The museum may whistle when it gets him.\"\n\nHarris retorted:\n\n\"The widow may save herself the trouble of whistling, for I will see\nthat she never gets him.\"\n\nAfter some angry bandying of epithets, I said:\n\n\"It seems to me that you are taking on a good many airs about these\nremains. I don't quite see what YOU'VE got to say about them?\"\n\n\"I? I've got ALL to say about them. They'd never have been thought of if\nI hadn't found their opera-glass. The corpse belongs to me, and I'll do\nas I please with him.\"\n\nI was leader of the Expedition, and all discoveries achieved by it\nnaturally belonged to me. I was entitled to these remains, and could\nhave enforced my right; but rather than have bad blood about the matter,\nI said we would toss up for them. I threw heads and won, but it was a\nbarren victory, for although we spent all the next day searching, we\nnever found a bone. I cannot imagine what could ever have become of that\nfellow.\n\nThe town in the valley is called Leuk or Leukerbad. We pointed our\ncourse toward it, down a verdant slope which was adorned with fringed\ngentians and other flowers, and presently entered the narrow alleys of\nthe outskirts and waded toward the middle of the town through liquid\n\"fertilizer.\" They ought to either pave that village or organize a\nferry.\n\nHarris's body was simply a chamois-pasture; his person was populous with\nthe little hungry pests; his skin, when he stripped, was splotched like\na scarlet-fever patient's; so, when we were about to enter one of the\nLeukerbad inns, and he noticed its sign, \"Chamois Hotel,\" he refused to\nstop there. He said the chamois was plentiful enough, without hunting\nup hotels where they made a specialty of it. I was indifferent, for the\nchamois is a creature that will neither bite me nor abide with me; but\nto calm Harris, we went to the H\u00f4tel des Alpes.\n\nAt the table d'h\u00f4te, we had this, for an incident. A very grave man--in\nfact his gravity amounted to solemnity, and almost to austerity--sat\nopposite us and he was \"tight,\" but doing his best to appear sober. He\ntook up a CORKED bottle of wine, tilted it over his glass awhile, then\nset it out of the way, with a contented look, and went on with his\ndinner.\n\nPresently he put his glass to his mouth, and of course found it empty.\nHe looked puzzled, and glanced furtively and suspiciously out of the\ncorner of his eye at a benignant and unconscious old lady who sat at his\nright. Shook his head, as much as to say, \"No, she couldn't have\ndone it.\" He tilted the corked bottle over his glass again, meantime\nsearching around with his watery eye to see if anybody was watching him.\nHe ate a few mouthfuls, raised his glass to his lips, and of course it\nwas still empty. He bent an injured and accusing side-glance upon that\nunconscious old lady, which was a study to see. She went on eating and\ngave no sign. He took up his glass and his bottle, with a wise private\nnod of his head, and set them gravely on the left-hand side of his\nplate--poured himself another imaginary drink--went to work with\nhis knife and fork once more--presently lifted his glass with good\nconfidence, and found it empty, as usual.\n\nThis was almost a petrifying surprise. He straightened himself up in his\nchair and deliberately and sorrowfully inspected the busy old ladies at\nhis elbows, first one and then the other. At last he softly pushed his\nplate away, set his glass directly in front of him, held on to it\nwith his left hand, and proceeded to pour with his right. This time\nhe observed that nothing came. He turned the bottle clear upside down;\nstill nothing issued from it; a plaintive look came into his face, and\nhe said, as if to himself,\n\n\"'IC! THEY'VE GOT IT ALL!\" Then he set the bottle down, resignedly, and\ntook the rest of his dinner dry.\n\n\nIt was at that table d'h\u00f4te, too, that I had under inspection the\nlargest lady I have ever seen in private life. She was over seven feet\nhigh, and magnificently proportioned. What had first called my attention\nto her, was my stepping on an outlying flange of her foot, and hearing,\nfrom up toward the ceiling, a deep \"Pardon, m'sieu, but you encroach!\"\n\nThat was when we were coming through the hall, and the place was dim,\nand I could see her only vaguely. The thing which called my attention\nto her the second time was, that at a table beyond ours were two very\npretty girls, and this great lady came in and sat down between them and\nme and blotted out my view. She had a handsome face, and she was very\nfinely formed--perfectly formed, I should say. But she made everybody\naround her look trivial and commonplace. Ladies near her looked like\nchildren, and the men about her looked mean. They looked like failures;\nand they looked as if they felt so, too. She sat with her back to us. I\nnever saw such a back in my life. I would have so liked to see the\nmoon rise over it. The whole congregation waited, under one pretext or\nanother, till she finished her dinner and went out; they wanted to see\nher at full altitude, and they found it worth tarrying for. She filled\none's idea of what an empress ought to be, when she rose up in her\nunapproachable grandeur and moved superbly out of that place.\n\n\nWe were not at Leuk in time to see her at her heaviest weight. She had\nsuffered from corpulence and had come there to get rid of her extra\nflesh in the baths. Five weeks of soaking--five uninterrupted hours of\nit every day--had accomplished her purpose and reduced her to the right\nproportions.\n\n\nThose baths remove fat, and also skin-diseases. The patients remain in\nthe great tanks for hours at a time. A dozen gentlemen and ladies occupy\na tank together, and amuse themselves with rompings and various games.\nThey have floating desks and tables, and they read or lunch or play\nchess in water that is breast-deep. The tourist can step in and view\nthis novel spectacle if he chooses. There's a poor-box, and he will have\nto contribute. There are several of these big bathing-houses, and you\ncan always tell when you are near one of them by the romping noises and\nshouts of laughter that proceed from it. The water is running water, and\nchanges all the time, else a patient with a ringworm might take the bath\nwith only a partial success, since, while he was ridding himself of the\nringworm, he might catch the itch.\n\n\nThe next morning we wandered back up the green valley, leisurely, with\nthe curving walls of those bare and stupendous precipices rising\ninto the clouds before us. I had never seen a clean, bare precipice\nstretching up five thousand feet above me before, and I never shall\nexpect to see another one. They exist, perhaps, but not in places where\none can easily get close to them. This pile of stone is peculiar. From\nits base to the soaring tops of its mighty towers, all its lines and all\nits details vaguely suggest human architecture. There are rudimentary\nbow-windows, cornices, chimneys, demarcations of stories, etc. One could\nsit and stare up there and study the features and exquisite graces of\nthis grand structure, bit by bit, and day after day, and never weary his\ninterest. The termination, toward the town, observed in profile, is the\nperfection of shape. It comes down out of the clouds in a succession of\nrounded, colossal, terracelike projections--a stairway for the gods; at\nits head spring several lofty storm-scarred towers, one after another,\nwith faint films of vapor curling always about them like spectral\nbanners. If there were a king whose realms included the whole world,\nhere would be the place meet and proper for such a monarch. He would\nonly need to hollow it out and put in the electric light. He could give\naudience to a nation at a time under its roof.\n\nOur search for those remains having failed, we inspected with a glass\nthe dim and distant track of an old-time avalanche that once swept down\nfrom some pine-grown summits behind the town and swept away the houses\nand buried the people; then we struck down the road that leads toward\nthe Rhone, to see the famous Ladders. These perilous things are built\nagainst the perpendicular face of a cliff two or three hundred feet\nhigh. The peasants, of both sexes, were climbing up and down them, with\nheavy loads on their backs. I ordered Harris to make the ascent, so I\ncould put the thrill and horror of it in my book, and he accomplished\nthe feat successfully, through a subagent, for three francs, which I\npaid. It makes me shudder yet when I think of what I felt when I was\nclinging there between heaven and earth in the person of that proxy. At\ntimes the world swam around me, and I could hardly keep from letting go,\nso dizzying was the appalling danger. Many a person would have given up\nand descended, but I stuck to my task, and would not yield until I had\naccomplished it. I felt a just pride in my exploit, but I would not have\nrepeated it for the wealth of the world. I shall break my neck yet with\nsome such foolhardy performance, for warnings never seem to have any\nlasting effect on me. When the people of the hotel found that I had\nbeen climbing those crazy Ladders, it made me an object of considerable\nattention.\n\nNext morning, early, we drove to the Rhone valley and took the train for\nVisp. There we shouldered our knapsacks and things, and set out on foot,\nin a tremendous rain, up the winding gorge, toward Zermatt. Hour after\nhour we slopped along, by the roaring torrent, and under noble Lesser\nAlps which were clothed in rich velvety green all the way up and\nhad little atomy Swiss homes perched upon grassy benches along their\nmist-dimmed heights.\n\nThe rain continued to pour and the torrent to boom, and we continued\nto enjoy both. At the one spot where this torrent tossed its white mane\nhighest, and thundered loudest, and lashed the big boulders fiercest,\nthe canton had done itself the honor to build the flimsiest wooden\nbridge that exists in the world. While we were walking over it, along\nwith a party of horsemen, I noticed that even the larger raindrops made\nit shake. I called Harris's attention to it, and he noticed it, too.\nIt seemed to me that if I owned an elephant that was a keepsake, and I\nthought a good deal of him, I would think twice before I would ride him\nover that bridge.\n\nWe climbed up to the village of St. Nicholas, about half past four\nin the afternoon, waded ankle-deep through the fertilizer-juice, and\nstopped at a new and nice hotel close by the little church. We stripped\nand went to bed, and sent our clothes down to be baked. And the horde\nof soaked tourists did the same. That chaos of clothing got mixed in the\nkitchen, and there were consequences.\n\n\nI did not get back the same drawers I sent down, when our things came up\nat six-fifteen; I got a pair on a new plan. They were merely a pair\nof white ruffle-cuffed absurdities, hitched together at the top with\na narrow band, and they did not come quite down to my knees. They were\npretty enough, but they made me feel like two people, and disconnected\nat that. The man must have been an idiot that got himself up like\nthat, to rough it in the Swiss mountains. The shirt they brought me\nwas shorter than the drawers, and hadn't any sleeves to it--at least\nit hadn't anything more than what Mr. Darwin would call \"rudimentary\"\nsleeves; these had \"edging\" around them, but the bosom was ridiculously\nplain. The knit silk undershirt they brought me was on a new plan, and\nwas really a sensible thing; it opened behind, and had pockets in it to\nput your shoulder-blades in; but they did not seem to fit mine, and so\nI found it a sort of uncomfortable garment. They gave my bobtail coat\nto somebody else, and sent me an ulster suitable for a giraffe. I had\nto tie my collar on, because there was no button behind on that foolish\nlittle shirt which I described a while ago.\n\nWhen I was dressed for dinner at six-thirty, I was too loose in some\nplaces and too tight in others, and altogether I felt slovenly and\nill-conditioned. However, the people at the table d'h\u00f4te were no better\noff than I was; they had everybody's clothes but their own on. A\nlong stranger recognized his ulster as soon as he saw the tail of it\nfollowing me in, but nobody claimed my shirt or my drawers, though I\ndescribed them as well as I was able. I gave them to the chambermaid\nthat night when I went to bed, and she probably found the owner, for my\nown things were on a chair outside my door in the morning.\n\nThere was a lovable English clergyman who did not get to the table\nd'h\u00f4te at all. His breeches had turned up missing, and without any\nequivalent. He said he was not more particular than other people, but he\nhad noticed that a clergyman at dinner without any breeches was almost\nsure to excite remark.\n\n\n\n\n\nA TRAMP ABROAD, Part 6.\n\nBy Mark Twain\n\n(Samuel L. Clemens)\n\nFirst published in 1880\n\nIllustrations taken from an 1880 First Edition\n\n * * * * * *\n\nILLUSTRATIONS:\n\n     1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR\n     2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0TITIAN'S MOSES\n     3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0THE AUTHOR'S MEMORIES\n     236.\u00a0\u00a0A SUNDAY MORNING'S DEMON\n     237.\u00a0\u00a0JUST SAVED\n     238.\u00a0\u00a0SCENE IN VALLEY OF ZERMATT\n     239.\u00a0\u00a0ARRIVAL AT ZERMATT\n     240.\u00a0\u00a0FITTED OUT\n     241.\u00a0\u00a0A FEARFUL FALL\n     242.\u00a0\u00a0TAIL PIECE\n     243.\u00a0\u00a0ALL READY\n     244.\u00a0\u00a0THE MARCH\n     245.\u00a0\u00a0THE CARAVAN\n     246.\u00a0\u00a0THE HOOK\n     247.\u00a0\u00a0THE DISABLED CHAPLAIN\n     248.\u00a0\u00a0TRYING EXPERIMENTS\n     249.\u00a0\u00a0SAVED! SAVED!\n     250.\u00a0\u00a0TWENTY MINUTES WORK\n     251.\u00a0\u00a0THE BLACK RAM\n     252.\u00a0\u00a0THE MIRACLE\n     253.\u00a0\u00a0THE NEW GUIDE\n     251.\u00a0\u00a0SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHES\n     255.\u00a0\u00a0MOUNTAIN CHALET\n     256.\u00a0\u00a0THE GRANDSON\n     257.\u00a0\u00a0OCCASIONLY MET WITH\n     258.\u00a0\u00a0SUMMIT OF THE GORNER GRAT\n     259.\u00a0\u00a0CHIEFS OF THE ADVANCE GUARD\n     260.\u00a0\u00a0MY PICTURE OF THE MATTERHORN\n     261.\u00a0\u00a0EVERYBODY HAD AN EXCUSE\n     262.\u00a0\u00a0SPRUNG A LEAK\n     263.\u00a0\u00a0A SCIENTIFIC QUESTION\n     264.\u00a0\u00a0A TERMINAL MORAINE\n     265.\u00a0\u00a0FRONT OF GLACIER\n     266.\u00a0\u00a0AN OLD MORAINE\n     267.\u00a0\u00a0GLACIER OF ZERMATT WITH LATERAL MORAINE\n     269.\u00a0\u00a0UNEXPECTED MEETING OF FRIENDS\n     269.\u00a0\u00a0VILLAGE OF CHAMONIX\n     270.\u00a0\u00a0THE MATTERHORN\n     271.\u00a0\u00a0ON THE SUMMIT\n     272.\u00a0\u00a0ACCIDENT ON THE MATTERHORN (1865)\n     273.\u00a0\u00a0ROPED TOGETHER\n     274.\u00a0\u00a0STORAGE OF ANCESTORS\n     275.\u00a0\u00a0FALLING OUT OF HIS FARM\n     276.\u00a0\u00a0CHILD LIFE IN SWITZERLAND\n     277.\u00a0\u00a0A SUNDAY PLAY\n     278.\u00a0\u00a0THE COMBINATION\n     279.\u00a0\u00a0CHILLON\n     280.\u00a0\u00a0THE TETE NOIR\n     281.\u00a0\u00a0MONT BLANC'S NEIGHBORS\n     282.\u00a0\u00a0AN EXQUISITE THING\n     283.\u00a0\u00a0A WILD RIDE\n     284.\u00a0\u00a0SWISS PEASANT GIRL\n\n\nCONTENTS:\n\nCHAPTER XXXVI Sunday Church Bells--A Cause of\nProfanity--A Magnificent Glacier--Fault Finding by Harris--Almost\nan Accident--Selfishness of Harris--Approaching Zermatt--The\nMatterhorn--Zermatt--Home of Mountain Climbers--Fitted out for\nClimbing--A Fearful Adventure --Never Satisfied\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVII A Calm Decision--\"I Will Ascend the\nRiffelberg\"--Preparations for the Trip--All Zermatt on the\nAlert--Schedule of Persons and Things--An Unprecedented Display--A\nGeneral Turn--out--Ready for a Start--The Post of Danger--The Advance\nDirected--Grand Display of Umbrellas--The First Camp--Almost a\nPanic--Supposed to be Lost--The First Accident--A Chaplain Disabled--An\nExperimenting Mule--Good Effects of a Blunder--Badly Lost--A\nReconnoiter--Mystery and Doubt--Stern Measures Taken--A Black Ram--Saved\nby a Miracle--The Guide's Guide\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVIII Our Expedition Continued--Experiments with the\nBarometer--Boiling Thermometer--Barometer Soup--An Interesting\nScientific Discovery--Crippling a Latinist--A Chaplain Injured--Short\nof Barkeepers--Digging a Mountain Cellar--A Young American\nSpecimen--Somebody's Grandson--Arrival at Riffelberg Botel--Ascent of\nGorner Grat--Faith in Thermometers--The Matterhorn\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIX Guide Books--Plans for the Return of the Expedition--A\nGlacier Train--Parachute Descent from Gorner Grat--Proposed Honors\nto Harris Declined--All had an Excuse--A Magnificent Idea\nAbandoned--Descent to the Glacier--A Supposed Leak--A Slow Train--The\nGlacier Abandoned--Journey to Zermatt--A Scientific Question\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XL Glaciers--Glacier Perils--Moraines--Terminal\nMoraines--Lateral Moraines--Immense Size of Glacier--Traveling\nGlacier----General Movements of Glaciers--Ascent of Mont Blacc--Loss\nof Guides--Finding of Remains--Meeting of Old Friends--The Dead and\nLiving--Proposed Museum--The Relics at Chamonix\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLI The Matterhorn Catastrophe of 1563--Mr Whymper's\nNarrative--Ascent of the Matterhorn--The Summit--The Matterhorn\nConquered--The Descent Commenced--A Fearful Disaster--Death of Lord\nDouglas and Two Others--The Graves of the Two\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLII Switzerland--Graveyard at Zermatt--Balloting for\nMarriage--Farmers as Heroes--Falling off a Farm--From St Nicholas to\nVisp--Dangerous Traveling--Children's Play--The Parson's Children--A\nLandlord's Daughter--A Rare Combination--Ch iIIon--Lost Sympathy--Mont\nBlanc and its Neighbors--Beauty of Soap Bubbles--A Wild Drive--The King\nof Drivers--Benefit of getting Drunk\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVI\n\n[The Fiendish Fun of Alp-climbing]\n\n\nWe did not oversleep at St. Nicholas. The church-bell began to ring at\nfour-thirty in the morning, and from the length of time it continued\nto ring I judged that it takes the Swiss sinner a good while to get the\ninvitation through his head. Most church-bells in the world are of poor\nquality, and have a harsh and rasping sound which upsets the temper and\nproduces much sin, but the St. Nicholas bell is a good deal the worst\none that has been contrived yet, and is peculiarly maddening in its\noperation. Still, it may have its right and its excuse to exist, for the\ncommunity is poor and not every citizen can afford a clock, perhaps; but\nthere cannot be any excuse for our church-bells at home, for there is\nno family in America without a clock, and consequently there is no fair\npretext for the usual Sunday medley of dreadful sounds that issues from\nour steeples. There is much more profanity in America on Sunday than in\nall in the other six days of the week put together, and it is of a more\nbitter and malignant character than the week-day profanity, too. It is\nproduced by the cracked-pot clangor of the cheap church-bells.\n\n\nWe build our churches almost without regard to cost; we rear an edifice\nwhich is an adornment to the town, and we gild it, and fresco it, and\nmortgage it, and do everything we can think of to perfect it, and then\nspoil it all by putting a bell on it which afflicts everybody who hears\nit, giving some the headache, others St. Vitus's dance, and the rest the\nblind staggers.\n\nAn American village at ten o'clock on a summer Sunday is the quietest\nand peacefulest and holiest thing in nature; but it is a pretty\ndifferent thing half an hour later. Mr. Poe's poem of the \"Bells\" stands\nincomplete to this day; but it is well enough that it is so, for the\npublic reciter or \"reader\" who goes around trying to imitate the sounds\nof the various sorts of bells with his voice would find himself \"up a\nstump\" when he got to the church-bell--as Joseph Addison would say. The\nchurch is always trying to get other people to reform; it might not be\na bad idea to reform itself a little, by way of example. It is still\nclinging to one or two things which were useful once, but which are\nnot useful now, neither are they ornamental. One is the bell-ringing\nto remind a clock-caked town that it is church-time, and another is the\nreading from the pulpit of a tedious list of \"notices\" which everybody\nwho is interested has already read in the newspaper. The clergyman even\nreads the hymn through--a relic of an ancient time when hymn-books are\nscarce and costly; but everybody has a hymn-book, now, and so the public\nreading is no longer necessary. It is not merely unnecessary, it is\ngenerally painful; for the average clergyman could not fire into his\ncongregation with a shotgun and hit a worse reader than himself, unless\nthe weapon scattered shamefully. I am not meaning to be flippant and\nirreverent, I am only meaning to be truthful. The average clergyman, in\nall countries and of all denominations, is a very bad reader. One would\nthink he would at least learn how to read the Lord's Prayer, by and by,\nbut it is not so. He races through it as if he thought the quicker\nhe got it in, the sooner it would be answered. A person who does not\nappreciate the exceeding value of pauses, and does not know how to\nmeasure their duration judiciously, cannot render the grand simplicity\nand dignity of a composition like that effectively.\n\nWe took a tolerably early breakfast, and tramped off toward Zermatt\nthrough the reeking lanes of the village, glad to get away from that\nbell. By and by we had a fine spectacle on our right. It was the\nwall-like butt end of a huge glacier, which looked down on us from an\nAlpine height which was well up in the blue sky. It was an astonishing\namount of ice to be compacted together in one mass. We ciphered upon it\nand decided that it was not less than several hundred feet from the base\nof the wall of solid ice to the top of it--Harris believed it was\nreally twice that. We judged that if St. Paul's, St. Peter's, the Great\nPyramid, the Strasburg Cathedral and the Capitol in Washington were\nclustered against that wall, a man sitting on its upper edge could not\nhang his hat on the top of any one of them without reaching down three\nor four hundred feet--a thing which, of course, no man could do.\n\nTo me, that mighty glacier was very beautiful. I did not imagine that\nanybody could find fault with it; but I was mistaken. Harris had been\nsnarling for several days. He was a rabid Protestant, and he was always\nsaying:\n\n\"In the Protestant cantons you never see such poverty and dirt and\nsqualor as you do in this Catholic one; you never see the lanes and\nalleys flowing with foulness; you never see such wretched little sties\nof houses; you never see an inverted tin turnip on top of a church for\na dome; and as for a church-bell, why, you never hear a church-bell at\nall.\"\n\nAll this morning he had been finding fault, straight along. First it was\nwith the mud. He said, \"It ain't muddy in a Protestant canton when it\nrains.\" Then it was with the dogs: \"They don't have those lop-eared dogs\nin a Protestant canton.\" Then it was with the roads: \"They don't leave\nthe roads to make themselves in a Protestant canton, the people make\nthem--and they make a road that IS a road, too.\" Next it was the goats:\n\"You never see a goat shedding tears in a Protestant canton--a goat,\nthere, is one of the cheerfulest objects in nature.\" Next it was the\nchamois: \"You never see a Protestant chamois act like one of these--they\ntake a bite or two and go; but these fellows camp with you and stay.\"\nThen it was the guide-boards: \"In a Protestant canton you couldn't get\nlost if you wanted to, but you never see a guide-board in a Catholic\ncanton.\" Next, \"You never see any flower-boxes in the windows,\nhere--never anything but now and then a cat--a torpid one; but you take\na Protestant canton: windows perfectly lovely with flowers--and as for\ncats, there's just acres of them. These folks in this canton leave a\nroad to make itself, and then fine you three francs if you 'trot' over\nit--as if a horse could trot over such a sarcasm of a road.\" Next about\nthe goiter: \"THEY talk about goiter!--I haven't seen a goiter in this\nwhole canton that I couldn't put in a hat.\"\n\nHe had growled at everything, but I judged it would puzzle him to find\nanything the matter with this majestic glacier. I intimated as much; but\nhe was ready, and said with surly discontent: \"You ought to see them in\nthe Protestant cantons.\"\n\nThis irritated me. But I concealed the feeling, and asked:\n\n\"What is the matter with this one?\"\n\n\"Matter? Why, it ain't in any kind of condition. They never take any\ncare of a glacier here. The moraine has been spilling gravel around it,\nand got it all dirty.\"\n\n\"Why, man, THEY can't help that.\"\n\n\"THEY? You're right. That is, they WON'T. They could if they wanted to.\nYou never see a speck of dirt on a Protestant glacier. Look at the Rhone\nglacier. It is fifteen miles long, and seven hundred feet thick. If this\nwas a Protestant glacier you wouldn't see it looking like this, I can\ntell you.\"\n\n\"That is nonsense. What would they do with it?\"\n\n\"They would whitewash it. They always do.\"\n\nI did not believe a word of this, but rather than have trouble I let it\ngo; for it is a waste of breath to argue with a bigot. I even doubted if\nthe Rhone glacier WAS in a Protestant canton; but I did not know, so I\ncould not make anything by contradicting a man who would probably put me\ndown at once with manufactured evidence.\n\nAbout nine miles from St. Nicholas we crossed a bridge over the raging\ntorrent of the Visp, and came to a log strip of flimsy fencing which\nwas pretending to secure people from tumbling over a perpendicular wall\nforty feet high and into the river. Three children were approaching; one\nof them, a little girl, about eight years old, was running; when pretty\nclose to us she stumbled and fell, and her feet shot under the rail of\nthe fence and for a moment projected over the stream. It gave us a\nsharp shock, for we thought she was gone, sure, for the ground slanted\nsteeply, and to save herself seemed a sheer impossibility; but she\nmanaged to scramble up, and ran by us laughing.\n\nWe went forward and examined the place and saw the long tracks which her\nfeet had made in the dirt when they darted over the verge. If she had\nfinished her trip she would have struck some big rocks in the edge of\nthe water, and then the torrent would have snatched her downstream among\nthe half-covered boulders and she would have been pounded to pulp in two\nminutes. We had come exceedingly near witnessing her death.\n\n\nAnd now Harris's contrary nature and inborn selfishness were strikingly\nmanifested. He has no spirit of self-denial. He began straight off, and\ncontinued for an hour, to express his gratitude that the child was not\ndestroyed. I never saw such a man. That was the kind of person he was;\njust so HE was gratified, he never cared anything about anybody else. I\nhad noticed that trait in him, over and over again. Often, of course, it\nwas mere heedlessness, mere want of reflection. Doubtless this may have\nbeen the case in most instances, but it was not the less hard to bar\non that account--and after all, its bottom, its groundwork, was\nselfishness. There is no avoiding that conclusion. In the instance under\nconsideration, I did think the indecency of running on in that way might\noccur to him; but no, the child was saved and he was glad, that was\nsufficient--he cared not a straw for MY feelings, or my loss of such a\nliterary plum, snatched from my very mouth at the instant it was\nready to drop into it. His selfishness was sufficient to place his own\ngratification in being spared suffering clear before all concern for\nme, his friend. Apparently, he did not once reflect upon the valuable\ndetails which would have fallen like a windfall to me: fishing the child\nout--witnessing the surprise of the family and the stir the thing would\nhave made among the peasants--then a Swiss funeral--then the roadside\nmonument, to be paid for by us and have our names mentioned in it. And\nwe should have gone into Baedeker and been immortal. I was silent. I was\ntoo much hurt to complain. If he could act so, and be so heedless and so\nfrivolous at such a time, and actually seem to glory in it, after all\nI had done for him, I would have cut my hand off before I would let him\nsee that I was wounded.\n\n\nWe were approaching Zermatt; consequently, we were approaching the\nrenowned Matterhorn. A month before, this mountain had been only a name\nto us, but latterly we had been moving through a steadily thickening\ndouble row of pictures of it, done in oil, water, chromo, wood, steel,\ncopper, crayon, and photography, and so it had at length become a shape\nto us--and a very distinct, decided, and familiar one, too. We were\nexpecting to recognize that mountain whenever or wherever we should run\nacross it. We were not deceived. The monarch was far away when we first\nsaw him, but there was no such thing as mistaking him. He has the rare\npeculiarity of standing by himself; he is peculiarly steep, too, and is\nalso most oddly shaped. He towers into the sky like a colossal wedge,\nwith the upper third of its blade bent a little to the left. The broad\nbase of this monster wedge is planted upon a grand glacier-paved Alpine\nplatform whose elevation is ten thousand feet above sea-level; as the\nwedge itself is some five thousand feet high, it follows that its apex\nis about fifteen thousand feet above sea-level. So the whole bulk of\nthis stately piece of rock, this sky-cleaving monolith, is above the\nline of eternal snow. Yet while all its giant neighbors have the look of\nbeing built of solid snow, from their waists up, the Matterhorn stands\nblack and naked and forbidding, the year round, or merely powdered or\nstreaked with white in places, for its sides are so steep that the\nsnow cannot stay there. Its strange form, its august isolation, and its\nmajestic unkinship with its own kind, make it--so to speak--the Napoleon\nof the mountain world. \"Grand, gloomy, and peculiar,\" is a phrase which\nfits it as aptly as it fitted the great captain.\n\nThink of a monument a mile high, standing on a pedestal two miles high!\nThis is what the Matterhorn is--a monument. Its office, henceforth, for\nall time, will be to keep watch and ward over the secret resting-place\nof the young Lord Douglas, who, in 1865, was precipitated from the\nsummit over a precipice four thousand feet high, and never seen again.\nNo man ever had such a monument as this before; the most imposing of\nthe world's other monuments are but atoms compared to it; and they will\nperish, and their places will pass from memory, but this will remain.\n\n[The accident which cost Lord Douglas his life (see Chapter xii) also\ncost the lives of three other men. These three fell four-fifths of a\nmile, and their bodies were afterward found, lying side by side, upon a\nglacier, whence they were borne to Zermatt and buried in the churchyard.\n\nThe remains of Lord Douglas have never been found. The secret of his\nsepulture, like that of Moses, must remain a mystery always.]\n\nA walk from St. Nicholas to Zermatt is a wonderful experience. Nature\nis built on a stupendous plan in that region. One marches continually\nbetween walls that are piled into the skies, with their upper heights\nbroken into a confusion of sublime shapes that gleam white and cold\nagainst the background of blue; and here and there one sees a big\nglacier displaying its grandeurs on the top of a precipice, or a\ngraceful cascade leaping and flashing down the green declivities. There\nis nothing tame, or cheap, or trivial--it is all magnificent. That\nshort valley is a picture-gallery of a notable kind, for it contains\nno mediocrities; from end to end the Creator has hung it with His\nmasterpieces.\n\n\nWe made Zermatt at three in the afternoon, nine hours out from\nSt. Nicholas. Distance, by guide-book, twelve miles; by pedometer\nseventy-two. We were in the heart and home of the mountain-climbers,\nnow, as all visible things testified. The snow-peaks did not hold\nthemselves aloof, in aristocratic reserve; they nestled close around,\nin a friendly, sociable way; guides, with the ropes and axes and other\nimplements of their fearful calling slung about their persons, roosted\nin a long line upon a stone wall in front of the hotel, and waited for\ncustomers; sun-burnt climbers, in mountaineering costume, and followed\nby their guides and porters, arrived from time to time, from breakneck\nexpeditions among the peaks and glaciers of the High Alps; male and\nfemale tourists, on mules, filed by, in a continuous procession,\nhotelward-bound from wild adventures which would grow in grandeur every\ntime they were described at the English or American fireside, and at\nlast outgrow the possible itself.\n\nWe were not dreaming; this was not a make-believe home of the\nAlp-climber, created by our heated imaginations; no, for here was Mr.\nGirdlestone himself, the famous Englishman who hunts his way to the most\nformidable Alpine summits without a guide. I was not equal to imagining\na Girdlestone; it was all I could do to even realize him, while looking\nstraight at him at short range. I would rather face whole Hyde Parks of\nartillery than the ghastly forms of death which he has faced among the\npeaks and precipices of the mountains. There is probably no pleasure\nequal to the pleasure of climbing a dangerous Alp; but it is a pleasure\nwhich is confined strictly to people who can find pleasure in it. I have\nnot jumped to this conclusion; I have traveled to it per gravel-train,\nso to speak. I have thought the thing all out, and am quite sure I am\nright. A born climber's appetite for climbing is hard to satisfy; when\nit comes upon him he is like a starving man with a feast before him; he\nmay have other business on hand, but it must wait. Mr. Girdlestone had\nhad his usual summer holiday in the Alps, and had spent it in his usual\nway, hunting for unique chances to break his neck; his vacation was\nover, and his luggage packed for England, but all of a sudden a hunger\nhad come upon him to climb the tremendous Weisshorn once more, for he\nhad heard of a new and utterly impossible route up it. His baggage\nwas unpacked at once, and now he and a friend, laden with knapsacks,\nice-axes, coils of rope, and canteens of milk, were just setting out.\nThey would spend the night high up among the snows, somewhere, and\nget up at two in the morning and finish the enterprise. I had a\nstrong desire to go with them, but forced it down--a feat which Mr.\nGirdlestone, with all his fortitude, could not do.\n\nEven ladies catch the climbing mania, and are unable to throw it off.\nA famous climber, of that sex, had attempted the Weisshorn a few days\nbefore our arrival, and she and her guides had lost their way in a\nsnow-storm high up among the peaks and glaciers and been forced to\nwander around a good while before they could find a way down. When this\nlady reached the bottom, she had been on her feet twenty-three hours!\n\nOur guides, hired on the Gemmi, were already at Zermatt when we\nreached there. So there was nothing to interfere with our getting up an\nadventure whenever we should choose the time and the object. I resolved\nto devote my first evening in Zermatt to studying up the subject of\nAlpine climbing, by way of preparation.\n\nI read several books, and here are some of the things I found out. One's\nshoes must be strong and heavy, and have pointed hobnails in them. The\nalpenstock must be of the best wood, for if it should break, loss of\nlife might be the result. One should carry an ax, to cut steps in the\nice with, on the great heights. There must be a ladder, for there are\nsteep bits of rock which can be surmounted with this instrument--or this\nutensil--but could not be surmounted without it; such an obstruction\nhas compelled the tourist to waste hours hunting another route, when a\nladder would have saved him all trouble. One must have from one hundred\nand fifty to five hundred feet of strong rope, to be used in lowering\nthe party down steep declivities which are too steep and smooth to\nbe traversed in any other way. One must have a steel hook, on another\nrope--a very useful thing; for when one is ascending and comes to a low\nbluff which is yet too high for the ladder, he swings this rope aloft\nlike a lasso, the hook catches at the top of the bluff, and then the\ntourist climbs the rope, hand over hand--being always particular to try\nand forget that if the hook gives way he will never stop falling till\nhe arrives in some part of Switzerland where they are not expecting him.\nAnother important thing--there must be a rope to tie the whole party\ntogether with, so that if one falls from a mountain or down a bottomless\nchasm in a glacier, the others may brace back on the rope and save him.\nOne must have a silk veil, to protect his face from snow, sleet, hail\nand gale, and colored goggles to protect his eyes from that dangerous\nenemy, snow-blindness. Finally, there must be some porters, to carry\nprovisions, wine and scientific instruments, and also blanket bags for\nthe party to sleep in.\n\n\nI closed my readings with a fearful adventure which Mr. Whymper once had\non the Matterhorn when he was prowling around alone, five thousand\nfeet above the town of Breil. He was edging his way gingerly around\nthe corner of a precipice where the upper edge of a sharp declivity of\nice-glazed snow joined it. This declivity swept down a couple of hundred\nfeet, into a gully which curved around and ended at a precipice eight\nhundred feet high, overlooking a glacier. His foot slipped, and he fell.\n\nHe says:\n\n\"My knapsack brought my head down first, and I pitched into some rocks\nabout a dozen feet below; they caught something, and tumbled me off\nthe edge, head over heels, into the gully; the baton was dashed from my\nhands, and I whirled downward in a series of bounds, each longer than\nthe last; now over ice, now into rocks, striking my head four or five\ntimes, each time with increased force. The last bound sent me spinning\nthrough the air in a leap of fifty or sixty feet, from one side of the\ngully to the other, and I struck the rocks, luckily, with the whole of\nmy left side. They caught my clothes for a moment, and I fell back on to\nthe snow with motion arrested. My head fortunately came the right side\nup, and a few frantic catches brought me to a halt, in the neck of the\ngully and on the verge of the precipice. Baton, hat, and veil skimmed\nby and disappeared, and the crash of the rocks--which I had started--as\nthey fell on to the glacier, told how narrow had been the escape from\nutter destruction. As it was, I fell nearly two hundred feet in seven or\neight bounds. Ten feet more would have taken me in one gigantic leap of\neight hundred feet on to the glacier below.\n\n\n\"The situation was sufficiently serious. The rocks could not be let go\nfor a moment, and the blood was spurting out of more than twenty cuts.\nThe most serious ones were in the head, and I vainly tried to close\nthem with one hand, while holding on with the other. It was useless;\nthe blood gushed out in blinding jets at each pulsation. At last, in a\nmoment of inspiration, I kicked out a big lump of snow and struck it\nas plaster on my head. The idea was a happy one, and the flow of blood\ndiminished. Then, scrambling up, I got, not a moment too soon, to\na place of safety, and fainted away. The sun was setting when\nconsciousness returned, and it was pitch-dark before the Great Staircase\nwas descended; but by a combination of luck and care, the whole four\nthousand seven hundred feet of descent to Breil was accomplished without\na slip, or once missing the way.\"\n\nHis wounds kept him abed some days. Then he got up and climbed that\nmountain again. That is the way with a true Alp-climber; the more fun he\nhas, the more he wants.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVII\n\n[Our Imposing Column Starts Upward]\n\n\nAfter I had finished my readings, I was no longer myself; I was tranced,\nuplifted, intoxicated, by the almost incredible perils and adventures\nI had been following my authors through, and the triumphs I had been\nsharing with them. I sat silent some time, then turned to Harris and\nsaid:\n\n\"My mind is made up.\"\n\nSomething in my tone struck him: and when he glanced at my eye and\nread what was written there, his face paled perceptibly. He hesitated a\nmoment, then said:\n\n\"Speak.\"\n\nI answered, with perfect calmness:\n\n\"I will ascend the Riffelberg.\"\n\nIf I had shot my poor friend he could not have fallen from his chair\nmore suddenly. If I had been his father he could not have pleaded harder\nto get me to give up my purpose. But I turned a deaf ear to all he said.\nWhen he perceived at last that nothing could alter my determination, he\nceased to urge, and for a while the deep silence was broken only by his\nsobs. I sat in marble resolution, with my eyes fixed upon vacancy, for\nin spirit I was already wrestling with the perils of the mountains, and\nmy friend sat gazing at me in adoring admiration through his tears.\nAt last he threw himself upon me in a loving embrace and exclaimed in\nbroken tones:\n\n\"Your Harris will never desert you. We will die together.\"\n\nI cheered the noble fellow with praises, and soon his fears were\nforgotten and he was eager for the adventure. He wanted to summon the\nguides at once and leave at two in the morning, as he supposed the\ncustom was; but I explained that nobody was looking at that hour; and\nthat the start in the dark was not usually made from the village but\nfrom the first night's resting-place on the mountain side. I said we\nwould leave the village at 3 or 4 P.M. on the morrow; meantime he could\nnotify the guides, and also let the public know of the attempt which we\nproposed to make.\n\nI went to bed, but not to sleep. No man can sleep when he is about to\nundertake one of these Alpine exploits. I tossed feverishly all night\nlong, and was glad enough when I heard the clock strike half past eleven\nand knew it was time to get up for dinner. I rose, jaded and rusty, and\nwent to the noon meal, where I found myself the center of interest and\ncuriosity; for the news was already abroad. It is not easy to eat calmly\nwhen you are a lion; but it is very pleasant, nevertheless.\n\nAs usual, at Zermatt, when a great ascent is about to be undertaken,\neverybody, native and foreign, laid aside his own projects and took up\na good position to observe the start. The expedition consisted of 198\npersons, including the mules; or 205, including the cows. As follows:\n\n \u00a0  CHIEFS OF SERVICE  \u00a0  SUBORDINATES\n\n \u00a0   Myself      1  Veterinary Surgeon\n \u00a0   Mr. Harris  1  Butler\n 17  Guides     12  Waiters\n 4  Surgeons     1  Footman\n 1  Geologist\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a01  Barber\n 1  Botanist     1  Head Cook\n 3  Chaplains    9  Assistants\n 2  Draftsman    4  Pastry Cooks\n 15  Barkeepers  1  Confectionery Artist\n 1  Latinist\n\n  \u00a0  TRANSPORTATION, ETC.\n\n 27  Porters     3  Coarse Washers and Ironers\n 44  Mules       1  Fine ditto\n 44  Muleteers   7  Cows\n \u00a0  \u00a0            2  Milkers\n\nTotal, 154 men, 51 animals. Grand Total, 205.\n\n\n \u00a0  \u00a0\u00a0RATIONS, ETC.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0  \u00a0   APPARATUS\n\n 16  Cases Hams      25  Spring Mattresses\n 2  Barrels Flour     2  Hair ditto\n 22  Barrels Whiskey     Bedding for same\n 1  Barrel Sugar      2  Mosquito-nets\n 1  Keg Lemons       29  Tents\n 2,000\u00a0Cigars  \u00a0         Scientific Instruments\n 1  Barrel Pies      97  Ice-axes\n 1  Ton of Pemmican   5  Cases Dynamite\n 143  Pair Crutches   7  Cans Nitroglycerin\n 2  Barrels Arnica   22  40-foot Ladders\n 1  Bale of Lint      2  Miles of Rope\n 27  Kegs Paregoric 154  Umbrellas\n\nIt was full four o'clock in the afternoon before my cavalcade was\nentirely ready. At that hour it began to move. In point of numbers and\nspectacular effect, it was the most imposing expedition that had ever\nmarched from Zermatt.\n\n\nI commanded the chief guide to arrange the men and animals in single\nfile, twelve feet apart, and lash them all together on a strong rope. He\nobjected that the first two miles was a dead level, with plenty of room,\nand that the rope was never used except in very dangerous places. But\nI would not listen to that. My reading had taught me that many serious\naccidents had happened in the Alps simply from not having the people\ntied up soon enough; I was not going to add one to the list. The guide\nthen obeyed my order.\n\nWhen the procession stood at ease, roped together, and ready to move, I\nnever saw a finer sight. It was 3,122 feet long--over half a mile; every\nman and me was on foot, and had on his green veil and his blue goggles,\nand his white rag around his hat, and his coil of rope over one shoulder\nand under the other, and his ice-ax in his belt, and carried his\nalpenstock in his left hand, his umbrella (closed) in his right, and his\ncrutches slung at his back. The burdens of the pack-mules and the horns\nof the cows were decked with the Edelweiss and the Alpine rose.\n\nI and my agent were the only persons mounted. We were in the post of\ndanger in the extreme rear, and tied securely to five guides apiece. Our\narmor-bearers carried our ice-axes, alpenstocks, and other implements\nfor us. We were mounted upon very small donkeys, as a measure of safety;\nin time of peril we could straighten our legs and stand up, and let\nthe donkey walk from under. Still, I cannot recommend this sort of\nanimal--at least for excursions of mere pleasure--because his\nears interrupt the view. I and my agent possessed the regulation\nmountaineering costumes, but concluded to leave them behind. Out of\nrespect for the great numbers of tourists of both sexes who would be\nassembled in front of the hotels to see us pass, and also out of respect\nfor the many tourists whom we expected to encounter on our expedition,\nwe decided to make the ascent in evening dress.\n\n\nWe watered the caravan at the cold stream which rushes down a trough\nnear the end of the village, and soon afterward left the haunts of\ncivilization behind us. About half past five o'clock we arrived at a\nbridge which spans the Visp, and after throwing over a detachment to see\nif it was safe, the caravan crossed without accident. The way now led,\nby a gentle ascent, carpeted with fresh green grass, to the church at\nWinkelmatten. Without stopping to examine this edifice, I executed\na flank movement to the right and crossed the bridge over the\nFindelenbach, after first testing its strength. Here I deployed to the\nright again, and presently entered an inviting stretch of meadowland\nwhich was unoccupied save by a couple of deserted huts toward the\nfurthest extremity. These meadows offered an excellent camping-place.\nWe pitched our tents, supped, established a proper grade, recorded the\nevents of the day, and then went to bed.\n\nWe rose at two in the morning and dressed by candle-light. It was a\ndismal and chilly business. A few stars were shining, but the general\nheavens were overcast, and the great shaft of the Matterhorn was draped\nin a cable pall of clouds. The chief guide advised a delay; he said he\nfeared it was going to rain. We waited until nine o'clock, and then got\naway in tolerably clear weather.\n\n\nOur course led up some terrific steeps, densely wooded with larches and\ncedars, and traversed by paths which the rains had guttered and which\nwere obstructed by loose stones. To add to the danger and inconvenience,\nwe were constantly meeting returning tourists on foot and horseback, and\nas constantly being crowded and battered by ascending tourists who were\nin a hurry and wanted to get by.\n\nOur troubles thickened. About the middle of the afternoon the seventeen\nguides called a halt and held a consultation. After consulting an hour\nthey said their first suspicion remained intact--that is to say, they\nbelieved they were lost. I asked if they did not KNOW it? No, they said,\nthey COULDN'T absolutely know whether they were lost or not, because\nnone of them had ever been in that part of the country before. They had\na strong instinct that they were lost, but they had no proofs--except\nthat they did not know where they were. They had met no tourists for\nsome time, and they considered that a suspicious sign.\n\nPlainly we were in an ugly fix. The guides were naturally unwilling to\ngo alone and seek a way out of the difficulty; so we all went together.\nFor better security we moved slow and cautiously, for the forest was\nvery dense. We did not move up the mountain, but around it, hoping to\nstrike across the old trail. Toward nightfall, when we were about tired\nout, we came up against a rock as big as a cottage. This barrier took\nall the remaining spirit out of the men, and a panic of fear and despair\nensued. They moaned and wept, and said they should never see their homes\nand their dear ones again. Then they began to upbraid me for bringing\nthem upon this fatal expedition. Some even muttered threats against me.\n\nClearly it was no time to show weakness. So I made a speech in which I\nsaid that other Alp-climbers had been in as perilous a position as this,\nand yet by courage and perseverance had escaped. I promised to stand\nby them, I promised to rescue them. I closed by saying we had plenty\nof provisions to maintain us for quite a siege--and did they suppose\nZermatt would allow half a mile of men and mules to mysteriously\ndisappear during any considerable time, right above their noses, and\nmake no inquiries? No, Zermatt would send out searching-expeditions and\nwe should be saved.\n\nThis speech had a great effect. The men pitched the tents with some\nlittle show of cheerfulness, and we were snugly under cover when the\nnight shut down. I now reaped the reward of my wisdom in providing one\narticle which is not mentioned in any book of Alpine adventure but this.\nI refer to the paregoric. But for that beneficent drug, would have not\none of those men slept a moment during that fearful night. But for that\ngentle persuader they must have tossed, unsoothed, the night through;\nfor the whiskey was for me. Yes, they would have risen in the morning\nunfitted for their heavy task. As it was, everybody slept but my agent\nand me--only we and the barkeepers. I would not permit myself to sleep\nat such a time. I considered myself responsible for all those lives. I\nmeant to be on hand and ready, in case of avalanches up there, but I did\nnot know it then.\n\nWe watched the weather all through that awful night, and kept an eye on\nthe barometer, to be prepared for the least change. There was not the\nslightest change recorded by the instrument, during the whole time.\nWords cannot describe the comfort that that friendly, hopeful, steadfast\nthing was to me in that season of trouble. It was a defective barometer,\nand had no hand but the stationary brass pointer, but I did not know\nthat until afterward. If I should be in such a situation again, I should\nnot wish for any barometer but that one.\n\n\nAll hands rose at two in the morning and took breakfast, and as soon as\nit was light we roped ourselves together and went at that rock. For some\ntime we tried the hook-rope and other means of scaling it, but without\nsuccess--that is, without perfect success. The hook caught once, and\nHarris started up it hand over hand, but the hold broke and if there\nhad not happened to be a chaplain sitting underneath at the time, Harris\nwould certainly have been crippled. As it was, it was the chaplain. He\ntook to his crutches, and I ordered the hook-rope to be laid aside. It\nwas too dangerous an implement where so many people are standing around.\n\n\nWe were puzzled for a while; then somebody thought of the ladders.\nOne of these was leaned against the rock, and the men went up it tied\ntogether in couples. Another ladder was sent up for use in descending.\nAt the end of half an hour everybody was over, and that rock was\nconquered. We gave our first grand shout of triumph. But the joy was\nshort-lived, for somebody asked how we were going to get the animals\nover.\n\nThis was a serious difficulty; in fact, it was an impossibility.\nThe courage of the men began to waver immediately; once more we were\nthreatened with a panic. But when the danger was most imminent, we were\nsaved in a mysterious way. A mule which had attracted attention from the\nbeginning by its disposition to experiment, tried to eat a five-pound\ncan of nitroglycerin. This happened right alongside the rock. The\nexplosion threw us all to the ground, and covered us with dirt and\ndebris; it frightened us extremely, too, for the crash it made was\ndeafening, and the violence of the shock made the ground tremble.\nHowever, we were grateful, for the rock was gone. Its place was occupied\nby a new cellar, about thirty feet across, by fifteen feet deep. The\nexplosion was heard as far as Zermatt; and an hour and a half afterward,\nmany citizens of that town were knocked down and quite seriously injured\nby descending portions of mule meat, frozen solid. This shows, better\nthan any estimate in figures, how high the experimenter went.\n\n\nWe had nothing to do, now, but bridge the cellar and proceed on our way.\nWith a cheer the men went at their work. I attended to the engineering,\nmyself. I appointed a strong detail to cut down trees with ice-axes and\ntrim them for piers to support the bridge. This was a slow business, for\nice-axes are not good to cut wood with. I caused my piers to be firmly\nset up in ranks in the cellar, and upon them I laid six of my forty-foot\nladders, side by side, and laid six more on top of them. Upon this\nbridge I caused a bed of boughs to be spread, and on top of the boughs\na bed of earth six inches deep. I stretched ropes upon either side to\nserve as railings, and then my bridge was complete. A train of elephants\ncould have crossed it in safety and comfort. By nightfall the caravan\nwas on the other side and the ladders were taken up.\n\nNext morning we went on in good spirits for a while, though our way\nwas slow and difficult, by reason of the steep and rocky nature of the\nground and the thickness of the forest; but at last a dull despondency\ncrept into the men's faces and it was apparent that not only they, but\neven the guides, were now convinced that we were lost. The fact that we\nstill met no tourists was a circumstance that was but too significant.\nAnother thing seemed to suggest that we were not only lost, but very\nbadly lost; for there must surely be searching-parties on the road\nbefore this time, yet we had seen no sign of them.\n\nDemoralization was spreading; something must be done, and done quickly,\ntoo. Fortunately, I am not unfertile in expedients. I contrived one\nnow which commended itself to all, for it promised well. I took\nthree-quarters of a mile of rope and fastened one end of it around the\nwaist of a guide, and told him to go find the road, while the caravan\nwaited. I instructed him to guide himself back by the rope, in case of\nfailure; in case of success, he was to give the rope a series of violent\njerks, whereupon the Expedition would go to him at once. He departed,\nand in two minutes had disappeared among the trees. I payed out the rope\nmyself, while everybody watched the crawling thing with eager eyes.\nThe rope crept away quite slowly, at times, at other times with some\nbriskness. Twice or thrice we seemed to get the signal, and a shout was\njust ready to break from the men's lips when they perceived it was a\nfalse alarm. But at last, when over half a mile of rope had slidden\naway, it stopped gliding and stood absolutely still--one minute--two\nminutes--three--while we held our breath and watched.\n\nWas the guide resting? Was he scanning the country from some high point?\nWas he inquiring of a chance mountaineer? Stop,--had he fainted from\nexcess of fatigue and anxiety?\n\nThis thought gave us a shock. I was in the very first act of detailing\nan Expedition to succor him, when the cord was assailed with a series of\nsuch frantic jerks that I could hardly keep hold of it. The huzza that\nwent up, then, was good to hear. \"Saved! saved!\" was the word that rang\nout, all down the long rank of the caravan.\n\n\nWe rose up and started at once. We found the route to be good enough\nfor a while, but it began to grow difficult, by and by, and this feature\nsteadily increased. When we judged we had gone half a mile, we momently\nexpected to see the guide; but no, he was not visible anywhere; neither\nwas he waiting, for the rope was still moving, consequently he was\ndoing the same. This argued that he had not found the road, yet, but\nwas marching to it with some peasant. There was nothing for us to do\nbut plod along--and this we did. At the end of three hours we were\nstill plodding. This was not only mysterious, but exasperating. And very\nfatiguing, too; for we had tried hard, along at first, to catch up with\nthe guide, but had only fagged ourselves, in vain; for although he was\ntraveling slowly he was yet able to go faster than the hampered caravan\nover such ground.\n\nAt three in the afternoon we were nearly dead with exhaustion--and still\nthe rope was slowly gliding out. The murmurs against the guide had been\ngrowing steadily, and at last they were become loud and savage. A mutiny\nensued. The men refused to proceed. They declared that we had been\ntraveling over and over the same ground all day, in a kind of circle.\nThey demanded that our end of the rope be made fast to a tree, so as to\nhalt the guide until we could overtake him and kill him. This was not an\nunreasonable requirement, so I gave the order.\n\nAs soon as the rope was tied, the Expedition moved forward with that\nalacrity which the thirst for vengeance usually inspires. But after a\ntiresome march of almost half a mile, we came to a hill covered thick\nwith a crumbly rubbish of stones, and so steep that no man of us all\nwas now in a condition to climb it. Every attempt failed, and ended in\ncrippling somebody. Within twenty minutes I had five men on crutches.\n\n\nWhenever a climber tried to assist himself by the rope, it yielded and\nlet him tumble backward. The frequency of this result suggested an idea\nto me. I ordered the caravan to 'bout face and form in marching order; I\nthen made the tow-rope fast to the rear mule, and gave the command:\n\n\"Mark time--by the right flank--forward--march!\"\n\n\nThe procession began to move, to the impressive strains of a\nbattle-chant, and I said to myself, \"Now, if the rope don't break I\njudge THIS will fetch that guide into the camp.\" I watched the rope\ngliding down the hill, and presently when I was all fixed for triumph\nI was confronted by a bitter disappointment; there was no guide tied to\nthe rope, it was only a very indignant old black ram. The fury of the\nbaffled Expedition exceeded all bounds. They even wanted to wreak their\nunreasoning vengeance on this innocent dumb brute. But I stood between\nthem and their prey, menaced by a bristling wall of ice-axes and\nalpenstocks, and proclaimed that there was but one road to this murder,\nand it was directly over my corpse. Even as I spoke I saw that my doom\nwas sealed, except a miracle supervened to divert these madmen from\ntheir fell purpose. I see the sickening wall of weapons now; I see that\nadvancing host as I saw it then, I see the hate in those cruel eyes; I\nremember how I drooped my head upon my breast, I feel again the\nsudden earthquake shock in my rear, administered by the very ram I was\nsacrificing myself to save; I hear once more the typhoon of laughter\nthat burst from the assaulting column as I clove it from van to rear\nlike a Sepoy shot from a Rodman gun.\n\n\nI was saved. Yes, I was saved, and by the merciful instinct of\ningratitude which nature had planted in the breast of that treacherous\nbeast. The grace which eloquence had failed to work in those men's\nhearts, had been wrought by a laugh. The ram was set free and my life\nwas spared.\n\nWe lived to find out that that guide had deserted us as soon as he had\nplaced a half-mile between himself and us. To avert suspicion, he had\njudged it best that the line should continue to move; so he caught that\nram, and at the time that he was sitting on it making the rope fast to\nit, we were imagining that he was lying in a swoon, overcome by fatigue\nand distress. When he allowed the ram to get up it fell to plunging\naround, trying to rid itself of the rope, and this was the signal which\nwe had risen up with glad shouts to obey. We had followed this ram round\nand round in a circle all day--a thing which was proven by the discovery\nthat we had watered the Expedition seven times at one and same spring in\nseven hours. As expert a woodman as I am, I had somehow failed to notice\nthis until my attention was called to it by a hog. This hog was always\nwallowing there, and as he was the only hog we saw, his frequent\nrepetition, together with his unvarying similarity to himself, finally\ncaused me to reflect that he must be the same hog, and this led me to\nthe deduction that this must be the same spring, also--which indeed it\nwas.\n\nI made a note of this curious thing, as showing in a striking manner the\nrelative difference between glacial action and the action of the hog.\nIt is now a well-established fact that glaciers move; I consider that\nmy observations go to show, with equal conclusiveness, that a hog in a\nspring does not move. I shall be glad to receive the opinions of other\nobservers upon this point.\n\nTo return, for an explanatory moment, to that guide, and then I shall be\ndone with him. After leaving the ram tied to the rope, he had wandered\nat large a while, and then happened to run across a cow. Judging that a\ncow would naturally know more than a guide, he took her by the tail,\nand the result justified his judgment. She nibbled her leisurely way\ndownhill till it was near milking-time, then she struck for home and\ntowed him into Zermatt.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVIII\n\n[I Conquer the Gorner Grat]\n\n\nWe went into camp on that wild spot to which that ram had brought us.\nThe men were greatly fatigued. Their conviction that we were lost was\nforgotten in the cheer of a good supper, and before the reaction had a\nchance to set in, I loaded them up with paregoric and put them to bed.\n\nNext morning I was considering in my mind our desperate situation and\ntrying to think of a remedy, when Harris came to me with a Baedeker\nmap which showed conclusively that the mountain we were on was still in\nSwitzerland--yes, every part of it was in Switzerland. So we were not\nlost, after all. This was an immense relief; it lifted the weight of two\nsuch mountains from my breast. I immediately had the news disseminated\nand the map was exhibited. The effect was wonderful. As soon as the men\nsaw with their own eyes that they knew where they were, and that it\nwas only the summit that was lost and not themselves, they cheered up\ninstantly and said with one accord, let the summit take care of itself.\n\nOur distresses being at an end, I now determined to rest the men in camp\nand give the scientific department of the Expedition a chance. First,\nI made a barometric observation, to get our altitude, but I could not\nperceive that there was any result. I knew, by my scientific reading,\nthat either thermometers or barometers ought to be boiled, to make them\naccurate; I did not know which it was, so I boiled them both. There was\nstill no result; so I examined these instruments and discovered that\nthey possessed radical blemishes: the barometer had no hand but the\nbrass pointer and the ball of the thermometer was stuffed with tin-foil.\nI might have boiled those things to rags, and never found out anything.\n\nI hunted up another barometer; it was new and perfect. I boiled it half\nan hour in a pot of bean soup which the cooks were making. The result\nwas unexpected: the instrument was not affecting at all, but there was\nsuch a strong barometer taste to the soup that the head cook, who was\na most conscientious person, changed its name in the bill of fare.\nThe dish was so greatly liked by all, that I ordered the cook to have\nbarometer soup every day.\n\n\nIt was believed that the barometer might eventually be injured, but I\ndid not care for that. I had demonstrated to my satisfaction that it\ncould not tell how high a mountain was, therefore I had no real use for\nit. Changes in the weather I could take care of without it; I did not\nwish to know when the weather was going to be good, what I wanted to\nknow was when it was going to be bad, and this I could find out from\nHarris's corns. Harris had had his corns tested and regulated at the\ngovernment observatory in Heidelberg, and one could depend upon them\nwith confidence. So I transferred the new barometer to the cooking\ndepartment, to be used for the official mess. It was found that even a\npretty fair article of soup could be made from the defective barometer;\nso I allowed that one to be transferred to the subordinate mess.\n\nI next boiled the thermometer, and got a most excellent result; the\nmercury went up to about 200 degrees Fahrenheit. In the opinion of the\nother scientists of the Expedition, this seemed to indicate that we had\nattained the extraordinary altitude of two hundred thousand feet above\nsea-level. Science places the line of eternal snow at about ten thousand\nfeet above sea-level. There was no snow where we were, consequently\nit was proven that the eternal snow-line ceases somewhere above the\nten-thousand-foot level and does not begin any more. This was an\ninteresting fact, and one which had not been observed by any observer\nbefore. It was as valuable as interesting, too, since it would open up\nthe deserted summits of the highest Alps to population and agriculture.\nIt was a proud thing to be where we were, yet it caused us a pang\nto reflect that but for that ram we might just as well have been two\nhundred thousand feet higher.\n\nThe success of my last experiment induced me to try an experiment with\nmy photographic apparatus. I got it out, and boiled one of my cameras,\nbut the thing was a failure; it made the wood swell up and burst, and I\ncould not see that the lenses were any better than they were before.\n\nI now concluded to boil a guide. It might improve him, it could not\nimpair his usefulness. But I was not allowed to proceed. Guides have\nno feeling for science, and this one would not consent to be made\nuncomfortable in its interest.\n\nIn the midst of my scientific work, one of those needless accidents\nhappened which are always occurring among the ignorant and thoughtless.\nA porter shot at a chamois and missed it and crippled the Latinist.\nThis was not a serious matter to me, for a Latinist's duties are as well\nperformed on crutches as otherwise--but the fact remained that if the\nLatinist had not happened to be in the way a mule would have got that\nload. That would have been quite another matter, for when it comes down\nto a question of value there is a palpable difference between a Latinist\nand a mule. I could not depend on having a Latinist in the right place\nevery time; so, to make things safe, I ordered that in the future the\nchamois must not be hunted within limits of the camp with any other\nweapon than the forefinger.\n\nMy nerves had hardly grown quiet after this affair when they got another\nshake-up--one which utterly unmanned me for a moment: a rumor swept\nsuddenly through the camp that one of the barkeepers had fallen over a\nprecipice!\n\nHowever, it turned out that it was only a chaplain. I had laid in an\nextra force of chaplains, purposely to be prepared for emergencies\nlike this, but by some unaccountable oversight had come away rather\nshort-handed in the matter of barkeepers.\n\nOn the following morning we moved on, well refreshed and in good\nspirits. I remember this day with peculiar pleasure, because it saw\nour road restored to us. Yes, we found our road again, and in quite an\nextraordinary way. We had plodded along some two hours and a half, when\nwe came up against a solid mass of rock about twenty feet high. I did\nnot need to be instructed by a mule this time. I was already beginning\nto know more than any mule in the Expedition. I at once put in a blast\nof dynamite, and lifted that rock out of the way. But to my surprise and\nmortification, I found that there had been a chalet on top of it.\n\nI picked up such members of the family as fell in my vicinity, and\nsubordinates of my corps collected the rest. None of these poor people\nwere injured, happily, but they were much annoyed. I explained to\nthe head chaleteer just how the thing happened, and that I was only\nsearching for the road, and would certainly have given him timely notice\nif I had known he was up there. I said I had meant no harm, and hoped\nI had not lowered myself in his estimation by raising him a few rods in\nthe air. I said many other judicious things, and finally when I offered\nto rebuild his chalet, and pay for the breakages, and throw in the\ncellar, he was mollified and satisfied. He hadn't any cellar at all,\nbefore; he would not have as good a view, now, as formerly, but what he\nhad lost in view he had gained in cellar, by exact measurement. He said\nthere wasn't another hole like that in the mountains--and he would have\nbeen right if the late mule had not tried to eat up the nitroglycerin.\n\nI put a hundred and sixteen men at work, and they rebuilt the chalet\nfrom its own debris in fifteen minutes. It was a good deal more\npicturesque than it was before, too. The man said we were now on the\nFeil-Stutz, above the Schwegmatt--information which I was glad to get,\nsince it gave us our position to a degree of particularity which we had\nnot been accustomed to for a day or so. We also learned that we were\nstanding at the foot of the Riffelberg proper, and that the initial\nchapter of our work was completed.\n\n\nWe had a fine view, from here, of the energetic Visp, as it makes its\nfirst plunge into the world from under a huge arch of solid ice, worn\nthrough the foot-wall of the great Gorner Glacier; and we could also see\nthe Furggenbach, which is the outlet of the Furggen Glacier.\n\nThe mule-road to the summit of the Riffelberg passed right in front of\nthe chalet, a circumstance which we almost immediately noticed, because\na procession of tourists was filing along it pretty much all the time.\n\n\"Pretty much\" may not be elegant English, but it is high time it was.\nThere is no elegant word or phrase which means just what it means.--M.T.\n\nThe chaleteer's business consisted in furnishing refreshments to\ntourists. My blast had interrupted this trade for a few minutes, by\nbreaking all the bottles on the place; but I gave the man a lot of\nwhiskey to sell for Alpine champagne, and a lot of vinegar which would\nanswer for Rhine wine, consequently trade was soon as brisk as ever.\n\nLeaving the Expedition outside to rest, I quartered myself in the\nchalet, with Harris, proposing to correct my journals and scientific\nobservations before continuing the ascent. I had hardly begun my work\nwhen a tall, slender, vigorous American youth of about twenty-three, who\nwas on his way down the mountain, entered and came toward me with that\nbreezy self-complacency which is the adolescent's idea of the well-bred\nease of the man of the world. His hair was short and parted accurately\nin the middle, and he had all the look of an American person who would\nbe likely to begin his signature with an initial, and spell his middle\nname out. He introduced himself, smiling a smirky smile borrowed from\nthe courtiers of the stage, extended a fair-skinned talon, and while he\ngripped my hand in it he bent his body forward three times at the\nhips, as the stage courtier does, and said in the airiest and most\ncondescending and patronizing way--I quite remember his exact language:\n\n\"Very glad to make your acquaintance, 'm sure; very glad indeed, assure\nyou. I've read all your little efforts and greatly admired them, and\nwhen I heard you were here, I ...\"\n\nI indicated a chair, and he sat down. This grandee was the grandson of\nan American of considerable note in his day, and not wholly forgotten\nyet--a man who came so near being a great man that he was quite\ngenerally accounted one while he lived.\n\n\nI slowly paced the floor, pondering scientific problems, and heard this\nconversation:\n\nGRANDSON. First visit to Europe?\n\nHARRIS. Mine? Yes.\n\nG.S. (With a soft reminiscent sigh suggestive of bygone joys that may\nbe tasted in their freshness but once.) Ah, I know what it is to you. A\nfirst visit!--ah, the romance of it! I wish I could feel it again.\n\nH. Yes, I find it exceeds all my dreams. It is enchantment. I go...\n\nG.S. (With a dainty gesture of the hand signifying \"Spare me your callow\nenthusiasms, good friend.\") Yes, _I_ know, I know; you go to cathedrals,\nand exclaim; and you drag through league-long picture-galleries and\nexclaim; and you stand here, and there, and yonder, upon historic\nground, and continue to exclaim; and you are permeated with your first\ncrude conceptions of Art, and are proud and happy. Ah, yes, proud and\nhappy--that expresses it. Yes-yes, enjoy it--it is right--it is an\ninnocent revel.\n\nH. And you? Don't you do these things now?\n\nG.S. I! Oh, that is VERY good! My dear sir, when you are as old a\ntraveler as I am, you will not ask such a question as that. _I_ visit\nthe regulation gallery, moon around the regulation cathedral, do the\nworn round of the regulation sights, YET?--Excuse me!\n\nH. Well, what DO you do, then?\n\nG.S. Do? I flit--and flit--for I am ever on the wing--but I avoid the\nherd. Today I am in Paris, tomorrow in Berlin, anon in Rome; but you\nwould look for me in vain in the galleries of the Louvre or the common\nresorts of the gazers in those other capitals. If you would find me, you\nmust look in the unvisited nooks and corners where others never think\nof going. One day you will find me making myself at home in some obscure\npeasant's cabin, another day you will find me in some forgotten castle\nworshiping some little gem or art which the careless eye has overlooked\nand which the unexperienced would despise; again you will find me as\nguest in the inner sanctuaries of palaces while the herd is content to\nget a hurried glimpse of the unused chambers by feeing a servant.\n\nH. You are a GUEST in such places?\n\nG.S. And a welcoming one.\n\nH. It is surprising. How does it come?\n\nG.S. My grandfather's name is a passport to all the courts in Europe. I\nhave only to utter that name and every door is open to me. I flit from\ncourt to court at my own free will and pleasure, and am always welcome.\nI am as much at home in the palaces of Europe as you are among your\nrelatives. I know every titled person in Europe, I think. I have my\npockets full of invitations all the time. I am under promise to go to\nItaly, where I am to be the guest of a succession of the noblest houses\nin the land. In Berlin my life is a continued round of gaiety in the\nimperial palace. It is the same, wherever I go.\n\nH. It must be very pleasant. But it must make Boston seem a little slow\nwhen you are at home.\n\nG.S. Yes, of course it does. But I don't go home much. There's no life\nthere--little to feed a man's higher nature. Boston's very narrow, you\nknow. She doesn't know it, and you couldn't convince her of it--so I say\nnothing when I'm there: where's the use? Yes, Boston is very narrow, but\nshe has such a good opinion of herself that she can't see it. A man who\nhas traveled as much as I have, and seen as much of the world, sees it\nplain enough, but he can't cure it, you know, so the best is to leave it\nand seek a sphere which is more in harmony with his tastes and culture.\nI run across there, once a year, perhaps, when I have nothing important\non hand, but I'm very soon back again. I spend my time in Europe.\n\nH. I see. You map out your plans and ...\n\nG.S. No, excuse me. I don't map out any plans. I simply follow the\ninclination of the day. I am limited by no ties, no requirements, I\nam not bound in any way. I am too old a traveler to hamper myself with\ndeliberate purposes. I am simply a traveler--an inveterate traveler--a\nman of the world, in a word--I can call myself by no other name. I do\nnot say, \"I am going here, or I am going there\"--I say nothing at all, I\nonly act. For instance, next week you may find me the guest of a grandee\nof Spain, or you may find me off for Venice, or flitting toward Dresden.\nI shall probably go to Egypt presently; friends will say to friends,\n\"He is at the Nile cataracts\"--and at that very moment they will be\nsurprised to learn that I'm away off yonder in India somewhere. I am\na constant surprise to people. They are always saying, \"Yes, he was\nin Jerusalem when we heard of him last, but goodness knows where he is\nnow.\"\n\nPresently the Grandson rose to leave--discovered he had an appointment\nwith some Emperor, perhaps. He did his graces over again: gripped me\nwith one talon, at arm's-length, pressed his hat against his stomach\nwith the other, bent his body in the middle three times, murmuring:\n\n\"Pleasure, 'm sure; great pleasure, 'm sure. Wish you much success.\"\n\nThen he removed his gracious presence. It is a great and solemn thing to\nhave a grandfather.\n\nI have not purposed to misrepresent this boy in any way, for what little\nindignation he excited in me soon passed and left nothing behind it but\ncompassion. One cannot keep up a grudge against a vacuum. I have tried\nto repeat this lad's very words; if I have failed anywhere I have at\nleast not failed to reproduce the marrow and meaning of what he said.\nHe and the innocent chatterbox whom I met on the Swiss lake are the most\nunique and interesting specimens of Young America I came across\nduring my foreign tramping. I have made honest portraits of them, not\ncaricatures.\n\n\nThe Grandson of twenty-three referred to himself five or six times as\nan \"old traveler,\" and as many as three times (with a serene complacency\nwhich was maddening) as a \"man of the world.\" There was something very\ndelicious about his leaving Boston to her \"narrowness,\" unreproved and\nuninstructed.\n\nI formed the caravan in marching order, presently, and after riding down\nthe line to see that it was properly roped together, gave the command to\nproceed. In a little while the road carried us to open, grassy land. We\nwere above the troublesome forest, now, and had an uninterrupted view,\nstraight before us, of our summit--the summit of the Riffelberg.\n\nWe followed the mule-road, a zigzag course, now to the right, now to\nthe left, but always up, and always crowded and incommoded by going and\ncoming files of reckless tourists who were never, in a single instance,\ntied together. I was obliged to exert the utmost care and caution, for\nin many places the road was not two yards wide, and often the lower side\nof it sloped away in slanting precipices eight and even nine feet deep.\nI had to encourage the men constantly, to keep them from giving way to\ntheir unmanly fears.\n\nWe might have made the summit before night, but for a delay caused by\nthe loss of an umbrella. I was allowing the umbrella to remain lost, but\nthe men murmured, and with reason, for in this exposed region we stood\nin peculiar need of protection against avalanches; so I went into camp\nand detached a strong party to go after the missing article.\n\nThe difficulties of the next morning were severe, but our courage\nwas high, for our goal was near. At noon we conquered the last\nimpediment--we stood at last upon the summit, and without the loss of a\nsingle man except the mule that ate the glycerin. Our great achievement\nwas achieved--the possibility of the impossible was demonstrated, and\nHarris and I walked proudly into the great dining-room of the Riffelberg\nHotel and stood our alpenstocks up in the corner.\n\nYes, I had made the grand ascent; but it was a mistake to do it in\nevening dress. The plug hats were battered, the swallow-tails were\nfluttering rags, mud added no grace, the general effect was unpleasant\nand even disreputable.\n\n\nThere were about seventy-five tourists at the hotel--mainly ladies and\nlittle children--and they gave us an admiring welcome which paid us for\nall our privations and sufferings. The ascent had been made, and the\nnames and dates now stand recorded on a stone monument there to prove it\nto all future tourists.\n\nI boiled a thermometer and took an altitude, with a most curious result:\nTHE SUMMIT WAS NOT AS HIGH AS THE POINT ON THE MOUNTAINSIDE WHERE I\nHAD TAKEN THE FIRST ALTITUDE. Suspecting that I had made an important\ndiscovery, I prepared to verify it. There happened to be a still higher\nsummit (called the Gorner Grat), above the hotel, and notwithstanding\nthe fact that it overlooks a glacier from a dizzy height, and that the\nascent is difficult and dangerous, I resolved to venture up there and\nboil a thermometer. So I sent a strong party, with some borrowed hoes,\nin charge of two chiefs of service, to dig a stairway in the soil all\nthe way up, and this I ascended, roped to the guides. This breezy height\nwas the summit proper--so I accomplished even more than I had originally\npurposed to do. This foolhardy exploit is recorded on another stone\nmonument.\n\n\nI boiled my thermometer, and sure enough, this spot, which purported to\nbe two thousand feet higher than the locality of the hotel, turned out\nto be nine thousand feet LOWER. Thus the fact was clearly demonstrated\nthat, ABOVE A CERTAIN POINT, THE HIGHER A POINT SEEMS TO BE, THE LOWER\nIT ACTUALLY IS. Our ascent itself was a great achievement, but this\ncontribution to science was an inconceivably greater matter.\n\nCavilers object that water boils at a lower and lower temperature the\nhigher and higher you go, and hence the apparent anomaly. I answer that\nI do not base my theory upon what the boiling water does, but upon what\na boiled thermometer says. You can't go behind the thermometer.\n\nI had a magnificent view of Monte Rosa, and apparently all the rest of\nthe Alpine world, from that high place. All the circling horizon was\npiled high with a mighty tumult of snowy crests. One might have\nimagined he saw before him the tented camps of a beleaguering host of\nBrobdingnagians.\n\n\nNOTE.--I had the very unusual luck to catch one little momentary glimpse\nof the Matterhorn wholly unencumbered by clouds. I leveled my\nphotographic apparatus at it without the loss of an instant, and should\nhave got an elegant picture if my donkey had not interfered. It was my\npurpose to draw this photograph all by myself for my book, but was\nobliged to put the mountain part of it into the hands of the\nprofessional artist because I found I could not do landscape well.\n\nBut lonely, conspicuous, and superb, rose that wonderful upright wedge,\nthe Matterhorn. Its precipitous sides were powdered over with snow, and\nthe upper half hidden in thick clouds which now and then dissolved to\ncobweb films and gave brief glimpses of the imposing tower as through a\nveil. A little later the Matterhorn took to himself the semblance of\na volcano; he was stripped naked to his apex--around this circled\nvast wreaths of white cloud which strung slowly out and streamed away\nslantwise toward the sun, a twenty-mile stretch of rolling and tumbling\nvapor, and looking just as if it were pouring out of a crater. Later\nagain, one of the mountain's sides was clean and clear, and another\nside densely clothed from base to summit in thick smokelike cloud which\nfeathered off and flew around the shaft's sharp edge like the smoke\naround the corners of a burning building. The Matterhorn is always\nexperimenting, and always gets up fine effects, too. In the sunset, when\nall the lower world is palled in gloom, it points toward heaven out of\nthe pervading blackness like a finger of fire. In the sunrise--well,\nthey say it is very fine in the sunrise.\n\nAuthorities agree that there is no such tremendous \"layout\" of snowy\nAlpine magnitude, grandeur, and sublimity to be seen from any other\naccessible point as the tourist may see from the summit of the\nRiffelberg. Therefore, let the tourist rope himself up and go there; for\nI have shown that with nerve, caution, and judgment, the thing can be\ndone.\n\nI wish to add one remark, here--in parentheses, so to speak--suggested\nby the word \"snowy,\" which I have just used. We have all seen hills and\nmountains and levels with snow on them, and so we think we know all the\naspects and effects produced by snow. But indeed we do not until we have\nseen the Alps. Possibly mass and distance add something--at any rate,\nsomething IS added. Among other noticeable things, there is a dazzling,\nintense whiteness about the distant Alpine snow, when the sun is on it,\nwhich one recognizes as peculiar, and not familiar to the eye. The snow\nwhich one is accustomed to has a tint to it--painters usually give it a\nbluish cast--but there is no perceptible tint to the distant Alpine snow\nwhen it is trying to look its whitest. As to the unimaginable\nsplendor of it when the sun is blazing down on it--well, it simply IS\nunimaginable.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIX\n\n[We Travel by Glacier]\n\n\nA guide-book is a queer thing. The reader has just seen what a man who\nundertakes the great ascent from Zermatt to the Riffelberg Hotel must\nexperience. Yet Baedeker makes these strange statements concerning this\nmatter:\n\n   1. Distance--3 hours.\n   2. The road cannot be mistaken.\n   3. Guide unnecessary.\n   4. Distance from Riffelberg Hotel to the Gorner Grat, one hour and a half.\n   5. Ascent simple and easy. Guide unnecessary.\n   6. Elevation of Zermatt above sea-level, 5,315 feet.\n   7. Elevation of Riffelberg Hotel above sea-level, 8,429 feet.\n   8. Elevation of the Gorner Grat above sea-level, 10,289 feet.\n\nI have pretty effectually throttled these errors by sending him the\nfollowing demonstrated facts:\n\n   1. Distance from Zermatt to Riffelberg Hotel, 7 days.\n   2. The road CAN be mistaken. If I am the first that did it, I want the credit\n      of it, too.\n   3. Guides ARE necessary, for none but a native can read those finger-boards.\n   4. The estimate of the elevation of the several localities above sea-level\n      is pretty correct--for Baedeker. He only misses it about a hundred and\n      eighty or ninety thousand feet.\n\nI found my arnica invaluable. My men were suffering excruciatingly, from\nthe friction of sitting down so much. During two or three days, not\none of them was able to do more than lie down or walk about; yet so\neffective was the arnica, that on the fourth all were able to sit up.\nI consider that, more than to anything else, I owe the success of our\ngreat undertaking to arnica and paregoric.\n\nMy men are being restored to health and strength, my main perplexity,\nnow, was how to get them down the mountain again. I was not willing to\nexpose the brave fellows to the perils, fatigues, and hardships of that\nfearful route again if it could be helped. First I thought of balloons;\nbut, of course, I had to give that idea up, for balloons were\nnot procurable. I thought of several other expedients, but upon\nconsideration discarded them, for cause. But at last I hit it. I was\naware that the movement of glaciers is an established fact, for I had\nread it in Baedeker; so I resolved to take passage for Zermatt on the\ngreat Gorner Glacier.\n\nVery good. The next thing was, how to get down the glacier\ncomfortably--for the mule-road to it was long, and winding, and\nwearisome. I set my mind at work, and soon thought out a plan. One looks\nstraight down upon the vast frozen river called the Gorner Glacier, from\nthe Gorner Grat, a sheer precipice twelve hundred feet high. We had\none hundred and fifty-four umbrellas--and what is an umbrella but a\nparachute?\n\nI mentioned this noble idea to Harris, with enthusiasm, and was about to\norder the Expedition to form on the Gorner Grat, with their umbrellas,\nand prepare for flight by platoons, each platoon in command of a guide,\nwhen Harris stopped me and urged me not to be too hasty. He asked me if\nthis method of descending the Alps had ever been tried before. I said\nno, I had not heard of an instance. Then, in his opinion, it was a\nmatter of considerable gravity; in his opinion it would not be well to\nsend the whole command over the cliff at once; a better way would be to\nsend down a single individual, first, and see how he fared.\n\nI saw the wisdom in this idea instantly. I said as much, and thanked\nmy agent cordially, and told him to take his umbrella and try the thing\nright away, and wave his hat when he got down, if he struck in a soft\nplace, and then I would ship the rest right along.\n\nHarris was greatly touched with this mark of confidence, and said so,\nin a voice that had a perceptible tremble in it; but at the same time he\nsaid he did not feel himself worthy of so conspicuous a favor; that it\nmight cause jealousy in the command, for there were plenty who would not\nhesitate to say he had used underhanded means to get the appointment,\nwhereas his conscience would bear him witness that he had not sought it\nat all, nor even, in his secret heart, desired it.\n\nI said these words did him extreme credit, but that he must not throw\naway the imperishable distinction of being the first man to descend\nan Alp per parachute, simply to save the feelings of some envious\nunderlings. No, I said, he MUST accept the appointment--it was no longer\nan invitation, it was a command.\n\nHe thanked me with effusion, and said that putting the thing in this\nform removed every objection. He retired, and soon returned with his\numbrella, his eye flaming with gratitude and his cheeks pallid with joy.\nJust then the head guide passed along. Harris's expression changed to\none of infinite tenderness, and he said:\n\n\"That man did me a cruel injury four days ago, and I said in my heart\nhe should live to perceive and confess that the only noble revenge a\nman can take upon his enemy is to return good for evil. I resign in his\nfavor. Appoint him.\"\n\nI threw my arms around the generous fellow and said:\n\n\"Harris, you are the noblest soul that lives. You shall not regret this\nsublime act, neither shall the world fail to know of it. You shall have\nopportunity far transcending this one, too, if I live--remember that.\"\n\nI called the head guide to me and appointed him on the spot. But the\nthing aroused no enthusiasm in him. He did not take to the idea at all.\n\nHe said:\n\n\"Tie myself to an umbrella and jump over the Gorner Grat! Excuse me,\nthere are a great many pleasanter roads to the devil than that.\"\n\n\nUpon a discussion of the subject with him, it appeared that he\nconsidered the project distinctly and decidedly dangerous. I was not\nconvinced, yet I was not willing to try the experiment in any risky\nway--that is, in a way that might cripple the strength and efficiency\nof the Expedition. I was about at my wits' end when it occurred to me to\ntry it on the Latinist.\n\nHe was called in. But he declined, on the plea of inexperience,\ndiffidence in public, lack of curiosity, and I didn't know what all.\nAnother man declined on account of a cold in the head; thought he\nought to avoid exposure. Another could not jump well--never COULD jump\nwell--did not believe he could jump so far without long and patient\npractice. Another was afraid it was going to rain, and his umbrella had\na hole in it. Everybody had an excuse. The result was what the reader\nhas by this time guessed: the most magnificent idea that was ever\nconceived had to be abandoned, from sheer lack of a person with\nenterprise enough to carry it out. Yes, I actually had to give that\nthing up--while doubtless I should live to see somebody use it and take\nall the credit from me.\n\nWell, I had to go overland--there was no other way. I marched the\nExpedition down the steep and tedious mule-path and took up as good a\nposition as I could upon the middle of the glacier--because Baedeker\nsaid the middle part travels the fastest. As a measure of economy,\nhowever, I put some of the heavier baggage on the shoreward parts, to go\nas slow freight.\n\nI waited and waited, but the glacier did not move. Night was coming on,\nthe darkness began to gather--still we did not budge. It occurred to me\nthen, that there might be a time-table in Baedeker; it would be well to\nfind out the hours of starting. I called for the book--it could not be\nfound. Bradshaw would certainly contain a time-table; but no Bradshaw\ncould be found.\n\nVery well, I must make the best of the situation. So I pitched the\ntents, picketed the animals, milked the cows, had supper, paregoricked\nthe men, established the watch, and went to bed--with orders to call me\nas soon as we came in sight of Zermatt.\n\nI awoke about half past ten next morning, and looked around. We hadn't\nbudged a peg! At first I could not understand it; then it occurred to me\nthat the old thing must be aground. So I cut down some trees and rigged\na spar on the starboard and another on the port side, and fooled away\nupward of three hours trying to spar her off. But it was no use. She\nwas half a mile wide and fifteen or twenty miles long, and there was\nno telling just whereabouts she WAS aground. The men began to show\nuneasiness, too, and presently they came flying to me with ashy faces,\nsaying she had sprung a leak.\n\n\nNothing but my cool behavior at this critical time saved us from another\npanic. I ordered them to show me the place. They led me to a spot where\na huge boulder lay in a deep pool of clear and brilliant water. It did\nlook like a pretty bad leak, but I kept that to myself. I made a pump\nand set the men to work to pump out the glacier. We made a success of\nit. I perceived, then, that it was not a leak at all. This boulder had\ndescended from a precipice and stopped on the ice in the middle of the\nglacier, and the sun had warmed it up, every day, and consequently it\nhad melted its way deeper and deeper into the ice, until at last it\nreposed, as we had found it, in a deep pool of the clearest and coldest\nwater.\n\nPresently Baedeker was found again, and I hunted eagerly for the\ntime-table. There was none. The book simply said the glacier was moving\nall the time. This was satisfactory, so I shut up the book and chose a\ngood position to view the scenery as we passed along. I stood there some\ntime enjoying the trip, but at last it occurred to me that we did\nnot seem to be gaining any on the scenery. I said to myself, \"This\nconfounded old thing's aground again, sure,\"--and opened Baedeker to\nsee if I could run across any remedy for these annoying interruptions.\nI soon found a sentence which threw a dazzling light upon the matter.\nIt said, \"The Gorner Glacier travels at an average rate of a little less\nthan an inch a day.\" I have seldom felt so outraged. I have seldom had\nmy confidence so wantonly betrayed. I made a small calculation: One inch\na day, say thirty feet a year; estimated distance to Zermatt, three and\none-eighteenth miles. Time required to go by glacier, A LITTLE OVER FIVE\nHUNDRED YEARS! I said to myself, \"I can WALK it quicker--and before I\nwill patronize such a fraud as this, I will do it.\"\n\nWhen I revealed to Harris the fact that the passenger part of this\nglacier--the central part--the lightning-express part, so to speak--was\nnot due in Zermatt till the summer of 2378, and that the baggage, coming\nalong the slow edge, would not arrive until some generations later, he\nburst out with:\n\n\"That is European management, all over! An inch a day--think of that!\nFive hundred years to go a trifle over three miles! But I am not a bit\nsurprised. It's a Catholic glacier. You can tell by the look of it. And\nthe management.\"\n\nI said, no, I believed nothing but the extreme end of it was in a\nCatholic canton.\n\n\"Well, then, it's a government glacier,\" said Harris. \"It's all the\nsame. Over here the government runs everything--so everything's slow;\nslow, and ill-managed. But with us, everything's done by private\nenterprise--and then there ain't much lolling around, you can depend\non it. I wish Tom Scott could get his hands on this torpid old slab\nonce--you'd see it take a different gait from this.\"\n\nI said I was sure he would increase the speed, if there was trade enough\nto justify it.\n\n\"He'd MAKE trade,\" said Harris. \"That's the difference between\ngovernments and individuals. Governments don't care, individuals do. Tom\nScott would take all the trade; in two years Gorner stock would go to\ntwo hundred, and inside of two more you would see all the other glaciers\nunder the hammer for taxes.\" After a reflective pause, Harris added, \"A\nlittle less than an inch a day; a little less than an INCH, mind you.\nWell, I'm losing my reverence for glaciers.\"\n\nI was feeling much the same way myself. I have traveled by canal-boat,\nox-wagon, raft, and by the Ephesus and Smyrna railway; but when it comes\ndown to good solid honest slow motion, I bet my money on the glacier. As\na means of passenger transportation, I consider the glacier a failure;\nbut as a vehicle of slow freight, I think she fills the bill. In the\nmatter of putting the fine shades on that line of business, I judge she\ncould teach the Germans something.\n\nI ordered the men to break camp and prepare for the land journey to\nZermatt. At this moment a most interesting find was made; a dark object,\nbedded in the glacial ice, was cut out with the ice-axes, and it proved\nto be a piece of the undressed skin of some animal--a hair trunk,\nperhaps; but a close inspection disabled the hair-trunk theory, and\nfurther discussion and examination exploded it entirely--that is, in the\nopinion of all the scientists except the one who had advanced it. This\none clung to his theory with affectionate fidelity characteristic of\noriginators of scientific theories, and afterward won many of the first\nscientists of the age to his view, by a very able pamphlet which he\nwrote, entitled, \"Evidences going to show that the hair trunk, in a wild\nstate, belonged to the early glacial period, and roamed the wastes of\nchaos in the company with the cave-bear, primeval man, and the other\nOoelitics of the Old Silurian family.\"\n\n\nEach of our scientists had a theory of his own, and put forward\nan animal of his own as a candidate for the skin. I sided with the\ngeologist of the Expedition in the belief that this patch of skin had\nonce helped to cover a Siberian elephant, in some old forgotten age--but\nwe divided there, the geologist believing that this discovery proved\nthat Siberia had formerly been located where Switzerland is now, whereas\nI held the opinion that it merely proved that the primeval Swiss was not\nthe dull savage he is represented to have been, but was a being of high\nintellectual development, who liked to go to the menagerie.\n\nWe arrived that evening, after many hardships and adventures, in some\nfields close to the great ice-arch where the mad Visp boils and surges\nout from under the foot of the great Gorner Glacier, and here we camped,\nour perils over and our magnificent undertaking successfully completed.\nWe marched into Zermatt the next day, and were received with the\nmost lavish honors and applause. A document, signed and sealed by the\nauthorities, was given to me which established and endorsed the fact\nthat I had made the ascent of the Riffelberg. This I wear around my\nneck, and it will be buried with me when I am no more.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XL\n\n[Piteous Relics at Chamonix]\n\n\nI am not so ignorant about glacial movement, now, as I was when I took\npassage on the Gorner Glacier. I have \"read up\" since. I am aware that\nthese vast bodies of ice do not travel at the same rate of speed; while\nthe Gorner Glacier makes less than an inch a day, the Unter-Aar Glacier\nmakes as much as eight; and still other glaciers are said to go twelve,\nsixteen, and even twenty inches a day. One writer says that the slowest\nglacier travels twenty-five feet a year, and the fastest four hundred.\n\nWhat is a glacier? It is easy to say it looks like a frozen river which\noccupies the bed of a winding gorge or gully between mountains. But that\ngives no notion of its vastness. For it is sometimes six hundred feet\nthick, and we are not accustomed to rivers six hundred feet deep; no,\nour rivers are six feet, twenty feet, and sometimes fifty feet deep; we\nare not quite able to grasp so large a fact as an ice-river six hundred\nfeet deep.\n\nThe glacier's surface is not smooth and level, but has deep swales and\nswelling elevations, and sometimes has the look of a tossing sea whose\nturbulent billows were frozen hard in the instant of their most violent\nmotion; the glacier's surface is not a flawless mass, but is a river\nwith cracks or crevices, some narrow, some gaping wide. Many a man, the\nvictim of a slip or a misstep, has plunged down one of these and met his\ndeath. Men have been fished out of them alive; but it was when they\ndid not go to a great depth; the cold of the great depths would quickly\nstupefy a man, whether he was hurt or unhurt. These cracks do not go\nstraight down; one can seldom see more than twenty to forty feet down\nthem; consequently men who have disappeared in them have been sought\nfor, in the hope that they had stopped within helping distance, whereas\ntheir case, in most instances, had really been hopeless from the\nbeginning.\n\nIn 1864 a party of tourists was descending Mont Blanc, and while picking\ntheir way over one of the mighty glaciers of that lofty region, roped\ntogether, as was proper, a young porter disengaged himself from the line\nand started across an ice-bridge which spanned a crevice. It broke under\nhim with a crash, and he disappeared. The others could not see how deep\nhe had gone, so it might be worthwhile to try and rescue him. A brave\nyoung guide named Michel Payot volunteered.\n\nTwo ropes were made fast to his leather belt and he bore the end of a\nthird one in his hand to tie to the victim in case he found him. He was\nlowered into the crevice, he descended deeper and deeper between the\nclear blue walls of solid ice, he approached a bend in the crack and\ndisappeared under it. Down, and still down, he went, into this profound\ngrave; when he had reached a depth of eighty feet he passed under\nanother bend in the crack, and thence descended eighty feet lower, as\nbetween perpendicular precipices. Arrived at this stage of one hundred\nand sixty feet below the surface of the glacier, he peered through the\ntwilight dimness and perceived that the chasm took another turn and\nstretched away at a steep slant to unknown deeps, for its course was\nlost in darkness. What a place that was to be in--especially if that\nleather belt should break! The compression of the belt threatened to\nsuffocate the intrepid fellow; he called to his friends to draw him up,\nbut could not make them hear. They still lowered him, deeper and deeper.\nThen he jerked his third cord as vigorously as he could; his friends\nunderstood, and dragged him out of those icy jaws of death.\n\nThen they attached a bottle to a cord and sent it down two hundred feet,\nbut it found no bottom. It came up covered with congelations--evidence\nenough that even if the poor porter reached the bottom with unbroken\nbones, a swift death from cold was sure, anyway.\n\nA glacier is a stupendous, ever-progressing, resistless plow. It pushes\nahead of it masses of boulders which are packed together, and they\nstretch across the gorge, right in front of it, like a long grave or a\nlong, sharp roof. This is called a moraine. It also shoves out a moraine\nalong each side of its course.\n\n\nImposing as the modern glaciers are, they are not so huge as were some\nthat once existed. For instance, Mr. Whymper says:\n\n\"At some very remote period the Valley of Aosta was occupied by a vast\nglacier, which flowed down its entire length from Mont Blanc to the\nplain of Piedmont, remained stationary, or nearly so, at its mouth\nfor many centuries, and deposited there enormous masses of debris. The\nlength of this glacier exceeded EIGHTY MILES, and it drained a basin\ntwenty-five to thirty-five miles across, bounded by the highest\nmountains in the Alps.\n\n\n\"The great peaks rose several thousand feet above the glaciers, and\nthen, as now, shattered by sun and frost, poured down their showers of\nrocks and stones, in witness of which there are the immense piles of\nangular fragments that constitute the moraines of Ivrea.\n\n\"The moraines around Ivrea are of extraordinary dimensions. That which\nwas on the left bank of the glacier is about THIRTEEN MILES long, and\nin some places rises to a height of TWO THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY\nFEET above the floor of the valley! The terminal moraines (those which\nare pushed in front of the glaciers) cover something like twenty square\nmiles of country. At the mouth of the Valley of Aosta, the thickness of\nthe glacier must have been at least TWO THOUSAND feet, and its width, at\nthat part, FIVE MILES AND A QUARTER.\"\n\n\nIt is not easy to get at a comprehension of a mass of ice like that. If\none could cleave off the butt end of such a glacier--an oblong block\ntwo or three miles wide by five and a quarter long and two thousand\nfeet thick--he could completely hide the city of New York under it,\nand Trinity steeple would only stick up into it relatively as far as a\nshingle-nail would stick up into the bottom of a Saratoga trunk.\n\n\"The boulders from Mont Blanc, upon the plain below Ivrea, assure us\nthat the glacier which transported them existed for a prodigious length\nof time. Their present distance from the cliffs from which they were\nderived is about 420,000 feet, and if we assume that they traveled at\nthe rate of 400 feet per annum, their journey must have occupied them no\nless than 1,055 years! In all probability they did not travel so fast.\"\n\n\nGlaciers are sometimes hurried out of their characteristic snail-pace.\nA marvelous spectacle is presented then. Mr. Whymper refers to a case\nwhich occurred in Iceland in 1721:\n\n\"It seems that in the neighborhood of the mountain Kotlugja, large\nbodies of water formed underneath, or within the glaciers (either on\naccount of the interior heat of the earth, or from other causes), and at\nlength acquired irresistible power, tore the glaciers from their mooring\non the land, and swept them over every obstacle into the sea. Prodigious\nmasses of ice were thus borne for a distance of about ten miles over\nland in the space of a few hours; and their bulk was so enormous that\nthey covered the sea for seven miles from the shore, and remained\naground in six hundred feet of water! The denudation of the land was\nupon a grand scale. All superficial accumulations were swept away, and\nthe bedrock was exposed. It was described, in graphic language, how all\nirregularities and depressions were obliterated, and a smooth surface of\nseveral miles' area laid bare, and that this area had the appearance of\nhaving been PLANED BY A PLANE.\"\n\nThe account translated from the Icelandic says that the mountainlike\nruins of this majestic glacier so covered the sea that as far as the eye\ncould reach no open water was discoverable, even from the highest peaks.\nA monster wall or barrier of ice was built across a considerable stretch\nof land, too, by this strange irruption:\n\n\"One can form some idea of the altitude of this barrier of ice when it\nis mentioned that from Hofdabrekka farm, which lies high up on a fjeld,\none could not see Hjorleifshofdi opposite, which is a fell six hundred\nand forty feet in height; but in order to do so had to clamber up a\nmountain slope east of Hofdabrekka twelve hundred feet high.\"\n\nThese things will help the reader to understand why it is that a man who\nkeeps company with glaciers comes to feel tolerably insignificant by\nand by. The Alps and the glaciers together are able to take every bit of\nconceit out of a man and reduce his self-importance to zero if he will\nonly remain within the influence of their sublime presence long enough\nto give it a fair and reasonable chance to do its work.\n\nThe Alpine glaciers move--that is granted, now, by everybody. But there\nwas a time when people scoffed at the idea; they said you might as well\nexpect leagues of solid rock to crawl along the ground as expect leagues\nof ice to do it. But proof after proof was furnished, and the finally\nthe world had to believe.\n\nThe wise men not only said the glacier moved, but they timed its\nmovement. They ciphered out a glacier's gait, and then said confidently\nthat it would travel just so far in so many years. There is record of\na striking and curious example of the accuracy which may be attained in\nthese reckonings.\n\nIn 1820 the ascent of Mont Blanc was attempted by a Russian and two\nEnglishmen, with seven guides. They had reached a prodigious altitude,\nand were approaching the summit, when an avalanche swept several of the\nparty down a sharp slope of two hundred feet and hurled five of them\n(all guides) into one of the crevices of a glacier. The life of one\nof the five was saved by a long barometer which was strapped to his\nback--it bridged the crevice and suspended him until help came. The\nalpenstock or baton of another saved its owner in a similar way. Three\nmen were lost--Pierre Balmat, Pierre Carrier, and Auguste Tairraz. They\nhad been hurled down into the fathomless great deeps of the crevice.\n\nDr. Forbes, the English geologist, had made frequent visits to the Mont\nBlanc region, and had given much attention to the disputed question of\nthe movement of glaciers. During one of these visits he completed his\nestimates of the rate of movement of the glacier which had swallowed\nup the three guides, and uttered the prediction that the glacier would\ndeliver up its dead at the foot of the mountain thirty-five years from\nthe time of the accident, or possibly forty.\n\nA dull, slow journey--a movement imperceptible to any eye--but it was\nproceeding, nevertheless, and without cessation. It was a journey\nwhich a rolling stone would make in a few seconds--the lofty point of\ndeparture was visible from the village below in the valley.\n\nThe prediction cut curiously close to the truth; forty-one years after\nthe catastrophe, the remains were cast forth at the foot of the glacier.\n\nI find an interesting account of the matter in the HISTOIRE DU MONT\nBLANC, by Stephen d'Arve. I will condense this account, as follows:\n\nOn the 12th of August, 1861, at the hour of the close of mass, a guide\narrived out of breath at the mairie of Chamonix, and bearing on his\nshoulders a very lugubrious burden. It was a sack filled with human\nremains which he had gathered from the orifice of a crevice in the\nGlacier des Bossons. He conjectured that these were remains of the\nvictims of the catastrophe of 1820, and a minute inquest, immediately\ninstituted by the local authorities, soon demonstrated the correctness\nof his supposition. The contents of the sack were spread upon a long\ntable, and officially inventoried, as follows:\n\nPortions of three human skulls. Several tufts of black and blonde hair.\nA human jaw, furnished with fine white teeth. A forearm and hand, all\nthe fingers of the latter intact. The flesh was white and fresh,\nand both the arm and hand preserved a degree of flexibility in the\narticulations.\n\nThe ring-finger had suffered a slight abrasion, and the stain of the\nblood was still visible and unchanged after forty-one years. A left\nfoot, the flesh white and fresh.\n\nAlong with these fragments were portions of waistcoats, hats, hobnailed\nshoes, and other clothing; a wing of a pigeon, with black feathers; a\nfragment of an alpenstock; a tin lantern; and lastly, a boiled leg of\nmutton, the only flesh among all the remains that exhaled an unpleasant\nodor. The guide said that the mutton had no odor when he took it from\nthe glacier; an hour's exposure to the sun had already begun the work of\ndecomposition upon it.\n\nPersons were called for, to identify these poor pathetic relics, and a\ntouching scene ensued. Two men were still living who had witnessed the\ngrim catastrophe of nearly half a century before--Marie Couttet (saved\nby his baton) and Julien Davouassoux (saved by the barometer). These\naged men entered and approached the table. Davouassoux, more than eighty\nyears old, contemplated the mournful remains mutely and with a vacant\neye, for his intelligence and his memory were torpid with age; but\nCouttet's faculties were still perfect at seventy-two, and he exhibited\nstrong emotion. He said:\n\n\"Pierre Balmat was fair; he wore a straw hat. This bit of skull, with\nthe tuft of blond hair, was his; this is his hat. Pierre Carrier was\nvery dark; this skull was his, and this felt hat. This is Balmat's\nhand, I remember it so well!\" and the old man bent down and kissed it\nreverently, then closed his fingers upon it in an affectionate grasp,\ncrying out, \"I could never have dared to believe that before quitting\nthis world it would be granted me to press once more the hand of one of\nthose brave comrades, the hand of my good friend Balmat.\"\n\n\nThere is something weirdly pathetic about the picture of that\nwhite-haired veteran greeting with his loving handshake this friend\nwho had been dead forty years. When these hands had met last, they were\nalike in the softness and freshness of youth; now, one was brown and\nwrinkled and horny with age, while the other was still as young and fair\nand blemishless as if those forty years had come and gone in a single\nmoment, leaving no mark of their passage. Time had gone on, in the one\ncase; it had stood still in the other. A man who has not seen a friend\nfor a generation, keeps him in mind always as he saw him last, and is\nsomehow surprised, and is also shocked, to see the aging change the\nyears have wrought when he sees him again. Marie Couttet's experience,\nin finding his friend's hand unaltered from the image of it which he\nhad carried in his memory for forty years, is an experience which stands\nalone in the history of man, perhaps.\n\nCouttet identified other relics:\n\n\"This hat belonged to Auguste Tairraz. He carried the cage of pigeons\nwhich we proposed to set free upon the summit. Here is the wing of one\nof those pigeons. And here is the fragment of my broken baton; it was by\ngrace of that baton that my life was saved. Who could have told me that\nI should one day have the satisfaction to look again upon this bit of\nwood that supported me above the grave that swallowed up my unfortunate\ncompanions!\"\n\nNo portions of the body of Tairraz, other than a piece of the skull,\nhad been found. A diligent search was made, but without result. However,\nanother search was instituted a year later, and this had better success.\nMany fragments of clothing which had belonged to the lost guides were\ndiscovered; also, part of a lantern, and a green veil with blood-stains\non it. But the interesting feature was this:\n\nOne of the searchers came suddenly upon a sleeved arm projecting from\na crevice in the ice-wall, with the hand outstretched as if offering\ngreeting! \"The nails of this white hand were still rosy, and the pose\nof the extended fingers seemed to express an eloquent welcome to the\nlong-lost light of day.\"\n\nThe hand and arm were alone; there was no trunk. After being removed\nfrom the ice the flesh-tints quickly faded out and the rosy nails took\non the alabaster hue of death. This was the third RIGHT hand found;\ntherefore, all three of the lost men were accounted for, beyond cavil or\nquestion.\n\nDr. Hamel was the Russian gentleman of the party which made the ascent\nat the time of the famous disaster. He left Chamonix as soon as he\nconveniently could after the descent; and as he had shown a chilly\nindifference about the calamity, and offered neither sympathy nor\nassistance to the widows and orphans, he carried with him the cordial\nexecrations of the whole community. Four months before the first remains\nwere found, a Chamonix guide named Balmat--a relative of one of the lost\nmen--was in London, and one day encountered a hale old gentleman in the\nBritish Museum, who said:\n\n\"I overheard your name. Are you from Chamonix, Monsieur Balmat?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Haven't they found the bodies of my three guides, yet? I am Dr. Hamel.\"\n\n\"Alas, no, monsieur.\"\n\n\"Well, you'll find them, sooner or later.\"\n\n\"Yes, it is the opinion of Dr. Forbes and Mr. Tyndall, that the glacier\nwill sooner or later restore to us the remains of the unfortunate\nvictims.\"\n\n\"Without a doubt, without a doubt. And it will be a great thing for\nChamonix, in the matter of attracting tourists. You can get up a museum\nwith those remains that will draw!\"\n\nThis savage idea has not improved the odor of Dr. Hamel's name in\nChamonix by any means. But after all, the man was sound on human nature.\nHis idea was conveyed to the public officials of Chamonix, and they\ngravely discussed it around the official council-table. They were only\nprevented from carrying it into execution by the determined opposition\nof the friends and descendants of the lost guides, who insisted on\ngiving the remains Christian burial, and succeeded in their purpose.\n\nA close watch had to be kept upon all the poor remnants and fragments,\nto prevent embezzlement. A few accessory odds and ends were sold. Rags\nand scraps of the coarse clothing were parted with at the rate equal to\nabout twenty dollars a yard; a piece of a lantern and one or two other\ntrifles brought nearly their weight in gold; and an Englishman offered a\npound sterling for a single breeches-button.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLI\n\n[The Fearful Disaster of 1865]\n\n\nOne of the most memorable of all the Alpine catastrophes was that of\nJuly, 1865, on the Matterhorn--already slightly referred to, a few\npages back. The details of it are scarcely known in America. To the vast\nmajority of readers they are not known at all. Mr. Whymper's account is\nthe only authentic one. I will import the chief portion of it into this\nbook, partly because of its intrinsic interest, and partly because it\ngives such a vivid idea of what the perilous pastime of Alp-climbing\nis. This was Mr. Whymper's NINTH attempt during a series of years, to\nvanquish that steep and stubborn pillar or rock; it succeeded, the other\neight were failures. No man had ever accomplished the ascent before,\nthough the attempts had been numerous.\n\nMR. WHYMPER'S NARRATIVE We started from Zermatt on the 13th of July, at\nhalf past five, on a brilliant and perfectly cloudless morning. We were\neight in number--Croz (guide), old Peter Taugwalder (guide) and his\ntwo sons; Lord F. Douglas, Mr. Hadow, Rev. Mr. Hudson, and I. To insure\nsteady motion, one tourist and one native walked together. The youngest\nTaugwalder fell to my share. The wine-bags also fell to my lot to carry,\nand throughout the day, after each drink, I replenished them secretly\nwith water, so that at the next halt they were found fuller than before!\nThis was considered a good omen, and little short of miraculous.\n\nOn the first day we did not intend to ascend to any great height, and we\nmounted, accordingly, very leisurely. Before twelve o'clock we had found\na good position for the tent, at a height of eleven thousand feet. We\npassed the remaining hours of daylight--some basking in the sunshine,\nsome sketching, some collecting; Hudson made tea, I coffee, and at\nlength we retired, each one to his blanket bag.\n\nWe assembled together before dawn on the 14th and started directly\nit was light enough to move. One of the young Taugwalders returned to\nZermatt. In a few minutes we turned the rib which had intercepted the\nview of the eastern face from our tent platform. The whole of this\ngreat slope was now revealed, rising for three thousand feet like a huge\nnatural staircase. Some parts were more, and others were less easy, but\nwe were not once brought to a halt by any serious impediment, for when\nan obstruction was met in front it could always be turned to the right\nor to the left. For the greater part of the way there was no occasion,\nindeed, for the rope, and sometimes Hudson led, sometimes myself. At\nsix-twenty we had attained a height of twelve thousand eight hundred\nfeet, and halted for half an hour; we then continued the ascent without\na break until nine-fifty-five, when we stopped for fifty minutes, at a\nheight of fourteen thousand feet.\n\n\nWe had now arrived at the foot of that part which, seen from the\nRiffelberg, seems perpendicular or overhanging. We could no longer\ncontinue on the eastern side. For a little distance we ascended by snow\nupon the AR\u00caTE--that is, the ridge--then turned over to the right, or\nnorthern side. The work became difficult, and required caution. In some\nplaces there was little to hold; the general slope of the mountain was\nLESS than forty degrees, and snow had accumulated in, and had filled\nup, the interstices of the rock-face, leaving only occasional fragments\nprojecting here and there. These were at times covered with a thin film\nof ice. It was a place which any fair mountaineer might pass in safety.\nWe bore away nearly horizontally for about four hundred feet, then\nascended directly toward the summit for about sixty feet, then doubled\nback to the ridge which descends toward Zermatt. A long stride round\na rather awkward corner brought us to snow once more. That last doubt\nvanished! The Matterhorn was ours! Nothing but two hundred feet of easy\nsnow remained to be surmounted.\n\nThe higher we rose, the more intense became the excitement. The slope\neased off, at length we could be detached, and Croz and I, dashed away,\nran a neck-and-neck race, which ended in a dead heat. At 1:40 P.M., the\nworld was at our feet, and the Matterhorn was conquered!\n\n\nThe others arrived. Croz now took the tent-pole, and planted it in the\nhighest snow. \"Yes,\" we said, \"there is the flag-staff, but where is the\nflag?\" \"Here it is,\" he answered, pulling off his blouse and fixing it\nto the stick. It made a poor flag, and there was no wind to float\nit out, yet it was seen all around. They saw it at Zermatt--at the\nRiffel--in the Val Tournanche... .\n\nWe remained on the summit for one hour--\n\nOne crowded hour of glorious life.\n\nIt passed away too quickly, and we began to prepare for the descent.\n\nHudson and I consulted as to the best and safest arrangement of the\nparty. We agreed that it was best for Croz to go first, and Hadow\nsecond; Hudson, who was almost equal to a guide in sureness of foot,\nwished to be third; Lord Douglas was placed next, and old Peter, the\nstrongest of the remainder, after him. I suggested to Hudson that we\nshould attach a rope to the rocks on our arrival at the difficult bit,\nand hold it as we descended, as an additional protection. He approved\nthe idea, but it was not definitely decided that it should be done. The\nparty was being arranged in the above order while I was sketching the\nsummit, and they had finished, and were waiting for me to be tied in\nline, when some one remembered that our names had not been left in a\nbottle. They requested me to write them down, and moved off while it was\nbeing done.\n\nA few minutes afterward I tied myself to young Peter, ran down after the\nothers, and caught them just as they were commencing the descent of the\ndifficult part. Great care was being taken. Only one man was moving at a\ntime; when he was firmly planted the next advanced, and so on. They had\nnot, however, attached the additional rope to rocks, and nothing was\nsaid about it. The suggestion was not made for my own sake, and I am not\nsure that it ever occurred to me again. For some little distance we two\nfollowed the others, detached from them, and should have continued so\nhad not Lord Douglas asked me, about 3 P.M., to tie on to old Peter, as\nhe feared, he said, that Taugwalder would not be able to hold his ground\nif a slip occurred.\n\nA few minutes later, a sharp-eyed lad ran into the Monte Rosa Hotel, at\nZermatt, saying that he had seen an avalanche fall from the summit of\nthe Matterhorn onto the Matterhorn glacier. The boy was reproved for\ntelling idle stories; he was right, nevertheless, and this was what he\nsaw.\n\nMichel Croz had laid aside his ax, and in order to give Mr. Hadow\ngreater security, was absolutely taking hold of his legs, and putting\nhis feet, one by one, into their proper positions. As far as I know, no\none was actually descending. I cannot speak with certainty, because the\ntwo leading men were partially hidden from my sight by an intervening\nmass of rock, but it is my belief, from the movements of their\nshoulders, that Croz, having done as I said, was in the act of turning\nround to go down a step or two himself; at this moment Mr. Hadow\nslipped, fell against him, and knocked him over. I heard one startled\nexclamation from Croz, then saw him and Mr. Hadow flying downward;\nin another moment Hudson was dragged from his steps, and Lord Douglas\nimmediately after him. All this was the work of a moment. Immediately we\nheard Croz's exclamation, old Peter and I planted ourselves as firmly as\nthe rocks would permit; the rope was taut between us, and the jerk came\non us both as on one man. We held; but the rope broke midway between\nTaugwalder and Lord Francis Douglas. For a few seconds we saw our\nunfortunate companions sliding downward on their backs, and spreading\nout their hands, endeavoring to save themselves. They passed from our\nsight uninjured, disappeared one by one, and fell from the precipice to\nprecipice onto the Matterhorn glacier below, a distance of nearly\nfour thousand feet in height. From the moment the rope broke it was\nimpossible to help them. So perished our comrades!\n\n\nFor more than two hours afterward I thought almost every moment that the\nnext would be my last; for the Taugwalders, utterly unnerved, were not\nonly incapable of giving assistance, but were in such a state that a\nslip might have been expected from them at any moment. After a time we\nwere able to do that which should have been done at first, and fixed\nrope to firm rocks, in addition to being tied together. These ropes were\ncut from time to time, and were left behind. Even with their assurance\nthe men were afraid to proceed, and several times old Peter turned,\nwith ashy face and faltering limbs, and said, with terrible emphasis, \"I\nCANNOT!\"\n\nAbout 6 P.M., we arrived at the snow upon the ridge descending toward\nZermatt, and all peril was over. We frequently looked, but in vain, for\ntraces of our unfortunate companions; we bent over the ridge and cried\nto them, but no sound returned. Convinced at last that they were neither\nwithin sight nor hearing, we ceased from our useless efforts; and, too\ncast down for speech, silently gathered up our things, and the little\neffects of those who were lost, and then completed the descent. Such\nis Mr. Whymper's graphic and thrilling narrative. Zermatt gossip\ndarkly hints that the elder Taugwalder cut the rope, when the accident\noccurred, in order to preserve himself from being dragged into the\nabyss; but Mr. Whymper says that the ends of the rope showed no evidence\nof cutting, but only of breaking. He adds that if Taugwalder had had the\ndisposition to cut the rope, he would not have had time to do it, the\naccident was so sudden and unexpected.\n\nLord Douglas' body has never been found. It probably lodged upon some\ninaccessible shelf in the face of the mighty precipice. Lord Douglas was\na youth of nineteen. The three other victims fell nearly four thousand\nfeet, and their bodies lay together upon the glacier when found by\nMr. Whymper and the other searchers the next morning. Their graves are\nbeside the little church in Zermatt.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLII\n\n[Chillon has a Nice, Roomy Dungeon]\n\n\nSwitzerland is simply a large, humpy, solid rock, with a thin skin of\ngrass stretched over it. Consequently, they do not dig graves, they\nblast them out with powder and fuse. They cannot afford to have large\ngraveyards, the grass skin is too circumscribed and too valuable. It is\nall required for the support of the living.\n\nThe graveyard in Zermatt occupies only about one-eighth of an acre.\nThe graves are sunk in the living rock, and are very permanent; but\noccupation of them is only temporary; the occupant can only stay till\nhis grave is needed by a later subject, he is removed, then, for they do\nnot bury one body on top of another. As I understand it, a family owns\na grave, just as it owns a house. A man dies and leaves his house to his\nson--and at the same time, this dead father succeeds to his own father's\ngrave. He moves out of the house and into the grave, and his predecessor\nmoves out of the grave and into the cellar of the chapel. I saw a black\nbox lying in the churchyard, with skull and cross-bones painted on it,\nand was told that this was used in transferring remains to the cellar.\n\nIn that cellar the bones and skulls of several hundred of former\ncitizens were compactly corded up. They made a pile eighteen feet long,\nseven feet high, and eight feet wide. I was told that in some of the\nreceptacles of this kind in the Swiss villages, the skulls were all\nmarked, and if a man wished to find the skulls of his ancestors for\nseveral generations back, he could do it by these marks, preserved in\nthe family records.\n\n\nAn English gentleman who had lived some years in this region, said it\nwas the cradle of compulsory education. But he said that the English\nidea that compulsory education would reduce bastardy and intemperance\nwas an error--it has not that effect. He said there was more seduction\nin the Protestant than in the Catholic cantons, because the confessional\nprotected the girls. I wonder why it doesn't protect married women in\nFrance and Spain?\n\nThis gentleman said that among the poorer peasants in the Valais, it was\ncommon for the brothers in a family to cast lots to determine which\nof them should have the coveted privilege of marrying, and his\nbrethren--doomed bachelors--heroically banded themselves together to\nhelp support the new family.\n\nWe left Zermatt in a wagon--and in a rain-storm, too--for St. Nicholas\nabout ten o'clock one morning. Again we passed between those grass-clad\nprodigious cliffs, specked with wee dwellings peeping over at us from\nvelvety green walls ten and twelve hundred feet high. It did not seem\npossible that the imaginary chamois even could climb those precipices.\nLovers on opposite cliffs probably kiss through a spy-glass, and\ncorrespond with a rifle.\n\nIn Switzerland the farmer's plow is a wide shovel, which scrapes up and\nturns over the thin earthy skin of his native rock--and there the man of\nthe plow is a hero. Now here, by our St. Nicholas road, was a grave, and\nit had a tragic story. A plowman was skinning his farm one morning--not\nthe steepest part of it, but still a steep part--that is, he was not\nskinning the front of his farm, but the roof of it, near the eaves--when\nhe absent-mindedly let go of the plow-handles to moisten his hands, in\nthe usual way; he lost his balance and fell out of his farm backward;\npoor fellow, he never touched anything till he struck bottom, fifteen\nhundred feet below. [This was on a Sunday.--M.T.] We throw a halo of\nheroism around the life of the soldier and the sailor, because of the\ndeadly dangers they are facing all the time. But we are not used to\nlooking upon farming as a heroic occupation. This is because we have not\nlived in Switzerland.\n\n\nFrom St. Nicholas we struck out for Visp--or Vispach--on foot. The\nrain-storms had been at work during several days, and had done a deal of\ndamage in Switzerland and Savoy. We came to one place where a stream had\nchanged its course and plunged down a mountain in a new place, sweeping\neverything before it. Two poor but precious farms by the roadside were\nruined. One was washed clear away, and the bed-rock exposed; the other\nwas buried out of sight under a tumbled chaos of rocks, gravel, mud,\nand rubbish. The resistless might of water was well exemplified. Some\nsaplings which had stood in the way were bent to the ground, stripped\nclean of their bark, and buried under rocky debris. The road had been\nswept away, too.\n\nIn another place, where the road was high up on the mountain's face, and\nits outside edge protected by flimsy masonry, we frequently came across\nspots where this masonry had carved off and left dangerous gaps for\nmules to get over; and with still more frequency we found the masonry\nslightly crumbled, and marked by mule-hoofs, thus showing that there had\nbeen danger of an accident to somebody. When at last we came to a\nbadly ruptured bit of masonry, with hoof-prints evidencing a desperate\nstruggle to regain the lost foothold, I looked quite hopefully over the\ndizzy precipice. But there was nobody down there.\n\nThey take exceedingly good care of their rivers in Switzerland and other\nportions of Europe. They wall up both banks with slanting solid stone\nmasonry--so that from end to end of these rivers the banks look like the\nwharves at St. Louis and other towns on the Mississippi River.\n\nIt was during this walk from St. Nicholas, in the shadow of the majestic\nAlps, that we came across some little children amusing themselves in\nwhat seemed, at first, a most odd and original way--but it wasn't; it\nwas in simply a natural and characteristic way. They were roped together\nwith a string, they had mimic alpenstocks and ice-axes, and were\nclimbing a meek and lowly manure-pile with a most blood-curdling amount\nof care and caution. The \"guide\" at the head of the line cut imaginary\nsteps, in a laborious and painstaking way, and not a monkey budged till\nthe step above was vacated. If we had waited we should have witnessed an\nimaginary accident, no doubt; and we should have heard the intrepid band\nhurrah when they made the summit and looked around upon the \"magnificent\nview,\" and seen them throw themselves down in exhausted attitudes for a\nrest in that commanding situation.\n\n\nIn Nevada I used to see the children play at silver-mining. Of course,\nthe great thing was an accident in a mine, and there were two \"star\"\nparts; that of the man who fell down the mimic shaft, and that of the\ndaring hero who was lowered into the depths to bring him up. I knew one\nsmall chap who always insisted on playing BOTH of these parts--and he\ncarried his point. He would tumble into the shaft and die, and then come\nto the surface and go back after his own remains.\n\nIt is the smartest boy that gets the hero part everywhere; he is head\nguide in Switzerland, head miner in Nevada, head bull-fighter in Spain,\netc.; but I knew a preacher's son, seven years old, who once selected\na part for himself compared to which those just mentioned are tame\nand unimpressive. Jimmy's father stopped him from driving imaginary\nhorse-cars one Sunday--stopped him from playing captain of an imaginary\nsteamboat next Sunday--stopped him from leading an imaginary army to\nbattle the following Sunday--and so on. Finally the little fellow said:\n\n\"I've tried everything, and they won't any of them do. What CAN I play?\"\n\n\"I hardly know, Jimmy; but you MUST play only things that are suitable\nto the Sabbath-day.\"\n\nNext Sunday the preacher stepped softly to a back-room door to see if\nthe children were rightly employed. He peeped in. A chair occupied the\nmiddle of the room, and on the back of it hung Jimmy's cap; one of\nhis little sisters took the cap down, nibbled at it, then passed it to\nanother small sister and said, \"Eat of this fruit, for it is good.\" The\nReverend took in the situation--alas, they were playing the Expulsion\nfrom Eden! Yet he found one little crumb of comfort. He said to himself,\n\"For once Jimmy has yielded the chief role--I have been wronging him, I\ndid not believe there was so much modesty in him; I should have expected\nhim to be either Adam or Eve.\" This crumb of comfort lasted but a very\nlittle while; he glanced around and discovered Jimmy standing in an\nimposing attitude in a corner, with a dark and deadly frown on his face.\nWhat that meant was very plain--HE WAS IMPERSONATING THE DEITY! Think of\nthe guileless sublimity of that idea.\n\n\nWe reached Vispach at 8 P.M., only about seven hours out from St.\nNicholas. So we must have made fully a mile and a half an hour, and it\nwas all downhill, too, and very muddy at that. We stayed all night at\nthe Hotel de Soleil; I remember it because the landlady, the portier,\nthe waitress, and the chambermaid were not separate persons, but were\nall contained in one neat and chipper suit of spotless muslin, and she\nwas the prettiest young creature I saw in all that region. She was the\nlandlord's daughter. And I remember that the only native match to her\nI saw in all Europe was the young daughter of the landlord of a village\ninn in the Black Forest. Why don't more people in Europe marry and keep\nhotel?\n\n\nNext morning we left with a family of English friends and went by train\nto Brevet, and thence by boat across the lake to Ouchy (Lausanne).\n\nOuchy is memorable to me, not on account of its beautiful situation and\nlovely surroundings--although these would make it stick long in one's\nmemory--but as the place where _I_ caught the London TIMES dropping into\nhumor. It was NOT aware of it, though. It did not do it on purpose.\nAn English friend called my attention to this lapse, and cut out the\nreprehensible paragraph for me. Think of encountering a grin like this\non the face of that grim journal:\n\nERRATUM.--We are requested by Reuter's Telegram Company to correct an\nerroneous announcement made in their Brisbane telegram of the 2d inst.,\npublished in our impression of the 5th inst., stating that \"Lady Kennedy\nhad given birth to twins, the eldest being a son.\" The Company explain\nthat the message they received contained the words \"Governor of\nQueensland, TWINS FIRST SON.\" Being, however, subsequently informed that\nSir Arthur Kennedy was unmarried and that there must be some mistake, a\ntelegraphic repetition was at once demanded. It has been received today\n(11th inst.) and shows that the words really telegraphed by Reuter's\nagent were \"Governor Queensland TURNS FIRST SOD,\" alluding to the\nMaryborough-Gympic Railway in course of construction. The words in\nitalics were mutilated by the telegraph in transmission from Australia,\nand reaching the company in the form mentioned above gave rise to the\nmistake.\n\nI had always had a deep and reverent compassion for the sufferings of\nthe \"prisoner of Chillon,\" whose story Byron had told in such moving\nverse; so I took the steamer and made pilgrimage to the dungeons of the\nCastle of Chillon, to see the place where poor Bonnivard endured his\ndreary captivity three hundred years ago. I am glad I did that, for it\ntook away some of the pain I was feeling on the prisoner's account. His\ndungeon was a nice, cool, roomy place, and I cannot see why he should\nhave been dissatisfied with it. If he had been imprisoned in a St.\nNicholas private dwelling, where the fertilizer prevails, and the goat\nsleeps with the guest, and the chickens roost on him and the cow comes\nin and bothers him when he wants to muse, it would have been another\nmatter altogether; but he surely could not have had a very cheerless\ntime of it in that pretty dungeon. It has romantic window-slits that\nlet in generous bars of light, and it has tall, noble columns, carved\napparently from the living rock; and what is more, they are written\nall over with thousands of names; some of them--like Byron's and Victor\nHugo's--of the first celebrity. Why didn't he amuse himself reading\nthese names? Then there are the couriers and tourists--swarms of them\nevery day--what was to hinder him from having a good time with them? I\nthink Bonnivard's sufferings have been overrated.\n\n\nNext, we took the train and went to Martigny, on the way to Mont Blanc.\nNext morning we started, about eight o'clock, on foot. We had plenty of\ncompany, in the way of wagon-loads and mule-loads of tourists--and dust.\nThis scattering procession of travelers was perhaps a mile long. The\nroad was uphill--interminable uphill--and tolerably steep. The weather\nwas blisteringly hot, and the man or woman who had to sit on a creeping\nmule, or in a crawling wagon, and broil in the beating sun, was an\nobject to be pitied. We could dodge among the bushes, and have the\nrelief of shade, but those people could not. They paid for a conveyance,\nand to get their money's worth they rode.\n\nWe went by the way of the T\u00eate Noir, and after we reached high ground\nthere was no lack of fine scenery. In one place the road was tunneled\nthrough a shoulder of the mountain; from there one looked down into a\ngorge with a rushing torrent in it, and on every hand was a charming\nview of rocky buttresses and wooded heights. There was a liberal\nallowance of pretty waterfalls, too, on the T\u00eate Noir route.\n\n\nAbout half an hour before we reached the village of Argenti\u00e8re a vast\ndome of snow with the sun blazing on it drifted into view and framed\nitself in a strong V-shaped gateway of the mountains, and we recognized\nMont Blanc, the \"monarch of the Alps.\" With every step, after that,\nthis stately dome rose higher and higher into the blue sky, and at last\nseemed to occupy the zenith.\n\nSome of Mont Blanc's neighbors--bare, light-brown, steeplelike\nrocks--were very peculiarly shaped. Some were whittled to a sharp point,\nand slightly bent at the upper end, like a lady's finger; one monster\nsugar-loaf resembled a bishop's hat; it was too steep to hold snow on\nits sides, but had some in the division.\n\n\nWhile we were still on very high ground, and before the descent toward\nArgenti\u00e8re began, we looked up toward a neighboring mountain-top, and\nsaw exquisite prismatic colors playing about some white clouds which\nwere so delicate as to almost resemble gossamer webs. The faint pinks\nand greens were peculiarly beautiful; none of the colors were deep, they\nwere the lightest shades. They were bewitching commingled. We sat down\nto study and enjoy this singular spectacle. The tints remained during\nseveral minutes--flitting, changing, melting into each other; paling\nalmost away for a moment, then reflushing--a shifting, restless,\nunstable succession of soft opaline gleams, shimmering over that air\nfilm of white cloud, and turning it into a fabric dainty enough to\nclothe an angel with.\n\nBy and by we perceived what those super-delicate colors, and their\ncontinuous play and movement, reminded us of; it is what one sees in a\nsoap-bubble that is drifting along, catching changes of tint from the\nobjects it passes. A soap-bubble is the most beautiful thing, and the\nmost exquisite, in nature; that lovely phantom fabric in the sky was\nsuggestive of a soap-bubble split open, and spread out in the sun. I\nwonder how much it would take to buy a soap-bubble, if there was only\none in the world? One could buy a hatful of Koh-i-Noors with the same\nmoney, no doubt.\n\n\nWe made the tramp from Martigny to Argenti\u00e8re in eight hours. We beat\nall the mules and wagons; we didn't usually do that. We hired a sort of\nopen baggage-wagon for the trip down the valley to Chamonix, and then\ndevoted an hour to dining. This gave the driver time to get drunk. He\nhad a friend with him, and this friend also had had time to get drunk.\n\nWhen we drove off, the driver said all the tourists had arrived and\ngone by while we were at dinner; \"but,\" said he, impressively, \"be not\ndisturbed by that--remain tranquil--give yourselves no uneasiness--their\ndust rises far before us--rest you tranquil, leave all to me--I am the\nking of drivers. Behold!\"\n\nDown came his whip, and away we clattered. I never had such a shaking up\nin my life. The recent flooding rains had washed the road clear away in\nplaces, but we never stopped, we never slowed down for anything. We tore\nright along, over rocks, rubbish, gullies, open fields--sometimes with\none or two wheels on the ground, but generally with none. Every now and\nthen that calm, good-natured madman would bend a majestic look over his\nshoulder at us and say, \"Ah, you perceive? It is as I have said--I am\nthe king of drivers.\" Every time we just missed going to destruction,\nhe would say, with tranquil happiness, \"Enjoy it, gentlemen, it is very\nrare, it is very unusual--it is given to few to ride with the king of\ndrivers--and observe, it is as I have said, I am he.\"\n\n\nHe spoke in French, and punctuated with hiccoughs. His friend was\nFrench, too, but spoke in German--using the same system of punctuation,\nhowever. The friend called himself the \"Captain of Mont Blanc,\" and\nwanted us to make the ascent with him. He said he had made more ascents\nthan any other man--forty seven--and his brother had made thirty-seven.\nHis brother was the best guide in the world, except himself--but he,\nyes, observe him well--he was the \"Captain of Mont Blanc\"--that title\nbelonged to none other.\n\nThe \"king\" was as good as his word--he overtook that long procession\nof tourists and went by it like a hurricane. The result was that we got\nchoicer rooms at the hotel in Chamonix than we should have done if\nhis majesty had been a slower artist--or rather, if he hadn't most\nprovidentially got drunk before he left Argenti\u00e8re.\n\n\n\n\n\nA TRAMP ABROAD, Part 7.\n\nBy Mark Twain\n\n(Samuel L. Clemens)\n\nFirst published in 1880\n\nIllustrations taken from an 1880 First Edition\n\n * * * * * *\n\n\nILLUSTRATIONS:\n\n     1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR\n     2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0TITIAN'S MOSES\n     285.\u00a0\u00a0STREET IN CHAMONIX\n     286.\u00a0\u00a0THE PROUD GERMAN\n     287.\u00a0\u00a0THE INDIGNANT TOURIST\n     288.\u00a0\u00a0MUSIC OF SWITZERLAND\n     289.\u00a0\u00a0ONLY A MISTAKE\n     290.\u00a0\u00a0A BROAD VIEW\n     291.\u00a0\u00a0PREPARING TO START\n     292.\u00a0\u00a0ASCENT OF MONT BLANC\n     293.\u00a0\u00a0\"WE ALL RAISED A TREMENDOUS SHOUT\"\n     294.\u00a0\u00a0THE GRANDE MULETS\n     295.\u00a0\u00a0CABIN ON THE GRANDE MULETS\n     296.\u00a0\u00a0KEEPING WARM\n     297.\u00a0\u00a0TAIL PIECE\n     298.\u00a0\u00a0TAKE IT EASY\n     299.\u00a0\u00a0THE MER DE GLACE (MONT BLANC)\n     300.\u00a0\u00a0TAKING TOLL\n     301.\u00a0\u00a0A DESCENDING TOURIST\n     302.\u00a0\u00a0LEAVING BY DILIGENCE\n     303.\u00a0\u00a0THE SATISFIED ENGLISHMAN\n     301.\u00a0\u00a0HIGH PRESSURE\n     305.\u00a0\u00a0NO APOLOGY\n     307.\u00a0\u00a0A LIVELY STREET\n     308.\u00a0\u00a0HAVING HER FULL RIGHTS\n     309.\u00a0\u00a0HOW SHE FOOLED US\n     310.\u00a0\u00a0\"YOU'LL TAKE THAT OR NONE\"\n     311.\u00a0\u00a0ROBBING A BEGGAR\n     312.\u00a0\u00a0DISHONEST ITALY\n     313.\u00a0\u00a0STOCK IN TRADE\n     314.\u00a0\u00a0STYLE\n     315.\u00a0\u00a0SPECIMENS FROM OLD MASTERS\n     316.\u00a0\u00a0AN OLD MASTER\n     317.\u00a0\u00a0THE LION OF ST MARK\n     318.\u00a0\u00a0OH TO BE AT RRST!\n     319.\u00a0\u00a0THE WORLD'S MASTERPIECE\n     320.\u00a0\u00a0TAIL PIECE\n     321.\u00a0\u00a0AESTHETIC TASTES\n     322.\u00a0\u00a0A PRIVATE FAMILY BREAKFAST\n     323.\u00a0\u00a0EUROPEAN CARVING\n     323.\u00a0\u00a0A TWENTY-FOUR HOUR FIGHT\n     325.\u00a0\u00a0GREAT HEIDELBERG TUN\n     326.\u00a0\u00a0BISMARCK IN PRISON\n     327.\u00a0\u00a0TAIL PIECE 600\n     328.\u00a0\u00a0A COMPLETE WORD\n\n\nCONTENTS:\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIII Chamonix--Contrasts--Magnificent Spectacle--The Guild\nof Guides--The Guide--in--Chief--The Returned Tourist--Getting\nDiploma--Rigid Rules--Unsuccessful Efforts to Procure a Diploma--The\nRecord-Book--The Conqueror of Mont Blanc--Professional Jealousy\n--Triumph of Truth--Mountain Music--Its Effect--A Hunt for a Nuisance\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIV Looking at Mont Blanc--Telescopic Effect--A Proposed\nTrip--Determination and Courage--The Cost all counted----Ascent of\nMont Blanc by Telescope--Safe and Rapid Return--Diplomas Asked for and\nRefused--Disaster of 1866--The Brave Brothers--Wonderful Endurance and\nPluck--Love Making on Mont Blanc--First Ascent of a Woman--Sensible\nAttire\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLV A Catastrophe which Cost Eleven Lives--Accident of 1870--A\nParty of Eleven--A Fearful Storm--Note-books of the Victims--Within Five\nMinutes of Safety--Facing Death Resignedly\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVI The Hotel des Pyramids--The Glacier des Bossons--One of\nthe Shows--Premeditated Crime--Saved Again--Tourists Warned--Advice\nto Tourists--The Two Empresses--The Glacier Toll Collector--Pure\nIce Water--Death Rate of the World--Of Various Cities--A Pleasure\nExcursionist--A Diligence Ride--A Satisfied Englishman\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVII Geneva--Shops of Geneva--Elasticity of Prices--Persistency\nof Shop-Women--The High Pressure System--How a Dandy was brought to\nGrief--American Manners--Gallantry--Col Baker of London--Arkansaw\nJustice--Safety of Women in America--Town of Chambery--A Lively\nPlace--At Turin--A Railroad Companion--An Insulted Woman--City of\nTurin--Italian Honesty--A Small Mistake --Robbing a Beggar Woman\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVIII In Milan--The Arcade--Incidents we Met With--The\nPedlar--Children--The Honest Conductor--Heavy Stocks of Clothing--The\nQuarrelsome Italians--Great Smoke and Little Fire--The Cathedral--Style\nin Church--The Old Masters--Tintoretto's great Picture--Emotional\nTourists--Basson's Famed Picture--The Hair Trunk\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIX In Venice--St Mark's Cathedral--Discovery of an\nAntique--The Riches of St Mark's--A Church Robber--Trusting Secrets to a\nFriend --The Robber Hanged--A Private Dinner--European Food\n\n\n\nCHAPTER L Why Some things Are--Art in Rome and Florence--The Fig Leaf\nMania--Titian's Venus--Difference between Seeing and Describing A Real\nwork of Art--Titian's Moses--Home\n\n\nAPPENDIX\n\n    A--The Portier analyzed\n    B--Hiedelberg Castle Described\n    C--The College Prison and Inmates\n    D--The Awful German Language\n    E--Legends of the Castle\n    F--The Journals of Germany\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIII\n\n[My Poor Sick Friend Disappointed]\n\n\nEverybody was out-of-doors; everybody was in the principal street of the\nvillage--not on the sidewalks, but all over the street; everybody was\nlounging, loafing, chatting, waiting, alert, expectant, interested--for\nit was train-time. That is to say, it was diligence-time--the half-dozen\nbig diligences would soon be arriving from Geneva, and the village was\ninterested, in many ways, in knowing how many people were coming and\nwhat sort of folk they might be. It was altogether the livest-looking\nstreet we had seen in any village on the continent.\n\nThe hotel was by the side of a booming torrent, whose music was loud\nand strong; we could not see this torrent, for it was dark, now, but\none could locate it without a light. There was a large enclosed yard in\nfront of the hotel, and this was filled with groups of villagers waiting\nto see the diligences arrive, or to hire themselves to excursionists for\nthe morrow. A telescope stood in the yard, with its huge barrel canted\nup toward the lustrous evening star. The long porch of the hotel was\npopulous with tourists, who sat in shawls and wraps under the vast\novershadowing bulk of Mont Blanc, and gossiped or meditated.\n\n\nNever did a mountain seem so close; its big sides seemed at one's very\nelbow, and its majestic dome, and the lofty cluster of slender minarets\nthat were its neighbors, seemed to be almost over one's head. It was\nnight in the streets, and the lamps were sparkling everywhere; the broad\nbases and shoulders of the mountains were in a deep gloom, but their\nsummits swam in a strange rich glow which was really daylight, and yet\nhad a mellow something about it which was very different from the hard\nwhite glare of the kind of daylight I was used to. Its radiance was\nstrong and clear, but at the same time it was singularly soft, and\nspiritual, and benignant. No, it was not our harsh, aggressive,\nrealistic daylight; it seemed properer to an enchanted land--or to\nheaven.\n\nI had seen moonlight and daylight together before, but I had not seen\ndaylight and black night elbow to elbow before. At least I had not seen\nthe daylight resting upon an object sufficiently close at hand, before,\nto make the contrast startling and at war with nature.\n\nThe daylight passed away. Presently the moon rose up behind some of\nthose sky-piercing fingers or pinnacles of bare rock of which I have\nspoken--they were a little to the left of the crest of Mont Blanc,\nand right over our heads--but she couldn't manage to climb high enough\ntoward heaven to get entirely above them. She would show the glittering\narch of her upper third, occasionally, and scrape it along behind the\ncomblike row; sometimes a pinnacle stood straight up, like a statuette\nof ebony, against that glittering white shield, then seemed to glide out\nof it by its own volition and power, and become a dim specter, while the\nnext pinnacle glided into its place and blotted the spotless disk with\nthe black exclamation-point of its presence. The top of one pinnacle\ntook the shapely, clean-cut form of a rabbit's head, in the inkiest\nsilhouette, while it rested against the moon. The unillumined peaks and\nminarets, hovering vague and phantom-like above us while the others\nwere painfully white and strong with snow and moonlight, made a peculiar\neffect.\n\nBut when the moon, having passed the line of pinnacles, was hidden\nbehind the stupendous white swell of Mont Blanc, the masterpiece of the\nevening was flung on the canvas. A rich greenish radiance sprang into\nthe sky from behind the mountain, and in this some airy shreds and\nribbons of vapor floated about, and being flushed with that strange\ntint, went waving to and fro like pale green flames. After a while,\nradiating bars--vast broadening fan-shaped shadows--grew up and\nstretched away to the zenith from behind the mountain. It was a\nspectacle to take one's breath, for the wonder of it, and the sublimity.\n\nIndeed, those mighty bars of alternate light and shadow streaming up\nfrom behind that dark and prodigious form and occupying the half of the\ndull and opaque heavens, was the most imposing and impressive marvel I\nhad ever looked upon. There is no simile for it, for nothing is like\nit. If a child had asked me what it was, I should have said, \"Humble\nyourself, in this presence, it is the glory flowing from the hidden head\nof the Creator.\" One falls shorter of the truth than that, sometimes, in\ntrying to explain mysteries to the little people. I could have found\nout the cause of this awe-compelling miracle by inquiring, for it is not\ninfrequent at Mont Blanc,--but I did not wish to know. We have not the\nreverent feeling for the rainbow that a savage has, because we know how\nit is made. We have lost as much as we gained by prying into the matter.\n\nWe took a walk down street, a block or two, and a place where four\nstreets met and the principal shops were clustered, found the groups\nof men in the roadway thicker than ever--for this was the Exchange of\nChamonix. These men were in the costumes of guides and porters, and were\nthere to be hired.\n\nThe office of that great personage, the Guide-in-Chief of the Chamonix\nGuild of Guides, was near by. This guild is a close corporation, and is\ngoverned by strict laws. There are many excursion routes, some dangerous\nand some not, some that can be made safely without a guide, and some\nthat cannot. The bureau determines these things. Where it decides that a\nguide is necessary, you are forbidden to go without one. Neither are you\nallowed to be a victim of extortion: the law states what you are to pay.\nThe guides serve in rotation; you cannot select the man who is to take\nyour life into his hands, you must take the worst in the lot, if it is\nhis turn. A guide's fee ranges all the way up from a half-dollar (for\nsome trifling excursion of a few rods) to twenty dollars, according to\nthe distance traversed and the nature of the ground. A guide's fee\nfor taking a person to the summit of Mont Blanc and back, is twenty\ndollars--and he earns it. The time employed is usually three days, and\nthere is enough early rising in it to make a man far more \"healthy and\nwealthy and wise\" than any one man has any right to be. The porter's\nfee for the same trip is ten dollars. Several fools--no, I mean several\ntourists--usually go together, and divide up the expense, and thus make\nit light; for if only one f--tourist, I mean--went, he would have to\nhave several guides and porters, and that would make the matter costly.\n\nWe went into the Chief's office. There were maps of mountains on the\nwalls; also one or two lithographs of celebrated guides, and a portrait\nof the scientist De Saussure.\n\nIn glass cases were some labeled fragments of boots and batons, and\nother suggestive relics and remembrances of casualties on Mount Blanc.\nIn a book was a record of all the ascents which have ever been made,\nbeginning with Nos. 1 and 2--being those of Jacques Balmat and De\nSaussure, in 1787, and ending with No. 685, which wasn't cold yet. In\nfact No. 685 was standing by the official table waiting to receive the\nprecious official diploma which should prove to his German household and\nto his descendants that he had once been indiscreet enough to climb to\nthe top of Mont Blanc. He looked very happy when he got his document; in\nfact, he spoke up and said he WAS happy.\n\n\nI tried to buy a diploma for an invalid friend at home who had never\ntraveled, and whose desire all his life has been to ascend Mont Blanc,\nbut the Guide-in-Chief rather insolently refused to sell me one. I was\nvery much offended. I said I did not propose to be discriminated against\non the account of my nationality; that he had just sold a diploma to\nthis German gentleman, and my money was a good as his; I would see to\nit that he couldn't keep his shop for Germans and deny his produce to\nAmericans; I would have his license taken away from him at the dropping\nof a handkerchief; if France refused to break him, I would make an\ninternational matter of it and bring on a war; the soil should be\ndrenched with blood; and not only that, but I would set up an opposition\nshow and sell diplomas at half price.\n\n\nFor two cents I would have done these things, too; but nobody offered me\ntwo cents. I tried to move that German's feelings, but it could not be\ndone; he would not give me his diploma, neither would he sell it to me.\nI TOLD him my friend was sick and could not come himself, but he said\nhe did not care a VERDAMMTES PFENNIG, he wanted his diploma for\nhimself--did I suppose he was going to risk his neck for that thing and\nthen give it to a sick stranger? Indeed he wouldn't, so he wouldn't. I\nresolved, then, that I would do all I could to injure Mont Blanc.\n\nIn the record-book was a list of all the fatal accidents which happened\non the mountain. It began with the one in 1820 when the Russian Dr.\nHamel's three guides were lost in a crevice of the glacier, and it\nrecorded the delivery of the remains in the valley by the slow-moving\nglacier forty-one years later. The latest catastrophe bore the date\n1877.\n\nWe stepped out and roved about the village awhile. In front of the\nlittle church was a monument to the memory of the bold guide Jacques\nBalmat, the first man who ever stood upon the summit of Mont Blanc. He\nmade that wild trip solitary and alone. He accomplished the ascent\na number of times afterward. A stretch of nearly half a century lay\nbetween his first ascent and his last one. At the ripe old age of\nseventy-two he was climbing around a corner of a lofty precipice of the\nPic du Midi--nobody with him--when he slipped and fell. So he died in\nthe harness.\n\nHe had grown very avaricious in his old age, and used to go off\nstealthily to hunt for non-existent and impossible gold among those\nperilous peaks and precipices. He was on a quest of that kind when he\nlost his life. There was a statue to him, and another to De Saussure, in\nthe hall of our hotel, and a metal plate on the door of a room upstairs\nbore an inscription to the effect that that room had been occupied\nby Albert Smith. Balmat and De Saussure discovered Mont Blanc--so to\nspeak--but it was Smith who made it a paying property. His articles in\nBLACKWOOD and his lectures on Mont Blanc in London advertised it and\nmade people as anxious to see it as if it owed them money.\n\nAs we strolled along the road we looked up and saw a red signal-light\nglowing in the darkness of the mountainside. It seemed but a trifling\nway up--perhaps a hundred yards, a climb of ten minutes. It was a lucky\npiece of sagacity in us that we concluded to stop a man whom we met and\nget a light for our pipes from him instead of continuing the climb to\nthat lantern to get a light, as had been our purpose. The man said that\nthat lantern was on the Grands Mulets, some sixty-five hundred feet\nabove the valley! I know by our Riffelberg experience, that it would\nhave taken us a good part of a week to go up there. I would sooner not\nsmoke at all, than take all that trouble for a light.\n\nEven in the daytime the foreshadowing effect of this mountain's close\nproximity creates curious deceptions. For instance, one sees with the\nnaked eye a cabin up there beside the glacier, and a little above and\nbeyond he sees the spot where that red light was located; he thinks he\ncould throw a stone from the one place to the other. But he couldn't,\nfor the difference between the two altitudes is more than three thousand\nfeet. It looks impossible, from below, that this can be true, but it is\ntrue, nevertheless.\n\nWhile strolling around, we kept the run of the moon all the time, and we\nstill kept an eye on her after we got back to the hotel portico. I had\na theory that the gravitation of refraction, being subsidiary to\natmospheric compensation, the refrangibility of the earth's surface\nwould emphasize this effect in regions where great mountain ranges\noccur, and possibly so even-handed impact the odic and idyllic forces\ntogether, the one upon the other, as to prevent the moon from rising\nhigher than 12,200 feet above sea-level. This daring theory had been\nreceived with frantic scorn by some of my fellow-scientists, and with\nan eager silence by others. Among the former I may mention Prof. H----y;\nand among the latter Prof. T----l. Such is professional jealousy; a\nscientist will never show any kindness for a theory which he did not\nstart himself. There is no feeling of brotherhood among these people.\nIndeed, they always resent it when I call them brother. To show how far\ntheir ungenerosity can carry them, I will state that I offered to let\nProf. H----y publish my great theory as his own discovery; I even begged\nhim to do it; I even proposed to print it myself as his theory. Instead\nof thanking me, he said that if I tried to fasten that theory on him he\nwould sue me for slander. I was going to offer it to Mr. Darwin, whom\nI understood to be a man without prejudices, but it occurred to me\nthat perhaps he would not be interested in it since it did not concern\nheraldry.\n\nBut I am glad now, that I was forced to father my intrepid theory\nmyself, for, on the night of which I am writing, it was triumphantly\njustified and established. Mont Blanc is nearly sixteen thousand feet\nhigh; he hid the moon utterly; near him is a peak which is 12,216 feet\nhigh; the moon slid along behind the pinnacles, and when she approached\nthat one I watched her with intense interest, for my reputation as a\nscientist must stand or fall by its decision. I cannot describe the\nemotions which surged like tidal waves through my breast when I saw the\nmoon glide behind that lofty needle and pass it by without exposing more\nthan two feet four inches of her upper rim above it; I was secure, then.\nI knew she could rise no higher, and I was right. She sailed behind all\nthe peaks and never succeeded in hoisting her disk above a single one of\nthem.\n\nWhile the moon was behind one of those sharp fingers, its shadow was\nflung athwart the vacant heavens--a long, slanting, clean-cut, dark\nray--with a streaming and energetic suggestion of FORCE about it, such\nas the ascending jet of water from a powerful fire-engine affords. It\nwas curious to see a good strong shadow of an earthly object cast upon\nso intangible a field as the atmosphere.\n\nWe went to bed, at last, and went quickly to sleep, but I woke up,\nafter about three hours, with throbbing temples, and a head which was\nphysically sore, outside and in. I was dazed, dreamy, wretched, seedy,\nunrefreshed. I recognized the occasion of all this: it was that torrent.\nIn the mountain villages of Switzerland, and along the roads, one has\nalways the roar of the torrent in his ears. He imagines it is music, and\nhe thinks poetic things about it; he lies in his comfortable bed and is\nlulled to sleep by it. But by and by he begins to notice that his\nhead is very sore--he cannot account for it; in solitudes where the\nprofoundest silence reigns, he notices a sullen, distant, continuous\nroar in his ears, which is like what he would experience if he had\nsea-shells pressed against them--he cannot account for it; he is drowsy\nand absent-minded; there is no tenacity to his mind, he cannot keep hold\nof a thought and follow it out; if he sits down to write, his vocabulary\nis empty, no suitable words will come, he forgets what he started to do,\nand remains there, pen in hand, head tilted up, eyes closed, listening\npainfully to the muffled roar of a distant train in his ears; in his\nsoundest sleep the strain continues, he goes on listening, always\nlistening intently, anxiously, and wakes at last, harassed, irritable,\nunrefreshed. He cannot manage to account for these things.\n\n\nDay after day he feels as if he had spent his nights in a sleeping-car.\nIt actually takes him weeks to find out that it is those persecuting\ntorrents that have been making all the mischief. It is time for him\nto get out of Switzerland, then, for as soon as he has discovered the\ncause, the misery is magnified several fold. The roar of the torrent is\nmaddening, then, for his imagination is assisting; the physical pain\nit inflicts is exquisite. When he finds he is approaching one of those\nstreams, his dread is so lively that he is disposed to fly the track and\navoid the implacable foe.\n\n\nEight or nine months after the distress of the torrents had departed\nfrom me, the roar and thunder of the streets of Paris brought it all\nback again. I moved to the sixth story of the hotel to hunt for peace.\nAbout midnight the noises dulled away, and I was sinking to sleep,\nwhen I heard a new and curious sound; I listened: evidently some joyous\nlunatic was softly dancing a \"double shuffle\" in the room over my head.\nI had to wait for him to get through, of course. Five long, long minutes\nhe smoothly shuffled away--a pause followed, then something fell with\na thump on the floor. I said to myself \"There--he is pulling off his\nboots--thank heavens he is done.\" Another slight pause--he went to\nshuffling again! I said to myself, \"Is he trying to see what he can do\nwith only one boot on?\" Presently came another pause and another thump\non the floor. I said \"Good, he has pulled off his other boot--NOW he is\ndone.\" But he wasn't. The next moment he was shuffling again. I said,\n\"Confound him, he is at it in his slippers!\" After a little came that\nsame old pause, and right after it that thump on the floor once more. I\nsaid, \"Hang him, he had on TWO pair of boots!\" For an hour that magician\nwent on shuffling and pulling off boots till he had shed as many as\ntwenty-five pair, and I was hovering on the verge of lunacy. I got\nmy gun and stole up there. The fellow was in the midst of an acre of\nsprawling boots, and he had a boot in his hand, shuffling it--no, I mean\nPOLISHING it. The mystery was explained. He hadn't been dancing. He was\nthe \"Boots\" of the hotel, and was attending to business.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIX\n\n[I Scale Mont Blanc--by Telescope]\n\n\nAfter breakfast, that next morning in Chamonix, we went out in the yard\nand watched the gangs of excursioning tourists arriving and departing\nwith their mules and guides and porters; then we took a look through\nthe telescope at the snowy hump of Mont Blanc. It was brilliant with\nsunshine, and the vast smooth bulge seemed hardly five hundred yards\naway. With the naked eye we could dimly make out the house at the Pierre\nPointue, which is located by the side of the great glacier, and is more\nthan three thousand feet above the level of the valley; but with the\ntelescope we could see all its details. While I looked, a woman rode by\nthe house on a mule, and I saw her with sharp distinctness; I could have\ndescribed her dress. I saw her nod to the people of the house, and rein\nup her mule, and put her hand up to shield her eyes from the sun. I was\nnot used to telescopes; in fact, I had never looked through a good one\nbefore; it seemed incredible to me that this woman could be so far away.\nI was satisfied that I could see all these details with my naked\neye; but when I tried it, that mule and those vivid people had wholly\nvanished, and the house itself was become small and vague. I tried\nthe telescope again, and again everything was vivid. The strong black\nshadows of the mule and the woman were flung against the side of the\nhouse, and I saw the mule's silhouette wave its ears.\n\nThe telescopulist--or the telescopulariat--I do not know which is\nright--said a party were making a grand ascent, and would come in sight\non the remote upper heights, presently; so we waited to observe this\nperformance. Presently I had a superb idea. I wanted to stand with a\nparty on the summit of Mont Blanc, merely to be able to say I had done\nit, and I believed the telescope could set me within seven feet of the\nuppermost man. The telescoper assured me that it could. I then asked him\nhow much I owed him for as far as I had got? He said, one franc. I asked\nhim how much it would cost to make the entire ascent? Three francs. I at\nonce determined to make the entire ascent. But first I inquired if there\nwas any danger? He said no--not by telescope; said he had taken a great\nmany parties to the summit, and never lost a man. I asked what he would\ncharge to let my agent go with me, together with such guides and porters\nas might be necessary. He said he would let Harris go for two francs;\nand that unless we were unusually timid, he should consider guides and\nporters unnecessary; it was not customary to take them, when going by\ntelescope, for they were rather an encumbrance than a help. He said that\nthe party now on the mountain were approaching the most difficult part,\nand if we hurried we should overtake them within ten minutes, and could\nthen join them and have the benefit of their guides and porters without\ntheir knowledge, and without expense to us.\n\n\nI then said we would start immediately. I believe I said it calmly,\nthough I was conscious of a shudder and of a paling cheek, in view of\nthe nature of the exploit I was so unreflectingly engaged in. But the\nold daredevil spirit was upon me, and I said that as I had committed\nmyself I would not back down; I would ascend Mont Blanc if it cost me\nmy life. I told the man to slant his machine in the proper direction and\nlet us be off.\n\nHarris was afraid and did not want to go, but I heartened him up and\nsaid I would hold his hand all the way; so he gave his consent, though\nhe trembled a little at first. I took a last pathetic look upon the\npleasant summer scene about me, then boldly put my eye to the glass and\nprepared to mount among the grim glaciers and the everlasting snows.\n\nWe took our way carefully and cautiously across the great Glacier des\nBossons, over yawning and terrific crevices and among imposing crags\nand buttresses of ice which were fringed with icicles of gigantic\nproportions. The desert of ice that stretched far and wide about us was\nwild and desolate beyond description, and the perils which beset us were\nso great that at times I was minded to turn back. But I pulled my pluck\ntogether and pushed on.\n\nWe passed the glacier safely and began to mount the steeps beyond, with\ngreat alacrity. When we were seven minutes out from the starting-point,\nwe reached an altitude where the scene took a new aspect; an apparently\nlimitless continent of gleaming snow was tilted heavenward before our\nfaces. As my eye followed that awful acclivity far away up into the\nremote skies, it seemed to me that all I had ever seen before of\nsublimity and magnitude was small and insignificant compared to this.\n\n\nWe rested a moment, and then began to mount with speed. Within three\nminutes we caught sight of the party ahead of us, and stopped to observe\nthem. They were toiling up a long, slanting ridge of snow--twelve\npersons, roped together some fifteen feet apart, marching in single\nfile, and strongly marked against the clear blue sky. One was a woman.\nWe could see them lift their feet and put them down; we saw them swing\ntheir alpenstocks forward in unison, like so many pendulums, and then\nbear their weight upon them; we saw the lady wave her handkerchief. They\ndragged themselves upward in a worn and weary way, for they had been\nclimbing steadily from the Grand Mulets, on the Glacier des Bossons,\nsince three in the morning, and it was eleven, now. We saw them sink\ndown in the snow and rest, and drink something from a bottle. After a\nwhile they moved on, and as they approached the final short dash of the\nhome-stretch we closed up on them and joined them.\n\nPresently we all stood together on the summit! What a view was spread\nout below! Away off under the northwestern horizon rolled the silent\nbillows of the Farnese Oberland, their snowy crests glinting softly in\nthe subdued lights of distance; in the north rose the giant form of the\nWobblehorn, draped from peak to shoulder in sable thunder-clouds; beyond\nhim, to the right, stretched the grand processional summits of the\nCisalpine Cordillera, drowned in a sensuous haze; to the east loomed the\ncolossal masses of the Yodelhorn, the Fuddelhorn, and the Dinnerhorn,\ntheir cloudless summits flashing white and cold in the sun; beyond\nthem shimmered the faint far line of the Ghauts of Jubbelpore and the\nAiguilles des Alleghenies; in the south towered the smoking peak\nof Popocatapetl and the unapproachable altitudes of the peerless\nScrabblehorn; in the west-south the stately range of the Himalayas lay\ndreaming in a purple gloom; and thence all around the curving horizon\nthe eye roved over a troubled sea of sun-kissed Alps, and noted,\nhere and there, the noble proportions and the soaring domes of the\nBottlehorn, and the Saddlehorn, and the Shovelhorn, and the Powderhorn,\nall bathed in the glory of noon and mottled with softly gliding blots,\nthe shadows flung from drifting clouds.\n\nOvercome by the scene, we all raised a triumphant, tremendous shout, in\nunison. A startled man at my elbow said:\n\n\"Confound you, what do you yell like that for, right here in the\nstreet?\"\n\n\nThat brought me down to Chamonix, like a flirt. I gave that man some\nspiritual advice and disposed of him, and then paid the telescope man\nhis full fee, and said that we were charmed with the trip and would\nremain down, and not reascend and require him to fetch us down by\ntelescope. This pleased him very much, for of course we could have\nstepped back to the summit and put him to the trouble of bringing us\nhome if we wanted to.\n\nI judged we could get diplomas, now, anyhow; so we went after them, but\nthe Chief Guide put us off, with one pretext or another, during all the\ntime we stayed in Chamonix, and we ended by never getting them at all.\nSo much for his prejudice against people's nationality. However, we\nworried him enough to make him remember us and our ascent for some\ntime. He even said, once, that he wished there was a lunatic asylum\nin Chamonix. This shows that he really had fears that we were going to\ndrive him mad. It was what we intended to do, but lack of time defeated\nit.\n\nI cannot venture to advise the reader one way or the other, as to\nascending Mont Blanc. I say only this: if he is at all timid, the\nenjoyments of the trip will hardly make up for the hardships and\nsufferings he will have to endure. But, if he has good nerve, youth,\nhealth, and a bold, firm will, and could leave his family comfortably\nprovided for in case the worst happened, he would find the ascent a\nwonderful experience, and the view from the top a vision to dream about,\nand tell about, and recall with exultation all the days of his life.\n\nWhile I do not advise such a person to attempt the ascent, I do not\nadvise him against it. But if he elects to attempt it, let him be warily\ncareful of two things: chose a calm, clear day; and do not pay the\ntelescope man in advance. There are dark stories of his getting advance\npayers on the summit and then leaving them there to rot.\n\nA frightful tragedy was once witnessed through the Chamonix telescopes.\nThink of questions and answers like these, on an inquest:\n\nCORONER. You saw deceased lose his life?\n\nWITNESS. I did.\n\nC. Where was he, at the time?\n\nW. Close to the summit of Mont Blanc.\n\nC. Where were you?\n\nW. In the main street of Chamonix.\n\nC. What was the distance between you?\n\nW. A LITTLE OVER FIVE MILES, as the bird flies.\n\nThis accident occurred in 1866, a year and a month after the disaster\non the Matterhorn. Three adventurous English gentlemen, [1] of great\nexperience in mountain-climbing, made up their minds to ascend Mont\nBlanc without guides or porters. All endeavors to dissuade them from\ntheir project failed. Powerful telescopes are numerous in Chamonix.\nThese huge brass tubes, mounted on their scaffoldings and pointed\nskyward from every choice vantage-ground, have the formidable look of\nartillery, and give the town the general aspect of getting ready\nto repel a charge of angels. The reader may easily believe that the\ntelescopes had plenty of custom on that August morning in 1866, for\neverybody knew of the dangerous undertaking which was on foot, and\nall had fears that misfortune would result. All the morning the tubes\nremained directed toward the mountain heights, each with its anxious\ngroup around it; but the white deserts were vacant.\n\n1. Sir George Young and his brothers James and Albert.\n\nAt last, toward eleven o'clock, the people who were looking through the\ntelescopes cried out \"There they are!\"--and sure enough, far up, on\nthe loftiest terraces of the Grand Plateau, the three pygmies appeared,\nclimbing with remarkable vigor and spirit. They disappeared in the\n\"Corridor,\" and were lost to sight during an hour. Then they reappeared,\nand were presently seen standing together upon the extreme summit\nof Mont Blanc. So, all was well. They remained a few minutes on that\nhighest point of land in Europe, a target for all the telescopes, and\nwere then seen to begin descent. Suddenly all three vanished. An instant\nafter, they appeared again, TWO THOUSAND FEET BELOW!\n\nEvidently, they had tripped and been shot down an almost perpendicular\nslope of ice to a point where it joined the border of the upper glacier.\nNaturally, the distant witness supposed they were now looking upon three\ncorpses; so they could hardly believe their eyes when they presently saw\ntwo of the men rise to their feet and bend over the third. During\ntwo hours and a half they watched the two busying themselves over the\nextended form of their brother, who seemed entirely inert. Chamonix's\naffairs stood still; everybody was in the street, all interest was\ncentered upon what was going on upon that lofty and isolated stage\nfive miles away. Finally the two--one of them walking with great\ndifficulty--were seen to begin descent, abandoning the third, who was no\ndoubt lifeless. Their movements were followed, step by step, until they\nreached the \"Corridor\" and disappeared behind its ridge. Before they had\nhad time to traverse the \"Corridor\" and reappear, twilight was come, and\nthe power of the telescope was at an end.\n\nThe survivors had a most perilous journey before them in the gathering\ndarkness, for they must get down to the Grands Mulets before they would\nfind a safe stopping-place--a long and tedious descent, and perilous\nenough even in good daylight. The oldest guides expressed the opinion\nthat they could not succeed; that all the chances were that they would\nlose their lives.\n\n\nYet those brave men did succeed. They reached the Grands Mulets in\nsafety. Even the fearful shock which their nerves had sustained was not\nsufficient to overcome their coolness and courage. It would appear from\nthe official account that they were threading their way down through\nthose dangers from the closing in of twilight until two o'clock in the\nmorning, or later, because the rescuing party from Chamonix reached\nthe Grand Mulets about three in the morning and moved thence toward the\nscene of the disaster under the leadership of Sir George Young, \"who had\nonly just arrived.\"\n\nAfter having been on his feet twenty-four hours, in the exhausting work\nof mountain-climbing, Sir George began the reascent at the head of the\nrelief party of six guides, to recover the corpse of his brother. This\nwas considered a new imprudence, as the number was too few for the\nservice required. Another relief party presently arrived at the cabin\non the Grands Mulets and quartered themselves there to await events. Ten\nhours after Sir George's departure toward the summit, this new relief\nwere still scanning the snowy altitudes above them from their own high\nperch among the ice deserts ten thousand feet above the level of the\nsea, but the whole forenoon had passed without a glimpse of any living\nthing appearing up there.\n\nThis was alarming. Half a dozen of their number set out, then early in\nthe afternoon, to seek and succor Sir George and his guides. The persons\nremaining at the cabin saw these disappear, and then ensued another\ndistressing wait. Four hours passed, without tidings. Then at five\no'clock another relief, consisting of three guides, set forward from\nthe cabin. They carried food and cordials for the refreshment of their\npredecessors; they took lanterns with them, too; night was coming on,\nand to make matters worse, a fine, cold rain had begun to fall.\n\nAt the same hour that these three began their dangerous ascent, the\nofficial Guide-in-Chief of the Mont Blanc region undertook the dangerous\ndescent to Chamonix, all alone, to get reinforcements. However, a couple\nof hours later, at 7 P.M., the anxious solicitude came to an end, and\nhappily. A bugle note was heard, and a cluster of black specks was\ndistinguishable against the snows of the upper heights. The watchers\ncounted these specks eagerly--fourteen--nobody was missing. An hour and\na half later they were all safe under the roof of the cabin. They had\nbrought the corpse with them. Sir George Young tarried there but a few\nminutes, and then began the long and troublesome descent from the cabin\nto Chamonix. He probably reached there about two or three o'clock in the\nmorning, after having been afoot among the rocks and glaciers during two\ndays and two nights. His endurance was equal to his daring.\n\n\nThe cause of the unaccountable delay of Sir George and the relief\nparties among the heights where the disaster had happened was a thick\nfog--or, partly that and partly the slow and difficult work of conveying\nthe dead body down the perilous steeps.\n\nThe corpse, upon being viewed at the inquest, showed no bruises, and it\nwas some time before the surgeons discovered that the neck was broken.\nOne of the surviving brothers had sustained some unimportant injuries,\nbut the other had suffered no hurt at all. How these men could fall two\nthousand feet, almost perpendicularly, and live afterward, is a most\nstrange and unaccountable thing.\n\nA great many women have made the ascent of Mont Blanc. An English girl,\nMiss Stratton, conceived the daring idea, two or three years ago, of\nattempting the ascent in the middle of winter. She tried it--and she\nsucceeded. Moreover, she froze two of her fingers on the way up, she\nfell in love with her guide on the summit, and she married him when she\ngot to the bottom again. There is nothing in romance, in the way of a\nstriking \"situation,\" which can beat this love scene in midheaven on\nan isolated ice-crest with the thermometer at zero and an Artic gale\nblowing.\n\n\nThe first woman who ascended Mont Blanc was a girl aged\ntwenty-two--Mlle. Maria Paradis--1809. Nobody was with her but her\nsweetheart, and he was not a guide. The sex then took a rest for about\nthirty years, when a Mlle. d'Angeville made the ascent --1838. In\nChamonix I picked up a rude old lithograph of that day which pictured\nher \"in the act.\"\n\nHowever, I value it less as a work of art than as a fashion-plate. Miss\nd'Angeville put on a pair of men's pantaloons to climb it, which was\nwise; but she cramped their utility by adding her petticoat, which was\nidiotic.\n\nOne of the mournfulest calamities which men's disposition to climb\ndangerous mountains has resulted in, happened on Mont Blanc in September\n1870. M. D'Arve tells the story briefly in his HISTOIRE DU MONT BLANC.\nIn the next chapter I will copy its chief features.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLV\n\nA Catastrophe Which Cost Eleven Lives\n\n\nOn the 5th of September, 1870, a caravan of eleven persons departed\nfrom Chamonix to make the ascent of Mont Blanc. Three of the party\nwere tourists; Messrs. Randall and Bean, Americans, and Mr. George\nCorkindale, a Scotch gentleman; there were three guides and five\nporters. The cabin on the Grands Mulets was reached that day; the ascent\nwas resumed early the next morning, September 6th. The day was fine\nand clear, and the movements of the party were observed through the\ntelescopes of Chamonix; at two o'clock in the afternoon they were seen\nto reach the summit. A few minutes later they were seen making the first\nsteps of the descent; then a cloud closed around them and hid them from\nview.\n\nEight hours passed, the cloud still remained, night came, no one had\nreturned to the Grands Mulets. Sylvain Couttet, keeper of the cabin\nthere, suspected a misfortune, and sent down to the valley for help. A\ndetachment of guides went up, but by the time they had made the tedious\ntrip and reached the cabin, a raging storm had set in. They had to wait;\nnothing could be attempted in such a tempest.\n\nThe wild storm lasted MORE THAN A WEEK, without ceasing; but on the\n17th, Couttet, with several guides, left the cabin and succeeded in\nmaking the ascent. In the snowy wastes near the summit they came upon\nfive bodies, lying upon their sides in a reposeful attitude which\nsuggested that possibly they had fallen asleep there, while exhausted\nwith fatigue and hunger and benumbed with cold, and never knew when\ndeath stole upon them. Couttet moved a few steps further and discovered\nfive more bodies. The eleventh corpse--that of a porter--was not found,\nalthough diligent search was made for it.\n\nIn the pocket of Mr. Bean, one of the Americans, was found a note-book\nin which had been penciled some sentences which admit us, in flesh and\nspirit, as it were, to the presence of these men during their last hours\nof life, and to the grisly horrors which their fading vision looked upon\nand their failing consciousness took cognizance of:\n TUESDAY, SEPT. 6. I have made the ascent of Mont Blanc, with ten\npersons--eight guides, and Mr. Corkindale and Mr. Randall. We reached\nthe summit at half past 2. Immediately after quitting it, we were\nenveloped in clouds of snow. We passed the night in a grotto hollowed in\nthe snow, which afforded us but poor shelter, and I was ill all night.\n\nSEPT. 7--MORNING. The cold is excessive. The snow falls heavily and\nwithout interruption. The guides take no rest.\n\nEVENING. My Dear Hessie, we have been two days on Mont Blanc, in the\nmidst of a terrible hurricane of snow, we have lost our way, and are\nin a hole scooped in the snow, at an altitude of 15,000 feet. I have no\nlonger any hope of descending.\n\nThey had wandered around, and around, in the blinding snow-storm,\nhopelessly lost, in a space only a hundred yards square; and when cold\nand fatigue vanquished them at last, they scooped their cave and lay\ndown there to die by inches, UNAWARE THAT FIVE STEPS MORE WOULD HAVE\nBROUGHT THEM INTO THE TRUTH PATH. They were so near to life and safety\nas that, and did not suspect it. The thought of this gives the sharpest\npang that the tragic story conveys.\n\nThe author of the HISTOIRE DU MONT BLANC introduced the closing\nsentences of Mr. Bean's pathetic record thus:\n\n\"Here the characters are large and unsteady; the hand which traces them\nis become chilled and torpid; but the spirit survives, and the faith and\nresignation of the dying man are expressed with a sublime simplicity.\"\n\nPerhaps this note-book will be found and sent to you. We have nothing to\neat, my feet are already frozen, and I am exhausted; I have strength to\nwrite only a few words more. I have left means for C's education; I know\nyou will employ them wisely. I die with faith in God, and with loving\nthoughts of you. Farewell to all. We shall meet again, in Heaven. ... I\nthink of you always.\n\nIt is the way of the Alps to deliver death to their victims with a\nmerciful swiftness, but here the rule failed. These men suffered\nthe bitterest death that has been recorded in the history of those\nmountains, freighted as that history is with grisly tragedies.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVI\n\n[Meeting a Hog on a Precipice]\n\n\nMr. Harris and I took some guides and porters and ascended to the Hotel\ndes Pyramides, which is perched on the high moraine which borders the\nGlacier des Bossons. The road led sharply uphill, all the way, through\ngrass and flowers and woods, and was a pleasant walk, barring the\nfatigue of the climb.\n\nFrom the hotel we could view the huge glacier at very close range. After\na rest we followed down a path which had been made in the steep inner\nfrontage of the moraine, and stepped upon the glacier itself. One of the\nshows of the place was a tunnel-like cavern, which had been hewn in the\nglacier. The proprietor of this tunnel took candles and conducted us\ninto it. It was three or four feet wide and about six feet high. Its\nwalls of pure and solid ice emitted a soft and rich blue light that\nproduced a lovely effect, and suggested enchanted caves, and that sort\nof thing. When we had proceeded some yards and were entering darkness,\nwe turned about and had a dainty sunlit picture of distant woods and\nheights framed in the strong arch of the tunnel and seen through the\ntender blue radiance of the tunnel's atmosphere.\n\nThe cavern was nearly a hundred yards long, and when we reached its\ninner limit the proprietor stepped into a branch tunnel with his candles\nand left us buried in the bowels of the glacier, and in pitch-darkness.\nWe judged his purpose was murder and robbery; so we got out our matches\nand prepared to sell our lives as dearly as possible by setting the\nglacier on fire if the worst came to the worst--but we soon perceived\nthat this man had changed his mind; he began to sing, in a deep,\nmelodious voice, and woke some curious and pleasing echoes. By and by he\ncame back and pretended that that was what he had gone behind there for.\nWe believed as much of that as we wanted to.\n\nThus our lives had been once more in imminent peril, but by the exercise\nof the swift sagacity and cool courage which had saved us so often, we\nhad added another escape to the long list. The tourist should visit that\nice-cavern, by all means, for it is well worth the trouble; but I would\nadvise him to go only with a strong and well-armed force. I do not\nconsider artillery necessary, yet it would not be unadvisable to take\nit along, if convenient. The journey, going and coming, is about three\nmiles and a half, three of which are on level ground. We made it in\nless than a day, but I would counsel the unpracticed--if not pressed\nfor time--to allow themselves two. Nothing is gained in the Alps by\nover-exertion; nothing is gained by crowding two days' work into one for\nthe poor sake of being able to boast of the exploit afterward. It will\nbe found much better, in the long run, to do the thing in two days, and\nthen subtract one of them from the narrative. This saves fatigue, and\ndoes not injure the narrative. All the more thoughtful among the Alpine\ntourists do this.\n\n\nWe now called upon the Guide-in-Chief, and asked for a squadron of\nguides and porters for the ascent of the Montanvert. This idiot glared\nat us, and said:\n\n\"You don't need guides and porters to go to the Montanvert.\"\n\n\"What do we need, then?\"\n\n\"Such as YOU?--an ambulance!\"\n\nI was so stung by this brutal remark that I took my custom elsewhere.\n\nBetimes, next morning, we had reached an altitude of five thousand feet\nabove the level of the sea. Here we camped and breakfasted. There was\na cabin there--the spot is called the Caillet--and a spring of ice-cold\nwater. On the door of the cabin was a sign, in French, to the effect\nthat \"One may here see a living chamois for fifty centimes.\" We did not\ninvest; what we wanted was to see a dead one.\n\nA little after noon we ended the ascent and arrived at the new hotel on\nthe Montanvert, and had a view of six miles, right up the great glacier,\nthe famous Mer de Glace. At this point it is like a sea whose deep\nswales and long, rolling swells have been caught in mid-movement and\nfrozen solid; but further up it is broken up into wildly tossing billows\nof ice.\n\n\nWe descended a ticklish path in the steep side of the moraine, and\ninvaded the glacier. There were tourists of both sexes scattered far and\nwide over it, everywhere, and it had the festive look of a skating-rink.\n\nThe Empress Josephine came this far, once. She ascended the Montanvert\nin 1810--but not alone; a small army of men preceded her to clear the\npath--and carpet it, perhaps--and she followed, under the protection of\nSIXTY-EIGHT guides.\n\nHer successor visited Chamonix later, but in far different style.\n\nIt was seven weeks after the first fall of the Empire, and poor Marie\nLouise, ex-Empress was a fugitive. She came at night, and in a storm,\nwith only two attendants, and stood before a peasant's hut, tired,\nbedraggled, soaked with rain, \"the red print of her lost crown still\ngirdling her brow,\" and implored admittance--and was refused! A few days\nbefore, the adulations and applauses of a nation were sounding in her\nears, and now she was come to this!\n\nWe crossed the Mer de Glace in safety, but we had misgivings. The\ncrevices in the ice yawned deep and blue and mysterious, and it made one\nnervous to traverse them. The huge round waves of ice were slippery and\ndifficult to climb, and the chances of tripping and sliding down them\nand darting into a crevice were too many to be comfortable.\n\nIn the bottom of a deep swale between two of the biggest of the\nice-waves, we found a fraud who pretended to be cutting steps to insure\nthe safety of tourists. He was \"soldiering\" when we came upon him, but\nhe hopped up and chipped out a couple of steps about big enough for a\ncat, and charged us a franc or two for it. Then he sat down again, to\ndoze till the next party should come along.\n\n\nHe had collected blackmail from two or three hundred people already,\nthat day, but had not chipped out ice enough to impair the glacier\nperceptibly. I have heard of a good many soft sinecures, but it seems\nto me that keeping toll-bridge on a glacier is the softest one I have\nencountered yet.\n\nThat was a blazing hot day, and it brought a persistent and persecuting\nthirst with it. What an unspeakable luxury it was to slake that thirst\nwith the pure and limpid ice-water of the glacier! Down the sides of\nevery great rib of pure ice poured limpid rills in gutters carved by\ntheir own attrition; better still, wherever a rock had lain, there was\nnow a bowl-shaped hole, with smooth white sides and bottom of ice, and\nthis bowl was brimming with water of such absolute clearness that the\ncareless observer would not see it at all, but would think the bowl was\nempty. These fountains had such an alluring look that I often stretched\nmyself out when I was not thirsty and dipped my face in and drank till\nmy teeth ached. Everywhere among the Swiss mountains we had at hand the\nblessing--not to be found in Europe EXCEPT in the mountains--of water\ncapable of quenching thirst. Everywhere in the Swiss highlands brilliant\nlittle rills of exquisitely cold water went dancing along by the\nroadsides, and my comrade and I were always drinking and always\ndelivering our deep gratitude.\n\nBut in Europe everywhere except in the mountains, the water is flat and\ninsipid beyond the power of words to describe. It is served lukewarm;\nbut no matter, ice could not help it; it is incurably flat, incurably\ninsipid. It is only good to wash with; I wonder it doesn't occur to\nthe average inhabitant to try it for that. In Europe the people say\ncontemptuously, \"Nobody drinks water here.\" Indeed, they have a sound\nand sufficient reason. In many places they even have what may be called\nprohibitory reasons. In Paris and Munich, for instance, they say, \"Don't\ndrink the water, it is simply poison.\"\n\nEither America is healthier than Europe, notwithstanding her \"deadly\"\nindulgence in ice-water, or she does not keep the run of her death-rate\nas sharply as Europe does. I think we do keep up the death statistics\naccurately; and if we do, our cities are healthier than the cities of\nEurope. Every month the German government tabulates the death-rate of\nthe world and publishes it. I scrap-booked these reports during several\nmonths, and it was curious to see how regular and persistently each city\nrepeated its same death-rate month after month. The tables might as well\nhave been stereotyped, they varied so little. These tables were\nbased upon weekly reports showing the average of deaths in each 1,000\npopulation for a year. Munich was always present with her 33 deaths in\neach 1,000 of her population (yearly average), Chicago was as constant\nwith her 15 or 17, Dublin with her 48--and so on.\n\nOnly a few American cities appear in these tables, but they are\nscattered so widely over the country that they furnish a good general\naverage of CITY health in the United States; and I think it will be\ngranted that our towns and villages are healthier than our cities.\n\nHere is the average of the only American cities reported in the German\ntables:\n\nChicago, deaths in 1,000 population annually, 16; Philadelphia, 18; St.\nLouis, 18; San Francisco, 19; New York (the Dublin of America), 23.\n\nSee how the figures jump up, as soon as one arrives at the transatlantic\nlist:\n\nParis, 27; Glasgow, 27; London, 28; Vienna, 28; Augsburg, 28;\nBraunschweig, 28; K\u00f6nigsberg, 29; Cologne, 29; Dresden, 29; Hamburg, 29;\nBerlin, 30; Bombay, 30; Warsaw, 31; Breslau, 31; Odessa, 32; Munich, 33;\nStrasburg, 33, Pesth, 35; Cassel, 35; Lisbon, 36; Liverpool, 36;\nPrague, 37; Madras, 37; Bucharest, 39; St. Petersburg, 40; Trieste, 40;\nAlexandria (Egypt), 43; Dublin, 48; Calcutta, 55.\n\nEdinburgh is as healthy as New York--23; but there is no CITY in the\nentire list which is healthier, except Frankfort-on-the-Main--20. But\nFrankfort is not as healthy as Chicago, San Francisco, St. Louis, or\nPhiladelphia.\n\nPerhaps a strict average of the world might develop the fact that where\none in 1,000 of America's population dies, two in 1,000 of the other\npopulations of the earth succumb.\n\nI do not like to make insinuations, but I do think the above statistics\ndarkly suggest that these people over here drink this detestable water\n\"on the sly.\"\n\nWe climbed the moraine on the opposite side of the glacier, and then\ncrept along its sharp ridge a hundred yards or so, in pretty constant\ndanger of a tumble to the glacier below. The fall would have been only\none hundred feet, but it would have closed me out as effectually as one\nthousand, therefore I respected the distance accordingly, and was\nglad when the trip was done. A moraine is an ugly thing to assault\nhead-first. At a distance it looks like an endless grave of fine sand,\naccurately shaped and nicely smoothed; but close by, it is found to be\nmade mainly of rough boulders of all sizes, from that of a man's head to\nthat of a cottage.\n\nBy and by we came to the Mauvais Pas, or the Villainous Road, to\ntranslate it feelingly. It was a breakneck path around the face of a\nprecipice forty or fifty feet high, and nothing to hang on to but some\niron railings. I got along, slowly, safely, and uncomfortably, and\nfinally reached the middle. My hopes began to rise a little, but they\nwere quickly blighted; for there I met a hog--a long-nosed, bristly\nfellow, that held up his snout and worked his nostrils at me\ninquiringly. A hog on a pleasure excursion in Switzerland--think of it!\nIt is striking and unusual; a body might write a poem about it. He\ncould not retreat, if he had been disposed to do it. It would have been\nfoolish to stand upon our dignity in a place where there was hardly room\nto stand upon our feet, so we did nothing of the sort. There were twenty\nor thirty ladies and gentlemen behind us; we all turned about and went\nback, and the hog followed behind. The creature did not seem set up by\nwhat he had done; he had probably done it before.\n\n\nWe reached the restaurant on the height called the Chapeau at four in\nthe afternoon. It was a memento-factory, and the stock was large, cheap,\nand varied. I bought the usual paper-cutter to remember the place by,\nand had Mont Blanc, the Mauvais Pas, and the rest of the region branded\non my alpenstock; then we descended to the valley and walked home\nwithout being tied together. This was not dangerous, for the valley was\nfive miles wide, and quite level.\n\nWe reached the hotel before nine o'clock. Next morning we left for\nGeneva on top of the diligence, under shelter of a gay awning. If I\nremember rightly, there were more than twenty people up there. It was\nso high that the ascent was made by ladder. The huge vehicle was full\neverywhere, inside and out. Five other diligences left at the same time,\nall full. We had engaged our seats two days beforehand, to make sure,\nand paid the regulation price, five dollars each; but the rest of the\ncompany were wiser; they had trusted Baedeker, and waited; consequently\nsome of them got their seats for one or two dollars. Baedeker knows\nall about hotels, railway and diligence companies, and speaks his mind\nfreely. He is a trustworthy friend of the traveler.\n\n\nWe never saw Mont Blanc at his best until we were many miles away; then\nhe lifted his majestic proportions high into the heavens, all white\nand cold and solemn, and made the rest of the world seem little and\nplebeian, and cheap and trivial.\n\nAs he passed out of sight at last, an old Englishman settled himself in\nhis seat and said:\n\n\"Well, I am satisfied, I have seen the principal features of Swiss\nscenery--Mont Blanc and the goiter--now for home!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVII\n\n[Queer European Manners]\n\n\nWe spent a few pleasant restful days at Geneva, that delightful city\nwhere accurate time-pieces are made for all the rest of the world, but\nwhose own clocks never give the correct time of day by any accident.\n\nGeneva is filled with pretty shops, and the shops are filled with the\nmost enticing gimcrackery, but if one enters one of these places he is\nat once pounced upon, and followed up, and so persecuted to buy this,\nthat, and the other thing, that he is very grateful to get out again,\nand is not at all apt to repeat his experiment. The shopkeepers of the\nsmaller sort, in Geneva, are as troublesome and persistent as are\nthe salesmen of that monster hive in Paris, the Grands Magasins du\nLouvre--an establishment where ill-mannered pestering, pursuing, and\ninsistence have been reduced to a science.\n\nIn Geneva, prices in the smaller shops are very elastic--that is another\nbad feature. I was looking in at a window at a very pretty string of\nbeads, suitable for a child. I was only admiring them; I had no use for\nthem; I hardly ever wear beads. The shopwoman came out and offered them\nto me for thirty-five francs. I said it was cheap, but I did not need\nthem.\n\n\"Ah, but monsieur, they are so beautiful!\"\n\nI confessed it, but said they were not suitable for one of my age and\nsimplicity of character. She darted in and brought them out and tried to\nforce them into my hands, saying:\n\n\"Ah, but only see how lovely they are! Surely monsieur will take them;\nmonsieur shall have them for thirty francs. There, I have said it--it is\na loss, but one must live.\"\n\nI dropped my hands, and tried to move her to respect my unprotected\nsituation. But no, she dangled the beads in the sun before my face,\nexclaiming, \"Ah, monsieur CANNOT resist them!\" She hung them on my coat\nbutton, folded her hand resignedly, and said: \"Gone,--and for thirty\nfrancs, the lovely things--it is incredible!--but the good God will\nsanctify the sacrifice to me.\"\n\nI removed them gently, returned them, and walked away, shaking my head\nand smiling a smile of silly embarrassment while the passers-by halted\nto observe. The woman leaned out of her door, shook the beads, and\nscreamed after me:\n\n\"Monsieur shall have them for twenty-eight!\"\n\nI shook my head.\n\n\"Twenty-seven! It is a cruel loss, it is ruin--but take them, only take\nthem.\"\n\nI still retreated, still wagging my head.\n\n\"MON DIEU, they shall even go for twenty-six! There, I have said it.\nCome!\"\n\nI wagged another negative. A nurse and a little English girl had been\nnear me, and were following me, now. The shopwoman ran to the nurse,\nthrust the beads into her hands, and said:\n\n\"Monsieur shall have them for twenty-five! Take them to the hotel--he\nshall send me the money tomorrow--next day--when he likes.\" Then to the\nchild: \"When thy father sends me the money, come thou also, my angel,\nand thou shall have something oh so pretty!\"\n\n\nI was thus providentially saved. The nurse refused the beads squarely\nand firmly, and that ended the matter.\n\nThe \"sights\" of Geneva are not numerous. I made one attempt to hunt up\nthe houses once inhabited by those two disagreeable people, Rousseau and\nCalvin, but I had no success. Then I concluded to go home. I found\nit was easier to propose to do that than to do it; for that town is a\nbewildering place. I got lost in a tangle of narrow and crooked streets,\nand stayed lost for an hour or two. Finally I found a street which\nlooked somewhat familiar, and said to myself, \"Now I am at home, I\njudge.\" But I was wrong; this was \"HELL street.\" Presently I found\nanother place which had a familiar look, and said to myself, \"Now I am\nat home, sure.\" It was another error. This was \"PURGATORY street.\" After\na little I said, \"NOW I've got the right place, anyway ... no, this is\n'PARADISE street'; I'm further from home than I was in the beginning.\"\nThose were queer names--Calvin was the author of them, likely.\n\"Hell\" and \"Purgatory\" fitted those two streets like a glove, but the\n\"Paradise\" appeared to be sarcastic.\n\nI came out on the lake-front, at last, and then I knew where I was.\nI was walking along before the glittering jewelry shops when I saw a\ncurious performance. A lady passed by, and a trim dandy lounged across\nthe walk in such an apparently carefully timed way as to bring himself\nexactly in front of her when she got to him; he made no offer to step\nout of the way; he did not apologize; he did not even notice her. She\nhad to stop still and let him lounge by. I wondered if he had done that\npiece of brutality purposely. He strolled to a chair and seated himself\nat a small table; two or three other males were sitting at similar\ntables sipping sweetened water. I waited; presently a youth came by, and\nthis fellow got up and served him the same trick. Still, it did not seem\npossible that any one could do such a thing deliberately. To satisfy my\ncuriosity I went around the block, and, sure enough, as I approached, at\na good round speed, he got up and lounged lazily across my path, fouling\nmy course exactly at the right moment to receive all my weight. This\nproved that his previous performances had not been accidental, but\nintentional.\n\n\nI saw that dandy's curious game played afterward, in Paris, but not\nfor amusement; not with a motive of any sort, indeed, but simply from a\nselfish indifference to other people's comfort and rights. One does not\nsee it as frequently in Paris as he might expect to, for there the law\nsays, in effect, \"It is the business of the weak to get out of the way\nof the strong.\" We fine a cabman if he runs over a citizen; Paris fines\nthe citizen for being run over. At least so everybody says--but I saw\nsomething which caused me to doubt; I saw a horseman run over an old\nwoman one day--the police arrested him and took him away. That looked as\nif they meant to punish him.\n\nIt will not do for me to find merit in American manners--for are they\nnot the standing butt for the jests of critical and polished Europe?\nStill, I must venture to claim one little matter of superiority in our\nmanners; a lady may traverse our streets all day, going and coming as\nshe chooses, and she will never be molested by any man; but if a lady,\nunattended, walks abroad in the streets of London, even at noonday, she\nwill be pretty likely to be accosted and insulted--and not by drunken\nsailors, but by men who carry the look and wear the dress of gentlemen.\nIt is maintained that these people are not gentlemen, but are a lower\nsort, disguised as gentlemen. The case of Colonel Valentine Baker\nobstructs that argument, for a man cannot become an officer in the\nBritish army except he hold the rank of gentleman. This person, finding\nhimself alone in a railway compartment with an unprotected girl--but\nit is an atrocious story, and doubtless the reader remembers it well\nenough. London must have been more or less accustomed to Bakers, and the\nways of Bakers, else London would have been offended and excited. Baker\nwas \"imprisoned\"--in a parlor; and he could not have been more visited,\nor more overwhelmed with attentions, if he had committed six murders and\nthen--while the gallows was preparing--\"got religion\"--after the manner\nof the holy Charles Peace, of saintly memory. Arkansaw--it seems a\nlittle indelicate to be trumpeting forth our own superiorities, and\ncomparisons are always odious, but still--Arkansaw would certainly have\nhanged Baker. I do not say she would have tried him first, but she would\nhave hanged him, anyway.\n\nEven the most degraded woman can walk our streets unmolested, her sex\nand her weakness being her sufficient protection. She will encounter\nless polish than she would in the old world, but she will run across\nenough humanity to make up for it.\n\nThe music of a donkey awoke us early in the morning, and we rose up and\nmade ready for a pretty formidable walk--to Italy; but the road was so\nlevel that we took the train.. We lost a good deal of time by this, but\nit was no matter, we were not in a hurry. We were four hours going to\nChamb`ery. The Swiss trains go upward of three miles an hour, in places,\nbut they are quite safe.\n\nThat aged French town of Chamb\u00e8ry was as quaint and crooked as\nHeilbronn. A drowsy reposeful quiet reigned in the back streets which\nmade strolling through them very pleasant, barring the almost unbearable\nheat of the sun. In one of these streets, which was eight feet wide,\ngracefully curved, and built up with small antiquated houses, I saw\nthree fat hogs lying asleep, and a boy (also asleep) taking care of\nthem.\n\n\nFrom queer old-fashioned windows along the curve projected boxes of\nbright flowers, and over the edge of one of these boxes hung the head\nand shoulders of a cat--asleep. The five sleeping creatures were the\nonly living things visible in that street. There was not a sound;\nabsolute stillness prevailed. It was Sunday; one is not used to\nsuch dreamy Sundays on the continent. In our part of the town it was\ndifferent that night. A regiment of brown and battered soldiers had\narrived home from Algiers, and I judged they got thirsty on the way.\nThey sang and drank till dawn, in the pleasant open air.\n\nWe left for Turin at ten the next morning by a railway which was\nprofusely decorated with tunnels. We forgot to take a lantern along,\nconsequently we missed all the scenery. Our compartment was full. A\nponderous tow-headed Swiss woman, who put on many fine-lady airs, but\nwas evidently more used to washing linen than wearing it, sat in a\ncorner seat and put her legs across into the opposite one, propping them\nintermediately with her up-ended valise. In the seat thus pirated, sat\ntwo Americans, greatly incommoded by that woman's majestic coffin-clad\nfeet. One of them begged, politely, to remove them. She opened her wide\neyes and gave him a stare, but answered nothing. By and by he proferred\nhis request again, with great respectfulness. She said, in good English,\nand in a deeply offended tone, that she had paid her passage and was not\ngoing to be bullied out of her \"rights\" by ill-bred foreigners, even if\nshe was alone and unprotected.\n\n\n\"But I have rights, also, madam. My ticket entitles me to a seat, but\nyou are occupying half of it.\"\n\n\"I will not talk with you, sir. What right have you to speak to me? I\ndo not know you. One would know you came from a land where there are no\ngentlemen. No GENTLEMAN would treat a lady as you have treated me.\"\n\n\"I come from a region where a lady would hardly give me the same\nprovocation.\"\n\n\"You have insulted me, sir! You have intimated that I am not a lady--and\nI hope I am NOT one, after the pattern of your country.\"\n\n\"I beg that you will give yourself no alarm on that head, madam; but at\nthe same time I must insist--always respectfully--that you let me have\nmy seat.\"\n\nHere the fragile laundress burst into tears and sobs.\n\n\"I never was so insulted before! Never, never! It is shameful, it is\nbrutal, it is base, to bully and abuse an unprotected lady who has\nlost the use of her limbs and cannot put her feet to the floor without\nagony!\"\n\n\"Good heavens, madam, why didn't you say that at first! I offer a\nthousand pardons. And I offer them most sincerely. I did not know--I\nCOULD not know--anything was the matter. You are most welcome to the\nseat, and would have been from the first if I had only known. I am truly\nsorry it all happened, I do assure you.\"\n\nBut he couldn't get a word of forgiveness out of her. She simply sobbed\nand sniffed in a subdued but wholly unappeasable way for two long hours,\nmeantime crowding the man more than ever with her undertaker-furniture\nand paying no sort of attention to his frequent and humble little\nefforts to do something for her comfort. Then the train halted at the\nItalian line and she hopped up and marched out of the car with as firm a\nleg as any washerwoman of all her tribe! And how sick I was, to see how\nshe had fooled me.\n\n\nTurin is a very fine city. In the matter of roominess it transcends\nanything that was ever dreamed of before, I fancy. It sits in the midst\nof a vast dead-level, and one is obliged to imagine that land may be\nhad for the asking, and no taxes to pay, so lavishly do they use it. The\nstreets are extravagantly wide, the paved squares are prodigious, the\nhouses are huge and handsome, and compacted into uniform blocks that\nstretch away as straight as an arrow, into the distance. The sidewalks\nare about as wide as ordinary European STREETS, and are covered over\nwith a double arcade supported on great stone piers or columns. One\nwalks from one end to the other of these spacious streets, under shelter\nall the time, and all his course is lined with the prettiest of shops\nand the most inviting dining-houses.\n\nThere is a wide and lengthy court, glittering with the most wickedly\nenticing shops, which is roofed with glass, high aloft overhead, and\npaved with soft-toned marbles laid in graceful figures; and at night\nwhen the place is brilliant with gas and populous with a sauntering and\nchatting and laughing multitude of pleasure-seekers, it is a spectacle\nworth seeing.\n\nEverything is on a large scale; the public buildings, for instance--and\nthey are architecturally imposing, too, as well as large. The big\nsquares have big bronze monuments in them. At the hotel they gave us\nrooms that were alarming, for size, and parlor to match. It was well the\nweather required no fire in the parlor, for I think one might as well\nhave tried to warm a park. The place would have a warm look, though, in\nany weather, for the window-curtains were of red silk damask, and the\nwalls were covered with the same fire-hued goods--so, also, were the\nfour sofas and the brigade of chairs. The furniture, the ornaments, the\nchandeliers, the carpets, were all new and bright and costly. We did not\nneed a parlor at all, but they said it belonged to the two bedrooms and\nwe might use it if we chose. Since it was to cost nothing, we were not\naverse to using it, of course.\n\nTurin must surely read a good deal, for it has more book-stores to the\nsquare rod than any other town I know of. And it has its own share of\nmilitary folk. The Italian officers' uniforms are very much the most\nbeautiful I have ever seen; and, as a general thing, the men in them\nwere as handsome as the clothes. They were not large men, but they had\nfine forms, fine features, rich olive complexions, and lustrous black\neyes.\n\nFor several weeks I had been culling all the information I could about\nItaly, from tourists. The tourists were all agreed upon one thing--one\nmust expect to be cheated at every turn by the Italians. I took an\nevening walk in Turin, and presently came across a little Punch and Judy\nshow in one of the great squares. Twelve or fifteen people constituted\nthe audience. This miniature theater was not much bigger than a man's\ncoffin stood on end; the upper part was open and displayed a\ntinseled parlor--a good-sized handkerchief would have answered for a\ndrop-curtain; the footlights consisted of a couple of candle-ends an\ninch long; various manikins the size of dolls appeared on the stage and\nmade long speeches at each other, gesticulating a good deal, and they\ngenerally had a fight before they got through. They were worked by\nstrings from above, and the illusion was not perfect, for one saw not\nonly the strings but the brawny hand that manipulated them--and the\nactors and actresses all talked in the same voice, too. The audience\nstood in front of the theater, and seemed to enjoy the performance\nheartily.\n\nWhen the play was done, a youth in his shirt-sleeves started around with\na small copper saucer to make a collection. I did not know how much to\nput in, but thought I would be guided by my predecessors. Unluckily, I\nonly had two of these, and they did not help me much because they did\nnot put in anything. I had no Italian money, so I put in a small Swiss\ncoin worth about ten cents. The youth finished his collection trip and\nemptied the result on the stage; he had some very animated talk with\nthe concealed manager, then he came working his way through the little\ncrowd--seeking me, I thought. I had a mind to slip away, but concluded\nI wouldn't; I would stand my ground, and confront the villainy, whatever\nit was. The youth stood before me and held up that Swiss coin, sure\nenough, and said something. I did not understand him, but I judged he\nwas requiring Italian money of me. The crowd gathered close, to listen.\nI was irritated, and said--in English, of course:\n\n\"I know it's Swiss, but you'll take that or none. I haven't any other.\"\n\n\nHe tried to put the coin in my hand, and spoke again. I drew my hand\naway, and said:\n\n\"NO, sir. I know all about you people. You can't play any of your\nfraudful tricks on me. If there is a discount on that coin, I am sorry,\nbut I am not going to make it good. I noticed that some of the audience\ndidn't pay you anything at all. You let them go, without a word, but you\ncome after me because you think I'm a stranger and will put up with\nan extortion rather than have a scene. But you are mistaken this\ntime--you'll take that Swiss money or none.\"\n\nThe youth stood there with the coin in his fingers, nonplused and\nbewildered; of course he had not understood a word. An English-speaking\nItalian spoke up, now, and said:\n\n\"You are misunderstanding the boy. He does not mean any harm. He did\nnot suppose you gave him so much money purposely, so he hurried back to\nreturn you the coin lest you might get away before you discovered your\nmistake. Take it, and give him a penny--that will make everything smooth\nagain.\"\n\nI probably blushed, then, for there was occasion. Through the\ninterpreter I begged the boy's pardon, but I nobly refused to take back\nthe ten cents. I said I was accustomed to squandering large sums in that\nway--it was the kind of person I was. Then I retired to make a note to\nthe effect that in Italy persons connected with the drama do not cheat.\n\nThe episode with the showman reminds me of a dark chapter in my history.\nI once robbed an aged and blind beggar-woman of four dollars--in a\nchurch. It happened this way. When I was out with the Innocents Abroad,\nthe ship stopped in the Russian port of Odessa and I went ashore, with\nothers, to view the town. I got separated from the rest, and wandered\nabout alone, until late in the afternoon, when I entered a Greek church\nto see what it was like. When I was ready to leave, I observed two\nwrinkled old women standing stiffly upright against the inner wall, near\nthe door, with their brown palms open to receive alms. I contributed to\nthe nearer one, and passed out. I had gone fifty yards, perhaps, when it\noccurred to me that I must remain ashore all night, as I had heard that\nthe ship's business would carry her away at four o'clock and keep her\naway until morning. It was a little after four now. I had come ashore\nwith only two pieces of money, both about the same size, but differing\nlargely in value--one was a French gold piece worth four dollars, the\nother a Turkish coin worth two cents and a half. With a sudden and\nhorrified misgiving, I put my hand in my pocket, now, and sure enough, I\nfetched out that Turkish penny!\n\nHere was a situation. A hotel would require pay in advance --I must walk\nthe street all night, and perhaps be arrested as a suspicious character.\nThere was but one way out of the difficulty--I flew back to the church,\nand softly entered. There stood the old woman yet, and in the palm of\nthe nearest one still lay my gold piece. I was grateful. I crept\nclose, feeling unspeakably mean; I got my Turkish penny ready, and was\nextending a trembling hand to make the nefarious exchange, when I heard\na cough behind me. I jumped back as if I had been accused, and stood\nquaking while a worshiper entered and passed up the aisle.\n\nI was there a year trying to steal that money; that is, it seemed a\nyear, though, of course, it must have been much less. The worshipers\nwent and came; there were hardly ever three in the church at once, but\nthere was always one or more. Every time I tried to commit my crime\nsomebody came in or somebody started out, and I was prevented; but at\nlast my opportunity came; for one moment there was nobody in the church\nbut the two beggar-women and me. I whipped the gold piece out of the\npoor old pauper's palm and dropped my Turkish penny in its place. Poor\nold thing, she murmured her thanks--they smote me to the heart. Then I\nsped away in a guilty hurry, and even when I was a mile from the church\nI was still glancing back, every moment, to see if I was being pursued.\n\nThat experience has been of priceless value and benefit to me; for I\nresolved then, that as long as I lived I would never again rob a blind\nbeggar-woman in a church; and I have always kept my word. The most\npermanent lessons in morals are those which come, not of booky teaching,\nbut of experience.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVIII\n\n[Beauty of Women--and of Old Masters]\n\n\nIn Milan we spent most of our time in the vast and beautiful Arcade or\nGallery, or whatever it is called. Blocks of tall new buildings of the\nmost sumptuous sort, rich with decoration and graced with statues, the\nstreets between these blocks roofed over with glass at a great height,\nthe pavements all of smooth and variegated marble, arranged in tasteful\npatterns--little tables all over these marble streets, people sitting\nat them, eating, drinking, or smoking--crowds of other people strolling\nby--such is the Arcade. I should like to live in it all the time. The\nwindows of the sumptuous restaurants stand open, and one breakfasts\nthere and enjoys the passing show.\n\nWe wandered all over the town, enjoying whatever was going on in the\nstreets. We took one omnibus ride, and as I did not speak Italian and\ncould not ask the price, I held out some copper coins to the conductor,\nand he took two. Then he went and got his tariff card and showed me\nthat he had taken only the right sum. So I made a note--Italian omnibus\nconductors do not cheat.\n\nNear the Cathedral I saw another instance of probity. An old man was\npeddling dolls and toy fans. Two small American children bought fans,\nand one gave the old man a franc and three copper coins, and both\nstarted away; but they were called back, and the franc and one of the\ncoppers were restored to them. Hence it is plain that in Italy, parties\nconnected with the drama and the omnibus and the toy interests do not\ncheat.\n\n\nThe stocks of goods in the shops were not extensive, generally. In the\nvestibule of what seemed to be a clothing store, we saw eight or ten\nwooden dummies grouped together, clothed in woolen business suits and\neach marked with its price. One suit was marked forty-five francs--nine\ndollars. Harris stepped in and said he wanted a suit like that. Nothing\neasier: the old merchant dragged in the dummy, brushed him off with a\nbroom, stripped him, and shipped the clothes to the hotel. He said he\ndid not keep two suits of the same kind in stock, but manufactured a\nsecond when it was needed to reclothe the dummy.\n\n\nIn another quarter we found six Italians engaged in a violent quarrel.\nThey danced fiercely about, gesticulating with their heads, their arms,\ntheir legs, their whole bodies; they would rush forward occasionally\nwith a sudden access of passion and shake their fists in each other's\nvery faces. We lost half an hour there, waiting to help cord up the\ndead, but they finally embraced each other affectionately, and the\ntrouble was over. The episode was interesting, but we could not have\nafforded all the time to it if we had known nothing was going to come of\nit but a reconciliation. Note made--in Italy, people who quarrel cheat\nthe spectator.\n\nWe had another disappointment afterward. We approached a deeply\ninterested crowd, and in the midst of it found a fellow wildly\nchattering and gesticulating over a box on the ground which was covered\nwith a piece of old blanket. Every little while he would bend down\nand take hold of the edge of the blanket with the extreme tips of his\nfingertips, as if to show there was no deception--chattering away all\nthe while--but always, just as I was expecting to see a wonder feat of\nlegerdemain, he would let go the blanket and rise to explain further.\nHowever, at last he uncovered the box and got out a spoon with a liquid\nin it, and held it fair and frankly around, for people to see that it\nwas all right and he was taking no advantage--his chatter became more\nexcited than ever. I supposed he was going to set fire to the liquid\nand swallow it, so I was greatly wrought up and interested. I got a cent\nready in one hand and a florin in the other, intending to give him the\nformer if he survived and the latter if he killed himself--for his loss\nwould be my gain in a literary way, and I was willing to pay a fair\nprice for the item --but this impostor ended his intensely moving\nperformance by simply adding some powder to the liquid and polishing\nthe spoon! Then he held it aloft, and he could not have shown a wilder\nexultation if he had achieved an immortal miracle. The crowd applauded\nin a gratified way, and it seemed to me that history speaks the truth\nwhen it says these children of the south are easily entertained.\n\nWe spent an impressive hour in the noble cathedral, where long shafts\nof tinted light were cleaving through the solemn dimness from the lofty\nwindows and falling on a pillar here, a picture there, and a kneeling\nworshiper yonder. The organ was muttering, censers were swinging,\ncandles were glinting on the distant altar and robed priests were filing\nsilently past them; the scene was one to sweep all frivolous thoughts\naway and steep the soul in a holy calm. A trim young American lady\npaused a yard or two from me, fixed her eyes on the mellow sparks\nflecking the far-off altar, bent her head reverently a moment, then\nstraightened up, kicked her train into the air with her heel, caught it\ndeftly in her hand, and marched briskly out.\n\n\nWe visited the picture-galleries and the other regulation \"sights\" of\nMilan--not because I wanted to write about them again, but to see if\nI had learned anything in twelve years. I afterward visited the great\ngalleries of Rome and Florence for the same purpose. I found I had\nlearned one thing. When I wrote about the Old Masters before, I said\nthe copies were better than the originals. That was a mistake of large\ndimensions. The Old Masters were still unpleasing to me, but they were\ntruly divine contrasted with the copies. The copy is to the original as\nthe pallid, smart, inane new wax-work group is to the vigorous, earnest,\ndignified group of living men and women whom it professes to duplicate.\nThere is a mellow richness, a subdued color, in the old pictures, which\nis to the eye what muffled and mellowed sound is to the ear. That is the\nmerit which is most loudly praised in the old picture, and is the one\nwhich the copy most conspicuously lacks, and which the copyist must not\nhope to compass. It was generally conceded by the artists with whom I\ntalked, that that subdued splendor, that mellow richness, is imparted\nto the picture by AGE. Then why should we worship the Old Master for it,\nwho didn't impart it, instead of worshiping Old Time, who did? Perhaps\nthe picture was a clanging bell, until Time muffled it and sweetened it.\n\n\nIn conversation with an artist in Venice, I asked: \"What is it that\npeople see in the Old Masters? I have been in the Doge's palace and I\nsaw several acres of very bad drawing, very bad perspective, and very\nincorrect proportions. Paul Veronese's dogs to not resemble dogs; all\nthe horses look like bladders on legs; one man had a RIGHT leg on\nthe left side of his body; in the large picture where the Emperor\n(Barbarossa?) is prostrate before the Pope, there are three men in the\nforeground who are over thirty feet high, if one may judge by the size\nof a kneeling little boy in the center of the foreground; and according\nto the same scale, the Pope is seven feet high and the Doge is a\nshriveled dwarf of four feet.\"\n\nThe artist said:\n\n\"Yes, the Old Masters often drew badly; they did not care much for truth\nand exactness in minor details; but after all, in spite of bad drawing,\nbad perspective, bad proportions, and a choice of subjects which no\nlonger appeal to people as strongly as they did three hundred years ago,\nthere is a SOMETHING about their pictures which is divine--a something\nwhich is above and beyond the art of any epoch since--a something which\nwould be the despair of artists but that they never hope or expect to\nattain it, and therefore do not worry about it.\"\n\nThat is what he said--and he said what he believed; and not only\nbelieved, but felt.\n\nReasoning--especially reasoning, without technical knowledge--must be\nput aside, in cases of this kind. It cannot assist the inquirer. It\nwill lead him, in the most logical progression, to what, in the eyes of\nartists, would be a most illogical conclusion. Thus: bad drawing, bad\nproportion, bad perspective, indifference to truthful detail, color\nwhich gets its merit from time, and not from the artist--these things\nconstitute the Old Master; conclusion, the Old Master was a bad painter,\nthe Old Master was not an Old Master at all, but an Old Apprentice. Your\nfriend the artist will grant your premises, but deny your conclusion;\nhe will maintain that notwithstanding this formidable list of confessed\ndefects, there is still a something that is divine and unapproachable\nabout the Old Master, and that there is no arguing the fact away by any\nsystem of reasoning whatsoever.\n\nI can believe that. There are women who have an indefinable charm in\ntheir faces which makes them beautiful to their intimates, but a cold\nstranger who tried to reason the matter out and find this beauty would\nfail. He would say of one of these women: This chin is too short, this\nnose is too long, this forehead is too high, this hair is too red, this\ncomplexion is too pallid, the perspective of the entire composition\nis incorrect; conclusion, the woman is not beautiful. But her nearest\nfriend might say, and say truly, \"Your premises are right, your logic\nis faultless, but your conclusion is wrong, nevertheless; she is an Old\nMaster--she is beautiful, but only to such as know her; it is a beauty\nwhich cannot be formulated, but it is there, just the same.\"\n\n\nI found more pleasure in contemplating the Old Masters this time than\nI did when I was in Europe in former years, but still it was a calm\npleasure; there was nothing overheated about it. When I was in Venice\nbefore, I think I found no picture which stirred me much, but this time\nthere were two which enticed me to the Doge's palace day after day, and\nkept me there hours at a time. One of these was Tintoretto's three-acre\npicture in the Great Council Chamber. When I saw it twelve years ago\nI was not strongly attracted to it--the guide told me it was an\ninsurrection in heaven--but this was an error.\n\nThe movement of this great work is very fine. There are ten thousand\nfigures, and they are all doing something. There is a wonderful \"go\"\nto the whole composition. Some of the figures are driving headlong\ndownward, with clasped hands, others are swimming through the\ncloud-shoals--some on their faces, some on their backs--great\nprocessions of bishops, martyrs, and angels are pouring swiftly\ncenterward from various outlying directions--everywhere is enthusiastic\njoy, there is rushing movement everywhere. There are fifteen or twenty\nfigures scattered here and there, with books, but they cannot keep their\nattention on their reading--they offer the books to others, but no one\nwishes to read, now. The Lion of St. Mark is there with his book; St.\nMark is there with his pen uplifted; he and the Lion are looking\neach other earnestly in the face, disputing about the way to spell a\nword--the Lion looks up in rapt admiration while St. Mark spells. This\nis wonderfully interpreted by the artist. It is the master-stroke of\nthis imcomparable painting.\n\n\nI visited the place daily, and never grew tired of looking at that\ngrand picture. As I have intimated, the movement is almost unimaginably\nvigorous; the figures are singing, hosannahing, and many are blowing\ntrumpets. So vividly is noise suggested, that spectators who become\nabsorbed in the picture almost always fall to shouting comments in each\nother's ears, making ear-trumpets of their curved hands, fearing they\nmay not otherwise be heard. One often sees a tourist, with the eloquent\ntears pouring down his cheeks, funnel his hands at his wife's ear, and\nhears him roar through them, \"OH, TO BE THERE AND AT REST!\"\n\n\nNone but the supremely great in art can produce effects like these with\nthe silent brush.\n\nTwelve years ago I could not have appreciated this picture. One year ago\nI could not have appreciated it. My study of Art in Heidelberg has been\na noble education to me. All that I am today in Art, I owe to that.\n\nThe other great work which fascinated me was Bassano's immortal Hair\nTrunk. This is in the Chamber of the Council of Ten. It is in one of\nthe three forty-foot pictures which decorate the walls of the room.\nThe composition of this picture is beyond praise. The Hair Trunk is not\nhurled at the stranger's head--so to speak--as the chief feature of an\nimmortal work so often is; no, it is carefully guarded from prominence,\nit is subordinated, it is restrained, it is most deftly and cleverly\nheld in reserve, it is most cautiously and ingeniously led up to, by the\nmaster, and consequently when the spectator reaches it at last, he\nis taken unawares, he is unprepared, and it bursts upon him with a\nstupefying surprise.\n\nOne is lost in wonder at all the thought and care which this elaborate\nplanning must have cost. A general glance at the picture could never\nsuggest that there was a hair trunk in it; the Hair Trunk is not\nmentioned in the title even--which is, \"Pope Alexander III. and the Doge\nZiani, the Conqueror of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa\"; you see,\nthe title is actually utilized to help divert attention from the Trunk;\nthus, as I say, nothing suggests the presence of the Trunk, by any hint,\nyet everything studiedly leads up to it, step by step. Let us examine\ninto this, and observe the exquisitely artful artlessness of the plan.\n\nAt the extreme left end of the picture are a couple of women, one of\nthem with a child looking over her shoulder at a wounded man sitting\nwith bandaged head on the ground. These people seem needless, but no,\nthey are there for a purpose; one cannot look at them without seeing\nthe gorgeous procession of grandees, bishops, halberdiers, and\nbanner-bearers which is passing along behind them; one cannot see the\nprocession without feeling the curiosity to follow it and learn whither\nit is going; it leads him to the Pope, in the center of the picture, who\nis talking with the bonnetless Doge--talking tranquilly, too, although\nwithin twelve feet of them a man is beating a drum, and not far from the\ndrummer two persons are blowing horns, and many horsemen are plunging\nand rioting about--indeed, twenty-two feet of this great work is all a\ndeep and happy holiday serenity and Sunday-school procession, and then\nwe come suddenly upon eleven and one-half feet of turmoil and racket and\ninsubordination. This latter state of things is not an accident, it has\nits purpose. But for it, one would linger upon the Pope and the Doge,\nthinking them to be the motive and supreme feature of the picture;\nwhereas one is drawn along, almost unconsciously, to see what the\ntrouble is about. Now at the very END of this riot, within four feet of\nthe end of the picture, and full thirty-six feet from the beginning\nof it, the Hair Trunk bursts with an electrifying suddenness upon the\nspectator, in all its matchless perfection, and the great master's\ntriumph is sweeping and complete. From that moment no other thing in\nthose forty feet of canvas has any charm; one sees the Hair Trunk, and\nthe Hair Trunk only--and to see it is to worship it. Bassano even placed\nobjects in the immediate vicinity of the Supreme Feature whose pretended\npurpose was to divert attention from it yet a little longer and thus\ndelay and augment the surprise; for instance, to the right of it he has\nplaced a stooping man with a cap so red that it is sure to hold the eye\nfor a moment--to the left of it, some six feet away, he has placed a\nred-coated man on an inflated horse, and that coat plucks your eye\nto that locality the next moment--then, between the Trunk and the red\nhorseman he has intruded a man, naked to his waist, who is carrying\na fancy flour-sack on the middle of his back instead of on his\nshoulder--this admirable feat interests you, of course--keeps you at\nbay a little longer, like a sock or a jacket thrown to the pursuing\nwolf--but at last, in spite of all distractions and detentions, the eye\nof even the most dull and heedless spectator is sure to fall upon the\nWorld's Masterpiece, and in that moment he totters to his chair or leans\nupon his guide for support.\n\n\nDescriptions of such a work as this must necessarily be imperfect, yet\nthey are of value. The top of the Trunk is arched; the arch is a perfect\nhalf-circle, in the Roman style of architecture, for in the then\nrapid decadence of Greek art, the rising influence of Rome was already\nbeginning to be felt in the art of the Republic. The Trunk is bound or\nbordered with leather all around where the lid joins the main body. Many\ncritics consider this leather too cold in tone; but I consider this its\nhighest merit, since it was evidently made so to emphasize by contrast\nthe impassioned fervor of the hasp. The highlights in this part of the\nwork are cleverly managed, the MOTIF is admirably subordinated to the\nground tints, and the technique is very fine. The brass nail-heads are\nin the purest style of the early Renaissance. The strokes, here, are\nvery firm and bold--every nail-head is a portrait. The handle on the\nend of the Trunk has evidently been retouched--I think, with a piece of\nchalk--but one can still see the inspiration of the Old Master in the\ntranquil, almost too tranquil, hang of it. The hair of this Trunk is\nREAL hair--so to speak--white in patches, brown in patches. The details\nare finely worked out; the repose proper to hair in a recumbent and\ninactive attitude is charmingly expressed. There is a feeling about this\npart of the work which lifts it to the highest altitudes of art; the\nsense of sordid realism vanishes away--one recognizes that there is SOUL\nhere.\n\nView this Trunk as you will, it is a gem, it is a marvel, it is a\nmiracle. Some of the effects are very daring, approaching even to\nthe boldest flights of the rococo, the sirocco, and the Byzantine\nschools--yet the master's hand never falters--it moves on, calm,\nmajestic, confident--and, with that art which conceals art, it finally\ncasts over the TOUT ENSEMBLE, by mysterious methods of its own, a subtle\nsomething which refines, subdues, etherealizes the arid components and\nendures them with the deep charm and gracious witchery of poesy.\n\nAmong the art-treasures of Europe there are pictures which approach the\nHair Trunk--there are two which may be said to equal it, possibly--but\nthere is none that surpasses it. So perfect is the Hair Trunk that it\nmoves even persons who ordinarily have no feeling for art. When an Erie\nbaggagemaster saw it two years ago, he could hardly keep from checking\nit; and once when a customs inspector was brought into its presence,\nhe gazed upon it in silent rapture for some moments, then slowly and\nunconsciously placed one hand behind him with the palm uppermost, and\ngot out his chalk with the other. These facts speak for themselves.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIX\n\n[Hanged with a Golden Rope]\n\n\nOne lingers about the Cathedral a good deal, in Venice. There is a\nstrong fascination about it--partly because it is so old, and partly\nbecause it is so ugly. Too many of the world's famous buildings fail of\none chief virtue--harmony; they are made up of a methodless mixture\nof the ugly and the beautiful; this is bad; it is confusing, it is\nunrestful. One has a sense of uneasiness, of distress, without knowing\nwhy. But one is calm before St. Mark's, one is calm within it, one\nwould be calm on top of it, calm in the cellar; for its details are\nmasterfully ugly, no misplaced and impertinent beauties are intruded\nanywhere; and the consequent result is a grand harmonious whole, of\nsoothing, entrancing, tranquilizing, soul-satisfying ugliness. One's\nadmiration of a perfect thing always grows, never declines; and this is\nthe surest evidence to him that it IS perfect. St. Mark's is perfect. To\nme it soon grew to be so nobly, so augustly ugly, that it was difficult\nto stay away from it, even for a little while. Every time its squat\ndomes disappeared from my view, I had a despondent feeling; whenever\nthey reappeared, I felt an honest rapture--I have not known any happier\nhours than those I daily spent in front of Florian's, looking across the\nGreat Square at it. Propped on its long row of low thick-legged columns,\nits back knobbed with domes, it seemed like a vast warty bug taking a\nmeditative walk.\n\nSt. Mark's is not the oldest building in the world, of course, but it\nseems the oldest, and looks the oldest--especially inside.\n\nWhen the ancient mosaics in its walls become damaged, they are repaired\nbut not altered; the grotesque old pattern is preserved. Antiquity has\na charm of its own, and to smarten it up would only damage it. One day\nI was sitting on a red marble bench in the vestibule looking up at an\nancient piece of apprentice-work, in mosaic, illustrative of the command\nto \"multiply and replenish the earth.\" The Cathedral itself had seemed\nvery old; but this picture was illustrating a period in history which\nmade the building seem young by comparison. But I presently found an\nantique which was older than either the battered Cathedral or the date\nassigned to the piece of history; it was a spiral-shaped fossil as large\nas the crown of a hat; it was embedded in the marble bench, and had\nbeen sat upon by tourists until it was worn smooth. Contrasted with the\ninconceivable antiquity of this modest fossil, those other things were\nflippantly modern--jejune--mere matters of day-before-yesterday. The\nsense of the oldness of the Cathedral vanished away under the influence\nof this truly venerable presence.\n\nSt. Mark's is monumental; it is an imperishable remembrancer of the\nprofound and simple piety of the Middle Ages. Whoever could ravish a\ncolumn from a pagan temple, did it and contributed his swag to this\nChristian one. So this fane is upheld by several hundred acquisitions\nprocured in that peculiar way. In our day it would be immoral to go on\nthe highway to get bricks for a church, but it was no sin in the old\ntimes. St. Mark's was itself the victim of a curious robbery once. The\nthing is set down in the history of Venice, but it might be smuggled\ninto the Arabian Nights and not seem out of place there:\n\nNearly four hundred and fifty years ago, a Candian named Stammato, in\nthe suite of a prince of the house of Este, was allowed to view the\nriches of St. Mark's. His sinful eye was dazzled and he hid himself\nbehind an altar, with an evil purpose in his heart, but a priest\ndiscovered him and turned him out. Afterward he got in again--by false\nkeys, this time. He went there, night after night, and worked hard and\npatiently, all alone, overcoming difficulty after difficulty with his\ntoil, and at last succeeded in removing a great brick of the marble\npaneling which walled the lower part of the treasury; this block he\nfixed so that he could take it out and put it in at will. After\nthat, for weeks, he spent all his midnights in his magnificent mine,\ninspecting it in security, gloating over its marvels at his leisure, and\nalways slipping back to his obscure lodgings before dawn, with a\nduke's ransom under his cloak. He did not need to grab, haphazard, and\nrun--there was no hurry. He could make deliberate and well-considered\nselections; he could consult his esthetic tastes. One comprehends how\nundisturbed he was, and how safe from any danger of interruption,\nwhen it is stated that he even carried off a unicorn's horn--a mere\ncuriosity--which would not pass through the egress entire, but had to\nbe sawn in two--a bit of work which cost him hours of tedious labor. He\ncontinued to store up his treasures at home until his occupation lost\nthe charm of novelty and became monotonous; then he ceased from it,\ncontented. Well he might be; for his collection, raised to modern\nvalues, represented nearly fifty million dollars!\n\n\nHe could have gone home much the richest citizen of his country, and\nit might have been years before the plunder was missed; but he was\nhuman--he could not enjoy his delight alone, he must have somebody to\ntalk about it with. So he exacted a solemn oath from a Candian noble\nnamed Crioni, then led him to his lodgings and nearly took his breath\naway with a sight of his glittering hoard. He detected a look in his\nfriend's face which excited his suspicion, and was about to slip a\nstiletto into him when Crioni saved himself by explaining that that look\nwas only an expression of supreme and happy astonishment. Stammato\nmade Crioni a present of one of the state's principal jewels--a huge\ncarbuncle, which afterward figured in the Ducal cap of state--and the\npair parted. Crioni went at once to the palace, denounced the criminal,\nand handed over the carbuncle as evidence. Stammato was arrested, tried,\nand condemned, with the old-time Venetian promptness. He was hanged\nbetween the two great columns in the Piazza--with a gilded rope, out of\ncompliment to his love of gold, perhaps. He got no good of his booty at\nall--it was ALL recovered.\n\nIn Venice we had a luxury which very seldom fell to our lot on the\ncontinent--a home dinner with a private family. If one could always stop\nwith private families, when traveling, Europe would have a charm which\nit now lacks. As it is, one must live in the hotels, of course, and that\nis a sorrowful business. A man accustomed to American food and American\ndomestic cookery would not starve to death suddenly in Europe; but I\nthink he would gradually waste away, and eventually die.\n\nHe would have to do without his accustomed morning meal. That is too\nformidable a change altogether; he would necessarily suffer from it. He\ncould get the shadow, the sham, the base counterfeit of that meal; but\nit would do him no good, and money could not buy the reality.\n\nTo particularize: the average American's simplest and commonest form of\nbreakfast consists of coffee and beefsteak; well, in Europe, coffee is\nan unknown beverage. You can get what the European hotel-keeper thinks\nis coffee, but it resembles the real thing as hypocrisy resembles\nholiness. It is a feeble, characterless, uninspiring sort of stuff, and\nalmost as undrinkable as if it had been made in an American hotel. The\nmilk used for it is what the French call \"Christian\" milk--milk which\nhas been baptized.\n\n\nAfter a few months' acquaintance with European \"coffee,\" one's mind\nweakens, and his faith with it, and he begins to wonder if the rich\nbeverage of home, with its clotted layer of yellow cream on top of it,\nis not a mere dream, after all, and a thing which never existed.\n\nNext comes the European bread--fair enough, good enough, after a\nfashion, but cold; cold and tough, and unsympathetic; and never any\nchange, never any variety--always the same tiresome thing.\n\nNext, the butter--the sham and tasteless butter; no salt in it, and made\nof goodness knows what.\n\nThen there is the beefsteak. They have it in Europe, but they don't know\nhow to cook it. Neither will they cut it right. It comes on the table in\na small, round pewter platter. It lies in the center of this platter,\nin a bordering bed of grease-soaked potatoes; it is the size, shape, and\nthickness of a man's hand with the thumb and fingers cut off. It is a\nlittle overdone, is rather dry, it tastes pretty insipidly, it rouses no\nenthusiasm.\n\nImagine a poor exile contemplating that inert thing; and imagine an\nangel suddenly sweeping down out of a better land and setting before him\na mighty porterhouse steak an inch and a half thick, hot and sputtering\nfrom the griddle; dusted with a fragrant pepper; enriched with\nlittle melting bits of butter of the most unimpeachable freshness and\ngenuineness; the precious juices of the meat trickling out and joining\nthe gravy, archipelagoed with mushrooms; a township or two of tender,\nyellowish fat gracing an outlying district of this ample county of\nbeefsteak; the long white bone which divides the sirloin from the\ntenderloin still in its place; and imagine that the angel also adds a\ngreat cup of American home-made coffee, with a cream a-froth on top,\nsome real butter, firm and yellow and fresh, some smoking hot-biscuits,\na plate of hot buckwheat cakes, with transparent syrup--could words\ndescribe the gratitude of this exile?\n\nThe European dinner is better than the European breakfast, but it has\nits faults and inferiorities; it does not satisfy. He comes to the table\neager and hungry; he swallows his soup--there is an undefinable\nlack about it somewhere; thinks the fish is going to be the thing he\nwants--eats it and isn't sure; thinks the next dish is perhaps the one\nthat will hit the hungry place--tries it, and is conscious that there\nwas a something wanting about it, also. And thus he goes on, from dish\nto dish, like a boy after a butterfly which just misses getting caught\nevery time it alights, but somehow doesn't get caught after all; and at\nthe end the exile and the boy have fared about alike; the one is full,\nbut grievously unsatisfied, the other has had plenty of exercise, plenty\nof interest, and a fine lot of hopes, but he hasn't got any butterfly.\nThere is here and there an American who will say he can remember rising\nfrom a European table d'h\u00f4te perfectly satisfied; but we must not\noverlook the fact that there is also here and there an American who will\nlie.\n\nThe number of dishes is sufficient; but then it is such a monotonous\nvariety of UNSTRIKING dishes. It is an inane dead-level of\n\"fair-to-middling.\" There is nothing to ACCENT it. Perhaps if the roast\nof mutton or of beef--a big, generous one--were brought on the table and\ncarved in full view of the client, that might give the right sense of\nearnestness and reality to the thing; but they don't do that, they pass\nthe sliced meat around on a dish, and so you are perfectly calm, it does\nnot stir you in the least. Now a vast roast turkey, stretched on the\nbroad of his back, with his heels in the air and the rich juices oozing\nfrom his fat sides ... but I may as well stop there, for they would not\nknow how to cook him. They can't even cook a chicken respectably; and as\nfor carving it, they do that with a hatchet.\n\n\nThis is about the customary table d'h\u00f4te bill in summer:\n\n  Soup (characterless).\n\n  Fish--sole, salmon, or whiting--usually tolerably good.\n\n  Roast--mutton or beef--tasteless--and some last year's potatoes.\n\n  A pate, or some other made dish--usually good--\"considering.\"\n\n  One vegetable--brought on in state, and all alone--usually insipid\n                      lentils, or string-beans, or indifferent asparagus.\n\n  Roast chicken, as tasteless as paper.\n\n  Lettuce-salad--tolerably good.\n\n  Decayed strawberries or cherries.\n\n  Sometimes the apricots and figs are fresh, but this is no advantage,\n                      as these fruits are of no account anyway.\n\n  The grapes are generally good, and sometimes there is a tolerably\n                      good peach, by mistake.\n\nThe variations of the above bill are trifling. After a fortnight one\ndiscovers that the variations are only apparent, not real; in the third\nweek you get what you had the first, and in the fourth the week you get\nwhat you had the second. Three or four months of this weary sameness\nwill kill the robustest appetite.\n\nIt has now been many months, at the present writing, since I have had\na nourishing meal, but I shall soon have one--a modest, private affair,\nall to myself. I have selected a few dishes, and made out a little bill\nof fare, which will go home in the steamer that precedes me, and be hot\nwhen I arrive--as follows:\n\n    Radishes. Baked apples, with cream\n    Fried oysters; stewed oysters. Frogs.\n    American coffee, with real cream.\n    American butter.\n    Fried chicken, Southern style.\n    Porter-house steak.\n    Saratoga potatoes.\n    Broiled chicken, American style.\n    Hot biscuits, Southern style.\n    Hot wheat-bread, Southern style.\n    Hot buckwheat cakes.\n    American toast. Clear maple syrup.\n    Virginia bacon, broiled.\n    Blue points, on the half shell.\n    Cherry-stone clams.\n    San Francisco mussels, steamed.\n    Oyster soup. Clam Soup.\n    Philadelphia Terapin soup.\n    Oysters roasted in shell-Northern style.\n    Soft-shell crabs. Connecticut shad.\n    Baltimore perch.\n    Brook trout, from Sierra Nevadas.\n    Lake trout, from Tahoe.\n    Sheep-head and croakers, from New Orleans.\n    Black bass from the Mississippi.\n    American roast beef.\n    Roast turkey, Thanksgiving style.\n    Cranberry sauce. Celery.\n    Roast wild turkey. Woodcock.\n    Canvas-back-duck, from Baltimore.\n    Prairie liens, from Illinois.\n    Missouri partridges, broiled.\n    'Possum. Coon.\n    Boston bacon and beans.\n    Bacon and greens, Southern style.\n    Hominy. Boiled onions. Turnips.\n    Pumpkin. Squash. Asparagus.\n    Butter beans. Sweet potatoes.\n    Lettuce. Succotash. String beans.\n    Mashed potatoes. Catsup.\n    Boiled potatoes, in their skins.\n    New potatoes, minus the skins.\n    Early rose potatoes, roasted in the ashes, Southern style, served hot.\n    Sliced tomatoes, with sugar or vinegar. Stewed tomatoes.\n    Green corn, cut from the ear and served with butter and pepper.\n    Green corn, on the ear.\n    Hot corn-pone, with chitlings, Southern style.\n    Hot hoe-cake, Southern style.\n    Hot egg-bread, Southern style.\n    Hot light-bread, Southern style.\n    Buttermilk. Iced sweet milk.\n    Apple dumplings, with real cream.\n    Apple pie. Apple fritters.\n    Apple puffs, Southern style.\n    Peach cobbler, Southern style\n    Peach pie. American mince pie.\n    Pumpkin pie. Squash pie.\n    All sorts of American pastry.\n\n\nFresh American fruits of all sorts, including strawberries which are\nnot to be doled out as if they were jewelry, but in a more liberal way.\nIce-water--not prepared in the ineffectual goblet, but in the sincere\nand capable refrigerator.\n\nAmericans intending to spend a year or so in European hotels will\ndo well to copy this bill and carry it along. They will find it an\nexcellent thing to get up an appetite with, in the dispiriting presence\nof the squalid table d'h\u00f4te.\n\nForeigners cannot enjoy our food, I suppose, any more than we can\nenjoy theirs. It is not strange; for tastes are made, not born. I might\nglorify my bill of fare until I was tired; but after all, the Scotchman\nwould shake his head and say, \"Where's your haggis?\" and the Fijian\nwould sigh and say, \"Where's your missionary?\"\n\nI have a neat talent in matters pertaining to nourishment. This has\nmet with professional recognition. I have often furnished recipes for\ncook-books. Here are some designs for pies and things, which I recently\nprepared for a friend's projected cook-book, but as I forgot to furnish\ndiagrams and perspectives, they had to be left out, of course.\n\nRECIPE FOR AN ASH-CAKE Take a lot of water and add to it a lot of coarse\nIndian-meal and about a quarter of a lot of salt. Mix well together,\nknead into the form of a \"pone,\" and let the pone stand awhile--not on\nits edge, but the other way. Rake away a place among the embers, lay it\nthere, and cover it an inch deep with hot ashes. When it is done, remove\nit; blow off all the ashes but one layer; butter that one and eat.\n\nN.B.--No household should ever be without this talisman. It has been\nnoticed that tramps never return for another ash-cake. ----------\n\nRECIPE FOR NEW ENGLISH PIE To make this excellent breakfast dish,\nproceed as follows: Take a sufficiency of water and a sufficiency of\nflour, and construct a bullet-proof dough. Work this into the form of\na disk, with the edges turned up some three-fourths of an inch. Toughen\nand kiln-dry in a couple days in a mild but unvarying temperature.\nConstruct a cover for this redoubt in the same way and of the same\nmaterial. Fill with stewed dried apples; aggravate with cloves,\nlemon-peel, and slabs of citron; add two portions of New Orleans sugars,\nthen solder on the lid and set in a safe place till it petrifies. Serve\ncold at breakfast and invite your enemy. ----------\n\nRECIPE FOR GERMAN COFFEE Take a barrel of water and bring it to a boil;\nrub a chicory berry against a coffee berry, then convey the former into\nthe water. Continue the boiling and evaporation until the intensity of\nthe flavor and aroma of the coffee and chicory has been diminished to\na proper degree; then set aside to cool. Now unharness the remains of a\nonce cow from the plow, insert them in a hydraulic press, and when you\nshall have acquired a teaspoon of that pale-blue juice which a German\nsuperstition regards as milk, modify the malignity of its strength in a\nbucket of tepid water and ring up the breakfast. Mix the beverage in a\ncold cup, partake with moderation, and keep a wet rag around your head\nto guard against over-excitement.\n\n\nTO CARVE FOWLS IN THE GERMAN FASHION Use a club, and avoid the joints.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER L\n\n[Titian Bad and Titian Good]\n\n\nI wonder why some things are? For instance, Art is allowed as much\nindecent license today as in earlier times--but the privileges of\nLiterature in this respect have been sharply curtailed within the\npast eighty or ninety years. Fielding and Smollett could portray the\nbeastliness of their day in the beastliest language; we have plenty\nof foul subjects to deal with in our day, but we are not allowed to\napproach them very near, even with nice and guarded forms of speech.\nBut not so with Art. The brush may still deal freely with any subject,\nhowever revolting or indelicate. It makes a body ooze sarcasm at every\npore, to go about Rome and Florence and see what this last generation\nhas been doing with the statues. These works, which had stood in\ninnocent nakedness for ages, are all fig-leaved now. Yes, every one of\nthem. Nobody noticed their nakedness before, perhaps; nobody can help\nnoticing it now, the fig-leaf makes it so conspicuous. But the comical\nthing about it all, is, that the fig-leaf is confined to cold and pallid\nmarble, which would be still cold and unsuggestive without this sham and\nostentatious symbol of modesty, whereas warm-blood paintings which do\nreally need it have in no case been furnished with it.\n\nAt the door of the Uffizzi, in Florence, one is confronted by statues\nof a man and a woman, noseless, battered, black with accumulated\ngrime--they hardly suggest human beings--yet these ridiculous creatures\nhave been thoughtfully and conscientiously fig-leaved by this fastidious\ngeneration. You enter, and proceed to that most-visited little gallery\nthat exists in the world--the Tribune--and there, against the wall,\nwithout obstructing rag or leaf, you may look your fill upon the\nfoulest, the vilest, the obscenest picture the world possesses--Titian's\nVenus. It isn't that she is naked and stretched out on a bed--no, it is\nthe attitude of one of her arms and hand. If I ventured to describe\nthat attitude, there would be a fine howl--but there the Venus lies, for\nanybody to gloat over that wants to--and there she has a right to lie,\nfor she is a work of art, and Art has its privileges. I saw young\ngirls stealing furtive glances at her; I saw young men gaze long and\nabsorbedly at her; I saw aged, infirm men hang upon her charms with a\npathetic interest. How I should like to describe her--just to see what\na holy indignation I could stir up in the world--just to hear the\nunreflecting average man deliver himself about my grossness and\ncoarseness, and all that. The world says that no worded description of\na moving spectacle is a hundredth part as moving as the same spectacle\nseen with one's own eyes--yet the world is willing to let its son\nand its daughter and itself look at Titian's beast, but won't stand\na description of it in words. Which shows that the world is not as\nconsistent as it might be.\n\nThere are pictures of nude women which suggest no impure thought--I\nam well aware of that. I am not railing at such. What I am trying to\nemphasize is the fact that Titian's Venus is very far from being one of\nthat sort. Without any question it was painted for a bagnio and it was\nprobably refused because it was a trifle too strong. In truth, it is too\nstrong for any place but a public Art Gallery. Titian has two Venuses in\nthe Tribune; persons who have seen them will easily remember which one I\nam referring to.\n\nIn every gallery in Europe there are hideous pictures of blood,\ncarnage, oozing brains, putrefaction--pictures portraying intolerable\nsuffering--pictures alive with every conceivable horror, wrought out in\ndreadful detail--and similar pictures are being put on the canvas every\nday and publicly exhibited--without a growl from anybody--for they\nare innocent, they are inoffensive, being works of art. But suppose\na literary artist ventured to go into a painstaking and elaborate\ndescription of one of these grisly things--the critics would skin him\nalive. Well, let it go, it cannot be helped; Art retains her privileges,\nLiterature has lost hers. Somebody else may cipher out the whys and the\nwherefores and the consistencies of it--I haven't got time.\n\nTitian's Venus defiles and disgraces the Tribune, there is no softening\nthat fact, but his \"Moses\" glorifies it. The simple truthfulness of\nits noble work wins the heart and the applause of every visitor, be he\nlearned or ignorant. After wearying one's self with the acres of stuffy,\nsappy, expressionless babies that populate the canvases of the Old\nMasters of Italy, it is refreshing to stand before this peerless child\nand feel that thrill which tells you you are at last in the presence of\nthe real thing. This is a human child, this is genuine. You have seen\nhim a thousand times--you have seen him just as he is here--and you\nconfess, without reserve, that Titian WAS a Master. The doll-faces of\nother painted babes may mean one thing, they may mean another, but\nwith the \"Moses\" the case is different. The most famous of all the\nart-critics has said, \"There is no room for doubt, here--plainly this\nchild is in trouble.\"\n\nI consider that the \"Moses\" has no equal among the works of the Old\nMasters, except it be the divine Hair Trunk of Bassano. I feel sure that\nif all the other Old Masters were lost and only these two preserved, the\nworld would be the gainer by it.\n\n\nMy sole purpose in going to Florence was to see this immortal \"Moses,\"\nand by good fortune I was just in time, for they were already preparing\nto remove it to a more private and better-protected place because a\nfashion of robbing the great galleries was prevailing in Europe at the\ntime.\n\nI got a capable artist to copy the picture; Pannemaker, the engraver of\nDor\u00e9's books, engraved it for me, and I have the pleasure of laying it\nbefore the reader in this volume.\n\nWe took a turn to Rome and some other Italian cities--then to Munich,\nand thence to Paris--partly for exercise, but mainly because these\nthings were in our projected program, and it was only right that we\nshould be faithful to it.\n\nFrom Paris I branched out and walked through Holland and Belgium,\nprocuring an occasional lift by rail or canal when tired, and I had\na tolerably good time of it \"by and large.\" I worked Spain and other\nregions through agents to save time and shoe-leather.\n\nWe crossed to England, and then made the homeward passage in the\nCunarder GALLIA, a very fine ship. I was glad to get home--immeasurably\nglad; so glad, in fact, that it did not seem possible that anything\ncould ever get me out of the country again. I had not enjoyed a pleasure\nabroad which seemed to me to compare with the pleasure I felt in seeing\nNew York harbor again. Europe has many advantages which we have not, but\nthey do not compensate for a good many still more valuable ones which\nexist nowhere but in our own country. Then we are such a homeless lot\nwhen we are over there! So are Europeans themselves, for that matter.\nThey live in dark and chilly vast tombs--costly enough, maybe, but\nwithout conveniences. To be condemned to live as the average European\nfamily lives would make life a pretty heavy burden to the average\nAmerican family.\n\nOn the whole, I think that short visits to Europe are better for us than\nlong ones. The former preserve us from becoming Europeanized; they keep\nour pride of country intact, and at the same time they intensify our\naffection for our country and our people; whereas long visits have the\neffect of dulling those feelings--at least in the majority of cases. I\nthink that one who mixes much with Americans long resident abroad must\narrive at this conclusion.\n\n\nAPPENDIX   Nothing gives such weight and dignity to a book as an Appendix.\n                --HERODOTUS\n\n\nAPPENDIX A.\n\nThe Portier\n\nOmar Khay'am, the poet-prophet of Persia, writing more than eight\nhundred years ago, has said:\n\n\"In the four parts of the earth are many that are able to write learned\nbooks, many that are able to lead armies, and many also that are able to\ngovern kingdoms and empires; but few there be that can keep a hotel.\"\n\nA word about the European hotel PORTIER. He is a most admirable\ninvention, a most valuable convenience. He always wears a conspicuous\nuniform; he can always be found when he is wanted, for he sticks closely\nto his post at the front door; he is as polite as a duke; he speaks\nfrom four to ten languages; he is your surest help and refuge in time of\ntrouble or perplexity. He is not the clerk, he is not the landlord; he\nranks above the clerk, and represents the landlord, who is seldom seen.\nInstead of going to the clerk for information, as we do at home, you\ngo to the portier. It is the pride of our average hotel clerk to know\nnothing whatever; it is the pride of the portier to know everything. You\nask the portier at what hours the trains leave--he tells you instantly;\nor you ask him who is the best physician in town; or what is the hack\ntariff; or how many children the mayor has; or what days the galleries\nare open, and whether a permit is required, and where you are to get it,\nand what you must pay for it; or when the theaters open and close, what\nthe plays are to be, and the price of seats; or what is the newest thing\nin hats; or how the bills of mortality average; or \"who struck Billy\nPatterson.\" It does not matter what you ask him: in nine cases out of\nten he knows, and in the tenth case he will find out for you before you\ncan turn around three times. There is nothing he will not put his hand\nto. Suppose you tell him you wish to go from Hamburg to Peking by the\nway of Jericho, and are ignorant of routes and prices--the next morning\nhe will hand you a piece of paper with the whole thing worked out on it\nto the last detail. Before you have been long on European soil, you find\nyourself still SAYING you are relying on Providence, but when you come\nto look closer you will see that in reality you are relying on the\nportier. He discovers what is puzzling you, or what is troubling you,\nor what your need is, before you can get the half of it out, and he\npromptly says, \"Leave that to me.\" Consequently, you easily drift into\nthe habit of leaving everything to him. There is a certain embarrassment\nabout applying to the average American hotel clerk, a certain hesitancy,\na sense of insecurity against rebuff; but you feel no embarrassment in\nyour intercourse with the portier; he receives your propositions with an\nenthusiasm which cheers, and plunges into their accomplishment with an\nalacrity which almost inebriates. The more requirements you can pile\nupon him, the better he likes it. Of course the result is that you cease\nfrom doing anything for yourself. He calls a hack when you want one;\nputs you into it; tells the driver whither to take you; receives you\nlike a long-lost child when you return; sends you about your business,\ndoes all the quarreling with the hackman himself, and pays him his money\nout of his own pocket. He sends for your theater tickets, and pays for\nthem; he sends for any possible article you can require, be it a doctor,\nan elephant, or a postage stamp; and when you leave, at last, you will\nfind a subordinate seated with the cab-driver who will put you in your\nrailway compartment, buy your tickets, have your baggage weighed, bring\nyou the printed tags, and tell you everything is in your bill and paid\nfor. At home you get such elaborate, excellent, and willing service as\nthis only in the best hotels of our large cities; but in Europe you get\nit in the mere back country-towns just as well.\n\nWhat is the secret of the portier's devotion? It is very simple: he gets\nFEES, AND NO SALARY. His fee is pretty closely regulated, too. If you\nstay a week, you give him five marks--a dollar and a quarter, or about\neighteen cents a day. If you stay a month, you reduce this average\nsomewhat. If you stay two or three months or longer, you cut it down\nhalf, or even more than half. If you stay only one day, you give the\nportier a mark.\n\nThe head waiter's fee is a shade less than the portier's; the Boots, who\nnot only blacks your boots and brushes your clothes, but is usually the\nporter and handles your baggage, gets a somewhat smaller fee than the\nhead waiter; the chambermaid's fee ranks below that of the Boots. You\nfee only these four, and no one else. A German gentleman told me that\nwhen he remained a week in a hotel, he gave the portier five marks, the\nhead waiter four, the Boots three, and the chambermaid two; and if he\nstayed three months he divided ninety marks among them, in about the\nabove proportions. Ninety marks make $22.50.\n\nNone of these fees are ever paid until you leave the hotel, though it\nbe a year--except one of these four servants should go away in the mean\ntime; in that case he will be sure to come and bid you good-by and\ngive you the opportunity to pay him what is fairly coming to him. It\nis considered very bad policy to fee a servant while you are still to\nremain longer in the hotel, because if you gave him too little he might\nneglect you afterward, and if you gave him too much he might neglect\nsomebody else to attend to you. It is considered best to keep his\nexpectations \"on a string\" until your stay is concluded.\n\nI do not know whether hotel servants in New York get any wages or not,\nbut I do know that in some of the hotels there the feeing system in\nvogue is a heavy burden. The waiter expects a quarter at breakfast--and\ngets it. You have a different waiter at luncheon, and so he gets a\nquarter. Your waiter at dinner is another stranger--consequently he gets\na quarter. The boy who carries your satchel to your room and lights your\ngas fumbles around and hangs around significantly, and you fee him to\nget rid of him. Now you may ring for ice-water; and ten minutes later\nfor a lemonade; and ten minutes afterward, for a cigar; and by and by\nfor a newspaper--and what is the result? Why, a new boy has appeared\nevery time and fooled and fumbled around until you have paid him\nsomething. Suppose you boldly put your foot down, and say it is the\nhotel's business to pay its servants? You will have to ring your bell\nten or fifteen times before you get a servant there; and when he goes\noff to fill your order you will grow old and infirm before you see him\nagain. You may struggle nobly for twenty-four hours, maybe, if you are\nan adamantine sort of person, but in the mean time you will have been\nso wretchedly served, and so insolently, that you will haul down your\ncolors, and go to impoverishing yourself with fees.\n\n\nIt seems to me that it would be a happy idea to import the European\nfeeing system into America. I believe it would result in getting even\nthe bells of the Philadelphia hotels answered, and cheerful service\nrendered.\n\nThe greatest American hotels keep a number of clerks and a cashier, and\npay them salaries which mount up to a considerable total in the course\nof a year. The great continental hotels keep a cashier on a trifling\nsalary, and a portier WHO PAYS THE HOTEL A SALARY. By the latter system\nboth the hotel and the public save money and are better served than by\nour system. One of our consuls told me that a portier of a great Berlin\nhotel paid five thousand dollars a year for his position, and yet\ncleared six thousand dollars for himself. The position of portier in the\nchief hotels of Saratoga, Long Branch, New York, and similar centers of\nresort, would be one which the holder could afford to pay even more than\nfive thousand dollars for, perhaps.\n\nWhen we borrowed the feeing fashion from Europe a dozen years ago, the\nsalary system ought to have been discontinued, of course. We might make\nthis correction now, I should think. And we might add the portier, too.\nSince I first began to study the portier, I have had opportunities to\nobserve him in the chief cities of Germany, Switzerland, and Italy;\nand the more I have seen of him the more I have wished that he might be\nadopted in America, and become there, as he is in Europe, the stranger's\nguardian angel.\n\nYes, what was true eight hundred years ago, is just as true today: \"Few\nthere be that can keep a hotel.\" Perhaps it is because the landlords and\ntheir subordinates have in too many cases taken up their trade without\nfirst learning it. In Europe the trade of hotel-keeper is taught. The\napprentice begins at the bottom of the ladder and masters the several\ngrades one after the other. Just as in our country printing-offices the\napprentice first learns how to sweep out and bring water; then learns\nto \"roll\"; then to sort \"pi\"; then to set type; and finally rounds\nand completes his education with job-work and press-work; so the\nlandlord-apprentice serves as call-boy; then as under-waiter; then as\na parlor waiter; then as head waiter, in which position he often has to\nmake out all the bills; then as clerk or cashier; then as portier. His\ntrade is learned now, and by and by he will assume the style and dignity\nof landlord, and be found conducting a hotel of his own.\n\nNow in Europe, the same as in America, when a man has kept a hotel\nso thoroughly well during a number of years as to give it a great\nreputation, he has his reward. He can live prosperously on that\nreputation. He can let his hotel run down to the last degree of\nshabbiness and yet have it full of people all the time. For instance,\nthere is the Hotel de Ville, in Milan. It swarms with mice and fleas,\nand if the rest of the world were destroyed it could furnish dirt enough\nto start another one with. The food would create an insurrection in a\npoorhouse; and yet if you go outside to get your meals that hotel makes\nup its loss by overcharging you on all sorts of trifles--and without\nmaking any denials or excuses about it, either. But the Hotel de Ville's\nold excellent reputation still keeps its dreary rooms crowded with\ntravelers who would be elsewhere if they had only some wise friend to\nwarn them.\n\n\nAPPENDIX B.\n\nHeidelberg Castle Heidelberg Castle must have been very beautiful before\nthe French battered and bruised and scorched it two hundred years ago.\nThe stone is brown, with a pinkish tint, and does not seem to stain\neasily. The dainty and elaborate ornamentation upon its two chief fronts\nis as delicately carved as if it had been intended for the interior of\na drawing-room rather than for the outside of a house. Many fruit and\nflower clusters, human heads and grim projecting lions' heads are still\nas perfect in every detail as if they were new. But the statues which\nare ranked between the windows have suffered. These are life-size\nstatues of old-time emperors, electors, and similar grandees, clad in\nmail and bearing ponderous swords. Some have lost an arm, some a head,\nand one poor fellow is chopped off at the middle. There is a saying that\nif a stranger will pass over the drawbridge and walk across the court to\nthe castle front without saying anything, he can make a wish and it will\nbe fulfilled. But they say that the truth of this thing has never had\na chance to be proved, for the reason that before any stranger can walk\nfrom the drawbridge to the appointed place, the beauty of the palace\nfront will extort an exclamation of delight from him.\n\nA ruin must be rightly situated, to be effective. This one could not\nhave been better placed. It stands upon a commanding elevation, it is\nburied in green woods, there is no level ground about it, but, on the\ncontrary, there are wooded terraces upon terraces, and one looks down\nthrough shining leaves into profound chasms and abysses where twilight\nreigns and the sun cannot intrude. Nature knows how to garnish a ruin to\nget the best effect. One of these old towers is split down the middle,\nand one half has tumbled aside. It tumbled in such a way as to establish\nitself in a picturesque attitude. Then all it lacked was a fitting\ndrapery, and Nature has furnished that; she has robed the rugged mass in\nflowers and verdure, and made it a charm to the eye. The standing half\nexposes its arched and cavernous rooms to you, like open, toothless\nmouths; there, too, the vines and flowers have done their work of grace.\nThe rear portion of the tower has not been neglected, either, but is\nclothed with a clinging garment of polished ivy which hides the wounds\nand stains of time. Even the top is not left bare, but is crowned with a\nflourishing group of trees and shrubs. Misfortune has done for this old\ntower what it has done for the human character sometimes--improved it.\n\nA gentleman remarked, one day, that it might have been fine to live in\nthe castle in the day of its prime, but that we had one advantage which\nits vanished inhabitants lacked--the advantage of having a charming ruin\nto visit and muse over. But that was a hasty idea. Those people had the\nadvantage of US. They had the fine castle to live in, and they could\ncross the Rhine valley and muse over the stately ruin of Trifels\nbesides. The Trifels people, in their day, five hundred years ago, could\ngo and muse over majestic ruins that have vanished, now, to the last\nstone. There have always been ruins, no doubt; and there have always\nbeen pensive people to sigh over them, and asses to scratch upon them\ntheir names and the important date of their visit. Within a hundred\nyears after Adam left Eden, the guide probably gave the usual general\nflourish with his hand and said: \"Place where the animals were named,\nladies and gentlemen; place where the tree of the forbidden fruit stood;\nexact spot where Adam and Eve first met; and here, ladies and gentlemen,\nadorned and hallowed by the names and addresses of three generations of\ntourists, we have the crumbling remains of Cain's altar--fine old ruin!\"\nThen, no doubt, he taxed them a shekel apiece and let them go.\n\nAn illumination of Heidelberg Castle is one of the sights of Europe.\nThe Castle's picturesque shape; its commanding situation, midway up the\nsteep and wooded mountainside; its vast size--these features combine to\nmake an illumination a most effective spectacle. It is necessarily an\nexpensive show, and consequently rather infrequent. Therefore whenever\none of these exhibitions is to take place, the news goes about in the\npapers and Heidelberg is sure to be full of people on that night. I and\nmy agent had one of these opportunities, and improved it.\n\nAbout half past seven on the appointed evening we crossed the lower\nbridge, with some American students, in a pouring rain, and started up\nthe road which borders the Neunheim side of the river. This roadway was\ndensely packed with carriages and foot-passengers; the former of all\nages, and the latter of all ages and both sexes. This black and solid\nmass was struggling painfully onward, through the slop, the darkness,\nand the deluge. We waded along for three-quarters of a mile, and finally\ntook up a position in an unsheltered beer-garden directly opposite\nthe Castle. We could not SEE the Castle--or anything else, for that\nmatter--but we could dimly discern the outlines of the mountain over the\nway, through the pervading blackness, and knew whereabouts the Castle\nwas located. We stood on one of the hundred benches in the garden, under\nour umbrellas; the other ninety-nine were occupied by standing men and\nwomen, and they also had umbrellas. All the region round about, and up\nand down the river-road, was a dense wilderness of humanity hidden\nunder an unbroken pavement of carriage tops and umbrellas. Thus we stood\nduring two drenching hours. No rain fell on my head, but the converging\nwhalebone points of a dozen neighboring umbrellas poured little cooling\nsteams of water down my neck, and sometimes into my ears, and thus kept\nme from getting hot and impatient. I had the rheumatism, too, and\nhad heard that this was good for it. Afterward, however, I was led to\nbelieve that the water treatment is NOT good for rheumatism. There were\neven little girls in that dreadful place. A man held one in his arms,\njust in front of me, for as much as an hour, with umbrella-drippings\nsoaking into her clothing all the time.\n\nIn the circumstances, two hours was a good while for us to have to wait,\nbut when the illumination did at last come, we felt repaid. It came\nunexpectedly, of course--things always do, that have been long looked\nand longed for. With a perfectly breath-taking suddenness several mast\nsheaves of varicolored rockets were vomited skyward out of the black\nthroats of the Castle towers, accompanied by a thundering crash of\nsound, and instantly every detail of the prodigious ruin stood revealed\nagainst the mountainside and glowing with an almost intolerable splendor\nof fire and color. For some little time the whole building was a\nblinding crimson mass, the towers continued to spout thick columns of\nrockets aloft, and overhead the sky was radiant with arrowy bolts which\nclove their way to the zenith, paused, curved gracefully downward, then\nburst into brilliant fountain-sprays of richly colored sparks. The red\nfires died slowly down, within the Castle, and presently the shell grew\nnearly black outside; the angry glare that shone out through the broken\narches and innumerable sashless windows, now, reproduced the aspect\nwhich the Castle must have borne in the old time when the French\nspoilers saw the monster bonfire which they had made there fading and\nspoiling toward extinction.\n\nWhile we still gazed and enjoyed, the ruin was suddenly enveloped in\nrolling and rumbling volumes of vaporous green fire; then in dazzling\npurple ones; then a mixture of many colors followed, then drowned the\ngreat fabric in its blended splendors. Meantime the nearest bridge had\nbeen illuminated, and from several rafts anchored in the river, meteor\nshowers of rockets, Roman candles, bombs, serpents, and Catharine wheels\nwere being discharged in wasteful profusion into the sky--a marvelous\nsight indeed to a person as little used to such spectacles as I was. For\na while the whole region about us seemed as bright as day, and yet the\nrain was falling in torrents all the time. The evening's entertainment\npresently closed, and we joined the innumerable caravan of half-drowned\nstrangers, and waded home again.\n\nThe Castle grounds are very ample and very beautiful; and as they joined\nthe Hotel grounds, with no fences to climb, but only some nobly shaded\nstone stairways to descend, we spent a part of nearly every day in\nidling through their smooth walks and leafy groves. There was an\nattractive spot among the trees where were a great many wooden tables\nand benches; and there one could sit in the shade and pretend to sip at\nhis foamy beaker of beer while he inspected the crowd. I say pretend,\nbecause I only pretended to sip, without really sipping. That is the\npolite way; but when you are ready to go, you empty the beaker at a\ndraught. There was a brass band, and it furnished excellent music every\nafternoon. Sometimes so many people came that every seat was occupied,\nevery table filled. And never a rough in the assemblage--all nicely\ndressed fathers and mothers, young gentlemen and ladies and children;\nand plenty of university students and glittering officers; with here and\nthere a gray professor, or a peaceful old lady with her knitting; and\nalways a sprinkling of gawky foreigners. Everybody had his glass of\nbeer before him, or his cup of coffee, or his bottle of wine, or his\nhot cutlet and potatoes; young ladies chatted, or fanned themselves, or\nwrought at their crocheting or embroidering; the students fed sugar to\ntheir dogs, or discussed duels, or illustrated new fencing tricks\nwith their little canes; and everywhere was comfort and enjoyment, and\neverywhere peace and good-will to men. The trees were jubilant with\nbirds, and the paths with rollicking children. One could have a seat in\nthat place and plenty of music, any afternoon, for about eight cents, or\na family ticket for the season for two dollars.\n\nFor a change, when you wanted one, you could stroll to the Castle, and\nburrow among its dungeons, or climb about its ruined towers, or visit\nits interior shows--the great Heidelberg Tun, for instance. Everybody\nhas heard of the great Heidelberg Tun, and most people have seen it, no\ndoubt. It is a wine-cask as big as a cottage, and some traditions say\nit holds eighteen thousand bottles, and other traditions say it holds\neighteen hundred million barrels. I think it likely that one of these\nstatements is a mistake, and the other is a lie. However, the mere\nmatter of capacity is a thing of no sort of consequence, since the cask\nis empty, and indeed has always been empty, history says. An empty cask\nthe size of a cathedral could excite but little emotion in me.\n\n\nI do not see any wisdom in building a monster cask to hoard up emptiness\nin, when you can get a better quality, outside, any day, free of\nexpense. What could this cask have been built for? The more one studies\nover that, the more uncertain and unhappy he becomes. Some historians\nsay that thirty couples, some say thirty thousand couples, can dance on\nthe head of this cask at the same time. Even this does not seem to me\nto account for the building of it. It does not even throw light on it. A\nprofound and scholarly Englishman--a specialist--who had made the great\nHeidelberg Tun his sole study for fifteen years, told me he had at last\nsatisfied himself that the ancients built it to make German cream in.\nHe said that the average German cow yielded from one to two and half\nteaspoons of milk, when she was not worked in the plow or the hay-wagon\nmore than eighteen or nineteen hours a day. This milk was very sweet and\ngood, and a beautiful transparent bluish tint; but in order to get cream\nfrom it in the most economical way, a peculiar process was necessary.\nNow he believed that the habit of the ancients was to collect several\nmilkings in a teacup, pour it into the Great Tun, fill up with water,\nand then skim off the cream from time to time as the needs of the German\nEmpire demanded.\n\nThis began to look reasonable. It certainly began to account for the\nGerman cream which I had encountered and marveled over in so many hotels\nand restaurants. But a thought struck me--\n\n\"Why did not each ancient dairyman take his own teacup of milk and his\nown cask of water, and mix them, without making a government matter of\nit?'\n\n\"Where could he get a cask large enough to contain the right proportion\nof water?\"\n\nVery true. It was plain that the Englishman had studied the matter from\nall sides. Still I thought I might catch him on one point; so I asked\nhim why the modern empire did not make the nation's cream in the\nHeidelberg Tun, instead of leaving it to rot away unused. But he\nanswered as one prepared--\n\n\"A patient and diligent examination of the modern German cream had\nsatisfied me that they do not use the Great Tun now, because they have\ngot a BIGGER one hid away somewhere. Either that is the case or they\nempty the spring milkings into the mountain torrents and then skim the\nRhine all summer.\"\n\nThere is a museum of antiquities in the Castle, and among its most\ntreasured relics are ancient manuscripts connected with German history.\nThere are hundreds of these, and their dates stretch back through many\ncenturies. One of them is a decree signed and sealed by the hand of a\nsuccessor of Charlemagne, in the year 896. A signature made by a hand\nwhich vanished out of this life near a thousand years ago, is a more\nimpressive thing than even a ruined castle. Luther's wedding-ring was\nshown me; also a fork belonging to a time anterior to our era, and an\nearly bootjack. And there was a plaster cast of the head of a man who\nwas assassinated about sixty years ago. The stab-wounds in the face\nwere duplicated with unpleasant fidelity. One or two real hairs still\nremained sticking in the eyebrows of the cast. That trifle seemed to\nalmost change the counterfeit into a corpse.\n\nThere are many aged portraits--some valuable, some worthless; some of\ngreat interest, some of none at all. I bought a couple--one a gorgeous\nduke of the olden time, and the other a comely blue-eyed damsel,\na princess, maybe. I bought them to start a portrait-gallery of my\nancestors with. I paid a dollar and a half for the duke and a half for\nthe princess. One can lay in ancestors at even cheaper rates than these,\nin Europe, if he will mouse among old picture shops and look out for\nchances.\n\n\nAPPENDIX C.\n\nThe College Prison It seems that the student may break a good many of\nthe public laws without having to answer to the public authorities.\nHis case must come before the University for trial and punishment. If a\npoliceman catches him in an unlawful act and proceeds to arrest him,\nthe offender proclaims that he is a student, and perhaps shows his\nmatriculation card, whereupon the officer asks for his address, then\ngoes his way, and reports the matter at headquarters. If the offense is\none over which the city has no jurisdiction, the authorities report\nthe case officially to the University, and give themselves no further\nconcern about it. The University court send for the student, listen to\nthe evidence, and pronounce judgment. The punishment usually inflicted\nis imprisonment in the University prison. As I understand it, a\nstudent's case is often tried without his being present at all.\nThen something like this happens: A constable in the service of the\nUniversity visits the lodgings of the said student, knocks, is invited\nto come in, does so, and says politely--\n\n\"If you please, I am here to conduct you to prison.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" says the student, \"I was not expecting it. What have I been\ndoing?\"\n\n\"Two weeks ago the public peace had the honor to be disturbed by you.\"\n\n\"It is true; I had forgotten it. Very well: I have been complained of,\ntried, and found guilty--is that it?\"\n\n\"Exactly. You are sentenced to two days' solitary confinement in the\nCollege prison, and I am sent to fetch you.\"\n\nSTUDENT. \"O, I can't go today.\"\n\nOFFICER. \"If you please--why?\"\n\nSTUDENT. \"Because I've got an engagement.\"\n\nOFFICER. \"Tomorrow, then, perhaps?\"\n\nSTUDENT. \"No, I am going to the opera, tomorrow.\"\n\nOFFICER. \"Could you come Friday?\"\n\nSTUDENT. (Reflectively.) \"Let me see--Friday--Friday. I don't seem to\nhave anything on hand Friday.\"\n\nOFFICER. \"Then, if you please, I will expect you on Friday.\"\n\nSTUDENT. \"All right, I'll come around Friday.\"\n\nOFFICER. \"Thank you. Good day, sir.\"\n\nSTUDENT. \"Good day.\"\n\nSo on Friday the student goes to the prison of his own accord, and is\nadmitted.\n\nIt is questionable if the world's criminal history can show a custom\nmore odd than this. Nobody knows, now, how it originated. There have\nalways been many noblemen among the students, and it is presumed that\nall students are gentlemen; in the old times it was usual to mar the\nconvenience of such folk as little as possible; perhaps this indulgent\ncustom owes its origin to this.\n\nOne day I was listening to some conversation upon this subject when an\nAmerican student said that for some time he had been under sentence\nfor a slight breach of the peace and had promised the constable that he\nwould presently find an unoccupied day and betake himself to prison. I\nasked the young gentleman to do me the kindness to go to jail as soon\nas he conveniently could, so that I might try to get in there and visit\nhim, and see what college captivity was like. He said he would appoint\nthe very first day he could spare.\n\nHis confinement was to endure twenty-four hours. He shortly chose\nhis day, and sent me word. I started immediately. When I reached the\nUniversity Place, I saw two gentlemen talking together, and, as they\nhad portfolios under their arms, I judged they were tutors or elderly\nstudents; so I asked them in English to show me the college jail. I\nhad learned to take it for granted that anybody in Germany who knows\nanything, knows English, so I had stopped afflicting people with my\nGerman. These gentlemen seemed a trifle amused--and a trifle confused,\ntoo--but one of them said he would walk around the corner with me and\nshow me the place. He asked me why I wanted to get in there, and I said\nto see a friend--and for curiosity. He doubted if I would be admitted,\nbut volunteered to put in a word or two for me with the custodian.\n\nHe rang the bell, a door opened, and we stepped into a paved way and\nthen up into a small living-room, where we were received by a hearty\nand good-natured German woman of fifty. She threw up her hands with a\nsurprised \"ACH GOTT, HERR PROFESSOR!\" and exhibited a mighty deference\nfor my new acquaintance. By the sparkle in her eye I judged she was a\ngood deal amused, too. The \"Herr Professor\" talked to her in German, and\nI understood enough of it to know that he was bringing very plausible\nreasons to bear for admitting me. They were successful. So the Herr\nProfessor received my earnest thanks and departed. The old dame got her\nkeys, took me up two or three flights of stairs, unlocked a door, and\nwe stood in the presence of the criminal. Then she went into a jolly and\neager description of all that had occurred downstairs, and what the Herr\nProfessor had said, and so forth and so on. Plainly, she regarded it as\nquite a superior joke that I had waylaid a Professor and employed him\nin so odd a service. But I wouldn't have done it if I had known he was a\nProfessor; therefore my conscience was not disturbed.\n\nNow the dame left us to ourselves. The cell was not a roomy one; still\nit was a little larger than an ordinary prison cell. It had a window\nof good size, iron-grated; a small stove; two wooden chairs; two oaken\ntables, very old and most elaborately carved with names, mottoes, faces,\narmorial bearings, etc.--the work of several generations of imprisoned\nstudents; and a narrow wooden bedstead with a villainous straw mattress,\nbut no sheets, pillows, blankets, or coverlets--for these the student\nmust furnish at his own cost if he wants them. There was no carpet, of\ncourse.\n\nThe ceiling was completely covered with names, dates, and monograms,\ndone with candle-smoke. The walls were thickly covered with pictures and\nportraits (in profile), some done with ink, some with soot, some with a\npencil, and some with red, blue, and green chalks; and whenever an inch\nor two of space had remained between the pictures, the captives had\nwritten plaintive verses, or names and dates. I do not think I was ever\nin a more elaborately frescoed apartment.\n\nAgainst the wall hung a placard containing the prison laws. I made a\nnote of one or two of these. For instance: The prisoner must pay, for\nthe \"privilege\" of entering, a sum equivalent to 20 cents of our money;\nfor the privilege of leaving, when his term had expired, 20 cents; for\nevery day spent in the prison, 12 cents; for fire and light, 12 cents a\nday. The jailer furnishes coffee, mornings, for a small sum; dinners and\nsuppers may be ordered from outside if the prisoner chooses--and he is\nallowed to pay for them, too.\n\nHere and there, on the walls, appeared the names of American students,\nand in one place the American arms and motto were displayed in colored\nchalks.\n\nWith the help of my friend I translated many of the inscriptions.\n\nSome of them were cheerful, others the reverse. I will give the reader a\nfew specimens:\n\n\"In my tenth semester (my best one), I am cast here through the\ncomplaints of others. Let those who follow me take warning.\"\n\n\"III TAGE OHNE GRUND ANGEBLICH AUS NEUGIERDE.\" Which is to say, he had a\ncuriosity to know what prison life was like; so he made a breach in some\nlaw and got three days for it. It is more than likely that he never had\nthe same curiosity again.\n\n(TRANSLATION.) \"E. Glinicke, four days for being too eager a spectator\nof a row.\"\n\n\"F. Graf Bismarck--27-29, II, '74.\" Which means that Count Bismarck, son\nof the great statesman, was a prisoner two days in 1874.\n\n\n(TRANSLATION.) \"R. Diergandt--for Love--4 days.\" Many people in this\nworld have caught it heavier than for the same indiscretion.\n\nThis one is terse. I translate:\n\n\"Four weeks for MISINTERPRETED GALLANTRY.\" I wish the sufferer had\nexplained a little more fully. A four-week term is a rather serious\nmatter.\n\nThere were many uncomplimentary references, on the walls, to a certain\nunpopular dignitary. One sufferer had got three days for not saluting\nhim. Another had \"here two days slept and three nights lain awake,\"\non account of this same \"Dr. K.\" In one place was a picture of Dr. K.\nhanging on a gallows.\n\nHere and there, lonesome prisoners had eased the heavy time by altering\nthe records left by predecessors. Leaving the name standing, and the\ndate and length of the captivity, they had erased the description of the\nmisdemeanor, and written in its place, in staring capitals, \"FOR THEFT!\"\nor \"FOR MURDER!\" or some other gaudy crime. In one place, all by itself,\nstood this blood-curdling word:\n\n\"Rache!\" [1]\n\n1. \"Revenge!\"\n\nThere was no name signed, and no date. It was an inscription well\ncalculated to pique curiosity. One would greatly like to know the nature\nof the wrong that had been done, and what sort of vengeance was wanted,\nand whether the prisoner ever achieved it or not. But there was no way\nof finding out these things.\n\nOccasionally, a name was followed simply by the remark, \"II days, for\ndisturbing the peace,\" and without comment upon the justice or injustice\nof the sentence.\n\nIn one place was a hilarious picture of a student of the green cap\ncorps with a bottle of champagne in each hand; and below was the legend:\n\"These make an evil fate endurable.\"\n\nThere were two prison cells, and neither had space left on walls or\nceiling for another name or portrait or picture. The inside surfaces of\nthe two doors were completely covered with CARTES DE VISITE of former\nprisoners, ingeniously let into the wood and protected from dirt and\ninjury by glass.\n\nI very much wanted one of the sorry old tables which the prisoners had\nspent so many years in ornamenting with their pocket-knives, but red\ntape was in the way. The custodian could not sell one without an\norder from a superior; and that superior would have to get it from HIS\nsuperior; and this one would have to get it from a higher one--and so on\nup and up until the faculty should sit on the matter and deliver final\njudgment. The system was right, and nobody could find fault with it; but\nit did not seem justifiable to bother so many people, so I proceeded no\nfurther. It might have cost me more than I could afford, anyway; for\none of those prison tables, which was at the time in a private museum\nin Heidelberg, was afterward sold at auction for two hundred and fifty\ndollars. It was not worth more than a dollar, or possibly a dollar and\nhalf, before the captive students began their work on it. Persons who\nsaw it at the auction said it was so curiously and wonderfully carved\nthat it was worth the money that was paid for it.\n\nAmong them many who have tasted the college prison's dreary hospitality\nwas a lively young fellow from one of the Southern states of America,\nwhose first year's experience of German university life was rather\npeculiar. The day he arrived in Heidelberg he enrolled his name on the\ncollege books, and was so elated with the fact that his dearest hope\nhad found fruition and he was actually a student of the old and renowned\nuniversity, that he set to work that very night to celebrate the event\nby a grand lark in company with some other students. In the course of\nhis lark he managed to make a wide breach in one of the university's\nmost stringent laws. Sequel: before noon, next day, he was in the\ncollege prison--booked for three months. The twelve long weeks dragged\nslowly by, and the day of deliverance came at last. A great crowd of\nsympathizing fellow-students received him with a rousing demonstration\nas he came forth, and of course there was another grand lark--in the\ncourse of which he managed to make a wide breach of the CITY'S most\nstringent laws. Sequel: before noon, next day, he was safe in the city\nlockup--booked for three months. This second tedious captivity drew to\nan end in the course of time, and again a great crowd of sympathizing\nfellow students gave him a rousing reception as he came forth; but\nhis delight in his freedom was so boundless that he could not proceed\nsoberly and calmly, but must go hopping and skipping and jumping down\nthe sleety street from sheer excess of joy. Sequel: he slipped and broke\nhis leg, and actually lay in the hospital during the next three months!\n\nWhen he at last became a free man again, he said he believed he would\nhunt up a brisker seat of learning; the Heidelberg lectures might\nbe good, but the opportunities of attending them were too rare, the\neducational process too slow; he said he had come to Europe with the\nidea that the acquirement of an education was only a matter of time,\nbut if he had averaged the Heidelberg system correctly, it was rather a\nmatter of eternity.\n\n\nAPPENDIX D.\n\nThe Awful German Language\n\n   A little learning makes the whole world kin.\n                 --Proverbs xxxii, 7.\n\nI went often to look at the collection of curiosities in Heidelberg\nCastle, and one day I surprised the keeper of it with my German. I spoke\nentirely in that language. He was greatly interested; and after I had\ntalked a while he said my German was very rare, possibly a \"unique\"; and\nwanted to add it to his museum.\n\nIf he had known what it had cost me to acquire my art, he would also\nhave known that it would break any collector to buy it. Harris and I had\nbeen hard at work on our German during several weeks at that time, and\nalthough we had made good progress, it had been accomplished under great\ndifficulty and annoyance, for three of our teachers had died in the mean\ntime. A person who has not studied German can form no idea of what a\nperplexing language it is.\n\nSurely there is not another language that is so slipshod and systemless,\nand so slippery and elusive to the grasp. One is washed about in it,\nhither and thither, in the most helpless way; and when at last he thinks\nhe has captured a rule which offers firm ground to take a rest on amid\nthe general rage and turmoil of the ten parts of speech, he turns over\nthe page and reads, \"Let the pupil make careful note of the following\nEXCEPTIONS.\" He runs his eye down and finds that there are more\nexceptions to the rule than instances of it. So overboard he goes again,\nto hunt for another Ararat and find another quicksand. Such has been,\nand continues to be, my experience. Every time I think I have got one\nof these four confusing \"cases\" where I am master of it, a seemingly\ninsignificant preposition intrudes itself into my sentence, clothed with\nan awful and unsuspected power, and crumbles the ground from under\nme. For instance, my book inquires after a certain bird--(it is always\ninquiring after things which are of no sort of consequence to anybody):\n\"Where is the bird?\" Now the answer to this question--according to the\nbook--is that the bird is waiting in the blacksmith shop on account of\nthe rain. Of course no bird would do that, but then you must stick to\nthe book. Very well, I begin to cipher out the German for that answer. I\nbegin at the wrong end, necessarily, for that is the German idea. I\nsay to myself, \"REGEN (rain) is masculine--or maybe it is feminine--or\npossibly neuter--it is too much trouble to look now. Therefore, it\nis either DER (the) Regen, or DIE (the) Regen, or DAS (the) Regen,\naccording to which gender it may turn out to be when I look. In the\ninterest of science, I will cipher it out on the hypothesis that it is\nmasculine. Very well--then THE rain is DER Regen, if it is simply in\nthe quiescent state of being MENTIONED, without enlargement or\ndiscussion--Nominative case; but if this rain is lying around, in a kind\nof a general way on the ground, it is then definitely located, it is\nDOING SOMETHING--that is, RESTING (which is one of the German grammar's\nideas of doing something), and this throws the rain into the Dative\ncase, and makes it DEM Regen. However, this rain is not resting, but is\ndoing something ACTIVELY,--it is falling--to interfere with the bird,\nlikely--and this indicates MOVEMENT, which has the effect of sliding it\ninto the Accusative case and changing DEM Regen into DEN Regen.\"\nHaving completed the grammatical horoscope of this matter, I answer\nup confidently and state in German that the bird is staying in the\nblacksmith shop \"wegen (on account of) DEN Regen.\" Then the teacher lets\nme softly down with the remark that whenever the word \"wegen\" drops\ninto a sentence, it ALWAYS throws that subject into the GENITIVE case,\nregardless of consequences--and therefore this bird stayed in the\nblacksmith shop \"wegen DES Regens.\"\n\nN.B.--I was informed, later, by a higher authority, that there was\nan \"exception\" which permits one to say \"wegen DEN Regen\" in certain\npeculiar and complex circumstances, but that this exception is not\nextended to anything BUT rain.\n\nThere are ten parts of speech, and they are all troublesome. An average\nsentence, in a German newspaper, is a sublime and impressive curiosity;\nit occupies a quarter of a column; it contains all the ten parts of\nspeech--not in regular order, but mixed; it is built mainly of compound\nwords constructed by the writer on the spot, and not to be found in\nany dictionary--six or seven words compacted into one, without joint\nor seam--that is, without hyphens; it treats of fourteen or fifteen\ndifferent subjects, each enclosed in a parenthesis of its own, with here\nand there extra parentheses, making pens within pens: finally, all the\nparentheses and reparentheses are massed together between a couple\nof king-parentheses, one of which is placed in the first line of the\nmajestic sentence and the other in the middle of the last line of\nit--AFTER WHICH COMES THE VERB, and you find out for the first time what\nthe man has been talking about; and after the verb--merely by way of\nornament, as far as I can make out--the writer shovels in \"HABEN SIND\nGEWESEN GEHABT HAVEN GEWORDEN SEIN,\" or words to that effect, and the\nmonument is finished. I suppose that this closing hurrah is in the\nnature of the flourish to a man's signature--not necessary, but pretty.\nGerman books are easy enough to read when you hold them before\nthe looking-glass or stand on your head--so as to reverse the\nconstruction--but I think that to learn to read and understand a German\nnewspaper is a thing which must always remain an impossibility to a\nforeigner.\n\nYet even the German books are not entirely free from attacks of the\nParenthesis distemper--though they are usually so mild as to cover only\na few lines, and therefore when you at last get down to the verb it\ncarries some meaning to your mind because you are able to remember a\ngood deal of what has gone before. Now here is a sentence from a popular\nand excellent German novel--with a slight parenthesis in it. I will make\na perfectly literal translation, and throw in the parenthesis-marks and\nsome hyphens for the assistance of the reader--though in the original\nthere are no parenthesis-marks or hyphens, and the reader is left to\nflounder through to the remote verb the best way he can:\n\n\"But when he, upon the street, the\n(in-satin-and-silk-covered-now-very-unconstrained-after-the-newest-fashioned-dressed)\ngovernment counselor's wife MET,\" etc., etc. [1]\n\n1. Wenn er aber auf der Strasse der in Sammt und Seide gehuellten\njetz sehr ungenirt nach der neusten mode gekleideten Regierungsrathin\nbegegnet.\n\nThat is from THE OLD MAMSELLE'S SECRET, by Mrs. Marlitt. And that\nsentence is constructed upon the most approved German model. You observe\nhow far that verb is from the reader's base of operations; well, in a\nGerman newspaper they put their verb away over on the next page; and\nI have heard that sometimes after stringing along the exciting\npreliminaries and parentheses for a column or two, they get in a hurry\nand have to go to press without getting to the verb at all. Of course,\nthen, the reader is left in a very exhausted and ignorant state.\n\nWe have the Parenthesis disease in our literature, too; and one may see\ncases of it every day in our books and newspapers: but with us it is the\nmark and sign of an unpracticed writer or a cloudy intellect, whereas\nwith the Germans it is doubtless the mark and sign of a practiced pen\nand of the presence of that sort of luminous intellectual fog\nwhich stands for clearness among these people. For surely it is NOT\nclearness--it necessarily can't be clearness. Even a jury would have\npenetration enough to discover that. A writer's ideas must be a good\ndeal confused, a good deal out of line and sequence, when he starts out\nto say that a man met a counselor's wife in the street, and then right\nin the midst of this so simple undertaking halts these approaching\npeople and makes them stand still until he jots down an inventory of the\nwoman's dress. That is manifestly absurd. It reminds a person of those\ndentists who secure your instant and breathless interest in a tooth by\ntaking a grip on it with the forceps, and then stand there and\ndrawl through a tedious anecdote before they give the dreaded jerk.\nParentheses in literature and dentistry are in bad taste.\n\nThe Germans have another kind of parenthesis, which they make by\nsplitting a verb in two and putting half of it at the beginning of\nan exciting chapter and the OTHER HALF at the end of it. Can any one\nconceive of anything more confusing than that? These things are called\n\"separable verbs.\" The German grammar is blistered all over with\nseparable verbs; and the wider the two portions of one of them are\nspread apart, the better the author of the crime is pleased with his\nperformance. A favorite one is REISTE AB--which means departed. Here is\nan example which I culled from a novel and reduced to English:\n\n\"The trunks being now ready, he DE- after kissing his mother and\nsisters, and once more pressing to his bosom his adored Gretchen, who,\ndressed in simple white muslin, with a single tuberose in the ample\nfolds of her rich brown hair, had tottered feebly down the stairs, still\npale from the terror and excitement of the past evening, but longing to\nlay her poor aching head yet once again upon the breast of him whom she\nloved more dearly than life itself, PARTED.\"\n\nHowever, it is not well to dwell too much on the separable verbs. One is\nsure to lose his temper early; and if he sticks to the subject, and will\nnot be warned, it will at last either soften his brain or petrify\nit. Personal pronouns and adjectives are a fruitful nuisance in this\nlanguage, and should have been left out. For instance, the same sound,\nSIE, means YOU, and it means SHE, and it means HER, and it means IT,\nand it means THEY, and it means THEM. Think of the ragged poverty of\na language which has to make one word do the work of six--and a poor\nlittle weak thing of only three letters at that. But mainly, think of\nthe exasperation of never knowing which of these meanings the speaker is\ntrying to convey. This explains why, whenever a person says SIE to me, I\ngenerally try to kill him, if a stranger.\n\nNow observe the Adjective. Here was a case where simplicity would have\nbeen an advantage; therefore, for no other reason, the inventor of this\nlanguage complicated it all he could. When we wish to speak of our \"good\nfriend or friends,\" in our enlightened tongue, we stick to the one form\nand have no trouble or hard feeling about it; but with the German\ntongue it is different. When a German gets his hands on an adjective,\nhe declines it, and keeps on declining it until the common sense is all\ndeclined out of it. It is as bad as Latin. He says, for instance:\n\nSINGULAR\n\nNominative--Mein gutER Freund, my good friend. Genitives--MeinES GutEN\nFreundES, of my good friend. Dative--MeinEM gutEN Freund, to my good\nfriend. Accusative--MeinEN gutEN Freund, my good friend.\n\nPLURAL\n\nN.--MeinE gutEN FreundE, my good friends. G.--MeinER gutEN FreundE,\nof my good friends. D.--MeinEN gutEN FreundEN, to my good friends.\nA.--MeinE gutEN FreundE, my good friends.\n\nNow let the candidate for the asylum try to memorize those variations,\nand see how soon he will be elected. One might better go without friends\nin Germany than take all this trouble about them. I have shown what a\nbother it is to decline a good (male) friend; well this is only a third\nof the work, for there is a variety of new distortions of the adjective\nto be learned when the object is feminine, and still another when the\nobject is neuter. Now there are more adjectives in this language than\nthere are black cats in Switzerland, and they must all be as\nelaborately declined as the examples above suggested.\nDifficult?--troublesome?--these words cannot describe it. I heard a\nCalifornian student in Heidelberg say, in one of his calmest moods, that\nhe would rather decline two drinks than one German adjective.\n\nThe inventor of the language seems to have taken pleasure in\ncomplicating it in every way he could think of. For instance, if one is\ncasually referring to a house, HAUS, or a horse, PFERD, or a dog, HUND,\nhe spells these words as I have indicated; but if he is referring to\nthem in the Dative case, he sticks on a foolish and unnecessary E and\nspells them HAUSE, PFERDE, HUNDE. So, as an added E often signifies the\nplural, as the S does with us, the new student is likely to go on for a\nmonth making twins out of a Dative dog before he discovers his mistake;\nand on the other hand, many a new student who could ill afford loss,\nhas bought and paid for two dogs and only got one of them, because\nhe ignorantly bought that dog in the Dative singular when he really\nsupposed he was talking plural--which left the law on the seller's side,\nof course, by the strict rules of grammar, and therefore a suit for\nrecovery could not lie.\n\nIn German, all the Nouns begin with a capital letter. Now that is a good\nidea; and a good idea, in this language, is necessarily conspicuous from\nits lonesomeness. I consider this capitalizing of nouns a good idea,\nbecause by reason of it you are almost always able to tell a noun the\nminute you see it. You fall into error occasionally, because you mistake\nthe name of a person for the name of a thing, and waste a good deal of\ntime trying to dig a meaning out of it. German names almost always do\nmean something, and this helps to deceive the student. I translated a\npassage one day, which said that \"the infuriated tigress broke loose\nand utterly ate up the unfortunate fir forest\" (Tannenwald). When I was\ngirding up my loins to doubt this, I found out that Tannenwald in this\ninstance was a man's name.\n\nEvery noun has a gender, and there is no sense or system in the\ndistribution; so the gender of each must be learned separately and by\nheart. There is no other way. To do this one has to have a memory like a\nmemorandum-book. In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has.\nThink what overwrought reverence that shows for the turnip, and what\ncallous disrespect for the girl. See how it looks in print--I translate\nthis from a conversation in one of the best of the German Sunday-school\nbooks:\n\n\"Gretchen. Wilhelm, where is the turnip?\n\n\"Wilhelm. She has gone to the kitchen.\n\n\"Gretchen. Where is the accomplished and beautiful English maiden?\n\n\"Wilhelm. It has gone to the opera.\"\n\nTo continue with the German genders: a tree is male, its buds are\nfemale, its leaves are neuter; horses are sexless, dogs are male, cats\nare female--tomcats included, of course; a person's mouth, neck, bosom,\nelbows, fingers, nails, feet, and body are of the male sex, and his head\nis male or neuter according to the word selected to signify it, and NOT\naccording to the sex of the individual who wears it--for in Germany all\nthe women wear either male heads or sexless ones; a person's nose, lips,\nshoulders, breast, hands, and toes are of the female sex; and his hair,\nears, eyes, chin, legs, knees, heart, and conscience haven't any sex\nat all. The inventor of the language probably got what he knew about a\nconscience from hearsay.\n\nNow, by the above dissection, the reader will see that in Germany a\nman may THINK he is a man, but when he comes to look into the matter\nclosely, he is bound to have his doubts; he finds that in sober truth\nhe is a most ridiculous mixture; and if he ends by trying to comfort\nhimself with the thought that he can at least depend on a third of this\nmess as being manly and masculine, the humiliating second thought will\nquickly remind him that in this respect he is no better off than any\nwoman or cow in the land.\n\nIn the German it is true that by some oversight of the inventor of\nthe language, a Woman is a female; but a Wife (Weib) is not--which is\nunfortunate. A Wife, here, has no sex; she is neuter; so, according\nto the grammar, a fish is HE, his scales are SHE, but a fishwife is\nneither. To describe a wife as sexless may be called under-description;\nthat is bad enough, but over-description is surely worse. A German\nspeaks of an Englishman as the ENGL\u00c4NNDER; to change the sex, he\nadds INN, and that stands for Englishwoman--ENGL\u00c4NDERINN. That seems\ndescriptive enough, but still it is not exact enough for a German; so he\nprecedes the word with that article which indicates that the creature to\nfollow is feminine, and writes it down thus: \"die Engl\u00e4nderinn,\"--which\nmeans \"the she-Englishwoman.\" I consider that that person is\nover-described.\n\nWell, after the student has learned the sex of a great number of nouns,\nhe is still in a difficulty, because he finds it impossible to persuade\nhis tongue to refer to things as \"he\" and \"she,\" and \"him\" and \"her,\"\nwhich it has been always accustomed to refer to as \"it.\" When he even\nframes a German sentence in his mind, with the hims and hers in the\nright places, and then works up his courage to the utterance-point, it\nis no use--the moment he begins to speak his tongue flies the track and\nall those labored males and females come out as \"its.\" And even when he\nis reading German to himself, he always calls those things \"it,\" whereas\nhe ought to read in this way:\n\nTALE OF THE FISHWIFE AND ITS SAD FATE [2]\n\n2. I capitalize the nouns, in the German (and ancient English) fashion.\n\nIt is a bleak Day. Hear the Rain, how he pours, and the Hail, how he\nrattles; and see the Snow, how he drifts along, and of the Mud, how\ndeep he is! Ah the poor Fishwife, it is stuck fast in the Mire; it has\ndropped its Basket of Fishes; and its Hands have been cut by the Scales\nas it seized some of the falling Creatures; and one Scale has even got\ninto its Eye, and it cannot get her out. It opens its Mouth to cry\nfor Help; but if any Sound comes out of him, alas he is drowned by the\nraging of the Storm. And now a Tomcat has got one of the Fishes and she\nwill surely escape with him. No, she bites off a Fin, she holds her in\nher Mouth--will she swallow her? No, the Fishwife's brave Mother-dog\ndeserts his Puppies and rescues the Fin--which he eats, himself, as his\nReward. O, horror, the Lightning has struck the Fish-basket; he sets him\non Fire; see the Flame, how she licks the doomed Utensil with her red\nand angry Tongue; now she attacks the helpless Fishwife's Foot--she\nburns him up, all but the big Toe, and even SHE is partly consumed; and\nstill she spreads, still she waves her fiery Tongues; she attacks the\nFishwife's Leg and destroys IT; she attacks its Hand and destroys HER\nalso; she attacks the Fishwife's Leg and destroys HER also; she attacks\nits Body and consumes HIM; she wreathes herself about its Heart and IT\nis consumed; next about its Breast, and in a Moment SHE is a Cinder; now\nshe reaches its Neck--He goes; now its Chin--IT goes; now its Nose--SHE\ngoes. In another Moment, except Help come, the Fishwife will be no more.\nTime presses--is there none to succor and save? Yes! Joy, joy,\nwith flying Feet the she-Englishwoman comes! But alas, the generous\nshe-Female is too late: where now is the fated Fishwife? It has ceased\nfrom its Sufferings, it has gone to a better Land; all that is left of\nit for its loved Ones to lament over, is this poor smoldering Ash-heap.\nAh, woeful, woeful Ash-heap! Let us take him up tenderly, reverently,\nupon the lowly Shovel, and bear him to his long Rest, with the Prayer\nthat when he rises again it will be a Realm where he will have one good\nsquare responsible Sex, and have it all to himself, instead of having a\nmangy lot of assorted Sexes scattered all over him in Spots.\n\nThere, now, the reader can see for himself that this pronoun business is\na very awkward thing for the unaccustomed tongue. I suppose that in all\nlanguages the similarities of look and sound between words which have\nno similarity in meaning are a fruitful source of perplexity to the\nforeigner. It is so in our tongue, and it is notably the case in the\nGerman. Now there is that troublesome word VERM\u00c4HLT: to me it has so\nclose a resemblance--either real or fancied--to three or four other\nwords, that I never know whether it means despised, painted, suspected,\nor married; until I look in the dictionary, and then I find it means the\nlatter. There are lots of such words and they are a great torment. To\nincrease the difficulty there are words which SEEM to resemble each\nother, and yet do not; but they make just as much trouble as if they\ndid. For instance, there is the word VERMIETHEN (to let, to lease, to\nhire); and the word VERHEIRATHEN (another way of saying to marry). I\nheard of an Englishman who knocked at a man's door in Heidelberg and\nproposed, in the best German he could command, to \"verheirathen\" that\nhouse. Then there are some words which mean one thing when you emphasize\nthe first syllable, but mean something very different if you throw the\nemphasis on the last syllable. For instance, there is a word which\nmeans a runaway, or the act of glancing through a book, according to the\nplacing of the emphasis; and another word which signifies to\nASSOCIATE with a man, or to AVOID him, according to where you put the\nemphasis--and you can generally depend on putting it in the wrong place\nand getting into trouble.\n\nThere are some exceedingly useful words in this language. SCHLAG, for\nexample; and ZUG. There are three-quarters of a column of SCHLAGS in the\ndictonary, and a column and a half of ZUGS. The word SCHLAG means Blow,\nStroke, Dash, Hit, Shock, Clap, Slap, Time, Bar, Coin, Stamp,\nKind, Sort, Manner, Way, Apoplexy, Wood-cutting, Enclosure, Field,\nForest-clearing. This is its simple and EXACT meaning--that is to say,\nits restricted, its fettered meaning; but there are ways by which\nyou can set it free, so that it can soar away, as on the wings of the\nmorning, and never be at rest. You can hang any word you please to\nits tail, and make it mean anything you want to. You can begin\nwith SCHLAG-ADER, which means artery, and you can hang on the whole\ndictionary, word by word, clear through the alphabet to SCHLAG-WASSER,\nwhich means bilge-water--and including SCHLAG-MUTTER, which means\nmother-in-law.\n\nJust the same with ZUG. Strictly speaking, ZUG means Pull, Tug, Draught,\nProcession, March, Progress, Flight, Direction, Expedition, Train,\nCaravan, Passage, Stroke, Touch, Line, Flourish, Trait of Character,\nFeature, Lineament, Chess-move, Organ-stop, Team, Whiff, Bias, Drawer,\nPropensity, Inhalation, Disposition: but that thing which it does NOT\nmean--when all its legitimate pennants have been hung on, has not been\ndiscovered yet.\n\nOne cannot overestimate the usefulness of SCHLAG and ZUG. Armed just\nwith these two, and the word ALSO, what cannot the foreigner on German\nsoil accomplish? The German word ALSO is the equivalent of the English\nphrase \"You know,\" and does not mean anything at all--in TALK, though\nit sometimes does in print. Every time a German opens his mouth an\nALSO falls out; and every time he shuts it he bites one in two that was\ntrying to GET out.\n\nNow, the foreigner, equipped with these three noble words, is master of\nthe situation. Let him talk right along, fearlessly; let him pour his\nindifferent German forth, and when he lacks for a word, let him heave a\nSCHLAG into the vacuum; all the chances are that it fits it like a\nplug, but if it doesn't let him promptly heave a ZUG after it; the two\ntogether can hardly fail to bung the hole; but if, by a miracle, they\nSHOULD fail, let him simply say ALSO! and this will give him a moment's\nchance to think of the needful word. In Germany, when you load your\nconversational gun it is always best to throw in a SCHLAG or two and a\nZUG or two, because it doesn't make any difference how much the rest of\nthe charge may scatter, you are bound to bag something with THEM. Then\nyou blandly say ALSO, and load up again. Nothing gives such an air\nof grace and elegance and unconstraint to a German or an English\nconversation as to scatter it full of \"Also's\" or \"You knows.\"\n\nIn my note-book I find this entry:\n\nJuly 1.--In the hospital yesterday, a word of thirteen syllables was\nsuccessfully removed from a patient--a North German from near Hamburg;\nbut as most unfortunately the surgeons had opened him in the wrong\nplace, under the impression that he contained a panorama, he died. The\nsad event has cast a gloom over the whole community.\n\nThat paragraph furnishes a text for a few remarks about one of the most\ncurious and notable features of my subject--the length of German words.\nSome German words are so long that they have a perspective. Observe\nthese examples:\n\nFreundschaftsbezeigungen.\n\nDilettantenaufdringlichkeiten.\n\nStadtverordnetenversammlungen.\n\nThese things are not words, they are alphabetical processions. And they\nare not rare; one can open a German newspaper at any time and see them\nmarching majestically across the page--and if he has any imagination\nhe can see the banners and hear the music, too. They impart a martial\nthrill to the meekest subject. I take a great interest in these\ncuriosities. Whenever I come across a good one, I stuff it and put it in\nmy museum. In this way I have made quite a valuable collection. When I\nget duplicates, I exchange with other collectors, and thus increase the\nvariety of my stock. Here are some specimens which I lately bought at an\nauction sale of the effects of a bankrupt bric-a-brac hunter:\n\nGeneralstaatsverordnetenversammlungen.\n\nAlterthumswissenschaften.\n\nKinderbewahrungsanstalten.\n\nUnabh\u00e4ngigkeitserkl\u00e4rungen.\n\nWiedererstellungbestrebungen.\n\nWaffenstillstandsunterhandlungen.\n\n\nOf course when one of these grand mountain ranges goes stretching across\nthe printed page, it adorns and ennobles that literary landscape--but at\nthe same time it is a great distress to the new student, for it blocks\nup his way; he cannot crawl under it, or climb over it, or tunnel\nthrough it. So he resorts to the dictionary for help, but there is no\nhelp there. The dictionary must draw the line somewhere--so it leaves\nthis sort of words out. And it is right, because these long things are\nhardly legitimate words, but are rather combinations of words, and the\ninventor of them ought to have been killed. They are compound words with\nthe hyphens left out. The various words used in building them are in\nthe dictionary, but in a very scattered condition; so you can hunt the\nmaterials out, one by one, and get at the meaning at last, but it is a\ntedious and harassing business. I have tried this process upon some of\nthe above examples. \"Freundshaftsbezeigungen\" seems to be \"Friendship\ndemonstrations,\" which is only a foolish and clumsy way of saying\n\"demonstrations of friendship.\" \"Unabh\u00e4ngigkeitserkl\u00e4rungen\" seems to be\n\"Independencedeclarations,\" which is no improvement upon\n\"Declarations of Independence,\" so far as I can see.\n\"Generalstaatsverordnetenversammlungen\" seems to be\n\"General-statesrepresentativesmeetings,\" as nearly as I can get at it--a\nmere rhythmical, gushy euphemism for \"meetings of the legislature,\"\nI judge. We used to have a good deal of this sort of crime in our\nliterature, but it has gone out now. We used to speak of a thing as a\n\"never-to-be-forgotten\" circumstance, instead of cramping it into the\nsimple and sufficient word \"memorable\" and then going calmly about our\nbusiness as if nothing had happened. In those days we were not content\nto embalm the thing and bury it decently, we wanted to build a monument\nover it.\n\nBut in our newspapers the compounding-disease lingers a little to the\npresent day, but with the hyphens left out, in the German fashion. This\nis the shape it takes: instead of saying \"Mr. Simmons, clerk of the\ncounty and district courts, was in town yesterday,\" the new form puts\nit thus: \"Clerk of the County and District Courts Simmons was in town\nyesterday.\" This saves neither time nor ink, and has an awkward\nsound besides. One often sees a remark like this in our papers: \"MRS.\nAssistant District Attorney Johnson returned to her city residence\nyesterday for the season.\" That is a case of really unjustifiable\ncompounding; because it not only saves no time or trouble, but confers\na title on Mrs. Johnson which she has no right to. But these little\ninstances are trifles indeed, contrasted with the ponderous and dismal\nGerman system of piling jumbled compounds together. I wish to submit the\nfollowing local item, from a Mannheim journal, by way of illustration:\n\n\"In the daybeforeyesterdayshortlyaftereleveno'clock Night, the\ninthistownstandingtavern called 'The Wagoner' was downburnt. When the\nfire to the onthedownburninghouseresting Stork's Nest reached, flew the\nparent Storks away. But when the bytheraging, firesurrounded Nest ITSELF\ncaught Fire, straightway plunged the quickreturning Mother-Stork into\nthe Flames and died, her Wings over her young ones outspread.\"\n\nEven the cumbersome German construction is not able to take the pathos\nout of that picture--indeed, it somehow seems to strengthen it. This\nitem is dated away back yonder months ago. I could have used it sooner,\nbut I was waiting to hear from the Father-stork. I am still waiting.\n\n\"ALSO!\" If I had not shown that the German is a difficult language, I\nhave at least intended to do so. I have heard of an American student\nwho was asked how he was getting along with his German, and who answered\npromptly: \"I am not getting along at all. I have worked at it hard for\nthree level months, and all I have got to show for it is one solitary\nGerman phrase--'ZWEI GLAS'\" (two glasses of beer). He paused for a\nmoment, reflectively; then added with feeling: \"But I've got that\nSOLID!\"\n\nAnd if I have not also shown that German is a harassing and infuriating\nstudy, my execution has been at fault, and not my intent. I heard lately\nof a worn and sorely tried American student who used to fly to a certain\nGerman word for relief when he could bear up under his aggravations no\nlonger--the only word whose sound was sweet and precious to his ear and\nhealing to his lacerated spirit. This was the word DAMIT. It was only\nthe SOUND that helped him, not the meaning; [3] and so, at last, when he\nlearned that the emphasis was not on the first syllable, his only stay\nand support was gone, and he faded away and died.\n\n3. It merely means, in its general sense, \"herewith.\"\n\nI think that a description of any loud, stirring, tumultuous episode\nmust be tamer in German than in English. Our descriptive words of this\ncharacter have such a deep, strong, resonant sound, while their German\nequivalents do seem so thin and mild and energyless. Boom, burst, crash,\nroar, storm, bellow, blow, thunder, explosion; howl, cry, shout, yell,\ngroan; battle, hell. These are magnificent words; the have a force and\nmagnitude of sound befitting the things which they describe. But their\nGerman equivalents would be ever so nice to sing the children to sleep\nwith, or else my awe-inspiring ears were made for display and not for\nsuperior usefulness in analyzing sounds. Would any man want to die in a\nbattle which was called by so tame a term as a SCHLACHT? Or would not\na comsumptive feel too much bundled up, who was about to go out, in\na shirt-collar and a seal-ring, into a storm which the bird-song word\nGEWITTER was employed to describe? And observe the strongest of the\nseveral German equivalents for explosion--AUSBRUCH. Our word Toothbrush\nis more powerful than that. It seems to me that the Germans could\ndo worse than import it into their language to describe particularly\ntremendous explosions with. The German word for hell--Hoelle--sounds\nmore like HELLY than anything else; therefore, how necessarily chipper,\nfrivolous, and unimpressive it is. If a man were told in German to go\nthere, could he really rise to thee dignity of feeling insulted?\n\nHaving pointed out, in detail, the several vices of this language, I\nnow come to the brief and pleasant task of pointing out its virtues. The\ncapitalizing of the nouns I have already mentioned. But far before this\nvirtue stands another--that of spelling a word according to the sound of\nit. After one short lesson in the alphabet, the student can tell how any\nGerman word is pronounced without having to ask; whereas in our language\nif a student should inquire of us, \"What does B, O, W, spell?\" we should\nbe obliged to reply, \"Nobody can tell what it spells when you set if off\nby itself; you can only tell by referring to the context and finding out\nwhat it signifies--whether it is a thing to shoot arrows with, or a nod\nof one's head, or the forward end of a boat.\"\n\nThere are some German words which are singularly and powerfully\neffective. For instance, those which describe lowly, peaceful, and\naffectionate home life; those which deal with love, in any and all\nforms, from mere kindly feeling and honest good will toward the passing\nstranger, clear up to courtship; those which deal with outdoor Nature,\nin its softest and loveliest aspects--with meadows and forests, and\nbirds and flowers, the fragrance and sunshine of summer, and the\nmoonlight of peaceful winter nights; in a word, those which deal with\nany and all forms of rest, repose, and peace; those also which deal with\nthe creatures and marvels of fairyland; and lastly and chiefly, in\nthose words which express pathos, is the language surpassingly rich\nand affective. There are German songs which can make a stranger to the\nlanguage cry. That shows that the SOUND of the words is correct--it\ninterprets the meanings with truth and with exactness; and so the ear is\ninformed, and through the ear, the heart.\n\nThe Germans do not seem to be afraid to repeat a word when it is the\nright one. They repeat it several times, if they choose. That is\nwise. But in English, when we have used a word a couple of times in a\nparagraph, we imagine we are growing tautological, and so we are weak\nenough to exchange it for some other word which only approximates\nexactness, to escape what we wrongly fancy is a greater blemish.\nRepetition may be bad, but surely inexactness is worse.\n\n\nThere are people in the world who will take a great deal of trouble to\npoint out the faults in a religion or a language, and then go blandly\nabout their business without suggesting any remedy. I am not that kind\nof person. I have shown that the German language needs reforming. Very\nwell, I am ready to reform it. At least I am ready to make the proper\nsuggestions. Such a course as this might be immodest in another; but I\nhave devoted upward of nine full weeks, first and last, to a careful and\ncritical study of this tongue, and thus have acquired a confidence in\nmy ability to reform it which no mere superficial culture could have\nconferred upon me.\n\nIn the first place, I would leave out the Dative case. It confuses the\nplurals; and, besides, nobody ever knows when he is in the Dative case,\nexcept he discover it by accident--and then he does not know when or\nwhere it was that he got into it, or how long he has been in it, or\nhow he is ever going to get out of it again. The Dative case is but an\nornamental folly--it is better to discard it.\n\nIn the next place, I would move the Verb further up to the front. You\nmay load up with ever so good a Verb, but I notice that you never really\nbring down a subject with it at the present German range--you only\ncripple it. So I insist that this important part of speech should be\nbrought forward to a position where it may be easily seen with the naked\neye.\n\nThirdly, I would import some strong words from the English tongue--to\nswear with, and also to use in describing all sorts of vigorous things\nin a vigorous way. [4]\n\n1. \"Verdammt,\" and its variations and enlargements, are words which\nhave plenty of meaning, but the SOUNDS are so mild and ineffectual that\nGerman ladies can use them without sin. German ladies who could not be\ninduced to commit a sin by any persuasion or compulsion, promptly rip\nout one of these harmless little words when they tear their dresses or\ndon't like the soup. It sounds about as wicked as our \"My gracious.\"\nGerman ladies are constantly saying, \"Ach! Gott!\" \"Mein Gott!\" \"Gott in\nHimmel!\" \"Herr Gott\" \"Der Herr Jesus!\" etc. They think our ladies have\nthe same custom, perhaps; for I once heard a gentle and lovely old\nGerman lady say to a sweet young American girl: \"The two languages are\nso alike--how pleasant that is; we say 'Ach! Gott!' you say 'Goddamn.'\"\n\nFourthly, I would reorganizes the sexes, and distribute them accordingly\nto the will of the creator. This as a tribute of respect, if nothing\nelse.\n\nFifthly, I would do away with those great long compounded words; or\nrequire the speaker to deliver them in sections, with intermissions for\nrefreshments. To wholly do away with them would be best, for ideas are\nmore easily received and digested when they come one at a time than when\nthey come in bulk. Intellectual food is like any other; it is pleasanter\nand more beneficial to take it with a spoon than with a shovel.\n\nSixthly, I would require a speaker to stop when he is done, and not\nhang a string of those useless \"haven sind gewesen gehabt haben geworden\nseins\" to the end of his oration. This sort of gewgaws undignify a\nspeech, instead of adding a grace. They are, therefore, an offense, and\nshould be discarded.\n\nSeventhly, I would discard the Parenthesis. Also the reparenthesis, the\nre-reparenthesis, and the re-re-re-re-re-reparentheses, and likewise\nthe final wide-reaching all-enclosing king-parenthesis. I would require\nevery individual, be he high or low, to unfold a plain straightforward\ntale, or else coil it and sit on it and hold his peace. Infractions of\nthis law should be punishable with death.\n\nAnd eighthly, and last, I would retain ZUG and SCHLAG, with their\npendants, and discard the rest of the vocabulary. This would simplify\nthe language.\n\nI have now named what I regard as the most necessary and important\nchanges. These are perhaps all I could be expected to name for nothing;\nbut there are other suggestions which I can and will make in case my\nproposed application shall result in my being formally employed by the\ngovernment in the work of reforming the language.\n\nMy philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought to\nlearn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French\nin thirty days, and German in thirty years. It seems manifest, then,\nthat the latter tongue ought to be trimmed down and repaired. If it is\nto remain as it is, it ought to be gently and reverently set aside among\nthe dead languages, for only the dead have time to learn it.\n\nA FOURTH OF JULY ORATION IN THE GERMAN TONGUE, DELIVERED AT A BANQUET OF\nTHE ANGLO-AMERICAN CLUB OF STUDENTS BY THE AUTHOR OF THIS BOOK\n\nGentlemen: Since I arrived, a month ago, in this old wonderland, this\nvast garden of Germany, my English tongue has so often proved a useless\npiece of baggage to me, and so troublesome to carry around, in a country\nwhere they haven't the checking system for luggage, that I finally set\nto work, and learned the German language. Also! Es freut mich dass dies\nso ist, denn es muss, in ein haupts\u00e4chlich degree, h\u00f6flich sein, dass\nman auf ein occasion like this, sein Rede in die Sprache des Landes\nworin he boards, aussprechen soll. Dafuer habe ich, aus reinische\nVerlegenheit--no, Vergangenheit--no, I mean H\u00f6flichkeit--aus reinishe\nH\u00f6flichkeit habe ich resolved to tackle this business in the German\nlanguage, um Gottes willen! Also! Sie muessen so freundlich sein, und\nverzeih mich die interlarding von ein oder zwei Englischer Worte, hie\nund da, denn ich finde dass die deutsche is not a very copious language,\nand so when you've really got anything to say, you've got to draw on a\nlanguage that can stand the strain.\n\nWenn haber man kann nicht meinem Rede Verstehen, so werde ich ihm sp\u00e4ter\ndasselbe uebersetz, wenn er solche Dienst verlangen wollen haben werden\nsollen sein h\u00e4tte. (I don't know what wollen haben werden sollen sein\nh\u00e4tte means, but I notice they always put it at the end of a German\nsentence--merely for general literary gorgeousness, I suppose.)\n\nThis is a great and justly honored day--a day which is worthy of the\nveneration in which it is held by the true patriots of all climes and\nnationalities--a day which offers a fruitful theme for thought and\nspeech; und meinem Freunde--no, meinEN FreundEN--meinES FreundES--well,\ntake your choice, they're all the same price; I don't know which one is\nright--also! ich habe gehabt haben worden gewesen sein, as Goethe says\nin his Paradise Lost--ich--ich--that is to say--ich--but let us change\ncars.\n\nAlso! Die Anblich so viele Grossbrittanischer und Amerikanischer\nhier zusammengetroffen in Bruderliche concord, ist zwar a welcome and\ninspiriting spectacle. And what has moved you to it? Can the\nterse German tongue rise to the expression of this impulse? Is it\nFreundschaftsbezeigungenstadtverordnetenversammlungenfamilieneigenth\u00fcmlichkeiten?\nNein, O nein! This is a crisp and noble word, but it fails to pierce\nthe marrow of the impulse which has gathered this friendly meeting and\nproduced diese Anblick--eine Anblich welche ist gut zu sehen--gut fuer\ndie Augen in a foreign land and a far country--eine Anblick solche als\nin die gew\u00f6hnliche Heidelberger phrase nennt man ein \"sch\u00f6nes Aussicht!\"\nJa, freilich nat\u00fcrlich wahrscheinlich ebensowohl! Also! Die Aussicht auf\ndem Koenigsstuhl mehr gr\u00f6sser ist, aber geistlische sprechend nicht\nso sch\u00f6n, lob' Gott! Because sie sind hier zusammengetroffen, in\nBruderlichem concord, ein grossen Tag zu feirn, whose high benefits were\nnot for one land and one locality, but have conferred a measure of\ngood upon all lands that know liberty today, and love it. Hundert Jahre\nvorueber, waren die Engl\u00e4nder und die Amerikaner Feinde; aber heut sind\nsie herzlichen Freunde, Gott sei Dank! May this good-fellowship endure;\nmay these banners here blended in amity so remain; may they never\nany more wave over opposing hosts, or be stained with blood which was\nkindred, is kindred, and always will be kindred, until a line drawn upon\na map shall be able to say: \"THIS bars the ancestral blood from flowing\nin the veins of the descendant!\"\n\n\nAPPENDIX E.\n\nLegend of the Castles Called the \"Swallow's Nest\" and \"The Brothers,\" as\nCondensed from the Captain's Tale\n\nIn the neighborhood of three hundred years ago the Swallow's Nest and\nthe larger castle between it and Neckarsteinach were owned and occupied\nby two old knights who were twin brothers, and bachelors. They had no\nrelatives. They were very rich. They had fought through the wars and\nretired to private life--covered with honorable scars. They were honest,\nhonorable men in their dealings, but the people had given them a couple\nof nicknames which were very suggestive--Herr Givenaught and Herr\nHeartless. The old knights were so proud of these names that if a\nburgher called them by their right ones they would correct them.\n\nThe most renowned scholar in Europe, at the time, was the Herr Doctor\nFranz Reikmann, who lived in Heidelberg. All Germany was proud of the\nvenerable scholar, who lived in the simplest way, for great scholars are\nalways poor. He was poor, as to money, but very rich in his sweet young\ndaughter Hildegarde and his library. He had been all his life collecting\nhis library, book and book, and he lived it as a miser loves his hoarded\ngold. He said the two strings of his heart were rooted, the one in his\ndaughter, the other in his books; and that if either were severed he\nmust die. Now in an evil hour, hoping to win a marriage portion for his\nchild, this simple old man had intrusted his small savings to a sharper\nto be ventured in a glittering speculation. But that was not the worst\nof it: he signed a paper--without reading it. That is the way with poets\nand scholars; they always sign without reading. This cunning paper made\nhim responsible for heaps of things. The rest was that one night he\nfound himself in debt to the sharper eight thousand pieces of gold!--an\namount so prodigious that it simply stupefied him to think of it. It was\na night of woe in that house.\n\n\"I must part with my library--I have nothing else. So perishes one\nheartstring,\" said the old man.\n\n\"What will it bring, father?\" asked the girl.\n\n\"Nothing! It is worth seven hundred pieces of gold; but by auction it\nwill go for little or nothing.\"\n\n\"Then you will have parted with the half of your heart and the joy of\nyour life to no purpose, since so mighty a burden of debt will remain\nbehind.\"\n\n\"There is no help for it, my child. Our darlings must pass under the\nhammer. We must pay what we can.\"\n\n\"My father, I have a feeling that the dear Virgin will come to our help.\nLet us not lose heart.\"\n\n\"She cannot devise a miracle that will turn NOTHING into eight thousand\ngold pieces, and lesser help will bring us little peace.\"\n\n\"She can do even greater things, my father. She will save us, I know she\nwill.\"\n\nToward morning, while the old man sat exhausted and asleep in his chair\nwhere he had been sitting before his books as one who watches by his\nbeloved dead and prints the features on his memory for a solace in the\naftertime of empty desolation, his daughter sprang into the room and\ngently woke him, saying--\n\n\"My presentiment was true! She will save us. Three times has she\nappeared to me in my dreams, and said, 'Go to the Herr Givenaught, go to\nthe Herr Heartless, ask them to come and bid.' There, did I not tell you\nshe would save us, the thrice blessed Virgin!\"\n\nSad as the old man was, he was obliged to laugh.\n\n\"Thou mightest as well appeal to the rocks their castles stand upon as\nto the harder ones that lie in those men's breasts, my child. THEY bid\non books writ in the learned tongues!--they can scarce read their own.\"\n\nBut Hildegarde's faith was in no wise shaken. Bright and early she was\non her way up the Neckar road, as joyous as a bird.\n\nMeantime Herr Givenaught and Herr Heartless were having an early\nbreakfast in the former's castle--the Sparrow's Nest--and flavoring\nit with a quarrel; for although these twins bore a love for each other\nwhich almost amounted to worship, there was one subject upon which they\ncould not touch without calling each other hard names--and yet it was\nthe subject which they oftenest touched upon.\n\n\"I tell you,\" said Givenaught, \"you will beggar yourself yet with your\ninsane squanderings of money upon what you choose to consider poor and\nworthy objects. All these years I have implored you to stop this foolish\ncustom and husband your means, but all in vain. You are always lying\nto me about these secret benevolences, but you never have managed to\ndeceive me yet. Every time a poor devil has been set upon his feet I\nhave detected your hand in it--incorrigible ass!\"\n\n\"Every time you didn't set him on his feet yourself, you mean. Where I\ngive one unfortunate a little private lift, you do the same for a dozen.\nThe idea of YOUR swelling around the country and petting yourself with\nthe nickname of Givenaught--intolerable humbug! Before I would be such\na fraud as that, I would cut my right hand off. Your life is a continual\nlie. But go on, I have tried MY best to save you from beggaring yourself\nby your riotous charities--now for the thousandth time I wash my hands\nof the consequences. A maundering old fool! that's what you are.\"\n\n\"And you a blethering old idiot!\" roared Givenaught, springing up.\n\n\"I won't stay in the presence of a man who has no more delicacy than to\ncall me such names. Mannerless swine!\"\n\nSo saying, Herr Heartless sprang up in a passion. But some lucky\naccident intervened, as usual, to change the subject, and the daily\nquarrel ended in the customary daily living reconciliation. The\ngray-headed old eccentrics parted, and Herr Heartless walked off to his\nown castle.\n\nHalf an hour later, Hildegarde was standing in the presence of Herr\nGivenaught. He heard her story, and said--\n\n\"I am sorry for you, my child, but I am very poor, I care nothing for\nbookish rubbish, I shall not be there.\"\n\nHe said the hard words kindly, but they nearly broke poor Hildegarde's\nheart, nevertheless. When she was gone the old heartbreaker muttered,\nrubbing his hands--\n\n\"It was a good stroke. I have saved my brother's pocket this time,\nin spite of him. Nothing else would have prevented his rushing off to\nrescue the old scholar, the pride of Germany, from his trouble. The poor\nchild won't venture near HIM after the rebuff she has received from his\nbrother the Givenaught.\"\n\nBut he was mistaken. The Virgin had commanded, and Hildegarde would\nobey. She went to Herr Heartless and told her story. But he said\ncoldly--\n\n\"I am very poor, my child, and books are nothing to me. I wish you well,\nbut I shall not come.\"\n\nWhen Hildegarde was gone, he chuckled and said--\n\n\"How my fool of a soft-headed soft-hearted brother would rage if he knew\nhow cunningly I have saved his pocket. How he would have flown to the\nold man's rescue! But the girl won't venture near him now.\"\n\nWhen Hildegarde reached home, her father asked her how she had\nprospered. She said--\n\n\"The Virgin has promised, and she will keep her word; but not in the way\nI thought. She knows her own ways, and they are best.\"\n\nThe old man patted her on the head, and smiled a doubting smile, but he\nhonored her for her brave faith, nevertheless.\n\nII\n\nNext day the people assembled in the great hall of the Ritter tavern,\nto witness the auction--for the proprietor had said the treasure of\nGermany's most honored son should be bartered away in no meaner place.\nHildegarde and her father sat close to the books, silent and sorrowful,\nand holding each other's hands. There was a great crowd of people\npresent. The bidding began--\n\n\"How much for this precious library, just as it stands, all complete?\"\ncalled the auctioneer.\n\n\"Fifty pieces of gold!\"\n\n\"A hundred!\"\n\n\"Two hundred.\"\n\n\"Three!\"\n\n\"Four!\"\n\n\"Five hundred!\"\n\n\"Five twenty-five.\"\n\nA brief pause.\n\n\"Five forty!\"\n\nA longer pause, while the auctioneer redoubled his persuasions.\n\n\"Five-forty-five!\"\n\nA heavy drag--the auctioneer persuaded, pleaded, implored--it was\nuseless, everybody remained silent--\n\n\"Well, then--going, going--one--two--\"\n\n\"Five hundred and fifty!\"\n\nThis in a shrill voice, from a bent old man, all hung with rags, and\nwith a green patch over his left eye. Everybody in his vicinity\nturned and gazed at him. It was Givenaught in disguise. He was using a\ndisguised voice, too.\n\n\"Good!\" cried the auctioneer. \"Going, going--one--two--\"\n\n\"Five hundred and sixty!\"\n\nThis, in a deep, harsh voice, from the midst of the crowd at the other\nend of the room. The people near by turned, and saw an old man, in a\nstrange costume, supporting himself on crutches. He wore a long white\nbeard, and blue spectacles. It was Herr Heartless, in disguise, and\nusing a disguised voice.\n\n\"Good again! Going, going--one--\"\n\n\"Six hundred!\"\n\nSensation. The crowd raised a cheer, and some one cried out, \"Go it,\nGreen-patch!\" This tickled the audience and a score of voices shouted,\n\"Go it, Green-patch!\"\n\n\"Going--going--going--third and last call--one--two--\"\n\n\"Seven hundred!\"\n\n\"Huzzah!--well done, Crutches!\" cried a voice. The crowd took it up, and\nshouted altogether, \"Well done, Crutches!\"\n\n\"Splendid, gentlemen! you are doing magnificently. Going, going--\"\n\n\"A thousand!\"\n\n\"Three cheers for Green-patch! Up and at him, Crutches!\"\n\n\"Going--going--\"\n\n\"Two thousand!\"\n\nAnd while the people cheered and shouted, \"Crutches\" muttered, \"Who can\nthis devil be that is fighting so to get these useless books?--But no\nmatter, he sha'n't have them. The pride of Germany shall have his books\nif it beggars me to buy them for him.\"\n\n\"Going, going, going--\"\n\n\"Three thousand!\"\n\n\"Come, everybody--give a rouser for Green-patch!\"\n\nAnd while they did it, \"Green-patch\" muttered, \"This cripple is plainly\na lunatic; but the old scholar shall have his books, nevertheless,\nthough my pocket sweat for it.\"\n\n\"Going--going--\"\n\n\"Four thousand!\"\n\n\"Huzza!\"\n\n\"Five thousand!\"\n\n\"Huzza!\"\n\n\"Six thousand!\"\n\n\"Huzza!\"\n\n\"Seven thousand!\"\n\n\"Huzza!\"\n\n\"EIGHT thousand!\"\n\n\"We are saved, father! I told you the Holy Virgin would keep her word!\"\n\"Blessed be her sacred name!\" said the old scholar, with emotion. The\ncrowd roared, \"Huzza, huzza, huzza--at him again, Green-patch!\"\n\n\"Going--going--\"\n\n\"TEN thousand!\" As Givenaught shouted this, his excitement was so\ngreat that he forgot himself and used his natural voice. His brother\nrecognized it, and muttered, under cover of the storm of cheers--\n\n\"Aha, you are there, are you, besotted old fool? Take the books, I know\nwhat you'll do with them!\"\n\nSo saying, he slipped out of the place and the auction was at an end.\nGivenaught shouldered his way to Hildegarde, whispered a word in\nher ear, and then he also vanished. The old scholar and his daughter\nembraced, and the former said, \"Truly the Holy Mother has done more\nthan she promised, child, for she has given you a splendid marriage\nportion--think of it, two thousand pieces of gold!\"\n\n\"And more still,\" cried Hildegarde, \"for she has given you back your\nbooks; the stranger whispered me that he would none of them--'the\nhonored son of Germany must keep them,' so he said. I would I might have\nasked his name and kissed his hand and begged his blessing; but he was\nOur Lady's angel, and it is not meet that we of earth should venture\nspeech with them that dwell above.\"\n\n\nAPPENDIX F.\n\nGerman Journals The daily journals of Hamburg, Frankfort, Baden, Munich,\nand Augsburg are all constructed on the same general plan. I speak of\nthese because I am more familiar with them than with any other German\npapers. They contain no \"editorials\" whatever; no \"personals\"--and this\nis rather a merit than a demerit, perhaps; no funny-paragraph column;\nno police-court reports; no reports of proceedings of higher courts;\nno information about prize-fights or other dog-fights, horse-races,\nwalking-machines, yachting-contents, rifle-matches, or other sporting\nmatters of any sort; no reports of banquet speeches; no department of\ncurious odds and ends of floating fact and gossip; no \"rumors\" about\nanything or anybody; no prognostications or prophecies about anything or\nanybody; no lists of patents granted or sought, or any reference to\nsuch things; no abuse of public officials, big or little, or complaints\nagainst them, or praises of them; no religious columns Saturdays, no\nrehash of cold sermons Mondays; no \"weather indications\"; no \"local\nitem\" unveiling of what is happening in town--nothing of a local nature,\nindeed, is mentioned, beyond the movements of some prince, or the\nproposed meeting of some deliberative body.\n\nAfter so formidable a list of what one can't find in a German daily,\nthe question may well be asked, What CAN be found in it? It is easily\nanswered: A child's handful of telegrams, mainly about European national\nand international political movements; letter-correspondence about the\nsame things; market reports. There you have it. That is what a German\ndaily is made of. A German daily is the slowest and saddest and\ndreariest of the inventions of man. Our own dailies infuriate the\nreader, pretty often; the German daily only stupefies him. Once a\nweek the German daily of the highest class lightens up its heavy\ncolumns--that is, it thinks it lightens them up--with a profound, an\nabysmal, book criticism; a criticism which carries you down, down, down\ninto the scientific bowels of the subject--for the German critic is\nnothing if not scientific--and when you come up at last and scent the\nfresh air and see the bonny daylight once more, you resolve without a\ndissenting voice that a book criticism is a mistaken way to lighten up\na German daily. Sometimes, in place of the criticism, the first-class\ndaily gives you what it thinks is a gay and chipper essay--about ancient\nGrecian funeral customs, or the ancient Egyptian method of tarring a\nmummy, or the reasons for believing that some of the peoples who existed\nbefore the flood did not approve of cats. These are not unpleasant\nsubjects; they are not uninteresting subjects; they are even exciting\nsubjects--until one of these massive scientists gets hold of them. He\nsoon convinces you that even these matters can be handled in such a way\nas to make a person low-spirited.\n\nAs I have said, the average German daily is made up solely of\ncorrespondences--a trifle of it by telegraph, the rest of it by mail.\nEvery paragraph has the side-head, \"London,\" \"Vienna,\" or some other\ntown, and a date. And always, before the name of the town, is placed\na letter or a sign, to indicate who the correspondent is, so that the\nauthorities can find him when they want to hang him. Stars, crosses,\ntriangles, squares, half-moons, suns--such are some of the signs used by\ncorrespondents.\n\nSome of the dailies move too fast, others too slowly. For instance, my\nHeidelberg daily was always twenty-four hours old when it arrived at\nthe hotel; but one of my Munich evening papers used to come a full\ntwenty-four hours before it was due.\n\nSome of the less important dailies give one a tablespoonful of a\ncontinued story every day; it is strung across the bottom of the page,\nin the French fashion. By subscribing for the paper for five years I\njudge that a man might succeed in getting pretty much all of the story.\n\nIf you ask a citizen of Munich which is the best Munich daily journal,\nhe will always tell you that there is only one good Munich daily, and\nthat it is published in Augsburg, forty or fifty miles away. It is like\nsaying that the best daily paper in New York is published out in New\nJersey somewhere. Yes, the Augsburg ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG is \"the best\nMunich paper,\" and it is the one I had in my mind when I was describing\na \"first-class German daily\" above. The entire paper, opened out, is not\nquite as large as a single page of the New York HERALD. It is printed on\nboth sides, of course; but in such large type that its entire contents\ncould be put, in HERALD type, upon a single page of the HERALD--and\nthere would still be room enough on the page for the ZEITUNG's\n\"supplement\" and some portion of the ZEITUNG's next day's contents.\n\nSuch is the first-class daily. The dailies actually printed in Munich\nare all called second-class by the public. If you ask which is the best\nof these second-class papers they say there is no difference; one is as\ngood as another. I have preserved a copy of one of them; it is\ncalled the M\u00dcNCHENER TAGES-ANZEIGER, and bears date January 25, 1879.\nComparisons are odious, but they need not be malicious; and without any\nmalice I wish to compare this journal, published in a German city of\n170,000 inhabitants, with journals of other countries. I know of no\nother way to enable the reader to \"size\" the thing.\n\nA column of an average daily paper in America contains from 1,800 to\n2,500 words; the reading-matter in a single issue consists of from\n25,000 to 50,000 words. The reading-matter in my copy of the Munich\njournal consists of a total of 1,654 words --for I counted them. That\nwould be nearly a column of one of our dailies. A single issue of the\nbulkiest daily newspaper in the world--the London TIMES--often contains\n100,000 words of reading-matter. Considering that the DAILY ANZEIGER\nissues the usual twenty-six numbers per month, the reading matter in a\nsingle number of the London TIMES would keep it in \"copy\" two months and\na half.\n\nThe ANZEIGER is an eight-page paper; its page is one inch wider and one\ninch longer than a foolscap page; that is to say, the dimensions of its\npage are somewhere between those of a schoolboy's slate and a lady's\npocket handkerchief. One-fourth of the first page is taken up with the\nheading of the journal; this gives it a rather top-heavy appearance;\nthe rest of the first page is reading-matter; all of the second page is\nreading-matter; the other six pages are devoted to advertisements.\n\nThe reading-matter is compressed into two hundred and five small-pica\nlines, and is lighted up with eight pica headlines. The bill of fare\nis as follows: First, under a pica headline, to enforce attention and\nrespect, is a four-line sermon urging mankind to remember that, although\nthey are pilgrims here below, they are yet heirs of heaven; and that\n\"When they depart from earth they soar to heaven.\" Perhaps a four-line\nsermon in a Saturday paper is the sufficient German equivalent of the\neight or ten columns of sermons which the New-Yorkers get in their\nMonday morning papers. The latest news (two days old) follows the\nfour-line sermon, under the pica headline \"Telegrams\"--these are\n\"telegraphed\" with a pair of scissors out of the AUGSBURGER ZEITUNG of\nthe day before. These telegrams consist of fourteen and two-thirds lines\nfrom Berlin, fifteen lines from Vienna, and two and five-eights lines\nfrom Calcutta. Thirty-three small-pica lines of telegraphic news in a\ndaily journal in a King's Capital of one hundred and seventy thousand\ninhabitants is surely not an overdose. Next we have the pica heading,\n\"News of the Day,\" under which the following facts are set forth: Prince\nLeopold is going on a visit to Vienna, six lines; Prince Arnulph is\ncoming back from Russia, two lines; the Landtag will meet at ten o'clock\nin the morning and consider an election law, three lines and one word\nover; a city government item, five and one-half lines; prices of tickets\nto the proposed grand Charity Ball, twenty-three lines--for this one\nitem occupies almost one-fourth of the entire first page; there is to be\na wonderful Wagner concert in Frankfurt-on-the-Main, with an orchestra\nof one hundred and eight instruments, seven and one-half lines. That\nconcludes the first page. Eighty-five lines, altogether, on that page,\nincluding three headlines. About fifty of those lines, as one perceives,\ndeal with local matters; so the reporters are not overworked.\n\nExactly one-half of the second page is occupied with an opera criticism,\nfifty-three lines (three of them being headlines), and \"Death Notices,\"\nten lines.\n\nThe other half of the second page is made up of two paragraphs under\nthe head of \"Miscellaneous News.\" One of these paragraphs tells about a\nquarrel between the Czar of Russia and his eldest son, twenty-one and\na half lines; and the other tells about the atrocious destruction of a\npeasant child by its parents, forty lines, or one-fifth of the total of\nthe reading-matter contained in the paper.\n\nConsider what a fifth part of the reading-matter of an American daily\npaper issued in a city of one hundred and seventy thousand inhabitants\namounts to! Think what a mass it is. Would any one suppose I could so\nsnugly tuck away such a mass in a chapter of this book that it would be\ndifficult to find it again if the reader lost his place? Surely not.\nI will translate that child-murder word for word, to give the reader a\nrealizing sense of what a fifth part of the reading-matter of a Munich\ndaily actually is when it comes under measurement of the eye:\n\n\"From Oberkreuzberg, January 21st, the DONAU ZEITUNG receives a long\naccount of a crime, which we shortened as follows: In Rametuach,\na village near Eppenschlag, lived a young married couple with two\nchildren, one of which, a boy aged five, was born three years before the\nmarriage. For this reason, and also because a relative at Iggensbach had\nbequeathed M400 ($100) to the boy, the heartless father considered him\nin the way; so the unnatural parents determined to sacrifice him in the\ncruelest possible manner. They proceeded to starve him slowly to death,\nmeantime frightfully maltreating him--as the village people now make\nknown, when it is too late. The boy was shut in a hole, and when\npeople passed by he cried, and implored them to give him bread. His\nlong-continued tortures and deprivations destroyed him at last, on the\nthird of January. The sudden (sic) death of the child created suspicion,\nthe more so as the body was immediately clothed and laid upon the bier.\nTherefore the coroner gave notice, and an inquest was held on the 6th.\nWhat a pitiful spectacle was disclosed then! The body was a complete\nskeleton. The stomach and intestines were utterly empty; they contained\nnothing whatsoever. The flesh on the corpse was not as thick as the back\nof a knife, and incisions in it brought not one drop of blood. There\nwas not a piece of sound skin the size of a dollar on the whole body;\nwounds, scars, bruises, discolored extravasated blood, everywhere--even\non the soles of the feet there were wounds. The cruel parents asserted\nthat the boy had been so bad that they had been obliged to use severe\npunishments, and that he finally fell over a bench and broke his neck.\nHowever, they were arrested two weeks after the inquest and put in the\nprison at Deggendorf.\"\n\nYes, they were arrested \"two weeks after the inquest.\" What a home sound\nthat has. That kind of police briskness rather more reminds me of my\nnative land than German journalism does.\n\nI think a German daily journal doesn't do any good to speak of, but at\nthe same time it doesn't do any harm. That is a very large merit, and\nshould not be lightly weighted nor lightly thought of.\n\nThe German humorous papers are beautifully printed upon fine paper, and\nthe illustrations are finely drawn, finely engraved, and are not vapidly\nfunny, but deliciously so. So also, generally speaking, are the two or\nthree terse sentences which accompany the pictures. I remember one of\nthese pictures: A most dilapidated tramp is ruefully contemplating some\ncoins which lie in his open palm. He says: \"Well, begging is getting\nplayed out. Only about five marks ($1.25) for the whole day; many an\nofficial makes more!\" And I call to mind a picture of a commercial\ntraveler who is about to unroll his samples:\n\nMERCHANT (pettishly).--NO, don't. I don't want to buy anything!\n\nDRUMMER.--If you please, I was only going to show you--\n\nMERCHANT.--But I don't wish to see them!\n\nDRUMMER (after a pause, pleadingly).--But do you you mind letting ME\nlook at them! I haven't seen them for three weeks!\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"1213":"\n\n\n\n\nTranscribed from the 1907 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price, email\nccx074@coventry.ac.uk\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE MAN THAT CORRUPTED HADLEYBURG\n\n\nI.\n\n\nIt was many years ago.  Hadleyburg was the most honest and upright town\nin all the region round about.  It had kept that reputation unsmirched\nduring three generations, and was prouder of it than of any other of its\npossessions.  It was so proud of it, and so anxious to insure its\nperpetuation, that it began to teach the principles of honest dealing to\nits babies in the cradle, and made the like teachings the staple of their\nculture thenceforward through all the years devoted to their education.\nAlso, throughout the formative years temptations were kept out of the way\nof the young people, so that their honesty could have every chance to\nharden and solidify, and become a part of their very bone.  The\nneighbouring towns were jealous of this honourable supremacy, and\naffected to sneer at Hadleyburg's pride in it and call it vanity; but all\nthe same they were obliged to acknowledge that Hadleyburg was in reality\nan incorruptible town; and if pressed they would also acknowledge that\nthe mere fact that a young man hailed from Hadleyburg was all the\nrecommendation he needed when he went forth from his natal town to seek\nfor responsible employment.\n\nBut at last, in the drift of time, Hadleyburg had the ill luck to offend\na passing stranger--possibly without knowing it, certainly without\ncaring, for Hadleyburg was sufficient unto itself, and cared not a rap\nfor strangers or their opinions.  Still, it would have been well to make\nan exception in this one's case, for he was a bitter man, and revengeful.\nAll through his wanderings during a whole year he kept his injury in\nmind, and gave all his leisure moments to trying to invent a compensating\nsatisfaction for it.  He contrived many plans, and all of them were good,\nbut none of them was quite sweeping enough: the poorest of them would\nhurt a great many individuals, but what he wanted was a plan which would\ncomprehend the entire town, and not let so much as one person escape\nunhurt.  At last he had a fortunate idea, and when it fell into his brain\nit lit up his whole head with an evil joy.  He began to form a plan at\nonce, saying to himself \"That is the thing to do--I will corrupt the\ntown.\"\n\nSix months later he went to Hadleyburg, and arrived in a buggy at the\nhouse of the old cashier of the bank about ten at night.  He got a sack\nout of the buggy, shouldered it, and staggered with it through the\ncottage yard, and knocked at the door.  A woman's voice said \"Come in,\"\nand he entered, and set his sack behind the stove in the parlour, saying\npolitely to the old lady who sat reading the \"Missionary Herald\" by the\nlamp:\n\n\"Pray keep your seat, madam, I will not disturb you.  There--now it is\npretty well concealed; one would hardly know it was there.  Can I see\nyour husband a moment, madam?\"\n\nNo, he was gone to Brixton, and might not return before morning.\n\n\"Very well, madam, it is no matter.  I merely wanted to leave that sack\nin his care, to be delivered to the rightful owner when he shall be\nfound.  I am a stranger; he does not know me; I am merely passing through\nthe town to-night to discharge a matter which has been long in my mind.\nMy errand is now completed, and I go pleased and a little proud, and you\nwill never see me again.  There is a paper attached to the sack which\nwill explain everything.  Good-night, madam.\"\n\nThe old lady was afraid of the mysterious big stranger, and was glad to\nsee him go.  But her curiosity was roused, and she went straight to the\nsack and brought away the paper.  It began as follows:\n\n   \"TO BE PUBLISHED, or, the right man sought out by private\n   inquiry--either will answer.  This sack contains gold coin weighing a\n   hundred and sixty pounds four ounces--\"\n\n\"Mercy on us, and the door not locked!\"\n\nMrs. Richards flew to it all in a tremble and locked it, then pulled down\nthe window-shades and stood frightened, worried, and wondering if there\nwas anything else she could do toward making herself and the money more\nsafe.  She listened awhile for burglars, then surrendered to curiosity,\nand went back to the lamp and finished reading the paper:\n\n   \"I am a foreigner, and am presently going back to my own country, to\n   remain there permanently.  I am grateful to America for what I have\n   received at her hands during my long stay under her flag; and to one\n   of her citizens--a citizen of Hadleyburg--I am especially grateful for\n   a great kindness done me a year or two ago.  Two great kindnesses in\n   fact.  I will explain.  I was a gambler.  I say I WAS.  I was a ruined\n   gambler.  I arrived in this village at night, hungry and without a\n   penny.  I asked for help--in the dark; I was ashamed to beg in the\n   light.  I begged of the right man.  He gave me twenty dollars--that is\n   to say, he gave me life, as I considered it.  He also gave me fortune;\n   for out of that money I have made myself rich at the gaming-table.  And\n   finally, a remark which he made to me has remained with me to this\n   day, and has at last conquered me; and in conquering has saved the\n   remnant of my morals: I shall gamble no more.  Now I have no idea who\n   that man was, but I want him found, and I want him to have this money,\n   to give away, throw away, or keep, as he pleases.  It is merely my way\n   of testifying my gratitude to him.  If I could stay, I would find him\n   myself; but no matter, he will be found.  This is an honest town, an\n   incorruptible town, and I know I can trust it without fear.  This man\n   can be identified by the remark which he made to me; I feel persuaded\n   that he will remember it.\n\n   \"And now my plan is this: If you prefer to conduct the inquiry\n   privately, do so.  Tell the contents of this present writing to any\n   one who is likely to be the right man.  If he shall answer, 'I am the\n   man; the remark I made was so-and-so,' apply the test--to wit: open\n   the sack, and in it you will find a sealed envelope containing that\n   remark.  If the remark mentioned by the candidate tallies with it,\n   give him the money, and ask no further questions, for he is certainly\n   the right man.\n\n   \"But if you shall prefer a public inquiry, then publish this present\n   writing in the local paper--with these instructions added, to wit:\n   Thirty days from now, let the candidate appear at the town-hall at\n   eight in the evening (Friday), and hand his remark, in a sealed\n   envelope, to the Rev. Mr. Burgess (if he will be kind enough to act);\n   and let Mr. Burgess there and then destroy the seals of the sack, open\n   it, and see if the remark is correct: if correct, let the money be\n   delivered, with my sincere gratitude, to my benefactor thus\n   identified.\"\n\nMrs. Richards sat down, gently quivering with excitement, and was soon\nlost in thinkings--after this pattern: \"What a strange thing it is! . . .\nAnd what a fortune for that kind man who set his bread afloat upon the\nwaters! . . . If it had only been my husband that did it!--for we are so\npoor, so old and poor! . . .\"  Then, with a sigh--\"But it was not my\nEdward; no, it was not he that gave a stranger twenty dollars.  It is a\npity too; I see it now. . . \"  Then, with a shudder--\"But it is\n_gamblers_' money! the wages of sin; we couldn't take it; we couldn't\ntouch it.  I don't like to be near it; it seems a defilement.\"  She moved\nto a farther chair. . . \"I wish Edward would come, and take it to the\nbank; a burglar might come at any moment; it is dreadful to be here all\nalone with it.\"\n\nAt eleven Mr. Richards arrived, and while his wife was saying \"I am _so_\nglad you've come!\" he was saying, \"I am so tired--tired clear out; it is\ndreadful to be poor, and have to make these dismal journeys at my time of\nlife.  Always at the grind, grind, grind, on a salary--another man's\nslave, and he sitting at home in his slippers, rich and comfortable.\"\n\n\"I am so sorry for you, Edward, you know that; but be comforted; we have\nour livelihood; we have our good name--\"\n\n\"Yes, Mary, and that is everything.  Don't mind my talk--it's just a\nmoment's irritation and doesn't mean anything.  Kiss me--there, it's all\ngone now, and I am not complaining any more.  What have you been getting?\nWhat's in the sack?\"\n\nThen his wife told him the great secret.  It dazed him for a moment; then\nhe said:\n\n\"It weighs a hundred and sixty pounds?  Why, Mary, it's for-ty thou-sand\ndollars--think of it--a whole fortune!  Not ten men in this village are\nworth that much.  Give me the paper.\"\n\nHe skimmed through it and said:\n\n\"Isn't it an adventure!  Why, it's a romance; it's like the impossible\nthings one reads about in books, and never sees in life.\"  He was well\nstirred up now; cheerful, even gleeful.  He tapped his old wife on the\ncheek, and said humorously, \"Why, we're rich, Mary, rich; all we've got\nto do is to bury the money and burn the papers.  If the gambler ever\ncomes to inquire, we'll merely look coldly upon him and say: 'What is\nthis nonsense you are talking?  We have never heard of you and your sack\nof gold before;' and then he would look foolish, and--\"\n\n\"And in the meantime, while you are running on with your jokes, the money\nis still here, and it is fast getting along toward burglar-time.\"\n\n\"True.  Very well, what shall we do--make the inquiry private?  No, not\nthat; it would spoil the romance.  The public method is better.  Think\nwhat a noise it will make!  And it will make all the other towns jealous;\nfor no stranger would trust such a thing to any town but Hadleyburg, and\nthey know it.  It's a great card for us.  I must get to the\nprinting-office now, or I shall be too late.\"\n\n\"But stop--stop--don't leave me here alone with it, Edward!\"\n\nBut he was gone.  For only a little while, however.  Not far from his own\nhouse he met the editor--proprietor of the paper, and gave him the\ndocument, and said \"Here is a good thing for you, Cox--put it in.\"\n\n\"It may be too late, Mr. Richards, but I'll see.\"\n\nAt home again, he and his wife sat down to talk the charming mystery\nover; they were in no condition for sleep.  The first question was, Who\ncould the citizen have been who gave the stranger the twenty dollars?  It\nseemed a simple one; both answered it in the same breath--\n\n\"Barclay Goodson.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Richards, \"he could have done it, and it would have been like\nhim, but there's not another in the town.\"\n\n\"Everybody will grant that, Edward--grant it privately, anyway.  For six\nmonths, now, the village has been its own proper self once more--honest,\nnarrow, self-righteous, and stingy.\"\n\n\"It is what he always called it, to the day of his death--said it right\nout publicly, too.\"\n\n\"Yes, and he was hated for it.\"\n\n\"Oh, of course; but he didn't care.  I reckon he was the best-hated man\namong us, except the Reverend Burgess.\"\n\n\"Well, Burgess deserves it--he will never get another congregation here.\nMean as the town is, it knows how to estimate _him_.  Edward, doesn't it\nseem odd that the stranger should appoint Burgess to deliver the money?\"\n\n\"Well, yes--it does.  That is--that is--\"\n\n\"Why so much that-_is_-ing?  Would _you_ select him?\"\n\n\"Mary, maybe the stranger knows him better than this village does.\"\n\n\"Much _that_ would help Burgess!\"\n\nThe husband seemed perplexed for an answer; the wife kept a steady eye\nupon him, and waited.  Finally Richards said, with the hesitancy of one\nwho is making a statement which is likely to encounter doubt,\n\n\"Mary, Burgess is not a bad man.\"\n\nHis wife was certainly surprised.\n\n\"Nonsense!\" she exclaimed.\n\n\"He is not a bad man.  I know.  The whole of his unpopularity had its\nfoundation in that one thing--the thing that made so much noise.\"\n\n\"That 'one thing,' indeed!  As if that 'one thing' wasn't enough, all by\nitself.\"\n\n\"Plenty.  Plenty.  Only he wasn't guilty of it.\"\n\n\"How you talk!  Not guilty of it!  Everybody knows he _was_ guilty.\"\n\n\"Mary, I give you my word--he was innocent.\"\n\n\"I can't believe it and I don't.  How do you know?\"\n\n\"It is a confession.  I am ashamed, but I will make it.  I was the only\nman who knew he was innocent.  I could have saved him, and--and--well,\nyou know how the town was wrought up--I hadn't the pluck to do it.  It\nwould have turned everybody against me.  I felt mean, ever so mean; ut I\ndidn't dare; I hadn't the manliness to face that.\"\n\nMary looked troubled, and for a while was silent.  Then she said\nstammeringly:\n\n\"I--I don't think it would have done for you to--to--One\nmustn't--er--public opinion--one has to be so careful--so--\"  It was a\ndifficult road, and she got mired; but after a little she got started\nagain.  \"It was a great pity, but--Why, we couldn't afford it, Edward--we\ncouldn't indeed.  Oh, I wouldn't have had you do it for anything!\"\n\n\"It would have lost us the good-will of so many people, Mary; and\nthen--and then--\"\n\n\"What troubles me now is, what _he_ thinks of us, Edward.\"\n\n\"He?  _He_ doesn't suspect that I could have saved him.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" exclaimed the wife, in a tone of relief, \"I am glad of that.  As\nlong as he doesn't know that you could have saved him, he--he--well that\nmakes it a great deal better.  Why, I might have known he didn't know,\nbecause he is always trying to be friendly with us, as little\nencouragement as we give him.  More than once people have twitted me with\nit.  There's the Wilsons, and the Wilcoxes, and the Harknesses, they take\na mean pleasure in saying '_Your friend_ Burgess,' because they know it\npesters me.  I wish he wouldn't persist in liking us so; I can't think\nwhy he keeps it up.\"\n\n\"I can explain it.  It's another confession.  When the thing was new and\nhot, and the town made a plan to ride him on a rail, my conscience hurt\nme so that I couldn't stand it, and I went privately and gave him notice,\nand he got out of the town and stayed out till it was safe to come back.\"\n\n\"Edward!  If the town had found it out--\"\n\n\"_Don't_!  It scares me yet, to think of it.  I repented of it the minute\nit was done; and I was even afraid to tell you lest your face might\nbetray it to somebody.  I didn't sleep any that night, for worrying.  But\nafter a few days I saw that no one was going to suspect me, and after\nthat I got to feeling glad I did it.  And I feel glad yet, Mary--glad\nthrough and through.\"\n\n\"So do I, now, for it would have been a dreadful way to treat him.  Yes,\nI'm glad; for really you did owe him that, you know.  But, Edward,\nsuppose it should come out yet, some day!\"\n\n\"It won't.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because everybody thinks it was Goodson.\"\n\n\"Of course they would!\"\n\n\"Certainly.  And of course _he_ didn't care.  They persuaded poor old\nSawlsberry to go and charge it on him, and he went blustering over there\nand did it.  Goodson looked him over, like as if he was hunting for a\nplace on him that he could despise the most; then he says, 'So you are\nthe Committee of Inquiry, are you?'  Sawlsberry said that was about what\nhe was.  'H'm.  Do they require particulars, or do you reckon a kind of a\n_general_ answer will do?'  'If they require particulars, I will come\nback, Mr. Goodson; I will take the general answer first.'  'Very well,\nthen, tell them to go to hell--I reckon that's general enough.  And I'll\ngive you some advice, Sawlsberry; when you come back for the particulars,\nfetch a basket to carry what is left of yourself home in.'\"\n\n\"Just like Goodson; it's got all the marks.  He had only one vanity; he\nthought he could give advice better than any other person.\"\n\n\"It settled the business, and saved us, Mary.  The subject was dropped.\"\n\n\"Bless you, I'm not doubting _that_.\"\n\nThen they took up the gold-sack mystery again, with strong interest.  Soon\nthe conversation began to suffer breaks--interruptions caused by absorbed\nthinkings.  The breaks grew more and more frequent.  At last Richards\nlost himself wholly in thought.  He sat long, gazing vacantly at the\nfloor, and by-and-by he began to punctuate his thoughts with little\nnervous movements of his hands that seemed to indicate vexation.  Meantime\nhis wife too had relapsed into a thoughtful silence, and her movements\nwere beginning to show a troubled discomfort.  Finally Richards got up\nand strode aimlessly about the room, ploughing his hands through his\nhair, much as a somnambulist might do who was having a bad dream.  Then\nhe seemed to arrive at a definite purpose; and without a word he put on\nhis hat and passed quickly out of the house.  His wife sat brooding, with\na drawn face, and did not seem to be aware that she was alone.  Now and\nthen she murmured, \"Lead us not into t . . . but--but--we are so poor, so\npoor! . . . Lead us not into . . . Ah, who would be hurt by it?--and no\none would ever know . . . Lead us . . . \"  The voice died out in\nmumblings.  After a little she glanced up and muttered in a\nhalf-frightened, half-glad way--\n\n\"He is gone!  But, oh dear, he may be too late--too late . . . Maybe\nnot--maybe there is still time.\"  She rose and stood thinking, nervously\nclasping and unclasping her hands.  A slight shudder shook her frame, and\nshe said, out of a dry throat, \"God forgive me--it's awful to think such\nthings--but . . . Lord, how we are made--how strangely we are made!\"\n\nShe turned the light low, and slipped stealthily over and knelt down by\nthe sack and felt of its ridgy sides with her hands, and fondled them\nlovingly; and there was a gloating light in her poor old eyes.  She fell\ninto fits of absence; and came half out of them at times to mutter \"If we\nhad only waited!--oh, if we had only waited a little, and not been in\nsuch a hurry!\"\n\nMeantime Cox had gone home from his office and told his wife all about\nthe strange thing that had happened, and they had talked it over eagerly,\nand guessed that the late Goodson was the only man in the town who could\nhave helped a suffering stranger with so noble a sum as twenty dollars.\nThen there was a pause, and the two became thoughtful and silent.  And by-\nand-by nervous and fidgety.  At last the wife said, as if to herself,\n\n\"Nobody knows this secret but the Richardses . . . and us . . . nobody.\"\n\nThe husband came out of his thinkings with a slight start, and gazed\nwistfully at his wife, whose face was become very pale; then he\nhesitatingly rose, and glanced furtively at his hat, then at his wife--a\nsort of mute inquiry.  Mrs. Cox swallowed once or twice, with her hand at\nher throat, then in place of speech she nodded her head.  In a moment she\nwas alone, and mumbling to herself.\n\nAnd now Richards and Cox were hurrying through the deserted streets, from\nopposite directions.  They met, panting, at the foot of the\nprinting-office stairs; by the night-light there they read each other's\nface.  Cox whispered:\n\n\"Nobody knows about this but us?\"\n\nThe whispered answer was:\n\n\"Not a soul--on honour, not a soul!\"\n\n\"If it isn't too late to--\"\n\nThe men were starting up-stairs; at this moment they were overtaken by a\nboy, and Cox asked,\n\n\"Is that you, Johnny?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"You needn't ship the early mail--nor _any_ mail; wait till I tell you.\"\n\n\"It's already gone, sir.\"\n\n\"_Gone_?\"  It had the sound of an unspeakable disappointment in it.\n\n\"Yes, sir.  Time-table for Brixton and all the towns beyond changed to-\nday, sir--had to get the papers in twenty minutes earlier than common.  I\nhad to rush; if I had been two minutes later--\"\n\nThe men turned and walked slowly away, not waiting to hear the rest.\nNeither of them spoke during ten minutes; then Cox said, in a vexed tone,\n\n\"What possessed you to be in such a hurry, _I_ can't make out.\"\n\nThe answer was humble enough:\n\n\"I see it now, but somehow I never thought, you know, until it was too\nlate.  But the next time--\"\n\n\"Next time be hanged!  It won't come in a thousand years.\"\n\nThen the friends separated without a good-night, and dragged themselves\nhome with the gait of mortally stricken men.  At their homes their wives\nsprang up with an eager \"Well?\"--then saw the answer with their eyes and\nsank down sorrowing, without waiting for it to come in words.  In both\nhouses a discussion followed of a heated sort--a new thing; there had\nbeen discussions before, but not heated ones, not ungentle ones.  The\ndiscussions to-night were a sort of seeming plagiarisms of each other.\nMrs. Richards said:\n\n\"If you had only waited, Edward--if you had only stopped to think; but\nno, you must run straight to the printing-office and spread it all over\nthe world.\"\n\n\"It _said_ publish it.\"\n\n\"That is nothing; it also said do it privately, if you liked.  There,\nnow--is that true, or not?\"\n\n\"Why, yes--yes, it is true; but when I thought what a stir it would make,\nand what a compliment it was to Hadleyburg that a stranger should trust\nit so--\"\n\n\"Oh, certainly, I know all that; but if you had only stopped to think,\nyou would have seen that you _couldn't_ find the right man, because he is\nin his grave, and hasn't left chick nor child nor relation behind him;\nand as long as the money went to somebody that awfully needed it, and\nnobody would be hurt by it, and--and--\"\n\nShe broke down, crying.  Her husband tried to think of some comforting\nthing to say, and presently came out with this:\n\n\"But after all, Mary, it must be for the best--it must be; we know that.\nAnd we must remember that it was so ordered--\"\n\n\"Ordered!  Oh, everything's _ordered_, when a person has to find some way\nout when he has been stupid. Just the same, it was _ordered_ that the\nmoney should come to us in this special way, and it was you that must\ntake it on yourself to go meddling with the designs of Providence--and\nwho gave you the right?  It was wicked, that is what it was--just\nblasphemous presumption, and no more becoming to a meek and humble\nprofessor of--\"\n\n\"But, Mary, you know how we have been trained all our lives long, like\nthe whole village, till it is absolutely second nature to us to stop not\na single moment to think when there's an honest thing to be done--\"\n\n\"Oh, I know it, I know it--it's been one everlasting training and\ntraining and training in honesty--honesty shielded, from the very cradle,\nagainst every possible temptation, and so it's _artificial_ honesty, and\nweak as water when temptation comes, as we have seen this night.  God\nknows I never had shade nor shadow of a doubt of my petrified and\nindestructible honesty until now--and now, under the very first big and\nreal temptation, I--Edward, it is my belief that this town's honesty is\nas rotten as mine is; as rotten as yours.  It is a mean town, a hard,\nstingy town, and hasn't a virtue in the world but this honesty it is so\ncelebrated for and so conceited about; and so help me, I do believe that\nif ever the day comes that its honesty falls under great temptation, its\ngrand reputation will go to ruin like a house of cards.  There, now, I've\nmade confession, and I feel better; I am a humbug, and I've been one all\nmy life, without knowing it.  Let no man call me honest again--I will not\nhave it.\"\n\n\"I--Well, Mary, I feel a good deal as you do: I certainly do.  It seems\nstrange, too, so strange.  I never could have believed it--never.\"\n\nA long silence followed; both were sunk in thought.  At last the wife\nlooked up and said:\n\n\"I know what you are thinking, Edward.\"\n\nRichards had the embarrassed look of a person who is caught.\n\n\"I am ashamed to confess it, Mary, but--\"\n\n\"It's no matter, Edward, I was thinking the same question myself.\"\n\n\"I hope so.  State it.\"\n\n\"You were thinking, if a body could only guess out _what the remark was_\nthat Goodson made to the stranger.\"\n\n\"It's perfectly true.  I feel guilty and ashamed.  And you?\"\n\n\"I'm past it.  Let us make a pallet here; we've got to stand watch till\nthe bank vault opens in the morning and admits the sack. . . Oh dear, oh\ndear--if we hadn't made the mistake!\"\n\nThe pallet was made, and Mary said:\n\n\"The open sesame--what could it have been?  I do wonder what that remark\ncould have been.  But come; we will get to bed now.\"\n\n\"And sleep?\"\n\n\"No; think.\"\n\n\"Yes; think.\"\n\nBy this time the Coxes too had completed their spat and their\nreconciliation, and were turning in--to think, to think, and toss, and\nfret, and worry over what the remark could possibly have been which\nGoodson made to the stranded derelict; that golden remark; that remark\nworth forty thousand dollars, cash.\n\nThe reason that the village telegraph-office was open later than usual\nthat night was this: The foreman of Cox's paper was the local\nrepresentative of the Associated Press.  One might say its honorary\nrepresentative, for it wasn't four times a year that he could furnish\nthirty words that would be accepted.  But this time it was different.  His\ndespatch stating what he had caught got an instant answer:\n\n   \"Send the whole thing--all the details--twelve hundred words.\"\n\nA colossal order!  The foreman filled the bill; and he was the proudest\nman in the State.  By breakfast-time the next morning the name of\nHadleyburg the Incorruptible was on every lip in America, from Montreal\nto the Gulf, from the glaciers of Alaska to the orange-groves of Florida;\nand millions and millions of people were discussing the stranger and his\nmoney-sack, and wondering if the right man would be found, and hoping\nsome more news about the matter would come soon--right away.\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\n\nHadleyburg village woke up world-celebrated--astonished--happy--vain.\nVain beyond imagination.  Its nineteen principal citizens and their wives\nwent about shaking hands with each other, and beaming, and smiling, and\ncongratulating, and saying _this_ thing adds a new word to the\ndictionary--_Hadleyburg_, synonym for _incorruptible_--destined to live\nin dictionaries for ever!  And the minor and unimportant citizens and\ntheir wives went around acting in much the same way.  Everybody ran to\nthe bank to see the gold-sack; and before noon grieved and envious crowds\nbegan to flock in from Brixton and all neighbouring towns; and that\nafternoon and next day reporters began to arrive from everywhere to\nverify the sack and its history and write the whole thing up anew, and\nmake dashing free-hand pictures of the sack, and of Richards's house, and\nthe bank, and the Presbyterian church, and the Baptist church, and the\npublic square, and the town-hall where the test would be applied and the\nmoney delivered; and damnable portraits of the Richardses, and Pinkerton\nthe banker, and Cox, and the foreman, and Reverend Burgess, and the\npostmaster--and even of Jack Halliday, who was the loafing, good-natured,\nno-account, irreverent fisherman, hunter, boys' friend, stray-dogs'\nfriend, typical \"Sam Lawson\" of the town.  The little mean, smirking,\noily Pinkerton showed the sack to all comers, and rubbed his sleek palms\ntogether pleasantly, and enlarged upon the town's fine old reputation for\nhonesty and upon this wonderful endorsement of it, and hoped and believed\nthat the example would now spread far and wide over the American world,\nand be epoch-making in the matter of moral regeneration.  And so on, and\nso on.\n\nBy the end of a week things had quieted down again; the wild intoxication\nof pride and joy had sobered to a soft, sweet, silent delight--a sort of\ndeep, nameless, unutterable content.  All faces bore a look of peaceful,\nholy happiness.\n\nThen a change came.  It was a gradual change; so gradual that its\nbeginnings were hardly noticed; maybe were not noticed at all, except by\nJack Halliday, who always noticed everything; and always made fun of it,\ntoo, no matter what it was.  He began to throw out chaffing remarks about\npeople not looking quite so happy as they did a day or two ago; and next\nhe claimed that the new aspect was deepening to positive sadness; next,\nthat it was taking on a sick look; and finally he said that everybody was\nbecome so moody, thoughtful, and absent-minded that he could rob the\nmeanest man in town of a cent out of the bottom of his breeches pocket\nand not disturb his reverie.\n\nAt this stage--or at about this stage--a saying like this was dropped at\nbedtime--with a sigh, usually--by the head of each of the nineteen\nprincipal households:\n\n\"Ah, what _could_ have been the remark that Goodson made?\"\n\nAnd straightway--with a shudder--came this, from the man's wife:\n\n\"Oh, _don't_!  What horrible thing are you mulling in your mind?  Put it\naway from you, for God's sake!\"\n\nBut that question was wrung from those men again the next night--and got\nthe same retort.  But weaker.\n\nAnd the third night the men uttered the question yet again--with anguish,\nand absently.  This time--and the following night--the wives fidgeted\nfeebly, and tried to say something.  But didn't.\n\nAnd the night after that they found their tongues and\nresponded--longingly:\n\n\"Oh, if we _could_ only guess!\"\n\nHalliday's comments grew daily more and more sparklingly disagreeable and\ndisparaging.  He went diligently about, laughing at the town,\nindividually and in mass.  But his laugh was the only one left in the\nvillage: it fell upon a hollow and mournful vacancy and emptiness.  Not\neven a smile was findable anywhere.  Halliday carried a cigar-box around\non a tripod, playing that it was a camera, and halted all passers and\naimed the thing and said \"Ready!--now look pleasant, please,\" but not\neven this capital joke could surprise the dreary faces into any\nsoftening.\n\nSo three weeks passed--one week was left.  It was Saturday evening after\nsupper.  Instead of the aforetime Saturday-evening flutter and bustle and\nshopping and larking, the streets were empty and desolate.  Richards and\nhis old wife sat apart in their little parlour--miserable and thinking.\nThis was become their evening habit now: the life-long habit which had\npreceded it, of reading, knitting, and contented chat, or receiving or\npaying neighbourly calls, was dead and gone and forgotten, ages ago--two\nor three weeks ago; nobody talked now, nobody read, nobody visited--the\nwhole village sat at home, sighing, worrying, silent.  Trying to guess\nout that remark.\n\nThe postman left a letter.  Richards glanced listlessly at the\nsuperscription and the post-mark--unfamiliar, both--and tossed the letter\non the table and resumed his might-have-beens and his hopeless dull\nmiseries where he had left them off.  Two or three hours later his wife\ngot wearily up and was going away to bed without a good-night--custom\nnow--but she stopped near the letter and eyed it awhile with a dead\ninterest, then broke it open, and began to skim it over.  Richards,\nsitting there with his chair tilted back against the wall and his chin\nbetween his knees, heard something fall.  It was his wife.  He sprang to\nher side, but she cried out:\n\n\"Leave me alone, I am too happy.  Read the letter--read it!\"\n\nHe did.  He devoured it, his brain reeling.  The letter was from a\ndistant State, and it said:\n\n   \"I am a stranger to you, but no matter: I have something to tell.  I\n   have just arrived home from Mexico, and learned about that episode.  Of\n   course you do not know who made that remark, but I know, and I am the\n   only person living who does know.  It was GOODSON.  I knew him well,\n   many years ago.  I passed through your village that very night, and\n   was his guest till the midnight train came along.  I overheard him\n   make that remark to the stranger in the dark--it was in Hale Alley.  He\n   and I talked of it the rest of the way home, and while smoking in his\n   house.  He mentioned many of your villagers in the course of his\n   talk--most of them in a very uncomplimentary way, but two or three\n   favourably: among these latter yourself.  I say 'favourably'--nothing\n   stronger.  I remember his saying he did not actually LIKE any person\n   in the town--not one; but that you--I THINK he said you--am almost\n   sure--had done him a very great service once, possibly without knowing\n   the full value of it, and he wished he had a fortune, he would leave\n   it to you when he died, and a curse apiece for the rest of the\n   citizens.  Now, then, if it was you that did him that service, you are\n   his legitimate heir, and entitled to the sack of gold.  I know that I\n   can trust to your honour and honesty, for in a citizen of Hadleyburg\n   these virtues are an unfailing inheritance, and so I am going to\n   reveal to you the remark, well satisfied that if you are not the right\n   man you will seek and find the right one and see that poor Goodson's\n   debt of gratitude for the service referred to is paid.  This is the\n   remark 'YOU ARE FAR FROM BEING A BAD MAN: GO, AND REFORM.'\n\n   \"HOWARD L. STEPHENSON.\"\n\n\"Oh, Edward, the money is ours, and I am so grateful, _oh_, so\ngrateful,--kiss me, dear, it's for ever since we kissed--and we needed it\nso--the money--and now you are free of Pinkerton and his bank, and\nnobody's slave any more; it seems to me I could fly for joy.\"\n\nIt was a happy half-hour that the couple spent there on the settee\ncaressing each other; it was the old days come again--days that had begun\nwith their courtship and lasted without a break till the stranger brought\nthe deadly money.  By-and-by the wife said:\n\n\"Oh, Edward, how lucky it was you did him that grand service, poor\nGoodson!  I never liked him, but I love him now.  And it was fine and\nbeautiful of you never to mention it or brag about it.\"  Then, with a\ntouch of reproach, \"But you ought to have told _me_, Edward, you ought to\nhave told your wife, you know.\"\n\n\"Well, I--er--well, Mary, you see--\"\n\n\"Now stop hemming and hawing, and tell me about it, Edward.  I always\nloved you, and now I'm proud of you.  Everybody believes there was only\none good generous soul in this village, and now it turns out that\nyou--Edward, why don't you tell me?\"\n\n\"Well--er--er--Why, Mary, I can't!\"\n\n\"You _can't_?  _Why_ can't you?\"\n\n\"You see, he--well, he--he made me promise I wouldn't.\"\n\nThe wife looked him over, and said, very slowly:\n\n\"Made--you--promise?  Edward, what do you tell me that for?\"\n\n\"Mary, do you think I would lie?\"\n\nShe was troubled and silent for a moment, then she laid her hand within\nhis and said:\n\n\"No . . . no.  We have wandered far enough from our bearings--God spare\nus that!  In all your life you have never uttered a lie.  But now--now\nthat the foundations of things seem to be crumbling from under us,\nwe--we--\"  She lost her voice for a moment, then said, brokenly, \"Lead us\nnot into temptation. . . I think you made the promise, Edward.  Let it\nrest so.  Let us keep away from that ground.  Now--that is all gone by;\nlet us he happy again; it is no time for clouds.\"\n\nEdward found it something of an effort to comply, for his mind kept\nwandering--trying to remember what the service was that he had done\nGoodson.\n\nThe couple lay awake the most of the night, Mary happy and busy, Edward\nbusy, but not so happy.  Mary was planning what she would do with the\nmoney.  Edward was trying to recall that service.  At first his\nconscience was sore on account of the lie he had told Mary--if it was a\nlie.  After much reflection--suppose it _was_ a lie?  What then?  Was it\nsuch a great matter?  Aren't we always _acting_ lies?  Then why not tell\nthem?  Look at Mary--look what she had done.  While he was hurrying off\non his honest errand, what was she doing?  Lamenting because the papers\nhadn't been destroyed and the money kept.  Is theft better than lying?\n\n_That_ point lost its sting--the lie dropped into the background and left\ncomfort behind it.  The next point came to the front: _had_ he rendered\nthat service?  Well, here was Goodson's own evidence as reported in\nStephenson's letter; there could be no better evidence than that--it was\neven _proof_ that he had rendered it.  Of course.  So that point was\nsettled. . . No, not quite.  He recalled with a wince that this unknown\nMr. Stephenson was just a trifle unsure as to whether the performer of it\nwas Richards or some other--and, oh dear, he had put Richards on his\nhonour!  He must himself decide whither that money must go--and Mr.\nStephenson was not doubting that if he was the wrong man he would go\nhonourably and find the right one.  Oh, it was odious to put a man in\nsuch a situation--ah, why couldn't Stephenson have left out that doubt?\nWhat did he want to intrude that for?\n\nFurther reflection.  How did it happen that _Richards's_ name remained in\nStephenson's mind as indicating the right man, and not some other man's\nname?  That looked good.  Yes, that looked very good.  In fact it went on\nlooking better and better, straight along--until by-and-by it grew into\npositive _proof_.  And then Richards put the matter at once out of his\nmind, for he had a private instinct that a proof once established is\nbetter left so.\n\nHe was feeling reasonably comfortable now, but there was still one other\ndetail that kept pushing itself on his notice: of course he had done that\nservice--that was settled; but what _was_ that service?  He must recall\nit--he would not go to sleep till he had recalled it; it would make his\npeace of mind perfect.  And so he thought and thought.  He thought of a\ndozen things--possible services, even probable services--but none of them\nseemed adequate, none of them seemed large enough, none of them seemed\nworth the money--worth the fortune Goodson had wished he could leave in\nhis will.  And besides, he couldn't remember having done them, anyway.\nNow, then--now, then--what _kind_ of a service would it be that would\nmake a man so inordinately grateful?  Ah--the saving of his soul!  That\nmust be it.  Yes, he could remember, now, how he once set himself the\ntask of converting Goodson, and laboured at it as much as--he was going\nto say three months; but upon closer examination it shrunk to a month,\nthen to a week, then to a day, then to nothing.  Yes, he remembered now,\nand with unwelcome vividness, that Goodson had told him to go to thunder\nand mind his own business--_he_ wasn't hankering to follow Hadleyburg to\nheaven!\n\nSo that solution was a failure--he hadn't saved Goodson's soul.  Richards\nwas discouraged.  Then after a little came another idea: had he saved\nGoodson's property?  No, that wouldn't do--he hadn't any.  His life?  That\nis it!  Of course.  Why, he might have thought of it before.  This time\nhe was on the right track, sure.  His imagination-mill was hard at work\nin a minute, now.\n\nThereafter, during a stretch of two exhausting hours, he was busy saving\nGoodson's life.  He saved it in all kinds of difficult and perilous ways.\nIn every case he got it saved satisfactorily up to a certain point; then,\njust as he was beginning to get well persuaded that it had really\nhappened, a troublesome detail would turn up which made the whole thing\nimpossible.  As in the matter of drowning, for instance.  In that case he\nhad swum out and tugged Goodson ashore in an unconscious state with a\ngreat crowd looking on and applauding, but when he had got it all thought\nout and was just beginning to remember all about it, a whole swarm of\ndisqualifying details arrived on the ground: the town would have known of\nthe circumstance, Mary would have known of it, it would glare like a\nlimelight in his own memory instead of being an inconspicuous service\nwhich he had possibly rendered \"without knowing its full value.\"  And at\nthis point he remembered that he couldn't swim anyway.\n\nAh--_there_ was a point which he had been overlooking from the start: it\nhad to be a service which he had rendered \"possibly without knowing the\nfull value of it.\"  Why, really, that ought to be an easy hunt--much\neasier than those others.  And sure enough, by-and-by he found it.\nGoodson, years and years ago, came near marrying a very sweet and pretty\ngirl, named Nancy Hewitt, but in some way or other the match had been\nbroken off; the girl died, Goodson remained a bachelor, and by-and-by\nbecame a soured one and a frank despiser of the human species.  Soon\nafter the girl's death the village found out, or thought it had found\nout, that she carried a spoonful of negro blood in her veins.  Richards\nworked at these details a good while, and in the end he thought he\nremembered things concerning them which must have gotten mislaid in his\nmemory through long neglect.  He seemed to dimly remember that it was\n_he_ that found out about the negro blood; that it was he that told the\nvillage; that the village told Goodson where they got it; that he thus\nsaved Goodson from marrying the tainted girl; that he had done him this\ngreat service \"without knowing the full value of it,\" in fact without\nknowing that he _was_ doing it; but that Goodson knew the value of it,\nand what a narrow escape he had had, and so went to his grave grateful to\nhis benefactor and wishing he had a fortune to leave him.  It was all\nclear and simple, now, and the more he went over it the more luminous and\ncertain it grew; and at last, when he nestled to sleep, satisfied and\nhappy, he remembered the whole thing just as if it had been yesterday.  In\nfact, he dimly remembered Goodson's _telling_ him his gratitude once.\nMeantime Mary had spent six thousand dollars on a new house for herself\nand a pair of slippers for her pastor, and then had fallen peacefully to\nrest.\n\nThat same Saturday evening the postman had delivered a letter to each of\nthe other principal citizens--nineteen letters in all.  No two of the\nenvelopes were alike, and no two of the superscriptions were in the same\nhand, but the letters inside were just like each other in every detail\nbut one.  They were exact copies of the letter received by\nRichards--handwriting and all--and were all signed by Stephenson, but in\nplace of Richards's name each receiver's own name appeared.\n\nAll night long eighteen principal citizens did what their caste-brother\nRichards was doing at the same time--they put in their energies trying to\nremember what notable service it was that they had unconsciously done\nBarclay Goodson.  In no case was it a holiday job; still they succeeded.\n\nAnd while they were at this work, which was difficult, their wives put in\nthe night spending the money, which was easy.  During that one night the\nnineteen wives spent an average of seven thousand dollars each out of the\nforty thousand in the sack--a hundred and thirty-three thousand\naltogether.\n\nNext day there was a surprise for Jack Halliday.  He noticed that the\nfaces of the nineteen chief citizens and their wives bore that expression\nof peaceful and holy happiness again.  He could not understand it,\nneither was he able to invent any remarks about it that could damage it\nor disturb it.  And so it was his turn to be dissatisfied with life.  His\nprivate guesses at the reasons for the happiness failed in all instances,\nupon examination.  When he met Mrs. Wilcox and noticed the placid ecstasy\nin her face, he said to himself, \"Her cat has had kittens\"--and went and\nasked the cook; it was not so, the cook had detected the happiness, but\ndid not know the cause.  When Halliday found the duplicate ecstasy in the\nface of \"Shadbelly\" Billson (village nickname), he was sure some\nneighbour of Billson's had broken his leg, but inquiry showed that this\nhad not happened.  The subdued ecstasy in Gregory Yates's face could mean\nbut one thing--he was a mother-in-law short; it was another mistake.  \"And\nPinkerton--Pinkerton--he has collected ten cents that he thought he was\ngoing to lose.\"  And so on, and so on.  In some cases the guesses had to\nremain in doubt, in the others they proved distinct errors.  In the end\nHalliday said to himself, \"Anyway it roots up that there's nineteen\nHadleyburg families temporarily in heaven: I don't know how it happened;\nI only know Providence is off duty to-day.\"\n\nAn architect and builder from the next State had lately ventured to set\nup a small business in this unpromising village, and his sign had now\nbeen hanging out a week.  Not a customer yet; he was a discouraged man,\nand sorry he had come.  But his weather changed suddenly now.  First one\nand then another chief citizen's wife said to him privately:\n\n\"Come to my house Monday week--but say nothing about it for the present.\nWe think of building.\"\n\nHe got eleven invitations that day.  That night he wrote his daughter and\nbroke off her match with her student.  He said she could marry a mile\nhigher than that.\n\nPinkerton the banker and two or three other well-to-do men planned\ncountry-seats--but waited.  That kind don't count their chickens until\nthey are hatched.\n\nThe Wilsons devised a grand new thing--a fancy-dress ball.  They made no\nactual promises, but told all their acquaintanceship in confidence that\nthey were thinking the matter over and thought they should give it--\"and\nif we do, you will be invited, of course.\"  People were surprised, and\nsaid, one to another, \"Why, they are crazy, those poor Wilsons, they\ncan't afford it.\"  Several among the nineteen said privately to their\nhusbands, \"It is a good idea, we will keep still till their cheap thing\nis over, then _we_ will give one that will make it sick.\"\n\nThe days drifted along, and the bill of future squanderings rose higher\nand higher, wilder and wilder, more and more foolish and reckless.  It\nbegan to look as if every member of the nineteen would not only spend his\nwhole forty thousand dollars before receiving-day, but be actually in\ndebt by the time he got the money.  In some cases light-headed people did\nnot stop with planning to spend, they really spent--on credit.  They\nbought land, mortgages, farms, speculative stocks, fine clothes, horses,\nand various other things, paid down the bonus, and made themselves liable\nfor the rest--at ten days.  Presently the sober second thought came, and\nHalliday noticed that a ghastly anxiety was beginning to show up in a\ngood many faces.  Again he was puzzled, and didn't know what to make of\nit.  \"The Wilcox kittens aren't dead, for they weren't born; nobody's\nbroken a leg; there's no shrinkage in mother-in-laws; _nothing_ has\nhappened--it is an insolvable mystery.\"\n\nThere was another puzzled man, too--the Rev. Mr. Burgess.  For days,\nwherever he went, people seemed to follow him or to be watching out for\nhim; and if he ever found himself in a retired spot, a member of the\nnineteen would be sure to appear, thrust an envelope privately into his\nhand, whisper \"To be opened at the town-hall Friday evening,\" then vanish\naway like a guilty thing.  He was expecting that there might be one\nclaimant for the sack--doubtful, however, Goodson being dead--but it\nnever occurred to him that all this crowd might be claimants.  When the\ngreat Friday came at last, he found that he had nineteen envelopes.\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\n\nThe town-hall had never looked finer.  The platform at the end of it was\nbacked by a showy draping of flags; at intervals along the walls were\nfestoons of flags; the gallery fronts were clothed in flags; the\nsupporting columns were swathed in flags; all this was to impress the\nstranger, for he would be there in considerable force, and in a large\ndegree he would be connected with the press.  The house was full.  The\n412 fixed seats were occupied; also the 68 extra chairs which had been\npacked into the aisles; the steps of the platform were occupied; some\ndistinguished strangers were given seats on the platform; at the\nhorseshoe of tables which fenced the front and sides of the platform sat\na strong force of special correspondents who had come from everywhere.  It\nwas the best-dressed house the town had ever produced.  There were some\ntolerably expensive toilets there, and in several cases the ladies who\nwore them had the look of being unfamiliar with that kind of clothes.  At\nleast the town thought they had that look, but the notion could have\narisen from the town's knowledge of the fact that these ladies had never\ninhabited such clothes before.\n\nThe gold-sack stood on a little table at the front of the platform where\nall the house could see it.  The bulk of the house gazed at it with a\nburning interest, a mouth-watering interest, a wistful and pathetic\ninterest; a minority of nineteen couples gazed at it tenderly, lovingly,\nproprietarily, and the male half of this minority kept saying over to\nthemselves the moving little impromptu speeches of thankfulness for the\naudience's applause and congratulations which they were presently going\nto get up and deliver.  Every now and then one of these got a piece of\npaper out of his vest pocket and privately glanced at it to refresh his\nmemory.\n\nOf course there was a buzz of conversation going on--there always is; but\nat last, when the Rev. Mr. Burgess rose and laid his hand on the sack, he\ncould hear his microbes gnaw, the place was so still.  He related the\ncurious history of the sack, then went on to speak in warm terms of\nHadleyburg's old and well-earned reputation for spotless honesty, and of\nthe town's just pride in this reputation.  He said that this reputation\nwas a treasure of priceless value; that under Providence its value had\nnow become inestimably enhanced, for the recent episode had spread this\nfame far and wide, and thus had focussed the eyes of the American world\nupon this village, and made its name for all time, as he hoped and\nbelieved, a synonym for commercial incorruptibility.  [Applause.]  \"And\nwho is to be the guardian of this noble fame--the community as a whole?\nNo!  The responsibility is individual, not communal.  From this day forth\neach and every one of you is in his own person its special guardian, and\nindividually responsible that no harm shall come to it.  Do you--does\neach of you--accept this great trust?  [Tumultuous assent.]  Then all is\nwell.  Transmit it to your children and to your children's children.  To-\nday your purity is beyond reproach--see to it that it shall remain so.  To-\nday there is not a person in your community who could be beguiled to\ntouch a penny not his own--see to it that you abide in this grace.  [\"We\nwill! we will!\"]  This is not the place to make comparisons between\nourselves and other communities--some of them ungracious towards us; they\nhave their ways, we have ours; let us be content.  [Applause.]  I am\ndone.  Under my hand, my friends, rests a stranger's eloquent recognition\nof what we are; through him the world will always henceforth know what we\nare.  We do not know who he is, but in your name I utter your gratitude,\nand ask you to raise your voices in indorsement.\"\n\nThe house rose in a body and made the walls quake with the thunders of\nits thankfulness for the space of a long minute.  Then it sat down, and\nMr. Burgess took an envelope out of his pocket.  The house held its\nbreath while he slit the envelope open and took from it a slip of paper.\nHe read its contents--slowly and impressively--the audience listening\nwith tranced attention to this magic document, each of whose words stood\nfor an ingot of gold:\n\n\"'The remark which I made to the distressed stranger was this: \"You are\nvery far from being a bad man; go, and reform.\"'\"  Then he continued:--\"We\nshall know in a moment now whether the remark here quoted corresponds\nwith the one concealed in the sack; and if that shall prove to be so--and\nit undoubtedly will--this sack of gold belongs to a fellow-citizen who\nwill henceforth stand before the nation as the symbol of the special\nvirtue which has made our town famous throughout the land--Mr. Billson!\"\n\nThe house had gotten itself all ready to burst into the proper tornado of\napplause; but instead of doing it, it seemed stricken with a paralysis;\nthere was a deep hush for a moment or two, then a wave of whispered\nmurmurs swept the place--of about this tenor: \"_Billson_! oh, come, this\nis _too_ thin!  Twenty dollars to a stranger--or _anybody_--_Billson_!\nTell it to the marines!\"  And now at this point the house caught its\nbreath all of a sudden in a new access of astonishment, for it discovered\nthat whereas in one part of the hall Deacon Billson was standing up with\nhis head weekly bowed, in another part of it Lawyer Wilson was doing the\nsame.  There was a wondering silence now for a while.  Everybody was\npuzzled, and nineteen couples were surprised and indignant.\n\nBillson and Wilson turned and stared at each other.  Billson asked,\nbitingly:\n\n\"Why do _you_ rise, Mr. Wilson?\"\n\n\"Because I have a right to.  Perhaps you will be good enough to explain\nto the house why _you_ rise.\"\n\n\"With great pleasure.  Because I wrote that paper.\"\n\n\"It is an impudent falsity!  I wrote it myself.\"\n\nIt was Burgess's turn to be paralysed.  He stood looking vacantly at\nfirst one of the men and then the other, and did not seem to know what to\ndo.  The house was stupefied.  Lawyer Wilson spoke up now, and said:\n\n\"I ask the Chair to read the name signed to that paper.\"\n\nThat brought the Chair to itself, and it read out the name:\n\n\"John Wharton _Billson_.\"\n\n\"There!\" shouted Billson, \"what have you got to say for yourself now?  And\nwhat kind of apology are you going to make to me and to this insulted\nhouse for the imposture which you have attempted to play here?\"\n\n\"No apologies are due, sir; and as for the rest of it, I publicly charge\nyou with pilfering my note from Mr. Burgess and substituting a copy of it\nsigned with your own name.  There is no other way by which you could have\ngotten hold of the test-remark; I alone, of living men, possessed the\nsecret of its wording.\"\n\nThere was likely to be a scandalous state of things if this went on;\neverybody noticed with distress that the shorthand scribes were\nscribbling like mad; many people were crying \"Chair, chair!  Order!\norder!\"  Burgess rapped with his gavel, and said:\n\n\"Let us not forget the proprieties due.  There has evidently been a\nmistake somewhere, but surely that is all.  If Mr. Wilson gave me an\nenvelope--and I remember now that he did--I still have it.\"\n\nHe took one out of his pocket, opened it, glanced at it, looked surprised\nand worried, and stood silent a few moments.  Then he waved his hand in a\nwandering and mechanical way, and made an effort or two to say something,\nthen gave it up, despondently.  Several voices cried out:\n\n\"Read it! read it!  What is it?\"\n\nSo he began, in a dazed and sleep-walker fashion:\n\n\"'The remark which I made to the unhappy stranger was this: \"You are far\nfrom being a bad man.  [The house gazed at him marvelling.]  Go, and\nreform.\"'  [Murmurs: \"Amazing! what can this mean?\"]  This one,\" said the\nChair, \"is signed Thurlow G. Wilson.\"\n\n\"There!\" cried Wilson, \"I reckon that settles it!  I knew perfectly well\nmy note was purloined.\"\n\n\"Purloined!\" retorted Billson.  \"I'll let you know that neither you nor\nany man of your kidney must venture to--\"\n\nThe Chair: \"Order, gentlemen, order!  Take your seats, both of you,\nplease.\"\n\nThey obeyed, shaking their heads and grumbling angrily.  The house was\nprofoundly puzzled; it did not know what to do with this curious\nemergency.  Presently Thompson got up.  Thompson was the hatter.  He\nwould have liked to be a Nineteener; but such was not for him; his stock\nof hats was not considerable enough for the position.  He said:\n\n\"Mr. Chairman, if I may be permitted to make a suggestion, can both of\nthese gentlemen be right?  I put it to you, sir, can both have happened\nto say the very same words to the stranger?  It seems to me--\"\n\nThe tanner got up and interrupted him.  The tanner was a disgruntled man;\nhe believed himself entitled to be a Nineteener, but he couldn't get\nrecognition.  It made him a little unpleasant in his ways and speech.\nSaid he:\n\n\"Sho, _that's_ not the point!  _That_ could happen--twice in a hundred\nyears--but not the other thing.  _Neither_ of them gave the twenty\ndollars!\"  [A ripple of applause.]\n\nBillson.  \"I did!\"\n\nWilson.  \"I did!\"\n\nThen each accused the other of pilfering.\n\nThe Chair.  \"Order!  Sit down, if you please--both of you.  Neither of\nthe notes has been out of my possession at any moment.\"\n\nA Voice.  \"Good--that settles _that_!\"\n\nThe Tanner.  \"Mr. Chairman, one thing is now plain: one of these men has\nbeen eavesdropping under the other one's bed, and filching family\nsecrets.  If it is not unparliamentary to suggest it, I will remark that\nboth are equal to it.  [The Chair.  \"Order! order!\"]  I withdraw the\nremark, sir, and will confine myself to suggesting that _if_ one of them\nhas overheard the other reveal the test-remark to his wife, we shall\ncatch him now.\"\n\nA Voice.  \"How?\"\n\nThe Tanner.  \"Easily.  The two have not quoted the remark in exactly the\nsame words.  You would have noticed that, if there hadn't been a\nconsiderable stretch of time and an exciting quarrel inserted between the\ntwo readings.\"\n\nA Voice.  \"Name the difference.\"\n\nThe Tanner.  \"The word _very_ is in Billson's note, and not in the\nother.\"\n\nMany Voices.  \"That's so--he's right!\"\n\nThe Tanner.  \"And so, if the Chair will examine the test-remark in the\nsack, we shall know which of these two frauds--[The Chair.\n\"Order!\"]--which of these two adventurers--[The Chair.  \"Order!\norder!\"]--which of these two gentlemen--[laughter and applause]--is\nentitled to wear the belt as being the first dishonest blatherskite ever\nbred in this town--which he has dishonoured, and which will be a sultry\nplace for him from now out!\"  [Vigorous applause.]\n\nMany Voices.  \"Open it!--open the sack!\"\n\nMr. Burgess made a slit in the sack, slid his hand in, and brought out an\nenvelope.  In it were a couple of folded notes.  He said:\n\n\"One of these is marked, 'Not to be examined until all written\ncommunications which have been addressed to the Chair--if any--shall have\nbeen read.'  The other is marked '_The Test_.'  Allow me.  It is\nworded--to wit:\n\n\"'I do not require that the first half of the remark which was made to me\nby my benefactor shall be quoted with exactness, for it was not striking,\nand could be forgotten; but its closing fifteen words are quite striking,\nand I think easily rememberable; unless _these_ shall be accurately\nreproduced, let the applicant be regarded as an impostor.  My benefactor\nbegan by saying he seldom gave advice to anyone, but that it always bore\nthe hall-mark of high value when he did give it.  Then he said this--and\nit has never faded from my memory: '_You are far from being a bad\nman_--''\"\n\nFifty Voices.  \"That settles it--the money's Wilson's!  Wilson!  Wilson!\nSpeech!  Speech!\"\n\nPeople jumped up and crowded around Wilson, wringing his hand and\ncongratulating fervently--meantime the Chair was hammering with the gavel\nand shouting:\n\n\"Order, gentlemen!  Order!  Order!  Let me finish reading, please.\"  When\nquiet was restored, the reading was resumed--as follows:\n\n\"'_Go, and reform--or, mark my words--some day, for your sins you will\ndie and go to hell or Hadleyburg_--TRY AND MAKE IT THE FORMER.'\"\n\nA ghastly silence followed.  First an angry cloud began to settle darkly\nupon the faces of the citizenship; after a pause the cloud began to rise,\nand a tickled expression tried to take its place; tried so hard that it\nwas only kept under with great and painful difficulty; the reporters, the\nBrixtonites, and other strangers bent their heads down and shielded their\nfaces with their hands, and managed to hold in by main strength and\nheroic courtesy.  At this most inopportune time burst upon the stillness\nthe roar of a solitary voice--Jack Halliday's:\n\n\"_That's_ got the hall-mark on it!\"\n\nThen the house let go, strangers and all.  Even Mr. Burgess's gravity\nbroke down presently, then the audience considered itself officially\nabsolved from all restraint, and it made the most of its privilege.  It\nwas a good long laugh, and a tempestuously wholehearted one, but it\nceased at last--long enough for Mr. Burgess to try to resume, and for the\npeople to get their eyes partially wiped; then it broke out again, and\nafterward yet again; then at last Burgess was able to get out these\nserious words:\n\n\"It is useless to try to disguise the fact--we find ourselves in the\npresence of a matter of grave import.  It involves the honour of your\ntown--it strikes at the town's good name.  The difference of a single\nword between the test-remarks offered by Mr. Wilson and Mr. Billson was\nitself a serious thing, since it indicated that one or the other of these\ngentlemen had committed a theft--\"\n\nThe two men were sitting limp, nerveless, crushed; but at these words\nboth were electrified into movement, and started to get up.\n\n\"Sit down!\" said the Chair, sharply, and they obeyed.  \"That, as I have\nsaid, was a serious thing.  And it was--but for only one of them.  But\nthe matter has become graver; for the honour of _both_ is now in\nformidable peril.  Shall I go even further, and say in inextricable\nperil?  _Both_ left out the crucial fifteen words.\"  He paused.  During\nseveral moments he allowed the pervading stillness to gather and deepen\nits impressive effects, then added: \"There would seem to be but one way\nwhereby this could happen.  I ask these gentlemen--Was there\n_collusion_?--_agreement_?\"\n\nA low murmur sifted through the house; its import was, \"He's got them\nboth.\"\n\nBillson was not used to emergencies; he sat in a helpless collapse.  But\nWilson was a lawyer.  He struggled to his feet, pale and worried, and\nsaid:\n\n\"I ask the indulgence of the house while I explain this most painful\nmatter.  I am sorry to say what I am about to say, since it must inflict\nirreparable injury upon Mr. Billson, whom I have always esteemed and\nrespected until now, and in whose invulnerability to temptation I\nentirely believed--as did you all.  But for the preservation of my own\nhonour I must speak--and with frankness.  I confess with shame--and I now\nbeseech your pardon for it--that I said to the ruined stranger all of the\nwords contained in the test-remark, including the disparaging fifteen.\n[Sensation.]  When the late publication was made I recalled them, and I\nresolved to claim the sack of coin, for by every right I was entitled to\nit.  Now I will ask you to consider this point, and weigh it well; that\nstranger's gratitude to me that night knew no bounds; he said himself\nthat he could find no words for it that were adequate, and that if he\nshould ever be able he would repay me a thousandfold.  Now, then, I ask\nyou this; could I expect--could I believe--could I even remotely\nimagine--that, feeling as he did, he would do so ungrateful a thing as to\nadd those quite unnecessary fifteen words to his test?--set a trap for\nme?--expose me as a slanderer of my own town before my own people\nassembled in a public hall?  It was preposterous; it was impossible.  His\ntest would contain only the kindly opening clause of my remark.  Of that\nI had no shadow of doubt.  You would have thought as I did.  You would\nnot have expected a base betrayal from one whom you had befriended and\nagainst whom you had committed no offence.  And so with perfect\nconfidence, perfect trust, I wrote on a piece of paper the opening\nwords--ending with \"Go, and reform,\"--and signed it.  When I was about to\nput it in an envelope I was called into my back office, and without\nthinking I left the paper lying open on my desk.\"  He stopped, turned his\nhead slowly toward Billson, waited a moment, then added: \"I ask you to\nnote this; when I returned, a little latter, Mr. Billson was retiring by\nmy street door.\"  [Sensation.]\n\nIn a moment Billson was on his feet and shouting:\n\n\"It's a lie!  It's an infamous lie!\"\n\nThe Chair.  \"Be seated, sir!  Mr. Wilson has the floor.\"\n\nBillson's friends pulled him into his seat and quieted him, and Wilson\nwent on:\n\n\"Those are the simple facts.  My note was now lying in a different place\non the table from where I had left it.  I noticed that, but attached no\nimportance to it, thinking a draught had blown it there.  That Mr.\nBillson would read a private paper was a thing which could not occur to\nme; he was an honourable man, and he would be above that.  If you will\nallow me to say it, I think his extra word '_very_' stands explained: it\nis attributable to a defect of memory.  I was the only man in the world\nwho could furnish here any detail of the test-mark--by _honourable_\nmeans.  I have finished.\"\n\nThere is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the\nmental apparatus and upset the convictions and debauch the emotions of an\naudience not practised in the tricks and delusions of oratory.  Wilson\nsat down victorious.  The house submerged him in tides of approving\napplause; friends swarmed to him and shook him by the hand and\ncongratulated him, and Billson was shouted down and not allowed to say a\nword.  The Chair hammered and hammered with its gavel, and kept shouting:\n\n\"But let us proceed, gentlemen, let us proceed!\"\n\nAt last there was a measurable degree of quiet, and the hatter said:\n\n\"But what is there to proceed with, sir, but to deliver the money?\"\n\nVoices.  \"That's it!  That's it!  Come forward, Wilson!\"\n\nThe Hatter.  \"I move three cheers for Mr. Wilson, Symbol of the special\nvirtue which--\"\n\nThe cheers burst forth before he could finish; and in the midst of\nthem--and in the midst of the clamour of the gavel also--some enthusiasts\nmounted Wilson on a big friend's shoulder and were going to fetch him in\ntriumph to the platform.  The Chair's voice now rose above the noise:\n\n\"Order!  To your places!  You forget that there is still a document to be\nread.\"  When quiet had been restored he took up the document, and was\ngoing to read it, but laid it down again saying \"I forgot; this is not to\nbe read until all written communications received by me have first been\nread.\"  He took an envelope out of his pocket, removed its enclosure,\nglanced at it--seemed astonished--held it out and gazed at it--stared at\nit.\n\nTwenty or thirty voices cried out\n\n\"What is it?  Read it! read it!\"\n\nAnd he did--slowly, and wondering:\n\n\"'The remark which I made to the stranger--[Voices.  \"Hello! how's\nthis?\"]--was this: 'You are far from being a bad man.  [Voices.  \"Great\nScott!\"]  Go, and reform.'\"  [Voice.  \"Oh, saw my leg off!\"]  Signed by\nMr. Pinkerton the banker.\"\n\nThe pandemonium of delight which turned itself loose now was of a sort to\nmake the judicious weep.  Those whose withers were unwrung laughed till\nthe tears ran down; the reporters, in throes of laughter, set down\ndisordered pot-hooks which would never in the world be decipherable; and\na sleeping dog jumped up scared out of its wits, and barked itself crazy\nat the turmoil.  All manner of cries were scattered through the din:\n\"We're getting rich--_two_ Symbols of Incorruptibility!--without counting\nBillson!\"  \"_Three_!--count Shadbelly in--we can't have too many!\"  \"All\nright--Billson's elected!\"  \"Alas, poor Wilson! victim of _two_ thieves!\"\n\nA Powerful Voice.  \"Silence!  The Chair's fished up something more out of\nits pocket.\"\n\nVoices.  \"Hurrah!  Is it something fresh?  Read it! read! read!\"\n\nThe Chair [reading].  \"'The remark which I made,' etc.  'You are far from\nbeing a bad man.  Go,' etc.  Signed, 'Gregory Yates.'\"\n\nTornado of Voices.  \"Four Symbols!\"  \"'Rah for Yates!\"  \"Fish again!\"\n\nThe house was in a roaring humour now, and ready to get all the fun out\nof the occasion that might be in it.  Several Nineteeners, looking pale\nand distressed, got up and began to work their way towards the aisles,\nbut a score of shouts went up:\n\n\"The doors, the doors--close the doors; no Incorruptible shall leave this\nplace!  Sit down, everybody!\"  The mandate was obeyed.\n\n\"Fish again!  Read! read!\"\n\nThe Chair fished again, and once more the familiar words began to fall\nfrom its lips--\"'You are far from being a bad man--'\"\n\n\"Name! name!  What's his name?\"\n\n\"'L. Ingoldsby Sargent.'\"\n\n\"Five elected!  Pile up the Symbols!  Go on, go on!\"\n\n\"'You are far from being a bad--'\"\n\n\"Name! name!\"\n\n\"'Nicholas Whitworth.'\"\n\n\"Hooray! hooray! it's a symbolical day!\"\n\nSomebody wailed in, and began to sing this rhyme (leaving out \"it's\") to\nthe lovely \"Mikado\" tune of \"When a man's afraid of a beautiful maid;\"\nthe audience joined in, with joy; then, just in time, somebody\ncontributed another line--\n\n   \"And don't you this forget--\"\n\nThe house roared it out.  A third line was at once furnished--\n\n   \"Corruptibles far from Hadleyburg are--\"\n\nThe house roared that one too.  As the last note died, Jack Halliday's\nvoice rose high and clear, freighted with a final line--\n\n   \"But the Symbols are here, you bet!\"\n\nThat was sung, with booming enthusiasm.  Then the happy house started in\nat the beginning and sang the four lines through twice, with immense\nswing and dash, and finished up with a crashing three-times-three and a\ntiger for \"Hadleyburg the Incorruptible and all Symbols of it which we\nshall find worthy to receive the hall-mark to-night.\"\n\nThen the shoutings at the Chair began again, all over the place:\n\n\"Go on! go on!  Read! read some more!  Read all you've got!\"\n\n\"That's it--go on!  We are winning eternal celebrity!\"\n\nA dozen men got up now and began to protest.  They said that this farce\nwas the work of some abandoned joker, and was an insult to the whole\ncommunity.  Without a doubt these signatures were all forgeries--\n\n\"Sit down! sit down!  Shut up!  You are confessing.  We'll find your\nnames in the lot.\"\n\n\"Mr. Chairman, how many of those envelopes have you got?\"\n\nThe Chair counted.\n\n\"Together with those that have been already examined, there are\nnineteen.\"\n\nA storm of derisive applause broke out.\n\n\"Perhaps they all contain the secret.  I move that you open them all and\nread every signature that is attached to a note of that sort--and read\nalso the first eight words of the note.\"\n\n\"Second the motion!\"\n\nIt was put and carried--uproariously.  Then poor old Richards got up, and\nhis wife rose and stood at his side.  Her head was bent down, so that\nnone might see that she was crying.  Her husband gave her his arm, and so\nsupporting her, he began to speak in a quavering voice:\n\n\"My friends, you have known us two--Mary and me--all our lives, and I\nthink you have liked us and respected us--\"\n\nThe Chair interrupted him:\n\n\"Allow me.  It is quite true--that which you are saying, Mr. Richards;\nthis town _does_ know you two; it _does_ like you; it _does_ respect you;\nmore--it honours you and _loves_ you--\"\n\nHalliday's voice rang out:\n\n\"That's the hall-marked truth, too!  If the Chair is right, let the house\nspeak up and say it.  Rise!  Now, then--hip! hip! hip!--all together!\"\n\nThe house rose in mass, faced toward the old couple eagerly, filled the\nair with a snow-storm of waving handkerchiefs, and delivered the cheers\nwith all its affectionate heart.\n\nThe Chair then continued:\n\n\"What I was going to say is this: We know your good heart, Mr. Richards,\nbut this is not a time for the exercise of charity toward offenders.\n[Shouts of \"Right! right!\"]  I see your generous purpose in your face,\nbut I cannot allow you to plead for these men--\"\n\n\"But I was going to--\"\n\n\"Please take your seat, Mr. Richards.  We must examine the rest of these\nnotes--simple fairness to the men who have already been exposed requires\nthis.  As soon as that has been done--I give you my word for this--you\nshall he heard.\"\n\nMany voices.  \"Right!--the Chair is right--no interruption can be\npermitted at this stage!  Go on!--the names! the names!--according to the\nterms of the motion!\"\n\nThe old couple sat reluctantly down, and the husband whispered to the\nwife, \"It is pitifully hard to have to wait; the shame will be greater\nthan ever when they find we were only going to plead for _ourselves_.\"\n\nStraightway the jollity broke loose again with the reading of the names.\n\n\"'You are far from being a bad man--' Signature, 'Robert J. Titmarsh.'\"\n\n'\"You are far from being a bad man--' Signature, 'Eliphalet Weeks.'\"\n\n\"'You are far from being a bad man--' Signature, 'Oscar B. Wilder.'\"\n\nAt this point the house lit upon the idea of taking the eight words out\nof the Chairman's hands.  He was not unthankful for that.  Thenceforward\nhe held up each note in its turn and waited.  The house droned out the\neight words in a massed and measured and musical deep volume of sound\n(with a daringly close resemblance to a well-known church chant)--\"You\nare f-a-r from being a b-a-a-a-d man.\"  Then the Chair said, \"Signature,\n'Archibald Wilcox.'\"  And so on, and so on, name after name, and\neverybody had an increasingly and gloriously good time except the\nwretched Nineteen.  Now and then, when a particularly shining name was\ncalled, the house made the Chair wait while it chanted the whole of the\ntest-remark from the beginning to the closing words, \"And go to hell or\nHadleyburg--try and make it the for-or-m-e-r!\" and in these special cases\nthey added a grand and agonised and imposing \"A-a-a-a-_men_!\"\n\nThe list dwindled, dwindled, dwindled, poor old Richards keeping tally of\nthe count, wincing when a name resembling his own was pronounced, and\nwaiting in miserable suspense for the time to come when it would be his\nhumiliating privilege to rise with Mary and finish his plea, which he was\nintending to word thus: \". . . for until now we have never done any wrong\nthing, but have gone our humble way unreproached.  We are very poor, we\nare old, and, have no chick nor child to help us; we were sorely tempted,\nand we fell.  It was my purpose when I got up before to make confession\nand beg that my name might not be read out in this public place, for it\nseemed to us that we could not bear it; but I was prevented.  It was\njust; it was our place to suffer with the rest.  It has been hard for us.\nIt is the first time we have ever heard our name fall from any one's\nlips--sullied.  Be merciful--for the sake or the better days; make our\nshame as light to bear as in your charity you can.\"  At this point in his\nreverie Mary nudged him, perceiving that his mind was absent.  The house\nwas chanting, \"You are f-a-r,\" etc.\n\n\"Be ready,\" Mary whispered.  \"Your name comes now; he has read eighteen.\"\n\nThe chant ended.\n\n\"Next! next! next!\" came volleying from all over the house.\n\nBurgess put his hand into his pocket.  The old couple, trembling, began\nto rise.  Burgess fumbled a moment, then said:\n\n\"I find I have read them all.\"\n\nFaint with joy and surprise, the couple sank into their seats, and Mary\nwhispered:\n\n\"Oh, bless God, we are saved!--he has lost ours--I wouldn't give this for\na hundred of those sacks!\"\n\nThe house burst out with its \"Mikado\" travesty, and sang it three times\nwith ever-increasing enthusiasm, rising to its feet when it reached for\nthe third time the closing line--\n\n   \"But the Symbols are here, you bet!\"\n\nand finishing up with cheers and a tiger for \"Hadleyburg purity and our\neighteen immortal representatives of it.\"\n\nThen Wingate, the saddler, got up and proposed cheers \"for the cleanest\nman in town, the one solitary important citizen in it who didn't try to\nsteal that money--Edward Richards.\"\n\nThey were given with great and moving heartiness; then somebody proposed\nthat \"Richards be elected sole Guardian and Symbol of the now Sacred\nHadleyburg Tradition, with power and right to stand up and look the whole\nsarcastic world in the face.\"\n\nPassed, by acclamation; then they sang the \"Mikado\" again, and ended it\nwith--\n\n   \"And there's _one_ Symbol left, you bet!\"\n\nThere was a pause; then--\n\nA Voice.  \"Now, then, who's to get the sack?\"\n\nThe Tanner (with bitter sarcasm).  \"That's easy.  The money has to be\ndivided among the eighteen Incorruptibles.  They gave the suffering\nstranger twenty dollars apiece--and that remark--each in his turn--it\ntook twenty-two minutes for the procession to move past.  Staked the\nstranger--total contribution, $360.  All they want is just the loan\nback--and interest--forty thousand dollars altogether.\"\n\nMany Voices [derisively.]  \"That's it!  Divvy! divvy!  Be kind to the\npoor--don't keep them waiting!\"\n\nThe Chair.  \"Order!  I now offer the stranger's remaining document.  It\nsays: 'If no claimant shall appear [grand chorus of groans], I desire\nthat you open the sack and count out the money to the principal citizens\nof your town, they to take it in trust [Cries of \"Oh! Oh! Oh!\"], and use\nit in such ways as to them shall seem best for the propagation and\npreservation of your community's noble reputation for incorruptible\nhonesty [more cries]--a reputation to which their names and their efforts\nwill add a new and far-reaching lustre.\"  [Enthusiastic outburst of\nsarcastic applause.]  That seems to be all.  No--here is a postscript:\n\n\"'P.S.--CITIZENS OF HADLEYBURG: There _is_ no test-remark--nobody made\none.  [Great sensation.]  There wasn't any pauper stranger, nor any\ntwenty-dollar contribution, nor any accompanying benediction and\ncompliment--these are all inventions.  [General buzz and hum of\nastonishment and delight.]  Allow me to tell my story--it will take but a\nword or two.  I passed through your town at a certain time, and received\na deep offence which I had not earned.  Any other man would have been\ncontent to kill one or two of you and call it square, but to me that\nwould have been a trivial revenge, and inadequate; for the dead do not\n_suffer_. Besides I could not kill you all--and, anyway, made as I am,\neven that would not have satisfied me.  I wanted to damage every man in\nthe place, and every woman--and not in their bodies or in their estate,\nbut in their vanity--the place where feeble and foolish people are most\nvulnerable.  So I disguised myself and came back and studied you.  You\nwere easy game.  You had an old and lofty reputation for honesty, and\nnaturally you were proud of it--it was your treasure of treasures, the\nvery apple of your eye.  As soon as I found out that you carefully and\nvigilantly kept yourselves and your children _out of temptation_, I knew\nhow to proceed.  Why, you simple creatures, the weakest of all weak\nthings is a virtue which has not been tested in the fire.  I laid a plan,\nand gathered a list of names.  My project was to corrupt Hadleyburg the\nIncorruptible.  My idea was to make liars and thieves of nearly half a\nhundred smirchless men and women who had never in their lives uttered a\nlie or stolen a penny.  I was afraid of Goodson.  He was neither born nor\nreared in Hadleyburg.  I was afraid that if I started to operate my\nscheme by getting my letter laid before you, you would say to yourselves,\n'Goodson is the only man among us who would give away twenty dollars to a\npoor devil'--and then you might not bite at my bait.  But heaven took\nGoodson; then I knew I was safe, and I set my trap and baited it.  It may\nbe that I shall not catch all the men to whom I mailed the pretended test-\nsecret, but I shall catch the most of them, if I know Hadleyburg nature.\n[Voices.  \"Right--he got every last one of them.\"]  I believe they will\neven steal ostensible _gamble_-money, rather than miss, poor, tempted,\nand mistrained fellows.  I am hoping to eternally and everlastingly\nsquelch your vanity and give Hadleyburg a new renown--one that will\n_stick_--and spread far.  If I have succeeded, open the sack and summon\nthe Committee on Propagation and Preservation of the Hadleyburg\nReputation.'\"\n\nA Cyclone of Voices.  \"Open it!  Open it!  The Eighteen to the front!\nCommittee on Propagation of the Tradition!  Forward--the Incorruptibles!\"\n\nThe Chair ripped the sack wide, and gathered up a handful of bright,\nbroad, yellow coins, shook them together, then examined them.\n\n\"Friends, they are only gilded disks of lead!\"\n\nThere was a crashing outbreak of delight over this news, and when the\nnoise had subsided, the tanner called out:\n\n\"By right of apparent seniority in this business, Mr. Wilson is Chairman\nof the Committee on Propagation of the Tradition.  I suggest that he step\nforward on behalf of his pals, and receive in trust the money.\"\n\nA Hundred Voices.  \"Wilson!  Wilson!  Wilson!  Speech!  Speech!\"\n\nWilson [in a voice trembling with anger].  \"You will allow me to say, and\nwithout apologies for my language, _damn_ the money!\"\n\nA Voice.  \"Oh, and him a Baptist!\"\n\nA Voice.  \"Seventeen Symbols left!  Step up, gentlemen, and assume your\ntrust!\"\n\nThere was a pause--no response.\n\nThe Saddler.  \"Mr. Chairman, we've got _one_ clean man left, anyway, out\nof the late aristocracy; and he needs money, and deserves it.  I move\nthat you appoint Jack Halliday to get up there and auction off that sack\nof gilt twenty-dollar pieces, and give the result to the right man--the\nman whom Hadleyburg delights to honour--Edward Richards.\"\n\nThis was received with great enthusiasm, the dog taking a hand again; the\nsaddler started the bids at a dollar, the Brixton folk and Barnum's\nrepresentative fought hard for it, the people cheered every jump that the\nbids made, the excitement climbed moment by moment higher and higher, the\nbidders got on their mettle and grew steadily more and more daring, more\nand more determined, the jumps went from a dollar up to five, then to\nten, then to twenty, then fifty, then to a hundred, then--\n\nAt the beginning of the auction Richards whispered in distress to his\nwife: \"Oh, Mary, can we allow it?  It--it--you see, it is an\nhonour--reward, a testimonial to purity of character, and--and--can we\nallow it?  Hadn't I better get up and--Oh, Mary, what ought we to\ndo?--what do you think we--\" [Halliday's voice.  \"Fifteen I'm\nbid!--fifteen for the sack!--twenty!--ah, thanks!--thirty--thanks again!\nThirty, thirty, thirty!--do I hear forty?--forty it is!  Keep the ball\nrolling, gentlemen, keep it rolling!--fifty!--thanks, noble Roman!--going\nat fifty, fifty, fifty!--seventy!--ninety!--splendid!--a hundred!--pile\nit up, pile it up!--hundred and twenty--forty!--just in time!--hundred\nand fifty!--Two hundred!--superb!  Do I hear two h--thanks!--two hundred\nand fifty!--\"]\n\n\"It is another temptation, Edward--I'm all in a tremble--but, oh, we've\nescaped one temptation, and that ought to warn us, to--[\"Six did I\nhear?--thanks!--six fifty, six f--SEVEN hundred!\"]  And yet, Edward, when\nyou think--nobody susp--[\"Eight hundred dollars!--hurrah!--make it\nnine!--Mr. Parsons, did I hear you say--thanks!--nine!--this noble sack\nof virgin lead going at only nine hundred dollars, gilding and all--come!\ndo I hear--a thousand!--gratefully yours!--did some one say eleven?--a\nsack which is going to be the most celebrated in the whole Uni--\"]  \"Oh,\nEdward\" (beginning to sob), \"we are so poor!--but--but--do as you think\nbest--do as you think best.\"\n\nEdward fell--that is, he sat still; sat with a conscience which was not\nsatisfied, but which was overpowered by circumstances.\n\nMeantime a stranger, who looked like an amateur detective gotten up as an\nimpossible English earl, had been watching the evening's proceedings with\nmanifest interest, and with a contented expression in his face; and he\nhad been privately commenting to himself.  He was now soliloquising\nsomewhat like this: \"None of the Eighteen are bidding; that is not\nsatisfactory; I must change that--the dramatic unities require it; they\nmust buy the sack they tried to steal; they must pay a heavy price,\ntoo--some of them are rich.  And another thing, when I make a mistake in\nHadleyburg nature the man that puts that error upon me is entitled to a\nhigh honorarium, and some one must pay.  This poor old Richards has\nbrought my judgment to shame; he is an honest man:--I don't understand\nit, but I acknowledge it.  Yes, he saw my deuces--_and_ with a straight\nflush, and by rights the pot is his.  And it shall be a jack-pot, too, if\nI can manage it.  He disappointed me, but let that pass.\"\n\nHe was watching the bidding.  At a thousand, the market broke: the prices\ntumbled swiftly.  He waited--and still watched.  One competitor dropped\nout; then another, and another.  He put in a bid or two now.  When the\nbids had sunk to ten dollars, he added a five; some one raised him a\nthree; he waited a moment, then flung in a fifty-dollar jump, and the\nsack was his--at $1,282.  The house broke out in cheers--then stopped;\nfor he was on his feet, and had lifted his hand.  He began to speak.\n\n\"I desire to say a word, and ask a favour.  I am a speculator in\nrarities, and I have dealings with persons interested in numismatics all\nover the world.  I can make a profit on this purchase, just as it stands;\nbut there is a way, if I can get your approval, whereby I can make every\none of these leaden twenty-dollar pieces worth its face in gold, and\nperhaps more.  Grant me that approval, and I will give part of my gains\nto your Mr. Richards, whose invulnerable probity you have so justly and\nso cordially recognised to-night; his share shall be ten thousand\ndollars, and I will hand him the money to-morrow.  [Great applause from\nthe house.  But the \"invulnerable probity\" made the Richardses blush\nprettily; however, it went for modesty, and did no harm.]  If you will\npass my proposition by a good majority--I would like a two-thirds vote--I\nwill regard that as the town's consent, and that is all I ask.  Rarities\nare always helped by any device which will rouse curiosity and compel\nremark.  Now if I may have your permission to stamp upon the faces of\neach of these ostensible coins the names of the eighteen gentlemen who--\"\n\nNine-tenths of the audience were on their feet in a moment--dog and\nall--and the proposition was carried with a whirlwind of approving\napplause and laughter.\n\nThey sat down, and all the Symbols except \"Dr.\" Clay Harkness got up,\nviolently protesting against the proposed outrage, and threatening to--\n\n\"I beg you not to threaten me,\" said the stranger calmly.  \"I know my\nlegal rights, and am not accustomed to being frightened at bluster.\"\n[Applause.]  He sat down.  \"Dr.\" Harkness saw an opportunity here.  He\nwas one of the two very rich men of the place, and Pinkerton was the\nother.  Harkness was proprietor of a mint; that is to say, a popular\npatent medicine.  He was running for the Legislature on one ticket, and\nPinkerton on the other.  It was a close race and a hot one, and getting\nhotter every day.  Both had strong appetites for money; each had bought a\ngreat tract of land, with a purpose; there was going to be a new railway,\nand each wanted to be in the Legislature and help locate the route to his\nown advantage; a single vote might make the decision, and with it two or\nthree fortunes.  The stake was large, and Harkness was a daring\nspeculator.  He was sitting close to the stranger.  He leaned over while\none or another of the other Symbols was entertaining the house with\nprotests and appeals, and asked, in a whisper,\n\n\"What is your price for the sack?\"\n\n\"Forty thousand dollars.\"\n\n\"I'll give you twenty.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Twenty-five.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Say thirty.\"\n\n\"The price is forty thousand dollars; not a penny less.\"\n\n\"All right, I'll give it.  I will come to the hotel at ten in the\nmorning.  I don't want it known; will see you privately.\"\n\n\"Very good.\"  Then the stranger got up and said to the house:\n\n\"I find it late.  The speeches of these gentlemen are not without merit,\nnot without interest, not without grace; yet if I may he excused I will\ntake my leave.  I thank you for the great favour which you have shown me\nin granting my petition.  I ask the Chair to keep the sack for me until\nto-morrow, and to hand these three five-hundred-dollar notes to Mr.\nRichards.\"  They were passed up to the Chair.\n\n\"At nine I will call for the sack, and at eleven will deliver the rest of\nthe ten thousand to Mr. Richards in person at his home.  Good-night.\"\n\nThen he slipped out, and left the audience making a vast noise, which was\ncomposed of a mixture of cheers, the \"Mikado\" song, dog-disapproval, and\nthe chant, \"You are f-a-r from being a b-a-a-d man--a-a-a a-men!\"\n\n\n\n\nIV.\n\n\nAt home the Richardses had to endure congratulations and compliments\nuntil midnight.  Then they were left to themselves.  They looked a little\nsad, and they sat silent and thinking.  Finally Mary sighed and said:\n\n\"Do you think we are to blame, Edward--_much_ to blame?\" and her eyes\nwandered to the accusing triplet of big bank-notes lying on the table,\nwhere the congratulators had been gloating over them and reverently\nfingering them.  Edward did not answer at once; then he brought out a\nsigh and said, hesitatingly:\n\n\"We--we couldn't help it, Mary.  It--well it was ordered.  _All_ things\nare.\"\n\nMary glanced up and looked at him steadily, but he didn't return the\nlook.  Presently she said:\n\n\"I thought congratulations and praises always tasted good.  But--it seems\nto me, now--Edward?\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"Are you going to stay in the bank?\"\n\n\"N--no.\"\n\n\"Resign?\"\n\n\"In the morning--by note.\"\n\n\"It does seem best.\"\n\nRichards bowed his head in his hands and muttered:\n\n\"Before I was not afraid to let oceans of people's money pour through my\nhands, but--Mary, I am so tired, so tired--\"\n\n\"We will go to bed.\"\n\nAt nine in the morning the stranger called for the sack and took it to\nthe hotel in a cab.  At ten Harkness had a talk with him privately.  The\nstranger asked for and got five cheques on a metropolitan bank--drawn to\n\"Bearer,\"--four for $1,500 each, and one for $34,000.  He put one of the\nformer in his pocket-book, and the remainder, representing $38,500, he\nput in an envelope, and with these he added a note which he wrote after\nHarkness was gone.  At eleven he called at the Richards' house and\nknocked.  Mrs. Richards peeped through the shutters, then went and\nreceived the envelope, and the stranger disappeared without a word.  She\ncame back flushed and a little unsteady on her legs, and gasped out:\n\n\"I am sure I recognised him!  Last night it seemed to me that maybe I had\nseen him somewhere before.\"\n\n\"He is the man that brought the sack here?\"\n\n\"I am almost sure of it.\"\n\n\"Then he is the ostensible Stephenson too, and sold every important\ncitizen in this town with his bogus secret.  Now if he has sent cheques\ninstead of money, we are sold too, after we thought we had escaped.  I\nwas beginning to feel fairly comfortable once more, after my night's\nrest, but the look of that envelope makes me sick.  It isn't fat enough;\n$8,500 in even the largest bank-notes makes more bulk than that.\"\n\n\"Edward, why do you object to cheques?\"\n\n\"Cheques signed by Stephenson!  I am resigned to take the $8,500 if it\ncould come in bank-notes--for it does seem that it was so ordered,\nMary--but I have never had much courage, and I have not the pluck to try\nto market a cheque signed with that disastrous name.  It would be a trap.\nThat man tried to catch me; we escaped somehow or other; and now he is\ntrying a new way.  If it is cheques--\"\n\n\"Oh, Edward, it is _too_ bad!\"  And she held up the cheques and began to\ncry.\n\n\"Put them in the fire! quick! we mustn't be tempted.  It is a trick to\nmake the world laugh at _us_, along with the rest, and--Give them to\n_me_, since you can't do it!\"  He snatched them and tried to hold his\ngrip till he could get to the stove; but he was human, he was a cashier,\nand he stopped a moment to make sure of the signature.  Then he came near\nto fainting.\n\n\"Fan me, Mary, fan me!  They are the same as gold!\"\n\n\"Oh, how lovely, Edward!  Why?\"\n\n\"Signed by Harkness.  What can the mystery of that be, Mary?\"\n\n\"Edward, do you think--\"\n\n\"Look here--look at this!  Fifteen--fifteen--fifteen--thirty-four.  Thirty-\neight thousand five hundred!  Mary, the sack isn't worth twelve dollars,\nand Harkness--apparently--has paid about par for it.\"\n\n\"And does it all come to us, do you think--instead of the ten thousand?\"\n\n\"Why, it looks like it.  And the cheques are made to 'Bearer,' too.\"\n\n\"Is that good, Edward?  What is it for?\"\n\n\"A hint to collect them at some distant bank, I reckon.  Perhaps Harkness\ndoesn't want the matter known.  What is that--a note?\"\n\n\"Yes.  It was with the cheques.\"\n\nIt was in the \"Stephenson\" handwriting, but there was no signature.  It\nsaid:\n\n   \"I am a disappointed man.  Your honesty is beyond the reach of\n   temptation.  I had a different idea about it, but I wronged you in\n   that, and I beg pardon, and do it sincerely.  I honour you--and that\n   is sincere too.  This town is not worthy to kiss the hem of your\n   garment.  Dear sir, I made a square bet with myself that there were\n   nineteen debauchable men in your self-righteous community.  I have\n   lost.  Take the whole pot, you are entitled to it.\"\n\nRichards drew a deep sigh, and said:\n\n\"It seems written with fire--it burns so.  Mary--I am miserable again.\"\n\n\"I, too.  Ah, dear, I wish--\"\n\n\"To think, Mary--he _believes_ in me.\"\n\n\n\"Oh, don't, Edward--I can't bear it.\"\n\n\"If those beautiful words were deserved, Mary--and God knows I believed I\ndeserved them once--I think I could give the forty thousand dollars for\nthem.  And I would put that paper away, as representing more than gold\nand jewels, and keep it always.  But now--We could not live in the shadow\nof its accusing presence, Mary.\"\n\nHe put it in the fire.\n\nA messenger arrived and delivered an envelope.  Richards took from it a\nnote and read it; it was from Burgess:\n\n   \"You saved me, in a difficult time.  I saved you last night.  It was\n   at cost of a lie, but I made the sacrifice freely, and out of a\n   grateful heart.  None in this village knows so well as I know how\n   brave and good and noble you are.  At bottom you cannot respect me,\n   knowing as you do of that matter of which I am accused, and by the\n   general voice condemned; but I beg that you will at least believe that\n   I am a grateful man; it will help me to bear my burden.  [Signed]\n   'BURGESS.'\"\n\n\"Saved, once more.  And on such terms!\"  He put the note in the lire.\n\"I--I wish I were dead, Mary, I wish I were out of it all!\"\n\n\"Oh, these are bitter, bitter days, Edward.  The stabs, through their\nvery generosity, are so deep--and they come so fast!\"\n\nThree days before the election each of two thousand voters suddenly found\nhimself in possession of a prized memento--one of the renowned bogus\ndouble-eagles.  Around one of its faces was stamped these words: \"THE\nREMARK I MADE TO THE POOR STRANGER WAS--\"  Around the other face was\nstamped these: \"GO, AND REFORM.  [SIGNED] PINKERTON.\"  Thus the entire\nremaining refuse of the renowned joke was emptied upon a single head, and\nwith calamitous effect.  It revived the recent vast laugh and\nconcentrated it upon Pinkerton; and Harkness's election was a walk-over.\n\nWithin twenty-four hours after the Richardses had received their cheques\ntheir consciences were quieting down, discouraged; the old couple were\nlearning to reconcile themselves to the sin which they had committed.  But\nthey were to learn, now, that a sin takes on new and real terrors when\nthere seems a chance that it is going to be found out.  This gives it a\nfresh and most substantial and important aspect.  At church the morning\nsermon was of the usual pattern; it was the same old things said in the\nsame old way; they had heard them a thousand times and found them\ninnocuous, next to meaningless, and easy to sleep under; but now it was\ndifferent: the sermon seemed to bristle with accusations; it seemed aimed\nstraight and specially at people who were concealing deadly sins.  After\nchurch they got away from the mob of congratulators as soon as they\ncould, and hurried homeward, chilled to the bone at they did not know\nwhat--vague, shadowy, indefinite fears.  And by chance they caught a\nglimpse of Mr. Burgess as he turned a corner.  He paid no attention to\ntheir nod of recognition!  He hadn't seen it; but they did not know that.\nWhat could his conduct mean?  It might mean--it might--mean--oh, a dozen\ndreadful things.  Was it possible that he knew that Richards could have\ncleared him of guilt in that bygone time, and had been silently waiting\nfor a chance to even up accounts?  At home, in their distress they got to\nimagining that their servant might have been in the next room listening\nwhen Richards revealed the secret to his wife that he knew of Burgess's\ninnocence; next Richards began to imagine that he had heard the swish of\na gown in there at that time; next, he was sure he _had_ heard it.  They\nwould call Sarah in, on a pretext, and watch her face; if she had been\nbetraying them to Mr. Burgess, it would show in her manner.  They asked\nher some questions--questions which were so random and incoherent and\nseemingly purposeless that the girl felt sure that the old people's minds\nhad been affected by their sudden good fortune; the sharp and watchful\ngaze which they bent upon her frightened her, and that completed the\nbusiness.  She blushed, she became nervous and confused, and to the old\npeople these were plain signs of guilt--guilt of some fearful sort or\nother--without doubt she was a spy and a traitor.  When they were alone\nagain they began to piece many unrelated things together and get horrible\nresults out of the combination.  When things had got about to the worst\nRichards was delivered of a sudden gasp and his wife asked:\n\n\"Oh, what is it?--what is it?\"\n\n\"The note--Burgess's note!  Its language was sarcastic, I see it now.\"  He\nquoted: \"'At bottom you cannot respect me, _knowing_, as you do, of _that\nmatter of_ which I am accused'--oh, it is perfectly plain, now, God help\nme!  He knows that I know!  You see the ingenuity of the phrasing.  It\nwas a trap--and like a fool, I walked into it.  And Mary--!\"\n\n\"Oh, it is dreadful--I know what you are going to say--he didn't return\nyour transcript of the pretended test-remark.\"\n\n\"No--kept it to destroy us with.  Mary, he has exposed us to some\nalready.  I know it--I know it well.  I saw it in a dozen faces after\nchurch.  Ah, he wouldn't answer our nod of recognition--he knew what he\nhad been doing!\"\n\nIn the night the doctor was called.  The news went around in the morning\nthat the old couple were rather seriously ill--prostrated by the\nexhausting excitement growing out of their great windfall, the\ncongratulations, and the late hours, the doctor said.  The town was\nsincerely distressed; for these old people were about all it had left to\nbe proud of, now.\n\nTwo days later the news was worse.  The old couple were delirious, and\nwere doing strange things.  By witness of the nurses, Richards had\nexhibited cheques--for $8,500?  No--for an amazing sum--$38,500!  What\ncould be the explanation of this gigantic piece of luck?\n\nThe following day the nurses had more news--and wonderful.  They had\nconcluded to hide the cheques, lest harm come to them; but when they\nsearched they were gone from under the patient's pillow--vanished away.\nThe patient said:\n\n\"Let the pillow alone; what do you want?\"\n\n\"We thought it best that the cheques--\"\n\n\"You will never see them again--they are destroyed.  They came from\nSatan.  I saw the hell-brand on them, and I knew they were sent to betray\nme to sin.\"  Then he fell to gabbling strange and dreadful things which\nwere not clearly understandable, and which the doctor admonished them to\nkeep to themselves.\n\nRichards was right; the cheques were never seen again.\n\nA nurse must have talked in her sleep, for within two days the forbidden\ngabblings were the property of the town; and they were of a surprising\nsort.  They seemed to indicate that Richards had been a claimant for the\nsack himself, and that Burgess had concealed that fact and then\nmaliciously betrayed it.\n\nBurgess was taxed with this and stoutly denied it.  And he said it was\nnot fair to attach weight to the chatter of a sick old man who was out of\nhis mind.  Still, suspicion was in the air, and there was much talk.\n\nAfter a day or two it was reported that Mrs. Richards's delirious\ndeliveries were getting to be duplicates of her husband's.  Suspicion\nflamed up into conviction, now, and the town's pride in the purity of its\none undiscredited important citizen began to dim down and flicker toward\nextinction.\n\nSix days passed, then came more news.  The old couple were dying.\nRichards's mind cleared in his latest hour, and he sent for Burgess.\nBurgess said:\n\n\"Let the room be cleared.  I think he wishes to say something in\nprivacy.\"\n\n\"No!\" said Richards; \"I want witnesses.  I want you all to hear my\nconfession, so that I may die a man, and not a dog.  I was\nclean--artificially--like the rest; and like the rest I fell when\ntemptation came.  I signed a lie, and claimed the miserable sack.  Mr.\nBurgess remembered that I had done him a service, and in gratitude (and\nignorance) he suppressed my claim and saved me.  You know the thing that\nwas charged against Burgess years ago.  My testimony, and mine alone,\ncould have cleared him, and I was a coward and left him to suffer\ndisgrace--\"\n\n\"No--no--Mr. Richards, you--\"\n\n\"My servant betrayed my secret to him--\"\n\n\"No one has betrayed anything to me--\"\n\n--\"And then he did a natural and justifiable thing; he repented of the\nsaving kindness which he had done me, and he _exposed_ me--as I\ndeserved--\"\n\n\"Never!--I make oath--\"\n\n\"Out of my heart I forgive him.\"\n\nBurgess's impassioned protestations fell upon deaf ears; the dying man\npassed away without knowing that once more he had done poor Burgess a\nwrong.  The old wife died that night.\n\nThe last of the sacred Nineteen had fallen a prey to the fiendish sack;\nthe town was stripped of the last rag of its ancient glory.  Its mourning\nwas not showy, but it was deep.\n\nBy act of the Legislature--upon prayer and petition--Hadleyburg was\nallowed to change its name to (never mind what--I will not give it away),\nand leave one word out of the motto that for many generations had graced\nthe town's official seal.\n\nIt is an honest town once more, and the man will have to rise early that\ncatches it napping again.\n\n\n"}
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{"142":"\n\n\nTHE $30,000 BEQUEST\n\nand Other Stories\n\n\nby Mark Twain\n\n(Samuel L. Clemens)\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n\nTHE $30,000 BEQUEST\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\n\nA DOG'S TALE\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nCHAPTER III\n\n\nWAS IT HEAVEN? OR HELL?\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nCHAPTER X\n\n\nA CURE FOR THE BLUES\n\nTHE CURIOUS BOOK\n\nTHE CALIFORNIAN'S TALE\n\nA HELPLESS SITUATION\n\nA TELEPHONIC CONVERSATION\n\nEDWARD MILLS AND GEORGE BENTON: A TALE\n\nTHE FIVE BOONS OF LIFE\n\nChapter I\n\nChapter II\n\nChapter III\n\nChapter IV\n\nChapter V\n\n\nTHE FIRST WRITING-MACHINES\n\nITALIAN WITHOUT A MASTER\n\nITALIAN WITH GRAMMAR\n\nA BURLESQUE BIOGRAPHY\n\nHOW TO TELL A STORY\n\nGENERAL WASHINGTON'S NEGRO BODY-SERVANT\n\nWIT INSPIRATIONS OF THE \"TWO-YEAR-OLDS\"\n\nAN ENTERTAINING ARTICLE\n\nA LETTER TO THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY\n\nAMENDED OBITUARIES\n\nA MONUMENT TO ADAM\n\nA HUMANE WORD FROM SATAN\n\nINTRODUCTION TO \"THE NEW GUIDE OF THE CONVERSATION IN PORTUGUESE AND\nENGLISH\"\n\nADVICE TO LITTLE GIRLS\n\nPOST-MORTEM POETRY (1)\n\nTHE DANGER OF LYING IN BED\n\nPORTRAIT OF KING WILLIAM III\n\nDOES THE RACE OF MAN LOVE A LORD?\n\nEXTRACTS FROM ADAM'S DIARY\n\nEVE'S DIARY\n\nEXTRACT FROM ADAM'S DIARY\n\n\n\nTHE $30,000 BEQUEST\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nLakeside was a pleasant little town of five or six thousand inhabitants,\nand a rather pretty one, too, as towns go in the Far West. It had church\naccommodations for thirty-five thousand, which is the way of the Far\nWest and the South, where everybody is religious, and where each of the\nProtestant sects is represented and has a plant of its own. Rank was\nunknown in Lakeside--unconfessed, anyway; everybody knew everybody and\nhis dog, and a sociable friendliness was the prevailing atmosphere.\n\nSaladin Foster was book-keeper in the principal store, and the only\nhigh-salaried man of his profession in Lakeside. He was thirty-five\nyears old, now; he had served that store for fourteen years; he had\nbegun in his marriage-week at four hundred dollars a year, and had\nclimbed steadily up, a hundred dollars a year, for four years; from\nthat time forth his wage had remained eight hundred--a handsome figure\nindeed, and everybody conceded that he was worth it.\n\nHis wife, Electra, was a capable helpmeet, although--like himself--a\ndreamer of dreams and a private dabbler in romance. The first thing she\ndid, after her marriage--child as she was, aged only nineteen--was to\nbuy an acre of ground on the edge of the town, and pay down the cash for\nit--twenty-five dollars, all her fortune. Saladin had less, by fifteen.\nShe instituted a vegetable garden there, got it farmed on shares by the\nnearest neighbor, and made it pay her a hundred per cent. a year. Out of\nSaladin's first year's wage she put thirty dollars in the savings-bank,\nsixty out of his second, a hundred out of his third, a hundred and fifty\nout of his fourth. His wage went to eight hundred a year, then, and\nmeantime two children had arrived and increased the expenses, but she\nbanked two hundred a year from the salary, nevertheless, thenceforth.\nWhen she had been married seven years she built and furnished a\npretty and comfortable two-thousand-dollar house in the midst of her\ngarden-acre, paid half of the money down and moved her family in. Seven\nyears later she was out of debt and had several hundred dollars out\nearning its living.\n\nEarning it by the rise in landed estate; for she had long ago bought\nanother acre or two and sold the most of it at a profit to pleasant\npeople who were willing to build, and would be good neighbors and\nfurnish a general comradeship for herself and her growing family. She\nhad an independent income from safe investments of about a hundred\ndollars a year; her children were growing in years and grace; and\nshe was a pleased and happy woman. Happy in her husband, happy in her\nchildren, and the husband and the children were happy in her. It is at\nthis point that this history begins.\n\nThe youngest girl, Clytemnestra--called Clytie for short--was eleven;\nher sister, Gwendolen--called Gwen for short--was thirteen; nice girls,\nand comely. The names betray the latent romance-tinge in the parental\nblood, the parents' names indicate that the tinge was an inheritance. It\nwas an affectionate family, hence all four of its members had pet\nnames, Saladin's was a curious and unsexing one--Sally; and so was\nElectra's--Aleck. All day long Sally was a good and diligent book-keeper\nand salesman; all day long Aleck was a good and faithful mother and\nhousewife, and thoughtful and calculating business woman; but in the\ncozy living-room at night they put the plodding world away, and lived in\nanother and a fairer, reading romances to each other, dreaming dreams,\ncomrading with kings and princes and stately lords and ladies in the\nflash and stir and splendor of noble palaces and grim and ancient\ncastles.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nNow came great news! Stunning news--joyous news, in fact. It came from a\nneighboring state, where the family's only surviving relative lived. It\nwas Sally's relative--a sort of vague and indefinite uncle or second\nor third cousin by the name of Tilbury Foster, seventy and a bachelor,\nreputed well off and corresponding sour and crusty. Sally had tried to\nmake up to him once, by letter, in a bygone time, and had not made that\nmistake again. Tilbury now wrote to Sally, saying he should shortly die,\nand should leave him thirty thousand dollars, cash; not for love, but\nbecause money had given him most of his troubles and exasperations, and\nhe wished to place it where there was good hope that it would continue\nits malignant work. The bequest would be found in his will, and would be\npaid over. PROVIDED, that Sally should be able to prove to the executors\nthat he had _Taken no notice of the gift by spoken word or by letter,\nhad made no inquiries concerning the moribund's progress toward the\neverlasting tropics, and had not attended the funeral._\n\nAs soon as Aleck had partially recovered from the tremendous emotions\ncreated by the letter, she sent to the relative's habitat and subscribed\nfor the local paper.\n\nMan and wife entered into a solemn compact, now, to never mention the\ngreat news to any one while the relative lived, lest some ignorant\nperson carry the fact to the death-bed and distort it and make it appear\nthat they were disobediently thankful for the bequest, and just the\nsame as confessing it and publishing it, right in the face of the\nprohibition.\n\nFor the rest of the day Sally made havoc and confusion with his books,\nand Aleck could not keep her mind on her affairs, not even take up a\nflower-pot or book or a stick of wood without forgetting what she had\nintended to do with it. For both were dreaming.\n\n\"Thir-ty thousand dollars!\"\n\nAll day long the music of those inspiring words sang through those\npeople's heads.\n\nFrom his marriage-day forth, Aleck's grip had been upon the purse, and\nSally had seldom known what it was to be privileged to squander a dime\non non-necessities.\n\n\"Thir-ty thousand dollars!\" the song went on and on. A vast sum, an\nunthinkable sum!\n\nAll day long Aleck was absorbed in planning how to invest it, Sally in\nplanning how to spend it.\n\nThere was no romance-reading that night. The children took themselves\naway early, for their parents were silent, distraught, and strangely\nunentertaining. The good-night kisses might as well have been impressed\nupon vacancy, for all the response they got; the parents were not aware\nof the kisses, and the children had been gone an hour before\ntheir absence was noticed. Two pencils had been busy during that\nhour--note-making; in the way of plans. It was Sally who broke the\nstillness at last. He said, with exultation:\n\n\"Ah, it'll be grand, Aleck! Out of the first thousand we'll have a horse\nand a buggy for summer, and a cutter and a skin lap-robe for winter.\"\n\nAleck responded with decision and composure--\n\n\"Out of the _capital_? Nothing of the kind. Not if it was a million!\"\n\nSally was deeply disappointed; the glow went out of his face.\n\n\"Oh, Aleck!\" he said, reproachfully. \"We've always worked so hard and\nbeen so scrimped: and now that we are rich, it does seem--\"\n\nHe did not finish, for he saw her eye soften; his supplication had\ntouched her. She said, with gentle persuasiveness:\n\n\"We must not spend the capital, dear, it would not be wise. Out of the\nincome from it--\"\n\n\"That will answer, that will answer, Aleck! How dear and good you are!\nThere will be a noble income and if we can spend that--\"\n\n\"Not _all _of it, dear, not all of it, but you can spend a part of it.\nThat is, a reasonable part. But the whole of the capital--every penny\nof it--must be put right to work, and kept at it. You see the\nreasonableness of that, don't you?\"\n\n\"Why, ye-s. Yes, of course. But we'll have to wait so long. Six months\nbefore the first interest falls due.\"\n\n\"Yes--maybe longer.\"\n\n\"Longer, Aleck? Why? Don't they pay half-yearly?\"\n\n\"_That _kind of an investment--yes; but I sha'n't invest in that way.\"\n\n\"What way, then?\"\n\n\"For big returns.\"\n\n\"Big. That's good. Go on, Aleck. What is it?\"\n\n\"Coal. The new mines. Cannel. I mean to put in ten thousand. Ground\nfloor. When we organize, we'll get three shares for one.\"\n\n\"By George, but it sounds good, Aleck! Then the shares will be\nworth--how much? And when?\"\n\n\"About a year. They'll pay ten per cent. half yearly, and be worth\nthirty thousand. I know all about it; the advertisement is in the\nCincinnati paper here.\"\n\n\"Land, thirty thousand for ten--in a year! Let's jam in the\nwhole capital and pull out ninety! I'll write and subscribe right\nnow--tomorrow it maybe too late.\"\n\nHe was flying to the writing-desk, but Aleck stopped him and put him\nback in his chair. She said:\n\n\"Don't lose your head so. _We_ mustn't subscribe till we've got the\nmoney; don't you know that?\"\n\nSally's excitement went down a degree or two, but he was not wholly\nappeased.\n\n\"Why, Aleck, we'll _have _it, you know--and so soon, too. He's probably\nout of his troubles before this; it's a hundred to nothing he's\nselecting his brimstone-shovel this very minute. Now, I think--\"\n\nAleck shuddered, and said:\n\n\"How _can _you, Sally! Don't talk in that way, it is perfectly\nscandalous.\"\n\n\"Oh, well, make it a halo, if you like, _I_ don't care for his outfit, I\nwas only just talking. Can't you let a person talk?\"\n\n\"But why should you _want _to talk in that dreadful way? How would you\nlike to have people talk so about _you_, and you not cold yet?\"\n\n\"Not likely to be, for _one _while, I reckon, if my last act was giving\naway money for the sake of doing somebody a harm with it. But never mind\nabout Tilbury, Aleck, let's talk about something worldly. It does seem\nto me that that mine is the place for the whole thirty. What's the\nobjection?\"\n\n\"All the eggs in one basket--that's the objection.\"\n\n\"All right, if you say so. What about the other twenty? What do you mean\nto do with that?\"\n\n\"There is no hurry; I am going to look around before I do anything with\nit.\"\n\n\"All right, if your mind's made up,\" sighed Sally. He was deep in\nthought awhile, then he said:\n\n\"There'll be twenty thousand profit coming from the ten a year from now.\nWe can spend that, can't we, Aleck?\"\n\nAleck shook her head.\n\n\"No, dear,\" she said, \"it won't sell high till we've had the first\nsemi-annual dividend. You can spend part of that.\"\n\n\"Shucks, only _that_--and a whole year to wait! Confound it, I--\"\n\n\"Oh, do be patient! It might even be declared in three months--it's\nquite within the possibilities.\"\n\n\"Oh, jolly! oh, thanks!\" and Sally jumped up and kissed his wife in\ngratitude. \"It'll be three thousand--three whole thousand! how much\nof it can we spend, Aleck? Make it liberal!--do, dear, that's a good\nfellow.\"\n\nAleck was pleased; so pleased that she yielded to the pressure and\nconceded a sum which her judgment told her was a foolish extravagance--a\nthousand dollars. Sally kissed her half a dozen times and even in that\nway could not express all his joy and thankfulness. This new access\nof gratitude and affection carried Aleck quite beyond the bounds of\nprudence, and before she could restrain herself she had made her darling\nanother grant--a couple of thousand out of the fifty or sixty which she\nmeant to clear within a year of the twenty which still remained of the\nbequest. The happy tears sprang to Sally's eyes, and he said:\n\n\"Oh, I want to hug you!\" And he did it. Then he got his notes and sat\ndown and began to check off, for first purchase, the luxuries which\nhe should earliest wish to secure.\n\"Horse--buggy--cutter--lap-robe--patent-leathers--dog--plug-hat--\nchurch-pew--stem-winder--new teeth--_say_, Aleck!\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"Ciphering away, aren't you? That's right. Have you got the twenty\nthousand invested yet?\"\n\n\"No, there's no hurry about that; I must look around first, and think.\"\n\n\"But you are ciphering; what's it about?\"\n\n\"Why, I have to find work for the thirty thousand that comes out of the\ncoal, haven't I?\"\n\n\"Scott, what a head! I never thought of that. How are you getting along?\nWhere have you arrived?\"\n\n\"Not very far--two years or three. I've turned it over twice; once in\noil and once in wheat.\"\n\n\"Why, Aleck, it's splendid! How does it aggregate?\"\n\n\"I think--well, to be on the safe side, about a hundred and eighty\nthousand clear, though it will probably be more.\"\n\n\"My! isn't it wonderful? By gracious! luck has come our way at last,\nafter all the hard sledding. Aleck!\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"I'm going to cash in a whole three hundred on the missionaries--what\nreal right have we care for expenses!\"\n\n\"You couldn't do a nobler thing, dear; and it's just like your generous\nnature, you unselfish boy.\"\n\nThe praise made Sally poignantly happy, but he was fair and just enough\nto say it was rightfully due to Aleck rather than to himself, since but\nfor her he should never have had the money.\n\nThen they went up to bed, and in their delirium of bliss they forgot and\nleft the candle burning in the parlor. They did not remember until they\nwere undressed; then Sally was for letting it burn; he said they could\nafford it, if it was a thousand. But Aleck went down and put it out.\n\nA good job, too; for on her way back she hit on a scheme that would turn\nthe hundred and eighty thousand into half a million before it had had\ntime to get cold.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nThe little newspaper which Aleck had subscribed for was a Thursday\nsheet; it would make the trip of five hundred miles from Tilbury's\nvillage and arrive on Saturday. Tilbury's letter had started on Friday,\nmore than a day too late for the benefactor to die and get into that\nweek's issue, but in plenty of time to make connection for the next\noutput. Thus the Fosters had to wait almost a complete week to find out\nwhether anything of a satisfactory nature had happened to him or not.\nIt was a long, long week, and the strain was a heavy one. The pair could\nhardly have borne it if their minds had not had the relief of wholesome\ndiversion. We have seen that they had that. The woman was piling up\nfortunes right along, the man was spending them--spending all his wife\nwould give him a chance at, at any rate.\n\nAt last the Saturday came, and the _Weekly Sagamore_ arrived. Mrs.\nEversly Bennett was present. She was the Presbyterian parson's wife, and\nwas working the Fosters for a charity. Talk now died a sudden death--on\nthe Foster side. Mrs. Bennett presently discovered that her hosts\nwere not hearing a word she was saying; so she got up, wondering and\nindignant, and went away. The moment she was out of the house, Aleck\neagerly tore the wrapper from the paper, and her eyes and Sally's swept\nthe columns for the death-notices. Disappointment! Tilbury was not\nanywhere mentioned. Aleck was a Christian from the cradle, and duty and\nthe force of habit required her to go through the motions. She pulled\nherself together and said, with a pious two-per-cent. trade joyousness:\n\n\"Let us be humbly thankful that he has been spared; and--\"\n\n\"Damn his treacherous hide, I wish--\"\n\n\"Sally! For shame!\"\n\n\"I don't care!\" retorted the angry man. \"It's the way _you _feel, and if\nyou weren't so immorally pious you'd be honest and say so.\"\n\nAleck said, with wounded dignity:\n\n\"I do not see how you can say such unkind and unjust things. There is no\nsuch thing as immoral piety.\"\n\nSally felt a pang, but tried to conceal it under a shuffling attempt to\nsave his case by changing the form of it--as if changing the form while\nretaining the juice could deceive the expert he was trying to placate.\nHe said:\n\n\"I didn't mean so bad as that, Aleck; I didn't really mean immoral\npiety, I only meant--meant--well, conventional piety, you know; er--shop\npiety; the--the--why, _you _know what I mean. Aleck--the--well, where\nyou put up that plated article and play it for solid, you know, without\nintending anything improper, but just out of trade habit, ancient\npolicy, petrified custom, loyalty to--to--hang it, I can't find the\nright words, but _you _know what I mean, Aleck, and that there isn't any\nharm in it. I'll try again. You see, it's this way. If a person--\"\n\n\"You have said quite enough,\" said Aleck, coldly; \"let the subject be\ndropped.\"\n\n\"I'm willing,\" fervently responded Sally, wiping the sweat from his\nforehead and looking the thankfulness he had no words for. Then,\nmusingly, he apologized to himself. \"I certainly held threes--_I know_\nit--but I drew and didn't fill. That's where I'm so often weak in\nthe game. If I had stood pat--but I didn't. I never do. I don't know\nenough.\"\n\nConfessedly defeated, he was properly tame now and subdued. Aleck\nforgave him with her eyes.\n\nThe grand interest, the supreme interest, came instantly to the front\nagain; nothing could keep it in the background many minutes on a\nstretch. The couple took up the puzzle of the absence of Tilbury's\ndeath-notice. They discussed it every which way, more or less hopefully,\nbut they had to finish where they began, and concede that the only\nreally sane explanation of the absence of the notice must be--and\nwithout doubt was--that Tilbury was not dead. There was something sad\nabout it, something even a little unfair, maybe, but there it was, and\nhad to be put up with. They were agreed as to that. To Sally it seemed\na strangely inscrutable dispensation; more inscrutable than usual, he\nthought; one of the most unnecessary inscrutable he could call to mind,\nin fact--and said so, with some feeling; but if he was hoping to draw\nAleck he failed; she reserved her opinion, if she had one; she had not\nthe habit of taking injudicious risks in any market, worldly or other.\n\nThe pair must wait for next week's paper--Tilbury had evidently\npostponed. That was their thought and their decision. So they put the\nsubject away and went about their affairs again with as good heart as\nthey could.\n\nNow, if they had but known it, they had been wronging Tilbury all the\ntime. Tilbury had kept faith, kept it to the letter; he was dead, he had\ndied to schedule. He was dead more than four days now and used to it;\nentirely dead, perfectly dead, as dead as any other new person in the\ncemetery; dead in abundant time to get into that week's _Sagamore_, too,\nand only shut out by an accident; an accident which could not happen\nto a metropolitan journal, but which happens easily to a poor little\nvillage rag like the _Sagamore_. On this occasion, just as the editorial\npage was being locked up, a gratis quart of strawberry ice-water arrived\nfrom Hostetter's Ladies and Gents Ice-Cream Parlors, and the stickful of\nrather chilly regret over Tilbury's translation got crowded out to make\nroom for the editor's frantic gratitude.\n\nOn its way to the standing-galley Tilbury's notice got pied. Otherwise\nit would have gone into some future edition, for _weekly Sagamores_ do\nnot waste \"live\" matter, and in their galleys \"live\" matter is immortal,\nunless a pi accident intervenes. But a thing that gets pied is dead, and\nfor such there is no resurrection; its chance of seeing print is gone,\nforever and ever. And so, let Tilbury like it or not, let him rave in\nhis grave to his fill, no matter--no mention of his death would ever see\nthe light in the _Weekly Sagamore_.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nFive weeks drifted tediously along. The _Sagamore _arrived regularly\non the Saturdays, but never once contained a mention of Tilbury Foster.\nSally's patience broke down at this point, and he said, resentfully:\n\n\"Damn his livers, he's immortal!\"\n\nAleck give him a very severe rebuke, and added with icy solemnity:\n\n\"How would you feel if you were suddenly cut off just after such an\nawful remark had escaped out of you?\"\n\nWithout sufficient reflection Sally responded:\n\n\"I'd feel I was lucky I hadn't got caught with it _in_ me.\"\n\nPride had forced him to say something, and as he could not think of any\nrational thing to say he flung that out. Then he stole a base--as he\ncalled it--that is, slipped from the presence, to keep from being brayed\nin his wife's discussion-mortar.\n\nSix months came and went. The _Sagamore _was still silent about Tilbury.\nMeantime, Sally had several times thrown out a feeler--that is, a hint\nthat he would like to know. Aleck had ignored the hints. Sally now\nresolved to brace up and risk a frontal attack. So he squarely proposed\nto disguise himself and go to Tilbury's village and surreptitiously find\nout as to the prospects. Aleck put her foot on the dangerous project\nwith energy and decision. She said:\n\n\"What can you be thinking of? You do keep my hands full! You have to be\nwatched all the time, like a little child, to keep you from walking into\nthe fire. You'll stay right where you are!\"\n\n\"Why, Aleck, I could do it and not be found out--I'm certain of it.\"\n\n\"Sally Foster, don't you know you would have to inquire around?\"\n\n\"Of course, but what of it? Nobody would suspect who I was.\"\n\n\"Oh, listen to the man! Some day you've got to prove to the executors\nthat you never inquired. What then?\"\n\nHe had forgotten that detail. He didn't reply; there wasn't anything to\nsay. Aleck added:\n\n\"Now then, drop that notion out of your mind, and don't ever meddle with\nit again. Tilbury set that trap for you. Don't you know it's a trap? He\nis on the watch, and fully expecting you to blunder into it. Well, he is\ngoing to be disappointed--at least while I am on deck. Sally!\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"As long as you live, if it's a hundred years, don't you ever make an\ninquiry. Promise!\"\n\n\"All right,\" with a sigh and reluctantly.\n\nThen Aleck softened and said:\n\n\"Don't be impatient. We are prospering; we can wait; there is no hurry.\nOur small dead-certain income increases all the time; and as to futures,\nI have not made a mistake yet--they are piling up by the thousands and\ntens of thousands. There is not another family in the state with such\nprospects as ours. Already we are beginning to roll in eventual wealth.\nYou know that, don't you?\"\n\n\"Yes, Aleck, it's certainly so.\"\n\n\"Then be grateful for what God is doing for us and stop worrying. You do\nnot believe we could have achieved these prodigious results without His\nspecial help and guidance, do you?\"\n\nHesitatingly, \"N-no, I suppose not.\" Then, with feeling and admiration,\n\"And yet, when it comes to judiciousness in watering a stock or putting\nup a hand to skin Wall Street I don't give in that _you _need any\noutside amateur help, if I do wish I--\"\n\n\"Oh, _do_ shut up! I know you do not mean any harm or any irreverence,\npoor boy, but you can't seem to open your mouth without letting out\nthings to make a person shudder. You keep me in constant dread. For you\nand for all of us. Once I had no fear of the thunder, but now when I\nhear it I--\"\n\nHer voice broke, and she began to cry, and could not finish. The sight\nof this smote Sally to the heart and he took her in his arms and petted\nher and comforted her and promised better conduct, and upbraided himself\nand remorsefully pleaded for forgiveness. And he was in earnest, and\nsorry for what he had done and ready for any sacrifice that could make\nup for it.\n\nAnd so, in privacy, he thought long and deeply over the matter,\nresolving to do what should seem best. It was easy to _promise _reform;\nindeed he had already promised it. But would that do any real good, any\npermanent good? No, it would be but temporary--he knew his weakness,\nand confessed it to himself with sorrow--he could not keep the promise.\nSomething surer and better must be devised; and he devised it. At\ncost of precious money which he had long been saving up, shilling by\nshilling, he put a lightning-rod on the house.\n\nAt a subsequent time he relapsed.\n\nWhat miracles habit can do! and how quickly and how easily habits are\nacquired--both trifling habits and habits which profoundly change us.\nIf by accident we wake at two in the morning a couple of nights in\nsuccession, we have need to be uneasy, for another repetition can turn\nthe accident into a habit; and a month's dallying with whiskey--but we\nall know these commonplace facts.\n\nThe castle-building habit, the day-dreaming habit--how it grows! what a\nluxury it becomes; how we fly to its enchantments at every idle moment,\nhow we revel in them, steep our souls in them, intoxicate ourselves with\ntheir beguiling fantasies--oh yes, and how soon and how easily our dream\nlife and our material life become so intermingled and so fused together\nthat we can't quite tell which is which, any more.\n\nBy and by Aleck subscribed to a Chicago daily and for the _Wall Street\nPointer_. With an eye single to finance she studied these as diligently\nall the week as she studied her Bible Sundays. Sally was lost in\nadmiration, to note with what swift and sure strides her genius and\njudgment developed and expanded in the forecasting and handling of the\nsecurities of both the material and spiritual markets. He was proud of\nher nerve and daring in exploiting worldly stocks, and just as proud of\nher conservative caution in working her spiritual deals. He noted that\nshe never lost her head in either case; that with a splendid courage\nshe often went short on worldly futures, but heedfully drew the line\nthere--she was always long on the others. Her policy was quite sane and\nsimple, as she explained it to him: what she put into earthly futures\nwas for speculation, what she put into spiritual futures was for\ninvestment; she was willing to go into the one on a margin, and take\nchances, but in the case of the other, \"margin her no margins\"--she\nwanted to cash in a hundred cents per dollar's worth, and have the stock\ntransferred on the books.\n\nIt took but a very few months to educate Aleck's imagination and\nSally's. Each day's training added something to the spread and\neffectiveness of the two machines. As a consequence, Aleck made\nimaginary money much faster than at first she had dreamed of making it,\nand Sally's competency in spending the overflow of it kept pace with the\nstrain put upon it, right along. In the beginning, Aleck had given the\ncoal speculation a twelvemonth in which to materialize, and had been\nloath to grant that this term might possibly be shortened by nine\nmonths. But that was the feeble work, the nursery work, of a financial\nfancy that had had no teaching, no experience, no practice. These\naids soon came, then that nine months vanished, and the imaginary\nten-thousand-dollar investment came marching home with three hundred per\ncent. profit on its back!\n\nIt was a great day for the pair of Fosters. They were speechless for\njoy. Also speechless for another reason: after much watching of the\nmarket, Aleck had lately, with fear and trembling, made her first flyer\non a \"margin,\" using the remaining twenty thousand of the bequest\nin this risk. In her mind's eye she had seen it climb, point by\npoint--always with a chance that the market would break--until at last\nher anxieties were too great for further endurance--she being new to\nthe margin business and unhardened, as yet--and she gave her imaginary\nbroker an imaginary order by imaginary telegraph to sell. She said forty\nthousand dollars' profit was enough. The sale was made on the very day\nthat the coal venture had returned with its rich freight. As I have\nsaid, the couple were speechless, they sat dazed and blissful that\nnight, trying to realize that they were actually worth a hundred\nthousand dollars in clean, imaginary cash. Yet so it was.\n\nIt was the last time that ever Aleck was afraid of a margin; at least\nafraid enough to let it break her sleep and pale her cheek to the extent\nthat this first experience in that line had done.\n\nIndeed it was a memorable night. Gradually the realization that they\nwere rich sank securely home into the souls of the pair, then they began\nto place the money. If we could have looked out through the eyes of\nthese dreamers, we should have seen their tidy little wooden house\ndisappear, and two-story brick with a cast-iron fence in front of it\ntake its place; we should have seen a three-globed gas-chandelier grow\ndown from the parlor ceiling; we should have seen the homely rag carpet\nturn to noble Brussels, a dollar and a half a yard; we should have seen\nthe plebeian fireplace vanish away and a recherche, big base-burner with\nisinglass windows take position and spread awe around. And we should\nhave seen other things, too; among them the buggy, the lap-robe, the\nstove-pipe hat, and so on.\n\nFrom that time forth, although the daughters and the neighbors saw only\nthe same old wooden house there, it was a two-story brick to Aleck\nand Sally and not a night went by that Aleck did not worry about the\nimaginary gas-bills, and get for all comfort Sally's reckless retort:\n\"What of it? We can afford it.\"\n\nBefore the couple went to bed, that first night that they were rich,\nthey had decided that they must celebrate. They must give a party--that\nwas the idea. But how to explain it--to the daughters and the neighbors?\nThey could not expose the fact that they were rich. Sally was willing,\neven anxious, to do it; but Aleck kept her head and would not allow it.\nShe said that although the money was as good as in, it would be as well\nto wait until it was actually in. On that policy she took her stand, and\nwould not budge. The great secret must be kept, she said--kept from the\ndaughters and everybody else.\n\nThe pair were puzzled. They must celebrate, they were determined to\ncelebrate, but since the secret must be kept, what could they celebrate?\nNo birthdays were due for three months. Tilbury wasn't available,\nevidently he was going to live forever; what the nation _could _they\ncelebrate? That was Sally's way of putting it; and he was getting\nimpatient, too, and harassed. But at last he hit it--just by sheer\ninspiration, as it seemed to him--and all their troubles were gone in a\nmoment; they would celebrate the Discovery of America. A splendid idea!\n\nAleck was almost too proud of Sally for words--she said _she _never\nwould have thought of it. But Sally, although he was bursting with\ndelight in the compliment and with wonder at himself, tried not to let\non, and said it wasn't really anything, anybody could have done it.\nWhereat Aleck, with a prideful toss of her happy head, said:\n\n\"Oh, certainly! Anybody could--oh, anybody! Hosannah Dilkins, for\ninstance! Or maybe Adelbert Peanut--oh, _dear_--yes! Well, I'd like to\nsee them try it, that's all. Dear-me-suz, if they could think of the\ndiscovery of a forty-acre island it's more than _I_ believe they could;\nand as for the whole continent, why, Sally Foster, you know perfectly\nwell it would strain the livers and lights out of them and _then_ they\ncouldn't!\"\n\nThe dear woman, she knew he had talent; and if affection made her\nover-estimate the size of it a little, surely it was a sweet and gentle\ncrime, and forgivable for its source's sake.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nThe celebration went off well. The friends were all present, both the\nyoung and the old. Among the young were Flossie and Gracie Peanut and\ntheir brother Adelbert, who was a rising young journeyman tinner,\nalso Hosannah Dilkins, Jr., journeyman plasterer, just out of his\napprenticeship. For many months Adelbert and Hosannah had been showing\ninterest in Gwendolen and Clytemnestra Foster, and the parents of the\ngirls had noticed this with private satisfaction. But they suddenly\nrealized now that that feeling had passed. They recognized that the\nchanged financial conditions had raised up a social bar between\ntheir daughters and the young mechanics. The daughters could now look\nhigher--and must. Yes, must. They need marry nothing below the grade of\nlawyer or merchant; poppa and momma would take care of this; there must\nbe no mesalliances.\n\nHowever, these thinkings and projects of theirs were private, and\ndid not show on the surface, and therefore threw no shadow upon the\ncelebration. What showed upon the surface was a serene and lofty\ncontentment and a dignity of carriage and gravity of deportment which\ncompelled the admiration and likewise the wonder of the company. All\nnoticed it and all commented upon it, but none was able to divine the\nsecret of it. It was a marvel and a mystery. Three several persons\nremarked, without suspecting what clever shots they were making:\n\n\"It's as if they'd come into property.\"\n\nThat was just it, indeed.\n\nMost mothers would have taken hold of the matrimonial matter in the\nold regulation way; they would have given the girls a talking to, of\na solemn sort and untactful--a lecture calculated to defeat its own\npurpose, by producing tears and secret rebellion; and the said mothers\nwould have further damaged the business by requesting the young\nmechanics to discontinue their attentions. But this mother was\ndifferent. She was practical. She said nothing to any of the young\npeople concerned, nor to any one else except Sally. He listened to her\nand understood; understood and admired. He said:\n\n\"I get the idea. Instead of finding fault with the samples on view,\nthus hurting feelings and obstructing trade without occasion, you merely\noffer a higher class of goods for the money, and leave nature to take\nher course. It's wisdom, Aleck, solid wisdom, and sound as a nut. Who's\nyour fish? Have you nominated him yet?\"\n\nNo, she hadn't. They must look the market over--which they did. To start\nwith, they considered and discussed Brandish, rising young lawyer, and\nFulton, rising young dentist. Sally must invite them to dinner. But not\nright away; there was no hurry, Aleck said. Keep an eye on the pair, and\nwait; nothing would be lost by going slowly in so important a matter.\n\nIt turned out that this was wisdom, too; for inside of three weeks Aleck\nmade a wonderful strike which swelled her imaginary hundred thousand\nto four hundred thousand of the same quality. She and Sally were in the\nclouds that evening. For the first time they introduced champagne at\ndinner. Not real champagne, but plenty real enough for the amount of\nimagination expended on it. It was Sally that did it, and Aleck weakly\nsubmitted. At bottom both were troubled and ashamed, for he was a\nhigh-up Son of Temperance, and at funerals wore an apron which no dog\ncould look upon and retain his reason and his opinion; and she was a\nW. C. T. U., with all that that implies of boiler-iron virtue and\nunendurable holiness. But there it was; the pride of riches was\nbeginning its disintegrating work. They had lived to prove, once more,\na sad truth which had been proven many times before in the world: that\nwhereas principle is a great and noble protection against showy and\ndegrading vanities and vices, poverty is worth six of it. More than\nfour hundred thousand dollars to the good. They took up the matrimonial\nmatter again. Neither the dentist nor the lawyer was mentioned; there\nwas no occasion, they were out of the running. Disqualified. They\ndiscussed the son of the pork-packer and the son of the village banker.\nBut finally, as in the previous case, they concluded to wait and think,\nand go cautiously and sure.\n\nLuck came their way again. Aleck, ever watchful saw a great and risky\nchance, and took a daring flyer. A time of trembling, of doubt, of awful\nuneasiness followed, for non-success meant absolute ruin and nothing\nshort of it. Then came the result, and Aleck, faint with joy, could\nhardly control her voice when she said:\n\n\"The suspense is over, Sally--and we are worth a cold million!\"\n\nSally wept for gratitude, and said:\n\n\"Oh, Electra, jewel of women, darling of my heart, we are free at last,\nwe roll in wealth, we need never scrimp again. It's a case for Veuve\nCliquot!\" and he got out a pint of spruce-beer and made sacrifice, he\nsaying \"Damn the expense,\" and she rebuking him gently with reproachful\nbut humid and happy eyes.\n\nThey shelved the pork-packer's son and the banker's son, and sat down to\nconsider the Governor's son and the son of the Congressman.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nIt were a weariness to follow in detail the leaps and bounds the Foster\nfictitious finances took from this time forth. It was marvelous, it\nwas dizzying, it was dazzling. Everything Aleck touched turned to fairy\ngold, and heaped itself glittering toward the firmament. Millions upon\nmillions poured in, and still the mighty stream flowed thundering\nalong, still its vast volume increased. Five millions--ten\nmillions--twenty--thirty--was there never to be an end?\n\nTwo years swept by in a splendid delirium, the intoxicated Fosters\nscarcely noticing the flight of time. They were now worth three\nhundred million dollars; they were in every board of directors of every\nprodigious combine in the country; and still as time drifted along, the\nmillions went on piling up, five at a time, ten at a time, as fast as\nthey could tally them off, almost. The three hundred double itself--then\ndoubled again--and yet again--and yet once more.\n\nTwenty-four hundred millions!\n\nThe business was getting a little confused. It was necessary to take an\naccount of stock, and straighten it out. The Fosters knew it, they felt\nit, they realized that it was imperative; but they also knew that to do\nit properly and perfectly the task must be carried to a finish without\na break when once it was begun. A ten-hours' job; and where could _they\n_find ten leisure hours in a bunch? Sally was selling pins and sugar and\ncalico all day and every day; Aleck was cooking and washing dishes and\nsweeping and making beds all day and every day, with none to help, for\nthe daughters were being saved up for high society. The Fosters knew\nthere was one way to get the ten hours, and only one. Both were ashamed\nto name it; each waited for the other to do it. Finally Sally said:\n\n\"Somebody's got to give in. It's up to me. Consider that I've named\nit--never mind pronouncing it out aloud.\"\n\nAleck colored, but was grateful. Without further remark, they fell.\nFell, and--broke the Sabbath. For that was their only free ten-hour\nstretch. It was but another step in the downward path. Others would\nfollow. Vast wealth has temptations which fatally and surely undermine\nthe moral structure of persons not habituated to its possession.\n\nThey pulled down the shades and broke the Sabbath. With hard and patient\nlabor they overhauled their holdings and listed them. And a long-drawn\nprocession of formidable names it was! Starting with the Railway\nSystems, Steamer Lines, Standard Oil, Ocean Cables, Diluted Telegraph,\nand all the rest, and winding up with Klondike, De Beers, Tammany Graft,\nand Shady Privileges in the Post-office Department.\n\nTwenty-four hundred millions, and all safely planted in Good Things,\ngilt-edged and interest-bearing. Income, $120,000,000 a year. Aleck\nfetched a long purr of soft delight, and said:\n\n\"Is it enough?\"\n\n\"It is, Aleck.\"\n\n\"What shall we do?\"\n\n\"Stand pat.\"\n\n\"Retire from business?\"\n\n\"That's it.\"\n\n\"I am agreed. The good work is finished; we will take a long rest and\nenjoy the money.\"\n\n\"Good! Aleck!\"\n\n\"Yes, dear?\"\n\n\"How much of the income can we spend?\"\n\n\"The whole of it.\"\n\nIt seemed to her husband that a ton of chains fell from his limbs. He\ndid not say a word; he was happy beyond the power of speech.\n\nAfter that, they broke the Sabbaths right along as fast as they turned\nup. It is the first wrong step that counts. Every Sunday they put in the\nwhole day, after morning service, on inventions--inventions of ways to\nspend the money. They got to continuing this delicious dissipation until\npast midnight; and at every seance Aleck lavished millions upon great\ncharities and religious enterprises, and Sally lavished like sums upon\nmatters to which (at first) he gave definite names. Only at first. Later\nthe names gradually lost sharpness of outline, and eventually faded into\n\"sundries,\" thus becoming entirely--but safely--undescriptive. For Sally\nwas crumbling. The placing of these millions added seriously and most\nuncomfortably to the family expenses--in tallow candles. For a while\nAleck was worried. Then, after a little, she ceased to worry, for\nthe occasion of it was gone. She was pained, she was grieved, she was\nashamed; but she said nothing, and so became an accessory. Sally was\ntaking candles; he was robbing the store. It is ever thus. Vast wealth,\nto the person unaccustomed to it, is a bane; it eats into the flesh and\nbone of his morals. When the Fosters were poor, they could have been\ntrusted with untold candles. But now they--but let us not dwell upon it.\nFrom candles to apples is but a step: Sally got to taking apples; then\nsoap; then maple-sugar; then canned goods; then crockery. How easy it\nis to go from bad to worse, when once we have started upon a downward\ncourse!\n\nMeantime, other effects had been milestoning the course of the Fosters'\nsplendid financial march. The fictitious brick dwelling had given place\nto an imaginary granite one with a checker-board mansard roof; in time\nthis one disappeared and gave place to a still grander home--and so on\nand so on. Mansion after mansion, made of air, rose, higher, broader,\nfiner, and each in its turn vanished away; until now in these latter\ngreat days, our dreamers were in fancy housed, in a distant region, in a\nsumptuous vast palace which looked out from a leafy summit upon a\nnoble prospect of vale and river and receding hills steeped in tinted\nmists--and all private, all the property of the dreamers; a palace\nswarming with liveried servants, and populous with guests of fame and\npower, hailing from all the world's capitals, foreign and domestic.\n\nThis palace was far, far away toward the rising sun, immeasurably\nremote, astronomically remote, in Newport, Rhode Island, Holy Land of\nHigh Society, ineffable Domain of the American Aristocracy. As a rule\nthey spent a part of every Sabbath--after morning service--in this\nsumptuous home, the rest of it they spent in Europe, or in dawdling\naround in their private yacht. Six days of sordid and plodding fact life\nat home on the ragged edge of Lakeside and straitened means, the seventh\nin Fairyland--such had been their program and their habit.\n\nIn their sternly restricted fact life they remained as of old--plodding,\ndiligent, careful, practical, economical. They stuck loyally to the\nlittle Presbyterian Church, and labored faithfully in its interests\nand stood by its high and tough doctrines with all their mental and\nspiritual energies. But in their dream life they obeyed the invitations\nof their fancies, whatever they might be, and howsoever the fancies\nmight change. Aleck's fancies were not very capricious, and not\nfrequent, but Sally's scattered a good deal. Aleck, in her dream life,\nwent over to the Episcopal camp, on account of its large official\ntitles; next she became High-church on account of the candles and shows;\nand next she naturally changed to Rome, where there were cardinals and\nmore candles. But these excursions were a nothing to Sally's. His dream\nlife was a glowing and continuous and persistent excitement, and he kept\nevery part of it fresh and sparkling by frequent changes, the religious\npart along with the rest. He worked his religions hard, and changed them\nwith his shirt.\n\nThe liberal spendings of the Fosters upon their fancies began early\nin their prosperities, and grew in prodigality step by step with their\nadvancing fortunes. In time they became truly enormous. Aleck built\na university or two per Sunday; also a hospital or two; also a Rowton\nhotel or so; also a batch of churches; now and then a cathedral; and\nonce, with untimely and ill-chosen playfulness, Sally said, \"It was\na cold day when she didn't ship a cargo of missionaries to persuade\nunreflecting Chinamen to trade off twenty-four carat Confucianism for\ncounterfeit Christianity.\"\n\nThis rude and unfeeling language hurt Aleck to the heart, and she went\nfrom the presence crying. That spectacle went to his own heart, and in\nhis pain and shame he would have given worlds to have those unkind words\nback. She had uttered no syllable of reproach--and that cut him. Not one\nsuggestion that he look at his own record--and she could have made, oh,\nso many, and such blistering ones! Her generous silence brought a swift\nrevenge, for it turned his thoughts upon himself, it summoned before\nhim a spectral procession, a moving vision of his life as he had been\nleading it these past few years of limitless prosperity, and as he\nsat there reviewing it his cheeks burned and his soul was steeped in\nhumiliation. Look at her life--how fair it was, and tending ever upward;\nand look at his own--how frivolous, how charged with mean vanities,\nhow selfish, how empty, how ignoble! And its trend--never upward, but\ndownward, ever downward!\n\nHe instituted comparisons between her record and his own. He had found\nfault with her--so he mused--_he_! And what could he say for himself?\nWhen she built her first church what was he doing? Gathering other blase\nmultimillionaires into a Poker Club; defiling his own palace with it;\nlosing hundreds of thousands to it at every sitting, and sillily vain of\nthe admiring notoriety it made for him. When she was building her\nfirst university, what was he doing? Polluting himself with a gay\nand dissipated secret life in the company of other fast bloods,\nmultimillionaires in money and paupers in character. When she was\nbuilding her first foundling asylum, what was he doing? Alas! When she\nwas projecting her noble Society for the Purifying of the Sex, what was\nhe doing? Ah, what, indeed! When she and the W. C. T. U. and the Woman\nwith the Hatchet, moving with resistless march, were sweeping the fatal\nbottle from the land, what was he doing? Getting drunk three times a\nday. When she, builder of a hundred cathedrals, was being gratefully\nwelcomed and blest in papal Rome and decorated with the Golden Rose\nwhich she had so honorably earned, what was he doing? Breaking the bank\nat Monte Carlo.\n\nHe stopped. He could go no farther; he could not bear the rest. He rose\nup, with a great resolution upon his lips: this secret life should be\nrevealed, and confessed; no longer would he live it clandestinely, he\nwould go and tell her All.\n\nAnd that is what he did. He told her All; and wept upon her bosom; wept,\nand moaned, and begged for her forgiveness. It was a profound shock, and\nshe staggered under the blow, but he was her own, the core of her heart,\nthe blessing of her eyes, her all in all, she could deny him nothing,\nand she forgave him. She felt that he could never again be quite to her\nwhat he had been before; she knew that he could only repent, and not\nreform; yet all morally defaced and decayed as he was, was he not her\nown, her very own, the idol of her deathless worship? She said she was\nhis serf, his slave, and she opened her yearning heart and took him in.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nOne Sunday afternoon some time after this they were sailing the summer\nseas in their dream yacht, and reclining in lazy luxury under the awning\nof the after-deck. There was silence, for each was busy with his own\nthoughts. These seasons of silence had insensibly been growing more\nand more frequent of late; the old nearness and cordiality were waning.\nSally's terrible revelation had done its work; Aleck had tried hard to\ndrive the memory of it out of her mind, but it would not go, and the\nshame and bitterness of it were poisoning her gracious dream life. She\ncould see now (on Sundays) that her husband was becoming a bloated and\nrepulsive Thing. She could not close her eyes to this, and in these days\nshe no longer looked at him, Sundays, when she could help it.\n\nBut she--was she herself without blemish? Alas, she knew she was not.\nShe was keeping a secret from him, she was acting dishonorably toward\nhim, and many a pang it was costing her. _She was breaking the compact,\nand concealing it from him_. Under strong temptation she had gone into\nbusiness again; she had risked their whole fortune in a purchase of all\nthe railway systems and coal and steel companies in the country on a\nmargin, and she was now trembling, every Sabbath hour, lest through some\nchance word of hers he find it out. In her misery and remorse for this\ntreachery she could not keep her heart from going out to him in pity;\nshe was filled with compunctions to see him lying there, drunk and\ncontented, and never suspecting. Never suspecting--trusting her with\na perfect and pathetic trust, and she holding over him by a thread a\npossible calamity of so devastating a--\n\n\"_Say_--Aleck?\"\n\nThe interrupting words brought her suddenly to herself. She was grateful\nto have that persecuting subject from her thoughts, and she answered,\nwith much of the old-time tenderness in her tone:\n\n\"Yes, dear.\"\n\n\"Do you know, Aleck, I think we are making a mistake--that is, you\nare. I mean about the marriage business.\" He sat up, fat and froggy and\nbenevolent, like a bronze Buddha, and grew earnest. \"Consider--it's more\nthan five years. You've continued the same policy from the start: with\nevery rise, always holding on for five points higher. Always when I\nthink we are going to have some weddings, you see a bigger thing ahead,\nand I undergo another disappointment. _I_ think you are too hard to\nplease. Some day we'll get left. First, we turned down the dentist and\nthe lawyer. That was all right--it was sound. Next, we turned down the\nbanker's son and the pork-butcher's heir--right again, and sound. Next,\nwe turned down the Congressman's son and the Governor's--right as\na trivet, I confess it. Next the Senator's son and the son of the\nVice-President of the United States--perfectly right, there's no\npermanency about those little distinctions. Then you went for the\naristocracy; and I thought we had struck oil at last--yes. We would\nmake a plunge at the Four Hundred, and pull in some ancient lineage,\nvenerable, holy, ineffable, mellow with the antiquity of a hundred and\nfifty years, disinfected of the ancestral odors of salt-cod and pelts\nall of a century ago, and unsmirched by a day's work since, and then!\nwhy, then the marriages, of course. But no, along comes a pair of real\naristocrats from Europe, and straightway you throw over the half-breeds.\nIt was awfully discouraging, Aleck! Since then, what a procession!\nYou turned down the baronets for a pair of barons; you turned down the\nbarons for a pair of viscounts; the viscounts for a pair of earls;\nthe earls for a pair of marquises; the marquises for a brace of dukes.\n_Now_, Aleck, cash in!--you've played the limit. You've got a job lot\nof four dukes under the hammer; of four nationalities; all sound in the\nwind and limb and pedigree, all bankrupt and in debt up to the ears.\nThey come high, but we can afford it. Come, Aleck, don't delay any\nlonger, don't keep up the suspense: take the whole lay-out, and leave\nthe girls to choose!\"\n\nAleck had been smiling blandly and contentedly all through this\narraignment of her marriage policy, a pleasant light, as of triumph with\nperhaps a nice surprise peeping out through it, rose in her eyes, and\nshe said, as calmly as she could:\n\n\"Sally, what would you say to--_royalty_?\"\n\nProdigious! Poor man, it knocked him silly, and he fell over the\ngarboard-strake and barked his shin on the cat-heads. He was dizzy for a\nmoment, then he gathered himself up and limped over and sat down by\nhis wife and beamed his old-time admiration and affection upon her in\nfloods, out of his bleary eyes.\n\n\"By George!\" he said, fervently, \"Aleck, you _are _great--the greatest\nwoman in the whole earth! I can't ever learn the whole size of you.\nI can't ever learn the immeasurable deeps of you. Here I've been\nconsidering myself qualified to criticize your game. _I!_ Why, if I had\nstopped to think, I'd have known you had a lone hand up your sleeve.\nNow, dear heart, I'm all red-hot impatience--tell me about it!\"\n\nThe flattered and happy woman put her lips to his ear and whispered\na princely name. It made him catch his breath, it lit his face with\nexultation.\n\n\"Land!\" he said, \"it's a stunning catch! He's got a gambling-hall, and\na graveyard, and a bishop, and a cathedral--all his very own. And all\ngilt-edged five-hundred-per-cent. stock, every detail of it; the tidiest\nlittle property in Europe; and that graveyard--it's the selectest in\nthe world: none but suicides admitted; _yes_, sir, and the free-list\nsuspended, too, _all _the time. There isn't much land in the\nprincipality, but there's enough: eight hundred acres in the graveyard\nand forty-two outside. It's a _sovereignty_--that's the main thing;\n_land's_ nothing. There's plenty land, Sahara's drugged with it.\"\n\nAleck glowed; she was profoundly happy. She said:\n\n\"Think of it, Sally--it is a family that has never married outside the\nRoyal and Imperial Houses of Europe: our grandchildren will sit upon\nthrones!\"\n\n\"True as you live, Aleck--and bear scepters, too; and handle them as\nnaturally and nonchantly as I handle a yardstick. It's a grand catch,\nAleck. He's corralled, is he? Can't get away? You didn't take him on a\nmargin?\"\n\n\"No. Trust me for that. He's not a liability, he's an asset. So is the\nother one.\"\n\n\"Who is it, Aleck?\"\n\n\"His Royal Highness\nSigismund-Siegfried-Lauenfeld-Dinkelspiel-Schwartzenberg Blutwurst,\nHereditary Grand Duke of Katzenyammer.\"\n\n\"No! You can't mean it!\"\n\n\"It's as true as I'm sitting here, I give you my word,\" she answered.\n\nHis cup was full, and he hugged her to his heart with rapture, saying:\n\n\"How wonderful it all seems, and how beautiful! It's one of the\noldest and noblest of the three hundred and sixty-four ancient German\nprincipalities, and one of the few that was allowed to retain its royal\nestate when Bismarck got done trimming them. I know that farm, I've been\nthere. It's got a rope-walk and a candle-factory and an army. Standing\narmy. Infantry and cavalry. Three soldier and a horse. Aleck, it's been\na long wait, and full of heartbreak and hope deferred, but God knows I\nam happy now. Happy, and grateful to you, my own, who have done it all.\nWhen is it to be?\"\n\n\"Next Sunday.\"\n\n\"Good. And we'll want to do these weddings up in the very regalest style\nthat's going. It's properly due to the royal quality of the parties\nof the first part. Now as I understand it, there is only one kind of\nmarriage that is sacred to royalty, exclusive to royalty: it's the\nmorganatic.\"\n\n\"What do they call it that for, Sally?\"\n\n\"I don't know; but anyway it's royal, and royal only.\"\n\n\"Then we will insist upon it. More--I will compel it. It is morganatic\nmarriage or none.\"\n\n\"That settles it!\" said Sally, rubbing his hands with delight. \"And it\nwill be the very first in America. Aleck, it will make Newport sick.\"\n\nThen they fell silent, and drifted away upon their dream wings to the\nfar regions of the earth to invite all the crowned heads and their\nfamilies and provide gratis transportation to them.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nDuring three days the couple walked upon air, with their heads in the\nclouds. They were but vaguely conscious of their surroundings; they saw\nall things dimly, as through a veil; they were steeped in dreams,\noften they did not hear when they were spoken to; they often did not\nunderstand when they heard; they answered confusedly or at random; Sally\nsold molasses by weight, sugar by the yard, and furnished soap when\nasked for candles, and Aleck put the cat in the wash and fed milk to\nthe soiled linen. Everybody was stunned and amazed, and went about\nmuttering, \"What _can _be the matter with the Fosters?\"\n\nThree days. Then came events! Things had taken a happy turn, and\nfor forty-eight hours Aleck's imaginary corner had been booming. Up--up-\n-still up! Cost point was passed. Still up--and up--and up! Five points\nabove cost--then ten--fifteen--twenty! Twenty points cold profit on the\nvast venture, now, and Aleck's imaginary brokers were shouting\nfrantically by imaginary long-distance, \"Sell! sell! for Heaven's sake\n_sell_!\"\n\nShe broke the splendid news to Sally, and he, too, said, \"Sell!\nsell--oh, don't make a blunder, now, you own the earth!--sell, sell!\"\nBut she set her iron will and lashed it amidships, and said she would\nhold on for five points more if she died for it.\n\nIt was a fatal resolve. The very next day came the historic crash, the\nrecord crash, the devastating crash, when the bottom fell out of Wall\nStreet, and the whole body of gilt-edged stocks dropped ninety-five\npoints in five hours, and the multimillionaire was seen begging his\nbread in the Bowery. Aleck sternly held her grip and \"put up\" as long\nas she could, but at last there came a call which she was powerless to\nmeet, and her imaginary brokers sold her out. Then, and not till then,\nthe man in her was vanished, and the woman in her resumed sway. She put\nher arms about her husband's neck and wept, saying:\n\n\"I am to blame, do not forgive me, I cannot bear it. We are paupers!\nPaupers, and I am so miserable. The weddings will never come off; all\nthat is past; we could not even buy the dentist, now.\"\n\nA bitter reproach was on Sally's tongue: \"I _begged _you to sell, but\nyou--\" He did not say it; he had not the heart to add a hurt to that\nbroken and repentant spirit. A nobler thought came to him and he said:\n\n\"Bear up, my Aleck, all is not lost! You really never invested a penny\nof my uncle's bequest, but only its unmaterialized future; what we\nhave lost was only the incremented harvest from that future by your\nincomparable financial judgment and sagacity. Cheer up, banish these\ngriefs; we still have the thirty thousand untouched; and with the\nexperience which you have acquired, think what you will be able to do\nwith it in a couple years! The marriages are not off, they are only\npostponed.\"\n\nThese were blessed words. Aleck saw how true they were, and their\ninfluence was electric; her tears ceased to flow, and her great spirit\nrose to its full stature again. With flashing eye and grateful heart,\nand with hand uplifted in pledge and prophecy, she said:\n\n\"Now and here I proclaim--\"\n\nBut she was interrupted by a visitor. It was the editor and proprietor\nof the _Sagamore_. He had happened into Lakeside to pay a duty-call upon\nan obscure grandmother of his who was nearing the end of her pilgrimage,\nand with the idea of combining business with grief he had looked up\nthe Fosters, who had been so absorbed in other things for the past four\nyears that they neglected to pay up their subscription. Six dollars due.\nNo visitor could have been more welcome. He would know all about Uncle\nTilbury and what his chances might be getting to be, cemeterywards. They\ncould, of course, ask no questions, for that would squelch the bequest,\nbut they could nibble around on the edge of the subject and hope for\nresults. The scheme did not work. The obtuse editor did not know he was\nbeing nibbled at; but at last, chance accomplished what art had failed\nin. In illustration of something under discussion which required the\nhelp of metaphor, the editor said:\n\n\"Land, it's as tough as Tilbury Foster!--as _we_ say.\"\n\nIt was sudden, and it made the Fosters jump. The editor noticed, and\nsaid, apologetically:\n\n\"No harm intended, I assure you. It's just a saying; just a joke, you\nknow--nothing in it. Relation of yours?\"\n\nSally crowded his burning eagerness down, and answered with all the\nindifference he could assume:\n\n\"I--well, not that I know of, but we've heard of him.\" The editor was\nthankful, and resumed his composure. Sally added: \"Is he--is he--well?\"\n\n\"Is he _well_? Why, bless you he's in Sheol these five years!\"\n\nThe Fosters were trembling with grief, though it felt like joy. Sally\nsaid, non-committally--and tentatively:\n\n\"Ah, well, such is life, and none can escape--not even the rich are\nspared.\"\n\nThe editor laughed.\n\n\"If you are including Tilbury,\" said he, \"it don't apply. _He_ hadn't a\ncent; the town had to bury him.\"\n\nThe Fosters sat petrified for two minutes; petrified and cold. Then,\nwhite-faced and weak-voiced, Sally asked:\n\n\"Is it true? Do you _know _it to be true?\"\n\n\"Well, I should say! I was one of the executors. He hadn't anything to\nleave but a wheelbarrow, and he left that to me. It hadn't any wheel,\nand wasn't any good. Still, it was something, and so, to square up, I\nscribbled off a sort of a little obituarial send-off for him, but it got\ncrowded out.\"\n\nThe Fosters were not listening--their cup was full, it could contain\nno more. They sat with bowed heads, dead to all things but the ache at\ntheir hearts.\n\nAn hour later. Still they sat there, bowed, motionless, silent, the\nvisitor long ago gone, they unaware.\n\nThen they stirred, and lifted their heads wearily, and gazed at each\nother wistfully, dreamily, dazed; then presently began to twaddle to\neach other in a wandering and childish way. At intervals they lapsed\ninto silences, leaving a sentence unfinished, seemingly either unaware\nof it or losing their way. Sometimes, when they woke out of these\nsilences they had a dim and transient consciousness that something had\nhappened to their minds; then with a dumb and yearning solicitude they\nwould softly caress each other's hands in mutual compassion and support,\nas if they would say: \"I am near you, I will not forsake you, we\nwill bear it together; somewhere there is release and forgetfulness,\nsomewhere there is a grave and peace; be patient, it will not be long.\"\n\nThey lived yet two years, in mental night, always brooding, steeped in\nvague regrets and melancholy dreams, never speaking; then release came\nto both on the same day.\n\nToward the end the darkness lifted from Sally's ruined mind for a\nmoment, and he said:\n\n\"Vast wealth, acquired by sudden and unwholesome means, is a snare. It\ndid us no good, transient were its feverish pleasures; yet for its\nsake we threw away our sweet and simple and happy life--let others take\nwarning by us.\"\n\nHe lay silent awhile, with closed eyes; then as the chill of death crept\nupward toward his heart, and consciousness was fading from his brain, he\nmuttered:\n\n\"Money had brought him misery, and he took his revenge upon us, who had\ndone him no harm. He had his desire: with base and cunning calculation\nhe left us but thirty thousand, knowing we would try to increase it, and\nruin our life and break our hearts. Without added expense he could\nhave left us far above desire of increase, far above the temptation\nto speculate, and a kinder soul would have done it; but in him was no\ngenerous spirit, no pity, no--\"\n\n\n\nA DOG'S TALE\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nMy father was a St. Bernard, my mother was a collie, but I am a\nPresbyterian. This is what my mother told me, I do not know these\nnice distinctions myself. To me they are only fine large words meaning\nnothing. My mother had a fondness for such; she liked to say them, and\nsee other dogs look surprised and envious, as wondering how she got\nso much education. But, indeed, it was not real education; it was only\nshow: she got the words by listening in the dining-room and drawing-room\nwhen there was company, and by going with the children to Sunday-school\nand listening there; and whenever she heard a large word she said it\nover to herself many times, and so was able to keep it until there was\na dogmatic gathering in the neighborhood, then she would get it off,\nand surprise and distress them all, from pocket-pup to mastiff, which\nrewarded her for all her trouble. If there was a stranger he was nearly\nsure to be suspicious, and when he got his breath again he would ask her\nwhat it meant. And she always told him. He was never expecting this but\nthought he would catch her; so when she told him, he was the one that\nlooked ashamed, whereas he had thought it was going to be she. The\nothers were always waiting for this, and glad of it and proud of her,\nfor they knew what was going to happen, because they had had experience.\nWhen she told the meaning of a big word they were all so taken up with\nadmiration that it never occurred to any dog to doubt if it was the\nright one; and that was natural, because, for one thing, she answered up\nso promptly that it seemed like a dictionary speaking, and for another\nthing, where could they find out whether it was right or not? for she\nwas the only cultivated dog there was. By and by, when I was older, she\nbrought home the word Unintellectual, one time, and worked it pretty\nhard all the week at different gatherings, making much unhappiness and\ndespondency; and it was at this time that I noticed that during that\nweek she was asked for the meaning at eight different assemblages, and\nflashed out a fresh definition every time, which showed me that she had\nmore presence of mind than culture, though I said nothing, of course.\nShe had one word which she always kept on hand, and ready, like a\nlife-preserver, a kind of emergency word to strap on when she was likely\nto get washed overboard in a sudden way--that was the word Synonymous.\nWhen she happened to fetch out a long word which had had its day weeks\nbefore and its prepared meanings gone to her dump-pile, if there was a\nstranger there of course it knocked him groggy for a couple of minutes,\nthen he would come to, and by that time she would be away down wind on\nanother tack, and not expecting anything; so when he'd hail and ask her\nto cash in, I (the only dog on the inside of her game) could see her\ncanvas flicker a moment--but only just a moment--then it would belly\nout taut and full, and she would say, as calm as a summer's day, \"It's\nsynonymous with supererogation,\" or some godless long reptile of a\nword like that, and go placidly about and skim away on the next tack,\nperfectly comfortable, you know, and leave that stranger looking profane\nand embarrassed, and the initiated slatting the floor with their tails\nin unison and their faces transfigured with a holy joy.\n\nAnd it was the same with phrases. She would drag home a whole phrase,\nif it had a grand sound, and play it six nights and two matinees, and\nexplain it a new way every time--which she had to, for all she cared for\nwas the phrase; she wasn't interested in what it meant, and knew those\ndogs hadn't wit enough to catch her, anyway. Yes, she was a daisy! She\ngot so she wasn't afraid of anything, she had such confidence in the\nignorance of those creatures. She even brought anecdotes that she had\nheard the family and the dinner-guests laugh and shout over; and as\na rule she got the nub of one chestnut hitched onto another chestnut,\nwhere, of course, it didn't fit and hadn't any point; and when she\ndelivered the nub she fell over and rolled on the floor and laughed and\nbarked in the most insane way, while I could see that she was wondering\nto herself why it didn't seem as funny as it did when she first heard\nit. But no harm was done; the others rolled and barked too, privately\nashamed of themselves for not seeing the point, and never suspecting\nthat the fault was not with them and there wasn't any to see.\n\nYou can see by these things that she was of a rather vain and frivolous\ncharacter; still, she had virtues, and enough to make up, I think. She\nhad a kind heart and gentle ways, and never harbored resentments for\ninjuries done her, but put them easily out of her mind and forgot them;\nand she taught her children her kindly way, and from her we learned also\nto be brave and prompt in time of danger, and not to run away, but face\nthe peril that threatened friend or stranger, and help him the best we\ncould without stopping to think what the cost might be to us. And she\ntaught us not by words only, but by example, and that is the best way\nand the surest and the most lasting. Why, the brave things she did, the\nsplendid things! she was just a soldier; and so modest about it--well,\nyou couldn't help admiring her, and you couldn't help imitating her;\nnot even a King Charles spaniel could remain entirely despicable in her\nsociety. So, as you see, there was more to her than her education.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nWhen I was well grown, at last, I was sold and taken away, and I never\nsaw her again. She was broken-hearted, and so was I, and we cried; but\nshe comforted me as well as she could, and said we were sent into\nthis world for a wise and good purpose, and must do our duties without\nrepining, take our life as we might find it, live it for the best good\nof others, and never mind about the results; they were not our affair.\nShe said men who did like this would have a noble and beautiful reward\nby and by in another world, and although we animals would not go there,\nto do well and right without reward would give to our brief lives\na worthiness and dignity which in itself would be a reward. She had\ngathered these things from time to time when she had gone to the\nSunday-school with the children, and had laid them up in her memory more\ncarefully than she had done with those other words and phrases; and she\nhad studied them deeply, for her good and ours. One may see by this that\nshe had a wise and thoughtful head, for all there was so much lightness\nand vanity in it.\n\nSo we said our farewells, and looked our last upon each other through\nour tears; and the last thing she said--keeping it for the last to make\nme remember it the better, I think--was, \"In memory of me, when there\nis a time of danger to another do not think of yourself, think of your\nmother, and do as she would do.\"\n\nDo you think I could forget that? No.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nIt was such a charming home!--my new one; a fine great house, with\npictures, and delicate decorations, and rich furniture, and no gloom\nanywhere, but all the wilderness of dainty colors lit up with flooding\nsunshine; and the spacious grounds around it, and the great garden--oh,\ngreensward, and noble trees, and flowers, no end! And I was the same as\na member of the family; and they loved me, and petted me, and did not\ngive me a new name, but called me by my old one that was dear to me\nbecause my mother had given it me--Aileen Mavoureen. She got it out of a\nsong; and the Grays knew that song, and said it was a beautiful name.\n\nMrs. Gray was thirty, and so sweet and so lovely, you cannot imagine\nit; and Sadie was ten, and just like her mother, just a darling slender\nlittle copy of her, with auburn tails down her back, and short frocks;\nand the baby was a year old, and plump and dimpled, and fond of me,\nand never could get enough of hauling on my tail, and hugging me, and\nlaughing out its innocent happiness; and Mr. Gray was thirty-eight, and\ntall and slender and handsome, a little bald in front, alert, quick in\nhis movements, business-like, prompt, decided, unsentimental, and with\nthat kind of trim-chiseled face that just seems to glint and sparkle\nwith frosty intellectuality! He was a renowned scientist. I do not know\nwhat the word means, but my mother would know how to use it and get\neffects. She would know how to depress a rat-terrier with it and make a\nlap-dog look sorry he came. But that is not the best one; the best one\nwas Laboratory. My mother could organize a Trust on that one that would\nskin the tax-collars off the whole herd. The laboratory was not a\nbook, or a picture, or a place to wash your hands in, as the college\npresident's dog said--no, that is the lavatory; the laboratory is quite\ndifferent, and is filled with jars, and bottles, and electrics, and\nwires, and strange machines; and every week other scientists came there\nand sat in the place, and used the machines, and discussed, and made\nwhat they called experiments and discoveries; and often I came, too,\nand stood around and listened, and tried to learn, for the sake of my\nmother, and in loving memory of her, although it was a pain to me, as\nrealizing what she was losing out of her life and I gaining nothing at\nall; for try as I might, I was never able to make anything out of it at\nall.\n\nOther times I lay on the floor in the mistress's work-room and slept,\nshe gently using me for a foot-stool, knowing it pleased me, for it\nwas a caress; other times I spent an hour in the nursery, and got well\ntousled and made happy; other times I watched by the crib there, when\nthe baby was asleep and the nurse out for a few minutes on the baby's\naffairs; other times I romped and raced through the grounds and the\ngarden with Sadie till we were tired out, then slumbered on the grass in\nthe shade of a tree while she read her book; other times I went visiting\namong the neighbor dogs--for there were some most pleasant ones not\nfar away, and one very handsome and courteous and graceful one,\na curly-haired Irish setter by the name of Robin Adair, who was a\nPresbyterian like me, and belonged to the Scotch minister.\n\nThe servants in our house were all kind to me and were fond of me, and\nso, as you see, mine was a pleasant life. There could not be a happier\ndog that I was, nor a gratefuler one. I will say this for myself, for it\nis only the truth: I tried in all ways to do well and right, and honor\nmy mother's memory and her teachings, and earn the happiness that had\ncome to me, as best I could.\n\nBy and by came my little puppy, and then my cup was full, my happiness\nwas perfect. It was the dearest little waddling thing, and so smooth\nand soft and velvety, and had such cunning little awkward paws, and such\naffectionate eyes, and such a sweet and innocent face; and it made me\nso proud to see how the children and their mother adored it, and fondled\nit, and exclaimed over every little wonderful thing it did. It did seem\nto me that life was just too lovely to--\n\nThen came the winter. One day I was standing a watch in the nursery.\nThat is to say, I was asleep on the bed. The baby was asleep in the\ncrib, which was alongside the bed, on the side next the fireplace. It\nwas the kind of crib that has a lofty tent over it made of gauzy stuff\nthat you can see through. The nurse was out, and we two sleepers were\nalone. A spark from the wood-fire was shot out, and it lit on the slope\nof the tent. I suppose a quiet interval followed, then a scream from the\nbaby awoke me, and there was that tent flaming up toward the ceiling!\nBefore I could think, I sprang to the floor in my fright, and in a\nsecond was half-way to the door; but in the next half-second my mother's\nfarewell was sounding in my ears, and I was back on the bed again.,\nI reached my head through the flames and dragged the baby out by the\nwaist-band, and tugged it along, and we fell to the floor together in a\ncloud of smoke; I snatched a new hold, and dragged the screaming little\ncreature along and out at the door and around the bend of the hall,\nand was still tugging away, all excited and happy and proud, when the\nmaster's voice shouted:\n\n\"Begone you cursed beast!\" and I jumped to save myself; but he was\nfuriously quick, and chased me up, striking furiously at me with his\ncane, I dodging this way and that, in terror, and at last a strong\nblow fell upon my left foreleg, which made me shriek and fall, for\nthe moment, helpless; the cane went up for another blow, but never\ndescended, for the nurse's voice rang wildly out, \"The nursery's on\nfire!\" and the master rushed away in that direction, and my other bones\nwere saved.\n\nThe pain was cruel, but, no matter, I must not lose any time; he might\ncome back at any moment; so I limped on three legs to the other end\nof the hall, where there was a dark little stairway leading up into a\ngarret where old boxes and such things were kept, as I had heard say,\nand where people seldom went. I managed to climb up there, then I\nsearched my way through the dark among the piles of things, and hid in\nthe secretest place I could find. It was foolish to be afraid there, yet\nstill I was; so afraid that I held in and hardly even whimpered, though\nit would have been such a comfort to whimper, because that eases the\npain, you know. But I could lick my leg, and that did some good.\n\nFor half an hour there was a commotion downstairs, and shoutings,\nand rushing footsteps, and then there was quiet again. Quiet for some\nminutes, and that was grateful to my spirit, for then my fears began\nto go down; and fears are worse than pains--oh, much worse. Then came a\nsound that froze me. They were calling me--calling me by name--hunting\nfor me!\n\nIt was muffled by distance, but that could not take the terror out of\nit, and it was the most dreadful sound to me that I had ever heard. It\nwent all about, everywhere, down there: along the halls, through all\nthe rooms, in both stories, and in the basement and the cellar; then\noutside, and farther and farther away--then back, and all about the\nhouse again, and I thought it would never, never stop. But at last it\ndid, hours and hours after the vague twilight of the garret had long ago\nbeen blotted out by black darkness.\n\nThen in that blessed stillness my terrors fell little by little away,\nand I was at peace and slept. It was a good rest I had, but I woke\nbefore the twilight had come again. I was feeling fairly comfortable,\nand I could think out a plan now. I made a very good one; which was, to\ncreep down, all the way down the back stairs, and hide behind the cellar\ndoor, and slip out and escape when the iceman came at dawn, while he was\ninside filling the refrigerator; then I would hide all day, and start\non my journey when night came; my journey to--well, anywhere where they\nwould not know me and betray me to the master. I was feeling almost\ncheerful now; then suddenly I thought: Why, what would life be without\nmy puppy!\n\nThat was despair. There was no plan for me; I saw that; I must say where\nI was; stay, and wait, and take what might come--it was not my affair;\nthat was what life is--my mother had said it. Then--well, then the\ncalling began again! All my sorrows came back. I said to myself, the\nmaster will never forgive. I did not know what I had done to make him so\nbitter and so unforgiving, yet I judged it was something a dog could not\nunderstand, but which was clear to a man and dreadful.\n\nThey called and called--days and nights, it seemed to me. So long that\nthe hunger and thirst near drove me mad, and I recognized that I was\ngetting very weak. When you are this way you sleep a great deal, and I\ndid. Once I woke in an awful fright--it seemed to me that the calling\nwas right there in the garret! And so it was: it was Sadie's voice,\nand she was crying; my name was falling from her lips all broken, poor\nthing, and I could not believe my ears for the joy of it when I heard\nher say:\n\n\"Come back to us--oh, come back to us, and forgive--it is all so sad\nwithout our--\"\n\nI broke in with _such _a grateful little yelp, and the next moment\nSadie was plunging and stumbling through the darkness and the lumber and\nshouting for the family to hear, \"She's found, she's found!\"\n\nThe days that followed--well, they were wonderful. The mother and Sadie\nand the servants--why, they just seemed to worship me. They couldn't\nseem to make me a bed that was fine enough; and as for food, they\ncouldn't be satisfied with anything but game and delicacies that were\nout of season; and every day the friends and neighbors flocked in to\nhear about my heroism--that was the name they called it by, and it\nmeans agriculture. I remember my mother pulling it on a kennel once, and\nexplaining it in that way, but didn't say what agriculture was, except\nthat it was synonymous with intramural incandescence; and a dozen times\na day Mrs. Gray and Sadie would tell the tale to new-comers, and say I\nrisked my life to save the baby's, and both of us had burns to prove it,\nand then the company would pass me around and pet me and exclaim about\nme, and you could see the pride in the eyes of Sadie and her mother; and\nwhen the people wanted to know what made me limp, they looked ashamed\nand changed the subject, and sometimes when people hunted them this way\nand that way with questions about it, it looked to me as if they were\ngoing to cry.\n\nAnd this was not all the glory; no, the master's friends came, a whole\ntwenty of the most distinguished people, and had me in the laboratory,\nand discussed me as if I was a kind of discovery; and some of them said\nit was wonderful in a dumb beast, the finest exhibition of instinct they\ncould call to mind; but the master said, with vehemence, \"It's far above\ninstinct; it's _reason_, and many a man, privileged to be saved and go\nwith you and me to a better world by right of its possession, has less\nof it that this poor silly quadruped that's foreordained to perish\"; and\nthen he laughed, and said: \"Why, look at me--I'm a sarcasm! bless you,\nwith all my grand intelligence, the only thing I inferred was that\nthe dog had gone mad and was destroying the child, whereas but for the\nbeast's intelligence--it's _reason_, I tell you!--the child would have\nperished!\"\n\nThey disputed and disputed, and _I_ was the very center of subject of it\nall, and I wished my mother could know that this grand honor had come to\nme; it would have made her proud.\n\nThen they discussed optics, as they called it, and whether a certain\ninjury to the brain would produce blindness or not, but they could not\nagree about it, and said they must test it by experiment by and by;\nand next they discussed plants, and that interested me, because in the\nsummer Sadie and I had planted seeds--I helped her dig the holes, you\nknow--and after days and days a little shrub or a flower came up there,\nand it was a wonder how that could happen; but it did, and I wished I\ncould talk--I would have told those people about it and shown then how\nmuch I knew, and been all alive with the subject; but I didn't care for\nthe optics; it was dull, and when they came back to it again it bored\nme, and I went to sleep.\n\nPretty soon it was spring, and sunny and pleasant and lovely, and the\nsweet mother and the children patted me and the puppy good-by, and went\naway on a journey and a visit to their kin, and the master wasn't any\ncompany for us, but we played together and had good times, and the\nservants were kind and friendly, so we got along quite happily and\ncounted the days and waited for the family.\n\nAnd one day those men came again, and said, now for the test, and they\ntook the puppy to the laboratory, and I limped three-leggedly along,\ntoo, feeling proud, for any attention shown to the puppy was a pleasure\nto me, of course. They discussed and experimented, and then suddenly the\npuppy shrieked, and they set him on the floor, and he went staggering\naround, with his head all bloody, and the master clapped his hands and\nshouted:\n\n\"There, I've won--confess it! He's a blind as a bat!\"\n\nAnd they all said:\n\n\"It's so--you've proved your theory, and suffering humanity owes you a\ngreat debt from henceforth,\" and they crowded around him, and wrung his\nhand cordially and thankfully, and praised him.\n\nBut I hardly saw or heard these things, for I ran at once to my little\ndarling, and snuggled close to it where it lay, and licked the blood,\nand it put its head against mine, whimpering softly, and I knew in\nmy heart it was a comfort to it in its pain and trouble to feel its\nmother's touch, though it could not see me. Then it dropped down,\npresently, and its little velvet nose rested upon the floor, and it was\nstill, and did not move any more.\n\nSoon the master stopped discussing a moment, and rang in the footman,\nand said, \"Bury it in the far corner of the garden,\" and then went on\nwith the discussion, and I trotted after the footman, very happy and\ngrateful, for I knew the puppy was out of its pain now, because it\nwas asleep. We went far down the garden to the farthest end, where the\nchildren and the nurse and the puppy and I used to play in the summer in\nthe shade of a great elm, and there the footman dug a hole, and I saw he\nwas going to plant the puppy, and I was glad, because it would grow\nand come up a fine handsome dog, like Robin Adair, and be a beautiful\nsurprise for the family when they came home; so I tried to help him dig,\nbut my lame leg was no good, being stiff, you know, and you have to have\ntwo, or it is no use. When the footman had finished and covered little\nRobin up, he patted my head, and there were tears in his eyes, and he\nsaid: \"Poor little doggie, you saved _his _child!\"\n\nI have watched two whole weeks, and he doesn't come up! This last week\na fright has been stealing upon me. I think there is something terrible\nabout this. I do not know what it is, but the fear makes me sick, and I\ncannot eat, though the servants bring me the best of food; and they pet\nme so, and even come in the night, and cry, and say, \"Poor doggie--do\ngive it up and come home; _don't_ break our hearts!\" and all this\nterrifies me the more, and makes me sure something has happened. And\nI am so weak; since yesterday I cannot stand on my feet anymore. And\nwithin this hour the servants, looking toward the sun where it was\nsinking out of sight and the night chill coming on, said things I could\nnot understand, but they carried something cold to my heart.\n\n\"Those poor creatures! They do not suspect. They will come home in the\nmorning, and eagerly ask for the little doggie that did the brave deed,\nand who of us will be strong enough to say the truth to them: 'The\nhumble little friend is gone where go the beasts that perish.'\"\n\n\n\nWAS IT HEAVEN? OR HELL?\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\n\"You told a _lie_?\"\n\n\"You confess it--you actually confess it--you told a lie!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nThe family consisted of four persons: Margaret Lester, widow, aged\nthirty six; Helen Lester, her daughter, aged sixteen; Mrs. Lester's\nmaiden aunts, Hannah and Hester Gray, twins, aged sixty-seven. Waking\nand sleeping, the three women spent their days and nights in adoring the\nyoung girl; in watching the movements of her sweet spirit in the mirror\nof her face; in refreshing their souls with the vision of her bloom\nand beauty; in listening to the music of her voice; in gratefully\nrecognizing how rich and fair for them was the world with this presence\nin it; in shuddering to think how desolate it would be with this light\ngone out of it.\n\nBy nature--and inside--the aged aunts were utterly dear and lovable and\ngood, but in the matter of morals and conduct their training had been so\nuncompromisingly strict that it had made them exteriorly austere, not to\nsay stern. Their influence was effective in the house; so effective\nthat the mother and the daughter conformed to its moral and religious\nrequirements cheerfully, contentedly, happily, unquestionably. To do\nthis was become second nature to them. And so in this peaceful\nheaven there were no clashings, no irritations, no fault-finding, no\nheart-burnings.\n\nIn it a lie had no place. In it a lie was unthinkable. In it speech\nwas restricted to absolute truth, iron-bound truth, implacable and\nuncompromising truth, let the resulting consequences be what they might.\nAt last, one day, under stress of circumstances, the darling of the\nhouse sullied her lips with a lie--and confessed it, with tears\nand self-upbraidings. There are not any words that can paint the\nconsternation of the aunts. It was as if the sky had crumpled up and\ncollapsed and the earth had tumbled to ruin with a crash. They sat side\nby side, white and stern, gazing speechless upon the culprit, who was on\nher knees before them with her face buried first in one lap and then the\nother, moaning and sobbing, and appealing for sympathy and forgiveness\nand getting no response, humbly kissing the hand of the one, then of the\nother, only to see it withdrawn as suffering defilement by those soiled\nlips.\n\nTwice, at intervals, Aunt Hester said, in frozen amazement:\n\n\"You told a _lie_?\"\n\nTwice, at intervals, Aunt Hannah followed with the muttered and amazed\nejaculation:\n\n\"You confess it--you actually confess it--you told a lie!\"\n\nIt was all they could say. The situation was new, unheard of,\nincredible; they could not understand it, they did not know how to take\nhold of it, it approximately paralyzed speech.\n\nAt length it was decided that the erring child must be taken to her\nmother, who was ill, and who ought to know what had happened. Helen\nbegged, besought, implored that she might be spared this further\ndisgrace, and that her mother might be spared the grief and pain of\nit; but this could not be: duty required this sacrifice, duty takes\nprecedence of all things, nothing can absolve one from a duty, with a\nduty no compromise is possible.\n\nHelen still begged, and said the sin was her own, her mother had had no\nhand in it--why must she be made to suffer for it?\n\nBut the aunts were obdurate in their righteousness, and said the law\nthat visited the sins of the parent upon the child was by all right\nand reason reversible; and therefore it was but just that the innocent\nmother of a sinning child should suffer her rightful share of the grief\nand pain and shame which were the allotted wages of the sin.\n\nThe three moved toward the sick-room.\n\nAt this time the doctor was approaching the house. He was still a good\ndistance away, however. He was a good doctor and a good man, and he had\na good heart, but one had to know him a year to get over hating him, two\nyears to learn to endure him, three to learn to like him, and four and\nfive to learn to love him. It was a slow and trying education, but it\npaid. He was of great stature; he had a leonine head, a leonine face, a\nrough voice, and an eye which was sometimes a pirate's and sometimes\na woman's, according to the mood. He knew nothing about etiquette, and\ncared nothing about it; in speech, manner, carriage, and conduct he was\nthe reverse of conventional. He was frank, to the limit; he had opinions\non all subjects; they were always on tap and ready for delivery, and he\ncared not a farthing whether his listener liked them or didn't. Whom\nhe loved he loved, and manifested it; whom he didn't love he hated, and\npublished it from the housetops. In his young days he had been a sailor,\nand the salt-airs of all the seas blew from him yet. He was a sturdy and\nloyal Christian, and believed he was the best one in the land, and the\nonly one whose Christianity was perfectly sound, healthy, full-charged\nwith common sense, and had no decayed places in it. People who had an ax\nto grind, or people who for any reason wanted to get on the soft side\nof him, called him The Christian--a phrase whose delicate flattery was\nmusic to his ears, and whose capital T was such an enchanting and vivid\nobject to him that he could _see _it when it fell out of a person's\nmouth even in the dark. Many who were fond of him stood on their\nconsciences with both feet and brazenly called him by that large title\nhabitually, because it was a pleasure to them to do anything that\nwould please him; and with eager and cordial malice his extensive and\ndiligently cultivated crop of enemies gilded it, beflowered it, expanded\nit to \"The _only _Christian.\" Of these two titles, the latter had the\nwider currency; the enemy, being greatly in the majority, attended to\nthat. Whatever the doctor believed, he believed with all his heart,\nand would fight for it whenever he got the chance; and if the intervals\nbetween chances grew to be irksomely wide, he would invent ways of\nshortening them himself. He was severely conscientious, according to\nhis rather independent lights, and whatever he took to be a duty he\nperformed, no matter whether the judgment of the professional moralists\nagreed with his own or not. At sea, in his young days, he had used\nprofanity freely, but as soon as he was converted he made a rule, which\nhe rigidly stuck to ever afterward, never to use it except on the rarest\noccasions, and then only when duty commanded. He had been a hard\ndrinker at sea, but after his conversion he became a firm and outspoken\nteetotaler, in order to be an example to the young, and from that time\nforth he seldom drank; never, indeed, except when it seemed to him to be\na duty--a condition which sometimes occurred a couple of times a year,\nbut never as many as five times.\n\nNecessarily, such a man is impressionable, impulsive, emotional. This\none was, and had no gift at hiding his feelings; or if he had it he took\nno trouble to exercise it. He carried his soul's prevailing weather in\nhis face, and when he entered a room the parasols or the umbrellas went\nup--figuratively speaking--according to the indications. When the soft\nlight was in his eye it meant approval, and delivered a benediction;\nwhen he came with a frown he lowered the temperature ten degrees. He was\na well-beloved man in the house of his friends, but sometimes a dreaded\none.\n\nHe had a deep affection for the Lester household and its several members\nreturned this feeling with interest. They mourned over his kind of\nChristianity, and he frankly scoffed at theirs; but both parties went on\nloving each other just the same.\n\nHe was approaching the house--out of the distance; the aunts and the\nculprit were moving toward the sick-chamber.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nThe three last named stood by the bed; the aunts austere, the\ntransgressor softly sobbing. The mother turned her head on the pillow;\nher tired eyes flamed up instantly with sympathy and passionate\nmother-love when they fell upon her child, and she opened the refuge and\nshelter of her arms.\n\n\"Wait!\" said Aunt Hannah, and put out her hand and stayed the girl from\nleaping into them.\n\n\"Helen,\" said the other aunt, impressively, \"tell your mother all. Purge\nyour soul; leave nothing unconfessed.\"\n\nStanding stricken and forlorn before her judges, the young girl mourned\nher sorrowful tale through the end, then in a passion of appeal cried\nout:\n\n\"Oh, mother, can't you forgive me? won't you forgive me?--I am so\ndesolate!\"\n\n\"Forgive you, my darling? Oh, come to my arms!--there, lay your head\nupon my breast, and be at peace. If you had told a thousand lies--\"\n\nThere was a sound--a warning--the clearing of a throat. The aunts\nglanced up, and withered in their clothes--there stood the doctor, his\nface a thunder-cloud. Mother and child knew nothing of his presence;\nthey lay locked together, heart to heart, steeped in immeasurable\ncontent, dead to all things else. The physician stood many moments\nglaring and glooming upon the scene before him; studying it, analyzing\nit, searching out its genesis; then he put up his hand and beckoned to\nthe aunts. They came trembling to him, and stood humbly before him and\nwaited. He bent down and whispered:\n\n\"Didn't I tell you this patient must be protected from all excitement?\nWhat the hell have you been doing? Clear out of the place!\"\n\nThey obeyed. Half an hour later he appeared in the parlor, serene,\ncheery, clothed in sunshine, conducting Helen, with his arm about her\nwaist, petting her, and saying gentle and playful things to her; and she\nalso was her sunny and happy self again.\n\n\"Now, then;\" he said, \"good-by, dear. Go to your room, and keep away\nfrom your mother, and behave yourself. But wait--put out your tongue.\nThere, that will do--you're as sound as a nut!\" He patted her cheek and\nadded, \"Run along now; I want to talk to these aunts.\"\n\nShe went from the presence. His face clouded over again at once; and as\nhe sat down he said:\n\n\"You too have been doing a lot of damage--and maybe some good. Some\ngood, yes--such as it is. That woman's disease is typhoid! You've\nbrought it to a show-up, I think, with your insanities, and that's a\nservice--such as it is. I hadn't been able to determine what it was\nbefore.\"\n\nWith one impulse the old ladies sprang to their feet, quaking with\nterror.\n\n\"Sit down! What are you proposing to do?\"\n\n\"Do? We must fly to her. We--\"\n\n\"You'll do nothing of the kind; you've done enough harm for one day. Do\nyou want to squander all your capital of crimes and follies on a single\ndeal? Sit down, I tell you. I have arranged for her to sleep; she needs\nit; if you disturb her without my orders, I'll brain you--if you've got\nthe materials for it.\"\n\nThey sat down, distressed and indignant, but obedient, under compulsion.\nHe proceeded:\n\n\"Now, then, I want this case explained. _They _wanted to explain it to\nme--as if there hadn't been emotion or excitement enough already. You\nknew my orders; how did you dare to go in there and get up that riot?\"\n\nHester looked appealing at Hannah; Hannah returned a beseeching look\nat Hester--neither wanted to dance to this unsympathetic orchestra. The\ndoctor came to their help. He said:\n\n\"Begin, Hester.\"\n\nFingering at the fringes of her shawl, and with lowered eyes, Hester\nsaid, timidly:\n\n\"We should not have disobeyed for any ordinary cause, but this was\nvital. This was a duty. With a duty one has no choice; one must put all\nlighter considerations aside and perform it. We were obliged to arraign\nher before her mother. She had told a lie.\"\n\nThe doctor glowered upon the woman a moment, and seemed to be trying\nto work up in his mind an understanding of a wholly incomprehensible\nproposition; then he stormed out:\n\n\"She told a lie! _did _she? God bless my soul! I tell a million a day!\nAnd so does every doctor. And so does everybody--including you--for\nthat matter. And _that _was the important thing that authorized you to\nventure to disobey my orders and imperil that woman's life! Look here,\nHester Gray, this is pure lunacy; that girl _couldn't_ tell a lie that\nwas intended to injure a person. The thing is impossible--absolutely\nimpossible. You know it yourselves--both of you; you know it perfectly\nwell.\"\n\nHannah came to her sister's rescue:\n\n\"Hester didn't mean that it was that kind of a lie, and it wasn't. But\nit was a lie.\"\n\n\"Well, upon my word, I never heard such nonsense! Haven't you got sense\nenough to discriminate between lies! Don't you know the difference\nbetween a lie that helps and a lie that hurts?\"\n\n\"_All _lies are sinful,\" said Hannah, setting her lips together like a\nvise; \"all lies are forbidden.\"\n\nThe Only Christian fidgeted impatiently in his chair. He went to attack\nthis proposition, but he did not quite know how or where to begin.\nFinally he made a venture:\n\n\"Hester, wouldn't you tell a lie to shield a person from an undeserved\ninjury or shame?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Not even a friend?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Not even your dearest friend?\"\n\n\"No. I would not.\"\n\nThe doctor struggled in silence awhile with this situation; then he\nasked:\n\n\"Not even to save him from bitter pain and misery and grief?\"\n\n\"No. Not even to save his life.\"\n\nAnother pause. Then:\n\n\"Nor his soul?\"\n\nThere was a hush--a silence which endured a measurable interval--then\nHester answered, in a low voice, but with decision:\n\n\"Nor his soul?\"\n\nNo one spoke for a while; then the doctor said:\n\n\"Is it with you the same, Hannah?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she answered.\n\n\"I ask you both--why?\"\n\n\"Because to tell such a lie, or any lie, is a sin, and could cost us\nthe loss of our own souls--_would_, indeed, if we died without time to\nrepent.\"\n\n\"Strange... strange... it is past belief.\" Then he asked, roughly: \"Is\nsuch a soul as that _worth _saving?\" He rose up, mumbling and grumbling,\nand started for the door, stumping vigorously along. At the threshold he\nturned and rasped out an admonition: \"Reform! Drop this mean and sordid\nand selfish devotion to the saving of your shabby little souls, and hunt\nup something to do that's got some dignity to it! _Risk _your souls!\nrisk them in good causes; then if you lose them, why should you care?\nReform!\"\n\nThe good old gentlewomen sat paralyzed, pulverized, outraged, insulted,\nand brooded in bitterness and indignation over these blasphemies. They\nwere hurt to the heart, poor old ladies, and said they could never\nforgive these injuries.\n\n\"Reform!\"\n\nThey kept repeating that word resentfully. \"Reform--and learn to tell\nlies!\"\n\nTime slipped along, and in due course a change came over their spirits.\nThey had completed the human being's first duty--which is to think about\nhimself until he has exhausted the subject, then he is in a condition\nto take up minor interests and think of other people. This changes the\ncomplexion of his spirits--generally wholesomely. The minds of the two\nold ladies reverted to their beloved niece and the fearful disease which\nhad smitten her; instantly they forgot the hurts their self-love had\nreceived, and a passionate desire rose in their hearts to go to the help\nof the sufferer and comfort her with their love, and minister to\nher, and labor for her the best they could with their weak hands, and\njoyfully and affectionately wear out their poor old bodies in her dear\nservice if only they might have the privilege.\n\n\"And we shall have it!\" said Hester, with the tears running down her\nface. \"There are no nurses comparable to us, for there are no others\nthat will stand their watch by that bed till they drop and die, and God\nknows we would do that.\"\n\n\"Amen,\" said Hannah, smiling approval and endorsement through the mist\nof moisture that blurred her glasses. \"The doctor knows us, and knows we\nwill not disobey again; and he will call no others. He will not dare!\"\n\n\"Dare?\" said Hester, with temper, and dashing the water from her eyes;\n\"he will dare anything--that Christian devil! But it will do no good for\nhim to try it this time--but, laws! Hannah! after all's said and\ndone, he is gifted and wise and good, and he would not think of such a\nthing.... It is surely time for one of us to go to that room. What is\nkeeping him? Why doesn't he come and say so?\"\n\nThey caught the sound of his approaching step. He entered, sat down, and\nbegan to talk.\n\n\"Margaret is a sick woman,\" he said. \"She is still sleeping, but she\nwill wake presently; then one of you must go to her. She will be worse\nbefore she is better. Pretty soon a night-and-day watch must be set. How\nmuch of it can you two undertake?\"\n\n\"All of it!\" burst from both ladies at once.\n\nThe doctor's eyes flashed, and he said, with energy:\n\n\"You _do_ ring true, you brave old relics! And you _shall _do all of the\nnursing you can, for there's none to match you in that divine office in\nthis town; but you can't do all of it, and it would be a crime to let\nyou.\" It was grand praise, golden praise, coming from such a source, and\nit took nearly all the resentment out of the aged twin's hearts. \"Your\nTilly and my old Nancy shall do the rest--good nurses both, white souls\nwith black skins, watchful, loving, tender--just perfect nurses!--and\ncompetent liars from the cradle.... Look you! keep a little watch on\nHelen; she is sick, and is going to be sicker.\"\n\nThe ladies looked a little surprised, and not credulous; and Hester\nsaid:\n\n\"How is that? It isn't an hour since you said she was as sound as a\nnut.\"\n\nThe doctor answered, tranquilly:\n\n\"It was a lie.\"\n\nThe ladies turned upon him indignantly, and Hannah said:\n\n\"How can you make an odious confession like that, in so indifferent a\ntone, when you know how we feel about all forms of--\"\n\n\"Hush! You are as ignorant as cats, both of you, and you don't know what\nyou are talking about. You are like all the rest of the moral moles;\nyou lie from morning till night, but because you don't do it with your\nmouths, but only with your lying eyes, your lying inflections, your\ndeceptively misplaced emphasis, and your misleading gestures, you turn\nup your complacent noses and parade before God and the world as saintly\nand unsmirched Truth-Speakers, in whose cold-storage souls a lie would\nfreeze to death if it got there! Why will you humbug yourselves with\nthat foolish notion that no lie is a lie except a spoken one? What is\nthe difference between lying with your eyes and lying with your mouth?\nThere is none; and if you would reflect a moment you would see that it\nis so. There isn't a human being that doesn't tell a gross of lies every\nday of his life; and you--why, between you, you tell thirty thousand;\nyet you flare up here in a lurid hypocritical horror because I tell that\nchild a benevolent and sinless lie to protect her from her imagination,\nwhich would get to work and warm up her blood to a fever in an hour, if\nI were disloyal enough to my duty to let it. Which I should probably do\nif I were interested in saving my soul by such disreputable means.\n\n\"Come, let us reason together. Let us examine details. When you two were\nin the sick-room raising that riot, what would you have done if you had\nknown I was coming?\"\n\n\"Well, what?\"\n\n\"You would have slipped out and carried Helen with you--wouldn't you?\"\n\nThe ladies were silent.\n\n\"What would be your object and intention?\"\n\n\"Well, what?\"\n\n\"To keep me from finding out your guilt; to beguile me to infer that\nMargaret's excitement proceeded from some cause not known to you. In a\nword, to tell me a lie--a silent lie. Moreover, a possibly harmful one.\"\n\nThe twins colored, but did not speak.\n\n\"You not only tell myriads of silent lies, but you tell lies with your\nmouths--you two.\"\n\n\"_That _is not so!\"\n\n\"It is so. But only harmless ones. You never dream of uttering a harmful\none. Do you know that that is a concession--and a confession?\"\n\n\"How do you mean?\"\n\n\"It is an unconscious concession that harmless lies are not criminal;\nit is a confession that you constantly _make _that discrimination. For\ninstance, you declined old Mrs. Foster's invitation last week to meet\nthose odious Higbies at supper--in a polite note in which you expressed\nregret and said you were very sorry you could not go. It was a lie.\nIt was as unmitigated a lie as was ever uttered. Deny it, Hester--with\nanother lie.\"\n\nHester replied with a toss of her head.\n\n\"That will not do. Answer. Was it a lie, or wasn't it?\"\n\nThe color stole into the cheeks of both women, and with a struggle and\nan effort they got out their confession:\n\n\"It was a lie.\"\n\n\"Good--the reform is beginning; there is hope for you yet; you will not\ntell a lie to save your dearest friend's soul, but you will spew out\none without a scruple to save yourself the discomfort of telling an\nunpleasant truth.\"\n\nHe rose. Hester, speaking for both, said; coldly:\n\n\"We have lied; we perceive it; it will occur no more. To lie is a sin.\nWe shall never tell another one of any kind whatsoever, even lies of\ncourtesy or benevolence, to save any one a pang or a sorrow decreed for\nhim by God.\"\n\n\"Ah, how soon you will fall! In fact, you have fallen already; for what\nyou have just uttered is a lie. Good-by. Reform! One of you go to the\nsick-room now.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nTwelve days later.\n\nMother and child were lingering in the grip of the hideous disease.\nOf hope for either there was little. The aged sisters looked white\nand worn, but they would not give up their posts. Their hearts\nwere breaking, poor old things, but their grit was steadfast and\nindestructible. All the twelve days the mother had pined for the child,\nand the child for the mother, but both knew that the prayer of these\nlongings could not be granted. When the mother was told--on the first\nday--that her disease was typhoid, she was frightened, and asked if\nthere was danger that Helen could have contracted it the day before,\nwhen she was in the sick-chamber on that confession visit. Hester told\nher the doctor had poo-pooed the idea. It troubled Hester to say it,\nalthough it was true, for she had not believed the doctor; but when\nshe saw the mother's joy in the news, the pain in her conscience\nlost something of its force--a result which made her ashamed of the\nconstructive deception which she had practiced, though not ashamed\nenough to make her distinctly and definitely wish she had refrained from\nit. From that moment the sick woman understood that her daughter must\nremain away, and she said she would reconcile herself to the separation\nthe best she could, for she would rather suffer death than have her\nchild's health imperiled. That afternoon Helen had to take to her bed,\nill. She grew worse during the night. In the morning her mother asked\nafter her:\n\n\"Is she well?\"\n\nHester turned cold; she opened her lips, but the words refused to come.\nThe mother lay languidly looking, musing, waiting; suddenly she turned\nwhite and gasped out:\n\n\"Oh, my God! what is it? is she sick?\"\n\nThen the poor aunt's tortured heart rose in rebellion, and words came:\n\n\"No--be comforted; she is well.\"\n\nThe sick woman put all her happy heart in her gratitude:\n\n\"Thank God for those dear words! Kiss me. How I worship you for saying\nthem!\"\n\nHester told this incident to Hannah, who received it with a rebuking\nlook, and said, coldly:\n\n\"Sister, it was a lie.\"\n\nHester's lips trembled piteously; she choked down a sob, and said:\n\n\"Oh, Hannah, it was a sin, but I could not help it. I could not endure\nthe fright and the misery that were in her face.\"\n\n\"No matter. It was a lie. God will hold you to account for it.\"\n\n\"Oh, I know it, I know it,\" cried Hester, wringing her hands, \"but even\nif it were now, I could not help it. I know I should do it again.\"\n\n\"Then take my place with Helen in the morning. I will make the report\nmyself.\"\n\nHester clung to her sister, begging and imploring.\n\n\"Don't, Hannah, oh, don't--you will kill her.\"\n\n\"I will at least speak the truth.\"\n\nIn the morning she had a cruel report to bear to the mother, and she\nbraced herself for the trial. When she returned from her mission, Hester\nwas waiting, pale and trembling, in the hall. She whispered:\n\n\"Oh, how did she take it--that poor, desolate mother?\"\n\nHannah's eyes were swimming in tears. She said:\n\n\"God forgive me, I told her the child was well!\"\n\nHester gathered her to her heart, with a grateful \"God bless you,\nHannah!\" and poured out her thankfulness in an inundation of worshiping\npraises.\n\nAfter that, the two knew the limit of their strength, and accepted their\nfate. They surrendered humbly, and abandoned themselves to the hard\nrequirements of the situation. Daily they told the morning lie, and\nconfessed their sin in prayer; not asking forgiveness, as not being\nworthy of it, but only wishing to make record that they realized their\nwickedness and were not desiring to hide it or excuse it.\n\nDaily, as the fair young idol of the house sank lower and lower, the\nsorrowful old aunts painted her glowing bloom and her fresh young beauty\nto the wan mother, and winced under the stabs her ecstasies of joy and\ngratitude gave them.\n\nIn the first days, while the child had strength to hold a pencil, she\nwrote fond little love-notes to her mother, in which she concealed her\nillness; and these the mother read and reread through happy eyes wet\nwith thankful tears, and kissed them over and over again, and treasured\nthem as precious things under her pillow.\n\nThen came a day when the strength was gone from the hand, and the mind\nwandered, and the tongue babbled pathetic incoherences. This was a sore\ndilemma for the poor aunts. There were no love-notes for the mother.\nThey did not know what to do. Hester began a carefully studied and\nplausible explanation, but lost the track of it and grew confused;\nsuspicion began to show in the mother's face, then alarm. Hester saw it,\nrecognized the imminence of the danger, and descended to the emergency,\npulling herself resolutely together and plucking victory from the open\njaws of defeat. In a placid and convincing voice she said:\n\n\"I thought it might distress you to know it, but Helen spent the night\nat the Sloanes'. There was a little party there, and, although she did\nnot want to go, and you so sick, we persuaded her, she being young\nand needing the innocent pastimes of youth, and we believing you would\napprove. Be sure she will write the moment she comes.\"\n\n\"How good you are, and how dear and thoughtful for us both! Approve?\nWhy, I thank you with all my heart. My poor little exile! Tell her I\nwant her to have every pleasure she can--I would not rob her of one.\nOnly let her keep her health, that is all I ask. Don't let that\nsuffer; I could not bear it. How thankful I am that she escaped this\ninfection--and what a narrow risk she ran, Aunt Hester! Think of that\nlovely face all dulled and burned with fever. I can't bear the thought\nof it. Keep her health. Keep her bloom! I can see her now, the dainty\ncreature--with the big, blue, earnest eyes; and sweet, oh, so sweet and\ngentle and winning! Is she as beautiful as ever, dear Aunt Hester?\"\n\n\"Oh, more beautiful and bright and charming than ever she was before,\nif such a thing can be\"--and Hester turned away and fumbled with the\nmedicine-bottles, to hide her shame and grief.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nAfter a little, both aunts were laboring upon a difficult and baffling\nwork in Helen's chamber. Patiently and earnestly, with their stiff old\nfingers, they were trying to forge the required note. They made failure\nafter failure, but they improved little by little all the time. The\npity of it all, the pathetic humor of it, there was none to see; they\nthemselves were unconscious of it. Often their tears fell upon the notes\nand spoiled them; sometimes a single misformed word made a note risky\nwhich could have been ventured but for that; but at last Hannah produced\none whose script was a good enough imitation of Helen's to pass any but\na suspicious eye, and bountifully enriched it with the petting phrases\nand loving nicknames that had been familiar on the child's lips from her\nnursery days. She carried it to the mother, who took it with avidity,\nand kissed it, and fondled it, reading its precious words over and over\nagain, and dwelling with deep contentment upon its closing paragraph:\n\n\"Mousie darling, if I could only see you, and kiss your eyes, and feel\nyour arms about me! I am so glad my practicing does not disturb you. Get\nwell soon. Everybody is good to me, but I am so lonesome without you,\ndear mamma.\"\n\n\"The poor child, I know just how she feels. She cannot be quite happy\nwithout me; and I--oh, I live in the light of her eyes! Tell her she\nmust practice all she pleases; and, Aunt Hannah--tell her I can't hear\nthe piano this far, nor her dear voice when she sings: God knows I wish\nI could. No one knows how sweet that voice is to me; and to think--some\nday it will be silent! What are you crying for?\"\n\n\"Only because--because--it was just a memory. When I came away she was\nsinging, 'Loch Lomond.' The pathos of it! It always moves me so when she\nsings that.\"\n\n\"And me, too. How heartbreakingly beautiful it is when some youthful\nsorrow is brooding in her breast and she sings it for the mystic healing\nit brings.... Aunt Hannah?\"\n\n\"Dear Margaret?\"\n\n\"I am very ill. Sometimes it comes over me that I shall never hear that\ndear voice again.\"\n\n\"Oh, don't--don't, Margaret! I can't bear it!\"\n\nMargaret was moved and distressed, and said, gently:\n\n\"There--there--let me put my arms around you. Don't cry. There--put your\ncheek to mine. Be comforted. I wish to live. I will live if I can. Ah,\nwhat could she do without me!... Does she often speak of me?--but I know\nshe does.\"\n\n\"Oh, all the time--all the time!\"\n\n\"My sweet child! She wrote the note the moment she came home?\"\n\n\"Yes--the first moment. She would not wait to take off her things.\"\n\n\"I knew it. It is her dear, impulsive, affectionate way. I knew it\nwithout asking, but I wanted to hear you say it. The petted wife knows\nshe is loved, but she makes her husband tell her so every day, just for\nthe joy of hearing it.... She used the pen this time. That is better;\nthe pencil-marks could rub out, and I should grieve for that. Did you\nsuggest that she use the pen?\"\n\n\"Y--no--she--it was her own idea.\"\n\nThe mother looked her pleasure, and said:\n\n\"I was hoping you would say that. There was never such a dear and\nthoughtful child!... Aunt Hannah?\"\n\n\"Dear Margaret?\"\n\n\"Go and tell her I think of her all the time, and worship her. Why--you\nare crying again. Don't be so worried about me, dear; I think there is\nnothing to fear, yet.\"\n\nThe grieving messenger carried her message, and piously delivered it\nto unheeding ears. The girl babbled on unaware; looking up at her with\nwondering and startled eyes flaming with fever, eyes in which was no\nlight of recognition:\n\n\"Are you--no, you are not my mother. I want her--oh, I want her! She was\nhere a minute ago--I did not see her go. Will she come? will she come\nquickly? will she come now?... There are so many houses ... and they\noppress me so... and everything whirls and turns and whirls... oh, my\nhead, my head!\"--and so she wandered on and on, in her pain, flitting\nfrom one torturing fancy to another, and tossing her arms about in a\nweary and ceaseless persecution of unrest.\n\nPoor old Hannah wetted the parched lips and softly stroked the hot brow,\nmurmuring endearing and pitying words, and thanking the Father of all\nthat the mother was happy and did not know.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nDaily the child sank lower and steadily lower towards the grave, and\ndaily the sorrowing old watchers carried gilded tidings of her radiant\nhealth and loveliness to the happy mother, whose pilgrimage was also now\nnearing its end. And daily they forged loving and cheery notes in the\nchild's hand, and stood by with remorseful consciences and bleeding\nhearts, and wept to see the grateful mother devour them and adore them\nand treasure them away as things beyond price, because of their sweet\nsource, and sacred because her child's hand had touched them.\n\nAt last came that kindly friend who brings healing and peace to all.\nThe lights were burning low. In the solemn hush which precedes the dawn\nvague figures flitted soundless along the dim hall and gathered silent\nand awed in Helen's chamber, and grouped themselves about her bed, for\na warning had gone forth, and they knew. The dying girl lay with closed\nlids, and unconscious, the drapery upon her breast faintly rising and\nfalling as her wasting life ebbed away. At intervals a sigh or a muffled\nsob broke upon the stillness. The same haunting thought was in all minds\nthere: the pity of this death, the going out into the great darkness,\nand the mother not here to help and hearten and bless.\n\nHelen stirred; her hands began to grope wistfully about as if they\nsought something--she had been blind some hours. The end was come; all\nknew it. With a great sob Hester gathered her to her breast, crying,\n\"Oh, my child, my darling!\" A rapturous light broke in the dying girl's\nface, for it was mercifully vouchsafed her to mistake those sheltering\narms for another's; and she went to her rest murmuring, \"Oh, mamma, I am\nso happy--I longed for you--now I can die.\"\n\nTwo hours later Hester made her report. The mother asked:\n\n\"How is it with the child?\"\n\n\"She is well.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nA sheaf of white crape and black was hung upon the door of the house,\nand there it swayed and rustled in the wind and whispered its tidings.\nAt noon the preparation of the dead was finished, and in the coffin lay\nthe fair young form, beautiful, and in the sweet face a great peace. Two\nmourners sat by it, grieving and worshipping--Hannah and the black woman\nTilly. Hester came, and she was trembling, for a great trouble was upon\nher spirit. She said:\n\n\"She asks for a note.\"\n\nHannah's face blanched. She had not thought of this; it had seemed that\nthat pathetic service was ended. But she realized now that that could\nnot be. For a little while the two women stood looking into each other's\nface, with vacant eyes; then Hannah said:\n\n\"There is no way out of it--she must have it; she will suspect, else.\"\n\n\"And she would find out.\"\n\n\"Yes. It would break her heart.\" She looked at the dead face, and her\neyes filled. \"I will write it,\" she said.\n\nHester carried it. The closing line said:\n\n\"Darling Mousie, dear sweet mother, we shall soon be together again. Is\nnot that good news? And it is true; they all say it is true.\"\n\nThe mother mourned, saying:\n\n\"Poor child, how will she bear it when she knows? I shall never see her\nagain in life. It is hard, so hard. She does not suspect? You guard her\nfrom that?\"\n\n\"She thinks you will soon be well.\"\n\n\"How good you are, and careful, dear Aunt Hester! None goes near her who\ncould carry the infection?\"\n\n\"It would be a crime.\"\n\n\"But you _see _her?\"\n\n\"With a distance between--yes.\"\n\n\"That is so good. Others one could not trust; but you two guardian\nangels--steel is not so true as you. Others would be unfaithful; and\nmany would deceive, and lie.\"\n\nHester's eyes fell, and her poor old lips trembled.\n\n\"Let me kiss you for her, Aunt Hester; and when I am gone, and the\ndanger is past, place the kiss upon her dear lips some day, and say her\nmother sent it, and all her mother's broken heart is in it.\"\n\nWithin the hour, Hester, raining tears upon the dead face, performed her\npathetic mission.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nAnother day dawned, and grew, and spread its sunshine in the earth. Aunt\nHannah brought comforting news to the failing mother, and a happy note,\nwhich said again, \"We have but a little time to wait, darling mother,\nthen we shall be together.\"\n\nThe deep note of a bell came moaning down the wind.\n\n\"Aunt Hannah, it is tolling. Some poor soul is at rest. As I shall be\nsoon. You will not let her forget me?\"\n\n\"Oh, God knows she never will!\"\n\n\"Do not you hear strange noises, Aunt Hannah? It sounds like the\nshuffling of many feet.\"\n\n\"We hoped you would not hear it, dear. It is a little company gathering,\nfor--for Helen's sake, poor little prisoner. There will be music--and\nshe loves it so. We thought you would not mind.\"\n\n\"Mind? Oh no, no--oh, give her everything her dear heart can desire. How\ngood you two are to her, and how good to me! God bless you both always!\"\n\nAfter a listening pause:\n\n\"How lovely! It is her organ. Is she playing it herself, do you think?\"\nFaint and rich and inspiring the chords floating to her ears on the\nstill air. \"Yes, it is her touch, dear heart, I recognize it. They are\nsinging. Why--it is a hymn! and the sacredest of all, the most touching,\nthe most consoling.... It seems to open the gates of paradise to me....\nIf I could die now....\"\n\nFaint and far the words rose out of the stillness:\n\n\nNearer, my God, to Thee,\n\nNearer to Thee,\n\nE'en though it be a cross\n\nThat raiseth me.\n\nWith the closing of the hymn another soul passed to its rest, and they\nthat had been one in life were not sundered in death. The sisters,\nmourning and rejoicing, said:\n\n\"How blessed it was that she never knew!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nAt midnight they sat together, grieving, and the angel of the Lord\nappeared in the midst transfigured with a radiance not of earth; and\nspeaking, said:\n\n\"For liars a place is appointed. There they burn in the fires of hell\nfrom everlasting unto everlasting. Repent!\"\n\nThe bereaved fell upon their knees before him and clasped their hands\nand bowed their gray heads, adoring. But their tongues clove to the roof\nof their mouths, and they were dumb.\n\n\"Speak! that I may bear the message to the chancery of heaven and bring\nagain the decree from which there is no appeal.\"\n\nThen they bowed their heads yet lower, and one said:\n\n\"Our sin is great, and we suffer shame; but only perfect and final\nrepentance can make us whole; and we are poor creatures who have learned\nour human weakness, and we know that if we were in those hard straits\nagain our hearts would fail again, and we should sin as before. The\nstrong could prevail, and so be saved, but we are lost.\"\n\nThey lifted their heads in supplication. The angel was gone. While\nthey marveled and wept he came again; and bending low, he whispered the\ndecree.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nWas it Heaven? Or Hell?\n\n\n\nA CURE FOR THE BLUES\n\nBy courtesy of Mr. Cable I came into possession of a singular book\neight or ten years ago. It is likely that mine is now the only copy in\nexistence. Its title-page, unabbreviated, reads as follows:\n\n\"The Enemy Conquered; or, Love Triumphant. By G. Ragsdale McClintock,\n(1) author of 'An Address,' etc., delivered at Sunflower Hill, South\nCarolina, and member of the Yale Law School. New Haven: published by T.\nH. Pease, 83 Chapel Street, 1845.\"\n\nNo one can take up this book and lay it down again unread. Whoever reads\none line of it is caught, is chained; he has become the contented slave\nof its fascinations; and he will read and read, devour and devour, and\nwill not let it go out of his hand till it is finished to the last line,\nthough the house be on fire over his head. And after a first reading he\nwill not throw it aside, but will keep it by him, with his Shakespeare\nand his Homer, and will take it up many and many a time, when the\nworld is dark and his spirits are low, and be straightway cheered and\nrefreshed. Yet this work has been allowed to lie wholly neglected,\nunmentioned, and apparently unregretted, for nearly half a century.\n\nThe reader must not imagine that he is to find in it wisdom, brilliancy,\nfertility of invention, ingenuity of construction, excellence of form,\npurity of style, perfection of imagery, truth to nature, clearness of\nstatement, humanly possible situations, humanly possible people, fluent\nnarrative, connected sequence of events--or philosophy, or logic, or\nsense. No; the rich, deep, beguiling charm of the book lies in the total\nand miraculous _absence _from it of all these qualities--a charm which\nis completed and perfected by the evident fact that the author, whose\nnaive innocence easily and surely wins our regard, and almost our\nworship, does not know that they are absent, does not even suspect\nthat they are absent. When read by the light of these helps to an\nunderstanding of the situation, the book is delicious--profoundly and\nsatisfyingly delicious.\n\nI call it a book because the author calls it a book, I call it a work\nbecause he calls it a work; but, in truth, it is merely a duodecimo\npamphlet of thirty-one pages. It was written for fame and money, as the\nauthor very frankly--yes, and very hopefully, too, poor fellow--says\nin his preface. The money never came--no penny of it ever came; and how\nlong, how pathetically long, the fame has been deferred--forty-seven\nyears! He was young then, it would have been so much to him then; but\nwill he care for it now?\n\nAs time is measured in America, McClintock's epoch is antiquity. In his\nlong-vanished day the Southern author had a passion for \"eloquence\";\nit was his pet, his darling. He would be eloquent, or perish. And he\nrecognized only one kind of eloquence--the lurid, the tempestuous, the\nvolcanic. He liked words--big words, fine words, grand words, rumbling,\nthundering, reverberating words; with sense attaching if it could be got\nin without marring the sound, but not otherwise. He loved to stand\nup before a dazed world, and pour forth flame and smoke and lava and\npumice-stone into the skies, and work his subterranean thunders, and\nshake himself with earthquakes, and stench himself with sulphur fumes.\nIf he consumed his own fields and vineyards, that was a pity, yes; but\nhe would have his eruption at any cost. Mr. McClintock's eloquence--and\nhe is always eloquent, his crater is always spouting--is of the pattern\ncommon to his day, but he departs from the custom of the time in one\nrespect: his brethren allowed sense to intrude when it did not mar the\nsound, but he does not allow it to intrude at all. For example, consider\nthis figure, which he used in the village \"Address\" referred to with\nsuch candid complacency in the title-page above quoted--\"like the\ntopmost topaz of an ancient tower.\" Please read it again; contemplate\nit; measure it; walk around it; climb up it; try to get at an\napproximate realization of the size of it. Is the fellow to that to be\nfound in literature, ancient or modern, foreign or domestic, living or\ndead, drunk or sober? One notices how fine and grand it sounds. We know\nthat if it was loftily uttered, it got a noble burst of applause from\nthe villagers; yet there isn't a ray of sense in it, or meaning to it.\n\nMcClintock finished his education at Yale in 1843, and came to Hartford\non a visit that same year. I have talked with men who at that time\ntalked with him, and felt of him, and knew he was real. One needs to\nremember that fact and to keep fast hold of it; it is the only way to\nkeep McClintock's book from undermining one's faith in McClintock's\nactuality.\n\nAs to the book. The first four pages are devoted to an inflamed\neulogy of Woman--simply Woman in general, or perhaps as an\nInstitution--wherein, among other compliments to her details, he pays a\nunique one to her voice. He says it \"fills the breast with fond alarms,\nechoed by every rill.\" It sounds well enough, but it is not true. After\nthe eulogy he takes up his real work and the novel begins. It begins in\nthe woods, near the village of Sunflower Hill.\n\nBrightening clouds seemed to rise from the mist of the fair\nChattahoochee, to spread their beauty over the thick forest, to guide\nthe hero whose bosom beats with aspirations to conquer the enemy that\nwould tarnish his name, and to win back the admiration of his long-tried\nfriend.\n\nIt seems a general remark, but it is not general; the hero mentioned is\nthe to-be hero of the book; and in this abrupt fashion, and without\nname or description, he is shoveled into the tale. \"With aspirations to\nconquer the enemy that would tarnish his name\" is merely a phrase flung\nin for the sake of the sound--let it not mislead the reader. No one is\ntrying to tarnish this person; no one has thought of it. The rest of the\nsentence is also merely a phrase; the man has no friend as yet, and\nof course has had no chance to try him, or win back his admiration, or\ndisturb him in any other way.\n\nThe hero climbs up over \"Sawney's Mountain,\" and down the other side,\nmaking for an old Indian \"castle\"--which becomes \"the red man's hut\"\nin the next sentence; and when he gets there at last, he \"surveys with\nwonder and astonishment\" the invisible structure, \"which time has buried\nin the dust, and thought to himself his happiness was not yet complete.\"\nOne doesn't know why it wasn't, nor how near it came to being complete,\nnor what was still wanting to round it up and make it so. Maybe it was\nthe Indian; but the book does not say. At this point we have an episode:\n\nBeside the shore of the brook sat a young man, about eighteen or twenty,\nwho seemed to be reading some favorite book, and who had a remarkably\nnoble countenance--eyes which betrayed more than a common mind. This\nof course made the youth a welcome guest, and gained him friends in\nwhatever condition of his life he might be placed. The traveler observed\nthat he was a well-built figure which showed strength and grace in every\nmovement. He accordingly addressed him in quite a gentlemanly manner,\nand inquired of him the way to the village. After he had received the\ndesired information, and was about taking his leave, the youth said,\n\"Are you not Major Elfonzo, the great musician (2)--the champion of a\nnoble cause--the modern Achilles, who gained so many victories in the\nFlorida War?\" \"I bear that name,\" said the Major, \"and those titles,\ntrusting at the same time that the ministers of grace will carry me\ntriumphantly through all my laudable undertakings, and if,\" continued\nthe Major, \"you, sir, are the patronizer of noble deeds, I should like\nto make you my confidant and learn your address.\" The youth looked\nsomewhat amazed, bowed low, mused for a moment, and began: \"My name is\nRoswell. I have been recently admitted to the bar, and can only give a\nfaint outline of my future success in that honorable profession; but I\ntrust, sir, like the Eagle, I shall look down from the lofty rocks upon\nthe dwellings of man, and shall ever be ready to give you any assistance\nin my official capacity, and whatever this muscular arm of mine can\ndo, whenever it shall be called from its buried _greatness_.\" The Major\ngrasped him by the hand, and exclaimed: \"O! thou exalted spirit of\ninspiration--thou flame of burning prosperity, may the Heaven-directed\nblaze be the glare of thy soul, and battle down every rampart that seems\nto impede your progress!\"\n\nThere is a strange sort of originality about McClintock; he imitates\nother people's styles, but nobody can imitate his, not even an idiot.\nOther people can be windy, but McClintock blows a gale; other people can\nblubber sentiment, but McClintock spews it; other people can mishandle\nmetaphors, but only McClintock knows how to make a business of it.\nMcClintock is always McClintock, he is always consistent, his style is\nalways his own style. He does not make the mistake of being relevant on\none page and irrelevant on another; he is irrelevant on all of them.\nHe does not make the mistake of being lucid in one place and obscure\nin another; he is obscure all the time. He does not make the mistake\nof slipping in a name here and there that is out of character with\nhis work; he always uses names that exactly and fantastically fit his\nlunatics. In the matter of undeviating consistency he stands alone in\nauthorship. It is this that makes his style unique, and entitles it to\na name of its own--McClintockian. It is this that protects it from being\nmistaken for anybody else's. Uncredited quotations from other writers\noften leave a reader in doubt as to their authorship, but McClintock is\nsafe from that accident; an uncredited quotation from him would always\nbe recognizable. When a boy nineteen years old, who had just been\nadmitted to the bar, says, \"I trust, sir, like the Eagle, I shall\nlook down from lofty rocks upon the dwellings of man,\" we know who is\nspeaking through that boy; we should recognize that note anywhere. There\nbe myriads of instruments in this world's literary orchestra, and a\nmultitudinous confusion of sounds that they make, wherein fiddles\nare drowned, and guitars smothered, and one sort of drum mistaken\nfor another sort; but whensoever the brazen note of the McClintockian\ntrombone breaks through that fog of music, that note is recognizable,\nand about it there can be no blur of doubt.\n\nThe novel now arrives at the point where the Major goes home to see his\nfather. When McClintock wrote this interview he probably believed it was\npathetic.\n\nThe road which led to the town presented many attractions Elfonzo had\nbid farewell to the youth of deep feeling, and was now wending his way\nto the dreaming spot of his fondness. The south winds whistled through\nthe woods, as the waters dashed against the banks, as rapid fire in the\npent furnace roars. This brought him to remember while alone, that he\nquietly left behind the hospitality of a father's house, and gladly\nentered the world, with higher hopes than are often realized. But as he\njourneyed onward, he was mindful of the advice of his father, who had\noften looked sadly on the ground, when tears of cruelly deceived hope\nmoistened his eyes. Elfonzo had been somewhat a dutiful son; yet fond\nof the amusements of life--had been in distant lands--had enjoyed the\npleasure of the world, and had frequently returned to the scenes of\nhis boyhood, almost destitute of many of the comforts of life. In this\ncondition, he would frequently say to his father, \"Have I offended you,\nthat you look upon me as a stranger, and frown upon me with stinging\nlooks? Will you not favor me with the sound of your voice? If I have\ntrampled upon your veneration, or have spread a humid veil of darkness\naround your expectations, send me back into the world, where no heart\nbeats for me--where the foot of man had never yet trod; but give me at\nleast one kind word--allow me to come into the presence sometimes of\nthy winter-worn locks.\" \"Forbid it, Heaven, that I should be angry with\nthee,\" answered the father, \"my son, and yet I send thee back to the\nchildren of the world--to the cold charity of the combat, and to a\nland of victory. I read another destiny in thy countenance--I learn\nthy inclinations from the flame that has already kindled in my soul a\nstrange sensation. It will seek thee, my dear _Elfonzo_, it will find\nthee--thou canst not escape that lighted torch, which shall blot out\nfrom the remembrance of men a long train of prophecies which they have\nforetold against thee. I once thought not so. Once, I was blind; but\nnow the path of life is plain before me, and my sight is clear; yet,\nElfonzo, return to thy worldly occupation--take again in thy hand that\nchord of sweet sounds--struggle with the civilized world and with your\nown heart; fly swiftly to the enchanted ground--let the night-_owl_ send\nforth its screams from the stubborn oak--let the sea sport upon the\nbeach, and the stars sing together; but learn of these, Elfonzo, thy\ndoom, and thy hiding-place. Our most innocent as well as our most lawful\n_desires_ must often be denied us, that we may learn to sacrifice them\nto a Higher will.\"\n\nRemembering such admonitions with gratitude, Elfonzo was immediately\nurged by the recollection of his father's family to keep moving.\n\nMcClintock has a fine gift in the matter of surprises; but as a rule\nthey are not pleasant ones, they jar upon the feelings. His closing\nsentence in the last quotation is of that sort. It brings one down out\nof the tinted clouds in too sudden and collapsed a fashion. It incenses\none against the author for a moment. It makes the reader want to take\nhim by his winter-worn locks, and trample on his veneration, and deliver\nhim over to the cold charity of combat, and blot him out with his own\nlighted torch. But the feeling does not last. The master takes again\nin his hand that concord of sweet sounds of his, and one is reconciled,\npacified.\n\nHis steps became quicker and quicker--he hastened through the _piny_\nwoods, dark as the forest was, and with joy he very soon reached the\nlittle village of repose, in whose bosom rested the boldest chivalry.\nHis close attention to every important object--his modest questions\nabout whatever was new to him--his reverence for wise old age, and his\nardent desire to learn many of the fine arts, soon brought him into\nrespectable notice.\n\nOne mild winter day, as he walked along the streets toward the Academy,\nwhich stood upon a small eminence, surrounded by native growth--some\nvenerable in its appearance, others young and prosperous--all seemed\ninviting, and seemed to be the very place for learning as well as for\ngenius to spend its research beneath its spreading shades. He entered\nits classic walls in the usual mode of southern manners.\n\nThe artfulness of this man! None knows so well as he how to pique the\ncuriosity of the reader--and how to disappoint it. He raises the hope,\nhere, that he is going to tell all about how one enters a classic wall\nin the usual mode of Southern manners; but does he? No; he smiles in his\nsleeve, and turns aside to other matters.\n\nThe principal of the Institution begged him to be seated and listen to\nthe recitations that were going on. He accordingly obeyed the request,\nand seemed to be much pleased. After the school was dismissed, and the\nyoung hearts regained their freedom, with the songs of the evening,\nlaughing at the anticipated pleasures of a happy home, while others\ntittered at the actions of the past day, he addressed the teacher in a\ntone that indicated a resolution--with an undaunted mind. He said he had\ndetermined to become a student, if he could meet with his approbation.\n\"Sir,\" said he, \"I have spent much time in the world. I have traveled\namong the uncivilized inhabitants of America. I have met with friends,\nand combated with foes; but none of these gratify my ambition, or decide\nwhat is to be my destiny. I see the learned world have an influence\nwith the voice of the people themselves. The despoilers of the remotest\nkingdoms of the earth refer their differences to this class of persons.\nThis the illiterate and inexperienced little dream of; and now if you\nwill receive me as I am, with these deficiencies--with all my misguided\nopinions, I will give you my honor, sir, that I will never disgrace the\nInstitution, or those who have placed you in this honorable station.\"\nThe instructor, who had met with many disappointments, knew how to\nfeel for a stranger who had been thus turned upon the charities of an\nunfeeling community. He looked at him earnestly, and said: \"Be of\ngood cheer--look forward, sir, to the high destination you may attain.\nRemember, the more elevated the mark at which you aim, the more sure,\nthe more glorious, the more magnificent the prize.\" From wonder to\nwonder, his encouragement led the impatient listener. A strange nature\nbloomed before him--giant streams promised him success--gardens of\nhidden treasures opened to his view. All this, so vividly described,\nseemed to gain a new witchery from his glowing fancy.\n\nIt seems to me that this situation is new in romance. I feel sure it has\nnot been attempted before. Military celebrities have been disguised and\nset at lowly occupations for dramatic effect, but I think McClintock is\nthe first to send one of them to school. Thus, in this book, you pass\nfrom wonder to wonder, through gardens of hidden treasure, where giant\nstreams bloom before you, and behind you, and all around, and you feel\nas happy, and groggy, and satisfied with your quart of mixed metaphor\naboard as you would if it had been mixed in a sample-room and delivered\nfrom a jug.\n\nNow we come upon some more McClintockian surprises--a sweetheart who is\nsprung upon us without any preparation, along with a name for her which\nis even a little more of a surprise than she herself is.\n\nIn 1842 he entered the class, and made rapid progress in the English\nand Latin departments. Indeed, he continued advancing with such rapidity\nthat he was like to become the first in his class, and made such\nunexpected progress, and was so studious, that he had almost forgotten\nthe pictured saint of his affections. The fresh wreaths of the pine and\ncypress had waited anxiously to drop once more the dews of Heaven upon\nthe heads of those who had so often poured forth the tender emotions of\ntheir souls under its boughs. He was aware of the pleasure that he had\nseen there. So one evening, as he was returning from his reading, he\nconcluded he would pay a visit to this enchanting spot. Little did he\nthink of witnessing a shadow of his former happiness, though no doubt\nhe wished it might be so. He continued sauntering by the roadside,\nmeditating on the past. The nearer he approached the spot, the more\nanxious he became. At that moment a tall female figure flitted across\nhis path, with a bunch of roses in her hand; her countenance showed\nuncommon vivacity, with a resolute spirit; her ivory teeth already\nappeared as she smiled beautifully, promenading--while her ringlets of\nhair dangled unconsciously around her snowy neck. Nothing was wanting\nto complete her beauty. The tinge of the rose was in full bloom upon\nher cheek; the charms of sensibility and tenderness were always her\nassociates. In Ambulinia's bosom dwelt a noble soul--one that never\nfaded--one that never was conquered.\n\nAmbulinia! It can hardly be matched in fiction. The full name is\nAmbulinia Valeer. Marriage will presently round it out and perfect it.\nThen it will be Mrs. Ambulinia Valeer Elfonzo. It takes the chromo.\n\nHer heart yielded to no feeling but the love of Elfonzo, on whom she\ngazed with intense delight, and to whom she felt herself more closely\nbound, because he sought the hand of no other. Elfonzo was roused\nfrom his apparent reverie. His books no longer were his inseparable\ncompanions--his thoughts arrayed themselves to encourage him to the\nfield of victory. He endeavored to speak to his supposed Ambulinia, but\nhis speech appeared not in words. No, his effort was a stream of fire,\nthat kindled his soul into a flame of admiration, and carried his senses\naway captive. Ambulinia had disappeared, to make him more mindful of\nhis duty. As she walked speedily away through the piny woods, she calmly\nechoed: \"O! Elfonzo, thou wilt now look from thy sunbeams. Thou shalt\nnow walk in a new path--perhaps thy way leads through darkness; but fear\nnot, the stars foretell happiness.\"\n\nTo McClintock that jingling jumble of fine words meant something, no\ndoubt, or seemed to mean something; but it is useless for us to try to\ndivine what it was. Ambulinia comes--we don't know whence nor why; she\nmysteriously intimates--we don't know what; and then she goes echoing\naway--we don't know whither; and down comes the curtain. McClintock's\nart is subtle; McClintock's art is deep.\n\nNot many days afterward, as surrounded by fragrant flowers she sat one\nevening at twilight, to enjoy the cool breeze that whispered notes of\nmelody along the distant groves, the little birds perched on every\nside, as if to watch the movements of their new visitor. The bells were\ntolling, when Elfonzo silently stole along by the wild wood flowers,\nholding in his hand his favorite instrument of music--his eye\ncontinually searching for Ambulinia, who hardly seemed to perceive him,\nas she played carelessly with the songsters that hopped from branch to\nbranch. Nothing could be more striking than the difference between the\ntwo. Nature seemed to have given the more tender soul to Elfonzo, and\nthe stronger and more courageous to Ambulinia. A deep feeling spoke from\nthe eyes of Elfonzo--such a feeling as can only be expressed by those\nwho are blessed as admirers, and by those who are able to return the\nsame with sincerity of heart. He was a few years older than Ambulinia:\nshe had turned a little into her seventeenth. He had almost grown up\nin the Cherokee country, with the same equal proportions as one of the\nnatives. But little intimacy had existed between them until the year\nforty-one--because the youth felt that the character of such a lovely\ngirl was too exalted to inspire any other feeling than that of quiet\nreverence. But as lovers will not always be insulted, at all times and\nunder all circumstances, by the frowns and cold looks of crabbed old\nage, which should continually reflect dignity upon those around, and\ntreat the unfortunate as well as the fortunate with a graceful mien, he\ncontinued to use diligence and perseverance. All this lighted a spark\nin his heart that changed his whole character, and like the unyielding\nDeity that follows the storm to check its rage in the forest, he\nresolves for the first time to shake off his embarrassment and return\nwhere he had before only worshiped.\n\nAt last we begin to get the Major's measure. We are able to put this\nand that casual fact together, and build the man up before our eyes,\nand look at him. And after we have got him built, we find him worth the\ntrouble. By the above comparison between his age and Ambulinia's, we\nguess the war-worn veteran to be twenty-two; and the other facts stand\nthus: he had grown up in the Cherokee country with the same equal\nproportions as one of the natives--how flowing and graceful the\nlanguage, and yet how tantalizing as to meaning!--he had been turned\nadrift by his father, to whom he had been \"somewhat of a dutiful son\";\nhe wandered in distant lands; came back frequently \"to the scenes of his\nboyhood, almost destitute of many of the comforts of life,\" in order to\nget into the presence of his father's winter-worn locks, and spread\na humid veil of darkness around his expectations; but he was always\npromptly sent back to the cold charity of the combat again; he learned\nto play the fiddle, and made a name for himself in that line; he had\ndwelt among the wild tribes; he had philosophized about the despoilers\nof the kingdoms of the earth, and found out--the cunning creature--that\nthey refer their differences to the learned for settlement; he had\nachieved a vast fame as a military chieftain, the Achilles of the\nFlorida campaigns, and then had got him a spelling-book and started\nto school; he had fallen in love with Ambulinia Valeer while she was\nteething, but had kept it to himself awhile, out of the reverential awe\nwhich he felt for the child; but now at last, like the unyielding Deity\nwho follows the storm to check its rage in the forest, he resolves to\nshake off his embarrassment, and to return where before he had only\nworshiped. The Major, indeed, has made up his mind to rise up and shake\nhis faculties together, and to see if_ he_ can't do that thing himself.\nThis is not clear. But no matter about that: there stands the hero,\ncompact and visible; and he is no mean structure, considering that his\ncreator had never created anything before, and hadn't anything but\nrags and wind to build with this time. It seems to me that no one can\ncontemplate this odd creature, this quaint and curious blatherskite,\nwithout admiring McClintock, or, at any rate, loving him and feeling\ngrateful to him; for McClintock made him, he gave him to us; without\nMcClintock we could not have had him, and would now be poor.\n\nBut we must come to the feast again. Here is a courtship scene, down\nthere in the romantic glades among the raccoons, alligators, and things,\nthat has merit, peculiar literary merit. See how Achilles woos.\nDwell upon the second sentence (particularly the close of it) and the\nbeginning of the third. Never mind the new personage, Leos, who is\nintruded upon us unheralded and unexplained. That is McClintock's way;\nit is his habit; it is a part of his genius; he cannot help it; he never\ninterrupts the rush of his narrative to make introductions.\n\nIt could not escape Ambulinia's penetrating eye that he sought an\ninterview with her, which she as anxiously avoided, and assumed a more\ndistant calmness than before, seemingly to destroy all hope. After many\nefforts and struggles with his own person, with timid steps the Major\napproached the damsel, with the same caution as he would have done in\na field of battle. \"Lady Ambulinia,\" said he, trembling, \"I have\nlong desired a moment like this. I dare not let it escape. I fear the\nconsequences; yet I hope your indulgence will at least hear my petition.\nCan you not anticipate what I would say, and what I am about to express?\nWill not you, like Minerva, who sprung from the brain of Jupiter,\nrelease me from thy winding chains or cure me--\" \"Say no more, Elfonzo,\"\nanswered Ambulinia, with a serious look, raising her hand as if she\nintended to swear eternal hatred against the whole world; \"another\nlady in my place would have perhaps answered your question in bitter\ncoldness. I know not the little arts of my sex. I care but little for\nthe vanity of those who would chide me, and am unwilling as well as\nashamed to be guilty of anything that would lead you to think 'all is\nnot gold that glitters'; so be not rash in your resolution. It is better\nto repent now, than to do it in a more solemn hour. Yes, I know what you\nwould say. I know you have a costly gift for me--the noblest that man\ncan make--_your heart!_ You should not offer it to one so unworthy.\nHeaven, you know, has allowed my father's house to be made a house of\nsolitude, a home of silent obedience, which my parents say is more to\nbe admired than big names and high-sounding titles. Notwithstanding all\nthis, let me speak the emotions of an honest heart--allow me to say in\nthe fullness of my hopes that I anticipate better days. The bird may\nstretch its wings toward the sun, which it can never reach; and flowers\nof the field appear to ascend in the same direction, because they cannot\ndo otherwise; but man confides his complaints to the saints in whom he\nbelieves; for in their abodes of light they know no more sorrow. From\nyour confession and indicative looks, I must be that person; if so\ndeceive not yourself.\"\n\nElfonzo replied, \"Pardon me, my dear madam, for my frankness. I have\nloved you from my earliest days--everything grand and beautiful hath\nborne the image of Ambulinia; while precipices on every hand surrounded\nme, your _guardian angel_ stood and beckoned me away from the deep\nabyss. In every trial, in every misfortune, I have met with your helping\nhand; yet I never dreamed or dared to cherish thy love, till a voice\nimpaired with age encouraged the cause, and declared they who acquired\nthy favor should win a victory. I saw how Leos worshiped thee. I felt my\nown unworthiness. I began to _know jealously_, a strong guest--indeed,\nin my bosom,--yet I could see if I gained your admiration Leos was to be\nmy rival. I was aware that he had the influence of your parents, and the\nwealth of a deceased relative, which is too often mistaken for permanent\nand regular tranquillity; yet I have determined by your permission\nto beg an interest in your prayers--to ask you to animate my drooping\nspirits by your smiles and your winning looks; for if you but speak I\nshall be conqueror, my enemies shall stagger like Olympus shakes. And\nthough earth and sea may tremble, and the charioteer of the sun may\nforget his dashing steed, yet I am assured that it is only to arm me\nwith divine weapons which will enable me to complete my long-tried\nintention.\"\n\n\"Return to yourself, Elfonzo,\" said Ambulinia, pleasantly: \"a dream\nof vision has disturbed your intellect; you are above the atmosphere,\ndwelling in the celestial regions; nothing is there that urges or\nhinders, nothing that brings discord into our present litigation. I\nentreat you to condescend a little, and be a man, and forget it all.\nWhen Homer describes the battle of the gods and noble men fighting with\ngiants and dragons, they represent under this image our struggles with\nthe delusions of our passions. You have exalted me, an unhappy girl, to\nthe skies; you have called me a saint, and portrayed in your imagination\nan angel in human form. Let her remain such to you, let her continue to\nbe as you have supposed, and be assured that she will consider a share\nin your esteem as her highest treasure. Think not that I would allure\nyou from the path in which your conscience leads you; for you know I\nrespect the conscience of others, as I would die for my own. Elfonzo, if\nI am worthy of thy love, let such conversation never again pass between\nus. Go, seek a nobler theme! we will seek it in the stream of time, as\nthe sun set in the Tigris.\" As she spake these words she grasped the\nhand of Elfonzo, saying at the same time--\"Peace and prosperity\nattend you, my hero; be up and doing!\" Closing her remarks with this\nexpression, she walked slowly away, leaving Elfonzo astonished and\namazed. He ventured not to follow or detain her. Here he stood alone,\ngazing at the stars; confounded as he was, here he stood.\n\nYes; there he stood. There seems to be no doubt about that. Nearly half\nof this delirious story has now been delivered to the reader. It seems a\npity to reduce the other half to a cold synopsis. Pity! it is more\nthan a pity, it is a crime; for to synopsize McClintock is to reduce\na sky-flushing conflagration to dull embers, it is to reduce barbaric\nsplendor to ragged poverty. McClintock never wrote a line that was not\nprecious; he never wrote one that could be spared; he never framed one\nfrom which a word could be removed without damage. Every sentence that\nthis master has produced may be likened to a perfect set of teeth,\nwhite, uniform, beautiful. If you pull one, the charm is gone.\n\nStill, it is now necessary to begin to pull, and to keep it up; for lack\nof space requires us to synopsize.\n\nWe left Elfonzo standing there amazed. At what, we do not know. Not at\nthe girl's speech. No; we ourselves should have been amazed at it,\nof course, for none of us has ever heard anything resembling it; but\nElfonzo was used to speeches made up of noise and vacancy, and could\nlisten to them with undaunted mind like the \"topmost topaz of an ancient\ntower\"; he was used to making them himself; he--but let it go, it cannot\nbe guessed out; we shall never know what it was that astonished him. He\nstood there awhile; then he said, \"Alas! am I now Grief's disappointed\nson at last?\" He did not stop to examine his mind, and to try to find\nout what he probably meant by that, because, for one reason, \"a mixture\nof ambition and greatness of soul moved upon his young heart,\" and\nstarted him for the village. He resumed his bench in school, \"and\nreasonably progressed in his education.\" His heart was heavy, but\nhe went into society, and sought surcease of sorrow in its light\ndistractions. He made himself popular with his violin, \"which seemed to\nhave a thousand chords--more symphonious than the Muses of Apollo, and\nmore enchanting than the ghost of the Hills.\" This is obscure, but let\nit go.\n\nDuring this interval Leos did some unencouraged courting, but at last,\n\"choked by his undertaking,\" he desisted.\n\nPresently \"Elfonzo again wends his way to the stately walls and\nnew-built village.\" He goes to the house of his beloved; she opens the\ndoor herself. To my surprise--for Ambulinia's heart had still seemed\nfree at the time of their last interview--love beamed from the girl's\neyes. One sees that Elfonzo was surprised, too; for when he caught that\nlight, \"a halloo of smothered shouts ran through every vein.\" A neat\nfigure--a very neat figure, indeed! Then he kissed her. \"The scene was\noverwhelming.\" They went into the parlor. The girl said it was safe,\nfor her parents were abed, and would never know. Then we have this\nfine picture--flung upon the canvas with hardly an effort, as you will\nnotice.\n\nAdvancing toward him, she gave a bright display of her rosy neck, and\nfrom her head the ambrosial locks breathed divine fragrance; her robe\nhung waving to his view, while she stood like a goddess confessed before\nhim.\n\nThere is nothing of interest in the couple's interview. Now at this\npoint the girl invites Elfonzo to a village show, where jealousy is the\nmotive of the play, for she wants to teach him a wholesome lesson, if he\nis a jealous person. But this is a sham, and pretty shallow. McClintock\nmerely wants a pretext to drag in a plagiarism of his upon a scene or\ntwo in \"Othello.\"\n\nThe lovers went to the play. Elfonzo was one of the fiddlers. He and\nAmbulinia must not be seen together, lest trouble follow with the girl's\nmalignant father; we are made to understand that clearly. So the two sit\ntogether in the orchestra, in the midst of the musicians. This does not\nseem to be good art. In the first place, the girl would be in the way,\nfor orchestras are always packed closely together, and there is no room\nto spare for people's girls; in the next place, one cannot conceal a\ngirl in an orchestra without everybody taking notice of it. There can be\nno doubt, it seems to me, that this is bad art.\n\nLeos is present. Of course, one of the first things that catches his eye\nis the maddening spectacle of Ambulinia \"leaning upon Elfonzo's chair.\"\nThis poor girl does not seem to understand even the rudiments of\nconcealment. But she is \"in her seventeenth,\" as the author phrases it,\nand that is her justification.\n\nLeos meditates, constructs a plan--with personal violence as a basis,\nof course. It was their way down there. It is a good plain plan, without\nany imagination in it. He will go out and stand at the front door, and\nwhen these two come out he will \"arrest Ambulinia from the hands of the\ninsolent Elfonzo,\" and thus make for himself a \"more prosperous field of\nimmortality than ever was decreed by Omnipotence, or ever pencil drew\nor artist imagined.\" But, dear me, while he is waiting there the couple\nclimb out at the back window and scurry home! This is romantic enough,\nbut there is a lack of dignity in the situation.\n\nAt this point McClintock puts in the whole of his curious play--which we\nskip.\n\nSome correspondence follows now. The bitter father and the distressed\nlovers write the letters. Elopements are attempted. They are idiotically\nplanned, and they fail. Then we have several pages of romantic powwow\nand confusion signifying nothing. Another elopement is planned; it is to\ntake place on Sunday, when everybody is at church. But the \"hero\" cannot\nkeep the secret; he tells everybody. Another author would have found\nanother instrument when he decided to defeat this elopement; but that is\nnot McClintock's way. He uses the person that is nearest at hand.\n\nThe evasion failed, of course. Ambulinia, in her flight, takes refuge\nin a neighbor's house. Her father drags her home. The villagers gather,\nattracted by the racket.\n\nElfonzo was moved at this sight. The people followed on to see what was\ngoing to become of Ambulinia, while he, with downcast looks, kept at\na distance, until he saw them enter the abode of the father, thrusting\nher, that was the sigh of his soul, out of his presence into a solitary\napartment, when she exclaimed, \"Elfonzo! Elfonzo! oh, Elfonzo! where\nart thou, with all thy heroes? haste, oh! haste, come thou to my relief.\nRide on the wings of the wind! Turn thy force loose like a tempest, and\nroll on thy army like a whirlwind, over this mountain of trouble and\nconfusion. Oh friends! if any pity me, let your last efforts throng upon\nthe green hills, and come to the relief of Ambulinia, who is guilty of\nnothing but innocent love.\" Elfonzo called out with a loud voice, \"My\nGod, can I stand this! arouse up, I beseech you, and put an end to this\ntyranny. Come, my brave boys,\" said he, \"are you ready to go forth to\nyour duty?\" They stood around him. \"Who,\" said he, \"will call us to\narms? Where are my thunderbolts of war? Speak ye, the first who will\nmeet the foe! Who will go forward with me in this ocean of grievous\ntemptation? If there is one who desires to go, let him come and shake\nhands upon the altar of devotion, and swear that he will be a hero; yes,\na Hector in a cause like this, which calls aloud for a speedy remedy.\"\n\"Mine be the deed,\" said a young lawyer, \"and mine alone; Venus alone\nshall quit her station before I will forsake one jot or tittle of my\npromise to you; what is death to me? what is all this warlike army,\nif it is not to win a victory? I love the sleep of the lover and the\nmighty; nor would I give it over till the blood of my enemies should\nwreak with that of my own. But God forbid that our fame should soar\non the blood of the slumberer.\" Mr. Valeer stands at his door with the\nfrown of a demon upon his brow, with his dangerous weapon (3) ready to\nstrike the first man who should enter his door. \"Who will arise and go\nforward through blood and carnage to the rescue of my Ambulinia?\" said\nElfonzo. \"All,\" exclaimed the multitude; and onward they went, with\ntheir implements of battle. Others, of a more timid nature, stood among\nthe distant hills to see the result of the contest.\n\nIt will hardly be believed that after all this thunder and lightning not\na drop of rain fell; but such is the fact. Elfonzo and his gang stood up\nand black-guarded Mr. Valeer with vigor all night, getting their outlay\nback with interest; then in the early morning the army and its general\nretired from the field, leaving the victory with their solitary\nadversary and his crowbar. This is the first time this has happened in\nromantic literature. The invention is original. Everything in this book\nis original; there is nothing hackneyed about it anywhere. Always, in\nother romances, when you find the author leading up to a climax, you\nknow what is going to happen. But in this book it is different; the\nthing which seems inevitable and unavoidable never happens; it is\ncircumvented by the art of the author every time.\n\nAnother elopement was attempted. It failed.\n\nWe have now arrived at the end. But it is not exciting. McClintock\nthinks it is; but it isn't. One day Elfonzo sent Ambulinia another\nnote--a note proposing elopement No. 16. This time the plan is\nadmirable; admirable, sagacious, ingenious, imaginative, deep--oh,\neverything, and perfectly easy. One wonders why it was never thought of\nbefore. This is the scheme. Ambulinia is to leave the breakfast-table,\nostensibly to \"attend to the placing of those flowers, which should have\nbeen done a week ago\"--artificial ones, of course; the others wouldn't\nkeep so long--and then, instead of fixing the flowers, she is to walk\nout to the grove, and go off with Elfonzo. The invention of this plan\noverstrained the author that is plain, for he straightway shows failing\npowers. The details of the plan are not many or elaborate. The author\nshall state them himself--this good soul, whose intentions are always\nbetter than his English:\n\n\"You walk carelessly toward the academy grove, where you will find me\nwith a lightning steed, elegantly equipped to bear you off where we\nshall be joined in wedlock with the first connubial rights.\"\n\nLast scene of all, which the author, now much enfeebled, tries to\nsmarten up and make acceptable to his spectacular heart by introducing\nsome new properties--silver bow, golden harp, olive branch--things that\ncan all come good in an elopement, no doubt, yet are not to be compared\nto an umbrella for real handiness and reliability in an excursion of\nthat kind.\n\nAnd away she ran to the sacred grove, surrounded with glittering pearls,\nthat indicated her coming. Elfonzo hails her with his silver bow and his\ngolden harp. They meet--Ambulinia's countenance brightens--Elfonzo leads\nup the winged steed. \"Mount,\" said he, \"ye true-hearted, ye fearless\nsoul--the day is ours.\" She sprang upon the back of the young\nthunderbolt, a brilliant star sparkles upon her head, with one hand she\ngrasps the reins, and with the other she holds an olive branch. \"Lend\nthy aid, ye strong winds,\" they exclaimed, \"ye moon, ye sun, and all ye\nfair host of heaven, witness the enemy conquered.\" \"Hold,\" said Elfonzo,\n\"thy dashing steed.\" \"Ride on,\" said Ambulinia, \"the voice of thunder is\nbehind us.\" And onward they went, with such rapidity that they very soon\narrived at Rural Retreat, where they dismounted, and were united with\nall the solemnities that usually attended such divine operations.\n\nThere is but one Homer, there is but one Shakespeare, there is but one\nMcClintock--and his immortal book is before you. Homer could not have\nwritten this book, Shakespeare could not have written it, I could not\nhave done it myself. There is nothing just like it in the literature of\nany country or of any epoch. It stands alone; it is monumental. It\nadds G. Ragsdale McClintock's to the sum of the republic's imperishable\nnames.\n\n1. The name here given is a substitute for the one actually attached to\nthe pamphlet.\n\n2. Further on it will be seen that he is a country expert on the fiddle,\nand has a three-township fame.\n\n3. It is a crowbar.\n\n\n\nTHE CURIOUS BOOK\n\nCOMPLETE\n\n(The foregoing review of the great work of G. Ragsdale McClintock is\nliberally illuminated with sample extracts, but these cannot appease the\nappetite. Only the complete book, unabridged, can do that. Therefore it\nis here printed.--M.T.)\n\nTHE ENEMY CONQUERED; OR, LOVE TRIUMPHANT\n\n\nSweet girl, thy smiles are full of charms,\n\nThy voice is sweeter still,\n\nIt fills the breast with fond alarms,\n\nEchoed by every rill.\n\nI begin this little work with an eulogy upon woman, who has ever been\ndistinguished for her perseverance, her constancy, and her devoted\nattention to those upon whom she has been pleased to place her\n_affections_. Many have been the themes upon which writers and public\nspeakers have dwelt with intense and increasing interest. Among these\ndelightful themes stands that of woman, the balm to all our sighs and\ndisappointments, and the most pre-eminent of all other topics. Here the\npoet and orator have stood and gazed with wonder and with admiration;\nthey have dwelt upon her innocence, the ornament of all her virtues.\nFirst viewing her external charms, such as set forth in her form and\nbenevolent countenance, and then passing to the deep hidden springs of\nloveliness and disinterested devotion. In every clime, and in every age,\nshe has been the pride of her _nation_. Her watchfulness is untiring;\nshe who guarded the sepulcher was the first to approach it, and the last\nto depart from its awful yet sublime scene. Even here, in this highly\nfavored land, we look to her for the security of our institutions, and\nfor our future greatness as a nation. But, strange as it may appear,\nwoman's charms and virtues are but slightly appreciated by thousands.\nThose who should raise the standard of female worth, and paint her value\nwith her virtues, in living colors, upon the banners that are fanned by\nthe zephyrs of heaven, and hand them down to posterity as emblematical\nof a rich inheritance, do not properly estimate them.\n\nMan is not sensible, at all times, of the nature and the emotions which\nbear that name; he does not understand, he will not comprehend; his\nintelligence has not expanded to that degree of glory which drinks in\nthe vast revolution of humanity, its end, its mighty destination, and\nthe causes which operated, and are still operating, to produce a\nmore elevated station, and the objects which energize and enliven its\nconsummation. This he is a stranger to; he is not aware that woman is\nthe recipient of celestial love, and that man is dependent upon her\nto perfect his character; that without her, philosophically and truly\nspeaking, the brightest of his intelligence is but the coldness of a\nwinter moon, whose beams can produce no fruit, whose solar light is not\nits own, but borrowed from the great dispenser of effulgent beauty. We\nhave no disposition in the world to flatter the fair sex, we would raise\nthem above those dastardly principles which only exist in little souls,\ncontracted hearts, and a distracted brain. Often does she unfold herself\nin all her fascinating loveliness, presenting the most captivating\ncharms; yet we find man frequently treats such purity of purpose with\nindifference. Why does he do it? Why does he baffle that which is\ninevitably the source of his better days? Is he so much of a stranger\nto those excellent qualities as not to appreciate woman, as not to have\nrespect to her dignity? Since her art and beauty first captivated man,\nshe has been his delight and his comfort; she has shared alike in his\nmisfortunes and in his prosperity.\n\nWhenever the billows of adversity and the tumultuous waves of trouble\nbeat high, her smiles subdue their fury. Should the tear of sorrow and\nthe mournful sigh of grief interrupt the peace of his mind, her voice\nremoves them all, and she bends from her circle to encourage him onward.\nWhen darkness would obscure his mind, and a thick cloud of gloom would\nbewilder its operations, her intelligent eye darts a ray of streaming\nlight into his heart. Mighty and charming is that disinterested devotion\nwhich she is ever ready to exercise toward man, not waiting till\nthe last moment of his danger, but seeks to relieve him in his early\nafflictions. It gushes forth from the expansive fullness of a tender and\ndevoted heart, where the noblest, the purest, and the most elevated and\nrefined feelings are matured and developed in those many kind offices\nwhich invariably make her character.\n\nIn the room of sorrow and sickness, this unequaled characteristic\nmay always been seen, in the performance of the most charitable acts;\nnothing that she can do to promote the happiness of him who she claims\nto be her protector will be omitted; all is invigorated by the animating\nsunbeams which awaken the heart to songs of gaiety. Leaving this point,\nto notice another prominent consideration, which is generally one of\ngreat moment and of vital importance. Invariably she is firm and steady\nin all her pursuits and aims. There is required a combination of forces\nand extreme opposition to drive her from her position; she takes her\nstand, not to be moved by the sound of Apollo's lyre or the curved bow\nof pleasure.\n\nFirm and true to what she undertakes, and that which she requires by\nher own aggrandizement, and regards as being within the strict rules of\npropriety, she will remain stable and unflinching to the last. A more\ngenuine principle is not to be found in the most determined, resolute\nheart of man. For this she deserves to be held in the highest\ncommendation, for this she deserves the purest of all other blessings,\nand for this she deserves the most laudable reward of all others. It is\na noble characteristic and is worthy of imitation of any age. And when\nwe look at it in one particular aspect, it is still magnified, and grows\nbrighter and brighter the more we reflect upon its eternal duration.\nWhat will she not do, when her word as well as her affections and _love\n_are pledged to her lover? Everything that is dear to her on earth,\nall the hospitalities of kind and loving parents, all the sincerity and\nloveliness of sisters, and the benevolent devotion of brothers, who have\nsurrounded her with every comfort; she will forsake them all, quit the\nharmony and sweet sound of the lute and the harp, and throw herself upon\nthe affections of some devoted admirer, in whom she fondly hopes to\nfind more than she has left behind, which is not often realized by many.\nTruth and virtue all combined! How deserving our admiration and love! Ah\ncruel would it be in man, after she has thus manifested such an unshaken\nconfidence in him, and said by her determination to abandon all the\nendearments and blandishments of home, to act a villainous part, and\nprove a traitor in the revolution of his mission, and then turn Hector\nover the innocent victim whom he swore to protect, in the presence of\nHeaven, recorded by the pen of an angel.\n\nStriking as this trait may unfold itself in her character, and as\npre-eminent as it may stand among the fair display of her other\nqualities, yet there is another, which struggles into existence, and\nadds an additional luster to what she already possesses. I mean that\ndisposition in woman which enables her, in sorrow, in grief, and in\ndistress, to bear all with enduring patience. This she has done, and\ncan and will do, amid the din of war and clash of arms. Scenes and\noccurrences which, to every appearance, are calculated to rend the heart\nwith the profoundest emotions of trouble, do not fetter that exalted\nprinciple imbued in her very nature. It is true, her tender and feeling\nheart may often be moved (as she is thus constituted), but she is not\nconquered, she has not given up to the harlequin of disappointments, her\nenergies have not become clouded in the last movement of misfortune, but\nshe is continually invigorated by the archetype of her affections. She\nmay bury her face in her hands, and let the tear of anguish roll, she\nmay promenade the delightful walks of some garden, decorated with all\nthe flowers of nature, or she may steal out along some gently rippling\nstream, and there, as the silver waters uninterruptedly move forward,\nshed her silent tears; they mingle with the waves, and take a last\nfarewell of their agitated home, to seek a peaceful dwelling among\nthe rolling floods; yet there is a voice rushing from her breast,\nthat proclaims _victory _along the whole line and battlement of her\naffections. That voice is the voice of patience and resignation; that\nvoice is one that bears everything calmly and dispassionately, amid the\nmost distressing scenes; when the fates are arrayed against her peace,\nand apparently plotting for her destruction, still she is resigned.\n\nWoman's affections are deep, consequently her troubles may be made to\nsink deep. Although you may not be able to mark the traces of her grief\nand the furrowings of her anguish upon her winning countenance, yet be\nassured they are nevertheless preying upon her inward person, sapping\nthe very foundation of that heart which alone was made for the weal and\nnot the woe of man. The deep recesses of the soul are fields for their\noperation. But they are not destined simply to take the regions of\nthe heart for their dominion, they are not satisfied merely with\ninterrupting her better feelings; but after a while you may see the\nblooming cheek beginning to droop and fade, her intelligent eye no\nlonger sparkles with the starry light of heaven, her vibrating pulse\nlong since changed its regular motion, and her palpitating bosom beats\nonce more for the midday of her glory. Anxiety and care ultimately throw\nher into the arms of the haggard and grim monster death. But, oh, how\npatient, under every pining influence! Let us view the matter in bolder\ncolors; see her when the dearest object of her affections recklessly\nseeks every bacchanalian pleasure, contents himself with the last\nrubbish of creation. With what solicitude she awaits his return! Sleep\nfails to perform its office--she weeps while the nocturnal shades of the\nnight triumph in the stillness. Bending over some favorite book, whilst\nthe author throws before her mind the most beautiful imagery, she\nstartles at every sound. The midnight silence is broken by the solemn\nannouncement of the return of another morning. He is still absent; she\nlistens for that voice which has so often been greeted by the melodies\nof her own; but, alas! stern silence is all that she receives for her\nvigilance.\n\nMark her unwearied watchfulness, as the night passes away. At last,\nbrutalized by the accursed thing, he staggers along with rage, and,\nshivering with cold, he makes his appearance. Not a murmur is heard from\nher lips. On the contrary, she meets him with a smile--she caresses him\nwith tender arms, with all the gentleness and softness of her sex. Here,\nthen, is seen her disposition, beautifully arrayed. Woman, thou art more\nto be admired than the spicy gales of Arabia, and more sought for than\nthe gold of Golconda. We believe that Woman should associate freely with\nman, and we believe that it is for the preservation of her rights. She\nshould become acquainted with the metaphysical designs of those who\ncondescended to sing the siren song of flattery. This, we think, should\nbe according to the unwritten law of decorum, which is stamped upon\nevery innocent heart. The precepts of prudery are often steeped in the\nguilt of contamination, which blasts the expectations of better moments.\nTruth, and beautiful dreams--loveliness, and delicacy of character, with\ncherished affections of the ideal woman--gentle hopes and aspirations,\nare enough to uphold her in the storms of darkness, without the\ntransferred colorings of a stained sufferer. How often have we seen it\nin our public prints, that woman occupies a false station in the world!\nand some have gone so far as to say it was an unnatural one. So long has\nshe been regarded a weak creature, by the rabble and illiterate--they\nhave looked upon her as an insufficient actress on the great stage of\nhuman life--a mere puppet, to fill up the drama of human existence--a\nthoughtless, inactive being--that she has too often come to the same\nconclusion herself, and has sometimes forgotten her high destination, in\nthe meridian of her glory. We have but little sympathy or patience for\nthose who treat her as a mere Rosy Melindi--who are always fishing for\npretty complements--who are satisfied by the gossamer of Romance,\nand who can be allured by the verbosity of high-flown words, rich in\nlanguage, but poor and barren in sentiment. Beset, as she has been, by\nthe intellectual vulgar, the selfish, the designing, the cunning, the\nhidden, and the artful--no wonder she has sometimes folded her wings\nin despair, and forgotten her _heavenly _mission in the delirium of\nimagination; no wonder she searches out some wild desert, to find a\npeaceful home. But this cannot always continue. A new era is moving\ngently onward, old things are rapidly passing away; old superstitions,\nold prejudices, and old notions are now bidding farewell to their old\nassociates and companions, and giving way to one whose wings are plumed\nwith the light of heaven and tinged by the dews of the morning. There\nis a remnant of blessedness that clings to her in spite of all evil\ninfluence, there is enough of the Divine Master left to accomplish the\nnoblest work ever achieved under the canopy of the vaulted skies; and\nthat time is fast approaching, when the picture of the true woman will\nshine from its frame of glory, to captivate, to win back, to restore,\nand to call into being once more, _the object of her mission_.\n\n\nStar of the brave! thy glory shed, O'er all the earth, thy army led--\nBold meteor of immortal birth! Why come from Heaven to dwell on Earth?\n\nMighty and glorious are the days of youth; happy the moments of the\n_lover_, mingled with smiles and tears of his devoted, and long to be\nremembered are the achievements which he gains with a palpitating heart\nand a trembling hand. A bright and lovely dawn, the harbinger of a fair\nand prosperous day, had arisen over the beautiful little village\nof Cumming, which is surrounded by the most romantic scenery in the\nCherokee country. Brightening clouds seemed to rise from the mist of\nthe fair Chattahoochee, to spread their beauty over the thick forest, to\nguide the hero whose bosom beats with aspirations to conquer the enemy\nthat would tarnish his name, and to win back the admiration of his\nlong-tried friend. He endeavored to make his way through Sawney's\nMountain, where many meet to catch the gales that are continually\nblowing for the refreshment of the stranger and the traveler. Surrounded\nas he was by hills on every side, naked rocks dared the efforts of his\nenergies. Soon the sky became overcast, the sun buried itself in the\nclouds, and the fair day gave place to gloomy twilight, which lay\nheavily on the Indian Plains. He remembered an old Indian Castle, that\nonce stood at the foot of the mountain. He thought if he could make his\nway to this, he would rest contented for a short time. The mountain\nair breathed fragrance--a rosy tinge rested on the glassy waters that\nmurmured at its base. His resolution soon brought him to the remains of\nthe red man's hut: he surveyed with wonder and astonishment the decayed\nbuilding, which time had buried in the dust, and thought to himself,\nhis happiness was not yet complete. Beside the shore of the brook sat\na young man, about eighteen or twenty, who seemed to be reading some\nfavorite book, and who had a remarkably noble countenance--eyes which\nbetrayed more than a common mind. This of course made the youth a\nwelcome guest, and gained him friends in whatever condition of life he\nmight be placed. The traveler observed that he was a well-built figure,\nwhich showed strength and grace in every movement. He accordingly\naddressed him in quite a gentlemanly manner, and inquired of him the way\nto the village. After he had received the desired information, and was\nabout taking his leave, the youth said, \"Are you not Major Elfonzo, the\ngreat musician--the champion of a noble cause--the modern Achilles, who\ngained so many victories in the Florida War?\" \"I bear that name,\"\nsaid the Major, \"and those titles, trusting at the same time that the\nministers of grace will carry me triumphantly through all my laudable\nundertakings, and if,\" continued the Major, \"you, sir, are the\npatronizer of noble deeds, I should like to make you my confidant and\nlearn your address.\" The youth looked somewhat amazed, bowed low, mused\nfor a moment, and began: \"My name is Roswell. I have been recently\nadmitted to the bar, and can only give a faint outline of my future\nsuccess in that honorable profession; but I trust, sir, like the Eagle,\nI shall look down from lofty rocks upon the dwellings of man, and shall\never be ready to give you any assistance in my official capacity, and\nwhatever this muscular arm of mine can do, whenever it shall be called\nfrom its buried _greatness_.\" The Major grasped him by the hand, and\nexclaimed: \"O! thou exalted spirit of inspiration--thou flame of burning\nprosperity, may the Heaven-directed blaze be the glare of thy soul, and\nbattle down every rampart that seems to impede your progress!\"\n\nThe road which led to the town presented many attractions. Elfonzo had\nbid farewell to the youth of deep feeling, and was now wending his way\nto the dreaming spot of his fondness. The south winds whistled through\nthe woods, as the waters dashed against the banks, as rapid fire in the\npent furnace roars. This brought him to remember while alone, that he\nquietly left behind the hospitality of a father's house, and gladly\nentered the world, with higher hopes than are often realized. But as he\njourneyed onward, he was mindful of the advice of his father, who had\noften looked sadly on the ground when tears of cruelly deceived hope\nmoistened his eye. Elfonzo had been somewhat of a dutiful son; yet fond\nof the amusements of life--had been in distant lands--had enjoyed the\npleasure of the world and had frequently returned to the scenes of\nhis boyhood, almost destitute of many of the comforts of life. In this\ncondition, he would frequently say to his father, \"Have I offended you,\nthat you look upon me as a stranger, and frown upon me with stinging\nlooks? Will you not favor me with the sound of your voice? If I have\ntrampled upon your veneration, or have spread a humid veil of darkness\naround your expectations, send me back into the world where no heart\nbeats for me--where the foot of man has never yet trod; but give me at\nleast one kind word--allow me to come into the presence sometimes of\nthy winter-worn locks.\" \"Forbid it, Heaven, that I should be angry with\nthee,\" answered the father, \"my son, and yet I send thee back to the\nchildren of the world--to the cold charity of the combat, and to a\nland of victory. I read another destiny in thy countenance--I learn\nthy inclinations from the flame that has already kindled in my soul a\nstrange sensation. It will seek thee, my dear _Elfonzo_, it will find\nthee--thou canst not escape that lighted torch, which shall blot out\nfrom the remembrance of men a long train of prophecies which they have\nforetold against thee. I once thought not so. Once, I was blind; but now\nthe path of life is plain before me, and my sight is clear; yet Elfonzo,\nreturn to thy worldly occupation--take again in thy hand that chord\nof sweet sounds--struggle with the civilized world, and with your own\nheart; fly swiftly to the enchanted ground--let the night-_owl_ send forth\nits screams from the stubborn oak--let the sea sport upon the beach, and\nthe stars sing together; but learn of these, Elfonzo, thy doom, and\nthy hiding-place. Our most innocent as well as our most lawful _desires\n_must often be denied us, that we may learn to sacrifice them to a\nHigher will.\"\n\nRemembering such admonitions with gratitude, Elfonzo was immediately\nurged by the recollection of his father's family to keep moving. His\nsteps became quicker and quicker--he hastened through the _piny _woods,\ndark as the forest was, and with joy he very soon reached the little\nvillage of repose, in whose bosom rested the boldest chivalry. His close\nattention to every important object--his modest questions about whatever\nwas new to him--his reverence for wise old age, and his ardent desire to\nlearn many of the fine arts, soon brought him into respectable notice.\n\nOne mild winter day as he walked along the streets toward the Academy,\nwhich stood upon a small eminence, surrounded by native growth--some\nvenerable in its appearance, others young and prosperous--all seemed\ninviting, and seemed to be the very place for learning as well as for\ngenius to spend its research beneath its spreading shades. He entered\nits classic walls in the usual mode of southern manners. The principal\nof the Institution begged him to be seated and listen to the recitations\nthat were going on. He accordingly obeyed the request, and seemed to\nbe much pleased. After the school was dismissed, and the young hearts\nregained their freedom, with the songs of the evening, laughing at the\nanticipated pleasures of a happy home, while others tittered at the\nactions of the past day, he addressed the teacher in a tone that\nindicated a resolution--with an undaunted mind. He said he had\ndetermined to become a student, if he could meet with his approbation.\n\"Sir,\" said he, \"I have spent much time in the world. I have traveled\namong the uncivilized inhabitants of America. I have met with friends,\nand combated with foes; but none of these gratify my ambition, or decide\nwhat is to be my destiny. I see the learned would have an influence\nwith the voice of the people themselves. The despoilers of the remotest\nkingdoms of the earth refer their differences to this class of persons.\nThis the illiterate and inexperienced little dream of; and now if you\nwill receive me as I am, with these deficiencies--with all my misguided\nopinions, I will give you my honor, sir, that I will never disgrace the\nInstitution, or those who have placed you in this honorable station.\"\nThe instructor, who had met with many disappointments, knew how to\nfeel for a stranger who had been thus turned upon the charities of an\nunfeeling community. He looked at him earnestly, and said: \"Be of\ngood cheer--look forward, sir, to the high destination you may attain.\nRemember, the more elevated the mark at which you aim, the more sure,\nthe more glorious, the more magnificent the prize.\" From wonder to\nwonder, his encouragement led the impatient listener. A strange nature\nbloomed before him--giant streams promised him success--gardens of\nhidden treasures opened to his view. All this, so vividly described,\nseemed to gain a new witchery from his glowing fancy.\n\nIn 1842 he entered the class, and made rapid progress in the English\nand Latin departments. Indeed, he continued advancing with such rapidity\nthat he was like to become the first in his class, and made such\nunexpected progress, and was so studious, that he had almost forgotten\nthe pictured saint of his affections. The fresh wreaths of the pine and\ncypress had waited anxiously to drop once more the dews of Heavens upon\nthe heads of those who had so often poured forth the tender emotions of\ntheir souls under its boughs. He was aware of the pleasure that he had\nseen there. So one evening, as he was returning from his reading, he\nconcluded he would pay a visit to this enchanting spot. Little did he\nthink of witnessing a shadow of his former happiness, though no doubt\nhe wished it might be so. He continued sauntering by the roadside,\nmeditating on the past. The nearer he approached the spot, the more\nanxious he became. At the moment a tall female figure flitted across his\npath, with a bunch of roses in her hand; her countenance showed uncommon\nvivacity, with a resolute spirit; her ivory teeth already appeared as\nshe smiled beautifully, promenading--while her ringlets of hair dangled\nunconsciously around her snowy neck. Nothing was wanting to complete\nher beauty. The tinge of the rose was in full bloom upon her cheek; the\ncharms of sensibility and tenderness were always her associates.. In\nAmbulinia's bosom dwelt a noble soul--one that never faded--one that\nnever was conquered. Her heart yielded to no feeling but the love of\nElfonzo, on whom she gazed with intense delight, and to whom she felt\nherself more closely bound, because he sought the hand of no other.\nElfonzo was roused from his apparent reverie. His books no longer were\nhis inseparable companions--his thoughts arrayed themselves to encourage\nhim in the field of victory. He endeavored to speak to his supposed\nAmbulinia, but his speech appeared not in words. No, his effort was a\nstream of fire, that kindled his soul into a flame of admiration, and\ncarried his senses away captive. Ambulinia had disappeared, to make him\nmore mindful of his duty. As she walked speedily away through the\npiny woods she calmly echoed: \"O! Elfonzo, thou wilt now look from\nthy sunbeams. Thou shalt now walk in a new path--perhaps thy way leads\nthrough darkness; but fear not, the stars foretell happiness.\"\n\nNot many days afterward, as surrounded by fragrant flowers she sat one\nevening at twilight, to enjoy the cool breeze that whispered notes of\nmelody along the distant groves, the little birds perched on every\nside, as if to watch the movements of their new visitor. The bells were\ntolling when Elfonzo silently stole along by the wild wood flowers,\nholding in his hand his favorite instrument of music--his eye\ncontinually searching for Ambulinia, who hardly seemed to perceive him,\nas she played carelessly with the songsters that hopped from branch to\nbranch. Nothing could be more striking than the difference between the\ntwo. Nature seemed to have given the more tender soul to Elfonzo, and\nthe stronger and more courageous to Ambulinia. A deep feeling spoke from\nthe eyes of Elfonzo--such a feeling as can only be expressed by those\nwho are blessed as admirers, and by those who are able to return the\nsame with sincerity of heart. He was a few years older than Ambulinia:\nshe had turned a little into her seventeenth. He had almost grown up\nin the Cherokee country, with the same equal proportions as one of the\nnatives. But little intimacy had existed between them until the year\nforty-one--because the youth felt that the character of such a lovely\ngirl was too exalted to inspire any other feeling than that of quiet\nreverence. But as lovers will not always be insulted, at all times and\nunder all circumstances, by the frowns and cold looks of crabbed old\nage, which should continually reflect dignity upon those around, and\ntreat unfortunate as well as the fortunate with a graceful mien, he\ncontinued to use diligence and perseverance. All this lighted a spark\nin his heart that changed his whole character, and like the unyielding\nDeity that follows the storm to check its rage in the forest, he\nresolves for the first time to shake off his embarrassment and return\nwhere he had before only worshiped.\n\nIt could not escape Ambulinia's penetrating eye that he sought an\ninterview with her, which she as anxiously avoided, and assumed a more\ndistant calmness than before, seemingly to destroy all hope. After many\nefforts and struggles with his own person, with timid steps the Major\napproached the damsel, with the same caution as he would have done in\na field of battle. \"Lady Ambulinia,\" said he, trembling, \"I have\nlong desired a moment like this. I dare not let it escape. I fear the\nconsequences; yet I hope your indulgence will at least hear my petition.\nCan you not anticipate what I would say, and what I am about to express?\nWill not you, like Minerva, who sprung from the brain of Jupiter,\nrelease me from thy winding chains or cure me--\" \"Say no more, Elfonzo,\"\nanswered Ambulinia, with a serious look, raising her hand as if she\nintended to swear eternal hatred against the whole world; \"another\nlady in my place would have perhaps answered your question in bitter\ncoldness. I know not the little arts of my sex. I care but little for\nthe vanity of those who would chide me, and am unwilling as well as\nshamed to be guilty of anything that would lead you to think 'all is not\ngold that glitters'; so be not rash in your resolution. It is better\nto repent now than to do it in a more solemn hour. Yes, I know what you\nwould say. I know you have a costly gift for me--the noblest that man\ncan make--_your heart!_ you should not offer it to one so unworthy.\nHeaven, you know, has allowed my father's house to be made a house of\nsolitude, a home of silent obedience, which my parents say is more to\nbe admired than big names and high-sounding titles. Notwithstanding all\nthis, let me speak the emotions of an honest heart; allow me to say in\nthe fullness of my hopes that I anticipate better days. The bird may\nstretch its wings toward the sun, which it can never reach; and flowers\nof the field appear to ascend in the same direction, because they cannot\ndo otherwise; but man confides his complaints to the saints in whom he\nbelieves; for in their abodes of light they know no more sorrow. From\nyour confession and indicative looks, I must be that person; if so,\ndeceive not yourself.\"\n\nElfonzo replied, \"Pardon me, my dear madam, for my frankness. I have\nloved you from my earliest days; everything grand and beautiful hath\nborne the image of Ambulinia; while precipices on every hand surrounded\nme, your _guardian angel_ stood and beckoned me away from the deep\nabyss. In every trial, in every misfortune, I have met with your helping\nhand; yet I never dreamed or dared to cherish thy love till a voice\nimpaired with age encouraged the cause, and declared they who acquired\nthy favor should win a victory. I saw how Leos worshipped thee. I felt\nmy own unworthiness. I began to _know jealousy_--a strong guest, indeed,\nin my bosom--yet I could see if I gained your admiration Leos was to be\nmy rival. I was aware that he had the influence of your parents, and the\nwealth of a deceased relative, which is too often mistaken for permanent\nand regular tranquillity; yet I have determined by your permission\nto beg an interest in your prayers--to ask you to animate my drooping\nspirits by your smiles and your winning looks; for if you but speak I\nshall be conqueror, my enemies shall stagger like Olympus shakes. And\nthough earth and sea may tremble, and the charioteer of the sun may\nforget his dashing steed, yet I am assured that it is only to arm me\nwith divine weapons which will enable me to complete my long-tried\nintention.\"\n\n\"Return to your self, Elfonzo,\" said Ambulinia, pleasantly; \"a dream\nof vision has disturbed your intellect; you are above the atmosphere,\ndwelling in the celestial regions; nothing is there that urges or\nhinders, nothing that brings discord into our present litigation. I\nentreat you to condescend a little, and be a man, and forget it all.\nWhen Homer describes the battle of the gods and noble men fighting with\ngiants and dragons, they represent under this image our struggles with\nthe delusions of our passions. You have exalted me, an unhappy girl, to\nthe skies; you have called me a saint, and portrayed in your imagination\nan angel in human form. Let her remain such to you, let her continue to\nbe as you have supposed, and be assured that she will consider a share\nin your esteem as her highest treasure. Think not that I would allure\nyou from the path in which your conscience leads you; for you know I\nrespect the conscience of others, as I would die for my own. Elfonzo, if\nI am worthy of thy love, let such conversation never again pass between\nus. Go, seek a nobler theme! we will seek it in the stream of time as\nthe sun set in the Tigris.\" As she spake these words she grasped the\nhand of Elfonzo, saying at the same time, \"Peace and prosperity\nattend you, my hero: be up and doing!\" Closing her remarks with this\nexpression, she walked slowly away, leaving Elfonzo astonished and\namazed. He ventured not to follow or detain her. Here he stood alone,\ngazing at the stars; confounded as he was, here he stood. The rippling\nstream rolled on at his feet. Twilight had already begun to draw her\nsable mantle over the earth, and now and then the fiery smoke would\nascend from the little town which lay spread out before him. The\ncitizens seemed to be full of life and good-humor; but poor Elfonzo saw\nnot a brilliant scene. No; his future life stood before him, stripped of\nthe hopes that once adorned all his sanguine desires. \"Alas!\" said he,\n\"am I now Grief's disappointed son at last.\" Ambulinia's image rose\nbefore his fancy. A mixture of ambition and greatness of soul moved upon\nhis young heart, and encouraged him to bear all his crosses with the\npatience of a Job, notwithstanding he had to encounter with so many\nobstacles. He still endeavored to prosecute his studies, and reasonably\nprogressed in his education. Still, he was not content; there was\nsomething yet to be done before his happiness was complete. He would\nvisit his friends and acquaintances. They would invite him to social\nparties, insisting that he should partake of the amusements that were\ngoing on. This he enjoyed tolerably well. The ladies and gentlemen were\ngenerally well pleased with the Major; as he delighted all with his\nviolin, which seemed to have a thousand chords--more symphonious than\nthe Muses of Apollo and more enchanting than the ghost of the Hills.\nHe passed some days in the country. During that time Leos had made many\ncalls upon Ambulinia, who was generally received with a great deal of\ncourtesy by the family. They thought him to be a young man worthy of\nattention, though he had but little in his soul to attract the attention\nor even win the affections of her whose graceful manners had almost made\nhim a slave to every bewitching look that fell from her eyes. Leos made\nseveral attempts to tell her of his fair prospects--how much he loved\nher, and how much it would add to his bliss if he could but think she\nwould be willing to share these blessings with him; but, choked by his\nundertaking, he made himself more like an inactive drone than he did\nlike one who bowed at beauty's shrine.\n\nElfonzo again wends his way to the stately walls and new-built village.\nHe now determines to see the end of the prophesy which had been foretold\nto him. The clouds burst from his sight; he believes if he can but see\nhis Ambulinia, he can open to her view the bloody altars that have\nbeen misrepresented to stigmatize his name. He knows that her breast is\ntransfixed with the sword of reason, and ready at all times to detect\nthe hidden villainy of her enemies. He resolves to see her in her own\nhome, with the consoling theme: \"'I can but perish if I go.' Let\nthe consequences be what they may,\" said he, \"if I die, it shall be\ncontending and struggling for my own rights.\"\n\nNight had almost overtaken him when he arrived in town. Colonel Elder, a\nnoble-hearted, high-minded, and independent man, met him at his door as\nusual, and seized him by the hand. \"Well, Elfonzo,\" said the Colonel,\n\"how does the world use you in your efforts?\" \"I have no objection to\nthe world,\" said Elfonzo, \"but the people are rather singular in some of\ntheir opinions.\" \"Aye, well,\" said the Colonel, \"you must remember that\ncreation is made up of many mysteries; just take things by the right\nhandle; be always sure you know which is the smooth side before you\nattempt your polish; be reconciled to your fate, be it what it may;\nand never find fault with your condition, unless your complaining will\nbenefit it. Perseverance is a principle that should be commendable\nin those who have judgment to govern it. I should never have been so\nsuccessful in my hunting excursions had I waited till the deer, by some\nmagic dream, had been drawn to the muzzle of the gun before I made an\nattempt to fire at the game that dared my boldness in the wild forest.\nThe great mystery in hunting seems to be--a good marksman, a resolute\nmind, a fixed determination, and my word for it, you will never return\nhome without sounding your horn with the breath of a new victory. And\nso with every other undertaking. Be confident that your ammunition is of\nthe right kind--always pull your trigger with a steady hand, and so soon\nas you perceive a calm, touch her off, and the spoils are yours.\"\n\nThis filled him with redoubled vigor, and he set out with a stronger\nanxiety than ever to the home of Ambulinia. A few short steps soon\nbrought him to the door, half out of breath. He rapped gently.\nAmbulinia, who sat in the parlor alone, suspecting Elfonzo was near,\nventured to the door, opened it, and beheld the hero, who stood in an\nhumble attitude, bowed gracefully, and as they caught each other's looks\nthe light of peace beamed from the eyes of Ambulinia. Elfonzo caught the\nexpression; a halloo of smothered shouts ran through every vein, and for\nthe first time he dared to impress a kiss upon her cheek. The scene was\noverwhelming; had the temptation been less animating, he would not have\nventured to have acted so contrary to the desired wish of his Ambulinia;\nbut who could have withstood the irrestistable temptation! What society\ncondemns the practice but a cold, heartless, uncivilized people that\nknow nothing of the warm attachments of refined society? Here the dead\nwas raised to his long-cherished hopes, and the lost was found. Here\nall doubt and danger were buried in the vortex of oblivion; sectional\ndifferences no longer disunited their opinions; like the freed bird from\nthe cage, sportive claps its rustling wings, wheels about to heaven in a\njoyful strain, and raises its notes to the upper sky. Ambulinia insisted\nupon Elfonzo to be seated, and give her a history of his unnecessary\nabsence; assuring him the family had retired, consequently they would\never remain ignorant of his visit. Advancing toward him, she gave a\nbright display of her rosy neck, and from her head the ambrosial locks\nbreathed divine fragrance; her robe hung waving to his view, while she\nstood like a goddess confessed before him.\n\n\"It does seem to me, my dear sir,\" said Ambulinia, \"that you have been\ngone an age. Oh, the restless hours I have spent since I last saw you,\nin yon beautiful grove. There is where I trifled with your feelings for\nthe express purpose of trying your attachment for me. I now find you are\ndevoted; but ah! I trust you live not unguarded by the powers of Heaven.\nThough oft did I refuse to join my hand with thine, and as oft did\nI cruelly mock thy entreaties with borrowed shapes: yes, I feared to\nanswer thee by terms, in words sincere and undissembled. O! could I\npursue, and you have leisure to hear the annals of my woes, the evening\nstar would shut Heaven's gates upon the impending day before my\ntale would be finished, and this night would find me soliciting your\nforgiveness.\"\n\n\"Dismiss thy fears and thy doubts,\" replied Elfonzo.\n\n\"Look, O! look: that angelic look of thine--bathe not thy visage in\ntears; banish those floods that are gathering; let my confession and my\npresence bring thee some relief.\" \"Then, indeed, I will be cheerful,\"\nsaid Ambulinia, \"and I think if we will go to the exhibition this\nevening, we certainly will see something worthy of our attention. One\nof the most tragical scenes is to be acted that has ever been witnessed,\nand one that every jealous-hearted person should learn a lesson from. It\ncannot fail to have a good effect, as it will be performed by those who\nare young and vigorous, and learned as well as enticing. You are aware,\nMajor Elfonzo, who are to appear on the stage, and what the characters\nare to represent.\" \"I am acquainted with the circumstances,\" replied\nElfonzo, \"and as I am to be one of the musicians upon that interesting\noccasion, I should be much gratified if you would favor me with your\ncompany during the hours of the exercises.\"\n\n\"What strange notions are in your mind?\" inquired Ambulinia. \"Now I know\nyou have something in view, and I desire you to tell me why it is that\nyou are so anxious that I should continue with you while the exercises\nare going on; though if you think I can add to your happiness and\npredilections, I have no particular objection to acquiesce in your\nrequest. Oh, I think I foresee, now, what you anticipate.\" \"And will\nyou have the goodness to tell me what you think it will be?\" inquired\nElfonzo. \"By all means,\" answered Ambulinia; \"a rival, sir, you would\nfancy in your own mind; but let me say for you, fear not! fear not! I\nwill be one of the last persons to disgrace my sex by thus encouraging\nevery one who may feel disposed to visit me, who may honor me with their\ngraceful bows and their choicest compliments. It is true that young men\ntoo often mistake civil politeness for the finer emotions of the heart,\nwhich is tantamount to courtship; but, ah! how often are they deceived,\nwhen they come to test the weight of sunbeams with those on whose\nstrength hangs the future happiness of an untried life.\"\n\nThe people were now rushing to the Academy with impatient anxiety; the\nband of music was closely followed by the students; then the parents\nand guardians; nothing interrupted the glow of spirits which ran through\nevery bosom, tinged with the songs of a Virgil and the tide of a Homer.\nElfonzo and Ambulinia soon repaired to the scene, and fortunately for\nthem both the house was so crowded that they took their seats together\nin the music department, which was not in view of the auditory. This\nfortuitous circumstances added more the bliss of the Major than a\nthousand such exhibitions would have done. He forgot that he was man;\nmusic had lost its charms for him; whenever he attempted to carry his\npart, the string of the instrument would break, the bow became stubborn,\nand refused to obey the loud calls of the audience. Here, he said, was\nthe paradise of his home, the long-sought-for opportunity; he felt as\nthough he could send a million supplications to the throne of Heaven for\nsuch an exalted privilege. Poor Leos, who was somewhere in the crowd,\nlooking as attentively as if he was searching for a needle in a\nhaystack; here he stood, wondering to himself why Ambulinia was not\nthere. \"Where can she be? Oh! if she was only here, how I could relish\nthe scene! Elfonzo is certainly not in town; but what if he is? I have\ngot the wealth, if I have not the dignity, and I am sure that the squire\nand his lady have always been particular friends of mine, and I think\nwith this assurance I shall be able to get upon the blind side of the\nrest of the family and make the heaven-born Ambulinia the mistress of\nall I possess.\" Then, again, he would drop his head, as if attempting\nto solve the most difficult problem in Euclid. While he was thus\nconjecturing in his own mind, a very interesting part of the exhibition\nwas going on, which called the attention of all present. The curtains\nof the stage waved continually by the repelled forces that were given\nto them, which caused Leos to behold Ambulinia leaning upon the chair\nof Elfonzo. Her lofty beauty, seen by the glimmering of the chandelier,\nfilled his heart with rapture, he knew not how to contain himself; to go\nwhere they were would expose him to ridicule; to continue where he was,\nwith such an object before him, without being allowed an explanation in\nthat trying hour, would be to the great injury of his mental as well as\nof his physical powers; and, in the name of high heaven, what must he\ndo? Finally, he resolved to contain himself as well as he conveniently\ncould, until the scene was over, and then he would plant himself at the\ndoor, to arrest Ambulinia from the hands of the insolent Elfonzo, and\nthus make for himself a more prosperous field of immortality than ever\nwas decreed by Omnipotence, or ever pencil drew or artist imagined.\nAccordingly he made himself sentinel, immediately after the performance\nof the evening--retained his position apparently in defiance of all the\nworld; he waited, he gazed at every lady, his whole frame trembled; here\nhe stood, until everything like human shape had disappeared from the\ninstitution, and he had done nothing; he had failed to accomplish that\nwhich he so eagerly sought for. Poor, unfortunate creature! he had\nnot the eyes of an Argus, or he might have seen his Juno and Elfonzo,\nassisted by his friend Sigma, make their escape from the window, and,\nwith the rapidity of a race-horse, hurry through the blast of the storm\nto the residence of her father, without being recognized. He did not\ntarry long, but assured Ambulinia the endless chain of their existence\nwas more closely connected than ever, since he had seen the virtuous,\ninnocent, imploring, and the constant Amelia murdered by the\njealous-hearted Farcillo, the accursed of the land.\n\nThe following is the tragical scene, which is only introduced to show\nthe subject-matter that enabled Elfonzo to come to such a determinate\nresolution that nothing of the kind should ever dispossess him of his\ntrue character, should he be so fortunate as to succeed in his present\nundertaking.\n\nAmelia was the wife of Farcillo, and a virtuous woman; Gracia, a young\nlady, was her particular friend and confidant. Farcillo grew jealous\nof Amelia, murders her, finds out that he was deceived, _and stabs\nhimself_. Amelia appears alone, talking to herself.\n\nA. Hail, ye solitary ruins of antiquity, ye sacred tombs and silent\nwalks! it is your aid I invoke; it is to you, my soul, wrapt in deep\nmediation, pours forth its prayer. Here I wander upon the stage of\nmortality, since the world hath turned against me. Those whom I believed\nto be my friends, alas! are now my enemies, planting thorns in all my\npaths, poisoning all my pleasures, and turning the past to pain. What a\nlingering catalogue of sighs and tears lies just before me, crowding\nmy aching bosom with the fleeting dream of humanity, which must shortly\nterminate. And to what purpose will all this bustle of life, these\nagitations and emotions of the heart have conduced, if it leave behind\nit nothing of utility, if it leave no traces of improvement? Can it be\nthat I am deceived in my conclusions? No, I see that I have nothing to\nhope for, but everything to fear, which tends to drive me from the walks\nof time.\n\n\nOh! in this dead night, if loud winds arise,\n\nTo lash the surge and bluster in the skies,\n\nMay the west its furious rage display,\n\nToss me with storms in the watery way.\n\n(Enter Gracia.)\n\nG. Oh, Amelia, is it you, the object of grief, the daughter of opulence,\nof wisdom and philosophy, that thus complaineth? It cannot be you are\nthe child of misfortune, speaking of the monuments of former ages, which\nwere allotted not for the reflection of the distressed, but for the\nfearless and bold.\n\nA. Not the child of poverty, Gracia, or the heir of glory and peace, but\nof fate. Remember, I have wealth more than wit can number; I have had\npower more than kings could emcompass; yet the world seems a desert; all\nnature appears an afflictive spectacle of warring passions. This blind\nfatality, that capriciously sports with the rules and lives of mortals,\ntells me that the mountains will never again send forth the water of\ntheir springs to my thirst. Oh, that I might be freed and set at liberty\nfrom wretchedness! But I fear, I fear this will never be.\n\nG. Why, Amelia, this untimely grief? What has caused the sorrows that\nbespeak better and happier days, to those lavish out such heaps of\nmisery? You are aware that your instructive lessons embellish the mind\nwith holy truths, by wedding its attention to none but great and noble\naffections.\n\nA. This, of course, is some consolation. I will ever love my own species\nwith feelings of a fond recollection, and while I am studying to advance\nthe universal philanthropy, and the spotless name of my own sex, I will\ntry to build my own upon the pleasing belief that I have accelerated the\nadvancement of one who whispers of departed confidence.\n\n\nAnd I, like some poor peasant fated to reside\n\nRemote from friends, in a forest wide.\n\nOh, see what woman's woes and human wants require,\n\nSince that great day hath spread the seed of sinful fire.\n\nG. Look up, thou poor disconsolate; you speak of quitting earthly\nenjoyments. Unfold thy bosom to a friend, who would be willing to\nsacrifice every enjoyment for the restoration of the dignity and\ngentleness of mind which used to grace your walks, and which is so\nnatural to yourself; not only that, but your paths were strewed with\nflowers of every hue and of every order.\n\n\nWith verdant green the mountains glow,\n\nFor thee, for thee, the lilies grow;\n\nFar stretched beneath the tented hills,\n\nA fairer flower the valley fills.\n\nA. Oh, would to Heaven I could give you a short narrative of my\nformer prospects for happiness, since you have acknowledged to be an\nunchangeable confidant--the richest of all other blessings. Oh, ye names\nforever glorious, ye celebrated scenes, ye renowned spot of my hymeneal\nmoments; how replete is your chart with sublime reflections! How many\nprofound vows, decorated with immaculate deeds, are written upon the\nsurface of that precious spot of earth where I yielded up my life of\ncelibacy, bade youth with all its beauties a final adieu, took a last\nfarewell of the laurels that had accompanied me up the hill of my\njuvenile career. It was then I began to descend toward the valley of\ndisappointment and sorrow; it was then I cast my little bark upon a\nmysterious ocean of wedlock, with him who then smiled and caressed me,\nbut, alas! now frowns with bitterness, and has grown jealous and cold\ntoward me, because the ring he gave me is misplaced or lost. Oh, bear\nme, ye flowers of memory, softly through the eventful history of past\ntimes; and ye places that have witnessed the progression of man in\nthe circle of so many societies, and, of, aid my recollection, while I\nendeavor to trace the vicissitudes of a life devoted in endeavoring to\ncomfort him that I claim as the object of my wishes.\n\n\nAh! ye mysterious men, of all the world, how few\n\nAct just to Heaven and to your promise true!\n\nBut He who guides the stars with a watchful eye,\n\nThe deeds of men lay open without disguise;\n\nOh, this alone will avenge the wrongs I bear,\n\nFor all the oppressed are His peculiar care.\n\n(F. makes a slight noise.)\n\nA. Who is there--Farcillo?\n\nG. Then I must gone. Heaven protect you. Oh, Amelia, farewell, be of\ngood cheer.\n\n\nMay you stand like Olympus' towers,\n\nAgainst earth and all jealous powers!\n\nMay you, with loud shouts ascend on high\n\nSwift as an eagle in the upper sky.\n\nA. Why so cold and distant tonight, Farcillo? Come, let us each other\ngreet, and forget all the past, and give security for the future.\n\nF. Security! talk to me about giving security for the future--what an\ninsulting requisition! Have you said your prayers tonight, Madam Amelia?\n\nA. Farcillo, we sometimes forget our duty, particularly when we expect\nto be caressed by others.\n\nF. If you bethink yourself of any crime, or of any fault, that is yet\nconcealed from the courts of Heaven and the thrones of grace, I bid you\nask and solicit forgiveness for it now.\n\nA. Oh, be kind, Farcillo, don't treat me so. What do you mean by all\nthis?\n\nF. Be kind, you say; you, madam, have forgot that kindness you owe to\nme, and bestowed it upon another; you shall suffer for your conduct\nwhen you make your peace with your God. I would not slay thy unprotected\nspirit. I call to Heaven to be my guard and my watch--I would not kill\nthy soul, in which all once seemed just, right, and perfect; but I must\nbe brief, woman.\n\nA. What, talk you of killing? Oh, Farcillo, Farcillo, what is the\nmatter?\n\nF. Aye, I do, without doubt; mark what I say, Amelia.\n\nA. Then, O God, O Heaven, and Angels, be propitious, and have mercy upon\nme.\n\nF. Amen to that, madam, with all my heart, and with all my soul.\n\nA. Farcillo, listen to me one moment; I hope you will not kill me.\n\nF. Kill you, aye, that I will; attest it, ye fair host of light, record\nit, ye dark imps of hell!\n\nA. Oh, I fear you--you are fatal when darkness covers your brow; yet I\nknow not why I should fear, since I never wronged you in all my life. I\nstand, sir, guiltless before you.\n\nF. You pretend to say you are guiltless! Think of thy sins, Amelia;\nthink, oh, think, hidden woman.\n\nA. Wherein have I not been true to you? That death is unkind, cruel, and\nunnatural, that kills for living.\n\nF. Peace, and be still while I unfold to thee.\n\nA. I will, Farcillo, and while I am thus silent, tell me the cause of\nsuch cruel coldness in an hour like this.\n\nF. That _ring_, oh, that ring I so loved, and gave thee as the ring of\nmy heart; the allegiance you took to be faithful, when it was presented;\nthe kisses and smiles with which you honored it. You became tired of\nthe donor, despised it as a plague, and finally gave it to Malos, the\nhidden, the vile traitor.\n\nA. No, upon my word and honor, I never did; I appeal to the Most High to\nbear me out in this matter. Send for Malos, and ask him.\n\nF. Send for Malos, aye! Malos you wish to see; I thought so. I knew you\ncould not keep his name concealed. Amelia, sweet Amelia, take heed,\ntake heed of perjury; you are on the stage of death, to suffer for _your\nsins_.\n\nA. What, not to die I hope, my Farcillo, my ever beloved.\n\nF. Yes, madam, to die a traitor's death. Shortly your spirit shall take\nits exit; therefore confess freely thy sins, for to deny tends only to\nmake me groan under the bitter cup thou hast made for me. Thou art to\ndie with the name of traitor on thy brow!\n\nA. Then, O Lord, have mercy upon me; give me courage, give me grace and\nfortitude to stand this hour of trial.\n\nF. Amen, I say, with all my heart.\n\nA. And, oh, Farcillo, will you have mercy, too? I never intentionally\noffended you in all my life, never _loved _Malos, never gave him cause\nto think so, as the high court of Justice will acquit me before its\ntribunal.\n\nF. Oh, false, perjured woman, thou didst chill my blood, and makest me a\ndemon like thyself. I saw the ring.\n\nA. He found it, then, or got it clandestinely; send for him, and let him\nconfess the truth; let his confession be sifted.\n\nF. And you still wish to see him! I tell you, madam, he hath already\nconfessed, and thou knowest the darkness of thy heart.\n\nA. What, my deceived Farcillo, that I gave him the ring, in which all my\naffections were concentrated? Oh, surely not.\n\nF. Aye, he did. Ask thy conscience, and it will speak with a voice of\nthunder to thy soul.\n\nA. He will not say so, he dare not, he cannot.\n\nF. No, he will not say so now, because his mouth, I trust, is hushed in\ndeath, and his body stretched to the four winds of heaven, to be torn to\npieces by carnivorous birds.\n\nA. What, he is dead, and gone to the world of spirits with that\ndeclaration in his mouth? Oh, unhappy man! Oh, insupportable hour!\n\nF. Yes, and had all his sighs and looks and tears been lives, my great\nrevenge could have slain them all, without the least condemnation.\n\nA. Alas! he is ushered into eternity without testing the matter for\nwhich I am abused and sentenced and condemned to die.\n\nF. Cursed, infernal woman! Weepest thou for him to my face? He that hath\nrobbed me of my peace, my energy, the whole love of my life? Could I\ncall the fabled Hydra, I would have him live and perish, survive and\ndie, until the sun itself would grow dim with age. I would make him\nhave the thirst of a Tantalus, and roll the wheel of an Ixion, until the\nstars of heaven should quit their brilliant stations.\n\nA. Oh, invincible God, save me! Oh, unsupportable moment! Oh, heavy\nhour! Banish me, Farcillo--send me where no eye can ever see me, where\nno sound shall ever great my ear; but, oh, slay me not, Farcillo; vent\nthy rage and thy spite upon this emaciated frame of mine, only spare my\nlife.\n\nF. Your petitions avail nothing, cruel Amelia.\n\nA. Oh, Farcillo, perpetrate the dark deed tomorrow; let me live till\nthen, for my past kindness to you, and it may be some kind angel will\nshow to you that I am not only the object of innocence, but one who\nnever loved another but your noble self.\n\nF. Amelia, the decree has gone forth, it is to be done, and that\nquickly; thou art to die, madam.\n\nA. But half an hour allow me, to see my father and my only child, to\ntell her the treachery and vanity of this world.\n\nF. There is no alternative, there is no pause: my daughter shall not see\nits deceptive mother die; your father shall not know that his daughter\nfell disgraced, despised by all but her enchanting Malos.\n\nA. Oh, Farcillo, put up thy threatening dagger into its scabbard; let\nit rest and be still, just while I say one prayer for thee and for my\nchild.\n\nF. It is too late, thy doom is fixed, thou hast not confessed to Heaven\nor to me, my child's protector--thou art to die. Ye powers of earth and\nheaven, protect and defend me in this alone. (_Stabs her while imploring\nfor mercy._)\n\nA. Oh, Farcillo, Farcillo, a guiltless death I die.\n\nF. Die! die! die!\n\n(Gracia enters running, falls on her knees weeping, and kisses Amelia.)\n\nG. Oh, Farcillo, Farcillo! oh, Farcillo!\n\nF. I am here, the genius of the age, and the avenger of my wrongs.\n\nG. Oh, lady, speak once more; sweet Amelia, oh, speak again. Gone,\ngone--yes, forever gone! Farcillo, oh, cold-hearted Farcillo, some evil\nfiend hath urged you to do this, Farcillo.\n\nF. Say not so again, or you shall receive the same fate. I did the\nglorious deed, madam--beware, then, how you talk.\n\nG. I fear not your implements of war; I will let you know you have not\nthe power to do me harm. If you have a heart of triple brass, it shall\nbe reached and melted, and thy blood shall chill thy veins and grow\nstiff in thy arteries. Here is the ring of the virtuous and innocent\nmurdered Amelia; I obtained it from Malos, who yet lives, in hopes\nthat he will survive the wound given him, and says he got it\nclandestinely--declares Amelia to be the princess of truth and virtue,\ninvulnerable to anything like forgetting her first devotion to thee.\nThe world has heard of your conduct and your jealousy, and with one\nuniversal voice declares her to be the best of all in piety; that she is\nthe star of this great universe, and a more virtuous woman never lived\nsince the wheels of time began. Oh, had you waited till tomorrow, or\nuntil I had returned, some kind window would have been opened to her\nrelief. But, alas! she is gone--yes, forever gone, to try the realities\nof an unknown world!\n\n(Farcillo leaning over the body of Amelia.)\n\nF. Malos not dead, and here is my ring! Oh, Amelia! falsely murdered!\nOh, bloody deed! Oh, wretch that I am! Oh, angels forgive me! Oh, God,\nwithhold thy vengeance! Oh, Amelia! if Heaven would make a thousand\nworlds like this, set with diamonds, and all of one perfect chrysolite,\nI would not have done this for them all, I would not have frowned and\ncursed as I did. Oh, she was heavenly true, nursed in the very lap\nof bright angels! Cursed slave that I am! Jealousy, oh! thou infernal\ndemon! Lost, lost to every sense of honor! Oh! Amelia--heaven-born\nAmelia--dead, dead! Oh! oh! oh!--then let me die with thee. Farewell!\nfarewell! ye world that deceived me! (_Stabs himself_.)\n\nSoon after the excitement of this tragical scene was over, and the\nenlisted feeling for Amelia had grown more buoyant with Elfonzo and\nAmbulinia, he determined to visit his retired home, and make the\nnecessary improvements to enjoy a better day; consequently he conveyed\nthe following lines to Ambulinia:\n\n\nGo tell the world that hope is glowing,\n\nGo bid the rocks their silence break,\n\nGo tell the stars that love is glowing,\n\nThen bid the hero his lover take.\n\nIn the region where scarcely the foot of man hath ever trod, where the\nwoodman hath not found his way, lies a blooming grove, seen only by the\nsun when he mounts his lofty throne, visited only by the light of the\nstars, to whom are entrusted the guardianship of earth, before the\nsun sinks to rest in his rosy bed. High cliffs of rocks surround the\nromantic place, and in the small cavity of the rocky wall grows the\ndaffodil clear and pure; and as the wind blows along the enchanting\nlittle mountain which surrounds the lonely spot, it nourishes the\nflowers with the dew-drops of heaven. Here is the seat of Elfonzo;\ndarkness claims but little victory over this dominion, and in vain does\nshe spread out her gloomy wings. Here the waters flow perpetually, and\nthe trees lash their tops together to bid the welcome visitor a happy\nmuse. Elfonzo, during his short stay in the country, had fully persuaded\nhimself that it was his duty to bring this solemn matter to an issue.\nA duty that he individually owed, as a gentleman, to the parents of\nAmbulinia, a duty in itself involving not only his own happiness and\nhis own standing in society, but one that called aloud the act of the\nparties to make it perfect and complete. How he should communicate his\nintentions to get a favorable reply, he was at a loss to know; he knew\nnot whether to address Esq. Valeer in prose or in poetry, in a jocular\nor an argumentative manner, or whether he should use moral suasion,\nlegal injunction, or seizure and take by reprisal; if it was to do the\nlatter, he would have no difficulty in deciding in his own mind, but his\ngentlemanly honor was at stake; so he concluded to address the following\nletter to the father and mother of Ambulinia, as his address in person\nhe knew would only aggravate the old gentleman, and perhaps his lady.\n\nCumming, Ga., January 22, 1844\n\nMr. and Mrs. Valeer--\n\nAgain I resume the pleasing task of addressing you, and once more beg\nan immediate answer to my many salutations. From every circumstance that\nhas taken place, I feel in duty bound to comply with my obligations; to\nforfeit my word would be more than I dare do; to break my pledge, and my\nvows that have been witnessed, sealed, and delivered in the presence of\nan unseen Deity, would be disgraceful on my part, as well as ruinous to\nAmbulinia. I wish no longer to be kept in suspense about this matter. I\nwish to act gentlemanly in every particular. It is true, the promises I\nhave made are unknown to any but Ambulinia, and I think it unnecessary\nto here enumerate them, as they who promise the most generally perform\nthe least. Can you for a moment doubt my sincerity or my character? My\nonly wish is, sir, that you may calmly and dispassionately look at\nthe situation of the case, and if your better judgment should dictate\notherwise, my obligations may induce me to pluck the flower that you\nso diametrically opposed. We have sworn by the saints--by the gods\nof battle, and by that faith whereby just men are made perfect--to be\nunited. I hope, my dear sir, you will find it convenient as well as\nagreeable to give me a favorable answer, with the signature of Mrs.\nValeer, as well as yourself.\n\nWith very great esteem,\n\nyour humble servant,\n\nJ. I. Elfonzo.\n\nThe moon and stars had grown pale when Ambulinia had retired to rest. A\ncrowd of unpleasant thoughts passed through her bosom. Solitude dwelt\nin her chamber--no sound from the neighboring world penetrated its\nstillness; it appeared a temple of silence, of repose, and of mystery.\nAt that moment she heard a still voice calling her father. In an\ninstant, like the flash of lightning, a thought ran through her mind\nthat it must be the bearer of Elfonzo's communication. \"It is not a\ndream!\" she said, \"no, I cannot read dreams. Oh! I would to Heaven I was\nnear that glowing eloquence--that poetical language--it charms the\nmind in an inexpressible manner, and warms the coldest heart.\" While\nconsoling herself with this strain, her father rushed into her room\nalmost frantic with rage, exclaiming: \"Oh, Ambulinia! Ambulinia!!\nundutiful, ungrateful daughter! What does this mean? Why does this\nletter bear such heart-rending intelligence? Will you quit a father's\nhouse with this debased wretch, without a place to lay his distracted\nhead; going up and down the country, with every novel object that may\nchance to wander through this region. He is a pretty man to make love\nknown to his superiors, and you, Ambulinia, have done but little credit\nto yourself by honoring his visits. Oh, wretchedness! can it be that\nmy hopes of happiness are forever blasted! Will you not listen to a\nfather's entreaties, and pay some regard to a mother's tears. I know,\nand I do pray that God will give me fortitude to bear with this sea\nof troubles, and rescue my daughter, my Ambulinia, as a brand from the\neternal burning.\" \"Forgive me, father, oh! forgive thy child,\" replied\nAmbulinia. \"My heart is ready to break, when I see you in this grieved\nstate of agitation. Oh! think not so meanly of me, as that I mourn for\nmy own danger. Father, I am only woman. Mother, I am only the templement\nof thy youthful years, but will suffer courageously whatever punishment\nyou think proper to inflict upon me, if you will but allow me to comply\nwith my most sacred promises--if you will but give me my personal right\nand my personal liberty. Oh, father! if your generosity will but give me\nthese, I ask nothing more. When Elfonzo offered me his heart, I gave\nhim my hand, never to forsake him, and now may the mighty God banish me\nbefore I leave him in adversity. What a heart must I have to rejoice in\nprosperity with him whose offers I have accepted, and then, when poverty\ncomes, haggard as it may be, for me to trifle with the oracles of\nHeaven, and change with every fluctuation that may interrupt our\nhappiness--like the politician who runs the political gantlet for office\none day, and the next day, because the horizon is darkened a little,\nhe is seen running for his life, for fear he might perish in its ruins.\nWhere is the philosophy, where is the consistency, where is the charity,\nin conduct like this? Be happy then, my beloved father, and forget me;\nlet the sorrow of parting break down the wall of separation and make\nus equal in our feeling; let me now say how ardently I love you; let\nme kiss that age-worn cheek, and should my tears bedew thy face, I will\nwipe them away. Oh, I never can forget you; no, never, never!\"\n\n\"Weep not,\" said the father, \"Ambulinia. I will forbid Elfonzo my house,\nand desire that you may keep retired a few days. I will let him know\nthat my friendship for my family is not linked together by cankered\nchains; and if he ever enters upon my premises again, I will send him\nto his long home.\" \"Oh, father! let me entreat you to be calm upon this\noccasion, and though Elfonzo may be the sport of the clouds and winds,\nyet I feel assured that no fate will send him to the silent tomb until\nthe God of the Universe calls him hence with a triumphant voice.\"\n\nHere the father turned away, exclaiming: \"I will answer his letter in a\nvery few words, and you, madam, will have the goodness to stay at home\nwith your mother; and remember, I am determined to protect you from the\nconsuming fire that looks so fair to your view.\"\n\nCumming, January 22, 1844.\n\nSir--In regard to your request, I am as I ever have been, utterly\nopposed to your marrying into my family; and if you have any regard for\nyourself, or any gentlemanly feeling, I hope you will mention it to me\nno more; but seek some other one who is not so far superior to you in\nstanding.\n\nW. W. Valeer.\n\nWhen Elfonzo read the above letter, he became so much depressed in\nspirits that many of his friends thought it advisable to use other means\nto bring about the happy union. \"Strange,\" said he, \"that the contents\nof this diminutive letter should cause me to have such depressed\nfeelings; but there is a nobler theme than this. I know not why my\n_military title_ is not as great as that of _Squire Valeer_. For my life\nI cannot see that my ancestors are inferior to those who are so bitterly\nopposed to my marriage with Ambulinia. I know I have seen huge mountains\nbefore me, yet, when I think that I know gentlemen will insult me upon\nthis delicate matter, should I become angry at fools and babblers, who\npride themselves in their impudence and ignorance? No. My equals! I\nknow not where to find them. My inferiors! I think it beneath me; and my\nsuperiors! I think it presumption; therefore, if this youthful heart is\nprotected by any of the divine rights, I never will betray my trust.\"\n\nHe was aware that Ambulinia had a confidence that was, indeed, as firm\nand as resolute as she was beautiful and interesting. He hastened to the\ncottage of Louisa, who received him in her usual mode of pleasantness,\nand informed him that Ambulinia had just that moment left. \"Is it\npossible?\" said Elfonzo. \"Oh, murdered hours! Why did she not remain and\nbe the guardian of my secrets? But hasten and tell me how she has stood\nthis trying scene, and what are her future determinations.\" \"You know,\"\nsaid Louisa, \"Major Elfonzo, that you have Ambulinia's first love, which\nis of no small consequence. She came here about twilight, and shed many\nprecious tears in consequence of her own fate with yours. We walked\nsilently in yon little valley you see, where we spent a momentary\nrepose. She seemed to be quite as determined as ever, and before we left\nthat beautiful spot she offered up a prayer to Heaven for thee.\" \"I will\nsee her then,\" replied Elfonzo, \"though legions of enemies may oppose.\nShe is mine by foreordination--she is mine by prophesy--she is mine\nby her own free will, and I will rescue her from the hands of her\noppressors. Will you not, Miss Louisa, assist me in my capture?\"\n\n\"I will certainly, by the aid of Divine Providence,\" answered Louisa,\n\"endeavor to break those slavish chains that bind the richest of prizes;\nthough allow me, Major, to entreat you to use no harsh means on this\nimportant occasion; take a decided stand, and write freely to Ambulinia\nupon this subject, and I will see that no intervening cause hinders its\npassage to her. God alone will save a mourning people. Now is the day\nand now is the hour to obey a command of such valuable worth.\" The Major\nfelt himself grow stronger after this short interview with Louisa. He\nfelt as if he could whip his weight in wildcats--he knew he was master\nof his own feelings, and could now write a letter that would bring this\nlitigation to _an issue._\n\nCumming, January 24, 1844.\n\nDear Ambulinia--\n\nWe have now reached the most trying moment of our lives; we are pledged\nnot to forsake our trust; we have waited for a favorable hour to\ncome, thinking your friends would settle the matter agreeably among\nthemselves, and finally be reconciled to our marriage; but as I have\nwaited in vain, and looked in vain, I have determined in my own mind to\nmake a proposition to you, though you may think it not in accord with\nyour station, or compatible with your rank; yet, \"sub hoc signo\nvinces.\" You know I cannot resume my visits, in consequence of the utter\nhostility that your father has to me; therefore the consummation of\nour union will have to be sought for in a more sublime sphere, at the\nresidence of a respectable friend of this village. You cannot have\nany scruples upon this mode of proceeding, if you will but remember it\nemanates from one who loves you better than his own life--who is more\nthan anxious to bid you welcome to a new and happy home. Your warmest\nassociates say come; the talented, the learned, the wise, and the\nexperienced say come;--all these with their friends say, come. Viewing\nthese, with many other inducements, I flatter myself that you will come\nto the embraces of your Elfonzo; for now is the time of your acceptance\nof the day of your liberation. You cannot be ignorant, Ambulinia, that\nthou art the desire of my heart; its thoughts are too noble, and too\npure, to conceal themselves from you. I shall wait for your answer to\nthis impatiently, expecting that you will set the time to make your\ndeparture, and to be in readiness at a moment's warning to share the\njoys of a more preferable life. This will be handed to you by Louisa,\nwho will take a pleasure in communicating anything to you that may\nrelieve your dejected spirits, and will assure you that I now stand\nready, willing, and waiting to make good my vows.\n\nI am, dear Ambulinia, yours\n\ntruly, and forever,\n\nJ. I. Elfonzo.\n\nLouisa made it convenient to visit Mr. Valeer's, though they did not\nsuspect her in the least the bearer of love epistles; consequently,\nshe was invited in the room to console Ambulinia, where they were left\nalone. Ambulinia was seated by a small table--her head resting on her\nhand--her brilliant eyes were bathed in tears. Louisa handed her the\nletter of Elfonzo, when another spirit animated her features--the\nspirit of renewed confidence that never fails to strengthen the\nfemale character in an hour of grief and sorrow like this, and as she\npronounced the last accent of his name, she exclaimed, \"And does he love\nme yet! I never will forget your generosity, Louisa. Oh, unhappy and yet\nblessed Louisa! may you never feel what I have felt--may you never know\nthe pangs of love. Had I never loved, I never would have been unhappy;\nbut I turn to Him who can save, and if His wisdom does not will my\nexpected union, I know He will give me strength to bear my lot. Amuse\nyourself with this little book, and take it as an apology for my\nsilence,\" said Ambulinia, \"while I attempt to answer this volume of\nconsolation.\" \"Thank you,\" said Louisa, \"you are excusable upon this\noccasion; but I pray you, Ambulinia, to be expert upon this momentous\nsubject, that there may be nothing mistrustful upon my part.\" \"I will,\"\nsaid Ambulinia, and immediately resumed her seat and addressed the\nfollowing to Elfonzo:\n\nCumming, Ga., January 28, 1844.\n\nDevoted Elfonzo--\n\nI hail your letter as a welcome messenger of faith, and can now say\ntruly and firmly that my feelings correspond with yours. Nothing shall\nbe wanting on my part to make my obedience your fidelity. Courage and\nperseverance will accomplish success. Receive this as my oath, that\nwhile I grasp your hand in my own imagination, we stand united before a\nhigher tribunal than any on earth. All the powers of my life, soul, and\nbody, I devote to thee. Whatever dangers may threaten me, I fear not to\nencounter them. Perhaps I have determined upon my own destruction, by\nleaving the house of the best of parents; be it so; I flee to you; I\nshare your destiny, faithful to the end. The day that I have concluded\nupon for this task is _sabbath _next, when the family with the citizens\nare generally at church. For Heaven's sake let not that day pass\nunimproved: trust not till tomorrow, it is the cheat of life--the future\nthat never comes--the grave of many noble births--the cavern of ruined\nenterprise: which like the lightning's flash is born, and dies, and\nperishes, ere the voice of him who sees can cry, _behold! behold!!_ You\nmay trust to what I say, no power shall tempt me to betray confidence.\nSuffer me to add one word more.\n\n\nI will soothe thee, in all thy grief,\n\nBeside the gloomy river;\n\nAnd though thy love may yet be brief;\n\nMine is fixed forever.\n\nReceive the deepest emotions of my heart for thy constant love, and\nmay the power of inspiration be thy guide, thy portion, and thy all. In\ngreat haste,\n\nYours faithfully,\n\nAmbulinia.\n\n\"I now take my leave of you, sweet girl,\" said Louisa, \"sincerely\nwishing you success on Sabbath next.\" When Ambulinia's letter was handed\nto Elfonzo, he perused it without doubting its contents. Louisa charged\nhim to make but few confidants; but like most young men who happened to\nwin the heart of a beautiful girl, he was so elated with the idea that\nhe felt as a commanding general on parade, who had confidence in all,\nconsequently gave orders to all. The appointed Sabbath, with a delicious\nbreeze and cloudless sky, made its appearance. The people gathered in\ncrowds to the church--the streets were filled with neighboring citizens,\nall marching to the house of worship. It is entirely useless for me\nto attempt to describe the feelings of Elfonzo and Ambulinia, who were\nsilently watching the movements of the multitude, apparently counting\nthem as then entered the house of God, looking for the last one to\ndarken the door. The impatience and anxiety with which they waited,\nand the bliss they anticipated on the eventful day, is altogether\nindescribable. Those that have been so fortunate as to embark in such a\nnoble enterprise know all its realities; and those who have not had this\ninestimable privilege will have to taste its sweets before they can tell\nto others its joys, its comforts, and its Heaven-born worth. Immediately\nafter Ambulinia had assisted the family off to church, she took\nadvantage of that opportunity to make good her promises. She left a home\nof enjoyment to be wedded to one whose love had been justifiable. A few\nshort steps brought her to the presence of Louisa, who urged her to make\ngood use of her time, and not to delay a moment, but to go with her to\nher brother's house, where Elfonzo would forever make her happy. With\nlively speed, and yet a graceful air, she entered the door and found\nherself protected by the champion of her confidence. The necessary\narrangements were fast making to have the two lovers united--everything\nwas in readiness except the parson; and as they are generally very\nsanctimonious on such occasions, the news got to the parents of\nAmbulinia before the everlasting knot was tied, and they both came\nrunning, with uplifted hands and injured feelings, to arrest their\ndaughter from an unguarded and hasty resolution. Elfonzo desired to\nmaintain his ground, but Ambulinia thought it best for him to leave, to\nprepare for a greater contest. He accordingly obeyed, as it would have\nbeen a vain endeavor for him to have battled against a man who was armed\nwith deadly weapons; and besides, he could not resist the request of\nsuch a pure heart. Ambulinia concealed herself in the upper story of\nthe house, fearing the rebuke of her father; the door was locked, and no\nchastisement was now expected. Esquire Valeer, whose pride was already\ntouched, resolved to preserve the dignity of his family. He entered\nthe house almost exhausted, looking wildly for Ambulinia. \"Amazed and\nastonished indeed I am,\" said he, \"at a people who call themselves\ncivilized, to allow such behavior as this. Ambulinia, Ambulinia!\"\nhe cried, \"come to the calls of your first, your best, and your only\nfriend. I appeal to you, sir,\" turning to the gentleman of the house,\n\"to know where Ambulinia has gone, or where is she?\" \"Do you mean\nto insult me, sir, in my own house?\" inquired the gentleman. \"I will\nburst,\" said Mr. V., \"asunder every door in your dwelling, in search of\nmy daughter, if you do not speak quickly, and tell me where she is.\nI care nothing about that outcast rubbish of creation, that mean,\nlow-lived Elfonzo, if I can but obtain Ambulinia. Are you not going to\nopen this door?\" said he. \"By the Eternal that made Heaven and earth!\nI will go about the work instantly, if this is not done!\" The confused\ncitizens gathered from all parts of the village, to know the cause of\nthis commotion. Some rushed into the house; the door that was locked\nflew open, and there stood Ambulinia, weeping. \"Father, be still,\" said\nshe, \"and I will follow thee home.\" But the agitated man seized her, and\nbore her off through the gazing multitude. \"Father!\" she exclaimed, \"I\nhumbly beg your pardon--I will be dutiful--I will obey thy commands.\nLet the sixteen years I have lived in obedience to thee be my future\nsecurity.\" \"I don't like to be always giving credit, when the old score\nis not paid up, madam,\" said the father. The mother followed almost in a\nstate of derangement, crying and imploring her to think beforehand, and\nask advice from experienced persons, and they would tell her it was a\nrash undertaking. \"Oh!\" said she, \"Ambulinia, my daughter, did you know\nwhat I have suffered--did you know how many nights I have whiled away in\nagony, in pain, and in fear, you would pity the sorrows of a heartbroken\nmother.\"\n\n\"Well, mother,\" replied Ambulinia, \"I know I have been disobedient; I\nam aware that what I have done might have been done much better; but\noh! what shall I do with my honor? it is so dear to me; I am pledged\nto Elfonzo. His high moral worth is certainly worth some attention;\nmoreover, my vows, I have no doubt, are recorded in the book of life,\nand must I give these all up? must my fair hopes be forever blasted?\nForbid it, father; oh! forbid it, mother; forbid it, Heaven.\" \"I have\nseen so many beautiful skies overclouded,\" replied the mother, \"so many\nblossoms nipped by the frost, that I am afraid to trust you to the\ncare of those fair days, which may be interrupted by thundering and\ntempestuous nights. You no doubt think as I did--life's devious ways\nwere strewn with sweet-scented flowers, but ah! how long they have\nlingered around me and took their flight in the vivid hope that laughs\nat the drooping victims it has murdered.\" Elfonzo was moved at this\nsight. The people followed on to see what was going to become of\nAmbulinia, while he, with downcast looks, kept at a distance, until he\nsaw them enter the abode of the father, thrusting her, that was the sigh\nof his soul, out of his presence into a solitary apartment, when she\nexclaimed, \"Elfonzo! Elfonzo! oh, Elfonzo! where art thou, with all thy\nheroes? haste, oh! haste, come thou to my relief. Ride on the wings of\nthe wind! Turn thy force loose like a tempest, and roll on thy army like\na whirlwind, over this mountain of trouble and confusion. Oh, friends!\nif any pity me, let your last efforts throng upon the green hills, and\ncome to the relief of Ambulinia, who is guilty of nothing but innocent\nlove.\" Elfonzo called out with a loud voice, \"My God, can I stand this!\narise up, I beseech you, and put an end to this tyranny. Come, my brave\nboys,\" said he, \"are you ready to go forth to your duty?\" They stood\naround him. \"Who,\" said he, \"will call us to arms? Where are my\nthunderbolts of war? Speak ye, the first who will meet the foe! Who will\ngo forward with me in this ocean of grievous temptation? If there is\none who desires to go, let him come and shake hands upon the altar of\ndevotion, and swear that he will be a hero; yes, a Hector in a cause\nlike this, which calls aloud for a speedy remedy.\" \"Mine be the deed,\"\nsaid a young lawyer, \"and mine alone; Venus alone shall quit her station\nbefore I will forsake one jot or tittle of my promise to you; what\nis death to me? what is all this warlike army, if it is not to win a\nvictory? I love the sleep of the lover and the mighty; nor would I give\nit over till the blood of my enemies should wreak with that of my own.\nBut God forbid that our fame should soar on the blood of the slumberer.\"\nMr. Valeer stands at his door with the frown of a demon upon his brow,\nwith his dangerous weapon ready to strike the first man who should enter\nhis door. \"Who will arise and go forward through blood and carnage\nto the rescue of my Ambulinia?\" said Elfonzo. \"All,\" exclaimed the\nmultitude; and onward they went, with their implements of battle.\nOthers, of a more timid nature, stood among the distant hills to see the\nresult of the contest.\n\nElfonzo took the lead of his band. Night arose in clouds; darkness\nconcealed the heavens; but the blazing hopes that stimulated them\ngleamed in every bosom. All approached the anxious spot; they rushed to\nthe front of the house and, with one exclamation, demanded Ambulinia.\n\"Away, begone, and disturb my peace no more,\" said Mr. Valeer. \"You are\na set of base, insolent, and infernal rascals. Go, the northern star\npoints your path through the dim twilight of the night; go, and vent\nyour spite upon the lonely hills; pour forth your love, you poor,\nweak-minded wretch, upon your idleness and upon your guitar, and your\nfiddle; they are fit subjects for your admiration, for let me assure\nyou, though this sword and iron lever are cankered, yet they frown in\nsleep, and let one of you dare to enter my house this night and you\nshall have the contents and the weight of these instruments.\" \"Never\nyet did base dishonor blur my name,\" said Elfonzo; \"mine is a cause of\nrenown; here are my warriors; fear and tremble, for this night, though\nhell itself should oppose, I will endeavor to avenge her whom thou hast\nbanished in solitude. The voice of Ambulinia shall be heard from that\ndark dungeon.\" At that moment Ambulinia appeared at the window above,\nand with a tremulous voice said, \"Live, Elfonzo! oh! live to raise my\nstone of moss! why should such language enter your heart? why should\nthy voice rend the air with such agitation? I bid thee live, once more\nremembering these tears of mine are shed alone for thee, in this dark\nand gloomy vault, and should I perish under this load of trouble, join\nthe song of thrilling accents with the raven above my grave, and lay\nthis tattered frame beside the banks of the Chattahoochee or the stream\nof Sawney's brook; sweet will be the song of death to your Ambulinia. My\nghost shall visit you in the smiles of Paradise, and tell your high\nfame to the minds of that region, which is far more preferable than this\nlonely cell. My heart shall speak for thee till the latest hour; I know\nfaint and broken are the sounds of sorrow, yet our souls, Elfonzo, shall\nhear the peaceful songs together. One bright name shall be ours on high,\nif we are not permitted to be united here; bear in mind that I still\ncherish my old sentiments, and the poet will mingle the names of Elfonzo\nand Ambulinia in the tide of other days.\" \"Fly, Elfonzo,\" said the\nvoices of his united band, \"to the wounded heart of your beloved. All\nenemies shall fall beneath thy sword. Fly through the clefts, and the\ndim spark shall sleep in death.\" Elfonzo rushes forward and strikes\nhis shield against the door, which was barricaded, to prevent any\nintercourse. His brave sons throng around him. The people pour along\nthe streets, both male and female, to prevent or witness the melancholy\nscene.\n\n\"To arms, to arms!\" cried Elfonzo; \"here is a victory to be won, a prize\nto be gained that is more to me that the whole world beside.\" \"It\ncannot be done tonight,\" said Mr. Valeer. \"I bear the clang of death; my\nstrength and armor shall prevail. My Ambulinia shall rest in this hall\nuntil the break of another day, and if we fall, we fall together. If we\ndie, we die clinging to our tattered rights, and our blood alone shall\ntell the mournful tale of a murdered daughter and a ruined father.\" Sure\nenough, he kept watch all night, and was successful in defending his\nhouse and family. The bright morning gleamed upon the hills, night\nvanished away, the Major and his associates felt somewhat ashamed that\nthey had not been as fortunate as they expected to have been; however,\nthey still leaned upon their arms in dispersed groups; some were walking\nthe streets, others were talking in the Major's behalf. Many of\nthe citizen suspended business, as the town presented nothing but\nconsternation. A novelty that might end in the destruction of some\nworthy and respectable citizens. Mr. Valeer ventured in the streets,\nthough not without being well armed. Some of his friends congratulated\nhim on the decided stand he had taken, and hoped he would settle the\nmatter amicably with Elfonzo, without any serious injury. \"Me,\" he\nreplied, \"what, me, condescend to fellowship with a coward, and a\nlow-lived, lazy, undermining villain? no, gentlemen, this cannot be; I\nhad rather be borne off, like the bubble upon the dark blue ocean, with\nAmbulinia by my side, than to have him in the ascending or descending\nline of relationship. Gentlemen,\" continued he, \"if Elfonzo is so much\nof a distinguished character, and is so learned in the fine arts, why do\nyou not patronize such men? why not introduce him into your families, as\na gentleman of taste and of unequaled magnanimity? why are you so very\nanxious that he should become a relative of mine? Oh, gentlemen, I fear\nyou yet are tainted with the curiosity of our first parents, who were\nbeguiled by the poisonous kiss of an old ugly serpent, and who, for\none _apple, damned_ all mankind. I wish to divest myself, as far as\npossible, of that untutored custom. I have long since learned that the\nperfection of wisdom, and the end of true philosophy, is to proportion\nour wants to our possessions, our ambition to our capacities; we will\nthen be a happy and a virtuous people.\" Ambulinia was sent off to\nprepare for a long and tedious journey. Her new acquaintances had been\ninstructed by her father how to treat her, and in what manner, and to\nkeep the anticipated visit entirely secret. Elfonzo was watching the\nmovements of everybody; some friends had told him of the plot that was\nlaid to carry off Ambulinia. At night, he rallied some two or three of\nhis forces, and went silently along to the stately mansion; a faint and\nglimmering light showed through the windows; lightly he steps to the\ndoor; there were many voices rallying fresh in fancy's eye; he tapped\nthe shutter; it was opened instantly, and he beheld once more, seated\nbeside several ladies, the hope of all his toils; he rushed toward\nher, she rose from her seat, rejoicing; he made one mighty grasp, when\nAmbulinia exclaimed, \"Huzza for Major Elfonzo! I will defend myself and\nyou, too, with this conquering instrument I hold in my hand; huzza, I\nsay, I now invoke time's broad wing to shed around us some dewdrops of\nverdant spring.\"\n\nBut the hour had not come for this joyous reunion; her friends struggled\nwith Elfonzo for some time, and finally succeeded in arresting her from\nhis hands. He dared not injure them, because they were matrons whose\ncourage needed no spur; she was snatched from the arms of Elfonzo, with\nso much eagerness, and yet with such expressive signification, that he\ncalmly withdrew from this lovely enterprise, with an ardent hope that he\nshould be lulled to repose by the zephyrs which whispered peace to his\nsoul. Several long days and nights passed unmolested, all seemed to have\ngrounded their arms of rebellion, and no callidity appeared to be going\non with any of the parties. Other arrangements were made by Ambulinia;\nshe feigned herself to be entirely the votary of a mother's care, and\nshe, by her graceful smiles, that manhood might claim his stern dominion\nin some other region, where such boisterous love was not so prevalent.\nThis gave the parents a confidence that yielded some hours of sober joy;\nthey believed that Ambulinia would now cease to love Elfonzo, and that\nher stolen affections would now expire with her misguided opinions. They\ntherefore declined the idea of sending her to a distant land. But oh!\nthey dreamed not of the rapture that dazzled the fancy of Ambulinia, who\nwould say, when alone, youth should not fly away on his rosy pinions,\nand leave her to grapple in the conflict with unknown admirers.\n\n\nNo frowning age shall control\n\nThe constant current of my soul,\n\nNor a tear from pity's eye\n\nShall check my sympathetic sigh.\n\nWith this resolution fixed in her mind, one dark and dreary night, when\nthe winds whistled and the tempest roared, she received intelligence\nthat Elfonzo was then waiting, and every preparation was then ready, at\nthe residence of Dr. Tully, and for her to make a quick escape while\nthe family was reposing. Accordingly she gathered her books, went the\nwardrobe supplied with a variety of ornamental dressing, and ventured\nalone in the streets to make her way to Elfonzo, who was near at hand,\nimpatiently looking and watching her arrival. \"What forms,\" said she,\n\"are those rising before me? What is that dark spot on the clouds? I do\nwonder what frightful ghost that is, gleaming on the red tempest? Oh,\nbe merciful and tell me what region you are from. Oh, tell me, ye strong\nspirits, or ye dark and fleeting clouds, that I yet have a friend.\" \"A\nfriend,\" said a low, whispering voice. \"I am thy unchanging, thy aged,\nand thy disappointed mother. Why brandish in that hand of thine a\njavelin of pointed steel? Why suffer that lip I have kissed a thousand\ntimes to equivocate? My daughter, let these tears sink deep into thy\nsoul, and no longer persist in that which may be your destruction and\nruin. Come, my dear child, retract your steps, and bear me company to\nyour welcome home.\" Without one retorting word, or frown from her brow,\nshe yielded to the entreaties of her mother, and with all the mildness\nof her former character she went along with the silver lamp of age, to\nthe home of candor and benevolence. Her father received her cold and\nformal politeness--\"Where has Ambulinia been, this blustering evening,\nMrs. Valeer?\" inquired he. \"Oh, she and I have been taking a solitary\nwalk,\" said the mother; \"all things, I presume, are now working for the\nbest.\"\n\nElfonzo heard this news shortly after it happened. \"What,\" said he,\n\"has heaven and earth turned against me? I have been disappointed times\nwithout number. Shall I despair?--must I give it over? Heaven's decrees\nwill not fade; I will write again--I will try again; and if it traverses\na gory field, I pray forgiveness at the altar of justice.\"\n\nDesolate Hill, Cumming, Geo., 1844.\n\nUnconquered and Beloved Ambulinia-- I have only time to say to you, not\nto despair; thy fame shall not perish; my visions are brightening before\nme. The whirlwind's rage is past, and we now shall subdue our enemies\nwithout doubt. On Monday morning, when your friends are at breakfast,\nthey will not suspect your departure, or even mistrust me being in town,\nas it has been reported advantageously that I have left for the west.\nYou walk carelessly toward the academy grove, where you will find me\nwith a lightning steed, elegantly equipped to bear you off where we\nshall be joined in wedlock with the first connubial rights. Fail not\nto do this--think not of the tedious relations of our wrongs--be\ninvincible. You alone occupy all my ambition, and I alone will make you\nmy happy spouse, with the same unimpeached veracity. I remain, forever,\nyour devoted friend and admirer, J. I. Elfonzo.\n\nThe appointed day ushered in undisturbed by any clouds; nothing\ndisturbed Ambulinia's soft beauty. With serenity and loveliness she\nobeys the request of Elfonzo. The moment the family seated themselves\nat the table--\"Excuse my absence for a short time,\" said she, \"while I\nattend to the placing of those flowers, which should have been done\na week ago.\" And away she ran to the sacred grove, surrounded with\nglittering pearls, that indicated her coming. Elfonzo hails her with\nhis silver bow and his golden harp. They meet--Ambulinia's countenance\nbrightens--Elfonzo leads up his winged steed. \"Mount,\" said he, \"ye\ntrue-hearted, ye fearless soul--the day is ours.\" She sprang upon the\nback of the young thunder bolt, a brilliant star sparkles upon her head,\nwith one hand she grasps the reins, and with the other she holds an\nolive branch. \"Lend thy aid, ye strong winds,\" they exclaimed, \"ye moon,\nye sun, and all ye fair host of heaven, witness the enemy conquered.\"\n\"Hold,\" said Elfonzo, \"thy dashing steed.\" \"Ride on,\" said Ambulinia,\n\"the voice of thunder is behind us.\" And onward they went, with such\nrapidity that they very soon arrived at Rural Retreat, where they\ndismounted, and were united with all the solemnities that usually attend\nsuch divine operations. They passed the day in thanksgiving and great\nrejoicing, and on that evening they visited their uncle, where many of\ntheir friends and acquaintances had gathered to congratulate them in the\nfield of untainted bliss. The kind old gentleman met them in the yard:\n\"Well,\" said he, \"I wish I may die, Elfonzo, if you and Ambulinia\nhaven't tied a knot with your tongue that you can't untie with your\nteeth. But come in, come in, never mind, all is right--the world still\nmoves on, and no one has fallen in this great battle.\"\n\nHappy now is their lot! Unmoved by misfortune, they live among the fair\nbeauties of the South. Heaven spreads their peace and fame upon the arch\nof the rainbow, and smiles propitiously at their triumph, _through the\ntears of the storm._\n\n\n\nTHE CALIFORNIAN'S TALE\n\nThirty-five years ago I was out prospecting on the Stanislaus, tramping\nall day long with pick and pan and horn, and washing a hatful of dirt\nhere and there, always expecting to make a rich strike, and never doing\nit. It was a lovely region, woodsy, balmy, delicious, and had once been\npopulous, long years before, but now the people had vanished and the\ncharming paradise was a solitude. They went away when the surface\ndiggings gave out. In one place, where a busy little city with banks\nand newspapers and fire companies and a mayor and aldermen had been, was\nnothing but a wide expanse of emerald turf, with not even the faintest\nsign that human life had ever been present there. This was down toward\nTuttletown. In the country neighborhood thereabouts, along the dusty\nroads, one found at intervals the prettiest little cottage homes, snug\nand cozy, and so cobwebbed with vines snowed thick with roses that the\ndoors and windows were wholly hidden from sight--sign that these were\ndeserted homes, forsaken years ago by defeated and disappointed families\nwho could neither sell them nor give them away. Now and then, half an\nhour apart, one came across solitary log cabins of the earliest\nmining days, built by the first gold-miners, the predecessors of the\ncottage-builders. In some few cases these cabins were still occupied;\nand when this was so, you could depend upon it that the occupant was the\nvery pioneer who had built the cabin; and you could depend on another\nthing, too--that he was there because he had once had his opportunity\nto go home to the States rich, and had not done it; had rather lost\nhis wealth, and had then in his humiliation resolved to sever all\ncommunication with his home relatives and friends, and be to them\nthenceforth as one dead. Round about California in that day were\nscattered a host of these living dead men--pride-smitten poor fellows,\ngrizzled and old at forty, whose secret thoughts were made all of\nregrets and longings--regrets for their wasted lives, and longings to be\nout of the struggle and done with it all.\n\nIt was a lonesome land! Not a sound in all those peaceful expanses of\ngrass and woods but the drowsy hum of insects; no glimpse of man or\nbeast; nothing to keep up your spirits and make you glad to be alive.\nAnd so, at last, in the early part of the afternoon, when I caught sight\nof a human creature, I felt a most grateful uplift. This person was a\nman about forty-five years old, and he was standing at the gate of one\nof those cozy little rose-clad cottages of the sort already referred to.\nHowever, this one hadn't a deserted look; it had the look of being lived\nin and petted and cared for and looked after; and so had its front yard,\nwhich was a garden of flowers, abundant, gay, and flourishing. I was\ninvited in, of course, and required to make myself at home--it was the\ncustom of the country.\n\nIt was delightful to be in such a place, after long weeks of daily and\nnightly familiarity with miners' cabins--with all which this implies of\ndirt floor, never-made beds, tin plates and cups, bacon and beans and\nblack coffee, and nothing of ornament but war pictures from the\nEastern illustrated papers tacked to the log walls. That was all hard,\ncheerless, materialistic desolation, but here was a nest which had\naspects to rest the tired eye and refresh that something in one's nature\nwhich, after long fasting, recognizes, when confronted by the\nbelongings of art, howsoever cheap and modest they may be, that it has\nunconsciously been famishing and now has found nourishment. I could not\nhave believed that a rag carpet could feast me so, and so content me;\nor that there could be such solace to the soul in wall-paper and framed\nlithographs, and bright-colored tidies and lamp-mats, and Windsor\nchairs, and varnished what-nots, with sea-shells and books and china\nvases on them, and the score of little unclassifiable tricks and touches\nthat a woman's hand distributes about a home, which one sees without\nknowing he sees them, yet would miss in a moment if they were taken\naway. The delight that was in my heart showed in my face, and the man\nsaw it and was pleased; saw it so plainly that he answered it as if it\nhad been spoken.\n\n\"All her work,\" he said, caressingly; \"she did it all herself--every\nbit,\" and he took the room in with a glance which was full of\naffectionate worship. One of those soft Japanese fabrics with which\nwomen drape with careful negligence the upper part of a picture-frame\nwas out of adjustment. He noticed it, and rearranged it with cautious\npains, stepping back several times to gauge the effect before he got it\nto suit him. Then he gave it a light finishing pat or two with his hand,\nand said: \"She always does that. You can't tell just what it lacks, but\nit does lack something until you've done that--you can see it yourself\nafter it's done, but that is all you know; you can't find out the law of\nit. It's like the finishing pats a mother gives the child's hair after\nshe's got it combed and brushed, I reckon. I've seen her fix all these\nthings so much that I can do them all just her way, though I don't know\nthe law of any of them. But she knows the law. She knows the why and the\nhow both; but I don't know the why; I only know the how.\"\n\nHe took me into a bedroom so that I might wash my hands; such a bedroom\nas I had not seen for years: white counterpane, white pillows, carpeted\nfloor, papered walls, pictures, dressing-table, with mirror and\npin-cushion and dainty toilet things; and in the corner a wash-stand,\nwith real china-ware bowl and pitcher, and with soap in a china dish,\nand on a rack more than a dozen towels--towels too clean and white for\none out of practice to use without some vague sense of profanation. So\nmy face spoke again, and he answered with gratified words:\n\n\"All her work; she did it all herself--every bit. Nothing here that\nhasn't felt the touch of her hand. Now you would think--But I mustn't\ntalk so much.\"\n\nBy this time I was wiping my hands and glancing from detail to detail\nof the room's belongings, as one is apt to do when he is in a new place,\nwhere everything he sees is a comfort to his eye and his spirit; and\nI became conscious, in one of those unaccountable ways, you know, that\nthere was something there somewhere that the man wanted me to discover\nfor myself. I knew it perfectly, and I knew he was trying to help me by\nfurtive indications with his eye, so I tried hard to get on the right\ntrack, being eager to gratify him. I failed several times, as I could\nsee out of the corner of my eye without being told; but at last I knew I\nmust be looking straight at the thing--knew it from the pleasure issuing\nin invisible waves from him. He broke into a happy laugh, and rubbed his\nhands together, and cried out:\n\n\"That's it! You've found it. I knew you would. It's her picture.\"\n\nI went to the little black-walnut bracket on the farther wall, and\ndid find there what I had not yet noticed--a daguerreotype-case. It\ncontained the sweetest girlish face, and the most beautiful, as it\nseemed to me, that I had ever seen. The man drank the admiration from my\nface, and was fully satisfied.\n\n\"Nineteen her last birthday,\" he said, as he put the picture back; \"and\nthat was the day we were married. When you see her--ah, just wait till\nyou see her!\"\n\n\"Where is she? When will she be in?\"\n\n\"Oh, she's away now. She's gone to see her people. They live forty or\nfifty miles from here. She's been gone two weeks today.\"\n\n\"When do you expect her back?\"\n\n\"This is Wednesday. She'll be back Saturday, in the evening--about nine\no'clock, likely.\"\n\nI felt a sharp sense of disappointment.\n\n\"I'm sorry, because I'll be gone then,\" I said, regretfully.\n\n\"Gone? No--why should you go? Don't go. She'll be disappointed.\"\n\nShe would be disappointed--that beautiful creature! If she had said the\nwords herself they could hardly have blessed me more. I was feeling\na deep, strong longing to see her--a longing so supplicating, so\ninsistent, that it made me afraid. I said to myself: \"I will go straight\naway from this place, for my peace of mind's sake.\"\n\n\"You see, she likes to have people come and stop with us--people who\nknow things, and can talk--people like you. She delights in it; for she\nknows--oh, she knows nearly everything herself, and can talk, oh, like\na bird--and the books she reads, why, you would be astonished. Don't go;\nit's only a little while, you know, and she'll be so disappointed.\"\n\nI heard the words, but hardly noticed them, I was so deep in my\nthinkings and strugglings. He left me, but I didn't know. Presently he\nwas back, with the picture case in his hand, and he held it open before\nme and said:\n\n\"There, now, tell her to her face you could have stayed to see her, and\nyou wouldn't.\"\n\nThat second glimpse broke down my good resolution. I would stay and take\nthe risk. That night we smoked the tranquil pipe, and talked till late\nabout various things, but mainly about her; and certainly I had had no\nsuch pleasant and restful time for many a day. The Thursday followed and\nslipped comfortably away. Toward twilight a big miner from three miles\naway came--one of the grizzled, stranded pioneers--and gave us warm\nsalutation, clothed in grave and sober speech. Then he said:\n\n\"I only just dropped over to ask about the little madam, and when is she\ncoming home. Any news from her?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, a letter. Would you like to hear it, Tom?\"\n\n\"Well, I should think I would, if you don't mind, Henry!\"\n\nHenry got the letter out of his wallet, and said he would skip some of\nthe private phrases, if we were willing; then he went on and read the\nbulk of it--a loving, sedate, and altogether charming and gracious\npiece of handiwork, with a postscript full of affectionate regards\nand messages to Tom, and Joe, and Charley, and other close friends and\nneighbors.\n\nAs the reader finished, he glanced at Tom, and cried out:\n\n\"Oho, you're at it again! Take your hands away, and let me see your\neyes. You always do that when I read a letter from her. I will write and\ntell her.\"\n\n\"Oh no, you mustn't, Henry. I'm getting old, you know, and any little\ndisappointment makes me want to cry. I thought she'd be here herself,\nand now you've got only a letter.\"\n\n\"Well, now, what put that in your head? I thought everybody knew she\nwasn't coming till Saturday.\"\n\n\"Saturday! Why, come to think, I did know it. I wonder what's the matter\nwith me lately? Certainly I knew it. Ain't we all getting ready for her?\nWell, I must be going now. But I'll be on hand when she comes, old man!\"\n\nLate Friday afternoon another gray veteran tramped over from his cabin a\nmile or so away, and said the boys wanted to have a little gaiety and\na good time Saturday night, if Henry thought she wouldn't be too tired\nafter her journey to be kept up.\n\n\"Tired? She tired! Oh, hear the man! Joe, _you _know she'd sit up six\nweeks to please any one of you!\"\n\nWhen Joe heard that there was a letter, he asked to have it read, and\nthe loving messages in it for him broke the old fellow all up; but he\nsaid he was such an old wreck that _that _would happen to him if she\nonly just mentioned his name. \"Lord, we miss her so!\" he said.\n\nSaturday afternoon I found I was taking out my watch pretty often. Henry\nnoticed it, and said, with a startled look:\n\n\"You don't think she ought to be here soon, do you?\"\n\nI felt caught, and a little embarrassed; but I laughed, and said it was\na habit of mine when I was in a state of expenctancy. But he didn't seem\nquite satisfied; and from that time on he began to show uneasiness. Four\ntimes he walked me up the road to a point whence we could see a long\ndistance; and there he would stand, shading his eyes with his hand, and\nlooking. Several times he said:\n\n\"I'm getting worried, I'm getting right down worried. I know she's not\ndue till about nine o'clock, and yet something seems to be trying\nto warn me that something's happened. You don't think anything has\nhappened, do you?\"\n\nI began to get pretty thoroughly ashamed of him for his childishness;\nand at last, when he repeated that imploring question still another\ntime, I lost my patience for the moment, and spoke pretty brutally to\nhim. It seemed to shrivel him up and cow him; and he looked so wounded\nand so humble after that, that I detested myself for having done the\ncruel and unnecessary thing. And so I was glad when Charley, another\nveteran, arrived toward the edge of the evening, and nestled up to\nHenry to hear the letter read, and talked over the preparations for the\nwelcome. Charley fetched out one hearty speech after another, and did\nhis best to drive away his friend's bodings and apprehensions.\n\n\"Anything _happened _to her? Henry, that's pure nonsense. There isn't\nanything going to happen to her; just make your mind easy as to that.\nWhat did the letter say? Said she was well, didn't it? And said she'd\nbe here by nine o'clock, didn't it? Did you ever know her to fail of her\nword? Why, you know you never did. Well, then, don't you fret; she'll_\nbe_ here, and that's absolutely certain, and as sure as you are born.\nCome, now, let's get to decorating--not much time left.\"\n\nPretty soon Tom and Joe arrived, and then all hands set about adorning\nthe house with flowers. Toward nine the three miners said that as they\nhad brought their instruments they might as well tune up, for the\nboys and girls would soon be arriving now, and hungry for a good,\nold-fashioned break-down. A fiddle, a banjo, and a clarinet--these were\nthe instruments. The trio took their places side by side, and began to\nplay some rattling dance-music, and beat time with their big boots.\n\nIt was getting very close to nine. Henry was standing in the door with\nhis eyes directed up the road, his body swaying to the torture of his\nmental distress. He had been made to drink his wife's health and safety\nseveral times, and now Tom shouted:\n\n\"All hands stand by! One more drink, and she's here!\"\n\nJoe brought the glasses on a waiter, and served the party. I reached for\none of the two remaining glasses, but Joe growled under his breath:\n\n\"Drop that! Take the other.\"\n\nWhich I did. Henry was served last. He had hardly swallowed his drink\nwhen the clock began to strike. He listened till it finished, his face\ngrowing pale and paler; then he said:\n\n\"Boys, I'm sick with fear. Help me--I want to lie down!\"\n\nThey helped him to the sofa. He began to nestle and drowse, but\npresently spoke like one talking in his sleep, and said: \"Did I hear\nhorses' feet? Have they come?\"\n\nOne of the veterans answered, close to his ear: \"It was Jimmy Parish\ncome to say the party got delayed, but they're right up the road a\npiece, and coming along. Her horse is lame, but she'll be here in half\nan hour.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'm_ so_ thankful nothing has happened!\"\n\nHe was asleep almost before the words were out of his mouth. In a moment\nthose handy men had his clothes off, and had tucked him into his bed in\nthe chamber where I had washed my hands. They closed the door and came\nback. Then they seemed preparing to leave; but I said: \"Please don't go,\ngentlemen. She won't know me; I am a stranger.\"\n\nThey glanced at each other. Then Joe said:\n\n\"She? Poor thing, she's been dead nineteen years!\"\n\n\"Dead?\"\n\n\"That or worse. She went to see her folks half a year after she was\nmarried, and on her way back, on a Saturday evening, the Indians\ncaptured her within five miles of this place, and she's never been heard\nof since.\"\n\n\"And he lost his mind in consequence?\"\n\n\"Never has been sane an hour since. But he only gets bad when that time\nof year comes round. Then we begin to drop in here, three days before\nshe's due, to encourage him up, and ask if he's heard from her,\nand Saturday we all come and fix up the house with flowers, and get\neverything ready for a dance. We've done it every year for nineteen\nyears. The first Saturday there was twenty-seven of us, without counting\nthe girls; there's only three of us now, and the girls are gone. We\ndrug him to sleep, or he would go wild; then he's all right for another\nyear--thinks she's with him till the last three or four days come round;\nthen he begins to look for her, and gets out his poor old letter, and we\ncome and ask him to read it to us. Lord, she was a darling!\"\n\n\n\nA HELPLESS SITUATION\n\nOnce or twice a year I get a letter of a certain pattern, a pattern that\nnever materially changes, in form and substance, yet I cannot get used\nto that letter--it always astonishes me. It affects me as the locomotive\nalways affects me: I say to myself, \"I have seen you a thousand times,\nyou always look the same way, yet you are always a wonder, and you are\nalways impossible; to contrive you is clearly beyond human genius--you\ncan't exist, you don't exist, yet here you are!\"\n\nI have a letter of that kind by me, a very old one. I yearn to print it,\nand where is the harm? The writer of it is dead years ago, no doubt, and\nif I conceal her name and address--her this-world address--I am sure\nher shade will not mind. And with it I wish to print the answer which\nI wrote at the time but probably did not send. If it went--which is not\nlikely--it went in the form of a copy, for I find the original still\nhere, pigeonholed with the said letter. To that kind of letters we all\nwrite answers which we do not send, fearing to hurt where we have no\ndesire to hurt; I have done it many a time, and this is doubtless a case\nof the sort.\n\nTHE LETTER\n\nX------, California, JUNE 3, 1879.\n\nMr. S. L. Clemens, HARTFORD, CONN.:\n\nDear Sir,--You will doubtless be surprised to know who has presumed to\nwrite and ask a favor of you. Let your memory go back to your days in\nthe Humboldt mines--'62-'63. You will remember, you and Clagett and\nOliver and the old blacksmith Tillou lived in a lean-to which was\nhalf-way up the gulch, and there were six log cabins in the camp--strung\npretty well separated up the gulch from its mouth at the desert to where\nthe last claim was, at the divide. The lean-to you lived in was the one\nwith a canvas roof that the cow fell down through one night, as told\nabout by you in _Roughing It_--my uncle Simmons remembers it very well.\nHe lived in the principal cabin, half-way up the divide, along with\nDixon and Parker and Smith. It had two rooms, one for kitchen and the\nother for bunks, and was the only one that had. You and your party\nwere there on the great night, the time they had dried-apple-pie, Uncle\nSimmons often speaks of it. It seems curious that dried-apple-pie\nshould have seemed such a great thing, but it was, and it shows how far\nHumboldt was out of the world and difficult to get to, and how slim the\nregular bill of fare was. Sixteen years ago--it is a long time. I was a\nlittle girl then, only fourteen. I never saw you, I lived in Washoe. But\nUncle Simmons ran across you every now and then, all during those weeks\nthat you and party were there working your claim which was like the\nrest. The camp played out long and long ago, there wasn't silver enough\nin it to make a button. You never saw my husband, but he was there after\nyou left, _and lived in that very lean-to_, a bachelor then but married\nto me now. He often wishes there had been a photographer there in\nthose days, he would have taken the lean-to. He got hurt in the old Hal\nClayton claim that was abandoned like the others, putting in a blast and\nnot climbing out quick enough, though he scrambled the best he could.\nIt landed him clear down on the train and hit a Piute. For weeks they\nthought he would not get over it but he did, and is all right, now. Has\nbeen ever since. This is a long introduction but it is the only way\nI can make myself known. The favor I ask I feel assured your generous\nheart will grant: Give me some advice about a book I have written. I do\nnot claim anything for it only it is mostly true and as interesting as\nmost of the books of the times. I am unknown in the literary world and\nyou know what that means unless one has some one of influence (like\nyourself) to help you by speaking a good word for you. I would like to\nplace the book on royalty basis plan with any one you would suggest.\n\nThis is a secret from my husband and family. I intend it as a surprise\nin case I get it published.\n\nFeeling you will take an interest in this and if possible write me a\nletter to some publisher, or, better still, if you could see them for me\nand then let me hear.\n\nI appeal to you to grant me this favor. With deepest gratitude I think\nyou for your attention.\n\nOne knows, without inquiring, that the twin of that embarrassing letter\nis forever and ever flying in this and that and the other direction\nacross the continent in the mails, daily, nightly, hourly, unceasingly,\nunrestingly. It goes to every well-known merchant, and railway official,\nand manufacturer, and capitalist, and Mayor, and Congressman, and\nGovernor, and editor, and publisher, and author, and broker, and\nbanker--in a word, to every person who is supposed to have \"influence.\"\nIt always follows the one pattern: \"You do not know me, _but you once\nknew a relative of mine,_\" etc., etc. We should all like to help the\napplicants, we should all be glad to do it, we should all like to return\nthe sort of answer that is desired, but--Well, there is not a thing we\ncan do that would be a help, for not in any instance does that latter\never come from anyone who _can _be helped. The struggler whom you _could\n_help does his own helping; it would not occur to him to apply to you,\nstranger. He has talent and knows it, and he goes into his fight eagerly\nand with energy and determination--all alone, preferring to be alone.\nThat pathetic letter which comes to you from the incapable, the\nunhelpable--how do you who are familiar with it answer it? What do you\nfind to say? You do not want to inflict a wound; you hunt ways to avoid\nthat. What do you find? How do you get out of your hard place with a\ncontent conscience? Do you try to explain? The old reply of mine to such\na letter shows that I tried that once. Was I satisfied with the result?\nPossibly; and possibly not; probably not; almost certainly not. I have\nlong ago forgotten all about it. But, anyway, I append my effort:\n\nTHE REPLY\n\nI know Mr. H., and I will go to him, dear madam, if upon reflection you\nfind you still desire it. There will be a conversation. I know the form\nit will take. It will be like this:\n\nMR. H. How do her books strike you?\n\nMR. CLEMENS. I am not acquainted with them.\n\nH. Who has been her publisher?\n\nC. I don't know.\n\nH. She _has _one, I suppose?\n\nC. I--I think not.\n\nH. Ah. You think this is her first book?\n\nC. Yes--I suppose so. I think so.\n\nH. What is it about? What is the character of it?\n\nC. I believe I do not know.\n\nH. Have you seen it?\n\nC. Well--no, I haven't.\n\nH. Ah-h. How long have you known her?\n\nC. I don't know her.\n\nH. Don't know her?\n\nC. No.\n\nH. Ah-h. How did you come to be interested in her book, then?\n\nC. Well, she--she wrote and asked me to find a publisher for her, and\nmentioned you.\n\nH. Why should she apply to you instead of me?\n\nC. She wished me to use my influence.\n\nH. Dear me, what has _influence _to do with such a matter?\n\nC. Well, I think she thought you would be more likely to examine her\nbook if you were influenced.\n\nH. Why, what we are here _for _is to examine books--anybody's book\nthat comes along. It's our _business_. Why should we turn away a book\nunexamined because it's a stranger's? It would be foolish. No publisher\ndoes it. On what ground did she request your influence, since you do not\nknow her? She must have thought you knew her literature and could speak\nfor it. Is that it?\n\nC. No; she knew I didn't.\n\nH. Well, what then? She had a reason of _some _sort for believing you\ncompetent to recommend her literature, and also under obligations to do\nit?\n\nC. Yes, I--I knew her uncle.\n\nH. Knew her _uncle_?\n\nC. Yes.\n\nH. Upon my word! So, you knew her uncle; her uncle knows her literature;\nhe endorses it to you; the chain is complete, nothing further needed;\nyou are satisfied, and therefore--\n\nC._ No_, that isn't all, there are other ties. I know the cabin her\nuncle lived in, in the mines; I knew his partners, too; also I came\nnear knowing her husband before she married him, and I _did _know the\nabandoned shaft where a premature blast went off and he went flying\nthrough the air and clear down to the trail and hit an Indian in the\nback with almost fatal consequences.\n\nH. To _him_, or to the Indian?\n\nC. She didn't say which it was.\n\nH. (_With a sigh_). It certainly beats the band! You don't know _her_,\nyou don't know her literature, you don't know who got hurt when the\nblast went off, you don't know a single thing for us to build an\nestimate of her book upon, so far as I--\n\nC. I knew her uncle. You are forgetting her uncle.\n\nH. Oh, what use is_ he_? Did you know him long? How long was it?\n\nC. Well, I don't know that I really knew him, but I must have met him,\nanyway. I think it was that way; you can't tell about these things, you\nknow, except when they are recent.\n\nH. Recent? When was all this?\n\nC. Sixteen years ago.\n\nH. What a basis to judge a book upon! As first you said you knew him,\nand now you don't know whether you did or not.\n\nC. Oh yes, I know him; anyway, I think I thought I did; I'm perfectly\ncertain of it.\n\nH. What makes you think you thought you knew him?\n\nC. Why, she says I did, herself.\n\nH._ She_ says so!\n\nC. Yes, she does, and I _did _know him, too, though I don't remember it\nnow.\n\nH. Come--how can you know it when you don't remember it.\n\nC. _I_ don't know. That is, I don't know the process, but I_ do_ know\nlots of things that I don't remember, and remember lots of things that I\ndon't know. It's so with every educated person.\n\nH. (_After a pause_). Is your time valuable?\n\nC. No--well, not very.\n\nH. Mine is.\n\nSo I came away then, because he was looking tired. Overwork, I reckon; I\nnever do that; I have seen the evil effects of it. My mother was always\nafraid I would overwork myself, but I never did.\n\nDear madam, you see how it would happen if I went there. He would ask\nme those questions, and I would try to answer them to suit him, and he\nwould hunt me here and there and yonder and get me embarrassed more\nand more all the time, and at last he would look tired on account of\noverwork, and there it would end and nothing done. I wish I could be\nuseful to you, but, you see, they do not care for uncles or any of those\nthings; it doesn't move them, it doesn't have the least effect, they\ndon't care for anything but the literature itself, and they as good as\ndespise influence. But they do care for books, and are eager to get them\nand examine them, no matter whence they come, nor from whose pen. If you\nwill send yours to a publisher--any publisher--he will certainly examine\nit, I can assure you of that.\n\n\n\nA TELEPHONIC CONVERSATION\n\nConsider that a conversation by telephone--when you are simply sitting\nby and not taking any part in that conversation--is one of the solemnest\ncuriosities of modern life. Yesterday I was writing a deep article on a\nsublime philosophical subject while such a conversation was going on\nin the room. I notice that one can always write best when somebody is\ntalking through a telephone close by. Well, the thing began in this way.\nA member of our household came in and asked me to have our house put\ninto communication with Mr. Bagley's downtown. I have observed, in many\ncities, that the sex always shrink from calling up the central office\nthemselves. I don't know why, but they do. So I touched the bell, and\nthis talk ensued:\n\n_Central Office. (Gruffly.)_ Hello!\n\nI. Is it the Central Office?\n\nC. O. Of course it is. What do you want?\n\nI. Will you switch me on to the Bagleys, please?\n\nC. O. All right. Just keep your ear to the telephone.\n\nThen I heard _k-look, k-look, k'look--klook-klook-klook-look-look!_ then a\nhorrible \"gritting\" of teeth, and finally a piping female voice: Y-e-s?\n(_Rising inflection._) Did you wish to speak to me?\n\nWithout answering, I handed the telephone to the applicant, and sat\ndown. Then followed that queerest of all the queer things in this\nworld--a conversation with only one end to it. You hear questions asked;\nyou don't hear the answer. You hear invitations given; you hear no\nthanks in return. You have listening pauses of dead silence, followed by\napparently irrelevant and unjustifiable exclamations of glad surprise or\nsorrow or dismay. You can't make head or tail of the talk, because you\nnever hear anything that the person at the other end of the wire says.\nWell, I heard the following remarkable series of observations, all from\nthe one tongue, and all shouted--for you can't ever persuade the sex to\nspeak gently into a telephone:\n\nYes? Why, how did _that _happen?\n\nPause.\n\nWhat did you say?\n\nPause.\n\nOh no, I don't think it was.\n\nPause.\n\n_ No_! Oh no, I didn't mean _that_. I meant, put it in while it is still\nboiling--or just before it _comes _to a boil.\n\nPause.\n\n_What_?\n\nPause.\n\nI turned it over with a backstitch on the selvage edge.\n\nPause.\n\nYes, I like that way, too; but I think it's better to baste it on with\nValenciennes or bombazine, or something of that sort. It gives it such\nan air--and attracts so much noise.\n\nPause.\n\nIt's forty-ninth Deuteronomy, sixty-forth to ninety-seventh inclusive. I\nthink we ought all to read it often.\n\nPause.\n\nPerhaps so; I generally use a hair pin.\n\nPause.\n\nWhat did you say? (_Aside_.) Children, do be quiet!\n\nPause\n\n_Oh!_ B _flat!_ Dear me, I thought you said it was the cat!\n\nPause.\n\nSince _when_?\n\nPause.\n\nWhy, _I_ never heard of it.\n\nPause.\n\nYou astound me! It seems utterly impossible!\n\nPause.\n\n_Who _did?\n\nPause.\n\nGood-ness gracious!\n\nPause.\n\nWell, what_ is_ this world coming to? Was it right in _church_?\n\nPause.\n\nAnd was her _mother _there?\n\nPause.\n\nWhy, Mrs. Bagley, I should have died of humiliation! What did they_ do_?\n\nLong pause.\n\nI can't be perfectly sure, because I haven't the notes by me; but\nI think it goes something like this: te-rolly-loll-loll, loll\nlolly-loll-loll, O tolly-loll-loll-_lee-ly-li_-i-do! And then _repeat_,\nyou know.\n\nPause.\n\nYes, I think it_ is_ very sweet--and very solemn and impressive, if you\nget the andantino and the pianissimo right.\n\nPause.\n\nOh, gum-drops, gum-drops! But I never allow them to eat striped candy.\nAnd of course they _can't_, till they get their teeth, anyway.\n\nPause.\n\n_What_?\n\nPause.\n\nOh, not in the least--go right on. He's here writing--it doesn't bother\n_him_.\n\nPause.\n\nVery well, I'll come if I canI'll come if I can. (_Aside_.) Dear me, how it does tire a\nperson's arm to hold this thing up so long! I wish she'd--\n\nPause.\n\nOh no, not at all; I _like _to talk--but I'm afraid I'm keeping you from\nyour affairs.\n\nPause.\n\nVisitors?\n\nPause.\n\nNo, we never use butter on them.\n\nPause.\n\nYes, that is a very good way; but all the cook-books say they are very\nunhealthy when they are out of season. And_ he_ doesn't like them,\nanyway--especially canned.\n\nPause.\n\nOh, I think that is too high for them; we have never paid over fifty\ncents a bunch.\n\nPause.\n\n_Must _you go? Well, _good_-by.\n\nPause.\n\nYes, I think so. _good_-by.\n\nPause.\n\nFour o'clock, then--I'll be ready. _good_-by.\n\nPause.\n\nThank you ever so much. _good_-by.\n\nPause.\n\nOh, not at all!--just as fresh--_which_? Oh, I'm glad to hear you say\nthat. _Good_-by.\n\n(Hangs up the telephone and says, \"Oh, it _does _tire a person's arm\nso!\")\n\nA man delivers a single brutal \"Good-by,\" and that is the end of it.\nNot so with the gentle sex--I say it in their praise; they cannot abide\nabruptness.\n\n\n\nEDWARD MILLS AND GEORGE BENTON: A TALE\n\nThese two were distantly related to each other--seventh cousins, or\nsomething of that sort. While still babies they became orphans, and were\nadopted by the Brants, a childless couple, who quickly grew very fond\nof them. The Brants were always saying: \"Be pure, honest, sober,\nindustrious, and considerate of others, and success in life is assured.\"\nThe children heard this repeated some thousands of times before they\nunderstood it; they could repeat it themselves long before they could\nsay the Lord's Prayer; it was painted over the nursery door, and was\nabout the first thing they learned to read. It was destined to be the\nunswerving rule of Edward Mills's life. Sometimes the Brants changed\nthe wording a little, and said: \"Be pure, honest, sober, industrious,\nconsiderate, and you will never lack friends.\"\n\nBaby Mills was a comfort to everybody about him. When he wanted candy\nand could not have it, he listened to reason, and contented himself\nwithout it. When Baby Benton wanted candy, he cried for it until he got\nit. Baby Mills took care of his toys; Baby Benton always destroyed his\nin a very brief time, and then made himself so insistently disagreeable\nthat, in order to have peace in the house, little Edward was persuaded\nto yield up his play-things to him.\n\nWhen the children were a little older, Georgie became a heavy expense\nin one respect: he took no care of his clothes; consequently, he shone\nfrequently in new ones, which was not the case with Eddie. The boys\ngrew apace. Eddie was an increasing comfort, Georgie an increasing\nsolicitude. It was always sufficient to say, in answer to Eddie's\npetitions, \"I would rather you would not do it\"--meaning swimming,\nskating, picnicking, berrying, circusing, and all sorts of things which\nboys delight in. But_ no_ answer was sufficient for Georgie; he had\nto be humored in his desires, or he would carry them with a high hand.\nNaturally, no boy got more swimming skating, berrying, and so forth than\nhe; no body ever had a better time. The good Brants did not allow the\nboys to play out after nine in summer evenings; they were sent to bed at\nthat hour; Eddie honorably remained, but Georgie usually slipped out\nof the window toward ten, and enjoyed himself until midnight. It seemed\nimpossible to break Georgie of this bad habit, but the Brants managed\nit at last by hiring him, with apples and marbles, to stay in. The good\nBrants gave all their time and attention to vain endeavors to regulate\nGeorgie; they said, with grateful tears in their eyes, that Eddie needed\nno efforts of theirs, he was so good, so considerate, and in all ways so\nperfect.\n\nBy and by the boys were big enough to work, so they were apprenticed to\na trade: Edward went voluntarily; George was coaxed and bribed. Edward\nworked hard and faithfully, and ceased to be an expense to the good\nBrants; they praised him, so did his master; but George ran away, and it\ncost Mr. Brant both money and trouble to hunt him up and get him back.\nBy and by he ran away again--more money and more trouble. He ran away\na third time--and stole a few things to carry with him. Trouble and\nexpense for Mr. Brant once more; and, besides, it was with the greatest\ndifficulty that he succeeded in persuading the master to let the youth\ngo unprosecuted for the theft.\n\nEdward worked steadily along, and in time became a full partner in his\nmaster's business. George did not improve; he kept the loving hearts of\nhis aged benefactors full of trouble, and their hands full of inventive\nactivities to protect him from ruin. Edward, as a boy, had interested\nhimself in Sunday-schools, debating societies, penny missionary affairs,\nanti-tobacco organizations, anti-profanity associations, and all such\nthings; as a man, he was a quiet but steady and reliable helper in the\nchurch, the temperance societies, and in all movements looking to\nthe aiding and uplifting of men. This excited no remark, attracted no\nattention--for it was his \"natural bent.\"\n\nFinally, the old people died. The will testified their loving pride in\nEdward, and left their little property to George--because he \"needed\nit\"; whereas, \"owing to a bountiful Providence,\" such was not the case\nwith Edward. The property was left to George conditionally: he must\nbuy out Edward's partner with it; else it must go to a benevolent\norganization called the Prisoner's Friend Society. The old people left\na letter, in which they begged their dear son Edward to take their place\nand watch over George, and help and shield him as they had done.\n\nEdward dutifully acquiesced, and George became his partner in the\nbusiness. He was not a valuable partner: he had been meddling with drink\nbefore; he soon developed into a constant tippler now, and his flesh and\neyes showed the fact unpleasantly. Edward had been courting a sweet\nand kindly spirited girl for some time. They loved each other dearly,\nand--But about this period George began to haunt her tearfully and\nimploringly, and at last she went crying to Edward, and said her high\nand holy duty was plain before her--she must not let her own selfish\ndesires interfere with it: she must marry \"poor George\" and \"reform\nhim.\" It would break her heart, she knew it would, and so on; but duty\nwas duty. So she married George, and Edward's heart came very near\nbreaking, as well as her own. However, Edward recovered, and married\nanother girl--a very excellent one she was, too.\n\nChildren came to both families. Mary did her honest best to reform her\nhusband, but the contract was too large. George went on drinking, and by\nand by he fell to misusing her and the little ones sadly. A great many\ngood people strove with George--they were always at it, in fact--but he\ncalmly took such efforts as his due and their duty, and did not mend his\nways. He added a vice, presently--that of secret gambling. He got deeply\nin debt; he borrowed money on the firm's credit, as quietly as he could,\nand carried this system so far and so successfully that one morning the\nsheriff took possession of the establishment, and the two cousins found\nthemselves penniless.\n\nTimes were hard, now, and they grew worse. Edward moved his family into\na garret, and walked the streets day and night, seeking work. He begged\nfor it, but it was really not to be had. He was astonished to see how\nsoon his face became unwelcome; he was astonished and hurt to see how\nquickly the ancient interest which people had had in him faded out and\ndisappeared. Still, he _must _get work; so he swallowed his chagrin, and\ntoiled on in search of it. At last he got a job of carrying bricks up a\nladder in a hod, and was a grateful man in consequence; but after that\n_nobody _knew him or cared anything about him. He was not able to keep\nup his dues in the various moral organizations to which he belonged,\nand had to endure the sharp pain of seeing himself brought under the\ndisgrace of suspension.\n\nBut the faster Edward died out of public knowledge and interest, the\nfaster George rose in them. He was found lying, ragged and drunk, in the\ngutter one morning. A member of the Ladies' Temperance Refuge fished him\nout, took him in hand, got up a subscription for him, kept him sober\na whole week, then got a situation for him. An account of it was\npublished.\n\nGeneral attention was thus drawn to the poor fellow, and a great many\npeople came forward and helped him toward reform with their countenance\nand encouragement. He did not drink a drop for two months, and meantime\nwas the pet of the good. Then he fell--in the gutter; and there was\ngeneral sorrow and lamentation. But the noble sisterhood rescued him\nagain. They cleaned him up, they fed him, they listened to the mournful\nmusic of his repentances, they got him his situation again. An account\nof this, also, was published, and the town was drowned in happy tears\nover the re-restoration of the poor beast and struggling victim of\nthe fatal bowl. A grand temperance revival was got up, and after some\nrousing speeches had been made the chairman said, impressively: \"We are\nnot about to call for signers; and I think there is a spectacle in\nstore for you which not many in this house will be able to view with dry\neyes.\" There was an eloquent pause, and then George Benton, escorted\nby a red-sashed detachment of the Ladies of the Refuge, stepped forward\nupon the platform and signed the pledge. The air was rent with applause,\nand everybody cried for joy. Everybody wrung the hand of the new convert\nwhen the meeting was over; his salary was enlarged next day; he was the\ntalk of the town, and its hero. An account of it was published.\n\nGeorge Benton fell, regularly, every three months, but was faithfully\nrescued and wrought with, every time, and good situations were found for\nhim. Finally, he was taken around the country lecturing, as a reformed\ndrunkard, and he had great houses and did an immense amount of good.\n\nHe was so popular at home, and so trusted--during his sober\nintervals--that he was enabled to use the name of a principal citizen,\nand get a large sum of money at the bank. A mighty pressure was brought\nto bear to save him from the consequences of his forgery, and it was\npartially successful--he was \"sent up\" for only two years. When, at the\nend of a year, the tireless efforts of the benevolent were crowned\nwith success, and he emerged from the penitentiary with a pardon in\nhis pocket, the Prisoner's Friend Society met him at the door with a\nsituation and a comfortable salary, and all the other benevolent people\ncame forward and gave him advice, encouragement and help. Edward Mills\nhad once applied to the Prisoner's Friend Society for a situation, when\nin dire need, but the question, \"Have you been a prisoner?\" made brief\nwork of his case.\n\nWhile all these things were going on, Edward Mills had been quietly\nmaking head against adversity. He was still poor, but was in receipt of\na steady and sufficient salary, as the respected and trusted cashier\nof a bank. George Benton never came near him, and was never heard to\ninquire about him. George got to indulging in long absences from the\ntown; there were ill reports about him, but nothing definite.\n\nOne winter's night some masked burglars forced their way into the bank,\nand found Edward Mills there alone. They commanded him to reveal the\n\"combination,\" so that they could get into the safe. He refused. They\nthreatened his life. He said his employers trusted him, and he could not\nbe traitor to that trust. He could die, if he must, but while he lived\nhe would be faithful; he would not yield up the \"combination.\" The\nburglars killed him.\n\nThe detectives hunted down the criminals; the chief one proved to be\nGeorge Benton. A wide sympathy was felt for the widow and orphans of the\ndead man, and all the newspapers in the land begged that all the banks\nin the land would testify their appreciation of the fidelity and heroism\nof the murdered cashier by coming forward with a generous contribution\nof money in aid of his family, now bereft of support. The result was\na mass of solid cash amounting to upward of five hundred dollars--an\naverage of nearly three-eights of a cent for each bank in the Union. The\ncashier's own bank testified its gratitude by endeavoring to show (but\nhumiliatingly failed in it) that the peerless servant's accounts were\nnot square, and that he himself had knocked his brains out with a\nbludgeon to escape detection and punishment.\n\nGeorge Benton was arraigned for trial. Then everybody seemed to forget\nthe widow and orphans in their solicitude for poor George. Everything\nthat money and influence could do was done to save him, but it all\nfailed; he was sentenced to death. Straightway the Governor was besieged\nwith petitions for commutation or pardon; they were brought by tearful\nyoung girls; by sorrowful old maids; by deputations of pathetic widows;\nby shoals of impressive orphans. But no, the Governor--for once--would\nnot yield.\n\nNow George Benton experienced religion. The glad news flew all around.\nFrom that time forth his cell was always full of girls and women and\nfresh flowers; all the day long there was prayer, and hymn-singing,\nand thanksgiving, and homilies, and tears, with never an interruption,\nexcept an occasional five-minute intermission for refreshments.\n\nThis sort of thing continued up to the very gallows, and George Benton\nwent proudly home, in the black cap, before a wailing audience of the\nsweetest and best that the region could produce. His grave had fresh\nflowers on it every day, for a while, and the head-stone bore these\nwords, under a hand pointing aloft: \"He has fought the good fight.\"\n\nThe brave cashier's head-stone has this inscription: \"Be pure, honest,\nsober, industrious, considerate, and you will never--\"\n\nNobody knows who gave the order to leave it that way, but it was so\ngiven.\n\nThe cashier's family are in stringent circumstances, now, it is said;\nbut no matter; a lot of appreciative people, who were not willing that\nan act so brave and true as his should go unrewarded, have collected\nforty-two thousand dollars--and built a Memorial Church with it.\n\n\n\nTHE FIVE BOONS OF LIFE\n\n\n\nChapter I\n\nIn the morning of life came a good fairy with her basket, and said:\n\n\"Here are gifts. Take one, leave the others. And be wary, choose wisely;\noh, choose wisely! for only one of them is valuable.\"\n\nThe gifts were five: Fame, Love, Riches, Pleasure, Death. The youth\nsaid, eagerly:\n\n\"There is no need to consider\"; and he chose Pleasure.\n\nHe went out into the world and sought out the pleasures that youth\ndelights in. But each in its turn was short-lived and disappointing,\nvain and empty; and each, departing, mocked him. In the end he said:\n\"These years I have wasted. If I could but choose again, I would choose\nwisely.\"\n\n\n\nChapter II\n\nThe fairy appeared, and said:\n\n\"Four of the gifts remain. Choose once more; and oh, remember--time is\nflying, and only one of them is precious.\"\n\nThe man considered long, then chose Love; and did not mark the tears\nthat rose in the fairy's eyes.\n\nAfter many, many years the man sat by a coffin, in an empty home. And he\ncommuned with himself, saying: \"One by one they have gone away and left\nme; and now she lies here, the dearest and the last. Desolation after\ndesolation has swept over me; for each hour of happiness the treacherous\ntrader, Love, has sold me I have paid a thousand hours of grief. Out of\nmy heart of hearts I curse him.\"\n\n\n\nChapter III\n\n\"Choose again.\" It was the fairy speaking.\n\n\"The years have taught you wisdom--surely it must be so. Three gifts\nremain. Only one of them has any worth--remember it, and choose warily.\"\n\nThe man reflected long, then chose Fame; and the fairy, sighing, went\nher way.\n\nYears went by and she came again, and stood behind the man where he sat\nsolitary in the fading day, thinking. And she knew his thought:\n\n\"My name filled the world, and its praises were on every tongue, and it\nseemed well with me for a little while. How little a while it was! Then\ncame envy; then detraction; then calumny; then hate; then persecution.\nThen derision, which is the beginning of the end. And last of all came\npity, which is the funeral of fame. Oh, the bitterness and misery of\nrenown! target for mud in its prime, for contempt and compassion in its\ndecay.\"\n\n\n\nChapter IV\n\n\"Chose yet again.\" It was the fairy's voice.\n\n\"Two gifts remain. And do not despair. In the beginning there was but\none that was precious, and it is still here.\"\n\n\"Wealth--which is power! How blind I was!\" said the man. \"Now, at last,\nlife will be worth the living. I will spend, squander, dazzle. These\nmockers and despisers will crawl in the dirt before me, and I will feed\nmy hungry heart with their envy. I will have all luxuries, all joys, all\nenchantments of the spirit, all contentments of the body that man holds\ndear. I will buy, buy, buy! deference, respect, esteem, worship--every\npinchbeck grace of life the market of a trivial world can furnish forth.\nI have lost much time, and chosen badly heretofore, but let that pass; I\nwas ignorant then, and could but take for best what seemed so.\"\n\nThree short years went by, and a day came when the man sat shivering in\na mean garret; and he was gaunt and wan and hollow-eyed, and clothed in\nrags; and he was gnawing a dry crust and mumbling:\n\n\"Curse all the world's gifts, for mockeries and gilded lies! And\nmiscalled, every one. They are not gifts, but merely lendings. Pleasure,\nLove, Fame, Riches: they are but temporary disguises for lasting\nrealities--Pain, Grief, Shame, Poverty. The fairy said true; in all her\nstore there was but one gift which was precious, only one that was not\nvalueless. How poor and cheap and mean I know those others now to be,\ncompared with that inestimable one, that dear and sweet and kindly one,\nthat steeps in dreamless and enduring sleep the pains that persecute the\nbody, and the shames and griefs that eat the mind and heart. Bring it! I\nam weary, I would rest.\"\n\n\n\nChapter V\n\nThe fairy came, bringing again four of the gifts, but Death was wanting.\nShe said:\n\n\"I gave it to a mother's pet, a little child. It was ignorant, but\ntrusted me, asking me to choose for it. You did not ask me to choose.\"\n\n\"Oh, miserable me! What is left for me?\"\n\n\"What not even you have deserved: the wanton insult of Old Age.\"\n\n\n\nTHE FIRST WRITING-MACHINES\n\nFrom My Unpublished Autobiography\n\nSome days ago a correspondent sent in an old typewritten sheet, faded by\nage, containing the following letter over the signature of Mark Twain:\n\n\"Hartford, March 10, 1875.\n\n\"Please do not use my name in any way. Please do not even divulge that\nfact that I own a machine. I have entirely stopped using the typewriter,\nfor the reason that I never could write a letter with it to anybody\nwithout receiving a request by return mail that I would not only\ndescribe the machine, but state what progress I had made in the use of\nit, etc., etc. I don't like to write letters, and so I don't want people\nto know I own this curiosity-breeding little joker.\"\n\nA note was sent to Mr. Clemens asking him if the letter was genuine\nand whether he really had a typewriter as long ago as that. Mr.\nClemens replied that his best answer is the following chapter from his\nunpublished autobiography:\n\n1904. VILLA QUARTO, FLORENCE, JANUARY.\n\nDictating autobiography to a typewriter is a new experience for me, but\nit goes very well, and is going to save time and \"language\"--the kind of\nlanguage that soothes vexation.\n\nI have dictated to a typewriter before--but not autobiography. Between\nthat experience and the present one there lies a mighty gap--more than\nthirty years! It is a sort of lifetime. In that wide interval much\nhas happened--to the type-machine as well as to the rest of us. At the\nbeginning of that interval a type-machine was a curiosity. The person\nwho owned one was a curiosity, too. But now it is the other way about:\nthe person who _doesn't_ own one is a curiosity. I saw a type-machine\nfor the first time in--what year? I suppose it was 1873--because\nNasby was with me at the time, and it was in Boston. We must have been\nlecturing, or we could not have been in Boston, I take it. I quitted the\nplatform that season.\n\nBut never mind about that, it is no matter. Nasby and I saw the machine\nthrough a window, and went in to look at it. The salesman explained it\nto us, showed us samples of its work, and said it could do fifty-seven\nwords a minute--a statement which we frankly confessed that we did not\nbelieve. So he put his type-girl to work, and we timed her by the\nwatch. She actually did the fifty-seven in sixty seconds. We were partly\nconvinced, but said it probably couldn't happen again. But it did. We\ntimed the girl over and over again--with the same result always: she won\nout. She did her work on narrow slips of paper, and we pocketed them as\nfast as she turned them out, to show as curiosities. The price of the\nmachine was one hundred and twenty-five dollars. I bought one, and we\nwent away very much excited.\n\nAt the hotel we got out our slips and were a little disappointed to find\nthat they contained the same words. The girl had economized time\nand labor by using a formula which she knew by heart. However, we\nargued--safely enough--that the _first _type-girl must naturally take\nrank with the first billiard-player: neither of them could be expected\nto get out of the game any more than a third or a half of what was in\nit. If the machine survived--_if_ it survived--experts would come to the\nfront, by and by, who would double the girl's output without a doubt.\nThey would do one hundred words a minute--my talking speed on the\nplatform. That score has long ago been beaten.\n\nAt home I played with the toy, repeating and repeating and repeating\n\"The Boy stood on the Burning Deck,\" until I could turn that boy's\nadventure out at the rate of twelve words a minute; then I resumed the\npen, for business, and only worked the machine to astonish inquiring\nvisitors. They carried off many reams of the boy and his burning deck.\n\nBy and by I hired a young woman, and did my first dictating (letters,\nmerely), and my last until now. The machine did not do both capitals and\nlower case (as now), but only capitals. Gothic capitals they were, and\nsufficiently ugly. I remember the first letter I dictated, it was to\nEdward Bok, who was a boy then. I was not acquainted with him at that\ntime. His present enterprising spirit is not new--he had it in that\nearly day. He was accumulating autographs, and was not content with mere\nsignatures, he wanted a whole autograph _letter_. I furnished it--in\ntype-written capitals, _signature and all._ It was long; it was a\nsermon; it contained advice; also reproaches. I said writing was my\n_trade_, my bread-and-butter; I said it was not fair to ask a man\nto give away samples of his trade; would he ask the blacksmith for a\nhorseshoe? would he ask the doctor for a corpse?\n\nNow I come to an important matter--as I regard it. In the year '74\nthe young woman copied a considerable part of a book of mine _on the\nmachine_. In a previous chapter of this Autobiography I have claimed\nthat I was the first person in the world that ever had a telephone\nin the house for practical purposes; I will now claim--until\ndispossessed--that I was the first person in the world to _apply the\ntype-machine to literature_. That book must have been _The Adventures Of\nTom Sawyer._ I wrote the first half of it in '72, the rest of it in '74.\nMy machinist type-copied a book for me in '74, so I concluded it was\nthat one.\n\nThat early machine was full of caprices, full of defects--devilish ones.\nIt had as many immoralities as the machine of today has virtues. After\na year or two I found that it was degrading my character, so I thought\nI would give it to Howells. He was reluctant, for he was suspicious of\nnovelties and unfriendly toward them, and he remains so to this day. But\nI persuaded him. He had great confidence in me, and I got him to believe\nthings about the machine that I did not believe myself. He took it home\nto Boston, and my morals began to improve, but his have never recovered.\n\nHe kept it six months, and then returned it to me. I gave it away twice\nafter that, but it wouldn't stay; it came back. Then I gave it to our\ncoachman, Patrick McAleer, who was very grateful, because he did not\nknow the animal, and thought I was trying to make him wiser and better.\nAs soon as he got wiser and better he traded it to a heretic for a\nside-saddle which he could not use, and there my knowledge of its\nhistory ends.\n\n\n\nITALIAN WITHOUT A MASTER\n\nIt is almost a fortnight now that I am domiciled in a medieval villa in\nthe country, a mile or two from Florence. I cannot speak the language;\nI am too old now to learn how, also too busy when I am busy, and too\nindolent when I am not; wherefore some will imagine that I am having a\ndull time of it. But it is not so. The \"help\" are all natives; they talk\nItalian to me, I answer in English; I do not understand them, they\ndo not understand me, consequently no harm is done, and everybody is\nsatisfied. In order to be just and fair, I throw in an Italian word when\nI have one, and this has a good influence. I get the word out of the\nmorning paper. I have to use it while it is fresh, for I find that\nItalian words do not keep in this climate. They fade toward night, and\nnext morning they are gone. But it is no matter; I get a new one out of\nthe paper before breakfast, and thrill the domestics with it while it\nlasts. I have no dictionary, and I do not want one; I can select words\nby the sound, or by orthographic aspect. Many of them have French or\nGerman or English look, and these are the ones I enslave for the day's\nservice. That is, as a rule. Not always. If I find a learnable phrase\nthat has an imposing look and warbles musically along I do not care to\nknow the meaning of it; I pay it out to the first applicant, knowing\nthat if I pronounce it carefully_ he_ will understand it, and that's\nenough.\n\nYesterday's word was _avanti_. It sounds Shakespearian, and probably\nmeans Avaunt and quit my sight. Today I have a whole phrase: _sono\ndispiacentissimo_. I do not know what it means, but it seems to fit\nin everywhere and give satisfaction. Although as a rule my words and\nphrases are good for one day and train only, I have several that stay by\nme all the time, for some unknown reason, and these come very handy\nwhen I get into a long conversation and need things to fire up with\nin monotonous stretches. One of the best ones is _dov \u010d il gatto_. It\nnearly always produces a pleasant surprise, therefore I save it up for\nplaces where I want to express applause or admiration. The fourth word\nhas a French sound, and I think the phrase means \"that takes the cake.\"\n\nDuring my first week in the deep and dreamy stillness of this woodsy\nand flowery place I was without news of the outside world, and was well\ncontent without it. It had been four weeks since I had seen a newspaper,\nand this lack seemed to give life a new charm and grace, and to saturate\nit with a feeling verging upon actual delight. Then came a change that\nwas to be expected: the appetite for news began to rise again, after\nthis invigorating rest. I had to feed it, but I was not willing to let\nit make me its helpless slave again; I determined to put it on a diet,\nand a strict and limited one. So I examined an Italian paper, with\nthe idea of feeding it on that, and on that exclusively. On that\nexclusively, and without help of a dictionary. In this way I should\nsurely be well protected against overloading and indigestion.\n\nA glance at the telegraphic page filled me with encouragement. There\nwere no scare-heads. That was good--supremely good. But there were\nheadings--one-liners and two-liners--and that was good too; for without\nthese, one must do as one does with a German paper--pay out precious\ntime in finding out what an article is about, only to discover, in many\ncases, that there is nothing in it of interest to you. The headline is a\nvaluable thing.\n\nNecessarily we are all fond of murders, scandals, swindles, robberies,\nexplosions, collisions, and all such things, when we know the people,\nand when they are neighbors and friends, but when they are strangers we\ndo not get any great pleasure out of them, as a rule. Now the trouble\nwith an American paper is that it has no discrimination; it rakes the\nwhole earth for blood and garbage, and the result is that you are daily\noverfed and suffer a surfeit. By habit you stow this muck every day, but\nyou come by and by to take no vital interest in it--indeed, you\nalmost get tired of it. As a rule, forty-nine-fiftieths of it concerns\nstrangers only--people away off yonder, a thousand miles, two thousand\nmiles, ten thousand miles from where you are. Why, when you come to\nthink of it, who cares what becomes of those people? I would not give\nthe assassination of one personal friend for a whole massacre of those\nothers. And, to my mind, one relative or neighbor mixed up in a scandal\nis more interesting than a whole Sodom and Gomorrah of outlanders gone\nrotten. Give me the home product every time.\n\nVery well. I saw at a glance that the Florentine paper would suit me:\nfive out of six of its scandals and tragedies were local; they were\nadventures of one's very neighbors, one might almost say one's friends.\nIn the matter of world news there was not too much, but just about\nenough. I subscribed. I have had no occasion to regret it. Every morning\nI get all the news I need for the day; sometimes from the headlines,\nsometimes from the text. I have never had to call for a dictionary yet.\nI read the paper with ease. Often I do not quite understand, often some\nof the details escape me, but no matter, I get the idea. I will cut out\na passage or two, then you see how limpid the language is:\n\nIl ritorno dei Beati d'Italia\n\nElargizione del Re all' Ospedale italiano\n\nThe first line means that the Italian sovereigns are coming back--they\nhave been to England. The second line seems to mean that they enlarged\nthe King at the Italian hospital. With a banquet, I suppose. An English\nbanquet has that effect. Further:\n\n_Il ritorno dei sovrani_\n\na Roma\n\nROMA, 24, ore 22,50.--_I Sovrani e le Principessine Reali si attendono a\nRoma domani alle ore_ 15,51.\n\nReturn of the sovereigns to Rome, you see. Date of the telegram, Rome,\nNovember 24, ten minutes before twenty-three o'clock. The telegram seems\nto say, \"The Sovereigns and the Royal Children expect themselves at Rome\ntomorrow at fifty-one minutes after fifteen o'clock.\"\n\nI do not know about Italian time, but I judge it begins at midnight\nand runs through the twenty-four hours without breaking bulk. In the\nfollowing ad, the theaters open at half-past twenty. If these are not\nmatinees, 20.30 must mean 8.30 P.M., by my reckoning.\n\nSpettacolli del di 25\n\nTEATRO DELLA PERGOLA--(Ore 20,30)--Opera. BOHEME. TEATRO\nALFIERI.--Compagnia drammatica Drago--(Ore 20,30)--LA LEGGE.\nALHAMBRA--(Ore 20,30)--Spettacolo variato. SALA EDISON--Grandioso\nspettacolo Cinematografico: QUO-VADIS?--Inaugurazione della\nChiesa Russa -- In coda al Direttissimo -- Vedute di Firenze con gran\nmovimeno -- America: Transporto tronchi giganteschi--I ladri in casa del\nDiavolo -- Scene comiche. CINEMATOGRAFO -- Via Brunelleschi n. 4.--Programma\nstraordinario, DON CHISCIOTTE -- Prezzi populari.\n\nThe whole of that is intelligible to me--and sane and rational,\ntoo--except the remark about the Inauguration of a Russian Cheese. That\none oversizes my hand. Gimme me five cards.\n\nThis is a four-page paper; and as it is set in long primer leaded\nand has a page of advertisements, there is no room for the crimes,\ndisasters, and general sweepings of the outside world--thanks be! Today\nI find only a single importation of the off-color sort:\n\nUna Principessa\n\nche fugge con un cocchiere\n\nPARIGI, 24.--Il MATIN ha da Berlino che la principessa\nSchovenbare-Waldenbure scomparve il 9 novembre. Sarebbe partita col suo\ncocchiere.\n\nLa Principassa ha 27 anni.\n\nTwenty-seven years old, and scomparve--scampered--on the 9th November.\nYou see by the added detail that she departed with her coachman. I hope\nSarebbe has not made a mistake, but I am afraid the chances are that she\nhas. _Sono dispiacentissimo_.\n\nThere are several fires: also a couple of accidents. This is one of\nthem:\n\nGrave disgrazia sul Ponte Vecchio\n\nStammattina, circe le 7,30, mentre Giuseppe Sciatti, di anni 55, di\nCasellina e Torri, passava dal Ponte Vecchio, stando seduto sopra un\nbarroccio carico di verdura, perse l' equilibrio e cadde al suolo,\nrimanendo con la gamba destra sotto una ruota del veicolo.\n\nLo Sciatti fu subito raccolto da alcuni cittadini, che, per mezzo della\npubblica vettura n. 365, lo transporto a San Giovanni di Dio.\n\nIvi il medico di guardia gli riscontro la frattura della gamba destra\ne alcune lievi escoriazioni giudicandolo guaribile in 50 giorni salvo\ncomplicazioni.\n\nWhat it seems to say is this: \"Serious Disgrace on the Old Old Bridge.\nThis morning about 7.30, Mr. Joseph Sciatti, aged 55, of Casellina and\nTorri, while standing up in a sitting posture on top of a carico barrow\nof vedure (foliage? hay? vegetables?), lost his equilibrium and fell\non himself, arriving with his left leg under one of the wheels of the\nvehicle.\n\n\"Said Sciatti was suddenly harvested (gathered in?) by several citizens,\nwho by means of public cab No. 365 transported him to St. John of God.\"\n\nParagraph No. 3 is a little obscure, but I think it says that the medico\nset the broken left leg--right enough, since there was nothing the\nmatter with the other one--and that several are encouraged to hope that\nfifty days well fetch him around in quite giudicandolo-guaribile way, if\nno complications intervene.\n\nI am sure I hope so myself.\n\nThere is a great and peculiar charm about reading news-scraps in a\nlanguage which you are not acquainted with--the charm that always goes\nwith the mysterious and the uncertain. You can never be absolutely\nsure of the meaning of anything you read in such circumstances; you are\nchasing an alert and gamy riddle all the time, and the baffling turns\nand dodges of the prey make the life of the hunt. A dictionary would\nspoil it. Sometimes a single word of doubtful purport will cast a veil\nof dreamy and golden uncertainty over a whole paragraph of cold and\npractical certainties, and leave steeped in a haunting and adorable\nmystery an incident which had been vulgar and commonplace but for that\nbenefaction. Would you be wise to draw a dictionary on that gracious\nword? would you be properly grateful?\n\nAfter a couple of days' rest I now come back to my subject and seek\na case in point. I find it without trouble, in the morning paper; a\ncablegram from Chicago and Indiana by way of Paris. All the words save\none are guessable by a person ignorant of Italian:\n\nRevolverate in teatro\n\nPARIGI, 27.--La PATRIE ha da Chicago:\n\nIl guardiano del teatro dell'opera di Walace (Indiana), avendo voluto\nespellare uno spettatore che continuava a fumare malgrado il diviety,\nquesto spalleggiato dai suoi amici tir`o diversi colpi di rivoltella.\nIl guardiano ripose. Nacque una scarica generale. Grande panico tra gli\nspettatori. Nessun ferito.\n\n_Translation._--\"Revolveration in Theater. _Paris, 27th. La Patrie_ has\nfrom Chicago: The cop of the theater of the opera of Wallace, Indiana,\nhad willed to expel a spectator which continued to smoke in spite of the\nprohibition, who, spalleggiato by his friends, tire (_Fr. Tire, Anglice\nPulled_) manifold revolver-shots; great panic among the spectators.\nNobody hurt.\"\n\nIt is bettable that that harmless cataclysm in the theater of the opera\nof Wallace, Indiana, excited not a person in Europe but me, and so came\nnear to not being worth cabling to Florence by way of France. But it\ndoes excite me. It excites me because I cannot make out, for sure, what\nit was that moved the spectator to resist the officer. I was gliding\nalong smoothly and without obstruction or accident, until I came to that\nword \"spalleggiato,\" then the bottom fell out. You notice what a rich\ngloom, what a somber and pervading mystery, that word sheds all over the\nwhole Wallachian tragedy. That is the charm of the thing, that is the\ndelight of it. This is where you begin, this is where you revel. You can\nguess and guess, and have all the fun you like; you need not be afraid\nthere will be an end to it; none is possible, for no amount of guessing\nwill ever furnish you a meaning for that word that you can be sure is\nthe right one. All the other words give you hints, by their form, their\nsound, or their spelling--this one doesn't, this one throws out no\nhints, this one keeps its secret. If there is even the slightest slight\nshadow of a hint anywhere, it lies in the very meagerly suggestive fact\nthat \"spalleggiato\" carries our word \"egg\" in its stomach. Well, make\nthe most out of it, and then where are you at? You conjecture that\nthe spectator which was smoking in spite of the prohibition and become\nreprohibited by the guardians, was \"egged on\" by his friends, and that\nwas owing to that evil influence that he initiated the revolveration in\ntheater that has galloped under the sea and come crashing through the\nEuropean press without exciting anybody but me. But are you sure, are\nyou dead sure, that that was the way of it? No. Then the uncertainty\nremains, the mystery abides, and with it the charm. Guess again.\n\nIf I had a phrase-book of a really satisfactory sort I would study it,\nand not give all my free time to undictionarial readings, but there is\nno such work on the market. The existing phrase-books are inadequate.\nThey are well enough as far as they go, but when you fall down and skin\nyour leg they don't tell you what to say.\n\n\n\nITALIAN WITH GRAMMAR\n\nI found that a person of large intelligence could read this beautiful\nlanguage with considerable facility without a dictionary, but I\npresently found that to such a person a grammar could be of use at\ntimes. It is because, if he does not know the _were's_ and the\n_was's_ and the _maybe's_ and the _has-beens's_ apart, confusions and\nuncertainties can arise. He can get the idea that a thing is going to\nhappen next week when the truth is that it has already happened week\nbefore last. Even more previously, sometimes. Examination and inquiry\nshowed me that the adjectives and such things were frank and fair-minded\nand straightforward, and did not shuffle; it was the Verb that mixed the\nhands, it was the Verb that lacked stability, it was the Verb that had\nno permanent opinion about anything, it was the Verb that was always\ndodging the issue and putting out the light and making all the trouble.\n\nFurther examination, further inquiry, further reflection, confirmed this\njudgment, and established beyond peradventure the fact that the Verb was\nthe storm-center. This discovery made plain the right and wise course to\npursue in order to acquire certainty and exactness in understanding the\nstatements which the newspaper was daily endeavoring to convey to me: I\nmust catch a Verb and tame it. I must find out its ways, I must spot\nits eccentricities, I must penetrate its disguises, I must intelligently\nforesee and forecast at least the commoner of the dodges it was likely\nto try upon a stranger in given circumstances, I must get in on its main\nshifts and head them off, I must learn its game and play the limit.\n\nI had noticed, in other foreign languages, that verbs are bred in\nfamilies, and that the members of each family have certain features or\nresemblances that are common to that family and distinguish it from the\nother families--the other kin, the cousins and what not. I had noticed\nthat this family-mark is not usually the nose or the hair, so to speak,\nbut the tail--the Termination--and that these tails are quite definitely\ndifferentiated; insomuch that an expert can tell a Pluperfect from a\nSubjunctive by its tail as easily and as certainly as a cowboy can tell\na cow from a horse by the like process, the result of observation and\nculture. I should explain that I am speaking of legitimate verbs, those\nverbs which in the slang of the grammar are called Regular. There are\nothers--I am not meaning to conceal this; others called Irregulars, born\nout of wedlock, of unknown and uninteresting parentage, and naturally\ndestitute of family resemblances, as regards to all features, tails\nincluded. But of these pathetic outcasts I have nothing to say. I do not\napprove of them, I do not encourage them; I am prudishly delicate and\nsensitive, and I do not allow them to be used in my presence.\n\nBut, as I have said, I decided to catch one of the others and break it\ninto harness. One is enough. Once familiar with its assortment of tails,\nyou are immune; after that, no regular verb can conceal its specialty\nfrom you and make you think it is working the past or the future or the\nconditional or the unconditional when it is engaged in some other line\nof business--its tail will give it away. I found out all these things by\nmyself, without a teacher.\n\nI selected the verb _amare, to love._ Not for any personal reason, for\nI am indifferent about verbs; I care no more for one verb than for\nanother, and have little or no respect for any of them; but in foreign\nlanguages you always begin with that one. Why, I don't know. It is\nmerely habit, I suppose; the first teacher chose it, Adam was satisfied,\nand there hasn't been a successor since with originality enough to start\na fresh one. For they _are _a pretty limited lot, you will admit that?\nOriginality is not in their line; they can't think up anything new,\nanything to freshen up the old moss-grown dullness of the language\nlesson and put life and \"go\" into it, and charm and grace and\npicturesqueness.\n\nI knew I must look after those details myself; therefore I thought them\nout and wrote them down, and sent for the _facchino _and explained them\nto him, and said he must arrange a proper plant, and get together a\ngood stock company among the _contadini_, and design the costumes, and\ndistribute the parts; and drill the troupe, and be ready in three days\nto begin on this Verb in a shipshape and workman-like manner. I told him\nto put each grand division of it under a foreman, and each subdivision\nunder a subordinate of the rank of sergeant or corporal or something\nlike that, and to have a different uniform for each squad, so that I\ncould tell a Pluperfect from a Compound Future without looking at the\nbook; the whole battery to be under his own special and particular\ncommand, with the rank of Brigadier, and I to pay the freight.\n\nI then inquired into the character and possibilities of the selected\nverb, and was much disturbed to find that it was over my size, it being\nchambered for fifty-seven rounds--fifty-seven ways of saying I _love_\nwithout reloading; and yet none of them likely to convince a girl that\nwas laying for a title, or a title that was laying for rocks.\n\nIt seemed to me that with my inexperience it would be foolish to go into\naction with this mitrailleuse, so I ordered it to the rear and told the\nfacchino to provide something a little more primitive to start with,\nsomething less elaborate, some gentle old-fashioned flint-lock,\nsmooth-bore, double-barreled thing, calculated to cripple at two hundred\nyards and kill at forty--an arrangement suitable for a beginner who\ncould be satisfied with moderate results on the offstart and did not\nwish to take the whole territory in the first campaign.\n\nBut in vain. He was not able to mend the matter, all the verbs being\nof the same build, all Gatlings, all of the same caliber and delivery,\nfifty-seven to the volley, and fatal at a mile and a half. But he said\nthe auxiliary verb _avere, to have_, was a tidy thing, and easy to\nhandle in a seaway, and less likely to miss stays in going about than\nsome of the others; so, upon his recommendation I chose that one,\nand told him to take it along and scrape its bottom and break out its\nspinnaker and get it ready for business.\n\nI will explain that a facchino is a general-utility domestic. Mine was a\nhorse-doctor in his better days, and a very good one.\n\nAt the end of three days the facchino-doctor-brigadier was ready. I was\nalso ready, with a stenographer. We were in a room called the Rope-Walk.\nThis is a formidably long room, as is indicated by its facetious name,\nand is a good place for reviews. At 9:30 the F.-D.-B. took his place\nnear me and gave the word of command; the drums began to rumble and\nthunder, the head of the forces appeared at an upper door, and the\n\"march-past\" was on. Down they filed, a blaze of variegated color, each\nsquad gaudy in a uniform of its own and bearing a banner inscribed with\nits verbal rank and quality: first the Present Tense in Mediterranean\nblue and old gold, then the Past Definite in scarlet and black, then the\nImperfect in green and yellow, then the Indicative Future in the stars\nand stripes, then the Old Red Sandstone Subjunctive in purple\nand silver--and so on and so on, fifty-seven privates and twenty\ncommissioned and non-commissioned officers; certainly one of the most\nfiery and dazzling and eloquent sights I have ever beheld. I could not\nkeep back the tears. Presently:\n\n\"Halt!\" commanded the Brigadier.\n\n\"Front--face!\"\n\n\"Right dress!\"\n\n\"Stand at ease!\"\n\n\"One--two--three. In unison--_recite!_\"\n\nIt was fine. In one noble volume of sound of all the fifty-seven\nHaves in the Italian language burst forth in an exalting and splendid\nconfusion. Then came commands:\n\n\"About--face! Eyes--front! Helm alee--hard aport! Forward--march!\" and\nthe drums let go again.\n\nWhen the last Termination had disappeared, the commander said the\ninstruction drill would now begin, and asked for suggestions. I said:\n\n\"They say _I have, thou hast, he has_, and so on, but they don't say\n_what_. It will be better, and more definite, if they have something to\nhave; just an object, you know, a something--anything will do; anything\nthat will give the listener a sort of personal as well as grammatical\ninterest in their joys and complaints, you see.\"\n\nHe said:\n\n\"It is a good point. Would a dog do?\"\n\nI said I did not know, but we could try a dog and see. So he sent out an\naide-de-camp to give the order to add the dog.\n\nThe six privates of the Present Tense now filed in, in charge of\nSergeant Avere (_to have_), and displaying their banner. They formed in\nline of battle, and recited, one at a time, thus:\n\n\"_Io ho un cane,_ I have a dog.\"\n\n\"_Tu hai un cane_, thou hast a dog.\"\n\n_\"Egli ha un cane, _he has a dog.\"\n\n_\"Noi abbiamo un cane_, we have a dog.\"\n\n\"_Voi avete un cane_, you have a dog.\"\n\n\"_Eglino hanno un cane,_ they have a dog.\"\n\nNo comment followed. They returned to camp, and I reflected a while. The\ncommander said:\n\n\"I fear you are disappointed.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said; \"they are too monotonous, too singsong, to\ndead-and-alive; they have no expression, no elocution. It isn't natural;\nit could never happen in real life. A person who had just acquired a dog\nis either blame' glad or blame' sorry. He is not on the fence. I never\nsaw a case. What the nation do you suppose is the matter with these\npeople?\"\n\nHe thought maybe the trouble was with the dog. He said:\n\n\"These are _contadini_, you know, and they have a prejudice against\ndogs--that is, against marimane. Marimana dogs stand guard over people's\nvines and olives, you know, and are very savage, and thereby a grief and\nan inconvenience to persons who want other people's things at night. In\nmy judgment they have taken this dog for a marimana, and have soured on\nhim.\"\n\nI saw that the dog was a mistake, and not functionable: we must try\nsomething else; something, if possible, that could evoke sentiment,\ninterest, feeling.\n\n\"What is cat, in Italian?\" I asked.\n\n\"Gatto.\"\n\n\"Is it a gentleman cat, or a lady?\"\n\n\"Gentleman cat.\"\n\n\"How are these people as regards that animal?\"\n\n\"We-ll, they--they--\"\n\n\"You hesitate: that is enough. How are they about chickens?\"\n\nHe tilted his eyes toward heaven in mute ecstasy. I understood.\n\n\"What is chicken, in Italian?\" I asked.\n\n\"Pollo, _Podere._\" (Podere is Italian for master. It is a title of\ncourtesy, and conveys reverence and admiration.) \"Pollo is one chicken\nby itself; when there are enough present to constitute a plural, it is\n_polli._\"\n\n\"Very well, polli will do. Which squad is detailed for duty next?\"\n\n\"The Past Definite.\"\n\n\"Send out and order it to the front--with chickens. And let them\nunderstand that we don't want any more of this cold indifference.\"\n\nHe gave the order to an aide, adding, with a haunting tenderness in his\ntone and a watering mouth in his aspect:\n\n\"Convey to them the conception that these are unprotected chickens.\" He\nturned to me, saluting with his hand to his temple, and explained, \"It\nwill inflame their interest in the poultry, sire.\"\n\nA few minutes elapsed. Then the squad marched in and formed up, their\nfaces glowing with enthusiasm, and the file-leader shouted:\n\n\"_Ebbi polli_, I had chickens!\"\n\n\"Good!\" I said. \"Go on, the next.\"\n\n\"_Avest polli_, thou hadst chickens!\"\n\n\"Fine! Next!\"\n\n\"_Ebbe polli_, he had chickens!\"\n\n\"Moltimoltissimo! Go on, the next!\"\n\n\"_Avemmo polli,_ we had chickens!\"\n\n\"Basta-basta aspettatto avanti--last man--_charge_!\"\n\n\"_Ebbero polli_, they had chickens!\"\n\nThen they formed in echelon, by columns of fours, refused the left, and\nretired in great style on the double-quick. I was enchanted, and said:\n\n\"Now, doctor, that is something _like_! Chickens are the ticket, there\nis no doubt about it. What is the next squad?\"\n\n\"The Imperfect.\"\n\n\"How does it go?\"\n\n\"_Io Aveva_, I had, _tu avevi_, thou hadst, _egli aveva_, he had, _noi\nav_--\"\n\n\"Wait--we've just _had _the hads. What are you giving me?\"\n\n\"But this is another breed.\"\n\n\"What do we want of another breed? Isn't one breed enough? _Had_ is\n_had_, and your tricking it out in a fresh way of spelling isn't going\nto make it any hadder than it was before; now you know that yourself.\"\n\n\"But there is a distinction--they are not just the same Hads.\"\n\n\"How do you make it out?\"\n\n\"Well, you use that first Had when you are referring to something that\nhappened at a named and sharp and perfectly definite moment; you use the\nother when the thing happened at a vaguely defined time and in a more\nprolonged and indefinitely continuous way.\"\n\n\"Why, doctor, it is pure nonsense; you know it yourself. Look here: If\nI have had a had, or have wanted to have had a had, or was in a position\nright then and there to have had a had that hadn't had any chance to go\nout hadding on account of this foolish discrimination which lets one Had\ngo hadding in any kind of indefinite grammatical weather but restricts\nthe other one to definite and datable meteoric convulsions, and keeps it\npining around and watching the barometer all the time, and liable to\nget sick through confinement and lack of exercise, and all that sort of\nthing, why--why, the inhumanity of it is enough, let alone the\nwanton superfluity and uselessness of any such a loafing consumptive\nhospital-bird of a Had taking up room and cumbering the place for\nnothing. These finical refinements revolt me; it is not right, it is not\nhonorable; it is constructive nepotism to keep in office a Had that is\nso delicate it can't come out when the wind's in the nor'west--I won't\nhave this dude on the payroll. Cancel his exequator; and look here--\"\n\n\"But you miss the point. It is like this. You see--\"\n\n\"Never mind explaining, I don't care anything about it. Six Hads is\nenough for me; anybody that needs twelve, let him subscribe; I don't\nwant any stock in a Had Trust. Knock out the Prolonged and Indefinitely\nContinuous; four-fifths of it is water, anyway.\"\n\n\"But I beg you, podere! It is often quite indispensable in cases\nwhere--\"\n\n\"Pipe the next squad to the assault!\"\n\nBut it was not to be; for at that moment the dull boom of the noon\ngun floated up out of far-off Florence, followed by the usual softened\njangle of church-bells, Florentine and suburban, that bursts out in\nmurmurous response; by labor-union law the _colazione_ (1) must stop;\nstop promptly, stop instantly, stop definitely, like the chosen and best\nof the breed of Hads.\n\n1. Colazione is Italian for a collection, a meeting, a seance, a\nsitting.--M.T.\n\n\n\nA BURLESQUE BIOGRAPHY\n\nTwo or three persons having at different times intimated that if I would\nwrite an autobiography they would read it when they got leisure, I yield\nat last to this frenzied public demand and herewith tender my history.\n\nOurs is a noble house, and stretches a long way back into antiquity.\nThe earliest ancestor the Twains have any record of was a friend of the\nfamily by the name of Higgins. This was in the eleventh century, when\nour people were living in Aberdeen, county of Cork, England. Why it is\nthat our long line has ever since borne the maternal name (except when\none of them now and then took a playful refuge in an alias to avert\nfoolishness), instead of Higgins, is a mystery which none of us has ever\nfelt much desire to stir. It is a kind of vague, pretty romance, and we\nleave it alone. All the old families do that way.\n\nArthour Twain was a man of considerable note--a solicitor on the highway\nin William Rufus's time. At about the age of thirty he went to one of\nthose fine old English places of resort called Newgate, to see about\nsomething, and never returned again. While there he died suddenly.\n\nAugustus Twain seems to have made something of a stir about the year\n1160. He was as full of fun as he could be, and used to take his old\nsaber and sharpen it up, and get in a convenient place on a dark night,\nand stick it through people as they went by, to see them jump. He was a\nborn humorist. But he got to going too far with it; and the first time\nhe was found stripping one of these parties, the authorities removed one\nend of him, and put it up on a nice high place on Temple Bar, where it\ncould contemplate the people and have a good time. He never liked any\nsituation so much or stuck to it so long.\n\nThen for the next two hundred years the family tree shows a succession\nof soldiers--noble, high-spirited fellows, who always went into battle\nsinging, right behind the army, and always went out a-whooping, right\nahead of it.\n\nThis is a scathing rebuke to old dead Froissart's poor witticism that\nour family tree never had but one limb to it, and that that one stuck\nout at right angles, and bore fruit winter and summer.\n\nEarly in the fifteenth century we have Beau Twain, called \"the Scholar.\"\nHe wrote a beautiful, beautiful hand. And he could imitate anybody's\nhand so closely that it was enough to make a person laugh his head off\nto see it. He had infinite sport with his talent. But by and by he took\na contract to break stone for a road, and the roughness of the work\nspoiled his hand. Still, he enjoyed life all the time he was in the\nstone business, which, with inconsiderable intervals, was some forty-two\nyears. In fact, he died in harness. During all those long years he gave\nsuch satisfaction that he never was through with one contract a week\ntill the government gave him another. He was a perfect pet. And he was\nalways a favorite with his fellow-artists, and was a conspicuous member\nof their benevolent secret society, called the Chain Gang. He always\nwore his hair short, had a preference for striped clothes, and died\nlamented by the government. He was a sore loss to his country. For he\nwas so regular.\n\nSome years later we have the illustrious John Morgan Twain. He came over\nto this country with Columbus in 1492 as a passenger. He appears to have\nbeen of a crusty, uncomfortable disposition. He complained of the food\nall the way over, and was always threatening to go ashore unless there\nwas a change. He wanted fresh shad. Hardly a day passed over his head\nthat he did not go idling about the ship with his nose in the air,\nsneering about the commander, and saying he did not believe Columbus\nknew where he was going to or had ever been there before. The memorable\ncry of \"Land ho!\" thrilled every heart in the ship but his. He gazed\nawhile through a piece of smoked glass at the penciled line lying on the\ndistant water, and then said: \"Land be hanged--it's a raft!\"\n\nWhen this questionable passenger came on board the ship, he brought\nnothing with him but an old newspaper containing a handkerchief marked\n\"B. G.,\" one cotton sock marked \"L. W. C.,\" one woolen one marked \"D.\nF.,\" and a night-shirt marked \"O. M. R.\" And yet during the voyage he\nworried more about his \"trunk,\" and gave himself more airs about it,\nthan all the rest of the passengers put together. If the ship was \"down\nby the head,\" and would not steer, he would go and move his \"trunk\"\nfurther aft, and then watch the effect. If the ship was \"by the stern,\"\nhe would suggest to Columbus to detail some men to \"shift that baggage.\"\nIn storms he had to be gagged, because his wailings about his \"trunk\"\nmade it impossible for the men to hear the orders. The man does not\nappear to have been openly charged with any gravely unbecoming thing,\nbut it is noted in the ship's log as a \"curious circumstance\" that\nalbeit he brought his baggage on board the ship in a newspaper, he took\nit ashore in four trunks, a queensware crate, and a couple of champagne\nbaskets. But when he came back insinuating, in an insolent, swaggering\nway, that some of this things were missing, and was going to search\nthe other passengers' baggage, it was too much, and they threw him\noverboard. They watched long and wonderingly for him to come up, but not\neven a bubble rose on the quietly ebbing tide. But while every one was\nmost absorbed in gazing over the side, and the interest was momentarily\nincreasing, it was observed with consternation that the vessel was\nadrift and the anchor-cable hanging limp from the bow. Then in the\nship's dimmed and ancient log we find this quaint note:\n\n\"In time it was discouvered yt ye troblesome passenger hadde gone downe\nand got ye anchor, and toke ye same and solde it to ye dam sauvages from\nye interior, saying yt he hadde founde it, ye sonne of a ghun!\"\n\nYet this ancestor had good and noble instincts, and it is with pride\nthat we call to mind the fact that he was the first white person who\never interested himself in the work of elevating and civilizing our\nIndians. He built a commodious jail and put up a gallows, and to\nhis dying day he claimed with satisfaction that he had had a more\nrestraining and elevating influence on the Indians than any other\nreformer that ever labored among them. At this point the chronicle\nbecomes less frank and chatty, and closes abruptly by saying that the\nold voyager went to see his gallows perform on the first white man ever\nhanged in America, and while there received injuries which terminated in\nhis death.\n\nThe great-grandson of the \"Reformer\" flourished in sixteen hundred and\nsomething, and was known in our annals as \"the old Admiral,\" though in\nhistory he had other titles. He was long in command of fleets of swift\nvessels, well armed and manned, and did great service in hurrying up\nmerchantmen. Vessels which he followed and kept his eagle eye on, always\nmade good fair time across the ocean. But if a ship still loitered\nin spite of all he could do, his indignation would grow till he could\ncontain himself no longer--and then he would take that ship home where\nhe lived and keep it there carefully, expecting the owners to come for\nit, but they never did. And he would try to get the idleness and sloth\nout of the sailors of that ship by compelling them to take invigorating\nexercise and a bath. He called it \"walking a plank.\" All the pupils\nliked it. At any rate, they never found any fault with it after trying\nit. When the owners were late coming for their ships, the Admiral always\nburned them, so that the insurance money should not be lost. At last\nthis fine old tar was cut down in the fullness of his years and honors.\nAnd to her dying day, his poor heart-broken widow believed that if\nhe had been cut down fifteen minutes sooner he might have been\nresuscitated.\n\nCharles Henry Twain lived during the latter part of the seventeenth\ncentury, and was a zealous and distinguished missionary. He converted\nsixteen thousand South Sea islanders, and taught them that a dog-tooth\nnecklace and a pair of spectacles was not enough clothing to come to\ndivine service in. His poor flock loved him very, very dearly; and\nwhen his funeral was over, they got up in a body (and came out of the\nrestaurant) with tears in their eyes, and saying, one to another, that\nhe was a good tender missionary, and they wished they had some more of\nhim.\n\nPah-go-to-wah-wah-pukketekeewis (Mighty-Hunter-with-a-Hog-Eye-Twain)\nadorned the middle of the eighteenth century, and aided General Braddock\nwith all his heart to resist the oppressor Washington. It was this\nancestor who fired seventeen times at our Washington from behind a tree.\nSo far the beautiful romantic narrative in the moral story-books is\ncorrect; but when that narrative goes on to say that at the seventeenth\nround the awe-stricken savage said solemnly that that man was being\nreserved by the Great Spirit for some mighty mission, and he dared not\nlift his sacrilegious rifle against him again, the narrative seriously\nimpairs the integrity of history. What he did say was:\n\n\"It ain't no (hic) no use. 'At man's so drunk he can't stan' still long\nenough for a man to hit him. I (hic) I can't 'ford to fool away any more\nam'nition on him.\"\n\nThat was why he stopped at the seventeenth round, and it was a good,\nplain, matter-of-fact reason, too, and one that easily commends itself\nto us by the eloquent, persuasive flavor of probability there is about\nit.\n\nI also enjoyed the story-book narrative, but I felt a marring misgiving\nthat every Indian at Braddock's Defeat who fired at a soldier a couple\nof times (two easily grows to seventeen in a century), and missed\nhim, jumped to the conclusion that the Great Spirit was reserving that\nsoldier for some grand mission; and so I somehow feared that the only\nreason why Washington's case is remembered and the others forgotten is,\nthat in his the prophecy came true, and in that of the others it\ndidn't. There are not books enough on earth to contain the record of the\nprophecies Indians and other unauthorized parties have made; but one may\ncarry in his overcoat pockets the record of all the prophecies that have\nbeen fulfilled.\n\nI will remark here, in passing, that certain ancestors of mine are so\nthoroughly well-known in history by their aliases, that I have not felt\nit to be worth while to dwell upon them, or even mention them in the\norder of their birth. Among these may be mentioned Richard Brinsley\nTwain, alias Guy Fawkes; John Wentworth Twain, alias Sixteen-String\nJack; William Hogarth Twain, alias Jack Sheppard; Ananias Twain, alias\nBaron Munchausen; John George Twain, alias Captain Kydd; and then there\nare George Francis Twain, Tom Pepper, Nebuchadnezzar, and Baalam's\nAss--they all belong to our family, but to a branch of it somewhat\ndistinctly removed from the honorable direct line--in fact, a collateral\nbranch, whose members chiefly differ from the ancient stock in that, in\norder to acquire the notoriety we have always yearned and hungered for,\nthey have got into a low way of going to jail instead of getting hanged.\n\nIt is not well, when writing an autobiography, to follow your ancestry\ndown too close to your own time--it is safest to speak only vaguely of\nyour great-grandfather, and then skip from there to yourself, which I\nnow do.\n\nI was born without teeth--and there Richard III. had the advantage of\nme; but I was born without a humpback, likewise, and there I had the\nadvantage of him. My parents were neither very poor nor conspicuously\nhonest.\n\nBut now a thought occurs to me. My own history would really seem so tame\ncontrasted with that of my ancestors, that it is simply wisdom to leave\nit unwritten until I am hanged. If some other biographies I have read\nhad stopped with the ancestry until a like event occurred, it would have\nbeen a felicitous thing for the reading public. How does it strike you?\n\n\n\nHOW TO TELL A STORY\n\nThe Humorous Story an American Development.--Its Difference from Comic\nand Witty Stories\n\nI do not claim that I can tell a story as it ought to be told. I only\nclaim to know how a story ought to be told, for I have been almost daily\nin the company of the most expert story-tellers for many years.\n\nThere are several kinds of stories, but only one difficult kind--the\nhumorous. I will talk mainly about that one. The humorous story is\nAmerican, the comic story is English, the witty story is French. The\nhumorous story depends for its effect upon the _manner _of the telling;\nthe comic story and the witty story upon the _matter_.\n\nThe humorous story may be spun out to great length, and may wander\naround as much as it pleases, and arrive nowhere in particular; but the\ncomic and witty stories must be brief and end with a point. The humorous\nstory bubbles gently along, the others burst.\n\nThe humorous story is strictly a work of art--high and delicate art--and\nonly an artist can tell it; but no art is necessary in telling the comic\nand the witty story; anybody can do it. The art of telling a humorous\nstory--understand, I mean by word of mouth, not print--was created in\nAmerica, and has remained at home.\n\nThe humorous story is told gravely; the teller does his best to conceal\nthe fact that he even dimly suspects that there is anything funny about\nit; but the teller of the comic story tells you beforehand that it is\none of the funniest things he has ever heard, then tells it with eager\ndelight, and is the first person to laugh when he gets through. And\nsometimes, if he has had good success, he is so glad and happy that\nhe will repeat the \"nub\" of it and glance around from face to face,\ncollecting applause, and then repeat it again. It is a pathetic thing to\nsee.\n\nVery often, of course, the rambling and disjointed humorous story\nfinishes with a nub, point, snapper, or whatever you like to call it.\nThen the listener must be alert, for in many cases the teller will\ndivert attention from that nub by dropping it in a carefully casual and\nindifferent way, with the pretense that he does not know it is a nub.\n\nArtemus Ward used that trick a good deal; then when the belated audience\npresently caught the joke he would look up with innocent surprise, as if\nwondering what they had found to laugh at. Dan Setchell used it before\nhim, Nye and Riley and others use it today.\n\nBut the teller of the comic story does not slur the nub; he shouts it at\nyou--every time. And when he prints it, in England, France, Germany, and\nItaly, he italicizes it, puts some whopping exclamation-points after\nit, and sometimes explains it in a parenthesis. All of which is very\ndepressing, and makes one want to renounce joking and lead a better\nlife.\n\nLet me set down an instance of the comic method, using an anecdote which\nhas been popular all over the world for twelve or fifteen hundred years.\nThe teller tells it in this way:\n\nTHE WOUNDED SOLDIER\n\nIn the course of a certain battle a soldier whose leg had been shot\noff appealed to another soldier who was hurrying by to carry him to the\nrear, informing him at the same time of the loss which he had sustained;\nwhereupon the generous son of Mars, shouldering the unfortunate,\nproceeded to carry out his desire. The bullets and cannon-balls were\nflying in all directions, and presently one of the latter took the\nwounded man's head off--without, however, his deliverer being aware of\nit. In no long time he was hailed by an officer, who said:\n\n\"Where are you going with that carcass?\"\n\n\"To the rear, sir--he's lost his leg!\"\n\n\"His leg, forsooth?\" responded the astonished officer; \"you mean his\nhead, you booby.\"\n\nWhereupon the soldier dispossessed himself of his burden, and stood\nlooking down upon it in great perplexity. At length he said:\n\n\"It is true, sir, just as you have said.\" Then after a pause he added,\n\"_But he TOLD me IT WAS HIS LEG!!!!!_\"\n\nHere the narrator bursts into explosion after explosion of thunderous\nhorse-laughter, repeating that nub from time to time through his gasping\nand shriekings and suffocatings.\n\nIt takes only a minute and a half to tell that in its comic-story form;\nand isn't worth the telling, after all. Put into the humorous-story\nform it takes ten minutes, and is about the funniest thing I have ever\nlistened to--as James Whitcomb Riley tells it.\n\nHe tells it in the character of a dull-witted old farmer who has just\nheard it for the first time, thinks it is unspeakably funny, and is\ntrying to repeat it to a neighbor. But he can't remember it; so he gets\nall mixed up and wanders helplessly round and round, putting in tedious\ndetails that don't belong in the tale and only retard it; taking them\nout conscientiously and putting in others that are just as useless;\nmaking minor mistakes now and then and stopping to correct them and\nexplain how he came to make them; remembering things which he forgot\nto put in in their proper place and going back to put them in there;\nstopping his narrative a good while in order to try to recall the name\nof the soldier that was hurt, and finally remembering that the soldier's\nname was not mentioned, and remarking placidly that the name is of no\nreal importance, anyway--better, of course, if one knew it, but not\nessential, after all--and so on, and so on, and so on.\n\nThe teller is innocent and happy and pleased with himself, and has\nto stop every little while to hold himself in and keep from laughing\noutright; and does hold in, but his body quakes in a jelly-like way with\ninterior chuckles; and at the end of the ten minutes the audience have\nlaughed until they are exhausted, and the tears are running down their\nfaces.\n\nThe simplicity and innocence and sincerity and unconsciousness of the\nold farmer are perfectly simulated, and the result is a performance\nwhich is thoroughly charming and delicious. This is art--and fine and\nbeautiful, and only a master can compass it; but a machine could tell\nthe other story.\n\nTo string incongruities and absurdities together in a wandering and\nsometimes purposeless way, and seem innocently unaware that they\nare absurdities, is the basis of the American art, if my position is\ncorrect. Another feature is the slurring of the point. A third is the\ndropping of a studied remark apparently without knowing it, as if one\nwhere thinking aloud. The fourth and last is the pause.\n\nArtemus Ward dealt in numbers three and four a good deal. He would begin\nto tell with great animation something which he seemed to think was\nwonderful; then lose confidence, and after an apparently absent-minded\npause add an incongruous remark in a soliloquizing way; and that was the\nremark intended to explode the mine--and it did.\n\nFor instance, he would say eagerly, excitedly, \"I once knew a man in New\nZealand who hadn't a tooth in his head\"--here his animation would\ndie out; a silent, reflective pause would follow, then he would say\ndreamily, and as if to himself, \"and yet that man could beat a drum\nbetter than any man I ever saw.\"\n\nThe pause is an exceedingly important feature in any kind of story, and\na frequently recurring feature, too. It is a dainty thing, and delicate,\nand also uncertain and treacherous; for it must be exactly the right\nlength--no more and no less--or it fails of its purpose and makes\ntrouble. If the pause is too short the impressive point is passed, and\nthe audience have had time to divine that a surprise is intended--and\nthen you can't surprise them, of course.\n\nOn the platform I used to tell a negro ghost story that had a pause in\nfront of the snapper on the end, and that pause was the most important\nthing in the whole story. If I got it the right length precisely, I\ncould spring the finishing ejaculation with effect enough to make some\nimpressible girl deliver a startled little yelp and jump out of her\nseat--and that was what I was after. This story was called \"The\nGolden Arm,\" and was told in this fashion. You can practice with it\nyourself--and mind you look out for the pause and get it right.\n\n\nTHE GOLDEN ARM\n\nOnce 'pon a time dey wuz a monsus mean man, en he live 'way out in de\nprairie all 'lone by hisself, 'cep'n he had a wife. En bimeby she died,\nen he tuck en toted her way out dah in de prairie en buried her. Well,\nshe had a golden arm--all solid gold, fum de shoulder down. He wuz\npow'ful mean--pow'ful; en dat night he couldn't sleep, caze he want dat\ngolden arm so bad.\n\nWhen it come midnight he couldn't stan' it no mo'; so he git up, he did,\nen tuck his lantern en shoved out thoo de storm en dug her up en got de\ngolden arm; en he bent his head down 'gin de win', en plowed en plowed\nen plowed thoo de snow. Den all on a sudden he stop (make a considerable\npause here, and look startled, and take a listening attitude) en say:\n\"My _lan'_, what's dat?\"\n\nEn he listen--en listen--en de win' say (set your teeth together and\nimitate the wailing and wheezing singsong of the wind), \"Bzzz-z-zzz\"--en\nden, way back yonder whah de grave is, he hear a _voice_!--he hear\na voice all mix' up in de win'--can't hardly tell 'em 'part--\n\"Bzzz--zzz--W-h-o--g-o-t--m-y--g-o-l-d-e-n _arm?_\" (You must begin to\nshiver violently now.)\n\nEn he begin to shiver en shake, en say, \"Oh, my! _Oh_, my lan'!\" en de\nwin' blow de lantern out, en de snow en sleet blow in his face en mos'\nchoke him, en he start a-plowin' knee-deep toward home mos' dead, he so\nsk'yerd--en pooty soon he hear de voice agin, en (pause) it 'us comin\n_after _him! \"Bzzz--zzz--zzz W-h-o--g-o-t--m-y--g-o-l-d-e-n--_arm_?\"\n\nWhen he git to de pasture he hear it agin--closter now, en\n_a-comin'!_--a-comin' back dah in de dark en de storm--(repeat the wind\nand the voice). When he git to de house he rush upstairs en jump in de\nbed en kiver up, head and years, en lay da shiverin' en shakin'--en\nden way out dah he hear it _agin!_--en a-_comin'_! En bimeby he hear\n(pause--awed, listening attitude)--pat--pat--pat _Hit's a-comin'\nupstairs!_ Den he hear de latch, en he _know _it's in de room!\n\nDen pooty soon he know it's a-_stannin' by de bed!_ (Pause.) Den--he\nknow it's a-_bendin' down over him_--en he cain't skasely git his\nbreath! Den--den--he seem to feel someth'n' _c-o-l-d_, right down 'most\nagin his head! (Pause.)\n\nDen de voice say, _right at his year_--\"W-h-o--g-o-t--m-y g-o-l-d-e-n\n_arm?_\" (You must wail it out very plaintively and accusingly; then\nyou stare steadily and impressively into the face of the farthest-gone\nauditor--a girl, preferably--and let that awe-inspiring pause begin to\nbuild itself in the deep hush. When it has reached exactly the right\nlength, jump suddenly at that girl and yell, \"_You've_ got it!\")\n\nIf you've got the _pause _right, she'll fetch a dear little yelp and\nspring right out of her shoes. But you _must _get the pause right; and\nyou will find it the most troublesome and aggravating and uncertain\nthing you ever undertook.\n\n\n\nGENERAL WASHINGTON'S NEGRO BODY-SERVANT\n\nA Biographical Sketch\n\nThe stirring part of this celebrated colored man's life properly began\nwith his death--that is to say, the notable features of his biography\nbegan with the first time he died. He had been little heard of up to\nthat time, but since then we have never ceased to hear of him; we have\nnever ceased to hear of him at stated, unfailing intervals. His was a\nmost remarkable career, and I have thought that its history would make\na valuable addition to our biographical literature. Therefore, I\nhave carefully collated the materials for such a work, from authentic\nsources, and here present them to the public. I have rigidly excluded\nfrom these pages everything of a doubtful character, with the object in\nview of introducing my work into the schools for the instruction of the\nyouth of my country.\n\nThe name of the famous body-servant of General Washington was George.\nAfter serving his illustrious master faithfully for half a century, and\nenjoying throughout this long term his high regard and confidence, it\nbecame his sorrowful duty at last to lay that beloved master to rest in\nhis peaceful grave by the Potomac. Ten years afterward--in 1809--full\nof years and honors, he died himself, mourned by all who knew him. The\n_Boston Gazette_ of that date thus refers to the event:\n\nGeorge, the favorite body-servant of the lamented Washington, died in\nRichmond, Va., last Tuesday, at the ripe age of 95 years. His intellect\nwas unimpaired, and his memory tenacious, up to within a few minutes of\nhis decease. He was present at the second installation of Washington as\nPresident, and also at his funeral, and distinctly remembered all the\nprominent incidents connected with those noted events.\n\nFrom this period we hear no more of the favorite body-servant of General\nWashington until May, 1825, at which time he died again. A Philadelphia\npaper thus speaks of the sad occurrence:\n\nAt Macon, Ga., last week, a colored man named George, who was the\nfavorite body-servant of General Washington, died at the advanced age\nof 95 years. Up to within a few hours of his dissolution he was in full\npossession of all his faculties, and could distinctly recollect the\nsecond installation of Washington, his death and burial, the surrender\nof Cornwallis, the battle of Trenton, the griefs and hardships of Valley\nForge, etc. Deceased was followed to the grave by the entire population\nof Macon.\n\nOn the Fourth of July, 1830, and also of 1834 and 1836, the subject of\nthis sketch was exhibited in great state upon the rostrum of the\norator of the day, and in November of 1840 he died again. The St. Louis\n_Republican_ of the 25th of that month spoke as follows:\n\n\"ANOTHER RELIC OF THE REVOLUTION GONE.\"\n\n\"George, once the favorite body-servant of General Washington, died\nyesterday at the house of Mr. John Leavenworth in this city, at\nthe venerable age of 95 years. He was in the full possession of his\nfaculties up to the hour of his death, and distinctly recollected the\nfirst and second installations and death of President Washington,\nthe surrender of Cornwallis, the battles of Trenton and Monmouth, the\nsufferings of the patriot army at Valley Forge, the proclamation of the\nDeclaration of Independence, the speech of Patrick Henry in the Virginia\nHouse of Delegates, and many other old-time reminiscences of stirring\ninterest. Few white men die lamented as was this aged negro. The funeral\nwas very largely attended.\"\n\nDuring the next ten or eleven years the subject of this sketch appeared\nat intervals at Fourth-of-July celebrations in various parts of the\ncountry, and was exhibited upon the rostrum with flattering success. But\nin the fall of 1855 he died again. The California papers thus speak of\nthe event:\n\nANOTHER OLD HERO GONE\n\nDied, at Dutch Flat, on the 7th of March, George (once the confidential\nbody-servant of General Washington), at the great age of 95 years. His\nmemory, which did not fail him till the last, was a wonderful storehouse\nof interesting reminiscences. He could distinctly recollect the\nfirst and second installations and death of President Washington, the\nsurrender of Cornwallis, the battles of Trenton and Monmouth, and\nBunker Hill, the proclamation of the Declaration of Independence, and\nBraddock's defeat. George was greatly respected in Dutch Flat, and it is\nestimated that there were 10,000 people present at his funeral.\n\nThe last time the subject of this sketch died was in June, 1864;\nand until we learn the contrary, it is just to presume that he died\npermanently this time. The Michigan papers thus refer to the sorrowful\nevent:\n\nANOTHER CHERISHED REMNANT OF THE REVOLUTION GONE\n\nGeorge, a colored man, and once the favorite body-servant of George\nWashington, died in Detroit last week, at the patriarchal age of 95\nyears. To the moment of his death his intellect was unclouded, and he\ncould distinctly remember the first and second installations and death\nof Washington, the surrender of Cornwallis, the battles of Trenton\nand Monmouth, and Bunker Hill, the proclamation of the Declaration of\nIndependence, Braddock's defeat, the throwing over of the tea in Boston\nharbor, and the landing of the Pilgrims. He died greatly respected, and\nwas followed to the grave by a vast concourse of people.\n\nThe faithful old servant is gone! We shall never see him more until\nhe turns up again. He has closed his long and splendid career of\ndissolution, for the present, and sleeps peacefully, as only they sleep\nwho have earned their rest. He was in all respects a remarkable man. He\nheld his age better than any celebrity that has figured in history; and\nthe longer he lived the stronger and longer his memory grew. If he lives\nto die again, he will distinctly recollect the discovery of America.\n\nThe above resume of his biography I believe to be substantially correct,\nalthough it is possible that he may have died once or twice in obscure\nplaces where the event failed of newspaper notoriety. One fault I find\nin all the notices of his death I have quoted, and this ought to be\ncorrected. In them he uniformly and impartially died at the age of 95.\nThis could not have been. He might have done that once, or maybe twice,\nbut he could not have continued it indefinitely. Allowing that when he\nfirst died, he died at the age of 95, he was 151 years old when he died\nlast, in 1864. But his age did not keep pace with his recollections.\nWhen he died the last time, he distinctly remembered the landing of the\nPilgrims, which took place in 1620. He must have been about twenty years\nold when he witnessed that event, wherefore it is safe to assert that\nthe body-servant of General Washington was in the neighborhood of\ntwo hundred and sixty or seventy years old when he departed this life\nfinally.\n\nHaving waited a proper length of time, to see if the subject of his\nsketch had gone from us reliably and irrevocably, I now publish his\nbiography with confidence, and respectfully offer it to a mourning\nnation.\n\nP.S.--I see by the papers that this infamous old fraud has just died\nagain, in Arkansas. This makes six times that he is known to have died,\nand always in a new place. The death of Washington's body-servant has\nceased to be a novelty; it's charm is gone; the people are tired of\nit; let it cease. This well-meaning but misguided negro has now put six\ndifferent communities to the expense of burying him in state, and has\nswindled tens of thousands of people into following him to the grave\nunder the delusion that a select and peculiar distinction was being\nconferred upon them. Let him stay buried for good now; and let that\nnewspaper suffer the severest censure that shall ever, in all the future\ntime, publish to the world that General Washington's favorite colored\nbody-servant has died again.\n\n\n\nWIT INSPIRATIONS OF THE \"TWO-YEAR-OLDS\"\n\nAll infants appear to have an impertinent and disagreeable fashion\nnowadays of saying \"smart\" things on most occasions that offer, and\nespecially on occasions when they ought not to be saying anything at\nall. Judging by the average published specimens of smart sayings, the\nrising generation of children are little better than idiots. And the\nparents must surely be but little better than the children, for in most\ncases they are the publishers of the sunbursts of infantile imbecility\nwhich dazzle us from the pages of our periodicals. I may seem to speak\nwith some heat, not to say a suspicion of personal spite; and I do admit\nthat it nettles me to hear about so many gifted infants in these days,\nand remember that I seldom said anything smart when I was a child. I\ntried it once or twice, but it was not popular. The family were not\nexpecting brilliant remarks from me, and so they snubbed me sometimes\nand spanked me the rest. But it makes my flesh creep and my blood run\ncold to think what might have happened to me if I had dared to utter\nsome of the smart things of this generation's \"four-year-olds\" where my\nfather could hear me. To have simply skinned me alive and considered his\nduty at an end would have seemed to him criminal leniency toward one\nso sinning. He was a stern, unsmiling man, and hated all forms of\nprecocity. If I had said some of the things I have referred to, and said\nthem in his hearing, he would have destroyed me. He would, indeed. He\nwould, provided the opportunity remained with him. But it would not, for\nI would have had judgment enough to take some strychnine first and say\nmy smart thing afterward. The fair record of my life has been tarnished\nby just one pun. My father overheard that, and he hunted me over four\nor five townships seeking to take my life. If I had been full-grown, of\ncourse he would have been right; but, child as I was, I could not know\nhow wicked a thing I had done.\n\nI made one of those remarks ordinarily called \"smart things\" before\nthat, but it was not a pun. Still, it came near causing a serious\nrupture between my father and myself. My father and mother, my uncle\nEphraim and his wife, and one or two others were present, and the\nconversation turned on a name for me. I was lying there trying some\nIndia-rubber rings of various patterns, and endeavoring to make a\nselection, for I was tired of trying to cut my teeth on people's\nfingers, and wanted to get hold of something that would enable me to\nhurry the thing through and get something else. Did you ever notice\nwhat a nuisance it was cutting your teeth on your nurse's finger, or how\nback-breaking and tiresome it was trying to cut them on your big toe?\nAnd did you never get out of patience and wish your teeth were in Jerico\nlong before you got them half cut? To me it seems as if these things\nhappened yesterday. And they did, to some children. But I digress. I\nwas lying there trying the India-rubber rings. I remember looking at the\nclock and noticing that in an hour and twenty-five minutes I would be\ntwo weeks old, and thinking how little I had done to merit the blessings\nthat were so unsparingly lavished upon me. My father said:\n\n\"Abraham is a good name. My grandfather was named Abraham.\"\n\nMy mother said:\n\n\"Abraham is a good name. Very well. Let us have Abraham for one of his\nnames.\"\n\nI said:\n\n\"Abraham suits the subscriber.\"\n\nMy father frowned, my mother looked pleased; my aunt said:\n\n\"What a little darling it is!\"\n\nMy father said:\n\n\"Isaac is a good name, and Jacob is a good name.\"\n\nMy mother assented, and said:\n\n\"No names are better. Let us add Isaac and Jacob to his names.\"\n\nI said:\n\n\"All right. Isaac and Jacob are good enough for yours truly. Pass me\nthat rattle, if you please. I can't chew India-rubber rings all day.\"\n\nNot a soul made a memorandum of these sayings of mine, for publication.\nI saw that, and did it myself, else they would have been utterly lost.\nSo far from meeting with a generous encouragement like other children\nwhen developing intellectually, I was now furiously scowled upon by my\nfather; my mother looked grieved and anxious, and even my aunt had about\nher an expression of seeming to think that maybe I had gone too far. I\ntook a vicious bite out of an India-rubber ring, and covertly broke the\nrattle over the kitten's head, but said nothing. Presently my father\nsaid:\n\n\"Samuel is a very excellent name.\"\n\nI saw that trouble was coming. Nothing could prevent it. I laid down my\nrattle; over the side of the cradle I dropped my uncle's silver watch,\nthe clothes-brush, the toy dog, my tin soldier, the nutmeg-grater, and\nother matters which I was accustomed to examine, and meditate upon and\nmake pleasant noises with, and bang and batter and break when I needed\nwholesome entertainment. Then I put on my little frock and my little\nbonnet, and took my pygmy shoes in one hand and my licorice in the\nother, and climbed out on the floor. I said to myself, Now, if the worse\ncomes to worst, I am ready. Then I said aloud, in a firm voice:\n\n\"Father, I cannot, cannot wear the name of Samuel.\"\n\n\"My son!\"\n\n\"Father, I mean it. I cannot.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Father, I have an invincible antipathy to that name.\"\n\n\"My son, this is unreasonable. Many great and good men have been named\nSamuel.\"\n\n\"Sir, I have yet to hear of the first instance.\"\n\n\"What! There was Samuel the prophet. Was not he great and good?\"\n\n\"Not so very.\"\n\n\"My son! With His own voice the Lord called him.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, and had to call him a couple times before he could come!\"\n\nAnd then I sallied forth, and that stern old man sallied forth after\nme. He overtook me at noon the following day, and when the interview\nwas over I had acquired the name of Samuel, and a thrashing, and other\nuseful information; and by means of this compromise my father's wrath\nwas appeased and a misunderstanding bridged over which might have become\na permanent rupture if I had chosen to be unreasonable. But just judging\nby this episode, what would my father have done to me if I had\never uttered in his hearing one of the flat, sickly things these\n\"two-years-olds\" say in print nowadays? In my opinion there would have\nbeen a case of infanticide in our family.\n\n\n\nAN ENTERTAINING ARTICLE\n\nI take the following paragraph from an article in the Boston\n_Advertiser_:\n\nAN ENGLISH CRITIC ON MARK TWAIN\n\nPerhaps the most successful flights of humor of Mark Twain have been\ndescriptions of the persons who did not appreciate his humor at all. We\nhave become familiar with the Californians who were thrilled with terror\nby his burlesque of a newspaper reporter's way of telling a story,\nand we have heard of the Pennsylvania clergyman who sadly returned his\n_Innocents Abroad_ to the book-agent with the remark that \"the man who\ncould shed tears over the tomb of Adam must be an idiot.\" But Mark Twain\nmay now add a much more glorious instance to his string of trophies.\nThe _Saturday Review,_ in its number of October 8th, reviews his book\nof travels, which has been republished in England, and reviews it\nseriously. We can imagine the delight of the humorist in reading this\ntribute to his power; and indeed it is so amusing in itself that he can\nhardly do better than reproduce the article in full in his next monthly\nMemoranda.\n\n(Publishing the above paragraph thus, gives me a sort of authority for\nreproducing the _Saturday Review's_ article in full in these pages. I\ndearly wanted to do it, for I cannot write anything half so delicious\nmyself. If I had a cast-iron dog that could read this English criticism\nand preserve his austerity, I would drive him off the door-step.)\n\n(From the London \"Saturday Review.\")\n\nREVIEWS OF NEW BOOKS\n\n_The Innocents Abroad_. A Book of Travels. By Mark Twain. London:\nHotten, publisher. 1870.\n\nLord Macaulay died too soon. We never felt this so deeply as when we\nfinished the last chapter of the above-named extravagant work. Macaulay\ndied too soon--for none but he could mete out complete and comprehensive\njustice to the insolence, the impertinence, the presumption, the\nmendacity, and, above all, the majestic ignorance of this author.\n\nTo say that _The Innocents Abroad_ is a curious book, would be to use\nthe faintest language--would be to speak of the Matterhorn as a neat\nelevation or of Niagara as being \"nice\" or \"pretty.\" \"Curious\" is too\ntame a word wherewith to describe the imposing insanity of this work.\nThere is no word that is large enough or long enough. Let us, therefore,\nphotograph a passing glimpse of book and author, and trust the rest to\nthe reader. Let the cultivated English student of human nature\npicture to himself this Mark Twain as a person capable of doing the\nfollowing-described things--and not only doing them, but with incredible\ninnocence _printing them_ calmly and tranquilly in a book. For instance:\n\nHe states that he entered a hair-dresser's in Paris to get shaved, and\nthe first \"rake\" the barber gave him with his razor it _loosened his\n\"hide\"_ and _lifted him out of the chair._\n\nThis is unquestionably exaggerated. In Florence he was so annoyed by\nbeggars that he pretends to have seized and eaten one in a frantic\nspirit of revenge. There is, of course, no truth in this. He gives at\nfull length a theatrical program seventeen or eighteen hundred years\nold, which he professes to have found in the ruins of the Coliseum,\namong the dirt and mold and rubbish. It is a sufficient comment upon\nthis statement to remark that even a cast-iron program would not have\nlasted so long under such circumstances. In Greece he plainly betrays\nboth fright and flight upon one occasion, but with frozen effrontery\nputs the latter in this falsely tamed form: \"We _sidled _toward the\nPiraeus.\" \"Sidled,\" indeed! He does not hesitate to intimate that at\nEphesus, when his mule strayed from the proper course, he got down, took\nhim under his arm, carried him to the road again, pointed him right,\nremounted, and went to sleep contentedly till it was time to restore the\nbeast to the path once more. He states that a growing youth among his\nship's passengers was in the constant habit of appeasing his hunger with\nsoap and oakum between meals. In Palestine he tells of ants that\ncame eleven miles to spend the summer in the desert and brought their\nprovisions with them; yet he shows by his description of the country\nthat the feat was an impossibility. He mentions, as if it were the most\ncommonplace of matters, that he cut a Moslem in two in broad daylight\nin Jerusalem, with Godfrey de Bouillon's sword, and would have shed\nmore blood _if he had had a graveyard of his own._ These statements are\nunworthy a moment's attention. Mr. Twain or any other foreigner who did\nsuch a thing in Jerusalem would be mobbed, and would infallibly lose his\nlife. But why go on? Why repeat more of his audacious and exasperating\nfalsehoods? Let us close fittingly with this one: he affirms that \"in\nthe mosque of St. Sophia at Constantinople I got my feet so stuck up\nwith a complication of gums, slime, and general impurity, that I wore\nout more than two thousand pair of bootjacks getting my boots off that\nnight, and even then some Christian hide peeled off with them.\" It is\nmonstrous. Such statements are simply lies--there is no other name\nfor them. Will the reader longer marvel at the brutal ignorance that\npervades the American nation when we tell him that we are informed\nupon perfectly good authority that this extravagant compilation of\nfalsehoods, this exhaustless mine of stupendous lies, this _Innocents\nAbroad_, has actually been adopted by the schools and colleges of\nseveral of the states as a text-book!\n\nBut if his falsehoods are distressing, his innocence and his ignorance\nare enough to make one burn the book and despise the author. In one\nplace he was so appalled at the sudden spectacle of a murdered man,\nunveiled by the moonlight, that he jumped out of the window, going\nthrough sash and all, and then remarks with the most childlike\nsimplicity that he \"was not scared, but was considerably agitated.\"\nIt puts us out of patience to note that the simpleton is densely\nunconscious that Lucrezia Borgia ever existed off the stage. He is\nvulgarly ignorant of all foreign languages, but is frank enough to\ncriticize, the Italians' use of their own tongue. He says they spell the\nname of their great painter \"Vinci, but pronounce it Vinchy\"--and then\nadds with a naivete possible only to helpless ignorance, \"foreigners\nalways spell better than they pronounce.\" In another place he commits\nthe bald absurdity of putting the phrase \"tare an ouns\" into an\nItalian's mouth. In Rome he unhesitatingly believes the legend that St.\nPhilip Neri's heart was so inflamed with divine love that it burst\nhis ribs--believes it wholly because an author with a learned list of\nuniversity degrees strung after his name endorses it--\"otherwise,\" says\nthis gentle idiot, \"I should have felt a curiosity to know what Philip\nhad for dinner.\" Our author makes a long, fatiguing journey to the\nGrotto del Cane on purpose to test its poisoning powers on a dog--got\nelaborately ready for the experiment, and then discovered that he had no\ndog. A wiser person would have kept such a thing discreetly to himself,\nbut with this harmless creature everything comes out. He hurts his foot\nin a rut two thousand years old in exhumed Pompeii, and presently, when\nstaring at one of the cinder-like corpses unearthed in the next square,\nconceives the idea that maybe it is the remains of the ancient Street\nCommissioner, and straightway his horror softens down to a sort of\nchirpy contentment with the condition of things. In Damascus he visits\nthe well of Ananias, three thousand years old, and is as surprised and\ndelighted as a child to find that the water is \"as pure and fresh as if\nthe well had been dug yesterday.\" In the Holy Land he gags desperately\nat the hard Arabic and Hebrew Biblical names, and finally concludes to\ncall them Baldwinsville, Williamsburgh, and so on, \"for convenience of\nspelling.\"\n\nWe have thus spoken freely of this man's stupefying simplicity and\ninnocence, but we cannot deal similarly with his colossal ignorance. We\ndo not know where to begin. And if we knew where to begin, we certainly\nwould not know where to leave off. We will give one specimen, and one\nonly. He did not know, until he got to Rome, that Michael Angelo\nwas dead! And then, instead of crawling away and hiding his shameful\nignorance somewhere, he proceeds to express a pious, grateful sort of\nsatisfaction that he is gone and out of his troubles!\n\nNo, the reader may seek out the author's exhibition of his uncultivation\nfor himself. The book is absolutely dangerous, considering the magnitude\nand variety of its misstatements, and the convincing confidence with\nwhich they are made. And yet it is a text-book in the schools of\nAmerica.\n\nThe poor blunderer mouses among the sublime creations of the Old\nMasters, trying to acquire the elegant proficiency in art-knowledge,\nwhich he has a groping sort of comprehension is a proper thing for a\ntraveled man to be able to display. But what is the manner of his study?\nAnd what is the progress he achieves? To what extent does he\nfamiliarize himself with the great pictures of Italy, and what degree of\nappreciation does he arrive at? Read:\n\n\"When we see a monk going about with a lion and looking up into heaven,\nwe know that that is St. Mark. When we see a monk with a book and a pen,\nlooking tranquilly up to heaven, trying to think of a word, we know\nthat that is St. Matthew. When we see a monk sitting on a rock, looking\ntranquilly up to heaven, with a human skull beside him, and without\nother baggage, we know that that is St. Jerome. Because we know that\nhe always went flying light in the matter of baggage. When we see other\nmonks looking tranquilly up to heaven, but having no trade-mark, we\nalways ask who those parties are. We do this because we humbly wish to\nlearn.\"\n\nHe then enumerates the thousands and thousand of copies of these several\npictures which he has seen, and adds with accustomed simplicity that he\nfeels encouraged to believe that when he has seen \"Some More\" of each,\nand had a larger experience, he will eventually \"begin to take an\nabsorbing interest in them\"--the vulgar boor.\n\nThat we have shown this to be a remarkable book, we think no one\nwill deny. That it is a pernicious book to place in the hands of the\nconfiding and uniformed, we think we have also shown. That the book is\na deliberate and wicked creation of a diseased mind, is apparent upon\nevery page. Having placed our judgment thus upon record, let us close\nwith what charity we can, by remarking that even in this volume there is\nsome good to be found; for whenever the author talks of his own country\nand lets Europe alone, he never fails to make himself interesting, and\nnot only interesting but instructive. No one can read without benefit\nhis occasional chapters and paragraphs, about life in the gold and\nsilver mines of California and Nevada; about the Indians of the plains\nand deserts of the West, and their cannibalism; about the raising of\nvegetables in kegs of gunpowder by the aid of two or three teaspoons of\nguano; about the moving of small arms from place to place at night in\nwheelbarrows to avoid taxes; and about a sort of cows and mules in\nthe Humboldt mines, that climb down chimneys and disturb the people at\nnight. These matters are not only new, but are well worth knowing. It is\na pity the author did not put in more of the same kind. His book is well\nwritten and is exceedingly entertaining, and so it just barely escaped\nbeing quite valuable also.\n\n(One month later)\n\nLatterly I have received several letters, and see a number of newspaper\nparagraphs, all upon a certain subject, and all of about the same tenor.\nI here give honest specimens. One is from a New York paper, one is from\na letter from an old friend, and one is from a letter from a New York\npublisher who is a stranger to me. I humbly endeavor to make these bits\ntoothsome with the remark that the article they are praising (which\nappeared in the December _Galaxy_, and _pretended _to be a criticism\nfrom the London _Saturday Review_ on my _Innocents Abroad_) _was written\nby myself, every line of it_:\n\nThe _Herald _says the richest thing out is the \"serious critique\" in the\nLondon _Saturday Review_, on Mark Twain's _Innocents Abroad_. We thought\nbefore we read it that it must be \"serious,\" as everybody said so, and\nwere even ready to shed a few tears; but since perusing it, we are bound\nto confess that next to Mark Twain's \"_Jumping Frog_\" it's the finest\nbit of humor and sarcasm that we've come across in many a day.\n\n(I do not get a compliment like that every day.)\n\nI used to think that your writings were pretty good, but after reading\nthe criticism in _The Galaxy_ from the _London Review_, have discovered\nwhat an ass I must have been. If suggestions are in order, mine is,\nthat you put that article in your next edition of the _Innocents_, as\nan extra chapter, if you are not afraid to put your own humor in\ncompetition with it. It is as rich a thing as I ever read.\n\n(Which is strong commendation from a book publisher.)\nThe London Reviewer, my friend, is not the stupid, \"serious\" creature he\npretends to be, _I_ think; but, on the contrary, has a keen appreciation\nand enjoyment of your book. As I read his article in _The Galaxy_, I\ncould imagine him giving vent to many a hearty laugh. But he is writing\nfor Catholics and Established Church people, and high-toned, antiquated,\nconservative gentility, whom it is a delight to him to help you shock,\nwhile he pretends to shake his head with owlish density. He is a\nmagnificent humorist himself.\n\n(Now that is graceful and handsome. I take off my hat to my life-long\nfriend and comrade, and with my feet together and my fingers spread over\nmy heart, I say, in the language of Alabama, \"You do me proud.\")\n\nI stand guilty of the authorship of the article, but I did not mean any\nharm. I saw by an item in the Boston _Advertiser_ that a solemn, serious\ncritique on the English edition of my book had appeared in the London\n_Saturday Review_, and the idea of _such _a literary breakfast by a\nstolid, ponderous British ogre of the quill was too much for a naturally\nweak virtue, and I went home and burlesqued it--reveled in it, I may\nsay. I never saw a copy of the real _Saturday Review_ criticism until\nafter my burlesque was written and mailed to the printer. But when I\ndid get hold of a copy, I found it to be vulgar, awkwardly written,\nill-natured, and entirely serious and in earnest. The gentleman who\nwrote the newspaper paragraph above quoted had not been misled as to its\ncharacter.\n\nIf any man doubts my word now, I will kill him. No, I will not kill him;\nI will win his money. I will bet him twenty to one, and let any New York\npublisher hold the stakes, that the statements I have above made as to\nthe authorship of the article in question are entirely true. Perhaps\nI may get wealthy at this, for I am willing to take all the bets that\noffer; and if a man wants larger odds, I will give him all he requires.\nBut he ought to find out whether I am betting on what is termed \"a sure\nthing\" or not before he ventures his money, and he can do that by\ngoing to a public library and examining the London _Saturday Review_ of\nOctober 8th, which contains the real critique.\n\nBless me, some people thought that _I_ was the \"sold\" person!\n\nP.S.--I cannot resist the temptation to toss in this most savory thing\nof all--this easy, graceful, philosophical disquisition, with his happy,\nchirping confidence. It is from the Cincinnati _Enquirer_:\n\nNothing is more uncertain than the value of a fine cigar. Nine smokers\nout of ten would prefer an ordinary domestic article, three for a\nquarter, to a fifty-cent Partaga, if kept in ignorance of the cost of\nthe latter. The flavor of the Partaga is too delicate for palates that\nhave been accustomed to Connecticut seed leaf. So it is with humor. The\nfiner it is in quality, the more danger of its not being recognized\nat all. Even Mark Twain has been taken in by an English review of his\n_Innocents Abroad_. Mark Twain is by no means a coarse humorist, but the\nEnglishman's humor is so much finer than his, that he mistakes it for\nsolid earnest, and \"larfs most consumedly.\"\n\nA man who cannot learn stands in his own light. Hereafter, when I write\nan article which I know to be good, but which I may have reason to fear\nwill not, in some quarters, be considered to amount to much, coming\nfrom an American, I will aver that an Englishman wrote it and that it\nis copied from a London journal. And then I will occupy a back seat and\nenjoy the cordial applause.\n\n(Still later)\n\nMark Twain at last sees that the _Saturday Review's_ criticism of his\n_Innocents Abroad_ was not serious, and he is intensely mortified at the\nthought of having been so badly sold. He takes the only course left him,\nand in the last _Galaxy _claims that _he _wrote the criticism himself,\nand published it in _The Galaxy_ to sell the public. This is ingenious,\nbut unfortunately it is not true. If any of our readers will take the\ntrouble to call at this office we sill show them the original article\nin the _Saturday Review_ of October 8th, which, on comparison, will be\nfound to be identical with the one published in _The Galaxy._ The best\nthing for Mark to do will be to admit that he was sold, and say no more\nabout it.\n\n\nThe above is from the Cincinnati _Enquirer_, and is a falsehood. Come to\nthe proof. If the _Enquirer _people, through any agent, will produce\nat _The Galaxy_ office a London _Saturday Review_ of October 8th,\ncontaining an article which, on comparison, will be found to be\nidentical with the one published in _The Galaxy_, I will pay to that\nagent five hundred dollars cash. Moreover, if at any specified time I\nfail to produce at the same place a copy of the London _Saturday Review_\nof October 8th, containing a lengthy criticism upon the _Innocents\nAbroad_, entirely different, in every paragraph and sentence, from the\none I published in _The Galaxy,_ I will pay to the _Enquirer_ agent\nanother five hundred dollars cash. I offer Sheldon & Co., publishers,\n500 Broadway, New York, as my \"backers.\" Any one in New York, authorized\nby the _Enquirer_, will receive prompt attention. It is an easy and\nprofitable way for the _Enquirer _people to prove that they have not\nuttered a pitiful, deliberate falsehood in the above paragraphs. Will\nthey swallow that falsehood ignominiously, or will they send an agent to\n_ The Galaxy _office. I think the Cincinnati _Enquirer _must be edited\nby children.\n\n\n\nA LETTER TO THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY\n\nRiverdale-on-the-Hudson, OCTOBER 15, 1902.\n\n_The Hon. The Secretary Of The Treasury,_ WASHINGTON, D. C.:\n\nSir,--Prices for the customary kinds of winter fuel having reached\nan altitude which puts them out of the reach of literary persons in\nstraitened circumstances, I desire to place with you the following\norder:\n\nForty-five tons best old dry government bonds, suitable for furnace,\ngold 7 per cents., 1864, preferred.\n\nTwelve tons early greenbacks, range size, suitable for cooking.\n\nEight barrels seasoned 25 and 50 cent postal currency, vintage of 1866,\neligible for kindlings.\n\nPlease deliver with all convenient despatch at my house in Riverdale at\nlowest rates for spot cash, and send bill to\n\nYour obliged servant,\n\nMark Twain, Who will be very grateful, and will vote right.\n\n\n\nAMENDED OBITUARIES\n\nTO THE EDITOR:\n\nSir,--I am approaching seventy; it is in sight; it is only three years\naway. Necessarily, I must go soon. It is but matter-of-course wisdom,\nthen, that I should begin to set my worldly house in order now, so that\nit may be done calmly and with thoroughness, in place of waiting until\nthe last day, when, as we have often seen, the attempt to set both\nhouses in order at the same time has been marred by the necessity for\nhaste and by the confusion and waste of time arising from the inability\nof the notary and the ecclesiastic to work together harmoniously, taking\nturn about and giving each other friendly assistance--not perhaps in\nfielding, which could hardly be expected, but at least in the minor\noffices of keeping game and umpiring; by consequence of which conflict\nof interests and absence of harmonious action a draw has frequently\nresulted where this ill-fortune could not have happened if the houses\nhad been set in order one at a time and hurry avoided by beginning in\nseason, and giving to each the amount of time fairly and justly proper\nto it.\n\nIn setting my earthly house in order I find it of moment that I should\nattend in person to one or two matters which men in my position have\nlong had the habit of leaving wholly to others, with consequences often\nmost regrettable. I wish to speak of only one of these matters at this\ntime: Obituaries. Of necessity, an Obituary is a thing which cannot be\nso judiciously edited by any hand as by that of the subject of it. In\nsuch a work it is not the Facts that are of chief importance, but the\nlight which the obituarist shall throw upon them, the meaning which he\nshall dress them in, the conclusions which he shall draw from them,\nand the judgments which he shall deliver upon them. The Verdicts, you\nunderstand: that is the danger-line.\n\nIn considering this matter, in view of my approaching change, it has\nseemed to me wise to take such measures as may be feasible, to acquire,\nby courtesy of the press, access to my standing obituaries, with the\nprivilege--if this is not asking too much--of editing, not their Facts,\nbut their Verdicts. This, not for the present profit, further than as\nconcerns my family, but as a favorable influence usable on the Other\nSide, where there are some who are not friendly to me.\n\nWith this explanation of my motives, I will now ask you of your courtesy\nto make an appeal for me to the public press. It is my desire that\nsuch journals and periodicals as have obituaries of me lying in their\npigeonholes, with a view to sudden use some day, will not wait longer,\nbut will publish them now, and kindly send me a marked copy. My address\nis simply New York City--I have no other that is permanent and not\ntransient.\n\nI will correct them--not the Facts, but the Verdicts--striking out such\nclauses as could have a deleterious influence on the Other Side, and\nreplacing them with clauses of a more judicious character. I should,\nof course, expect to pay double rates for both the omissions and the\nsubstitutions; and I should also expect to pay quadruple rates for\nall obituaries which proved to be rightly and wisely worded in the\noriginals, thus requiring no emendations at all.\n\nIt is my desire to leave these Amended Obituaries neatly bound behind\nme as a perennial consolation and entertainment to my family, and as an\nheirloom which shall have a mournful but definite commercial value for\nmy remote posterity.\n\nI beg, sir, that you will insert this Advertisement (1t-eow, agate,\ninside), and send the bill to\n\nYours very respectfully.\n\nMark Twain.\n\nP.S.--For the best Obituary--one suitable for me to read in public, and\ncalculated to inspire regret--I desire to offer a Prize, consisting of\na Portrait of me done entirely by myself in pen and ink without previous\ninstructions. The ink warranted to be the kind used by the very best\nartists.\n\n\n\nA MONUMENT TO ADAM\n\nSome one has revealed to the _Tribune _that I once suggested to Rev.\nThomas K. Beecher, of Elmira, New York, that we get up a monument to\nAdam, and that Mr. Beecher favored the project. There is more to it\nthan that. The matter started as a joke, but it came somewhat near to\nmaterializing.\n\nIt is long ago--thirty years. Mr. Darwin's _Descent of Man_ has been in\nprint five or six years, and the storm of indignation raised by it was\nstill raging in pulpits and periodicals. In tracing the genesis of the\nhuman race back to its sources, Mr. Darwin had left Adam out altogether.\nWe had monkeys, and \"missing links,\" and plenty of other kinds of\nancestors, but no Adam. Jesting with Mr. Beecher and other friends in\nElmira, I said there seemed to be a likelihood that the world would\ndiscard Adam and accept the monkey, and that in the course of time\nAdam's very name would be forgotten in the earth; therefore this\ncalamity ought to be averted; a monument would accomplish this, and\nElmira ought not to waste this honorable opportunity to do Adam a favor\nand herself a credit.\n\nThen the unexpected happened. Two bankers came forward and took hold of\nthe matter--not for fun, not for sentiment, but because they saw in the\nmonument certain commercial advantages for the town. The project had\nseemed gently humorous before--it was more than that now, with this\nstern business gravity injected into it. The bankers discussed the\nmonument with me. We met several times. They proposed an indestructible\nmemorial, to cost twenty-five thousand dollars. The insane oddity of a\nmonument set up in a village to preserve a name that would outlast the\nhills and the rocks without any such help, would advertise Elmira to the\nends of the earth--and draw custom. It would be the only monument on the\nplanet to Adam, and in the matter of interest and impressiveness could\nnever have a rival until somebody should set up a monument to the Milky\nWay.\n\nPeople would come from every corner of the globe and stop off to look\nat it, no tour of the world would be complete that left out Adam's\nmonument. Elmira would be a Mecca; there would be pilgrim ships at\npilgrim rates, pilgrim specials on the continent's railways; libraries\nwould be written about the monument, every tourist would kodak it,\nmodels of it would be for sale everywhere in the earth, its form would\nbecome as familiar as the figure of Napoleon.\n\nOne of the bankers subscribed five thousand dollars, and I think the\nother one subscribed half as much, but I do not remember with certainty\nnow whether that was the figure or not. We got designs made--some of\nthem came from Paris.\n\nIn the beginning--as a detail of the project when it was yet a joke--I\nhad framed a humble and beseeching and perfervid petition to Congress\nbegging the government to build the monument, as a testimony of the\nGreat Republic's gratitude to the Father of the Human Race and as a\ntoken of her loyalty to him in this dark day of humiliation when his\nolder children were doubting and deserting him. It seemed to me that\nthis petition ought to be presented, now--it would be widely and\nfeelingly abused and ridiculed and cursed, and would advertise our\nscheme and make our ground-floor stock go off briskly. So I sent it\nto General Joseph R. Hawley, who was then in the House, and he said he\nwould present it. But he did not do it. I think he explained that when\nhe came to read it he was afraid of it: it was too serious, to gushy,\ntoo sentimental--the House might take it for earnest.\n\nWe ought to have carried out our monument scheme; we could have managed\nit without any great difficulty, and Elmira would now be the most\ncelebrated town in the universe.\n\nVery recently I began to build a book in which one of the minor\ncharacters touches incidentally upon a project for a monument to Adam,\nand now the _Tribune _has come upon a trace of the forgotten jest of\nthirty years ago. Apparently mental telegraphy is still in business. It\nis odd; but the freaks of mental telegraphy are usually odd.\n\n\n\nA HUMANE WORD FROM SATAN\n\n(The following letter, signed by Satan and purporting to come from\nhim, we have reason to believe was not written by him, but by Mark\nTwain.--Editor.)\n\nTO THE EDITOR OF HARPER'S WEEKLY:\n\nDear Sir and Kinsman,--Let us have done with this frivolous talk.\nThe American Board accepts contributions from me every year: then why\nshouldn't it from Mr. Rockefeller? In all the ages, three-fourths of the\nsupport of the great charities has been conscience-money, as my books\nwill show: then what becomes of the sting when that term is applied to\nMr. Rockefeller's gift? The American Board's trade is financed mainly\nfrom the graveyards. Bequests, you understand. Conscience-money.\nConfession of an old crime and deliberate perpetration of a new one;\nfor deceased's contribution is a robbery of his heirs. Shall the Board\ndecline bequests because they stand for one of these offenses every time\nand generally for both?\n\nAllow me to continue. The charge most persistently and resentfully\nand remorselessly dwelt upon is that Mr. Rockefeller's contribution is\nincurably tainted by perjury--perjury proved against him in the courts.\n_It makes us smile_--down in my place! Because there isn't a rich man\nin your vast city who doesn't perjure himself every year before the tax\nboard. They are all caked with perjury, many layers thick. Iron-clad,\nso to speak. If there is one that isn't, I desire to acquire him for my\nmuseum, and will pay Dinosaur rates. Will you say it isn't infraction\nof the law, but only annual evasion of it? Comfort yourselves with that\nnice distinction if you like--_for the present_. But by and by, when\nyou arrive, I will show you something interesting: a whole hell-full\nof evaders! Sometimes a frank law-breaker turns up elsewhere, but I get\nthose others every time.\n\nTo return to my muttons. I wish you to remember that my rich perjurers\nare contributing to the American Board with frequency: it is money\nfilched from the sworn-off personal tax; therefore it is the wages of\nsin; therefore it is my money; therefore it is _I_ that contribute it;\nand, finally, it is therefore as I have said: since the Board daily\naccepts contributions from me, why should it decline them from Mr.\nRockefeller, who is as good as I am, let the courts say what they may?\n\nSatan.\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION TO \"THE NEW GUIDE OF THE CONVERSATION IN PORTUGUESE AND\nENGLISH\"\n\nby Pedro Carolino\n\nIn this world of uncertainties, there is, at any rate, one thing which\nmay be pretty confidently set down as a certainty: and that is, that\nthis celebrated little phrase-book will never die while the English\nlanguage lasts. Its delicious unconscious ridiculousness, and its\nenchanting naivete, are as supreme and unapproachable, in their way,\nas are Shakespeare's sublimities. Whatsoever is perfect in its kind, in\nliterature, is imperishable: nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody\ncan hope to produce its fellow; it is perfect, it must and will stand\nalone: its immortality is secure.\n\nIt is one of the smallest books in the world, but few big books have\nreceived such wide attention, and been so much pondered by the grave and\nlearned, and so much discussed and written about by the thoughtful,\nthe thoughtless, the wise, and the foolish. Long notices of it have\nappeared, from time to time, in the great English reviews, and in\nerudite and authoritative philological periodicals; and it has been\nlaughed at, danced upon, and tossed in a blanket by nearly every\nnewspaper and magazine in the English-speaking world. Every scribbler,\nalmost, has had his little fling at it, at one time or another; I had\nmine fifteen years ago. The book gets out of print, every now and then,\nand one ceases to hear of it for a season; but presently the nations and\nnear and far colonies of our tongue and lineage call for it once more,\nand once more it issues from some London or Continental or American\npress, and runs a new course around the globe, wafted on its way by the\nwind of a world's laughter.\n\nMany persons have believed that this book's miraculous stupidities\nwere studied and disingenuous; but no one can read the volume carefully\nthrough and keep that opinion. It was written in serious good faith and\ndeep earnestness, by an honest and upright idiot who believed he knew\nsomething of the English language, and could impart his knowledge to\nothers. The amplest proof of this crops out somewhere or other upon each\nand every page. There are sentences in the book which could have been\nmanufactured by a man in his right mind, and with an intelligent and\ndeliberate purposes to seem innocently ignorant; but there are other\nsentences, and paragraphs, which no mere pretended ignorance could ever\nachieve--nor yet even the most genuine and comprehensive ignorance, when\nunbacked by inspiration.\n\nIt is not a fraud who speaks in the following paragraph of the author's\nPreface, but a good man, an honest man, a man whose conscience is at\nrest, a man who believes he has done a high and worthy work for his\nnation and his generation, and is well pleased with his performance:\n\nWe expect then, who the little book (for the care what we wrote him, and\nfor her typographical correction) that may be worth the acceptation of\nthe studious persons, and especially of the Youth, at which we dedicate\nhim particularly.\n\nOne cannot open this book anywhere and not find richness. To prove that\nthis is true, I will open it at random and copy the page I happen to\nstumble upon. Here is the result:\n\nDIALOGUE 16\n\nFor To See the Town\n\nAnothony, go to accompany they gentilsmen, do they see the town.\n\nWe won't to see all that is it remarquable here.\n\nCome with me, if you please. I shall not folget nothing what can to\nmerit your attention. Here we are near to cathedral; will you come in\nthere?\n\nWe will first to see him in oudside, after we shall go in there for to\nlook the interior.\n\nAdmire this master piece gothic architecture's.\n\nThe chasing of all they figures is astonishing' indeed.\n\nThe cupola and the nave are not less curious to see.\n\nWhat is this palace how I see yonder?\n\nIt is the town hall.\n\nAnd this tower here at this side?\n\nIt is the Observatory.\n\nThe bridge is very fine, it have ten arches, and is constructed of free\nstone.\n\nThe streets are very layed out by line and too paved.\n\nWhat is the circuit of this town?\n\nTwo leagues.\n\nThere is it also hospitals here?\n\nIt not fail them.\n\nWhat are then the edifices the worthest to have seen?\n\nIt is the arsnehal, the spectacle's hall, the Cusiomhouse, and the\nPurse.\n\nWe are going too see the others monuments such that the public\npawnbroker's office, the plants garden's, the money office's, the\nlibrary.\n\nThat it shall be for another day; we are tired.\n\nDIALOGUE 17\n\nTo Inform One'self of a Person\n\nHow is that gentilman who you did speak by and by?\n\nIs a German.\n\nI did think him Englishman.\n\nHe is of the Saxony side.\n\nHe speak the french very well.\n\nTough he is German, he speak so much well italyan, french, spanish and\nenglish, that among the Italyans, they believe him Italyan, he speak\nthe frenche as the Frenches himselves. The Spanishesmen believe him\nSpanishing, and the Englishes, Englishman. It is difficult to enjoy well\nso much several languages.\n\nThe last remark contains a general truth; but it ceases to be a truth\nwhen one contracts it and applies it to an individual--provided that that\nindividual is the author of this book, Senhor Pedro Carolino. I am\nsure I should not find it difficult \"to enjoy well so much several\nlanguages\"--or even a thousand of them--if he did the translating for me\nfrom the originals into his ostensible English.\n\n\n\nADVICE TO LITTLE GIRLS\n\nGood little girls ought not to make mouths at their teachers for every\ntrifling offense. This retaliation should only be resorted to under\npeculiarly aggravated circumstances.\n\nIf you have nothing but a rag-doll stuffed with sawdust, while one of\nyour more fortunate little playmates has a costly China one, you should\ntreat her with a show of kindness nevertheless. And you ought not to\nattempt to make a forcible swap with her unless your conscience would\njustify you in it, and you know you are able to do it.\n\nYou ought never to take your little brother's \"chewing-gum\" away from\nhim by main force; it is better to rope him in with the promise of\nthe first two dollars and a half you find floating down the river on a\ngrindstone. In the artless simplicity natural to this time of life, he\nwill regard it as a perfectly fair transaction. In all ages of the\nworld this eminently plausible fiction has lured the obtuse infant to\nfinancial ruin and disaster.\n\nIf at any time you find it necessary to correct your brother, do not\ncorrect him with mud--never, on any account, throw mud at him, because\nit will spoil his clothes. It is better to scald him a little, for then\nyou obtain desirable results. You secure his immediate attention to the\nlessons you are inculcating, and at the same time your hot water will\nhave a tendency to move impurities from his person, and possibly the\nskin, in spots.\n\nIf your mother tells you to do a thing, it is wrong to reply that you\nwon't. It is better and more becoming to intimate that you will do as\nshe bids you, and then afterward act quietly in the matter according to\nthe dictates of your best judgment.\n\nYou should ever bear in mind that it is to your kind parents that you\nare indebted for your food, and for the privilege of staying home from\nschool when you let on that you are sick. Therefore you ought to respect\ntheir little prejudices, and humor their little whims, and put up with\ntheir little foibles until they get to crowding you too much.\n\nGood little girls always show marked deference for the aged. You ought\nnever to \"sass\" old people unless they \"sass\" you first.\n\n\n\nPOST-MORTEM POETRY (1)\n\nIn Philadelphia they have a custom which it would be pleasant to see\nadopted throughout the land. It is that of appending to published\ndeath-notices a little verse or two of comforting poetry. Any one who is\nin the habit of reading the daily Philadelphia _Ledger _must frequently\nbe touched by these plaintive tributes to extinguished worth. In\nPhiladelphia, the departure of a child is a circumstance which is not\nmore surely followed by a burial than by the accustomed solacing poesy\nin the _Public Ledger_. In that city death loses half its terror because\nthe knowledge of its presence comes thus disguised in the sweet drapery\nof verse. For instance, in a late _Ledger _I find the following (I\nchange the surname):\n\nDIED\n\nHawks.--On the 17th inst., Clara, the daughter of Ephraim and Laura\nHawks, aged 21 months and 2 days.\n\n\nThat merry shout no more I hear, No laughing child I see, No little arms\nare around my neck, No feet upon my knee;\n\nNo kisses drop upon my cheek, These lips are sealed to me. Dear Lord,\nhow could I give Clara up To any but to Thee?\n\nA child thus mourned could not die wholly discontented. From the _Ledger\n_of the same date I make the following extract, merely changing the\nsurname, as before:\n\nBecket.--On Sunday morning, 19th inst., John P., infant son of George\nand Julia Becket, aged 1 year, 6 months, and 15 days.\n\n\nThat merry shout no more I hear, No laughing child I see, No little arms\nare round my neck, No feet upon my knee;\n\nNo kisses drop upon my cheek; These lips are sealed to me. Dear Lord,\nhow could I give Johnnie up To any but to Thee?\n\nThe similarity of the emotions as produced in the mourners in these two\ninstances is remarkably evidenced by the singular similarity of thought\nwhich they experienced, and the surprising coincidence of language used\nby them to give it expression.\n\nIn the same journal, of the same date, I find the following (surname\nsuppressed, as before):\n\nWagner.--On the 10th inst., Ferguson G., the son of William L. and\nMartha Theresa Wagner, aged 4 weeks and 1 day.\n\n\nThat merry shout no more I hear, No laughing child I see, No little arms\nare round my neck, No feet upon my knee;\n\nNo kisses drop upon my cheek, These lips are sealed to me. Dear Lord,\nhow could I give Ferguson up To any but to Thee?\n\nIt is strange what power the reiteration of an essentially poetical\nthought has upon one's feelings. When we take up the _Ledger _and read\nthe poetry about little Clara, we feel an unaccountable depression of\nthe spirits. When we drift further down the column and read the poetry\nabout little Johnnie, the depression and spirits acquires an added\nemphasis, and we experience tangible suffering. When we saunter along\ndown the column further still and read the poetry about little Ferguson,\nthe word torture but vaguely suggests the anguish that rends us.\n\nIn the _Ledger _(same copy referred to above) I find the following (I\nalter surname, as usual):\n\nWelch.--On the 5th inst., Mary C. Welch, wife of William B. Welch, and\ndaughter of Catharine and George W. Markland, in the 29th year of her\nage.\n\n\nA mother dear, a mother kind, Has gone and left us all behind. Cease to\nweep, for tears are vain, Mother dear is out of pain.\n\nFarewell, husband, children dear, Serve thy God with filial fear, And\nmeet me in the land above, Where all is peace, and joy, and love.\n\nWhat could be sweeter than that? No collection of salient facts (without\nreduction to tabular form) could be more succinctly stated than is done\nin the first stanza by the surviving relatives, and no more concise and\ncomprehensive program of farewells, post-mortuary general orders, etc.,\ncould be framed in any form than is done in verse by deceased in the\nlast stanza. These things insensibly make us wiser and tenderer, and\nbetter. Another extract:\n\nBall.--On the morning of the 15th inst., Mary E., daughter of John and\nSarah F. Ball.\n\n\n'Tis sweet to rest in lively hope That when my change shall come Angels\nwill hover round my bed, To waft my spirit home.\n\nThe following is apparently the customary form for heads of families:\n\nBurns.--On the 20th inst., Michael Burns, aged 40 years.\n\n\nDearest father, thou hast left us, Here thy loss we deeply feel; But\n'tis God that has bereft us, He can all our sorrows heal.\n\nFuneral at 2 o'clock sharp.\n\nThere is something very simple and pleasant about the following, which,\nin Philadelphia, seems to be the usual form for consumptives of long\nstanding. (It deplores four distinct cases in the single copy of the\n_Ledger _which lies on the Memoranda editorial table):\n\nBromley.--On the 29th inst., of consumption, Philip Bromley, in the 50th\nyear of his age.\n\n\nAffliction sore long time he bore, Physicians were in vain-- Till God at\nlast did hear him mourn, And eased him of his pain.\n\nThat friend whom death from us has torn, We did not think so soon to\npart; An anxious care now sinks the thorn Still deeper in our bleeding\nheart.\n\nThis beautiful creation loses nothing by repetition. On the\ncontrary, the oftener one sees it in the _Ledger_, the more grand and\nawe-inspiring it seems.\n\nWith one more extract I will close:\n\nDoble.--On the 4th inst., Samuel Pervil Worthington Doble, aged 4 days.\n\n\nOur little Sammy's gone, His tiny spirit's fled; Our little boy we loved\nso dear Lies sleeping with the dead.\n\nA tear within a father's eye, A mother's aching heart, Can only tell the\nagony How hard it is to part.\n\nCould anything be more plaintive than that, without requiring further\nconcessions of grammar? Could anything be likely to do more toward\nreconciling deceased to circumstances, and making him willing to go?\nPerhaps not. The power of song can hardly be estimated. There is an\nelement about some poetry which is able to make even physical suffering\nand death cheerful things to contemplate and consummations to be\ndesired. This element is present in the mortuary poetry of Philadelphia,\nand in a noticeable degree of development.\n\nThe custom I have been treating of is one that should be adopted in all\nthe cities of the land.\n\nIt is said that once a man of small consequence died, and the Rev. T.\nK. Beecher was asked to preach the funeral sermon--a man who abhors the\nlauding of people, either dead or alive, except in dignified and simple\nlanguage, and then only for merits which they actually possessed or\npossess, not merits which they merely ought to have possessed. The\nfriends of the deceased got up a stately funeral. They must have had\nmisgivings that the corpse might not be praised strongly enough, for\nthey prepared some manuscript headings and notes in which nothing was\nleft unsaid on that subject that a fervid imagination and an unabridged\ndictionary could compile, and these they handed to the minister as he\nentered the pulpit. They were merely intended as suggestions, and so the\nfriends were filled with consternation when the minister stood in the\npulpit and proceeded to read off the curious odds and ends in ghastly\ndetail and in a loud voice! And their consternation solidified to\npetrification when he paused at the end, contemplated the multitude\nreflectively, and then said, impressively:\n\n\"The man would be a fool who tried to add anything to that. Let us\npray!\"\n\nAnd with the same strict adhesion to truth it can be said that the man\nwould be a fool who tried to add anything to the following transcendent\nobituary poem. There is something so innocent, so guileless, so\ncomplacent, so unearthly serene and self-satisfied about this peerless\n\"hog-wash,\" that the man must be made of stone who can read it without a\ndulcet ecstasy creeping along his backbone and quivering in his marrow.\nThere is no need to say that this poem is genuine and in earnest, for\nits proofs are written all over its face. An ingenious scribbler\nmight imitate it after a fashion, but Shakespeare himself could not\ncounterfeit it. It is noticeable that the country editor who published\nit did not know that it was a treasure and the most perfect thing of its\nkind that the storehouses and museums of literature could show. He did\nnot dare to say no to the dread poet--for such a poet must have been\nsomething of an apparition--but he just shoveled it into his paper\nanywhere that came handy, and felt ashamed, and put that disgusted\n\"Published by Request\" over it, and hoped that his subscribers would\noverlook it or not feel an impulse to read it:\n\n(Published by Request)\n\nLINES\n\nComposed on the death of Samuel and Catharine Belknap's children\n\nby M. A. Glaze\n\n\nFriends and neighbors all draw near, And listen to what I have to say;\nAnd never leave your children dear When they are small, and go away.\n\nBut always think of that sad fate, That happened in year of '63; Four\nchildren with a house did burn, Think of their awful agony.\n\nTheir mother she had gone away, And left them there alone to stay; The\nhouse took fire and down did burn; Before their mother did return.\n\nTheir piteous cry the neighbors heard, And then the cry of fire was\ngiven; But, ah! before they could them reach, Their little spirits had\nflown to heaven.\n\nTheir father he to war had gone, And on the battle-field was slain; But\nlittle did he think when he went away, But what on earth they would meet\nagain.\n\nThe neighbors often told his wife Not to leave his children there,\nUnless she got some one to stay, And of the little ones take care.\n\nThe oldest he was years not six, And the youngest only eleven months\nold, But often she had left them there alone, As, by the neighbors, I\nhave been told.\n\nHow can she bear to see the place. Where she so oft has left them there,\nWithout a single one to look to them, Or of the little ones to take good\ncare.\n\nOh, can she look upon the spot, Whereunder their little burnt bones lay,\nBut what she thinks she hears them say, ''Twas God had pity, and took us\non high.'\n\nAnd there may she kneel down and pray, And ask God her to forgive; And\nshe may lead a different life While she on earth remains to live.\n\nHer husband and her children too, God has took from pain and woe. May\nshe reform and mend her ways, That she may also to them go.\n\nAnd when it is God's holy will, O, may she be prepared To meet her God\nand friends in peace, And leave this world of care.\n\n1. Written in 1870.\n\n\n\nTHE DANGER OF LYING IN BED\n\nThe man in the ticket-office said:\n\n\"Have an accident insurance ticket, also?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said, after studying the matter over a little. \"No, I believe\nnot; I am going to be traveling by rail all day today. However, tomorrow\nI don't travel. Give me one for tomorrow.\"\n\nThe man looked puzzled. He said:\n\n\"But it is for accident insurance, and if you are going to travel by\nrail--\"\n\n\"If I am going to travel by rail I sha'n't need it. Lying at home in bed\nis the thing _I_ am afraid of.\"\n\nI had been looking into this matter. Last year I traveled twenty\nthousand miles, almost entirely by rail; the year before, I traveled\nover twenty-five thousand miles, half by sea and half by rail; and the\nyear before that I traveled in the neighborhood of ten thousand miles,\nexclusively by rail. I suppose if I put in all the little odd journeys\nhere and there, I may say I have traveled sixty thousand miles during\nthe three years I have mentioned. _And never an accident._\n\nFor a good while I said to myself every morning: \"Now I have escaped\nthus far, and so the chances are just that much increased that I shall\ncatch it this time. I will be shrewd, and buy an accident ticket.\" And\nto a dead moral certainty I drew a blank, and went to bed that night\nwithout a joint started or a bone splintered. I got tired of that sort\nof daily bother, and fell to buying accident tickets that were good\nfor a month. I said to myself, \"A man _can't_ buy thirty blanks in one\nbundle.\"\n\nBut I was mistaken. There was never a prize in the the lot. I could read\nof railway accidents every day--the newspaper atmosphere was foggy with\nthem; but somehow they never came my way. I found I had spent a good\ndeal of money in the accident business, and had nothing to show for it.\nMy suspicions were aroused, and I began to hunt around for somebody that\nhad won in this lottery. I found plenty of people who had invested,\nbut not an individual that had ever had an accident or made a cent. I\nstopped buying accident tickets and went to ciphering. The result was\nastounding. THE PERIL LAY NOT IN TRAVELING, BUT IN STAYING AT HOME.\n\nI hunted up statistics, and was amazed to find that after all the\nglaring newspaper headlines concerning railroad disasters, less than\n_three hundred_ people had really lost their lives by those disasters\nin the preceding twelve months. The Erie road was set down as the most\nmurderous in the list. It had killed forty-six--or twenty-six, I do not\nexactly remember which, but I know the number was double that of any\nother road. But the fact straightway suggested itself that the Erie was\nan immensely long road, and did more business than any other line in\nthe country; so the double number of killed ceased to be matter for\nsurprise.\n\nBy further figuring, it appeared that between New York and Rochester the\nErie ran eight passenger-trains each way every day--16 altogether; and\ncarried a daily average of 6,000 persons. That is about a million in six\nmonths--the population of New York City. Well, the Erie kills from 13 to\n23 persons of _its_ million in six months; and in the same time 13,000\nof New York's million die in their beds! My flesh crept, my hair stood\non end. \"This is appalling!\" I said. \"The danger isn't in traveling by\nrail, but in trusting to those deadly beds. I will never sleep in a bed\nagain.\"\n\nI had figured on considerably less than one-half the length of the Erie\nroad. It was plain that the entire road must transport at least eleven\nor twelve thousand people every day. There are many short roads running\nout of Boston that do fully half as much; a great many such roads. There\nare many roads scattered about the Union that do a prodigious passenger\nbusiness. Therefore it was fair to presume that an average of 2,500\npassengers a day for each road in the country would be almost correct.\nThere are 846 railway lines in our country, and 846 times 2,500 are\n2,115,000. So the railways of America move more than two millions of\npeople every day; six hundred and fifty millions of people a year,\nwithout counting the Sundays. They do that, too--there is no question\nabout it; though where they get the raw material is clear beyond the\njurisdiction of my arithmetic; for I have hunted the census through and\nthrough, and I find that there are not that many people in the United\nStates, by a matter of six hundred and ten millions at the very least.\nThey must use some of the same people over again, likely.\n\nSan Francisco is one-eighth as populous as New York; there are 60 deaths\na week in the former and 500 a week in the latter--if they have luck.\nThat is 3,120 deaths a year in San Francisco, and eight times as many\nin New York--say about 25,000 or 26,000. The health of the two places is\nthe same. So we will let it stand as a fair presumption that this will\nhold good all over the country, and that consequently 25,000 out of\nevery million of people we have must die every year. That amounts to\none-fortieth of our total population. One million of us, then, die\nannually. Out of this million ten or twelve thousand are stabbed, shot,\ndrowned, hanged, poisoned, or meet a similarly violent death in some\nother popular way, such as perishing by kerosene-lamp and hoop-skirt\nconflagrations, getting buried in coal-mines, falling off house-tops,\nbreaking through church, or lecture-room floors, taking patent\nmedicines, or committing suicide in other forms. The Erie railroad kills\n23 to 46; the other 845 railroads kill an average of one-third of a man\neach; and the rest of that million, amounting in the aggregate to that\nappalling figure of 987,631 corpses, die naturally in their beds!\n\nYou will excuse me from taking any more chances on those beds. The\nrailroads are good enough for me.\n\nAnd my advice to all people is, Don't stay at home any more than you can\nhelp; but when you have _got _to stay at home a while, buy a package of\nthose insurance tickets and sit up nights. You cannot be too cautious.\n\n(One can see now why I answered that ticket-agent in the manner recorded\nat the top of this sketch.)\n\nThe moral of this composition is, that thoughtless people grumble more\nthan is fair about railroad management in the United States. When we\nconsider that every day and night of the year full fourteen thousand\nrailway-trains of various kinds, freighted with life and armed with\ndeath, go thundering over the land, the marvel is, _not _that they kill\nthree hundred human beings in a twelvemonth, but that they do not kill\nthree hundred times three hundred!\n\n\n\nPORTRAIT OF KING WILLIAM III\n\nI never can look at those periodical portraits in _The Galaxy_ magazine\nwithout feeling a wild, tempestuous ambition to be an artist. I have\nseen thousands and thousands of pictures in my time--acres of them here\nand leagues of them in the galleries of Europe--but never any that moved\nme as these portraits do.\n\nThere is a portrait of Monsignore Capel in the November number, now\n_could_ anything be sweeter than that? And there was Bismarck's, in the\nOctober number; who can look at that without being purer and stronger\nand nobler for it? And Thurlow and Weed's picture in the September\nnumber; I would not have died without seeing that, no, not for anything\nthis world can give. But look back still further and recall my own\nlikeness as printed in the August number; if I had been in my grave a\nthousand years when that appeared, I would have got up and visited the\nartist.\n\nI sleep with all these portraits under my pillow every night, so that I\ncan go on studying them as soon as the day dawns in the morning. I know\nthem all as thoroughly as if I had made them myself; I know every line\nand mark about them. Sometimes when company are present I shuffle the\nportraits all up together, and then pick them out one by one and call\ntheir names, without referring to the printing on the bottom. I seldom\nmake a mistake--never, when I am calm.\n\nI have had the portraits framed for a long time, waiting till my aunt\ngets everything ready for hanging them up in the parlor. But first one\nthing and then another interferes, and so the thing is delayed. Once she\nsaid they would have more of the peculiar kind of light they needed in\nthe attic. The old simpleton! it is as dark as a tomb up there. But she\ndoes not know anything about art, and so she has no reverence for it.\nWhen I showed her my \"Map of the Fortifications of Paris,\" she said it\nwas rubbish.\n\nWell, from nursing those portraits so long, I have come at last to have\na perfect infatuation for art. I have a teacher now, and my enthusiasm\ncontinually and tumultuously grows, as I learn to use with more and\nmore facility the pencil, brush, and graver. I am studying under De\nMellville, the house and portrait painter. (His name was Smith when he\nlived in the West.) He does any kind of artist work a body wants, having\na genius that is universal, like Michael Angelo. Resembles that great\nartist, in fact. The back of his head is like his, and he wears his\nhat-brim tilted down on his nose to expose it.\n\nI have been studying under De Mellville several months now. The first\nmonth I painted fences, and gave general satisfaction. The next month I\nwhite-washed a barn. The third, I was doing tin roofs; the forth, common\nsigns; the fifth, statuary to stand before cigar shops. This present\nmonth is only the sixth, and I am already in portraits!\n\nThe humble offering which accompanies these remarks (see figure)--the\nportrait of his Majesty William III., King of Prussia--is my fifth\nattempt in portraits, and my greatest success. It has received unbounded\npraise from all classes of the community, but that which gratifies me\nmost is the frequent and cordial verdict that it resembles the _Galaxy_\nportraits. Those were my first love, my earliest admiration, the\noriginal source and incentive of my art-ambition. Whatever I am in Art\ntoday, I owe to these portraits. I ask no credit for myself--I deserve\nnone. And I never take any, either. Many a stranger has come to my\nexhibition (for I have had my portrait of King William on exhibition at\none dollar a ticket), and would have gone away blessing_ me_, if I had\nlet him, but I never did. I always stated where I got the idea.\n\nKing William wears large bushy side-whiskers, and some critics have\nthought that this portrait would be more complete if they were added.\nBut it was not possible. There was not room for side-whiskers and\nepaulets both, and so I let the whiskers go, and put in the epaulets,\nfor the sake of style. That thing on his hat is an eagle. The Prussian\neagle--it is a national emblem. When I say hat I mean helmet; but it\nseems impossible to make a picture of a helmet that a body can have\nconfidence in.\n\nI wish kind friends everywhere would aid me in my endeavor to attract a\nlittle attention to the _Galaxy _portraits. I feel persuaded it can be\naccomplished, if the course to be pursued be chosen with judgment. I\nwrite for that magazine all the time, and so do many abler men, and if\nI can get these portraits into universal favor, it is all I ask; the\nreading-matter will take care of itself.\n\n\n\nCOMMENDATIONS OF THE PORTRAIT\n\nThere is nothing like it in the Vatican. Pius IX.\n\nIt has none of that vagueness, that dreamy spirituality about it, which\nmany of the first critics of Arkansas have objected to in the Murillo\nschool of Art. Ruskin.\n\nThe expression is very interesting. J.W. Titian.\n\n(Keeps a macaroni store in Venice, at the old family stand.)\n\nIt is the neatest thing in still life I have seen for years.\n\nRosa Bonheur.\n\nThe smile may be almost called unique. Bismarck.\n\nI never saw such character portrayed in a picture face before. De\nMellville.\n\nThere is a benignant simplicity about the execution of this work which\nwarms the heart toward it as much, full as much, as it fascinates the\neye. Landseer.\n\nOne cannot see it without longing to contemplate the artist.\n\nFrederick William.\n\nSend me the entire edition--together with the plate and the original\nportrait--and name your own price. And--would you like to come over and\nstay awhile with Napoleon at Wilhelmshohe? It shall not cost you a cent.\nWilliam III.\n\n\n\nDOES THE RACE OF MAN LOVE A LORD?\n\nOften a quite assified remark becomes sanctified by use and petrified by\ncustom; it is then a permanency, its term of activity a geologic period.\n\nThe day after the arrival of Prince Henry I met an English friend, and\nhe rubbed his hands and broke out with a remark that was charged to the\nbrim with joy--joy that was evidently a pleasant salve to an old sore\nplace:\n\n\"Many a time I've had to listen without retort to an old saying that is\nirritatingly true, and until now seemed to offer no chance for a return\njibe: 'An Englishman does dearly love a lord'; but after this I shall\ntalk back, and say, 'How about the Americans?'\"\n\nIt is a curious thing, the currency that an idiotic saying can get. The\nman that first says it thinks he has made a discovery. The man he\nsays it to, thinks the same. It departs on its travels, is received\neverywhere with admiring acceptance, and not only as a piece of rare and\nacute observation, but as being exhaustively true and profoundly wise;\nand so it presently takes its place in the world's list of recognized\nand established wisdoms, and after that no one thinks of examining it to\nsee whether it is really entitled to its high honors or not. I call to\nmind instances of this in two well-established proverbs, whose dullness\nis not surpassed by the one about the Englishman and his love for a\nlord: one of them records the American's Adoration of the Almighty\nDollar, the other the American millionaire-girl's ambition to trade cash\nfor a title, with a husband thrown in.\n\nIt isn't merely the American that adores the Almighty Dollar, it is the\nhuman race. The human race has always adored the hatful of shells, or\nthe bale of calico, or the half-bushel of brass rings, or the handful of\nsteel fish-hooks, or the houseful of black wives, or the zareba full of\ncattle, or the two-score camels and asses, or the factory, or the farm,\nor the block of buildings, or the railroad bonds, or the bank stock, or\nthe hoarded cash, or--anything that stands for wealth and consideration\nand independence, and can secure to the possessor that most precious of\nall things, another man's envy. It was a dull person that invented the\nidea that the American's devotion to the dollar is more strenuous than\nanother's.\n\nRich American girls do buy titles, but they did not invent that idea;\nit had been worn threadbare several hundred centuries before America\nwas discovered. European girls still exploit it as briskly as ever;\nand, when a title is not to be had for the money in hand, they buy the\nhusband without it. They must put up the \"dot,\" or there is no trade.\nThe commercialization of brides is substantially universal, except in\nAmerica. It exists with us, to some little extent, but in no degree\napproaching a custom.\n\n\"The Englishman dearly loves a lord.\"\n\nWhat is the soul and source of this love? I think the thing could be\nmore correctly worded:\n\n\"The human race dearly envies a lord.\"\n\nThat is to say, it envies the lord's place. Why? On two accounts, I\nthink: its Power and its Conspicuousness.\n\nWhere Conspicuousness carries with it a Power which, by the light of our\nown observation and experience, we are able to measure and comprehend, I\nthink our envy of the possessor is as deep and as passionate as is\nthat of any other nation. No one can care less for a lord than the\nbackwoodsman, who has had no personal contact with lords and has seldom\nheard them spoken of; but I will not allow that any Englishman has a\nprofounder envy of a lord than has the average American who has lived\nlong years in a European capital and fully learned how immense is the\nposition the lord occupies.\n\nOf any ten thousand Americans who eagerly gather, at vast inconvenience,\nto get a glimpse of Prince Henry, all but a couple of hundred will be\nthere out of an immense curiosity; they are burning up with desire to\nsee a personage who is so much talked about. They envy him; but it is\nConspicuousness they envy mainly, not the Power that is lodged in his\nroyal quality and position, for they have but a vague and spectral\nknowledge and appreciation of that; through their environment and\nassociations they have been accustomed to regard such things lightly,\nand as not being very real; consequently, they are not able to value\nthem enough to consumingly envy them.\n\nBut, whenever an American (or other human being) is in the presence,\nfor the first time, of a combination of great Power and Conspicuousness\nwhich he thoroughly understands and appreciates, his eager curiosity and\npleasure will be well-sodden with that other passion--envy--whether he\nsuspects it or not. At any time, on any day, in any part of America,\nyou can confer a happiness upon any passing stranger by calling his\nattention to any other passing stranger and saying:\n\n\"Do you see that gentleman going along there? It is Mr. Rockefeller.\"\n\nWatch his eye. It is a combination of power and conspicuousness which\nthe man understands.\n\nWhen we understand rank, we always like to rub against it. When a man\nis conspicuous, we always want to see him. Also, if he will pay us an\nattention we will manage to remember it. Also, we will mention it now\nand then, casually; sometimes to a friend, or if a friend is not handy,\nwe will make out with a stranger.\n\nWell, then, what is rank, and what is conspicuousness? At once we\nthink of kings and aristocracies, and of world-wide celebrities in\nsoldierships, the arts, letters, etc., and we stop there. But that is a\nmistake. Rank holds its court and receives its homage on every round of\nthe ladder, from the emperor down to the rat-catcher; and distinction,\nalso, exists on every round of the ladder, and commands its due of\ndeference and envy.\n\nTo worship rank and distinction is the dear and valued privilege of all\nthe human race, and it is freely and joyfully exercised in democracies\nas well as in monarchies--and even, to some extent, among those\ncreatures whom we impertinently call the Lower Animals. For even they\nhave some poor little vanities and foibles, though in this matter they\nare paupers as compared to us.\n\nA Chinese Emperor has the worship of his four hundred millions of\nsubjects, but the rest of the world is indifferent to him. A Christian\nEmperor has the worship of his subjects and of a large part of\nthe Christian world outside of his domains; but he is a matter of\nindifference to all China. A king, class A, has an extensive worship; a\nking, class B, has a less extensive worship; class C, class D, class\nE get a steadily diminishing share of worship; class L (Sultan of\nZanzibar), class P (Sultan of Sulu), and class W (half-king of Samoa),\nget no worship at all outside their own little patch of sovereignty.\n\nTake the distinguished people along down. Each has his group of\nhomage-payers. In the navy, there are many groups; they start with the\nSecretary and the Admiral, and go down to the quartermaster--and below;\nfor there will be groups among the sailors, and each of these groups\nwill have a tar who is distinguished for his battles, or his strength,\nor his daring, or his profanity, and is admired and envied by his group.\nThe same with the army; the same with the literary and journalistic\ncraft; the publishing craft; the cod-fishery craft; Standard Oil; U. S.\nSteel; the class A hotel--and the rest of the alphabet in that line; the\nclass A prize-fighter--and the rest of the alphabet in his line--clear\ndown to the lowest and obscurest six-boy gang of little gamins, with\nits one boy that can thrash the rest, and to whom he is king of Samoa,\nbottom of the royal race, but looked up to with a most ardent admiration\nand envy.\n\nThere is something pathetic, and funny, and pretty, about this human\nrace's fondness for contact with power and distinction, and for the\nreflected glory it gets out of it. The king, class A, is happy in the\nstate banquet and the military show which the emperor provides for him,\nand he goes home and gathers the queen and the princelings around him in\nthe privacy of the spare room, and tells them all about it, and says:\n\n\"His Imperial Majesty put his hand upon my shoulder in the most friendly\nway--just as friendly and familiar, oh, you can't imagine it!--and\neverybody _seeing _him do it; charming, perfectly charming!\"\n\nThe king, class G, is happy in the cold collation and the police parade\nprovided for him by the king, class B, and goes home and tells the\nfamily all about it, and says:\n\n\"And His Majesty took me into his own private cabinet for a smoke and a\nchat, and there we sat just as sociable, and talking away and laughing\nand chatting, just the same as if we had been born in the same bunk; and\nall the servants in the anteroom could see us doing it! Oh, it was too\nlovely for anything!\"\n\nThe king, class Q, is happy in the modest entertainment furnished him by\nthe king, class M, and goes home and tells the household about it,\nand is as grateful and joyful over it as were his predecessors in the\ngaudier attentions that had fallen to their larger lot.\n\nEmperors, kings, artisans, peasants, big people, little people--at the\nbottom we are all alike and all the same; all just alike on the inside,\nand when our clothes are off, nobody can tell which of us is which. We\nare unanimous in the pride we take in good and genuine compliments paid\nus, and distinctions conferred upon us, in attentions shown. There is\nnot one of us, from the emperor down, but is made like that. Do I\nmean attentions shown us by the guest? No, I mean simply flattering\nattentions, let them come whence they may. We despise no source that can\npay us a pleasing attention--there is no source that is humble enough\nfor that. You have heard a dear little girl say to a frowzy and\ndisreputable dog: \"He came right to me and let me pat him on the head,\nand he wouldn't let the others touch him!\" and you have seen her eyes\ndance with pride in that high distinction. You have often seen that. If\nthe child were a princess, would that random dog be able to confer the\nlike glory upon her with his pretty compliment? Yes; and even in her\nmature life and seated upon a throne, she would still remember it, still\nrecall it, still speak of it with frank satisfaction. That charming\nand lovable German princess and poet, Carmen Sylva, Queen of Roumania,\nremembers yet that the flowers of the woods and fields \"talked to her\"\nwhen she was a girl, and she sets it down in her latest book; and that\nthe squirrels conferred upon her and her father the valued compliment of\nnot being afraid of them; and \"once one of them, holding a nut between\nits sharp little teeth, ran right up against my father\"--it has the very\nnote of \"He came right to me and let me pat him on the head\"--\"and when\nit saw itself reflected in his boot it was very much surprised,\nand stopped for a long time to contemplate itself in the polished\nleather\"--then it went its way. And the birds! she still remembers with\npride that \"they came boldly into my room,\" when she had neglected her\n\"duty\" and put no food on the window-sill for them; she knew all the\nwild birds, and forgets the royal crown on her head to remember with\npride that they knew her; also that the wasp and the bee were personal\nfriends of hers, and never forgot that gracious relationship to her\ninjury: \"never have I been stung by a wasp or a bee.\" And here is that\nproud note again that sings in that little child's elation in being\nsingled out, among all the company of children, for the random dog's\nhonor-conferring attentions. \"Even in the very worst summer for wasps,\nwhen, in lunching out of doors, our table was covered with them and\nevery one else was stung, they never hurt me.\"\n\nWhen a queen whose qualities of mind and heart and character are able to\nadd distinction to so distinguished a place as a throne, remembers\nwith grateful exultation, after thirty years, honors and distinctions\nconferred upon her by the humble, wild creatures of the forest, we are\nhelped to realize that complimentary attentions, homage,\ndistinctions, are of no caste, but are above all cast--that they are a\nnobility-conferring power apart.\n\nWe all like these things. When the gate-guard at the railway-station\npasses me through unchallenged and examines other people's tickets, I\nfeel as the king, class A, felt when the emperor put the imperial hand\non his shoulder, \"everybody seeing him do it\"; and as the child felt\nwhen the random dog allowed her to pat his head and ostracized the\nothers; and as the princess felt when the wasps spared her and stung\nthe rest; and I felt just so, four years ago in Vienna (and remember it\nyet), when the helmeted police shut me off, with fifty others, from a\nstreet which the Emperor was to pass through, and the captain of the\nsquad turned and saw the situation and said indignantly to that guard:\n\n\"Can't you see it is the Herr Mark Twain? Let him through!\"\n\nIt was four years ago; but it will be four hundred before I forget the\nwind of self-complacency that rose in me, and strained my buttons when I\nmarked the deference for me evoked in the faces of my fellow-rabble, and\nnoted, mingled with it, a puzzled and resentful expression which said,\nas plainly as speech could have worded it: \"And who in the nation is the\nHerr Mark Twain _um gotteswillen?_\"\n\nHow many times in your life have you heard this boastful remark:\n\n\"I stood as close to him as I am to you; I could have put out my hand\nand touched him.\"\n\nWe have all heard it many and many a time. It was a proud distinction\nto be able to say those words. It brought envy to the speaker, a kind of\nglory; and he basked in it and was happy through all his veins. And\nwho was it he stood so close to? The answer would cover all the grades.\nSometimes it was a king; sometimes it was a renowned highwayman;\nsometimes it was an unknown man killed in an extraordinary way and made\nsuddenly famous by it; always it was a person who was for the moment the\nsubject of public interest of a village.\n\n\"I was there, and I saw it myself.\" That is a common and envy-compelling\nremark. It can refer to a battle; to a hanging; to a coronation; to the\nkilling of Jumbo by the railway-train; to the arrival of Jenny Lind at\nthe Battery; to the meeting of the President and Prince Henry; to the\nchase of a murderous maniac; to the disaster in the tunnel; to the\nexplosion in the subway; to a remarkable dog-fight; to a village\nchurch struck by lightning. It will be said, more or less causally, by\neverybody in America who has seen Prince Henry do anything, or try to.\nThe man who was absent and didn't see him to anything, will scoff. It\nis his privilege; and he can make capital out of it, too; he will seem,\neven to himself, to be different from other Americans, and better.\nAs his opinion of his superior Americanism grows, and swells, and\nconcentrates and coagulates, he will go further and try to belittle the\ndistinction of those that saw the Prince do things, and will spoil their\npleasure in it if he can. My life has been embittered by that kind of\nperson. If you are able to tell of a special distinction that has fallen\nto your lot, it gravels them; they cannot bear it; and they try to make\nbelieve that the thing you took for a special distinction was nothing\nof the kind and was meant in quite another way. Once I was received in\nprivate audience by an emperor. Last week I was telling a jealous person\nabout it, and I could see him wince under it, see him bite, see\nhim suffer. I revealed the whole episode to him with considerable\nelaboration and nice attention to detail. When I was through, he asked\nme what had impressed me most. I said:\n\n\"His Majesty's delicacy. They told me to be sure and back out from the\npresence, and find the door-knob as best I could; it was not allowable\nto face around. Now the Emperor knew it would be a difficult ordeal for\nme, because of lack of practice; and so, when it was time to part, he\nturned, with exceeding delicacy, and pretended to fumble with things on\nhis desk, so I could get out in my own way, without his seeing me.\"\n\nIt went home! It was vitriol! I saw the envy and disgruntlement rise\nin the man's face; he couldn't keep it down. I saw him try to fix up\nsomething in his mind to take the bloom off that distinction. I enjoyed\nthat, for I judged that he had his work cut out for him. He struggled\nalong inwardly for quite a while; then he said, with a manner of a\nperson who has to say something and hasn't anything relevant to say:\n\n\"You said he had a handful of special-brand cigars on the table?\"\n\n\"Yes; _I_ never saw anything to match them.\"\n\nI had him again. He had to fumble around in his mind as much as another\nminute before he could play; then he said in as mean a way as I ever\nheard a person say anything:\n\n\"He could have been counting the cigars, you know.\"\n\nI cannot endure a man like that. It is nothing to him how unkind he is,\nso long as he takes the bloom off. It is all he cares for.\n\n\"An Englishman (or other human being) does dearly love a lord,\" (or\nother conspicuous person.) It includes us all. We love to be noticed by\nthe conspicuous person; we love to be associated with such, or with\na conspicuous event, even in a seventh-rate fashion, even in the\nforty-seventh, if we cannot do better. This accounts for some of our\ncurious tastes in mementos. It accounts for the large private trade in\nthe Prince of Wales's hair, which chambermaids were able to drive in\nthat article of commerce when the Prince made the tour of the world in\nthe long ago--hair which probably did not always come from his brush,\nsince enough of it was marketed to refurnish a bald comet; it accounts\nfor the fact that the rope which lynches a negro in the presence of\nten thousand Christian spectators is salable five minutes later at\ntwo dollars and inch; it accounts for the mournful fact that a royal\npersonage does not venture to wear buttons on his coat in public.\n\nWe do love a lord--and by that term I mean any person whose situation\nis higher than our own. The lord of the group, for instance: a group of\npeers, a group of millionaires, a group of hoodlums, a group of sailors,\na group of newsboys, a group of saloon politicians, a group of college\ngirls. No royal person has ever been the object of a more delirious\nloyalty and slavish adoration than is paid by the vast Tammany herd to\nits squalid idol of Wantage. There is not a bifurcated animal in that\nmenagerie that would not be proud to appear in a newspaper picture in\nhis company. At the same time, there are some in that organization who\nwould scoff at the people who have been daily pictured in company with\nPrince Henry, and would say vigorously that _they _would not consent\nto be photographed with him--a statement which would not be true in any\ninstance. There are hundreds of people in America who would frankly say\nto you that they would not be proud to be photographed in a group\nwith the Prince, if invited; and some of these unthinking people would\nbelieve it when they said it; yet in no instance would it be true. We\nhave a large population, but we have not a large enough one, by several\nmillions, to furnish that man. He has not yet been begotten, and in fact\nhe is not begettable.\n\nYou may take any of the printed groups, and there isn't a person in the\ndim background who isn't visibly trying to be vivid; if it is a crowd of\nten thousand--ten thousand proud, untamed democrats, horny-handed sons\nof toil and of politics, and fliers of the eagle--there isn't one who\nis trying to keep out of range, there isn't one who isn't plainly\nmeditating a purchase of the paper in the morning, with the intention of\nhunting himself out in the picture and of framing and keeping it if he\nshall find so much of his person in it as his starboard ear.\n\nWe all love to get some of the drippings of Conspicuousness, and we\nwill put up with a single, humble drip, if we can't get any more. We may\npretend otherwise, in conversation; but we can't pretend it to ourselves\nprivately--and we don't. We do confess in public that we are the\nnoblest work of God, being moved to it by long habit, and teaching,\nand superstition; but deep down in the secret places of our souls we\nrecognize that, if we _are _the noblest work, the less said about it the\nbetter.\n\nWe of the North poke fun at the South for its fondness of titles--a\nfondness for titles pure and simple, regardless of whether they are\ngenuine or pinchbeck. We forget that whatever a Southerner likes the\nrest of the human race likes, and that there is no law of predilection\nlodged in one people that is absent from another people. There is no\nvariety in the human race. We are all children, all children of the one\nAdam, and we love toys. We can soon acquire that Southern disease if\nsome one will give it a start. It already has a start, in fact. I have\nbeen personally acquainted with over eighty-four thousand persons who,\nat one time or another in their lives, have served for a year or two\non the staffs of our multitudinous governors, and through that\nfatality have been generals temporarily, and colonels temporarily, and\njudge-advocates temporarily; but I have known only nine among them who\ncould be hired to let the title go when it ceased to be legitimate. I\nknow thousands and thousands of governors who ceased to be governors\naway back in the last century; but I am acquainted with only three who\nwould answer your letter if you failed to call them \"Governor\" in it.\nI know acres and acres of men who have done time in a legislature in\nprehistoric days, but among them is not half an acre whose resentment\nyou would not raise if you addressed them as \"Mr.\" instead of \"Hon.\"\nThe first thing a legislature does is to convene in an impressive\nlegislative attitude, and get itself photographed. Each member\nframes his copy and takes it to the woods and hangs it up in the most\naggressively conspicuous place in his house; and if you visit the house\nand fail to inquire what that accumulation is, the conversation will be\nbrought around to it by that aforetime legislator, and he will show you\na figure in it which in the course of years he has almost obliterated\nwith the smut of his finger-marks, and say with a solemn joy, \"It's me!\"\n\nHave you ever seen a country Congressman enter the hotel breakfast-room\nin Washington with his letters?--and sit at his table and let on to\nread them?--and wrinkle his brows and frown statesman-like?--keeping a\nfurtive watch-out over his glasses all the while to see if he is being\nobserved and admired?--those same old letters which he fetches in every\nmorning? Have you seen it? Have you seen him show off? It is _the_\nsight of the national capital. Except one; a pathetic one. That is the\nex-Congressman: the poor fellow whose life has been ruined by a two-year\ntaste of glory and of fictitious consequence; who has been superseded,\nand ought to take his heartbreak home and hide it, but cannot tear\nhimself away from the scene of his lost little grandeur; and so he\nlingers, and still lingers, year after year, unconsidered, sometimes\nsnubbed, ashamed of his fallen estate, and valiantly trying to look\notherwise; dreary and depressed, but counterfeiting breeziness and\ngaiety, hailing with chummy familiarity, which is not always welcomed,\nthe more-fortunates who are still in place and were once his mates. Have\nyou seen him? He clings piteously to the one little shred that is left\nof his departed distinction--the \"privilege of the floor\"; and works it\nhard and gets what he can out of it. That is the saddest figure I know\nof.\n\nYes, we do so love our little distinctions! And then we loftily scoff\nat a Prince for enjoying his larger ones; forgetting that if we only had\nhis chance--ah! \"Senator\" is not a legitimate title. A Senator has no\nmore right to be addressed by it than have you or I; but, in the several\nstate capitals and in Washington, there are five thousand Senators who\ntake very kindly to that fiction, and who purr gratefully when you call\nthem by it--which you may do quite unrebuked. Then those same Senators\nsmile at the self-constructed majors and generals and judges of the\nSouth!\n\nIndeed, we do love our distinctions, get them how we may. And we work\nthem for all they are worth. In prayer we call ourselves \"worms of the\ndust,\" but it is only on a sort of tacit understanding that the remark\nshall not be taken at par._ We_--worms of the dust! Oh, no, we are\nnot that. Except in fact; and we do not deal much in fact when we are\ncontemplating ourselves.\n\nAs a race, we do certainly love a lord--let him be Croker, or a duke, or\na prize-fighter, or whatever other personage shall chance to be the head\nof our group. Many years ago, I saw a greasy youth in overalls standing\nby the _Herald _office, with an expectant look in his face. Soon a large\nman passed out, and gave him a pat on the shoulder. That was what the\nboy was waiting for--the large man's notice. The pat made him proud and\nhappy, and the exultation inside of him shone out through his eyes; and\nhis mates were there to see the pat and envy it and wish they could have\nthat glory. The boy belonged down cellar in the press-room, the large\nman was king of the upper floors, foreman of the composing-room. The\nlight in the boy's face was worship, the foreman was his lord, head of\nhis group. The pat was an accolade. It was as precious to the boy as it\nwould have been if he had been an aristocrat's son and the accolade had\nbeen delivered by his sovereign with a sword. The quintessence of the\nhonor was all there; there was no difference in values; in truth there\nwas no difference present except an artificial one--clothes.\n\nAll the human race loves a lord--that is, loves to look upon or be\nnoticed by the possessor of Power or Conspicuousness; and sometimes\nanimals, born to better things and higher ideals, descend to man's level\nin this matter. In the Jardin des Plantes I have see a cat that was so\nvain of being the personal friend of an elephant that I was ashamed of\nher.\n\n\n\nEXTRACTS FROM ADAM'S DIARY\n\nMONDAY.--This new creature with the long hair is a good deal in the way.\nIt is always hanging around and following me about. I don't like this; I\nam not used to company. I wish it would stay with the other animals....\nCloudy today, wind in the east; think we shall have rain.... _We?_ Where\ndid I get that word--the new creature uses it.\n\nTUESDAY.--Been examining the great waterfall. It is the finest thing on\nthe estate, I think. The new creature calls it Niagara Falls--why, I am\nsure I do not know. Says it _looks _like Niagara Falls. That is not a\nreason, it is mere waywardness and imbecility. I get no chance to name\nanything myself. The new creature names everything that comes along,\nbefore I can get in a protest. And always that same pretext is\noffered--it _looks _like the thing. There is a dodo, for instance. Says\nthe moment one looks at it one sees at a glance that it \"looks like a\ndodo.\" It will have to keep that name, no doubt. It wearies me to fret\nabout it, and it does no good, anyway. Dodo! It looks no more like a\ndodo than I do.\n\nWEDNESDAY.--Built me a shelter against the rain, but could not have it\nto myself in peace. The new creature intruded. When I tried to put it\nout it shed water out of the holes it looks with, and wiped it away with\nthe back of its paws, and made a noise such as some of the other animals\nmake when they are in distress. I wish it would not talk; it is always\ntalking. That sounds like a cheap fling at the poor creature, a slur;\nbut I do not mean it so. I have never heard the human voice before, and\nany new and strange sound intruding itself here upon the solemn hush of\nthese dreaming solitudes offends my ear and seems a false note. And this\nnew sound is so close to me; it is right at my shoulder, right at my\near, first on one side and then on the other, and I am used only to\nsounds that are more or less distant from me.\n\nFRIDAY. The naming goes recklessly on, in spite of anything I can do.\nI had a very good name for the estate, and it was musical and\npretty--_Garden Of Eden._ Privately, I continue to call it that, but not\nany longer publicly. The new creature says it is all woods and rocks and\nscenery, and therefore has no resemblance to a garden. Says it\n_looks _like a park, and does not look like anything _but _a park.\nConsequently, without consulting me, it has been new-named _Niagara\nFalls Park_. This is sufficiently high-handed, it seems to me. And\nalready there is a sign up:\n\nKEEP OFF THE GRASS\n\nMy life is not as happy as it was.\n\nSATURDAY.--The new creature eats too much fruit. We are going to run\nshort, most likely. \"We\" again--that is _its_ word; mine, too, now, from\nhearing it so much. Good deal of fog this morning. I do not go out in\nthe fog myself. This new creature does. It goes out in all weathers,\nand stumps right in with its muddy feet. And talks. It used to be so\npleasant and quiet here.\n\nSUNDAY.--Pulled through. This day is getting to be more and more trying.\nIt was selected and set apart last November as a day of rest. I had\nalready six of them per week before. This morning found the new creature\ntrying to clod apples out of that forbidden tree.\n\nMONDAY.--The new creature says its name is Eve. That is all right, I\nhave no objections. Says it is to call it by, when I want it to come.\nI said it was superfluous, then. The word evidently raised me in its\nrespect; and indeed it is a large, good word and will bear repetition.\nIt says it is not an It, it is a She. This is probably doubtful; yet it\nis all one to me; what she is were nothing to me if she would but go by\nherself and not talk.\n\nTUESDAY.--She has littered the whole estate with execrable names and\noffensive signs:\n\nThis way to the Whirlpool\n\nThis way to Goat Island\n\nCave of the Winds this way\n\nShe says this park would make a tidy summer resort if there was any\ncustom for it. Summer resort--another invention of hers--just words,\nwithout any meaning. What is a summer resort? But it is best not to ask\nher, she has such a rage for explaining.\n\nFRIDAY.--She has taken to beseeching me to stop going over the Falls.\nWhat harm does it do? Says it makes her shudder. I wonder why; I have\nalways done it--always liked the plunge, and coolness. I supposed it was\nwhat the Falls were for. They have no other use that I can see, and\nthey must have been made for something. She says they were only made for\nscenery--like the rhinoceros and the mastodon.\n\nI went over the Falls in a barrel--not satisfactory to her. Went over\nin a tub--still not satisfactory. Swam the Whirlpool and the Rapids in\na fig-leaf suit. It got much damaged. Hence, tedious complaints about\nmy extravagance. I am too much hampered here. What I need is a change of\nscene.\n\nSATURDAY.--I escaped last Tuesday night, and traveled two days, and\nbuilt me another shelter in a secluded place, and obliterated my tracks\nas well as I could, but she hunted me out by means of a beast which she\nhas tamed and calls a wolf, and came making that pitiful noise again,\nand shedding that water out of the places she looks with. I was obliged\nto return with her, but will presently emigrate again when occasion\noffers. She engages herself in many foolish things; among others; to\nstudy out why the animals called lions and tigers live on grass and\nflowers, when, as she says, the sort of teeth they wear would indicate\nthat they were intended to eat each other. This is foolish, because to\ndo that would be to kill each other, and that would introduce what, as\nI understand, is called \"death\"; and death, as I have been told, has not\nyet entered the Park. Which is a pity, on some accounts.\n\nSUNDAY.--Pulled through.\n\nMONDAY.--I believe I see what the week is for: it is to give time to\nrest up from the weariness of Sunday. It seems a good idea. ... She has\nbeen climbing that tree again. Clodded her out of it. She said nobody\nwas looking. Seems to consider that a sufficient justification for\nchancing any dangerous thing. Told her that. The word justification\nmoved her admiration--and envy, too, I thought. It is a good word.\n\nTUESDAY.--She told me she was made out of a rib taken from my body.\nThis is at least doubtful, if not more than that. I have not missed any\nrib.... She is in much trouble about the buzzard; says grass does not\nagree with it; is afraid she can't raise it; thinks it was intended to\nlive on decayed flesh. The buzzard must get along the best it can with\nwhat is provided. We cannot overturn the whole scheme to accommodate the\nbuzzard.\n\nSATURDAY.--She fell in the pond yesterday when she was looking at\nherself in it, which she is always doing. She nearly strangled, and said\nit was most uncomfortable. This made her sorry for the creatures which\nlive in there, which she calls fish, for she continues to fasten names\non to things that don't need them and don't come when they are called\nby them, which is a matter of no consequence to her, she is such a\nnumbskull, anyway; so she got a lot of them out and brought them in last\nnight and put them in my bed to keep warm, but I have noticed them now\nand then all day and I don't see that they are any happier there then\nthey were before, only quieter. When night comes I shall throw them\noutdoors. I will not sleep with them again, for I find them clammy and\nunpleasant to lie among when a person hasn't anything on.\n\nSUNDAY.--Pulled through.\n\nTUESDAY.--She has taken up with a snake now. The other animals are glad,\nfor she was always experimenting with them and bothering them; and I am\nglad because the snake talks, and this enables me to get a rest.\n\nFRIDAY.--She says the snake advises her to try the fruit of the tree,\nand says the result will be a great and fine and noble education. I told\nher there would be another result, too--it would introduce death into\nthe world. That was a mistake--it had been better to keep the remark to\nmyself; it only gave her an idea--she could save the sick buzzard, and\nfurnish fresh meat to the despondent lions and tigers. I advised her to\nkeep away from the tree. She said she wouldn't. I foresee trouble. Will\nemigrate.\n\nWEDNESDAY.--I have had a variegated time. I escaped last night, and rode\na horse all night as fast as he could go, hoping to get clear of the\nPark and hide in some other country before the trouble should begin; but\nit was not to be. About an hour after sun-up, as I was riding through\na flowery plain where thousands of animals were grazing, slumbering, or\nplaying with each other, according to their wont, all of a sudden they\nbroke into a tempest of frightful noises, and in one moment the plain\nwas a frantic commotion and every beast was destroying its neighbor. I\nknew what it meant--Eve had eaten that fruit, and death was come into\nthe world. ... The tigers ate my house, paying no attention when\nI ordered them to desist, and they would have eaten me if I had\nstayed--which I didn't, but went away in much haste.... I found this\nplace, outside the Park, and was fairly comfortable for a few days,\nbut she has found me out. Found me out, and has named the place\nTonawanda--says it _looks _like that. In fact I was not sorry she came,\nfor there are but meager pickings here, and she brought some of those\napples. I was obliged to eat them, I was so hungry. It was against my\nprinciples, but I find that principles have no real force except when\none is well fed.... She came curtained in boughs and bunches of leaves,\nand when I asked her what she meant by such nonsense, and snatched them\naway and threw them down, she tittered and blushed. I had never seen\na person titter and blush before, and to me it seemed unbecoming and\nidiotic. She said I would soon know how it was myself. This was correct.\nHungry as I was, I laid down the apple half-eaten--certainly the best\none I ever saw, considering the lateness of the season--and arrayed\nmyself in the discarded boughs and branches, and then spoke to her with\nsome severity and ordered her to go and get some more and not make a\nspectacle of herself. She did it, and after this we crept down to where\nthe wild-beast battle had been, and collected some skins, and I made her\npatch together a couple of suits proper for public occasions. They are\nuncomfortable, it is true, but stylish, and that is the main point about\nclothes.... I find she is a good deal of a companion. I see I should be\nlonesome and depressed without her, now that I have lost my property.\nAnother thing, she says it is ordered that we work for our living\nhereafter. She will be useful. I will superintend.\n\nTEN DAYS LATER.--She accuses _me _of being the cause of our disaster!\nShe says, with apparent sincerity and truth, that the Serpent assured\nher that the forbidden fruit was not apples, it was chestnuts. I said\nI was innocent, then, for I had not eaten any chestnuts. She said the\nSerpent informed her that \"chestnut\" was a figurative term meaning an\naged and moldy joke. I turned pale at that, for I have made many jokes\nto pass the weary time, and some of them could have been of that sort,\nthough I had honestly supposed that they were new when I made them. She\nasked me if I had made one just at the time of the catastrophe. I was\nobliged to admit that I had made one to myself, though not aloud. It\nwas this. I was thinking about the Falls, and I said to myself, \"How\nwonderful it is to see that vast body of water tumble down there!\" Then\nin an instant a bright thought flashed into my head, and I let it\nfly, saying, \"It would be a deal more wonderful to see it tumble_ up_\nthere!\"--and I was just about to kill myself with laughing at it when\nall nature broke loose in war and death and I had to flee for my life.\n\"There,\" she said, with triumph, \"that is just it; the Serpent mentioned\nthat very jest, and called it the First Chestnut, and said it was coeval\nwith the creation.\" Alas, I am indeed to blame. Would that I were not\nwitty; oh, that I had never had that radiant thought!\n\nNEXT YEAR.--We have named it Cain. She caught it while I was up country\ntrapping on the North Shore of the Erie; caught it in the timber a\ncouple of miles from our dug-out--or it might have been four, she isn't\ncertain which. It resembles us in some ways, and may be a relation. That\nis what she thinks, but this is an error, in my judgment. The difference\nin size warrants the conclusion that it is a different and new kind of\nanimal--a fish, perhaps, though when I put it in the water to see,\nit sank, and she plunged in and snatched it out before there was\nopportunity for the experiment to determine the matter. I still think it\nis a fish, but she is indifferent about what it is, and will not let\nme have it to try. I do not understand this. The coming of the creature\nseems to have changed her whole nature and made her unreasonable about\nexperiments. She thinks more of it than she does of any of the\nother animals, but is not able to explain why. Her mind is\ndisordered--everything shows it. Sometimes she carries the fish in her\narms half the night when it complains and wants to get to the water. At\nsuch times the water comes out of the places in her face that she looks\nout of, and she pats the fish on the back and makes soft sounds with her\nmouth to soothe it, and betrays sorrow and solicitude in a hundred ways.\nI have never seen her do like this with any other fish, and it troubles\nme greatly. She used to carry the young tigers around so, and play with\nthem, before we lost our property, but it was only play; she never took\non about them like this when their dinner disagreed with them.\n\nSUNDAY.--She doesn't work, Sundays, but lies around all tired out, and\nlikes to have the fish wallow over her; and she makes fool noises to\namuse it, and pretends to chew its paws, and that makes it laugh. I have\nnot seen a fish before that could laugh. This makes me doubt.... I have\ncome to like Sunday myself. Superintending all the week tires a body so.\nThere ought to be more Sundays. In the old days they were tough, but now\nthey come handy.\n\nWEDNESDAY.--It isn't a fish. I cannot quite make out what it is. It\nmakes curious devilish noises when not satisfied, and says \"goo-goo\"\nwhen it is. It is not one of us, for it doesn't walk; it is not a bird,\nfor it doesn't fly; it is not a frog, for it doesn't hop; it is not\na snake, for it doesn't crawl; I feel sure it is not a fish, though I\ncannot get a chance to find out whether it can swim or not. It merely\nlies around, and mostly on its back, with its feet up. I have not seen\nany other animal do that before. I said I believed it was an enigma; but\nshe only admired the word without understanding it. In my judgment it is\neither an enigma or some kind of a bug. If it dies, I will take it apart\nand see what its arrangements are. I never had a thing perplex me so.\n\nTHREE MONTHS LATER.--The perplexity augments instead of diminishing. I\nsleep but little. It has ceased from lying around, and goes about on\nits four legs now. Yet it differs from the other four legged animals,\nin that its front legs are unusually short, consequently this causes the\nmain part of its person to stick up uncomfortably high in the air, and\nthis is not attractive. It is built much as we are, but its method of\ntraveling shows that it is not of our breed. The short front legs and\nlong hind ones indicate that it is a of the kangaroo family, but it is a\nmarked variation of that species, since the true kangaroo hops, whereas\nthis one never does. Still it is a curious and interesting variety,\nand has not been catalogued before. As I discovered it, I have felt\njustified in securing the credit of the discovery by attaching my name\nto it, and hence have called it _Kangaroorum Adamiensis_.... It must\nhave been a young one when it came, for it has grown exceedingly since.\nIt must be five times as big, now, as it was then, and when discontented\nit is able to make from twenty-two to thirty-eight times the noise\nit made at first. Coercion does not modify this, but has the contrary\neffect. For this reason I discontinued the system. She reconciles it by\npersuasion, and by giving it things which she had previously told me she\nwouldn't give it. As already observed, I was not at home when it first\ncame, and she told me she found it in the woods. It seems odd that it\nshould be the only one, yet it must be so, for I have worn myself out\nthese many weeks trying to find another one to add to my collection, and\nfor this to play with; for surely then it would be quieter and we\ncould tame it more easily. But I find none, nor any vestige of any; and\nstrangest of all, no tracks. It has to live on the ground, it cannot\nhelp itself; therefore, how does it get about without leaving a track?\nI have set a dozen traps, but they do no good. I catch all small animals\nexcept that one; animals that merely go into the trap out of curiosity,\nI think, to see what the milk is there for. They never drink it.\n\nTHREE MONTHS LATER.--The Kangaroo still continues to grow, which is\nvery strange and perplexing. I never knew one to be so long getting its\ngrowth. It has fur on its head now; not like kangaroo fur, but exactly\nlike our hair except that it is much finer and softer, and instead of\nbeing black is red. I am like to lose my mind over the capricious and\nharassing developments of this unclassifiable zoological freak. If I\ncould catch another one--but that is hopeless; it is a new variety, and\nthe only sample; this is plain. But I caught a true kangaroo and brought\nit in, thinking that this one, being lonesome, would rather have that\nfor company than have no kin at all, or any animal it could feel a\nnearness to or get sympathy from in its forlorn condition here among\nstrangers who do not know its ways or habits, or what to do to make it\nfeel that it is among friends; but it was a mistake--it went into such\nfits at the sight of the kangaroo that I was convinced it had never seen\none before. I pity the poor noisy little animal, but there is nothing\nI can do to make it happy. If I could tame it--but that is out of the\nquestion; the more I try the worse I seem to make it. It grieves me to\nthe heart to see it in its little storms of sorrow and passion. I wanted\nto let it go, but she wouldn't hear of it. That seemed cruel and not\nlike her; and yet she may be right. It might be lonelier than ever; for\nsince I cannot find another one, how could_ it_?\n\nFIVE MONTHS LATER.--It is not a kangaroo. No, for it supports itself by\nholding to her finger, and thus goes a few steps on its hind legs, and\nthen falls down. It is probably some kind of a bear; and yet it has\nno tail--as yet--and no fur, except upon its head. It still keeps on\ngrowing--that is a curious circumstance, for bears get their growth\nearlier than this. Bears are dangerous--since our catastrophe--and I\nshall not be satisfied to have this one prowling about the place much\nlonger without a muzzle on. I have offered to get her a kangaroo if she\nwould let this one go, but it did no good--she is determined to run us\ninto all sorts of foolish risks, I think. She was not like this before\nshe lost her mind.\n\nA FORTNIGHT LATER.--I examined its mouth. There is no danger yet: it has\nonly one tooth. It has no tail yet. It makes more noise now than it ever\ndid before--and mainly at night. I have moved out. But I shall go over,\nmornings, to breakfast, and see if it has more teeth. If it gets a\nmouthful of teeth it will be time for it to go, tail or no tail, for a\nbear does not need a tail in order to be dangerous.\n\nFOUR MONTHS LATER.--I have been off hunting and fishing a month, up\nin the region that she calls Buffalo; I don't know why, unless it is\nbecause there are not any buffaloes there. Meantime the bear has learned\nto paddle around all by itself on its hind legs, and says \"poppa\" and\n\"momma.\" It is certainly a new species. This resemblance to words may\nbe purely accidental, of course, and may have no purpose or meaning;\nbut even in that case it is still extraordinary, and is a thing which no\nother bear can do. This imitation of speech, taken together with general\nabsence of fur and entire absence of tail, sufficiently indicates that\nthis is a new kind of bear. The further study of it will be exceedingly\ninteresting. Meantime I will go off on a far expedition among the\nforests of the north and make an exhaustive search. There must certainly\nbe another one somewhere, and this one will be less dangerous when it\nhas company of its own species. I will go straightway; but I will muzzle\nthis one first.\n\nTHREE MONTHS LATER.--It has been a weary, weary hunt, yet I have had no\nsuccess. In the mean time, without stirring from the home estate, she\nhas caught another one! I never saw such luck. I might have hunted these\nwoods a hundred years, I never would have run across that thing.\n\nNEXT DAY.--I have been comparing the new one with the old one, and it\nis perfectly plain that they are of the same breed. I was going to stuff\none of them for my collection, but she is prejudiced against it for some\nreason or other; so I have relinquished the idea, though I think it is\na mistake. It would be an irreparable loss to science if they should\nget away. The old one is tamer than it was and can laugh and talk like\na parrot, having learned this, no doubt, from being with the parrot so\nmuch, and having the imitative faculty in a high developed degree. I\nshall be astonished if it turns out to be a new kind of parrot; and yet\nI ought not to be astonished, for it has already been everything else it\ncould think of since those first days when it was a fish. The new one is\nas ugly as the old one was at first; has the same sulphur-and-raw-meat\ncomplexion and the same singular head without any fur on it. She calls\nit Abel.\n\nTEN YEARS LATER.--They are _boys_; we found it out long ago. It was\ntheir coming in that small immature shape that puzzled us; we were not\nused to it. There are some girls now. Abel is a good boy, but if Cain\nhad stayed a bear it would have improved him. After all these years, I\nsee that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to\nlive outside the Garden with her than inside it without her. At first\nI thought she talked too much; but now I should be sorry to have that\nvoice fall silent and pass out of my life. Blessed be the chestnut that\nbrought us near together and taught me to know the goodness of her heart\nand the sweetness of her spirit!\n\n\n\nEVE'S DIARY\n\nTranslated from the Original\n\nSATURDAY.--I am almost a whole day old, now. I arrived yesterday.\nThat is as it seems to me. And it must be so, for if there was a\nday-before-yesterday I was not there when it happened, or I should\nremember it. It could be, of course, that it did happen, and that I\nwas not noticing. Very well; I will be very watchful now, and if any\nday-before-yesterdays happen I will make a note of it. It will be best\nto start right and not let the record get confused, for some instinct\ntells me that these details are going to be important to the historian\nsome day. For I feel like an experiment, I feel exactly like an\nexperiment; it would be impossible for a person to feel more like an\nexperiment than I do, and so I am coming to feel convinced that that is\nwhat I _am_--an experiment; just an experiment, and nothing more.\n\nThen if I am an experiment, am I the whole of it? No, I think not; I\nthink the rest of it is part of it. I am the main part of it, but\nI think the rest of it has its share in the matter. Is my position\nassured, or do I have to watch it and take care of it? The latter,\nperhaps. Some instinct tells me that eternal vigilance is the price of\nsupremacy. (That is a good phrase, I think, for one so young.)\n\nEverything looks better today than it did yesterday. In the rush of\nfinishing up yesterday, the mountains were left in a ragged condition,\nand some of the plains were so cluttered with rubbish and remnants that\nthe aspects were quite distressing. Noble and beautiful works of art\nshould not be subjected to haste; and this majestic new world is indeed\na most noble and beautiful work. And certainly marvelously near to being\nperfect, notwithstanding the shortness of the time. There are too many\nstars in some places and not enough in others, but that can be remedied\npresently, no doubt. The moon got loose last night, and slid down and\nfell out of the scheme--a very great loss; it breaks my heart to think\nof it. There isn't another thing among the ornaments and decorations\nthat is comparable to it for beauty and finish. It should have been\nfastened better. If we can only get it back again--\n\nBut of course there is no telling where it went to. And besides, whoever\ngets it will hide it; I know it because I would do it myself. I believe\nI can be honest in all other matters, but I already begin to realize\nthat the core and center of my nature is love of the beautiful, a\npassion for the beautiful, and that it would not be safe to trust me\nwith a moon that belonged to another person and that person didn't know\nI had it. I could give up a moon that I found in the daytime, because I\nshould be afraid some one was looking; but if I found it in the dark,\nI am sure I should find some kind of an excuse for not saying anything\nabout it. For I do love moons, they are so pretty and so romantic. I\nwish we had five or six; I would never go to bed; I should never get\ntired lying on the moss-bank and looking up at them.\n\nStars are good, too. I wish I could get some to put in my hair. But I\nsuppose I never can. You would be surprised to find how far off they\nare, for they do not look it. When they first showed, last night,\nI tried to knock some down with a pole, but it didn't reach, which\nastonished me; then I tried clods till I was all tired out, but I never\ngot one. It was because I am left-handed and cannot throw good. Even\nwhen I aimed at the one I wasn't after I couldn't hit the other one,\nthough I did make some close shots, for I saw the black blot of the clod\nsail right into the midst of the golden clusters forty or fifty times,\njust barely missing them, and if I could have held out a little longer\nmaybe I could have got one.\n\nSo I cried a little, which was natural, I suppose, for one of my age,\nand after I was rested I got a basket and started for a place on the\nextreme rim of the circle, where the stars were close to the ground and\nI could get them with my hands, which would be better, anyway, because I\ncould gather them tenderly then, and not break them. But it was farther\nthan I thought, and at last I had to give it up; I was so tired I\ncouldn't drag my feet another step; and besides, they were sore and hurt\nme very much.\n\nI couldn't get back home; it was too far and turning cold; but I found\nsome tigers and nestled in among them and was most adorably comfortable,\nand their breath was sweet and pleasant, because they live on\nstrawberries. I had never seen a tiger before, but I knew them in a\nminute by the stripes. If I could have one of those skins, it would make\na lovely gown.\n\nToday I am getting better ideas about distances. I was so eager to get\nhold of every pretty thing that I giddily grabbed for it, sometimes when\nit was too far off, and sometimes when it was but six inches away but\nseemed a foot--alas, with thorns between! I learned a lesson; also I\nmade an axiom, all out of my own head--my very first one; _The scratched\nexperiment shuns the thorn_. I think it is a very good one for one so\nyoung.\n\nI followed the other Experiment around, yesterday afternoon, at a\ndistance, to see what it might be for, if I could. But I was not able\nto make out. I think it is a man. I had never seen a man, but it looked\nlike one, and I feel sure that that is what it is. I realize that I feel\nmore curiosity about it than about any of the other reptiles. If it is a\nreptile, and I suppose it is; for it has frowzy hair and blue eyes, and\nlooks like a reptile. It has no hips; it tapers like a carrot; when\nit stands, it spreads itself apart like a derrick; so I think it is a\nreptile, though it may be architecture.\n\nI was afraid of it at first, and started to run every time it turned\naround, for I thought it was going to chase me; but by and by I found it\nwas only trying to get away, so after that I was not timid any more, but\ntracked it along, several hours, about twenty yards behind, which made\nit nervous and unhappy. At last it was a good deal worried, and climbed\na tree. I waited a good while, then gave it up and went home.\n\nToday the same thing over. I've got it up the tree again.\n\nSUNDAY.--It is up there yet. Resting, apparently. But that is a\nsubterfuge: Sunday isn't the day of rest; Saturday is appointed for\nthat. It looks to me like a creature that is more interested in resting\nthan in anything else. It would tire me to rest so much. It tires me\njust to sit around and watch the tree. I do wonder what it is for; I\nnever see it do anything.\n\nThey returned the moon last night, and I was_ so_ happy! I think it\nis very honest of them. It slid down and fell off again, but I was\nnot distressed; there is no need to worry when one has that kind of\nneighbors; they will fetch it back. I wish I could do something to show\nmy appreciation. I would like to send them some stars, for we have more\nthan we can use. I mean I, not we, for I can see that the reptile cares\nnothing for such things.\n\nIt has low tastes, and is not kind. When I went there yesterday evening\nin the gloaming it had crept down and was trying to catch the little\nspeckled fishes that play in the pool, and I had to clod it to make it\ngo up the tree again and let them alone. I wonder if _that _is what it\nis for? Hasn't it any heart? Hasn't it any compassion for those little\ncreature? Can it be that it was designed and manufactured for such\nungentle work? It has the look of it. One of the clods took it back of\nthe ear, and it used language. It gave me a thrill, for it was the first\ntime I had ever heard speech, except my own. I did not understand the\nwords, but they seemed expressive.\n\nWhen I found it could talk I felt a new interest in it, for I love to\ntalk; I talk, all day, and in my sleep, too, and I am very interesting,\nbut if I had another to talk to I could be twice as interesting, and\nwould never stop, if desired.\n\nIf this reptile is a man, it isn't an_ it_, is it? That wouldn't be\ngrammatical, would it? I think it would be _he_. I think so. In\nthat case one would parse it thus: nominative, _he_; dative, _him_;\npossessive, _his'n._ Well, I will consider it a man and call it he until\nit turns out to be something else. This will be handier than having so\nmany uncertainties.\n\nNEXT WEEK SUNDAY.--All the week I tagged around after him and tried\nto get acquainted. I had to do the talking, because he was shy, but\nI didn't mind it. He seemed pleased to have me around, and I used\nthe sociable \"we\" a good deal, because it seemed to flatter him to be\nincluded.\n\nWEDNESDAY.--We are getting along very well indeed, now, and getting\nbetter and better acquainted. He does not try to avoid me any more,\nwhich is a good sign, and shows that he likes to have me with him. That\npleases me, and I study to be useful to him in every way I can, so as\nto increase his regard. During the last day or two I have taken all the\nwork of naming things off his hands, and this has been a great relief to\nhim, for he has no gift in that line, and is evidently very grateful.\nHe can't think of a rational name to save him, but I do not let him see\nthat I am aware of his defect. Whenever a new creature comes along I\nname it before he has time to expose himself by an awkward silence. In\nthis way I have saved him many embarrassments. I have no defect like\nthis. The minute I set eyes on an animal I know what it is. I don't have\nto reflect a moment; the right name comes out instantly, just as if it\nwere an inspiration, as no doubt it is, for I am sure it wasn't in me\nhalf a minute before. I seem to know just by the shape of the creature\nand the way it acts what animal it is.\n\nWhen the dodo came along he thought it was a wildcat--I saw it in his\neye. But I saved him. And I was careful not to do it in a way that\ncould hurt his pride. I just spoke up in a quite natural way of pleased\nsurprise, and not as if I was dreaming of conveying information,\nand said, \"Well, I do declare, if there isn't the dodo!\" I\nexplained--without seeming to be explaining--how I know it for a dodo,\nand although I thought maybe he was a little piqued that I knew the\ncreature when he didn't, it was quite evident that he admired me.\nThat was very agreeable, and I thought of it more than once with\ngratification before I slept. How little a thing can make us happy when\nwe feel that we have earned it!\n\nTHURSDAY.--my first sorrow. Yesterday he avoided me and seemed to wish\nI would not talk to him. I could not believe it, and thought there was\nsome mistake, for I loved to be with him, and loved to hear him talk,\nand so how could it be that he could feel unkind toward me when I had\nnot done anything? But at last it seemed true, so I went away and sat\nlonely in the place where I first saw him the morning that we were made\nand I did not know what he was and was indifferent about him; but now it\nwas a mournful place, and every little thing spoke of him, and my\nheart was very sore. I did not know why very clearly, for it was a new\nfeeling; I had not experienced it before, and it was all a mystery, and\nI could not make it out.\n\nBut when night came I could not bear the lonesomeness, and went to the\nnew shelter which he has built, to ask him what I had done that was\nwrong and how I could mend it and get back his kindness again; but he\nput me out in the rain, and it was my first sorrow.\n\nSUNDAY.--It is pleasant again, now, and I am happy; but those were heavy\ndays; I do not think of them when I can help it.\n\nI tried to get him some of those apples, but I cannot learn to throw\nstraight. I failed, but I think the good intention pleased him. They\nare forbidden, and he says I shall come to harm; but so I come to harm\nthrough pleasing him, why shall I care for that harm?\n\nMONDAY.--This morning I told him my name, hoping it would interest him.\nBut he did not care for it. It is strange. If he should tell me his\nname, I would care. I think it would be pleasanter in my ears than any\nother sound.\n\nHe talks very little. Perhaps it is because he is not bright, and is\nsensitive about it and wishes to conceal it. It is such a pity that he\nshould feel so, for brightness is nothing; it is in the heart that the\nvalues lie. I wish I could make him understand that a loving good heart\nis riches, and riches enough, and that without it intellect is poverty.\n\nAlthough he talks so little, he has quite a considerable vocabulary.\nThis morning he used a surprisingly good word. He evidently recognized,\nhimself, that it was a good one, for he worked it in twice afterward,\ncasually. It was not good casual art, still it showed that he possesses\na certain quality of perception. Without a doubt that seed can be made\nto grow, if cultivated.\n\nWhere did he get that word? I do not think I have ever used it.\n\nNo, he took no interest in my name. I tried to hide my disappointment,\nbut I suppose I did not succeed. I went away and sat on the moss-bank\nwith my feet in the water. It is where I go when I hunger for\ncompanionship, some one to look at, some one to talk to. It is not\nenough--that lovely white body painted there in the pool--but it is\nsomething, and something is better than utter loneliness. It talks when\nI talk; it is sad when I am sad; it comforts me with its sympathy; it\nsays, \"Do not be downhearted, you poor friendless girl; I will be your\nfriend.\" It_ is_ a good friend to me, and my only one; it is my sister.\n\nThat first time that she forsook me! ah, I shall never forget\nthat--never, never. My heart was lead in my body! I said, \"She was all\nI had, and now she is gone!\" In my despair I said, \"Break, my heart; I\ncannot bear my life any more!\" and hid my face in my hands, and there\nwas no solace for me. And when I took them away, after a little, there\nshe was again, white and shining and beautiful, and I sprang into her\narms!\n\nThat was perfect happiness; I had known happiness before, but it was not\nlike this, which was ecstasy. I never doubted her afterward. Sometimes\nshe stayed away--maybe an hour, maybe almost the whole day, but I waited\nand did not doubt; I said, \"She is busy, or she is gone on a journey,\nbut she will come.\" And it was so: she always did. At night she would\nnot come if it was dark, for she was a timid little thing; but if there\nwas a moon she would come. I am not afraid of the dark, but she is\nyounger than I am; she was born after I was. Many and many are the\nvisits I have paid her; she is my comfort and my refuge when my life is\nhard--and it is mainly that.\n\nTUESDAY.--All the morning I was at work improving the estate; and I\npurposely kept away from him in the hope that he would get lonely and\ncome. But he did not.\n\nAt noon I stopped for the day and took my recreation by flitting all\nabout with the bees and the butterflies and reveling in the flowers,\nthose beautiful creatures that catch the smile of God out of the sky and\npreserve it! I gathered them, and made them into wreaths and garlands\nand clothed myself in them while I ate my luncheon--apples, of course;\nthen I sat in the shade and wished and waited. But he did not come.\n\nBut no matter. Nothing would have come of it, for he does not care for\nflowers. He called them rubbish, and cannot tell one from another, and\nthinks it is superior to feel like that. He does not care for me, he\ndoes not care for flowers, he does not care for the painted sky at\neventide--is there anything he does care for, except building shacks to\ncoop himself up in from the good clean rain, and thumping the melons,\nand sampling the grapes, and fingering the fruit on the trees, to see\nhow those properties are coming along?\n\nI laid a dry stick on the ground and tried to bore a hole in it with\nanother one, in order to carry out a scheme that I had, and soon I got\nan awful fright. A thin, transparent bluish film rose out of the hole,\nand I dropped everything and ran! I thought it was a spirit, and I _was\n_so frightened! But I looked back, and it was not coming; so I leaned\nagainst a rock and rested and panted, and let my limbs go on trembling\nuntil they got steady again; then I crept warily back, alert, watching,\nand ready to fly if there was occasion; and when I was come near, I\nparted the branches of a rose-bush and peeped through--wishing the man\nwas about, I was looking so cunning and pretty--but the sprite was gone.\nI went there, and there was a pinch of delicate pink dust in the hole. I\nput my finger in, to feel it, and said _ouch_! and took it out again. It\nwas a cruel pain. I put my finger in my mouth; and by standing first on\none foot and then the other, and grunting, I presently eased my misery;\nthen I was full of interest, and began to examine.\n\nI was curious to know what the pink dust was. Suddenly the name of it\noccurred to me, though I had never heard of it before. It was _fire_! I\nwas as certain of it as a person could be of anything in the world. So\nwithout hesitation I named it that--fire.\n\nI had created something that didn't exist before; I had added a new\nthing to the world's uncountable properties; I realized this, and was\nproud of my achievement, and was going to run and find him and tell him\nabout it, thinking to raise myself in his esteem--but I reflected, and\ndid not do it. No--he would not care for it. He would ask what it\nwas good for, and what could I answer? for if it was not _good _for\nsomething, but only beautiful, merely beautiful-- So I sighed, and did\nnot go. For it wasn't good for anything; it could not build a shack,\nit could not improve melons, it could not hurry a fruit crop; it was\nuseless, it was a foolishness and a vanity; he would despise it and say\ncutting words. But to me it was not despicable; I said, \"Oh, you fire, I\nlove you, you dainty pink creature, for you are _beautiful_--and that is\nenough!\" and was going to gather it to my breast. But refrained. Then\nI made another maxim out of my head, though it was so nearly like\nthe first one that I was afraid it was only a plagiarism: \"_The burnt\nexperiment shuns the fire_.\"\n\nI wrought again; and when I had made a good deal of fire-dust I emptied\nit into a handful of dry brown grass, intending to carry it home and\nkeep it always and play with it; but the wind struck it and it sprayed\nup and spat out at me fiercely, and I dropped it and ran. When I looked\nback the blue spirit was towering up and stretching and rolling away\nlike a cloud, and instantly I thought of the name of it--smoke!--though,\nupon my word, I had never heard of smoke before.\n\nSoon brilliant yellow and red flares shot up through the smoke, and I\nnamed them in an instant--flames--and I was right, too, though these\nwere the very first flames that had ever been in the world. They climbed\nthe trees, then flashed splendidly in and out of the vast and increasing\nvolume of tumbling smoke, and I had to clap my hands and laugh and\ndance in my rapture, it was so new and strange and so wonderful and so\nbeautiful!\n\nHe came running, and stopped and gazed, and said not a word for many\nminutes. Then he asked what it was. Ah, it was too bad that he should\nask such a direct question. I had to answer it, of course, and I did. I\nsaid it was fire. If it annoyed him that I should know and he must ask;\nthat was not my fault; I had no desire to annoy him. After a pause he\nasked:\n\n\"How did it come?\"\n\nAnother direct question, and it also had to have a direct answer.\n\n\"I made it.\"\n\nThe fire was traveling farther and farther off. He went to the edge of\nthe burned place and stood looking down, and said:\n\n\"What are these?\"\n\n\"Fire-coals.\"\n\nHe picked up one to examine it, but changed his mind and put it down\nagain. Then he went away. _Nothing _interests him.\n\nBut I was interested. There were ashes, gray and soft and delicate\nand pretty--I knew what they were at once. And the embers; I knew the\nembers, too. I found my apples, and raked them out, and was glad; for\nI am very young and my appetite is active. But I was disappointed; they\nwere all burst open and spoiled. Spoiled apparently; but it was not so;\nthey were better than raw ones. Fire is beautiful; some day it will be\nuseful, I think.\n\nFRIDAY.--I saw him again, for a moment, last Monday at nightfall, but\nonly for a moment. I was hoping he would praise me for trying to improve\nthe estate, for I had meant well and had worked hard. But he was not\npleased, and turned away and left me. He was also displeased on another\naccount: I tried once more to persuade him to stop going over the Falls.\nThat was because the fire had revealed to me a new passion--quite new,\nand distinctly different from love, grief, and those others which I\nhad already discovered--fear. And it is horrible!--I wish I had never\ndiscovered it; it gives me dark moments, it spoils my happiness, it\nmakes me shiver and tremble and shudder. But I could not persuade him,\nfor he has not discovered fear yet, and so he could not understand me.\n\n\n\nEXTRACT FROM ADAM'S DIARY\n\nPerhaps I ought to remember that she is very young, a mere girl and make\nallowances. She is all interest, eagerness, vivacity, the world is to\nher a charm, a wonder, a mystery, a joy; she can't speak for delight\nwhen she finds a new flower, she must pet it and caress it and smell\nit and talk to it, and pour out endearing names upon it. And she is\ncolor-mad: brown rocks, yellow sand, gray moss, green foliage, blue sky;\nthe pearl of the dawn, the purple shadows on the mountains, the golden\nislands floating in crimson seas at sunset, the pallid moon sailing\nthrough the shredded cloud-rack, the star-jewels glittering in the\nwastes of space--none of them is of any practical value, so far as I can\nsee, but because they have color and majesty, that is enough for her,\nand she loses her mind over them. If she could quiet down and keep still\na couple minutes at a time, it would be a reposeful spectacle. In that\ncase I think I could enjoy looking at her; indeed I am sure I could,\nfor I am coming to realize that she is a quite remarkably comely\ncreature--lithe, slender, trim, rounded, shapely, nimble, graceful; and\nonce when she was standing marble-white and sun-drenched on a boulder,\nwith her young head tilted back and her hand shading her eyes, watching\nthe flight of a bird in the sky, I recognized that she was beautiful.\n\nMONDAY NOON.--If there is anything on the planet that she is not\ninterested in it is not in my list. There are animals that I am\nindifferent to, but it is not so with her. She has no discrimination,\nshe takes to all of them, she thinks they are all treasures, every new\none is welcome.\n\nWhen the mighty brontosaurus came striding into camp, she regarded it as\nan acquisition, I considered it a calamity; that is a good sample of\nthe lack of harmony that prevails in our views of things. She wanted to\ndomesticate it, I wanted to make it a present of the homestead and move\nout. She believed it could be tamed by kind treatment and would be a\ngood pet; I said a pet twenty-one feet high and eighty-four feet long\nwould be no proper thing to have about the place, because, even with the\nbest intentions and without meaning any harm, it could sit down on the\nhouse and mash it, for any one could see by the look of its eye that it\nwas absent-minded.\n\nStill, her heart was set upon having that monster, and she couldn't give\nit up. She thought we could start a dairy with it, and wanted me to help\nmilk it; but I wouldn't; it was too risky. The sex wasn't right, and we\nhadn't any ladder anyway. Then she wanted to ride it, and look at the\nscenery. Thirty or forty feet of its tail was lying on the ground, like\na fallen tree, and she thought she could climb it, but she was mistaken;\nwhen she got to the steep place it was too slick and down she came, and\nwould have hurt herself but for me.\n\nWas she satisfied now? No. Nothing ever satisfies her but demonstration;\nuntested theories are not in her line, and she won't have them. It is\nthe right spirit, I concede it; it attracts me; I feel the influence of\nit; if I were with her more I think I should take it up myself. Well,\nshe had one theory remaining about this colossus: she thought that if we\ncould tame it and make him friendly we could stand him in the river\nand use him for a bridge. It turned out that he was already plenty tame\nenough--at least as far as she was concerned--so she tried her theory,\nbut it failed: every time she got him properly placed in the river and\nwent ashore to cross over him, he came out and followed her around like\na pet mountain. Like the other animals. They all do that.\n\nFRIDAY.--Tuesday--Wednesday--Thursday--and today: all without seeing\nhim. It is a long time to be alone; still, it is better to be alone than\nunwelcome.\n\n\n\nI _had _to have company--I was made for it, I think--so I made friends\nwith the animals. They are just charming, and they have the kindest\ndisposition and the politest ways; they never look sour, they never let\nyou feel that you are intruding, they smile at you and wag their tail,\nif they've got one, and they are always ready for a romp or an excursion\nor anything you want to propose. I think they are perfect gentlemen. All\nthese days we have had such good times, and it hasn't been lonesome for\nme, ever. Lonesome! No, I should say not. Why, there's always a swarm\nof them around--sometimes as much as four or five acres--you can't count\nthem; and when you stand on a rock in the midst and look out over the\nfurry expanse it is so mottled and splashed and gay with color and\nfrisking sheen and sun-flash, and so rippled with stripes, that you\nmight think it was a lake, only you know it isn't; and there's storms\nof sociable birds, and hurricanes of whirring wings; and when the sun\nstrikes all that feathery commotion, you have a blazing up of all the\ncolors you can think of, enough to put your eyes out.\n\nWe have made long excursions, and I have seen a great deal of the world;\nalmost all of it, I think; and so I am the first traveler, and the only\none. When we are on the march, it is an imposing sight--there's nothing\nlike it anywhere. For comfort I ride a tiger or a leopard, because it is\nsoft and has a round back that fits me, and because they are such pretty\nanimals; but for long distance or for scenery I ride the elephant. He\nhoists me up with his trunk, but I can get off myself; when we are ready\nto camp, he sits and I slide down the back way.\n\nThe birds and animals are all friendly to each other, and there are no\ndisputes about anything. They all talk, and they all talk to me, but it\nmust be a foreign language, for I cannot make out a word they say; yet\nthey often understand me when I talk back, particularly the dog and the\nelephant. It makes me ashamed. It shows that they are brighter than I\nam, for I want to be the principal Experiment myself--and I intend to\nbe, too.\n\nI have learned a number of things, and am educated, now, but I wasn't at\nfirst. I was ignorant at first. At first it used to vex me because, with\nall my watching, I was never smart enough to be around when the water\nwas running uphill; but now I do not mind it. I have experimented and\nexperimented until now I know it never does run uphill, except in the\ndark. I know it does in the dark, because the pool never goes dry, which\nit would, of course, if the water didn't come back in the night. It is\nbest to prove things by actual experiment; then you _know_; whereas if\nyou depend on guessing and supposing and conjecturing, you never get\neducated.\n\nSome things you _can't_ find out; but you will never know you can't\nby guessing and supposing: no, you have to be patient and go on\nexperimenting until you find out that you can't find out. And it is\ndelightful to have it that way, it makes the world so interesting. If\nthere wasn't anything to find out, it would be dull. Even trying to find\nout and not finding out is just as interesting as trying to find out and\nfinding out, and I don't know but more so. The secret of the water was\na treasure until I _got _it; then the excitement all went away, and I\nrecognized a sense of loss.\n\nBy experiment I know that wood swims, and dry leaves, and feathers, and\nplenty of other things; therefore by all that cumulative evidence you\nknow that a rock will swim; but you have to put up with simply knowing\nit, for there isn't any way to prove it--up to now. But I shall find a\nway--then _that _excitement will go. Such things make me sad; because\nby and by when I have found out everything there won't be any more\nexcitements, and I do love excitements so! The other night I couldn't\nsleep for thinking about it.\n\nAt first I couldn't make out what I was made for, but now I think it was\nto search out the secrets of this wonderful world and be happy and thank\nthe Giver of it all for devising it. I think there are many things to\nlearn yet--I hope so; and by economizing and not hurrying too fast I\nthink they will last weeks and weeks. I hope so. When you cast up a\nfeather it sails away on the air and goes out of sight; then you throw\nup a clod and it doesn't. It comes down, every time. I have tried it\nand tried it, and it is always so. I wonder why it is? Of course it\n_doesn't_ come down, but why should it _seem _to? I suppose it is an\noptical illusion. I mean, one of them is. I don't know which one. It\nmay be the feather, it may be the clod; I can't prove which it is, I can\nonly demonstrate that one or the other is a fake, and let a person take\nhis choice.\n\nBy watching, I know that the stars are not going to last. I have seen\nsome of the best ones melt and run down the sky. Since one can melt,\nthey can all melt; since they can all melt, they can all melt the same\nnight. That sorrow will come--I know it. I mean to sit up every night\nand look at them as long as I can keep awake; and I will impress those\nsparkling fields on my memory, so that by and by when they are taken\naway I can by my fancy restore those lovely myriads to the black sky and\nmake them sparkle again, and double them by the blur of my tears.\n\nAfter the Fall\n\nWhen I look back, the Garden is a dream to me. It was beautiful,\nsurpassingly beautiful, enchantingly beautiful; and now it is lost, and\nI shall not see it any more.\n\nThe Garden is lost, but I have found _him_, and am content. He loves\nme as well as he can; I love him with all the strength of my passionate\nnature, and this, I think, is proper to my youth and sex. If I ask\nmyself why I love him, I find I do not know, and do not really much\ncare to know; so I suppose that this kind of love is not a product\nof reasoning and statistics, like one's love for other reptiles and\nanimals. I think that this must be so. I love certain birds because of\ntheir song; but I do not love Adam on account of his singing--no, it is\nnot that; the more he sings the more I do not get reconciled to it.\nYet I ask him to sing, because I wish to learn to like everything he is\ninterested in. I am sure I can learn, because at first I could not stand\nit, but now I can. It sours the milk, but it doesn't matter; I can get\nused to that kind of milk.\n\nIt is not on account of his brightness that I love him--no, it is not\nthat. He is not to blame for his brightness, such as it is, for he did\nnot make it himself; he is as God made him, and that is sufficient.\nThere was a wise purpose in it, _that _I know. In time it will develop,\nthough I think it will not be sudden; and besides, there is no hurry; he\nis well enough just as he is.\n\nIt is not on account of his gracious and considerate ways and his\ndelicacy that I love him. No, he has lacks in this regard, but he is\nwell enough just so, and is improving.\n\nIt is not on account of his industry that I love him--no, it is not\nthat. I think he has it in him, and I do not know why he conceals it\nfrom me. It is my only pain. Otherwise he is frank and open with me,\nnow. I am sure he keeps nothing from me but this. It grieves me that he\nshould have a secret from me, and sometimes it spoils my sleep, thinking\nof it, but I will put it out of my mind; it shall not trouble my\nhappiness, which is otherwise full to overflowing.\n\nIt is not on account of his education that I love him--no, it is not\nthat. He is self-educated, and does really know a multitude of things,\nbut they are not so.\n\nIt is not on account of his chivalry that I love him--no, it is not\nthat. He told on me, but I do not blame him; it is a peculiarity of sex,\nI think, and he did not make his sex. Of course I would not have told on\nhim, I would have perished first; but that is a peculiarity of sex, too,\nand I do not take credit for it, for I did not make my sex.\n\nThen why is it that I love him? _Merely because he is masculine_, I\nthink.\n\nAt bottom he is good, and I love him for that, but I could love him\nwithout it. If he should beat me and abuse me, I should go on loving\nhim. I know it. It is a matter of sex, I think.\n\nHe is strong and handsome, and I love him for that, and I admire him\nand am proud of him, but I could love him without those qualities. If\nhe were plain, I should love him; if he were a wreck, I should love\nhim; and I would work for him, and slave over him, and pray for him, and\nwatch by his bedside until I died.\n\nYes, I think I love him merely because he is _mine _and is _masculine_.\nThere is no other reason, I suppose. And so I think it is as I first\nsaid: that this kind of love is not a product of reasonings and\nstatistics. It just _comes_--none knows whence--and cannot explain\nitself. And doesn't need to.\n\nIt is what I think. But I am only a girl, the first that has examined\nthis matter, and it may turn out that in my ignorance and inexperience I\nhave not got it right.\n\nForty Years Later\n\nIt is my prayer, it is my longing, that we may pass from this life\ntogether--a longing which shall never perish from the earth, but shall\nhave place in the heart of every wife that loves, until the end of time;\nand it shall be called by my name.\n\nBut if one of us must go first, it is my prayer that it shall be I;\nfor he is strong, I am weak, I am not so necessary to him as he is to\nme--life without him would not be life; how could I endure it? This\nprayer is also immortal, and will not cease from being offered up while\nmy race continues. I am the first wife; and in the last wife I shall be\nrepeated.\n\nAT EVE'S GRAVE\n\nADAM: Wheresoever she was, _there_ was Eden.\n\n\n"}
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{"17945":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\nKLASIKAJ USONAJ NOVELOJ\nMARK TWAIN\n(1835-1910)\nTRI NOVELOJ:\n\u2014 KONFESO DE MORTANTO \u2014\n\u2014 LA FIFAMA SALTANTA RANO DE KALAVERO-KONTEO \u2014\n\u2014 LA RAKONTO PRI LA MALBONKONDUTA KNABETO \u2014\nEsperantigis\nEDWIN GROBE\n1999\nEldonejo-Arizona-Stelo\n1620 North Sunset Drive\nTempe, Arizona 85281-1550\nUsono\nMARK TWAIN: TRI NOVELOJ\nUnua Eldono: Januaro 1999\nOriginaj Anglalingvaj Titoloj:\n\"A DYING MAN'S CONFESSION\"\n\"THE NOTORIOUS JUMPING FROG OF CALAVERAS COUNTY\"\n\"THE STORY OF THE BAD LITTLE BOY\"\nCopyright 1999\nEdwin P. Grobe\nfor the herein contained\nEnglish-to-Esperanto Translations\n\n\nENHAVO\n\n\n\n\"Konfeso de Mortanto\"\np. 1\n\n\n\"La Fifama Saltanta Rano de Kalavero-Konteo\"\np. 14\n\n\n\"La Rakonto pri la Malbonkonduta Knabeto\"\np. 19\n\n\n\n\nKONFESO DE MORTANTO\nNi alproksimi\u011dis vila\u011don Napoleonon en \u015dtato Arkansaso. Tial mi komencis pripensi mian tiean taskon. La horo: tagmezo. La vetero: hela kaj suna. Tio estis malbona. Almena\u016d, ne bonega. \u0108ar mia tasko ne estis (la\u016dprefere) tagmeza speco. Ju pli mi meditis, des pli tiu fakto sin trudis al mi\u2014jen unuforme, jen aliforme. Finfine \u011di prenis la formon de preciza demando. \u0108u estas bonsence plenumi la taskon dumtage kiam, vin senigante je iom da komforto kaj inklino, vi povas elprofiti la nokton por tio, sen scivolemaj gvatokuloj? Tio decidis la aferon. Klara demando kaj klara respondo konsistigas la plej mallongan elirejon por la plejmulto da konfuza\u0135oj.\nMi kunvenigis miajn amikojn en mia kajuto kaj diris ke mi beda\u016dras estigi \u011denon kaj malesperon sed ke, post meditado pri la afero, la\u016d\u015dajne estos pli bone ke ni albordigu niajn baga\u0135ojn kaj vizitu Napoleonon. Ilia malaprobo estis tuja kaj la\u016dta; ilia lingva\u0135o, ribelema. Ilia \u0109efa argumento estis tiu kiu \u0109iam malmergi\u011das la unua en tiaj okazoj, ekde la komenco de tempo. \"Sed vi elektis kaj anta\u016dkonsentis resti sur \u0109i tiu boato,\" ktp.; kvaza\u016d, decidi\u011dinte fari malsa\u011da\u0135on, la\u016d nepra neceso oni restu sur la sama vojo kaj aliigi \u011din en du malsa\u011da\u0135ojn per la plenumo de la komenca decidi\u011do. Mi utiligis diversajn taktikojn por mildigi ilian sintenon, kun sufi\u0109e bona sukceso. Rezulte de tiu kura\u011digo mi plimultigis miajn klopodojn. Kaj por komprenigi al ili ke ne estis mi kiu postulis la plenumon de la koncerna taska\u0109o kaj ke mi nepre senkulpas pri la afero, mi balda\u016d ekkura\u011dis rakonti ties historion, preska\u016d samvorte kiel mi \u0109i-poste raportas.\n\u0108irka\u016d la fino de la pasinta jaro mi pasigis kelkajn monatojn en Munkeno, en Bavario. En novembro mi lo\u011dis en la pensiono de Fra\u016dlino Dalvejnero, \u0109e numero 1 de Karlostrato. Sed mia laborejo situis unu mejlon for, en la domo de vidvino sin vivtenanta per gastigado. \u015ci kaj \u015diaj du junaj infanoj kutimis veni \u0109e mi \u0109iun matenon kaj kunbabiladi en la Germana\u2014responde al mia peto. Unu tagon, dum mi vagpromenadis en la urbo, mi vizitis unu el la du lokoj kie la registaro retenas kaj prizorgas kadavrojn \u011dis la kuracistoj certas ke tiuj finmortis kaj ne da\u016dre vivas en tranca stato. Estis makabra loko, tiu \u0109ambrego. Vidi\u011dis tridek ses plenkreskulaj kadavroj, sternite surdorse sur iom oblikvangulaj tabuloj en tri longaj vicoj\u2014kaj havante \u0109iuj vaksoblankajn rigidajn viza\u011dojn sub la blankaj mortotukoj volvitaj \u0109irka\u016d ili. La\u016d la flankoj de la \u0109ambro estis profundaj orielaspektaj alkovoj kaj en \u0109iu el tiuj ku\u015dis pluraj marmormienaj beboj, entute ka\u015dite kaj enterigite sub tavoloj da fre\u015daj floroj krom siaj viza\u011doj kaj interfalditaj manoj. \u0108irka\u016d fingro de \u0109iu el tiuj kvindek senmovaj formoj, grandaj kaj malgrandaj, estis ringo. Ekde la ringo, drato etendi\u011dis \u011dis la plafono kaj de tie \u011dis sonorileto en tiea kontrol\u0109ambro kie, tage kaj nokte, kontrolisto sidas \u0109iam en vigla atendado, preta alvenigi eksaltan ur\u011dohelpon al iu ajn ano de tiu palvanga kompanio kiu, veki\u011dinte el la morto, estigas korpomovon\u2014\u0109ar \u0109iu movo, e\u0109 la plej minimuma, agitos la draton kaj sonigos tiun timindan sonorileton. Mi imagis min mortosentinelo kiu dormetis en nepra tiea soleco en tre malfrua horo dum malrapidege \n evoluanta gvatde\u0135orado de iu mu\u011dventega nokto kaj eksentis sian korpon alii\u011di palpebrumtempe en tremetantan \u0135eleon pro la subita brua\u0109o de tiu terura alvokilo! Tial mi enketis pri tiu a\u0135o, demandis kio kutime okazas? \u0108u la gvatisto mortis kaj la revivinta kadavro alvenis por komfortigi kiel eble plej multe liajn lastajn momentojn? Sed oni ripro\u0109is al mi mian klopodon nutri sencelan kaj senvaloran scivolemon en tiel solena kaj funebra loko. Kaj mi foriris tre humiligite.\nLa sekvintan matenon mi rakontadis mian aventuron al la vidvino kiam \u015di ekkriis:\n\"Venu kun mi. Mi havas lo\u011danton kiu rakontos al vi \u0109ion kion vi deziras ekscii. Li estis noktosentinelo tie.\"\nLi estis vivanta homo sed ne havis vivantan aspekton. Li ku\u015dis surlite kaj altaj kusenoj subtenis lian kapon. Lia forvelkinta viza\u011do estis senkolora. Liaj profunde sinkintaj okuloj estis fermitaj. Lia mano, ku\u015dante sur lia brusto, estis ungegaspekta, tiel osta kaj longfingra \u011di estis. La vidvino komencis min prezenti. La okuloj de la viro malfermi\u011dis malrapide kaj briletis malice el la krepusko de siaj kavernoj. Li kuntiris nigre la brovojn. Li levis la maldikan manon kaj entreprenis nin forsendi per ordonema gesto. Sed la vidvino da\u016dre parolis \u011dis eksciigi al li la fakton ke mi estas fremdulo kaj Usonano. La mieno de la viro tuj \u015dan\u011di\u011dis, pliheli\u011dis, e\u0109 avidi\u011dis\u2014kaj en la sekvinta momento li kaj mi ek\u011duis kunan solecon.\nMi komencis paroli en roksolida Germana lingvo. Li respondis en ege fleksebla Angla lingvo. Post tio ni nepre flankenlasis la Germanan.\nTiu ftizulo kaj mi intime amiki\u011dis. Mi vizitis lin \u0109iun tagon kaj ni parolis pri \u0109io. Almena\u016d pri \u0109io krom edzinoj kaj infanoj. Se mencii\u011dis la edzino a\u016d la infano de iu ajn, \u0109iam postokazis tri fenomenoj: la plej afabla kaj amema kaj dol\u0109a lumo briletis en la okuloj de la viro dum momento; en la sekvinta momento la lumo forpali\u011dis kaj \u011din anstata\u016dis tiu minaca mieno jam ekflaminta tie kiam mi vidis liajn okulojn malfermi\u011di la unuan fojon; triavice, li \u0109esis paroli tie kaj tiam por tiu tago, restis senparole da\u016dre enliti\u011dite, perdite en abstrakta kaj absorbita pensado, la\u016d\u015dajne a\u016ddante nenion kion mi diris, malatentante miajn adia\u016dojn, kaj evidente prikonsciis nek vide nek a\u016dde pri mia foriro el la \u0109ambro.\nKiam mi jam estis dum du monatoj la \u0109iutaga kaj sola intimulo de tiu Karolo Ritero, li diris abrupte ion tagon:\n\"Mi rakontos al vi mian historion.\"\nTiam li da\u016drigis kiel jenas:\n\nMi neniam rezignis anta\u016d nun. Sed nun mi rezignas. Mi estas mortonta. Mi finkonkludis hiera\u016dnokte ke devas okazi tiel kaj, aldone, ege balda\u016d. Vi diras ke vi celas reviziti vian riveron iun tagon kiam la okazo prezenti\u011dos. Nu, bonege. Tio, kune kun stranga sperto kiun hazarda sorto okazigis al mi hiera\u016dnokte, devigas min rakonti al vi mian historion\u2014\u0109ar vi vidos vila\u011don Napoleonon en Arkansaso kaj por mia bono vi haltos tie kaj plenumos taskon por mi\u2014taskon kiun vi entreprenos bonvole post a\u016dskulti mian rakonton.\nNi mallongigu la rakonton kie ajn eblas \u0109ar \u011di estas longa kaj bezonos mallongigon. Vi jam scias kiel okazis al mi aliri Amerikon kaj kiel mi decidi\u011dis eklo\u011di en tiu soleca regiono de la Sudo. Sed vi ne scias ke mi havis edzinon. Mia edzino estis juna, belega, amema, kaj, ho! tiel die bona kaj senkulpa kaj milda. Kaj nia filineto estis miniatura kopio de sia patrino. Tio estis la plej feli\u0109a el \u0109iuj feli\u0109aj hejmoj.\nIun nokton\u2014okazis \u0109irka\u016d la fino de la milito\u2014mi veki\u011dis el ebria stuporo kaj min trovis manligita kaj bu\u015d\u015dtopita <!-- Error in book:\n   bu&#349;stopita --> dum la \u0109irka\u016danta aero estis malpurigita per kloroformo. Mi vidis du virojn en la \u0109ambro kaj unu el ili diris al la alia en ra\u016dka flustrado: \"Mi diris al \u015di ke mi faros tion se \u015di faros bruon, kaj rilate al la infano\u2014\"\nLa alia viro interrompis en malla\u016dta duonplora vo\u0109o:\n\"Vi diris ke ilin ni nur bu\u015d\u015dtopos kaj prirabos, ne difektos, alie mi ne konsentintus alveni.\"\n\"\u0108esu plenda\u0109i. Necesis \u015dan\u011di la planon kiam ili veki\u011dis. Vi faris vian plejon por ilin protekti. Nun tio vin kontentigu. Venu, helpu ser\u0109fosadi.\"\nAmba\u016d viroj surportis maskojn kaj krudajn \u0109ifonajn \"nigrul\"-specajn vesta\u0135ojn. Ili havis celpunktan lanternon helpe de kies lumo mi konsciis ke al la dekstra mano de la pli milda el la du rabistoj mankas dikfingro. Ili ser\u0109fosadis hazardacele en mia malri\u0109a lo\u011dejo dum momento. La \u0109efbandito diris tiam en teatra flustrado:\n\"Tio estas tempomal\u015dparo. Li malka\u015du kie \u011di estas ka\u015dita. Forigu lian bu\u015do\u015dtopilon kaj lin revigligu.\"\nLa alia diris:\n\"Bone. Kondi\u0109e ke ne okazu klabado.\"\n\"Sen klabado estu, tial. Kondi\u0109e ke li da\u016dre silentu.\"\nIli min alproksimi\u011dis. En tiu momento a\u016ddigis eksterdomaj sonoj, sonoj de vo\u0109oj kaj hufotretado. La rabistoj retenis la spiradon kaj a\u016dskultis. Malrapide la sonoj pli kaj pli  proksimi\u011dis. Tiam eksonis kriego:\n\"Saluton, la domo! Vidigu lumon. Ni deziras akvon.\"\n\"La vo\u0109o de la kapitano, per Dio!\" diris la teatre flustrinta brutulo, kaj amba\u016d banditoj forfu\u011dis pere de la malanta\u016dpordo, mal\u015daltante sian lanternon dum la kurado.\nLa fremdulo alvokis plurajn pluajn fojojn, tiam preterrajdis\u2014estis la\u016d\u015dajne dekduo da \u0109evaloj\u2014kaj nenion pluan mi a\u016ddis.\nMi luktis sed ne sukcesis min liberigi el miaj ligoj. Mi klopodis paroli sed malhelpis tion mia bu\u015d\u015dtopilo. Mi kapablis eligi nenian sonon. Mi ser\u0109a\u016dskultis la vo\u0109ojn de miaj edzino kaj infano\u2014a\u016dskultis longe kaj atentege. Tamen nenia sono eliris la alian ekstrema\u0135on de la \u0109ambro kie staris ilia lito. Tiu silento pli kaj pli a\u0109i\u011dis, pli kaj pli minaci\u011dis, en \u0109iu momento. \u0108u vi opinias povinti toleri horoda\u016dron da tia\u0135o? Kompatu min tial, al kiu necesis toleri trihoran da\u016dron. \u0108u trihoran? Trieternecan, diru! Kiam ajn eksonis la horlo\u011do \u015dajnis ke jam forpasis jaroj ekde kiam mi a\u016ddis \u011din la anta\u016dan fojon. Dum la tuta tempo mi baraktis en miaj ligoj kaj finfine, \u0109irka\u016d la nova tagi\u011do mi min liberigis kaj ekstre\u0109is miajn rigidajn membrojn. Mi povis distingi detalojn iom bone. Disrubis la plankon a\u0135oj tien \u0135etitaj per la \u015dtelistoj dum \n ili ser\u0109is miajn \u015dparmonojn. La unua objekto kaptinta mian apartan atenton estis dokumento mia kiun mi vidis ekrigardi kaj tiam for\u0135eti la pli krudan el la du brutuloj. Sango \u011din makuligis. Mi atingis stumblapa\u015de la alian ekstrema\u0135on de la \u0109ambro. Ho, kompatindaj, senofendaj, senhelpaj estuloj, tie ili ku\u015dis. Jam forpasis iliaj \u0109agrenoj. Nur komenci\u011dis la miaj.\n\u0108u mi apelaciis al la juro? \u0108u mi? \u0108u sati\u011das la soifo de la malri\u0109ulo se la re\u011do trinkas por li? Ho, ne, ne, ne! Mi deziris nenian impertinentan sintrudon de la juro. Le\u011doj kaj la pendumilo ne povus kontra\u016dpagi la \u015duldoprezon kiun mi rajtis ricevi. La juro lasu sentime al mi la tiurilatan respondecon. Mi malkovrus la \u015duldanton kaj kolektus la \u015duldon. Kiel efektivigi tion, \u0109u vi diras? Kiel efektivigi tion kaj tiom ekcerti pri \u011di se mi neniam vidis la viza\u011dojn de la \u015dtelistoj nek a\u016ddis iliajn kutimajn vo\u0109ojn nek konceptis ununuran ideon pri kiuj ili povus esti? Malgra\u016d tio tamen mi estis jes ja certa\u2014ege certa, ege memfida. Mi disponis indicon\u2014indicon kiun vi taksintus senvalora\u2014indicon kiu ne multe helpintus e\u0109 detektivon pro tio ke mankus al li la sekreto pri kiel \u011din apliki. Mi parolos pri tio balda\u016d. Vi vidos. Ni da\u016drigu nun, konsiderante la aferon en ta\u016dga ordo. Por komenci estis cirkonstanco kiu disponigis al mi precizdirektan vidpunkton. Tiuj du rabistoj estis klar\u015dajne soldatoj trompvestitaj kiel vagabondoj, kaj ne novvenitaj al milita servado sed spertaj pri \u011di\u2014konstantuloj, eble. Ili ne akiris siajn soldatajn sintenon, gestojn, starpozojn en unu tago, nek en unu monato, nek en unu jaro. Tiel mi opiniis, sed nenion diris. Kaj unu el ili diris, \"La vo\u0109o de la kapitano, per Dio!\"\u2014la viro mem kiun mi deziris senvivigi. Du mejlojn for tendumis pluraj regimentoj kaj du kompanioj de Usona kavalerio. Kiam mi eksciis ke Kapitano Blakelio de Kompanio C preterpasis nin dum la nokto kun eskorto, mi diris nenion sed decidi\u011dis ser\u0109i mian viron en tiu kompanio. Dum diversaj konversacioj studeme kaj obstine mi priskribis la rabistojn kiel vagabondojn, kampadejo-parazitulojn. Kaj inter tiu socia klaso miaj kunkonversaciintoj ser\u0109is vane, \u0109ar nur mi suspektis la soldatojn.\nLaborante pacience dumnokte en mia afliktita hejmo, mi fabrikis kamufla\u0135on por mi el diversaj vesta\u0135pecoj kaj -eroj. En la plej proksima vila\u011do mi a\u0109etis paron da bluaj \u015dirmvitroj. Post kelke da tempo, kiam la milita kampadejo disi\u011dis kaj Kompanio-C-on oni forsendis cent mejlojn norden, al Napoleono, mi ka\u015dis mian etan monprovizon en mia pantalonzono kaj efektivigis mian foriron dum la nokto. Kiam Kompanio C atingis Napoleonon mi estis jam tie. Jes, mi estis tie\u2014kun nova metio: sortodivenisto. Dezirante \u015dajni egalpartia, mi amiki\u011dis kaj divenis sortojn inter \u0109iuj kompanioj tie garnizonigitaj. Tamen mi atentis plejparte pri Kompanio C. Mi min komplezemigis senlime inter tiuj apartaj viroj. Ili petis de mi nenian komplezon, starigis anta\u016d mi nenian minacon kiujn mi malakceptis. Mi fari\u011dis bonvola viktimo de iliaj \u015dercoj. Tio pligrandigis mian popularecon. Mi fari\u011dis favorato.\nBalda\u016d mi trovis soldaton al kiu mankis dikfingro. Kian \u011dojon tio havigis al mi! Kaj kiam mi ekcertis ke nur li, el \u0109iuj kompanianoj siaj, perdis dikfingron, malaperis mia lasta dubo. Mi certegis suresti la \u011dustan spurvojon. La viro nomi\u011dis Krugero. Li estis Germano. Estis na\u016d Germanoj en la kompanio. Mi kontrolgvatadis \n por ekscii kiuj estas liaj intimuloj, sed la\u016d\u015dajne  li havis neniajn apartajn amikojn. Tamen intimulo lia estis mi kaj mi prizorgis kreskigi la rilaton. Kelkfoje mi tiel sopiris al ven\u011do ke mi apena\u016d sukcesis malhelpi min surgenui\u011di anta\u016d li kaj petegi ke li fingremontru la viron mortigintan miajn edzinon kaj infanon sed mi ekscipovis bridi al mi la langon. Mi atendadis pacience kaj da\u016dre sortodivenis, la\u016dokaze.\nMia aparataro estis simpla: iom da ru\u011da farbo kaj peceto da blanka papero. Mi farbis la malsupron de la klienta dikfingro, faris surpaperan prema\u0135on de \u011di, \u011din studadis dum la nokto kaj sciigis lian sorton al li la sekvintan tagon. Kiun ideon mi nutris, efektivigante tian sensenca\u0135on? Jen \u011di estis. Kiam mi estis knabo mi konis maljunan Francon estintan provoso dum tridek jaroj kaj li diris al mi ke \u0109iu homo havas unu trajton kiu neniam \u015dan\u011di\u011das ekde la lulilo \u011dis la tombo: la linioj sur la malsupra flanko de la dikfingro. Kaj li diris ke tiuj linioj neniam nepre samaspektas \u0109e iu ajn homparo. Nuntagare ni fotas la novan krimulon kaj pendas lian bildon en la Kanajlo-Galerio por estonta referenco. Sed tiu Franco, dum sia aktiva laborkariero, kutimis fari prema\u0135on pri la dikfingra malsupra\u0135o de nova malliberulo kaj \u011din staplis por ebla estonta uzado. Li diris \u0109iam ke bildoj senvaloras \u0109ar eventualaj kamuflovesta\u0135oj povas ilin senutiligi. \"La dikfingro estas la ununura certa\u0135o,\" li diris. \"\u011ci ne kamuflovesteblas.\" Kaj li kutimis pravigi sian teorion helpe de miaj amikoj kaj konatoj. Tio sukcesis \u0109iam.\nMi da\u016dre sortodivenis. \u0108iun nokton mi min izoligis, en nepra soleco, kaj pristudis sub lupeo la dikfingrajn prema\u0135ojn de la tago. Vi imagu la vorantan avidon per kiu mi okulkontrolegis tiujn labirintajn ru\u011dajn spiralojn, tenante apude tiun dokumenton surportantan la dekstramanajn dik- kaj alifingrajn prema\u0135ojn de tiu nekonata murdinto, presitajn per la plej kara sango\u2014por mi\u2014iam defaligita sur \u0109i tiu tero! Kaj foje kaj refoje necesis al mi ripeti la saman malnovan senkura\u011digan rimarkon: \"\u0108u neniam samaspektos ili?\"\nSed finfine alvenis mia rekompenco. \u011ci estis la dikfingra prema\u0135o de la kvardektria viro de Kompanio C partopreninta en mia eksperimento: Soldato Franzo Adlero. Unu horon anta\u016de mi sciis nek la nomon nek la vo\u0109on nek la figuron nek la viza\u011don nek la naciecon de la murdinto. Sed nun mi sciis \u0109iujn tiujn detalojn. Mi opiniis rajti certi pri la afero. La ripetitaj demonstradoj de la Franco estis mia rajtigilo. Tamen restis rimedo por \u0109ion nepre certigi. Mi disponis pri prema\u0135o de la maldekstra dikfingro de Krugero. En la mateno mi flankenapartigis lin dum lia malde\u0135orado. Kiam ni staris ekster la vid- kaj a\u016ddkampo de eblaj atestontoj mi diris en impona maniero:\n\"Parto de via sorto estas tiel serioza ke mi ju\u011dis esti pli bone ne malkovri \u011din al vi okaze de publika kunveno. Vi kaj cetera viro, kies sorton mi pristudis hiera\u016dnokte\u2014Soldato Adlero\u2014murdis virinon kaj infanon. Oni vin spuras. Anta\u016d ol forpasos kvin tagoj oni murdos vin amba\u016d.\"\nLi falis surgenuen, timigite \u011dis frenezio. Kaj dum kvin minutoj li ade elver\u015dis la saman litanion, kiel demenculo, kaj en tiu sama duonplora maniero restinta unu el miaj memora\u0135oj pri tiu murdonokto en mia \u0109ambreto:\n\"Mi ne faris tion. La\u016d mia animo, tion mi ne faris. Kaj mi strebis malhelpi ke li faru tion. Tiel mi agis, Dio estu mia atestanto. Li faris tion solapersone.\"\nJen estis \u0109io kion mi volis. Kaj mi klopodis min senigi je la stultulo. Sed ne, li alkro\u0109i\u011dis al mi, petegante ke mi lin protektu kontra\u016d la murdinto. Li diris:\n\"Mi havas monon. Dek mil dolarojn. En ka\u015dejo. La frukta\u0135o de \u015dtelado kaj rabado. Savu min. Diru al mi kion fari kaj \u011di estos al vi, \u0109iu cendo. Du trionoj el \u011di apartenas al mia kuzo, Adlero, sed vi rajtas alpreni \u011din entute. Ni ka\u015dis \u011din kiam ni alvenis \u0109i tien komence. Sed mi reka\u015dis \u011din hiera\u016d en nova loko kaj ne diris tion al li. Mi intencis dizerti kaj \u011din forpreni entute. \u011ci estas oro kaj tro peza por manporti kiam oni kuras kaj evitas. Sed virino kiu jam transiris la riveron anta\u016d du tagoj por pretigi mian vojon postsekvos min kun la mono. Kaj se mi ne havus la \u015dancon priskribi la ka\u015dejon al \u015di, mi intencis ruzdoni mian ar\u011dentan po\u015dhorlo\u011don en \u015dian manon a\u016d transsendi \u011din al \u015di kaj \u015di komprenus la aferon. Estas paperpeco en la malanta\u016da\u0135o de la ujo kiu \u0109ion rakontas. Jen, prenu la horlo\u011don kaj diru al mi kion fari.\"\nLi penadis trudi sian horlo\u011don al mi kaj elmontradis la paperon, klarigante \u011din al mi, kiam Adlero eniris la vidkampon fordistance je \u0109irka\u016d dek du jardoj. Mi diris al la kompatinda Krugero:\n\"Enpo\u015digu denove vian horlo\u011don, \u011din mi ne deziras. Nenia difektado vin atingos. Foriru nun, mi devas diveni lian sorton por Adlero. Balda\u016d mi diros al vi kiel eskapi de la murdinto. Intertempe, necesos al mi rekontroli la prema\u0135on de via dikfingro. Nenion diru al Adlero pri \u0109i tiu afero. Nenion diru al iu ajn.\"\nLi foriris plena je timo kaj dankemo, kompatinda diablulo. Mi diris al Adlero longan sortodivenon\u2014la\u016dintence tiel longan ke mi ne povis \u011din findiri. Promesis alveni lian gvardpostenejon tiun nokton kaj diri al li ties vere gravan parton\u2014ties tragedian parton, mi diris. Tial, necesas esti ekster la a\u016ddkampo de suba\u016dskultantoj. Oni \u0109iam postenigis pikedon ekster la urbo. Nuraj disciplino kaj ceremonio. Nenia bezono tiurilate. Nenia malamiko en la \u0109irka\u016dejo.\n\u0108irka\u016d noktomezo mi survoji\u011dis, provizite per la kontra\u016dsigno, kaj gvidis miajn pa\u015dojn \u011dis la soleca regiono kie Adlero estis gvardonta. Estis tiel malhele ke mi stumblis senpere kontra\u016d malklaran figuron preska\u016d anta\u016d ol povi eligi \u015dirmvorton. La sentinelo salutis kaj mi respondis, amba\u016d en la sama momento. Mi aldonis: \"Estas nur mi, la sortodivenisto.\" Tiam mi glitpa\u015dis al la flanko de la kompatinda diablulo kaj \u015dovegis mian ponardon en lian koron. \"Ja wohl,\" mi ridis. Jen estis, efektive, la tragedia parto de lia sorto.  Dum li falis de sur sia \u0109evalo, li strebis alkro\u0109i\u011di al mi kaj miaj bluaj \u015dirmokuloj postrestis en lia mano. Kaj foren plon\u011dis la besto, lin trenante kun piedo en la piedingo.\nMi forfu\u011dis tra la arbaro kaj efektivigis mian eskapon, postlasinte miajn \u015dirmokulojn en la mano de la mortinto.\nTio okazis anta\u016d dek kvin-dek ses jaroj. Ekde tiam mi vagiradas sencele \u0109irka\u016d la mondo, foje laborante, foje senlabore; foje havante monprovizon, foje senmone; sed \u0109iam lacigite per troa vivado kaj dezirante finvivi, \u0109ar mian surteran mision plenumis la faro de tiu nokto. Kaj la nuraj plezuro, konsolo, kontenti\u011do kiujn \n mi spertis en \u0109iuj tiuj tedaj jaroj estis la \u0109iutaga penso: \"Mi senvivigis lin!\"\nAnta\u016d kvar jaroj mia sano komencis malbonfarti. Mi vagatingintis Munkenon la\u016d mia sencela maniero. Malhavante monon, mi ser\u0109is kaj akiris laborpostenon. Mi plenumis mian taskon fidele dum \u0109irka\u016d unu jaro. Tiam oni postenigis min kiel noktosentinelon tie en tiu mortodomo kiun vi vizitis lastatempe. La loko konvenis al mia humoro. \u011ci pla\u0109is al mi. Pla\u0109is al mi esti kun la mortintoj\u2014esti sola kun ili. Mi kutimis vagiradi inter tiuj rigidaj kadavroj kaj enrigardi iliajn a\u016dsterajn viza\u011dojn dum horoj. Ju pli malfrua estis la horo, des pli impona estis la situacio. Mi preferis la malfruan horon. Foje mi malheligis la lumojn. Tio estigis perspektivon, vi komprenu, kaj liberigis la imagon. \u0108iam la malklaraj, malanta\u016denirantaj mortintovicoj estigis \u0109e oni strangajn kaj fascinajn fantaziojn. Anta\u016d du jaroj\u2014mi jam estis tie ekde unu jaro\u2014mi sidis tute sole en la gvat\u0109ambro en ventega vintra nokto, malvarmigite, sensentigite, senkonsole, ekdormetante iom post iom en senkonscion. La plorego de la vento kaj la klakado de foraj \u015dutroj sonadis pli kaj pli malla\u016dte en miaj sena\u016ddi\u011dontaj oreloj \u0109iumomente kiam subite kaj akute la mortosonorilo eligis sangofrostigan alarmon super mia kapo! Preska\u016d paralizis min la \u015doko \u0109ar neniam anta\u016de mi a\u016ddis la signalon.\nMi min renormaligis kaj hastegis al la kadavro\u0109ambro. Preska\u016d mezdistance for la\u016d la ekstera vico sidis rektaspina figuro envolvita en mortotuko, svingante la kapon malrapide de flanko al flanko: makabra spektaklo! \u011cia flanko alfrontis min. Mi aliris \u011din haste kaj enrigardis fikse \u011dian viza\u011don. \u0108ielo! Adlero \u011di estis!\n\u0108u vi povas diveni kio estis mia unua ekpenso? Envortigite, jen \u011di estis: \"\u015cajnas tial ke vi eskapis de mi unuan fojon. Okazos kontra\u016da rezulto \u0109i-foje!\"\nVer\u015dajne tiu etulo spertis neimageblajn terurojn. Imagu kion li devis eksenti veki\u011dinte meze de tiu senvo\u0109a silento kaj \u0109irka\u016dspektadinte tiun malgajan mortintaron! Kiu dankemo brilegis en lia magrega blanka viza\u011do kiam li vidis vivantan formon anta\u016d si! Kaj kiel la fervoro de tiu senparola dankemo plimulti\u011dis kiam lia rigardo atingis la vivigajn kordialojn kiujn mi portis en la manoj! Tiam imagu la hororon kiu eniris lian pin\u0109itan viza\u011don kiam mi metis la kordialojn malanta\u016d min kaj diris moke:\n\"Ekparolu, Franzo Adlero! Alvoku tiujn mortintojn! Sendube ili a\u016dskultos kaj kompatos. Sed en \u0109i tiu loko au\u015dkultos kaj kompatos neniu alia.\"\nLi penadis paroli. Tamen rezistis kaj malpermesis paroladon tiu parto de la mortotuko kunpremanta liajn makzelojn. Li strebis levi petegajn manojn sed ili restis, kunmetite kaj kunligite, sur lia brusto. Mi kriegis:\n\"Kriegu, Franzo Adlero! Veku la dormantojn en la foraj stratoj, petante ilin alvenigi helpon al vi. Kriegu\u2014sen mal\u015dpari tempon, \u0109ar estas malmulte da tempo por mal\u015dpari. Kio, \u0109u vi ne povas? Kia doma\u011do! Tamen ne gravas. Kriegado ne \u0109iam alvenigas helpon. Kiam vi kaj via kuzo murdis senhelpajn virinon kaj infanon en kabano de Arkansaso\u2014mia edzino estis kaj mia infano\u2014ili kripetis helpon, \u0109u vi memoras? Sed tio ne sukcesis. Vi memoras ke tio ne sukcesis, \u0109u ne? Viaj dentoj klaketadas\u2014tial kial vi ne povas ekkrii? Malfiksu la banda\u011dojn per viaj manoj. Tiam \n vi povos ekkrii. Ho, mi komprenas. Viaj manoj estas ligitaj kaj ne povas helpi vin. Kiom strange eventoj ripeti\u011das post longaj jaroj. \u0108ar anka\u016d miaj manoj estis ligitaj tiun nokton, \u0109u vi memoras? Jes, tiel forte ligitaj kiel viaj manoj estas ligitaj nun. Kiom stranga tio estas! Mi ne povis min liberigi. La ideo malligi min ne eniris vian menson. La ideo malligi vin ne eniras mian menson nun. \u015c\u015d\u015d! Jen malfruhora pa\u015dsono! \u011ci venas en nia direkto. A\u016dskultu, kiom proksima \u011di estas! Eblas kompti la pa\u015dsonojn: unu, du, tri! Jen, \u011di staras \u0135us aliflanke de la pordo. Jen estas la horo! Kriegu, viro, kriegu! Estas la ununura \u015danco inter vi kaj eterneco! Ho, vidu! Vi hezitis tro longan tempon. \u011ci preterpasis. Jen. \u011ci malla\u016dti\u011das. \u011ci estas for! Pripensu tion! Primeditu tion! Vi \u0135us a\u016ddis homan pa\u015dsonon je la lasta fojo. Kiom strange devas esti a\u016dskulti tiel ordinaran sonon kaj konscii ke neniam denove oni a\u016ddos sama\u0135on.\"\nHo, amiko mia! La dolorego en tiu envolvita viza\u011do estis vidinda ekstazo! Mi elpensis novan torturon kaj \u011din aplikis, min helpante per iom da mensoga kreivo:\n\"Tiu kompatinda Krugero strebis savi miajn edzinon kaj infanon kaj mi havigis al li reciprokan komplezon en la ta\u016dga momento. Mi konvinkis lin prirabi vin. Kaj mi kaj iu virino helpis lin dizerti el sia militservo kaj lin alvenigis al sekurejo.\"\nRigardo de surprizo kaj triumfo ekbrilis malhele tra la angoro en la viza\u011do de mia viktimo. Mi perpleksi\u011dis, maltrankvili\u011dis, diris:\n\"Nu, kio? \u0108u li ne eskapis?\"\nNea kapskuo.\n\"\u0108u ne? Kio okazis tial?\"\nLa kontento en la envolvita viza\u011do ankora\u016d pliklari\u011dis. La viro strebis murmura\u0109i kelkajn vortojn\u2014sensukcese; penadis esprimi ion per la malhelpitaj manoj\u2014malsukcesis; pa\u016dzis momenton, tiam klinis malforte la kapon en signifocela maniero, en la direkto al la kadavro ku\u015danta la plej proksime al li.\n\"\u0108u mortinta?\" mi demandis. \"\u0108u ne sukcesis eskapi? \u0108u kaptita fu\u011dante kaj pafita?\"\nCetera kapskuo nea.\n\"Tial, kiel?\"\nDenove la viro entreprenis fari ion permane. Mi zorge atentis sed ne sukcesis diveni la celon. Mi anta\u016denklini\u011dis kaj rigardis e\u0109 pli zorge. Li \u0109irka\u016dtordis dikfingron kaj per \u011di malforte pikis la bruston.\n\"Ho, \u0109u vi volas diri: ponardita?\"\nJesa kapmovo, akompanite de fantoma rideto de tioma diableco ke \u011di ek\u015daltis veklumon en mia malakra cerbo kaj mi kriegis:\n\"\u0108u ponardis lin mi, lin preninte por vi? \u0108ar tiu pikbato celis ununure vin!\"\nLa jesa kapmovo de la denove mortanta fripono estis tiel \u011doja kiel lia mankanta fortiko kapablis elmontri.\n\"Ho, mizera, mizera mi, mortiginte la kompatan personon kiu amiki\u011dis kun miaj karuloj kiam ili estis senhelpaj kaj kiu ilin servintus se li povintus! Mizera, ho, mizera, mizera mi!\"\nMi imagis a\u016ddi la dampitan glugleton de primoka rido. Mi eligis la viza\u011don de \n inter la manoj kaj vidis mian malamikon malanta\u016densinki sur sian klintabulon.\nNecesis al li sufi\u0109e longa tempo por morti. Li disponis mirindan vitalecon, surprizan konstitucion. Jes, li pasigis pla\u0109e longan tempon pri la afero. Mi alportis se\u011don kaj \u0135urnalon, sidi\u011dis apud li kaj legis. De tempo al tempo mi trinketis brandon. Tion mi bezonis pro la malvarmo. Sed mi trinketis anka\u016d pro tio ke, en la komenco, kiam mi etendis la manon por alpreni la botelon, li supozis ke mi celas havigi iom al li. Mi legis la\u016dtvo\u0109e: \u0109efe fantaziajn raportojn pri homoj ur\u011de forkaptitaj de sur la tombosojlo kaj revenigitaj al vivo kaj viglo pere de kelkaj kulerplenoj da likvoro kaj varma bano. Jes, li pasigis longan malfacilan tempon mortante: tri horojn, ses minutojn, ekde la momento kiam li a\u016ddigis la sonorilon.\nLa\u016d onia opinio, dum la dek ok jaroj forpasintaj ekde kiam iniciati\u011dis tiu kadavrogvatado, nenia en tuko envolvita gasto de la Bavariaj mortodomoj iam sonorigis sian sonorilon. Nu, tio estas sen\u011dena opinio. \u011ci restu tia.\nLa malvarmo de la morto\u0109ambro jam penetris miajn ostojn. \u011ci revigligis kaj retrudis al mi la malsanon anta\u016de min afliktintan sed kiu, \u011dis la koncerna nokto, konstante kaj ade malaperis. Tiu viro murdis mian edzinon kaj mian infanon. Kaj post tri tagoj li aldonintos mian nomon al sia murdolisto. Ne gravas! Dio! Kiel bonsapora estas la memora\u0135o pri tio. Mi kaptoatingis lin eskapantan el sia tombo kaj lin re\u015dovis en \u011din!\nPost tiu nokto mi devis enliti\u011di dum tuta semajno. Sed ekde kiam mi povis iom rondiradi, mi konsultis la mortodomajn registrolibrojn kaj eksciis la numeron de la domo en kiu Adlero mortis. Mizera pensiona\u0109o tiu estis. Mi konceptis la ideon ke kompreneble li akirintus la personajn hava\u0135ojn de Krugero, estante la kuzo de tiu, kaj mi deziris obteni la horlo\u011don de Krugero se eblus al mi. Tamen dum mi estis malsana la poseda\u0135ojn de Adlero oni forvendis kaj dislokis, krom pluraj malnovaj leteroj kaj ceteraj senvaloraj diversa\u0135oj. Tamen, pere de tiuj leteroj, mi spurtrovis filon de Krugero, la nuran restantan parencon lian. Tridekjara nun, li estas faka \u015duisto kaj lo\u011das \u0109e Numero 14 Re\u011dostrato en Manhejmo. Vidvo, li havas plurajn junajn gefilojn. Sen klarigi al li la kialon de tio, konstante ekde tiam mi provizas lin per du trionoj el lia financa subteno.\nNu, rilate al tiu horlo\u011do\u2014vidu kiom strange evoluas la aferoj! Mi \u0109irka\u016dspuris \u011din en Germanio dum pli ol jaro je granda mon- kaj \u0109agrenkosto. Kaj finfine mi ekhavis \u011din! Ekhavis \u011din kaj nedireble ek\u011doji\u011dis. Malfermis \u011din kaj nenion trovis interne. Ho, mi devintus anta\u016dscii ke tiu paperpeceto ne restos tie \u0109iun tiun tempon. Kompreneble, mi rezignis pensi pri la dek mil dolaroj tiam. Rezignis tion kaj forigis \u011din el mia menso. Kaj ege mal\u011doje, \u011din dezirinte por la filo de Krugero.\nHiera\u016dnokte, kiam finfine mi konsentis pri mia neevitebla morto, mi komencis pretigi miajn hava\u0135ojn. Mi entreprenis bruligi \u0109iujn senutilajn dokumentojn kaj certege, de inter la dokumentoj de Adlero ne anta\u016de zorge kontrolitaj elfalis tiu longe dezirata peceto. Tuj mi \u011din rekonis. Jen \u011di. Mi \u011din tradukos:\nBrika lustablo, mezurbe, angule de Orleano- kaj Merkato-Stratoj. Angulo \n alfrontanta urbodomon. Tria \u015dtono, kvara vico. Tien en\u015dovu mesa\u011don dirantan kiom alvenos.\nJen. Prenu kaj konservu \u011din! Krugero klarigis ke tiu \u015dtono formoveblas, kaj ke \u011di estas en la norda muro de la fundamento, kvaravice ekde la supro, tria\u015dtone ekde la okcidento. La mono ka\u015di\u011das malanta\u016d \u011di. Li diris ke la lasta frazo estas trompa\u0135o por devojigi okaze ke la papero enfalu mal\u011dustajn manojn. Sendube \u011di plenumis tiun funkcion por Adlero.\nNun mi deziras petegi ke kiam vi faros vian proponitan voja\u011don la\u016d la rivero, vi spurtrovu tiun ka\u015ditan monon kaj sendu \u011din al Adamo Krugero, \u0109e la Manhejma adreso kiun mi menciis. \u011ci ri\u0109uligos lin kaj mi dormos des pli trankvile en mia tombo sciante ke mi faris mian plejon por la filo de la viro kiu klopodis savi miajn edzinon kaj infanon\u2014kvankam mia mano senscie lin mortigis, kontra\u016de al la impulso de mia koro kiu preferintus lin \u015dirmi kaj savi.\n\n\"Tia estis la rakonto de Ritero,\" mi diris al miaj du amikoj. Esti\u011dis profunda kaj impona silento kiu da\u016dris ne mallongan tempon. Tiam amba\u016d viroj estigis pafadon da ekscititaj kaj admiraj ekkrioj pri la strangaj eventoj de la rakonto. Kaj tio, kune kun klakadanta fluego da demandoj kiu da\u016dre persistis \u011dis \u0109iuj partneroj preska\u016d senspiri\u011dis. Tiam miaj amikoj komencis renormali\u011di kaj retiri\u011di, sub\u015dirme de kelkfojaj vortpafoj, en silenton kaj abisman revadon. Dum dek minutoj nun a\u016ddi\u011dis nur silento. Tiam Ro\u011dero diris reveme:\n\"Dek mil dolaroj!\" Aldonante, post pa\u016dzego:\n\"Dek mil. Tio estas vera monamaso.\"\nBalda\u016d la poeto demandis:\n\"\u0108u vi celas sendi \u011din al li tujege?\"\n\"Jes,\" mi diris. \"Tio estas stranga demando.\"\nNenia respondo. Post iom da tempo, Ro\u011dero demandis heziteme:\n\"\u0108u la tutan sumon? Tio estas\u2014mi volas diri\u2014\"\n\"Certege, la tutan sumon.\"\nMi estis dironta pli, sed haltis\u2014haltis pro pensadsinsekvo naski\u011dinta en mi. Tompsono parolis sed mia menso estis for kaj mi ne a\u016ddkaptis lian dira\u0135on. Sed mi a\u016ddis Ro\u011deron respondi:\n\"Jes. Tia \u011di \u015dajnas al mi. Tio devus ege sufi\u0109i. Mi opinias ke li nenion faris.\"\nBalda\u016d la poeto diris:\n\"Kiam vi pripensas la aferon, tio pli ol sufi\u0109as. Vi nur konsideru! Kvin mil dolaroj! Nu, li ne kapablus elspezi tion en la da\u016drotempo de sia vivo. Kaj tio lin difektus, aldone. Eble e\u0109 lin ruinigus. Vi konsideru tion. Post malmulte da tempo li for\u0135etus la restintan monon, fermus sian butikon, eble komencus drinkadi, mistraktus siajn senpatrinajn infanojn, sinkus en ceterajn malboncelajn irvojojn, progresus la\u016dvice de malbono al plimalbono\u2014\"\n\"Jes, vi pravas,\" interrompis Ro\u011dero fervore. \"Mi jam vidis tion cent fojojn. \n Jes, pli ol cent fojojn. Vi metu monon en la manojn de tia viro nur se vi deziras lin detrui, tio estas fakto. Vi nur metu monon en liajn manojn, necesas fari nenion ceteran. Kaj se tio ne malaltigas lin kaj lin senutiligas kaj lin senigas je \u0109iu memestimo kaj \u0109io, tiam mi ne konas la homan naturon\u2014\u0109u ne, Tompsono? Kaj e\u0109 se ni transdonus al li trionon el \u011di; nu, en malpli ol ses monatoj\u2014\"\n\"Malpli ol ses semajnoj, vi diru,\" respondis mi, eksciti\u011dante kaj interrompante. \"Escepte se li metus tiun tri-mil-dolaran sumon en sekurajn manojn kie li ne povus \u011din ektu\u015di, ne pli ol ses semajnoj forpasus anta\u016d ol\u2014\"\n\"Certege, ne pli ol ses semajnoj!\" diris Tompsono. \"Mi redaktis librojn por tiuspecaj homoj kaj en la momento mem kiam ili enmanigas sian tantiemon\u2014eble temas pri tri mil, eble du mil\u2014\"\n\"Kial tiu \u015duisto rajtas disponi du mil dolarojn, pla\u0109us al mi ekscii?\" Ro\u011dero interrompis serioze. \"Viro eble nepre kontenta nun, tie en Manhejmo, \u0109irka\u016date de samranguloj, man\u011dante sian panon kun tiu apetito kiun povas estigi nur laborema entreprenado, \u011duante sian modestan vivon, honesta, justa, purkora, kaj benita! Jes, mi diru 'benita' super la miriadoj \u0109irka\u016dirantaj en silkaj vesta\u0135oj, la\u016dpromenantaj la malplenan artefaritan rondvojon de socia malsa\u011deco. Sed vi nur metu la koncernan tenton anta\u016d li nuran fojon! Vi nur metu dek kvin cent dolarojn anta\u016d tia viro kaj diru\u2014\"\n\"Dek kvin cent diablojn!\" mi protestis. \"Kvin cent putrigus liajn principojn, paralizus lian entreprenadon, trenus lin al la rumvendejo, de tie \u011dis la defluilo, de tie \u011dis la almozdomo, de tie \u011dis\u2014\"\n\"Kial trudi al ni mem tiun krimon, sinjoroj?\" interrompis la poeto serioze kaj alloge. \"Li estas feli\u0109a tie kie li estas ke tia kia li estas. \u0108iu sento pri honoro, \u0109iu sento pri karitato, \u0109iu sento pri alta kaj sankta bonvolo nin avertas, nin petegas, nin ordonas lin lasi en sen\u011deno. Jen vera amikeco, jen a\u016dtenta amikeco. Ni povus funkciigi aliajn rimedojn pli pompajn. Sed nenian tiel vere komplezan kaj sa\u011dan, kredu min.\"\nPost iom da da\u016dra diskutado, evidenti\u011dis ke \u0109iu el ni, en la profundo de sia koro, sentis kelkajn dubojn pri tiu aran\u011do pri la afero. Klarege estis ke \u0109iuj sentis la devon sendi al la kompatinda \u015duisto ion. Esti\u011dis longa kaj pripensa diskuto pri tiu punkto kaj finfine ni elektis sendi al li kolorlitografon.\nNu, post kiam \u0109io la\u016d\u015dajne bonordi\u011dis por \u0109iuj partoprenantoj, elstari\u011dis nova \u011deno. Okazis ke tiuj du viroj celis dividi la monon egalparte kun mi. Mi ne samopiniis. Mi diris ke ili povos sin taksi bon\u015dancaj se ili kunricevos duonon el la mono. Ro\u011dero diris:\n\"Kiu estintus iel ajn bon\u015danca se ne partoprenintus en la afero mi? Estis mi kiu faris la unuan sugeston. Sen mi \u0109io irintus al la \u015duisto.\"\nTompsono diris ke li mem pripensis la aferon jam en la sama momento kiam Ro\u011dero unue parolis.\nMi replikis ke la sugesto naski\u011dintus \u0109e mi sufi\u0109e balda\u016d kaj sen la helpo de iu ajn. Mi estas malrapida pensanto eble, sed fidinda.\nLa debato varmi\u011dis en kverelon, tiam en batalon. \u0108iu viro ekvundi\u011dis iom forte. Post min iom kuraci, la\u016d mia maniero, mi supreniris en malbona\u0109a humoro \n al la uraganferdeko. Mi renkontis Kapitanon Makordon tie kaj diris, tiel pla\u0109e kiel permesis mia humoro:\n\"Mi alvenas por adia\u016di, Kapitano. Mi deziras alteri\u011di \u0109e Napoleono.\"\n\"Vi deziris alteri\u011di kie?\"\n\"\u0108e Napoleono.\"\nLa kapitano ekridis sed, ekkonsciinte ke mi ne estas en gaja humoro, li \u0109esis ridi kaj diris:\n\"Sed \u0109u vi seriozas?\"\n\"Mi jes ja tre seriozas.\"\nLa kapitano rigardis la supranivelan navigejon kaj diris:\n\"Li deziras elboati\u011di \u0109e Napoleono!\"\n\"\u0108u \u0109e Napoleono?\"\n\"Tiel li diras.\"\n\"La\u016d la fantomego de Cezaro!\"\nOnklo Mumfordo alproksimi\u011dis la\u016d la ferdeko. La kapitano diris:\n\"Onklo, jen amiko via kiu deziras elboati\u011di \u0109e Napoleono!\"\n\"Nu, la\u016d\u2014!\"\nMi diris:\n\"Bonvolu, pri kio temas \u0109io tio? \u0108u viro ne rajtas alteri\u011di \u0109e Napoleono se tion li deziras?\"\n\"Nu, damnu, \u0109u vi ne scias? Ne plu ekzistas Napoleono. Jam de jaroj kaj jaroj \u011di ne plu ekzistas. Arkansaso-Rivero \u011din krevis, \u011din \u0109ifonigis, \u011din for\u015dovis en Misisipo-Riveron!\"\n\"\u0108u forbalais la tutan urbon? \u0108u bankojn, pre\u011dejojn, malliberejojn, \u0135urnalajn redaktejojn, urbodomon, teatron, fajrobrigadejon, lustablon\u2014\u0109u \u0109ion?\"\n\"\u0108ion. Nur dekkvinminuta tasko, a\u016d simila\u0135o. Postlasis de la urbo nek ha\u016dton nek haron, nek \u015dira\u0135on nek \u015dindon krom la malanta\u016da ekstrema\u0135o de iu doma\u0109eto kaj unu brika fumtubo. En la nuna momento nia boato padelnavigas en la mezo mem de la anta\u016da starloko de la urbo. Jen fore estas la brika fumtubo\u2014la ununura resta\u0135o de la urbo. Tiu densa arbaro \u0109e la dekstra flanko situis anta\u016de mejlon for de la urbo. Rigardu malanta\u016d vi, kontra\u016dflue. Nun vi komencas rekoni la pejza\u011don, \u0109u ne?\"\n\"Jes, mi jes ja \u011din rekonas nun. Tio estas la plej mirinda afero kiun mi iam pria\u016ddis. De multege la plej mirinda kaj la plej neatendita.\"\nS-ro Tompsono kaj S-ro Ro\u011dero jam alvenis, intertempe, kun valizoj kaj ombreloj kaj a\u016dskultis silente la nova\u0135on de la kapitano. Tompsono metis duondolaron en mian manon kaj diris malla\u016dte:\n\"Por mia porcio de la kolorlitografo.\"\nRo\u011dero agis same.\nJes, mirindege estis vidi Misisipo-Riveron ruli\u011di inter senhomaj bordoj rekte super la loko kie anta\u016d dudek jaroj mi kutimis vidi bonan grandan memkontentan urbeton. Urbeton kiu estis sidejo de granda kaj grava konteo. Urbeton kun granda Usona marsoldatara malsanulejo. Urbeton kiu havis sennombrajn batalojn kun \u0109iutaga \n enketo. Urbeton kie anta\u016de mi konis la plej belan kaj la plej talentan knabinon de la tuta Misisipo-valo. Urbeton kie ni ricevis la unuan presitan nova\u0135on pri la lamentinda katastrofo de batal\u015dipo Pensilvanio anta\u016d kvaronjarcento. Urbeton ne plu ekzistantan, englutitan, forsinkintan nutradi la fi\u015dojn. Urbeton de kiu restas nenio krom ero de doma\u0109eto kaj dispeci\u011danta brika fumtubo!\nLA FIFAMA SALTANTA RANO DE KALAVERO-KONTEO\nKonforme al peto de amiko skribinta al mi el Oriento, mi vizitis afablan paroleman maljunan Simonon Hveleron kaj enketis pri amiko de mia amiko, Leonido V. Smilejo, responde al la peto, kaj mi \u0109i tie alfiksas la rezulta\u0135on. Mi sentas ka\u015ditan suspekton ke Leonido V. Smilejo estas mito; ke mia amiko neniam konis tian personon; kaj ke li nur hipotezis ke se mi demandus al Hvelero pri li, tio memorigus al la multa\u011dulo sian fifaman Ja\u0109jon  Smilejon, kaj li ekoficus, enuigante min per kelkaj agacantaj tiurilataj rememora\u0135oj tiel longaj kaj tedaj kiel senutilaj por mi. Se tio estis la celo, okazis sukceso.\nMi trovis Simonon Hveleron en komforta dormetado apud la servo\u0109ambra stovo de la kadukinta drinkejo de mortanta mineja kampadejo nomi\u011danta \u0108e-An\u011delo kaj konstatis ke li estas dika kaj kalva kaj portas sur sia trankvila viza\u011do mienon de \u0109armaj mildeco kaj simpleco. Li veki\u011dis kaj salutis, dezirante al mi bonan tagon. Mi diris al li ke amiko mia petis ke mi enketu pri kara kamarado de lia knabeco nomi\u011danta Leonido V. Smilejo\u2014Pastoro Leonido V. Smilejo, juna predikisto pri la Biblia mesa\u011do la\u016draporte lo\u011dinta anta\u016de en \u0108e-An\u011delo. Mi aldonis ke, se S-ro Hvelero scipovos informi min pri tiu Pastoro Leonido V. Smilejo, mi \u015duldos al li multajn reciprokajn komplezojn.\nSimono Hvelero malanta\u016denirigis min en angulon kaj blokadis min tie per sia se\u011do, tiam sidi\u011dis kaj evoluadigis la tedan rakonton sekvontan \u0109i tiun alineon. Li neniam ridetis, neniam kuntiris la brovojn, neniam senigis la vo\u0109on je la mildaritma tonalo al kiu li agordis sian komencan frazon, neniam elmontris la plej etan indicon pri entuziasmo. Tamen la\u016d la tuta longo de la senfina rakonto kuris vejno da imponaj seriozo kaj sincero komprenigantaj klarscie al mi ke, anstata\u016d imagi ke lia rakonto ampleksas ridindan a\u016d absurdan temaron, li taksas \u011din vere grava afero kaj admiras ties du heroojn kiel virojn disponantajn transcendan genion pri altnivela lerteco. Mi lasis lin da\u016drigi siamaniere la rakontadon, neniam lin interrompante ununuran fojon.\n\"Pastoro Leonido V.\u2014Ho, nu, Pastoro Leo\u2014Nu, foje \u0109eestis \u0109i tie ulo nomi\u011danta Ja\u0109jo Smilejo, en la vintro de '49, a\u016d eble estis la printempo de '50\u2014mi ne memoras precize, iel, kvankam la kialo pro kiu mi opinias ke estis unu a\u016d la alia estas tio ke mi memoras ke la klintrogego ankora\u016d ne estis finkonstruita kiam li alvenis la kampadejon. Tamen li estis la plej stranga ulo kiun oni iam vidis kiam temis pri \u0109iam veti pri kio ajn sursceneji\u011das kondi\u0109e ke li sukcesu instigi iun veti pri la kontra\u016da flanko, kaj se ne, li mem \u015dan\u011dis vetflankon. Pla\u0109is al li iu ajn aran\u011do pla\u0109anta al la kontra\u016dvetanto. Se li nur sukcesus starigi veton, li kontenti\u011dis. Tamen li estis bon\u015danca, malkutime bon\u015danca. Preska\u016d \u0109iam li venkis. Li estis \u0109iam preta kaj atendanta oportunon. Kion ajn oni menciis, li proponis priveti \u011din kaj priveti iun ajn flankon, la\u016d via deziro, kiel mi \u0135us menciis. Se okazis vetkuro por \u0109evaloj, je ties fini\u011do vi trovis lin multri\u0109igita a\u016d nepre senmonigita. Se okazis hundobatalo, li vetis \n pri \u011di. Se okazis katbatalo, \u011din li privetis. Se okazis kokbatalo, li \u011din privetis. Nu, se du birdoj sidis sur barilo, li vetis pri kiu el ili forflugos anta\u016d la alia. Kaj se okazis evangeliza kunveno, li \u0109eestis \u011din senmanke por veti pri Pastoro Valkero kiu estis, la\u016d lia takso, la plej bona oratoro de la regiono, kaj tia li estis certe, kaj bona viro. Kaj se li vidis krampkrur-insekton eksurvoji\u011di en iu ajn direkto, li vetis pri kiom da tempo la besteto bezonos por atingi sian cellokon\u2014kiu ajn estu la loko. Kaj se vi konsentis priveti kontra\u016d li, li konsentis postsekvi tiun krampkrur-insekton \u011dis Meksikio por ekscii kien \u011di celas iri kaj dum kiom da tempo \u011di estos survoje. Multaj el la knaboj de \u0109i tie vidis tiun Smilejon kaj kapablas raporti al vi pri li. Nu, entute egalis al li\u2014li bonvolis veti pri io ajn\u2014la la\u016ddamne plej stranga ulo. La edzino de Pastoro Valkero malsanis foje, dum multe da tempo, kaj \u015dajnis ke oni ne sukcesos \u015din savi. Tamen iun matenon li eniris kaj Smilejo ekdemandis al li kiel \u015di fartas kaj li diris ke \u015di fartas iom pli bone nun\u2014danke al Nia Sinjoro pro Lia senfina kompato\u2014kaj progresas tiel favore ke, kun la beno de Providenco, \u015di finfine resani\u011dos kaj Smilejo, anta\u016d ol pripensi la aferon, diris: 'Nu, mi vetas je du dolaroj kaj duono ke ne.' <!-- Changed\n   doublequotes to singlequotes for consistency. -->\n\"\u0108i tiu \u0109i Smilejo havis \u0109evalinon\u2014la knaboj kromnomis \u015din la 'dekkvinminuta\u0135o' <!-- Changed\n   doublequotes to singlequotes for consistency. --> sed ili faris tion nur por \u015derci, vi scias, \u0109ar kompreneble \u015di estis pli rapida ol tio\u2014kaj li ofte vetgajnis monon pri tiu \u0109evalina\u0109o, malgra\u016d tio ke \u015di estis tiel malrapida kaj \u0109iam suferis pro astmo a\u016d tempro a\u016d ftizo a\u016d io simila. Kutime ili \u0109iam cedis al \u015di du-tricent-jardan frustarton kaj tiam preterpasis \u015din survoje. Tamen \u0109e la finfini\u011do de la konkurso \u015di eksciti\u011dis kaj fari\u011dis kvaza\u016d ur\u011dpelata kaj komencis anta\u016denkaprioli kaj lar\u011de disapartigi la gambojn, etendante la krurojn facilartike, foje en la aeron, foje vojoflanken en la direkto al la bariloj kaj suprenlevante piedbate tr-o-o-n da polvo kaj estigante tr-o-o-n da brua\u0109ego pro tusado kaj ternado kaj mungado\u2014kaj \u0109iam atingi la venkobudon kun \u0109irka\u016d kololonga anta\u016deco, la\u016d la plej bona takso.\n\"Kaj li havis etan malgrandan buldogidon kiu, kiam vi \u011din rigardis, \u015dajnis tute senvalora, kapabla nur sidadi kun feroca aspekto, atendante bonan \u015dancon por \u015dtelpreni ion. Tamen tuj post kiam oni privetis \u011din, \u011di fari\u011dis tute alia hundo. \u011cia submentono komencis elstari kiel vaporboata te\u016dgo kaj \u011diaj dentoj malkovri\u011dis kaj ekbrilis kiel altfornoj. Kaj se cetera hundo \u011din atakis kaj \u011din skuis \u0109ifona\u0109e kaj mordis \u011din kaj lan\u0109is \u011din du-trifoje trans la \u015dultron, Andreo \u011caksono\u2014tio estis la nomo de la hundido\u2014Andreo \u011caksono \u0109iam \u015dajnigis propran kontenti\u011don, kvaza\u016d atendinte nenion alian\u2014rezulte de kio la vetoj da\u016dre kaj reda\u016dre duobli\u011dis kaj reduobli\u011dis en la kontra\u016da flanko, \u011dis kiam \u0109iuj finvetis. Tiam subitege li alkro\u0109is tiun alian hundon perbu\u015de \u0135us <!-- Error in book: ju&#349;\n   --> \u0109e la artiko de ties malanta\u016da kruro kaj tenis \u011din en seninterrompa frosti\u011do. Li ne ma\u0109a\u0109is, vi komprenu, nur bu\u015dtenis kaj persistegis \u011dis kiam ili koncedis la venkon, e\u0109 se temis pri tutjara da\u016drotempo. Smilejo \u0109iam gajnis la vetpremion helpe de tiu hundido \u011dis kiam la besto devis konkursi kontra\u016d hundo perdinta siajn malanta\u016dajn krurojn forsegitajn per disksegilo, kaj kiam la vetado atingis finan punkton kaj la mono jam ku\u015dis surgrunde kaj Andreo \u011caksono ekpretis efektivigi sian plej \u015datatan alkro\u0109manovron, tujege li konsciis kiel oni lin supertrompis kaj kiel la alia \n hundo lin kontra\u016dmurenigis, por tiel diri, kaj li aspektis surprizite kaj tiam li aspektis iom malkura\u011digite kaj \u0109esis penadi gajni la venkon kaj fini\u011dis tute fintrompite. Li direktis rigardon al Smilejo, kvaza\u016d por diri ke lia koro estas rompita kaj ke la kulpinto estis la mastro pro konsenti priveti kontra\u016d hundo kiu ne havas malanta\u016dajn krurojn al kiuj oni povas alkro\u0109i, kio en batalo estis lia \u0109efa atakmanovro, kaj tiam li iom foriris lampa\u015de, sin ku\u015digis kaj mortis. Bonega hundido estis tiu Andreo \u011caksono kiu sin famigintus se \u011di sukcesintus travivi, \u0109ar \u011din enestis bona konsistiga\u0135o kaj genio. Tion mi scias, \u0109ar anta\u016de \u011di disponis neniajn apartajn priparolindajn oportunojn kaj estas mallogike ke hundo povas batali tiel sukcese en tiaj cirkonstancoj se \u011di ne havas talenton. \u0108iam mi ekbeda\u016dras pensante pri tiu lasta batalo \u011dia kaj ties fini\u011do.\n\"Nu, \u0109i tiu \u0109i Smilejo havis rathundojn kaj virkokojn kaj virkatojn kaj \u0109iujn tiajn speca\u0135ojn \u011dis senripozigi vin kaj vi ne povus alporti al li priveta\u0135on kontra\u016d kiu li ne kapablus kontra\u016dstarigi sama\u0135on. Iun tagon li kaptis ranon kaj hejmenportis \u011din kaj diris intenci \u011din klerigi. Tial dum tri monatoj li faris nenion ceteran krom sidi en sia malanta\u016ddoma \u011dardeno kaj lernigi saltadon al tiu rano. Kaj estu certa ke li jes ja lernigis \u011din. Li kutimis iom \u015doveti la ranon de malanta\u016de kaj en la sekvinta minuto vi vidis la ranon kirli\u011dadi en la aero kiel pastoringo, vin vidis efektivigi transkapi\u011don, a\u016d eble paron da ili, se li sukcesigis bonan starton, kaj retereni\u011di platpiede kaj bonsane, kiel kato. Li alkutimigis la ranon al tiaspeca saltado lernante al \u011di kiel kapti mu\u015dojn kaj trejnis \u011din tiurilate tiel konstante ke la besteto sukcesis trafi mu\u015don \u0109iun fojon kiam la insekto eniris \u011dian vidkampon. Smilejo diris ke mankas al la rano nur ta\u016dga edukado por ke \u011di povu fari ion ajn\u2014kaj mi kredas lin. Nu, mi vidis lin meti Danielon Vebsteron \u0109i tien sur \u0109i tiun plankon\u2014Danielo Vebstero estis la nomo de la rano\u2014kaj ekkriegi, 'Mu\u015doj, Da\u0109jo, mu\u015doj!'\u2014kaj pli rapide ol vi povas palpebrumi \u011di suprensaltis vertikallinie kaj forlekegis la mu\u015don de sur la tablo kaj refala\u0109is surplanken tiel solide kiel kotbulo kaj komencis grati la kapoflankon kun malanta\u016da piedo tute apatie kvaza\u016d ne konsciante esti farinta pli ol kutimas fari iu ajn rano. Vi neniam vidis ranon tiel modestan kaj honestan malgra\u016d ties grandaj talentoj. Kaj kiam temis pri honesta kaj senruza saltado sur ebena plata\u0135o, \u011di kapablis atingi pli grandan distancon en ununura salto ol iu ajn besto de sia speco iam vidita de vi. Saltado sur ebena plata\u0135o estis \u011dia speciala\u0135o, vi komprenu, kaj kiam temis pri tio Smilejo bonvole vetis monon pri \u011di \u011dis restis al li nenia plua cendo. Smilejo fieregis pri sia rano kaj li tute rajtis fieregi \u0109ar uloj voja\u011dintaj \u0109ien kaj estintaj \u0109ie diris \u0109iuj senescepte ke la besto superas \u0109iun ajn ranon iam viditan de ili.\n\"Nu, Smilejo tenis la beston en lata\u0135a skatoleto kaj foje li kunportis \u011din en la kampadejocentron kaj proponis \u011din kiel monvetobjekton. Iun tagon ulo\u2014nekonato en la kampadejo\u2014renkontis lin kun lia skatoleto kaj diris:\n\"'Kio povus esti tio kion vi tenas en la skatoleto?'\n\"Kaj Smilejo respondas, iom indiferente, 'Povus esti papago, a\u016d povus esti kanario, eble, tamen ne estas tia\u0135o. Nur rano \u011di estas.'\n\"Kaj la ulo prenis \u011din kaj okulkontrolis \u011din zorge kaj turnis \u011din en diversaj direktoj kaj diris: 'Nu, vi pravas. Do, por kiu \u011di utilas?'\n\"'Nu,' diris Smilejo, trankvile kaj senzorge, '\u011di utilas por unu afero, mi opinias. \u011ci kapablas pretersalti iun ajn ranon de Kalavero-Konteo.'\n\"La ulo reprenis la skatolon, direktis novan longan apartan rigardon al \u011di, retransdonis \u011din al Smilejo kaj diras meditege: 'Nu,' li diras, 'mi vidas neniajn ecojn \u0109e tiu rano kapablajn plibonigi \u011din rilate al aliaj ranoj.'\n\"'Eble vi ne vidas ilin,' diras Smilejo. 'Eble vi konas ranojn kaj eble vi malkonas ilin. Eble vi estas spertulo pri tio kaj eble vi ne estas nura amatoro tiurilate, por tiel diri. Tamen, opinion mian mi havas kaj kura\u011das veti kvardek dolarojn pri \u011dia kapablo pretersalti iun ajn ranon de Kalavero-Konteo.'\n\"Kaj la ulo primeditis momenton, tiam diras, en iom malfeli\u0109a maniero, 'Nu, mi estas nur fremdulo \u0109i tie kaj ne havas ranon, sed se ranon mi havus, mi bonvolus priveti kontra\u016d vi.'\n\"Kaj tiam Smilejo diras, 'Ne gravas\u2014ne gravas\u2014se vi bonvolos teni mian skatoleton momenton, mi iros akiri ranon por vi.' Tial la ulo prenis la skatolon kaj metis siajn kvardek dolarojn apud tiujn de Smilejo kaj sidi\u011dis por atendi.\n\"Tial li sidis tie dum iom longa tempo pensante kaj repensante pri la afero kaj tiam li eligis la ranon, levstangumis ties bu\u015don kaj prenis kafkuleron kaj plenigis la besteton je koturnkugleta\u0135oj\u2014\u011din plenigis \u011dis preska\u016d la mentono\u2014kaj surplankenigis \u011din. Smilejo, siaflanke, aliris la mar\u0109on kaj vagser\u0109is dum longa tempo en la kota\u0109o kaj finfine mankaptis ranon kaj \u011din revenportis kaj transdonis al la ulo, kaj diras:\n\"'Nu, se vi pretas, metu \u011din apud Danielon, kun \u011diaj anta\u016dpiedoj en paralela pozo kun tiuj de Danielo, kaj mi diros la signalvorton.' Tiam li diras, 'Unu\u2014du\u2014tri\u2014eku! kaj li kaj la ulo ektu\u015dis la ranojn de malanta\u016de kaj la nova rano forsaltis vigle sed Da\u0109jo faris klopodegon kaj kuntiris la \u015dultrojn\u2014tiel\u2014kiel Franca viro\u2014sed sensukcese\u2014li ne povis ekmovi\u011di. Li restis fiksite tiel solide kiel pre\u011dejo kaj ne pli kapablis ekiri ol ankrita \u015dipo. Smilejo estis iom surprizita kaj e\u0109 na\u016dzigita sed kompreneble li havis nenian ideon pri kio temas.\n\"La ulo prenis la vetmonon kaj komencis foriri. Kaj kiam li estis sur la pordosojlo li iom skumovis la dikfingron trans\u015dultren\u2014tiel\u2014en la direkto al Da\u0109jo, kaj rediris, tre egalritme, 'Nu,' li diras, 'mi vidas neniajn ecojn \u0109e tiu rano kapablajn plibonigi \u011din rilate al aliaj ranoj.'\n\"Smilejo, li staris gratante la kapon kaj malsuprenrigardante Da\u0109jon dum longa tempo, kaj finfine li diras, 'Mi jes ja priscivolas kio ajn en la lando estus povinta malebligi tiun ranon\u2014mi scivolas \u0109u eble \u011di spertas iuspecan \u011denon\u2014\u015dajnas al mi ke \u011di estas iom pufigita.' Kaj li alkro\u0109is Da\u0109jon per la kolnuko kaj levis \u011din kaj diras, 'Nu, kulpigu miajn katojn se \u011di ne pezas kvin funtojn!' kaj \u011din renversis kaj la besteto elruktegis duoblan manplenon da kugleta\u0135oj. Kaj tiam li komprenis kio okazis kaj ege koleri\u011dis\u2014li formetis la ranon kaj komencis postkuri la ulon sed neniam lin atingis. Kaj\u2014\"\nEn tiu momento Simono Hvelero a\u016ddis iun alvoki lian nomon en la anta\u016ddoma \u011dardeno kaj stari\u011dis por foriri ekscii pri kio temas. Kaj turni\u011dante al mi, dum li foriris, li diris: \"Restu tie kie vi estas, fremdulo, kaj mallacigu vin, mi estos for nur \n ununuran sekundeton.\"\nSed, kun via permeso, mi ju\u011dis ke da\u016drigo de la historio pri la entreprenema vagabondo Ja\u0109jo Smilejo ne povos disponigi al mi multajn informa\u0135ojn pri Pastoro Leonido V. Smilejo, kaj tial mi survoji\u011dis.\n\u0108e la pordo mi renkontis la afablan Hveleron en revenado kaj li alkro\u0109is min kaj rekomencis:\n\"Nu, \u0109i tiu \u0109i Smilejo havis flavan unuokulan bovinon kiu havis nenian voston, nur mallongan bananaspektan stumpon, kaj\u2014\"\nTamen, disponante nek tempon nek deziron, mi ne restis por a\u016dskulti pri la afliktita bovino sed adia\u016dis kaj foriris.\n\n\nLA RAKONTO PRI LA MALBONKONDUTA KNABETO\nFoje estis malbonkonduta knabeto nomi\u011danta Ja\u0109jo\u2014tamen, se vi bonvolas tion konstati, okazas ke malbonkondutaj knabetoj preska\u016d \u0109iam nomi\u011das Ja\u0109jo en viaj diman\u0109lernejaj instrulibroj. Strange estis, tamen vere, ke \u0109i tiu knabeto nomi\u011dis Ja\u0109jo.\nAnka\u016d li ne havis malsanan patrinon\u2014malsanan patrinon kiu estis pia kaj suferis pro ftizo kaj \u011dojus ku\u015di\u011di en la tombo kaj ripozadi se \u015di ne sentis fortan amon al sia knabo kaj anksiecon ke la mondo fari\u011du kruela kaj malamikema pri li post \u015dia forpaso. Plejparte la malbonkondutaj knaboj de la diman\u0109lernejaj instrulibroj nomi\u011das Jakobo kaj havas malsanajn patrinojn kiuj lernigas al ili kiel diri, \"Nun mi min ku\u015digas,\" ktp., kaj dormigas ilin kantante kun dol\u0109aj plendaj vo\u0109oj kaj tiam kise deziras al ili bonan nokton kaj surgenui\u011das apud la lito kaj ekploras. Sed pri tiu ulo estis malsame. Li nomi\u011dis Ja\u0109jo kaj lia patrino estis tute bonsana\u2014suferis pro nenia ftizo nek alia ajn malsano. \u015ci estis pli dika ol maldika, ne estis pia. Krome, \u015di sentis nenian anksiecon pri Ja\u0109jo. \u015ci diris ke se li rompigus al si la kolon, la perdo ne estus granda. \u015ci \u0109iam deziris bonan nokton al Ja\u0109jo pugfrape, neniam kise. Tute male, kiam \u015di estis preta lin postlasi, \u015di tordis al li la orelojn.\nFoje tiu malbonkonduta knabeto \u015dtelprenis la \u015dlosilon de la man\u011do\u015dranko kaj eniris tien \u015dtelpa\u015de kaj provizis sin per marmelado kaj plenigis la ujon je gudro por ke la patrino neniam prikonsciu la diferencon. Sed subite horora sento ne invadis lin kaj nenio \u015dajnis flustri al li, \"\u0108u estas juste malobei mian patrinon? \u0108u fari tion ne estas peko? Kien foriras malbonkondutaj knabetoj kiuj elman\u011das la marmeladon de sia bona afabla patrino?\" kaj tiam li ne surgenui\u011dis tute sole, promesante neniam plu malbonkonduti kaj stari\u011dis kun malpeza feli\u0109a koro kaj iris konfesi \u0109ion al sia patrino kaj petis ke \u015di lin pardonu kaj ricevis \u015dian benon dum plenigis \u015diajn okulojn larmoj de fiereco kaj dankemo. Ne. Tiel la afero evoluas \u0109e \u0109iuj ceteraj malbonkondutaj knaboj en libroj. Sed tute alimaniere \u011di evoluis \u0109e tiu Ja\u0109jo, malgra\u016d ties strango. Li man\u011dis la marmeladon kaj taksis \u011din \u0109efranga en sia peka kruda maniero; kaj li enigis la gudron kaj taksis anka\u016d tion \u0109efranga kaj ridis kaj rimarkis \"ke la oldulino ekhenos\" kiam \u015di ekscios tion kaj kiam \u015di eksciis efektive tion, li malkonfesis havi informa\u0135ojn pri \u011di kaj \u015di pugfrapis lin severe kaj estis li mem kiu ekploris. \u0108iel tiu knabo estis stranga. \u0108io rezultis malsame \u0109e li ol \u0109e la malbonkondutaj Jakoboj de la libroj.\nFoje li suprengrimpis en la pomarbojn de Kultivisto Akorno por \u015dtelpreni pomojn kaj la bran\u0109ego ne rompi\u011dis kaj li ne falis kaj rompigis al si la brakon, ne sin mordigis per la hundego de la kultivisto, ne malviglis dum semajnoj sur malsanula lito, ne pentis, ne entreprenis ekbonkonduti\u011di. Ho, ne! Li \u015dtelprenis tiom da pomoj kiom li deziris kaj malsuprengrimpis en bona stato. Kaj li estis nepre preta por la hundo anka\u016d kaj renversis \u011din per lan\u0109ita briko kiam tiu atakis lin. Estis ege strange. Simila\u0135o neniam okazis en tiuj mildaj libretoj havantaj jaspitajn kovrilojn kaj bildojn pri viroj \n surportantaj hirundovosta\u0135ajn jakojn kaj sonorilkronitajn \u0109apelojn kaj pantalonojn havantajn malsufi\u0109e longajn krurumojn kaj virinoj kies robtalioj estas subbraknivelaj kaj ne havas subjupajn ringegojn. Nenio simila en iu ajn el la diman\u0109lernejaj libroj.\nFoje li \u015dtelprenis la po\u015dtran\u0109ilon de la instruisto kaj kiam li timis ke la misfaro malkovri\u011du kaj ke la instruisto vipu lin, li \u015dtelmetis \u011din en la kaskedon de Georgo Vilsono\u2014la filo de la kompatinda Vidvino Vilsono, la morala knabo, la bonkonduta knabeto de la vila\u011do kiu \u0109iam obeis al sia patrino, neniam diris mensogojn, \u015datis siajn lecionojn, \u015dategis Diman\u0109-Lernejon. Kaj kiam la tran\u0109ilo terenfalis el la kaskedo kaj la kompatinda Georgo klinis la kapon kaj ru\u011di\u011dis kvaza\u016d agnoskante sian kulpon, kaj la \u0109agrenita instruisto taksis lin kulpa pri la \u015dtelpreno kaj kiam la viro staris apud la knabo, malsuprenigonte la vipon sur la tremantajn \u015dultrojn de tiu, subite aperis meze de ili nenia blankhara malprobabla ju\u011disto de la paco, prenante belan starpozon kaj dirante: \"Liberigu tiun noblan knabon! Jen staras la ka\u016dranta kulpinto! Mi preterpasis la lernejpordon dum la interleciona ludpa\u016dzo kaj, malvidate mi mem, mi vidis fari la \u015dtelprenon!\" Kaj tiam Ja\u0109jo ne ricevis pugbatadon kaj la respektinda ju\u011disto ne deklamis homilion al la plorema lernejanaro kaj ne prenis la manon de Georgo kaj diris ke tia knabo meritas la\u016ddadon kaj tiam ne invitis tiun veni lo\u011di \u0109e li kaj balai la oficejon kaj estigi fajrojn kaj fari irtaskojn kaj haki lignon kaj studi la juron kaj helpi lian edzinon plenumi domtaskojn kaj disponi pri la tuta postrestanta tempo por ludi kaj ricevi \u0109iumonatan kvardekcendosalajron kaj esti feli\u0109a. Ne. En la libroj okazintus tiel sed ne okazis tiel al Ja\u0109jo. Nenia enmiksi\u011dema maljuna pektenaspekta ju\u011disto ekaperis por estigi \u011denojn kaj tial la modelknabo Georgo ricevis pugbatadon kaj Ja\u0109jo feli\u0109is pro tio \u0109ar, vi scias, Ja\u0109jo malamegis moralajn knabojn. Ja\u0109jo diris ke li \"malestimas tiajn mola\u0109ulojn.\" Tia estis la lingva\u0135a\u0109o de tiu malbonkonduta malbonzorgata knabo.\nSed la plej stranga evento iam okazinta al Ja\u0109jo estis la fojo kiam li iris boatadi en diman\u0109o kaj ne sin dronigis kaj tiu cetera fojo kiam \u015dtormo kuratingis lin dum li fi\u015dkaptadis en diman\u0109o kaj ne trafis lin fulmo. Ho, vi povus tralegi \u0109iujn diman\u0109lernejajn instrulibrojn inter nun kaj Kristnasko sen iam malkovri simila\u0135on. Ho, ne! Vi ekscius ke \u0109iuj malbonkondutaj knaboj irantaj boatadi en diman\u0109o senmanke dronas. Kaj \u0109iujn malbonkondutajn knabojn kuratingatajn de \u015dtormoj dum ili fi\u015dkaptadas en diman\u0109o senmanke fulmo trafas. Boatoj veturigantaj malbonkondutajn knabojn \u0109iam renversi\u011das en diman\u0109o kaj \u0109iam okazas \u015dtormoj kiam malbonkondutaj knaboj fi\u015dkaptadas en diman\u0109o. Kiel tiu Ja\u0109jo iam eskapis tian sorton mi taksas nepra mistero.\nTiu Ja\u0109jo \u011duis sor\u0109itan vivon\u2014devas esti tiel. Nenio sukcesis lin difekti. Li e\u0109 transdonis al besto\u011dardena elefanto tabakbulon kaj la elefanto ne forfaligis al li la kapon per rostrobato. Li kontrolis la enhavon de la man\u011do\u015dranko ser\u0109ante pipromentan esencon kaj ne eraris trinkante brandon. Li \u015dtelprenis la pafilon de sia patro kaj iris \u0109asadi en diman\u0109o kaj ne forpafis tri-kvar fingrojn. Li pugnebatis sian fratineton sur la tempion kiam li koleri\u011dis kaj \u015di ne restis en dolorego dum longaj somertagoj kaj ne mortis kun dol\u0109aj surlipaj pardonvortoj kiuj duobligis la angoron de lia rompi\u011danta koro. Ne, \u015di balda\u016d resani\u011dis. Li forfu\u011dis kaj finfine surmari\u011dis kaj kiam li revenis li \n ne estis malfeli\u0109a kaj sola en la mondo kaj liaj gekaruloj ne dormis en la trankvila pre\u011deja tombejo kaj la de grimpoplantoj kovrata lo\u011ddomo de lia knabeco ne falis en kadukecon kaj ruina\u0135ojn. Ho, ne! Li hejmenrevenis tiel ebria kiel sak\u015dalmisto kaj tuj sukcesis ali\u011di al la fajrobrigado.\nKaj li plenkreskuli\u011dis kaj edzi\u011dis kaj naskigis grandan familion kaj sencerbigis ilin \u0109iujn iun nokton per hakilo kaj sin ri\u0109igis uzante diversajn trompa\u0135ojn kaj ruzojn kaj nun li estas la plej infera, plej malica kanajlo de sia naski\u011dvila\u011do kaj estas universale respektata parlamentano.\nTial vi konsciu ke neniam estis malbonkonduta Ja\u0109jo en la diman\u0109lernejaj libroj \u011duinta tian sinsekvon da bon\u015dancoj kiel tiu pekema Ja\u0109jo kun la sor\u0109ita vivo.\n\n\nENHAVO\n\n\n\n\"Konfeso de Mortanto\"\np. 1\n\n\n\"La Fifama Saltanta Rano de Kalavero-Konteo\"\np. 14\n\n\n\"La Rakonto pri la Malbonkonduta Knabeto\"\np. 19\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"1837":"Bowler\n\n\n\n\nTHE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER\n\nby Mark Twain\n\nThe Great Seal\n\nI will set down a tale as it was told to me by one who had it of his\nfather, which latter had it of HIS father, this last having in like\nmanner had it of HIS father--and so on, back and still back, three\nhundred years and more, the fathers transmitting it to the sons and so\npreserving it. \u00a0It may be history, it may be only a legend, a tradition.\nIt may have happened, it may not have happened: \u00a0but it COULD have\nhappened. \u00a0It may be that the wise and the learned believed it in the\nold days; it may be that only the unlearned and the simple loved it and\ncredited it.\n\nCONTENTS\n\n    I.          The birth of the Prince and the Pauper.\n    II.  Tom's early life.\n    III.\u00a0\u00a0  Tom's meeting with the Prince.\n    IV.  The Prince's troubles begin.\n    V.          Tom as a patrician.\n    VI.  Tom receives instructions.\n    VII.\u00a0\u00a0  Tom's first royal dinner.\n    VIII.\u00a0\u00a0  The question of the Seal.\n    IX.  The river pageant.\n    X.          The Prince in the toils.\n    XI.  At Guildhall.\n    XII.  The Prince and his deliverer.\n    XIII.\u00a0\u00a0  The disappearance of the Prince.\n    XIV.  'Le Roi est mort--vive le Roi.'\n    XV.  Tom as King.\n    XVI.  The state dinner.\n    XVII.\u00a0\u00a0  Foo-foo the First.\n    XVIII.\u00a0\u00a0  The Prince with the tramps.\n    XIX.  The Prince with the peasants.\n    XX.  The Prince and the hermit.\n    XXI.  Hendon to the rescue.\n    XXII.  A victim of treachery.\n    XXIII.\u00a0\u00a0  The Prince a prisoner.\n    XXIV.  The escape.\n    XXV.  Hendon Hall.\n    XXVI.  Disowned.\n    XXVII.  In prison.\n    XXVIII.\u00a0\u00a0  The sacrifice.\n    XXIX.  To London.\n    XXX.  Tom's progress.\n    XXXI.  The Recognition procession.\n    XXXII.  Coronation Day.\n    XXXIII.  Edward as King.\n    CONCLUSION. \u00a0  Justice and Retribution.\n    \u00a0  Notes.\n\n\n\n\nILLUSTRATIONS\n\nTHE GREAT SEAL (frontispiece)\n\nTHE BIRTH OF THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER\n\n\"SPLENDID PAGEANTS AND GREAT BONFIRES\"\n\nTOM'S EARLY LIFE\n\nOFFAL COURT\n\n\"WITH ANY MISERABLE CRUST\"\n\n\"HE OFTEN READ THE PRIEST'S BOOKS\"\n\n\"SAW POOR ANNE ASKEW BURNED\"\n\n\"BROUGHT THEIR PERPLEXITIES TO TOM\"\n\n\"LONGING FOR THE PORK-PIES\"\n\nTOM'S MEETING WITH THE PRINCE\n\n\"AT TEMPLE BAR\"\n\n\"LET HIM IN\"\n\n\"HOW OLD BE THESE\n\n\"DOFF THY RAGS, AND DON THESE SPLENDORS\"\u00a0\u00a0\n\n\"I SALUTE YOUR GRACIOUS HIGHNESS!\"\n\nTHE PRINCE'S TROUBLES BEGIN\n\n\"SET UPON BY DOGS\"\n\n\"A DRUNKEN RUFFIAN COLLARED HIM\"\n\nTOM AS A PATRICIAN\n\n\"NEXT HE DREW THE SWORD\"\n\n\"RESOLVED TO FLY\"\n\n\"THE BOY WAS ON HIS KNEES\"\n\n\"NOBLES WALKED UPON EACH SIDE OF HIM\"\n\n\"HE DROPPED UPON HIS KNEES\"\n\n\"HE TURNED WITH JOYFUL FACE\"\n\n\"THE PHYSICIAN BOWED LOW\"\n\n\"THE KING FELL BACK UPON HIS COUCH\"\n\n\"IS THIS MAN TO LIVE FOREVER?\"\n\nTOM RECEIVES INSTRUCTIONS\n\n\"PRITHEE, INSIST NOT\"\n\n\"THE LORD ST. JOHN MADE REVERENCE\"\n\nHERTFORD AND THE PRINCESSES\n\n\"SHE MADE REVERENCE\"\n\n\"OFFERED IT TO HIM ON A GOLDEN SALVER\"\n\n\"THEY MUSED A WHILE\"\n\n\"PEACE MY LORD, THOU UTTEREST TREASON!\"\n\n\"HE BEGAN TO PACE THE FLOOR\"\n\nTOM'S FIRST ROYAL DINNER\n\n\"FASTENED A NAPKIN ABOUT HIS NECK\"\n\n\"TOM ATE WITH HIS FINGERS\"\n\n\"HE GRAVELY TOOK A DRAUGHT\"\n\n\"TOM PUT ON THE GREAVES\"\n\nTHE QUESTION OF THE SEAL\n\n\"EASED HIM BACK UPON HIS PILLOWS\"\n\nTHE RIVER PAGEANT\n\n\"HALBERDIERS APPEARED IN THE GATEWAY\"\n\n\"TOM CANTY STEPPED INTO VIEW\"\n\nTHE PRINCE IN THE TOILS\n\n\"A DIM FORM SANK TO THE GROUND\"\n\n\"WHO ART THOU?\"\n\n\"INTO GOOD WIFE CANTY'S ARMS\"\n\n\"BENT HEEDFULLY AND WARILY OVER HIM\"\n\n\"THE PRINCE SPRANG UP\"\n\n\"HURRIED HIM ALONG THE DARK WAY\"\n\n\"HE WASTE NO TIME\"\n\nAT GUILDHALL\n\n\"A RICH CANOPY OF STATE\"\n\n\"BEGAN TO LAY ABOUT HIM\"\n\n\"LONG LIVE THE KING!\"\n\nTHE PRINCE AND HIS DELIVERER\n\n\"OUR FRIENDS THREADED THEIR WAY\"\n\n\"OBJECT LESSONS\" IN ENGLISH HISTORY\n\n\"JOHN CANTY MOVED OFF\"\n\n\"SMOOTHING BACK THE TANGLED CURLS\"\n\n\"PRITHEE, POUR THE WATER\"\n\n\"GO ON--TELL ME THY STORY\n\n\"THOU HAST BEEN SHAMEFULLY ABUSED\"\n\n\"HE DROPPED ON ONE KNEE\"\n\n\"RISE, SIR MILES HENDON, BARONET\"\n\nTHE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE PRINCE\n\n\"HE DROPPED ASLEEP\"\n\n\"THESE BE VERY GOOD AND SOUND\"\n\n\"EXPLAIN, THOU LIMB OF SATAN\"\n\n\"HENDON FOLLOWED AFTER HIM\"\n\n\"LE ROI EST MORT-VIVE LE ROI\"\n\n\"WILT DEIGN TO DELIVER THY COMMANDS?\"\n\n\"LORD OF THE BEDCHAMBER\"\n\n\"A SECRETARY OF STATE\"\n\n\"STOOD AT GRACEFUL EASE\"\n\n\"'TIS I THAT TAKE THEM\"\n\n\"BUT TAX YOUR MEMORY\"\n\nTOM AS KING\n\n\"TOM HAD WANDERED TO A WINDOW\"\n\n\"TOM SCANNED THE PRISONERS\"\n\n\"LET THE PRISONER GO FREE!\"\n\n\"WHAT IS IT THAT THESE HAVE DONE?\"\n\n\"NODDED THEIR RECOGNITION\"\n\nTHE STATE DINNER\n\n\"A GENTLEMAN BEARING A ROD\"\n\n\"THE CHANCELLOR BETWEEN TWO\"\n\n\"I THANK YOU MY GOOD PEOPLE\"\n\n\"IN THE MIDST OF HIS PAGEANT\"\n\nFOO-FOO THE FIRST\n\n\"RUFFIAN FOLLOWED THEIR STEPS\"\n\n\"HE SEIZED A BILLET OF WOOD\"\n\n\"HE WAS SOON ABSORBED IN THINKING\"\n\n\"A GRIM AND UNSIGHTLY PICTURE\"\n\n\"THEY ROARED OUT A ROLLICKING DITTY\"\n\n\"WHILST THE FLAMES LICKED UPWARDS\"\n\n\"THEY WERE WHIPPED AT THE CART'S TAIL\"\n\n\"THOU SHALT NOT\"\n\n\"KNOCKING HOBBS DOWN\"\n\n\"THRONE HIM\"\n\nTHE PRINCE WITH THE TRAMPS\n\n\"TROOP OF VAGABONDS SET FORWARD\"\n\n\"THEY THREW BONES AND VEGETABLES\n\n\"WRITHE AND WALLOW IN THE DIRT\"\n\n\"KING FLED IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION\"\n\n\"HE STUMBLED ALONG\"\n\n\"WHAT SEEMED TO BE A WARM ROPE\"\n\n\"CUDDLED UP TO THE CALF\"\n\nTHE PRINCE WITH THE PEASANTS\n\n\"TOOK A GOOD SATISFYING STARE\"\n\n\"MOTHER RECEIVED THE KING KINDLY\"\n\n\"BROUGHT THE KING OUT OF HIS DREAMS\"\n\n\"GAVE HIM A BUTCHER KNIFE TO GRIND\"\n\nTHE PRINCE AND THE HERMIT\n\n\"HE TURNED AND DESCRIED TWO FIGURES\"\n\n\"THE KING ENTERED AND PAUSED\"\n\n\"I WILL TELL YOU A SECRET\"\n\n\"CHATTING PLEASANTLY ALL THE TIME\"\n\n\"DREW HIS THUMB ALONG THE EDGE\"\n\n\"THE NEXT MOMENT THEY WERE BOUND\"\n\nHENDON TO THE RESCUE\n\n\"SUNK UPON HIS KNEES\"\n\n\"GOD MADE EVERY CREATURE BUT YOU!\"\n\n\"THE FETTERED LITTLE KING\"\n\nA VICTIM OF TREACHERY\n\n\"HUGO STOOD NO CHANCE\"\n\n\"BOUND THE POULTICE TIGHT AND FAST\"\n\n\"TARRY HERE TILL I COME AGAIN\n\n\"KING SPRANG TO HIS DELIVERER'S SIDE\"\n\nTHE PRINCE A PRISONER\n\n\"GENTLY, GOOD FRIEND\"\n\n\"SHE SPRANG TO HER FEET\"\n\nTHE ESCAPE\n\n\"THE PIG MAY COST THY NECK, MAN\"\n\n\"BEAR ME UP, BEAR ME UP, SWEET SIR!\"\n\nHENDON HALL\n\n\"JOGGING EASTWARD ON SORRY STEEDS\"\n\n\"THERE IS THE VILLAGE, MY PRINCE!\"\n\n\"'EMBRACE ME, HUGH,' HE CRIED\"\n\n\"HUGH PUT UP HIS HAND IN DISSENT\"\n\n\"A BEAUTIFUL LADY, RICHLY CLOTHED\"\n\n\"HUGH WAS PINNED TO THE WALL\"\n\nDISOWNED\n\n\"OBEY, AND HAVE NO FEAR\"\n\n\"AM I MILES HENDON?\"\n\nIN PRISON\n\n\"CHAINED IN A LARGE ROOM\"\n\n\"THE OLD MAN LOOKED HENDON OVER\"\n\n\"INFORMATION DELIVERED IN A LOW VOICE\"\n\n\"THE KING!\" HE CRIED. \"WHAT KING?\"\n\n\"TWO WOMEN CHAINED TO POSTS\"\n\n\"TORN AWAY BY THE OFFICERS\"\n\n\"THE KING WAS FURIOUS\"\n\nTHE SACRIFICE\n\n\"HE CONFRONTED THE OFFICER IN CHARGE\"\n\n\"WHILE THE LASH WAS APPLIED\"\n\n\"SIR HUGH SPURRED AWAY\"\n\nTO LONDON\n\n\"MOUNTED AND RODE OFF WITH THE KING\"\n\n\"MIDST OF A JAM OF HOWLING PEOPLE\"\n\nTOM'S PROGRESS\n\n\"TO KISS HIS HAND AT PARTING\"\n\n\"COMMANDED HER TO GO TO HER CLOSET\"\n\nTHE RECOGNITION PROCESSION\n\nTHE START FOR THE TOWER\n\n\"WELCOME, O KING!\"\n\n\"A LARGESS! A LARGESS!\"\n\n\"SHE WAS AT HIS SIDE\"\n\n\"IT IS AN ILL TIME FOR DREAMING\"\n\n\"SHE WAS MY MOTHER\"\n\nCORONATION DAY\n\n\"GATHERS UP THE LADY'S LONG TRAIN\"\n\n\"TOM CANTY APPEARED\"\n\n\"AND FELL ON HIS KNEES BEFORE HIM\"\n\n\"THE GREAT SEAL--FETCH IT HITHER\"\n\n\"SIRE, THE SEAL IS NOT THERE\"\n\n\"BETHINK THEE, MY KING\"\n\n\"LONG LIVE THE TRUE KING!\"\n\n\"TO CRACK NUTS WITH\"\n\nEDWARD AS KING\n\n\"HE STRETCHED HIMSELF ON THE GROUND\"\n\n\"ARRESTED AS A SUSPICIOUS CHARACTER\"\n\n\"IT IS HIS RIGHT\"\n\n\"STRIP THIS ROBBER\"\n\n\"TOM ROSE AND KISSED THE KING'S HAND\"\n\nJUSTICE AND RETRIBUTION\n\nNOTES\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I. The birth of the Prince and the Pauper.\n\nIn the ancient city of London, on a certain autumn day in the second\nquarter of the sixteenth century, a boy was born to a poor family of the\nname of Canty, who did not want him. \u00a0On the same day another English\nchild was born to a rich family of the name of Tudor, who did want him.\nAll England wanted him too. \u00a0England had so longed for him, and hoped\nfor him, and prayed God for him, that, now that he was really come, the\npeople went nearly mad for joy. \u00a0Mere acquaintances hugged and kissed\neach other and cried. Everybody took a holiday, and high and low, rich\nand poor, feasted and danced and sang, and got very mellow; and they\nkept this up for days and nights together. \u00a0By day, London was a sight\nto see, with gay banners waving from every balcony and housetop, and\nsplendid pageants marching along. \u00a0By night, it was again a sight\nto see, with its great bonfires at every corner, and its troops of\nrevellers making merry around them. \u00a0There was no talk in all England\nbut of the new baby, Edward Tudor, Prince of Wales, who lay lapped in\nsilks and satins, unconscious of all this fuss, and not knowing that\ngreat lords and ladies were tending him and watching over him--and not\ncaring, either. \u00a0But there was no talk about the other baby, Tom Canty,\nlapped in his poor rags, except among the family of paupers whom he had\njust come to trouble with his presence.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II. Tom's early life.\n\nLet us skip a number of years.\n\nLondon was fifteen hundred years old, and was a great town--for that\nday. It had a hundred thousand inhabitants--some think double as many.\n\u00a0The streets were very narrow, and crooked, and dirty, especially in the\npart where Tom Canty lived, which was not far from London Bridge. \u00a0The\nhouses were of wood, with the second story projecting over the first,\nand the third sticking its elbows out beyond the second. \u00a0The higher\nthe houses grew, the broader they grew. \u00a0They were skeletons of strong\ncriss-cross beams, with solid material between, coated with plaster.\n\u00a0The beams were painted red or blue or black, according to the owner's\ntaste, and this gave the houses a very picturesque look. \u00a0The windows\nwere small, glazed with little diamond-shaped panes, and they opened\noutward, on hinges, like doors.\n\nThe house which Tom's father lived in was up a foul little pocket called\nOffal Court, out of Pudding Lane. \u00a0It was small, decayed, and rickety,\nbut it was packed full of wretchedly poor families. Canty's tribe\noccupied a room on the third floor. \u00a0The mother and father had a sort of\nbedstead in the corner; but Tom, his grandmother, and his two sisters,\nBet and Nan, were not restricted--they had all the floor to themselves,\nand might sleep where they chose. \u00a0There were the remains of a blanket\nor two, and some bundles of ancient and dirty straw, but these could not\nrightly be called beds, for they were not organised; they were kicked\ninto a general pile, mornings, and selections made from the mass at\nnight, for service.\n\nBet and Nan were fifteen years old--twins. \u00a0They were good-hearted\ngirls, unclean, clothed in rags, and profoundly ignorant. \u00a0Their mother\nwas like them. \u00a0But the father and the grandmother were a couple of\nfiends. \u00a0They got drunk whenever they could; then they fought each other\nor anybody else who came in the way; they cursed and swore always, drunk\nor sober; John Canty was a thief, and his mother a beggar. \u00a0They made\nbeggars of the children, but failed to make thieves of them. \u00a0Among,\nbut not of, the dreadful rabble that inhabited the house, was a good old\npriest whom the King had turned out of house and home with a pension of\na few farthings, and he used to get the children aside and teach them\nright ways secretly. Father Andrew also taught Tom a little Latin, and\nhow to read and write; and would have done the same with the girls,\nbut they were afraid of the jeers of their friends, who could not have\nendured such a queer accomplishment in them.\n\nAll Offal Court was just such another hive as Canty's house.\nDrunkenness, riot and brawling were the order, there, every night and\nnearly all night long. \u00a0Broken heads were as common as hunger in that\nplace. \u00a0Yet little Tom was not unhappy. \u00a0He had a hard time of it, but\ndid not know it. \u00a0It was the sort of time that all the Offal Court boys\nhad, therefore he supposed it was the correct and comfortable thing.\n\u00a0When he came home empty-handed at night, he knew his father would\ncurse him and thrash him first, and that when he was done the awful\ngrandmother would do it all over again and improve on it; and that away\nin the night his starving mother would slip to him stealthily with any\nmiserable scrap or crust she had been able to save for him by going\nhungry herself, notwithstanding she was often caught in that sort of\ntreason and soundly beaten for it by her husband.\n\nNo, Tom's life went along well enough, especially in summer. \u00a0He only\nbegged just enough to save himself, for the laws against mendicancy were\nstringent, and the penalties heavy; so he put in a good deal of his time\nlistening to good Father Andrew's charming old tales and legends\nabout giants and fairies, dwarfs and genii, and enchanted castles, and\ngorgeous kings and princes. \u00a0His head grew to be full of these wonderful\nthings, and many a night as he lay in the dark on his scant and\noffensive straw, tired, hungry, and smarting from a thrashing, he\nunleashed his imagination and soon forgot his aches and pains in\ndelicious picturings to himself of the charmed life of a petted prince\nin a regal palace. \u00a0One desire came in time to haunt him day and night:\n\u00a0it was to see a real prince, with his own eyes. \u00a0He spoke of it once to\nsome of his Offal Court comrades; but they jeered him and scoffed him so\nunmercifully that he was glad to keep his dream to himself after that.\n\nHe often read the priest's old books and got him to explain and enlarge\nupon them. \u00a0His dreamings and readings worked certain changes in him,\nby-and-by. \u00a0His dream-people were so fine that he grew to lament his\nshabby clothing and his dirt, and to wish to be clean and better clad.\n\u00a0He went on playing in the mud just the same, and enjoying it, too; but,\ninstead of splashing around in the Thames solely for the fun of it,\nhe began to find an added value in it because of the washings and\ncleansings it afforded.\n\nTom could always find something going on around the Maypole in\nCheapside, and at the fairs; and now and then he and the rest of London\nhad a chance to see a military parade when some famous unfortunate was\ncarried prisoner to the Tower, by land or boat. One summer's day he saw\npoor Anne Askew and three men burned at the stake in Smithfield, and\nheard an ex-Bishop preach a sermon to them which did not interest him.\nYes, Tom's life was varied and pleasant enough, on the whole.\n\nBy-and-by Tom's reading and dreaming about princely life wrought such a\nstrong effect upon him that he began to _act_ the prince, unconsciously.\nHis speech and manners became curiously ceremonious and courtly, to the\nvast admiration and amusement of his intimates. \u00a0But Tom's influence\namong these young people began to grow now, day by day; and in time he\ncame to be looked up to, by them, with a sort of wondering awe, as a\nsuperior being. \u00a0He seemed to know so much! and he could do and say such\nmarvellous things! and withal, he was so deep and wise! \u00a0Tom's remarks,\nand Tom's performances, were reported by the boys to their elders; and\nthese, also, presently began to discuss Tom Canty, and to regard him\nas a most gifted and extraordinary creature. \u00a0Full-grown people brought\ntheir perplexities to Tom for solution, and were often astonished at the\nwit and wisdom of his decisions. \u00a0In fact he was become a hero to all\nwho knew him except his own family--these, only, saw nothing in him.\n\nPrivately, after a while, Tom organised a royal court! \u00a0He was the\nprince; his special comrades were guards, chamberlains, equerries, lords\nand ladies in waiting, and the royal family. \u00a0Daily the mock prince was\nreceived with elaborate ceremonials borrowed by Tom from his romantic\nreadings; daily the great affairs of the mimic kingdom were discussed\nin the royal council, and daily his mimic highness issued decrees to his\nimaginary armies, navies, and viceroyalties.\n\nAfter which, he would go forth in his rags and beg a few farthings, eat\nhis poor crust, take his customary cuffs and abuse, and then stretch\nhimself upon his handful of foul straw, and resume his empty grandeurs\nin his dreams.\n\nAnd still his desire to look just once upon a real prince, in the flesh,\ngrew upon him, day by day, and week by week, until at last it absorbed\nall other desires, and became the one passion of his life.\n\nOne January day, on his usual begging tour, he tramped despondently up\nand down the region round about Mincing Lane and Little East Cheap, hour\nafter hour, bare-footed and cold, looking in at cook-shop windows and\nlonging for the dreadful pork-pies and other deadly inventions displayed\nthere--for to him these were dainties fit for the angels; that is,\njudging by the smell, they were--for it had never been his good luck to\nown and eat one. There was a cold drizzle of rain; the atmosphere was\nmurky; it was a melancholy day. \u00a0At night Tom reached home so wet and\ntired and hungry that it was not possible for his father and grandmother\nto observe his forlorn condition and not be moved--after their fashion;\nwherefore they gave him a brisk cuffing at once and sent him to bed.\n\u00a0For a long time his pain and hunger, and the swearing and fighting\ngoing on in the building, kept him awake; but at last his thoughts\ndrifted away to far, romantic lands, and he fell asleep in the company\nof jewelled and gilded princelings who live in vast palaces, and had\nservants salaaming before them or flying to execute their orders. \u00a0And\nthen, as usual, he dreamed that _he_ was a princeling himself.\n\nAll night long the glories of his royal estate shone upon him; he moved\namong great lords and ladies, in a blaze of light, breathing perfumes,\ndrinking in delicious music, and answering the reverent obeisances of\nthe glittering throng as it parted to make way for him, with here a\nsmile, and there a nod of his princely head.\n\nAnd when he awoke in the morning and looked upon the wretchedness\nabout him, his dream had had its usual effect--it had intensified the\nsordidness of his surroundings a thousandfold. \u00a0Then came bitterness,\nand heart-break, and tears.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III. Tom's meeting with the Prince.\n\nTom got up hungry, and sauntered hungry away, but with his thoughts busy\nwith the shadowy splendours of his night's dreams. He wandered here\nand there in the city, hardly noticing where he was going, or what\nwas happening around him. \u00a0People jostled him, and some gave him rough\nspeech; but it was all lost on the musing boy. \u00a0By-and-by he found\nhimself at Temple Bar, the farthest from home he had ever travelled in\nthat direction. \u00a0He stopped and considered a moment, then fell into his\nimaginings again, and passed on outside the walls of London. \u00a0The Strand\nhad ceased to be a country-road then, and regarded itself as a street,\nbut by a strained construction; for, though there was a tolerably\ncompact row of houses on one side of it, there were only some scattered\ngreat buildings on the other, these being palaces of rich nobles, with\nample and beautiful grounds stretching to the river--grounds that are\nnow closely packed with grim acres of brick and stone.\n\nTom discovered Charing Village presently, and rested himself at the\nbeautiful cross built there by a bereaved king of earlier days; then\nidled down a quiet, lovely road, past the great cardinal's\nstately palace, toward a far more mighty and majestic palace\nbeyond--Westminster. Tom stared in glad wonder at the vast pile of\nmasonry, the wide-spreading wings, the frowning bastions and turrets,\nthe huge stone gateway, with its gilded bars and its magnificent array\nof colossal granite lions, and other the signs and symbols of English\nroyalty. \u00a0Was the desire of his soul to be satisfied at last? \u00a0Here,\nindeed, was a king's palace. \u00a0Might he not hope to see a prince now--a\nprince of flesh and blood, if Heaven were willing?\n\nAt each side of the gilded gate stood a living statue--that is to say,\nan erect and stately and motionless man-at-arms, clad from head to heel\nin shining steel armour. \u00a0At a respectful distance were many country\nfolk, and people from the city, waiting for any chance glimpse of\nroyalty that might offer. \u00a0Splendid carriages, with splendid people\nin them and splendid servants outside, were arriving and departing by\nseveral other noble gateways that pierced the royal enclosure.\n\nPoor little Tom, in his rags, approached, and was moving slowly and\ntimidly past the sentinels, with a beating heart and a rising hope, when\nall at once he caught sight through the golden bars of a spectacle that\nalmost made him shout for joy. \u00a0Within was a comely boy, tanned and\nbrown with sturdy outdoor sports and exercises, whose clothing was all\nof lovely silks and satins, shining with jewels; at his hip a little\njewelled sword and dagger; dainty buskins on his feet, with red heels;\nand on his head a jaunty crimson cap, with drooping plumes fastened\nwith a great sparkling gem. \u00a0Several gorgeous gentlemen stood near--his\nservants, without a doubt. \u00a0Oh! he was a prince--a prince, a living\nprince, a real prince--without the shadow of a question; and the prayer\nof the pauper-boy's heart was answered at last.\n\nTom's breath came quick and short with excitement, and his eyes grew big\nwith wonder and delight. \u00a0Everything gave way in his mind instantly\nto one desire: \u00a0that was to get close to the prince, and have a good,\ndevouring look at him. \u00a0Before he knew what he was about, he had his\nface against the gate-bars. \u00a0The next instant one of the soldiers\nsnatched him rudely away, and sent him spinning among the gaping crowd\nof country gawks and London idlers. \u00a0The soldier said,--\n\n\"Mind thy manners, thou young beggar!\"\n\nThe crowd jeered and laughed; but the young prince sprang to the gate\nwith his face flushed, and his eyes flashing with indignation, and cried\nout,--\n\n\"How dar'st thou use a poor lad like that? \u00a0How dar'st thou use the King\nmy father's meanest subject so? \u00a0Open the gates, and let him in!\"\n\nYou should have seen that fickle crowd snatch off their hats then.\nYou should have heard them cheer, and shout, \"Long live the Prince of\nWales!\"\n\nThe soldiers presented arms with their halberds, opened the gates,\nand presented again as the little Prince of Poverty passed in, in his\nfluttering rags, to join hands with the Prince of Limitless Plenty.\n\nEdward Tudor said--\n\n\"Thou lookest tired and hungry: \u00a0thou'st been treated ill. \u00a0Come with\nme.\"\n\nHalf a dozen attendants sprang forward to--I don't know what; interfere,\nno doubt. \u00a0But they were waved aside with a right royal gesture, and\nthey stopped stock still where they were, like so many statues. \u00a0Edward\ntook Tom to a rich apartment in the palace, which he called his cabinet.\n\u00a0By his command a repast was brought such as Tom had never encountered\nbefore except in books. \u00a0The prince, with princely delicacy and\nbreeding, sent away the servants, so that his humble guest might not be\nembarrassed by their critical presence; then he sat near by, and asked\nquestions while Tom ate.\n\n\"What is thy name, lad?\"\n\n\"Tom Canty, an' it please thee, sir.\"\n\n\"'Tis an odd one. \u00a0Where dost live?\"\n\n\"In the city, please thee, sir. \u00a0Offal Court, out of Pudding Lane.\"\n\n\"Offal Court! \u00a0Truly 'tis another odd one. \u00a0Hast parents?\"\n\n\"Parents have I, sir, and a grand-dam likewise that is but indifferently\nprecious to me, God forgive me if it be offence to say it--also twin\nsisters, Nan and Bet.\"\n\n\"Then is thy grand-dam not over kind to thee, I take it?\"\n\n\"Neither to any other is she, so please your worship. \u00a0She hath a wicked\nheart, and worketh evil all her days.\"\n\n\"Doth she mistreat thee?\"\n\n\"There be times that she stayeth her hand, being asleep or overcome with\ndrink; but when she hath her judgment clear again, she maketh it up to\nme with goodly beatings.\"\n\nA fierce look came into the little prince's eyes, and he cried out--\n\n\"What! \u00a0Beatings?\"\n\n\"Oh, indeed, yes, please you, sir.\"\n\n\"_Beatings_!--and thou so frail and little. \u00a0Hark ye: \u00a0before the night\ncome, she shall hie her to the Tower. \u00a0The King my father\"--\n\n\"In sooth, you forget, sir, her low degree. \u00a0The Tower is for the great\nalone.\"\n\n\"True, indeed. \u00a0I had not thought of that. \u00a0I will consider of her\npunishment. \u00a0Is thy father kind to thee?\"\n\n\"Not more than Gammer Canty, sir.\"\n\n\"Fathers be alike, mayhap. \u00a0Mine hath not a doll's temper. \u00a0He smiteth\nwith a heavy hand, yet spareth me: \u00a0he spareth me not always with his\ntongue, though, sooth to say. \u00a0How doth thy mother use thee?\"\n\n\"She is good, sir, and giveth me neither sorrow nor pain of any sort.\nAnd Nan and Bet are like to her in this.\"\n\n\"How old be these?\"\n\n\"Fifteen, an' it please you, sir.\"\n\n\"The Lady Elizabeth, my sister, is fourteen, and the Lady Jane Grey,\nmy cousin, is of mine own age, and comely and gracious withal; but\nmy sister the Lady Mary, with her gloomy mien and--Look you: \u00a0do thy\nsisters forbid their servants to smile, lest the sin destroy their\nsouls?\"\n\n\"They? \u00a0Oh, dost think, sir, that _they_ have servants?\"\n\nThe little prince contemplated the little pauper gravely a moment, then\nsaid--\n\n\"And prithee, why not? \u00a0Who helpeth them undress at night? \u00a0Who attireth\nthem when they rise?\"\n\n\"None, sir. \u00a0Would'st have them take off their garment, and sleep\nwithout--like the beasts?\"\n\n\"Their garment! \u00a0Have they but one?\"\n\n\"Ah, good your worship, what would they do with more? \u00a0Truly they have\nnot two bodies each.\"\n\n\"It is a quaint and marvellous thought! \u00a0Thy pardon, I had not meant\nto laugh. \u00a0But thy good Nan and thy Bet shall have raiment and lackeys\nenow, and that soon, too: \u00a0my cofferer shall look to it. \u00a0No, thank me\nnot; 'tis nothing. \u00a0Thou speakest well; thou hast an easy grace in it.\n\u00a0Art learned?\"\n\n\"I know not if I am or not, sir. \u00a0The good priest that is called Father\nAndrew taught me, of his kindness, from his books.\"\n\n\"Know'st thou the Latin?\"\n\n\"But scantly, sir, I doubt.\"\n\n\"Learn it, lad: \u00a0'tis hard only at first. \u00a0The Greek is harder; but\nneither these nor any tongues else, I think, are hard to the Lady\nElizabeth and my cousin. \u00a0Thou should'st hear those damsels at it! \u00a0But\ntell me of thy Offal Court. \u00a0Hast thou a pleasant life there?\"\n\n\"In truth, yes, so please you, sir, save when one is hungry. There\nbe Punch-and-Judy shows, and monkeys--oh such antic creatures! and so\nbravely dressed!--and there be plays wherein they that play do shout\nand fight till all are slain, and 'tis so fine to see, and costeth but\na farthing--albeit 'tis main hard to get the farthing, please your\nworship.\"\n\n\"Tell me more.\"\n\n\"We lads of Offal Court do strive against each other with the cudgel,\nlike to the fashion of the 'prentices, sometimes.\"\n\nThe prince's eyes flashed. \u00a0Said he--\n\n\"Marry, that would not I mislike. \u00a0Tell me more.\"\n\n\"We strive in races, sir, to see who of us shall be fleetest.\"\n\n\"That would I like also. \u00a0Speak on.\"\n\n\"In summer, sir, we wade and swim in the canals and in the river, and\neach doth duck his neighbour, and splatter him with water, and dive and\nshout and tumble and--\"\n\n\"'Twould be worth my father's kingdom but to enjoy it once! Prithee go\non.\"\n\n\"We dance and sing about the Maypole in Cheapside; we play in the sand,\neach covering his neighbour up; and times we make mud pastry--oh\nthe lovely mud, it hath not its like for delightfulness in all the\nworld!--we do fairly wallow in the mud, sir, saving your worship's\npresence.\"\n\n\"Oh, prithee, say no more, 'tis glorious! \u00a0If that I could but clothe me\nin raiment like to thine, and strip my feet, and revel in the mud once,\njust once, with none to rebuke me or forbid, meseemeth I could forego\nthe crown!\"\n\n\"And if that I could clothe me once, sweet sir, as thou art clad--just\nonce--\"\n\n\"Oho, would'st like it? \u00a0Then so shall it be. \u00a0Doff thy rags, and don\nthese splendours, lad! \u00a0It is a brief happiness, but will be not less\nkeen for that. \u00a0We will have it while we may, and change again before\nany come to molest.\"\n\nA few minutes later the little Prince of Wales was garlanded with Tom's\nfluttering odds and ends, and the little Prince of Pauperdom was tricked\nout in the gaudy plumage of royalty. \u00a0The two went and stood side by\nside before a great mirror, and lo, a miracle: there did not seem to\nhave been any change made! \u00a0They stared at each other, then at the\nglass, then at each other again. \u00a0At last the puzzled princeling said--\n\n\"What dost thou make of this?\"\n\n\"Ah, good your worship, require me not to answer. \u00a0It is not meet that\none of my degree should utter the thing.\"\n\n\"Then will _I_ utter it. \u00a0Thou hast the same hair, the same eyes, the\nsame voice and manner, the same form and stature, the same face and\ncountenance that I bear. \u00a0Fared we forth naked, there is none could\nsay which was you, and which the Prince of Wales. \u00a0And, now that I\nam clothed as thou wert clothed, it seemeth I should be able the more\nnearly to feel as thou didst when the brute soldier--Hark ye, is not\nthis a bruise upon your hand?\"\n\n\"Yes; but it is a slight thing, and your worship knoweth that the poor\nman-at-arms--\"\n\n\"Peace! \u00a0It was a shameful thing and a cruel!\" cried the little prince,\nstamping his bare foot. \u00a0\"If the King--Stir not a step till I come\nagain! It is a command!\"\n\nIn a moment he had snatched up and put away an article of national\nimportance that lay upon a table, and was out at the door and flying\nthrough the palace grounds in his bannered rags, with a hot face and\nglowing eyes. \u00a0As soon as he reached the great gate, he seized the bars,\nand tried to shake them, shouting--\n\n\"Open! \u00a0Unbar the gates!\"\n\nThe soldier that had maltreated Tom obeyed promptly; and as the prince\nburst through the portal, half-smothered with royal wrath, the soldier\nfetched him a sounding box on the ear that sent him whirling to the\nroadway, and said--\n\n\"Take that, thou beggar's spawn, for what thou got'st me from his\nHighness!\"\n\nThe crowd roared with laughter. \u00a0The prince picked himself out of the\nmud, and made fiercely at the sentry, shouting--\n\n\"I am the Prince of Wales, my person is sacred; and thou shalt hang for\nlaying thy hand upon me!\"\n\nThe soldier brought his halberd to a present-arms and said mockingly--\n\n\"I salute your gracious Highness.\" \u00a0Then angrily--\"Be off, thou crazy\nrubbish!\"\n\nHere the jeering crowd closed round the poor little prince, and hustled\nhim far down the road, hooting him, and shouting--\n\n\"Way for his Royal Highness! \u00a0Way for the Prince of Wales!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV. The Prince's troubles begin.\n\nAfter hours of persistent pursuit and persecution, the little prince was\nat last deserted by the rabble and left to himself. \u00a0As long as he had\nbeen able to rage against the mob, and threaten it royally, and\nroyally utter commands that were good stuff to laugh at, he was very\nentertaining; but when weariness finally forced him to be silent, he was\nno longer of use to his tormentors, and they sought amusement elsewhere.\nHe looked about him, now, but could not recognise the locality. \u00a0He\nwas within the city of London--that was all he knew. \u00a0He moved on,\naimlessly, and in a little while the houses thinned, and the passers-by\nwere infrequent. \u00a0He bathed his bleeding feet in the brook which flowed\nthen where Farringdon Street now is; rested a few moments, then passed\non, and presently came upon a great space with only a few scattered\nhouses in it, and a prodigious church. \u00a0He recognised this church.\n\u00a0Scaffoldings were about, everywhere, and swarms of workmen; for it was\nundergoing elaborate repairs. \u00a0The prince took heart at once--he felt\nthat his troubles were at an end, now. \u00a0He said to himself, \"It is the\nancient Grey Friars' Church, which the king my father hath taken from\nthe monks and given for a home for ever for poor and forsaken children,\nand new-named it Christ's Church. \u00a0Right gladly will they serve the son\nof him who hath done so generously by them--and the more that that son\nis himself as poor and as forlorn as any that be sheltered here this\nday, or ever shall be.\"\n\nHe was soon in the midst of a crowd of boys who were running, jumping,\nplaying at ball and leap-frog, and otherwise disporting themselves, and\nright noisily, too. \u00a0They were all dressed alike, and in the fashion\nwhich in that day prevailed among serving-men and 'prentices{1}--that\nis to say, each had on the crown of his head a flat black cap about the\nsize of a saucer, which was not useful as a covering, it being of such\nscanty dimensions, neither was it ornamental; from beneath it the hair\nfell, unparted, to the middle of the forehead, and was cropped straight\naround; a clerical band at the neck; a blue gown that fitted closely\nand hung as low as the knees or lower; full sleeves; a broad red belt;\nbright yellow stockings, gartered above the knees; low shoes with large\nmetal buckles. It was a sufficiently ugly costume.\n\nThe boys stopped their play and flocked about the prince, who said with\nnative dignity--\n\n\"Good lads, say to your master that Edward Prince of Wales desireth\nspeech with him.\"\n\nA great shout went up at this, and one rude fellow said--\n\n\"Marry, art thou his grace's messenger, beggar?\"\n\nThe prince's face flushed with anger, and his ready hand flew to his\nhip, but there was nothing there. \u00a0There was a storm of laughter, and\none boy said--\n\n\"Didst mark that? \u00a0He fancied he had a sword--belike he is the prince\nhimself.\"\n\nThis sally brought more laughter. \u00a0Poor Edward drew himself up proudly\nand said--\n\n\"I am the prince; and it ill beseemeth you that feed upon the king my\nfather's bounty to use me so.\"\n\nThis was vastly enjoyed, as the laughter testified. \u00a0The youth who had\nfirst spoken, shouted to his comrades--\n\n\"Ho, swine, slaves, pensioners of his grace's princely father, where be\nyour manners? \u00a0Down on your marrow bones, all of ye, and do reverence to\nhis kingly port and royal rags!\"\n\nWith boisterous mirth they dropped upon their knees in a body and did\nmock homage to their prey. \u00a0The prince spurned the nearest boy with his\nfoot, and said fiercely--\n\n\"Take thou that, till the morrow come and I build thee a gibbet!\"\n\nAh, but this was not a joke--this was going beyond fun. \u00a0The laughter\nceased on the instant, and fury took its place. \u00a0A dozen shouted--\n\n\"Hale him forth! \u00a0To the horse-pond, to the horse-pond! \u00a0Where be the\ndogs? \u00a0Ho, there, Lion! ho, Fangs!\"\n\nThen followed such a thing as England had never seen before--the sacred\nperson of the heir to the throne rudely buffeted by plebeian hands, and\nset upon and torn by dogs.\n\nAs night drew to a close that day, the prince found himself far down in\nthe close-built portion of the city. \u00a0His body was bruised, his hands\nwere bleeding, and his rags were all besmirched with mud. \u00a0He wandered\non and on, and grew more and more bewildered, and so tired and faint\nhe could hardly drag one foot after the other. \u00a0He had ceased to ask\nquestions of anyone, since they brought him only insult instead of\ninformation. \u00a0He kept muttering to himself, \"Offal Court--that is the\nname; if I can but find it before my strength is wholly spent and I\ndrop, then am I saved--for his people will take me to the palace and\nprove that I am none of theirs, but the true prince, and I shall have\nmine own again.\" \u00a0And now and then his mind reverted to his treatment\nby those rude Christ's Hospital boys, and he said, \"When I am king, they\nshall not have bread and shelter only, but also teachings out of books;\nfor a full belly is little worth where the mind is starved, and the\nheart. \u00a0I will keep this diligently in my remembrance, that this day's\nlesson be not lost upon me, and my people suffer thereby; for learning\nsofteneth the heart and breedeth gentleness and charity.\" {1}\n\nThe lights began to twinkle, it came on to rain, the wind rose, and a\nraw and gusty night set in. \u00a0The houseless prince, the homeless heir to\nthe throne of England, still moved on, drifting deeper into the maze\nof squalid alleys where the swarming hives of poverty and misery were\nmassed together.\n\nSuddenly a great drunken ruffian collared him and said--\n\n\"Out to this time of night again, and hast not brought a farthing home,\nI warrant me! \u00a0If it be so, an' I do not break all the bones in thy lean\nbody, then am I not John Canty, but some other.\"\n\nThe prince twisted himself loose, unconsciously brushed his profaned\nshoulder, and eagerly said--\n\n\"Oh, art _his_ father, truly? \u00a0Sweet heaven grant it be so--then wilt\nthou fetch him away and restore me!\"\n\n\"_His_ father? \u00a0I know not what thou mean'st; I but know I am _thy_\nfather, as thou shalt soon have cause to--\"\n\n\"Oh, jest not, palter not, delay not!--I am worn, I am wounded, I can\nbear no more. \u00a0Take me to the king my father, and he will make thee rich\nbeyond thy wildest dreams. \u00a0Believe me, man, believe me!--I speak no\nlie, but only the truth!--put forth thy hand and save me! \u00a0I am indeed\nthe Prince of Wales!\"\n\nThe man stared down, stupefied, upon the lad, then shook his head and\nmuttered--\n\n\"Gone stark mad as any Tom o' Bedlam!\"--then collared him once more,\nand said with a coarse laugh and an oath, \"But mad or no mad, I and thy\nGammer Canty will soon find where the soft places in thy bones lie, or\nI'm no true man!\"\n\nWith this he dragged the frantic and struggling prince away, and\ndisappeared up a front court followed by a delighted and noisy swarm of\nhuman vermin.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V. Tom as a Patrician.\n\nTom Canty, left alone in the prince's cabinet, made good use of his\nopportunity. \u00a0He turned himself this way and that before the great\nmirror, admiring his finery; then walked away, imitating the prince's\nhigh-bred carriage, and still observing results in the glass. \u00a0Next he\ndrew the beautiful sword, and bowed, kissing the blade, and laying it\nacross his breast, as he had seen a noble knight do, by way of salute to\nthe lieutenant of the Tower, five or six weeks before, when delivering\nthe great lords of Norfolk and Surrey into his hands for captivity. \u00a0Tom\nplayed with the jewelled dagger that hung upon his thigh; he examined\nthe costly and exquisite ornaments of the room; he tried each of the\nsumptuous chairs, and thought how proud he would be if the Offal Court\nherd could only peep in and see him in his grandeur. \u00a0He wondered if\nthey would believe the marvellous tale he should tell when he got home,\nor if they would shake their heads, and say his overtaxed imagination\nhad at last upset his reason.\n\nAt the end of half an hour it suddenly occurred to him that the prince\nwas gone a long time; then right away he began to feel lonely; very\nsoon he fell to listening and longing, and ceased to toy with the\npretty things about him; he grew uneasy, then restless, then distressed.\nSuppose some one should come, and catch him in the prince's clothes, and\nthe prince not there to explain. \u00a0Might they not hang him at once,\nand inquire into his case afterward? \u00a0He had heard that the great\nwere prompt about small matters. \u00a0His fear rose higher and higher; and\ntrembling he softly opened the door to the antechamber, resolved to\nfly and seek the prince, and, through him, protection and release. \u00a0Six\ngorgeous gentlemen-servants and two young pages of high degree, clothed\nlike butterflies, sprang to their feet and bowed low before him. \u00a0He\nstepped quickly back and shut the door. \u00a0He said--\n\n\"Oh, they mock at me! \u00a0They will go and tell. \u00a0Oh! why came I here to\ncast away my life?\"\n\nHe walked up and down the floor, filled with nameless fears, listening,\nstarting at every trifling sound. \u00a0Presently the door swung open, and a\nsilken page said--\n\n\"The Lady Jane Grey.\"\n\nThe door closed and a sweet young girl, richly clad, bounded toward him.\nBut she stopped suddenly, and said in a distressed voice--\n\n\"Oh, what aileth thee, my lord?\"\n\nTom's breath was nearly failing him; but he made shift to stammer out--\n\n\"Ah, be merciful, thou! \u00a0In sooth I am no lord, but only poor Tom Canty\nof Offal Court in the city. \u00a0Prithee let me see the prince, and he will\nof his grace restore to me my rags, and let me hence unhurt. \u00a0Oh, be\nthou merciful, and save me!\"\n\nBy this time the boy was on his knees, and supplicating with his eyes\nand uplifted hands as well as with his tongue. \u00a0The young girl seemed\nhorror-stricken. \u00a0She cried out--\n\n\"O my lord, on thy knees?--and to _me_!\"\n\nThen she fled away in fright; and Tom, smitten with despair, sank down,\nmurmuring--\n\n\"There is no help, there is no hope. \u00a0Now will they come and take me.\"\n\nWhilst he lay there benumbed with terror, dreadful tidings were speeding\nthrough the palace. \u00a0The whisper--for it was whispered always--flew from\nmenial to menial, from lord to lady, down all the long corridors, from\nstory to story, from saloon to saloon, \"The prince hath gone mad, the\nprince hath gone mad!\" \u00a0Soon every saloon, every marble hall, had its\ngroups of glittering lords and ladies, and other groups of dazzling\nlesser folk, talking earnestly together in whispers, and every face\nhad in it dismay. Presently a splendid official came marching by these\ngroups, making solemn proclamation--\n\n\"IN THE NAME OF THE KING!\n\nLet none list to this false and foolish matter, upon pain of death, nor\ndiscuss the same, nor carry it abroad. \u00a0In the name of the King!\"\n\nThe whisperings ceased as suddenly as if the whisperers had been\nstricken dumb.\n\nSoon there was a general buzz along the corridors, of \"The prince! See,\nthe prince comes!\"\n\nPoor Tom came slowly walking past the low-bowing groups, trying to\nbow in return, and meekly gazing upon his strange surroundings with\nbewildered and pathetic eyes. \u00a0Great nobles walked upon each side of\nhim, making him lean upon them, and so steady his steps. Behind him\nfollowed the court-physicians and some servants.\n\nPresently Tom found himself in a noble apartment of the palace and heard\nthe door close behind him. \u00a0Around him stood those who had come with\nhim. Before him, at a little distance, reclined a very large and very\nfat man, with a wide, pulpy face, and a stern expression. \u00a0His large\nhead was very grey; and his whiskers, which he wore only around his\nface, like a frame, were grey also. \u00a0His clothing was of rich stuff,\nbut old, and slightly frayed in places. \u00a0One of his swollen legs had a\npillow under it, and was wrapped in bandages. \u00a0There was silence now;\nand there was no head there but was bent in reverence, except this\nman's. \u00a0This stern-countenanced invalid was the dread Henry VIII. \u00a0He\nsaid--and his face grew gentle as he began to speak--\n\n\"How now, my lord Edward, my prince? \u00a0Hast been minded to cozen me, the\ngood King thy father, who loveth thee, and kindly useth thee, with a\nsorry jest?\"\n\nPoor Tom was listening, as well as his dazed faculties would let him,\nto the beginning of this speech; but when the words 'me, the good King'\nfell upon his ear, his face blanched, and he dropped as instantly upon\nhis knees as if a shot had brought him there. Lifting up his hands, he\nexclaimed--\n\n\"Thou the _King_? \u00a0Then am I undone indeed!\"\n\nThis speech seemed to stun the King. \u00a0His eyes wandered from face to\nface aimlessly, then rested, bewildered, upon the boy before him. \u00a0Then\nhe said in a tone of deep disappointment--\n\n\"Alack, I had believed the rumour disproportioned to the truth; but I\nfear me 'tis not so.\" \u00a0He breathed a heavy sigh, and said in a gentle\nvoice, \"Come to thy father, child: \u00a0thou art not well.\"\n\nTom was assisted to his feet, and approached the Majesty of England,\nhumble and trembling. \u00a0The King took the frightened face between his\nhands, and gazed earnestly and lovingly into it awhile, as if seeking\nsome grateful sign of returning reason there, then pressed the curly\nhead against his breast, and patted it tenderly. \u00a0Presently he said--\n\n\"Dost not know thy father, child? \u00a0Break not mine old heart; say thou\nknow'st me. \u00a0Thou _dost_ know me, dost thou not?\"\n\n\"Yea: \u00a0thou art my dread lord the King, whom God preserve!\"\n\n\"True, true--that is well--be comforted, tremble not so; there is none\nhere would hurt thee; there is none here but loves thee. Thou art better\nnow; thy ill dream passeth--is't not so? \u00a0Thou wilt not miscall thyself\nagain, as they say thou didst a little while agone?\"\n\n\"I pray thee of thy grace believe me, I did but speak the truth, most\ndread lord; for I am the meanest among thy subjects, being a pauper\nborn, and 'tis by a sore mischance and accident I am here, albeit I was\ntherein nothing blameful. \u00a0I am but young to die, and thou canst save me\nwith one little word. \u00a0Oh speak it, sir!\"\n\n\"Die? \u00a0Talk not so, sweet prince--peace, peace, to thy troubled\nheart--thou shalt not die!\"\n\nTom dropped upon his knees with a glad cry--\n\n\"God requite thy mercy, O my King, and save thee long to bless thy\nland!\" Then springing up, he turned a joyful face toward the two lords\nin waiting, and exclaimed, \"Thou heard'st it! \u00a0I am not to die: \u00a0the\nKing hath said it!\" \u00a0There was no movement, save that all bowed with\ngrave respect; but no one spoke. \u00a0He hesitated, a little confused, then\nturned timidly toward the King, saying, \"I may go now?\"\n\n\"Go? \u00a0Surely, if thou desirest. \u00a0But why not tarry yet a little? Whither\nwould'st go?\"\n\nTom dropped his eyes, and answered humbly--\n\n\"Peradventure I mistook; but I did think me free, and so was I moved\nto seek again the kennel where I was born and bred to misery, yet which\nharboureth my mother and my sisters, and so is home to me; whereas these\npomps and splendours whereunto I am not used--oh, please you, sir, to\nlet me go!\"\n\nThe King was silent and thoughtful a while, and his face betrayed a\ngrowing distress and uneasiness. \u00a0Presently he said, with something of\nhope in his voice--\n\n\"Perchance he is but mad upon this one strain, and hath his wits\nunmarred as toucheth other matter. \u00a0God send it may be so! \u00a0We will make\ntrial.\"\n\nThen he asked Tom a question in Latin, and Tom answered him lamely in\nthe same tongue. \u00a0The lords and doctors manifested their gratification\nalso. The King said--\n\n\"'Twas not according to his schooling and ability, but showeth that his\nmind is but diseased, not stricken fatally. \u00a0How say you, sir?\"\n\nThe physician addressed bowed low, and replied--\n\n\"It jumpeth with my own conviction, sire, that thou hast divined\naright.\"\n\nThe King looked pleased with this encouragement, coming as it did from\nso excellent authority, and continued with good heart--\n\n\"Now mark ye all: \u00a0we will try him further.\"\n\nHe put a question to Tom in French. \u00a0Tom stood silent a moment,\nembarrassed by having so many eyes centred upon him, then said\ndiffidently--\n\n\"I have no knowledge of this tongue, so please your majesty.\"\n\nThe King fell back upon his couch. \u00a0The attendants flew to his\nassistance; but he put them aside, and said--\n\n\"Trouble me not--it is nothing but a scurvy faintness. \u00a0Raise me! There,\n'tis sufficient. \u00a0Come hither, child; there, rest thy poor troubled head\nupon thy father's heart, and be at peace. \u00a0Thou'lt soon be well: \u00a0'tis\nbut a passing fantasy. \u00a0Fear thou not; thou'lt soon be well.\" \u00a0Then\nhe turned toward the company: \u00a0his gentle manner changed, and baleful\nlightnings began to play from his eyes. \u00a0He said--\n\n\"List ye all! \u00a0This my son is mad; but it is not permanent. \u00a0Over-study\nhath done this, and somewhat too much of confinement. \u00a0Away with his\nbooks and teachers! see ye to it. \u00a0Pleasure him with sports, beguile him\nin wholesome ways, so that his health come again.\" \u00a0He raised himself\nhigher still, and went on with energy, \"He is mad; but he is my son,\nand England's heir; and, mad or sane, still shall he reign! \u00a0And hear ye\nfurther, and proclaim it: whoso speaketh of this his distemper worketh\nagainst the peace and order of these realms, and shall to the gallows!\n. . . Give me to drink--I burn: \u00a0this sorrow sappeth my strength. . . .\nThere, take away the cup. . . . Support me. \u00a0There, that is well. \u00a0Mad,\nis he? \u00a0Were he a thousand times mad, yet is he Prince of Wales, and I\nthe King will confirm it. \u00a0This very morrow shall he be installed in his\nprincely dignity in due and ancient form. \u00a0Take instant order for it, my\nlord Hertford.\"\n\nOne of the nobles knelt at the royal couch, and said--\n\n\"The King's majesty knoweth that the Hereditary Great Marshal of England\nlieth attainted in the Tower. \u00a0It were not meet that one attainted--\"\n\n\"Peace! \u00a0Insult not mine ears with his hated name. \u00a0Is this man to\nlive for ever? \u00a0Am I to be baulked of my will? \u00a0Is the prince to tarry\nuninstalled, because, forsooth, the realm lacketh an Earl Marshal\nfree of treasonable taint to invest him with his honours? No, by the\nsplendour of God! \u00a0Warn my Parliament to bring me Norfolk's doom before\nthe sun rise again, else shall they answer for it grievously!\" {1}\n\nLord Hertford said--\n\n\"The King's will is law;\" and, rising, returned to his former place.\n\nGradually the wrath faded out of the old King's face, and he said--\n\n\"Kiss me, my prince. \u00a0There . . . what fearest thou? \u00a0Am I not thy\nloving father?\"\n\n\"Thou art good to me that am unworthy, O mighty and gracious lord: that\nin truth I know. \u00a0But--but--it grieveth me to think of him that is to\ndie, and--\"\n\n\"Ah, 'tis like thee, 'tis like thee! \u00a0I know thy heart is still the\nsame, even though thy mind hath suffered hurt, for thou wert ever of a\ngentle spirit. \u00a0But this duke standeth between thee and thine honours:\n\u00a0I will have another in his stead that shall bring no taint to his great\noffice. Comfort thee, my prince: \u00a0trouble not thy poor head with this\nmatter.\"\n\n\"But is it not I that speed him hence, my liege? \u00a0How long might he not\nlive, but for me?\"\n\n\"Take no thought of him, my prince: \u00a0he is not worthy. \u00a0Kiss me once\nagain, and go to thy trifles and amusements; for my malady distresseth\nme. \u00a0I am aweary, and would rest. \u00a0Go with thine uncle Hertford and thy\npeople, and come again when my body is refreshed.\"\n\nTom, heavy-hearted, was conducted from the presence, for this last\nsentence was a death-blow to the hope he had cherished that now he would\nbe set free. \u00a0Once more he heard the buzz of low voices exclaiming, \"The\nprince, the prince comes!\"\n\nHis spirits sank lower and lower as he moved between the glittering\nfiles of bowing courtiers; for he recognised that he was indeed a\ncaptive now, and might remain for ever shut up in this gilded cage, a\nforlorn and friendless prince, except God in his mercy take pity on him\nand set him free.\n\nAnd, turn where he would, he seemed to see floating in the air the\nsevered head and the remembered face of the great Duke of Norfolk, the\neyes fixed on him reproachfully.\n\nHis old dreams had been so pleasant; but this reality was so dreary!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI. Tom receives instructions.\n\nTom was conducted to the principal apartment of a noble suite, and made\nto sit down--a thing which he was loth to do, since there were elderly\nmen and men of high degree about him. \u00a0He begged them to be seated\nalso, but they only bowed their thanks or murmured them, and remained\nstanding. He would have insisted, but his 'uncle' the Earl of Hertford\nwhispered in his ear--\n\n\"Prithee, insist not, my lord; it is not meet that they sit in thy\npresence.\"\n\nThe Lord St. John was announced, and after making obeisance to Tom, he\nsaid--\n\n\"I come upon the King's errand, concerning a matter which requireth\nprivacy. \u00a0Will it please your royal highness to dismiss all that attend\nyou here, save my lord the Earl of Hertford?\"\n\nObserving that Tom did not seem to know how to proceed, Hertford\nwhispered him to make a sign with his hand, and not trouble himself to\nspeak unless he chose. \u00a0When the waiting gentlemen had retired, Lord St.\nJohn said--\n\n\"His majesty commandeth, that for due and weighty reasons of state, the\nprince's grace shall hide his infirmity in all ways that be within his\npower, till it be passed and he be as he was before. \u00a0To wit, that he\nshall deny to none that he is the true prince, and heir to England's\ngreatness; that he shall uphold his princely dignity, and shall receive,\nwithout word or sign of protest, that reverence and observance which\nunto it do appertain of right and ancient usage; that he shall cease to\nspeak to any of that lowly birth and life his malady hath conjured\nout of the unwholesome imaginings of o'er-wrought fancy; that he shall\nstrive with diligence to bring unto his memory again those faces which\nhe was wont to know--and where he faileth he shall hold his peace,\nneither betraying by semblance of surprise or other sign that he hath\nforgot; that upon occasions of state, whensoever any matter shall\nperplex him as to the thing he should do or the utterance he should\nmake, he shall show nought of unrest to the curious that look on, but\ntake advice in that matter of the Lord Hertford, or my humble self,\nwhich are commanded of the King to be upon this service and close at\ncall, till this commandment be dissolved. Thus saith the King's majesty,\nwho sendeth greeting to your royal highness, and prayeth that God will\nof His mercy quickly heal you and have you now and ever in His holy\nkeeping.\"\n\nThe Lord St. John made reverence and stood aside. \u00a0Tom replied\nresignedly--\n\n\"The King hath said it. \u00a0None may palter with the King's command, or fit\nit to his ease, where it doth chafe, with deft evasions. The King shall\nbe obeyed.\"\n\nLord Hertford said--\n\n\"Touching the King's majesty's ordainment concerning books and such like\nserious matters, it may peradventure please your highness to ease your\ntime with lightsome entertainment, lest you go wearied to the banquet\nand suffer harm thereby.\"\n\nTom's face showed inquiring surprise; and a blush followed when he saw\nLord St. John's eyes bent sorrowfully upon him. \u00a0His lordship said--\n\n\"Thy memory still wrongeth thee, and thou hast shown surprise--but\nsuffer it not to trouble thee, for 'tis a matter that will not bide,\nbut depart with thy mending malady. \u00a0My Lord of Hertford speaketh of\nthe city's banquet which the King's majesty did promise, some two months\nflown, your highness should attend. \u00a0Thou recallest it now?\"\n\n\"It grieves me to confess it had indeed escaped me,\" said Tom, in a\nhesitating voice; and blushed again.\n\nAt this moment the Lady Elizabeth and the Lady Jane Grey were announced.\nThe two lords exchanged significant glances, and Hertford stepped\nquickly toward the door. \u00a0As the young girls passed him, he said in a\nlow voice--\n\n\"I pray ye, ladies, seem not to observe his humours, nor show surprise\nwhen his memory doth lapse--it will grieve you to note how it doth stick\nat every trifle.\"\n\nMeantime Lord St. John was saying in Tom's ear--\n\n\"Please you, sir, keep diligently in mind his majesty's desire. Remember\nall thou canst--_seem_ to remember all else. \u00a0Let them not perceive that\nthou art much changed from thy wont, for thou knowest how tenderly thy\nold play-fellows bear thee in their hearts and how 'twould grieve them.\nArt willing, sir, that I remain?--and thine uncle?\"\n\nTom signified assent with a gesture and a murmured word, for he was\nalready learning, and in his simple heart was resolved to acquit himself\nas best he might, according to the King's command.\n\nIn spite of every precaution, the conversation among the young people\nbecame a little embarrassing at times. \u00a0More than once, in truth,\nTom was near to breaking down and confessing himself unequal to his\ntremendous part; but the tact of the Princess Elizabeth saved him, or a\nword from one or the other of the vigilant lords, thrown in apparently\nby chance, had the same happy effect. \u00a0Once the little Lady Jane turned\nto Tom and dismayed him with this question,--\n\n\"Hast paid thy duty to the Queen's majesty to-day, my lord?\"\n\nTom hesitated, looked distressed, and was about to stammer out something\nat hazard, when Lord St. John took the word and answered for him\nwith the easy grace of a courtier accustomed to encounter delicate\ndifficulties and to be ready for them--\n\n\"He hath indeed, madam, and she did greatly hearten him, as touching his\nmajesty's condition; is it not so, your highness?\"\n\nTom mumbled something that stood for assent, but felt that he was\ngetting upon dangerous ground. \u00a0Somewhat later it was mentioned that\nTom was to study no more at present, whereupon her little ladyship\nexclaimed--\n\n\"'Tis a pity, 'tis a pity! \u00a0Thou wert proceeding bravely. \u00a0But bide thy\ntime in patience: \u00a0it will not be for long. \u00a0Thou'lt yet be graced\nwith learning like thy father, and make thy tongue master of as many\nlanguages as his, good my prince.\"\n\n\"My father!\" cried Tom, off his guard for the moment. \u00a0\"I trow he cannot\nspeak his own so that any but the swine that kennel in the styes may\ntell his meaning; and as for learning of any sort soever--\"\n\nHe looked up and encountered a solemn warning in my Lord St. John's\neyes.\n\nHe stopped, blushed, then continued low and sadly: \"Ah, my malady\npersecuteth me again, and my mind wandereth. \u00a0I meant the King's grace\nno irreverence.\"\n\n\"We know it, sir,\" said the Princess Elizabeth, taking her 'brother's'\nhand between her two palms, respectfully but caressingly; \"trouble not\nthyself as to that. \u00a0The fault is none of thine, but thy distemper's.\"\n\n\"Thou'rt a gentle comforter, sweet lady,\" said Tom, gratefully, \"and my\nheart moveth me to thank thee for't, an' I may be so bold.\"\n\nOnce the giddy little Lady Jane fired a simple Greek phrase at Tom.\n\u00a0The Princess Elizabeth's quick eye saw by the serene blankness of the\ntarget's front that the shaft was overshot; so she tranquilly delivered\na return volley of sounding Greek on Tom's behalf, and then straightway\nchanged the talk to other matters.\n\nTime wore on pleasantly, and likewise smoothly, on the whole. Snags and\nsandbars grew less and less frequent, and Tom grew more and more at\nhis ease, seeing that all were so lovingly bent upon helping him and\noverlooking his mistakes. \u00a0When it came out that the little ladies were\nto accompany him to the Lord Mayor's banquet in the evening, his heart\ngave a bound of relief and delight, for he felt that he should not be\nfriendless, now, among that multitude of strangers; whereas, an\nhour earlier, the idea of their going with him would have been an\ninsupportable terror to him.\n\nTom's guardian angels, the two lords, had had less comfort in the\ninterview than the other parties to it. \u00a0They felt much as if they were\npiloting a great ship through a dangerous channel; they were on the\nalert constantly, and found their office no child's play. Wherefore,\nat last, when the ladies' visit was drawing to a close and the Lord\nGuilford Dudley was announced, they not only felt that their charge had\nbeen sufficiently taxed for the present, but also that they themselves\nwere not in the best condition to take their ship back and make their\nanxious voyage all over again. \u00a0So they respectfully advised Tom to\nexcuse himself, which he was very glad to do, although a slight shade\nof disappointment might have been observed upon my Lady Jane's face when\nshe heard the splendid stripling denied admittance.\n\nThere was a pause now, a sort of waiting silence which Tom could not\nunderstand. \u00a0He glanced at Lord Hertford, who gave him a sign--but he\nfailed to understand that also. \u00a0The ready Elizabeth came to the rescue\nwith her usual easy grace. \u00a0She made reverence and said--\n\n\"Have we leave of the prince's grace my brother to go?\"\n\nTom said--\n\n\"Indeed your ladyships can have whatsoever of me they will, for the\nasking; yet would I rather give them any other thing that in my poor\npower lieth, than leave to take the light and blessing of their presence\nhence. \u00a0Give ye good den, and God be with ye!\" Then he smiled inwardly\nat the thought, \"'Tis not for nought I have dwelt but among princes in\nmy reading, and taught my tongue some slight trick of their broidered\nand gracious speech withal!\"\n\nWhen the illustrious maidens were gone, Tom turned wearily to his\nkeepers and said--\n\n\"May it please your lordships to grant me leave to go into some corner\nand rest me?\"\n\nLord Hertford said--\n\n\"So please your highness, it is for you to command, it is for us to\nobey. That thou should'st rest is indeed a needful thing, since thou\nmust journey to the city presently.\"\n\nHe touched a bell, and a page appeared, who was ordered to desire the\npresence of Sir William Herbert. \u00a0This gentleman came straightway, and\nconducted Tom to an inner apartment. \u00a0Tom's first movement there was\nto reach for a cup of water; but a silk-and-velvet servitor seized it,\ndropped upon one knee, and offered it to him on a golden salver.\n\nNext the tired captive sat down and was going to take off his buskins,\ntimidly asking leave with his eye, but another silk-and-velvet\ndiscomforter went down upon his knees and took the office from him. \u00a0He\nmade two or three further efforts to help himself, but being promptly\nforestalled each time, he finally gave up, with a sigh of resignation\nand a murmured \"Beshrew me, but I marvel they do not require to breathe\nfor me also!\" \u00a0Slippered, and wrapped in a sumptuous robe, he laid\nhimself down at last to rest, but not to sleep, for his head was too\nfull of thoughts and the room too full of people. \u00a0He could not dismiss\nthe former, so they stayed; he did not know enough to dismiss the\nlatter, so they stayed also, to his vast regret--and theirs.\n\nTom's departure had left his two noble guardians alone. \u00a0They mused a\nwhile, with much head-shaking and walking the floor, then Lord St. John\nsaid--\n\n\"Plainly, what dost thou think?\"\n\n\"Plainly, then, this. \u00a0The King is near his end; my nephew is mad--mad\nwill mount the throne, and mad remain. \u00a0God protect England, since she\nwill need it!\"\n\n\"Verily it promiseth so, indeed. \u00a0But . . . have you no misgivings as to\n. . . as to . . .\"\n\nThe speaker hesitated, and finally stopped. \u00a0He evidently felt that he\nwas upon delicate ground. \u00a0Lord Hertford stopped before him, looked into\nhis face with a clear, frank eye, and said--\n\n\"Speak on--there is none to hear but me. \u00a0Misgivings as to what?\"\n\n\"I am full loth to word the thing that is in my mind, and thou so near\nto him in blood, my lord. \u00a0But craving pardon if I do offend, seemeth it\nnot strange that madness could so change his port and manner?--not but\nthat his port and speech are princely still, but that they _differ_,\nin one unweighty trifle or another, from what his custom was aforetime.\n\u00a0Seemeth it not strange that madness should filch from his memory his\nfather's very lineaments; the customs and observances that are his due\nfrom such as be about him; and, leaving him his Latin, strip him of his\nGreek and French? \u00a0My lord, be not offended, but ease my mind of its\ndisquiet and receive my grateful thanks. \u00a0It haunteth me, his saying he\nwas not the prince, and so--\"\n\n\"Peace, my lord, thou utterest treason! \u00a0Hast forgot the King's command?\nRemember I am party to thy crime if I but listen.\"\n\nSt. John paled, and hastened to say--\n\n\"I was in fault, I do confess it. \u00a0Betray me not, grant me this grace\nout of thy courtesy, and I will neither think nor speak of this thing\nmore. Deal not hardly with me, sir, else am I ruined.\"\n\n\"I am content, my lord. \u00a0So thou offend not again, here or in the\nears of others, it shall be as though thou hadst not spoken. \u00a0But thou\nneed'st not have misgivings. \u00a0He is my sister's son; are not his voice,\nhis face, his form, familiar to me from his cradle? Madness can do all\nthe odd conflicting things thou seest in him, and more. \u00a0Dost not recall\nhow that the old Baron Marley, being mad, forgot the favour of his\nown countenance that he had known for sixty years, and held it was\nanother's; nay, even claimed he was the son of Mary Magdalene, and that\nhis head was made of Spanish glass; and, sooth to say, he suffered none\nto touch it, lest by mischance some heedless hand might shiver it? \u00a0Give\nthy misgivings easement, good my lord. \u00a0This is the very prince--I know\nhim well--and soon will be thy king; it may advantage thee to bear this\nin mind, and more dwell upon it than the other.\"\n\nAfter some further talk, in which the Lord St. John covered up his\nmistake as well as he could by repeated protests that his faith was\nthoroughly grounded now, and could not be assailed by doubts again, the\nLord Hertford relieved his fellow-keeper, and sat down to keep watch and\nward alone. \u00a0He was soon deep in meditation, and evidently the longer he\nthought, the more he was bothered. \u00a0By-and-by he began to pace the floor\nand mutter.\n\n\"Tush, he _must_ be the prince! \u00a0Will any be in all the land maintain\nthere can be two, not of one blood and birth, so marvellously twinned?\n\u00a0And even were it so, 'twere yet a stranger miracle that chance should\ncast the one into the other's place. Nay, 'tis folly, folly, folly!\"\n\nPresently he said--\n\n\"Now were he impostor and called himself prince, look you _that_ would\nbe natural; that would be reasonable. \u00a0But lived ever an impostor yet,\nwho, being called prince by the king, prince by the court, prince by\nall, _denied_ his dignity and pleaded against his exaltation? \u00a0_No_! \u00a0By\nthe soul of St. Swithin, no! \u00a0This is the true prince, gone mad!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII. Tom's first royal dinner.\n\nSomewhat after one in the afternoon, Tom resignedly underwent the ordeal\nof being dressed for dinner. \u00a0He found himself as finely clothed as\nbefore, but everything different, everything changed, from his ruff to\nhis stockings. \u00a0He was presently conducted with much state to a spacious\nand ornate apartment, where a table was already set for one. \u00a0Its\nfurniture was all of massy gold, and beautified with designs which\nwell-nigh made it priceless, since they were the work of Benvenuto. \u00a0The\nroom was half-filled with noble servitors. \u00a0A chaplain said grace, and\nTom was about to fall to, for hunger had long been constitutional with\nhim, but was interrupted by my lord the Earl of Berkeley, who fastened a\nnapkin about his neck; for the great post of Diaperers to the Prince\nof Wales was hereditary in this nobleman's family. \u00a0Tom's cupbearer was\npresent, and forestalled all his attempts to help himself to wine. \u00a0The\nTaster to his highness the Prince of Wales was there also, prepared to\ntaste any suspicious dish upon requirement, and run the risk of being\npoisoned. \u00a0He was only an ornamental appendage at this time, and was\nseldom called upon to exercise his function; but there had been times,\nnot many generations past, when the office of taster had its perils,\nand was not a grandeur to be desired. \u00a0Why they did not use a dog or a\nplumber seems strange; but all the ways of royalty are strange. \u00a0My\nLord d'Arcy, First Groom of the Chamber, was there, to do goodness knows\nwhat; but there he was--let that suffice. \u00a0The Lord Chief Butler was\nthere, and stood behind Tom's chair, overseeing the solemnities, under\ncommand of the Lord Great Steward and the Lord Head Cook, who stood\nnear. \u00a0Tom had three hundred and eighty-four servants beside these;\nbut they were not all in that room, of course, nor the quarter of them;\nneither was Tom aware yet that they existed.\n\nAll those that were present had been well drilled within the hour to\nremember that the prince was temporarily out of his head, and to be\ncareful to show no surprise at his vagaries. \u00a0These 'vagaries' were\nsoon on exhibition before them; but they only moved their compassion and\ntheir sorrow, not their mirth. \u00a0It was a heavy affliction to them to see\nthe beloved prince so stricken.\n\nPoor Tom ate with his fingers mainly; but no one smiled at it, or even\nseemed to observe it. \u00a0He inspected his napkin curiously, and with deep\ninterest, for it was of a very dainty and beautiful fabric, then said\nwith simplicity--\n\n\"Prithee, take it away, lest in mine unheedfulness it be soiled.\"\n\nThe Hereditary Diaperer took it away with reverent manner, and without\nword or protest of any sort.\n\nTom examined the turnips and the lettuce with interest, and asked what\nthey were, and if they were to be eaten; for it was only recently that\nmen had begun to raise these things in England in place of importing\nthem as luxuries from Holland. {1} \u00a0His question was answered with grave\nrespect, and no surprise manifested. \u00a0When he had finished his dessert,\nhe filled his pockets with nuts; but nobody appeared to be aware of it,\nor disturbed by it. \u00a0But the next moment he was himself disturbed by\nit, and showed discomposure; for this was the only service he had been\npermitted to do with his own hands during the meal, and he did not doubt\nthat he had done a most improper and unprincely thing. \u00a0At that moment\nthe muscles of his nose began to twitch, and the end of that organ to\nlift and wrinkle. \u00a0This continued, and Tom began to evince a growing\ndistress. \u00a0He looked appealingly, first at one and then another of the\nlords about him, and tears came into his eyes. \u00a0They sprang forward with\ndismay in their faces, and begged to know his trouble. \u00a0Tom said with\ngenuine anguish--\n\n\"I crave your indulgence: \u00a0my nose itcheth cruelly. \u00a0What is the custom\nand usage in this emergence? \u00a0Prithee, speed, for 'tis but a little time\nthat I can bear it.\"\n\nNone smiled; but all were sore perplexed, and looked one to the other\nin deep tribulation for counsel. \u00a0But behold, here was a dead wall, and\nnothing in English history to tell how to get over it. \u00a0The Master of\nCeremonies was not present: \u00a0there was no one who felt safe to venture\nupon this uncharted sea, or risk the attempt to solve this solemn\nproblem. \u00a0Alas! there was no Hereditary Scratcher. \u00a0Meantime the tears\nhad overflowed their banks, and begun to trickle down Tom's cheeks. \u00a0His\ntwitching nose was pleading more urgently than ever for relief. \u00a0At last\nnature broke down the barriers of etiquette: \u00a0Tom lifted up an inward\nprayer for pardon if he was doing wrong, and brought relief to the\nburdened hearts of his court by scratching his nose himself.\n\nHis meal being ended, a lord came and held before him a broad, shallow,\ngolden dish with fragrant rosewater in it, to cleanse his mouth and\nfingers with; and my lord the Hereditary Diaperer stood by with a napkin\nfor his use. \u00a0Tom gazed at the dish a puzzled moment or two, then raised\nit to his lips, and gravely took a draught. \u00a0Then he returned it to the\nwaiting lord, and said--\n\n\"Nay, it likes me not, my lord: \u00a0it hath a pretty flavour, but it\nwanteth strength.\"\n\nThis new eccentricity of the prince's ruined mind made all the hearts\nabout him ache; but the sad sight moved none to merriment.\n\nTom's next unconscious blunder was to get up and leave the table\njust when the chaplain had taken his stand behind his chair, and with\nuplifted hands, and closed, uplifted eyes, was in the act of beginning\nthe blessing. \u00a0Still nobody seemed to perceive that the prince had done\na thing unusual.\n\nBy his own request our small friend was now conducted to his private\ncabinet, and left there alone to his own devices. \u00a0Hanging upon hooks in\nthe oaken wainscoting were the several pieces of a suit of shining steel\narmour, covered all over with beautiful designs exquisitely inlaid\nin gold. \u00a0This martial panoply belonged to the true prince--a recent\npresent from Madam Parr the Queen. Tom put on the greaves, the\ngauntlets, the plumed helmet, and such other pieces as he could don\nwithout assistance, and for a while was minded to call for help and\ncomplete the matter, but bethought him of the nuts he had brought away\nfrom dinner, and the joy it would be to eat them with no crowd to eye\nhim, and no Grand Hereditaries to pester him with undesired services;\nso he restored the pretty things to their several places, and soon was\ncracking nuts, and feeling almost naturally happy for the first time\nsince God for his sins had made him a prince. \u00a0When the nuts were all\ngone, he stumbled upon some inviting books in a closet, among them one\nabout the etiquette of the English court. \u00a0This was a prize. He lay down\nupon a sumptuous divan, and proceeded to instruct himself with honest\nzeal. \u00a0Let us leave him there for the present.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII. The Question of the Seal.\n\nAbout five o'clock Henry VIII. awoke out of an unrefreshing nap, and\nmuttered to himself, \"Troublous dreams, troublous dreams! Mine end is\nnow at hand: \u00a0so say these warnings, and my failing pulses do confirm\nit.\" Presently a wicked light flamed up in his eye, and he muttered,\n\"Yet will not I die till _He_ go before.\"\n\nHis attendants perceiving that he was awake, one of them asked his\npleasure concerning the Lord Chancellor, who was waiting without.\n\n\"Admit him, admit him!\" exclaimed the King eagerly.\n\nThe Lord Chancellor entered, and knelt by the King's couch, saying--\n\n\"I have given order, and, according to the King's command, the peers of\nthe realm, in their robes, do now stand at the bar of the House, where,\nhaving confirmed the Duke of Norfolk's doom, they humbly wait his\nmajesty's further pleasure in the matter.\"\n\nThe King's face lit up with a fierce joy. \u00a0Said he--\n\n\"Lift me up! \u00a0In mine own person will I go before my Parliament, and\nwith mine own hand will I seal the warrant that rids me of--\"\n\nHis voice failed; an ashen pallor swept the flush from his cheeks; and\nthe attendants eased him back upon his pillows, and hurriedly assisted\nhim with restoratives. \u00a0Presently he said sorrowfully--\n\n\"Alack, how have I longed for this sweet hour! and lo, too late it\ncometh, and I am robbed of this so coveted chance. \u00a0But speed ye, speed\nye! let others do this happy office sith 'tis denied to me. I put my\nGreat Seal in commission: \u00a0choose thou the lords that shall compose it,\nand get ye to your work. \u00a0Speed ye, man! \u00a0Before the sun shall rise and\nset again, bring me his head that I may see it.\"\n\n\"According to the King's command, so shall it be. \u00a0Will't please your\nmajesty to order that the Seal be now restored to me, so that I may\nforth upon the business?\"\n\n\"The Seal? \u00a0Who keepeth the Seal but thou?\"\n\n\"Please your majesty, you did take it from me two days since, saying it\nshould no more do its office till your own royal hand should use it upon\nthe Duke of Norfolk's warrant.\"\n\n\"Why, so in sooth I did: \u00a0I do remember. . . . What did I with it?...\nI am very feeble. . . . So oft these days doth my memory play the\ntraitor with me. . . . 'Tis strange, strange--\"\n\nThe King dropped into inarticulate mumblings, shaking his grey head\nweakly from time to time, and gropingly trying to recollect what he\nhad done with the Seal. \u00a0At last my Lord Hertford ventured to kneel and\noffer information--\n\n\"Sire, if that I may be so bold, here be several that do remember with\nme how that you gave the Great Seal into the hands of his highness the\nPrince of Wales to keep against the day that--\"\n\n\"True, most true!\" interrupted the King. \u00a0\"Fetch it! \u00a0Go: \u00a0time flieth!\"\n\nLord Hertford flew to Tom, but returned to the King before very long,\ntroubled and empty-handed. \u00a0He delivered himself to this effect--\n\n\"It grieveth me, my lord the King, to bear so heavy and unwelcome\ntidings; but it is the will of God that the prince's affliction abideth\nstill, and he cannot recall to mind that he received the Seal. \u00a0So came\nI quickly to report, thinking it were waste of precious time, and\nlittle worth withal, that any should attempt to search the long array of\nchambers and saloons that belong unto his royal high--\"\n\nA groan from the King interrupted the lord at this point. \u00a0After a\nlittle while his majesty said, with a deep sadness in his tone--\n\n\"Trouble him no more, poor child. \u00a0The hand of God lieth heavy upon him,\nand my heart goeth out in loving compassion for him, and sorrow that I\nmay not bear his burden on mine old trouble-weighted shoulders, and so\nbring him peace.\"\n\nHe closed his eyes, fell to mumbling, and presently was silent. After\na time he opened his eyes again, and gazed vacantly around until his\nglance rested upon the kneeling Lord Chancellor. Instantly his face\nflushed with wrath--\n\n\"What, thou here yet! \u00a0By the glory of God, an' thou gettest not about\nthat traitor's business, thy mitre shall have holiday the morrow for\nlack of a head to grace withal!\"\n\nThe trembling Chancellor answered--\n\n\"Good your Majesty, I cry you mercy! \u00a0I but waited for the Seal.\"\n\n\"Man, hast lost thy wits? \u00a0The small Seal which aforetime I was wont\nto take with me abroad lieth in my treasury. \u00a0And, since the Great Seal\nhath flown away, shall not it suffice? \u00a0Hast lost thy wits? \u00a0Begone!\n\u00a0And hark ye--come no more till thou do bring his head.\"\n\nThe poor Chancellor was not long in removing himself from this dangerous\nvicinity; nor did the commission waste time in giving the royal assent\nto the work of the slavish Parliament, and appointing the morrow for the\nbeheading of the premier peer of England, the luckless Duke of Norfolk.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX. The river pageant.\n\nAt nine in the evening the whole vast river-front of the palace was\nblazing with light. \u00a0The river itself, as far as the eye could reach\ncitywards, was so thickly covered with watermen's boats and with\npleasure-barges, all fringed with coloured lanterns, and gently agitated\nby the waves, that it resembled a glowing and limitless garden of\nflowers stirred to soft motion by summer winds. \u00a0The grand terrace of\nstone steps leading down to the water, spacious enough to mass the army\nof a German principality upon, was a picture to see, with its ranks\nof royal halberdiers in polished armour, and its troops of brilliantly\ncostumed servitors flitting up and down, and to and fro, in the hurry of\npreparation.\n\nPresently a command was given, and immediately all living creatures\nvanished from the steps. \u00a0Now the air was heavy with the hush of\nsuspense and expectancy. \u00a0As far as one's vision could carry, he might\nsee the myriads of people in the boats rise up, and shade their eyes\nfrom the glare of lanterns and torches, and gaze toward the palace.\n\nA file of forty or fifty state barges drew up to the steps. \u00a0They were\nrichly gilt, and their lofty prows and sterns were elaborately carved.\nSome of them were decorated with banners and streamers; some with\ncloth-of-gold and arras embroidered with coats-of-arms; others with\nsilken flags that had numberless little silver bells fastened to them,\nwhich shook out tiny showers of joyous music whenever the breezes\nfluttered them; others of yet higher pretensions, since they belonged to\nnobles in the prince's immediate service, had their sides picturesquely\nfenced with shields gorgeously emblazoned with armorial bearings. \u00a0Each\nstate barge was towed by a tender. \u00a0Besides the rowers, these tenders\ncarried each a number of men-at-arms in glossy helmet and breastplate,\nand a company of musicians.\n\nThe advance-guard of the expected procession now appeared in the great\ngateway, a troop of halberdiers. \u00a0'They were dressed in striped hose of\nblack and tawny, velvet caps graced at the sides with silver roses, and\ndoublets of murrey and blue cloth, embroidered on the front and back\nwith the three feathers, the prince's blazon, woven in gold. \u00a0Their\nhalberd staves were covered with crimson velvet, fastened with gilt\nnails, and ornamented with gold tassels. \u00a0Filing off on the right and\nleft, they formed two long lines, extending from the gateway of the\npalace to the water's edge. \u00a0A thick rayed cloth or carpet was\nthen unfolded, and laid down between them by attendants in the\ngold-and-crimson liveries of the prince. \u00a0This done, a flourish of\ntrumpets resounded from within. \u00a0A lively prelude arose from the\nmusicians on the water; and two ushers with white wands marched with a\nslow and stately pace from the portal. \u00a0They were followed by an officer\nbearing the civic mace, after whom came another carrying the city's\nsword; then several sergeants of the city guard, in their full\naccoutrements, and with badges on their sleeves; then the Garter\nKing-at-arms, in his tabard; then several Knights of the Bath, each with\na white lace on his sleeve; then their esquires; then the judges, in\ntheir robes of scarlet and coifs; then the Lord High Chancellor of\nEngland, in a robe of scarlet, open before, and purfled with minever;\nthen a deputation of aldermen, in their scarlet cloaks; and then the\nheads of the different civic companies, in their robes of state. Now\ncame twelve French gentlemen, in splendid habiliments, consisting of\npourpoints of white damask barred with gold, short mantles of\ncrimson velvet lined with violet taffeta, and carnation coloured\nhauts-de-chausses, and took their way down the steps. \u00a0They were of the\nsuite of the French ambassador, and were followed by twelve cavaliers of\nthe suite of the Spanish ambassador, clothed in black velvet, unrelieved\nby any ornament. \u00a0Following these came several great English nobles with\ntheir attendants.'\n\nThere was a flourish of trumpets within; and the Prince's uncle, the\nfuture great Duke of Somerset, emerged from the gateway, arrayed in a\n'doublet of black cloth-of-gold, and a cloak of crimson satin flowered\nwith gold, and ribanded with nets of silver.' \u00a0He turned, doffed\nhis plumed cap, bent his body in a low reverence, and began to step\nbackward, bowing at each step. \u00a0A prolonged trumpet-blast followed, and\na proclamation, \"Way for the high and mighty the Lord Edward, Prince of\nWales!\" \u00a0High aloft on the palace walls a long line of red tongues of\nflame leapt forth with a thunder-crash; the massed world on the river\nburst into a mighty roar of welcome; and Tom Canty, the cause and hero\nof it all, stepped into view and slightly bowed his princely head.\n\nHe was 'magnificently habited in a doublet of white satin, with a\nfront-piece of purple cloth-of-tissue, powdered with diamonds, and edged\nwith ermine. \u00a0Over this he wore a mantle of white cloth-of-gold, pounced\nwith the triple-feathered crest, lined with blue satin, set with pearls\nand precious stones, and fastened with a clasp of brilliants. \u00a0About his\nneck hung the order of the Garter, and several princely foreign orders;'\nand wherever light fell upon him jewels responded with a blinding flash.\n\u00a0O Tom Canty, born in a hovel, bred in the gutters of London, familiar\nwith rags and dirt and misery, what a spectacle is this!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X. The Prince in the toils.\n\nWe left John Canty dragging the rightful prince into Offal Court, with\na noisy and delighted mob at his heels. \u00a0There was but one person in it\nwho offered a pleading word for the captive, and he was not heeded; he\nwas hardly even heard, so great was the turmoil. \u00a0The Prince continued\nto struggle for freedom, and to rage against the treatment he was\nsuffering, until John Canty lost what little patience was left in him,\nand raised his oaken cudgel in a sudden fury over the Prince's head.\n\u00a0The single pleader for the lad sprang to stop the man's arm, and the\nblow descended upon his own wrist. \u00a0Canty roared out--\n\n\"Thou'lt meddle, wilt thou? \u00a0Then have thy reward.\"\n\nHis cudgel crashed down upon the meddler's head: \u00a0there was a groan, a\ndim form sank to the ground among the feet of the crowd, and the next\nmoment it lay there in the dark alone. \u00a0The mob pressed on, their\nenjoyment nothing disturbed by this episode.\n\nPresently the Prince found himself in John Canty's abode, with the door\nclosed against the outsiders. \u00a0By the vague light of a tallow candle\nwhich was thrust into a bottle, he made out the main features of the\nloathsome den, and also the occupants of it. \u00a0Two frowsy girls and\na middle-aged woman cowered against the wall in one corner, with the\naspect of animals habituated to harsh usage, and expecting and dreading\nit now. From another corner stole a withered hag with streaming grey\nhair and malignant eyes. \u00a0John Canty said to this one--\n\n\"Tarry! \u00a0There's fine mummeries here. \u00a0Mar them not till thou'st enjoyed\nthem: \u00a0then let thy hand be heavy as thou wilt. \u00a0Stand forth, lad. \u00a0Now\nsay thy foolery again, an thou'st not forgot it. Name thy name. \u00a0Who art\nthou?\"\n\nThe insulted blood mounted to the little prince's cheek once more, and\nhe lifted a steady and indignant gaze to the man's face and said--\n\n\"'Tis but ill-breeding in such as thou to command me to speak. \u00a0I tell\nthee now, as I told thee before, I am Edward, Prince of Wales, and none\nother.\"\n\nThe stunning surprise of this reply nailed the hag's feet to the floor\nwhere she stood, and almost took her breath. \u00a0She stared at the Prince\nin stupid amazement, which so amused her ruffianly son, that he burst\ninto a roar of laughter. \u00a0But the effect upon Tom Canty's mother and\nsisters was different. \u00a0Their dread of bodily injury gave way at once to\ndistress of a different sort. \u00a0They ran forward with woe and dismay in\ntheir faces, exclaiming--\n\n\"Oh, poor Tom, poor lad!\"\n\nThe mother fell on her knees before the Prince, put her hands upon his\nshoulders, and gazed yearningly into his face through her rising tears.\nThen she said--\n\n\"Oh, my poor boy! \u00a0Thy foolish reading hath wrought its woeful work at\nlast, and ta'en thy wit away. \u00a0Ah! why did'st thou cleave to it when I\nso warned thee 'gainst it? \u00a0Thou'st broke thy mother's heart.\"\n\nThe Prince looked into her face, and said gently--\n\n\"Thy son is well, and hath not lost his wits, good dame. \u00a0Comfort thee:\nlet me to the palace where he is, and straightway will the King my\nfather restore him to thee.\"\n\n\"The King thy father! \u00a0Oh, my child! unsay these words that be freighted\nwith death for thee, and ruin for all that be near to thee. \u00a0Shake of\nthis gruesome dream. \u00a0Call back thy poor wandering memory. \u00a0Look upon\nme. Am not I thy mother that bore thee, and loveth thee?\"\n\nThe Prince shook his head and reluctantly said--\n\n\"God knoweth I am loth to grieve thy heart; but truly have I never\nlooked upon thy face before.\"\n\nThe woman sank back to a sitting posture on the floor, and, covering her\neyes with her hands, gave way to heart-broken sobs and wailings.\n\n\"Let the show go on!\" shouted Canty. \u00a0\"What, Nan!--what, Bet! mannerless\nwenches! will ye stand in the Prince's presence? \u00a0Upon your knees, ye\npauper scum, and do him reverence!\"\n\nHe followed this with another horse-laugh. \u00a0The girls began to plead\ntimidly for their brother; and Nan said--\n\n\"An thou wilt but let him to bed, father, rest and sleep will heal his\nmadness: \u00a0prithee, do.\"\n\n\"Do, father,\" said Bet; \"he is more worn than is his wont. \u00a0To-morrow\nwill he be himself again, and will beg with diligence, and come not\nempty home again.\"\n\nThis remark sobered the father's joviality, and brought his mind to\nbusiness. \u00a0He turned angrily upon the Prince, and said--\n\n\"The morrow must we pay two pennies to him that owns this hole; two\npennies, mark ye--all this money for a half-year's rent, else out of\nthis we go. \u00a0Show what thou'st gathered with thy lazy begging.\"\n\nThe Prince said--\n\n\"Offend me not with thy sordid matters. \u00a0I tell thee again I am the\nKing's son.\"\n\nA sounding blow upon the Prince's shoulder from Canty's broad palm\nsent him staggering into goodwife Canty's arms, who clasped him to her\nbreast, and sheltered him from a pelting rain of cuffs and slaps by\ninterposing her own person. \u00a0The frightened girls retreated to their\ncorner; but the grandmother stepped eagerly forward to assist her son.\n\u00a0The Prince sprang away from Mrs. Canty, exclaiming--\n\n\"Thou shalt not suffer for me, madam. \u00a0Let these swine do their will\nupon me alone.\"\n\nThis speech infuriated the swine to such a degree that they set about\ntheir work without waste of time. \u00a0Between them they belaboured the boy\nright soundly, and then gave the girls and their mother a beating for\nshowing sympathy for the victim.\n\n\"Now,\" said Canty, \"to bed, all of ye. \u00a0The entertainment has tired me.\"\n\nThe light was put out, and the family retired. \u00a0As soon as the snorings\nof the head of the house and his mother showed that they were asleep,\nthe young girls crept to where the Prince lay, and covered him tenderly\nfrom the cold with straw and rags; and their mother crept to him also,\nand stroked his hair, and cried over him, whispering broken words of\ncomfort and compassion in his ear the while. \u00a0She had saved a morsel for\nhim to eat, also; but the boy's pains had swept away all appetite--at\nleast for black and tasteless crusts. \u00a0He was touched by her brave and\ncostly defence of him, and by her commiseration; and he thanked her in\nvery noble and princely words, and begged her to go to her sleep and try\nto forget her sorrows. \u00a0And he added that the King his father would not\nlet her loyal kindness and devotion go unrewarded. \u00a0This return to his\n'madness' broke her heart anew, and she strained him to her breast again\nand again, and then went back, drowned in tears, to her bed.\n\nAs she lay thinking and mourning, the suggestion began to creep into\nher mind that there was an undefinable something about this boy that was\nlacking in Tom Canty, mad or sane. \u00a0She could not describe it, she could\nnot tell just what it was, and yet her sharp mother-instinct seemed to\ndetect it and perceive it. \u00a0What if the boy were really not her son,\nafter all? \u00a0Oh, absurd! \u00a0She almost smiled at the idea, spite of her\ngriefs and troubles. \u00a0No matter, she found that it was an idea that\nwould not 'down,' but persisted in haunting her. \u00a0It pursued her, it\nharassed her, it clung to her, and refused to be put away or ignored.\n\u00a0At last she perceived that there was not going to be any peace for her\nuntil she should devise a test that should prove, clearly and without\nquestion, whether this lad was her son or not, and so banish these\nwearing and worrying doubts. \u00a0Ah, yes, this was plainly the right way\nout of the difficulty; therefore she set her wits to work at once to\ncontrive that test. \u00a0But it was an easier thing to propose than to\naccomplish. \u00a0She turned over in her mind one promising test after\nanother, but was obliged to relinquish them all--none of them were\nabsolutely sure, absolutely perfect; and an imperfect one could not\nsatisfy her. \u00a0Evidently she was racking her head in vain--it seemed\nmanifest that she must give the matter up. \u00a0While this depressing\nthought was passing through her mind, her ear caught the regular\nbreathing of the boy, and she knew he had fallen asleep. \u00a0And while she\nlistened, the measured breathing was broken by a soft, startled\ncry, such as one utters in a troubled dream. \u00a0This chance occurrence\nfurnished her instantly with a plan worth all her laboured tests\ncombined. \u00a0She at once set herself feverishly, but noiselessly, to work\nto relight her candle, muttering to herself, \"Had I but seen him _then_,\nI should have known! \u00a0Since that day, when he was little, that the\npowder burst in his face, he hath never been startled of a sudden out of\nhis dreams or out of his thinkings, but he hath cast his hand before his\neyes, even as he did that day; and not as others would do it, with the\npalm inward, but always with the palm turned outward--I have seen it a\nhundred times, and it hath never varied nor ever failed. \u00a0Yes, I shall\nsoon know, now!\"\n\nBy this time she had crept to the slumbering boy's side, with the\ncandle, shaded, in her hand. \u00a0She bent heedfully and warily over him,\nscarcely breathing in her suppressed excitement, and suddenly flashed\nthe light in his face and struck the floor by his ear with her knuckles.\n\u00a0The sleeper's eyes sprang wide open, and he cast a startled stare about\nhim--but he made no special movement with his hands.\n\nThe poor woman was smitten almost helpless with surprise and grief;\nbut she contrived to hide her emotions, and to soothe the boy to sleep\nagain; then she crept apart and communed miserably with herself upon\nthe disastrous result of her experiment. \u00a0She tried to believe that her\nTom's madness had banished this habitual gesture of his; but she could\nnot do it. \u00a0\"No,\" she said, \"his _hands_ are not mad; they could not\nunlearn so old a habit in so brief a time. \u00a0Oh, this is a heavy day for\nme!\"\n\nStill, hope was as stubborn now as doubt had been before; she could not\nbring herself to accept the verdict of the test; she must try the thing\nagain--the failure must have been only an accident; so she startled the\nboy out of his sleep a second and a third time, at intervals--with the\nsame result which had marked the first test; then she dragged herself to\nbed, and fell sorrowfully asleep, saying, \"But I cannot give him up--oh\nno, I cannot, I cannot--he _must_ be my boy!\"\n\nThe poor mother's interruptions having ceased, and the Prince's pains\nhaving gradually lost their power to disturb him, utter weariness at\nlast sealed his eyes in a profound and restful sleep. Hour after hour\nslipped away, and still he slept like the dead. Thus four or five hours\npassed. Then his stupor began to lighten. Presently, while half asleep\nand half awake, he murmured--\n\n\"Sir William!\"\n\nAfter a moment--\n\n\"Ho, Sir William Herbert! \u00a0Hie thee hither, and list to the strangest\ndream that ever . . . Sir William! dost hear? \u00a0Man, I did think me\nchanged to a pauper, and . . . Ho there! \u00a0Guards! Sir William! \u00a0What!\nis there no groom of the chamber in waiting? Alack! it shall go hard\nwith--\"\n\n\"What aileth thee?\" asked a whisper near him. \u00a0\"Who art thou calling?\"\n\n\"Sir William Herbert. \u00a0Who art thou?\"\n\n\"I? \u00a0Who should I be, but thy sister Nan? \u00a0Oh, Tom, I had forgot!\nThou'rt mad yet--poor lad, thou'rt mad yet: \u00a0would I had never woke to\nknow it again! \u00a0But prithee master thy tongue, lest we be all beaten\ntill we die!\"\n\nThe startled Prince sprang partly up, but a sharp reminder from his\nstiffened bruises brought him to himself, and he sank back among his\nfoul straw with a moan and the ejaculation--\n\n\"Alas! it was no dream, then!\"\n\nIn a moment all the heavy sorrow and misery which sleep had banished\nwere upon him again, and he realised that he was no longer a petted\nprince in a palace, with the adoring eyes of a nation upon him, but\na pauper, an outcast, clothed in rags, prisoner in a den fit only for\nbeasts, and consorting with beggars and thieves.\n\nIn the midst of his grief he began to be conscious of hilarious noises\nand shoutings, apparently but a block or two away. \u00a0The next moment\nthere were several sharp raps at the door; John Canty ceased from\nsnoring and said--\n\n\"Who knocketh? \u00a0What wilt thou?\"\n\nA voice answered--\n\n\"Know'st thou who it was thou laid thy cudgel on?\"\n\n\"No. \u00a0Neither know I, nor care.\"\n\n\"Belike thou'lt change thy note eftsoons. \u00a0An thou would save thy neck,\nnothing but flight may stead thee. \u00a0The man is this moment delivering up\nthe ghost. \u00a0'Tis the priest, Father Andrew!\"\n\n\"God-a-mercy!\" exclaimed Canty. \u00a0He roused his family, and hoarsely\ncommanded, \"Up with ye all and fly--or bide where ye are and perish!\"\n\nScarcely five minutes later the Canty household were in the street and\nflying for their lives. \u00a0John Canty held the Prince by the wrist, and\nhurried him along the dark way, giving him this caution in a low voice--\n\n\"Mind thy tongue, thou mad fool, and speak not our name. \u00a0I will choose\nme a new name, speedily, to throw the law's dogs off the scent. \u00a0Mind\nthy tongue, I tell thee!\"\n\nHe growled these words to the rest of the family--\n\n\"If it so chance that we be separated, let each make for London Bridge;\nwhoso findeth himself as far as the last linen-draper's shop on the\nbridge, let him tarry there till the others be come, then will we flee\ninto Southwark together.\"\n\nAt this moment the party burst suddenly out of darkness into light;\nand not only into light, but into the midst of a multitude of singing,\ndancing, and shouting people, massed together on the river frontage.\nThere was a line of bonfires stretching as far as one could see, up\nand down the Thames; London Bridge was illuminated; Southwark Bridge\nlikewise; the entire river was aglow with the flash and sheen of\ncoloured lights; and constant explosions of fireworks filled the skies\nwith an intricate commingling of shooting splendours and a thick rain\nof dazzling sparks that almost turned night into day; everywhere were\ncrowds of revellers; all London seemed to be at large.\n\nJohn Canty delivered himself of a furious curse and commanded a retreat;\nbut it was too late. \u00a0He and his tribe were swallowed up in that\nswarming hive of humanity, and hopelessly separated from each other in\nan instant. We are not considering that the Prince was one of his tribe;\nCanty still kept his grip upon him. \u00a0The Prince's heart was beating high\nwith hopes of escape, now. \u00a0A burly waterman, considerably exalted with\nliquor, found himself rudely shoved by Canty in his efforts to plough\nthrough the crowd; he laid his great hand on Canty's shoulder and said--\n\n\"Nay, whither so fast, friend? \u00a0Dost canker thy soul with sordid\nbusiness when all that be leal men and true make holiday?\"\n\n\"Mine affairs are mine own, they concern thee not,\" answered Canty,\nroughly; \"take away thy hand and let me pass.\"\n\n\"Sith that is thy humour, thou'lt _not_ pass, till thou'st drunk to the\nPrince of Wales, I tell thee that,\" said the waterman, barring the way\nresolutely.\n\n\"Give me the cup, then, and make speed, make speed!\"\n\nOther revellers were interested by this time. \u00a0They cried out--\n\n\"The loving-cup, the loving-cup! make the sour knave drink the\nloving-cup, else will we feed him to the fishes.\"\n\nSo a huge loving-cup was brought; the waterman, grasping it by one of\nits handles, and with the other hand bearing up the end of an imaginary\nnapkin, presented it in due and ancient form to Canty, who had to grasp\nthe opposite handle with one of his hands and take off the lid with the\nother, according to ancient custom. This left the Prince hand-free for\na second, of course. \u00a0He wasted no time, but dived among the forest of\nlegs about him and disappeared. \u00a0In another moment he could not have\nbeen harder to find, under that tossing sea of life, if its billows had\nbeen the Atlantic's and he a lost sixpence.\n\nHe very soon realised this fact, and straightway busied himself about\nhis own affairs without further thought of John Canty. \u00a0He quickly\nrealised another thing, too. \u00a0To wit, that a spurious Prince of Wales\nwas being feasted by the city in his stead. \u00a0He easily concluded that\nthe pauper lad, Tom Canty, had deliberately taken advantage of his\nstupendous opportunity and become a usurper.\n\nTherefore there was but one course to pursue--find his way to the\nGuildhall, make himself known, and denounce the impostor. \u00a0He also made\nup his mind that Tom should be allowed a reasonable time for spiritual\npreparation, and then be hanged, drawn and quartered, according to the\nlaw and usage of the day in cases of high treason.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI. At Guildhall.\n\nThe royal barge, attended by its gorgeous fleet, took its stately way\ndown the Thames through the wilderness of illuminated boats. The air was\nladen with music; the river banks were beruffled with joy-flames; the\ndistant city lay in a soft luminous glow from its countless invisible\nbonfires; above it rose many a slender spire into the sky, incrusted\nwith sparkling lights, wherefore in their remoteness they seemed like\njewelled lances thrust aloft; as the fleet swept along, it was greeted\nfrom the banks with a continuous hoarse roar of cheers and the ceaseless\nflash and boom of artillery.\n\nTo Tom Canty, half buried in his silken cushions, these sounds and this\nspectacle were a wonder unspeakably sublime and astonishing. To his\nlittle friends at his side, the Princess Elizabeth and the Lady Jane\nGrey, they were nothing.\n\nArrived at the Dowgate, the fleet was towed up the limpid Walbrook\n(whose channel has now been for two centuries buried out of sight under\nacres of buildings) to Bucklersbury, past houses and under bridges\npopulous with merry-makers and brilliantly lighted, and at last came to\na halt in a basin where now is Barge Yard, in the centre of the ancient\ncity of London. \u00a0Tom disembarked, and he and his gallant procession\ncrossed Cheapside and made a short march through the Old Jewry and\nBasinghall Street to the Guildhall.\n\nTom and his little ladies were received with due ceremony by the Lord\nMayor and the Fathers of the City, in their gold chains and scarlet\nrobes of state, and conducted to a rich canopy of state at the head of\nthe great hall, preceded by heralds making proclamation, and by the Mace\nand the City Sword. \u00a0The lords and ladies who were to attend upon Tom\nand his two small friends took their places behind their chairs.\n\nAt a lower table the Court grandees and other guests of noble degree\nwere seated, with the magnates of the city; the commoners took places at\na multitude of tables on the main floor of the hall. \u00a0From their lofty\nvantage-ground the giants Gog and Magog, the ancient guardians of the\ncity, contemplated the spectacle below them with eyes grown familiar\nto it in forgotten generations. \u00a0There was a bugle-blast and a\nproclamation, and a fat butler appeared in a high perch in the leftward\nwall, followed by his servitors bearing with impressive solemnity a\nroyal baron of beef, smoking hot and ready for the knife.\n\nAfter grace, Tom (being instructed) rose--and the whole house with\nhim--and drank from a portly golden loving-cup with the Princess\nElizabeth; from her it passed to the Lady Jane, and then traversed the\ngeneral assemblage. \u00a0So the banquet began.\n\nBy midnight the revelry was at its height. \u00a0Now came one of those\npicturesque spectacles so admired in that old day. \u00a0A description of it\nis still extant in the quaint wording of a chronicler who witnessed it:\n\n'Space being made, presently entered a baron and an earl appareled after\nthe Turkish fashion in long robes of bawdkin powdered with gold; hats on\ntheir heads of crimson velvet, with great rolls of gold, girded with two\nswords, called scimitars, hanging by great bawdricks of gold. \u00a0Next came\nyet another baron and another earl, in two long gowns of yellow satin,\ntraversed with white satin, and in every bend of white was a bend of\ncrimson satin, after the fashion of Russia, with furred hats of gray on\ntheir heads; either of them having an hatchet in their hands, and boots\nwith pykes' (points a foot long), 'turned up. \u00a0And after them came\na knight, then the Lord High Admiral, and with him five nobles, in\ndoublets of crimson velvet, voyded low on the back and before to the\ncannell-bone, laced on the breasts with chains of silver; and over\nthat, short cloaks of crimson satin, and on their heads hats after\nthe dancers' fashion, with pheasants' feathers in them. \u00a0These were\nappareled after the fashion of Prussia. \u00a0The torchbearers, which were\nabout an hundred, were appareled in crimson satin and green, like Moors,\ntheir faces black. Next came in a mommarye. Then the minstrels, which\nwere disguised, danced; and the lords and ladies did wildly dance also,\nthat it was a pleasure to behold.'\n\nAnd while Tom, in his high seat, was gazing upon this 'wild' dancing,\nlost in admiration of the dazzling commingling of kaleidoscopic colours\nwhich the whirling turmoil of gaudy figures below him presented, the\nragged but real little Prince of Wales was proclaiming his rights and\nhis wrongs, denouncing the impostor, and clamouring for admission at\nthe gates of Guildhall! The crowd enjoyed this episode prodigiously,\nand pressed forward and craned their necks to see the small rioter.\nPresently they began to taunt him and mock at him, purposely to goad him\ninto a higher and still more entertaining fury. \u00a0Tears of mortification\nsprang to his eyes, but he stood his ground and defied the mob right\nroyally. \u00a0Other taunts followed, added mockings stung him, and he\nexclaimed--\n\n\"I tell ye again, you pack of unmannerly curs, I am the Prince of Wales!\nAnd all forlorn and friendless as I be, with none to give me word of\ngrace or help me in my need, yet will not I be driven from my ground,\nbut will maintain it!\"\n\n\"Though thou be prince or no prince, 'tis all one, thou be'st a gallant\nlad, and not friendless neither! \u00a0Here stand I by thy side to prove\nit; and mind I tell thee thou might'st have a worser friend than Miles\nHendon and yet not tire thy legs with seeking. Rest thy small jaw, my\nchild; I talk the language of these base kennel-rats like to a very\nnative.\"\n\nThe speaker was a sort of Don Caesar de Bazan in dress, aspect, and\nbearing. \u00a0He was tall, trim-built, muscular. \u00a0His doublet and trunks\nwere of rich material, but faded and threadbare, and their gold-lace\nadornments were sadly tarnished; his ruff was rumpled and damaged;\nthe plume in his slouched hat was broken and had a bedraggled and\ndisreputable look; at his side he wore a long rapier in a rusty iron\nsheath; his swaggering carriage marked him at once as a ruffler of\nthe camp. \u00a0The speech of this fantastic figure was received with an\nexplosion of jeers and laughter. \u00a0Some cried, \"'Tis another prince in\ndisguise!\" \"'Ware thy tongue, friend: \u00a0belike he is dangerous!\"\n\u00a0\"Marry, he looketh it--mark his eye!\" \u00a0\"Pluck the lad from him--to the\nhorse-pond wi' the cub!\"\n\nInstantly a hand was laid upon the Prince, under the impulse of this\nhappy thought; as instantly the stranger's long sword was out and the\nmeddler went to the earth under a sounding thump with the flat of it.\nThe next moment a score of voices shouted, \"Kill the dog! \u00a0Kill him!\nKill him!\" and the mob closed in on the warrior, who backed himself\nagainst a wall and began to lay about him with his long weapon like a\nmadman. \u00a0His victims sprawled this way and that, but the mob-tide poured\nover their prostrate forms and dashed itself against the champion with\nundiminished fury.\n\nHis moments seemed numbered, his destruction certain, when suddenly a\ntrumpet-blast sounded, a voice shouted, \"Way for the King's messenger!\"\nand a troop of horsemen came charging down upon the mob, who fled out of\nharm's reach as fast as their legs could carry them. The bold stranger\ncaught up the Prince in his arms, and was soon far away from danger and\nthe multitude.\n\nReturn we within the Guildhall. \u00a0Suddenly, high above the jubilant roar\nand thunder of the revel, broke the clear peal of a bugle-note. \u00a0There\nwas instant silence--a deep hush; then a single voice rose--that of the\nmessenger from the palace--and began to pipe forth a proclamation, the\nwhole multitude standing listening.\n\nThe closing words, solemnly pronounced, were--\n\n\"The King is dead!\"\n\nThe great assemblage bent their heads upon their breasts with one\naccord; remained so, in profound silence, a few moments; then all sank\nupon their knees in a body, stretched out their hands toward Tom, and a\nmighty shout burst forth that seemed to shake the building--\n\n\"Long live the King!\"\n\nPoor Tom's dazed eyes wandered abroad over this stupefying spectacle,\nand finally rested dreamily upon the kneeling princesses beside him, a\nmoment, then upon the Earl of Hertford. A sudden purpose dawned in his\nface. \u00a0He said, in a low tone, at Lord Hertford's ear--\n\n\"Answer me truly, on thy faith and honour! \u00a0Uttered I here a command,\nthe which none but a king might hold privilege and prerogative to utter,\nwould such commandment be obeyed, and none rise up to say me nay?\"\n\n\"None, my liege, in all these realms. \u00a0In thy person bides the majesty\nof England. \u00a0Thou art the king--thy word is law.\"\n\nTom responded, in a strong, earnest voice, and with great animation--\n\n\"Then shall the king's law be law of mercy, from this day, and never\nmore be law of blood! \u00a0Up from thy knees and away! \u00a0To the Tower, and\nsay the King decrees the Duke of Norfolk shall not die!\"\n\nThe words were caught up and carried eagerly from lip to lip far and\nwide over the hall, and as Hertford hurried from the presence, another\nprodigious shout burst forth--\n\n\"The reign of blood is ended! \u00a0Long live Edward, King of England!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII. The Prince and his Deliverer.\n\nAs soon as Miles Hendon and the little prince were clear of the mob,\nthey struck down through back lanes and alleys toward the river. \u00a0Their\nway was unobstructed until they approached London Bridge; then they\nploughed into the multitude again, Hendon keeping a fast grip upon\nthe Prince's--no, the King's--wrist. \u00a0The tremendous news was already\nabroad, and the boy learned it from a thousand voices at once--\"The King\nis dead!\" \u00a0The tidings struck a chill to the heart of the poor little\nwaif, and sent a shudder through his frame. \u00a0He realised the greatness\nof his loss, and was filled with a bitter grief; for the grim tyrant who\nhad been such a terror to others had always been gentle with him. \u00a0The\ntears sprang to his eyes and blurred all objects. \u00a0For an instant\nhe felt himself the most forlorn, outcast, and forsaken of God's\ncreatures--then another cry shook the night with its far-reaching\nthunders: \u00a0\"Long live King Edward the Sixth!\" and this made his eyes\nkindle, and thrilled him with pride to his fingers' ends. \"Ah,\" he\nthought, \"how grand and strange it seems--_I am King_!\"\n\nOur friends threaded their way slowly through the throngs upon the\nbridge. \u00a0This structure, which had stood for six hundred years, and\nhad been a noisy and populous thoroughfare all that time, was a curious\naffair, for a closely packed rank of stores and shops, with family\nquarters overhead, stretched along both sides of it, from one bank of\nthe river to the other. \u00a0The Bridge was a sort of town to itself; it\nhad its inn, its beer-houses, its bakeries, its haberdasheries, its food\nmarkets, its manufacturing industries, and even its church. \u00a0It\nlooked upon the two neighbours which it linked together--London\nand Southwark--as being well enough as suburbs, but not otherwise\nparticularly important. \u00a0It was a close corporation, so to speak; it was\na narrow town, of a single street a fifth of a mile long, its\npopulation was but a village population and everybody in it knew all\nhis fellow-townsmen intimately, and had known their fathers and mothers\nbefore them--and all their little family affairs into the bargain. \u00a0It\nhad its aristocracy, of course--its fine old families of butchers, and\nbakers, and what-not, who had occupied the same old premises for five\nor six hundred years, and knew the great history of the Bridge from\nbeginning to end, and all its strange legends; and who always talked\nbridgy talk, and thought bridgy thoughts, and lied in a long, level,\ndirect, substantial bridgy way. \u00a0It was just the sort of population to\nbe narrow and ignorant and self-conceited. Children were born on the\nBridge, were reared there, grew to old age, and finally died without\never having set a foot upon any part of the world but London Bridge\nalone. \u00a0Such people would naturally imagine that the mighty and\ninterminable procession which moved through its street night and day,\nwith its confused roar of shouts and cries, its neighings and bellowing\nand bleatings and its muffled thunder-tramp, was the one great thing in\nthis world, and themselves somehow the proprietors of it. \u00a0And so they\nwere, in effect--at least they could exhibit it from their windows, and\ndid--for a consideration--whenever a returning king or hero gave it a\nfleeting splendour, for there was no place like it for affording a long,\nstraight, uninterrupted view of marching columns.\n\nMen born and reared upon the Bridge found life unendurably dull and\ninane elsewhere. \u00a0History tells of one of these who left the Bridge at\nthe age of seventy-one and retired to the country. \u00a0But he could only\nfret and toss in his bed; he could not go to sleep, the deep stillness\nwas so painful, so awful, so oppressive. \u00a0When he was worn out with it,\nat last, he fled back to his old home, a lean and haggard spectre, and\nfell peacefully to rest and pleasant dreams under the lulling music of\nthe lashing waters and the boom and crash and thunder of London Bridge.\n\nIn the times of which we are writing, the Bridge furnished 'object\nlessons' in English history for its children--namely, the livid and\ndecaying heads of renowned men impaled upon iron spikes atop of its\ngateways. \u00a0But we digress.\n\nHendon's lodgings were in the little inn on the Bridge. \u00a0As he neared\nthe door with his small friend, a rough voice said--\n\n\"So, thou'rt come at last! \u00a0Thou'lt not escape again, I warrant thee;\nand if pounding thy bones to a pudding can teach thee somewhat, thou'lt\nnot keep us waiting another time, mayhap,\"--and John Canty put out his\nhand to seize the boy.\n\nMiles Hendon stepped in the way and said--\n\n\"Not too fast, friend. \u00a0Thou art needlessly rough, methinks. \u00a0What is\nthe lad to thee?\"\n\n\"If it be any business of thine to make and meddle in others' affairs,\nhe is my son.\"\n\n\"'Tis a lie!\" cried the little King, hotly.\n\n\"Boldly said, and I believe thee, whether thy small headpiece be sound\nor cracked, my boy. \u00a0But whether this scurvy ruffian be thy father\nor no, 'tis all one, he shall not have thee to beat thee and abuse,\naccording to his threat, so thou prefer to bide with me.\"\n\n\"I do, I do--I know him not, I loathe him, and will die before I will go\nwith him.\"\n\n\"Then 'tis settled, and there is nought more to say.\"\n\n\"We will see, as to that!\" exclaimed John Canty, striding past Hendon to\nget at the boy; \"by force shall he--\"\n\n\"If thou do but touch him, thou animated offal, I will spit thee like a\ngoose!\" said Hendon, barring the way and laying his hand upon his sword\nhilt. \u00a0Canty drew back. \u00a0\"Now mark ye,\" continued Hendon, \"I took this\nlad under my protection when a mob of such as thou would have mishandled\nhim, mayhap killed him; dost imagine I will desert him now to a worser\nfate?--for whether thou art his father or no--and sooth to say, I think\nit is a lie--a decent swift death were better for such a lad than life\nin such brute hands as thine. \u00a0So go thy ways, and set quick about it,\nfor I like not much bandying of words, being not over-patient in my\nnature.\"\n\nJohn Canty moved off, muttering threats and curses, and was swallowed\nfrom sight in the crowd. \u00a0Hendon ascended three flights of stairs to his\nroom, with his charge, after ordering a meal to be sent thither. \u00a0It\nwas a poor apartment, with a shabby bed and some odds and ends of old\nfurniture in it, and was vaguely lighted by a couple of sickly candles.\nThe little King dragged himself to the bed and lay down upon it, almost\nexhausted with hunger and fatigue. \u00a0He had been on his feet a good\npart of a day and a night (for it was now two or three o'clock in the\nmorning), and had eaten nothing meantime. \u00a0He murmured drowsily--\n\n\"Prithee call me when the table is spread,\" and sank into a deep sleep\nimmediately.\n\nA smile twinkled in Hendon's eye, and he said to himself--\n\n\"By the mass, the little beggar takes to one's quarters and usurps one's\nbed with as natural and easy a grace as if he owned them--with never\na by-your-leave or so-please-it-you, or anything of the sort. \u00a0In his\ndiseased ravings he called himself the Prince of Wales, and bravely doth\nhe keep up the character. \u00a0Poor little friendless rat, doubtless his\nmind has been disordered with ill-usage. \u00a0Well, I will be his friend;\nI have saved him, and it draweth me strongly to him; already I love the\nbold-tongued little rascal. \u00a0How soldier-like he faced the smutty rabble\nand flung back his high defiance! \u00a0And what a comely, sweet and gentle\nface he hath, now that sleep hath conjured away its troubles and its\ngriefs. I will teach him; I will cure his malady; yea, I will be his\nelder brother, and care for him and watch over him; and whoso would\nshame him or do him hurt may order his shroud, for though I be burnt for\nit he shall need it!\"\n\nHe bent over the boy and contemplated him with kind and pitying\ninterest, tapping the young cheek tenderly and smoothing back the\ntangled curls with his great brown hand. \u00a0A slight shiver passed over\nthe boy's form. Hendon muttered--\n\n\"See, now, how like a man it was to let him lie here uncovered and fill\nhis body with deadly rheums. \u00a0Now what shall I do? 'twill wake him to\ntake him up and put him within the bed, and he sorely needeth sleep.\"\n\nHe looked about for extra covering, but finding none, doffed his doublet\nand wrapped the lad in it, saying, \"I am used to nipping air and scant\napparel, 'tis little I shall mind the cold!\"--then walked up and down\nthe room, to keep his blood in motion, soliloquising as before.\n\n\"His injured mind persuades him he is Prince of Wales; 'twill be odd to\nhave a Prince of Wales still with us, now that he that _was_ the prince\nis prince no more, but king--for this poor mind is set upon the one\nfantasy, and will not reason out that now it should cast by the prince\nand call itself the king. . . If my father liveth still, after these\nseven years that I have heard nought from home in my foreign dungeon, he\nwill welcome the poor lad and give him generous shelter for my sake; so\nwill my good elder brother, Arthur; my other brother, Hugh--but I will\ncrack his crown an _he_ interfere, the fox-hearted, ill-conditioned\nanimal! Yes, thither will we fare--and straightway, too.\"\n\nA servant entered with a smoking meal, disposed it upon a small deal\ntable, placed the chairs, and took his departure, leaving such cheap\nlodgers as these to wait upon themselves. \u00a0The door slammed after him,\nand the noise woke the boy, who sprang to a sitting posture, and shot\na glad glance about him; then a grieved look came into his face and he\nmurmured to himself, with a deep sigh, \"Alack, it was but a dream, woe\nis me!\" \u00a0Next he noticed Miles Hendon's doublet--glanced from that to\nHendon, comprehended the sacrifice that had been made for him, and said,\ngently--\n\n\"Thou art good to me, yes, thou art very good to me. \u00a0Take it and put it\non--I shall not need it more.\"\n\nThen he got up and walked to the washstand in the corner and stood\nthere, waiting. \u00a0Hendon said in a cheery voice--\n\n\"We'll have a right hearty sup and bite, now, for everything is savoury\nand smoking hot, and that and thy nap together will make thee a little\nman again, never fear!\"\n\nThe boy made no answer, but bent a steady look, that was filled with\ngrave surprise, and also somewhat touched with impatience, upon the tall\nknight of the sword. \u00a0Hendon was puzzled, and said--\n\n\"What's amiss?\"\n\n\"Good sir, I would wash me.\"\n\n\"Oh, is that all? \u00a0Ask no permission of Miles Hendon for aught thou\ncravest. \u00a0Make thyself perfectly free here, and welcome, with all that\nare his belongings.\"\n\nStill the boy stood, and moved not; more, he tapped the floor once or\ntwice with his small impatient foot. \u00a0Hendon was wholly perplexed. \u00a0Said\nhe--\n\n\"Bless us, what is it?\"\n\n\"Prithee pour the water, and make not so many words!\"\n\nHendon, suppressing a horse-laugh, and saying to himself, \"By all the\nsaints, but this is admirable!\" stepped briskly forward and did the\nsmall insolent's bidding; then stood by, in a sort of stupefaction,\nuntil the command, \"Come--the towel!\" woke him sharply up. \u00a0He took up a\ntowel, from under the boy's nose, and handed it to him without comment.\n\u00a0He now proceeded to comfort his own face with a wash, and while he was\nat it his adopted child seated himself at the table and prepared to fall\nto. Hendon despatched his ablutions with alacrity, then drew back the\nother chair and was about to place himself at table, when the boy said,\nindignantly--\n\n\"Forbear! \u00a0Wouldst sit in the presence of the King?\"\n\nThis blow staggered Hendon to his foundations. \u00a0He muttered to himself,\n\"Lo, the poor thing's madness is up with the time! \u00a0It hath changed\nwith the great change that is come to the realm, and now in fancy is\nhe _king_! Good lack, I must humour the conceit, too--there is no other\nway--faith, he would order me to the Tower, else!\"\n\nAnd pleased with this jest, he removed the chair from the table,\ntook his stand behind the King, and proceeded to wait upon him in the\ncourtliest way he was capable of.\n\nWhile the King ate, the rigour of his royal dignity relaxed a little,\nand with his growing contentment came a desire to talk. He said--\"I\nthink thou callest thyself Miles Hendon, if I heard thee aright?\"\n\n\"Yes, Sire,\" Miles replied; then observed to himself, \"If I _must_\nhumour the poor lad's madness, I must 'Sire' him, I must 'Majesty' him,\nI must not go by halves, I must stick at nothing that belongeth to the\npart I play, else shall I play it ill and work evil to this charitable\nand kindly cause.\"\n\nThe King warmed his heart with a second glass of wine, and said--\"I\nwould know thee--tell me thy story. \u00a0Thou hast a gallant way with thee,\nand a noble--art nobly born?\"\n\n\"We are of the tail of the nobility, good your Majesty. \u00a0My father is\na baronet--one of the smaller lords by knight service {2}--Sir Richard\nHendon of Hendon Hall, by Monk's Holm in Kent.\"\n\n\"The name has escaped my memory. \u00a0Go on--tell me thy story.\"\n\n\"'Tis not much, your Majesty, yet perchance it may beguile a short\nhalf-hour for want of a better. \u00a0My father, Sir Richard, is very rich,\nand of a most generous nature. \u00a0My mother died whilst I was yet a\nboy. \u00a0I have two brothers: \u00a0Arthur, my elder, with a soul like to\nhis father's; and Hugh, younger than I, a mean spirit, covetous,\ntreacherous, vicious, underhanded--a reptile. \u00a0Such was he from the\ncradle; such was he ten years past, when I last saw him--a ripe rascal\nat nineteen, I being twenty then, and Arthur twenty-two. \u00a0There is\nnone other of us but the Lady Edith, my cousin--she was sixteen\nthen--beautiful, gentle, good, the daughter of an earl, the last of her\nrace, heiress of a great fortune and a lapsed title. \u00a0My father was her\nguardian. \u00a0I loved her and she loved me; but she was betrothed to Arthur\nfrom the cradle, and Sir Richard would not suffer the contract to be\nbroken. \u00a0Arthur loved another maid, and bade us be of good cheer and\nhold fast to the hope that delay and luck together would some day give\nsuccess to our several causes. \u00a0Hugh loved the Lady Edith's fortune,\nthough in truth he said it was herself he loved--but then 'twas his way,\nalway, to say the one thing and mean the other. \u00a0But he lost his arts\nupon the girl; he could deceive my father, but none else. \u00a0My father\nloved him best of us all, and trusted and believed him; for he was the\nyoungest child, and others hated him--these qualities being in all\nages sufficient to win a parent's dearest love; and he had a smooth\npersuasive tongue, with an admirable gift of lying--and these be\nqualities which do mightily assist a blind affection to cozen itself.\n\u00a0I was wild--in troth I might go yet farther and say _very_ wild, though\n'twas a wildness of an innocent sort, since it hurt none but me, brought\nshame to none, nor loss, nor had in it any taint of crime or baseness,\nor what might not beseem mine honourable degree.\n\n\"Yet did my brother Hugh turn these faults to good account--he seeing\nthat our brother Arthur's health was but indifferent, and hoping the\nworst might work him profit were I swept out of the path--so--but 'twere\na long tale, good my liege, and little worth the telling. \u00a0Briefly,\nthen, this brother did deftly magnify my faults and make them\ncrimes; ending his base work with finding a silken ladder in mine\napartments--conveyed thither by his own means--and did convince my\nfather by this, and suborned evidence of servants and other lying\nknaves, that I was minded to carry off my Edith and marry with her in\nrank defiance of his will.\n\n\"Three years of banishment from home and England might make a soldier\nand a man of me, my father said, and teach me some degree of wisdom.\n\u00a0I fought out my long probation in the continental wars, tasting\nsumptuously of hard knocks, privation, and adventure; but in my last\nbattle I was taken captive, and during the seven years that have waxed\nand waned since then, a foreign dungeon hath harboured me. \u00a0Through wit\nand courage I won to the free air at last, and fled hither straight; and\nam but just arrived, right poor in purse and raiment, and poorer still\nin knowledge of what these dull seven years have wrought at Hendon Hall,\nits people and belongings. \u00a0So please you, sir, my meagre tale is told.\"\n\n\"Thou hast been shamefully abused!\" said the little King, with a\nflashing eye. \u00a0\"But I will right thee--by the cross will I! \u00a0The King\nhath said it.\"\n\nThen, fired by the story of Miles's wrongs, he loosed his tongue and\npoured the history of his own recent misfortunes into the ears of his\nastonished listener. \u00a0When he had finished, Miles said to himself--\n\n\"Lo, what an imagination he hath! \u00a0Verily, this is no common mind; else,\ncrazed or sane, it could not weave so straight and gaudy a tale as this\nout of the airy nothings wherewith it hath wrought this curious romaunt.\nPoor ruined little head, it shall not lack friend or shelter whilst I\nbide with the living. \u00a0He shall never leave my side; he shall be my\npet, my little comrade. \u00a0And he shall be cured!--ay, made whole and\nsound--then will he make himself a name--and proud shall I be to say,\n'Yes, he is mine--I took him, a homeless little ragamuffin, but I saw\nwhat was in him, and I said his name would be heard some day--behold\nhim, observe him--was I right?'\"\n\nThe King spoke--in a thoughtful, measured voice--\n\n\"Thou didst save me injury and shame, perchance my life, and so my\ncrown. Such service demandeth rich reward. \u00a0Name thy desire, and so it\nbe within the compass of my royal power, it is thine.\"\n\nThis fantastic suggestion startled Hendon out of his reverie. \u00a0He was\nabout to thank the King and put the matter aside with saying he had only\ndone his duty and desired no reward, but a wiser thought came into his\nhead, and he asked leave to be silent a few moments and consider the\ngracious offer--an idea which the King gravely approved, remarking that\nit was best to be not too hasty with a thing of such great import.\n\nMiles reflected during some moments, then said to himself, \"Yes, that is\nthe thing to do--by any other means it were impossible to get at it--and\ncertes, this hour's experience has taught me 'twould be most wearing and\ninconvenient to continue it as it is. Yes, I will propose it; 'twas a\nhappy accident that I did not throw the chance away.\" \u00a0Then he dropped\nupon one knee and said--\n\n\"My poor service went not beyond the limit of a subject's simple duty,\nand therefore hath no merit; but since your Majesty is pleased to hold\nit worthy some reward, I take heart of grace to make petition to this\neffect. \u00a0Near four hundred years ago, as your grace knoweth, there being\nill blood betwixt John, King of England, and the King of France, it was\ndecreed that two champions should fight together in the lists, and so\nsettle the dispute by what is called the arbitrament of God. \u00a0These two\nkings, and the Spanish king, being assembled to witness and judge the\nconflict, the French champion appeared; but so redoubtable was he, that\nour English knights refused to measure weapons with him. \u00a0So the matter,\nwhich was a weighty one, was like to go against the English monarch by\ndefault. \u00a0Now in the Tower lay the Lord de Courcy, the mightiest arm in\nEngland, stripped of his honours and possessions, and wasting with\nlong captivity. \u00a0Appeal was made to him; he gave assent, and came forth\narrayed for battle; but no sooner did the Frenchman glimpse his huge\nframe and hear his famous name but he fled away, and the French king's\ncause was lost. \u00a0King John restored De Courcy's titles and possessions,\nand said, 'Name thy wish and thou shalt have it, though it cost me half\nmy kingdom;' whereat De Courcy, kneeling, as I do now, made answer,\n'This, then, I ask, my liege; that I and my successors may have and\nhold the privilege of remaining covered in the presence of the kings of\nEngland, henceforth while the throne shall last.' The boon was granted,\nas your Majesty knoweth; and there hath been no time, these four hundred\nyears, that that line has failed of an heir; and so, even unto this day,\nthe head of that ancient house still weareth his hat or helm before the\nKing's Majesty, without let or hindrance, and this none other may do.\n{3} Invoking this precedent in aid of my prayer, I beseech the King to\ngrant to me but this one grace and privilege--to my more than sufficient\nreward--and none other, to wit: \u00a0that I and my heirs, for ever, may\n_sit_ in the presence of the Majesty of England!\"\n\n\"Rise, Sir Miles Hendon, Knight,\" said the King, gravely--giving the\naccolade with Hendon's sword--\"rise, and seat thyself. \u00a0Thy petition is\ngranted. \u00a0Whilst England remains, and the crown continues, the privilege\nshall not lapse.\"\n\nHis Majesty walked apart, musing, and Hendon dropped into a chair at\ntable, observing to himself, \"'Twas a brave thought, and hath wrought\nme a mighty deliverance; my legs are grievously wearied. An I had not\nthought of that, I must have had to stand for weeks, till my poor lad's\nwits are cured.\" \u00a0After a little, he went on, \"And so I am become a\nknight of the Kingdom of Dreams and Shadows! A most odd and strange\nposition, truly, for one so matter-of-fact as I. \u00a0I will not laugh--no,\nGod forbid, for this thing which is so substanceless to me is _real_ to\nhim. \u00a0And to me, also, in one way, it is not a falsity, for it reflects\nwith truth the sweet and generous spirit that is in him.\" \u00a0After\na pause: \"Ah, what if he should call me by my fine title before\nfolk!--there'd be a merry contrast betwixt my glory and my raiment! \u00a0But\nno matter, let him call me what he will, so it please him; I shall be\ncontent.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII. The disappearance of the Prince.\n\nA heavy drowsiness presently fell upon the two comrades. \u00a0The King\nsaid--\n\n\"Remove these rags.\"--meaning his clothing.\n\nHendon disapparelled the boy without dissent or remark, tucked him up in\nbed, then glanced about the room, saying to himself, ruefully, \"He hath\ntaken my bed again, as before--marry, what shall _I_ do?\" \u00a0The little\nKing observed his perplexity, and dissipated it with a word. \u00a0He said,\nsleepily--\n\n\"Thou wilt sleep athwart the door, and guard it.\" \u00a0In a moment more he\nwas out of his troubles, in a deep slumber.\n\n\"Dear heart, he should have been born a king!\" muttered Hendon,\nadmiringly; \"he playeth the part to a marvel.\"\n\nThen he stretched himself across the door, on the floor, saying\ncontentedly--\n\n\"I have lodged worse for seven years; 'twould be but ill gratitude to\nHim above to find fault with this.\"\n\nHe dropped asleep as the dawn appeared. \u00a0Toward noon he rose, uncovered\nhis unconscious ward--a section at a time--and took his measure with a\nstring. \u00a0The King awoke, just as he had completed his work, complained\nof the cold, and asked what he was doing.\n\n\"'Tis done, now, my liege,\" said Hendon; \"I have a bit of business\noutside, but will presently return; sleep thou again--thou needest it.\nThere--let me cover thy head also--thou'lt be warm the sooner.\"\n\nThe King was back in dreamland before this speech was ended. Miles\nslipped softly out, and slipped as softly in again, in the course of\nthirty or forty minutes, with a complete second-hand suit of boy's\nclothing, of cheap material, and showing signs of wear; but tidy, and\nsuited to the season of the year. \u00a0He seated himself, and began to\noverhaul his purchase, mumbling to himself--\n\n\"A longer purse would have got a better sort, but when one has not the\nlong purse one must be content with what a short one may do--\n\n\"'There was a woman in our town, In our town did dwell--'\n\n\"He stirred, methinks--I must sing in a less thunderous key; 'tis not\ngood to mar his sleep, with this journey before him, and he so wearied\nout, poor chap . . . This garment--'tis well enough--a stitch here and\nanother one there will set it aright. \u00a0This other is better, albeit a\nstitch or two will not come amiss in it, likewise . . . _These_ be very\ngood and sound, and will keep his small feet warm and dry--an odd new\nthing to him, belike, since he has doubtless been used to foot it bare,\nwinters and summers the same . . . Would thread were bread, seeing one\ngetteth a year's sufficiency for a farthing, and such a brave big needle\nwithout cost, for mere love. \u00a0Now shall I have the demon's own time to\nthread it!\"\n\nAnd so he had. \u00a0He did as men have always done, and probably always will\ndo, to the end of time--held the needle still, and tried to thrust the\nthread through the eye, which is the opposite of a woman's way. \u00a0Time\nand time again the thread missed the mark, going sometimes on one side\nof the needle, sometimes on the other, sometimes doubling up against the\nshaft; but he was patient, having been through these experiences before,\nwhen he was soldiering. \u00a0He succeeded at last, and took up the garment\nthat had lain waiting, meantime, across his lap, and began his work.\n\n\"The inn is paid--the breakfast that is to come, included--and there is\nwherewithal left to buy a couple of donkeys and meet our little costs\nfor the two or three days betwixt this and the plenty that awaits us at\nHendon Hall--\n\n\"'She loved her hus--'\n\n\"Body o' me! \u00a0I have driven the needle under my nail! . . . It matters\nlittle--'tis not a novelty--yet 'tis not a convenience, neither. . . .\nWe shall be merry there, little one, never doubt it! Thy troubles will\nvanish there, and likewise thy sad distemper--\n\n\"'She loved her husband dearilee, But another man--'\n\n\"These be noble large stitches!\"--holding the garment up and viewing\nit admiringly--\"they have a grandeur and a majesty that do cause\nthese small stingy ones of the tailor-man to look mightily paltry and\nplebeian--\n\n\"'She loved her husband dearilee, But another man he loved she,--'\n\n\"Marry, 'tis done--a goodly piece of work, too, and wrought with\nexpedition. \u00a0Now will I wake him, apparel him, pour for him, feed him,\nand then will we hie us to the mart by the Tabard Inn in Southwark\nand--be pleased to rise, my liege!--he answereth not--what ho, my\nliege!--of a truth must I profane his sacred person with a touch, sith\nhis slumber is deaf to speech. \u00a0What!\"\n\nHe threw back the covers--the boy was gone!\n\nHe stared about him in speechless astonishment for a moment; noticed for\nthe first time that his ward's ragged raiment was also missing; then he\nbegan to rage and storm and shout for the innkeeper. \u00a0At that moment a\nservant entered with the breakfast.\n\n\"Explain, thou limb of Satan, or thy time is come!\" roared the man of\nwar, and made so savage a spring toward the waiter that this latter\ncould not find his tongue, for the instant, for fright and surprise.\n\u00a0\"Where is the boy?\"\n\nIn disjointed and trembling syllables the man gave the information\ndesired.\n\n\"You were hardly gone from the place, your worship, when a youth came\nrunning and said it was your worship's will that the boy come to you\nstraight, at the bridge-end on the Southwark side. \u00a0I brought him\nhither; and when he woke the lad and gave his message, the lad did\ngrumble some little for being disturbed 'so early,' as he called it, but\nstraightway trussed on his rags and went with the youth, only saying\nit had been better manners that your worship came yourself, not sent a\nstranger--and so--\"\n\n\"And so thou'rt a fool!--a fool and easily cozened--hang all thy breed!\nYet mayhap no hurt is done. \u00a0Possibly no harm is meant the boy. \u00a0I will\ngo fetch him. \u00a0Make the table ready. \u00a0Stay! the coverings of the bed\nwere disposed as if one lay beneath them--happened that by accident?\"\n\n\"I know not, good your worship. \u00a0I saw the youth meddle with them--he\nthat came for the boy.\"\n\n\"Thousand deaths! \u00a0'Twas done to deceive me--'tis plain 'twas done to\ngain time. \u00a0Hark ye! \u00a0Was that youth alone?\"\n\n\"All alone, your worship.\"\n\n\"Art sure?\"\n\n\"Sure, your worship.\"\n\n\"Collect thy scattered wits--bethink thee--take time, man.\"\n\nAfter a moment's thought, the servant said--\n\n\"When he came, none came with him; but now I remember me that as the two\nstepped into the throng of the Bridge, a ruffian-looking man plunged out\nfrom some near place; and just as he was joining them--\"\n\n\"What _then_?--out with it!\" thundered the impatient Hendon,\ninterrupting.\n\n\"Just then the crowd lapped them up and closed them in, and I saw no\nmore, being called by my master, who was in a rage because a joint that\nthe scrivener had ordered was forgot, though I take all the saints to\nwitness that to blame _me_ for that miscarriage were like holding the\nunborn babe to judgment for sins com--\"\n\n\"Out of my sight, idiot! \u00a0Thy prating drives me mad! \u00a0Hold! Whither art\nflying? \u00a0Canst not bide still an instant? \u00a0Went they toward Southwark?\"\n\n\"Even so, your worship--for, as I said before, as to that detestable\njoint, the babe unborn is no whit more blameless than--\"\n\n\"Art here _yet_! \u00a0And prating still! \u00a0Vanish, lest I throttle thee!\" The\nservitor vanished. \u00a0Hendon followed after him, passed him, and plunged\ndown the stairs two steps at a stride, muttering, \"'Tis that scurvy\nvillain that claimed he was his son. \u00a0I have lost thee, my poor little\nmad master--it is a bitter thought--and I had come to love thee so! \u00a0No!\nby book and bell, _not_ lost! \u00a0Not lost, for I will ransack the land\ntill I find thee again. \u00a0Poor child, yonder is his breakfast--and mine,\nbut I have no hunger now; so, let the rats have it--speed, speed! that\nis the word!\" \u00a0As he wormed his swift way through the noisy multitudes\nupon the Bridge he several times said to himself--clinging to the\nthought as if it were a particularly pleasing one--\"He grumbled, but he\n_went_--he went, yes, because he thought Miles Hendon asked it, sweet\nlad--he would ne'er have done it for another, I know it well.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV. 'Le Roi est mort--vive le Roi.'\n\nToward daylight of the same morning, Tom Canty stirred out of a heavy\nsleep and opened his eyes in the dark. \u00a0He lay silent a few moments,\ntrying to analyse his confused thoughts and impressions, and get some\nsort of meaning out of them; then suddenly he burst out in a rapturous\nbut guarded voice--\n\n\"I see it all, I see it all! \u00a0Now God be thanked, I am indeed awake at\nlast! \u00a0Come, joy! vanish, sorrow! \u00a0Ho, Nan! Bet! kick off your straw and\nhie ye hither to my side, till I do pour into your unbelieving ears the\nwildest madcap dream that ever the spirits of night did conjure up to\nastonish the soul of man withal! . . . Ho, Nan, I say! \u00a0Bet!\"\n\nA dim form appeared at his side, and a voice said--\n\n\"Wilt deign to deliver thy commands?\"\n\n\"Commands? . . . O, woe is me, I know thy voice! \u00a0Speak thou--who am I?\"\n\n\"Thou? \u00a0In sooth, yesternight wert thou the Prince of Wales; to-day art\nthou my most gracious liege, Edward, King of England.\"\n\nTom buried his head among his pillows, murmuring plaintively--\n\n\"Alack, it was no dream! \u00a0Go to thy rest, sweet sir--leave me to my\nsorrows.\"\n\nTom slept again, and after a time he had this pleasant dream. \u00a0He\nthought it was summer, and he was playing, all alone, in the fair meadow\ncalled Goodman's Fields, when a dwarf only a foot high, with long red\nwhiskers and a humped back, appeared to him suddenly and said, \"Dig by\nthat stump.\" \u00a0He did so, and found twelve bright new pennies--wonderful\nriches! \u00a0Yet this was not the best of it; for the dwarf said--\n\n\"I know thee. \u00a0Thou art a good lad, and a deserving; thy distresses\nshall end, for the day of thy reward is come. \u00a0Dig here every seventh\nday, and thou shalt find always the same treasure, twelve bright new\npennies. Tell none--keep the secret.\"\n\nThen the dwarf vanished, and Tom flew to Offal Court with his prize,\nsaying to himself, \"Every night will I give my father a penny; he\nwill think I begged it, it will glad his heart, and I shall no more\nbe beaten. One penny every week the good priest that teacheth me shall\nhave; mother, Nan, and Bet the other four. We be done with hunger and\nrags, now, done with fears and frets and savage usage.\"\n\nIn his dream he reached his sordid home all out of breath, but with\neyes dancing with grateful enthusiasm; cast four of his pennies into his\nmother's lap and cried out--\n\n\"They are for thee!--all of them, every one!--for thee and Nan and\nBet--and honestly come by, not begged nor stolen!\"\n\nThe happy and astonished mother strained him to her breast and\nexclaimed--\n\n\"It waxeth late--may it please your Majesty to rise?\"\n\nAh! that was not the answer he was expecting. \u00a0The dream had snapped\nasunder--he was awake.\n\nHe opened his eyes--the richly clad First Lord of the Bedchamber was\nkneeling by his couch. \u00a0The gladness of the lying dream faded away--the\npoor boy recognised that he was still a captive and a king. \u00a0The room\nwas filled with courtiers clothed in purple mantles--the mourning\ncolour--and with noble servants of the monarch. \u00a0Tom sat up in bed and\ngazed out from the heavy silken curtains upon this fine company.\n\nThe weighty business of dressing began, and one courtier after another\nknelt and paid his court and offered to the little King his condolences\nupon his heavy loss, whilst the dressing proceeded. \u00a0In the beginning, a\nshirt was taken up by the Chief Equerry in Waiting, who passed it to the\nFirst Lord of the Buckhounds, who passed it to the Second Gentleman of\nthe Bedchamber, who passed it to the Head Ranger of Windsor Forest,\nwho passed it to the Third Groom of the Stole, who passed it to the\nChancellor Royal of the Duchy of Lancaster, who passed it to the Master\nof the Wardrobe, who passed it to Norroy King-at-Arms, who passed it to\nthe Constable of the Tower, who passed it to the Chief Steward of the\nHousehold, who passed it to the Hereditary Grand Diaperer, who passed it\nto the Lord High Admiral of England, who passed it to the Archbishop of\nCanterbury, who passed it to the First Lord of the Bedchamber, who took\nwhat was left of it and put it on Tom. \u00a0Poor little wondering chap, it\nreminded him of passing buckets at a fire.\n\nEach garment in its turn had to go through this slow and solemn process;\nconsequently Tom grew very weary of the ceremony; so weary that he felt\nan almost gushing gratefulness when he at last saw his long silken hose\nbegin the journey down the line and knew that the end of the matter\nwas drawing near. \u00a0But he exulted too soon. \u00a0The First Lord of the\nBedchamber received the hose and was about to encase Tom's legs in them,\nwhen a sudden flush invaded his face and he hurriedly hustled the things\nback into the hands of the Archbishop of Canterbury with an astounded\nlook and a whispered, \"See, my lord!\" pointing to a something connected\nwith the hose. \u00a0The Archbishop paled, then flushed, and passed the\nhose to the Lord High Admiral, whispering, \"See, my lord!\" \u00a0The Admiral\npassed the hose to the Hereditary Grand Diaperer, and had hardly breath\nenough in his body to ejaculate, \"See, my lord!\" \u00a0The hose drifted\nbackward along the line, to the Chief Steward of the Household, the\nConstable of the Tower, Norroy King-at-Arms, the Master of the Wardrobe,\nthe Chancellor Royal of the Duchy of Lancaster, the Third Groom of the\nStole, the Head Ranger of Windsor Forest, the Second Gentleman of the\nBedchamber, the First Lord of the Buckhounds,--accompanied always with\nthat amazed and frightened \"See! see!\"--till they finally reached the\nhands of the Chief Equerry in Waiting, who gazed a moment, with a pallid\nface, upon what had caused all this dismay, then hoarsely whispered,\n\"Body of my life, a tag gone from a truss-point!--to the Tower with\nthe Head Keeper of the King's Hose!\"--after which he leaned upon the\nshoulder of the First Lord of the Buckhounds to regather his vanished\nstrength whilst fresh hose, without any damaged strings to them, were\nbrought.\n\nBut all things must have an end, and so in time Tom Canty was in a\ncondition to get out of bed. \u00a0The proper official poured water, the\nproper official engineered the washing, the proper official stood by\nwith a towel, and by-and-by Tom got safely through the purifying stage\nand was ready for the services of the Hairdresser-royal. \u00a0When he at\nlength emerged from this master's hands, he was a gracious figure and\nas pretty as a girl, in his mantle and trunks of purple satin, and\npurple-plumed cap. \u00a0He now moved in state toward his breakfast-room,\nthrough the midst of the courtly assemblage; and as he passed, these\nfell back, leaving his way free, and dropped upon their knees.\n\nAfter breakfast he was conducted, with regal ceremony, attended by his\ngreat officers and his guard of fifty Gentlemen Pensioners bearing gilt\nbattle-axes, to the throne-room, where he proceeded to transact business\nof state. \u00a0His 'uncle,' Lord Hertford, took his stand by the throne, to\nassist the royal mind with wise counsel.\n\nThe body of illustrious men named by the late King as his executors\nappeared, to ask Tom's approval of certain acts of theirs--rather a\nform, and yet not wholly a form, since there was no Protector as yet.\n\u00a0The Archbishop of Canterbury made report of the decree of the Council\nof Executors concerning the obsequies of his late most illustrious\nMajesty, and finished by reading the signatures of the Executors, to\nwit: \u00a0the Archbishop of Canterbury; the Lord Chancellor of England;\nWilliam Lord St. John; John Lord Russell; Edward Earl of Hertford; John\nViscount Lisle; Cuthbert Bishop of Durham--\n\nTom was not listening--an earlier clause of the document was puzzling\nhim. \u00a0At this point he turned and whispered to Lord Hertford--\n\n\"What day did he say the burial hath been appointed for?\"\n\n\"The sixteenth of the coming month, my liege.\"\n\n\"'Tis a strange folly. \u00a0Will he keep?\"\n\nPoor chap, he was still new to the customs of royalty; he was used to\nseeing the forlorn dead of Offal Court hustled out of the way with a\nvery different sort of expedition. \u00a0However, the Lord Hertford set his\nmind at rest with a word or two.\n\nA secretary of state presented an order of the Council appointing the\nmorrow at eleven for the reception of the foreign ambassadors, and\ndesired the King's assent.\n\nTom turned an inquiring look toward Hertford, who whispered--\n\n\"Your Majesty will signify consent. \u00a0They come to testify their royal\nmasters' sense of the heavy calamity which hath visited your Grace and\nthe realm of England.\"\n\nTom did as he was bidden. \u00a0Another secretary began to read a preamble\nconcerning the expenses of the late King's household, which had amounted\nto 28,000 pounds during the preceding six months--a sum so vast that it\nmade Tom Canty gasp; he gasped again when the fact appeared that 20,000\npounds of this money was still owing and unpaid; {4} and once more when\nit appeared that the King's coffers were about empty, and his twelve\nhundred servants much embarrassed for lack of the wages due them. \u00a0Tom\nspoke out, with lively apprehension--\n\n\"We be going to the dogs, 'tis plain. \u00a0'Tis meet and necessary that we\ntake a smaller house and set the servants at large, sith they be of no\nvalue but to make delay, and trouble one with offices that harass the\nspirit and shame the soul, they misbecoming any but a doll, that hath\nnor brains nor hands to help itself withal. \u00a0I remember me of a small\nhouse that standeth over against the fish-market, by Billingsgate--\"\n\nA sharp pressure upon Tom's arm stopped his foolish tongue and sent a\nblush to his face; but no countenance there betrayed any sign that this\nstrange speech had been remarked or given concern.\n\nA secretary made report that forasmuch as the late King had provided in\nhis will for conferring the ducal degree upon the Earl of Hertford and\nraising his brother, Sir Thomas Seymour, to the peerage, and likewise\nHertford's son to an earldom, together with similar aggrandisements to\nother great servants of the Crown, the Council had resolved to hold a\nsitting on the 16th of February for the delivering and confirming of\nthese honours, and that meantime, the late King not having granted,\nin writing, estates suitable to the support of these dignities, the\nCouncil, knowing his private wishes in that regard, had thought proper\nto grant to Seymour '500 pound lands,' and to Hertford's son '800\npound lands, and 300 pound of the next bishop's lands which should fall\nvacant,'--his present Majesty being willing. {5}\n\nTom was about to blurt out something about the propriety of paying the\nlate King's debts first, before squandering all this money, but a\ntimely touch upon his arm, from the thoughtful Hertford, saved him\nthis indiscretion; wherefore he gave the royal assent, without spoken\ncomment, but with much inward discomfort. \u00a0While he sat reflecting a\nmoment over the ease with which he was doing strange and glittering\nmiracles, a happy thought shot into his mind: \u00a0why not make his mother\nDuchess of Offal Court, and give her an estate? \u00a0But a sorrowful\nthought swept it instantly away: he was only a king in name, these grave\nveterans and great nobles were his masters; to them his mother was only\nthe creature of a diseased mind; they would simply listen to his project\nwith unbelieving ears, then send for the doctor.\n\nThe dull work went tediously on. \u00a0Petitions were read, and\nproclamations, patents, and all manner of wordy, repetitious, and\nwearisome papers relating to the public business; and at last Tom sighed\npathetically and murmured to himself, \"In what have I offended, that the\ngood God should take me away from the fields and the free air and the\nsunshine, to shut me up here and make me a king and afflict me so?\"\n\u00a0Then his poor muddled head nodded a while and presently drooped to his\nshoulder; and the business of the empire came to a standstill for want\nof that august factor, the ratifying power. \u00a0Silence ensued around\nthe slumbering child, and the sages of the realm ceased from their\ndeliberations.\n\nDuring the forenoon, Tom had an enjoyable hour, by permission of his\nkeepers, Hertford and St. John, with the Lady Elizabeth and the little\nLady Jane Grey; though the spirits of the princesses were rather subdued\nby the mighty stroke that had fallen upon the royal house; and at the\nend of the visit his 'elder sister'--afterwards the 'Bloody Mary' of\nhistory--chilled him with a solemn interview which had but one merit in\nhis eyes, its brevity. \u00a0He had a few moments to himself, and then a slim\nlad of about twelve years of age was admitted to his presence, whose\nclothing, except his snowy ruff and the laces about his wrists, was of\nblack,--doublet, hose, and all. \u00a0He bore no badge of mourning but a knot\nof purple ribbon on his shoulder. \u00a0He advanced hesitatingly, with head\nbowed and bare, and dropped upon one knee in front of Tom. Tom sat still\nand contemplated him soberly a moment. \u00a0Then he said--\n\n\"Rise, lad. \u00a0Who art thou. \u00a0What wouldst have?\"\n\nThe boy rose, and stood at graceful ease, but with an aspect of concern\nin his face. \u00a0He said--\n\n\"Of a surety thou must remember me, my lord. \u00a0I am thy whipping-boy.\"\n\n\"My _whipping_-boy?\"\n\n\"The same, your Grace. \u00a0I am Humphrey--Humphrey Marlow.\"\n\nTom perceived that here was someone whom his keepers ought to have\nposted him about. \u00a0The situation was delicate. \u00a0What should he\ndo?--pretend he knew this lad, and then betray by his every utterance\nthat he had never heard of him before? \u00a0No, that would not do. \u00a0An idea\ncame to his relief: accidents like this might be likely to happen with\nsome frequency, now that business urgencies would often call Hertford\nand St. John from his side, they being members of the Council of\nExecutors; therefore perhaps it would be well to strike out a plan\nhimself to meet the requirements of such emergencies. \u00a0Yes, that would\nbe a wise course--he would practise on this boy, and see what sort of\nsuccess he might achieve. \u00a0So he stroked his brow perplexedly a moment\nor two, and presently said--\n\n\"Now I seem to remember thee somewhat--but my wit is clogged and dim\nwith suffering--\"\n\n\"Alack, my poor master!\" ejaculated the whipping-boy, with feeling;\nadding, to himself, \"In truth 'tis as they said--his mind is gone--alas,\npoor soul! \u00a0But misfortune catch me, how am I forgetting! \u00a0They said one\nmust not seem to observe that aught is wrong with him.\"\n\n\"'Tis strange how my memory doth wanton with me these days,\" said Tom.\n\"But mind it not--I mend apace--a little clue doth often serve to bring\nme back again the things and names which had escaped me. \u00a0(And not they,\nonly, forsooth, but e'en such as I ne'er heard before--as this lad shall\nsee.) \u00a0Give thy business speech.\"\n\n\"'Tis matter of small weight, my liege, yet will I touch upon it, an' it\nplease your Grace. \u00a0Two days gone by, when your Majesty faulted thrice\nin your Greek--in the morning lessons,--dost remember it?\"\n\n\"Y-e-s--methinks I do. \u00a0(It is not much of a lie--an' I had meddled with\nthe Greek at all, I had not faulted simply thrice, but forty times.)\nYes, I do recall it, now--go on.\"\n\n\"The master, being wroth with what he termed such slovenly and doltish\nwork, did promise that he would soundly whip me for it--and--\"\n\n\"Whip _thee_!\" said Tom, astonished out of his presence of mind. \"Why\nshould he whip _thee_ for faults of mine?\"\n\n\"Ah, your Grace forgetteth again. \u00a0He always scourgeth me when thou dost\nfail in thy lessons.\"\n\n\"True, true--I had forgot. \u00a0Thou teachest me in private--then if I fail,\nhe argueth that thy office was lamely done, and--\"\n\n\"Oh, my liege, what words are these? \u00a0I, the humblest of thy servants,\npresume to teach _thee_?\"\n\n\"Then where is thy blame? \u00a0What riddle is this? \u00a0Am I in truth gone mad,\nor is it thou? \u00a0Explain--speak out.\"\n\n\"But, good your Majesty, there's nought that needeth simplifying.--None\nmay visit the sacred person of the Prince of Wales with blows;\nwherefore, when he faulteth, 'tis I that take them; and meet it is and\nright, for that it is mine office and my livelihood.\" {1}\n\nTom stared at the tranquil boy, observing to himself, \"Lo, it is a\nwonderful thing,--a most strange and curious trade; I marvel they have\nnot hired a boy to take my combings and my dressings for me--would\nheaven they would!--an' they will do this thing, I will take my lashings\nin mine own person, giving God thanks for the change.\" Then he said\naloud--\n\n\"And hast thou been beaten, poor friend, according to the promise?\"\n\n\"No, good your Majesty, my punishment was appointed for this day, and\nperadventure it may be annulled, as unbefitting the season of mourning\nthat is come upon us; I know not, and so have made bold to come hither\nand remind your Grace about your gracious promise to intercede in my\nbehalf--\"\n\n\"With the master? \u00a0To save thee thy whipping?\"\n\n\"Ah, thou dost remember!\"\n\n\"My memory mendeth, thou seest. \u00a0Set thy mind at ease--thy back shall go\nunscathed--I will see to it.\"\n\n\"Oh, thanks, my good lord!\" cried the boy, dropping upon his knee again.\n\"Mayhap I have ventured far enow; and yet--\"\n\nSeeing Master Humphrey hesitate, Tom encouraged him to go on, saying he\nwas \"in the granting mood.\"\n\n\"Then will I speak it out, for it lieth near my heart. \u00a0Sith thou art\nno more Prince of Wales but King, thou canst order matters as thou wilt,\nwith none to say thee nay; wherefore it is not in reason that thou wilt\nlonger vex thyself with dreary studies, but wilt burn thy books and\nturn thy mind to things less irksome. Then am I ruined, and mine orphan\nsisters with me!\"\n\n\"Ruined? \u00a0Prithee how?\"\n\n\"My back is my bread, O my gracious liege! if it go idle, I starve. \u00a0An'\nthou cease from study mine office is gone thou'lt need no whipping-boy.\nDo not turn me away!\"\n\nTom was touched with this pathetic distress. \u00a0He said, with a right\nroyal burst of generosity--\n\n\"Discomfort thyself no further, lad. \u00a0Thine office shall be permanent in\nthee and thy line for ever.\" \u00a0Then he struck the boy a light blow on the\nshoulder with the flat of his sword, exclaiming, \"Rise, Humphrey Marlow,\nHereditary Grand Whipping-Boy to the Royal House of England! \u00a0Banish\nsorrow--I will betake me to my books again, and study so ill that they\nmust in justice treble thy wage, so mightily shall the business of thine\noffice be augmented.\"\n\nThe grateful Humphrey responded fervidly--\n\n\"Thanks, O most noble master, this princely lavishness doth far surpass\nmy most distempered dreams of fortune. \u00a0Now shall I be happy all my\ndays, and all the house of Marlow after me.\"\n\nTom had wit enough to perceive that here was a lad who could be useful\nto him. \u00a0He encouraged Humphrey to talk, and he was nothing loath.\n\u00a0He was delighted to believe that he was helping in Tom's 'cure'; for\nalways, as soon as he had finished calling back to Tom's diseased mind\nthe various particulars of his experiences and adventures in the royal\nschool-room and elsewhere about the palace, he noticed that Tom was then\nable to 'recall' the circumstances quite clearly. \u00a0At the end of an\nhour Tom found himself well freighted with very valuable information\nconcerning personages and matters pertaining to the Court; so he\nresolved to draw instruction from this source daily; and to this end he\nwould give order to admit Humphrey to the royal closet whenever he might\ncome, provided the Majesty of England was not engaged with other people.\n\u00a0Humphrey had hardly been dismissed when my Lord Hertford arrived with\nmore trouble for Tom.\n\nHe said that the Lords of the Council, fearing that some overwrought\nreport of the King's damaged health might have leaked out and got\nabroad, they deemed it wise and best that his Majesty should begin to\ndine in public after a day or two--his wholesome complexion and vigorous\nstep, assisted by a carefully guarded repose of manner and ease and\ngrace of demeanour, would more surely quiet the general pulse--in case\nany evil rumours _had_ gone about--than any other scheme that could be\ndevised.\n\nThen the Earl proceeded, very delicately, to instruct Tom as to the\nobservances proper to the stately occasion, under the rather thin\ndisguise of 'reminding' him concerning things already known to him; but\nto his vast gratification it turned out that Tom needed very little help\nin this line--he had been making use of Humphrey in that direction, for\nHumphrey had mentioned that within a few days he was to begin to dine\nin public; having gathered it from the swift-winged gossip of the Court.\nTom kept these facts to himself, however.\n\nSeeing the royal memory so improved, the Earl ventured to apply a\nfew tests to it, in an apparently casual way, to find out how far its\namendment had progressed. \u00a0The results were happy, here and there, in\nspots--spots where Humphrey's tracks remained--and on the whole my lord\nwas greatly pleased and encouraged. \u00a0So encouraged was he, indeed, that\nhe spoke up and said in a quite hopeful voice--\n\n\"Now am I persuaded that if your Majesty will but tax your memory yet\na little further, it will resolve the puzzle of the Great Seal--a loss\nwhich was of moment yesterday, although of none to-day, since its term\nof service ended with our late lord's life. May it please your Grace to\nmake the trial?\"\n\nTom was at sea--a Great Seal was something which he was totally\nunacquainted with. \u00a0After a moment's hesitation he looked up innocently\nand asked--\n\n\"What was it like, my lord?\"\n\nThe Earl started, almost imperceptibly, muttering to himself, \"Alack,\nhis wits are flown again!--it was ill wisdom to lead him on to strain\nthem\"--then he deftly turned the talk to other matters, with the purpose\nof sweeping the unlucky seal out of Tom's thoughts--a purpose which\neasily succeeded.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV. Tom as King.\n\nThe next day the foreign ambassadors came, with their gorgeous trains;\nand Tom, throned in awful state, received them. \u00a0The splendours of the\nscene delighted his eye and fired his imagination at first, but\nthe audience was long and dreary, and so were most of the\naddresses--wherefore, what began as a pleasure grew into weariness and\nhome-sickness by-and-by. \u00a0Tom said the words which Hertford put into\nhis mouth from time to time, and tried hard to acquit himself\nsatisfactorily, but he was too new to such things, and too ill at ease\nto accomplish more than a tolerable success. \u00a0He looked sufficiently\nlike a king, but he was ill able to feel like one. \u00a0He was cordially\nglad when the ceremony was ended.\n\nThe larger part of his day was 'wasted'--as he termed it, in his own\nmind--in labours pertaining to his royal office. \u00a0Even the two hours\ndevoted to certain princely pastimes and recreations were rather a\nburden to him than otherwise, they were so fettered by restrictions\nand ceremonious observances. \u00a0However, he had a private hour with\nhis whipping-boy which he counted clear gain, since he got both\nentertainment and needful information out of it.\n\nThe third day of Tom Canty's kingship came and went much as the others\nhad done, but there was a lifting of his cloud in one way--he felt\nless uncomfortable than at first; he was getting a little used to his\ncircumstances and surroundings; his chains still galled, but not all the\ntime; he found that the presence and homage of the great afflicted and\nembarrassed him less and less sharply with every hour that drifted over\nhis head.\n\nBut for one single dread, he could have seen the fourth day approach\nwithout serious distress--the dining in public; it was to begin that\nday. There were greater matters in the programme--for on that day\nhe would have to preside at a council which would take his views and\ncommands concerning the policy to be pursued toward various foreign\nnations scattered far and near over the great globe; on that day, too,\nHertford would be formally chosen to the grand office of Lord Protector;\nother things of note were appointed for that fourth day, also; but to\nTom they were all insignificant compared with the ordeal of dining all\nby himself with a multitude of curious eyes fastened upon him and a\nmultitude of mouths whispering comments upon his performance,--and upon\nhis mistakes, if he should be so unlucky as to make any.\n\nStill, nothing could stop that fourth day, and so it came. \u00a0It found\npoor Tom low-spirited and absent-minded, and this mood continued; he\ncould not shake it off. \u00a0The ordinary duties of the morning dragged upon\nhis hands, and wearied him. \u00a0Once more he felt the sense of captivity\nheavy upon him.\n\nLate in the forenoon he was in a large audience-chamber, conversing\nwith the Earl of Hertford and dully awaiting the striking of the hour\nappointed for a visit of ceremony from a considerable number of great\nofficials and courtiers.\n\nAfter a little while, Tom, who had wandered to a window and become\ninterested in the life and movement of the great highway beyond the\npalace gates--and not idly interested, but longing with all his heart\nto take part in person in its stir and freedom--saw the van of a hooting\nand shouting mob of disorderly men, women, and children of the lowest\nand poorest degree approaching from up the road.\n\n\"I would I knew what 'tis about!\" he exclaimed, with all a boy's\ncuriosity in such happenings.\n\n\"Thou art the King!\" solemnly responded the Earl, with a reverence.\n\"Have I your Grace's leave to act?\"\n\n\"O blithely, yes! \u00a0O gladly, yes!\" exclaimed Tom excitedly, adding to\nhimself with a lively sense of satisfaction, \"In truth, being a king is\nnot all dreariness--it hath its compensations and conveniences.\"\n\nThe Earl called a page, and sent him to the captain of the guard with\nthe order--\n\n\"Let the mob be halted, and inquiry made concerning the occasion of its\nmovement. \u00a0By the King's command!\"\n\nA few seconds later a long rank of the royal guards, cased in flashing\nsteel, filed out at the gates and formed across the highway in front\nof the multitude. \u00a0A messenger returned, to report that the crowd were\nfollowing a man, a woman, and a young girl to execution for crimes\ncommitted against the peace and dignity of the realm.\n\nDeath--and a violent death--for these poor unfortunates! \u00a0The thought\nwrung Tom's heart-strings. \u00a0The spirit of compassion took control of\nhim, to the exclusion of all other considerations; he never thought of\nthe offended laws, or of the grief or loss which these three criminals\nhad inflicted upon their victims; he could think of nothing but the\nscaffold and the grisly fate hanging over the heads of the condemned.\n\u00a0His concern made him even forget, for the moment, that he was but the\nfalse shadow of a king, not the substance; and before he knew it he had\nblurted out the command--\n\n\"Bring them here!\"\n\nThen he blushed scarlet, and a sort of apology sprung to his lips; but\nobserving that his order had wrought no sort of surprise in the Earl or\nthe waiting page, he suppressed the words he was about to utter. \u00a0The\npage, in the most matter-of-course way, made a profound obeisance\nand retired backwards out of the room to deliver the command. \u00a0Tom\nexperienced a glow of pride and a renewed sense of the compensating\nadvantages of the kingly office. He said to himself, \"Truly it is like\nwhat I was used to feel when I read the old priest's tales, and did\nimagine mine own self a prince, giving law and command to all, saying\n'Do this, do that,' whilst none durst offer let or hindrance to my\nwill.\"\n\nNow the doors swung open; one high-sounding title after another was\nannounced, the personages owning them followed, and the place was\nquickly half-filled with noble folk and finery. \u00a0But Tom was hardly\nconscious of the presence of these people, so wrought up was he and so\nintensely absorbed in that other and more interesting matter. \u00a0He seated\nhimself absently in his chair of state, and turned his eyes upon the\ndoor with manifestations of impatient expectancy; seeing which, the\ncompany forbore to trouble him, and fell to chatting a mixture of public\nbusiness and court gossip one with another.\n\nIn a little while the measured tread of military men was heard\napproaching, and the culprits entered the presence in charge of an\nunder-sheriff and escorted by a detail of the king's guard. \u00a0The civil\nofficer knelt before Tom, then stood aside; the three doomed persons\nknelt, also, and remained so; the guard took position behind Tom's\nchair. \u00a0Tom scanned the prisoners curiously. Something about the dress\nor appearance of the man had stirred a vague memory in him. \u00a0\"Methinks\nI have seen this man ere now . . . but the when or the where fail\nme.\"--Such was Tom's thought. Just then the man glanced quickly up and\nquickly dropped his face again, not being able to endure the awful port\nof sovereignty; but the one full glimpse of the face which Tom got was\nsufficient. \u00a0He said to himself: \"Now is the matter clear; this is the\nstranger that plucked Giles Witt out of the Thames, and saved his life,\nthat windy, bitter, first day of the New Year--a brave good deed--pity\nhe hath been doing baser ones and got himself in this sad case . . . I\nhave not forgot the day, neither the hour; by reason that an hour after,\nupon the stroke of eleven, I did get a hiding by the hand of Gammer\nCanty which was of so goodly and admired severity that all that\nwent before or followed after it were but fondlings and caresses by\ncomparison.\"\n\nTom now ordered that the woman and the girl be removed from the presence\nfor a little time; then addressed himself to the under-sheriff, saying--\n\n\"Good sir, what is this man's offence?\"\n\nThe officer knelt, and answered--\n\n\"So please your Majesty, he hath taken the life of a subject by poison.\"\n\nTom's compassion for the prisoner, and admiration of him as the daring\nrescuer of a drowning boy, experienced a most damaging shock.\n\n\"The thing was proven upon him?\" he asked.\n\n\"Most clearly, sire.\"\n\nTom sighed, and said--\n\n\"Take him away--he hath earned his death. \u00a0'Tis a pity, for he was a\nbrave heart--na--na, I mean he hath the _look_ of it!\"\n\nThe prisoner clasped his hands together with sudden energy, and wrung\nthem despairingly, at the same time appealing imploringly to the 'King'\nin broken and terrified phrases--\n\n\"O my lord the King, an' thou canst pity the lost, have pity upon me! \u00a0I\nam innocent--neither hath that wherewith I am charged been more than\nbut lamely proved--yet I speak not of that; the judgment is gone forth\nagainst me and may not suffer alteration; yet in mine extremity I beg a\nboon, for my doom is more than I can bear. A grace, a grace, my lord the\nKing! in thy royal compassion grant my prayer--give commandment that I\nbe hanged!\"\n\nTom was amazed. \u00a0This was not the outcome he had looked for.\n\n\"Odds my life, a strange _boon_! \u00a0Was it not the fate intended thee?\"\n\n\"O good my liege, not so! \u00a0It is ordered that I be _boiled alive_!\"\n\nThe hideous surprise of these words almost made Tom spring from his\nchair. \u00a0As soon as he could recover his wits he cried out--\n\n\"Have thy wish, poor soul! an' thou had poisoned a hundred men thou\nshouldst not suffer so miserable a death.\"\n\nThe prisoner bowed his face to the ground and burst into passionate\nexpressions of gratitude--ending with--\n\n\"If ever thou shouldst know misfortune--which God forefend!--may thy\ngoodness to me this day be remembered and requited!\"\n\nTom turned to the Earl of Hertford, and said--\n\n\"My lord, is it believable that there was warrant for this man's\nferocious doom?\"\n\n\"It is the law, your Grace--for poisoners. \u00a0In Germany coiners be boiled\nto death in _oil_--not cast in of a sudden, but by a rope let down into\nthe oil by degrees, and slowly; first the feet, then the legs, then--\"\n\n\"O prithee no more, my lord, I cannot bear it!\" cried Tom, covering\nhis eyes with his hands to shut out the picture. \u00a0\"I beseech your good\nlordship that order be taken to change this law--oh, let no more poor\ncreatures be visited with its tortures.\"\n\nThe Earl's face showed profound gratification, for he was a man of\nmerciful and generous impulses--a thing not very common with his class\nin that fierce age. \u00a0He said--\n\n\"These your Grace's noble words have sealed its doom. \u00a0History will\nremember it to the honour of your royal house.\"\n\nThe under-sheriff was about to remove his prisoner; Tom gave him a sign\nto wait; then he said--\n\n\"Good sir, I would look into this matter further. \u00a0The man has said his\ndeed was but lamely proved. \u00a0Tell me what thou knowest.\"\n\n\"If the King's grace please, it did appear upon the trial that this\nman entered into a house in the hamlet of Islington where one lay\nsick--three witnesses say it was at ten of the clock in the morning, and\ntwo say it was some minutes later--the sick man being alone at the time,\nand sleeping--and presently the man came forth again and went his\nway. \u00a0The sick man died within the hour, being torn with spasms and\nretchings.\"\n\n\"Did any see the poison given? \u00a0Was poison found?\"\n\n\"Marry, no, my liege.\"\n\n\"Then how doth one know there was poison given at all?\"\n\n\"Please your Majesty, the doctors testified that none die with such\nsymptoms but by poison.\"\n\nWeighty evidence, this, in that simple age. \u00a0Tom recognised its\nformidable nature, and said--\n\n\"The doctor knoweth his trade--belike they were right. \u00a0The matter hath\nan ill-look for this poor man.\"\n\n\"Yet was not this all, your Majesty; there is more and worse. Many\ntestified that a witch, since gone from the village, none know whither,\ndid foretell, and speak it privately in their ears, that the sick\nman _would die by poison_--and more, that a stranger would give it--a\nstranger with brown hair and clothed in a worn and common garb; and\nsurely this prisoner doth answer woundily to the bill. \u00a0Please your\nMajesty to give the circumstance that solemn weight which is its due,\nseeing it was _foretold_.\"\n\nThis was an argument of tremendous force in that superstitious day. \u00a0Tom\nfelt that the thing was settled; if evidence was worth anything, this\npoor fellow's guilt was proved. \u00a0Still he offered the prisoner a chance,\nsaying--\n\n\"If thou canst say aught in thy behalf, speak.\"\n\n\"Nought that will avail, my King. \u00a0I am innocent, yet cannot I make\nit appear. \u00a0I have no friends, else might I show that I was not in\nIslington that day; so also might I show that at that hour they name I\nwas above a league away, seeing I was at Wapping Old Stairs; yea more,\nmy King, for I could show, that whilst they say I was _taking_ life, I\nwas _saving_ it. \u00a0A drowning boy--\"\n\n\"Peace! \u00a0Sheriff, name the day the deed was done!\"\n\n\"At ten in the morning, or some minutes later, the first day of the New\nYear, most illustrious--\"\n\n\"Let the prisoner go free--it is the King's will!\"\n\nAnother blush followed this unregal outburst, and he covered his\nindecorum as well as he could by adding--\n\n\"It enrageth me that a man should be hanged upon such idle, hare-brained\nevidence!\"\n\nA low buzz of admiration swept through the assemblage. \u00a0It was not\nadmiration of the decree that had been delivered by Tom, for the\npropriety or expediency of pardoning a convicted poisoner was a thing\nwhich few there would have felt justified in either admitting or\nadmiring--no, the admiration was for the intelligence and spirit which\nTom had displayed. \u00a0Some of the low-voiced remarks were to this effect--\n\n\"This is no mad king--he hath his wits sound.\"\n\n\"How sanely he put his questions--how like his former natural self was\nthis abrupt imperious disposal of the matter!\"\n\n\"God be thanked, his infirmity is spent! \u00a0This is no weakling, but a\nking. \u00a0He hath borne himself like to his own father.\"\n\nThe air being filled with applause, Tom's ear necessarily caught a\nlittle of it. \u00a0The effect which this had upon him was to put him\ngreatly at his ease, and also to charge his system with very gratifying\nsensations.\n\nHowever, his juvenile curiosity soon rose superior to these pleasant\nthoughts and feelings; he was eager to know what sort of deadly mischief\nthe woman and the little girl could have been about; so, by his command,\nthe two terrified and sobbing creatures were brought before him.\n\n\"What is it that these have done?\" he inquired of the sheriff.\n\n\"Please your Majesty, a black crime is charged upon them, and clearly\nproven; wherefore the judges have decreed, according to the law, that\nthey be hanged. \u00a0They sold themselves to the devil--such is their\ncrime.\"\n\nTom shuddered. \u00a0He had been taught to abhor people who did this wicked\nthing. \u00a0Still, he was not going to deny himself the pleasure of feeding\nhis curiosity for all that; so he asked--\n\n\"Where was this done?--and when?\"\n\n\"On a midnight in December, in a ruined church, your Majesty.\"\n\nTom shuddered again.\n\n\"Who was there present?\"\n\n\"Only these two, your grace--and _that other_.\"\n\n\"Have these confessed?\"\n\n\"Nay, not so, sire--they do deny it.\"\n\n\"Then prithee, how was it known?\"\n\n\"Certain witness did see them wending thither, good your Majesty; this\nbred the suspicion, and dire effects have since confirmed and justified\nit. \u00a0In particular, it is in evidence that through the wicked power so\nobtained, they did invoke and bring about a storm that wasted all the\nregion round about. \u00a0Above forty witnesses have proved the storm; and\nsooth one might have had a thousand, for all had reason to remember it,\nsith all had suffered by it.\"\n\n\"Certes this is a serious matter.\" \u00a0Tom turned this dark piece of\nscoundrelism over in his mind a while, then asked--\n\n\"Suffered the woman also by the storm?\"\n\nSeveral old heads among the assemblage nodded their recognition of\nthe wisdom of this question. \u00a0The sheriff, however, saw nothing\nconsequential in the inquiry; he answered, with simple directness--\n\n\"Indeed did she, your Majesty, and most righteously, as all aver. Her\nhabitation was swept away, and herself and child left shelterless.\"\n\n\"Methinks the power to do herself so ill a turn was dearly bought. She\nhad been cheated, had she paid but a farthing for it; that she paid\nher soul, and her child's, argueth that she is mad; if she is mad she\nknoweth not what she doth, therefore sinneth not.\"\n\nThe elderly heads nodded recognition of Tom's wisdom once more, and one\nindividual murmured, \"An' the King be mad himself, according to report,\nthen is it a madness of a sort that would improve the sanity of some I\nwot of, if by the gentle providence of God they could but catch it.\"\n\n\"What age hath the child?\" asked Tom.\n\n\"Nine years, please your Majesty.\"\n\n\"By the law of England may a child enter into covenant and sell itself,\nmy lord?\" asked Tom, turning to a learned judge.\n\n\"The law doth not permit a child to make or meddle in any weighty\nmatter, good my liege, holding that its callow wit unfitteth it to cope\nwith the riper wit and evil schemings of them that are its elders. \u00a0The\n_Devil_ may buy a child, if he so choose, and the child agree thereto,\nbut not an Englishman--in this latter case the contract would be null\nand void.\"\n\n\"It seemeth a rude unchristian thing, and ill contrived, that English\nlaw denieth privileges to Englishmen to waste them on the devil!\" cried\nTom, with honest heat.\n\nThis novel view of the matter excited many smiles, and was stored\naway in many heads to be repeated about the Court as evidence of Tom's\noriginality as well as progress toward mental health.\n\nThe elder culprit had ceased from sobbing, and was hanging upon Tom's\nwords with an excited interest and a growing hope. \u00a0Tom noticed this,\nand it strongly inclined his sympathies toward her in her perilous and\nunfriended situation. \u00a0Presently he asked--\n\n\"How wrought they to bring the storm?\"\n\n\"_By pulling off their stockings_, sire.\"\n\nThis astonished Tom, and also fired his curiosity to fever heat. He\nsaid, eagerly--\n\n\"It is wonderful! \u00a0Hath it always this dread effect?\"\n\n\"Always, my liege--at least if the woman desire it, and utter the\nneedful words, either in her mind or with her tongue.\"\n\nTom turned to the woman, and said with impetuous zeal--\n\n\"Exert thy power--I would see a storm!\"\n\nThere was a sudden paling of cheeks in the superstitious assemblage, and\na general, though unexpressed, desire to get out of the place--all of\nwhich was lost upon Tom, who was dead to everything but the proposed\ncataclysm. \u00a0Seeing a puzzled and astonished look in the woman's face, he\nadded, excitedly--\n\n\"Never fear--thou shalt be blameless. \u00a0More--thou shalt go free--none\nshall touch thee. \u00a0Exert thy power.\"\n\n\"Oh, my lord the King, I have it not--I have been falsely accused.\"\n\n\"Thy fears stay thee. \u00a0Be of good heart, thou shalt suffer no harm.\n\u00a0Make a storm--it mattereth not how small a one--I require nought great\nor harmful, but indeed prefer the opposite--do this and thy life is\nspared--thou shalt go out free, with thy child, bearing the King's\npardon, and safe from hurt or malice from any in the realm.\"\n\nThe woman prostrated herself, and protested, with tears, that she had\nno power to do the miracle, else she would gladly win her child's life\nalone, and be content to lose her own, if by obedience to the King's\ncommand so precious a grace might be acquired.\n\nTom urged--the woman still adhered to her declarations. \u00a0Finally he\nsaid--\n\n\"I think the woman hath said true. \u00a0An' _my_ mother were in her place\nand gifted with the devil's functions, she had not stayed a moment to\ncall her storms and lay the whole land in ruins, if the saving of my\nforfeit life were the price she got! \u00a0It is argument that other\nmothers are made in like mould. \u00a0Thou art free, goodwife--thou and thy\nchild--for I do think thee innocent. \u00a0_Now_ thou'st nought to fear,\nbeing pardoned--pull off thy stockings!--an' thou canst make me a storm,\nthou shalt be rich!\"\n\nThe redeemed creature was loud in her gratitude, and proceeded to\nobey, whilst Tom looked on with eager expectancy, a little marred\nby apprehension; the courtiers at the same time manifesting decided\ndiscomfort and uneasiness. \u00a0The woman stripped her own feet and her\nlittle girl's also, and plainly did her best to reward the King's\ngenerosity with an earthquake, but it was all a failure and a\ndisappointment. \u00a0Tom sighed, and said--\n\n\"There, good soul, trouble thyself no further, thy power is departed\nout of thee. \u00a0Go thy way in peace; and if it return to thee at any time,\nforget me not, but fetch me a storm.\" {13}\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI. The State Dinner.\n\nThe dinner hour drew near--yet strangely enough, the thought brought\nbut slight discomfort to Tom, and hardly any terror. \u00a0The morning's\nexperiences had wonderfully built up his confidence; the poor little\nash-cat was already more wonted to his strange garret, after four\ndays' habit, than a mature person could have become in a full month. \u00a0A\nchild's facility in accommodating itself to circumstances was never more\nstrikingly illustrated.\n\nLet us privileged ones hurry to the great banqueting-room and have a\nglance at matters there whilst Tom is being made ready for the\nimposing occasion. \u00a0It is a spacious apartment, with gilded pillars\nand pilasters, and pictured walls and ceilings. \u00a0At the door stand tall\nguards, as rigid as statues, dressed in rich and picturesque costumes,\nand bearing halberds. \u00a0In a high gallery which runs all around the place\nis a band of musicians and a packed company of citizens of both sexes,\nin brilliant attire. \u00a0In the centre of the room, upon a raised platform,\nis Tom's table. Now let the ancient chronicler speak:\n\n\"A gentleman enters the room bearing a rod, and along with him another\nbearing a tablecloth, which, after they have both kneeled three times\nwith the utmost veneration, he spreads upon the table, and after\nkneeling again they both retire; then come two others, one with the rod\nagain, the other with a salt-cellar, a plate, and bread; when they have\nkneeled as the others had done, and placed what was brought upon the\ntable, they too retire with the same ceremonies performed by the first;\nat last come two nobles, richly clothed, one bearing a tasting-knife,\nwho, after prostrating themselves three times in the most graceful\nmanner, approach and rub the table with bread and salt, with as much awe\nas if the King had been present.\" {6}\n\nSo end the solemn preliminaries. \u00a0Now, far down the echoing corridors\nwe hear a bugle-blast, and the indistinct cry, \"Place for the King!\n\u00a0Way for the King's most excellent majesty!\" \u00a0These sounds are momently\nrepeated--they grow nearer and nearer--and presently, almost in our\nfaces, the martial note peals and the cry rings out, \"Way for the King!\"\n\u00a0At this instant the shining pageant appears, and files in at the door,\nwith a measured march. Let the chronicler speak again:--\n\n\"First come Gentlemen, Barons, Earls, Knights of the Garter, all richly\ndressed and bareheaded; next comes the Chancellor, between two, one of\nwhich carries the royal sceptre, the other the Sword of State in a red\nscabbard, studded with golden fleurs-de-lis, the point upwards; next\ncomes the King himself--whom, upon his appearing, twelve trumpets and\nmany drums salute with a great burst of welcome, whilst all in the\ngalleries rise in their places, crying 'God save the King!' \u00a0After him\ncome nobles attached to his person, and on his right and left march his\nguard of honour, his fifty Gentlemen Pensioners, with gilt battle-axes.\"\n\nThis was all fine and pleasant. \u00a0Tom's pulse beat high, and a glad light\nwas in his eye. \u00a0He bore himself right gracefully, and all the more\nso because he was not thinking of how he was doing it, his mind being\ncharmed and occupied with the blithe sights and sounds about him--and\nbesides, nobody can be very ungraceful in nicely-fitting beautiful\nclothes after he has grown a little used to them--especially if he is\nfor the moment unconscious of them. Tom remembered his instructions, and\nacknowledged his greeting with a slight inclination of his plumed head,\nand a courteous \"I thank ye, my good people.\"\n\nHe seated himself at table, without removing his cap; and did it without\nthe least embarrassment; for to eat with one's cap on was the one\nsolitary royal custom upon which the kings and the Cantys met upon\ncommon ground, neither party having any advantage over the other in the\nmatter of old familiarity with it. \u00a0The pageant broke up and grouped\nitself picturesquely, and remained bareheaded.\n\nNow to the sound of gay music the Yeomen of the Guard entered,--\"the\ntallest and mightiest men in England, they being carefully selected in\nthis regard\"--but we will let the chronicler tell about it:--\n\n\"The Yeomen of the Guard entered, bareheaded, clothed in scarlet, with\ngolden roses upon their backs; and these went and came, bringing in each\nturn a course of dishes, served in plate. \u00a0These dishes were received\nby a gentleman in the same order they were brought, and placed upon\nthe table, while the taster gave to each guard a mouthful to eat of the\nparticular dish he had brought, for fear of any poison.\"\n\nTom made a good dinner, notwithstanding he was conscious that hundreds\nof eyes followed each morsel to his mouth and watched him eat it with an\ninterest which could not have been more intense if it had been a deadly\nexplosive and was expected to blow him up and scatter him all about\nthe place. \u00a0He was careful not to hurry, and equally careful not to do\nanything whatever for himself, but wait till the proper official knelt\ndown and did it for him. \u00a0He got through without a mistake--flawless and\nprecious triumph.\n\nWhen the meal was over at last and he marched away in the midst of his\nbright pageant, with the happy noises in his ears of blaring bugles,\nrolling drums, and thundering acclamations, he felt that if he had seen\nthe worst of dining in public it was an ordeal which he would be glad\nto endure several times a day if by that means he could but buy himself\nfree from some of the more formidable requirements of his royal office.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII. Foo-foo the First.\n\nMiles Hendon hurried along toward the Southwark end of the bridge,\nkeeping a sharp look-out for the persons he sought, and hoping and\nexpecting to overtake them presently. \u00a0He was disappointed in this,\nhowever. \u00a0By asking questions, he was enabled to track them part of the\nway through Southwark; then all traces ceased, and he was perplexed as\nto how to proceed. \u00a0Still, he continued his efforts as best he\ncould during the rest of the day. \u00a0Nightfall found him leg-weary,\nhalf-famished, and his desire as far from accomplishment as ever; so\nhe supped at the Tabard Inn and went to bed, resolved to make an early\nstart in the morning, and give the town an exhaustive search. \u00a0As he lay\nthinking and planning, he presently began to reason thus: \u00a0The boy would\nescape from the ruffian, his reputed father, if possible; would he go\nback to London and seek his former haunts? \u00a0No, he would not do that,\nhe would avoid recapture. What, then, would he do? \u00a0Never having had a\nfriend in the world, or a protector, until he met Miles Hendon, he would\nnaturally try to find that friend again, provided the effort did not\nrequire him to go toward London and danger. \u00a0He would strike for Hendon\nHall, that is what he would do, for he knew Hendon was homeward bound\nand there he might expect to find him. \u00a0Yes, the case was plain to\nHendon--he must lose no more time in Southwark, but move at once through\nKent, toward Monk's Holm, searching the wood and inquiring as he went.\n\u00a0Let us return to the vanished little King now.\n\nThe ruffian whom the waiter at the inn on the bridge saw 'about to join'\nthe youth and the King did not exactly join them, but fell in close\nbehind them and followed their steps. \u00a0He said nothing. His left arm was\nin a sling, and he wore a large green patch over his left eye; he limped\nslightly, and used an oaken staff as a support. \u00a0The youth led the King\na crooked course through Southwark, and by-and-by struck into the\nhigh road beyond. \u00a0The King was irritated, now, and said he would stop\nhere--it was Hendon's place to come to him, not his to go to Hendon. \u00a0He\nwould not endure such insolence; he would stop where he was. \u00a0The youth\nsaid--\n\n\"Thou'lt tarry here, and thy friend lying wounded in the wood yonder?\n\u00a0So be it, then.\"\n\nThe King's manner changed at once. \u00a0He cried out--\n\n\"Wounded? \u00a0And who hath dared to do it? \u00a0But that is apart; lead on,\nlead on! \u00a0Faster, sirrah! \u00a0Art shod with lead? \u00a0Wounded, is he? \u00a0Now\nthough the doer of it be a duke's son he shall rue it!\"\n\nIt was some distance to the wood, but the space was speedily traversed.\nThe youth looked about him, discovered a bough sticking in the ground,\nwith a small bit of rag tied to it, then led the way into the forest,\nwatching for similar boughs and finding them at intervals; they were\nevidently guides to the point he was aiming at. \u00a0By-and-by an open place\nwas reached, where were the charred remains of a farm-house, and near\nthem a barn which was falling to ruin and decay. \u00a0There was no sign of\nlife anywhere, and utter silence prevailed. \u00a0The youth entered the barn,\nthe King following eagerly upon his heels. \u00a0No one there! The King shot\na surprised and suspicious glance at the youth, and asked--\n\n\"Where is he?\"\n\nA mocking laugh was his answer. \u00a0The King was in a rage in a moment; he\nseized a billet of wood and was in the act of charging upon the youth\nwhen another mocking laugh fell upon his ear. \u00a0It was from the lame\nruffian who had been following at a distance. The King turned and said\nangrily--\n\n\"Who art thou? \u00a0What is thy business here?\"\n\n\"Leave thy foolery,\" said the man, \"and quiet thyself. \u00a0My disguise is\nnone so good that thou canst pretend thou knowest not thy father through\nit.\"\n\n\"Thou art not my father. \u00a0I know thee not. \u00a0I am the King. \u00a0If thou hast\nhid my servant, find him for me, or thou shalt sup sorrow for what thou\nhast done.\"\n\nJohn Canty replied, in a stern and measured voice--\n\n\"It is plain thou art mad, and I am loath to punish thee; \u00a0but if thou\nprovoke me, I must. \u00a0Thy prating doth no harm here, where there are\nno ears that need to mind thy follies; yet it is well to practise thy\ntongue to wary speech, that it may do no hurt when our quarters change.\n\u00a0I have done a murder, and may not tarry at home--neither shalt thou,\nseeing I need thy service. \u00a0My name is changed, for wise reasons; it is\nHobbs--John Hobbs; thine is Jack--charge thy memory accordingly. \u00a0Now,\nthen, speak. \u00a0Where is thy mother? \u00a0Where are thy sisters? \u00a0They came\nnot to the place appointed--knowest thou whither they went?\"\n\nThe King answered sullenly--\n\n\"Trouble me not with these riddles. \u00a0My mother is dead; my sisters are\nin the palace.\"\n\nThe youth near by burst into a derisive laugh, and the King would have\nassaulted him, but Canty--or Hobbs, as he now called himself--prevented\nhim, and said--\n\n\"Peace, Hugo, vex him not; his mind is astray, and thy ways fret him.\nSit thee down, Jack, and quiet thyself; thou shalt have a morsel to eat,\nanon.\"\n\nHobbs and Hugo fell to talking together, in low voices, and the King\nremoved himself as far as he could from their disagreeable company.\n\u00a0He withdrew into the twilight of the farther end of the barn, where\nhe found the earthen floor bedded a foot deep with straw. \u00a0He lay down\nhere, drew straw over himself in lieu of blankets, and was soon absorbed\nin thinking. \u00a0He had many griefs, but the minor ones were swept almost\ninto forgetfulness by the supreme one, the loss of his father. \u00a0To\nthe rest of the world the name of Henry VIII. brought a shiver, and\nsuggested an ogre whose nostrils breathed destruction and whose hand\ndealt scourgings and death; but to this boy the name brought only\nsensations of pleasure; the figure it invoked wore a countenance that\nwas all gentleness and affection. \u00a0He called to mind a long succession\nof loving passages between his father and himself, and dwelt fondly upon\nthem, his unstinted tears attesting how deep and real was the grief that\npossessed his heart. As the afternoon wasted away, the lad, wearied with\nhis troubles, sank gradually into a tranquil and healing slumber.\n\nAfter a considerable time--he could not tell how long--his senses\nstruggled to a half-consciousness, and as he lay with closed eyes\nvaguely wondering where he was and what had been happening, he noted a\nmurmurous sound, the sullen beating of rain upon the roof. A snug sense\nof comfort stole over him, which was rudely broken, the next moment,\nby a chorus of piping cackles and coarse laughter. \u00a0It startled him\ndisagreeably, and he unmuffled his head to see whence this interruption\nproceeded. \u00a0A grim and unsightly picture met his eye. \u00a0A bright fire was\nburning in the middle of the floor, at the other end of the barn; and\naround it, and lit weirdly up by the red glare, lolled and sprawled the\nmotliest company of tattered gutter-scum and ruffians, of both sexes, he\nhad ever read or dreamed of. \u00a0There were huge stalwart men, brown\nwith exposure, long-haired, and clothed in fantastic rags; there were\nmiddle-sized youths, of truculent countenance, and similarly clad; there\nwere blind mendicants, with patched or bandaged eyes; crippled ones,\nwith wooden legs and crutches; diseased ones, with running sores peeping\nfrom ineffectual wrappings; there was a villain-looking pedlar with\nhis pack; a knife-grinder, a tinker, and a barber-surgeon, with the\nimplements of their trades; some of the females were hardly-grown girls,\nsome were at prime, some were old and wrinkled hags, and all were loud,\nbrazen, foul-mouthed; and all soiled and slatternly; there were three\nsore-faced babies; there were a couple of starveling curs, with strings\nabout their necks, whose office was to lead the blind.\n\nThe night was come, the gang had just finished feasting, an orgy was\nbeginning; the can of liquor was passing from mouth to mouth. A general\ncry broke forth--\n\n\"A song! a song from the Bat and Dick and Dot-and-go-One!\"\n\nOne of the blind men got up, and made ready by casting aside the patches\nthat sheltered his excellent eyes, and the pathetic placard which\nrecited the cause of his calamity. \u00a0Dot-and-go-One disencumbered himself\nof his timber leg and took his place, upon sound and healthy limbs,\nbeside his fellow-rascal; then they roared out a rollicking ditty,\nand were reinforced by the whole crew, at the end of each stanza, in\na rousing chorus. \u00a0By the time the last stanza was reached, the\nhalf-drunken enthusiasm had risen to such a pitch, that everybody joined\nin and sang it clear through from the beginning, producing a volume of\nvillainous sound that made the rafters quake. \u00a0These were the inspiring\nwords:--\n\n'Bien Darkman's then, Bouse Mort and Ken, The bien Coves bings awast, On\nChates to trine by Rome Coves dine For his long lib at last. Bing'd out\nbien Morts and toure, and toure, Bing out of the Rome vile bine, And\ntoure the Cove that cloy'd your duds, Upon the Chates to trine.'\n\n(From'The English Rogue.' London, 1665.)\n\nConversation followed; not in the thieves' dialect of the song, for that\nwas only used in talk when unfriendly ears might be listening. \u00a0In the\ncourse of it, it appeared that 'John Hobbs' was not altogether a new\nrecruit, but had trained in the gang at some former time. \u00a0His later\nhistory was called for, and when he said he had 'accidentally' killed a\nman, considerable satisfaction was expressed; when he added that the\nman was a priest, he was roundly applauded, and had to take a drink with\neverybody. \u00a0Old acquaintances welcomed him joyously, and new ones were\nproud to shake him by the hand. \u00a0He was asked why he had 'tarried away\nso many months.' \u00a0He answered--\n\n\"London is better than the country, and safer, these late years, the\nlaws be so bitter and so diligently enforced. \u00a0An' I had not had that\naccident, I had stayed there. \u00a0I had resolved to stay, and never more\nventure country-wards--but the accident has ended that.\"\n\nHe inquired how many persons the gang numbered now. \u00a0The 'ruffler,' or\nchief, answered--\n\n\"Five and twenty sturdy budges, bulks, files, clapperdogeons and\nmaunders, counting the dells and doxies and other morts. {7} \u00a0Most are\nhere, the rest are wandering eastward, along the winter lay. We follow\nat dawn.\"\n\n\"I do not see the Wen among the honest folk about me. \u00a0Where may he be?\"\n\n\"Poor lad, his diet is brimstone, now, and over hot for a delicate\ntaste. He was killed in a brawl, somewhere about midsummer.\"\n\n\"I sorrow to hear that; the Wen was a capable man, and brave.\"\n\n\"That was he, truly. \u00a0Black Bess, his dell, is of us yet, but absent on\nthe eastward tramp; a fine lass, of nice ways and orderly conduct, none\never seeing her drunk above four days in the seven.\"\n\n\"She was ever strict--I remember it well--a goodly wench and worthy\nall commendation. \u00a0Her mother was more free and less particular; a\ntroublesome and ugly-tempered beldame, but furnished with a wit above\nthe common.\"\n\n\"We lost her through it. \u00a0Her gift of palmistry and other sorts of\nfortune-telling begot for her at last a witch's name and fame. The\nlaw roasted her to death at a slow fire. \u00a0It did touch me to a sort of\ntenderness to see the gallant way she met her lot--cursing and reviling\nall the crowd that gaped and gazed around her, whilst the flames licked\nupward toward her face and catched her thin locks and crackled about\nher old gray head--cursing them! why an' thou should'st live a thousand\nyears thoud'st never hear so masterful a cursing. \u00a0Alack, her art died\nwith her. \u00a0There be base and weakling imitations left, but no true\nblasphemy.\"\n\nThe Ruffler sighed; the listeners sighed in sympathy; a general\ndepression fell upon the company for a moment, for even hardened\noutcasts like these are not wholly dead to sentiment, but are able to\nfeel a fleeting sense of loss and affliction at wide intervals and\nunder peculiarly favouring circumstances--as in cases like to this, for\ninstance, when genius and culture depart and leave no heir. \u00a0However, a\ndeep drink all round soon restored the spirits of the mourners.\n\n\"Have any others of our friends fared hardly?\" asked Hobbs.\n\n\"Some--yes. \u00a0Particularly new comers--such as small husbandmen turned\nshiftless and hungry upon the world because their farms were taken from\nthem to be changed to sheep ranges. \u00a0They begged, and were whipped at\nthe cart's tail, naked from the girdle up, till the blood ran; then set\nin the stocks to be pelted; they begged again, were whipped again, and\ndeprived of an ear; they begged a third time--poor devils, what else\ncould they do?--and were branded on the cheek with a red-hot iron, then\nsold for slaves; they ran away, were hunted down, and hanged. \u00a0'Tis\na brief tale, and quickly told. \u00a0Others of us have fared less hardly.\nStand forth, Yokel, Burns, and Hodge--show your adornments!\"\n\nThese stood up and stripped away some of their rags, exposing their\nbacks, criss-crossed with ropy old welts left by the lash; one turned\nup his hair and showed the place where a left ear had once been; another\nshowed a brand upon his shoulder--the letter V--and a mutilated ear; the\nthird said--\n\n\"I am Yokel, once a farmer and prosperous, with loving wife and\nkids--now am I somewhat different in estate and calling; and the wife\nand kids are gone; mayhap they are in heaven, mayhap in--in the other\nplace--but the kindly God be thanked, they bide no more in _England_!\n\u00a0My good old blameless mother strove to earn bread by nursing the sick;\none of these died, the doctors knew not how, so my mother was burnt for\na witch, whilst my babes looked on and wailed. \u00a0English law!--up,\nall, with your cups!--now all together and with a cheer!--drink to the\nmerciful English law that delivered _her_ from the English hell! \u00a0Thank\nyou, mates, one and all. \u00a0I begged, from house to house--I and the\nwife--bearing with us the hungry kids--but it was crime to be hungry in\nEngland--so they stripped us and lashed us through three towns. \u00a0Drink\nye all again to the merciful English law!--for its lash drank deep of my\nMary's blood and its blessed deliverance came quick. \u00a0She lies there, in\nthe potter's field, safe from all harms. \u00a0And the kids--well, whilst\nthe law lashed me from town to town, they starved. Drink, lads--only\na drop--a drop to the poor kids, that never did any creature harm.\n\u00a0I begged again--begged, for a crust, and got the stocks and lost an\near--see, here bides the stump; I begged again, and here is the stump\nof the other to keep me minded of it. And still I begged again, and was\nsold for a slave--here on my cheek under this stain, if I washed it off,\nye might see the red S the branding-iron left there! \u00a0A _slave_! \u00a0Do\nyou understand that word? \u00a0An English _slave_!--that is he that stands\nbefore ye. \u00a0I have run from my master, and when I am found--the heavy\ncurse of heaven fall on the law of the land that hath commanded it!--I\nshall hang!\" {1}\n\nA ringing voice came through the murky air--\n\n\"Thou shalt _not_!--and this day the end of that law is come!\"\n\nAll turned, and saw the fantastic figure of the little King approaching\nhurriedly; as it emerged into the light and was clearly revealed, a\ngeneral explosion of inquiries broke out--\n\n\"Who is it? \u00a0_What_ is it? \u00a0Who art thou, manikin?\"\n\nThe boy stood unconfused in the midst of all those surprised and\nquestioning eyes, and answered with princely dignity--\n\n\"I am Edward, King of England.\"\n\nA wild burst of laughter followed, partly of derision and partly of\ndelight in the excellence of the joke. \u00a0The King was stung. \u00a0He said\nsharply--\n\n\"Ye mannerless vagrants, is this your recognition of the royal boon I\nhave promised?\"\n\nHe said more, with angry voice and excited gesture, but it was lost in\na whirlwind of laughter and mocking exclamations. \u00a0'John Hobbs' made\nseveral attempts to make himself heard above the din, and at last\nsucceeded--saying--\n\n\"Mates, he is my son, a dreamer, a fool, and stark mad--mind him not--he\nthinketh he _is_ the King.\"\n\n\"I _am_ the King,\" said Edward, turning toward him, \"as thou shalt know\nto thy cost, in good time. \u00a0Thou hast confessed a murder--thou shalt\nswing for it.\"\n\n\"_Thou'lt_ betray me?--_thou_? \u00a0An' I get my hands upon thee--\"\n\n\"Tut-tut!\" said the burley Ruffler, interposing in time to save the\nKing, and emphasising this service by knocking Hobbs down with his fist,\n\"hast respect for neither Kings _nor_ Rufflers? \u00a0An' thou insult my\npresence so again, I'll hang thee up myself.\" \u00a0Then he said to his\nMajesty, \"Thou must make no threats against thy mates, lad; and thou\nmust guard thy tongue from saying evil of them elsewhere. \u00a0_Be king_, if\nit please thy mad humour, but be not harmful in it. \u00a0Sink the title thou\nhast uttered--'tis treason; we be bad men in some few trifling ways, but\nnone among us is so base as to be traitor to his King; we be loving\nand loyal hearts, in that regard. \u00a0Note if I speak truth. \u00a0Now--all\ntogether: \u00a0'Long live Edward, King of England!'\"\n\n\"LONG LIVE EDWARD, KING OF ENGLAND!\"\n\nThe response came with such a thundergust from the motley crew that the\ncrazy building vibrated to the sound. \u00a0The little King's face lighted\nwith pleasure for an instant, and he slightly inclined his head, and\nsaid with grave simplicity--\n\n\"I thank you, my good people.\"\n\nThis unexpected result threw the company into convulsions of merriment.\nWhen something like quiet was presently come again, the Ruffler said,\nfirmly, but with an accent of good nature--\n\n\"Drop it, boy, 'tis not wise, nor well. \u00a0Humour thy fancy, if thou must,\nbut choose some other title.\"\n\nA tinker shrieked out a suggestion--\n\n\"Foo-foo the First, King of the Mooncalves!\"\n\nThe title 'took,' at once, every throat responded, and a roaring shout\nwent up, of--\n\n\"Long live Foo-foo the First, King of the Mooncalves!\" followed by\nhootings, cat-calls, and peals of laughter.\n\n\"Hale him forth, and crown him!\"\n\n\"Robe him!\"\n\n\"Sceptre him!\"\n\n\"Throne him!\"\n\nThese and twenty other cries broke out at once! and almost before the\npoor little victim could draw a breath he was crowned with a tin basin,\nrobed in a tattered blanket, throned upon a barrel, and sceptred with\nthe tinker's soldering-iron. \u00a0Then all flung themselves upon their\nknees about him and sent up a chorus of ironical wailings, and mocking\nsupplications, whilst they swabbed their eyes with their soiled and\nragged sleeves and aprons--\n\n\"Be gracious to us, O sweet King!\"\n\n\"Trample not upon thy beseeching worms, O noble Majesty!\"\n\n\"Pity thy slaves, and comfort them with a royal kick!\"\n\n\"Cheer us and warm us with thy gracious rays, O flaming sun of\nsovereignty!\"\n\n\"Sanctify the ground with the touch of thy foot, that we may eat the\ndirt and be ennobled!\"\n\n\"Deign to spit upon us, O Sire, that our children's children may tell of\nthy princely condescension, and be proud and happy for ever!\"\n\nBut the humorous tinker made the 'hit' of the evening and carried off\nthe honours. \u00a0Kneeling, he pretended to kiss the King's foot, and was\nindignantly spurned; whereupon he went about begging for a rag to paste\nover the place upon his face which had been touched by the foot, saying\nit must be preserved from contact with the vulgar air, and that he\nshould make his fortune by going on the highway and exposing it to\nview at the rate of a hundred shillings a sight. \u00a0He made himself so\nkillingly funny that he was the envy and admiration of the whole mangy\nrabble.\n\nTears of shame and indignation stood in the little monarch's eyes; and\nthe thought in his heart was, \"Had I offered them a deep wrong they\ncould not be more cruel--yet have I proffered nought but to do them a\nkindness--and it is thus they use me for it!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII. The Prince with the Tramps.\n\nThe troop of vagabonds turned out at early dawn, and set forward on\ntheir march. \u00a0There was a lowering sky overhead, sloppy ground under\nfoot, and a winter chill in the air. \u00a0All gaiety was gone from the\ncompany; some were sullen and silent, some were irritable and petulant,\nnone were gentle-humoured, all were thirsty.\n\nThe Ruffler put 'Jack' in Hugo's charge, with some brief instructions,\nand commanded John Canty to keep away from him and let him alone; he\nalso warned Hugo not to be too rough with the lad.\n\nAfter a while the weather grew milder, and the clouds lifted somewhat.\nThe troop ceased to shiver, and their spirits began to improve. \u00a0They\ngrew more and more cheerful, and finally began to chaff each other and\ninsult passengers along the highway. \u00a0This showed that they were awaking\nto an appreciation of life and its joys once more. \u00a0The dread in which\ntheir sort was held was apparent in the fact that everybody gave them\nthe road, and took their ribald insolences meekly, without venturing\nto talk back. They snatched linen from the hedges, occasionally in full\nview of the owners, who made no protest, but only seemed grateful that\nthey did not take the hedges, too.\n\nBy-and-by they invaded a small farmhouse and made themselves at home\nwhile the trembling farmer and his people swept the larder clean to\nfurnish a breakfast for them. \u00a0They chucked the housewife and her\ndaughters under the chin whilst receiving the food from their hands, and\nmade coarse jests about them, accompanied with insulting epithets and\nbursts of horse-laughter. \u00a0They threw bones and vegetables at the farmer\nand his sons, kept them dodging all the time, and applauded uproariously\nwhen a good hit was made. They ended by buttering the head of one of\nthe daughters who resented some of their familiarities. \u00a0When they took\ntheir leave they threatened to come back and burn the house over the\nheads of the family if any report of their doings got to the ears of the\nauthorities.\n\nAbout noon, after a long and weary tramp, the gang came to a halt behind\na hedge on the outskirts of a considerable village. \u00a0An hour was allowed\nfor rest, then the crew scattered themselves abroad to enter the village\nat different points to ply their various trades--'Jack' was sent with\nHugo. \u00a0They wandered hither and thither for some time, Hugo watching\nfor opportunities to do a stroke of business, but finding none--so he\nfinally said--\n\n\"I see nought to steal; it is a paltry place. \u00a0Wherefore we will beg.\"\n\n\"_We_, forsooth! \u00a0Follow thy trade--it befits thee. \u00a0But _I_ will not\nbeg.\"\n\n\"Thou'lt not beg!\" exclaimed Hugo, eyeing the King with surprise.\n\"Prithee, since when hast thou reformed?\"\n\n\"What dost thou mean?\"\n\n\"Mean? \u00a0Hast thou not begged the streets of London all thy life?\"\n\n\"I? \u00a0Thou idiot!\"\n\n\"Spare thy compliments--thy stock will last the longer. \u00a0Thy father says\nthou hast begged all thy days. \u00a0Mayhap he lied. Peradventure you will\neven make so bold as to _say_ he lied,\" scoffed Hugo.\n\n\"Him _you_ call my father? \u00a0Yes, he lied.\"\n\n\"Come, play not thy merry game of madman so far, mate; use it for thy\namusement, not thy hurt. \u00a0An' I tell him this, he will scorch thee\nfinely for it.\"\n\n\"Save thyself the trouble. \u00a0I will tell him.\"\n\n\"I like thy spirit, I do in truth; but I do not admire thy judgment.\nBone-rackings and bastings be plenty enow in this life, without going\nout of one's way to invite them. \u00a0But a truce to these matters; _I_\nbelieve your father. \u00a0I doubt not he can lie; I doubt not he _doth_\nlie, upon occasion, for the best of us do that; but there is no occasion\nhere. \u00a0A wise man does not waste so good a commodity as lying for\nnought. \u00a0But come; sith it is thy humour to give over begging,\nwherewithal shall we busy ourselves? \u00a0With robbing kitchens?\"\n\nThe King said, impatiently--\n\n\"Have done with this folly--you weary me!\"\n\nHugo replied, with temper--\n\n\"Now harkee, mate; you will not beg, you will not rob; so be it. But I\nwill tell you what you _will_ do. \u00a0You will play decoy whilst _I_ beg.\nRefuse, an' you think you may venture!\"\n\nThe King was about to reply contemptuously, when Hugo said,\ninterrupting--\n\n\"Peace! \u00a0Here comes one with a kindly face. \u00a0Now will I fall down in\na fit. \u00a0When the stranger runs to me, set you up a wail, and fall upon\nyour knees, seeming to weep; then cry out as all the devils of misery\nwere in your belly, and say, 'Oh, sir, it is my poor afflicted brother,\nand we be friendless; o' God's name cast through your merciful eyes one\npitiful look upon a sick, forsaken, and most miserable wretch; bestow\none little penny out of thy riches upon one smitten of God and ready\nto perish!'--and mind you, keep you _on_ wailing, and abate not till we\nbilk him of his penny, else shall you rue it.\"\n\nThen immediately Hugo began to moan, and groan, and roll his eyes, and\nreel and totter about; and when the stranger was close at hand, down he\nsprawled before him, with a shriek, and began to writhe and wallow in\nthe dirt, in seeming agony.\n\n\"O, dear, O dear!\" cried the benevolent stranger, \"O poor soul, poor\nsoul, how he doth suffer! \u00a0There--let me help thee up.\"\n\n\"O noble sir, forbear, and God love you for a princely gentleman--but it\ngiveth me cruel pain to touch me when I am taken so. \u00a0My brother there\nwill tell your worship how I am racked with anguish when these fits be\nupon me. \u00a0A penny, dear sir, a penny, to buy a little food; then leave\nme to my sorrows.\"\n\n\"A penny! thou shalt have three, thou hapless creature,\"--and he fumbled\nin his pocket with nervous haste and got them out. \"There, poor lad,\ntake them and most welcome. \u00a0Now come hither, my boy, and help me carry\nthy stricken brother to yon house, where--\"\n\n\"I am not his brother,\" said the King, interrupting.\n\n\"What! not his brother?\"\n\n\"Oh, hear him!\" groaned Hugo, then privately ground his teeth. \"He\ndenies his own brother--and he with one foot in the grave!\"\n\n\"Boy, thou art indeed hard of heart, if this is thy brother. \u00a0For\nshame!--and he scarce able to move hand or foot. \u00a0If he is not thy\nbrother, who is he, then?\"\n\n\"A beggar and a thief! \u00a0He has got your money and has picked your pocket\nlikewise. \u00a0An' thou would'st do a healing miracle, lay thy staff over\nhis shoulders and trust Providence for the rest.\"\n\nBut Hugo did not tarry for the miracle. \u00a0In a moment he was up and off\nlike the wind, the gentleman following after and raising the hue and cry\nlustily as he went. \u00a0The King, breathing deep gratitude to Heaven for\nhis own release, fled in the opposite direction, and did not slacken\nhis pace until he was out of harm's reach. \u00a0He took the first road that\noffered, and soon put the village behind him. \u00a0He hurried along, as\nbriskly as he could, during several hours, keeping a nervous watch over\nhis shoulder for pursuit; but his fears left him at last, and a grateful\nsense of security took their place. \u00a0He recognised, now, that he was\nhungry, and also very tired. \u00a0So he halted at a farmhouse; but when\nhe was about to speak, he was cut short and driven rudely away. \u00a0His\nclothes were against him.\n\nHe wandered on, wounded and indignant, and was resolved to put himself\nin the way of like treatment no more. \u00a0But hunger is pride's master; so,\nas the evening drew near, he made an attempt at another farmhouse; but\nhere he fared worse than before; for he was called hard names and was\npromised arrest as a vagrant except he moved on promptly.\n\nThe night came on, chilly and overcast; and still the footsore monarch\nlaboured slowly on. \u00a0He was obliged to keep moving, for every time he\nsat down to rest he was soon penetrated to the bone with the cold. \u00a0All\nhis sensations and experiences, as he moved through the solemn gloom\nand the empty vastness of the night, were new and strange to him. \u00a0At\nintervals he heard voices approach, pass by, and fade into silence; and\nas he saw nothing more of the bodies they belonged to than a sort of\nformless drifting blur, there was something spectral and uncanny about\nit all that made him shudder. \u00a0Occasionally he caught the twinkle of a\nlight--always far away, apparently--almost in another world; if he heard\nthe tinkle of a sheep's bell, it was vague, distant, indistinct;\nthe muffled lowing of the herds floated to him on the night wind in\nvanishing cadences, a mournful sound; now and then came the complaining\nhowl of a dog over viewless expanses of field and forest; all sounds\nwere remote; they made the little King feel that all life and activity\nwere far removed from him, and that he stood solitary, companionless, in\nthe centre of a measureless solitude.\n\nHe stumbled along, through the gruesome fascinations of this new\nexperience, startled occasionally by the soft rustling of the dry leaves\noverhead, so like human whispers they seemed to sound; and by-and-by he\ncame suddenly upon the freckled light of a tin lantern near at hand. \u00a0He\nstepped back into the shadows and waited. \u00a0The lantern stood by the\nopen door of a barn. \u00a0The King waited some time--there was no sound,\nand nobody stirring. \u00a0He got so cold, standing still, and the hospitable\nbarn looked so enticing, that at last he resolved to risk everything and\nenter. He started swiftly and stealthily, and just as he was crossing\nthe threshold he heard voices behind him. \u00a0He darted behind a cask,\nwithin the barn, and stooped down. \u00a0Two farm-labourers came in, bringing\nthe lantern with them, and fell to work, talking meanwhile. \u00a0Whilst they\nmoved about with the light, the King made good use of his eyes and took\nthe bearings of what seemed to be a good-sized stall at the further end\nof the place, purposing to grope his way to it when he should be left to\nhimself. \u00a0He also noted the position of a pile of horse blankets, midway\nof the route, with the intent to levy upon them for the service of the\ncrown of England for one night.\n\nBy-and-by the men finished and went away, fastening the door behind\nthem and taking the lantern with them. \u00a0The shivering King made for the\nblankets, with as good speed as the darkness would allow; gathered them\nup, and then groped his way safely to the stall. \u00a0Of two of the blankets\nhe made a bed, then covered himself with the remaining two. \u00a0He was a\nglad monarch, now, though the blankets were old and thin, and not quite\nwarm enough; and besides gave out a pungent horsey odour that was almost\nsuffocatingly powerful.\n\nAlthough the King was hungry and chilly, he was also so tired and so\ndrowsy that these latter influences soon began to get the advantage\nof the former, and he presently dozed off into a state of\nsemi-consciousness. \u00a0Then, just as he was on the point of losing himself\nwholly, he distinctly felt something touch him! \u00a0He was broad awake in\na moment, and gasping for breath. \u00a0The cold horror of that mysterious\ntouch in the dark almost made his heart stand still. \u00a0He lay motionless,\nand listened, scarcely breathing. But nothing stirred, and there was\nno sound. \u00a0He continued to listen, and wait, during what seemed a long\ntime, but still nothing stirred, and there was no sound. \u00a0So he began\nto drop into a drowse once more, at last; and all at once he felt that\nmysterious touch again! \u00a0It was a grisly thing, this light touch from\nthis noiseless and invisible presence; it made the boy sick with ghostly\nfears. \u00a0What should he do? \u00a0That was the question; but he did not know\nhow to answer it. \u00a0Should he leave these reasonably comfortable quarters\nand fly from this inscrutable horror? \u00a0But fly whither? \u00a0He could\nnot get out of the barn; and the idea of scurrying blindly hither and\nthither in the dark, within the captivity of the four walls, with this\nphantom gliding after him, and visiting him with that soft hideous touch\nupon cheek or shoulder at every turn, was intolerable. \u00a0But to stay\nwhere he was, and endure this living death all night--was that better?\n\u00a0No. \u00a0What, then, was there left to do? \u00a0Ah, there was but one course;\nhe knew it well--he must put out his hand and find that thing!\n\nIt was easy to think this; but it was hard to brace himself up to try\nit. Three times he stretched his hand a little way out into the dark,\ngingerly; and snatched it suddenly back, with a gasp--not because it\nhad encountered anything, but because he had felt so sure it was just\n_going_ to. \u00a0But the fourth time, he groped a little further, and his\nhand lightly swept against something soft and warm. \u00a0This petrified him,\nnearly, with fright; his mind was in such a state that he could imagine\nthe thing to be nothing else than a corpse, newly dead and still warm.\nHe thought he would rather die than touch it again. \u00a0But he thought this\nfalse thought because he did not know the immortal strength of\nhuman curiosity. In no long time his hand was tremblingly groping\nagain--against his judgment, and without his consent--but groping\npersistently on, just the same. \u00a0It encountered a bunch of long hair; he\nshuddered, but followed up the hair and found what seemed to be a warm\nrope; followed up the rope and found an innocent calf!--for the rope was\nnot a rope at all, but the calf's tail.\n\nThe King was cordially ashamed of himself for having gotten all that\nfright and misery out of so paltry a matter as a slumbering calf; but he\nneed not have felt so about it, for it was not the calf that frightened\nhim, but a dreadful non-existent something which the calf stood for; and\nany other boy, in those old superstitious times, would have acted and\nsuffered just as he had done.\n\nThe King was not only delighted to find that the creature was only a\ncalf, but delighted to have the calf's company; for he had been feeling\nso lonesome and friendless that the company and comradeship of even\nthis humble animal were welcome. \u00a0And he had been so buffeted, so rudely\nentreated by his own kind, that it was a real comfort to him to feel\nthat he was at last in the society of a fellow-creature that had at\nleast a soft heart and a gentle spirit, whatever loftier attributes\nmight be lacking. \u00a0So he resolved to waive rank and make friends with\nthe calf.\n\nWhile stroking its sleek warm back--for it lay near him and within easy\nreach--it occurred to him that this calf might be utilised in more ways\nthan one. \u00a0Whereupon he re-arranged his bed, spreading it down close to\nthe calf; then he cuddled himself up to the calf's back, drew the covers\nup over himself and his friend, and in a minute or two was as warm and\ncomfortable as he had ever been in the downy couches of the regal palace\nof Westminster.\n\nPleasant thoughts came at once; life took on a cheerfuller seeming. \u00a0He\nwas free of the bonds of servitude and crime, free of the companionship\nof base and brutal outlaws; he was warm; he was sheltered; in a word, he\nwas happy. \u00a0The night wind was rising; it swept by in fitful gusts\nthat made the old barn quake and rattle, then its forces died down\nat intervals, and went moaning and wailing around corners and\nprojections--but it was all music to the King, now that he was snug and\ncomfortable: let it blow and rage, let it batter and bang, let it moan\nand wail, he minded it not, he only enjoyed it. \u00a0He merely snuggled\nthe closer to his friend, in a luxury of warm contentment, and drifted\nblissfully out of consciousness into a deep and dreamless sleep that\nwas full of serenity and peace. \u00a0The distant dogs howled, the melancholy\nkine complained, and the winds went on raging, whilst furious sheets\nof rain drove along the roof; but the Majesty of England slept on,\nundisturbed, and the calf did the same, it being a simple creature, and\nnot easily troubled by storms or embarrassed by sleeping with a king.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX. The Prince with the peasants.\n\nWhen the King awoke in the early morning, he found that a wet but\nthoughtful rat had crept into the place during the night and made a cosy\nbed for itself in his bosom. \u00a0Being disturbed now, it scampered away.\nThe boy smiled, and said, \"Poor fool, why so fearful? \u00a0I am as forlorn\nas thou. \u00a0'Twould be a sham in me to hurt the helpless, who am myself so\nhelpless. \u00a0Moreover, I owe you thanks for a good omen; for when a king\nhas fallen so low that the very rats do make a bed of him, it surely\nmeaneth that his fortunes be upon the turn, since it is plain he can no\nlower go.\"\n\nHe got up and stepped out of the stall, and just then he heard the sound\nof children's voices. \u00a0The barn door opened and a couple of little girls\ncame in. \u00a0As soon as they saw him their talking and laughing ceased, and\nthey stopped and stood still, gazing at him with strong curiosity; they\npresently began to whisper together, then they approached nearer, and\nstopped again to gaze and whisper. \u00a0By-and-by they gathered courage and\nbegan to discuss him aloud. \u00a0One said--\n\n\"He hath a comely face.\"\n\nThe other added--\n\n\"And pretty hair.\"\n\n\"But is ill clothed enow.\"\n\n\"And how starved he looketh.\"\n\nThey came still nearer, sidling shyly around and about him, examining\nhim minutely from all points, as if he were some strange new kind of\nanimal, but warily and watchfully the while, as if they half feared he\nmight be a sort of animal that would bite, upon occasion. \u00a0Finally they\nhalted before him, holding each other's hands for protection, and took a\ngood satisfying stare with their innocent eyes; then one of them plucked\nup all her courage and inquired with honest directness--\n\n\"Who art thou, boy?\"\n\n\"I am the King,\" was the grave answer.\n\nThe children gave a little start, and their eyes spread themselves wide\nopen and remained so during a speechless half minute. \u00a0Then curiosity\nbroke the silence--\n\n\"The _King_? \u00a0What King?\"\n\n\"The King of England.\"\n\nThe children looked at each other--then at him--then at each other\nagain--wonderingly, perplexedly; then one said--\n\n\"Didst hear him, Margery?--he said he is the King. \u00a0Can that be true?\"\n\n\"How can it be else but true, Prissy? \u00a0Would he say a lie? \u00a0For look\nyou, Prissy, an' it were not true, it _would_ be a lie. \u00a0It surely would\nbe. Now think on't. \u00a0For all things that be not true, be lies--thou\ncanst make nought else out of it.\"\n\nIt was a good tight argument, without a leak in it anywhere; and it left\nPrissy's half-doubts not a leg to stand on. \u00a0She considered a moment,\nthen put the King upon his honour with the simple remark--\n\n\"If thou art truly the King, then I believe thee.\"\n\n\"I am truly the King.\"\n\nThis settled the matter. \u00a0His Majesty's royalty was accepted without\nfurther question or discussion, and the two little girls began at once\nto inquire into how he came to be where he was, and how he came to be so\nunroyally clad, and whither he was bound, and all about his affairs. \u00a0It\nwas a mighty relief to him to pour out his troubles where they would not\nbe scoffed at or doubted; so he told his tale with feeling, forgetting\neven his hunger for the time; and it was received with the deepest and\ntenderest sympathy by the gentle little maids. \u00a0But when he got down\nto his latest experiences and they learned how long he had been without\nfood, they cut him short and hurried him away to the farmhouse to find a\nbreakfast for him.\n\nThe King was cheerful and happy now, and said to himself, \"When I\nam come to mine own again, I will always honour little children,\nremembering how that these trusted me and believed in me in my time\nof trouble; whilst they that were older, and thought themselves wiser,\nmocked at me and held me for a liar.\"\n\nThe children's mother received the King kindly, and was full of pity;\nfor his forlorn condition and apparently crazed intellect touched her\nwomanly heart. \u00a0She was a widow, and rather poor; consequently she had\nseen trouble enough to enable her to feel for the unfortunate. \u00a0She\nimagined that the demented boy had wandered away from his friends or\nkeepers; so she tried to find out whence he had come, in order that\nshe might take measures to return him; but all her references to\nneighbouring towns and villages, and all her inquiries in the same line\nwent for nothing--the boy's face, and his answers, too, showed that the\nthings she was talking of were not familiar to him. \u00a0He spoke earnestly\nand simply about court matters, and broke down, more than once, when\nspeaking of the late King 'his father'; but whenever the conversation\nchanged to baser topics, he lost interest and became silent.\n\nThe woman was mightily puzzled; but she did not give up. \u00a0As she\nproceeded with her cooking, she set herself to contriving devices to\nsurprise the boy into betraying his real secret. \u00a0She talked about\ncattle--he showed no concern; then about sheep--the same result: \u00a0so\nher guess that he had been a shepherd boy was an error; she talked about\nmills; and about weavers, tinkers, smiths, trades and tradesmen of all\nsorts; and about Bedlam, and jails, and charitable retreats: \u00a0but no\nmatter, she was baffled at all points. \u00a0Not altogether, either; for she\nargued that she had narrowed the thing down to domestic service. \u00a0Yes,\nshe was sure she was on the right track, now; he must have been a house\nservant. \u00a0So she led up to that. \u00a0But the result was discouraging. The\nsubject of sweeping appeared to weary him; fire-building failed to stir\nhim; scrubbing and scouring awoke no enthusiasm. The goodwife touched,\nwith a perishing hope, and rather as a matter of form, upon the subject\nof cooking. \u00a0To her surprise, and her vast delight, the King's face\nlighted at once! \u00a0Ah, she had hunted him down at last, she thought; and\nshe was right proud, too, of the devious shrewdness and tact which had\naccomplished it.\n\nHer tired tongue got a chance to rest, now; for the King's, inspired\nby gnawing hunger and the fragrant smells that came from the sputtering\npots and pans, turned itself loose and delivered itself up to such an\neloquent dissertation upon certain toothsome dishes, that within three\nminutes the woman said to herself, \"Of a truth I was right--he hath\nholpen in a kitchen!\" \u00a0Then he broadened his bill of fare, and discussed\nit with such appreciation and animation, that the goodwife said to\nherself, \"Good lack! how can he know so many dishes, and so fine ones\nwithal? \u00a0For these belong only upon the tables of the rich and great.\n\u00a0Ah, now I see! ragged outcast as he is, he must have served in the\npalace before his reason went astray; yes, he must have helped in the\nvery kitchen of the King himself! \u00a0I will test him.\"\n\nFull of eagerness to prove her sagacity, she told the King to mind the\ncooking a moment--hinting that he might manufacture and add a dish or\ntwo, if he chose; then she went out of the room and gave her children a\nsign to follow after. \u00a0The King muttered--\n\n\"Another English king had a commission like to this, in a bygone\ntime--it is nothing against my dignity to undertake an office which the\ngreat Alfred stooped to assume. \u00a0But I will try to better serve my trust\nthan he; for he let the cakes burn.\"\n\nThe intent was good, but the performance was not answerable to it, for\nthis King, like the other one, soon fell into deep thinkings concerning\nhis vast affairs, and the same calamity resulted--the cookery got\nburned. The woman returned in time to save the breakfast from entire\ndestruction; and she promptly brought the King out of his dreams with a\nbrisk and cordial tongue-lashing. Then, seeing how troubled he was\nover his violated trust, she softened at once, and was all goodness and\ngentleness toward him.\n\nThe boy made a hearty and satisfying meal, and was greatly refreshed and\ngladdened by it. \u00a0It was a meal which was distinguished by this curious\nfeature, that rank was waived on both sides; yet neither recipient\nof the favour was aware that it had been extended. \u00a0The goodwife had\nintended to feed this young tramp with broken victuals in a corner,\nlike any other tramp or like a dog; but she was so remorseful for the\nscolding she had given him, that she did what she could to atone for it\nby allowing him to sit at the family table and eat with his betters, on\nostensible terms of equality with them; and the King, on his side, was\nso remorseful for having broken his trust, after the family had been so\nkind to him, that he forced himself to atone for it by humbling himself\nto the family level, instead of requiring the woman and her children to\nstand and wait upon him, while he occupied their table in the solitary\nstate due to his birth and dignity. \u00a0It does us all good to unbend\nsometimes. \u00a0This good woman was made happy all the day long by the\napplauses which she got out of herself for her magnanimous condescension\nto a tramp; and the King was just as self-complacent over his gracious\nhumility toward a humble peasant woman.\n\nWhen breakfast was over, the housewife told the King to wash up the\ndishes. \u00a0This command was a staggerer, for a moment, and the King came\nnear rebelling; but then he said to himself, \"Alfred the Great watched\nthe cakes; doubtless he would have washed the dishes too--therefore will\nI essay it.\"\n\nHe made a sufficiently poor job of it; and to his surprise too, for the\ncleaning of wooden spoons and trenchers had seemed an easy thing to do.\nIt was a tedious and troublesome piece of work, but he finished it\nat last. \u00a0He was becoming impatient to get away on his journey now;\nhowever, he was not to lose this thrifty dame's society so easily. \u00a0She\nfurnished him some little odds and ends of employment, which he got\nthrough with after a fair fashion and with some credit. \u00a0Then she set\nhim and the little girls to paring some winter apples; but he was so\nawkward at this service that she retired him from it and gave him a\nbutcher knife to grind.\n\nAfterwards she kept him carding wool until he began to think he had laid\nthe good King Alfred about far enough in the shade for the present in\nthe matter of showy menial heroisms that would read picturesquely in\nstory-books and histories, and so he was half-minded to resign. \u00a0And\nwhen, just after the noonday dinner, the goodwife gave him a basket\nof kittens to drown, he did resign. \u00a0At least he was just going to\nresign--for he felt that he must draw the line somewhere, and it\nseemed to him that to draw it at kitten-drowning was about the right\nthing--when there was an interruption. \u00a0The interruption was John\nCanty--with a peddler's pack on his back--and Hugo.\n\nThe King discovered these rascals approaching the front gate before they\nhad had a chance to see him; so he said nothing about drawing the line,\nbut took up his basket of kittens and stepped quietly out the back way,\nwithout a word. \u00a0He left the creatures in an out-house, and hurried on,\ninto a narrow lane at the rear.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX. The Prince and the hermit.\n\nThe high hedge hid him from the house, now; and so, under the impulse of\na deadly fright, he let out all his forces and sped toward a wood in the\ndistance. \u00a0He never looked back until he had almost gained the shelter\nof the forest; then he turned and descried two figures in the distance.\nThat was sufficient; he did not wait to scan them critically, but\nhurried on, and never abated his pace till he was far within the\ntwilight depths of the wood. Then he stopped; being persuaded that he\nwas now tolerably safe. He listened intently, but the stillness was\nprofound and solemn--awful, even, and depressing to the spirits. \u00a0At\nwide intervals his straining ear did detect sounds, but they were so\nremote, and hollow, and mysterious, that they seemed not to be real\nsounds, but only the moaning and complaining ghosts of departed\nones. \u00a0So the sounds were yet more dreary than the silence which they\ninterrupted.\n\nIt was his purpose, in the beginning, to stay where he was the rest of\nthe day; but a chill soon invaded his perspiring body, and he was at\nlast obliged to resume movement in order to get warm. He struck straight\nthrough the forest, hoping to pierce to a road presently, but he was\ndisappointed in this. \u00a0He travelled on and on; but the farther he went,\nthe denser the wood became, apparently. \u00a0The gloom began to thicken,\nby-and-by, and the King realised that the night was coming on. \u00a0It made\nhim shudder to think of spending it in such an uncanny place; so he\ntried to hurry faster, but he only made the less speed, for he could\nnot now see well enough to choose his steps judiciously; consequently he\nkept tripping over roots and tangling himself in vines and briers.\n\nAnd how glad he was when at last he caught the glimmer of a light! He\napproached it warily, stopping often to look about him and listen. \u00a0It\ncame from an unglazed window-opening in a shabby little hut. \u00a0He heard\na voice, now, and felt a disposition to run and hide; but he changed his\nmind at once, for this voice was praying, evidently. \u00a0He glided to the\none window of the hut, raised himself on tiptoe, and stole a glance\nwithin. \u00a0The room was small; its floor was the natural earth, beaten\nhard by use; in a corner was a bed of rushes and a ragged blanket or\ntwo; near it was a pail, a cup, a basin, and two or three pots and pans;\nthere was a short bench and a three-legged stool; on the hearth the\nremains of a faggot fire were smouldering; before a shrine, which was\nlighted by a single candle, knelt an aged man, and on an old wooden box\nat his side lay an open book and a human skull. \u00a0The man was of large,\nbony frame; his hair and whiskers were very long and snowy white; he\nwas clothed in a robe of sheepskins which reached from his neck to his\nheels.\n\n\"A holy hermit!\" said the King to himself; \"now am I indeed fortunate.\"\n\nThe hermit rose from his knees; the King knocked. \u00a0A deep voice\nresponded--\n\n\"Enter!--but leave sin behind, for the ground whereon thou shalt stand\nis holy!\"\n\nThe King entered, and paused. \u00a0The hermit turned a pair of gleaming,\nunrestful eyes upon him, and said--\n\n\"Who art thou?\"\n\n\"I am the King,\" came the answer, with placid simplicity.\n\n\"Welcome, King!\" cried the hermit, with enthusiasm. \u00a0Then, bustling\nabout with feverish activity, and constantly saying, \"Welcome, welcome,\"\nhe arranged his bench, seated the King on it, by the hearth, threw some\nfaggots on the fire, and finally fell to pacing the floor with a nervous\nstride.\n\n\"Welcome! \u00a0Many have sought sanctuary here, but they were not worthy,\nand were turned away. \u00a0But a King who casts his crown away, and despises\nthe vain splendours of his office, and clothes his body in rags, to\ndevote his life to holiness and the mortification of the flesh--he is\nworthy, he is welcome!--here shall he abide all his days till death\ncome.\" \u00a0The King hastened to interrupt and explain, but the hermit paid\nno attention to him--did not even hear him, apparently, but went right\non with his talk, with a raised voice and a growing energy. \u00a0\"And thou\nshalt be at peace here. \u00a0None shall find out thy refuge to disquiet thee\nwith supplications to return to that empty and foolish life which God\nhath moved thee to abandon. \u00a0Thou shalt pray here; thou shalt study the\nBook; thou shalt meditate upon the follies and delusions of this world,\nand upon the sublimities of the world to come; thou shalt feed upon\ncrusts and herbs, and scourge thy body with whips, daily, to the\npurifying of thy soul. Thou shalt wear a hair shirt next thy skin;\nthou shalt drink water only; and thou shalt be at peace; yes, wholly at\npeace; for whoso comes to seek thee shall go his way again, baffled; he\nshall not find thee, he shall not molest thee.\"\n\nThe old man, still pacing back and forth, ceased to speak aloud, and\nbegan to mutter. \u00a0The King seized this opportunity to state his case;\nand he did it with an eloquence inspired by uneasiness and apprehension.\n\u00a0But the hermit went on muttering, and gave no heed. \u00a0And still\nmuttering, he approached the King and said impressively--\n\n\"'Sh! \u00a0I will tell you a secret!\" \u00a0He bent down to impart it, but\nchecked himself, and assumed a listening attitude. \u00a0After a moment\nor two he went on tiptoe to the window-opening, put his head out, and\npeered around in the gloaming, then came tiptoeing back again, put his\nface close down to the King's, and whispered--\n\n\"I am an archangel!\"\n\nThe King started violently, and said to himself, \"Would God I were with\nthe outlaws again; for lo, now am I the prisoner of a madman!\" \u00a0His\napprehensions were heightened, and they showed plainly in his face. \u00a0In\na low excited voice the hermit continued--\n\n\"I see you feel my atmosphere! \u00a0There's awe in your face! \u00a0None may\nbe in this atmosphere and not be thus affected; for it is the very\natmosphere of heaven. \u00a0I go thither and return, in the twinkling of an\neye. \u00a0I was made an archangel on this very spot, it is five years ago,\nby angels sent from heaven to confer that awful dignity. \u00a0Their presence\nfilled this place with an intolerable brightness. \u00a0And they knelt to me,\nKing! yes, they knelt to me! for I was greater than they. \u00a0I have walked\nin the courts of heaven, and held speech with the patriarchs. \u00a0Touch\nmy hand--be not afraid--touch it. \u00a0There--now thou hast touched a hand\nwhich has been clasped by Abraham and Isaac and Jacob! \u00a0For I have\nwalked in the golden courts; I have seen the Deity face to face!\" \u00a0He\npaused, to give this speech effect; then his face suddenly changed, and\nhe started to his feet again saying, with angry energy, \"Yes, I am an\narchangel; _a mere archangel!_--I that might have been pope! \u00a0It is\nverily true. \u00a0I was told it from heaven in a dream, twenty years ago;\nah, yes, I was to be pope!--and I _should_ have been pope, for Heaven\nhad said it--but the King dissolved my religious house, and I, poor\nobscure unfriended monk, was cast homeless upon the world, robbed of my\nmighty destiny!\" Here he began to mumble again, and beat his forehead in\nfutile rage, with his fist; now and then articulating a venomous curse,\nand now and then a pathetic \"Wherefore I am nought but an archangel--I\nthat should have been pope!\"\n\nSo he went on, for an hour, whilst the poor little King sat and\nsuffered. Then all at once the old man's frenzy departed, and he became\nall gentleness. \u00a0His voice softened, he came down out of his clouds, and\nfell to prattling along so simply and so humanly, that he soon won the\nKing's heart completely. \u00a0The old devotee moved the boy nearer to the\nfire and made him comfortable; doctored his small bruises and abrasions\nwith a deft and tender hand; and then set about preparing and cooking a\nsupper--chatting pleasantly all the time, and occasionally stroking the\nlad's cheek or patting his head, in such a gently caressing way that in\na little while all the fear and repulsion inspired by the archangel were\nchanged to reverence and affection for the man.\n\nThis happy state of things continued while the two ate the supper; then,\nafter a prayer before the shrine, the hermit put the boy to bed, in a\nsmall adjoining room, tucking him in as snugly and lovingly as a mother\nmight; and so, with a parting caress, left him and sat down by the\nfire, and began to poke the brands about in an absent and aimless way.\nPresently he paused; then tapped his forehead several times with his\nfingers, as if trying to recall some thought which had escaped from his\nmind. \u00a0Apparently he was unsuccessful. \u00a0Now he started quickly up, and\nentered his guest's room, and said--\n\n\"Thou art King?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" was the response, drowsily uttered.\n\n\"What King?\"\n\n\"Of England.\"\n\n\"Of England? \u00a0Then Henry is gone!\"\n\n\"Alack, it is so. \u00a0I am his son.\"\n\nA black frown settled down upon the hermit's face, and he clenched his\nbony hands with a vindictive energy. \u00a0He stood a few moments, breathing\nfast and swallowing repeatedly, then said in a husky voice--\n\n\"Dost know it was he that turned us out into the world houseless and\nhomeless?\"\n\nThere was no response. \u00a0The old man bent down and scanned the boy's\nreposeful face and listened to his placid breathing. \u00a0\"He sleeps--sleeps\nsoundly;\" and the frown vanished away and gave place to an expression of\nevil satisfaction. \u00a0A smile flitted across the dreaming boy's features.\nThe hermit muttered, \"So--his heart is happy;\" and he turned away. \u00a0He\nwent stealthily about the place, seeking here and there for something;\nnow and then halting to listen, now and then jerking his head around\nand casting a quick glance toward the bed; and always muttering, always\nmumbling to himself. \u00a0At last he found what he seemed to want--a rusty\nold butcher knife and a whetstone. \u00a0Then he crept to his place by the\nfire, sat himself down, and began to whet the knife softly on the stone,\nstill muttering, mumbling, ejaculating. \u00a0The winds sighed around the\nlonely place, the mysterious voices of the night floated by out of the\ndistances. \u00a0The shining eyes of venturesome mice and rats peered out at\nthe old man from cracks and coverts, but he went on with his work, rapt,\nabsorbed, and noted none of these things.\n\nAt long intervals he drew his thumb along the edge of his knife, and\nnodded his head with satisfaction. \u00a0\"It grows sharper,\" he said; \"yes,\nit grows sharper.\"\n\nHe took no note of the flight of time, but worked tranquilly on,\nentertaining himself with his thoughts, which broke out occasionally in\narticulate speech--\n\n\"His father wrought us evil, he destroyed us--and is gone down into the\neternal fires! \u00a0Yes, down into the eternal fires! \u00a0He escaped us--but it\nwas God's will, yes it was God's will, we must not repine. \u00a0But he\nhath not escaped the fires! \u00a0No, he hath not escaped the fires, the\nconsuming, unpitying, remorseless fires--and _they_ are everlasting!\"\n\nAnd so he wrought, and still wrought--mumbling, chuckling a low rasping\nchuckle at times--and at times breaking again into words--\n\n\"It was his father that did it all. \u00a0I am but an archangel; but for him\nI should be pope!\"\n\nThe King stirred. \u00a0The hermit sprang noiselessly to the bedside, and\nwent down upon his knees, bending over the prostrate form with his knife\nuplifted. \u00a0The boy stirred again; his eyes came open for an instant, but\nthere was no speculation in them, they saw nothing; the next moment his\ntranquil breathing showed that his sleep was sound once more.\n\nThe hermit watched and listened, for a time, keeping his position and\nscarcely breathing; then he slowly lowered his arms, and presently crept\naway, saying,--\n\n\"It is long past midnight; it is not best that he should cry out, lest\nby accident someone be passing.\"\n\nHe glided about his hovel, gathering a rag here, a thong there, and\nanother one yonder; then he returned, and by careful and gentle handling\nhe managed to tie the King's ankles together without waking him. \u00a0Next\nhe essayed to tie the wrists; he made several attempts to cross them,\nbut the boy always drew one hand or the other away, just as the cord was\nready to be applied; but at last, when the archangel was almost ready\nto despair, the boy crossed his hands himself, and the next moment\nthey were bound. Now a bandage was passed under the sleeper's chin and\nbrought up over his head and tied fast--and so softly, so gradually,\nand so deftly were the knots drawn together and compacted, that the boy\nslept peacefully through it all without stirring.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI. Hendon to the rescue.\n\nThe old man glided away, stooping, stealthy, cat-like, and brought the\nlow bench. \u00a0He seated himself upon it, half his body in the dim and\nflickering light, and the other half in shadow; and so, with his craving\neyes bent upon the slumbering boy, he kept his patient vigil there,\nheedless of the drift of time, and softly whetted his knife, and mumbled\nand chuckled; and in aspect and attitude he resembled nothing so much as\na grizzly, monstrous spider, gloating over some hapless insect that lay\nbound and helpless in his web.\n\nAfter a long while, the old man, who was still gazing,--yet not seeing,\nhis mind having settled into a dreamy abstraction,--observed, on a\nsudden, that the boy's eyes were open! wide open and staring!--staring\nup in frozen horror at the knife. \u00a0The smile of a gratified devil crept\nover the old man's face, and he said, without changing his attitude or\nhis occupation--\n\n\"Son of Henry the Eighth, hast thou prayed?\"\n\nThe boy struggled helplessly in his bonds, and at the same time forced\na smothered sound through his closed jaws, which the hermit chose to\ninterpret as an affirmative answer to his question.\n\n\"Then pray again. \u00a0Pray the prayer for the dying!\"\n\nA shudder shook the boy's frame, and his face blenched. \u00a0Then he\nstruggled again to free himself--turning and twisting himself this way\nand that; tugging frantically, fiercely, desperately--but uselessly--to\nburst his fetters; and all the while the old ogre smiled down upon him,\nand nodded his head, and placidly whetted his knife; mumbling, from time\nto time, \"The moments are precious, they are few and precious--pray the\nprayer for the dying!\"\n\nThe boy uttered a despairing groan, and ceased from his struggles,\npanting. \u00a0The tears came, then, and trickled, one after the other, down\nhis face; but this piteous sight wrought no softening effect upon the\nsavage old man.\n\nThe dawn was coming now; the hermit observed it, and spoke up sharply,\nwith a touch of nervous apprehension in his voice--\n\n\"I may not indulge this ecstasy longer! \u00a0The night is already gone. \u00a0It\nseems but a moment--only a moment; would it had endured a year! \u00a0Seed of\nthe Church's spoiler, close thy perishing eyes, an' thou fearest to look\nupon--\"\n\nThe rest was lost in inarticulate mutterings. \u00a0The old man sank upon his\nknees, his knife in his hand, and bent himself over the moaning boy.\n\nHark! \u00a0There was a sound of voices near the cabin--the knife dropped\nfrom the hermit's hand; he cast a sheepskin over the boy and started up,\ntrembling. \u00a0The sounds increased, and presently the voices became rough\nand angry; then came blows, and cries for help; then a clatter of swift\nfootsteps, retreating. \u00a0Immediately came a succession of thundering\nknocks upon the cabin door, followed by--\n\n\"Hullo-o-o! \u00a0Open! \u00a0And despatch, in the name of all the devils!\"\n\nOh, this was the blessedest sound that had ever made music in the King's\nears; for it was Miles Hendon's voice!\n\nThe hermit, grinding his teeth in impotent rage, moved swiftly out of\nthe bedchamber, closing the door behind him; and straightway the King\nheard a talk, to this effect, proceeding from the 'chapel':--\n\n\"Homage and greeting, reverend sir! \u00a0Where is the boy--_my_ boy?\"\n\n\"What boy, friend?\"\n\n\"What boy! \u00a0Lie me no lies, sir priest, play me no deceptions!--I am not\nin the humour for it. \u00a0Near to this place I caught the scoundrels who I\njudged did steal him from me, and I made them confess; they said he was\nat large again, and they had tracked him to your door. \u00a0They showed me\nhis very footprints. \u00a0Now palter no more; for look you, holy sir, an'\nthou produce him not--Where is the boy?\"\n\n\"O good sir, peradventure you mean the ragged regal vagrant that tarried\nhere the night. \u00a0If such as you take an interest in such as he, know,\nthen, that I have sent him of an errand. \u00a0He will be back anon.\"\n\n\"How soon? \u00a0How soon? \u00a0Come, waste not the time--cannot I overtake him?\nHow soon will he be back?\"\n\n\"Thou need'st not stir; he will return quickly.\"\n\n\"So be it, then. \u00a0I will try to wait. \u00a0But stop!--_you_ sent him of an\nerrand?--you! \u00a0Verily this is a lie--he would not go. \u00a0He would pull thy\nold beard, an' thou didst offer him such an insolence. Thou hast lied,\nfriend; thou hast surely lied! \u00a0He would not go for thee, nor for any\nman.\"\n\n\"For any _man_--no; haply not. \u00a0But I am not a man.\"\n\n\"_What_! \u00a0Now o' God's name what art thou, then?\"\n\n\"It is a secret--mark thou reveal it not. \u00a0I am an archangel!\"\n\nThere was a tremendous ejaculation from Miles Hendon--not altogether\nunprofane--followed by--\n\n\"This doth well and truly account for his complaisance! \u00a0Right well\nI knew he would budge nor hand nor foot in the menial service of any\nmortal; but, lord, even a king must obey when an archangel gives the\nword o' command! \u00a0Let me--'sh! \u00a0What noise was that?\"\n\nAll this while the little King had been yonder, alternately quaking with\nterror and trembling with hope; and all the while, too, he had thrown\nall the strength he could into his anguished moanings, constantly\nexpecting them to reach Hendon's ear, but always realising, with\nbitterness, that they failed, or at least made no impression. \u00a0So this\nlast remark of his servant came as comes a reviving breath from fresh\nfields to the dying; and he exerted himself once more, and with all his\nenergy, just as the hermit was saying--\n\n\"Noise? \u00a0I heard only the wind.\"\n\n\"Mayhap it was. \u00a0Yes, doubtless that was it. \u00a0I have been hearing it\nfaintly all the--there it is again! \u00a0It is not the wind! \u00a0What an odd\nsound! \u00a0Come, we will hunt it out!\"\n\nNow the King's joy was nearly insupportable. \u00a0His tired lungs did\ntheir utmost--and hopefully, too--but the sealed jaws and the muffling\nsheepskin sadly crippled the effort. \u00a0Then the poor fellow's heart sank,\nto hear the hermit say--\n\n\"Ah, it came from without--I think from the copse yonder. \u00a0Come, I will\nlead the way.\"\n\nThe King heard the two pass out, talking; heard their footsteps die\nquickly away--then he was alone with a boding, brooding, awful silence.\n\nIt seemed an age till he heard the steps and voices approaching\nagain--and this time he heard an added sound,--the trampling of hoofs,\napparently. \u00a0Then he heard Hendon say--\n\n\"I will not wait longer. \u00a0I _cannot_ wait longer. \u00a0He has lost his way\nin this thick wood. \u00a0Which direction took he? \u00a0Quick--point it out to\nme.\"\n\n\"He--but wait; I will go with thee.\"\n\n\"Good--good! \u00a0Why, truly thou art better than thy looks. \u00a0Marry I do\nnot think there's not another archangel with so right a heart as thine.\n\u00a0Wilt ride? \u00a0Wilt take the wee donkey that's for my boy, or wilt thou\nfork thy holy legs over this ill-conditioned slave of a mule that I have\nprovided for myself?--and had been cheated in too, had he cost but the\nindifferent sum of a month's usury on a brass farthing let to a tinker\nout of work.\"\n\n\"No--ride thy mule, and lead thine ass; I am surer on mine own feet, and\nwill walk.\"\n\n\"Then prithee mind the little beast for me while I take my life in my\nhands and make what success I may toward mounting the big one.\"\n\nThen followed a confusion of kicks, cuffs, tramplings and plungings,\naccompanied by a thunderous intermingling of volleyed curses, and\nfinally a bitter apostrophe to the mule, which must have broken its\nspirit, for hostilities seemed to cease from that moment.\n\nWith unutterable misery the fettered little King heard the voices and\nfootsteps fade away and die out. \u00a0All hope forsook him, now, for the\nmoment, and a dull despair settled down upon his heart. \"My only friend\nis deceived and got rid of,\" he said; \"the hermit will return and--\" \u00a0He\nfinished with a gasp; and at once fell to struggling so frantically with\nhis bonds again, that he shook off the smothering sheepskin.\n\nAnd now he heard the door open! \u00a0The sound chilled him to the\nmarrow--already he seemed to feel the knife at his throat. \u00a0Horror made\nhim close his eyes; horror made him open them again--and before him\nstood John Canty and Hugo!\n\nHe would have said \"Thank God!\" if his jaws had been free.\n\nA moment or two later his limbs were at liberty, and his captors, each\ngripping him by an arm, were hurrying him with all speed through the\nforest.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII. A Victim of Treachery.\n\nOnce more 'King Foo-foo the First' was roving with the tramps and\noutlaws, a butt for their coarse jests and dull-witted railleries, and\nsometimes the victim of small spitefulness at the hands of Canty and\nHugo when the Ruffler's back was turned. \u00a0None but Canty and Hugo really\ndisliked him. \u00a0Some of the others liked him, and all admired his pluck\nand spirit. \u00a0During two or three days, Hugo, in whose ward and charge\nthe King was, did what he covertly could to make the boy uncomfortable;\nand at night, during the customary orgies, he amused the company by\nputting small indignities upon him--always as if by accident. \u00a0Twice he\nstepped upon the King's toes--accidentally--and the King, as became his\nroyalty, was contemptuously unconscious of it and indifferent to it; but\nthe third time Hugo entertained himself in that way, the King felled\nhim to the ground with a cudgel, to the prodigious delight of the tribe.\n\u00a0Hugo, consumed with anger and shame, sprang up, seized a cudgel, and\ncame at his small adversary in a fury. \u00a0Instantly a ring was formed\naround the gladiators, and the betting and cheering began.\n\nBut poor Hugo stood no chance whatever. \u00a0His frantic and lubberly\n'prentice-work found but a poor market for itself when pitted against\nan arm which had been trained by the first masters of Europe in\nsingle-stick, quarter-staff, and every art and trick of swordsmanship.\n\u00a0The little King stood, alert but at graceful ease, and caught and\nturned aside the thick rain of blows with a facility and precision which\nset the motley on-lookers wild with admiration; and every now and then,\nwhen his practised eye detected an opening, and a lightning-swift rap\nupon Hugo's head followed as a result, the storm of cheers and laughter\nthat swept the place was something wonderful to hear. \u00a0At the end of\nfifteen minutes, Hugo, all battered, bruised, and the target for\na pitiless bombardment of ridicule, slunk from the field; and the\nunscathed hero of the fight was seized and borne aloft upon the\nshoulders of the joyous rabble to the place of honour beside the\nRuffler, where with vast ceremony he was crowned King of the Game-Cocks;\nhis meaner title being at the same time solemnly cancelled and annulled,\nand a decree of banishment from the gang pronounced against any who\nshould thenceforth utter it.\n\nAll attempts to make the King serviceable to the troop had failed. He\nhad stubbornly refused to act; moreover, he was always trying to escape.\n\u00a0He had been thrust into an unwatched kitchen, the first day of his\nreturn; he not only came forth empty-handed, but tried to rouse the\nhousemates. He was sent out with a tinker to help him at his work;\nhe would not work; moreover, he threatened the tinker with his own\nsoldering-iron; and finally both Hugo and the tinker found their\nhands full with the mere matter of keeping his from getting away. \u00a0He\ndelivered the thunders of his royalty upon the heads of all who hampered\nhis liberties or tried to force him to service. \u00a0He was sent out, in\nHugo's charge, in company with a slatternly woman and a diseased baby,\nto beg; but the result was not encouraging--he declined to plead for the\nmendicants, or be a party to their cause in any way.\n\nThus several days went by; and the miseries of this tramping life, and\nthe weariness and sordidness and meanness and vulgarity of it, became\ngradually and steadily so intolerable to the captive that he began at\nlast to feel that his release from the hermit's knife must prove only a\ntemporary respite from death, at best.\n\nBut at night, in his dreams, these things were forgotten, and he was\non his throne, and master again. \u00a0This, of course, intensified the\nsufferings of the awakening--so the mortifications of each succeeding\nmorning of the few that passed between his return to bondage and the\ncombat with Hugo, grew bitterer and bitterer, and harder and harder to\nbear.\n\nThe morning after that combat, Hugo got up with a heart filled with\nvengeful purposes against the King. \u00a0He had two plans, in particular.\nOne was to inflict upon the lad what would be, to his proud spirit\nand 'imagined' royalty, a peculiar humiliation; and if he failed to\naccomplish this, his other plan was to put a crime of some kind upon the\nKing, and then betray him into the implacable clutches of the law.\n\nIn pursuance of the first plan, he purposed to put a 'clime' upon the\nKing's leg; rightly judging that that would mortify him to the last and\nperfect degree; and as soon as the clime should operate, he meant to get\nCanty's help, and _force_ the King to expose his leg in the highway\nand beg for alms. \u00a0'Clime' was the cant term for a sore, artificially\ncreated. To make a clime, the operator made a paste or poultice of\nunslaked lime, soap, and the rust of old iron, and spread it upon a\npiece of leather, which was then bound tightly upon the leg. \u00a0This would\npresently fret off the skin, and make the flesh raw and angry-looking;\nblood was then rubbed upon the limb, which, being fully dried, took on a\ndark and repulsive colour. \u00a0Then a bandage of soiled rags was put on in\na cleverly careless way which would allow the hideous ulcer to be seen,\nand move the compassion of the passer-by. {8}\n\nHugo got the help of the tinker whom the King had cowed with the\nsoldering-iron; they took the boy out on a tinkering tramp, and as soon\nas they were out of sight of the camp they threw him down and the tinker\nheld him while Hugo bound the poultice tight and fast upon his leg.\n\nThe King raged and stormed, and promised to hang the two the moment the\nsceptre was in his hand again; but they kept a firm grip upon him\nand enjoyed his impotent struggling and jeered at his threats. \u00a0This\ncontinued until the poultice began to bite; and in no long time its work\nwould have been perfected, if there had been no interruption. \u00a0But there\nwas; for about this time the 'slave' who had made the speech denouncing\nEngland's laws, appeared on the scene, and put an end to the enterprise,\nand stripped off the poultice and bandage.\n\nThe King wanted to borrow his deliverer's cudgel and warm the jackets\nof the two rascals on the spot; but the man said no, it would bring\ntrouble--leave the matter till night; the whole tribe being together,\nthen, the outside world would not venture to interfere or interrupt. \u00a0He\nmarched the party back to camp and reported the affair to the Ruffler,\nwho listened, pondered, and then decided that the King should not be\nagain detailed to beg, since it was plain he was worthy of something\nhigher and better--wherefore, on the spot he promoted him from the\nmendicant rank and appointed him to steal!\n\nHugo was overjoyed. \u00a0He had already tried to make the King steal, and\nfailed; but there would be no more trouble of that sort, now, for of\ncourse the King would not dream of defying a distinct command delivered\ndirectly from head-quarters. \u00a0So he planned a raid for that very\nafternoon, purposing to get the King in the law's grip in the course of\nit; and to do it, too, with such ingenious strategy, that it should seem\nto be accidental and unintentional; for the King of the Game-Cocks was\npopular now, and the gang might not deal over-gently with an unpopular\nmember who played so serious a treachery upon him as the delivering him\nover to the common enemy, the law.\n\nVery well. \u00a0All in good time Hugo strolled off to a neighbouring village\nwith his prey; and the two drifted slowly up and down one street after\nanother, the one watching sharply for a sure chance to achieve his evil\npurpose, and the other watching as sharply for a chance to dart away and\nget free of his infamous captivity for ever.\n\nBoth threw away some tolerably fair-looking opportunities; for both,\nin their secret hearts, were resolved to make absolutely sure work this\ntime, and neither meant to allow his fevered desires to seduce him into\nany venture that had much uncertainty about it.\n\nHugo's chance came first. \u00a0For at last a woman approached who carried a\nfat package of some sort in a basket. \u00a0Hugo's eyes sparkled with sinful\npleasure as he said to himself, \"Breath o' my life, an' I can but\nput _that_ upon him, 'tis good-den and God keep thee, King of the\nGame-Cocks!\" He waited and watched--outwardly patient, but inwardly\nconsuming with excitement--till the woman had passed by, and the time\nwas ripe; then said, in a low voice--\n\n\"Tarry here till I come again,\" and darted stealthily after the prey.\n\nThe King's heart was filled with joy--he could make his escape, now, if\nHugo's quest only carried him far enough away.\n\nBut he was to have no such luck. \u00a0Hugo crept behind the woman, snatched\nthe package, and came running back, wrapping it in an old piece of\nblanket which he carried on his arm. \u00a0The hue and cry was raised in a\nmoment, by the woman, who knew her loss by the lightening of her burden,\nalthough she had not seen the pilfering done. \u00a0Hugo thrust the bundle\ninto the King's hands without halting, saying--\n\n\"Now speed ye after me with the rest, and cry 'Stop thief!' but mind ye\nlead them astray!\"\n\nThe next moment Hugo turned a corner and darted down a crooked\nalley--and in another moment or two he lounged into view again, looking\ninnocent and indifferent, and took up a position behind a post to watch\nresults.\n\nThe insulted King threw the bundle on the ground; and the blanket fell\naway from it just as the woman arrived, with an augmenting crowd at her\nheels; she seized the King's wrist with one hand, snatched up her bundle\nwith the other, and began to pour out a tirade of abuse upon the boy\nwhile he struggled, without success, to free himself from her grip.\n\nHugo had seen enough--his enemy was captured and the law would get him,\nnow--so he slipped away, jubilant and chuckling, and wended campwards,\nframing a judicious version of the matter to give to the Ruffler's crew\nas he strode along.\n\nThe King continued to struggle in the woman's strong grasp, and now and\nthen cried out in vexation--\n\n\"Unhand me, thou foolish creature; it was not I that bereaved thee of\nthy paltry goods.\"\n\nThe crowd closed around, threatening the King and calling him names; a\nbrawny blacksmith in leather apron, and sleeves rolled to his elbows,\nmade a reach for him, saying he would trounce him well, for a lesson;\nbut just then a long sword flashed in the air and fell with convincing\nforce upon the man's arm, flat side down, the fantastic owner of it\nremarking pleasantly, at the same time--\n\n\"Marry, good souls, let us proceed gently, not with ill blood and\nuncharitable words. \u00a0This is matter for the law's consideration,\nnot private and unofficial handling. \u00a0Loose thy hold from the boy,\ngoodwife.\"\n\nThe blacksmith averaged the stalwart soldier with a glance, then went\nmuttering away, rubbing his arm; the woman released the boy's wrist\nreluctantly; the crowd eyed the stranger unlovingly, but prudently\nclosed their mouths. \u00a0The King sprang to his deliverer's side, with\nflushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, exclaiming--\n\n\"Thou hast lagged sorely, but thou comest in good season, now, Sir\nMiles; carve me this rabble to rags!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII. The Prince a prisoner.\n\nHendon forced back a smile, and bent down and whispered in the King's\near--\n\n\"Softly, softly, my prince, wag thy tongue warily--nay, suffer it not to\nwag at all. \u00a0Trust in me--all shall go well in the end.\" Then he added\nto himself: \u00a0\"_Sir_ Miles! \u00a0Bless me, I had totally forgot I was a\nknight! Lord, how marvellous a thing it is, the grip his memory doth\ntake upon his quaint and crazy fancies! . . . An empty and foolish title\nis mine, and yet it is something to have deserved it; for I think it is\nmore honour to be held worthy to be a spectre-knight in his Kingdom of\nDreams and Shadows, than to be held base enough to be an earl in some of\nthe _real_ kingdoms of this world.\"\n\nThe crowd fell apart to admit a constable, who approached and was about\nto lay his hand upon the King's shoulder, when Hendon said--\n\n\"Gently, good friend, withhold your hand--he shall go peaceably; I am\nresponsible for that. \u00a0Lead on, we will follow.\"\n\nThe officer led, with the woman and her bundle; Miles and the King\nfollowed after, with the crowd at their heels. \u00a0The King was inclined to\nrebel; but Hendon said to him in a low voice--\n\n\"Reflect, Sire--your laws are the wholesome breath of your own royalty;\nshall their source resist them, yet require the branches to respect\nthem? Apparently one of these laws has been broken; when the King is on\nhis throne again, can it ever grieve him to remember that when he was\nseemingly a private person he loyally sank the king in the citizen and\nsubmitted to its authority?\"\n\n\"Thou art right; say no more; thou shalt see that whatsoever the King\nof England requires a subject to suffer, under the law, he will himself\nsuffer while he holdeth the station of a subject.\"\n\nWhen the woman was called upon to testify before the justice of the\npeace, she swore that the small prisoner at the bar was the person who\nhad committed the theft; there was none able to show the contrary, so\nthe King stood convicted. \u00a0The bundle was now unrolled, and when the\ncontents proved to be a plump little dressed pig, the judge looked\ntroubled, whilst Hendon turned pale, and his body was thrilled with an\nelectric shiver of dismay; but the King remained unmoved, protected\nby his ignorance. \u00a0The judge meditated, during an ominous pause, then\nturned to the woman, with the question--\n\n\"What dost thou hold this property to be worth?\"\n\nThe woman courtesied and replied--\n\n\"Three shillings and eightpence, your worship--I could not abate a penny\nand set forth the value honestly.\"\n\nThe justice glanced around uncomfortably upon the crowd, then nodded to\nthe constable, and said--\n\n\"Clear the court and close the doors.\"\n\nIt was done. \u00a0None remained but the two officials, the accused, the\naccuser, and Miles Hendon. \u00a0This latter was rigid and colourless, and\non his forehead big drops of cold sweat gathered, broke and blended\ntogether, and trickled down his face. \u00a0The judge turned to the woman\nagain, and said, in a compassionate voice--\n\n\"'Tis a poor ignorant lad, and mayhap was driven hard by hunger, for\nthese be grievous times for the unfortunate; mark you, he hath not an\nevil face--but when hunger driveth--Good woman! dost know that when one\nsteals a thing above the value of thirteenpence ha'penny the law saith\nhe shall _hang_ for it?\"\n\nThe little King started, wide-eyed with consternation, but controlled\nhimself and held his peace; but not so the woman. \u00a0She sprang to her\nfeet, shaking with fright, and cried out--\n\n\"Oh, good lack, what have I done! \u00a0God-a-mercy, I would not hang\nthe poor thing for the whole world! \u00a0Ah, save me from this, your\nworship--what shall I do, what _can_ I do?\"\n\nThe justice maintained his judicial composure, and simply said--\n\n\"Doubtless it is allowable to revise the value, since it is not yet writ\nupon the record.\"\n\n\"Then in God's name call the pig eightpence, and heaven bless the day\nthat freed my conscience of this awesome thing!\"\n\nMiles Hendon forgot all decorum in his delight; and surprised the King\nand wounded his dignity, by throwing his arms around him and hugging\nhim. The woman made her grateful adieux and started away with her pig;\nand when the constable opened the door for her, he followed her out into\nthe narrow hall. \u00a0The justice proceeded to write in his record book.\n\u00a0Hendon, always alert, thought he would like to know why the officer\nfollowed the woman out; so he slipped softly into the dusky hall and\nlistened. \u00a0He heard a conversation to this effect--\n\n\"It is a fat pig, and promises good eating; I will buy it of thee; here\nis the eightpence.\"\n\n\"Eightpence, indeed! \u00a0Thou'lt do no such thing. \u00a0It cost me three\nshillings and eightpence, good honest coin of the last reign, that old\nHarry that's just dead ne'er touched or tampered with. \u00a0A fig for thy\neightpence!\"\n\n\"Stands the wind in that quarter? \u00a0Thou wast under oath, and so swore\nfalsely when thou saidst the value was but eightpence. \u00a0Come straightway\nback with me before his worship, and answer for the crime!--and then the\nlad will hang.\"\n\n\"There, there, dear heart, say no more, I am content. \u00a0Give me the\neightpence, and hold thy peace about the matter.\"\n\nThe woman went off crying: \u00a0Hendon slipped back into the court room,\nand the constable presently followed, after hiding his prize in some\nconvenient place. \u00a0The justice wrote a while longer, then read the King\na wise and kindly lecture, and sentenced him to a short imprisonment\nin the common jail, to be followed by a public flogging. \u00a0The astounded\nKing opened his mouth, and was probably going to order the good judge to\nbe beheaded on the spot; but he caught a warning sign from Hendon, and\nsucceeded in closing his mouth again before he lost anything out of it.\nHendon took him by the hand, now, made reverence to the justice, and the\ntwo departed in the wake of the constable toward the jail. \u00a0The moment\nthe street was reached, the inflamed monarch halted, snatched away his\nhand, and exclaimed--\n\n\"Idiot, dost imagine I will enter a common jail _alive_?\"\n\nHendon bent down and said, somewhat sharply--\n\n\"_Will_ you trust in me? \u00a0Peace! and forbear to worsen our chances with\ndangerous speech. \u00a0What God wills, will happen; thou canst not hurry it,\nthou canst not alter it; therefore wait, and be patient--'twill be time\nenow to rail or rejoice when what is to happen has happened.\" {1}\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV. The Escape.\n\nThe short winter day was nearly ended. \u00a0The streets were deserted, save\nfor a few random stragglers, and these hurried straight along, with the\nintent look of people who were only anxious to accomplish their errands\nas quickly as possible, and then snugly house themselves from the rising\nwind and the gathering twilight. They looked neither to the right nor to\nthe left; they paid no attention to our party, they did not even seem\nto see them. Edward the Sixth wondered if the spectacle of a king on his\nway to jail had ever encountered such marvellous indifference before.\nBy-and-by the constable arrived at a deserted market-square, and\nproceeded to cross it. \u00a0When he had reached the middle of it, Hendon\nlaid his hand upon his arm, and said in a low voice--\n\n\"Bide a moment, good sir, there is none in hearing, and I would say a\nword to thee.\"\n\n\"My duty forbids it, sir; prithee hinder me not, the night comes on.\"\n\n\"Stay, nevertheless, for the matter concerns thee nearly. \u00a0Turn thy back\na moment and seem not to see: \u00a0_let this poor lad escape_.\"\n\n\"This to me, sir! \u00a0I arrest thee in--\"\n\n\"Nay, be not too hasty. \u00a0See thou be careful and commit no foolish\nerror,\"--then he shut his voice down to a whisper, and said in the man's\near--\"the pig thou hast purchased for eightpence may cost thee thy neck,\nman!\"\n\nThe poor constable, taken by surprise, was speechless, at first, then\nfound his tongue and fell to blustering and threatening; but Hendon\nwas tranquil, and waited with patience till his breath was spent; then\nsaid--\n\n\"I have a liking to thee, friend, and would not willingly see thee\ncome to harm. \u00a0Observe, I heard it all--every word. \u00a0I will prove it to\nthee.\" Then he repeated the conversation which the officer and the woman\nhad had together in the hall, word for word, and ended with--\n\n\"There--have I set it forth correctly? \u00a0Should not I be able to set it\nforth correctly before the judge, if occasion required?\"\n\nThe man was dumb with fear and distress, for a moment; then he rallied,\nand said with forced lightness--\n\n\"'Tis making a mighty matter, indeed, out of a jest; I but plagued the\nwoman for mine amusement.\"\n\n\"Kept you the woman's pig for amusement?\"\n\nThe man answered sharply--\n\n\"Nought else, good sir--I tell thee 'twas but a jest.\"\n\n\"I do begin to believe thee,\" said Hendon, with a perplexing mixture of\nmockery and half-conviction in his tone; \"but tarry thou here a\nmoment whilst I run and ask his worship--for nathless, he being a man\nexperienced in law, in jests, in--\"\n\nHe was moving away, still talking; the constable hesitated, fidgeted,\nspat out an oath or two, then cried out--\n\n\"Hold, hold, good sir--prithee wait a little--the judge! \u00a0Why, man, he\nhath no more sympathy with a jest than hath a dead corpse!--come, and we\nwill speak further. \u00a0Ods body! \u00a0I seem to be in evil case--and all for\nan innocent and thoughtless pleasantry. I am a man of family; and my\nwife and little ones--List to reason, good your worship: what wouldst\nthou of me?\"\n\n\"Only that thou be blind and dumb and paralytic whilst one may count a\nhundred thousand--counting slowly,\" said Hendon, with the expression of\na man who asks but a reasonable favour, and that a very little one.\n\n\"It is my destruction!\" said the constable despairingly. \u00a0\"Ah, be\nreasonable, good sir; only look at this matter, on all its sides, and\nsee how mere a jest it is--how manifestly and how plainly it is so. \u00a0And\neven if one granted it were not a jest, it is a fault so small that\ne'en the grimmest penalty it could call forth would be but a rebuke and\nwarning from the judge's lips.\"\n\nHendon replied with a solemnity which chilled the air about him--\n\n\"This jest of thine hath a name, in law,--wot you what it is?\"\n\n\"I knew it not! \u00a0Peradventure I have been unwise. \u00a0I never dreamed it\nhad a name--ah, sweet heaven, I thought it was original.\"\n\n\"Yes, it hath a name. \u00a0In the law this crime is called Non compos mentis\nlex talionis sic transit gloria mundi.\"\n\n\"Ah, my God!\"\n\n\"And the penalty is death!\"\n\n\"God be merciful to me a sinner!\"\n\n\"By advantage taken of one in fault, in dire peril, and at thy mercy,\nthou hast seized goods worth above thirteenpence ha'penny, paying but\na trifle for the same; and this, in the eye of the law, is constructive\nbarratry, misprision of treason, malfeasance in office, ad hominem\nexpurgatis in statu quo--and the penalty is death by the halter, without\nransom, commutation, or benefit of clergy.\"\n\n\"Bear me up, bear me up, sweet sir, my legs do fail me! \u00a0Be thou\nmerciful--spare me this doom, and I will turn my back and see nought\nthat shall happen.\"\n\n\"Good! now thou'rt wise and reasonable. \u00a0And thou'lt restore the pig?\"\n\n\"I will, I will indeed--nor ever touch another, though heaven send it\nand an archangel fetch it. \u00a0Go--I am blind for thy sake--I see nothing.\n\u00a0I will say thou didst break in and wrest the prisoner from my hands by\nforce. \u00a0It is but a crazy, ancient door--I will batter it down myself\nbetwixt midnight and the morning.\"\n\n\"Do it, good soul, no harm will come of it; the judge hath a loving\ncharity for this poor lad, and will shed no tears and break no jailer's\nbones for his escape.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV. Hendon Hall.\n\nAs soon as Hendon and the King were out of sight of the constable, his\nMajesty was instructed to hurry to a certain place outside the town, and\nwait there, whilst Hendon should go to the inn and settle his account.\nHalf an hour later the two friends were blithely jogging eastward on\nHendon's sorry steeds. \u00a0The King was warm and comfortable, now, for\nhe had cast his rags and clothed himself in the second-hand suit which\nHendon had bought on London Bridge.\n\nHendon wished to guard against over-fatiguing the boy; he judged that\nhard journeys, irregular meals, and illiberal measures of sleep would be\nbad for his crazed mind; whilst rest, regularity, and moderate exercise\nwould be pretty sure to hasten its cure; he longed to see the stricken\nintellect made well again and its diseased visions driven out of the\ntormented little head; therefore he resolved to move by easy stages\ntoward the home whence he had so long been banished, instead of obeying\nthe impulse of his impatience and hurrying along night and day.\n\nWhen he and the King had journeyed about ten miles, they reached a\nconsiderable village, and halted there for the night, at a good inn.\n\u00a0The former relations were resumed; Hendon stood behind the King's\nchair, while he dined, and waited upon him; undressed him when he was\nready for bed; then took the floor for his own quarters, and slept\nathwart the door, rolled up in a blanket.\n\nThe next day, and the day after, they jogged lazily along talking\nover the adventures they had met since their separation, and mightily\nenjoying each other's narratives. \u00a0Hendon detailed all his wide\nwanderings in search of the King, and described how the archangel had\nled him a fool's journey all over the forest, and taken him back to\nthe hut, finally, when he found he could not get rid of him. \u00a0Then--he\nsaid--the old man went into the bedchamber and came staggering back\nlooking broken-hearted, and saying he had expected to find that the boy\nhad returned and laid down in there to rest, but it was not so. \u00a0Hendon\nhad waited at the hut all day; hope of the King's return died out, then,\nand he departed upon the quest again.\n\n\"And old Sanctum Sanctorum _was_ truly sorry your highness came not\nback,\" said Hendon; \"I saw it in his face.\"\n\n\"Marry I will never doubt _that_!\" said the King--and then told his own\nstory; after which, Hendon was sorry he had not destroyed the archangel.\n\nDuring the last day of the trip, Hendon's spirits were soaring. His\ntongue ran constantly. \u00a0He talked about his old father, and his brother\nArthur, and told of many things which illustrated their high and\ngenerous characters; he went into loving frenzies over his Edith,\nand was so glad-hearted that he was even able to say some gentle and\nbrotherly things about Hugh. \u00a0He dwelt a deal on the coming meeting\nat Hendon Hall; what a surprise it would be to everybody, and what an\noutburst of thanksgiving and delight there would be.\n\nIt was a fair region, dotted with cottages and orchards, and the road\nled through broad pasture lands whose receding expanses, marked with\ngentle elevations and depressions, suggested the swelling and subsiding\nundulations of the sea. \u00a0In the afternoon the returning prodigal made\nconstant deflections from his course to see if by ascending some hillock\nhe might not pierce the distance and catch a glimpse of his home. \u00a0At\nlast he was successful, and cried out excitedly--\n\n\"There is the village, my Prince, and there is the Hall close by! You\nmay see the towers from here; and that wood there--that is my father's\npark. Ah, _now_ thou'lt know what state and grandeur be! A house with\nseventy rooms--think of that!--and seven and twenty servants! \u00a0A brave\nlodging for such as we, is it not so? \u00a0Come, let us speed--my impatience\nwill not brook further delay.\"\n\nAll possible hurry was made; still, it was after three o'clock before\nthe village was reached. \u00a0The travellers scampered through it, Hendon's\ntongue going all the time. \u00a0\"Here is the church--covered with the same\nivy--none gone, none added.\" \u00a0\"Yonder is the inn, the old Red Lion,--and\nyonder is the market-place.\" \u00a0\"Here is the Maypole, and here the\npump--nothing is altered; nothing but the people, at any rate; ten years\nmake a change in people; some of these I seem to know, but none know\nme.\" \u00a0So his chat ran on. The end of the village was soon reached; then\nthe travellers struck into a crooked, narrow road, walled in with tall\nhedges, and hurried briskly along it for half a mile, then passed into a\nvast flower garden through an imposing gateway, whose huge stone pillars\nbore sculptured armorial devices. \u00a0A noble mansion was before them.\n\n\"Welcome to Hendon Hall, my King!\" exclaimed Miles. \u00a0\"Ah, 'tis a great\nday! \u00a0My father and my brother, and the Lady Edith will be so mad with\njoy that they will have eyes and tongue for none but me in the first\ntransports of the meeting, and so thou'lt seem but coldly welcomed--but\nmind it not; 'twill soon seem otherwise; for when I say thou art my\nward, and tell them how costly is my love for thee, thou'lt see them\ntake thee to their breasts for Miles Hendon's sake, and make their house\nand hearts thy home for ever after!\"\n\nThe next moment Hendon sprang to the ground before the great door,\nhelped the King down, then took him by the hand and rushed within. A few\nsteps brought him to a spacious apartment; he entered, seated the King\nwith more hurry than ceremony, then ran toward a young man who sat at a\nwriting-table in front of a generous fire of logs.\n\n\"Embrace me, Hugh,\" he cried, \"and say thou'rt glad I am come again! and\ncall our father, for home is not home till I shall touch his hand, and\nsee his face, and hear his voice once more!\"\n\nBut Hugh only drew back, after betraying a momentary surprise, and bent\na grave stare upon the intruder--a stare which indicated somewhat of\noffended dignity, at first, then changed, in response to some inward\nthought or purpose, to an expression of marvelling curiosity, mixed with\na real or assumed compassion. \u00a0Presently he said, in a mild voice--\n\n\"Thy wits seem touched, poor stranger; doubtless thou hast suffered\nprivations and rude buffetings at the world's hands; thy looks and dress\nbetoken it. \u00a0Whom dost thou take me to be?\"\n\n\"Take thee? \u00a0Prithee for whom else than whom thou art? \u00a0I take thee to\nbe Hugh Hendon,\" said Miles, sharply.\n\nThe other continued, in the same soft tone--\n\n\"And whom dost thou imagine thyself to be?\"\n\n\"Imagination hath nought to do with it! \u00a0Dost thou pretend thou knowest\nme not for thy brother Miles Hendon?\"\n\nAn expression of pleased surprise flitted across Hugh's face, and he\nexclaimed--\n\n\"What! thou art not jesting? can the dead come to life? \u00a0God be praised\nif it be so! \u00a0Our poor lost boy restored to our arms after all these\ncruel years! \u00a0Ah, it seems too good to be true, it _is_ too good to be\ntrue--I charge thee, have pity, do not trifle with me! \u00a0Quick--come to\nthe light--let me scan thee well!\"\n\nHe seized Miles by the arm, dragged him to the window, and began to\ndevour him from head to foot with his eyes, turning him this way and\nthat, and stepping briskly around him and about him to prove him\nfrom all points of view; whilst the returned prodigal, all aglow with\ngladness, smiled, laughed, and kept nodding his head and saying--\n\n\"Go on, brother, go on, and fear not; thou'lt find nor limb nor feature\nthat cannot bide the test. \u00a0Scour and scan me to thy content, my good\nold Hugh--I am indeed thy old Miles, thy same old Miles, thy lost\nbrother, is't not so? \u00a0Ah, 'tis a great day--I _said_ 'twas a great day!\n\u00a0Give me thy hand, give me thy cheek--lord, I am like to die of very\njoy!\"\n\nHe was about to throw himself upon his brother; but Hugh put up his hand\nin dissent, then dropped his chin mournfully upon his breast, saying\nwith emotion--\n\n\"Ah, God of his mercy give me strength to bear this grievous\ndisappointment!\"\n\nMiles, amazed, could not speak for a moment; then he found his tongue,\nand cried out--\n\n\"_What_ disappointment? \u00a0Am I not thy brother?\"\n\nHugh shook his head sadly, and said--\n\n\"I pray heaven it may prove so, and that other eyes may find the\nresemblances that are hid from mine. \u00a0Alack, I fear me the letter spoke\nbut too truly.\"\n\n\"What letter?\"\n\n\"One that came from over sea, some six or seven years ago. \u00a0It said my\nbrother died in battle.\"\n\n\"It was a lie! \u00a0Call thy father--he will know me.\"\n\n\"One may not call the dead.\"\n\n\"Dead?\" Miles's voice was subdued, and his lips trembled. \u00a0\"My father\ndead!--oh, this is heavy news. \u00a0Half my new joy is withered now.\n\u00a0Prithee let me see my brother Arthur--he will know me; he will know me\nand console me.\"\n\n\"He, also, is dead.\"\n\n\"God be merciful to me, a stricken man! \u00a0Gone,--both gone--the worthy\ntaken and the worthless spared, in me! \u00a0Ah! I crave your mercy!--do not\nsay the Lady Edith--\"\n\n\"Is dead? \u00a0No, she lives.\"\n\n\"Then, God be praised, my joy is whole again! \u00a0Speed thee, brother--let\nher come to me! \u00a0An' _she_ say I am not myself--but she will not; no,\nno, _she_ will know me, I were a fool to doubt it. Bring her--bring the\nold servants; they, too, will know me.\"\n\n\"All are gone but five--Peter, Halsey, David, Bernard, and Margaret.\"\n\nSo saying, Hugh left the room. \u00a0Miles stood musing a while, then began\nto walk the floor, muttering--\n\n\"The five arch-villains have survived the two-and-twenty leal and\nhonest--'tis an odd thing.\"\n\nHe continued walking back and forth, muttering to himself; he had\nforgotten the King entirely. \u00a0By-and-by his Majesty said gravely, and\nwith a touch of genuine compassion, though the words themselves were\ncapable of being interpreted ironically--\n\n\"Mind not thy mischance, good man; there be others in the world whose\nidentity is denied, and whose claims are derided. \u00a0Thou hast company.\"\n\n\"Ah, my King,\" cried Hendon, colouring slightly, \"do not thou condemn\nme--wait, and thou shalt see. \u00a0I am no impostor--she will say it; you\nshall hear it from the sweetest lips in England. \u00a0I an impostor? \u00a0Why, I\nknow this old hall, these pictures of my ancestors, and all these things\nthat are about us, as a child knoweth its own nursery. \u00a0Here was I born\nand bred, my lord; I speak the truth; I would not deceive thee; and\nshould none else believe, I pray thee do not _thou_ doubt me--I could\nnot bear it.\"\n\n\"I do not doubt thee,\" said the King, with a childlike simplicity and\nfaith.\n\n\"I thank thee out of my heart!\" exclaimed Hendon with a fervency which\nshowed that he was touched. \u00a0The King added, with the same gentle\nsimplicity--\n\n\"Dost thou doubt _me_?\"\n\nA guilty confusion seized upon Hendon, and he was grateful that the door\nopened to admit Hugh, at that moment, and saved him the necessity of\nreplying.\n\nA beautiful lady, richly clothed, followed Hugh, and after her came\nseveral liveried servants. \u00a0The lady walked slowly, with her head bowed\nand her eyes fixed upon the floor. \u00a0The face was unspeakably sad. \u00a0Miles\nHendon sprang forward, crying out--\n\n\"Oh, my Edith, my darling--\"\n\nBut Hugh waved him back, gravely, and said to the lady--\n\n\"Look upon him. \u00a0Do you know him?\"\n\nAt the sound of Miles's voice the woman had started slightly, and her\ncheeks had flushed; she was trembling now. \u00a0She stood still, during an\nimpressive pause of several moments; then slowly lifted up her head and\nlooked into Hendon's eyes with a stony and frightened gaze; the blood\nsank out of her face, drop by drop, till nothing remained but the grey\npallor of death; then she said, in a voice as dead as the face, \"I know\nhim not!\" and turned, with a moan and a stifled sob, and tottered out of\nthe room.\n\nMiles Hendon sank into a chair and covered his face with his hands.\nAfter a pause, his brother said to the servants--\n\n\"You have observed him. \u00a0Do you know him?\"\n\nThey shook their heads; then the master said--\n\n\"The servants know you not, sir. \u00a0I fear there is some mistake. You have\nseen that my wife knew you not.\"\n\n\"Thy _wife_!\" \u00a0In an instant Hugh was pinned to the wall, with an iron\ngrip about his throat. \u00a0\"Oh, thou fox-hearted slave, I see it all!\n\u00a0Thou'st writ the lying letter thyself, and my stolen bride and goods\nare its fruit. \u00a0There--now get thee gone, lest I shame mine honourable\nsoldiership with the slaying of so pitiful a mannikin!\"\n\nHugh, red-faced, and almost suffocated, reeled to the nearest chair, and\ncommanded the servants to seize and bind the murderous stranger. \u00a0They\nhesitated, and one of them said--\n\n\"He is armed, Sir Hugh, and we are weaponless.\"\n\n\"Armed! \u00a0What of it, and ye so many? \u00a0Upon him, I say!\"\n\nBut Miles warned them to be careful what they did, and added--\n\n\"Ye know me of old--I have not changed; come on, an' it like you.\"\n\nThis reminder did not hearten the servants much; they still held back.\n\n\"Then go, ye paltry cowards, and arm yourselves and guard the doors,\nwhilst I send one to fetch the watch!\" said Hugh. \u00a0He turned at the\nthreshold, and said to Miles, \"You'll find it to your advantage to\noffend not with useless endeavours at escape.\"\n\n\"Escape? \u00a0Spare thyself discomfort, an' that is all that troubles thee.\nFor Miles Hendon is master of Hendon Hall and all its belongings. \u00a0He\nwill remain--doubt it not.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI. Disowned.\n\nThe King sat musing a few moments, then looked up and said--\n\n\"'Tis strange--most strange. \u00a0I cannot account for it.\"\n\n\"No, it is not strange, my liege. \u00a0I know him, and this conduct is but\nnatural. \u00a0He was a rascal from his birth.\"\n\n\"Oh, I spake not of _him_, Sir Miles.\"\n\n\"Not of him? \u00a0Then of what? \u00a0What is it that is strange?\"\n\n\"That the King is not missed.\"\n\n\"How? \u00a0Which? \u00a0I doubt I do not understand.\"\n\n\"Indeed? \u00a0Doth it not strike you as being passing strange that the land\nis not filled with couriers and proclamations describing my person and\nmaking search for me? \u00a0Is it no matter for commotion and distress that\nthe Head of the State is gone; that I am vanished away and lost?\"\n\n\"Most true, my King, I had forgot.\" \u00a0Then Hendon sighed, and muttered to\nhimself, \"Poor ruined mind--still busy with its pathetic dream.\"\n\n\"But I have a plan that shall right us both--I will write a paper, in\nthree tongues--Latin, Greek and English--and thou shalt haste away with\nit to London in the morning. \u00a0Give it to none but my uncle, the Lord\nHertford; when he shall see it, he will know and say I wrote it. \u00a0Then\nhe will send for me.\"\n\n\"Might it not be best, my Prince, that we wait here until I prove myself\nand make my rights secure to my domains? \u00a0I should be so much the better\nable then to--\"\n\nThe King interrupted him imperiously--\n\n\"Peace! \u00a0What are thy paltry domains, thy trivial interests, contrasted\nwith matters which concern the weal of a nation and the integrity of a\nthrone?\" \u00a0Then, he added, in a gentle voice, as if he were sorry for his\nseverity, \"Obey, and have no fear; I will right thee, I will make thee\nwhole--yes, more than whole. \u00a0I shall remember, and requite.\"\n\nSo saying, he took the pen, and set himself to work. \u00a0Hendon\ncontemplated him lovingly a while, then said to himself--\n\n\"An' it were dark, I should think it _was_ a king that spoke; there's\nno denying it, when the humour's upon on him he doth thunder and lighten\nlike your true King; now where got he that trick? \u00a0See him scribble and\nscratch away contentedly at his meaningless pot-hooks, fancying them to\nbe Latin and Greek--and except my wit shall serve me with a lucky device\nfor diverting him from his purpose, I shall be forced to pretend to post\naway to-morrow on this wild errand he hath invented for me.\"\n\nThe next moment Sir Miles's thoughts had gone back to the recent\nepisode. So absorbed was he in his musings, that when the King presently\nhanded him the paper which he had been writing, he received it and\npocketed it without being conscious of the act. \"How marvellous strange\nshe acted,\" he muttered. \u00a0\"I think she knew me--and I think she did\n_not_ know me. These opinions do conflict, I perceive it plainly; I\ncannot reconcile them, neither can I, by argument, dismiss either of the\ntwo, or even persuade one to outweigh the other. \u00a0The matter standeth\nsimply thus: she _must_ have known my face, my figure, my voice, for how\ncould it be otherwise? \u00a0Yet she __said_ _she knew me not, and that is\nproof perfect, for she cannot lie. \u00a0But stop--I think I begin to see.\nPeradventure he hath influenced her, commanded her, compelled her to\nlie. \u00a0That is the solution. \u00a0The riddle is unriddled. \u00a0She seemed dead\nwith fear--yes, she was under his compulsion. \u00a0I will seek her; I will\nfind her; now that he is away, she will speak her true mind. \u00a0She will\nremember the old times when we were little playfellows together, and\nthis will soften her heart, and she will no more betray me, but will\nconfess me. \u00a0There is no treacherous blood in her--no, she was always\nhonest and true. \u00a0She has loved me, in those old days--this is my\nsecurity; for whom one has loved, one cannot betray.\"\n\nHe stepped eagerly toward the door; at that moment it opened, and the\nLady Edith entered. \u00a0She was very pale, but she walked with a firm step,\nand her carriage was full of grace and gentle dignity. Her face was as\nsad as before.\n\nMiles sprang forward, with a happy confidence, to meet her, but she\nchecked him with a hardly perceptible gesture, and he stopped where he\nwas. \u00a0She seated herself, and asked him to do likewise. Thus simply did\nshe take the sense of old comradeship out of him, and transform him\ninto a stranger and a guest. \u00a0The surprise of it, the bewildering\nunexpectedness of it, made him begin to question, for a moment, if he\n_was_ the person he was pretending to be, after all. \u00a0The Lady Edith\nsaid--\n\n\"Sir, I have come to warn you. \u00a0The mad cannot be persuaded out of\ntheir delusions, perchance; but doubtless they may be persuaded to avoid\nperils. \u00a0I think this dream of yours hath the seeming of honest truth to\nyou, and therefore is not criminal--but do not tarry here with it; for\nhere it is dangerous.\" \u00a0She looked steadily into Miles's face a moment,\nthen added, impressively, \"It is the more dangerous for that you _are_\nmuch like what our lost lad must have grown to be if he had lived.\"\n\n\"Heavens, madam, but I _am_ he!\"\n\n\"I truly think you think it, sir. \u00a0I question not your honesty in that;\nI but warn you, that is all. \u00a0My husband is master in this region; his\npower hath hardly any limit; the people prosper or starve, as he wills.\nIf you resembled not the man whom you profess to be, my husband might\nbid you pleasure yourself with your dream in peace; but trust me, I know\nhim well; I know what he will do; he will say to all that you are but a\nmad impostor, and straightway all will echo him.\" \u00a0She bent upon Miles\nthat same steady look once more, and added: \u00a0\"If you _were_ Miles\nHendon, and he knew it and all the region knew it--consider what I\nam saying, weigh it well--you would stand in the same peril, your\npunishment would be no less sure; he would deny you and denounce you,\nand none would be bold enough to give you countenance.\"\n\n\"Most truly I believe it,\" said Miles, bitterly. \u00a0\"The power that\ncan command one life-long friend to betray and disown another, and be\nobeyed, may well look to be obeyed in quarters where bread and life are\non the stake and no cobweb ties of loyalty and honour are concerned.\"\n\nA faint tinge appeared for a moment in the lady's cheek, and she dropped\nher eyes to the floor; but her voice betrayed no emotion when she\nproceeded--\n\n\"I have warned you--I must still warn you--to go hence. \u00a0This man will\ndestroy you, else. \u00a0He is a tyrant who knows no pity. \u00a0I, who am\nhis fettered slave, know this. \u00a0Poor Miles, and Arthur, and my dear\nguardian, Sir Richard, are free of him, and at rest: \u00a0better that\nyou were with them than that you bide here in the clutches of this\nmiscreant. \u00a0Your pretensions are a menace to his title and possessions;\nyou have assaulted him in his own house: \u00a0you are ruined if you stay.\n\u00a0Go--do not hesitate. If you lack money, take this purse, I beg of you,\nand bribe the servants to let you pass. Oh, be warned, poor soul, and\nescape while you may.\"\n\nMiles declined the purse with a gesture, and rose up and stood before\nher.\n\n\"Grant me one thing,\" he said. \u00a0\"Let your eyes rest upon mine, so that I\nmay see if they be steady. \u00a0There--now answer me. \u00a0Am I Miles Hendon?\"\n\n\"No. \u00a0I know you not.\"\n\n\"Swear it!\"\n\nThe answer was low, but distinct--\n\n\"I swear.\"\n\n\"Oh, this passes belief!\"\n\n\"Fly! \u00a0Why will you waste the precious time? \u00a0Fly, and save yourself.\"\n\nAt that moment the officers burst into the room, and a violent struggle\nbegan; but Hendon was soon overpowered and dragged away. The King was\ntaken also, and both were bound and led to prison.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVII. In Prison.\n\nThe cells were all crowded; so the two friends were chained in a large\nroom where persons charged with trifling offences were commonly kept.\nThey had company, for there were some twenty manacled and fettered\nprisoners here, of both sexes and of varying ages,--an obscene and noisy\ngang. \u00a0The King chafed bitterly over the stupendous indignity thus put\nupon his royalty, but Hendon was moody and taciturn. \u00a0He was pretty\nthoroughly bewildered; he had come home, a jubilant prodigal, expecting\nto find everybody wild with joy over his return; and instead had got the\ncold shoulder and a jail. \u00a0The promise and the fulfilment differed so\nwidely that the effect was stunning; he could not decide whether it\nwas most tragic or most grotesque. \u00a0He felt much as a man might who had\ndanced blithely out to enjoy a rainbow, and got struck by lightning.\n\nBut gradually his confused and tormenting thoughts settled down into\nsome sort of order, and then his mind centred itself upon Edith. \u00a0He\nturned her conduct over, and examined it in all lights, but he could not\nmake anything satisfactory out of it. \u00a0Did she know him--or didn't she\nknow him? \u00a0It was a perplexing puzzle, and occupied him a long time; but\nhe ended, finally, with the conviction that she did know him, and had\nrepudiated him for interested reasons. \u00a0He wanted to load her name with\ncurses now; but this name had so long been sacred to him that he found\nhe could not bring his tongue to profane it.\n\nWrapped in prison blankets of a soiled and tattered condition, Hendon\nand the King passed a troubled night. \u00a0For a bribe the jailer had\nfurnished liquor to some of the prisoners; singing of ribald songs,\nfighting, shouting, and carousing was the natural consequence. \u00a0At last,\na while after midnight, a man attacked a woman and nearly killed her by\nbeating her over the head with his manacles before the jailer could\ncome to the rescue. \u00a0The jailer restored peace by giving the man a sound\nclubbing about the head and shoulders--then the carousing ceased;\nand after that, all had an opportunity to sleep who did not mind the\nannoyance of the moanings and groanings of the two wounded people.\n\nDuring the ensuing week, the days and nights were of a monotonous\nsameness as to events; men whose faces Hendon remembered more or less\ndistinctly, came, by day, to gaze at the 'impostor' and repudiate\nand insult him; and by night the carousing and brawling went on with\nsymmetrical regularity. \u00a0However, there was a change of incident at\nlast. The jailer brought in an old man, and said to him--\n\n\"The villain is in this room--cast thy old eyes about and see if thou\ncanst say which is he.\"\n\nHendon glanced up, and experienced a pleasant sensation for the first\ntime since he had been in the jail. \u00a0He said to himself, \"This is Blake\nAndrews, a servant all his life in my father's family--a good honest\nsoul, with a right heart in his breast. That is, formerly. \u00a0But none are\ntrue now; all are liars. \u00a0This man will know me--and will deny me, too,\nlike the rest.\"\n\nThe old man gazed around the room, glanced at each face in turn, and\nfinally said--\n\n\"I see none here but paltry knaves, scum o' the streets. \u00a0Which is he?\"\n\nThe jailer laughed.\n\n\"Here,\" he said; \"scan this big animal, and grant me an opinion.\"\n\nThe old man approached, and looked Hendon over, long and earnestly, then\nshook his head and said--\n\n\"Marry, _this_ is no Hendon--nor ever was!\"\n\n\"Right! \u00a0Thy old eyes are sound yet. \u00a0An' I were Sir Hugh, I would take\nthe shabby carle and--\"\n\nThe jailer finished by lifting himself a-tip-toe with an imaginary\nhalter, at the same time making a gurgling noise in his throat\nsuggestive of suffocation. \u00a0The old man said, vindictively--\n\n\"Let him bless God an' he fare no worse. \u00a0An' _I_ had the handling o'\nthe villain he should roast, or I am no true man!\"\n\nThe jailer laughed a pleasant hyena laugh, and said--\n\n\"Give him a piece of thy mind, old man--they all do it. \u00a0Thou'lt find it\ngood diversion.\"\n\nThen he sauntered toward his ante-room and disappeared. \u00a0The old man\ndropped upon his knees and whispered--\n\n\"God be thanked, thou'rt come again, my master! \u00a0I believed thou wert\ndead these seven years, and lo, here thou art alive! \u00a0I knew thee the\nmoment I saw thee; and main hard work it was to keep a stony countenance\nand seem to see none here but tuppenny knaves and rubbish o' the\nstreets. I am old and poor, Sir Miles; but say the word and I will go\nforth and proclaim the truth though I be strangled for it.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Hendon; \"thou shalt not. \u00a0It would ruin thee, and yet help\nbut little in my cause. \u00a0But I thank thee, for thou hast given me back\nsomewhat of my lost faith in my kind.\"\n\nThe old servant became very valuable to Hendon and the King; for\nhe dropped in several times a day to 'abuse' the former, and always\nsmuggled in a few delicacies to help out the prison bill of fare; he\nalso furnished the current news. \u00a0Hendon reserved the dainties for the\nKing; without them his Majesty might not have survived, for he was\nnot able to eat the coarse and wretched food provided by the jailer.\n\u00a0Andrews was obliged to confine himself to brief visits, in order to\navoid suspicion; but he managed to impart a fair degree of information\neach time--information delivered in a low voice, for Hendon's benefit,\nand interlarded with insulting epithets delivered in a louder voice for\nthe benefit of other hearers.\n\nSo, little by little, the story of the family came out. \u00a0Arthur had\nbeen dead six years. \u00a0This loss, with the absence of news from Hendon,\nimpaired the father's health; he believed he was going to die, and he\nwished to see Hugh and Edith settled in life before he passed away; but\nEdith begged hard for delay, hoping for Miles's return; then the letter\ncame which brought the news of Miles's death; the shock prostrated Sir\nRichard; he believed his end was very near, and he and Hugh insisted\nupon the marriage; Edith begged for and obtained a month's respite,\nthen another, and finally a third; the marriage then took place by\nthe death-bed of Sir Richard. \u00a0It had not proved a happy one. \u00a0It was\nwhispered about the country that shortly after the nuptials the bride\nfound among her husband's papers several rough and incomplete drafts of\nthe fatal letter, and had accused him of precipitating the marriage--and\nSir Richard's death, too--by a wicked forgery. Tales of cruelty to the\nLady Edith and the servants were to be heard on all hands; and since the\nfather's death Sir Hugh had thrown off all soft disguises and become\na pitiless master toward all who in any way depended upon him and his\ndomains for bread.\n\nThere was a bit of Andrew's gossip which the King listened to with a\nlively interest--\n\n\"There is rumour that the King is mad. \u00a0But in charity forbear to say\n_I_ mentioned it, for 'tis death to speak of it, they say.\"\n\nHis Majesty glared at the old man and said--\n\n\"The King is _not_ mad, good man--and thou'lt find it to thy advantage\nto busy thyself with matters that nearer concern thee than this\nseditious prattle.\"\n\n\"What doth the lad mean?\" said Andrews, surprised at this brisk assault\nfrom such an unexpected quarter. \u00a0Hendon gave him a sign, and he did not\npursue his question, but went on with his budget--\n\n\"The late King is to be buried at Windsor in a day or two--the 16th of\nthe month--and the new King will be crowned at Westminster the 20th.\"\n\n\"Methinks they must needs find him first,\" muttered his Majesty; then\nadded, confidently, \"but they will look to that--and so also shall I.\"\n\n\"In the name of--\"\n\nBut the old man got no further--a warning sign from Hendon checked his\nremark. \u00a0He resumed the thread of his gossip--\n\n\"Sir Hugh goeth to the coronation--and with grand hopes. \u00a0He confidently\nlooketh to come back a peer, for he is high in favour with the Lord\nProtector.\"\n\n\"What Lord Protector?\" asked his Majesty.\n\n\"His Grace the Duke of Somerset.\"\n\n\"What Duke of Somerset?\"\n\n\"Marry, there is but one--Seymour, Earl of Hertford.\"\n\nThe King asked sharply--\n\n\"Since when is _he_ a duke, and Lord Protector?\"\n\n\"Since the last day of January.\"\n\n\"And prithee who made him so?\"\n\n\"Himself and the Great Council--with help of the King.\"\n\nHis Majesty started violently. \u00a0\"The _King_!\" he cried. \u00a0\"_What_ king,\ngood sir?\"\n\n\"What king, indeed! (God-a-mercy, what aileth the boy?) \u00a0Sith we have\nbut one, 'tis not difficult to answer--his most sacred Majesty King\nEdward the Sixth--whom God preserve! \u00a0Yea, and a dear and gracious\nlittle urchin is he, too; and whether he be mad or no--and they say he\nmendeth daily--his praises are on all men's lips; and all bless him,\nlikewise, and offer prayers that he may be spared to reign long in\nEngland; for he began humanely with saving the old Duke of Norfolk's\nlife, and now is he bent on destroying the cruellest of the laws that\nharry and oppress the people.\"\n\nThis news struck his Majesty dumb with amazement, and plunged him into\nso deep and dismal a reverie that he heard no more of the old man's\ngossip. He wondered if the 'little urchin' was the beggar-boy whom\nhe left dressed in his own garments in the palace. \u00a0It did not seem\npossible that this could be, for surely his manners and speech would\nbetray him if he pretended to be the Prince of Wales--then he would be\ndriven out, and search made for the true prince. \u00a0Could it be that the\nCourt had set up some sprig of the nobility in his place? \u00a0No, for his\nuncle would not allow that--he was all-powerful and could and would\ncrush such a movement, of course. \u00a0The boy's musings profited him\nnothing; the more he tried to unriddle the mystery the more perplexed he\nbecame, the more his head ached, and the worse he slept. \u00a0His\nimpatience to get to London grew hourly, and his captivity became almost\nunendurable.\n\nHendon's arts all failed with the King--he could not be comforted; but a\ncouple of women who were chained near him succeeded better. Under their\ngentle ministrations he found peace and learned a degree of patience.\n\u00a0He was very grateful, and came to love them dearly and to delight in\nthe sweet and soothing influence of their presence. \u00a0He asked them why\nthey were in prison, and when they said they were Baptists, he smiled,\nand inquired--\n\n\"Is that a crime to be shut up for in a prison? \u00a0Now I grieve, for I\nshall lose ye--they will not keep ye long for such a little thing.\"\n\nThey did not answer; and something in their faces made him uneasy. He\nsaid, eagerly--\n\n\"You do not speak; be good to me, and tell me--there will be no other\npunishment? \u00a0Prithee tell me there is no fear of that.\"\n\nThey tried to change the topic, but his fears were aroused, and he\npursued it--\n\n\"Will they scourge thee? \u00a0No, no, they would not be so cruel! \u00a0Say they\nwould not. \u00a0Come, they _will_ not, will they?\"\n\nThe women betrayed confusion and distress, but there was no avoiding an\nanswer, so one of them said, in a voice choked with emotion--\n\n\"Oh, thou'lt break our hearts, thou gentle spirit!--God will help us to\nbear our--\"\n\n\"It is a confession!\" the King broke in. \u00a0\"Then they _will_ scourge\nthee, the stony-hearted wretches! \u00a0But oh, thou must not weep, I cannot\nbear it. \u00a0Keep up thy courage--I shall come to my own in time to save\nthee from this bitter thing, and I will do it!\"\n\nWhen the King awoke in the morning, the women were gone.\n\n\"They are saved!\" he said, joyfully; then added, despondently, \"but woe\nis me!--for they were my comforters.\"\n\nEach of them had left a shred of ribbon pinned to his clothing, in token\nof remembrance. \u00a0He said he would keep these things always; and that\nsoon he would seek out these dear good friends of his and take them\nunder his protection.\n\nJust then the jailer came in with some subordinates, and commanded that\nthe prisoners be conducted to the jail-yard. \u00a0The King was overjoyed--it\nwould be a blessed thing to see the blue sky and breathe the fresh air\nonce more. \u00a0He fretted and chafed at the slowness of the officers, but\nhis turn came at last, and he was released from his staple and ordered\nto follow the other prisoners with Hendon.\n\nThe court or quadrangle was stone-paved, and open to the sky. \u00a0The\nprisoners entered it through a massive archway of masonry, and were\nplaced in file, standing, with their backs against the wall. A rope\nwas stretched in front of them, and they were also guarded by their\nofficers. It was a chill and lowering morning, and a light snow which\nhad fallen during the night whitened the great empty space and added\nto the general dismalness of its aspect. Now and then a wintry wind\nshivered through the place and sent the snow eddying hither and thither.\n\nIn the centre of the court stood two women, chained to posts. \u00a0A glance\nshowed the King that these were his good friends. \u00a0He shuddered, and\nsaid to himself, \"Alack, they are not gone free, as I had thought. \u00a0To\nthink that such as these should know the lash!--in England! \u00a0Ay, there's\nthe shame of it--not in Heathennesse, Christian England! \u00a0They will be\nscourged; and I, whom they have comforted and kindly entreated, must\nlook on and see the great wrong done; it is strange, so strange, that\nI, the very source of power in this broad realm, am helpless to protect\nthem. But let these miscreants look well to themselves, for there is a\nday coming when I will require of them a heavy reckoning for this work.\n\u00a0For every blow they strike now, they shall feel a hundred then.\"\n\nA great gate swung open, and a crowd of citizens poured in. \u00a0They\nflocked around the two women, and hid them from the King's view. A\nclergyman entered and passed through the crowd, and he also was hidden.\n\u00a0The King now heard talking, back and forth, as if questions were being\nasked and answered, but he could not make out what was said. \u00a0Next there\nwas a deal of bustle and preparation, and much passing and repassing of\nofficials through that part of the crowd that stood on the further side\nof the women; and whilst this proceeded a deep hush gradually fell upon\nthe people.\n\nNow, by command, the masses parted and fell aside, and the King saw a\nspectacle that froze the marrow in his bones. \u00a0Faggots had been piled\nabout the two women, and a kneeling man was lighting them!\n\nThe women bowed their heads, and covered their faces with their hands;\nthe yellow flames began to climb upward among the snapping and crackling\nfaggots, and wreaths of blue smoke to stream away on the wind; the\nclergyman lifted his hands and began a prayer--just then two young girls\ncame flying through the great gate, uttering piercing screams, and threw\nthemselves upon the women at the stake. \u00a0Instantly they were torn away\nby the officers, and one of them was kept in a tight grip, but the other\nbroke loose, saying she would die with her mother; and before she could\nbe stopped she had flung her arms about her mother's neck again. \u00a0She\nwas torn away once more, and with her gown on fire. \u00a0Two or three men\nheld her, and the burning portion of her gown was snatched off and\nthrown flaming aside, she struggling all the while to free herself, and\nsaying she would be alone in the world, now; and begging to be allowed\nto die with her mother. \u00a0Both the girls screamed continually, and fought\nfor freedom; but suddenly this tumult was drowned under a volley of\nheart-piercing shrieks of mortal agony--the King glanced from the\nfrantic girls to the stake, then turned away and leaned his ashen face\nagainst the wall, and looked no more. \u00a0He said, \"That which I have seen,\nin that one little moment, will never go out from my memory, but will\nabide there; and I shall see it all the days, and dream of it all the\nnights, till I die. \u00a0Would God I had been blind!\"\n\nHendon was watching the King. \u00a0He said to himself, with satisfaction,\n\"His disorder mendeth; he hath changed, and groweth gentler. \u00a0If he had\nfollowed his wont, he would have stormed at these varlets, and said he\nwas King, and commanded that the women be turned loose unscathed. \u00a0Soon\nhis delusion will pass away and be forgotten, and his poor mind will be\nwhole again. \u00a0God speed the day!\"\n\nThat same day several prisoners were brought in to remain over night,\nwho were being conveyed, under guard, to various places in the kingdom,\nto undergo punishment for crimes committed. \u00a0The King conversed with\nthese--he had made it a point, from the beginning, to instruct himself\nfor the kingly office by questioning prisoners whenever the opportunity\noffered--and the tale of their woes wrung his heart. \u00a0One of them was\na poor half-witted woman who had stolen a yard or two of cloth from a\nweaver--she was to be hanged for it. \u00a0Another was a man who had been\naccused of stealing a horse; he said the proof had failed, and he had\nimagined that he was safe from the halter; but no--he was hardly free\nbefore he was arraigned for killing a deer in the King's park; this was\nproved against him, and now he was on his way to the gallows. \u00a0There was\na tradesman's apprentice whose case particularly distressed the King;\nthis youth said he found a hawk, one evening, that had escaped from its\nowner, and he took it home with him, imagining himself entitled to it;\nbut the court convicted him of stealing it, and sentenced him to death.\n\nThe King was furious over these inhumanities, and wanted Hendon to break\njail and fly with him to Westminster, so that he could mount his throne\nand hold out his sceptre in mercy over these unfortunate people and\nsave their lives. \u00a0\"Poor child,\" sighed Hendon, \"these woeful tales\nhave brought his malady upon him again; alack, but for this evil hap, he\nwould have been well in a little time.\"\n\nAmong these prisoners was an old lawyer--a man with a strong face and a\ndauntless mien. \u00a0Three years past, he had written a pamphlet against the\nLord Chancellor, accusing him of injustice, and had been punished for\nit by the loss of his ears in the pillory, and degradation from the\nbar, and in addition had been fined 3,000 pounds and sentenced to\nimprisonment for life. \u00a0Lately he had repeated his offence; and in\nconsequence was now under sentence to lose _what remained of his ears_,\npay a fine of 5,000 pounds, be branded on both cheeks, and remain in\nprison for life.\n\n\"These be honourable scars,\" he said, and turned back his grey hair and\nshowed the mutilated stubs of what had once been his ears.\n\nThe King's eye burned with passion. \u00a0He said--\n\n\"None believe in me--neither wilt thou. \u00a0But no matter--within the\ncompass of a month thou shalt be free; and more, the laws that have\ndishonoured thee, and shamed the English name, shall be swept from the\nstatute books. \u00a0The world is made wrong; kings should go to school to\ntheir own laws, at times, and so learn mercy.\" {1}\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII. The sacrifice.\n\nMeantime Miles was growing sufficiently tired of confinement and\ninaction. \u00a0But now his trial came on, to his great gratification, and\nhe thought he could welcome any sentence provided a further imprisonment\nshould not be a part of it. \u00a0But he was mistaken about that. \u00a0He was in\na fine fury when he found himself described as a 'sturdy vagabond' and\nsentenced to sit two hours in the stocks for bearing that character\nand for assaulting the master of Hendon Hall. \u00a0His pretensions as to\nbrothership with his prosecutor, and rightful heirship to the Hendon\nhonours and estates, were left contemptuously unnoticed, as being not\neven worth examination.\n\nHe raged and threatened on his way to punishment, but it did no good; he\nwas snatched roughly along by the officers, and got an occasional cuff,\nbesides, for his irreverent conduct.\n\nThe King could not pierce through the rabble that swarmed behind; so\nhe was obliged to follow in the rear, remote from his good friend and\nservant. \u00a0The King had been nearly condemned to the stocks himself for\nbeing in such bad company, but had been let off with a lecture and a\nwarning, in consideration of his youth. \u00a0When the crowd at last halted,\nhe flitted feverishly from point to point around its outer rim, hunting\na place to get through; and at last, after a deal of difficulty and\ndelay, succeeded. \u00a0There sat his poor henchman in the degrading stocks,\nthe sport and butt of a dirty mob--he, the body servant of the King\nof England! \u00a0Edward had heard the sentence pronounced, but he had not\nrealised the half that it meant. \u00a0His anger began to rise as the sense\nof this new indignity which had been put upon him sank home; it jumped\nto summer heat, the next moment, when he saw an egg sail through the air\nand crush itself against Hendon's cheek, and heard the crowd roar\nits enjoyment of the episode. \u00a0He sprang across the open circle and\nconfronted the officer in charge, crying--\n\n\"For shame! \u00a0This is my servant--set him free! \u00a0I am the--\"\n\n\"Oh, peace!\" exclaimed Hendon, in a panic, \"thou'lt destroy thyself.\nMind him not, officer, he is mad.\"\n\n\"Give thyself no trouble as to the matter of minding him, good man, I\nhave small mind to mind him; but as to teaching him somewhat, to that\nI am well inclined.\" \u00a0He turned to a subordinate and said, \"Give the\nlittle fool a taste or two of the lash, to mend his manners.\"\n\n\"Half a dozen will better serve his turn,\" suggested Sir Hugh, who had\nridden up, a moment before, to take a passing glance at the proceedings.\n\nThe King was seized. \u00a0He did not even struggle, so paralysed was he\nwith the mere thought of the monstrous outrage that was proposed to be\ninflicted upon his sacred person. \u00a0History was already defiled with\nthe record of the scourging of an English king with whips--it was an\nintolerable reflection that he must furnish a duplicate of that shameful\npage. \u00a0He was in the toils, there was no help for him; he must either\ntake this punishment or beg for its remission. \u00a0Hard conditions; he\nwould take the stripes--a king might do that, but a king could not beg.\n\nBut meantime, Miles Hendon was resolving the difficulty. \u00a0\"Let the child\ngo,\" said he; \"ye heartless dogs, do ye not see how young and frail he\nis? \u00a0Let him go--I will take his lashes.\"\n\n\"Marry, a good thought--and thanks for it,\" said Sir Hugh, his face\nlighting with a sardonic satisfaction. \u00a0\"Let the little beggar go, and\ngive this fellow a dozen in his place--an honest dozen, well laid on.\"\nThe King was in the act of entering a fierce protest, but Sir Hugh\nsilenced him with the potent remark, \"Yes, speak up, do, and free thy\nmind--only, mark ye, that for each word you utter he shall get six\nstrokes the more.\"\n\nHendon was removed from the stocks, and his back laid bare; and whilst\nthe lash was applied the poor little King turned away his face and\nallowed unroyal tears to channel his cheeks unchecked. \"Ah, brave good\nheart,\" he said to himself, \"this loyal deed shall never perish out of\nmy memory. \u00a0I will not forget it--and neither shall _they_!\" he added,\nwith passion. \u00a0Whilst he mused, his appreciation of Hendon's magnanimous\nconduct grew to greater and still greater dimensions in his mind, and\nso also did his gratefulness for it. \u00a0Presently he said to himself, \"Who\nsaves his prince from wounds and possible death--and this he did for\nme--performs high service; but it is little--it is nothing--oh, less\nthan nothing!--when 'tis weighed against the act of him who saves his\nprince from _shame_!\"\n\nHendon made no outcry under the scourge, but bore the heavy blows with\nsoldierly fortitude. \u00a0This, together with his redeeming the boy by\ntaking his stripes for him, compelled the respect of even that forlorn\nand degraded mob that was gathered there; and its gibes and hootings\ndied away, and no sound remained but the sound of the falling blows.\n\u00a0The stillness that pervaded the place, when Hendon found himself once\nmore in the stocks, was in strong contrast with the insulting clamour\nwhich had prevailed there so little a while before. \u00a0The King came\nsoftly to Hendon's side, and whispered in his ear--\n\n\"Kings cannot ennoble thee, thou good, great soul, for One who is higher\nthan kings hath done that for thee; but a king can confirm thy nobility\nto men.\" \u00a0He picked up the scourge from the ground, touched Hendon's\nbleeding shoulders lightly with it, and whispered, \"Edward of England\ndubs thee Earl!\"\n\nHendon was touched. \u00a0The water welled to his eyes, yet at the same time\nthe grisly humour of the situation and circumstances so undermined his\ngravity that it was all he could do to keep some sign of his inward\nmirth from showing outside. \u00a0To be suddenly hoisted, naked and gory,\nfrom the common stocks to the Alpine altitude and splendour of\nan Earldom, seemed to him the last possibility in the line of the\ngrotesque. \u00a0He said to himself, \"Now am I finely tinselled, indeed!\n\u00a0The spectre-knight of the Kingdom of Dreams and Shadows is become a\nspectre-earl--a dizzy flight for a callow wing! \u00a0An' this go on, I\nshall presently be hung like a very maypole with fantastic gauds and\nmake-believe honours. \u00a0But I shall value them, all valueless as\nthey are, for the love that doth bestow them. Better these poor mock\ndignities of mine, that come unasked, from a clean hand and a right\nspirit, than real ones bought by servility from grudging and interested\npower.\"\n\nThe dreaded Sir Hugh wheeled his horse about, and as he spurred away,\nthe living wall divided silently to let him pass, and as silently closed\ntogether again. \u00a0And so remained; nobody went so far as to venture\na remark in favour of the prisoner, or in compliment to him; but no\nmatter--the absence of abuse was a sufficient homage in itself. \u00a0A\nlate comer who was not posted as to the present circumstances, and who\ndelivered a sneer at the 'impostor,' and was in the act of following it\nwith a dead cat, was promptly knocked down and kicked out, without any\nwords, and then the deep quiet resumed sway once more.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIX. To London.\n\nWhen Hendon's term of service in the stocks was finished, he was\nreleased and ordered to quit the region and come back no more. His sword\nwas restored to him, and also his mule and his donkey. He mounted\nand rode off, followed by the King, the crowd opening with quiet\nrespectfulness to let them pass, and then dispersing when they were\ngone.\n\nHendon was soon absorbed in thought. \u00a0There were questions of high\nimport to be answered. \u00a0What should he do? \u00a0Whither should he go?\nPowerful help must be found somewhere, or he must relinquish his\ninheritance and remain under the imputation of being an impostor\nbesides. \u00a0Where could he hope to find this powerful help? \u00a0Where,\nindeed! \u00a0It was a knotty question. By-and-by a thought occurred to him\nwhich pointed to a possibility--the slenderest of slender possibilities,\ncertainly, but still worth considering, for lack of any other that\npromised anything at all. \u00a0He remembered what old Andrews had said about\nthe young King's goodness and his generous championship of the wronged\nand unfortunate. \u00a0Why not go and try to get speech of him and beg for\njustice? \u00a0Ah, yes, but could so fantastic a pauper get admission to the\naugust presence of a monarch? Never mind--let that matter take care of\nitself; it was a bridge that would not need to be crossed till he should\ncome to it. \u00a0He was an old campaigner, and used to inventing shifts and\nexpedients: \u00a0no doubt he would be able to find a way. \u00a0Yes, he would\nstrike for the capital. Maybe his father's old friend Sir Humphrey\nMarlow would help him--'good old Sir Humphrey, Head Lieutenant of the\nlate King's kitchen, or stables, or something'--Miles could not remember\njust what or which. \u00a0Now that he had something to turn his energies to,\na distinctly defined object to accomplish, the fog of humiliation and\ndepression which had settled down upon his spirits lifted and blew away,\nand he raised his head and looked about him. \u00a0He was surprised to see\nhow far he had come; the village was away behind him. \u00a0The King was\njogging along in his wake, with his head bowed; for he, too, was deep\nin plans and thinkings. \u00a0A sorrowful misgiving clouded Hendon's new-born\ncheerfulness: \u00a0would the boy be willing to go again to a city where,\nduring all his brief life, he had never known anything but ill-usage and\npinching want? \u00a0But the question must be asked; it could not be avoided;\nso Hendon reined up, and called out--\n\n\"I had forgotten to inquire whither we are bound. \u00a0Thy commands, my\nliege!\"\n\n\"To London!\"\n\nHendon moved on again, mightily contented with the answer--but astounded\nat it too.\n\nThe whole journey was made without an adventure of importance. But it\nended with one. \u00a0About ten o'clock on the night of the 19th of February\nthey stepped upon London Bridge, in the midst of a writhing, struggling\njam of howling and hurrahing people, whose beer-jolly faces stood out\nstrongly in the glare from manifold torches--and at that instant the\ndecaying head of some former duke or other grandee tumbled down between\nthem, striking Hendon on the elbow and then bounding off among the\nhurrying confusion of feet. So evanescent and unstable are men's works\nin this world!--the late good King is but three weeks dead and three\ndays in his grave, and already the adornments which he took such pains\nto select from prominent people for his noble bridge are falling. \u00a0A\ncitizen stumbled over that head, and drove his own head into the back of\nsomebody in front of him, who turned and knocked down the first person\nthat came handy, and was promptly laid out himself by that person's\nfriend. \u00a0It was the right ripe time for a free fight, for the\nfestivities of the morrow--Coronation Day--were already beginning;\neverybody was full of strong drink and patriotism; within five minutes\nthe free fight was occupying a good deal of ground; within ten or twelve\nit covered an acre of so, and was become a riot. \u00a0By this time Hendon\nand the King were hopelessly separated from each other and lost in the\nrush and turmoil of the roaring masses of humanity. \u00a0And so we leave\nthem.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXX. Tom's progress.\n\nWhilst the true King wandered about the land poorly clad, poorly\nfed, cuffed and derided by tramps one while, herding with thieves\nand murderers in a jail another, and called idiot and impostor by\nall impartially, the mock King Tom Canty enjoyed quite a different\nexperience.\n\nWhen we saw him last, royalty was just beginning to have a bright side\nfor him. \u00a0This bright side went on brightening more and more every\nday: in a very little while it was become almost all sunshine and\ndelightfulness. \u00a0He lost his fears; his misgivings faded out and died;\nhis embarrassments departed, and gave place to an easy and confident\nbearing. \u00a0He worked the whipping-boy mine to ever-increasing profit.\n\nHe ordered my Lady Elizabeth and my Lady Jane Grey into his presence\nwhen he wanted to play or talk, and dismissed them when he was done with\nthem, with the air of one familiarly accustomed to such performances.\n\u00a0It no longer confused him to have these lofty personages kiss his hand\nat parting.\n\nHe came to enjoy being conducted to bed in state at night, and dressed\nwith intricate and solemn ceremony in the morning. \u00a0It came to be a\nproud pleasure to march to dinner attended by a glittering procession\nof officers of state and gentlemen-at-arms; insomuch, indeed, that he\ndoubled his guard of gentlemen-at-arms, and made them a hundred. \u00a0He\nliked to hear the bugles sounding down the long corridors, and the\ndistant voices responding, \"Way for the King!\"\n\nHe even learned to enjoy sitting in throned state in council, and\nseeming to be something more than the Lord Protector's mouthpiece. He\nliked to receive great ambassadors and their gorgeous trains, and listen\nto the affectionate messages they brought from illustrious monarchs who\ncalled him brother. \u00a0O happy Tom Canty, late of Offal Court!\n\nHe enjoyed his splendid clothes, and ordered more: \u00a0he found his four\nhundred servants too few for his proper grandeur, and trebled them. \u00a0The\nadulation of salaaming courtiers came to be sweet music to his ears. \u00a0He\nremained kind and gentle, and a sturdy and determined champion of all\nthat were oppressed, and he made tireless war upon unjust laws: \u00a0yet\nupon occasion, being offended, he could turn upon an earl, or even a\nduke, and give him a look that would make him tremble. \u00a0Once, when his\nroyal 'sister,' the grimly holy Lady Mary, set herself to reason with\nhim against the wisdom of his course in pardoning so many people who\nwould otherwise be jailed, or hanged, or burned, and reminded him that\ntheir august late father's prisons had sometimes contained as high as\nsixty thousand convicts at one time, and that during his admirable reign\nhe had delivered seventy-two thousand thieves and robbers over to death\nby the executioner, {9} the boy was filled with generous indignation,\nand commanded her to go to her closet, and beseech God to take away the\nstone that was in her breast, and give her a human heart.\n\nDid Tom Canty never feel troubled about the poor little rightful prince\nwho had treated him so kindly, and flown out with such hot zeal to\navenge him upon the insolent sentinel at the palace-gate? Yes; his first\nroyal days and nights were pretty well sprinkled with painful thoughts\nabout the lost prince, and with sincere longings for his return, and\nhappy restoration to his native rights and splendours. \u00a0But as time\nwore on, and the prince did not come, Tom's mind became more and more\noccupied with his new and enchanting experiences, and by little and\nlittle the vanished monarch faded almost out of his thoughts; and\nfinally, when he did intrude upon them at intervals, he was become an\nunwelcome spectre, for he made Tom feel guilty and ashamed.\n\nTom's poor mother and sisters travelled the same road out of his mind.\nAt first he pined for them, sorrowed for them, longed to see them, but\nlater, the thought of their coming some day in their rags and dirt, and\nbetraying him with their kisses, and pulling him down from his lofty\nplace, and dragging him back to penury and degradation and the slums,\nmade him shudder. \u00a0At last they ceased to trouble his thoughts almost\nwholly. \u00a0And he was content, even glad: \u00a0for, whenever their mournful\nand accusing faces did rise before him now, they made him feel more\ndespicable than the worms that crawl.\n\nAt midnight of the 19th of February, Tom Canty was sinking to sleep in\nhis rich bed in the palace, guarded by his loyal vassals, and surrounded\nby the pomps of royalty, a happy boy; for tomorrow was the day appointed\nfor his solemn crowning as King of England. At that same hour, Edward,\nthe true king, hungry and thirsty, soiled and draggled, worn with\ntravel, and clothed in rags and shreds--his share of the results of the\nriot--was wedged in among a crowd of people who were watching with deep\ninterest certain hurrying gangs of workmen who streamed in and out of\nWestminster Abbey, busy as ants: \u00a0they were making the last preparation\nfor the royal coronation.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXI. The Recognition procession.\n\nWhen Tom Canty awoke the next morning, the air was heavy with a\nthunderous murmur: \u00a0all the distances were charged with it. \u00a0It was\nmusic to him; for it meant that the English world was out in its\nstrength to give loyal welcome to the great day.\n\nPresently Tom found himself once more the chief figure in a wonderful\nfloating pageant on the Thames; for by ancient custom the 'recognition\nprocession' through London must start from the Tower, and he was bound\nthither.\n\nWhen he arrived there, the sides of the venerable fortress seemed\nsuddenly rent in a thousand places, and from every rent leaped a\nred tongue of flame and a white gush of smoke; a deafening explosion\nfollowed, which drowned the shoutings of the multitude, and made the\nground tremble; the flame-jets, the smoke, and the explosions, were\nrepeated over and over again with marvellous celerity, so that in a few\nmoments the old Tower disappeared in the vast fog of its own smoke, all\nbut the very top of the tall pile called the White Tower; this, with\nits banners, stood out above the dense bank of vapour as a mountain-peak\nprojects above a cloud-rack.\n\nTom Canty, splendidly arrayed, mounted a prancing war-steed, whose rich\ntrappings almost reached to the ground; his 'uncle,' the Lord Protector\nSomerset, similarly mounted, took place in his rear; the King's Guard\nformed in single ranks on either side, clad in burnished armour;\nafter the Protector followed a seemingly interminable procession of\nresplendent nobles attended by their vassals; after these came the lord\nmayor and the aldermanic body, in crimson velvet robes, and with their\ngold chains across their breasts; and after these the officers and\nmembers of all the guilds of London, in rich raiment, and bearing the\nshowy banners of the several corporations. \u00a0Also in the procession, as a\nspecial guard of honour through the city, was the Ancient and Honourable\nArtillery Company--an organisation already three hundred years old\nat that time, and the only military body in England possessing the\nprivilege (which it still possesses in our day) of holding itself\nindependent of the commands of Parliament. \u00a0It was a brilliant\nspectacle, and was hailed with acclamations all along the line, as it\ntook its stately way through the packed multitudes of citizens. The\nchronicler says, 'The King, as he entered the city, was received by the\npeople with prayers, welcomings, cries, and tender words, and all signs\nwhich argue an earnest love of subjects toward their sovereign; and the\nKing, by holding up his glad countenance to such as stood afar off, and\nmost tender language to those that stood nigh his Grace, showed himself\nno less thankful to receive the people's goodwill than they to offer it.\n\u00a0To all that wished him well, he gave thanks. \u00a0To such as bade \"God save\nhis Grace,\" he said in return, \"God save you all!\" and added that \"he\nthanked them with all his heart.\" Wonderfully transported were the\npeople with the loving answers and gestures of their King.'\n\nIn Fenchurch Street a 'fair child, in costly apparel,' stood on a stage\nto welcome his Majesty to the city. \u00a0The last verse of his greeting was\nin these words--\n\n'Welcome, O King! as much as hearts can think; Welcome, again, as much\nas tongue can tell,--Welcome to joyous tongues, and hearts that will\nnot shrink: God thee preserve, we pray, and wish thee ever well.'\n\nThe people burst forth in a glad shout, repeating with one voice what\nthe child had said. \u00a0Tom Canty gazed abroad over the surging sea of\neager faces, and his heart swelled with exultation; and he felt that\nthe one thing worth living for in this world was to be a king, and a\nnation's idol. \u00a0Presently he caught sight, at a distance, of a couple\nof his ragged Offal Court comrades--one of them the lord high admiral in\nhis late mimic court, the other the first lord of the bedchamber in the\nsame pretentious fiction; and his pride swelled higher than ever. \u00a0Oh,\nif they could only recognise him now! \u00a0What unspeakable glory it would\nbe, if they could recognise him, and realise that the derided mock king\nof the slums and back alleys was become a real King, with illustrious\ndukes and princes for his humble menials, and the English world at his\nfeet! \u00a0But he had to deny himself, and choke down his desire, for such\na recognition might cost more than it would come to: \u00a0so he turned away\nhis head, and left the two soiled lads to go on with their shoutings and\nglad adulations, unsuspicious of whom it was they were lavishing them\nupon.\n\nEvery now and then rose the cry, \"A largess! a largess!\" and Tom\nresponded by scattering a handful of bright new coins abroad for the\nmultitude to scramble for.\n\nThe chronicler says, 'At the upper end of Gracechurch Street, before the\nsign of the Eagle, the city had erected a gorgeous arch, beneath which\nwas a stage, which stretched from one side of the street to the other.\nThis was an historical pageant, representing the King's immediate\nprogenitors. \u00a0There sat Elizabeth of York in the midst of an immense\nwhite rose, whose petals formed elaborate furbelows around her; by her\nside was Henry VII., issuing out of a vast red rose, disposed in the\nsame manner: \u00a0the hands of the royal pair were locked together, and the\nwedding-ring ostentatiously displayed. \u00a0From the red and white roses\nproceeded a stem, which reached up to a second stage, occupied by Henry\nVIII., issuing from a red and white rose, with the effigy of the new\nKing's mother, Jane Seymour, represented by his side. \u00a0One branch sprang\nfrom this pair, which mounted to a third stage, where sat the effigy of\nEdward VI. himself, enthroned in royal majesty; and the whole pageant\nwas framed with wreaths of roses, red and white.'\n\nThis quaint and gaudy spectacle so wrought upon the rejoicing people,\nthat their acclamations utterly smothered the small voice of the child\nwhose business it was to explain the thing in eulogistic rhymes. \u00a0But\nTom Canty was not sorry; for this loyal uproar was sweeter music to him\nthan any poetry, no matter what its quality might be. \u00a0Whithersoever Tom\nturned his happy young face, the people recognised the exactness of his\neffigy's likeness to himself, the flesh and blood counterpart; and new\nwhirlwinds of applause burst forth.\n\nThe great pageant moved on, and still on, under one triumphal arch after\nanother, and past a bewildering succession of spectacular and symbolical\ntableaux, each of which typified and exalted some virtue, or talent, or\nmerit, of the little King's. \u00a0'Throughout the whole of Cheapside, from\nevery penthouse and window, hung banners and streamers; and the richest\ncarpets, stuffs, and cloth-of-gold tapestried the streets--specimens\nof the great wealth of the stores within; and the splendour of this\nthoroughfare was equalled in the other streets, and in some even\nsurpassed.'\n\n\"And all these wonders and these marvels are to welcome me--me!\"\nmurmured Tom Canty.\n\nThe mock King's cheeks were flushed with excitement, his eyes were\nflashing, his senses swam in a delirium of pleasure. \u00a0At this point,\njust as he was raising his hand to fling another rich largess, he caught\nsight of a pale, astounded face, which was strained forward out of\nthe second rank of the crowd, its intense eyes riveted upon him. \u00a0A\nsickening consternation struck through him; he recognised his\nmother! and up flew his hand, palm outward, before his eyes--that old\ninvoluntary gesture, born of a forgotten episode, and perpetuated by\nhabit. \u00a0In an instant more she had torn her way out of the press, and\npast the guards, and was at his side. \u00a0She embraced his leg, she covered\nit with kisses, she cried, \"O my child, my darling!\" lifting toward him\na face that was transfigured with joy and love. \u00a0The same instant an\nofficer of the King's Guard snatched her away with a curse, and sent\nher reeling back whence she came with a vigorous impulse from his\nstrong arm. \u00a0The words \"I do not know you, woman!\" were falling from Tom\nCanty's lips when this piteous thing occurred; but it smote him to the\nheart to see her treated so; and as she turned for a last glimpse of\nhim, whilst the crowd was swallowing her from his sight, she seemed so\nwounded, so broken-hearted, that a shame fell upon him which consumed\nhis pride to ashes, and withered his stolen royalty. \u00a0His grandeurs were\nstricken valueless: they seemed to fall away from him like rotten rags.\n\nThe procession moved on, and still on, through ever augmenting\nsplendours and ever augmenting tempests of welcome; but to Tom Canty\nthey were as if they had not been. \u00a0He neither saw nor heard. \u00a0Royalty\nhad lost its grace and sweetness; its pomps were become a reproach.\n\u00a0Remorse was eating his heart out. \u00a0He said, \"Would God I were free of\nmy captivity!\"\n\nHe had unconsciously dropped back into the phraseology of the first days\nof his compulsory greatness.\n\nThe shining pageant still went winding like a radiant and interminable\nserpent down the crooked lanes of the quaint old city, and through the\nhuzzaing hosts; but still the King rode with bowed head and vacant eyes,\nseeing only his mother's face and that wounded look in it.\n\n\"Largess, largess!\" \u00a0The cry fell upon an unheeding ear.\n\n\"Long live Edward of England!\" \u00a0It seemed as if the earth shook with the\nexplosion; but there was no response from the King. \u00a0He heard it only as\none hears the thunder of the surf when it is blown to the ear out of a\ngreat distance, for it was smothered under another sound which was still\nnearer, in his own breast, in his accusing conscience--a voice which\nkept repeating those shameful words, \"I do not know you, woman!\"\n\nThe words smote upon the King's soul as the strokes of a funeral bell\nsmite upon the soul of a surviving friend when they remind him of secret\ntreacheries suffered at his hands by him that is gone.\n\nNew glories were unfolded at every turning; new wonders, new marvels,\nsprang into view; the pent clamours of waiting batteries were released;\nnew raptures poured from the throats of the waiting multitudes: \u00a0but the\nKing gave no sign, and the accusing voice that went moaning through his\ncomfortless breast was all the sound he heard.\n\nBy-and-by the gladness in the faces of the populace changed a little,\nand became touched with a something like solicitude or anxiety: \u00a0an\nabatement in the volume of the applause was observable too. \u00a0The Lord\nProtector was quick to notice these things: \u00a0he was as quick to detect\nthe cause. \u00a0He spurred to the King's side, bent low in his saddle,\nuncovered, and said--\n\n\"My liege, it is an ill time for dreaming. \u00a0The people observe thy\ndowncast head, thy clouded mien, and they take it for an omen. \u00a0Be\nadvised: \u00a0unveil the sun of royalty, and let it shine upon these boding\nvapours, and disperse them. \u00a0Lift up thy face, and smile upon the\npeople.\"\n\nSo saying, the Duke scattered a handful of coins to right and left, then\nretired to his place. \u00a0The mock King did mechanically as he had been\nbidden. \u00a0His smile had no heart in it, but few eyes were near enough\nor sharp enough to detect that. \u00a0The noddings of his plumed head as he\nsaluted his subjects were full of grace and graciousness; the largess\nwhich he delivered from his hand was royally liberal: \u00a0so the people's\nanxiety vanished, and the acclamations burst forth again in as mighty a\nvolume as before.\n\nStill once more, a little before the progress was ended, the Duke was\nobliged to ride forward, and make remonstrance. \u00a0He whispered--\n\n\"O dread sovereign! shake off these fatal humours; the eyes of the world\nare upon thee.\" \u00a0Then he added with sharp annoyance, \"Perdition catch\nthat crazy pauper! 'twas she that hath disturbed your Highness.\"\n\nThe gorgeous figure turned a lustreless eye upon the Duke, and said in a\ndead voice--\n\n\"She was my mother!\"\n\n\"My God!\" groaned the Protector as he reined his horse backward to his\npost, \"the omen was pregnant with prophecy. \u00a0He is gone mad again!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXII. Coronation Day.\n\nLet us go backward a few hours, and place ourselves in Westminster\nAbbey, at four o'clock in the morning of this memorable Coronation Day.\n\u00a0We are not without company; for although it is still night, we find\nthe torch-lighted galleries already filling up with people who are well\ncontent to sit still and wait seven or eight hours till the time shall\ncome for them to see what they may not hope to see twice in their\nlives--the coronation of a King. \u00a0Yes, London and Westminster have been\nastir ever since the warning guns boomed at three o'clock, and already\ncrowds of untitled rich folk who have bought the privilege of trying\nto find sitting-room in the galleries are flocking in at the entrances\nreserved for their sort.\n\nThe hours drag along tediously enough. \u00a0All stir has ceased for some\ntime, for every gallery has long ago been packed. \u00a0We may sit, now, and\nlook and think at our leisure. \u00a0We have glimpses, here and there\nand yonder, through the dim cathedral twilight, of portions of many\ngalleries and balconies, wedged full with other people, the other\nportions of these galleries and balconies being cut off from sight by\nintervening pillars and architectural projections. \u00a0We have in view\nthe whole of the great north transept--empty, and waiting for England's\nprivileged ones. \u00a0We see also the ample area or platform, carpeted with\nrich stuffs, whereon the throne stands. \u00a0The throne occupies the centre\nof the platform, and is raised above it upon an elevation of four steps.\nWithin the seat of the throne is enclosed a rough flat rock--the stone\nof Scone--which many generations of Scottish kings sat on to be crowned,\nand so it in time became holy enough to answer a like purpose for\nEnglish monarchs. \u00a0Both the throne and its footstool are covered with\ncloth of gold.\n\nStillness reigns, the torches blink dully, the time drags heavily.\nBut at last the lagging daylight asserts itself, the torches are\nextinguished, and a mellow radiance suffuses the great spaces. All\nfeatures of the noble building are distinct now, but soft and dreamy,\nfor the sun is lightly veiled with clouds.\n\nAt seven o'clock the first break in the drowsy monotony occurs; for on\nthe stroke of this hour the first peeress enters the transept, clothed\nlike Solomon for splendour, and is conducted to her appointed place\nby an official clad in satins and velvets, whilst a duplicate of him\ngathers up the lady's long train, follows after, and, when the lady is\nseated, arranges the train across her lap for her. \u00a0He then places her\nfootstool according to her desire, after which he puts her coronet where\nit will be convenient to her hand when the time for the simultaneous\ncoroneting of the nobles shall arrive.\n\nBy this time the peeresses are flowing in in a glittering stream, and\nthe satin-clad officials are flitting and glinting everywhere, seating\nthem and making them comfortable. \u00a0The scene is animated enough now.\n\u00a0There is stir and life, and shifting colour everywhere. \u00a0After a time,\nquiet reigns again; for the peeresses are all come and are all in their\nplaces, a solid acre or such a matter, of human flowers, resplendent in\nvariegated colours, and frosted like a Milky Way with diamonds. \u00a0There\nare all ages here: brown, wrinkled, white-haired dowagers who are able\nto go back, and still back, down the stream of time, and recall the\ncrowning of Richard III. and the troublous days of that old forgotten\nage; and there are handsome middle-aged dames; and lovely and gracious\nyoung matrons; and gentle and beautiful young girls, with beaming eyes\nand fresh complexions, who may possibly put on their jewelled coronets\nawkwardly when the great time comes; for the matter will be new to\nthem, and their excitement will be a sore hindrance. Still, this may\nnot happen, for the hair of all these ladies has been arranged with a\nspecial view to the swift and successful lodging of the crown in its\nplace when the signal comes.\n\nWe have seen that this massed array of peeresses is sown thick with\ndiamonds, and we also see that it is a marvellous spectacle--but now we\nare about to be astonished in earnest. \u00a0About nine, the clouds suddenly\nbreak away and a shaft of sunshine cleaves the mellow atmosphere, and\ndrifts slowly along the ranks of ladies; and every rank it touches\nflames into a dazzling splendour of many-coloured fires, and we tingle\nto our finger-tips with the electric thrill that is shot through us by\nthe surprise and the beauty of the spectacle! \u00a0Presently a special envoy\nfrom some distant corner of the Orient, marching with the general body\nof foreign ambassadors, crosses this bar of sunshine, and we catch our\nbreath, the glory that streams and flashes and palpitates about him is\nso overpowering; for he is crusted from head to heel with gems, and his\nslightest movement showers a dancing radiance all around him.\n\nLet us change the tense for convenience. \u00a0The time drifted along--one\nhour--two hours--two hours and a half; then the deep booming of\nartillery told that the King and his grand procession had arrived at\nlast; so the waiting multitude rejoiced. \u00a0All knew that a further delay\nmust follow, for the King must be prepared and robed for the solemn\nceremony; but this delay would be pleasantly occupied by the assembling\nof the peers of the realm in their stately robes. \u00a0These were conducted\nceremoniously to their seats, and their coronets placed conveniently\nat hand; and meanwhile the multitude in the galleries were alive with\ninterest, for most of them were beholding for the first time, dukes,\nearls, and barons, whose names had been historical for five hundred\nyears. \u00a0When all were finally seated, the spectacle from the galleries\nand all coigns of vantage was complete; a gorgeous one to look upon and\nto remember.\n\nNow the robed and mitred great heads of the church, and their\nattendants, filed in upon the platform and took their appointed places;\nthese were followed by the Lord Protector and other great officials, and\nthese again by a steel-clad detachment of the Guard.\n\nThere was a waiting pause; then, at a signal, a triumphant peal of music\nburst forth, and Tom Canty, clothed in a long robe of cloth of gold,\nappeared at a door, and stepped upon the platform. \u00a0The entire multitude\nrose, and the ceremony of the Recognition ensued.\n\nThen a noble anthem swept the Abbey with its rich waves of sound; and\nthus heralded and welcomed, Tom Canty was conducted to the throne.\n\u00a0The ancient ceremonies went on, with impressive solemnity, whilst the\naudience gazed; and as they drew nearer and nearer to completion, Tom\nCanty grew pale, and still paler, and a deep and steadily deepening woe\nand despondency settled down upon his spirits and upon his remorseful\nheart.\n\nAt last the final act was at hand. \u00a0The Archbishop of Canterbury lifted\nup the crown of England from its cushion and held it out over the\ntrembling mock-King's head. \u00a0In the same instant a rainbow-radiance\nflashed along the spacious transept; for with one impulse every\nindividual in the great concourse of nobles lifted a coronet and poised\nit over his or her head--and paused in that attitude.\n\nA deep hush pervaded the Abbey. \u00a0At this impressive moment, a startling\napparition intruded upon the scene--an apparition observed by none in\nthe absorbed multitude, until it suddenly appeared, moving up the great\ncentral aisle. \u00a0It was a boy, bareheaded, ill shod, and clothed in\ncoarse plebeian garments that were falling to rags. \u00a0He raised his hand\nwith a solemnity which ill comported with his soiled and sorry aspect,\nand delivered this note of warning--\n\n\"I forbid you to set the crown of England upon that forfeited head. \u00a0I\nam the King!\"\n\nIn an instant several indignant hands were laid upon the boy; but in\nthe same instant Tom Canty, in his regal vestments, made a swift step\nforward, and cried out in a ringing voice--\n\n\"Loose him and forbear! \u00a0He _is_ the King!\"\n\nA sort of panic of astonishment swept the assemblage, and they partly\nrose in their places and stared in a bewildered way at one another and\nat the chief figures in this scene, like persons who wondered whether\nthey were awake and in their senses, or asleep and dreaming. \u00a0The Lord\nProtector was as amazed as the rest, but quickly recovered himself, and\nexclaimed in a voice of authority--\n\n\"Mind not his Majesty, his malady is upon him again--seize the\nvagabond!\"\n\nHe would have been obeyed, but the mock-King stamped his foot and cried\nout--\n\n\"On your peril! \u00a0Touch him not, he is the King!\"\n\nThe hands were withheld; a paralysis fell upon the house; no one moved,\nno one spoke; indeed, no one knew how to act or what to say, in so\nstrange and surprising an emergency. \u00a0While all minds were struggling to\nright themselves, the boy still moved steadily forward, with high port\nand confident mien; he had never halted from the beginning; and while\nthe tangled minds still floundered helplessly, he stepped upon the\nplatform, and the mock-King ran with a glad face to meet him; and fell\non his knees before him and said--\n\n\"Oh, my lord the King, let poor Tom Canty be first to swear fealty to\nthee, and say, 'Put on thy crown and enter into thine own again!'\"\n\nThe Lord Protector's eye fell sternly upon the new-comer's face; but\nstraightway the sternness vanished away, and gave place to an expression\nof wondering surprise. \u00a0This thing happened also to the other great\nofficers. \u00a0They glanced at each other, and retreated a step by a common\nand unconscious impulse. \u00a0The thought in each mind was the same: \u00a0\"What\na strange resemblance!\"\n\nThe Lord Protector reflected a moment or two in perplexity, then he\nsaid, with grave respectfulness--\n\n\"By your favour, sir, I desire to ask certain questions which--\"\n\n\"I will answer them, my lord.\"\n\nThe Duke asked him many questions about the Court, the late King, the\nprince, the princesses--the boy answered them correctly and without\nhesitating. \u00a0He described the rooms of state in the palace, the late\nKing's apartments, and those of the Prince of Wales.\n\nIt was strange; it was wonderful; yes, it was unaccountable--so all said\nthat heard it. \u00a0The tide was beginning to turn, and Tom Canty's hopes to\nrun high, when the Lord Protector shook his head and said--\n\n\"It is true it is most wonderful--but it is no more than our lord the\nKing likewise can do.\" \u00a0This remark, and this reference to himself as\nstill the King, saddened Tom Canty, and he felt his hopes crumbling from\nunder him. \u00a0\"These are not _proofs_,\" added the Protector.\n\nThe tide was turning very fast now, very fast indeed--but in the wrong\ndirection; it was leaving poor Tom Canty stranded on the throne,\nand sweeping the other out to sea. \u00a0The Lord Protector communed with\nhimself--shook his head--the thought forced itself upon him, \"It is\nperilous to the State and to us all, to entertain so fateful a riddle as\nthis; it could divide the nation and undermine the throne.\" \u00a0He turned\nand said--\n\n\"Sir Thomas, arrest this--No, hold!\" \u00a0His face lighted, and he\nconfronted the ragged candidate with this question--\n\n\"Where lieth the Great Seal? \u00a0Answer me this truly, and the riddle is\nunriddled; for only he that was Prince of Wales _can_ so answer! On so\ntrivial a thing hang a throne and a dynasty!\"\n\nIt was a lucky thought, a happy thought. \u00a0That it was so considered by\nthe great officials was manifested by the silent applause that shot from\neye to eye around their circle in the form of bright approving glances.\nYes, none but the true prince could dissolve the stubborn mystery of the\nvanished Great Seal--this forlorn little impostor had been taught his\nlesson well, but here his teachings must fail, for his teacher himself\ncould not answer _that_ question--ah, very good, very good indeed;\nnow we shall be rid of this troublesome and perilous business in\nshort order! And so they nodded invisibly and smiled inwardly with\nsatisfaction, and looked to see this foolish lad stricken with a palsy\nof guilty confusion. How surprised they were, then, to see nothing of\nthe sort happen--how they marvelled to hear him answer up promptly, in a\nconfident and untroubled voice, and say--\n\n\"There is nought in this riddle that is difficult.\" \u00a0Then, without so\nmuch as a by-your-leave to anybody, he turned and gave this command,\nwith the easy manner of one accustomed to doing such things: \"My Lord\nSt. John, go you to my private cabinet in the palace--for none knoweth\nthe place better than you--and, close down to the floor, in the left\ncorner remotest from the door that opens from the ante-chamber, you\nshall find in the wall a brazen nail-head; press upon it and a little\njewel-closet will fly open which not even you do know of--no, nor\nany soul else in all the world but me and the trusty artisan that did\ncontrive it for me. The first thing that falleth under your eye will be\nthe Great Seal--fetch it hither.\"\n\nAll the company wondered at this speech, and wondered still more to see\nthe little mendicant pick out this peer without hesitancy or apparent\nfear of mistake, and call him by name with such a placidly convincing\nair of having known him all his life. \u00a0The peer was almost surprised\ninto obeying. \u00a0He even made a movement as if to go, but quickly\nrecovered his tranquil attitude and confessed his blunder with a blush.\n\u00a0Tom Canty turned upon him and said, sharply--\n\n\"Why dost thou hesitate? \u00a0Hast not heard the King's command? \u00a0Go!\"\n\nThe Lord St. John made a deep obeisance--and it was observed that it was\na significantly cautious and non-committal one, it not being delivered\nat either of the kings, but at the neutral ground about half-way between\nthe two--and took his leave.\n\nNow began a movement of the gorgeous particles of that official group\nwhich was slow, scarcely perceptible, and yet steady and persistent--a\nmovement such as is observed in a kaleidoscope that is turned slowly,\nwhereby the components of one splendid cluster fall away and join\nthemselves to another--a movement which, little by little, in the\npresent case, dissolved the glittering crowd that stood about Tom Canty\nand clustered it together again in the neighbourhood of the new-comer.\n\u00a0Tom Canty stood almost alone. Now ensued a brief season of deep\nsuspense and waiting--during which even the few faint hearts still\nremaining near Tom Canty gradually scraped together courage enough to\nglide, one by one, over to the majority. \u00a0So at last Tom Canty, in his\nroyal robes and jewels, stood wholly alone and isolated from the world,\na conspicuous figure, occupying an eloquent vacancy.\n\nNow the Lord St. John was seen returning. \u00a0As he advanced up\nthe mid-aisle the interest was so intense that the low murmur of\nconversation in the great assemblage died out and was succeeded by\na profound hush, a breathless stillness, through which his footfalls\npulsed with a dull and distant sound. \u00a0Every eye was fastened upon him\nas he moved along. \u00a0He reached the platform, paused a moment, then moved\ntoward Tom Canty with a deep obeisance, and said--\n\n\"Sire, the Seal is not there!\"\n\nA mob does not melt away from the presence of a plague-patient with more\nhaste than the band of pallid and terrified courtiers melted away from\nthe presence of the shabby little claimant of the Crown. \u00a0In a moment\nhe stood all alone, without friend or supporter, a target upon which\nwas concentrated a bitter fire of scornful and angry looks. \u00a0The Lord\nProtector called out fiercely--\n\n\"Cast the beggar into the street, and scourge him through the town--the\npaltry knave is worth no more consideration!\"\n\nOfficers of the guard sprang forward to obey, but Tom Canty waved them\noff and said--\n\n\"Back! \u00a0Whoso touches him perils his life!\"\n\nThe Lord Protector was perplexed in the last degree. \u00a0He said to the\nLord St. John--\n\n\"Searched you well?--but it boots not to ask that. \u00a0It doth seem passing\nstrange. \u00a0Little things, trifles, slip out of one's ken, and one does\nnot think it matter for surprise; but how so bulky a thing as the\nSeal of England can vanish away and no man be able to get track of it\nagain--a massy golden disk--\"\n\nTom Canty, with beaming eyes, sprang forward and shouted--\n\n\"Hold, that is enough! \u00a0Was it round?--and thick?--and had it letters\nand devices graved upon it?--yes? \u00a0Oh, _now_ I know what this Great Seal\nis that there's been such worry and pother about. An' ye had described\nit to me, ye could have had it three weeks ago. \u00a0Right well I know where\nit lies; but it was not I that put it there--first.\"\n\n\"Who, then, my liege?\" asked the Lord Protector.\n\n\"He that stands there--the rightful King of England. \u00a0And he shall tell\nyou himself where it lies--then you will believe he knew it of his own\nknowledge. \u00a0Bethink thee, my King--spur thy memory--it was the last, the\nvery _last_ thing thou didst that day before thou didst rush forth from\nthe palace, clothed in my rags, to punish the soldier that insulted me.\"\n\nA silence ensued, undisturbed by a movement or a whisper, and all eyes\nwere fixed upon the new-comer, who stood, with bent head and corrugated\nbrow, groping in his memory among a thronging multitude of valueless\nrecollections for one single little elusive fact, which, found, would\nseat him upon a throne--unfound, would leave him as he was, for good and\nall--a pauper and an outcast. \u00a0Moment after moment passed--the moments\nbuilt themselves into minutes--still the boy struggled silently on, and\ngave no sign. \u00a0But at last he heaved a sigh, shook his head slowly, and\nsaid, with a trembling lip and in a despondent voice--\n\n\"I call the scene back--all of it--but the Seal hath no place in it.\"\n\u00a0He paused, then looked up, and said with gentle dignity, \"My lords and\ngentlemen, if ye will rob your rightful sovereign of his own for lack of\nthis evidence which he is not able to furnish, I may not stay ye, being\npowerless. \u00a0But--\"\n\n\"Oh, folly, oh, madness, my King!\" cried Tom Canty, in a panic,\n\"wait!--think! \u00a0Do not give up!--the cause is not lost! \u00a0Nor _shall_ be,\nneither! List to what I say--follow every word--I am going to bring that\nmorning back again, every hap just as it happened. \u00a0We talked--I told\nyou of my sisters, Nan and Bet--ah, yes, you remember that; and about\nmine old grandam--and the rough games of the lads of Offal Court--yes,\nyou remember these things also; very well, follow me still, you shall\nrecall everything. \u00a0You gave me food and drink, and did with princely\ncourtesy send away the servants, so that my low breeding might not shame\nme before them--ah, yes, this also you remember.\"\n\nAs Tom checked off his details, and the other boy nodded his head in\nrecognition of them, the great audience and the officials stared in\npuzzled wonderment; the tale sounded like true history, yet how could\nthis impossible conjunction between a prince and a beggar-boy have come\nabout? \u00a0Never was a company of people so perplexed, so interested, and\nso stupefied, before.\n\n\"For a jest, my prince, we did exchange garments. \u00a0Then we stood before\na mirror; and so alike were we that both said it seemed as if there had\nbeen no change made--yes, you remember that. \u00a0Then you noticed that the\nsoldier had hurt my hand--look! here it is, I cannot yet even write with\nit, the fingers are so stiff. \u00a0At this your Highness sprang up, vowing\nvengeance upon that soldier, and ran towards the door--you passed a\ntable--that thing you call the Seal lay on that table--you snatched\nit up and looked eagerly about, as if for a place to hide it--your eye\ncaught sight of--\"\n\n\"There, 'tis sufficient!--and the good God be thanked!\" exclaimed the\nragged claimant, in a mighty excitement. \u00a0\"Go, my good St. John--in an\narm-piece of the Milanese armour that hangs on the wall, thou'lt find\nthe Seal!\"\n\n\"Right, my King! right!\" cried Tom Canty; \"_Now_ the sceptre of England\nis thine own; and it were better for him that would dispute it that he\nhad been born dumb! \u00a0Go, my Lord St. John, give thy feet wings!\"\n\nThe whole assemblage was on its feet now, and well-nigh out of its mind\nwith uneasiness, apprehension, and consuming excitement. \u00a0On the floor\nand on the platform a deafening buzz of frantic conversation burst\nforth, and for some time nobody knew anything or heard anything or was\ninterested in anything but what his neighbour was shouting into his ear,\nor he was shouting into his neighbour's ear. \u00a0Time--nobody knew how much\nof it--swept by unheeded and unnoted. \u00a0At last a sudden hush fell upon\nthe house, and in the same moment St. John appeared upon the platform,\nand held the Great Seal aloft in his hand. \u00a0Then such a shout went up--\n\n\"Long live the true King!\"\n\nFor five minutes the air quaked with shouts and the crash of musical\ninstruments, and was white with a storm of waving handkerchiefs; and\nthrough it all a ragged lad, the most conspicuous figure in England,\nstood, flushed and happy and proud, in the centre of the spacious\nplatform, with the great vassals of the kingdom kneeling around him.\n\nThen all rose, and Tom Canty cried out--\n\n\"Now, O my King, take these regal garments back, and give poor Tom, thy\nservant, his shreds and remnants again.\"\n\nThe Lord Protector spoke up--\n\n\"Let the small varlet be stripped and flung into the Tower.\"\n\nBut the new King, the true King, said--\n\n\"I will not have it so. \u00a0But for him I had not got my crown again--none\nshall lay a hand upon him to harm him. \u00a0And as for thee, my good uncle,\nmy Lord Protector, this conduct of thine is not grateful toward\nthis poor lad, for I hear he hath made thee a duke\"--the Protector\nblushed--\"yet he was not a king; wherefore what is thy fine title\nworth now? \u00a0To-morrow you shall sue to me, _through him_, for its\nconfirmation, else no duke, but a simple earl, shalt thou remain.\"\n\nUnder this rebuke, his Grace the Duke of Somerset retired a little from\nthe front for the moment. \u00a0The King turned to Tom, and said kindly--\"My\npoor boy, how was it that you could remember where I hid the Seal when I\ncould not remember it myself?\"\n\n\"Ah, my King, that was easy, since I used it divers days.\"\n\n\"Used it--yet could not explain where it was?\"\n\n\"I did not know it was _that_ they wanted. \u00a0They did not describe it,\nyour Majesty.\"\n\n\"Then how used you it?\"\n\nThe red blood began to steal up into Tom's cheeks, and he dropped his\neyes and was silent.\n\n\"Speak up, good lad, and fear nothing,\" said the King. \u00a0\"How used you\nthe Great Seal of England?\"\n\nTom stammered a moment, in a pathetic confusion, then got it out--\n\n\"To crack nuts with!\"\n\nPoor child, the avalanche of laughter that greeted this nearly swept him\noff his feet. \u00a0But if a doubt remained in any mind that Tom Canty was\nnot the King of England and familiar with the august appurtenances of\nroyalty, this reply disposed of it utterly.\n\nMeantime the sumptuous robe of state had been removed from Tom's\nshoulders to the King's, whose rags were effectually hidden from sight\nunder it. \u00a0Then the coronation ceremonies were resumed; the true King\nwas anointed and the crown set upon his head, whilst cannon thundered\nthe news to the city, and all London seemed to rock with applause.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIII. Edward as King.\n\nMiles Hendon was picturesque enough before he got into the riot on\nLondon Bridge--he was more so when he got out of it. \u00a0He had but little\nmoney when he got in, none at all when he got out. \u00a0The pickpockets had\nstripped him of his last farthing.\n\nBut no matter, so he found his boy. \u00a0Being a soldier, he did not go at\nhis task in a random way, but set to work, first of all, to arrange his\ncampaign.\n\nWhat would the boy naturally do? \u00a0Where would he naturally go?\nWell--argued Miles--he would naturally go to his former haunts, for that\nis the instinct of unsound minds, when homeless and forsaken, as well\nas of sound ones. \u00a0Whereabouts were his former haunts? \u00a0His rags,\ntaken together with the low villain who seemed to know him and who even\nclaimed to be his father, indicated that his home was in one or another\nof the poorest and meanest districts of London. \u00a0Would the search for\nhim be difficult, or long? \u00a0No, it was likely to be easy and brief. \u00a0He\nwould not hunt for the boy, he would hunt for a crowd; in the centre of\na big crowd or a little one, sooner or later, he should find his poor\nlittle friend, sure; and the mangy mob would be entertaining itself\nwith pestering and aggravating the boy, who would be proclaiming himself\nKing, as usual. \u00a0Then Miles Hendon would cripple some of those people,\nand carry off his little ward, and comfort and cheer him with loving\nwords, and the two would never be separated any more.\n\nSo Miles started on his quest. \u00a0Hour after hour he tramped through back\nalleys and squalid streets, seeking groups and crowds, and finding no\nend of them, but never any sign of the boy. \u00a0This greatly surprised him,\nbut did not discourage him. \u00a0To his notion, there was nothing the matter\nwith his plan of campaign; the only miscalculation about it was that the\ncampaign was becoming a lengthy one, whereas he had expected it to be\nshort.\n\nWhen daylight arrived, at last, he had made many a mile, and canvassed\nmany a crowd, but the only result was that he was tolerably tired,\nrather hungry and very sleepy. \u00a0He wanted some breakfast, but there was\nno way to get it. \u00a0To beg for it did not occur to him; as to pawning\nhis sword, he would as soon have thought of parting with his honour;\nhe could spare some of his clothes--yes, but one could as easily find a\ncustomer for a disease as for such clothes.\n\nAt noon he was still tramping--among the rabble which followed after\nthe royal procession, now; for he argued that this regal display would\nattract his little lunatic powerfully. \u00a0He followed the pageant through\nall its devious windings about London, and all the way to Westminster\nand the Abbey. \u00a0He drifted here and there amongst the multitudes\nthat were massed in the vicinity for a weary long time, baffled and\nperplexed, and finally wandered off, thinking, and trying to contrive\nsome way to better his plan of campaign. \u00a0By-and-by, when he came to\nhimself out of his musings, he discovered that the town was far behind\nhim and that the day was growing old. \u00a0He was near the river, and in the\ncountry; it was a region of fine rural seats--not the sort of district\nto welcome clothes like his.\n\nIt was not at all cold; so he stretched himself on the ground in the lee\nof a hedge to rest and think. \u00a0Drowsiness presently began to settle upon\nhis senses; the faint and far-off boom of cannon was wafted to his ear,\nand he said to himself, \"The new King is crowned,\" and straightway fell\nasleep. \u00a0He had not slept or rested, before, for more than thirty hours.\nHe did not wake again until near the middle of the next morning.\n\nHe got up, lame, stiff, and half famished, washed himself in the river,\nstayed his stomach with a pint or two of water, and trudged off toward\nWestminster, grumbling at himself for having wasted so much time.\n\u00a0Hunger helped him to a new plan, now; he would try to get speech with\nold Sir Humphrey Marlow and borrow a few marks, and--but that was enough\nof a plan for the present; it would be time enough to enlarge it when\nthis first stage should be accomplished.\n\nToward eleven o'clock he approached the palace; and although a host of\nshowy people were about him, moving in the same direction, he was not\ninconspicuous--his costume took care of that. \u00a0He watched these people's\nfaces narrowly, hoping to find a charitable one whose possessor might\nbe willing to carry his name to the old lieutenant--as to trying to get\ninto the palace himself, that was simply out of the question.\n\nPresently our whipping-boy passed him, then wheeled about and scanned\nhis figure well, saying to himself, \"An' that is not the very vagabond\nhis Majesty is in such a worry about, then am I an ass--though belike I\nwas that before. \u00a0He answereth the description to a rag--that God should\nmake two such would be to cheapen miracles by wasteful repetition. \u00a0I\nwould I could contrive an excuse to speak with him.\"\n\nMiles Hendon saved him the trouble; for he turned about, then, as a man\ngenerally will when somebody mesmerises him by gazing hard at him from\nbehind; and observing a strong interest in the boy's eyes, he stepped\ntoward him and said--\n\n\"You have just come out from the palace; do you belong there?\"\n\n\"Yes, your worship.\"\n\n\"Know you Sir Humphrey Marlow?\"\n\nThe boy started, and said to himself, \"Lord! mine old departed father!\"\nThen he answered aloud, \"Right well, your worship.\"\n\n\"Good--is he within?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said the boy; and added, to himself, \"within his grave.\"\n\n\"Might I crave your favour to carry my name to him, and say I beg to say\na word in his ear?\"\n\n\"I will despatch the business right willingly, fair sir.\"\n\n\"Then say Miles Hendon, son of Sir Richard, is here without--I shall be\ngreatly bounden to you, my good lad.\"\n\nThe boy looked disappointed. \u00a0\"The King did not name him so,\" he said to\nhimself; \"but it mattereth not, this is his twin brother, and can give\nhis Majesty news of t'other Sir-Odds-and-Ends, I warrant.\" \u00a0So he said\nto Miles, \"Step in there a moment, good sir, and wait till I bring you\nword.\"\n\nHendon retired to the place indicated--it was a recess sunk in the\npalace wall, with a stone bench in it--a shelter for sentinels in bad\nweather. He had hardly seated himself when some halberdiers, in charge\nof an officer, passed by. \u00a0The officer saw him, halted his men, and\ncommanded Hendon to come forth. \u00a0He obeyed, and was promptly arrested\nas a suspicious character prowling within the precincts of the palace.\n\u00a0Things began to look ugly. \u00a0Poor Miles was going to explain, but the\nofficer roughly silenced him, and ordered his men to disarm him and\nsearch him.\n\n\"God of his mercy grant that they find somewhat,\" said poor Miles; \"I\nhave searched enow, and failed, yet is my need greater than theirs.\"\n\nNothing was found but a document. \u00a0The officer tore it open, and Hendon\nsmiled when he recognised the 'pot-hooks' made by his lost little friend\nthat black day at Hendon Hall. \u00a0The officer's face grew dark as he read\nthe English paragraph, and Miles blenched to the opposite colour as he\nlistened.\n\n\"Another new claimant of the Crown!\" cried the officer. \u00a0\"Verily they\nbreed like rabbits, to-day. \u00a0Seize the rascal, men, and see ye keep\nhim fast whilst I convey this precious paper within and send it to the\nKing.\"\n\nHe hurried away, leaving the prisoner in the grip of the halberdiers.\n\n\"Now is my evil luck ended at last,\" muttered Hendon, \"for I shall\ndangle at a rope's end for a certainty, by reason of that bit of\nwriting. \u00a0And what will become of my poor lad!--ah, only the good God\nknoweth.\"\n\nBy-and-by he saw the officer coming again, in a great hurry; so he\nplucked his courage together, purposing to meet his trouble as became a\nman. \u00a0The officer ordered the men to loose the prisoner and return his\nsword to him; then bowed respectfully, and said--\n\n\"Please you, sir, to follow me.\"\n\nHendon followed, saying to himself, \"An' I were not travelling to death\nand judgment, and so must needs economise in sin, I would throttle this\nknave for his mock courtesy.\"\n\nThe two traversed a populous court, and arrived at the grand entrance of\nthe palace, where the officer, with another bow, delivered Hendon into\nthe hands of a gorgeous official, who received him with profound respect\nand led him forward through a great hall, lined on both sides with rows\nof splendid flunkeys (who made reverential obeisance as the two passed\nalong, but fell into death-throes of silent laughter at our stately\nscarecrow the moment his back was turned), and up a broad staircase,\namong flocks of fine folk, and finally conducted him into a vast room,\nclove a passage for him through the assembled nobility of England, then\nmade a bow, reminded him to take his hat off, and left him standing in\nthe middle of the room, a mark for all eyes, for plenty of indignant\nfrowns, and for a sufficiency of amused and derisive smiles.\n\nMiles Hendon was entirely bewildered. \u00a0There sat the young King, under\na canopy of state, five steps away, with his head bent down and aside,\nspeaking with a sort of human bird of paradise--a duke, maybe. \u00a0Hendon\nobserved to himself that it was hard enough to be sentenced to death\nin the full vigour of life, without having this peculiarly public\nhumiliation added. \u00a0He wished the King would hurry about it--some of the\ngaudy people near by were becoming pretty offensive. \u00a0At this moment\nthe King raised his head slightly, and Hendon caught a good view of his\nface. The sight nearly took his breath away!--He stood gazing at the\nfair young face like one transfixed; then presently ejaculated--\n\n\"Lo, the Lord of the Kingdom of Dreams and Shadows on his throne!\"\n\nHe muttered some broken sentences, still gazing and marvelling; then\nturned his eyes around and about, scanning the gorgeous throng and the\nsplendid saloon, murmuring, \"But these are _real_--verily these are\n_real_--surely it is not a dream.\"\n\nHe stared at the King again--and thought, \"_Is_ it a dream . . . or _is_\nhe the veritable Sovereign of England, and not the friendless poor Tom\no' Bedlam I took him for--who shall solve me this riddle?\"\n\nA sudden idea flashed in his eye, and he strode to the wall, gathered up\na chair, brought it back, planted it on the floor, and sat down in it!\n\nA buzz of indignation broke out, a rough hand was laid upon him and a\nvoice exclaimed--\n\n\"Up, thou mannerless clown! would'st sit in the presence of the King?\"\n\nThe disturbance attracted his Majesty's attention, who stretched forth\nhis hand and cried out--\n\n\"Touch him not, it is his right!\"\n\nThe throng fell back, stupefied. \u00a0The King went on--\n\n\"Learn ye all, ladies, lords, and gentlemen, that this is my trusty and\nwell-beloved servant, Miles Hendon, who interposed his good sword and\nsaved his prince from bodily harm and possible death--and for this he is\na knight, by the King's voice. \u00a0Also learn, that for a higher service,\nin that he saved his sovereign stripes and shame, taking these upon\nhimself, he is a peer of England, Earl of Kent, and shall have gold\nand lands meet for the dignity. \u00a0More--the privilege which he hath just\nexercised is his by royal grant; for we have ordained that the chiefs\nof his line shall have and hold the right to sit in the presence of the\nMajesty of England henceforth, age after age, so long as the crown shall\nendure. \u00a0Molest him not.\"\n\nTwo persons, who, through delay, had only arrived from the country\nduring this morning, and had now been in this room only five minutes,\nstood listening to these words and looking at the King, then at the\nscarecrow, then at the King again, in a sort of torpid bewilderment.\n\u00a0These were Sir Hugh and the Lady Edith. \u00a0But the new Earl did not\nsee them. \u00a0He was still staring at the monarch, in a dazed way, and\nmuttering--\n\n\"Oh, body o' me! \u00a0_this_ my pauper! \u00a0This my lunatic! \u00a0This is he whom\n_I_ would show what grandeur was, in my house of seventy rooms and\nseven-and-twenty servants! \u00a0This is he who had never known aught but\nrags for raiment, kicks for comfort, and offal for diet! \u00a0This is he\nwhom _I_ adopted and would make respectable! Would God I had a bag to\nhide my head in!\"\n\nThen his manners suddenly came back to him, and he dropped upon his\nknees, with his hands between the King's, and swore allegiance and did\nhomage for his lands and titles. \u00a0Then he rose and stood respectfully\naside, a mark still for all eyes--and much envy, too.\n\nNow the King discovered Sir Hugh, and spoke out with wrathful voice and\nkindling eye--\n\n\"Strip this robber of his false show and stolen estates, and put him\nunder lock and key till I have need of him.\"\n\nThe late Sir Hugh was led away.\n\nThere was a stir at the other end of the room, now; the assemblage fell\napart, and Tom Canty, quaintly but richly clothed, marched down, between\nthese living walls, preceded by an usher. \u00a0He knelt before the King, who\nsaid--\n\n\"I have learned the story of these past few weeks, and am well pleased\nwith thee. \u00a0Thou hast governed the realm with right royal gentleness and\nmercy. \u00a0Thou hast found thy mother and thy sisters again? \u00a0Good; they\nshall be cared for--and thy father shall hang, if thou desire it and the\nlaw consent. \u00a0Know, all ye that hear my voice, that from this day, they\nthat abide in the shelter of Christ's Hospital and share the King's\nbounty shall have their minds and hearts fed, as well as their baser\nparts; and this boy shall dwell there, and hold the chief place in its\nhonourable body of governors, during life. \u00a0And for that he hath been\na king, it is meet that other than common observance shall be his due;\nwherefore note this his dress of state, for by it he shall be known, and\nnone shall copy it; and wheresoever he shall come, it shall remind the\npeople that he hath been royal, in his time, and none shall deny him his\ndue of reverence or fail to give him salutation. \u00a0He hath the throne's\nprotection, he hath the crown's support, he shall be known and called by\nthe honourable title of the King's Ward.\"\n\nThe proud and happy Tom Canty rose and kissed the King's hand, and was\nconducted from the presence. \u00a0He did not waste any time, but flew to his\nmother, to tell her and Nan and Bet all about it and get them to help\nhim enjoy the great news. {1}\n\nConclusion. Justice and retribution.\n\nWhen the mysteries were all cleared up, it came out, by confession of\nHugh Hendon, that his wife had repudiated Miles by his command, that\nday at Hendon Hall--a command assisted and supported by the perfectly\ntrustworthy promise that if she did not deny that he was Miles Hendon,\nand stand firmly to it, he would have her life; whereupon she said,\n\"Take it!\"--she did not value it--and she would not repudiate\nMiles; then the husband said he would spare her life but have Miles\nassassinated! \u00a0This was a different matter; so she gave her word and\nkept it.\n\nHugh was not prosecuted for his threats or for stealing his brother's\nestates and title, because the wife and brother would not testify\nagainst him--and the former would not have been allowed to do it, even\nif she had wanted to. \u00a0Hugh deserted his wife and went over to the\ncontinent, where he presently died; and by-and-by the Earl of Kent\nmarried his relict. There were grand times and rejoicings at Hendon\nvillage when the couple paid their first visit to the Hall.\n\nTom Canty's father was never heard of again.\n\nThe King sought out the farmer who had been branded and sold as a slave,\nand reclaimed him from his evil life with the Ruffler's gang, and put\nhim in the way of a comfortable livelihood.\n\nHe also took that old lawyer out of prison and remitted his fine. He\nprovided good homes for the daughters of the two Baptist women whom he\nsaw burned at the stake, and roundly punished the official who laid the\nundeserved stripes upon Miles Hendon's back.\n\nHe saved from the gallows the boy who had captured the stray falcon, and\nalso the woman who had stolen a remnant of cloth from a weaver; but he\nwas too late to save the man who had been convicted of killing a deer in\nthe royal forest.\n\nHe showed favour to the justice who had pitied him when he was supposed\nto have stolen a pig, and he had the gratification of seeing him grow in\nthe public esteem and become a great and honoured man.\n\nAs long as the King lived he was fond of telling the story of his\nadventures, all through, from the hour that the sentinel cuffed him\naway from the palace gate till the final midnight when he deftly mixed\nhimself into a gang of hurrying workmen and so slipped into the Abbey\nand climbed up and hid himself in the Confessor's tomb, and then slept\nso long, next day, that he came within one of missing the Coronation\naltogether. \u00a0He said that the frequent rehearsing of the precious lesson\nkept him strong in his purpose to make its teachings yield benefits to\nhis people; and so, whilst his life was spared he should continue to\ntell the story, and thus keep its sorrowful spectacles fresh in his\nmemory and the springs of pity replenished in his heart.\n\nMiles Hendon and Tom Canty were favourites of the King, all through his\nbrief reign, and his sincere mourners when he died. The good Earl\nof Kent had too much sense to abuse his peculiar privilege; but he\nexercised it twice after the instance we have seen of it before he was\ncalled from this world--once at the accession of Queen Mary, and once at\nthe accession of Queen Elizabeth. \u00a0A descendant of his exercised it\nat the accession of James I. \u00a0Before this one's son chose to use the\nprivilege, near a quarter of a century had elapsed, and the 'privilege\nof the Kents' had faded out of most people's memories; so, when the Kent\nof that day appeared before Charles I. and his court and sat down in the\nsovereign's presence to assert and perpetuate the right of his house,\nthere was a fine stir indeed! \u00a0But the matter was soon explained, and\nthe right confirmed. \u00a0The last Earl of the line fell in the wars of the\nCommonwealth fighting for the King, and the odd privilege ended with\nhim.\n\nTom Canty lived to be a very old man, a handsome, white-haired old\nfellow, of grave and benignant aspect. \u00a0As long as he lasted he was\nhonoured; and he was also reverenced, for his striking and peculiar\ncostume kept the people reminded that 'in his time he had been royal;'\nso, wherever he appeared the crowd fell apart, making way for him, and\nwhispering, one to another, \"Doff thy hat, it is the King's Ward!\"--and\nso they saluted, and got his kindly smile in return--and they valued it,\ntoo, for his was an honourable history.\n\nYes, King Edward VI. lived only a few years, poor boy, but he lived them\nworthily. \u00a0More than once, when some great dignitary, some gilded vassal\nof the crown, made argument against his leniency, and urged that some\nlaw which he was bent upon amending was gentle enough for its purpose,\nand wrought no suffering or oppression which any one need mightily mind,\nthe young King turned the mournful eloquence of his great compassionate\neyes upon him and answered--\n\n\"What dost _thou_ know of suffering and oppression? \u00a0I and my people\nknow, but not thou.\"\n\nThe reign of Edward VI. was a singularly merciful one for those harsh\ntimes. \u00a0Now that we are taking leave of him, let us try to keep this in\nour minds, to his credit.\n\nFOOTNOTES AND TWAIN'S NOTES\n\n{1} \u00a0For Mark Twain's note see below under the relevant chapter heading.\n\n{2} \u00a0He refers to the order of baronets, or baronettes; the barones\nminores, as distinct from the parliamentary barons--not, it need hardly\nbe said, to the baronets of later creation.\n\n{3} \u00a0The lords of Kingsale, descendants of De Courcy, still enjoy this\ncurious privilege.\n\n{4} \u00a0Hume.\n\n{5} \u00a0Ib.\n\n{6} \u00a0Leigh Hunt's 'The Town,' p.408, quotation from an early tourist.\n\n{7} \u00a0Canting terms for various kinds of thieves, beggars and vagabonds,\nand their female companions.\n\n{8} \u00a0From 'The English Rogue.' \u00a0London, 1665.\n\n{9} \u00a0Hume's England.\n\n{10} \u00a0See Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull's Blue Laws, True and False, p. 11.\n\nNOTE 1, Chapter IV. Christ's Hospital Costume.\n\nIt is most reasonable to regard the dress as copied from the costume\nof the citizens of London of that period, when long blue coats were the\ncommon habit of apprentices and serving-men, and yellow stockings\nwere generally worn; the coat fits closely to the body, but has loose\nsleeves, and beneath is worn a sleeveless yellow under-coat; around the\nwaist is a red leathern girdle; a clerical band around the neck, and\na small flat black cap, about the size of a saucer, completes the\ncostume.--Timbs' Curiosities of London.\n\nNOTE 2, Chapter IV.\n\nIt appears that Christ's Hospital was not originally founded as a\n_school_; its object was to rescue children from the streets, to\nshelter, feed, clothe them.--Timbs' Curiosities of London.\n\nNOTE 3, Chapter V. The Duke of Norfolk's Condemnation commanded.\n\nThe King was now approaching fast towards his end; and fearing lest\nNorfolk should escape him, he sent a message to the Commons, by which\nhe desired them to hasten the Bill, on pretence that Norfolk enjoyed the\ndignity of Earl Marshal, and it was necessary to appoint another, who\nmight officiate at the ensuing ceremony of installing his son Prince of\nWales.--Hume's History of England, vol. iii. p. 307.\n\nNOTE 4, Chapter VII.\n\nIt was not till the end of this reign (Henry VIII.) that any salads,\ncarrots, turnips, or other edible roots were produced in England. \u00a0The\nlittle of these vegetables that was used was formerly imported from\nHolland and Flanders. \u00a0Queen Catherine, when she wanted a salad, was\nobliged to despatch a messenger thither on purpose.--Hume's History of\nEngland, vol. iii. p. 314.\n\nNOTE 5, Chapter VIII. Attainder of Norfolk.\n\nThe House of Peers, without examining the prisoner, without trial or\nevidence, passed a Bill of Attainder against him and sent it down to the\nCommons . . . The obsequious Commons obeyed his (the King's)\ndirections; and the King, having affixed the Royal assent to the Bill by\ncommissioners, issued orders for the execution of Norfolk on the morning\nof January 29 (the next day).--Hume's History of England, vol iii. p\n306.\n\nNOTE 6, Chapter X. The Loving-cup.\n\nThe loving-cup, and the peculiar ceremonies observed in drinking from\nit, are older than English history. \u00a0It is thought that both are Danish\nimportations. \u00a0As far back as knowledge goes, the loving-cup has always\nbeen drunk at English banquets. \u00a0Tradition explains the ceremonies in\nthis way. \u00a0In the rude ancient times it was deemed a wise precaution\nto have both hands of both drinkers employed, lest while the pledger\npledged his love and fidelity to the pledgee, the pledgee take that\nopportunity to slip a dirk into him!\n\nNOTE 7, Chapter XI. The Duke of Norfolk's narrow Escape.\n\nHad Henry VIII. survived a few hours longer, his order for the duke's\nexecution would have been carried into effect. 'But news being\ncarried to the Tower that the King himself had expired that night,\nthe lieutenant deferred obeying the warrant; and it was not thought\nadvisable by the Council to begin a new reign by the death of the\ngreatest nobleman in the kingdom, who had been condemned by a sentence\nso unjust and tyrannical.'--Hume's History of England, vol. iii, p. 307.\n\nNOTE 8, Chapter XIV. The Whipping-boy.\n\nJames I. and Charles II. had whipping-boys, when they were little\nfellows, to take their punishment for them when they fell short in their\nlessons; so I have ventured to furnish my small prince with one, for my\nown purposes.\n\nNOTES to Chapter XV.\n\nCharacter of Hertford.\n\nThe young King discovered an extreme attachment to his uncle, who\nwas, in the main, a man of moderation and probity.--Hume's History of\nEngland, vol. iii, p324.\n\nBut if he (the Protector) gave offence by assuming too much state, he\ndeserves great praise on account of the laws passed this session,\nby which the rigour of former statutes was much mitigated, and some\nsecurity given to the freedom of the constitution. \u00a0All laws were\nrepealed which extended the crime of treason beyond the statute of the\ntwenty-fifth of Edward III.; all laws enacted during the late reign\nextending the crime of felony; all the former laws against Lollardy or\nheresy, together with the statute of the Six Articles. \u00a0None were to be\naccused for words, but within a month after they were spoken. \u00a0By\nthese repeals several of the most rigorous laws that ever had passed\nin England were annulled; and some dawn, both of civil and religious\nliberty, began to appear to the people. \u00a0A repeal also passed of that\nlaw, the destruction of all laws, by which the King's proclamation was\nmade of equal force with a statute.--Ibid. vol. iii. p. 339.\n\nBoiling to Death.\n\nIn the reign of Henry VIII. poisoners were, by Act of Parliament,\ncondemned to be _boiled to death_. \u00a0This Act was repealed in the\nfollowing reign.\n\nIn Germany, even in the seventeenth century, this horrible punishment\nwas inflicted on coiners and counterfeiters. \u00a0Taylor, the Water Poet,\ndescribes an execution he witnessed in Hamburg in 1616. \u00a0The judgment\npronounced against a coiner of false money was that he should '_be\nboiled to death in oil_; not thrown into the vessel at once, but with\na pulley or rope to be hanged under the armpits, and then let down into\nthe oil _by degrees_; first the feet, and next the legs, and so to boil\nhis flesh from his bones alive.'--Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull's Blue Laws,\nTrue and False, p. 13.\n\nThe Famous Stocking Case.\n\nA woman and her daughter, _nine years old_, were hanged in Huntingdon\nfor selling their souls to the devil, and raising a storm by pulling off\ntheir stockings!--Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull's Blue Laws, True and False,\np. 20.\n\nNOTE 10, Chapter XVII. Enslaving.\n\nSo young a King and so ignorant a peasant were likely to make mistakes;\nand this is an instance in point. \u00a0This peasant was suffering from this\nlaw _by anticipation_; the King was venting his indignation against a\nlaw which was not yet in existence; for this hideous statute was to\nhave birth in this little King's _own reign_. However, we know, from the\nhumanity of his character, that it could never have been suggested by\nhim.\n\nNOTES to Chapter XXIII. Death for Trifling Larcenies.\n\nWhen Connecticut and New Haven were framing their first codes, larceny\nabove the value of twelve pence was a capital crime in England--as it\nhad been since the time of Henry I.--Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull's Blue\nLaws, True and False, p. 17.\n\nThe curious old book called The English Rogue makes the limit thirteen\npence ha'penny: \u00a0death being the portion of any who steal a thing 'above\nthe value of thirteen pence ha'penny.'\n\nNOTES to Chapter XXVII.\n\nFrom many descriptions of larceny the law expressly took away the\nbenefit of clergy: \u00a0to steal a horse, or a _hawk_, or woollen cloth from\nthe weaver, was a hanging matter. \u00a0So it was to kill a deer from the\nKing's forest, or to export sheep from the kingdom.--Dr. J. Hammond\nTrumbull's Blue Laws, True and False, p.13.\n\nWilliam Prynne, a learned barrister, was sentenced (long after Edward\nVI.'s time) to lose both his ears in the pillory, to degradation from\nthe bar, a fine of 3,000 pounds, and imprisonment for life. \u00a0Three years\nafterwards he gave new offence to Laud by publishing a pamphlet against\nthe hierarchy. \u00a0He was again prosecuted, and was sentenced to lose _what\nremained of his ears_, to pay a fine of 5,000 pounds, to be _branded on\nboth his cheeks_ with the letters S. L. (for Seditious Libeller), and to\nremain in prison for life. \u00a0The severity of this sentence was equalled\nby the savage rigour of its execution.--Ibid. p. 12.\n\nNOTES to Chapter XXXIII.\n\nChrist's Hospital, or Bluecoat School, 'the noblest institution in the\nworld.'\n\nThe ground on which the Priory of the Grey Friars stood was conferred\nby Henry VIII. on the Corporation of London (who caused the institution\nthere of a home for poor boys and girls). Subsequently, Edward VI.\ncaused the old Priory to be properly repaired, and founded within\nit that noble establishment called the Bluecoat School, or Christ's\nHospital, for the _education_ and maintenance of orphans and the\nchildren of indigent persons . . . Edward would not let him (Bishop\nRidley) depart till the letter was written (to the Lord Mayor), and then\ncharged him to deliver it himself, and signify his special request and\ncommandment that no time might be lost in proposing what was convenient,\nand apprising him of the proceedings. \u00a0The work was zealously\nundertaken, Ridley himself engaging in it; and the result was the\nfounding of Christ's Hospital for the education of poor children. (The\nKing endowed several other charities at the same time.) \"Lord God,\" said\nhe, \"I yield Thee most hearty thanks that Thou hast given me life thus\nlong to finish this work to the glory of Thy name!\" \u00a0That innocent and\nmost exemplary life was drawing rapidly to its close, and in a few days\nhe rendered up his spirit to his Creator, praying God to defend the\nrealm from Papistry.--J. Heneage Jesse's London: \u00a0its Celebrated\nCharacters and Places.\n\nIn the Great Hall hangs a large picture of King Edward VI. seated on his\nthrone, in a scarlet and ermined robe, holding the sceptre in his left\nhand, and presenting with the other the Charter to the kneeling Lord\nMayor. \u00a0By his side stands the Chancellor, holding the seals, and next\nto him are other officers of state. \u00a0Bishop Ridley kneels before him\nwith uplifted hands, as if supplicating a blessing on the event; whilst\nthe Aldermen, etc., with the Lord Mayor, kneel on both sides, occupying\nthe middle ground of the picture; and lastly, in front, are a double row\nof boys on one side and girls on the other, from the master and matron\ndown to the boy and girl who have stepped forward from their respective\nrows, and kneel with raised hands before the King.--Timbs' Curiosities\nof London, p. 98.\n\nChrist's Hospital, by ancient custom, possesses the privilege of\naddressing the Sovereign on the occasion of his or her coming into the\nCity to partake of the hospitality of the Corporation of London.--Ibid.\n\nThe Dining Hall, with its lobby and organ-gallery, occupies the entire\nstorey, which is 187 feet long, 51 feet wide, and 47 feet high; it is\nlit by nine large windows, filled with stained glass on the south side;\nand is, next to Westminster Hall, the noblest room in the metropolis.\n\u00a0Here the boys, now about 800 in number, dine; and here are held the\n'Suppings in Public,' to which visitors are admitted by tickets issued\nby the Treasurer and by the Governors of Christ's Hospital. \u00a0The tables\nare laid with cheese in wooden bowls, beer in wooden piggins, poured\nfrom leathern jacks, and bread brought in large baskets. \u00a0The official\ncompany enter; the Lord Mayor, or President, takes his seat in a state\nchair made of oak from St. Catherine's Church, by the Tower; a hymn\nis sung, accompanied by the organ; a 'Grecian,' or head boy, reads the\nprayers from the pulpit, silence being enforced by three drops of a\nwooden hammer. \u00a0After prayer the supper commences, and the visitors walk\nbetween the tables. \u00a0At its close the 'trade-boys' take up the baskets,\nbowls, jacks, piggins, and candlesticks, and pass in procession, the\nbowing to the Governors being curiously formal. \u00a0This spectacle was\nwitnessed by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1845.\n\nAmong the more eminent Bluecoat boys are Joshua Barnes, editor\nof Anacreon and Euripides; Jeremiah Markland, the eminent critic,\nparticularly in Greek Literature; Camden, the antiquary; Bishop\nStillingfleet; Samuel Richardson, the novelist; Thomas Mitchell, the\ntranslator of Aristophanes; Thomas Barnes, many years editor of the\nLondon Times; Coleridge, Charles Lamb, and Leigh Hunt.\n\nNo boy is admitted before he is seven years old, or after he is nine;\nand no boy can remain in the school after he is fifteen, King's boys and\n'Grecians' alone excepted. \u00a0There are about 500 Governors, at the head\nof whom are the Sovereign and the Prince of Wales. \u00a0The qualification\nfor a Governor is payment of 500 pounds.--Ibid.\n\nGENERAL NOTE.\n\nOne hears much about the 'hideous Blue Laws of Connecticut,' and is\naccustomed to shudder piously when they are mentioned. \u00a0There are people\nin America--and even in England!--who imagine that they were a very\nmonument of malignity, pitilessness, and inhumanity; whereas in reality\nthey were about the first _sweeping departure from judicial atrocity_\nwhich the 'civilised' world had seen. \u00a0This humane and kindly Blue Law\nCode, of two hundred and forty years ago, stands all by itself,\nwith ages of bloody law on the further side of it, and a century and\nthree-quarters of bloody English law on _this_ side of it.\n\nThere has never been a time--under the Blue Laws or any other--when\nabove _fourteen_ crimes were punishable by death in Connecticut. \u00a0But in\nEngland, within the memory of men who are still hale in body and mind,\n_two hundred and twenty-three_ crimes were punishable by death! {10}\n\u00a0These facts are worth knowing--and worth thinking about, too.\n\n\n\n"}
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{"18381":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                           Mark Twain\n\n\n                 De lotgevallen van Tom Sawyer\n\n\n                         Met platen van\n\n                       Johan Braakensiek\n\n\n\n                           Zesde druk\n\n               Amsterdam Van Holkema & Warendorf\n\n\n\n\n\n\n    Boek-, Courant- en Steendrukkerij G. J. Thieme, Nijmegen\n\n\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK I.\n\n\n\"Tom!\"\n\nGeen antwoord.\n\n\"Tom!\"\n\nGeen antwoord.\n\n\"Waar zou die drommelsche jongen toch zitten? Hoor je me niet, Tom?\"\n\nDe oude dame, die deze woorden sprak, trok haar bril naar beneden\nom er overheen te kijken. Daarna duwde zij hem naar boven om er\nonderdoor te kijken. Zelden of nooit gebruikte zij hem om er _door_\nte kijken, althans niet naar een zoo onbeduidend voorwerp als een\nkleine jongen. Immers haar bril was haar roem, de trots van haar hart,\nen zij had hem gekocht om ontzag in te boezemen,--niet om dienst te\ndoen. Voor hare oogen toch kon zij evengoed een deksel van een sauspan\ngenomen hebben. Een oogenblik zag zij onthutst in het rond en zeide,\nniet bepaald barsch, maar luid genoeg om door al de meubelen in de\nkamer gehoord te worden:\n\n\"Als ik je krijg, dan zal....\"\n\nMeer kon zij niet uitbrengen, want al pratende had zij zich\nvoorovergebukt om met een bezem onder het bed te voelen of zich daar\nook iemand verscholen had; en zij hijgde naar adem, toen zij na lang\nduwen en stompen niets dan de kat te voorschijn haalde.\n\n\"Ik heb nooit van mijn leven zoo'n jongen gezien! Nu zullen wij eens\nbuiten kijken.\"\n\nZij ging voor de open deur staan en keek den tuin rond, tusschen de\ntomato-boompjes en het doorn-appelkruid. Geen Tom. Daarna gebruikte\nzij hare handen als spreektrompet en schreeuwde: \"Ben je daar, Tom!\"\n\nWacht! daar hoort ze plotseling een licht gedruisch achter zich en\nzij keert zich om juist bijtijds om een jongen bij de panden van\nzijn buisje te vatten en hem het ontkomen te beletten. \"Wel, ik had\ner aan moeten denken dat je in de provisiekast zoudt zitten,\" zeide\nzij. \"Wat heb je daar gedaan?\"\n\n\"Niets, tante.\"\n\n\"Niets? Kijk eens naar je handen en je mond! Waarom kleven die zoo?\"\n\n\"Dat weet ik niet, tante.\"\n\n\"Nu, ik wel. Er zit gelei aan. Heb ik je niet honderdmaal gezegd,\ndat je voor de broek zoudt hebben, als je gelei snoepte. Geef mij\ndie roede eens aan.\"\n\nDe roede werd in de lucht gezwaaid en was op het punt on op den jongen\nneer te komen, toen hij uitriep:\n\n\"Tante, kijk eens achter u!\"\n\nDe oude dame draaide zich om en legde de roede neer om een partij\nhemden te redden, die zij op de haag te drogen had gehangen en die,\ndoor haar ijver om parate executie te houden, op den grond waren\ngevallen.\n\nDe jongen maakte van de gelegenheid gebruik om over de schutting te\nklauteren en was in een ommezien verdwenen.\n\nTante stond hem een oogenblik beteuterd na te kijken en barstte toen\nin lachen uit.\n\n\"Die duivelsche jongen! Zal ik dan nooit wijzer worden Het spreekwoord\nheeft gelijk: 'Hoe ouder, hoe gekker.' Een ouden hond kan men geen\nnieuwe kunsten leeren. Elken dag verzint de jongen iets anders; maar\nwie kan dat allemaal vooruit weten? 't Is alsof hij voelt hoe lang hij\nmij plagen kan v\u00f3\u00f3rdat ik kwaad word. En als ik dan eindelijk boos ben,\nbrengt hij mij een oogenblik van het onderwerp af of laat mij lachen,\nen voorbij is het; hij glijdt mij onder de vingers weg, voordat ik\nhem kan straffen. Ik doe mijn plicht niet aan dien jongen, zoo waar\nals ik leef. Staat er niet geschreven: 'Die de roede spaart, bederft\nhet kind.' Ik vergroot ons beider zonde en lijden. Hij is gansch en\nal bedorven. Maar, helaas het arme schaap is het eigen kind van mijne\nzuster zaliger ik kan het niet over mij verkrijgen hem te slaan. Ieder\nkeer, dat ik hem niet straf, klaagt mijn geweten mij aan en ieder\nkeer dat ik hem slaag geef, breekt mij het hart. Wat zal er van hem\nworden? Zoo zal hij voor galg en rad opgroeien? Hij zal van middag\nzeker weer gaan strijken en dan zal ik, om te straffen, hem morgen\nmoeten laten werken. 't Is vreeselijk hard om hem op Zaterdag aan\nden arbeid te zetten, als andere jongens vacantie hebben maar ik moet\nten minste mijn plicht doen, of ik zal het kind nog tot bederf worden.\"\n\nTom bleef uit school en had een prettigen middag. Hij kwam juist tijdig\ngenoeg tehuis, om Jim, den zwarten loopjongen, te helpen houtzagen en\nde blokjes voor het avondeten te hakken. Of liever hij kwam bijtijds,\nom Jim zijne avonturen te vertellen, terwijl deze drie vierden van\nhet werk deed. Toms jongere broeder (of eigenlijk stiefbroeder) Sid,\nwas al lang klaar met zijn werk van spaanders op te rapen; immers\nhij was een bedaarde jongen, die volstrekt niet van avonturen en\nwaaghalzerijen hield.\n\nOnder het eten deed tante haar neef, die af en toe stilletjes uit\nden suikerpot nam, allerlei listige, diepzinnige vragen, om hem er in\nte laten loopen. Gelijk vele andere eenvoudige lieden, beroemde zij\ner zich op, dat zij een aangeboren talent bezat voor geheimzinnige\ndiplomatie en beschouwde zij de meest alledaagsche kunstgrepen,\nwaarvan zij gebruik maakte, als wonderen van list en vindingrijkheid.\n\n\"Was 't niet warm op school?\" vroeg zij.\n\n\"Ja, tante.\"\n\n\"Schrikkelijk warm, niet waar?\"\n\n\"Ja, tante.\"\n\n\"Had je geen lust om te gaan zwemmen, Tom?\"\n\nTom begon lont te ruiken en trachtte tantes gelaat uit te vorschen\nmaar het bleef onwrikbaar in dezelfde plooi.\n\n\"Neen, tante,\" antwoordde hij, \"niet zoo bijzonder.\"\n\nDe oude dame strekte de hand uit, om te voelen of Toms overhemd ook\nnat was, en zeide:\n\n\"Je bent nu toch niet zoo bijzonder warm, Tom!\"\n\nZij was verbaasd over haar eigen slimheid; zij had op deze manier\nontdekt dat Toms overhemd droog was, zonder dat iemand vermoedde dat\nhet juist dat was, waar zij achter wilde komen. Maar Tom wist al uit\nwelken hoek de wind woei en dacht dat 't beste zou zijn de vraag te\nvoorkomen, die nu volgen zou.\n\n\"Wij hebben ons hoofd onder de pomp gehouden,\" zeide hij, \"en 't\nmijne is nog nat. Voel maar?\"\n\nTante Polly was boos op zich zelve, omdat zij aan die omstandigheid,\nwelke hem van de schuld had moeten overtuigen, niet gedacht had en\ndus niet bijdehand genoeg was geweest.\n\nMaar ze kreeg een nieuwe ingeving.\n\n\"Tom, je hebt toch het boordje, dat ik aan je hemd heb vastgenaaid,\nniet behoeven los te maken om je hoofd onder de pomp te houden. Wacht,\nontknoop je buis eens.\" Toms gezicht klaarde weer op. Hij ontknoopte\nzijn buis. Het boordje zat aan het hemd vast.\n\n\"Wel, loop dan maar heen. Ik dacht zeker, dat je van school waart gaan\nstrijken om te zwemmen. Doch ik zal je maar vergeven. 't Is met jou\ntoch maar boter aan de galg gesmeerd.\" Zij was half boos, dat hare\nscherpzinnigheid gefaald had, en half blij, dat Tom toevallig niet\nongehoorzaam bleek te zijn. Toen zeide Sidney:\n\n\"Tante, hebt u het boordje met wit of zwart garen genaaid?\"\n\n\"Wel, natuurlijk met wit.--Tom!\"\n\nMaar Tom wachtte de rest niet af. Eer hij de deur uitvloog, riep hij\nnog even:\n\n\"Je krijgt een pak slaag, Sid, voor het klikken.\"\n\nZoodra Tom buiten het bereik van zijne tante was, haalde hij twee\ngroote naalden voor den dag, de een met zwart en de andere met wit\ngaren omwonden, die hij aan den binnenkant van zijn buis had gestoken,\nen zeide:\n\n\"Ze zou het nooit gemerkt hebben als Sid het niet verklapt had. 't Is\neen drommelsch werk; nu eens naait ze met zwart en dan weder met wit\ngaren. Ik wou maar, dat ze zich bij het een of het andere bepaalde;\ndan wist ik waar ik mij aan te houden had. Maar Sid zal er voor lusten,\nof ik heet geen Tom Sawyer meer!\"\n\nTom was niet de modeljongen van het dorp. Hij wist echter best,\nwie dat _wel_ was en ook dat hij een geduchten hekel aan hem had.\n\nIn minder dan twee minuten had hij zijn verdriet vergeten. Niet\nomdat hij het minder voelde dan volwassenen, maar omdat iets anders,\ndat zijne belangstelling geheel innam, het onderdrukte en voor een\noogenblik uit zijne ziel verdreef. Dat andere was het aanleeren\nvan eene nieuwe manier van fluiten, die hij juist van een neger had\nafgezien en waarin hij zich thans ongestoord kon oefenen. Het was een\nsoort van zacht gekweel, dat aan het geluid van een vogel deed denken\nen voortgebracht werd door bij tusschenpoozen midden onder het fluiten\nmet de tong het verhemelte aan te raken. De lezer zal zich uit zijne\njongensjaren wel herinneren hoe men dat doet. Door vlijt en volharding\nkreeg hij het kunstje spoedig beet en stapte hij door de straten met\neen mond vol harmonie en een hart zoo vol dankbaarheid als dat van\neen sterrekundige, die eene nieuwe planeet ontdekt heeft. Wanneer men\nhet genot van den astronoom had kunnen vergelijken met dat van Tom,\nzou dat van den knaap het in onvermengdheid gewonnen hebben.\n\nHet was midden in den zomer en de avonden waren lang. De duisternis was\nnog niet ingevallen, toen Tom al fluitende zijn weg vervolgde. Een\nvreemdeling liep voor hem uit, een jongen, een paar duim langer\ndan hij zelf. Een vreemdeling, van welken leeftijd of sekse ook,\nwas eene merkwaardigheid in het kleine plaatsje St. Petersburg. Deze\njongen was mooi gekleed,--veel te mooi voor een weekdag. Dat was al\niets vreemds. Zijn pet was splinternieuw, zijn toegeknoopt blauw\nbuisje dito, zijn broek evenzoo. Hij had schoenen aan, en dat nog\nwel op Vrijdag! Zelfs had hij een mooie zijden das on! Hij zag er zoo\ndeftig uit, dat Tom er kippenvel van kreeg. Hij stond dit monster van\npracht aan te gapen, doch hoe langer hij zijn neus tegen hem optrok,\ndes te smeriger en te slordiger scheen hem zijn eigen plunje. Geen\nvan beiden sprak een woord. Als de een zich bewoog, deed de ander\nhetzelfde. Zij bleven elkander aanstaren, totdat Tom uitriep:\n\n\"Ik kan je wel aan.\"\n\n\"Probeer het dan eens.\"\n\n\"Zeker, ik kan wel, als ik maar wil.\"\n\n\"Dat kun je niet.\"\n\n\"Jawel.\"\n\n\"Neen.\"\n\n\"Ja.\"\n\n\"Neen.\"\n\nEr volgde eene onheilspellende stilte, waarna Tom zeide:\n\n\"Hoe heet je?\"\n\n\"Dat raakt je niet?\"\n\n\"Ik zal je leeren, dat het me wel raakt.\"\n\n\"Nu, doe het dan.\"\n\n\"Als je nog een woord spreekt, doe ik het.\"\n\n\"Nog een woord! Wat verbeeld jij je wel?\"\n\n\"Je vindt je eigen nogal mooi, niet waar? Ik zou je wel met \u00e9\u00e9ne hand\nop den grond kunnen krijgen, als ik het verkoos.\"\n\n\"Waarom doe je het dan niet. Je zegt altijd, dat je het kunt.\"\n\n\"Als je den gek met me steekt, doe ik het.\"\n\n\"O! dat heb ik wel honderd jongens hooren zeggen.\"\n\n\"Je denkt zeker, dat je een heele Piet bent.\"\n\n\"Wat een vieze pet heb jij op!\"\n\n\"Probeer eens, mij dien pet van het hoofd te nemen. Doe het eens!\"\n\n\"Je bent een lafaard.\"\n\n\"En jij ook.\"\n\n\"Je bent een groote lafaard en je durft me niet aan.\"\n\n\"Ga eens verder, als je durft,\"\n\n\"Als je nog meer praatjes maakt, zal ik je een slag op den kop geven.\"\n\n\"Wel zeker, zul je dat?\"\n\n\"Ja, dat zal ik.\"\n\n\"Waarom doe je het dan niet? Waarom zeg je altijd, dat je het doen\nzult. Is het, omdat je bang bent?\"\n\n\"Ik ben niet bang.\"\n\n\"Jawel.\"\n\n\"Neen.\"\n\n\"Jawel.\"\n\nWeder eene pauze. De jongens duwen gedurig meer tegen elkander aan. Zij\nstaan al schouder tegen schouder. Tom roept:\n\n\"Ga uit den weg!\"\n\n\"Ga jij uit den weg.\"\n\n\"Ik doe het niet.\"\n\n\"Ik doe het ook niet.\"\n\nZoo stonden zij beiden met \u00e9\u00e9n voet vooruit, elkander duwende dat\nhet een aard had. Maar geen van beiden kon den ander uit den weg\nkrijgen. Na tegen elkander aangebonsd en gestooten te hebben, totdat\nde zweetdroppels hun over het gezicht liepen, weken beiden voorzichtig\neen weinig achteruit en Tom zeide:\n\n\"Je bent een lafaard. Ik zal mijn oudsten broer eens op je afsturen;\ndie kan je wel met zijn pink aan en hij zal het doen ook.\"\n\n\"Wat kan mij je oudste broer schelen! Ik heb een broer, die nog\nveel grooter is dan die van jou, en die smijt jou vierkant over de\nschutting.\" (De twee broeders bestonden slechts in hunne verbeelding.)\n\n\"Dat is een leugen.\"\n\n\"Iets is nog geen leugen, omdat jij het blieft te zeggen.\"\n\nTom maakte eene streep in het zand met zijn grooten teen en zeide:\n\n\"Stap hier eens over en ik zal je een pak geven, dat je niet meer op\nje beenen staan kunt.\"\n\nDe nieuwe jongen stapte er dadelijk over en zeide:\n\n\"Nou, je zei dat je het doen zoudt; doe het dan ook.\"\n\n\"Sar me niet; pas op!\"\n\n\"Wel, je _zei_ dat je het doen zoudt. Waarom doe je 't dan niet?\"\n\n\"Sapperloot, ik doe het voor twee centen!\"\n\nDe nieuwe jongen haalde twee vuile centen uit zijn zak en bood die\nTom met een spottend gezicht aan.\n\nTom smeet de centen op den grond.\n\nIn een oogenblik rolden en buitelden de jongens in het stof en vochten\nals leeuwen; een minuut lang rukten en plukten zij elkaar, trokken\nelkaar bij het haar en de kleeren, stompten en krabden elkander en\noverdekten zich met modder en lauweren. Een oogenblik later kwam\ner orde uit de verwarring en Tom werd uit den damp van het slagveld\nzichtbaar, op den nieuwen jongen gezeten en een regen van vuistslagen\nop hem doende nederdalen.\n\n\"Is het nou genoeg?\" vroeg hij.\n\nDe jongen worstelde om van den grond op te komen. Hij schreeuwde meer\nuit woede dan van pijn.\n\n\"Is het nou genoeg?\" zeide Tom, en het kloppen ving weer aan. Eindelijk\nontsnapte den nieuwen jongen een onderdrukt \"genoeg,\" en Tom liet hem\nopstaan met de woorden: \"Dat is een goede les voor je, mannetje. Ik\nzou je raden een volgenden keer te kijken wien je voor hebt, eer je\nmet iemand den gek steekt.\"\n\nDe nieuwe jongen stond op, sloeg het stof van zijne kleederen, en\nliep snikkende weg, terwijl hij gedurig het hoofd omdraaide en Tom\ndreigde, dat hij hem een ander maal wel te pakken zou krijgen. Tom\nbeantwoordde de dreigementen met schimpscheuten en stapte voort met\nhooge borst. Hij had zijn rug echter nog niet gekeerd of de nieuwe\njongen nam een steen op, smeet hem dien achterna, raakte hem daarmede\ntusschen de schouders en rende toen weg, zoo snel als zijne beenen\nhem dragen konden. Tom zette den verrader na tot aan zijn huis en\nontdekte alzoo waar hij woonde. Een tijdlang bleef hij bij de deur\npost vatten, den vijand tartende buiten te komen, maar deze hield\nzich schuil achter het raam, waar hij tegen Tom gezichten stond\nte trekken. Eindelijk kwam de moeder van den vijand voor den dag,\ndie Tom voor een leelijken, gemeenen jongen uitschold en hem gelaste\nzijn biezen te pakken. Toen ging Tom heen en mompelde tusschen zijne\ntanden, dat de nieuwe jongen geen cent waard was.\n\nHij kwam vrij laat te huis, en toen hij voorzichtig het raam insprong,\nviel hij in eene hinderlaag, in de persoon van zijne tante, bij\nwie, toen zij den staat zag, waarin zijne kleederen verkeerden, het\nbesluit om zijn vrijen Zaterdag in een gevangenschap met dwangarbeid\nte veranderen, onherroepelijk vaststond.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK II.\n\n\nDe Zaterdagmorgen kwam; een heerlijke, warme zomerdag vol vroolijkheid\nen leven. Alle harten waren blijde gestemd en de jeugd uitte hare\nblijdschap in een opgewekt gezang. Genot was op elk gelaat te lezen\nen van veerkracht getuigde iedere stap.\n\nDe acacia's stonden in vollen bloei en de lucht was van den geur der\nbloesems vervuld.\n\nDe heuvels in en buiten St. Petersburg waren met een groen zomerkleed\ngetooid en zagen er zoo rustig en uitlokkend uit, dat hij die ze in\nde verte zag droomde van het land van belofte, overvloeiende van melk\nen honig.\n\nTom verscheen aan de deur met een emmer vol witkalk en een verf kwast\nmet een langen steel. Hij overzag de schutting die hij moest witten,\nen de vroolijkheid week uit zijn hart en eene diepe droefgeestigheid\ndaalde daarin neder. Dertig el schutting negen voet hoog! Ach, het\nleven was een last, zwaar om te dragen! Al zuchtende doopte hij zijn\nkwast in de kalk en maakte eene dikke streek; hij herhaalde het werk\nnog eens en nog eens, vergeleek het onbeteekenend streepje gewitte\nschutting met het groote veld, dat nog gewit moest worden, en zette\nzich ontmoedigd op een boomstam neder.\n\nDaar kwam Jim, een liedje zingende, met een emmer aan den arm, de deur\nuithuppelen. Water uit de stadspomp halen was tot nu toe in Toms oogen\neen hatelijk werk geweest, maar vandaag scheen het hem zoo heel naar\nniet. Immers hij wist, dat er menschen bij de pomp zouden zijn. Zij\nwas op sommige uren ongenaakbaar vanwege de jongens en meisjes van\nallerlei soort; blanken, kleurlingen en negers waren er altijd in\nmenigte, die, terwijl zij hun beurt afwachtten, zich met speelgoed\nverkwanselen, twisten, vechten en krijgertje spelen vermaakten. Vandaar\ndat, hoewel de pomp vlak bij was, Jim nooit binnen het uur terugkwam;\nen dan nog moest hij meestal gehaald worden.\n\nDaarom zei Tom: \"Zeg eens, Jim, zal ik water halen en jij witten?\"\n\nJim schudde het hoofd en zei:\n\n\"Dat kan niet, jongeheer. De oude juffer heeft me gezegd, dat ik water\nmoest halen en met niemand moest blijven staan praten. Zij zei ook,\ndat, als de jongeheer Tom me vroeg om te witten, ik net doen moest\nalsof ik het niet hoorde;--en dat ze zou komen zien of ik gedaan had,\nwat ze gezeid had.\"\n\n\"O, stoor je daar niet aan, Jim; dat zegt ze altijd. Geef den emmer:\nik ben binnen twee minuten terug. Zij zal het nooit te weten komen.\"\n\n\"Ik durf niet, jongeheer. Als de juffer het zag, zou ze me de haren\nuit het hoofd trekken.\"\n\n\"Zij? Ze slaat haast nooit,--en als ze het doet, is het alsof er een\nveer over je rug gaat. Zij heeft een grooten mond, maar praatjes\ndoen geen zeer. Jim, als je het doet, krijg je een knikker, een\nalbasten knikker.\"\n\nJim begon te weifelen.\n\n\"Een albasten knikker Jim, en een baas ook?\"\n\n\"Wel, het is verleidelijk, jongeheer, maar ik ben zoo bang voor de\noude juffer.\"\n\nDoch Jim was een mensch en de verleiding was te groot. Hij zette den\nemmer neder en nam den witten knikker. Een kwartier later, juist toen\ntante Polly met een pantoffel in de hand, een glans van triomf op het\ngelaat, uit den tuin kwam, hoorde men Jim luid klingelend den vollen\nemmer in de gang zetten en stond Tom weder dapper te witten.\n\nMaar die witwoede duurde niet lang. Tom verviel spoedig in gepeins\nover de pretjes, die hij zich van dezen Zaterdag had voorgesteld en\nzijn gemoed schoot vol. Thans zouden al de jongens, die vrijaf hadden,\nvol heerlijke plannen voorbijkomen en dan zouden zij hem uitlachen,\nomdat hij moest witten.\n\nDat was al te erg. Hij haalde zijne wereldsche schatten voor den dag,\nbekeek die en zag dat zij uit gebroken speelgoed en andere prullen\nbestonden. 't Was genoeg om zijn werk voor een paar minuten af te\nkoopen, maar veel te weinig om een half uur vrij te krijgen. Hij\nstak zijne bezittingen weer in den zak en gaf het denkbeeld, van\nte trachten met die voorwerpen de jongens om te koopen, op. In dit\nwanhopige oogenblik kreeg hij een schitterenden inval. Hij nam den\nkwast en werkte rustig voort. Daar kwam Ben Rogers in 't gezicht,\nde jongen wiens spot hij boven alles vreesde.\n\nBens tred was een aanhoudend huppelen en springen, een teeken dat\nzijn hart licht en zijne verwachtingen groot waren. Hij at een appel\nen deed nu en dan een lang liefelijk gefluit hooren, gevolgd door een\nzwaarklinkend: ding dong dong, ding dong dong. Immers hij stelde een\nstoomboot voor.\n\nNaarmate hij dichterbij kwam, vertraagde hij zijn stap, hield\nhet midden van de straat, leunde ver over stuurboord en begon\nzeer kunstig, met veel gewicht te laveeren, daar hij de stoomboot\n\"de groote Missouri\" vertoonde. Hij was tegelijk boot, kapitein en\nmachinebel en moest zich zelven dus verbeelden op het dek te staan,\ndaarop bevelen te geven en die ten uitvoer te brengen.\n\n\"Stop, mijnheer! Ling-ling-ling.\" De boot ging iets te\nspoedig vooruit en de knaap trok langzaam zijwaarts. \"Iets naar\nachteren! Ling-ling-ling!\" Toen liet hij zijn arm stijf langs de\nzijden glijden. \"Zet haar terug naar stuurboord! Ling-ling-ling,\nChow-ch-chow chow!\" Daarna begon hij met de rechterhand een cirkel te\nbeschrijven, welke beweging het draaien van een wiel verbeelde. \"Terug\nnaar bakboord. Ling-ling-ling! Chow-chow-ch!\" De linkerhand begon\ncirkels te beschrijven.\n\n\"Aan stuurboordszijde, stop! Ling-ling-ling! Aan\nbakboordszijde, stop! Laat maar langzaam\nbijdraaien! Ling-ling-ling! Chow-chow-ow! Gebruik de hoofdtouwen. Vlug,\nnu de boeglijn.--Wat doet ge daar? Wind den kabel on dien paal. Naar\nden steiger toe--vooruit! Machine stil! Ling-ling-ling!\" Tom ging\nvoort met witten en sloeg geen acht op de stoomboot. Ben staarde hem\neen oogenblik aan en zeide toen:\n\n\"Hi-hi! Je bent een ongelukkige stumperd!\"\n\nGeen antwoord. Tom bekeek de laatste streek van den witkwast met\nhet oog van een kunstenaar, maakte nog een keurig haaltje en zag,\nhoe dat voldeed. Ben ging naast hem staan. Tom watertandde bij het\ngezicht van den appel, doch hij witte ijverig door.\n\nBen zeide:\n\n\"Heila, oude jongen, je moet voor straf werken, he?\"\n\n\"Wel, Ben, ben jij daar? Ik zag je niet.\"\n\n\"Zeg, ik ga zwemmen. Zou jij ook niet willen, als je mocht? Maar jij\nmoet werken, niet waar?\"\n\nTom keek den jongen aan en zeide:\n\n\"Wat noem je werken?\"\n\n\"Wel, is dit geen werken?\"\n\nTom begon weer te witten en antwoordde koeltjes: \"Nu, het mag werken\nzijn of niet, wat ik weet, is, dat Tom Sawyer het dol prettig vindt.\"\n\nDaar kwam de zaak in een ander licht. Ben stond stil en beet op\nzijn appel. Tom streek met zijn kwast voorzichtig op en neer, ging\neen stap of wat achteruit, om te zien hoe zijn werk voldeed, maakte\neen haaltje hier en een haaltje daar, keek nog eens naar het effect,\nterwijl Ben elke beweging bespiedde en hoe langer hoe meer belang in\nden arbeid begon te stellen. Eindelijk zeide hij:\n\n\"Och, Tom, laat mij eens even witten.\"\n\nTom bedacht zich een oogenblik en was op het punt toe te geven, maar\nkwam even spoedig op dat voornemen terug. \"Neen, neen, dat zal niet\ngaan, Ben. Je moet weten, Ben, dat tante Polly verschrikkelijk precies\nis op die schutting; zij staat zoo vlak aan den weg, weet je.--Als\nhet nog achter was, zou ik er niet tegen hebben, en zou tante het wel\ngoedvinden. Zij is vreeselijk precies op het witten; het moet keurig\nnetjes gedaan worden, en ik geloof niet, dat er van de duizend, neen\nvan de tweeduizend jongens \u00e9\u00e9n is, die het doet zooals het behoort.\"\n\n\"Zoo, is het zoo moeilijk? Och toe, laat mij het eens probeeren;\neventjes maar! Ik had het jou al lang laten doen, als je het mij\ngevraagd had, Tom!\"\n\n\"Ben, ik zou het, op mijn woord dolgraag doen, maar tante Polly...--Jim\nvroeg het ook, maar zij wou het niet hebben; Sid ook, maar hij mocht\nevenmin. Begrijp je nu niet, dat ik er voor verantwoordelijk ben? Als\nje eens kladden op de schutting maakte, als er iets mee gebeurde....\"\n\n\"O, ik zal wel oppassen. Toe laat me het maar eens probeeren. Ik zal\nje het klokhuis van mijn appel geven.\"\n\n\"Nu, goed dan; neen, toch niet, Ben;--ik ben bang voor....\"\n\n\"Ik zal je den heelen appel geven.\"\n\nTom gaf den kwast met aarzelenden blik en een verheugd gemoed over. En\nterwijl de stoomboot \"de groote Missouri\" in de barre zon stond te\nwerken en te zweeten, zat de kunstenaar rustig in de schaduw op een\nbiervat zijn appel op te muizen en peinsde over nieuwe plannen om\nnog meer argeloozen in de val te lokken. De gelegenheid liet zich\nniet wachten. Verschillende jongens kwamen voorbij: zij kwamen om te\nspotten--en bleven om te witten. Toen Ben uitgeput van vermoeienis den\nkwast had neergelegd, werd de beurt aan Billy Fischer afgestaan voor\neen vlieger; en toen die gedaan had, kocht John Miller een beurt voor\neen dooden rat en een touw om hem aan te laten schommelen; en zoo ging\nhet, het eene uur voor en het andere na. En op het midden van den dag,\nbaadde de 's ochtends doodarme jongen zich in zijn rijkdom. Hij had\nbehalve de dingen, die ik vermeld heb, twaalf knikkers gekregen,\neen half kapot blaasinstrument, een stukje blauw glas om door te\nkijken, een garenspoeltje, een roestigen sleutel, een stukje krijt,\neen kurk met een glazen stop, een looden soldaat, een paar jonge\nkikvorschen, zes sissers, een koperen deurknop, het heft van een mes,\neen halsbandje voor een hond, vier chinaasappelschillen en een stukje\nglas. Hij had den ganschen dag lekkertjes geluierd en de schutting\nwas met drie duim witsel besmeerd! Als de kalk niet opgeraakt was,\nzou hij al zijne vrienden geru\u00efneerd hebben.\n\nTom dacht, dat het bij slot van rekening toch nog niet zoo heel\nvervelend op deze aarde was. Hij had onbewust een der voornaamste\nwetten, waardoor de menschenwereld geregeerd wordt, leeren kennen,\nnamelijk: dat om iemand op iets verzot te maken, men het slechts als\nzeer moeilijk verkrijgbaar behoeft voor te stellen. Ware hij een groot\nwijsgeer geweest, zooals de schrijver van dit boek, hij zou begrepen\nhebben, dat \"werken\" bestaat in hetgeen men verplicht is te doen en\n\"spelen\" in te doen wat men niet verplicht is te verrichten. En dat\nzou hem hebben doen vatten, waarom het maken van kunstbloemen of het\narbeiden op den tredmolen \"werken\" en waarom kegelen en het beklimmen\nvan den Mont Blanc \"uitspanning\" is.\n\nEr zijn rijke heeren in Engeland, die iederen dag twintig of dertig\nmijlen met een vierspan afrennen, omdat dit voorrecht hun een groote\nsom gelds kost. Wanneer zij echter voor datzelfde genot betaald werden,\nzou het \"werken\" worden en dan zouden zij het er aan geven.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK III.\n\n\nNa het volbrengen van zijn arbeid maakte Tom zijne opwachting bij\ntante Polly, die voor het raam zat in een vroolijk vertrek aan den\nachterkant, dat te gelijk als slaap-, eet- en zitkamer dienst deed. De\nlekkere zomerlucht, de kalme rust, de geur der bloemen en dommelig\ngegons der bijen waren niet zonder uitwerking op haar gebleven en zij\nzat over haar brijwerk te knikkebollen. Haar eenig gezelschap was de\nkat, en deze lag te slapen op haar schoot. Veiligheidshalve had zij\nhaar bril boven haar grijs hoofd gezet. Zij verwachte niet anders dan\ndat Tom lang van zijn werk zou zijn afgeloopen, en het verwonderde\nhaar derhalve ten hoogste hem op eens met een onverschrokken gelaat\nvoor haar te zien staan. Zijn eerste woord was: \"Mag ik nou gaan\nspelen, tante?\"\n\n\"Wat, nu al? Hoe ver ben je?\"\n\n\"Alles is klaar, tante.\"\n\n\"Tom, lieg niet! Leugenaars kan ik niet uitstaan.\"\n\n\"Het is geen leugen. Alles is klaar.\"\n\nTante Polly sloeg maar half geloof aan deze verzekering en ging naar\nbuiten om zelve te kijken. Zij zou reeds tevreden geweest zijn,\nindien twintig percent van Toms verklaring waarheid geweest ware,\nen toen zij nu de gansche schutting met witsel bestreken vond, en\nbestreken niet alleen, maar netjes en met zorg bewerkt, en zelfs den\ngrond met een streek kalk bedeeld, had zij geen woorden genoeg om\nhare bewondering lucht te geven en riep zij uit:\n\n\"Wel, heb ik ooit zoo iets gezien! 't Is ongeloofelijk. Jij kunt\nwerken, als je het op je heupen hebt, Tom!\" Doch meteen verkleinde zij\nde waarde van het compliment door er bij te voegen: \"'t Is jammer,\ndat dit zelden gebeurt. Kom, ga nu maar spelen, doch denk er aan,\ndat je bijtijds tehuis komt, of ik zal je spreken.\"\n\nToms heldenstuk had zulk een overweldigenden indruk op haar gemaakt,\ndat zij hem meenam naar de provisiekamer en een prachtigen appel\nuitkoos, dien ze hem overhandigde met een nuttige les over de waarde\nen den bijzonderen geur die eene lekkernij verkrijgt wanneer zij\nde vrucht is, niet van zonde, maar van naarstigheid. En terwijl zij\ntot slot eene toepasselijke plaats uit de Schrift aanhaalde, kaapte\nhaar neef een spekpannekoek. Toen liep hij vroolijk weg en zag juist\nSid verschrikt de trap ophollen, die naar de achterkamer op de tweede\nverdieping voerde. Voor de deur lag een hoop aarde en in een oogenblik\nwas de lucht vol kluiten, die als een hagelbui op Sid neervielen. Eer\ntante Polly van hare verbazing bekomen kon en haar neef hulp verleenen,\nwaren reeds een stuk af wat kluiten op haar eigen hoofd neergekomen en\nwas Tom over de schutting verdwenen. Hij had wel door de poort kunnen\ngaan, maar het ontbrak hem aan tijd om zulk een omweg te maken. Nu\nkon hij met een gerust hart gaan spelen, want de rekening met Sid\nover het klikken van het zwarte garen, was vereffend.\n\nTom hield den achterkant van de huizen, totdat hij in een modderig\nsteegje achter tantes koestal kwam. Toen achtte hij zich tegen\ngevangenneming en straf beveiligd en begaf zich naar het marktplein,\nwaar twee militaire compagnie\u00ebn van schooljongens, volgens afspraak,\nbijeen waren gekomen om slag te leveren. Tom was de generaal van\nhet eene leger en Joe Hasper (zijn boezemvriend) de aanvoerder van\nhet andere. De twee groote bevelhebbers verwaardigden zich niet\npersoonlijk aan dit gevecht deel te nemen, maar lieten dat aan de\nkleine bakvischjes over. Zij zetten zich naast elkander op eene hoogte\nneder, en leiden de krijgsverrichtingen door bevelen te geven, welke\ndoor veldmaarschalken werden overgebracht. Het leger van Tom behaalde\nna een langen en bangen strijd eene schitterende overwinning. Daarna\nwerd het aantal dooden geteld, de gevangenen uitgeleverd, de bepalingen\nvoor het volgende geschil gemaakt en den dag voor den vereischten\nveldslag bepaald, waarna de beide legers zich met elkander vereenigden\nen afmarcheerden, terwijl Tom alleen naar huis ging.\n\nToen hij het huis van Jeff Thatcher voorbij stapte, zag hij daar\neen hem onbekend meisje in den tuin,--een lief, klein ding met\nblauwe oogen, blond, in twee lange vlechten gescheiden haar, een wit\nzomerjurkje en een geborduurde pantalon. In een oogenblik verdween\neene zekere Amy Laurence uit zijn hart en was alsof die nooit had\nbestaan. Hij had zich verbeeld dat hij halfgek van verliefdheid op\nhaar was, hij had gedacht dat hij haar aanbad, en zie, het bleek niets\ndan eene kleine, voorbijgaande ingenomenheid geweest te zijn. Maanden\nlang had hij zijn best gedaan om haar hart te winnen en zij had hem\njuist acht dagen geleden bekend, dat zij hem wederliefde schonk. Een\nweek lang was hij dronken van geluk en de wereld te rijk geweest,\nen nu was zij heel uit zijne gedachten verdwenen, als het vluchtig\nbezoek van een ons onverschilligen vreemde. Hij bleef zijn nieuwe\nengel in stilte aanbidden, totdat hij bemerkte, dat zij hem in 't oog\nkreeg. Toen deed hij alsof hij haar niet zag en begon allerlei dwaze\nkunsten en grimassen te maken om haar aandacht te trekken. Na die\nzonderlinge grappen een tijdlang volgehouden te hebben, keek hij te\nmidden van eene gymnastische oefening toevallig op zijde en zag dat\nhet meisje naar huis ging. Dadelijk hield hij op, liep naar de haag\nen ging met een bedrukt gezicht voor de stekelige doornen staan, in\nde hoop dat zij nog even zou toeven. Een oogenblik bleef zij op het\nbordes staan en ging daarop naar de deur. Toen zij den voet op den\ndrempel zette slaakte Tom een diepen zucht, maar zijn gelaat klaarde\nterstond weer op, want eer zij de deur inging, wierp zij een viooltje\nover de haag. Tom liep naar de plek waar het viooltje lag, bleef op\neen paar treden afstand van het bloempje staan en hield toen de hand\nvoor de oogen, alsof hij iets heel bijzonders op straat zag. Hij\nraapte een stroohalm op en deed dien, met het hoofd achterover op\nzijn neus balanceeren. Onder die beweging naderde hij langzamerhand\nhet viooltje; eindelijk rustte zijn bloote voet op het bloempje;\nzijne buigzame teenen maakten er zich meester van, hij hinkte met\nzijn schat weg en verdween om den hoek van de straat. Voor een minuut\nslechts,--alleen maar om zich den tijd te gunnen de bloem onder zijn\nbuis op zijn hart of waarschijnlijk op zijne maag te steken.\n\nZoodra de bloem veilig geborgen was, keerde hij terug en bleef tot het\nvallen van den avond om den tuin hangen en kunsten maken; maar het\nmeisje vertoonde zich niet meer en Tom moest zich tevredenstellen\nmet de hoop, dat zij wel ergens voor een venster staan en zijne\noplettendheden voor haar zou bemerken. Eindelijk ging hij met looden\nschoenen huiswaarts.\n\nOnder het avondeten was hij zoo opgewonden, dat tante zich verwonderde\nwat het kind toch zou hebben. Hij kreeg een verbazend standje over\nhet gooien met de aardkluiten, doch scheen er niets om te geven. Toen\nhij trachtte de suiker onder den neus van zijne tante weg te halen,\nliet hij zich bedaard op de vingers tikken, zich slechts de vraag\nveroorlovende:\n\n\"Waarom wordt Sid nooit geslagen, als hij suiker snoept?\"\n\nWaarop het antwoord volgde: \"Omdat Sid een mensch niet zoo plaagt\nals jij. Als ik je niet voortdurend strafte, zou je altijd met je\nvingers in den pot zitten.\"\n\nToen ging tante naar de keuken, en Sid, zalig in het bewustzijn\nvan zijne onschendbaarheid, greep naar de suikerpot, eene wijze\nvan zich tegenover Tom op zijne rechten te verhoovaardigen, die ten\neenen male onuitstaanbaar was. Maar de vingers gleden uit, de pot\nviel op den grond en brak. Tom was boven de wolken van pleizier,--ja,\nzoo verrukt, dat hij zijn tong in toom hield en geen woord sprak. Hij\noverlegde bij zichzelven, dat hij geen mond open zou doen, zelfs niet\nals tante binnenkwam, maar doodstil blijven zitten, totdat zij vroeg\nwie het gedaan had. En dan zou hij het vertellen en hij zou iets\nzien dat hij nooit had gezien, namelijk, dat de modeljongen slaag\nkreeg. In zijne opgetogenheid kon hij zich nauwelijks inhouden, toen\nde oude dame binnenkwam en met bliksemende oogen over haar bril op\nde verwoesting neerzag. \"Ha!\" dacht hij, \"nu komt het,\" maar, jawel,\nhet volgende oogenblik lag hij zelf op den grond te spartelen.\n\nDe machtige arm werd opgeheven om weder te slaan, toen Tom uitriep:\n\n\"Houd op! Waarom moet ik geslagen worden? Sid heeft het gedaan.\"\n\nSprakeloos van ontzetting liet tante Polly den arm neervallen, en\nTom keek haar aan om een woord van mededoogen op te vangen.\n\nHelaas! zoodra zij weder tot adem kwam, zeide zij:\n\n\"Nu, je hebt toch niet onverdiend slaag gehad; al braakt ge den pot\nniet, dan heb je toch zeker ander kattekwaad, uitgevoerd, terwijl ik\nin de keuken was.\"\n\nDoch nauwelijks had zij dit gezegd, of daar begon haar geweten te\nspreken en zij brandde van verlangen om Tom een vriendelijk woordje\ntoe te voegen. Maar, neen, dat kon als een bekentenis van schuld\nbeschouwd worden, en zoo iets zou met alle beginselen van orde en\ntucht in strijd geweest zijn. Daarom hield zij zich stil en ging\nmet een onrustig hart aan het werk. Tom zette zich in een hoek van\nde kamer en vermeide zich in zijne droefheid. Hij wist, dat tante in\nhaar hart wel voor hem op de knie\u00ebn zou willen vallen en voelde zich,\nal snikkende, eigenlijk door de overtuiging gestreeld. Toch wilde\nhij geene signalen geven, noch evenmin op die van tante acht slaan.\n\nHij wist, dat er nu en dan, door een nevel van tranen, smeekende\nblikken op hem geworpen werden, maar hij hield zich alsof hij dat niet\nbemerkte. In zijne verbeelding zag hij zich als doodziek te bed liggen\nen tante over hem heengebogen, om een woord van vergiffenis smeekende;\nmaar hij lag daar, met het hoofd naar den muur gekeerd en stierf zonder\ndat dit woord gesproken werd. Hoe zou zij zich dan wel voelen? En\nhij verbeeldde zich, dat hij uit de rivier opgehaald en dood te huis\nwerd gebracht met druipnatte haren en handen die zich niet meer roeren\nkonden en een hart dat niet meer klopte, zag hoe zij zich op hem wierp,\nin tranen baadde en God smeekte haar haren jongen terug te geven,\ndien zij nooit, nooit meer valsch zou beschuldigen. Doch hij lag daar\nkoud en bleek neder, zonder een teeken van leven te geven--hij, de arme\nlijder wiens smarten nu geleden waren. Langzamerhand verdiepte hij zich\nzoozeer in deze sombere gedachten, dat hij een brok in zijn keel voelde\nen nauwelijks kon slikken. En zijne oogen zwommen in een stroom van\nwater, die bij elken snik overvloeide en langs zijn neus naar beneden\ndruppelde. Ja, het genot van zijn smart te koesteren werd zoo groot,\ndat hij het door geen wereldsche vreugde of luide vroolijkheid wilde\nlaten verstoren. Toen dan ook zijn nicht Marie dansende de kamer\ninkwam, opgetogen van blijdschap dat zij weer te huis was na een\neeuwenlange week buiten te hebben doorgebracht, stond hij op en stapte\nin wolken en duisternis de achterdeur uit, terwijl zij vroolijkheid\nen zonneschijn door de voordeur binnenliet. Hij verwijderde zich ver\nvan de gewone vereenigingsplaatsen zijner makkers en zocht eenzame\nplekjes op, in overeenkomst met zijne gemoedsstemming. Op een in\nde rivier liggend stuk van een houtvlot zette hij zich neder en\nbeschouwde den somberen, onafzienbaren stroom, met het verlangen van\nop eens door dezen verzwolgen te worden, zonder den onaangenamen weg\nte gaan die door de natuur wordt voorgeschreven. Toen dacht hij aan\nzijn bloem! Hij haalde haar voor den dag. Helaas! zij was verkwijnd\nen verlept, en zijne droefheid werd nog grooter. Hij vroeg zich af:\nZou _zij_ medelijden met hem hebben, indien zij het wist? Zou _zij_\nschreien en wenschen, dat zij hare armen om zijn hals mocht slaan\nom hem te te troosten? Of zou ook _zij_, evenals de geheele valsche\nwereld hem den rug toekeeren? Deze gedachte was zoo folterend en toch\nzoo zalig te gelijk, dat hij haar op allerlei wijzen ging uitwerken,\ntotdat zij op het laatst een akelig schrikbeeld werd. Eindelijk stond\nhij zuchtende op en wandelde in de duisternis voort. Tegen half\ntien liep hij in de verlaten straat, waar de aangebeden onbekende\nwoonde. Hij bleef een oogenblik stilstaan; zijn luisterend oor vernam\ngeen geluid. Een kaars wierp een bijzonderen glans op de gordijnen van\nhet venster eener bovenkamer. Zou de heilige daar verblijf houden? Hij\nklauterde de heg over, baande zich een weg door de planten, totdat hij\nonder het verlichte venster stond. Een poos bleef hij diep ontroerd\nstaan kijken; toen ging hij op den grond op zijn rug liggen, met de\nhanden, waarin het verlepte bloempje verborgen was, gevouwen op de\nborst. Dus wilde hij sterven, de koude wereld verlaten, zonder dak\nboven zijn arm hoofd, zonder vriendelijke hand om het doodzweet van\nzijn voorhoofd te wisschen, zonder een liefhebbend gelaat om zich vol\nmedelijden tot hem voorover te buigen, wanneer de bange doodsstrijd\nkwam. En zoo zou _zij_ hem zien, als zij in den vroolijken morgen\nnaar buiten keek. En o! zou zij een traan op zijn arm lijk laten\nvallen? Zou zij een zucht slaken, als zij zulk een jong leven zoo\nruw verwoest en zoo ontijdig afgesneden zag?\n\nDaar ging het raam open, de schrille stem van eene dienstmeid\nontheiligde de plechtige stilte en een stortbad van ijskoud water\ndoorweekte den martelaar, die daar achterover op den grond lag.\n\nOnze half gesmoorde held sprong op met een kreet, die hem\nverlichtte. Toen kwam er een gesuis in de lucht als van een\nslingersteen, vermengd met het mompelen van een vloek, waarop een\ngeluid volgde als van rinkelend glas en van voetstappen, die over\nden muur klommen en in de duisternis wegstierven.\n\nNiet lang daarna, toen Tom ontkleed, bij een eindje vetkaars, zijn\ndoorweekt pak stond te bekijken, werd Sid wakker.\n\nIndien het denkbeeld om te klikken een oogenblik in zijne ziel opkwam,\nwerd hij daarvan door een onheilspellende uitdrukking op Toms gelaat\nteruggehouden.\n\nDeze laatste stapte in bed zonder zijn gewoon avondgebed op te zeggen,\nen Sid maakte in stilte proces-verbaal op van dat verzuim.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK IV.\n\n\nDe zon ging op over een rustende wereld en wierp hare weldadige stralen\nover het vreedzame stedeke St. Petersburg. 's Zondags na het ontbijt\nwas tante Polly gewoon huiselijke godsdienstoefening te houden. Deze\nbegon met een gebed, bestaande uit een reeks bijbelplaatsen, bedekt\nmet een dunne laag woorden van eigen vinding, en eindigde met een\nvan grimmigheid overvloeiend hoofdstuk uit de Moza\u00efsche wetgeving.\n\nNa afloop daarvan omgordde Tom, om zoo te spreken, zich de lendenen\nen ging aan het werk om zijne teksten in het hoofd te krijgen. Sid\nhad zijne les dagen vooruit geleerd, maar Tom moest al zijn krachten\ninspannen om vijf verzen te onthouden ofschoon hij een gedeelte\nvan de Bergrede gekozen had, daar hij geene teksten kon vinden die\nkorter waren.\n\nEen half uur had Tom een vaag begrip van het geheel, maar meer niet,\nwant zijn geest zwierf over het gansche veld der menschelijke gedachten\nen zijne handen hielden zich tot afleiding met allerlei vermakelijke\nkunstjes bezig.\n\nMarie nam het boek om de les te overhooren en hij trachtte den weg\ndoor den zwaren mist te vinden.\n\n\"Zalig zijn de ar-r.... ar....\"\n\n\"Armen.\"\n\n\"Ja- de ar-remen; zalig zijn de ar-remen.\"\n\n\"Van geest.\"\n\n\"Van geest. Zalig zijn de armen van geest, want zij... zij...\"\n\n\"Want hunner...\"\n\n\"Want hunner. Zalig zijn de armen van geest want hunner... is het\nkoninkrijk der hemelen! Zalig zijn zij die treuren, want zij....\"\n\n\"Zij...?\"\n\n\"Zul...\"\n\n\"Want zij zul...\"\n\n\"Z-u-l-l-e-n. Want zij zul... O, ik weet niet wat zij zullen!\"\n\n\"Zullen...\"\n\n\"O ja, zullen--zij zullen--zij zullen treuren; zalig zijn zij--die\ntreuren, want zij zullen... Wat zullen zij? Waarom zeg je het mij niet,\nMarie? Het is gemeen om me zoo te plagen!\"\n\n\"Tom, arme jongen, ik plaag je niet. Ik zou het niet over mijn hart\nkunnen krijgen. Probeer het nog eens. Geef den moed niet op; je zult\nhet wel leeren,--en als je het doet, krijg je iets moois van mij. Zoo;\nnu is het goed, mijn jongen.\"\n\n\"Ik zal het doen, maar zeg mij dan eerst wat het is, Marie.\"\n\n\"Neen, Tom. Je weet als ik zeg dat het mooi is, dan is het mooi.\"\n\n\"Op je woord van eer Marie. Goed, dan zal ik het er wel zien in\nte pompen.\"\n\nHij ging aan het werk, en door nieuwsgierigheid en het vooruitzicht\nvan eene belooning geprikkeld, stampte hij de teksten in zijn geheugen\nen eindigde met een schitterende overwinning te behalen. Marie gaf hem\neen splinternieuw mes van twaalf en een halven cent, en Tom was boven\nde wolken van vreugde. Het is waar, het mes sneed eigenlijk niet,\nmaar het was van echt staal en dat was al iets buitengewoons. Hij\nmaakte dadelijk een plan om het buffet door snijwerk te verfraaien\nen wilde juist zijne krachten op de etenskast beproeven, toen hij\ngeroepen werd om zich voor de zondagsschool te kleeden.\n\nMarie gaf hem een tinnen kom met water en een stuk zeep, welke\nvoorwerpen hij buiten de deur op een bank zette. Toen maakte hij de\nzeep nat en legde die naast de kom; stroopte zijne mouwen op, stortte\nhet water zachtjes op den grond uit, trad daarop de keuken binnen en\nbegon ijverig zijn gezicht met een handdoek die achter de deur hing,\naf te drogen. Doch Marie nam den handdoek weg en zeide:\n\n\"Schaam je je niet, Tom? Wees toch niet zoo stout. Water zal je geen\nkwaad doen.\"\n\nTom was een weinig uit het veld geslagen. De kom werd weder gevuld,\nde knaap bedacht zich een oogenblikje, slaakte een diepen zucht en\nbegon. Toen hij nu de keuken weder binnentrad en met toegeknepen oogen\nnaar den handdoek rondtaste, droop er een eervol getuigschrift van\nzeepsop en water over zijn gezicht. Maar bij nauwkeurige bezichtiging,\nbleek de staat van zaken nog niet bevredigd te zijn, want het\ngereinigde grondgebied hield, als een masker, bij de kin en wangen op;\nbuiten en onder die lijn was eene donkere uitgestrektheid onbesproeide\ngrond, die zich voor en achter zijn hals uitbreidde. Marie nam hem\nonder handen en binnen een kwartier was hij een mensch uit \u00e9\u00e9n stuk,\nzonder verschil van kleur en zijn doorweekt haar was keurig geborsteld\nen in kleine evenredige krullen opgemaakt. In het geheim streek hij\naltijd met moeite en inspanning de krullen glad en plakte hij zijn\nhaar aan zijne slapen vast, want krullen waren meisjesachtig en dat\nwas genoeg om ze te haten. Daarna haalde Marie een pak kleeren voor den\ndag, dat gedurende de laatste twee jaren alleen op zondag gedragen was;\nhet werd eenvoudige zijn \"andere pak\" genoemd; uit welke benaming wij\ntot den omvang van zijn garderobe kunnen besluiten. Toen hij het pak\nhad aangetrokken, legde het meisje de laatste hand aan zijn toilet;\nzij knoopte zijn buisje tot onder de kin vast, sloeg hem een groote\nhalskraag over de schouders, schuierde hem af en kroonde hem met een\ngesprikkelden strooien hoed. Hij hoopte, dat Marie zijne schoenen zou\nvergeten, doch die hoop werd verijdeld; zij poetste ze naar behooren\nen zette ze voor hem neder. Dit verdroot hem en hij beklaagde zich\nover zijn gebrek aan vrijheid. Doch Marie antwoordde overredend:\n\n\"Als je blieft, Tom; kom, wees een goede jongen.\"\n\nEn zoo stapt hij brommend in zijne schoenen. Marie was spoedig klaar\nen de kinderen vertrokken naar de zondagsschool, eene plaats die Tom\nhaatte met zijn gansche hart, maar waar Sid en Marie dol op waren.\n\nDie sabbatsschool duurde van negenen tot halfelf en dan begon de\nkerk. Marie en Sid bleven altijd vrijwillig naar de preek luisteren,\nTom alleen, omdat het hem van hooger hand gelast werd. De kerk was een\nklein, onaanzienlijk gebouw, met eene soort van koepel van sparrenhout\nen op de hooge, harde banken was voor omstreeks driehonderd personen\nplaats. Aan de deur bleef Tom een stap of wat achter en hield een\nkeurig gekleeden jongen staande.\n\n\"Zeg eens, Willem, heb jij ook een geel kaartje?\"\n\n\"Ja.\"\n\n\"Wat moet je daarvoor hebben?\"\n\n\"Wat geef je er voor?\"\n\n\"En stuk zoethout en een vischhaak.\"\n\n\"Laat kijken.\"\n\nTom vertoonde die twee artikelen; zij werden goed bevonden en de\ngoederen veranderden van eigenaar. Daarna verkocht Tom een paar\nalbasten knikkers voor drie roode kaartjes en een paar andere prullen\nvoor blauwe. Bijna al de jongens, die voorbijkwamen werden aangeklampt\nen het koopen en verkoopen van kaartjes van verschillende kleuren\nwerd nog een kwartier voortgezet. Toen ging hij de kerk binnen met een\ntroep andere schoon gewasschen, luidruchtige knapen en meisjes, begaf\nzich naar zijne zitplaats en maakte een standje met den jongen, die\nnaast hem zat. De onderwijzer, een deftig oud heer, kwam tusschenbeide,\nmaar zoodra hij zijn rug gekeerd had, trok Tom een jongen die voor hem\nzat bij het haar en was in zijn boek verdiept, toen het slachtoffer\nomkeek. Een seconde later prikte hij een anderen jongen met een speld,\nom hem \"ai\" te hooren zeggen en haalde zich daardoor andermaal eene\nberisping op den hals. De geheele klasse van Tom waren vogels van\neenerlei veeren,--woelige, drukke, lastige snaken. Toen zij hunne\nles moesten opzeggen, was er geen enkele, die zijne verzen volkomen\nkende, maar door voorzeggen en influisteren brachten zij het allen\ngelukkig zoo ver, dat zij eenige kleine, blauwe kaartjes machtig\nwerden, waarop een bijbeltekst geschreven stond. Het opzeggen van\ntwee teksten werd met een blauw kaartje beloond, tien blauwe kaartjes\nstonden gelijk met \u00e9\u00e9n rood en mochten daartegen geruild worden. Tien\nroode kaartjes stonden weder gelijk met \u00e9\u00e9n geel, en een leerling,\ndie tien gele kaartjes had, kreeg van den catechiseermeester een\nzeer eenvoudig ingebonden bijbeltje, dat in die goedkoope tijden de\nwaarde had van veertig cents. Ik twijfel of er onder mijne lezers\nvelen zullen zijn, die moed en volharding zouden hebben on twee\nduizend verzen van buiten te leeren, zelfs indien zij met een bijbel\nvan Dor\u00e9 beloond werden. En toch had Marie op deze wijs twee bijbels\nverdiend. Maar 't was een geduldwerk geweest, dat twee jaren gekost\nhad. Een Duitsche jongen had er vier of vijf gewonnen; deze had eens\ndrie duizend verzen achter elkander opgezegd, doch zijn geestvermogens\nhadden onder dat inspannend werk zoo geleden, dat hij van dien dag\naf idioot was geworden. 't Was een groot verlies voor de school,\nwant bij plechtige gelegenheden placht de catechiseermeester hem\naltijd te gebruiken om mede te bluffen, zooals Tom zeide.\n\nDoorgaans waren het alleen de oudere leerlingen, die in het bezit\nvan gele kaartjes kwamen en het vervelende werk volhielden, totdat\nzij een bijbel veroverd hadden. Vandaar dat de uitdeeling van eene\ndergelijken prijs eene zeldzame merkwaardige gebeurtenis was, en\nhij die dat monsterwerk verricht had, was de held van den dag. Deze\nreuzenarbeid deed doorgaans een nieuw vuur van ijver in de borst van de\nleerlingen ontbranden, dat niet zelden een week of wat aanhield. Het\nis zeer wel mogelijk dat Toms verstandelijke vermogens nooit naar\nden prijs gehongerd of gedorst hadden, maar de wereldlijke mensch in\nhem had ontegenzeglijk sedert geruimen tijd verlangend uitgezien naar\nden roem en den luister, waarvan de uitdeeling vergezeld ging.\n\nOp den daartoe bestemden tijd stond de catechiseermeester op en ging\nvoor den predikstoel staan met een gesloten gezangboek in de hand, de\nwijsvinger tusschen de bladen verborgen, en verzocht om stilte. Als\neen catechiseermeester zijne gewone aanspraak op de zondagsschool\nhoudt, is het gezangboek voor hem een even onmisbaar artikel als het\nblad muziek voor den zanger, die een solo op het orkest moet zingen,\nofschoon noch het gezangboek noch het blad muziek wordt geraadpleegd.\n\nOnze catechiseermeester was een klein, nietig mannetje van vijf\nen dertig jaren, met borstelig, zandkleurig bokkenhaar; hij droeg\neen staand boord, waarvan de bovenste rand bijna tot aan zijne\nooren reikte, en welks scherpe punten boven de hoeken van zijn mond\nuitkwamen,--een schutsmuur die hem dwong altijd rechtuit te kijken,\nof wanneer een zijdelingsche blik vereischt werd, het geheele lichaam\nom te wenden. Zijn kin werd geschraagd door een breede, zich over\nhet gansche boord uitstrekkende das, welks tippen van franje waren\nvoorzien. De voorstukken van zijne schoenen liepen, naar het gebruik\nvan dien tijd, puntsgewijs, in den vorm van een slede, naar boven, eene\nmode die de toenmalige jongelieden trachten te volgen, door geduldig\nen volhardend met hunne voeten stijf tegen den muur te gaan zitten.\n\nDe heer Walter had een ernstig gelaat en een hart als goud. Hij\nkoesterde zulk een diepen eerbied voor gewijde dingen en plaatsen, en\nhield die zoo zorgvuldig van wereldsche zaken gescheiden, dat zonder\ndat hij het bemerkt had, zijne zondagsschoolstem een bijzondere klank\nhad gekregen, welke op weekdagen geheel ontbrak.\n\n\"Kinderen,\" dus begon hij, \"mag ik u verzoeken zoo recht en netjes\nte gaan zitten als gij kunt, en mij voor een paar minuten uwe geheele\naandacht te schenken. Dus betaamt het aan brave jongens en meisjes. Ik\nzie een klein meisje uit het raam kijken; ik vrees dat zij denkt dat ik\nbuiten sta,--misschien wel op een van die boomen, om een praatje met\nde vogeltjes te houden (toejuichend gegiegel). Het doet mij waarlijk\ngoed, zoovele heldere, vriendelijke gezichtjes op eene plaats als\ndeze bijeen te zien on te leeren wat braaf en goed is.\"\n\nEn in dien geest ging het voort. Het zal niet noodig zijn er meer bij\nte voegen, want de redevoering liep over een onderwerp, waarin weinig\nverscheidenheid is en dat wij allen honderd malen gehoord hebben.\n\nHet laatste gedeelte der speech viel in het water door het\nhervatten der gevechten en andere vermakelijkheden onder sommigen\nder ondeugendste jongens en door een zich wijd en zijd verspreidend\ngefluister en gedraai, dat zelfs doordrong tot aan den voet van\nongenaakbare rotsen als Marie en Sid. Doch zoodra Mr. Walter's stem\nhare diepste tonen liet hooren, hield elk geluid eensklaps op en het\neind der rede werd dankbaar, maar zwijgend begroet.\n\nDit gefluister had zijne oorzaak te danken aan een min of meer\nmerkwaardig feit, het binnentreden van bezoekers. Deze waren de rechter\nThatcher, vergezeld van drie andere personen, t. w. een stumperig\noud mannetje, een zwaarlijvigen heer van middelbaren leeftijd met\ngrijsachtig haar, en eene deftige dame, blijkbaar de echtgenoote van\nden dikken heer. De dame hield een klein kind bij de hand.\n\nTom was den ganschen morgen onrustig en ontevreden op zichzelven\ngeweest en hij werd, telkens wanneer hij Amy Lawrence's oog ontmoette,\nof haar van liefde getuigenden blik opving, door gewetenswroegingen\ngekweld. Maar toen hij het meisje aan de hand der dame zag, klopte\nzijn hart op eens van gelukzaligheid. In een oogenblik was hij met\nal zijne macht aan het uitdeelen van klappen, plukharen, gezichten\ntrekken, in \u00e9\u00e9n woord, aan het gebruiken van die kunstgrepen, welke\nhem geschikt voorkwamen om een meisje te bekoren en hare toejuiching\nte winnen. En de reden van die opgetogenheid was--de herinnering aan\nde vernedering in den tuin van zijn engel ondervonden.\n\nDe bezoekers kregen de eereplaats, en zoodra de heer Walter\nge\u00ebindigd had, stelde hij hen aan het schoolpersoneel voor. De man\nvan middelbaren leeftijd bleek een zeer gewichtig persoon te zijn,\nniet minder dan een raadsheer,--in het kinderoog het meest verheven\nwezen, dat ooit heeft bestaan. Zij waren dan ook meer dan verlangend\nom te weten van wat voor stof hij gemaakt was en zaten half hoopvol,\nhalf angstig te luisteren of zij hem ook zouden hooren brullen. Hij\nkwam van Konstantinopel,--zeer ver van St. Petersburg; hij had dus\ngereisd en de wereld gezien, ja; zijne oogen hadden het rechtsgebouw\nder hoofdplaats aanschouwd, dat--zeide men--een koperen dak had.\n\nDe doodelijke stilte en de rijen van starende oogen waren getuigen van\nhet ontzag, dat dit denkbeeld inboezemde. Hij was de groote raadsheer\nThatcher, de eigen broeder van hun rechter. Jeff Thatcher stond\ndadelijk op om op gemeenzamen toon met den grooten man te spreken en\ndoor de gansche school benijd te worden. Het zou als muziek in zijne\nooren geklonken hebben, indien hij het gefluister had kunnen verstaan.\n\n\"Kijk eens, Jim! hij gaat naar hem toe! Kijk eens, hij geeft hem eene\nhand, een _hand_! Wou jij niet, dat je Jeff was?\"\n\nIntusschen was het geheele personeel bezig zijn best te doen, om\nin een voordeelig licht te treden. De heer Walter trachtte \"uit\nte komen\" door het verrichten van allerlei soort van luidruchtige\nambtsbezigheden, door orders te geven hier, straffen op te leggen\ndaar, en terechtwijzingen uit te deelen, waar de gelegenheid zich\nmaar voordeed. De bibliothecaris trachtte \"uit te komen\" door met\nonmogelijke pakken boeken van het eene einde van het lokaal naar het\nandere te loopen en door dat rumoer en die opschudding te maken, waarin\nzulke lieden behagen scheppen. De leeraressen trachtten \"uit te komen\"\ndoor zich vriendelijk tot de leerlingen voorover te buigen, die zij een\noogenblik te voren een oorveeg gegeven hadden, en door coquet kleine\nvingertjes tegen stoute jongens op te heffen en de zoeten vriendelijk\nop de schouders te kloppen. De ondermeesters trachtten \"uit te komen\"\ndoor zachte vermaningen uit te deelen en door ander gezagsvertoon,\ndat blijk moest geven van hun slag om de orde te handhaven. De kleine\njongens en meisjes trachten \"uit te komen\" door de lucht met proppen\npapier en het geluid van schuifende voeten te vervullen. En boven\ndit alles zat de groote man en liet een raadsheerlijken glimlach over\nde geheele school gaan en koesterde zich in den zonneschijn van zijn\neigen grootheid, want ook hij trachtte \"uit te komen.\"\n\nEr ontbrak nog slechts \u00e9\u00e9n ding, om des heeren Walters verrukking\ntot haar hoogste volkomenheid te brengen--en dat was de kans om een\nbijbelprijs uit te deelen en een wonder te vertoonen. Verscheidene\nleerlingen bezaten een paar gele kaartjes, maar geen enkele had er\ngenoeg; hij was reeds bij de wonderkinderen onder zijn leerlingen rond\ngeweest en zou goud gegeven hebben om den Duitschen jongen eventjes\nmet gezonde hersenen terug te hebben.\n\nJuist op dit op ogenblik, toen alle hoop hem dreigde te ontvlieden,\nkwam Tom Sawyer uit de bank met negen gele, negen roode en tien blauwe\nkaartjes en verzocht om den bijbel.\n\nDit was een donderslag uit een onbewolkten hemel! Uit dien hoek zou\nWalter in geen tien jaar dergelijk blijk van naastigheid verwacht\nhebben. Maar er was niets aan te doen;--daar lagen de bewijzen en\nzij waren echt. Aan Tom werd daarom eene eereplaats aangewezen in\nde nabijheid van den Raadsheer en de andere uitverkorenen, en het\ngroote nieuws werd in de hoofdkwartieren verspreid. Het was eene\nverbazende verrassing, en de held werd tot des Raadsheers hoogte\nverheven, zoodat de school in plaats van \u00e9\u00e9n wonder er twee te\naanschouwen kreeg. Al de jongens verteerden van afgunst, maar de\nbitterste kwellingen verduurden de knapen, die te laat bemerkten,\ndat zij tot dezen hatelijken luister hadden medegewerkt, door aan\nTom kaartjes te verkoopen voor de schatten, die hij met het witten\nverdiend had. Dezen verachtten zichzelven als de _dupes_ van een\nsluwen bedrieger, van een verraderlijken adder in het gras.\n\nDe prijs werd aan Tom uitgereikt met al de loftuigingen, welke\nde catechiseermeester onder de bestaande omstandigheden uit zijn\nbinnenste kon oppompen, doch waaraan slechts \u00e9\u00e9n ding ontbrak namelijk\nwaarheid, want de arme man voelde instinctmatig, dat hij hier voor\neen geheim stond, hetgeen misschien het licht niet zien kon. Het was\nde ongerijmdheid zelve, dat deze knaap een voorraad van twee duizend\nschoven schriftuurlijke wijsheid had vergaard, aangezien ongetwijfeld\nreeds een dozijn te veel voor zijne krachten geweest zou zijn. Amy\nLawrence was trotsch en verheugd en zij deed haar best Tom dit te doen\nzien, maar hij wilde niet kijken. Dit verwonderde haar; zij werd een\nweinig ongerust, kreeg toen een onbestemd gevoel van argwaan, dat kwam\nen verdween en weer terugkwam, totdat een steelswijs geworpen blik\nhaar alles openbaarde. En toen brak haar hart en zij werd jaloersch\nen boos; zij begon te schreien en haatte de geheele wereld, en Tom\nmet haar,--zoo dacht zij ten minste.\n\nTom werd aan den Raadsheer voorgesteld, maar zijn tong kleefde hem aan\n't verhemelte. Zijn hart bonsde,--gedeeltelijk ten gevolge van de\nangstwekkende grootheid van dien man, maar vooral omdat hij _haar_\noom was. Indien het donker was geweest, zou hij wel op zijne knie\u00ebn\nhebben willen vallen om hem te aanbidden. De Raadsheer legde zijne hand\nop Toms hoofd, noemde hem een aardig kereltje en vroeg hem, hoe hij\nheette. De jongen stamelde, hijgde naar adem en stootte eindelijk uit:\n\n\"Tom!\"\n\n\"Neen, niet Tom, niet waar? Gij heet....?\"\n\n\"Thomas!\"\n\n\"Juist. Maar er behoort _nog_ nog iets bij. Gij hebt toch ook een\ngeslachtsnaam, niet waar--en dien wilt gij mij immers wel mededeelen?\"\n\n\"Zeg mijnheer uw anderen naam, Thomas,\" zeide de heer Walter,\n\"en voeg er 'mijnheer' achter. Gij hebt toch manieren geleerd.\"\n\n\"Thomas Sawyer, mijnheer.\"\n\n\"Ziezoo, dat is een goede jongen. Een lieve jongen! Een aardig,\nmanhaftig kereltje! Twee duizend verzen is een groot aantal, Thomas,\neen zeer groot aantal. Maar gij zult u nooit de moeite berouwen,\nze geleerd te hebben. Want kennis is meerder waard dan al wat deze\nwereld ons geven kan, daar kennis ons groot en goed maakt. Gij zult\neens een groot en een goed man worden, Thomas, en dan zult gij op\nhet verleden terugzien en zeggen: Dat alles heb ik te danken aan\nhet voorrecht van in mijn jeugd de zondagsschool bezocht te hebben;\nalles aan mijn brave meesters, alles aan den goeden catechiseermeester,\ndie mij aanmoedigde en mij een bijbel gaf, een prachtigen, sierlijken\nbijbel, dien ik voorgoed mocht houden; alles aan mijne uitnemende\nopvoeding. Dat zult gij eens zeggen, Thomas, en voor geen geld ter\nwereld zult ge het genot willen missen deze twee duizend verzen in het\ngeheugen geprent te hebben,--neen, waarlijk niet. En nu zult gij mij\nen deze dame wel iets willen mededeelen van hetgeen gij geleerd hebt,\nwant wij stellen groot belang in vlijtige jongens. Zonder twijfel\nkent gij de namen der apostelen, niet waar? Wilt gij mij eens zeggen,\nwie de twee eersten waren, die den Heer volgden?\"\n\nTom trok aan een der knoopen van zijn buis en keek den Raadsheer\nbedremmeld aan. Hij bloosde en sloeg de oogen neder. Den heer\nWalter zonk het hart in de schoenen. Hij wist, dat de jongen zelf de\neenvoudigste vraag niet beantwoorden kon. Waarom vroeg de Raadsheer\nhem? Toch voelde hij zich verplicht te spreken en zeide:\n\n\"Antwoord mijnheer, Thomas! Wees niet bang.\"\n\nTom stond op heete kolen.\n\n\"Ik weet zeker, dat gij het _mij_ wel zult willen zeggen,\" zeide de\ndame. \"De namen der twee eerste discipelen waren....?\"\n\n\"David en Goliath!\"\n\nLaat ons over het overige van het tooneel meedoogend een sluier werpen.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK V.\n\n\nOm halfelf begon de oude klok van het kleine stadje te luiden en\naanstonds stroomde de goede gemeente naar den morgendienst. De\nkinderen van de Zondagsschool verspreidden zich in het gebouw en\nbezetten de banken met hunne ouders, om behoorlijk onder toezicht te\nzijn. Tante Polly kwam, gevolgd door Tom, Sid en Marie. Tom werd naast\nde koorgang geplaatst, ten einde zoo ver mogelijk van het open raam\nen de verleidelijke zomertooneelen daar buiten te wezen. De schare\ntrok op naar de zijvleugels; de oude en behoeftige postmeester,\ndie betere dagen gekend had; de Mayor en zijne vrouw,--want men had\nte St. Petersburg, onder andere overtolligheden, ook een Mayor:\nde kantonrechter; de knappe, opgedirkte, veertigjarige weduwe\nDouglas, een goedhartige ziel die er warmpjes inzat en wier op den\nheuvel gelegen heerenhuis het eenige paleis der plaats uitmaakt,\nhet onbekrompenste huis waarop St. Petersburg kon bogen, als 't op\nfeesten geven aankwam; de gebogen en eerwaardige burgemeester met\nzijn echtgenoot; de advocaat Riverson, de nieuwe notabele; daarna de\n_belle_ van het stadje, gevolgd door een troep met prachtige overhemden\npronkende hofmakers, toen eenige jeugdige stedelijke ambtenaren, die\nop de knoppen hunner rottingen zuigende, in het voorportaal een ronden\nmuur van gepommadeerde en glimlachende bewonderaars hadden gevormd,\ntotdat het laatste meisje de _revue_ gepasseerd had; en eindelijk\nde modeljongen, Willie Mufferson, die zoo zorgvuldig op zijn moeder\npast. Hij vergezelde zijn mama altijd naar de kerk en was de trots\nvan alle matronen. De jongens echter haatten hem, omdat hij zoo braaf\nwas en nog meer omdat hij steeds als voorbeeld werd aangehaald. Zijn\nwitte zakdoek hing als iederen Zondag, toevallig uit den zak van\nzijn buis. Tom had geen zakdoek; hij noemde het dragen van zulk een\nweeldeartikel \"kwasterig.\"\n\nToen de gemeente vergaderd was, werd de klok nog eens geluid om\nde tragen en talmend te waarschuwen, en daarop ontstond er een\nplechtige stilte in de kerk, nu en dan afgewisseld door het gegiegel\nen gefluister van de koorjongens op de galerij. Koorknapen giegelen\nen fluisteren gewoonlijk den geheelen dienst door. Ik ken maar \u00e9\u00e9ne\nplaats, waar zulks het geval niet was, maar ik ben vergeten waar die\nligt. Het is ook vele, vele jaren geleden, sinds ik haar bezocht en ik\nherinner mij er nauwelijks iets meer van; alleen ligt mij flauw bij,\ndat het ergens in het buitenland was.\n\nDe predikant gaf het gezang op en las het voor met innig zelfbehagen\nen op een eigenaardige wijze, welke in die streek zeer bewonderd\nwerd. Zijne stem, begonnen in een gemiddelden toon, klom gestadig,\ntotdat zij een zeker punt bereikt had (meestal het voorlaatste woord\nvan den regel en plofte dan onmiddellijk als de straal van een fontein\nnaar beneden) aldus:\n\n                                                                   bed\n                                                    't donzig       |\n                                          leggen op                 |\n                            omhoog en mij                        terneer,\n                worden naar                                     't bloedig\n    ik gedragen                                        vaart op     |\nZal                                        en moeizaam              |\n                                   strijdt                          |\n                     den kampprijs                                meer?\n        een ander om\nTerwijl\n\n\nHij werd beschouwd als een puikjuweel in de kunst van voorlezen. Op\ngodsdienstige bijeenkomsten werd hij altijd uitgenoodigd om te\nreciteer en, en zoodra hij zijne stem verhief, sloegen de dames de\nhanden ineen, on ze daarna machteloos in haar schoot te laten vallen,\nkeken met zwemmende oogen naar boven en schudden het hoofd, als wilden\nzij uitroepen: \"Woorden kunnen het niet weergeven; het is te schoon,\nte schoon voor deze wereld!\"\n\nNadat het lied gezongen was, nam de eerwaarde heer Sprague het bulletin\nin de hand en las de kennisgeving voor van al de vergaderingen,\nbijeenkomsten enz. die er in die week zouden plaats hebben, eene lijst\ndie tot den jongsten dag scheen te duren. Deze zonderlinge gewoonte\nwordt nog altijd in Amerika gevolgd, zelfs in groote steden en in\neen eeuw waarin het nieuwsbladen regent. 't Gebeurt echter meer,\ndat een oud gebruik, naarmate het minder te rechtvaardigen is, te\nmoeielijker schijnt afgeschaft te kunnen worden.\n\nEn nu begon de dominee te bidden,--een goed, grootmoedig gebed, waarin\nniets werd overgeslagen. Hij bad voor de kerk en voor de kinderen der\nkerk; voor de andere kerken der stad; voor de stad zelve; voor het\ndistrict; voor den Staat; voor die dienaars van den Staat; voor de\nVereenigde Staten; voor de kerken van de Vereenigde Staten, voor het\nCongres; voor den President, voor de andere leden van de regeering;\nvoor de arme zeevaarders, die op onstuimige wateren geslingerd worden;\nvoor de millioenen, die onder Europeesche monarchie en Oostersche\ndwingelandij zuchten; voor hen die, ofschoon in het licht van het\nEvangelie geboren, geene oogen hebben om te zien en geene ooren om\nte hooren; voor de heidenen op de verre eilanden in de zee;--en hij\neindigde met eene smeekbede, dat de woorden, die hij zou spreken,\nin genade mochten worden aangenomen en als het zaad mochten zijn,\ndat in vruchtbare aarde word geworpen en te zijner tijd een heerlijken\noogst van Godzalige vruchten zal afwerpen. Amen.\n\nNu volgde een geruisch van japonnen en de staande vergadering ging\nzitten.\n\nDe knaap, wiens geschiedenis in dit boek verhaald wordt, putte geen\ngeestelijk genot uit de preek; hij droeg die als een kruis--en niet\naltijd met geduld. Hij deed zijn best om stil te zitten en hield\nonbewust aanteekening van al de bijzonderheden, waarin de preek\nafdaalde; want ofschoon hij niets met aandacht volgde kende hij het\nterrein en den weg, dien den predikant nam, sedert lang,--en wanneer\ner maar iets nieuws werd ingelascht, ontdekte dat zijn oor, en zijn\ngansche gemoed kwam er tegen in opstand. Elke toevoeging was in zijne\nschatting oneerlijk en schelmachtig.\n\nMidden onder de preek, had een vlieg zich achter tegen de v\u00f3\u00f3r hem\nstaande bank neergezet en dat beestje werd eene kwelling voor zijne\nziel. Het wreef zich de pootjes zoo kalm tegen elkaar, en nam zijn\nkopje tusschen de voorpooten en poetste dat met zooveel geweld, dat\ndit lichaamsdeel op het punt scheen den romp vaarwel te zeggen en het\nnekje, als een draad te kijken kwam; het schuurde zijn vleugeltjes met\nde achterpootjes en streek die zoo glad tegen het lichaam, alsof ze de\npanden waren van een rok en maakte zijn toilet zoo rustig, alsof het\nwist dat het volkomen veilig was. En dat was het ook; want ofschoon\nToms handen jeukten om het te grijpen, durfde hij dit niet ondernemen,\ndaar hij in de overtuiging leefde, dat hij verloren was, wanneer hij\nzoo iets deed, terwijl het gebed aan den gang was. Maar toen dit op een\neind liep, begon zijn hand zich te krommen en ging zachtjes vooruit;\nen zoodra het \"amen\" weerklonk, was de vlieg krijgsgevangen. Doch\ntante ontdekte het en liet Tom haar de vrijheid hergeven.\n\nDe dominee las een tekst voor en was in zijn preek z\u00f3\u00f3 eentonig en\ndroog, dat menig hoofd zich te sluimeren neigde,--en toch spuwde hij\nin zijne rede vuur en vlam en dreigde het uitverkoren Godsvolk met\nhel en verdoemenis. Tom had de gewoonte de bladen van de preek na\nte tellen. Na kerktijd was 't hem altijd bekend hoeveel pagina's er\nomgeslagen waren doch meestal was dat ook het eenige, wat hij van\nde rede onthouden had. Ditmaal echter werd zijn aandacht voor een\nkort oogenblik geboeid. De predikant schetste prachtig en treffend\nhoe het zijn zou in den welaangenamen tijd van het duizendjarig rijk,\nals de leeuw en het Lam te zamen zouden nederliggen en een klein kind\nhen zou leiden. Maar het verhevene, de leering en de moraal van dat\ngrootsche schouwspel gingen voor den knaap verloren; hij dacht alleen\naan de heerlijkheid van het tooneel voor de toeschouwende nati\u00ebn;\nen zijn gelaat glansde van verrukking bij het denkbeeld, dat hij dat\nkind mocht zijn,--zoo de bedoelde leeuw maar een tamme was.\n\nToen evenwel het dorre hoofdonderwerp weer werd opgevat, verviel hij\nopnieuw in een toestand van duldend dragen. Op eens schoot hem in\nde gedachten, dat hij een schat bij zich had en deze werd voor den\ndag gehaald. Het was een groote zwarte kever, met een puntigen bek,\ndien hij met den naam van \"bijtende tor\" bestempelde. Die \"bijtende\ntor\" was geborgen in een percussie-doos. Zoodra de doos openging,\npakte de kever hem bij den vinger en beet hem. Daarop werd het beest\nnatuurlijk weggeknipt en de kever vloog door de kerk en viel daarna\nop den rug, terwijl Tom den zeeren vinger in den mond stak.\n\nIntusschen bleef het diertje hulpeloos liggen, buiten staat zich om\nte keeren. Tom oogde hem met een blik vol verlangen na, maar de kever\nwas buiten zijn bereik. Andere lieden, wier gedachten van de preek\nafgedwaald waren, vonden eene gewenschte afleiding in den kever en\ngingen eveneens diens bewegingen gadeslaan.\n\nDaar kwam eensklaps druipstaartend en met hangende ooren, een\nverdwaalde poedel de kerk binnensluipen. Hij ziet den kever; de\nneerhangende staart gaat in de hoogte en begint te kwispelen. Hij neemt\nden buit in oogenschouw, loopt er omheen, beruikt hem op behoorlijken\nafstand, loopt er nog eens omheen, wordt moediger en beruikt hem iets\nmeer van nabij, opent zijn bek, waagt behoedzaam een poging on hem te\ngrijpen en mist zijn doel, waagt een tweede poging, daarna een derde,\nbegint er schik in te krijgen, tracht den kever tusschen zijne pooten\nte vangen, maar wordt moede van het vruchteloos werk en gaat er bij\nzitten. De slaap bevangt hem; hij laat den kop hangen en zoetjes aan\nsukkelt zijn kin naar beneden, totdat zij met den puntigen bek in\naanraking komt en een beet krijgt van het dier. Daarop volgt een luid\ngejank, eene snelle beweging van poedels kop en de kever vliegt weg,\non terstond weder op zijn rug terecht te komen.\n\nDe in de buurt zittende toeschouwers schudden inwendig van het\nlachen. Verscheidene gezichten werden achter waaiers of in zakdoeken\nverborgen en Tom zat zich bovenmate te verkneuteren. De hond zag er\nuit, alsof hij niet wist hoe hij het had, en wist dat waarschijnlijk\nook niet. Er was toorn in zijn hart en hij dorstte naar wraak. Daarom\nging hij nogmaals naar den kever toe en hernieuwde omzichtig den\naanval, sprong gedurig in een cirkel op hem toe, trachtte hem op\neen duimbreeds afstand met zijne voorpooten te pakken, hapte naar\nhem en gooide met zijn kop, totdat hij er duizelig van werd. Weldra\nechter werd hij het spelletje moe en zocht hij zich met een vlieg\nte vermaken. Toen vervolgde hij, met zijn neus vlak op den grond,\neen mier en kreeg ook daar al heel spoedig zijn bekomst van; hij\ngaapte, zuchtte, vergat den kever en--ging er op zitten! Geen seconde\nlater verhief zich een oorverdoovend geblaf in de kerk en de hond\nrende door het ruim. Het geblaf hield aan en de hond bleef aan 't\nrennen; hij vloog dwars door de kerk heen, langs den eenen vleugel,\ntoen weer naar den anderen vleugel, liep voor de deuren op en neer,\njankte luide alsof hij voor zijns meesters huis stond en wenschte\nbinnengelaten te worden. Zijn angst nam toe, naarmate hij rondliep,\ntotdat hij een komeet geleek, die met de snelheid van het licht\nschitterend voortholt op haar baan. Eindelijk staakte het razende\ndier zijn woeste vaart en sprong op den schoot zijns meesters, die\nhem uit het venster wierp, en het geluid der klagende stem verzwakte\non eindelijk in het verschiet weg te sterven.\n\nIntusschen zat de geheele kerk met gloeiende wangen en bijna stikkende\nvan het lachen, dit tooneel aan te staren en de dominee moest zijn\nredevoering voor een oogenblik staken. De preek werd weder hervat,\nmaar zij ging gebrekkig en hakkelend voort, en alle pogingen om indruk\nte maken waren vergeefs. Zelfs de ernstigste zaken werden met eene\nonderdrukte uitbarsting van zondige vroolijkheid door de achter den\nrug der banken wegschuilende vergadering aangehoord, alsof de arme\nman iets bijzonders grappigs had verteld.\n\nHet was eene ware verlichting voor de gansche gemeente, toen de\nvuurproef doorgestaan en de zegen uitgesproken was. Tom verliet\nvroolijk en opgewekt het godshuis en overlegde bij zichzelf, dat\nkerkgaan nog zoo vervelend niet was, indien er, zooals vandaag, eene\nkleine afwisseling in kwam. Er was maar \u00e9\u00e9ne gedachte, die hem kwelde:\nhij had er niet tegen, dat de hond met de kever speelde doch hij vond\nhet valsch van den poedel dat hij hem meegepakt had.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK VI.\n\n\nDe maandagmorgen vond Tom diep ellendig. Dat deed elke maandagmorgen,\nomdat dan weder het slepend lijden van zes dagen schoolgaan\nvolgde. Gewoonlijk begon hij dien dag met den wensch, dat er toch\ngeene tusschenbeide komende vacantiedagen mochten zijn, daar deze\nden gang naar de boeien en de slavernij nog hatelijker maakten.\n\nTom lag te denken, en het verlangen kwam bij hem op dat hij ziek\nmocht worden, opdat hij tehuis kon blijven. Zou dat onmogelijk\nzijn? Hij voelde overal of er ook een plekje zeer deed, maar alles\nwas gezond. Toch meende hij verschijnselen van buikpijn te ontdekken\nen dadelijk werden alle zeilen bijgezet on die ongesteldheid te\nbevorderen. Maar helaas! zij verminderde ras en verdween allengs geheel\nen al. Hij pijnsde verder. Een van de boventanden zat los. Dat was een\nbuitenkansje. Juist wilde hij uit al zijn macht gaan kreunen, toen het\nhem in de gedachten schoot, dat, wanneer hij met die smart voor den\ndag kwam tante den tand zou uittrekken en dat pijn zou doen. Daarna\nbesloot hij voor het tegenwoordige den tand als noodschot te bewaren\nen verder te zoeken. Eerst deed zich niets op, doch daar herinnerde\nhij zich, den dokter te hebben hooren spreken over eene ziekte,\nwaarbij een pati\u00ebnt twee of drie weken te bed moest liggen en die\nsomtijds eindigde met iets wat hij het koudvuur genoemd had. Toms\ngroote teen had hem zeer gedaan; misschien kon dat wat geven. Gretig\ntrok hij dien dan ook onder de dekens uit en hield hem in de hoogte,\non hem te onderzoeken. Ofschoon hij de verschijnselen van de kwaal\nniet kende, dacht hij dat het toch wel de moeite waard was het eens\nte wagen en begon bitter te steunen.\n\nMaar Sid sliep door.\n\nTom steunde harder en verbeelde zich, dat hij werkelijk pijn begon\nte gevoelen.\n\nSid bleef onbeweeglijk liggen.\n\nTom ging met de uiterste inspanning aan het beven en trillen. Hij\nhield zijn adem in, blies zich op en bracht eene reeks van uitmuntend\nnagebootste zuchten voor den dag.\n\nSid snorkte door.\n\nTom was ten einde raad. Ten laatste riep hij uit: \"Sid, Sid!\" en\nschudde zijn stiefbroeder uit alle macht.\n\nDit hielp en Tom hervatte zijn steunen. Sid gaapte, rekte zich uit,\nverhief zich snorkend op zijn elleboog en begon Tom aan te staren. Tom\nsteunde al door, totdat Sid riep:\n\n\"Tom! zeg eens.... Tom!\"\n\nGeen antwoord.\n\n\"Och Tom! Tom! wat scheelt er aan, Tom?\" En hij greep hem bij den\narm en zag hem angstig aan.\n\nTom jammerde: \"O Sid, houd op, schud me niet zoo hard!\"\n\n\"Zeg, wat scheelt er aan, Tom? Ik zal tante roepen.\"\n\n\"O, neen! Doe dat niet!\"\n\n\"Jawel! Ach, steun zoo niet, Tom! 't Is zoo vreeselijk. Hoe lang heb\nje al zoo gelegen?\"\n\n\"Al uren. Ai, o! maak niet zoo'n beweging, Sid; je zult me vermoorden.\"\n\n\"Tom, waarom heb je me niet eer geroepen? O, Tom, houd op. Ik kan\nhet niet meer aanhooren, Tom, wat scheelt er aan?\"\n\n\"Ik vergeef je alles, Sid, (gesteun).... alles wat je ooit tegen me\nmisdreven hebt. Als ik zal heen....\"\n\n\"O, Tom, gij gaat toch niet sterven, niet waar? Och, doe het niet,\nTom. Misschien....\"\n\n\"Ik vergeef iedereen, Sid, (gesteun). Zeg hun dat Sid. En, Sid, geef\nhet raamkozijn en mijn kat aan het nieuwe meisje, dat hier is komen\nwonen en zeg haar....\" Maar Sid had zijne kleeren al aangeschoten en\nwas de kamer uit. Tom had nu wezenlijk pijn, dusdadig had hij zijne\nverbeelding laten werken en zoo was het geluid van zijn gekerm der\nwaarheid nabij gekomen.\n\nSid ijlde de trappen af en zeide:\n\n\"O Tante Polly, Tom gaat sterven.\"\n\n\"Sterven?\"\n\n\"Ja, wacht niet; kom gauw mede.\"\n\n\"Onzin! Ik geloof er niets van.\"\n\nDesniettemin vloog zij doodsbleek en met bevende lippen de trappen\nop en Sid en Marie achter haar aan.\n\nToen zij voor het ledikant stond, bracht zij met moeite uit:\n\n\"Tom, wat scheelt er aan?\"\n\n\"O, lieve tante, ik....\"\n\n\"Wat scheelt er aan? Wat heb je, kind?\"\n\n\"O, lieve Tante, ik heb het koudvuur in mijn zieken teen.\"\n\nDe oude dame viel in een stoel neder, begon te lachen, toen te\nschreien, eindelijk beide te gelijk. Dat bracht haar tot zichzelve\nen zij zeide:\n\n\"O, Tom, wat een poets heb je me gebakken! Wil je eens gauw met die\nmalligheid ophouden en je bed uitstappen!\"\n\nHet gekreun hield op en de pijn verdween. De knaap was een weinig\nmet zijn figuur verlegen en zeide:\n\n\"Tante Polly, het was een gevoel van koudvuur en het deed zoo'n pijn,\ndat ik zelfs mijn lossen tand vergat.\"\n\n\"Je tand, kind? Wat scheelde er aan je tand?\"\n\n\"Er is er een los en die doet mij vreeselijk zeer.\"\n\n\"Nu, begin maar niet weer te kreunen. Doe je mond eens open. Ha,\nde tand _is_ los, maar daar zul je niet aan sterven. Marie, haal een\nzijden draad uit mijn werkdoos.\"\n\n\"O tantelief, trek hem als 't u belieft niet uit. Hij doet mij niets\ngeen zeer meer. Och, als 't u belieft, doe het niet, tantelief! Ik\nzal heusch naar school gaan!\"\n\n\"Zoo, naar school gaan! Dus was al dat lawaai in de hoop van thuis\nte blijven en te gaan visschen! Tom, Tom, ik houd zooveel van je en\nje schijnt op alle manieren te beproeven of je mijn oud hart ook door\nje schandelijke ondeugendheid kunt breken.\"\n\nOnderwijl was het trekinstrument binnengebracht. De oude dame maakte\nhet eene eind van den zijden draad aan Toms lossen tand vast en bond\nhet aan den beddenpost. Toen sloeg zij er hard midden op en in een\noogenblik hing de tand aan het ledikant te bungelen.\n\nAlle rampen brengen hunne lichtzijde mede. Toen Tom na het ontbijt\nnaar school ging, werd hij door alle jongens benijd om de holte in\nzijn bovenste rij tanden, die hem in staat stelde op een nieuwe en\nwonderlijke wijs te spuwen. Weldra had hij een stoet jongens on zich\nheen, en een van hen, die zich in den vinger gesneden had en tot dit\noogenblik het mikpunt van bewondering en huldebetoon geweest was,\nhad geen enkelen aanhanger meer en voelde dat hij zijn roem had\noverleefd. Hij was diep gekrenkt en zeide op verachtelijken toon,\ndat er geen kunst aan was om te spuwen als Tom Sawyer. Maar een andere\njongen riep iets van druiven die zuur waren en hij liep mismoedig heen.\n\nKort daarop kwam Tom den jeugdigen paria van het stadje, Huckleberry\nFinn, den zoon van den stadsdronkaard, tegen. Huckleberry werd met hart\nen ziel door al de moeders van de plaats gehaat, omdat hij zoo lui en\nmorzig was--en voornamelijk omdat hunne kinderen hem zoo bewonderden\nen er behagen in schepten, heimelijk het verbod van met hem om te gaan,\nte overtreden en van harte wenschten den moed te hebben te zijn zooals\nhij. Tom benijdde Huck evenals alle andere ordentelijke jongens, maar\nhad den bepaalden last om niet met hem te spelen. Daarom juist deed\nhij dat telkens, wanneer de gelegenheid zich voordeed. Huckleberry\ndroeg altijd de afgedragen pakken van volwassenen en deze hingen\ndoorgaans van scheuren en lappen aan elkaar. Zijn hoofd was meestal\ngedekt met een ingedrukten hoed, welks rand er als een halve maan\nbijfladderde. Zijn jas, wanneer hij er een droeg, hing hem bijkans\nop de hielen en de achterknoopen zaten menigmaal een eind onder zijn\nrug. Zijn broek werd door \u00e9\u00e9n bretel opgehouden en het kruis van dat\nkleedingstuk zat dikwijls ter hoogte van zijn kuiten. Zijn gerafelde\nkousen sleepten, als zij niet omgerold waren, bijna altijd in de\nmodder. Huckleberry deed wat hij verkoos. Bij mooi weer sliep hij\nop de stoepen, bij slecht weer in leege vaten. Hij behoefde school\nnoch kerk te bezoeken, niemand meester te noemen en geen mensch te\ngehoorzamen. Hij mocht gaan visschen en zwemmen, wanneer en waar hij\nverkoos en zoolang uitblijven als hem goeddacht. Niemand verbood hem\nooit om te vechten, hij kon zoo laat opblijven als het hem behaagde, en\nhij was altijd de eerste die in het voorjaar op bloote voeten liep, en\nde laatste die ze in het najaar in leder stak. Hij mocht naar hartelust\nvloeken. Hij behoefte zich nooit te wasschen en nooit schoone kleeren\naan te trekken. In \u00e9\u00e9n woord, hij mocht alles doen en laten wat het\njongensleven aangenaam maakt. Zoo dachten ten minste al de gedrilde,\naan banden gelegde, fatsoenlijke jongens van St. Petersburg.\n\nTom hield den romantischen verschoppeling staande met den uitroep:\n\n\"Hola, Huckleberry, wat heb je daar?\"\n\n\"Een doode kat.\"\n\n\"Laat kijken, Huck. Zij is goed stijf. Waar heb je die vandaan\ngehaald?\"\n\n\"Geruild van een jongen.\"\n\n\"Wat heb je er voor gegeven?\"\n\n\"Een blauw kaartje en een blaas, die ik in het slachthuis gekregen\nhad.\"\n\n\"Hoe kwam je aan dat blauwe kaartje?\"\n\n\"Voor veertien dagen van Ben Rogers gekocht voor een hoepelstok.\"\n\n\"Zeg eens; waar zijne doode katten eigenlijk goed voor?\"\n\n\"Goed voor? Om wratten weg te maken.\"\n\n\"Wat? Wezen? Ik weet iets, wat nog beter is.\"\n\n\"Wedden dat je het niet weet? Wat is het dan?\"\n\n\"Wel, water uit vermolmd hout.\"\n\n\"Water uit vermolmd hout! Ik geef geen cent on water uit vermolmd\nhout!\"\n\n\"Niet? Heb je het dan nooit geprobeerd?\"\n\n\"Neen, ik niet, maar Bob Tanner wel.\"\n\n\"Wie heeft je dat gezegd?\"\n\n\"Wel, hij zei het aan Jeff Hatcher en Jeff aan John Baker en John\nBaker aan Jim Hollis en Jim Hollis aan Ben Rogers en Ben Rogers aan\neen neger en de neger aan mij. Wat heb je nou nog te zeggen?\"\n\n\"Wat ik te zeggen heb? Dat ze 't allemaal liegen. Van allen weet ik\nhet zeker, behalve van den neger, want dien ken ik niet. Maar ik heb\nnog nooit een neger gezien, die niet loog. Nu, vertel mij dan eens,\nhoe Bob Tanner het gedaan heeft?\"\n\n\"Wel, hij stak zijn hand in een hollen boom, waarin regenwater was.\"\n\n\"Over dag.\"\n\n\"Zeker.\"\n\n\"Met zijn gezicht naar den boomstam gekeerd?\"\n\n\"Ja, dat denk ik ten minste wel.\"\n\n\"Zeide hij er niets bij?\"\n\n\"Dat geloof ik niet,--maar ik weet het niet zeker.\"\n\n\"Och wat,--loop been! Wie neemt op zoo'n bespottelijke manier wratten\nweg! Je moet het heel anders doen. Je gaat zelf naar het bosch toe,\nwaar je weet dat een holle boom staat met water er in, en tegen\nmiddernacht ga je met je rug naar- en met je hand in de holte staan\nen zegt:\n\n\"Gerstekorrel, gerstekorrel, breng meel in 't vat, Molm-water,\nmolm-water, verteer de wrat,\"\n\nEn dan ga je gauw elf passen achteruit, en dan keer je je driemaal\nom en je gaat naar huis zonder een woord tegen iemand spreken. Want\nals je spreekt is de betoovering voorbij.\n\n\"Nu dat klinkt mooi, maar zoo heeft Bob Tanner het niet gedaan.\"\n\n\"Neen, man, je kunt er gerust op zijn, dat hij 't zoo niet heeft\ngedaan, omdat niemand in de stad zoo vol wratten zit als hij; en hij\nzou geen enkele wrat hebben als hij wist hoe je met water uit vermolmd\nhout werken moet. Ik heb op die manier wel duizend wratten van mijn\nhanden doen verdwijnen. Ik speel zooveel met kikkers, dat ik altijd\neen hoop wratten krijg. Soms maak ik ze weg met een groote boon.\"\n\n\"Ja, eene groote boon is goed. Dat heb ik ook wel gedaan.\"\n\n\"Zoo? Hoe moet het dan gedaan worden?\"\n\n\"Je neemt een boon en splijt die en dan maak je een snede in de wrat,\ndat er een beetje bloed uitkomt, en dan leg je dat bloed op een stukje\nvan de boon, en dan graaf je een gat in den grond en daarin leg je 't\nstukje in den nacht bij maneschijn, op een kruisweg, en dan verbrand\nje de rest van de boon. En dan gaat het stuk boon, dat het bloed\ningezogen heeft, aan het trekken en trekken, on het andere stuk meester\nte worden, en dan helpt het bloed de wrat en deze valt spoedig af.\"\n\n\"Ja, dat is waar, hoewel je er onder het begraven bij moet voegen:\n'Weg, boon, weg, wrat, kom me niet meer plagen.' Zoo doet Joe Harper\nhet ten minste. Maar hoe genees jij ze met doode katten?\"\n\n\"Wel, je neemt je kat en gaat tegen middernacht naar het kerkhof, naar\neen plaats, waar een slecht mensch begraven ligt. Precies om twaalf\nuur komt er een duivel, misschien wel twee of drie: en die nemen dat\nslechte mensch mee. Maar die duivels kun je niet zien. Je hoort ook\nniets dan een geluid als van den wind, hetgeen beduidt dat ze met\nelkaar praten. En als de duivel dien slechten man heeft meegepakt,\nmoet je de kat in de lucht zwaaien en zeggen:\n\n\"Duivel, volg het lijk; kat, volg den duivel; wrat, volg de kat;\nik wil niets meer met je te doen hebben.\" Dat neemt elke wrat weg.\"\n\n\"Het klinkt mooi, maar heb je het wel eens geprobeerd, Huck?\"\n\n\"Ik niet, maar moeder Hopkins heeft het mij gezegd.\"\n\n\"Dan zal het wel waar zijn, want ze zeggen, dat ze een tooverkol is.\"\n\n\"Zeggen? Wel, Tom, ik _weet_, dat zij er een is. Ze heeft Pap\nbetooverd. Pap heeft het me zelf verteld. Op een dag kwam hij haar\ntegen, en hij bemerkte, dat ze hem betooverde. Toen nam hij een steen,\nen als zij niet uit den weg was gegaan, had hij haar doodgegooid. Nu,\ndien eigen nacht rolde hij van een vliering, waarop hij dronken lag\nte slapen naar beneden, en brak zijn arm.\"\n\n\"H\u00e8, dat is verschrikkelijk. Hoe weet hij, dat zij hem betooverde?\"\n\n\"Hemel, dat moet Pap je zelf vertellen. Pap zegt: als ze je stijf\naankijken, dan betooveren ze je, vooral als ze mummelen, omdat ze\ndan het 'Onze Vader' 't achterste voor opzeggen.\"\n\n\"Zeg eens, Huck, wanneer ga jij het met de doode kat probeeren?\"\n\n\"Van nacht. Ik geloof, dat de duivels den ouden Hol Williams van\nnacht komen halen.\"\n\n\"Maar hij is Zaterdag al begraven, Huck. Hebben zij hem dan Zaterdag\nniet weggehaald?\"\n\n\"Wat dacht je?--Op Zondag?--De duivels loopen 's Zondags niet rond,\nzou je denken.\"\n\n\"Dat wist ik niet. Laat mij meegaan.\"\n\n\"Goed,--als je niet bang bent.\"\n\n\"Bang!--Nou nog mooier. Zul je om elf uur tegen het raam miauwen?\"\n\n\"Ja, en dan moet jij terug-miauwen en niet doen zooals den laatsten\nkeer. Toen heb ik voor dat raam staan schreeuwen, tot dat de\nnachtwacht me met een steen gooide en riep: 'Dat is voor jou, ouwe\nkat!' Natuurlijk smeet ik toen een kei door zijn raam, maar dat mag\nje niet vertellen.\"\n\n\"Neen. Dien nacht kon ik het niet doen, omdat tante me stond te\nbespieden; maar ik zal dezen keer miauwen. Zeg eens, Huck, wat heb\nje daar?\"\n\n\"Niets dan een schallebijter.\"\n\n\"Waar heb je dien vandaan gehaald.\"\n\n\"Uit het bosch.\"\n\n\"Waarvoor geef je hem?\"\n\n\"Ik weet het niet. Ik heb geen plan on hem te verkoopen.\"\n\n\"Ook al goed. 't Is in alle geval een erg klein beestje.\"\n\n\"O 't is gemakkelijk aanmerkingen op een schallebijter te maken,\ndie je niet toebehoort. Ik ben er mede tevreden; hij is groot genoeg\nvoor mij.\"\n\n\"O, er zijn schallebijters genoeg. Ik kan er wel duizend krijgen,\nals ik wil.\"\n\n\"Wel, waarom vang je ze dan niet? Omdat je verduiveld goed weet,\ndat je niet kunt. Dit is een bijzonder vroege schallebijter: het is\nde eerste, dien ik dit jaar gezien heb.\"\n\n\"Zeg eens, Huck, ik zal er je mijn tand voor geven.\"\n\n\"Laat dien eens kijken.\"\n\nTom haalde een stukje papier voor den dag en ontrolde dat voorzichtig,\nen Huckleberry onderzocht den tand nauwkeurig. De verleiding was zeer\nsterk. Eindelijk zeide hij:\n\n\"Is hij echt?\"\n\nTom toonde de open plek in zijn mond.\n\n\"Akkoord,\" zeide Huckleberry, \"de koop is gesloten.\"\n\nTom sloot den schallebijter in de percussiedoos, waarin onlangs\nde tor gevangengezeten had en de knapen namen afscheid van elkaar,\nbeiden gelukkig in het bezit van een nieuwen schat.\n\nTom bereikte het kleine eenzame schoolgebouw, waar hij met veel lawaai\nbinnenstapte, hing zijn hoed aan een kapstok en ijlde naar zijne\nplaats. De meester, door het gebrom van 't lessen leeren slaperig\ngeworden, was op zijn hoogen matten stoel ingesluimerd. Doch hij werd\ndoor de stoornis gewekt en riep uit:\n\n\"Thomas Sawyer!\"\n\nTom wist, dat, wanneer zijn naam voluit genoemd werd, er onweer aan\nde lucht was.\n\n\"Mijnheer.\"\n\n\"Kom hier bij mij staan. Zeg mij eens: waarom zijt ge weer zoo laat?\"\n\nTom was op het punt zijne toevlucht tot een leugen te nemen, toen\nhij langs een paar fijne schoudertjes, twee lange blonde vlechten\nzag hangen, die hij dadelijk herkende als toebehoorende aan Becky\nThatcher en naast die vlechten was de _eenige ledige plaats_ aan de\nmeisjeskant. Oogenblikkelijk zei hij:\n\n\"Ik heb met Huckleberry Finn staan praten!\"\n\nDe pols van den meester stond stil en hij zelf staarde verbijsterd in\nhet rond. Het gebrom van 't leeren hield op en de leerlingen dachten,\ndat de overmoedige jongen krankzinnig was geworden. De meester zeide:\n\n\"Gij--gij deedt--wat?\"\n\n\"Praten met Huckleberry Finn.\"\n\nHij had niet misverstaan.\n\n\"Thomas Sawyer, dit is de meest vermetele bekentenis die ooit mijne\nooren vernamen. Dat kan met de roede alleen niet afgedaan worden. Trek\nuw buis uit.\"\n\nDes meesters arm deed zijn plicht, totdat hij niet meer kon en de\nbundel teenen, waaruit de roede bestond, aanmerkelijk verminderd\nwas. Daarop werd het bevel uitgevaardigd:\n\n\"Ga nu bij de _meisjes_ zitten! En laat dit u een waarschuwing zijn.\"\n\nHet gegiegel, dat in het vertrek vernomen werd, scheen den jongen\nverlegen te maken, doch in werkelijkheid verbijsterde hem de\naanmoediging van zijn blonden afgod en het met smart vermengd genoegen,\ndat hij aan zijn gelukkig gesternte te danken had. Hij ging op den\nhoek van de bank zitten, en het meisje kroop zoo ver mogelijk van hem\naf. Hierop volgde een gestoot, gewenk en gefluister, waaraan Tom zich\nechter niet stoorde. Integendeel hij bleef stil zitten, met de armen\nop den langen, lagen lessenaar? en scheen in zijn boek verdiept te\nzijn. Gaandeweg werd de aandacht van hem afgeleid en de duffe atmosfeer\nwerd weder van het gewone schoolgegons vervuld. Nu en dan begon de\nknaap tersluiks blikken op het meisje te werpen. Zij bemerkte het,\nzette een nuffig gezichtje tegen hem op, en liet hem een minuut lang\nhaar rug zien. Toen zij voorzichtig nog eens omkeek lag er een perzik\nvoor haar. Deze werd weggeduwd. Tom legde de vrucht zachtjes weder\nvoor haar; zij werd nogmaals weggeduwd, maar dezen keer op minder\nheftige wijze. Tom legde geduldig de perzik ten derden male voor\nhet meisje en de vrucht bleef liggen. Toen krabbelde hij op de lei:\n\"Neem haar, als het u blieft; ik heb er meer.\"\n\nHet meisje keek naar die woorden, doch hield zich stil. Daarna begon\nde knaap iets op de lei te teekenen en bedekte zijn werk met de\nlinkerhand. Een tijdlang deed het meisje alsof zij er niet op lette;\nmaar hare vrouwelijke nieuwsgierigheid begon zich door nauw merkbare\nteekenen te verraden. De jongen werkte door, schijnbaar zonder er\nacht op te slaan. Het meisje trachtte te zien wat hij er op zette,\nmaar de jongen hield zich alsof hij er niets van bemerkte. Eindelijk\nzwichtte zij en fluisterde aarzelend:\n\n\"Laat mij eens kijken.\"\n\nTom liet een gedeelte zien van een caricatuur van een huis, met\neen dubbelen gevel en een wolk van rook, die in den vorm van een\nkurketrekker uit den schoorsteen opsteeg. Dit was voldoende voor\nhet meisje om haar gansche belangstelling aan het werk te schenken\nen zij vergat alles on zich heen. Toen het af was, keek zij Tom een\noogenblik aan en fluisterde:\n\n\"Het is mooi!--Teeken nu een mannetje.\"\n\nDe kunstenaar deed een man op den voorgrond verrijzen, die sprekend\nop een toppenant geleek, welke over het huis zou hebben kunnen\nheenstappen, maar het meisje was niet kieschkeurig. Zij was tevreden\nmet het monster en fluisterde: \"Het is een mooie man; teeken mij er\nnu naast.\"\n\nTom schetste een zandlooper, met een gezicht als een volle maan en\neen lichaam zoo dun als een stroohalm, en wapende de uitgespreide\nvingers met een verbazend grooten waaier. Het meisje zeide:\n\n\"'t Is prachtig.--Ik wou, dat ik ook kon teekenen.\"\n\n\"Het is niet moeielijk,\" fluisterde Tom. \"Ik zal 't je leeren.\"\n\n\"O, als je blieft.--Wanneer?\"\n\n\"Van middag. Ga je om twaalf uur naar huis om te eten?\"\n\n\"Ik kan ook wel hier blijven, als je dat wilt.\"\n\n\"Goed; dat zal prettig zijn. Hoe heet je?\"\n\n\"Becky Thatcher.\"\n\n\"En jij?--O, ik weet het, jij heet Thomas Sawyer.\"\n\n\"Dat is de naam, waarmee ik slaag krijg. Ik heet Tom, als ik goed\noppas. Jij zult me Tom noemen, niet waar?\"\n\n\"Ja.\"\n\nDaarop begon Tom iets op de lei te krabben, dat hij voor het meisje\nverborg. Doch zij was er nu vlugger bij en verzocht Tom het te\nmogen zien.\n\n\"Och, het is niets.\"\n\n\"Jawel.\"\n\n\"Neen, het is niets; je behoeft het niet te zien.\"\n\n\"Jawel, ik moet het zien. Och toe, als je blieft.\"\n\n\"Ja, maar zul je het niet over vertellen?\"\n\n\"Neen, zeker niet. Op mijn woord van eer niet.\"\n\n\"Zul je het niemand vertellen, zoolang als je leeft?\"\n\n\"Neen, ik zal het niemand vertellen. Laat me nou kijken.\"\n\n\"Och, je moogt het niet zien.\"\n\n\"Nu je me z\u00f3\u00f3 behandelt, _wil_ ik het zien, Tom,\"--en zij legde\nhaar handje vlak op het zijne, waarop eene kleine schermutseling\nontstond. Tom deed alsof hij in ernst weerstand bood, maar liet zijne\nhand van lieverlede glippen, totdat deze woorden openbaar werden:\n\"Ik heb u lief.\"\n\n\"O, ondeugende jongen.\" En zij gaf hem een lief, klein klapje op de\nhand, bloosde en keek toch verheugd.\n\nOp datzelfde oogenblik voelde de knaap zich door iemand langzaam bij\nde ooren pakken en met kracht ophijschen. In die houding werd hij door\nhet lokaal gedragen en, onder de brandende pijn van het gemeesmuil der\ngeheele school, op zijn eigen plaats neergezet. Toen bleef de meester\ngedurende een paar vreeselijke minuten v\u00f3\u00f3r hem staan, en verhuisde\neindelijk weder zonder een woord te spreken naar zijn troon. En Tom,\nofschoon zijn ooren suisden, juichte in zijn hart.\n\nToen de school tot rust was gekomen, deed Tom eene oprechte poging\nom te leeren, maar de verwarring in zijn hoofd was te groot. Op\nzijn beurt nam hij deel aan de leesles en brabbelde verschrikkelijk;\ndaarna aan de aardrijkskundige les en maakte van meren bergen, van\nbergen rivieren en van rivieren landen, totdat de aarde weer een\nchaos geworden was; eindelijk ook aan de spel-les, maar daarvan kon\nhij niets maken en z\u00f3\u00f3 verspeelde hij zijn onderscheidingsteeken,\ndat hij met zooveel trots maanden lang had gedragen.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK VII.\n\n\nHoe meer Tom zijn best deed on zijne gedachten bij zijn boek te houden,\ndes te meer dwaalden zij af, totdat hij het ten laatste zuchtende en\ngapende opgaf. Het was hem alsof de middag-vacantie nooit zou komen. 't\nWas doodstil. De atmosfeer waarin hij ademde, scheen den eeuwigen slaap\ningesluimerd te zijn. 't Was de heetste van al de heete zomerdagen,\nen het gebrom van vijf en twintig studeerende scholieren had een even\nslaapwekkenden invloed als het gegons van een bijenzwerm.\n\nIn de verte, in den glans van den zonneschijn, verhieven zich door\neen lichten, doorschijnenden sluier van warmen zomerdamp, dien de\nafstand met purper had getint, de groene heuvelen van Cardiff. Een\nenkele vogel zweefde op trage vleugelen hoog in de lucht, en verder\nwas er geen levend wezen te zien, behalve eenige koeien en ook\ndie waren ingedommeld. Tom snakte naar vrijheid en naar iets dat\nhem genoeg belangstelling inboezemde on de vervelende uren door te\nworstelen. Hij liet zijne hand in zijn zak glijden en een gloed van\ndankbaarheid, welke zich, zonder dat hij er zich zelf van bewust was,\nin een gebed uitte, overtoog zijn omhooggekeerd gelaat. Daar kwam\ntersluiks de percussiedoos voor den dag. Hij liet een schallebijter\nlos en zette dien op de lage, platte lessenaar. Het beestje was niet\nminder erkentelijk dan Tom, doch zijne blijdschap bleek wat voorbarig\nte zijn geweest, want toen het dankbaar pogingen deed om te ontkomen,\nlegde Tom het, met behulp van een speld, op den rug en dwong het een\nanderen weg te nemen.\n\nTom had zijn boezemvriend naast zich, die onder hetzelfde leed\ngebukt ging als zijn makker en, vol vreugde over de afleiding,\noogenblikkelijk een warme belangstelling in deze vermakelijkheid aan\nden dag legde. Die boezemvriend was Joe Harper. De beide jongens\nwaren de gansche week door verklaarde vrienden, maar 's Zaterdags\nmeestal geslagen vijanden. Joe nam een speld uit de panden van zijn\nbuisje en begon de behulpzame hand te bieden om het diertje mores te\nleeren. Het spel werd terstond hoogst belangwekkend. Spoedig verklaarde\nTom, dat zij met elkaar in botsing kwamen en daardoor geen van beiden\niets aan den schallebijter hadden. Hij nam Joe's lei en trok een lijn\nop de lessenaar van boven naar beneden.\n\n\"Nu,\" zeide hij, \"zoolang hij op uw grondgebied blijft, moogt gij hem\nprikken, en ik zal er mij niet mede bemoeien, maar als hij aan mijne\nzijde komt, moet ge hem met vrede laten, zoolang ik hem beletten kan\nde grenzen over te trekken.\"\n\n\"Best! Vooruit maar;--laat hem los.\"\n\nDe schallebijter ontsnapte Tom en stak de evenachtslijn over. Na een\ntijdlang door Joe geplaagd te zijn liep hij weg en ging naar Tom. Dit\nveranderen van grondgebied duurde een geruimen tijd voort. Terwijl\nde eene jongen het beest met hart en ziel kwelde, keek de andere met\neen even groote belangstelling toe, en de beide hoofden bogen zich\nte zamen over de lei en beide zielen gingen gansch en al in de pret\nop. Eindelijk scheen de fortuin ten gunste van Joe te keeren en bij\nhem te blijven. De schallebijter deed wat hij kon om los te komen en\nwerd bijna even opgewonden en angstig als de knapen zelven. Juist toen\nhij op het punt stond van de klauwen van Joe te ontsnappen en Tom's\nvingers alweder jeukten om hem in zijne macht te krijgen, versperde de\neerste hem met zijne speld den weg tot zijn grondgebied. Tom kon het\nniet langer uithouden. De verleiding was te groot. Hij stak zijne hand\nuit en kwam met zijne speld over zijne grenzen. Joe werd boos en zeide:\n\n\"Tom, laat hem aan zijn lot over.\"\n\n\"Ik wou hem alleen maar een beetje helpen, Joe.\"\n\n\"Neen, dat is niet eerlijk; laat hem aan zijn lot over.\"\n\n\"Pas op of ik ga hem helpen zoo hard als ik wil.\"\n\n\"Tom, laat hem met rust, zeg ik je.\"\n\n\"Ik doe het niet.\"\n\n\"Je zult;--hij is op mijn grondgebied.\"\n\n\"Hoor eens, Joe Harper, wien behoort hij toe?\"\n\n\"Het kan mij niet schelen, wien hij toebehoort; hij is aan mijn kant\nen je zult hem niet aanraken.\"\n\n\"Wedden, dat ik het toch doe. 't Is mijn schallebijter en ik zal met\nhem doen wat ik verkies.\"\n\nOp eens voelde Tom een klap op zijn schouder en Joe een anderen op\nden zijnen. Twee minuten lang zag men een rookwolk uit de buizen\nder jongens opgaan en hoorde men de gansche school lachen. De knapen\nwaren te zeer in hun spel om de stilte te bemerken, die zich over de\nschool had verspreid, even voordat de meester op zijn teenen naar hen\ntoegeslopen en tegen hen over was gaan staan. Hij had het tooneel op\nzijn gemak gadegeslagen en daarna de verraderlijke klappen toegebracht.\n\nToen de school 's middags uitging, vloog Tom naar Becky Thatcher toe\nen fluisterde haar in 't oor:\n\n\"Zet je hoed op en zeg dat je naar huis gaat; en als je den hoek\nvan de straat om zijt, loop dan van de kinderen af, sla de steeg\nin en keer zoo naar de school terug. Ik zal den anderen kant gaan:\ndan komen wij elkaar vanzelf tegen.\"\n\nDaarop verliet Tom de school en voegde zich bij een groep kinderen,\ndie eene andere straat insloegen dan de kameraadjes van Becky. Heel\nspoedig kwamen de knaap en het meisje elkaar midden in 't steegje\ntegen, keerden naar het schoollokaal terug, dat zij nu geheel voor zich\nhadden. Zij gingen naast elkander zitten met een lei voor zich. Tom\ngaf Becky een griffel, stuurde haar hand en riep op deze wijze een\nwonderbaar huis in het aanzijn.\n\nDoch de teekenwoede duurde niet lang en ze begonnen samen te\npraten. Tom was in den derden hemel van geluk en zei:\n\n\"Houd je van ratten?\"\n\n\"Neen, ik heb een hekel aan die dieren.\"\n\n\"Ik ook,--ten minste aan levende. Maar ik meen doode, die je aan een\ntouwtje over je hoofd kunt laten draaien.\"\n\n\"Neen, ik geef niet veel om ratten, ook niet om doode. Maar, weet je\nwaar ik van houd? Van gom kauwen.\"\n\n\"Zoo, ik heb toevallig een paar stukjes bij mij. Eerst mag jij een\nbeetje kauwen en dan ik weer.\"\n\nDat was prettig; ze kauwden beurt om beurt en schommelden met hun\nbeenen onder de bank van pleizier.\n\n\"Ben je wel eens in een paardenspel geweest?\" vroeg Tom.\n\n\"Ja; mijn pa neemt me wel eens mee, als ik zoet ben.\"\n\n\"Ik ben er drie of vier malen geweest. Neen nog meer. De kerk is geen\nlor waard in vergelijking met een paardenspel. Daar zie je altijd\ndoor wat. Als ik groot ben, wordt ik clown in een paardenspel.\"\n\n\"Wezenlijk? Dat zal heerlijk wezen! De clowns zijn immers die mooi\naangekleede mannen vol gekleurde spikkeltjes?\"\n\n\"Ja, en ze krijgen schatten van geld; meestal een dollar daags. Dat\nzegt Ben Rogers ten minste. Zeg eens, Becky, ben je wel eens\nge\u00ebngageerd geweest?\"\n\n\"Wat is dat?\"\n\n\"Ge\u00ebngageerd, om te gaan trouwen.\"\n\n\"Neen.\"\n\n\"Zou je het wel willen?\"\n\n\"Misschien wel. Ik weet het niet. Wat moet je dan doen?\"\n\n\"Doen? Je zegt eenvoudig tegen een jongen, dat je nooit iemand anders\nhebben wilt dan hem, nooit, nooit, nooit--en dan geef je hem een\nzoen. Iedereen kan het doen.\"\n\n\"Een zoen? Waarom geef je elkaar een zoen?\"\n\n\"Wel, weet je--wel--omdat.... ze dat allemaal doen.\"\n\n\"Alle menschen?\"\n\n\"Ja, alle menschen die van elkaar houden. Weet je nog wel wat ik van\nmorgen op mijn lei geschreven heb?\"\n\n\"Ja--a.\"\n\n\"Wat was het?\"\n\n\"Dat zeg ik je niet.\"\n\n\"Dan zal ik het je zeggen.\"\n\n\"Dat is goed,--maar op een anderen keer.\"\n\n\"Neen, nu.\"\n\n\"Neen, nu niet, maar morgen.\"\n\n\"O, als je blieft, nu Becky. Ik zal het zoo zachtjes zeggen, dat je\nhet bijna niet hooren kunt.\"\n\nBecky aarzelde en Tom zag het stilzwijgen voor toestemmen aan. Hij\nsloeg zijn arm om haar middel en fluisterde haar de oude geschiedenis\nin 't oor, terwijl hij er bijvoegde:\n\n\"Nu moet je het mij ook influisteren,--precies hetzelfde.\"\n\nZij zweeg een oogenblik en sprak toen:\n\n\"Keer je gezicht naar den anderen kant, zoodat je mij niet zien kunt,\ndan zal ik het doen. Maar je moogt het niemand vertellen. Beloof je\nme dat op je woord van eer?\"\n\n\"Ja. Kom zeg het nu, Becky.\"\n\nHij keerde zijn gezicht on. Zij boog zich schroomvallig naar hem toe,\nzoo dicht dat hij haar adem onder zijn krulhaar voelde en fluisterde:\n\n\"Ik--houd--dol--van je.\"\n\nToen sprong zij weg en liep on de lessenaar en banken heen en Tom\nachter haar aan, totdat zij zich eindelijk in een hoek verschanste\nen haar wit schortje over haar gezichtje trok. Tom pakte haar om den\nhals en zei smeekend:\n\n\"Nu, Becky, is het klaar behalve de zoen. Wees daar maar niet bang\nvoor, dat is niets. Toe, Becky.\"\n\nEn met deze woorden trok hij aan haar boezelaar, totdat deze langzaam\nnaar beneden gleed en zij zich met gloeiende wangen aan de operatie\nonderwierp. Tom zoende de roode lipjes en zei:\n\n\"Nu is het geheel en al in orde, Becky. En nu weetje vooreens en\nvoorgoed, dat je van niemand anders dan van mij moogt houden en met\nniemand dan met mij moogt trouwen; neen, nooit, nooit. Beloof je dat?\"\n\n\"Ja, ik zal van niemand anders houden dan van jou, Tom. Maar jij\nmoogt ook met niemand anders trouwen dan met mij.\"\n\n\"Natuurlijk. Dat spreekt vanzelf. En nu hoort er ook bij, dat je bij\nhet naar school of naar huis gaan met me wandelt, ten minste als\nniemand het ziet, en dat bij feestjes jij mij en ik jou kies. Dat\ndoen ge\u00ebngageerde menschen altijd.\"\n\n\"Dat vind ik heel aardig. Ik had er nog nooit van gehoord.\"\n\n\"O, het is zoo prettig. Toen ik met Amy Lawrence...\"\n\nDe groote oogen van Becky zeiden Tom, dat hij een flater begaan had,\nen hij hield verlegen op.\n\n\"O, Tom! Dus is het niet de eerste keer, dat je ge\u00ebngageerd bent?\"\n\nHet kind begon te schreien, en Tom zeide:\n\n\"Och, schrei niet, Becky; ik geef niets meer om haar.\"\n\n\"Ja, dat doe je wel, Tom,--ik weet, dat je het wel doet.\"\n\nTom trachtte zijn arm on haar hals te slaan, doch zij duwde hem terug\nen wendde schreiend haar gelaat naar den muur. Tom beproefde het,\nonder het spreken van allerlei vleiende woordjes, nogmaals, maar met\nhetzelfde gevolg. Toen werd hij boos en rende met groote stappen de\ndeur uit.\n\nEen poosje bleef hij met een onrustig hart buiten staan, wierp nu en\ndan een blik naar de deur, in de hoop dat zij berouw krijgen en naar\nhem toe zou komen, maar zij kwam niet. Toen begon hij te denken, of\nhij ook ongelijk kon hebben. Het was een harde strijd on de eerste\npogingen tot toenadering te doen, doch hij vermande zich en trad\nde school binnen. Zij stond nog in denzelfden hoek, snikkende, met\nhaar gelaat tegen den muur. Diep ontroerd ging Tom naar haar toe en\nbleef een oogenblik voor haar staan, zonder eigenlijk te weten wat\nhij zeggen moest. Toen sprak hij aarzelend:\n\n\"Becky--ik--ik geef om niemand dan om jou.\"\n\nGeen antwoord;--niets dan snikken.\n\n\"Becky, waarom spreek je niet?\"\n\nHevige snikken.\n\nTom haalde zijn grootste schat voor den dag, een koperen knop van\neen schelkoord, hield haar dien voor en zeide:\n\n\"Becky, die is voor jou; neem hem, als je blieft.\"\n\nZij smeet het geschenk op den grond. Toen stapte Tom de deur uit\nen ijlde naar buiten, naar de heuvelen, om dien dag niet meer naar\nschool terug te keeren.\n\nNauwelijks was hij verdwenen, of Becky gevoelde berouw. Zij liep naar\nde deur, doch Tom was niet meer in het gezicht. Zij ijlden over de\nspeelplaats: ook daar was hij niet. Toen gilde zij:\n\n\"Tom! Tom! kom terug.\"\n\nZij luisterde aandachtig, doch er kwam geen antwoord; zij was met de\nstilte en het gevoel van verlatenheid alleen. Er schoot haar niets\nover dan te gaan zitten, opnieuw te schreien en zich zelfverwijten\nte doen. Daarbij moest zij haar verdriet voor de langzamerhand weer\nbijeenkomende schoolkinderen verbergen en het kruis opnemen van een\nlangen, drukkend warmen achtermiddag in de school te zitten, zonder\niemand te hebben, voor wien zij haar hart kon uitstorten.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK VIII.\n\n\nTom sloop voort door straten en stegen, totdat hij uit het vaarwater\nder terugkeerende schooljeugd was, en gaf zich toen aan zijne sombere\ngemoedsstemming over. Hij stak een paar malen met een schuitje\neen smal strookje der rivier over, omdat er onder de jeugd eene\noverlevering bestond, dat het oversteken van water voor vervolging\nbewaart. Een half uur later was hij achter het huis van de weduwe\nDouglas, dat op Cardiff Hill stond, verdwenen, en het schoolgebouw\nwas nauwelijks meer in de vallei achter hem te onderkennen. Hij trad\neen dicht woud binnen, kroop door struiken en ongebaande wegen voort,\ntotdat hij het midden bereikt had, waar hij zich op een mosachtig\nplekje onder een breedgetakten eik nederzette. Er was geen zuchtje\nin de lucht; de drukkende middaghitte, scheen zelfs de zingende\nvogels tot rust gebracht te hebben. De natuur lag in een staat van\nbewusteloosheid, welke door geen geluid werd verbroken, dan bijwijlen\ndoor het verwijderd gehamer van den boomspecht en dit scheen de alles\ndoordringende stilte nog stiller en de eenzaamheid nog eenzamer te\nmaken. De ziel van Tom was erg bedroefd en zijne gevoelens waren\nin volkomen overeenstemming met het hem omringend tooneel. Met de\nellebogen op de knie\u00ebn gesteund en de handen onder de kin, bleef\nhij in gepeins verzonken zitten. De aarde scheen hem op zijn best\neen tranendal en hij benijdde bijna Jimmy Hodges, die daaruit was\nverlost. Het moest zoo vreedzaam wezen, dacht hij, on voor eeuwig in\ndroomen verzonken onder de aarde te liggen, terwijl de wind door de\nboomen ruischt en het gras en de bloemen kuste, en er niets meer was\nom zich over te kwellen en te bedroeven. Indien hij slechts een goed\ngetuigenis van de zondagsschool kon mede krijgen, zou hij volgaarne\nwillen optrekken en met dit leven niets meer te maken hebben. En\nwat nu dit meisje betreft,--wat had hij gedaan? Niets. Hij had het\ngoed met haar voorgehad en was als een hond behandeld, ja, als een\nhond. Eens zou het haar berouwen, wellicht wanneer het te laat was. O,\nindien hij slechts _tijdelijk_ mocht sterven.\n\nDoch het veerkrachtig gemoed der jeugd blijft niet lang in een\nkunstmatig opgeschroefden staat van droefheid en moedeloosheid. Weldra\nwerd Tom onmerkbaar tot de bemoeiingen van dit leven teruggevoerd. Als\nhij de wereld eens den rug toekeerde en geheimzinnig verdween? Als\nhij eens heenging--ver,--ver weg, in onbekende landen over de zee--en\nnooit terugkwam? Hoe zou zij zich dan wel gevoelen? Het denkbeeld\nvan clown te worden kwam hem ook weder voor den geest, doch alleen om\nhem met afschuw te vervullen. Want, was het zich moeten bezighouden\nmet grappen en kluchten en met gouden sterretjes bezaaide tricots\nniet eene beleediging voor een geest, die omhooggestegen was naar\nhet onbestemde, verheven rijk van het onbegrijpelijke. Neen, hij zou\nsoldaat worden, en na jaren en jaren van krijg voeren, het strijden\nmoe, met roem beladen wederkeeren. Neen, nog beter; hij zou zich bij\nde Indianen en buffeljagers voegen en het oorlogspad betreden in de\nbergen, in de onmetelijke, ongebaande vlakten van het verre Westen en\nlater terugkeeren als een groot opperhoofd, getooid met schitterende\nvederen en afzichtelijk met verf besmeerd--en hij zou op een zomerschen\nsabbatmorgen met eene hooge borst de zondagsschool binnentreden en\ndaar een krijgsgeschreeuw aanheffen, dat zijne makkers het bloed in de\naderen deed stollen en hen doen verteren van jaloezie. Ook dat niet;\ner was iets nog grootscher dan dit. Hij zou zeeroover worden. Ja,\ndat was het! _Nu_ lag de toekomst duidelijk voor hem, schitterend van\nondenkbare pracht. Zijn naam zou de aarde vervullen en de volkeren\ndoen beven. Hoe roemrijk zou hij de woedende zee\u00ebn ploegen met zijn\nsnelvarend, zwart gekleurd roofschip, \"De Geest van den Storm,\" welks\nschrikaanjagende vlag grimmig van de voorplecht zou wapperen. En\nwanneer hij het toppunt van roem had bereikt, zou hij op eens in het\noude stadje terugkomen en de kerk binnen stappen met een door storm en\nonweer gebruinde huid, in een zwartfluweelen wambuis en wijde broek,\nmet hooge kaplaarzen, donkerroode sjerp en met zware pistolen gevulden\ngordel en een in misdaad geroesten hartsvanger aan de zijde. En zijn\nhoofd zou bedekt zijn met een diep in de oogen gedrukten hoed, met\neen wuivenden vederbos getooid, en in de hand zou hij dragen zijn\nontplooide banier, die met een schedel en gekruiste doodsbeenderen\nbeschilderd zou zijn, en met namelooze verrukking zouden zijne ooren\nhet gefluister vernemen:\n\n\"Dit is Tom Sawyer, de zeeroover, de schrik der Spaansche zee!\"\n\nJa, zijn plan stond vast, zijn loopbaan was aangewezen. Hij zou van\nhuis wegloopen en zoo spoedig mogelijk zijn nieuw beroep ter hand\nnemen, hij zou morgen vertrekken en daarom oogenblikkelijk met het\nmaken van de noodige toebereidselen aanvangen en zijne bezittingen\nbijeenverzamelen.\n\nTe dien einde liep hij naar een verrotte houtmijt, welke in de\nnabijheid stond en begon die met zijn mes aan de eene zijde te\nondergraven. Spoedig stootte hij op een stuk hout dat hol klonk, legde\nzijn hand daarop en sprak met nadruk het volgende tooverformulier uit:\n\n\"Wat nog niet hier is, kome! Wat hier is blijve!\" Toen schraapte hij\nde aarde weg en er kwam een steen voor den dag. Deze werd weggenomen\nen daar vertoonde zich een keurig schatkamertje, welks bodem en\nzijwanden van opeengehoopte steentjes gemaakt waren en waarin een\nknikker lag. Verbaasd staarde Tom den knikker aan. Hij krabde het\nhoofd en zeide:\n\n\"Wel, is het mogelijk!\"\n\nToen duwde hij den knikker gemelijk weg en bleef in gedachten\nverzonken staan.--Wat was er gebeurd? De zaak was deze: Tom bemerkte,\ndat hij zich in iets, hetgeen hij en zijne makkers steeds als eene\nonfeilbare zekerheid hadden beschouwd, bedrogen had. Hij geloofde\ndat, wanneer een knikker met de noodige bezweringen werd begraven\nen dan een dag of veertien rustig in den schoot der aarde gelaten\nen daarna met de tooverwoorden die hij juist had uitgesproken, weer\nopgegraven werd, men al de knikkers, die men ooit verloren had, daar\nin dien tusschentijd bijeengekomen zou vinden, hoe wijd zij ook over\nde wereld verspreid mochten zijn. Tom's vertrouwen in dit bijgeloof\nwas tot op zijn fondamenten geschokt. Hij had menigmaal gehoord,\ndat deze proef gelukt, maar nooit dat zij mislukt was.\n\nHet kwam niet in hem op, dat hij het verscheidene malen te voren\nbeproefd had, maar dat hij de plaats, waar hij de knikkers had\nverborgen, nooit had kunnen vinden. Hij dacht zich half suf over de\nzaak en kwam eindelijk tot het besluit, dat er een heks tusschenbeide\nwas gekomen, die de betoovering verbroken had. Toch wilde hij zich op\ndit punt overtuigen en zocht, totdat hij een klein zanderig plekje\nmet een trechtervormig indruksel gevonden had. Hij legde zich naast\ndat plekje op den grond, met den mond vlak op het indruksel en riep:\n\n\"Kevertje, kevertje, zeg mij wat ik weten moet!\n\n\"Kevertje, kevertje, zeg mij wat ik weten moet!\"\n\nHet zand begon te werken en voor een oogenblik kwam er een zwart\nkevertje voor den dag, dat echter spoedig doodelijk verschrikt\nwegholde.\n\n\"Hij zegt niets! Dus was het een toovenaar, die het gedaan heeft. Ik\ndacht het wel.\"\n\nTom wist wel hoe weinig het baatte tegen heksen te strijden en gaf\nhet plan ontmoedigd op. Doch daar schoot hem in de gedachten, dat\nhij den knikker, dien hij juist had weggeworpen, toch wel gaarne\nterug zou hebben, en ging hem dus geduldig zoeken. Helaas! hij kon\nhem niet meer vinden. Toen keerde hij naar zijn schatkamer terug en\nzette zich behoedzaam neder in dezelfde houding, als toen hij den\nknikker had weggeduwd. Daarop nam hij een anderen knikker uit den zak,\nslingerde dien eveneens weg en riep:\n\n\"Broeder, ga uw broeder halen!\"\n\nHij zag waar de knikker zou stilhouden en ging derwaarts om hem na\nte kijken. Doch het speeltuig was niet ver genoeg of te ver gerold;\ndus wendde hij een tweede poging aan. Deze laatste werd met een goeden\nuitslag bekroond, want de beide knikkers lagen omtrent een duim van\nelkaar af.\n\nJuist op dat oogenblik verhief zich door het groene gewelf des wouds\nhet geschal van een tinnen trompet. In een oogenblik had Tom buis\nen broek uitgetrokken, van zijne bretels een gordel gemaakt, eenige\ntakken achter de mijt bijeen vergaard, een ruwen pijl, een boog, een\nhouten zwaard en een trompet voor den dag gehaald en was, met deze\nzaken beladen, blootbeens en in een fladderend hemd weggeijld. Onder\neen grooten olmboom hield hij stil, beantwoordde het trompetgeschal\nen begon op zijne teenen loopende, omzichtig in alle richtingen rond\nte kijken. Toen riep hij zacht tot een denkbeeldigen makker:\n\n\"Halt, grappenmaker! Houd u schuil, tot ik blaas.\"\n\nDaar verscheen Joe Harper, even luchtig gekleed en zwaar gewapend\nals Tom. Deze riep:\n\n\"Halt! Wie komt hier in de wouden van Sherwood zonder vrijgeleide?\"\n\n\"Guy van Guisborne heeft niemands vrijgeleide noodig. Wie zijt gij,\ndat ...?\"\n\n\"Dat gij dus durft spreken,\" vulde Tom aan, want de knapen waren\nbezig eene plaats uit een boek op te zeggen.\n\n\"Wie zijt gij, dat ge dus durft spreken?\"\n\n\"Ik? Wel, ik ben Robin Hood, zooals uw schavuitengeraamte spoedig\nzal bemerken.\"\n\n\"Dan zijt gij waarlijk de beruchte bandiet! Zeer aangenaam zal het\nmij zijn met u over den vrijen doortocht door deze wouden te twisten.\"\n\n\"Pas op!\"\n\nZij trokken hunne houten zwaarden, wierpen hunne andere wapenen op\nden grond en begonnen een ernstig en bedaard tweegevecht.\n\n\"Kom,\" zeide Tom, \"als gij goed slaags zijt geraakt, zet het dan met\nkracht door.\"\n\nEn zij zetten het met kracht door, totdat zij hijgden en zweetten\nvan inspanning. Eindelijk zeide Tom:\n\n\"Val! val! Waarom val je niet?\"\n\n\"Ik doe het niet. Waarom val je zelf niet? Je bent er het ergste\naan toe.\"\n\n\"Wel, dat behoort zoo niet. _Ik_ kan niet vallen. Dat staat niet in\nhet boek. Het boek zegt:\n\n\"'Toen viel hij Guy van Guisborne van achteren aan en sloeg hem\nneder.' Nu moet gij u omkeeren en mij u in den rug laten treffen.\"\n\nTegen dit gezag viel niet te twisten en Joe keerde zich om, ontving\nden slag en viel.\n\n\"Nu,\" zeide hij, toen hij weder opstond, \"Nu moet gij mij u laten\ndoodmaken; dat is eerlijk.\"\n\n\"Wel, dat kan ik niet doen. Dat staat niet in het boek.\"\n\n\"Zoo, dat is gemeen.\"\n\n\"Hoor eens, Joe, je moogt Tuck de monnik of Muck de zoon van den\nmolenaar zijn en mij met een knuppel afrossen, of ik zal de Sherif\nvan Nottingham zijn en jij Robin Hood, dan zul je mij doodmaken.\"\n\nDit werd goedgekeurd en deze tafereelen uit het boek werden\nvertoond. Toen werd Tom weder Robin Hood en de verraderlijke non\nliet hem doodbloeden door zijne wond te verwaarloozen. Joe, die\neen geheele bende roovers voorstelde, trok hem onder het aanheffen\nvan klaagliederen voort, legde hem zijn boog in de zwakke handen en\nTom zeide:\n\n\"Waar deze pijl zal vallen, begraaf daar den armen Robin Hood\nonder den groenen boom.\" Toen werd de pijl afgeschoten en Robin\nHood viel op den rug en zou gestorven zijn, indien hij niet op een\nbrandnetel terechtgekomen en voor een lijk wat al te vlug opgesprongen\nwas. Daarop kleedden de knapen zich weder aan, borgen hunne zonderlinge\nwapenrusting weder op en gingen naar huis, vol spijt dat zij geene\nwezenlijke roovers waren, terwijl zij zich verbaasd afvraagden, in\nwelk opzicht toch de moderne beschaving het verlies van de roovers\nvergoedde. Het eindresultaat was, dat zij verklaarden liever een jaar\nlang bandieten in de wouden van Sherwood, dan voor altijd President\nvan de Vereenigde Staten te willen zijn.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK IX.\n\n\nTom en Sid werden dien avond als gewoonlijk on halftien naar bed\ngezonden. Ze zeiden hun avondgebed op en Sid was spoedig in een zoeten\nslaap verzonken. Tom lag met koortsachtig ongeduld het middernachtelijk\nuur af te wachten. Toen hij dacht, dat de dag wel haast aan den hemel\nmoest zijn, hoorde hij het tien uren slaan. Dat was wanhopig. Hij was\nzoo zenuwachtig, dat ware hij niet bang geweest Sid wakker te maken,\nhij grooten lust gehad zou hebben met de voeten te gaan stampen. Doch\nhij bleef rustig liggen en staarde in de duisternis. Eerst was\nhet akelig stil. Toen scheen het, dat de angstige stilte door nauw\nmerkbare geluiden afgebroken werd. De klok begon door haar getik\nzijn aandacht te trekken. Het oude kabinet ging geheimzinnig aan 't\nkraken. Ook de trappen lieten een flauw gekrikkrak hooren. Blijkbaar\nwaarden er geesten rond. Uit tante Polly's kamer werd een geregeld,\nhalf onderdrukt gesnork vernomen. En nu begon het eentonig gepiep van\nden krekel, dien geen menschelijk vernuft kan doen verstommen. Bij dit\nalles kwam nog het spookachtig getik van een houtworm in het beschot\nbij het hoofdeinde van Toms bed, dat hem deed sidderen. Immers, het\nbeteekende dat iemands dagen waren geteld. En dan nog werd door den\nadem van de nachtkoelte het geluid voortgedragen van een verwijderden\nhond, dat uit de verte door een nog droeviger gejank beantwoord\nwerd. Tom stierf duizend dooden. Eindelijk scheen het alsof de tijd\nniet meer was en de eeuwigheid een aanvang had genomen. Ondanks\nzichzelven begon hij in te sluimeren; de klok sloeg elf uren, maar\nhij hoorde het niet. Op eens vermengde zich onder zijne verwarde\ndroomen een doodsomber kattengekrol, dat door het openschuiven\nvan des buurmans raam verstoord werd. Een geschreeuw van: \"Voort,\nduivelsche kat!\" en het rinkelen van een leege flesch, die tegen den\nmuur van tantes houtschuur geslingerd werd, maakte hem klaar wakker,\nen in een oogwenk was hij gekleed en uit het raam en kroop op handen\nen voeten langs het dak. Voorzichtig miauwde hij nog een paar malen,\nsprong toen op het dak van de schuur en van daar op den grond. Daar\nstond Huckleberry Finn met zijne doode kat. De jongens maakten zich\nweg en verdwenen in de duisternis. Een half uur later doorwaadden\nzij het lange gras van het kerkhof.\n\nDe doodouderwetsche godsakker lag op een heuvel, omtrent anderhalve\nmijl van het stadje verwijderd. Hij was omrasterd door een vervallen\nhouten hek, dat op sommige plaatsen binnenwaarts, op andere\nbuitenwaarts leunde, maar nergens rechtop stond. Onkruid en gras\ngroeiden er in milden overvloed. Al de grafplaatsen waren verzakt;\ngeen enkele zerk was er te zien; ronde wormstekige naamborden waggelden\nover de graven, alsof zij naar een steun zochten, dien zij nergens\nvonden. Eens had er op gestaan: \"Ter gedachtenis van die of die,\"\nmaar die woorden waren thans bij de meeste, zelfs op klaarlichten\ndag, onleesbaar.\n\nDe wind ruischte zachtjes door de boomtoppen en Tom meende in dat\ngeluid de geesten der afgestorvenen te hooren, die zich beklaagden, dat\nzij in hun rust gestoord werden. De jongens spraken weinig en alleen\nop fluisterenden toon, want de tijd, de plaats en de aangrijpende\nplechtigheid en stilte joegen hen vrees aan. Zij vonden het versch\ngedolven graf, dat zij zochten, onder drie groote olmboomen, die op\neen paar voet afstands van die plek een klein boschje vormden.\n\nDaar bleven zij een (naar het hun scheen) ontzettend langen tijd\nwachten. Het zuchten van den nachtuil was het eenige geluid, wat de\ndoodelijke stilte verbrak. Duizenden akelige gedachten hoopten zich\nin Toms brein opeen, waar hij ten laatste lucht moest geven.\n\n\"Hucky,\" zeide hij angstig, \"denk je, dat de doode menschen het\nprettig vinden, dat wij hier zijn?\"\n\nHuckleberry fluisterde:\n\n\"Ik wou, dat ik het wist. 't Is akelig stil, vind je niet?\"\n\n\"Ja.\"\n\nEr volgde een lange pauze, gedurende welke zij dit onderwerp in hun\nbinnenste bepeinsden.\n\nEindelijk zei Tom nauw hoorbaar:\n\n\"Denk je, Huck, dat Hoss Williams ons hoort praten?\"\n\n\"Natuurlijk,--ten minste zijn geest.\"\n\nNa eene pauze zeide Tom weer:\n\n\"Ik wou, dat ik gezeid had, mijnheer Williams; maar ik bedoelde geen\nkwaad. Iedereen noemt hem Hoss.\"\n\n\"Een mensch kan anders niet te beleefd zijn, als hij over doode\nmenschen spreekt, Tom.\"\n\nDit antwoord was niet opwekkend en het gesprek begon weder te\nkwijnen. Op eens greep Tom zijn kameraad bij den arm en zeide:\n\n\"St!\"\n\n\"Wat is er, Tom?\" En de twee klemden zich met kloppende harten aan\nelkaar vast.\n\n\"St! Daar is het weer. Hoor je het niet?\"\n\n\"Wat?\"\n\n\"Daar,--hoor je het nu?\"\n\n\"O hemel, Tom, daar komen zij. Wat zullen wij doen!\"\n\n\"Dat weet ik niet. Denk je, dat ze ons zullen zien?\"\n\n\"O, Tom, zij zien in het donker als katten. Ik wou, dat ik nooit\ngekomen was.\"\n\n\"O, wees niet bang; ik geloof niet, dat ze ons zullen plagen. Wij\ndoen geen kwaad. Als wij ons doodstil houden, zullen ze misschien\nniet op ons letten.\"\n\n\"Ik zal mijn best doen, Tom; maar o hemel, ik beef als een riet!\"\n\n\"Luister!\"\n\nDe jongens hielden hunne hoofden bij elkaar en haalden ternauwernood\nadem. Een bedekt geluid van stemmen werd van het andere eind van het\nkerkhof vernomen.\n\n\"Kijk, kijk! daar!\" fluisterde Tom. \"Wat is dat?\"\n\n\"Het is duivelsvuur, Tom! Het is vreeselijk!\"\n\nDoor de duisternis heen werden nu eenige figuren zichtbaar, die\neen ouderwetsche lantaarn been en weer bewogen, welke den grond met\nontelbare lichtspranken bezaaide.\n\nSidderend fluisterde Huckleberry:\n\n\"Het zijn de duivels, dat is zeker. Drie! O God. Tom! het is met ons\ngedaan. Kun je bidden?\"\n\n\"Ik zal het probeeren; wees maar niet bang. Zij zullen ons geen kwaad\ndoen. Ik ga plat op den grond liggen slapen. Ik ...\"\n\n\"Ik ...\"\n\n\"Wat is er, Huck.\"\n\n\"Het zijn duivels in menschengedaante! Een van hen ten minste heeft\nde stem van Muff Potter!\"\n\n\"'t Is toch niet waar?\"\n\n\"Wedden van wel. Blijf zoo stil als een muis liggen. Beweeg je\nniet. Hij ziet niet scherp genoeg on ons te ontdekken. Zeker dronken,\nzooals gewoonlijk,--dat gemeene oude vloekbeest!\"\n\n\"Goed, ik zal mij niet bewegen. Nu houden zij stil. Zij kunnen het\nniet vinden. Daar komen ze weer. Nu zijn ze warm. Nu weer koud. Alweer\nwarm. Zij branden zich. En nu gaan ze er recht op af. Zeg eens, Huck,\nik herken nog een stem. 't Is Injun Joe.\"\n\n\"Ja, ja, dat is zoo. Die fielterige kleurling! Ik houd het er voor,\ndat de duivels bang voor hem zijn.\"\n\nHet gefluister hield op; de drie mannen hadden het graf bereikt en\nstonden op een paar voet afstands van de schuilplaats der jongens.\n\n\"Hier is het,\" zeide de derde stem, en de persoon, aan wien deze\ntoebehoorde, hield de lantaarn op en liet het gelaat van den jongen\ndokter Robinson zien.\n\nPotter en Injun Joe droegen een burrie, waarop een touw en een paar\nschoppen lagen. Ze legden hun last neder en begonnen het graf open\nte maken. De dokter plaatste de lantaarn aan 't boveneind van de kuil\nen zette zich met den rug tegen een der olmboomen. Hij was zoo dicht\nbij de jongens, dat hij hen had kunnen aanraken.\n\n\"Maak haast, mannen!\" zeide hij met gedempte stem. \"De maan kan elk\noogenblik opkomen.\"\n\nDe gravers bromden ten antwoord iets tusschen de tanden en gingen\nmet delven voort. Een tijdlang werd er geen ander geluid gehoord\ndan het eentonig gekras der spaden, die hare vracht zand en aarde\nopwierpen. Eindelijk stootte een der schoppen met een doffen hollen\nklank op de doodkist en een minuut daarna hadden de mannen haar uit\nden kuil geheschen en op den grond gezet. Zij lichtten er met hun\nspaden het deksel af, namen het lijk er uit en wierpen dat met ruwe\nhand op den grond. Juist kwam de maan tusschen de wolken te voorschijn\nen wierp haar schijnsel op het loodkleurig gelaat. De draagbaar werd\ngereedgemaakt, het lijk er op gelegd, met een deken overdekt en met\nhet touw vastgebonden. Potter haalde een groot snoeimes voor den dag\nen sneed het er bij hangend eind touw af, zeggende:\n\n\"Ziezoo, het vervloekte werk is gedaan, mijnheer de viller! En nu\ndadelijk vijf dollars, of het lijk blijft hier.\"\n\n\"Dat zeg ik ook!\" zeide Injun Joe.\n\n\"Wat beteekent dit?\" zeide de dokter. \"Je hebt gedwongen, dat ik\njelui vooruit zou betalen, en ik heb je betaald.\"\n\n\"Ja, en je hebt meer gedaan dan dat,\" zeide Injun Joe, en ging vlak\nvoor den dokter staan, die opgerezen was. \"Vijf jaar geleden heb je\nme op een avond uit je vaders keuken weggejaagd, toen ik om een stuk\nbrood kwam vragen, en zei je dat ik nergens voor deugde. En ik zwoer,\ndat ik het je betaald zou zetten, al was het over honderd jaar; en toen\nliet je vader me als een bedelaar in de gevangenis stoppen. Denk je dat\nik dat vergeten ben. Het bloed der Injuns stroomt me niet voor niets\ndoor de aderen. Nu heb ik je, en nu zullen we eens afrekenen, hoor je.\"\n\nHij balde de vuist en hield die dreigend den dokter voor het\ngezicht. Maar deze pakte op eens den booswicht bij den kraag en wierp\nhem op den grond, Potter hief zijn mes op en zeide:\n\n\"Je zult mijn kameraad niet slaan!\"\n\nIn een oogenblik was hij met den dokter handgemeen en de twee mannen\nvochten met kracht en geweld, terwijl zij het gras vertrapten en\nden grond met hunne hielen openscheurden. Injun Joe sprong op met\nvlammende oogen, greep Potters mes en kroop als een kat, loerende op\nhaar prooi, om de strijdenden heen. Opeens rukte de dokter zich los,\nvatte een der zware planken van Williams graf en velde er Potter\nmede ter aarde. Toen nam de kleurling zijne kans waar en dreef den\njongen man het mes tot aan het heft in de borst. Deze waggelde, viel\nop Potter neder en overstroomde dien met zijn bloed. Te gelijker tijd\nonttrok een wolkenfloers dit vreeselijk tooneel aan 't gezicht en de\njongens ijlden in de duisternis weg.\n\nToen de maan weer voor den dag kwam, stond Injun Joe over de twee\ngestalten heengebogen en aanschouwde die aandachtig. De dokter mompelde\neenige onsamenhangende woorden, gaf een paar snikken en bleef toen\nroerloos liggen.\"\n\n\"Die schuld is, Godv..., vereffend!\" riep de kleurling uit. Vervolgens\nplunderde hij het lijk, stak het noodlottige mes in Potters\nopen rechterhand en zette zich toen op de ledige doodkist\nneder. Drie--vier--vijf minuten gingen voorbij en Potter begon\nzich te bewegen en te kreunen. Hij klemde het mes, dat hij in de\nhand had, vast, hief het in de hoogte, keek er naar en liet het vol\nhuivering vallen. Toen richtte hij zich op, wierp het lijk van zich\naf, en staarde het met verglaasde oogen aan en keek verward in het\nrond. Zijne oogen ontmoetten die van Joe.\n\n\"God, wat is dit Joe?\" zeide hij.\n\n\"Het is een gemeene geschiedenis,\" zeide Joe, met een kalm\ngelaat. \"Waarom heb je het gedaan?\"\n\n\"Ik?--Ik heb het niet gedaan.\"\n\n\"Kijk eens om je heen! Dat laat zich niet loochenen.\"\n\nPotter beefde en werd doodsbleek.\n\n\"Ik dacht dat ik nuchteren geworden was. Ik had van nacht niet moeten\ndrinken, maar ik voel het nog in mijn hoofd,--nog erger dan toen wij\nhierheen gingen. Ik ben heelemaal in de war, ik kan mij er nauwlijks\niets van herinneren. Zeg eens eerlijk, Joe, oude jongen, heb ik het\ngedaan? Het was mijne bedoeling niet. Zeg eens, hoe ik het gedaan heb,\nJoe!--O 't is ontzettend, zoo'n jonge beste man!\"\n\n\"Wel, jelui vocht samen en hij sloeg je met een plank en je viel\nplat op den grond en toen stond je waggelend op en greep het mes,\nen toen hij je nog een slag wou geven, stak je het hem door 't lijf,\nen daar heb jelui tot nou toe, zoo dood als pieren, gelegen.\"\n\n\"O, ik wist niet wat ik deed. Ik wil op dezen oogenblik sterven, als ik\nhet wist. Het is alles de schuld van de jenever en de opgewondenheid,\ngeloof ik. Ik heb nog nooit in mijn leven een wapen gebruikt,\nJoe. Gevochten heb ik wel, maar nooit met wapenen, dat zal iedereen\nmoeten zeggen. Joe, vertel het aan niemand. Beloof je me, dat je het\nnooit vertellen zult, Joe? Ik ben altijd voor je in de bres gesprongen,\ndat weet je. Zul je het nooit zeggen, Joe?\" En de arme man viel voor\nden verstokten moordenaar op de knie\u00ebn en wrong smeekend de handen.\n\n\"Neen, je hebt altijd als een eerlijk man met mij gehandeld, Muff\nPotter, en ik zal je met gelijke munt betalen. Me dunkt, mooier kan\nik het niet zeggen.\"\n\n\"O, Joe, je bent een engel. Ik zal er je voor zegenen, zoolang ik\nleef.\" En Potter begon te schreien.\n\n\"Kom, schei maar uit,\" zei Joe, \"'t Is nouw geen tijd om te janken. Ga\njij dezen kant uit, dan zal ik den anderen weg gaan. Voort nu en laat\ngeen spoor van je achter!\"\n\nPotter liep weg op een draf, die weldra in een hollenden pas\noverging. De kleurling stond hem na te kijken en mompelde:\n\n\"Als hij maar zoo duizelig van den val en zoo dronken van den\nbrandewijn is, als hij er uitziet, zal hij niet aan het mes denken,\ntotdat hij te ver weg en te bang is on naar eene plaats als deze\nalleen terug te keeren. Dat kuiken!\"\n\nEen paar minuten later was de maan de eenige, die het in de deken\ngewikkelde lijk, de deksellooze doodkist en het open graf aanschouwde,\nen heerschte er weder eene volmaakte stilte op het kerkhof.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK X.\n\n\nDe beide knapen ijlden sprakeloos van ontzetting den weg op naar\nde stad. Van tijd tot tijd zagen zij angstig om, als vreesden zij\nachtervolgd te worden. In elken boomtronk, die zich op den weg\nverhief, meenden zij een vijand te zien, en dat deed hun den adem\ninhouden, en telkens wanneer zij een eenzame nabij de stad gelegen\nhut voorbijrenden, scheen het geblaf der opgeschrikte kettinghonden\nhunne voeten vleugelen aan te binden.\n\n\"Als wij het maar tot de oude looierij kunnen brengen, voordat wij het\nafleggen,\" fluisterde Tom, en hijgde bij ieder woord naar adem. \"Ik\nkan het niet langer uithouden!\" Huckleberry antwoordde met een\nzwaren zucht en de knapen vestigden hun oogen op het doelwit hunner\nhoop en spanden alle krachten in on dat te bereiken. Zij naderden\nhet hoe langer hoe meer, stormden eindelijk hals over hoofd de\nopenstaande deur binnen en vielen dankbaar en uitgeput in de donkere\nschuilplaats neer. Langzamerhand bedaarde het kloppen van hun hart\nen Tom fluisterde: \"Huckleberry, wat denk jij, dat er op staat?\"\n\n\"Als dokter Robinson sterft, loopt het op hangen uit.\"\n\n\"Denk je dat wezenlijk.\"\n\n\"Wel, ik weet het zeker, Tom.\"\n\nTom dacht een oogenblik na en zeide:\n\n\"Wie zal het vertellen? Wij?\"\n\n\"Wat verzin je nou! Verbeeld je, dat er eens iets gebeurde waardoor\nInjun Joe niet opgehangen werd, dan zou hij ons immers op een goeden\ndag vermoorden.\"\n\n\"Dat lag ik juist te bedenken, Huck.\"\n\n\"Als iemand het zeggen moet, laat Muff Potter het dan doen indien\nhij er althans niet te gek of te dronken toe is.\"\n\nTom antwoordde niets--en ging voort met denken. Eindelijk zei hij\nzachtjes:\n\n\"Huck, Muff Potter weet het niet. Hoe kan hij het vertellen?\"\n\n\"Waarom weet hij het niet?\"\n\n\"Omdat hij juist die plank op zijn kop heeft gekregen, toen Injun\nJoe het deed. Denk jij, dat hij iets kan gezien hebben? Denk jij,\ndat hij iets weet?\"\n\n\"Bij mijne zolen, dat is waar ook, Tom.\"\n\n\"En bovendien, wie weet of die plank hem niet gedood heeft!\"\n\n\"Neen, dat geloof ik niet, Tom. Hij was dronken, dat kon ik wel\nzien; dronken, net als altijd. Wel, als Pop zat is, kun je wel een\nkerk op zijn hoofd laten invallen, zonder dat 't hem deert. Dat zeit\nhij zelf. Zoo is het natuurlijk precies met Muff Potter. Als de man\ndoodnuchteren geweest was, zou de plank hem wel gemold hebben, maar\nnu niet.\"\n\nNa een oogenblik peinzend zeide Tom:\n\n\"Hucky, weet je zeker, dat je je mond kunt houden?\"\n\n\"Tom, wij _moeten_ den mond houden. Die duivel van een Injun zou er\ngeen been in zien ons als katten te verdrinken, als we van den moord\nrepten en hij niet gehangen werd. Hoor eens hier, Tom, laat ons elkaar\nmet een eed beloven, dat wij geen woord zullen spreken.\"\n\n\"Dat is goed, Huck; dat zal 't beste zijn. Zullen wij onze handen\nopsteken en zweren, dat we...?\"\n\n\"O, neen, dat is niet voldoende voor zoo iets als dit. Dat is goed\nvoor wissewasjes, vooral onder jongens, die den boel verklappen\nzoodra ze nijdig worden; maar bij zoo'n groot ding als dit behoort\nschrift en--bloed!\"\n\nTom juichte dit denkbeeld van ganscher harte toe. Er was iets\ngeheimzinnigs en ijzingswekkends in: het nachtelijk uur, de duisternis,\nde omgeving, alles was er mede in overeenstemming. Hij raapte een\nwitten, in de maneschijn liggenden tegel op, haalde een stukje rood\nkrijt uit zijn zak en krabbelde, bij het licht van de maneschijn,\nmet moeite de volgende woorden op den tegel:\n\n\n                         \"Hugh Finn en\n                       Tom Sawyer zweren,\n                  dat zij zullen zwijgen over\n                deze zaak, en verklaren, dat zij\n                liever op de plaats zelve zullen\n                doodvallen dan ooit de waarheid\n                        te verklappen.\"\n\n\nHuckleberry was verbaasd over de gemakkelijkheid waarmede Tom schreef\nen over de prachtige woorden. Hij nam dadelijk een speld uit zijn\nlompen en wilde zich in den vinger prikken, toen Tom zeide:\n\n\"Houd op, doe dat niet! De speld is van koper; er mocht eens kopergroen\naan zijn.\"\n\n\"Wat is kopergroen?\"\n\n\"Dat is vergif, en als je dat eens insliktet ... Begrijp jij?\"\n\nDaarop nam Tom het garen uit een van zijn naalden, en de jongens\nprikten zich in den duim en drukten er een droppel bloed uit.\n\nNa lang persen gelukte het Tom de voorletters van zijn naam met bloed\nop den tegel te teekenen, en gebruikte daarbij zijn pink als pen. Toen\nwees hij Huckleberry, hoe hij een H en een F moest maken, en hiermede\nwaren de formaliteiten der eedsaflegging voltooid. Zij begroeven den\ntegel vlak bij den muur, met de noodige griezelige plechtigheden en\nonder het spreken van tooverformulieren en beschouwden van nu aan\nhun geheim als heilig en onschendbaar.\n\nOnderwijl was, zonder dat de knapen het bemerkt hadden eene gedaante\ndoor eene opening aan de andere zijde van het vervallen gebouw naar\nbinnen geslopen.\n\n\"Tom,\" fluisterde Huckleberry, \"mogen wij het nu nooit verklappen?\"\n\n\"Neen, natuurlijk niet. Wat er ook gebeure, wij mogen, er geen woord\nvan spreken, want als wij dat deden, zouden wij dood op den grond\nvallen,--begrijp je?\"\n\n\"Ja, dat begrijp ik?\"\n\nZij bleven nog eenige minuten staan fluisteren, toen buiten,\nomstreeks tien stappen van de plek waar zij stonden, een hond zijn\nlang, somber gejank aanhief. De knapen klemden zich doodelijk ontsteld\naan elkander vast.\n\n\"Wie van ons beiden zou er om koud zijn?\" bracht Huckleberry, naar\nadem snakkende, uit.\n\n\"Ik weet het niet. Kijk maar eens door deze scheur in den muur.\"\n\n\"Neen, doe jij het zelf, Tom.\"\n\n\"Ik, ik kan het niet doen, Huck.\"\n\n\"Och, als je blieft, Tom. Daar begint het weer.\"\n\n\"O Hemeltje, wat ben ik blij,\" fluisterde Tom. \"Ik ken zijn stem:\nhet is Harbisons hond.\"\n\n\"O, dat is gelukkig!--Zal ik je eens wat zeggen, Tom? ik was zoo bang,\ndat het een verdwaalde hond zou zijn.\"\n\nDe hond begon weder te huilen en weer ontzonk den jongens de moed.\n\n\"O wee! Het is Harbisons hond niet,\" fluisterde Huckleberry; \"kijk\nnog eens Tom.\"\n\nBevende van schrik bracht Tom zijn oog nogmaals voor de\nopening. Nauwlijks verstaanbaar fluisterde hij:\n\n\"O Huck! Het is een _verdwaalde hond_!\"\n\n\"Gauw, Tom, gauw! Wien van ons bedoelt hij?\"\n\n\"Huck, ik denk ons allebei.\"\n\n\"O, Tom, het is met ons gedaan. Waar ik naar toe zal gaan, is niet\ntwijfelachtig. Ik ben altijd zoo slecht geweest.\"\n\n\"Ik ook.--Dat komt van het uit school blijven en van het ongehoorzaam\nzijn. Als ik gewild had, zou ik wel even goed hebben kunnen zijn als\nSid,--maar, neen, dat zou ik toch niet, natuurlijk niet. Breng ik\nhet er nu dezen keer goed af, dan zal ik mijn best doen om voortaan\nop de zondagsschool op te passen.\" En Tom begon aanstalten te maken\ntot schreien.\n\n\"Jij slecht?\" en Huckleberry begon ook te schreien. \"Bewaar me, Tom\nSawyer, als jij niet een brave jongen bent geweest in vergelijking\nvan mij. O hemeltje, hemeltje, hemeltje! Ik wou, dat ik de helft van\njou kansen had!\"\n\nTom viel hem in de rede en fluisterde:\n\n\"Kijk eens, Huck, kijk eens! Hij staat met zijn rug naar ons toe.\"\n\nHuckleberry keek verheugd door de opening.\n\n\"Sapperloot, het is waar. Heeft hij altijd zoo gestaan?\"\n\n\"Ja; maar ik ben zoo gek geweest het niet te zien. Nu wie zou hij\nthans op het oog hebben?\"\n\nHet gehuil hield op. Tom splitste de ooren.\n\n\"H\u00e8! wat is dat?\" fluisterde hij.\n\n\"Een geluid als--als het knorren van een varken. Neen, toch niet;\ner ligt iemand te snorken, Tom.\"\n\n\"Ja, dat is het.--Waar komt het vandaan, Huck?\"\n\n\"Ik geloof van gindschen kant. Zoo klinkt het ten minste. Pop slaapt\nhier wel eens met de varkens, maar zijn gesnork is een heel ander\ngeblaas. Buitendien geloof ik, dat hij niet meer in de stad durft\nkomen.\"\n\nDe lust tot het zoeken van avonturen ontwaakte weder in het hart\nder knapen.\n\n\"Hucky, durf jij er langs loopen, als ik vooruit ga?\"\n\n\"Ik heb er niet veel lust in, Tom. Vooronderstel eens, dat het Injun\nJoe was!\"\n\nTom stond een oogenblik in tweestrijd, doch de verzoeking werd te sterk\nen de jongens besloten het te doen met dien verstande, dat zij hunne\nbiezen zouden pakken, als het snorken ophield. Zoo slopen zij op de\nteenen, achter elkander, naar het andere einde van het gebouw. Toen\nzij zoo wat een pas of vijf van den snorker af waren, trapte Tom op\neen stok en brak dien met een harden krak. De man steunde, keerde\nzich om, en zijn gelaat werd in den maneschijn zichtbaar.\n\nHet was Muff Potter.\n\nDe knapen waren als versteend blijven staan, toen de man zich bewoog,\nmaar hunne vrees was nu geweken. Zij slopen naar buiten, langs\nde vermolmde schutting en hielden daar stil on elkaar \"goedendag\"\nte zeggen.\n\nDaar klonk weder het somber gehuil door de nachtlucht. De knapen\nkeken om en zagen den vreemden hond staan, vlak bij de plek waar\nPotter lag, en het dier hield zijn hemelwaarts gekeerden kop naar\nden dronkaard gericht.\n\n\"O, j\u00e9min\u00e9, het geldt _hem_!\" riepen de knapen in \u00e9\u00e9nen adem uit.\n\n\"Hoor eens, Tom; zij zeggen, dat een dag of veertien geleden een hond\nhuilende tegen middernacht langs John Millers huis geloopen heeft,\nen dat toen een Wipperwil [1] op zijn dak is gaan zitten zingen;\nen toch is daar niemand gestorven.\"\n\n\"Dat weet ik wel. Maar is Grace Miller niet verleden Zaterdag in\nde keuken op het vuur gevallen en heeft zij zich niet schrikkelijk\ngebrand?\"\n\n\"Ja, maar zij is niet dood. En wat sterker is, zij wordt beter.\"\n\n\"'t Kan wel wezen, doch wacht maar; zij is er zoo zeker om koud als\nMuff Potter. Dat zeggen de negers althans en die weten al die soort\nvan dingen.\"\n\nDaarop namen zij peinzend afscheid van elkander.\n\nToen Tom het raam van zijne slaapkamer insprong, had de dag omtrent\nvoor den nacht plaats gemaakt. Hij kleedde zich behoedzaam uit en viel\nin slaap, zich gelukwenschend dat niemand iets van zijn uitstapje\nbemerkt had. Maar hij wist niet, dat de zacht snorkende Sid al een\nuur wakker had gelegen.\n\nToen Tom ontwaakte, was Sid al verdwenen. De zon zag er uit alsof zij\nreeds lang geschenen had en ook de atmosfeer gaf den indruk dat het\nal laat was. Verschrikt sprong hij het bed uit. Waarom was hij niet\ngeroepen,--hij, die anders altijd uit zijn bed getrokken werd? Dat\nwas een slecht voorteeken. Binnen vijf minuten was hij gekleed en\nstapte hij met een loom en slaperig gevoel de trap af. De familie\nzat nog rondom de tafel, maar had het ontbijt gebruikt. Er was geene\nbestraffende stem, doch er waren oogen, die zich afwendden, en er\nwas iets stils en plechtigs, dat den schuldigen eene rilling door\nde leden joeg. Hij ging zitten en trachtte vroolijk te kijken doch\ndat was echter zwaar werk, want zijn glimlach werd niet beantwoord,\nzoodat hij eindelijk diep verslagen de oogen op den grond sloeg. Na het\nontbijt nam tante hem onder vier oogen en de hoop dat hij slaag zou\nkrijgen maakte Tom bijkans vroolijk; doch niets van dat alles. Zijne\ntante begon te schreien en vroeg hem, hoe het mogelijk was dat hij\ner behagen in schepte, haar oud hart te breken, en eindigde met hem\nte zeggen, dat hij maar voort moest gaan met zichzelven ongelukkig\nte maken en hare grijze haren met kommer ten grave te doen dalen,\nwant dat zij het met hem opgaf. Dat was erger dan duizend zweepslagen\nen Tom voelde iets in zijn hart, dat zwaarder te dragen was dan\nlichamelijk lijden. Hij schreide, smeekte om vergiffenis, beloofde\nherhaalde malen beterschap en werd toen weggezonden met het gevoel,\ndat hij slechts ten halve vergeven en ten halve vertrouwd werd.\n\nHij verliet de kamer in een staat te ellendig zelfs om wraak jegens\nSid te koesteren, zoodat de laatste zich onnoodig achter de tuindeur\nging verschuilen. Neerslachtig en zwaarmoedig drentelde hij naar\nschool en onderging de hem en Joe Harper wegens hun schoolverzuim\nvan den vorigen dag toebedeelde klappen, met het uiterlijk van\niemand, wiens hart onder veel zwaarder leed gebukt gaat en die\naan zulke beuzelingen afgestorven is. Vervolgens zette hij zich op\nzijne plaats neder, met de ellebogen op zijn lessenaar en de handen\nonder den kin, en tuurden op den blinden muur met dien matten blik,\nwelke van een lijden getuigt, dat zijn toppunt bereikt heeft. Daar\nstoot plotseling zijn elleboog tegen een hard voorwerp. Langzaam en\ndroevig verandert hij van houding en neemt het voorwerp op. Het was\nin een papier gewikkeld. Dit papier wordt ontrold en een lang gerekte\nzucht ontsnapt zijn borst. Zijn koperen schelknop staat voor hem! Dit\nlaatste vedertje brak des kemels rug.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XI.\n\n\nV\u00f3\u00f3rdat de klok dien morgen \"negen\" had geslagen, verspreidde het\nakelige nieuws zich plotseling door de geheele stad. Zelfs zonder\nde toen nog onbekende telegraaf vloog het verhaal, met meer dan\ntelegrafischen spoed, van mond tot mond, van groep tot groep,\nvan huis tot huis. Natuurlijk gaf de schoolmeester vacantie. De\nSt. Petersburgers zouden niet geweten hebben hoe zij 't met hem hadden,\nindien hij dat niet gedaan had. Er was, zoo luidde het gerucht, een\nbebloed mes vlak bij den vermoorden man gevonden, en dat mes was door\niemand herkend als aan Muff Potter toe te behooren. En, werd er verder\nverteld, een man, die laat in den nacht op weg was geweest, had om twee\nuren na middernacht Potter zich aan een beek zien staan wasschen en\ntoen op eens wegsluipen. Al te maal verdachte omstandigheden, vooral\nhet wasschen, dat volstrekt niet tot Potters gewoonte behoorde. Men\nwist ook, dat de gansche stad was doorzocht on dezen \"moordenaar\"\nop te sporen (het publiek heeft in den regel spoedig de bewijzen bij\nde hand en het vonnis klaar), maar dat hij nergens te vinden was. Men\nhad op alle wegen en in allerlei richtingen mannen te paard gezien en\nde sherif hield zich verzekerd, dat hij v\u00f3\u00f3r den nacht gevat zou zijn.\n\nDe geheele stad liep uit naar het kerkhof. Tom vergat ook voor het\noogenblik zijn hartzeer en voegde zich bij den stoet, niet omdat hij\nniet duizendmaal liever overal elders zou zijn heengegaan, maar omdat\neene huiveringwekkende onweerstaanbare betoovering hem voortdreef. Bij\nde akelige plaats gekomen, drong hij met zijn klein lichaam door de\nmenigte heen en aanschouwde het afgrijselijk tooneel. Het was hem\nalsof er een eeuw was voorbijgegaan, sedert hij daar geweest was. Op\neens werd hij in den arm geknepen. Hij keerde zich on en zijne oogen\nontmoetten die van Huckleberry. Daarop keken de knapen dadelijk den\nanderen kant uit en hun hart klopte bij de gedachte, dat iemand dien\nblik van verstandhouding mocht bemerkt hebben. Doch iedereen was aan\nhet praten en verdiept in het vreeselijk schouwspel, dat zich voor\nhet oog vertoonde.\n\n\"Die arme man! Het is een goede les voor lijkendieven. Muff Potter\nzal er voor hangen, als ze hem krijgen!\" Dit was zoo ongeveer de loop\nvan het gesprek op het kerkhof en de dominee maakte de opmerking,\n\"dat het een 'Godsoordeel' was en dat des Heeren hand hier kennelijk\nwerd gezien.\"\n\nPlotseling begon Tom van het hoofd tot de voeten te beven want zijn\noog viel op het verstokte gelaat van Injun Joe. Op dit oogenblik\nontstond er eene kleine opschudding onder de menigte en verscheidene\nmenschen riepen: \"Daar is hij! daar is hij! Hij komt zelf!\"\n\n\"Wie? Wie?\" herhaalden twintig stemmen.\n\n\"Muff Potter!\n\n\"Heila! Hij wordt tegengehouden. Kijk, hij keert terug! Laat hem\nniet wegloopen!\"\n\nEen paar mannen, die in de boomen geklommen waren boven Toms hoofd,\nriepen dat hij volstrekt geen pogingen deed om weg te loopen en dat\nhij er achterdochtig en verschrikt uitzag.\n\n\"Duivelsch onbeschaamd!\" zei een der omstanders. \"Zeker wou hij\neens rustig een kijkje van zijn werk komen nemen en verwachtte geen\ngezelschap.\"\n\nDe schare maakte nu plaats voor den sherif, die met veel praalvertoon\nMuff Potter bij den arm leidende, in haar midden ging staan. De arme\nman zag er verwilderd uit en zijne oogen verrieden den doodsangst,\nwaarin hij verkeerde. Toen hij tegenover den verslagene stond, was\nhet alsof hij door eene beroerte getroffen werd; hij verborg zijn\ngelaat in zijne handen en barstte in tranen uit.\n\n\"Ik heb het niet gedaan, vrienden,\" snikte hij. \"Op mijn woord van eer,\nik heb het niet gedaan.\"\n\n\"Wie beschuldigt u?\" donderde een stem.\n\nDit schot scheen doel te treffen. Potter hief het gelaat omhoog en\nzag met roerende hopeloosheid in het rond. Toen hij Injun Joe zag,\nriep hij uit:\n\n\"O, Injun Joe! gij beloofdet, dat gij het nooit....\"\n\n\"Is dat uw mes?\" En het bebloed werktuig werd hem door den sherif\nvoorgehouden.\n\nPotter zou op den grond gevallen zijn, indien men hem niet aangegrepen\nhad. Toen sprak hij:\n\n\"Iets in mijn binnenste zeide mij, dat, als ik niet terugkwam om het\nte halen....\"\n\nSidderend hield hij op en wuifde met de machtelooze hand, als wilde\nhij te kennen geven, dat hij zich overwonnen achtte, en zeide:\n\"Zeg het maar, Joe--zeg het maar;--het helpt toch niet meer.\"\n\nHuckleberry en Tom waren sprakeloos van ontzetting, toen zij den\nverstokten moordenaar kalm zijne verklaring hoorden afleggen. Zij\nverwachten elk oogenblik, dat God een bliksemstraal uit den helderen\nhemel op hem zou doen nederschieten, en verwonderden er zich over, dat\ndie straf zich voortdurend liet wachten. En toen Injun Joe uitgesproken\nhad en nog levend en gezond voor hen stond, verdween uit hun hart de\naandrang om hun eed te breken en het leven van den armen bedrogen\ngevangene te redden want deze ellendeling, die er zoo goed afkwam,\nhad zich ongetwijfeld aan den duivel verkocht en het zou gevaarlijk\nwezen zich met het eigendom van een macht als deze in te laten.\n\n\"Waarom zijt gij niet weggebleven? Wat behoefdet gij hier terug te\nkomen?\" vroeg een der omstanders.\n\n\"Ik, ik kon niet anders,\" kermde Potter; \"ik zou zoo gaarne weggeloopen\nzijn, maar ik werd naar deze plaats als gedreven.\" En hij begon weder\nte snikken.\n\nEen paar minuten later, bij het gerechtelijk onderzoek, herhaalde\nInjun Joe met dezelfde kalmte als den eersten keer zijne verklaringen\nonder eede en de omstandigheid dat hij nu weder niet door den\nbliksemschicht getroffen werd, versterkte de knapen in hun geloof,\ndat Joe zich aan den Duivel had verkocht. Hij werd thans in hunne\noogen het vreeselijkste en belangwekkendste wezen, dat zij ooit hadden\naanschouwd, en hij boeide hen in zulk eene mate, dat zij hunne oogen\nniet van hem konden afhouden. Bij zichzelven besloten zij, on zoodra\nde gelegenheid zich voordeed, hem des nachts te bespieden, in de hoop\ndan iets van zijn vreeselijken meester te zien te krijgen.\n\nInjun Joe hielp het lijk van den vermoorde optillen en ten vervoer\nin den ziekenwagen leggen, en onder de sidderende menigte werd het\ngemompel gehoord, dat de wond een weinig bloedde. De jongens dachten,\ndat deze gelukkige omstandigheid het vermoeden in de juiste richting\nzou wenden, maar ze werden teleurgesteld, want iemand maakte de\nopmerking, dat \"Muff Potter op drie treden afstands van het lijk\ngestaan had, toen het gebeurde.\"\n\nHet vreeselijk geheim en zijn knagend geweten vervolgden Tom van den\nmorgen tot den avond en verstoorden zelfs zijn nachtrust. Op zekeren\nmorgen aan het ontbijt zeide Sid:\n\n\"Tom, je woelt tegenwoordig den ganschen nacht door en je praat zoo\nin je slaap, dat je me uren wakker houdt.\"\n\nTom verbleekte en sloeg de oogen neder.\n\n\"Dat is een kwaad teeken,\" zeide tante Polly, ernstig. \"Je hebt toch\nniets op je geweten, Tom?\"\n\n\"Niet, dat ik weet,\" antwoordde de knaap, doch zijne hand beefde zoo,\ndat hij zijne koffie op het tafelblad stortte.\n\n\"En je praat zulken onzin,\" zeide Sid. \"Gisterenacht riep je: 'Het\nis bloed, het is bloed, dat is het!' Dat heb je wel twintig keer\ngezegd. En je zei ook: 'Plaag me niet zoo;--ik zal het vertellen,'\"\n\n\"Vertellen? Wat zul je me toch vertellen?\" vroeg tante.\n\nDe geheele kamer draaide voor Toms oogen in het rond en de hemel weet\nwat er gebeurd zou zijn, indien de onrust niet uit tantes gelaat\nverdwenen en zij, zonder het zelve te weten, haar neef te hulp was\ngekomen. Zij zeide: \"O! dat komt van dien vreeselijken moord. Ik\ndroom er ook elken nacht van; soms wel, dat ik het zelve gedaan heb.\"\n\nOok Marie verzekerde, dat het haar eveneens ging, en Sid scheen\nbevredigd. Tom echter sloop zoo spoedig weg als hij kon, en van dien\ndag af, klaagde hij over kiespijn en deed des snachts den doek om\nzijn gezicht. Weinig vermoedde hij echter, dat Sid hem uren lang\nlag te bespieden den doek wegtrok, op zijn elleboog geleund ging\nliggen luisteren, en dan het verband weer handig op zijne plaats\nschoof. Langzamerhand begon Toms angst te verminderen en werd de\nkiespijn afgedankt. Indien Sid het werkelijk er op aanlegde om iets\nuit Toms onsamenhangend gemompel op te maken, hield hij het toch\nzorgvuldig voor zich.\n\nEr scheen in Toms oog geen einde te komen aan het spelletje zijner\nschoolmakkers om lijkschouwing van doode katten te houden, en dusdoende\naanhoudend zijne kwelling te verlevendigen. Sid merkte dit, dat bij\ndeze instructies, Tom nooit weer lijkschouwer wilde wezen, ofschoon\nhij vroeger bij elke nieuwe uitvinding altijd \"haantje de voorste\"\nwas. Het viel hem ook op, dat Tom nooit getuige wilde zijn--ja, zelfs\neen in 't oog loopenden afkeer van vermakelijkheden als deze verkregen\nhad en ze zooveel mogelijk vermeed. Sid verwonderde zich daarover,\nmaar zeide niets. Gelukkig gingen deze lijkschouwingen eindelijk uit\nde mode en hielden dus op Toms geweten te pijnigen.\n\nGedurende dit kommervolle tijdperk zijns levens ging Tom om den\nanderen of om de twee dagen, zoo dikwijls als hij wist dat niemand hem\nbespiedde, voor het kleine getraliede venster van de gevangenis staan\nen stak daardoor \"den moordenaar\" al de verkwikkingen en lekkernijen\ntoe, waarvan hij zich kon meester maken.\n\nDe gevangenis van St. Petersburg was een klein steenen gebouw, dat in\neen moeras vlak buiten het stadje lag, en waarvoor geen schildwachten\nnoodig geacht werden. Zij was zelden bezet en Tom kon er dus veilig\nheengaan om Muff Potter de offeranden te schenken, waarmede hij zijn\ngeweten weder eenigszins tot rust zocht te brengen.\n\nDe bewoners van het stadje zouden zeker anders het gebruik gevolgd\nhebben om Injun Joe, beteerd en met veeren beplakt in een kooi rond\nte rijden, (de gewone straf van lijkendieven,) maar hij was zulk\neen berucht en gevreesd persoon, dat niemand de leiding van deze\nonderneming op zich durfde nemen. Injun Joe, van zijn kant, had wel\nopgepast bij beide zijne getuigenissen alleen van het gevecht te\nspreken, en den voorafgeganen diefstal te verzwijgen. Vandaar dat de\nzaak vooralsnog niet bij het Hof aanhangig werd gemaakt.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XII.\n\n\nEen der oorzaken, waardoor Toms geheime kwellingen meer op den\nachtergrond geraakten, was te vinden in eene nieuwe en gewichtige zaak,\ndie zijn gemoed vervulde. Becky Thatcher kwam niet meer op school. Hij\nhad een dag of wat met zijn trots strijd gevoerd en getracht te doen\nalsof zij niet bestond, maar het was hem niet gelukt. Van lieverlede\nbegon hij weer langs haar vaders huis te slenteren en zich ongelukkig\nte gevoelen. Als zij eens stierf! Die gedachte was genoeg om hem\nkrankzinnig te maken. Hij had geen liefhebberij meer in oorlog spelen,\nzelfs niet in het zeerooverspel. De bekoorlijkheid van het leven was\nverdwenen en niets dan ellende was overgebleven. Hij borg zijn hoepel\nen zijn kolfstok, want al de pret van hoepelen was voorbij. Zijne\nsomberheid wekte tantes onrust en zij begon allerlei soorten van\ngeneesmiddelen op hem toe te passen.\n\nJuffrouw Polly behoorde tot die lieden, welke verzot zijn op\nhuismiddeltjes en dwepen met alle pas uitgevonden methodes tot\nverbetering en onderhoud der gezondheid. De lust om van al die dingen\nde proef te nemen was haar als ingeroest. Zoodra er op dit gebied\niets nieuws op het tapijt kwam, rustte zij niet eer het aan haar huis\nwas toegepast;--niet op haar zelve, want zij was nooit ziek, maar op\nieder ander, dien zij onder handen kon krijgen. Zij had ingeteekend\nop alle mogelijke tijdschriften over de gezondheidsleer en op alle\ndwaze vertoogschriften over de geneeskunde, en de hoogdravende\nartikelen waarmede deze waren opgevuld, werden door haar met gejuich\nontvangen. Al de onzin, die er werd uitgekraamd over ventilatie en\nde voorschriften die gegeven werden over het opstaan en het naar bed\ngaan, het gebruik van spijs en drank, het nemen van lichaamsbeweging,\nover de gemoedsstemming waarin men moet verkeeren, over de soort van\nkleeding die men dragen moet, was evangelietaal voor haar, en zij\nbemerkte nooit, dat hare gezondheidsjournalen van de loopende maand\ngewoonlijk tegenspraken wat zij in de vorige met veel ophef verkondigd\nhadden. Zij was het eenvoudigste en oprechtste schepsel dat er leefde\nen werd daardoor gemakkelijk om den tuin geleid. Zij verzamelde al\nde kwakzalverachtige tijdschriften en geneesmiddelen om zich heen,\nen leefde dan in de overtuiging dat zij een engel in menschengedaante\nwas, die den balsem van Gilead aan hare lijdende naasten kwam brengen.\n\nOp dat tijdstip waarvan wij spreken, begon de koudwaterkuur aan de orde\nte komen, en Toms droefgeestigheid kwam haar tot het toepassen van\nde kuur verbazend in de hand. Voor dag en dauw werd hij uit zijn bed\ngehaald en in de houtschuur gesleept en met een stortvloed van koud\nwater overstelpt. Dat water werd met een harden handdoek afgedroogd,\nen vervolgens werd de jongen in natte lakens gewikkeld en onder de\ndekens gestopt, totdat hij zoo ging zweeten, dat zijn ziel, zooals\nhij zeide, door zijne pori\u00ebn kwam kijken.\n\nNiettegenstaande al die geneesmiddelen werd de knaap hoe langer\nhoe neerslachtiger, bleeker en slapper. Toen kwamen de heete\nbaden, zitbaden, stortbaden en douches. De knaap was en bleef\ndroefgeestig. Daarop werd aan de waterkuur een di\u00ebet toegevoegd van\ndunne havergortpap en werden er Spaansche vliegen toegepast. Tante\nPolly toch berekende de inhoudsruimte van haar neef naar die van een\nkruik en vulde hem op, totdat hij vol was.\n\nLangzamerhand geraakte Tom door al dat wasschen en plassen in een\nstaat van verdooving en onverschilligheid. Dit verschijnsel vervulde\nde oude dame met schrik en er moest een einde aan gemaakt worden,\nhet kostte wat het wilde. Daar leest zij in de courant van een nieuw\nzenuwmiddel! Dadelijk werd er een flesch besteld, geproefd en goed\nbevonden. De waterkuur werd opgegeven en alles van het zenuwmiddel\nverwacht. Een theelepeltje vol werd den knaap ingegeven, waarvan\nhet resultaat in angstige spanning werd te gemoet gezien. Reeds bij\nde eerste proef week haar onrust en keerde de kalmte in haar ziel\nterug. Immers de onverschilligheid was op eens verdwenen. De knaap,\nal had zij hem op een gloeiende plaat gezet, kon niet schielijker\nwoest en luidruchtig zijn.\n\nWat was hiervan de reden? Tom voelde, dat het tijd werd, weder wakker\nte worden. Het leven, 't welk hij thans leidde, mocht in zijn treurigen\ntoestand iets romantisch hebben, het was te saai en te gelijk te vol\nakelige afwisseling om lang z\u00f3\u00f3 te kunnen blijven. Daarom zon hij op\nallerlei middelen om er een eind aan te maken, en besloot verzotheid\nop het nieuwe drankje voor te wenden. Hij vroeg er zoo dikwijls om,\ndat het tante begon te vervelen en zij eindigde met hem te zeggen,\ndat hij maar leeren moest zelf in te nemen en haar er niet meer mede\nlastig vallen. Ware het Sid geweest, zij zou die liefhebberij in het\ngeneesmiddel niet mistrouwd hebben, maar op Tom moest heimelijk een\noogje gehouden worden. Tot hare geruststelling echter bemerkte zij,\ndat de inhoud wezenlijk verminderde, doch het kwam niet in haar op\nte vermoeden, dat de knaap de geneeskracht van den drank, niet op\nzijn eigen lichaam beproefde, maar op den vloer der huiskamer en het\nvocht in een spleet onder het karpet uitgoot.\n\nOp zekeren dag was hij daar juist mede bezig, toen tantes gele kat,\nkopjes gevende en spinnende, naar het theelepeltje kwam kijken,\nblijkbaar vol lust om er van te snoepen.\n\n\"Dat is verboden waar voor jou, poesje,\" zeide Tom tot de kat.\n\nDoch de poes maakte een gebaar alsof zij er anders over dacht.\n\n\"Neen, poes, raak er niet aan.\"\n\nDe poes hield echter vol.\n\n\"Nu, als je het dan volstrekt wilt hebben, zal ik het je wel geven,\nwant mij helpt het geen zier. Doch als het je niet goed bekomt,\nkan ik het niet helpen.\"\n\nPoesje stemde stilzwijgend toe en Tom spalkte haar den bek open en\ngoot er eene hoeveelheid van den drank in. De kat sprong een paar el\nin de lucht, hief toen een jammerlijk geschreeuw aan, danste de kamer\nrond, sloeg tegen de meubels, wierp de bloempotten omver en gooide\nalles het onderstboven. Vervolgens ging zij op de achterpooten staan,\ndraaide met den kop en miauwde van angst. Daarna liep ze weer als een\nrazende het huis door en bracht overal verwarring en vernieling met\nzich. Juist toen tante Polly de kamer binnenkwam, was zij bezig een\npaar kostbare planten te vernielen en met een helsch geschreeuw door\nhet open raam te springen, inderhaast nog de rest van de bloempotten\nmet zich sleepende. De oude dame stond versteend van schrik over haar\nbril te staren, terwijl Tom op den grond lag te gillen van het lachen.\n\n\"Wat, in 's hemels naam, scheelt de kat, Tom?\"\n\n\"Ik, ik zou het u niet kunnen zeggen,\" grinnikte de knaap.\n\n\"Wel, ik heb nog nooit zoo iets gezien. Hoe komt zij zoo?\"\n\n\"Ik weet het wezenlijk niet, tante Polly. Katten doen altijd zoo,\nals zij schik hebben.\"\n\n\"Doen ze dat?\" Er was iets in den toon, dat Tom vrees aanjoeg.\n\n\"Ja, tante,\" zeide hij, iets minder boud; \"dat geloof ik ten minste.\"\n\n\"Geloof je dat?\"\n\n\"Ja.\"\n\nDe oude dame bukte zich en Tom verbeidde met angst den afloop. Doch hij\nbegreep hare bedoeling te laat. Daar lag het verklappend theelepeltje\nachter de franjes van het bedgordijn. Tante Polly nam het op en\nhield het hem voor den neus. Tom deinsde terug en sloeg de oogen\nneder. Tante pakte hem bij het gewone handvatsel--zijn oor--en kneep\ndit lichaamsdeel zoo, dat men zijn hoofd hoorde kraken.\n\n\"Nu, jongeheer, waarom moest dat stomme dier zoo mishandeld worden?\"\n\n\"Ik deed het uit medelijden met haar,--omdat zij geen tante heeft.\"\n\n\"Geen tante, deugniet?--Wat heeft dat er mede te maken?\"\n\n\"O, heel veel! Omdat, als zij er eene had, deze haar gebrand zou hebben\nen haar de ingewanden geroosterd als ware zij een mensch geweest.\"\n\nTante Polly voelde plotseling een knagende gewetenswroeging. Hetgeen\nwreed was voor de kat, kon ook wreed voor een jongen wezen. Haar hart\nwerd verteederd. Zij kreeg spijt en hare oogen begonnen vochtig te\nworden; en hare hand op Toms hoofd leggende, zeide zij vriendelijk:\n\n\"Ik deed het om bestwil, Tom. En, jongen, 't _heeft_ u immers goed\ngedaan?\"\n\nTom keek haar aan en zeide, terwijl hij een knipoogje maakte:\n\n\"Ik weet, dat u het voor mij om bestwil gedaan hebt, en ik deed\neveneens met de poes. Het heeft haar ook goed gedaan, want ik heb\nhaar nooit zoo netjes zien dansen.\n\n\"O, maak dat je wegkomt, voordat ik weer boos word!\" riep tante\nuit. \"En doe nu eindelijk je best eens om een brave jongen te\nworden. Medicijnen behoef je voorloopig niet meer te nemen.\"\n\nTom ging dien middag vroeg naar school en bleef voor de deur staan,\nin plaats van met zijne makkers te spelen. Hij verklaarde zich voor\nziek en zag er ook niet heel goed uit. Schijnbaar keek hij naar\nalles, behalve naar hetgeen waarop hij wezenlijk zijn oog gericht\nhield--namelijk, naar den weg.\n\nDaar kwam Jeff Thatcher aan en Toms gelaat klaarde wat op. Hij begon\neen gesprek met hem en zocht op allerlei manieren iets omtrent Becky te\nweten te komen, doch de looze jongen scheen er niets van te merken. Tom\nwachtte en wachtte, en zijn oogen schitterden telkens, wanneer er een\njurkje in het gezicht kwam, doch zoodra hij ontdekte dat de draagster\nvan het jurkje niet de rechte persoon was, sloeg hij ze verdrietig\nneer. Eindelijk kwamen er geen japonnetjes meer voorbij en hij verviel\nin eene hopelooze neerslachtigheid. Hij trad het leege schoolgebouw\nbinnen en gaf zich aan zijn verdriet over. Maar op eens ontdekte hij\nweder een jurkje en zijn hart klopte hoorbaar. Geen minuut later was\nhij de school uit en als een clown aan het kunsten maken. Hij gilde,\nlachte, zat de jongens achterna, sprong met levensgevaar over het hek,\nging op zijn hoofd staan en verrichtte al de heldendaden, die hij\nmaar kon uitdenken, terzelfder tijd voortdurend heimelijke blikken\nwerpend op Becky Thatcher, om te zien of zij het wel merkte. Doch zij\nscheen er niet op te letten en keek steeds een anderen kant uit. Was\nhet mogelijk dat zij niet zag, dat hij daar was? Toen ging hij zijne\ngymnastische oefeningen in hare onmiddellijke nabijheid uitvoeren, liep\nmet veel lawaai tusschen de jongens door, greep er een de pet van het\nhoofd, slingerde die over het dak van de school en danste en sprong,\ntotdat hij vlak voor Becky stond en bijna tegen haar aanliep. En zij,\nzij keerde zich om, en Tom hoorde haar zeggen:\n\n\"Ba! sommige menschen verbeelden zich, dat zij ijselijk grappig zijn;\nzij doen altijd kunsten om gezien te worden.\"\n\nTom werd gloeiend rood en droop verslagen af.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XIII.\n\n\nDe beleediging van Becky Thatcher bracht bij Tom Sawyer een besluit\ntot rijpheid. De knaap was aan de uiterste grens van wanhoop. Hij was,\nzoo sprak hij bij zichzelven, een verlaten jongen zonder vrienden;\nniemand hield van hem. Wanneer de menschen te eeniger tijd ontdekten\nwaartoe zij hem gebracht hadden, zouden zij misschien spijt gevoelen\nover hunne koelheid. Hij had getracht te doen wat goed was en had\nhet pad der deugd willen bewandelen, doch zelfs daarin had men hem\ngedwarsboomd. Aangezien men toch niets wenschte dan van hem af te zijn,\nzou de menschheid haar zin hebben: en zij mocht hem er de gevolgen van\ntoerekenen. Waarom zou zij dat niet? Wat recht had hij, de verlatene,\non zich daarover te beklagen? Ja, zij had er hem toe gedwongen; hij\nzou een misdadig leven gaan leiden; men had hem geene andere keus\ngelaten. Inmiddels was hij onder deze alleenspraak een eind buiten\nde stad gekomen en hoorde in de verte het geklingel der bel, die de\nkinderen naar school riep. Hij snikte bij de gedachte, dat hij nooit,\nnooit meer dat oude gezellige geluid zou hooren; het was zeer hard,\nmaar hij kon niet anders: de koude wereld had hem er toe gebracht en\nhij moest zich in zijn lot schikken.\n\nToen begon hij bitter te schreien. Juist op dat oogenblik kwam\nhij zijn boezemvriend Joe Harper tegen, ook met behuilde oogen en\nblijkbaar met plannen, gewichtig en somber als de zijne. Kennelijk\nwaren deze beide zielen van \u00e9\u00e9ne en dezelfde gedachte vervuld. Tom\nmaakte, terwijl hij zijne oogen met zijn mouw afveegde, onder veel\nsnikken zijn besluit bekend, on, ten einde de slechte behandeling en\nhet gebrek aan sympathie te huis te ontvluchten, naar buiten in de\nwijde wereld te gaan rondzwerven en nooit terug te komen--en eindigde\nmet de wensch, dat Joe Harper hem niet vergeten zou.\n\nMaar daar kwam het uit, dat Joe juist datzelfde verzoek aan Tom\nhad willen gaan doen en hem deelgenoot maken van een dergelijk\nvoornemen. Zijne moeder had hem geslagen, omdat hij room zou gesnoept\nhebben, die hij nooit geproefd had en waarvan hij niets af wist. Het\nwas duidelijk, dat zij haar zoon moede was en van hem ontslagen\nverlangde te zijn. Als dat zoo was, had hij niet anders te doen\ndan voor dien wil te bukken. Hij hoopte dat zij gelukkig zou wezen\nzonder hem en dat het haar nooit berouwen zou, haar armen jongen\nuitgedreven te hebben in eene ongevoelige wereld, om daarin te lijden\nen te sterven.\n\nTerwijl de beide knapen droevig voortwandelden, sloten zij samen een\nnieuw verbond on elkander als broeders bij te staan en nimmermeer\nte scheiden, totdat de dood hen van hun verdriet zou verlossen. Toen\nbegonnen zij plannen te maken. Joe was er voor om kluizenaar te worden\nin een afgelegen grot, van water en brood te leven en dan van koude,\nongemak en verdriet te sterven: doch na Tom aangehoord te hebben, kwam\nhij tot de overtuiging, dat er aan een misdadig leven groote voordeelen\nverbonden waren, en dus stemde hij er in toe zeeroover te worden.\n\nAnderhalf uur ten zuiden van St. Petersburg, waar de Mississipi\nzeer smal was, lag een klein boschrijk eiland, met eene ondiepe\nlandingsplaats, en dit werd een zeer geschikt toevluchtsoord\ngeacht. Het was onbewoond en lag ver van den oever, tegenover een\ndicht en eenzaam woud. Daarom werd Jacksons Island gekozen. Wie het\nmikpunt der zeerooverijen zou zijn, was eene zaak die hun niet in de\ngedachten kwam. Toen zochten zij Huckleberry Finn op en hij voegde\nzich dadelijk bij hen, daar alle baantjes dien vagebond hetzelfde\nwaren. Voor het oogenblik scheidden de vrienden en spraken af,\ndat zij elkaar op een weinig bezochte plek aan den oever der rivier,\nomstreeks een uur van de stad, zouden ontmoeten, en wel te middernacht,\nder knapen lievelingsuur. Daar lag een klein houtvlot, dat zij hoopten\nte bemachtigen. Zij zouden alle drie vischhaken en hengels medebrengen\nen zooveel teerkost als zij slechts op de meest geheimzinnige wijze\nkonden buitmaken, zooals dat aan roovers paste. En nog voordat de zon\nter kimme daalde, hadden zij zich reeds eene kleine vreugde bereid,\ndoor uit te strooien, \"dat de stad eerlang van iets hooren zou.\" Allen,\ndie deze vage mededeeling ontvingen, werden verzocht te zwijgen en\nte wachten.\n\nTegen middernacht kwam Tom ter bestemder plaatse, met eene gekookte\nham en enkele andere levensmiddelen van minder omvang. Hij hield\nstil bij een dicht begroeid kreupelboschje op eene kleine hoogte,\nvan waar men de plaats der bijeenkomst kon overzien. De lucht was\nmet sterren bezaaid en het was bladstil. De machtige rivier lag kalm\ntusschen hare oevers als een oceaan na hevigen storm. Tom luisterde\neen oogenblik, maar de stilte werd door geen geluid verstoord. Toen\nbegon hij zacht te fluiten en dit geluid werd onder het kreupelboschje\nbeantwoord. Tom floot nog eens en het signaal werd weder op dezelfde\nwijze herhaald. Toen riep eene gedempte stem:\n\n\"Wie nadert daar?\"\n\n\"Tom Sawyer, de Zwarte Roover der Spaansche Zee. Noemt uwe namen.\"\n\n\"Huck Finn met de Roode Hand en Joe Harper, de Schrik van den\nOceaan.\" Tom had deze titels uit zijn lievelingsboeken geleverd.\n\n\"In orde. Geef het contra-signaal.\"\n\nTwee schorre stemmen fluisterden gelijktijdig het volgende\nschrikkelijke woord in den stikdonkeren nacht: \"Bloed!\"\n\nToen wierp Tom zijn ham over den heuvel en klom er daarna zelf af,\nterwijl hij onder 't afdalen zich nu en dan het vel openreet en zijne\nkleeren scheurde. Er was wel een geschikt en gemakkelijk pad langs\nden oever, om van de hoogte af te dalen, maar dat miste het voordeel\nvan moeite en gevaar, door een zeeroover zoo gewaardeerd.\n\nDe Schrik van den Oceaan had een zijde spek medegebracht en\nwas onder het dragen van dien last bijna bezweken. Finn had een\nkoekenpan gestolen en voor een voorraadje tabak en eenige korte pijpen\ngezorgd. 't Was maar jammer, dat hij de eenige der drie roovers was,\ndie de kunst van rooken en pruimen verstond. De Zwarte Roover der\nSpaansche Zee maakte de opmerking, dat het gevaarlijk was zonder vuur\nop tochten te gaan, en dat was eene verstandige opmerking. Lucifers\nwaren in dien tijd nog onbekend, maar op eenige ellen afstands zagen\nzij op een groot vlot een vuur smeulen. Dadelijk slopen zij daarheen\nen namen een kooltje weg. Van die kleine dieverij werd een verbazend\navontuur gemaakt. Telkens riepen zij \"St.\" en stonden stil met den\nwijsvinger op de lippen, grepen naar denkbeeldige dolkgevesten en gaven\nfluisterende schrikwekkende bevelen om den vijand, als hij hen mocht\novervallen, \"den dolk tot aan 't gevest in 't lijf te steken,\" omdat\n\"lijken niets navertellen.\" Zij wisten wel, dat de bemanning van het\nvlot in het stadje aan het hout stapelen was of in de herberg zat,\ndoch die wetenschap ontsloeg hen niet van de verplichting het geval\nop zeerooverswijs te behandelen. Daarop staken zij met hun vlot\nvan wal. Tom nam de bevelhebbersplaats in. Huck posteerde zich bij\nde achterriemen en Joe op den voorsteven. Tom stond midden op het\nvaartuig met gefronste wenkbrauwen en over elkaar geslagen armen en\ngaf zijne bevelen met eene onderdrukte, barsche stem.\n\n\"Laveeren en het schip onder den wind brengen!\"\n\n\"Ja, ja, kapitein!\"\n\n\"Vooruit, voor--uit!\"\n\n\"Het gaat vooruit, kapitein!\"\n\n\"Zet het iets naar voren!\"\n\n\"Het is geschied, kapitein!\"\n\nDaar de knapen steeds in dezelfde richting midden in den stroom de\nrivier afzakten, was het niet twijfelachtig of deze bevelen werden\nmaar voor de leus geven en hadden geen bijzonder doel.\n\n\"Welke zeilen voert het in top?\"\n\n\"De boeglijnszeilen, de topzeilen en de fokken, kapitein!\"\n\n\"Hijsch de voormarszeilen! Maak boven aan de steng een stuk of zes\nlijnen los! Past op nu!\"\n\n\"Ja, ja, kapitein.\"\n\n\"De topzeilen reven! Toe dan, jongen!\"\n\n\"Ja, ja, kapitein.\"\n\n\"Het roer tegen den wind! Naar bakboord! Houdt je je goed,\nmannen! Voorwaarts.\"\n\n\"Het gaat voorwaarts, kapitein.\"\n\nHet vlot dreef een weinig naar den kant af, de knapen roeiden weder\nnaar het midden en legden toen de riemen neder. Het water was laag en\nde stroom dus niet sterk. Gedurende de eerste drie kwartier werd er\nnauwelijks een woord gesproken. Toen gleed het vlot langs de op eenigen\nafstand liggende stad, welker richting door enkele flikkerende lichten\nwerd aangewezen. Daar lag zij, in diepen slaap verzonken, ver van de\nonmetelijke watervlakte, waarin duizenden sterren zich spiegelden,\nonbewust van de vreeselijke gebeurtenis, die juist plaats greep. De\nzwarte Roover stond nog met over elkaar geslagen armen op het dek,\neen laatsten blik werpende op het tooneel van geluk en lijden, vervuld\nvan de begeerte dat zij hem zien mocht, terwijl hij daar buiten op\nde onstuimige wateren, met een onverschrokken gemoed, gevaar en dood\ntrotseerde en met een koelen glimlach op de lippen zijn lot te gemoet\nging. Hij verbeeldde zich--zonder veel moeite--dat Jacksons Island\noneindig ver van St. Petersburg verwijderd was en daarom wierp hij,\nbij de gedachte aan dien afstand, een laatsten blik op de stad, met\neen gebroken maar toch bevredigd hart. De andere zeeroovers stonden\nook laatste blikken te werpen en allen keken zoo lang, dat zij bijna\nuit den koers van het eiland dreven. Doch zij bemerkten het gevaar\nbijtijds en beijverden zich om het af te wenden.\n\nTegen twee uur in den morgen landde het vlot een paar honderd ellen\nboven de aanlegplaats van het eiland, en de knapen waadden door het\nwater om hunne lading te ontschepen. Tot de kleine uitrusting van\nhet vlot behoorde ook een oud zeil. Dit werd over een uithoek in de\nstruiken gespannen, om als tent ter beschutting van de proviand te\ndienen, doch zelven besloten zij bij gunstig weder in de open lucht\nte slapen, zooals dat bandieten betaamt.\n\nDaarop legden zij een vuurtje aan tegen den kant van een hooge\nhoutmijt, diep in het sombere woud en begonnen wat spek in de koekenpan\nte bakken, terwijl zij hierbij de helft verorberden van den voorraad\nbrood, dien zij hadden medegebracht. Het was een ontzaglijk genot om\ndaar hun feestmaal te houden, als wilden in een maagdelijk woud, op een\nonbewoond eiland, ver van de verblijfplaatsen der menschen. Al etende\nlegden zij dan ook de gelofte af om nooit weder tot de beschaafde\nstreken terug te keeren.\n\nDe stijgende vlammen verlichten hun aangezicht en wierpen een rooden\ngloed op het glinsterend groen en de zich sierlijk om de boomstammen\nslingerende ranken. Toen de laatste knappende stukjes spek verdwenen\nwaren en het laatste brokje brood was verslonden, strekten de knapen\nwelbehagelijk hunne leden op het mostapijt uit. Zij hadden wel een\nkoeler plekje kunnen vinden, doch zij wilden zich het romantisch\ngenot van een knetterend kampvuur niet ontzeggen.\n\n\"Is het niet heerlijk?\" vroeg Joe.\n\n\"Ja, het is verrukkelijk,\" antwoordde Tom.\n\n\"Wat zouden de jongens nu wel zeggen, als zij ons zagen?\"\n\n\"Zeggen? Wel, zij zouden goud geven on hier te zitten. Wat zeg jij,\nHucky?\"\n\n\"Ik zeg,\" antwoordde Huckleberry, \"dat het mij bevalt. Ik verlang\nhet nooit beter te hebben. Gewoonlijk krijg ik niet genoeg te eten\nen hier kunnen ze me niet komen schoppen en mishandelen.\"\n\n\"'t Is ook juist een leventje voor mij,\" zeide Tom. \"Je behoeft\n's morgens niet vroeg op te staan, je niet te wasschen, niet naar\nschool te gaan en allerlei onzin te doen. Zie je nu wel, Joe, dat\neen zeeroover, als hij aan wal is, _niets_ te doen heeft, terwijl een\nkluizenaar moet bidden en nooit gekheid kan maken, omdat hij altijd\nalleen zit.\"\n\n\"Ja, je hebt gelijk,\" zeide Joe; \"ik verwachtte er niet veel goeds\nvan, dat weet je, maar nu ik het geprobeerd heb, vind ik het veel\npleizieriger om zeeroover te zijn.\"\n\n\"Je ziet ook,\" zeide Tom: \"de menschen geven tegenwoordig niet zoo veel\nmeer om kluizenaars als in den ouden tijd, maar voor zeeroovers hebben\nzij altijd ontzag. En buitendien moet een kluizenaar op de hardste\nplaats slapen die hij maar vinden kan en zich in zakken kleeden,\nen asch op zijn hoofd strooien, en in den regen buiten staan en...\"\n\n\"Waarom moet hij zakken dragen en asch op zijn hoofd strooien?\" vroeg\nHuck.\n\n\"Dat weet ik niet. Maar ze doen het allemaal. Als jij een kluizenaar\nwas, zou je het ook moeten doen.\"\n\n\"Ik zou je bedanken,\" zeide Huck.\n\n\"Wat zou je dan?\"\n\n\"Dat weet ik niet, maar dat zeker niet.\"\n\n\"Wel, Huck, je zoudt het _moeten_; je zoudt niet anders kunnen.\"\n\n\"Wel, ik zou het niet verdragen; ik zou op den loop gaan.\"\n\n\"Op den loop gaan! Nu, je zoudt eene mooie soort van heremiet wezen. Je\nzoudt ze tot schande maken.\"\n\nDe Roode Hand gaf geen antwoord, daar zijn brein vervuld was met iets\nanders. Hij had juist een pijpekop schoongemaakt, er een rieten steel\naan vastgehecht, den kop met tabak gevuld en was bezig, met behulp\nvan een stukje brandende steenkool, dat tegen de tabak gedrukt werd,\nwolken van geurigen rook uit te blazen.\n\nHij baadde zich in weelde en genot en de andere zeeroovers benijdden\nhem deze heerlijke ondeugd en besloten bij zichzelven, zich haar\neigen te maken. Een oogenblik later zeide Huck:\n\n\"Wat hebben zeeroovers te doen?\"\n\n\"O,\" zeide Tom, \"zij leiden een woelig leventje: kapen schepen en\nverbranden die, stelen geld en begraven dat op geheimzinnige plaatsen\nop hun eiland, waar het door geesten en spoken bewaakt wordt. Voorts\nvermoorden zij de geheele bemanning van het schip.\"\n\n\"En zij nemen de vrouwen met zich naar het eiland,\" zeide Joe,\n\"want vrouwen worden niet vermoord.\"\n\n\"Neen,\" antwoordde Tom toestemmend, \"zij vermoorden geene vrouwen,\ndaarvoor zijn zij te edelmoedig. En de vrouwen zijn altijd mooi ook.\"\n\n\"En dragen zij niet kleeren van beestenvellen?\"\n\n\"Neen, toch niet,\" antwoordde Joe vol geestdrift. \"Geheel van goud,\nzilver en diamanten.\"\n\n\"Wie?\" vroeg Huck.\n\n\"Wel, de zeeroovers.\"\n\nHuck keek met een wanhopigen blik naar zijn eigen plunje.\n\n\"Ik geloof niet, dat ik geschikte kleeren voor een zeeroover heb,\"\nzeide hij met een droevig pathos in zijne stem, \"maar ik heb geene\nandere dan deze.\"\n\nDoch Tom en Joe vertelden hem, dat de mooie kleeren spoedig zouden\nkomen, wanneer zij op avonturen zouden zijn uitgegaan. Zij gaven\nhem te verstaan, dat zijne lompen voldoende waren on te beginnen,\nofschoon het bij rijke zeeroovers de gewoonte was met eene behoorlijke\ngarderobe van wal te steken.\n\nVan lieverlede begon het gebabbel te verminderen en daalde de\nslaap op de oogleden der jeugdige vluchtelingen neer. De pijp\ngleed de \"Roode Hand\" uit de vingers en hij sliep weldra den slaap\ndes rechtvaardigen. De Schrik van den Oceaan en de Zwarte Roover\nder Spaansche Zee sliepen niet zoo gemakkelijk in. Zij zeiden hun\navondgebed zachtjes en liggend op, daar er niemand was, die hen gebood\nte knielen en hen het luide deed uitspreken. Wel hadden zij veel lust\nhet gebed achterwege te laten, doch zij maakten zich bevreesd, dat\nzij, wanneer ze zoo goddeloos waren op eens een bliksemstraal van den\nhemel op hunne hoofden zouden doen nederdalen. Juist toen zij in het\nrijk der droomen zouden gaan zweven, kwam een kwelgeest hen storen,\ndie niet wilde wijken. Deze was het geweten. Eerst achtervolgde hij\nhen met de beschuldiging dat zij weggeloopen waren en daarna met het\nverwijt, dat zij vleesch gestolen hadden. Zij trachtten hem tot zwijgen\nte brengen, door hem te herinneren, dat zij toch dikwijls koekjes en\nappels hadden weggenomen, doch hij liet zich door schoonschijnende\nredeneeringen niet afschepen. Hij wilde over het onweerlegbaar feit\nniet heenstappen, dat lekkers wegnemen slechts \"snoepen\" was, terwijl\nhet ontvreemden van spek, ham en dergelijke, niets anders mocht\nheeten dan \"stelen\" en dat dit in den Bijbel verboden werd. Daarop\nbesloten zij in hun binnenste, om zoolang zij het door hen gekozen\nberoep uitoefenden, hunne zeerooverijen niet meer met de misdaad van\nstelen te bezoedelen. Op die wijs werd er een wapenstilstand met het\ngeweten gesloten en onze zeeroovertjes vielen gerust in slaap.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XIV.\n\n\nToen Tom den volgenden ochtend wakker werd, begreep hij eerst niet\nwaar hij was. Hij ging opzitten, wreef zich de oogen en keek in\n't rond; toen vatte hij het. De ochtendschemering had haar koelen\ngrauwen sluier uitgespreid en de aangrijpende kalmte en stilte van\nhet woud gaf een heerlijk gevoel van rust en vrede. Geen blad bewoog,\ngeen geluid verstoorde de overdenkingen der groote natuur. Diamanten\ndauwdroppels schitterden op de bladeren en het gras. Uit het met een\nlaag witte asch bedekte kampvuur steeg een dunne, blauwe rookwolk\nrecht naar boven. Joe en Huck lagen nog te slapen. Daar deed ver\nachter in de bosschen een vogel zijne roepstem hooren, die dadelijk\ndoor anderen beantwoord werd, en te gelijk vernam men het gehamer van\nden boomspecht. Langzamerhand ging de grijze morgendamp in een witten\nnevel over en werd het minder koud. Van lieverlede vermenigvuldigden\nzich ook de geluiden en openbaarde zich het leven. De wonderbare\nnatuur schudde den slaap af en ontplooide zich voor de oogen van den\npeinzenden knaap. Een klein, groen wormpje kroop over een bedauwd\nblad, hief bij wijlen twee derden van zijn lichaam op, snuffelde\nin alle hoekjes en gaatjes en ging toen weder voort. Volgens Tom\nwas dat wormpje bezig opmetingen te doen. Toen het eindelijk uit\neigen beweging naar hem toe kwam, bleef de knaap doodstil zitten\nen al naarmate het beestje hem naderde of een anderen weg scheen te\nwillen nemen, klom of daalde zijn hoop. Eindelijk bleef het gedurende\neenige voor den knaap angstige oogenblikken, het kopje onbeweeglijk\nopwaarts gericht houden en zette zich ten slotte op Toms been neder,\nover het lichaam van den knaap een reis te maken. Dat deed hem het\nhart van vreugde opspringen, want het beduidde, dat hij een nieuw\npak zou krijgen,--zonder eenigen twijfel een zeerooversuniform.\n\nDaarop verscheen er zonder dat men zeggen kon van waar, een optocht\nvan mieren, die haar dagtaak aanvingen. Een van haar sleepte moedig\neen doode spin, vijfmaal grooter dan zij zelve, tusschen hare\npooten voort en zette die op een boomstam. Een bruin gespikkeld\nOnze-Lieven-Heersbeestje beklom de duizelingwekkende hoogte van een\ngrasscheut en Tom boog zich over het diertje been en zeide:\n\n\n    \"Lieven-Heershaantje, Lieven-Heershaantje, vlucht heen,\n                                                    vlucht heen;\n    Uw huis staat in brand, uwe kinderen zijn alleen.\"\n\n\nEn het diertje sloeg de vleugeltjes uit en vloog weg om te zien\nof de knaap waarheid sprak, waarover deze zich in 't minst niet\nverbaasde. Immers hij wist vanouds, dat dit insect lichtgeloovig\nwas op 't punt van brand en hij had menigmaal de onnoozelheid van\n't beestje verschalkt. Toen kwam er een steenmot, die traag zijn\nrond lichaam medesleepte en Tom raakte het diertje aan om het met\nopgetrokken pooten te zien ineenrollen en te doen alsof het dood was.\n\nDe vogels waren intusschen druk aan het zingen en kweelen gegaan. Een\nspotvogel zette zich op een boom boven Toms hoofd neder en bootste, dol\nvan pret, met trillende stem, de geluiden na der andere vogels. Toen\nstreek een schrille meerkol, als een blauwe vlam, naar omlaag en ging\nop een tak zitten, bijkans binnen het bereik van den knaap. Hij hield\nzijn kopje op zijde en keek de vreemdelingen verbaasd en nieuwsgierig\naan. Een grijze eekhoorn en een groote vos sprongen om hem heen en\ngingen af en toe opzitten, on hem te bekijken en op hun manier tegen\nhem te praten. Deze bewoners der wildernis toch hadden blijkbaar nooit\nte voren een menschelijk wezen gezien en wisten nauwelijks of zij er\nbang voor moesten zijn of niet. De geheele natuur was klaar wakker\nen in beweging; lange zonnestralen schoten door het dichte loover en\nenkele kapellen verschenen fladderend op het tooneel.\n\nTom schudde de andere zeeroovers wakker; juichend sprongen zij op en\nbinnen een paar minuten hadden de drie knapen hunne kleeren uitgegooid\nen speelden zij \"krijgertje\" en \"haasjeover\" in het ondiepe, heldere\nwater bij de witte zandbank. Zij dachten niet meer aan het stadje, dat\ndaar achter de majestueuze watervlakte lag te slapen. Een wisselzieke\nvloed of eene lichte wassing der rivier had hun vlot medegenomen,\ndoch dit maakte hen niet bezorgd. Integendeel zij verheugden zich\ner over, want het was hun alsof daarmede de band die hen nog aan de\nbeschaafde wereld hechtte, voorgoed was verbroken.\n\nToen keerden zij verfrischt, vroolijk en verrukt naar hun kamp terug\nen weldra spreidde het opgerakelde vuur lustig zijne vlammen in 't\nrond. Huck ontdekte in de buurt een bron van helder, koud water en\nde jongens vervaardigde kopjes uit groote eiken en walnoten bladeren\nen maakten de opmerking dat water, gedronken in zulk een woest oord\nen onder zulke romantische omstandigheden, een uitmuntend surrogaat\nvoor koffie is. Toen Joe het mes in de zijde spek wilde zetten, om\nreepjes voor het ontbijt te snijden, werd hij door de andere verzocht\ndaarmede eenige minuten te wachten, daar zij een veelbelovend plekje\nin de rivier ontdekt hadden om te visschen. Bijna onmiddellijk daarop,\neer Joe nog ongeduldig kon worden, kwamen zij terug met een stuk of\nwat mooie forellen en een paar baarsjes, voorraad genoeg, meende ze,\nvoor een geheel huisgezin. De visch werd dadelijk met spekvet gebakken,\nen nooit scheen ze zoo lekker te hebben gesmaakt. Zij wisten niet\ndat zoetwatervisch altijd 't best smaakt, wanneer zij, dadelijk nadat\nzij is gevangen, gekookt of gebakken wordt, en dat slapen in de open\nlucht, baden en ferme honger de beste saus bij den maaltijd is. Na\nhet ontbijt zochten zij een schaduwrijk plekje op, waar zij zich\nnederlegden, terwijl Huck zijn pijpje rookte, en toen de vermoeidheid\ngeweken was, gingen zij het bosch in, op een verkenningstocht. Zij\nwandelden vroolijk voort over stukken vermolmd hout, door dichte\nkreupelbosschen en onder reusachtige woudkoningen van wier kruin tot\nop den grond, sierlijke kransen van wilde-wijngaardloof afhingen;\nterwijl zij nu en dan verrast werden door allerliefste open plekjes\nbedekt met een grastapijt en met schitterende bloemen bezaaid. Zij\nvonden eene menigte zaken, die hen in verrukking brachten, doch niets\ndat hen bepaald verbaasde. Om het uur namen zij een zwembad en tegen\nhet midden van den dag keerden zij weder naar het kamp terug. Zij\nwaren te hongerig om zich den tijd tot visschen te gunnen, doch\nniet te hongerig om zich met een maal van koude ham te vergenoegen\nen vlijden zich daarna op een schaduwrijke plaats neder on wat te\nbabbelen. Hun praatlust begon echter alras te kwijnen en verdween\nweldra geheel. De plechtige stilte van het woud en de doodelijke\neenzaamheid gingen haar invloed op hen uitoefenen. Zij raakten aan\n't mijmeren. Een onbestemde lusteloosheid overviel hen, die gaandeweg\neen bepaalden vorm aannam, namelijk het pijnigend heimwee. Zelf Finn\nmet de Roode Hand droomde van zijne stoepen en leege vaten. Doch zij\nschaamden zich over hunne kinderachtigheid, en niemand had den moed\nzijne gedachten uit te spreken. Reeds gedurig hadden zij gemeend in\nde verte een vreemdsoortig geluid te hooren, iets als het verwijderd\ntikken van een klok. Maar nu werd dat geluid sterker en trok het\nbepaald de aandacht. De jongens voelden zich niet op hun gemak,\nkeken elkaar aan en gingen zitten luisteren. Eerst hoorden ze niets\nmeer en daarna een dof gerommel als van naderenden donder.\n\n\"Wat is dat?\" riep Joe angstig uit.\n\n\"Ja, wat zou dat kunnen wezen!\" fluisterde Tom.\n\n\"'t Is geen donder,\" zeide Huckleberry, op allesbehalve gerusten toon,\n\"want donder....\"\n\n\"Stil,\" zeide Tom \"luister en spreek geen woord.\"\n\nZij wachtten eenige oogenblikken, die een eeuw schenen en toen werd\nde plechtige stilte weder door het doffe gerommel verstoord.\n\n\"Laat ons hoogte gaan nemen!\"\n\nZij sprongen op, ijlden naar den oever, kropen onder het kreupelhout\ndoor en staarden over de breede watervlakte. Daar zagen zij de kleine\nstoomveerboot, zoo wat een uur van de stad op en neder varen. Het dek\nscheen zwart van menschen. Een aantal schuitjes en roeibootjes dreven\nom en bij de veerboot, doch de knapen konden niet zien wat de mannen,\ndie er in zaten, uitvoerden. Plotseling rees een wolk van witten rook\nuit de boot op, voorafgegaan door een harden knal en daarop liet zich\nhet doffe gerommel weder hooren.\n\n\"Ik weet het!\" riep Tom uit, \"er is iemand verdronken!\"\n\n\"Daar heb je het,\" zeide Huck; \"dat hebben ze van den zomer ook gedaan,\ntoen Bill Tanner verdronken is. Toen schoten zij ook een kanon op\nhet water af, omdat dan het lijk gewoonlijk komt bovendrijven. Ja,\nen soms nemen zij brooden en doen daar kwikzilver in en laten ze dan\ndrijven, en die brooden dobberen naar den persoon die verdronken is\ntoe en houden daar stil.\"\n\n\"Daar heb ik ook wel van gehoord,\" zeide Joe, \"maar ik zou wel eens\nwillen weten, hoe het brood dan blijft stilstaan.\"\n\n\"O,\" zeide Tom, \"dat ligt niet zoozeer aan het brood, als wel aan de\nwoorden, die er bij gesproken worden, eer zij het te water laten.\"\n\n\"Maar zij zeggen er niets bij,\" zeide Huck. \"Ik zelf ben er bij\ngeweest, toen zij het deden, en zij spraken geen woord.\"\n\n\"Wel, dat is grappig,\" zeide Tom. \"Maar het is toch zeker, dat zij\ner iets bij denken. Dat spreekt vanzelf, dat weet iedereen.\"\n\nDe andere jongens stemden toe, dat voor die bewering van Tom\nveel te zeggen was, omdat een redelooze klomp brood, die niet in\ntooverformulieren onderricht was, niet verwacht kon worden, als een\nmet rede begaafd wezen te handelen, wanneer hij zulk een ernstig werk\nte verrichten had.\n\n\"Sapperloot, ik wou dat ik er bij was,\" zeide Joe.\n\n\"Ik ook,\" zeide Huck; \"en ik zou goud geven, als ik wist wie het is.\"\n\nDe knapen bleven luisteren en de boot bespieden. Op eens kreeg Tom\neene ingeving en riep uit:\n\n\"Jongens, ik weet al wie er verdronken is! Wij zijn het.\"\n\nIn een oogenblik waren zij helden geworden. Zij hadden een schitterende\nzege behaald, want zij werden gemist en betreurd. Harten waren\nom hunnentwil gebroken, tranen over hen geschreid, gewetens aan\nhet knagen gebracht en verdriet en berouw gevoeld. En wat nog het\nheerlijkste was van alles, zij waren het onderwerp van gesprek van de\ngansche stad en werden dientengevolge door al de jongens benijd. Dit\nwas verrukkelijk. Nu was het toch wel de moeite waard om zeeroover\nte worden.\n\nTegen licht en donker voer de veerboot naar hare gewone ankerplaats\nterug en verdwenen de schuitjes. De zeeroovers keerden weder naar\nhun kamp en jubelden van vreugde over hunne fonkelnieuwe grootheid\nen de onrust, die zij hadden doen ontstaan. Er werd weder visch\ngevangen en gebakken, en toen deze verorberd was, ging men zich in\ngissingen verdiepen, omtrent de geruchten, die er te St. Petersburg\nover hen zouden verspreid worden; en de schilderijen, die zij over den\nalgemeenen rouw ophingen, gaven van hun standpunt gezien, reden tot\ntevredenheid. Doch naarmate de schaduwen van den nacht hen bedekten,\nwerden de knapen stiller en zij eindigden met in het vuur te staren,\nterwijl hunne gedachten blijkbaar elders verwijlden. De opgewondenheid\nwas voorbij en Tom en Joe konden het denkbeeld niet verzetten, dat er\nte huis personen waren, die niet zooveel plezier in deze grap hadden\nals zij. Zij begonnen zich angstig te maken en ongelukkig te gevoelen\nen onverhoeds ontsnapte hun een paar malen een zware zucht. Eindelijk\nwaagde Joe het, beschroomd te vragen, wat de anderen er van zouden\ndenken, als zij weder tot de beschaving terugkeerden,--nu niet--maar...\n\nTom beantwoordde die vraag met een spotlach en Huck, die hoogst\nvrijheidlievend was, hield zich bij Tom en de weifelaar palmde dadelijk\nin, zeggende, dat hij er niets van gemeend had en dat men volstrekt\nniet moest denken, dat hij naar huis verlangde. Het oproer was alzoo\nvoor het oogenblik gedempt.\n\nBij het vallen van den avond begon Huck te dommelen en was kort daarna\naan 't snorken. Joe volgde zijn voorbeeld. Tom bleef onbeweeglijk\nop zijne armen liggen en staarde hem eenige oogenblikken strak\naan. Eindelijk stond hij voorzichtig op en ging bij den weerschijn\nvan het flikkerend kampvuur aan het zoeken in het gras. Hij raapte\neenige stukjes van den witten bast van een vijgeboom op en koos er\ntwee, die hem naar den zin schenen te zijn. Toen knielde hij bij het\nvuur neder en schreef met moeite, met een stukje roodkrijt, iets op\nelk van die beide. Daarna rolde hij er een op, stak dat in den zak\nvan zijn buis en legde het andere in den hoed van Joe, dien hij vlak\nbij den eigenaar neerzette. Verder vulde hij den hoed met eenige\nschooljongensschatten van schier onmetelijke waarde, als een stuk\nwit krijt, een gomlastieken bal, drie vischhaken en een zoogenaamden\n\"echten glazen knikker.\" Vervolgens sloop hij behoedzaam op de teenen\ntusschen de boomen weg, totdat hij buiten het gehoor was en liep toen\nzoo gauw als zijne beenen hem dragen konden, in de richting van de\nzandbank voort.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XV.\n\n\nEenige oogenblikken later was Tom in de ondiepe rivier verdwenen.\n\nEer hij met het halve lijf onder water was, had hij reeds de helft\nvan den weg afgelegd. Daar de stroom hem nu niet langer veroorloofde\nte waden, sloeg hij moedig armen en beenen uit, om de overschietende\nhonderd el door te zwemmen. Hij zwom zooveel mogelijk met den stroom\nmede, doch werd gedurig met meer kracht teruggedreven dan hij verwacht\nhad. Toch bereikte hij eindelijk den oever en liet zich langs den kant\nvoortdrijven, totdat hij een geschikt plekje vond om te landen. Aan\nwal gekomen, bevoelde hij eerst zijn borstzak on zich te overtuigen,\ndat de boomschors nog op hare plaats zat, en toen maakte hij zich met\nzijne druipnatte kleederen, steeds den oever volgend, door de bosschen\nvoort. Even voor tien uren, kwam hij aan een open plek tegenover de\nstad en zag de veerboot in de schaduw der boomen bij den hoogen dijk\nliggen. Alles onder de flikkerende sterren was rustig. Tom kroop den\ndijk af, loerde naar alle kanten, liet zich in het water glijden en\nzwom met drie of vier slagen naar het bootje toe, dat sleepdienst\ndeed bij de veerboot. Hij klom er in, ging onder de roeibank liggen\nen wachtte met een kloppend hart. Spoedig werd de oude bel geluid en\neene stem gaf bevel om het anker te lichten. Een minuut of wat daarna\nwerd de voorsteven van het schuitje door de golven, die de boot deed\nontstaan, omhooggeheven en de reis nam een aanvang. Tom was zeer in\nzijn schik, dat hij nog juist bijtijds was gekomen: immers hij wist,\ndat de boot dien dag voor de laatste maal dienst deed.\n\nNa tien of twaalf minuten stopte de boot, waarop Tom overboord\nstapte en in de duisternis naar den oever kroop. Hij ging echter\nvoorzichtigheidshalve omstreeks vijftien el beneden het vaarwater\naan wal, ten einde het gevaar van ontdekt te worden te ontkomen. Toen\nsloop hij voort, langs weinig bezochte stegen en straten, totdat hij\nvoor de schutting aan den achterkant van tantes huis stond. Na deze te\nzijn overgeklauterd, stapte hij voort tot aan den elzeboom en tuurde\nnaar binnen door het raam van de zitkamer, waar een licht brandde.\n\nDaar zaten tante Polly, Sid, Marie en de moeder van Joe bij\nelkander. Zij hadden zich rondom de tafel geschaard en het bed stond\nvlak bij den ingang. Tom stapte behoedzaam naar de deur, en lichtte\nvoorzichtig de klink op; toen drukte hij zachtjes met zijne knie\ntegen de paneelen en de deur week met een licht gekraak. Hij ging\nvoorzichtig met duwen voort, telkens bevende, wanneer hij gerucht\nmaakte, totdat hij dacht dat hij er zich op de knie\u00ebn wel door zou\nkunnen persen. Reeds was zijn hoofd in de kamer, toen hij tante Polly\nhoorde zeggen:\n\n\"Hoe zou de kaars zoo waaien? Ik geloof waarempel, dat de deur\nopenstaat. Wel, al zijn leven! De wonderen staan niet stil. Kom,\nSid ga haar sluiten.\"\n\nTom verdween van pas onder het bed. Hij bleef een oogenblik stil\nliggen om adem te scheppen en kroop toen zoover naar voren, dat hij\nbijkans tantes voet raakte.\n\n\"Maar, zooals ik zeide,\" vervolgde tante Polly, \"eigenlijk slecht was\nhij niet, alleen maar wat ondeugend, een beetje lichtzinnig en wild,\nweet je. Het kind dacht geen kwaad en was de goedhartigste jongen\nvan de wereld.\" En zij begon te schreien.\n\n\"Precies zoo was 't met mijn Joe: altijd vol jongensstreken en\nhandig in allerlei kattekwaad,--maar hij was de onbaatzuchtigheid en\nvriendelijkheid zelve. En, de hemel zij mij genadig--te moeten denken,\ndat ik hem zweepslagen gegeven heb, omdat hij room gesnoept had, die\nik zelve uit het raam heb geworpen, omdat ze zuur was geworden!--En\ndat ik hem nooit, nooit, nooit meer op deze aarde zal terugzien,--die\narme, miskende jongen!\"\n\nEn juffrouw Harper snikte, alsof haar het hart zou breken.\n\n\"Ik hoop dat Tom in betere gewesten is,\" zeide Sid; \"doch als hij\nhier wat meer...\"\n\n\"Sid!\"\n\nTom voelde het fonkelen van tantes oog, ofschoon hij het niet zien\nkon. \"Geen woord ten nadeele van Tom, nu hij is heengegaan. God zal\nhem oordeelen, en gij behoeft u daarover niet moeilijk te maken,\njongenheer.--Och, juffrouw Harper, ik kan hem niet missen; ik weet\nniet, hoe ik het zonder hem stellen moet. Hij was mij zulk een troost,\nhoewel hij mijn arm hart ten bloede toe kon plagen.\"\n\n\"De Heer heeft gegeven, de Heer heeft genomen, de naam des Heeren\nzij geloofd!\" snikte juffrouw Harper. \"Maar 't is zoo hard, o het\nis zoo hard! Verleden Zaterdag nog stak Joe vlak onder mijn neus een\nvoetzoeker af en ik heb hem geslagen, totdat hij op den grond lag te\nspartelen. Weinig dacht ik toen, hoe spoedig.... O, als het nog over\nte doen was, ik zou er hem voor aan mijn hart drukken en zeggen....\"\n\n\"Ja, ja, ja, ik begrijp volkomen wat gij voelen moet, juffrouw Harper:\nik kan het mij best voorstellen. Gisterenmiddag liet Tom mijn arme\nkat van zijn drankje nemen, en ik dacht dat mijn huis onderstboven\nzou keeren. En, God vergeve mij, ik kneep, met mijn vingerhoed aan\nden vinger, het kind in zijn oor dat het kraakte. Mijn jongen, mijn\narme, gestorven jongen! Doch hij is nu uit zijn lijden. En de laatste\nwoorden, die ik hem hoorde zeggen, waren een verwijt....\"\n\nDe gedachte aan dit feit was te bitter voor de oude juffrouw en zij\nbarstte in tranen uit. Tom voelde dat zijn oogen vochtig werden,\nnog meer uit medelijden met zichzelven dan met de anderen. Hij kon\nMarie hooren snikken en nu en dan een vriendelijk woordje over hem\nin het midden brengen. Meer dan ooit kreeg hij een hoogen dunk van\nzichzelven. Toch was hij zoo diep door de droefheid zijner tante\ngeschokt, dat hij snakte om het bed uit te springen en zich in hare\narmen te werpen,--doch hij bedwong zich en bleef liggen.\n\nAl luisterend, ving hij bij stukken en brokken op, dat men eerst\nverondersteld had, dat de knapen met zwemmen verdronken waren:\ntoen was het kleine houtvlot vermist en was er door een paar jongens\nmedegedeeld, dat de verloren knapen voorspeld hadden, dat het stadje\neerlang iets hooren zou. De wijzen van St. Petersburg hadden het een\nmet het ander in verband gebracht en waren tot het besluit gekomen,\ndat de knapen met het houtvlot van wal gestoken waren en bij de\neerstvolgende stad aan wal gegaan waren. Doch tegen den middag was\nhet houtvlot aan den oever van de Missouri, eenige uren van de stad,\nteruggevonden en toen was de hoop verdwenen. Zij moesten verdronken\nzijn, anders zou de honger hen bij het vallen van den nacht, zooal\nniet eerder, naar huis hebben gejaagd. Men geloofde algemeen, dat\nhet eene wanhopige zaak was naar de lijken te zoeken, daar de knapen\nongetwijfeld midden in de rivier verdronken waren. Anders immers zouden\nzij, die voor goede zwemmers bekend stonden, het wel tot den oever\nhebben kunnen brengen. Deze dingen waren voorgevallen op Woensdag,\nen als de lijken v\u00f3\u00f3r Zondag niet werden gevonden, zou men de hoop\nopgeven en er dien morgen een lijkdienst gehouden worden. Deze laatste\nmededeeling deed Tom even sidderen.\n\nTegen elf uren stond Juffrouw Harper snikkend op om heen te gaan,\nen door eene opwelling van wederzijdsch medelijden gedreven, vlogen\nde beide van kinderen beroofde vrouwen elkander in de armen en namen\ndaarna afscheid.\n\nTante Polly zeide Sid en Marie dien avond met een buitengewone\nhartelijkheid \"goedennacht,\" en Sid perste zich een paar tranen uit\nde oogen, terwijl Marie luid snikkend naar boven ging. Toen knielde de\noude juffrouw neder en bad voor Tom z\u00f3\u00f3 vurig, z\u00f3\u00f3 roerend en met zulk\neen oneindige liefde, en hare oude stem beefde z\u00f3\u00f3, dat eer de laatste\nwoorden van dat gesprek uitgesproken waren, Tom in een bad van tranen\nlag. Hij moest zich, nadat de arme vrouw naar bed was gegaan, nog lang\nstilhouden, want zij bleef geruimen tijd wakker en gaf voortdurend\nin hartbrekende uitroepen aan hare droefheid lucht. Eindelijk, na\nzich nu op de eene en dan op de andere zijde geworpen te hebben,\nwas zij stil en kreunde alleen nog maar een weinig in haar slaap.\n\nNu kroop de knaap onder het bed uit, richtte zich langzaam op, hield\nzijne hand voor het nachtlicht en keek zijne tante aandachtig aan. Diep\nmedelijden met haar vervulde zijn hart. Hij haalde zijne vijgeboombast\nvoor den dag en hield dien bij het licht. Plotseling schoot hem iets\ngrappigs te binnen, verhelderde zijn gelaat; haastig stak hij zijne\nboomschors weer op, boog zich over tantes aangezicht heen en drukte\neen kus op hare bleeke lippen. Toen nam hij de terugreis aan en liet\nde deur in de klink vallen. Hij vond, zonder door iemand ontdekt\nte worden, op den tast zijn weg naar het veerbootje terug en stapte\nmoedig aan boord. Immers hij wist, dat de boot onbemand was behalve\nmisschien door den klepperman, die er altijd in kroop en doorgaans als\neen os sliep. Hij maakte het schuitje van den voorsteven der boot los,\nsloop er in en roeide omzichtig stroomopwaarts. Toen hij omstreeks\neen mijl had voortgeroeid, hield hij op eens schuins aan, begon te\nwerken zoo hard als hij kon en bereikte handig de overzijde. Hij\nhad grooten lust om het bootje buit te maken, daar hij het schip als\nwettige zeerooversprooi beschouwde, doch hij begreep te gelijkertijd\ndat er overal naar gezocht zou worden en dat eene ontdekking er het\ngevolg van kon zijn. Daarom stapte hij zonder buit aan wal en ging\nhet bosch in. Hij zette zich op den grond neder om uit te rusten,\nlegde zich de marteling op van wakker te blijven en zocht eindelijk\nzijne oude verblijfplaats weder op. De nacht was bijna voorbij en\nhet was klaar dag, toen hij voor de zandbank stond. Daar hield hij\nopnieuw halt en legde zich op den grond te slapen tot de zon aan den\nhemel stond en de groote rivier met haar glans verguldde.\n\nToen dompelde de knaap zich in den stroom en hield een oogenblik\nlater bij den ingang van het kamp stil, juist toen Joe uitriep:\n\n\"Neen, Tom is een eerlijke jongen en hij zal terugkeeren. Hij zal ons\nniet verlaten. Hij is er te trotsch voor, want hij weet, dat dit eene\nschande zou wezen voor een zeeroover. Zeker is hij op avonturen uit;\nhet zal mij benieuwen wat hij nu weer heeft uitgespookt.\"\n\n\"Goed,\" antwoordde Huck, \"maar als hij niet op zijn tijd past, is\nzijn ontbijt voor ons.\"\n\n\"Ja, als hij er niet is, maar dat is nog niet zeker. Er stond immers\nop de boomschors geschreven: _als_ ik er niet ben, is het ontbijt\nvoor ulieden.\"\n\n\"Wie is die hij?\" riep Tom met eene tooneelstem uit, terwijl hij met\nfiere houding het kamp binnenstapte.\n\nSpoedig was er een weelderig ontbijt van spek en visch opgedischt,\nwaaraan de knapen zich naar hartelust te goed deden. Onderwijl vertelde\nTom, met de noodige opsieringen, zijne avonturen van dien nacht. Toen\nhet verhaal ge\u00ebindigd was, werden zij drie snoevende, grootsprekende\nhelden. Na het ontbijt verschool Tom zich op een schaduwrijk plekje om\nte gaan slapen, en de beide andere zeeroovers gingen op de vischvangst.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XVI.\n\n\nNa het eten vertrokken de drie knapen naar de zandbank om\nschildpadeieren te zoeken. Zij stootten met stokken in het zand, en\nwanneer zij eene weeke plek vonden, legden zij zich op de knie\u00ebn en\ngroeven haar met de handen uit. Somtijds haalden zij vijftig of zestig\neieren uit \u00e9\u00e9n gat. Het waren witte, bolronde eitjes, iets kleiner dan\neen walnoot. Dien avond hadden zij een heerlijk maal van spiegeleieren,\ndat Vrijdagochtend nog eens herhaald werd. Na dat ontbijt van gebakken\neieren, begaven zij zich schreeuwend en jubelend naar de zandbank,\nspeelden \"krijgertje,\" ontdeden zich onderweg van hunne kleederen\nen liepen in Adams kostuum voort, totdat zij midden in het ondiepe\nwater stonden. Daarna spongen zij tegen den steilen oever op, van\nwelken zij gedurig tot groote vermeerdering der pret afsukkelden. Nu\nen dan hielden zij bij elkaar stand en gooiden elkaar met water,\nterwijl zij, on het kille nat te vermijden, elkander gedurig met\nafgewend gelaat naderden en eindigden met te grijpen en te worstelen,\ntotdat de sterkste zijn buurman onder water geduwd had en zij ten\nlaatste allen in een warnet van witte armen en beenen verdwenen, om\nspoedig daarop, blazend, spuwend, lachend en naar den adem hijgend,\nweder boven te komen.\n\nAls de krachten hun begaven, spartelden zij naar het droge, heete\nzand en legden zich daarop neder, om er zich mede te bedekken. En\ndan sprongen zij langzamerhand weder naar het water en vertoonden\ndat spelletje voor de tweede maal.\n\nEindelijk viel het hun in, dat hunne huid sprekend op een\nvleeschkleurig tricot geleek; dientengevolge werd er in het zand\neen cirkel getrokken en een paardenspel vertoond, met drie clowns,\nwant geen hunner wilde die schitterende rol aan den anderen afstaan.\n\nVervolgens werden de knikkers gehaald en werd er gestuit en gerold,\ntotdat ook dat spel verveelde. Daarna gingen Joe en Huck weder zwemmen,\nmaar Tom durfde zich daaraan niet meer wagen, omdat hij bij het\nuittrekken van zijn broek, het palingvel van zijne enkels gestroopt\nhad en hij zich niet kon begrijpen, dat hij zonder dit geheimzinnig\nvoorbehoedmiddel zoo lang aan de kramp ontkomen was. Hij waagde zich\nniet weder, eer hij dien talisman teruggevonden had, en toen waren de\nandere jongens moede en verlangden naar rust. Van lieverlede begonnen\nzij met loomen tred rond te dolen, werden zwaarmoedig en staarden\nverlangend over de breede rivier, naar de plek, waar St. Petersburg\nzich in de zon lag te koesteren. Tom bemerkte, dat hij met zijn grooten\nteen het woord \"Becky\" in het zand had geschreven. Hij wischte het\nuit en was boos op zichzelven om zijne zwakheid. Doch hij schreef het\nniettemin nog eens, wischte het nogmaals uit en ontworstelde zich\ntoen aan de verzoeking, door de andere jongens op te halen en zich\nbij hen te voegen.\n\nMaar de opgewektheid van Joe was voorbij en scheen niet terug te\nkeeren. Hij had zulk een heimwee, dat hij het nauwelijks meer uithouden\nkon. De tranen stonden hem in de oogen. Ook Huck was zwaarmoedig\nevenals Tom, doch de laatste durfde het niet toonen. Hij droeg een\ngeheim met zich om, dat hij niet gaarne wilde openbaren, doch waarmede\nhij, indien deze sombere, oproerige geest niet werd gefnuikt, wel voor\nden dag zoude moeten komen. Daarom zeide hij, schijnbaar zeer opgewekt:\n\n\"Ik wed, dat vroeger op dit eiland ook zeeroovers zijn geweest. Zullen\nwij eens op verkenning uitgaan? Zij hebben zeker hier of daar een\nschat begraven! Wat zou jelui hiervan zeggen, als je daar eens een\nverrotte kist vol goud en zilver voor je zaagt liggen,--h\u00e9?\"\n\nDit vooruitzicht echter wekte geen de minste opgewondenheid en\ner werd niet eens op geantwoord. Een paar andere verleidelijke\nvoorstellen vielen eveneens in het water. Dat was ontmoedigend. Joe\nkeek mistroostig voor zich en krabbelde met zijn stok in het\nzand. Eindelijk riep hij uit:\n\n\"O, jongens, laat ons het opgeven. Ik _moet_ naar huis; ik voel mij\nzoo verlaten.\"\n\n\"Kom, Joe dat zal langzamerhand wel beter worden,\" zeide Tom. \"Denk\nmaar eens aan al de gelegenheden, die je hier hebt om te visschen.\n\n\"Ik geef niet om visschen; ik verlang naar huis!\"\n\n\"Maar, Joe, nergens is zoo'n zwemplaats als hier.\"\n\n\"Wat kan mij het zwemmen schelen: 't is alsof het mij verveelt,\nnu niemand het mij verbiedt. Ik wil naar huis!\"\n\n\"O, hoe kinderachtig! Hij verlangt naar zijn moesje!\"\n\n\"Ja, ik _verlang_ naar moeder en dat zou jij ook doen, als je er een\nhadt. Ik ben niet kinderachtiger dan jij.\" En Joe begon te schreien.\n\n\"Wel, dan zullen wij het schreeuwpoppetje maar naar huis laten gaan,\nniet waar Huck? Arme jongen! Hij verlangt naar moesje! Nu, hij zal\nook naar haar toe gaan. Jij vindt het prettig hier, h\u00e9, Huck? Wij\nzullen blijven, niet waar?\"\n\nHuck antwoordde: \"Ja--a,\" maar het ging niet van harte.\n\n\"Ik spreek van mijn leven niet meer tegen jelui,\" zeide Joe en stond\nop. \"Daar nu!\"\n\nEn hij draaide de beide jongens den rug toe en ging zich verder\naankleeden.\n\n\"Wie geeft wat om jou?\" zeide Tom. \"Niemand heeft je noodig. Ga maar\nnaar huis on uitgelachen te worden. Jij bent een mooie zeeroover. Huck\nen ik zijn geen schreeuwpoppetjes. Wij blijven, niet waar, Huck? Wij\nlaten hem stilletjes trekken. Wij zullen het wel zonder hem stellen.\"\n\nMaar Tom voelde zich allesbehalve prettig en was in ernst ongerust,\ntoen hij Joe mismoedig zag voortgaan om zich te kleeden. Buitendien\nwas het onrustbarend te bemerken, dat Huck met belangstelling Joes\ntoebereidselen gadesloeg en een onheilspellend stilzwijgen in acht\nnam. Daar stapte Joe, zonder een woord tot afscheid, den kant op\nder zandbank. Het hart zonk Tom in de schoenen. Hij keek naar Huck,\nen Huck, die hem niet durfde aanzien, sloeg de oogen neder en zeide:\n\n\"Ik verlang ook zoo, Tom; ik heb mij hier nog meer verlaten gevoeld\ndat overal elders en nu zal het nog erger worden. Kom, Tom, laten\nwij ook gaan.\"\n\n\"Dank je wel; jelui kunt allebei gaan, als je verkiest. Ik denk\nte blijven.\"\n\n\"Tom, ik wou liever gaan.\"\n\n\"Nu, ga dan! Wie belet je?\"\n\n\"Tom, ik wou, dat jij ook meegingt. Toe, denk er eens over. Wij zullen\nbij de zandbank op je wachten.\"\n\n\"Dan zul je verduiveld lang moeten wachten; dat is alles wat ik je\nte zeggen heb.\"\n\nHuck ging verdrietig heen en Tom stond hem na te oogen, brandende van\nverlangen om hem te volgen en toch te trotsch om dat te doen. Hij\nhoopte dat de jongens zouden omkeeren, doch zij waren al uit het\ngezicht. Op eens voelde hij, dat het ontzettend eenzaam en stil om\nhem heen was geworden.\n\nNog eenmaal worstelde hij met zijn hooghartig gemoed, ijlde zijne\nmakkers achterna en gilde:\n\n\"Wacht! wacht! Ik moet je wat vertellen!\"\n\nDadelijk hielden zij stil en keerden zich om.\n\nToen hij hen had ingehaald, deelde hij hun een plannetje mede. Eerst\nhoorden zij hem gemelijk aan, maar toen zij eindelijk het punt\nontdekten waar hij hen hebben wilde, werd zijn plan met een luid\n\"hoera\" begroet, een prachtig denkbeeld genoemd en werd er verklaard,\ndat, als hij het dadelijk had medegedeeld, zij niet aan naar huis\ngaan gedacht zouden hebben.\n\nTom maakte over zijne terughoudendheid eenige schoonschijnende\nverontschuldigingen; de ware reden daarvan echter was de vrees,\ndat zelfs dit geheim niet langer in staat mocht zijn hen nog te doen\nblijven, en hij had het daarom als het laatste noodschot bewaard.\n\nDe knapen keerden vroolijk terug en gingen met opgewekt gemoed weder\naan het spelen, niet uitgepraat over het heerlijke denkbeeld van\nTom en vol bewondering over zijn vernuft. Na een smakelijk maal van\neieren en visch verklaarde Tom, dat hij lust had on te rooken. Joe\nvond dit een voortreffelijke inval en zeide, dat hij het ook eens\nwilde probeeren. Huck maakte pijpjes en stopte die. Onze nieuwelingen\nhadden nooit iets anders gerookt dan stroo-sigaren, doch dat waren\n\"flauwe dingen,\" te kinderachtig on meegeteld te worden.\n\nNu strekten zij zich op het mos uit, leunden welbehaaglijk op hunne\nellebogen en begonnen dapper te blazen. De tabak was lang niet lekker\nen maakte hen een beetje draaierig; doch Tom zeide:\n\n\"Nu, dat is gemakkelijk. Had ik geweten, dat er zoo weinig aan was,\ndan had ik het al lang geleerd.\"\n\n\"Ik ook,\" zeide Joe; \"het beduidt niets.\"\n\n\"Hoe menig keer,\" zeide Tom, \"heb ik rookers aangekeken en gedacht:\n'H\u00e8, ik wenschte dat ik het kon,' en dan hield ik het er voor, dat ik\nhet nooit zou kunnen leeren. Heb ik dat niet gezegd, Huck? Heb jij het\nmij niet hooren zeggen, Huck? Laat Huck zeggen, of het niet waar is.\"\n\n\"Ja, wel twintigmaal,\" zeide Huck.\n\n\"Neen,\" zeide Tom, \"wel honderdmaal. Eens nog, toen wij bij het\nslachthuis stonden. Herinner jij je dat niet, Huck? Bob Tanner was\ner ook bij en Johan Hatcher en Jeff Hatcher. Weet je niet meer, Huck,\ndat ik het zeide?\"\n\n\"Ja, zeker,\" antwoordde Huck. \"'t Was op denzelfden dag, waarop ik\nmijn albasten knikker verloor;--neen, 't was den dag te voren.\"\n\n\"Heb ik het je niet gezegd?\" zeide Tom. \"Huck herinnert het zich nog.\"\n\n\"Ik geloof, dat ik den geheelen dag wel pijpen zou kunnen rooken. Ik\nben niets misselijk.\"\n\n\"Ik ook niet,\" zeide Tom. \"Ik zou wel van den morgen tot den avond\nkunnen rooken, maar ik wed, dat Jeff Hatcher het niet zou kunnen.\"\n\n\"Jeff Hatcher! Wel, hij zou bij den tweeden trek al katterig\nworden. Laat hij het maar eens wagen, dan zul je wat zien!\"\n\n\"Ik geloof het ook.--En Johnny Miller... Ik zou Johnny Miller wel\neens met een pijp willen zien!\"\n\n\"En ik!\" zeide Joe. \"Ik ben zeker, dat Johnny Miller geen trekje kan\ndoen. Als hij maar \u00e9\u00e9n pijpje rookt, zou hij al ziek worden.\"\n\n\"Dat zou hij zeker, Joe.--Zeg, ik wou dat de jongens ons nu eens\nkonden zien.\"\n\n\"Ik ook.\"\n\n\"Zeg, jongens,\" zeide Tom, \"we moeten er niet van vertellen, en als we\ndan weder eens bij elkaar zijn, dan zal ik op je afkomen en zeggen:\n'Joe, kom geef mij een pijp; ik wou eens rooken,' en dan moet jij\nzeggen, zoo onverschillig mogelijk, alsof het niets was: 'Goed, ik heb\nmijn oude pijp en ook nog een andere, maar mijn tabak deugt niet.' En\ndan zal ik weer zeggen: 'O, dat doet er niet toe, als ze maar _zwaar_\nis.' En dan moet jij met de pijpen voor den dag komen en wij zullen\nze kalmpjes opsteken--en dan zul je ze eens zien kijken.\"\n\n\"Waaratje, dat zal grappig zijn, Tom; ik wou, dat het nu al zoo\nver was!\"\n\n\"Ik ook. En wanneer wij hun vertellen, dat we het geleerd hebben\ntoen we zeeroovers waren, zouden zij dan niet willen dat zij er bij\ngeweest waren?\"\n\n\"Neen, dat geloof ik niet; maar wij zullen er om wedden.\"\n\nDus ongeveer liep het gesprek der knapen. Langzamerhand echter begon\nhet een weinig te verflauwen en wilde het niet meer vlotten. De\ngapingen tusschen het eene onderwerp en het andere werden grooter en\nhet spuwen verbazingwekkend. Elke porie in de wangen der knapen werd\neen spuitende fontein en zij konden de kelders onder hun tong niet\nschielijk genoeg uitscheppen on eene overstrooming te voorkomen. Er\nkwamen tegen wil en dank kleine opwellingen in hun keel, die gevolgd\nwerden door aanvallen van misselijkheid. De beide knapen zagen er\nbleek en akelig uit. Eindelijk viel Joes pijp hem uit de krachtelooze\nvingers. Daarop volgde die van Tom. De beide fonteinen sprongen\nmet onstuimige woede en de beide pompen werden met kracht en geweld\nuitgeschept. Joe zeide flauwtjes:\n\n\"Ik heb mijn mes verloren, ik ga het eventjes opzoeken.\"\n\nTom zeide met bevende lippen en ingehouden adem:\n\n\"Ik zal je helpen. Ga jij dezen kant, dan loop ik langs de bron.--Neen,\nje behoeft niet mede te gaan, Huck;--wij zullen het wel vinden.\"\n\nHuck ging weer zitten en wachtte een uur. Toen begon hij zich te\nvervelen en ging zijne kameraden zoeken. Zij lagen ver van elkander,\ndiep in het woud, beiden zeer bleek en vast in slaap. Maar uit\neen waarneming, welke hij deed, bleek hem dat zij, van hetgeen hen\nhinderde, verlost waren.\n\nZij hadden dien avond aan het souper niet veel te vertellen en zagen\nverlegen voor zich. Toen Huck na het avondeten zijn pijp voor den\ndag haalde en er ook een voor hen wilde klaarmaken, bedankten zij\nen verklaarden dat zij zich niet wel voelden, omdat iets, dat zij\n's middags gegeten hadden, hun nog in de maag zat.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XVII.\n\n\nTegen middernacht werd Joe wakker en riep de jongens. Er was eene\ndrukkende benauwheid in de lucht, die weersverandering scheen\nte voorspellen. De knapen schoten haastig hunne kleeren aan en\nschaarden zich voor de gezelligheid om een vriendelijk vuurtje,\nniettegenstaande men in den snikheeten, door geen enkel koeltje\nbewogen dampkring dreigde te stikken. Zij bleven stil, in gespannen\nverwachting, om het vuur zitten. Een pikzwarte duisternis, slechts\nafgewisseld door het schijnsel van het vuur lag over het landschap\nuitgespreid. Daar verlichtte eensklaps, voor een oogenblik, een\nflikkerende lichtstraal het donker geboomte. Een tweede volgde, iets\nheller daarna een derde. Toen werd er een zacht gesuis door het woud\ngehoord en een nauw merkbaar tochtje verkoelde de wangen der sidderende\nknapen, die zich verbeeldden, dat de Geest van den Nacht hun was\nvoorbijgegaan. Daarop werd het weder bladstil. Maar op eens veranderde\neen onheilspellende bliksemstraal den nacht in z\u00f3\u00f3 helderen dag, dat\nelk grasscheutje op den bodem, het kleinste zelfs, duidelijk zichtbaar\nwerd--en tevens drie bleeke, verschrikte gezichten te zien kwamen. Een\nzware donderslag rolde door de lucht en verloor zich in de verte in\neen dof gerommel. Een kille windvlaag streek hun langs het hoofd,\nschudde al de bladeren en joeg de asch on het vuur in groote vlokken\nnaar omhoog. Opnieuw zette een geweldige bliksemstraal het woud als in\nvuur en onmiddellijk daarna knalde een donderslag, die de boomtoppen\nboven het hoofd der kinderen scheen te splijten. Doodelijk ontsteld\nklemden zij zich in de dikke duisternis, die thans alles weder omhulde,\naan elkaar vast. Enkele dikke regendroppels kletterden op de bladeren.\n\n\"Gauw, jongens, naar de tent!\" riep Tom uit.\n\nZij spoedden zich weg en stommelden over wortels en door\nwijngaardranken voort. Een weldoende rukwind loeide door het\nbosch. Bliksemstraal volgde op bliksemstraal en ratelslag op\nratelslag. En nu stroomde de regen naar beneden en de razende orkaan\ndreef dien in breede golven over den grond. De knapen schreeuwden\nluid tegen elkaar doch de bulderende storm en de rommelende donder\noverstemden hun geroep. Eindelijk bereikten zij de tent, waaronder zij\nkoud, verschrikt en druipende van het water eene schuilplaats zochten,\ndankbaar dat zij in hunne ellende lotgenooten hadden in elkander. Zich\naan elkaar verstaanbaar maken konden zij, al hadden andere geluiden\nzulks niet verhinderd, niet, door het woedend klepperen van het oude\nzeil. De storm verhief zich meer en meer, en weldra rukte het zeil\nzich van zijne banden los en ijlde voort op de vleugelen van den\nwind. De knapen grepen elkaar bij de hand en vluchtten onder het\nschutsdak van den grooten eik, aan den kant der rivier. Nu had de\nstrijd zijn toppunt van heftigheid bereikt en bij den onafgebroken\ngloed van het in de lucht vlammend bliksemvuur teekende zich alles\ndaarbeneden akelig scherp af.\n\nDe zwiepende boomen, de kokende rivier met hare witte golven, de\nschuimvlokken die haar als met een sprei overdekten, de donkere\nomtrekken van den hoogen oever aan den overkant en daarboven de\njagende wolken en de schuin neervallende regen. Telkens gaf een\nreusachtige boom den strijd op en viel krakend over het jongere\ngewas; en de onvermoeide donderslagen barstten onafgebroken, met\neen oorverdoovend, alles doordringend, onuitsprekelijk schrikwekkend\ngeraas, in knallen los. De storm spande met eene uiterste poging al\nzijne krachten in om het eiland stuk te slaan, in vlam te zetten,\nonder water te dompelen, tot aan de kruinen der boomen toe, en alle\nschepselen die er op huisden te vernietigen. Het was een vreeselijke\nnacht om onder den blooten hemel door te brengen.\n\nMaar eindelijk was de strijd volstreden; de legermachten trokken\nonder steeds zwakker dreigen en rommelen af en de vrede nam de teugels\nvan het bewind weder in handen. De knapen gingen vol angst naar hun\nkamp terug en bemerkten, dat zij nog reden tot dankbaarheid hadden,\nwant de groote vijgeboom, onder welken zij des nachts hadden gerust,\nwas door den bliksem vernield en aan splinters geslagen.\n\nHet geheele kamp was doorweekt en het kampvuur daarbij, want onze\nonbedachtzame knaapjes hadden geene voorzorgen tegen den regen\ngenomen. Stof genoeg om moedeloos te zijn: immers zij waren nat tot op\nhet hemd en beefden van koude. Al pratende over hun ongeval ontdekten\nzij, dat het vuur onder het groote blok hout, waartegen het aangelegd\nwas, zoo ver had voortgewoekerd, dat daar waar het blok zich opwaarts\nkromde en boven den grond verhief, slechts een handje vol hout was\nblijven smeulen.\n\nToen gingen zij ijverig aan het werk, on met boomschors en afval van\ndroog hout, dat zij hier en daar opzamelden, de uitgedoofde vlam aan\nte wakkeren, en nadat hun dit gelukt was legden zij er doode takken\nbovenop en hadden tot hunne groote vreugde weldra weder een knappend\nvuurtje. Zij droogden hun gekookte ham, deden zich daaraan te goed,\ngingen daarna bij het vuur zitten en wijdden tot aan den morgenstond\nuit over hun nachtelijk avontuur.\n\nToen de zon de knapen met hare stralen begon te beschijnen, werden\nzij slaperig en trokken naar de zandbank, waarop zij zich ter ruste\nlegden. Zij ontwaakten bijna geroosterd door de heete dagvorstin en\nzetten zich met droge kleeren aan hun ontbijt. Doch daarna gevoelden\nzij zich onaangenaam stijf en begon het heimwee terug te komen. Tom\nbemerkte die kwade teekens en beurde de zeeroovers op, zooveel als\nhij kon. Alles echter liet hen onverschillig, knikkers zoowel als het\npaardenspel en het zwemmen. Hij bracht hun het afgesproken geheim\nte binnen en wist hierdoor een straaltje van opgewektheid in hun\ngemoed te doen doorschemeren. Zoolang dat aanhield, boezemde hij hun\nbelangstelling in voor een nieuw spel. Dit was: het zeerooverschap er\neen poos aan te geven en voor de verandering Indianen te worden. Dit\ndenkbeeld trok hen aan. Het duurde dan ook niet lang, of zij hadden\nzich geheel ontkleed en van het hoofd tot de voeten met modderstrepen\nbesmeerd. Als Zebra's gingen zij woest schreeuwend, door het woud,\nom eene Engelsche kolonie aan te vallen.\n\nVan lieverlede scheidden zij zich in drie vijandelijke stammen en\nbeschoten elkaar uit hinderlagen, onder vreeselijke strijdkreten en\nmoordden en scalpeerden elkander bij duizenden. Het was een bloedige\ndag en daarom zeer aangenaam. Tegen den avond verzamelden zij zich\nhongerig en tevreden in hun kamp. Thans evenwel deed zich eene\nmoeilijkheid voor:--vijandige Indianen konden te zamen het brood der\ngastvrijheid niet breken, eer zij vrede gesloten hadden, en dit was\nbepaald onmogelijk zonder het rooken van de vredepijp. Van eene andere\nwijze om een twist te beslechten hadden zij nooit gehoord. Twee der\nwilden wenschten bijna, dat zij zeeroovers gebleven waren. Toch was er\ngeen andere weg. Met gehuichelde vroolijkheid vroegen zij om eene pijp\nen dampten zooals het behoort. En ziet, zij waren blijde dat zij wilden\ngeworden waren, want zij hadden er iets bij gewonnen. Zij bemerkten\nnamelijk, dat zij een weinig konden rooken, zonder naar een verloren\nmes te behoeven te gaan zoeken. Natuurlijk werd er van deze heerlijke\nontdekking partij getrokken en werd er na het eten voorzichtig nog\neen pijpje aangestoken. Hun pogen werd met een goeden uitslag bekroond\nen zoo brachten zij een verrukkelijken avond door. Zij waren trotsch\ner op en gelukkiger met het verworven talent, dan zij geweest zouden\nzijn, indien zij de zes nati\u00ebn gescalpeerd en afgestroopt hadden.\n\nEn hier zullen wij hen aan hun pijp en hun gezwets overlaten, daar\nwij voor het tegenwoordige niets met hen te maken hebben.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XVIII.\n\n\nOp dien stillen Zaterdag heerschte er in het stadje St. Petersburg\nver van algemeene vroolijkheid. Juffrouw Harper en tante Polly met de\nharen, zaten onder zuchten en tranen rouwkleeren te maken en de anders\ntoch reeds stille straten waren als uitgestorven. De bewoners gingen\nsomber en zwijgend huns weegs en liepen elkaar, onder het slaken van\nzware zuchten, sprakeloos voorbij. De kinderen waren verlegen met hun\nvrijen Zaterdagmiddag; hun hart was niet bij het spel en het was nog\nniet begonnen of het was alweer gedaan.\n\nIn den namiddag zou men Becky Thatcher met een bezwaard gemoed langs\nhet verlaten schoolgebouw hebben kunnen zien zwerven, zonder iets of\niemand te vinden on haar te troosten. Eindelijk sprak zij verdrietig\ntot zich zelve:\n\n\"Och, had ik toch zijn koperen knop maar! Helaas ik heb geen enkele\ngedachtenis, niets dat mij aan hem herinnert!\" En de woorden bleven\nhaar in de keel steken.\n\nNa een poos hernam zij:\n\n\"Het gebeurde juist op deze plek. O, als ik het over kon doen,--ik\nzou hem voor geen wereld zoo behandelen! Nu is hij heengegaan, en ik\nzal hem nooit, nooit meer terugzien!\"\n\nDit denkbeeld maakte haar zoo van streek, dat, op den ganschen weg\nhuiswaarts, haar de tranen langs de wangen biggelden.\n\nToen kwam er een troepje jongens en meisjes aan,--speelkameraden van\nTom en Joe. Zij bleven voor het ijzeren hek staan kijken en vertelden\nelkaar op eerbiedigen toon, wat Tom, de laatste maal dat zij hem gezien\nhadden, gedaan had en wat Joe gezegd had, woorden waaraan zij toen niet\ngehecht hadden, maar die gebleken waren eene vreeselijke voorspelling\nte zijn. Sommigen wezen de juiste plek aan, waar de ongelukkige knapen\ntoen gestaan hadden en voegden er gedurig volzinnen bij als deze:\n\"En ik stond juist, juist, zooals ik nu sta,--en hij stond juist,\nwaar jij nu staat--juist zoo dicht bij--en hij lachte precies zooals\nik nu doe--en toen ging mij een rilling door de leden: waarom, dat\nwist ik zelf niet, maar nu begrijp ik het.\"\n\nDaarop volgde een geschil over de vraag, wie de overledenen het laatst\ngezien had, en velen maakten aanspraak op de droevige onderscheiding,\nterwijl zij hunne beweringen met meer of minder afdoende bewijzen\nstaafden. En toen zij het er eindelijk over eens waren, wie de\ngelukkige geweest was, kreeg deze eene plechtige voornaamheid en werd\nhij door al de anderen bewonderd en benijd. Een klein jongentje in\nhun midden, dat zich toch ook gaarne op iets ten aanzien van Joe en\nTom beroemen wilde, zeide met den noodigen trots:\n\n\"Tom Sawyer heeft mij ook een pak slaag gegeven.\"\n\nDoch deze onderscheiding werd met te veel anderen gedeeld, om aanspraak\nop haar naam te kunnen maken, en het kleine mannetje droop verlegen af.\n\nNa nog eenigen tijd op fluisterenden toon over de daden der overleden\nhelden gesproken te hebben, verspreidde zich de schare.\n\nToen den volgenden morgen de Zondagsschool uitging, begon de dood-\nin plaats van de gewone kerkklok te luiden. Het was een rustige\nsabbatmorgen en het sombere gelui was volkomen in overeenstemming\nmet de stille, kalme natuur. Uit alle straten en stegen zag men\nmenschen naar de kerk stroomen en de meesten bleven, voordat zij\nbinnentraden, een oogenblik in het voorportaal van het Godshuis\nstaan, om met gedempte stem over het ongeval te spreken. In de kerk\nevenwel hield het gefluister op. Daar werd geen geluid vernomen,\nbehalve het geritsel der japonnen van de vrouwen die zich naar hare\nzitplaatsen begaven. Bij menschengeheugenis was de kerk nooit zoo\nvol geweest. Toen iedereen gezeten was, volgde er een akelige pauze;\nwant, zie, daar kwam tante Polly binnen, gevolgd door Sid en Marie,\nen daarachter de familie Harper,--allen in diepen rouw gekleed. De\ngeheele vergadering, de predikant niet uitgezonderd, rees eerbiedig op\nen bleef staan, totdat de rouwdragers in de voorste bank hadden plaats\ngenomen. En nu volgde weder eene indrukwekkende stilte, afgebroken\ndoor een onderdrukt gesnik, dat eerst ophield, toen de predikant\nzegenend zijne handen over de menigte uitspreidde en ging bidden. Op\nhet gebed volgde een aandoenlijk, toepasselijk gezang en vervolgens\nwerd de tekst voorgelezen: \"Ik ben de opstanding en het leven.\"\n\nIn den loop zijner rede schilderde de predikant het beminnelijk\nkarakter der veelbelovende jeugdige overledenen z\u00f3\u00f3 aangrijpend af,\ndat elk lid der vergaderde gemeente zich het hart voelde toeknijpen bij\nde gedachte aan zijne opzettelijke verblinding, die halsstarrig niets\ndan fouten en gebreken in de arme knapen had willen ontdekken. Menig\ntreffend voorval uit het leven der afgestorvenen bracht hij bij,\nwaarin hunne zachtheid en de adel van hun gemoed schitterend voor\nden dag kwamen. Duidelijk zag men thans in, dat de schijnbaar\nondeugende knapen in waarheid goed waren geweest, en men herinnerde\nzich met hartzeer, hoe men menige edele daad der beide kinderen als\nbooze streken had beschouwd, die men met een vracht zweepslagen had\nbeloond. De vergadering werd hoe langer zoo meer bewogen, al naarmate\nde redenaar zijne pathetische schetsen vervolgde, zoodat op het eind\nal de aanwezigen in tranen versmolten en met de weenende rouwdragers\neen koor van zenuwachtig gesnik aanhieven. Zelfs de prediker was\nzijn gevoel niet langer meester en zette zich bitter schreiende in\nden preekstoel neder.\n\nJuist op dat oogenblik ontstond er een klein geritsel in het\nvoorportaal, waarop toevallig niemand acht sloeg. Een oogenblik later\nkraakte de kerkdeur, en de domin\u00e9e nam den zakdoek van zijne betraande\noogen weg, rees op en bleef, als van den donder getroffen, in den\npreekstoel staan. Eerst volgde \u00e9\u00e9n en daarna eene tweede paar oogen\nde richting van des predikers blik, en binnen eenige oogenblikken\nverhieven zich al de vergaderden van hunne zitplaatsen en staarden\nnaar de deur, door welke de drie doodgewaande knapen voorwaarts\nstapten;--Tom vooruit, toen Joe en verlegen in de achterhoede,\nde ongelukkige, in lompen gehulde Huck. Zij hadden zich achter een\npilaar schuilgehouden, om hun eigen lijkpredikatie te hooren.\n\nTante Polly, Marie en de Harpers wierpen zich op de hun teruggegeven\nkinderen, versmoorden hen bijna onder kussen en goten een stortvloed\nvan dankgebeden over hun hoofd uit, terwijl Huck bedeesd in een hoek\nbleef staan, niet wetende wat hij doen moest en hoe hij zich voor\nzoovele onwelkome oogen moest verbergen. Hij week zachtjes achteruit\nom af te druipen, Maar Tom vatte hem bij den arm en zeide:\n\n\"Tante Polly, dat is niet mooi; er moest ook iemand verheugd zijn,\ndat Huck is teruggekomen.\"\n\n\"En dat zal ook zoo zijn. Ik ben blijde hem te zien, dien ongelukkigen,\nmoederloozen jongen!\" En in hare verrukking ging de oude juffrouw hem\nzoo hartelijk omhelzen, dat de arme knaap zich ten laatste niet meer\nwist te bergen van verlegenheid.\n\nPlotseling riep de domin\u00e9e met luider stem:\n\n\"Juich, aarde! juich alom den Heer!\"\n\n\"Zing!--en doe het met geheel uw ziel!\"\n\nEn dat deden zij.--En de tonen van den ouden honderdsten psalm klonken\nzegevierend door het eerwaarde kerkgebouw, en terwijl zij de muren\ndeden trillen, keek Tom Sawyer, de zeeroover, naar de hem benijdende\njeugd en beleed in zijn hart, dat dit het schoonste oogenblik zijns\nlevens was.\n\nToen de \"beetgenomen\" kerkgangers uiteengingen, verklaarden zij, dat\nzij bijna wenschten nog eens zoo voor den gek gehouden te worden, on\nhet genot te smaken, den ouden honderdsten psalm z\u00f3\u00f3 te hooren zingen.\n\nTom kreeg dien dag meer zoenen en klappen, al naar gelang van tantes\nveranderlijke gemoedsstemming, dan hem te voren in een jaar waren\ntoebedeeld. De oude juffrouw toch was zoo vervuld van dankbaarheid\naan God en liefde voor haar neef, dat zij nauwelijks wist of zij\naan die gevoelens door kastijdingen dan wel door liefkozingen moest\nlucht geven.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XIX.\n\n\nDit nu was Toms groot geheim:--het plan om met zijne mede-zeeroovers\nnaar huis terug te keeren, op het oogenblik dat de lijkdienst over\nhen zou gehouden worden. Zij waren Zaterdag, tegen schemerdonker,\nop een blok hout de rivier afgezakt en vijf of zes mijlen beneden het\nstadje aan land gegaan. Zij hadden in een bosch, in de nabijheid van\nSt. Petersburg, geslapen en waren bij het aanbreken van den dag door\nallerlei straatjes en steegjes gekropen, totdat zij de kerk bereikt\nhadden, waar zij te midden van een chaos van vermolmde banken nog\neen uiltje hadden geknapt.\n\nDen volgenden morgen na het ontbijt waren tante Polly en Marie\nbuitengewoon hartelijk jegens Tom en voorkwamen zijne wenschen. Het\ngesprek was bijzonder levendig en tante Polly zeide:\n\n\"Ik zal niet ontkennen, Tom, dat ik het nogal grappig van je vond, om\nde gansche stad eene week lang te laten treuren, terwijl jelui pleizier\nmaakten; maar ik kan mij niet begrijpen, hoe je zoo ongevoelig kondt\nzijn, om mij zoo lang in de benauwdheid te laten. Als je op een blok\nhout de rivier kondt oversteken voor je lijkdienst, had je ook wel\neens kunnen komen overvaren om mij te verstaan te geven, dat je niet\ndood, doch alleen weggeloopen waart.\"\n\n\"Ja, waarom heb je dat niet gedaan?\" zeide Marie. \"Ik geloof zeker,\ndat, als je er aan gedacht hadt, je wel even hier zoudt gekomen zijn.\"\n\n\"Zou je, Tom?\" vroeg tante Polly, terwijl zij peinzend haar gelaat\ntot hem ophief. \"Zeg, zou je het gedaan hebben, als je er aan gedacht\nhadt?\"\n\n\"Ik... wel, ik weet het niet. Het zou alles bedorven hebben.\"\n\n\"Tom, ik dacht dat je ten minste zooveel van mij hieldt, om dat voor\nmij over te hebben,\" zeide tante Polly, op een toon zoo vol weemoed,\ndat het gemoed van den knaap volschoot. \"Het zou mij een troost\ngeweest zijn te weten, dat je er aan gedacht had, zelfs zonder het\nte hebben gedaan.\"\n\n\"Nu, lieve tante, maak er u niet naar over,\" vleide Marie; \"'t is\nniets dan onnadenkendheid van Tom. Hij is altijd zoo--zoo onbezonnen.\"\n\n\"'t Spijt mij vreeselijk! Sid zou er aan gedacht hebben; hij zou\nbij mij gekomen zijn. O Tom, eens zal het je berouwen, als het te\nlaat is, en dan zul je zeggen: 'Was ik maar wat meer bezorgd voor\nhaar geweest!'\"\n\n\"Och tante,\" zeide Tom, \"u weet toch wel, dat ik veel van u houd.\"\n\n\"Ik zou het beter weten, indien je er een weinigje meer naar\nhandeldet.\"\n\n\"Ik wou nu wel, dat ik het maar gedaan had,\" zeide Tom, op berouwvollen\ntoon; \"maar ik heb toch van u gedroomd; dat is al wat.\"\n\n\"Dat zegt nog niet veel; een kat doet hetzelfde: maar 't is toch\nbeter dan niets. Wat heb je gedroomd?\"\n\n\"Wel, Woensdagnacht droomde ik, dat u bij het bed zat en Sid op de\nhoutkist en Marie naast hem.\"\n\n\"Nu, dat doen we immers altijd. Het verheugt me, dat je ons de moeite\nwaard geacht heb, dat van ons te droomen.\"\n\n\"En ik droomde, dat de moeder van Joe Harper hier was.\"\n\n\"Wel, zij was hier! Heb je nog meer gedroomd?\"\n\n\"O, nog zooveel! Doch het staat mij niet duidelijk meer voor.\"\n\n\"Tracht het je te binnen te brengen.--Gaat het?\"\n\n\"Er ligt mij iets van bij, dat het heel hard woei.\"\n\n\"Bezin je nog eens! De wind woei hard en...\" Tom hield een minuut\nlang peinzend zijne hand voor zijn voorhoofd en zeide toen:\n\n\"Ik ben er! Ik ben er! De wind blies de kaars uit!\"\n\n\"God zij ons genadig! Ga voort, ga voort!\"\n\n\"En het was mij, als zeidet gij: 'Wel, ik geloof, dat de deur...'\"\n\n\"Ga voort, Tom!\"\n\n\"Laat mij een oogenblikje, een klein oogenblikje bedenken. O ja,--u\nzei, dat u dacht dat de deur open was.\"\n\n\"Zoo waar als ik leef, dat heb ik gezegd! Heb ik niet, Marie? Ga\nverder!\"\n\n\"En toen--en toen--ik ben er niet zeker van, maar toen meende ik,\ndat u Sid de deur liet...\"\n\n\"Nu! Wat liet ik Sid, Tom? Wat liet ik Sid doen?\"\n\n\"U liet hem--u--O--u liet hem de deur dichtdoen!\"\n\n\"Hemelsche goedheid! Zoo iets heb ik nog nooit gehoord! Zeg mij niet\nmeer, dat droomen bedrog is. Sientje Harper zal dit weten, eer ik\neen uur ouder ben. Het zal mij eens benieuwen of zij mij nu nog zal\nbespotten over mijne lichtgeloovigheid!\"\n\n\"O, tante, het wordt mij zoo klaar als het licht! Toen zei u, dat ik\nniet slecht was, alleen maar een beetje lichtzinnig en ondeugend.\"\n\n\"Zoo was het. Hemelsche genade!--Ga verder, Tom.\"\n\n\"En toen begon u te schreien.\"\n\n\"Dat deed ik, dat deed ik! En voorwaar niet voor de eerste maal.--en\ntoen?\"\n\n\"Toen begon juffrouw Harper te schreien en zeide, dat het precies\nhetzelfde met haar Joe was en dat ze wilde dat zij hem geen zweepslagen\ngegeven had omdat hij room had gesnoept, dien zij zelve uit het raam\nhad gegooid.\"\n\n\"Tom! De Geest was op u,--gij waart aan het profeteeren, dat waart\nge! God in den hemel!--Ga voort, Tom!\"\n\n\"Toen zei Sid... Hij zei...\"\n\n\"Ik, geloof niet, dat ik iets gezegd heb,\" sprak Sid.\n\n\"Jawel Sid,\" zeide Marie.\n\n\"Houdt jelui je mond en laat Tom voortgaan. Wat zeide hij, Tom?\"\n\n\"Hij zei--geloof ik--dat hij hoopte, dat ik het goed zou hebben in de\nplaats waar ik was heengegaan, maar indien ik beter had opgepast....\"\n\n\"Hoor jelui dat? Het ware zijne eigen woorden.\"\n\n\"En u sloot hem den mond.\"\n\n\"Waarempel, dat heb ik gedaan. Er moet een engel op dat eiland\ngeweest zijn.\"\n\n\"En juffrouw Harper vertelde, dat Joe haar met een voetzoeker\nverschrikt gemaakt had, en u, dat ik de kat met den drank geplaagd\nhad.\"\n\n\"Zoo waar als ik leef!\"\n\n\"En toen werd er gepraat over het opvisschen van onze lijken en over\nden lijkdienst, en bij het heengaan hebt u juffrouw Harper gezoend\nen toen zijt gij beiden in tranen uitgebarsten.\"\n\n\"Het gebeurde precies zoo! Precies zoo, zoo waar als ik hier in de\nkamer zit. Je kondt het niet beter verteld hebben, al had je er bij\ngezeten.--En wat toen? Ga voort, Tom.\"\n\n\"Toen droomde ik, dat gij voor mij badt,--en ik kon u zien en elk\nwoord hooren dat gij spraakt. En gij gingt naar bed, en ik was zoo\nbedroefd, dat ik een stuk van den vijgeboom nam en daarop krabbelde:\n'Wij zijn niet dood, wij zijn alleen maar weggegaan om zeeroovers\nte worden,' en dat bij den kandelaar op de tafel legde. En toen nam\nik den kandelaar van de tafel en hield dien boven uw gelaat, en gij\nzaagt er in uw slaap zoo vriendelijk uit,--en ik droomde, dat ik mij\nover u heenboog en u op de lippen kuste.\"\n\n\"Hebt ge dat gedaan, Tom? Nu vergeef ik u alles!\" En zij greep den\nknaap en omhelsde hem met zulk eene verpletterende hartelijkheid,\ndat hij zich den misdadigsten schurk der aarde voelde.\n\n\"Het was zeer lief, ofschoon het slechts een droom was,\" zeide Sid\nhoorbaar in zichzelven.\n\n\"Houd je mond, Sid! Iemand doet in zijn droom juist wat hij wakende zou\nverrichten. Hier heb je een grooten appel, Tom, dien ik voor je bewaard\nheb, als je ooit terug gevonden werdt. En ga nu naar school. Ik ben\nden goeden God, ons aller Vader, dankbaar dat Hij mij u teruggegeven\nheeft. Hij is lankmoedig en vol goedertierenheid voor hen die in hem\ngelooven en Zijn woord houden, hoewel de Hemel weet dat ik die genade\nniet waardig ben. Doch indien slechts de waardigen zijne zegeningen\ngenoten en zijne hand mochten vatten om hen te leiden over hobbelige\npaden, zouden er weinigen zijn, die hier vroolijk konden leven of\nin zijne rusten konden ingaan, als de nacht komt. Gaat nu heen, Sid,\nMarie en Tom:--gij hebt mij reeds lang genoeg in den weg geloopen.\"\n\nDe kinderen gingen naar school en de oude juffrouw stapte de straat op,\nom een bezoek bij juffrouw Harper te brengen, ten einde haar ongeloof\ndoor Toms wondervollen droom den doodsteek te geven.\n\nSid was slim genoeg on zich stil te houden, zoolang hij in de kamer\nwas. Toen hij de deur achter zich had dichtgeslagen, riep hij uit:\n\n\"Een mooie grap--zoo'n lange droom, zonder een enkele vergissing!\"\n\nWat een held was Tom nu geworden! Hij sprong en huppelde niet meer\nlangs den weg, maar bewoog zich voort met de waardige voornaamheid,\nwelke aan den zeeroover past, die voelt dat hij een man van beteekenis\nis in het oog van 't publiek. En dat was hij inderdaad. Hij hield\nzich, als zag hij de blikken, als hoorde hij de opmerkingen niet,\nwaarvan hij het voorwerp was, doch zij waren spijs en drank voor\nzijne ziel. Jongere knapen liepen achter hem aan en verhoovaardigden\nzich op de eer van met hem gezien en door hem geduld te worden, en\nbehandelden hem alsof hij de Tamboer Majoor was van een optocht, of\nde olifant onder wiens leiding eene menagerie de stad binnentrekt. De\njongens van zijne jaren deden, alsof zij er niets van wisten dat hij\nweg geweest was, maar vergingen niettemin van afgunst. Zij zouden\ner wat voor gegeven hebben om zijne bruine, door de zon verbrande\nhuid en zijne vermaardheid te bezitten, en Tom zou daarvan voor geen\nwereldsch geld afstand hebben gedaan.\n\nOp school werd aan Tom en Joe zoo het hof gemaakt en werden ze\nzoozeer bewonderd, dat de beide helden weldra onuitstaanbaar pedant\nwerden. Zij begonnen hunne avonturen aan gretig luisterende toehoorders\nte vertellen, doch brachten het nooit verder, dan het begin; want eene\nverbeelding als de hunne, steeds klaar om nieuwe stof aan te brengen,\nzou moeielijk tot een eind hebben kunnen komen. En toen zij ten slotte\nhunne pijpen voor den dag haalden en kalm de rookwolken in het rond\nbliezen, hadden zij het toppunt van roem bereikt.\n\nTom was tot het besluit gekomen, dat hij thans wel van Becky Thatcher\nkon afzien. Zijne glorie was hem genoeg en voor deze alleen zou\nhij voortaan leven. Nu hij zulk een voornaam persoon geworden was,\nkon het wel eens zijn, dat zij lust kreeg bij te draaien. Welnu,\nals zij dat deed, zou zij ervaren, dat hij even onverschillig kon\nzijn als sommige andere lieden.\n\nDaar kwam zij juist toevallig aan. Tom deed alsof hij haar niet zag\nen voegde zich bij een ander troepje jongens en meisjes, met wie\nhij dadelijk een druk gesprek aanknoopte. Spoedig ontwaarde hij, dat\nBecky met gloeiende wangen en schitterende oogen, vroolijk nu achter\ndan vooruit huppelde, schijnbaar met hart en ziel krijgertje speelde\nen het uitgilde van 't lachen, wanneer zij een van haar kameraadjes\ngevangen had. Maar het ontging hem niet, dat zij hare vangsten altijd\nin zijne buurt deed en dan tersluiks naar hem keek.\n\nDit streelde zijne booze ijdelheid ongemeen en deed hem, in plaats\nvan hem voor haar te winnen, nog meer op zijne hoede zijn, om door\ntaal noch teeken te verraden, dat hij haar toeleg bemerkte. Weldra\ngaf zij vruchteloos de moeite op en ging onder het slaken van zware\nzuchten besluiteloos op en neer wandelen, terwijl zij nu en dan\nheimelijk veelbeteekenende blikken op Tom wierp. Het viel haar op,\ndat Tom drukker met Amy Lawrence praatte dan met iemand anders. Dit\ngezicht verbitterde haar zoozeer, dat zij het besluit nam naar huis te\ngaan. Doch hare verraderlijke voetjes droegen haar tegen wil en dank\nnaar de plaats, waar Tom en Amy stonden. Met geveinsde opgewektheid\nzeide zij dicht bij Toms oor tot een meisje:\n\n\"Wel, Marie Austin, ondeugende meid, waarom ben je niet op de\nzondagsschool geweest?\"\n\n\"Ik ben er geweest. Heb je me niet gezien?\"\n\n\"Neen. Waart ge er? Waar heb je gezeten?\"\n\n\"In de klasse van juffrouw Peters, waar ik altijd zit. Ik heb jou\nwel gezien.\"\n\n\"Zoo! Hoe mal, dat ik jou niet zag! Ik had je van de pic-nic willen\nvertellen, die gegeven wordt.\"\n\n\"O, dat is heerlijk! En wie geeft die?\"\n\n\"Mijn ma!\"\n\n\"O, heertje, ik hoop dat zij mij ook vragen zal.\"\n\n\"Natuurlijk; het is mijn partij. Zij vraagt iedereen, die ik hebben\nwil.\"\n\n\"Verrukkelijk!--wanneer zal het gebeuren?\"\n\n\"Al spoedig. In de vacantie, denk ik.\"\n\n\"Voortreffelijk!--Je vraagt zeker al de jongens en meisjes?\"\n\n\"Ja, al mijne kennissen, dat is te zeggen, al de jongens en meisjes,\ndie lief tegen mij zijn,\" en meteen werd er tersluiks naar Tom\ngekeken. Doch deze had het juist ontzettend druk met Amy Lawrence\nover het vreeselijke onweer op het eiland en over den bliksem,\ndie den grooten vijgeboom aan spaanders sloeg, terwijl hij, Tom,\nop geen tien pas afstands stond.\n\n\"En mag ik ook komen?\"\n\n\"Ja.\"\n\n\"En ik?\" zeide Sally Rogers.\n\n\"Ja.\"\n\n\"En ik ook!\" riep Suze Harper. \"En Joe?\"\n\n\"Ja.\"\n\nEn zoo ging het met vroolijk handgeklap voort, totdat de geheele\ntroep om eene uitnoodiging gebedeld had, behalve Tom en Amy. Deze\ntwee keerden koeltjes de anderen den rug toe en wandelden pratende\nvoort. Becky's lippen begonnen te beven en hare oogen schoten vol\ntranen, en ofschoon zij deze teekenen van smart onder een vroolijk\ngelaat en een eindeloos gekeuvel zocht te verbergen, was de pret van\nde pic-nic en eigenlijk van alles af. Zoodra zij zulks onopgemerkt\ndoen kon, sloop zij heen en ging in een hoekje zitten, om, zooals\nhaar geslacht dat noemt, eens flink \"uit te huilen.\" Daar bleef zij,\ngebelgd over hare gekrenkte ijdelheid, zitten, totdat de schoolbel\nhaar gelui deed hooren. Toen stond zij met wraak in het hart op,\nschudde met een vergramd gelaat haar gevlochten haarbos en mompelde,\ndat zij wel wist wat zij doen zou.\n\nBij het uitgaan der school zette Tom zijne hofmakerij aan Amy Lawrence\nmet onuitsprekelijke zelfvoldoening voort. Hij bleef voortdurend in\nden omtrek, in de hoop van Becky te vinden en haar door zijn wreed\nspel te kwellen. Eindelijk ontdekte hij haar--en de hooge temperatuur\nzijner gemoedsstemming daalde op eens tot het vriespunt.\n\nZij zat welbehaaglijk op een bankje achter de school, in een boek\nprentjes te kijken met Alfred Temple, en zij waren zoo in hunne\nbeschouwing verdiept en hielden hunne hoofden zoo dicht bij elkaar, dat\ner buiten hen en het prentenboek niets in de wereld scheen te bestaan.\n\nEen vuur van jaloezie gloeide Tom door de aderen. Hij verwenschte\nzichzelven, omdat hij de kans tot eene verzoening met Becky zoo\njammerlijk had verspeeld. Hij noemde zich een dwaas en de Hemel weet\nwat niet al meer, en het huilen stond hem nader dan het lachen. De\nnaast hem loopende Amy keuvelde lustig voort en juichte in haar\nhart,--doch Toms tong scheen hem aan het verhemelte te kleven. Hij\nhoorde niet wat Amy zeide, en wanneer zij stilhield om op een antwoord\nte wachten, kwamen er onsamenhangende, verwarde klanken, die veeltijds\nop de vraag niet sloegen. Niettemin bleef hij achter het schoolgebouw\nop-en nederloopen, om zich de oogballen met het hatelijk schouwspel\nte pijnigen. Hij kon niet anders, en de gedachte dat Becky Thatcher\nniet eens scheen te vermoeden dat hij in het land der levenden was,\nmaakte hem bijna krankzinnig.\n\nToch zag zij het maar al te goed en wist zij dat zij veld won ook, en\nwas blijde dat hij nu ondervond, wat zij had uitgestaan. Amys vroolijk\ngebabbel werd hem ondraaglijk. Tom begon verontschuldigingen te maken\nen zeide dat hij naar huis moest om te werken, daar het laat werd. Doch\ntevergeefs: het vogeltje kirde altijd maar voort: \"Ik wou, dat ze\nnaar de maan vloog! Zal ik dan nooit van haar afkomen?\" Eindelijk\nzeide hij dat hij weg moest, en het meisje antwoordde argeloos,\ndat zij zorgen zou morgenochtend weder op haar post te zijn. En hij\nspoedde zich voort en haatte haar om die belofte.\n\n\"Een andere jongen!\" sprak Tom tot zich zelven en knarste met de\ntanden. \"Zij mocht, wat mij betreft, elken jongen van de plaats\ngenomen hebben, behalve dien vromen Piet, die zich zoo mooi kleedt en\nzoo voornaam is! Best, jongen! ik heb je een pak gegeven den eersten\ndag dat je hier kwaamt, en je zult er nog een hebben. Wacht je beurt\nmaar af. Dan gaat het zoo!\"\n\nEn toen ging hij in zijne verbeelding aan het afkloppen van den\njongen, maakte de bewegingen van \"iemand een pak geven\"--en sloeg,\nschopte in de lucht, onder het uitroepen van: \"Ziezoo, dat 's voor\njou goed? Heb je nou genoeg, zeg? Laat dit je een les zijn.\"\n\nToen snelde hij naar huis. Hij kon de gedachte aan Amys dankbaar\ngeluk en aan dat andere tooneel niet meer verdragen. Becky intusschen\nzette hare plaatjesbeschouwing met Alfred voort; maar toen de minuten\nvoortkropen en er geen Tom kwam, verloor haar zegepraal iets van\nhaar luister en verdween hare belangstelling. Zij werd rusteloos en\nafgetrokken en eindelijk neerslachtig. Een paar malen spitste zij de\nooren bij het geluid van een voetstap, maar de hoop, waarmede zij zich\nstreelde, bleek ijdel te zijn. Er kwam geen Tom. Eindelijk voelde zij\nzich zoo ellendig, dat zij goud zou gegeven hebben, indien zij het\nniet zoover had laten komen. Toen de arme Alfred, ziende dat zij--hoe\nhet kwam wist hij niet--ophield hem haar aandacht te schenken, zijn\nijver verdubbelde en gedurig uitriep: \"O, hier is een mooi plaatje,\nkijk eens!\" verloor zij alle geduld en zeide:\n\n\"O, kwel mij niet langer! Het kan mij niet schelen,\" en in tranen\nuitbarstende, stond zij op en ging heen.\n\nAlfred liep haar achterna en trachtte haar te troosten, doch zij zeide:\n\n\"Ga weg en laat mij met rust. Ik heb een hekel aan je!\"\n\nDe arme jongen zag haar verbijsterd aan en kon maar niet begrijpen,\nwat hij toch misdaan had.--Zij had hem zoo even nog gezegd, dat zij\nden geheelen middag prenten wilde kijken, en nu liep zij schreiend\nvan hem weg.\n\nOntstemd zette hij zich in de leege school neder. Hij was boos en\ngekrenkt en vond spoedig den sleutel tot de waarheid;--het meisje had\nhem eenvoudig tot speelbal gemaakt, om haar woede tegen Tom Sawyer\nte koelen. Deze gedachte verminderde zijn haat tegen Tom niet en hij\nzon op een middel, om hem een poets te spelen, zonder er zelf in te\nloopen. Daar viel zijn oog op Toms leesboek. Dat was een schoone\ngelegenheid. Hij sloeg de les op, welke dien middag gelezen moest\nworden en bekladde die flink met inkt.\n\nBecky, die op dat oogenblik toevallig naar binnen keek, zag de\ndaad en verwijderde zich zonder iets van hare ontdekking te laten\nmerken. Zij ging huiswaarts in de hoop Tom tegen te komen om hem alles\nte vertellen. Tom zou er haar erkentelijk voor zijn en hun verschil\nzou worden bijgelegd. Maar eer zij halverwegen was, kwam zij van\nhaar plan terug. De gedachte aan Toms behandeling bij gelegenheid\nvan de te berde gebrachte pic-nic kwam haar weder voor den geest en\nvernieuwde haar spijt. Zij besloot aan te zien, dat hij, ter zake van\nde vlekken in zijn boek, slaag kreeg en nam zich voor hem nog op den\nkoop toe voor eeuwig te haten.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XX.\n\n\nTom kwam te huis in een allertreurigste gemoedsstemming, en de eerste\nwoorden, die zijne tante tot hem richtte, bewezen hem dat bij haar\ngeen troost voor zijn verdriet te vinden was, want het luidde terstond:\n\n\"Tom, ik zou wel grooten lust hebben je levend te villen!\"\n\n\"Wat heb ik dan gedaan, tantelief?\"\n\n\"Genoeg om die straf te verdienen. Zoodra je weg waart, ben ik, oude\ngekkin, naar Sientje Harper geloopen, in de hoop van haar al den onzin\nover dien droom van jou te doen gelooven, en daar vertelt zij mij,\ndat zij van Joe gehoord heeft, dat je de rivier overgezwommen bent en\n's avonds onder mijn bed alles hebt afgeluisterd wat wij dien nacht\ngesproken hebben. Tom, ik weet niet wat er van een jongen groeien moet,\ndie zich zoo gedraagt als jij. Ik schaam me dood, als ik er aan denk,\ndat je me stilletjes, zonder een gezicht te vertrekken, naar Sientje\nHarper hebt laten gaan!\"\n\nUit dat oogpunt had Tom de zaak nog niet beschouwd. Het verhaal,\ndat hem v\u00f3\u00f3r schooltijd zoo ijselijk grappig had toegeschenen, was\nnu een gemeene leugen geworden. Hij liet het hoofd hangen en wist\nniet wat hij zeggen zou. Eindelijk stamelde hij:\n\n\"Tantelief, ik wou dat ik het niet gedaan had, maar ik deed het\nzonder nadenken.\"\n\n\"O kind, je denkt nooit,--behalve wanneer het je zelf geldt. Je\ndacht wel, toen je in den pikdonkeren nacht van Jackson Island kwaamt\nafzakken, om ons over onze droefheid uit te lachen, en toen je mij\nmet een leugen over een droom voor den gek hield; maar om medelijden\nmet ons te hebben en ons angst te sparen, daaraan had je niet gedacht.\"\n\n\"Tante, ik weet dat het gemeen was, maar waarlijk het was mijne\nbedoeling niet zoo slecht te zijn,--neen, wezenlijk niet. En dan dien\nnacht ben ik heusch niet gekomen om u uit te lachen.\"\n\n\"Waarom kwam je dan?\"\n\n\"Eigenlijk om u te zeggen, dat ge niet ongerust over ons behoefdet\nte wezen, omdat wij niet verdronken waren.\n\n\"Tom, Tom, ik zou het dankbaarste schepsel van de wereld zijn, indien\nik gelooven kon, dat je ooit zulk een goede gedachte gehad hebt,\nmaar je weet best, dat het niet zoo was.\"\n\n\"Waarachtig, tante, ik heb het daarom gedaan;--ik mag sterven, als\nhet niet waar is.\"\n\n\"Tom lieg niet,--doe dat toch niet. Dat maakt het geval nog honderdmaal\nerger.\"\n\n\"Ik lieg niet, tantelief; het is de waarheid. Ik wilde u verdriet\nsparen; daarom all\u00e9\u00e9n ben ik gekomen.\"\n\n\"Ik zou een wereld geven, als ik 't gelooven kon; hij zou eene macht\nvan zonde bedekken. Ik zou er dan bijna blij om zijn, dat gij zijt\nweggeloopen en zoo slecht hebt gehandeld. Maar 't is niet aan te nemen;\nwant waarom heb je het dan niet gezegd, kind?\"\n\n\"Wel, ziet u, tantelief, toen ik over den lijkdienst hoorde spreken,\nwerd ik zoo vervuld door het heerlijk denkbeeld om mij met Joe en Huck\nin de kerk te verbergen, dat ik het niet over mij kon verkrijgen den\nboel te bederven, en daarom stak ik de boomschors weder in den zak\"\n\n\"Welke boomschors?\"\n\n\"Och de schors, waarop ik geschreven had, dat wij zeeroovers waren. Ik\nwou nu, dat u maar wakker geworden waart, toen ik u kuste; wezenlijk,\ndat wou ik.\"\n\n\"Heb je mij gezoend?\"\n\n\"Ja zeker.\"\n\n\"Stellig, Tom?\"\n\n\"Ja, wezenlijk, tantetje,--op mijn woord van eer.\"\n\n\"Waarom heb je dat gedaan, Tom?\"\n\n\"Omdat ik het zoo lief van u vond, dat ge zoo bedroefd over mij\nwaart;--dat speet mij zoo.\"\n\nDe woorden klonken als de waarheid. De oude tante kon eene kleine\ntrilling in hare stem niet verbergen, toen zij sprak:\n\n\"Kus mij nog eens, Tom!--en loop dan naar school en plaag mij niet\nmeer\"\n\nToen hij weg was, ging tante Polly naar een kleerkast en haalde daaruit\nhet buisje, dat Tom tijdens zijn zeerooverschap had aangehad. Zij\nhield het een oogenblik in de hand en zeide tot zich zelve:\n\n\"Neen, ik durf niet.--Arme jongen, ik weet zeker dat hij gelogen\nheeft,--maar het was een gezegende, driewerf gezegende leugen! Ik\nhoop, dat de Heer.... neen, ik weet zeker, dat Hij hem vergeven zal,\nomdat het zoo lief van hem was, dat hij het vertelde. Maar ik wil er\ngeen onderzoek naar doen.\"\n\nZij legde het buisje weg en bleef een oogenblik in gedachten verzonken,\nvoor de kast staan. Tweemaal stak zij de hand uit, om het kleedingstuk\nnog eens op te nemen en twee malen bedwong zij zich. Nogmaals,\nen dezen keer waagde zij het, zich zelve troost insprekende met de\ngedachte: \"Het is een goede leugen--een beste leugen; ik zal het mij\nniet aantrekken dat het onwaar is.\"--En het buisje werd doorzocht. En\ndaar vond ze Toms stukje hout en las onder een vloed van tranen de\nwoorden, die er op geschreven stonden, zeggende:\n\n\"Nu kan ik het den jongen vergeven, ook al had hij millioenen zonden\nbegaan.\"\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XXI.\n\n\nEr was iets in Tante Polly's wijze van doen, toen zij Tom omhelsde,\ndat zijne neerslachtigheid verdreef en hem weder vroolijk en\ngelukkig maakte. Hij ging naar school en smaakte het genot op den\nhoek van Meadow Lane toevallig Becky Tatcher tegen te komen. Zijn\ngemoedstoestand bepaalde doorgaans zijne handelingen. Zonder een\noogenblik te aarzelen, liep hij naar haar toe en zeide:\n\n\"Ik heb je vandaag heel gemeen behandeld, Becky, en dat spijt mij. Ik\nzal het nooit van mijn leven weer doen. Zullen wij, als je blieft,\nmaar weder goede vrienden worden?\"\n\nHet meisje hield stil, keek hem met een blik vol verachting aan\nen zeide:\n\n\"Wilt u de goedheid hebben, mijnheer Thomas Sawyer u bij uw eigen\nvrienden te houden. Ik denk mij niet meer met u te bemoeien.\"\n\nEn het hoofd in den nek werpende, ging zij voorbij.\n\nTom was zoo verpletterd, dat hij zelfs de tegenwoordigheid van geest\nmiste om te zeggen:\n\n\"Ik geef geen zier om je, nufje dundoek,\" totdat het geschikte\noogenblik voor dien uitval voorbij was. Dus zweeg hij met een woedend\ngezicht. Ziedende van toorn stapte hij de schoolplaats binnen en\nmompelde, dat hij wou dat zij een jongen was, om het haar eens fiks\nin te peperen. Toen hij haar voorbijging, wierp hij haar een paar\nhatelijkheden naar het hoofd, die behoorlijk teruggeslingerd werden,\nen de hoop op het herstel van den vrede scheen onherroepelijk\nverloren. Becky kon in hare drift den tijd haast niet afwachten,\nwaarop de les zou beginnen en zij Tom zou zien afrossen voor het\nbeschadigde leesboek. Indien zij nog een oogenblik plan had on Alfred\nTemple ten toon te stellen, was dit voornemen door Toms beleedigende\nschimpscheuten geheel uit hare ziel verdwenen.\n\nArm kind! zij wist niet, hoezeer zij op weg was zich een wereld van\nverdriet te bezorgen.\n\nDe schoolmeester, de heer Dobbins, was een man, die den middelbaren\nleeftijd bereikt had onder het drukkend lijden van onbevredigde\neerzucht. Zijne lievelingswensch was geneesheer te worden, doch\ngeldgebrek had hem verhinderd het hooger dan tot schoolmeester te\nbrengen. Toch was de liefde tot de studie hem bijgebleven. Hij nam\nten minste iederen dag een geheimzinnig boek uit de lessenaar on zich\ndaarin te verdiepen, zoodra de verschillende klassen hunne lessen\nhadden opgezegd.\n\nDat boek hield hij achter slot en grendel,--doch er was geen deugniet\nin de gansche school, die niet brandde van begeerte het eens in te\nzien. Daartoe echter bood zich de kans nooit aan. Elke scholier had\nzijne of hare eigen meening over den inhoud van het boek, doch er\nwas geen middel om het rechte er van te weten te komen.\n\nToen nu op dezen achtermiddag Becky langs den lessenaar schoof,\ndie vlak bij de deur stond, zag zij dat de sleutel in het slot\nstak. Welk eene kostelijke gelegenheid! Zij keek in het rond, zag dat\nzij alleen was en geen seconde later had zij het boek in de hand. Het\ntitelblad, \"De Ontleedkunde, door Professor N. N.\" maakte haar niet\nveel wijzer. Derhalve sloeg zij bladen op. Op eens ontdekte haar oog,\nop eene der eerste bladzijden, een prachtige gekleurde gravure van\neen naakt menschenbeeld. Op hetzelfde oogenblik viel er een schaduw\nop het blad en stapte Tom Sawyer de deur in, die een vluchtigen blik\nop het afbeeldsel wierp. In haar haast om het boek dicht te slaan,\nwas Becky ongelukkig genoeg het blad met de figuren door midden te\nscheuren. Zij wierp het boek in de lessenaar, draaide den sleutel om\nen barstte uit in tranen van schaamte en verdriet.\n\n\"Tom Sawyer,\" snikte zij, \"ik vind het gemeen van je om achter iemand\naan te sluipen en hem te begluren.\"\n\n\"Hoe wist ik, dat je iets stond te bekijken?\"\n\n\"Je moest je schamen, Tom Sawyer; ik weet, dat je me zult verklikken,\nen o, wat zal ik beginnen! Ik zal slaag krijgen,--ik die nog nooit\nop school een klap gehad heb!\"\n\nZij stampte met haar voetje op den grond en vervolgde:\n\n\"Wees maar zoo laag als je wilt! Ik weet iets, dat hier zal plaats\nhebben. Wacht maar en je zult eens wat zien.\"--En zij vloog de school\nuit en barstte opnieuw in tranen los.\n\nTom stond stil, geheel overbluft door dien uitval. Toen zeide hij\ntot zichzelven:\n\n\"Welk een vreemd soort van wezens zijn die meisjes! Nooit op school\ngeslagen! Wat zou een pak ransel! Juist iets voor een meisje: zij zijn\nzoo laf en kleinzeerig. Zij hebben geen ruggegraat. Natuurlijk zal ik\ndie dwaze meid niet aan den ouden Dobbins gaan verklappen; er zijn\nwel andere middelen om haar klein te krijgen, die niet zoo gemeen\nzijn. Maar wat moet er met het boek gedaan worden? De oude Dobbins\nzal vragen, wie het gescheurd heeft. Niemand zal antwoorden. Dan\nzal hij doen als altijd en de meisjes beurt om beurt ondervragen,\nen wanneer hij bij het meisje komt dat het gedaan heeft, zal hij\nhet weten zonder dat het gezegd wordt. De meisjes verraden zich\naltijd.--Becky zal klappen krijgen; 't is een naar geval, maar ik\nzie er geen gat in om het te verraden.\"\n\nTom peinsde nog een oogenblik over de zaak en riep toen uit: \"In\norde! Zij wou mij in de klem zien; laat haar dat genot hebben.\"\n\nDaarop voegde hij zich bij de \"krijgertje\" spelende schooljeugd,\ntotdat de meester kwam en de school begon. Toms gedachten dwaalden\ngedurig van zijn werk af en telkens, wanneer hij een blik naar den\nmeisjes-kant wierp, werd hij ontroerd door het gelaat van Becky. Alles\nte zamen genomen, behoefde hij geen medelijden met haar te hebben\nen toch was hij diep met haar begaan. Toen de ontdekking van het\nleesboek gedaan werd, was Tom voor een tijdlang geheel vervuld van\nzijn eigen leed en werd Becky uit hare verdooving wakker. Zij volgde\nhet proces met groote belangstelling, want zij wist, dat Tom niets\ntegen de beschuldiging, van inkt op het boek gemorst te hebben, kon\ninbrengen. Tom ontkende het feit, en maakte door die ontkenning de zaak\neer erger dan beter. Becky maakte zich wijs, dat zij er schik in had,\ndoch eene stem in haar binnenste fluisterde haar toe, dat zulks het\ngeval niet was. Toen het er zeer bedenkelijk voor Tom begon uit te\nzien, voelde zij eene sterke neiging om op te staan en Alfred Temple\naan te klagen, doch zij bedwong zich en legde zich de verplichting\nop om stil te blijven zitten. \"Immers,\" dus sprak zij bij zichzelve,\n\"hij zal zeker zeggen, dat ik die plaat gescheurd heb. Neen, al kon\nik hem er het leven mede redden, ik zeg het niet.\"\n\nTom kreeg de hem toegedachte zweepslagen en ging kalm naar zijne\nzitplaats terug, in den waan dat hij, misschien zonder het te\nbemerken, onder het krijgertje spelen, den inkpot op het boek had\nlaten vallen.--Hij had maar uit gewoonte ontkend en uit beginsel zich\nbij de ontkentenis gehouden.\n\nEen geheel uur ging voorbij. De meester zat op zijn troon te\nknikkebollen, daar het gebrom der studeerende jeugd hem altijd slaperig\nmaakte. Langzamerhand echter richtte hij zich op, gaapte, ontsloot zijn\nlessenaar en greep naar zijn boek, doch scheen het niet met zichzelven\neens te kunnen worden, of hij lezen zou al dan niet. Het meerendeel\nder scholieren zag droomerig van hun werk op, doch er waren er twee,\ndie met de oogen vol belangstelling zijne beweging gadesloegen.\n\nEen tijdlang hield de heer Dobbins gedachteloos zijn boek in de hand,\ndoch eindelijk vlijde hij zich op zijn stoel neder on te lezen.\n\nTom wierp een blik op Becky, en het arme kind zag er uit als\neen hulpeloos, opgejaagd haasje, dat het geweer op zich ziet\naanleggen. Oogenblikkelijk werd zijn geschil met haar vergeten. Er\nmoest redding komen en dadelijk ook. Doch het dreigend gevaar scheen\nzijne vindingrijkheid te verstompten. Goddank! daar schoot hem iets te\nbinnen. Hij zou de bank uitgaan, het boek grijpen, de deur uitspringen\nen er mede wegloopen! Doch een minuut wankelens, tot het nemen van dit\nbesluit, was genoeg om zijne kans verloren te doen gaan. De meester\nhad het boek geopend. Het was te laat; er was niets aan te doen;\nBecky was reddeloos verloren!\n\nHet volgende oogenblik zag de meester zijne leerlingen in het gelaat,\nmet een blik, die al de kinderen de oogen deed neerslaan. Gedurende\ntien tellen heerschte er een angstige stilte, waarin de meester kracht\ntot toornen verzamelde. Toen sprak hij:\n\n\"Wie heeft dit boek gescheurd?\"\n\nEr werd geen geluid vernomen. Men zou een speld hebben kunnen hooren\nvallen. De meester zag gezicht voor gezicht aan, om teekenen van\nschuld te ontdekken?\"\n\n\"Benjamin Hogers, hebt gij dit boek gescheurd?\"\n\nEen ontkennend antwoord, gevolgd door een pauze.\n\n\"Jozef Harper, gij?\"\n\nWeder een ontkennend antwoord. Tom werd onder de kwelling van den\nlangzamen voortgang der zaak, hoe langer hoe onrustiger. De meester\nonderzocht nauwkeurig de lange rijen jongensgezichten en wendde zich\ntoen tot de meisjes.\n\n\"Amy Lawrence?\"\n\nEen ontkennend hoofdschudden.\n\n\"Gracie Willer?\"\n\nHetzelfde gebaar.\n\n\"Suze Harper, hebt gij het gedaan?\"\n\nWeder een ontkennend antwoord. Het volgende meisje was Becky\nThatcher. Tom beefde van het hoofd tot de voeten.\n\n\"Rebekka Thatcher\"--(Tom keek naar haar gelaat; het was bleek van\nangst) \"hebt gij,--neen, zie mij aan\" --(zij hief de handen smeekend\nomhoog)--\"hebt gij dit boek gescheurd?\"\n\nSnel als de bliksem schoot Tom eene gedachte door de ziel. Hij sprong\nop en gilde:\n\n\"Ik heb het gedaan!\"\n\nDe schooljeugd stond versteld over zulk eene onbegrijpelijke\ndwaasheid. Tom bleef een oogenblik staan om tot zichzelven te komen,\nen toen hij de bank uitstapte om zijne straf te ondergaan, werd hij\ndoor de bewondering en de dankbare aanbidding, die hem uit Becky's\noogen tegenstraalden, betaald voor honderd zweepslagen.\n\nDoor zijne edele daad zelf in verrukking gebracht, verdroeg hij\nzonder een geluid te geven, de onbarmhartigste geeseling, waaraan\nde heer Dobbins zich ooit had schuldig gemaakt, en hoorde hij ook\nmet volkomen onverschilligheid de wreede uitspraak aan, om twee uren\nschool te blijven. Immers hij wist, wie met het grootste geduld buiten\nop hem wachten zou, totdat zijne straf geleden was.\n\nDienzelfden middag nog vertelde Becky hem met schaamte en berouw,\nhoe verraderlijk zij zich jegens hem gedragen had. Tom ging dan ook\nnaar bed, vol wraakzuchtige plannen jegens Alfred Temple; maar zijn\nwrok maakte spoedig voor aangename overpeinzingen plaats en hij viel\nin slaap en droomde van Becky's laatste woorden, die hem als muziek\nin de ooren hadden geklonken en aldus hadden geluid:\n\n\"Tom, hoe kon je zoo edel zijn?\"\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XXII.\n\n\nDe vacantie begon te naderen. De altijd strenge schoolmeester werd\nstrenger en veeleischender dan ooit, en scheen het er op gezet te\nhebben, op den \"examendag\" met de scholieren te pronken. Zijn roede\nen plak waren thans zelden werkeloos, ten minste onder de kleinere\nleerlingen. De grootste jongens en de dames van zestien en zeventien\njaren hadden het geluk de roede ontwassen te zijn. De zweepslagen van\nmeester Dobbins waren voorwaar niet kinderachtig, want ofschoon hij\nonder zijn pruik een geheel kaal en glimmend hoofd verborg, bezaten\nzijne spieren nog haar volle kracht. Naarmate de groote dag naderde\nscheen al wat er van den dwingeland in hem was, naar boven te komen,\nen 't was alsof hij er een wreed behagen in schepte, de scholieren voor\nde geringste tekortkomingen te straffen. Het gevolg daarvan was, dat de\nkleineren onder zijne leerlingen overdag zwoegden onder angst en smart\nen bij nacht zonnen op wraak. Zij lieten dan ook geene gelegenheid om\nden meester een poets te spelen, ongebruikt voorbijgaan. Ongelukkig\nwas hij voortdurend op zijn hoede. De vergelding, die op elke zegepraal\nhunner wraakzucht volgde, was zoo vreeselijk, dat de knapen doorgaans\nmet blauwe plekken op het lijf het veld ruimden. Eindelijk werd\ner een plan beraamd, dat eene schitterende overwinning beloofde. De\nverversjongen werd in het komplot opgenomen, met hunne ontwerpen bekend\ngemaakt en zijne hulp ingeroepen. Die verversjongen had zijn eigen\nredenen om tot het verbond toe te treden, want de meester woonde op\nkamers bij zijn vader en had den knaap reden te over gegeven om hem\nte haten. De vrouw van den meester zou een paar dagen uit de stad\ngaan en er bestond dus geen vrees, dat van dien kant een spaak in\n't wiel zou gestoken worden.\n\nDe meester had de gewoonte om zich voor de examens en andere groote\nplechtigheden voor te bereiden, door zich een een roes aan te drinken,\nen de verversjongen beloofde, dat, wanneer de onderwijzer op den\navond van het examen weer boven zijn bier was en in zijn stoel lag\nte dommelen, hij \"het dingetje wel klaar zou spelen.\" Hij zou hem\ndan zoo laat mogelijk wakker maken, omdat hij alleen maar tijd zou\nhebben om in vliegende vaart naar school te ijlen.\n\nToen de volheid der tijden gekomen was, greep het belangwekkende\nfeit plaats.\n\nOm acht uren in den avond was het schoollokaal schitterend verlicht\nen met kransen en festoenen van bloemen en loofwerk versierd.\n\nDe soezerige, halfdronken meester troonde in zijn leuningstoel,\nop eene opzettelijk daartoe vervaardigde verhevenheid, met het\nschrijfbord achter zich. Drie rijen met zitbanken en zes rijen in het\nfront waren bezet door de waardigheidsbekleders van het stadje en de\nouders der leerlingen. Links van den meester, achter de zitplaatsen der\nburgerij, was een hoog getimmerte gemaakt, waarop de in hun beste pak\ngekleede knaapjes gezeten waren, die proeven van hunne bedrevenheid\nzouden afleggen. Achter dezen zaten eenige rijen magere, opgeschoten\njongens. Daarop volgden de hooge banken met meisjes en jonge dames\nin katoen en neteldoek, die zich blijkbaar heel voornaam gevoelden\nmet hare bloote armen, haar grootmoeders ouderwetsche kostbaarheden,\nhaar rose en blauwe strikken en haar bloemen in het haar. Verder was\nhet lokaal opgevuld met toeschouwers en scholieren.\n\nDe oefeningen begonnen. Een heel klein jongetje stond op en bracht\ndoodverlegen de van buiten geleerde woorden uit:\n\n\"Mijne hoorders,\n\n\"Gij hadt zeker niet verwacht iemand van mijn leeftijd het\nspreekgestoelte te zien beklimmen, om in het openbaar het woord te\nvoeren, enz.\". En de knaap deed zijne woorden vergezeld gaan van\noverdreven juiste en krampachtige bewegingen, die aan een machine\ndeden denken, die van de wijs is. Hij bracht het er, ofschoon in\nduizend angsten, heelhuids af en werd verbazend toegejuicht, toen\nhij zijne gekunstelde buiging maakte en het tooneel verliet.\n\nEen klein bedeesd meisje lispelde het versje:\n\n\"Marietje had een lammetje, enz.,\" maakte eene medelijdenswekkende\ndienares, kreeg haar voegzaam deel toejuichingen en ging blozend\nen voldaan weer zitten. Tom Sawyer trad voorwaarts met gemaakt\nzelfvertrouwen en wond zich met prachtig nagebootste en allerzotste\ngebaren op tot het onsterfelijke: \"Geef mij de vrijheid, of geef mij\nden dood!\"--doch werd in het midden door een akelige tooneelvrees\nbevangen. Zijne knie\u00ebn knikten en hij dreigde in zijne woorden te\nstikken. Wel is waar wekte hij zichtbaar het medelijden en de sympathie\nvan de toehoorders, maar zij hielden zich doodstil, en dat zwijgen van\nhet publiek was erger dan medegevoel. Tot overmaat van smart fronste\nde meester zijne wenkbrauwen. Tom spande nogmaals alle krachten in,\ndoch zag zich verplicht verslagen af te treden. Voor een oogenblik\nkwam er eene zwakke poging om te applaudisseeren, doch zij werd in\nhare wording gesmoord.\n\nDaarop volgde: \"De knaap stond op het brandende dek;\" toen:\n\"De Assyri\u00ebrs zakten den stroom af;\" en andere juweeltjes voor de\ndeclamatiekunst. Toen had men de leesoefeningen en een kampstrijd in\nhet spellen. De schraal bezette klasse der Latinisten bracht het er\nmet haar voordracht schitterend af.\n\nHet eerste bedrijf was naar behooren afgeloopen en nu volgde de\n\"zelfgemaakte\" opstellen van de jonge dames, die elk op hare beurt\nop de verhevenheid stapten, kuchten, haar handschrift, dat met\neen keurig lintje was vastgemaakt, in de hand hielden en begonnen\nte lezen. De onderwerpen waren dezelfde, waarmede bij dergelijke\ngelegenheden hare moeders, hare grootmoeders en ongetwijfeld al de\nvoorouders in de vrouwelijke linie geschitterd hadden. Daar was er\neen over de \"Vriendschap,\" en verder; \"Herinnering aan vroegere\ndagen,\" \"Godsdienst in de geschiedenis,\" \"Het land der droomen,\"\n\"De voordeelen der beschaving;\" \"Het verschil en de overeenkomst van\nde onderscheidene staatsvormen,\" \"Droefgeestigheid,\" \"Kinderliefde,\"\n\"Hartstochten,\" enz. enz.\n\nEen hoofdgebrek van al deze opstellen was eene zorgvuldig gekweekte\ndroefgeestigheid en een kwistige overvloed van mooie woorden.\n\nIn sommigen was een merkbare neiging om modewoorden er met\nde haren bij te sleepen, zoo dikwijls zelfs, dat zij geheel\nafgezaagd werden. En dan was er eene bijzonderheid, welke ze\nalle kenmerkte en bedierf,--namelijk de onuitstaanbare zedepreek,\ndie zijn gebrekkelijken staart aan het eind van elk opstel deed\nkwispelen. Welk ook het onderwerp mocht wezen, er werd altijd een\nhersens folterende poging gedaan om er op de een of andere wijze\niets in te lasschen waarop het zedelijk en godsdienstig gemoed met\nstichting kon nederzien. Niettegenstaande de ergerlijke onoprechtheid,\ndie het publiek uit dergelijke zedepreken tegenblonk, werden zij niet\nafgeschaft. En zij zijn dat nog niet en zullen het waarschijnlijk\nnooit worden, zoolang de wereld zal bestaan.\n\nEr is geen school in gansch Amerika, waar de jonge dames zich niet\nverplicht gevoelen hare opstellen met een preek te eindigen; en het\nzijn doorgaans de lichtzinnigste en minst godsdienstige meisjes,\ndie de mooiste preken maken. Maar genoeg hiervan. De waarheid wil\nniet altijd gezegd zijn. Laat ons daarom tot het examen terugkeeren.\n\nHet eerste opstel, dat voorgelezen werd, droeg tot opschrift:\n\n\"Is dit nu het leven?\"\n\nDe lezer zal mij wel willen vergunnen er een uittreksel van mede te\ndeelen. Het luidde ongeveer aldus:\n\n\"Met welk een verrukking ziet gewoonlijk het jeugdig gemoed niet uit\nnaar een hem wachtend feest! De verbeelding toovert rooskleurige\ntafereelen van genot. Daar ziet de aanbidster van wereldsche\ngenoegens zich reeds te midden der feestvierende menigte als\n'de bewonderde door al de bewonderaars.' Haar bevallige gestalte,\nin een sneeuwwit kleed gehuld, zweeft rond in den doolhof van den\nvroolijken dans; haar oog is schitterender, haar tred lichter dan die\nvan de gansche lustige schare. Onder zulke heerlijke droomen glijdt\nde tijd spoedig voort en weldra is de gelukkige ure daar, waarop zij\nde Elyseesche velden betreden zal, van welke zij zoo verrukkelijk\nhad gedroomd. Hoe tooverachtig schoon vertoont zich alles aan hare\nontvlamde verbeelding! Elk nieuw tooneel wint aan bekoring. Maar na\neene wijle ervaart zij, dat onder dat schoon vernis niets dan ijdelheid\nschuilt. De vleitaal, welke eens haar hart streelde, klinkt haar schril\nin het oor; de balzaal heeft hare aantrekkelijkheid voor haar verloren\nen met een verwoeste gezondheid en een verbitterd hart trekt zij zich\nuit de wereld terug, de overtuiging met zich voerende, dat aardsch\ngenot de ziel, die naar hoogere dingen streeft, niet bevredigen kan.\"\n\nEn zoo ging het voort. Van tijd tot deed zich onder het lezen een\ngegons van bijvalsbetuigingen hooren, vergezeld van fluisterende\nuitroepen, als: \"Hoe lief! Hoe welsprekend! Hoe waar!\" enz. enz. En\ntoen het stuk met een ijselijk sombere preek eindigde, volgde er een\nuitbundige toejuiching.\n\nVervolgens stond een tenger, droefgeestig meisje op, dat zich door\nde belangwekkende bleekheid onderscheidde, welke het gevolg is van\npillen en indigestie, en droeg een gedicht voor, waarvan ik u twee\ncoupletten zal mededeelen:\n\n\n    Alabama, vaarwel! Och 'k min U zoo teer!\n    Toch ga 'k voor een poos van U scheiden!\n    Maar het denken aan U doet mij 't harte zoo zeer,\n    Mijn ziel blijft bij U steeds verbeiden.\n    Uw lommerrijke wouden heb 'k dikwijls doorkruist;\n    'k Heb gedoold langs Uw liefelijke stroomen;\n    Gehoord hoe uw water bij stormwinden bruist\n    En bewonderend Aurora zien komen.\n\n    De tranen die 'k schrei, o! ik schaam ze mij niet,\n    Geen blos dekt mijne vochtige wangen;\n    Niet vreemd is mij 't land, dat mijn aandoening ziet,\n    't Is een vriend waar mijn ziel aan blijft hangen.\n    Een meer hartelijke ontvangst vond ik nergens, o neen!\n    Dan bij U, wien 'k _mijn_ land wel mag heeten;\n    En mijn hoofd en mijn hart moest wel koud zijn als steen,\n    Alabama, als het U kon vergeten!\"\n\n\nEr waren er slechts zeer weinigen, die wisten wat het woord \"Aurora\"\nbeteekende, doch het gedicht viel niettemin zeer in den smaak.\n\nDaarop verscheen een jonge dame met een donkere gelaatskleur, donkere\noogen en donker haar, die een indrukwekkend oogenblik pauseerde,\nhaar best deed om haar gelaat eene tragische uitdrukking te geven en\ntoen op afgemeten toon begon:\n\n\"Zwart en stormachtig was de nacht. Om den hemeltroon flikkerde een\nenkele ster, doch zware donderslagen trilden aanhoudend door het zwerk,\nterwijl de vreeselijke bliksem gramstorig door de onbewolkte hemelzalen\ndartelde, alsof hij de macht bespotte, welke de beroemde Franklin\nzich over zijne verschrikkingen had aangematigd! Zelfs de onstuimige\nwinden kwamen eendrachtig uit hunne geheimzinnige woonplaatsen te\nvoorschijn en bulderden in het rond, begeerig naar 't scheen, om de\nwoestheid van het tooneel door hunne hulp te verhoogen.\n\n\"Op zulk een tijdstip, zoo duister, zoo droevig, zuchtte mijn hart\nnaar menschelijk medegevoel,--maar in plaats daarvan,\n\n\n    Mijn dierbaarste vriendin, mijn gids en mijn geleide,\n    Mijn vreugde bij mijn smart, stondt ge eensklaps aan mijn zijde!\n\n\n\"Zij bewoog zich voort als een van die liefelijke wezens, welke\nde romantische jeugd zich op de zonnige paden van het Eden der\nverbeelding, voor den geest toovert,--een koningin der schoonheid,\nzonder versierselen, maar getooid met hare alles overtreffende\nbekoorlijkheid. Haar tred was zoo licht, dat het oor hare nadering niet\nvernam, en indien hare bezielde aanraking niet eene magische trilling\nhad doen ontstaan, zou zij ongemerkt, ongezocht voorbijgegleden\nzijn. Een zonderlinge droefheid zetelde op hare gelaatstrekken, als\nijzige tranen op Decembers winterkleed, toen zij naar de strijdende\nelementen daar buiten wees en mij verzocht de beide wezens, die daar\nwerden voorgesteld, te aanschouwen.\" [2]\n\nDeze nachtmerrie omvatte tien bladzijden schrifts en sloot met een\npreek, wanhopig akelig voor de Anti-Presbyterianen, doch die den\neersten prijs behaalde en als de schoonste proeve van den avond\nwerd beschouwd.\n\nDe burgemeester van St. Petersburg hield onder het overreiken van den\nprijs aan haar, die hem behaald had, eene schitterende redevoering,\nin welke hij betuigde, dat dit de welsprekendste rede was, die zijne\nooren ooit gehoord hadden en dat Daniel Webster zelfs er trotsch op\nhad kunnen zijn.\n\nIn het voorbijgaan moet gezegd worden, dat de opstellen, welke\novervloeiden van het woord \"heerlijk\" als ook van de vergelijking\n\"menschelijke ondervinding,\" met \"een bladzijde uit het leven,\"\nhet gemiddeld aantal overtrof.\n\nThans schoof de meester, opgewonden tot aan luidruchtigheid toe,\nzijn stoel op zijde, ging met den rug naar het publiek staan en begon\nzijne aardrijkskundige lessen door op het bord eene kaart van Amerika\nte teekenen. Doch hij maakte met zijne onvaste hand een figuur--en\ner werd een onderdrukt gelach in de school gehoord. Hij wist wat er\naan haperde en deed zijn best om de fout te herstellen, veegde enkele\nlijnen met de spons uit en maakte weder nieuwe. Helaas! zij werden\nhoe langer hoe slechter en het gegiegel werd luider. Hij wijdde zijn\ngansche aandacht aan het werk, alsof hij besloten had zich niet door\nhet publiek uit het veld te laten slaan. Hij voelde, dat aller oogen\nop hem gevestigd waren, en verbeeldde zich dat het beter ging. En toch\nhield het gegiegel aan, ja, het vermeerderde blijkbaar. En daartoe\nwas wel reden. Boven zijn hoofd was een vliering met een luik, en\nuit dat luik, kwam een kat te voorschijn, welke men een touw om de\nachterpooten gehecht had. Die kat had een doekje om den kop en de\nkaken gebonden, on haar het miauwen te beletten. Terwijl zij langzaam\nnaar beneden sukkelde, kromde zij zich naar alle kanten, sloeg hare\nklauwen om het touw, schommelde vervolgens naar de laagte en krabde\ntegen de ontastbare lucht. Het gegiegel werd erger en erger: de kat was\nomstreeks zes duim van des soezerigen meesters hoofd. Nog een weinig\nlater en zij greep met hare klauwen wanhopig naar des meesters pruik,\nklemde zich daaraan vast en werd een oogenblik later weder tot de\nvliering opgetrokken, met haar zegeteeken tusschen de pooten. En welk\neen lichtgloed verspreidde zich toen van des meesters hoofd. Immers\nde verversjongen had dat lichaamsdeel met verguldsel besmeerd.\n\nMet dit tooneel werd de vergadering gesloten. De jongens waren gewroken\nen de vacantie was begonnen.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XXIII.\n\n\nAangetrokken door de schitterende uniform der \"Matigheids-Cadetten\"\nwerd Tom lid der afdeeling van het nieuw opgerichte genootschap en\nbeloofde hij zich gedurende zijn lidmaatschap te onthouden van rooken\nen vloeken. Bij deze gelegenheid ontdekte de knaap iets, waaraan hij\nvroeger nooit gedacht had, namelijk--dat de aflegging der belofte om\niets _niet_ te doen, het beste middel is om iets te leeren doen. Tom\nvoelde zich door een nooit gekenden lust gekweld on te rooken en te\nvloeken: ja, de begeerte werd zoo sterk, dat alleen de hoop om zijn\nroode sjerp te vertoonen, hem er van terughield zijn lidmaatschap op\nte zeggen.\n\nHet was 4 Juli toen hij tot den bond toetrad, en hij was nog geen\nacht en veertig uren lid geweest of hij was gereed en gezind zich\nvan zijne boeien te ontslaan. Doch juist dien dag vernam hij, dat\nde oude vrederechter ziek was en waarschijnlijk zou sterven. Zulk\neen voornaam ambtenaar zou zeker met groote plechtigheid begraven\nworden en dan had hij een kansje om in zijn uniform den stoet te\nvolgen. Drie dagen lang was Tom diep begaan met des rechters toestand\nen vol verlangen naar tijding. Nu en dan klom zijn hoop zoodanig,\ndat hij het waagde zijn sjerp uit de kast te halen en zich voor den\nspiegel voor de groote gebeurtenis te oefenen. Doch de rechter bleef\nwanhopig lang tusschen dood en leven dobberen en werd ten slotte\naan de betere hand en daarna voor hersteld verklaard. Tom was boos\nen zeide onverwijld zijn lidmaatschap op. Helaas! dienzelfden nacht\nstortte de rechter in en stierf.\n\nTom besloot oude vrederechters nooit meer te vertrouwen. De\nbegrafenis was prachtig en de cadetten paradeerden op een wijze,\ndie er op toegelegd scheen om het vroegere lid van afgunst te doen\nvergaan. Doch hij was vrij en kon weder naar hartelust rooken en\nvloeken. En nu bemerkte hij tot zijne verwondering, dat hij er op\neens geene behoefte meer aan had. De wetenschap alleen, dat hij het\ndoen kon nam den lust en het genot er van weg.\n\nTot Toms groote verbazing begon hij te bemerken, dat de lang gewenschte\nvacantie wat vervelend werd.\n\nHij beproefde een dagboek te maken, doch aangezien er de eerste drie\ndagen niets merkwaardigs voorviel, gaf hij het op. Toen kwam het \"Caf\u00e9\nChantant,\" der negerzangers in de stad en maakte sensatie. Dadelijk\nwerd er door Tom en Joe Harper een speel- en zanggezelschap opgericht\nen de knapen vermaakten zich daarmede een paar dagen. Zelfs de\ndag van den intocht des nieuwen Senators mislukte gedeeltelijk,\nomdat het hard regende. Dientengevolge was er geen optocht,--en\nzelfs in den grootsten man der wereld (naar het oordeel van Tom),\nden heer Beuton, een wezenlijken Senator van de Vereenigde Staten,\nwerd hij bitter teleurgesteld, want deze bleek op geen stukken na\nvijf en twintig voet lang te zijn.\n\nToen kwam er een paardenspel. De jongens speelden drie dagen \"cirque\",\nin tenten van lompen en oude tapijten, met toegangskaarten van drie\ncenten en twee voor meisjes, en daarna werd het paardenspel opgegeven.\n\nEindelijk kwam er een buikspreker en een goochelaar--die weder\nvertrokken en het stadje achterlieten somberder en droeviger dan ooit.\n\nOok werden er enkele kinderpartijen gegeven, doch zij waren zoo\nzeldzaam en zoo heerlijk, dat de pijnlijke leemte tusschen de eene\nvisite en de andere er te meer om werd gevoeld.\n\nBecky Thatcher was naar huis gegaan, naar Konstantinopel, om de\nvacantie bij hare ouders door te brengen: dus was er nergens een\nzonnestraaltje te vinden. Daarbij kwam nog het vreeselijk geheim van\nden moord, dat eene slepende ellende bleef voor den armen knaap.\n\nMidden in de vacantie vertoonde zich de mazelen-epidemie en Tom was\ntwee weken lang een gevangene, dood voor de wereld en hetgeen daarin\nvoorviel. Hij was zeer ziek en stelde nergens belang in. Toen hij\neindelijk weder buiten mocht komen en zachtjes de stad doordrentelde,\nscheen alles en elk schepsel een treurige verandering ondergaan te\nhebben. Er was een straatprediker geweest, die de menschen bekeerd\nhad, niet alleen de volwassenen, maar zelfs de kleine jongens en\nmeisjes. Tom ging de stad rond in de hopelooze hoop van ten minste\neen enkel zondig gezicht tegen te komen, doch overal wachtte hem\nteleurstelling. Hij vond Joe Harper verdiept in de studie van het\nNieuwe Testament en hij wendde zich droevig van dit drukkend schouwspel\naf. Hij zocht Ben Rogers en vond hem aan het bezoeken van armen,\nmet een mandje met traktaatjes, als eene waarschuwing tot bekeering,\nbij zich. Hij spoorde Jim Hollis op, die hem wees op de zegen van de\nmazelen. Iedere jongen, dien hij tegenkwam, bracht een dosis tot zijn\ntoestand van neerslachtigheid toe, en toen hij in wanhoop eindelijk\nzijn toevlucht nam tot Huckleberry Finn en ook door hem met eene\naanhaling uit de Schrift ontvangen werd, brak hem het hart en sloop\nhij naar zijn bed en maakte zich wijs, dat hij de eenige in de stad\nwas, die voor eeuwig, eeuwig was verloren.\n\nJuist dien nacht kwam er een vreeselijke storm met slagregen,\nontzettende donderslagen en verblindende bliksemstralen. Tom kroop\nonder de dekens en wachtte in een akelige onzekerheid zijn doemvonnis\naf: immers hij was volkomen overtuigd, dat dit woeden der elementen\nom zijnentwil geschiedde. Hij geloofde, dat hij de verdraagzaamheid\nder bovenaardsche machten getart had, meer dan zij dragen konden, en\ndat dit er het gevolg van was. Het zou hem wel vreemd voorgekomen zijn\nals zooveel vertooning en geschut was aangewend om een mug te dooden,\ndoch hij vond het heusch niet ongerijmd, dat er zulk een onweder was\nontstaan om een worm als hij te vernietigen.\n\nLangzamerhand bedaarde de storm en verdween, zonder zijn voornemen te\nhebben ten uitvoer gebracht. De eerste aandrang van den knaap was,\ndankbaar te zijn en zich te verbeteren. De tweede was, te wachten:\nimmers er mochten nog eens meer stormen komen.\n\nDen volgenden dag stond de dokter opnieuw voor zijn bed. Tom was weder\ningestort. De drie volgende weken, die hij op zijn rug doorbracht,\nschenen eene eeuwigheid. Toen hij eindelijk weder buiten kwam, was\nhij nauwlijks dankbaar dat hij gespaard was gebleven, daar hij immers\nverlaten en van makkers beroofd was. Hij zwierf lusteloos door de\nstraat en vond Jim Hollis voor rechter spelende in een gerechtshof\nvan jongelieden, die een kat wegens moord hadden aangeklaagd, in de\ntegenwoordigheid van haar slachtoffer, een vogel. Daarna zag hij\nJoe Harper en Huck Finn, die in plaats van de Schriften te lezen,\nbezig waren een gestolen meloen op te muizen. Arme knapen, ook zij\nwaren weder ingestort!\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XXIV.\n\n\nEindelijk kwam er beweging in de droomerige atmosfeer--en\ngeweldige beweging ook. De zaak van den moord zou voorkomen bij\nhet Gerechtshof. Natuurlijk werd deze zaak het onderwerp van alle\ngesprekken; ook in Toms kring werd er druk over gesproken. Maar\ntelkens, als het woord genoemd werd, voer hem eene rilling door de\nleden en hij verbeeldde zich in zijn angst, dat er voorbedachtelijk\nzoo gedurig in zijne tegenwoordigheid over gesproken werd, om te\nzien of hij er ook iets mede te maken had. Ofschoon hij zeker wist,\ndat niemand eenig vermoeden omtrent zijne bekendheid met de misdaad\nkon hebben, voelde hij zich toch onder die praatjes niet op zijn\ngemak. Hij stierf elken dag duizend dooden en nam eindelijk Huck met\nzich naar eene eenzame plaats om de zaak met hem te bepraten. Het\nzou eene verlichting wezen, eens even zijn tong vrij te laten en den\nlijdenslast met een lotgenoot te deelen. Bovendien wilde hij er zich\nvan overtuigen, dat Huck gezwegen had.\n\n\"Huck, heb je nooit iemand daarover gesproken?\"\n\n\"Waarover?\"\n\n\"Dat weet je wel!\"\n\n\"O, natuurlijk niet.\"\n\n\"Nooit een woord?\"\n\n\"Nooit een enkel woord.--Waarom vraag je dat?\"\n\n\"Wel, ik was er bang voor.\"\n\n\"Maar Tom Sawyer! Wij zouden geen vier en twintig uur meer geleefd\nhebben, als het ontdekt was. Dat weet je immers wel.\"\n\nTom werd kalmer. Na een pauze hernam hij:\n\n\"Huck, je zoudt je immers door niets, noch door iemand laten ompraten.\"\n\n\"Laten ompraten? Wel, als ik zin krijg om me door dien duivel van\neen kleurling te laten verzuipen, dan zal ik me laten ompraten.\"\n\n\"Nu, dan is het in orde. Ik geloof, dat we veilig zijn, zoolang we\nzwijgen. Doch laat ons voor de securiteit nog eens zweren.\"\n\n\"Best.\"\n\nDus zwoeren de knapen ten tweede male met dure eeden.\n\n\"Wat zeggen de menschen toch, Huck? Ik heb er nog zoo weinig van\ngehoord.\"\n\n\"Zeggen! 't Is Muff Potter en 't blijft Muff Potter. Het koude zweet\nstaat mij op 't voorhoofd, als ik het hoor, en ik zou wel onder den\ngrond willen kruipen.\"\n\n\"Zoo gaat het mij ook. Ik weet, dat hij er om koud is.--Heb je niet\nsomtijds medelijden met hem?\"\n\n\"Ja, dag en nacht. 't Is wel geen beste, die Muff Potter, maar hij\nheeft nooit iemand kwaad gedaan. Hij bedelt wel eens langs de straat\nom geld te krijgen voor drank en hij loopt ook te luieren, maar o,\nHeertje, dat doen we allemaal, ten minste de meesten, vooral de\ndominees en dat slag van volk. Maar hij is een goede kerel, want\nhij heeft me eens de helft van zijn visch gegeven, terwijl hij zelf\nnog honger had; en ik weet niet hoeveel maal hij mij geholpen heeft,\nals ik in de knijp zat.\"\n\n\"En voor mij heeft hij oude vliegers opgelapt, Huck, en vischnetten\ngebreid. Ik wou, dat ik hem uit de kast kon krijgen.\"\n\n\"We kunnen er hem niet uit krijgen, Tom; en 't zou hem niet veel baten,\nwant ze zouden hem er wel gauw weder inpakken.\"\n\n\"Ja, dat zouden zij. Maar ik vind het akelig om hem zoo duivelsch\nvalsch te hooren beschuldigen van iets, dat hij niet gedaan heeft.\"\n\n\"Ik ook, Tom. Ik heb ze hooren zeggen, dat hij de gemeenste schurk\nuit het land was en dat het een wonder is, dat hij niet eerder\ngehangen werd.\"\n\n\"Ja, zoo praten zij. Ik heb hooren zeggen, dat, als hij vrij kwam,\nzij hem zouden _lynchen_ [3]--en dat zouden zij doen ook.\"\n\nDe jongens praatten nog een tijdlang op deze wijze voort, doch het\ngesprek bracht hun weinig troost aan. Tegen schemeravond stonden zij\nvoor de kleine eenzame gevangenis, wellicht met een vage hoop in het\nhart, dat er iets zou gebeuren, waardoor hunne moeielijkheden uit\nden weg zouden worden geruimd. Doch er gebeurde niets; de engelen en\nfee\u00ebn schenen zich het lot van dezen ongelukkige niet aan te trekken.\n\nTom en Huck deden dien avond wat zij al menigmaal hadden gedaan;\nzij zetten zich voor het tralievenster der cel neder en gaven Potter\nwat tabak en een paar zwavelstokken. Daar de gevangene in een laag\nhok lag en door geen schildwachten werd bewaakt, konden zij hem deze\nkleine giften zonder moeite toereiken.\n\nZijne dankbaarheid voor hunne geschenken had hen altijd pijnlijk\naangedaan,--doch ditmaal trof zij hen meer dan ooit. Zij vonden\nzichzelven onuitsprekelijk laf en valsch, toen Potter zeide:\n\n\"Jelui bent almachtig goed voor me geweest, jongens, beter dan\niemand anders in de geheele stad, en ik zal het nooit, nooit\nvergeten. Dikwijls zeg ik tot mijzelven: 'Ik placht al de vliegers en\ndingen voor de jongens in orde te maken en hen te wijzen waar de beste\nvisch te vangen was en hun pleizier te doen zooveel ik kon, en thans,\nnu hij in nood is, hebben zij allen den ouden Muff vergeten--allen\nbehalve Tom en Huck. Die vergeten hem niet,' zeg ik, en ik vergeet\nhen niet. Wel jongens, ik heb een vreeselijke misdaad gepleegd,\nin mijne dronkenschap,--anders begrijp ik niet, hoe ik het gedaan\nkon hebben,--en nu moet ik er voor hangen, en dat is maar goed, ja,\n't beste wat ze met mij doen kunnen. Doch daar zullen wij niet verder\nover spreken. Ik wil jelui niet akelig maken, daarvoor ben jelui te\ngoed voor mij geweest! Maar wat ik zeggen wou, is dit: drinkt nooit\nte veel, en jelui zult nooit hier komen. Ga een beetje dichter bij\nhet raam staan, dan kan ik jelui beter zien; 't is zoo'n troost,\nvriendelijke gezichten te zien, als men zich zoo diep ellendig\nvoelt,--en ik zie ze hier nooit, behalve die van jelui. Goede,\nvriendelijke gezichten. Goede, vriendelijke gezichten! Gaat op\nelkanders rug staan en geef mij de hand; uwe handen kunnen wel door de\ntralies doch de mijne niet, die zijn te groot. Kleine, teere handjes,\ndie Muff Potters last verlicht hebben en welke, als ze maar konden,\ndien wel heelemaal zouden wegnemen!\"\n\nTom ging dien avond diep rampzalig naar huis en werd den ganschen nacht\ndoor afgrijselijke droomen gekweld. De twee volgende dagen was hij\nal vroeger op straat en en bleef hij om de zaal van het gerechtshof\nheen zweven, naar welk gebouw hij onwederstaanbaar gedreven werd,\nofschoon hij al zijne krachten inspande om zich te dwingen er vandaan\nte blijven. Huck ondervond hetzelfde en de beide knapen vermeden\nelkander opzettelijk. Soms liepen zij voor een oogenblik weg, doch\ndezelfde vreeselijke betoovering dreef hen altijd weder naar het gebouw\nterug. Telkens spitste Tom de ooren, wanneer er een leeglooper de zaal\nin- of uitslenterde, doch hij hoorde onveranderlijk treurig nieuws;\nhet net werd hoe langer hoe dichter om den armen Potter toegehaald. Aan\nden avond van den tweeden dag liep in het stadje het gerucht dat het\nfeit door Injun Joe's verklaring volkomen was bewezen en dat er geen\ntwijfel meer bestond omtrent de uitspraak der jury.\n\nTom kwam laat in den avond tehuis en klom door het venster in zijne\nslaapkamer. Hij was in een staat van vreeselijke opgewondenheid\nen uren verliepen, eer hij den slaap kon vatten. Den volgenden\nmorgen liep de gansche stad uit naar het Hof, want dit was de groote\ndag. De beide geslachten waren gelijkelijk in dit zich opeenhoopend\npubliek vertegenwoordigd. Na lang op zich te hebben laten wachten,\nkwam de jury binnen en nam haar zetels in. Kort daarop werd Potter\ngeboeid binnengebracht. Hij zag er bleek en ontdaan uit en werd\nzoo geplaatst, dat al de nieuwsgierige oogen hem konden zien. Niet\nminder viel Injun Joe in 't oog, verstaald als altijd. Na eene kleine\npauze kwam de voorzitter binnen en de sherif verklaarde de zitting\nvoor geopend. Daarop volgde het gewone gefluister onder de leden\nder balie en het bijeenverzamelen der stukken. Deze bijzonderheden\nen het haar vergezellend oponthoud brachten niet weinig bij om het\nindrukwekkende dezer bijeenkomst te verhoogen en de vergadering in\nde grootste spanning te brengen. Nu werd er een getuige voorgeroepen\ndie verklaarde, dat hij Muff Potter in den vroegen morgen van den\ndag, waarop de moord ontdekt was, zich in een beek had zien wasschen\nen onmiddellijk daarop door het kreupelhout wegsluipen. Nadat dien\ngetuige enkele vragen gedaan waren, zeide de openbare aanklager;\n\n\"Hebt gij den getuige nog verder iets te vragen?\"\n\nDe gevangene hief een oogenblik de oogen op, doch sloeg ze terstond\nweder neer, toen zijn verdediger zeide:\n\n\"Ik heb hem geene vragen te doen.\"\n\nDe volgende getuige deelde mede, dat er een mes bij het lijk gevonden\nwas. Op de vraag, of hij dezen ook iets te vragen had, antwoordde de\nadvocaat van Potter:\n\n\"Ik heb ook dezen niets te vragen.\"\n\nHet publiek begon teekenen van ontevredenheid te geven.--Was deze\nadvocaat van plan zijn cli\u00ebnt het leven te doen verliezen, zonder\neen enkele poging te wagen om hem te redden?\n\nVerscheidene getuigen legden verklaringen af omtrent de schuld\nverradende houding van Potter, toen hij op de plaats waar de moord\ngepleegd was, gebracht werd. Zij mochten allen aftrekken zonder\nkruisvragen te ondergaan.\n\nAl de bezwarende omstandigheden, welke in dien morgen op het kerkhof\nhadden plaats gegrepen en die de aanwezigen zich zoo goed wisten te\nherinneren, werden door geloofwaardige getuigen gestaafd, maar tot\ngeen hunner werd door Potters verdediger een vraag gericht.\n\nDe verslagenheid en ontevredenheid van het publiek uitte zich in een\ndof gemompel en gaf aanleiding tot eene berisping van de zijde van\nden voorzitter. De woordvoerder voor de beschuldiging zeide daarop:\n\nDoor de be\u00ebedigde getuigenissen van burgers, wier geloofwaardigheid\nboven alle verdenking verheven is, hebben wij het onweerlegbaar\nbewijs geleverd, dat de ongelukkige gevangene, die in gindsche bank\ngezeten is, het vreeselijk misdrijf heeft bedreven. Onze taak is\nhiermede ge\u00ebindigd.\n\nEen kreet ontsnapte den armen Potter en hij sloeg zijne handen voor\nhet gelaat en bewoog zich onrustig op zijne plaats, terwijl er in de\ngerechtszaal een pijnlijk stilzwijgen heerschte. Vele mannen waren\nbewogen en menige vrouw gaf door tranen van medelijden blijk.\n\nDe verdediger stond op en sprak:\n\n\"Mijnheer de Voorzitter!\n\n\"Toen wij bij het begin der behandeling van dit geding ons enkele\naanmerkingen over de zaak veroorloofden, hebben wij gezegd, dat wij\nzouden trachten aan te toonen, dat onze cli\u00ebnt bij het plegen dezer\nontzettende daad handelde in een toestand van waanzin, ontstaan uit\nmisbruik van sterken drank, die zijne aansprakelijkheid uitsloot. Wij\nzijn op dat voornemen teruggekomen; die verdediging zullen wij niet\nvoeren.\" (En toen tot den deurwaarder) \"Roep Thomas Sawyer.\"\n\nDe grootste verbazing teekende zich op ieders gelaat, dat van Potter\nniet uitgezonderd. Aller oogen wendden zich vol bevreemding en\nbelangstelling op Tom, toen deze opstond en in het getuigenbankje\nplaats nam. De knaap zag er bleek en doodelijk verschrikt uit. De\need werd hem afgenomen.\n\n\"Tom Sawyer, waar zijt gij den zeventienden Juni, omstreeks middernacht\ngeweest?\"\n\nTom keek naar het verstaalde gezicht van Injun Joe en zijne tong\nweigerde hare diensten. Het publiek luisterde met ingehouden adem,\ndoch de woorden wilden niet komen. Na een paar minuten echter kwam de\nontstelde knaap eenigermate tot zich zelven en trachtte hij zijne stem\nte verheffen, om zich door de aanwezigen te doen verstaan en zeide:\n\n\"Op het kerkhof!\"\n\n\"Een weinig luider, als 't u belieft. Wees niet bang.--Gij waart....?\"\n\n\"Op het kerkhof!\"\n\nEene minachtende glimlach speelde om de lippen van Injun Joe.\n\n\"Waart gij in de nabijheid van het graf van Hoss Williams?\"\n\n\"Ja, mijnheer.\"\n\n\"Spreek nog iets luider. Hoe dicht waart ge er bij?\"\n\n\"Zoo dicht, als ik thans bij u sta.\"\n\n\"Hieldt gij u verborgen of niet?\"\n\n\"Verborgen, mijnheer.\"\n\n\"Waar?\"\n\n\"Achter de olmboomen, aan den rand van het graf.\"\n\nInjun Joe deinsde onwillekeurig achteruit.\n\n\"Hadt gij niemand bij u?\"\n\n\"Ja, mijnheer. Ik was daar met...\"\n\n\"Wacht, wacht een oogenblik. Gij behoeft den naam van uw makker niet\nte noemen. Wij zullen hem te zijner tijd voorbrengen. Hadt gij iets\nbij u?\"\n\nTom aarzelde en keek verlegen voor zich.\n\n\"Spreek vrij uit, mijn jongen;--wees niet bedeesd. 't Is altijd braaf\non de waarheid te spreken. Wat hebt gij mede naar het kerkhof genomen?\"\n\n\"Niets dan een--een doode kat!\"\n\nVoor een oogenblik verhief zich zulk een luid glimlach onder de\nmenigte, dat de voorzitter den hamer moest gebruiken.\n\n\"Nu, mijn jongen, vertel ons al wat er is voorgevallen. Zeg het in\nuw eigen taal;--sla niets over en wees niet bang.\"\n\nTom begon. Eerst aarzelend, doch naarmate hij zich warmer over het\nonderwerp maakte, vloeiden zijne woorden met grooter gemak, en het\nduurde niet lang of er werd geen geluid gehoord dan dat van zijne\nstem. Aller oogen waren op hem gericht en met open mond en ingehouden\nadem hing het publiek aan zijne lippen, ontzet door het verhaal van\nde afgrijselijke geschiedenis. De hooggespannen aandacht bereikte\nhaar toppunt, toen de jongen zeide:\n\n\"En toen de dokter de plank opnam en Muff Potter viel, sprong Injun\nJoe met het mes op hem toe en....\"\n\nKrak! Sneller dan de bliksem vloog de kleurling door een raam, duwde\nallen die hem trachten tegen te houden terug en was verdwenen.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XXV.\n\n\nTom was ten tweede male de held van den dag,--het troetelkind der\nouden van dagen, het voorwerp van afgunst der jeugd. Zijn naam werd\nzelfs door de drukpers onsterfelijk gemaakt, want hij werd eervol in\nhet \"Peterburgsche blaadje\" vermeld. Er waren er zelfs, die in hem,\nindien hij aan de galg ontkwam, een toekomstigen President zagen.\n\nZooals dat gewoonlijk gaat, koesterde de veranderlijke, onredelijke\nwereld Muff Potter aan haar hart en vertroetelde hem even dwaas\nals zij hem te voren had beschimpt. Doch aangezien deze gewoonte de\nmenschheid eer tot lof dan tot blaam strekt, zou het onheusch zijn\ner haar een verwijt van te maken.\n\nDe eerstvolgende dagen waren voor Tom een tijdperk van onvermengd\ngenot, maar zijne nachten waren vreeselijk. Het beeld van Injun Joe\nvervolgde hem in zijn droomen en de moordenaar stond gedurig voor\nhem, met verdelging in zijn oog. De knaap was er voor geen geld toe\nte bewegen om na zonsondergang de deur uit te gaan. De arme Huck\nverkeerde in denzelfden toestand van ellende en schrik, want Tom\nhad den avond voor den rechtsdag de geheele geschiedenis aan den\npleitbezorger verteld, en Huck was doodbang dat het uitlekken zou,\ndat ook hij in de zaak betrokken was, ofschoon de vlucht van Injun\nJoe hem de marteling gespaard had van op 's Hofs zitting getuigenis\nte moeten afleggen.\n\nSedert Toms bezwaard geweten hem in den laten avond naar het huis van\nden advocaat gedreven had en deze het huiveringwekkend verhaal had\nontwrongen aan lippen, die door de vreeselijkste en geheimzinnigste\needen gesloten waren geweest, had Huck zijn vertrouwen in de menschheid\nvoor eeuwig verloren. Zoolang het daglicht scheen, maakte Muff Potters\ndankbaarheid Tom blijde dat hij gesproken had; maar zoodra de avond\nwas gedaald, zou hij om alles gewild hebben dat zijn mond gesloten\nwas gebleven. Het eene oogenblik bekroop hem de vrees, dat Injun Joe\nnooit gevat zou worden, en het andere beefde hij bij de gedachte dat\nhet wel zou gebeuren. Het was hem alsof hij niet weder vrij zou ademen,\nvoordat die man dood was en hij zijn lijk had gezien. Geldsommen waren\nuitgeloofd, men had het land doorkruist, doch er werd geen Injun Joe\ngevonden. Op zekeren dag kwam er uit St Louis een van die alwetende,\nontzagwekkende wonderen in menschengedaante, een agent van de geheime\npolitie, hoofdschuddend en met een voornaam gezicht te St Peterburg\nen maakte dien kolossalen opgang, welke leden van dat verheven lichaam\naltijd maken. Hij kwam zeggen dat hij den \"sleutel\" gevonden had. Doch\naangezien men geen \"sleutel\" wegens moord kon ophangen, bracht het\nbezoek van den grooten man weinig licht aan en voelde Tom zich al even\nbezwaard als vroeger. De eene dag voor en de andere na ging voorbij,\nzonder dat hem het drukkend wicht van den angst werd afgenomen.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XXVI.\n\n\nEr komt een tijd in elk wel ingericht jongensleven, dat hij door eene\nvurige begeerte wordt aangegrepen om ergens een verborgen schat te\ngaan zoeken. Dat verlangen bekroop plotseling Tom. Hij stapte de deur\nuit om Joe Harper op te zoeken, doch zonder baat. Toen ging hij naar\nBen Rogers; helaas! deze was visschen. Weldra echter liep hij Huck\ntegen 't lijf en de beruchte straatjongen stond hem te woord. Tom\nnam hem met zich naar een eenzame plaats en deelde in vertrouwen zijn\nvoornemen mede. Huck werd bereid gevonden; hij had gaarne de hand in\nelke onderneming, welke genot beloofde en geen geld kostte, daar hij\neen lastigen overvloed van die soort van tijd had, die _geen_ geld is.\n\n\"Waar zullen wij graven!\" vroeg Huck.\n\n\"O, overal!\"\n\n\"Zoo, zijn dan overal schatten begraven?\"\n\n\"Neen, waarachtig niet. Zij zijn meestal op allervreemdste plaatsen\nverborgen, Huck;--somtijds op eilanden en ook wel in verrotte\nkisten, onder een tak van een ouden dooden boom op welken de maan te\nmiddernacht haar schaduw werpt. Doch doorgaans vindt men ze veel in\nden grond onder spookhuizen.\"\n\n\"Wie verstopt ze?\"\n\n\"Wel de roovers natuurlijk.--Wie anders, denk je. De catechiseermeester\nvan de zondagsschool?\"\n\n\"Ik weet het zoo niet. Indien ik een schat had, zou ik hem niet\nverstoppen: ik zou er hem doorlappen om een lekker leventje te hebben.\"\n\n\"Ik ook; maar roovers doen dat niet; zij verbergen hem en laten hem\nwaar hij is.\"\n\n\"Komen zij hem nooit halen?\"\n\n\"Neen; zij hebben er wel plan op, maar zij vergeten doorgaans de\nplaats, waar zij hem verstopt hebben, of zij gaan dood. Hoe dan ook,\nhij blijft lang onder den grond liggen en begint te roesten; en in\nverloop van tijd vindt de een of ander een oud geel stukje papier,\ndat hem zegt waar de schat begraven is;--een papiertje dat men in\neen week niet ontcijferen kan, omdat het schrift enkel uit teekens\nen hi\u00ebroglyphen bestaat.\"\n\n\"Hi\u00ebro... wat?\"\n\n\"Hi\u00ebroglyphen! Dat zijn prentjes en dingen, schijnbaar zonder\nbeteekenis.\"\n\n\"Heb jij ook van die papiertjes, Tom?\"\n\n\"Neen.\"\n\n\"Hoe kun je dan de teekenen uitvinden?\"\n\n\"Wel, ik heb geen teekenen noodig. Schatten worden ook wel onder\neen spookhuis begraven of op een eiland, of onder een dooden boom\nmet vooruitstekende takken. Wij hebben het op Jacksons Island al\nzoo wat geprobeerd en nu kunnen wij weer ergens anders aan den gang\ngaan. Daar heb je bij voorbeeld het oude spookhuis, Hill-House Branch,\nen verder zijn er een menigte boomen met doode takken.\"\n\n\"Vindt men ze onder alle?\"\n\n\"Wat praat je toch! Natuurlijk niet!\"\n\n\"Hoe weet je dan onder welke je moet zoeken?\"\n\n\"Wij moeten ze alle uitgraven.\"\n\n\"Maar, Tom, dan kunnen wij den geheelen zomer wel aan den gang\nblijven!\"\n\n\"Wat kan dat schelen? Verbeeld je, dat we eens een koperen pot\nvinden met honderd roestige dollars er in, of een verrotte kist met\ndiamanten. Wat zou je daarvan zeggen?\"\n\nHucks oogen glinsterden.\n\n\"Dat is zat, meer dan zat voor mij. Geef mij de honderd dollars,\ndan mag jij de diamanten houden!\"\n\n\"Afgesproken! De diamanten zijn lang niet te verwerpen. Sommigen zijn\ntwintig dollars het stuk waard. Er zijn er haast geen, die je onder\nde zes verkoopen kunt.\"\n\n\"Wezenlijk? Is dat zoo?\"\n\n\"Zeker; dat weet iedereen. Heb je er nooit een gezien, Huck?\"\n\n\"Niet, dat ik mij herinner!\"\n\n\"O, de koningen hebben ze bij menigte.\"\n\n\"Maar ik ken geen enkelen koning, Tom.\"\n\n\"Dat wil ik wel gelooven. Hier zijn geen koningen; maar als je eens\nnaar Europa gingt, zou je er een mud in het rond zien springen.\"\n\n\"Springen zij?\"\n\n\"Springen,--eend! Wel neen!\"\n\n\"Wel, waarom zeg je het dan?\"\n\n\"Och, ik bedoelde alleen maar, dat je ze zien zoudt,--maar niet zien\nspringen, natuurlijk niet. Waarom zouden zij dat doen? Ik meen, dat\nje er den grond mede bezaaid zoudt zien, evenals bij dien Richard\nden Bultenaar.\"\n\n\"Richard ...? Hoe heet hij nog meer?\"\n\n\"Hij heeft geen anderen naam. Koningen hebben alleen maar \u00e9\u00e9n voornaam.\n\n\"Zoo?\"\n\n\"Zeker, zoo is 't.\"\n\n\"Nu, als ze dat prettig vinden, laten ze hun gang gaan. Ik zou geen\nkoning willen zijn, om alleen maar \u00e9\u00e9n voornaam te hebben, evenals\nde nikkers.--Maar zeg, waar ga je eerst graven?\"\n\n\"Dat weet ik nog niet. Zullen wij eerst beginnen onder dien ouden\ndooden tak op den heuvel, aan de overzijde van Hill-House Branch?\"\n\n\"Akkoord.\"\n\nDe knapen wisten een gebrekkige bijl en een schoffel machtig te worden\nen ondernamen de voetreis van anderhalf uur. Zij kwamen bezweet en\nhijgend aan en legden zich onder de schaduw van een olmboom neder om\nuit te rusten en een pijp te rooken.\n\n\"Het bevalt mij,\" zei Tom.\n\n\"Mij ook,\" antwoordde Huck.\n\n\"Zeg eens, Huck, als wij hier den schat vinden, wat doe jij dan met\njouw aandeel?\"\n\n\"Ik? Ik koop elken dag een pastei en een glas sodawater en ik ga\nnaar elk paardenspel dat hier in de buurt komt. Ik verzeker je,\ndat ik het er van nemen zal.\"\n\n\"Zou je er niets van opsparen?\"\n\n\"Opsparen? Waarvoor zou dat dienen?\"\n\n\"Om wat te hebben om later van te leven.\"\n\n\"O, dat hoeft niet, als ik dat deed, zou Pop op een goeden dag\nterugkomen en er zijne klauwen op zetten, om er spoedig een eind aan\nte maken.--Wat doe jij met jouw part?\"\n\n\"Ik koop een nieuwe trom, een sabel, een roode das, een groote\npoppenkast--en ik ga trouwen.\"\n\n\"Trouwen?\"\n\n\"Ja zeker.\"\n\n\"Tom, ben je mal, of wat scheelt je?\"\n\n\"Wacht maar: je zult het zien gebeuren.\"\n\n\"Hemel, dat is nu het gekste ding, dat je doen kunt. Denk maar eens\naan Pop en mijne moeder; ze deden niets dan vechten. Ik herinner mij\ndat als den dag van gisteren.\"\n\n\"Dat doet er niet toe. Het meisje, waarmede ik ga trouwen, zal niet\nvechten.\"\n\n\"Tom, ik geloof dat zij allen hetzelfde zijn. Je kunt ze allen over\n\u00e9\u00e9n kam scheeren. Ik zou me, als ik jou was, nog eens bedenken eer\nik dat deed. Ik zeg je, dat het je berouwen zal. Hoe heet die meid?\"\n\n\"'t Is geen meid;--'t is een meisje.\"\n\n\"Dat is hetzelfde; sommigen zeggen meid en anderen meisje. 't Is\nallebei goed. Hoe is haar naam?\"\n\n\"Ik zal hem je later zeggen; nu nog niet.\"\n\n\"Ook al goed. Alleen als je gaat trouwen, zal ik verlatener zijn\ndan ooit.\"\n\n\"Neen, dat zul je niet, want je zult bij ons komen inwonen. Laat ons\nnu maar spoedig opstaan en aan het graven gaan.\"\n\nZij werkten een half uur in het zweet hun aanschijns, doch zonder\ngevolg. Zij zwoegden nog een half uur, weder zonder baat. Toen\nzeide Huck:\n\n\"Worden die schatten altijd zoo diep begraven als deze?\"\n\n\"Somtijds, niet altijd. Meestal niet. Ik geloof, dat wij op de\nverkeerde plaats zijn.\"\n\nZij kozen daarom een andere plek uit en begonnen weder. De arbeid\nging wat langzamer, doch zij maakten toch vorderingen en hielden het\nzwijgend eenigen tijd vol. Eindelijk ging Huck op zijne spade leunen,\nveegde zich met zijn mouw de parelen zweet van het voorhoofd en zeide:\n\n\"Waar ga je graven, wanneer wij door dezen boom heen zijn?\"\n\n\"Dan konden wij den ouden boom bij Cardiff Hill, achter het huis van\nde weduwe wel eens opdelven.\"\n\n\"Dat zal wel een goede zijn. Maar zal de weduwe ons den schat niet\nafnemen, Tom? 't is op haar land.\"\n\n\"Zij hem ons afnemen? Laat zij 't eens probeeren. Al wie een verborgen\nschat vindt, mag hem houden. Het doet er niet toe op wiens land\nhet is.\"\n\nHuck was met dit argument tevreden. De arbeid werd\nvoortgezet. Eindelijk zeide Huck:\n\n\"Verduiveld, wij zijn zeker weer op de verkeerde plaats. Wat denk\njij ervan?\"\n\n\"Het is erg vreemd, Huck. Ik begrijp het niet. Soms komen er wel eens\nheksen tusschenbeide. Ik denk, dat dit nu het geval is.\"\n\n\"Onzin! Heksen kunnen niets doen bij daglicht.\"\n\n\"Ja, dat is waar ook. Daar dacht ik niet aan. O, ik weet al wat het\nis. Wat zijn wij toch uilskuikens! Wij moeten zien te ontdekken, op\nwelken tak tegen middernacht de schaduw van de maan valt, en onder\ndien tak graven.\"\n\n\"Vervloekt! dus hebben wij monnikenwerk gedaan. Nu zullen wij van nacht\nterugkomen. 't Is een verduiveld lange weg. Kun jij de deur uitkomen?\"\n\n\"Ik denk het wel. Wij moeten het van nacht doen ook, want als iemand\ndeze gaten ziet, zal hij het dadelijk begrijpen en zelf gaan zoeken.\"\n\n\"Goed, dan zal ik van nacht weer komen miauwen.\"\n\n\"Best. Laat ons de spaden zoolang in het kreupelbosch verbergen.\"\n\nDe knapen waren ter bestemder tijd op de afgesproken plaats en zaten\nin de schaduw van den boom te wachten. Het was een eenzaam oord en\neene van oudsher plechtige ure. Geesten fluisterden door de ruischende\nbladeren, spoken loerden in sombere hoeken, het holklinkend geblaf van\neen hond werd in de verte gehoord en door een uil met zijne grafstem\nbeantwoord. De knapen waren geheel onder den indruk dezer ernstige\nzaken en spraken bijna geen woord. Na een poosje meenden zij, dat het\nwel twaalf uren zou zijn; zij gaven nauwkeurig acht op de schaduwen en\ngingen aan het graven. De hoop begon in hun hart te herleven; hunne\nbelangstelling werd grooter en hun vlijt hield daarmede gelijken\ntred. Het gat werd al dieper en dieper en telkens, wanneer de bijl\nop iets hards sloeg, sprong hun hart op van vreugde. Doch de eene\nteleurstelling volgde de andere. Het was nooit iets anders dan een\nsteen of een paar stukken van beenderen. Eindelijk zeide Tom:\n\n\"Het zal niet baten Huck; wij zijn alweer aan den verkeerden boom.\"\n\n\"Maar wij kunnen niet verkeerd zijn: wij hebben precies de beschaduwde\nplek genomen.\"\n\n\"Dat weet ik wel, maar er is iets anders.\"\n\n\"Wat dan?\"\n\n\"Dat wij naar den tijd geraden hebben. Waarschijnlijk was het te laat\nof te vroeg.\"\n\nHuck liet zijn schop vallen.\n\n\"Daar zul je het hebben,\" zeide hij. \"Dat is het vervelende ervan. Wij\nkunnen nooit het juiste oogenblik bepalen, en buitendien, 't is hier\nal te griezelig om dezen tijd van den nacht, met ronddolende spoken\nen geesten. Ik heb een gevoel, alsof er voortdurend iets achter mij\nstaat, en ik durf mij nauwelijks omkeeren, omdat er anderen achter\nmij kunnen zijn, die hun kans afwachten. Ik heb gebeefd als een riet,\nzoolang ik hier gestaan heb.\"\n\n\"Ik ook, Huck. Zij leggen meestal een dooden man in den kuil, onder\nden boom waarin zij een schat geborgen hebben.\"\n\n\"Hemelsche vader!\"\n\n\"Ja, dat doen zij. Dat heb ik altijd gehoord.\"\n\n\"Tom, ik houd er niet van, om in de buurt van doode menschen te\nzwerven. Je hebt er altijd min of meer last van.\"\n\n\"Ik ben er ook niet voor om ze aan den gang te maken, Huck. Verbeeld\nje eens, dat er zijn schedel opstak en begon te praten.\"\n\n\"Spreek er niet van, Tom; 't is te vreeselijk.\"\n\n\"Gij hebt gelijk, Huck. Ik voel mij niets op mijn gemak.\"\n\n\"Zeg eens Tom, zullen wij deze plaats opgeven en het ergens anders\ngaan beproeven?\"\n\n\"Goed. Ik geloof ook dat het beter zal zijn. Waar moeten we nu heen?\"\n\nTom bedacht zich een oogenblik en zeide toen:\n\n\"Naar het spookhuis.\"\n\n\"Dank je; ik houd niet van spookhuizen, Tom. Daar zie je gezichten\nnog akeliger dan die van doode menschen. Lijken mogen praten, maar ze\nschuiven niet, als je er niet op verdacht bent, langs je heen in een\nlijkkleed, om over de schouders te kijken, en ze kunnen ook niet met\nhunne tanden knarsen, zooals een spook doet. Ik zou het besterven,\nTom--en iedereen met mij.\"\n\n\"Ja maar, Huck, spoken sluipen alleen 's nachts rond; zij zullen ons\nover dag het graven niet beletten.\"\n\n\"Dat kan wel zijn. Maar je weet net zoo goed als ik, dat de menschen\nbij dag zoo min als bij nacht in de buurt van het spookhuis komen.\"\n\n\"Dat is omdat zij niet gaarne naar eene plaats gaan, waar een mensch\nvermoord is. Maar er is eigenlijk 's nachts nooit iets om dat huis\ngezien,--behalve een blauw licht bij het raam, doch geen echte spoken.\"\n\n\"Wel, daar waar blauwe lichten dwarrelen, kun je er op aan dat geesten\nzijn. Dat is zoo zeker als iets, en iedereen weet, dat niemand dan\ngeesten ze gebruiken.\"\n\n\"Ja, dat is zoo. Maar zij komen nooit over dag; daarom behoeven wij\nniet bang te zijn.\"\n\n\"Nu, goed dan; wij zullen bij het spookhuis gaan graven, als jij het\nwilt. Maar ik zeg je, dat je vrijwillig in gevaar loopt.\"\n\nZij waren thans aan den voet van den heuvel. Daar, midden in de\ndoor de maan verlichte vallei, stond het spookhuis, geheel verlaten,\nmet een vermolmd houten hek en welig, tot aan den drempel groeiend\nonkruid en met een bouwvalligen schoorsteen, ledige raamkozijnen en\ngaten in het dak.\n\nDe knapen bleven een oogenblik staan kijken, half verwachtend een blauw\nlicht bij het venster te zien bewegen. Zij spraken op fluisterenden\ntoon, zooals bij den tijd en de omstandigheden paste, weken een\neindweegs ter rechterzijde af, om de ligging van het spookhuis op\nte nemen, en begaven zich toen huiswaarts, door de bosschen die de\nachterzijde van Cardiff Hill versierden.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XXVII.\n\n\nDen volgenden dag, tegen twaalf uren, stonden de knapen bij den dooden\nboom om hun gereedschap te halen. Tom brandde van verlangen om naar\nhet spookhuis te gaan. Huck was minder opgewonden en zeide:\n\n\"Zeg eens, Tom: weet jij wat dag het is?\"\n\nTom doorliep in gedachten de dagen der week en hief toen verschrikt\nde oogen op.\n\n\"Hemel, ik heb er in 't geheel niet aan gedacht, Huck.\"\n\n\"Ik ook niet, maar op eens schoot het mij te binnen, dat het wel\nVrijdag kon zijn.\"\n\n\"Bewaar me; een mensch kan niet te voorzichtig wezen. Wij konden er\nwel eens inloopen, door zoo iets op Vrijdag aan te vangen.\"\n\n\"Konden! Zeg liever zouden. Er zijn misschien geluksdagen, maar\nVrijdag is er geen.\"\n\n\"Dat weet elke gek. Ik geloof niet, dat jij de eerste bent, die dat\nuitgevonden hebt, Huck.\"\n\n\"Nu, ik heb niet gezegd dat ik het was, heb ik wel? En het is\nniet alleen omdat het Vrijdag is; ik heb van nacht akelig gedroomd\nook,--van ratten.\"\n\n\"'t Is toch niet waar? Een zeker teeken van naderend onheil! Vochten\nzij?\"\n\n\"Neen.\"\n\n\"Dat is tenminste nog een zegen, Huck. Wanneer zij niet vechten,\nis het all\u00e9\u00e9n maar een teeken dat er een onheil _kan_ komen. We\nbehoeven dus niets te doen dan scherp toe te kijken en ons niet in\ngevaar te begeven. Wij zullen het graven vandaag maar laten en liever\ngaan spelen. Ken je Robin Hood, Huck?\"\n\n\"Neen, Wie is Robin Hood?\"\n\n\"Wel, hij was een van de grootste mannen van Engeland en van de beste\nook. Hij was een roover.\"\n\n\"Heerej\u00e9, ik wou dat ik hem was. En wat heeft hij gekaapt?\"\n\n\"Alleen maar bisschoppen en rijke lui en koningen en zulk volk. Maar\nhij plaagde de arme lui nooit. Hij had ze lief en deelde alles eerlijk\nmet hen.\"\n\n\"Zoo, dan moet hij een beste kerel geweest zijn!\"\n\n\"Waarachtig was hij dat, Huck. Hij was de grootmoedigste man, die ooit\nheeft bestaan. Je hebt tegenwoordig zulke lui niet meer, daar ben ik\nzeker van. Hij kon, met zijne handen achter zijn rug gebonden, elken\nEngelschman afranselen, en met zijn boog van taxishout, op anderhalve\nmijl afstand, een stuivertje doorboren, zonder ooit te missen.\"\n\n\"Wat is een boog van taxishout?\"\n\n\"Dat weet ik niet. 't Is een boog, dat is zeker. En als hij het\ngeldstuk een enkelen keer aan den kant raakte, dan raasde en tierde\nhij als een kind.--Kom laten wij Robin Hood spelen; 't is een prettig\nspel. Ik zal het je leeren.\"\n\nZe speelden den geheelen middag Robin Hood, terwijl zij nu en dan\neen verlangenden blik op het spookhuis wierpen en spraken over de\nplannen en vooruitzichten voor den volgenden dag. Toen de zon in het\nwesten onderging, wandelden zij langs de breede schaduwen der boomen\nnaar huis en waren in de bosschen van Cardiff Hill spoedig uit het\ngezicht verdwenen.\n\nZaterdagmiddag waren de knapen weder bij den dooden boom.\n\nEerst zaten zij in de schaduw een poosje te rooken en te babbelen\nen gingen toen het gemaakte gat weder opgraven. Zij deden dat, niet\nomdat zij groote verwachtingen hadden, maar alleen omdat Tom gezegd\nhad, dat het dikwijls gebeurd was, dat menschen, toen zij den schat\ntot op een duim na bereikt hadden, het opgegeven hadden, en dat er\ntoen anderen gekomen waren, die met \u00e9\u00e9n stoot van de spade hem te\nvoorschijn hadden gehaald.\n\nHun streven mislukte echter ditmaal en ze namen daarom hun gereedschap\nmaar weder op en gingen heen, niet met de gedachte dat zij met\nde fortuin een loopje hadden genomen, maar in de overtuiging dat\nzij aan alle voorwaarden, aan het delven naar schatten verbonden,\nhadden voldaan.\n\nToen zij het spookhuis naderden, was er iets zoo akeligs en\nhuiveringwekkends in de doodelijke stilte onder de brandende zon en\niets zoo neerdrukkends in de eenzame, verlatene plaats, dat zij een\noogenblik bang waren om binnen te gaan. Zij kropen naar de deur en\nkeken bevend door een reetje. Zij zagen een met onkruid begroeide,\nvan vloer beroofde kamer, zonder behangsel, met een ouderwetsche\nhaardstede, vensters zonder gordijnen en een bouwvallige trap,\nen overal flarden van spinnewebben. Toen traden zij met versnelden\npolsslag, fluisterende stem, gretige ooren en gezwollen spieren binnen,\ngereed om desnoods onmiddellijk weder den aftocht te blazen.\n\nEen oogenblikje later, toen hun blik aan de huiveringwekkende\nomgeving was gewend, verminderde hun angst en namen zij de plaats\nnauwkeuriger op, vol verbazing en verwondering over hun eigen\nstoutmoedigheid. Daarop wilden zij boven een kijkje nemen. 't Had\niets van zich den terugweg af te snijden, maar zij zagen elkander met\nmoedige blikken aan en kwamen tot een kloek besluit om hun gereedschap\nin een hoek te werpen en de trap te beklimmen. Boven vertoonden zich\ndezelfde teekenen van verval. In een donkeren hoek vonden zij een\nkabinetje, dat iets geheimzinnigs beloofde; doch die belofte bleek\nijdel te zijn, want het was ledig. Zij hadden thans moed verzameld\nen waren gereed hunne onderneming door te zetten. Juist toen zij naar\nbeneden wilden stappen om aan het werk te gaan, zeide Tom: \"Stil!\"\n\n\"Wat is er?\" fluisterde Huck, bleek van schrik.\n\n\"Stil! Daar! Hoort gij het?\"\n\n\"Ja, O, heer! Laat ons wegloopen!\"\n\n\"Houd je stil! Beweeg je niet! Zij komen naar de deur toe.\"\n\nDe jongens gingen plat op den grond liggen en keken door de openingen\ntusschen de planken, in doodangst afwachtende wat er gebeuren zou.\n\n\"Zij houden stil,\" fluisterden zij eindelijk.\n\n\"Neen--zij komen! Hier zijn zij! Geen woord meer, Huck. Goede hemel,\nik wou dat ik er uit was!\"\n\nTwee mannen traden binnen. De knapen dachten:\n\n\"Dit is de oude, doofstomme Spanjaard, die onlangs een paar malen in\nde stad is geweest, en den anderen man heb ik nooit gezien.\"\n\nDe andere was een havelooze bandiet, ongekamd en ongeschoren, met een\nhoogst ongunstig uiterlijk. De Spanjaard was in eene _serape_ gehuld;\nhij had zware, witte bakkebaarden, lang wit haar, dat golvend onder\nzijn hoofddeksel te voorschijn kwam en hij droeg groene ooglappen. Toen\nzij binnentraden, begon de \"andere\" heel zacht te spreken. Zij zetten\nzich op den grond neder, het gelaat naar de deur gekeerd en met den\nrug tegen den muur, en de \"andere\" hervatte zijn gesprek. Hij werd\niets minder omzichtig in houding en gebaren en zijne woorden werden\ngaandeweg duidelijker.\n\n\"Neen,\" zei hij, \"ik heb er goed over gedacht en ik heb er geen zin\nin: het is gevaarlijk.\"\n\n\"Gevaarlijk?\" gromde de doofstomme Spanjaard, tot verbazing der\nknapen. \"Gevaarlijk, melkbaard?\"\n\nDeze stem deed de knapen beven en naar adem snakken. Het was die van\nInjun Joe!\n\nEr volgde een oogenblik van stilte, waarop Joe hernam:\n\n\"Wat kan gevaarlijker zijn dan die karwei van daarginds--en er is\ntoch niets van gekomen.\"\n\n\"Dat was heel wat anders. Dicht bij de rivier en geen enkel huis in\nde nabijheid. 't Zal nooit bekend worden, dat wij het beproefd hebben,\nvooral niet daar het mislukt is.\"\n\n\"Wel, wat kan gevaarlijker zijn dan over dag hier te komen? Ieder,\ndie ons ziet, kan argwaan krijgen!\"\n\n\"Dat weet ik, maar er was geen andere plaats geschikt na die malle\nkarwei. Ik hunker er naar dit hol te verlaten. Ik wou gisteren al\ngaan, maar er was geen denken aan zich buiten te wagen, met die\nhelsche jongens, die bij den heuvel speelden.\"\n\nDe \"helsche jongens\" beefden bij dit gezegde en dachten hoe gelukkig\nhet was, dat zij zich herinnerd hadden dat het Vrijdag was en dat\nzij tot het besluit waren gekomen een dag te wachten. Zij wenschten\nin hun hart, dat zij het een jaar hadden uitgesteld.\n\nDe twee mannen haalden eenig voedsel voor den dag en begonnen te\neten. Na eenige oogenblikken van stilzwijgen zeide Injun Joe:\n\n\"Kijk eens, jongen: ga jij naar de rivier, waar je behoort, wacht daar\ntotdat je van mij hoort. Ik zal het er op wagen nog wat hier in de\nstad te blijven om den boel op te nemen. Wij zullen dat gevaarlijke\nkarweitje ondernemen, als ik alles goed bespionneerd en bemerkt\nheb dat de kansen goed staan. En dan naar Texas. Wij zullen eerlijk\nsamen deelen.\"\n\nDe andere was met dit plan tevreden.\n\nOnderwijl raakten de beide mannen aan het gapen en Injun Joe zeide:\n\n\"Ik ben dood van den slaap! 't Is jouw beurt om te waken.\"\n\nEn hij rolde zich in het onkruid en begon te snorken. Zijn metgezel\nstootte hem een paar malen aan en hij werd rustig. Daarop begon de\nwaker te knikkebollen; zijn hoofd zonk lager en lager en beiden hieven\nthans een duo van snorken aan.\n\nDe knapen haalden dankbaar adem. Tom fluisterde:\n\n\"Nu de kans waarnemen, kom!\"\n\nHuck zeide: \"Ik kan het niet doen;--Ik zou sterven, indien zij\nontwaakten.\"\n\nTom smeekte en Huck bleef weigeren. Eindelijk stond Tom zachtjes\nop on alleen te vertrekken. De eerste stap echter, dien hij deed,\nveroorzaakte zulk een afschuwelijk gekraak in den vloer, dat hij\nbijna dood van schrik nederviel. Hij waagde geen tweede poging. De\nknapen telden de traag verloopende oogenblikken, totdat het hun was\nalsof de tijd was ge\u00ebindigd en de sombere eeuwigheid een aanvang had\ngenomen. Eindelijk bemerkten zij tot hun vreugde dat de zon onderging.\n\nNu hield het gesnork van een der mannen op. Injun Joe richtte zich\nop, zag rond, keek boosaardig glimlachend naar zijn metgezel, stootte\nhem met zijn voet aan en zeide:\n\n\"Hoor eens! jij bent een goede waker, dat ben je.\"\n\n\"Nu, er is toch niets gebeurd.\"\n\n\"Niet? Heb je geslapen?\"\n\n\"Och, zoo wat gesluimerd. 't Is haast tijd voor ons om op te rukken,\nkameraad. Wat zullen wij doen met den kleinen buit, waarvan wij ons\nmeester gemaakt hebben?\"\n\n\"Ik weet het niet. Hier laten zooals wij altijd doen. Wij hebben haar\nniet noodig, voordat wij naar het zuiden gaan. Zeshonderd vijftig in\nzilveren munt is een last!\"\n\n\"Nu, goed dan. Maar dan behoeven wij hier ook niet terug te komen.\"\n\n\"Zou je denken? Wel, ik geloof dat het veilig is hier de nachten door\nte brengen, zooals gewoonlijk; ja, dat is beter.\"\n\n\"Ja, maar, kijk eens: het kan nog wel lang duren eer wij eene\ngoede gelegenheid hebben voor dat andere karweitje;--er kan iets\ntusschenbeide komen en het is niet zoo'n heel veilige plaats. Wij\nzullen den buit liever begraven, en diep ook.\"\n\n\"Dat is een goede inval,\" zeide zijn kameraad en liep naar het andere\neind der kamer, knielde voor den haard neder en haalde tusschen\nde steenen een zak te voorschijn, die een liefelijk geklingel deed\nhooren. Hij nam er twintig of dertig dollars uit voor zich zelven en\neven zooveel voor Injun Joe en reikte den zak toen aan den laatste\nover, die in een hoek van het vertrek op zijne knie\u00ebn zat en bezig\nwas met zijn snoeimes een gat te graven.\n\nIn een oogenblik vergaten de knapen hun vrees en hunne ellende. Met\nfonkelende oogen sloegen zij elke beweging gade. 't Was een onmetelijke\nschat! Zeshonderd dollars!--geld genoeg om een half dozijn jongens rijk\nte maken. Hier bood zich eene gelegenheid tot het graven van schatten\naan onder de gelukkigste voorteekenen. Hier was geene kwellende\nonzekerheid omtrent de plek waar gegraven moest worden. Zij stootten\nelkander gedurig aan,--met gebaren, die zeggen wilden:\n\n\"O, zijt gij niet blijde, dat wij hier zijn?\"\n\nOnder het graven stootte Joe's mes op een hard voorwerp.\n\n\"Heila!\"\n\n\"Wat is het?\" vroeg zijn kameraad.\n\n\"Een half verrotte plank,--neen, het is een kist, geloof ik. Kom,\nhelp een handje en wij zullen zien wat het is. Pas op, ik heb er een\ngat in gestooten.\"\n\nHij reikte hem de behulpzame hand en zij trokken het voorwerp naar\nboven.\n\n\"Man, het is geld!\"\n\nDe beide mannen haalden een handvol klinkende munt voor den dag. Het\nwaren goudstukken. De jongens boven hun hoofd waren even opgewonden\nen verrukt als zij.\n\nJoe's kameraad zeide:\n\n\"We zullen eens gauw zien hoeveel er in zit. Wacht, ik heb in een hoek\nonder den schoorsteen een roestige bijl onder het onkruid zien liggen.\"\n\nHij liep weg en haalde de bijl en spade der knapen. Injun Joe nam\nde bijl op, bekeek haar nauwkeurig, schudde het hoofd, mompelde iets\ntusschen zijne tanden en ging er toen mede aan het werk.\n\nDe kist was spoedig opgedolven. Zij was niet zeer groot, met ijzer\nbeslagen en moest zeer sterk geweest zijn, voordat de tijd haar\nbeschadigd had. De mannen beschouwden den schat een poos onder zalig\nstilzwijgen.\n\n\"Kameraad, er zitten duizend dollars in!\" zeide Injun Joe.\n\n\"Zij zeggen, dat de rooverbende van Murrel hier een zomer heeft\nrondgezworven,\" merkte de vreemdeling op.\n\n\"Dat weet ik wel,\" zeide Injun Joe, \"en nu ik dit zie, geloof ik\nhet bepaald.\"\n\n\"Nu behoeven wij die andere karwei immers niet te doen,\" zeide\nde ander.\n\nDe kleurling fronste het voorhoofd en zeide:\n\n\"Je kent me niet, of je weet niet van die zaak. 't Is niet om te\nstelen,--maar om wraak te nemen!\" En er flikkerde een boosaardig licht\nin zijne oogen. \"Ik heb je hulp er bij noodig. Zoodra het geschied\nis, gaan wij naar Texas. Ga jij maar naar huis, naar je wijf en je\nkinderen, en wacht totdat je van mij hoort.\"\n\n\"Nu, als je het zegt, zal ik het doen. Wat zullen wij met deze kist\nuitvoeren? Haar weder begraven?\"\n\n\"Ja!\" (Een inwendig gejuich op de bovenverdieping). \"Neen, bij\nden grooten Sachem, neen!\" (Een diepe neerslachtigheid boven.) \"Ik\nhad het haast vergeten: op die bijl zit versche aarde.\" (De knapen\nbeefden van schrik). \"Wat doen hier een bijl en een spade? Hoe zit\ner versche aarde aan? Wie heeft die hier gebracht, en waar zijn zij\nheengegaan? Heb je niemand gehoord of gezien?--Wat! die kist weer\nbegraven en permissie geven om hier te komen, on te zien dat de vloer\nomgewoeld is? Dat nu niet bepaald!--niet bepaald! Wij zullen de kist\nmedenemen naar mijn hol!\"\n\n\"Dat is goed. Jammer dat wij dit niet eerder bedacht hebben. Gij\nmeent numero \u00e9\u00e9n?\"\n\n\"Neen,\" \"numero twee,\"--onder het kruis. De andere plaats is te slecht\nen te gemeen.\"\n\n\"Goed; 't is bijna donker genoeg om te vertrekken.\"\n\nInjun Joe stond op, ging van het eene raam naar het andere en zag\nvoorzichtig naar buiten. Daarop zeide hij:\n\n\"Wie zou dit gereedschap hier gebracht hebben? Denk je, dat ze boven\nkunnen zijn?\"\n\nDe knapen hielden hun adem in. Injun Joe legde zijne hand op zijn\nmes, hield een oogenblik besluiteloos stil en stapte toen naar\nde trap. De knapen dachten aan het kabinetje, maar hun kracht was\ngebroken. Voetstappen kraakten op de trap.--De vreeselijke toestand,\nwaarin zij zich bevonden, wakkerde de laatste vonk van moed in hun hart\nnog eens op;--zij waren op het punt om in het kabinetje te springen,\ntoen zij een gekraak van verrot hout hoorden. Injun Joe lag op den\ngrond, onder de brokstukken der vermolmde trap! Hij stond op met een\nvloek en zijn kameraad zeide:\n\n\"Nu, wat doet er dat toe of er iemand boven is;--laten zij er\nblijven--wat raakt het! Indien zij naar beneden willen springen en\nden nek breken--wie belet het hun? Het zal binnen vijftien minuten\ndonker zijn-- en dan kunnen zij ons volgen, indien zij willen; ik ben\ngereed hen te ontvangen. Ik geloof, dat de lui die deze dingen hier\nin gesleept hebben, ons hebben gezien en ons voor duivels of spoken\nof zoo iets hebben gehouden. Ik wed, dat zij nog aan den haal zijn.\"\n\nJoe mompelde eenige onverstaanbare klanken en toen stemde hij met\nzijn kameraad in, om van het karige daglicht gebruik te maken en te\nvertrekken. Kort daarna slopen zij in de schemering het huis uit en\nstapten met hunne kostbare lading naar de rivier.\n\nTom en Huck stonden bevend, maar met een gevoel van verlichting op en\nstaarden hen door de reten tusschen de planken na. Volgen? Neen! Zij\nwaren tevreden, toen zij den vasten bodem weder bereikten en zonder\nden nek gebroken te hebben, over den heuvel naar huis konden gaan. Zij\nspraken niet veel, daar zij te zeer verdiept waren in zelfverwijt\nen woede tegen het noodlot, dat hun de spade en de bijl daar had\ndoen neerzetten. Indien die er niet gestaan hadden, zou Injun Joe\nnooit argwaan gekoesterd hebben. Hij zou het zilver met het goud\ndaar verborgen hebben, totdat hij aan zijn plan van wraakneming had\nvoldaan. En dan zou hij ondervonden hebben, wat het zegt een schat\nniet meer te vinden. 't Was een bitter noodlot, dat het gereedschap\ndaar gebracht had. Zij besloten een oog te houden op den Spanjaard,\nwanneer hij naar de stad zou gaan, om zijne kans voor zijn wraakzuchtig\nplan waar te nemen en namen zich voor \"numero twee\" op te sporen,\nwaar het ook zijn mocht.\n\nOp eens schoot Tom eene vreeselijke gedachte door de ziel.\n\n\"Wraak! Wat, indien hij ons bedoelt, Huck?\"\n\n\"O, neen,\" zeide Huck, en viel bijna flauw van schrik.\n\nZij praatten nog geruimen tijd over het vreeselijk geval, en toen\nzij de stad binnentraden, kwamen zij tot het besluit te gelooven,\ndat het ook wel iemand anders kon zijn,--ten minste dat hij niemand\nanders kon bedoelen dan Tom, daar deze de eenige was geweest die\ngetuigenis had afgelegd.\n\nHet was een zeer magere troost voor Tom, dat hij alleen maar in gevaar\nwas. Gezelschap zou naar zijne meening verkieslijker zijn geweest.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XXVIII.\n\n\nTom werd dien nacht in zijne droomen vreeselijk gekweld door het\navontuur van den vorigen dag. Vier malen had hij zijne handen op\nden kostbaren schat gelegd en vier malen ook gleed die, wanneer de\nslaap hem begaf en het ontwaken hem tot de werkelijkheid terugbracht,\ntusschen zijn vingers door.\n\nToen hij in den vroegen morgen al die bizonderheden van die\nmerkwaardige gebeurtenis nog eens voor den geest riep, scheen ze hem\nwonderbaar ver af en lang geleden, alsof zij in een andere wereld\nof in een lang verloopen tijdperk had plaats gehad. De gedachte kwam\nzelfs in hem op, dat het groote avontuur misschien niets geweest was\ndan een droom. Er was een krachtige bewijsgrond voor dat denkbeeld bij\nte brengen, deze namelijk, dat de hoeveelheid muntspecie, die zijne\noogen hadden aanschouwd, te kolossaal was om werkelijkheid te wezen.\n\nHij had nooit in zijn leven vijftig dollars bijeen gezien en hij\ngeleek daarin op alle knapen van zijn leeftijd en stand. In zijn\nverbeelding werden de woorden \"honderden\" en \"duizenden\" alleen maar\nbij manier van spreken gebruikt en bestonden er zulke sommen in de\nwereld niet. Hij vermoedde geen oogenblik, dat een zoo groote som,\nals meer dan honderd dollars in klinkende munt, in iemands bezit\nkon zijn. Indien hij zijn begrip van een verborgen schat had moeten\nontleden, zou hij gezegd hebben, dat deze bestond uit een handvol\ndollars en een schepel prachtige, andere munten.\n\nLangzamerhand echter onder het overdenken werden de bijzonderheden van\nzijn avontuur scherper en klaarder, en eindelijk kreeg de gedachte,\ndat het toch geen droom was geweest, bij hem de overhand. Aan deze\nonzekerheid moest een einde gemaakt worden. Hij zou haastig zijn\nboterham eten en dan Huck opzoeken.\n\nHuck zat aan dolboord van een plat vaartuig, achteloos met zijn voeten\nin het water te schoppen en zag er zeer droefgeestig uit. Tom besloot\nte wachten, totdat Huck over de zaak zou beginnen. Als hij dat niet\ndeed, was het avontuur slechts een droom geweest.\n\n\"Heila, Huck!\"\n\n\"Heila, jij!\"\n\nEen oogenblik stilte.\n\n\"Tom, indien wij dit vervloekte gereedschap bij den dooden boom\ngelaten hadden, was het geld reeds ons. O, is het niet vreeselijk?\"\n\n\"'t Is dus geen droom? Geen droom? Toch zou ik haast willen, dat het\ner een was; ja 'k mag een boon zijn, als ik het niet wou!\"\n\n\"Wat is geen droom?\"\n\n\"O, dat ding van gisteren. Ik denk soms half, dat alles een droom is.\"\n\n\"Een droom? Indien die trappen niet kapot waren gegaan, zou je eens\ngezien hebben of het een droom was! Ik droom 's nachts al genoeg van\ndien Spanjaard met zijn ooglappen; hij vervolgt mij overal. Ik wou\ndat hij stikte.\"\n\n\"Neen, niet stikken. Wij moeten hem vinden. Het geld opsporen!\"\n\n\"Tom, wij zullen den schat nooit vinden. Een mensch heeft maar eens\neen kans voor zoo'n hoop geld, en die hebben wij verspeeld. Ik zou\nbeven als ik hem zag.\"\n\n\"Ik ook; maar ik zou hem toch graag zien en naspeuren--naar zijn\n'nommer twee.'\"\n\n\"Nommer twee, ja, dat is het. Ik heb er over loopen denken, maar ik\nkan het niet uitmaken. Wat denk jij, dat het is?\"\n\n\"Ik weet het niet. 't Is mij te geheimzinnig, Huck. Zou het ook het\nnummer van een huis kunnen zijn?\"\n\n\"Onmogelijk! Neen, Tom, dat is het niet. Indien het dat is, dan is\nhet niet in dit kleine stadje: hier zijn geen nummers.\"\n\n\"Ja, dat is waar. Laat mij even bedenken! Wacht--het is een nommer\nvan een kamer in een herberg!\"\n\n\"O, daar zul je het hebben! Er zijn hier maar twee kroegen. Wij kunnen\ndat spoedig uitvinden!\"\n\n\"Blijf jij hier, Huck, totdat ik terug ben!\"\n\nTom was op eens verdwenen, daar hij op publieke plaatsen niet gaarne\nmet Huck gezien werd.\n\nBinnen een half uur had hij ontdekt, dat in de voornaamste herberg\nkamer \"nommer twee\" bewoond werd door een jong advocaat. In de andere,\neen logement van den derden rang, was aan een der logeerkamers iets\ngeheimzinnigs verbonden. Het zoontje van den herbergier zeide, dat\ndie kamer altijd op slot was, en dat hij er nooit iemand had zien in-\nof uitgaan, behalve des nachts. Waarom dit geschiedde, wist hij niet;\nwel betuigde hij soms verlangd te hebben er achter te komen, doch hij\nwas er niet zoo bijzonder nieuwsgierig naar, en stelde zich tevreden\nmet te gelooven dat het in die kamer spookte. Verder vertelde hij\nook nog, dat hij er den vorigen nacht een licht had zien branden.\n\n\"Dat is alles wat ik te weten ben gekomen, Huck. Ik geloof, dat wij\nhet wezenlijke 'nummer twee' gevonden hebben.\"\n\n\"Ik vermoed het ook. Wat zullen we doen?\"\n\n\"Laat mij eens bedenken.\"\n\nTom bedacht zich een geruimen tijd. Toen zeide hij:\n\n\"Ik zal het je zeggen. De achterdeur van dat 'nummer twee' komt uit\nin dat kleine steegje tusschen de herberg en die oude trap van den\nkalkoven. Nu moet je al de deursleutels opsnorren die jij krijgen\nkunt, en ik zal die van tante wegkapen, en in den eersten donkeren\nnacht den besten zullen wij ze gaan probeeren. En denk er aan, dat je\nop den uitkijk blijft naar Injun Joe, omdat hij gezegd heeft dat hij\nin de stad zou komen en nog op een kans zou loeren om aan zijn wraak\nte voldoen. Als je hem ziet, moet je hem volgen; en als hij niet naar\n'nummer twee' gaat, dan is dat de plaats niet.\"\n\n\"Tom, ik durf hem niet alleen volgen.\"\n\n\"Och kom; 't is natuurlijk nacht. Hij zal je misschien niet eens zien;\nen als hij dat doet, zal hij je toch niet verdenken.\"\n\n\"Nu, als het donker is, zal ik hem misschien volgen. Maar ik weet\nhet nog niet zeker. Ik zal zien wat ik doe.\"\n\n\"Wedden, Huck, dat _ik_ hem wel volg, als het donker is. Hij\nkon waarachtig wel eens geen gelegenheid hebben om zijn plan tot\nwraakneming ten uitvoer te brengen en zou hij op zijn geld afgaan.\"\n\n\"Je hebt gelijk, Tom, je hebt gelijk! Ik zal hem volgen. Sapperloot,\ndat zal ik!\"\n\n\"Nu praat je naar mijn zin! Geef den moed niet op, Huck, en ik zal\nhet ook niet doen.\"\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XXIX.\n\n\nDienzelfden avond waren Huck en Tom van zessen klaar on het waagstuk\nte ondernemen. Zij bleven tot na negen uren in de buurt der herberg\nomhangen, terwijl de een bij de steeg en de ander bij de deur der\nherberg wacht hield. Niemand ging het straatje in of uit; niemand\ndie op den Spanjaard geleek, stapte naar de herberg of kwam er\nvandaan. Daar de nacht beloofde zeer helder te zijn, ging Tom naar\nhuis met de afspraak, dat indien het onverhoopt nog donker werd, Huck\nzou komen \"miauwen,\" en hij de deur zou uitsluipen en de sleutels\nprobeeren. Doch de nacht bleef onbewolkt en Huck gaf het wachthouden\nop en ging tegen middernacht in een leege suikerton slapen.\n\nDinsdag hadden de knapen denzelfden tegenspoed. Woensdag ook. Doch\nDonderdagnacht beloofde beter te zijn. Tom sloop ter goeder ure met\ntantes dievenlantarentje de deur uit en nam een grooten handdoek met\nzich, om daarmede het licht te bedekken. Hij verborg de lantaarn in\nHucks suikerton en het wachthouden begon.\n\nTegen elf uren werd de herberg gesloten en werden de lichten, de eenige\nuit de geheele buurt, uitgedaan. Geen Spanjaard werd er gezien. Niemand\nwas het steegje in- of uitgegaan. Alles was gunstig. Overal zwarte\nduisternis en doodelijke stilte, alleen afgewisseld door het verwijderd\ngerommel van den donder.\n\nTom nam zijn lantaren, stak haar in de ton aan en bedekte haar\nzorgvuldig met den handdoek, en de avonturiers kropen in de duisternis\nnaar de herberg. Huck bleef op schildwacht staan en Tom liep op den\ntast de steeg in.\n\nAl wachtende voelde Huck zich door een doodelijken angst gedrukt en\nhunkerde hij naar het oogenblik, waarop hij een straaltje van Toms\nlantaarn zou zien, opdat hij een teeken mocht hebben dat zijn kameraad\nnog leefde. Uren schenen voorbijgegaan sedert Tom was verdwenen. Hij\nwas zeker flauw gevallen, wellicht dood; misschien was hem van angst\nen schrik het hart gebroken. In zijn angst ging Huck hoe langer hoe\ndichter bij de steeg staan, in vreeze van allerlei ontzettende dingen\nte zullen zien en elk oogenblik verwachtende dat er een ongeluk zou\nkomen, dat hem den laatsten adem zou doen uitblazen. Daarvoor was niet\nveel noodig, want hij scheen nauwelijks in staat een vingerhoedje adem\nte halen, en zijn hart bonsde zoo geweldig, dat het welhaast moest\nbarsten. Plotseling zag hij een lichtstraal en fluisterde Tom hem in\n't oor:\n\n\"Loop! loop, als ge uw leven liefhebt!\"\n\nHij behoefde het niet te herhalen; eenmaal was genoeg. Huck was\nin vliegenden galop voortgeijld eer het woord ten tweeden male was\nuitgesproken. De knapen hielden niet stil, eer zij de loods van een\nverlaten slachthuis hadden bereikt. Juist toen zij deze schuilplaats\ngevonden hadden, barstte het onweder los en stroomde de regen naar\nbinnen. Zoodra Tom weder kon ademhalen, zeide hij:\n\n\"Huck, het was verschrikkelijk! Ik probeerde twee of drie sleutels,\nzoo zacht als ik kon, maar zij maakten zulk een drommelsch geraas,\ndat ik van schrik nauwelijks op mijne beenen kon blijven staan. Ik\nkon het slot ook niet omdraaien. Op eens bemerkte ik, dat ik den knop\nvasthield en dat de deur openging. Zij was niet dicht geweest. Ik\nstrompelde naar binnen, nam den handdoek van de lantaarn en--o,\ngroote geest van Cesar....!\"\n\n\"Wat--wat zag je, Tom?\"\n\n\"Huck, ik was bijna op de hand gestapt van Injun Joe!\"\n\n\"'t Is toch niet waar?\"\n\n\"Ja wel. Hij lag daar, met den groenen lap op zijn oog en uitgestrekte\narmen op den vloer te slapen.\"\n\n\"Heere, Heere! En wat heb je toen gedaan? Werd hij wakker?\"\n\n\"Neen, hij bewoog zich niet. Zeker dronken. Ik greep den handdoek en\nijlde weg.\"\n\n\"Waarachtig, ik zou niet eens aan den handdoek gedacht hebben!\"\n\n\"Nu, ik wel. Tante zou mij krijgen, als ik hem verloren had.\"\n\n\"Zeg, eens, Tom, heb je de kist gezien?\"\n\n\"Huck, ik heb niet gewacht on rond te kijken; ik heb de kist niet\ngezien en ik heb het kruis niet gezien. Ik zag niets dan een flesch\nen een tinnen kroes op den grond naast Injun Joe. Ja toch, ik zag\ntwee vaatjes en een menigte flesschen in de kamer. Vat je nu niet,\nwat ze in die spookkamer uitvoeren?\"\n\n\"Wat dan?\"\n\n\"Wel, zij spookt van de brandewijnvaatjes, 't Is best mogelijk,\ndat al de Matigheidsherbergen zoo'n spookkamer hebben, Huck.\"\n\n\"Ja, dat kan wel. Wie zou dat ooit gedacht hebben! Maar Tom, 't is\nnu juist een allemachtig goed oogenblik on de kist te krijgen, als\nInjun Joe dronken is.\"\n\n\"Dat is waar! Wil je het probeeren?\"\n\nHuck sidderde.\n\n\"Neen, liever niet.\"\n\n\"Ik ook niet, Huck. E\u00e9n flesch naast Injun Joe is niet genoeg. Indien\ner drie gestaan hadden, zou ik het gedaan hebben.\"\n\nEr volgde een lange pauze; eindelijk zeide Tom: \"Zie eens Huck,\nik geloof dat het beter is, dat zaakje niet te probeeren, totdat we\nweten dat Injun Joe er niet is. 't Is te vreeselijk.--Nu, indien wij\nelken nacht de wacht houden, kunnen wij er zeker van zijn, hem den\nof anderen tijd de kamer te zien uitgaan, en dan zullen wij de kist\ner zoo gauw mogelijk uithalen.\"\n\n\"Uitmuntend. Ik zal den heelen nachten waken en zal dat de eerste\nweken blijven doen, als jij het andere deel van de karwei op je neemt.\"\n\n\"Goed, ik beloof het je. Al wat jij te doen hebt, is op een draf te\nloopen naar Hooper-street en te miauwen; en als ik slaap, gooi je\nmaar wat zand tegen het raam, dan word ik wel wakker.\n\n\"Best, dat blijft afgesproken.\"\n\n\"Nu, Huck, het onweder is voorbij en ik ga naar huis. Over een paar\nuren breekt de dag aan. Jij gaat terug en blijft wachten, niet waar?\"\n\n\"Ik heb gezegd, Tom, dat ik het doen zal en ik zal het doen. Ik zal een\njaar lang om de herberg blijven ronddolen. Ik zal over dag slapen en\n's nachts waken.\"\n\n\"Dat is goed. Waar ga je dan slapen?\"\n\n\"In de hooischuur van Ben Rogers. Hij laat mij dat vrij doen, en de\nzwarte knecht van zijn ouden heer, oom Jack, vindt het ook goed. Ik\ndraag wel eens water voor oom Jack, en hij geeft mij, als hij het\nmissen kan, nu en dan een beetje eten. 't Is een verduiveld goede\nnikker, die Jack, Tom!--Hij houdt van mij, omdat ik niet altijd\ndoe alsof ik voornamer ben dan hij. Wij hebben ook wel eens samen\ngegeten. Maar dat moet je niet vertellen. Een mensch doet soms dingen,\nals hij honger heeft, die hij laten zou, als hij altijd genoeg kreeg.\"\n\n\"Nu, als ik je over dag niet noodig heb, Huck, zal ik je laten\nslapen. Ik zal je niet komen plagen. Als je 's nachts wat ziet,\nloop dan even aan om te miauwen.\"\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XXX.\n\n\nHet eerste wat Tom Vrijdagochtend hoorde was een heerlijke tijding: de\nfamilie Thatcher was den vorigen avond in de stad teruggekomen. Beiden\nInjun Joe en de schat werden voor het oogenblik van ondergeschikt\nbelang en Becky nam de voornaamste plaats in het hart van den knaap\nin. Hij kwam haar tegen en zij hadden een oneindig genot met elkaar\nin het spelen van \"verstoppertje\" en \"slootje springen.\" De dag\neindigde op een bijzonder prettige wijs. Becky smeekte hare moeder,\nden volgenden dag voor de lang beloofde en lang uitgestelde pic-nic\nvast te stellen, en deze stemde toe. De vreugde der kleine kende geen\npalen en Tom was niet minder uitgelaten. Voor zonsondergang waren de\nuitnoodigingen rondgezonden en onmiddellijk daarop was de jeugd van\nSt. Petersburg in eene koortsachtige opgewondenheid over de pret,\ndie haar te wachten stond. Tom kon niet slapen van pleizier en hij\nleefde in de hoop Huck te hooren \"miauwen\" en zijn schat te krijgen,\nom daarmede Becky en de pic-nickers den volgenden dag in verbazing\nte brengen. Maar hij werd teleurgesteld. Er kwam dien nacht geen\nteeken. Eindelijk daagde de morgen en tusschen tien en elf uren\nvereenigde zich ten huize van den heer Thatcher een hoop dartele,\nstoeiende jongens en meisjes en was alles tot vertrekken gereed.\n\nHet was toenmaals de gewoonte niet van bejaarde lieden, om\nbuitenpartijen door hunne tegenwoordigheid te bederven. De kinderen\nwerden veilig geacht onder de vleugelen van een paar jonge dames van\nachttien en van een paar jonge heeren van drie- of vier en twintig\njaren.\n\nDe oude stoomboot was voor de gelegenheid afgehuurd, en toen al de\ngenoodigden bijeen waren, stapte de vroolijke troep, met manden vol\nproviand, door de hoofdstraat naar de rivier. Sid was ongesteld en\nliep het pretje mis, en Marie bleef bij hem te huis. Bij het afscheid\nnemen zeide mevrouw Thatcher tot Becky:\n\n\"Je zult wel wat laat tehuis komen. Misschien was het wel beter\ndat je bij een van de meisjes bleeft slapen, die het dichtst bij de\nkade woont.\"\n\n\"Dan zal ik maar bij Suze Harper blijven, mama.\"\n\n\"Goed, maar gedraag je behoorlijk en wees niet lastig.\"\n\nOnder de wandeling zeide Tom tot Becky:\n\n\"Hoor eens: ik zal je vertellen wat wij zullen doen. In plaats van naar\nde Harpers te gaan, zullen wij den heuvel beklimmen en in het huis\nvan de weduwe Douglas overnachten. Zij zal wel room-ijs hebben. Zij\nheeft het bijna elken dag, bij massa's, ja, bij hoopen! En zij zal\nblij zijn, als zij ons ziet.\"\n\n\"O, dat zal grappig zijn!\" riep Becky uit. Doch een oogenblik later\nhernam zij:\n\n\"Maar wat zal mama zeggen?\"\n\n\"Hoe zal zij het te weten komen?\"\n\nHet meisje overdacht de zaak nog eens en zeide aarzelend:\n\n\"Ik geloof, dat het verkeerd is, maar....\"\n\n\"Och, kom, het is geen lor waard! Je moeder zal het niet te weten\nkomen. En wat steekt er in? Al wat zij verlangt, is dat je op een\nveilige plaats zult zijn, en ik wed dat, indien zij er aan gedacht\nhad, ze je geraden zou hebben naar de weduwe te gaan. Ja, ik weet\ndat zij dat gedaan zou hebben!\"\n\nHet heerlijke gastvrije dak der weduwe Douglas was een verleidelijk\nlokaas. Het bleef dan ook, met Toms overredingen, overwinnaar. Er werd\nderhalve besloten niemand iets van het programma voor den nacht mede\nte deelen. Opeens schoot Tom te binnen, dat Huck dien nacht wel eens\nkon komen, om het teeken te geven. Deze gedachte bracht een gevoeligen\nschok aan zijne blijde verwachtingen. Toch kon hij er niet toe komen\nhet pretje bij de weduwe Douglas er aan te geven. En waarom zou hij\ndat doen? Het teeken was den vorigen nacht niet gekomen. Waarom zou\nhet dan juist dezen nacht gebeuren? De zekere pret van dezen avond\nwoog nog zwaarder dan de onzekere schat; en als een echte jongen\nbesloot hij aan den sterksten lust toe te geven en zich op te leggen,\ndien dag niet meer aan de geldkist te denken.\n\nDrie mijlen voorbij de stad werd de boot bij een boschrijk dal ter\nreede gelegd. Het gezelschap verdrong zich naar den oever en weldra\nweerklonken de wouden en rotsige hoogten wijd en zijd van het gejubel\nder kinderen. Alle middelen om moede en bezweet te worden werden in\npraktijk gebracht, totdat men zich eindelijk bij het kamp verzamelde en\nmet flinken eetlust gewapend, op de medegebrachte proviand aanviel. Na\nden maaltijd ging men over tot een verkwikkend rust- en praatuurtje\nonder de schaduw der breedgetakte eiken. Na een wijle jubelde eene\nstem:\n\n\"Wie gaat er mede naar de grot?\"\n\n\"Iedereen!\" Dadelijk werden er pakken met waskaarsen voor den dag\ngehaald en onmiddellijk daarop werd de heuvel beklommen. De ingang\nder grot lag aan de helling van den berg en was kenbaar aan eene\nopening in den vorm van de letter A. De zware eikenhouten deur\nstond open. Door deze kwam men in een klein kamertje, kil als een\nijskelder en door de natuur met stevige, vochtige kalksteenen muren\nomringd. Het was hoogst belangwekkend en geheimzinnig om daar in de\ndiepe duisternis te staan en dan het gezicht te hebben op de groene,\ndoor de zon beschenen vallei. Doch de indruk van dit tooneel werd\nspoedig vergeten en het stoeien hervat. Zoodra er een kaars werd\naangestoken, werd de bezitter aangevallen, 't geen een worsteling\nen dappere verdediging ten gevolge had. Maar de kaars was spoedig op\nden grond geworpen en uitgeblazen, waarop een luid gejuich ontstond\nen eene nieuwe vervolging. Doch aan alle lofzangen komt een einde\nen de stoet rukte op naar den hoofdtoegang, terwijl de flikkerende\nkaarsen de reusachtige rotsgewelven, waar deze zich zestig voet boven\nhet hoofd aaneensloten, flauw te zien gaven. De hoofdtoegang zelf was\nten hoogste acht of tien voet breed. Bij elke trede werden nieuwe en\nengere rotsspleten ontdekt. De grot van Mc. Douglas was dan ook een\ndoolhof van gangen, die in het oneindige in en uit elkander liepen\nen nergens heen leidden. Men vertelde, dat men dagen en nachten door\ndit labyrinth van spleten en gangen kon dwalen, zonder den uitgang\nder grot te vinden, en dat, naarmate men dieper naar beneden ging,\nhet onveranderlijk hetzelfde bleef: doolhof onder doolhof en alle\nzonder einde. Niemand kende de grot geheel, dit behoorde tot de\nonmogelijkheden. De meeste jongelieden hadden er een gedeelde van\ngezien en het was niet gebruikelijk zich ooit verder dat dit bekend\nterrein te wagen. Tom Sawyer wist al evenveel van de spelonk als\niedereen.\n\nDe stoet bewoog zich omstreeks drie kwartier langs den hoofdgang voort\nen langzamerhand begonnen enkele paren in zijgangen weg te sluipen,\ndoor donkere gaanderijen te kruipen en elkaar bij verrassing te\novervallen, op punten waar de gangen weder in elkander liepen. Een\npaar slaagden er in zich een half uur te verstoppen, zonder van het\nbezochte grondgebied te zijn afgeweken.\n\nVan lieverlede kwam de eene groep na de andere, jubelend, hijgende naar\nadem, van het hoofd tot de voeten met afgedropen kaarsvet besmeerd\nen uitgelaten van de pret, terug. Zij waren verbaasd te bemerken,\ndat zij aan tijd noch ruimte gedacht hadden en dat de avond viel. De\nbel der stoomboot had reeds een half uur haar schel geklingel doen\nhooren, doch, 't was zoo heerlijk, zoo romantisch den dag op deze\nwijs te besluiten. En toen de boot met hare luidruchtige bemanning\nvan wal stak, was de kapitein de eenige, die er geen schik in had,\ndat het reeds zoo laat was geworden.\n\nHuck stond op zijn post, toen de lichten der veerboot langs de kade\nflikkerden. Hij hoorde geen gerucht aan boord, want de jongeluidjes\nwaren vreedzaam en stil, zooals doodmoede lieden gewoonlijk zijn. Hij\nwas wel verlangend te weten, welke boot dit zijn kon en waarom\nzij niet aan de kade aanlegde,--maar zijne gedachten bepaalden\nzich niet lang bij dit onderwerp, en hij was weldra geheel in zijn\neigen aangelegenheden verdiept. De nacht werd donker en de lucht was\nbewolkt. Het werd gaandeweg tien uren en alle geraas van rijtuigen\nen voetstappen hield op; de schaarsche lichten werden al flauwer;\nde nog op straat slenterende voetgangers verdwenen en de stad ging\nde nachtrust in en liet den kleinen waker met de eenzaamheid en de\nspoken alleen.\n\nHet sloeg elf uren en de lichten in de herberg werden uitgedaan en\nnu heerschte er duisternis alom.\n\nHuck wachtte, naar het hem toescheen, een eindeloos langen tijd,\ndoch er gebeurde niets. Zijn vertrouwen begon te wankelen. Was het\nde moeite waard? Was het werkelijk de moeite waard? Waarom zou hij\nhet niet opgeven en naar bed gaan?\n\nPlotseling vernam zijn oor een geluid. In een oogenblik\nwas hij geheel aandacht. De deur in het steegje werd zachtjes\ndichtgedaan. Onmiddellijk kroop hij in een hoek bij den kalkoven. Het\nvolgende oogenblik slopen twee mannen langs hem heen, van wie de een\niets onder zijn arm scheen te dragen. Het moest de kist zijn! Zij\ngingen dus den schat verplaatsen! Waarom zou hij Tom nu roepen? Het\nzou een dwaasheid wezen!--De mannen zouden met de kist wegloopen en zij\nzou nooit gevonden worden. Neen, hij zou blijven waken en hen volgen;\nhij zou zich aan de duisternis toevertrouwen, als een waarborg tegen\nontdekking. Deze dingen bij zich zelven overleggende, sloop hij stil\nvoort en kroop voorzichtig als een kat, blootsvoets achter de mannen\naan, terwijl hij hen zoover voor zich uit liet gaan dat hij hen nog\njuist in het gezicht had.\n\nZij slopen de op de rivier uitloopende straat door en sloegen toen\nlinks af, eene zijstraat in. Daarna gingen zij rechtuit, totdat\nzij aan het pad kwamen, dat naar Cardiff Hill leidde. Dit werd\ningeslagen en zij stapten al maar voort, tot nabij het huis van den\nouden boschwachter, dat halverwege den heuvel gelegen was.\n\n\"Goed,\" dacht Huck, \"zij zullen den schat in de oude steengroeve\nbegraven.\" Maar zij hielden niet eens bij de steengroeve stil. Zij\ngingen door naar den top. Toen kozen zij een zijpaadje tusschen de\ngroote sumakboomen en waren op eens in de duisternis verdwenen. Huck\nversnelde zijn pas en liet minder ruimte tusschen hen en zich zelven;\nzij konden hem thans immers onmogelijk zien. Hij draafde een poosje,\nging toen weder wat langzamer; uit vrees van te ver te zullen, loopen,\nliep zachtjes weer een eindje door en hield toen stil. Hij luisterde,\ngeen geluid, behalve het gebons van zijn eigen hart. Daar werd op\neens over den heuvel het zuchten van een uil vernomen.\n\nOnheilspellend geluid! Maar geen voetstappen. Hemel! was alles\nverloren? Hij was op het punt met gevleugelde voeten weg te snellen,\ntoen hij, geen vier pas van zich af, een man hoorde hoesten. Het\nhart schoot den knaap in de keel, doch hij bekwam weder. Toch beefde\nhij, alsof hem een dozijn koortsen op het lijf werden gejaagd, en\nhij stond zoo wankel op zijne beenen, dat hij bepaald dacht op den\ngrond te zullen vallen. Hij wist waar hij was. Het was hem bekend,\ndat hij zich op vijf treden afstand bevond van het hek, dat hem naar\nde landerijen van de weduwe Douglas bracht.\n\n\"Heel goed,\" dacht hij, \"laten zij den schat hier begraven dan zal\nhij niet moeilijk te vinden zijn.\"\n\nThans werd er een zachte, zeer zachte stem gehoord;--het was die van\nInjun Joe.\n\n\"Godv....! zij heeft zeker gezelschap: er is nog licht aan, zoo laat\nals het is.\"\n\n\"Ik zie geen lichten.\"\n\nDit was de stem van dien vreemdeling,--den vreemdeling uit het\nspookhuis. Een ijskoude rilling voor Huck door de leden. Dus dit was de\ndag der wrake! Zijne eerste gedachte was te vluchten. Toen schoot hem\nte binnen, dat de weduwe Douglas meer dan eens vriendelijk geweest was\nen het kon zijn, dat deze mannen plan hadden haar te vermoorden. Hij\nzou zoo gaarne moed gehad hebben om haar te waarschuwen, maar hij\nwist dat hij het niet durfde;--zij mochten hem eens beetpakken.\n\nHij overdacht dit alles en meer nog in het oogenblik, dat verliep\ntusschen de opmerking van den vreemdeling en het antwoord van Injun\nJoe, hetwelk aldus luidde:\n\n\"Omdat het kreupelhout je in den weg staat. Kom dezen kant uit.--Zie\nje het nu?\"\n\n\"Ja, zeker, er zijn menschen. Ik geloof dat het beter is, het op\nte geven.\"\n\n\"Opgeven? Juist nu ik dit land voor altijd ga verlaten! Het\nopgeven,--om nooit weer een kans te krijgen. Ik zeg je nog eens,\nwat ik je al meer gezegd heb, dat ik niets om den buit geef;--dien\nmag jij hebben. Maar haar man heeft mij gemeen behandeld--en meer\ndan eens, en vooral daarin dat hij, die vrederechter was, mij als\neen vagebond in de gevangenis heeft gezet. En dat niet alles. Dat is\nniet het millioenste deel. Hij heeft mij laten geeselen!--geeselen,\nvlak voor de gevangenis, als een neger, terwijl de geheele stad er\nnaar stond te kijken. Geeselen, versta je het? Hij is mij voor geweest\nen is gestorven. Maar zij zal er voor boeten.\"\n\n\"Och, vermoord haar niet! Doe het niet!\"\n\n\"Vermoorden? Wie spreekt van vermoorden? Ik zou hem vermoorden,\nals hij hier was; maar haar niet. Wanneer men zich op eene vrouw\nwreekt, vermoordt men haar niet:--ba! maar men berooft haar van hare\nschoonheden. Men snijdt haar de neusgaten in twee\u00ebn;--men kerft haar\nde ooren als een varken!\"\n\n\"Bij God, dat is...\"\n\n\"Houd je gevoelens voor je, dat is je geraden! Ik zal haar aan haar\nbed vastbinden. Als zij doodbloedt, kan ik het helpen? Ik zal er mij\nniet naar over maken. Vriendje, je zult mij in dit zaakje helpen--om\nmij te pleizieren; daarvoor ben je hier,--want 't kan zijn, dat ik het\nniet alleen af kan. Als je weifelt ben je een man des doods! Versta je\ndat? En indien ik jou doodmaak, is zij er ook om koud--en dan geloof\nik niet dat iemand ooit veel van deze zaak zal te weten komen.\"\n\n\"Wel, als het dan moet, laat ons er dan aan beginnen. Hoe eer hoe\nbeter;--ik beef als een riet!\"\n\n\"Het nu doen?--En er is gezelschap! Kijk eens hier: zorg, dat ik je\nniet ga mistrouwen! Neen,--wij zullen wachten, totdat de lichten uit\nzijn. Het heeft geen haast.\"\n\nHuck voelde, dat er een oogenblik van stilzwijgen zou volgen--en dat\nwas nog vreeselijker dan het moorddadig gesprek. Daarom hield hij\nzijn adem in, deed omzichtig een stap achteruit, zette behoedzaam\nzijn voet stevig neer, na heel gevaarlijk op \u00e9\u00e9n been te hebben staan\nbalanceeren en bijkans gevallen te zijn, eerst den eenen kant uit en\ntoen den anderen. Hij deed met dezelfde moeite en hetzelfde gevaar nog\neen stap achteruit; toen nog een en nog een.--Daar brak een tak onder\nzijn voet! Hij hield zijn adem in en luisterde. Hij vernam geen geluid;\nhet was volmaakt stil. Zijne dankbaarheid kende geen palen. Nu kwam\nhij in het sumakboschje;--daar wendde en keerde hij zich voorzichtig\nals een laveerend schip en stapte vervolgens haastig, maar behoedzaam\nvoort. Toen hij de steengroeve voorbij was, achtte hij zich veilig\nen zette het op een loopen. Hij ijlde al maar voort, totdat hij het\nhuis van den ouden boschwachter had bereikt. Daar klopte hij aan de\ndeur en weldra werden de hoofden van den ouden man en van zijn beide\nforschgespierde zonen voor de ramen zichtbaar.\n\n\"Wat een rumoer daar? Wie klopt er? Wat moet je?\"\n\n\"Laat mij binnen--en gauw ook. Ik zal alles vertellen.\"\n\n\"Wat? Wie ben je?\"\n\n\"Huckleberry Finn. Gauw, laat mij binnen!\"\n\n\"Huckleberry Finn, waarachtig! 't Is geen naam, waarvoor zich vele\ndeuren openen, geloof ik. Maar laat hem binnen, jongens, en laat ons\nzien wat er te doen is.\"\n\n\"Zeg het, als je blieft, nooit, dat ik je het verteld heb,\" waren\nHucks eerste woorden, toen hij binnentrad. \"Doe het als je blieft\nniet;--ik zal zeker vermoord worden; maar de weduwe is zoo goed voor\nmij geweest, en ik moet het zeggen;--ik zal het vertellen, als je\nmij belooft, dat je nooit zult zeggen dat ik het was.\"\n\n\"Bij den Hemel, hij heeft iets te vertellen, of hij zou zoo niet\nspreken!\" riep de oude man uit. \"Voor den dag er mee, en niemand zal\nhet verklappen.\"\n\nTien minuten later beklommen de oude man en zijne zonen, behoorlijk\ngewapend, den heuvel en stapten op hun teenen het pad der sumakboomen\nin. Huck vergezelde hen niet verder; hij verborg zich achter een\nrotsblok en luisterde.\n\nEr volgden eenige oogenblikken van lange, akelige stilte. Plotseling\nwerd er een geknal van vuurwapenen gehoord en een gil.\n\nHuck wachtte niet om eenige bijzonderheden te vernemen, maar ijlde\nzoo spoedig, als zijne beenen hem dragen konden, den heuvel af.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XXXI.\n\n\nZondagochtend voor dag en dauw kroop Huck reeds den berg op en klopte\naan de deur van den ouden boschwachter. De huisgenooten lagen nog te\nbed en sliepen een hazenslaap, tengevolge van de spanning waarin zij\neen gedeelte van den nacht hadden doorgebracht. Een stem riep uit\neen raam:\n\n\"Wie is daar?\"\n\nHuck antwoordde verschrikt, op zachten toon:\n\n\"Laat mij, als 't u blieft, binnen. Het is niemand dan Huck Finn.\"\n\n\"Dat is een naam voor welken de deur dag en nacht open staat!--Wees\nwelkom!\"\n\nDit waren vreemde woorden in de ooren van den jeugdigen vagebond\nen de liefelijkste die hij ooit had vernomen. Hij herinnerde zich\nniet de twee laatste immer gehoord te hebben. De deur werd haastig\nontsloten en de knaap trad binnen. Men gaf hem een stoel, en de oude\nman en zijne zonen kleedden zich in aller ijl aan.\n\n\"Nu, mijn jongen, ik hoop dat gij een goeden eetlust hebt meegebracht,\nwant wij gaan ontbijten zoodra de zon opkomt, en 't zal een brandend\nzonnetje zijn ook. Ik en de jongens hoopten al dat ge gisteren hier\nzoudt zijn teruggekeerd en in ons huis zoudt geslapen hebben.\"\n\n\"Ik was zoo vreeselijk geschrikt,\" zeide Huck, \"en ik heb het op\neen loopen gezet. Ik rende weg zoodra de pistolen afgingen, en ik\nholde drie mijlen ver voort, en ik ben nu gekomen omdat ik er iets\nvan weten wou. Ik kom voor het daglicht, omdat ik de duivels niet\ngraag tegen het lijf zou loopen, zelfs al zijn ze dood.\"\n\n\"Wel, arme jongen, je ziet er uit alsof je een akeligen nacht\ngehad hebt,--maar hier staat een bed voor je, wanneer je ontbeten\nhebt. Neen, zij zijn niet dood, jongen;--dat spijt ons genoeg. Wij\nwisten, door jouw beschrijving, waar wij de hand op hen moesten\nleggen. Wij kropen op de teenen voort, totdat wij omstreeks vijftien\npas van hen verwijderd waren--en 't pad der sumakboomen was zoo donker\nals een kelder--en juist toen voelde ik dat ik moest niezen. 't Was\nbitter ongelukkig; ik trachtte het in te houden, maar 't hielp niet:\nhet wilde komen en het kwam. Ik liep vooruit met opgeheven pistool en\ntoen het genies de schurken verschrikt uit het bosch deed opspringen,\nriep ik: 'Vuur jongens!' en schoot in de richting, waar het geritsel\nvandaan kwam. En dat deden de jongens ook, maar de schelmen waren in\neen ommezien weg en wij holden hen in het bosch achterna. Ik geloof,\ndat wij hen niet eens geraakt hebben. Toen wij stilhielden, schoten\nzij op ons, maar hunne kogels sisten langs ons heen, zonder ons te\nderen. Zoodra wij het geluid hunner voetstappen niet meer hoorden,\ngaven wij de jacht op en gingen naar de stad om de politie roepen. Deze\nriep de gewapende macht bijeen en hield de wacht langs den oever der\nrivier, en zoodra het licht wordt, zal de sherif met zijne kornuiten\nde bosschen doorkruisen. Mijne jongens zullen meegaan. Ik wou, dat wij\nde rekels zoo wat konden beschrijven;--dat zou heel wat helpen. Maar\ngij kondt zeker in het duister niet zien hoe zij er uitzagen, h\u00e9?\"\n\n\"O, jawel, ik heb ze door de stad zien gaan en ben hen gevolgd.\"\n\n\"Prachtig! Beschrijf ze dan, beschrijf ze dan, mijn jongen.\"\n\n\"De eene is de doofstomme Spanjaard, die een paar malen hier geweest\nis en de andere is een kerel met een gemeen gezicht, in lompen.\"\n\n\"Genoeg, jongen! Wij kennen de kerels. Wij zijn ze een dag of wat\ngeleden, achter in de bosschen van de weduwe Douglas tegengekomen en\nzij kropen voor ons weg. Er uit, jongens, naar den sherif.--Morgen\nkomt er weer een dag om te ontbijten.\"\n\nDe zonen van den boschwachter vertrokken dadelijk. Toen zij de kamer\nuit waren, sprong Huck op en riep uit:\n\n\"O, vertel als het u blieft aan niemand, dat ik ze op het spoor ben\ngekomen! O, als het u blieft niet.\"\n\n\"Heel goed, Huck, als gij dat verkiest; maar gij moest eigenlijk de\neer hebben van 't geen gij gedaan hebt.\"\n\n\"O, neen, neen! Zeg het als het u blieft niet.\"\n\n\"Neen,\" antwoordde de boschwachter, \"de jongens zullen het niet\nzeggen--en ik ook niet. Maar waarom wilt gij het niet weten?\"\n\nHuck wilde zich niet verder uitlaten en zeide alleen, dat hij een\nder beide mannen goed kende en dat hij bang was dat die man te weten\nzou komen, dat hij iets kwaads van hem wist, daar hij hem dan zeker\nzou vermoorden.\n\nDe oude man beloofde nogmaals te zullen zwijgen en zeide:\n\n\"Hoe zijt gij er toch toe gekomen om deze kerels te volgen,\njongen? Zagen zij er verdacht uit?\"\n\nHuck zweeg en bedacht zich even, om naar een voorzichtig antwoord te\nzoeken. Toen zeide hij:\n\n\"Wel, ziet gij, ik heb een hard lot,--ten minste dat zeggen de\nlui--en ik kan er niets aan doen--en soms kan ik niet slapen, omdat\nik er zoo lang over lig te denken en op middelen zin om er een eind\naan te maken. Dat deed ik juist gisteren-nacht. Ik kon niet slapen\nen ging daarom tegen middernacht de straat op, om er nog eens over\nte denken, en toen ik bij dien ouden, wrakken steenoven kwam bij de\nMatigheidsherberg, ging ik met mijn rug tegen den muur staan. Juist op\ndat oogenblik slopen die twee kerels mij voorbij, met iets onder den\narm, 't welk ik vermoedde dat zij gestolen hadden. De een rookte en de\nander nam een zwavelstok, om zijn sigaar op te steken. Zij hielden\nvlak voor mij stil en hunne sigaren verlichtten hun 't gezicht,\nen ik zag aan de witte bakkebaarden en den lap op zijn oog, dat\n'de lange' de doofstomme Spanjaard en dat de andere een havelooze,\ngemeene duivel was.\"\n\n\"Kondt gij bij het licht der sigaar zien, dat hij er gemeen in de\nkleeren uitzag?\"\n\nDie vraag bracht Huck een oogenblik van zijn stuk. Toen hernam hij:\n\"Dat weet ik zoo niet--maar, ik geloof het toch wel.\"\n\n\"Toen gingen zij voort, en gij....?\"\n\n\"Ik volgde hen. Ja, dat deed ik. Ik wou eens zien waar zij heen\nslopen. Ik speurde het na tot aan 't hek bij de weduwe en bleef in het\nduister staan en hoorde den havelooze smeekend vragen, om medelijden\nmet de weduwe te hebben, en den Spanjaard zweren, dat hij haar neus\nkapot zou snijden en haar ooren kerven, juist zooals...\"\n\n\"Wat! zeide de _doofstomme_ man dat alles?\"\n\nHuck had weder een verschrikkelijken flater gemaakt. Hij deed al zijn\nbest om den ouden man niet te laten merken wie die Spanjaard was, en\ntoch scheen zijn tong het er op gezet te hebben hem er in te laten\nloopen. Hij deed zijn uiterste best om zich uit deze moeielijkheid\nte redden, doch de oude man keek hem strak in het gezicht en de knaap\nmaakte het eene abuis na het andere. Eindelijk zeide de boschwachter:\n\n\"Jongen, wees niet zoo bang voor mij; ik zou voor al het geld van\nde wereld geen haar van uw hoofd willen krenken. Neen, ik zal u\nbeschermen,--dat zal ik. Deze Spanjaard is niet doofstom: gij hebt u\ndat onwetend laten ontvallen; gij kunt het niet weder intrekken. Gij\nweet meer van den Spanjaard. Vertrouw mij; zeg mij wat het is. Ik\nzal u niet verraden.\"\n\nHuck zag den ouden man een oogenblik in de eerlijke oogen, boog zich\ntoen over hem been en fluisterde hem in 't oor:\n\n\"Het is geen Spanjaard; het is Injun Joe.\"\n\nDe boschwachter viel van schrik bijna van zijn stoel en zeide:\n\n\"Nu is mij alles duidelijk. Toen gij spraakt van ooren kerven en\nneuzen opensnijden, dacht ik, dat gij er dit bij hadt gemaakt, omdat\nblanken nooit op deze wijze wraak nemen. Maar een kleurling! dat is\nheel wat anders.\"\n\nZij praatten al ontbijtende voort en in den loop van het gesprek zeide\nde oude man, dat het laatste wat hij en zijne zonen gedaan hadden\neer zij naar bed gingen, was geweest een lantaarntje nemen en in de\nbuurt van het hek zoeken, of zij ook sporen van bloed ontdekten. Zij\nvonden er echter geene, maar wel een grooten bos...\n\n\"Wat?\"\n\nIndien de woorden een bliksemstraal geweest waren, konden zij\nniet met meer verpletterende snelheid aan Hucks bleeke lippen zijn\nontsnapt. Zijne oogen stonden strak en zijn adem stokte, toen hij\nnaar een antwoord wachtte.\n\nDe boschwachter schrikte, zag hem een paar seconden zwijgend aan en\nzeide toen:\n\n\"Breekijzers. Maar, wat scheelt u?\"\n\nHuck zonk achterover en haalde zacht en onuitsprekelijk dankbaar\nadem. De boschwachter zag hem weder aan en hernam:\n\n\"Ja, breekijzers. Dat schijnt u een pak van 't hart te nemen. Maar\nwaarom verschriktet gij zoo? Wat dacht gij, dat wij gevonden hadden?\"\n\nHuck zat in een benauwd hoekje; de vragende oogen waren op hem gericht;\nhij zou alles gegeven hebben, indien hij een aannemelijk antwoord had\nkunnen vinden. Maar niets deed zich voor. Het vragend oog doorboorde\nhem al dieper en dieper.--Daar schoot hem een allerdwaast antwoord\nin. Er was geen tijd om te overwegen, dus mompelde hij op goed geluk:\n\n\"Ik dacht, boeken van de zondagsschool.\"\n\nDe arme knaap was te beangst om zelfs te kunnen glimlachen,--doch\nde oude man lachte luid en vroolijk, schudde Huck door elkander en\neindigde met te zeggen, dat zulk een lach goud waard was, omdat deze\nhet geld voor den dokter in den zak hielp houden. Toen voegde hij\ner bij:\n\n\"Arme jongen, je ziet er bleek en vermoeid uit. Je bent niet wel. Geen\nwonder dat je hersenen wat verward zijn. Maar je zult er wel bovenop\nkomen. Rust en slaap zullen je, hoop ik, wel weder in orde brengen.\"\n\nHuck was boos op zich zelven, dat hij zoo dom was geweest, zich door\nzulk eene verdachte verlegenheid te verraden, want hij had, zoodra\nhij het gesprek bij het hek had afgeluisterd, het denkbeeld laten\nvaren dat het pakje, 't welk zij uit de herberg hadden medegebracht,\nde schat was. Hij had althans maar gedacht, doch niet geweten dat\nhet de schat _niet_ was, en vandaar dat de mededeeling van den\nbuitgemaakten bundel te prachtig was om er zijne tegenwoordigheid\nvan geest bij te blijven bewaren. Alles te zamen genomen evenwel,\nwas hij blijde dat deze kleine episode had plaats gehad, want nu wist\nhij stellig en zeker, dat deze buit de schat niet was en dus kwam\nzijn gemoed tot rust en voelde hij zich grootelijks verruimd. Ja,\nwaarlijk, alles scheen thans naar de juiste richting te drijven: de\nschat moest nog op \"nummer twee\" zijn; de mannen zouden dien dag gepakt\nen in de gevangenis gezet worden en hij en Tom zouden morgen-nacht,\nzonder moeite en zonder vrees voor stoornis, het geld in beslag nemen.\n\nJuist toen het ontbijt was afgeloopen, werd er op de deur geklopt. Hij\nsprong op om eene schuilplaats te zoeken, want hij had geen lust om\nzelfs in de verste verte met de gebeurtenis van den vorigen nacht in\nverband te worden gebracht. De boschwachter liet verscheidene dames\nen heeren binnen, onder welke de weduwe Douglas, en hij bemerkte dat\nheele zwermen den heuvel beklommen, om het hek te bekijken. Het nieuws\nhad zich dus verspreid.\n\nDe boschwachter moest zijnen bezoekers de geschiedenis van dien nacht\nvertellen. De weduwe kon geen woorden vinden on hare dankbaarheid\nvoor hare bescherming uit te drukken.\n\n\"Spreek er niet van, mevrouw,\" zeide de boschwachter. \"Er is een ander,\naan wien gij meer verplicht zijt dan aan mij en aan mijne jongens. Maar\ndeze wil zijn naam niet genoemd hebben. Wij zouden daar nooit geweest\nzijn, indien hij ons niet gewaarschuwd had.\"\n\nNatuurlijk wekte dit eene mate van nieuwsgierigheid op, die de\nhoofdzaak in de schaduw stelde; doch de boschwachter liet de bezoekers\nin het onzekere en door hen werd deze tijding door de geheele stad\ngebracht. Toen zij al het overige vernomen had, zeide de weduwe:\n\n\"Ik heb in bed liggen lezen en ben zoo in slaap gevallen en heb niets\nvan het leven gehoord. Waarom hebt gij mij niet wakker gemaakt?\"\n\n\"Wij dachten, dat het niet noodig was. De kerels zouden waarschijnlijk\nniet terugkomen. Zij hadden geen gereedschap om mede te werken;\nen waartoe zou het dienen u te wekken en u doodelijk te doen\nontstellen? Mijne drie zwarte knechts hebben den ganschen nacht voor\nuw huis de wacht gehouden. Zij zijn juist teruggekomen.\"\n\nEr kwamen hoe langer hoe meer bezoekers en de geschiedenis moest een\npaar uren lang aanhoudend verteld en oververteld worden.\n\nIn de vacantie was er geen zondagsschool, maar men ging wat vroeger\nnaar de kerk. De ontrustbarende gebeurtenis werd daar dien morgen\nbehoorlijk uitgeplozen en iedereen kon vernemen, dat er nog geen taal\nof teeken van de schelmen ontdekt was.\n\nToen de kerk uitging, liep mevrouw Thatcher toevallig naast juffrouw\nHarper, die met de schare het Godshuis verliet, en zeide:\n\n\"Slaapt mijn Becky den heelen dag? Ik dacht wel, dat zij erg vermoeid\nzou zijn.\"\n\n\"Uwe Becky?\"\n\n\"Ja,\" zeide de ander met een verschrikt gelaat. \"Heeft zij van nacht\ndan niet bij u gelogeerd?\"\n\n\"Wel neen.\"\n\nMevrouw Thatcher werd bleek en viel op eene bank neder, juist toen\ntante Polly, in een levendig gesprek met eene oude vriendin, haar\nvoorbijging. Tante Polly zeide:\n\n\"Goeden morgen, mevrouw Thatcher; goeden morgen, juffrouw Harper. Ik\nmis een van mijne jongens. Tom is zeker van nacht aan uw huis blijven\nslapen en durft nu niet in de kerk komen, niet waar? Ik zal weer een\nappeltje met hem te schillen hebben.\"\n\nMevrouw Thatcher schudde het hoofd en werd nog bleeker.\n\n\"Hij is niet bij ons geweest,'\" zeide juffrouw Harper, met een\nverontrust gelaat. Ook tante Polly werd angstig.\n\n\"Joe Harper, heb je mijn Tom van morgen al gesproken?\"\n\n\"Neen, juffrouw.\"\n\n\"Wanneer heb je hem het laatst gezien?\"\n\nJoe trachtte zich dit te binnen te brengen, maar hij herinnerde\nhet zich niet. De kerkgangers bleven met bedrukte gezichten staan\nkijken; er ontstond een geheimzinnig gefluister, en onrust teekende\nzich op ieders gelaat. De kinderen en de onderwijzers werden angstig\nondervraagd, doch niemand had er op gelet of Tom en Becky aan boord\nvan de stoomboot waren, toen zij naar huis voeren. Het was zoo donker,\nen men had er niet aan gedacht om te vragen, of er ook een gemist\nwerd. Een der aanwezige jongelieden liet zich ontvallen, dat hij\nvreesde dat ze nog in de grot waren! Bij deze veronderstelling viel\nmevrouw Thatcher dadelijk in onmacht en tante Polly begon te schreien\nen hare handen te wringen.\n\nIn een oogenblik ging de noodkreet van mond tot mond, van groep\ntot groep, van straat tot straat, en binnen vijf minuten luidde de\nnoodklok met woesten klank en was de gansche stad in rep en roer. De\ngebeurtenis te Cardiff Hill zonk dadelijk in het niet; de inbrekers\nwaren vergeten. Paarden werden gezadeld, schuitjes bemand, de stoomboot\nwerd uitgezonden, en eer de vreeselijke tijding een half uur oud was,\nwaren er tweehonderd man in vaartuigen of te voet op weg naar de grot.\n\nIn den namiddag was de stad als uitgestorven. Vele dames kwamen tante\nPolly en mevrouw Thatcher bezoeken en zochten haar te troosten. Zij\nschreiden met haar, en dat deed de bedroefden nog meer goed dan\nhare woorden.\n\nDen ganschen langen nacht wachtte men op tijding, en toen de dag\neindelijk aanbrak, kwam er niets dan de boodschap: \"Zend meer kaarsen\nen meer voedsel.\" Mevrouw Thatcher was bijna krankzinnig van angst,\nen tante Polly ook. De heer Thatcher zond nu en dan bemoedigende\nboodschappen uit de grot, doch dezen brachten weinig troost.\n\nDe oude boschwachter kwam tegen het aanbreken van den dag, met\nkaarsvet besmeerd, met modder bespat en doodmoede tehuis. Hij vond\nHuck nog in het bed, dat hij voor hem had gereedgemaakt. De knaap\nlag in ijlende koorts. De dokters waren allen naar de grot en dus\nnam de weduwe Douglas de zorg voor den pati\u00ebnt op zich. Zij zeide\ndat zij voor hem doen zou wat zij kon, omdat, 't zij hij goed was\nof slecht, hij des Heeren was, en niets wat den Heer toebehoorde,\nmocht veronachtzaamd worden. De boschwachter verklaarde, dat Huck\nnog zoo'n slechte jongen niet was, waarop de weduwe antwoordde:\n\n\"Dat spreekt vanzelf. Dat is de stempel des Heeren; deze kan niet\nuitgewischt worden. God doet dat nooit, maar drukt Zijn merk op elk\nschepsel, dat uit Zijne hand komt.\"\n\nVroeg in den middag kwam het meerendeel der St. Petersburgers, die\nuitgegaan waren om te zoeken, doodelijk vermoeid in de stad terug, doch\nde sterksten onder de burgers zetten het onderzoek voort. De eenige\ntijding die zij meebrachten was, dat men bezig was een verwijderd\ngedeelte van de spelonk te doorzoeken, waarin nooit menschelijke\nvoetstappen waren doorgedrongen, en dat elke hoek en spleet zou\nworden nagespeurd. Verder, dat door den ganschen doolhof, lichten\nher- en derwaarts flikkerden en de doffe klank van pistoolschoten\ndoor de sombere gewelven weerkaatste. Op eene plaats, ver van het\ngewoonlijk door de toeristen bezochte gedeelte, had men de namen\n\"Becky\" en \"Tom\" met kaarssnuitsel op een rotsachtigen muur gevonden\nen vlak daarbij een met vet besmeerd stukje lint. Mevrouw Thatcher\nherkende het lint en schreide er bittere tranen over. Zij zeide,\ndat dit het laatste aandenken was, 't welk zij ooit van haar kind\nzou bezitten; dat geen andere gedachtenis haar zoo dierbaar zou zijn,\ndaar dit voorwerp het laatst van het levende lichaam gescheiden was,\nvoordat de vreeselijke dood was gekomen. Sommigen verhaalden, dat\nmen nu en dan in de grot een verwijderd stipje licht zag flikkeren,\nen dat telkens, als dit te zien kwam, door een twintigtal mannen, die\ntroepsgewijze door de holklinkende gangen liepen, een jubelkreet werd\naangeheven, die telkens door wanhopige teleurstelling werd gevolgd.\n\nDus sleepten drie vreeselijke dagen en nachten hunne trage uren\nvoort en de stedelingen vervielen welhaast in wanhoop. De toevallige\nontdekking, onlangs gedaan, dat de eigenaar van de Matigheidsherberg\nin een bijgebouw sterken drank bewaarde, scheen het publiek nauwelijks\nte treffen, hoe verschrikkelijk de gebeurtenis ook zijn mocht.\n\nIn een helder oogenblik gedurende zijne ziekte, bracht Huck\nschoorvoetend het gesprek op herbergen en vroeg eindelijk, met een\nvaag vermoeden van het ergste, of er sedert zijne ziekte ook iets in\nde Matigheidsherberg ontdekt was.\n\n\"Ja,\" zeide de weduwe.\n\nHuck sprong met verwilderde oogen in zijn bed op.\n\n\"Wat? Wat was het?\"\n\n\"Drank! En de herberg is gesloten. Ga stil liggen, kind;--gij doet\nmij schrikken.\"\n\n\"Zeg mij slechts \u00e9\u00e9n ding--\u00e9\u00e9n ding als het u blieft. Heeft Tom Sawyer\nhet ontdekt?\"\n\nDe weduwe barstte in tranen uit.\n\n\"Stil, kind, stil! Ik heb al meer gezegd, dat gij niet moet praten. Gij\nzijt zeer, zeer ziek.\"\n\nZoo! dus was er niets dan drank gevonden. Het zou wel eene groote\nopschudding gegeven hebben, indien het de schat was geweest. Dus was\ndeze voor eeuwig verloren! Maar waarom zou zij schreien? Hoe vreemd\ndat zij schreide. Deze gedachten doorkruisten Hucks brein en onder de\nvermoeienis van het peinzen viel hij in slaap. Toen zeide de weduwe\ntot zich zelve:\n\n\"Daar slaapt hij, de arme drommel. Tom Sawyer hem vinden! Gave God,\ndat iemand Tom Sawyer vond! Ach, er zijn er niet veel meer, die nog\nhoop en kracht hebben om met zoeken voort te gaan.\"\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XXXII.\n\n\nWij moeten thans naar de pic-nic en Tom en Becky's aandeel in de\npret terugkeeren. Zij hadden met de anderen door de donkere gangen\ngehuppeld en de bekende wonderen van de grot bezocht,--wonderen\nmet wel te grootsche namen bestempeld, zooals: het \"Salon,\" de\n\"Kathedraal,\" het \"Paleis van Aladdin,\" enz. Aan het daarop gevolgd\n\"verstoppertje\" spelen hadden zij ijverig deelgenomen, totdat zij\nvan de inspanning moede waren geworden. Daarna eens opwandelende,\nwaren zij in een kronkelpad afgedwaald en hadden daar, bij het licht\nhunner omhooggehouden kaarsen, het krabbelschrift van namen, datums,\nadressen en motto's gelezen, waarmede de rotswanden (met kaarssnuitsel)\nbeschreven waren. Al voortgaande en pratende, hadden zij niet eens\nbemerkt, dat zij zich in een gedeelte der grot bevonden, op welks\nmuren geene namen te lezen stonden. Hier schreven zij hun eigen\nnaam met kaarssnuitsel op een vooruitstekend rotsblok en gingen\nverder. Kort daarop kwamen zij op eene plaats, waar een, over een\nzandrif naar beneden vlietend en een laag kalksteen met zich voerend\nwaterstroompje, in de langzaam voortgaande eeuwen, een versteende\nNiagara van schitterend en onvergankelijk stalactiet had gevormd.\n\nOm Becky pleizier te doen, kroop Tom met zijn tenger lichaam\ntusschen de steenen door, om de plaats te verlichten. Te midden dier\nrotsenmassa ontdekte hij eene door de natuur gevormde trap, door nauwe\nmuren ingesloten, en bij dat gezicht werd hij door den lust tot een\nontdekkingstocht aangegrepen. Becky verklaarde zich bereid hem te\nvergezellen en zij maakten met den walm der kaars een teeken, dat hen\nden terugweg zou doen weervinden, en gingen op verkenning uit. Zij\nsloegen allerlei paden in, tot ver in de grot; zij maakten nog eens\neen merkteeken en gingen steeds voort om nieuwe wonderen te zoeken,\ndie zij aan de bovenwereld zouden vertellen. Op eens ontdekten zij een\nruim hol, van welks zoldering een massa glinsterend druipsteen afhing,\nin lengte en vorm aan een menschenbeen gelijk. Vol bewondering en\nverbazing wandelden zij daarin rond en verlieten het hol weder door\neen der vele gangen, die er op uitliepen. Hun weg bracht hen bij\neen tooverachtig schoone springbron, welker bodem met schitterende\ngekristallisseerde waterdroppen als ingelegd was. De bron stond midden\nin een grot, met muren door allervreemdsoortigste pilaren gestut,\ngevormd door de verbinding van groote stalactieten en stalagmieten,\ndie wederom aan het eeuwenlang neerdruppelen van water hun ontstaan te\ndanken hadden. Onder dit dak hadden zich dikke zwermen vledermuizen\nbij duizendtallen opeengehoopt. Door het licht verschrikt, kwamen\ndeze dieren bij honderden naar beneden en fladderden met een akelig\ngeschreeuw woedend om de kaarsen been. Tom kende hun aard en het\ngevaar, dat van dien kant dreigde. Hij greep Becky bij de hand en\nduwde haar in een der vele gangen--en voorwaar niet te vroeg, want\neen vledermuis sloeg, juist toen zij den grot verlieten, met hare\nvleugels Becky's licht uit. De booze dieren vervolgden de kinderen\nnog een tijdlang, doch de vluchtelingen liepen telkens een nauwen\ngang in en ontkwamen eindelijk aan deze gevaarlijke beesten.\n\nKort daarna ontdekte Tom een onderaardsch meer, welks eindelooze\nlengte zich in de duisternis verloor. Ofschoon hij groote geneigdheid\nhad om de oevers van dat meer te gaan verkennen, kwam hij tot het\nbesluit, dat het beter zou zijn een oogenblik te gaan zitten, on\nuit te rusten. En nu eerst wekte de doodelijke stilte van het oord\nverlammend op hun jeugdig gemoed.\n\n\"Tom, ik verbeeld mij, dat wij sedert uren niets van de anderen\ngehoord hebben.\"'\n\n\"Becky, ik geloof dat wij veel dieper zijn dan zij, maar ik weet niet\nin welke richting, in het noorden, zuiden of oosten. Ik geloof niet,\ndat het mogelijk is hen hier te hooren.\"\n\nBecky begon bang te worden.\n\n\"Ik zou wel eens willen weten, hoe lang wij al hier zijn.--Zou het\nniet beter wezen terug te keeren?\"\n\n\"Ja, dat geloof ik ook.\"\n\n\"Kunt gij den weg terugvinden? Ik zie niets dan kronkelpaden en\nslingerwegen.\"\n\n\"Ik zou het wel kunnen, maar ik ben bang voor de vleermuizen. Indien\nzij ook mijn kaars uitdeden, zouden wij er ellendig aan toe zijn. We\nmoeten het met een anderen weg beproeven.\n\n\"Och, ik hoop maar dat wij niet zullen verdwalen. Dat zou zoo\nvreeselijk wezen!\"\n\nEn het meisje begon te beven bij de gedachte aan die ontzettende\nmogelijkheid.\n\nZij liepen een gang in en gingen zwijgend een geruimen tijd voort,\nnaar elke nieuwe opening kijkende, om te zien of zij ook iets ontdekten\ndat hun bekend voorkwam, doch 't was alles even vreemd. Telkens als\nTom de plaats opnam, bespiedde Becky angstig zijn gelaat en telkens\nantwoordde hij vroolijk:\n\n\"O, wees zonder zorg; dit is het pad niet, maar wij zullen het rechte\nzeker vinden.\"\n\nBij elke mislukte poging echter verloor de knaap iets van zijn moed\nen nu op goed geluk, in allerlei richtingen, verschillende gangen in\nte slaan, in het wanhopend vertrouwen, dat hij den doorgang dien zij\nnoodig hadden, wel vinden zou. Voortdurend riep hij:\n\n\"'t Zal wel gaan.\" Doch er lag hem zulk een looden wicht op het hart,\ndat de woorden hun klank verloren en luidden alsof hij geroepen had:\n\"Alles is verloren.\"\n\nBecky klampte zich angstig aan hem vast en deed haar best om niet\nte schreien, maar de tranen sprongen haar ondanks haar zelve uit de\noogen.--Eindelijk riep zij uit:\n\n\"O, Tom, ik geef niets om de vleermuizen! Laat ons liever langs den\nouden weg teruggaan. 't Is alsof wij hoe langer hoe verder van het\nrechte pad afdwalen.\"\n\nTom hield stil.\n\n\"Luister!\" zeide hij.\n\nNiets dan diepe stilte,--eene stilte zoo groot, dat de kinderen hun\nadem konden hooren.\n\nTom begon te roepen. De kreet weerkaatste door de holle gangen en\nstierf in de verte weg, in een geluid dat aan een spotlach deed denken.\n\n\"O, doe het niet meer, Tom! het is al te akelig!\" zeide Becky.\n\n\"'t Is akelig, maar 't is toch beter, Becky. Misschien kunnen zij\nhet hooren.\"\n\nDe woorden \"misschien kunnen\" joegen Becky een rilling door de\nleden, nog kouder dan het spookachtig geluid had gedaan, want zij\nwaren de taal der wanhoop. De kinderen stonden stil en luisterden,\nalweder zonder gevolg. Opeens keerde Tom op zijne schreden terug en\nverhaastte zijn stappen. Een oogenblik later verried eene angstige\nonbeslistheid in zijne manieren aan Becky het vreeselijk feit: hij\nhad het spoor van den terugweg verloren!\"\n\n\"O, Tom, heb je geen teekens gemaakt?\"\n\n\"Becky, ik was zoo dwaas! Ik dacht, dat wij niet langs dezen kant\nzouden behoeven terug te gaan. Ik kan den weg niet meer vinden. 't\nIs alles even verward!\"\n\n\"Tom! Tom! wij zijn verloren. Wij zullen het daglicht nooit meer\nzien. O, waarom hebben wij de anderen verlaten?\"\n\nZij zonk op den grond neder en barstte in zulk een waanzinnig\ngekrijt uit, dat Tom bang werd dat zij zoude sterven of het verstand\nverliezen. Hij ging naast haar zitten en sloeg zijne armen om haar\nheen: zij verborg haar gezichtje tegen zijn borst, hield hem stijf\nvast en stortte hare angsten en haar tot niets leidend berouw tot hem\nuit;--en de verwijderde echo's verkeerden dat alles in een hoonend\ngelach. Tom smeekte haar moed te houden, maar zij antwoordde dat dit\nhaar onmogelijk was.\n\nToen begon hij er zich een verwijt van te maken, dat hij haar in dezen\nellendigen toestand gebracht had. Dit had eene goede uitwerking; want\nzoodra hij zich zelven beschuldigde, beloofde zij, dat zij haar best\nzou doen om zich goed te houden en dat zij zou opstaan en hem volgen,\nwerwaarts hij haar wilde heenleiden, als hij haar beloofde niet meer\nzoo te praten; beiden hadden zij immers, zoo zeide zij, schuld.\n\nZoo gingen zij dan weer verder,--zonder doel, enkel op goed geluk\naf. Het beste ook wat zij doen konden, was te loopen, steeds te\nloopen. De hoop scheen voor een oogenblik te herleven, niet omdat er\neenig uitzicht op redding was, maar dewijl het in haar natuur ligt\nsteeds te herleven, zoolang zij door de jaren en de ervaring van\nteleurstellingen, haar veerkracht nog niet verloren heeft.\n\nEen poos daarna nam Tom Becky's kaars en blies die uit. Dat was\neen veelbeteekenende spaarzaamheid. Ook zonder dat het gezegd werd,\nbegreep Becky wat dit beduidde en de hoop ontzonk haar weder. Zij\nwist, dat Tom nog eene geheele kaars en drie of vier eindjes in den\nzak had en toch zuinig moest zijn.\n\nAllengs begon het vermoeiend zwerven hun invloed op hen uit te\noefenen. De kinderen trachtten te doen alsof zij 't niet merkten,\nwant de gedachte alleen aan zitten, terwijl elke minuut kostbaar was,\nwas vreeselijk. Zich bewegen, hoe dan ook en waarheen dan ook, was\nvorderen en kon met een gewenschten uitslag worden bekroond. Stilzitten\ndaarentegen, was den dood inroepen en zijn komst verhaasten.\n\nEindelijk weigerden Becky's zwakke leden haar verder te dragen. Zij\nlegde zich op den grond neder, en Tom zette zich naast haar. Zij\nspraken van huis, van hunne ouders, van hun heerlijk bed en voor alle\ndingen van het verrukkelijke licht; Becky schreide en Tom verzon van\nalles on haar op te beuren! Maar alle troostwoorden waren afgesleten\nen klonken als bijtende spot. Uitgeput van vermoeidheid viel Becky\nten laatste in slaap. Tom was er blijde om en bleef op haar bedroevend\ngelaat turen. Hij zag het, onder den invloed van vriendelijke droomen,\nweer glad en effen worden en bemerkte, dat een glimlach op hare\nlippen neerdaalde en zich er bleef vestigen. Die kalmte bracht zijn\neigen gemoed ook eenigszins tot rust en zijne gedachten dwaalden\nterug naar vroegere tijden en nevelachtige herinneringen. Te midden\nzijner overpeinzingen ontwaakte Becky met een vroolijk lachje,--doch\nhet stierf op hare lippen weg en werd gevolgd door een diepen zucht.\n\n\"O, hoe kon ik slapen? Ik wou dat ik maar nooit, nooit meer was wakker\ngeworden! Neen, neen, Tom, zie mij niet zoo angstig aan! Ik zal het\nnooit meer zeggen.\"\n\n\"Ik ben zoo blijde dat gij geslapen hebt, Becky. Gij zult nu minder\nmoede zijn en wij zullen den weg vinden.\"\n\n\"Wij kunnen het probeeren, Tom, maar ik heb zulk een mooi land in\nmijn droom gezien--en daarheen zullen wij gaan, denk ik.\"\n\n\"Misschien nog wel niet. Houd je goed, Becky, en laat ons voortgaan.\"\n\nZij stonden op en dwaalden hand in hand, hopeloos voort. Zij trachtten\nden tijd te begrooten, dien zij in de grot hadden doorgebracht, maar\ndien bij benadering berekenen konden zij niet. Het scheen hun dagen\nen weken te zijn, ofschoon dat onmogelijk was, want hunne kaarsen\nwaren nog niet opgebrand.\n\nEen langen, zeer langen tijd daarna zeide Tom, dat zij zachtjes\nmoesten loopen en luisteren of zij ook water hoorden druppelen,\ndaar zij bij een bron moesten zijn. Deze vonden zij ook werkelijk\nen Tom stelde voor om weer wat te rusten. Beiden waren doodmoede en\ntoch zeide Becky, dat zij nog wel een eind verder zou kunnen gaan;\nmaar tot hare verbazing wilde Tom daar niet van hooren. Daarom gingen\nzij weder zitten, en Tom maakte zijne kaars met klei aan den muur\nvast. Ieder was in zijn eigen gedachten verdiept; een geruimen tijd\nwerd er geen woord gesproken. Becky verbrak het stilzwijgen het eerst.\n\n\"Tom,\" zeide zij, \"ik heb zoo'n honger.\"\n\nTom haalde iets uit den zak.\n\n\"Herken je dit?\" zeide hij.\n\nBecky trachtte te glimlachen en zeide:\n\n\"Het is onze bruidskoek, Tom!\"\n\n\"Ja, ik wou dat hij tienmaal grooter was, want het is alles wat\nwij hebben.\"\n\n\"Ik had hem voor de pic-nic medegenomen, on hem met u te deelen, Tom,\nzooals groote menschen doen;--maar ik vrees dat het onze....\" Zij\nvoltooide den volzin niet. Tom verdeelde den koek en Becky at met\ngraagte, terwijl Tom zijne helft langzaam opmuisde. Er was overvloed\nvan water om bij het eten te gebruiken. Eindelijk opperde Becky de\nvraag, of het niet beter zou zijn weder verder te gaan. Tom zweeg\neen oogenblik en zeide toen:\n\n\"Becky, kun je verdragen, dat ik je iets zeg?\"\n\nBecky werd bleek, doch knikte toestemmend.\n\n\"Nu dan, Becky, wij moeten hier blijven, omdat hier water voorhanden\nis; want dit kleine stukje is ons laatste eindje kaars.\"\n\nBecky barstte in tranen en weeklagen uit.\n\nTom deed zijn best on haar te troosten, doch zonder baat. Eindelijk\nriep zij uit.\n\n\"Tom!\"\n\n\"Wat is er, Becky?\"\n\n\"Zou men ons missen en trachten op te sporen?\"\n\n\"Ja, zeker.\"\n\n\"Zou men nog bezig zijn met zoeken?\"\n\n\"Ik geloof het bepaald en ik hoop het.\"\n\n\"Wanneer zou men ons het eerst gemist hebben?\"\n\n\"Toen zij naar de boot terugkeerden, denk ik.\"\n\n\"Tom, het kon wel zijn, dat het toen donker was;--zouden zij dan wel\nopgemerkt hebben, dat wij er niet waren?\n\n\"Ik weet het niet. Maar in elk geval moet je moeder je gemist hebben,\nzoodra zij te huis waren.\"\n\nEen uitdrukking van schrik op Becky's gelaat bracht Tom tot bezinning\nen hij zag, dat hij een misslag had begaan. Tom en Becky zouden\ndien avond niet naar huis gegaan zijn. De kinderen spraken niet meer\nen bleven zitten peinzen. Een nieuwe uitbarsting van droefheid van\nBecky deed Tom zien, dat ook zij dacht aan 't geen er in zijne ziel\nomging,--namelijk, dat de Zondagochtend al voorbij kon zijn, eer\nmevrouw Thatcher tot de ontdekking kwam, dat Becky niet bij juffrouw\nHarper was. De kinderen hielden de oogen strak op het stukje kaars\ngevestigd en verbeidden met een kloppend hart, angstig het oogenblik,\nwaarop het zou wegsmelten en uitgaan. Zij zagen het pitje eindelijk\nalleen staan; zij zagen de zwakke vlam rijzen en dalen, dalen en\nrijzen en het dunne rookkolommetje klimmen; zij zagen een laatste\nflikkering aan den top--en toen heerschte de vreeselijkste duisternis.\n\nHoe lang het duurde, eer Becky tot het bewustzijn kwam dat zij in\nde armen van Tom lag te schreien, zou geen van beiden hebben kunnen\nzeggen. Zij wisten alleen maar, dat zij beiden, na een schijnbaar\noneindig lang verloop van tijd, uit een soort van verdooving wakker\nwerden, on hun ellendig bestaan voor te zetten. Tom dacht dat het\nZondag, misschien ook Maandag was. Hij trachtte Becky aan het praten te\nkrijgen, doch zij was sprakeloos van verdriet en wanhoop. Om haar te\ntroosten zeide Tom, dat men hen stellig al lang gemist had en bepaald\nnog aan het zoeken was. Hij zou nog eens roepen, want wellicht waren\ner menschen in de nabijheid. En dat deed hij ook, maar de verwijderde\necho's herhaalden in de duisternis zijn geluid zoo akelig, dat hij\ngeen moed had nogmaals zijne stem te verheffen.\n\nWeder gingen er uren voorbij en weder begon de honger de arme\ngevangenen te kwellen. Gelukkig had Tom nog een stukje koek bewaard,\n't welke zij verdeelden en opaten. Maar 't was alsof dit armzalig\nmondjevol hen nog hongeriger maakte.\n\nOp eens riep Tom uit:\n\n\"Stil! hoort gij niet wat?\"\n\nBeiden hielden den adem in en luisterden.\n\nDaar klonk een geluid alsof er in de verte geroepen werd. Tom\nbeantwoordde dat geroep oogenblikkelijk en ging, Becky bij de hand\nnemende, op den tast de gang door, in de richting van waar het geluid\ngehoord was. Een oogenblik hield hij stil om nogmaals te luisteren\nen weder klonk het geroep, ditmaal iets naderbij.\n\n\"Zij zijn het!\" zeide Tom. \"Zij komen! Ga maar mede; wij zijn nu op\nden rechten weg.\"\n\nDe kinderen waren uitgelaten van vreugde. Toch liepen zij behoedzaam\nvoort, want valputten waren geen ongewoon verschijnsel in de grot en\ndaarvoor moest gewaakt worden. Zij hadden dan ook nog niet lang hun\nweg vervolgd of zij moesten stilhouden. Het gat waarvoor zij stonden\nkon drie, maar ook honderd voet diep zijn. Aan verder gaan was geen\ndenken. Tom ging op zijn buik liggen en reikte naar beneden zoo ver\nhij kon, doch voelde geen bodem. Hier moesten zij dus blijven wachten,\ntotdat er hulp komen zou. Weer luisterden zij scherp; het verwijderd\ngeluid werd blijkbaar zwakker; nog een oogenblik en alles was weder\ndoodstil.\n\nWelk eene bittere teleurstelling! Tom schreeuwde zich heesch, doch\ntevergeefs. Toch bleef hij Becky moed inspreken. Nogmaals ging er\neene eeuwigheid van angstig wachten voorbij, zonder dat het geroep\nherhaald werd.\n\nDe kinderen slopen naar de bron terug. Langzaam kropen de uren\nvoort en zij vielen weer in slaap, on uitgehongerd en rampzalig te\nontwaken. Naar Toms gissing moest het thans Dinsdag wezen. Daar viel\nhem iets in. In hun buurt waren eenige zijgangen. Zou het niet beter\nzijn deze te onderzoeken, dan werkeloos te blijven zitten wachten? Hij\nhaalde een vliegertouw uit den zak, maakte dat aan een vooruitstekend\nrotsblok vast en ging verder, en Becky kwam achter hem aan, terwijl hij\nhet touw loswond, naarmate zij voortslopen. Twintig stappen verder liep\nde gang op een viersprong uit. Tom legde zich op de knie\u00ebn en kroop op\nhanden en voeten voort, totdat hij een der hoeken om was. Hij deed eene\npoging om het nog een eind verder te brengen; en op datzelfde oogenblik\nkwam achter een rots, op geen twintig pas afstands, eene menschenhand\nte voorschijn, die eene kaars vasthield. Tom slaakte een kreet van\nvreugde en onmiddellijk daarop werd de hand gevolgd door het lichaam,\nwaaraan zij toebehoorde--en dat was van Injun Joe! Verlamd van schrik\nbleef Tom als aan den grond vastgenageld staan. Een oogenblik later\nechter werd hij gerustgesteld, daar hij den Spanjaard zag wegloopen\nen uit het gezicht verdwijnen. Tom verbaasde zich, dat Injun Joe\nzijne stem niet had herkend en niet naar hem was toegekomen on hem te\nvermoorden, wegens zijn getuigen voor het Gerechtshof. Doch de echo's,\nzoo dacht hij, hadden zeker zijne stem onkenbaar gemaakt. Toch trilde\nelke spier van zijn lichaam en hij nam zich voor om, als hij kracht\ngenoeg had, naar de bron terug te keeren, daar te blijven, en zich\ndoor niets te laten verleiden nogmaals het gevaar te loopen van Injun\nJoe te ontmoeten. Zorgvuldig hield hij zijn wedervaren voor Becky\nverborgen en vertelde haar, dat hij op goed geluk af geschreeuwd had.\n\nDoch honger en ellende kregen ten laatste de overhand over angst en\nvrees. Nog eenige lange uren wachtens aan de bron en nog eenige uren\nslapens brachten eene verandering teweeg. De kinderen werden met\neen woedenden honger wakker. Tom verbeeldde zich dat het Woensdag\nof Donderdag, ja, misschien Vrijdag of Zaterdag was en dat men\nhet zoeken had opgegeven. Hij voelde zich bereid Injun Joe en alle\nandere vreeselijkheden te trotseeren. Maar Becky was in een treurige\nonverschilligheid vervallen, waaruit Tom vruchteloos trachtte haar op\nte wekken. Zij zeide, dat zij wilde blijven waar zij nu was, on daar\nte sterven;--de dood zou zeker niet lang meer uitblijven. Tom mocht,\nals hij wilde, met het vliegertouw gaan zoeken, doch zij smeekte\nhem, nu en dan eens terug te komen, on haar een woord toe te spreken\nen zij liet hem beloven, dat wanneer de vreeselijke ure kwam, hij\naan hare zijde zou staan en hare hand zou vasthouden, totdat alles\nvoorbij was. Tom kuste haar, met een gevoel in zijne keel alsof\ndeze werd toegeknepen, en vertelde haar, dat hij er zeker van was,\n\u00f2f de zoekenden \u00f2f een uitweg uit de grot te zullen vinden. Daarop\nnam hij het vliegertouw in de hand en sloop, flauw van den honger\nen beklemd door een vreeselijk voorgevoel van den naderenden dood,\nop handen en voeten door een der gangen voort.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XXXIII.\n\n\nHet was Dinsdagmiddag, het werd Dinsdagavond en nog was het\nstadje St. Petersburg in rouw. Men had openbare bidstonden voor de\nverloren kinderen gehouden en ook in menige binnenkamer was een stil,\nhartelijk gebed voor hen opgegaan, doch er kwam nog geen goed nieuws\nuit de grot. De meerderheid der lieden, die zich in de spelonk hadden\ngewaagd, hadden het zoeken opgegeven en waren naar hun dagelijksch\nwerk teruggekeerd, met de boodschap, dat de kinderen onmogelijk\ngevonden konden worden. Mevrouw Thatcher was zeer ziek en bij tijden\nijlhoofdig. De menschen zeiden dat het hartverscheurend was haar om\nhaar kind te hooren roepen, en te aanschouwen hoe zij somtijds het\nhoofd opbeurde en luisterde, om het terstond daarop moede en weeklagend\nin het kussen te leggen. Tante Polly was diep neerslachtig en hare\ngrijze haren waren bijna wit geworden. En met weemoed in het hart\nlegden de inwoners van St. Petersburg zich dien Dinsdagavond ter rust.\n\nMaar ziet, in het holst van den nacht deed zich op eens het luiden\nder torenklok hooren en in een oogenblik wemelden de straten van\nopgewonden, halfgekleede menschen, die jubelden: \"Sta op! sta op! Zij\nzijn gevonden!\" Er werd op horens geblazen en op bekkens geslagen en\nde bevolking stroomde in grooten getale naar de rivier, de kinderen te\ngemoet, die in een open rijtuig, door jubelende burgers voortgetrokken,\nnaar huis gereden werden. Men verdrong zich om den wagen en voegde zich\nbij den uitgelaten troep, die onder een oorverdoovend hoezee-geroep,\nplechtstatig door de hoofdstraten huiswaarts stapte.\n\nHet stadje werd ge\u00efllumineerd, niemand ging meer naar bed en 't was\nde heerlijkste nacht, dien St. Petersburg ooit had beleefd. Het\neerste half uur trok een stoet in optocht het huis van den heer\nThatcher voorbij, drukte de geredden aan het hart, kuste hen, schudden\nmevrouw Thatcher de hand, poogde haar toe te spreken en bevochtigde\nde straat met heete vreugdetranen. Tante Polly was buiten zichzelve\nvan blijdschap en mevrouw Thatcher evenzeer. Het geluk der laatste\nechter kon eerst volmaakt wezen, zoodra de boodschapper, die de blijde\ntijding aan haar echtgenoot bracht, terug zou zijn.\n\nTom lag op de sofa, met een gretig luisterend gehoor om zich heen,\nen vertelde zijn wonderbaar avontuur, zich nu en dan de vrijheid\nveroorlovende het verhaal door treffende toevoegsels op te sieren,\nen eindigde met eene beschrijving van den staat waarin hij Becky\nverliet, om nogmaals op verkenning uit te gaan. Hij verhaalde, hoe\nhij zich twee gangen, zoover als het vliegertouw reikte, gewaagd had;\nhoe hij een derden was ingegaan en hoe hij op het punt was terug te\nkeeren, toen hij, heel in de verte eene opening ontdekt had, waaruit\neen blauw stipje schemerde, dat aan daglicht deed denken; hoe hij het\nvliegertouw had losgelaten en er op den tast heen was gekropen, zijn\nhoofd en zijne schouders door eene kleine opening gestoken had en de\nbreede Mississipi had zien stroomen. En indien het nacht geweest was,\nzou hij dat stipje daglicht niet gezien hebben en die gang niet zijn\ningegaan! Hij vertelde, hoe hij naar Becky was teruggeloopen en haar de\nblijde tijding had gebracht en zij hem gezegd had, haar niet met zulken\nonzin aan het hoofd te malen, daar zij doodmoede was en wist dat zij\nging sterven en dat ook maar liever deed. Daarna beschreef hij, hoe\nhij zich had ingespannen on haar te overtuigen, en hoe zij bijna van\nzichzelve was gevallen van blijdschap, toen zij naar de plaats gekropen\nwaren, van waar het blauwe stipje daglicht zichtbaar was; hoe hij\nzich door de opening gewrongen had en haar er toen uit had geholpen;\nhoe zij daar gezeten hadden en geschreid hadden van blijdschap; hoe\neen paar mannen in een schuit waren voorbijgevaren, en hoe Tom hen\nhad gewenkt en geroepen en hen met hun treurigen toestand had bekend\ngemaakt; hoe de mannen de vreeselijke geschiedenis eerst niet hadden\ngeloofd, omdat, zeiden zij, de kinderen drie en een half uur van\nden ingang der grot verwijderd waren; hoe zij hen aan boord hadden\ngenomen, naar huis hadden gevoerd, hun voedsel gegeven hadden, hen\neen paar uur hadden laten rusten en hen toen naar huis hadden gebracht.\n\nV\u00f3\u00f3r het aanbreken van den dag werden de heer Thatcher en de enkele\nzoekers, die nog met hem in de grot waren, ontdekt, door het kluwen\ntouw dat zij achter zich gespannen hadden, en werd hun het groote\nnieuws verteld.\n\nTom en Becky ontwaarden spoedig, dat drie dagen en nachten, zonder\neten, in een vochtige spelonk doorgebracht, hun niet in de koude\nkleeren gingen zitten. Zij moesten Woensdag en Donderdag te bed\nblijven en schenen toch hoe langer hoe vermoeider te worden. Tom\nmocht Donderdag een uurtje opzitten, ging Vrijdag weer eens uit en\nwerd Zaterdag voor hersteld verklaard, doch Becky hield haar kamertje\ntot Zondag, en toen zag zij er uit alsof zij maanden ziek was geweest.\n\nTom hoorde dat Huck ongesteld was en ging hem Vrijdag bezoeken, maar\nwerd niet in de ziekenkamer toegelaten; zelfs Zaterdag en Zondag kreeg\nhij hem nog niet te zien. Daarna evenwel mocht hij dagelijks bij hem\nkomen, onder voorwaarde dat hij over het avontuur niet spreken zou\nen geen onderwerpen zou aanroeren, die den zieken knaap opgewonden\nkonden maken. De weduwe Douglas bleef in de kamer, om te zien of haar\ngebod gehoorzaamd werd. Tehuis vernam Tom het gebeurde te Cardiff Hill\nen ook dat het lichaam van den in lompen gekleeden onbekende, in de\nrivier gevonden was bij de aanlegplaats der veerboot. Waarschijnlijk\nwas hij verdronken, toen hij trachtte zich door de vlucht te redden.\n\nOp zekeren morgen, omstreeks veertien dagen na hunne redding uit de\ngrot, ging Tom Huck zijn gewoon bezoek brengen. De kleine vagebond\nwas thans genoegzaam hersteld om een opwekkend verhaal te mogen\naanhooren, en Tom had hem iets te vertellen, dat, naar hij meende,\nzijne belangstelling gaande zou maken.\n\nHet huis van den heer Thatcher lag op zijn weg en de jongeheer Sawyer\nging er, eer hij Huck bezocht, even aan om Becky te zien. De rechter\nen een paar zijner vrienden verzochten Tom, hun zijn wedervaren nog\neens te verhalen, en een van hen vroeg hem spottend, of hij nog niet\neens gaarne in de grot zou gaan, waarop Tom antwoordde, dat hij er\nniet tegen op zou zien.\n\nToen zeide de rechter:\n\n\"Er zijn er nog wel meer, die daarin behagen zouden scheppen. Maar\nwij hebben er voor gezorgd, dat dit niet meer kan gebeuren. Niemand\nzal er ooit meer in verdwalen.\"\n\n\"Waarom niet?\"\n\n\"Omdat ik, veertien dagen geleden, de groote deur van een ijzeren hek\nmet een dubbelen grendel heb laten voorzien, waarvan ik den sleutel\nin mijn bezit heb.\"\n\nTom werd zoo wit als een laken.\n\n\"Wat scheelt er aan, jongen? Hier, loop, haal een glas water!\"\n\nHet water kwam en Toms gezicht werd er mede besproeid.\n\n\"O, nu komt hij weer bij!--Wat scheelde er aan Tom?\"\n\n\"O, mijnheer Thatcher, Injun Joe is in de grot!\"\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XXXIV.\n\n\nBinnen een paar minuten was de tijding wijd en zijd verspreid en\nwaren er al een dozijn bootslieden op weg naar de Douglasgrot, op de\nhielen gevolgd door het propvolle veerbootje. Tom Sawyer zat in een\nschuitje met den heer Thatcher. Toen de deur der grot geopend werd,\nvertoonde zich in de donkere plaats een droevig schouwspel. Injun\nJoe lag dood op den grond uitgestrekt, met zijn gezicht naar de deur,\nalsof zijne smeekende oogen tot het laatste toe, op het licht en de\nvroolijkheid der buitenwereld gericht waren geweest. Tom was zeer\ngetroffen: immers hij wist bij ondervinding hoeveel deze ongelukkige\nmoest geleden hebben. Doch hoeveel medelijden hij ook met hem mocht\ngevoelen, werd hem, bij het aanschouwen van Injuns lijk, een pak\nvan het hart genomen, en nu eerst gevoelde hij, welk een loodzwaren\nlast van ellende hij getorst had, sedert hij zijne stem tegen dien\nbloeddorstigen kleurling verheven had.\n\nInjun Joe's zakmes lag met gebroken lemmer vlak bij zijn lijk. Van den\nzwaren balk, waarop de deur rustte, waren met eindelooze inspanning,\nstukken afgehakt en aan splinters gesneden;--vruchtelooze arbeid, want\nonder den balk lag een reusachtig rotsblok en tegen dien onbuigzamen\nhinderpaal vermocht het mes niets en brak het lemmer. En zelfs al\nhad die steenen versperring er niet gelegen, zoo zou Injun Joe toch\nvergeefsch werk verricht hebben, want indien het hem al gelukt was, den\nbalk geheel aan spaanders te snijden, zou hij zijn lichaam toch niet\nonder de deur hebben kunnen heen persen, en dat wist hij. Toch had hij\nzijn krachten op den balk beproefd, alleen maar om de vervelende uren\ndoor te komen en zijne gemartelde leden te kunnen gebruiken. Gewoonlijk\nwaren er een half dozijn eindjes kaars in de spleten bij den ingang te\nvinden, door de bezichtigers der grot achtergelaten; maar thans was er\ngeen enkel te zien. De gevangene had ze opgezocht en opgegeten! Hij was\ner ook in geslaagd een paar vleermuizen te vangen, die hij eveneens\nhad verslonden en waarvan alleen de klauwen waren overgelaten. De\nongelukkige was den hongerdood gestorven!\n\nOp eene plek in zijne nabijheid, had zich in den loop der jaren,\ndoor het droppelen van het water, een stalagmiet gevormd. Dezen\nhad de gevangene vernield en op de plaats waar hij gestaan had,\neen steentje neergezet, waarin hij een gaatje had geboord, om er den\nkostbaren droppel in op te vangen, die iedere twintig minuten, met\nde vreeselijke regelmaat van het getik eener klok, naar beneden viel;\nin de vier en twintig uren niet meer dan een dessertlepeltje vol. Die\ndroppel viel er reeds, toen de Pyramiden waren voltooid; toen Troje\nonderging; toen de fondamenten van Rome werden gelegd; toen Christus\ngekruisigd werd; toen de Veroveraar naar Brittanni\u00eb zeilde.\n\nInjun Joe werd aan den ingang der grot begraven en uren in den omtrek\nstroomden de menschen, in booten en rijtuigen, uit steden, dorpen en\ngehuchten, naar de plaats toe. Zij brachten hunne kinderen met zich,\nalsook wagens met proviand--en gingen naar huis, met de bekentenis\nop de lippen, dat zij, bij de begrafenis van den moordenaar evenveel\ngenot gesmaakt hadden, als wanneer zij hem hadden zien hangen.\n\nDe ochtend na de begrafenis nam Tom Huck met zich naar eene eenzame\nplaats, om hem iets zeer gewichtigs mede te deelen. Huck had door den\nboschwachter en de weduwe Douglas alles van Toms avontuur vernomen;\nmaar Tom beweerde, dat er iets was, dat zij hem niet verteld hadden,\nen over dat verzwegene wenschte hij hem nu te spreken. Hucks gelaat\nbetrok en hij zeide:\n\n\"Ik weet, wat het is. Je bent op 'nommer twee' geweest en hebt niets\ndan brandewijn gevonden. Niemand heeft mij verteld dat jij het waart,\nmaar ik wist dat jij het moest geweest zijn, zoodra ik over die\n'brandewijn-zaak' hoorde spreken. En ik wist, dat jij het geld niet\nhadt, anders zou je het mij wel op de een of andere wijze hebben doen\nweten, al had je er met niemand anders over gesproken. Tom, ik heb\naltijd wel gedacht, dat wij dien buit nooit zouden machtig worden.\"\n\n\"Wel, Huck, ik heb nooit met iemand over dien kroeghouder gesproken. Je\nweet, dat het op den Zaterdag van de pic-nic in zijne herberg nog in\norde was. Herinner je je niet, dat jij er dien nacht zoudt waken?\"\n\n\"O, jawel! Het was dezelfde nacht, waarin ik Injun Joe naar de\nweduwe volgde.\"\n\n\"Ben je hem gevolgd?\"\n\n\"Ja! maar je moet je mond houden. Ik weet zeker, dat er nog vrienden\nvan Injun Joe hier in den omtrek zijn, en ik heb geen zin om door\ndezen zuur aangezien en gemeen behandeld te worden. Indien ik er niet\ngeweest was, zou hij nu goed en wel in Texas zitten\".\n\nToen vertelde Huck zijn geheele avontuur aan Tom, die alleen nog maar\ndat gedeelte gehoord had, waarin de boschwachter was betrokken.\n\n\"Ja,\" zeide Huck, op de hoofdzaak terugkomende, \"hij die den brandewijn\nin 'nommer twee' gekaapt heeft, die heeft ook het geld weggenomen;\nin allen gevalle is 't voor ons verkeken.\"\n\n\"Huck, dat geld is nog altijd op 'nommer twee' gebleven.\"\n\n\"Wat zeg je?\" Huck zag zijn makker scherp aan. \"Hebt je het spoor\nvan den schat teruggevonden, Tom?\"\n\n\"Huck, hij is in de grot.\"\n\nHucks oogen schitterden.\n\n\"Zeg het nog eens, Tom!\"\n\n\"Het geld is in de grot!\"\n\n\"Tom,--zeg, meen je 't, of meen je 't niet?\"\n\n\"Ik meen het, Huck, en ik zeg het in allen ernst. Wil je er met mij\nheen gaan en mij helpen het er uit te halen?\"\n\n\"Waarachtig wil ik dat! Ik wil het, als wij er onzen weg kunnen vinden\nzonder gevaar van te verdwalen.\"\n\n\"Dat zal heel gemakkelijk gaan, Huck.\"\n\n\"Waarom denk je, dat het geld in....?\"\n\n\"Huck wacht totdat wij er zijn. Als wij het er niet vinden krijg\nje mijn trom en alles wat ik in de wereld bezit. Waarachtig, dat\nkrijg je.\"\n\n\"Best;--dat blijft afgesproken. Wanneer zullen we gaan?\"\n\n\"Nu dadelijk, als je 't goedvindt. Ben je sterk genoeg?\"\n\n\"Is het diep in de grot? Ik ben pas een dag of drie, vier op de been\nen ik kan, geloof ik, niet veel verder dan een half uur loopen, Tom.\"\n\n\"Als wij den weg volgen, die iedereen gaat, is het omstreeks drie\nuren gaans, maar ik weet een veel korteren, dien niemand kent. Huck,\nik zal je er been brengen in een bootje. Ik zal het bootje hierheen\nroeien en ik zal alleen weer teruggaan. Je hoeft er je hand niet om\nte verleggen.\"\n\n\"Laat ons dan aanstonds maar vertrekken, Tom.\"\n\n\"Best. Wij hebben wat brood en vleesch noodig, benevens onze pijpen\nen een paar zakjes en een stuk of drie vliegertouwen en eenige van\ndie nieuwerwetsche dingen, die ze lucifers noemen. Ik zeg je, dat ik\nwat gegeven had, als ik die gehad had, toen ik laatst in de grot was.\"\n\nEven na twaalven namen de knapen een klein bootje in beslag, van een\nschipper die van huis was, en begaven zich onmiddellijk op weg. Toen\nzij op eenigen afstand van de \"Holle Grot\" waren, zeide Tom:\n\n\"Je ziet, dat die steile oeverkant langs de 'Holle Grot'\ner overal gelijk uitziet; geen huizen, geen houtwerven, niets\ndan kreupelhout. Maar zie je die witte plek daarginds, waar een\naardstorting is geweest? Nu dat is een van mijn teekenen. Daar zullen\nwij aan wal gaan.\"\n\nZij gingen aan wal.\n\n\"Op deze plaats, Huck, zou je het hol, waar ik uitgekropen ben,\nmet een hengelroede kunnen aanraken. Zie eens, of je het vinden kunt.\"\n\nHuck keek naar alle kanten en vond niets. Tom stapte met hooge borst\nnaar een dicht boschje van sumakhout en zeide:\n\n\"Hier is het, Huck; het is het aardigste holletje uit de gansche\nstreek. Je moet het niet verklappen. Ik heb al lang zin gehad om\nroover te worden, maar ik wist, dat ik eerst zoo'n ding moest hebben\nals dit;--maar dat te vinden, daar zat het hem! Nu hebben wij het\nen wij zullen het alleen aan Joe Harper en Ben Rogers vertellen,\nwant die zullen natuurlijk tot de bende behooren, anders zouden wij\ner niets aan hebben. De 'Bende van Tom Sawyer,' klinkt prachtig;\ndoet het niet, Huck?\"\n\n\"Ja, Tom, 't klinkt best. En wie zullen we bestelen?\"\n\n\"Wel, iedereen. Verdwaalde lui;--dat is zoo de gewoonte.\"\n\n\"En ze doodmaken?\"\n\n\"Neen, niet altijd. Ze in de grot opsluiten, totdat zij een losprijs\nbetaald hebben.\"\n\n\"Wat is een losprijs.\"\n\n\"Geld. Je laat ze alles wat zij van hun vrienden krijgen kunnen,\nbijeengaren, en als ze dat, nadat je ze een jaar gehouden hebt, niet\nkunnen geven, maak je ze dood. Dat is zoo de gewone manier. Alleen\nde vrouwen worden niet vermoord. Die sluit je op, maar je vermoordt\nze niet. Zij zijn altijd mooi en rijk en vreeselijk bang. Je berooft\nze van haar horloges en dingen, maar je neemt in haar bijzijn altijd\nje hoed van je hoofd en spreekt beleefd tegen haar. Er zijn geen\nbeleefder lui dan roovers, dat staat in alle boeken. De vrouwen gaan\nvan je houden, en als ze een dag of veertien in de grot geweest zijn,\nhouden ze op met schreien en dan kun je ze niet meer kwijtraken. Als\nje ze wegjoegt, zouden zij dadelijk omkeeren en terugkeeren. Dat kun\nje in alle rooversgeschiedenissen lezen.\"\n\n\"Jongens, dat is mij een leventje, Tom. Ik geloof, dat het prettiger\nis dan zeeroover te zijn.\n\n\"Ja; en 't is in sommige opzichten beter ook, omdat het dicht is bij\nhuis, en bij de paardenspellen en alles.\"\n\nThans waren de jongens gereed en zij stapten, Tom in de voorhoede,\nde grot binnen. Zij kropen het gat door, maakten hunne aaneengebonden\nvliegertouwen aan een rotsblok vast en gingen verder. Weldra waren\nzij bij de bron, en het gezicht van die plaats joeg Tom eene rilling\ndoor de leden. Hij toonde Huck het overblijfsel van een kaarspit,\nop een stukje klei tegen den muur en beschreef hem, hoe hij en Becky\nde vlam hadden zien worstelen en sterven.\n\nDe knapen begonnen nu te fluisteren, want de stilte en de duisternis\nder plaats maakten hen een weinig benauwd. Zij gingen voort en traden\nde gangen in die Tom aanwees, totdat zij den valput bereikten. Hunne\nwaskaarsen brachten hen tot de ontdekking, dat het geen echte afgrond\nwas, maar slechts eene steile helling van klei, omstreeks twintig of\ndertig voet naar omlaag.\n\nTom fluisterde:\n\n\"Nu zal ik je wat laten kijken, Huck.\"\n\nHij hield zijne kaars omhoog en zeide:\n\n\"Kijk zoo ver om den hoek als je kunt. Zie je dat? Daar, op gindsche\ngroote rots, die met kaarsvet is besmeerd.\"\n\n\"Tom, het is een kruis!\"\n\n\"En waar is uw nommer twee?--Onder het kruis, h\u00e9? Vlak bij die rots\nzag ik Injun Joe zijne kaars snuiten, Huck.\"\n\nHuck keek een oogenblik naar het geheimzinnige teeken en zeide met\neene bevende stem:\n\n\"Tom, laat ons van hier weggaan!\"\n\n\"Wat! En den schat laten staan?\"\n\n\"Ja. De geest van Injun Joe dwaalt hier bepaald rond.\"\n\n\"Neen, dat doet hij niet, Huck; dat doet hij niet. Dat doet hij\nalleen op de plaats, waar hij stierf,--bij den ingang der grot,\ndrie uren van hier.\"\n\n\"Neen, Tom, dat is zoo niet. De geesten dwalen, waar hun geld is. Ik\nken hun gewoonte en jij weet het ook.\"\n\nTom begon bang te worden dat Huck gelijk had, en er rees twijfel op\nin zijn hart. Doch plotseling schoot hem iets te binnen. \"Zie eens,\nHuck, hoe dwaas wij ons aanstellen! De geest van Injun Joe kan niet\nkomen waar een kruis staat!\"\n\nDat was een afdoende bewering, vond Huck. \"Daar dacht ik niet aan;\nTom. Maar, 't is waar. Dat kruis is een geluk voor ons. Ik geloof,\ndat wij nu wel kunnen afdalen, om naar de kist te zoeken.\"\n\nTom ging eerst en maakte, al dalende, groote indruksels van voetstappen\nin de klei. Huck volgde. Vier gangen leidden uit de kleine spelonk naar\nde plaats, waar de groote rots stond. De knapen namen drie dezer gangen\nop, doch zonder gevolg. In den vierden, die het dichtst bij den voet\nder rots was, vonden zij een kleinen inham, waarin een stroobed lag\nen een paar dekens, verder een paar oude bretels, een weinig spekvet\nen een paar rondom afgeknabbelde vogelpooten. De knapen zochten en\ndoorzochten de plaats aan alle kanten, doch tevergeefs. Eindelijk\nzeide Tom:\n\n\"Hij zeide _onder_ het kruis. En dit is er bijna onder. Het kan niet\nonder de rots zelve zijn, want daar is de grond te hard.\"\n\nZij onderzochten alles nog eens en zetten zich toen ontmoedigd\nneder. Huck had niets te vertellen. Eindelijk zeide Tom:\n\n\"Kijk eens, Huck, aan deze zijde der rots zijn voetstappen en kaarsvet\nop de klei, doch niet aan den anderen kant. Ik weet, dat het geld\ntoch onder de rots is. Ik ga de klei eens opgraven.\"\n\n\"Dat is zoo gek nog niet bedacht, Tom!\" zeide Huck blijmoedig.\n\nToms mes van \"echt\" staal werd voor den dag gehaald, en hij had geen\nvier duim gegraven of hij krabbelde op hout.\n\n\"Hei, Huck! hoor je dat?\"\n\nHuck begon ook te graven en te krabbelen. Eenige planken werden\nspoedig gevonden en verwijderd. Zij dienden om een door de natuur\ngevormden kelder te verbergen, die zich onder de rots bevond. Tom\nkroop in dien kelder en hield zijne kaars zoo ver vooruit, als hem\nmogelijk was, doch kon--zoo zeide hij--niet tot aan het einde der\nkloof zien. Daarom stelde hij voor, haar geheel te doorzoeken. Hij\nbukte zich en stapte onder de rots door in den kelder. Een enge weg\nleide langzaam naar beneden. Hij volgde het kronkelend pad, eerst\nter rechter- en toen ter linkerzijde, en Huck vlak achter hem. Op\neens stond Tom voor eene kleine, halfronde, open plek en riep hij uit:\n\n\"Hemeltje, Huck, zie eens hier!\"\n\nHet was de kist, veilig en wel, in een klein, aardig holletje,\nbij een leege kruitdoos, een paar geweren in lederen overtrekken,\ntwee of drie paar oude schoenen, een lederen gordel en eenig ander\njachtgereedschap, doorweekt van het druppelend water.\n\n\"Eindelijk gevonden!\" zeide Huck, terwijl hij met zijne handen in de\nvuile muntstukken grabbelde. \"Ja, wij zijn rijk, Tom!\"\n\n\"Huck, ik heb altijd gedacht, dat wij het geld krijgen zouden. Het is\nhaast al te heerlijk om het te kunnen gelooven, maar wij hebben het,\ndat is zeker. Doch wij zullen hier niet blijven talmen, maar het er\nuitdragen. Laat mij eens zien, of ik die kist kan optillen.\"\n\nZij woog omstreeks vijftig pond. Tom kon haar optillen, wanneer hij\nhaar schuin hield, maar haar niet dragen.\n\n\"Dat dacht ik wel,\" zeide hij. \"In het spookhuis zag ik aan hun manier\nvan dragen, dat zij zwaar was. Ik geloof dat het maar goed is, dat\nik er aan gedacht heb de zakken mede te nemen.\"\n\nHet geld was spoedig in de zakken, en de jongens namen ze op en\ndroegen ze naar de rots met het kruis.\n\n\"Laat ons nu de geweren en de andere dingen halen,\" zeide Huck.\n\n\"Neen, Huck, die zullen wij hier laten. Dat zijn juist de zaken die\nwij noodig hebben, als wij op rooftochten uitgaan. Wij zullen ze hier\nlaten en onze slemppartijen hier ook houden.\"\n\n\"Wat zijn slemppartijen?\"\n\n\"Dat weet ik niet, maar roovers houden altijd slemppartijen en wij\nmoeten zulks natuurlijk ook doen.--Kom mee, Huck, wij zijn hier\nlang genoeg geweest. Ik heb honger ook. Wij zullen eten en rooken,\nals wij in de boot zijn.\"\n\nKort daarop kwamen zij uit het sumakboschje te voorschijn, keken\nvoorzichtig rond, vonden de kust veilig en zaten spoedig in het bootje\nte eten en te rooken. Toen de zon ter kimme daalde, stootten zij van\nwal en begaven zich op weg. Tom gleed in het schemerdonker, vroolijk\nmet Huck keuvelende, langs den oever voort en zette voet aan wal,\ntoen het geheel duister geworden was.\n\n\"Nu, Huck,\" zeide Tom, \"wij zullen het geld op de vliering der\nhoutloods van de weduwe brengen en morgen terugkomen om den boel te\ntellen en te verdeelen, en dan zullen wij een plaatsje in het bosch\nopzoeken, waar wij het geld veilig kunnen bewaren. Ga jij hier stil\nliggen en blijf op de kist passen, dan zal ik het kruiwagentje van\nBenny Taylor zien op te schommelen. Ik ben binnen een minuut weer\nbij je.\"\n\nHij verdween en kwam spoedig terug met het wagentje, waarin hij de\nbeide zakken neerlegde, en nadat hij ze met eenige oude prullen bedekt\nhad, gingen de knapen met hunne lading op weg.\n\nToen zij bij het huis van den boschwachter kwamen, hielden zij stil\nom te rusten. Juist toen zij weder verder wilden gaan, stapte de\nboschwachter uit de deur en zeide:\n\n\"Heila! wie is dat?\"\n\n\"Huck Finn en Tom Sawyer!\"\n\n\"Dat treft bijzonder. Gaat gauw met me mee, jongens; iedereen zit op\njelui te wachten! Hier, spoedig maar, naar boven. Ik zal het wagentje\nwel dragen. 't Is waarachtig een vracht! Wat zit er in, steenen of\noud ijzer?\"\n\n\"Oud ijzer,\" zeide Tom.\n\n\"Dat dacht ik al; de jongens hier in de stad geven zich meer moeite\nom een paar brokken oud ijzer op te snorren, om die aan den smid voor\nden smeltoven te verkoopen, dan zij zouden overhebben voor geregeld\nwerk, dat hun tweemaal zooveel opbracht. Maar dat is nu eenmaal de\nmenschelijke natuur. Gauw maar, gauw maar!\"\n\nDe jongens vroegen, waar die spoed voor diende.\n\n\"Dat doet er niet toe; je zult het zien, als wij bij de weduwe\nDouglas zijn.\"\n\nHuck zeide, want hij was bevreesd valsch beschuldigd te worden,\nmet zekeren angst:\n\n\"Mijnheer Jones, wij hebben niets gedaan?\"\n\nDe boschwachter lachte.\n\n\"Wel, ik kan niets zeggen, mijn jongen. Ik weet nergens van. Ge zijt\nimmers goede vrienden met de weduwe?\"\n\n\"Ja. Zij is zoo goed voor mij geweest\"\n\n\"Nu, dan is het in orde. Waarom zou je dan bang zijn?\"\n\nDeze vraag was in Hucks tragen geest nog niet beantwoord, toen hij zich\nmet Tom in het salon van mevrouw Douglas geduwd zag. De boschwachter\nliet het wagentje bij de deur staan en volgde. Het geheele huis was\nprachtig verlicht en alle personen van gewicht waren daar bijeen. De\nThatchers waren tegenwoordig, de Harpers, de Rogers', tante Polly,\nSid, Marie, de predikant, de dokter en een menigte anderen, allen in\nhunne beste kleederen.\n\nDe weduwe ontving de knapen zoo hartelijk, als men twee jongens,\ndie er uitzagen als zij, ontvangen kan. Zij waren van het hoofd\ntot de voeten met modder en kaarsvet besmeerd. Tante Polly werd\nvuurrood van schaamte, fronste hare wenkbrauwen en schudde haar hoofd\ntegen Tom. Doch niemand leed half zooveel al de knapen zelven. De\nboschwachter zeide:\n\n\"Tom was niet tehuis en ik had het juist opgegeven, toen ik hem en\nHuck vlak bij mijne deur tegen 't lijf liep, en ik bracht hen in\naller ijl hier.\"\n\n\"En daar deedt ge goed aan,\" zeide de weduwe. \"Komt met mij mede,\njongens.\"\n\nZij nam hen met zich naar eene slaapkamer en zeide:\n\n\"Gaat u nu wasschen en kleeden. Hier zijn twee pakken nieuwe\nkleederen, hemden, sokken, alles bijeen. Zij zijn voor Huck.--Neen,\ngeen dank, Huck! De boschwachter heeft er een voor u gekocht, en ik\nhet andere. Maar zij zullen beide zeker passen. Stap er maar in. Wij\nzullen wachten. Komt beneden, als gij u gepoetst hebt.\"\n\nToen verliet zij hen.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XXXV.\n\n\nZoodra de weduwe weg was, zeide Huck: \"Tom, wij kunnen, als wij een\ntouw hebben, ons naar beneden laten zakken. Het raam is niet hoog\nboven den grond.\"\n\n\"Waarom zouden wij dat doen?\"\n\n\"Och, ik ben aan zoo'n troep menschen niet gewoon. Ik kan het niet\nuitstaan. Ik ga niet naar binnen, Tom.\"\n\n\"Och, onzin! 't Is niets. Ik geef er niet om en ik zal wel voor\nje praten.\"\n\nDaar kwam Sid binnen.\n\n\"Tom,\" zeide hij, \"tante heeft den geheelen middag op je zitten\nwachten. Marie had je zondagsche kleeren klaargelegd en iedereen heeft\nzich boos over je gemaakt. Zeg, is dat geen vet en klei dat er op je\nbroek zit?\"\n\n\"Nu, mijnheer Sidje, bemoei je met je eigen zaken. Waarvoor dient al\ndat lawaai daar binnen?\"\n\n\"'t Is een van de partijen, die de weduwe zoo dikwijls geeft. Dezen\nkeer is het voor den boschwachter en zijn zoons, omdat zij haar\nverleden week uit den nood gered hebben. En zeg,--ik zal je iets\nzeggen, als je het weten wilt.\"\n\n\"Wat dan?\"\n\n\"Wel, de oude Jones zal van avond hier aan de menschen een geheim\nvertellen; maar ik heb alles afgeluisterd, toen hij het vandaag\naan tante kwam zeggen, en ik geloof dat het nu geen geheim meer\nis. Iedereen weet het,--de weduwe ook, al doet ze net alsof zij het\nniet weet. Verbeeld je, Jones had beloofd dat Huck hier zou wezen;\nwant hij kon het groote geheim niet aan den dag brengen zonder Huck,\nweet je?\"\n\n\"Het geheim? Welk geheim, Sid?\"\n\n\"Och, dat Huck de dieven bij de weduwe ontdekt heeft. Ik geloof dat\nJones zich heel wat voorstelt van de verrassing, maar zij zal in\n't water vallen.\"\n\nSid wreef zich tevreden in de handen.\n\n\"Sid, heb jij het verklapt?\"\n\n\"Dat doet er niet toe. Iemand heeft het gedaan, dat is genoeg.\"\n\n\"Sid, er is maar \u00e9\u00e9n persoon in de geheele stad, gemeen genoeg om\ndat te doen, en dat ben jij. Als je in Hucks plaats geweest waart,\nzou je als een slang den heuvel afgekropen zijn en nooit iets van de\ndieven verteld hebben. Jij kunt niet anders dan gemeene dingen doen\nen jij kunt niet aanzien, dat er een ander geprezen wordt, omdat\nhij goed heeft gedaan. Daar, je behoeft er niet voor te bedanken,\nzooals de weduwe zegt.\" En Tom gaf Sid een klap om zijne ooren en\nschopte hem de deur uit, \"Kom, ga het nu aan tantetje vertellen en\nmorgen zul je er van lusten.\"\n\nNiet lang hierna zaten al de gasten der weduwe aan tafel en een\ndozijn kinderen werden, naar de gewoonte van dat land en dien tijd,\naan kleine tafeltjes, in dezelfde kamer opeengehoopt. Op een gepast\noogenblik hield de heer Jones een kleine toespraak, waarin hij de\nweduwe zijn dank betuigde voor de eer die zij hem en zijnen zonen\nbewees; maar er was, zeide hij een ander persoon wiens nederigheid,\nenz. enz. Hij bracht het geheim van Hucks aandeel aan het vraagstuk\nop de treffendste wijze en met de schoonste dramatische wendingen,\ndie hij in zijne macht had, voor den dag; doch de verrassing, die deze\nontdekking veroorzaakte, was eenigszins gehuicheld, en het gejuich\nwas niet zoo groot als het onder gelukkiger omstandigheden geweest zou\nzijn. Toch deed de weduwe haar best om een verrast gezicht te zetten en\nhoopte zulk een tal van complimenten en zooveel dankbaarheid op Hucks\nhoofd, dat de knaap den bijna ondraaglijken last zijner nieuwe kleeren\nhaast vergat, door het onuitstaanbaar lijden van als een mikpunt\nvoor ieders blikken en ieders loftuigingen gebruikt te worden. De\nweduwe zeide, dat zij Huck een tehuis zou geven onder haar dak en\nvoor zijne opvoeding zou zorgen; en dat, als zij geld te missen had,\nzij hem een eerlijk beroep zou doen leeren.\n\nNu kwam de gelegenheid voor Tom en hij zeide:\n\n\"Huck heeft het niet noodig. Huck is rijk!\"\n\nKieschheid alleen deed den lach terughouden, dien deze grappige uitval\nonwillekeurig uitlokte. Men zweeg en er ontstond eene onaangename\nstilte, die door Tom verbroken werd.\n\n\"Huck heeft geld genoeg. Jelui moogt het gelooven of niet, maar hij\nheeft bergen geld! O, jelui behoeft niet te lachen; ik kan het jelui\nlaten zien. Wacht maar een minuut.\" Dit zeggende liep hij de deur uit.\n\nDe gasten zagen elkander verbijsterd en nieuwsgierig aan en keken\ndaarna naar Huck, die geen woord sprak.\n\n\"Sid, wat scheelt Tom?\" zeide tante Polly. \"Hij.... Wel, er is met\ndien jongen niets aan te vangen. Ik heb nooit.... \"\n\nTom kwam binnen, gebogen onder den last zijner zakken, en tante Polly\neindigde haar volzin niet. Tom wierp de massa gele geldstukken op\ntafel en zeide:\n\n\"Daar--wat heb ik gezegd? Het geld is van ons beiden; Huck de helft\nen ik de helft.\"\n\nDit tooneel deed iedereen den adem inhouden. Allen keken; niemand\nsprak. Toen volgde er een eenstemmig geroep om eene verklaring van\nhet geval. Tom zeide, dat hij die geven kon,--en dat deed hij. Het\nverhaal was lang, maar hoogst belangrijk, en de vergaderde menigte\nwas sprakeloos van verbazing. Toen de knaap aan het einde was gekomen,\nzeide de boschwachter:\n\n\"Ik dacht, dat ik voor deze gelegenheid den gasten eene kleine\nverrassing had bereid, maar zij is, hierbij vergeleken, niets\nwaard. Deze doet de mijne, ik moet het eerlijk bekennen, geheel in\nhet niet zinken.\"\n\nHet geld werd geteld. De som bedroeg over de twaalfduizend dollars. Het\nwas meer dan een der aanwezigen ooit bijeen had gezien, ofschoon\nverscheidenen der hier vergaderde personen meer waard waren dan geheel\nde gevonden schat.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XXXVI.\n\n\nDe lezer mag zich overtuigd houden, dat het buitenkansje van Tom\nen Huck eene groote opschudding in het eenvoudige, kleine stadje\nveroorzaakte. Zulk een groote som, in klinkende munt, was een bijna\nongelooflijk bezit. Men sprak zoo veel over deze daad en verheerlijkte\nhaar in zulk een mate, dat zij eindelijk het verstand van menigen\nziekelijk opgewonden burger aan het wankelen bracht. Elk spookhuis te\nSt. Petersburg en in de naburige dorpen werd onderzocht; de vloeren\nwerden plank voor plank opgenomen en de fondamenten opgegraven en\ngeplunderd, in de hoop van verborgen schatten op te leveren. En dat\nniet door kleine jongens, maar door volwassen menschen en ernstige,\nnuchtere lieden ook. Waar Tom en Huck ook verschenen, werden zij\nbewonderd en vol verbazing aangestaard. Alles wat zij deden, werd als\niets heel bijzonders beschouwd. Zij hadden blijkbaar het vermogen\nverloren om gewone dingen te zeggen of te doen. Bovendien werd de\ngeschiedenis van hun vroeger leven opgehaald en werden daarin bewijzen\nvan een buitengewonen aanleg en een buitengewoon verstand ontdekt.\n\nDe weduwe Douglas zette Hucks geld uit tegen zes percent, en de heer\nThatcher deed, op verzoek van tante Polly, hetzelfde voor Tom. De\nknapen hadden nu elk een ontzaglijk inkomen: een dollar voor elken\nwerkdag en een halve voor de Zondagen. Het was juist zooveel als\nde dominee ontving,--neen, het was zooveel als hem was toegezegd,\nwant hij kon het gewoonlijk niet bijeenkrijgen. Een en een kwart\ndollar was in die dagen voldoende weekgeld voor eens jongens kost,\ninwoning, kleeding en bewassching.\n\nDe heer Thatcher had een hoog denkbeeld van Tom Sawyer gekregen. Hij\nverklaarde, dat geen gewone jongen zijne dochter uit de grot zou gered\nhebben. Toen Becky haar vader in vertrouwen vertelde, hoe grootmoedig\nTom hare zweepslagen op school op zich had genomen, was de rechter\nzichtbaar bewogen; en toen zij haar vader smeekte de vreeselijke leugen\nover het hoofd te zien, waaraan Tom zich had schuldig gemaakt, om de\nzweepslagen van hare schouders te nemen, zeide de rechter opgewonden,\ndat het een brave, een edele, een grootmoedige leugen was, een leugen\ndie verdiende in Amerika's geschiedrollen te worden te boek gesteld.\n\nBecky vond, dat haar vader er nooit zoo fier en mannelijk had\nuitgezien, als toen hij, onder het uiten dezer woorden, met van\ngeestdrift schitterende oogen, de kamer doorliep. Geen wonder dat\nzij alles dadelijk aan Tom ging overbrieven!\n\nDe heer Thatcher hield zich overtuigd, dat Tom eens een groot\nrechtsgeleerde of een beroemd militair zou worden. Hij zeide dat\nhij zijn best zou doen, dat de knaap naar de Militaire Academie werd\ngezonden en dan naar de beste hoogeschool in het land, opdat hij voor\nbeide vakken klaar zou zijn.\n\nDe schatten van Huck Finn en het feit dat hij onder de bescherming der\nweduwe Douglas kwam, brachten of liever trokken en sleurden hem in de\nmaatschappij en zijn lijden was meer dan hij kon dragen. De dienstboden\nder weduwe hielden hem rein, zorgden dat hij er netjes uitzag, kamden\nen borstelden hem en legden hem 's nachts in ongemakkelijke bedden,\nwaarop geen vlekje of spatje te ontdekken was. Hij moest met mes en\nvork eten, een servet gebruiken en een kopje en schoteltje; hij moest\nzijne lessen leeren, naar de kerk gaan en netjes spreken. Waarheen\nhij zich ook wendde, overal werd hij door de grendels en ketenen der\nbeschaving ingesloten en aan handen en voeten gebonden.\n\nHij droeg zijne ellende drie weken lang, geduldig en onderworpen,\nen toen werd hij op zekeren dag gemist. Gedurende acht en veertig\nuren liet de weduwe overal naar hem zoeken. Het publiek was er\ndiep mede begaan; men zocht rechts en links en de rivier werd zelfs\ngebaggerd. Den derden morgen nadat hij gemist was, ging Tom verstandig\nonder een paar leege vaten achter het verlaten slachthuis snuffelen\nen vond den vluchteling in een van deze. Huck had daar geslapen, hij\nhad juist zijn ontbijt genuttigd, bestaande uit een paar armzalige\nstukjes brood en vleesch, die hij hier en daar had weggekaapt, en hij\nzat nu dood op zijn gemak in een okshoofd zijn pijpje te rooken. Hij\nwas ongekamd, ongewasschen en gekleed in dezelfde oude lompen,\ndie hem in de dagen, waarin hij nog vrij en gelukkig was, zulk een\neigenaardig voorkomen gaven. Tom las hem de les, zeide hem hoezeer\nhij allen verontrust had en verzocht hem naar huis te gaan. Hucks\ngelaat verloor de uitdrukking van kalme tevredenheid en betrok.\n\nHij zeide:\n\n\"Spreek er niet van, Tom. Ik heb mijn best gedaan, maar het gaat niet;\nneen, het gaat niet voor mij: ik ben er niet aan gewoon. De weduwe is\ngoed en vriendelijk; maar ik kan het niet bij haar uithouden. Ik moet\nalle ochtenden op hetzelfde uur opstaan en mij het vel van het lijf\nlaten wasschen en kammen; zij wil mij niet eens in de schuur laten\nslapen; ik moet kleeren dragen waaronder ik bezwijk; en zij zijn\nzoo akelig mooi, dat ik er niet mede kan zitten, liggen, noch op den\ngrond rollen; ik mag nergens aankomen en moet naar de kerk gaan. Ik\nmag er geene vliegen vangen, niet pruimen, en moet den geheelen Zondag\nschoenen dragen. De weduwe eet, als de bel luidt; zij gaat naar bed,\nals de bel luidt; zij staat op, als de bel luidt; en alles gaat zoo\ndrommels geregeld, dat een gewoon mensch er niet tegen bestand is.\"\n\n\"Maar, Huck, zoo leeft iedereen.\"\n\n\"'t Kan me niet schelen, Tom; ik ben niet als iedereen en ik kan\nhet niet uithouden. Het is vreeselijk om zoo aan banden gelegd te\nworden. En je komt er zoo gemakkelijk aan je eten, dat het mij niet\nsmaakt. Als ik wil visschen, moet ik het vragen; als ik wil zwemmen,\nmoet ik het vragen; en vroeger kon ik alles doen wat ik wou. Elken\ndag vlucht ik een uurtje naar den zolder om te rooken, omdat ik zoo'n\nflauwen smaak in mijn mond heb. Als ik dat niet deed zou ik sterven,\nTom. De weduwe gunt me geen pijp; ik mag niet gapen, mij niet uitrekken\nen mij niet krabben, als er anderen bij zijn. Ik moet ook op mijne\nknie\u00ebn liggen, ik moet naar school gaan--en dat wil ik niet, Tom. 't Is\nmij een kwelling om rijk te zijn en te zweeten, totdat je woudt dat je\ndood was. Neen, deze kleeren lijken mij, een vat lijkt me,--en ik denk\nniet weder te veranderen. Toch, ik zou nooit in al die ellende gekomen\nzijn, als het niet was door dat geld. Nu moet je mijn part maar bij\ndat van jou doen en mij nu en dan een cent of wat geven,--doch niet\nvaak, omdat ik geen penning geef om dingen, die ik kan koopen. En dan,\noch toe, maak jij het weer voor mij af met de weduwe!\"\n\n\"O, Huck, je weet, dat ik dat niet doen kan! Dat is niet mooi; en\nbuitendien, als je het nog een poos probeert, zul je eindigen met\nhet prettig te vinden.\"\n\n\"Prettig vinden? Ja--net zoo zeker als ik het prettig zal vinden,\nom een uur op een brandende kachel te zitten. Neen, Tom, ik wil niet\nrijk zijn en in die vervloekte, mooie huizen wonen. Ik houd van de\nbosschen en van de rivier en van leege vaten--en daarbij denk ik te\nblijven. Juist toen we een grot gevonden hadden en geweren, en alles\nklaar was om roovers te worden, daar komt me die verdraaide weduwe\nen bederft alles!\"\n\nTom zag een lichtstraal.\n\n\"Kijk eens hier, Huck. Rijk zijn verhindert een mensch niet om roover\nte worden.\"\n\n\"Niet? O, dat is gelukkig! Meen je dat, Tom? Meen je het wezenlijk?\"\n\n\"Ja, zoo waar als ik hier zit. Maar, Huck, je kunt niet meer met ons\nmee doen, als je geen fatsoenlijke jongen wordt.\"\n\n\"Waarom niet, Tom? Ben ik dan ook niet zeeroover geweest?\"\n\n\"Jawel, maar dat is heel wat anders. Een struikroover is veel voornamer\ndan een zeeroover. In de meeste landen zijn de groote lui allemaal\nroovers.\"\n\n\"Tom, jij die altijd zoo goed jegens mij geweest bent, waarom sluit\nje me nu buiten? Neen, je meent het niet, Tom.\"\n\n\"Huck, ik wou dat ik het niet behoefde te doen en ik voor mij zou\nhet je ook niet behoeven; maar wat zouden de menschen zeggen? De\nmenschen zouden zeggen: 'Nu! de bende van Tom Sawyer.... gemeene\nlui.' En daarmede zouden ze jou meenen, Huck. Dat zou je ook niet\nprettig vinden.\" Huck zweeg eenige oogenblikken en had een bitteren\nstrijd in zijn binnenste te voeren. Eindelijk sprak hij:\n\n\"Wel, ik zal voor een maand naar de weduwe teruggaan en het probeeren,\nen zien of ik het kan uithouden, als je me belooft dat ik bij de\nbende zal behooren, Tom.\"\n\n\"Best, Huck, dat blijft afgesproken. Ga maar mee, oude jongen; ik\nzal aan de weduwe vragen, of ze je een beetje meer vrijheid wil geven.\"\n\n\"Zul je dat wezenlijk doen, Tom? Dat is goed. Als ze mij maar enkele\ndingen toelaat, die ik graag doe, zal ik wel vloeken en rooken, waar\nze mij niet hoort of ziet, en mij er dan wel doorredden. Wanneer ga\nje de bende in orde maken, en wanneer worden we roovers?\"\n\n\"Nu, zoo dadelijk. Wij zullen de jongens bij elkaar zien te krijgen\nen van nacht het initiatief nemen.\"\n\n\"Het initiatief? Wat is dat?\"\n\n\"Dat is, dat we zweren zullen, elkander bij te staan en nooit de\ngeheimen der bende te verklappen, zelfs al werden we aan stukken\ngehakt, en het geheele huisgezin uit te moorden van hen, die de bende\nkwaad doet.\"\n\n\"Dat is aardig,--dat is allemachtig aardig, Tom.\"\n\n\"Wel, waarachtig is het dat. En wij moeten tegen middernacht zweren,\nop de akeligste, eenzaamste plaats, die we maar vinden kunnen. Een\nspookhuis is het beste; maar die zijn nu allemaal omvergehaald. En\nwij moeten zweren op een doodkist en den eed met bloed bezegelen.\"\n\n\"Nu, dat lijkt mij! Wel, dat is duizendmaal prettiger dan zeeroover\nte zijn. Ik zal tot aan mijn dood bij de weduwe blijven; en als ik\neen geduchte roover zal zijn, van wien iedereen den mond vol heeft,\nzal ze nog blij toe wezen, dat ze me uit het slijk heeft gehaald.\"\n\nDus eindigt dit verhaal. Daar het uitsluitend mijne bedoeling was,\nde geschiedenis van een jongen te vertellen, mag ik thans ophouden;\nanders zou het de levensbeschrijving van een man worden. Als men\neen roman schrijft over volwassenen, weet de schrijver precies hoe\nhij moet eindigen,--te weten, met een huwelijk. Doch wanneer hij\niets uit de kinderwereld weergeeft, moet hij ophouden, waar het hem\n't best toeschijnt.\n\nDe meesten der personen die in dit boek voorkomen leven nog en zijn\nvoorspoedig en gelukkig. Misschien zal het de moeite waard zijn te\neeniger tijd de geschiedenis der kinderen nog eens op te nemen en\nte zien wat voor soort van mannen en vrouwen zij geworden zijn. [4]\nDaarom zal het 't verstandigst wezen voor het oogenblik van dat\ntijdperk huns levens niet te spreken.\n\n\nDE SCHRIJVER.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAANTEEKENINGEN\n\n\n[1] Vogel.\n\n[2] De dusgenaamde \"opstellen\", die wij hier hebben aangehaald, zijn\nzonder eenige verandering genomen uit een werkje getiteld: \"Proza en\npo\u00ebzie, door eene dame uit het verre Westen.\" Zij zijn volmaakt naar\nhet gewone schoolmeisjesmodel, en vandaar dat wij beter geslaagd zijn,\ndan wanneer wij er een hadden verzonnen.\n\n[3] Buitengerechtelijk veroordeelen en ter dood brengen.\n\n[4] Zulks is geschied in het latere werk van Mark Twain \"De Lotgevallen\nvan Huckleberry Finn\", waarvan eveneens eene goede ge\u00efllustreerde\nuitgave in de Nederlandsche taal is verschenen.\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"1892":"\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nExtracts From Adam\u2019s Diary\n\nTranslated from the original MS.\n\nby Mark Twain\n\n\n\n\n[NOTE.\u2014I translated a portion of this diary some years ago, and a\nfriend of mine printed a few copies in an incomplete form, but the\npublic never got them. Since then I have deciphered some more of Adam\u2019s\nhieroglyphics, and think he has now become sufficiently important as a\npublic character to justify this publication.\u2014M. T.]\n\n\n\n\nMonday\n\n\nThis new creature with the long hair is a good deal in the way. It is\nalways hanging around and following me about. I don\u2019t like this; I am\nnot used to company. I wish it would stay with the other animals.\nCloudy to-day, wind in the east; think we shall have rain\u2026. Where did I\nget that word?\u2026 I remember now\u2014the new creature uses it.\n\n\n\n\nTuesday\n\n\nBeen examining the great waterfall. It is the finest thing on the\nestate, I think. The new creature calls it Niagara Falls\u2014why, I am sure\nI do not know. Says it looks like Niagara Falls. That is not a reason;\nit is mere waywardness and imbecility. I get no chance to name anything\nmyself. The new creature names everything that comes along, before I\ncan get in a protest. And always that same pretext is offered\u2014it looks\nlike the thing. There is the dodo, for instance. Says the moment one\nlooks at it one sees at a glance that it \u201clooks like a dodo.\u201d It will\nhave to keep that name, no doubt. It wearies me to fret about it, and\nit does no good, anyway. Dodo! It looks no more like a dodo than I do.\n\n\n\n\nWednesday\n\n\nBuilt me a shelter against the rain, but could not have it to myself in\npeace. The new creature intruded. When I tried to put it out it shed\nwater out of the holes it looks with, and wiped it away with the back\nof its paws, and made a noise such as some of the other animals make\nwhen they are in distress. I wish it would not talk; it is always\ntalking. That sounds like a cheap fling at the poor creature, a slur;\nbut I do not mean it so. I have never heard the human voice before, and\nany new and strange sound intruding itself here upon the solemn hush of\nthese dreaming solitudes offends my ear and seems a false note. And\nthis new sound is so close to me; it is right at my shoulder, right at\nmy ear, first on one side and then on the other, and I am used only to\nsounds that are more or less distant from me.\n\n\n\n\nFriday\n\n\nThe naming goes recklessly on, in spite of anything I can do. I had a\nvery good name for the estate, and it was musical and pretty\n\u2014GARDEN-OF-EDEN. Privately, I continue to call it that, but not any\nlonger publicly. The new creature says it is all woods and rocks and\nscenery, and therefore has no resemblance to a garden. Says it looks\nlike a park, and does not look like anything but a park. Consequently,\nwithout consulting me, it has been new-named \u2014NIAGARA FALLS PARK. This\nis sufficiently high-handed, it seems to me. And already there is a\nsign up:\n\nKEEP OFF THE GRASS\n\nMy life is not as happy as it was.\n\n\n\n\nSaturday\n\n\nThe new creature eats too much fruit. We are going to run short, most\nlikely. \u201cWe\u201d again\u2014that is its word; mine too, now, from hearing it so\nmuch. Good deal of fog this morning. I do not go out in the fog myself.\nThe new creature does. It goes out in all weathers, and stumps right in\nwith its muddy feet. And talks. It used to be so pleasant and quiet\nhere.\n\n\n\n\nSunday\n\n\nPulled through. This day is getting to be more and more trying. It was\nselected and set apart last November as a day of rest. I already had\nsix of them per week, before. This morning found the new creature\ntrying to clod apples out of that forbidden tree.\n\n\n\n\nMonday\n\n\nThe new creature says its name is Eve. That is all right, I have no\nobjections. Says it is to call it by when I want it to come. I said it\nwas superfluous, then. The word evidently raised me in its respect; and\nindeed it is a large, good word, and will bear repetition. It says it\nis not an It, it is a She. This is probably doubtful; yet it is all one\nto me; what she is were nothing to me if she would but go by herself\nand not talk.\n\n\n\n\nTuesday\n\n\nShe has littered the whole estate with execrable names and offensive\nsigns:\n\nTHIS WAY TO THE WHIRLPOOL.\n\nTHIS WAY TO GOAT ISLAND.\n\nCAVE OF THE WINDS THIS WAY.\n\nShe says this park would make a tidy summer resort, if there was any\ncustom for it. Summer resort\u2014another invention of hers\u2014just words,\nwithout any meaning. What is a summer resort? But it is best not to ask\nher, she has such a rage for explaining.\n\n\n\n\nFriday\n\n\nShe has taken to beseeching me to stop going over the Falls. What harm\ndoes it do? Says it makes her shudder. I wonder why. I have always done\nit\u2014always liked the plunge, and the excitement, and the coolness. I\nsupposed it was what the Falls were for. They have no other use that I\ncan see, and they must have been made for something. She says they were\nonly made for scenery\u2014like the rhinoceros and the mastodon.\n\nI went over the Falls in a barrel\u2014not satisfactory to her. Went over in\na tub\u2014still not satisfactory. Swam the Whirlpool and the Rapids in a\nfig-leaf suit. It got much damaged. Hence, tedious complaints about my\nextravagance. I am too much hampered here. What I need is change of\nscene.\n\n\n\n\nSaturday\n\n\nI escaped last Tuesday night, and travelled two days, and built me\nanother shelter, in a secluded place, and obliterated my tracks as well\nas I could, but she hunted me out by means of a beast which she has\ntamed and calls a wolf, and came making that pitiful noise again, and\nshedding that water out of the places she looks with. I was obliged to\nreturn with her, but will presently emigrate again, when occasion\noffers. She engages herself in many foolish things: among others,\ntrying to study out why the animals called lions and tigers live on\ngrass and flowers, when, as she says, the sort of teeth they wear would\nindicate that they were intended to eat each other. This is foolish,\nbecause to do that would be to kill each other, and that would\nintroduce what, as I understand it, is called \u201cdeath;\u201d and death, as I\nhave been told, has not yet entered the Park. Which is a pity, on some\naccounts.\n\n\n\n\nSunday\n\n\nPulled through.\n\n\n\n\nMonday\n\n\nI believe I see what the week is for: it is to give time to rest up\nfrom the weariness of Sunday. It seems a good idea\u2026. She has been\nclimbing that tree again. Clodded her out of it. She said nobody was\nlooking. Seems to consider that a sufficient justification for chancing\nany dangerous thing. Told her that. The word justification moved her\nadmiration\u2014and envy too, I thought. It is a good word.\n\n\n\n\nThursday\n\n\nShe told me she was made out of a rib taken from my body. This is at\nleast doubtful, if not more than that. I have not missed any rib\u2026. She\nis in much trouble about the buzzard; says grass does not agree with\nit; is afraid she can\u2019t raise it; thinks it was intended to live on\ndecayed flesh. The buzzard must get along the best it can with what is\nprovided. We cannot overturn the whole scheme to accommodate the\nbuzzard.\n\n\n\n\nSaturday\n\n\nShe fell in the pond yesterday, when she was looking at herself in it,\nwhich she is always doing. She nearly strangled, and said it was most\nuncomfortable. This made her sorry for the creatures which live in\nthere, which she calls fish, for she continues to fasten names on to\nthings that don\u2019t need them and don\u2019t come when they are called by\nthem, which is a matter of no consequence to her, as she is such a\nnumskull anyway; so she got a lot of them out and brought them in last\nnight and put them in my bed to keep warm, but I have noticed them now\nand then all day, and I don\u2019t see that they are any happier there than\nthey were before, only quieter. When night comes I shall throw them\nout-doors. I will not sleep with them again, for I find them clammy and\nunpleasant to lie among when a person hasn\u2019t anything on.\n\n\n\n\nSunday\n\n\nPulled through.\n\n\n\n\nTuesday\n\n\nShe has taken up with a snake now. The other animals are glad, for she\nwas always experimenting with them and bothering them; and I am glad,\nbecause the snake talks, and this enables me to get a rest.\n\n\n\n\nFriday\n\n\nShe says the snake advises her to try the fruit of that tree, and says\nthe result will be a great and fine and noble education. I told her\nthere would be another result, too\u2014it would introduce death into the\nworld. That was a mistake\u2014it had been better to keep the remark to\nmyself; it only gave her an idea\u2014she could save the sick buzzard, and\nfurnish fresh meat to the despondent lions and tigers. I advised her to\nkeep away from the tree. She said she wouldn\u2019t. I foresee trouble. Will\nemigrate.\n\n\n\n\nWednesday\n\n\nI have had a variegated time. I escaped that night, and rode a horse\nall night as fast as he could go, hoping to get clear out of the Park\nand hide in some other country before the trouble should begin; but it\nwas not to be. About an hour after sunup, as I was riding through a\nflowery plain where thousands of animals were grazing, slumbering, or\nplaying with each other, according to their wont, all of a sudden they\nbroke into a tempest of frightful noises, and in one moment the plain\nwas in a frantic commotion and every beast was destroying its neighbor.\nI knew what it meant\u2014Eve had eaten that fruit, and death was come into\nthe world\u2026. The tigers ate my horse, paying no attention when I ordered\nthem to desist, and they would even have eaten me if I had stayed\u2014which\nI didn\u2019t, but went away in much haste\u2026. I found this place, outside the\nPark, and was fairly comfortable for a few days, but she has found me\nout. Found me out, and has named the place Tonawanda\u2014says it looks like\nthat. In fact, I was not sorry she came, for there are but meagre\npickings here, and she brought some of those apples. I was obliged to\neat them, I was so hungry. It was against my principles, but I find\nthat principles have no real force except when one is well fed\u2026. She\ncame curtained in boughs and bunches of leaves, and when I asked her\nwhat she meant by such nonsense, and snatched them away and threw them\ndown, she tittered and blushed. I had never seen a person titter and\nblush before, and to me it seemed unbecoming and idiotic. She said I\nwould soon know how it was myself. This was correct. Hungry as I was, I\nlaid down the apple half eaten\u2014certainly the best one I ever saw,\nconsidering the lateness of the season\u2014and arrayed myself in the\ndiscarded boughs and branches, and then spoke to her with some severity\nand ordered her to go and get some more and not make such a spectacle\nof herself. She did it, and after this we crept down to where the\nwild-beast battle had been, and collected some skins, and I made her\npatch together a couple of suits proper for public occasions. They are\nuncomfortable, it is true, but stylish, and that is the main point\nabout clothes. \u2026 I find she is a good deal of a companion. I see I\nshould be lonesome and depressed without her, now that I have lost my\nproperty. Another thing, she says it is ordered that we work for our\nliving hereafter. She will be useful. I will superintend.\n\n\n\n\nTen Days Later\n\n\nShe accuses me of being the cause of our disaster! She says, with\napparent sincerity and truth, that the Serpent assured her that the\nforbidden fruit was not apples, it was chestnuts. I said I was\ninnocent, then, for I had not eaten any chestnuts. She said the Serpent\ninformed her that \u201cchestnut\u201d was a figurative term meaning an aged and\nmouldy joke. I turned pale at that, for I have made many jokes to pass\nthe weary time, and some of them could have been of that sort, though I\nhad honestly supposed that they were new when I made them. She asked me\nif I had made one just at the time of the catastrophe. I was obliged to\nadmit that I had made one to myself, though not aloud. It was this. I\nwas thinking about the Falls, and I said to myself, \u201cHow wonderful it\nis to see that vast body of water tumble down there!\u201d Then in an\ninstant a bright thought flashed into my head, and I let it fly,\nsaying, \u201cIt would be a deal more wonderful to see it tumble up\nthere!\u201d\u2014and I was just about to kill myself with laughing at it when\nall nature broke loose in war and death, and I had to flee for my life.\n\u201cThere,\u201d she said, with triumph, \u201cthat is just it; the Serpent\nmentioned that very jest, and called it the First Chestnut, and said it\nwas coeval with the creation.\u201d Alas, I am indeed to blame. Would that I\nwere not witty; oh, would that I had never had that radiant thought!\n\n\n\n\nNext Year\n\n\nWe have named it Cain. She caught it while I was up country trapping on\nthe North Shore of the Erie; caught it in the timber a couple of miles\nfrom our dug-out\u2014or it might have been four, she isn\u2019t certain which.\nIt resembles us in some ways, and may be a relation. That is what she\nthinks, but this is an error, in my judgment. The difference in size\nwarrants the conclusion that it is a different and new kind of animal\u2014a\nfish, perhaps, though when I put it in the water to see, it sank, and\nshe plunged in and snatched it out before there was opportunity for the\nexperiment to determine the matter. I still think it is a fish, but she\nis indifferent about what it is, and will not let me have it to try. I\ndo not understand this. The coming of the creature seems to have\nchanged her whole nature and made her unreasonable about experiments.\nShe thinks more of it than she does of any of the other animals, but is\nnot able to explain why. Her mind is disordered\u2014everything shows it.\nSometimes she carries the fish in her arms half the night when it\ncomplains and wants to get to the water. At such times the water comes\nout of the places in her face that she looks out of, and she pats the\nfish on the back and makes soft sounds with her mouth to soothe it, and\nbetrays sorrow and solicitude in a hundred ways. I have never seen her\ndo like this with any other fish, and it troubles me greatly. She used\nto carry the young tigers around so, and play with them, before we lost\nour property; but it was only play; she never took on about them like\nthis when their dinner disagreed with them.\n\n\n\n\nSunday\n\n\nShe doesn\u2019t work Sundays, but lies around all tired out, and likes to\nhave the fish wallow over her; and she makes fool noises to amuse it,\nand pretends to chew its paws, and that makes it laugh. I have not seen\na fish before that could laugh. This makes me doubt\u2026. I have come to\nlike Sunday myself. Superintending all the week tires a body so. There\nought to be more Sundays. In the old days they were tough, but now they\ncome handy.\n\n\n\n\nWednesday\n\n\nIt isn\u2019t a fish. I cannot quite make out what it is. It makes curious,\ndevilish noises when not satisfied, and says \u201cgoo-goo\u201d when it is. It\nis not one of us, for it doesn\u2019t walk; it is not a bird, for it doesn\u2019t\nfly; it is not a frog, for it doesn\u2019t hop; it is not a snake, for it\ndoesn\u2019t crawl; I feel sure it is not a fish, though I cannot get a\nchance to find out whether it can swim or not. It merely lies around,\nand mostly on its back, with its feet up. I have not seen any other\nanimal do that before. I said I believed it was an enigma, but she only\nadmired the word without understanding it. In my judgment it is either\nan enigma or some kind of a bug. If it dies, I will take it apart and\nsee what its arrangements are. I never had a thing perplex me so.\n\n\n\n\nThree Months Later\n\n\nThe perplexity augments instead of diminishing. I sleep but little. It\nhas ceased from lying around, and goes about on its four legs now. Yet\nit differs from the other four-legged animals in that its front legs\nare unusually short, consequently this causes the main part of its\nperson to stick up uncomfortably high in the air, and this is not\nattractive. It is built much as we are, but its method of travelling\nshows that it is not of our breed. The short front legs and long hind\nones indicate that it is of the kangaroo family, but it is a marked\nvariation of the species, since the true kangaroo hops, whereas this\none never does. Still, it is a curious and interesting variety, and has\nnot been catalogued before. As I discovered it, I have felt justified\nin securing the credit of the discovery by attaching my name to it, and\nhence have called it Kangaroorum Adamiensis\u2026. It must have been a young\none when it came, for it has grown exceedingly since. It must be five\ntimes as big, now, as it was then, and when discontented is able to\nmake from twenty-two to thirty-eight times the noise it made at first.\nCoercion does not modify this, but has the contrary effect. For this\nreason I discontinued the system. She reconciles it by persuasion, and\nby giving it things which she had previously told it she wouldn\u2019t give\nit. As already observed, I was not at home when it first came, and she\ntold me she found it in the woods. It seems odd that it should be the\nonly one, yet it must be so, for I have worn myself out these many\nweeks trying to find another one to add to my collection, and for this\none to play with; for surely then it would be quieter, and we could\ntame it more easily. But I find none, nor any vestige of any; and\nstrangest of all, no tracks. It has to live on the ground, it cannot\nhelp itself; therefore, how does it get about without leaving a track?\nI have set a dozen traps, but they do no good. I catch all small\nanimals except that one; animals that merely go into the trap out of\ncuriosity, I think, to see what the milk is there for. They never drink\nit.\n\n\n\n\nThree Months Later\n\n\nThe kangaroo still continues to grow, which is very strange and\nperplexing. I never knew one to be so long getting its growth. It has\nfur on its head now; not like kangaroo fur, but exactly like our hair,\nexcept that it is much finer and softer, and instead of being black is\nred. I am like to lose my mind over the capricious and harassing\ndevelopments of this unclassifiable zoological freak. If I could catch\nanother one\u2014but that is hopeless; it is a new variety, and the only\nsample; this is plain. But I caught a true kangaroo and brought it in,\nthinking that this one, being lonesome, would rather have that for\ncompany than have no kin at all, or any animal it could feel a nearness\nto or get sympathy from in its forlorn condition here among strangers\nwho do not know its ways or habits, or what to do to make it feel that\nit is among friends; but it was a mistake\u2014it went into such fits at the\nsight of the kangaroo that I was convinced it had never seen one\nbefore. I pity the poor noisy little animal, but there is nothing I can\ndo to make it happy. If I could tame it\u2014but that is out of the\nquestion; the more I try, the worse I seem to make it. It grieves me to\nthe heart to see it in its little storms of sorrow and passion. I\nwanted to let it go, but she wouldn\u2019t hear of it. That seemed cruel and\nnot like her; and yet she may be right. It might be lonelier than ever;\nfor since I cannot find another one, how could it?\n\n\n\n\nFive Months Later\n\n\nIt is not a kangaroo. No, for it supports itself by holding to her\nfinger, and thus goes a few steps on its hind legs, and then falls\ndown. It is probably some kind of a bear; and yet it has no tail\u2014as\nyet\u2014and no fur, except on its head. It still keeps on growing\u2014that is a\ncurious circumstance, for bears get their growth earlier than this.\nBears are dangerous\u2014since our catastrophe\u2014and I shall not be satisfied\nto have this one prowling about the place much longer without a muzzle\non. I have offered to get her a kangaroo if she would let this one go,\nbut it did no good\u2014she is determined to run us into all sorts of\nfoolish risks, I think. She was not like this before she lost her mind.\n\n\n\n\nA Fortnight Later\n\n\nI examined its mouth. There is no danger yet; it has only one tooth. It\nhas no tail yet. It makes more noise now than it ever did before\u2014and\nmainly at night. I have moved out. But I shall go over, mornings, to\nbreakfast, and to see if it has more teeth. If it gets a mouthful of\nteeth, it will be time for it to go, tail or no tail, for a bear does\nnot need a tail in order to be dangerous.\n\n\n\n\nFour Months Later\n\n\nI have been off hunting and fishing a month, up in the region that she\ncalls Buffalo; I don\u2019t know why, unless it is because there are not any\nbuffaloes there. Meantime the bear has learned to paddle around all by\nitself on its hind legs, and says \u201cpoppa\u201d and \u201cmomma.\u201d It is certainly\na new species. This resemblance to words may be purely accidental, of\ncourse, and may have no purpose or meaning; but even in that case it is\nstill extraordinary, and is a thing which no other bear can do. This\nimitation of speech, taken together with general absence of fur and\nentire absence of tail, sufficiently indicates that this is a new kind\nof bear. The further study of it will be exceedingly interesting.\nMeantime I will go off on a far expedition among the forests of the\nNorth and make an exhaustive search. There must certainly be another\none somewhere, and this one will be less dangerous when it has company\nof its own species. I will go straightway; but I will muzzle this one\nfirst.\n\n\n\n\nThree Months Later\n\n\nIt has been a weary, weary hunt, yet I have had no success. In the mean\ntime, without stirring from the home estate, she has caught another\none! I never saw such luck. I might have hunted these woods a hundred\nyears, I never should have run across that thing.\n\n\n\n\nNext Day\n\n\nI have been comparing the new one with the old one, and it is perfectly\nplain that they are the same breed. I was going to stuff one of them\nfor my collection, but she is prejudiced against it for some reason or\nother; so I have relinquished the idea, though I think it is a mistake.\nIt would be an irreparable loss to science if they should get away. The\nold one is tamer than it was, and can laugh and talk like the parrot,\nhaving learned this, no doubt, from being with the parrot so much, and\nhaving the imitative faculty in a highly developed degree. I shall be\nastonished if it turns out to be a new kind of parrot, and yet I ought\nnot to be astonished, for it has already been everything else it could\nthink of, since those first days when it was a fish. The new one is as\nugly now as the old one was at first; has the same sulphur-and-raw-meat\ncomplexion and the same singular head without any fur on it. She calls\nit Abel.\n\n\n\n\nTen Years Later\n\n\nThey are boys; we found it out long ago. It was their coming in that\nsmall, immature shape that puzzled us; we were not used to it. There\nare some girls now. Abel is a good boy, but if Cain had stayed a bear\nit would have improved him. After all these years, I see that I was\nmistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the\nGarden with her than inside it without her. At first I thought she\ntalked too much; but now I should be sorry to have that voice fall\nsilent and pass out of my life. Blessed be the chestnut that brought us\nnear together and taught me to know the goodness of her heart and the\nsweetness of her spirit!\n\n\n\n"}
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{"19484":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEditorial Wild Oats\n\nBY\n\nMark Twain\n\nILLUSTRATED\n\nNEW YORK AND LONDON\nHARPER & BROTHERS\nPUBLISHERS--MCMV\n\n\n\n\nCopyright, 1875, 1899, 1903, by SAMUEL L. CLEMENS.\n\nCopyright, 1879, 1899, by SAMUEL L. CLEMENS.\n\nCopyright, 1905, by HARPER & BROTHERS.\n\n_All rights reserved._\n\nPublished September, 1905.\n\n[Illustration: See p. 57\n\n\"I FANCIED HE WAS DISPLEASED\"]\n\n\n\n\nContents\n\n\n                                                   PAGE\nMY FIRST LITERARY VENTURE                             3\n\nJOURNALISM IN TENNESSEE                              11\n\nNICODEMUS DODGE--PRINTER                             30\n\nMR. BLOKE'S ITEM                                     41\n\nHOW I EDITED AN AGRICULTURAL\nPAPER                                                52\n\nTHE KILLING OF JULIUS C\u00c6SAR \"LOCALIZED\"              70\n\n\n\n\nIllustrations\n\n\n\"I FANCIED HE WAS DISPLEASED\"            _Frontispiece_\n\n\"HE HAD CONCLUDED HE\nWOULDN'T\"                              _Facing p._    4\n\n\"GILLESPIE HAD CALLED\"                 \"             24\n\n\"WHEEZING THE MUSIC OF 'CAMPTOWN\nRACES'\"                                \"             38\n\n\"I HAVE READ THIS ABSURD ITEM\nOVER\"                                  \"             50\n\n\"A LONG CADAVEROUS CREATURE\"           \"             58\n\n\"THERE WAS NOTHING IN THE\nPOCKETS\"                               \"             82\n\n\n+----------------------------------------------------------------------+\n|Transcriber's Note: The dialect in this book is transcribed exactly as|\n|in the original.                                                         |\n+----------------------------------------------------------------------+\n\n\n\n\nEditorial Wild Oats\n\n\n\n\nMy First Literary Venture\n\n\nI was a very smart child at the age of thirteen--an unusually\nsmart child, I thought at the time. It was then that I did my first\nnewspaper scribbling, and most unexpectedly to me it stirred up a\nfine sensation in the community. It did, indeed, and I was very\nproud of it, too. I was a printer's \"devil,\" and a progressive and\naspiring one. My uncle had me on his paper (the _Weekly Hannibal\nJournal_, two dollars a year, in advance--five hundred subscribers,\nand they paid in cord-wood, cabbages, and unmarketable turnips),\nand on a lucky summer's day he left town to be gone a week, and\nasked me if I thought I could edit one issue of the paper\njudiciously. Ah! didn't I want to try! Higgins was the editor on\nthe rival paper. He had lately been jilted, and one night a friend\nfound an open note on the poor fellow's bed, in which he stated\nthat he could no longer endure life and had drowned himself in Bear\nCreek. The friend ran down there and discovered Higgins wading back\nto shore. He had concluded he wouldn't. The village was full of it\nfor several days, but Higgins did not suspect it. I thought this\nwas a fine opportunity. I wrote an elaborately wretched account of\nthe whole matter, and then illustrated it with villanous cuts\nengraved on the bottoms of wooden type with a jack-knife--one of\nthem a picture of Higgins wading out into the creek in his shirt,\nwith a lantern, sounding the depth of the water with a walking-stick.\nI thought it was desperately funny, and was densely unconscious that\nthere was any moral obliquity about such a publication. Being\nsatisfied with this effort, I looked around for other worlds to\nconquer, and it struck me that it would make good, interesting matter\nto charge the editor of a neighboring country paper with a piece of\ngratuitous rascality and \"see him squirm.\"\n\n[Illustration: \"HE HAD CONCLUDED HE WOULDN'T\"]\n\nI did it, putting the article into the form of a parody on the\n\"Burial of Sir John Moore\"--and a pretty crude parody it was, too.\n\nThen I lampooned two prominent citizens outrageously--not because\nthey had done anything to deserve it, but merely because I thought\nit was my duty to make the paper lively.\n\nNext I gently touched up the newest stranger--the lion of the day,\nthe gorgeous journeyman tailor from Quincy. He was a simpering\ncoxcomb of the first water, and the \"loudest\" dressed man in the\nState. He was an inveterate woman-killer. Every week he wrote lushy\n\"poetry\" for the _Journal_, about his newest conquest. His rhymes\nfor my week were headed, \"TO MARY IN H--L,\" meaning to Mary in\nHannibal, of course. But while setting up the piece I was suddenly\nriven from head to heel by what I regarded as a perfect thunderbolt\nof humor, and I compressed it into a snappy footnote at the\nbottom--thus:\n\n  \"We will let this thing pass, just this once; but we wish Mr. J.\n  Gordon Runnels to understand distinctly that we have a character\n  to sustain, and from this time forth when he wants to commune\n  with his friends in h--l, he must select some other medium than\n  the columns of this journal!\"\n\nThe paper came out, and I never knew any little thing attract so\nmuch attention as those playful trifles of mine.\n\nFor once the _Hannibal Journal_ was in demand--a novelty it had\nnot experienced before. The whole town was stirred. Higgins dropped\nin with a double-barrelled shot-gun early in the forenoon. When he\nfound that it was an infant (as he called me) that had done him the\ndamage, he simply pulled my ears and went away; but he threw up his\nsituation that night and left town for good. The tailor came with\nhis goose and a pair of shears; but he despised me, too, and\ndeparted for the South that night. The two lampooned citizens came\nwith threats of libel, and went away incensed at my insignificance.\nThe country editor pranced in with a warwhoop next day, suffering\nfor blood to drink; but he ended by forgiving me cordially and\ninviting me down to the drug-store to wash away all animosity in a\nfriendly bumper of \"Fahnestock's Vermifuge.\" It was his little\njoke. My uncle was very angry when he got back--unreasonably so, I\nthought, considering what an impetus I had given the paper, and\nconsidering also that gratitude for his preservation ought to have\nbeen uppermost in his mind, inasmuch as by his delay he had so\nwonderfully escaped dissection, tomahawking, libel, and getting his\nhead shot off. But he softened when he looked at the accounts and\nsaw that I had actually booked the unparalleled number of\nthirty-three new subscribers, and had the vegetables to show for\nit--cord-wood, cabbage, beans, and unsalable turnips enough to run\nthe family for two years!\n\n\n\n\nJournalism in Tennessee\n\n    The editor of the Memphis _Avalanche_ swoops thus mildly down upon\n    a correspondent who posted him as a Radical: \"While he was writing\n    the first word, the middle, dotting his i's, crossing his t's, and\n    punching his period, he knew he was concocting a sentence that was\n    saturated with infamy and reeking with falsehood.\"--_Exchange_.\n\n\nI was told by the physician that a Southern climate would improve\nmy health, and so I went down to Tennessee and got a berth on the\n_Morning-Glory and Johnson County Warwhoop_ as associate editor.\nWhen I went on duty I found the chief editor sitting tilted back in\na three-legged chair with his feet on a pine table. There was\nanother pine table in the room and another afflicted chair, and\nboth were half buried under newspapers and scraps and sheets of\nmanuscript. There was a wooden box of sand, sprinkled with\ncigar-stubs and \"old soldiers,\" and a stove with a door hanging by\nits upper hinge. The chief editor had a long-tailed black cloth\nfrock-coat on, and white linen pants. His boots were small and\nneatly blacked. He wore a ruffled shirt, a large seal ring, a\nstanding collar of obsolete pattern, and a checkered neckerchief\nwith the ends hanging down. Date of costume about 1848. He was\nsmoking a cigar, and trying to think of a word, and in pawing his\nhair he had rumpled his locks a good deal. He was scowling\nfearfully, and I judged that he was concocting a particularly\nknotty editorial. He told me to take the exchanges and skim through\nthem and write up the \"Spirit of the Tennessee Press,\" condensing\ninto the article all of their contents that seemed of interest.\n\nI wrote as follows:\n\n  \"SPIRIT OF THE TENNESSEE PRESS\n\n  \"The editors of the _Semi-Weekly Earthquake_ evidently labor\n  under a misapprehension with regard to the Ballyhack railroad. It\n  is not the object of the company to leave Buzzardville off to one\n  side. On the contrary, they consider it one of the most important\n  points along the line, and consequently can have no desire to\n  slight it. The gentlemen of the _Earthquake_ will, of course,\n  take pleasure in making the correction.\n\n  \"John W. Blossom, Esq., the able editor of the Higginsville\n  _Thunderbolt and Battle-Cry of Freedom_, arrived in the city\n  yesterday. He is stopping at the Van Buren House.\n\n  \"We observe that our contemporary of the Mud Springs _Morning\n  Howl_ has fallen into the error of supposing that the election of\n  Van Werter is not an established fact, but he will have\n  discovered his mistake before this reminder reaches him, no\n  doubt. He was doubtless misled by incomplete election returns.\n\n  \"It is pleasant to note that the city of Blathersville is\n  endeavoring to contract with some New York gentlemen to pave its\n  wellnigh impassable streets with the Nicholson pavement. The\n  _Daily Hurrah_ urges the measure with ability, and seems\n  confident of ultimate success.\"\n\nI passed my manuscript over to the chief editor for acceptance,\nalteration, or destruction. He glanced at it and his face clouded.\nHe ran his eye down the pages, and his countenance grew portentous.\nIt was easy to see that something was wrong. Presently he sprang up\nand said:\n\n\"Thunder and lightning! Do you suppose I am going to speak of\nthose cattle that way? Do you suppose my subscribers are going to\nstand such gruel as that? Give me the pen!\"\n\nI never saw a pen scrape and scratch its way so viciously, or\nplough through another man's verbs and adjectives so relentlessly.\nWhile he was in the midst of his work, somebody shot at him through\nthe open window, and marred the symmetry of my ear.\n\n\"Ah,\" said he, \"that is that scoundrel Smith, of the _Moral\nVolcano_--he was due yesterday.\" And he snatched a navy revolver\nfrom his belt and fired. Smith dropped, shot in the thigh. The shot\nspoiled Smith's aim, who was just taking a second chance, and he\ncrippled a stranger. It was me. Merely a finger shot off.\n\nThen the chief editor went on with his erasures and\ninterlineations. Just as he finished them a hand-grenade came down\nthe stove-pipe, and the explosion shivered the stove into a\nthousand fragments. However, it did no further damage, except that\na vagrant piece knocked a couple of my teeth out.\n\n\"That stove is utterly ruined,\" said the chief editor.\n\nI said I believed it was.\n\n\"Well, no matter--don't want it this kind of weather. I know the\nman that did it. I'll get him. Now, _here_ is the way this stuff\nought to be written.\"\n\nI took the manuscript. It was scarred with erasures and\ninterlineations till its mother wouldn't have known it if it had\nhad one. It now read as follows:\n\n  \"SPIRIT OF THE TENNESSEE PRESS\n\n  \"The inveterate liars of the _Semi-Weekly Earthquake_ are\n  evidently endeavoring to palm off upon a noble and chivalrous\n  people another of their vile and brutal falsehoods with regard to\n  that most glorious conception of the nineteenth century, the\n  Ballyhack railroad. The idea that Buzzardville was to be left off\n  at one side originated in their own fulsome brains--or rather in\n  the settlings which _they_ regard as brains. They had better\n  swallow this lie if they want to save their abandoned reptile\n  carcasses the cowhiding they so richly deserve.\n\n  \"That ass, Blossom, of the Higginsville _Thunderbolt and\n  Battle-Cry of Freedom_, is down here again sponging at the Van\n  Buren.\n\n  \"We observe that the besotted blackguard of the Mud Springs\n  _Morning Howl_ is giving out, with his usual propensity for\n  lying, that Van Werter is not elected. The heaven-born mission of\n  journalism is to disseminate truth: to eradicate error; to\n  educate, refine, and elevate the tone of public morals and\n  manners, and make all men more gentle, more virtuous, more\n  charitable, and in all ways better, and holier, and happier; and\n  yet this black-hearted scoundrel degrades his great office\n  persistently to the dissemination of falsehood, calumny,\n  vituperation, and vulgarity.\n\n  \"Blathersville wants a Nicholson pavement--it wants a jail and a\n  poor-house more. The idea of a pavement in a one-horse town\n  composed of two gin-mills, a blacksmith-shop, and that\n  mustard-plaster of a newspaper, the _Daily Hurrah_! The crawling\n  insect, Buckner, who edits the _Hurrah_, is braying about this\n  business with his customary imbecility, and imagining that he is\n  talking sense.\"\n\n\"Now _that_ is the way to write--peppery and to the point.\nMush-and-milk journalism gives me the fan-tods.\"\n\nAbout this time a brick came through the window with a splintering\ncrash, and gave me a considerable of a jolt in the back. I moved\nout of range--I began to feel in the way.\n\nThe chief said: \"That was the Colonel, likely. I've been expecting\nhim for two days. He will be up now right away.\"\n\nHe was correct. The Colonel appeared in the door a moment\nafterwards with a dragoon revolver in his hand.\n\nHe said: \"Sir, have I the honor of addressing the poltroon who\nedits this mangy sheet?\"\n\n\"You have. Be seated, sir. Be careful of the chair, one of its legs\nis gone. I believe I have the honor of addressing the putrid liar,\nColonel Blatherskite Tecumseh?\"\n\n\"Right, sir. I have a little account to settle with you. If you are\nat leisure we will begin.\"\n\n\"I have an article on the 'Encouraging Progress of Moral and\nIntellectual Development in America' to finish, but there is no\nhurry. Begin.\"\n\nBoth pistols rang out their fierce clamor at the same instant. The\nchief lost a lock of his hair, and the Colonel's bullet ended its\ncareer in the fleshy part of my thigh. The Colonel's left shoulder\nwas clipped a little. They fired again. Both missed their men this\ntime, but I got my share, a shot in the arm. At the third fire both\ngentlemen were wounded slightly, and I had a knuckle chipped. I\nthen said I believed I would go out and take a walk, as this was a\nprivate matter, and I had a delicacy about participating in it\nfurther. But both gentlemen begged me to keep my seat, and assured\nme that I was not in the way.\n\nThey then talked about the elections and the crops while they\nreloaded, and I fell to tying up my wounds. But presently they\nopened fire again with animation, and every shot took effect--but\nit is proper to remark that five out of the six fell to my share.\nThe sixth one mortally wounded the Colonel, who remarked, with fine\nhumor, that he would have to say good-morning now, as he had\nbusiness up-town. He then inquired the way to the undertaker's and\nleft.\n\nThe chief turned to me and said: \"I am expecting company to dinner,\nand shall have to get ready. It will be a favor to me if you will\nread proof and attend to the customers.\"\n\nI winced a little at the idea of attending to the customers, but I\nwas too bewildered by the fusillade that was still ringing in my\nears to think of anything to say.\n\nHe continued: \"Jones will be here at three--cowhide him. Gillespie\nwill call earlier, perhaps--throw him out of the window. Ferguson\nwill be along about four--kill him. That is all for to-day, I\nbelieve. If you have any odd time, you may write a blistering\narticle on the police--give the chief inspector rats. The cowhides\nare under the table; weapons in the drawer--ammunition there in the\ncorner--lint and bandages up there in the pigeon-holes. In case of\naccident, go to Lancet, the surgeon, down-stairs. He advertises--we\ntake it out in trade.\"\n\n[Illustration: \"GILLESPIE HAD CALLED\"]\n\nHe was gone. I shuddered. At the end of the next three hours I\nhad been through perils so awful that all peace of mind and all\ncheerfulness were gone from me. Gillespie had called and thrown\n_me_ out of the window. Jones arrived promptly, and when I got\nready to do the cowhiding he took the job off my hands. In an\nencounter with a stranger, not in the bill of fare, I had lost my\nscalp. Another stranger, by the name of Thompson, left me a mere\nwreck and ruin of chaotic rags. And at last, at bay in the corner,\nand beset by an infuriated mob of editors, blacklegs, politicians,\nand desperadoes, who raved and swore and flourished their weapons\nabout my head till the air shimmered with glancing flashes of\nsteel, I was in the act of resigning my berth on the paper when the\nchief arrived, and with him a rabble of charmed and enthusiastic\nfriends. Then ensued a scene of riot and carnage such as no human\npen, or steel one either, could describe. People were shot, probed,\ndismembered, blown up, thrown out of the window. There was a brief\ntornado of murky blasphemy, with a confused and frantic war-dance\nglimmering through it, and then all was over. In five minutes there\nwas silence, and the gory chief and I sat alone and surveyed the\nsanguinary ruin that strewed the floor around us.\n\nHe said: \"You'll like this place when you get used to it.\"\n\nI said: \"I'll have to get you to excuse me; I think maybe I\nmight write to suit you after a while; as soon as I had had some\npractice and learned the language I am confident I could. But, to\nspeak the plain truth, that sort of energy of expression has its\ninconveniences, and a man is liable to interruption. You see that\nyourself. Vigorous writing is calculated to elevate the public, no\ndoubt, but then I do not like to attract so much attention as it\ncalls forth. I can't write with comfort when I am interrupted so\nmuch as I have been to-day. I like this berth well enough, but I\ndon't like to be left here to wait on the customers. The\nexperiences are novel, I grant you, and entertaining, too, after a\nfashion, but they are not judiciously distributed. A gentleman\nshoots at you through the window and cripples _me_; a bomb-shell\ncomes down the stove-pipe for your gratification and sends the\nstove-door down _my_ throat; a friend drops in to swap compliments\nwith you, and freckles _me_ with bullet-holes till my skin won't\nhold my principles; you go to dinner, and Jones comes with his\ncowhide, Gillespie throws me out of the window, Thompson tears all\nmy clothes off, and an entire stranger takes my scalp with the easy\nfreedom of an old acquaintance; and in less than five minutes all\nthe blackguards in the country arrive in their war-paint, and\nproceed to scare the rest of me to death with their tomahawks. Take\nit altogether, I never had such a spirited time in all my life as I\nhave had to-day. No; I like you, and I like your calm, unruffled\nway of explaining things to the customers, but you see I am not\nused to it. The Southern heart is too impulsive; Southern\nhospitality is too lavish with the stranger. The paragraphs which I\nhave written to-day, and into whose cold sentences your masterly\nhand has infused the fervent spirit of Tennessean journalism, will\nwake up another nest of hornets. All that mob of editors will\ncome--and they will come hungry, too, and want somebody for\nbreakfast. I shall have to bid you adieu. I decline to be present\nat these festivities. I came South for my health; I will go back on\nthe same errand, and suddenly. Tennessean journalism is too\nstirring for me.\"\n\nAfter which we parted with mutual regret, and I took apartments at\nthe hospital.\n\n\n\n\nNicodemus Dodge--Printer\n\n\nWhen I was a boy in a printing-office in Missouri, a\nloose-jointed, long-legged, tow-headed, jeans-clad, countrified cub\nof about sixteen lounged in one day, and without removing his hands\nfrom the depths of his trousers pockets or taking off his faded\nruin of a slouch hat, whose broken rim hung limp and ragged about\nhis eyes and ears like a bug-eaten cabbage-leaf, stared\nindifferently around, then leaned his hip against the editors'\ntable, crossed his mighty brogans, aimed at a distant fly from a\ncrevice in his upper teeth, laid him low, and said, with composure:\n\n\"Whar's the boss?\"\n\n\"I am the boss,\" said the editor, following this curious bit of\narchitecture wonderingly along up to its clock-face with his eye.\n\n\"Don't want anybody fur to learn the business, 'tain't likely?\"\n\n\"Well, I don't know. Would you like to learn it?\"\n\n\"Pap's so po' he cain't run me no mo', so I want to git a show\nsomers if I kin, 'tain't no diffunce what--I'm strong and hearty,\nand I don't turn my back on no kind of work, hard nur soft.\"\n\n\"Do you think you would like to learn the printing business?\"\n\n\"Well, I don't re'ly k'yer a durn what I _do_ learn, so's I git a\nchance fur to make my way. I'd jist as soon learn print'n' 's\nanything.\"\n\n\"Can you read?\"\n\n\"Yes--middlin'.\"\n\n\"Write?\"\n\n\"Well, I've seed people could lay over me thar.\"\n\n\"Cipher?\"\n\n\"Not good enough to keep store, I don't reckon, but up as fur as\ntwelve-times-twelve I ain't no slouch. 'Tother side of that is what\ngits me.\"\n\n\"Where is your home?\"\n\n\"I'm f'm old Shelby.\"\n\n\"What's your father's religious denomination?\"\n\n\"Him? Oh, he's a blacksmith.\"\n\n\"No, no--I don't mean his trade. What's his _religious_\ndenomination?\"\n\n\"_Oh_--I didn't understand you befo'. He's a Freemason.\"\n\n\"No, no; you don't get my meaning yet. What I mean is, does he\nbelong to any _church_?\"\n\n\"_Now_ you're talkin'! Gouldn't make out what you was\na-tryin' to git through yo' head no way. B'long to a _church_! Why,\nboss, he's be'n the pizenest kind of a Free-will Babtis' for forty\nyear. They ain't no pizener ones 'n' what _he_ is. Mighty good man,\npap is. Everybody says that. If they said any diffrunt they\nwouldn't say it whar _I_ wuz--not _much_ they wouldn't.\"\n\n\"What is your own religion?\"\n\n\"Well, boss, you've kind o' got me thar--and yit you hain't got me\nso mighty much, nuther. I think 't if a feller he'ps another feller\nwhen he's in trouble, and don't cuss, and don't do no mean things,\nnur noth'n' he ain' no business to do, and don't spell the\nSaviour's name with a little g, he ain't runnin' no resks--he's\nabout as saift as if he b'longed to a church.\"\n\n\"But suppose he did spell it with a little g--what then?\"\n\n\"Well, if he done it a-purpose, I reckon he wouldn't stand no\nchance,--he _oughtn't_ to have no chance, anyway, I'm most rotten\ncertain 'bout that.\"\n\n\"What is your name?\"\n\n\"Nicodemus Dodge.\"\n\n\"I think maybe you'll do, Nicodemus. We'll give you a trial,\nanyway.\"\n\n\"All right.\"\n\n\"When would you like to begin?\"\n\n\"Now.\"\n\nSo, within ten minutes after we had first glimpsed this nondescript\nhe was one of us, and with his coat off and hard at it.\n\nBeyond that end of our establishment which was farthest from the\nstreet was a deserted garden, pathless, and thickly grown with the\nbloomy and villanous \"jimpson\" weed and its common friend the\nstately sunflower. In the midst of this mournful spot was a decayed\nand aged little \"frame\" house with but one room, one window, and no\nceiling--it had been a smoke-house a generation before. Nicodemus\nwas given this lonely and ghostly den as a bedchamber.\n\nThe village smarties recognized a treasure in Nicodemus right\naway--a butt to play jokes on. It was easy to see that he was\ninconceivably green and confiding. George Jones had the glory of\nperpetrating the first joke on him; he gave him a cigar with a\nfire-cracker in it and winked to the crowd to come; the thing\nexploded presently and swept away the bulk of Nicodemus's eyebrows\nand eyelashes. He simply said:\n\n\"I consider them kind of seeg'yars dangersome\"--and seemed to\nsuspect nothing. The next evening Nicodemus waylaid George and\npoured a bucket of ice-water over him.\n\nOne day, while Nicodemus was in swimming, Tom McElroy \"tied\" his\nclothes. Nicodemus made a bonfire of Tom's by way of retaliation.\n\nA third joke was played upon Nicodemus a day or two later--he\nwalked up the middle aisle of the village church, Sunday night,\nwith a staring hand-bill pinned between his shoulders. The joker\nspent the remainder of the night, after church, in the cellar of a\ndeserted house, and Nicodemus sat on the cellar door till towards\nbreakfast-time to make sure that the prisoner remembered that if\nany noise was made some rough treatment would be the consequence.\nThe cellar had two feet of stagnant water in it, and was bottomed\nwith six inches of soft mud.\n\nBut I wander from the point. It was the subject of skeletons that\nbrought this boy back to my recollection. Before a very long time\nhad elapsed, the village smarties began to feel an uncomfortable\nconsciousness of not having made a very shining success out of\ntheir attempts on the simpleton from \"old Shelby.\" Experimenters\ngrew scarce and chary. Now the young doctor came to the rescue.\nThere was delight and applause when he proposed to scare Nicodemus\nto death, and explained how he was going to do it. He had a noble\nnew skeleton--the skeleton of the late and only local celebrity,\nJimmy Finn, the village drunkard--a grisly piece of property which\nhe had bought of Jimmy Finn himself, at auction, for fifty dollars,\nunder great competition, when Jimmy lay very sick in the tanyard a\nfortnight before his death. The fifty dollars had gone promptly for\nwhiskey and had considerably hurried up the change of ownership in\nthe skeleton. The doctor would put Jimmy Finn's skeleton in\nNicodemus's bed!\n\nThis was done--about half-past ten in the evening. About Nicodemus's\nusual bedtime--midnight--the village jokers came creeping stealthily\nthrough the jimpson weeds and sunflowers towards the lonely frame\nden. They reached the window and peeped in. There sat the long-legged\npauper, on his bed, in a very short shirt, and nothing more; he was\ndangling his legs contentedly back and forth, and wheezing the music\nof \"Camptown Races\" out of a paper-overlaid comb which he was pressing\nagainst his mouth; by him lay a new jews-harp, a new top, a solid\nindia-rubber ball, a handful of painted marbles, five pounds of\n\"store\" candy, and a well-knawed slab of gingerbread as big and as\nthick as a volume of sheet music. He had sold the skeleton to a\ntravelling quack for three dollars and was enjoying the result!\n\n[Illustration: \"WHEEZING THE MUSIC OF 'CAMPTOWN RACES'\"]\n\n\n\n\nMr. Bloke's Item\n\n\nOur esteemed friend, Mr. John William Bloke, of Virginia City,\nwalked into the office where we are sub-editor at a late hour last\nnight, with an expression of profound and heartfelt suffering upon\nhis countenance, and, sighing heavily, laid the following item\nreverently upon the desk, and walked slowly out again. He paused a\nmoment at the door, and seemed struggling to command his feelings\nsufficiently to enable him to speak, and then, nodding his head\ntowards his manuscript, ejaculated in a broken voice, \"Friend of\nmine--oh! how sad!\" and burst into tears. We were so moved at his\ndistress that we did not think to call him back and endeavor to\ncomfort him until he was gone, and it was too late. The paper had\nalready gone to press, but knowing that our friend would consider\nthe publication of this item important, and cherishing the hope\nthat to print it would afford a melancholy satisfaction to his\nsorrowing heart, we stopped the press at once and inserted it in\nour columns:\n\n  DISTRESSING ACCIDENT.--Last evening, about six o'clock, as Mr.\n  William Schuyler, an old and respectable citizen of South Park,\n  was leaving his residence to go down-town, as has been his usual\n  custom for many years with the exception only of a short interval\n  in the spring of 1850, during which he was confined to his bed by\n  injuries received in attempting to stop a runaway horse by\n  thoughtlessly placing himself directly in its wake and throwing\n  up his hands and shouting, which, if he had done so even a single\n  moment sooner, must inevitably have frightened the animal still\n  more instead of checking its speed, although disastrous enough to\n  himself as it was, and rendered more melancholy and distressing\n  by reason of the presence of his wife's mother, who was there and\n  saw the sad occurrence, notwithstanding it is at least likely,\n  though not necessarily so, that she should be reconnoitring in\n  another direction when incidents occur, not being vivacious and\n  on the lookout, as a general thing, but even the reverse, as her\n  own mother is said to have stated, who is no more, but died in\n  the full hope of a glorious resurrection, upward of three years\n  ago, aged eighty-six, being a Christian woman and without guile,\n  as it were, or property, in consequence of the fire of 1849,\n  which destroyed every single thing she had in the world. But such\n  is life. Let us all take warning by this solemn occurrence, and\n  let us endeavor so to conduct ourselves that when we come to die\n  we can do it. Let us place our hands upon our heart, and say with\n  earnestness and sincerity that from this day forth we will beware\n  of the intoxicating bowl.--_First edition of the Californian._\n\nThe head editor has been in here raising the mischief, and tearing\nhis hair and kicking the furniture about, and abusing me like a\npickpocket. He says that every time he leaves me in charge of the\npaper for half an hour, I get imposed upon by the first infant or\nthe first idiot that comes along. And he says that that distressing\nitem of Mr. Bloke's is nothing but a lot of distressing bosh, and\nhas no point to it, and no sense in it, and no information in it,\nand that there was no sort of necessity for stopping the press to\npublish it.\n\nNow all this comes of being good-hearted. If I had been as\nunaccommodating and unsympathetic as some people, I would have told\nMr. Bloke that I wouldn't receive his communication at such a late\nhour; but no, his snuffling distress touched my heart, and I jumped\nat the chance of doing something to modify his misery. I never read\nhis item to see whether there was anything wrong about it, but\nhastily wrote the few lines which preceded it, and sent it to the\nprinters. And what has my kindness done for me? It has done nothing\nbut bring down upon me a storm of abuse and ornamental blasphemy.\n\nNow I will read that item myself, and see if there is any\nfoundation for all this fuss. And if there is, the author of it\nshall hear from me.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI have read it, and I am bound to admit that it seems a little\nmixed at a first glance. However, I will peruse it once more.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI have read it again, and it does really seem a good deal more\nmixed than ever.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI have read it over five times, but if I can get at the meaning of\nit, I wish I may get my just deserts. It won't bear analysis. There\nare things about it which I cannot understand at all. It don't say\nwhat ever became of William Schuyler. It just says enough about him\nto get one interested in his career, and then drops him. Who is\nWilliam Schuyler, anyhow, and what part of South Park did he live in,\nand if he started down-town at six o'clock, did he ever get there,\nand if he did, did anything happen to him? Is _he_ the individual\nthat met with the \"distressing accident\"? Considering the elaborate\ncircumstantiality of detail observable in the item, it seems to me\nthat it ought to contain more information than it does. On the\ncontrary, it is obscure--and not only obscure, but utterly\nincomprehensible. Was the breaking of Mr. Schuyler's leg, fifteen\nyears ago, the \"distressing accident\" that plunged Mr. Bloke into\nunspeakable grief, and caused him to come up here at dead of night\nand stop our press to acquaint the world with the circumstance? Or\ndid the \"distressing accident\" consist in the destruction of\nSchuyler's mother-in-law's property in early times? Or did it consist\nin the death of that person herself three years ago (albeit it does\nnot appear that she died by accident)? In a word, what _did_ that\n\"distressing accident\" consist in? What did that drivelling ass of a\nSchuyler stand _in the wake_ of a runaway horse for, with his\nshouting and gesticulating, if he wanted to stop him? And how the\nmischief could he get run over by a horse that had already passed\nbeyond him? And what are we to take \"warning\" by? And how is this\nextraordinary chapter of incomprehensibilities going to be a \"lesson\"\nto us? And, above all, what has the intoxicating \"bowl\" got to do\nwith it, anyhow? It is not stated that Schuyler drank, or that his\nwife drank, or that his mother-in-law drank, or that the horse\ndrank--wherefore, then, the reference to the intoxicating bowl? It\ndoes seem to me that if Mr. Bloke had let the intoxicating bowl alone\nhimself, he never would have got into so much trouble about this\nexasperating imaginary accident. I have read this absurd item over\nand over again, with all its insinuating plausibility, until my head\nswims, but I can make neither head nor tail of it. There certainly\nseems to have been an accident of some kind or other, but it is\nimpossible to determine what the nature of it was, or who was the\nsufferer by it. I do not like to do it, but I feel compelled to\nrequest that the next time anything happens to one of Mr. Bloke's\nfriends, he will append such explanatory notes to his account of it\nas will enable me to find out what sort of an accident it was and whom\nit happened to. I had rather all his friends should die than that I\nshould be driven to the verge of lunacy again in trying to cipher out\nthe meaning of another such production as the above.\n\n[Illustration: \"I HAVE READ THIS ABSURD ITEM OVER\"]\n\n\n\n\nHow I Edited an Agricultural Paper\n\n\nI did not take temporary editorship of an agricultural paper\nwithout misgivings. Neither would a landsman take command of a ship\nwithout misgivings. But I was in circumstances that made the salary\nan object. The regular editor of the paper was going off for a\nholiday, and I accepted the terms he offered, and took his place.\n\nThe sensation of being at work again was luxurious, and I wrought\nall the week with unflagging pleasure. We went to press, and I\nwaited a day with some solicitude to see whether my effort was\ngoing to attract any notice. As I left the office, towards sundown,\na group of men and boys at the foot of the stairs dispersed with\none impulse, and gave me passageway, and I heard one or two of them\nsay, \"That's him!\" I was naturally pleased by this incident. The\nnext morning I found a similar group at the foot of the stairs, and\nscattering couples and individuals standing here and there in the\nstreet, and over the way, watching me with interest. The group\nseparated and fell back as I approached, and I heard a man say,\n\"Look at his eye!\" I pretended not to observe the notice I was\nattracting, but secretly I was pleased with it, and was purposing\nto write an account of it to my aunt. I went up the short flight of\nstairs, and heard cheery voices and a ringing laugh as I drew near\nthe door, which I opened, and caught a glimpse of two young\nrural-looking men, whose faces blanched and lengthened when they\nsaw me, and then they both plunged through the window with a great\ncrash. I was surprised.\n\nIn about half an hour an old gentleman, with a flowing beard and a\nfine but rather austere face, entered, and sat down at my invitation.\nHe seemed to have something on his mind. He took off his hat and set\nit on the floor, and got out of it a red silk handkerchief and a copy\nof our paper.\n\nHe put the paper on his lap, and while he polished his spectacles\nwith his handkerchief, he said, \"Are you the new editor?\"\n\nI said I was.\n\n\"Have you ever edited an agricultural paper before?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said; \"this is my first attempt.\"\n\n\"Very likely. Have you had any experience in agriculture\npractically?\"\n\n\"No; I believe I have not.\"\n\n\"Some instinct told me so,\" said the old gentleman, putting on his\nspectacles, and looking over them at me with asperity, while he\nfolded his paper into a convenient shape. \"I wish to read you what\nmust have made me have that instinct. It was this editorial.\nListen, and see if it was you that wrote it:\n\n  \"Turnips should never be pulled, it injures them. It is much\n  better to send a boy up and let him shake the tree.\"\n\n\"Now, what do you think of that--for I really suppose you wrote\nit?\"\n\n\"Think of it? Why, I think it is good. I think it is sense. I have\nno doubt that every year millions and millions of bushels of\nturnips are spoiled in this township alone by being pulled in a\nhalf-ripe condition, when, if they had sent a boy up to shake the\ntree--\"\n\n\"Shake your grandmother! Turnips don't grow on trees!\"\n\n\"Oh, they don't, don't they! Well, who said they did? The language\nwas intended to be figurative, wholly figurative. Anybody that\nknows anything will know that I meant that the boy should shake the\nvine.\"\n\nThen this old person got up and tore his paper all into small\nshreds, and stamped on them, and broke several things with his\ncane, and said I did not know as much as a cow; and then went out\nand banged the door after him, and, in short, acted in such a way\nthat I fancied he was displeased about something. But not knowing\nwhat the trouble was, I could not be any help to him.\n\nPretty soon after this a long cadaverous creature, with lanky\nlocks hanging down to his shoulders, and a week's stubble bristling\nfrom the hills and valleys of his face, darted within the door, and\nhalted, motionless, with finger on lip, and head and body bent in\nlistening attitude. No sound was heard. Still he listened. No\nsound. Then he turned the key in the door, and came elaborately\ntiptoeing towards me till he was within long reaching distance of\nme, when he stopped and, after scanning my face with intense\ninterest for a while, drew a folded copy of our paper from his\nbosom, and said:\n\n\"There, you wrote that. Read it to me--quick! Relieve me. I\nsuffer.\"\n\n[Illustration: \"A LONG CADAVEROUS CREATURE\"]\n\nI read as follows; and as the sentences fell from my lips I could see\nthe relief come, I could see the drawn muscles relax, and the anxiety\ngo out of the face, and rest and peace steal over the features like\nthe merciful moonlight over a desolate landscape:\n\n  \"The guano is a fine bird, but great care is necessary in rearing\n  it. It should not be imported earlier than June or later than\n  September. In the winter it should be kept in a warm place, where\n  it can hatch out its young.\n\n  \"It is evident that we are to have a backward season for grain.\n  Therefore it will be well for the farmer to begin setting out his\n  corn-stalks and planting his buckwheat-cakes in July instead of\n  August.\n\n  \"Concerning the pumpkin.--This berry is a favorite with the\n  natives of the interior of New England, who prefer it to the\n  gooseberry for the making of fruit-cake, and who likewise give it\n  the preference over the raspberry for feeding cows, as being more\n  filling and fully as satisfying. The pumpkin is the only esculent\n  of the orange family that will thrive in the North, except the\n  gourd and one or two varieties of the squash. But the custom of\n  planting it in the front yard with the shrubbery is fast going\n  out of vogue, for it is now generally conceded that the pumpkin\n  as a shade tree is a failure.\n\n  \"Now, as the warm weather approaches, and the ganders begin to\n  spawn\"--\n\nThe excited listener sprang towards me to shake hands, and said:\n\n\"There, there--that will do. I know I am all right now, because\nyou have read it just as I did, word for word. But, stranger, when\nI first read it this morning, I said to myself, I never, never\nbelieved it before, notwithstanding my friends kept me under watch\nso strict, but now I believe I _am_ crazy; and with that I fetched\na howl that you might have heard two miles, and started out to kill\nsomebody--because, you know, I knew it would come to that sooner or\nlater, and so I might as well begin. I read one of them paragraphs\nover again, so as to be certain, and then I burned my house down\nand started. I have crippled several people, and have got one\nfellow up a tree, where I can get him if I want him. But I thought\nI would call in here as I passed along and make the thing perfectly\ncertain; and now it _is_ certain, and I tell you it is lucky for\nthe chap that is in the tree. I should have killed him sure, as I\nwent back. Good-bye, sir, good-bye; you have taken a great load off\nmy mind. My reason has stood the strain of one of your agricultural\narticles, and I know that nothing can ever unseat it now.\n_Good_-bye, sir.\"\n\nI felt a little uncomfortable about the cripplings and arsons this\nperson had been entertaining himself with, for I could not help\nfeeling remotely accessory to them. But these thoughts were quickly\nbanished, for the regular editor walked in! [I thought to myself,\nNow if you had gone to Egypt, as I recommended you to, I might have\nhad a chance to get my hand in; but you wouldn't do it, and here\nyou are. I sort of expected you.]\n\nThe editor was looking sad and perplexed and dejected.\n\nHe surveyed the wreck which that old rioter and these two young\nfarmers had made, and then said: \"This is a sad business--a very\nsad business. There is the mucilage-bottle broken, and six panes of\nglass, and a spittoon, and two candlesticks. But that is not the\nworst. The reputation of the paper is injured--and permanently, I\nfear. True, there never was such a call for the paper before, and\nit never sold such a large edition or soared to such celebrity; but\ndoes one want to be famous for lunacy, and prosper upon the\ninfirmities of his mind? My friend, as I am an honest man, the\nstreet out here is full of people, and others are roosting on the\nfences, waiting to get a glimpse of you, because they think you are\ncrazy. And well they might after reading your editorials. They are\na disgrace to journalism. Why, what put it into your head that you\ncould edit a paper of this nature? You do not seem to know the first\nrudiments of agriculture. You speak of a furrow and a harrow as being\nthe same thing; you talk of the moulting season for cows; and you\nrecommend the domestication of the polecat on account of its\nplayfulness and its excellence as a ratter! Your remark that clams\nwill lie quiet if music be played to them was superfluous--entirely\nsuperfluous. Nothing disturbs clams. Clams _always_ lie quiet. Clams\ncare nothing whatever about music. Ah, heavens and earth, friend! if\nyou had made the acquiring of ignorance the study of your life, you\ncould not have graduated with higher honor than you could to-day. I\nnever saw anything like it. Your observation that the horse-chestnut\nas an article of commerce is steadily gaining in favor, is simply\ncalculated to destroy this journal. I want you to throw up your\nsituation and go. I want no more holiday--I could not enjoy it if I\nhad it. Certainly not with you in my chair. I would always stand in\ndread of what you might be going to recommend next. It makes me lose\nall patience every time I think of your discussing oyster-beds under\nthe head of 'Landscape Gardening.' I want you to go. Nothing on earth\ncould persuade me to take another holiday. Oh! why didn't you _tell_\nme you didn't know anything about agriculture?\"\n\n\"_Tell_ you, you cornstalk, you cabbage, you son of a\ncauliflower? It's the first time I ever heard such an unfeeling\nremark. I tell you I have been in the editorial business going on\nfourteen years, and it is the first time I ever heard of a man's\nhaving to know anything in order to edit a newspaper. You turnip!\nWho write the dramatic critiques for the second-rate papers? Why, a\nparcel of promoted shoemakers and apprentice apothecaries, who know\njust as much about good acting as I do about good farming and no\nmore. Who review the books? People who never wrote one. Who do up\nthe heavy leaders on finance? Parties who have had the largest\nopportunities for knowing nothing about it. Who criticise the\nIndian campaigns? Gentlemen who do not know a warwhoop from a\nwigwam, and who never have had to run a foot-race with a tomahawk,\nor pluck arrows out of the several members of their families to\nbuild the evening campfire with. Who write the temperance appeals,\nand clamor about the flowing bowl? Folks who will never draw\nanother sober breath till they do it in the grave. Who edit the\nagricultural papers, you--yam? Men, as a general thing, who fail in\nthe poetry line, yellow-colored novel line, sensation-drama line,\ncity-editor line, and finally fall back on agriculture as a\ntemporary reprieve from the poor-house. _You_ try to tell _me_\nanything about the newspaper business! Sir, I have been through it\nfrom Alpha to Omaha, and I tell you that the less a man knows the\nbigger the noise he makes and the higher the salary he commands.\nHeaven knows if I had but been ignorant instead of cultivated, and\nimpudent instead of diffident, I could have made a name for myself\nin this cold selfish world. I take my leave, sir. Since I have been\ntreated as you have treated me, I am perfectly willing to go. But I\nhave done my duty. I have fulfilled my contract as far as I was\npermitted to do it. I said I could make your paper of interest to\nall classes--and I have. I said I could run your circulation up to\ntwenty thousand copies, and if I had had two more weeks I'd have\ndone it. And I'd have given you the best class of readers that ever\nan agricultural paper had--not a farmer in it, nor a solitary\nindividual who could tell a watermelon-tree from a peach-vine to\nsave his life. _You_ are the loser by this rupture, not me,\nPie-plant. Adios.\"\n\nI then left.\n\n\n\n\nThe Killing of Julius C\u00e6sar \"Localized\"\n\n    _Being the only true and reliable account ever published; taken from\n    the \"Roman Daily Evening Fasces,\" of the date of that tremendous\n    occurrence._\n\n\nNothing in the world affords a newspaper reporter so much\nsatisfaction as gathering up the details of a bloody and mysterious\nmurder, and writing them up with aggravating circumstantiality. He\ntakes a living delight in this labor of love--for such it is to\nhim, especially if he knows that all the other papers have gone to\npress, and his will be the only one that will contain the dreadful\nintelligence. A feeling of regret has often come over me that I was\nnot reporting in Rome when C\u00e6sar was killed--reporting on an\nevening paper, and the only one in the city, and getting at least\ntwelve hours ahead of the morning-paper boys with this most\nmagnificent \"item\" that ever fell to the lot of the craft. Other\nevents have happened as startling as this, but none that possessed\nso peculiarly all the characteristics of the favorite \"item\" of the\npresent day, magnified into grandeur and sublimity by the high\nrank, fame, and social and political standing of the actors in it.\n\nHowever, as I was not permitted to report C\u00e6sar's assassination in\nthe regular way, it has at least afforded me rare satisfaction to\ntranslate the following able account of it from the original Latin\nof the _Roman Daily Evening Fasces_ of that date--second edition.\n\n  \"Our usually quiet city of Rome was thrown into a state of wild\n  excitement yesterday by the occurrence of one of those bloody\n  affrays which sicken the heart and fill the soul with fear, while\n  they inspire all thinking men with forebodings for the future of\n  a city where human life is held so cheaply, and the gravest laws\n  are so openly set at defiance. As the result of that affray, it\n  is our painful duty, as public journalists, to record the death\n  of one of our most esteemed citizens--a man whose name is known\n  wherever this paper circulates, and whose fame it has been our\n  pleasure and our privilege to extend, and also to protect from\n  the tongue of slander and falsehood, to the best of our poor\n  ability. We refer to Mr. J. C\u00e6sar, the Emperor-elect.\n\n  \"The facts of the case, as nearly as our reporter could\n  determine them from the conflicting statements of eyewitnesses,\n  were about as follows:--The affair was an election row, of\n  course. Nine-tenths of the ghastly butcheries that disgrace the\n  city nowadays grow out of the bickerings and jealousies and\n  animosities engendered by these accursed elections. Rome would be\n  the gainer by it if her very constables were elected to serve a\n  century; for in our experience we have never even been able to\n  choose a dog-pelter without celebrating the event with a dozen\n  knockdowns and a general cramming of the station-house with\n  drunken vagabonds overnight. It is said that when the immense\n  majority for C\u00e6sar at the polls in the market was declared the\n  other day, and the crown was offered to that gentleman, even his\n  amazing unselfishness in refusing it three times was not\n  sufficient to save him from the whispered insults of such men as\n  Casca, of the Tenth Ward, and other hirelings of the disappointed\n  candidate, hailing mostly from the Eleventh and Thirteenth and\n  other outside districts, who were overheard speaking ironically\n  and contemptuously of Mr. C\u00e6sar's conduct upon that occasion.\n\n  \"We are further informed that there are many among us who think\n  they are justified in believing that the assassination of Julius\n  C\u00e6sar was a put-up thing--a cut-and-dried arrangement, hatched by\n  Marcus Brutus and a lot of his hired roughs, and carried out only\n  too faithfully according to the programme. Whether there be good\n  grounds for this suspicion or not, we leave to the people to\n  judge for themselves, only asking that they will read the\n  following account of the sad occurrence carefully and\n  dispassionately before they render that judgment.\n\n  \"The Senate was already in session, and C\u00e6sar was coming down\n  the street towards the Capitol, conversing with some personal\n  friends, and followed, as usual, by a large number of citizens.\n  Just as he was passing in front of Demosthenes & Thucydides'\n  drug-store, he was observing casually to a gentleman, who, our\n  informant thinks, is a fortune-teller, that the Ides of March\n  were come. The reply was, 'Yes, they are come, but not gone yet.'\n  At this moment Artemidorus stepped up and passed the time of day,\n  and asked C\u00e6sar to read a schedule or a tract or something of the\n  kind, which he had brought for his perusal. Mr. Decius Brutus\n  also said something about an 'humble suit' which _he_ wanted\n  read. Artemidorus begged that attention might be paid to his\n  first, because it was of personal consequence to C\u00e6sar. The\n  latter replied that what concerned himself should be read last,\n  or words to that effect. Artemidorus begged and beseeched him to\n  read the paper instantly.[1] However, C\u00e6sar shook him off, and\n  refused to read any petition in the street. He then entered the\n  Capitol, and the crowd followed him.\n\n  \"About this time the following conversation was overheard, and we\n  consider that, taken in connection with the events which\n  succeeded it, it bears an appalling significance: Mr. Papilius\n  Lena remarked to George W. Cassius (commonly known as the 'Nobby\n  Boy of the Third Ward'), a bruiser in the pay of the Opposition,\n  that he hoped his enterprise to-day might thrive; and when\n  Cassius asked, 'What enterprise?' he only closed his left eye\n  temporarily and said with simulated indifference, 'Fare you\n  well,' and sauntered towards C\u00e6sar. Marcus Brutus, who is\n  suspected of being the ringleader of the band that killed C\u00e6sar,\n  asked what it was that Lena had said. Cassius told him, and\n  added, in a low tone, '_I fear our purpose is discovered._'\n\n  \"Brutus told his wretched accomplice to keep an eye on Lena,\n  and a moment after Cassius urged that lean and hungry vagrant,\n  Casca, whose reputation here is none of the best, to be sudden\n  for _he feared prevention_. He then turned to Brutus, apparently\n  much excited, and asked what should be done, and swore that\n  either he or C\u00e6sar _should never turn back_--he would kill\n  himself first. At this time C\u00e6sar was talking to some of the\n  back-country members about the approaching fall elections, and\n  paying little attention to what was going on around him. Billy\n  Trebonius got into conversation with the people's friend and\n  C\u00e6sar's--Mark Antony--and under some pretence or other got him\n  away, and Brutus, Decius, Casca, Cinna, Metellus Cimber, and\n  others of the gang of infamous desperadoes that infest Rome at\n  present, closed around the doomed C\u00e6sar. Then Metellus Cimber\n  knelt down and begged that his brother might be recalled from\n  banishment, but C\u00e6sar rebuked him for his fawning conduct, and\n  refused to grant his petition. Immediately, at Cimber's request,\n  first Brutus and then Cassius begged for the return of the\n  banished Publius; but C\u00e6sar still refused. He said he could not\n  be moved; that he was as fixed as the North Star, and proceeded\n  to speak in the most complimentary terms of the firmness of that\n  star and its steady character. Then he said he was like it, and\n  he believed he was the only man in the country that was;\n  therefore, since he was 'constant' that Cimber should be\n  banished, he was also 'constant' that he should stay banished,\n  and he'd be hanged if he didn't keep him so!\n\n  \"Instantly seizing upon this shallow pretext for a fight,\n  Casca sprang at C\u00e6sar and struck him with a dirk. C\u00e6sar grabbing\n  him by the arm with his right hand, and launching a blow straight\n  from the shoulder with his left that sent the reptile bleeding to\n  the earth. He then backed up against Pompey's statue, and squared\n  himself to receive his assailants. Cassius and Cimber and Cinna\n  rushed upon him with their daggers drawn, and the former\n  succeeded in inflicting a wound upon his body; but before he\n  could strike again, and before either of the others could strike\n  at all, C\u00e6sar stretched the three miscreants at his feet with as\n  many blows of his powerful fist. By this time the Senate was in\n  an indescribable uproar; the throng of citizens in the lobbies\n  had blockaded the doors in their frantic efforts to escape from\n  the building, the sergeant-at-arms and his assistants were\n  struggling with the assassins, venerable senators had cast aside\n  their encumbering robes, and were leaping over benches and flying\n  down the aisles in wild confusion towards the shelter of the\n  committee-rooms, and a thousand voices were shouting 'Po-lice!\n  Po-lice!' in discordant tones that rose above the frightful din\n  like shrieking winds above the roaring of a tempest. And amid it\n  all, great C\u00e6sar stood with his back against the statue, like a\n  lion at bay, and fought his assailants weaponless and hand to\n  hand, with the defiant bearing and the unwavering courage which\n  he had shown before on many a bloody field. Billy Trebonius and\n  Caius Legarius struck him with their daggers and fell, as their\n  brother-conspirators before them had fallen. But at last, when\n  C\u00e6sar saw his old friend Brutus step forward armed with a\n  murderous knife, it is said he seemed utterly overpowered with\n  grief and amazement, and dropping his invincible left arm by his\n  side, he hid his face in the folds of his mantle and received the\n  treacherous blow without an effort to stay the hand that gave it.\n  He only said, '_Et tu, Brute?_' and fell lifeless on the marble\n  pavement.\n\n  \"We learn that the coat deceased had on when he was killed was\n  the same one he wore in his tent on the afternoon of the day he\n  overcame the Nervii, and that when it was removed from the corpse\n  it was found to be cut and gashed in no less than seven different\n  places. There was nothing in the pockets. It will be exhibited at\n  the coroner's inquest, and will be damning proof of the fact of\n  the killing. These latter facts may be relied on, as we get them\n  from Mark Antony, whose position enables him to learn every item\n  of news connected with the one subject of absorbing interest of\n  to-day.\n\n  [Illustration: \"THERE WAS NOTHING IN THE POCKETS\"]\n\n  \"LATER.--While the coroner was summoning a jury, Mark Antony and\n  other friends of the late C\u00e6sar got hold of the body, and lugged\n  it off to the Forum, and at last accounts Antony and Brutus were\n  making speeches over it and raising such a row among the people\n  that, as we go to press, the chief of police is satisfied there\n  is going to be a riot, and is taking measures accordingly.\"\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Mark that: It is hinted by William Shakespeare, who\nsaw the beginning and the end of the unfortunate affray, that this\n\"schedule\" was simply a note discovering to C\u00e6sar that a plot was\nbrewing to take his life.]\n\n\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"19987":"\n\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DXCVIII.\n\nSEPTEMBER 7, 1906\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--I.[1]\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n     PREFATORY NOTE.--Mr. Clemens began to write his autobiography many\n     years ago, and he continues to add to it day by day. It was his\n     original intention to permit no publication of his memoirs until\n     after his death; but, after leaving \"Pier No. 70,\" he concluded\n     that a considerable portion might now suitably be given to the\n     public. It is that portion, garnered from the quarter-million of\n     words already written, which will appear in this REVIEW during the\n     coming year. No part of the autobiography will be published in book\n     form during the lifetime of the author.--EDITOR N. A. R.\n\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\nI intend that this autobiography shall become a model for all future\nautobiographies when it is published, after my death, and I also intend\nthat it shall be read and admired a good many centuries because of its\nform and method--a form and method whereby the past and the present are\nconstantly brought face to face, resulting in contrasts which newly fire\nup the interest all along, like contact of flint with steel. Moreover,\nthis autobiography of mine does not select from my life its showy\nepisodes, but deals mainly in the common experiences which go to make up\nthe life of the average human being, because these episodes are of a\nsort which he is familiar with in his own life, and in which he sees his\nown life reflected and set down in print. The usual, conventional\nautobiographer seems to particularly hunt out those occasions in his\ncareer when he came into contact with celebrated persons, whereas his\ncontacts with the uncelebrated were just as interesting to him, and\nwould be to his reader, and were vastly more numerous than his\ncollisions with the famous.\n\nHowells was here yesterday afternoon, and I told him the whole scheme of\nthis autobiography and its apparently systemless system--only apparently\nsystemless, for it is not really that. It is a deliberate system, and\nthe law of the system is that I shall talk about the matter which for\nthe moment interests me, and cast it aside and talk about something else\nthe moment its interest for me is exhausted. It is a system which\nfollows no charted course and is not going to follow any such course. It\nis a system which is a complete and purposed jumble--a course which\nbegins nowhere, follows no specified route, and can never reach an end\nwhile I am alive, for the reason that, if I should talk to the\nstenographer two hours a day for a hundred years, I should still never\nbe able to set down a tenth part of the things which have interested me\nin my lifetime. I told Howells that this autobiography of mine would\nlive a couple of thousand years, without any effort, and would then take\na fresh start and live the rest of the time.\n\nHe said he believed it would, and asked me if I meant to make a library\nof it.\n\nI said that that was my design; but that, if I should live long enough,\nthe set of volumes could not be contained merely in a city, it would\nrequire a State, and that there would not be any multi-billionaire\nalive, perhaps, at any time during its existence who would be able to\nbuy a full set, except on the instalment plan.\n\nHowells applauded, and was full of praises and endorsement, which was\nwise in him and judicious. If he had manifested a different spirit, I\nwould have thrown him out of the window. I like criticism, but it must\nbe my way.\n\n\nI.\n\nBack of the Virginia Clemenses is a dim procession of ancestors\nstretching back to Noah's time. According to tradition, some of them\nwere pirates and slavers in Elizabeth's time. But this is no discredit\nto them, for so were Drake and Hawkins and the others. It was a\nrespectable trade, then, and monarchs were partners in it. In my time I\nhave had desires to be a pirate myself. The reader--if he will look deep\ndown in his secret heart, will find--but never mind what he will find\nthere; I am not writing his Autobiography, but mine. Later, according to\ntradition, one of the procession was Ambassador to Spain in the time of\nJames I, or of Charles I, and married there and sent down a strain of\nSpanish blood to warm us up. Also, according to tradition, this one or\nanother--Geoffrey Clement, by name--helped to sentence Charles to death.\n\nI have not examined into these traditions myself, partly because I was\nindolent, and partly because I was so busy polishing up this end of the\nline and trying to make it showy; but the other Clemenses claim that\nthey have made the examination and that it stood the test. Therefore I\nhave always taken for granted that I did help Charles out of his\ntroubles, by ancestral proxy. My instincts have persuaded me, too.\nWhenever we have a strong and persistent and ineradicable instinct, we\nmay be sure that it is not original with us, but inherited--inherited\nfrom away back, and hardened and perfected by the petrifying influence\nof time. Now I have been always and unchangingly bitter against Charles,\nand I am quite certain that this feeling trickled down to me through the\nveins of my forebears from the heart of that judge; for it is not my\ndisposition to be bitter against people on my own personal account I am\nnot bitter against Jeffreys. I ought to be, but I am not. It indicates\nthat my ancestors of James II's time were indifferent to him; I do not\nknow why; I never could make it out; but that is what it indicates. And\nI have always felt friendly toward Satan. Of course that is ancestral;\nit must be in the blood, for I could not have originated it.\n\n... And so, by the testimony of instinct, backed by the assertions of\nClemenses who said they had examined the records, I have always been\nobliged to believe that Geoffrey Clement the martyr-maker was an\nancestor of mine, and to regard him with favor, and in fact pride. This\nhas not had a good effect upon me, for it has made me vain, and that is\na fault. It has made me set myself above people who were less fortunate\nin their ancestry than I, and has moved me to take them down a peg, upon\noccasion, and say things to them which hurt them before company.\n\nA case of the kind happened in Berlin several years ago. William Walter\nPhelps was our Minister at the Emperor's Court, then, and one evening he\nhad me to dinner to meet Count S., a cabinet minister. This nobleman was\nof long and illustrious descent. Of course I wanted to let out the fact\nthat I had some ancestors, too; but I did not want to pull them out of\ntheir graves by the ears, and I never could seem to get the chance to\nwork them in in a way that would look sufficiently casual. I suppose\nPhelps was in the same difficulty. In fact he looked distraught, now and\nthen--just as a person looks who wants to uncover an ancestor purely by\naccident, and cannot think of a way that will seem accidental enough.\nBut at last, after dinner, he made a try. He took us about his\ndrawing-room, showing us the pictures, and finally stopped before a rude\nand ancient engraving. It was a picture of the court that tried Charles\nI. There was a pyramid of judges in Puritan slouch hats, and below them\nthree bare-headed secretaries seated at a table. Mr. Phelps put his\nfinger upon one of the three, and said with exulting indifference--\n\n\"An ancestor of mine.\"\n\nI put my finger on a judge, and retorted with scathing languidness--\n\n\"Ancestor of mine. But it is a small matter. I have others.\"\n\nIt was not noble in me to do it. I have always regretted it since. But\nit landed him. I wonder how he felt? However, it made no difference in\nour friendship, which shows that he was fine and high, notwithstanding\nthe humbleness of his origin. And it was also creditable in me, too,\nthat I could overlook it. I made no change in my bearing toward him, but\nalways treated him as an equal.\n\nBut it was a hard night for me in one way. Mr. Phelps thought I was the\nguest of honor, and so did Count S.; but I didn't, for there was nothing\nin my invitation to indicate it. It was just a friendly offhand note, on\na card. By the time dinner was announced Phelps was himself in a state\nof doubt. Something had to be done; and it was not a handy time for\nexplanations. He tried to get me to go out with him, but I held back;\nthen he tried S., and he also declined. There was another guest, but\nthere was no trouble about him. We finally went out in a pile. There was\na decorous plunge for seats, and I got the one at Mr. Phelps's left, the\nCount captured the one facing Phelps, and the other guest had to take\nthe place of honor, since he could not help himself. We returned to the\ndrawing-room in the original disorder. I had new shoes on, and they were\ntight. At eleven I was privately crying; I couldn't help it, the pain\nwas so cruel. Conversation had been dead for an hour. S. had been due at\nthe bedside of a dying official ever since half past nine. At last we\nall rose by one blessed impulse and went down to the street door without\nexplanations--in a pile, and no precedence; and so, parted.\n\nThe evening had its defects; still, I got my ancestor in, and was\nsatisfied.\n\nAmong the Virginian Clemenses were Jere. (already mentioned), and\nSherrard. Jere. Clemens had a wide reputation as a good pistol-shot, and\nonce it enabled him to get on the friendly side of some drummers when\nthey wouldn't have paid any attention to mere smooth words and\narguments. He was out stumping the State at the time. The drummers were\ngrouped in front of the stand, and had been hired by the opposition to\ndrum while he made his speech. When he was ready to begin, he got out\nhis revolver and laid it before him, and said in his soft, silky way--\n\n\"I do not wish to hurt anybody, and shall try not to; but I have got\njust a bullet apiece for those six drums, and if you should want to play\non them, don't stand behind them.\"\n\nSherrard Clemens was a Republican Congressman from West Virginia in the\nwar days, and then went out to St. Louis, where the James Clemens branch\nlived, and still lives, and there he became a warm rebel. This was after\nthe war. At the time that he was a Republican I was a rebel; but by the\ntime he had become a rebel I was become (temporarily) a Republican. The\nClemenses have always done the best they could to keep the political\nbalances level, no matter how much it might inconvenience them. I did\nnot know what had become of Sherrard Clemens; but once I introduced\nSenator Hawley to a Republican mass meeting in New England, and then I\ngot a bitter letter from Sherrard from St. Louis. He said that the\nRepublicans of the North--no, the \"mudsills of the North\"--had swept\naway the old aristocracy of the South with fire and sword, and it ill\nbecame me, an aristocrat by blood, to train with that kind of swine. Did\nI forget that I was a Lambton?\n\nThat was a reference to my mother's side of the house. As I have already\nsaid, she was a Lambton--Lambton with a p, for some of the American\nLamptons could not spell very well in early times, and so the name\nsuffered at their hands. She was a native of Kentucky, and married my\nfather in Lexington in 1823, when she was twenty years old and he\ntwenty-four. Neither of them had an overplus of property. She brought\nhim two or three negroes, but nothing else, I think. They removed to the\nremote and secluded village of Jamestown, in the mountain solitudes of\neast Tennessee. There their first crop of children was born, but as I\nwas of a later vintage I do not remember anything about it. I was\npostponed--postponed to Missouri. Missouri was an unknown new State and\nneeded attractions.\n\nI think that my eldest brother, Orion, my sisters Pamela and Margaret,\nand my brother Benjamin were born in Jamestown. There may have been\nothers, but as to that I am not sure. It was a great lift for that\nlittle village to have my parents come there. It was hoped that they\nwould stay, so that it would become a city. It was supposed that they\nwould stay. And so there was a boom; but by and by they went away, and\nprices went down, and it was many years before Jamestown got another\nstart. I have written about Jamestown in the \"Gilded Age,\" a book of\nmine, but it was from hearsay, not from personal knowledge. My father\nleft a fine estate behind him in the region round about\nJamestown--75,000 acres.[2] When he died in 1847 he had owned it about\ntwenty years. The taxes were almost nothing (five dollars a year for the\nwhole), and he had always paid them regularly and kept his title\nperfect. He had always said that the land would not become valuable in\nhis time, but that it would be a commodious provision for his children\nsome day. It contained coal, copper, iron and timber, and he said that\nin the course of time railways would pierce to that region, and then the\nproperty would be property in fact as well as in name. It also produced\na wild grape of a promising sort. He had sent some samples to Nicholas\nLongworth, of Cincinnati, to get his judgment upon them, and Mr.\nLongworth had said that they would make as good wine as his Catawbas.\nThe land contained all these riches; and also oil, but my father did not\nknow that, and of course in those early days he would have cared nothing\nabout it if he had known it. The oil was not discovered until about\n1895. I wish I owned a couple of acres of the land now. In which case I\nwould not be writing Autobiographies for a living. My father's dying\ncharge was, \"Cling to the land and wait; let nothing beguile it away\nfrom you.\" My mother's favorite cousin, James Lampton, who figures in\nthe \"Gilded Age\" as \"Colonel Sellers,\" always said of that land--and\nsaid it with blazing enthusiasm, too,--\"There's millions in\nit--millions!\" It is true that he always said that about everything--and\nwas always mistaken, too; but this time he was right; which shows that a\nman who goes around with a prophecy-gun ought never to get discouraged;\nif he will keep up his heart and fire at everything he sees, he is bound\nto hit something by and by.\n\nMany persons regarded \"Colonel Sellers\" as a fiction, an invention, an\nextravagant impossibility, and did me the honor to call him a\n\"creation\"; but they were mistaken. I merely put him on paper as he was;\nhe was not a person who could be exaggerated. The incidents which looked\nmost extravagant, both in the book and on the stage, were not inventions\nof mine but were facts of his life; and I was present when they were\ndeveloped. John T. Raymond's audiences used to come near to dying with\nlaughter over the turnip-eating scene; but, extravagant as the scene\nwas, it was faithful to the facts, in all its absurd details. The thing\nhappened in Lampton's own house, and I was present. In fact I was myself\nthe guest who ate the turnips. In the hands of a great actor that\npiteous scene would have dimmed any manly spectator's eyes with tears,\nand racked his ribs apart with laughter at the same time. But Raymond\nwas great in humorous portrayal only. In that he was superb, he was\nwonderful--in a word, great; in all things else he was a pigmy of the\npigmies.\n\nThe real Colonel Sellers, as I knew him in James Lampton, was a pathetic\nand beautiful spirit, a manly man, a straight and honorable man, a man\nwith a big, foolish, unselfish heart in his bosom, a man born to be\nloved; and he was loved by all his friends, and by his family\nworshipped. It is the right word. To them he was but little less than a\ngod. The real Colonel Sellers was never on the stage. Only half of him\nwas there. Raymond could not play the other half of him; it was above\nhis level. That half was made up of qualities of which Raymond was\nwholly destitute. For Raymond was not a manly man, he was not an\nhonorable man nor an honest one, he was empty and selfish and vulgar and\nignorant and silly, and there was a vacancy in him where his heart\nshould have been. There was only one man who could have played the whole\nof Colonel Sellers, and that was Frank Mayo.[3]\n\nIt is a world of surprises. They fall, too, where one is least expecting\nthem. When I introduced Sellers into the book, Charles Dudley Warner,\nwho was writing the story with me, proposed a change of Seller's\nChristian name. Ten years before, in a remote corner of the West, he had\ncome across a man named Eschol Sellers, and he thought that Eschol was\njust the right and fitting name for our Sellers, since it was odd and\nquaint and all that. I liked the idea, but I said that that man might\nturn up and object. But Warner said it couldn't happen; that he was\ndoubtless dead by this time, a man with a name like that couldn't live\nlong; and be he dead or alive we must have the name, it was exactly the\nright one and we couldn't do without it. So the change was made.\nWarner's man was a farmer in a cheap and humble way. When the book had\nbeen out a week, a college-bred gentleman of courtly manners and ducal\nupholstery arrived in Hartford in a sultry state of mind and with a\nlibel suit in his eye, and _his_ name was Eschol Sellers! He had never\nheard of the other one, and had never been within a thousand miles of\nhim. This damaged aristocrat's programme was quite definite and\nbusinesslike: the American Publishing Company must suppress the edition\nas far as printed, and change the name in the plates, or stand a suit\nfor $10,000. He carried away the Company's promise and many apologies,\nand we changed the name back to Colonel Mulberry Sellers, in the plates.\nApparently there is nothing that cannot happen. Even the existence of\ntwo unrelated men wearing the impossible name of Eschol Sellers is a\npossible thing.\n\nJames Lampton floated, all his days, in a tinted mist of magnificent\ndreams, and died at last without seeing one of them realized. I saw him\nlast in 1884, when it had been twenty-six years since I ate the basin of\nraw turnips and washed them down with a bucket of water in his house. He\nwas become old and white-headed, but he entered to me in the same old\nbreezy way of his earlier life, and he was all there, yet--not a detail\nwanting: the happy light in his eye, the abounding hope in his heart,\nthe persuasive tongue, the miracle-breeding imagination--they were all\nthere; and before I could turn around he was polishing up his Aladdin's\nlamp and flashing the secret riches of the world before me. I said to\nmyself, \"I did not overdraw him by a shade, I set him down as he was;\nand he is the same man to-day. Cable will recognize him.\" I asked him to\nexcuse me a moment, and ran into the next room, which was Cable's; Cable\nand I were stumping the Union on a reading tour. I said--\n\n\"I am going to leave your door open, so that you can listen. There is a\nman in there who is interesting.\"\n\nI went back and asked Lampton what he was doing now. He began to tell me\nof a \"small venture\" he had begun in New Mexico through his son; \"only a\nlittle thing--a mere trifle--partly to amuse my leisure, partly to keep\nmy capital from lying idle, but mainly to develop the boy--develop the\nboy; fortune's wheel is ever revolving, he may have to work for his\nliving some day--as strange things have happened in this world. But it's\nonly a little thing--a mere trifle, as I said.\"\n\nAnd so it was--as he began it. But under his deft hands it grew, and\nblossomed, and spread--oh, beyond imagination. At the end of half an\nhour he finished; finished with the remark, uttered in an adorably\nlanguid manner:\n\n\"Yes, it is but a trifle, as things go nowadays--a bagatelle--but\namusing. It passes the time. The boy thinks great things of it, but he\nis young, you know, and imaginative; lacks the experience which comes of\nhandling large affairs, and which tempers the fancy and perfects the\njudgment. I suppose there's a couple of millions in it, possibly three,\nbut not more, I think; still, for a boy, you know, just starting in\nlife, it is not bad. I should not want him to make a fortune--let that\ncome later. It could turn his head, at his time of life, and in many\nways be a damage to him.\"\n\nThen he said something about his having left his pocketbook lying on the\ntable in the main drawing-room at home, and about its being after\nbanking hours, now, and--\n\nI stopped him, there, and begged him to honor Cable and me by being our\nguest at the lecture--with as many friends as might be willing to do us\nthe like honor. He accepted. And he thanked me as a prince might who\nhad granted us a grace. The reason I stopped his speech about the\ntickets was because I saw that he was going to ask me to furnish them to\nhim and let him pay next day; and I knew that if he made the debt he\nwould pay it if he had to pawn his clothes. After a little further chat\nhe shook hands heartily and affectionately, and took his leave. Cable\nput his head in at the door, and said--\n\n\"That was Colonel Sellers.\"\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] Copyright, 1906, by Harper & Brothers. All Rights Reserved.\n\n[2] Correction. 1906: it was above 100,000, it appears.\n\n[3] Raymond was playing \"Colonel Sellers\" in 1876 and along there. About\ntwenty years later Mayo dramatized \"Pudd'nhead Wilson\" and played the\ntitle role delightfully.\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DXCIX.\n\nSEPTEMBER 21, 1906.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--II.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\nII.\n\nMy experiences as an author began early in 1867. I came to New York from\nSan Francisco in the first month of that year and presently Charles H.\nWebb, whom I had known in San Francisco as a reporter on _The Bulletin_,\nand afterward editor of _The Californian_, suggested that I publish a\nvolume of sketches. I had but a slender reputation to publish it on, but\nI was charmed and excited by the suggestion and quite willing to venture\nit if some industrious person would save me the trouble of gathering the\nsketches together. I was loath to do it myself, for from the beginning\nof my sojourn in this world there was a persistent vacancy in me where\nthe industry ought to be. (\"Ought to was\" is better, perhaps, though\nthe most of the authorities differ as to this.)\n\nWebb said I had some reputation in the Atlantic States, but I knew quite\nwell that it must be of a very attenuated sort. What there was of it\nrested upon the story of \"The Jumping Frog.\" When Artemus Ward passed\nthrough California on a lecturing tour, in 1865 or '66, I told him the\n\"Jumping Frog\" story, in San Francisco, and he asked me to write it out\nand send it to his publisher, Carleton, in New York, to be used in\npadding out a small book which Artemus had prepared for the press and\nwhich needed some more stuffing to make it big enough for the price\nwhich was to be charged for it.\n\nIt reached Carleton in time, but he didn't think much of it, and was not\nwilling to go to the typesetting expense of adding it to the book. He\ndid not put it in the waste-basket, but made Henry Clapp a present of\nit, and Clapp used it to help out the funeral of his dying literary\njournal, _The Saturday Press_. \"The Jumping Frog\" appeared in the last\nnumber of that paper, was the most joyous feature of the obsequies, and\nwas at once copied in the newspapers of America and England. It\ncertainly had a wide celebrity, and it still had it at the time that I\nam speaking of--but I was aware that it was only the frog that was\ncelebrated. It wasn't I. I was still an obscurity.\n\nWebb undertook to collate the sketches. He performed this office, then\nhanded the result to me, and I went to Carleton's establishment with it.\nI approached a clerk and he bent eagerly over the counter to inquire\ninto my needs; but when he found that I had come to sell a book and not\nto buy one, his temperature fell sixty degrees, and the old-gold\nintrenchments in the roof of my mouth contracted three-quarters of an\ninch and my teeth fell out. I meekly asked the privilege of a word with\nMr. Carleton, and was coldly informed that he was in his private office.\nDiscouragements and difficulties followed, but after a while I got by\nthe frontier and entered the holy of holies. Ah, now I remember how I\nmanaged it! Webb had made an appointment for me with Carleton; otherwise\nI never should have gotten over that frontier. Carleton rose and said\nbrusquely and aggressively,\n\n\"Well, what can I do for you?\"\n\nI reminded him that I was there by appointment to offer him my book for\npublication. He began to swell, and went on swelling and swelling and\nswelling until he had reached the dimensions of a god of about the\nsecond or third degree. Then the fountains of his great deep were broken\nup, and for two or three minutes I couldn't see him for the rain. It was\nwords, only words, but they fell so densely that they darkened the\natmosphere. Finally he made an imposing sweep with his right hand, which\ncomprehended the whole room and said,\n\n\"Books--look at those shelves! Every one of them is loaded with books\nthat are waiting for publication. Do I want any more? Excuse me, I\ndon't. Good morning.\"\n\nTwenty-one years elapsed before I saw Carleton again. I was then\nsojourning with my family at the Schweitzerhof, in Luzerne. He called on\nme, shook hands cordially, and said at once, without any preliminaries,\n\n\"I am substantially an obscure person, but I have at least one\ndistinction to my credit of such colossal dimensions that it entitles me\nto immortality--to wit: I refused a book of yours, and for this I stand\nwithout competitor as the prize ass of the nineteenth century.\"\n\nIt was a most handsome apology, and I told him so, and said it was a\nlong-delayed revenge but was sweeter to me than any other that could be\ndevised; that during the lapsed twenty-one years I had in fancy taken\nhis life several times every year, and always in new and increasingly\ncruel and inhuman ways, but that now I was pacified, appeased, happy,\neven jubilant; and that thenceforth I should hold him my true and valued\nfriend and never kill him again.\n\nI reported my adventure to Webb, and he bravely said that not all the\nCarletons in the universe should defeat that book; he would publish it\nhimself on a ten per cent. royalty. And so he did. He brought it out in\nblue and gold, and made a very pretty little book of it, I think he\nnamed it \"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other\nSketches,\" price $1.25. He made the plates and printed and bound the\nbook through a job-printing house, and published it through the American\nNews Company.\n\nIn June I sailed in the _Quaker City_ Excursion. I returned in November,\nand in Washington found a letter from Elisha Bliss, of the American\nPublishing Company of Hartford, offering me five per cent. royalty on a\nbook which should recount the adventures of the Excursion. In lieu of\nthe royalty, I was offered the alternative of ten thousand dollars cash\nupon delivery of the manuscript. I consulted A. D. Richardson and he\nsaid \"take the royalty.\" I followed his advice and closed with Bliss. By\nmy contract I was to deliver the manuscript in July of 1868. I wrote the\nbook in San Francisco and delivered the manuscript within contract time.\nBliss provided a multitude of illustrations for the book, and then\nstopped work on it. The contract date for the issue went by, and there\nwas no explanation of this. Time drifted along and still there was no\nexplanation. I was lecturing all over the country; and about thirty\ntimes a day, on an average, I was trying to answer this conundrum:\n\n\"When is your book coming out?\"\n\nI got tired of inventing new answers to that question, and by and by I\ngot horribly tired of the question itself. Whoever asked it became my\nenemy at once, and I was usually almost eager to make that appear.\n\nAs soon as I was free of the lecture-field I hastened to Hartford to\nmake inquiries. Bliss said that the fault was not his; that he wanted to\npublish the book but the directors of his Company were staid old fossils\nand were afraid of it. They had examined the book, and the majority of\nthem were of the opinion that there were places in it of a humorous\ncharacter. Bliss said the house had never published a book that had a\nsuspicion like that attaching to it, and that the directors were afraid\nthat a departure of this kind would seriously injure the house's\nreputation; that he was tied hand and foot, and was not permitted to\ncarry out his contract. One of the directors, a Mr. Drake--at least he\nwas the remains of what had once been a Mr. Drake--invited me to take a\nride with him in his buggy, and I went along. He was a pathetic old\nrelic, and his ways and his talk were also pathetic. He had a delicate\npurpose in view and it took him some time to hearten himself\nsufficiently to carry it out, but at last he accomplished it. He\nexplained the house's difficulty and distress, as Bliss had already\nexplained it. Then he frankly threw himself and the house upon my mercy\nand begged me to take away \"The Innocents Abroad\" and release the\nconcern from the contract. I said I wouldn't--and so ended the interview\nand the buggy excursion. Then I warned Bliss that he must get to work or\nI should make trouble. He acted upon the warning, and set up the book\nand I read the proofs. Then there was another long wait and no\nexplanation. At last toward the end of July (1869, I think), I lost\npatience and telegraphed Bliss that if the book was not on sale in\ntwenty-four hours I should bring suit for damages.\n\nThat ended the trouble. Half a dozen copies were bound and placed on\nsale within the required time. Then the canvassing began, and went\nbriskly forward. In nine months the book took the publishing house out\nof debt, advanced its stock from twenty-five to two hundred, and left\nseventy thousand dollars profit to the good. It was Bliss that told me\nthis--but if it was true, it was the first time that he had told the\ntruth in sixty-five years. He was born in 1804.\n\n\nIII.\n\n... This was in 1849. I was fourteen years old, then. We were still\nliving in Hannibal, Missouri, on the banks of the Mississippi, in the\nnew \"frame\" house built by my father five years before. That is, some of\nus lived in the new part, the rest in the old part back of it--the \"L.\"\nIn the autumn my sister gave a party, and invited all the marriageable\nyoung people of the village. I was too young for this society, and was\ntoo bashful to mingle with young ladies, anyway, therefore I was not\ninvited--at least not for the whole evening. Ten minutes of it was to be\nmy whole share. I was to do the part of a bear in a small fairy play. I\nwas to be disguised all over in a close-fitting brown hairy stuff proper\nfor a bear. About half past ten I was told to go to my room and put on\nthis disguise, and be ready in half an hour. I started, but changed my\nmind; for I wanted to practise a little, and that room was very small. I\ncrossed over to the large unoccupied house on the corner of Main and\nHill streets,[4] unaware that a dozen of the young people were also\ngoing there to dress for their parts. I took the little black slave boy,\nSandy, with me, and we selected a roomy and empty chamber on the second\nfloor. We entered it talking, and this gave a couple of half-dressed\nyoung ladies an opportunity to take refuge behind a screen undiscovered.\nTheir gowns and things were hanging on hooks behind the door, but I did\nnot see them; it was Sandy that shut the door, but all his heart was in\nthe theatricals, and he was as unlikely to notice them as I was myself.\n\nThat was a rickety screen, with many holes in it, but as I did not know\nthere were girls behind it, I was not disturbed by that detail. If I had\nknown, I could not have undressed in the flood of cruel moonlight that\nwas pouring in at the curtainless windows; I should have died of shame.\nUntroubled by apprehensions, I stripped to the skin and began my\npractice. I was full of ambition; I was determined to make a hit; I was\nburning to establish a reputation as a bear and get further engagements;\nso I threw myself into my work with an abandon that promised great\nthings. I capered back and forth from one end of the room to the other\non all fours, Sandy applauding with enthusiasm; I walked upright and\ngrowled and snapped and snarled; I stood on my head, I flung\nhandsprings, I danced a lubberly dance with my paws bent and my\nimaginary snout sniffing from side to side; I did everything a bear\ncould do, and many things which no bear could ever do and no bear with\nany dignity would want to do, anyway; and of course I never suspected\nthat I was making a spectacle of myself to any one but Sandy. At last,\nstanding on my head, I paused in that attitude to take a minute's rest.\nThere was a moment's silence, then Sandy spoke up with excited interest\nand said--\n\n\"Marse Sam, has you ever seen a smoked herring?\"\n\n\"No. What is that?\"\n\n\"It's a fish.\"\n\n\"Well, what of it? Anything peculiar about it?\"\n\n\"Yes, suh, you bet you dey is. _Dey eats 'em guts and all!_\"\n\nThere was a smothered burst of feminine snickers from behind the screen!\nAll the strength went out of me and I toppled forward like an undermined\ntower and brought the screen down with my weight, burying the young\nladies under it. In their fright they discharged a couple of piercing\nscreams--and possibly others, but I did not wait to count. I snatched my\nclothes and fled to the dark hall below, Sandy following. I was dressed\nin half a minute, and out the back way. I swore Sandy to eternal\nsilence, then we went away and hid until the party was over. The\nambition was all out of me. I could not have faced that giddy company\nafter my adventure, for there would be two performers there who knew my\nsecret, and would be privately laughing at me all the time. I was\nsearched for but not found, and the bear had to be played by a young\ngentleman in his civilized clothes. The house was still and everybody\nasleep when I finally ventured home. I was very heavy-hearted, and full\nof a sense of disgrace. Pinned to my pillow I found a slip of paper\nwhich bore a line that did not lighten my heart, but only made my face\nburn. It was written in a laboriously disguised hand, and these were its\nmocking terms:\n\n\"You probably couldn't have played _bear_, but you played _bare_ very\nwell--oh, very very well!\"\n\nWe think boys are rude, unsensitive animals, but it is not so in all\ncases. Each boy has one or two sensitive spots, and if you can find out\nwhere they are located you have only to touch them and you can scorch\nhim as with fire. I suffered miserably over that episode. I expected\nthat the facts would be all over the village in the morning, but it was\nnot so. The secret remained confined to the two girls and Sandy and me.\nThat was some appeasement of my pain, but it was far from\nsufficient--the main trouble remained: I was under four mocking eyes,\nand it might as well have been a thousand, for I suspected all girls'\neyes of being the ones I so dreaded. During several weeks I could not\nlook any young lady in the face; I dropped my eyes in confusion when any\none of them smiled upon me and gave me greeting; and I said to myself,\n\"_That is one of them_,\" and got quickly away. Of course I was meeting\nthe right girls everywhere, but if they ever let slip any betraying sign\nI was not bright enough to catch it. When I left Hannibal four years\nlater, the secret was still a secret; I had never guessed those girls\nout, and was no longer expecting to do it. Nor wanting to, either.\n\nOne of the dearest and prettiest girls in the village at the time of my\nmishap was one whom I will call Mary Wilson, because that was not her\nname. She was twenty years old; she was dainty and sweet, peach-bloomy\nand exquisite, gracious and lovely in character, and I stood in awe of\nher, for she seemed to me to be made out of angel-clay and rightfully\nunapproachable by an unholy ordinary kind of a boy like me. I probably\nnever suspected her. But--\n\nThe scene changes. To Calcutta--forty-seven years later. It was in 1896.\nI arrived there on my lecturing trip. As I entered the hotel a divine\nvision passed out of it, clothed in the glory of the Indian\nsunshine--the Mary Wilson of my long-vanished boyhood! It was a\nstartling thing. Before I could recover from the bewildering shock and\nspeak to her she was gone. I thought maybe I had seen an apparition, but\nit was not so, she was flesh. She was the granddaughter of the other\nMary, the original Mary. That Mary, now a widow, was up-stairs, and\npresently sent for me. She was old and gray-haired, but she looked young\nand was very handsome. We sat down and talked. We steeped our thirsty\nsouls in the reviving wine of the past, the beautiful past, the dear and\nlamented past; we uttered the names that had been silent upon our lips\nfor fifty years, and it was as if they were made of music; with reverent\nhands we unburied our dead, the mates of our youth, and caressed them\nwith our speech; we searched the dusty chambers of our memories and\ndragged forth incident after incident, episode after episode, folly\nafter folly, and laughed such good laughs over them, with the tears\nrunning down; and finally Mary said suddenly, and without any leading\nup--\n\n\"Tell me! What is the special peculiarity of smoked herrings?\"\n\nIt seemed a strange question at such a hallowed time as this. And so\ninconsequential, too. I was a little shocked. And yet I was aware of a\nstir of some kind away back in the deeps of my memory somewhere. It set\nme to musing--thinking--searching. Smoked herrings. Smoked herrings. The\npeculiarity of smo.... I glanced up. Her face was grave, but there was a\ndim and shadowy twinkle in her eye which--All of a sudden I knew! and\nfar away down in the hoary past I heard a remembered voice murmur, \"Dey\neats 'em guts and all!\"\n\n\"At--last! I've found one of you, anyway! Who was the other girl?\"\n\nBut she drew the line there. She wouldn't tell me.\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[4] That house still stands.\n\n\nIV.\n\n... But it was on a bench in Washington Square that I saw the most of\nLouis Stevenson. It was an outing that lasted an hour or more, and was\nvery pleasant and sociable. I had come with him from his house, where I\nhad been paying my respects to his family. His business in the Square\nwas to absorb the sunshine. He was most scantily furnished with flesh,\nhis clothes seemed to fall into hollows as if there might be nothing\ninside but the frame for a sculptor's statue. His long face and lank\nhair and dark complexion and musing and melancholy expression seemed to\nfit these details justly and harmoniously, and the altogether of it\nseemed especially planned to gather the rays of your observation and\nfocalize them upon Stevenson's special distinction and commanding\nfeature, his splendid eyes. They burned with a smouldering rich fire\nunder the penthouse of his brows, and they made him beautiful.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI said I thought he was right about the others, but mistaken as to Bret\nHarte; in substance I said that Harte was good company and a thin but\npleasant talker; that he was always bright, but never brilliant; that in\nthis matter he must not be classed with Thomas Bailey Aldrich, nor must\nany other man, ancient or modern; that Aldrich was always witty, always\nbrilliant, if there was anybody present capable of striking his flint at\nthe right angle; that Aldrich was as sure and prompt and unfailing as\nthe red-hot iron on the blacksmith's anvil--you had only to hit it\ncompetently to make it deliver an explosion of sparks. I added--\n\n\"Aldrich has never had his peer for prompt and pithy and witty and\nhumorous sayings. None has equalled him, certainly none has surpassed\nhim, in the felicity of phrasing with which he clothed these children of\nhis fancy. Aldrich was always brilliant, he couldn't help it, he is a\nfire-opal set round with rose diamonds; when he is not speaking, you\nknow that his dainty fancies are twinkling and glimmering around in him;\nwhen he speaks the diamonds flash. Yes, he was always brilliant, he will\nalways be brilliant; he will be brilliant in hell--you will see.\"\n\nStevenson, smiling a chuckly smile, \"I hope not.\"\n\n\"Well, you will, and he will dim even those ruddy fires and look like a\ntransfigured Adonis backed against a pink sunset.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere on that bench we struck out a new phrase--one or the other of us,\nI don't remember which--\"submerged renown.\" Variations were discussed:\n\"submerged fame,\" \"submerged reputation,\" and so on, and a choice was\nmade; \"submerged renown\" was elected, I believe. This important matter\nrose out of an incident which had been happening to Stevenson in Albany.\nWhile in a book-shop or book-stall there he had noticed a long rank of\nsmall books, cheaply but neatly gotten up, and bearing such titles as\n\"Davis's Selected Speeches,\" \"Davis's Selected Poetry,\" Davis's this and\nDavis's that and Davis's the other thing; compilations, every one of\nthem, each with a brief, compact, intelligent and useful introductory\nchapter by this same Davis, whose first name I have forgotten. Stevenson\nhad begun the matter with this question:\n\n\"Can you name the American author whose fame and acceptance stretch\nwidest in the States?\"\n\nI thought I could, but it did not seem to me that it would be modest to\nspeak out, in the circumstances. So I diffidently said nothing.\nStevenson noticed, and said--\n\n\"Save your delicacy for another time--you are not the one. For a\nshilling you can't name the American author of widest note and\npopularity in the States. But I can.\"\n\nThen he went on and told about that Albany incident. He had inquired of\nthe shopman--\n\n\"Who is this Davis?\"\n\nThe answer was--\n\n\"An author whose books have to have freight-trains to carry them, not\nbaskets. Apparently you have not heard of him?\"\n\nStevenson said no, this was the first time. The man said--\n\n\"Nobody has heard of Davis: you may ask all around and you will see. You\nnever see his name mentioned in print, not even in advertisement; these\nthings are of no use to Davis, not any more than they are to the wind\nand the sea. You never see one of Davis's books floating on top of the\nUnited States, but put on your diving armor and get yourself lowered\naway down and down and down till you strike the dense region, the\nsunless region of eternal drudgery and starvation wages--there you'll\nfind them by the million. The man that gets that market, his fortune is\nmade, his bread and butter are safe, for those people will never go back\non him. An author may have a reputation which is confined to the\nsurface, and lose it and become pitied, then despised, then forgotten,\nentirely forgotten--the frequent steps in a surface reputation. At\nsurface reputation, however great, is always mortal, and always killable\nif you go at it right--with pins and needles, and quiet slow poison, not\nwith the club and tomahawk. But it is a different matter with the\nsubmerged reputation--down in the deep water; once a favorite there,\nalways a favorite; once beloved, always beloved; once respected, always\nrespected, honored, and believed in. For, what the reviewer says never\nfinds its way down into those placid deeps; nor the newspaper sneers,\nnor any breath of the winds of slander blowing above. Down there they\nnever hear of these things. Their idol may be painted clay, up then at\nthe surface, and fade and waste and crumble and blow away, there being\nmuch weather there; but down below he is gold and adamant and\nindestructible.\"\n\n\nV.\n\nThis is from this morning's paper:\n\n\n                        MARK TWAIN LETTER SOLD.\n\n            _Written to Thomas Nast, it Proposed a Joint Tour._\n\n     A Mark Twain autograph letter brought $43 yesterday at the auction\n     by the Merwin-Clayton Company of the library and correspondence of\n     the late Thomas Nast, cartoonist. The letter is nine pages\n     note-paper, is dated Hartford, Nov. 12, 1877, and it addressed to\n     Nast. It reads in part as follows:\n\n\n                                                 Hartford, _Nov. 12_.\n\n     MY DEAR NAST: I did not think I should ever stand on a platform\n     again until the time was come for me to say I die innocent. But the\n     same old offers keep arriving that have arriven every year, and\n     been every year declined--$500 for Louisville, $500 for St. Louis,\n     $1,000 gold for two nights in Toronto, half gross proceeds for New\n     York, Boston, Brooklyn, &c. I have declined them all just as usual,\n     though sorely tempted as usual.\n\n     Now, I do not decline because I mind talking to an audience, but\n     because (1) travelling alone is so heart-breakingly dreary, and (2)\n     shouldering the whole show is such cheer-killing responsibility.\n\n     Therefore I now propose to you what you proposed to me in November,\n     1867--ten years ago, (when I was unknown,) viz.; That you should\n     stand on the platform and make pictures, and I stand by you and\n     blackguard the audience. I should enormously enjoy meandering\n     around (to big towns--don't want to go to little ones) with you for\n     company.\n\n     The letter includes a schedule of cities and the number of\n     appearances planned for each.\n\n\nThis is as it should be. This is worthy of all praise. I say it myself\nlest other competent persons should forget to do it. It appears that\nfour of my ancient letters were sold at auction, three of them at\ntwenty-seven dollars, twenty-eight dollars, and twenty-nine dollars\nrespectively, and the one above mentioned at forty-three dollars. There\nis one very gratifying circumstance about this, to wit: that my\nliterature has more than held its own as regards money value through\nthis stretch of thirty-six years. I judge that the forty-three-dollar\nletter must have gone at about ten cents a word, whereas if I had\nwritten it to-day its market rate would be thirty cents--so I have\nincreased in value two or three hundred per cent. I note another\ngratifying circumstance--that a letter of General Grant's sold at\nsomething short of eighteen dollars. I can't rise to General Grant's\nlofty place in the estimation of this nation, but it is a deep happiness\nto me to know that when it comes to epistolary literature he can't sit\nin the front seat along with me.\n\nThis reminds me--nine years ago, when we were living in Tedworth Square,\nLondon, a report was cabled to the American journals that I was dying. I\nwas not the one. It was another Clemens, a cousin of mine,--Dr. J. Ross\nClemens, now of St. Louis--who was due to die but presently escaped, by\nsome chicanery or other characteristic of the tribe of Clemens. The\nLondon representatives of the American papers began to flock in, with\nAmerican cables in their hands, to inquire into my condition. There was\nnothing the matter with me, and each in his turn was astonished, and\ndisappointed, to find me reading and smoking in my study and worth next\nto nothing as a text for transatlantic news. One of these men was a\ngentle and kindly and grave and sympathetic Irishman, who hid his sorrow\nthe best he could, and tried to look glad, and told me that his paper,\nthe _Evening Sun_, had cabled him that it was reported in New York that\nI was dead. What should he cable in reply? I said--\n\n\"Say the report is greatly exaggerated.\"\n\nHe never smiled, but went solemnly away and sent the cable in those\nwords. The remark hit the world pleasantly, and to this day it keeps\nturning up, now and then, in the newspapers when people have occasion to\ndiscount exaggerations.\n\nThe next man was also an Irishman. He had his New York cablegram in his\nhand--from the New York _World_--and he was so evidently trying to get\naround that cable with invented softnesses and palliations that my\ncuriosity was aroused and I wanted to see what it did really say. So\nwhen occasion offered I slipped it out of his hand. It said,\n\n\"If Mark Twain dying send five hundred words. If dead send a thousand.\"\n\nNow that old letter of mine sold yesterday for forty-three dollars. When\nI am dead it will be worth eighty-six.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DC.\n\nOCTOBER 5, 1906.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--III.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\nVI.\n\nTo-morrow will be the thirty-sixth anniversary of our marriage. My wife\npassed from this life one year and eight months ago, in Florence, Italy,\nafter an unbroken illness of twenty-two months' duration.\n\nI saw her first in the form of an ivory miniature in her brother\nCharley's stateroom in the steamer \"Quaker City,\" in the Bay of Smyrna,\nin the summer of 1867, when she was in her twenty-second year. I saw her\nin the flesh for the first time in New York in the following December.\nShe was slender and beautiful and girlish--and she was both girl and\nwoman. She remained both girl and woman to the last day of her life.\nUnder a grave and gentle exterior burned inextinguishable fires of\nsympathy, energy, devotion, enthusiasm, and absolutely limitless\naffection. She was _always_ frail in body, and she lived upon her\nspirit, whose hopefulness and courage were indestructible. Perfect\ntruth, perfect honesty, perfect candor, were qualities of her character\nwhich were born with her. Her judgments of people and things were sure\nand accurate. Her intuitions almost never deceived her. In her judgments\nof the characters and acts of both friends and strangers, there was\nalways room for charity, and this charity never failed. I have compared\nand contrasted her with hundreds of persons, and my conviction remains\nthat hers was the most perfect character I have ever met. And I may add\nthat she was the most winningly dignified person I have ever known. Her\ncharacter and disposition were of the sort that not only invites\nworship, but commands it. No servant ever left her service who deserved\nto remain in it. And, as she could choose with a glance of her eye, the\nservants she selected did in almost all cases deserve to remain, and\nthey _did_ remain. She was always cheerful; and she was always able to\ncommunicate her cheerfulness to others. During the nine years that we\nspent in poverty and debt, she was always able to reason me out of my\ndespairs, and find a bright side to the clouds, and make me see it. In\nall that time, I never knew her to utter a word of regret concerning our\naltered circumstances, nor did I ever know her children to do the like.\nFor she had taught them, and they drew their fortitude from her. The\nlove which she bestowed upon those whom she loved took the form of\nworship, and in that form it was returned--returned by relatives,\nfriends and the servants of her household. It was a strange combination\nwhich wrought into one individual, so to speak, by marriage--her\ndisposition and character and mine. She poured out her prodigal\naffections in kisses and caresses, and in a vocabulary of endearments\nwhose profusion was always an astonishment to me. I was born _reserved_\nas to endearments of speech and caresses, and hers broke upon me as the\nsummer waves break upon Gibraltar. I was reared in that atmosphere of\nreserve. As I have already said, in another chapter, I never knew a\nmember of my father's family to kiss another member of it except once,\nand that at a death-bed. And our village was not a kissing community.\nThe kissing and caressing ended with courtship--along with the deadly\npiano-playing of that day.\n\nShe had the heart-free laugh of a girl. It came seldom, but when it\nbroke upon the ear it was as inspiring as music. I heard it for the last\ntime when she had been occupying her sickbed for more than a year, and I\nmade a written note of it at the time--a note not to be repeated.\n\nTo-morrow will be the thirty-sixth anniversary. We were married in her\nfather's house in Elmira, New York, and went next day, by special train,\nto Buffalo, along with the whole Langdon family, and with the Beechers\nand the Twichells, who had solemnized the marriage. We were to live in\nBuffalo, where I was to be one of the editors of the Buffalo \"Express,\"\nand a part owner of the paper. I knew nothing about Buffalo, but I had\nmade my household arrangements there through a friend, by letter. I had\ninstructed him to find a boarding-house of as respectable a character as\nmy light salary as editor would command. We were received at about nine\no'clock at the station in Buffalo, and were put into several sleighs and\ndriven all over America, as it seemed to me--for, apparently, we turned\nall the corners in the town and followed all the streets there were--I\nscolding freely, and characterizing that friend of mine in very\nuncomplimentary words for securing a boarding-house that apparently had\nno definite locality. But there was a conspiracy--and my bride knew of\nit, but I was in ignorance. Her father, Jervis Langdon, had bought and\nfurnished a new house for us in the fashionable street, Delaware Avenue,\nand had laid in a cook and housemaids, and a brisk and electric young\ncoachman, an Irishman, Patrick McAleer--and we were being driven all\nover that city in order that one sleighful of those people could have\ntime to go to the house, and see that the gas was lighted all over it,\nand a hot supper prepared for the crowd. We arrived at last, and when I\nentered that fairy place my indignation reached high-water mark, and\nwithout any reserve I delivered my opinion to that friend of mine for\nbeing so stupid as to put us into a boarding-house whose terms would be\nfar out of my reach. Then Mr. Langdon brought forward a very pretty box\nand opened it, and took from it a deed of the house. So the comedy ended\nvery pleasantly, and we sat down to supper.\n\nThe company departed about midnight, and left us alone in our new\nquarters. Then Ellen, the cook, came in to get orders for the morning's\nmarketing--and neither of us knew whether beefsteak was sold by the\nbarrel or by the yard. We exposed our ignorance, and Ellen was fall of\nIrish delight over it. Patrick McAleer, that brisk young Irishman, came\nin to get his orders for next day--and that was our first glimpse of\nhim....\n\nOur first child, Langdon Clemens, was born the 7th of November, 1870,\nand lived twenty-two months. Susy was born the 19th of March, 1872, and\npassed from life in the Hartford home, the 18th of August, 1896. With\nher, when the end came, were Jean and Katy Leary, and John and Ellen\n(the gardener and his wife). Clara and her mother and I arrived in\nEngland from around the world on the 31st of July, and took a house in\nGuildford. A week later, when Susy, Katy and Jean should have been\narriving from America, we got a letter instead.\n\nIt explained that Susy was slightly ill--nothing of consequence. But we\nwere disquieted, and began to cable for later news. This was Friday. All\nday no answer--and the ship to leave Southampton next day, at noon.\nClara and her mother began packing, to be ready in case the news should\nbe bad. Finally came a cablegram saying, \"Wait for cablegram in the\nmorning.\" This was not satisfactory--not reassuring. I cabled again,\nasking that the answer be sent to Southampton, for the day was now\nclosing. I waited in the post-office that night till the doors were\nclosed, toward midnight, in the hope that good news might still come,\nbut there was no message. We sat silent at home till one in the morning,\nwaiting--waiting for we knew not what. Then we took the earliest morning\ntrain, and when we reached Southampton the message was there. It said\nthe recovery would be long, but certain. This was a great relief to me,\nbut not to my wife. She was frightened. She and Clara went aboard the\nsteamer at once and sailed for America, to nurse Susy. I remained behind\nto search for a larger house in Guildford.\n\nThat was the 15th of August, 1896. Three days later, when my wife and\nClara were about half-way across the ocean, I was standing in our\ndining-room thinking of nothing in particular, when a cablegram was put\ninto my hand. It said, \"Susy was peacefully released to-day.\"\n\nIt is one of the mysteries of our nature that a man, all unprepared, can\nreceive a thunder-stroke like that and live. There is but one reasonable\nexplanation of it. The intellect is stunned by the shock, and but\ngropingly gathers the meaning of the words. The power to realize their\nfall import is mercifully wanting. The mind has a dumb sense of vast\nloss--that is all. It will take mind and memory months, and possibly\nyears, to gather together the details, and thus learn and know the whole\nextent of the loss. A man's house burns down. The smoking wreckage\nrepresents only a ruined home that was dear through years of use and\npleasant associations. By and by, as the days and weeks go on, first he\nmisses this, then that, then the other thing. And, when he casts about\nfor it, he finds that it was in that house. Always it is an\n_essential_--there was but one of its kind. It cannot be replaced. It\nwas in that house. It is irrevocably lost. He did not realize that it\nwas an essential when he had it; he only discovers it now when he finds\nhimself balked, hampered, by its absence. It will be years before the\ntale of lost essentials is complete, and not till then can he truly know\nthe magnitude of his disaster.\n\nThe 18th of August brought me the awful tidings. The mother and the\nsister were out there in mid-Atlantic, ignorant of what was happening;\nflying to meet this incredible calamity. All that could be done to\nprotect them from the full force of the shock was done by relatives and\ngood friends. They went down the Bay and met the ship at night, but did\nnot show themselves until morning, and then only to Clara. When she\nreturned to the stateroom she did not speak, and did not need to. Her\nmother looked at her and said:\n\n\"Susy is dead.\"\n\nAt half past ten o'clock that night, Clara and her mother completed\ntheir circuit of the globe, and drew up at Elmira by the same train and\nin the same car which had borne them and me Westward from it one year,\none month, and one week before. And again Susy was there--not waving her\nwelcome in the glare of the lights, as she had waved her farewell to us\nthirteen months before, but lying white and fair in her coffin, in the\nhouse where she was born.\n\nThe last thirteen days of Susy's life were spent in our own house in\nHartford, the home of her childhood, and always the dearest place in the\nearth to her. About her she had faithful old friends--her pastor, Mr.\nTwichell, who had known her from the cradle, and who had come a long\njourney to be with her; her uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Crane;\nPatrick, the coachman; Katy, who had begun to serve us when Susy was a\nchild of eight years; John and Ellen, who had been with us many years.\nAlso Jean was there.\n\nAt the hour when my wife and Clara set sail for America, Susy was in no\ndanger. Three hours later there came a sudden change for the worse.\nMeningitis set in, and it was immediately apparent that she was\ndeath-struck. That was Saturday, the 15th of August.\n\n\"That evening she took food for the last time,\" (Jean's letter to me).\nThe next morning the brain-fever was raging. She walked the floor a\nlittle in her pain and delirium, then succumbed to weakness and returned\nto her bed. Previously she had found hanging in a closet a gown which\nshe had seen her mother wear. She thought it was her mother, dead, and\nshe kissed it, and cried. About noon she became blind (an effect of the\ndisease) and bewailed it to her uncle.\n\nFrom Jean's letter I take this sentence, which needs no comment:\n\n\"About one in the afternoon Susy spoke for the last time.\"\n\nIt was only one word that she said when she spoke that last time, and it\ntold of her longing. She groped with her hands and found Katy, and\ncaressed her face, and said \"Mamma.\"\n\nHow gracious it was that, in that forlorn hour of wreck and ruin, with\nthe night of death closing around her, she should have been granted that\nbeautiful illusion--that the latest vision which rested upon the clouded\nmirror of her mind should have been the vision of her mother, and the\nlatest emotion she should know in life the joy and peace of that dear\nimagined presence.\n\nAbout two o'clock she composed herself as if for sleep, and never moved\nagain. She fell into unconsciousness and so remained two days and five\nhours, until Tuesday evening at seven minutes past seven, when the\nrelease came. She was twenty-four years and five months old.\n\nOn the 23d, her mother and her sisters saw her laid to rest--she that\nhad been our wonder and our worship.\n\nIn one of her own books I find some verses which I will copy here.\nApparently, she always put borrowed matter in quotation marks. These\nverses lack those marks, and therefore I take them to be her own:\n\n\n     Love came at dawn, when all the world was fair,\n       When crimson glories' bloom and sun were rife;\n     Love came at dawn, when hope's wings fanned the air,\n       And murmured, \"I am life.\"\n\n     Love came at eve, and when the day was done,\n       When heart and brain were tired, and slumber pressed;\n     Love came at eve, shut out the sinking sun,\n       And whispered, \"I am rest.\"\n\n\nThe summer seasons of Susy's childhood were spent at Quarry Farm, on the\nhills east of Elmira, New York; the other seasons of the year at the\nhome in Hartford. Like other children, she was blithe and happy, fond of\nplay; unlike the average of children, she was at times much given to\nretiring within herself, and trying to search out the hidden meanings of\nthe deep things that make the puzzle and pathos of human existence, and\nin all the ages have baffled the inquirer and mocked him. As a little\nchild aged seven, she was oppressed and perplexed by the maddening\nrepetition of the stock incidents of our race's fleeting sojourn here,\njust as the same thing has oppressed and perplexed maturer minds from\nthe beginning of time. A myriad of men are born; they labor and sweat\nand struggle for bread; they squabble and scold and fight; they scramble\nfor little mean advantages over each other; age creeps upon them;\ninfirmities follow; shames and humiliations bring down their prides and\ntheir vanities; those they love are taken from them, and the joy of life\nis turned to aching grief. The burden of pain, care, misery, grows\nheavier year by year; at length, ambition is dead, pride is dead; vanity\nis dead; longing for release is in their place. It comes at last--the\nonly unpoisoned gift earth ever had for them--and they vanish from a\nworld where they were of no consequence; where they achieved nothing;\nwhere they were a mistake and a failure and a foolishness; there they\nhave left no sign that they have existed--a world which will lament them\na day and forget them forever. Then another myriad takes their place,\nand copies all they did, and goes along the same profitless road, and\nvanishes as they vanished--to make room for another, and another, and a\nmillion other myriads, to follow the same arid path through the same\ndesert, and accomplish what the first myriad, and all the myriads that\ncame after it, accomplished--nothing!\n\n\"Mamma, what is it all for?\" asked Susy, preliminarily stating the\nabove details in her own halting language, after long brooding over them\nalone in the privacy of the nursery.\n\nA year later, she was groping her way alone through another sunless bog,\nbut this time she reached a rest for her feet. For a week, her mother\nhad not been able to go to the nursery, evenings, at the child's prayer\nhour. She spoke of it--was sorry for it, and said she would come\nto-night, and hoped she could continue to come every night and hear Susy\npray, as before. Noticing that the child wished to respond, but was\nevidently troubled as to how to word her answer, she asked what the\ndifficulty was. Susy explained that Miss Foote (the governess) had been\nteaching her about the Indians and their religious beliefs, whereby it\nappeared that they had not only a God, but several. This had set Susy to\nthinking. As a result of this thinking, she had stopped praying. She\nqualified this statement--that is, she modified it--saying she did not\nnow pray \"in the same way\" as she had formerly done. Her mother said:\n\n\"Tell me about it, dear.\"\n\n\"Well, mamma, the Indians believed they knew, but now we know they were\nwrong. By and by, it can turn out that we are wrong. So now I only pray\nthat there may be a God and a Heaven--or something better.\"\n\nI wrote down this pathetic prayer in its precise wording, at the time,\nin a record which we kept of the children's sayings, and my reverence\nfor it has grown with the years that have passed over my head since\nthen. Its untaught grace and simplicity are a child's, but the wisdom\nand the pathos of it are of all the ages that have come and gone since\nthe race of man has lived, and longed, and hoped, and feared, and\ndoubted.\n\nTo go back a year--Susy aged seven. Several times her mother said to\nher:\n\n\"There, there, Susy, you mustn't cry over little things.\"\n\nThis furnished Susy a text for thought She had been breaking her heart\nover what had seemed vast disasters--a broken toy; a picnic cancelled by\nthunder and lightning and rain; the mouse that was growing tame and\nfriendly in the nursery caught and killed by the cat--and now came this\nstrange revelation. For some unaccountable reason, these were not vast\ncalamities. Why? How is the size of calamities measured? What is the\nrule? There must be some way to tell the great ones from the small\nones; what is the law of these proportions? She examined the problem\nearnestly and long. She gave it her best thought from time to time, for\ntwo or three days--but it baffled her--defeated her. And at last she\ngave up and went to her mother for help.\n\n\"Mamma, what is '_little_ things'?\"\n\nIt seemed a simple question--at first. And yet, before the answer could\nbe put into words, unsuspected and unforeseen difficulties began to\nappear. They increased; they multiplied; they brought about another\ndefeat. The effort to explain came to a standstill. Then Susy tried to\nhelp her mother out--with an instance, an example, an illustration. The\nmother was getting ready to go down-town, and one of her errands was to\nbuy a long-promised toy-watch for Susy.\n\n\"If you forgot the watch, mamma, would that be a little thing?\"\n\nShe was not concerned about the watch, for she knew it would not be\nforgotten. What she was hoping for was that the answer would unriddle\nthe riddle, and bring rest and peace to her perplexed little mind.\n\nThe hope was disappointed, of course--for the reason that the size of a\nmisfortune is not determinate by an outsider's measurement of it, but\nonly by the measurements applied to it by the person specially affected\nby it. The king's lost crown is a vast matter to the king, but of no\nconsequence to the child. The lost toy is a great matter to the child,\nbut in the king's eyes it is not a thing to break the heart about. A\nverdict was reached, but it was based upon the above model, and Susy was\ngranted leave to measure her disasters thereafter with her own\ntape-line.\n\nAs a child, Susy had a passionate temper; and it cost her much remorse\nand many tears before she learned to govern it, but after that it was a\nwholesome salt, and her character was the stronger and healthier for its\npresence. It enabled her to be good with dignity; it preserved her not\nonly from being good for vanity's sake, but from even the appearance of\nit. In looking back over the long vanished years, it seems but natural\nand excusable that I should dwell with longing affection and preference\nupon incidents of her young life which made it beautiful to us, and that\nI should let its few small offences go unsummoned and unreproached.\n\nIn the summer of 1880, when Susy was just eight years of age, the\nfamily were at Quarry Farm, as usual at that season of the year.\nHay-cutting time was approaching, and Susy and Clara were counting the\nhours, for the time was big with a great event for them; they had been\npromised that they might mount the wagon and ride home from the fields\non the summit of the hay mountain. This perilous privilege, so dear to\ntheir age and species, had never been granted them before. Their\nexcitement had no bounds. They could talk of nothing but this\nepoch-making adventure, now. But misfortune overtook Susy on the very\nmorning of the important day. In a sudden outbreak of passion, she\ncorrected Clara--with a shovel, or stick, or something of the sort. At\nany rate, the offence committed was of a gravity clearly beyond the\nlimit allowed in the nursery. In accordance with the rule and custom of\nthe house, Susy went to her mother to confess, and to help decide upon\nthe size and character of the punishment due. It was quite understood\nthat, as a punishment could have but one rational object and\nfunction--to act as a reminder, and warn the transgressor against\ntransgressing in the same way again--the children would know about as\nwell as any how to choose a penalty which would be rememberable and\neffective. Susy and her mother discussed various punishments, but none\nof them seemed adequate. This fault was an unusually serious one, and\nrequired the setting up of a danger-signal in the memory that would not\nblow out nor burn out, but remain a fixture there and furnish its saving\nwarning indefinitely. Among the punishments mentioned was deprivation of\nthe hay-wagon ride. It was noticeable that this one hit Susy hard.\nFinally, in the summing up, the mother named over the list and asked:\n\n\"Which one do you think it ought to be, Susy?\"\n\nSusy studied, shrank from her duty, and asked:\n\n\"Which do you think, mamma?\"\n\n\"Well, Susy, I would rather leave it to you. _You_ make the choice\nyourself.\"\n\nIt cost Susy a struggle, and much and deep thinking and weighing--but\nshe came out where any one who knew her could have foretold she would.\n\n\"Well, mamma, I'll make it the hay-wagon, because you know the other\nthings might not make me remember not to do it again, but if I don't get\nto ride on the hay-wagon I can remember it easily.\"\n\nIn this world the real penalty, the sharp one, the lasting one, never\nfalls otherwise than on the wrong person. It was not _I_ that corrected\nClara, but the remembrance of poor Susy's lost hay-ride still brings\n_me_ a pang--after twenty-six years.\n\nApparently, Susy was born with humane feelings for the animals, and\ncompassion for their troubles. This enabled her to see a new point in an\nold story, once, when she was only six years old--a point which had been\noverlooked by older, and perhaps duller, people for many ages. Her\nmother told her the moving story of the sale of Joseph by his brethren,\nthe staining of his coat with the blood of the slaughtered kid, and the\nrest of it. She dwelt upon the inhumanity of the brothers; their cruelty\ntoward their helpless young brother; and the unbrotherly treachery which\nthey practised upon him; for she hoped to teach the child a lesson in\ngentle pity and mercifulness which she would remember. Apparently, her\ndesire was accomplished, for the tears came into Susy's eyes and she was\ndeeply moved. Then she said:\n\n\"Poor little kid!\"\n\nA child's frank envy of the privileges and distinctions of its elders is\noften a delicately flattering attention and the reverse of unwelcome,\nbut sometimes the envy is not placed where the beneficiary is expecting\nit to be placed. Once, when Susy was seven, she sat breathlessly\nabsorbed in watching a guest of ours adorn herself for a ball. The lady\nwas charmed by this homage; this mute and gentle admiration; and was\nhappy in it. And when her pretty labors were finished, and she stood at\nlast perfect, unimprovable, clothed like Solomon in all his glory, she\npaused, confident and expectant, to receive from Susy's tongue the\ntribute that was burning in her eyes. Susy drew an envious little sigh\nand said:\n\n\"I wish _I_ could have crooked teeth and spectacles!\"\n\nOnce, when Susy was six months along in her eighth year, she did\nsomething one day in the presence of company, which subjected her to\ncriticism and reproof. Afterward, when she was alone with her mother, as\nwas her custom she reflected a little while over the matter. Then she\nset up what I think--and what the shade of Burns would think--was a\nquite good philosophical defence.\n\n\"Well, mamma, you know I didn't see myself, and so I couldn't know how\nit looked.\"\n\nIn homes where the near friends and visitors are mainly literary\npeople--lawyers, judges, professors and clergymen--the children's ears\nbecome early familiarized with wide vocabularies. It is natural for them\nto pick up any words that fall in their way; it is natural for them to\npick up big and little ones indiscriminately; it is natural for them to\nuse without fear any word that comes to their net, no matter how\nformidable it may be as to size. As a result, their talk is a curious\nand funny musketry clatter of little words, interrupted at intervals by\nthe heavy artillery crash of a word of such imposing sound and size that\nit seems to shake the ground and rattle the windows. Sometimes the child\ngets a wrong idea of a word which it has picked up by chance, and\nattaches to it a meaning which impairs its usefulness--but this does not\nhappen as often as one might expect it would. Indeed, it happens with an\ninfrequency which may be regarded as remarkable. As a child, Susy had\ngood fortune with her large words, and she employed many of them. She\nmade no more than her fair share of mistakes. Once when she thought\nsomething very funny was going to happen (but it didn't), she was racked\nand torn with laughter, by anticipation. But, apparently, she still felt\nsure of her position, for she said, \"If it had happened, I should have\nbeen transformed [transported] with glee.\"\n\nAnd earlier, when she was a little maid of five years, she informed a\nvisitor that she had been in a church only once, and that was the time\nwhen Clara was \"crucified\" [christened]....\n\nIn Heidelberg, when Susy was six, she noticed that the Schloss gardens\nwere populous with snails creeping all about everywhere. One day she\nfound a new dish on her table and inquired concerning it, and learned\nthat it was made of snails. She was awed and impressed, and said:\n\n\"Wild ones, mamma?\"\n\nShe was thoughtful and considerate of others--an acquired quality, no\ndoubt. No one seems to be born with it. One hot day, at home in\nHartford, when she was a little child, her mother borrowed her fan\nseveral times (a Japanese one, value five cents), refreshed herself with\nit a moment or two, then handed it back with a word of thanks. Susy knew\nher mother would use the fan all the time if she could do it without\nputting a deprivation upon its owner. She also knew that her mother\ncould not be persuaded to do that. A relief most be devised somehow;\nSusy devised it. She got five cents out of her money-box and carried it\nto Patrick, and asked him to take it down-town (a mile and a half) and\nbuy a Japanese fan and bring it home. He did it--and thus thoughtfully\nand delicately was the exigency met and the mother's comfort secured. It\nis to the child's credit that she did not save herself expense by\nbringing down another and more costly kind of fan from up-stairs, but\nwas content to act upon the impression that her mother desired the\nJapanese kind--content to accomplish the desire and stop with that,\nwithout troubling about the wisdom or unwisdom of it.\n\nSometimes, while she was still a child, her speech fell into quaint and\nstrikingly expressive forms. Once--aged nine or ten--she came to her\nmother's room, when her sister Jean was a baby, and said Jean was crying\nin the nursery, and asked if she might ring for the nurse. Her mother\nasked:\n\n\"Is she crying hard?\"--meaning cross, ugly.\n\n\"Well, no, mamma. It is a weary, lonesome cry.\"\n\nIt is a pleasure to me to recall various incidents which reveal the\ndelicacies of feeling that were so considerable a part of her budding\ncharacter. Such a revelation came once in a way which, while creditable\nto her heart, was defective in another direction. She was in her\neleventh year then. Her mother had been making the Christmas purchases,\nand she allowed Susy to see the presents which were for Patrick's\nchildren. Among these was a handsome sled for Jimmy, on which a stag was\npainted; also, in gilt capitals, the word \"Deer.\" Susy was excited and\njoyous over everything, until she came to this sled. Then she became\nsober and silent--yet the sled was the choicest of all the gifts. Her\nmother was surprised, and also disappointed, and said:\n\n\"Why, Susy, doesn't it please you? Isn't it fine?\"\n\nSusy hesitated, and it was plain that she did not want to say the thing\nthat was in her mind. However, being urged, she brought it haltingly\nout:\n\n\"Well, mamma, it _is_ fine, and of course it _did_ cost a good\ndeal--but--but--why should that be mentioned?\"\n\nSeeing that she was not understood, she reluctantly pointed to that word\n\"Deer.\" It was her orthography that was at fault, not her heart. She had\ninherited both from her mother.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCI.\n\nOCTOBER 19, 1906.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--IV.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\nWhen Susy was thirteen, and was a slender little maid with plaited tails\nof copper-tinged brown hair down her back, and was perhaps the busiest\nbee in the household hive, by reason of the manifold studies, health\nexercises and recreations she had to attend to, she secretly, and of her\nown motion, and out of love, added another task to her labors--the\nwriting of a biography of me. She did this work in her bedroom at night,\nand kept her record hidden. After a little, the mother discovered it and\nfilched it, and let me see it; then told Susy what she had done, and how\npleased I was, and how proud. I remember that time with a deep\npleasure. I had had compliments before, but none that touched me like\nthis; none that could approach it for value in my eyes. It has kept that\nplace always since. I have had no compliment, no praise, no tribute from\nany source, that was so precious to me as this one was and still is. As\nI read it _now_, after all these many years, it is still a king's\nmessage to me, and brings me the same dear surprise it brought me\nthen--with the pathos added, of the thought that the eager and hasty\nhand that sketched it and scrawled it will not touch mine again--and I\nfeel as the humble and unexpectant must feel when their eyes fall upon\nthe edict that raises them to the ranks of the noble.\n\nYesterday while I was rummaging in a pile of ancient note-books of mine\nwhich I had not seen for years, I came across a reference to that\nbiography. It is quite evident that several times, at breakfast and\ndinner, in those long-past days, I was posing for the biography. In\nfact, I clearly remember that I _was_ doing that--and I also remember\nthat Susy detected it. I remember saying a very smart thing, with a good\ndeal of an air, at the breakfast-table one morning, and that Susy\nobserved to her mother privately, a little later, that papa was doing\nthat for the biography.\n\nI cannot bring myself to change any line or word in Susy's sketch of me,\nbut will introduce passages from it now and then just as they came in\ntheir quaint simplicity out of her honest heart, which was the beautiful\nheart of a child. What comes from that source has a charm and grace of\nits own which may transgress all the recognized laws of literature, if\nit choose, and yet be literature still, and worthy of hospitality. I\nshall print the whole of this little biography, before I have done with\nit--every word, every sentence.\n\nThe spelling is frequently desperate, but it was Susy's, and it shall\nstand. I love it, and cannot profane it. To me, it is gold. To correct\nit would alloy it, not refine it. It would spoil it. It would take from\nit its freedom and flexibility and make it stiff and formal. Even when\nit is most extravagant I am not shocked. It is Susy's spelling, and she\nwas doing the best she could--and nothing could better it for me....\n\nSusy began the biography in 1885, when I was in the fiftieth year of my\nage, and she just entering the fourteenth of hers. She begins in this\nway:\n\n\n     We are a very happy family. We consist of Papa, Mamma, Jean, Clara\n     and me. It is papa I am writing about, and I shall have no trouble\n     in not knowing what to say about him, as he is a _very_ striking\n     character.\n\n\nBut wait a minute--I will return to Susy presently.\n\nIn the matter of slavish imitation, man is the monkey's superior all the\ntime. The average man is destitute of independence of opinion. He is not\ninterested in contriving an opinion of his own, by study and reflection,\nbut is only anxious to find out what his neighbor's opinion is and\nslavishly adopt it. A generation ago, I found out that the latest review\nof a book was pretty sure to be just a reflection of the _earliest_\nreview of it; that whatever the first reviewer found to praise or\ncensure in the book would be repeated in the latest reviewer's report,\nwith nothing fresh added. Therefore more than once I took the precaution\nof sending my book, in manuscript, to Mr. Howells, when he was editor of\nthe \"Atlantic Monthly,\" so that he could prepare a review of it at\nleisure. I knew he would say the truth about the book--I also knew that\nhe would find more merit than demerit in it, because I already knew that\nthat was the condition of the book. I allowed no copy of it to go out to\nthe press until after Mr. Howells's notice of it had appeared. That book\nwas always safe. There wasn't a man behind a pen in all America that had\nthe courage to find anything in the book which Mr. Howells had not\nfound--there wasn't a man behind a pen in America that had spirit enough\nto say a brave and original thing about the book on his own\nresponsibility.\n\nI believe that the trade of critic, in literature, music, and the drama,\nis the most degraded of all trades, and that it has no real\nvalue--certainly no large value. When Charles Dudley Warner and I were\nabout to bring out \"The Gilded Age,\" the editor of the \"Daily Graphic\"\npersuaded me to let him have an advance copy, he giving me his word of\nhonor that no notice of it would appear in his paper until after the\n\"Atlantic Monthly\" notice should have appeared. This reptile published a\nreview of the book within three days afterward. I could not really\ncomplain, because he had only given me his word of honor as security; I\nought to have required of him something substantial. I believe his\nnotice did not deal mainly with the merit of the book, or the lack of\nit, but with my moral attitude toward the public. It was charged that I\nhad used my reputation to play a swindle upon the public; that Mr.\nWarner had written as much as half of the book, and that I had used my\nname to float it and give it currency; a currency--so the critic\naverred--which it could not have acquired without my name, and that this\nconduct of mine was a grave fraud upon the people. The \"Graphic\" was not\nan authority upon any subject whatever. It had a sort of distinction, in\nthat it was the first and only illustrated daily newspaper that the\nworld had seen; but it was without character; it was poorly and cheaply\nedited; its opinion of a book or of any other work of art was of no\nconsequence. Everybody knew this, yet all the critics in America, one\nafter the other, copied the \"Graphic's\" criticism, merely changing the\nphraseology, and left me under that charge of dishonest conduct. Even\nthe great Chicago \"Tribune,\" the most important journal in the Middle\nWest, was not able to invent anything fresh, but adopted the view of the\nhumble \"Daily Graphic,\" dishonesty-charge and all.\n\nHowever, let it go. It is the will of God that we must have critics, and\nmissionaries, and Congressmen, and humorists, and we must bear the\nburden. Meantime, I seem to have been drifting into criticism myself.\nBut that is nothing. At the worst, criticism is nothing more than a\ncrime, and I am not unused to that.\n\nWhat I have been travelling toward all this time is this: the first\ncritic that ever had occasion to describe my personal appearance\nlittered his description with foolish and inexcusable errors whose\naggregate furnished the result that I was distinctly and distressingly\nunhandsome. That description floated around the country in the papers,\nand was in constant use and wear for a quarter of a century. It seems\nstrange to me that apparently no critic in the country could be found\nwho could look at me and have the courage to take up his pen and destroy\nthat lie. That lie began its course on the Pacific coast, in 1864, and\nit likened me in personal appearance to Petroleum V. Nasby, who had been\nout there lecturing. For twenty-five years afterward, no critic could\nfurnish a description of me without fetching in Nasby to help out my\nportrait. I knew Nasby well, and he was a good fellow, but in my life I\nhave not felt malignant enough about any more than three persons to\ncharge those persons with resembling Nasby. It hurts me to the heart. I\nwas always handsome. Anybody but a critic could have seen it. And it\nhad long been a distress to my family--including Susy--that the critics\nshould go on making this wearisome mistake, year after year, when there\nwas no foundation for it. Even when a critic wanted to be particularly\nfriendly and complimentary to me, he didn't dare to go beyond my\nclothes. He never ventured beyond that old safe frontier. When he had\nfinished with my clothes he had said all the kind things, the pleasant\nthings, the complimentary things he could risk. Then he dropped back on\nNasby.\n\nYesterday I found this clipping in the pocket of one of those ancient\nmemorandum-books of mine. It is of the date of thirty-nine years ago,\nand both the paper and the ink are yellow with the bitterness that I\nfelt in that old day when I clipped it out to preserve it and brood over\nit, and grieve about it. I will copy it here, to wit:\n\n\n     A correspondent of the Philadelphia \"Press,\" writing of one of\n     Schuyler Colfax's receptions, says of our Washington correspondent:\n     \"Mark Twain, the delicate humorist, was present: quite a lion, as\n     he deserves to be. Mark is a bachelor, faultless in taste, whose\n     snowy vest is suggestive of endless quarrels with Washington\n     washerwomen; but the heroism of Mark is settled for all time, for\n     such purity and smoothness were never seen before. His lavender\n     gloves might have been stolen from some Turkish harem, so delicate\n     were they in size; but more likely--anything else were more likely\n     than that. In form and feature he bears some resemblance to the\n     immortal Nasby; but whilst Petroleum is brunette to the core, Twain\n     is golden, amber-hued, melting, blonde.\"\n\n\nLet us return to Susy's biography now, and get the opinion of one who is\nunbiassed:\n\n_From Susy's Biography._\n\n\n     Papa's appearance has been described many times, but very\n     incorrectly. He has beautiful gray hair, not any too thick or any\n     too long, but just right; a Roman nose, which greatly improves the\n     beauty of his features; kind blue eyes and a small mustache. He has\n     a wonderfully shaped head and profile. He has a very good\n     figure--in short, he is an extrodinarily fine looking man. All his\n     features are perfect, except that he hasn't extrodinary teeth. His\n     complexion is very fair, and he doesn't ware a beard. He is a very\n     good man and a very funny one. He _has_ got a temper, but we all of\n     us have in this family. He is the loveliest man I ever saw or ever\n     hope to see--and oh, so absent-minded. He does tell perfectly\n     delightful stories. Clara and I used to sit on each arm of his\n     chair and listen while he told us stories about the pictures on the\n     wall.\n\n\nI remember the story-telling days vividly. They were a difficult and\nexacting audience--those little creatures.\n\nAlong one side of the library, in the Hartford home, the bookshelves\njoined the mantelpiece--in fact there were shelves on both sides of the\nmantelpiece. On these shelves, and on the mantelpiece, stood various\nornaments. At one end of the procession was a framed oil-painting of a\ncat's head, at the other end was a head of a beautiful young girl,\nlife-size--called Emmeline, because she looked just about like that--an\nimpressionist water-color. Between the one picture and the other there\nwere twelve or fifteen of the bric-\u00e0-brac things already mentioned; also\nan oil-painting by Elihu Vedder, \"The Young Medusa.\" Every now and then\nthe children required me to construct a romance--always impromptu--not a\nmoment's preparation permitted--and into that romance I had to get all\nthat bric-\u00e0-brac and the three pictures. I had to start always with the\ncat and finish with Emmeline. I was never allowed the refreshment of a\nchange, end-for-end. It was not permissible to introduce a bric-\u00e0-brac\nornament into the story out of its place in the procession.\n\nThese bric-\u00e0-bracs were never allowed a peaceful day, a reposeful day, a\nrestful Sabbath. In their lives there was no Sabbath, in their lives\nthere was no peace; they knew no existence but a monotonous career of\nviolence and bloodshed. In the course of time, the bric-\u00e0-brac and the\npictures showed wear. It was because they had had so many and such\ntumultuous adventures in their romantic careers.\n\nAs romancer to the children I had a hard time, even from the beginning.\nIf they brought me a picture, in a magazine, and required me to build a\nstory to it, they would cover the rest of the page with their pudgy\nhands to keep me from stealing an idea from it. The stories had to come\nhot from the bat, always. They had to be absolutely original and fresh.\nSometimes the children furnished me simply a character or two, or a\ndozen, and required me to start out at once on that slim basis and\ndeliver those characters up to a vigorous and entertaining life of\ncrime. If they heard of a new trade, or an unfamiliar animal, or\nanything like that, I was pretty sure to have to deal with those things\nin the next romance. Once Clara required me to build a sudden tale out\nof a plumber and a \"bawgunstrictor,\" and I had to do it. She didn't\nknow what a boa-constrictor was, until he developed in the tale--then\nshe was better satisfied with it than ever.\n\n_From Susy's Biography._\n\n\n     Papa's favorite game is billiards, and when he is tired and wishes\n     to rest himself he stays up all night and plays billiards, it seems\n     to rest his head. He smokes a great deal almost incessantly. He has\n     the mind of an author exactly, some of the simplest things he cant\n     understand. Our burglar-alarm is often out of order, and papa had\n     been obliged to take the mahogany-room off from the alarm\n     altogether for a time, because the burglar-alarm had been in the\n     habit of ringing even when the mahogany-room was closed. At length\n     he thought that perhaps the burglar-alarm might be in order, and he\n     decided to try and see; accordingly he put it on and then went down\n     and opened the window; consequently the alarm bell rang, it would\n     even if the alarm had been in order. Papa went despairingly\n     upstairs and said to mamma, \"Livy the mahogany-room won't go on. I\n     have just opened the window to see.\"\n\n     \"Why, Youth,\" mamma replied \"if you've opened the window, why of\n     coarse the alarm will ring!\"\n\n     \"That's what I've opened it for, why I just went down to see if it\n     would ring!\"\n\n     Mamma tried to explain to papa that when he wanted to go and see\n     whether the alarm would ring while the window was closed he\n     _mustn't_ go and open the window--but in vain, papa couldn't\n     understand, and got very impatient with mamma for trying to make\n     him believe an impossible thing true.\n\n\nThis is a frank biographer, and an honest one; she uses no sand-paper on\nme. I have, to this day, the same dull head in the matter of conundrums\nand perplexities which Susy had discovered in those long-gone days.\nComplexities annoy me; they irritate me; then this progressive feeling\npresently warms into anger. I cannot get far in the reading of the\ncommonest and simplest contract--with its \"parties of the first part,\"\nand \"parties of the second part,\" and \"parties of the third\npart,\"--before my temper is all gone. Ashcroft comes up here every day\nand pathetically tries to make me understand the points of the lawsuit\nwhich we are conducting against Henry Butters, Harold Wheeler, and the\nrest of those Plasmon buccaneers, but daily he has to give it up. It is\npitiful to see, when he bends his earnest and appealing eyes upon me and\nsays, after one of his efforts, \"Now you _do_ understand _that_, don't\nyou?\"\n\nI am always obliged to say, \"I _don't_, Ashcroft. I wish I could\nunderstand it, but I don't. Send for the cat.\"\n\nIn the days which Susy is talking about, a perplexity fell to my lot one\nday. F. G. Whitmore was my business agent, and he brought me out from\ntown in his buggy. We drove by the _porte-coch\u00e8re_ and toward the\nstable. Now this was a _single_ road, and was like a spoon whose handle\nstretched from the gate to a great round flower-bed in the neighborhood\nof the stable. At the approach to the flower-bed the road divided and\ncircumnavigated it, making a loop, which I have likened to the bowl of\nthe spoon. As we neared the loop, I saw that Whitmore was laying his\ncourse to port, (I was sitting on the starboard side--the side the house\nwas on), and was going to start around that spoon-bowl on that left-hand\nside. I said,\n\n\"Don't do that, Whitmore; take the right-hand side. Then I shall be next\nto the house when we get to the door.\"\n\nHe said, \"_That_ will not happen in _any case_, it doesn't make any\ndifference which way I go around this flower-bed.\"\n\nI explained to him that he was an ass, but he stuck to his proposition,\nand I said,\n\n\"Go on and try it, and see.\"\n\nHe went on and tried it, and sure enough he fetched me up at the door on\nthe very side that he had said I would be. I was not able to believe it\nthen, and I don't believe it yet.\n\nI said, \"Whitmore, that is merely an accident. You can't do it again.\"\n\nHe said he could--and he drove down into the street, fetched around,\ncame back, and actually did it again. I was stupefied, paralyzed,\npetrified, with these strange results, but they did not convince me. I\ndidn't believe he could do it another time, but he did. He said he could\ndo it all day, and fetch up the same way every time. By that time my\ntemper was gone, and I asked him to go home and apply to the Asylum and\nI would pay the expenses; I didn't want to see him any more for a week.\n\nI went up-stairs in a rage and started to tell Livy about it, expecting\nto get her sympathy for me and to breed aversion in her for Whitmore;\nbut she merely burst into peal after peal of laughter, as the tale of my\nadventure went on, for her head was like Susy's: riddles and\ncomplexities had no terrors for it. Her mind and Susy's were analytical;\nI have tried to make it appear that mine was different. Many and many a\ntime I have told that buggy experiment, hoping against hope that I would\nsome time or other find somebody who would be on my side, but it has\nnever happened. And I am never able to go glibly forward and state the\ncircumstances of that buggy's progress without having to halt and\nconsider, and call up in my mind the spoon-handle, the bowl of the\nspoon, the buggy and the horse, and my position in the buggy: and the\nminute I have got that far and try to turn it to the left it goes to\nruin; I can't see how it is ever going to fetch me out right when we get\nto the door. Susy is right in her estimate. I can't understand things.\n\nThat burglar-alarm which Susy mentions led a gay and careless life, and\nhad no principles. It was generally out of order at one point or\nanother; and there was plenty of opportunity, because all the windows\nand doors in the house, from the cellar up to the top floor, were\nconnected with it. However, in its seasons of being out of order it\ncould trouble us for only a very little while: we quickly found out that\nit was fooling us, and that it was buzzing its blood-curdling alarm\nmerely for its own amusement. Then we would shut it off, and send to New\nYork for the electrician--there not being one in all Hartford in those\ndays. When the repairs were finished we would set the alarm again and\nreestablish our confidence in it. It never did any real business except\nupon one single occasion. All the rest of its expensive career was\nfrivolous and without purpose. Just that one time it performed its duty,\nand its whole duty--gravely, seriously, admirably. It let fly about two\no'clock one black and dreary March morning, and I turned out promptly,\nbecause I knew that it was not fooling, this time. The bath-room door\nwas on my side of the bed. I stepped in there, turned up the gas, looked\nat the annunciator, and turned off the alarm--so far as the door\nindicated was concerned--thus stopping the racket. Then I came back to\nbed. Mrs. Clemens opened the debate:\n\n\"What was it?\"\n\n\"It was the cellar door.\"\n\n\"Was it a burglar, do you think?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, \"of course it was. Did you suppose it was a Sunday-school\nsuperintendent?\"\n\n\"No. What do you suppose he wants?\"\n\n\"I suppose he wants jewelry, but he is not acquainted with the house and\nhe thinks it is in the cellar. I don't like to disappoint a burglar whom\nI am not acquainted with, and who has done me no harm, but if he had\nhad common sagacity enough to inquire, I could have told him we kept\nnothing down there but coal and vegetables. Still it may be that he is\nacquainted with the place, and that what he really wants is coal and\nvegetables. On the whole, I think it is vegetables he is after.\"\n\n\"Are you going down to see?\"\n\n\"No; I could not be of any assistance. Let him select for himself; I\ndon't know where the things are.\"\n\nThen she said, \"But suppose he comes up to the ground floor!\"\n\n\"That's all right. We shall know it the minute he opens a door on that\nfloor. It will set off the alarm.\"\n\nJust then the terrific buzzing broke out again. I said,\n\n\"He has arrived. I told you he would. I know all about burglars and\ntheir ways. They are systematic people.\"\n\nI went into the bath-room to see if I was right, and I was. I shut off\nthe dining-room and stopped the buzzing, and came back to bed. My wife\nsaid,\n\n\"What do you suppose he is after now?\"\n\nI said, \"I think he has got all the vegetables he wants and is coming up\nfor napkin-rings and odds and ends for the wife and children. They all\nhave families--burglars have--and they are always thoughtful of them,\nalways take a few necessaries of life for themselves, and fill out with\ntokens of remembrance for the family. In taking them they do not forget\nus: those very things represent tokens of his remembrance of us, and\nalso of our remembrance of him. We never get them again; the memory of\nthe attention remains embalmed in our hearts.\"\n\n\"Are you going down to see what it is he wants now?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said, \"I am no more interested than I was before. They are\nexperienced people,--burglars; _they_ know what they want; I should be\nno help to him. I _think_ he is after ceramics and bric-\u00e0-brac and such\nthings. If he knows the house he knows that that is all that he can find\non the dining-room floor.\"\n\nShe said, with a strong interest perceptible in her tone, \"Suppose he\ncomes up here!\"\n\nI said, \"It is all right. He will give us notice.\"\n\n\"What shall we do then then?\"\n\n\"Climb out of the window.\"\n\nShe said, a little restively, \"Well, what is the use of a burglar-alarm\nfor us?\"\n\n\"You have seen, dear heart, that it has been useful up to the present\nmoment, and I have explained to you how it will be continuously useful\nafter he gets up here.\"\n\nThat was the end of it. He didn't ring any more alarms. Presently I\nsaid,\n\n\"He is disappointed, I think. He has gone off with the vegetables and\nthe bric-\u00e0-brac, and I think he is dissatisfied.\"\n\nWe went to sleep, and at a quarter before eight in the morning I was\nout, and hurrying, for I was to take the 8.29 train for New York. I\nfound the gas burning brightly--full head--all over the first floor. My\nnew overcoat was gone; my old umbrella was gone; my new patent-leather\nshoes, which I had never worn, were gone. The large window which opened\ninto the _ombra_ at the rear of the house was standing wide. I passed\nout through it and tracked the burglar down the hill through the trees;\ntracked him without difficulty, because he had blazed his progress with\nimitation silver napkin-rings, and my umbrella, and various other things\nwhich he had disapproved of; and I went back in triumph and proved to my\nwife that he _was_ a disappointed burglar. I had suspected he would be,\nfrom the start, and from his not coming up to our floor to get human\nbeings.\n\nThings happened to me that day in New York. I will tell about them\nanother time.\n\n_From Susy's Biography._\n\n\n     Papa has a peculiar gait we like, it seems just to sute him, but\n     most people do not; he always walks up and down the room while\n     thinking and between each coarse at meals.\n\n\nA lady distantly related to us came to visit us once in those days. She\ncame to stay a week, but all our efforts to make her happy failed, we\ncould not imagine why, and she got up her anchor and sailed the next\nmorning. We did much guessing, but could not solve the mystery. Later we\nfound out what the trouble was. It was my tramping up and down between\nthe courses. She conceived the idea that I could not stand her society.\n\nThat word \"Youth,\" as the reader has perhaps already guessed, was my\nwife's pet name for me. It was gently satirical, but also affectionate.\nI had certain mental and material peculiarities and customs proper to a\nmuch younger person than I was.\n\n_From Susy's Biography._\n\n\n     Papa is very fond of animals particularly of cats, we had a dear\n     little gray kitten once that he named \"Lazy\" (papa always wears\n     gray to match his hair and eyes) and he would carry him around on\n     his shoulder, it was a mighty pretty sight! the gray cat sound\n     asleep against papa's gray coat and hair. The names that he has\n     given our different cats, are realy remarkably funny, they are\n     namely Stray Kit, Abner, Motley, Fraeulein, Lazy, Bufalo Bill,\n     Cleveland, Sour Mash, and Pestilence and Famine.\n\n\nAt one time when the children were small, we had a very black mother-cat\nnamed Satan, and Satan had a small black offspring named Sin. Pronouns\nwere a difficulty for the children. Little Clara came in one day, her\nblack eyes snapping with indignation, and said,\n\n\"Papa, Satan ought to be punished. She is out there at the greenhouse\nand there she stays and stays, and his kitten is down-stairs crying.\"\n\n_From Susy's Biography._\n\n\n     Papa uses very strong language, but I have an idea not nearly so\n     strong as when he first maried mamma. A lady acquaintance of his is\n     rather apt to interupt what one is saying, and papa told mamma that\n     he thought he should say to the lady's husband \"I am glad your wife\n     wasn't present when the Deity said 'Let there be light.'\"\n\n\nIt is as I have said before. This is a frank historian. She doesn't\ncover up one's deficiencies, but gives them an equal showing with one's\nhandsomer qualities. Of course I made the remark which she has\nquoted--and even at this distant day I am still as much as half\npersuaded that if that lady had been present when the Creator said, \"Let\nthere be light,\" she would have interrupted Him and we shouldn't ever\nhave got it.\n\n_From Susy's Biography._\n\n\n     Papa said the other day, \"I am a mugwump and a mugwump is pure from\n     the marrow out.\" (Papa knows that I am writing this biography of\n     him, and he said this for it.) He doesn't like to go to church at\n     all, why I never understood, until just now, he told us the other\n     day that he couldn't bear to hear any one talk but himself, but\n     that he could listen to himself talk for hours without getting\n     tired, of course he said this in joke, but I've no dought it was\n     founded on truth.\n\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCII.\n\nNOVEMBER 2, 1906.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--V.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\nSusy's remark about my strong language troubles me, and I must go back\nto it. All through the first ten years of my married life I kept a\nconstant and discreet watch upon my tongue while in the house, and went\noutside and to a distance when circumstances were too much for me and I\nwas obliged to seek relief. I prized my wife's respect and approval\nabove all the rest of the human race's respect and approval. I dreaded\nthe day when she should discover that I was but a whited sepulchre\npartly freighted with suppressed language. I was so careful, during ten\nyears, that I had not a doubt that my suppressions had been successful.\nTherefore I was quite as happy in my guilt as I could have been if I had\nbeen innocent.\n\nBut at last an accident exposed me. I went into the bath-room one\nmorning to make my toilet, and carelessly left the door two or three\ninches ajar. It was the first time that I had ever failed to take the\nprecaution of closing it tightly. I knew the necessity of being\nparticular about this, because shaving was always a trying ordeal for\nme, and I could seldom carry it through to a finish without verbal\nhelps. Now this time I was unprotected, but did not suspect it. I had no\nextraordinary trouble with my razor on this occasion, and was able to\nworry through with mere mutterings and growlings of an improper sort,\nbut with nothing noisy or emphatic about them--no snapping and barking.\nThen I put on a shirt. My shirts are an invention of my own. They open\nin the back, and are buttoned there--when there are buttons. This time\nthe button was missing. My temper jumped up several degrees in a moment,\nand my remarks rose accordingly, both in loudness and vigor of\nexpression. But I was not troubled, for the bath-room door was a solid\none and I supposed it was firmly closed. I flung up the window and threw\nthe shirt out. It fell upon the shrubbery where the people on their way\nto church could admire it if they wanted to; there was merely fifty feet\nof grass between the shirt and the passer-by. Still rumbling and\nthundering distantly, I put on another shirt. Again the button was\nabsent. I augmented my language to meet the emergency, and threw that\nshirt out of the window. I was too angry--too insane--to examine the\nthird shirt, but put it furiously on. Again the button was absent, and\nthat shirt followed its comrades out of the window. Then I straightened\nup, gathered my reserves, and let myself go like a cavalry charge. In\nthe midst of that great assault, my eye fell upon that gaping door, and\nI was paralyzed.\n\nIt took me a good while to finish my toilet. I extended the time\nunnecessarily in trying to make up my mind as to what I would best do in\nthe circumstances. I tried to hope that Mrs. Clemens was asleep, but I\nknew better. I could not escape by the window. It was narrow, and suited\nonly to shirts. At last I made up my mind to boldly loaf through the\nbedroom with the air of a person who had not been doing anything. I made\nhalf the journey successfully. I did not turn my eyes in her direction,\nbecause that would not be safe. It is very difficult to look as if you\nhave not been doing anything when the facts are the other way, and my\nconfidence in my performance oozed steadily out of me as I went along. I\nwas aiming for the left-hand door because it was furthest from my wife.\nIt had never been opened from the day that the house was built, but it\nseemed a blessed refuge for me now. The bed was this one, wherein I am\nlying now, and dictating these histories morning after morning with so\nmuch serenity. It was this same old elaborately carved black Venetian\nbedstead--the most comfortable bedstead that ever was, with space enough\nin it for a family, and carved angels enough surmounting its twisted\ncolumns and its headboard and footboard to bring peace to the sleepers,\nand pleasant dreams. I had to stop in the middle of the room. I hadn't\nthe strength to go on. I believed that I was under accusing eyes--that\neven the carved angels were inspecting me with an unfriendly gaze. You\nknow how it is when you are convinced that somebody behind you is\nlooking steadily at you. You _have_ to turn your face--you can't help\nit. I turned mine. The bed was placed as it is now, with the foot where\nthe head ought to be. If it had been placed as it should have been, the\nhigh headboard would have sheltered me. But the footboard was no\nsufficient protection, for I could be seen over it. I was exposed. I was\nwholly without protection. I turned, because I couldn't help it--and my\nmemory of what I saw is still vivid, after all these years.\n\nAgainst the white pillows I saw the black head--I saw that young and\nbeautiful face; and I saw the gracious eyes with a something in them\nwhich I had never seen there before. They were snapping and flashing\nwith indignation. I felt myself crumbling; I felt myself shrinking away\nto nothing under that accusing gaze. I stood silent under that\ndesolating fire for as much as a minute, I should say--it seemed a very,\nvery long time. Then my wife's lips parted, and from them issued--_my\nlatest bath-room remark_. The language perfect, but the expression\nvelvety, unpractical, apprenticelike, ignorant, inexperienced, comically\ninadequate, absurdly weak and unsuited to the great language. In my\nlifetime I had never heard anything so out of tune, so inharmonious, so\nincongruous, so ill-suited to each other as were those mighty words set\nto that feeble music. I tried to keep from laughing, for I was a guilty\nperson in deep need of charity and mercy. I tried to keep from\nbursting, and I succeeded--until she gravely said, \"There, now you know\nhow it sounds.\"\n\nThen I exploded; the air was filled with my fragments, and you could\nhear them whiz. I said, \"Oh Livy, if it sounds like _that_ I will never\ndo it again!\"\n\nThen she had to laugh herself. Both of us broke into convulsions, and\nwent on laughing until we were physically exhausted and spiritually\nreconciled.\n\nThe children were present at breakfast--Clara aged six and Susy\neight--and the mother made a guarded remark about strong language;\nguarded because she did not wish the children to suspect anything--a\nguarded remark which censured strong language. Both children broke out\nin one voice with this comment, \"Why, mamma, papa uses it!\"\n\nI was astonished. I had supposed that that secret was safe in my own\nbreast, and that its presence had never been suspected. I asked,\n\n\"How did you know, you little rascals?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" they said, \"we often listen over the balusters when you are in the\nhall explaining things to George.\"\n\n_From Susy's Biography._\n\n\n     One of papa's latest books is \"The Prince and the Pauper\" and it is\n     unquestionably the best book he has ever written, some people want\n     him to keep to his old style, some gentleman wrote him, \"I enjoyed\n     Huckleberry Finn immensely and am glad to see that you have\n     returned to your old style.\" That enoyed me that enoyed me greatly,\n     because it trobles me [Susy was troubled by that word, and\n     uncertain; she wrote a u above it in the proper place, but\n     reconsidered the matter and struck it out] to have so few people\n     know papa, I mean realy know him, they think of Mark Twain as a\n     humorist joking at everything; \"And with a mop of reddish brown\n     hair which sorely needs the barbars brush a roman nose, short\n     stubby mustache, a sad care-worn face, with maney crow's feet\" etc.\n     That is the way people picture papa, I have wanted papa to write a\n     book that would reveal something of his kind sympathetic nature,\n     and \"The Prince and the Pauper\" partly does it. The book is full of\n     lovely charming ideas, and oh the language! It is _perfect_. I\n     think that one of the most touching scenes in it, is where the\n     pauper is riding on horseback with his nobles in the \"recognition\n     procession\" and he sees his mother oh and then what followed! How\n     she runs to his side, when she sees him throw up his hand palm\n     outward, and is rudely pushed off by one of the King's officers,\n     and then how the little pauper's consceince troubles him when he\n     remembers the shameful words that were falling from his lips, when\n     she was turned from his side \"I know you not woman\" and how his\n     grandeurs were stricken valueless, and his pride consumed to ashes.\n     It is a wonderfully beautiful and touching little scene, and papa\n     has described it so wonderfully. I never saw a man with so much\n     variety of feeling as papa has; now the \"Prince and the Pauper\" is\n     full of touching places; but there is most always a streak of humor\n     in them somewhere. Now in the coronation--in the stirring\n     coronation, just after the little king has got his crown back again\n     papa brings that in about the Seal, where the pauper says he used\n     the Seal \"to crack nuts with.\" Oh it is so funny and nice! Papa\n     very seldom writes a passage without some humor in it somewhere,\n     and I dont think he ever will.\n\n\nThe children always helped their mother to edit my books in manuscript.\nShe would sit on the porch at the farm and read aloud, with her pencil\nin her hand, and the children would keep an alert and suspicious eye\nupon her right along, for the belief was well grounded in them that\nwhenever she came across a particularly satisfactory passage she would\nstrike it out. Their suspicions were well founded. The passages which\nwere so satisfactory to them always had an element of strength in them\nwhich sorely needed modification or expurgation, and were always sure to\nget it at their mother's hand. For my own entertainment, and to enjoy\nthe protests of the children, I often abused my editor's innocent\nconfidence. I often interlarded remarks of a studied and felicitously\natrocious character purposely to achieve the children's brief delight,\nand then see the remorseless pencil do its fatal work. I often joined my\nsupplications to the children's for mercy, and strung the argument out\nand pretended to be in earnest. They were deceived, and so was their\nmother. It was three against one, and most unfair. But it was very\ndelightful, and I could not resist the temptation. Now and then we\ngained the victory and there was much rejoicing. Then I privately struck\nthe passage out myself. It had served its purpose. It had furnished\nthree of us with good entertainment, and in being removed from the book\nby me it was only suffering the fate originally intended for it.\n\n_From Susy's Biography._\n\n\n     Papa was born in Missouri. His mother is Grandma Clemens (Jane\n     Lampton Clemens) of Kentucky. Grandpa Clemens was of the F.F.V's of\n     Virginia.\n\n\nWithout doubt it was I that gave Susy that impression. I cannot imagine\nwhy, because I was never in my life much impressed by grandeurs which\nproceed from the accident of birth. I did not get this indifference from\nmy mother. She was always strongly interested in the ancestry of the\nhouse. She traced her own line back to the Lambtons of Durham,\nEngland--a family which had been occupying broad lands there since Saxon\ntimes. I am not sure, but I think that those Lambtons got along without\ntitles of nobility for eight or nine hundred years, then produced a\ngreat man, three-quarters of a century ago, and broke into the peerage.\nMy mother knew all about the Clemenses of Virginia, and loved to\naggrandize them to me, but she has long been dead. There has been no one\nto keep those details fresh in my memory, and they have grown dim.\n\nThere was a Jere. Clemens who was a United States Senator, and in his\nday enjoyed the usual Senatorial fame--a fame which perishes whether it\nspring from four years' service or forty. After Jere. Clemens's fame as\na Senator passed away, he was still remembered for many years on account\nof another service which he performed. He shot old John Brown's Governor\nWise in the hind leg in a duel. However, I am not very clear about this.\nIt may be that Governor Wise shot _him_ in the hind leg. However, I\ndon't think it is important. I think that the only thing that is really\nimportant is that one of them got shot in the hind leg. It would have\nbeen better and nobler and more historical and satisfactory if both of\nthem had got shot in the hind leg--but it is of no use for me to try to\nrecollect history. I never had a historical mind. Let it go. Whichever\nway it happened I am glad of it, and that is as much enthusiasm as I can\nget up for a person bearing my name. But I am forgetting the first\nClemens--the one that stands furthest back toward the really original\n_first_ Clemens, which was Adam.\n\n_From Susy's Biography._\n\n\n     Clara and I are sure that papa played the trick on Grandma, about\n     the whipping, that is related in \"The Adventures of Tom Sayer\":\n     \"Hand me that switch.\" The switch hovered in the air, the peril was\n     desperate--\"My, look behind you Aunt!\" The old lady whirled around\n     and snatched her skirts out of danger. The lad fled on the instant,\n     scrambling up the high board fence and dissapeared over it.\n\n\nSusy and Clara were quite right about that.\n\nThen Susy says:\n\n\n     And we know papa played \"Hookey\" all the time. And how readily\n     would papa pretend to be dying so as not to have to go to school!\n\n\nThese revelations and exposures are searching, but they are just If I am\nas transparent to other people as I was to Susy, I have wasted much\neffort in this life.\n\n\n     Grandma couldn't make papa go to school, no she let him go into a\n     printing-office to learn the trade. He did so, and gradually picked\n     up enough education to enable him to do about as well as those who\n     were more studious in early life.\n\n\nIt is noticeable that Susy does not get overheated when she is\ncomplimenting me, but maintains a proper judicial and biographical calm.\nIt is noticeable, also, and it is to her credit as a biographer, that\nshe distributes compliment and criticism with a fair and even hand.\n\nMy mother had a good deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed\nit. She had none at all with my brother Henry, who was two years younger\nthan I, and I think that the unbroken monotony of his goodness and\ntruthfulness and obedience would have been a burden to her but for the\nrelief and variety which I furnished in the other direction. I was a\ntonic. I was valuable to her. I never thought of it before, but now I\nsee it. I never knew Henry to do a vicious thing toward me, or toward\nany one else--but he frequently did righteous ones that cost me as\nheavily. It was his duty to report me, when I needed reporting and\nneglected to do it myself, and he was very faithful in discharging that\nduty. He is \"Sid\" in \"Tom Sawyer.\" But Sid was not Henry. Henry was a\nvery much finer and better boy than ever Sid was.\n\nIt was Henry who called my mother's attention to the fact that the\nthread with which she had sewed my collar together to keep me from going\nin swimming, had changed color. My mother would not have discovered it\nbut for that, and she was manifestly piqued when she recognized that\nthat prominent bit of circumstantial evidence had escaped her sharp eye.\nThat detail probably added a detail to my punishment. It is human. We\ngenerally visit our shortcomings on somebody else when there is a\npossible excuse for it--but no matter, I took it out of Henry. There is\nalways compensation for such as are unjustly used. I often took it out\nof him--sometimes as an advance payment for something which I hadn't yet\ndone. These were occasions when the opportunity was too strong a\ntemptation, and I had to draw on the future. I did not need to copy this\nidea from my mother, and probably didn't. Still she wrought upon that\nprinciple upon occasion.\n\nIf the incident of the broken sugar-bowl is in \"Tom Sawyer\"--I don't\nremember whether it is or not--that is an example of it. Henry never\nstole sugar. He took it openly from the bowl. His mother knew he\nwouldn't take sugar when she wasn't looking, but she had her doubts\nabout me. Not exactly doubts, either. She knew very well I _would._ One\nday when she was not present, Henry took sugar from her prized and\nprecious old English sugar-bowl, which was an heirloom in the\nfamily--and he managed to break the bowl. It was the first time I had\never had a chance to tell anything on him, and I was inexpressibly glad.\nI told him I was going to tell on him, but he was not disturbed. When my\nmother came in and saw the bowl lying on the floor in fragments, she was\nspeechless for a minute. I allowed that silence to work; I judged it\nwould increase the effect. I was waiting for her to ask \"Who did\nthat?\"--so that I could fetch out my news. But it was an error of\ncalculation. When she got through with her silence she didn't ask\nanything about it--she merely gave me a crack on the skull with her\nthimble that I felt all the way down to my heels. Then I broke out with\nmy injured innocence, expecting to make her very sorry that she had\npunished the wrong one. I expected her to do something remorseful and\npathetic. I told her that I was not the one--it was Henry. But there was\nno upheaval. She said, without emotion, \"It's all right. It isn't any\nmatter. You deserve it for something you've done that I didn't know\nabout; and if you haven't done it, why then you deserve it for something\nthat you are going to do, that I sha'n't hear about.\"\n\nThere was a stairway outside the house, which led up to the rear part of\nthe second story. One day Henry was sent on an errand, and he took a tin\nbucket along. I knew he would have to ascend those stairs, so I went up\nand locked the door on the inside, and came down into the garden, which\nhad been newly ploughed and was rich in choice firm clods of black mold.\nI gathered a generous equipment of these, and ambushed him. I waited\ntill he had climbed the stairs and was near the landing and couldn't\nescape. Then I bombarded him with clods, which he warded off with his\ntin bucket the best he could, but without much success, for I was a good\nmarksman. The clods smashing against the weather-boarding fetched my\nmother out to see what was the matter, and I tried to explain that I was\namusing Henry. Both of them were after me in a minute, but I knew the\nway over that high board fence and escaped for that time. After an hour\nor two, when I ventured back, there was no one around and I thought the\nincident was closed. But it was not. Henry was ambushing me. With an\nunusually competent aim for him, he landed a stone on the side of my\nhead which raised a bump there that felt like the Matterhorn. I carried\nit to my mother straightway for sympathy, but she was not strongly\nmoved. It seemed to be her idea that incidents like this would\neventually reform me if I harvested enough of them. So the matter was\nonly educational. I had had a sterner view of it than that, before.\n\nIt was not right to give the cat the \"Pain-Killer\"; I realize it now. I\nwould not repeat it in these days. But in those \"Tom Sawyer\" days it was\na great and sincere satisfaction to me to see Peter perform under its\ninfluence--and if actions _do_ speak as loud as words, he took as much\ninterest in it as I did. It was a most detestable medicine, Perry\nDavis's Pain-Killer. Mr. Pavey's negro man, who was a person of good\njudgment and considerable curiosity, wanted to sample it, and I let him.\nIt was his opinion that it was made of hell-fire.\n\nThose were the cholera days of '49. The people along the Mississippi\nwere paralyzed with fright. Those who could run away, did it. And many\ndied of fright in the flight. Fright killed three persons where the\ncholera killed one. Those who couldn't flee kept themselves drenched\nwith cholera preventives, and my mother chose Perry Davis's Pain-Killer\nfor me. She was not distressed about herself. She avoided that kind of\npreventive. But she made me promise to take a teaspoonful of Pain-Killer\nevery day. Originally it was my intention to keep the promise, but at\nthat time I didn't know as much about Pain-Killer as I knew after my\nfirst experiment with it. She didn't watch Henry's bottle--she could\ntrust Henry. But she marked my bottle with a pencil, on the label, every\nday, and examined it to see if the teaspoonful had been removed. The\nfloor was not carpeted. It had cracks in it, and I fed the Pain-Killer\nto the cracks with very good results--no cholera occurred down below.\n\nIt was upon one of these occasions that that friendly cat came waving\nhis tail and supplicating for Pain-Killer--which he got--and then went\ninto those hysterics which ended with his colliding with all the\nfurniture in the room and finally going out of the open window and\ncarrying the flower-pots with him, just in time for my mother to arrive\nand look over her glasses in petrified astonishment and say, \"What in\nthe world is the matter with Peter?\"\n\nI don't remember what my explanation was, but if it is recorded in that\nbook it may not be the right one.\n\nWhenever my conduct was of such exaggerated impropriety that my mother's\nextemporary punishments were inadequate, she saved the matter up for\nSunday, and made me go to church Sunday night--which was a penalty\nsometimes bearable, perhaps, but as a rule it was not, and I avoided it\nfor the sake of my constitution. She would never believe that I had been\nto church until she had applied her test: she made me tell her what the\ntext was. That was a simple matter, and caused me no trouble. I didn't\nhave to go to church to get a text. I selected one for myself. This\nworked very well until one time when my text and the one furnished by a\nneighbor, who had been to church, didn't tally. After that my mother\ntook other methods. I don't know what they were now.\n\nIn those days men and boys wore rather long cloaks in the winter-time.\nThey were black, and were lined with very bright and showy Scotch\nplaids. One winter's night when I was starting to church to square a\ncrime of some kind committed during the week, I hid my cloak near the\ngate and went off and played with the other boys until church was over.\nThen I returned home. But in the dark I put the cloak on wrong side out,\nentered the room, threw the cloak aside, and then stood the usual\nexamination. I got along very well until the temperature of the church\nwas mentioned. My mother said,\n\n\"It must have been impossible to keep warm there on such a night.\"\n\nI didn't see the art of that remark, and was foolish enough to explain\nthat I wore my cloak all the time that I was in church. She asked if I\nkept it on from church home, too. I didn't see the bearing of that\nremark. I said that that was what I had done. She said,\n\n\"You wore it in church with that red Scotch plaid outside and glaring?\nDidn't that attract any attention?\"\n\nOf course to continue such a dialogue would have been tedious and\nunprofitable, and I let it go, and took the consequences.\n\nThat was about 1849. Tom Nash was a boy of my own age--the postmaster's\nson. The Mississippi was frozen across, and he and I went skating one\nnight, probably without permission. I cannot see why we should go\nskating in the night unless without permission, for there could be no\nconsiderable amusement to be gotten out of skating at night if nobody\nwas going to object to it. About midnight, when we were more than half a\nmile out toward the Illinois shore, we heard some ominous rumbling and\ngrinding and crashing going on between us and the home side of the\nriver, and we knew what it meant--the ice was breaking up. We started\nfor home, pretty badly scared. We flew along at full speed whenever the\nmoonlight sifting down between the clouds enabled us to tell which was\nice and which was water. In the pauses we waited; started again whenever\nthere was a good bridge of ice; paused again when we came to naked water\nand waited in distress until a floating vast cake should bridge that\nplace. It took us an hour to make the trip--a trip which we made in a\nmisery of apprehension all the time. But at last we arrived within a\nvery brief distance of the shore. We waited again; there was another\nplace that needed bridging. All about us the ice was plunging and\ngrinding along and piling itself up in mountains on the shore, and the\ndangers were increasing, not diminishing. We grew very impatient to get\nto solid ground, so we started too early and went springing from cake to\ncake. Tom made a miscalculation, and fell short. He got a bitter bath,\nbut he was so close to shore that he only had to swim a stroke or\ntwo--then his feet struck hard bottom and he crawled out. I arrived a\nlittle later, without accident. We had been in a drenching perspiration,\nand Tom's bath was a disaster for him. He took to his bed sick, and had\na procession of diseases. The closing one was scarlet-fever, and he came\nout of it stone deaf. Within a year or two speech departed, of course.\nBut some years later he was taught to talk, after a fashion--one\ncouldn't always make out what it was he was trying to say. Of course he\ncould not modulate his voice, since he couldn't hear himself talk. When\nhe supposed he was talking low and confidentially, you could hear him in\nIllinois.\n\nFour years ago (1902) I was invited by the University of Missouri to\ncome out there and receive the honorary degree of LL.D. I took that\nopportunity to spend a week in Hannibal--a city now, a village in my\nday. It had been fifty-three years since Tom Nash and I had had that\nadventure. When I was at the railway station ready to leave Hannibal,\nthere was a crowd of citizens there. I saw Tom Nash approaching me\nacross a vacant space, and I walked toward him, for I recognized him at\nonce. He was old and white-headed, but the boy of fifteen was still\nvisible in him. He came up to me, made a trumpet of his hands at my ear,\nnodded his head toward the citizens and said confidentially--in a yell\nlike a fog-horn--\n\n\"Same damned fools, Sam!\"\n\n_From Susy's Biography._\n\n\n     Papa was about twenty years old when he went on the Mississippi as\n     a pilot. Just before he started on his tripp Grandma Clemens asked\n     him to promise her on the Bible not to touch intoxicating liquors\n     or swear, and he said \"Yes, mother, I will,\" and he kept that\n     promise seven years when Grandma released him from it.\n\n\nUnder the inspiring influence of that remark, what a garden of forgotten\nreforms rises upon my sight!\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCIII.\n\nNOVEMBER 16, 1906.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--VI.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n_From Susy's Biography_.\n\n\n     Papa made arrangements to read at Vassar College the 1st of May,\n     and I went with him. We went by way of New York City. Mamma went\n     with us to New York and stayed two days to do some shopping. We\n     started Tuesday, at 1/2 past two o'clock in the afternoon, and\n     reached New York about 1/4 past six. Papa went right up to General\n     Grants from the station and mamma and I went to the Everett House.\n     Aunt Clara came to supper with us up in our room....\n\n     We and Aunt Clara were going were going to the theatre right after\n     supper, and we expected papa to take us there and to come home as\n     early as he could. But we got through dinner and he didn't come,\n     and didn't come, and mamma got more perplexed and worried, but at\n     last we thought we would have to go without him. So we put on our\n     things and started down stairs but before we'd goten half down we\n     met papa coming up with a great bunch of roses in his hand. He\n     explained that the reason he was so late was that his watch stopped\n     and he didn't notice and kept thinking it an hour earlier than it\n     really was. The roses he carried were some Col. Fred Grant sent to\n     mamma. We went to the theatre and enjoyed \"Adonis\" [word illegible]\n     acted very much. We reached home about 1/2 past eleven o'clock and\n     went right to bed. Wednesday morning we got up rather late and had\n     breakfast about 1/2 past nine o'clock. After breakfast mamma went\n     out shopping and papa and I went to see papa's agent about some\n     business matters. After papa had gotten through talking to Cousin\n     Charlie, [Webster] papa's agent, we went to get a friend of papa's,\n     Major Pond, to go and see a Dog Show with us. Then we went to see\n     the dogs with Major Pond and we had a delightful time seeing so\n     many dogs together; when we got through seeing the dogs papa\n     thought he would go and see General Grant and I went with him--this\n     was April 29, 1885. Papa went up into General Grant's room and he\n     took me with him, I felt greatly honored and delighted when papa\n     took me into General Grant's room and let me see the General and\n     Col. Grant, for General Grant is a man I shall be glad all my life\n     that I have seen. Papa and General Grant had a long talk together\n     and papa has written an account of his talk and visit with General\n     Grant for me to put into this biography.\n\n\nSusy has inserted in this place that account of mine--as follows:\n\n\n                                                    April 29, 1885.\n\n     I called on General Grant and took Susy with me. The General was\n     looking and feeling far better than he had looked or felt for some\n     months. He had ventured to work again on his book that morning--the\n     first time he had done any work for perhaps a month. This morning's\n     work was his first attempt at dictating, and it was a thorough\n     success, to his great delight. He had always said that it would be\n     impossible for him to dictate anything, but I had said that he was\n     noted for clearness of statement, and as a narrative was simply a\n     statement of consecutive facts, he was consequently peculiarly\n     qualified and equipped for dictation. This turned out to be true.\n     For he had dictated two hours that morning to a shorthand writer,\n     had never hesitated for words, had not repeated himself, and the\n     manuscript when finished needed no revision. The two hours' work\n     was an account of Appomattox--and this was such an extremely\n     important feature that his book would necessarily have been\n     severely lame without it. Therefore I had taken a shorthand writer\n     there before, to see if I could not get him to write at least a few\n     lines about Appomattox.[5] But he was at that time not well enough\n     to undertake it. I was aware that of all the hundred versions of\n     Appomattox, not one was really correct. Therefore I was extremely\n     anxious that he should leave behind him the truth. His throat was\n     not distressing him, and his voice was much better and stronger\n     than usual. He was so delighted to have gotten Appomattox\n     accomplished once more in his life--to have gotten the matter off\n     his mind--that he was as talkative as his old self. He received\n     Susy very pleasantly, and then fell to talking about certain\n     matters which he hoped to be able to dictate next day; and he said\n     in substance that, among other things, he wanted to settle once for\n     all a question that had been bandied about from mouth to mouth and\n     from newspaper to newspaper. That question was, \"With whom\n     originated the idea of the march to the sea? Was it Grant's, or was\n     it Sherman's idea?\" Whether I, or some one else (being anxious to\n     get the important fact settled) asked him with whom the idea\n     originated, I don't remember. But I remember his answer. I shall\n     always remember his answer. General Grant said:\n\n     \"Neither of us originated the idea of Sherman's march to the sea.\n     The enemy did it.\"\n\n     He went on to say that the enemy, however, necessarily originated a\n     great many of the plans that the general on the opposite side gets\n     the credit for; at the same time that the enemy is doing that, he\n     is laying open other moves which the opposing general sees and\n     takes advantage of. In this case, Sherman had a plan all thought\n     out, of course. He meant to destroy the two remaining railroads in\n     that part of the country, and that would finish up that region. But\n     General Hood did not play the military part that he was expected to\n     play. On the contrary, General Hood made a dive at Chattanooga.\n     This left the march to the sea open to Sherman, and so after\n     sending part of his army to defend and hold what he had acquired in\n     the Chattanooga region, he was perfectly free to proceed, with the\n     rest of it, through Georgia. He saw the opportunity, and he would\n     not have been fit for his place if he had not seized it.\n\n     \"He wrote me\" (the General is speaking) \"what his plan was, and I\n     sent him word to go ahead. My staff were opposed to the movement.\"\n     (I think the General said they tried to persuade him to stop\n     Sherman. The chief of his staff, the General said, even went so far\n     as to go to Washington without the General's knowledge and get the\n     ear of the authorities, and he succeeded in arousing their fears to\n     such an extent that they telegraphed General Grant to stop\n     Sherman.)\n\n     Then General Grant said, \"Out of deference to the Government, I\n     telegraphed Sherman and stopped him twenty-four hours; and then\n     considering that that was deference enough to the Government, I\n     telegraphed him to go ahead again.\"\n\n     I have not tried to give the General's language, but only the\n     general idea of what he said. The thing that mainly struck me was\n     his terse remark that the enemy originated the idea of the march to\n     the sea. It struck me because it was so suggestive of the General's\n     epigrammatic fashion--saying a great deal in a single crisp\n     sentence. (This is my account, and signed \"Mark Twain.\")\n\n\n_Susy Resumes._\n\n\n     After papa and General Grant had had their talk, we went back to\n     the hotel where mamma was, and papa told mamma all about his\n     interview with General Grant. Mamma and I had a nice quiet\n     afternoon together.\n\n\nThat pair of devoted comrades were always shutting themselves up\ntogether when there was opportunity to have what Susy called \"a cozy\ntime.\" From Susy's nursery days to the end of her life, she and her\nmother were close friends; intimate friends, passionate adorers of each\nother. Susy's was a beautiful mind, and it made her an interesting\ncomrade. And with the fine mind she had a heart like her mother's. Susy\nnever had an interest or an occupation which she was not glad to put\naside for that something which was in all cases more precious to her--a\nvisit with her mother. Susy died at the right time, the fortunate time\nof life; the happy age--twenty-four years. At twenty-four, such a girl\nhas seen the best of life--life as a happy dream. After that age the\nrisks begin; responsibility comes, and with it the cares, the sorrows,\nand the inevitable tragedy. For her mother's sake I would have brought\nher back from the grave if I could, but I would not have done it for my\nown.\n\n_From Susy's Biography_.\n\n\n     Then papa went to read in public; there were a great many authors\n     that read, that Thursday afternoon, beside papa; I would have liked\n     to have gone and heard papa read, but papa said he was going to\n     read in Vassar just what he was planning to read in New York, so I\n     stayed at home with mamma.\n\n     The next day mamma planned to take the four o'clock car back to\n     Hartford. We rose quite early that morning and went to the Vienna\n     Bakery and took breakfast there. From there we went to a German\n     bookstore and bought some German books for Clara's birthday.\n\n\nDear me, the power of association to snatch mouldy dead memories out of\ntheir graves and make them walk! That remark about buying foreign books\nthrows a sudden white glare upon the distant past; and I see the long\nstretch of a New York street with an unearthly vividness, and John Hay\nwalking down it, grave and remorseful. I was walking down it too, that\nmorning, and I overtook Hay and asked him what the trouble was. He\nturned a lustreless eye upon me and said:\n\n\"My case is beyond cure. In the most innocent way in the world I have\ncommitted a crime which will never be forgiven by the sufferers, for\nthey will never believe--oh, well, no, I was going to say they would\nnever believe that I did the thing innocently. The truth is they will\nknow that I acted innocently, because they are rational people; but what\nof that? I never can look them in the face again--nor they me, perhaps.\"\n\nHay was a young bachelor, and at that time was on the \"Tribune\" staff.\nHe explained his trouble in these words, substantially:\n\n\"When I was passing along here yesterday morning on my way down-town to\nthe office, I stepped into a bookstore where I am acquainted, and asked\nif they had anything new from the other side. They handed me a French\nnovel, in the usual yellow paper cover, and I carried it away. I didn't\neven look at the title of it. It was for recreation reading, and I was\non my way to my work. I went mooning and dreaming along, and I think I\nhadn't gone more than fifty yards when I heard my name called. I\nstopped, and a private carriage drew up at the sidewalk and I shook\nhands with the inmates--mother and young daughter, excellent people.\nThey were on their way to the steamer to sail for Paris. The mother\nsaid,\n\n\"'I saw that book in your hand and I judged by the look of it that it\nwas a French novel. Is it?'\n\n\"I said it was.\n\n\"She said, 'Do let me have it, so that my daughter can practise her\nFrench on it on the way over.'\n\n\"Of course I handed her the book, and we parted. Ten minutes ago I was\npassing that bookstore again, and I stepped in and fetched away another\ncopy of that book. Here it is. Read the first page of it. That is\nenough. You will know what the rest is like. I think it must be the\nfoulest book in the French language--one of the foulest, anyway. I would\nbe ashamed to offer it to a harlot--but, oh dear, I gave it to that\nsweet young girl without shame. Take my advice; don't give away a book\nuntil you have examined it.\"\n\n_From Susy's Biography._\n\n\n     Then mamma and I went to do some shopping and papa went to see\n     General Grant. After we had finnished doing our shopping we went\n     home to the hotel together. When we entered our rooms in the hotel\n     we saw on the table a vase full of exquisett red roses. Mamma who\n     is very fond of flowers exclaimed \"Oh I wonder who could have sent\n     them.\" We both looked at the card in the midst of the roses and saw\n     that it was written on in papa's handwriting, it was written in\n     German. 'Liebes Geshchenk on die mamma.' [I am sure I didn't say\n     \"on\"--that is Susy's spelling, not mine; also I am sure I didn't\n     spell Geschenk so liberally as all that.--S. L. C.] Mamma was\n     delighted. Papa came home and gave mamma her ticket; and after\n     visiting a while with her went to see Major Pond and mamma and I\n     sat down to our lunch. After lunch most of our time was taken up\n     with packing, and at about three o'clock we went to escort mamma to\n     the train. We got on board the train with her and stayed with her\n     about five minutes and then we said good-bye to her and the train\n     started for Hartford. It was the first time I had ever beene away\n     from home without mamma in my life, although I was 13 yrs. old.\n     Papa and I drove back to the hotel and got Major Pond and then went\n     to see the Brooklyn Bridge we went across it to Brooklyn on the\n     cars and then walked back across it from Brooklyn to New York. We\n     enjoyed looking at the beautiful scenery and we could see the\n     bridge moove under the intense heat of the sun. We had a perfectly\n     delightful time, but weer pretty tired when we got back to the\n     hotel.\n\n     The next morning we rose early, took our breakfast and took an\n     early train to Poughkeepsie. We had a very pleasant journey to\n     Poughkeepsie. The Hudson was magnificent--shrouded with beautiful\n     mist. When we arived at Poughkeepsie it was raining quite hard;\n     which fact greatly dissapointed me because I very much wanted to\n     see the outside of the buildings of Vassar College and as it rained\n     that would be impossible. It was quite a long drive from the\n     station to Vasser College and papa and I had a nice long time to\n     discuss and laugh over German profanity. One of the German phrases\n     papa particularly enjoys is \"O heilige maria Mutter Jesus!\" Jean\n     has a German nurse, and this was one of her phrases, there was a\n     time when Jean exclaimed \"Ach Gott!\" to every trifle, but when\n     mamma found it out she was shocked and instantly put a stop to it.\n\n\nIt brings that pretty little German girl vividly before me--a sweet and\ninnocent and plump little creature with peachy cheeks; a clear-souled\nlittle maiden and without offence, notwithstanding her profanities, and\nshe was loaded to the eyebrows with them. She was a mere child. She was\nnot fifteen yet. She was just from Germany, and knew no English. She was\nalways scattering her profanities around, and they were such a\nsatisfaction to me that I never dreamed of such a thing as modifying\nher. For my own sake, I had no disposition to tell on her. Indeed I took\npains to keep her from being found out. I told her to confine her\nreligious exercises to the children's quarters, and urged her to\nremember that Mrs. Clemens was prejudiced against pieties on week-days.\nTo the children, the little maid's profanities sounded natural and\nproper and right, because they had been used to that kind of talk in\nGermany, and they attached no evil importance to it. It grieves me that\nI have forgotten those vigorous remarks. I long hoarded them in my\nmemory as a treasure. But I remember one of them still, because I heard\nit so many times. The trial of that little creature's life was the\nchildren's hair. She would tug and strain with her comb, accompanying\nher work with her misplaced pieties. And when finally she was through\nwith her triple job she always fired up and exploded her thanks toward\nthe sky, where they belonged, in this form: \"_Gott sei Dank ich bin\nfertig mit'm Gott verdammtes Haar!_\" (I believe I am not quite brave\nenough to translate it.)\n\n_From Susy's Biography_.\n\n\n     We at length reached Vassar College and she looked very finely, her\n     buildings and her grounds being very beautiful. We went to the\n     front doore and range the bell. The young girl who came to the\n     doore wished to know who we wanted to see. Evidently we were not\n     expected. Papa told her who we wanted to see and she showed us to\n     the parlor. We waited, no one came; and waited, no one came, still\n     no one came. It was beginning to seem pretty awkward, \"Oh well this\n     is a pretty piece of business,\" papa exclaimed. At length we heard\n     footsteps coming down the long corridor and Miss C, (the lady who\n     had invited papa) came into the room. She greeted papa very\n     pleasantly and they had a nice little chatt together. Soon the lady\n     principal also entered and she was very pleasant and agreable. She\n     showed us to our rooms and said she would send for us when dinner\n     was ready. We went into our rooms, but we had nothing to do for\n     half an hour exept to watch the rain drops as they fell upon the\n     window panes. At last we were called to dinner, and I went down\n     without papa as he never eats anything in the middle of the day. I\n     sat at the table with the lady principal and enjoyed very much\n     seeing all the young girls trooping into the dining-room. After\n     dinner I went around the College with the young ladies and papa\n     stayed in his room and smoked. When it was supper time papa went\n     down and ate supper with us and we had a very delightful supper.\n     After supper the young ladies went to their rooms to dress for the\n     evening. Papa went to his room and I went with the lady principal.\n     At length the guests began to arive, but papa still remained in his\n     room until called for. Papa read in the chapell. It was the first\n     time I had ever heard him read in my life--that is in public. When\n     he came out on to the stage I remember the people behind me\n     exclaimed \"Oh how queer he is! Isn't he funny!\" I thought papa was\n     very funny, although I did not think him queer. He read \"A Trying\n     Situation\" and \"The Golden Arm,\" a ghost story that he heard down\n     South when he was a little boy. \"The Golden Arm\" papa had told me\n     before, but he had startled me so that I did not much wish to hear\n     it again. But I had resolved this time to be prepared and not to\n     let myself be startled, but still papa did, and very very much; he\n     startled the whole roomful of people and they jumped as one man.\n     The other story was also very funny and interesting and I enjoyed\n     the evening inexpressibly much. After papa had finished reading we\n     all went down to the collation in the dining-room and after that\n     there was dancing and singing. Then the guests went away and papa\n     and I went to bed. The next morning we rose early, took an early\n     train for Hartford and reached Hartford at 1/2 past 2 o'clock. We\n     were very glad to get back.\n\n\nHow charitably she treats that ghastly experience! It is a dear and\nlovely disposition, and a most valuable one, that can brush away\nindignities and discourtesies and seek and find the pleasanter features\nof an experience. Susy had that disposition, and it was one of the\njewels of her character that had come to her straight from her mother.\nIt is a feature that was left out of me at birth. And, at seventy, I\nhave not yet acquired it. I did not go to Vassar College professionally,\nbut as a guest--as a guest, and gratis. Aunt Clara (now Mrs. John B.\nStanchfield) was a graduate of Vassar and it was to please her that I\ninflicted that journey upon Susy and myself. The invitation had come to\nme from both the lady mentioned by Susy and the President of the\nCollege--a sour old saint who has probably been gathered to his fathers\nlong ago; and I hope they enjoy him; I hope they value his society. I\nthink I can get along without it, in either end of the next world.\n\nWe arrived at the College in that soaking rain, and Susy has described,\nwith just a suggestion of dissatisfaction, the sort of reception we got.\nSusy had to sit in her damp clothes half an hour while we waited in the\nparlor; then she was taken to a fireless room and left to wait there\nagain, as she has stated. I do not remember that President's name, and I\nam sorry. He did not put in an appearance until it was time for me to\nstep upon the platform in front of that great garden of young and lovely\nblossoms. He caught up with me and advanced upon the platform with me\nand was going to introduce me. I said in substance:\n\n\"You have allowed me to get along without your help thus far, and if you\nwill retire from the platform I will try to do the rest without it.\"\n\nI did not see him any more, but I detest his memory. Of course my\nresentment did not extend to the students, and so I had an unforgettable\ngood time talking to them. And I think they had a good time too, for\nthey responded \"as one man,\" to use Susy's unimprovable phrase.\n\nGirls are charming creatures. I shall have to be twice seventy years old\nbefore I change my mind as to that. I am to talk to a crowd of them this\nafternoon, students of Barnard College (the sex's annex to Columbia\nUniversity), and I think I shall have as pleasant a time with those\nlasses as I had with the Vassar girls twenty-one years ago.\n\n_From Susy's Biography._\n\n\n     I stopped in the middle of mamma's early history to tell about our\n     tripp to Vassar because I was afraid I would forget about it, now I\n     will go on where I left off. Some time after Miss Emma Nigh died\n     papa took mamma and little Langdon to Elmira for the summer. When\n     in Elmira Langdon began to fail but I think mamma did not know just\n     what was the matter with him.\n\n\nI was the cause of the child's illness. His mother trusted him to my\ncare and I took him a long drive in an open barouche for an airing. It\nwas a raw, cold morning, but he was well wrapped about with furs and, in\nthe hands of a careful person, no harm would have come to him. But I\nsoon dropped into a reverie and forgot all about my charge. The furs\nfell away and exposed his bare legs. By and by the coachman noticed\nthis, and I arranged the wraps again, but it was too late. The child was\nalmost frozen. I hurried home with him. I was aghast at what I had done,\nand I feared the consequences. I have always felt shame for that\ntreacherous morning's work and have not allowed myself to think of it\nwhen I could help it. I doubt if I had the courage to make confession at\nthat time. I think it most likely that I have never confessed until now.\n\n_From Susy's Biography._\n\n\n     At last it was time for papa to return to Hartford, and Langdon was\n     real sick at that time, but still mamma decided to go with him,\n     thinking the journey might do him good. But after they reached\n     Hartford he became very sick, and his trouble prooved to be\n     diptheeria. He died about a week after mamma and papa reached\n     Hartford. He was burried by the side of grandpa at Elmira, New\n     York. [Susy rests there with them.--S. L. C.] After that, mamma\n     became very very ill, so ill that there seemed great danger of\n     death, but with a great deal of good care she recovered. Some\n     months afterward mamma and papa [and Susy, who was perhaps fourteen\n     or fifteen months old at the time.--S. L. C.] went to Europe and\n     stayed for a time in Scotland and England. In Scotland mamma and\n     papa became very well equanted with Dr. John Brown, the author of\n     \"Rab and His Friends,\" and he mett, but was not so well equanted\n     with, Mr. Charles Kingsley, Mr. Henry M. Stanley, Sir Thomas Hardy\n     grandson of the Captain Hardy to whom Nellson said \"Kiss me Hardy,\"\n     when dying on shipboard, Mr. Henry Irving, Robert Browning, Sir\n     Charles Dilke, Mr. Charles Reade, Mr. William Black, Lord Houghton,\n     Frank Buckland, Mr. Tom Hughes, Anthony Trollope, Tom Hood, son of\n     the poet--and mamma and papa were quite well equanted with Dr.\n     Macdonald and family, and papa met Harrison Ainsworth.\n\n\nI remember all these men very well indeed, except the last one. I do not\nrecall Ainsworth. By my count, Susy mentions fourteen men. They are all\ndead except Sir Charles Dilke.\n\nWe met a great many other interesting people, among them Lewis Carroll,\nauthor of the immortal \"Alice\"--but he was only interesting to look at,\nfor he was the stillest and shyest full-grown man I have ever met except\n\"Uncle Remus.\" Dr. Macdonald and several other lively talkers were\npresent, and the talk went briskly on for a couple of hours, but Carroll\nsat still all the while except that now and then he answered a question.\nHis answers were brief. I do not remember that he elaborated any of\nthem.\n\nAt a dinner at Smalley's we met Herbert Spencer. At a large luncheon\nparty at Lord Houghton's we met Sir Arthur Helps, who was a celebrity of\nworld-wide fame at the time, but is quite forgotten now. Lord Elcho, a\nlarge vigorous man, sat at some distance down the table. He was talking\nearnestly about Godalming. It was a deep and flowing and unarticulated\nrumble, but I got the Godalming pretty clearly every time it broke free\nof the rumble, and as all the strength was on the first end of the word\nit startled me every time, because it sounded so like swearing. In the\nmiddle of the luncheon Lady Houghton rose, remarked to the guests on her\nright and on her left in a matter-of-fact way, \"Excuse me, I have an\nengagement,\" and without further ceremony she went off to meet it. This\nwould have been doubtful etiquette in America. Lord Houghton told a\nnumber of delightful stories. He told them in French, and I lost nothing\nof them but the nubs.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[5] I was his publisher. I was putting his \"Personal Memoirs\" to press\nat the time.--S. L. C.\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCIV.\n\nDECEMBER 7, 1906.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--VII.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\nI was always heedless. I was born heedless; and therefore I was\nconstantly, and quite unconsciously, committing breaches of the minor\nproprieties, which brought upon me humiliations which ought to have\nhumiliated me but didn't, because I didn't know anything had happened.\nBut Livy knew; and so the humiliations fell to her share, poor child,\nwho had not earned them and did not deserve them. She always said I was\nthe most difficult child she had. She was very sensitive about me. It\ndistressed her to see me do heedless things which could bring me under\ncriticism, and so she was always watchful and alert to protect me from\nthe kind of transgressions which I have been speaking of.\n\nWhen I was leaving Hartford for Washington, upon the occasion referred\nto, she said: \"I have written a small warning and put it in a pocket of\nyour dress-vest. When you are dressing to go to the Authors' Reception\nat the White House you will naturally put your fingers in your vest\npockets, according to your custom, and you will find that little note\nthere. Read it carefully, and do as it tells you. I cannot be with you,\nand so I delegate my sentry duties to this little note. If I should give\nyou the warning by word of mouth, now, it would pass from your head and\nbe forgotten in a few minutes.\"\n\nIt was President Cleveland's first term. I had never seen his wife--the\nyoung, the beautiful, the good-hearted, the sympathetic, the\nfascinating. Sure enough, just as I had finished dressing to go to the\nWhite House I found that little note, which I had long ago forgotten. It\nwas a grave little note, a serious little note, like its writer, but it\nmade me laugh. Livy's gentle gravities often produced that effect upon\nme, where the expert humorist's best joke would have failed, for I do\nnot laugh easily.\n\nWhen we reached the White House and I was shaking hands with the\nPresident, he started to say something, but I interrupted him and said:\n\n\"If your Excellency will excuse me, I will come back in a moment; but\nnow I have a very important matter to attend to, and it must be attended\nto at once.\"\n\nI turned to Mrs. Cleveland, the young, the beautiful, the fascinating,\nand gave her my card, on the back of which I had written \"_He\ndidn't_\"--and I asked her to sign her name below those words.\n\nShe said: \"He didn't? He didn't what?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" I said, \"never mind. We cannot stop to discuss that now. This is\nurgent. Won't you please sign your name?\" (I handed her a fountain-pen.)\n\n\"Why,\" she said, \"I cannot commit myself in that way. Who is it that\ndidn't?--and what is it that he didn't?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" I said, \"time is flying, flying, flying. Won't you take me out of\nmy distress and sign your name to it? It's all right. I give you my word\nit's all right.\"\n\nShe looked nonplussed; but hesitatingly and mechanically she took the\npen and said:\n\n\"I will sign it. I will take the risk. But you must tell me all about\nit, right afterward, so that you can be arrested before you get out of\nthe house in case there should be anything criminal about this.\"\n\nThen she signed; and I handed her Mrs. Clements's note, which was very\nbrief, very simple, and to the point. It said: \"_Don't wear your arctics\nin the White House._\" It made her shout; and at my request she summoned\na messenger and we sent that card at once to the mail on its way to Mrs.\nClemens in Hartford.\n\nWhen the little Ruth was about a year or a year and a half old, Mason,\nan old and valued friend of mine, was consul-general at\nFrankfort-on-the-Main. I had known him well in 1867, '68 and '69, in\nAmerica, and I and mine had spent a good deal of time with him and his\nfamily in Frankfort in '78. He was a thoroughly competent, diligent, and\nconscientious official. Indeed he possessed these qualities in so large\na degree that among American consuls he might fairly be said to be\nmonumental, for at that time our consular service was largely--and I\nthink I may say mainly--in the hands of ignorant, vulgar, and incapable\nmen who had been political heelers in America, and had been taken care\nof by transference to consulates where they could be supported at the\nGovernment's expense instead of being transferred to the poor house,\nwhich would have been cheaper and more patriotic. Mason, in '78, had\nbeen consul-general in Frankfort several years--four, I think. He had\ncome from Marseilles with a great record. He had been consul there\nduring thirteen years, and one part of his record was heroic. There had\nbeen a desolating cholera epidemic, and Mason was the only\nrepresentative of any foreign country who stayed at his post and saw it\nthrough. And during that time he not only represented his own country,\nbut he represented all the other countries in Christendom and did their\nwork, and did it well and was praised for it by them in words of no\nuncertain sound. This great record of Mason's had saved him from\nofficial decapitation straight along while Republican Presidents\noccupied the chair, but now it was occupied by a Democrat. Mr. Cleveland\nwas not seated in it--he was not yet inaugurated--before he was deluged\nwith applications from Democratic politicians desiring the appointment\nof a thousand or so politically useful Democrats to Mason's place. A\nyear or two later Mason wrote me and asked me if I couldn't do something\nto save him from destruction.\n\nI was very anxious to keep him in his place, but at first I could not\nthink of any way to help him, for I was a mugwump. We, the mugwumps, a\nlittle company made up of the unenslaved of both parties, the very best\nmen to be found in the two great parties--that was our idea of it--voted\nsixty thousand strong for Mr. Cleveland in New York and elected him. Our\nprinciples were high, and very definite. We were not a party; we had no\ncandidates; we had no axes to grind. Our vote laid upon the man we cast\nit for no obligation of any kind. By our rule we could not ask for\noffice; we could not accept office. When voting, it was our duty to vote\nfor the best man, regardless of his party name. We had no other creed.\nVote for the best man--that was creed enough.\n\nSuch being my situation, I was puzzled to know how to try to help Mason,\nand, at the same time, save my mugwump purity undefiled. It was a\ndelicate place. But presently, out of the ruck of confusions in my mind,\nrose a sane thought, clear and bright--to wit: since it was a mugwump's\nduty to do his best to put the beet man in office, necessarily it must\nbe a mugwump's duty to try to _keep_ the best man in when he was already\nthere. My course was easy now. It might not be quite delicate for a\nmugwump to approach the President directly, but I could approach him\nindirectly, with all delicacy, since in that case not even courtesy\nwould require him to take notice of an application which no one could\nprove had ever reached him.\n\nYes, it was easy and simple sailing now. I could lay the matter before\nRuth, in her cradle, and wait for results. I wrote the little child, and\nsaid to her all that I have just been saying about mugwump principles\nand the limitations which they put upon me. I explained that it would\nnot be proper for me to apply to her father in Mr. Mason's behalf, but I\ndetailed to her Mr. Mason's high and honorable record and suggested that\nshe take the matter in her own hands and do a patriotic work which I\nfelt some delicacy about venturing upon myself. I asked her to forget\nthat her father was only President of the United States, and her subject\nand servant; I asked her not to put her application in the form of a\ncommand, but to modify it, and give it the fictitious and pleasanter\nform of a mere request--that it would be no harm to let him gratify\nhimself with the superstition that he was independent and could do as he\npleased in the matter. I begged her to put stress, and plenty of it,\nupon the proposition that to keep Mason in his place would be a\nbenefaction to the nation; to enlarge upon that, and keep still about\nall other considerations.\n\nIn due time I received a letter from the President, written with his own\nhand, signed by his own hand, acknowledging Ruth's intervention and\nthanking me for enabling him to save to the country the services of so\ngood and well-tried a servant as Mason, and thanking me, also, for the\ndetailed fulness of Mason's record, which could leave no doubt in any\none's mind that Mason was in his right place and ought to be kept there.\nMason has remained in the service ever since, and is now consul-general\nat Paris.\n\nDuring the time that we were living in Buffalo in '70-'71, Mr. Cleveland\nwas sheriff, but I never happened to make his acquaintance, or even see\nhim. In fact, I suppose I was not even aware of his existence. Fourteen\nyears later, he was become the greatest man in the State. I was not\nliving in the State at the time. He was Governor, and was about to step\ninto the post of President of the United States. At that time I was on\nthe public highway in company with another bandit, George W. Cable. We\nwere robbing the public with readings from our works during four\nmonths--and in the course of time we went to Albany to levy tribute, and\nI said, \"We ought to go and pay our respects to the Governor.\"\n\nSo Cable and I went to that majestic Capitol building and stated our\nerrand. We were shown into the Governor's private office, and I saw Mr.\nCleveland for the first time. We three stood chatting together. I was\nborn lazy, and I comforted myself by turning the corner of a table into\na sort of seat. Presently the Governor said:\n\n\"Mr. Clemens, I was a fellow citizen of yours in Buffalo a good many\nmonths, a good while ago, and during those months you burst suddenly\ninto a mighty fame, out of a previous long-continued and no doubt proper\nobscurity--but I was a nobody, and you wouldn't notice me nor have\nanything to do with me. But now that I have become somebody, you have\nchanged your style, and you come here to shake hands with me and be\nsociable. How do you explain this kind of conduct?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" I said, \"it is very simple, your Excellency. In Buffalo you were\nnothing but a sheriff. I was in society. I couldn't afford to associate\nwith sheriffs. But you are a Governor now, and you are on your way to\nthe Presidency. It is a great difference, and it makes you worth while.\"\n\nThere appeared to be about sixteen doors to that spacious room. From\neach door a young man now emerged, and the sixteen lined up and moved\nforward and stood in front of the Governor with an aspect of respectful\nexpectancy in their attitude. No one spoke for a moment. Then the\nGovernor said:\n\n\"You are dismissed, gentlemen. Your services are not required. Mr.\nClemens is sitting on the bells.\"\n\nThere was a cluster of sixteen bell buttons on the corner of the table;\nmy proportions at that end of me were just right to enable me to cover\nthe whole of that nest, and that is how I came to hatch out those\nsixteen clerks.\n\nIn accordance with the suggestion made in Gilder's letter recently\nreceived I have written the following note to ex-President Cleveland\nupon his sixty-ninth birthday:\n\n\n     HONORED SIR:--\n\n     Your patriotic virtues have won for you the homage of half the\n     nation and the enmity of the other half. This places your character\n     as a citizen upon a summit as high as Washington's. The verdict is\n     unanimous and unassailable. The votes of both sides are necessary\n     in cases like these, and the votes of the one side are quite as\n     valuable as are the votes of the other. Where the votes are all in\n     a man's favor the verdict is against him. It is sand, and history\n     will wash it away. But the verdict for you is rock, and will stand.\n\n                                                       S. L. CLEMENS.\n\n        As of date March 18, 1906....\n\n\nIn a diary which Mrs. Clemens kept for a little while, a great many\nyears ago, I find various mentions of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, who\nwas a near neighbor of ours in Hartford, with no fences between. And in\nthose days she made as much use of our grounds as of her own, in\npleasant weather. Her mind had decayed, and she was a pathetic figure.\nShe wandered about all the day long in the care of a muscular\nIrishwoman. Among the colonists of our neighborhood the doors always\nstood open in pleasant weather. Mrs. Stowe entered them at her own free\nwill, and as she was always softly slippered and generally full of\nanimal spirits, she was able to deal in surprises, and she liked to do\nit. She would slip up behind a person who was deep in dreams and\nmusings and fetch a war-whoop that would jump that person out of his\nclothes. And she had other moods. Sometimes we would hear gentle music\nin the drawing-room and would find her there at the piano singing\nancient and melancholy songs with infinitely touching effect.\n\nHer husband, old Professor Stowe, was a picturesque figure. He wore a\nbroad slouch hat. He was a large man, and solemn. His beard was white\nand thick and hung far down on his breast. The first time our little\nSusy ever saw him she encountered him on the street near our house and\ncame flying wide-eyed to her mother and said, \"Santa Claus has got\nloose!\"\n\nWhich reminds me of Rev. Charley Stowe's little boy--a little boy of\nseven years. I met Rev. Charley crossing his mother's grounds one\nmorning and he told me this little tale. He had been out to Chicago to\nattend a Convention of Congregational clergymen, and had taken his\nlittle boy with him. During the trip he reminded the little chap, every\nnow and then, that he must be on his very best behavior there in\nChicago. He said: \"We shall be the guests of a clergyman, there will be\nother guests--clergymen and their wives--and you must be careful to let\nthose people see by your walk and conversation that you are of a godly\nhousehold. Be very careful about this.\" The admonition bore fruit. At\nthe first breakfast which they ate in the Chicago clergyman's house he\nheard his little son say in the meekest and most reverent way to the\nlady opposite him,\n\n\"Please, won't you, for Christ's sake, pass the butter?\"\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCV.\n\nDECEMBER 21, 1906.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--VIII.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n[Sidenote: (1864.)]\n\n[_Dictated in 1906._] In those early days duelling suddenly became a\nfashion in the new Territory of Nevada, and by 1864 everybody was\nanxious to have a chance in the new sport, mainly for the reason that he\nwas not able to thoroughly respect himself so long as he had not killed\nor crippled somebody in a duel or been killed or crippled in one\nhimself.\n\nAt that time I had been serving as city editor on Mr. Goodman's Virginia\nCity \"Enterprise\" for a matter of two years. I was twenty-nine years\nold. I was ambitious in several ways, but I had entirely escaped the\nseductions of that particular craze. I had had no desire to fight a\nduel; I had no intention of provoking one. I did not feel respectable,\nbut I got a certain amount of satisfaction out of feeling safe. I was\nashamed of myself; the rest of the staff were ashamed of me--but I got\nalong well enough. I had always been accustomed to feeling ashamed of\nmyself, for one thing or another, so there was no novelty for me in the\nsituation. I bore it very well. Plunkett was on the staff; R. M. Daggett\nwas on the staff. These had tried to get into duels, but for the present\nhad failed, and were waiting. Goodman was the only one of us who had\ndone anything to shed credit upon the paper. The rival paper was the\nVirginia \"Union.\" Its editor for a little while was Tom Fitch, called\nthe \"silver-tongued orator of Wisconsin\"--that was where he came from.\nHe tuned up his oratory in the editorial columns of the \"Union,\" and Mr.\nGoodman invited him out and modified him with a bullet. I remember the\njoy of the staff when Goodman's challenge was accepted by Fitch. We ran\nlate that night, and made much of Joe Goodman. He was only twenty-four\nyears old; he lacked the wisdom which a person has at twenty-nine, and\nhe was as glad of being _it_ as I was that I wasn't. He chose Major\nGraves for his second (that name is not right, but it's close enough; I\ndon't remember the Major's name). Graves came over to instruct Joe in\nthe duelling art. He had been a Major under Walker, the \"gray-eyed man\nof destiny,\" and had fought all through that remarkable man's\nfilibustering campaign in Central America. That fact gauges the Major.\nTo say that a man was a Major under Walker, and came out of that\nstruggle ennobled by Walker's praise, is to say that the Major was not\nmerely a brave man but that he was brave to the very utmost limit of\nthat word. All of Walker's men were like that. I knew the Gillis family\nintimately. The father made the campaign under Walker, and with him one\nson. They were in the memorable Plaza fight, and stood it out to the\nlast against overwhelming odds, as did also all of the Walker men. The\nson was killed at the father's side. The father received a bullet\nthrough the eye. The old man--for he was an old man at the time--wore\nspectacles, and the bullet and one of the glasses went into his skull\nand remained there. There were some other sons: Steve, George, and Jim,\nvery young chaps--the merest lads--who wanted to be in the Walker\nexpedition, for they had their father's dauntless spirit. But Walker\nwouldn't have them; he said it was a serious expedition, and no place\nfor children.\n\nThe Major was a majestic creature, with a most stately and dignified and\nimpressive military bearing, and he was by nature and training\ncourteous, polite, graceful, winning; and he had that quality which I\nthink I have encountered in only one other man--Bob Howland--a\nmysterious quality which resides in the eye; and when that eye is turned\nupon an individual or a squad, in warning, that is enough. The man that\nhas that eye doesn't need to go armed; he can move upon an armed\ndesperado and quell him and take him prisoner without saying a single\nword. I saw Bob Howland do that, once--a slender, good-natured, amiable,\ngentle, kindly little skeleton of a man, with a sweet blue eye that\nwould win your heart when it smiled upon you, or turn cold and freeze\nit, according to the nature of the occasion.\n\nThe Major stood Joe up straight; stood Steve Gillis up fifteen paces\naway; made Joe turn right side towards Steve, cock his navy\nsix-shooter--that prodigious weapon--and hold it straight down against\nhis leg; told him that _that_ was the correct position for the gun--that\nthe position ordinarily in use at Virginia City (that is to say, the gun\nstraight up in the air, then brought slowly down to your man) was all\nwrong. At the word \"_One_,\" you must raise the gun slowly and steadily\nto the place on the other man's body that you desire to convince. Then,\nafter a pause, \"_two, three--fire--Stop!_\" At the word \"stop,\" you may\nfire--but not earlier. You may give yourself as much time as you please\n_after_ that word. Then, when you fire, you may advance and go on firing\nat your leisure and pleasure, if you can get any pleasure out of it.\nAnd, in the meantime, the other man, if he has been properly instructed\nand is alive to his privileges, is advancing on _you_, and firing--and\nit is always likely that more or less trouble will result.\n\nNaturally, when Joe's revolver had risen to a level it was pointing at\nSteve's breast, but the Major said \"No, that is not wise. Take all the\nrisks of getting murdered yourself, but don't run any risk of murdering\nthe other man. If you survive a duel you want to survive it in such a\nway that the memory of it will not linger along with you through the\nrest of your life and interfere with your sleep. Aim at your man's leg;\nnot at the knee, not above the knee; for those are dangerous spots. Aim\nbelow the knee; cripple him, but leave the rest of him to his mother.\"\n\nBy grace of these truly wise and excellent instructions, Joe tumbled\nFitch down next morning with a bullet through his lower leg, which\nfurnished him a permanent limp. And Joe lost nothing but a lock of hair,\nwhich he could spare better then than he could now. For when I saw him\nhere in New York a year ago, his crop was gone: he had nothing much left\nbut a fringe, with a dome rising above.\n\n[Sidenote: (1864.)]\n\nAbout a year later I got _my_ chance. But I was not hunting for it.\nGoodman went off to San Francisco for a week's holiday, and left me to\nbe chief editor. I had supposed that that was an easy berth, there being\nnothing to do but write one editorial per day; but I was disappointed in\nthat superstition. I couldn't find anything to write an article about,\nthe first day. Then it occurred to me that inasmuch as it was the 22nd\nof April, 1864, the next morning would be the three-hundredth\nanniversary of Shakespeare's birthday--and what better theme could I\nwant than that? I got the Cyclop\u00e6dia and examined it, and found out who\nShakespeare was and what he had done, and I borrowed all that and laid\nit before a community that couldn't have been better prepared for\ninstruction about Shakespeare than if they had been prepared by art.\nThere wasn't enough of what Shakespeare had done to make an editorial of\nthe necessary length, but I filled it out with what he hadn't\ndone--which in many respects was more important and striking and\nreadable than the handsomest things he had really accomplished. But next\nday I was in trouble again. There were no more Shakespeares to work up.\nThere was nothing in past history, or in the world's future\npossibilities, to make an editorial out of, suitable to that community;\nso there was but one theme left. That theme was Mr. Laird, proprietor of\nthe Virginia \"Union.\" _His_ editor had gone off to San Francisco too,\nand Laird was trying his hand at editing. I woke up Mr. Laird with some\ncourtesies of the kind that were fashionable among newspaper editors in\nthat region, and he came back at me the next day in a most vitriolic\nway. He was hurt by something I had said about him--some little thing--I\ndon't remember what it was now--probably called him a horse-thief, or\none of those little phrases customarily used to describe another\neditor. They were no doubt just, and accurate, but Laird was a very\nsensitive creature, and he didn't like it. So we expected a challenge\nfrom Mr. Laird, because according to the rules--according to the\netiquette of duelling as reconstructed and reorganized and improved by\nthe duellists of that region--whenever you said a thing about another\nperson that he didn't like, it wasn't sufficient for him to talk back in\nthe same offensive spirit: etiquette required him to send a challenge;\nso we waited for a challenge--waited all day. It didn't come. And as the\nday wore along, hour after hour, and no challenge came, the boys grew\ndepressed. They lost heart. But I was cheerful; I felt better and better\nall the time. They couldn't understand it, but _I_ could understand it.\nIt was my _make_ that enabled me to be cheerful when other people were\ndespondent. So then it became necessary for us to waive etiquette and\nchallenge Mr. Laird. When we reached that decision, they began to cheer\nup, but I began to lose some of my animation. However, in enterprises of\nthis kind you are in the hands of your friends; there is nothing for you\nto do but to abide by what they consider to be the best course. Daggett\nwrote a challenge for me, for Daggett had the language--the right\nlanguage--the convincing language--and I lacked it. Daggett poured out a\nstream of unsavory epithets upon Mr. Laird, charged with a vigor and\nvenom of a strength calculated to persuade him; and Steve Gillis, my\nsecond, carried the challenge and came back to wait for the return. It\ndidn't come. The boys were exasperated, but I kept my temper. Steve\ncarried another challenge, hotter than the other, and we waited again.\nNothing came of it. I began to feel quite comfortable. I began to take\nan interest in the challenges myself. I had not felt any before; but it\nseemed to me that I was accumulating a great and valuable reputation at\nno expense, and my delight in this grew and grew, as challenge after\nchallenge was declined, until by midnight I was beginning to think that\nthere was nothing in the world so much to be desired as a chance to\nfight a duel. So I hurried Daggett up; made him keep on sending\nchallenge after challenge. Oh, well, I overdid it; Laird accepted. I\nmight have known that that would happen--Laird was a man you couldn't\ndepend on.\n\nThe boys were jubilant beyond expression. They helped me make my will,\nwhich was another discomfort--and I already had enough. Then they took\nme home. I didn't sleep any--didn't want to sleep. I had plenty of\nthings to think about, and less than four hours to do it in,--because\nfive o'clock was the hour appointed for the tragedy, and I should have\nto use up one hour--beginning at four--in practising with the revolver\nand finding out which end of it to level at the adversary. At four we\nwent down into a little gorge, about a mile from town, and borrowed a\nbarn door for a mark--borrowed it of a man who was over in California on\na visit--and we set the barn door up and stood a fence-rail up against\nthe middle of it, to represent Mr. Laird. But the rail was no proper\nrepresentative of him, for he was longer than a rail and thinner.\nNothing would ever fetch him but a line shot, and then as like as not he\nwould split the bullet--the worst material for duelling purposes that\ncould be imagined. I began on the rail. I couldn't hit the rail; then I\ntried the barn door; but I couldn't hit the barn door. There was nobody\nin danger except stragglers around on the flanks of that mark. I was\nthoroughly discouraged, and I didn't cheer up any when we presently\nheard pistol-shots over in the next little ravine. I knew what that\nwas--that was Laird's gang out practising him. They would hear my shots,\nand of course they would come up over the ridge to see what kind of a\nrecord I was making--see what their chances were against me. Well, I\nhadn't any record; and I knew that if Laird came over that ridge and saw\nmy barn door without a scratch on it, he would be as anxious to fight as\nI was--or as I had been at midnight, before that disastrous acceptance\ncame.\n\nNow just at this moment, a little bird, no bigger than a sparrow, flew\nalong by and lit on a sage-bush about thirty yards away. Steve whipped\nout his revolver and shot its head off. Oh, he was a marksman--much\nbetter than I was. We ran down there to pick up the bird, and just then,\nsure enough, Mr. Laird and his people came over the ridge, and they\njoined us. And when Laird's second saw that bird, with its head shot\noff, he lost color, he faded, and you could see that he was interested.\nHe said:\n\n\"Who did that?\"\n\nBefore I could answer, Steve spoke up and said quite calmly, and in a\nmatter-of-fact way,\n\n\"Clemens did it.\"\n\nThe second said, \"Why, that is wonderful. How far off was that bird?\"\n\nSteve said, \"Oh, not far--about thirty yards.\"\n\nThe second said, \"Well, that is astonishing shooting. How often can he\ndo that?\"\n\nSteve said languidly, \"Oh, about four times out of five.\"\n\nI knew the little rascal was lying, but I didn't say anything. The\nsecond said, \"Why, that is _amazing_ shooting; I supposed he couldn't\nhit a church.\"\n\nHe was supposing very sagaciously, but I didn't say anything. Well, they\nsaid good morning. The second took Mr. Laird home, a little tottery on\nhis legs, and Laird sent back a note in his own hand declining to fight\na duel with me on any terms whatever.\n\nWell, my life was saved--saved by that accident. I don't know what the\nbird thought about that interposition of Providence, but I felt very,\nvery comfortable over it--satisfied and content. Now, we found out,\nlater, that Laird had _hit_ his mark four times out of six, right along.\nIf the duel had come off, he would have so filled my skin with\nbullet-holes that it wouldn't have held my principles.\n\nBy breakfast-time the news was all over town that I had sent a challenge\nand Steve Gillis had carried it. Now that would entitle us to two years\napiece in the penitentiary, according to the brand-new law. Judge North\nsent us no message as coming from himself, but a message _came_ from a\nclose friend of his. He said it would be a good idea for us to leave the\nterritory by the first stage-coach. This would sail next morning, at\nfour o'clock--and in the meantime we would be searched for, but not with\navidity; and if we were in the Territory after that stage-coach left, we\nwould be the first victims of the new law. Judge North was anxious to\nhave some object-lessons for that law, and he would absolutely keep us\nin the prison the full two years.\n\nWell, it seemed to me that our society was no longer desirable in\nNevada; so we stayed in our quarters and observed proper caution all\nday--except that once Steve went over to the hotel to attend to another\ncustomer of mine. That was a Mr. Cutler. You see Laird was not the only\nperson whom I had tried to reform during my occupancy of the editorial\nchair. I had looked around and selected several other people, and\ndelivered a new zest of life into them through warm criticism and\ndisapproval--so that when I laid down my editorial pen I had four\nhorse-whippings and two duels owing to me. We didn't care for the\nhorse-whippings; there was no glory in them; they were not worth the\ntrouble of collecting. But honor required that some notice should be\ntaken of that other duel. Mr. Cutler had come up from Carson City, and\nhad sent a man over with a challenge from the hotel. Steve went over to\npacify him. Steve weighed only ninety-five pounds, but it was well known\nthroughout the territory that with his fists he could whip anybody that\nwalked on two legs, let his weight and science be what they might. Steve\nwas a Gillis, and when a Gillis confronted a man and had a proposition\nto make, the proposition always contained business. When Cutler found\nthat Steve was my second he cooled down; he became calm and rational,\nand was ready to listen. Steve gave him fifteen minutes to get out of\nthe hotel, and half an hour to get out of town or there would be\nresults. So _that_ duel went off successfully, because Mr. Cutler\nimmediately left for Carson a convinced and reformed man.\n\nI have never had anything to do with duels since. I thoroughly\ndisapprove of duels. I consider them unwise, and I know they are\ndangerous. Also, sinful. If a man should challenge me now, I would go to\nthat man and take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to\na quiet retired spot, and _kill_ him.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCVI.\n\nJANUARY 4, 1907.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--IX.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n[_Dictated December 13, 1906._] As regards the coming American monarchy.\nIt was before the Secretary of State had been heard from that the\nchairman of the banquet said:\n\n\"In this time of unrest it is of great satisfaction that such a man as\nyou, Mr. Root, is chief adviser of the President.\"\n\nMr. Root then got up and in the most quiet and orderly manner touched\noff the successor to the San Francisco earthquake. As a result, the\nseveral State governments were well shaken up and considerably weakened.\nMr. Root was prophesying. He was prophesying, and it seems to me that no\nshrewder and surer forecasting has been done in this country for a good\nmany years.\n\nHe did not say, in so many words, that we are proceeding, in a steady\nmarch, toward eventual and unavoidable replacement of the republic by\nmonarchy; but I suppose he was aware that that is the case. He notes the\nseveral steps, the customary steps, which in all the ages have led to\nthe consolidation of loose and scattered governmental forces into\nformidable centralizations of authority; but he stops there, and doesn't\nadd up the sum. He is not unaware that heretofore the sum has been\nultimate monarchy, and that the same figures can fairly be depended upon\nto furnish the same sum whenever and wherever they can be produced, so\nlong as human nature shall remain as it is; but it was not needful that\nhe do the adding, since any one can do it; neither would it have been\ngracious in him to do it.\n\nIn observing the changed conditions which in the course of time have\nmade certain and sure the eventual seizure by the Washington government\nof a number of State duties and prerogatives which have been betrayed\nand neglected by the several States, he does not attribute those changes\nand the vast results which are to flow from them to any thought-out\npolicy of any party or of any body of dreamers or schemers, but properly\nand rightly attributes them to that stupendous power--_Circumstance_--\nwhich moves by laws of its own, regardless of parties and policies, and\nwhose decrees are final, and must be obeyed by all--and will be. The\nrailway is a Circumstance, the steamship is a Circumstance, the\ntelegraph is a Circumstance. They were mere happenings; and to the whole\nworld, the wise and the foolish alike, they were entirely trivial,\nwholly inconsequential; indeed silly, comical, grotesque. No man, and no\nparty, and no thought-out policy said, \"Behold, we will build railways\nand steamships and telegraphs, and presently you will see the condition\nand way of life of every man and woman and child in the nation totally\nchanged; unimaginable changes of law and custom will follow, in spite of\nanything that anybody can do to prevent it.\"\n\nThe changed conditions have come, and Circumstance knows what is\nfollowing, and will follow. So does Mr. Root. His language is not\nunclear, it is crystal:\n\n\n     \"Our whole life has swung away from the old State centres, and is\n     crystallizing about national centres.\"\n\n     \" ... The old barriers which kept the States as separate\n     communities are completely lost from sight.\"\n\n     \" ... That [State] power of regulation and control is gradually\n     passing into the hands of the national government.\"\n\n     \"Sometimes by an assertion of the inter-State commerce power,\n     sometimes by an assertion of the taxing power, the national\n     government is taking up the performance of duties which under the\n     changed conditions the separate States are no longer capable of\n     adequately performing.\"\n\n     \"We are urging forward in a development of business and social life\n     which tends more and more to the obliteration of State lines and\n     the decrease of State power as compared with national power.\"\n\n     \"It is useless for the advocates of State rights to inveigh against\n     ... the extension of national authority in the fields of necessary\n     control where the States themselves fail in the performance of\n     their duty.\"\n\n\nHe is not announcing a policy; he is not forecasting what a party of\nplanners will bring about; he is merely telling what the people will\nrequire and compel. And he could have added--which would be perfectly\ntrue--that the people will not be moved to it by speculation and\ncogitation and planning, but by _Circumstance_--that power which\narbitrarily compels all their actions, and over which they have not the\nslightest control.\n\n_\"The end is not yet.\"_\n\nIt is a true word. We are on the march, but at present we are only just\ngetting started.\n\nIf the States continue to fail to do their duty as required by the\npeople--\n\n\" ... _constructions of the Constitution will be found_ to vest the\npower where it will be exercised--in the national government.\"\n\nI do not know whether that has a sinister meaning or not, and so I will\nnot enlarge upon it lest I should chance to be in the wrong. It sounds\nlike ship-money come again, but it may not be so intended.\n\n\nHuman nature being what it is, I suppose we must expect to drift into\nmonarchy by and by. It is a saddening thought, but we cannot change our\nnature: we are all alike, we human beings; and in our blood and bone,\nand ineradicable, we carry the seeds out of which monarchies and\naristocracies are grown: worship of gauds, titles, distinctions, power.\nWe have to worship these things and their possessors, we are all born\nso, and we cannot help it. We have to be despised by somebody whom we\nregard as above us, or we are not happy; we have to have somebody to\nworship and envy, or we cannot be content. In America we manifest this\nin all the ancient and customary ways. In public we scoff at titles and\nhereditary privilege, but privately we hanker after them, and when we\nget a chance we buy them for cash and a daughter. Sometimes we get a\ngood man and worth the price, but we are ready to take him anyway,\nwhether he be ripe or rotten, whether he be clean and decent, or merely\na basket of noble and sacred and long-descended offal. And when we get\nhim the whole nation publicly chaffs and scoffs--and privately envies;\nand also is proud of the honor which has been conferred upon us. We run\nover our list of titled purchases every now and then, in the newspapers,\nand discuss them and caress them, and are thankful and happy.\n\nLike all the other nations, we worship money and the possessors of\nit--they being our aristocracy, and we have to have one. We like to read\nabout rich people in the papers; the papers know it, and they do their\nbest to keep this appetite liberally fed. They even leave out a football\nbull-fight now and then to get room for all the particulars of\nhow--according to the display heading--\"Rich Woman Fell Down Cellar--Not\nHurt.\" The falling down the cellar is of no interest to us when the\nwoman is not rich, but no rich woman can fall down cellar and we not\nyearn to know all about it and wish it was us.\n\nIn a monarchy the people willingly and rejoicingly revere and take pride\nin their nobilities, and are not humiliated by the reflection that this\nhumble and hearty homage gets no return but contempt. Contempt does not\nshame them, they are used to it, and they recognize that it is their\nproper due. We are all made like that. In Europe we easily and quickly\nlearn to take that attitude toward the sovereigns and the aristocracies;\nmoreover, it has been observed that when we get the attitude we go on\nand exaggerate it, presently becoming more servile than the natives, and\nvainer of it. The next step is to rail and scoff at republics and\ndemocracies. All of which is natural, for we have not ceased to be human\nbeings by becoming Americans, and the human race was always intended to\nbe governed by kingship, not by popular vote.\n\nI suppose we must expect that unavoidable and irresistible Circumstances\nwill gradually take away the powers of the States and concentrate them\nin the central government, and that the republic will then repeat the\nhistory of all time and become a monarchy; but I believe that if we\nobstruct these encroachments and steadily resist them the monarchy can\nbe postponed for a good while yet.\n\n[Sidenote: (1849-'51.)]\n\n[_Dictated December 1, 1906._] An exciting event in our village\n(Hannibal) was the arrival of the mesmerizer. I think the year was 1850.\nAs to that I am not sure, but I know the month--it was May; that detail\nhas survived the wear of fifty-five years. A pair of connected little\nincidents of that month have served to keep the memory of it green for\nme all this time; incidents of no consequence, and not worth embalming,\nyet my memory has preserved them carefully and flung away things of real\nvalue to give them space and make them comfortable. The truth is, a\nperson's memory has no more sense than his conscience, and no\nappreciation whatever of values and proportions. However, never mind\nthose trifling incidents; my subject is the mesmerizer, now.\n\nHe advertised his show, and promised marvels. Admission as usual: 25\ncents, children and negroes half price. The village had heard of\nmesmerism, in a general way, but had not encountered it yet. Not many\npeople attended, the first night, but next day they had so many wonders\nto tell that everybody's curiosity was fired, and after that for a\nfortnight the magician had prosperous times. I was fourteen or fifteen\nyears old--the age at which a boy is willing to endure all things,\nsuffer all things, short of death by fire, if thereby he may be\nconspicuous and show off before the public; and so, when I saw the\n\"subjects\" perform their foolish antics on the platform and make the\npeople laugh and shout and admire, I had a burning desire to be a\nsubject myself. Every night, for three nights, I sat in the row of\ncandidates on the platform, and held the magic disk in the palm of my\nhand, and gazed at it and tried to get sleepy, but it was a failure; I\nremained wide awake, and had to retire defeated, like the majority.\nAlso, I had to sit there and be gnawed with envy of Hicks, our\njourneyman; I had to sit there and see him scamper and jump when Simmons\nthe enchanter exclaimed, \"See the snake! see the snake!\" and hear him\nsay, \"My, how beautiful!\" in response to the suggestion that he was\nobserving a splendid sunset; and so on--the whole insane business. I\ncouldn't laugh, I couldn't applaud; it filled me with bitterness to have\nothers do it, and to have people make a hero of Hicks, and crowd around\nhim when the show was over, and ask him for more and more particulars of\nthe wonders he had seen in his visions, and manifest in many ways that\nthey were proud to be acquainted with him. Hicks--the idea! I couldn't\nstand it; I was getting boiled to death in my own bile.\n\nOn the fourth night temptation came, and I was not strong enough to\nresist. When I had gazed at the disk awhile I pretended to be sleepy,\nand began to nod. Straightway came the professor and made passes over my\nhead and down my body and legs and arms, finishing each pass with a snap\nof his fingers in the air, to discharge the surplus electricity; then he\nbegan to \"draw\" me with the disk, holding it in his fingers and telling\nme I could not take my eyes off it, try as I might; so I rose slowly,\nbent and gazing, and followed that disk all over the place, just as I\nhad seen the others do. Then I was put through the other paces. Upon\nsuggestion I fled from snakes; passed buckets at a fire; became excited\nover hot steamboat-races; made love to imaginary girls and kissed them;\nfished from the platform and landed mud-cats that outweighed me--and so\non, all the customary marvels. But not in the customary way. I was\ncautious at first, and watchful, being afraid the professor would\ndiscover that I was an impostor and drive me from the platform in\ndisgrace; but as soon as I realized that I was not in danger, I set\nmyself the task of terminating Hicks's usefulness as a subject, and of\nusurping his place.\n\nIt was a sufficiently easy task. Hicks was born honest; I, without that\nincumbrance--so some people said. Hicks saw what he saw, and reported\naccordingly; I saw more than was visible, and added to it such details\nas could help. Hicks had no imagination, I had a double supply. He was\nborn calm, I was born excited. No vision could start a rapture in him,\nand he was constipated as to language, anyway; but if I saw a vision I\nemptied the dictionary onto it and lost the remnant of my mind into the\nbargain.\n\nAt the end of my first half-hour Hicks was a thing of the past, a fallen\nhero, a broken idol, and I knew it and was glad, and said in my heart,\nSuccess to crime! Hicks could never have been mesmerized to the point\nwhere he could kiss an imaginary girl in public, or a real one either,\nbut I was competent. Whatever Hicks had failed in, I made it a point to\nsucceed in, let the cost be what it might, physically or morally. He\nhad shown several bad defects, and I had made a note of them. For\ninstance, if the magician asked, \"What do you see?\" and left him to\ninvent a vision for himself, Hicks was dumb and blind, he couldn't see a\nthing nor say a word, whereas the magician soon found that when it came\nto seeing visions of a stunning and marketable sort I could get along\nbetter without his help than with it. Then there was another thing:\nHicks wasn't worth a tallow dip on mute mental suggestion. Whenever\nSimmons stood behind him and gazed at the back of his skull and tried to\ndrive a mental suggestion into it, Hicks sat with vacant face, and never\nsuspected. If he had been noticing, he could have seen by the rapt faces\nof the audience that something was going on behind his back that\nrequired a response. Inasmuch as I was an impostor I dreaded to have\nthis test put upon me, for I knew the professor would be \"willing\" me to\ndo something, and as I couldn't know what it was, I should be exposed\nand denounced. However, when my time came, I took my chance. I perceived\nby the tense and expectant faces of the people that Simmons was behind\nme willing me with all his might. I tried my best to imagine what he\nwanted, but nothing suggested itself. I felt ashamed and miserable,\nthen. I believed that the hour of my disgrace was come, and that in\nanother moment I should go out of that place disgraced. I ought to be\nashamed to confess it, but my next thought was, not how I could win the\ncompassion of kindly hearts by going out humbly and in sorrow for my\nmisdoings, but how I could go out most sensationally and spectacularly.\n\nThere was a rusty and empty old revolver lying on the table, among the\n\"properties\" employed in the performances. On May-day, two or three\nweeks before, there had been a celebration by the schools, and I had had\na quarrel with a big boy who was the school-bully, and I had not come\nout of it with credit. That boy was now seated in the middle of the\nhouse, half-way down the main aisle. I crept stealthily and impressively\ntoward the table, with a dark and murderous scowl on my face, copied\nfrom a popular romance, seized the revolver suddenly, flourished it,\nshouted the bully's name, jumped off the platform, and made a rush for\nhim and chased him out of the house before the paralyzed people could\ninterfere to save him. There was a storm of applause, and the magician,\naddressing the house, said, most impressively--\n\n\"That you may know how really remarkable this is, and how wonderfully\ndeveloped a subject we have in this boy, I assure you that without a\nsingle spoken word to guide him he has carried out what I mentally\ncommanded him to do, to the minutest detail. I could have stopped him at\na moment in his vengeful career by a mere exertion of my will, therefore\nthe poor fellow who has escaped was at no time in danger.\"\n\nSo I was not in disgrace. I returned to the platform a hero, and happier\nthan I have ever been in this world since. As regards mental suggestion,\nmy fears of it were gone. I judged that in case I failed to guess what\nthe professor might be willing me to do, I could count on putting up\nsomething that would answer just as well. I was right, and exhibitions\nof unspoken suggestion became a favorite with the public. Whenever I\nperceived that I was being willed to do something I got up and did\nsomething--anything that occurred to me--and the magician, not being a\nfool, always ratified it. When people asked me, \"How _can_ you tell what\nhe is willing you to do?\" I said, \"It's just as easy,\" and they always\nsaid, admiringly, \"Well it beats _me_ how you can do it.\"\n\nHicks was weak in another detail. When the professor made passes over\nhim and said \"his whole body is without sensation now--come forward and\ntest him, ladies and gentlemen,\" the ladies and gentlemen always\ncomplied eagerly, and stuck pins into Hicks, and if they went deep Hicks\nwas sure to wince, then that poor professor would have to explain that\nHicks \"wasn't sufficiently under the influence.\" But I didn't wince; I\nonly suffered, and shed tears on the inside. The miseries that a\nconceited boy will endure to keep up his \"reputation\"! And so will a\nconceited man; I know it in my own person, and have seen it in a hundred\nthousand others. That professor ought to have protected me, and I often\nhoped he would, when the tests were unusually severe, but he didn't. It\nmay be that he was deceived as well as the others, though I did not\nbelieve it nor think it possible. Those were dear good people, but they\nmust have carried simplicity and credulity to the limit. They would\nstick a pin in my arm and bear on it until they drove it a third of its\nlength in, and then be lost in wonder that by a mere exercise of\nwill-power the professor could turn my arm to iron and make it\ninsensible to pain. Whereas it was not insensible at all; I was\nsuffering agonies of pain.\n\nAfter that fourth night, that proud night, that triumphant night, I was\nthe only subject. Simmons invited no more candidates to the platform. I\nperformed alone, every night, the rest of the fortnight. In the\nbeginning of the second week I conquered the last doubters. Up to that\ntime a dozen wise old heads, the intellectual aristocracy of the town,\nhad held out, as implacable unbelievers. I was as hurt by this as if I\nwere engaged in some honest occupation. There is nothing surprising\nabout this. Human beings feel dishonor the most, sometimes, when they\nmost deserve it. That handful of overwise old gentlemen kept on shaking\ntheir heads all the first week, and saying they had seen no marvels\nthere that could not have been produced by collusion; and they were\npretty vain of their unbelief, too, and liked to show it and air it, and\nbe superior to the ignorant and the gullible. Particularly old Dr.\nPeake, who was the ringleader of the irreconcilables, and very\nformidable; for he was an F.F.V., he was learned, white-haired and\nvenerable, nobly and richly clad in the fashions of an earlier and a\ncourtlier day, he was large and stately, and he not only seemed wise,\nbut was what he seemed, in that regard. He had great influence, and his\nopinion upon any matter was worth much more than that of any other\nperson in the community. When I conquered him, at last, I knew I was\nundisputed master of the field; and now, after more than fifty years, I\nacknowledge, with a few dry old tears, that I rejoiced without shame.\n\n\n[Sidenote: (1847.)]\n\n[_Dictated December 2, 1906._] In 1847 we were living in a large white\nhouse on the corner of Hill and Main Streets--a house that still stands,\nbut isn't large now, although it hasn't lost a plank; I saw it a year\nago and noticed that shrinkage. My father died in it in March of the\nyear mentioned, but our family did not move out of it until some months\nafterward. Ours was not the only family in the house, there was\nanother--Dr. Grant's. One day Dr. Grant and Dr. Reyburn argued a matter\non the street with sword-canes, and Grant was brought home\nmultifariously punctured. Old Dr. Peake calked the leaks, and came every\nday for a while, to look after him. The Grants were Virginians, like\nPeake, and one day when Grant was getting well enough to be on his feet\nand sit around in the parlor and talk, the conversation fell upon\nVirginia and old times. I was present, but the group were probably quite\nunconscious of me, I being only a lad and a negligible quantity. Two of\nthe group--Dr. Peake and Mrs. Crawford, Mrs. Grant's mother--had been of\nthe audience when the Richmond theatre burned down, thirty-six years\nbefore, and they talked over the frightful details of that memorable\ntragedy. These were eye-witnesses, and with their eyes I saw it all with\nan intolerable vividness: I saw the black smoke rolling and tumbling\ntoward the sky, I saw the flames burst through it and turn red, I heard\nthe shrieks of the despairing, I glimpsed their faces at the windows,\ncaught fitfully through the veiling smoke, I saw them jump to their\ndeath, or to mutilation worse than death. The picture is before me yet,\nand can never fade.\n\nIn due course they talked of the colonial mansion of the Peakes, with\nits stately columns and its spacious grounds, and by odds and ends I\npicked up a clearly defined idea of the place. I was strongly\ninterested, for I had not before heard of such palatial things from the\nlips of people who had seen them with their own eyes. One detail,\ncasually dropped, hit my imagination hard. In the wall, by the great\nfront door, there was a round hole as big as a saucer--a British\ncannon-ball had made it, in the war of the Revolution. It was\nbreath-taking; it made history real; history had never been real to me\nbefore.\n\nVery well, three or four years later, as already mentioned, I was\nking-bee and sole \"subject\" in the mesmeric show; it was the beginning\nof the second week; the performance was half over; just then the\nmajestic Dr. Peake, with his ruffled bosom and wristbands and his\ngold-headed cane, entered, and a deferential citizen vacated his seat\nbeside the Grants and made the great chief take it. This happened while\nI was trying to invent something fresh in the way of a vision, in\nresponse to the professor's remark--\n\n\"Concentrate your powers. Look--look attentively. There--don't you see\nsomething? Concentrate--concentrate. Now then--describe it.\"\n\nWithout suspecting it, Dr. Peake, by entering the place, had reminded me\nof the talk of three years before. He had also furnished me capital and\nwas become my confederate, an accomplice in my frauds. I began on a\nvision, a vague and dim one (that was part of the game at the beginning\nof a vision; it isn't best to see it too clearly at first, it might look\nas if you had come loaded with it). The vision developed, by degrees,\nand gathered swing, momentum, energy. It was the Richmond fire. Dr.\nPeake was cold, at first, and his fine face had a trace of polite scorn\nin it; but when he began to recognize that fire, that expression\nchanged, and his eyes began to light up. As soon as I saw that, I threw\nthe valves wide open and turned on all the steam, and gave those people\na supper of fire and horrors that was calculated to last them one while!\nThey couldn't gasp, when I got through--they were petrified. Dr. Peake\nhad risen, and was standing,--and breathing hard. He said, in a great\nvoice--\n\n\"My doubts are ended. No collusion could produce that miracle. It was\ntotally impossible for him to know those details, yet he has described\nthem with the clarity of an eye-witness--and with what unassailable\ntruthfulness God knows I know!\"\n\nI saved the colonial mansion for the last night, and solidified and\nperpetuated Dr. Peake's conversion with the cannon-ball hole. He\nexplained to the house that I could never have heard of that small\ndetail, which differentiated this mansion from all other Virginian\nmansions and perfectly identified it, therefore the fact stood proven\nthat I had _seen_ it in my vision. Lawks!\n\nIt is curious. When the magician's engagement closed there was but one\nperson in the village who did not believe in mesmerism, and I was the\none. All the others were converted, but I was to remain an implacable\nand unpersuadable disbeliever in mesmerism and hypnotism for close upon\nfifty years. This was because I never would examine them, in after life.\nI couldn't. The subject revolted me. Perhaps because it brought back to\nme a passage in my life which for pride's sake I wished to forget;\nthough I thought--or persuaded myself I thought--I should never come\nacross a \"proof\" which wasn't thin and cheap, and probably had a fraud\nlike me behind it.\n\nThe truth is, I did not have to wait long to get tired of my triumphs.\nNot thirty days, I think. The glory which is built upon a lie soon\nbecomes a most unpleasant incumbrance. No doubt for a while I enjoyed\nhaving my exploits told and retold and told again in my presence and\nwondered over and exclaimed about, but I quite distinctly remember that\nthere presently came a time when the subject was wearisome and odious to\nme and I could not endure the disgusting discomfort of it. I am well\naware that the world-glorified doer of a deed of great and real splendor\nhas just my experience; I know that he deliciously enjoys hearing about\nit for three or four weeks, and that pretty soon after that he begins to\ndread the mention of it, and by and by wishes he had been with the\ndamned before he ever thought of doing that deed; I remember how General\nSherman used to rage and swear over \"When we were Marching through\nGeorgia,\" which was played at him and sung at him everywhere he went;\nstill, I think I suffered a shade more than the legitimate hero does, he\nbeing privileged to soften his misery with the reflection that his glory\nwas at any rate golden and reproachless in its origin, whereas I had no\nsuch privilege, there being no possible way to make mine respectable.\n\nHow easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo\nthat work again! Thirty-five years after those evil exploits of mine I\nvisited my old mother, whom I had not seen for ten years; and being\nmoved by what seemed to me a rather noble and perhaps heroic impulse, I\nthought I would humble myself and confess my ancient fault. It cost me a\ngreat effort to make up my mind; I dreaded the sorrow that would rise in\nher face, and the shame that would look out of her eyes; but after long\nand troubled reflection, the sacrifice seemed due and right, and I\ngathered my resolution together and made the confession.\n\nTo my astonishment there were no sentimentalities, no dramatics, no\nGeorge Washington effects; she was not moved in the least degree; she\nsimply did not believe me, and said so! I was not merely disappointed, I\nwas nettled, to have my costly truthfulness flung out of the market in\nthis placid and confident way when I was expecting to get a profit out\nof it. I asserted, and reasserted, with rising heat, my statement that\nevery single thing I had done on those long-vanished nights was a lie\nand a swindle; and when she shook her head tranquilly and said she knew\nbetter, I put up my hand and _swore_ to it--adding a triumphant \"_Now_\nwhat do you say?\"\n\nIt did not affect her at all; it did not budge her the fraction of an\ninch from her position. If this was hard for me to endure, it did not\nbegin with the blister she put upon the raw when she began to put my\nsworn oath out of court with _arguments_ to prove that I was under a\ndelusion and did not know what I was talking about. Arguments! Arguments\nto show that a person on a man's outside can know better what is on his\ninside than he does himself! I had cherished some contempt for arguments\nbefore, I have not enlarged my respect for them since. She refused to\nbelieve that I had invented my visions myself; she said it was folly:\nthat I was only a child at the time and could not have done it. She\ncited the Richmond fire and the colonial mansion and said they were\nquite beyond my capacities. Then I saw my chance! I said she was\nright--I didn't invent those, I got them from Dr. Peake. Even this great\nshot did no damage. She said Dr. Peake's evidence was better than mine,\nand he had said in plain words that it was impossible for me to have\nheard about those things. Dear, dear, what a grotesque and unthinkable\nsituation: a confessed swindler convicted of honesty and condemned to\nacquittal by circumstantial evidence furnished by the swindled!\n\nI realised, with shame and with impotent vexation, that I was defeated\nall along the line. I had but one card left, but it was a formidable\none. I played it--and stood from under. It seemed ignoble to demolish\nher fortress, after she had defended it so valiantly; but the defeated\nknow not mercy. I played that matter card. It was the pin-sticking. I\nsaid, solemnly--\n\n\"I give you my honor, a pin was never stuck into me without causing me\ncruel pain.\"\n\nShe only said--\n\n\"It is thirty-five years. I believe you do think that, _now_, but I was\nthere, and I know better. You never winced.\"\n\nShe was so calm! and I was so far from it, so nearly frantic.\n\n\"Oh, my goodness!\" I said, \"let me _show_ you that I am speaking the\ntruth. Here is my arm; drive a pin into it--drive it to the head--I\nshall not wince.\"\n\nShe only shook her gray head and said, with simplicity and conviction--\n\n\"You are a man, now, and could dissemble the hurt; but you were only a\nchild then, and could not have done it.\"\n\nAnd so the lie which I played upon her in my youth remained with her as\nan unchallengeable truth to the day of her death. Carlyle said \"a lie\ncannot live.\" It shows that he did not know how to tell them. If I had\ntaken out a life policy on this one the premiums would have bankrupted\nme ages ago.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCVII.\n\nJANUARY 18, 1907.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--X.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n[Sidenote: (1825.)]\n\n[Sidenote: (1837.)]\n\n[_Dictated March 28, 1906._] Orion Clemens was born in Jamestown,\nFentress County, Tennessee, in 1825. He was the family's first-born, and\nantedated me ten years. Between him and me came a sister, Margaret, who\ndied, aged ten, in 1837, in that village of Florida, Missouri, where I\nwas born; and Pamela, mother of Samuel E. Moffett, who was an invalid\nall her life and died in the neighborhood of New York a year ago, aged\nabout seventy-five. Her character was without blemish, and she was of a\nmost kindly and gentle disposition. Also there was a brother, Benjamin,\nwho died in 1848 aged ten or twelve.\n\n[Sidenote: (1843.)]\n\nOrion's boyhood was spent in that wee little log hamlet of Jamestown up\nthere among the \"knobs\"--so called--of East Tennessee. The family\nmigrated to Florida, Missouri, then moved to Hannibal, Missouri, when\nOrion was twelve and a half years old. When he was fifteen or sixteen he\nwas sent to St. Louis and there he learned the printer's trade. One of\nhis characteristics was eagerness. He woke with an eagerness about some\nmatter or other every morning; it consumed him all day; it perished in\nthe night and he was on fire with a fresh new interest next morning\nbefore he could get his clothes on. He exploited in this way three\nhundred and sixty-five red-hot new eagernesses every year of his life.\nBut I am forgetting another characteristic, a very pronounced one. That\nwas his deep glooms, his despondencies, his despairs; these had their\nplace in each and every day along with the eagernesses. Thus his day was\ndivided--no, not divided, mottled--from sunrise to midnight with\nalternating brilliant sunshine and black cloud. Every day he was the\nmost joyous and hopeful man that ever was, I think, and also every day\nhe was the most miserable man that ever was.\n\nWhile he was in his apprenticeship in St. Louis, he got well acquainted\nwith Edward Bates, who was afterwards in Mr. Lincoln's first cabinet.\nBates was a very fine man, an honorable and upright man, and a\ndistinguished lawyer. He patiently allowed Orion to bring to him each\nnew project; he discussed it with him and extinguished it by argument\nand irresistible logic--at first. But after a few weeks he found that\nthis labor was not necessary; that he could leave the new project alone\nand it would extinguish itself the same night. Orion thought he would\nlike to become a lawyer. Mr. Bates encouraged him, and he studied law\nnearly a week, then of course laid it aside to try something new. He\nwanted to become an orator. Mr. Bates gave him lessons. Mr. Bates walked\nthe floor reading from an English book aloud and rapidly turning the\nEnglish into French, and he recommended this exercise to Orion. But as\nOrion knew no French, he took up that study and wrought at it like a\nvolcano for two or three days; then gave it up. During his\napprenticeship in St. Louis he joined a number of churches, one after\nanother, and taught in their Sunday-schools--changing his Sunday-school\nevery time he changed his religion. He was correspondingly erratic in\nhis politics--Whig to-day, Democrat next week, and anything fresh that\nhe could find in the political market the week after. I may remark here\nthat throughout his long life he was always trading religions and\nenjoying the change of scenery. I will also remark that his sincerity\nwas never doubted; his truthfulness was never doubted; and in matters of\nbusiness and money his honesty was never questioned. Notwithstanding his\nforever-recurring caprices and changes, his principles were high, always\nhigh, and absolutely unshakable. He was the strangest compound that ever\ngot mixed in a human mould. Such a person as that is given to acting\nupon impulse and without reflection; that was Orion's way. Everything he\ndid he did with conviction and enthusiasm and with a vainglorious pride\nin the thing he was doing--and no matter what that thing was, whether\ngood, bad or indifferent, he repented of it every time in sackcloth and\nashes before twenty-four hours had sped. Pessimists are born, not made.\nOptimists are born, not made. But I think he was the only person I have\never known in whom pessimism and optimism were lodged in exactly equal\nproportions. Except in the matter of grounded principle, he was as\nunstable as water. You could dash his spirits with a single word; you\ncould raise them into the sky again with another one. You could break\nhis heart with a word of disapproval; you could make him as happy as an\nangel with a word of approval. And there was no occasion to put any\nsense or any vestige of mentality of any kind into these miracles;\nanything you might say would answer.\n\nHe had another conspicuous characteristic, and it was the father of\nthose which I have just spoken of. This was an intense lust for\napproval. He was so eager to be approved, so girlishly anxious to be\napproved by anybody and everybody, without discrimination, that he was\ncommonly ready to forsake his notions, opinions and convictions at a\nmoment's notice in order to get the approval of any person who disagreed\nwith them. I wish to be understood as reserving his fundamental\nprinciples all the time. He never forsook those to please anybody. Born\nand reared among slaves and slaveholders, he was yet an abolitionist\nfrom his boyhood to his death. He was always truthful; he was always\nsincere; he was always honest and honorable. But in light\nmatters--matters of small consequence, like religion and politics and\nsuch things--he never acquired a conviction that could survive a\ndisapproving remark from a cat.\n\nHe was always dreaming; he was a dreamer from birth, and this\ncharacteristic got him into trouble now and then.\n\nOnce when he was twenty-three or twenty-four years old, and was become a\njourneyman, he conceived the romantic idea of coming to Hannibal without\ngiving us notice, in order that he might furnish to the family a\npleasant surprise. If he had given notice, he would have been informed\nthat we had changed our residence and that that gruff old bass-voiced\nsailorman, Dr. G., our family physician, was living in the house which\nwe had formerly occupied and that Orion's former room in that house was\nnow occupied by Dr. G.'s two middle-aged maiden sisters. Orion arrived\nat Hannibal per steamboat in the middle of the night, and started with\nhis customary eagerness on his excursion, his mind all on fire with his\nromantic project and building and enjoying his surprise in advance. He\nwas always enjoying things in advance; it was the make of him. He never\ncould wait for the event, but must build it out of dream-stuff and enjoy\nit beforehand--consequently sometimes when the event happened he saw\nthat it was not as good as the one he had invented in his imagination,\nand so he had lost profit by not keeping the imaginary one and letting\nthe reality go.\n\nWhen he arrived at the house he went around to the back door and slipped\noff his boots and crept up-stairs and arrived at the room of those\nelderly ladies without having wakened any sleepers. He undressed in the\ndark and got into bed and snuggled up against somebody. He was a little\nsurprised, but not much--for he thought it was our brother Ben. It was\nwinter, and the bed was comfortable, and the supposed Ben added to the\ncomfort--and so he was dropping off to sleep very well satisfied with\nhis progress so far and full of happy dreams of what was going to happen\nin the morning. But something else was going to happen sooner than that,\nand it happened now. The maid that was being crowded fumed and fretted\nand struggled and presently came to a half-waking condition and\nprotested against the crowding. That voice paralyzed Orion. He couldn't\nmove a limb; he couldn't get his breath; and the crowded one discovered\nhis new whiskers and began to scream. This removed the paralysis, and\nOrion was out of bed and clawing round in the dark for his clothes in a\nfraction of a second. Both maids began to scream then, so Orion did not\nwait to get his whole wardrobe. He started with such parts of it as he\ncould grab. He flew to the head of the stairs and started down, and was\nparalyzed again at that point, because he saw the faint yellow flame of\na candle soaring up the stairs from below and he judged that Dr. G. was\nbehind it, and he was. He had no clothes on to speak of, but no matter,\nhe was well enough fixed for an occasion like this, because he had a\nbutcher-knife in his hand. Orion shouted to him, and this saved his\nlife, for the Doctor recognized his voice. Then in those deep-sea-going\nbass tones of his that I used to admire so much when I was a little boy,\nhe explained to Orion the change that had been made, told him where to\nfind the Clemens family, and closed with some quite unnecessary advice\nabout posting himself before he undertook another adventure like\nthat--advice which Orion probably never needed again as long as he\nlived.\n\nOne bitter December night, Orion sat up reading until three o'clock in\nthe morning and then, without looking at a clock, sallied forth to call\non a young lady. He hammered and hammered at the door; couldn't get any\nresponse; didn't understand it. Anybody else would have regarded that as\nan indication of some kind or other and would have drawn inferences and\ngone home. But Orion didn't draw inferences, he merely hammered and\nhammered, and finally the father of the girl appeared at the door in a\ndressing-gown. He had a candle in his hand and the dressing-gown was all\nthe clothing he had on--except an expression of unwelcome which was so\nthick and so large that it extended all down his front to his instep and\nnearly obliterated the dressing-gown. But Orion didn't notice that this\nwas an unpleasant expression. He merely walked in. The old gentleman\ntook him into the parlor, set the candle on a table, and stood. Orion\nmade the usual remarks about the weather, and sat down--sat down and\ntalked and talked and went on talking--that old man looking at him\nvindictively and waiting for his chance--waiting treacherously and\nmalignantly for his chance. Orion had not asked for the young lady. It\nwas not customary. It was understood that a young fellow came to see the\ngirl of the house, not the founder of it. At last Orion got up and made\nsome remark to the effect that probably the young lady was busy and he\nwould go now and call again. That was the old man's chance, and he said\nwith fervency \"Why good land, aren't you going to stop to breakfast?\"\n\n\nOrion did not come to Hannibal until two or three years after my\nfather's death. Meantime he remained in St Louis. He was a journeyman\nprinter and earning wages. Out of his wage he supported my mother and my\nbrother Henry, who was two years younger than I. My sister Pamela helped\nin this support by taking piano pupils. Thus we got along, but it was\npretty hard sledding. I was not one of the burdens, because I was taken\nfrom school at once, upon my father's death, and placed in the office of\nthe Hannibal \"Courier,\" as printer's apprentice, and Mr. S., the editor\nand proprietor of the paper, allowed me the usual emolument of the\noffice of apprentice--that is to say board and clothes, but no money.\nThe clothes consisted of two suits a year, but one of the suits always\nfailed to materialize and the other suit was not purchased so long as\nMr. S.'s old clothes held out. I was only about half as big as Mr. S.,\nconsequently his shirts gave me the uncomfortable sense of living in a\ncircus tent, and I had to turn up his pants to my ears to make them\nshort enough.\n\nThere were two other apprentices. One was Steve Wilkins, seventeen or\neighteen years old and a giant. When he was in Mr. S.'s clothes they\nfitted him as the candle-mould fits the candle--thus he was generally in\na suffocated condition, particularly in the summer-time. He was a\nreckless, hilarious, admirable creature; he had no principles, and was\ndelightful company. At first we three apprentices had to feed in the\nkitchen with the old slave cook and her very handsome and bright and\nwell-behaved young mulatto daughter. For his own amusement--for he was\nnot generally laboring for other people's amusement--Steve was\nconstantly and persistently and loudly and elaborately making love to\nthat mulatto girl and distressing the life out of her and worrying the\nold mother to death. She would say, \"Now, Marse Steve, Marse Steve,\ncan't you behave yourself?\" With encouragement like that, Steve would\nnaturally renew his attentions and emphasize them. It was killingly\nfunny to Ralph and me. And, to speak truly, the old mother's distress\nabout it was merely a pretence. She quite well understood that by the\ncustoms of slaveholding communities it was Steve's right to make love to\nthat girl if he wanted to. But the girl's distress was very real. She\nhad a refined nature, and she took all Steve's extravagant love-making\nin resentful earnest.\n\nWe got but little variety in the way of food at that kitchen table, and\nthere wasn't enough of it anyway. So we apprentices used to keep alive\nby arts of our own--that is to say, we crept into the cellar nearly\nevery night, by a private entrance which we had discovered, and we\nrobbed the cellar of potatoes and onions and such things, and carried\nthem down-town to the printing-office, where we slept on pallets on the\nfloor, and cooked them at the stove and had very good times.\n\nAs I have indicated, Mr. S.'s economies were of a pretty close and rigid\nkind. By and by, when we apprentices were promoted from the basement to\nthe ground floor and allowed to sit at the family table, along with the\none journeyman, Harry H., the economies continued. Mrs. S. was a bride.\nShe had attained to that distinction very recently, after waiting a good\npart of a lifetime for it, and she was the right woman in the right\nplace, according to the economics of the place, for she did not trust\nthe sugar-bowl to us, but sweetened our coffee herself. That is, she\nwent through the motions. She didn't really sweeten it. She seemed to\nput one heaping teaspoonful of brown sugar into each cup, but, according\nto Steve, that was a deceit. He said she dipped the spoon in the coffee\nfirst to make the sugar stick, and then scooped the sugar out of the\nbowl with the spoon upside down, so that the effect to the eye was a\nheaped-up spoon, whereas the sugar on it was nothing but a layer. This\nall seems perfectly true to me, and yet that thing would be so difficult\nto perform that I suppose it really didn't happen, but was one of\nSteve's lies.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCVIII.\n\nFEBRUARY 1, 1907.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--XI.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n[Sidenote: (1850.)]\n\n[_Dictated March 28th, 1906._] About 1849 or 1850 Orion severed his\nconnection with the printing-house in St. Louis and came up to Hannibal,\nand bought a weekly paper called the Hannibal \"Journal,\" together with\nits plant and its good-will, for the sum of five hundred dollars cash.\nHe borrowed the cash at ten per cent. interest, from an old farmer named\nJohnson who lived five miles out of town. Then he reduced the\nsubscription price of the paper from two dollars to one dollar. He\nreduced the rates for advertising in about the same proportion, and\nthus he created one absolute and unassailable certainty--to wit: that\nthe business would never pay him a single cent of profit. He took me out\nof the \"Courier\" office and engaged my services in his own at three\ndollars and a half a week, which was an extravagant wage, but Orion was\nalways generous, always liberal with everybody except himself. It cost\nhim nothing in my case, for he never was able to pay me a penny as long\nas I was with him. By the end of the first year he found he must make\nsome economies. The office rent was cheap, but it was not cheap enough.\nHe could not afford to pay rent of any kind, so he moved the whole plant\ninto the house we lived in, and it cramped the dwelling-place cruelly.\nHe kept that paper alive during four years, but I have at this time no\nidea how he accomplished it. Toward the end of each year he had to turn\nout and scrape and scratch for the fifty dollars of interest due Mr.\nJohnson, and that fifty dollars was about the only cash he ever received\nor paid out, I suppose, while he was proprietor of that newspaper,\nexcept for ink and printing-paper. The paper was a dead failure. It had\nto be that from the start. Finally he handed it over to Mr. Johnson, and\nwent up to Muscatine, Iowa, and acquired a small interest in a weekly\nnewspaper there. It was not a sort of property to marry on--but no\nmatter. He came across a winning and pretty girl who lived in Quincy,\nIllinois, a few miles below Keokuk, and they became engaged. He was\nalways falling in love with girls, but by some accident or other he had\nnever gone so far as engagement before. And now he achieved nothing but\nmisfortune by it, because he straightway fell in love with a Keokuk\ngirl. He married the Keokuk girl and they began a struggle for life\nwhich turned out to be a difficult enterprise, and very unpromising.\n\nTo gain a living in Muscatine was plainly impossible, so Orion and his\nnew wife went to Keokuk to live, for she wanted to be near her\nrelatives. He bought a little bit of a job-printing plant--on credit, of\ncourse--and at once put prices down to where not even the apprentices\ncould get a living out of it, and this sort of thing went on.\n\n[Sidenote: (1853.)]\n\nI had not joined the Muscatine migration. Just before that happened\n(which I think was in 1853) I disappeared one night and fled to St.\nLouis. There I worked in the composing-room of the \"Evening News\" for a\ntime, and then started on my travels to see the world. The world was New\nYork City, and there was a little World's Fair there. It had just been\nopened where the great reservoir afterward was, and where the sumptuous\npublic library is now being built--Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street.\nI arrived in New York with two or three dollars in pocket change and a\nten-dollar bank-bill concealed in the lining of my coat. I got work at\nvillainous wages in the establishment of John A. Gray and Green in Cliff\nStreet, and I found board in a sufficiently villainous mechanics'\nboarding-house in Duane Street. The firm paid my wages in wildcat money\nat its face value, and my week's wage merely sufficed to pay board and\nlodging. By and by I went to Philadelphia and worked there some months\nas a \"sub\" on the \"Inquirer\" and the \"Public Ledger.\" Finally I made a\nflying trip to Washington to see the sights there, and in 1854 I went\nback to the Mississippi Valley, sitting upright in the smoking-car two\nor three days and nights. When I reached St. Louis I was exhausted. I\nwent to bed on board a steamboat that was bound for Muscatine. I fell\nasleep at once, with my clothes on, and didn't wake again for thirty-six\nhours.\n\n[Sidenote: (1854.)]\n\n... I worked in that little job-office in Keokuk as much as two years, I\nshould say, without ever collecting a cent of wages, for Orion was never\nable to pay anything--but Dick Higham and I had good times. I don't know\nwhat Dick got, but it was probably only uncashable promises.\n\n[Sidenote: (1856.)]\n\nOne day in the midwinter of 1856 or 1857--I think it was 1856--I was\ncoming along the main street of Keokuk in the middle of the forenoon. It\nwas bitter weather--so bitter that that street was deserted, almost. A\nlight dry snow was blowing here and there on the ground and on the\npavement, swirling this way and that way and making all sorts of\nbeautiful figures, but very chilly to look at. The wind blew a piece of\npaper past me and it lodged against a wall of a house. Something about\nthe look of it attracted my attention and I gathered it in. It was a\nfifty-dollar bill, the only one I had ever seen, and the largest\nassemblage of money I had ever encountered in one spot. I advertised it\nin the papers and suffered more than a thousand dollars' worth of\nsolicitude and fear and distress during the next few days lest the owner\nshould see the advertisement and come and take my fortune away. As many\nas four days went by without an applicant; then I could endure this kind\nof misery no longer. I felt sure that another four could not go by in\nthis safe and secure way. I felt that I must take that money out of\ndanger. So I bought a ticket for Cincinnati and went to that city. I\nworked there several months in the printing-office of Wrightson and\nCompany. I had been reading Lieutenant Herndon's account of his\nexplorations of the Amazon and had been mightily attracted by what he\nsaid of coca. I made up my mind that I would go to the head waters of\nthe Amazon and collect coca and trade in it and make a fortune. I left\nfor New Orleans in the steamer \"Paul Jones\" with this great idea filling\nmy mind. One of the pilots of that boat was Horace Bixby. Little by\nlittle I got acquainted with him, and pretty soon I was doing a lot of\nsteering for him in his daylight watches. When I got to New Orleans I\ninquired about ships leaving for Par\u00e1 and discovered that there weren't\nany, and learned that there probably wouldn't be any during that\ncentury. It had not occurred to me to inquire about those particulars\nbefore leaving Cincinnati, so there I was. I couldn't get to the Amazon.\nI had no friends in New Orleans and no money to speak of. I went to\nHorace Bixby and asked him to make a pilot out of me. He said he would\ndo it for a hundred dollars cash in advance. So I steered for him up to\nSt. Louis, borrowed the money from my brother-in-law and closed the\nbargain. I had acquired this brother-in-law several years before. This\nwas Mr. William A. Moffett, a merchant, a Virginian--a fine man in every\nway. He had married my sister Pamela, and the Samuel E. Moffett of whom\nI have been speaking was their son. Within eighteen months I became a\ncompetent pilot, and I served that office until the Mississippi River\ntraffic was brought to a standstill by the breaking out of the civil\nwar.\n\n... Meantime Orion had gone down the river and established his little\njob-printing-office in Keokuk. On account of charging next to nothing\nfor the work done in his job-office, he had almost nothing to do there.\nHe was never able to comprehend that work done on a profitless basis\ndeteriorates and is presently not worth anything, and that customers are\nthen obliged to go where they can get better work, even if they must pay\nbetter prices for it. He had plenty of time, and he took up Blackstone\nagain. He also put up a sign which offered his services to the public\nas a lawyer. He never got a case, in those days, nor even an applicant,\nalthough he was quite willing to transact law business for nothing and\nfurnish the stationery himself. He was always liberal that way.\n\n[Sidenote: (1861.)]\n\nPresently he moved to a wee little hamlet called Alexandria, two or\nthree miles down the river, and he put up that sign there. He got no\ncustom. He was by this time very hard aground. But by this time I was\nbeginning to earn a wage of two hundred and fifty dollars a month as\npilot, and so I supported him thenceforth until 1861, when his ancient\nfriend, Edward Bates, then a member of Mr. Lincoln's first cabinet, got\nhim the place of Secretary of the new Territory of Nevada, and Orion and\nI cleared for that country in the overland stage-coach, I paying the\nfares, which were pretty heavy, and carrying with me what money I had\nbeen able to save--this was eight hundred dollars, I should say--and it\nwas all in silver coin and a good deal of a nuisance because of its\nweight. And we had another nuisance, which was an Unabridged Dictionary.\nIt weighed about a thousand pounds, and was a ruinous expense, because\nthe stage-coach Company charged for extra baggage by the ounce. We could\nhave kept a family for a time on what that dictionary cost in the way of\nextra freight--and it wasn't a good dictionary anyway--didn't have any\nmodern words in it--only had obsolete ones that they used to use when\nNoah Webster was a child.\n\nThe Government of the new Territory of Nevada was an interesting\nmenagerie. Governor Nye was an old and seasoned politician from New\nYork--politician, not statesman. He had white hair; he was in fine\nphysical condition; he had a winningly friendly face and deep lustrous\nbrown eyes that could talk as a native language the tongue of every\nfeeling, every passion, every emotion. His eyes could outtalk his\ntongue, and this is saying a good deal, for he was a very remarkable\ntalker, both in private and on the stump. He was a shrewd man; he\ngenerally saw through surfaces and perceived what was going on inside\nwithout being suspected of having an eye on the matter.\n\nWhen grown-up persons indulge in practical jokes, the fact gauges them.\nThey have lived narrow, obscure, and ignorant lives, and at full manhood\nthey still retain and cherish a job-lot of left-over standards and\nideals that would have been discarded with their boyhood if they had\nthen moved out into the world and a broader life. There were many\npractical jokers in the new Territory. I do not take pleasure in\nexposing this fact, for I liked those people; but what I am saying is\ntrue. I wish I could say a kindlier thing about them instead--that they\nwere burglars, or hat-rack thieves, or something like that, that\nwouldn't be utterly uncomplimentary. I would prefer it, but I can't say\nthose things, they would not be true. These people were practical\njokers, and I will not try to disguise it. In other respects they were\nplenty good-enough people; honest people; reputable and likable. They\nplayed practical jokes upon each other with success, and got the\nadmiration and applause and also the envy of the rest of the community.\nNaturally they were eager to try their arts on big game, and that was\nwhat the Governor was. But they were not able to score. They made\nseveral efforts, but the Governor defeated these efforts without any\ntrouble and went on smiling his pleasant smile as if nothing had\nhappened. Finally the joker chiefs of Carson City and Virginia City\nconspired together to see if their combined talent couldn't win a\nvictory, for the jokers were getting into a very uncomfortable place:\nthe people were laughing at them, instead of at their proposed victim.\nThey banded themselves together to the number of ten and invited the\nGovernor to what was a most extraordinary attention in those\ndays--pickled oyster stew and champagne--luxuries very seldom seen in\nthat region, and existing rather as fabrics of the imagination than as\nfacts.\n\nThe Governor took me with him. He said disparagingly,\n\n\"It's a poor invention. It doesn't deceive. Their idea is to get me\ndrunk and leave me under the table, and from their standpoint this will\nbe very funny. But they don't know me. I am familiar with champagne and\nhave no prejudices against it.\"\n\nThe fate of the joke was not decided until two o'clock in the morning.\nAt that hour the Governor was serene, genial, comfortable, contented,\nhappy and sober, although he was so full that he couldn't laugh without\nshedding champagne tears. Also, at that hour the last joker joined his\ncomrades under the table, drunk to the last perfection. The Governor\nremarked,\n\n\"This is a dry place, Sam, let's go and get something to drink and go to\nbed.\"\n\nThe Governor's official menagerie had been drawn from the humblest\nranks of his constituents at home--harmless good fellows who had helped\nin his campaigns, and now they had their reward in petty salaries\npayable in greenbacks that were worth next to nothing. Those boys had a\nhard time to make both ends meet. Orion's salary was eighteen hundred\ndollars a year, and he wouldn't even support his dictionary on it. But\nthe Irishwoman who had come out on the Governor's staff charged the\nmenagerie only ten dollars a week apiece for board and lodging. Orion\nand I were of her boarders and lodgers; and so, on these cheap terms the\nsilver I had brought from home held out very well.\n\n[Sidenote: ('62 or '63)]\n\nAt first I roamed about the country seeking silver, but at the end of\n'62 or the beginning of '63 when I came up from Aurora to begin a\njournalistic life on the Virginia City \"Enterprise,\" I was presently\nsent down to Carson City to report the legislative session. Orion was\nsoon very popular with the members of the legislature, because they\nfound that whereas they couldn't usually trust each other, nor anybody\nelse, they could trust him. He easily held the belt for honesty in that\ncountry, but it didn't do him any good in a pecuniary way, because he\nhad no talent for either persuading or scaring legislators. But I was\ndifferently situated. I was there every day in the legislature to\ndistribute compliment and censure with evenly balanced justice and\nspread the same over half a page of the \"Enterprise\" every morning,\nconsequently I was an influence. I got the legislature to pass a wise\nand very necessary law requiring every corporation doing business in the\nTerritory to record its charter in full, without skipping a word, in a\nrecord to be kept by the Secretary of the Territory--my brother. All the\ncharters were framed in exactly the same words. For this record-service\nhe was authorized to charge forty cents a folio of one hundred words for\nmaking the record; also five dollars for furnishing a certificate of\neach record, and so on. Everybody had a toll-road franchise, but no\ntoll-road. But the franchise had to be recorded and paid for. Everybody\nwas a mining corporation, and had to have himself recorded and pay for\nit. Very well, we prospered. The record-service paid an average of a\nthousand dollars a month, in gold.\n\nGovernor Nye was often absent from the Territory. He liked to run down\nto San Francisco every little while and enjoy a rest from Territorial\ncivilization. Nobody complained, for he was prodigiously popular, he\nhad been a stage-driver in his early days in New York or New England,\nand had acquired the habit of remembering names and faces, and of making\nhimself agreeable to his passengers. As a politician this had been\nvaluable to him, and he kept his arts in good condition by practice. By\nthe time he had been Governor a year, he had shaken hands with every\nhuman being in the Territory of Nevada, and after that he always knew\nthese people instantly at sight and could call them by name. The whole\npopulation, of 20,000 persons, were his personal friends, and he could\ndo anything he chose to do and count upon their being contented with it.\nWhenever he was absent from the Territory--which was generally--Orion\nserved his office in his place, as Acting Governor, a title which was\nsoon and easily shortened to \"Governor.\" He recklessly built and\nfurnished a house at a cost of twelve thousand dollars, and there was no\nother house in the sage-brush capital that could approach this property\nfor style and cost.\n\nWhen Governor Nye's four-year term was drawing to a close, the mystery\nof why he had ever consented to leave the great State of New York and\nhelp inhabit that jack-rabbit desert was solved: he had gone out there\nin order to become a United States Senator. All that was now necessary\nwas to turn the Territory into a State. He did it without any\ndifficulty. That undeveloped country and that sparse population were not\nwell fitted for the heavy burden of a State Government, but no matter,\nthe people were willing to have the change, and so the Governor's game\nwas made.\n\nOrion's game was made too, apparently, for he was as popular because of\nhis honesty as the Governor was for more substantial reasons; but at the\ncritical moment the inborn capriciousness of his character rose up\nwithout warning, and disaster followed.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCIX.\n\nFEBRUARY 15, 1907.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--XII.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n[Sidenote: (1864-5.)]\n\n_Orion Clemens--resumed._\n\n[_Dictated April 5, 1906._] There were several candidates for all the\noffices in the gift of the new State of Nevada save two--United States\nSenator, and Secretary of State. Nye was certain to get a Senatorship,\nand Orion was so sure to get the Secretaryship that no one but him was\nnamed for that office. But he was hit with one of his spasms of virtue\non the very day that the Republican party was to make its nominations in\nthe Convention, and refused to go near the Convention. He was urged, but\nall persuasions failed. He said his presence there would be an unfair\nand improper influence and that if he was to be nominated the compliment\nmust come to him as a free and unspotted gift. This attitude would have\nsettled his case for him without further effort, but he had another\nattack of virtue on the same day, that made it absolutely sure. It had\nbeen his habit for a great many years to change his religion with his\nshirt, and his ideas about temperance at the same time. He would be a\nteetotaler for a while and the champion of the cause; then he would\nchange to the other side for a time. On nomination day he suddenly\nchanged from a friendly attitude toward whiskey--which was the popular\nattitude--to uncompromising teetotalism, and went absolutely dry. His\nfriends besought and implored, but all in vain. He could not be\npersuaded to cross the threshold of a saloon. The paper next morning\ncontained the list of chosen nominees. His name was not in it. He had\nnot received a vote.\n\nHis rich income ceased when the State government came into power. He was\nwithout an occupation. Something had to be done. He put up his sign as\nattorney-at-law, but he got no clients. It was strange. It was difficult\nto account for. I cannot account for it--but if I were going to guess at\na solution I should guess that by the make of him he would examine both\nsides of a case so diligently and so conscientiously that when he got\nthrough with his argument neither he nor a jury would know which side he\nwas on. I think that his client would find out his make in laying his\ncase before him, and would take warning and withdraw it in time to save\nhimself from probable disaster.\n\nI had taken up my residence in San Francisco about a year before the\ntime I have just been speaking of. One day I got a tip from Mr. Camp, a\nbold man who was always making big fortunes in ingenious speculations\nand losing them again in the course of six months by other speculative\ningenuities. Camp told me to buy some shares in the Hale and Norcross. I\nbought fifty shares at three hundred dollars a share. I bought on a\nmargin, and put up twenty per cent. It exhausted my funds. I wrote Orion\nand offered him half, and asked him to send his share of the money. I\nwaited and waited. He wrote and said he was going to attend to it. The\nstock went along up pretty briskly. It went higher and higher. It\nreached a thousand dollars a share. It climbed to two thousand, then to\nthree thousand; then to twice that figure. The money did not come, but I\nwas not disturbed. By and by that stock took a turn and began to gallop\ndown. Then I wrote urgently. Orion answered that he had sent the money\nlong ago--said he had sent it to the Occidental Hotel. I inquired for\nit. They said it was not there. To cut a long story short, that stock\nwent on down until it fell below the price I had paid for it. Then it\nbegan to eat up the margin, and when at last I got out I was very badly\ncrippled.\n\nWhen it was too late, I found out what had become of Orion's money. Any\nother human being would have sent a check, but he sent gold. The hotel\nclerk put it in the safe and went on vacation, and there it had reposed\nall this time enjoying its fatal work, no doubt. Another man might have\nthought to tell me that the money was not in a letter, but was in an\nexpress package, but it never occurred to Orion to do that.\n\nLater, Mr. Camp gave me another chance. He agreed to buy our Tennessee\nland for two hundred thousand dollars, pay a part of the amount in cash\nand give long notes for the rest. His scheme was to import foreigners\nfrom grape-growing and wine-making districts in Europe, settle them on\nthe land, and turn it into a wine-growing country. He knew what Mr.\nLongworth thought of those Tennessee grapes, and was satisfied. I sent\nthe contracts and things to Orion for his signature, he being one of the\nthree heirs. But they arrived at a bad time--in a doubly bad time, in\nfact. The temperance virtue was temporarily upon him in strong force,\nand he wrote and said that he would not be a party to debauching the\ncountry with wine. Also he said how could he know whether Mr. Camp was\ngoing to deal fairly and honestly with those poor people from Europe or\nnot?--and so, without waiting to find out, he quashed the whole trade,\nand there it fell, never to be brought to life again. The land, from\nbeing suddenly worth two hundred thousand dollars, became as suddenly\nworth what it was before--nothing, and taxes to pay. I had paid the\ntaxes and the other expenses for some years, but I dropped the Tennessee\nland there, and have never taken any interest in it since, pecuniarily\nor otherwise, until yesterday.\n\nI had supposed, until yesterday, that Orion had frittered away the last\nacre, and indeed that was his own impression. But a gentleman arrived\nyesterday from Tennessee and brought a map showing that by a correction\nof the ancient surveys we still own a thousand acres, in a coal\ndistrict, out of the hundred thousand acres which my father left us when\nhe died in 1847. The gentleman brought a proposition; also he brought a\nreputable and well-to-do citizen of New York. The proposition was that\nthe Tennesseean gentleman should sell that land; that the New York\ngentleman should pay all the expenses and fight all the lawsuits, in\ncase any should turn up, and that of such profit as might eventuate the\nTennesseean gentleman should take a third, the New-Yorker a third, and\nSam Moffett and his sister and I--who are surviving heirs--the remaining\nthird.\n\nThis time I hope we shall get rid of the Tennessee land for good and all\nand never hear of it again.\n\n[Sidenote: (1867.)]\n\n[Sidenote: (1871.)]\n\nI came East in January, 1867. Orion remained in Carson City perhaps a\nyear longer. Then he sold his twelve-thousand-dollar house and its\nfurniture for thirty-five hundred in greenbacks at about sixty per cent.\ndiscount. He and his wife took passage in the steamer for home in\nKeokuk. About 1871 or '72 they came to New York. Orion had been trying\nto make a living in the law ever since he had arrived from the Pacific\nCoast, but he had secured only two cases. Those he was to try free of\ncharge--but the possible result will never be known, because the parties\nsettled the cases out of court without his help.\n\nOrion got a job as proof-reader on the New York \"Evening Post\" at ten\ndollars a week. By and by he came to Hartford and wanted me to get him a\nplace as reporter on a Hartford paper. Here was a chance to try my\nscheme again, and I did it. I made him go to the Hartford \"Evening\nPost,\" without any letter of introduction, and propose to scrub and\nsweep and do all sorts of things for nothing, on the plea that he didn't\nneed money but only needed work, and that that was what he was pining\nfor. Within six weeks he was on the editorial staff of that paper at\ntwenty dollars a week, and he was worth the money. He was presently\ncalled for by some other paper at better wages, but I made him go to the\n\"Post\" people and tell them about it. They stood the raise and kept him.\nIt was the pleasantest berth he had ever had in his life. It was an easy\nberth. He was in every way comfortable. But ill-luck came. It was bound\nto come.\n\nA new Republican daily was to be started in a New England city by a\nstock company of well-to-do politicians, and they offered him the chief\neditorship at three thousand a year. He was eager to accept. My\nbeseechings and reasonings went for nothing. I said,\n\n\"You are as weak as water. Those people will find it out right away.\nThey will easily see that you have no backbone; that they can deal with\nyou as they would deal with a slave. You may last six months, but not\nlonger. Then they will not dismiss you as they would dismiss a\ngentleman: they will fling you out as they would fling out an intruding\ntramp.\"\n\nIt happened just so. Then he and his wife migrated to Keokuk once more.\nOrion wrote from there that he was not resuming the law; that he thought\nthat what his health needed was the open air, in some sort of outdoor\noccupation; that his father-in-law had a strip of ground on the river\nborder a mile above Keokuk with some sort of a house on it, and his idea\nwas to buy that place and start a chicken-farm and provide Keokuk with\nchickens and eggs, and perhaps butter--but I don't know whether you can\nraise butter on a chicken-farm or not. He said the place could be had\nfor three thousand dollars cash, and I sent the money. He began to raise\nchickens, and he made a detailed monthly report to me, whereby it\nappeared that he was able to work off his chickens on the Keokuk people\nat a dollar and a quarter a pair. But it also appeared that it cost a\ndollar and sixty cents to raise the pair. This did not seem to\ndiscourage Orion, and so I let it go. Meantime he was borrowing a\nhundred dollars per month of me regularly, month by month. Now to show\nOrion's stern and rigid business ways--and he really prided himself on\nhis large business capacities--the moment he received the advance of a\nhundred dollars at the beginning of each month, he always sent me his\nnote for the amount, and with it he sent, _out of that money, three\nmonths' interest_ on the hundred dollars at six per cent. per annum,\nthese notes being always for three months.\n\nAs I say, he always sent a detailed statement of the month's profit and\nloss on the chickens--at least the month's loss on the chickens--and\nthis detailed statement included the various items of expense--corn for\nthe chickens, boots for himself, and so on; even car fares, and the\nweekly contribution of ten cents to help out the missionaries who were\ntrying to damn the Chinese after a plan not satisfactory to those\npeople.\n\nI think the poultry experiment lasted about a year, possibly two years.\nIt had then cost me six thousand dollars.\n\nOrion returned to the law business, and I suppose he remained in that\nharness off and on for the succeeding quarter of a century, but so far\nas my knowledge goes he was only a lawyer in name, and had no clients.\n\n[Sidenote: (1890.)]\n\nMy mother died, in her eighty-eighth year, in the summer of 1890. She\nhad saved some money, and she left it to me, because it had come from\nme. I gave it to Orion and he said, with thanks, that I had supported\nhim long enough and now he was going to relieve me of that burden, and\nwould also hope to pay back some of that expense, and maybe the whole of\nit. Accordingly, he proceeded to use up that money in building a\nconsiderable addition to the house, with the idea of taking boarders and\ngetting rich. We need not dwell upon this venture. It was another of his\nfailures. His wife tried hard to make the scheme succeed, and if anybody\ncould have made it succeed she would have done it. She was a good woman,\nand was greatly liked. She had a practical side, and she would have made\nthat boarding-house lucrative if circumstances had not been against her.\n\nOrion had other projects for recouping me, but as they always required\ncapital I stayed out of them, and they did not materialize. Once he\nwanted to start a newspaper. It was a ghastly idea, and I squelched it\nwith a promptness that was almost rude. Then he invented a wood-sawing\nmachine and patched it together himself, and he really sawed wood with\nit. It was ingenious; it was capable; and it would have made a\ncomfortable little fortune for him; but just at the wrong time\nProvidence interfered again. Orion applied for a patent and found that\nthe same machine had already been patented and had gone into business\nand was thriving.\n\nPresently the State of New York offered a fifty-thousand-dollar prize\nfor a practical method of navigating the Erie Canal with steam\ncanal-boats. Orion worked at that thing for two or three years, invented\nand completed a method, and was once more ready to reach out and seize\nupon imminent wealth when somebody pointed out a defect: his steam\ncanal-boat could not be used in the winter-time; and in the summer-time\nthe commotion its wheels would make in the water would wash away the\nState of New York on both sides.\n\nInnumerable were Orion's projects for acquiring the means to pay off\nthe debt to me. These projects extended straight through the succeeding\nthirty years, but in every case they failed. During all those thirty\nyears his well-established honesty kept him in offices of trust where\nother people's money had to be taken care of, but where no salary was\npaid. He was treasurer of all the benevolent institutions; he took care\nof the money and other property of widows and orphans; he never lost a\ncent for anybody, and never made one for himself. Every time he changed\nhis religion the church of his new faith was glad to get him; made him\ntreasurer at once, and at once he stopped the graft and the leaks in\nthat church. He exhibited a facility in changing his political\ncomplexion that was a marvel to the whole community. Once the following\ncurious thing happened, and he wrote me all about it himself.\n\nOne morning he was a Republican, and upon invitation he agreed to make a\ncampaign speech at the Republican mass-meeting that night. He prepared\nthe speech. After luncheon he became a Democrat and agreed to write a\nscore of exciting mottoes to be painted upon the transparencies which\nthe Democrats would carry in their torchlight procession that night. He\nwrote these shouting Democratic mottoes during the afternoon, and they\noccupied so much of his time that it was night before he had a chance to\nchange his politics again; so he actually made a rousing Republican\ncampaign speech in the open air while his Democratic transparencies\npassed by in front of him, to the joy of every witness present.\n\nHe was a most strange creature--but in spite of his eccentricities he\nwas beloved, all his life, in whatsoever community he lived. And he was\nalso held in high esteem, for at bottom he was a sterling man.\n\nAbout twenty-five years ago--along there somewhere--I suggested to Orion\nthat he write an autobiography. I asked him to try to tell the straight\ntruth in it; to refrain from exhibiting himself in creditable attitudes\nexclusively, and to honorably set down all the incidents of his life\nwhich he had found interesting to him, including those which were burned\ninto his memory because he was ashamed of them. I said that this had\nnever been done, and that if he could do it his autobiography would be a\nmost valuable piece of literature. I said I was offering him a job which\nI could not duplicate in my own case, but I would cherish the hope that\nhe might succeed with it. I recognise now that I was trying to saddle\nupon him an impossibility. I have been dictating this autobiography of\nmine daily for three months; I have thought of fifteen hundred or two\nthousand incidents in my life which I am ashamed of, but I have not\ngotten one of them to consent to go on paper yet. I think that that\nstock will still be complete and unimpaired when I finish these memoirs,\nif I ever finish them. I believe that if I should put in all or any of\nthose incidents I should be sure to strike them out when I came to\nrevise this book.\n\nOrion wrote his autobiography and sent it to me. But great was my\ndisappointment; and my vexation, too. In it he was constantly making a\nhero of himself, exactly as I should have done and am doing now, and he\nwas constantly forgetting to put in the episodes which placed him in an\nunheroic light. I knew several incidents of his life which were\ndistinctly and painfully unheroic, but when I came across them in his\nautobiography they had changed color. They had turned themselves inside\nout, and were things to be intemperately proud of. In my dissatisfaction\nI destroyed a considerable part of that autobiography. But in what\nremains there are passages which are interesting, and I shall quote from\nthem here and there and now and then, as I go along.\n\n[Sidenote: (1898.)]\n\nWhile we were living in Vienna in 1898 a cablegram came from Keokuk\nannouncing Orion's death. He was seventy-two years old. He had gone down\nto the kitchen in the early hours of a bitter December morning; he had\nbuilt the fire, and had then sat down at a table to write something; and\nthere he died, with the pencil in his hand and resting against the paper\nin the middle of an unfinished word--an indication that his release from\nthe captivity of a long and troubled and pathetic and unprofitable life\nwas mercifully swift and painless.\n\n[_Dictated in 1904._] A quarter of a century ago I was visiting John Hay\nat Whitelaw Reid's house in New York, which Hay was occupying for a few\nmonths while Reid was absent on a holiday in Europe. Temporarily also,\nHay was editing Reid's paper, the New York \"Tribune.\" I remember two\nincidents of that Sunday visit particularly well. I had known John Hay a\ngood many years, I had known him when he was an obscure young editorial\nwriter on the \"Tribune\" in Horace Greely's time, earning three or four\ntimes the salary he got, considering the high character of the work\nwhich came from his pen. In those earlier days he was a picture to look\nat, for beauty of feature, perfection of form and grace of carriage and\nmovement. He had a charm about him of a sort quite unusual to my Western\nignorance and inexperience--a charm of manner, intonation, apparently\nnative and unstudied elocution, and all that--the groundwork of it\nnative, the ease of it, the polish of it, the winning naturalness of it,\nacquired in Europe where he had been Charg\u00e9 d'Affaires some time at the\nCourt of Vienna. He was joyous and cordial, a most pleasant comrade. One\nof the two incidents above referred to as marking that visit was this:\n\nIn trading remarks concerning our ages I confessed to forty-two and Hay\nto forty. Then he asked if I had begun to write my autobiography, and I\nsaid I hadn't. He said that I ought to begin at once, and that I had\nalready lost two years. Then he said in substance this:\n\n\"At forty a man reaches the top of the hill of life and starts down on\nthe sunset side. The ordinary man, the average man, not to particularize\ntoo closely and say the commonplace man, has at that age succeeded or\nfailed; in either case he has lived all of his life that is likely to be\nworth recording; also in either case the life lived is worth setting\ndown, and cannot fail to be interesting if he comes as near to telling\nthe truth about himself as he can. And he _will_ tell the truth in spite\nof himself, for his facts and his fictions will work loyally together\nfor the protection of the reader; each fact and each fiction will be a\ndab of paint, each will fall in its right place, and together they will\npaint his portrait; not the portrait _he_ thinks they are painting, but\nhis real portrait, the inside of him, the soul of him, his character.\nWithout intending to lie he will lie all the time; not bluntly,\nconsciously, not dully unconsciously, but half-consciously--\nconsciousness in twilight; a soft and gentle and merciful twilight which\nmakes his general form comely, with his virtuous prominences and\nprojections discernible and his ungracious ones in shadow. His truths\nwill be recognizable as truths, his modifications of facts which would\ntell against him will go for nothing, the reader will see the fact\nthrough the film and know his man.\n\n\"There is a subtle devilish something or other about autobiographical\ncomposition that defeats all the writer's attempts to paint his portrait\n_his_ way.\"\n\nHay meant that he and I were ordinary average commonplace people, and I\ndid not resent my share of the verdict, but nursed my wound in silence.\nHis idea that we had finished our work in life, passed the summit and\nwere westward bound down-hill, with me two years ahead of him and\nneither of us with anything further to do as benefactors to mankind, was\nall a mistake. I had written four books then, possibly five. I have been\ndrowning the world in literary wisdom ever since, volume after volume;\nsince that day's sun went down he has been the historian of Mr. Lincoln,\nand his book will never perish; he has been ambassador, brilliant\norator, competent and admirable Secretary of State.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCX.\n\nMARCH 1, 1907.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--XIII.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n[Sidenote: (1847.)]\n\n... As I have said, that vast plot of Tennessee land[6] was held by my\nfather twenty years--intact. When he died in 1847, we began to manage it\nourselves. Forty years afterward, we had managed it all away except\n10,000 acres, and gotten nothing to remember the sales by. About\n1887--possibly it was earlier--the 10,000 went. My brother found a\nchance to trade it for a house and lot in the town of Corry, in the oil\nregions of Pennsylvania. About 1894 he sold this property for $250. That\nended the Tennessee Land.\n\nIf any penny of cash ever came out of my father's wise investment but\nthat, I have no recollection of it. No, I am overlooking a detail. It\nfurnished me a field for Sellers and a book. Out of my half of the book\nI got $15,000 or $20,000; out of the play I got $75,000 or $80,000--just\nabout a dollar an acre. It is curious: I was not alive when my father\nmade the investment, therefore he was not intending any partiality; yet\nI was the only member of the family that ever profited by it. I shall\nhave occasion to mention this land again, now and then, as I go along,\nfor it influenced our life in one way or another during more than a\ngeneration. Whenever things grew dark it rose and put out its hopeful\nSellers hand and cheered us up, and said \"Do not be afraid--trust in\nme--wait.\" It kept us hoping and hoping, during forty years, and forsook\nus at last. It put our energies to sleep and made visionaries of\nus--dreamers and indolent. We were always going to be rich next year--no\noccasion to work. It is good to begin life poor; it is good to begin\nlife rich--these are wholesome; but to begin it _prospectively_ rich!\nThe man who has not experienced it cannot imagine the curse of it.\n\nMy parents removed to Missouri in the early thirties; I do not remember\njust when, for I was not born then, and cared nothing for such things.\nIt was a long journey in those days, and must have been a rough and\ntiresome one. The home was made in the wee village of Florida, in Monroe\ncounty, and I was born there in 1835. The village contained a hundred\npeople and I increased the population by one per cent. It is more than\nthe best man in history ever did for any other town. It may not be\nmodest in me to refer to this, but it is true. There is no record of a\nperson doing as much--not even Shakespeare. But I did it for Florida,\nand it shows that I could have done it for any place--even London, I\nsuppose.\n\nRecently some one in Missouri has sent me a picture of the house I was\nborn in. Heretofore I have always stated that it was a palace, but I\nshall be more guarded, now.\n\nI remember only one circumstance connected with my life in it. I\nremember it very well, though I was but two and a half years old at the\ntime. The family packed up everything and started in wagons for\nHannibal, on the Mississippi, thirty miles away. Toward night, when they\ncamped and counted up the children, one was missing. I was the one. I\nhad been left behind. Parents ought always to count the children before\nthey start. I was having a good enough time playing by myself until I\nfound that the doors were fastened and that there was a grisly deep\nsilence brooding over the place. I knew, then, that the family were\ngone, and that they had forgotten me. I was well frightened, and I made\nall the noise I could, but no one was near and it did no good. I spent\nthe afternoon in captivity and was not rescued until the gloaming had\nfallen and the place was alive with ghosts.\n\nMy brother Henry was six months old at that time. I used to remember his\nwalking into a fire outdoors when he was a week old. It was remarkable\nin me to remember a thing like that, which occurred when I was so young.\nAnd it was still more remarkable that I should cling to the delusion,\nfor thirty years, that I _did_ remember it--for of course it never\nhappened; he would not have been able to walk at that age. If I had\nstopped to reflect, I should not have burdened my memory with that\nimpossible rubbish so long. It is believed by many people that an\nimpression deposited in a child's memory within the first two years of\nits life cannot remain there five years, but that is an error. The\nincident of Benvenuto Cellini and the salamander must be accepted as\nauthentic and trustworthy; and then that remarkable and indisputable\ninstance in the experience of Helen Keller--however, I will speak of\nthat at another time. For many years I believed that I remembered\nhelping my grandfather drink his whiskey toddy when I was six weeks old,\nbut I do not tell about that any more, now; I am grown old, and my\nmemory is not as active as it used to be. When I was younger I could\nremember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are\ndecaying, now, and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the\nthings that happened. It is sad to go to pieces like this, but we all\nhave to do it.\n\nMy uncle, John A. Quarles, was a farmer, and his place was in the\ncountry four miles from Florida. He had eight children, and fifteen or\ntwenty negroes, and was also fortunate in other ways. Particularly in\nhis character. I have not come across a better man than he was. I was\nhis guest for two or three months every year, from the fourth year after\nwe removed to Hannibal till I was eleven or twelve years old. I have\nnever consciously used him or his wife in a book, but his farm has come\nvery handy to me in literature, once or twice. In \"Huck Finn\" and in\n\"Tom Sawyer Detective\" I moved it down to Arkansas. It was all of six\nhundred miles, but it was no trouble, it was not a very large farm;\nfive hundred acres, perhaps, but I could have done it if it had been\ntwice as large. And as for the morality of it, I cared nothing for that;\nI would move a State if the exigencies of literature required it.\n\nIt was a heavenly place for a boy, that farm of my uncle John's. The\nhouse was a double log one, with a spacious floor (roofed in) connecting\nit with the kitchen. In the summer the table was set in the middle of\nthat shady and breezy floor, and the sumptuous meals--well, it makes me\ncry to think of them. Fried chicken, roast pig, wild and tame turkeys,\nducks and geese; venison just killed; squirrels, rabbits, pheasants,\npartridges, prairie-chickens; biscuits, hot batter cakes, hot buckwheat\ncakes, hot \"wheat bread,\" hot rolls, hot corn pone; fresh corn boiled on\nthe ear, succotash, butter-beans, string-beans, tomatoes, pease, Irish\npotatoes, sweet-potatoes; buttermilk, sweet milk, \"clabber\";\nwatermelons, musk-melons, cantaloups--all fresh from the garden--apple\npie, peach pie, pumpkin pie, apple dumplings, peach cobbler--I can't\nremember the rest. The way that the things were cooked was perhaps the\nmain splendor--particularly a certain few of the dishes. For instance,\nthe corn bread, the hot biscuits and wheat bread, and the fried chicken.\nThese things have never been properly cooked in the North--in fact, no\none there is able to learn the art, so far as my experience goes. The\nNorth thinks it knows how to make corn bread, but this is gross\nsuperstition. Perhaps no bread in the world is quite as good as Southern\ncorn bread, and perhaps no bread in the world is quite so bad as the\nNorthern imitation of it. The North seldom tries to fry chicken, and\nthis is well; the art cannot be learned north of the line of Mason and\nDixon, nor anywhere in Europe. This is not hearsay; it is experience\nthat is speaking. In Europe it is imagined that the custom of serving\nvarious kinds of bread blazing hot is \"American,\" but that is too broad\na spread; it is custom in the South, but is much less than that in the\nNorth. In the North and in Europe hot bread is considered unhealthy.\nThis is probably another fussy superstition, like the European\nsuperstition that ice-water is unhealthy. Europe does not need\nice-water, and does not drink it; and yet, notwithstanding this, its\nword for it is better than ours, because it describes it, whereas ours\ndoesn't. Europe calls it \"iced\" water. Our word describes water made\nfrom melted ice--a drink which we have but little acquaintance with.\n\nIt seem a pity that the world should throw away so many good things\nmerely because they are unwholesome. I doubt if God has given us any\nrefreshment which, taken in moderation, is unwholesome, except microbes.\nYet there are people who strictly deprive themselves of each and every\neatable, drinkable and smokable which has in any way acquired a shady\nreputation. They pay this price for health. And health is all they get\nfor it. How strange it is; it is like paying out your whole fortune for\na cow that has gone dry.\n\nThe farmhouse stood in the middle of a very large yard, and the yard was\nfenced on three sides with rails and on the rear side with high palings;\nagainst these stood the smokehouse; beyond the palings was the orchard;\nbeyond the orchard were the negro quarter and the tobacco-fields. The\nfront yard was entered over a stile, made of sawed-off logs of graduated\nheights; I do not remember any gate. In a corner of the front yard were\na dozen lofty hickory-trees and a dozen black-walnuts, and in the\nnutting season riches were to be gathered there.\n\nDown a piece, abreast the house, stood a little log cabin against the\nrail fence; and there the woody hill fell sharply away, past the barns,\nthe corn-crib, the stables and the tobacco-curing house, to a limpid\nbrook which sang along over its gravelly bed and curved and frisked in\nand out and here and there and yonder in the deep shade of overhanging\nfoliage and vines--a divine place for wading, and it had swimming-pools,\ntoo, which were forbidden to us and therefore much frequented by us. For\nwe were little Christian children, and had early been taught the value\nof forbidden fruit.\n\nIn the little log cabin lived a bedridden white-headed slave woman whom\nwe visited daily, and looked upon with awe, for we believed she was\nupwards of a thousand years old and had talked with Moses. The younger\nnegroes credited these statistics, and had furnished them to us in good\nfaith. We accommodated all the details which came to us about her; and\nso we believed that she had lost her health in the long desert trip\ncoming out of Egypt, and had never been able to get it back again. She\nhad a round bald place on the crown of her head, and we used to creep\naround and gaze at it in reverent silence, and reflect that it was\ncaused by fright through seeing Pharaoh drowned. We called her \"Aunt\"\nHannah, Southern fashion. She was superstitious like the other negroes;\nalso, like them, she was deeply religious. Like them, she had great\nfaith in prayer, and employed it in all ordinary exigencies, but not in\ncases where a dead certainty of result was urgent. Whenever witches were\naround she tied up the remnant of her wool in little tufts, with white\nthread, and this promptly made the witches impotent.\n\nAll the negroes were friends of ours, and with those of our own age we\nwere in effect comrades. I say in effect, using the phrase as a\nmodification. We were comrades, and yet not comrades; color and\ncondition interposed a subtle line which both parties were conscious of,\nand which rendered complete fusion impossible. We had a faithful and\naffectionate good friend, ally and adviser in \"Uncle Dan'l,\" a\nmiddle-aged slave whose head was the best one in the negro quarter,\nwhose sympathies were wide and warm, and whose heart was honest and\nsimple and knew no guile. He has served me well, these many, many years.\nI have not seen him for more than half a century, and yet spiritually I\nhave had his welcome company a good part of that time, and have staged\nhim in books under his own name and as \"Jim,\" and carted him all\naround--to Hannibal, down the Mississippi on a raft, and even across the\nDesert of Sahara in a balloon--and he has endured it all with the\npatience and friendliness and loyalty which were his birthright. It was\non the farm that I got my strong liking for his race and my appreciation\nof certain of its fine qualities. This feeling and this estimate have\nstood the test of sixty years and more and have suffered no impairment.\nThe black face is as welcome to me now as it was then.\n\nIn my schoolboy days I had no aversion to slavery. I was not aware that\nthere was anything wrong about it. No one arraigned it in my hearing;\nthe local papers said nothing against it; the local pulpit taught us\nthat God approved it, that it was a holy thing, and that the doubter\nneed only look in the Bible if he wished to settle his mind--and then\nthe texts were read aloud to us to make the matter sure; if the slaves\nthemselves had an aversion to slavery they were wise and said nothing.\nIn Hannibal we seldom saw a slave misused; on the farm, never.\n\nThere was, however, one small incident of my boyhood days which touched\nthis matter, and it must have meant a good deal to me or it would not\nhave stayed in my memory, clear and sharp, vivid and shadowless, all\nthese slow-drifting years. We had a little slave boy whom we had hired\nfrom some one, there in Hannibal. He was from the Eastern Shore of\nMaryland, and had been brought away from his family and his friends,\nhalf-way across the American continent, and sold. He was a cheery\nspirit, innocent and gentle, and the noisiest creature that ever was,\nperhaps. All day long he was singing, whistling, yelling, whooping,\nlaughing--it was maddening, devastating, unendurable. At last, one day,\nI lost all my temper, and went raging to my mother, and said Sandy had\nbeen singing for an hour without a single break, and I couldn't stand\nit, and _wouldn't_ she please shut him up. The tears came into her eyes,\nand her lip trembled, and she said something like this--\n\n\"Poor thing, when he sings, it shows that he is not remembering, and\nthat comforts me; but when he is still, I am afraid he is thinking, and\nI cannot bear it. He will never see his mother again; if he can sing, I\nmust not hinder it, but be thankful for it. If you were older, you would\nunderstand me; then that friendless child's noise would make you glad.\"\n\nIt was a simple speech, and made up of small words, but it went home,\nand Sandy's noise was not a trouble to me any more. She never used large\nwords, but she had a natural gift for making small ones do effective\nwork. She lived to reach the neighborhood of ninety years, and was\ncapable with her tongue to the last--especially when a meanness or an\ninjustice roused her spirit. She has come handy to me several times in\nmy books, where she figures as Tom Sawyer's \"Aunt Polly.\" I fitted her\nout with a dialect, and tried to think up other improvements for her,\nbut did not find any. I used Sandy once, also; it was in \"Tom Sawyer\"; I\ntried to get him to whitewash the fence, but it did not work. I do not\nremember what name I called him by in the book.\n\nI can see the farm yet, with perfect clearness. I can see all its\nbelongings, all its details; the family room of the house, with a\n\"trundle\" bed in one corner and a spinning-wheel in another--a wheel\nwhose rising and falling wail, heard from a distance, was the\nmournfulest of all sounds to me, and made me homesick and low-spirited,\nand filled my atmosphere with the wandering spirits of the dead: the\nvast fireplace, piled high, on winter nights, with flaming hickory logs\nfrom whose ends a sugary sap bubbled out but did not go to waste, for we\nscraped it off and ate it; the lazy cat spread out on the rough\nhearthstones, the drowsy dogs braced against the jambs and blinking; my\naunt in one chimney-corner knitting, my uncle in the other smoking his\ncorn-cob pipe; the slick and carpetless oak floor faintly mirroring the\ndancing flame-tongues and freckled with black indentations where\nfire-coals had popped out and died a leisurely death; half a dozen\nchildren romping in the background twilight; \"split\"-bottomed chairs\nhere and there, some with rockers; a cradle--out of service, but\nwaiting, with confidence; in the early cold mornings a snuggle of\nchildren, in shirts and chemises, occupying the hearthstone and\nprocrastinating--they could not bear to leave that comfortable place and\ngo out on the wind-swept floor-space between the house and kitchen where\nthe general tin basin stood, and wash.\n\nAlong outside of the front fence ran the country road; dusty in the\nsummer-time, and a good place for snakes--they liked to lie in it and\nsun themselves; when they were rattlesnakes or puff adders, we killed\nthem: when they were black snakes, or racers, or belonged to the fabled\n\"hoop\" breed, we fled, without shame; when they were \"house snakes\" or\n\"garters\" we carried them home and put them in Aunt Patsy's work-basket\nfor a surprise; for she was prejudiced against snakes, and always when\nshe took the basket in her lap and they began to climb out of it it\ndisordered her mind. She never could seem to get used to them; her\nopportunities went for nothing. And she was always cold toward bats,\ntoo, and could not bear them; and yet I think a bat is as friendly a\nbird as there is. My mother was Aunt Patsy's sister, and had the same\nwild superstitions. A bat is beautifully soft and silky: I do not know\nany creature that is pleasanter to the touch, or is more grateful for\ncaressings, if offered in the right spirit. I know all about these\ncoleoptera, because our great cave, three miles below Hannibal, was\nmultitudinously stocked with them, and often I brought them home to\namuse my mother with. It was easy to manage if it was a school day,\nbecause then I had ostensibly been to school and hadn't any bats. She\nwas not a suspicious person, but full of trust and confidence; and when\nI said \"There's something in my coat pocket for you,\" she would put her\nhand in. But she always took it out again, herself; I didn't have to\ntell her. It was remarkable, the way she couldn't learn to like private\nbats.\n\nI think she was never in the cave in her life; but everybody else went\nthere. Many excursion parties came from considerable distances up and\ndown the river to visit the cave. It was miles in extent, and was a\ntangled wilderness of narrow and lofty clefts and passages. It was an\neasy place to get lost in; anybody could do it--including the bats. I\ngot lost in it myself, along with a lady, and our last candle burned\ndown to almost nothing before we glimpsed the search-party's lights\nwinding about in the distance.\n\n\"Injun Joe\" the half-breed got lost in there once, and would have\nstarved to death if the bats had run short. But there was no chance of\nthat; there were myriads of them. He told me all his story. In the book\ncalled \"Tom Sawyer\" I starved him entirely to death in the cave, but\nthat was in the interest of art; it never happened. \"General\" Gaines,\nwho was our first town drunkard before Jimmy Finn got the place, was\nlost in there for the space of a week, and finally pushed his\nhandkerchief out of a hole in a hilltop near Saverton, several miles\ndown the river from the cave's mouth, and somebody saw it and dug him\nout. There is nothing the matter with his statistics except the\nhandkerchief. I knew him for years, and he hadn't any. But it could have\nbeen his nose. That would attract attention.\n\nBeyond the road where the snakes sunned themselves was a dense young\nthicket, and through it a dim-lighted path led a quarter of a mile; then\nout of the dimness one emerged abruptly upon a level great prairie which\nwas covered with wild strawberry-plants, vividly starred with prairie\npinks, and walled in on all sides by forests. The strawberries were\nfragrant and fine, and in the season we were generally there in the\ncrisp freshness of the early morning, while the dew-beads still sparkled\nupon the grass and the woods were ringing with the first songs of the\nbirds.\n\nDown the forest slopes to the left were the swings. They were made of\nbark stripped from hickory saplings. When they became dry they were\ndangerous. They usually broke when a child was forty feet in the air,\nand this was why so many bones had to be mended every year. I had no\nill-luck myself, but none of my cousins escaped. There were eight of\nthem, and at one time and another they broke fourteen arms among them.\nBut it cost next to nothing, for the doctor worked by the year--$25 for\nthe whole family. I remember two of the Florida doctors, Chowning and\nMeredith. They not only tended an entire family for $25 a year, but\nfurnished the medicines themselves. Good measure, too. Only the largest\npersons could hold a whole dose. Castor-oil was the principal beverage.\nThe dose was half a dipperful, with half a dipperful of New Orleans\nmolasses added to help it down and make it taste good, which it never\ndid. The next standby was calomel; the next, rhubarb; and the next,\njalap. Then they bled the patient, and put mustard-plasters on him. It\nwas a dreadful system, and yet the death-rate was not heavy. The calomel\nwas nearly sure to salivate the patient and cost him some of his teeth.\nThere were no dentists. When teeth became touched with decay or were\notherwise ailing, the doctor knew of but one thing to do: he fetched his\ntongs and dragged them out. If the jaw remained, it was not his fault.\n\nDoctors were not called, in cases of ordinary illness; the family's\ngrandmother attended to those. Every old woman was a doctor, and\ngathered her own medicines in the woods, and knew how to compound doses\nthat would stir the vitals of a cast-iron dog. And then there was the\n\"Indian doctor\"; a grave savage, remnant of his tribe, deeply read in\nthe mysteries of nature and the secret properties of herbs; and most\nbackwoodsmen had high faith in his powers and could tell of wonderful\ncures achieved by him. In Mauritius, away off yonder in the solitudes of\nthe Indian Ocean, there is a person who answers to our Indian doctor of\nthe old times. He is a negro, and has had no teaching as a doctor, yet\nthere is one disease which he is master of and can cure, and the doctors\ncan't. They send for him when they have a case. It is a child's disease\nof a strange and deadly sort, and the negro cures it with a herb\nmedicine which he makes, himself, from a prescription which has come\ndown to him from his father and grandfather. He will not let any one see\nit. He keeps the secret of its components to himself, and it is feared\nthat he will die without divulging it; then there will be consternation\nin Mauritius. I was told these things by the people there, in 1896.\n\nWe had the \"faith doctor,\" too, in those early days--a woman. Her\nspecialty was toothache. She was a farmer's old wife, and lived five\nmiles from Hannibal. She would lay her hand on the patient's jaw and say\n\"Believe!\" and the cure was prompt. Mrs. Utterback. I remember her very\nwell. Twice I rode out there behind my mother, horseback, and saw the\ncure performed. My mother was the patient.\n\nDr. Meredith removed to Hannibal, by and by, and was our family\nphysician there, and saved my life several times. Still, he was a good\nman and meant well. Let it go.\n\nI was always told that I was a sickly and precarious and tiresome and\nuncertain child, and lived mainly on allopathic medicines during the\nfirst seven years of my life. I asked my mother about this, in her old\nage--she was in her 88th year--and said:\n\n\"I suppose that during all that time you were uneasy about me?\"\n\n\"Yes, the whole time.\"\n\n\"Afraid I wouldn't live?\"\n\nAfter a reflective pause--ostensibly to think out the facts--\n\n\"No--afraid you would.\"\n\nIt sounds like a plagiarism, but it probably wasn't. The country\nschoolhouse was three miles from my uncle's farm. It stood in a clearing\nin the woods, and would hold about twenty-five boys and girls. We\nattended the school with more or less regularity once or twice a week,\nin summer, walking to it in the cool of the morning by the forest paths,\nand back in the gloaming at the end of the day. All the pupils brought\ntheir dinners in baskets--corn-dodger, buttermilk and other good\nthings--and sat in the shade of the trees at noon and ate them. It is\nthe part of my education which I look back upon with the most\nsatisfaction. My first visit to the school was when I was seven. A\nstrapping girl of fifteen, in the customary sunbonnet and calico dress,\nasked me if I \"used tobacco\"--meaning did I chew it. I said, no. It\nroused her scorn. She reported me to all the crowd, and said--\n\n\"Here is a boy seven years old who can't chaw tobacco.\"\n\nBy the looks and comments which this produced, I realized that I was a\ndegraded object; I was cruelly ashamed of myself. I determined to\nreform. But I only made myself sick; I was not able to learn to chew\ntobacco. I learned to smoke fairly well, but that did not conciliate\nanybody, and I remained a poor thing, and characterless. I longed to be\nrespected, but I never was able to rise. Children have but little\ncharity for each other's defects.\n\nAs I have said, I spent some part of every year at the farm until I was\ntwelve or thirteen years old. The life which I led there with my cousins\nwas full of charm, and so is the memory of it yet. I can call back the\nsolemn twilight and mystery of the deep woods, the earthy smells, the\nfaint odors of the wild flowers, the sheen of rain-washed foliage, the\nrattling clatter of drops when the wind shook the trees, the far-off\nhammering of woodpeckers and the muffled drumming of wood-pheasants in\nthe remoteness of the forest, the snap-shot glimpses of disturbed wild\ncreatures skurrying through the grass,--I can call it all back and make\nit as real as it ever was, and as blessed. I can call back the prairie,\nand its loneliness and peace, and a vast hawk hanging motionless in the\nsky, with his wings spread wide and the blue of the vault showing\nthrough the fringe of their end-feathers. I can see the woods in their\nautumn dress, the oaks purple, the hickories washed with gold, the\nmaples and the sumacs luminous with crimson fires, and I can hear the\nrustle made by the fallen leaves as we ploughed through them. I can see\nthe blue clusters of wild grapes hanging amongst the foliage of the\nsaplings, and I remember the taste of them and the smell. I know how the\nwild blackberries looked, and how they tasted; and the same with the\npawpaws, the hazelnuts and the persimmons; and I can feel the thumping\nrain, upon my head, of hickory-nuts and walnuts when we were out in the\nfrosty dawn to scramble for them with the pigs, and the gusts of wind\nloosed them and sent them down. I know the stain of blackberries, and\nhow pretty it is; and I know the stain of walnut hulls, and how little\nit minds soap and water; also what grudged experience it had of either\nof them. I know the taste of maple sap, and when to gather it, and how\nto arrange the troughs and the delivery tubes, and how to boil down the\njuice, and how to hook the sugar after it is made; also how much better\nhooked sugar tastes than any that is honestly come by, let bigots say\nwhat they will. I know how a prize watermelon looks when it is sunning\nits fat rotundity among pumpkin-vines and \"simblins\"; I know how to tell\nwhen it is ripe without \"plugging\" it; I know how inviting it looks when\nit is cooling itself in a tub of water under the bed, waiting; I know\nhow it looks when it lies on the table in the sheltered great\nfloor-space between house and kitchen, and the children gathered for the\nsacrifice and their mouths watering; I know the crackling sound it makes\nwhen the carving-knife enters its end, and I can see the split fly along\nin front of the blade as the knife cleaves its way to the other end; I\ncan see its halves fall apart and display the rich red meat and the\nblack seeds, and the heart standing up, a luxury fit for the elect; I\nknow how a boy looks, behind a yard-long slice of that melon, and I know\nhow he feels; for I have been there. I know the taste of the watermelon\nwhich has been honestly come by, and I know the taste of the watermelon\nwhich has been acquired by art. Both taste good, but the experienced\nknow which tastes best. I know the look of green apples and peaches and\npears on the trees, and I know how entertaining they are when they are\ninside of a person. I know how ripe ones look when they are piled in\npyramids under the trees, and how pretty they are and how vivid their\ncolors. I know how a frozen apple looks, in a barrel down cellar in the\nwinter-time, and how hard it is to bite, and how the frost makes the\nteeth ache, and yet how good it is, notwithstanding. I know the\ndisposition of elderly people to select the specked apples for the\nchildren, and I once knew ways to beat the game. I know the look of an\napple that is roasting and sizzling on a hearth on a winter's evening,\nand I know the comfort that comes of eating it hot, along with some\nsugar and a drench of cream. I know the delicate art and mystery of so\ncracking hickory-nuts and walnuts on a flatiron with a hammer that the\nkernels will be delivered whole, and I know how the nuts, taken in\nconjunction with winter apples, cider and doughnuts, make old people's\ntales and old jokes sound fresh and crisp and enchanting, and juggle an\nevening away before you know what went with the time. I know the look of\nUncle Dan'l's kitchen as it was on privileged nights when I was a child,\nand I can see the white and black children grouped on the hearth, with\nthe firelight playing on their faces and the shadows flickering upon the\nwalls, clear back toward the cavernous gloom of the rear, and I can hear\nUncle Dan'l telling the immortal tales which Uncle Remus Harris was to\ngather into his books and charm the world with, by and by; and I can\nfeel again the creepy joy which quivered through me when the time for\nthe ghost-story of the \"Golden Arm\" was reached--and the sense of\nregret, too, which came over me, for it was always the last story of the\nevening, and there was nothing between it and the unwelcome bed.\n\nI can remember the bare wooden stairway in my uncle's house, and the\nturn to the left above the landing, and the rafters and the slanting\nroof over my bed, and the squares of moonlight on the floor, and the\nwhite cold world of snow outside, seen through the curtainless window.\nI can remember the howling of the wind and the quaking of the house on\nstormy nights, and how snug and cozy one felt, under the blankets,\nlistening, and how the powdery snow used to sift in, around the sashes,\nand lie in little ridges on the floor, and make the place look chilly in\nthe morning, and curb the wild desire to get up--in case there was any.\nI can remember how very dark that room was, in the dark of the moon, and\nhow packed it was with ghostly stillness when one woke up by accident\naway in the night, and forgotten sins came flocking out of the secret\nchambers of the memory and wanted a hearing; and how ill chosen the time\nseemed for this kind of business; and how dismal was the hoo-hooing of\nthe owl and the wailing of the wolf, sent mourning by on the night wind.\n\nI remember the raging of the rain on that roof, summer nights, and how\npleasant it was to lie and listen to it, and enjoy the white splendor of\nthe lightning and the majestic booming and crashing of the thunder. It\nwas a very satisfactory room; and there was a lightning-rod which was\nreachable from the window, an adorable and skittish thing to climb up\nand down, summer nights, when there were duties on hand of a sort to\nmake privacy desirable.\n\nI remember the 'coon and 'possum hunts, nights, with the negroes, and\nthe long marches through the black gloom of the woods, and the\nexcitement which fired everybody when the distant bay of an experienced\ndog announced that the game was treed; then the wild scramblings and\nstumblings through briars and bushes and over roots to get to the spot;\nthen the lighting of a fire and the felling of the tree, the joyful\nfrenzy of the dogs and the negroes, and the weird picture it all made in\nthe red glare--I remember it all well, and the delight that every one\ngot out of it, except the 'coon.\n\nI remember the pigeon seasons, when the birds would come in millions,\nand cover the trees, and by their weight break down the branches. They\nwere clubbed to death with sticks; guns were not necessary, and were not\nused. I remember the squirrel hunts, and the prairie-chicken hunts, and\nthe wild-turkey hunts, and all that; and how we turned out, mornings,\nwhile it was still dark, to go on these expeditions, and how chilly and\ndismal it was, and how often I regretted that I was well enough to go. A\ntoot on a tin horn brought twice as many dogs as were needed, and in\ntheir happiness they raced and scampered about, and knocked small people\ndown, and made no end of unnecessary noise. At the word, they vanished\naway toward the woods, and we drifted silently after them in the\nmelancholy gloom. But presently the gray dawn stole over the world, the\nbirds piped up, then the sun rose and poured light and comfort all\naround, everything was fresh and dewy and fragrant, and life was a boon\nagain. After three hours of tramping we arrived back wholesomely tired,\noverladen with game, very hungry, and just in time for breakfast.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[6] 100,000 acres.\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCXI.\n\nMARCH 15, 1907.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--XIV.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n[_Dictated Thursday, December 6, 1906._]\n\n_From Susy's Biography of Me._\n\n\n     _Feb. 27, Sunday._\n\n     Clara's reputation as a baby was always a fine one, mine exactly\n     the contrary. One often related story concerning her braveness as a\n     baby and her own opinion of this quality of hers is this. Clara and\n     I often got slivers in our hands and when mama took them out with a\n     much dreaded needle, Clara was always very brave, and I very\n     cowardly. One day Clara got one of these slivers in her hand, a\n     very bad one, and while mama was taking it out, Clara stood\n     perfectly still without even wincing: I saw how brave she was and\n     turning to mamma said \"Mamma isn't she a brave little thing!\"\n     presently mamma had to give the little hand quite a dig with the\n     needle and noticing how perfectly quiet Clara was about it she\n     exclaimed, Why Clara! you are a brave little thing! Clara responded\n     \"No bodys braver but  God!\"--\n\n\nClara's pious remark is the main detail, and Susy has accurately\nremembered its phrasing. The three-year-older's wound was of a\nformidable sort, and not one which the mother's surgery would have been\nequal to. The flesh of the finger had been burst by a cruel accident. It\nwas the doctor that sewed it up, and to all appearances it was he, and\nthe other independent witnesses, that did the main part of the\nsuffering; each stitch that he took made Clara wince slightly, but it\nshrivelled the others.\n\nI take pride in Clara's remark, because it shows that although she was\nonly three years old, her fireside teachings were already making her a\nthinker--a thinker and also an observer of proportions. I am not\nclaiming any credit for this. I furnished to the children worldly\nknowledge and wisdom, but was not competent to go higher, and so I left\ntheir spiritual education in the hands of the mother. A result of this\nmodesty of mine was made manifest to me in a very striking way, some\nyears afterward, when Jean was nine years old. We had recently arrived\nin Berlin, at the time, and had begun housekeeping in a furnished\napartment. One morning at breakfast a vast card arrived--an invitation.\nTo be precise, it was a command from the Emperor of Germany to come to\ndinner. During several months I had encountered socially, on the\nContinent, men bearing lofty titles; and all this while Jean was\nbecoming more and more impressed, and awed, and subdued, by these\nimposing events, for she had not been abroad before, and they were new\nto her--wonders out of dreamland turned into realities. The imperial\ncard was passed from hand to hand, around the table, and examined with\ninterest; when it reached Jean she exhibited excitement and emotion, but\nfor a time was quite speechless; then she said,\n\n\"Why, papa, if it keeps going on like this, pretty soon there won't be\nanybody left for you to get acquainted with but God.\"\n\nIt was not complimentary to think I was not acquainted in that quarter,\nbut she was young, and the young jump to conclusions without reflection.\n\nNecessarily, I did myself the honor to obey the command of the Emperor\nWilhelm II. Prince Heinrich, and six or eight other guests were\npresent. The Emperor did most of the talking, and he talked well, and in\nfaultless English. In both of these conspicuousnesses I was gratified to\nrecognize a resemblance to myself--a very exact resemblance; no, almost\nexact, but not quite that--a modified exactness, with the advantage in\nfavor of the Emperor. My English, like his, is nearly faultless; like\nhim I talk well; and when I have guests at dinner I prefer to do all the\ntalking myself. It is the best way, and the pleasantest. Also the most\nprofitable for the others.\n\nI was greatly pleased to perceive that his Majesty was familiar with my\nbooks, and that his attitude toward them was not uncomplimentary. In the\ncourse of his talk he said that my best and most valuable book was \"Old\nTimes on the Mississippi.\" I will refer to that remark again, presently.\n\nAn official who was well up in the Foreign Office at that time, and had\nserved under Bismarck for fourteen years, was still occupying his old\nplace under Chancellor Caprivi. Smith, I will call him of whom I am\nspeaking, though that is not his name. He was a special friend of mine,\nand I greatly enjoyed his society, although in order to have it it was\nnecessary for me to seek it as late as midnight, and not earlier. This\nwas because Government officials of his rank had to work all day, after\nnine in the morning, and then attend official banquets in the evening;\nwherefore they were usually unable to get life-restoring fresh air and\nexercise for their jaded minds and bodies earlier than midnight; then\nthey turned out, in groups of two or three, and gratefully and violently\ntramped the deserted streets until two in the morning. Smith had been in\nthe Government service, at home and abroad, for more than thirty years,\nand he was now sixty years old, or close upon it. He could not remember\na year in which he had had a vacation of more than a fortnight's length;\nhe was weary all through to the bones and the marrow, now, and was\nyearning for a holiday of a whole three months--yearning so longingly\nand so poignantly that he had at last made up his mind to make a\ndesperate cast for it and stand the consequences, whatever they might\nbe. It was against all rules to _ask_ for a vacation--quite against all\netiquette; the shock of it would paralyze the Chancellery; stem\netiquette and usage required another form: the applicant was not\nprivileged to ask for a vacation, he must send in his _resignation_. The\nchancellor would know that the applicant was not really trying to\nresign, and didn't want to resign, but was merely trying in this\nleft-handed way to get a vacation.\n\nThe night before the Emperor's dinner I helped Smith take his exercise,\nafter midnight, and he was full of his project. He had sent in his\nresignation that day, and was trembling for the result; and naturally,\nbecause it might possibly be that the chancellor would be happy to fill\nhis place with somebody else, in which case he could accept the\nresignation without comment and without offence. Smith was in a very\nanxious frame of mind; not that he feared that Caprivi was dissatisfied\nwith him, for he had no such fear; it was the Emperor that he was afraid\nof; he did not know how he stood with the Emperor. He said that while\napparently it was Caprivi who would decide his case, it was in reality\nthe Emperor who would perform that service; that the Emperor kept\npersonal watch upon everything, and that no official sparrow could fall\nto the ground without his privity and consent; that the resignation\nwould be laid before his Majesty, who would accept it or decline to\naccept it, according to his pleasure, and that then his pleasure in the\nmatter would be communicated by Caprivi. Smith said he would know his\nfate the next evening, after the imperial dinner; that when I should\nescort his Majesty into the large salon contiguous to the dining-room, I\nwould find there about thirty men--Cabinet ministers, admirals, generals\nand other great officials of the Empire--and that these men would be\nstanding talking together in little separate groups of two or three\npersons; that the Emperor would move from group to group and say a word\nto each, sometimes two words, sometimes ten words; and that the length\nof his speech, whether brief or not so brief, would indicate the exact\nstanding in the Emperor's regard, of the man accosted; and that by\nobserving this thermometer an expert could tell, to half a degree, the\nstate of the imperial weather in each case; that in Berlin, as in the\nimperial days of Rome, the Emperor was the sun, and that his smile or\nhis frown meant good fortune or disaster to the man upon whom it should\nfall. Smith suggested that I watch the thermometer while the Emperor\nwent his rounds of the groups; and added that if his Majesty talked four\nminutes with any person there present, it meant high favor, and that the\nsun was in the zenith, and cloudless, for that man.\n\nI mentally recorded that four-minute altitude, and resolved to see if\nany man there on that night stood in sufficient favor to achieve it.\n\nVery well. After the dinner I watched the Emperor while he passed from\ngroup to group, and privately I timed him with a watch. Two or three\ntimes he came near to reaching the four-minute altitude, but always he\nfell short a little. The last man he came to was Smith. He put his hand\non Smith's shoulder and began to talk to him; and when he finished, the\nthermometer had scored seven minutes! The company then moved toward the\nsmoking-room, where cigars, beer and anecdotes would be in brisk service\nuntil midnight, and as Smith passed me he whispered,\n\n\"That settles it. The chancellor will ask me how much of a vacation I\nwant, and I sha'n't be afraid to raise the limit. I shall call for six\nmonths.\"\n\n[Sidenote: (1891)]\n\n[Sidenote: (1899)]\n\nSmith's dream had been to spend his three months' vacation--in case he\ngot a vacation instead of the other thing--in one of the great capitals\nof the Continent--a capital whose name I shall suppress, at present. The\nnext day the chancellor asked him how much of a vacation he wanted, and\nwhere he desired to spend it. Smith told him. His prayer was granted,\nand rather more than granted. The chancellor augmented his salary and\nattached him to the German Embassy of that selected capital, giving him\na place of high dignity bearing an imposing title, and with nothing to\ndo except attend banquets of an extraordinary character at the Embassy,\nonce or twice a year. The term of his vacation was not specified; he was\nto continue it until requested to come back to his work in the Foreign\nOffice. This was in 1891. Eight years later Smith was passing through\nVienna, and he called upon me. There had been no interruption of his\nvacation, as yet, and there was no likelihood that an interruption of it\nwould occur while he should still be among the living.\n\n[_Dictated Monday, December 17, 1906._] As I have already remarked, \"Old\nTimes on the Mississippi\" got the Kaiser's best praise. It was after\nmidnight when I reached home; I was usually out until toward midnight,\nand the pleasure of being out late was poisoned, every night, by the\ndread of what I must meet at my front door--an indignant face, a\nresentful face, the face of the _portier_. The _portier_ was a\ntow-headed young German, twenty-two or three years old; and it had been\nfor some time apparent to me that he did not enjoy being hammered out of\nhis sleep, nights, to let me in. He never had a kind word for me, nor a\npleasant look. I couldn't understand it, since it was his business to be\non watch and let the occupants of the several flats in at any and all\nhours of the night. I could not see why he so distinctly failed to get\nreconciled to it.\n\nThe fact is, I was ignorantly violating, every night, a custom in which\nhe was commercially interested. I did not suspect this. No one had told\nme of the custom, and if I had been left to guess it, it would have\ntaken me a very long time to make a success of it. It was a custom which\nwas so well established and so universally recognized, that it had all\nthe force and dignity of law. By authority of this custom, whosoever\nentered a Berlin house after ten at night must pay a trifling toll to\nthe _portier_ for breaking his sleep to let him in. This tax was either\ntwo and a half cents or five cents, I don't remember which; but I had\nnever paid it, and didn't know I owed it, and as I had been residing in\nBerlin several weeks, I was so far in arrears that my presence in the\nGerman capital was getting to be a serious disaster to that young\nfellow.\n\nI arrived from the imperial dinner sorrowful and anxious, made my\npresence known and prepared myself to wait in patience the tedious\nminute or two which the _portier_ usually allowed himself to keep me\ntarrying--as a punishment. But this time there was no stage-wait; the\ndoor was instantly unlocked, unbolted, unchained and flung wide; and in\nit appeared the strange and welcome apparition of the _portier's_ round\nface all sunshine and smiles and welcome, in place of the black frowns\nand hostility that I was expecting. Plainly he had not come out of his\nbed: he had been waiting for me, watching for me. He began to pour out\nupon me in the most enthusiastic and energetic way a generous stream of\nGerman welcome and homage, meanwhile dragging me excitedly to his small\nbedroom beside the front door; there he made me bend down over a row of\nGerman translations of my books and said,\n\n\"There--you wrote them! I have found it out! By God, I did not know it\nbefore, and I ask a million pardons! That one there, the 'Old Times on\nthe Mississippi,' is the best book you ever wrote!\"\n\nThe usual number of those curious accidents which we call coincidences\nhave fallen to my share in this life, but for picturesqueness this one\nputs all the others in the shade: that a crowned head and a _portier_,\nthe very top of an empire and the very bottom of it, should pass the\nvery same criticism and deliver the very same verdict upon a book of\nmine--and almost in the same hour and the same breath--is a coincidence\nwhich out-coincidences any coincidence which I could have imagined with\nsuch powers of imagination as I have been favored with; and I have not\nbeen accustomed to regard them as being small or of an inferior quality.\nIt is always a satisfaction to me to remember that whereas I do not\nknow, for sure, what any other nation thinks of any one of my\ntwenty-three volumes, I do at least know for a certainty what one nation\nof fifty millions thinks of one of them, at any rate; for if the mutual\nverdict of the top of an empire and the bottom of it does not establish\nfor good and all the judgment of the entire nation concerning that book,\nthen the axiom that we can get a sure estimate of a thing by arriving at\na general average of all the opinions involved, is a fallacy.\n\n[_Dictated Monday, February 10, 1907._] Two months ago (December 6) I\nwas dictating a brief account of a private dinner in Berlin, where the\nEmperor of Germany was host and I the chief guest. Something happened\nday before yesterday which moves me to take up that matter again.\n\nAt the dinner his Majesty chatted briskly and entertainingly along in\neasy and flowing English, and now and then he interrupted himself to\naddress a remark to me, or to some other individual of the guests. When\nthe reply had been delivered, he resumed his talk. I noticed that the\ntable etiquette tallied with that which was the law of my house at home\nwhen we had guests: that is to say, the guests answered when the host\nfavored them with a remark, and then quieted down and behaved themselves\nuntil they got another chance. If I had been in the Emperor's chair and\nhe in mine, I should have felt infinitely comfortable and at home, and\nshould have done a world of talking, and done it well; but I was guest\nnow, and consequently I felt less at home. From old experience, I was\nfamiliar with the rules of the game, and familiar with their exercise\nfrom the high place of host; but I was not familiar with the trammelled\nand less satisfactory position of guest, therefore I felt a little\nstrange and out of place. But there was no animosity--no, the Emperor\nwas host, therefore according to my own rule he had a right to do the\ntalking, and it was my honorable duty to intrude no interruptions or\nother improvements, except upon invitation; and of course it could be\n_my_ turn some day: some day, on some friendly visit of inspection to\nAmerica, it might be my pleasure and distinction to have him as guest at\nmy table; then I would give him a rest, and a remarkably quiet time.\n\nIn one way there was a difference between his table and mine--for\ninstance, atmosphere; the guests stood in awe of him, and naturally they\nconferred that feeling upon me, for, after all, I am only human,\nalthough I regret it. When a guest answered a question he did it with\ndeferential voice and manner; he did not put any emotion into it, and he\ndid not spin it out, but got it out of his system as quickly as he\ncould, and then looked relieved. The Emperor was used to this\natmosphere, and it did not chill his blood; maybe it was an inspiration\nto him, for he was alert, brilliant and full of animation; also he was\nmost gracefully and felicitously complimentary to my books,--and I will\nremark here that the happy phrasing of a compliment is one of the rarest\nof human gifts, and the happy delivery of it another. In that other\nchapter I mentioned the high compliment which he paid to the book, \"Old\nTimes on the Mississippi,\" but there were others; among them some\ngratifying praise of my description in \"A Tramp Abroad\" of certain\nstriking phases of German student life. I mention these things here\nbecause I shall have occasion to hark back to them presently.\n\n[_Dictated Tuesday, February 12, 1907._]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThose stars indicate the long chapter which I dictated yesterday, a\nchapter which is much too long for magazine purposes, and therefore must\nwait until this Autobiography shall appear in book form, five years\nhence, when I am dead: five years according to my calculation,\ntwenty-seven years according to the prediction furnished me a week ago\nby the latest and most confident of all the palmists who have ever read\nmy future in my hand. The Emperor's dinner, and its beer-and-anecdote\nappendix, covered six hours of diligent industry, and this accounts for\nthe extraordinary length of that chapter.\n\nA couple of days ago a gentleman called upon me with a message. He had\njust arrived from Berlin, where he had been acting for our Government in\na matter concerning tariff revision, he being a member of the commission\nappointed by our Government to conduct our share of the affair. Upon the\ncompletion of the commission's labors, the Emperor invited the members\nof it to an audience, and in the course of the conversation he made a\nreference to me; continuing, he spoke of my chapter on the German\nlanguage in \"A Tramp Abroad,\" and characterized it by an adjective which\nis too complimentary for me to repeat here without bringing my modesty\nunder suspicion. Then he paid some compliments to \"The Innocents\nAbroad,\" and followed these with the remark that my account in one of my\nbooks of certain striking phases of German student life was the best and\ntruest that had ever been written. By this I perceive that he remembers\nthat dinner of sixteen years ago, for he said the same thing to me about\nthe student-chapter at that time. Next he said he wished this gentleman\nto convey two messages to America from him and deliver them--one to the\nPresident, the other to me. The wording of the message to me was:\n\n\"Convey to Mr. Clemens my kindest regards. Ask him if he remembers that\ndinner, and ask him why he didn't do any talking.\"\n\nWhy, how could I talk when he was talking? He \"held the age,\" as the\npoker-clergy say, and two can't talk at the same time with good effect.\nIt reminds me of the man who was reproached by a friend, who said,\n\n\"I think it a shame that you have not spoken to your wife for fifteen\nyears. How do you explain it? How do you justify it?\"\n\nThat poor man said,\n\n\"I didn't want to interrupt her.\"\n\nIf the Emperor had been at my table, he would not have suffered from my\nsilence, he would only have suffered from the sorrows of his own\nsolitude. If I were not too old to travel, I would go to Berlin and\nintroduce the etiquette of my own table, which tallies with the\netiquette observable at other royal tables. I would say, \"Invite me\nagain, your Majesty, and give me a chance\"; then I would courteously\nwaive rank and do all the talking myself. I thank his Majesty for his\nkind message, and am proud to have it and glad to express my sincere\nreciprocation of its sentiments.\n\n[_Dictated January 17, 1906._] ... Rev. Joseph T. Harris and I have been\nvisiting General Sickles. Once, twenty or twenty-five years ago, just as\nHarris was coming out of his gate Sunday morning to walk to his church\nand preach, a telegram was put into his hand. He read it immediately,\nand then, in a manner, collapsed. It said: \"General Sickles died last\nnight at midnight.\" [He had been a chaplain under Sickles through the\nwar.]\n\n[Sidenote: (1880.)]\n\nIt wasn't so. But no matter--it was so to Harris at the time. He walked\nalong--walked to the church--but his mind was far away. All his\naffection and homage and worship of his General had come to the fore.\nHis heart was full of these emotions. He hardly knew where he was. In\nhis pulpit, he stood up and began the service, but with a voice over\nwhich he had almost no command. The congregation had never seen him thus\nmoved, before, in his pulpit. They sat there and gazed at him and\nwondered what was the matter; because he was now reading, in this broken\nvoice and with occasional tears trickling down his face, what to them\nseemed a quite unemotional chapter--that one about Moses begat Aaron,\nand Aaron begat Deuteronomy, and Deuteronomy begat St. Peter, and St.\nPeter begat Cain, and Cain begat Abel--and he was going along with this,\nand half crying--his voice continually breaking. The congregation left\nthe church that morning without being able to account for this most\nextraordinary thing--as it seemed to them. That a man who had been a\nsoldier for more than four years, and who had preached in that pulpit so\nmany, many times on really moving subjects, without even the quiver of a\nlip, should break all down over the Begats, they couldn't understand.\nBut there it is--any one can see how such a mystery as that would arouse\nthe curiosity of those people to the boiling-point.\n\nHarris has had many adventures. He has more adventures in a year than\nanybody else has in five. One Saturday night he noticed a bottle on his\nuncle's dressing-bureau. He thought the label said \"Hair Restorer,\" and\nhe took it in his room and gave his head a good drenching and sousing\nwith it and carried it back and thought no more about it. Next morning\nwhen he got up his head was a bright green! He sent around everywhere\nand couldn't get a substitute preacher, so he had to go to his church\nhimself and preach--and he did it. He hadn't a sermon in his barrel--as\nit happened--of any lightsome character, so he had to preach a very\ngrave one--a very serious one--and it made the matter worse. The gravity\nof the sermon did not harmonize with the gayety of his head, and the\npeople sat all through it with handkerchiefs stuffed in their mouths to\ntry to keep down their joy. And Harris told me that he was sure he never\nhad seen his congregation--the whole body of his congregation--the\n_entire_ body of his congregation--absorbed in interest in his sermon,\nfrom beginning to end, before. Always there had been an aspect of\nindifference, here and there, or wandering, somewhere; but this time\nthere was nothing of the kind. Those people sat there as if they\nthought, \"Good for this day and train only: we must have all there is of\nthis show, not waste any of it.\" And he said that when he came down out\nof the pulpit more people waited to shake him by the hand and tell him\nwhat a good sermon it was, than ever before. And it seemed a pity that\nthese people should do these fictions in such a place--right in the\nchurch--when it was quite plain they were not interested in the sermon\nat all; they only wanted to get a near view of his head.\n\nWell, Harris said--no, Harris didn't say, _I_ say, that as the days went\non and Sunday followed Sunday, the interest in Harris's hair grew and\ngrew; because it didn't stay merely and monotonously green, it took on\ndeeper and deeper shades of green; and then it would change and become\nreddish, and would go from that to some other color--purplish,\nyellowish, bluish, and so on--but it was never a solid color. It was\nalways mottled. And each Sunday it was a little more interesting than it\nwas the Sunday before--and Harris's head became famous, and people came\nfrom New York, and Boston, and South Carolina, and Japan, and so on, to\nlook. There wasn't seating-capacity for all the people that came while\nhis head was undergoing these various and fascinating mottlings. And it\nwas a good thing in several ways, because the business had been\nlanguishing a little, and now a lot of people joined the church so that\nthey could have the show, and it was the beginning of a prosperity for\nthat church which has never diminished in all these years.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCXII.\n\nAPRIL 5, 1907.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--XV.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n[_Dictated October 8, 1906._]\n\n_From Susy's Biography of Me._\n\n\n     Papa says that if the collera comes here he will take Sour Mash to\n     the mountains.\n\n\n[Sidenote: (1885.)]\n\nThis remark about the cat is followed by various entries, covering a\nmonth, in which Jean, General Grant, the sculptor Gerhardt, Mrs. Candace\nWheeler, Miss Dora Wheeler, Mr. Frank Stockton, Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge,\nand the widow of General Custer appear and drift in procession across\nthe page, then vanish forever from the Biography; then Susy drops this\nremark in the wake of the vanished procession:\n\n\n     Sour Mash is a constant source of anxiety, care, and pleasure to\n     papa.\n\n\nI did, in truth, think a great deal of that old tortoise-shell harlot;\nbut I haven't a doubt that in order to impress Susy I was pretending\nagonies of solicitude which I didn't honestly feel. Sour Mash never gave\nme any real anxiety; she was always able to take care of herself, and\nshe was ostentatiously vain of the fact; vain of it to a degree which\noften made me ashamed of her, much as I esteemed her.\n\nMany persons would like to have the society of cats during the summer\nvacation in the country, but they deny themselves this pleasure because\nthey think they must either take the cats along when they return to the\ncity, where they would be a trouble and an encumbrance, or leave them in\nthe country, houseless and homeless. These people have no ingenuity, no\ninvention, no wisdom; or it would occur to them to do as I do: rent cats\nby the month for the summer and return them to their good homes at the\nend of it. Early last May I rented a kitten of a farmer's wife, by the\nmonth; then I got a discount by taking three. They have been good\ncompany for about five months now, and are still kittens--at least they\nhave not grown much, and to all intents and purposes are still kittens,\nand as full of romping energy and enthusiasm as they were in the\nbeginning. This is remarkable. I am an expert in cats, but I have not\nseen a kitten keep its kittenhood nearly so long before.\n\nThese are beautiful creatures--these triplets. Two of them wear the\nblackest and shiniest and thickest of sealskin vestments all over their\nbodies except the lower half of their faces and the terminations of\ntheir paws. The black masks reach down below the eyes, therefore when\nthe eyes are closed they are not visible; the rest of the face, and the\ngloves and stockings, are snow white. These markings are just the same\non both cats--so exactly the same that when you call one the other is\nlikely to answer, because they cannot tell each other apart. Since the\ncats are precisely alike, and can't be told apart by any of us, they do\nnot need two names, so they have but one between them. We call both of\nthem Sackcloth, and we call the gray one Ashes. I believe I have never\nseen such intelligent cats as these before. They are full of the nicest\ndiscriminations. When I read German aloud they weep; you can see the\ntears run down. It shows what pathos there is in the German tongue. I\nhad not noticed before that all German is pathetic, no matter what the\nsubject is nor how it is treated. It was these humble observers that\nbrought the knowledge to me. I have tried all kinds of German on these\ncats; romance, poetry, philosophy, theology, market reports; and the\nresult has always been the same--the cats sob, and let the tears run\ndown, which shows that all German is pathetic. French is not a familiar\ntongue to me, and the pronunciation is difficult, and comes out of me\nencumbered with a Missouri accent; but the cats like it, and when I make\nimpassioned speeches in that language they sit in a row and put up their\npaws, palm to palm, and frantically give thanks. Hardly any cats are\naffected by music, but these are; when I sing they go reverently away,\nshowing how deeply they feel it. Sour Mash never cared for these things.\nShe had many noble qualities, but at bottom she was not refined, and\ncared little or nothing for theology and the arts.\n\nIt is a pity to say it, but these cats are not above the grade of human\nbeings, for I know by certain signs that they are not sincere in their\nexhibitions of emotion, but exhibit them merely to show off and attract\nattention--conduct which is distinctly human, yet with a difference:\nthey do not know enough to conceal their desire to show off, but the\ngrown human being does. What is ambition? It is only the desire to be\nconspicuous. The desire for fame is only the desire to be continuously\nconspicuous and attract attention and be talked about.\n\nThese cats are like human beings in another way: when Ashes began to\nwork his fictitious emotions, and show off, the other members of the\nfirm followed suit, in order to be in the fashion. That is the way with\nhuman beings; they are afraid to be outside; whatever the fashion\nhappens to be, they conform to it, whether it be a pleasant fashion or\nthe reverse, they lacking the courage to ignore it and go their own way.\nAll human beings would like to dress in loose and comfortable and highly\ncolored and showy garments, and they had their desire until a century\nago, when a king, or some other influential ass, introduced sombre hues\nand discomfort and ugly designs into masculine clothing. The meek public\nsurrendered to the outrage, and by consequence we are in that odious\ncaptivity to-day, and are likely to remain in it for a long time to\ncome.\n\nFortunately the women were not included in the disaster, and so their\ngraces and their beauty still have the enhancing help of delicate\nfabrics and varied and beautiful colors. Their clothing makes a great\nopera audience an enchanting spectacle, a delight to the eye and the\nspirit, a Garden of Eden for charm and color. The men, clothed in dismal\nblack, are scattered here and there and everywhere over the Garden, like\nso many charred stumps, and they damage the effect, but cannot\nannihilate it.\n\nIn summer we poor creatures have a respite, and may clothe ourselves in\nwhite garments; loose, soft, and in some degree shapely; but in the\nwinter--the sombre winter, the depressing winter, the cheerless winter,\nwhen white clothes and bright colors are especially needed to brighten\nour spirits and lift them up--we all conform to the prevailing insanity,\nand go about in dreary black, each man doing it because the others do\nit, and not because he wants to. They are really no sincerer than\nSackcloth and Ashes. At bottom the Sackcloths do not care to exhibit\ntheir emotions when I am performing before them, they only do it because\nAshes started it.\n\nI would like to dress in a loose and flowing costume made all of silks\nand velvets, resplendent with all the stunning dyes of the rainbow, and\nso would every sane man I have ever known; but none of us dares to\nventure it. There is such a thing as carrying conspicuousness to the\npoint of discomfort; and if I should appear on Fifth Avenue on a Sunday\nmorning, at church-time, clothed as I would like to be clothed, the\nchurches would be vacant, and I should have all the congregations\ntagging after me, to look, and secretly envy, and publicly scoff. It is\nthe way human beings are made; they are always keeping their real\nfeelings shut up inside, and publicly exploiting their fictitious ones.\n\nNext after fine colors, I like plain white. One of my sorrows, when the\nsummer ends, is that I must put off my cheery and comfortable white\nclothes and enter for the winter into the depressing captivity of the\nshapeless and degrading black ones. It is mid-October now, and the\nweather is growing cold up here in the New Hampshire hills, but it will\nnot succeed in freezing me out of these white garments, for here the\nneighbors are few, and it is only of crowds that I am afraid. I made a\nbrave experiment, the other night, to see how it would feel to shock a\ncrowd with these unseasonable clothes, and also to see how long it might\ntake the crowd to reconcile itself to them and stop looking astonished\nand outraged. On a stormy evening I made a talk before a full house, in\nthe village, clothed like a ghost, and looking as conspicuously, all\nsolitary and alone on that platform, as any ghost could have looked; and\nI found, to my gratification, that it took the house less than ten\nminutes to forget about the ghost and give its attention to the tidings\nI had brought.\n\nI am nearly seventy-one, and I recognize that my age has given me a good\nmany privileges; valuable privileges; privileges which are not granted\nto younger persons. Little by little I hope to get together courage\nenough to wear white clothes all through the winter, in New York. It\nwill be a great satisfaction to me to show off in this way; and perhaps\nthe largest of all the satisfactions will be the knowledge that every\nscoffer, of my sex, will secretly envy me and wish he dared to follow my\nlead.\n\nThat mention that I have acquired new and great privileges by grace of\nmy age, is not an uncalculated remark. When I passed the seventieth\nmile-stone, ten months ago, I instantly realized that I had entered a\nnew country and a new atmosphere. To all the public I was become\nrecognizably old, undeniably old; and from that moment everybody assumed\na new attitude toward me--the reverent attitude granted by custom to\nage--and straightway the stream of generous new privileges began to flow\nin upon me and refresh my life. Since then, I have lived an ideal\nexistence; and I now believe what Choate said last March, and which at\nthe time I didn't credit: that the best of life begins at seventy; for\nthen your work is done; you know that you have done your best, let the\nquality of the work be what it may; that you have earned your holiday--a\nholiday of peace and contentment--and that thenceforth, to the setting\nof your sun, nothing will break it, nothing interrupt it.\n\n[_Dictated January 22, 1907._] In an earlier chapter I inserted some\nverses beginning \"Love Came at Dawn\" which had been found among Susy's\npapers after her death. I was not able to say that they were hers, but I\njudged that they might be, for the reason that she had not enclosed them\nin quotation marks according to her habit when storing up treasures\ngathered from other people. Stedman was not able to determine the\nauthorship for me, as the verses were new to him, but the authorship has\nnow been traced. The verses were written by William Wilfred Campbell, a\nCanadian poet, and they form a part of the contents of his book called\n\"Beyond the Hills of Dream.\"\n\nThe authorship of the beautiful lines which my wife and I inscribed upon\nSusy's gravestone was untraceable for a time. We had found them in a\nbook in India, but had lost the book and with it the author's name. But\nin time an application to the editor of \"Notes and Queries\" furnished me\nthe author's name,[7] and it has been added to the verses upon the\ngravestone.\n\nLast night, at a dinner-party where I was present, Mr. Peter Dunne\nDooley handed to the host several dollars, in satisfaction of a lost\nbet. I seemed to see an opportunity to better my condition, and I\ninvited Dooley, apparently disinterestedly, to come to my house Friday\nand play billiards. He accepted, and I judge that there is going to be a\ndeficit in the Dooley treasury as a result. In great qualities of the\nheart and brain, Dooley is gifted beyond all propriety. He is brilliant;\nhe is an expert with his pen, and he easily stands at the head of all\nthe satirists of this generation--but he is going to walk in darkness\nFriday afternoon. It will be a fraternal kindness to teach him that with\nall his light and culture, he does not know all the valuable things; and\nit will also be a fraternal kindness to him to complete his education\nfor him--and I shall do this on Friday, and send him home in that\nperfected condition.\n\nI possess a billiard secret which can be valuable to the Dooley sept,\nafter I shall have conferred it upon Dooley--for a consideration. It is\na discovery which I made by accident, thirty-eight years ago, in my\nfather-in-law's house in Elmira. There was a scarred and battered and\nancient billiard-table in the garret, and along with it a peck of\nchecked and chipped balls, and a rackful of crooked and headless cues. I\nplayed solitaire up there every day with that difficult outfit. The\ntable was not level, but slanted sharply to the southeast; there wasn't\na ball that was round, or would complete the journey you started it on,\nbut would always get tired and stop half-way and settle, with a jolty\nwabble, to a standstill on its chipped side. I tried making counts with\nfour balls, but found it difficult and discouraging, so I added a fifth\nball, then a sixth, then a seventh, and kept on adding until at last I\nhad twelve balls on the table and a thirteenth to play with. My game was\ncaroms--caroms solely--caroms plain, or caroms with cushion to\nhelp--anything that could furnish a count. In the course of time I found\nto my astonishment that I was never able to run fifteen, under any\ncircumstances. By huddling the balls advantageously in the beginning, I\ncould now and then coax fourteen out of them, but I couldn't reach\nfifteen by either luck or skill. Sometimes the balls would get scattered\ninto difficult positions and defeat me in that way; sometimes if I\nmanaged to keep them together, I would freeze; and always when I froze,\nand had to play away from the contact, there was sure to be nothing to\nplay at but a wide and uninhabited vacancy.\n\nOne day Mr. Dalton called on my brother-in-law, on a matter of business,\nand I was asked if I could entertain him awhile, until my brother-in-law\nshould finish an engagement with another gentleman. I said I could, and\ntook him up to the billiard-table. I had played with him many times at\nthe club, and knew that he could play billiards tolerably well--only\ntolerably well--but not any better than I could. He and I were just a\nmatch. He didn't know our table; he didn't know those balls; he didn't\nknow those warped and headless cues; he didn't know the southeastern\nslant of the table, and how to allow for it. I judged it would be safe\nand profitable to offer him a bet on my scheme. I emptied the avalanche\nof thirteen balls on the table and said:\n\n\"Take a ball and begin, Mr. Dalton. How many can you run with an outlay\nlike that?\"\n\nHe said, with the half-affronted air of a mathematician who has been\nasked how much of the multiplication table he can recite without a\nbreak:\n\n\"I suppose a million--eight hundred thousand, anyway.\"\n\nI said \"You shall hove the privilege of placing the balls to suit\nyourself, and I want to bet you a dollar that you can't run fifteen.\"\n\nI will not dwell upon the sequel. At the end of an hour his face was\nred, and wet with perspiration; his outer garments lay scattered here\nand there over the place; he was the angriest man in the State, and\nthere wasn't a rag or remnant of an injurious adjective left in him\nanywhere--and I had all his small change.\n\nWhen the summer was over, we went home to Hartford, and one day Mr.\nGeorge Robertson arrived from Boston with two or three hours to spare\nbetween then and the return train, and as he was a young gentleman to\nwhom we were in debt for much social pleasure, it was my duty, and a\nwelcome duty, to make his two or three hours interesting for him. So I\ntook him up-stairs and set up my billiard scheme for his comfort. Mine\nwas a good table, in perfect repair; the cues were in perfect condition;\nthe balls were ivory, and flawless--but I knew that Mr. Robertson was my\nprey, just the same, for by exhaustive tests with this outfit I had\nfound that my limit was thirty-one. I had proved to my satisfaction that\nwhereas I could not fairly expect to get more than six or eight or a\ndozen caroms out of a run, I could now and then reach twenty and\ntwenty-five, and after a long procession of failures finally achieve a\nrun of thirty-one; but in no case had I ever got beyond thirty-one.\nRobertson's game, as I knew, was a little better than mine, so I\nresolved to require him to make thirty-two. I believed it would\nentertain him. He was one of these brisk and hearty and cheery and\nself-satisfied young fellows who are brimful of confidence, and who\nplunge with grateful eagerness into any enterprise that offers a showy\ntest of their abilities. I emptied the balls on the table and said,\n\n\"Take a cue and a ball, George, and begin. How many caroms do you think\nyou can make out of that layout?\"\n\nHe laughed the laugh of the gay and the care-free, as became his youth\nand inexperience, and said,\n\n\"I can punch caroms out of that bunch a week without a break.\"\n\nI said \"Place the balls to suit yourself, and begin.\"\n\nConfidence is a necessary thing in billiards, but overconfidence is bad.\nGeorge went at his task with much too much lightsomeness of spirit and\ndisrespect for the situation. On his first shot he scored three caroms;\non his second shot he scored four caroms; and on his third shot he\nmissed as simple a carom as could be devised. He was very much\nastonished, and said he would not have supposed that careful play could\nbe needed with an acre of bunched balls in front of a person.\n\nHe began again, and played more carefully, but still with too much\nlightsomeness; he couldn't seem to learn to take the situation\nseriously. He made about a dozen caroms and broke down. He was irritated\nwith himself now, and he thought he caught me laughing. He didn't. I do\nnot laugh publicly at my client when this game is going on; I only do it\ninside--or save it for after the exhibition is over. But he thought he\nhad caught me laughing, and it increased his irritation. Of course I\nknew he thought I was laughing privately--for I was experienced; they\nall think that, and it has a good effect; it sharpens their annoyance\nand debilitates their play.\n\nHe made another trial and failed. Once more he was astonished; once more\nhe was humiliated--and as for his anger, it rose to summer-heat. He\narranged the balls again, grouping them carefully, and said he would win\nthis time, or die. When a client reaches this condition, it is a good\ntime to damage his nerve further, and this can always be done by saying\nsome little mocking thing or other that has the outside appearance of a\nfriendly remark--so I employed this art. I suggested that a bet might\ntauten his nerves, and that I would offer one, but that as I did not\nwant it to be an expense to him, but only a help, I would make it\nsmall--a cigar, if he were willing--a cigar that he would fail again;\nnot an expensive one, but a cheap native one, of the Crown Jewel breed,\nsuch as is manufactured in Hartford for the clergy. It set him afire all\nover! I could see the blue flame issue from his eyes. He said,\n\n\"Make it a hundred!--and no Connecticut cabbage-leaf product, but\nHavana, $25 the box!\"\n\nI took him up, but said I was sorry to see him do this, because it did\nnot seem to me right or fair for me to rob him under our own roof, when\nhe had been so kind to us. He said, with energy and acrimony:\n\n\"You take care of your own pocket, if you'll be so good, and leave me to\ntake care of mine.\"\n\nAnd he plunged at the congress of balls with a vindictiveness which was\ninfinitely contenting to me. He scored a failure--and began to undress.\nI knew it would come to that, for he was in the condition now that Mr.\nDooley will be in at about that stage of the contest on Friday\nafternoon. A clothes-rack will be provided for Mr. Dooley to hang his\nthings on as fast as he shall from time to time shed them. George raised\nhis voice four degrees and flung out the challenge--\n\n\"Double or quits!\"\n\n\"Done,\" I responded, in the gentle and compassionate voice of one who is\napparently getting sorrier and sorrier.\n\nThere was an hour and a half of straight disaster after that, and if it\nwas a sin to enjoy it, it is no matter--I did enjoy it. It is half a\nlifetime ago, but I enjoy it yet, every time I think of it George made\nfailure after failure. His fury increased with each failure as he\nscored it. With each defeat he flung off one or another rag of his\nraiment, and every time he started on a fresh inning he made it \"double\nor quits\" once more. Twice he reached thirty and broke down; once he\nreached thirty-one and broke down. These \"nears\" made him frantic, and I\nbelieve I was never so happy in my life, except the time, a few years\nlater, when the Rev. J. H. Twichell and I walked to Boston and he had\nthe celebrated conversation with the hostler at the Inn at Ashford,\nConnecticut.\n\nAt last, when we were notified that Patrick was at the door to drive him\nto his train, George owed me five thousand cigars at twenty-five cents\napiece, and I was so sorry I could have hugged him. But he shouted,\n\n\"Give me ten minutes more!\" and added stormily, \"it's double or quits\nagain, and I'll win out free of debt or owe you ten thousand cigars, and\nyou'll pay the funeral expenses.\"\n\nHe began on his final effort, and I believe that in all my experience\namong both amateurs and experts, I have never seen a cue so carefully\nhandled in my lifetime as George handled his upon this intensely\ninteresting occasion. He got safely up to twenty-five, and then ceased\nto breathe. So did I. He labored along, and added a point, another\npoint, still another point, and finally reached thirty-one. He stopped\nthere, and we took a breath. By this time the balls were scattered all\ndown the cushions, about a foot or two apart, and there wasn't a shot in\nsight anywhere that any man might hope to make. In a burst of anger and\nconfessed defeat, he sent his ball flying around the table at random,\nand it crotched a ball that was packed against the cushion and sprang\nacross to a ball against the bank on the opposite side, and counted!\n\nHis luck had set him free, and he didn't owe me anything. He had used up\nall his spare time, but we carried his clothes to the carriage, and he\ndressed on his way to the station, greatly wondered at and admired by\nthe ladies, as he drove along--but he got his train.\n\nI am very fond of Mr. Dooley, and shall await his coming with\naffectionate and pecuniary interest.\n\n_P.S. Saturday._ He has been here. Let us not talk about it.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[7] Robert Richardson, deceased, of Australia.\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCXIII.\n\nAPRIL 19, 1907.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--XVI.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n[_Dictated January 12th, 1905._] ... But I am used to having my\nstatements discounted. My mother began it before I was seven years old.\nYet all through my life my facts have had a substratum of truth, and\ntherefore they were not without preciousness. Any person who is familiar\nwith me knows how to strike my average, and therefore knows how to get\nat the jewel of any fact of mine and dig it out of its blue-clay matrix.\nMy mother knew that art. When I was seven or eight, or ten, or twelve\nyears old--along there--a neighbor said to her,\n\n\"Do you ever believe anything that that boy says?\"\n\nMy mother said,\n\n\"He is the well-spring of truth, but you can't bring up the whole well\nwith one bucket\"--and she added, \"I know his average, therefore he never\ndeceives me. I discount him thirty per cent. for embroidery, and what is\nleft is perfect and priceless truth, without a flaw in it anywhere.\"\n\nNow to make a jump of forty years, without breaking the connection: that\nword \"embroidery\" was used again in my presence and concerning me, when\nI was fifty years old, one night at Rev. Frank Goodwin's house in\nHartford, at a meeting of the Monday Evening Club. The Monday Evening\nClub still exists. It was founded about forty-five years ago by that\ntheological giant, Rev. Dr. Bushnell, and some comrades of his, men of\nlarge intellectual calibre and more or less distinction, local or\nnational. I was admitted to membership in it in the fall of 1871 and was\nan active member thenceforth until I left Hartford in the summer of\n1891. The membership was restricted, in those days, to eighteen--\npossibly twenty. The meetings began about the 1st of October and were\nheld in the private houses of the members every fortnight thereafter\nthroughout the cold months until the 1st of May. Usually there were a\ndozen members present--sometimes as many as fifteen. There was an essay\nand a discussion. The essayists followed each other in alphabetical\norder through the season. The essayist could choose his own subject and\ntalk twenty minutes on it, from MS. or orally, according to his\npreference. Then the discussion followed, and each member present was\nallowed ten minutes in which to express his views. The wives of these\npeople were always present. It was their privilege. It was also their\nprivilege to keep still; they were not allowed to throw any light upon\nthe discussion. After the discussion there was a supper, and talk, and\ncigars. This supper began at ten o'clock promptly, and the company broke\nup and went away at midnight. At least they did except upon one\noccasion. In my recent Birthday speech I remarked upon the fact that I\nhave always bought cheap cigars, and that is true. I have never bought\ncostly ones.\n\nWell, that night at the Club meeting--as I was saying--George, our\ncolored butler, came to me when the supper was nearly over, and I\nnoticed that he was pale. Normally his complexion was a clear black, and\nvery handsome, but now it had modified to old amber. He said:\n\n\"Mr. Clemens, what are we going to do? There is not a cigar in the house\nbut those old Wheeling long nines. Can't nobody smoke them but you. They\nkill at thirty yards. It is too late to telephone--we couldn't get any\ncigars out from town--what can we do? Ain't it best to say nothing, and\nlet on that we didn't think?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said, \"that would not be honest. Fetch out the long\nnines\"--which he did.\n\nI had just come across those \"long nines\" a few days or a week before. I\nhadn't seen a long nine for years. When I was a cub pilot on the\nMississippi in the late '50's, I had had a great affection for them,\nbecause they were not only--to my mind--perfect, but you could get a\nbasketful of them for a cent--or a dime, they didn't use cents out there\nin those days. So when I saw them advertised in Hartford I sent for a\nthousand at once. They came out to me in badly battered and\ndisreputable-looking old square pasteboard boxes, two hundred in a box.\nGeorge brought a box, which was caved in on all sides, looking the worst\nit could, and began to pass them around. The conversation had been\nbrilliantly animated up to that moment--but now a frost fell upon the\ncompany. That is to say, not all of a sudden, but the frost fell upon\neach man as he took up a cigar and held it poised in the air--and there,\nin the middle, his sentence broke off. That kind of thing went on all\naround the table, until when George had completed his crime the whole\nplace was full of a thick solemnity and silence.\n\nThose men began to light the cigars. Rev. Dr. Parker was the first man\nto light. He took three or four heroic whiffs--then gave it up. He got\nup with the remark that he had to go to the bedside of a sick\nparishioner. He started out. Rev. Dr. Burton was the next man. He took\nonly one whiff, and followed Parker. He furnished a pretext, and you\ncould see by the sound of his voice that he didn't think much of the\npretext, and was vexed with Parker for getting in ahead with a\nfictitious ailing client. Rev. Mr. Twichell followed, and said he had to\ngo now because he must take the midnight train for Boston. Boston was\nthe first place that occurred to him, I suppose.\n\nIt was only a quarter to eleven when they began to distribute pretexts.\nAt ten minutes to eleven all those people were out of the house. When\nnobody was left but George and me I was cheerful--I had no compunctions\nof conscience, no griefs of any kind. But George was beyond speech,\nbecause he held the honor and credit of the family above his own, and he\nwas ashamed that this smirch had been put upon it. I told him to go to\nbed and try to sleep it off. I went to bed myself. At breakfast in the\nmorning when George was passing a cup of coffee, I saw it tremble in his\nhand. I knew by that sign that there was something on his mind. He\nbrought the cup to me and asked impressively,\n\n\"Mr. Clemens, how far is it from the front door to the upper gate?\"\n\nI said, \"It is a hundred and twenty-five steps.\"\n\nHe said, \"Mr. Clemens, you can start at the front door and you can go\nplumb to the upper gate and tread on one of them cigars every time.\"\n\nIt wasn't true in detail, but in essentials it was.\n\nThe subject under discussion on the night in question was Dreams. The\ntalk passed from mouth to mouth in the usual serene way.\n\nI do not now remember what form my views concerning dreams took at the\ntime. I don't remember now what my notion about dreams was then, but I\ndo remember telling a dream by way of illustrating some detail of my\nspeech, and I also remember that when I had finished it Rev. Dr. Burton\nmade that doubting remark which contained that word I have already\nspoken of as having been uttered by my mother, in some such connection,\nforty or fifty years before. I was probably engaged in trying to make\nthose people believe that now and then, by some accident, or otherwise,\na dream which was prophetic turned up in the dreamer's mind. The date of\nmy memorable dream was about the beginning of May, 1858. It was a\nremarkable dream, and I had been telling it several times every year for\nmore than fifteen years--and now I was telling it again, here in the\nclub.\n\nIn 1858 I was a steersman on board the swift and popular New Orleans and\nSt. Louis packet, \"Pennsylvania,\" Captain Kleinfelter. I had been lent\nto Mr. Brown, one of the pilots of the \"Pennsylvania,\" by my owner, Mr.\nHorace E. Bixby, and I had been steering for Brown about eighteen\nmonths, I think. Then in the early days of May, 1858, came a tragic\ntrip--the last trip of that fleet and famous steamboat. I have told all\nabout it in one of my books called \"Old Times on the Mississippi.\" But\nit is not likely that I told the dream in that book. It is impossible\nthat I can ever have published it, I think, because I never wanted my\nmother to know about the dream, and she lived several years after I\npublished that volume.\n\nI had found a place on the \"Pennsylvania\" for my brother Henry, who was\ntwo years my junior. It was not a place of profit, it was only a place\nof promise. He was \"mud\" clerk. Mud clerks received no salary, but they\nwere in the line of promotion. They could become, presently, third clerk\nand second clerk, then chief clerk--that is to say, purser. The dream\nbegins when Henry had been mud clerk about three months. We were lying\nin port at St. Louis. Pilots and steersmen had nothing to do during the\nthree days that the boat lay in port in St. Louis and New Orleans, but\nthe mud clerk had to begin his labors at dawn and continue them into the\nnight, by the light of pine-knot torches. Henry and I, moneyless and\nunsalaried, had billeted ourselves upon our brother-in-law, Mr. Moffet,\nas night lodgers while in port. We took our meals on board the boat. No,\nI mean _I_ lodged at the house, not Henry. He spent the _evenings_ at\nthe house, from nine until eleven, then went to the boat to be ready for\nhis early duties. On the night of the dream he started away at eleven,\nshaking hands with the family, and said good-by according to custom. I\nmay mention that hand-shaking as a good-by was not merely the custom of\nthat family, but the custom of the region--the custom of Missouri, I may\nsay. In all my life, up to that time, I had never seen one member of the\nClemens family kiss another one--except once. When my father lay dying\nin our home in Hannibal--the 24th of March, 1847--he put his arm around\nmy sister's neck and drew her down and kissed her, saying \"Let me die.\"\nI remember that, and I remember the death rattle which swiftly followed\nthose words, which were his last. These good-bys of Henry's were always\nexecuted in the family sitting-room on the second floor, and Henry went\nfrom that room and down-stairs without further ceremony. But this time\nmy mother went with him to the head of the stairs and said good-by\n_again_. As I remember it she was moved to this by something in Henry's\nmanner, and she remained at the head of the stairs while he descended.\nWhen he reached the door he hesitated, and climbed the stairs and shook\nhands good-by once more.\n\nIn the morning, when I awoke I had been dreaming, and the dream was so\nvivid, so like reality, that it deceived me, and I thought it was real.\nIn the dream I had seen Henry a corpse. He lay in a metallic\nburial-case. He was dressed in a suit of my clothing, and on his breast\nlay a great bouquet of flowers, mainly white roses, with a red rose in\nthe centre. The casket stood upon a couple of chairs. I dressed, and\nmoved toward that door, thinking I would go in there and look at it, but\nI changed my mind. I thought I could not yet bear to meet my mother. I\nthought I would wait awhile and make some preparation for that ordeal.\nThe house was in Locust Street, a little above 13th, and I walked to\n14th, and to the middle of the block beyond, before it suddenly flashed\nupon me that there was nothing real about this--it was only a dream. I\ncan still feel something of the grateful upheaval of joy of that moment,\nand I can also still feel the remnant of doubt, the suspicion that maybe\nit _was_ real, after all. I returned to the house almost on a run, flew\nup the stairs two or three steps at a jump, and rushed into that\nsitting-room--and was made glad again, for there was no casket there.\n\nWe made the usual eventless trip to New Orleans--no, it was not\neventless, for it was on the way down that I had the fight with Mr.\nBrown[8] which resulted in his requiring that I be left ashore at New\nOrleans. In New Orleans I always had a job. It was my privilege to watch\nthe freight-piles from seven in the evening until seven in the morning,\nand get three dollars for it. It was a three-night job and occurred\nevery thirty-five days. Henry always joined my watch about nine in the\nevening, when his own duties were ended, and we often walked my rounds\nand chatted together until midnight. This time we were to part, and so\nthe night before the boat sailed I gave Henry some advice. I said, \"In\ncase of disaster to the boat, don't lose your head--leave that unwisdom\nto the passengers--they are competent--they'll attend to it. But you\nrush for the hurricane-deck, and astern to one of the life-boats lashed\naft the wheel-house, and obey the mate's orders--thus you will be\nuseful. When the boat is launched, give such help as you can in getting\nthe women and children into it, and be sure you don't try to get into it\nyourself. It is summer weather, the river is only a mile wide, as a\nrule, and you can swim that without any trouble.\" Two or three days\nafterward the boat's boilers exploded at Ship Island, below Memphis,\nearly one morning--and what happened afterward I have already told in\n\"Old Times on the Mississippi.\" As related there, I followed the\n\"Pennsylvania\" about a day later, on another boat, and we began to get\nnews of the disaster at every port we touched at, and so by the time we\nreached Memphis we knew all about it.\n\nI found Henry stretched upon a mattress on the floor of a great\nbuilding, along with thirty or forty other scalded and wounded persons,\nand was promptly informed, by some indiscreet person, that he had\ninhaled steam; that his body was badly scalded, and that he would live\nbut a little while; also, I was told that the physicians and nurses were\ngiving their whole attention to persons who had a chance of being saved.\nThey were short-handed in the matter of physicians and nurses; and Henry\nand such others as were considered to be fatally hurt were receiving\nonly such attention as could be spared, from time to time, from the more\nurgent cases. But Dr. Peyton, a fine and large-hearted old physician of\ngreat reputation in the community, gave me his sympathy and took\nvigorous hold of the case, and in about a week he had brought Henry\naround. Dr. Peyton never committed himself with prognostications which\nmight not materialize, but at eleven o'clock one night he told me that\nHenry was out of danger, and would get well. Then he said, \"At midnight\nthese poor fellows lying here and there all over this place will begin\nto mourn and mutter and lament and make outcries, and if this commotion\nshould disturb Henry it will be bad for him; therefore ask the physician\non watch to give him an eighth of a grain of morphine, but this is not\nto be done unless Henry shall show signs that he is being disturbed.\"\n\nOh well, never mind the rest of it. The physicians on watch were young\nfellows hardly out of the medical college, and they made a mistake--they\nhad no way of measuring the eighth of a grain of morphine, so they\nguessed at it and gave him a vast quantity heaped on the end of a\nknife-blade, and the fatal effects were soon apparent. I think he died\nabout dawn, I don't remember as to that. He was carried to the dead-room\nand I went away for a while to a citizen's house and slept off some of\nmy accumulated fatigue--and meantime something was happening. The\ncoffins provided for the dead were of unpainted white pine, but in this\ninstance some of the ladies of Memphis had made up a fund of sixty\ndollars and bought a metallic case, and when I came back and entered the\ndead-room Henry lay in that open case, and he was dressed in a suit of\nmy clothing. He had borrowed it without my knowledge during our last\nsojourn in St. Louis; and I recognized instantly that my dream of\nseveral weeks before was here exactly reproduced, so far as these\ndetails went--and I think I missed one detail; but that one was\nimmediately supplied, for just then an elderly lady entered the place\nwith a large bouquet consisting mainly of white roses, and in the centre\nof it was a red rose, and she laid it on his breast.\n\nI told the dream there in the Club that night just as I have told it\nhere.\n\nRev. Dr. Burton swung his leonine head around, focussed me with his eye,\nand said:\n\n\"When was it that this happened?\"\n\n\"In June, '58.\"\n\n\"It is a good many years ago. Have you told it several times since?\"\n\n\"Yes, I have, a good many times.\"\n\n\"How many?\"\n\n\"Why, I don't know how many.\"\n\n\"Well, strike an average. How many times a year do you think you have\ntold it?\"\n\n\"Well, I have told it as many as six times a year, possibly oftener.\"\n\n\"Very well, then you've told it, we'll say, seventy or eighty times\nsince it happened?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, \"that's a conservative estimate.\"\n\n\"Now then, Mark, a very extraordinary thing happened to me a great many\nyears ago, and I used to tell it a number of times--a good many\ntimes--every year, for it was so wonderful that it always astonished the\nhearer, and that astonishment gave me a distinct pleasure every time. I\nnever suspected that that tale was acquiring any auxiliary advantages\nthrough repetition until one day after I had been telling it ten or\nfifteen years it struck me that either I was getting old, and slow in\ndelivery, or that the tale was longer than it was when it was born.\nMark, I diligently and prayerfully examined that tale with this result:\nthat I found that its proportions were now, as nearly as I could make\noat, one part fact, straight fact, fact pure and undiluted, golden fact,\nand twenty-four parts embroidery. I never told that tale afterwards--I\nwas never able to tell it again, for I had lost confidence in it, and so\nthe pleasure of telling it was gone, and gone permanently. How much of\nthis tale of yours is embroidery?\"\n\n\"Well,\" I said, \"I don't know. I don't think any of it is embroidery. I\nthink it is all just as I have stated it, detail by detail.\"\n\n\"Very well,\" he said, \"then it is all right, but I wouldn't tell it any\nmore; because if you keep on, it will begin to collect embroidery sure.\nThe safest thing is to stop now.\"\n\nThat was a great many years ago. And to-day is the first time that I\nhave told that dream since Dr. Burton scared me into fatal doubts about\nit. No, I don't believe I can say that. I don't believe that I ever\nreally had any doubts whatever concerning the salient points of the\ndream, for those points are of such a nature that they are _pictures_,\nand pictures can be remembered, when they are vivid, much better than\none can remember remarks and unconcreted facts. Although it has been so\nmany years since I have told that dream, I can see those pictures now\njust as clearly defined as if they were before me in this room. I have\nnot told the entire dream. There was a good deal more of it. I mean I\nhave not told all that happened in the dream's fulfilment. After the\nincident in the death-room I may mention one detail, and that is this.\nWhen I arrived in St. Louis with the casket it was about eight o'clock\nin the morning, and I ran to my brother-in-law's place of business,\nhoping to find him there, but I missed him, for while I was on the way\nto his office he was on his way from the house to the boat. When I got\nback to the boat the casket was gone. He had conveyed it out to his\nhouse. I hastened thither, and when I arrived the men were just removing\nthe casket from the vehicle to carry it up-stairs. I stopped that\nprocedure, for I did not want my mother to see the dead face, because\none side of it was drawn and distorted by the effects of the opium. When\nI went up-stairs, there stood the two chairs--placed to receive the\ncoffin--just as I had seen them in my dream; and if I had arrived two or\nthree minutes later, the casket would have been resting upon them,\nprecisely as in my dream of several weeks before.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[8] See \"Old Times on the Mississippi.\"\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCXIV.\n\nMAY 3, 1907.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--XVII.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n_From Susy's Biography of Me._\n\n\n     _Sept. 9, '85._--Mamma is teaching Jean a little natural history\n     and is making a little collection of insects for her. But mamma\n     does not allow Jean to kill any insects she only collects those\n     insects that are found dead. Mamma has told us all, perticularly\n     Jean, to bring her all the little dead insects that she finds. The\n     other day as we were all sitting at supper Jean broke into the room\n     and ran triumfantly up to Mamma and presented her with a plate full\n     of dead flies. Mamma thanked Jean vary enthusiastically although\n     she with difficulty concealed her amusement. Just then Soar Mash\n     entered the room and Jean believing her hungry asked Mamma for\n     permission to give her the flies. Mamma laughingly consented and\n     the flies almost immediately dissapeared.\n\n\n[_Monday, October 15, 1906._] Sour Hash's presence indicates that this\nadventure occurred at Quarry Farm. Susy's Biography interests itself\npretty exclusively with historical facts; where they happen is not a\nmatter of much concern to her. When other historians refer to the Bunker\nHill Monument they know it is not necessary to mention that that\nmonument is in Boston. Susy recognizes that when she mentions Sour Mash\nit is not necessary to localize her. To Susy, Sour Mash is the Bunker\nHill Monument of Quarry Farm.\n\nOrdinary cats have some partiality for living flies, but none for dead\nones; but Susy does not trouble herself to apologize for Sour Mash's\neccentricities of taste. This Biography was for _us_, and Susy knew that\nnothing that Sour Mash might do could startle us or need explanation, we\nbeing aware that she was not an ordinary cat, but moving upon a plane\nfar above the prejudices and superstitions which are law to common\ncatdom.\n\nOnce in Hartford the flies were so numerous for a time, and so\ntroublesome, that Mrs. Clemens conceived the idea of paying George[9] a\nbounty on all the flies he might kill. The children saw an opportunity\nhere for the acquisition of sudden wealth. They supposed that their\nmother merely wanted to accumulate dead flies, for some \u00e6sthetic or\nscientific reason or other, and they judged that the more flies she\ncould get the happier she would be; so they went into business with\nGeorge on a commission. Straightway the dead flies began to arrive in\nsuch quantities that Mrs. Clemens was pleased beyond words with the\nsuccess of her idea. Next, she was astonished that one house could\nfurnish so many. She was paying an extravagantly high bounty, and it\npresently began to look as if by this addition to our expenses we were\nnow probably living beyond our income. After a few days there was peace\nand comfort; not a fly was discoverable in the house: there wasn't a\nstraggler left. Still, to Mrs. Clement's surprise, the dead flies\ncontinued to arrive by the plateful, and the bounty expense was as\ncrushing as ever. Then she made inquiry, and found that our innocent\nlittle rascals had established a Fly Trust, and had hired all the\nchildren in the neighborhood to collect flies on a cheap and\nunburdensome commission.\n\nMrs. Clemens's experience in this matter was a new one for her, but the\ngovernments of the world had tried it, and wept over it, and discarded\nit, every half-century since man was created. Any Government could have\ntold her that the best way to increase wolves in America, rabbits in\nAustralia, and snakes in India, is to pay a bounty on their scalps. Then\nevery patriot goes to raising them.\n\n_From Susy's Biography of Me._\n\n\n     _Sept. 10, '85._--The other evening Clara and I brought down our\n     new soap bubble water and we all blew soap bubles. Papa blew his\n     soap bubles and filled them with tobacco smoke and as the light\n     shone on then they took very beautiful opaline colors. Papa would\n     hold them and then let us catch them in our hand and they felt\n     delightful to the touch the mixture of the smoke and water had a\n     singularly pleasant effect.\n\n\nIt is human life. We are blown upon the world; we float buoyantly upon\nthe summer air a little while, complacently showing off our grace of\nform and our dainty iridescent colors; then we vanish with a little\npuff, leaving nothing behind but a memory--and sometimes not even that.\nI suppose that at those solemn times when we wake in the deeps of the\nnight and reflect, there is not one of us who is not willing to confess\nthat he is really only a soap-bubble, and as little worth the making.\n\nI remember those days of twenty-one years ago, and a certain pathos\nclings about them. Susy, with her manifold young charms and her\niridescent mind, was as lovely a bubble as any we made that day--and as\ntransitory. She passed, as they passed, in her youth and beauty, and\nnothing of her is left but a heartbreak and a memory. That long-vanished\nday came vividly back to me a few weeks ago when, for the first time in\ntwenty-one years, I found myself again amusing a child with\nsmoke-charged soap-bubbles.\n\n[Sidenote: (1885.)]\n\nSusy's next date is November 29th, 1885, the eve of my fiftieth\nbirthday. It seems a good while ago. I must have been rather young for\nmy age then, for I was trying to tame an old-fashioned bicycle nine feet\nhigh. It is to me almost unbelievable, at my present stage of life, that\nthere have really been people willing to trust themselves upon a dizzy\nand unstable altitude like that, and that I was one of them. Twichell\nand I took lessons every day. He succeeded, and became a master of the\nart of riding that wild vehicle, but I had no gift in that direction and\nwas never able to stay on mine long enough to get any satisfactory view\nof the planet. Every time I tried to steal a look at a pretty girl, or\nany other kind of scenery, that single moment of inattention gave the\nbicycle the chance it had been waiting for, and I went over the front of\nit and struck the ground on my head or my back before I had time to\nrealise that something was happening. I didn't always go over the front\nway; I had other ways, and practised them all; but no matter which way\nwas chosen for me there was always one monotonous result--the bicycle\nskinned my leg and leaped up into the air and came down on top of me.\nSometimes its wires were so sprung by this violent performance that it\nhad the collapsed look of an umbrella that had had a misunderstanding\nwith a cyclone. After each day's practice I arrived at home with my skin\nhanging in ribbons, from my knees down. I plastered the ribbons on where\nthey belonged, and bound them there with handkerchiefs steeped in Pond's\nExtract, and was ready for more adventures next day. It was always a\nsurprise to me that I had so much skin, and that it held out so well.\nThere was always plenty, and I soon came to understand that the supply\nwas going to remain sufficient for all my needs. It turned out that I\nhad nine skins, in layers, one on top of the other like the leaves of a\nbook, and some of the doctors said it was quite remarkable.\n\nI was full of enthusiasm over this insane amusement. My teacher was a\nyoung German from the bicycle factory, a gentle, kindly, patient\ncreature, with a pathetically grave face. He never smiled; he never made\na remark; he always gathered me tenderly up when I plunged off, and\nhelped me on again without a word. When he had been teaching me twice a\nday for three weeks I introduced a new gymnastic--one that he had never\nseen before--and so at last a compliment was wrung from him, a thing\nwhich I had been risking my life for days to achieve. He gathered me up\nand said mournfully: \"Mr. Clemens, you can fall off a bicycle in more\ndifferent ways than any person I ever saw before.\"\n\n[Sidenote: (1849.)]\n\nA boy's life is not all comedy; much of the tragic enters into it. The\ndrunken tramp--mentioned in \"Tom Sawyer\" or \"Huck Finn\"--who was burned\nup in the village jail, lay upon my conscience a hundred nights\nafterward and filled them with hideous dreams--dreams in which I saw his\nappealing face as I had seen it in the pathetic reality, pressed against\nthe window-bars, with the red hell glowing behind him--a face which\nseemed to say to me, \"If you had not give me the matches, this would not\nhave happened; you are responsible for my death.\" I was _not_\nresponsible for it, for I had meant him no harm, but only good, when I\nlet him have the matches; but no matter, mine was a trained Presbyterian\nconscience, and knew but the one duty--to hunt and harry its slave upon\nall pretexts and on all occasions; particularly when there was no sense\nor reason in it. The tramp--who was to blame--suffered ten minutes; I,\nwho was not to blame, suffered three months.\n\nThe shooting down of poor old Smarr in the main street[10] at noonday\nsupplied me with some more dreams; and in them I always saw again the\ngrotesque closing picture--the great family Bible spread open on the\nprofane old man's breast by some thoughtful idiot, and rising and\nsinking to the labored breathings, and adding the torture of its leaden\nweight to the dying struggles. We are curiously made. In all the throng\nof gaping and sympathetic onlookers there was not one with common sense\nenough to perceive that an anvil would have been in better taste there\nthan the Bible, less open to sarcastic criticism, and swifter in its\natrocious work. In my nightmares I gasped and struggled for breath under\nthe crush of that vast book for many a night.\n\nAll within the space of a couple of years we had two or three other\ntragedies, and I had the ill-luck to be too near by on each occasion.\nThere was the slave man who was struck down with a chunk of slag for\nsome small offence; I saw him die. And the young California emigrant who\nwas stabbed with a bowie knife by a drunken comrade: I saw the red life\ngush from his breast. And the case of the rowdy young Hyde brothers and\ntheir harmless old uncle: one of them held the old man down with his\nknees on his breast while the other one tried repeatedly to kill him\nwith an Allen revolver which wouldn't go off. I happened along just\nthen, of course.\n\nThen there was the case of the young California emigrant who got drunk\nand proposed to raid the \"Welshman's house\" all alone one dark and\nthreatening night.[11] This house stood half-way up Holliday's Hill\n(\"Cardiff\" Hill), and its sole occupants were a poor but quite\nrespectable widow and her young and blameless daughter. The invading\nruffian woke the whole village with his ribald yells and coarse\nchallenges and obscenities. I went up there with a comrade--John Briggs,\nI think--to look and listen. The figure of the man was dimly risible;\nthe women were on their porch, but not visible in the deep shadow of its\nroof, but we heard the elder woman's voice. She had loaded an old musket\nwith slugs, and she warned the man that if he stayed where he was while\nshe counted ten it would cost him his life. She began to count, slowly:\nhe began to laugh. He stopped laughing at \"six\"; then through the deep\nstillness, in a steady voice, followed the rest of the tale: \"seven ...\neight ... nine\"--a long pause, we holding our breath--\"ten!\" A red spout\nof flame gushed out into the night, and the man dropped, with his breast\nriddled to rags. Then the rain and the thunder burst loose and the\nwaiting town swarmed up the hill in the glare of the lightning like an\ninvasion of ants. Those people saw the rest; I had had my share and was\nsatisfied. I went home to dream, and was not disappointed.\n\nMy teaching and training enabled me to see deeper into these tragedies\nthan an ignorant person could have done. I knew what they were for. I\ntried to disguise it from myself, but down in the secret deeps of my\nheart I knew--and I _knew_ that I knew. They were inventions of\nProvidence to beguile me to a better life. It sounds curiously innocent\nand conceited, now, but to me there was nothing strange about it; it was\nquite in accordance with the thoughtful and judicious ways of Providence\nas I understood them. It would not have surprised me, nor even\nover-flattered me, if Providence had killed off that whole community in\ntrying to save an asset like me. Educated as I had been, it would have\nseemed just the thing, and well worth the expense. _Why_ Providence\nshould take such an anxious interest in such a property--that idea never\nentered my head, and there was no one in that simple hamlet who would\nhave dreamed of putting it there. For one thing, no one was equipped\nwith it.\n\nIt is quite true I took all the tragedies to myself; and tallied them\noff, in turn as they happened, saying to myself in each case, with a\nsigh, \"Another one gone--and on my account; this ought to bring me to\nrepentance; His patience will not always endure.\" And yet privately I\nbelieved it would. That is, I believed it in the daytime; but not in the\nnight. With the going down of the sun my faith failed, and the clammy\nfears gathered about my heart. It was then that I repented. Those were\nawful nights, nights of despair, nights charged with the bitterness of\ndeath. After each tragedy I recognized the warning and repented;\nrepented and begged; begged like a coward, begged like a dog; and not in\nthe interest of those poor people who had been extinguished for my sake,\nbut only in my own interest. It seems selfish, when I look back on it\nnow.\n\nMy repentances were very real, very earnest; and after each tragedy they\nhappened every night for a long time. But as a rule they could not stand\nthe daylight. They faded out and shredded away and disappeared in the\nglad splendor of the sun. They were the creatures of fear and darkness,\nand they could not live out of their own place. The day gave me cheer\nand peace, and at night I repented again. In all my boyhood life I am\nnot sure that I ever tried to lead a better life in the daytime--or\nwanted to. In my age I should never think of wishing to do such a thing.\nBut in my age, as in my youth, night brings me many a deep remorse. I\nrealize that from the cradle up I have been like the rest of the\nrace--never quite sane in the night. When \"Injun Joe\" died.[12] ... But\nnever mind: in another chapter I have already described what a raging\nhell of repentance I passed through then. I believe that for months I\nwas as pure as the driven snow. After dark.\n\nIt was back in those far-distant days--1848 or '9--that Jim Wolf came to\nus. He was from Shelbyville, a hamlet thirty or forty miles back in the\ncountry, and he brought all his native sweetnesses and gentlenesses and\nsimplicities with him. He was approaching seventeen, a grave and slender\nlad, trustful, honest, a creature to love and cling to. And he was\nincredibly bashful.\n\nIt is to this kind that untoward things happen. My sister gave a\n\"candy-pull\" on a winter's night. I was too young to be of the company,\nand Jim was too diffident. I was sent up to bed early, and Jim followed\nof his own motion. His room was in the new part of the house, and his\nwindow looked out on the roof of the L annex. That roof was six inches\ndeep in snow, and the snow had an ice-crust upon it which was as slick\nas glass. Out of the comb of the roof projected a short chimney, a\ncommon resort for sentimental cats on moonlight nights--and this was a\nmoonlight night. Down at the eaves, below the chimney, a canopy of dead\nvines spread away to some posts, making a cozy shelter, and after an\nhour or two the rollicking crowd of young ladies and gentlemen grouped\nthemselves in its shade, with their saucers of liquid and piping-hot\ncandy disposed about them on the frozen ground to cool. There was joyous\nchaffing and joking and laughter--peal upon peal of it.\n\nAbout this time a couple of old disreputable tom-cats got up on the\nchimney and started a heated argument about something; also about this\ntime I gave up trying to get to sleep, and went visiting to Jim's room.\nHe was awake and fuming about the cats and their intolerable yowling. I\nasked him, mockingly, why he didn't climb out and drive them away. He\nwas nettled, and said over-boldly that for two cents he _would_.\n\nIt was a rash remark, and was probably repented of before it was fairly\nout of his mouth. But it was too late--he was committed. I knew him; and\nI knew he would rather break his neck than back down, if I egged him on\njudiciously.\n\n\"Oh, of course you would! Who's doubting it?\"\n\nIt galled him, and he burst out, with sharp irritation--\n\n\"Maybe _you_ doubt it!\"\n\n\"I? Oh no, I shouldn't think of such a thing. You are always doing\nwonderful things. With your mouth.\"\n\nHe was in a passion, now. He snatched on his yarn socks and began to\nraise the window, saying in a voice unsteady with anger--\n\n\"_You_ think I dasn't--_you_ do! Think what you blame please--_I_ don't\ncare what you think. I'll show you!\"\n\nThe window made him rage; it wouldn't stay up. I said--\n\n\"Never mind, I'll hold it.\"\n\nIndeed, I would have done anything to help. I was only a boy, and was\nalready in a radiant heaven of anticipation. He climbed carefully out,\nclung to the window-sill until his feet were safely placed, then began\nto pick his perilous way on all fours along the glassy comb, a foot and\na hand on each side of it. I believe I enjoy it now as much as I did\nthen: yet it is a good deal over fifty years ago. The frosty breeze\nflapped his short shirt about his lean legs; the crystal roof shone like\npolished marble in the intense glory of the moon; the unconscious cats\nsat erect upon the chimney, alertly watching each other, lashing their\ntails and pouring out their hollow grievances; and slowly and\ncautiously Jim crept on, flapping as he went, the gay and frolicsome\nyoung creatures under the vine-canopy unaware, and outraging these\nsolemnities with their misplaced laughter. Every time Jim slipped I had\na hope; but always on he crept and disappointed it. At last he was\nwithin reaching distance. He paused, raised himself carefully up,\nmeasured his distance deliberately, then made a frantic grab at the\nnearest cat--and missed. Of course he lost his balance. His heels flew\nup, he struck on his back, and like a rocket he darted down the roof\nfeet first, crashed through the dead vines and landed in a sitting\nposture in fourteen saucers of red-hot candy, in the midst of all that\nparty--and dressed as _he_ was: this lad who could not look a girl in\nthe face with his clothes on. There was a wild scramble and a storm of\nshrieks, and Jim fled up the stairs, dripping broken crockery all the\nway.\n\n[Sidenote: (1867.)]\n\nThe incident was ended. But I was not done with it yet, though I\nsupposed I was. Eighteen or twenty years later I arrived in New York\nfrom California, and by that time I had failed in all my other\nundertakings and had stumbled into literature without intending it. This\nwas early in 1867. I was offered a large sum to write something for the\n\"Sunday Mercury,\" and I answered with the tale of \"Jim Wolf and the\nCats.\" I also collected the money for it--twenty-five dollars. It seemed\nover-pay, but I did not say anything about that, for I was not so\nscrupulous then as I am now.\n\nA year or two later \"Jim Wolf and the Cats\" appeared in a Tennessee\npaper in a new dress--as to spelling; spelling borrowed from Artemus\nWard. The appropriator of the tale had a wide reputation in the West,\nand was exceedingly popular. Deservedly so, I think. He wrote some of\nthe breeziest and funniest things I have ever read, and did his work\nwith distinguished ease and fluency. His name has passed out of my\nmemory.\n\nA couple of years went by; then the original story--my own\nversion--cropped up again and went floating around in the spelling, and\nwith my name to it. Soon first one paper and then another fell upon me\nrigorously for \"stealing\" Jim Wolf and the Cats from the Tennessee man.\nI got a merciless beating, but I did not mind it. It's all in the game.\nBesides, I had learned, a good while before that, that it is not wise to\nkeep the fire going under a slander unless you can get some large\nadvantage out of keeping it alive. Few slanders can stand the wear of\nsilence.\n\n[Sidenote: (1873.)]\n\n[Sidenote: (1900.)]\n\nBut I was not done with Jim and the Cats yet. In 1873 I was lecturing in\nLondon, in the Queen's Concert Rooms, Hanover Square, and was living at\nthe Langham Hotel, Portland place. I had no domestic household, and no\nofficial household except George Dolby, lecture-agent, and Charles\nWarren Stoddard, the California poet, now (1900) Professor of English\nLiterature in the Roman Catholic University, Washington. Ostensibly\nStoddard was my private secretary; in reality he was merely my\ncomrade--I hired him in order to have his company. As secretary there\nwas nothing for him to do except to scrap-book the daily reports of the\ngreat trial of the Tichborne Claimant for perjury. But he made a\nsufficient job out of that, for the reports filled six columns a day and\nhe usually postponed the scrap-booking until Sunday; then he had 36\ncolumns to cut out and paste in--a proper labor for Hercules. He did his\nwork well, but if he had been older and feebler it would have killed him\nonce a week. Without doubt he does his literary lectures well, but also\nwithout doubt he prepares them fifteen minutes before he is due on his\nplatform and thus gets into them a freshness and sparkle which they\nmight lack if they underwent the staling process of overstudy.\n\nHe was good company when he was awake. He was refined, sensitive,\ncharming, gentle, generous, honest himself and unsuspicious of other\npeople's honesty, and I think he was the purest male I have known, in\nmind and speech. George Dolby was something of a contrast to him, but\nthe two were very friendly and sociable together, nevertheless. Dolby\nwas large and ruddy, full of life and strength and spirits, a tireless\nand energetic talker, and always overflowing with good-nature and\nbursting with jollity. It was a choice and satisfactory menagerie, this\npensive poet and this gladsome gorilla. An indelicate story was a sharp\ndistress to Stoddard; Dolby told him twenty-five a day. Dolby always\ncame home with us after the lecture, and entertained Stoddard till\nmidnight. Me too. After he left, I walked the floor and talked, and\nStoddard went to sleep on the sofa. I hired him for company.\n\nDolby had been agent for concerts, and theatres, and Charles Dickens and\nall sorts of shows and \"attractions\" for many years; he had known the\nhuman being in many aspects, and he didn't much believe in him. But the\npoet did. The waifs and estrays found a friend in Stoddard: Dolby tried\nto persuade him that he was dispensing his charities unworthily, but he\nwas never able to succeed.\n\nOne night a young American got access to Stoddard at the Concert Rooms\nand told him a moving tale. He said he was living on the Surrey side,\nand for some strange reason his remittances had failed to arrive from\nhome; he had no money, he was out of employment, and friendless; his\ngirl-wife and his new baby were actually suffering for food; for the\nlove of heaven could he lend him a sovereign until his remittances\nshould resume? Stoddard was deeply touched, and gave him a sovereign on\nmy account. Dolby scoffed, but Stoddard stood his ground. Each told me\nhis story later in the evening, and I backed Stoddard's judgment. Dolby\nsaid we were women in disguise, and not a sane kind of women, either.\n\nThe next week the young man came again. His wife was ill with the\npleurisy, the baby had the bots, or something, I am not sure of the name\nof the disease; the doctor and the drugs had eaten up the money, the\npoor little family was starving. If Stoddard \"in the kindness of his\nheart could only spare him another sovereign,\" etc., etc. Stoddard was\nmuch moved, and spared him a sovereign for me. Dolby was outraged. He\nspoke up and said to the customer--\n\n\"Now, young man, you are going to the hotel with us and state your case\nto the other member of the family. If you don't make him believe in you\nI sha'n't honor this poet's drafts in your interest any longer, for I\ndon't believe in you myself.\"\n\nThe young man was quite willing. I found no fault in him. On the\ncontrary, I believed in him at once, and was solicitous to heal the\nwounds inflicted by Dolby's too frank incredulity; therefore I did\neverything I could think of to cheer him up and entertain him and make\nhim feel at home and comfortable. I spun many yarns; among others the\ntale of Jim Wolf and the Cats. Learning that he had done something in a\nsmall way in literature, I offered to try to find a market for him in\nthat line. His face lighted joyfully at that, and he said that if I\ncould only sell a small manuscript to Tom Hood's Annual for him it would\nbe the happiest event of his sad life and he would hold me in grateful\nremembrance always. That was a most pleasant night for three of us, but\nDolby was disgusted and sarcastic.\n\nNext week the baby died. Meantime I had spoken to Tom Hood and gained\nhis sympathy. The young man had sent his manuscript to him, and the very\nday the child died the money for the MS. came--three guineas. The young\nman came with a poor little strip of crape around his arm and thanked\nme, and said that nothing could have been more timely than that money,\nand that his poor little wife was grateful beyond words for the service\nI had rendered. He wept, and in fact Stoddard and I wept with him, which\nwas but natural. Also Dolby wept. At least he wiped his eyes and wrung\nout his handkerchief, and sobbed stertorously and made other exaggerated\nshows of grief. Stoddard and I were ashamed of Dolby, and tried to make\nthe young man understand that he meant no harm, it was only his way. The\nyoung man said sadly that he was not minding it, his grief was too deep\nfor other hurts; that he was only thinking of the funeral, and the heavy\nexpenses which--\n\nWe cut that short and told him not to trouble about it, leave it all to\nus; send the bills to Mr. Dolby and--\n\n\"Yes,\" said Dolby, with a mock tremor in his voice, \"send them to me,\nand I will pay them. What, are you going? You must not go alone in your\nworn and broken condition; Mr. Stoddard and I will go with you. Come,\nStoddard. We will comfort the bereaved mamma and get a lock of the\nbaby's hair.\"\n\nIt was shocking. We were ashamed of him again, and said so. But he was\nnot disturbed. He said--\n\n\"Oh, I know this kind, the woods are full of them. I'll make this offer:\nif he will show me his family I will give him twenty pounds. Come!\" The\nyoung man said he would not remain to be insulted; and he said\ngood-night and took his hat. But Dolby said he would go with him, and\nstay by him until he found the family. Stoddard went along to soothe the\nyoung man and modify Dolby. They drove across the river and all over\nSouthwark, but did not find the family. At last the young man confessed\nthere wasn't any.\n\nThe thing he sold to Tom Hood's Annual was \"Jim and the Cats.\" And he\ndid not put my name to it.\n\nSo that small tale was sold three times. I am selling it again, now. It\nis one of the best properties I have come across.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[9] The colored butler.\n\n[10] See \"Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.\"\n\n[11] Used in \"Huck Finn,\" I think.\n\n[12] Used in \"Tom Sawyer.\"\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCXV.\n\nMAY 17, 1907.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--XVIII.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n[_Dictated December 21, 1906._] I wish to insert here some pages of\nSusy's Biography of me in which the biographer does not scatter,\naccording to her custom, but sticks pretty steadily to a single subject\nuntil she has fought it to a finish:\n\n\n     _Feb. 27, '86._--Last summer while we were in Elmira an article\n     came out in the \"Christian Union\" by name \"What ought he to have\n     done\" treating of the government of children, or rather giving an\n     account of a fathers battle with his little baby boy, by the mother\n     of the child and put in the form of a question as to whether the\n     father disciplined the child corectly or not, different people\n     wrote their opinions of the fathers behavior, and told what they\n     thought he should have done. Mamma had long known how to disciplin\n     children, for in fact the bringing up of children had been one of\n     her specialties for many years. She had a great many theories, but\n     one of them was, that if a child was big enough to be nauty, it was\n     big enough to be whipped and here we all agreed with her. I\n     remember one morning when Dr. ---- came up to the farm he had a\n     long discussion with mamma, upon the following topic. Mamma gave\n     _this_ as illustrative of one important rule for punishing a child.\n     She said we will suppose the boy has thrown a handkerchief onto the\n     floor, I tell him to pick it up, he refuses. I tell him again, he\n     refuses. Then I say you must either pick up the handkerchief or\n     have a whipping. My theory is never to make a child have a whipping\n     and pick up the handkerchief too. I say \"If you do not pick it up,\n     I must punish you,\" if he doesn't he gets the whipping, but _I_\n     pick up the handkerchief, if he does he gets no punishment. I tell\n     him to do a thing if he disobeys me he is punished for so doing,\n     but not forced to obey me afterwards.\n\n     When Clara and I had been very nauty or were being very nauty, the\n     nurse would go and call Mamma and she would appear suddenly and\n     look at us (she had a way of looking at us when she was displeased\n     as if she could see right through us) till we were ready to sink\n     through the floor from embarasment, and total absence of knowing\n     what to say. This look was usually followed with \"Clara\" or \"Susy\n     what do you mean by this? do you want to come to the bath-room with\n     me?\" Then followed the climax for Clara and I both new only too\n     well what going to the bath-room meant.\n\n     But mamma's first and foremost object was to make the child\n     understand that he is being punished for _his_ sake, and because\n     the mother so loves him that she cannot allow him to do wrong; also\n     that it is as hard for her to punish him as for him to be punished\n     and even harder. Mamma never allowed herself to punish us when she\n     was angry with us she never struck us because she was enoyed at us\n     and felt like striking us if we had been nauty and had enoyed her,\n     so that she thought she felt or would show the least bit of temper\n     toward us while punnishing us, she always postponed the punishment\n     until _she_ was no more chafed by our behavior. She never humored\n     herself by striking or punishing us because or while she was the\n     least bit enoyed with us.\n\n     Our very worst nautinesses were punished by being taken to the\n     bath-room and being whipped by the paper cutter. But after the\n     whipping was over, mamma did not allow us to leave her until we\n     were perfectly happy, and perfectly understood why we had been\n     whipped. I never remember having felt the least bit bitterly toward\n     mamma for punishing me. I always felt I had deserved my punishment,\n     and was much happier for having received it. For after mamma had\n     punished us and shown her displeasure, she showed no signs of\n     further displeasure, but acted as if we had not displeased her in\n     any way.\n\n\nOrdinary punishments answered very well for Susy. She was a thinker, and\nwould reason out the purpose of them, apply the lesson, and achieve the\nreform required. But it was much less easy to devise punishments that\nwould reform Clara. This was because she was a philosopher who was\nalways turning her attention to finding something good and satisfactory\nand entertaining in everything that came her way; consequently it was\nsometimes pretty discouraging to the troubled mother to find that after\nall her pains and thought in inventing what she meant to be a severe and\nreform-compelling punishment, the child had entirely missed the\nseverities through her native disposition to get interest and pleasure\nout of them as novelties. The mother, in her anxiety to find a penalty\nthat would take sharp hold and do its work effectively, at last\nresorted, with a sore heart, and with a reproachful conscience, to that\npunishment which the incorrigible criminal in the penitentiary dreads\nabove all the other punitive miseries which the warden inflicts upon him\nfor his good--solitary confinement in the dark chamber. The grieved and\nworried mother shut Clara up in a very small clothes-closet and went\naway and left her there--for fifteen minutes--it was all that the\nmother-heart could endure. Then she came softly back and\nlistened--listened for the sobs, but there weren't any; there were\nmuffled and inarticulate sounds, but they could not be construed into\nsobs. The mother waited half an hour longer; by that time she was\nsuffering so intensely with sorrow and compassion for the little\nprisoner that she was not able to wait any longer for the distressed\nsounds which she had counted upon to inform her when there had been\npunishment enough and the reform accomplished. She opened the closet to\nset the prisoner free and take her back into her loving favor and\nforgiveness, but the result was not the one expected. The captive had\nmanufactured a fairy cavern out of the closet, and friendly fairies out\nof the clothes hanging from the hooks, and was having a most sinful and\nunrepentant good time, and requested permission to spend the rest of the\nday there!\n\n_From Susy's Biography of Me._\n\n\n     But Mamma's oppinions and ideas upon the subject of bringing up\n     children has always been more or less of a joke in our family,\n     perticularly since Papa's article in the \"Christian Union,\" and I\n     am sure Clara and I have related the history of our old family\n     paper-cutter, our punishments and privations with rather more pride\n     and triumph than any other sentiment, because of Mamma's way of\n     rearing us.\n\n     When the article \"What ought he to have done?\" came out Mamma read\n     it, and was very much interested in it. And when papa heard that\n     she had read it he went to work and secretly wrote his opinion of\n     what the father ought to have done. He told Aunt Susy, Clara and I,\n     about it but mamma was not to see it or hear any thing about it\n     till it came out. He gave it to Aunt Susy to read, and after Clara\n     and I had gone up to get ready for bed he brought it up for us to\n     read. He told what he thought the father ought to have done by\n     telling what mamma would have done. The article was a beautiful\n     tribute to mamma and every word in it true. But still in writing\n     about mamma he partly forgot that the article was going to be\n     published, I think, and expressed himself more fully than he would\n     do the second time he wrote it; I think the article has done and\n     will do a great deal of good, and I think it would have been\n     perfect for the family and friend's enjoyment, but a little bit too\n     private to have been published as it was. And Papa felt so too,\n     because the very next day or a few days after, he went down to New\n     York to see if he couldn't get it back before it was published but\n     it was too late, and he had to return without it. When the\n     Christian Union reached the farm and papa's article in it all ready\n     and waiting to be read to mamma papa hadn't the courage to show it\n     to her (for he knew she wouldn't like it at all) at first, and he\n     didn't but he might have let it go and never let her see it, but\n     finally he gave his consent to her seeing it, and told Clara and I\n     we could take it to her, which we did, with tardiness, and we all\n     stood around mamma while she read it, all wondering what she would\n     say and think about it.\n\n     She was too much surprised, (and pleased privately, too) to say\n     much at first, but as we all expected publicly, (or rather when she\n     remembered that this article was to be read by every one that took\n     the Christian Union) she was rather shocked and a little\n     displeased.\n\n     Clara and I had great fun the night papa gave it to us to read and\n     then hide, so mamma couldn't see it, for just as we were in the\n     midst of reading it mamma appeared, papa following anxiously and\n     asked why we were not in bed? then a scuffle ensued for we told her\n     it was a secret and tried to hide it; but she chased us wherever we\n     went, till she thought it was time for us to go to bed, then she\n     surendered and left us to tuck it under Clara's matress.\n\n     A little while after the article was published letters began to\n     come in to papa crittisizing it, there were some very pleasant ones\n     but a few very disagreable. One of these, the very worst, mamma got\n     hold of and read, to papa's great regret, it was full of the most\n     disagreble things, and so very enoying to papa that he for a time\n     felt he must do something to show the author of it his great\n     displeasure at being so insulted. But he finally decided not to,\n     because he felt the man had some cause for feeling enoyed at, for\n     papa had spoken of him, (he was the baby's father) rather\n     slightingly in his Christian Union Article.\n\n     After all this, papa and mamma both wished I think they might never\n     hear or be spoken to on the subject of the Christian Union article,\n     and whenever any has spoken to me and told me \"How much they did\n     enjoy my father's article in the Christian Union\" I almost laughed\n     in their faces when I remembered what a great variety of oppinions\n     had been expressed upon the subject of the Christian Union article\n     of papa's.\n\n     The article was written in July or August and just the other day\n     papa received quite a bright letter from a gentleman who has read\n     the C. U. article and gave his opinion of it in these words.\n\n\nIt is missing. She probably put the letter between the leaves of the\nBiography and it got lost out. She threw away the hostile letters, but\ntried to keep the pleasantest one for her book; surely there has been no\nkindlier biographer than this one. Yet to a quite creditable degree she\nis loyal to the responsibilities of her position as historian--not\neulogist--and honorably gives me a quiet prod now and then. But how\nmany, many, many she has withheld that I deserved! I could prize them\nnow; there would be no acid in her words, and it is loss to me that she\ndid not set them all down. Oh, Susy, you sweet little biographer, you\nbreak my old heart with your gentle charities!\n\nI think a great deal of her work. Her canvases are on their easels, and\nher brush flies about in a care-free and random way, delivering a dash\nhere, a dash there and another yonder, and one might suppose that there\nwould be no definite result; on the contrary I think that an intelligent\nreader of her little book must find that by the time he has finished it\nhe has somehow accumulated a pretty clear and nicely shaded idea of the\nseveral members of this family--including Susy herself--and that the\nrandom dashes on the canvases have developed into portraits. I feel that\nmy own portrait, with some of the defects fined down and others left\nout, is here; and I am sure that any who knew the mother will recognize\nher without difficulty, and will say that the lines are drawn with a\njust judgment and a sure hand. Little creature though Susy was, the\npenetration which was born in her finds its way to the surface more than\nonce in these pages.\n\nBefore Susy began the Biography she let fall a remark now and then\nconcerning my character which showed that she had it under observation.\nIn the Record which we kept of the children's sayings there is an\ninstance of this. She was twelve years old at the time. We had\nestablished a rule that each member of the family must bring a fact to\nbreakfast--a fact drawn from a book or from any other source; any fact\nwould answer. Susy's first contribution was in substance as follows. Two\ngreat exiles and former opponents in war met in Ephesus--Scipio and\nHannibal. Scipio asked Hannibal to name the greatest general the world\nhad produced.\n\n\"Alexander\"--and he explained why.\n\n\"And the next greatest?\"\n\n\"Pyrrhus\"--and he explained why.\n\n\"But where do you place yourself, then?\"\n\n\"If I had conquered you I would place myself before the others.\"\n\nSusy's grave comment was--\n\n\"That _attracted_ me, it was just like papa--he is so frank about his\nbooks.\"\n\nSo frank in admiring them, she meant.\n\n\n[_Thursday, March 28, 1907._] Some months ago I commented upon a chapter\nof Susy's Biography wherein she very elaborately discussed an article\nabout the training and disciplining of children, which I had published\nin the \"Christian Union\" (this was twenty-one years ago), an article\nwhich was full of worshipful praises of Mrs. Clemens as a mother, and\nwhich little Clara, and Susy, and I had been hiding from this lovely and\nadmirable mother because we knew she would disapprove of public and\nprinted praises of herself. At the time that I was dictating these\ncomments, several months ago, I was trying to call back to my memory\nsome of the details of that article, but I was not able to do it, and I\nwished I had a copy of the article so that I could see what there was\nabout it which gave it such large interest for Susy.\n\nYesterday afternoon I elected to walk home from the luncheon at the St.\nRegis, which is in 56th Street and Fifth Avenue, for it was a fine\nspring day and I hadn't had a walk for a year or two, and felt the need\nof exercise. As I walked along down Fifth Avenue the desire to see that\n\"Christian Union\" article came into my head again. I had just reached\nthe corner of 42nd Street then, and there was the usual jam of wagons,\ncarriages, and automobiles there. I stopped to let it thin out before\ntrying to cross the street, but a stranger, who didn't require as much\nroom as I do, came racing by and darted into a crack among the vehicles\nand made the crossing. But on his way past me he thrust a couple of\nancient newspaper clippings into my hand, and said,\n\n\"There, you don't know me, but I have saved them in my scrap-book for\ntwenty years, and it occurred to me this morning that perhaps you would\nlike to see them, so I was carrying them down-town to mail them, I not\nexpecting to run across you in this accidental way, of course; but I\nwill give them into your own hands now. Good-by!\"--and he disappeared\namong the wagons.\n\nThose scraps which he had put into my hand were ancient newspaper copies\nof that \"Christian Union\" article! It is a handsome instance of mental\ntelegraphy--or if it isn't that, it is a handsome case of coincidence.\n\n_From the Biography._\n\n\n     _March 14th, '86._--Mr. Laurence Barrette and Mr. and Mrs. Hutton\n     were here a little while ago, and we had a very interesting visit\n     from them. Papa said Mr. Barette never had acted so well before\n     when he had seen him, as he did the first night he was staying with\n     us. And Mrs. ---- said she never had seen an actor on the stage,\n     whom she more wanted to speak with.\n\n     Papa has been very much interested of late, in the \"Mind Cure\"\n     theory. And in fact so have we all. A young lady in town has worked\n     wonders by using the \"Mind Cure\" upon people; she is constantly\n     busy now curing peoples deseases in this way--and curing her own\n     even, which to me seems the most remarkable of all.\n\n     A little while past, papa was delighted with the knowledge of what\n     he thought the best way of curing a cold, which was by starving it.\n     This starving did work beautifully, and freed him from a great many\n     severe colds. Now he says it wasn't the starving that helped his\n     colds, but the trust in the starving, the mind cure connected with\n     the starving.\n\n     I shouldn't wonder if we finally became firm believers in Mind\n     Cure. The next time papa has a cold, I haven't a doubt, he will\n     send for Miss H---- the young lady who is doctoring in the \"Mind\n     Cure\" theory, to cure him of it.\n\n     Mamma was over at Mrs. George Warners to lunch the other day, and\n     Miss H---- was there too. Mamma asked if anything as natural as\n     near sightedness could be cured she said oh yes just as well as\n     other deseases.\n\n     When mamma came home, she took me into her room, and told me that\n     perhaps my near-sightedness could be cured by the \"Mind Cure\" and\n     that she was going to have me try the treatment any way, there\n     could be no harm in it, and there might be great good. If her plan\n     succeeds there certainly will be a great deal in \"Mind Cure\" to my\n     oppinion, for I am very near sighted and so is mamma, and I never\n     expected there could be any more cure for it than for blindness,\n     but now I dont know but what theres a cure for _that_.\n\n\nIt was a disappointment; her near-sightedness remained with her to the\nend. She was born with it, no doubt; yet, strangely enough, she must\nhave been four years old, and possibly five, before we knew of its\nexistence. It is not easy to understand how that could have happened. I\ndiscovered the defect by accident. I was half-way up the hall stairs one\nday at home, and was leading her by the hand, when I glanced back\nthrough the open door of the dining-room and saw what I thought she\nwould recognise as a pretty picture. It was \"Stray Kit,\" the slender,\nthe graceful, the sociable, the beautiful, the incomparable, the cat of\ncats, the tortoise-shell, curled up as round as a wheel and sound asleep\non the fire-red cover of the dining-table, with a brilliant stream of\nsunlight falling across her. I exclaimed about it, but Susy said she\ncould see nothing there, neither cat nor table-cloth. The distance was\nso slight--not more than twenty feet, perhaps--that if it had been any\nother child I should not have credited the statement.\n\n_From the Biography._\n\n\n     _March 14th, '86._--Clara sprained her ankle, a little while ago,\n     by running into a tree, when coasting, and while she was unable to\n     walk with it she played solotaire with cards a great deal. While\n     Clara was sick and papa saw her play solotaire so much, he got very\n     much interested in the game, and finally began to play it himself a\n     little, then Jean took it up, and at last _mamma_, even played it\n     ocasionally; Jean's and papa's love for it rapidly increased, and\n     now Jean brings the cards every night to the table and papa and\n     mamma help her play, and before dinner is at an end, papa has\n     gotten a separate pack of cards, and is playing alone, with great\n     interest. Mamma and Clara next are made subject to the contagious\n     solatair, and there are four solotaireans at the table; while you\n     hear nothing but \"Fill up the place\" etc. It is dreadful! after\n     supper Clara goes into the library, and gets a little red mahogany\n     table, and placing it under the gas fixture seats herself and\n     begins to play again, then papa follows with another table of the\n     same discription, and they play solatair till bedtime.\n\n     We have just had our Prince and Pauper pictures taken; two groups\n     and some little single ones. The groups (the Interview and Lady\n     Jane Grey scene) were pretty good, the lady Jane scene was perfect,\n     just as pretty as it could be, the Interview was not so good; and\n     two of the little single pictures were very good indeed, but one\n     was very bad. Yet on the whole we think they were a success.\n\n     Papa has done a great deal in his life I think, that is good, and\n     very remarkable, but I think if he had had the advantages with\n     which he could have developed the gifts which he has made no use of\n     in writing his books, or in any other way for other peoples\n     pleasure and benefit outside of his own family and intimate\n     friends, he could have done _more_ than he has and a great deal\n     more even. He is known to the public as a humorist, but he has much\n     more in him that is earnest than that is humorous. He has a keen\n     sense of the ludicrous, notices funny stories and incidents knows\n     how to tell them, to improve upon them, and does not forget them.\n     He has been through a great many of the funny adventures related in\n     \"Tom Sawyer\" and in \"Huckleberry Finn,\" _himself_ and he lived among\n     just such boys, and in just such villages all the days of his early\n     life. His \"Prince and Pauper\" is his most orriginal, and best\n     production; it shows the most of any of his books what kind of\n     pictures are in his mind, usually. Not that the pictures of England\n     in the 16th Century and the adventures of a little prince and\n     pauper are the kind of things he mainly thinks about; but that\n     _that_ book, and those pictures represent the train of thought and\n     imagination he would be likely to be thinking of to-day, to-morrow,\n     or next day, more nearly than those given in \"Tom Sawyer\" or\n     \"Huckleberry Finn.\"[13]\n\n     Papa can make exceedingly bright jokes, and he enjoys funny things,\n     and when he is with people he jokes and laughs a great deal, but\n     still he is more interested in earnest books and earnest subjects\n     to talk upon, than in humorous ones.[14]\n\n     When we are all alone at home, nine times out of ten, he talks\n     about some very earnest subjects, (with an ocasional joke thrown\n     in) and he a good deal more often talks upon such subjects than\n     upon the other kind.\n\n     He is as much of a Pholosopher as anything I think. I think he\n     could have done a great deal in this direction if he had studied\n     while young, for he seems to enjoy reasoning out things, no matter\n     what; in a great many such directions he has greater ability than\n     in the gifts which have made him famous.\n\n\nThus at fourteen she had made up her mind about me, and in no timorous\nor uncertain terms had set down her reasons for her opinion. Fifteen\nyears were to pass before any other critic--except Mr. Howells, I\nthink--was to reutter that daring opinion and print it. Right or wrong,\nit was a brave position for that little analyser to take. She never\nwithdrew it afterward, nor modified it. She has spoken of herself as\nlacking physical courage, and has evinced her admiration of Clara's; but\nshe had moral courage, which is the rarest of human qualities, and she\nkept it functionable by exercising it. I think that in questions of\nmorals and politics she was usually on my side; but when she was not\nshe had her reasons and maintained her ground. Two years after she\npassed out of my life I wrote a Philosophy. Of the three persons who\nhave seen the manuscript only one understood it, and all three condemned\nit. If she could have read it, she also would have condemned it,\npossibly,--probably, in fact--but she would have understood it. It would\nhave had no difficulties for her on that score; also she would have\nfound a tireless pleasure in analyzing and discussing its problems.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[13] It is so yet--M. T.\n\n[14] She has said it well and correctly. Humor is a subject which has\nnever had much interest for me. This is why I have never examined it,\nnor written about it nor used it as a topic for a speech. A hundred\ntimes it has been offered me as a topic in these past forty years, but\nin no case has it attracted me.--M. T.\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCXVI.\n\nJUNE 7, 1907.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--XIX.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n_From Susy's Biography of Me._\n\n\n     _March 23, '86._--The other day was my birthday, and I had a little\n     birthday party in the evening and papa acted some very funny\n     charades with Mr. Gherhardt, Mr. Jesse Grant (who had come up from\n     New York and was spending the evening with us) and Mr. Frank\n     Warner. One of them was \"on his knees\" honys-sneeze. There were a\n     good many other funny ones, all of which I dont remember. Mr. Grant\n     was very pleasant, and began playing the charades in the most\n     delightful way.\n\n\nSusy's spelling has defeated me, this time. I cannot make out what\n\"honys-sneeze\" stands for. Impromptu charades were almost a nightly\npastime of ours, from the children's earliest days--they played in them\nwith me when they were only five or six years old. As they increased in\nyears and practice their love for the sport almost amounted to a\npassion, and they acted their parts with a steadily increasing ability.\nAt first they required much drilling; but later they were generally\nready as soon as the parts were assigned, and they acted them according\nto their own devices. Their stage facility and absence of constraint and\nself-consciousness in the \"Prince and Pauper\" was a result of their\ncharading practice.\n\nAt ten and twelve Susy wrote plays, and she and Daisy Warner and Clara\nplayed them in the library or up-stairs in the school-room, with only\nthemselves and the servants for audience. They were of a tragic and\ntremendous sort, and were performed with great energy and earnestness.\nThey were dramatized (freely) from English history, and in them Mary\nQueen of Scots and Elizabeth had few holidays. The clothes were borrowed\nfrom the mother's wardrobe and the gowns were longer than necessary, but\nthat was not regarded as a defect. In one of these plays Jean (three\nyears old, perhaps) was Sir Francis Bacon. She was not dressed for the\npart, and did not have to say anything, but sat silent and decorous at a\ntiny table and was kept busy signing death-warrants. It was a really\nimportant office, for few entered those plays and got out of them alive.\n\n\n     _March 26._--Mamma and Papa have been in New York for two or three\n     days, and Miss Corey has been staying with us. They are coming home\n     to-day at two o'clock.\n\n     Papa has just begun to play chess, and he is very fond of it, so he\n     has engaged to play with Mrs. Charles Warner every morning from 10\n     to 12, he came down to supper last night, full of this pleasant\n     prospect, but evidently with something on his mind. Finally he said\n     to mamma in an appologetical tone, Susy Warner and I have a plan.\n\n     \"Well\" mamma said \"what now, I wonder?\"\n\n     Papa said that Susy Warner and he were going to name the chess\n     after some of the old bible heroes, and then play chess on Sunday.\n\n\n     _April 18, '86._--Mamma and papa Clara and Daisy have gone to New\n     York to see the \"Mikado.\" They are coming home to-night at half\n     past seven.\n\n     Last winter when Mr. Cable was lecturing with papa, he wrote this\n     letter to him just before he came to visit us.\n\n\n     DEAR UNCLE,--That's one nice thing about me, I never bother any\n     one, to offer me a good thing twice. You dont ask me to stay over\n     Sunday, but then you dont ask me to leave Saturday night, and\n     knowing the nobility of your nature as I do--thank you, I'll stay\n     till Monday morning.[15]\n\n                   Your's and the dear familie's\n                                              GEORGE W. CABLE.\n\n\n[_December 22, 1906._] It seems a prodigious while ago! Two or three\nnights ago I dined at a friend's house with a score of other men, and at\nmy side was Cable--actually almost an old man, really almost an old man,\nthat once so young chap! 62 years old, frost on his head, seven\ngrandchildren in stock, and a brand-new wife to re-begin life with!\n\n[_Dictated Nov. 19, 1906._]\n\n\n     Ever since papa and mamma were married, papa has written his books\n     and then taken them to mamma in manuscript and she has expergated\n     them. Papa read \"Huckleberry Finn\" to us in manuscript just before\n     it came out, and then he would leave parts of it with mamma to\n     expergate, while he went off up to the study to work, and sometimes\n     Clara and I would be sitting with mamma while she was looking the\n     manuscript over, and I remember so well, with what pangs of regret\n     we used to see her turn down the leaves of the pages, which meant\n     that some delightfully dreadful part must be scratched out. And I\n     remember one part pertickularly which was perfectly fascinating it\n     was dreadful, that Clara and I used to delight in, and oh with what\n     dispair we saw mamma turn down the leaf on which it was written, we\n     thought the book would be almost ruined without it. But we\n     gradually came to feel as mamma did.\n\n\nIt would be a pity to replace the vivacity and quaintness and felicity\nof Susy's innocent free spelling with the dull and petrified\nuniformities of the spelling-book. Nearly all the grimness it taken out\nof the \"expergating\" of my books by the subtle mollification\naccidentally infused into the word by Susy's modification of the\nspelling of it.\n\nI remember the special case mentioned by Susy, and can see the group\nyet--two-thirds of it pleading for the life of the culprit sentence that\nwas so fascinatingly dreadful and the other third of it patiently\nexplaining why the court could not grant the prayer of the pleaders; but\nI do not remember what the condemned phrase was. It had much company,\nand they all went to the gallows; but it is possible that that specially\ndreadful one which gave those little people so much delight was\ncunningly devised and put into the book for just that function, and not\nwith any hope or expectation that it would get by the \"exper-gator\"\nalive. It is possible, for I had that custom.\n\nSusy's quaint and effective spelling falls quite opportunely into\nto-day's atmosphere, which is heavy with the rumblings and grumblings\nand mutterings of the Simplified Spelling Reform. Andrew Carnegie\nstarted this storm, a couple of years ago, by moving a simplifying of\nEnglish orthography, and establishing a fund for the prosecution and\nmaintenance of the crusade. He began gently. He addressed a circular to\nsome hundreds of his friends, asking them to simplify the spelling of a\ndozen of our badly spelt words--I think they were only words which end\nwith the superfluous _ugh_. He asked that these friends use the\nsuggested spellings in their private correspondence.\n\nBy this, one perceives that the beginning was sufficiently quiet and\nunaggressive.\n\nNext stage: a small committee was appointed, with Brander Matthews for\nmanaging director and spokesman. It issued a list of three hundred\nwords, of average silliness as to spelling, and proposed new and sane\nspellings for these words. The President of the United States,\nunsolicited, adopted these simplified three hundred officially, and\nordered that they be used in the official documents of the Government.\nIt was now remarked, by all the educated and the thoughtful except the\nclergy that Sheol was to pay. This was most justly and comprehensively\ndescriptive. The indignant British lion rose, with a roar that was heard\nacross the Atlantic, and stood there on his little isle, gazing,\nred-eyed, out over the glooming seas, snow-flecked with driving\nspindrift, and lathing his tail--a most scary spectacle to see.\n\nThe lion was outraged because we, a nation of children, without any\ngrown-up people among us, with no property in the language, but using it\nmerely by courtesy of its owner the English nation, were trying to\ndefile the sacredness of it by removing from it peculiarities which had\nbeen its ornament and which had made it holy and beautiful for ages.\n\nIn truth there is a certain sardonic propriety in preserving our\northography, since ours is a mongrel language which started with a\nchild's vocabulary of three hundred words, and now consists of two\nhundred and twenty-five thousand; the whole lot, with the exception of\nthe original and legitimate three hundred, borrowed, stolen, smouched\nfrom every unwatched language under the sun, the spelling of each\nindividual word of the lot locating the source of the theft and\npreserving the memory of the revered crime.\n\nWhy is it that I have intruded into this turmoil and manifested a desire\nto get our orthography purged of its asininities? Indeed I do not know\nwhy I should manifest any interest in the matter, for at bottom I\ndisrespect our orthography most heartily, and as heartily disrespect\neverything that has been said by anybody in defence of it. Nothing\nprofessing to be a defence of our ludicrous spellings has had any basis,\nso far as my observation goes, except sentimentality. In these\n\"arguments\" the term venerable is used instead of mouldy, and hallowed\ninstead of devilish; whereas there is nothing properly venerable or\nantique about a language which is not yet four hundred years old, and\nabout a jumble of imbecile spellings which were grotesque in the\nbeginning, and which grow more and more grotesque with the flight of the\nyears.\n\n[_Dictated Monday, November 30, 1906._]\n\n\n     Jean and Papa were walking out past the barn the other day when\n     Jean saw some little newly born baby ducks, she exclaimed as she\n     perceived them \"I dont see why God gives us so much ducks when\n     Patrick kills them so.\"\n\n\nSusy is mistaken as to the origin of the ducks. They were not a gift, I\nbought them. I am not finding fault with her, for that would be most\nunfair. She is remarkably accurate in her statements as a historian, as\na rule, and it would not be just to make much of this small slip of\nhers; besides I think it was a quite natural slip, for by heredity and\nhabit ours was a religious household, and it was a common thing with us\nwhenever anybody did a handsome thing, to give the credit of it to\nProvidence, without examining into the matter. This may be called\nautomatic religion--in fact that is what it is; it is so used to its\nwork that it can do it without your help or even your privity; out of\nall the facts and statistics that may be placed before it, it will\nalways get the one result, since it has never been taught to seek any\nother. It is thus the unreflecting cause of much injustice. As we have\nseen, it betrayed Susy into an injustice toward me. It had to be\nautomatic, for she would have been far from doing me an injustice when\nin her right mind. It was a dear little biographer, and she meant me no\nharm, and I am not censuring her now, but am only desirous of correcting\nin advance an erroneous impression which her words would be sure to\nconvey to a reader's mind. No elaboration of this matter is necessary;\nit is sufficient to say _I_ provided the ducks.\n\nIt was in Hartford. The greensward sloped down-hill from the house to\nthe sluggish little river that flowed through the grounds, and Patrick,\nwho was fertile in good ideas, had early conceived the idea of having\nhome-made ducks for our table. Every morning he drove them from the\nstable down to the river, and the children were always there to see and\nadmire the waddling white procession; they were there again at sunset to\nsee Patrick conduct the procession back to its lodgings in the stable.\nBut this was not always a gay and happy holiday show, with joy in it for\nthe witnesses; no, too frequently there was a tragedy connected with it,\nand then there were tears and pain for the children. There was a\nstranded log or two in the river, and on these certain families of\nsnapping-turtles used to congregate and drowse in the sun and give\nthanks, in their dumb way, to Providence for benevolence extended to\nthem. It was but another instance of misplaced credit; it was the young\nducks that those pious reptiles were so thankful for--whereas they were\n_my_ ducks. I bought the ducks.\n\nWhen a crop of young ducks, not yet quite old enough for the table but\napproaching that age, began to join the procession, and paddle around in\nthe sluggish water, and give thanks--not to me--for that privilege, the\nsnapping-turtles would suspend their songs of praise and slide off the\nlogs and paddle along under the water and chew the feet of the young\nducks. Presently Patrick would notice that two or three of those little\ncreatures were not moving about, but were apparently at anchor, and were\nnot looking as thankful as they had been looking a short time before. He\nearly found out what that sign meant--a submerged snapping-turtle was\ntaking his breakfast, and silently singing his gratitude. Every day or\ntwo Patrick would rescue and fetch up a little duck with incomplete legs\nto stand upon--nothing left of their extremities but gnawed and bleeding\nstumps. Then the children said pitying things and wept--and at dinner we\nfinished the tragedy which the turtles had begun. Thus, as will be\nseen--out of season, at least--it was really the turtles that gave us\nso much ducks. At my expense.\n\n\n     Papa has written a new version of \"There is a happy land\" it is--\n\n\n     \"There is a boarding-house\n               Far, far away,\n     Where they have ham and eggs,\n               Three times a day.\n     Oh dont those boarders yell\n     When they hear the dinner-bell,\n     They give that land-lord rats\n               Three times a day.\"\n\n\nAgain Susy has made a small error. It was not I that wrote the song. I\nheard Billy Rice sing it in the negro minstrel show, and I brought it\nhome and sang it--with great spirit--for the elevation of the household.\nThe children admired it to the limit, and made me sing it with\nburdensome frequency. To their minds it was superior to the Battle Hymn\nof the Republic.\n\nHow many years ago that was! Where now is Billy Rice? He was a joy to\nme, and so were the other stars of the nigger-show--Billy Birch, David\nWambold, Backus, and a delightful dozen of their brethren, who made life\na pleasure to me forty years ago, and later. Birch, Wambold, and Backus\nare gone years ago; and with them departed to return no more forever, I\nsuppose, the real nigger-show--the genuine nigger-show, the extravagant\nnigger-show,--the show which to me had no peer and whose peer has not\nyet arrived, in my experience. We have the grand opera; and I have\nwitnessed, and greatly enjoyed, the first act of everything which Wagner\ncreated, but the effect on me has always been so powerful that one act\nwas quite sufficient; whenever I have witnessed two acts I have gone\naway physically exhausted; and whenever I have ventured an entire opera\nthe result has been the next thing to suicide. But if I could have the\nnigger-show back again, in its pristine purity and perfection, I should\nhave but little further use for opera. It seems to me that to the\nelevated mind and the sensitive spirit the hand-organ and the\nnigger-show are a standard and a summit to whose rarefied altitude the\nother forms of musical art may not hope to reach.\n\n[_Dictated September 5, 1906._] It is years since I have examined \"The\nChildren's Record.\" I have turned over a few of its pages this morning.\nThis book is a record in which Mrs. Clemens and I registered some of\nthe sayings and doings of the children, in the long ago, when they were\nlittle chaps. Of course, we wrote these things down at the time because\nthey were of momentary interest--things of the passing hour, and of no\npermanent value--but at this distant day I find that they still possess\nan interest for me and also a value, because it turns out that they were\n_registrations of character_. The qualities then revealed by fitful\nglimpses, in childish acts and speeches, remained as a permanency in the\nchildren's characters in the drift of the years, and were always\nafterwards clearly and definitely recognizable.\n\nThere is a masterful streak in Jean that now and then moves her to set\nmy authority aside for a moment and end a losing argument in that prompt\nand effective fashion. And here in this old book I find evidence that\nshe was just like that before she was quite four years old.\n\n\n     _From The Children's Record. Quarry Farm, July 7, 1884._--Yesterday\n     evening our cows (after being inspected and worshipped by Jean from\n     the shed for an hour,) wandered off down into the pasture, and left\n     her bereft. I thought I was going to get back home, now, but that\n     was an error. Jean knew of some more cows, in a field somewhere,\n     and took my hand and led me thitherward. When we turned the corner\n     and took the right-hand road, I saw that we should presently be out\n     of range of call and sight; so I began to argue against continuing\n     the expedition, and Jean began to argue in favor of it--she using\n     English for light skirmishing, and German for \"business.\" I kept up\n     my end with vigor, and demolished her arguments in detail, one\n     after the other, till I judged I had her about cornered. She\n     hesitated a moment, then answered up sharply:\n\n     \"_Wir werden nichts mehr dar\u00fcber sprechen!_\" (We won't talk any\n     more about it!)\n\n     It nearly took my breath away; though I thought I might possibly\n     have misunderstood. I said:\n\n     \"Why, you little rascal! _Was hast du gesagt?_\"\n\n     But she said the same words over again, and in the same decided\n     way. I suppose I ought to have been outraged; but I wasn't, I was\n     charmed. And I suppose I ought to have spanked her; but I didn't, I\n     fraternized with the enemy, and we went on and spent half an hour\n     with the cows.\n\n\nThat incident is followed in the \"Record\" by the following paragraph,\nwhich is another instance of a juvenile characteristic maintaining\nitself into mature age. Susy was persistently and conscientiously\ntruthful throughout her life with the exception of one interruption\ncovering several months, and perhaps a year. This was while she was\nstill a little child. Suddenly--not gradually--she began to lie; not\nfurtively, but frankly, openly, and on a scale quite disproportioned to\nher size. Her mother was so stunned, so nearly paralyzed for a day or\ntwo, that she did not know what to do with the emergency. Reasonings,\npersuasions, beseechings, all went for nothing; they produced no effect;\nthe lying went tranquilly on. Other remedies were tried, but they\nfailed. There is a tradition that success was finally accomplished by\nwhipping. I think the Record says so, but if it does it is because the\nRecord is incomplete. Whipping was indeed tried, and was faithfully kept\nup during two or three weeks, but the results were merely temporary; the\nreforms achieved were discouragingly brief.\n\nFortunately for Susy, an incident presently occurred which put a\ncomplete stop to all the mother's efforts in the direction of reform.\nThis incident was the chance discovery in Darwin of a passage which said\nthat when a child exhibits a sudden and unaccountable disposition to\nforsake the truth and restrict itself to lying, the explanation must be\nsought away back in the past; that an ancestor of the child had had the\nsame disease, at the same tender age; that it was irremovable by\npersuasion or punishment, and that it had ceased as suddenly and as\nmysteriously as it had come, when it had run its appointed course. I\nthink Mr. Darwin said that nothing was necessary but to leave the matter\nalone and let the malady have its way and perish by the statute of\nlimitations.\n\nWe had confidence in Darwin, and after that day Susy was relieved of our\nreformatory persecutions. She went on lying without let or hindrance\nduring several months, or a year; then the lying suddenly ceased, and\nshe became as conscientiously and exactingly truthful as she had been\nbefore the attack, and she remained so to the end of her life.\n\nThe paragraph in the Record to which I have been leading up is in my\nhandwriting, and is of a date so long posterior to the time of the lying\nmalady that she had evidently forgotten that truth-speaking had ever had\nany difficulties for her.\n\n\n     Mama was speaking of a servant who had been pretty unveracious, but\n     was now \"trying to tell the truth.\" Susy was a good deal surprised,\n     and said she shouldn't think anybody would have to _try_ to tell\n     the truth.\n\n\nIn the Record the children's acts and speeches quite definitely define\ntheir characters. Susy's indicated the presence of mentality--\nthought--and they were generally marked by gravity. She was timid, on\nher physical side, but had an abundance of moral courage. Clara was\nsturdy, independent, orderly, practical, persistent, plucky--just a\nlittle animal, and very satisfactory. Charles Dudley Warner said Susy\nwas made of mind, and Clara of matter.\n\nWhen Motley, the kitten, died, some one said that the thoughts of the\ntwo children need not be inquired into, they could be divined: that Susy\nwas wondering if this was the _end_ of Motley, and had his life been\nworth while; whereas Clara was merely interested in seeing to it that\nthere should be a creditable funeral.\n\nIn those days Susy was a dreamer, a thinker, a poet and philosopher, and\nClara--well, Clara wasn't. In after-years a passion for music developed\nthe latent spirituality and intellectuality in Clara, and her\npracticality took second and, in fact, even third place. Jean was from\nthe beginning orderly, steady, diligent, persistent; and remains so. She\npicked up languages easily, and kept them.\n\n\n     _Susy aged eleven, Jean three._--Susy said the other day when she\n     saw Jean bringing a cat to me of her own motion, \"Jean has found\n     out already that mamma loves morals and papa loves cats.\"\n\n\nIt is another of Susy's remorselessly sound verdicts.\n\nAs a child, Jean neglected my books. When she was nine years old Will\nGillette invited her and the rest of us to a dinner at the Murray Hill\nHotel in New York, in order that we might get acquainted with Mrs.\nLeslie and her daughters. Elsie Leslie was nine years old, and was a\ngreat celebrity on the stage. Jean was astonished and awed to see that\nlittle slip of a thing sit up at table and take part in the conversation\nof the grown people, capably and with ease and tranquillity. Poor Jean\nwas obliged to keep still, for the subjects discussed never happened to\nhit her level, but at last the talk fell within her limit and she had\nher chance to contribute to it. \"Tom Sawyer\" was mentioned. Jean spoke\ngratefully up and said,\n\n\"I know who wrote that book--Harriet Beecher Stowe!\"\n\n\n     One evening Susy had prayed, Clara was curled up for sleep; she was\n     reminded that it was her turn to pray now. She laid \"Oh! one's\n     enough,\" and dropped off to slumber.\n\n     _Clara five years old._--We were in Germany. The nurse, Rosa, was\n     not allowed to speak to the children otherwise than in German.\n     Clara grew very tired of it; by and by the little creature's\n     patience was exhausted, and she said \"Aunt Clara, I wish God had\n     made Rosa in English.\"\n\n     _Clara four years old, Susy six._--This morning when Clara\n     discovered that this is my birthday, she was greatly troubled\n     because she had provided no gift for me, and repeated her sorrow\n     several times. Finally she went musing to the nursery and presently\n     returned with her newest and dearest treasure, a large toy horse,\n     and said, \"You shall have this horse for your birthday, papa.\"\n\n     I accepted it with many thanks. After an hour she was racing up and\n     down the room with the horse, when Susy said,\n\n     \"Why Clara, you gave that horse to papa, and now you've tooken it\n     again.\"\n\n     _Clara._--\"I never give it to him for always; I give it to him for\n     his birthday.\"\n\n\n     In Geneva, in September, I lay abed late one morning, and as Clara\n     was passing through the room I took her on my bed a moment. Then\n     the child went to Clara Spaulding and said,\n\n     \"Aunt Clara, papa is a good deal of trouble to me.\"\n\n     \"Is he? Why?\"\n\n     \"Well, he wants me to get in bed with him, and I can't do that with\n     jelmuls [gentlemen]--I don't like jelmuls anyway.\"\n\n     \"What, you don't like gentlemen! Don't you like Uncle Theodore\n     Crane?\"\n\n     \"Oh yes, but he's not a jelmul, he's a friend.\"\n\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[15] Cable never travelled Sundays.\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCXVIII.\n\nJULY 5, 1907.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--XX.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n[Sidenote: (1868.)]\n\n[_Notes on \"Innocents Abroad.\" Dictated in Florence, Italy, April,\n1904._]--I will begin with a note upon the dedication. I wrote the book\nin the months of March and April, 1868, in San Francisco. It was\npublished in August, 1869. Three years afterward Mr. Goodman, of\nVirginia City, Nevada, on whose newspaper I had served ten years before,\ncame East, and we were walking down Broadway one day when he said: \"How\ndid you come to steal Oliver Wendell Holmes's dedication and put it in\nyour book?\"\n\nI made a careless and inconsequential answer, for I supposed he was\njoking. But he assured me that he was in earnest. He said: \"I'm not\ndiscussing the question of whether you stole it or didn't--for that is a\nquestion that can be settled in the first bookstore we come to--I am\nonly asking you _how_ you came to steal it, for that is where my\ncuriosity is focalized.\"\n\nI couldn't accommodate him with this information, as I hadn't it in\nstock. I could have made oath that I had not stolen anything, therefore\nmy vanity was not hurt nor my spirit troubled. At bottom I supposed that\nhe had mistaken another book for mine, and was now getting himself into\nan untenable place and preparing sorrow for himself and triumph for me.\nWe entered a bookstore and he asked for \"The Innocents Abroad\" and for\nthe dainty little blue and gold edition of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes's\npoems. He opened the books, exposed their dedications and said: \"Read\nthem. It is plain that the author of the second one stole the first one,\nisn't it?\"\n\nI was very much ashamed, and unspeakably astonished. We continued our\nwalk, but I was not able to throw any gleam of light upon that original\nquestion of his. I could not remember ever having seen Dr. Holmes's\ndedication. I knew the poems, but the dedication was new to me.\n\nI did not get hold of the key to that secret until months afterward,\nthen it came in a curious way, and yet it was a natural way; for the\nnatural way provided by nature and the construction of the human mind\nfor the discovery of a forgotten event is to employ another forgotten\nevent for its resurrection.\n\n[Sidenote: (1866.)]\n\nI received a letter from the Rev. Dr. Rising, who had been rector of the\nEpiscopal church in Virginia City in my time, in which letter Dr. Rising\nmade reference to certain things which had happened to us in the\nSandwich Islands six years before; among things he made casual mention\nof the Honolulu Hotel's poverty in the matter of literature. At first I\ndid not see the bearing of the remark, it called nothing to my mind. But\npresently it did--with a flash! There was but one book in Mr. Kirchhof's\nhotel, and that was the first volume of Dr. Holmes's blue and gold\nseries. I had had a fortnight's chance to get well acquainted with its\ncontents, for I had ridden around the big island (Hawaii) on horseback\nand had brought back so many saddle boils that if there had been a duty\non them it would have bankrupted me to pay it. They kept me in my room,\nunclothed, and in persistent pain for two weeks, with no company but\ncigars and the little volume of poems. Of course I read them almost\nconstantly; I read them from beginning to end, then read them backwards,\nthen began in the middle and read them both ways, then read them wrong\nend first and upside down. In a word, I read the book to rags, and was\ninfinitely grateful to the hand that wrote it.\n\nHere we have an exhibition of what repetition can do, when persisted in\ndaily and hourly over a considerable stretch of time, where one is\nmerely reading for entertainment, without thought or intention of\npreserving in the memory that which is read. It is a process which in\nthe course of years dries all the juice out of a familiar verse of\nScripture, leaving nothing but a sapless husk behind. In that case you\nat least know the origin of the husk, but in the case in point I\napparently preserved the husk but presently forgot whence it came. It\nlay lost in some dim corner of my memory a year or two, then came\nforward when I needed a dedication, and was promptly mistaken by me as a\nchild of my own happy fancy.\n\nI was new, I was ignorant, the mysteries of the human mind were a sealed\nbook to me as yet, and I stupidly looked upon myself as a tough and\nunforgivable criminal. I wrote to Dr. Holmes and told him the whole\ndisgraceful affair, implored him in impassioned language to believe that\nI had never intended to commit this crime, and was unaware that I had\ncommitted it until I was confronted with the awful evidence. I have lost\nhis answer, I could better have afforded to lose an uncle. Of these I\nhad a surplus, many of them of no real value to me, but that letter was\nbeyond price, beyond uncledom, and unsparable. In it Dr. Holmes laughed\nthe kindest and healingest laugh over the whole matter, and at\nconsiderable length and in happy phrase assured me that there was no\ncrime in unconscious plagiarism; that I committed it every day, that he\ncommitted it every day, that every man alive on the earth who writes or\nspeaks commits it every day and not merely once or twice but every time\nhe opens his mouth; that all our phrasings are spiritualized shadows\ncast multitudinously from our readings; that no happy phrase of ours is\never quite original with us, there is nothing of our own in it except\nsome slight change born of our temperament, character, environment,\nteachings and associations; that this slight change differentiates it\nfrom another man's manner of saying it, stamps it with our special\nstyle, and makes it our own for the time being; all the rest of it being\nold, moldy, antique, and smelling of the breath of a thousand\ngenerations of them that have passed it over their teeth before!\n\nIn the thirty-odd years which have come and gone since then, I have\nsatisfied myself that what Dr. Holmes said was true.\n\nI wish to make a note upon the preface of the \"Innocents.\" In the last\nparagraph of that brief preface, I speak of the proprietors of the\n\"Daily Alta California\" having \"waived their rights\" in certain letters\nwhich I wrote for that journal while absent on the \"Quaker City\" trip. I\nwas young then, I am white-headed now, but the insult of that word\nrankles yet, now that I am reading that paragraph for the first time in\nmany years, reading it for the first time since it was written, perhaps.\nThere were rights, it is true--such rights as the strong are able to\nacquire over the weak and the absent. Early in '66 George Barnes invited\nme to resign my reportership on his paper, the San Francisco \"Morning\nCall,\" and for some months thereafter I was without money or work; then\nI had a pleasant turn of fortune. The proprietors of the \"Sacramento\nUnion,\" a great and influential daily journal, sent me to the Sandwich\nIslands to write four letters a month at twenty dollars apiece. I was\nthere four or five months, and returned to find myself about the best\nknown honest man on the Pacific Coast. Thomas McGuire, proprietor of\nseveral theatres, said that now was the time to make my fortune--strike\nwhile the iron was hot!--break into the lecture field! I did it. I\nannounced a lecture on the Sandwich Islands, closing the advertisement\nwith the remark, \"Admission one dollar; doors open at half-past 7, the\ntrouble begins at 8.\" A true prophecy. The trouble certainly did begin\nat 8, when I found myself in front of the only audience I had ever\nfaced, for the fright which pervaded me from head to foot was\nparalyzing. It lasted two minutes and was as bitter as death, the memory\nof it is indestructible, but it had its compensations, for it made me\nimmune from timidity before audiences for all time to come. I lectured\nin all the principal Californian towns and in Nevada, then lectured once\nor twice more in San Francisco, then retired from the field rich--for\nme--and laid out a plan to sail Westward from San Francisco, and go\naround the world. The proprietors of the \"Alta\" engaged me to write an\naccount of the trip for that paper--fifty letters of a column and a half\neach, which would be about two thousand words per letter, and the pay to\nbe twenty dollars per letter.\n\nI went East to St. Louis to say good-bye to my mother, and then I was\nbitten by the prospectus of Captain Duncan of the \"Quaker City\"\nexcursion, and I ended by joining it. During the trip I wrote and sent\nthe fifty letters; six of them miscarried, and I wrote six new ones to\ncomplete my contract. Then I put together a lecture on the trip and\ndelivered it in San Francisco at great and satisfactory pecuniary\nprofit, then I branched out into the country and was aghast at the\nresult: I had been entirely forgotten, I never had people enough in my\nhouses to sit as a jury of inquest on my lost reputation! I inquired\ninto this curious condition of things and found that the thrifty owners\nof that prodigiously rich \"Alta\" newspaper had _copyrighted_ all those\npoor little twenty-dollar letters, and had threatened with prosecution\nany journal which should venture to copy a paragraph from them!\n\nAnd there I was! I had contracted to furnish a large book, concerning\nthe excursion, to the American Publishing Co. of Hartford, and I\nsupposed I should need all those letters to fill it out with. I was in\nan uncomfortable situation--that is, if the proprietors of this\nstealthily acquired copyright should refuse to let me use the letters.\nThat is just what they did; Mr. Mac--something--I have forgotten the\nrest of his name--said his firm were going to make a book out of the\nletters in order to get back the thousand dollars which they had paid\nfor them. I said that if they had acted fairly and honorably, and had\nallowed the country press to use the letters or portions of them, my\nlecture-skirmish on the coast would have paid me ten thousand dollars,\nwhereas the \"Alta\" had lost me that amount. Then he offered a\ncompromise: he would publish the book and allow me ten per cent. royalty\non it. The compromise did not appeal to me, and I said so. I was now\nquite unknown outside of San Francisco, the book's sale would be\nconfined to that city, and my royalty would not pay me enough to board\nme three months; whereas my Eastern contract, if carried out, could be\nprofitable to me, for I had a sort of reputation on the Atlantic\nseaboard acquired through the publication of six excursion-letters in\nthe New York \"Tribune\" and one or two in the \"Herald.\"\n\nIn the end Mr. Mac agreed to suppress his book, on certain conditions:\nin my preface I must thank the \"Alta\" for waiving \"rights\" and granting\nme permission. I objected to the thanks. I could not with any large\ndegree of sincerity thank the \"Alta\" for bankrupting my lecture-raid.\nAfter considerable debate my point was conceded and the thanks left out.\n\n[Sidenote: (1902.)]\n\n[Sidenote: (1904.)]\n\n[Sidenote: (1897.)]\n\nNoah Brooks was the editor of the \"Alta\" at the time, a man of sterling\ncharacter and equipped with a right heart, also a good historian where\nfacts were not essential. In biographical sketches of me written many\nyears afterward (1902), he was quite eloquent in praises of the\ngenerosity of the \"Alta\" people in giving to me without compensation a\nbook which, as history had afterward shown, was worth a fortune. After\nall the fuss, I did not levy heavily upon the \"Alta\" letters. I found\nthat they were newspaper matter, not book matter. They had been written\nhere and there and yonder, as opportunity had given me a chance\nworking-moment or two during our feverish flight around about Europe or\nin the furnace-heat of my stateroom on board the \"Quaker City,\"\ntherefore they were loosely constructed, and needed to have some of the\nwind and water squeezed out of them. I used several of them--ten or\ntwelve, perhaps. I wrote the rest of \"The Innocents Abroad\" in sixty\ndays, and I could have added a fortnight's labor with the pen and gotten\nalong without the letters altogether. I was very young in those days,\nexceedingly young, marvellously young, younger than I am now, younger\nthan I shall ever be again, by hundreds of years. I worked every night\nfrom eleven or twelve until broad day in the morning, and as I did two\nhundred thousand words in the sixty days, the average was more than\nthree thousand words a day--nothing for Sir Walter Scott, nothing for\nLouis Stevenson, nothing for plenty of other people, but quite handsome\nfor me. In 1897, when we were living in Tedworth Square, London, and I\nwas writing the book called \"Following the Equator\" my average was\neighteen hundred words a day; here in Florence (1904), my average seems\nto be fourteen hundred words per sitting of four or five hours.[16]\n\nI was deducing from the above that I have been slowing down steadily in\nthese thirty-six years, but I perceive that my statistics have a\ndefect: three thousand words in the spring of 1868 when I was working\nseven or eight or nine hours at a sitting has little or no advantage\nover the sitting of to-day, covering half the time and producing half\nthe output. Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the\narranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to\nDisraeli would often apply with justice and force:\n\n\"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.\"\n\n[_Dictated, January 23, 1907._]--The proverb says that Providence\nprotects children and idiots. This is really true. I know it because I\nhave tested it. It did not protect George through the most of his\ncampaign, but it saved him in his last inning, and the veracity of the\nproverb stood confirmed.\n\n[Sidenote: (1865.)]\n\nI have several times been saved by this mysterious interposition, when I\nwas manifestly in extreme peril. It has been common, all my life, for\nsmart people to perceive in me an easy prey for selfish designs, and I\nhave walked without suspicion into the trap set for me, yet have often\ncome out unscathed, against all the likelihoods. More than forty years\nago, in San Francisco, the office staff adjourned, upon conclusion of\nits work at two o'clock in the morning, to a great bowling establishment\nwhere there were twelve alleys. I was invited, rather perfunctorily, and\nas a matter of etiquette--by which I mean that I was invited politely,\nbut not urgently. But when I diffidently declined, with thanks, and\nexplained that I knew nothing about the game, those lively young fellows\nbecame at once eager and anxious and urgent to have my society. This\nflattered me, for I perceived no trap, and I innocently and gratefully\naccepted their invitation. I was given an alley all to myself. The boys\nexplained the game to me, and they also explained to me that there would\nbe an hour's play, and that the player who scored the fewest ten-strikes\nin the hour would have to provide oysters and beer for the combination.\nThis disturbed me very seriously, since it promised me bankruptcy, and I\nwas sorry that this detail had been overlooked in the beginning. But my\npride would not allow me to back out now, so I stayed in, and did what I\ncould to look satisfied and glad I had come. It is not likely that I\nlooked as contented as I wanted to, but the others looked glad enough to\nmake up for it, for they were quite unable to hide their evil joy. They\nshowed me how to stand, and how to stoop, and how to aim the ball, and\nhow to let fly; and then the game began. The results were astonishing.\nIn my ignorance I delivered the balls in apparently every way except the\nright one; but no matter--during half an hour I never started a ball\ndown the alley that didn't score a ten-strike, every time, at the other\nend. The others lost their grip early, and their joy along with it. Now\nand then one of them got a ten-strike, but the occurrence was so rare\nthat it made no show alongside of my giant score. The boys surrendered\nat the end of the half-hour, and put on their coats and gathered around\nme and in courteous, but sufficiently definite, language expressed their\nopinion of an experience-worn and seasoned expert who would stoop to\nlying and deception in order to rob kind and well-meaning friends who\nhad put their trust in him under the delusion that he was an honest and\nhonorable person. I was not able to convince them that I had not lied,\nfor now my character was gone, and they refused to attach any value to\nanything I said. The proprietor of the place stood by for a while saying\nnothing, then he came to my defence. He said: \"It looks like a mystery,\ngentlemen, but it isn't a mystery after it's explained. That is a\n_grooved_ alley; you've only to start a ball down it any way you please\nand the groove will do the rest; it will slam the ball against the\nnortheast curve of the head pin every time, and nothing can save the ten\nfrom going down.\"\n\nIt was true. The boys made the experiment and they found that there was\nno art that could send a ball down that alley and fail to score a\nten-strike with it. When I had told those boys that I knew nothing about\nthat game I was speaking only the truth; but it was ever thus, all\nthrough my life: whenever I have diverged from custom and principle and\nuttered a truth, the rule has been that the hearer hadn't strength of\nmind enough to believe it.\n\n[Sidenote: (1873.)]\n\nA quarter of a century ago I arrived in London to lecture a few weeks\nunder the management of George Dolby, who had conducted the Dickens\nreadings in America five or six years before. He took me to the\nAlbemarle and fed me, and in the course of the dinner he enlarged a good\ndeal, and with great satisfaction, upon his reputation as a player of\nfifteen-ball pool, and when he learned by my testimony that I had never\nseen the game played, and knew nothing of the art of pocketing balls,\nhe enlarged more and more, and still more, and kept on enlarging, until\nI recognized that I was either in the presence of the very father of\nfifteen-ball pool or in the presence of his most immediate descendant.\nAt the end of the dinner Dolby was eager to introduce me to the game and\nshow me what he could do. We adjourned to the billiard-room and he\nframed the balls in a flat pyramid and told me to fire at the apex ball\nand then go on and do what I could toward pocketing the fifteen, after\nwhich he would take the cue and show me what a past-master of the game\ncould do with those balls. I did as required. I began with the\ndiffidence proper to my ignorant estate, and when I had finished my\ninning all the balls were in the pockets and Dolby was burying me under\na volcanic irruption of acid sarcasms.\n\nSo I was a liar in Dolby's belief. He thought he had been sold, and at a\ncheap rate; but he divided his sarcasms quite fairly and quite equally\nbetween the two of us. He was full of ironical admiration of his\nchildishness and innocence in letting a wandering and characterless and\nscandalous American load him up with deceptions of so transparent a\ncharacter that they ought not to have deceived the house cat. On the\nother hand, he was remorselessly severe upon me for beguiling him, by\nstudied and discreditable artifice, into bragging and boasting about his\npoor game in the presence of a professional expert disguised in lies and\nfrauds, who could empty more balls in billiard pockets in an hour than\nhe could empty into a basket in a day.\n\nIn the matter of fifteen-ball pool I never got Dolby's confidence wholly\nback, though I got it in other ways, and kept it until his death. I have\nplayed that game a number of times since, but that first time was the\nonly time in my life that I have ever pocketed all the fifteen in a\nsingle inning.\n\n[Sidenote: (1876.)]\n\nMy unsuspicious nature has made it necessary for Providence to save me\nfrom traps a number of times. Thirty years ago, a couple of Elmira\nbankers invited me to play the game of \"Quaker\" with them. I had never\nheard of the game before, and said that if it required intellect, I\nshould not be able to entertain them. But they said it was merely a game\nof chance, and required no mentality--so I agreed to make a trial of it.\nThey appointed four in the afternoon for the sacrifice. As the place,\nthey chose a ground-floor room with a large window in it. Then they\nwent treacherously around and advertised the \"sell\" which they were\ngoing to play upon me.\n\nI arrived on time, and we began the game--with a large and eager\nfree-list to superintend it. These superintendents were outside, with\ntheir noses pressed against the window-pane. The bankers described the\ngame to me. So far as I recollect, the pattern of it was this: they had\na pile of Mexican dollars on the table; twelve of them were of even\ndate, fifty of them were of odd dates. The bankers were to separate a\ncoin from the pile and hide it under a hand, and I must guess \"odd\" or\n\"even.\" If I guessed correctly, the coin would be mine; if incorrectly,\nI lost a dollar. The first guess I made was \"even,\" and was right. I\nguessed again, \"even,\" and took the money. They fed me another one and I\nguessed \"even\" again, and took the money. I guessed \"even\" the fourth\ntime, and took the money. It seemed to me that \"even\" was a good guess,\nand I might as well stay by it, which I did. I guessed \"even\" twelve\ntimes, and took the twelve dollars. I was doing as they secretly\ndesired. Their experience of human nature had convinced them that any\nhuman being as innocent as my face proclaimed me to be, would repeat his\nfirst guess if it won, and would go on repeating it if it should\ncontinue to win. It was their belief that an innocent would be almost\nsure at the beginning to guess \"even,\" and not \"odd,\" and that if an\ninnocent should guess \"even\" twelve times in succession and win every\ntime, he would go on guessing \"even\" to the end--so it was their purpose\nto let me win those twelve even dates and then advance the odd dates,\none by one, until I should lose fifty dollars, and furnish those\nsuperintendents something to laugh about for a week to come.\n\nBut it did not come out in that way; for by the time I had won the\ntwelfth dollar and last even date, I withdrew from the game because it\nwas so one-sided that it was monotonous, and did not entertain me. There\nwas a burst of laughter from the superintendents at the window when I\ncame out of the place, but I did not know what they were laughing at nor\nwhom they were laughing at, and it was a matter of no interest to me\nanyway. Through that incident I acquired an enviable reputation for\nsmartness and penetration, but it was not my due, for I had not\npenetrated anything that the cow could not have penetrated.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[16] With the pen, I mean. This Autobiography is dictated, not written.\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCXX.\n\nAUGUST 2, 1907.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--XXI.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n_From Susy's Biography of Me._\n\n\n     _Feb. 12, '86._\n\n     Mamma and I have both been very much troubled of late because papa\n     since he has been publishing Gen. Grant's book has seemed to forget\n     his own books and work entirely, and the other evening as papa and\n     I were promonading up and down the library he told me that he\n     didn't expect to write but one more book, and then he was ready to\n     give up work altogether, die, or do anything, he said that he had\n     written more than he had ever expected to, and the only book that\n     he had been pertickularly anxious to write was one locked up in the\n     safe down stairs, not yet published.[17]\n\n     But this intended future of course will never do, and although papa\n     usually holds to his own opinions and intents with outsiders, when\n     mamma realy desires anything and says that it must be, papa allways\n     gives up his plans (at least so far) and does as she says is right\n     (and she is usually right, if she dissagrees with him at all). It\n     was because he knew his great tendency to being convinced by her,\n     that he published without her knowledge that article in the\n     \"Christian Union\" concerning the government of children. So judging\n     by the proofs of past years, I think that we will be able to\n     persuade papa to go back to work as before, and not leave off\n     writing with the end of his next story. Mamma says that she\n     sometimes feels, and I do too, that she would rather have papa\n     depend on his writing for a living than to have him think of giving\n     it up.\n\n\n[_Dictated, November 8, 1906._] I have a defect of a sort which I think\nis not common; certainly I hope it isn't: it is rare that I can call\nbefore my mind's eye the form and face of either friend or enemy. If I\nshould make a list, now, of persons whom I know in America and\nabroad--say to the number of even an entire thousand--it is quite\nunlikely that I could reproduce five of them in my mind's eye. Of my\ndearest and most intimate friends, I could name eight whom I have seen\nand talked with four days ago, but when I try to call them before me\nthey are formless shadows. Jean has been absent, this past eight or ten\ndays, in the country, and I wish I could reproduce her in the mirror of\nmy mind, but I can't do it.\n\nIt may be that this defect is not constitutional, but a result of\nlifelong absence of mind and indolent and inadequate observation. Once\nor twice in my life it has been an embarrassment to me. Twenty years\nago, in the days of Susy's Biography of Me, there was a dispute one\nmorning at the breakfast-table about the color of a neighbor's eyes. I\nwas asked for a verdict, but had to confess that if that valued neighbor\nand old friend had eyes I was not sure that I had ever seen them. It was\nthen mockingly suggested that perhaps I didn't even know the color of\nthe eyes of my own family, and I was required to shut my own at once and\ntestify. I was able to name the color of Mrs. Clemens's eyes, but was\nnot able to even suggest a color for Jean's, or Clara's, or Susy's.\n\nAll this talk is suggested by Susy's remark: \"The other evening as papa\nand I were promenading up and down the library.\" Down to the bottom of\nmy heart I am thankful that I can see _that_ picture! And it is not dim,\nbut stands out clear in the unfaded light of twenty-one years ago. In\nthose days Susy and I used to \"promonade\" daily up and down the\nlibrary, with our arms about each other's waists, and deal in intimate\ncommunion concerning affairs of State, or the deep questions of human\nlife, or our small personal affairs.\n\nIt was quite natural that I should think I had written myself out when I\nwas only fifty years old, for everybody who has ever written has been\nsmitten with that superstition at about that age. Not even yet have I\nreally written myself out. I have merely stopped writing because\ndictating is pleasanter work, and because dictating has given me a\nstrong aversion to the pen, and because two hours of talking per day is\nenough, and because--But I am only damaging my mind with this digging\naround in it for pretexts where no pretext is needed, and where the\nsimple truth is for this one time better than any invention, in this\nsmall emergency. I shall never finish my five or six unfinished books,\nfor the reason that by forty years of slavery to the pen I have earned\nmy freedom. I detest the pen and I wouldn't use it again to sign the\ndeath warrant of my dearest enemy.\n\n[_Dictated, March 8, 1906._] For thirty years, I have received an\naverage of a dozen letters a year from strangers who remember me, or\nwhose fathers remember me as boy and young man. But these letters are\nalmost always disappointing. I have not known these strangers nor their\nfathers. I have not heard of the names they mention; the reminiscences\nto which they call attention have had no part in my experience; all of\nwhich means that these strangers have been mistaking me for somebody\nelse. But at last I have the refreshment, this morning, of a letter from\na man who deals in names that were familiar to me in my boyhood. The\nwriter encloses a newspaper clipping which has been wandering through\nthe press for four or five weeks, and he wants to know if Capt Tonkray,\nlately deceased, was (as stated in the clipping) the original of\n\"Huckleberry Finn.\"\n\nI have replied that \"Huckleberry Finn\" was Frank F. As this inquirer\nevidently knew the Hannibal of the forties, he will easily recall Frank.\nFrank's father was at one time Town Drunkard, an exceedingly\nwell-defined and unofficial office of those days. He succeeded \"General\"\nGaines, and for a time he was sole and only incumbent of the office; but\nafterward Jimmy Finn proved competency and disputed the place with him,\nso we had two town drunkards at one time--and it made as much trouble in\nthat village as Christendom experienced in the fourteenth century when\nthere were two Popes at the same time.\n\nIn \"Huckleberry Finn\" I have drawn Frank exactly as he was. He was\nignorant, unwashed, insufficiently fed; but he had as good a heart as\never any boy had. His liberties were totally unrestricted. He was the\nonly really independent person--boy or man--in the community, and by\nconsequence he was tranquilly and continuously happy, and was envied by\nall the rest of us. We liked him; we enjoyed his society. And as his\nsociety was forbidden us by our parents, the prohibition trebled and\nquadrupled its value, and therefore we sought and got more of his\nsociety than of any other boy's. I heard, four years ago, that he was\nJustice of the Peace in a remote village in the State of ----, and was a\ngood citizen and was greatly respected.\n\nDuring Jimmy Finn's term he (Jimmy) was not exclusive; he was not\nfinical; he was not hypercritical; he was largely and handsomely\ndemocratic--and slept in the deserted tan-yard with the hogs. My father\ntried to reform him once, but did not succeed. My father was not a\nprofessional reformer. In him the spirit of reform was spasmodic. It\nonly broke out now and then, with considerable intervals between. Once\nhe tried to reform Injun Joe. That also was a failure. It was a failure,\nand we boys were glad. For Injun Joe, drunk, was interesting and a\nbenefaction to us, but Injun Joe, sober, was a dreary spectacle. We\nwatched my father's experiments upon him with a good deal of anxiety,\nbut it came out all right and we were satisfied. Injun Joe got drunk\noftener than before, and became intolerably interesting.\n\nI think that in \"Tom Sawyer\" I starved Injun Joe to death in the cave.\nBut that may have been to meet the exigencies of romantic literature. I\ncan't remember now whether the real Injun Joe died in the cave or out of\nit, but I do remember that the news of his death reached me at a most\nunhappy time--that is to say, just at bedtime on a summer night when a\nprodigious storm of thunder and lightning accompanied by a deluging rain\nthat turned the streets and lanes into rivers, caused me to repent and\nresolve to lead a better life. I can remember those awful thunder-bursts\nand the white glare of the lightning yet, and the wild lashing of the\nrain against the window-panes. By my teachings I perfectly well knew\nwhat all that wild riot was for--Satan had come to get Injun Joe. I had\nno shadow of doubt about it. It was the proper thing when a person like\nInjun Joe was required in the under world, and I should have thought it\nstrange and unaccountable if Satan had come for him in a less impressive\nway. With every glare of lightning I shrivelled and shrunk together in\nmortal terror, and in the interval of black darkness that followed I\npoured out my lamentings over my lost condition, and my supplications\nfor just one more chance, with an energy and feeling and sincerity quite\nforeign to my nature.\n\nBut in the morning I saw that it was a false alarm and concluded to\nresume business at the old stand and wait for another reminder.\n\nThe axiom says \"History repeats itself.\" A week or two ago Mr.\nBlank-Blank dined with us. At dinner he mentioned a circumstance which\nflashed me back over about sixty years and landed me in that little\nbedroom on that tempestuous night, and brought to my mind how creditable\nto me was my conduct through the whole night, and how barren it was of\nmoral spot or fleck during that entire period: he said Mr. X was sexton,\nor something, of the Episcopal church in his town, and had been for many\nyears the competent superintendent of all the church's worldly affairs,\nand was regarded by the whole congregation as a stay, a blessing, a\npriceless treasure. But he had a couple of defects--not large defects,\nbut they seemed large when flung against the background of his\nprofoundly religious character: he drank a good deal, and he could\noutswear a brakeman. A movement arose to persuade him to lay aside these\nvices, and after consulting with his pal, who occupied the same position\nas himself in the other Episcopal church, and whose defects were\nduplicates of his own and had inspired regret in the congregation he was\nserving, they concluded to try for reform--not wholesale, but half at a\ntime. They took the liquor pledge and waited for results. During nine\ndays the results were entirely satisfactory, and they were recipients of\nmany compliments and much congratulation. Then on New-year's eve they\nhad business a mile and a half out of town, just beyond the State line.\nEverything went well with them that evening in the barroom of the\ninn--but at last the celebration of the occasion by those villagers\ncame to be of a burdensome nature. It was a bitter cold night and the\nmultitudinous hot toddies that were circulating began by and by to exert\na powerful influence upon the new prohibitionists. At last X's friend\nremarked,\n\n\"X, does it occur to you that we are _outside the diocese_?\"\n\nThat ended reform No. 1. Then they took a chance in reform No. 2. For a\nwhile that one prospered, and they got much applause. I now reach the\nincident which sent me back a matter of sixty years, as I have remarked\na while ago.\n\nOne morning Mr. Blank-Blank met X on the street and said,\n\n\"You have made a gallant struggle against those defects of yours. I am\naware that you failed on No. 1, but I am also aware that you are having\nbetter luck with No. 2.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" X said; \"No. 2 is all right and sound up to date, and we are full\nof hope.\"\n\nBlank-Blank said, \"X, of course you have your troubles like other\npeople, but they never show on the outside. I have never seen you when\nyou were not cheerful. Are you always cheerful? Really always cheerful?\"\n\n\"Well, no,\" he said, \"no, I can't say that I am always cheerful,\nbut--well, you know that kind of a night that comes: _say_--you wake up\n'way in the night and the whole world is sunk in gloom and there are\nstorms and earthquakes and all sorts of disasters in the air\nthreatening, and you get cold and clammy; and when that happens to me I\nrecognize how sinful I am and it all goes clear to my heart and wrings\nit and I have such terrors and terrors!--oh, they are indescribable,\nthose terrors that assail me, and I slip out of bed and get on my knees\nand pray and pray and promise that I will be good, if I can only have\nanother chance. And then, you know, in the morning the sun shines out so\nlovely, and the birds sing and the whole world is so beautiful, and--_b'\nGod, I rally!_\"\n\nNow I will quote a brief paragraph from this letter which I have a\nminute ago spoken of. The writer says:\n\n\n     You no doubt are at a loss to know who I am. I will tell you. In my\n     younger days I was a resident of Hannibal, Mo., and you and I were\n     schoolmates attending Mr. Dawson's school along with Sam and Will\n     Bowen and Andy Fuqua and others whose names I have forgotten. I was\n     then about the smallest boy in school, for my age, and they called\n     me little Aleck for short.\n\n\nI only dimly remember him, but I knew those other people as well as I\nknew the town drunkards. I remember Dawson's schoolhouse perfectly. If I\nwanted to describe it I could save myself the trouble by conveying the\ndescription of it to these pages from \"Tom Sawyer.\" I can remember the\ndrowsy and inviting summer sounds that used to float in through the open\nwindows from that distant boy-Paradise, Cardiff Hill (Holliday's Hill),\nand mingle with the murmurs of the studying pupils and make them the\nmore dreary by the contrast. I remember Andy Fuqua, the oldest pupil--a\nman of twenty-five. I remember the youngest pupil, Nannie Owsley, a\nchild of seven. I remember George Robards, eighteen or twenty years old,\nthe only pupil who studied Latin. I remember--in some cases vividly, in\nothers vaguely--the rest of the twenty-five boys and girls. I remember\nMr. Dawson very well. I remember his boy, Theodore, who was as good as\nhe could be. In fact, he was inordinately good, extravagantly good,\noffensively good, detestably good--and he had pop-eyes--and I would have\ndrowned him if I had had a chance. In that school we were all about on\nan equality, and, so far as I remember, the passion of envy had no place\nin our hearts, except in the case of Arch Fuqua--the other one's\nbrother. Of course we all went barefoot in the summer-time. Arch Fuqua\nwas about my own age--ten or eleven. In the winter we could stand him,\nbecause he wore shoes then, and his great gift was hidden from our sight\nand we were enabled to forget it. But in the summer-time he was a\nbitterness to us. He was our envy, for he could double back his big toe\nand let it fly and you could hear it snap thirty yards. There was not\nanother boy in the school that could approach this feat. He had not a\nrival as regards a physical distinction--except in Theodore Eddy, who\ncould work his ears like a horse. But he was no real rival, because you\ncouldn't hear him work his ears; so all the advantage lay with Arch\nFuqua.\n\nI am not done with Dawson's school; I will return to it in a later\nchapter.\n\n[_Dictated at Hamilton, Bermuda, January 6, 1907._] \"That reminds me.\"\nIn conversation we are always using that phrase, and seldom or never\nnoticing how large a significance it bears. It stands for a curious and\ninteresting fact, to wit: that sleeping or waking, dreaming or talking,\nthe thoughts which swarm through our heads are almost constantly,\nalmost continuously, accompanied by a like swarm of reminders of\nincidents and episodes of our past. A man can never know what a large\ntraffic this commerce of association carries on in our minds until he\nsets out to write his autobiography; he then finds that a thought is\nseldom born to him that does not immediately remind him of some event,\nlarge or small, in his past experience. Quite naturally these remarks\nremind me of various things, among others this: that sometimes a\nthought, by the power of association, will bring back to your mind a\nlost word or a lost name which you have not been able to recover by any\nother process known to your mental equipment. Yesterday we had an\ninstance of this. Rev. Joseph H. Twichell is with me on this flying trip\nto Bermuda. He was with me on my last visit to Bermuda, and to-day we\nwere trying to remember when it was. We thought it was somewhere in the\nneighborhood of thirty years ago, but that was as near as we could get\nat the date. Twichell said that the landlady in whose boarding-house we\nsojourned in that ancient time could doubtless furnish us the date, and\nwe must look her up. We wanted to see her, anyway, because she and her\nblooming daughter of eighteen were the only persons whose acquaintance\nwe had made at that time, for we were travelling under fictitious names,\nand people who wear aliases are not given to seeking society and\nbringing themselves under suspicion. But at this point in our talk we\nencountered an obstruction: we could not recall the landlady's name. We\nhunted all around through our minds for that name, using all the\ncustomary methods of research, but without success; the name was gone\nfrom us, apparently permanently. We finally gave the matter up, and fell\nto talking about something else. The talk wandered from one subject to\nanother, and finally arrived at Twichell's school-days in Hartford--the\nHartford of something more than half a century ago--and he mentioned\nseveral of his schoolmasters, dwelling with special interest upon the\npeculiarities of an aged one named Olney. He remarked that Olney, humble\nvillage schoolmaster as he was, was yet a man of superior parts, and had\npublished text-books which had enjoyed a wide currency in America in\ntheir day. I said I remembered those books, and had studied Olney's\nGeography in school when I was a boy. Then Twichell said,\n\n\"That reminds me--our landlady's name was a name that was associated\nwith school-books of some kind or other fifty or sixty years ago. I\nwonder what it was. I believe it began with K.\"\n\nAssociation did the rest, and did it instantly. I said,\n\n\"Kirkham's Grammar!\"\n\nThat settled it. Kirkham was the name; and we went out to seek for the\nowner of it. There was no trouble about that, for Bermuda is not large,\nand is like the earlier Garden of Eden, in that everybody in it knows\neverybody else, just as it was in the serpent's headquarters in Adam's\ntime. We easily found Miss Kirkham--she that had been the blooming girl\nof a generation before--and she was still keeping boarders; but her\nmother had passed from this life. She settled the date for us, and did\nit with certainty, by help of a couple of uncommon circumstances, events\nof that ancient time. She said we had sailed from Bermuda on the 24th of\nMay, 1877, which was the day on which her only nephew was born--and he\nis now thirty years of age. The other unusual circumstance--she called\nit an unusual circumstance, and I didn't say anything--was that on that\nday the Rev. Mr. Twichell (bearing the assumed name of Peters) had made\na statement to her which she regarded as a fiction. I remembered the\ncircumstance very well. We had bidden the young girl good-by and had\ngone fifty yards, perhaps, when Twichell said he had forgotten something\n(I doubted it) and must go back. When he rejoined me he was silent, and\nthis alarmed me, because I had not seen an example of it before. He\nseemed quite uncomfortable, and I asked him what the trouble was. He\nsaid he had been inspired to give the girl a pleasant surprise, and so\nhad gone back and said to her--\n\n\"That young fellow's name is not Wilkinson--that's Mark Twain.\"\n\nShe did not lose her mind; she did not exhibit any excitement at all,\nbut said quite simply, quite tranquilly,\n\n\"Tell it to the marines, Mr. Peters--if that should happen to be _your_\nname.\"\n\nIt was very pleasant to meet her again. We were white-headed, but she\nwas not; in the sweet and unvexed spiritual atmosphere of the Bermudas\none does not achieve gray hairs at forty-eight.\n\nI had a dream last night, and of course it was born of association, like\nnearly everything else that drifts into a person's head, asleep or\nawake. On board ship, on the passage down, Twichell was talking about\nthe swiftly developing possibilities of aerial navigation, and he quoted\nthose striking verses of Tennyson's which forecast a future when\nair-borne vessels of war shall meet and fight above the clouds and\nredden the earth below with a rain of blood. This picture of carnage and\nblood and death reminded me of something which I had read a fortnight\nago--statistics of railway accidents compiled by the United States\nGovernment, wherein the appalling fact was set forth that on our 200,000\nmiles of railway we annually kill 10,000 persons outright and injure\n80,000. The war-ships in the air suggested the railway horrors, and\nthree nights afterward the railway horrors suggested my dream. The work\nof association was going on in my head, unconsciously, all that time. It\nwas an admirable dream, what there was of it.\n\nIn it I saw a funeral procession; I saw it from a mountain peak; I saw\nit crawling along and curving here and there, serpentlike, through a\nlevel vast plain. I seemed to see a hundred miles of the procession, but\nneither the beginning of it nor the end of it was within the limits of\nmy vision. The procession was in ten divisions, each division marked by\na sombre flag, and the whole represented ten years of our railway\nactivities in the accident line; each division was composed of 80,000\ncripples, and was bearing its own year's 10,000 mutilated corpses to the\ngrave: in the aggregate 800,000 cripples and 100,000 dead, drenched in\nblood!\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[17] It isn't yet. Title of it, \"Captain Stormfield's Visit to\nHeaven.\"--S. L. C.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--XXII.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n[Sidenote: (1890.)]\n\n[_Dictated, October 10, 1906._] Susy has named a number of the friends\nwho were assembled at Onteora at the time of our visit, but there were\nothers--among them Laurence Hutton, Charles Dudley Warner, and Carroll\nBeckwith, and their wives. It was a bright and jolly company. Some of\nthose choice spirits are still with us; the others have passed from this\nlife: Mrs. Clemens, Susy, Mr. Warner, Mary Mapes Dodge, Laurence Hutton,\nDean Sage--peace to their ashes! Susy is in error in thinking Mrs. Dodge\nwas not there at that time; we were her guests.\n\nWe arrived at nightfall, dreary from a tiresome journey; but the\ndreariness did not last. Mrs. Dodge had provided a home-made banquet,\nand the happy company sat down to it, twenty strong, or more. Then the\nthing happened which always happens at large dinners, and is always\nexasperating: everybody talked to his elbow-mates and all talked at\nonce, and gradually raised their voices higher, and higher, and higher,\nin the desperate effort to be heard. It was like a riot, an\ninsurrection; it was an intolerable volume of noise. Presently I said to\nthe lady next me--\n\n\"I will subdue this riot, I will silence this racket. There is only one\nway to do it, but I know the art. You must tilt your head toward mine\nand seem to be deeply interested in what I am saying; I will talk in a\nlow voice; then, just because our neighbors won't be able to hear me,\nthey will _want_ to hear me. If I mumble long enough--say two\nminutes--you will see that the dialogues will one after another come to\na standstill, and there will be silence, not a sound anywhere but my\nmumbling.\"\n\nThen in a very low voice I began:\n\n\"When I went out to Chicago, eleven years ago, to witness the Grant\nfestivities, there was a great banquet on the first night, with six\nhundred ex-soldiers present. The gentleman who sat next me was Mr. X. X.\nHe was very hard of hearing, and he had a habit common to deaf people of\nshouting his remarks instead of delivering them in an ordinary voice. He\nwould handle his knife and fork in reflective silence for five or six\nminutes at a time and then suddenly fetch out a shout that would make\nyou jump out of the United States.\"\n\nBy this time the insurrection at Mrs. Dodge's table--at least that part\nof it in my immediate neighborhood--had died down, and the silence was\nspreading, couple by couple, down the long table. I went on in a lower\nand still lower mumble, and most impressively--\n\n\"During one of Mr. X. X.'s mute intervals, a man opposite us approached\nthe end of a story which he had been telling his elbow-neighbor. He was\nspeaking in a low voice--there was much noise--I was deeply interested,\nand straining my ears to catch his words, stretching my neck, holding my\nbreath, to hear, unconscious of everything but the fascinating tale. I\nheard him say, 'At this point he seized her by her long hair--she\nshrieking and begging--bent her neck across his knee, and with one awful\nsweep of the razor--'\n\n\"HOW DO YOU LIKE CHICA-A-AGO?!!!\"\n\nThat was X. X.'s interruption, hearable at thirty miles. By the time I\nhad reached that place in my mumblings Mrs. Dodge's dining-room was so\nsilent, so breathlessly still, that if you had dropped a thought\nanywhere in it you could have heard it smack the floor.[18] When I\ndelivered that yell the entire dinner company jumped as one person, and\npunched their heads through the ceiling, damaging it, for it was only\nlath and plaster, and it all came down on us, and much of it went into\nthe victuals and made them gritty, but no one was hurt. Then I explained\nwhy it was that I had played that game, and begged them to take the\nmoral of it home to their hearts and be rational and merciful\nthenceforth, and cease from screaming in mass, and agree to let one\nperson talk at a time and the rest listen in grateful and unvexed peace.\nThey granted my prayer, and we had a happy time all the rest of the\nevening; I do not think I have ever had a better time in my life. This\nwas largely because the new terms enabled me to keep the floor--now that\nI had it--and do all the talking myself. I do like to hear myself talk.\nSusy has exposed this in her Biography of me.\n\nDean Sage was a delightful man, yet in one way a terror to his friends,\nfor he loved them so well that he could not refrain from playing\npractical jokes on them. We have to be pretty deeply in love with a\nperson before we can do him the honor of joking familiarly with him.\nDean Sage was the best citizen I have known in America. It takes courage\nto be a good citizen, and he had plenty of it. He allowed no individual\nand no corporation to infringe his smallest right and escape unpunished.\nHe was very rich, and very generous, and benevolent, and he gave away\nhis money with a prodigal hand; but if an individual or corporation\ninfringed a right of his, to the value of ten cents, he would spend\nthousands of dollars' worth of time and labor and money and persistence\non the matter, and would not lower his flag until he had won his battle\nor lost it.\n\nHe and Rev. Mr. Harris had been classmates in college, and to the day of\nSage's death they were as fond of each other as an engaged pair. It\nfollows, without saying, that whenever Sage found an opportunity to play\na joke upon Harris, Harris was sure to suffer.\n\nAlong about 1873 Sage fell a victim to an illness which reduced him to a\nskeleton, and defied all the efforts of the physicians to cure it. He\nwent to the Adirondacks and took Harris with him. Sage had always been\nan active man, and he couldn't idle any day wholly away in inanition,\nbut walked every day to the limit of his strength. One day, toward\nnightfall, the pair came upon a humble log cabin which bore these words\npainted upon a shingle: \"Entertainment for Man and Beast.\" They were\nobliged to stop there for the night, Sage's strength being exhausted.\nThey entered the cabin and found its owner and sole occupant there, a\nrugged and sturdy and simple-hearted man of middle age. He cooked supper\nand placed it before the travellers--salt junk, boiled beans, corn bread\nand black coffee. Sage's stomach could abide nothing but the most\ndelicate food, therefore this banquet revolted him, and he sat at the\ntable unemployed, while Harris fed ravenously, limitlessly, gratefully;\nfor he had been chaplain in a fighting regiment all through the war, and\nhad kept in perfection the grand and uncritical appetite and splendid\nphysical vigor which those four years of tough fare and activity had\nfurnished him. Sage went supperless to bed, and tossed and writhed all\nnight upon a shuck mattress that was full of attentive and interested\ncorn-cobs. In the morning Harris was ravenous again, and devoured the\nodious breakfast as contentedly and as delightedly as he had devoured\nits twin the night before. Sage sat upon the porch, empty, and\ncontemplated the performance and meditated revenge. Presently he\nbeckoned to the landlord and took him aside and had a confidential talk\nwith him. He said,\n\n\"I am the paymaster. What is the bill?\"\n\n\"Two suppers, fifty cents; two beds, thirty cents; two breakfasts, fifty\ncents--total, a dollar and thirty cents.\"\n\nSage said, \"Go back and make out the bill and fetch it to me here on the\nporch. Make it thirteen dollars.\"\n\n\"Thirteen dollars! Why, it's impossible! I am no robber. I am charging\nyou what I charge everybody. It's a dollar and thirty cents, and that's\nall it is.\"\n\n\"My man, I've got something to say about this as well as you. It's\nthirteen dollars. You'll make out your bill for that, and you'll _take_\nit, too, or you'll not get a cent.\"\n\nThe man was troubled, and said, \"I don't understand this. I can't make\nit out.\"\n\n\"Well, I understand it. I know what I am about. It's thirteen dollars,\nand I want the bill made out for that. There's no other terms. Get it\nready and bring it out here. I will examine it and be outraged. You\nunderstand? I will dispute the bill. You must stand to it. You must\nrefuse to take less. I will begin to lose my temper; you must begin to\nlose yours. I will call you hard names; you must answer with harder\nones. I will raise my voice; you must raise yours. You must go into a\nrage--foam at the mouth, if you can; insert some soap to help it along.\nNow go along and follow your instructions.\"\n\nThe man played his assigned part, and played it well. He brought the\nbill and stood waiting for results. Sage's face began to cloud up, his\neyes to snap, and his nostrils to inflate like a horse's; then he broke\nout with--\n\n\"_Thirteen dollars!_ You mean to say that you charge thirteen dollars\nfor these damned inhuman hospitalities of yours? Are you a professional\nbuccaneer? Is it your custom to--\"\n\nThe man burst in with spirit: \"Now, I don't want any more out of\nyou--that's a plenty. The bill is thirteen dollars and you'll _pay_\nit--that's all; a couple of characterless adventurers bilking their way\nthrough this country and attempting to dictate terms to a gentleman! a\ngentleman who received you supposing you were gentlemen yourselves,\nwhereas in my opinion hell's full of--\"\n\nSage broke in--\n\n\"Not another word of that!--I won't have it. I regard you as the\nlowest-down thief that ever--\"\n\n\"Don't you use that word again! By ----, I'll take you by the neck\nand--\"\n\nHarris came rushing out, and just as the two were about to grapple he\npushed himself between them and began to implore--\n\n\"Oh, Dean, don't, _don't_--now, Mr. Smith, control yourself! Oh, think\nof your family, Dean!--think what a scandal--\"\n\nBut they burst out with maledictions, imprecations and all the hard\nnames they could dig out of the rich accumulations of their educated\nmemories, and in the midst of it the man shouted--\n\n\"When _gentlemen_ come to this house, I treat them _as_ gentlemen. When\npeople come to this house with the ordinary appetites of gentlemen, I\ncharge them a dollar and thirty cents for what I furnished you; but when\na man brings a hell-fired Famine here that gorges a barrel of pork and\nfour barrels of beans at two sittings--\"\n\nSage broke in, in a voice that was eloquent with remorse and\nself-reproach, \"I never thought of that, and I ask your pardon; I am\nashamed of myself and of my friend. Here's your thirteen dollars, and my\napologies along with it.\"\n\n\n[_Dictated March 12, 1906._] I have always taken a great interest in\nother people's duels. One always feels an abiding interest in any heroic\nthing which has entered into his own experience.\n\n[Sidenote: (1878.)]\n\nIn 1878, fourteen years after my unmaterialized duel, Messieurs Fortu\nand Gambetta fought a duel which made heroes of both of them in France,\nbut made them rather ridiculous throughout the rest of the world. I was\nliving in Munich that fall and winter, and I was so interested in that\nfunny tragedy that I wrote a long account of it, and it is in one of my\nbooks, somewhere--an account which had some inaccuracies in it, but as\nan exhibition of the _spirit_ of that duel, I think it was correct and\ntrustworthy. And when I was living in Vienna, thirty-four years after my\nineffectual duel, my interest in that kind of incident was still strong;\nand I find here among my Autobiographical manuscripts of that day a\nchapter which I began concerning it, but did not finish. I wanted to\nfinish it, but held it open in the hope that the Italian ambassador, M.\nNigra, would find time to furnish me the _full_ history of Se\u00f1or\nCavalotti's adventures in that line. But he was a busy man; there was\nalways an interruption before he could get well started; so my hope was\nnever fulfilled. The following is the unfinished chapter:\n\n\n[Sidenote: (1898.)]\n\n     As concerns duelling. This pastime is as common in Austria to-day\n     as it is in France. But with this difference, that here in the\n     Austrian States the duel is dangerous, while in France it is not.\n     Here it is tragedy, in France it in comedy; here it is a solemnity,\n     there it is monkey-shines; here the duellist risks his life, there\n     he does not even risk his shirt. Here he fights with pistol or\n     sabre, in France with a hairpin--a blunt one. Here the desperately\n     wounded man tries to walk to the hospital; there they paint the\n     scratch so that they can find it again, lay the sufferer on a\n     stretcher, and conduct him off the field with a band of music.\n\n     At the end of a French duel the pair hug and kiss and cry, and\n     praise each other's valor; then the surgeons make an examination\n     and pick out the scratched one, and the other one helps him on to\n     the litter and pays his fare; and in return the scratched one\n     treats to champagne and oysters in the evening, and then \"the\n     incident is closed,\" as the French say. It is all polite, and\n     gracious, and pretty, and impressive. At the end of an Austrian\n     duel the antagonist that is alive gravely offers his hand to the\n     other man, utters some phrases of courteous regret, then bids him\n     good-by and goes his way, and that incident also is closed. The\n     French duellist is painstakingly protected from danger, by the\n     rules of the game. His antagonist's weapon cannot reach so far as\n     his body; if he get a scratch it will not be above his elbow. But\n     in Austria the rules of the game do not provide against danger,\n     they carefully provide _for_ it, usually. Commonly the combat must\n     be kept up until one of the men is disabled; a non-disabling slash\n     or stab does not retire him.\n\n     For a matter of three months I watched the Viennese journals, and\n     whenever a duel was reported in their telegraphic columns I\n     scrap-booked it. By this record I find that duelling in Austria is\n     not confined to journalists and old maids, as in France, but is\n     indulged in by military men, journalists, students, physicians,\n     lawyers, members of the legislature, and even the Cabinet, the\n     Bench and the police. Duelling is forbidden by law; and so it seems\n     odd to see the makers and administrators of the laws dancing on\n     their work in this way. Some months ago Count Bodeni, at that time\n     Chief of the Government, fought a pistol-duel here in the capital\n     city of the Empire with representative Wolf, and both of those\n     distinguished Christians came near getting turned out of the\n     Church--for the Church as well as the State forbids duelling.\n\n     In one case, lately, in Hungary, the police interfered and stopped\n     a duel after the first innings. This was a sabre-duel between the\n     chief of police and the city attorney. Unkind things were said\n     about it by the newspapers. They said the police remembered their\n     duty uncommonly well when their own officials were the parties\n     concerned in duels. But I think the underlings showed good\n     bread-and-butter judgment. If their superiors had carved each other\n     well, the public would have asked, Where were the police? and their\n     places would have been endangered; but custom does not require them\n     to be around where mere unofficial citizens are explaining a thing\n     with sabres.\n\n     There was another duel--a double duel--going on in the immediate\n     neighborhood at the time, and in this case the police obeyed custom\n     and did not disturb it. Their bread and butter was not at stake\n     there. In this duel a physician fought a couple of surgeons, and\n     wounded both--one of them lightly, the other seriously. An\n     undertaker wanted to keep people from interfering, but that was\n     quite natural again.\n\n     Selecting at random from my record, I next find a duel at Tarnopol\n     between military men. An officer of the Tenth Dragoons charged an\n     officer of the Ninth Dragoons with an offence against the laws of\n     the card-table. There was a defect or a doubt somewhere in the\n     matter, and this had to be examined and passed upon by a Court of\n     Honor. So the case was sent up to Lemberg for this purpose. One\n     would like to know what the defect was, but the newspaper does not\n     say. A man here who has fought many duels and has a graveyard, says\n     that probably the matter in question was as to whether the\n     accusation was true or not; that if the charge was a very grave\n     one--cheating, for instance--proof of its truth would rule the\n     guilty officer out of the field of honor; the Court would not allow\n     a gentleman to fight with such a person. You see what a solemn\n     thing it is; you see how particular they are; any little careless\n     act can lose you your privilege of getting yourself shot, here. The\n     Court seems to have gone into the matter in a searching and careful\n     fashion, for several months elapsed before it reached a decision.\n     It then sanctioned a duel and the accused killed his accuser.\n\n     Next I find a duel between a prince and a major; first with\n     pistols--no result satisfactory to either party; then with sabres,\n     and the major badly hurt.\n\n     Next, a sabre-duel between journalists--the one a strong man, the\n     other feeble and in poor health. It was brief; the strong one drove\n     his sword through the weak one, and death was immediate.\n\n     Next, a duel between a lieutenant and a student of medicine.\n     According to the newspaper report these are the details. The\n     student was in a restaurant one evening: passing along, he halted\n     at a table to speak with some friends; near by sat a dozen military\n     men; the student conceived that one of these was \"staring\" at him;\n     he asked the officer to step outside and explain. This officer and\n     another one gathered up their caps and sabres and went out with the\n     student. Outside--this is the student's account--the student\n     introduced himself to the offending officer and said, \"You seemed\n     to stare at me\"; for answer, the officer struck at the student with\n     his fist; the student parried the blow; both officers drew their\n     sabres and attacked the young fellow, and one of them gave him a\n     wound on the left arm; then they withdrew. This was Saturday night.\n     The duel followed on Monday, in the military riding-school--the\n     customary duelling-ground all over Austria, apparently. The weapons\n     were pistols. The duelling terms were somewhat beyond custom in the\n     matter of severity, if I may gather that from the statement that\n     the combat was fought \"_unter sehr schweren Bedingungen_\"--to wit,\n     \"Distance, 15 steps--with 3 steps advance.\" There was but one\n     exchange of shots. The student was hit. \"He put his hand on his\n     breast, his body began to bend slowly forward, then collapsed in\n     death and sank to the ground.\"\n\n     It is pathetic. There are other duels in my list, but I find in\n     each and all of them one and the same ever-recurring defect--the\n     _principals_ are never present, but only their sham\n     representatives. The _real_ principals in any duel are not the\n     duellists themselves, but their families. They do the mourning, the\n     suffering, theirs is the loss and theirs the misery. They stake all\n     that, the duellist stakes nothing but his life, and that is a\n     trivial thing compared with what his death must cost those whom he\n     leaves behind him. Challenges should not mention the duellist; he\n     has nothing much at stake, and the real vengeance cannot reach him.\n     The challenge should summon the offender's old gray mother, and his\n     young wife and his little children,--these, or any to whom he is a\n     dear and worshipped possession--and should say, \"You have done me\n     no harm, but I am the meek slave of a custom which requires me to\n     crush the happiness out of your hearts and condemn you to years of\n     pain and grief, in order that I may wash clean with your tears a\n     stain which has been put upon me by another person.\"\n\n     The logic of it is admirable: a person has robbed me of a penny; I\n     must beggar ten innocent persons to make good my loss. Surely\n     nobody's \"honor\" is worth all that.\n\n     Since the duellist's family are the real principals in a duel, the\n     State ought to compel them to be present at it. Custom, also, ought\n     to be so amended as to require it; and without it no duel ought to\n     be allowed to go on. If that student's unoffending mother had been\n     present and watching the officer through her tears as he raised his\n     pistol, he--why, he would have fired in the air. We know that. For\n     we know how we are all made. Laws ought to be based upon the\n     ascertained facts of our nature. It would be a simple thing to make\n     a duelling law which would stop duelling.\n\n     As things are now, the mother is never invited. She submits to\n     this; and without outward complaint, for she, too, is the vassal of\n     custom, and custom requires her to conceal her pain when she learns\n     the disastrous news that her son must go to the duelling-field, and\n     by the powerful force that is lodged in habit and custom she is\n     enabled to obey this trying requirement--a requirement which exacts\n     a miracle of her, and gets it. Last January a neighbor of ours who\n     has a young son in the army was wakened by this youth at three\n     o'clock one morning, and she sat up in bed and listened to his\n     message:\n\n     \"I have come to tell you something, mother, which will distress\n     you, but you must be good and brave, and bear it. I have been\n     affronted by a fellow officer, and we fight at three this\n     afternoon. Lie down and sleep, now, and think no more about it.\"\n\n     She kissed him good night and lay down paralyzed with grief and\n     fear, but said nothing. But she did not sleep; she prayed and\n     mourned till the first streak of dawn, then fled to the nearest\n     church and implored the Virgin for help; and from that church she\n     went to another and another and another; church after church, and\n     still church after church, and so spent all the day until three\n     o'clock on her knees in agony and tears; then dragged herself home\n     and sat down comfortless and desolate, to count the minutes, and\n     wait, with an outward show of calm, for what had been ordained for\n     her--happiness, or endless misery. Presently she heard the clank of\n     a sabre--she had not known before what music was in that\n     sound!--and her son put his head in and said:\n\n     \"X was in the wrong, and he apologized.\"\n\n     So that incident was closed; and for the rest of her life the\n     mother will always find something pleasant about the clank of a\n     sabre, no doubt.\n\n     In one of my listed duels--however, let it go, there is nothing\n     particularly striking about it except that the seconds interfered.\n     And prematurely, too, for neither man was dead. This was certainly\n     irregular. Neither of the men liked it. It was a duel with cavalry\n     sabres, between an editor and a lieutenant. The editor walked to\n     the hospital, the lieutenant was carried. In this country an editor\n     who can write well is valuable, but he is not likely to remain so\n     unless he can handle a sabre with charm.\n\n     The following very recent telegram shows that also in France duels\n     are humanely stopped as soon as they approach the (French)\n     danger-point:\n\n     \"_Reuter's Telegram._--PARIS, _March 5_.--The duel between Colonels\n     Henry and Picquart took place this morning in the Riding School of\n     the Ecole Militaire, the doors of which were strictly guarded in\n     order to prevent intrusion. The combatants, who fought with swords,\n     were in position at ten o'clock.\n\n     \"At the first reengagement Lieutenant-Colonel Henry was slightly\n     scratched in the fore arm, and just at the same moment his own\n     blade appeared to touch his adversary's neck. Senator Ranc, who was\n     Colonel Picquart's second, stopped the fight, but as it was found\n     that his principal had not been touched, the combat continued. A\n     very sharp encounter ensued, in which Colonel Henry was wounded in\n     the elbow, and the duel terminated.\"\n\n     After which, the stretcher and the band. In lurid contrast with\n     this delicate flirtation, we have this fatal duel of day before\n     yesterday in Italy, where the earnest Austrian duel is in vogue. I\n     knew Cavalotti slightly, and this gives me a sort of personal\n     interest in his duel. I first saw him in Rome several years ago. He\n     was sitting on a block of stone in the Forum, and was writing\n     something in his note-book--a poem or a challenge, or something\n     like that--and the friend who pointed him out to me said, \"That is\n     Cavalotti--he has fought thirty duels; do not disturb him.\" I did\n     not disturb him.\n\n\n[_May 13, 1907._] It is a long time ago. Cavalotti--poet, orator,\nsatirist, statesman, patriot--was a great man, and his death was deeply\nlamented by his countrymen: many monuments to his memory testify to\nthis. In his duels he killed several of his antagonists and disabled the\nrest. By nature he was a little irascible. Once when the officials of\nthe library of Bologna threw out his books the gentle poet went up there\nand challenged the whole fifteen! His parliamentary duties were\nexacting, but he proposed to keep coming up and fighting duels between\ntrains until all those officials had been retired from the activities of\nlife. Although he always chose the sword to fight with, he had never had\na lesson with that weapon. When game was called he waited for nothing,\nbut always plunged at his opponent and rained such a storm of wild and\noriginal thrusts and whacks upon him that the man was dead or crippled\nbefore he could bring his science to bear. But his latest antagonist\ndiscarded science, and won. He held his sword straight forward like a\nlance when Cavalotti made his plunge--with the result that he impaled\nhimself upon it. It entered his mouth and passed out at the back of his\nneck. Death was instantaneous.\n\n\n[_Dictated December 20, 1906._] Six months ago, when I was recalling\nearly days in San Francisco, I broke off at a place where I was about\nto tell about Captain Osborn's odd adventure at the \"What Cheer,\" or\nperhaps it was at another cheap feeding-place--the \"Miners' Restaurant.\"\nIt was a place where one could get good food on the cheapest possible\nterms, and its popularity was great among the multitudes whose purses\nwere light It was a good place to go to, to observe mixed humanity.\nCaptain Osborn and Bret Harte went there one day and took a meal, and in\nthe course of it Osborn fished up an interesting reminiscence of a dozen\nyears before and told about it. It was to this effect:\n\nHe was a midshipman in the navy when the Californian gold craze burst\nupon the world and set it wild with excitement. His ship made the long\njourney around the Horn and was approaching her goal, the Golden Gate,\nwhen an accident happened.\n\n\"It happened to me,\" said Osborn. \"I fell overboard. There was a heavy\nsea running, but no one was much alarmed about me, because we had on\nboard a newly patented life-saving device which was believed to be\ncompetent to rescue anything that could fall overboard, from a\nmidshipman to an anchor. Ours was the only ship that had this device; we\nwere very proud of it, and had been anxious to give its powers a\npractical test. This thing was lashed to the garboard-strake of the\nmain-to'gallant mizzen-yard amidships,[19] and there was nothing to do\nbut cut the lashings and heave it over; it would do the rest. One day\nthe cry of 'Man overboard!' brought all hands on deck. Instantly the\nlashings were cut and the machine flung joyously over. Damnation, it\nwent to the bottom like an anvil! By the time that the ship was brought\nto and a boat manned, I was become but a bobbing speck on the waves half\na mile astern and losing my strength very fast; but by good luck there\nwas a common seaman on board who had practical ideas in his head and\nhadn't waited to see what the patent machine was going to do, but had\nrun aft and sprung over after me the moment the alarm was cried through\nthe ship. I had a good deal of a start of him, and the seas made his\nprogress slow and difficult, but he stuck to his work and fought his way\nto me, and just in the nick of time he put his saving arms about me when\nI was about to go down. He held me up until the boat reached us and\nrescued us. By that time I was unconscious, and I was still unconscious\nwhen we arrived at the ship. A dangerous fever followed, and I was\ndelirious for three days; then I come to myself and at once inquired\nfor my benefactor, of course. He was gone. We were lying at anchor in\nthe Bay and every man had deserted to the gold-mines except the\ncommissioned officers. I found out nothing about my benefactor but his\nname--Burton Sanders--a name which I have held in grateful memory ever\nsince. Every time I have been on the Coast, these twelve or thirteen\nyears, I have tried to get track of him, but have never succeeded. I\nwish I could find him and make him understand that his brave act has\nnever been forgotten by me. Harte, I would rather see him and take him\nby the hand than any other man on the planet.\"\n\nAt this stage or a little later there was an interruption. A waiter near\nby said to another waiter, pointing,\n\n\"Take a look at that tramp that's coming in. Ain't that the one that\nbilked the house, last week, out of ten cents?\"\n\n\"I believe it is. Let him alone--don't pay any attention to him; wait\ntill we can get a good look at him.\"\n\nThe tramp approached timidly and hesitatingly, with the air of one\nunsure and apprehensive. The waiters watched him furtively. When he was\npassing behind Harte's chair one of them said,\n\n\"He's the one!\"--and they pounced upon him and proposed to turn him over\nto the police as a bilk. He begged piteously. He confessed his guilt,\nbut said he had been driven to his crime by necessity--that when he had\neaten the plate of beans and flipped out without paying for it, it was\nbecause he was starving, and hadn't the ten cents to pay for it with.\nBut the waiters would listen to no explanations, no palliations; he must\nbe placed in custody. He brushed his hand across his eyes and said\nmeekly that he would submit, being friendless. Each waiter took him by\nan arm and faced him about to conduct him away. Then his melancholy eyes\nfell upon Captain Osborn, and a light of glad and eager recognition\nflashed from them. He said,\n\n\"Weren't you a midshipman once, sir, in the old 'Lancaster'?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Osborn. \"Why?\"\n\n\"Didn't you fall overboard?\"\n\n\"Yes, I did. How do you come to know about it?\"\n\n\"Wasn't there a new patent machine aboard, and didn't they throw it over\nto save you?\"\n\n\"Why, yes,\" said Osborn, laughing gently, \"but it didn't do it.\"\n\n\"No, sir, it was a sailor that done it.\"\n\n\"It certainly was. Look here, my man, you are getting distinctly\ninteresting. Were you of our crew?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, I was.\"\n\n\"I reckon you may be right. You do certainly know a good deal about that\nincident. What is your name?\"\n\n\"Burton Sanders.\"\n\nThe Captain sprang up, excited, and said,\n\n\"Give me your hand! Give me both your hands! I'd rather shake them than\ninherit a fortune!\"--and then he cried to the waiters, \"Let him\ngo!--take your hands off! He is my guest, and can have anything and\neverything this house is able to furnish. I am responsible.\"\n\nThere was a love-feast, then. Captain Osborn ordered it regardless of\nexpense, and he and Harte sat there and listened while the man told\nstirring adventures of his life and fed himself up to the eyebrows. Then\nOsborn wanted to be benefactor in his turn, and pay back some of his\ndebt. The man said it could all be paid with ten dollars--that it had\nbeen so long since he had owned that amount of money that it would seem\na fortune to him, and he should be grateful beyond words if the Captain\ncould spare him that amount. The Captain spared him ten broad\ntwenty-dollar gold pieces, and made him take them in spite of his modest\nprotestations, and gave him his address and said he must never fail to\ngive him notice when he needed grateful service.\n\nSeveral months later Harte stumbled upon the man in the street. He was\nmost comfortably drunk, and pleasant and chatty. Harte remarked upon the\nsplendidly and movingly dramatic incident of the restaurant, and said,\n\n\"How curious and fortunate and happy and interesting it was that you two\nshould come together, after that long separation, and at exactly the\nright moment to save you from disaster and turn your defeat by the\nwaiters into a victory. A preacher could make a great sermon out of\nthat, for it does look as if the hand of Providence was in it.\"\n\nThe hero's face assumed a sweetly genial expression, and he said,\n\n\"Well now, it wasn't Providence this time. I was running the\narrangements myself.\"\n\n\"How do you mean?\"\n\n\"Oh, I hadn't ever seen the gentleman before. I was at the next table,\nwith my back to you the whole time he was telling about it. I saw my\nchance, and slipped out and fetched the two waiters with me and offered\nto give them a commission out of what I could get out of the Captain if\nthey would do a quarrel act with me and give me an opening. So, then,\nafter a minute or two I straggled back, and you know the rest of it as\nwell as I do.\"\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[18] This was tried. I well remember it.--M. T., _October, '06_.\n\n[19] Can this be correct? I think there must be some mistake.--M. T.\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCXXIII.\n\nOCTOBER, 1907.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--XXIII.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n[Sidenote: (1845.)]\n\n[_Dictated March 9, 1906._] ... I am talking of a time sixty years ago,\nand upwards. I remember the names of some of those schoolmates, and, by\nfitful glimpses, even their faces rise dimly before me for a\nmoment--only just long enough to be recognized; then they vanish. I\ncatch glimpses of George Robards, the Latin pupil--slender, pale,\nstudious, bending over his book and absorbed in it, his long straight\nblack hair hanging down below his jaws like a pair of curtains on the\nsides of his face. I can see him give his head a toss and flirt one of\nthe curtains back around his head--to get it out of his way, apparently;\nreally to show off. In that day it was a great thing among the boys to\nhave hair of so flexible a sort that it could be flung back in that way,\nwith a flirt of the head. George Robards was the envy of us all. For\nthere was no hair among us that was so competent for this exhibition as\nhis--except, perhaps, the yellow locks of Will Bowen and John Robards.\nMy hair was a dense ruck of short curls, and so was my brother Henry's.\nWe tried all kinds of devices to get these crooks straightened out so\nthat they would flirt, but we never succeeded. Sometimes, by soaking our\nheads and then combing and brushing our hair down tight and flat to our\nskulls, we could get it straight, temporarily, and this gave us a\ncomforting moment of joy; but the first time we gave it a flirt it all\nshrivelled into curls again and our happiness was gone.\n\nJohn Robards was the little brother of George; he was a wee chap with\nsilky golden curtains to his face which dangled to his shoulders and\nbelow, and could be flung back ravishingly. When he was twelve years old\nhe crossed the plains with his father amidst the rush of the\ngold-seekers of '49; and I remember the departure of the cavalcade when\nit spurred westward. We were all there to see and to envy. And I can\nstill see that proud little chap sailing by on a great horse, with his\nlong locks streaming out behind. We were all on hand to gaze and envy\nwhen he returned, two years later, in unimaginable glory--_for he had\ntravelled_! None of us had ever been forty miles from home. But he had\ncrossed the Continent. He had been in the gold-mines, that fairyland of\nour imagination. And he had done a still more wonderful thing. He had\nbeen in ships--in ships on the actual ocean; in ships on three actual\noceans. For he had sailed down the Pacific and around the Horn among\nicebergs and through snow-storms and wild wintry gales, and had sailed\non and turned the corner and flown northward in the trades and up\nthrough the blistering equatorial waters--and there in his brown face\nwere the proofs of what he had been through. We would have sold our\nsouls to Satan for the privilege of trading places with him.\n\nI saw him when I was out on that Missouri trip four years ago. He was\nold then--though not quite so old as I--and the burden of life was upon\nhim. He said his granddaughter, twelve years old, had read my books and\nwould like to see me. It was a pathetic time, for she was a prisoner in\nher room and marked for death. And John knew that she was passing\nswiftly away. Twelve years old--just her grandfather's age when he rode\naway on that great journey with his yellow hair flapping behind him. In\nher I seemed to see that boy again. It was as if he had come back out of\nthat remote past and was present before me in his golden youth. Her\nmalady was heart disease, and her brief life came to a close a few days\nlater.\n\nAnother of those schoolboys was John Garth. He became a prosperous\nbanker and a prominent and valued citizen; and a few years ago he died,\nrich and honored. _He died._ It is what I have to say about so many of\nthose boys and girls. The widow still lives, and there are\ngrandchildren. In her pantalette days and my barefoot days she was a\nschoolmate of mine. I saw John's tomb when I made that Missouri visit.\n\nHer father, Mr. Kercheval, had an apprentice in the early days when I\nwas nine years old, and he had also a slave woman who had many merits.\nBut I can't feel very kindly or forgivingly toward either that good\napprentice boy or that good slave woman, for they saved my life. One day\nwhen I was playing on a loose log which I supposed was attached to a\nraft--but it wasn't--it tilted me into Bear Creek. And when I had been\nunder water twice and was coming up to make the third and fatal descent\nmy fingers appeared above the water and that slave woman seized them and\npulled me out. Within a week I was in again, and that apprentice had to\ncome along just at the wrong time, and he plunged in and dived, pawed\naround on the bottom and found me, and dragged me out and emptied the\nwater out of me, and I was saved again. I was drowned seven times after\nthat before I learned to swim--once in Bear Creek and six times in the\nMississippi. I do not now know who the people were who interfered with\nthe intentions of a Providence wiser than themselves, but I hold a\ngrudge against them yet. When I told the tale of these remarkable\nhappenings to Rev. Dr. Burton of Hartford, he said he did not believe\nit. _He slipped on the ice the very next year and sprained his ankle._\n\nWill Bowen was another schoolmate, and so was his brother, Sam, who was\nhis junior by a couple of years. Before the Civil War broke out, both\nbecame St. Louis and New Orleans pilots. Both are dead, long ago.\n\n[Sidenote: (1845.)]\n\n[_Dictated March 16, 1906._] We will return to those schoolchildren of\nsixty years ago. I recall Mary Miller. She was not my first sweetheart,\nbut I think she was the first one that furnished me a broken heart. I\nfell in love with her when she was eighteen and I was nine, but she\nscorned me, and I recognized that this was a cold world. I had not\nnoticed that temperature before. I believe I was as miserable as even a\ngrown man could be. But I think that this sorrow did not remain with me\nlong. As I remember it, I soon transferred my worship to Artimisia\nBriggs, who was a year older than Mary Miller. When I revealed my\npassion to her she did not scoff at it. She did not make fun of it. She\nwas very kind and gentle about it. But she was also firm, and said she\ndid not want to be pestered by children.\n\nAnd there was Mary Lacy. She was a schoolmate. But she also was out of\nmy class because of her advanced age. She was pretty wild and determined\nand independent. But she married, and at once settled down and became in\nall ways a model matron and was as highly respected as any matron in the\ntown. Four years ago she was still living, and had been married fifty\nyears.\n\nJimmie McDaniel was another schoolmate. His age and mine about tallied.\nHis father kept the candy-shop and he was the most envied little chap in\nthe town--after Tom Blankenship (\"Huck Finn\")--for although we never saw\nhim eating candy, we supposed that it was, nevertheless, his ordinary\ndiet. He pretended that he never ate it, and didn't care for it because\nthere was nothing forbidden about it--there was plenty of it and he\ncould have as much of it as he wanted. He was the first human being to\nwhom I ever told a humorous story, so far as I can remember. This was\nabout Jim Wolfe and the cats; and I gave him that tale the morning after\nthat memorable episode. I thought he would laugh his teeth out. I had\nnever been so proud and happy before, and have seldom been so proud and\nhappy since. I saw him four years ago when I was out there. He wore a\nbeard, gray and venerable, that came half-way down to his knees, and yet\nit was not difficult for me to recognize him. He had been married\nfifty-four years. He had many children and grandchildren and\ngreat-grandchildren, and also even posterity, they all said--\nthousands--yet the boy to whom I had told the cat story when we were\ncallow juveniles was still present in that cheerful little old man.\n\nArtimisia Briggs got married not long after refusing me. She married\nRichmond, the stone mason, who was my Methodist Sunday-school teacher in\nthe earliest days, and he had one distinction which I envied him: at\nsome time or other he had hit his thumb with his hammer and the result\nwas a thumb nail which remained permanently twisted and distorted and\ncurved and pointed, like a parrot's beak. I should not consider it an\nornament now, I suppose, but it had a fascination for me then, and a\nvast value, because it was the only one in the town. He was a very\nkindly and considerate Sunday-school teacher, and patient and\ncompassionate, so he was the favorite teacher with us little chaps. In\nthat school they had slender oblong pasteboard blue tickets, each with a\nverse from the Testament printed on it, and you could get a blue ticket\nby reciting two verses. By reciting five verses you could get three blue\ntickets, and you could trade these at the bookcase and borrow a book for\na week. I was under Mr. Richmond's spiritual care every now and then for\ntwo or three years, and he was never hard upon me. I always recited the\nsame five verses every Sunday. He was always satisfied with the\nperformance. He never seemed to notice that these were the same five\nfoolish virgins that he had been hearing about every Sunday for months.\nI always got my tickets and exchanged them for a book. They were pretty\ndreary books, for there was not a bad boy in the entire bookcase. They\nwere _all_ good boys and good girls and drearily uninteresting, but they\nwere better society than none, and I was glad to have their company and\ndisapprove of it.\n\n[Sidenote: (1849.)]\n\nTwenty years ago Mr. Richmond had become possessed of Tom Sawyer's cave\nin the hills three miles from town, and had made a tourist-resort of it.\nIn 1849 when the gold-seekers were streaming through our little town of\nHannibal, many of our grown men got the gold fever, and I think that all\nthe boys had it. On the Saturday holidays in summer-time we used to\nborrow skiffs whose owners were not present and go down the river three\nmiles to the cave hollow (Missourian for \"valley\"), and there we staked\nout claims and pretended to dig gold, panning out half a dollar a day at\nfirst; two or three times as much, later, and by and by whole fortunes,\nas our imaginations became inured to the work. Stupid and unprophetic\nlads! We were doing this in play and never suspecting. Why, that cave\nhollow and all the adjacent hills were made of gold! But we did not know\nit. We took it for dirt. We left its rich secret in its own peaceful\npossession and grew up in poverty and went wandering about the world\nstruggling for bread--and this because we had not the gift of prophecy.\nThat region was all dirt and rocks to us, yet all it needed was to be\nground up and scientifically handled and it was gold. That is to say,\nthe whole region was a cement-mine--and they make the finest kind of\nPortland cement there now, five thousand barrels a day, with a plant\nthat cost $2,000,000.\n\nFor a little while Reuel Gridley attended that school of ours. He was an\nelderly pupil; he was perhaps twenty-two or twenty-three years old. Then\ncame the Mexican War and he volunteered. A company of infantry was\nraised in our town and Mr. Hickman, a tall, straight, handsome athlete\nof twenty-five, was made captain of it and had a sword by his side and a\nbroad yellow stripe down the leg of his gray pants. And when that\ncompany marched back and forth through the streets in its smart\nuniform--which it did several times a day for drill--its evolutions were\nattended by all the boys whenever the school hours permitted. I can see\nthat marching company yet, and I can almost feel again the consuming\ndesire that I had to join it. But they had no use for boys of twelve and\nthirteen, and before I had a chance in another war the desire to kill\npeople to whom I had not been introduced had passed away.\n\nI saw the splendid Hickman in his old age. He seemed about the oldest\nman I had ever seen--an amazing and melancholy contrast with the showy\nyoung captain I had seen preparing his warriors for carnage so many,\nmany years before. Hickman is dead--it is the old story. As Susy said,\n\"What is it all for?\"\n\nReuel Gridley went away to the wars and we heard of him no more for\nfifteen or sixteen years. Then one day in Carson City while I was having\na difficulty with an editor on the sidewalk--an editor better built for\nwar than I was--I heard a voice say, \"Give him the best you've got, Sam,\nI'm at your back.\" It was Reuel Gridley. He said he had not recognized\nme by my face but by my drawling style of speech.\n\nHe went down to the Reese River mines about that time and presently he\nlost an election bet in his mining camp, and by the terms of it he was\nobliged to buy a fifty-pound sack of self-raising flour and carry it\nthrough the town, preceded by music, and deliver it to the winner of the\nbet. Of course the whole camp was present and full of fluid and\nenthusiasm. The winner of the bet put up the sack at auction for the\nbenefit of the United States Sanitary Fund, and sold it. The excitement\ngrew and grew. The sack was sold over and over again for the benefit of\nthe Fund. The news of it came to Virginia City by telegraph. It produced\ngreat enthusiasm, and Reuel Gridley was begged by telegraph to bring the\nsack and have an auction in Virginia City. He brought it. An open\nbarouche was provided, also a brass band. The sack was sold over and\nover again at Gold Hill, then was brought up to Virginia City toward\nnight and sold--and sold again, and again, and still again, netting\ntwenty or thirty thousand dollars for the Sanitary Fund. Gridley carried\nit across California and sold it at various towns. He sold it for large\nsums in Sacramento and in San Francisco. He brought it East, sold it in\nNew York and in various other cities, then carried it out to a great\nFair at St. Louis, and went on selling it; and finally made it up into\nsmall cakes and sold those at a dollar apiece. First and last, the sack\nof flour which had originally cost ten dollars, perhaps, netted more\nthan two hundred thousand dollars for the Sanitary Fund. Reuel Gridley\nhas been dead these many, many years--it is the old story.\n\nIn that school were the first Jews I had ever seen. It took me a good\nwhile to get over the awe of it. To my fancy they were clothed invisibly\nin the damp and cobwebby mould of antiquity. They carried me back to\nEgypt, and in imagination I moved among the Pharaohs and all the shadowy\ncelebrities of that remote age. The name of the boys was Levin. We had a\ncollective name for them which was the only really large and handsome\nwitticism that was ever born in that Congressional district. We called\nthem \"Twenty-two\"--and even when the joke was old and had been worn\nthreadbare we always followed it with the explanation, to make sure that\nit would be understood, \"Twice Levin--twenty-two.\"\n\nThere were other boys whose names remain with me. Irving Ayres--but no\nmatter, he is dead. Then there was George Butler, whom I remember as a\nchild of seven wearing a blue leather belt with a brass buckle, and\nhated and envied by all the boys on account of it. He was a nephew of\nGeneral Ben Butler and fought gallantly at Ball's Bluff and in several\nother actions of the Civil War. He is dead, long and long ago.\n\nWill Bowen (dead long ago), Ed Stevens (dead long ago) and John Briggs\nwere special mates of mine. John is still living.\n\n[Sidenote: (1845.)]\n\nIn 1845, when I was ten years old, there was an epidemic of measles in\nthe town and it made a most alarming slaughter among the little people.\nThere was a funeral almost daily, and the mothers of the town were\nnearly demented with fright. My mother was greatly troubled. She worried\nover Pamela and Henry and me, and took constant and extraordinary pains\nto keep us from coming into contact with the contagion. But upon\nreflection I believed that her judgment was at fault. It seemed to me\nthat I could improve upon it if left to my own devices. I cannot\nremember now whether I was frightened about the measles or not, but I\nclearly remember that I grew very tired of the suspense I suffered on\naccount of being continually under the threat of death. I remember that\nI got so weary of it and so anxious to have the matter settled one way\nor the other, and promptly, that this anxiety spoiled my days and my\nnights. I had no pleasure in them. I made up my mind to end this\nsuspense and be done with it. Will Bowen was dangerously ill with the\nmeasles and I thought I would go down there and catch them. I entered\nthe house by the front way and slipped along through rooms and halls,\nkeeping sharp watch against discovery, and at last I reached Will's\nbed-chamber in the rear of the house on the second floor and got into it\nuncaptured. But that was as far as my victory reached. His mother caught\nme there a moment later and snatched me out of the house and gave me a\nmost competent scolding and drove me away. She was so scared that she\ncould hardly get her words out, and her face was white. I saw that I\nmust manage better next time, and I did. I hung about the lane at the\nrear of the house and watched through cracks in the fence until I was\nconvinced that the conditions were favorable; then I slipped through the\nback yard and up the back way and got into the room and into the bed\nwith Will Bowen without being observed. I don't know how long I was in\nthe bed. I only remember that Will Bowen, as society, had no value for\nme, for he was too sick to even notice that I was there. When I heard\nhis mother coming I covered up my head, but that device was a failure.\nIt was dead summer-time--the cover was nothing more than a limp blanket\nor sheet, and anybody could see that there were two of us under it. It\ndidn't remain two very long. Mrs. Bowen snatched me out of the bed and\nconducted me home herself, with a grip on my collar which she never\nloosened until she delivered me into my mother's hands along with her\nopinion of that kind of a boy.\n\nIt was a good case of measles that resulted. It brought me within a\nshade of death's door. It brought me to where I no longer took any\ninterest in anything, but, on the contrary, felt a total absence of\ninterest--which was most placid and enchanting. I have never enjoyed\nanything in my life any more than I enjoyed dying that time. I _was_, in\neffect, dying. The word had been passed and the family notified to\nassemble around the bed and see me off. I knew them all. There was no\ndoubtfulness in my vision. They were all crying, but that did not affect\nme. I took but the vaguest interest in it, and that merely because I was\nthe centre of all this emotional attention and was gratified by it and\nvain of it.\n\nWhen Dr. Cunningham had made up his mind that nothing more could be done\nfor me he put bags of hot ashes all over me. He put them on my breast,\non my wrists, on my ankles; and so, very much to his astonishment--and\ndoubtless to my regret--he dragged me back into this world and set me\ngoing again.\n\n[_Dictated July 26, 1907._] In an article entitled \"England's Ovation to\nMark Twain,\" Sydney Brooks--but never mind that, now.\n\nI was in Oxford by seven o'clock that evening (June 25, 1907), and\ntrying on the scarlet gown which the tailor had been constructing, and\nfound it right--right and surpassingly becoming. At half past ten the\nnext morning we assembled at All Souls College and marched thence,\ngowned, mortar-boarded and in double file, down a long street to the\nSheldonian Theatre, between solid walls of the populace, very much\nhurrah'd and limitlessly kodak'd. We made a procession of considerable\nlength and distinction and picturesqueness, with the Chancellor, Lord\nCurzon, late Viceroy of India, in his rich robe of black and gold, in\nthe lead, followed by a pair of trim little boy train-bearers, and the\ntrain-bearers followed by the young Prince Arthur of Connaught, who was\nto be made a D.C.L. The detachment of D.C.L.'s were followed by the\nDoctors of Science, and these by the Doctors of Literature, and these\nin turn by the Doctors of Music. Sidney Colvin marched in front of me; I\nwas coupled with Sidney Lee, and Kipling followed us; General Booth, of\nthe Salvation Army, was in the squadron of D.C.L.'s.\n\nOur journey ended, we were halted in a fine old hall whence we could\nsee, through a corridor of some length, the massed audience in the\ntheatre. Here for a little time we moved about and chatted and made\nacquaintanceships; then the D.C.L.'s were summoned, and they marched\nthrough that corridor and the shouting began in the theatre. It would be\nsome time before the Doctors of Literature and of Science would be\ncalled for, because each of those D.C.L.'s had to have a couple of Latin\nspeeches made over him before his promotion would be complete--one by\nthe Regius Professor of Civil Law, the other by the Chancellor. After a\nwhile I asked Sir William Ramsay if a person might smoke here and not\nget shot. He said, \"Yes,\" but that whoever did it and got caught would\nbe fined a guinea, and perhaps hanged later. He said he knew of a place\nwhere we could accomplish at least as much as half of a smoke before any\ninformers would be likely to chance upon us, and he was ready to show\nthe way to any who might be willing to risk the guinea and the hanging.\nBy request he led the way, and Kipling, Sir Norman Lockyer and I\nfollowed. We crossed an unpopulated quadrangle and stood under one of\nits exits--an archway of massive masonry--and there we lit up and began\nto take comfort. The photographers soon arrived, but they were courteous\nand friendly and gave us no trouble, and we gave them none. They grouped\nus in all sorts of ways and photographed us at their diligent leisure,\nwhile we smoked and talked. We were there more than an hour; then we\nreturned to headquarters, happy, content, and greatly refreshed.\nPresently we filed into the theatre, under a very satisfactory hurrah,\nand waited in a crimson column, dividing the crowded pit through the\nmiddle, until each of us in his turn should be called to stand before\nthe Chancellor and hear our merits set forth in sonorous Latin.\nMeantime, Kipling and I wrote autographs until some good kind soul\ninterfered in our behalf and procured for us a rest.\n\nI will now save what is left of my modesty by quoting a paragraph from\nSydney Brooks's \"Ovation.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLet those stars take the place of it for the present. Sydney Brooks has\ndone it well. It makes me proud to read it; as proud as I was in that\nold day, sixty-two years ago, when I lay dying, the centre of\nattraction, with one eye piously closed upon the fleeting vanities of\nthis life--an excellent effect--and the other open a crack to observe\nthe tears, the sorrow, the admiration--all for me--all for me!\n\nAh, that was the proudest moment of my long life--until Oxford!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMost Americans have been to Oxford and will remember what a dream of the\nMiddle Ages it is, with its crooked lanes, its gray and stately piles of\nancient architecture and its meditation-breeding air of repose and\ndignity and unkinship with the noise and fret and hurry and bustle of\nthese modern days. As a dream of the Middle Ages Oxford was not perfect\nuntil Pageant day arrived and furnished certain details which had been\nfor generations lacking. These details began to appear at mid-afternoon\non the 27th. At that time singles, couples, groups and squadrons of the\nthree thousand five hundred costumed characters who were to take part in\nthe Pageant began to ooze and drip and stream through house doors, all\nover the old town, and wend toward the meadows outside the walls. Soon\nthe lanes were thronged with costumes which Oxford had from time to time\nseen and been familiar with in bygone centuries--fashions of dress which\nmarked off centuries as by dates, and mile-stoned them back, and back,\nand back, until history faded into legend and tradition, when Arthur was\na fact and the Round Table a reality. In this rich commingling of quaint\nand strange and brilliantly colored fashions in dress the dress-changes\nof Oxford for twelve centuries stood livid and realized to the eye;\nOxford as a dream of the Middle Ages was complete now as it had never,\nin our day, before been complete; at last there was no discord; the\nmouldering old buildings, and the picturesque throngs drifting past\nthem, were in harmony; soon--astonishingly soon!--the only persons that\nseemed out of place, and grotesquely and offensively and criminally out\nof place were such persons as came intruding along clothed in the ugly\nand odious fashions of the twentieth century; they were a bitterness to\nthe feelings, an insult to the eye.\n\nThe make-ups of illustrious historic personages seemed perfect, both as\nto portraiture and costume; one had no trouble in recognizing them.\nAlso, I was apparently quite easily recognizable myself. The first\ncorner I turned brought me suddenly face to face with Henry VIII, a\nperson whom I had been implacably disliking for sixty years; but when he\nput out his hand with royal courtliness and grace and said, \"Welcome,\nwell-beloved stranger, to my century and to the hospitalities of my\nrealm,\" my old prejudices vanished away and I forgave him. I think now\nthat Henry the Eighth has been over-abused, and that most of us, if we\nhad been situated as he was, domestically, would not have been able to\nget along with as limited a graveyard as he forced himself to put up\nwith. I feel now that he was one of the nicest men in history. Personal\ncontact with a king is more effective in removing baleful prejudices\nthan is any amount of argument drawn from tales and histories. If I had\na child I would name it Henry the Eighth, regardless of sex.\n\nDo you remember Charles the First?--and his broad slouch with the plume\nin it? and his slender, tall figure? and his body clothed in velvet\ndoublet with lace sleeves, and his legs in leather, with long rapier at\nhis side and his spurs on his heels? I encountered him at the next\ncorner, and knew him in a moment--knew him as perfectly and as vividly\nas I should know the Grand Chain in the Mississippi if I should see it\nfrom the pilot-house after all these years. He bent his body and gave\nhis hat a sweep that fetched its plume within an inch of the ground, and\ngave me a welcome that went to my heart. This king has been much\nmaligned; I shall understand him better hereafter, and shall regret him\nmore than I have been in the habit of doing these fifty or sixty years.\nHe did some things in his time, which might better have been left\nundone, and which cast a shadow upon his name--we all know that, we all\nconcede it--but our error has been in regarding them as crimes and in\ncalling them by that name, whereas I perceive now that they were only\nindiscretions. At every few steps I met persons of deathless name whom I\nhad never encountered before outside of pictures and statuary and\nhistory, and these were most thrilling and charming encounters. I had\nhand-shakes with Henry the Second, who had not been seen in the Oxford\nstreets for nearly eight hundred years; and with the Fair Rosamond, whom\nI now believe to have been chaste and blameless, although I had thought\ndifferently about it before; and with Shakespeare, one of the\npleasantest foreigners I have ever gotten acquainted with; and with\nRoger Bacon; and with Queen Elizabeth, who talked five minutes and never\nswore once--a fact which gave me a new and good opinion of her and moved\nme to forgive her for beheading the Scottish Mary, if she really did it,\nwhich I now doubt; and with the quaintly and anciently clad young King\nHarold Harefoot, of near nine hundred years ago, who came flying by on a\nbicycle and smoking a pipe, but at once checked up and got off to shake\nwith me; and also I met a bishop who had lost his way because this was\nthe first time he had been inside the walls of Oxford for as much as\ntwelve hundred years or thereabouts. By this time I had grown so used to\nthe obliterated ages and their best-known people that if I had met Adam\nI should not have been either surprised or embarrassed; and if he had\ncome in a racing automobile and a cloud of dust, with nothing on but his\nfig-leaf, it would have seemed to me all right and harmonious.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--XXIV.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n_From Susy's Biography of Me_ [1885-6].\n\n\n     Mamma and papa have returned from Onteora and they have had a\n     delightful visit. Mr. Frank Stockton was down in Virginia and could\n     not reach Onteora in time, so they did not see him, and Mrs. Mary\n     Mapes Dodge was ill and couldn't go to Onteora, but Mrs. General\n     Custer was there, and mamma said that she was a very attractive,\n     sweet appearing woman.\n\n\n[_Dictated October 9, 1906._] Onteora was situated high up in the\nCatskill Mountains, in the centre of a far-reaching solitude. I do not\nmean that the region was wholly uninhabited; there were farmhouses here\nand there, at generous distances apart. Their occupants were descendants\nof ancestors who had built the houses in Rip Van Winkle's time, or\nearlier; and those ancestors were not more primitive than were this\nposterity of theirs. The city people were as foreign and unfamiliar and\nstrange to them as monkeys would have been, and they would have\nrespected the monkeys as much as they respected these elegant\nsummer-resorters. The resorters were a puzzle to them, their ways were\nso strange and their interests so trivial. They drove the resorters over\nthe mountain roads and listened in shamed surprise at their bursts of\nenthusiasm over the scenery. The farmers had had that scenery on\nexhibition from their mountain roosts all their lives, and had never\nnoticed anything remarkable about it. By way of an incident: a pair of\nthese primitives were overheard chatting about the resorters, one day,\nand in the course of their talk this remark was dropped:\n\n\"I was a-drivin' a passel of 'em round about yisterday evenin', quiet\nones, you know, still and solemn, and all to wunst they busted out to\nmake your hair lift and I judged hell was to pay. Now what do you reckon\nit was? It wa'n't anything but jest one of them common damned yaller\nsunsets.\"\n\nIn those days--\n\n[_Tuesday, October 16, 1906._] ... Warner is gone. Stockton is gone. I\nattended both funerals. Warner was a near neighbor, from the autumn of\n'71 until his death, nineteen years afterward. It is not the privilege\nof the most of us to have many intimate friends--a dozen is our\naggregate--but I think he could count his by the score. It is seldom\nthat a man is so beloved by both sexes and all ages as Warner was. There\nwas a charm about his spirit, and his ways, and his words, that won all\nthat came within the sphere of its influence. Our children adopted him\nwhile they were little creatures, and thenceforth, to the end, he was\n\"Cousin Charley\" to them. He was \"Uncle Charley\" to the children of more\nthan one other friend. Mrs. Clemens was very fond of him, and he always\ncalled her by her first name--shortened. Warner died, as she died, and\nas I would die--without premonition, without a moment's warning.\n\nUncle Remus still lives, and must be over a thousand years old. Indeed,\nI know that this must be so, because I have seen a new photograph of him\nin the public prints within the last month or so, and in that picture\nhis aspects are distinctly and strikingly geological, and one can see he\nis thinking about the mastodons and plesiosaurians that he used to play\nwith when he was young.\n\nIt is just a quarter of a century since I have seen Uncle Remus. He\nvisited us in our home in Hartford and was reverently devoured by the\nbig eyes of Susy and Clara, for I made a deep and awful impression upon\nthe little creatures--who knew his book by heart through my nightly\ndeclamation of its tales to them--by revealing to them privately that he\nwas the real Uncle Remus whitewashed so that he could come into people's\nhouses the front way.\n\nHe was the bashfulest grown person I have ever met. When there were\npeople about he stayed silent, and seemed to suffer until they were\ngone. But he was lovely, nevertheless; for the sweetness and benignity\nof the immortal Remus looked out from his eyes, and the graces and\nsincerities of his character shone in his face.\n\nIt may be that Jim Wolf was as bashful as Harris. It hardly seems\npossible, yet as I look back fifty-six years and consider Jim Wolf, I am\nalmost persuaded that he was. He was our long slim apprentice in my\nbrother's printing-office in Hannibal. He was seventeen, and yet he was\nas much as four times as bashful as I was, though I was only fourteen.\nHe boarded and slept in the house, but he was always tongue-tied in the\npresence of my sister, and when even my gentle mother spoke to him he\ncould not answer save in frightened monosyllables. He would not enter a\nroom where a girl was; nothing could persuade him to do such a thing.\nOnce when he was in our small parlor alone, two majestic old maids\nentered and seated themselves in such a way that Jim could not escape\nwithout passing by them. He would as soon have thought of passing by one\nof Harris's plesiosaurians ninety feet long. I came in presently, was\ncharmed with the situation, and sat down in a corner to watch Jim\nsuffer, and enjoy it. My mother followed a minute later and sat down\nwith the visitors and began to talk. Jim sat upright in his chair, and\nduring a quarter of an hour he did not change his position by a\nshade--neither General Grant nor a bronze image could have maintained\nthat immovable pose more successfully. I mean as to body and limbs; with\nthe face there was a difference. By fleeting revealments of the face I\nsaw that something was happening--something out of the common. There\nwould be a sudden twitch of the muscles of the face, an instant\ndistortion, which in the next instant had passed and left no trace.\nThese twitches gradually grew in frequency, but no muscle outside of the\nface lost any of its rigidity, or betrayed any interest in what was\nhappening to Jim. I mean if something _was_ happening to him, and I knew\nperfectly well that that was the case. At last a pair of tears began to\nswim slowly down his cheeks amongst the twitchings, but Jim sat still\nand let them run; then I saw his right hand steal along his thigh until\nhalf-way to his knee, then take a vigorous grip upon the cloth.\n\nThat was a _wasp_ that he was grabbing! A colony of them were climbing\nup his legs and prospecting around, and every time he winced they\nstabbed him to the hilt--so for a quarter of an hour one group of\nexcursionists after another climbed up Jim's legs and resented even the\nslightest wince or squirm that he indulged himself with, in his misery.\nWhen the entertainment had become nearly unbearable, he conceived the\nidea of gripping them between his fingers and putting them out of\ncommission. He succeeded with many of them, but at great cost, for, as\nhe couldn't see the wasp, he was as likely to take hold of the wrong end\nof him as he was the right; then the dying wasp gave him a punch to\nremember the incident by.\n\nIf those ladies had stayed all day, and if all the wasps in Missouri had\ncome and climbed up Jim's legs, nobody there would ever have known it\nbut Jim and the wasps and me. There he would have sat until the ladies\nleft.\n\nWhen they finally went away we went up-stairs and he took his clothes\noff, and his legs were a picture to look at. They looked as if they were\nmailed all over with shirt buttons, each with a single red hole in the\ncentre. The pain was intolerable--no, would have been intolerable, but\nthe pain of the presence of those ladies had been so much harder to bear\nthat the pain of the wasps' stings was quite pleasant and enjoyable by\ncomparison.\n\nJim never could enjoy wasps. I remember once--\n\n\n     _From Susy's Biography of Me_ [1885-6].\n\n     Mamma has given me a very pleasant little newspaper scrap about\n     papa, to copy. I will put it in here.\n\n\n[_Thursday, October 11, 1906._] It was a rather strong compliment; I\nthink I will leave it out. It was from James Redpath.\n\nThe chief ingredients of Redpath's make-up were honesty, sincerity,\nkindliness, and pluck. He wasn't afraid. He was one of Ossawatomie\nBrown's right-hand men in the bleeding Kansas days; he was all through\nthat struggle. He carried his life in his hands, and from one day to\nanother it wasn't worth the price of a night's lodging. He had a small\nbody of daring men under him, and they were constantly being hunted by\nthe \"jayhawkers,\" who were proslavery Missourians, guerillas, modern\nfree lances.\n\n[_Friday, October 12, 1906._] ... I can't think of the name of that\ndaredevil guerilla who led the jayhawkers and chased Redpath up and\ndown the country, and, in turn, was chased by Redpath. By grace of the\nchances of war, the two men never met in the field, though they several\ntimes came within an ace of it.\n\nTen or twelve years later, Redpath was earning his living in Boston as\nchief of the lecture business in the United States. Fifteen or sixteen\nyears after his Kansas adventures I became a public lecturer, and he was\nmy agent. Along there somewhere was a press dinner, one November night,\nat the Tremont Hotel in Boston, and I attended it. I sat near the head\nof the table, with Redpath between me and the chairman; a stranger sat\non my other side. I tried several times to talk with the stranger, but\nhe seemed to be out of words and I presently ceased from troubling him.\nHe was manifestly a very shy man, and, moreover, he might have been\nlosing sleep the night before.\n\nThe first man called up was Redpath. At the mention of the name the\nstranger started, and showed interest. He fixed a fascinated eye on\nRedpath, and lost not a word of his speech. Redpath told some stirring\nincidents of his career in Kansas, and said, among other things:\n\n\"Three times I came near capturing the gallant jayhawker chief, and once\nhe actually captured _me_, but didn't know me and let me go, because he\nsaid he was hot on Redpath's trail and couldn't afford to waste time and\nrope on inconsequential small fry.\"\n\nMy stranger was called up next, and when Redpath heard his name he, in\nturn, showed a startled interest. The stranger said, bending a caressing\nglance upon Redpath and speaking gently--I may even say sweetly:\n\n\"You realize that I was that jayhawker chief. I am glad to know you now\nand take you to my heart and call you friend\"--then he added, in a voice\nthat was pathetic with regret, \"but if I had only known you then, what\ntumultuous happiness I should have had in your society!--while it\nlasted.\"\n\nThe last quarter of a century of my life has been pretty constantly and\nfaithfully devoted to the study of the human race--that is to say, the\nstudy of myself, for, in my individual person, I am the entire human\nrace compacted together. I have found that then is no ingredient of the\nrace which I do not possess in either a small way or a large way. When\nit is small, as compared with the same ingredient in somebody else,\nthere is still enough of it for all the purposes of examination. In my\ncontacts with the species I find no one who possesses a quality which I\ndo not possess. The shades of difference between other people and me\nserve to make variety and prevent monotony, but that is all; broadly\nspeaking, we are all alike; and so by studying myself carefully and\ncomparing myself with other people, and noting the divergences, I have\nbeen enabled to acquire a knowledge of the human race which I perceive\nis more accurate and more comprehensive than that which has been\nacquired and revealed by any other member of our species. As a result,\nmy private and concealed opinion of myself is not of a complimentary\nsort. It follows that my estimate of the human race is the duplicate of\nmy estimate of myself.\n\nI am not proposing to discuss all of the peculiarities of the human\nrace, at this time; I only wish to touch lightly upon one or two of\nthem. To begin with, I wonder why a man should prefer a good\nbilliard-table to a poor one; and why he should prefer straight cues to\ncrooked ones; and why he should prefer round balls to chipped ones; and\nwhy he should prefer a level table to one that slants; and why he should\nprefer responsive cushions to the dull and unresponsive kind. I wonder\nat these things, because when we examine the matter we find that the\nessentials involved in billiards are as competently and exhaustively\nfurnished by a bad billiard outfit as they are by the best one. One of\nthe essentials is amusement. Very well, if there is any more amusement\nto be gotten out of the one outfit than out of the other, the facts are\nin favor of the bad outfit. The bad outfit will always furnish thirty\nper cent. more fun for the players and for the spectators than will the\ngood outfit. Another essential of the game is that the outfit shall give\nthe players full opportunity to exercise their best skill, and display\nit in a way to compel the admiration of the spectators. Very well, the\nbad outfit is nothing behind the good one in this regard. It is a\ndifficult matter to estimate correctly the eccentricities of chipped\nballs and a slanting table, and make the right allowance for them and\nsecure a count; the finest kind of skill is required to accomplish the\nsatisfactory result. Another essential of the game is that it shall add\nto the interest of the game by furnishing opportunities to bet. Very\nwell, in this regard no good outfit can claim any advantage over a bad\none. I know, by experience, that a bad outfit is as valuable as the\nbest one; that an outfit that couldn't be sold at auction for seven\ndollars is just as valuable for all the essentials of the game as an\noutfit that is worth a thousand.\n\nI acquired some of this learning in Jackass Gulch, California, more than\nforty years ago. Jackass Gulch had once been a rich and thriving\nsurface-mining camp. By and by its gold deposits were exhausted; then\nthe people began to go away, and the town began to decay, and rapidly;\nin my time it had disappeared. Where the bank, and the city hall, and\nthe church, and the gambling-dens, and the newspaper office, and the\nstreets of brick blocks had been, was nothing now but a wide and\nbeautiful expanse of green grass, a peaceful and charming solitude. Half\na dozen scattered dwellings were still inhabited, and there was still\none saloon of a ruined and rickety character struggling for life, but\ndoomed. In its bar was a billiard outfit that was the counterpart of the\none in my father-in-law's garret. The balls were chipped, the cloth was\ndarned and patched, the table's surface was undulating, and the cues\nwere headless and had the curve of a parenthesis--but the forlorn\nremnant of marooned miners played games there, and those games were more\nentertaining to look at than a circus and a grand opera combined.\nNothing but a quite extraordinary skill could score a carom on that\ntable--a skill that required the nicest estimate of force, distance, and\nhow much to allow for the various slants of the table and the other\nformidable peculiarities and idiosyncrasies furnished by the\ncontradictions of the outfit. Last winter, here in New York, I saw Hoppe\nand Schaefer and Sutton and the three or four other billiard champions\nof world-wide fame contend against each other, and certainly the art and\nscience displayed were a wonder to see; yet I saw nothing there in the\nway of science and art that was more wonderful than shots which I had\nseen Texas Tom make on the wavy surface of that poor old wreck in the\nperishing saloon at Jackass Gulch forty years before. Once I saw Texas\nTom make a string of seven points on a single inning!--all calculated\nshots, and not a fluke or a scratch among them. I often saw him make\nruns of four, but when he made his great string of seven, the boys went\nwild with enthusiasm and admiration. The joy and the noise exceeded that\nwhich the great gathering at Madison Square produced when Sutton scored\nfive hundred points at the eighteen-inch game, on a world-famous night\nlast winter. With practice, that champion could score nineteen or\ntwenty on the Jackass Gulch table; but to start with, Texas Tom would\nshow him miracles that would astonish him; also it might have another\nhandsome result: it might persuade the great experts to discard their\nown trifling game and bring the Jackass Gulch outfit here and exhibit\ntheir skill in a game worth a hundred of the discarded one, for profound\nand breathless interest, and for displays of almost superhuman skill.\n\nIn my experience, games played with a fiendish outfit furnish ecstasies\nof delight which games played with the other kind cannot match.\nTwenty-seven years ago my budding little family spent the summer at\nBateman's Point, near Newport, Rhode Island. It was a comfortable\nboarding-place, well stocked with sweet mothers and little children, but\nthe male sex was scarce; however, there was another young fellow besides\nmyself, and he and I had good times--Higgins was his name, but that was\nnot his fault. He was a very pleasant and companionable person. On the\npremises there was what had once been a bowling-alley. It was a single\nalley, and it was estimated that it had been out of repair for sixty\nyears--but not the balls, the balls were in good condition; there were\nforty-one of them, and they ranged in size from a grapefruit up to a\nlignum-vit\u00e6 sphere that you could hardly lift. Higgins and I played on\nthat alley day after day. At first, one of us located himself at the\nbottom end to set up the pins in case anything should happen to them,\nbut nothing happened. The surface of that alley consisted of a rolling\nstretch of elevations and depressions, and neither of us could, by any\nart known to us, persuade a ball to stay on the alley until it should\naccomplish something. Little balls and big, the same thing always\nhappened--the ball left the alley before it was half-way home and went\nthundering down alongside of it the rest of the way and made the\ngamekeeper climb out and take care of himself. No matter, we persevered,\nand were rewarded. We examined the alley, noted and located a lot of its\npeculiarities, and little by little we learned how to deliver a ball in\nsuch a way that it would travel home and knock down a pin or two. By and\nby we succeeded in improving our game to a point where we were able to\nget all of the pins with thirty-five balls--so we made it a\nthirty-five-ball game. If the player did not succeed with thirty-five,\nhe had lost the game. I suppose that all the balls, taken together,\nweighed five hundred pounds, or maybe a ton--or along there\nsomewhere--but anyway it was hot weather, and by the time that a player\nhad sent thirty-five of them home he was in a drench of perspiration,\nand physically exhausted.\n\nNext, we started cocked hat--that is to say, a triangle of three pins,\nthe other seven being discarded. In this game we used the three smallest\nballs and kept on delivering them until we got the three pins down.\nAfter a day or two of practice we were able to get the chief pin with an\noutput of four balls, but it cost us a great many deliveries to get the\nother two; but by and by we succeeded in perfecting our art--at least we\nperfected it to our limit. We reached a scientific excellence where we\ncould get the three pins down with twelve deliveries of the three small\nballs, making thirty-six shots to conquer the cocked hat.\n\nHaving reached our limit for daylight work, we set up a couple of\ncandles and played at night. As the alley was fifty or sixty feet long,\nwe couldn't see the pins, but the candles indicated their locality. We\ncontinued this game until we were able to knock down the invisible pins\nwith thirty-six shots. Having now reached the limit of the candle game,\nwe changed and played it left-handed. We continued the left-handed game\nuntil we conquered its limit, which was fifty-four shots. Sometimes we\nsent down a succession of fifteen balls without getting anything at all.\nWe easily got out of that old alley five times the fun that anybody\ncould have gotten out of the best alley in New York.\n\nOne blazing hot day, a modest and courteous officer of the regular army\nappeared in our den and introduced himself. He was about thirty-five\nyears old, well built and militarily erect and straight, and he was\nhermetically sealed up in the uniform of that ignorant old day--a\nuniform made of heavy material, and much properer for January than July.\nWhen he saw the venerable alley, and glanced from that to the long\nprocession of shining balls in the trough, his eye lit with desire, and\nwe judged that he was our meat. We politely invited him to take a hand,\nand he could not conceal his gratitude; though his breeding, and the\netiquette of his profession, made him try. We explained the game to him,\nand said that there were forty-one balls, and that the player was\nprivileged to extend his inning and keep on playing until he had used\nthem all up--repeatedly--and that for every ten-strike he got a prize.\nWe didn't name the prize--it wasn't necessary, as no prize would ever be\nneeded or called for. He started a sarcastic smile, but quenched it,\naccording to the etiquette of his profession. He merely remarked that he\nwould like to select a couple of medium balls and one small one, adding\nthat he didn't think he would need the rest.\n\nThen he began, and he was an astonished man. He couldn't get a ball to\nstay on the alley. When he had fired about fifteen balls and hadn't yet\nreached the cluster of pins, his annoyance began to show out through his\nclothes. He wouldn't let it show in his face; but after another fifteen\nballs he was not able to control his face; he didn't utter a word, but\nhe exuded mute blasphemy from every pore. He asked permission to take\noff his coat, which was granted; then he turned himself loose, with\nbitter determination, and although he was only an infantry officer he\ncould have been mistaken for a battery, he got up such a volleying\nthunder with those balls. Presently he removed his cravat; after a\nlittle he took off his vest; and still he went bravely on. Higgins was\nsuffocating. My condition was the same, but it would not be courteous to\nlaugh; it would be better to burst, and we came near it. That officer\nwas good pluck. He stood to his work without uttering a word, and kept\nthe balls going until he had expended the outfit four times, making four\ntimes forty-one shots; then he had to give it up, and he did; for he was\nno longer able to stand without wobbling. He put on his clothes, bade us\na courteous good-by, invited us to call at the Fort, and started away.\nThen he came back, and said,\n\n\"What is the prize for the ten-strike?\"\n\nWe had to confess that we had not selected it yet.\n\nHe said, gravely, that he thought there was no occasion for hurry about\nit.\n\nI believe Bateman's alley was a better one than any other in America, in\nthe matter of the essentials of the game. It compelled skill; it\nprovided opportunity for bets; and if you could get a stranger to do the\nbowling for you, there was more and wholesomer and delightfuler\nentertainment to be gotten out of his industries than out of the finest\ngame by the best expert, and played upon the best alley elsewhere in\nexistence.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCXXV.\n\nDECEMBER, 1907.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--XXV.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n_January 11, 1906._ Answer to a letter received this morning:\n\n\n     DEAR MRS. H.,--I am forever your debtor for reminding me of that\n     curious passage in my life. During the first year or two after it\n     happened, I could not bear to think of it. My pain and shame were\n     so intense, and my sense of having been an imbecile so settled,\n     established and confirmed, that I drove the episode entirely from\n     my mind--and so all these twenty-eight or twenty-nine years I have\n     lived in the conviction that my performance of that time was\n     coarse, vulgar and destitute of humor. But your suggestion that you\n     and your family found humor in it twenty-eight years ago moved me\n     to look into the matter. So I commissioned a Boston typewriter to\n     delve among the Boston papers of that bygone time and send me a\n     copy of it.\n\n     It came this morning, and if there is any vulgarity about it I am\n     not able to discover it. If it isn't innocently and ridiculously\n     funny, I am no judge. I will see to it that you get a copy.\n\n\n                Address of Samuel L. Clemens (\"Mark Twain\")\n            From a report of the dinner given by the Publishers\n                 of the Atlantic Monthly in honor of the\n                      Seventieth Anniversary of the\n         Birth of John Greenleaf Whittier, at the Hotel Brunswick,\n                         Boston, December 17, 1877,\n                            as published in the\n                         BOSTON EVENING TRANSCRIPT,\n                             December 18, 1877\n\n\n     Mr. Chairman--This is an occasion peculiarly meet for the digging\n     up of pleasant reminiscences concerning literary folk; therefore I\n     will drop lightly into history myself. Standing here on the shore\n     of the Atlantic and contemplating certain of its largest literary\n     billows, I am reminded of a thing which happened to me thirteen\n     years ago, when I had just succeeded in stirring up a little\n     Nevadian literary puddle myself, whose spume-flakes were beginning\n     to blow thinly Californiawards. I started an inspection tramp\n     through the southern mines of California. I was callow and\n     conceited, and I resolved to try the virtue of my _nom de guerre._\n     I very soon had an opportunity. I knocked at a miner's lonely log\n     cabin in the foothills of the Sierras just at nightfall. It was\n     snowing at the time. A jaded, melancholy man of fifty, barefooted,\n     opened the door to me. When he heard my _nom de guerre_ he looked\n     more dejected than before. He let me in--pretty reluctantly, I\n     thought--and after the customary bacon and beans, black coffee and\n     hot whiskey, I took a pipe. This sorrowful man had not said three\n     words up to this time. Now he spoke up and said, in the voice of\n     one who is secretly suffering, \"You're the fourth--I'm going to\n     move.\" \"The fourth what!\" said I. \"The fourth littery man that has\n     been here in twenty-four hours--I'm going to move.\" \"You don't tell\n     me!\" said I; \"who were the others!\" \"Mr. Longfellow, Mr. Emerson\n     and Mr. Oliver Wendell Holmes--consound the lot!\"\n\n     You can easily believe I was interested. I supplicated--three hot\n     whiskeys did the rest--and finally the melancholy miner began. Said\n     he--\n\n     \"They came here just at dark yesterday evening, and I let them in\n     of course. Said they were going to the Yosemite. They were a rough\n     lot, but that's nothing; everybody looks rough that travels afoot.\n     Mr. Emerson was a seedy little bit of a chap, red-headed. Mr.\n     Holmes as fat as a balloon; he weighed as much as three hundred,\n     and double chins all the way down to his stomach. Mr. Longfellow\n     built like a prize-fighter. His head was cropped and bristly, like\n     as if he had a wig made of hair-brushes. His nose lay straight down\n     his face, like a finger with the end joint tilted up. They had been\n     drinking, I could see that. And what queer talk they used! Mr.\n     Holmes inspected this cabin, then he took me by the buttonhole, and\n     says he--\n\n\n     \"'Through the deep cares of thought\n     I hear a voice that sings,\n     Build thee more stately mansions,\n     O my soul!'\n\n\n     \"Says I, 'I can't afford it, Mr. Holmes, and moreover I don't want\n     to.' Blamed if I liked it pretty well, either, coming from a\n     stranger, that way. However, I started to get out my bacon and\n     beans, when Mr. Emerson came and looked on awhile, and then he\n     takes me aside by the buttonhole and says--\n\n\n     \"'Give me agates for my meat;\n     Give me cantharids to eat;\n     From air and ocean bring me foods,\n     From all zones and altitudes.'\n\n\n     \"Says I, 'Mr. Emerson, if you'll excuse me, this ain't no hotel.'\n     You see it sort of riled me--I warn't used to the ways of littery\n     swells. But I went on a-sweating over my work, and next comes Mr.\n     Longfellow and buttonholes me, and interrupts me. Says he,\n\n\n     \"'Honor be to Mudjekeewis!\n     You shall hear how Pau-Puk-Keewis--'\n\n\n     \"But I broke in, and says I, 'Beg your pardon, Mr. Longfellow, if\n     you'll be so kind as to hold your yawp for about five minutes and\n     let me get this grub ready, you'll do me proud.' Well, sir, after\n     they'd filled up I set out the jug. Mr. Holmes looks at it and then\n     he fires up all of a sudden and yells--\n\n\n     \"'Flash out a stream of blood-red wine!\n     For I would drink to other days.'\n\n\n     \"By George, I was getting kind of worked up. I don't deny it, I was\n     getting kind of worked up. I turns to Mr. Holmes, and says I,\n     'Looky here, my fat friend, I'm a-running this shanty, and if the\n     court knows herself, you'll take whiskey straight or you'll go\n     dry.' Them's the very words I said to him. Now I don't want to sass\n     such famous littery people, but you see they kind of forced me.\n     There ain't nothing onreasonable 'bout me; I don't mind a passel of\n     guests a-treadin' on my tail three or four times, but when it comes\n     to _standing_ on it it's different, 'and if the court knows\n     herself,' I says, 'you'll take whiskey straight or you'll go dry.'\n     Well, between drinks they'd swell around the cabin and strike\n     attitudes and spout; and pretty soon they got out a greasy old deck\n     and went to playing euchre at ten cents a corner--on trust. I began\n     to notice some pretty suspicious things. Mr. Emerson dealt, looked\n     at his hand, shook his head, says--\n\n\n     \"'I am the doubter and the doubt--'\n\n\n     and ca'mly bunched the hands and went to shuffling for a new\n     layout. Says he--\n\n\n     \"'They reckon ill who leave me out;\n     They know not well the subtle ways I keep.\n     I pass and deal _again_!'\n\n\n     Hang'd if he didn't go ahead and do it, too! O, he was a cool one!\n     Well, in about a minute, things were running pretty tight, but all\n     of a sudden I see by Mr. Emerson's eye he judged he had 'em. He had\n     already corralled two tricks and each of the others one. So now he\n     kind of lifts a little in his chair and says--\n\n\n     \"'I tire of globes and aces!--\n     Too long the game is played!'\n\n\n     --and down he fetched a right bower. Mr. Longfellow smiles as sweet\n     as pie and says--\n\n\n     \"'Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,\n     For the lesson thou hast taught,'\n\n\n     --and blamed if he didn't down with _another_ right bower! Emerson\n     claps his hand on his bowie, Longfellow claps his on his revolver,\n     and I went under a bunk. There was going to be trouble; but that\n     monstrous Holmes rose up, wobbling his double chins, and says he,\n     'Order, gentlemen; the first man that draws, I'll lay down on him\n     and smother him!' All quiet on the Potomac, you bet!\n\n     \"They were pretty how-come-you-so, by now, and they begun to blow.\n     Emerson says, 'The nobbiest thing I ever wrote was Barbara\n     Frietchie.' Says Longfellow, 'It don't begin with my Biglow\n     Papers.' Says Holmes, 'My Thanatopsis lays over 'em both.' They\n     mighty near ended in a fight. Then they wished they had some more\n     company--and Mr. Emerson pointed to me and says--\n\n\n     \"'Is yonder squalid peasant all\n     That this proud nursery could breed?'\n\n\n     He was a-whetting his bowie on his boot--so I let it pass. Well,\n     sir, next they took it into their heads that they would like some\n     music; so they made me stand up and sing 'When Johnny Comes\n     Marching Home' till I dropped--at thirteen minutes past four this\n     morning. That's what I've been through, my friend. When I woke at\n     seven, they were leaving, thank goodness, and Mr. Longfellow had my\n     only boots on, and his'n under his arm. Says I, 'Hold on, there,\n     Evangeline, what are you going to do with _them_! He says, 'Going\n     to make tracks with 'em; because--\n\n\n     \"'Lives of great men all remind us\n     We can make our lives sublime;\n     And, departing, leave behind us\n     Footprints on the sands of time.'\n\n\n     As I said, Mr. Twain, you are the fourth in twenty-four hours--and\n     I'm going to move; I ain't suited to a littery atmosphere.\"\n\n     I said to the miner, \"Why, my dear sir, _these_ were not the\n     gracious singers to whom we and the world pay loving reverence and\n     homage; these were impostors.\"\n\n     The miner investigated me with a calm eye for a while; then said\n     he, \"Ah! impostors, were they? Are _you_?\n\n     I did not pursue the subject, and since then I have not travelled\n     on my _nom de guerre_ enough to hurt. Such was the reminiscence I\n     was moved to contribute, Mr. Chairman. In my enthusiasm I may have\n     exaggerated the details a little, but you will easily forgive me\n     that fault, since I believe it is the first time I have ever\n     deflected from perpendicular fact on an occasion like this.\n\n\nWhat I have said to Mrs. H. is true. I did suffer during a year or two\nfrom the deep humiliations of that episode. But at last, in 1888, in\nVenice, my wife and I came across Mr. and Mrs. A. P. C., of Concord,\nMassachusetts, and a friendship began then of the sort which nothing but\ndeath terminates. The C.'s were very bright people and in every way\ncharming and companionable. We were together a month or two in Venice\nand several months in Rome, afterwards, and one day that lamented break\nof mine was mentioned. And when I was on the point of lathering those\npeople for bringing it to my mind when I had gotten the memory of it\nalmost squelched, I perceived with joy that the C.'s were indignant\nabout the way that my performance had been received in Boston. They\npoured out their opinions most freely and frankly about the frosty\nattitude of the people who were present at that performance, and about\nthe Boston newspapers for the position they had taken in regard to the\nmatter. That position was that I had been irreverent beyond belief,\nbeyond imagination. Very well, I had accepted that as a fact for a year\nor two, and had been thoroughly miserable about it whenever I thought of\nit--which was not frequently, if I could help it. Whenever I thought of\nit I wondered how I ever could have been inspired to do so unholy a\nthing. Well, the C.'s comforted me, but they did not persuade me to\ncontinue to think about the unhappy episode. I resisted that. I tried to\nget it out of my mind, and let it die, and I succeeded. Until Mrs. H.'s\nletter came, it had been a good twenty-five years since I had thought of\nthat matter; and when she said that the thing was funny I wondered if\npossibly she might be right. At any rate, my curiosity was aroused, and\nI wrote to Boston and got the whole thing copied, as above set forth.\n\nI vaguely remember some of the details of that gathering--dimly I can\nsee a hundred people--no, perhaps fifty--shadowy figures sitting at\ntables feeding, ghosts now to me, and nameless forever more. I don't\nknow who they were, but I can very distinctly see, seated at the grand\ntable and facing the rest of us, Mr. Emerson, supernaturally grave,\nunsmiling; Mr. Whittier, grave, lovely, his beautiful spirit shining out\nof his face; Mr. Longfellow, with his silken white hair and his\nbenignant face; Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, flashing smiles and affection\nand all good-fellowship everywhere like a rose-diamond whose facets are\nbeing turned toward the light first one way and then another--a charming\nman, and always fascinating, whether he was talking or whether he was\nsitting still (what _he_ would call still, but what would be more or\nlees motion to other people). I can see those figures with entire\ndistinctness across this abyss of time.\n\nOne other feature is clear--Willie Winter (for these past thousand years\ndramatic editor of the \"New York Tribune,\" and still occupying that high\npost in his old age) was there. He was much younger then than he is now,\nand he showed it. It was always a pleasure to me to see Willie Winter at\na banquet. During a matter of twenty years I was seldom at a banquet\nwhere Willie Winter was not also present, and where he did not read a\ncharming poem written for the occasion. He did it this time, and it was\nup to standard: dainty, happy, choicely phrased, and as good to listen\nto as music, and sounding exactly as if it was pouring unprepared out of\nheart and brain.\n\nNow at that point ends all that was pleasurable about that notable\ncelebration of Mr. Whittier's seventieth birthday--because I got up at\nthat point and followed Winter, with what I have no doubt I supposed\nwould be the gem of the evening--the gay oration above quoted from the\nBoston paper. I had written it all out the day before and had perfectly\nmemorized it, and I stood up there at my genial and happy and\nself-satisfied ease, and began to deliver it. Those majestic guests,\nthat row of venerable and still active volcanoes, listened, as did\neverybody else in the house, with attentive interest. Well, I delivered\nmyself of--we'll say the first two hundred words of my speech. I was\nexpecting no returns from that part of the speech, but this was not the\ncase as regarded the rest of it. I arrived now at the dialogue: 'The old\nminer said, \"You are the fourth, I'm going to move.\" \"The fourth what?\"\nsaid I. He answered, \"The fourth littery man that has been here in\ntwenty-four hours. I am going to move.\" \"Why, you don't tell me,\" said\nI. \"Who were the others?\" \"Mr. Longfellow, Mr. Emerson, Mr. Oliver\nWendell Holmes, consound the lot--\"'\n\nNow then the house's _attention_ continued, but the expression of\ninterest in the faces turned to a sort of black frost. I wondered what\nthe trouble was. I didn't know. I went on, but with difficulty--I\nstruggled along, and entered upon that miner's fearful description of\nthe bogus Emerson, the bogus Holmes, the bogus Longfellow, always\nhoping--but with a gradually perishing hope--that somebody would laugh,\nor that somebody would at least smile, but nobody did. I didn't know\nenough to give it up and sit down, I was too new to public speaking, and\nso I went on with this awful performance, and carried it clear through\nto the end, in front of a body of people who seemed turned to stone with\nhorror. It was the sort of expression their faces would have worn if I\nhad been making these remarks about the Deity and the rest of the\nTrinity; there is no milder way in which to describe the petrified\ncondition and the ghastly expression of those people.\n\nWhen I sat down it was with a heart which had long ceased to beat. I\nshall never be as dead again as I was then. I shall never be as\nmiserable again as I was then. I speak now as one who doesn't know what\nthe condition of things may be in the next world, but in this one I\nshall never be as wretched again as I was then. Howells, who was near\nme, tried to say a comforting word, but couldn't get beyond a gasp.\nThere was no use--he understood the whole size of the disaster. He had\ngood intentions, but the words froze before they could get out. It was\nan atmosphere that would freeze anything. If Benvenuto Cellini's\nsalamander had been in that place he would not have survived to be put\ninto Cellini's autobiography. There was a frightful pause. There was an\nawful silence, a desolating silence. Then the next man on the list had\nto get up--there was no help for it. That was Bishop--Bishop had just\nburst handsomely upon the world with a most acceptable novel, which had\nappeared in the \"Atlantic Monthly,\" a place which would make any novel\nrespectable and any author noteworthy. In this case the novel itself was\nrecognized as being, without extraneous help, respectable. Bishop was\naway up in the public favor, and he was an object of high interest,\nconsequently there was a sort of national expectancy in the air; we may\nsay our American millions were standing, from Maine to Texas and from\nAlaska to Florida, holding their breath, their lips parted, their hands\nready to applaud when Bishop should get up on that occasion, and for the\nfirst time in his life speak in public. It was under these damaging\nconditions that he got up to \"make good,\" as the vulgar say. I had\nspoken several times before, and that in the reason why I was able to go\non without dying in my tracks, as I ought to have done--but Bishop had\nhad no experience. He was up facing those awful deities--facing those\nother people, those strangers--facing human beings for the first time in\nhis life, with a speech to utter. No doubt it was well packed away in\nhis memory, no doubt it was fresh and usable, until I had been heard\nfrom. I suppose that after that, and under the smothering pall of that\ndreary silence, it began to waste away and disappear out of his head\nlike the rags breaking from the edge of a fog, and presently there\nwasn't any fog left. He didn't go on--he didn't last long. It was not\nmany sentences after his first before he began to hesitate, and break,\nand lose his grip, and totter, and wobble, and at last he slumped down\nin a limp and mushy pile.\n\nWell, the programme for the occasion was probably not more than\none-third finished, but it ended there. Nobody rose. The next man hadn't\nstrength enough to get up, and everybody looked so dazed, so stupefied,\nparalyzed, it was impossible for anybody to do anything, or even try.\nNothing could go on in that strange atmosphere. Howells mournfully, and\nwithout words, hitched himself to Bishop and me and supported us out of\nthe room. It was very kind--he was most generous. He towed us tottering\naway into some room in that building, and we sat down there. I don't\nknow what my remark was now, but I know the nature of it. It was the\nkind of remark you make when you know that nothing in the world can help\nyour case. But Howells was honest--he had to say the heart-breaking\nthings he did say: that there was no help for this calamity, this\nshipwreck, this cataclysm; that this was the most disastrous thing that\nhad ever happened in anybody's history--and then he added, \"That is, for\n_you_--and consider what you have done for Bishop. It is bad enough in\nyour case, you deserve to suffer. You have committed this crime, and you\ndeserve to have all you are going to get. But here is an innocent man.\nBishop had never done you any harm, and see what you have done to him.\nHe can never hold his head up again. The world can never look upon\nBishop as being a live person. He is a corpse.\"\n\nThat is the history of that episode of twenty-eight years ago, which\npretty nearly killed me with shame during that first year or two\nwhenever it forced its way into my mind.\n\nNow, then, I take that speech up and examine it. As I said, it arrived\nthis morning, from Boston. I have read it twice, and unless I am an\nidiot, it hasn't a single defect in it from the first word to the last.\nIt is just as good as good can be. It is smart; it is saturated with\nhumor. There isn't a suggestion of coarseness or vulgarity in it\nanywhere. What could have been the matter with that house? It is\namazing, it is incredible, that they didn't shout with laughter, and\nthose deities the loudest of them all. Could the fault have been with\nme? Did I lose courage when I saw those great men up there whom I was\ngoing to describe in such a strange fashion? If that happened, if I\nshowed doubt, that can account for it, for you can't be successfully\nfunny if you show that you are afraid of it. Well, I can't account for\nit, but if I had those beloved and revered old literary immortals back\nhere now on the platform at Carnegie Hall I would take that same old\nspeech, deliver it, word for word, and melt them till they'd run all\nover that stage. Oh, the fault must have been with _me_, it is not in\nthe speech at all.\n\n[_Dictated October 3, 1907._] In some ways, I was always honest; even\nfrom my earliest years I could never bring myself to use money which I\nhad acquired in questionable ways; many a time I tried, but principle\nwas always stronger than desire. Six or eight months ago,\nLieutenant-General Nelson A. Miles was given a great dinner-party in New\nYork, and when he and I were chatting together in the drawing-room\nbefore going out to dinner he said,\n\n\"I've known you as much as thirty years, isn't it?\"\n\nI said, \"Yes, that's about it, I think.\"\n\nHe mused a moment or two and then said,\n\n\"I wonder we didn't meet in Washington in 1867; you were there at that\ntime, weren't you?\"\n\nI said, \"Yes, but there was a difference; I was not known then; I had\nnot begun to bud--I was an obscurity; but you had been adding to your\nfine Civil War record; you had just come back from your brilliant\nIndian campaign in the Far West, and had been rewarded with a\nbrigadier-generalship in the regular army, and everybody was talking\nabout you and praising you. If you had met me, you wouldn't be able to\nremember it now--unless some unusual circumstance of the meeting had\nburnt it into your memory. It is forty years ago, and people don't\nremember nobodies over a stretch of time like that.\"\n\nI didn't wish to continue the conversation along that line, so I changed\nthe subject. I could have proven to him, without any trouble, that we\ndid meet in Washington in 1867, but I thought it might embarrass one or\nthe other of us, so I didn't do it. I remember the incident very well.\nThis was the way of it:\n\nI had just come back from the Quaker City Excursion, and had made a\ncontract with Bliss of Hartford to write \"The Innocents Abroad.\" I was\nout of money, and I went down to Washington to see if I could earn\nenough there to keep me in bread and butter while I should write the\nbook. I came across William Clinton, brother of the astronomer, and\ntogether we invented a scheme for our mutual sustenance; we became the\nfathers and originators of what is a common feature in the newspaper\nworld now--the syndicate. We became the old original first Newspaper\nSyndicate on the planet; it was on a small scale, but that is usual with\nuntried new enterprises. We had twelve journals on our list; they were\nall weeklies, all obscure and poor, and all scattered far away among the\nback settlements. It was a proud thing for those little newspapers to\nhave a Washington correspondence, and a fortunate thing for us that they\nfelt in that way about it. Each of the twelve took two letters a week\nfrom us, at a dollar per letter; each of us wrote one letter per week\nand sent off six duplicates of it to these benefactors, thus acquiring\ntwenty-four dollars a week to live on--which was all we needed, in our\ncheap and humble quarters.\n\nClinton was one of the dearest and loveliest human beings I have ever\nknown, and we led a charmed existence together, in a contentment which\nknew no bounds. Clinton was refined by nature and breeding; he was a\ngentleman by nature and breeding; he was highly educated; he was of a\nbeautiful spirit; he was pure in heart and speech. He was a Scotchman,\nand a Presbyterian; a Presbyterian of the old and genuine school, being\nhonest and sincere in his religion, and loving it, and finding serenity\nand peace in it. He hadn't a vice--unless a large and grateful sympathy\nwith Scotch whiskey may be called by that name. I didn't regard it as a\nvice, because he was a Scotchman, and Scotch whiskey to a Scotchman is\nas innocent as milk is to the rest of the human race. In Clinton's case\nit was a virtue, and not an economical one. Twenty-four dollars a week\nwould really have been riches to us if we hadn't had to support that\njug; because of the jug we were always sailing pretty close to the wind,\nand any tardiness in the arrival of any part of our income was sure to\ncause us some inconvenience.\n\nI remember a time when a shortage occurred; we had to have three\ndollars, and we had to have it before the close of the day. I don't know\nnow how we happened to want all that money at one time; I only know we\nhad to have it. Clinton told me to go out and find it--and he said he\nwould also go out and see what he could do. He didn't seem to have any\ndoubt that we would succeed, but I knew that that was his religion\nworking in him; I hadn't the same confidence; I hadn't any idea where to\nturn to raise all that bullion, and I said so. I think he was ashamed of\nme, privately, because of my weak faith. He told me to give myself no\nuneasiness, no concern; and said in a simple, confident, and\nunquestioning way, \"the Lord will provide.\" I saw that he fully believed\nthe Lord would provide, but it seemed to me that if he had had my\nexperience--\n\nBut never mind that; before he was done with me his strong faith had had\nits influence, and I went forth from the place almost convinced that the\nLord really would provide.\n\nI wandered around the streets for an hour, trying to think up some way\nto get that money, but nothing suggested itself. At last I lounged into\nthe big lobby of the Ebbitt House, which was then a new hotel, and sat\ndown. Presently a dog came loafing along. He paused, glanced up at me\nand said, with his eyes, \"Are you friendly?\" I answered, with my eyes,\nthat I was. He gave his tail a grateful little wag and came forward and\nrested his jaw on my knee and lifted his brown eyes to my face in a\nwinningly affectionate way. He was a lovely creature--as beautiful as a\ngirl, and he was made all of silk and velvet. I stroked his smooth brown\nhead and fondled his drooping ears, and we were a pair of lovers right\naway. Pretty soon Brigadier-General Miles, the hero of the land, came\nstrolling by in his blue and gold splendors, with everybody's admiring\ngaze upon him. He saw the dog and stopped, and there was a light in his\neye which showed that he had a warm place in his heart for dogs like\nthis gracious creature; then he came forward and patted the dog and\nsaid,\n\n\"He is very fine--he is a wonder; would you sell him?\"\n\nI was greatly moved; it seemed a marvellous thing to me, the way\nClinton's prediction had come true. I said,\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nThe General said,\n\n\"What do you ask for him?\"\n\n\"Three dollars.\"\n\nThe General was manifestly surprised. He said,\n\n\"Three dollars? Only three dollars? Why, that dog is a most uncommon\ndog; he can't possibly be worth leas than fifty. If he were mine, I\nwouldn't take a hundred for him. I'm afraid you are not aware of his\nvalue. Reconsider your price if you like, I don't wish to wrong you.\"\n\nBut if he had known me he would have known that I was no more capable of\nwronging him than he was of wronging me. I responded with the same quiet\ndecision as before,\n\n\"No--three dollars. That is his price.\"\n\n\"Very well, since you insist upon it,\" said the General, and he gave me\nthree dollars and led the dog away, and disappeared up-stairs.\n\nIn about ten minutes a gentle-faced middle-aged gentleman came along,\nand began to look around here and there and under tables and everywhere,\nand I said to him,\n\n\"Is it a dog you are looking for?\"\n\nHis face was sad, before, and troubled; but it lit up gladly now, and he\nanswered,\n\n\"Yes--have you seen him?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, \"he was here a minute ago, and I saw him follow a\ngentleman away. I think I could find him for you if you would like me to\ntry.\"\n\nI have seldom seen a person look so grateful--and there was gratitude in\nhis voice, too, when he conceded that he would like me to try. I said I\nwould do it with great pleasure, but that as it might take a little time\nI hoped he would not mind paying me something for my trouble. He said he\nwould do it most gladly--repeating that phrase \"most gladly\"--and asked\nme how much. I said--\n\n\"Three dollars.\"\n\nHe looked surprised, and said,\n\n\"Dear me, it is nothing! I will pay you ten, quite willingly.\"\n\nBut I said,\n\n\"No, three is the price\"--and I started for the stairs without waiting\nfor any further argument, for Clinton had said that that was the amount\nthat the Lord would provide, and it seemed to me that it would be\nsacrilegious to take a penny more than was promised.\n\nI got the number of the General's room from the office-clerk, as I\npassed by his wicket, and when I reached the room I found the General\nthere caressing his dog, and quite happy. I said,\n\n\"I am sorry, but I have to take the dog again.\"\n\nHe seemed very much surprised, and said,\n\n\"Take him again? Why, he is my dog; you sold him to me, and at your own\nprice.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, \"it is true--but I have to have him, because the man\nwants him again.\"\n\n\"What man?\"\n\n\"The man that owns him; he wasn't my dog.\"\n\nThe General looked even more surprised than before, and for a moment he\ncouldn't seem to find his voice; then he said,\n\n\"Do you mean to tell me that you were selling another man's dog--and\nknew it?\"\n\n\"Yes, I knew it wasn't my dog.\"\n\n\"Then why did you sell him?\"\n\nI said,\n\n\"Well, that is a curious question to ask. I sold him because you wanted\nhim. You offered to buy the dog; you can't deny that I was not anxious\nto sell him--I had not even thought of selling him, but it seemed to me\nthat if it could be any accommodation to you--\"\n\nHe broke me off in the middle, and said,\n\n\"_Accommodation_ to me? It is the most extraordinary spirit of\naccommodation I have ever heard of--the idea of your selling a dog that\ndidn't belong to you--\"\n\nI broke him off there, and said,\n\n\"There is no relevancy about this kind of argument; you said yourself\nthat the dog was probably worth a hundred dollars, I only asked you\nthree; was there anything unfair about that? You offered to pay more,\nyou know you did. I only asked you three; you can't deny it.\"\n\n\"Oh, what in the world has that to do with it! The crux of the matter is\nthat you didn't own the dog--can't you see that? You seem to think that\nthere is no impropriety in selling property that isn't yours provided\nyou sell it cheap. Now, then--\"\n\nI said,\n\n\"Please don't argue about it any more. You can't get around the fact\nthat the price was perfectly fair, perfectly reasonable--considering\nthat I didn't own the dog--and so arguing about it is only a waste of\nwords. I have to have him back again because the man wants him; don't\nyou see that I haven't any choice in the matter? Put yourself in my\nplace. Suppose you had sold a dog that didn't belong to you; suppose\nyou--\"\n\n\"Oh,\" he said, \"don't muddle my brains any more with your idiotic\nreasonings! Take him along, and give me a rest.\"\n\nSo I paid back the three dollars and led the dog down-stairs and passed\nhim over to his owner, and collected three for my trouble.\n\nI went away then with a good conscience, because I had acted honorably;\nI never could have used the three that I sold the dog for, because it\nwas not rightly my own, but the three I got for restoring him to his\nrightful owner was righteously and properly mine, because I had earned\nit. That man might never have gotten that dog back at all, if it hadn't\nbeen for me. My principles have remained to this day what they were\nthen. I was always honest; I know I can never be otherwise. It is as I\nsaid in the beginning--I was never able to persuade myself to use money\nwhich I had acquired in questionable ways.\n\nNow, then, that is the tale. Some of it is true.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"20943":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNoto de tekstpreparulo:\nIom literumaj eraroj kaj malkonformaj citiloj de la fontteksto estas \u0109i sube korektita, kaj estas priskribita en HTML-aj komentoj.\n\n\nKLASIKAJ USONAJ\nNOVELOJ\nMARK TWAIN\n(1835-1910)\nTRI CETERAJ\nNOVELOJ:\n-LA AMAVENTURO\nDE LA ESKIMOA FRA\u016cLINO-\n-KANIBALISMO EN LA VAGONOJ-\n-BON\u015cANCO-\nEsperantigis\nEDWIN GROBE\n1999\nEldonejo-Arizona-Stelo\n1620 North Sunset Drive\nTempe, Arizona 85281-1550\nUsono\n\n\nMARK TWAIN: TRI CETERAJ NOVELOJ\nUnua Eldono: Aprilo 1999\n\n\nOriginaj Anglalingvaj Titoloj:\n\u201cTHE ESKIMAU MAIDEN\u2019S ROMANCE\u201d\n\u201cCANNIBALISM IN THE CARS\u201d\n\u201cLUCK\u201d\n\nLA AMAVENTURO DE LA ESKIMOA FRA\u016cLINO\n\u201cJes, mi rakontos al vi \u0109ion ajn pri mia vivo kion pla\u0109us al vi ekscii, S-ro Tvajno,\u201d \u015di diris en sia dol\u0109a vo\u0109o kaj lasante ripozi trankvile sur mian viza\u011don siajn honestajn okulojn, \u201c\u0109ar estas afable kaj bonkore ke vi \u015datas min kaj deziras informi\u011di pri mi.\u201d\nTiel parolante, \u015di senatente forskrapis balengrason de sur siaj vangoj per malgranda ostotran\u0109ilo kaj \u011din transigis sur sian peltan manikon dum \u015di spektadis Arktan A\u016droron svingi siajn flamantajn flagrubandojn el la \u0109ielo kaj lavi la solecan ne\u011debena\u0135on kaj la temploformajn glacimontojn per ri\u0109aj prismofarboj, spektaklo de preska\u016d netolereblaj pompo kaj beleco. Sed nun \u015di forskuis sian revadon kaj preti\u011dis rakonti al mi la modestan historieton kiun mi petis.\n\u015ci komfortigis sin konvene sur la glacibloko kiun ni utiligis kiel sofon kaj mi ekpretis a\u016dskulti.\n\u015ci estis belega esta\u0135o. Mi parolas la\u016d la Eskimoa vidpunkto. Aliaj \u015din taksintus iomete tro plenforma. \u015ci estis nur dudekjara kaj \u015diaj samgentanoj ju\u011dis \u015din la plej sor\u0109anta junulino de la tribo. E\u0109 nun, en la sub\u0109iela aero, kun \u015diaj \u011denpeza kaj senforma peltomantelo kaj pantalono kaj botoj kaj ampleksa kapu\u0109o, almena\u016d la beleco de \u015dia viza\u011do videblis, sed \u015dian figuron oni povis nur diveni. Inter \u0109iuj gastoj alvenintaj kaj foririntaj mi vidis nenian knabinon \u0109e la gastama trogo de \u015dia patro povantan \u015din egali. Tamen \u015di ne estis troindulgita. \u015ci estis afabla kaj natura kaj sincera kaj se \u015di konsciis esti bela, \u015dia kondutmaniero neniel elmontris tian konscion.\n\u015ci estis mia \u0109iutaga kunestanto jam de unu semajno kaj ju pli bone mi konis \u015din des pli bone \u015di pla\u0109is al mi. \u015ci estis ame kaj zorge edukita en etoso de aparte malkomuna rafinado por la polusaj regionoj \u0109ar \u015dia patro estis la plej grava homo de la tribo kaj rangis \u0109e la supro de Eskimoa kulturo. Mi faris longajn hundosledajn ekskursojn trans la vastajn glacikampojn kun Laskino\u2014tio estis \u015dia nomo\u2014kaj trovis \u015dian kompanion \u0109iam pla\u0109a kaj \u015dian konversacion \u0109iam agrabla. Mi iris fi\u015dkaptadi kun \u015di sed ne en \u015dia dan\u011derega boato. Mi nur sekvis \u015din la\u016d la glacio kaj spektadis \u015din trafi sian predon per sia pereige preciza lanco. Mi akompanis \u015din okaze de fokkaptaj ekspedicioj. Plurajn fojojn mi staris aparte kaj rigardis \u015din kaj \u015dian familion elfosi grason el grundita baleno kaj iun fojon akompanis \u015din mezdistancen kiam \u015di \u0109asis urson sed mi forturni\u011dis anta\u016d la fino \u0109ar finanalize mi timas ursojn.\nTamen \u015di pretis komenci sian rakonton nun kaj jen tio kion \u015di diris:\n\u201cNia tribo \u0109iam kutimis \u0109irka\u016dnomadi de loko al loko sur la frostaj maroj same kiel la ceteraj triboj sed mia patro laci\u011dis pri tio anta\u016d du jaroj kaj konstruis \u0109i tiun vastan domegon el glacii\u011dintaj ne\u011dblokoj. Rigardu \u011din. \u011ci altas je sep futoj kaj estas tri-kvaroble pli longa ol la aliaj. Kaj \u0109i tie ni da\u016dre lo\u011das ekde tiam. Li estis tre fiera pri sia domego kaj tiu fiereco ta\u016dgis. \u0108ar se vi jam \u011din kontrolis, la\u016dnecese vi rimarkis kiom pli bela kaj kompleta \u011di estas ol domoj kutimas esti. Se ne, tamen, vi devas, \u0109ar vi konscios ke \u011di havas luksajn apartena\u0135ojn kiuj multe preteriras la kutimon. Ekzemple, en tiu ekstrema\u0135o kiun vi nomis \u2018salono\u2019,  la podio levita por gastigi vizitantojn kaj la familion je man\u011dohoroj estas la plej granda kiun vi vidis iam ajn en iu ajn domo, \u0109u ne?\u201d\n\u201cJes, vi pravas, Laskino. \u011ci estas la plej granda. Ni havas nenion kiu \u011din similas e\u0109 en la plej luksaj domoj de Usono.\u201d Tiu agnosko briligis \u015diajn okulojn pro fiereco kaj plezuro. Mi rimarkis tion kaj kondutis konforme.\n\u201cMi ju\u011dis ke tio la\u016dnecese vin surprizis,\u201d \u015di diris. \u201cKaj estas cetera\u0135o. \u011ci estas koverta de pli da peltoj ol kutimas\u2014\u0109iuspecaj peltoj\u2014fokaj, marlutraj, ar\u011dent-griz-vulpaj, ursaj, martesaj, zibelaj\u2014\u0109iu speco de pelto, abundakvante. Kaj same pri la glaciblokaj la\u016dmuraj dormbenkoj, kiujn vi nomas \u2018litoj\u2019. \u0108u viaj podioj kaj dormbenkoj estas pli bone provizitaj \u0109e vi?\u201d\n\u201cEfektive, ne, Laskino. Tia kvalito ege mankas al ili.\u201d Tio pla\u0109is al \u015di denove. \u015ci pensis nur pri la kvanto da peltoj kiun \u015dia estetika patro penadis reteni \u0109emane, ne pri ilia valoro. Mi povintus diri al \u015di ke tiuj amasoj da ri\u0109aj peltoj konsistigus trezoregon\u2014a\u016d  almena\u016d en mia lando\u2014sed tion \u015di ne komprenintus. Tiuj ne estis la speco de poseda\u0135oj kiuj taksi\u011das kiel valora\u0135oj \u0109e \u015dia gento. Mi povintus diri al \u015di ke la vesta\u0135oj surportataj de \u015di, a\u016d la \u0109iutagaj vesta\u0135oj de la plej ordinara najbaro \u015dia, valoras dek du-dek kvin cent dolarojn, kaj ke \u0109e mi mi konas neniun kiu surmetas dekducentdolaran vesta\u0135on por iri fi\u015dkaptadi. Tamen \u015di ne komprenintus. Tial mi diris nenion. \u015ci reparolis:\n\u201cKaj aldone la for\u0135etakvujoj. Ni havas du en la salono kaj du en la resta\u0135o de la domo. Tre maloftas ke oni havu du en la salono. \u0108u vi havas du en la salono \u0109e vi?\u201d Mi anhelis pensante pri tiuj kuvoj, sed renormali\u011dis anta\u016d ol \u015di konsciis pri mia kondi\u0109o kaj mi diris entuziasme:\n\u201cNu, Laskino, mi hontas perfidante mian landon kaj vi promesu ne \u0109irka\u016dsciigu tion \u0109ar mi parolas al vi konfidence, sed mi \u0135uras la\u016d mia honoro ke e\u0109 la plej ri\u0109a viro de Nov-Jorko ne havas du for\u0135etakvujojn en sia salono.\u201d\n\u015ci apla\u016ddigis siajn peltokovritajn manojn pro senkulpa \u011dojego kaj kriegis:\n\u201cHo, sed ne eblas ke vi verdiras, nepre ne eblas!\u201d\n\u201cEfektive, ege eblas, mia karulino. Ni konsideru Vanderbilton. Vanderbilto estas preska\u016d la plej ri\u0109a homo de la tuta mondo. Nu, se mi ku\u015dus sur mia mortolito, mi ade dirus al vi ke e\u0109 li ne havas du en sia salono. Ho, li havas e\u0109 ne unu. Mi mortfalu surloke se mi ne diras la veron.\u201d\n\u015ciaj belaj okuloj lar\u011di\u011dis pro surprizo kaj \u015di diris malrapide kun speco de miro en la vo\u0109o:\n\u201cKiel strange! Kiel nekredeble! Oni apena\u016d povas koncepti tion. \u0108u li estas avara?\u201d\n\u201cNe\u2014ne temas pri tio. Li ne maltrankvili\u011das pri la kosto. Sed, nu, ho, nu, vi scias, tio povus \u015dajni pompega. Jes, jen estas la ideo. Li estas simpla viro kaj malbonvolas sin meti en elmontradon.\u201d\n\u201cNu, tia humileco ta\u016dgas,\u201d diris Laskino, \u201cse ni ne troigas la aferon. Sed kiel aspektas lia lo\u011dejo?\u201d\n\u201cNu, devige \u011di aspektas malplene kaj malfinkonstruite, sed\u2014\u201d\n\u201cMi povas kredi tion! Mi neniam a\u016ddis tia\u0135on. \u0108u \u011di estas bela lo\u011dejo\u2014tio estas, alirilate?\u201d\n\u201cSufi\u0109e bela, jes. Oni ege alttaksas \u011din.\u201d\nLa knabino silentis dum kelke da tempo kaj sidis reveme, ron\u011dante kandel-ekstrema\u0135on, ver\u015dajne strebante trapensi la aferon. Finfine \u015di iom flankenskuis la kapon kaj sciigis decidige sian opinion:\n\u201cNu, la\u016d mi, estas speco de humileco kiu estas en si speco de pompo, kiam vi penetras la temon \u011dismedole. Kaj kiam viro kapablas elporti la koston de du for\u0135etakvujoj en sia salono sed malkonsentas ilin meti tie, povas esti ke li estas a\u016dtente humilmensa, sed centoble pli eblas ke li nur strebas atentigi la publikan rigardon. La\u016d mia ju\u011do via S-ro Vanderbilto scias kion li faras.\u201d\nMi entreprenis modifi tiun verdikton, opiniante ke du-for\u0135etakvujoj-normo malta\u016dgas por taksi homojn la\u016d tutmonda skalo kvankam \u011di sufi\u0109e  ta\u016dgas en propra socia medio. Sed la opinio de la knabino estis fiksita kaj mi ne sukcesis \u015din konvinki. Balda\u016d \u015di diris:\n\u201c\u0108e vi \u0109u la ri\u0109uloj havas dormbenkojn tiel bonajn kiel la niaj, kaj faritajn el belaj lar\u011daj glaciblokoj?\u201d\n\u201cNu, ili estas iom bonaj, sufi\u0109e bonaj. Sed ili ne estas faritaj el glaciblokoj.\u201d\n\u201cMi ege scivolas. Kial ili ne estas faritaj el glaciblokoj?\u201d\nMi klarigis la malfacila\u0135ojn pri tio kaj la alta kosto de glacio en lando kie necesas atente kontroli vian glaciliveriston, sen kio via glacifakturo pezos pli ol via glacio. Tiam \u015di demandis krivo\u0109e:\n\u201cNekredeble! \u0108u vi a\u0109etas vian glacion?\u201d\n\u201cJes ja, devige, karulino.\u201d\n\u015ci eligis ventegon da senruza ridado, kaj diris:\n\u201cHo, neniam mi a\u016ddis similan stulta\u0135on! Do, estas abundego da \u011di. \u011ci havas nenian valoron. Vi konsideru! Glacio \u011dis distanco de cent mejloj videblas en la nunega momento. Mi ne konsentus inter\u015dan\u011di fi\u015dvezikon kontra\u016d la tuta amaso da \u011di.\u201d\n\u201cNu, vi diras tion \u0109ar vi ne scipovas \u011din taksi, vi provinca simplamensulineto. Se vi disponus tiun glacion en Nov-Jorko dum la somero, inter\u015dan\u011de de \u011di vi povus a\u0109eti \u0109iujn balenojn de la merkato.\u201d\n\u015ci rigardis min dubeme kaj diris:\n\u201c\u0108u vi parolas honestavorte?\u201d\n\u201cNeprege. Tion mi pri\u0135uras.\u201d\nTio meditemigis \u015din. Balda\u016d \u015di diris, kun eta suspiro:\n\u201cPla\u0109us al mi ekpovi lo\u011di tie.\u201d\nMi nur celis provizi \u015din per valornormo kiun \u015di scipovus kompreni. Sed mia celo mistrafis. Mi nur naskigis en \u015di la supozon ke en Nov-Jorko balenoj estas abundaj kaj malmultkostaj kaj eksalivigis \u015dian bu\u015don pri ili. Mi opiniis ke pli bone estus entrepreni mildigi la malbonon faritan de mi. Tial mi diris:\n\u201cSed se vi lo\u011dus tie, ne pla\u0109us al vi balenviando. \u011ci pla\u0109as al neniu.\u201d\n\u201cKio!\u201d\n\u201cEfektive, balenviando pla\u0109as al neniu.\u201d\n\u201cSed kial ne?\u201d\n\u201cNu, mi ne bone scias. Temas pri anta\u016dju\u011dado, mi opinias. Jes, jen la kialo. Nura anta\u016dju\u011dado. Mi supozas ke starigis anta\u016dju\u011dadon pri \u011di iun anta\u016dan fojon persono havanta nenion pli bonan por fari kaj post kiam tia kaprico estas eksurvojigita, vi scias, \u011di emas da\u016dri senfine.\u201d\n\u201cTio veras, nepre veras,\u201d diris la knabino mediteme. \u201cSame kiel nia anta\u016dju\u011do pri sapo \u0109i tie\u2014niaj triboj sentis anta\u016dju\u011don kontra\u016d sapo en la komenco, vi scias.\u201d\nMi ekrigardis \u015din por certigi \u0109u \u015di seriozas. Ver\u015dajne \u015di jes ja seriozis. Mi hezitis, tiam diris, singarde:\n\u201cSed pardonu min. \u0108u ili sentis anta\u016dju\u011don kontra\u016d sapo? \u0108u sentis, kun isa fina\u0135o?\u201d  kaj mia vo\u0109o subenmoduli\u011dis.\n\u201cJes. Sed nur en la komenco. Neniu bonvolis man\u011di \u011din.\u201d\n\u201cHo, jes. Nun mi komprenas. Anta\u016de mi ne kaptis vian ideon.\u201d\n\u015ci reparolis:\n\u201cEstis nura anta\u016dju\u011do. Kiam fremduloj alvenigis sapon \u0109i tien la unuan fojon, \u011di pla\u0109is al neniu. Sed post kiam \u011di la\u016dmodi\u011dis, \u011di pla\u0109is al \u0109iuj kaj nun havas \u011din \u0109iu povanta pagi ties prezon. \u0108u vi \u015datas \u011din?\u201d\n\u201cJes ja, efektive. Se mi ne disponus pri \u011di, mi mortus, precipe \u0109i tie. \u0108u vi \u015datas \u011din?\u201d\n\u201cMi \u011din amegas. \u0108u vi \u015datas kandelojn?\u201d\n\u201cMi ilin ju\u011das nepra bezona\u0135o. \u0108u \u015datas ilin vi?\u201d\n\u015ciaj okuloj kvaza\u016d ekdancadis kaj \u015di proklamis:\n\u201cHo! Ne parolu pri tio! Kandeloj! Kaj sapo!\n\u201cKaj fi\u015dinterna\u0135oj!\u201d\n\u201cKaj fervojmazuto!\u201d\n\u201cKaj ne\u011d\u015dlimo!\u201d\n\u201cKaj balengraso!\u201d\n\u201cKaj kadavra\u0135o! Kaj sa\u016drkra\u016dto! Kaj abelvakso! Kaj gudro! Kaj terebinto! Kaj melaso! Kaj\u2014\u201d\n\u201cHo, ne! Ne da\u016drigu la liston! Mi pereos pro ekstazo!\u201d\n\u201cKaj tiam kunservi \u0109ion en \u015dlimtrogo kaj inviti la najbarojn kaj ekman\u011degi!\u201d\nSed tiu vizio pri ideala bankedo estis troa\u0135o por \u015di kaj la kompatindulino svenis. Mi frotigis ne\u011don kontra\u016d \u015dian viza\u011don kaj \u015din reanimigis kaj post iom da tempo sukcesis mildigi \u015dian eksciti\u011don. Iom post iom \u015di reaktivigis sian rakontadon:\n\u201cDo, ni komencis lo\u011di \u0109i tie, en tiu bonega domo. Sed mi estis malfeli\u0109a. Jen estas la kialo. Mi naski\u011dis por ami. Mi opiniis ne povi vere feli\u0109i\u011di sen amo. Mi deziris esti amata por mi mem. Mi deziris idolon kaj mi deziris esti la idolino de mia idolo. Nur reciproka idoladorado kontentigus mian ardan naturon. Mi disponis abunde pri amkandidatoj\u2014tro abunde, efektive\u2014sed \u0109iu el ili, senescepte, havis fatalan difekton. Neniu el ili sukcesis \u011din kamufli. Ne estis mi kiun ili deziris sed mian ri\u0109econ.\u201d\n\u201c\u0108u vian ri\u0109econ?\u201d\n\u201cJes, \u0109ar mia patro estas la plej ri\u0109a homo de nia tribo, e\u0109 de iu ajn tribo de \u0109i tiuj regionoj.\u201d\nMi scivolemis pri la konsistigo de la ri\u0109eco de \u015dia patro. Ne povus temi pri la domo. Iu ajn povus konstrui ties sama\u0135on. Ne povus temi pri la peltoj. La tribo taksis ilin senvaloraj. Ne povus temi pri la sledo, la hundoj, la harpunoj, la boato, la ostaj fi\u015dhokoj kaj kudriloj, a\u016d ceteraj tia\u0135oj. Ne, tiuj ne konsistigis ri\u0109econ. Tial, kio povus esti la fonto de la ri\u0109eco de tiu viro? Kio povintus alvenigi al lia domo tiun amason da ficelaj edzi\u011dkandidatoj? \u015cajnis al mi, finanalize, ke pli bone estus pridemandi tion. Tial mi pridemandis. Videble mia demando tiel kontentigis la knabinon ke mi ekkonsciis ke \u015di jam anta\u016de deziregis ke mi \u011din starigu. \u015ci suferis tiom multe dezirante sciigi la aferon kiom mi dezirante \u011din ekscii. \u015ci sin alpremis konfidence kontra\u016d min kaj diris:\n\u201cDivenu kiom li valoras\u2014vi neniam scipovos diveni.\u201d\nMi \u015dajnigis konsideri la aferon profunde dum \u015di rigardis mian anksian kaj laboreman mienon kun voranta kaj ravita interesi\u011do. Kaj kiam finfine mi rezignis kaj petis \u015din kontentigi mian deziron dirante al mi \u015di mem kiom valoras tiu polusa Vanderbilto, \u015di metis la bu\u015don kontra\u016d mian orelon kaj flustris, impone:\n\u201cDudek du fi\u015dhokoj\u2014ne ostaj, sed fremdaj\u2014fabrikitaj el a\u016dtenta fero!\u201d\nTiam \u015di retiri\u011dis kun teatra salteto, por observi la efekton. Mi faris mian nepran plejon por ne malkontentigi \u015din.\nMi pali\u011dis kaj murmuretis:\n\u201cNome de la Granda Skoto!\u201d\n\u201cTio tiel veras kiel vi vivas, S-ro Tvajno!\u201d\n\u201cLaskino, vi min trompas. Vi ne parolas sincere.\u201d\n\u015ci ektimi\u011dis kaj maltrankvili\u011dis. \u015ci proklamis:\n\u201cS-ro Tvajno, \u0109iu vorto veras, \u0109iu vorto. Kredu min. Vi jes ja min kredas, \u0109u ne? Diru ke vi min kredas. Bonvolu diri ke vi kredas min!\u201d\n\u201cMi\u2014nu, jes, mi kredas\u2014almena\u016d mi penadas kredi. Sed \u0109io okazis tiel subite. Tiel subite kaj humilige. Vi ne devus fari tia\u0135on en tiu rapida maniero. Tio\u2014\u201d\n\u201cHo, mi tiom beda\u016dras! Se mi nur anta\u016dpensintus\u2014\u201d\n\u201cNu, ne gravas, kaj mi ne plu vin kulpigas \u0109ar vi estas juna kaj senpripensa kaj kompreneble vi ne scipovis anta\u016dscii kiun efekton\u2014\u201d\n\u201cSed, ho, ve, mi certe devintus pli bone taksi la situacion. Nu\u2014\u201d\n\u201cVidu, Laskino, se vi parolintus pri kvin-ses fi\u015dhokoj por anonci la temon kaj tiam iom post iom\u2014\u201d\n\u201cHo, mi komprenas, mi komprenas. Tiam iom post iom aldonintus unu, tiam du, tiam\u2014ho, kial mi ne elpensis tion?\u201d\n\u201cNe gravas, kara infano, tute ne gravas. Mi fartas pli bone nun. Post iom da tempo mi estos renormali\u011dinta. Sed\u2014eklan\u0109i la tutan dudekduensemblon al malpretulo kiu aldone iom malbonfartas\u2014\u201d\n\u201cHo, krimo jes ja tio estis. Sed vi pardonu min. Bonvolu diri ke vi min pardonas. Bonvolu!\u201d\nPost rikolti bonan provizon da tre pla\u0109aj petado kaj persvado kaj konvinkado, mi pardonis \u015din kaj \u015di refeli\u0109i\u011dis kaj post iom da tempo rekomencis rakonti sian aventuron. Balda\u016d mi konsciis ke la familia trezoro enhavas ankora\u016d ceteran valora\u0135on\u2014iuspecan juvela\u0135on, ver\u015dajne\u2014kaj ke \u015di klopodas eviti paroli malka\u015de pri \u011di, timante ke mi denove paralizi\u011du. Sed mi deziris informi\u011di anka\u016d pri tiu a\u0135o kaj petegis \u015din diri al mi kio \u011di estas. \u015ci timis. Sed mi insistis kaj promesis anta\u016dapogi min \u0109i tiun fojon kaj esti preta por ke la \u015doko ne min difektu. \u015ci plenis je malcertoj sed tro fortis por \u015di la tento sciigi tiun mirinda\u0135on al mi kaj \u011dui miajn miron kaj admiron kaj \u015di konfesis \u011din porti sur sia persono kaj diris ke se mi certas esti preta\u2014kaj tiel plu kaj tiel plu\u2014kaj tiam enigis manon en la sinon kaj eligis batitan kvadraton de latuno, samtempe kontrolante anksie mian rigardon. Mi falis kontra\u016d \u015din en bone \u015dajnigita sveno, kiu kontentigis \u015dian koron kaj samtempe preska\u016d senigis \u015din je \u011di. Kiam mi renormali\u011dis kaj trankvili\u011dis, \u015di deziregis ekscii kion mi opinias pri \u015dia juvela\u0135o.\n\u201cKion mi opinias pri \u011di? Mi taksas \u011din la plej ekskvizita a\u0135o kiun mi iam vidis.\u201d\n\u201c\u0108u vere? Kiom agrable estas ke vi tiel diras. Sed \u011di estas jes ja vera aminda\u0135o, \u0109u ne?\u201d\n\u201cNu, mi nepre ne povas malkonsenti. Pli pla\u0109us al mi \u011din posedi ol la ekvatoron.\u201d\n\u201cMi opiniis ke vi admiros \u011din,\u201d \u015di diris. \u201cMi ju\u011das \u011din tiom bela. Kaj ne ekzistas cetera en \u0109iuj \u0109i tiuj latitudoj. Homoj alvenis la tutan distancon ekde Malfermata Polusa Maro por \u011din rigardi. \u0108u iam anta\u016de vi vidis simila\u0135on?\u201d\nMi diris ke ne, \u0109i tiu estas la unua kiun mi vidis iam. Multe min dolorigis devi diri tiun malavaran mensogon, pro tio ke mi jam vidis en anta\u016daj tempoj milionon da ili \u0109ar tiu simpla juvelo \n\u015dia estis nenio alia ol malnova difektita baga\u011didentigilo de Nov-Jorko-Centra-Trajndomo.\n\u201cSankta tero!\u201d mi diris. \u201cVi certe ne \u0109irka\u016diras portante tion sur via persono tiumaniere, tute sole kaj sen\u015dirme, e\u0109 senhunde, \u0109u?\u201d\n\u201c\u015c\u015d\u015d! Ne tiel la\u016dte!\u201d \u015di diris. \u201cNeniu scias ke mi \u011din surportas. Ili supozas ke \u011di estas en la trezorejo de Pa\u0109jo. Kutime \u011di estas tie.\u201d\n\u201cKie estas la trezorejo?\u201d\nEstis malsubtila demando kaj dum momento \u015di aspektis surprizite kaj iom suspekte, sed mi diris:\n\u201cHo, komprenu, vi ne pritimu min. En mia lando estas sepdek milionoj da lo\u011dantoj kaj, kvankam ne decas ke mi mem diru tion, \u0109iuj el senescepte, bonvolus konfidi al mi sennombrajn fi\u015dhokojn.\u201d\nTio retrankviligis \u015din kaj \u015di diris al mi kie en la domo la hokoj estas ka\u015ditaj. Tiam \u015di iom forlasis sian temon por fanfaroneti pri la grando de la tabuloj da travidebla glacio konsistigantaj la fenestrojn de la domego kaj demandis al mi \u0109u iam mi vidis simila\u0135ojn \u0109e mi kaj mi respondis senhezite kaj tute malka\u015de ke ne, kio pli pla\u0109is al \u015di ol \u015di sukcesis eltrovi vortojn en kiuj vesti sian kontenti\u011don. Estis tiel facile pla\u0109i al \u015di kaj tiel pla\u0109e al mi ke mi da\u016drigis la temon, dirante:\n\u201cHo, Laskino, vi estas jes ja bon\u015danca knabino\u2014\u0109i tiu belega domo, \u0109i tiu delikata juvela\u0135o, tiu ri\u0109a trezoro, la tuta\u0135o de tiu impona ne\u011do, kaj luksaj glacimontoj kaj senfina sterileco, kaj publikaj ursoj kaj rosmaroj, kaj noblaj libereco kaj grandeco, kaj \u0109ies admiraj okuloj vin rigardantaj, kaj \u0109ies oma\u011do kaj respekto senpete disponeblaj al vi; juna, ri\u0109a, belega, ser\u0109ata, amindumata, enviata, kun \u0109iu bezono havebla, \u0109iu deziro atingebla, \u0109iu volo plenumebla\u2014tio estas senlima bonfortuno! Mi jam vidis miriadojn da knabinoj, sed \u0109iujn tiujn eksterordinarajn komplimentojn mi rajtas aserti verdire nur pri vi. Kaj vi meritas\u2014vi meritas \u0109ion tion, Laskino\u2014tion mi kredas en mia koro.\u201d\nFierigis kaj feli\u0109igis \u015din a\u016ddi min diri tion kaj \u015di dankis min foje kaj refoje pro tiu lasta aserta\u0135o kaj \u015diaj vo\u0109o kaj okuloj komprenigis al mi ke \u015dia koro estis tu\u015dita. Balda\u016d \u015di diris:\n\u201cTamen ne \u0109io estas sunbrilo. Anka\u016d nuban flankon havas la situacio. La \u015dar\u011do de ri\u0109eco estas peza por subteni. Foje mi scivolis \u0109u ne estus pli bone esti malri\u0109a\u2014almena\u016d ne pretermodere ri\u0109a. Dolorigas min vidi najbarajn tribanojn kiuj preterpasas kaj suba\u016ddi ilin diri, respektege, unu al la alia, \u2018Jen\u2014jen  \u015di estas\u2014la filino de la milionulo!\u2019  Kaj foje ili diras beda\u016dre, \u2018\u015ci  ruli\u011das en fi\u015dhokoj dum mi\u2014nenion mi havas.\u2019  Tio rompas al mi la koron. Kiam mi estis infano kaj ni estis malri\u0109aj, ni dormis sen fermi la pordon, se ni tiel deziris. Sed nun\u2014nun ni bezonas dungi noktogardiston. En tiu epoko mia patro estis mildahumora kaj komplezema al \u0109iuj. Sed nun li estas a\u016dstera kaj aroganta kaj maltoleras senformalecon. Pasintece li pensis nur pri sia familio sed nun, dum li \u0109irka\u016diras, liaj fi\u015dhokoj konsistigas lian ununuran priokupa\u0135on. Kaj pro lia ri\u0109eco \u0109iuj ka\u016dras anta\u016d li kaj montri\u011das servema\u0109aj pri li. Anta\u016de neniu ridis pri liaj \u015dercoj \u0109ar \u0109iam ili estis malnovmodaj kaj preterkredeblaj kaj senbonkvalitaj \u0109ar mankis al ili la ununura elemento povanta pravigi \u015dercon\u2014la humurelementon. Sed nun \u0109iuj ridas kaj rida\u0109as pri tiuj morna\u0135oj kaj se iu ajn forgesas fari tion, tio ege malpla\u0109as al mia patro kaj li ne hezitas elmontri sian mal\u011dojon. Anta\u016de oni ne petis lian opinion pri io ajn kaj kiam li sciigis \u011din senpete, \u011di estis senvalora. \u011ci havas ankora\u016d tiun difekton, tamen \u0109iuj petas \u011din kaj \u011din apla\u016ddas. Kaj li mem partoprenas en la apla\u016ddado, \u0109ar mankas al li a\u016dtenta diskreteco kaj abunda takto. Li malaltigis la karakteron de nia tuta tribo. Anta\u016de \u011di estis honesta kaj vireca gento. Nun \u011di konsistas el mizeraj hipokritoj, moligitaj per servitudo. En la profundego de mia koro mi abomenas \u0109iujn milionulajn vivmanierojn! Nia tribo estis anta\u016de ordinara simpla gento kiun kontentigis la ostaj fi\u015dhokoj de iliaj gepatroj. Nun avareco ilin konsumas kaj ili volonte sin senigus je \u0109iu sento pri honoro kaj honesteco por havigi al si la malnobligantajn ferajn fi\u015dhokojn de la fremdulo. Tamen mi ne rajtas insisti pri tiuj mal\u011dojaj temoj. Kiel mi jam diris, estis mia revo esti amata por mi mem.\n\u201cFinfine \u015dajnis ke tiu revo estis plenumota. Iun tagon alvenis nekonato dirante ke lia nomo estas Kalulo. Mi sciigis al li mian nomon kaj li diris ke li min amas. Mia koro saltegis pro dankemo kaj plezuro \u0109ar mi jam ekamis lin unuavide kaj nun mi agnoskis al li tiun amon. Li min alprenis sur la bruston kaj diris ne deziri esti pli feli\u0109a ol nun. Ni piedpromenadis kune trans la bankizerojn, rakontante \u0109ion pri si unu al la alia kaj planante, ho! la plej belan estontecon. Kiam ni laci\u011dis ni sidi\u011dis kaj man\u011dis \u0109ar li havis sapon kaj kandelojn kaj mi kunportis balengrason. Ni malsatis kaj neniam anta\u016de man\u011da\u0135o havis tiel bonan guston.\n\u201cLi apartenis al tribo kies frekventejoj situis en la fora nordo kaj mi eksciis ke li neniam a\u016ddis pri mia patro, kio ege min \u011dojigis. Mi volas diri ke li jam a\u016ddis pri la milionulo sed neniam a\u016ddis lian nomon. Tial, vi komprenu, li ne povis scii ke mi estas la heredontino. Vi rajtas kredi ke mi ne diris tion al li. Finfine mi estis amata por mi kaj estis kontenta. Mi estis tiel feli\u0109a\u2014ho! pli feli\u0109a ol vi povas imagi.\n\u201cIom post iom la vesperman\u011dhoro alproksimi\u011dis kaj mi kondukis lin al nia hejmo. Kiam ni estis atingontaj nian domon li ekmiregis kaj kriis:\n\u201c\u2018Kiom bonega! \u0108u apartenas al via patro tio?\u2019\n\u201cA\u016ddi tiun vo\u0109tonon kaj vidi tiun admiran lumon en lia rigardo min ekdolorigetis, sed balda\u016d la sento forpasis \u0109ar mi tiom amis lin kaj li havis tiel belan kaj noblan aspekton. Mia tuta familio da onklinoj kaj onkloj kaj gekuzoj kontenti\u011dis pri li kaj oni invitis multajn gastojn kaj fermegis la domon kaj ekbruligis la \u0109ifonlampojn kaj kiam \u0109io estis varma kaj komforta kaj sufokega, ni estigis \u011dojan bankedon por festi mian fian\u0109ini\u011don.\n\u201cKiam la bankedo fini\u011dis, la orgojlo de mia patro lin superis kaj li ne rezistis al la tento elmontri siajn ri\u0109ecojn kaj vidigi al Kalulo kian bon\u015dancon tiu atingis hazardavoje\u2014kaj \u0109efkiale, kompreneble, li deziris \u011dui la mirego de la kompatindulo. Mi povintus ekplori\u2014sed tia\u0135o ne sukcesintus malpersvadi mian patron, tial mi diris nenion sed da\u016dre sidadis kaj suferis.\n\u201cMia patro aliris rektalinie la ka\u015dejon, en la plena vidkampo de \u0109iuj, kaj eligis la fi\u015dhokojn kaj revenportis ilin kaj sving\u0135etis ilin super mia kapo, tiamaniere ke ili falis en brila miksa\u0135o sur la provizoran tableton kiun konsistigis la genuo de mia amanto.\n\u201cKompreneble, la miriga spektaklo senspirigis la kompatindan knabon. Li sukcesis nur fiksrigardi pro stulta surprizi\u011do kaj scivoli kiel ununura homo povas akiri tiajn nekredeblajn ri\u0109ecojn. Tiam balda\u016d li suprenrigardis brilokule kaj ekkriis:\n\u201c\u2018Tial, estas vi kiu estas la renoma milionulo!\u2019\n\u201cMia patro kaj \u0109iuj ceteraj \u0109eestantoj kvaza\u016d eksplodis per kriegoj de feli\u0109a ridado kaj kiam mia patro kunigis la trezoron senzorge same kiel \u011di estus nura ruba\u0135o havanta nenian valoron kaj \u011din revenportis al ties ka\u015dloko, la surprizo de Kalulo estis studinda\u0135o. Li diris:\n\u201c\u2018\u0108u eblas ke vi staplas tia\u0135ojn sen ilin kompti?\u2019\n\u201cMia patro eligis orgojlan \u0109evalridegon kaj diris:\n\u201c\u2018Nu, verdire, oni konscias ke vi neniam estis ri\u0109a pro tio ke tiel gravas por vi simpla afero kiel unu-du fi\u015dhokoj.\u2019\n\u201cKalulo konfuzi\u011dis kaj klinis la kapon, tamen diris:\n\u201c\u2018Ho, efektive, sinjoro, mi neniam valoris e\u0109 la pikilon de unu el tiaj multkosta\u0135oj kaj neniam anta\u016de vidis viron tiel ri\u0109an je ili ke valoris la penon nombri lian provizon \u0109ar \u011dis nun la plej ri\u0109a viro kiun mi konis disponis nur tri.\u2019\n\u201cMia stulta patro kriegis denove pro naiva plezurego kaj ne entreprenis korekti la supozon ke li ne kutimas nombri siajn hokojn por ilin atente kontroli. Li pavadis, vi komprenu. \u0108u ilin nombri? Ho, \u0109iun tagon li nombris ilin.\n\u201cMi renkontis mian karulon kaj konati\u011dis kun li je tagi\u011do kaj lin kondukis \u0109e mi je nokti\u011do nur tri horojn poste\u2014\u0109ar en tiu tempo la tagoj malplilongi\u011dis anticipe al la sesmonatda\u016dra nokto. Ni festis dum multaj horoj. Tiam finfine la gastoj foriris kaj ni ceteraj nin situigis dise la\u016d la muroj sur la dormbenkoj kaj balda\u016d \u0109iuj krom mi perdi\u011dis en son\u011dado. Mi estis tro feli\u0109a, tro ekscitita por dormi. Post kiam mi jam ku\u015dis senbrue dum longa, longa tempo, malklara formo preterpasis min kaj engluti\u011dis en la malhelo pleniganta la foran ekstrema\u0135on de la domo. Mi ne scipovis distingi kiu \u011di estis, nek \u0109u \u011di estis viro a\u016d virino. Balda\u016d la formo, a\u016d eble alia formo, preterpasis irante en la kontra\u016da direkto. Mi scivolis kion signifas \u0109io tio sed scivoli malutilis. Kaj scivolante, mi ekdormis.\n\u201cMi ne scias dum kiom da tempo mi dormis sed subite mi plene veki\u011dis kaj a\u016ddis mian patron diri en terura vo\u0109o: \u2018La\u016d la granda Ne\u011do-Dio, mankas fi\u015dhoko!\u2019 Io diris al mi ke tio a\u016dguras mal\u011dojon por mi kaj la sango de miaj vejnoj ekmalvarmi\u011dis. Mia anta\u016dsento konfirmi\u011dis en la same instanto. Mia patro kriegis: \u2018Veki\u011du \u0109iuj kaj ekkaptu la fremdulon!\u2019 Tiam a\u016ddi\u011dis ekbruo de kriegoj kaj sakra\u0135oj el \u0109iuj flankoj kaj vidi\u011dis freneza hastado de malklaraj figuroj tra la malhelo. Mi kuregis subteni mian karulon sed kion mi povis fari krom stari kaj premtordi la manojn? Jam apartigis lin disde mi vivanta hommuro. Oni ligis al li manojn kaj piedojn. Nur post kiam li estis sekure ligita oni permesis ke mi lin aliru. Mi lan\u0109is min sur lian kompatindan ofenditan formon kaj ploregis pro mal\u011dojo sur lia brusto dum mia patro kaj mia tuta familio min primokis kaj lin mistraktis per minacoj kaj hontigaj epitetoj. Li toleris tiun malbontraktadon kun trankvila digno kiu amatigis lin de mi e\u0109 pli ol iam ajn kaj fierigis kaj feli\u0109igis min, benitan per la \u015danco suferi kun li kaj por li. Mi a\u016ddis mian patron ordoni ke la plia\u011duloj de la tribo kunveni\u011du cele al ju\u011di mian Kalulon por lia vivo.\n\u201c\u2018Kio?\u2019 mi diris. \u2018\u0108u anta\u016d ol ser\u0109i la perditan hokon?\u2019 \n\u201c\u2018\u0108u perditan hokon?\u2019 \u0109iuj kriegis priride. Kaj mia patro aldonis moke: \u2018Retiri\u011du, \u0109iuj, kaj dece ekseriozi\u011du. \u015ci deziras ser\u0109i tiun perditan hokon. Ho, sendube \u015di malkovros \u011din.\u2019 Post kio \u0109iuj ekridis denove.\n\u201cMi ne perturbi\u011dis. Mi sentis neniajn timojn, neniajn dubojn. Mi diris:\n\u201c\u2018En la nuna momento estas via vico ridi. Sed alvenos nia vico. Atendu kaj konsciu.\u2019\n\u201cMi alprenis \u0109ifonlampon, opiniante povi malkovri tiun mizera\u0109a\u0135on en nura momenteto. Kaj mi iniciatis mian ser\u0109adon kun tiom da memfido ke miaj tribanoj seriozi\u011dis, ekante suspekti esti eble tro hastintaj. Sed, ve! ho, ve! Ho, la amareco de \u0109i tiu ser\u0109ado. Okazis profunda silento dum kiu oni povis nombri la fingrojn dek-dek du fojojn. Tiam mia koro komencis malforti\u011di kaj \u0109irka\u016d mi rekomenci\u011dis la kunmokado kiu da\u016dre plila\u016dti\u011dis kaj plicerti\u011dis \u011dis, kiam finfine mi rezignis, ili eksplodis en salvo post salvo da kruda ridado.\n\u201cNeniu ekscios iam kion mi suferis tiam. Sed mia amo subtenis kaj plifortigis min kaj mi aliris mian decan postenon flanke de Kalulo kaj \u0109irka\u016dbrakis lian kolon kaj flustris en lian orelon, dirante:\n\u201c\u2018Vi estas senkulpa, mia proprulo. Tion mi pricertas. Sed diru tion al mi vi mem por min komfortigi por ke mi toleru kian ajn nin atendantan estontecon.\u2019\n\u201cLi respondis:\n\u201c\u2018Tiel certege kiel mi staras mortorande en la nuna momento, mi estas senkulpa. Trankvili\u011du, tial, ho, kontuzita koro! Estu en paco, ho, vi spirado de miaj naztruoj, vivo de mia vivo!\u2019\n\u201c\u2018Nun, tial, alvenu la plia\u011duloj!\u2019 Kaj dum mi eldiris la vortojn, mi a\u016ddis ekstere alproksimi\u011dantan sonadon de knaranta ne\u011do kaj tiam vizion pri klini\u011dantaj formoj enirantaj la\u016dvice traporde\u2014la plia\u011duloj.\n\u201cMia patro akuzis plenceremonie la kaptiton kaj rakontis la eventojn de la nokto. Li diris ke la sentinelo staris ekstere anta\u016dporde kaj ke enestis la domon neniu krom la familianoj kaj la fremdulo. \u2018\u0108u familianoj \u015dtelprenus proprajn hava\u0135ojn?\u2019\n\u201cLi pa\u016dzis. La plia\u011duloj sidis senparole dum multaj minutoj. Finfine unu post la alia \u0109iu diris al sia najbaro, \u2018\u0108i tio a\u016dguras malbone por la fremdulo.\u2019 Dolorigaj vortoj por miaj oreloj. Tiam mia patro sidi\u011dis. Ho, mizera, mizerulino ke mi! En tiu sama momento mi disponis la eblon senkulpigi mian karulon sed pri tio ne konsciis!\n\u201cLa tribunalestro demandis:\n\u201c\u2018\u0108u \u0109eestas iu ajn deziranta defendi la akuziton?\u2019\n\u201cMi stari\u011dis kaj diris:\n\u201c\u2018Kial li volintus \u015dtelpreni tiun hokon, a\u016d iun ajn ceteran a\u016d \u0109iujn el ili? Post plua tago li fari\u011dintus heredonto de la tuta aro!\u2019\n\u201cMi staris, atendante. Estis longa silento dum la vaporoj de la multaj spiradoj levi\u011dis \u0109irka\u016d mi kiel nebulo. Finfine unu post la alia la plia\u011duloj kapjesis plurfoje malrapide kaj murmuris: \u2018La eldira\u0135o de la knabino havas forton!\u2019 Ho, kiel korkomfortigaj estis tiuj vortoj! Tiel efemeraj, tamen tiel altvaloraj! Mi sidi\u011dis.\n\u201c\u2018Se iu ajn deziras paroli pli longe, ekparolu nun li a\u016d \u015di. Se ne, tiu restu de nun anta\u016den en silento,\u2019 diris la tribunalestro.\n\u201cMia patro stari\u011dis kaj diris:\n\u201c\u2018En la nokto, formo preterpasis min en la malhelo, irante en la direkto al la trezorejo, kaj balda\u016d revenis. Mi nun opinias ke estis la fremdulo.\u2019\n\u201cHo, mi estis svenonta! \u011cis nun mi supozis ke tio estas mia sekreto. E\u0109 la alkro\u0109o de la granda Glaci-Dio mem ne povintus \u011din eltrenegi el mia koro.\n\u201cLa tribunalestro diris severe al mia kompatinda Kalulo:\n\u201c\u2018Parolu!\u2019\n\u201cKalulo hezitis, tiam respondis:\n\u201c\u2018Estis mi. Mi ne sukcesis dormi tiom mi pensis pri la belaj hokoj. Mi iris tien kaj kisis ilin kaj ilin karesis por pacigi mian spiriton kaj \u011din dronigi en senkulpa \u011dojo. Tiam mi remetis ilin. Eblas ke mi faligis unu sed mi \u015dtelprenis ne e\u0109 unu.\u2019\n\u201cHo, pereiga konfeso por fari en tia loko! Okazis terura silento. Mi konsciis ke li proklamis propran kondamnon kaj ke \u0109io fini\u011dis. Sur \u0109iu viza\u011do hieroglifi\u011dis la vortoj: \u2018Konfeso \u011di estas! kaj bagatela, lama, malsolida.\u2019\n\u201cMi sidis, spirante anhele, atendante. Balda\u016d mi a\u016ddis la solenajn vortojn kiujn mi sciis esti venontaj. Kaj \u0109iu vorto, kiam \u011di alvenis, estis tran\u0109ilo en mia koro:\n\u201c\u2018Estas la ordono de la tribunalo ke la akuzito estu submetita al ju\u011dado per akvo.\u2019\n\u201cHo, malbenita estu la kapo de tiu alportinta al nia lando \u2018ju\u011dadon per akvo\u2019. \u011ci alvenis, anta\u016d generacioj, el iu fora lando situanta neniu scias kie. Anta\u016d tio niaj patroj utiligis a\u016dguradon kaj aliajn malcertajn ju\u011drimedojn kaj sendube okazis fojfoje ke kelkaj kompatindaj esta\u0135oj travivis la sperton. Sed ne okazas tiel  en la kazo de ju\u011dado per akvo kiu estas eltrova\u0135o de homoj pli sa\u011daj ol ni kompatindaj sensciaj sova\u011duloj. Pere de \u011di la senkulpuloj montri\u011das senkulpaj sendube, sendispute, \u0109ar ili dronas. Kaj la kulpuloj montri\u011das kulpaj kun la sama certeco \u0109ar ili ne dronas. Mia koro rompi\u011dis en mia brusto, \u0109ar mi diris, \u2018Li estas senkulpa, kaj li subiros la ondojn kaj neniam plu mi lin revidos.\u2019\n\u201cMi ne forlasis lin post tio. Mi lamentis en liaj brakoj dum la tuta da\u016dro de la pretervaloraj horoj kaj li elver\u015dis sur min la profundan fluadon de lia amo kaj, ho! mi estis tiel mizera kaj tiel feli\u0109a! Finfine, \u015dirprene ili disapartigis nin kaj mi postsekvis ilin ploregante kaj vidis ilin lin forlan\u0109i en la maron. Tiam mi kovris la viza\u011don permane. \u0108u dolorego? Ho, mi konas la plej profundajn el la diversaj profundaj signifojn de tiu vorto!\n\u201cEn la sekvinta momento la homoj kriegis eksplode pro malica \u011dojo kaj mi malkovris la viza\u011don, surprizegite. Ho, amara vida\u0135o! Li na\u011dadis!\n\u201cTuj mia koro \u015dtoni\u011dis, glacii\u011dis. Mi diris: \u2018Li estis kulpa kaj li mensogis al mi!\u2019\n\u201cMi forturni\u011dis malestime kaj survoji\u011dis hejmdirekten.\n\u201cIli kondukis lin sur la foran maron kaj lin postlasis sur glacimonto drivanta suden en la grandaj akvoj. Tiam mia familio hejmenrevenis kaj mia patro diris al mi:\n\u201c\u2018Via \u015dtelisto sendis al vi sian mesa\u011don de mortanto, dirante: \u201cDiru al \u015di ke mi estas senkulpa kaj ke la\u016dlonge de la tagoj kaj la horoj kaj la minutoj dum kiuj mi malsatos kaj pereos mi da\u016dre amos \u015din kaj pensos pri \u015di kaj benos la tagon kiu disponigis al mi la vida\u0135on pri \u015dia dol\u0109a viza\u011do.\u201d Tre bela, e\u0109 poezia!\u2019\n\u201cMi diris: \u2018Li estas malpura\u0135o! Mi neniam plu a\u016ddu pri li denove!\u2019 Kaj, ho! konsideru! Li estis jes ja malgra\u016d \u0109io senkulpa. \n\u201cNa\u016d monatoj\u2014na\u016d mornaj, malfeli\u0109aj monatoj\u2014forpasis kaj finfine alvenis la tago de la Granda \u0108iujara Ofero, kiam \u0109iuj fra\u016dlinoj de la tribo lavas la viza\u011don kaj kombas la hararon. Responde al la unua movo de mia kombilo, elfalis la fatala fi\u015dhoko de kie \u011di nestis dum \u0109iuj tiuj monatoj kaj mi falis en svenado en la brakojn de mia rimorsa patro! \u011cemante, li diris: \u2018Ni murdis lin kaj neniam plu mi ridetos.\u2019 Li tenis la promeson. A\u016dskultu: ekde tiu tago \u011dis la hodia\u016da ne forpasas ununura monato sen ke mi kombu la hararon. Sed, ho! por kio utilas \u0109io tio nun?\u201d\nTial fini\u011dis la modesta rakonteto de la kompatinda fra\u016dlino, pere de kiu ni ekscias ke, pro tio ke cent milionoj da dolaroj en Nov-Jorko kaj dudek du fi\u015dhokoj sur la limo de Arkta Cirklo reprezentas la saman financan superecon, homo trovi\u011danta en malri\u0109aj cirkonstancoj stultuli\u011das restante en Nov-Jorko kiam li povas a\u0109eti fi\u015dhokojn \u011dis valoro de dek cendoj kaj elmigri.\nKANIBALISMO EN LA VAGONOJ\nMi vizitis Sankta-Luizon lastatempe kaj dum mia \u011disokcidenta voja\u011do, post vagon\u015dan\u011do \u0109e Tero-Hoto, en \u015dtato Indianio, milda bonvolaspekta sinjoro \u0109irka\u016d kvardekkvin-, a\u016d eble kvindekjara, entrajni\u011dis \u0109e unu el la la\u016dvojaj stacionoj kaj sidi\u011dis apud mi. Ni interparolis afable pri diversaj temoj dum, eble, horo, kaj mi ju\u011dis lin ege inteligenta kaj distra. Kiam li eksciis ke mi lo\u011das en Va\u015dingtono, li tuj komencis starigi demandojn pri diversaj publikaj homoj kaj pri Uson-Parlamentaj aferoj. Kaj mi balda\u016d konsciis ke mi interparolas kun viro bone konanta la publikajn kaj malpublikajn flankojn de la politika vivo de la \u0108efurbo, e\u0109 la kutimojn kaj manierojn kaj procedrimedojn de Senatoroj kaj Reprezentantoj en la \u0108ambroj de la tutlanda Parlamento. Balda\u016d du viroj haltis apud ni dum ununura momento kaj unu diris al la alia:\n\u201cHariso, se vi konsentos fari tion por mi, mi neniam vin forgesos, mia knabo.\u201d\nLa rigardo de mia nova kamarado eklumi\u011dis pla\u0109e. La vortoj revigligis feli\u0109an memora\u0135on, mi supozis. Tiam lia viza\u011do fari\u011dis meditema, preska\u016d mal\u011doja. Li turni\u011dis al mi kaj diris, \u201cPermesu ke mi rakontu al vi historieton. Permesu ke mi vin informu pri sekreta \u0109apitro de mia vivo\u2014\u0109apitro neniam aludita de mi ekde la tago kiam okazis ties eventoj. A\u016dskultu pacience kaj promesu al mi ke vi min ne interrompos.\u201d\nMi promesis kaj li rakontis la sekvontan strangan aventuron, parolante foje kun vigleco, foje kun melankolio, sed \u0109iam kun emocio kaj seriozo.\n\nEn la 19a de decembro 1853 mi forlasis Sankta-Luizon sur la vespera trajno aliranta \u0108ikagon. Entute estis nur dudek kvar pasa\u011deroj. Estis neniaj virinoj, neniaj infanoj. Ni estis en bona humoro kaj balda\u016d formi\u011dis pla\u0109aj kunrilatoj. La voja\u011do promesis esti feli\u0109a. Nenia ano de nia kompanio, mi opinias, spertis e\u0109 la plej svagan anta\u016dsenton pri la honora\u0135oj balda\u016d nin surfalontaj.\nJe la dekunua de la vespero peza ne\u011do komencis faladi. Balda\u016d post eliri vila\u011deton Veldenon, ni eniris tiun vastegan prerian solecejon etendantan sian senfinan le\u016dgaron da sendoma morno en la direkto al Jubileaj Kolonioj. La ventoj, malbremsataj far arboj a\u016d montetoj, a\u016d e\u0109 nomadaj rokoj, fajfegis feroce trans la ebenan sova\u011dejon, pelante la falantan ne\u011don anta\u016d si kiel \u015dpruca\u0135on fontintan el la kresthavaj ondoj de \u015dtorma maro. La ne\u011do pliprofundi\u011dis rapide kaj ni sciis, pro la mildigita rapido de la trajno, ke la lokomotivo traplugis \u011din kun konstante pligrandi\u011danta malfacileco. Efektive, foje \u011di preska\u016d plenhaltis meze de grandegaj driva\u0135oj sin amasigintaj kiel kolosaj tomboj trans la fervojon. Interparolado komencis malofti\u011di. Gajecon anstata\u016dis serioza maltrankvili\u011do. La eblo ekmalliberi\u011di en la ne\u011do, sur la malmilda prerio, kvindek mejlojn for de iu ajn konstrua\u0135o, sin anoncis al \u0109iu menso kaj etendis sur \u0109iun spiriton sian malesperigantan influon.\nJe la dua de la mateno mi veki\u011dis el malfacila dormado pro la \u0109eso de \u0109iu movado \u0109irka\u016d mi. La timigega vero sin trudis al mi kun fulma rapideco: negodriva\u0135o malliberigis nin! \u201c\u0108iuj manoj eksaltu al la savado!\u201d \u0108iu viro obeis tujege. En la sova\u011dan nokton, la pe\u0109an malhelon, la ondegan ne\u011don \u0109iu estulo sin lan\u0109is, plene konsciante ke momento mal\u015dparata nun povos pereigi nin \u0109iujn poste. \u015covelilojn, manojn, tabulojn\u2014ion ajn, \u0109ion ajn povantan flankenmovi ne\u011don ni ekfunciigis. Strangan bildon konsistigis tiu malgranda kompanio da frenezaj viroj batalantaj kontra\u016d la amasi\u011dantaj ne\u011doj, duone en la plej malhela ombro, duone en la kolerigita lumo de la lokomotiva reflektoro.\nNura mallonga horo sufi\u0109is por pruvi la nepran senutilon de niaj klopodoj. La \u015dtormo barikadis la vojon per dekduo da driva\u0135oj dum ni for\u015dovelis unu. Kaj e\u0109 pli malbone, ni eksciis ke la lasta granda anta\u016denpelo de la lokomotivo rompis la anta\u016d-malanta\u016d-\u015dafton de la pelrado! E\u0109 havante malfermitan vojon anta\u016d ni, ni estintus tamen senhelpaj. Ni eniris la vagonon lacigitaj pro nia laboro kaj ege mal\u011dojaj. Ni kuni\u011dis \u0109irka\u016d la hejtostovoj kaj analizis tre serioze nian situacion. Ni disponis pri nepre neniaj provizoj\u2014sur tio bazi\u011dis nia \u0109efa \u0109agreno. Maleblis ke ni frosti\u011du \u0109ar estis bona provizo da ligno en la tendro. Jen estis nia sola konsola\u0135o. La diskutado fini\u011dis je nia agnosko pri la malkura\u011diga decido de la konduktoro, t.e., ke certege mortus iu ajn homo klopodonta piediri kvindek mejlojn tra tia ne\u011do. Maleblis ke ni alvoku helpon kaj e\u0109 se eblus, helpo ne alvenus. Necesis ke ni rezignu kaj atendu, kiel eble plej pacience, helpon a\u016d malsatmorton! Miaopinie, e\u0109 la plej forta koro tiea sentis dummomentan ekmalvarmon kiam estis diritaj tiuj vortoj.\nAnta\u016d ol forpasis nova horo, interparolado mildi\u011dis \u011dis malla\u016dta murmurado en diversaj anguloj de la vagono, suba\u016ddate la\u016dintervale inter la plila\u016dti\u011do kaj malplila\u016dti\u011do de la \u015dtormo. La lampoj malbrili\u011dis. La plejparto el la abandonitoj sin komfortigis inter la flagretantaj ombroj por meditadi\u2014por forgesi la nunan tempon, se eblus al ili\u2014por ekdormi, se ili povus.\nLa eterna nokto\u2014certege \u011di \u015dajnis eterna al ni\u2014eluzis finfine siajn lantintajn horojn kaj malvarma griza tagi\u011do aperis en la oriento. Dum la lumo pliforti\u011dis la pasa\u011deroj komencis veki\u011di kaj elmontri vivosignojn, unu post la alia, kaj la\u016dvice \u0109iu forlevis de sur la frunto sian tien \u015dovitan \u0109apelon, stre\u0109is siajn malmoligitajn membrojn kaj ekrigardis tra la fenestroj la sen\u011dojan perspektivon. Sen\u011doja tio estis, efektive! Nenia vivanta\u0135o videblis ie ajn, nenia homa lo\u011dejo! Videblis nur vasta blanka dezerto. Levitaj ne\u011dtabuloj drivis tien kaj reen anta\u016d la vento: mondo da kirli\u011dantaj ne\u011deroj elbarantaj la supran firmamenton.\nDum la tuta tago ni malgajadis en la vagonoj, dirante malmulte, multe pensante. Denova lantanta morna nokto\u2014kaj malsato.\nNova tagi\u011do\u2014nova tago da silento, malfeli\u0109o, atrofia malsato, senespera anticipado pri helpo malvenonta. Nokto da senripoza dormado, plena je son\u011doj pri bankedoj\u2014ekveki\u011doj \u011denegitaj per malsatron\u011dado.\nLa kvara tago alvenis kaj foriris\u2014kaj la kvina! Kvin tagoj da terura malliberi\u011do! Sova\u011da malsato spektadis el \u0109iu okulo. Enestis \u011din signo de horora signifo. La anta\u016danonco pri io malklare formi\u011danta en \u0109iu koro\u2014io kiun nenia lango ankora\u016d kura\u011dis envortigi.\nLa sesa taga forpasis\u2014la sepa eklumigis la plej marasman kaj grizviza\u011dan kaj senesperan viraron iam starintan en la ombro de la morto. Nun necesas ke tio eksteri\u011du! Tiu a\u0135o kreskadinta en \u0109iu koro nun pretis trasalti finfine \u0109iun lipparon! La naturo estis \u015dar\u011dita \u011dis la lasta tolerebla nivelo\u2014necesis ke \u011di cedu. RIKARDO H. GASTONO, el \u015dtato Minesoto, alta, kadavrema, pala, stari\u011dis. \u0108iuj anta\u016dsciis kio estas okazonta. \u0108iuj preti\u011dis\u2014\u0109iu emocio, \u0109iu signo pri eksciti\u011do estis subpremitaj\u2014nur trankvila pensema seriozo aperis en la okuloj kiuj nur lastatempe estis tiel sova\u011daj.\n\u201cSinjoroj: Tion ni ne povas da\u016dre prokrasti! La horo \u0109emanas! Ni devas elekti tiun el ni devontan morti por provizi per man\u011da\u0135o la ceterajn.\u201d\nS-RO JOHANO J. VILJAMSO, el \u015dtato Ilinojso, stari\u011dis kaj diris: \u201cSinjoroj, mi kandidatigas Pastoron Jakobon Sa\u016djeron el \u015dtato Tenesio.\u201d\nS-RO VILHELMO R. ADAMSO, el \u015dtato Indianio, diris: \u201cMi kandidatigas S-ron Danielon Sloton el Nov-Jorko.\u201d\nS-RO KAROLO J. LANGDONO: \u201cMi kandidatigas S-ron Samuelon A. Bovenon de Sankta-Luizo.\u201d\nS-RO SLOTO: \u201cSinjoroj, mi deziras malakcepti favore al S-ro Johano A. Van-Nostrando, Filo, el \u015dtato Nov-\u0134erzeo.\u201d\nS-RO GASTONO: \u201cSe ne estas protesto, ni konsentu pri la deziro de la sinjoro.\u201d\nS-RO VAN-NOSTRANDO protestis; tial la malakcepto de S-ro Sloto malakcepti\u011dis. Anka\u016d la malakceptoj de S-roj Sa\u016djero kaj Boveno estis proponitaj kaj malakceptitaj pro la samaj kialoj.\nS-RO A. L. BASKOMO el \u015dtato Ohio: \u201cMi proponas ke la kandidatigprocedo fermi\u011du kaj ke la \u0108ambro nun entreprenu elekti per balotado.\u201d\nS-RO SA\u016cJERO: \u201cSinjoroj, mi kontra\u016dstaru seriozege tiujn procedojn. Ili estas, \u0109iumaniere, kontra\u016dregulaj kaj maldecaj. Mi petegu ke ni tuj forlasu ilin kaj elektu prezidanton de la kunveno kaj ta\u016dgajn funkciulojn por lin helpi kaj tiam ni povos denove konsideri la aferon nun nin alfrontantan, sed kun pli granda komprenkapablo.\u201d\nS-RO BELO el \u015dtato Iovao: \u201cSinjoroj, mi malaprobas. Ne estas tempo por respekti formalajn kaj ceremoniajn regulojn. Ni jam pasigis pli ol sep tagoj sen man\u011di. \u0108iun momenton kiun ni mal\u015dparas per sencela diskutado pligrandigas nian \u0109agrenon. Kontentigas min la kandidatoj jam proponitaj\u2014\u0109iun \u0109eestantan sinjoron ili kontentigas, mi opinias\u2014kaj mi, miaflanke, ne komprenas kial ni ne tuj entreprenu elekti unu a\u016d pli el ili. Mi deziras proponi rezolucion\u2014\u201d\nS-RO GASTONO: \u201cOni kontra\u016dstarus \u011din kaj necesus ke \u011di atendu en suspendi\u011do dum unu tago, kio okazigus la prokraston mem kiun vi deziras eviti. La sinjoro el Nov-\u0134erzeo\u2014\u201d\nS-RO VAN-NOSTRANDO: \u201cSinjoroj, jen mi estas fremdulo inter vi. Mi ne ser\u0109is la honoron alju\u011ditan al mi kaj mi sentas diskretecon\u2014\u201d\nS-RO MORGANO de \u015dtato Alabamio (interrompante): \u201cMi mocias la anta\u016dan proponon.\u201d\nLa propono akcepti\u011dis kaj bremsi\u011dis da\u016dra debatado, kompreneble. La propono elekti funkciulojn sukcesis vo\u0109done kaj sub \u011di S-ro Gastono elekti\u011dis kiel prezidanto; S-ro Blako, sekretario; S-roj Holkombo, Dajero kaj Baldvino, kandidatigkomitato; kaj S-ro R. M. Ha\u016dlando, provizianto, por helpi la komitaton fari elektojn.\nSekvis duonhora pa\u016dzo dum kiu okazis flankaj kunsidetoj. Kiam la maleo eksonis, la partoprenantoj rekuni\u011dis kaj la komitato raportis, aprobante S-rojn Georgon Fergusonon de \u015dtato Kentukio, Lucienon Hermanon de \u015dtato Luiziano kaj V.-on Mesikon de \u015dtato Koloradio kiel kandidatojn. La raporto akcepti\u011dis.\nS-RO RO\u011cERO de \u015dtato Misurio: \u201cSinjoro Prezidanto, pro tio ke la raporto staras dece anta\u016d la \u0108ambro nun, mi mocias \u011din amendi, anstata\u016digante la nomon de S-ro Hermano per tiu de S-ro Lucio Hariso de Sankta-Luizo  kiu bone konatas kaj honoratas de ni \u0109iuj. Oni ne supozu ke mi suspektigas la altajn karakteron kaj starrangon de la sinjoro de Luiziano. Tute kontra\u016de. Mi tiom respektas kaj estimas lin kiom kapablas fari iu ajn \u0109i-tiea sinjoro. Sed neniu el ni povas malkonscii ke li perdis pli da karno dum la semajno kiun ni pasigis \u0109i tie ol iu ajn inter ni\u2014neniu el ni povas malkonscii ke la komitato neglektis sian devon, \u0109u pro malatento, \u0109u pro pli grava kialo, proponante provizi niajn bezonojn per sinjoro kiu, kiom ajn puraj estu liaj apartaj motivoj, enhavas en si efektive malpli da nutra\u0135o\u2014\u201d\nLA ESTRO: \u201cLa sinjoro de Misurio sidi\u011du. La Estro ne rajtas permesi dubindigi la honestecon de la komitato krom per la kutima procedo la\u016d la reguloj. Kiun agon la \u0108ambro efektivigu responde al la propono de la sinjoro?\u201d\nS-RO HALIDEJO, de Virginio: \u201cMi proponas aldone amendi la raporton, anstata\u016digante S-ron Mesikon per S-ro Harvejo Daviso de Oregono. Iuj sinjoroj deziros emfazi eble ke la malfacila\u0135oj kaj senigadoj de preterlimeja vivo malmoligis S-ron Davison. Sed, sinjoroj, \u0109u estas nun la momento \u0109ikani pri malmoleco? \u0108u nun estas la momento elektemi\u011di pri malgrava\u0135oj? \u0108u nun estas la momento disputadi pri temoj de malmulta signifo? Ne, sinjoroj. Kio necesas al ni estas maso\u2014solideco, pezo, maso\u2014jen estas nun la \u0109efegaj bezona\u0135oj\u2014ne talento, ne genio, ne klereco. Mi insistas pri mia propono.\u201d\nS-RO MORGANO (ekscite): \u201cSinjoro Estro\u2014mi ja fortege malaprobas \u0109i tiun amendon. La sinjoro de Oregono estas maljuna kaj aldone estas masa nur je osto, ne je karno. Mi demandas al la sinjoro de Virginio, \u0109u estas supo kiun ni deziras anstata\u016d solida nutra\u0135o? \u0108u li deziras dupi nin per ombroj? \u0108u li celas primoki nian suferadon per Oregona fantomo? Mi demandas al li \u0109u li scipovas rigardi la anksiajn viza\u011dojn lin \u0109irka\u016dantajn, \u0109u li sukcesas enrigardi niajn mal\u011dojajn okulojn, \u0109u li kura\u011das a\u016dskulti la batadon de niaj esperantaj koroj kaj da\u016dre \u015dovtrudi al ni tiun malsategigitan fra\u016ddulon? Mi petas de li \u0109u li rajtas pensi pri nia dezertigita stato, pri niaj pasintaj mal\u011dojoj, pri nia malhela estonteco, kaj tamen senkompate tromptrudi al ni tiun frakasulon, tiun ruinulon, tiun \u015danceli\u011dantan dupulon, tiun nodecan, velkintan, kaj sensukan vagabondon de la malamikemaj bordoj de Oregono? Neniam!\u201d [Apla\u016ddo.]\nOni vo\u0109donis pri la amendo post arda debato kaj \u011di malsukcesis. Rilate al la origina amendo, oni substituis la nomon de S-ro Hariso al tiu de S-ro Hermano. Tiam komenci\u011dis la vo\u0109donado. Kvin vo\u0109donoj okazis senrezulte. Je la sesa, S-ro Hariso elekti\u011dis kiam \u0109iuj krom li mem vo\u0109donis por li. Tiam oni proponis ke la elekto ratifiki\u011du aklame, sed tio malsukcesis pro la denova malkonsento de S-ro Hariso.\nS-RO RADVAJO proponis ke la \u0108ambro nun konsideru la ceterajn kandidatojn kaj fari elekton por la matenman\u011do. La propono aprobi\u011dis.\nJe la unua vo\u0109donado okazis egala\u0135o kiam duono el la partoprenintoj favoris unu kandidaton pro lia juna\u011do kaj duono favoris la alian pro lia supera grandeco. La Prezidanto faris la decidigan vo\u0109donon favore al tiulasta, S-ro Mesiko. Tiu decido estigis grandan malkontenton inter la amikoj de S-ro Fergusono, la venkita kandidato, kaj oni diskutis la eblon postuli novan vo\u0109donadon; sed meze de tio oni aprobis proponon fermi la kunvenon, kiu tuj disi\u011dis.\nLa prepara\u0135oj por la vesperman\u011do deviigis dum longa tempo la atenton de la Ferguson-partieto disde la diskutado pri ilia plendo kaj tiam, kiam ili ekvolis rediskuti \u011din, forpelis \u0109iun pensadon pri \u011di kvaza\u016d en la ventojn la feli\u0109a anonco ke S-ro Hariso pretas.\nNi improvizis tablojn subtenante la apogilojn de la vagonse\u011doj kaj sidi\u011dis kun koroj plenaj je dankemo anta\u016d la plej bona vesperman\u011do beninta nian vidon dum sep torturaj tagoj. Kiom multe ni estis \u015dan\u011ditaj kompare al nia kondi\u0109o de anta\u016d kelkaj mallongaj horoj! Senpromesa, mal\u011dojokula mizero, malsato, febra anksieco, senespero, tiam; dankemo, sereneco, \u011dojo tro profunda por envortigo, nun. Tio, mi scias, estis la plej gaja horo de mia eventoplena vivo. La ventoj hurlis kaj disblovis la ne\u011don sova\u011de \u0109irka\u016d nia malliberejo, sed ili ne plu havis la kapablon nin malkura\u011digi. Hariso pla\u0109is al mi. Li povintus esti iom pli bone kuirita eble, sed mi ne hezitas diri ke nenia homo iam pli konvenis al mi ol Hariso, a\u016d havigis al mi tiel altan gradon de kontenti\u011do. Mesiko estis sufi\u0109e pla\u0109a, kvankam iom altsapora, sed se temas pri a\u016dtenta nutrado kaj delikateco de fibro, servu al mi Harison. Mesiko havis siajn bonajn kvalitojn\u2014mi ne entreprenas nei tion kaj mi ne deziras fari tion\u2014sed li ne pli ta\u016dgis kiel matenman\u011da\u0135o ol mumio, sinjoro\u2014nepre ne. \u0108u magra? Ho, benu min! Kaj \u0109u malmola? Ho, li estis malmolega! Ne eblus ke vi tion imagu! Ion similan ne eblus ke vi iam imagu.\n\n\u201c\u0108u vi volas diri ke\u2014\u201d\n\u201cBonvolu ne interrompi min. Post la matenman\u011do ni elektis viron nomi\u011dantan Valkero, el Detrojto, por la vesperman\u011do. Li estis tre bongusta. Poste mi diris tion en letero kiun mi skribis al lia edzino. Li estis \u0109iumaniere la\u016ddindega. Mi memoros \u0109iam Valkeron. Li estis iom subkuirita sed ege bongusta. Kaj tiam la sekvintan matenon ni \u011duis Morganon el Alabamo kiel matenman\u011da\u0135on. Li estis unu el la plej bonaj viroj anta\u016d kiu mi iam \u0109etabli\u011dis\u2014belaspekta, klerigita, rafinita, scipovis paroli flue plurajn lingvojn\u2014nepra \u011dentlemano\u2014nepra \u011dentlemano li estis, kaj aparte sukplena. Kiel vesperman\u011da\u0135on ni prenis tiun Oregonan patriarkon, kaj li ja estis fra\u016ddulo, ne dubendas\u2014maljuna, malgrasa, malmola, neniu povas imagi la realecon. Finfine mi diris, \u2018Sinjoroj, vi rajtas agi la\u016dvole, sed miaflanke, mi preferas atendi alian elekton.\u2019 Kaj Grajmzo, el Ilinojso, diris, \u2018Sinjoroj, anka\u016d mi atendos. Kiam vi elektos viron havantan ion por lin rekomendi, feli\u0109e mi ali\u011dos al vi denove.\u2019 Balda\u016d evidenti\u011dis ke la malkontento pri Daviso de Oregono estis \u011denerala kaj tial, por konservi la bonvolon regintan tiel pla\u0109e ekde kiam ni \u011duis Harison, oni okazigis elekton, rezulte de kio nomi\u011dis Bakero, el Georgio. Li estis bonega! Nu, nu\u2014post tio ni prenis Dulitlon kaj Ha\u016dkinzon kaj Makelrojon (a\u016ddi\u011dis kelkaj plendoj pri Makelrojo, \u0109ar li estis malkutime malalta kaj maldika) kaj Penrodon, kaj du Smitojn, kaj Bajlejon (Bajlejo havis lignan kruron, kio estis nepra perdo, sed li estis alie bongusta) kaj Indianknabon kaj gurdiston kaj \u011dentlemanon nomi\u011dantan Bukminstero\u2014kompatindan batonaspektan vagabondon kiu malvaloris kaj kiel konversacianto kaj kiel man\u011da\u0135o. Ni \u011dojis povinte elektigi lin anta\u016d la alveno de helpo.\u201d\n\u201cKaj tial la benita helpo ja alvenis finfine, \u0109u?\u201d\n\u201cJes, \u011di alvenis iun brilan sunan matenon, \u0135us post la elekto. Johano Murfio estis la elektito kaj ke neniam estis pli bona mi bonvolas atesti. Sed Johano Murfio hejmenrevenis kun ni, en la trajno alveninta nin savi, kaj vivis sufi\u0109e longan tempon por edzi\u011di kun Vidvino Hariso\u2014\u201d\n\u201cPosteulino de\u2014\u201d\n\u201cPosteulino de nia unua elekto. Li edzi\u011dis kun \u015di kaj estas feli\u0109a kaj respektata kaj prospera ankora\u016d hodia\u016d. Ho, estis kiel romano, sinjoro\u2014estis kiel romanco. Jen estas mia haltejo, sinjoro. Mi devas adia\u016di. Kiam ajn vi havos la tempon pasigi unu-du tagojn \u0109e mi, \u011doje mi vin gastigos. Vi pla\u0109as al mi, sinjoro. Mi sentas karecon estante kun vi. Vi povus pla\u0109i al mi e\u0109 tiom kiom Hariso mem, sinjoro. Bonan tagon, sinjoro, kaj bonan voja\u011don.\u201d\n\nLi estis for. Neniam en mia vivo mi min sentis tiel \u015dokita, tiel afliktita, tiel mistifikita. Sed en mia animo mi \u011dojis pri lia foriro. Malgra\u016d lia afabla maniero kaj lia dol\u0109a vo\u0109o, mi trema\u0109is kiam ajn li direktis al mi sian malsatan rigardon kaj kiam mi a\u016ddis ke mi gajnis lian dan\u011deran karecon kaj ke mi staras anta\u016d lia estimo preska\u016d samnivele kiel la forpasinta Hariso, preska\u016d senmovi\u011dis mia koro.\nMi mistifiki\u011dis preska\u016d preter priskribo. Mi ne dubis kion li diris. Mi ne rajtis kontesti ununuran eron de deklaro tiel sigelita per la honesteco de la vero kiel la lia. Sed \u011diaj teruraj detaloj supervenkis min kaj \u0135etis miajn pensadojn en senesperan konfuzon. Mi vidis la konduktoron kiu min rigardis. Mi diris: \u201cKiu estas tiu viro?\u201d\n\u201cLi estis Kongresano foje, kaj bona Kongresano. Sed li estis kaptita en la vagonoj en ne\u011dduno kaj preska\u016d malsatmortis. Li estis tiel frostvundita kaj \u011denerale frostigita kaj eluzita pro manko de man\u011da\u0135o ke li malsani\u011dis kaj ekstercerbumi\u011dis poste dum du-tri monatoj. Li bonsanas nun krom ke li estas monomaniulo kaj kiam li komencas paroli pri tiu malnova temo, li neniam \u0109esas anta\u016d ol elman\u011di la tutan vagonplenon da homoj pri kiuj li parolas. Li jam estus elman\u011dinta la tutan aron nun, krom ke li devis foriri. Li scipovas reciti iliajn nomojn tiel facile kiel A-B-C. Kiam li elman\u011das \u0109iun krom si mem, li diras \u0109iam: \u2018Tiam kiam alvenis la horo por la kutima elekto por la matenman\u011do, pro tio ke estis nenia kontra\u016dstarado, mi mem elekti\u011dis la\u016dregule, post kio, pro manko da malaproboj, mi demisiis. Tial jen mi estas.\u2019\u201d\nMi senzorgi\u011dis \u011dis nedirebla grado, eksciinte ke mi nur a\u016dskultis la sendan\u011derajn kapricojn de frenezulo anstata\u016d la a\u016dtentaj spertoj de sangavida kanibalo.\nBON\u015cANCO\nOkazis dum bankedo de Londono honoranta unu el la du-tri elstare renomaj Anglaj militaj nomoj de la nuna generacio. Pro kialoj balda\u016d aperontaj, mi retenos lian veran nomon kaj titolojn kaj lin nomos Le\u016dtenanto-Generalo Lordo Arturo Skorzbio, J.C., K.C.B., ktp., ktp., ktp. Kia fascino enestas renoman nomon! Jen sidis la viro, en sia vera karno, pri kiu mi a\u016ddis je tiom da miloj da fojoj ekde tiu tago, tridek jarojn anta\u016de, kiam lia nomo eklevi\u011dis kuglorapide al la zenito ekde Krimea batalkampo, por resti \u0109iam festata. Estis por mi man\u011da\u0135o kaj trinka\u0135o povi rigardi, kaj rigardi, kaj rigardi tiun duondion; kontrolante, ser\u0109ante, konstatante: la trankvilon, la rezervon, la noblan gravecon de lia mieno; la simplan honestecon kiu sin dislimis \u0109ie sur li; la dol\u0109an senkonscion pri lia eminenteco\u2014senkonscion pri la centoj da admiraj okuloj lin fiksrigardantaj, senkonscion pri la profunda, ama, sincera respektego tajdfontanta el la brustoj de tiuj homoj kaj lin \u011disfluantaj.\nLa kleriko sidanta maldekstre de mi estis malnova konato mia\u2014kleriko nun, sed li pasigis la unuan duonon de sia vivo en garnizono kaj sur kampo kaj kiel instruisto \u0109e la militlernejo de Vulvi\u0109o. En tiu sama momento kiun mi priparolas, vualita kaj malkutima lumo ekbriletis en liaj okuloj kaj li flankenklini\u011dis kaj murmuris konfidence al mi\u2014indikante pergeste la bankedan heroon.\n\u201cPrivate dirite, li estas nepra stultulo.\u201d\nTiu verdikto ege surprizis min. Se ties temo estintus Napoleono a\u016d Sokrato a\u016d Salomono, mi ne povintus pli miregi. Mi bone konsciis pri du faktoj: la pastoro estis viro de nepra honesteco kaj lia ju\u011dkapablo pri homoj estis bona. Tial mi sciis, preter dubo a\u016d kontesto, ke la mondo eraris pri tiu heroo; li ja estis stultulo. Tial mi ekcelis ekscii, en ta\u016dga momento, kiel la kleriko, solece kaj sole, malkovris la sekreton.\n\nKelkajn tagojn poste prezenti\u011dis la oportuno, kaj jen kion diris al mi la pastoro:\nAnta\u016d \u0109irka\u016d kvardek jaroj mi estis instruisto \u0109e la militakademio de Vulvi\u0109o. Mi estis tie en unu el la sekcioj kiam la juna Skorzbio spertis sian preparan ekzamenon. Mi sentis kompaton \u011diskarne, \u0109ar la cetero de la klaso respondis vigle kaj bele, dum li\u2014ho, pardonu min, li sciis nenion, por tiel diri. Li estis ver\u015dajne bonkonduta, dol\u0109ahumora, aminda kaj senruza. Tial estis ege \u011dene vidi lin stari tie, tiel serena kiel \u0109izita figuro, kaj eligi respondojn verfakte miraklajn pri stulteco kaj malscio. Mia tuta provizo da kompato aktivi\u011dis nome de li. Mi diris al mi, ke kiam li devos ekzameni\u011di denove, li malsukcesos a\u0109e, kompreneble. Tial estos simple sen\u011dena faro de karitato mildigi lian falon kiel eble plej multe. Mi flankenkondukis lin kaj eksciis ke li iom konas la historion de Cezaro. Kaj \u0109ar li sciis nenion ceteran, mi eklaboris kaj lin trejnegis kiel galersklavon per aparta sinsekvo da kutimaj demandoj pri Cezaro kiujn, mi certis, utiligos la ekzamenontoj. Se vi bonvolos kredi min, li sukcesis brilegkolore en la ekzamentago! Li sukcesis pro tiu nepre supra\u0135a mensofar\u0109o kaj cetere ricevis komplimentojn dum aliaj, kiuj sciis miloble pli ol li, malsukcesa\u0109is. Sekve al strange bon\u015danca hazardo\u2014hazardo malprobable okazonta dufoje en unuopa jarcento\u2014oni starigis al li nenian demandon preterpasantan la mallar\u011dajn limojn de lia far\u0109otrejnado.\nStuporige estis. Nu, dum lia tuta kursaro mi lin subtenis, kun iom de la sento kiun patrino spertas pri kripligita infano. Kaj \u0109iam li sin savis\u2014kaj nur mirakle, ver\u015dajne.\nNu, kompreneble, estis matematiko kiu lin elmetus kaj mortigus finfine. Mi decidi\u011dis fari lian morton la\u016deble plej mal\u011dena. Tial mi trejnis lin kaj far\u0109instruis lin, kaj far\u0109instruis lin kaj trejnis lin, nur pri la sinsekvo da demandoj kiujn la ekzamenontoj plej probable starigus kaj tiam survojigis lin en la direkto al lia sorto. Nu, sinjoro, klopodu koncepti la rezulton: je mia konsterni\u011do, li meritis la unuan premion! Kaj aldone li ricevis nepran ovacion en la formo de komplimentoj.\n\u0108u dormi? Mi ne sukcesis dormi dum pli ol semajno. Mia konscienco min torturis tage kaj nokte. Kion mi faris, tion mi faris nur por karitato kaj nur por faciligi la falon de la kompatinda junulo. Mi neniam imagis rezulton tiel absurdan kiel la okazinta\u0135on. Mi sentis min tiel kulpa kaj mizera kiel Frankenstejno. Jen estis lignokapulo kiun mi starigis survoje al brilaj promocioj kaj mirigaj respondecoj, kaj povus okazi nur unuopa\u0135o: li kaj \u0109iuj respondecoj liaj kunfalus en ruini\u011don je la unua oportuno.\nKrimea Milito \u0135us eksplodis. Kompreneble, necesis ke okazu milito, mi diris al mi. Ne eblis da\u016drigi la pacon kaj havigu al tiu stultulo la \u015dancon morti anta\u016d ol malkovrigi la veron pri si. Mi atendis la tertremon. \u011ci okazis. Kaj \u011di \u015dancelegis min kiam \u011di okazis. Oni lin promociis al kapitaneco en mar\u015dregimento! Pli valoraj viroj maljuni\u011das kaj grizhari\u011das anta\u016d ol grimpatingi tian superan rangon. Kaj kiu iam anta\u016dvidintus ke la a\u016dtoritatuloj elektos deponi tian \u015dar\u011don da respondeco sur \u015dultrojn tiel malspertajn kaj malta\u016dgajn? Mi apena\u016d tolerintus ke oni nomu lin standardisto. Sed \u0109u kapitano? Pripensu tion! Mi certis ke mia hararo blanki\u011dos.\nKonsideru kion mi faris\u2014mi kiu tiel preferis ripozon kaj malagadon\u2014mi diris al mi, mi respondecas al la lando pri tio kaj mi devas lin akompani kaj protekti la landon kontra\u016d li kiel eble plej multe. Tial mi prenis mian kompatindan malmultvaloran monprovizon \u015dparamasitan dum jaroj da laboro kaj malfacilega ekonomio kaj eksuspire a\u0109etis standardistecon en lia regimento kaj jen ni foriris cele al la batalkampo.\nKaj jen\u2014ho, mia koro, estis terure. \u0108u eraregoj? Li faris nenion krom eraregi. Tamen, vi vidu, neniu konsciis pri la sekreto de la ulo. \u0108iuj havis mal\u011dustan opinion pri li kaj \u0109iun fojon misinterpretis lian faradon. Rezulte ili taksis liajn stultajn misfarojn agoj de inspirita geniulo. Honestavorte, tiel ili taksis ilin! Liaj plej mildaj eraretoj sufi\u0109is por ekploregi bonsenculon. Kaj ili ja ploregis min\u2014kaj furiozigis kaj delirigis min, aparte. Kaj kio tenis min en konstanta \u015dvito de timego estis tio ke \u0109iu nova fu\u015dfaro de li pligrandigis la brilon de lia renomo! Mi da\u016drege diris al mi ke li tiel altrangi\u011dos ke, kiam okazos la malkovro, estos kvaza\u016d la suno elfalanta la \u0109ielon.\nLi da\u016dre suprenprogresis, gradon post grado, trans la mortajn korpojn de siaj superuloj, \u011dis finfine, en la plej varma momento de la batalo de ...., ekfalis nia kolonelo kaj mia koro ensaltis mian bu\u015don, \u0109ar Skorzbio estis la plej proksima la\u016drange! Jen tio alvenas, mi diris. \u0108iuj ni fini\u011dos en \u015ceolo post nur dek minutoj, certege.\nLa batalo estis ege feroca. Konstante la aliancanoj cedis \u0109iuloke sur la kampo. Nia regimento okupis gravegan lokon. Nuna fu\u015do ka\u016dzus nian detruon. En tiu kriza momento kion faras tiu senmorta stultulo? Li eligas la regimenton de \u011dia loko kaj ordonas sturmon trans najbaran monteton elmontrantan nenian indicon pri malamika \u0109eestado! \u201cJen vi ekas!\u201d mi diris al mi. \u201c\u0108i tio ja estas la finfino.\u201d\nKaj jen ni ja ekis, kaj transiris la firston de la monteto anta\u016d ol eblis al iu ajn malkovri kaj haltigi la frenezan movon. Kaj kion ni renkontis? Tutan kaj neatenditan Rusan armeon starantan en rezervo. Kaj kio okazis? \u0108u ni nin elman\u011digis? Jen kio devige okazintus en na\u016ddek na\u016d kazoj el cent. Sed ne. Tiuj Rusoj decidi\u011dis ke nenia unuopa regimento alvenos vagrigardi tie en tia momento. Tial devas temi pri la tuta Angla armeo kaj la ruza Rusa manovro estas malkovrita kaj blokita. Tial ili forturni\u011dis kaj kuris pelmele, trans la monteton kaj malsupren sur la kampon, en sova\u011da konfuzi\u011do, kaj ni ilin postkuris. Ili mem rompis la solidan Rusan centron sur la kampo kaj \u011din transkura\u0109is kaj balda\u016dege okazis la plej giganta disvenko ian vidita de vi, kaj la malvenko de la Aliancanoj alii\u011dis en nepran kaj grandiozan venkon! Mar\u015dalo Kanroberto spektadis, kapturni\u011da pro miro, admiro kaj ekstazo, kaj tuj alvenigis Skorzbion kaj lin \u0109irka\u016dbrakis kaj lin medalis surkampe anta\u016d la tuta armaro!\nKaj kio estis la fu\u015dego de Skorzbio tiun fojon? Nur la preno de sia dekstra mano por sia maldekstra\u2014nur tio. Li ricevis ordonon retiri\u011di kaj apogi nian dekstran flankon. Kaj, anstata\u016de, li retiri\u011dis anta\u016den kaj transiris la monteton en la maldekstra flanko. Sed la renomo kiun li meritis tiun tagon kiel mirinda milita geniulo plenigis la mondon je lia gloro kaj tiu gloro neniam pali\u011dos dum da\u016dros libroj pri historio.\nLi estas tiel bona kaj afabla kaj aminda kaj sen\u015dajniga kiel eblas esti, sed li ne estas sufi\u0109e inteligenta por endomi\u011di kiam pluvas. Nu tio estas la nepra vero. Li estas la plej altranga azenmensulo de la universo. \u011cis anta\u016d duonhoro prikonsciis tion nur li kaj mi. Postsekvis lin, tagon post tago, jaron post jaro, la plej fenomena kaj miriga bon\u015danco. Jam ekde generacio li sin renomigas kiel brila soldato en \u0109iuj militoj niaj. Li sternis sian tutan militan vivon per fu\u015degoj, tamen neniam faris fu\u015degon malsukcesintan lin promociigi en kavaliron a\u016d baroneton a\u016d lordon a\u016d ion. Rigardu lian bruston. Ho, entute vestas lin landaj kaj eksterlandaj medaloj. Nu, sinjoro, \u0109iu el ili estas registro pri iu malla\u016ddinda stulta\u0135o. Kaj, kunkonsiderate, ili konsistigas pruvon ke la plej bona evento povanta okazi al viro estas naski\u011di bon\u015danca. Mi rediru, kiel mi jam diris dum la bankedo, ke Skorzbio estas nepra stultulo.\nENHAVO\n\n\u201cLa Amaventuro de la Eskimoa Fra\u016dlino\u201d p. 1\n\u201cKanibalismo en la Vagonoj\u201d p. 13\n\u201cBon\u015danco\u201d p. 20\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"2431":"\n\nTranscribed from the 1909 Harper & Brothers edition by David Price, email\nccx074@pglaf.org.  Proofing by Alan Ross, Ana Charlton and David.\n\n\n\n\n\n                            IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD?\n\n\n                          FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY\n\n                                MARK TWAIN\n\n                       HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS\n                           NEW YORK AND LONDON\n                                M C M I X\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\n\nScattered here and there through the stacks of unpublished manuscript\nwhich constitute this formidable Autobiography and Diary of mine, certain\nchapters will in some distant future be found which deal with\n\"Claimants\"--claimants historically notorious: Satan, Claimant; the\nGolden Calf, Claimant; the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, Claimant; Louis\nXVII., Claimant; William Shakespeare, Claimant; Arthur Orton, Claimant;\nMary Baker G. Eddy, Claimant--and the rest of them.  Eminent Claimants,\nsuccessful Claimants, defeated Claimants, royal Claimants, pleb\nClaimants, showy Claimants, shabby Claimants, revered Claimants, despised\nClaimants, twinkle starlike here and there and yonder through the mists\nof history and legend and tradition--and oh, all the darling tribe are\nclothed in mystery and romance, and we read about them with deep interest\nand discuss them with loving sympathy or with rancorous resentment,\naccording to which side we hitch ourselves to.  It has always been so\nwith the human race.  There was never a Claimant that couldn't get a\nhearing, nor one that couldn't accumulate a rapturous following, no\nmatter how flimsy and apparently unauthentic his claim might be.  Arthur\nOrton's claim that he was the lost Tichborne baronet come to life again\nwas as flimsy as Mrs. Eddy's that she wrote _Science and Health_ from the\ndirect dictation of the Deity; yet in England near forty years ago Orton\nhad a huge army of devotees and incorrigible adherents, many of whom\nremained stubbornly unconvinced after their fat god had been proven an\nimpostor and jailed as a perjurer, and to-day Mrs. Eddy's following is\nnot only immense, but is daily augmenting in numbers and enthusiasm.\nOrton had many fine and educated minds among his adherents, Mrs. Eddy has\nhad the like among hers from the beginning.  Her church is as well\nequipped in those particulars as is any other church.  Claimants can\nalways count upon a following, it doesn't matter who they are, nor what\nthey claim, nor whether they come with documents or without.  It was\nalways so.  Down out of the long-vanished past, across the abyss of the\nages, if you listen you can still hear the believing multitudes shouting\nfor Perkin Warbeck and Lambert Simnel.\n\nA friend has sent me a new book, from England--_The Shakespeare Problem\nRestated_--well restated and closely reasoned; and my fifty years'\ninterest in that matter--asleep for the last three years--is excited once\nmore.  It is an interest which was born of Delia Bacon's book--away back\nin that ancient day--1857, or maybe 1856.  About a year later my\npilot-master, Bixby, transferred me from his own steamboat to the\n_Pennsylvania_, and placed me under the orders and instructions of George\nEaler--dead now, these many, many years.  I steered for him a good many\nmonths--as was the humble duty of the pilot-apprentice: stood a daylight\nwatch and spun the wheel under the severe superintendence and correction\nof the master.  He was a prime chess player and an idolater of\nShakespeare.  He would play chess with anybody; even with me, and it cost\nhis official dignity something to do that.  Also--quite uninvited--he\nwould read Shakespeare to me; not just casually, but by the hour, when it\nwas his watch, and I was steering.  He read well, but not profitably for\nme, because he constantly injected commands into the text.  That broke it\nall up, mixed it all up, tangled it all up--to that degree, in fact, that\nif we were in a risky and difficult piece of river an ignorant person\ncouldn't have told, sometimes, which observations were Shakespeare's and\nwhich were Ealer's.  For instance:\n\n    What man dare, _I_ dare!\n\n    Approach thou _what_ are you laying in the leads for? what a hell of\n    an idea! like the rugged ease her off a little, ease her off! rugged\n    Russian bear, the armed rhinoceros or the _there_ she goes! meet her,\n    meet her! didn't you _know_ she'd smell the reef if you crowded it\n    like that?  Hyrcan tiger; take any shape but that and my firm nerves\n    she'll be in the _woods_ the first you know! stop the starboard! come\n    ahead strong on the larboard! back the starboard! . . . _Now_ then,\n    you're all right; come ahead on the starboard; straighten up and go\n    'long, never tremble: or be alive again, and dare me to the desert\n    damnation can't you keep away from that greasy water? pull her down!\n    snatch her! snatch her baldheaded! with thy sword; if trembling I\n    inhabit then, lay in the leads!--no, only the starboard one, leave\n    the other alone, protest me the baby of a girl.  Hence horrible\n    shadow! eight bells--that watchman's asleep again, I reckon, go down\n    and call Brown yourself, unreal mockery, hence!\n\nHe certainly was a good reader, and splendidly thrilling and stormy and\ntragic, but it was a damage to me, because I have never since been able\nto read Shakespeare in a calm and sane way.  I cannot rid it of his\nexplosive interlardings, they break in everywhere with their irrelevant\n\"What in hell are you up to _now_! pull her down! more! _more_!--there\nnow, steady as you go,\" and the other disorganizing interruptions that\nwere always leaping from his mouth.  When I read Shakespeare now, I can\nhear them as plainly as I did in that long-departed time--fifty-one years\nago.  I never regarded Ealer's readings as educational.  Indeed they were\na detriment to me.\n\nHis contributions to the text seldom improved it, but barring that detail\nhe was a good reader, I can say that much for him.  He did not use the\nbook, and did not need to; he knew his Shakespeare as well as Euclid ever\nknew his multiplication table.\n\nDid he have something to say--this Shakespeare-adoring Mississippi\npilot--anent Delia Bacon's book?  Yes.  And he said it; said it all the\ntime, for months--in the morning watch, the middle watch, the dog watch;\nand probably kept it going in his sleep.  He bought the literature of the\ndispute as fast as it appeared, and we discussed it all through thirteen\nhundred miles of river four times traversed in every thirty-five\ndays--the time required by that swift boat to achieve two round trips.\nWe discussed, and discussed, and discussed, and disputed and disputed and\ndisputed; at any rate he did, and I got in a word now and then when he\nslipped a cog and there was a vacancy.  He did his arguing with heat,\nwith energy, with violence; and I did mine with the reserve and\nmoderation of a subordinate who does not like to be flung out of a\npilot-house that is perched forty feet above the water.  He was fiercely\nloyal to Shakespeare and cordially scornful of Bacon and of all the\npretensions of the Baconians.  So was I--at first.  And at first he was\nglad that that was my attitude.  There were even indications that he\nadmired it; indications dimmed, it is true, by the distance that lay\nbetween the lofty boss-pilotical altitude and my lowly one, yet\nperceptible to me; perceptible, and translatable into a\ncompliment--compliment coming down from above the snow-line and not well\nthawed in the transit, and not likely to set anything afire, not even a\ncub-pilot's self-conceit; still a detectable compliment, and precious.\n\nNaturally it flattered me into being more loyal to Shakespeare--if\npossible--than I was before, and more prejudiced against Bacon--if\npossible than I was before.  And so we discussed and discussed, both on\nthe same side, and were happy.  For a while.  Only for a while.  Only for\na very little while, a very, very, very little while.  Then the\natmosphere began to change; began to cool off.\n\nA brighter person would have seen what the trouble was, earlier than I\ndid, perhaps, but I saw it early enough for all practical purposes.  You\nsee, he was of an argumentative disposition.  Therefore it took him but a\nlittle time to get tired of arguing with a person who agreed with\neverything he said and consequently never furnished him a provocative to\nflare up and show what he could do when it came to clear, cold, hard,\nrose-cut, hundred-faceted, diamond-flashing reasoning.  That was his name\nfor it.  It has been applied since, with complacency, as many as several\ntimes, in the Bacon-Shakespeare scuffle.  On the Shakespeare side.\n\nThen the thing happened which has happened to more persons than to me\nwhen principle and personal interest found themselves in opposition to\neach other and a choice had to be made: I let principle go, and went over\nto the other side.  Not the entire way, but far enough to answer the\nrequirements of the case.  That is to say, I took this attitude, to wit:\nI only _believed_ Bacon wrote Shakespeare, whereas I _knew_ Shakespeare\ndidn't.  Ealer was satisfied with that, and the war broke loose.  Study,\npractice, experience in handling my end of the matter presently enabled\nme to take my new position almost seriously; a little bit later, utterly\nseriously; a little later still, lovingly, gratefully, devotedly;\nfinally: fiercely, rabidly, uncompromisingly.  After that, I was welded\nto my faith, I was theoretically ready to die for it, and I looked down\nwith compassion not unmixed with scorn, upon everybody else's faith that\ndidn't tally with mine.  That faith, imposed upon me by self-interest in\nthat ancient day, remains my faith to-day, and in it I find comfort,\nsolace, peace, and never-failing joy.  You see how curiously theological\nit is.  The \"rice Christian\" of the Orient goes through the very same\nsteps, when he is after rice and the missionary is after _him_; he goes\nfor rice, and remains to worship.\n\nEaler did a lot of our \"reasoning\"--not to say substantially all of it.\nThe slaves of his cult have a passion for calling it by that large name.\nWe others do not call our inductions and deductions and reductions by any\nname at all.  They show for themselves, what they are, and we can with\ntranquil confidence leave the world to ennoble them with a title of its\nown choosing.\n\nNow and then when Ealer had to stop to cough, I pulled my\ninduction-talents together and hove the controversial lead myself: always\ngetting eight feet, eight-and-a-half, often nine, sometimes even\nquarter-less-twain--as _I_ believed; but always \"no bottom,\" as _he_\nsaid.\n\nI got the best of him only once.  I prepared myself.  I wrote out a\npassage from Shakespeare--it may have been the very one I quoted a while\nago, I don't remember--and riddled it with his wild steamboatful\ninterlardings.  When an unrisky opportunity offered, one lovely summer\nday, when we had sounded and buoyed a tangled patch of crossings known as\nHell's Half Acre, and were aboard again and he had sneaked the\nPennsylvania triumphantly through it without once scraping sand, and the\n_A. T. Lacey_ had followed in our wake and got stuck, and he was feeling\ngood, I showed it to him.  It amused him.  I asked him to fire it off:\nread it; read it, I diplomatically added, as only he could read dramatic\npoetry.  The compliment touched him where he lived.  He did read it; read\nit with surpassing fire and spirit; read it as it will never be read\nagain; for _he_ knew how to put the right music into those thunderous\ninterlardings and make them seem a part of the text, make them sound as\nif they were bursting from Shakespeare's own soul, each one of them a\ngolden inspiration and not to be left out without damage to the massed\nand magnificent whole.\n\nI waited a week, to let the incident fade; waited longer; waited until he\nbrought up for reasonings and vituperation my pet position, my pet\nargument, the one which I was fondest of, the one which I prized far\nabove all others in my ammunition-wagon, to wit: that Shakespeare\ncouldn't have written Shakespeare's works, for the reason that the man\nwho wrote them was limitlessly familiar with the laws, and the\nlaw-courts, and law-proceedings, and lawyer-talk, and lawyer-ways--and if\nShakespeare was possessed of the infinitely-divided star-dust that\nconstituted this vast wealth, how did he get it, and _where_, and _when_?\n\n\"From books.\"\n\nFrom books!  That was always the idea.  I answered as my readings of the\nchampions of my side of the great controversy had taught me to answer:\nthat a man can't handle glibly and easily and comfortably and\nsuccessfully the _argot_ of a trade at which he has not personally\nserved.  He will make mistakes; he will not, and cannot, get the\ntrade-phrasings precisely and exactly right; and the moment he departs,\nby even a shade, from a common trade-form, the reader who has served that\ntrade will know the writer _hasn't_.  Ealer would not be convinced; he\nsaid a man could learn how to correctly handle the subtleties and\nmysteries and free-masonries of any trade by careful reading and\nstudying.  But when I got him to read again the passage from Shakespeare\nwith the interlardings, he perceived, himself, that books couldn't teach\na student a bewildering multitude of pilot-phrases so thoroughly and\nperfectly that he could talk them off in book and play or conversation\nand make no mistake that a pilot would not immediately discover.  It was\na triumph for me.  He was silent awhile, and I knew what was happening:\nhe was losing his temper.  And I knew he would presently close the\nsession with the same old argument that was always his stay and his\nsupport in time of need; the same old argument, the one I couldn't\nanswer--because I dasn't: the argument that I was an ass, and better shut\nup.  He delivered it, and I obeyed.\n\nOh, dear, how long ago it was--how pathetically long ago!  And here am I,\nold, forsaken, forlorn and alone, arranging to get that argument out of\nsomebody again.\n\nWhen a man has a passion for Shakespeare, it goes without saying that he\nkeeps company with other standard authors.  Ealer always had several\nhigh-class books in the pilot-house, and he read the same ones over and\nover again, and did not care to change to newer and fresher ones.  He\nplayed well on the flute, and greatly enjoyed hearing himself play.  So\ndid I.  He had a notion that a flute would keep its health better if you\ntook it apart when it was not standing a watch; and so, when it was not\non duty it took its rest, disjointed, on the compass-shelf under the\nbreast-board.  When the _Pennsylvania_ blew up and became a drifting\nrack-heap freighted with wounded and dying poor souls (my young brother\nHenry among them), pilot Brown had the watch below, and was probably\nasleep and never knew what killed him; but Ealer escaped unhurt.  He and\nhis pilot-house were shot up into the air; then they fell, and Ealer sank\nthrough the ragged cavern where the hurricane deck and the boiler deck\nhad been, and landed in a nest of ruins on the main deck, on top of one\nof the unexploded boilers, where he lay prone in a fog of scalding and\ndeadly steam.  But not for long.  He did not lose his head: long\nfamiliarity with danger had taught him to keep it, in any and all\nemergencies.  He held his coat-lappels to his nose with one hand, to keep\nout the steam, and scrabbled around with the other till he found the\njoints of his flute, then he is took measures to save himself alive, and\nwas successful.  I was not on board.  I had been put ashore in New\nOrleans by Captain Klinefelter.  The reason--however, I have told all\nabout it in the book called _Old Times on the Mississippi_, and it isn't\nimportant anyway, it is so long ago.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n\nWhen I was a Sunday-school scholar something more than sixty years ago, I\nbecame interested in Satan, and wanted to find out all I could about him.\nI began to ask questions, but my class-teacher, Mr. Barclay the\nstone-mason, was reluctant about answering them, it seemed to me.  I was\nanxious to be praised for turning my thoughts to serious subjects when\nthere wasn't another boy in the village who could be hired to do such a\nthing.  I was greatly interested in the incident of Eve and the serpent,\nand thought Eve's calmness was perfectly noble.  I asked Mr. Barclay if\nhe had ever heard of another woman who, being approached by a serpent,\nwould not excuse herself and break for the nearest timber.  He did not\nanswer my question, but rebuked me for inquiring into matters above my\nage and comprehension.  I will say for Mr. Barclay that he was willing to\ntell me the facts of Satan's history, but he stopped there: he wouldn't\nallow any discussion of them.\n\nIn the course of time we exhausted the facts.  There were only five or\nsix of them, you could set them all down on a visiting-card.  I was\ndisappointed.  I had been meditating a biography, and was grieved to find\nthat there were no materials.  I said as much, with the tears running\ndown.  Mr. Barclay's sympathy and compassion were aroused, for he was a\nmost kind and gentle-spirited man, and he patted me on the head and\ncheered me up by saying there was a whole vast ocean of materials!  I can\nstill feel the happy thrill which these blessed words shot through me.\n\nThen he began to bail out that ocean's riches for my encouragement and\njoy.  Like this: it was \"conjectured\"--though not established--that Satan\nwas originally an angel in heaven; that he fell; that he rebelled, and\nbrought on a war; that he was defeated, and banished to perdition.  Also,\n\"we have reason to believe\" that later he did so-and-so; that \"we are\nwarranted in supposing\" that at a subsequent time he travelled\nextensively, seeking whom he might devour; that a couple of centuries\nafterward, \"as tradition instructs us,\" he took up the cruel trade of\ntempting people to their ruin, with vast and fearful results; that\nby-and-by, \"as the probabilities seem to indicate,\" he may have done\ncertain things, he might have done certain other things, he must have\ndone still other things.\n\nAnd so on and so on.  We set down the five known facts by themselves, on\na piece of paper, and numbered it \"page 1\"; then on fifteen hundred other\npieces of paper we set down the \"conjectures,\" and \"suppositions,\" and\n\"maybes,\" and \"perhapses,\" and \"doubtlesses,\" and \"rumors,\" and\n\"guesses,\" and \"probabilities,\" and \"likelihoods,\" and \"we are permitted\nto thinks,\" and \"we are warranted in believings,\" and \"might have beens,\"\nand \"could have beens,\" and \"must have beens,\" and \"unquestionablys,\" and\n\"without a shadow of doubts\"--and behold!\n\n_Materials_?  Why, we had enough to build a biography of Shakespeare!\n\nYet he made me put away my pen; he would not let me write the history of\nSatan.  Why?  Because, as he said, he had suspicions; suspicions that my\nattitude in this matter was not reverent; and that a person must be\nreverent when writing about the sacred characters.  He said any one who\nspoke flippantly of Satan would be frowned upon by the religious world\nand also be brought to account.\n\nI assured him, in earnest and sincere words, that he had wholly\nmisconceived my attitude; that I had the highest respect for Satan, and\nthat my reverence for him equalled, and possibly even exceeded, that of\nany member of any church.  I said it wounded me deeply to perceive by his\nwords that he thought I would make fun of Satan, and deride him, laugh at\nhim, scoff at him: whereas in truth I had never thought of such a thing,\nbut had only a warm desire to make fun of those others and laugh at\n_them_.  \"What others?\"  \"Why, the Supposers, the Perhapsers, the\nMight-Have-Beeners, the Could-Have-Beeners, the Must-Have-Beeners, the\nWithout-a-Shadow-of-Doubters, the We-are-Warranted-in-Believingers, and\nall that funny crop of solemn architects who have taken a good solid\nfoundation of five indisputable and unimportant facts and built upon it a\nConjectural Satan thirty miles high.\"\n\nWhat did Mr. Barclay do then?  Was he disarmed?  Was he silenced?  No.\nHe was shocked.  He was so shocked that he visibly shuddered.  He said\nthe Satanic Traditioners and Perhapsers and Conjecturers were\n_themselves_ sacred!  As sacred as their work.  So sacred that whoso\nventured to mock them or make fun of their work, could not afterward\nenter any respectable house, even by the back door.\n\nHow true were his words, and how wise!  How fortunate it would have been\nfor me if I had heeded them.  But I was young, I was but seven years of\nage, and vain, foolish, and anxious to attract attention.  I wrote the\nbiography, and have never been in a respectable house since.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\n\nHow curious and interesting is the parallel--as far as poverty of\nbiographical details is concerned--between Satan and Shakespeare.  It is\nwonderful, it is unique, it stands quite alone, there is nothing\nresembling it in history, nothing resembling it in romance, nothing\napproaching it even in tradition.  How sublime is their position, and how\nover-topping, how sky-reaching, how supreme--the two Great Unknowns, the\ntwo Illustrious Conjecturabilities!  They are the best-known unknown\npersons that have ever drawn breath upon the planet.\n\nFor the instruction of the ignorant I will make a list, now, of those\ndetails of Shakespeare's history which are _facts_--verified facts,\nestablished facts, undisputed facts.\n\n\n\nFACTS\n\n\nHe was born on the 23d of April, 1564.\n\nOf good farmer-class parents who could not read, could not write, could\nnot sign their names.\n\nAt Stratford, a small back settlement which in that day was shabby and\nunclean, and densely illiterate.  Of the nineteen important men charged\nwith the government of the town, thirteen had to \"make their mark\" in\nattesting important documents, because they could not write their names.\n\nOf the first eighteen years of his life _nothing_ is known.  They are a\nblank.\n\nOn the 27th of November (1582) William Shakespeare took out a license to\nmarry Anne Whateley.\n\nNext day William Shakespeare took out a license to marry Anne Hathaway.\nShe was eight years his senior.\n\nWilliam Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway.  In a hurry.  By grace of a\nreluctantly-granted dispensation there was but one publication of the\nbanns.\n\nWithin six months the first child was born.\n\nAbout two (blank) years followed, during which period _nothing at all\nhappened to Shakespeare_, so far as anybody knows.\n\nThen came twins--1585.  February.\n\nTwo blank years follow.\n\nThen--1587--he makes a ten-year visit to London, leaving the family\nbehind.\n\nFive blank years follow.  During this period _nothing happened to him_,\nas far as anybody actually knows.\n\nThen--1592--there is mention of him as an actor.\n\nNext year--1593--his name appears in the official list of players.\n\nNext year--1594--he played before the queen.  A detail of no consequence:\nother obscurities did it every year of the forty-five of her reign.  And\nremained obscure.\n\nThree pretty full years follow.  Full of play-acting.  Then\n\nIn 1597 he bought New Place, Stratford.\n\nThirteen or fourteen busy years follow; years in which he accumulated\nmoney, and also reputation as actor and manager.\n\nMeantime his name, liberally and variously spelt, had become associated\nwith a number of great plays and poems, as (ostensibly) author of the\nsame.\n\nSome of these, in these years and later, were pirated, but he made no\nprotest.  Then--1610-11--he returned to Stratford and settled down for\ngood and all, and busied himself in lending money, trading in tithes,\ntrading in land and houses; shirking a debt of forty-one shillings,\nborrowed by his wife during his long desertion of his family; suing\ndebtors for shillings and coppers; being sued himself for shillings and\ncoppers; and acting as confederate to a neighbor who tried to rob the\ntown of its rights in a certain common, and did not succeed.\n\nHe lived five or six years--till 1616--in the joy of these elevated\npursuits.  Then he made a will, and signed each of its three pages with\nhis name.\n\nA thoroughgoing business man's will.  It named in minute detail every\nitem of property he owned in the world--houses, lands, sword, silver-gilt\nbowl, and so on--all the way down to his \"second-best bed\" and its\nfurniture.\n\nIt carefully and calculatingly distributed his riches among the members\nof his family, overlooking no individual of it.  Not even his wife: the\nwife he had been enabled to marry in a hurry by urgent grace of a special\ndispensation before he was nineteen; the wife whom he had left\nhusbandless so many years; the wife who had had to borrow forty-one\nshillings in her need, and which the lender was never able to collect of\nthe prosperous husband, but died at last with the money still lacking.\nNo, even this wife was remembered in Shakespeare's will.\n\nHe left her that \"second-best bed.\"\n\nAnd _not another thing_; not even a penny to bless her lucky widowhood\nwith.\n\nIt was eminently and conspicuously a business man's will, not a poet's.\n\nIt mentioned _not a single book_.\n\nBooks were much more precious than swords and silver-gilt bowls and\nsecond-best beds in those days, and when a departing person owned one he\ngave it a high place in his will.\n\nThe will mentioned _not a play_,_ not a poem_,_ not an unfinished\nliterary work_, _not a scrap of manuscript of any kind_.\n\nMany poets have died poor, but this is the only one in history that has\ndied _this_ poor; the others all left literary remains behind.  Also a\nbook.  Maybe two.\n\nIf Shakespeare had owned a dog--but we need not go into that: we know he\nwould have mentioned it in his will.  If a good dog, Susanna would have\ngot it; if an inferior one his wife would have got a dower interest in\nit.  I wish he had had a dog, just so we could see how painstakingly he\nwould have divided that dog among the family, in his careful business\nway.\n\nHe signed the will in three places.\n\nIn earlier years he signed two other official documents.\n\nThese five signatures still exist.\n\nThere are _no other specimens of his penmanship in existence_.  Not a\nline.\n\nWas he prejudiced against the art?  His granddaughter, whom he loved, was\neight years old when he died, yet she had had no teaching, he left no\nprovision for her education although he was rich, and in her mature\nwomanhood she couldn't write and couldn't tell her husband's manuscript\nfrom anybody else's--she thought it was Shakespeare's.\n\nWhen Shakespeare died in Stratford _it was not an event_.  It made no\nmore stir in England than the death of any other forgotten theatre-actor\nwould have made.  Nobody came down from London; there were no lamenting\npoems, no eulogies, no national tears--there was merely silence, and\nnothing more.  A striking contrast with what happened when Ben Jonson,\nand Francis Bacon, and Spenser, and Raleigh and the other distinguished\nliterary folk of Shakespeare's time passed from life!  No praiseful voice\nwas lifted for the lost Bard of Avon; even Ben Jonson waited seven years\nbefore he lifted his.\n\n_So far as anybody actually knows and can prove_, Shakespeare of\nStratford-on-Avon never wrote a play in his life.\n\n_So far as anybody knows and can prove_, he never wrote a letter to\nanybody in his life.\n\n_So far as any one knows_, _he received only one letter during his life_.\n\nSo far as any one _knows and can prove_, Shakespeare of Stratford wrote\nonly one poem during his life.  This one is authentic.  He did write that\none--a fact which stands undisputed; he wrote the whole of it; he wrote\nthe whole of it out of his own head.  He commanded that this work of art\nbe engraved upon his tomb, and he was obeyed.  There it abides to this\nday.  This is it:\n\n    Good friend for Iesus sake forbeare\n    To digg the dust encloased heare:\n    Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones\n    And curst be he yt moves my bones.\n\nIn the list as above set down, will be found _every positively known_\nfact of Shakespeare's life, lean and meagre as the invoice is.  Beyond\nthese details we know _not a thing_ about him.  All the rest of his vast\nhistory, as furnished by the biographers, is built up, course upon\ncourse, of guesses, inferences, theories, conjectures--an Eiffel Tower of\nartificialities rising sky-high from a very flat and very thin foundation\nof inconsequential facts.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV--CONJECTURES\n\n\nThe historians \"suppose\" that Shakespeare attended the Free School in\nStratford from the time he was seven years old till he was thirteen.\nThere is no _evidence_ in existence that he ever went to school at all.\n\nThe historians \"infer\" that he got his Latin in that school--the school\nwhich they \"suppose\" he attended.\n\nThey \"suppose\" his father's declining fortunes made it necessary for him\nto leave the school they supposed he attended, and get to work and help\nsupport his parents and their ten children.  But there is no evidence\nthat he ever entered or retired from the school they suppose he attended.\n\nThey \"suppose\" he assisted his father in the butchering business; and\nthat, being only a boy, he didn't have to do full-grown butchering, but\nonly slaughtered calves.  Also, that whenever he killed a calf he made a\nhigh-flown speech over it.  This supposition rests upon the testimony of\na man who wasn't there at the time; a man who got it from a man who could\nhave been there, but did not say whether he was or not; and neither of\nthem thought to mention it for decades, and decades, and decades, and two\nmore decades after Shakespeare's death (until old age and mental decay\nhad refreshed and vivified their memories).  They hadn't two facts in\nstock about the long-dead distinguished citizen, but only just the one:\nhe slaughtered calves and broke into oratory while he was at it.\nCurious.  They had only one fact, yet the distinguished citizen had spent\ntwenty-six years in that little town--just half his lifetime.  However,\nrightly viewed, it was the most important fact, indeed almost the only\nimportant fact, of Shakespeare's life in Stratford.  Rightly viewed.  For\nexperience is an author's most valuable asset; experience is the thing\nthat puts the muscle and the breath and the warm blood into the book he\nwrites.  Rightly viewed, calf-butchering accounts for _Titus Andronicus_,\nthe only play--ain't it?--that the Stratford Shakespeare ever wrote; and\nyet it is the only one everybody tries to chouse him out of, the\nBaconians included.\n\nThe historians find themselves \"justified in believing\" that the young\nShakespeare poached upon Sir Thomas Lucy's deer preserves and got haled\nbefore that magistrate for it.  But there is no shred of respectworthy\nevidence that anything of the kind happened.\n\nThe historians, having argued the thing that _might_ have happened into\nthe thing that _did_ happen, found no trouble in turning Sir Thomas Lucy\ninto Mr. Justice Shallow.  They have long ago convinced the world--on\nsurmise and without trustworthy evidence--that Shallow _is_ Sir Thomas.\n\nThe next addition to the young Shakespeare's Stratford history comes\neasy.  The historian builds it out of the surmised deer-stealing, and the\nsurmised trial before the magistrate, and the surmised vengeance-prompted\nsatire upon the magistrate in the play: result, the young Shakespeare was\na wild, wild, wild, oh _such_ a wild young scamp, and that gratuitous\nslander is established for all time!  It is the very way Professor Osborn\nand I built the colossal skeleton brontosaur that stands fifty-seven feet\nlong and sixteen feet high in the Natural History Museum, the awe and\nadmiration of all the world, the stateliest skeleton that exists on the\nplanet.  We had nine bones, and we built the rest of him out of plaster\nof paris.  We ran short of plaster of paris, or we'd have built a\nbrontosaur that could sit down beside the Stratford Shakespeare and none\nbut an expert could tell which was biggest or contained the most plaster.\n\nShakespeare pronounced _Venus and Adonis_ \"the first heir of his\ninvention,\" apparently implying that it was his first effort at literary\ncomposition.  He should not have said it.  It has been an embarrassment\nto his historians these many, many years.  They have to make him write\nthat graceful and polished and flawless and beautiful poem before he\nescaped from Stratford and his family--1586 or '87--age, twenty-two, or\nalong there; because within the next five years he wrote five great\nplays, and could not have found time to write another line.\n\nIt is sorely embarrassing.  If he began to slaughter calves, and poach\ndeer, and rollick around, and learn English, at the earliest likely\nmoment--say at thirteen, when he was supposably wrenched from that school\nwhere he was supposably storing up Latin for future literary use--he had\nhis youthful hands full, and much more than full.  He must have had to\nput aside his Warwickshire dialect, which wouldn't be understood in\nLondon, and study English very hard.  Very hard indeed; incredibly hard,\nalmost, if the result of that labor was to be the smooth and rounded and\nflexible and letter-perfect English of the _Venus and Adonis_ in the\nspace of ten years; and at the same time learn great and fine and\nunsurpassable literary form.\n\nHowever, it is \"conjectured\" that he accomplished all this and more, much\nmore: learned law and its intricacies; and the complex procedure of the\nlaw courts; and all about soldiering, and sailoring, and the manners and\ncustoms and ways of royal courts and aristocratic society; and likewise\naccumulated in his one head every kind of knowledge the learned then\npossessed, and every kind of humble knowledge possessed by the lowly and\nthe ignorant; and added thereto a wider and more intimate knowledge of\nthe world's great literatures, ancient and modern, than was possessed by\nany other man of his time--for he was going to make brilliant and easy\nand admiration-compelling use of these splendid treasures the moment he\ngot to London.  And according to the surmisers, that is what he did.\nYes, although there was no one in Stratford able to teach him these\nthings, and no library in the little village to dig them out of.  His\nfather could not read, and even the surmisers surmise that he did not\nkeep a library.\n\nIt is surmised by the biographers that the young Shakespeare got his vast\nknowledge of the law and his familiar and accurate acquaintance with the\nmanners and customs and shop-talk of lawyers through being for a time the\n_clerk of a Stratford court_; just as a bright lad like me, reared in a\nvillage on the banks of the Mississippi, might become perfect in\nknowledge of the Behring Strait whale-fishery and the shop-talk of the\nveteran exercisers of that adventure-bristling trade through catching\ncatfish with a \"trot-line\" Sundays.  But the surmise is damaged by the\nfact that there is no evidence--and not even tradition--that the young\nShakespeare was ever clerk of a law court.\n\nIt is further surmised that the young Shakespeare accumulated his\nlaw-treasures in the first years of his sojourn in London, through\n\"amusing himself\" by learning book-law in his garret and by picking up\nlawyer-talk and the rest of it through loitering about the law-courts and\nlistening.  But it is only surmise; there is no _evidence_ that he ever\ndid either of those things.  They are merely a couple of chunks of\nplaster of paris.\n\nThere is a legend that he got his bread and butter by holding horses in\nfront of the London theatres, mornings and afternoons.  Maybe he did.  If\nhe did, it seriously shortened his law-study hours and his\nrecreation-time in the courts.  In those very days he was writing great\nplays, and needed all the time he could get.  The horse-holding legend\nought to be strangled; it too formidably increases the historian's\ndifficulty in accounting for the young Shakespeare's erudition--an\nerudition which he was acquiring, hunk by hunk and chunk by chunk every\nday in those strenuous times, and emptying each day's catch into next\nday's imperishable drama.\n\nHe had to acquire a knowledge of war at the same time; and a knowledge of\nsoldier-people and sailor-people and their ways and talk; also a\nknowledge of some foreign lands and their languages: for he was daily\nemptying fluent streams of these various knowledges, too, into his\ndramas.  How did he acquire these rich assets?\n\nIn the usual way: by surmise.  It is _surmised_ that he travelled in\nItaly and Germany and around, and qualified himself to put their scenic\nand social aspects upon paper; that he perfected himself in French,\nItalian and Spanish on the road; that he went in Leicester's expedition\nto the Low Countries, as soldier or sutler or something, for several\nmonths or years--or whatever length of time a surmiser needs in his\nbusiness--and thus became familiar with soldiership and soldier-ways and\nsoldier-talk, and generalship and general-ways and general-talk, and\nseamanship and sailor-ways and sailor-talk.\n\nMaybe he did all these things, but I would like to know who held the\nhorses in the meantime; and who studied the books in the garret; and who\nfrollicked in the law-courts for recreation.  Also, who did the\ncall-boying and the play-acting.\n\nFor he became a call-boy; and as early as '93 he became a \"vagabond\"--the\nlaw's ungentle term for an unlisted actor; and in '94 a \"regular\" and\nproperly and officially listed member of that (in those days)\nlightly-valued and not much respected profession.\n\nRight soon thereafter he became a stockholder in two theatres, and\nmanager of them.  Thenceforward he was a busy and flourishing business\nman, and was raking in money with both hands for twenty years.  Then in a\nnoble frenzy of poetic inspiration he wrote his one poem--his only poem,\nhis darling--and laid him down and died:\n\n    Good friend for Iesus sake forbeare\n    To digg the dust encloased heare:\n    Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones\n    And curst be he yt moves my bones.\n\nHe was probably dead when he wrote it.  Still, this is only conjecture.\nWe have only circumstantial evidence.  Internal evidence.\n\nShall I set down the rest of the Conjectures which constitute the giant\nBiography of William Shakespeare?  It would strain the Unabridged\nDictionary to hold them.  He is a Brontosaur: nine bones and six hundred\nbarrels of plaster of paris.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V--\"We May Assume\"\n\n\nIn the Assuming trade three separate and independent cults are\ntransacting business.  Two of these cults are known as the Shakespearites\nand the Baconians, and I am the other one--the Brontosaurian.\n\nThe Shakespearite knows that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare's Works; the\nBaconian knows that Francis Bacon wrote them; the Brontosaurian doesn't\nreally know which of them did it, but is quite composedly and contentedly\nsure that Shakespeare _didn't_, and strongly suspects that Bacon _did_.\nWe all have to do a good deal of assuming, but I am fairly certain that\nin every case I can call to mind the Baconian assumers have come out\nahead of the Shakespearites.  Both parties handle the same materials, but\nthe Baconians seem to me to get much more reasonable and rational and\npersuasive results out of them than is the case with the Shakespearites.\nThe Shakespearite conducts his assuming upon a definite principle, an\nunchanging and immutable law--which is: 2 and 8 and 7 and 14, added\ntogether, make 165.  I believe this to be an error.  No matter, you\ncannot get a habit-sodden Shakespearite to cipher-up his materials upon\nany other basis.  With the Baconian it is different.  If you place before\nhim the above figures and set him to adding them up, he will never in any\ncase get more than 45 out of them, and in nine cases out of ten he will\nget just the proper 31.\n\nLet me try to illustrate the two systems in a simple and homely way\ncalculated to bring the idea within the grasp of the ignorant and\nunintelligent.  We will suppose a case: take a lap-bred, house-fed,\nuneducated, inexperienced kitten; take a rugged old Tom that's scarred\nfrom stem to rudder-post with the memorials of strenuous experience, and\nis so cultured, so educated, so limitlessly erudite that one may say of\nhim \"all cat-knowledge is his province\"; also, take a mouse.  Lock the\nthree up in a holeless, crackless, exitless prison-cell.  Wait half an\nhour, then open the cell, introduce a Shakespearite and a Baconian, and\nlet them cipher and assume.  The mouse is missing: the question to be\ndecided is, where is it?  You can guess both verdicts beforehand.  One\nverdict will say the kitten contains the mouse; the other will as\ncertainly say the mouse is in the tomcat.\n\nThe Shakespearite will Reason like this--(that is not my word, it is\nhis).  He will say the kitten _may have been_ attending school when\nnobody was noticing; therefore _we are warranted in assuming_ that it did\nso; also, it _could have been_ training in a court-clerk's office when no\none was noticing; since that could have happened, _we are justified in\nassuming_ that it did happen; it _could have studied catology in a\ngarret_ when no one was noticing--therefore it _did_; it _could have_\nattended cat-assizes on the shed-roof nights, for recreation, when no one\nwas noticing, and harvested a knowledge of cat court-forms and cat\nlawyer-talk in that way: it _could_ have done it, therefore without a\ndoubt it did; it could have gone soldiering with a war-tribe when no one\nwas noticing, and learned soldier-wiles and soldier-ways, and what to do\nwith a mouse when opportunity offers; the plain inference, therefore is,\nthat that is what it _did_.  Since all these manifold things _could_ have\noccurred, we have _every right to believe_ they did occur.  These\npatiently and painstakingly accumulated vast acquirements and competences\nneeded but one thing more--opportunity--to convert themselves into\ntriumphant action.  The opportunity came, we have the result; _beyond\nshadow of question_ the mouse is in the kitten.\n\nIt is proper to remark that when we of the three cults plant a \"_We think\nwe may assume_,\" we expect it, under careful watering and fertilizing and\ntending, to grow up into a strong and hardy and weather-defying \"_there\nisn't a shadow of a doubt_\" at last--and it usually happens.\n\nWe know what the Baconian's verdict would be: \"_There is not a rag of\nevidence that the kitten has had any training_, _any education_, _any\nexperience qualifying it for the present occasion_, _or is indeed\nequipped for any achievement above lifting such unclaimed milk as comes\nits way_; _but there is abundant evidence_--_unassailable proof_, _in\nfact_--_that the other animal is equipped_, _to the last detail_, _with\nevery qualification necessary for the event_.  _Without shadow of doubt\nthe tomcat contains the mouse_.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\n\nWhen Shakespeare died, in 1616, great literary productions attributed to\nhim as author had been before the London world and in high favor for\ntwenty-four years.  Yet his death was not an event.  It made no stir, it\nattracted no attention.  Apparently his eminent literary contemporaries\ndid not realize that a celebrated poet had passed from their midst.\nPerhaps they knew a play-actor of minor rank had disappeared, but did not\nregard him as the author of his Works.  \"We are justified in assuming\"\nthis.\n\nHis death was not even an event in the little town of Stratford.  Does\nthis mean that in Stratford he was not regarded as a celebrity of _any_\nkind?\n\n\"We are privileged to assume\"--no, we are indeed _obliged_ to\nassume--that such was the case.  He had spent the first twenty-two or\ntwenty-three years of his life there, and of course knew everybody and\nwas known by everybody of that day in the town, including the dogs and\nthe cats and the horses.  He had spent the last five or six years of his\nlife there, diligently trading in every big and little thing that had\nmoney in it; so we are compelled to assume that many of the folk there in\nthose said latter days knew him personally, and the rest by sight and\nhearsay.  But not as a _celebrity_?  Apparently not.  For everybody soon\nforgot to remember any contact with him or any incident connected with\nhim.  The dozens of townspeople, still alive, who had known of him or\nknown about him in the first twenty-three years of his life were in the\nsame unremembering condition: if they knew of any incident connected with\nthat period of his life they didn't tell about it.  Would they if they\nhad been asked?  It is most likely.  Were they asked?  It is pretty\napparent that they were not.  Why weren't they?  It is a very plausible\nguess that nobody there or elsewhere was interested to know.\n\nFor seven years after Shakespeare's death nobody seems to have been\ninterested in him.  Then the quarto was published, and Ben Jonson awoke\nout of his long indifference and sang a song of praise and put it in the\nfront of the book.  Then silence fell _again_.\n\nFor sixty years.  Then inquiries into Shakespeare's Stratford life began\nto be made, of Stratfordians.  Of Stratfordians who had known Shakespeare\nor had seen him?  No.  Then of Stratfordians who had seen people who had\nknown or seen people who had seen Shakespeare?  No.  Apparently the\ninquiries were only made of Stratfordians who were not Stratfordians of\nShakespeare's day, but later comers; and what they had learned had come\nto them from persons who had not seen Shakespeare; and what they had\nlearned was not claimed as _fact_, but only as legend--dim and fading and\nindefinite legend; legend of the calf-slaughtering rank, and not worth\nremembering either as history or fiction.\n\nHas it ever happened before--or since--that a celebrated person who had\nspent exactly half of a fairly long life in the village where he was born\nand reared, was able to slip out of this world and leave that village\nvoiceless and gossipless behind him--utterly voiceless, utterly\ngossipless?  And permanently so?  I don't believe it has happened in any\ncase except Shakespeare's.  And couldn't and wouldn't have happened in\nhis case if he had been regarded as a celebrity at the time of his death.\n\nWhen I examine my own case--but let us do that, and see if it will not be\nrecognizable as exhibiting a condition of things quite likely to result,\nmost likely to result, indeed substantially _sure_ to result in the case\nof a celebrated person, a benefactor of the human race.  Like me.\n\nMy parents brought me to the village of Hannibal, Missouri, on the banks\nof the Mississippi, when I was two and a half years old.  I entered\nschool at five years of age, and drifted from one school to another in\nthe village during nine and a half years.  Then my father died, leaving\nhis family in exceedingly straitened circumstances; wherefore my\nbook-education came to a standstill forever, and I became a printer's\napprentice, on board and clothes, and when the clothes failed I got a\nhymn-book in place of them.  This for summer wear, probably.  I lived in\nHannibal fifteen and a half years, altogether, then ran away, according\nto the custom of persons who are intending to become celebrated.  I never\nlived there afterward.  Four years later I became a \"cub\" on a\nMississippi steamboat in the St. Louis and New Orleans trade, and after a\nyear and a half of hard study and hard work the U. S. inspectors\nrigorously examined me through a couple of long sittings and decided that\nI knew every inch of the Mississippi--thirteen hundred miles--in the dark\nand in the day--as well as a baby knows the way to its mother's paps day\nor night.  So they licensed me as a pilot--knighted me, so to speak--and\nI rose up clothed with authority, a responsible servant of the United\nStates government.\n\nNow then.  Shakespeare died young--he was only fifty-two.  He had lived\nin his native village twenty-six years, or about that.  He died\ncelebrated (if you believe everything you read in the books).  Yet when\nhe died nobody there or elsewhere took any notice of it; and for sixty\nyears afterward no townsman remembered to say anything about him or about\nhis life in Stratford.  When the inquirer came at last he got but one\nfact--no, _legend_--and got that one at second hand, from a person who\nhad only heard it as a rumor, and didn't claim copyright in it as a\nproduction of his own.  He couldn't, very well, for its date antedated\nhis own birth-date.  But necessarily a number of persons were still alive\nin Stratford who, in the days of their youth, had seen Shakespeare nearly\nevery day in the last five years of his life, and they would have been\nable to tell that inquirer some first-hand things about him if he had in\nthose last days been a celebrity and therefore a person of interest to\nthe villagers.  Why did not the inquirer hunt them up and interview them?\nWasn't it worth while?  Wasn't the matter of sufficient consequence?  Had\nthe inquirer an engagement to see a dog-fight and couldn't spare the\ntime?\n\nIt all seems to mean that he never had any literary celebrity, there or\nelsewhere, and no considerable repute as actor and manager.\n\nNow then, I am away along in life--my seventy-third year being already\nwell behind me--yet _sixteen_ of my Hannibal schoolmates are still alive\nto-day, and can tell--and do tell--inquirers dozens and dozens of\nincidents of their young lives and mine together; things that happened to\nus in the morning of life, in the blossom of our youth, in the good days,\nthe dear days, \"the days when we went gipsying, a long time ago.\"  Most\nof them creditable to me, too.  One child to whom I paid court when she\nwas five years old and I eight still lives in Hannibal, and she visited\nme last summer, traversing the necessary ten or twelve hundred miles of\nrailroad without damage to her patience or to her old-young vigor.\nAnother little lassie to whom I paid attention in Hannibal when she was\nnine years old and I the same, is still alive--in London--and hale and\nhearty, just as I am.  And on the few surviving steamboats--those\nlingering ghosts and remembrancers of great fleets that plied the big\nriver in the beginning of my water-career--which is exactly as long ago\nas the whole invoice of the life-years of Shakespeare number--there are\nstill findable two or three river-pilots who saw me do creditable things\nin those ancient days; and several white-headed engineers; and several\nroustabouts and mates; and several deck-hands who used to heave the lead\nfor me and send up on the still night air the \"six--feet--_scant_!\" that\nmade me shudder, and the \"_M-a-r-k--twain_!\" that took the shudder away,\nand presently the darling \"By the d-e-e-p--four!\" that lifted me to\nheaven for joy. {1}  They know about me, and can tell.  And so do\nprinters, from St. Louis to New York; and so do newspaper reporters, from\nNevada to San Francisco.  And so do the police.  If Shakespeare had\nreally been celebrated, like me, Stratford could have told things about\nhim; and if my experience goes for anything, they'd have done it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\n\nIf I had under my superintendence a controversy appointed to decide\nwhether Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare or not, I believe I would place\nbefore the debaters only the one question, _Was Shakespeare ever a\npracticing lawyer_? and leave everything else out.\n\nIt is maintained that the man who wrote the plays was not merely\nmyriad-minded, but also myriad-accomplished: that he not only knew some\nthousands of things about human life in all its shades and grades, and\nabout the hundred arts and trades and crafts and professions which men\nbusy themselves in, but that he could _talk_ about the men and their\ngrades and trades accurately, making no mistakes.  Maybe it is so, but\nhave the experts spoken, or is it only Tom, Dick, and Harry?  Does the\nexhibit stand upon wide, and loose, and eloquent generalizing--which is\nnot evidence, and not proof--or upon details, particulars, statistics,\nillustrations, demonstrations?\n\nExperts of unchallengeable authority have testified definitely as to only\none of Shakespeare's multifarious craft-equipments, so far as my\nrecollections of Shakespeare-Bacon talk abide with me--his law-equipment.\nI do not remember that Wellington or Napoleon ever examined Shakespeare's\nbattles and sieges and strategies, and then decided and established for\ngood and all, that they were militarily flawless; I do not remember that\nany Nelson, or Drake or Cook ever examined his seamanship and said it\nshowed profound and accurate familiarity with that art; I don't remember\nthat any king or prince or duke has ever testified that Shakespeare was\nletter-perfect in his handling of royal court-manners and the talk and\nmanners of aristocracies; I don't remember that any illustrious Latinist\nor Grecian or Frenchman or Spaniard or Italian has proclaimed him a\npast-master in those languages; I don't remember--well, I don't remember\nthat there is _testimony_--great testimony--imposing\ntestimony--unanswerable and unattackable testimony as to any of\nShakespeare's hundred specialties, except one--the law.\n\nOther things change, with time, and the student cannot trace back with\ncertainty the changes that various trades and their processes and\ntechnicalities have undergone in the long stretch of a century or two and\nfind out what their processes and technicalities were in those early\ndays, but with the law it is different: it is mile-stoned and documented\nall the way back, and the master of that wonderful trade, that complex\nand intricate trade, that awe-compelling trade, has competent ways of\nknowing whether Shakespeare-law is good law or not; and whether his\nlaw-court procedure is correct or not, and whether his legal shop-talk is\nthe shop-talk of a veteran practitioner or only a machine-made\ncounterfeit of it gathered from books and from occasional loiterings in\nWestminster.\n\nRichard H. Dana served two years before the mast, and had every\nexperience that falls to the lot of the sailor before the mast of our\nday.  His sailor-talk flows from his pen with the sure touch and the ease\nand confidence of a person who has _lived_ what he is talking about, not\ngathered it from books and random listenings.  Hear him:\n\n    Having hove short, cast off the gaskets, and made the bunt of each\n    sail fast by the jigger, with a man on each yard, at the word the\n    whole canvas of the ship was loosed, and with the greatest rapidity\n    possible everything was sheeted home and hoisted up, the anchor\n    tripped and cat-headed, and the ship under headway.\n\nAgain:\n\n    The royal yards were all crossed at once, and royals and sky-sails\n    set, and, as we had the wind free, the booms were run out, and all\n    were aloft, active as cats, laying out on the yards and booms,\n    reeving the studding-sail gear; and sail after sail the captain piled\n    upon her, until she was covered with canvas, her sails looking like a\n    great white cloud resting upon a black speck.\n\nOnce more.  A race in the Pacific:\n\n    Our antagonist was in her best trim.  Being clear of the point, the\n    breeze became stiff, and the royal-masts bent under our sails, but we\n    would not take them in until we saw three boys spring into the\n    rigging of the _California_; then they were all furled at once, but\n    with orders to our boys to stay aloft at the top-gallant mast-heads\n    and loose them again at the word.  It was my duty to furl the\n    fore-royal; and while standing by to loose it again, I had a fine\n    view of the scene.  From where I stood, the two vessels seemed\n    nothing but spars and sails, while their narrow decks, far below,\n    slanting over by the force of the wind aloft, appeared hardly capable\n    of supporting the great fabrics raised upon them.  The _California_\n    was to windward of us, and had every advantage; yet, while the breeze\n    was stiff we held our own.  As soon as it began to slacken she ranged\n    a little ahead, and the order was given to loose the royals.  In an\n    instant the gaskets were off and the bunt dropped.  \"Sheet home the\n    fore-royal!\"--\"Weather sheet's home!\"--\"Lee sheet's home!\"--\"Hoist\n    away, sir!\" is bawled from aloft.  \"Overhaul your clewlines!\" shouts\n    the mate.  \"Aye-aye, sir, all clear!\"--\"Taut leech! belay!  Well the\n    lee brace; haul taut to windward!\" and the royals are set.\n\nWhat would the captain of any sailing-vessel of our time say to that?  He\nwould say, \"The man that wrote that didn't learn his trade out of a book,\nhe has _been_ there!\"  But would this same captain be competent to sit in\njudgment upon Shakespeare's seamanship--considering the changes in ships\nand ship-talk that have necessarily taken place, unrecorded,\nunremembered, and lost to history in the last three hundred years?  It is\nmy conviction that Shakespeare's sailor-talk would be Choctaw to him.\nFor instance--from _The Tempest_:\n\n    _Master_.  Boatswain!\n\n    _Boatswain_.  Here, master; what cheer?\n\n    _Master_.  Good, speak to the mariners: fall to't, yarely, or we run\n    ourselves to ground; bestir, bestir!\n\n    (_Enter mariners_.)\n\n    _Boatswain_.  Heigh, my hearts! cheerly, cheerly, my hearts! yare,\n    yare!  Take in the topsail.  Tend to the master's whistle . . . Down\n    with the topmast! yare! lower, lower!  Bring her to try wi' the main\n    course . . . Lay her a-hold, a-hold!  Set her two courses.  Off to\n    sea again; lay her off.\n\nThat will do, for the present; let us yare a little, now, for a change.\n\nIf a man should write a book and in it make one of his characters say,\n\"Here, devil, empty the quoins into the standing galley and the imposing\nstone into the hell-box; assemble the comps around the frisket and let\nthem jeff for takes and be quick about it,\" I should recognize a mistake\nor two in the phrasing, and would know that the writer was only a printer\ntheoretically, not practically.\n\nI have been a quartz miner in the silver regions--a pretty hard life; I\nknow all the palaver of that business: I know all about discovery claims\nand the subordinate claims; I know all about lodes, ledges, outcroppings,\ndips, spurs, angles, shafts, drifts, inclines, levels, tunnels,\nair-shafts, \"horses,\" clay casings, granite casings; quartz mills and\ntheir batteries; arastras, and how to charge them with quicksilver and\nsulphate of copper; and how to clean them up, and how to reduce the\nresulting amalgam in the retorts, and how to cast the bullion into pigs;\nand finally I know how to screen tailings, and also how to hunt for\nsomething less robust to do, and find it.  I know the _argot_ of the\nquartz-mining and milling industry familiarly; and so whenever Bret Harte\nintroduces that industry into a story, the first time one of his miners\nopens his mouth I recognize from his phrasing that Harte got the phrasing\nby listening--like Shakespeare--I mean the Stratford one--not by\nexperience.  No one can talk the quartz dialect correctly without\nlearning it with pick and shovel and drill and fuse.\n\nI have been a surface-miner--gold--and I know all its mysteries, and the\ndialect that belongs with them; and whenever Harte introduces that\nindustry into a story I know by the phrasing of his characters that\nneither he nor they have ever served that trade.\n\nI have been a \"pocket\" miner--a sort of gold mining not findable in any\nbut one little spot in the world, so far as I know.  I know how, with\nhorn and water, to find the trail of a pocket and trace it step by step\nand stage by stage up the mountain to its source, and find the compact\nlittle nest of yellow metal reposing in its secret home under the ground.\nI know the language of that trade, that capricious trade, that\nfascinating buried-treasure trade, and can catch any writer who tries to\nuse it without having learned it by the sweat of his brow and the labor\nof his hands.\n\nI know several other trades and the _argot_ that goes with them; and\nwhenever a person tries to talk the talk peculiar to any of them without\nhaving learned it at its source I can trap him always before he gets far\non his road.\n\nAnd so, as I have already remarked, if I were required to superintend a\nBacon-Shakespeare controversy, I would narrow the matter down to a single\nquestion--the only one, so far as the previous controversies have\ninformed me, concerning which illustrious experts of unimpeachable\ncompetency have testified: _Was the author of Shakespeare's Works a\nlawyer_?--a lawyer deeply read and of limitless experience?  I would put\naside the guesses, and surmises, and perhapses, and might-have-beens, and\ncould-have beens, and must-have-beens, and we-are\njustified-in-presumings, and the rest of those vague spectres and shadows\nand indefinitenesses, and stand or fall, win or lose, by the verdict\nrendered by the jury upon that single question.  If the verdict was Yes,\nI should feel quite convinced that the Stratford Shakespeare, the actor,\nmanager, and trader who died so obscure, so forgotten, so destitute of\neven village consequence that sixty years afterward no fellow-citizen and\nfriend of his later days remembered to tell anything about him, did not\nwrite the Works.\n\nChapter XIII of _The Shakespeare Problem Restated_ bears the heading\n\"Shakespeare as a Lawyer,\" and comprises some fifty pages of expert\ntestimony, with comments thereon, and I will copy the first nine, as\nbeing sufficient all by themselves, as it seems to me, to settle the\nquestion which I have conceived to be the master-key to the\nShakespeare-Bacon puzzle.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII--Shakespeare as a Lawyer {2}\n\n\nThe Plays and Poems of Shakespeare supply ample evidence that their\nauthor not only had a very extensive and accurate knowledge of law, but\nthat he was well acquainted with the manners and customs of members of\nthe Inns of Court and with legal life generally.\n\n\"While novelists and dramatists are constantly making mistakes as to the\nlaws of marriage, of wills, and inheritance, to Shakespeare's law,\nlavishly as he expounds it, there can neither be demurrer, nor bill of\nexceptions, nor writ of error.\"  Such was the testimony borne by one of\nthe most distinguished lawyers of the nineteenth century who was raised\nto the high office of Lord Chief Justice in 1850, and subsequently became\nLord Chancellor.  Its weight will, doubtless, be more appreciated by\nlawyers than by laymen, for only lawyers know how impossible it is for\nthose who have not served an apprenticeship to the law to avoid\ndisplaying their ignorance if they venture to employ legal terms and to\ndiscuss legal doctrines.  \"There is nothing so dangerous,\" wrote Lord\nCampbell, \"as for one not of the craft to tamper with our freemasonry.\"\nA layman is certain to betray himself by using some expression which a\nlawyer would never employ.  Mr. Sidney Lee himself supplies us with an\nexample of this.  He writes (p. 164): \"On February 15, 1609, Shakespeare\n. . . obtained judgment from a jury against Addenbroke for the payment of\nNo. 6, and No. 1. 5_s._ 0_d._ costs.\"  Now a lawyer would never have\nspoken of obtaining \"judgment from a jury,\" for it is the function of a\njury not to deliver judgment (which is the prerogative of the court), but\nto find a verdict on the facts.  The error is, indeed, a venial one, but\nit is just one of those little things which at once enable a lawyer to\nknow if the writer is a layman or \"one of the craft.\"\n\nBut when a layman ventures to plunge deeply into legal subjects, he is\nnaturally apt to make an exhibition of his incompetence.  \"Let a\nnon-professional man, however acute,\" writes Lord Campbell again,\n\"presume to talk law, or to draw illustrations from legal science in\ndiscussing other subjects, and he will speedily fall into laughable\nabsurdity.\"\n\nAnd what does the same high authority say about Shakespeare?  He had \"a\ndeep technical knowledge of the law,\" and an easy familiarity with \"some\nof the most abstruse proceedings in English jurisprudence.\"  And again:\n\"Whenever he indulges this propensity he uniformly lays down good law.\"\nOf _Henry IV._, Part 2, he says: \"If Lord Eldon could be supposed to have\nwritten the play, I do not see how he could be chargeable with having\nforgotten any of his law while writing it.\"  Charles and Mary Cowden\nClarke speak of \"the marvelous intimacy which he displays with legal\nterms, his frequent adoption of them in illustration, and his curiously\ntechnical knowledge of their form and force.\"  Malone, himself a lawyer,\nwrote: \"His knowledge of legal terms is not merely such as might be\nacquired by the casual observation of even his all-comprehending mind; it\nhas the appearance of technical skill.\"  Another lawyer and well-known\nShakespearean, Richard Grant White, says: \"No dramatist of the time, not\neven Beaumont, who was the younger son of a judge of the Common Pleas,\nand who after studying in the Inns of Court abandoned law for the drama,\nused legal phrases with Shakespeare's readiness and exactness.  And the\nsignificance of this fact is heightened by another, that it is only to\nthe language of the law that he exhibits this inclination.  The phrases\npeculiar to other occupations serve him on rare occasions by way of\ndescription, comparison or illustration, generally when something in the\nscene suggests them, but legal phrases flow from his pen as part of his\nvocabulary, and parcel of his thought.  Take the word 'purchase' for\ninstance, which, in ordinary use, means to acquire by giving value, but\napplies in law to all legal modes of obtaining property except by\ninheritance or descent, and in this peculiar sense the word occurs five\ntimes in Shakespeare's thirty-four plays, and only in one single instance\nin the fifty-four plays of Beaumont and Fletcher.  It has been suggested\nthat it was in attendance upon the courts in London that he picked up his\nlegal vocabulary.  But this supposition not only fails to account for\nShakespeare's peculiar freedom and exactness in the use of that\nphraseology, it does not even place him in the way of learning those\nterms his use of which is most remarkable, which are not such as he would\nhave heard at ordinary proceedings at _nisi prius_, but such as refer to\nthe tenure or transfer of real property, 'fine and recovery,' 'statutes\nmerchant,' 'purchase,' 'indenture,' 'tenure,' 'double voucher,' 'fee\nsimple,' 'fee farm,' 'remainder,' 'reversion,' 'forfeiture,' etc.  This\nconveyancer's jargon could not have been picked up by hanging round the\ncourts of law in London two hundred and fifty years ago, when suits as to\nthe title of real property were comparatively rare.  And beside,\nShakespeare uses his law just as freely in his first plays, written in\nhis first London years, as in those produced at a later period.  Just as\nexactly, too; for the correctness and propriety with which these terms\nare introduced have compelled the admiration of a Chief Justice and a\nLord Chancellor.\"\n\nSenator Davis wrote: \"We seem to have something more than a sciolist's\ntemerity of indulgence in the terms of an unfamiliar art.  No legal\nsolecisms will be found.  The abstrusest elements of the common law are\nimpressed into a disciplined service.  Over and over again, where such\nknowledge is unexampled in writers unlearned in the law, Shakespeare\nappears in perfect possession of it.  In the law of real property, its\nrules of tenure and descents, its entails, its fines and recoveries,\ntheir vouchers and double vouchers, in the procedure of the Courts, the\nmethod of bringing writs and arrests, the nature of actions, the rules of\npleading, the law of escapes and of contempt of court, in the principles\nof evidence, both technical and philosophical, in the distinction between\nthe temporal and spiritual tribunals, in the law of attainder and\nforfeiture, in the requisites of a valid marriage, in the presumption of\nlegitimacy, in the learning of the law of prerogative, in the inalienable\ncharacter of the Crown, this mastership appears with surprising\nauthority.\"\n\nTo all this testimony (and there is much more which I have not cited) may\nnow be added that of a great lawyer of our own times, _viz._: Sir James\nPlaisted Wilde, Q.C. created a Baron of the Exchequer in 1860, promoted\nto the post of Judge-Ordinary and Judge of the Courts of Probate and\nDivorce in 1863, and better known to the world as Lord Penzance, to which\ndignity he was raised in 1869.  Lord Penzance, as all lawyers know, and\nas the late Mr. Inderwick, K.C., has testified, was one of the first\nlegal authorities of his day, famous for his \"remarkable grasp of legal\nprinciples,\" and \"endowed by nature with a remarkable facility for\nmarshalling facts, and for a clear expression of his views.\"\n\nLord Penzance speaks of Shakespeare's \"perfect familiarity with not only\nthe principles, axioms, and maxims, but the technicalities of English\nlaw, a knowledge so perfect and intimate that he was never incorrect and\nnever at fault . . . The mode in which this knowledge was pressed into\nservice on all occasions to express his meaning and illustrate his\nthoughts, was quite unexampled.  He seems to have had a special pleasure\nin his complete and ready mastership of it in all its branches.  As\nmanifested in the plays, this legal knowledge and learning had therefore\na special character which places it on a wholly different footing from\nthe rest of the multifarious knowledge which is exhibited in page after\npage of the plays.  At every turn and point at which the author required\na metaphor, simile, or illustration, his mind ever turned _first_ to the\nlaw.  He seems almost to have _thought_ in legal phrases, the commonest\nof legal expressions were ever at the end of his pen in description or\nillustration.  That he should have descanted in lawyer language when he\nhad a forensic subject in hand, such as Shylock's bond, was to be\nexpected, but the knowledge of law in 'Shakespeare' was exhibited in a\nfar different manner: it protruded itself on all occasions, appropriate\nor inappropriate, and mingled itself with strains of thought widely\ndivergent from forensic subjects.\"  Again: \"To acquire a perfect\nfamiliarity with legal principles, and an accurate and ready use of the\ntechnical terms and phrases not only of the conveyancer's office but of\nthe pleader's chambers and the Courts at Westminster, nothing short of\nemployment in some career involving constant contact with legal questions\nand general legal work would be requisite.  But a continuous employment\ninvolves the element of time, and time was just what the manager of two\ntheatres had not at his disposal.  In what portion of Shakespeare's\n(_i.e._ Shakspere's) career would it be possible to point out that time\ncould be found for the interposition of a legal employment in the\nchambers or offices of practising lawyers?\"\n\nStratfordians, as is well known, casting about for some possible\nexplanation of Shakespeare's extraordinary knowledge of law, have made\nthe suggestion that Shakespeare might, conceivably, have been a clerk in\nan attorney's office before he came to London.  Mr. Collier wrote to Lord\nCampbell to ask his opinion as to the probability of this being true.\nHis answer was as follows: \"You require us to believe implicitly a fact,\nof which, if true, positive and irrefragable evidence in his own\nhandwriting might have been forthcoming to establish it.  Not having been\nactually enrolled as an attorney, neither the records of the local court\nat Stratford nor of the superior Courts at Westminster would present his\nname as being concerned in any suit as an attorney, but it might\nreasonably have been expected that there would be deeds or wills\nwitnessed by him still extant, and after a very diligent search none such\ncan be discovered.\"\n\nUpon this Lord Penzance comments: \"It cannot be doubted that Lord\nCampbell was right in this.  No young man could have been at work in an\nattorney's office without being called upon continually to act as a\nwitness, and in many other ways leaving traces of his work and name.\"\nThere is not a single fact or incident in all that is known of\nShakespeare, even by rumor or tradition, which supports this notion of a\nclerkship.  And after much argument and surmise which has been indulged\nin on this subject, we may, I think, safely put the notion on one side,\nfor no less an authority than Mr. Grant White says finally that the idea\nof his having been clerk to an attorney has been \"blown to pieces.\"\n\nIt is altogether characteristic of Mr. Churton Collins that he,\nnevertheless, adopts this exploded myth.  \"That Shakespeare was in early\nlife employed as a clerk in an attorney's office, may be correct.  At\nStratford there was by royal charter a Court of Record sitting every\nfortnight, with six attorneys, beside the town clerk, belonging to it,\nand it is certainly not straining probability to suppose that the young\nShakespeare may have had employment in one of them.  There is, it is\ntrue, no tradition to this effect, but such traditions as we have about\nShakespeare's occupation between the time of leaving school and going to\nLondon are so loose and baseless that no confidence can be placed in\nthem.  It is, to say the least, more probable that he was in an\nattorney's office than that he was a butcher killing calves 'in a high\nstyle,' and making speeches over them.\"\n\nThis is a charming specimen of Stratfordian argument.  There is, as we\nhave seen, a very old tradition that Shakespeare was a butcher's\napprentice.  John Dowdall, who made a tour in Warwickshire in 1693,\ntestifies to it as coming from the old clerk who showed him over the\nchurch, and it is unhesitatingly accepted as true by Mr.\nHalliwell-Phillipps.  (Vol I, p. 11, and see Vol. II, p. 71, 72.)  Mr.\nSidney Lee sees nothing improbable in it, and it is supported by Aubrey,\nwho must have written his account some time before 1680, when his\nmanuscript was completed.  Of the attorney's clerk hypothesis, on the\nother hand, there is not the faintest vestige of a tradition.  It has\nbeen evolved out of the fertile imaginations of embarrassed\nStratfordians, seeking for some explanation of the Stratford rustic's\nmarvellous acquaintance with law and legal terms and legal life.  But Mr.\nChurton Collins has not the least hesitation in throwing over the\ntradition which has the warrant of antiquity and setting up in its stead\nthis ridiculous invention, for which not only is there no shred of\npositive evidence, but which, as Lord Campbell and Lord Penzance point\nout, is really put out of court by the negative evidence, since \"no young\nman could have been at work in an attorney's office without being called\nupon continually to act as a witness, and in many other ways leaving\ntraces of his work and name.\"  And as Mr. Edwards further points out,\nsince the day when Lord Campbell's book was published (between forty and\nfifty years ago), \"every old deed or will, to say nothing of other legal\npapers, dated during the period of William Shakespeare's youth, has been\nscrutinized over half a dozen shires, and not one signature of the young\nman has been found.\"\n\nMoreover, if Shakespeare had served as clerk in an attorney's office it\nis clear that he must have so served for a considerable period in order\nto have gained (if indeed it is credible that he could have so gained)\nhis remarkable knowledge of law.  Can we then for a moment believe that,\nif this had been so, tradition would have been absolutely silent on the\nmatter?  That Dowdall's old clerk, over eighty years of age, should have\nnever heard of it (though he was sure enough about the butcher's\napprentice), and that all the other ancient witnesses should be in\nsimilar ignorance!\n\nBut such are the methods of Stratfordian controversy.  Tradition is to be\nscouted when it is found inconvenient, but cited as irrefragable truth\nwhen it suits the case.  Shakespeare of Stratford was the author of the\n_Plays_ and _Poems_, but the author of the _Plays_ and _Poems_ could not\nhave been a butcher's apprentice.  Away, therefore, with tradition.  But\nthe author of the _Plays_ and _Poems must_ have had a very large and a\nvery accurate knowledge of the law.  Therefore, Shakespeare of Stratford\nmust have been an attorney's clerk!  The method is simplicity itself.  By\nsimilar reasoning Shakespeare has been made a country schoolmaster, a\nsoldier, a physician, a printer, and a good many other things beside,\naccording to the inclination and the exigencies of the commentator.  It\nwould not be in the least surprising to find that he was studying Latin\nas a schoolmaster and law in an attorney's office at the same time.\n\nHowever, we must do Mr. Collins the justice of saying that he has fully\nrecognized, what is indeed tolerably obvious, that Shakespeare must have\nhad a sound legal training.  \"It may, of course, be urged,\" he writes,\n\"that Shakespeare's knowledge of medicine, and particularly that branch\nof it which related to morbid psychology, is equally remarkable, and that\nno one has ever contended that he was a physician.  (Here Mr. Collins is\nwrong; that contention also has been put forward.) It may be urged that\nhis acquaintance with the technicalities of other crafts and callings,\nnotably of marine and military affairs, was also extraordinary, and yet\nno one has suspected him of being a sailor or a soldier.  (Wrong again.\nWhy even Messrs. Garnett and Gosse 'suspect' that he was a soldier!)\nThis may be conceded, but the concession hardly furnishes an analogy.  To\nthese and all other subjects he recurs occasionally, and in season, but\nwith reminiscences of the law his memory, as is abundantly clear, was\nsimply saturated.  In season and out of season now in manifest, now in\nrecondite application, he presses it into the service of expression and\nillustration.  At least a third of his myriad metaphors are derived from\nit.  It would indeed be difficult to find a single act in any of his\ndramas, nay, in some of them, a single scene, the diction and imagery of\nwhich is not colored by it.  Much of his law may have been acquired from\nthree books easily accessible to him, namely Tottell's _Precedents_\n(1572), Pulton's _Statutes_ (1578), and Fraunce's _Lawier's Logike_\n(1588), works with which he certainly seems to have been familiar; but\nmuch of it could only have come from one who had an intimate acquaintance\nwith legal proceedings.  We quite agree with Mr. Castle that\nShakespeare's legal knowledge is not what could have been picked up in an\nattorney's office, but could only have been learned by an actual\nattendance at the Courts, at a Pleader's Chambers, and on circuit, or by\nassociating intimately with members of the Bench and Bar.\"\n\nThis is excellent.  But what is Mr. Collins' explanation.  \"Perhaps the\nsimplest solution of the problem is to accept the hypothesis that in\nearly life he was in an attorney's office (!), that he there contracted a\nlove for the law which never left him, that as a young man in London, he\ncontinued to study or dabble in it for his amusement, to stroll in\nleisure hours into the Courts, and to frequent the society of lawyers.\nOn no other supposition is it possible to explain the attraction which\nthe law evidently had for him, and his minute and undeviating accuracy in\na subject where no layman who has indulged in such copious and\nostentatious display of legal technicalities has ever yet succeeded in\nkeeping himself from tripping.\"\n\nA lame conclusion.  \"No other supposition\" indeed!  Yes, there is\nanother, and a very obvious supposition, namely, that Shakespeare was\nhimself a lawyer, well versed in his trade, versed in all the ways of the\ncourts, and living in close intimacy with judges and members of the Inns\nof Court.\n\nOne is, of course, thankful that Mr. Collins has appreciated the fact\nthat Shakespeare must have had a sound legal training, but I may be\nforgiven if I do not attach quite so much importance to his\npronouncements on this branch of the subject as to those of Malone, Lord\nCampbell, Judge Holmes, Mr. Castle, K.C., Lord Penzance, Mr. Grant White,\nand other lawyers, who have expressed their opinion on the matter of\nShakespeare's legal acquirements.\n\nHere it may, perhaps, be worth while to quote again from Lord Penzance's\nbook as to the suggestion that Shakespeare had somehow or other managed\n\"to acquire a perfect familiarity with legal principles, and an accurate\nand ready use of the technical terms and phrases, not only of the\nconveyancer's office, but of the pleader's chambers and the courts at\nWestminster.\"  This, as Lord Penzance points out, \"would require nothing\nshort of employment in some career involving _constant contact_ with\nlegal questions and general legal work.\"  But \"in what portion of\nShakespeare's career would it be possible to point out that time could be\nfound for the interposition of a legal employment in the chambers or\noffices of practising lawyers? . . . It is beyond doubt that at an early\nperiod he was called upon to abandon his attendance at school and assist\nhis father, and was soon after, at the age of sixteen, bound apprentice\nto a trade.  While under the obligation of this bond he could not have\npursued any other employment.  Then he leaves Stratford and comes to\nLondon.  He has to provide himself with the means of a livelihood, and\nthis he did in some capacity at the theatre.  No one doubts that.  The\nholding of horses is scouted by many, and perhaps with justice, as being\nunlikely and certainly unproved; but whatever the nature of his\nemployment was at the theatre, there is hardly room for the belief that\nit could have been other than continuous, for his progress there was so\nrapid.  Ere long he had been taken into the company as an actor, and was\nsoon spoken of as a 'Johannes Factotum.'  His rapid accumulation of\nwealth speaks volumes for the constancy and activity of his services.\nOne fails to see when there could be a break in the current of his life\nat this period of it, giving room or opportunity for legal or indeed any\nother employment.  'In 1589,' says Knight, 'we have undeniable evidence\nthat he had not only a casual engagement, was not only a salaried\nservant, as many players were, but was a shareholder in the company of\nthe Queen's players with other shareholders below him on the list.'  This\n(1589) would be within two years after his arrival in London, which is\nplaced by White and Halliwell-Phillipps about the year 1587.  The\ndifficulty in supposing that, starting with a state of ignorance in 1587,\nwhen he is supposed to have come to London, he was induced to enter upon\na course of most extended study and mental culture, is almost\ninsuperable.  Still it was physically possible, provided always that he\ncould have had access to the needful books.  But this legal training\nseems to me to stand on a different footing.  It is not only\nunaccountable and incredible, but it is actually negatived by the known\nfacts of his career.\"  Lord Penzance then refers to the fact that \"by\n1592 (according to the best authority, Mr. Grant White) several of the\nplays had been written.  _The Comedy of Errors_ in 1589, _Love's Labour's\nLost_ in 1589, _Two Gentlemen of Verona_ in 1589 or 1590, and so forth,\"\nand then asks, \"with this catalogue of dramatic work on hand . . . was it\npossible that he could have taken a leading part in the management and\nconduct of two theatres, and if Mr. Phillipps is to be relied upon, taken\nhis share in the performances of the provincial tours of his company--and\nat the same time devoted himself to the study of the law in all its\nbranches so efficiently as to make himself complete master of its\nprinciples and practice, and saturate his mind with all its most\ntechnical terms?\"\n\nI have cited this passage from Lord Penzance's book, because it lay\nbefore me, and I had already quoted from it on the matter of\nShakespeare's legal knowledge; but other writers have still better set\nforth the insuperable difficulties, as they seem to me, which beset the\nidea that Shakespeare might have found time in some unknown period of\nearly life, amid multifarious other occupations, for the study of\nclassics, literature and law, to say nothing of languages and a few other\nmatters.  Lord Penzance further asks his readers: \"Did you ever meet with\nor hear of an instance in which a young man in this country gave himself\nup to legal studies and engaged in legal employments, which is the only\nway of becoming familiar with the technicalities of practice, unless with\nthe view of practicing in that profession?  I do not believe that it\nwould be easy, or indeed possible, to produce an instance in which the\nlaw has been seriously studied in all its branches, except as a\nqualification for practice in the legal profession.\"\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nThis testimony is so strong, so direct, so authoritative; and so\nuncheapened, unwatered by guesses, and surmises, and maybe-so's, and\nmight-have-beens, and could-have-beens, and must-have-beens, and the rest\nof that ton of plaster of paris out of which the biographers have built\nthe colossal brontosaur which goes by the Stratford actor's name, that it\nquite convinces me that the man who wrote Shakespeare's Works knew all\nabout law and lawyers.  Also, that that man could not have been the\nStratford Shakespeare--and _wasn't_.\n\nWho did write these Works, then?\n\nI wish I knew.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\n\nDid Francis Bacon write Shakespeare's Works?\n\nNobody knows.\n\nWe cannot say we _know_ a thing when that thing has not been proved.\n_Know_ is too strong a word to use when the evidence is not final and\nabsolutely conclusive.  We can infer, if we want to, like those slaves\n. . . No, I will not write that word, it is not kind, it is not courteous.\nThe upholders of the Stratford-Shakespeare superstition call _us_ the\nhardest names they can think of, and they keep doing it all the time;\nvery well, if they like to descend to that level, let them do it, but I\nwill not so undignify myself as to follow them.  I cannot call them harsh\nnames; the most I can do is to indicate them by terms reflecting my\ndisapproval; and this without malice, without venom.\n\nTo resume.  What I was about to say, was, those thugs have built their\nentire superstition upon _inferences_, not upon known and established\nfacts.  It is a weak method, and poor, and I am glad to be able to say\nour side never resorts to it while there is anything else to resort to.\n\nBut when we must, we must; and we have now arrived at a place of that\nsort.\n\nSince the Stratford Shakespeare couldn't have written the Works, we infer\nthat somebody did.  Who was it, then?  This requires some more inferring.\n\nOrdinarily when an unsigned poem sweeps across the continent like a tidal\nwave, whose roar and boom and thunder are made up of admiration, delight\nand applause, a dozen obscure people rise up and claim the authorship.\nWhy a dozen, instead of only one or two?  One reason is, because there's\na dozen that are recognizably competent to do that poem.  Do you remember\n\"Beautiful Snow\"?  Do you remember \"Rock Me to Sleep, Mother, Rock Me to\nSleep\"?  Do you remember \"Backward, turn backward, O Time, in thy flight!\nMake me a child again just for to-night\"?  I remember them very well.\nTheir authorship was claimed by most of the grown-up people who were\nalive at the time, and every claimant had one plausible argument in his\nfavor, at least: to wit, he could have done the authoring; he was\ncompetent.\n\nHave the Works been claimed by a dozen?  They haven't.  There was good\nreason.  The world knows there was but one man on the planet at the time\nwho was competent--not a dozen, and not two.  A long time ago the\ndwellers in a far country used now and then to find a procession of\nprodigious footprints stretching across the plain--footprints that were\nthree miles apart, each footprint a third of a mile long and a furlong\ndeep, and with forests and villages mashed to mush in it.  Was there any\ndoubt as to who had made that mighty trail?  Were there a dozen\nclaimants?  Were there two?  No--the people knew who it was that had been\nalong there: there was only one Hercules.\n\nThere has been only one Shakespeare.  There couldn't be two; certainly\nthere couldn't be two at the same time.  It takes ages to bring forth a\nShakespeare, and some more ages to match him.  This one was not matched\nbefore his time; nor during his time; and hasn't been matched since.  The\nprospect of matching him in our time is not bright.\n\nThe Baconians claim that the Stratford Shakespeare was not qualified to\nwrite the Works, and that Francis Bacon was.  They claim that Bacon\npossessed the stupendous equipment--both natural and acquired--for the\nmiracle; and that no other Englishman of his day possessed the like; or,\nindeed, anything closely approaching it.\n\nMacaulay, in his Essay, has much to say about the splendor and\nhorizonless magnitude of that equipment.  Also, he has synopsized Bacon's\nhistory: a thing which cannot be done for the Stratford Shakespeare, for\nhe hasn't any history to synopsize.  Bacon's history is open to the\nworld, from his boyhood to his death in old age--a history consisting of\nknown facts, displayed in minute and multitudinous detail; _facts_, not\nguesses and conjectures and might-have-beens.\n\nWhereby it appears that he was born of a race of statesmen, and had a\nLord Chancellor for his father, and a mother who was \"distinguished both\nas a linguist and a theologian: she corresponded in Greek with Bishop\nJewell, and translated his _Apologia_ from the Latin so correctly that\nneither he nor Archbishop Parker could suggest a single alteration.\"  It\nis the atmosphere we are reared in that determines how our inclinations\nand aspirations shall tend.  The atmosphere furnished by the parents to\nthe son in this present case was an atmosphere saturated with learning;\nwith thinkings and ponderings upon deep subjects; and with polite\nculture.  It had its natural effect.  Shakespeare of Stratford was reared\nin a house which had no use for books, since its owners, his parents,\nwere without education.  This may have had an effect upon the son, but we\ndo not know, because we have no history of him of an informing sort.\nThere were but few books anywhere, in that day, and only the well-to-do\nand highly educated possessed them, they being almost confined to the\ndead languages.  \"All the valuable books then extant in all the\nvernacular dialects of Europe would hardly have filled a single\nshelf\"--imagine it!  The few existing books were in the Latin tongue\nmainly.  \"A person who was ignorant of it was shut out from all\nacquaintance--not merely with Cicero and Virgil, but with the most\ninteresting memoirs, state papers, and pamphlets of his own time\"--a\nliterature necessary to the Stratford lad, for his fictitious\nreputation's sake, since the writer of his Works would begin to use it\nwholesale and in a most masterly way before the lad was hardly more than\nout of his teens and into his twenties.\n\nAt fifteen Bacon was sent to the university, and he spent three years\nthere.  Thence he went to Paris in the train of the English Ambassador,\nand there he mingled daily with the wise, the cultured, the great, and\nthe aristocracy of fashion, during another three years.  A total of six\nyears spent at the sources of knowledge; knowledge both of books and of\nmen.  The three spent at the university were coeval with the second and\nlast three spent by the little Stratford lad at Stratford school\nsupposedly, and perhapsedly, and maybe, and by inference--with nothing to\ninfer from.  The second three of the Baconian six were \"presumably\" spent\nby the Stratford lad as apprentice to a butcher.  That is, the thugs\npresume it--on no evidence of any kind.  Which is their way, when they\nwant a historical fact.  Fact and presumption are, for business purposes,\nall the same to them.  They know the difference, but they also know how\nto blink it.  They know, too, that while in history-building a fact is\nbetter than a presumption, it doesn't take a presumption long to bloom\ninto a fact when _they_ have the handling of it.  They know by old\nexperience that when they get hold of a presumption-tadpole he is not\ngoing to _stay_ tadpole in their history-tank; no, they know how to\ndevelop him into the giant four-legged bullfrog of _fact_, and make him\nsit up on his hams, and puff out his chin, and look important and\ninsolent and come-to-stay; and assert his genuine simon-pure authenticity\nwith a thundering bellow that will convince everybody because it is so\nloud.  The thug is aware that loudness convinces sixty persons where\nreasoning convinces but one.  I wouldn't be a thug, not even if--but\nnever mind about that, it has nothing to do with the argument, and it is\nnot noble in spirit besides.  If I am better than a thug, is the merit\nmine?  No, it is His.  Then to Him be the praise.  That is the right\nspirit.\n\nThey \"presume\" the lad severed his \"presumed\" connection with the\nStratford school to become apprentice to a butcher.  They also \"presume\"\nthat the butcher was his father.  They don't know.  There is no written\nrecord of it, nor any other actual evidence.  If it would have helped\ntheir case any, they would have apprenticed him to thirty butchers, to\nfifty butchers, to a wilderness of butchers--all by their patented method\n\"presumption.\"  If it will help their case they will do it yet; and if it\nwill further help it, they will \"presume\" that all those butchers were\nhis father.  And the week after, they will _say_ it.  Why, it is just\nlike being the past tense of the compound reflexive adverbial\nincandescent hypodermic irregular accusative Noun of Multitude; which is\nfather to the expression which the grammarians call Verb.  It is like a\nwhole ancestry, with only one posterity.\n\nTo resume.  Next, the young Bacon took up the study of law, and mastered\nthat abstruse science.  From that day to the end of his life he was daily\nin close contact with lawyers and judges; not as a casual onlooker in\nintervals between holding horses in front of a theatre, but as a\npracticing lawyer--a great and successful one, a renowned one, a\nLauncelot of the bar, the most formidable lance in the high brotherhood\nof the legal Table Round; he lived in the law's atmosphere thenceforth,\nall his years, and by sheer ability forced his way up its difficult\nsteeps to its supremest summit, the Lord Chancellorship, leaving behind\nhim no fellow craftsman qualified to challenge his divine right to that\nmajestic place.\n\nWhen we read the praises bestowed by Lord Penzance and the other\nillustrious experts upon the legal condition and legal aptnesses,\nbrilliances, profundities and felicities so prodigally displayed in the\nPlays, and try to fit them to the history-less Stratford stage-manager,\nthey sound wild, strange, incredible, ludicrous; but when we put them in\nthe mouth of Bacon they do not sound strange, they seem in their natural\nand rightful place, they seem at home there.  Please turn back and read\nthem again.  Attributed to Shakespeare of Stratford they are meaningless,\nthey are inebriate extravagancies--intemperate admirations of the dark\nside of the moon, so to speak; attributed to Bacon, they are admirations\nof the golden glories of the moon's front side, the moon at the full--and\nnot intemperate, not overwrought, but sane and right, and justified.  \"At\nevery turn and point at which the author required a metaphor, simile or\nillustration, his mind ever turned _first_ to the law; he seems almost to\nhave _thought_ in legal phrases; the commonest legal phrases, the\ncommonest of legal expressions were ever at the end of his pen.\"  That\ncould happen to no one but a person whose _trade_ was the law; it could\nnot happen to a dabbler in it.  Veteran mariners fill their conversation\nwith sailor-phrases and draw all their similes from the ship and the sea\nand the storm, but no mere _passenger_ ever does it, be he of Stratford\nor elsewhere; or could do it with anything resembling accuracy, if he\nwere hardy enough to try.  Please read again what Lord Campbell and the\nother great authorities have said about Bacon when they thought they were\nsaying it about Shakespeare of Stratford.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X--The Rest of the Equipment\n\n\nThe author of the Plays was equipped, beyond every other man of his time,\nwith wisdom, erudition, imagination, capaciousness of mind, grace and\nmajesty of expression.  Every one has said it, no one doubts it.  Also,\nhe had humor, humor in rich abundance, and always wanting to break out.\nWe have no evidence of any kind that Shakespeare of Stratford possessed\nany of these gifts or any of these acquirements.  The only lines he ever\nwrote, so far as we know, are substantially barren of them--barren of all\nof them.\n\n    Good friend for Iesus sake forbeare\n    To digg the dust encloased heare:\n    Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones\n    And curst be he yt moves my bones.\n\nBen Jonson says of Bacon, as orator:\n\n    His language, _where he could spare and pass by a jest_, was nobly\n    censorious.  No man ever spoke more neatly, more pressly, more\n    weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he\n    uttered.  No member of his speech but consisted of his (its) own\n    graces . . . The fear of every man that heard him was lest he should\n    make an end.\n\nFrom Macaulay:\n\n    He continued to distinguish himself in Parliament, particularly by\n    his exertions in favor of one excellent measure on which the King's\n    heart was set--the union of England and Scotland.  It was not\n    difficult for such an intellect to discover many irresistible\n    arguments in favor of such a scheme.  He conducted the great case of\n    the _Post Nati_ in the Exchequer Chamber; and the decision of the\n    judges--a decision the legality of which may be questioned, but the\n    beneficial effect of which must be acknowledged--was in a great\n    measure attributed to his dexterous management.\n\nAgain:\n\n    While actively engaged in the House of Commons and in the courts of\n    law, he still found leisure for letters and philosophy.  The noble\n    treatise on the _Advancement of Learning_, which at a later period\n    was expanded into the _De Augmentis_, appeared in 1605.\n\n    The _Wisdom of the Ancients_, a work which if it had proceeded from\n    any other writer would have been considered as a masterpiece of wit\n    and learning, was printed in 1609.\n\n    In the meantime the _Novum Organum_ was slowly proceeding.  Several\n    distinguished men of learning had been permitted to see portions of\n    that extraordinary book, and they spoke with the greatest admiration\n    of his genius.\n\n    Even Sir Thomas Bodley, after perusing the _Cogitata et Visa_, one of\n    the most precious of those scattered leaves out of which the great\n    oracular volume was afterward made up, acknowledged that \"in all\n    proposals and plots in that book, Bacon showed himself a master\n    workman\"; and that \"it could not be gainsaid but all the treatise\n    over did abound with choice conceits of the present state of\n    learning, and with worthy contemplations of the means to procure it.\"\n\n    In 1612 a new edition of the _Essays_ appeared, with additions\n    surpassing the original collection both in bulk and quality.\n\n    Nor did these pursuits distract Bacon's attention from a work the\n    most arduous, the most glorious, and the most useful that even his\n    mighty powers could have achieved, \"the reducing and recompiling,\" to\n    use his own phrase, \"of the laws of England.\"\n\nTo serve the exacting and laborious offices of Attorney General and\nSolicitor General would have satisfied the appetite of any other man for\nhard work, but Bacon had to add the vast literary industries just\ndescribed, to satisfy his.  He was a born worker.\n\n    The service which he rendered to letters during the last five years\n    of his life, amid ten thousand distractions and vexations, increase\n    the regret with which we think on the many years which he had wasted,\n    to use the words of Sir Thomas Bodley, \"on such study as was not\n    worthy such a student.\"\n\n    He commenced a digest of the laws of England, a History of England\n    under the Princes of the House of Tudor, a body of National History,\n    a Philosophical Romance.  He made extensive and valuable additions to\n    his Essays.  He published the inestimable _Treatise De Argumentis\n    Scientiarum_.\n\nDid these labors of Hercules fill up his time to his contentment, and\nquiet his appetite for work?  Not entirely:\n\n    The trifles with which he amused himself in hours of pain and languor\n    bore the mark of his mind.  _The best jestbook in the world_ is that\n    which he dictated from memory, without referring to any book, on a\n    day on which illness had rendered him incapable of serious study.\n\nHere are some scattered remarks (from Macaulay) which throw light upon\nBacon, and seem to indicate--and maybe demonstrate--that he was competent\nto write the Plays and Poems:\n\n    With great minuteness of observation he had an amplitude of\n    comprehension such as has never yet been vouchsafed to any other\n    human being.\n\n    The \"Essays\" contain abundant proofs that no nice feature of\n    character, no peculiarity in the ordering of a house, a garden or a\n    court-masque, could escape the notice of one whose mind was capable\n    of taking in the whole world of knowledge.\n\n    His understanding resembled the tent which the fairy Paribanou gave\n    to Prince Ahmed: fold it, and it seemed a toy for the hand of a lady;\n    spread it, and the armies of powerful Sultans might repose beneath\n    its shade.\n\n    The knowledge in which Bacon excelled all men was a knowledge of the\n    mutual relations of all departments of knowledge.\n\n    In a letter written when he was only thirty-one, to his uncle, Lord\n    Burleigh, he said, \"I have taken all knowledge to be my province.\"\n\n    Though Bacon did not arm his philosophy with the weapons of logic, he\n    adorned her profusely with all the richest decorations of rhetoric.\n\n    The practical faculty was powerful in Bacon; but not, like his wit,\n    so powerful as occasionally to usurp the place of his reason, and to\n    tyrannize over the whole man.\n\nThere are too many places in the Plays where this happens.  Poor old\ndying John of Gaunt volleying second-rate puns at his own name, is a\npathetic instance of it.  \"We may assume\" that it is Bacon's fault, but\nthe Stratford Shakespeare has to bear the blame.\n\n    No imagination was ever at once so strong and so thoroughly\n    subjugated.  It stopped at the first check from good sense.\n\n    In truth much of Bacon's life was passed in a visionary world--amid\n    things as strange as any that are described in the \"Arabian Tales\" .\n    . . amid buildings more sumptuous than the palace of Aladdin,\n    fountains more wonderful than the golden water of Parizade,\n    conveyances more rapid than the hippogryph of Ruggiero, arms more\n    formidable than the lance of Astolfo, remedies more efficacious than\n    the balsam of Fierabras.  Yet in his magnificent day-dreams there was\n    nothing wild--nothing but what sober reason sanctioned.\n\n    Bacon's greatest performance is the first book of the _Novum Organum_\n    . . . Every part of it blazes with wit, but with wit which is\n    employed only to illustrate and decorate truth.  No book ever made so\n    great a revolution in the mode of thinking, overthrew so many\n    prejudices, introduced so many new opinions.\n\n    But what we most admire is the vast capacity of that intellect which,\n    without effort, takes in at once all the domains of science--all the\n    past, the present and the future, all the errors of two thousand\n    years, all the encouraging signs of the passing times, all the bright\n    hopes of the coming age.\n\n    He had a wonderful talent for packing thought close and rendering it\n    portable.\n\n    His eloquence would alone have entitled him to a high rank in\n    literature.\n\nIt is evident that he had each and every one of the mental gifts and each\nand every one of the acquirements that are so prodigally displayed in the\nPlays and Poems, and in much higher and richer degree than any other man\nof his time or of any previous time.  He was a genius without a mate, a\nprodigy not matable.  There was only one of him; the planet could not\nproduce two of him at one birth, nor in one age.  He could have written\nanything that is in the Plays and Poems.  He could have written this:\n\n    The cloud-cap'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,\n    The solemn temples, the great globe itself,\n    Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,\n    And, like an insubstantial pageant faded,\n    Leave not a rack behind.  We are such stuff\n    As dreams are made on, and our little life\n    Is rounded with a sleep.\n\nAlso, he could have written this, but he refrained:\n\n    Good friend for Iesus sake forbeare\n    To digg the dust encloased heare:\n    Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones\n    And curst be ye yt moves my bones.\n\nWhen a person reads the noble verses about the cloud-cap'd towers, he\nought not to follow it immediately with Good friend for Iesus sake\nforbeare, because he will find the transition from great poetry to poor\nprose too violent for comfort.  It will give him a shock.  You never\nnotice how commonplace and unpoetic gravel is, until you bite into a\nlayer of it in a pie.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\n\nAm I trying to convince anybody that Shakespeare did not write\nShakespeare's Works?  Ah, now, what do you take me for?  Would I be so\nsoft as that, after having known the human race familiarly for nearly\nseventy-four years?  It would grieve me to know that any one could think\nso injuriously of me, so uncomplimentarily, so unadmiringly of me.\nNo-no, I am aware that when even the brightest mind in our world has been\ntrained up from childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never be\npossible for that mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely,\ndispassionately, and conscientiously any evidence or any circumstance\nwhich shall seem to cast a doubt upon the validity of that superstition.\nI doubt if I could do it myself.  We always get at second hand our\nnotions about systems of government; and high-tariff and low-tariff; and\nprohibition and anti-prohibition; and the holiness of peace and the\nglories of war; and codes of honor and codes of morals; and approval of\nthe duel and disapproval of it; and our beliefs concerning the nature of\ncats; and our ideas as to whether the murder of helpless wild animals is\nbase or is heroic; and our preferences in the matter of religious and\npolitical parties; and our acceptance or rejection of the Shakespeares\nand the Arthur Ortons and the Mrs. Eddys.  We get them all at\nsecond-hand, we reason none of them out for ourselves.  It is the way we\nare made.  It is the way we are all made, and we can't help it, we can't\nchange it.  And whenever we have been furnished a fetish, and have been\ntaught to believe in it, and love it and worship it, and refrain from\nexamining it, there is no evidence, howsoever clear and strong, that can\npersuade us to withdraw from it our loyalty and our devotion.  In morals,\nconduct, and beliefs we take the color of our environment and\nassociations, and it is a color that can safely be warranted to wash.\nWhenever we have been furnished with a tar baby ostensibly stuffed with\njewels, and warned that it will be dishonorable and irreverent to\ndisembowel it and test the jewels, we keep our sacrilegious hands off it.\nWe submit, not reluctantly, but rather gladly, for we are privately\nafraid we should find, upon examination, that the jewels are of the sort\nthat are manufactured at North Adams, Mass.\n\nI haven't any idea that Shakespeare will have to vacate his pedestal this\nside of the year 2209.  Disbelief in him cannot come swiftly, disbelief\nin a healthy and deeply-loved tar baby has never been known to\ndisintegrate swiftly, it is a very slow process.  It took several\nthousand years to convince our fine race--including every splendid\nintellect in it--that there is no such thing as a witch; it has taken\nseveral thousand years to convince that same fine race--including every\nsplendid intellect in it--that there is no such person as Satan; it has\ntaken several centuries to remove perdition from the Protestant Church's\nprogram of postmortem entertainments; it has taken a weary long time to\npersuade American Presbyterians to give up infant damnation and try to\nbear it the best they can; and it looks as if their Scotch brethren will\nstill be burning babies in the everlasting fires when Shakespeare comes\ndown from his perch.\n\nWe are The Reasoning Race.  We can't prove it by the above examples, and\nwe can't prove it by the miraculous \"histories\" built by those\nStratfordolaters out of a hatful of rags and a barrel of sawdust, but\nthere is a plenty of other things we can prove it by, if I could think of\nthem.  We are The Reasoning Race, and when we find a vague file of\nchipmunk-tracks stringing through the dust of Stratford village, we know\nby our reasoning powers that Hercules has been along there.  I feel that\nour fetish is safe for three centuries yet.  The bust, too--there in the\nStratford Church.  The precious bust, the priceless bust, the calm bust,\nthe serene bust, the emotionless bust, with the dandy moustache, and the\nputty face, unseamed of care--that face which has looked passionlessly\ndown upon the awed pilgrim for a hundred and fifty years and will still\nlook down upon the awed pilgrim three hundred more, with the deep, deep,\ndeep, subtle, subtle, subtle, expression of a bladder.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII--Irreverence\n\n\nOne of the most trying defects which I find in these--these--what shall I\ncall them? for I will not apply injurious epithets to them, the way they\ndo to us, such violations of courtesy being repugnant to my nature and my\ndignity.  The furthest I can go in that direction is to call them by\nnames of limited reverence--names merely descriptive, never unkind, never\noffensive, never tainted by harsh feeling.  If _they_ would do like this,\nthey would feel better in their hearts.  Very well, then--to proceed.\nOne of the most trying defects which I find in these Stratfordolaters,\nthese Shakesperoids, these thugs, these bangalores, these troglodytes,\nthese herumfrodites, these blatherskites, these buccaneers, these\nbandoleers, is their spirit of irreverence.  It is detectable in every\nutterance of theirs when they are talking about us.  I am thankful that\nin me there is nothing of that spirit.  When a thing is sacred to me it\nis impossible for me to be irreverent toward it.  I cannot call to mind a\nsingle instance where I have ever been irreverent, except toward the\nthings which were sacred to other people.  Am I in the right?  I think\nso.  But I ask no one to take my unsupported word; no, look at the\ndictionary; let the dictionary decide.  Here is the definition:\n\n    _Irreverence_.  The quality or condition of irreverence toward God\n    and sacred things.\n\nWhat does the Hindu say?  He says it is correct.  He says irreverence is\nlack of respect for Vishnu, and Brahma, and Chrishna, and his other gods,\nand for his sacred cattle, and for his temples and the things within\nthem.  He endorses the definition, you see; and there are 300,000,000\nHindus or their equivalents back of him.\n\nThe dictionary had the acute idea that by using the capital G it could\nrestrict irreverence to lack of reverence for _our_ Deity and our sacred\nthings, but that ingenious and rather sly idea miscarried: for by the\nsimple process of spelling _his_ deities with capitals the Hindu\nconfiscates the definition and restricts it to his own sects, thus making\nit clearly compulsory upon us to revere _his_ gods and _his_ sacred\nthings, and nobody's else.  We can't say a word, for he has our own\ndictionary at his back, and its decision is final.\n\nThis law, reduced to its simplest terms, is this: 1.  Whatever is sacred\nto the Christian must be held in reverence by everybody else; 2, whatever\nis sacred to the Hindu must be held in reverence by everybody else; 3,\ntherefore, by consequence, logically, and indisputably, whatever is\nsacred to _me_ must be held in reverence by everybody else.\n\nNow then, what aggravates me is, that these troglodytes and muscovites\nand bandoleers and buccaneers are _also_ trying to crowd in and share the\nbenefit of the law, and compel everybody to revere their Shakespeare and\nhold him sacred.  We can't have that: there's enough of us already.  If\nyou go on widening and spreading and inflating the privilege, it will\npresently come to be conceded that each man's sacred things are the\n_only_ ones, and the rest of the human race will have to be humbly\nreverent toward them or suffer for it.  That can surely happen, and when\nit happens, the word Irreverence will be regarded as the most\nmeaningless, and foolish, and self-conceited, and insolent, and impudent\nand dictatorial word in the language.  And people will say, \"Whose\nbusiness is it, what gods I worship and what things hold sacred?  Who has\nthe right to dictate to my conscience, and where did he get that right?\"\n\nWe cannot afford to let that calamity come upon us.  We must save the\nword from this destruction.  There is but one way to do it, and that is,\nto stop the spread of the privilege, and strictly confine it to its\npresent limits: that is, to all the Christian sects, to all the Hindu\nsects, and me.  We do not need any more, the stock is watered enough,\njust as it is.\n\nIt would be better if the privilege were limited to me alone.  I think so\nbecause I am the only sect that knows how to employ it gently, kindly,\ncharitably, dispassionately.  The other sects lack the quality of\nself-restraint.  The Catholic Church says the most irreverent things\nabout matters which are sacred to the Protestants, and the Protestant\nChurch retorts in kind about the confessional and other matters which\nCatholics hold sacred; then both of these irreverencers turn upon Thomas\nPaine and charge _him_ with irreverence.  This is all unfortunate,\nbecause it makes it difficult for students equipped with only a low grade\nof mentality to find out what Irreverence really _is_.\n\nIt will surely be much better all around if the privilege of regulating\nthe irreverent and keeping them in order shall eventually be withdrawn\nfrom all the sects but me.  Then there will be no more quarrelling, no\nmore bandying of disrespectful epithets, no more heart burnings.\n\nThere will then be nothing sacred involved in this Bacon-Shakespeare\ncontroversy except what is sacred to me.  That will simplify the whole\nmatter, and trouble will cease.  There will be irreverence no longer,\nbecause I will not allow it.  The first time those criminals charge me\nwith irreverence for calling their Stratford myth an\nArthur-Orton-Mary-Baker-Thompson-Eddy-Louis-the-Seventeenth-Veiled-\nProphet-of-Khorassan will be the last.  Taught by the methods\nfound effective in extinguishing earlier offenders by the Inquisition, of\nholy memory, I shall know how to quiet them.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\n\nIsn't it odd, when you think of it: that you may list all the celebrated\nEnglishmen, Irishmen, and Scotchmen of modern times, clear back to the\nfirst Tudors--a list containing five hundred names, shall we say?--and\nyou can go to the histories, biographies and cyclopedias and learn the\nparticulars of the lives of every one of them.  Every one of them except\none--the most famous, the most renowned--by far the most illustrious of\nthem all--Shakespeare!  You can get the details of the lives of all the\ncelebrated ecclesiastics in the list; all the celebrated tragedians,\ncomedians, singers, dancers, orators, judges, lawyers, poets, dramatists,\nhistorians, biographers, editors, inventors, reformers, statesmen,\ngenerals, admirals, discoverers, prize-fighters, murderers, pirates,\nconspirators, horse-jockeys, bunco-steerers, misers, swindlers,\nexplorers, adventurers by land and sea, bankers, financiers, astronomers,\nnaturalists, Claimants, impostors, chemists, biologists, geologists,\nphilologists, college presidents and professors, architects, engineers,\npainters, sculptors, politicians, agitators, rebels, revolutionists,\npatriots, demagogues, clowns, cooks, freaks, philosophers, burglars,\nhighwaymen, journalists, physicians, surgeons--you can get the\nlife-histories of all of them but _one_.  Just one--the most\nextraordinary and the most celebrated of them all--Shakespeare!\n\nYou may add to the list the thousand celebrated persons furnished by the\nrest of Christendom in the past four centuries, and you can find out the\nlife-histories of all those people, too.  You will then have listed 1500\ncelebrities, and you can trace the authentic life-histories of the whole\nof them.  Save one--far and away the most colossal prodigy of the entire\naccumulation--Shakespeare!  About him you can find out _nothing_.\nNothing of even the slightest importance.  Nothing worth the trouble of\nstowing away in your memory.  Nothing that even remotely indicates that\nhe was ever anything more than a distinctly common-place person--a\nmanager, an actor of inferior grade, a small trader in a small village\nthat did not regard him as a person of any consequence, and had forgotten\nall about him before he was fairly cold in his grave.  We can go to the\nrecords and find out the life-history of every renowned _race-horse_ of\nmodern times--but not Shakespeare's!  There are many reasons why, and\nthey have been furnished in cartloads (of guess and conjecture) by those\ntroglodytes; but there is one that is worth all the rest of the reasons\nput together, and is abundantly sufficient all by itself--_he hadn't any\nhistory to record_.  There is no way of getting around that deadly fact.\nAnd no sane way has yet been discovered of getting around its formidable\nsignificance.\n\nIts quite plain significance--to any but those thugs (I do not use the\nterm unkindly) is, that Shakespeare had no prominence while he lived, and\nnone until he had been dead two or three generations.  The Plays enjoyed\nhigh fame from the beginning; and if he wrote them it seems a pity the\nworld did not find it out.  He ought to have explained that he was the\nauthor, and not merely a _nom de plume_ for another man to hide behind.\nIf he had been less intemperately solicitous about his bones, and more\nsolicitous about his Works, it would have been better for his good name,\nand a kindness to us.  The bones were not important.  They will moulder\naway, they will turn to dust, but the Works will endure until the last\nsun goes down.\n\n                                                               MARK TWAIN.\n\nP.S.  _March_ 25.  About two months ago I was illuminating this\nAutobiography with some notions of mine concerning the Bacon-Shakespeare\ncontroversy, and I then took occasion to air the opinion that the\nStratford Shakespeare was a person of no public consequence or celebrity\nduring his lifetime, but was utterly obscure and unimportant.  And not\nonly in great London, but also in the little village where he was born,\nwhere he lived a quarter of a century, and where he died and was buried.\nI argued that if he had been a person of any note at all, aged villagers\nwould have had much to tell about him many and many a year after his\ndeath, instead of being unable to furnish inquirers a single fact\nconnected with him.  I believed, and I still believe, that if he had been\nfamous, his notoriety would have lasted as long as mine has lasted in my\nnative village out in Missouri.  It is a good argument, a prodigiously\nstrong one, and a most formidable one for even the most gifted, and\ningenious, and plausible Stratfordolater to get around or explain away.\nTo-day a Hannibal _Courier-Post_ of recent date has reached me, with an\narticle in it which reinforces my contention that a really celebrated\nperson cannot be forgotten in his village in the short space of sixty\nyears.  I will make an extract from it:\n\n    Hannibal, as a city, may have many sins to answer for, but\n    ingratitude is not one of them, or reverence for the great men she\n    has produced, and as the years go by her greatest son Mark Twain, or\n    S. L. Clemens as a few of the unlettered call him, grows in the\n    estimation and regard of the residents of the town he made famous and\n    the town that made him famous.  His name is associated with every old\n    building that is torn down to make way for the modern structures\n    demanded by a rapidly growing city, and with every hill or cave over\n    or through which he might by any possibility have roamed, while the\n    many points of interest which he wove into his stories, such as\n    Holiday Hill, Jackson's Island, or Mark Twain Cave, are now monuments\n    to his genius.  Hannibal is glad of any opportunity to do him honor\n    as he has honored her.\n\n    So it has happened that the \"old timers\" who went to school with Mark\n    or were with him on some of his usual escapades have been honored\n    with large audiences whenever they were in a reminiscent mood and\n    condescended to tell of their intimacy with the ordinary boy who came\n    to be a very extraordinary humorist and whose every boyish act is now\n    seen to have been indicative of what was to come.  Like Aunt Beckey\n    and Mrs. Clemens, they can now see that Mark was hardly appreciated\n    when he lived here and that the things he did as a boy and was\n    whipped for doing were not all bad after all.  So they have been in\n    no hesitancy about drawing out the bad things he did as well as the\n    good in their efforts to get a \"Mark Twain story,\" all incidents\n    being viewed in the light of his present fame, until the volume of\n    \"Twainiana\" is already considerable and growing in proportion as the\n    \"old timers\" drop away and the stories are retold second and third\n    hand by their descendants.  With some seventy-three years young and\n    living in a villa instead of a house he is a fair target, and let him\n    incorporate, copyright, or patent himself as he will, there are some\n    of his \"works\" that will go swooping up Hannibal chimneys as long as\n    gray-beards gather about the fires and begin with \"I've heard father\n    tell\" or possibly \"Once when I.\"\n\nThe Mrs. Clemens referred to is my mother--_was_ my mother.\n\nAnd here is another extract from a Hannibal paper.  Of date twenty days\nago:\n\n    Miss Becca Blankenship died at the home of William Dickason, 408 Rock\n    Street, at 2.30 o'clock yesterday afternoon, aged 72 years.  The\n    deceased was a sister of \"Huckleberry Finn,\" one of the famous\n    characters in Mark Twain's _Tom Sawyer_.  She had been a member of\n    the Dickason family--the housekeeper--for nearly forty-five years,\n    and was a highly respected lady.  For the past eight years she had\n    been an invalid, but was as well cared for by Mr. Dickason and his\n    family as if she had been a near relative.  She was a member of the\n    Park Methodist Church and a Christian woman.\n\nI remember her well.  I have a picture of her in my mind which was graven\nthere, clear and sharp and vivid, sixty-three years ago.  She was at that\ntime nine years old, and I was about eleven.  I remember where she stood,\nand how she looked; and I can still see her bare feet, her bare head, her\nbrown face, and her short tow-linen frock.  She was crying.  What it was\nabout, I have long ago forgotten.  But it was the tears that preserved\nthe picture for me, no doubt.  She was a good child, I can say that for\nher.  She knew me nearly seventy years ago.  Did she forget me, in the\ncourse of time?  I think not.  If she had lived in Stratford in\nShakespeare's time, would she have forgotten him?  Yes.  For he was never\nfamous during his lifetime, he was utterly obscure in Stratford, and\nthere wouldn't be any occasion to remember him after he had been dead a\nweek.\n\n\"Injun Joe,\" \"Jimmy Finn,\" and \"General Gaines\" were prominent and very\nintemperate ne'er-do-weels in Hannibal two generations ago.  Plenty of\ngray-heads there remember them to this day, and can tell you about them.\nIsn't it curious that two \"town-drunkards\" and one half-breed loafer\nshould leave behind them, in a remote Missourian village, a fame a\nhundred times greater and several hundred times more particularized in\nthe matter of definite facts than Shakespeare left behind him in the\nvillage where he had lived the half of his lifetime?\n\n                                                               MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes:\n\n\n{1}  Four fathoms--twenty-four feet.\n\n{2}  From chapter XIII of \"The Shakespeare Problem Restated.\"\n\n\n"}
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{"245":"Allan\n\n\n\n\nLIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI\n\nBy Mark Twain\n\n\n\n\nTABLE OF CONTENTS\n\nCHAPTER I. The Mississippi is Well worth Reading about.--It is\nRemarkable.--Instead of Widening towards its Mouth, it grows\nNarrower.--It Empties four hundred and six million Tons of Mud.--It\nwas First Seen in 1542.--It is Older than some Pages in European\nHistory.--De Soto has the Pull.--Older than the Atlantic Coast.--Some\nHalf-breeds chip in.--La Salle Thinks he will Take a Hand.\n\nCHAPTER II. La Salle again Appears, and so does a Cat-fish.--Buffaloes\nalso.--Some Indian Paintings are Seen on the Rocks.--\"The Father of\nWaters \"does not Flow into the Pacific.--More History and Indians.\n--Some Curious Performances--not Early English.--Natchez, or the Site of\nit, is Approached.\n\nCHAPTER III. A little History.--Early Commerce.--Coal Fleets and Timber\nRafts.--We start on a Voyage.--I seek Information.--Some Music.--The\nTrouble begins.--Tall Talk.--The Child of Calamity.--Ground and\nlofty Tumbling.--The Wash-up.--Business and Statistics.--Mysterious\nBand.--Thunder and Lightning.--The Captain speaks.--Allbright\nweeps.--The Mystery settled.--Chaff.--I am Discovered.--Some Art-work\nproposed.--I give an Account of Myself.--Released.\n\nCHAPTER IV. The Boys' Ambition.--Village Scenes.--Steamboat Pictures.\n--A Heavy Swell.--A Runaway.\n\nCHAPTER V. A Traveller.--A Lively Talker.--A Wild-cat Victim\n\nCHAPTER VI. Besieging the Pilot.--Taken along.--Spoiling a Nap.--Fishing\nfor a Plantation.--\"Points\" on the River.--A Gorgeous Pilot-house.\n\nCHAPTER VII. River Inspectors.--Cottonwoods and Plum Point.--Hat-Island\nCrossing.--Touch and Go.--It is a Go.--A Lightning Pilot\n\nCHAPTER VIII. A Heavy-loaded Big Gun.--Sharp Sights in\nDarkness.--Abandoned to his Fate.--Scraping the Banks.--Learn him or\nKill him.\n\nCHAPTER IX. Shake the Reef.--Reason Dethroned.--The Face of the Water.\n--A Bewitching Scene.-Romance and Beauty.\n\nCHAPTER X. Putting on Airs.--Taken down a bit.--Learn it as it is.--The\nRiver Rising.\n\nCHAPTER XI. In thg Tract Business.--Effects of the Rise.--Plantations\ngone.--A Measureless Sea.--A Somnambulist Pilot.--Supernatural\nPiloting.--Nobody there.--All Saved.\n\nCHAPTER XII. Low Water.--Yawl sounding.--Buoys and Lanterns.--Cubs and\nSoundings.--The Boat Sunk.--Seeking the Wrecked.\n\nCHAPTER XIII. A Pilot's Memory.--Wages soaring.--A Universal\nGrasp.--Skill and Nerve.--Testing a \"Cub.\"--\"Back her for Life.\"--A Good\nLesson.\n\nCHAPTER XIV. Pilots and Captains.--High-priced Pilots.--Pilots in\nDemand.--A Whistler.--A cheap Trade.--Two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar\nSpeed.\n\nCHAPTER XV. New Pilots undermining the Pilots' Association.--Crutches\nand Wages.--Putting on Airs.--The Captains Weaken.--The Association\nLaughs.--The Secret Sign.--An Admirable System.--Rough on Outsiders.\n--A Tight Monopoly.--No Loophole.--The Railroads and the War.\n\nCHAPTER XVI. All Aboard.--A Glorious Start.--Loaded to Win.--Bands and\nBugles.--Boats and Boats.--Racers and Racing.\n\nCHAPTER XVII. Cut-offs.--Ditching and Shooting.--Mississippi Changes.--A\nWild Night.--Swearing and Guessing.--Stephen in Debt.--He Confuses his\nCreditors.--He makes a New Deal.--Will Pay them Alphabetically.\n\nCHAPTER XVIII. Sharp Schooling.--Shadows.--I am Inspected.--Where did\nyou get them Shoes?--Pull her Down.--I want to kill Brown.--I try to run\nher.--I am Complimented.\n\nCHAPTER XIX. A Question of Veracity.--A Little Unpleasantness.--I have\nan Audience with the Captain.--Mr. Brown Retires.\n\nCHAPTER XX. I become a Passenger.--We hear the News.--A Thunderous\nCrash.--They Stand to their Posts.--In the Blazing Sun.--A Grewsome\nSpectacle.--His Hour has Struck.\n\nCHAPTER XXI. I get my License.--The War Begins.--I become a\nJack-of-all-trades.\n\nCHAPTER XXII. I try the Alias Business.--Region of Goatees--Boots begin\nto Appear.--The River Man is Missing.--The Young Man is Discouraged.--\nSpecimen Water.--A Fine Quality of Smoke.--A Supreme Mistake.--We\nInspect the Town.--Desolation Way-traffic.--A Wood-yard.\n\nCHAPTER XXIII. Old French Settlements.--We start for Memphis.--Young\nLadies and Russia-leather Bags.\n\nCHAPTER XXIV. I receive some Information.--Alligator Boats.--Alligator\nTalk.--She was a Rattler to go.--I am Found Out.\n\nCHAPTER XXV. The Devil's Oven and Table.--A Bombshell falls.--No\nWhitewash.--Thirty Years on the River.-Mississippi Uniforms.--Accidents\nand Casualties.--Two hundred Wrecks.--A Loss to Literature.--Sunday-\nSchools and Brick Masons.\n\nCHAPTER XXVI. War Talk.--I Tilt over Backwards.--Fifteen Shot-holes.--A\nPlain Story.--Wars and Feuds.--Darnell versus Watson.--A Gang and a\nWoodpile.--Western Grammar.--River Changes.--New Madrid.--Floods and\nFalls.\n\nCHAPTER XXVII. Tourists and their Note-books.--Captain Hall.--Mrs.\nTrollope's Emotions.--Hon. Charles Augustus Murray's Sentiment.--Captain\nMarryat's Sensations.--Alexander Mackay's Feelings.--Mr. Parkman\nReports\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII. Swinging down the River.--Named for Me.--Plum Point\nagain.--Lights and Snag Boats.--Infinite Changes.--A Lawless\nRiver.--Changes and Jetties.--Uncle Mumford Testifies.--Pegging\nthe River.--What the Government does.--The Commission.--Men and\nTheories.--\"Had them Bad.\"--Jews and Prices.\n\nCHAPTER XXIX. Murel's Gang.--A Consummate Villain.--Getting Rid of\nWitnesses.--Stewart turns Traitor.--I Start a Rebellion.--I get a New\nSuit of Clothes.--We Cover our Tracks.--Pluck and Capacity.--A Good\nSamaritan City.--The Old and the New.\n\nCHAPTER XXX. A Melancholy Picture.--On the Move.--River Gossip.--She\nWent By a-Sparklin'.--Amenities of Life.--A World of Misinformation.--\nEloquence of Silence.--Striking a Snag.--Photographically Exact.--Plank\nSide-walks.\n\nCHAPTER XXXI. Mutinous Language.--The Dead-house.--Cast-iron German and\nFlexible English.--A Dying Man's Confession.--I am Bound and Gagged.\n--I get Myself Free.--I Begin my Search.--The Man with one Thumb.\n--Red Paint and White Paper.--He Dropped on his Knees.--Fright and\nGratitude.--I Fled through the Woods.--A Grisly Spectacle.--Shout, Man,\nShout.--A look of Surprise and Triumph.--The Muffled Gurgle of a Mocking\nLaugh.--How strangely Things happen.--The Hidden Money.\n\nCHAPTER XXXII. Ritter's Narrative.--A Question of\nMoney.--Napoleon.--Somebody is Serious.--Where the Prettiest Girl used\nto Live.\n\nCHAPTER XXXIII. A Question of Division.--A Place where there was\nno License.--The Calhoun Land Company.--A Cotton-planter's\nEstimate.--Halifax and Watermelons.--Jewelled-up Bar-keepers.\n\nCHAPTER XXXIV. An Austere Man.--A Mosquito Policy.--Facts dressed in\nTights.--A \u00a0swelled Left Ear.\n\nCHAPTER XXXV. Signs and Scars.--Cannon-thunder Rages.--Cave-dwellers.\n--A Continual Sunday.--A ton of Iron and no Glass.--The Ardent is\nSaved.--Mule Meat--A National Cemetery.--A Dog and a Shell.--Railroads\nand Wealth.--Wharfage Economy.--Vicksburg versus The \"Gold Dust.\"--A\nNarrative in Anticipation.\n\nCHAPTER XXXVI. The Professor Spins a Yarn.--An Enthusiast in Cattle.--He\nmakes a Proposition.--Loading Beeves at Acapulco.--He was n't Raised to\nit.--He is Roped In.--His Dull Eyes Lit Up.--Four Aces, you Ass!--He\ndoes n't Care for the Gores.\n\nCHAPTER XXXVII. A Terrible Disaster.--The \"Gold Dust\" explodes her\nBoilers.--The End of a Good Man.\n\nCHAPTER XXXVIII. Mr. Dickens has a Word.--Best Dwellings and\ntheir Furniture.--Albums and Music.--Pantelettes and\nConch-shells.--Sugar-candy Rabbits and Photographs.--Horse-hair Sofas\nand Snuffers.--Rag Carpets and Bridal Chambers.\n\nCHAPTER XXXIX. Rowdies and Beauty.--Ice as Jewelry.--Ice\nManufacture.--More Statistics.--Some Drummers.--Oleomargarine versus\nButter.--Olive Oil versus Cotton Seed.--The Answer was not Caught.\n--A Terrific Episode.--A Sulphurous Canopy.--The Demons of War.--The\nTerrible Gauntlet.\n\nCHAPTER XL. In Flowers, like a Bride.--A White-washed Castle.--A\nSouthern Prospectus.--Pretty Pictures.--An Alligator's Meal.\n\nCHAPTER XLI. The Approaches to New Orleans.--A Stirring\nStreet.--Sanitary Improvements.--Journalistic Achievements.--Cisterns\nand Wells.\n\nCHAPTER XLII. Beautiful Grave-yards.--Chameleons and\nPanaceas.--Inhumation and Infection.--Mortality and Epidemics.--The Cost\nof Funerals.\n\nCHAPTER XLIII. I meet an Acquaintance.--Coffins and Swell Houses.--Mrs.\nO'Flaherty goes One Better.--Epidemics and Embamming.--Six hundred for a\nGood Case.--Joyful High Spirits.\n\nCHAPTER XLIV. French and Spanish Parts of the City.--Mr. Cable and the\nAncient Quarter.--Cabbages and Bouquets.--Cows and Children.--The Shell\nRoad. The West End.--A Good Square Meal.--The Pompano.--The Broom-\nBrigade.--Historical Painting.--Southern Speech.--Lagniappe.\n\nCHAPTER XLV. \"Waw\" Talk.--Cock-Fighting.--Too Much to Bear.--Fine\nWriting.--Mule Racing.\n\nCHAPTER XLVI. Mardi-Gras.--The Mystic Crewe.--Rex and Relics.--Sir\nWalter Scott.--A World Set Back.--Titles and Decorations.--A Change.\n\nCHAPTER XLVII. Uncle Remus.--The Children Disappointed.--We Read Aloud.\n--Mr. Cable and Jean au Poquelin.--Involuntary Trespass.--The Gilded\nAge.--An Impossible Combination.--The Owner Materializes and Protests.\n\nCHAPTER XLVIII. Tight Curls and Springy Steps.--Steam-plows.--\"No. I.\"\nSugar.--A Frankenstein Laugh.--Spiritual Postage.--A Place where there\nare no Butchers or Plumbers.--Idiotic Spasms.\n\nCHAPTER XLIX. Pilot-Farmers.--Working on Shares.--Consequences.--Men who\nStick to their Posts.--He saw what he would do.--A Day after the Fair.\n\nCHAPTER L. A Patriarch.--Leaves from a Diary.--A Tongue-stopper.--The\nAncient Mariner.--Pilloried in Print.--Petrified Truth.\n\nCHAPTER LI. A Fresh \"Cub\" at the Wheel.--A Valley Storm.--Some Remarks\non Construction.--Sock and Buskin.--The Man who never played Hamlet.--I\ngot Thirsty.--Sunday Statistics.\n\nCHAPTER LII. I Collar an Idea.--A Graduate of Harvard.--A Penitent\nThief.--His Story in the Pulpit.--Something Symmetrical.--A Literary\nArtist.--A Model Epistle.--Pumps again Working.--The \"Nub\" of the Note.\n\nCHAPTER LIII. A Masterly Retreat.--A Town at Rest.--Boyhood's\nPranks.--Friends of my Youth.--The Refuge for Imbeciles.--I am Presented\nwith my Measure.\n\nCHAPTER LIV. A Special Judgment.--Celestial Interest.--A Night of\nAgony.--Another Bad Attack.--I become Convalescent.--I address a\nSunday-school.--A Model Boy.\n\nCHAPTER LV. A second Generation.--A hundred thousand Tons of Saddles.--A\nDark and Dreadful Secret.--A Large Family.--A Golden-haired Darling.\n--The Mysterious Cross.--My Idol is Broken.--A Bad Season of Chills and\nFever.--An Interesting Cave.\n\nCHAPTER LVI. Perverted History--A Guilty Conscience.--A Supposititious\nCase.--A Habit to be Cultivated.--I Drop my Burden.--Difference in\nTime.\n\nCHAPTER LVII. A Model Town.--A Town that Comes up to Blow in the Summer.\n--The Scare-crow Dean.--Spouting Smoke and Flame.--An Atmosphere that\ntastes good.--The Sunset Land.\n\nCHAPTER LVIII. An Independent Race.--Twenty-four-hour Towns.--Enchanting\nScenery.--The Home of the Plow.--Black Hawk.--Fluctuating Securities.\n--A Contrast.--Electric Lights.\n\nCHAPTER LIX. Indian Traditions and Rattlesnakes.--A Three-ton\nWord.--Chimney Rock.--The Panorama Man.--A Good Jump.--The Undying Head.\n--Peboan and Seegwun.\n\nCHAPTER LX. The Head of Navigation.--From Roses to Snow.--Climatic\nVaccination.--A Long Ride.--Bones of Poverty.--The Pioneer of\nCivilization.--Jug of Empire.--Siamese Twins.--The Sugar-bush.--He Wins\nhis Bride.--The Mystery about the Blanket.--A City that is always a\nNovelty.--Home again.\n\n\nAPPENDIX. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0B \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0C \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0D\n\n\n\n\nTHE 'BODY OF THE NATION'\n\nBUT the basin of the Mississippi is the _Body of The Nation_. All the\nother parts are but members, important in themselves, yet more important\nin their relations to this. Exclusive of the Lake basin and of 300,000\nsquare miles in Texas and New Mexico, which in many aspects form a part\nof it, this basin contains about 1,250,000 square miles. In extent it is\nthe second great valley of the world, being exceeded only by that of the\nAmazon. The valley of the frozen Obi approaches it in extent; that of\nLa Plata comes next in space, and probably in habitable capacity, having\nabout eight-ninths of its area; then comes that of the Yenisei, with\nabout seven-ninths; the Lena, Amoor, Hoang-ho, Yang-tse-kiang, and\nNile, five-ninths; the Ganges, less than one-half; the Indus, less\nthan one-third; the Euphrates, one-fifth; the Rhine, one-fifteenth. It\nexceeds in extent the whole of Europe, exclusive of Russia, Norway,\nand Sweden. _It would contain austria four times, germany or spain\nfive times, france six times, the british islands or italy ten times._\nConceptions formed from the river-basins of Western Europe are rudely\nshocked when we consider the extent of the valley of the Mississippi;\nnor are those formed from the sterile basins of the great rivers of\nSiberia, the lofty plateaus of Central Asia, or the mighty sweep of\nthe swampy Amazon more adequate. Latitude, elevation, and rainfall\nall combine to render every part of the Mississippi Valley capable of\nsupporting a dense population. _As a dwelling-place for civilized man it\nis by far the first upon our globe_.\n\nEDITOR'S TABLE, HARPER'S MAGAZINE, FEBRUARY 1863\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 1\n\nThe River and Its History\n\nTHE Mississippi is well worth reading about. It is not a commonplace\nriver, but on the contrary is in all ways remarkable. Considering the\nMissouri its main branch, it is the longest river in the world--four\nthousand three hundred miles. It seems safe to say that it is also the\ncrookedest river in the world, since in one part of its journey it uses\nup one thousand three hundred miles to cover the same ground that the\ncrow would fly over in six hundred and seventy-five. It discharges three\ntimes as much water as the St. Lawrence, twenty-five times as much\nas the Rhine, and three hundred and thirty-eight times as much as the\nThames. No other river has so vast a drainage-basin: it draws its water\nsupply from twenty-eight States and Territories; from Delaware, on the\nAtlantic seaboard, and from all the country between that and Idaho on\nthe Pacific slope--a spread of forty-five degrees of longitude. The\nMississippi receives and carries to the Gulf water from fifty-four\nsubordinate rivers that are navigable by steamboats, and from some\nhundreds that are navigable by flats and keels. The area of its\ndrainage-basin is as great as the combined areas of England, Wales,\nScotland, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria, Italy,\nand Turkey; and almost all this wide region is fertile; the Mississippi\nvalley, proper, is exceptionally so.\n\nIt is a remarkable river in this: that instead of widening toward its\nmouth, it grows narrower; grows narrower and deeper. From the junction\nof the Ohio to a point half way down to the sea, the width averages a\nmile in high water: thence to the sea the width steadily diminishes,\nuntil, at the 'Passes,' above the mouth, it is but little over half\na mile. At the junction of the Ohio the Mississippi's depth is\neighty-seven feet; the depth increases gradually, reaching one hundred\nand twenty-nine just above the mouth.\n\nThe difference in rise and fall is also remarkable--not in the upper,\nbut in the lower river. The rise is tolerably uniform down to Natchez\n(three hundred and sixty miles above the mouth)--about fifty feet.\nBut at Bayou La Fourche the river rises only twenty-four feet; at New\nOrleans only fifteen, and just above the mouth only two and one half.\n\nAn article in the New Orleans 'Times-Democrat,' based upon reports of\nable engineers, states that the river annually empties four hundred and\nsix million tons of mud into the Gulf of Mexico--which brings to mind\nCaptain Marryat's rude name for the Mississippi--'the Great Sewer.' This\nmud, solidified, would make a mass a mile square and two hundred and\nforty-one feet high.\n\nThe mud deposit gradually extends the land--but only gradually; it has\nextended it not quite a third of a mile in the two hundred years which\nhave elapsed since the river took its place in history. The belief of\nthe scientific people is, that the mouth used to be at Baton Rouge,\nwhere the hills cease, and that the two hundred miles of land between\nthere and the Gulf was built by the river. This gives us the age of that\npiece of country, without any trouble at all--one hundred and twenty\nthousand years. Yet it is much the youthfullest batch of country that\nlies around there anywhere.\n\nThe Mississippi is remarkable in still another way--its disposition to\nmake prodigious jumps by cutting through narrow necks of land, and thus\nstraightening and shortening itself. More than once it has shortened\nitself thirty miles at a single jump! These cut-offs have had curious\neffects: they have thrown several river towns out into the rural\ndistricts, and built up sand bars and forests in front of them. The town\nof Delta used to be three miles below Vicksburg: a recent cutoff has\nradically changed the position, and Delta is now _two miles above_\nVicksburg.\n\nBoth of these river towns have been retired to the country by that\ncut-off. A cut-off plays havoc with boundary lines and jurisdictions:\nfor instance, a man is living in the State of Mississippi to-day, a\ncut-off occurs to-night, and to-morrow the man finds himself and his\nland over on the other side of the river, within the boundaries and\nsubject to the laws of the State of Louisiana! Such a thing, happening\nin the upper river in the old times, could have transferred a slave from\nMissouri to Illinois and made a free man of him.\n\nThe Mississippi does not alter its locality by cut-offs alone: it\nis always changing its habitat _bodily_--is always moving bodily\n_sidewise_. At Hard Times, La., the river is two miles west of the\nregion it used to occupy. As a result, the original _site _of that\nsettlement is not now in Louisiana at all, but on the other side of\nthe river, in the State of Mississippi. _Nearly the whole of that one\nthousand three hundred miles of old mississippi river which la salle\nfloated down in his canoes, two hundred years ago, is good solid dry\nground now_. The river lies to the right of it, in places, and to the\nleft of it in other places.\n\nAlthough the Mississippi's mud builds land but slowly, down at the\nmouth, where the Gulfs billows interfere with its work, it builds fast\nenough in better protected regions higher up: for instance, Prophet's\nIsland contained one thousand five hundred acres of land thirty years\nago; since then the river has added seven hundred acres to it.\n\nBut enough of these examples of the mighty stream's eccentricities for\nthe present--I will give a few more of them further along in the book.\n\nLet us drop the Mississippi's physical history, and say a word about its\nhistorical history--so to speak. We can glance briefly at its slumbrous\nfirst epoch in a couple of short chapters; at its second and wider-awake\nepoch in a couple more; at its flushest and widest-awake epoch in a good\nmany succeeding chapters; and then talk about its comparatively tranquil\npresent epoch in what shall be left of the book.\n\nThe world and the books are so accustomed to use, and over-use, the word\n'new' in connection with our country, that we early get and permanently\nretain the impression that there is nothing old about it. We do of\ncourse know that there are several comparatively old dates in American\nhistory, but the mere figures convey to our minds no just idea, no\ndistinct realization, of the stretch of time which they represent.\nTo say that De Soto, the first white man who ever saw the Mississippi\nRiver, saw it in 1542, is a remark which states a fact without\ninterpreting it: it is something like giving the dimensions of a sunset\nby astronomical measurements, and cataloguing the colors by their\nscientific names;--as a result, you get the bald fact of the sunset, but\nyou don't see the sunset. It would have been better to paint a picture\nof it.\n\nThe date 1542, standing by itself, means little or nothing to us; but\nwhen one groups a few neighboring historical dates and facts around it,\nhe adds perspective and color, and then realizes that this is one of the\nAmerican dates which is quite respectable for age.\n\nFor instance, when the Mississippi was first seen by a white man, less\nthan a quarter of a century had elapsed since Francis I.'s defeat at\nPavia; the death of Raphael; the death of Bayard, _Sans Peur Et Sans\nReproche_; the driving out of the Knights-Hospitallers from Rhodes by\nthe Turks; and the placarding of the Ninety-Five Propositions,--the act\nwhich began the Reformation. When De Soto took his glimpse of the river,\nIgnatius Loyola was an obscure name; the order of the Jesuits was not\nyet a year old; Michael Angelo's paint was not yet dry on the Last\nJudgment in the Sistine Chapel; Mary Queen of Scots was not yet born,\nbut would be before the year closed. Catherine de Medici was a child;\nElizabeth of England was not yet in her teens; Calvin, Benvenuto\nCellini, and the Emperor Charles V. were at the top of their fame, and\neach was manufacturing history after his own peculiar fashion; Margaret\nof Navarre was writing the 'Heptameron' and some religious books,--the\nfirst survives, the others are forgotten, wit and indelicacy being\nsometimes better literature preservers than holiness; lax court morals\nand the absurd chivalry business were in full feather, and the joust and\nthe tournament were the frequent pastime of titled fine gentlemen who\ncould fight better than they could spell, while religion was the passion\nof their ladies, and classifying their offspring into children of full\nrank and children by brevet their pastime.\n\nIn fact, all around, religion was in a peculiarly blooming condition:\nthe Council of Trent was being called; the Spanish Inquisition was\nroasting, and racking, and burning, with a free hand; elsewhere on the\ncontinent the nations were being persuaded to holy living by the sword\nand fire; in England, Henry VIII. had suppressed the monasteries,\nburnt Fisher and another bishop or two, and was getting his English\nreformation and his harem effectively started. When De Soto stood on the\nbanks of the Mississippi, it was still two years before Luther's death;\neleven years before the burning of Servetus; thirty years before the St.\nBartholomew slaughter; Rabelais was not yet published; 'Don Quixote' was\nnot yet written; Shakespeare was not yet born; a hundred long years must\nstill elapse before Englishmen would hear the name of Oliver Cromwell.\n\nUnquestionably the discovery of the Mississippi is a datable fact which\nconsiderably mellows and modifies the shiny newness of our country, and\ngives her a most respectable outside-aspect of rustiness and antiquity.\n\nDe Soto merely glimpsed the river, then died and was buried in it by his\npriests and soldiers. One would expect the priests and the soldiers\nto multiply the river's dimensions by ten--the Spanish custom of the\nday--and thus move other adventurers to go at once and explore it. On\nthe contrary, their narratives when they reached home, did not excite\nthat amount of curiosity. The Mississippi was left unvisited by whites\nduring a term of years which seems incredible in our energetic days. One\nmay 'sense' the interval to his mind, after a fashion, by dividing it\nup in this way: After De Soto glimpsed the river, a fraction short of\na quarter of a century elapsed, and then Shakespeare was born; lived a\ntrifle more than half a century, then died; and when he had been in his\ngrave considerably more than half a century, the _second _white man saw\nthe Mississippi. In our day we don't allow a hundred and thirty years to\nelapse between glimpses of a marvel. If somebody should discover a creek\nin the county next to the one that the North Pole is in, Europe and\nAmerica would start fifteen costly expeditions thither: one to explore\nthe creek, and the other fourteen to hunt for each other.\n\nFor more than a hundred and fifty years there had been white settlements\non our Atlantic coasts. These people were in intimate communication\nwith the Indians: in the south the Spaniards were robbing, slaughtering,\nenslaving and converting them; higher up, the English were trading beads\nand blankets to them for a consideration, and throwing in civilization\nand whiskey, 'for lagniappe;' and in Canada the French were schooling\nthem in a rudimentary way, missionarying among them, and drawing whole\npopulations of them at a time to Quebec, and later to Montreal, to buy\nfurs of them. Necessarily, then, these various clusters of whites must\nhave heard of the great river of the far west; and indeed, they did\nhear of it vaguely,--so vaguely and indefinitely, that its course,\nproportions, and locality were hardly even guessable. The mere\nmysteriousness of the matter ought to have fired curiosity and compelled\nexploration; but this did not occur. Apparently nobody happened to want\nsuch a river, nobody needed it, nobody was curious about it; so, for\na century and a half the Mississippi remained out of the market and\nundisturbed. When De Soto found it, he was not hunting for a river, and\nhad no present occasion for one; consequently he did not value it or\neven take any particular notice of it.\n\nBut at last La Salle the Frenchman conceived the idea of seeking out\nthat river and exploring it. It always happens that when a man seizes\nupon a neglected and important idea, people inflamed with the same\nnotion crop up all around. It happened so in this instance.\n\nNaturally the question suggests itself, Why did these people want the\nriver now when nobody had wanted it in the five preceding generations?\nApparently it was because at this late day they thought they had\ndiscovered a way to make it useful; for it had come to be believed\nthat the Mississippi emptied into the Gulf of California, and therefore\nafforded a short cut from Canada to China. Previously the supposition\nhad been that it emptied into the Atlantic, or Sea of Virginia.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 2\n\nThe River and Its Explorers\n\nLA SALLE himself sued for certain high privileges, and they were\ngraciously accorded him by Louis XIV of inflated memory. Chief among\nthem was the privilege to explore, far and wide, and build forts, and\nstake out continents, and hand the same over to the king, and pay the\nexpenses himself; receiving, in return, some little advantages of one\nsort or another; among them the monopoly of buffalo hides. He spent\nseveral years and about all of his money, in making perilous and painful\ntrips between Montreal and a fort which he had built on the Illinois,\nbefore he at last succeeded in getting his expedition in such a shape\nthat he could strike for the Mississippi.\n\nAnd meantime other parties had had better fortune. In 1673 Joliet the\nmerchant, and Marquette the priest, crossed the country and reached the\nbanks of the Mississippi. They went by way of the Great Lakes; and from\nGreen Bay, in canoes, by way of Fox River and the Wisconsin. Marquette\nhad solemnly contracted, on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, that\nif the Virgin would permit him to discover the great river, he would\nname it Conception, in her honor. He kept his word. In that day, all\nexplorers traveled with an outfit of priests. De Soto had twenty-four\nwith him. La Salle had several, also. The expeditions were often out of\nmeat, and scant of clothes, but they always had the furniture and other\nrequisites for the mass; they were always prepared, as one of the quaint\nchroniclers of the time phrased it, to 'explain hell to the savages.'\n\nOn the 17th of June, 1673, the canoes of Joliet and Marquette and\ntheir five subordinates reached the junction of the Wisconsin with the\nMississippi. Mr. Parkman says: 'Before them a wide and rapid current\ncoursed athwart their way, by the foot of lofty heights wrapped thick\nin forests.' He continues: 'Turning southward, they paddled down the\nstream, through a solitude unrelieved by the faintest trace of man.'\n\nA big cat-fish collided with Marquette's canoe, and startled him; and\nreasonably enough, for he had been warned by the Indians that he was\non a foolhardy journey, and even a fatal one, for the river contained\na demon 'whose roar could be heard at a great distance, and who would\nengulf them in the abyss where he dwelt.' I have seen a Mississippi\ncat-fish that was more than six feet long, and weighed two hundred and\nfifty pounds; and if Marquette's fish was the fellow to that one, he had\na fair right to think the river's roaring demon was come.\n\n'At length the buffalo began to appear, grazing in herds on the great\nprairies which then bordered the river; and Marquette describes the\nfierce and stupid look of the old bulls as they stared at the intruders\nthrough the tangled mane which nearly blinded them.'\n\nThe voyagers moved cautiously: 'Landed at night and made a fire to cook\ntheir evening meal; then extinguished it, embarked again, paddled some\nway farther, and anchored in the stream, keeping a man on the watch till\nmorning.'\n\nThey did this day after day and night after night; and at the end of two\nweeks they had not seen a human being. The river was an awful solitude,\nthen. And it is now, over most of its stretch.\n\nBut at the close of the fortnight they one day came upon the footprints\nof men in the mud of the western bank--a Robinson Crusoe experience\nwhich carries an electric shiver with it yet, when one stumbles on it in\nprint. They had been warned that the river Indians were as ferocious and\npitiless as the river demon, and destroyed all comers without waiting\nfor provocation; but no matter, Joliet and Marquette struck into the\ncountry to hunt up the proprietors of the tracks. They found them, by\nand by, and were hospitably received and well treated--if to be received\nby an Indian chief who has taken off his last rag in order to appear\nat his level best is to be received hospitably; and if to be treated\nabundantly to fish, porridge, and other game, including dog, and have\nthese things forked into one's mouth by the ungloved fingers of Indians\nis to be well treated. In the morning the chief and six hundred of his\ntribesmen escorted the Frenchmen to the river and bade them a friendly\nfarewell.\n\nOn the rocks above the present city of Alton they found some rude and\nfantastic Indian paintings, which they describe. A short distance below\n'a torrent of yellow mud rushed furiously athwart the calm blue current\nof the Mississippi, boiling and surging and sweeping in its course logs,\nbranches, and uprooted trees.' This was the mouth of the Missouri, 'that\nsavage river,' which 'descending from its mad career through a vast\nunknown of barbarism, poured its turbid floods into the bosom of its\ngentle sister.'\n\nBy and by they passed the mouth of the Ohio; they passed cane-brakes;\nthey fought mosquitoes; they floated along, day after day, through the\ndeep silence and loneliness of the river, drowsing in the scant shade\nof makeshift awnings, and broiling with the heat; they encountered and\nexchanged civilities with another party of Indians; and at last\nthey reached the mouth of the Arkansas (about a month out from their\nstarting-point), where a tribe of war-whooping savages swarmed out to\nmeet and murder them; but they appealed to the Virgin for help; so in\nplace of a fight there was a feast, and plenty of pleasant palaver and\nfol-de-rol.\n\nThey had proved to their satisfaction, that the Mississippi did not\nempty into the Gulf of California, or into the Atlantic. They believed\nit emptied into the Gulf of Mexico. They turned back, now, and carried\ntheir great news to Canada.\n\nBut belief is not proof. It was reserved for La Salle to furnish the\nproof. He was provokingly delayed, by one misfortune after another, but\nat last got his expedition under way at the end of the year 1681. In the\ndead of winter he and Henri de Tonty, son of Lorenzo Tonty, who invented\nthe tontine, his lieutenant, started down the Illinois, with a\nfollowing of eighteen Indians brought from New England, and twenty-three\nFrenchmen. They moved in procession down the surface of the frozen\nriver, on foot, and dragging their canoes after them on sledges.\n\nAt Peoria Lake they struck open water, and paddled thence to the\nMississippi and turned their prows southward. They plowed through the\nfields of floating ice, past the mouth of the Missouri; past the mouth\nof the Ohio, by-and-by; 'and, gliding by the wastes of bordering swamp,\nlanded on the 24th of February near the Third Chickasaw Bluffs,' where\nthey halted and built Fort Prudhomme.\n\n'Again,' says Mr. Parkman, 'they embarked; and with every stage of their\nadventurous progress, the mystery of this vast new world was more and\nmore unveiled. More and more they entered the realms of spring. The\nhazy sunlight, the warm and drowsy air, the tender foliage, the opening\nflowers, betokened the reviving life of nature.'\n\nDay by day they floated down the great bends, in the shadow of the dense\nforests, and in time arrived at the mouth of the Arkansas. First, they\nwere greeted by the natives of this locality as Marquette had before\nbeen greeted by them--with the booming of the war drum and the flourish\nof arms. The Virgin composed the difficulty in Marquette's case; the\npipe of peace did the same office for La Salle. The white man and the\nred man struck hands and entertained each other during three days. Then,\nto the admiration of the savages, La Salle set up a cross with the\narms of France on it, and took possession of the whole country for the\nking--the cool fashion of the time--while the priest piously consecrated\nthe robbery with a hymn. The priest explained the mysteries of the faith\n'by signs,' for the saving of the savages; thus compensating them with\npossible possessions in Heaven for the certain ones on earth which they\nhad just been robbed of. And also, by signs, La Salle drew from these\nsimple children of the forest acknowledgments of fealty to Louis the\nPutrid, over the water. Nobody smiled at these colossal ironies.\n\nThese performances took place on the site of the future town of\nNapoleon, Arkansas, and there the first confiscation-cross was raised\non the banks of the great river. Marquette's and Joliet's voyage\nof discovery ended at the same spot--the site of the future town of\nNapoleon. When De Soto took his fleeting glimpse of the river, away back\nin the dim early days, he took it from that same spot--the site of the\nfuture town of Napoleon, Arkansas. Therefore, three out of the four\nmemorable events connected with the discovery and exploration of the\nmighty river, occurred, by accident, in one and the same place. It is a\nmost curious distinction, when one comes to look at it and think about\nit. France stole that vast country on that spot, the future Napoleon;\nand by and by Napoleon himself was to give the country back again!--make\nrestitution, not to the owners, but to their white American heirs.\n\nThe voyagers journeyed on, touching here and there; 'passed the sites,\nsince become historic, of Vicksburg and Grand Gulf,' and visited an\nimposing Indian monarch in the Teche country, whose capital city was a\nsubstantial one of sun-baked bricks mixed with straw--better houses than\nmany that exist there now. The chiefs house contained an audience room\nforty feet square; and there he received Tonty in State, surrounded by\nsixty old men clothed in white cloaks. There was a temple in the town,\nwith a mud wall about it ornamented with skulls of enemies sacrificed to\nthe sun.\n\nThe voyagers visited the Natchez Indians, near the site of the\npresent city of that name, where they found a 'religious and political\ndespotism, a privileged class descended from the sun, a temple and a\nsacred fire.' It must have been like getting home again; it was home\nwith an advantage, in fact, for it lacked Louis XIV.\n\nA few more days swept swiftly by, and La Salle stood in the shadow of\nhis confiscating cross, at the meeting of the waters from Delaware, and\nfrom Itaska, and from the mountain ranges close upon the Pacific,\nwith the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, his task finished, his prodigy\nachieved. Mr. Parkman, in closing his fascinating narrative, thus sums\nup:\n\n'On that day, the realm of France received on parchment a stupendous\naccession. The fertile plains of Texas; the vast basin of the\nMississippi, from its frozen northern springs to the sultry borders of\nthe Gulf; from the woody ridges of the Alleghanies to the bare peaks\nof the Rocky Mountains--a region of savannas and forests, sun-cracked\ndeserts and grassy prairies, watered by a thousand rivers, ranged by\na thousand warlike tribes, passed beneath the scepter of the Sultan of\nVersailles; and all by virtue of a feeble human voice, inaudible at half\na mile.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 3\n\nFrescoes from the Past\n\nAPPARENTLY the river was ready for business, now. But no, the\ndistribution of a population along its banks was as calm and deliberate\nand time-devouring a process as the discovery and exploration had been.\n\nSeventy years elapsed, after the exploration, before the river's borders\nhad a white population worth considering; and nearly fifty more before\nthe river had a commerce. Between La Salle's opening of the river and\nthe time when it may be said to have become the vehicle of anything like\na regular and active commerce, seven sovereigns had occupied the throne\nof England, America had become an independent nation, Louis XIV. and\nLouis XV. had rotted and died, the French monarchy had gone down in\nthe red tempest of the revolution, and Napoleon was a name that was\nbeginning to be talked about. Truly, there were snails in those days.\n\nThe river's earliest commerce was in great barges--keelboats,\nbroadhorns. They floated and sailed from the upper rivers to New\nOrleans, changed cargoes there, and were tediously warped and poled back\nby hand. A voyage down and back sometimes occupied nine months. In time\nthis commerce increased until it gave employment to hordes of rough and\nhardy men; rude, uneducated, brave, suffering terrific hardships with\nsailor-like stoicism; heavy drinkers, coarse frolickers in moral sties\nlike the Natchez-under-the-hill of that day, heavy fighters, reckless\nfellows, every one, elephantinely jolly, foul-witted, profane; prodigal\nof their money, bankrupt at the end of the trip, fond of barbaric\nfinery, prodigious braggarts; yet, in the main, honest, trustworthy,\nfaithful to promises and duty, and often picturesquely magnanimous.\n\nBy and by the steamboat intruded. Then for fifteen or twenty years,\nthese men continued to run their keelboats down-stream, and the steamers\ndid all of the upstream business, the keelboatmen selling their boats in\nNew Orleans, and returning home as deck passengers in the steamers.\n\nBut after a while the steamboats so increased in number and in speed\nthat they were able to absorb the entire commerce; and then keelboating\ndied a permanent death. The keelboatman became a deck hand, or a mate,\nor a pilot on the steamer; and when steamer-berths were not open to him,\nhe took a berth on a Pittsburgh coal-flat, or on a pine-raft constructed\nin the forests up toward the sources of the Mississippi.\n\nIn the heyday of the steamboating prosperity, the river from end to end\nwas flaked with coal-fleets and timber rafts, all managed by hand,\nand employing hosts of the rough characters whom I have been trying to\ndescribe. I remember the annual processions of mighty rafts that used\nto glide by Hannibal when I was a boy,--an acre or so of white,\nsweet-smelling boards in each raft, a crew of two dozen men or more,\nthree or four wigwams scattered about the raft's vast level space for\nstorm-quarters,--and I remember the rude ways and the tremendous talk\nof their big crews, the ex-keelboatmen and their admiringly patterning\nsuccessors; for we used to swim out a quarter or third of a mile and get\non these rafts and have a ride.\n\nBy way of illustrating keelboat talk and manners, and that now-departed\nand hardly-remembered raft-life, I will throw in, in this place, a\nchapter from a book which I have been working at, by fits and starts,\nduring the past five or six years, and may possibly finish in the course\nof five or six more. The book is a story which details some passages in\nthe life of an ignorant village boy, Huck Finn, son of the town drunkard\nof my time out west, there. He has run away from his persecuting\nfather, and from a persecuting good widow who wishes to make a nice,\ntruth-telling, respectable boy of him; and with him a slave of the\nwidow's has also escaped. They have found a fragment of a lumber raft\n(it is high water and dead summer time), and are floating down the river\nby night, and hiding in the willows by day,--bound for Cairo,--whence\nthe negro will seek freedom in the heart of the free States. But in a\nfog, they pass Cairo without knowing it. By and by they begin to suspect\nthe truth, and Huck Finn is persuaded to end the dismal suspense by\nswimming down to a huge raft which they have seen in the distance ahead\nof them, creeping aboard under cover of the darkness, and gathering the\nneeded information by eavesdropping:--\n\nBut you know a young person can't wait very well when he is impatient to\nfind a thing out. We talked it over, and by and by Jim said it was such\na black night, now, that it wouldn't be no risk to swim down to the big\nraft and crawl aboard and listen--they would talk about Cairo, because\nthey would be calculating to go ashore there for a spree, maybe, or\nanyway they would send boats ashore to buy whiskey or fresh meat or\nsomething. Jim had a wonderful level head, for a nigger: he could most\nalways start a good plan when you wanted one.\n\nI stood up and shook my rags off and jumped into the river, and struck\nout for the raft's light. By and by, when I got down nearly to her,\nI eased up and went slow and cautious. But everything was all\nright--nobody at the sweeps. So I swum down along the raft till I was\nmost abreast the camp fire in the middle, then I crawled aboard and\ninched along and got in amongst some bundles of shingles on the weather\nside of the fire. There was thirteen men there--they was the watch on\ndeck of course. And a mighty rough-looking lot, too. They had a jug, and\ntin cups, and they kept the jug moving. One man was singing--roaring,\nyou may say; and it wasn't a nice song--for a parlor anyway. He roared\nthrough his nose, and strung out the last word of every line very long.\nWhen he was done they all fetched a kind of Injun war-whoop, and then\nanother was sung. It begun:--\n\n'There was a woman in our towdn, In our towdn did dwed'l (dwell,) She\nloved her husband dear-i-lee, But another man twysteas wed'l.\n\nSinging too, riloo, riloo, riloo, Ri-too, riloo, rilay--She loved her\nhusband dear-i-lee, But another man twyste as wed'l.\n\nAnd so on--fourteen verses. It was kind of poor, and when he was going\nto start on the next verse one of them said it was the tune the old cow\ndied on; and another one said, 'Oh, give us a rest.' And another one\ntold him to take a walk. They made fun of him till he got mad and jumped\nup and begun to cuss the crowd, and said he could lame any thief in the\nlot.\n\nThey was all about to make a break for him, but the biggest man there\njumped up and says--\n\n'Set whar you are, gentlemen. Leave him to me; he's my meat.'\n\nThen he jumped up in the air three times and cracked his heels together\nevery time. He flung off a buckskin coat that was all hung with fringes,\nand says, 'You lay thar tell the chawin-up's done;' and flung his hat\ndown, which was all over ribbons, and says, 'You lay thar tell his\nsufferin's is over.'\n\nThen he jumped up in the air and cracked his heels together again and\nshouted out--\n\n'Whoo-oop! I'm the old original iron-jawed, brass-mounted,\ncopper-bellied corpse-maker from the wilds of Arkansaw!--Look at me!\nI'm the man they call Sudden Death and General Desolation! Sired by a\nhurricane, dam'd by an earthquake, half-brother to the cholera, nearly\nrelated to the small-pox on the mother's side! Look at me! I take\nnineteen alligators and a bar'l of whiskey for breakfast when I'm in\nrobust health, and a bushel of rattlesnakes and a dead body when I'm\nailing! I split the everlasting rocks with my glance, and I squench the\nthunder when I speak! Whoo-oop! Stand back and give me room according\nto my strength! Blood's my natural drink, and the wails of the dying is\nmusic to my ear! Cast your eye on me, gentlemen!--and lay low and hold\nyour breath, for I'm bout to turn myself loose!'\n\nAll the time he was getting this off, he was shaking his head and\nlooking fierce, and kind of swelling around in a little circle, tucking\nup his wrist-bands, and now and then straightening up and beating his\nbreast with his fist, saying, 'Look at me, gentlemen!' When he got\nthrough, he jumped up and cracked his heels together three times, and\nlet off a roaring 'Whoo-oop! I'm the bloodiest son of a wildcat that\nlives!'\n\nThen the man that had started the row tilted his old slouch hat down\nover his right eye; then he bent stooping forward, with his back sagged\nand his south end sticking out far, and his fists a-shoving out and\ndrawing in in front of him, and so went around in a little circle\nabout three times, swelling himself up and breathing hard. Then he\nstraightened, and jumped up and cracked his heels together three times,\nbefore he lit again (that made them cheer), and he begun to shout like\nthis--\n\n'Whoo-oop! bow your neck and spread, for the kingdom of sorrow's\na-coming! Hold me down to the earth, for I feel my powers a-working!\nwhoo-oop! I'm a child of sin, don't let me get a start! Smoked\nglass, here, for all! Don't attempt to look at me with the naked\neye, gentlemen! When I'm playful I use the meridians of longitude and\nparallels of latitude for a seine, and drag the Atlantic Ocean for\nwhales! I scratch my head with the lightning, and purr myself to sleep\nwith the thunder! When I'm cold, I bile the Gulf of Mexico and bathe\nin it; when I'm hot I fan myself with an equinoctial storm; when I'm\nthirsty I reach up and suck a cloud dry like a sponge; when I range the\nearth hungry, famine follows in my tracks! Whoo-oop! Bow your neck and\nspread! I put my hand on the sun's face and make it night in the earth;\nI bite a piece out of the moon and hurry the seasons; I shake myself\nand crumble the mountains! Contemplate me through leather--don't use the\nnaked eye! I'm the man with a petrified heart and biler-iron bowels! The\nmassacre of isolated communities is the pastime of my idle moments,\nthe destruction of nationalities the serious business of my life! The\nboundless vastness of the great American desert is my enclosed property,\nand I bury my dead on my own premises!' He jumped up and cracked his\nheels together three times before he lit (they cheered him again), and\nas he come down he shouted out: 'Whoo-oop! bow your neck and spread, for\nthe pet child of calamity's a-coming!'\n\nThen the other one went to swelling around and blowing again--the first\none--the one they called Bob; next, the Child of Calamity chipped in\nagain, bigger than ever; then they both got at it at the same time,\nswelling round and round each other and punching their fists most into\neach other's faces, and whooping and jawing like Injuns; then Bob called\nthe Child names, and the Child called him names back again: next, Bob\ncalled him a heap rougher names and the Child come back at him with the\nvery worst kind of language; next, Bob knocked the Child's hat off, and\nthe Child picked it up and kicked Bob's ribbony hat about six foot; Bob\nwent and got it and said never mind, this warn't going to be the last\nof this thing, because he was a man that never forgot and never forgive,\nand so the Child better look out, for there was a time a-coming, just\nas sure as he was a living man, that he would have to answer to him with\nthe best blood in his body. The Child said no man was willinger than\nhe was for that time to come, and he would give Bob fair warning, now,\nnever to cross his path again, for he could never rest till he had waded\nin his blood, for such was his nature, though he was sparing him now on\naccount of his family, if he had one.\n\nBoth of them was edging away in different directions, growling and\nshaking their heads and going on about what they was going to do; but a\nlittle black-whiskered chap skipped up and says--\n\n'Come back here, you couple of chicken-livered cowards, and I'll thrash\nthe two of ye!'\n\nAnd he done it, too. He snatched them, he jerked them this way and that,\nhe booted them around, he knocked them sprawling faster than they could\nget up. Why, it warn't two minutes till they begged like dogs--and\nhow the other lot did yell and laugh and clap their hands all the way\nthrough, and shout 'Sail in, Corpse-Maker!' 'Hi! at him again, Child of\nCalamity!' 'Bully for you, little Davy!' Well, it was a perfect pow-wow\nfor a while. Bob and the Child had red noses and black eyes when they\ngot through. Little Davy made them own up that they were sneaks and\ncowards and not fit to eat with a dog or drink with a nigger; then Bob\nand the Child shook hands with each other, very solemn, and said they\nhad always respected each other and was willing to let bygones be\nbygones. So then they washed their faces in the river; and just then\nthere was a loud order to stand by for a crossing, and some of them went\nforward to man the sweeps there, and the rest went aft to handle the\nafter-sweeps.\n\nI laid still and waited for fifteen minutes, and had a smoke out of a\npipe that one of them left in reach; then the crossing was finished, and\nthey stumped back and had a drink around and went to talking and singing\nagain. Next they got out an old fiddle, and one played and another\npatted juba, and the rest turned themselves loose on a regular\nold-fashioned keel-boat break-down. They couldn't keep that up very long\nwithout getting winded, so by and by they settled around the jug again.\n\nThey sung 'jolly, jolly raftman's the life for me,' with a rousing\nchorus, and then they got to talking about differences betwixt hogs, and\ntheir different kind of habits; and next about women and their different\nways: and next about the best ways to put out houses that was afire; and\nnext about what ought to be done with the Injuns; and next about what\na king had to do, and how much he got; and next about how to make cats\nfight; and next about what to do when a man has fits; and next about\ndifferences betwixt clear-water rivers and muddy-water ones. The man\nthey called Ed said the muddy Mississippi water was wholesomer to drink\nthan the clear water of the Ohio; he said if you let a pint of this\nyaller Mississippi water settle, you would have about a half to\nthree-quarters of an inch of mud in the bottom, according to the stage\nof the river, and then it warn't no better than Ohio water--what you\nwanted to do was to keep it stirred up--and when the river was low, keep\nmud on hand to put in and thicken the water up the way it ought to be.\n\nThe Child of Calamity said that was so; he said there was nutritiousness\nin the mud, and a man that drunk Mississippi water could grow corn in\nhis stomach if he wanted to. He says--\n\n'You look at the graveyards; that tells the tale. Trees won't grow worth\nchucks in a Cincinnati graveyard, but in a Sent Louis graveyard they\ngrow upwards of eight hundred foot high. It's all on account of the\nwater the people drunk before they laid up. A Cincinnati corpse don't\nrichen a soil any.'\n\nAnd they talked about how Ohio water didn't like to mix with Mississippi\nwater. Ed said if you take the Mississippi on a rise when the Ohio is\nlow, you'll find a wide band of clear water all the way down the east\nside of the Mississippi for a hundred mile or more, and the minute you\nget out a quarter of a mile from shore and pass the line, it is all\nthick and yaller the rest of the way across. Then they talked about how\nto keep tobacco from getting moldy, and from that they went into ghosts\nand told about a lot that other folks had seen; but Ed says--\n\n'Why don't you tell something that you've seen yourselves? Now let me\nhave a say. Five years ago I was on a raft as big as this, and right\nalong here it was a bright moonshiny night, and I was on watch and boss\nof the stabboard oar forrard, and one of my pards was a man named Dick\nAllbright, and he come along to where I was sitting, forrard--gaping and\nstretching, he was--and stooped down on the edge of the raft and washed\nhis face in the river, and come and set down by me and got out his pipe,\nand had just got it filled, when he looks up and says--\n\n'\"Why looky-here,\" he says, \"ain't that Buck Miller's place, over yander\nin the bend.\"\n\n'\"Yes,\" says I, \"it is--why.\" He laid his pipe down and leant his head\non his hand, and says--\n\n'\"I thought we'd be furder down.\" I says--\n\n'\"I thought it too, when I went off watch\"--we was standing six hours on\nand six off--\"but the boys told me,\" I says, \"that the raft didn't seem\nto hardly move, for the last hour,\" says I, \"though she's a slipping\nalong all right, now,\" says I. He give a kind of a groan, and says--\n\n'\"I've seed a raft act so before, along here,\" he says, \"'pears to me\nthe current has most quit above the head of this bend durin' the last\ntwo years,\" he says.\n\n'Well, he raised up two or three times, and looked away off and around\non the water. That started me at it, too. A body is always doing what he\nsees somebody else doing, though there mayn't be no sense in it. Pretty\nsoon I see a black something floating on the water away off to stabboard\nand quartering behind us. I see he was looking at it, too. I says--\n\n'\"What's that?\" He says, sort of pettish,--\n\n'\"Tain't nothing but an old empty bar'l.\"\n\n'\"An empty bar'l!\" says I, \"why,\" says I, \"a spy-glass is a fool to your\neyes. How can you tell it's an empty bar'l?\" He says--\n\n'\"I don't know; I reckon it ain't a bar'l, but I thought it might be,\"\nsays he.\n\n'\"Yes,\" I says, \"so it might be, and it might be anything else, too; a\nbody can't tell nothing about it, such a distance as that,\" I says.\n\n'We hadn't nothing else to do, so we kept on watching it. By and by I\nsays--\n\n'\"Why looky-here, Dick Allbright, that thing's a-gaining on us, I\nbelieve.\"\n\n'He never said nothing. The thing gained and gained, and I judged it\nmust be a dog that was about tired out. Well, we swung down into\nthe crossing, and the thing floated across the bright streak of the\nmoonshine, and, by George, it was bar'l. Says I--\n\n'\"Dick Allbright, what made you think that thing was a bar'l, when it\nwas a half a mile off,\" says I. Says he--\n\n'\"I don't know.\" Says I--\n\n'\"You tell me, Dick Allbright.\" He says--\n\n'\"Well, I knowed it was a bar'l; I've seen it before; lots has seen it;\nthey says it's a haunted bar'l.\"\n\n'I called the rest of the watch, and they come and stood there, and\nI told them what Dick said. It floated right along abreast, now, and\ndidn't gain any more. It was about twenty foot off. Some was for having\nit aboard, but the rest didn't want to. Dick Allbright said rafts that\nhad fooled with it had got bad luck by it. The captain of the watch\nsaid he didn't believe in it. He said he reckoned the bar'l gained on us\nbecause it was in a little better current than what we was. He said it\nwould leave by and by.\n\n'So then we went to talking about other things, and we had a song, and\nthen a breakdown; and after that the captain of the watch called for\nanother song; but it was clouding up, now, and the bar'l stuck right\nthar in the same place, and the song didn't seem to have much warm-up to\nit, somehow, and so they didn't finish it, and there warn't any cheers,\nbut it sort of dropped flat, and nobody said anything for a minute. Then\neverybody tried to talk at once, and one chap got off a joke, but it\nwarn't no use, they didn't laugh, and even the chap that made the joke\ndidn't laugh at it, which ain't usual. We all just settled down glum,\nand watched the bar'l, and was oneasy and oncomfortable. Well, sir, it\nshut down black and still, and then the wind begin to moan around, and\nnext the lightning begin to play and the thunder to grumble. And pretty\nsoon there was a regular storm, and in the middle of it a man that was\nrunning aft stumbled and fell and sprained his ankle so that he had\nto lay up. This made the boys shake their heads. And every time the\nlightning come, there was that bar'l with the blue lights winking around\nit. We was always on the look-out for it. But by and by, towards dawn,\nshe was gone. When the day come we couldn't see her anywhere, and we\nwarn't sorry, neither.\n\n'But next night about half-past nine, when there was songs and high\njinks going on, here she comes again, and took her old roost on the\nstabboard side. There warn't no more high jinks. Everybody got solemn;\nnobody talked; you couldn't get anybody to do anything but set around\nmoody and look at the bar'l. It begun to cloud up again. When the watch\nchanged, the off watch stayed up, 'stead of turning in. The storm ripped\nand roared around all night, and in the middle of it another man tripped\nand sprained his ankle, and had to knock off. The bar'l left towards\nday, and nobody see it go.\n\n'Everybody was sober and down in the mouth all day. I don't mean the\nkind of sober that comes of leaving liquor alone--not that. They was\nquiet, but they all drunk more than usual--not together--but each man\nsidled off and took it private, by himself.\n\n'After dark the off watch didn't turn in; nobody sung, nobody talked;\nthe boys didn't scatter around, neither; they sort of huddled together,\nforrard; and for two hours they set there, perfectly still, looking\nsteady in the one direction, and heaving a sigh once in a while. And\nthen, here comes the bar'l again. She took up her old place. She staid\nthere all night; nobody turned in. The storm come on again, after\nmidnight. It got awful dark; the rain poured down; hail, too; the\nthunder boomed and roared and bellowed; the wind blowed a hurricane; and\nthe lightning spread over everything in big sheets of glare, and showed\nthe whole raft as plain as day; and the river lashed up white as milk\nas far as you could see for miles, and there was that bar'l jiggering\nalong, same as ever. The captain ordered the watch to man the after\nsweeps for a crossing, and nobody would go--no more sprained ankles for\nthem, they said. They wouldn't even walk aft. Well then, just then the\nsky split wide open, with a crash, and the lightning killed two men of\nthe after watch, and crippled two more. Crippled them how, says you?\nWhy, sprained their ankles!\n\n'The bar'l left in the dark betwixt lightnings, towards dawn. Well, not\na body eat a bite at breakfast that morning. After that the men loafed\naround, in twos and threes, and talked low together. But none of them\nherded with Dick Allbright. They all give him the cold shake. If he come\naround where any of the men was, they split up and sidled away. They\nwouldn't man the sweeps with him. The captain had all the skiffs hauled\nup on the raft, alongside of his wigwam, and wouldn't let the dead men\nbe took ashore to be planted; he didn't believe a man that got ashore\nwould come back; and he was right.\n\n'After night come, you could see pretty plain that there was going to be\ntrouble if that bar'l come again; there was such a muttering going on. A\ngood many wanted to kill Dick Allbright, because he'd seen the bar'l on\nother trips, and that had an ugly look. Some wanted to put him ashore.\nSome said, let's all go ashore in a pile, if the bar'l comes again.\n\n'This kind of whispers was still going on, the men being bunched\ntogether forrard watching for the bar'l, when, lo and behold you, here\nshe comes again. Down she comes, slow and steady, and settles into her\nold tracks. You could a heard a pin drop. Then up comes the captain, and\nsays:--\n\n'\"Boys, don't be a pack of children and fools; I don't want this bar'l\nto be dogging us all the way to Orleans, and _you _don't; well, then,\nhow's the best way to stop it? Burn it up,--that's the way. I'm going\nto fetch it aboard,\" he says. And before anybody could say a word, in he\nwent.\n\n'He swum to it, and as he come pushing it to the raft, the men spread\nto one side. But the old man got it aboard and busted in the head,\nand there was a baby in it! Yes, sir, a stark naked baby. It was Dick\nAllbright's baby; he owned up and said so.\n\n'\"Yes,\" he says, a-leaning over it, \"yes, it is my own lamented darling,\nmy poor lost Charles William Allbright deceased,\" says he,--for he could\ncurl his tongue around the bulliest words in the language when he was a\nmind to, and lay them before you without a jint started, anywheres. Yes,\nhe said he used to live up at the head of this bend, and one night he\nchoked his child, which was crying, not intending to kill it,--which was\nprob'ly a lie,--and then he was scared, and buried it in a bar'l, before\nhis wife got home, and off he went, and struck the northern trail and\nwent to rafting; and this was the third year that the bar'l had chased\nhim. He said the bad luck always begun light, and lasted till four men\nwas killed, and then the bar'l didn't come any more after that. He\nsaid if the men would stand it one more night,--and was a-going on like\nthat,--but the men had got enough. They started to get out a boat to\ntake him ashore and lynch him, but he grabbed the little child all of a\nsudden and jumped overboard with it hugged up to his breast and shedding\ntears, and we never see him again in this life, poor old suffering soul,\nnor Charles William neither.'\n\n'_Who _was shedding tears?' says Bob; 'was it Allbright or the baby?'\n\n'Why, Allbright, of course; didn't I tell you the baby was dead. Been\ndead three years--how could it cry?'\n\n'Well, never mind how it could cry--how could it _keep _all that time?'\nsays Davy. 'You answer me that.'\n\n'I don't know how it done it,' says Ed. 'It done it though--that's all I\nknow about it.'\n\n'Say--what did they do with the bar'l?' says the Child of Calamity.\n\n'Why, they hove it overboard, and it sunk like a chunk of lead.'\n\n'Edward, did the child look like it was choked?' says one.\n\n'Did it have its hair parted?' says another.\n\n'What was the brand on that bar'l, Eddy?' says a fellow they called\nBill.\n\n'Have you got the papers for them statistics, Edmund?' says Jimmy.\n\n'Say, Edwin, was you one of the men that was killed by the lightning.'\nsays Davy.\n\n'Him? O, no, he was both of 'em,' says Bob. Then they all haw-hawed.\n\n'Say, Edward, don't you reckon you'd better take a pill? You look\nbad--don't you feel pale?' says the Child of Calamity.\n\n'O, come, now, Eddy,' says Jimmy, 'show up; you must a kept part of that\nbar'l to prove the thing by. Show us the bunghole--do--and we'll all\nbelieve you.'\n\n'Say, boys,' says Bill, 'less divide it up. Thar's thirteen of us. I can\nswaller a thirteenth of the yarn, if you can worry down the rest.'\n\nEd got up mad and said they could all go to some place which he ripped\nout pretty savage, and then walked off aft cussing to himself, and they\nyelling and jeering at him, and roaring and laughing so you could hear\nthem a mile.\n\n'Boys, we'll split a watermelon on that,' says the Child of Calamity;\nand he come rummaging around in the dark amongst the shingle bundles\nwhere I was, and put his hand on me. I was warm and soft and naked; so\nhe says 'Ouch!' and jumped back.\n\n'Fetch a lantern or a chunk of fire here, boys--there's a snake here as\nbig as a cow!'\n\nSo they run there with a lantern and crowded up and looked in on me.\n\n'Come out of that, you beggar!' says one.\n\n'Who are you?' says another.\n\n'What are you after here? Speak up prompt, or overboard you go.\n\n'Snake him out, boys. Snatch him out by the heels.'\n\nI began to beg, and crept out amongst them trembling. They looked me\nover, wondering, and the Child of Calamity says--\n\n'A cussed thief! Lend a hand and less heave him overboard!'\n\n'No,' says Big Bob, 'less get out the paint-pot and paint him a sky blue\nall over from head to heel, and then heave him over!'\n\n'Good, that 's it. Go for the paint, Jimmy.'\n\nWhen the paint come, and Bob took the brush and was just going to begin,\nthe others laughing and rubbing their hands, I begun to cry, and that\nsort of worked on Davy, and he says--\n\n''Vast there! He 's nothing but a cub. 'I'll paint the man that tetches\nhim!'\n\nSo I looked around on them, and some of them grumbled and growled, and\nBob put down the paint, and the others didn't take it up.\n\n'Come here to the fire, and less see what you're up to here,' says Davy.\n'Now set down there and give an account of yourself. How long have you\nbeen aboard here?'\n\n'Not over a quarter of a minute, sir,' says I.\n\n'How did you get dry so quick?'\n\n'I don't know, sir. I'm always that way, mostly.'\n\n'Oh, you are, are you. What's your name?'\n\nI warn't going to tell my name. I didn't know what to say, so I just\nsays--\n\n'Charles William Allbright, sir.'\n\nThen they roared--the whole crowd; and I was mighty glad I said that,\nbecause maybe laughing would get them in a better humor.\n\nWhen they got done laughing, Davy says--\n\n'It won't hardly do, Charles William. You couldn't have growed this much\nin five year, and you was a baby when you come out of the bar'l, you\nknow, and dead at that. Come, now, tell a straight story, and nobody'll\nhurt you, if you ain't up to anything wrong. What _is_ your name?'\n\n'Aleck Hopkins, sir. Aleck James Hopkins.'\n\n'Well, Aleck, where did you come from, here?'\n\n'From a trading scow. She lays up the bend yonder. I was born on her.\nPap has traded up and down here all his life; and he told me to swim off\nhere, because when you went by he said he would like to get some of you\nto speak to a Mr. Jonas Turner, in Cairo, and tell him--'\n\n'Oh, come!'\n\n'Yes, sir; it's as true as the world; Pap he says--'\n\n'Oh, your grandmother!'\n\nThey all laughed, and I tried again to talk, but they broke in on me and\nstopped me.\n\n'Now, looky-here,' says Davy; 'you're scared, and so you talk wild.\nHonest, now, do you live in a scow, or is it a lie?'\n\n'Yes, sir, in a trading scow. She lays up at the head of the bend. But I\nwarn't born in her. It's our first trip.'\n\n'Now you're talking! What did you come aboard here, for? To steal?'\n\n'No, sir, I didn't.--It was only to get a ride on the raft. All boys\ndoes that.'\n\n'Well, I know that. But what did you hide for?'\n\n'Sometimes they drive the boys off.'\n\n'So they do. They might steal. Looky-here; if we let you off this time,\nwill you keep out of these kind of scrapes hereafter?'\n\n''Deed I will, boss. You try me.'\n\n'All right, then. You ain't but little ways from shore. Overboard with\nyou, and don't you make a fool of yourself another time this way.--Blast\nit, boy, some raftsmen would rawhide you till you were black and blue!'\n\nI didn't wait to kiss good-bye, but went overboard and broke for shore.\nWhen Jim come along by and by, the big raft was away out of sight around\nthe point. I swum out and got aboard, and was mighty glad to see home\nagain.\n\nThe boy did not get the information he was after, but his adventure has\nfurnished the glimpse of the departed raftsman and keelboatman which I\ndesire to offer in this place.\n\nI now come to a phase of the Mississippi River life of the flush times\nof steamboating, which seems to me to warrant full examination--the\nmarvelous science of piloting, as displayed there. I believe there has\nbeen nothing like it elsewhere in the world.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 4\n\nThe Boys' Ambition\n\nWHEN I was a boy, there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades\nin our village {footnote [1. Hannibal, Missouri]} on the west bank of\nthe Mississippi River. That was, to be a steamboatman. We had transient\nambitions of other sorts, but they were only transient. When a circus\ncame and went, it left us all burning to become clowns; the first negro\nminstrel show that came to our section left us all suffering to try that\nkind of life; now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good,\nGod would permit us to be pirates. These ambitions faded out, each in\nits turn; but the ambition to be a steamboatman always remained.\n\nOnce a day a cheap, gaudy packet arrived upward from St. Louis, and\nanother downward from Keokuk. Before these events, the day was glorious\nwith expectancy; after them, the day was a dead and empty thing. Not\nonly the boys, but the whole village, felt this. After all these years I\ncan picture that old time to myself now, just as it was then: the white\ntown drowsing in the sunshine of a summer's morning; the streets empty,\nor pretty nearly so; one or two clerks sitting in front of the Water\nStreet stores, with their splint-bottomed chairs tilted back against\nthe wall, chins on breasts, hats slouched over their faces, asleep--with\nshingle-shavings enough around to show what broke them down; a sow and\na litter of pigs loafing along the sidewalk, doing a good business in\nwatermelon rinds and seeds; two or three lonely little freight piles\nscattered about the 'levee;' a pile of 'skids' on the slope of the\nstone-paved wharf, and the fragrant town drunkard asleep in the shadow\nof them; two or three wood flats at the head of the wharf, but nobody to\nlisten to the peaceful lapping of the wavelets against them; the great\nMississippi, the majestic, the magnificent Mississippi, rolling its\nmile-wide tide along, shining in the sun; the dense forest away on the\nother side; the 'point' above the town, and the 'point' below, bounding\nthe river-glimpse and turning it into a sort of sea, and withal a very\nstill and brilliant and lonely one. Presently a film of dark smoke\nappears above one of those remote 'points;' instantly a negro drayman,\nfamous for his quick eye and prodigious voice, lifts up the cry,\n'S-t-e-a-m-boat a-comin'!' and the scene changes! The town drunkard\nstirs, the clerks wake up, a furious clatter of drays follows, every\nhouse and store pours out a human contribution, and all in a twinkling\nthe dead town is alive and moving.\n\nDrays, carts, men, boys, all go hurrying from many quarters to a common\ncenter, the wharf. Assembled there, the people fasten their eyes upon\nthe coming boat as upon a wonder they are seeing for the first time. And\nthe boat _is_ rather a handsome sight, too. She is long and sharp and\ntrim and pretty; she has two tall, fancy-topped chimneys, with a gilded\ndevice of some kind swung between them; a fanciful pilot-house, a glass\nand 'gingerbread', perched on top of the 'texas' deck behind them; the\npaddle-boxes are gorgeous with a picture or with gilded rays above the\nboat's name; the boiler deck, the hurricane deck, and the texas deck\nare fenced and ornamented with clean white railings; there is a flag\ngallantly flying from the jack-staff; the furnace doors are open and the\nfires glaring bravely; the upper decks are black with passengers; the\ncaptain stands by the big bell, calm, imposing, the envy of all; great\nvolumes of the blackest smoke are rolling and tumbling out of the\nchimneys--a husbanded grandeur created with a bit of pitch pine just\nbefore arriving at a town; the crew are grouped on the forecastle; the\nbroad stage is run far out over the port bow, and an envied deckhand\nstands picturesquely on the end of it with a coil of rope in his hand;\nthe pent steam is screaming through the gauge-cocks, the captain lifts\nhis hand, a bell rings, the wheels stop; then they turn back, churning\nthe water to foam, and the steamer is at rest. Then such a scramble as\nthere is to get aboard, and to get ashore, and to take in freight and to\ndischarge freight, all at one and the same time; and such a yelling\nand cursing as the mates facilitate it all with! Ten minutes later the\nsteamer is under way again, with no flag on the jack-staff and no black\nsmoke issuing from the chimneys. After ten more minutes the town is dead\nagain, and the town drunkard asleep by the skids once more.\n\nMy father was a justice of the peace, and I supposed he possessed\nthe power of life and death over all men and could hang anybody that\noffended him. This was distinction enough for me as a general thing; but\nthe desire to be a steamboatman kept intruding, nevertheless. I first\nwanted to be a cabin-boy, so that I could come out with a white apron\non and shake a tablecloth over the side, where all my old comrades could\nsee me; later I thought I would rather be the deckhand who stood on the\nend of the stage-plank with the coil of rope in his hand, because he was\nparticularly conspicuous. But these were only day-dreams,--they were too\nheavenly to be contemplated as real possibilities. By and by one of our\nboys went away. He was not heard of for a long time. At last he turned\nup as apprentice engineer or 'striker' on a steamboat. This thing shook\nthe bottom out of all my Sunday-school teachings. That boy had been\nnotoriously worldly, and I just the reverse; yet he was exalted to this\neminence, and I left in obscurity and misery. There was nothing generous\nabout this fellow in his greatness. He would always manage to have a\nrusty bolt to scrub while his boat tarried at our town, and he would sit\non the inside guard and scrub it, where we could all see him and envy\nhim and loathe him. And whenever his boat was laid up he would come home\nand swell around the town in his blackest and greasiest clothes, so that\nnobody could help remembering that he was a steamboatman; and he used\nall sorts of steamboat technicalities in his talk, as if he were so used\nto them that he forgot common people could not understand them. He would\nspeak of the 'labboard' side of a horse in an easy, natural way that\nwould make one wish he was dead. And he was always talking about 'St.\nLooy' like an old citizen; he would refer casually to occasions when\nhe 'was coming down Fourth Street,' or when he was 'passing by the\nPlanter's House,' or when there was a fire and he took a turn on the\nbrakes of 'the old Big Missouri;' and then he would go on and lie about\nhow many towns the size of ours were burned down there that day. Two\nor three of the boys had long been persons of consideration among\nus because they had been to St. Louis once and had a vague general\nknowledge of its wonders, but the day of their glory was over now. They\nlapsed into a humble silence, and learned to disappear when the ruthless\n'cub'-engineer approached. This fellow had money, too, and hair oil.\nAlso an ignorant silver watch and a showy brass watch chain. He wore\na leather belt and used no suspenders. If ever a youth was cordially\nadmired and hated by his comrades, this one was. No girl could withstand\nhis charms. He 'cut out' every boy in the village. When his boat blew up\nat last, it diffused a tranquil contentment among us such as we had not\nknown for months. But when he came home the next week, alive, renowned,\nand appeared in church all battered up and bandaged, a shining hero,\nstared at and wondered over by everybody, it seemed to us that the\npartiality of Providence for an undeserving reptile had reached a point\nwhere it was open to criticism.\n\nThis creature's career could produce but one result, and it speedily\nfollowed. Boy after boy managed to get on the river. The minister's son\nbecame an engineer. The doctor's and the post-master's sons became 'mud\nclerks;' the wholesale liquor dealer's son became a barkeeper on a\nboat; four sons of the chief merchant, and two sons of the county judge,\nbecame pilots. Pilot was the grandest position of all. The pilot, even\nin those days of trivial wages, had a princely salary--from a hundred\nand fifty to two hundred and fifty dollars a month, and no board to pay.\nTwo months of his wages would pay a preacher's salary for a year. Now\nsome of us were left disconsolate. We could not get on the river--at\nleast our parents would not let us.\n\nSo by and by I ran away. I said I never would come home again till I was\na pilot and could come in glory. But somehow I could not manage it.\nI went meekly aboard a few of the boats that lay packed together like\nsardines at the long St. Louis wharf, and very humbly inquired for the\npilots, but got only a cold shoulder and short words from mates and\nclerks. I had to make the best of this sort of treatment for the time\nbeing, but I had comforting daydreams of a future when I should be a\ngreat and honored pilot, with plenty of money, and could kill some of\nthese mates and clerks and pay for them.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 5\n\nI Want to be a Cub-pilot\n\nMONTHS afterward the hope within me struggled to a reluctant death, and\nI found myself without an ambition. But I was ashamed to go home. I was\nin Cincinnati, and I set to work to map out a new career. I had\nbeen reading about the recent exploration of the river Amazon by an\nexpedition sent out by our government. It was said that the expedition,\nowing to difficulties, had not thoroughly explored a part of the country\nlying about the head-waters, some four thousand miles from the mouth of\nthe river. It was only about fifteen hundred miles from Cincinnati to\nNew Orleans, where I could doubtless get a ship. I had thirty dollars\nleft; I would go and complete the exploration of the Amazon. This was\nall the thought I gave to the subject. I never was great in matters of\ndetail. I packed my valise, and took passage on an ancient tub called\nthe 'Paul Jones,' for New Orleans. For the sum of sixteen dollars I had\nthe scarred and tarnished splendors of 'her' main saloon principally\nto myself, for she was not a creature to attract the eye of wiser\ntravelers.\n\nWhen we presently got under way and went poking down the broad Ohio,\nI became a new being, and the subject of my own admiration. I was a\ntraveler! A word never had tasted so good in my mouth before. I had an\nexultant sense of being bound for mysterious lands and distant climes\nwhich I never have felt in so uplifting a degree since. I was in such a\nglorified condition that all ignoble feelings departed out of me, and I\nwas able to look down and pity the untraveled with a compassion that had\nhardly a trace of contempt in it. Still, when we stopped at villages and\nwood-yards, I could not help lolling carelessly upon the railings of the\nboiler deck to enjoy the envy of the country boys on the bank. If\nthey did not seem to discover me, I presently sneezed to attract their\nattention, or moved to a position where they could not help seeing me.\nAnd as soon as I knew they saw me I gaped and stretched, and gave other\nsigns of being mightily bored with traveling.\n\nI kept my hat off all the time, and stayed where the wind and the sun\ncould strike me, because I wanted to get the bronzed and weather-beaten\nlook of an old traveler. Before the second day was half gone I\nexperienced a joy which filled me with the purest gratitude; for I saw\nthat the skin had begun to blister and peel off my face and neck. I\nwished that the boys and girls at home could see me now.\n\nWe reached Louisville in time--at least the neighborhood of it. We stuck\nhard and fast on the rocks in the middle of the river, and lay there\nfour days. I was now beginning to feel a strong sense of being a part\nof the boat's family, a sort of infant son to the captain and younger\nbrother to the officers. There is no estimating the pride I took in this\ngrandeur, or the affection that began to swell and grow in me for those\npeople. I could not know how the lordly steamboatman scorns that sort\nof presumption in a mere landsman. I particularly longed to acquire the\nleast trifle of notice from the big stormy mate, and I was on the alert\nfor an opportunity to do him a service to that end. It came at last. The\nriotous powwow of setting a spar was going on down on the forecastle,\nand I went down there and stood around in the way--or mostly skipping\nout of it--till the mate suddenly roared a general order for somebody to\nbring him a capstan bar. I sprang to his side and said: 'Tell me where\nit is--I'll fetch it!'\n\nIf a rag-picker had offered to do a diplomatic service for the Emperor\nof Russia, the monarch could not have been more astounded than the mate\nwas. He even stopped swearing. He stood and stared down at me. It took\nhim ten seconds to scrape his disjointed remains together again. Then\nhe said impressively: 'Well, if this don't beat hell!' and turned to his\nwork with the air of a man who had been confronted with a problem too\nabstruse for solution.\n\nI crept away, and courted solitude for the rest of the day. I did not go\nto dinner; I stayed away from supper until everybody else had finished.\nI did not feel so much like a member of the boat's family now as before.\nHowever, my spirits returned, in installments, as we pursued our way\ndown the river. I was sorry I hated the mate so, because it was not in\n(young) human nature not to admire him. He was huge and muscular, his\nface was bearded and whiskered all over; he had a red woman and a blue\nwoman tattooed on his right arm,--one on each side of a blue anchor with\na red rope to it; and in the matter of profanity he was sublime. When he\nwas getting out cargo at a landing, I was always where I could see and\nhear. He felt all the majesty of his great position, and made the world\nfeel it, too. When he gave even the simplest order, he discharged\nit like a blast of lightning, and sent a long, reverberating peal of\nprofanity thundering after it. I could not help contrasting the way in\nwhich the average landsman would give an order, with the mate's way\nof doing it. If the landsman should wish the gang-plank moved a foot\nfarther forward, he would probably say: 'James, or William, one of you\npush that plank forward, please;' but put the mate in his place and he\nwould roar out: 'Here, now, start that gang-plank for'ard! Lively, now!\n_what_'re you about! Snatch it! SNATCH it! There! there! Aft again! aft\nagain! don't you hear me. Dash it to dash! are you going to _sleep _over\nit! '_Vast _heaving. 'Vast heaving, I tell you! Going to heave it clear\nastern? _Where_'re you going with that barrel! _For'ard_ with it 'fore\nI make you swallow it, you dash-dash-dash-_dashed _split between a tired\nmud-turtle and a crippled hearse-horse!'\n\nI wished I could talk like that.\n\nWhen the soreness of my adventure with the mate had somewhat worn off,\nI began timidly to make up to the humblest official connected with\nthe boat--the night watchman. He snubbed my advances at first, but I\npresently ventured to offer him a new chalk pipe; and that softened him.\nSo he allowed me to sit with him by the big bell on the hurricane deck,\nand in time he melted into conversation. He could not well have helped\nit, I hung with such homage on his words and so plainly showed that\nI felt honored by his notice. He told me the names of dim capes and\nshadowy islands as we glided by them in the solemnity of the night,\nunder the winking stars, and by and by got to talking about himself.\nHe seemed over-sentimental for a man whose salary was six dollars a\nweek--or rather he might have seemed so to an older person than I. But\nI drank in his words hungrily, and with a faith that might have moved\nmountains if it had been applied judiciously. What was it to me that he\nwas soiled and seedy and fragrant with gin? What was it to me that his\ngrammar was bad, his construction worse, and his profanity so void\nof art that it was an element of weakness rather than strength in his\nconversation? He was a wronged man, a man who had seen trouble, and that\nwas enough for me. As he mellowed into his plaintive history his tears\ndripped upon the lantern in his lap, and I cried, too, from sympathy.\n\nHe said he was the son of an English nobleman--either an earl or an\nalderman, he could not remember which, but believed was both; his\nfather, the nobleman, loved him, but his mother hated him from the\ncradle; and so while he was still a little boy he was sent to 'one of\nthem old, ancient colleges'--he couldn't remember which; and by and by\nhis father died and his mother seized the property and 'shook' him as\nhe phrased it. After his mother shook him, members of the nobility with\nwhom he was acquainted used their influence to get him the position of\n'loblolly-boy in a ship;' and from that point my watchman threw off all\ntrammels of date and locality and branched out into a narrative that\nbristled all along with incredible adventures; a narrative that was so\nreeking with bloodshed and so crammed with hair-breadth escapes and\nthe most engaging and unconscious personal villainies, that I sat\nspeechless, enjoying, shuddering, wondering, worshipping.\n\nIt was a sore blight to find out afterwards that he was a low, vulgar,\nignorant, sentimental, half-witted humbug, an untraveled native of the\nwilds of Illinois, who had absorbed wildcat literature and appropriated\nits marvels, until in time he had woven odds and ends of the mess into\nthis yarn, and then gone on telling it to fledglings like me, until he\nhad come to believe it himself.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 6\n\nA Cub-pilot's Experience\n\nWHAT with lying on the rocks four days at Louisville, and some other\ndelays, the poor old 'Paul Jones' fooled away about two weeks in making\nthe voyage from Cincinnati to New Orleans. This gave me a chance to get\nacquainted with one of the pilots, and he taught me how to steer the\nboat, and thus made the fascination of river life more potent than ever\nfor me.\n\nIt also gave me a chance to get acquainted with a youth who had taken\ndeck passage--more's the pity; for he easily borrowed six dollars of me\non a promise to return to the boat and pay it back to me the day after\nwe should arrive. But he probably died or forgot, for he never came. It\nwas doubtless the former, since he had said his parents were wealthy,\nand he only traveled deck passage because it was cooler.{footnote [1.\n'Deck' Passage, i.e. steerage passage.]}\n\nI soon discovered two things. One was that a vessel would not be likely\nto sail for the mouth of the Amazon under ten or twelve years; and the\nother was that the nine or ten dollars still left in my pocket would not\nsuffice for so imposing an exploration as I had planned, even if I could\nafford to wait for a ship. Therefore it followed that I must contrive\na new career. The 'Paul Jones' was now bound for St. Louis. I planned\na siege against my pilot, and at the end of three hard days he\nsurrendered. He agreed to teach me the Mississippi River from New\nOrleans to St. Louis for five hundred dollars, payable out of the\nfirst wages I should receive after graduating. I entered upon the small\nenterprise of 'learning' twelve or thirteen hundred miles of the great\nMississippi River with the easy confidence of my time of life. If I had\nreally known what I was about to require of my faculties, I should not\nhave had the courage to begin. I supposed that all a pilot had to do was\nto keep his boat in the river, and I did not consider that that could be\nmuch of a trick, since it was so wide.\n\nThe boat backed out from New Orleans at four in the afternoon, and it\nwas 'our watch' until eight. Mr. Bixby, my chief, 'straightened her\nup,' plowed her along past the sterns of the other boats that lay at the\nLevee, and then said, 'Here, take her; shave those steamships as close\nas you'd peel an apple.' I took the wheel, and my heart-beat fluttered\nup into the hundreds; for it seemed to me that we were about to scrape\nthe side off every ship in the line, we were so close. I held my breath\nand began to claw the boat away from the danger; and I had my own\nopinion of the pilot who had known no better than to get us into such\nperil, but I was too wise to express it. In half a minute I had a wide\nmargin of safety intervening between the 'Paul Jones' and the ships; and\nwithin ten seconds more I was set aside in disgrace, and Mr. Bixby was\ngoing into danger again and flaying me alive with abuse of my cowardice.\nI was stung, but I was obliged to admire the easy confidence with which\nmy chief loafed from side to side of his wheel, and trimmed the ships so\nclosely that disaster seemed ceaselessly imminent. When he had cooled a\nlittle he told me that the easy water was close ashore and the current\noutside, and therefore we must hug the bank, up-stream, to get the\nbenefit of the former, and stay well out, down-stream, to take advantage\nof the latter. In my own mind I resolved to be a down-stream pilot and\nleave the up-streaming to people dead to prudence.\n\nNow and then Mr. Bixby called my attention to certain things. Said\nhe, 'This is Six-Mile Point.' I assented. It was pleasant enough\ninformation, but I could not see the bearing of it. I was not conscious\nthat it was a matter of any interest to me. Another time he said, 'This\nis Nine-Mile Point.' Later he said, 'This is Twelve-Mile Point.' They\nwere all about level with the water's edge; they all looked about alike\nto me; they were monotonously unpicturesque. I hoped Mr. Bixby would\nchange the subject. But no; he would crowd up around a point, hugging\nthe shore with affection, and then say: 'The slack water ends here,\nabreast this bunch of China-trees; now we cross over.' So he crossed\nover. He gave me the wheel once or twice, but I had no luck. I either\ncame near chipping off the edge of a sugar plantation, or I yawed too\nfar from shore, and so dropped back into disgrace again and got abused.\n\nThe watch was ended at last, and we took supper and went to bed. At\nmidnight the glare of a lantern shone in my eyes, and the night watchman\nsaid--\n\n'Come! turn out!'\n\nAnd then he left. I could not understand this extraordinary procedure;\nso I presently gave up trying to, and dozed off to sleep. Pretty soon\nthe watchman was back again, and this time he was gruff. I was annoyed.\nI said:--\n\n'What do you want to come bothering around here in the middle of the\nnight for. Now as like as not I'll not get to sleep again to-night.'\n\nThe watchman said--\n\n'Well, if this an't good, I'm blest.'\n\nThe 'off-watch' was just turning in, and I heard some brutal laughter\nfrom them, and such remarks as 'Hello, watchman! an't the new cub turned\nout yet? He's delicate, likely. Give him some sugar in a rag and send\nfor the chambermaid to sing rock-a-by-baby to him.'\n\nAbout this time Mr. Bixby appeared on the scene. Something like a minute\nlater I was climbing the pilot-house steps with some of my clothes on\nand the rest in my arms. Mr. Bixby was close behind, commenting. Here\nwas something fresh--this thing of getting up in the middle of the night\nto go to work. It was a detail in piloting that had never occurred to\nme at all. I knew that boats ran all night, but somehow I had never\nhappened to reflect that somebody had to get up out of a warm bed to run\nthem. I began to fear that piloting was not quite so romantic as I had\nimagined it was; there was something very real and work-like about this\nnew phase of it.\n\nIt was a rather dingy night, although a fair number of stars were out.\nThe big mate was at the wheel, and he had the old tub pointed at a star\nand was holding her straight up the middle of the river. The shores on\neither hand were not much more than half a mile apart, but they seemed\nwonderfully far away and ever so vague and indistinct. The mate said:--\n\n'We've got to land at Jones's plantation, sir.'\n\nThe vengeful spirit in me exulted. I said to myself, I wish you joy\nof your job, Mr. Bixby; you'll have a good time finding Mr. Jones's\nplantation such a night as this; and I hope you never _will _find it as\nlong as you live.\n\nMr. Bixby said to the mate:--\n\n'Upper end of the plantation, or the lower?'\n\n'Upper.'\n\n'I can't do it. The stumps there are out of water at this stage: It's no\ngreat distance to the lower, and you'll have to get along with that.'\n\n'All right, sir. If Jones don't like it he'll have to lump it, I\nreckon.'\n\nAnd then the mate left. My exultation began to cool and my wonder to\ncome up. Here was a man who not only proposed to find this plantation on\nsuch a night, but to find either end of it you preferred. I dreadfully\nwanted to ask a question, but I was carrying about as many short answers\nas my cargo-room would admit of, so I held my peace. All I desired\nto ask Mr. Bixby was the simple question whether he was ass enough to\nreally imagine he was going to find that plantation on a night when all\nplantations were exactly alike and all the same color. But I held in. I\nused to have fine inspirations of prudence in those days.\n\nMr. Bixby made for the shore and soon was scraping it, just the same as\nif it had been daylight. And not only that, but singing--\n\n'Father in heaven, the day is declining,' etc.\n\nIt seemed to me that I had put my life in the keeping of a peculiarly\nreckless outcast. Presently he turned on me and said:--\n\n'What's the name of the first point above New Orleans?'\n\nI was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I\ndidn't know.\n\n'Don't _know_?'\n\nThis manner jolted me. I was down at the foot again, in a moment. But I\nhad to say just what I had said before.\n\n'Well, you're a smart one,' said Mr. Bixby. 'What's the name of the\n_next_ point?'\n\nOnce more I didn't know.\n\n'Well, this beats anything. Tell me the name of _any _point or place I\ntold you.'\n\nI studied a while and decided that I couldn't.\n\n'Look here! What do you start out from, above Twelve-Mile Point, to\ncross over?'\n\n'I--I--don't know.'\n\n'You--you--don't know?' mimicking my drawling manner of speech. 'What\n_do_ you know?'\n\n'I--I--nothing, for certain.'\n\n'By the great Caesar's ghost, I believe you! You're the stupidest\ndunderhead I ever saw or ever heard of, so help me Moses! The idea of\nyou being a pilot--you! Why, you don't know enough to pilot a cow down a\nlane.'\n\nOh, but his wrath was up! He was a nervous man, and he shuffled from one\nside of his wheel to the other as if the floor was hot. He would boil a\nwhile to himself, and then overflow and scald me again.\n\n'Look here! What do you suppose I told you the names of those points\nfor?'\n\nI tremblingly considered a moment, and then the devil of temptation\nprovoked me to say:--\n\n'Well--to--to--be entertaining, I thought.'\n\nThis was a red rag to the bull. He raged and stormed so (he was crossing\nthe river at the time) that I judge it made him blind, because he ran\nover the steering-oar of a trading-scow. Of course the traders sent up\na volley of red-hot profanity. Never was a man so grateful as Mr. Bixby\nwas: because he was brim full, and here were subjects who would\n_talk back_. He threw open a window, thrust his head out, and such an\nirruption followed as I never had heard before. The fainter and farther\naway the scowmen's curses drifted, the higher Mr. Bixby lifted his voice\nand the weightier his adjectives grew. When he closed the window he was\nempty. You could have drawn a seine through his system and not caught\ncurses enough to disturb your mother with. Presently he said to me in\nthe gentlest way--\n\n'My boy, you must get a little memorandum book, and every time I tell\nyou a thing, put it down right away. There's only one way to be a pilot,\nand that is to get this entire river by heart. You have to know it just\nlike A B C.'\n\nThat was a dismal revelation to me; for my memory was never loaded with\nanything but blank cartridges. However, I did not feel discouraged long.\nI judged that it was best to make some allowances, for doubtless Mr.\nBixby was 'stretching.' Presently he pulled a rope and struck a few\nstrokes on the big bell. The stars were all gone now, and the night was\nas black as ink. I could hear the wheels churn along the bank, but I\nwas not entirely certain that I could see the shore. The voice of the\ninvisible watchman called up from the hurricane deck--\n\n'What's this, sir?'\n\n'Jones's plantation.'\n\nI said to myself, I wish I might venture to offer a small bet that it\nisn't. But I did not chirp. I only waited to see. Mr. Bixby handled the\nengine bells, and in due time the boat's nose came to the land, a torch\nglowed from the forecastle, a man skipped ashore, a darky's voice on the\nbank said, 'Gimme de k'yarpet-bag, Mars' Jones,' and the next moment we\nwere standing up the river again, all serene. I reflected deeply awhile,\nand then said--but not aloud--'Well, the finding of that plantation was\nthe luckiest accident that ever happened; but it couldn't happen again\nin a hundred years.' And I fully believed it was an accident, too.\n\nBy the time we had gone seven or eight hundred miles up the river, I had\nlearned to be a tolerably plucky up-stream steersman, in daylight,\nand before we reached St. Louis I had made a trifle of progress in\nnight-work, but only a trifle. I had a note-book that fairly bristled\nwith the names of towns, 'points,' bars, islands, bends, reaches, etc.;\nbut the information was to be found only in the notebook--none of it was\nin my head. It made my heart ache to think I had only got half of the\nriver set down; for as our watch was four hours off and four hours on,\nday and night, there was a long four-hour gap in my book for every time\nI had slept since the voyage began.\n\nMy chief was presently hired to go on a big New Orleans boat, and I\npacked my satchel and went with him. She was a grand affair. When I\nstood in her pilot-house I was so far above the water that I seemed\nperched on a mountain; and her decks stretched so far away, fore and\naft, below me, that I wondered how I could ever have considered the\nlittle 'Paul Jones' a large craft. There were other differences, too.\nThe 'Paul Jones's' pilot-house was a cheap, dingy, battered rattle-trap,\ncramped for room: but here was a sumptuous glass temple; room enough to\nhave a dance in; showy red and gold window-curtains; an imposing sofa;\nleather cushions and a back to the high bench where visiting pilots sit,\nto spin yarns and 'look at the river;' bright, fanciful 'cuspadores'\ninstead of a broad wooden box filled with sawdust; nice new oil-cloth\non the floor; a hospitable big stove for winter; a wheel as high as my\nhead, costly with inlaid work; a wire tiller-rope; bright brass knobs\nfor the bells; and a tidy, white-aproned, black 'texas-tender,' to bring\nup tarts and ices and coffee during mid-watch, day and night. Now this\nwas 'something like,' and so I began to take heart once more to believe\nthat piloting was a romantic sort of occupation after all. The moment we\nwere under way I began to prowl about the great steamer and fill myself\nwith joy. She was as clean and as dainty as a drawing-room; when I\nlooked down her long, gilded saloon, it was like gazing through a\nsplendid tunnel; she had an oil-picture, by some gifted sign-painter,\non every stateroom door; she glittered with no end of prism-fringed\nchandeliers; the clerk's office was elegant, the bar was marvelous, and\nthe bar-keeper had been barbered and upholstered at incredible cost.\nThe boiler deck (i.e. the second story of the boat, so to speak) was as\nspacious as a church, it seemed to me; so with the forecastle; and\nthere was no pitiful handful of deckhands, firemen, and roustabouts down\nthere, but a whole battalion of men. The fires were fiercely glaring\nfrom a long row of furnaces, and over them were eight huge boilers!\nThis was unutterable pomp. The mighty engines--but enough of this. I had\nnever felt so fine before. And when I found that the regiment of natty\nservants respectfully 'sir'd' me, my satisfaction was complete.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 7\n\nA Daring Deed\n\nWHEN I returned to the pilot-house St. Louis was gone and I was lost.\nHere was a piece of river which was all down in my book, but I could\nmake neither head nor tail of it: you understand, it was turned around.\nI had seen it when coming up-stream, but I had never faced about to see\nhow it looked when it was behind me. My heart broke again, for it was\nplain that I had got to learn this troublesome river _both ways_.\n\nThe pilot-house was full of pilots, going down to 'look at the river.'\nWhat is called the 'upper river' (the two hundred miles between St.\nLouis and Cairo, where the Ohio comes in) was low; and the Mississippi\nchanges its channel so constantly that the pilots used to always find\nit necessary to run down to Cairo to take a fresh look, when their boats\nwere to lie in port a week; that is, when the water was at a low stage.\nA deal of this 'looking at the river' was done by poor fellows who\nseldom had a berth, and whose only hope of getting one lay in their\nbeing always freshly posted and therefore ready to drop into the shoes\nof some reputable pilot, for a single trip, on account of such pilot's\nsudden illness, or some other necessity. And a good many of them\nconstantly ran up and down inspecting the river, not because they ever\nreally hoped to get a berth, but because (they being guests of the boat)\nit was cheaper to 'look at the river' than stay ashore and pay board. In\ntime these fellows grew dainty in their tastes, and only infested boats\nthat had an established reputation for setting good tables. All visiting\npilots were useful, for they were always ready and willing, winter or\nsummer, night or day, to go out in the yawl and help buoy the channel\nor assist the boat's pilots in any way they could. They were likewise\nwelcome because all pilots are tireless talkers, when gathered together,\nand as they talk only about the river they are always understood and\nare always interesting. Your true pilot cares nothing about anything on\nearth but the river, and his pride in his occupation surpasses the pride\nof kings.\n\nWe had a fine company of these river-inspectors along, this trip. There\nwere eight or ten; and there was abundance of room for them in our great\npilot-house. Two or three of them wore polished silk hats, elaborate\nshirt-fronts, diamond breast-pins, kid gloves, and patent-leather boots.\nThey were choice in their English, and bore themselves with a dignity\nproper to men of solid means and prodigious reputation as pilots. The\nothers were more or less loosely clad, and wore upon their heads tall\nfelt cones that were suggestive of the days of the Commonwealth.\n\nI was a cipher in this august company, and felt subdued, not to say\ntorpid. I was not even of sufficient consequence to assist at the wheel\nwhen it was necessary to put the tiller hard down in a hurry; the guest\nthat stood nearest did that when occasion required--and this was pretty\nmuch all the time, because of the crookedness of the channel and the\nscant water. I stood in a corner; and the talk I listened to took the\nhope all out of me. One visitor said to another--\n\n'Jim, how did you run Plum Point, coming up?'\n\n'It was in the night, there, and I ran it the way one of the boys on the\n\"Diana\" told me; started out about fifty yards above the wood pile on\nthe false point, and held on the cabin under Plum Point till I raised\nthe reef--quarter less twain--then straightened up for the middle bar\ntill I got well abreast the old one-limbed cotton-wood in the bend,\nthen got my stern on the cotton-wood and head on the low place above the\npoint, and came through a-booming--nine and a half.'\n\n'Pretty square crossing, an't it?'\n\n'Yes, but the upper bar 's working down fast.'\n\nAnother pilot spoke up and said--\n\n'I had better water than that, and ran it lower down; started out from\nthe false point--mark twain--raised the second reef abreast the big snag\nin the bend, and had quarter less twain.'\n\nOne of the gorgeous ones remarked--\n\n'I don't want to find fault with your leadsmen, but that's a good deal\nof water for Plum Point, it seems to me.'\n\nThere was an approving nod all around as this quiet snub dropped on\nthe boaster and 'settled' him. And so they went on talk-talk-talking.\nMeantime, the thing that was running in my mind was, 'Now if my ears\nhear aright, I have not only to get the names of all the towns and\nislands and bends, and so on, by heart, but I must even get up a warm\npersonal acquaintanceship with every old snag and one-limbed cotton-wood\nand obscure wood pile that ornaments the banks of this river for twelve\nhundred miles; and more than that, I must actually know where these\nthings are in the dark, unless these guests are gifted with eyes that\ncan pierce through two miles of solid blackness; I wish the piloting\nbusiness was in Jericho and I had never thought of it.'\n\nAt dusk Mr. Bixby tapped the big bell three times (the signal to land),\nand the captain emerged from his drawing-room in the forward end of the\ntexas, and looked up inquiringly. Mr. Bixby said--\n\n'We will lay up here all night, captain.'\n\n'Very well, sir.'\n\nThat was all. The boat came to shore and was tied up for the night. It\nseemed to me a fine thing that the pilot could do as he pleased, without\nasking so grand a captain's permission. I took my supper and\nwent immediately to bed, discouraged by my day's observations and\nexperiences. My late voyage's note-booking was but a confusion of\nmeaningless names. It had tangled me all up in a knot every time I had\nlooked at it in the daytime. I now hoped for respite in sleep; but\nno, it reveled all through my head till sunrise again, a frantic and\ntireless nightmare.\n\nNext morning I felt pretty rusty and low-spirited. We went booming\nalong, taking a good many chances, for we were anxious to 'get out of\nthe river' (as getting out to Cairo was called) before night should\novertake us. But Mr. Bixby's partner, the other pilot, presently\ngrounded the boat, and we lost so much time in getting her off that\nit was plain that darkness would overtake us a good long way above\nthe mouth. This was a great misfortune, especially to certain of our\nvisiting pilots, whose boats would have to wait for their return, no\nmatter how long that might be. It sobered the pilot-house talk a good\ndeal. Coming up-stream, pilots did not mind low water or any kind\nof darkness; nothing stopped them but fog. But down-stream work was\ndifferent; a boat was too nearly helpless, with a stiff current pushing\nbehind her; so it was not customary to run down-stream at night in low\nwater.\n\nThere seemed to be one small hope, however: if we could get through\nthe intricate and dangerous Hat Island crossing before night, we could\nventure the rest, for we would have plainer sailing and better water.\nBut it would be insanity to attempt Hat Island at night. So there was\na deal of looking at watches all the rest of the day, and a constant\nciphering upon the speed we were making; Hat Island was the eternal\nsubject; sometimes hope was high and sometimes we were delayed in a\nbad crossing, and down it went again. For hours all hands lay under the\nburden of this suppressed excitement; it was even communicated to me,\nand I got to feeling so solicitous about Hat Island, and under such\nan awful pressure of responsibility, that I wished I might have five\nminutes on shore to draw a good, full, relieving breath, and start over\nagain. We were standing no regular watches. Each of our pilots ran such\nportions of the river as he had run when coming up-stream, because of\nhis greater familiarity with it; but both remained in the pilot house\nconstantly.\n\nAn hour before sunset, Mr. Bixby took the wheel and Mr. W----stepped\naside. For the next thirty minutes every man held his watch in his hand\nand was restless, silent, and uneasy. At last somebody said, with a\ndoomful sigh--\n\n'Well, yonder's Hat Island--and we can't make it.' All the watches\nclosed with a snap, everybody sighed and muttered something about its\nbeing 'too bad, too bad--ah, if we could only have got here half an hour\nsooner!' and the place was thick with the atmosphere of disappointment.\nSome started to go out, but loitered, hearing no bell-tap to land. The\nsun dipped behind the horizon, the boat went on. Inquiring looks passed\nfrom one guest to another; and one who had his hand on the door-knob\nand had turned it, waited, then presently took away his hand and let the\nknob turn back again. We bore steadily down the bend. More looks were\nexchanged, and nods of surprised admiration--but no words. Insensibly\nthe men drew together behind Mr. Bixby, as the sky darkened and one or\ntwo dim stars came out. The dead silence and sense of waiting became\noppressive. Mr. Bixby pulled the cord, and two deep, mellow notes from\nthe big bell floated off on the night. Then a pause, and one more note\nwas struck. The watchman's voice followed, from the hurricane deck--\n\n'Labboard lead, there! Stabboard lead!'\n\nThe cries of the leadsmen began to rise out of the distance, and were\ngruffly repeated by the word-passers on the hurricane deck.\n\n'M-a-r-k three!... M-a-r-k three!... Quarter-less three!... Half\ntwain!... Quarter twain!... M-a-r-k twain!... Quarter-less--'\n\nMr. Bixby pulled two bell-ropes, and was answered by faint jinglings far\nbelow in the engine room, and our speed slackened. The steam began to\nwhistle through the gauge-cocks. The cries of the leadsmen went on--and\nit is a weird sound, always, in the night. Every pilot in the lot was\nwatching now, with fixed eyes, and talking under his breath. Nobody was\ncalm and easy but Mr. Bixby. He would put his wheel down and stand on\na spoke, and as the steamer swung into her (to me) utterly invisible\nmarks--for we seemed to be in the midst of a wide and gloomy sea--he\nwould meet and fasten her there. Out of the murmur of half-audible talk,\none caught a coherent sentence now and then--such as--\n\n'There; she's over the first reef all right!'\n\nAfter a pause, another subdued voice--\n\n'Her stern's coming down just exactly right, by George!'\n\n'Now she's in the marks; over she goes!'\n\nSomebody else muttered--\n\n'Oh, it was done beautiful--_beautiful_!'\n\nNow the engines were stopped altogether, and we drifted with the\ncurrent. Not that I could see the boat drift, for I could not, the stars\nbeing all gone by this time. This drifting was the dismalest work; it\nheld one's heart still. Presently I discovered a blacker gloom than\nthat which surrounded us. It was the head of the island. We were closing\nright down upon it. We entered its deeper shadow, and so imminent\nseemed the peril that I was likely to suffocate; and I had the strongest\nimpulse to do _something_, anything, to save the vessel. But still Mr.\nBixby stood by his wheel, silent, intent as a cat, and all the pilots\nstood shoulder to shoulder at his back.\n\n'She'll not make it!' somebody whispered.\n\nThe water grew shoaler and shoaler, by the leadsman's cries, till it was\ndown to--\n\n'Eight-and-a-half!.... E-i-g-h-t feet!.... E-i-g-h-t feet!....\nSeven-and--'\n\nMr. Bixby said warningly through his speaking tube to the engineer--\n\n'Stand by, now!'\n\n'Aye-aye, sir!'\n\n'Seven-and-a-half! Seven feet! Six-and--'\n\nWe touched bottom! Instantly Mr. Bixby set a lot of bells ringing,\nshouted through the tube, 'NOW, let her have it--every ounce you've\ngot!' then to his partner, 'Put her hard down! snatch her! snatch her!'\nThe boat rasped and ground her way through the sand, hung upon the apex\nof disaster a single tremendous instant, and then over she went! And\nsuch a shout as went up at Mr. Bixby's back never loosened the roof of a\npilot-house before!\n\nThere was no more trouble after that. Mr. Bixby was a hero that night;\nand it was some little time, too, before his exploit ceased to be talked\nabout by river men.\n\nFully to realize the marvelous precision required in laying the great\nsteamer in her marks in that murky waste of water, one should know that\nnot only must she pick her intricate way through snags and blind\nreefs, and then shave the head of the island so closely as to brush\nthe overhanging foliage with her stern, but at one place she must pass\nalmost within arm's reach of a sunken and invisible wreck that would\nsnatch the hull timbers from under her if she should strike it, and\ndestroy a quarter of a million dollars' worth of steam-boat and cargo\nin five minutes, and maybe a hundred and fifty human lives into the\nbargain.\n\nThe last remark I heard that night was a compliment to Mr. Bixby,\nuttered in soliloquy and with unction by one of our guests. He said--\n\n'By the Shadow of Death, but he's a lightning pilot!'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 8\n\nPerplexing Lessons\n\nAt the end of what seemed a tedious while, I had managed to pack my\nhead full of islands, towns, bars, 'points,' and bends; and a curiously\ninanimate mass of lumber it was, too. However, inasmuch as I could shut\nmy eyes and reel off a good long string of these names without leaving\nout more than ten miles of river in every fifty, I began to feel that\nI could take a boat down to New Orleans if I could make her skip those\nlittle gaps. But of course my complacency could hardly get start enough\nto lift my nose a trifle into the air, before Mr. Bixby would think of\nsomething to fetch it down again. One day he turned on me suddenly with\nthis settler--\n\n'What is the shape of Walnut Bend?'\n\nHe might as well have asked me my grandmother's opinion of protoplasm.\nI reflected respectfully, and then said I didn't know it had any\nparticular shape. My gunpowdery chief went off with a bang, of course,\nand then went on loading and firing until he was out of adjectives.\n\nI had learned long ago that he only carried just so many rounds of\nammunition, and was sure to subside into a very placable and even\nremorseful old smooth-bore as soon as they were all gone. That word\n'old' is merely affectionate; he was not more than thirty-four. I\nwaited. By and by he said--\n\n'My boy, you've got to know the _shape _of the river perfectly. It is\nall there is left to steer by on a very dark night. Everything else\nis blotted out and gone. But mind you, it hasn't the same shape in the\nnight that it has in the day-time.'\n\n'How on earth am I ever going to learn it, then?'\n\n'How do you follow a hall at home in the dark. Because you know the\nshape of it. You can't see it.'\n\n'Do you mean to say that I've got to know all the million trifling\nvariations of shape in the banks of this interminable river as well as I\nknow the shape of the front hall at home?'\n\n'On my honor, you've got to know them _better _than any man ever did\nknow the shapes of the halls in his own house.'\n\n'I wish I was dead!'\n\n'Now I don't want to discourage you, but--'\n\n'Well, pile it on me; I might as well have it now as another time.'\n\n'You see, this has got to be learned; there isn't any getting around\nit. A clear starlight night throws such heavy shadows that if you didn't\nknow the shape of a shore perfectly you would claw away from every bunch\nof timber, because you would take the black shadow of it for a solid\ncape; and you see you would be getting scared to death every fifteen\nminutes by the watch. You would be fifty yards from shore all the time\nwhen you ought to be within fifty feet of it. You can't see a snag in\none of those shadows, but you know exactly where it is, and the shape\nof the river tells you when you are coming to it. Then there's your\npitch-dark night; the river is a very different shape on a pitch-dark\nnight from what it is on a starlight night. All shores seem to be\nstraight lines, then, and mighty dim ones, too; and you'd _run _them for\nstraight lines only you know better. You boldly drive your boat right\ninto what seems to be a solid, straight wall (you knowing very well that\nin reality there is a curve there), and that wall falls back and makes\nway for you. Then there's your gray mist. You take a night when there's\none of these grisly, drizzly, gray mists, and then there isn't any\nparticular shape to a shore. A gray mist would tangle the head of the\noldest man that ever lived. Well, then, different kinds of _moonlight\n_change the shape of the river in different ways. You see--'\n\n'Oh, don't say any more, please! Have I got to learn the shape of the\nriver according to all these five hundred thousand different ways? If\nI tried to carry all that cargo in my head it would make me\nstoop-shouldered.'\n\n'_No_! you only learn _the _shape of the river, and you learn it with\nsuch absolute certainty that you can always steer by the shape that's\n_in your head_, and never mind the one that's before your eyes.'\n\n'Very well, I'll try it; but after I have learned it can I depend on it.\nWill it keep the same form and not go fooling around?'\n\nBefore Mr. Bixby could answer, Mr. W---- came in to take the watch, and\nhe said--\n\n'Bixby, you'll have to look out for President's Island and all that\ncountry clear away up above the Old Hen and Chickens. The banks are\ncaving and the shape of the shores changing like everything. Why,\nyou wouldn't know the point above 40. You can go up inside the old\nsycamore-snag, now.{footnote [1. It may not be necessary, but still it\ncan do no harm to explain that 'inside' means between the snag and the\nshore.--M.T.]}\n\nSo that question was answered. Here were leagues of shore changing\nshape. My spirits were down in the mud again. Two things seemed pretty\napparent to me. One was, that in order to be a pilot a man had got to\nlearn more than any one man ought to be allowed to know; and the other\nwas, that he must learn it all over again in a different way every\ntwenty-four hours.\n\nThat night we had the watch until twelve. Now it was an ancient river\ncustom for the two pilots to chat a bit when the watch changed. While\nthe relieving pilot put on his gloves and lit his cigar, his partner,\nthe retiring pilot, would say something like this--\n\n'I judge the upper bar is making down a little at Hale's Point; had\nquarter twain with the lower lead and mark twain {footnote [Two fathoms.\n'Quarter twain' is two-and-a-quarter fathoms, thirteen-and-a-half feet.\n'Mark three' is three fathoms.]} with the other.'\n\n'Yes, I thought it was making down a little, last trip. Meet any boats?'\n\n'Met one abreast the head of 21, but she was away over hugging the\nbar, and I couldn't make her out entirely. I took her for the \"Sunny\nSouth\"--hadn't any skylights forward of the chimneys.'\n\nAnd so on. And as the relieving pilot took the wheel his partner\n{footnote ['Partner' is a technical term for 'the other pilot'.]} would\nmention that we were in such-and-such a bend, and say we were abreast\nof such-and-such a man's wood-yard or plantation. This was courtesy;\nI supposed it was necessity. But Mr. W---- came on watch full twelve\nminutes late on this particular night,--a tremendous breach of\netiquette; in fact, it is the unpardonable sin among pilots. So Mr.\nBixby gave him no greeting whatever, but simply surrendered the wheel\nand marched out of the pilot-house without a word. I was appalled; it\nwas a villainous night for blackness, we were in a particularly wide\nand blind part of the river, where there was no shape or substance to\nanything, and it seemed incredible that Mr. Bixby should have left that\npoor fellow to kill the boat trying to find out where he was. But I\nresolved that I would stand by him any way. He should find that he was\nnot wholly friendless. So I stood around, and waited to be asked where\nwe were. But Mr. W---- plunged on serenely through the solid firmament\nof black cats that stood for an atmosphere, and never opened his mouth.\nHere is a proud devil, thought I; here is a limb of Satan that would\nrather send us all to destruction than put himself under obligations to\nme, because I am not yet one of the salt of the earth and privileged to\nsnub captains and lord it over everything dead and alive in a steamboat.\nI presently climbed up on the bench; I did not think it was safe to go\nto sleep while this lunatic was on watch.\n\nHowever, I must have gone to sleep in the course of time, because the\nnext thing I was aware of was the fact that day was breaking, Mr. W----\ngone, and Mr. Bixby at the wheel again. So it was four o'clock and all\nwell--but me; I felt like a skinful of dry bones and all of them trying\nto ache at once.\n\nMr. Bixby asked me what I had stayed up there for. I confessed that it\nwas to do Mr. W---- a benevolence,--tell him where he was. It took five\nminutes for the entire preposterousness of the thing to filter into Mr.\nBixby's system, and then I judge it filled him nearly up to the chin;\nbecause he paid me a compliment--and not much of a one either. He said,\n\n'Well, taking you by-and-large, you do seem to be more different kinds\nof an ass than any creature I ever saw before. What did you suppose he\nwanted to know for?'\n\nI said I thought it might be a convenience to him.\n\n'Convenience D-nation! Didn't I tell you that a man's got to know the\nriver in the night the same as he'd know his own front hall?'\n\n'Well, I can follow the front hall in the dark if I know it _is_ the\nfront hall; but suppose you set me down in the middle of it in the dark\nand not tell me which hall it is; how am I to know?'\n\n'Well you've _got _to, on the river!'\n\n'All right. Then I'm glad I never said anything to Mr. W---- '\n\n'I should say so. Why, he'd have slammed you through the window and\nutterly ruined a hundred dollars' worth of window-sash and stuff.'\n\nI was glad this damage had been saved, for it would have made me\nunpopular with the owners. They always hated anybody who had the name of\nbeing careless, and injuring things.\n\nI went to work now to learn the shape of the river; and of all the\neluding and ungraspable objects that ever I tried to get mind or hands\non, that was the chief. I would fasten my eyes upon a sharp, wooded\npoint that projected far into the river some miles ahead of me, and go\nto laboriously photographing its shape upon my brain; and just as I was\nbeginning to succeed to my satisfaction, we would draw up toward it and\nthe exasperating thing would begin to melt away and fold back into the\nbank! If there had been a conspicuous dead tree standing upon the very\npoint of the cape, I would find that tree inconspicuously merged into\nthe general forest, and occupying the middle of a straight shore, when\nI got abreast of it! No prominent hill would stick to its shape long\nenough for me to make up my mind what its form really was, but it was as\ndissolving and changeful as if it had been a mountain of butter in the\nhottest corner of the tropics. Nothing ever had the same shape when\nI was coming downstream that it had borne when I went up. I mentioned\nthese little difficulties to Mr. Bixby. He said--\n\n'That's the very main virtue of the thing. If the shapes didn't change\nevery three seconds they wouldn't be of any use. Take this place where\nwe are now, for instance. As long as that hill over yonder is only one\nhill, I can boom right along the way I'm going; but the moment it splits\nat the top and forms a V, I know I've got to scratch to starboard in a\nhurry, or I'll bang this boat's brains out against a rock; and then the\nmoment one of the prongs of the V swings behind the other, I've got to\nwaltz to larboard again, or I'll have a misunderstanding with a snag\nthat would snatch the keelson out of this steamboat as neatly as if it\nwere a sliver in your hand. If that hill didn't change its shape on bad\nnights there would be an awful steamboat grave-yard around here inside\nof a year.'\n\nIt was plain that I had got to learn the shape of the river in all the\ndifferent ways that could be thought of,--upside down, wrong end first,\ninside out, fore-and-aft, and 'thortships,'--and then know what to do on\ngray nights when it hadn't any shape at all. So I set about it. In the\ncourse of time I began to get the best of this knotty lesson, and my\nself-complacency moved to the front once more. Mr. Bixby was all fixed,\nand ready to start it to the rear again. He opened on me after this\nfashion--\n\n'How much water did we have in the middle crossing at Hole-in-the-Wall,\ntrip before last?'\n\nI considered this an outrage. I said--\n\n'Every trip, down and up, the leadsmen are singing through that tangled\nplace for three-quarters of an hour on a stretch. How do you reckon I\ncan remember such a mess as that?'\n\n'My boy, you've got to remember it. You've got to remember the exact\nspot and the exact marks the boat lay in when we had the shoalest water,\nin everyone of the five hundred shoal places between St. Louis and New\nOrleans; and you mustn't get the shoal soundings and marks of one trip\nmixed up with the shoal soundings and marks of another, either, for\nthey're not often twice alike. You must keep them separate.'\n\nWhen I came to myself again, I said--\n\n'When I get so that I can do that, I'll be able to raise the dead,\nand then I won't have to pilot a steamboat to make a living. I want to\nretire from this business. I want a slush-bucket and a brush; I'm only\nfit for a roustabout. I haven't got brains enough to be a pilot; and\nif I had I wouldn't have strength enough to carry them around, unless I\nwent on crutches.'\n\n'Now drop that! When I say I'll learn {footnote ['Teach' is not in the\nriver vocabulary.]} a man the river, I mean it. And you can depend on\nit, I'll learn him or kill him.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 9\n\nContinued Perplexities\n\nTHERE was no use in arguing with a person like this. I promptly put\nsuch a strain on my memory that by and by even the shoal water and the\ncountless crossing-marks began to stay with me. But the result was just\nthe same. I never could more than get one knotty thing learned before\nanother presented itself. Now I had often seen pilots gazing at the\nwater and pretending to read it as if it were a book; but it was a\nbook that told me nothing. A time came at last, however, when Mr.\nBixby seemed to think me far enough advanced to bear a lesson on\nwater-reading. So he began--\n\n'Do you see that long slanting line on the face of the water? Now,\nthat's a reef. Moreover, it's a bluff reef. There is a solid sand-bar\nunder it that is nearly as straight up and down as the side of a house.\nThere is plenty of water close up to it, but mighty little on top of it.\nIf you were to hit it you would knock the boat's brains out. Do you see\nwhere the line fringes out at the upper end and begins to fade away?'\n\n'Yes, sir.'\n\n'Well, that is a low place; that is the head of the reef. You can climb\nover there, and not hurt anything. Cross over, now, and follow along\nclose under the reef--easy water there--not much current.'\n\nI followed the reef along till I approached the fringed end. Then Mr.\nBixby said--\n\n'Now get ready. Wait till I give the word. She won't want to mount the\nreef; a boat hates shoal water. Stand by--wait--WAIT--keep her well in\nhand. NOW cramp her down! Snatch her! snatch her!'\n\nHe seized the other side of the wheel and helped to spin it around until\nit was hard down, and then we held it so. The boat resisted, and refused\nto answer for a while, and next she came surging to starboard, mounted\nthe reef, and sent a long, angry ridge of water foaming away from her\nbows.\n\n'Now watch her; watch her like a cat, or she'll get away from you. When\nshe fights strong and the tiller slips a little, in a jerky, greasy sort\nof way, let up on her a trifle; it is the way she tells you at night\nthat the water is too shoal; but keep edging her up, little by little,\ntoward the point. You are well up on the bar, now; there is a bar under\nevery point, because the water that comes down around it forms an eddy\nand allows the sediment to sink. Do you see those fine lines on the face\nof the water that branch out like the ribs of a fan. Well, those are\nlittle reefs; you want to just miss the ends of them, but run them\npretty close. Now look out--look out! Don't you crowd that slick,\ngreasy-looking place; there ain't nine feet there; she won't stand it.\nShe begins to smell it; look sharp, I tell you! Oh blazes, there you go!\nStop the starboard wheel! Quick! Ship up to back! Set her back!\n\nThe engine bells jingled and the engines answered promptly, shooting\nwhite columns of steam far aloft out of the 'scape pipes, but it was\ntoo late. The boat had 'smelt' the bar in good earnest; the foamy ridges\nthat radiated from her bows suddenly disappeared, a great dead swell\ncame rolling forward and swept ahead of her, she careened far over to\nlarboard, and went tearing away toward the other shore as if she were\nabout scared to death. We were a good mile from where we ought to have\nbeen, when we finally got the upper hand of her again.\n\nDuring the afternoon watch the next day, Mr. Bixby asked me if I knew\nhow to run the next few miles. I said--\n\n'Go inside the first snag above the point, outside the next one, start\nout from the lower end of Higgins's wood-yard, make a square crossing\nand--'\n\n'That's all right. I'll be back before you close up on the next point.'\n\nBut he wasn't. He was still below when I rounded it and entered upon a\npiece of river which I had some misgivings about. I did not know that\nhe was hiding behind a chimney to see how I would perform. I went gaily\nalong, getting prouder and prouder, for he had never left the boat in\nmy sole charge such a length of time before. I even got to 'setting'\nher and letting the wheel go, entirely, while I vaingloriously turned\nmy back and inspected the stem marks and hummed a tune, a sort of easy\nindifference which I had prodigiously admired in Bixby and other great\npilots. Once I inspected rather long, and when I faced to the front\nagain my heart flew into my mouth so suddenly that if I hadn't clapped\nmy teeth together I should have lost it. One of those frightful bluff\nreefs was stretching its deadly length right across our bows! My head\nwas gone in a moment; I did not know which end I stood on; I gasped and\ncould not get my breath; I spun the wheel down with such rapidity that\nit wove itself together like a spider's web; the boat answered and\nturned square away from the reef, but the reef followed her! I fled, and\nstill it followed, still it kept--right across my bows! I never looked\nto see where I was going, I only fled. The awful crash was imminent--why\ndidn't that villain come! If I committed the crime of ringing a bell,\nI might get thrown overboard. But better that than kill the boat. So\nin blind desperation I started such a rattling 'shivaree' down below as\nnever had astounded an engineer in this world before, I fancy. Amidst\nthe frenzy of the bells the engines began to back and fill in a furious\nway, and my reason forsook its throne--we were about to crash into the\nwoods on the other side of the river. Just then Mr. Bixby stepped calmly\ninto view on the hurricane deck. My soul went out to him in gratitude.\nMy distress vanished; I would have felt safe on the brink of Niagara,\nwith Mr. Bixby on the hurricane deck. He blandly and sweetly took\nhis tooth-pick out of his mouth between his fingers, as if it were a\ncigar--we were just in the act of climbing an overhanging big tree,\nand the passengers were scudding astern like rats--and lifted up these\ncommands to me ever so gently--\n\n'Stop the starboard. Stop the larboard. Set her back on both.'\n\nThe boat hesitated, halted, pressed her nose among the boughs a critical\ninstant, then reluctantly began to back away.\n\n'Stop the larboard. Come ahead on it. Stop the starboard. Come ahead on\nit. Point her for the bar.'\n\nI sailed away as serenely as a summer's morning. Mr. Bixby came in and\nsaid, with mock simplicity--\n\n'When you have a hail, my boy, you ought to tap the big bell three times\nbefore you land, so that the engineers can get ready.'\n\nI blushed under the sarcasm, and said I hadn't had any hail.\n\n'Ah! Then it was for wood, I suppose. The officer of the watch will tell\nyou when he wants to wood up.'\n\nI went on consuming and said I wasn't after wood.\n\n'Indeed? Why, what could you want over here in the bend, then? Did you\never know of a boat following a bend up-stream at this stage of the\nriver?'\n\n'No sir,--and I wasn't trying to follow it. I was getting away from a\nbluff reef.'\n\n'No, it wasn't a bluff reef; there isn't one within three miles of where\nyou were.'\n\n'But I saw it. It was as bluff as that one yonder.'\n\n'Just about. Run over it!'\n\n'Do you give it as an order?'\n\n'Yes. Run over it.'\n\n'If I don't, I wish I may die.'\n\n'All right; I am taking the responsibility.' I was just as anxious to\nkill the boat, now, as I had been to save her before. I impressed my\norders upon my memory, to be used at the inquest, and made a straight\nbreak for the reef. As it disappeared under our bows I held my breath;\nbut we slid over it like oil.\n\n'Now don't you see the difference? It wasn't anything but a _wind _reef.\nThe wind does that.'\n\n'So I see. But it is exactly like a bluff reef. How am I ever going to\ntell them apart?'\n\n'I can't tell you. It is an instinct. By and by you will just naturally\n_know _one from the other, but you never will be able to explain why or\nhow you know them apart'\n\nIt turned out to be true. The face of the water, in time, became a\nwonderful book--a book that was a dead language to the uneducated\npassenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its\nmost cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice.\nAnd it was not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new\nstory to tell every day. Throughout the long twelve hundred miles there\nwas never a page that was void of interest, never one that you could\nleave unread without loss, never one that you would want to skip,\nthinking you could find higher enjoyment in some other thing. There\nnever was so wonderful a book written by man; never one whose interest\nwas so absorbing, so unflagging, so sparkingly renewed with every\nreperusal. The passenger who could not read it was charmed with a\npeculiar sort of faint dimple on its surface (on the rare occasions\nwhen he did not overlook it altogether); but to the pilot that was an\n_italicized _passage; indeed, it was more than that, it was a legend of\nthe largest capitals, with a string of shouting exclamation points at\nthe end of it; for it meant that a wreck or a rock was buried there that\ncould tear the life out of the strongest vessel that ever floated. It is\nthe faintest and simplest expression the water ever makes, and the most\nhideous to a pilot's eye. In truth, the passenger who could not read\nthis book saw nothing but all manner of pretty pictures in it painted by\nthe sun and shaded by the clouds, whereas to the trained eye these\nwere not pictures at all, but the grimmest and most dead-earnest of\nreading-matter.\n\nNow when I had mastered the language of this water and had come to know\nevery trifling feature that bordered the great river as familiarly as I\nknew the letters of the alphabet, I had made a valuable acquisition.\nBut I had lost something, too. I had lost something which could never be\nrestored to me while I lived. All the grace, the beauty, the poetry had\ngone out of the majestic river! I still keep in mind a certain wonderful\nsunset which I witnessed when steamboating was new to me. A broad\nexpanse of the river was turned to blood; in the middle distance the red\nhue brightened into gold, through which a solitary log came floating,\nblack and conspicuous; in one place a long, slanting mark lay sparkling\nupon the water; in another the surface was broken by boiling, tumbling\nrings, that were as many-tinted as an opal; where the ruddy flush was\nfaintest, was a smooth spot that was covered with graceful circles and\nradiating lines, ever so delicately traced; the shore on our left was\ndensely wooded, and the somber shadow that fell from this forest was\nbroken in one place by a long, ruffled trail that shone like silver;\nand high above the forest wall a clean-stemmed dead tree waved a single\nleafy bough that glowed like a flame in the unobstructed splendor that\nwas flowing from the sun. There were graceful curves, reflected images,\nwoody heights, soft distances; and over the whole scene, far and near,\nthe dissolving lights drifted steadily, enriching it, every passing\nmoment, with new marvels of coloring.\n\nI stood like one bewitched. I drank it in, in a speechless rapture. The\nworld was new to me, and I had never seen anything like this at home.\nBut as I have said, a day came when I began to cease from noting the\nglories and the charms which the moon and the sun and the twilight\nwrought upon the river's face; another day came when I ceased altogether\nto note them. Then, if that sunset scene had been repeated, I should\nhave looked upon it without rapture, and should have commented upon it,\ninwardly, after this fashion: This sun means that we are going to have\nwind to-morrow; that floating log means that the river is rising, small\nthanks to it; that slanting mark on the water refers to a bluff reef\nwhich is going to kill somebody's steamboat one of these nights, if\nit keeps on stretching out like that; those tumbling 'boils' show a\ndissolving bar and a changing channel there; the lines and circles in\nthe slick water over yonder are a warning that that troublesome place is\nshoaling up dangerously; that silver streak in the shadow of the forest\nis the 'break' from a new snag, and he has located himself in the very\nbest place he could have found to fish for steamboats; that tall dead\ntree, with a single living branch, is not going to last long, and\nthen how is a body ever going to get through this blind place at night\nwithout the friendly old landmark.\n\nNo, the romance and the beauty were all gone from the river. All the\nvalue any feature of it had for me now was the amount of usefulness it\ncould furnish toward compassing the safe piloting of a steamboat. Since\nthose days, I have pitied doctors from my heart. What does the lovely\nflush in a beauty's cheek mean to a doctor but a 'break' that ripples\nabove some deadly disease. Are not all her visible charms sown thick\nwith what are to him the signs and symbols of hidden decay? Does he ever\nsee her beauty at all, or doesn't he simply view her professionally, and\ncomment upon her unwholesome condition all to himself? And doesn't he\nsometimes wonder whether he has gained most or lost most by learning his\ntrade?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 10\n\nCompleting My Education\n\nWHOSOEVER has done me the courtesy to read my chapters which have\npreceded this may possibly wonder that I deal so minutely with piloting\nas a science. It was the prime purpose of those chapters; and I am not\nquite done yet. I wish to show, in the most patient and painstaking way,\nwhat a wonderful science it is. Ship channels are buoyed and lighted,\nand therefore it is a comparatively easy undertaking to learn to run\nthem; clear-water rivers, with gravel bottoms, change their channels\nvery gradually, and therefore one needs to learn them but once; but\npiloting becomes another matter when you apply it to vast streams like\nthe Mississippi and the Missouri, whose alluvial banks cave and change\nconstantly, whose snags are always hunting up new quarters, whose\nsandbars are never at rest, whose channels are for ever dodging and\nshirking, and whose obstructions must be confronted in all nights and\nall weathers without the aid of a single light-house or a single buoy;\nfor there is neither light nor buoy to be found anywhere in all this\nthree or four thousand miles of villainous river.{footnote [True at the\ntime referred to; not true now (1882).]} I feel justified in enlarging\nupon this great science for the reason that I feel sure no one has ever\nyet written a paragraph about it who had piloted a steamboat himself,\nand so had a practical knowledge of the subject. If the theme were\nhackneyed, I should be obliged to deal gently with the reader; but\nsince it is wholly new, I have felt at liberty to take up a considerable\ndegree of room with it.\n\nWhen I had learned the name and position of every visible feature of the\nriver; when I had so mastered its shape that I could shut my eyes and\ntrace it from St. Louis to New Orleans; when I had learned to read the\nface of the water as one would cull the news from the morning paper;\nand finally, when I had trained my dull memory to treasure up an endless\narray of soundings and crossing-marks, and keep fast hold of them, I\njudged that my education was complete: so I got to tilting my cap to the\nside of my head, and wearing a tooth-pick in my mouth at the wheel. Mr.\nBixby had his eye on these airs. One day he said--\n\n'What is the height of that bank yonder, at Burgess's?'\n\n'How can I tell, sir. It is three-quarters of a mile away.'\n\n'Very poor eye--very poor. Take the glass.'\n\nI took the glass, and presently said--'I can't tell. I suppose that that\nbank is about a foot and a half high.'\n\n'Foot and a half! That's a six-foot bank. How high was the bank along\nhere last trip?'\n\n'I don't know; I never noticed.'\n\n'You didn't? Well, you must always do it hereafter.'\n\n'Why?'\n\n'Because you'll have to know a good many things that it tells you.\nFor one thing, it tells you the stage of the river--tells you whether\nthere's more water or less in the river along here than there was last\ntrip.'\n\n'The leads tell me that.' I rather thought I had the advantage of him\nthere.\n\n'Yes, but suppose the leads lie? The bank would tell you so, and then\nyou'd stir those leadsmen up a bit. There was a ten-foot bank here last\ntrip, and there is only a six-foot bank now. What does that signify?'\n\n'That the river is four feet higher than it was last trip.'\n\n'Very good. Is the river rising or falling?'\n\n'Rising.'\n\n'No it ain't.'\n\n'I guess I am right, sir. Yonder is some drift-wood floating down the\nstream.'\n\n'A rise starts the drift-wood, but then it keeps on floating a while\nafter the river is done rising. Now the bank will tell you about this.\nWait till you come to a place where it shelves a little. Now here; do\nyou see this narrow belt of fine sediment That was deposited while the\nwater was higher. You see the driftwood begins to strand, too. The bank\nhelps in other ways. Do you see that stump on the false point?'\n\n'Ay, ay, sir.'\n\n'Well, the water is just up to the roots of it. You must make a note of\nthat.'\n\n'Why?'\n\n'Because that means that there's seven feet in the chute of 103.'\n\n'But 103 is a long way up the river yet.'\n\n'That's where the benefit of the bank comes in. There is water enough in\n103 _now_, yet there may not be by the time we get there; but the bank\nwill keep us posted all along. You don't run close chutes on a falling\nriver, up-stream, and there are precious few of them that you are\nallowed to run at all down-stream. There's a law of the United States\nagainst it. The river may be rising by the time we get to 103, and in\nthat case we'll run it. We are drawing--how much?'\n\n'Six feet aft,--six and a half forward.'\n\n'Well, you do seem to know something.'\n\n'But what I particularly want to know is, if I have got to keep up an\neverlasting measuring of the banks of this river, twelve hundred miles,\nmonth in and month out?'\n\n'Of course!'\n\nMy emotions were too deep for words for a while. Presently I said--'\n\nAnd how about these chutes. Are there many of them?'\n\n'I should say so. I fancy we shan't run any of the river this trip as\nyou've ever seen it run before--so to speak. If the river begins to rise\nagain, we'll go up behind bars that you've always seen standing out of\nthe river, high and dry like the roof of a house; we'll cut across low\nplaces that you've never noticed at all, right through the middle of\nbars that cover three hundred acres of river; we'll creep through cracks\nwhere you've always thought was solid land; we'll dart through the woods\nand leave twenty-five miles of river off to one side; we'll see the\nhind-side of every island between New Orleans and Cairo.'\n\n'Then I've got to go to work and learn just as much more river as I\nalready know.'\n\n'Just about twice as much more, as near as you can come at it.'\n\n'Well, one lives to find out. I think I was a fool when I went into this\nbusiness.'\n\n'Yes, that is true. And you are yet. But you'll not be when you've\nlearned it.'\n\n'Ah, I never can learn it.'\n\n'I will see that you _do_.'\n\nBy and by I ventured again--\n\n'Have I got to learn all this thing just as I know the rest of the\nriver--shapes and all--and so I can run it at night?'\n\n'Yes. And you've got to have good fair marks from one end of the river\nto the other, that will help the bank tell you when there is water\nenough in each of these countless places--like that stump, you know.\nWhen the river first begins to rise, you can run half a dozen of the\ndeepest of them; when it rises a foot more you can run another dozen;\nthe next foot will add a couple of dozen, and so on: so you see you have\nto know your banks and marks to a dead moral certainty, and never get\nthem mixed; for when you start through one of those cracks, there's\nno backing out again, as there is in the big river; you've got to go\nthrough, or stay there six months if you get caught on a falling river.\nThere are about fifty of these cracks which you can't run at all except\nwhen the river is brim full and over the banks.'\n\n'This new lesson is a cheerful prospect.'\n\n'Cheerful enough. And mind what I've just told you; when you start into\none of those places you've got to go through. They are too narrow to\nturn around in, too crooked to back out of, and the shoal water is\nalways up at the head; never elsewhere. And the head of them is always\nlikely to be filling up, little by little, so that the marks you reckon\ntheir depth by, this season, may not answer for next.'\n\n'Learn a new set, then, every year?'\n\n'Exactly. Cramp her up to the bar! What are you standing up through the\nmiddle of the river for?'\n\nThe next few months showed me strange things. On the same day that we\nheld the conversation above narrated, we met a great rise coming down\nthe river. The whole vast face of the stream was black with drifting\ndead logs, broken boughs, and great trees that had caved in and been\nwashed away. It required the nicest steering to pick one's way through\nthis rushing raft, even in the day-time, when crossing from point to\npoint; and at night the difficulty was mightily increased; every now and\nthen a huge log, lying deep in the water, would suddenly appear right\nunder our bows, coming head-on; no use to try to avoid it then; we could\nonly stop the engines, and one wheel would walk over that log from one\nend to the other, keeping up a thundering racket and careening the boat\nin a way that was very uncomfortable to passengers. Now and then we\nwould hit one of these sunken logs a rattling bang, dead in the center,\nwith a full head of steam, and it would stun the boat as if she had hit\na continent. Sometimes this log would lodge, and stay right across\nour nose, and back the Mississippi up before it; we would have to do a\nlittle craw-fishing, then, to get away from the obstruction. We often\nhit _white _logs, in the dark, for we could not see them till we were\nright on them; but a black log is a pretty distinct object at night. A\nwhite snag is an ugly customer when the daylight is gone.\n\nOf course, on the great rise, down came a swarm of prodigious\ntimber-rafts from the head waters of the Mississippi, coal barges from\nPittsburgh, little trading scows from everywhere, and broad-horns from\n'Posey County,' Indiana, freighted with 'fruit and furniture'--the\nusual term for describing it, though in plain English the freight thus\naggrandized was hoop-poles and pumpkins. Pilots bore a mortal hatred to\nthese craft; and it was returned with usury. The law required all such\nhelpless traders to keep a light burning, but it was a law that was\noften broken. All of a sudden, on a murky night, a light would hop up,\nright under our bows, almost, and an agonized voice, with the backwoods\n'whang' to it, would wail out--\n\n'Whar'n the ---- you goin' to! Cain't you see nothin', you dash-dashed\naig-suckin', sheep-stealin', one-eyed son of a stuffed monkey!'\n\nThen for an instant, as we whistled by, the red glare from our furnaces\nwould reveal the scow and the form of the gesticulating orator as if\nunder a lightning-flash, and in that instant our firemen and deck-hands\nwould send and receive a tempest of missiles and profanity, one of our\nwheels would walk off with the crashing fragments of a steering-oar, and\ndown the dead blackness would shut again. And that flatboatman would be\nsure to go into New Orleans and sue our boat, swearing stoutly that he\nhad a light burning all the time, when in truth his gang had the lantern\ndown below to sing and lie and drink and gamble by, and no watch on\ndeck.\n\nOnce, at night, in one of those forest-bordered crevices (behind an\nisland) which steamboatmen intensely describe with the phrase 'as dark\nas the inside of a cow,' we should have eaten up a Posey County family,\nfruit, furniture, and all, but that they happened to be fiddling down\nbelow, and we just caught the sound of the music in time to sheer off,\ndoing no serious damage, unfortunately, but coming so near it that we\nhad good hopes for a moment. These people brought up their lantern,\nthen, of course; and as we backed and filled to get away, the precious\nfamily stood in the light of it--both sexes and various ages--and cursed\nus till everything turned blue. Once a coalboatman sent a bullet through\nour pilot-house, when we borrowed a steering oar of him in a very narrow\nplace.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 11\n\nThe River Rises\n\nDURING this big rise these small-fry craft were an intolerable nuisance.\nWe were running chute after chute,--a new world to me,--and if there was\na particularly cramped place in a chute, we would be pretty sure to meet\na broad-horn there; and if he failed to be there, we would find him in a\nstill worse locality, namely, the head of the chute, on the shoal water.\nAnd then there would be no end of profane cordialities exchanged.\n\nSometimes, in the big river, when we would be feeling our way cautiously\nalong through a fog, the deep hush would suddenly be broken by yells and\na clamor of tin pans, and all in instant a log raft would appear vaguely\nthrough the webby veil, close upon us; and then we did not wait to swap\nknives, but snatched our engine bells out by the roots and piled on all\nthe steam we had, to scramble out of the way! One doesn't hit a rock or\na solid log craft with a steamboat when he can get excused.\n\nYou will hardly believe it, but many steamboat clerks always carried\na large assortment of religious tracts with them in those old departed\nsteamboating days. Indeed they did. Twenty times a day we would be\ncramping up around a bar, while a string of these small-fry rascals\nwere drifting down into the head of the bend away above and beyond us a\ncouple of miles. Now a skiff would dart away from one of them, and come\nfighting its laborious way across the desert of water. It would 'ease\nall,' in the shadow of our forecastle, and the panting oarsmen would\nshout, 'Gimme a pa-a-per!' as the skiff drifted swiftly astern. The\nclerk would throw over a file of New Orleans journals. If these were\npicked up without comment, you might notice that now a dozen other\nskiffs had been drifting down upon us without saying anything. You\nunderstand, they had been waiting to see how No. 1 was going to fare.\nNo. 1 making no comment, all the rest would bend to their oars and\ncome on, now; and as fast as they came the clerk would heave over\nneat bundles of religious tracts, tied to shingles. The amount of hard\nswearing which twelve packages of religious literature will command when\nimpartially divided up among twelve raftsmen's crews, who have pulled a\nheavy skiff two miles on a hot day to get them, is simply incredible.\n\nAs I have said, the big rise brought a new world under my vision. By the\ntime the river was over its banks we had forsaken our old paths and were\nhourly climbing over bars that had stood ten feet out of water before;\nwe were shaving stumpy shores, like that at the foot of Madrid Bend,\nwhich I had always seen avoided before; we were clattering through\nchutes like that of 82, where the opening at the foot was an unbroken\nwall of timber till our nose was almost at the very spot. Some of these\nchutes were utter solitudes. The dense, untouched forest overhung both\nbanks of the crooked little crack, and one could believe that human\ncreatures had never intruded there before. The swinging grape-vines, the\ngrassy nooks and vistas glimpsed as we swept by, the flowering creepers\nwaving their red blossoms from the tops of dead trunks, and all the\nspendthrift richness of the forest foliage, were wasted and thrown away\nthere. The chutes were lovely places to steer in; they were deep, except\nat the head; the current was gentle; under the 'points' the water was\nabsolutely dead, and the invisible banks so bluff that where the tender\nwillow thickets projected you could bury your boat's broadside in them\nas you tore along, and then you seemed fairly to fly.\n\nBehind other islands we found wretched little farms, and wretcheder\nlittle log-cabins; there were crazy rail fences sticking a foot or two\nabove the water, with one or two jeans-clad, chills-racked, yellow-faced\nmale miserables roosting on the top-rail, elbows on knees, jaws in\nhands, grinding tobacco and discharging the result at floating chips\nthrough crevices left by lost teeth; while the rest of the family and\nthe few farm-animals were huddled together in an empty wood-flat riding\nat her moorings close at hand. In this flat-boat the family would have\nto cook and eat and sleep for a lesser or greater number of days (or\npossibly weeks), until the river should fall two or three feet and let\nthem get back to their log-cabin and their chills again--chills being\na merciful provision of an all-wise Providence to enable them to take\nexercise without exertion. And this sort of watery camping out was a\nthing which these people were rather liable to be treated to a couple\nof times a year: by the December rise out of the Ohio, and the June rise\nout of the Mississippi. And yet these were kindly dispensations, for\nthey at least enabled the poor things to rise from the dead now and\nthen, and look upon life when a steamboat went by. They appreciated the\nblessing, too, for they spread their mouths and eyes wide open and made\nthe most of these occasions. Now what _could _these banished creatures\nfind to do to keep from dying of the blues during the low-water season!\n\nOnce, in one of these lovely island chutes, we found our course\ncompletely bridged by a great fallen tree. This will serve to show how\nnarrow some of the chutes were. The passengers had an hour's recreation\nin a virgin wilderness, while the boat-hands chopped the bridge away;\nfor there was no such thing as turning back, you comprehend.\n\nFrom Cairo to Baton Rouge, when the river is over its banks, you have\nno particular trouble in the night, for the thousand-mile wall of dense\nforest that guards the two banks all the way is only gapped with a farm\nor wood-yard opening at intervals, and so you can't 'get out of the\nriver' much easier than you could get out of a fenced lane; but from\nBaton Rouge to New Orleans it is a different matter. The river is more\nthan a mile wide, and very deep--as much as two hundred feet, in places.\nBoth banks, for a good deal over a hundred miles, are shorn of their\ntimber and bordered by continuous sugar plantations, with only here and\nthere a scattering sapling or row of ornamental China-trees. The timber\nis shorn off clear to the rear of the plantations, from two to four\nmiles. When the first frost threatens to come, the planters snatch off\ntheir crops in a hurry. When they have finished grinding the cane, they\nform the refuse of the stalks (which they call _bagasse_) into great\npiles and set fire to them, though in other sugar countries the bagasse\nis used for fuel in the furnaces of the sugar mills. Now the piles of\ndamp bagasse burn slowly, and smoke like Satan's own kitchen.\n\nAn embankment ten or fifteen feet high guards both banks of the\nMississippi all the way down that lower end of the river, and this\nembankment is set back from the edge of the shore from ten to perhaps a\nhundred feet, according to circumstances; say thirty or forty feet, as\na general thing. Fill that whole region with an impenetrable gloom of\nsmoke from a hundred miles of burning bagasse piles, when the river is\nover the banks, and turn a steamboat loose along there at midnight and\nsee how she will feel. And see how you will feel, too! You find yourself\naway out in the midst of a vague dim sea that is shoreless, that fades\nout and loses itself in the murky distances; for you cannot discern\nthe thin rib of embankment, and you are always imagining you see\na straggling tree when you don't. The plantations themselves are\ntransformed by the smoke, and look like a part of the sea. All through\nyour watch you are tortured with the exquisite misery of uncertainty.\nYou hope you are keeping in the river, but you do not know. All that you\nare sure about is that you are likely to be within six feet of the bank\nand destruction, when you think you are a good half-mile from shore. And\nyou are sure, also, that if you chance suddenly to fetch up against the\nembankment and topple your chimneys overboard, you will have the small\ncomfort of knowing that it is about what you were expecting to do. One\nof the great Vicksburg packets darted out into a sugar plantation one\nnight, at such a time, and had to stay there a week. But there was no\nnovelty about it; it had often been done before.\n\nI thought I had finished this chapter, but I wish to add a curious\nthing, while it is in my mind. It is only relevant in that it is\nconnected with piloting. There used to be an excellent pilot on the\nriver, a Mr. X., who was a somnambulist. It was said that if his mind\nwas troubled about a bad piece of river, he was pretty sure to get up\nand walk in his sleep and do strange things. He was once fellow-pilot\nfor a trip or two with George Ealer, on a great New Orleans passenger\npacket. During a considerable part of the first trip George was uneasy,\nbut got over it by and by, as X. seemed content to stay in his bed when\nasleep. Late one night the boat was approaching Helena, Arkansas; the\nwater was low, and the crossing above the town in a very blind and\ntangled condition. X. had seen the crossing since Ealer had, and as the\nnight was particularly drizzly, sullen, and dark, Ealer was considering\nwhether he had not better have X. called to assist in running the place,\nwhen the door opened and X. walked in. Now on very dark nights, light is\na deadly enemy to piloting; you are aware that if you stand in a lighted\nroom, on such a night, you cannot see things in the street to any\npurpose; but if you put out the lights and stand in the gloom you can\nmake out objects in the street pretty well. So, on very dark nights,\npilots do not smoke; they allow no fire in the pilot-house stove if\nthere is a crack which can allow the least ray to escape; they order the\nfurnaces to be curtained with huge tarpaulins and the sky-lights to\nbe closely blinded. Then no light whatever issues from the boat. The\nundefinable shape that now entered the pilot-house had Mr. X.'s voice.\nThis said--\n\n'Let me take her, George; I've seen this place since you have, and it\nis so crooked that I reckon I can run it myself easier than I could tell\nyou how to do it.'\n\n'It is kind of you, and I swear _I_ am willing. I haven't got another\ndrop of perspiration left in me. I have been spinning around and around\nthe wheel like a squirrel. It is so dark I can't tell which way she is\nswinging till she is coming around like a whirligig.'\n\nSo Ealer took a seat on the bench, panting and breathless. The black\nphantom assumed the wheel without saying anything, steadied the waltzing\nsteamer with a turn or two, and then stood at ease, coaxing her a little\nto this side and then to that, as gently and as sweetly as if the time\nhad been noonday. When Ealer observed this marvel of steering, he wished\nhe had not confessed! He stared, and wondered, and finally said--\n\n'Well, I thought I knew how to steer a steamboat, but that was another\nmistake of mine.'\n\nX. said nothing, but went serenely on with his work. He rang for the\nleads; he rang to slow down the steam; he worked the boat carefully and\nneatly into invisible marks, then stood at the center of the wheel\nand peered blandly out into the blackness, fore and aft, to verify his\nposition; as the leads shoaled more and more, he stopped the engines\nentirely, and the dead silence and suspense of 'drifting' followed when\nthe shoalest water was struck, he cracked on the steam, carried her\nhandsomely over, and then began to work her warily into the next system\nof shoal marks; the same patient, heedful use of leads and engines\nfollowed, the boat slipped through without touching bottom, and entered\nupon the third and last intricacy of the crossing; imperceptibly\nshe moved through the gloom, crept by inches into her marks, drifted\ntediously till the shoalest water was cried, and then, under a\ntremendous head of steam, went swinging over the reef and away into deep\nwater and safety!\n\nEaler let his long-pent breath pour out in a great, relieving sigh, and\nsaid--\n\n'That's the sweetest piece of piloting that was ever done on the\nMississippi River! I wouldn't believed it could be done, if I hadn't\nseen it.'\n\nThere was no reply, and he added--\n\n'Just hold her five minutes longer, partner, and let me run down and get\na cup of coffee.'\n\nA minute later Ealer was biting into a pie, down in the 'texas,' and\ncomforting himself with coffee. Just then the night watchman happened\nin, and was about to happen out again, when he noticed Ealer and\nexclaimed--\n\n'Who is at the wheel, sir?'\n\n'X.'\n\n'Dart for the pilot-house, quicker than lightning!'\n\nThe next moment both men were flying up the pilot-house companion way,\nthree steps at a jump! Nobody there! The great steamer was whistling\ndown the middle of the river at her own sweet will! The watchman shot\nout of the place again; Ealer seized the wheel, set an engine back with\npower, and held his breath while the boat reluctantly swung away from\na 'towhead' which she was about to knock into the middle of the Gulf of\nMexico!\n\nBy and by the watchman came back and said--\n\n'Didn't that lunatic tell you he was asleep, when he first came up\nhere?'\n\n'_No_.'\n\n'Well, he was. I found him walking along on top of the railings just as\nunconcerned as another man would walk a pavement; and I put him to bed;\nnow just this minute there he was again, away astern, going through that\nsort of tight-rope deviltry the same as before.'\n\n'Well, I think I'll stay by, next time he has one of those fits. But I\nhope he'll have them often. You just ought to have seen him take this\nboat through Helena crossing. I never saw anything so gaudy before. And\nif he can do such gold-leaf, kid-glove, diamond-breastpin piloting when\nhe is sound asleep, what _couldn't_ he do if he was dead!'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 12\n\nSounding\n\nWHEN the river is very low, and one's steamboat is 'drawing all the\nwater' there is in the channel,--or a few inches more, as was often\nthe case in the old times,--one must be painfully circumspect in his\npiloting. We used to have to 'sound' a number of particularly bad places\nalmost every trip when the river was at a very low stage.\n\nSounding is done in this way. The boat ties up at the shore, just above\nthe shoal crossing; the pilot not on watch takes his 'cub' or steersman\nand a picked crew of men (sometimes an officer also), and goes out in\nthe yawl--provided the boat has not that rare and sumptuous luxury, a\nregularly-devised 'sounding-boat'--and proceeds to hunt for the best\nwater, the pilot on duty watching his movements through a spy-glass,\nmeantime, and in some instances assisting by signals of the boat's\nwhistle, signifying 'try higher up' or 'try lower down;' for the surface\nof the water, like an oil-painting, is more expressive and intelligible\nwhen inspected from a little distance than very close at hand. The\nwhistle signals are seldom necessary, however; never, perhaps, except\nwhen the wind confuses the significant ripples upon the water's surface.\nWhen the yawl has reached the shoal place, the speed is slackened, the\npilot begins to sound the depth with a pole ten or twelve feet long,\nand the steersman at the tiller obeys the order to 'hold her up to\nstarboard;' or, 'let her fall off to larboard;'{footnote [The term\n'larboard' is never used at sea now, to signify the left hand; but was\nalways used on the river in my time]} or 'steady--steady as you go.'\n\nWhen the measurements indicate that the yawl is approaching the shoalest\npart of the reef, the command is given to 'ease all!' Then the men stop\nrowing and the yawl drifts with the current. The next order is, 'Stand\nby with the buoy!' The moment the shallowest point is reached, the pilot\ndelivers the order, 'Let go the buoy!' and over she goes. If the pilot\nis not satisfied, he sounds the place again; if he finds better water\nhigher up or lower down, he removes the buoy to that place. Being\nfinally satisfied, he gives the order, and all the men stand their\noars straight up in the air, in line; a blast from the boat's whistle\nindicates that the signal has been seen; then the men 'give way' on\ntheir oars and lay the yawl alongside the buoy; the steamer comes\ncreeping carefully down, is pointed straight at the buoy, husbands her\npower for the coming struggle, and presently, at the critical moment,\nturns on all her steam and goes grinding and wallowing over the buoy and\nthe sand, and gains the deep water beyond. Or maybe she doesn't; maybe\nshe 'strikes and swings.' Then she has to while away several hours (or\ndays) sparring herself off.\n\nSometimes a buoy is not laid at all, but the yawl goes ahead, hunting\nthe best water, and the steamer follows along in its wake. Often there\nis a deal of fun and excitement about sounding, especially if it is a\nglorious summer day, or a blustering night. But in winter the cold and\nthe peril take most of the fun out of it.\n\nA buoy is nothing but a board four or five feet long, with one end\nturned up; it is a reversed school-house bench, with one of the supports\nleft and the other removed. It is anchored on the shoalest part of the\nreef by a rope with a heavy stone made fast to the end of it. But for\nthe resistance of the turned-up end of the reversed bench, the current\nwould pull the buoy under water. At night, a paper lantern with a candle\nin it is fastened on top of the buoy, and this can be seen a mile or\nmore, a little glimmering spark in the waste of blackness.\n\nNothing delights a cub so much as an opportunity to go out sounding.\nThere is such an air of adventure about it; often there is danger; it is\nso gaudy and man-of-war-like to sit up in the stern-sheets and steer\na swift yawl; there is something fine about the exultant spring of the\nboat when an experienced old sailor crew throw their souls into the\noars; it is lovely to see the white foam stream away from the bows;\nthere is music in the rush of the water; it is deliciously exhilarating,\nin summer, to go speeding over the breezy expanses of the river when the\nworld of wavelets is dancing in the sun. It is such grandeur, too, to\nthe cub, to get a chance to give an order; for often the pilot will\nsimply say, 'Let her go about!' and leave the rest to the cub, who\ninstantly cries, in his sternest tone of command, 'Ease starboard!\nStrong on the larboard! Starboard give way! With a will, men!' The cub\nenjoys sounding for the further reason that the eyes of the passengers\nare watching all the yawl's movements with absorbing interest if the\ntime be daylight; and if it be night he knows that those same wondering\neyes are fastened upon the yawl's lantern as it glides out into the\ngloom and dims away in the remote distance.\n\nOne trip a pretty girl of sixteen spent her time in our pilot-house with\nher uncle and aunt, every day and all day long. I fell in love with her.\nSo did Mr. Thornburg's cub, Tom G----. Tom and I had been bosom friends\nuntil this time; but now a coolness began to arise. I told the girl a\ngood many of my river adventures, and made myself out a good deal of a\nhero; Tom tried to make himself appear to be a hero, too, and succeeded\nto some extent, but then he always had a way of embroidering. However,\nvirtue is its own reward, so I was a barely perceptible trifle ahead\nin the contest. About this time something happened which promised\nhandsomely for me: the pilots decided to sound the crossing at the head\nof 21. This would occur about nine or ten o'clock at night, when\nthe passengers would be still up; it would be Mr. Thornburg's watch,\ntherefore my chief would have to do the sounding. We had a perfect love\nof a sounding-boat--long, trim, graceful, and as fleet as a greyhound;\nher thwarts were cushioned; she carried twelve oarsmen; one of the mates\nwas always sent in her to transmit orders to her crew, for ours was a\nsteamer where no end of 'style' was put on.\n\nWe tied up at the shore above 21, and got ready. It was a foul night,\nand the river was so wide, there, that a landsman's uneducated eyes\ncould discern no opposite shore through such a gloom. The passengers\nwere alert and interested; everything was satisfactory. As I hurried\nthrough the engine-room, picturesquely gotten up in storm toggery, I met\nTom, and could not forbear delivering myself of a mean speech--\n\n'Ain't you glad _you _don't have to go out sounding?'\n\nTom was passing on, but he quickly turned, and said--\n\n'Now just for that, you can go and get the sounding-pole yourself. I was\ngoing after it, but I'd see you in Halifax, now, before I'd do it.'\n\n'Who wants you to get it? I don't. It's in the sounding-boat.'\n\n'It ain't, either. It's been new-painted; and it's been up on the\nladies' cabin guards two days, drying.'\n\nI flew back, and shortly arrived among the crowd of watching and\nwondering ladies just in time to hear the command:\n\n'Give way, men!'\n\nI looked over, and there was the gallant sounding-boat booming away, the\nunprincipled Tom presiding at the tiller, and my chief sitting by him\nwith the sounding-pole which I had been sent on a fool's errand to\nfetch. Then that young girl said to me--\n\n'Oh, how awful to have to go out in that little boat on such a night! Do\nyou think there is any danger?'\n\nI would rather have been stabbed. I went off, full of venom, to help in\nthe pilot-house. By and by the boat's lantern disappeared, and after an\ninterval a wee spark glimmered upon the face of the water a mile away.\nMr. Thornburg blew the whistle, in acknowledgment, backed the steamer\nout, and made for it. We flew along for a while, then slackened steam\nand went cautiously gliding toward the spark. Presently Mr. Thornburg\nexclaimed--\n\n'Hello, the buoy-lantern's out!'\n\nHe stopped the engines. A moment or two later he said--\n\n'Why, there it is again!'\n\nSo he came ahead on the engines once more, and rang for the leads.\nGradually the water shoaled up, and then began to deepen again! Mr.\nThornburg muttered--\n\n'Well, I don't understand this. I believe that buoy has drifted off the\nreef. Seems to be a little too far to the left. No matter, it is safest\nto run over it anyhow.'\n\nSo, in that solid world of darkness we went creeping down on the light.\nJust as our bows were in the act of plowing over it, Mr. Thornburg\nseized the bell-ropes, rang a startling peal, and exclaimed--\n\n'My soul, it's the sounding-boat!'\n\nA sudden chorus of wild alarms burst out far below--a pause--and then\nthe sound of grinding and crashing followed. Mr. Thornburg exclaimed--\n\n'There! the paddle-wheel has ground the sounding-boat to lucifer\nmatches! Run! See who is killed!'\n\nI was on the main deck in the twinkling of an eye. My chief and the\nthird mate and nearly all the men were safe. They had discovered their\ndanger when it was too late to pull out of the way; then, when the great\nguards overshadowed them a moment later, they were prepared and knew\nwhat to do; at my chiefs order they sprang at the right instant, seized\nthe guard, and were hauled aboard. The next moment the sounding-yawl\nswept aft to the wheel and was struck and splintered to atoms. Two of\nthe men and the cub Tom, were missing--a fact which spread like wildfire\nover the boat. The passengers came flocking to the forward gangway,\nladies and all, anxious-eyed, white-faced, and talked in awed voices of\nthe dreadful thing. And often and again I heard them say, 'Poor fellows!\npoor boy, poor boy!'\n\nBy this time the boat's yawl was manned and away, to search for the\nmissing. Now a faint call was heard, off to the left. The yawl had\ndisappeared in the other direction. Half the people rushed to one side\nto encourage the swimmer with their shouts; the other half rushed the\nother way to shriek to the yawl to turn about. By the callings,\nthe swimmer was approaching, but some said the sound showed failing\nstrength. The crowd massed themselves against the boiler-deck railings,\nleaning over and staring into the gloom; and every faint and fainter cry\nwrung from them such words as, 'Ah, poor fellow, poor fellow! is there\nno way to save him?'\n\nBut still the cries held out, and drew nearer, and presently the voice\nsaid pluckily--\n\n'I can make it! Stand by with a rope!'\n\nWhat a rousing cheer they gave him! The chief mate took his stand in the\nglare of a torch-basket, a coil of rope in his hand, and his men grouped\nabout him. The next moment the swimmer's face appeared in the circle of\nlight, and in another one the owner of it was hauled aboard, limp and\ndrenched, while cheer on cheer went up. It was that devil Tom.\n\nThe yawl crew searched everywhere, but found no sign of the two men.\nThey probably failed to catch the guard, tumbled back, and were struck\nby the wheel and killed. Tom had never jumped for the guard at all, but\nhad plunged head-first into the river and dived under the wheel. It was\nnothing; I could have done it easy enough, and I said so; but everybody\nwent on just the same, making a wonderful to do over that ass, as if he\nhad done something great. That girl couldn't seem to have enough of that\npitiful 'hero' the rest of the trip; but little I cared; I loathed her,\nany way.\n\nThe way we came to mistake the sounding-boat's lantern for the\nbuoy-light was this. My chief said that after laying the buoy he fell\naway and watched it till it seemed to be secure; then he took up a\nposition a hundred yards below it and a little to one side of the\nsteamer's course, headed the sounding-boat up-stream, and waited. Having\nto wait some time, he and the officer got to talking; he looked up when\nhe judged that the steamer was about on the reef; saw that the buoy was\ngone, but supposed that the steamer had already run over it; he went\non with his talk; he noticed that the steamer was getting very close on\nhim, but that was the correct thing; it was her business to shave him\nclosely, for convenience in taking him aboard; he was expecting her to\nsheer off, until the last moment; then it flashed upon him that she was\ntrying to run him down, mistaking his lantern for the buoy-light; so he\nsang out, 'Stand by to spring for the guard, men!' and the next instant\nthe jump was made.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 13\n\nA Pilot's Needs\n\nBUT I am wandering from what I was intending to do, that is, make\nplainer than perhaps appears in the previous chapters, some of the\npeculiar requirements of the science of piloting. First of all, there\nis one faculty which a pilot must incessantly cultivate until he has\nbrought it to absolute perfection. Nothing short of perfection will do.\nThat faculty is memory. He cannot stop with merely thinking a thing is\nso and so; he must know it; for this is eminently one of the 'exact'\nsciences. With what scorn a pilot was looked upon, in the old times, if\nhe ever ventured to deal in that feeble phrase 'I think,' instead of the\nvigorous one 'I know!' One cannot easily realize what a tremendous thing\nit is to know every trivial detail of twelve hundred miles of river and\nknow it with absolute exactness. If you will take the longest street\nin New York, and travel up and down it, conning its features patiently\nuntil you know every house and window and door and lamp-post and big and\nlittle sign by heart, and know them so accurately that you can instantly\nname the one you are abreast of when you are set down at random in\nthat street in the middle of an inky black night, you will then have a\ntolerable notion of the amount and the exactness of a pilot's knowledge\nwho carries the Mississippi River in his head. And then if you will\ngo on until you know every street crossing, the character, size, and\nposition of the crossing-stones, and the varying depth of mud in each of\nthose numberless places, you will have some idea of what the pilot must\nknow in order to keep a Mississippi steamer out of trouble. Next, if\nyou will take half of the signs in that long street, and _change their\nplaces_ once a month, and still manage to know their new positions\naccurately on dark nights, and keep up with these repeated changes\nwithout making any mistakes, you will understand what is required of a\npilot's peerless memory by the fickle Mississippi.\n\nI think a pilot's memory is about the most wonderful thing in the world.\nTo know the Old and New Testaments by heart, and be able to recite them\nglibly, forward or backward, or begin at random anywhere in the book\nand recite both ways and never trip or make a mistake, is no extravagant\nmass of knowledge, and no marvelous facility, compared to a pilot's\nmassed knowledge of the Mississippi and his marvelous facility in the\nhandling of it. I make this comparison deliberately, and believe I am\nnot expanding the truth when I do it. Many will think my figure too\nstrong, but pilots will not.\n\nAnd how easily and comfortably the pilot's memory does its work; how\nplacidly effortless is its way; how _unconsciously _it lays up its vast\nstores, hour by hour, day by day, and never loses or mislays a single\nvaluable package of them all! Take an instance. Let a leadsman cry,\n'Half twain! half twain! half twain! half twain! half twain!' until\nit become as monotonous as the ticking of a clock; let conversation be\ngoing on all the time, and the pilot be doing his share of the talking,\nand no longer consciously listening to the leadsman; and in the midst\nof this endless string of half twains let a single 'quarter twain!' be\ninterjected, without emphasis, and then the half twain cry go on again,\njust as before: two or three weeks later that pilot can describe with\nprecision the boat's position in the river when that quarter twain\nwas uttered, and give you such a lot of head-marks, stern-marks, and\nside-marks to guide you, that you ought to be able to take the boat\nthere and put her in that same spot again yourself! The cry of 'quarter\ntwain' did not really take his mind from his talk, but his trained\nfaculties instantly photographed the bearings, noted the change of\ndepth, and laid up the important details for future reference without\nrequiring any assistance from him in the matter. If you were walking\nand talking with a friend, and another friend at your side kept up a\nmonotonous repetition of the vowel sound A, for a couple of blocks, and\nthen in the midst interjected an R, thus, A, A, A, A, A, R, A, A, A,\netc., and gave the R no emphasis, you would not be able to state, two or\nthree weeks afterward, that the R had been put in, nor be able to tell\nwhat objects you were passing at the moment it was done. But you could\nif your memory had been patiently and laboriously trained to do that\nsort of thing mechanically.\n\nGive a man a tolerably fair memory to start with, and piloting will\ndevelop it into a very colossus of capability. But _only in the matters\nit is daily drilled in_. A time would come when the man's faculties\ncould not help noticing landmarks and soundings, and his memory could\nnot help holding on to them with the grip of a vise; but if you asked\nthat same man at noon what he had had for breakfast, it would be ten\nchances to one that he could not tell you. Astonishing things can be\ndone with the human memory if you will devote it faithfully to one\nparticular line of business.\n\nAt the time that wages soared so high on the Missouri River, my chief,\nMr. Bixby, went up there and learned more than a thousand miles of that\nstream with an ease and rapidity that were astonishing. When he had seen\neach division once in the daytime and once at night, his education was\nso nearly complete that he took out a 'daylight' license; a few\ntrips later he took out a full license, and went to piloting day and\nnight--and he ranked A 1, too.\n\nMr. Bixby placed me as steersman for a while under a pilot whose feats\nof memory were a constant marvel to me. However, his memory was born in\nhim, I think, not built. For instance, somebody would mention a name.\nInstantly Mr. Brown would break in--\n\n'Oh, I knew _him_. Sallow-faced, red-headed fellow, with a little scar\non the side of his throat, like a splinter under the flesh. He was only\nin the Southern trade six months. That was thirteen years ago. I made a\ntrip with him. There was five feet in the upper river then; the \"Henry\nBlake\" grounded at the foot of Tower Island drawing four and a half; the\n\"George Elliott\" unshipped her rudder on the wreck of the \"Sunflower\"--'\n\n'Why, the \"Sunflower\" didn't sink until--'\n\n'I know when she sunk; it was three years before that, on the 2nd of\nDecember; Asa Hardy was captain of her, and his brother John was first\nclerk; and it was his first trip in her, too; Tom Jones told me these\nthings a week afterward in New Orleans; he was first mate of the\n\"Sunflower.\" Captain Hardy stuck a nail in his foot the 6th of July of\nthe next year, and died of the lockjaw on the 15th. His brother died\ntwo years after 3rd of March,--erysipelas. I never saw either of the\nHardys,--they were Alleghany River men,--but people who knew them told\nme all these things. And they said Captain Hardy wore yarn socks winter\nand summer just the same, and his first wife's name was Jane Shook--she\nwas from New England--and his second one died in a lunatic asylum. It\nwas in the blood. She was from Lexington, Kentucky. Name was Horton\nbefore she was married.'\n\nAnd so on, by the hour, the man's tongue would go. He could _not _forget\nany thing. It was simply impossible. The most trivial details remained\nas distinct and luminous in his head, after they had lain there for\nyears, as the most memorable events. His was not simply a pilot's\nmemory; its grasp was universal. If he were talking about a trifling\nletter he had received seven years before, he was pretty sure to deliver\nyou the entire screed from memory. And then without observing that he\nwas departing from the true line of his talk, he was more than likely\nto hurl in a long-drawn parenthetical biography of the writer of that\nletter; and you were lucky indeed if he did not take up that writer's\nrelatives, one by one, and give you their biographies, too.\n\nSuch a memory as that is a great misfortune. To it, all occurrences\nare of the same size. Its possessor cannot distinguish an interesting\ncircumstance from an uninteresting one. As a talker, he is bound to clog\nhis narrative with tiresome details and make himself an insufferable\nbore. Moreover, he cannot stick to his subject. He picks up every little\ngrain of memory he discerns in his way, and so is led aside. Mr. Brown\nwould start out with the honest intention of telling you a vastly funny\nanecdote about a dog. He would be 'so full of laugh' that he could\nhardly begin; then his memory would start with the dog's breed and\npersonal appearance; drift into a history of his owner; of his owner's\nfamily, with descriptions of weddings and burials that had occurred in\nit, together with recitals of congratulatory verses and obituary poetry\nprovoked by the same: then this memory would recollect that one of these\nevents occurred during the celebrated 'hard winter' of such and such a\nyear, and a minute description of that winter would follow, along with\nthe names of people who were frozen to death, and statistics showing the\nhigh figures which pork and hay went up to. Pork and hay would suggest\ncorn and fodder; corn and fodder would suggest cows and horses; cows and\nhorses would suggest the circus and certain celebrated bare-back riders;\nthe transition from the circus to the menagerie was easy and natural;\nfrom the elephant to equatorial Africa was but a step; then of course\nthe heathen savages would suggest religion; and at the end of three or\nfour hours' tedious jaw, the watch would change, and Brown would go out\nof the pilot-house muttering extracts from sermons he had heard years\nbefore about the efficacy of prayer as a means of grace. And the\noriginal first mention would be all you had learned about that dog,\nafter all this waiting and hungering.\n\nA pilot must have a memory; but there are two higher qualities which he\nmust also have. He must have good and quick judgment and decision, and a\ncool, calm courage that no peril can shake. Give a man the merest trifle\nof pluck to start with, and by the time he has become a pilot he cannot\nbe unmanned by any danger a steamboat can get into; but one cannot quite\nsay the same for judgment. Judgment is a matter of brains, and a man\nmust _start _with a good stock of that article or he will never succeed\nas a pilot.\n\nThe growth of courage in the pilot-house is steady all the time, but it\ndoes not reach a high and satisfactory condition until some time after\nthe young pilot has been 'standing his own watch,' alone and under\nthe staggering weight of all the responsibilities connected with the\nposition. When an apprentice has become pretty thoroughly acquainted\nwith the river, he goes clattering along so fearlessly with his\nsteamboat, night or day, that he presently begins to imagine that it is\n_his _courage that animates him; but the first time the pilot steps out\nand leaves him to his own devices he finds out it was the other man's.\nHe discovers that the article has been left out of his own cargo\naltogether. The whole river is bristling with exigencies in a moment;\nhe is not prepared for them; he does not know how to meet them; all his\nknowledge forsakes him; and within fifteen minutes he is as white as a\nsheet and scared almost to death. Therefore pilots wisely train these\ncubs by various strategic tricks to look danger in the face a little\nmore calmly. A favorite way of theirs is to play a friendly swindle upon\nthe candidate.\n\nMr. Bixby served me in this fashion once, and for years afterward I\nused to blush even in my sleep when I thought of it. I had become a good\nsteersman; so good, indeed, that I had all the work to do on our watch,\nnight and day; Mr. Bixby seldom made a suggestion to me; all he ever did\nwas to take the wheel on particularly bad nights or in particularly bad\ncrossings, land the boat when she needed to be landed, play gentleman of\nleisure nine-tenths of the watch, and collect the wages. The lower river\nwas about bank-full, and if anybody had questioned my ability to run any\ncrossing between Cairo and New Orleans without help or instruction,\nI should have felt irreparably hurt. The idea of being afraid of any\ncrossing in the lot, in the _day-time_, was a thing too preposterous for\ncontemplation. Well, one matchless summer's day I was bowling down the\nbend above island 66, brimful of self-conceit and carrying my nose as\nhigh as a giraffe's, when Mr. Bixby said--\n\n'I am going below a while. I suppose you know the next crossing?'\n\nThis was almost an affront. It was about the plainest and simplest\ncrossing in the whole river. One couldn't come to any harm, whether he\nran it right or not; and as for depth, there never had been any bottom\nthere. I knew all this, perfectly well.\n\n'Know how to _run _it? Why, I can run it with my eyes shut.'\n\n'How much water is there in it?'\n\n'Well, that is an odd question. I couldn't get bottom there with a\nchurch steeple.'\n\n'You think so, do you?'\n\nThe very tone of the question shook my confidence. That was what Mr.\nBixby was expecting. He left, without saying anything more. I began to\nimagine all sorts of things. Mr. Bixby, unknown to me, of course, sent\nsomebody down to the forecastle with some mysterious instructions to the\nleadsmen, another messenger was sent to whisper among the officers,\nand then Mr. Bixby went into hiding behind a smoke-stack where he could\nobserve results. Presently the captain stepped out on the hurricane\ndeck; next the chief mate appeared; then a clerk. Every moment or two a\nstraggler was added to my audience; and before I got to the head of\nthe island I had fifteen or twenty people assembled down there under my\nnose. I began to wonder what the trouble was. As I started across, the\ncaptain glanced aloft at me and said, with a sham uneasiness in his\nvoice--\n\n'Where is Mr. Bixby?'\n\n'Gone below, sir.'\n\nBut that did the business for me. My imagination began to construct\ndangers out of nothing, and they multiplied faster than I could keep the\nrun of them. All at once I imagined I saw shoal water ahead! The wave\nof coward agony that surged through me then came near dislocating every\njoint in me. All my confidence in that crossing vanished. I seized the\nbell-rope; dropped it, ashamed; seized it again; dropped it once more;\nclutched it tremblingly one again, and pulled it so feebly that I could\nhardly hear the stroke myself. Captain and mate sang out instantly, and\nboth together--\n\n'Starboard lead there! and quick about it!'\n\nThis was another shock. I began to climb the wheel like a squirrel;\nbut I would hardly get the boat started to port before I would see new\ndangers on that side, and away I would spin to the other; only to find\nperils accumulating to starboard, and be crazy to get to port again.\nThen came the leadsman's sepulchral cry--\n\n'D-e-e-p four!'\n\nDeep four in a bottomless crossing! The terror of it took my breath\naway.\n\n'M-a-r-k three!... M-a-r-k three... Quarter less three!... Half twain!'\n\nThis was frightful! I seized the bell-ropes and stopped the engines.\n\n'Quarter twain! Quarter twain! _Mark _twain!'\n\nI was helpless. I did not know what in the world to do. I was quaking\nfrom head to foot, and I could have hung my hat on my eyes, they stuck\nout so far.\n\n'Quarter _less _twain! Nine and a _half_!'\n\nWe were _drawing _nine! My hands were in a nerveless flutter. I could\nnot ring a bell intelligibly with them. I flew to the speaking-tube and\nshouted to the engineer--\n\n'Oh, Ben, if you love me, _back _her! Quick, Ben! Oh, back the immortal\n_soul_ out of her!'\n\nI heard the door close gently. I looked around, and there stood Mr.\nBixby, smiling a bland, sweet smile. Then the audience on the hurricane\ndeck sent up a thundergust of humiliating laughter. I saw it all, now,\nand I felt meaner than the meanest man in human history. I laid in the\nlead, set the boat in her marks, came ahead on the engines, and said--\n\n'It was a fine trick to play on an orphan, _wasn't_ it? I suppose I'll\nnever hear the last of how I was ass enough to heave the lead at the\nhead of 66.'\n\n'Well, no, you won't, maybe. In fact I hope you won't; for I want you\nto learn something by that experience. Didn't you _know _there was no\nbottom in that crossing?'\n\n'Yes, sir, I did.'\n\n'Very well, then. You shouldn't have allowed me or anybody else to shake\nyour confidence in that knowledge. Try to remember that. And another\nthing: when you get into a dangerous place, don't turn coward. That\nisn't going to help matters any.'\n\nIt was a good enough lesson, but pretty hardly learned. Yet about the\nhardest part of it was that for months I so often had to hear a phrase\nwhich I had conceived a particular distaste for. It was, 'Oh, Ben, if\nyou love me, back her!'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 14\n\nRank and Dignity of Piloting\n\nIN my preceding chapters I have tried, by going into the minutiae of the\nscience of piloting, to carry the reader step by step to a comprehension\nof what the science consists of; and at the same time I have tried to\nshow him that it is a very curious and wonderful science, too, and very\nworthy of his attention. If I have seemed to love my subject, it is no\nsurprising thing, for I loved the profession far better than any I have\nfollowed since, and I took a measureless pride in it. The reason is\nplain: a pilot, in those days, was the only unfettered and entirely\nindependent human being that lived in the earth. Kings are but the\nhampered servants of parliament and people; parliaments sit in chains\nforged by their constituency; the editor of a newspaper cannot be\nindependent, but must work with one hand tied behind him by party and\npatrons, and be content to utter only half or two-thirds of his mind; no\nclergyman is a free man and may speak the whole truth, regardless of\nhis parish's opinions; writers of all kinds are manacled servants of the\npublic. We write frankly and fearlessly, but then we 'modify' before we\nprint. In truth, every man and woman and child has a master, and worries\nand frets in servitude; but in the day I write of, the Mississippi pilot\nhad none. The captain could stand upon the hurricane deck, in the pomp\nof a very brief authority, and give him five or six orders while the\nvessel backed into the stream, and then that skipper's reign was over.\n\nThe moment that the boat was under way in the river, she was under the\nsole and unquestioned control of the pilot. He could do with her exactly\nas he pleased, run her when and whither he chose, and tie her up to the\nbank whenever his judgment said that that course was best. His movements\nwere entirely free; he consulted no one, he received commands from\nnobody, he promptly resented even the merest suggestions. Indeed,\nthe law of the United States forbade him to listen to commands or\nsuggestions, rightly considering that the pilot necessarily knew better\nhow to handle the boat than anybody could tell him. So here was the\nnovelty of a king without a keeper, an absolute monarch who was absolute\nin sober truth and not by a fiction of words. I have seen a boy of\neighteen taking a great steamer serenely into what seemed almost certain\ndestruction, and the aged captain standing mutely by, filled with\napprehension but powerless to interfere. His interference, in that\nparticular instance, might have been an excellent thing, but to permit\nit would have been to establish a most pernicious precedent. It will\neasily be guessed, considering the pilot's boundless authority, that he\nwas a great personage in the old steamboating days. He was treated with\nmarked courtesy by the captain and with marked deference by all\nthe officers and servants; and this deferential spirit was quickly\ncommunicated to the passengers, too. I think pilots were about the only\npeople I ever knew who failed to show, in some degree, embarrassment in\nthe presence of traveling foreign princes. But then, people in one's own\ngrade of life are not usually embarrassing objects.\n\nBy long habit, pilots came to put all their wishes in the form of\ncommands. It 'gravels' me, to this day, to put my will in the weak shape\nof a request, instead of launching it in the crisp language of an order.\nIn those old days, to load a steamboat at St. Louis, take her to New\nOrleans and back, and discharge cargo, consumed about twenty-five\ndays, on an average. Seven or eight of these days the boat spent at the\nwharves of St. Louis and New Orleans, and every soul on board was hard\nat work, except the two pilots; they did nothing but play gentleman up\ntown, and receive the same wages for it as if they had been on duty. The\nmoment the boat touched the wharf at either city, they were ashore; and\nthey were not likely to be seen again till the last bell was ringing and\neverything in readiness for another voyage.\n\nWhen a captain got hold of a pilot of particularly high reputation, he\ntook pains to keep him. When wages were four hundred dollars a month on\nthe Upper Mississippi, I have known a captain to keep such a pilot in\nidleness, under full pay, three months at a time, while the river was\nfrozen up. And one must remember that in those cheap times four hundred\ndollars was a salary of almost inconceivable splendor. Few men on shore\ngot such pay as that, and when they did they were mightily looked up\nto. When pilots from either end of the river wandered into our small\nMissouri village, they were sought by the best and the fairest, and\ntreated with exalted respect. Lying in port under wages was a thing\nwhich many pilots greatly enjoyed and appreciated; especially if they\nbelonged in the Missouri River in the heyday of that trade (Kansas\ntimes), and got nine hundred dollars a trip, which was equivalent to\nabout eighteen hundred dollars a month. Here is a conversation of that\nday. A chap out of the Illinois River, with a little stern-wheel tub,\naccosts a couple of ornate and gilded Missouri River pilots--\n\n'Gentlemen, I've got a pretty good trip for the upcountry, and shall\nwant you about a month. How much will it be?'\n\n'Eighteen hundred dollars apiece.'\n\n'Heavens and earth! You take my boat, let me have your wages, and I'll\ndivide!'\n\nI will remark, in passing, that Mississippi steamboatmen were important\nin landsmen's eyes (and in their own, too, in a degree) according to the\ndignity of the boat they were on. For instance, it was a proud thing to\nbe of the crew of such stately craft as the 'Aleck Scott' or the 'Grand\nTurk.' Negro firemen, deck hands, and barbers belonging to those boats\nwere distinguished personages in their grade of life, and they were well\naware of that fact too. A stalwart darkey once gave offense at a negro\nball in New Orleans by putting on a good many airs. Finally one of the\nmanagers bustled up to him and said--\n\n'Who _is_ you, any way? Who is you? dat's what I wants to know!'\n\nThe offender was not disconcerted in the least, but swelled himself\nup and threw that into his voice which showed that he knew he was not\nputting on all those airs on a stinted capital.\n\n'Who _is_ I? Who _is _I? I let you know mighty quick who I is! I want\nyou niggers to understan' dat I fires de middle do'{footnote [Door]} on\nde \"Aleck Scott!\"'\n\nThat was sufficient.\n\nThe barber of the 'Grand Turk' was a spruce young negro, who aired his\nimportance with balmy complacency, and was greatly courted by the circle\nin which he moved. The young colored population of New Orleans were much\ngiven to flirting, at twilight, on the banquettes of the back streets.\nSomebody saw and heard something like the following, one evening, in\none of those localities. A middle-aged negro woman projected her head\nthrough a broken pane and shouted (very willing that the neighbors\nshould hear and envy), 'You Mary Ann, come in de house dis minute!\nStannin' out dah foolin' 'long wid dat low trash, an' heah's de barber\noffn de \"Gran' Turk\" wants to conwerse wid you!'\n\nMy reference, a moment ago, to the fact that a pilot's peculiar official\nposition placed him out of the reach of criticism or command, brings\nStephen W---- naturally to my mind. He was a gifted pilot, a good\nfellow, a tireless talker, and had both wit and humor in him. He had a\nmost irreverent independence, too, and was deliciously easy-going and\ncomfortable in the presence of age, official dignity, and even the most\naugust wealth. He always had work, he never saved a penny, he was a most\npersuasive borrower, he was in debt to every pilot on the river, and to\nthe majority of the captains. He could throw a sort of splendor around\na bit of harum-scarum, devil-may-care piloting, that made it almost\nfascinating--but not to everybody. He made a trip with good old Captain\nY----once, and was 'relieved' from duty when the boat got to New\nOrleans. Somebody expressed surprise at the discharge. Captain Y----\nshuddered at the mere mention of Stephen. Then his poor, thin old voice\npiped out something like this:--\n\n'Why, bless me! I wouldn't have such a wild creature on my boat for the\nworld--not for the whole world! He swears, he sings, he whistles, he\nyells--I never saw such an Injun to yell. All times of the night--it\nnever made any difference to him. He would just yell that way, not for\nanything in particular, but merely on account of a kind of devilish\ncomfort he got out of it. I never could get into a sound sleep but\nhe would fetch me out of bed, all in a cold sweat, with one of those\ndreadful war-whoops. A queer being--very queer being; no respect for\nanything or anybody. Sometimes he called me \"Johnny.\" And he kept a\nfiddle, and a cat. He played execrably. This seemed to distress the cat,\nand so the cat would howl. Nobody could sleep where that man--and his\nfamily--was. And reckless. There never was anything like it. Now you may\nbelieve it or not, but as sure as I am sitting here, he brought my boat\na-tilting down through those awful snags at Chicot under a rattling\nhead of steam, and the wind a-blowing like the very nation, at that! My\nofficers will tell you so. They saw it. And, sir, while he was a-tearing\nright down through those snags, and I a-shaking in my shoes and praying,\nI wish I may never speak again if he didn't pucker up his mouth and go\nto _whistling_! Yes, sir; whistling \"Buffalo gals, can't you come out\ntonight, can't you come out to-night, can't you come out to-night;\" and\ndoing it as calmly as if we were attending a funeral and weren't related\nto the corpse. And when I remonstrated with him about it, he smiled down\non me as if I was his child, and told me to run in the house and try to\nbe good, and not be meddling with my superiors!'\n\nOnce a pretty mean captain caught Stephen in New Orleans out of work\nand as usual out of money. He laid steady siege to Stephen, who was in\na very 'close place,' and finally persuaded him to hire with him at one\nhundred and twenty-five dollars per month, just half wages, the captain\nagreeing not to divulge the secret and so bring down the contempt of all\nthe guild upon the poor fellow. But the boat was not more than a day out\nof New Orleans before Stephen discovered that the captain was boasting\nof his exploit, and that all the officers had been told. Stephen winced,\nbut said nothing. About the middle of the afternoon the captain stepped\nout on the hurricane deck, cast his eye around, and looked a good deal\nsurprised. He glanced inquiringly aloft at Stephen, but Stephen was\nwhistling placidly, and attending to business. The captain stood around\na while in evident discomfort, and once or twice seemed about to make a\nsuggestion; but the etiquette of the river taught him to avoid that sort\nof rashness, and so he managed to hold his peace. He chafed and puzzled\na few minutes longer, then retired to his apartments. But soon he\nwas out again, and apparently more perplexed than ever. Presently he\nventured to remark, with deference--\n\n'Pretty good stage of the river now, ain't it, sir?'\n\n'Well, I should say so! Bank-full _is_ a pretty liberal stage.'\n\n'Seems to be a good deal of current here.'\n\n'Good deal don't describe it! It's worse than a mill-race.'\n\n'Isn't it easier in toward shore than it is out here in the middle?'\n\n'Yes, I reckon it is; but a body can't be too careful with a steamboat.\nIt's pretty safe out here; can't strike any bottom here, you can depend\non that.'\n\nThe captain departed, looking rueful enough. At this rate, he would\nprobably die of old age before his boat got to St. Louis. Next day he\nappeared on deck and again found Stephen faithfully standing up the\nmiddle of the river, fighting the whole vast force of the Mississippi,\nand whistling the same placid tune. This thing was becoming serious.\nIn by the shore was a slower boat clipping along in the easy water and\ngaining steadily; she began to make for an island chute; Stephen stuck\nto the middle of the river. Speech was _wrung _from the captain. He\nsaid--\n\n'Mr. W----, don't that chute cut off a good deal of distance?'\n\n'I think it does, but I don't know.'\n\n'Don't know! Well, isn't there water enough in it now to go through?'\n\n'I expect there is, but I am not certain.'\n\n'Upon my word this is odd! Why, those pilots on that boat yonder are\ngoing to try it. Do you mean to say that you don't know as much as they\ndo?'\n\n'_They_! Why, _they _are two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar pilots! But\ndon't you be uneasy; I know as much as any man can afford to know for a\nhundred and twenty-five!'\n\nThe captain surrendered.\n\nFive minutes later Stephen was bowling through the chute and showing the\nrival boat a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar pair of heels.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 15\n\nThe Pilots' Monopoly\n\nONE day, on board the 'Aleck Scott,' my chief, Mr. Bixby, was crawling\ncarefully through a close place at Cat Island, both leads going, and\neverybody holding his breath. The captain, a nervous, apprehensive man,\nkept still as long as he could, but finally broke down and shouted from\nthe hurricane deck--\n\n'For gracious' sake, give her steam, Mr. Bixby! give her steam! She'll\nnever raise the reef on this headway!'\n\nFor all the effect that was produced upon Mr. Bixby, one would have\nsupposed that no remark had been made. But five minutes later, when\nthe danger was past and the leads laid in, he burst instantly into a\nconsuming fury, and gave the captain the most admirable cursing I ever\nlistened to. No bloodshed ensued; but that was because the captain's\ncause was weak; for ordinarily he was not a man to take correction\nquietly.\n\nHaving now set forth in detail the nature of the science of piloting,\nand likewise described the rank which the pilot held among the\nfraternity of steamboatmen, this seems a fitting place to say a few\nwords about an organization which the pilots once formed for the\nprotection of their guild. It was curious and noteworthy in this,\nthat it was perhaps the compactest, the completest, and the strongest\ncommercial organization ever formed among men.\n\nFor a long time wages had been two hundred and fifty dollars a month;\nbut curiously enough, as steamboats multiplied and business increased,\nthe wages began to fall little by little. It was easy to discover the\nreason of this. Too many pilots were being 'made.' It was nice to have\na 'cub,' a steersman, to do all the hard work for a couple of years,\ngratis, while his master sat on a high bench and smoked; all pilots and\ncaptains had sons or nephews who wanted to be pilots. By and by it came\nto pass that nearly every pilot on the river had a steersman. When a\nsteersman had made an amount of progress that was satisfactory to any\ntwo pilots in the trade, they could get a pilot's license for him by\nsigning an application directed to the United States Inspector. Nothing\nfurther was needed; usually no questions were asked, no proofs of\ncapacity required.\n\nVery well, this growing swarm of new pilots presently began to undermine\nthe wages, in order to get berths. Too late--apparently--the knights of\nthe tiller perceived their mistake. Plainly, something had to be done,\nand quickly; but what was to be the needful thing. A close organization.\nNothing else would answer. To compass this seemed an impossibility; so\nit was talked, and talked, and then dropped. It was too likely to ruin\nwhoever ventured to move in the matter. But at last about a dozen of\nthe boldest--and some of them the best--pilots on the river launched\nthemselves into the enterprise and took all the chances. They got a\nspecial charter from the legislature, with large powers, under the name\nof the Pilots' Benevolent Association; elected their officers, completed\ntheir organization, contributed capital, put 'association' wages up to\ntwo hundred and fifty dollars at once--and then retired to their homes,\nfor they were promptly discharged from employment. But there were two\nor three unnoticed trifles in their by-laws which had the seeds of\npropagation in them. For instance, all idle members of the association,\nin good standing, were entitled to a pension of twenty-five dollars per\nmonth. This began to bring in one straggler after another from the ranks\nof the new-fledged pilots, in the dull (summer) season. Better have\ntwenty-five dollars than starve; the initiation fee was only twelve\ndollars, and no dues required from the unemployed.\n\nAlso, the widows of deceased members in good standing could draw\ntwenty-five dollars per month, and a certain sum for each of their\nchildren. Also, the said deceased would be buried at the association's\nexpense. These things resurrected all the superannuated and forgotten\npilots in the Mississippi Valley. They came from farms, they came from\ninterior villages, they came from everywhere. They came on crutches, on\ndrays, in ambulances,--any way, so they got there. They paid in their\ntwelve dollars, and straightway began to draw out twenty-five dollars a\nmonth, and calculate their burial bills.\n\nBy and by, all the useless, helpless pilots, and a dozen first-class\nones, were in the association, and nine-tenths of the best pilots out\nof it and laughing at it. It was the laughing-stock of the whole river.\nEverybody joked about the by-law requiring members to pay ten per cent.\nof their wages, every month, into the treasury for the support of the\nassociation, whereas all the members were outcast and tabooed, and\nno one would employ them. Everybody was derisively grateful to the\nassociation for taking all the worthless pilots out of the way and\nleaving the whole field to the excellent and the deserving; and\neverybody was not only jocularly grateful for that, but for a result\nwhich naturally followed, namely, the gradual advance of wages as the\nbusy season approached. Wages had gone up from the low figure of one\nhundred dollars a month to one hundred and twenty-five, and in some\ncases to one hundred and fifty; and it was great fun to enlarge upon the\nfact that this charming thing had been accomplished by a body of men not\none of whom received a particle of benefit from it. Some of the jokers\nused to call at the association rooms and have a good time chaffing the\nmembers and offering them the charity of taking them as steersmen for\na trip, so that they could see what the forgotten river looked like.\nHowever, the association was content; or at least it gave no sign to the\ncontrary. Now and then it captured a pilot who was 'out of luck,' and\nadded him to its list; and these later additions were very valuable,\nfor they were good pilots; the incompetent ones had all been absorbed\nbefore. As business freshened, wages climbed gradually up to two hundred\nand fifty dollars--the association figure--and became firmly fixed\nthere; and still without benefiting a member of that body, for no member\nwas hired. The hilarity at the association's expense burst all bounds,\nnow. There was no end to the fun which that poor martyr had to put up\nwith.\n\nHowever, it is a long lane that has no turning. Winter approached,\nbusiness doubled and trebled, and an avalanche of Missouri, Illinois and\nUpper Mississippi River boats came pouring down to take a chance in the\nNew Orleans trade. All of a sudden pilots were in great demand, and were\ncorrespondingly scarce. The time for revenge was come. It was a bitter\npill to have to accept association pilots at last, yet captains and\nowners agreed that there was no other way. But none of these outcasts\noffered! So there was a still bitterer pill to be swallowed: they must\nbe sought out and asked for their services. Captain ---- was the first\nman who found it necessary to take the dose, and he had been the\nloudest derider of the organization. He hunted up one of the best of the\nassociation pilots and said--\n\n'Well, you boys have rather got the best of us for a little while, so\nI'll give in with as good a grace as I can. I've come to hire you; get\nyour trunk aboard right away. I want to leave at twelve o'clock.'\n\n'I don't know about that. Who is your other pilot?'\n\n'I've got I. S----. Why?'\n\n'I can't go with him. He don't belong to the association.'\n\n'What!'\n\n'It's so.'\n\n'Do you mean to tell me that you won't turn a wheel with one of the\nvery best and oldest pilots on the river because he don't belong to your\nassociation?'\n\n'Yes, I do.'\n\n'Well, if this isn't putting on airs! I supposed I was doing you a\nbenevolence; but I begin to think that I am the party that wants a favor\ndone. Are you acting under a law of the concern?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'Show it to me.'\n\nSo they stepped into the association rooms, and the secretary soon\nsatisfied the captain, who said--\n\n'Well, what am I to do? I have hired Mr. S---- for the entire season.'\n\n'I will provide for you,' said the secretary. 'I will detail a pilot to\ngo with you, and he shall be on board at twelve o'clock.'\n\n'But if I discharge S----, he will come on me for the whole season's\nwages.'\n\n'Of course that is a matter between you and Mr. S----, captain. We\ncannot meddle in your private affairs.'\n\nThe captain stormed, but to no purpose. In the end he had to discharge\nS----, pay him about a thousand dollars, and take an association pilot\nin his place. The laugh was beginning to turn the other way now. Every\nday, thenceforward, a new victim fell; every day some outraged captain\ndischarged a non-association pet, with tears and profanity, and\ninstalled a hated association man in his berth. In a very little while,\nidle non-associationists began to be pretty plenty, brisk as business\nwas, and much as their services were desired. The laugh was shifting to\nthe other side of their mouths most palpably. These victims, together\nwith the captains and owners, presently ceased to laugh altogether,\nand began to rage about the revenge they would take when the passing\nbusiness 'spurt' was over.\n\nSoon all the laughers that were left were the owners and crews of boats\nthat had two non-association pilots. But their triumph was not very\nlong-lived. For this reason: It was a rigid rule of the association\nthat its members should never, under any circumstances whatever, give\ninformation about the channel to any 'outsider.' By this time about half\nthe boats had none but association pilots, and the other half had none\nbut outsiders. At the first glance one would suppose that when it came\nto forbidding information about the river these two parties could play\nequally at that game; but this was not so. At every good-sized town from\none end of the river to the other, there was a 'wharf-boat' to land\nat, instead of a wharf or a pier. Freight was stored in it for\ntransportation; waiting passengers slept in its cabins. Upon each\nof these wharf-boats the association's officers placed a strong box\nfastened with a peculiar lock which was used in no other service but\none--the United States mail service. It was the letter-bag lock, a\nsacred governmental thing. By dint of much beseeching the government\nhad been persuaded to allow the association to use this lock. Every\nassociation man carried a key which would open these boxes. That key, or\nrather a peculiar way of holding it in the hand when its owner was asked\nfor river information by a stranger--for the success of the St. Louis\nand New Orleans association had now bred tolerably thriving branches in\na dozen neighboring steamboat trades--was the association man's sign and\ndiploma of membership; and if the stranger did not respond by producing\na similar key and holding it in a certain manner duly prescribed, his\nquestion was politely ignored.\n\nFrom the association's secretary each member received a package of more\nor less gorgeous blanks, printed like a billhead, on handsome paper,\nproperly ruled in columns; a bill-head worded something like this--\n\nThese blanks were filled up, day by day, as the voyage progressed, and\ndeposited in the several wharf-boat boxes. For instance, as soon as the\nfirst crossing, out from St. Louis, was completed, the items would be\nentered upon the blank, under the appropriate headings, thus--\n\n'St. Louis. Nine and a half (feet). Stern on court-house, head on dead\ncottonwood above wood-yard, until you raise the first reef, then pull up\nsquare.' Then under head of Remarks: 'Go just outside the wrecks; this\nis important. New snag just where you straighten down; go above it.'\n\nThe pilot who deposited that blank in the Cairo box (after adding to it\nthe details of every crossing all the way down from St. Louis) took\nout and read half a dozen fresh reports (from upward-bound steamers)\nconcerning the river between Cairo and Memphis, posted himself\nthoroughly, returned them to the box, and went back aboard his boat\nagain so armed against accident that he could not possibly get his boat\ninto trouble without bringing the most ingenious carelessness to his\naid.\n\nImagine the benefits of so admirable a system in a piece of river twelve\nor thirteen hundred miles long, whose channel was shifting every day!\nThe pilot who had formerly been obliged to put up with seeing a shoal\nplace once or possibly twice a month, had a hundred sharp eyes to watch\nit for him, now, and bushels of intelligent brains to tell him how to\nrun it. His information about it was seldom twenty-four hours old. If\nthe reports in the last box chanced to leave any misgivings on his\nmind concerning a treacherous crossing, he had his remedy; he blew his\nsteam-whistle in a peculiar way as soon as he saw a boat approaching;\nthe signal was answered in a peculiar way if that boat's pilots were\nassociation men; and then the two steamers ranged alongside and all\nuncertainties were swept away by fresh information furnished to the\ninquirer by word of mouth and in minute detail.\n\nThe first thing a pilot did when he reached New Orleans or St. Louis was\nto take his final and elaborate report to the association parlors and\nhang it up there,--after which he was free to visit his family. In these\nparlors a crowd was always gathered together, discussing changes in the\nchannel, and the moment there was a fresh arrival, everybody stopped\ntalking till this witness had told the newest news and settled the\nlatest uncertainty. Other craftsmen can 'sink the shop,' sometimes,\nand interest themselves in other matters. Not so with a pilot; he must\ndevote himself wholly to his profession and talk of nothing else; for it\nwould be small gain to be perfect one day and imperfect the next. He has\nno time or words to waste if he would keep 'posted.'\n\nBut the outsiders had a hard time of it. No particular place to meet\nand exchange information, no wharf-boat reports, none but chance and\nunsatisfactory ways of getting news. The consequence was that a man\nsometimes had to run five hundred miles of river on information that\nwas a week or ten days old. At a fair stage of the river that might have\nanswered; but when the dead low water came it was destructive.\n\nNow came another perfectly logical result. The outsiders began to\nground steamboats, sink them, and get into all sorts of trouble,\nwhereas accidents seemed to keep entirely away from the association men.\nWherefore even the owners and captains of boats furnished exclusively\nwith outsiders, and previously considered to be wholly independent of\nthe association and free to comfort themselves with brag and laughter,\nbegan to feel pretty uncomfortable. Still, they made a show of keeping\nup the brag, until one black day when every captain of the lot was\nformally ordered to immediately discharge his outsiders and take\nassociation pilots in their stead. And who was it that had the dashing\npresumption to do that? Alas, it came from a power behind the throne\nthat was greater than the throne itself. It was the underwriters!\n\nIt was no time to 'swap knives.' Every outsider had to take his trunk\nashore at once. Of course it was supposed that there was collusion\nbetween the association and the underwriters, but this was not so. The\nlatter had come to comprehend the excellence of the 'report' system of\nthe association and the safety it secured, and so they had made their\ndecision among themselves and upon plain business principles.\n\nThere was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth in the camp of\nthe outsiders now. But no matter, there was but one course for them to\npursue, and they pursued it. They came forward in couples and groups,\nand proffered their twelve dollars and asked for membership. They were\nsurprised to learn that several new by-laws had been long ago added. For\ninstance, the initiation fee had been raised to fifty dollars; that\nsum must be tendered, and also ten per cent. of the wages which the\napplicant had received each and every month since the founding of\nthe association. In many cases this amounted to three or four hundred\ndollars. Still, the association would not entertain the application\nuntil the money was present. Even then a single adverse vote killed the\napplication. Every member had to vote 'Yes' or 'No' in person and before\nwitnesses; so it took weeks to decide a candidacy, because many pilots\nwere so long absent on voyages. However, the repentant sinners scraped\ntheir savings together, and one by one, by our tedious voting process,\nthey were added to the fold. A time came, at last, when only about ten\nremained outside. They said they would starve before they would apply.\nThey remained idle a long while, because of course nobody could venture\nto employ them.\n\nBy and by the association published the fact that upon a certain date\nthe wages would be raised to five hundred dollars per month. All the\nbranch associations had grown strong, now, and the Red River one had\nadvanced wages to seven hundred dollars a month. Reluctantly the ten\noutsiders yielded, in view of these things, and made application. There\nwas another new by-law, by this time, which required them to pay dues\nnot only on all the wages they had received since the association was\nborn, but also on what they would have received if they had continued at\nwork up to the time of their application, instead of going off to pout\nin idleness. It turned out to be a difficult matter to elect them, but\nit was accomplished at last. The most virulent sinner of this batch had\nstayed out and allowed 'dues' to accumulate against him so long that he\nhad to send in six hundred and twenty-five dollars with his application.\n\nThe association had a good bank account now, and was very strong. There\nwas no longer an outsider. A by-law was added forbidding the reception\nof any more cubs or apprentices for five years; after which time\na limited number would be taken, not by individuals, but by the\nassociation, upon these terms: the applicant must not be less than\neighteen years old, and of respectable family and good character; he\nmust pass an examination as to education, pay a thousand dollars in\nadvance for the privilege of becoming an apprentice, and must remain\nunder the commands of the association until a great part of the\nmembership (more than half, I think) should be willing to sign his\napplication for a pilot's license.\n\nAll previously-articled apprentices were now taken away from their\nmasters and adopted by the association. The president and secretary\ndetailed them for service on one boat or another, as they chose, and\nchanged them from boat to boat according to certain rules. If a pilot\ncould show that he was in infirm health and needed assistance, one of\nthe cubs would be ordered to go with him.\n\nThe widow and orphan list grew, but so did the association's financial\nresources. The association attended its own funerals in state, and paid\nfor them. When occasion demanded, it sent members down the river upon\nsearches for the bodies of brethren lost by steamboat accidents; a\nsearch of this kind sometimes cost a thousand dollars.\n\nThe association procured a charter and went into the insurance business,\nalso. It not only insured the lives of its members, but took risks on\nsteamboats.\n\nThe organization seemed indestructible. It was the tightest monopoly in\nthe world. By the United States law, no man could become a pilot unless\ntwo duly licensed pilots signed his application; and now there was\nnobody outside of the association competent to sign. Consequently the\nmaking of pilots was at an end. Every year some would die and others\nbecome incapacitated by age and infirmity; there would be no new ones\nto take their places. In time, the association could put wages up to any\nfigure it chose; and as long as it should be wise enough not to carry\nthe thing too far and provoke the national government into amending the\nlicensing system, steamboat owners would have to submit, since there\nwould be no help for it.\n\nThe owners and captains were the only obstruction that lay between\nthe association and absolute power; and at last this one was removed.\nIncredible as it may seem, the owners and captains deliberately did it\nthemselves. When the pilots' association announced, months beforehand,\nthat on the first day of September, 1861, wages would be advanced to\nfive hundred dollars per month, the owners and captains instantly put\nfreights up a few cents, and explained to the farmers along the river\nthe necessity of it, by calling their attention to the burdensome rate\nof wages about to be established. It was a rather slender argument, but\nthe farmers did not seem to detect it. It looked reasonable to them that\nto add five cents freight on a bushel of corn was justifiable under\nthe circumstances, overlooking the fact that this advance on a cargo of\nforty thousand sacks was a good deal more than necessary to cover the\nnew wages.\n\nSo, straightway the captains and owners got up an association of their\nown, and proposed to put captains' wages up to five hundred dollars,\ntoo, and move for another advance in freights. It was a novel idea,\nbut of course an effect which had been produced once could be produced\nagain. The new association decreed (for this was before all the\noutsiders had been taken into the pilots' association) that if any\ncaptain employed a non-association pilot, he should be forced to\ndischarge him, and also pay a fine of five hundred dollars. Several\nof these heavy fines were paid before the captains' organization grew\nstrong enough to exercise full authority over its membership; but that\nall ceased, presently. The captains tried to get the pilots to decree\nthat no member of their corporation should serve under a non-association\ncaptain; but this proposition was declined. The pilots saw that they\nwould be backed up by the captains and the underwriters anyhow, and so\nthey wisely refrained from entering into entangling alliances.\n\nAs I have remarked, the pilots' association was now the compactest\nmonopoly in the world, perhaps, and seemed simply indestructible.\nAnd yet the days of its glory were numbered. First, the new railroad\nstretching up through Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky, to Northern\nrailway centers, began to divert the passenger travel from the steamers;\nnext the war came and almost entirely annihilated the steamboating\nindustry during several years, leaving most of the pilots idle, and the\ncost of living advancing all the time; then the treasurer of the St.\nLouis association put his hand into the till and walked off with\nevery dollar of the ample fund; and finally, the railroads intruding\neverywhere, there was little for steamers to do, when the war was over,\nbut carry freights; so straightway some genius from the Atlantic coast\nintroduced the plan of towing a dozen steamer cargoes down to New\nOrleans at the tail of a vulgar little tug-boat; and behold, in the\ntwinkling of an eye, as it were, the association and the noble science\nof piloting were things of the dead and pathetic past!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 16\n\nRacing Days\n\nIT was always the custom for the boats to leave New Orleans between four\nand five o'clock in the afternoon. From three o'clock onward they would\nbe burning rosin and pitch pine (the sign of preparation), and so one\nhad the picturesque spectacle of a rank, some two or three miles long,\nof tall, ascending columns of coal-black smoke; a colonnade which\nsupported a sable roof of the same smoke blended together and spreading\nabroad over the city. Every outward-bound boat had its flag flying at\nthe jack-staff, and sometimes a duplicate on the verge staff astern.\nTwo or three miles of mates were commanding and swearing with more than\nusual emphasis; countless processions of freight barrels and boxes were\nspinning athwart the levee and flying aboard the stage-planks, belated\npassengers were dodging and skipping among these frantic things, hoping\nto reach the forecastle companion way alive, but having their doubts\nabout it; women with reticules and bandboxes were trying to keep up with\nhusbands freighted with carpet-sacks and crying babies, and making a\nfailure of it by losing their heads in the whirl and roar and general\ndistraction; drays and baggage-vans were clattering hither and thither\nin a wild hurry, every now and then getting blocked and jammed together,\nand then during ten seconds one could not see them for the profanity,\nexcept vaguely and dimly; every windlass connected with every forehatch,\nfrom one end of that long array of steamboats to the other, was keeping\nup a deafening whiz and whir, lowering freight into the hold, and the\nhalf-naked crews of perspiring negroes that worked them were roaring\nsuch songs as 'De Las' Sack! De Las' Sack!'--inspired to unimaginable\nexaltation by the chaos of turmoil and racket that was driving everybody\nelse mad.\n\nBy this time the hurricane and boiler decks of the steamers would be\npacked and black with passengers. The 'last bells' would begin to clang,\nall down the line, and then the powwow seemed to double; in a moment or\ntwo the final warning came,--a simultaneous din of Chinese gongs, with\nthe cry, 'All dat ain't goin', please to git asho'!'--and behold, the\npowwow quadrupled! People came swarming ashore, overturning excited\nstragglers that were trying to swarm aboard. One more moment later a\nlong array of stage-planks was being hauled in, each with its customary\nlatest passenger clinging to the end of it with teeth, nails, and\neverything else, and the customary latest procrastinator making a wild\nspring shoreward over his head.\n\nNow a number of the boats slide backward into the stream, leaving wide\ngaps in the serried rank of steamers. Citizens crowd the decks of boats\nthat are not to go, in order to see the sight. Steamer after steamer\nstraightens herself up, gathers all her strength, and presently comes\nswinging by, under a tremendous head of steam, with flag flying, black\nsmoke rolling, and her entire crew of firemen and deck-hands (usually\nswarthy negroes) massed together on the forecastle, the best 'voice' in\nthe lot towering from the midst (being mounted on the capstan), waving\nhis hat or a flag, and all roaring a mighty chorus, while the parting\ncannons boom and the multitudinous spectators swing their hats and\nhuzza! Steamer after steamer falls into line, and the stately procession\ngoes winging its flight up the river.\n\nIn the old times, whenever two fast boats started out on a race, with a\nbig crowd of people looking on, it was inspiring to hear the crews sing,\nespecially if the time were night-fall, and the forecastle lit up with\nthe red glare of the torch-baskets. Racing was royal fun. The public\nalways had an idea that racing was dangerous; whereas the opposite was\nthe case--that is, after the laws were passed which restricted each boat\nto just so many pounds of steam to the square inch. No engineer was ever\nsleepy or careless when his heart was in a race. He was constantly on\nthe alert, trying gauge-cocks and watching things. The dangerous place\nwas on slow, plodding boats, where the engineers drowsed around and\nallowed chips to get into the 'doctor' and shut off the water supply\nfrom the boilers.\n\nIn the 'flush times' of steamboating, a race between two notoriously\nfleet steamers was an event of vast importance. The date was set for\nit several weeks in advance, and from that time forward, the whole\nMississippi Valley was in a state of consuming excitement. Politics and\nthe weather were dropped, and people talked only of the coming race. As\nthe time approached, the two steamers 'stripped' and got ready. Every\nencumbrance that added weight, or exposed a resisting surface to wind\nor water, was removed, if the boat could possibly do without it. The\n'spars,' and sometimes even their supporting derricks, were sent ashore,\nand no means left to set the boat afloat in case she got aground. When\nthe 'Eclipse' and the 'A. L. Shotwell' ran their great race many years\nago, it was said that pains were taken to scrape the gilding off the\nfanciful device which hung between the 'Eclipse's' chimneys, and that\nfor that one trip the captain left off his kid gloves and had his head\nshaved. But I always doubted these things.\n\nIf the boat was known to make her best speed when drawing five and a\nhalf feet forward and five feet aft, she was carefully loaded to that\nexact figure--she wouldn't enter a dose of homoeopathic pills on her\nmanifest after that. Hardly any passengers were taken, because they not\nonly add weight but they never will 'trim boat.' They always run to\nthe side when there is anything to see, whereas a conscientious and\nexperienced steamboatman would stick to the center of the boat and part\nhis hair in the middle with a spirit level.\n\nNo way-freights and no way-passengers were allowed, for the racers would\nstop only at the largest towns, and then it would be only 'touch and\ngo.' Coal flats and wood flats were contracted for beforehand, and\nthese were kept ready to hitch on to the flying steamers at a moment's\nwarning. Double crews were carried, so that all work could be quickly\ndone.\n\nThe chosen date being come, and all things in readiness, the two great\nsteamers back into the stream, and lie there jockeying a moment, and\napparently watching each other's slightest movement, like sentient\ncreatures; flags drooping, the pent steam shrieking through\nsafety-valves, the black smoke rolling and tumbling from the chimneys\nand darkening all the air. People, people everywhere; the shores, the\nhouse-tops, the steamboats, the ships, are packed with them, and you\nknow that the borders of the broad Mississippi are going to be fringed\nwith humanity thence northward twelve hundred miles, to welcome these\nracers.\n\nPresently tall columns of steam burst from the 'scape-pipes of both\nsteamers, two guns boom a good-bye, two red-shirted heroes mounted\non capstans wave their small flags above the massed crews on the\nforecastles, two plaintive solos linger on the air a few waiting\nseconds, two mighty choruses burst forth--and here they come! Brass\nbands bray Hail Columbia, huzza after huzza thunders from the shores,\nand the stately creatures go whistling by like the wind.\n\nThose boats will never halt a moment between New Orleans and St. Louis,\nexcept for a second or two at large towns, or to hitch thirty-cord\nwood-boats alongside. You should be on board when they take a couple of\nthose wood-boats in tow and turn a swarm of men into each; by the time\nyou have wiped your glasses and put them on, you will be wondering what\nhas become of that wood.\n\nTwo nicely matched steamers will stay in sight of each other day after\nday. They might even stay side by side, but for the fact that pilots are\nnot all alike, and the smartest pilots will win the race. If one of the\nboats has a 'lightning' pilot, whose 'partner' is a trifle his inferior,\nyou can tell which one is on watch by noting whether that boat has\ngained ground or lost some during each four-hour stretch. The shrewdest\npilot can delay a boat if he has not a fine genius for steering.\nSteering is a very high art. One must not keep a rudder dragging across\na boat's stem if he wants to get up the river fast.\n\nThere is a great difference in boats, of course. For a long time I was\non a boat that was so slow we used to forget what year it was we left\nport in. But of course this was at rare intervals. Ferryboats used to\nlose valuable trips because their passengers grew old and died, waiting\nfor us to get by. This was at still rarer intervals. I had the documents\nfor these occurrences, but through carelessness they have been mislaid.\nThis boat, the 'John J. Roe,' was so slow that when she finally sunk in\nMadrid Bend, it was five years before the owners heard of it. That was\nalways a confusing fact to me, but it is according to the record, any\nway. She was dismally slow; still, we often had pretty exciting times\nracing with islands, and rafts, and such things. One trip, however, we\ndid rather well. We went to St. Louis in sixteen days. But even at\nthis rattling gait I think we changed watches three times in Fort Adams\nreach, which is five miles long. A 'reach' is a piece of straight river,\nand of course the current drives through such a place in a pretty lively\nway.\n\nThat trip we went to Grand Gulf, from New Orleans, in four days (three\nhundred and forty miles); the 'Eclipse' and 'Shotwell' did it in one.\nWe were nine days out, in the chute of 63 (seven hundred miles); the\n'Eclipse' and 'Shotwell' went there in two days. Something over a\ngeneration ago, a boat called the 'J. M. White' went from New Orleans\nto Cairo in three days, six hours, and forty-four minutes. In 1853 the\n'Eclipse' made the same trip in three days, three hours, and twenty\nminutes.{footnote [Time disputed. Some authorities add 1 hour and 16\nminutes to this.]} In 1870 the 'R. E. Lee' did it in three days and\n_one_ hour. This last is called the fastest trip on record. I will\ntry to show that it was not. For this reason: the distance between\nNew Orleans and Cairo, when the 'J. M. White' ran it, was about eleven\nhundred and six miles; consequently her average speed was a trifle over\nfourteen miles per hour. In the 'Eclipse's' day the distance between\nthe two ports had become reduced to one thousand and eighty miles;\nconsequently her average speed was a shade under fourteen and\nthree-eighths miles per hour. In the 'R. E. Lee's' time the distance\nhad diminished to about one thousand and thirty miles; consequently her\naverage was about fourteen and one-eighth miles per hour. Therefore the\n'Eclipse's' was conspicuously the fastest time that has ever been made.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 17\n\nCut-offs and Stephen\n\nTHESE dry details are of importance in one particular. They give me\nan opportunity of introducing one of the Mississippi's oddest\npeculiarities,--that of shortening its length from time to time. If\nyou will throw a long, pliant apple-paring over your shoulder, it will\npretty fairly shape itself into an average section of the Mississippi\nRiver; that is, the nine or ten hundred miles stretching from Cairo,\nIllinois, southward to New Orleans, the same being wonderfully crooked,\nwith a brief straight bit here and there at wide intervals. The two\nhundred-mile stretch from Cairo northward to St. Louis is by no means so\ncrooked, that being a rocky country which the river cannot cut much.\n\nThe water cuts the alluvial banks of the 'lower' river into deep\nhorseshoe curves; so deep, indeed, that in some places if you were to\nget ashore at one extremity of the horseshoe and walk across the neck,\nhalf or three quarters of a mile, you could sit down and rest a couple\nof hours while your steamer was coming around the long elbow, at a speed\nof ten miles an hour, to take you aboard again. When the river is\nrising fast, some scoundrel whose plantation is back in the country, and\ntherefore of inferior value, has only to watch his chance, cut a little\ngutter across the narrow neck of land some dark night, and turn the\nwater into it, and in a wonderfully short time a miracle has happened:\nto wit, the whole Mississippi has taken possession of that little ditch,\nand placed the countryman's plantation on its bank (quadrupling its\nvalue), and that other party's formerly valuable plantation finds itself\naway out yonder on a big island; the old watercourse around it will soon\nshoal up, boats cannot approach within ten miles of it, and down goes\nits value to a fourth of its former worth. Watches are kept on those\nnarrow necks, at needful times, and if a man happens to be caught\ncutting a ditch across them, the chances are all against his ever having\nanother opportunity to cut a ditch.\n\nPray observe some of the effects of this ditching business. Once there\nwas a neck opposite Port Hudson, Louisiana, which was only half a mile\nacross, in its narrowest place. You could walk across there in fifteen\nminutes; but if you made the journey around the cape on a raft, you\ntraveled thirty-five miles to accomplish the same thing. In 1722 the\nriver darted through that neck, deserted its old bed, and thus\nshortened itself thirty-five miles. In the same way it shortened itself\ntwenty-five miles at Black Hawk Point in 1699. Below Red River Landing,\nRaccourci cut-off was made (forty or fifty years ago, I think). This\nshortened the river twenty-eight miles. In our day, if you travel by\nriver from the southernmost of these three cut-offs to the northernmost,\nyou go only seventy miles. To do the same thing a hundred and\nseventy-six years ago, one had to go a hundred and fifty-eight\nmiles!--shortening of eighty-eight miles in that trifling distance.\nAt some forgotten time in the past, cut-offs were made above Vidalia,\nLouisiana; at island 92; at island 84; and at Hale's Point. These\nshortened the river, in the aggregate, seventy-seven miles.\n\nSince my own day on the Mississippi, cut-offs have been made at\nHurricane Island; at island 100; at Napoleon, Arkansas; at Walnut\nBend; and at Council Bend. These shortened the river, in the aggregate,\nsixty-seven miles. In my own time a cut-off was made at American Bend,\nwhich shortened the river ten miles or more.\n\nTherefore, the Mississippi between Cairo and New Orleans was twelve\nhundred and fifteen miles long one hundred and seventy-six years ago.\nIt was eleven hundred and eighty after the cut-off of 1722. It was\none thousand and forty after the American Bend cut-off. It has lost\nsixty-seven miles since. Consequently its length is only nine hundred\nand seventy-three miles at present.\n\nNow, if I wanted to be one of those ponderous scientific people, and\n'let on' to prove what had occurred in the remote past by what had\noccurred in a given time in the recent past, or what will occur in the\nfar future by what has occurred in late years, what an opportunity is\nhere! Geology never had such a chance, nor such exact data to argue\nfrom! Nor 'development of species,' either! Glacial epochs are great\nthings, but they are vague--vague. Please observe:--\n\nIn the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi\nhas shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average\nof a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm\nperson, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oolitic\nSilurian Period,' just a million years ago next November, the Lower\nMississippi River was upwards of one million three hundred thousand\nmiles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod.\nAnd by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and\nforty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and\nthree-quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their\nstreets together, and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor\nand a mutual board of aldermen. There is something fascinating about\nscience. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a\ntrifling investment of fact.\n\nWhen the water begins to flow through one of those ditches I have been\nspeaking of, it is time for the people thereabouts to move. The water\ncleaves the banks away like a knife. By the time the ditch has become\ntwelve or fifteen feet wide, the calamity is as good as accomplished,\nfor no power on earth can stop it now. When the width has reached a\nhundred yards, the banks begin to peel off in slices half an acre wide.\nThe current flowing around the bend traveled formerly only five miles\nan hour; now it is tremendously increased by the shortening of the\ndistance. I was on board the first boat that tried to go through the\ncut-off at American Bend, but we did not get through. It was toward\nmidnight, and a wild night it was--thunder, lightning, and torrents of\nrain. It was estimated that the current in the cut-off was making about\nfifteen or twenty miles an hour; twelve or thirteen was the best our\nboat could do, even in tolerably slack water, therefore perhaps we were\nfoolish to try the cut-off. However, Mr. Brown was ambitious, and he\nkept on trying. The eddy running up the bank, under the 'point,' was\nabout as swift as the current out in the middle; so we would go flying\nup the shore like a lightning express train, get on a big head of steam,\nand 'stand by for a surge' when we struck the current that was whirling\nby the point. But all our preparations were useless. The instant the\ncurrent hit us it spun us around like a top, the water deluged the\nforecastle, and the boat careened so far over that one could hardly keep\nhis feet. The next instant we were away down the river, clawing with\nmight and main to keep out of the woods. We tried the experiment\nfour times. I stood on the forecastle companion way to see. It was\nastonishing to observe how suddenly the boat would spin around and turn\ntail the moment she emerged from the eddy and the current struck her\nnose. The sounding concussion and the quivering would have been about\nthe same if she had come full speed against a sand-bank. Under the\nlightning flashes one could see the plantation cabins and the goodly\nacres tumble into the river; and the crash they made was not a bad\neffort at thunder. Once, when we spun around, we only missed a house\nabout twenty feet, that had a light burning in the window; and in\nthe same instant that house went overboard. Nobody could stay on our\nforecastle; the water swept across it in a torrent every time we plunged\nathwart the current. At the end of our fourth effort we brought up\nin the woods two miles below the cut-off; all the country there was\noverflowed, of course. A day or two later the cut-off was three-quarters\nof a mile wide, and boats passed up through it without much difficulty,\nand so saved ten miles.\n\nThe old Raccourci cut-off reduced the river's length twenty-eight miles.\nThere used to be a tradition connected with it. It was said that a boat\ncame along there in the night and went around the enormous elbow the\nusual way, the pilots not knowing that the cut-off had been made. It was\na grisly, hideous night, and all shapes were vague and distorted. The\nold bend had already begun to fill up, and the boat got to running\naway from mysterious reefs, and occasionally hitting one. The perplexed\npilots fell to swearing, and finally uttered the entirely unnecessary\nwish that they might never get out of that place. As always happens\nin such cases, that particular prayer was answered, and the others\nneglected. So to this day that phantom steamer is still butting around\nin that deserted river, trying to find her way out. More than one grave\nwatchman has sworn to me that on drizzly, dismal nights, he has glanced\nfearfully down that forgotten river as he passed the head of the island,\nand seen the faint glow of the specter steamer's lights drifting through\nthe distant gloom, and heard the muffled cough of her 'scape-pipes and\nthe plaintive cry of her leadsmen.\n\nIn the absence of further statistics, I beg to close this chapter with\none more reminiscence of 'Stephen.'\n\nMost of the captains and pilots held Stephen's note for borrowed sums,\nranging from two hundred and fifty dollars upward. Stephen never paid\none of these notes, but he was very prompt and very zealous about\nrenewing them every twelve months.\n\nOf course there came a time, at last, when Stephen could no longer\nborrow of his ancient creditors; so he was obliged to lie in wait for\nnew men who did not know him. Such a victim was good-hearted, simple\nnatured young Yates (I use a fictitious name, but the real name began,\nas this one does, with a Y). Young Yates graduated as a pilot, got a\nberth, and when the month was ended and he stepped up to the clerk's\noffice and received his two hundred and fifty dollars in crisp new\nbills, Stephen was there! His silvery tongue began to wag, and in a very\nlittle while Yates's two hundred and fifty dollars had changed hands.\nThe fact was soon known at pilot headquarters, and the amusement and\nsatisfaction of the old creditors were large and generous. But innocent\nYates never suspected that Stephen's promise to pay promptly at the\nend of the week was a worthless one. Yates called for his money at the\nstipulated time; Stephen sweetened him up and put him off a week. He\ncalled then, according to agreement, and came away sugar-coated again,\nbut suffering under another postponement. So the thing went on. Yates\nhaunted Stephen week after week, to no purpose, and at last gave it\nup. And then straightway Stephen began to haunt Yates! Wherever Yates\nappeared, there was the inevitable Stephen. And not only there, but\nbeaming with affection and gushing with apologies for not being able to\npay. By and by, whenever poor Yates saw him coming, he would turn and\nfly, and drag his company with him, if he had company; but it was of\nno use; his debtor would run him down and corner him. Panting and\nred-faced, Stephen would come, with outstretched hands and eager eyes,\ninvade the conversation, shake both of Yates's arms loose in their\nsockets, and begin--\n\n'My, what a race I've had! I saw you didn't see me, and so I clapped on\nall steam for fear I'd miss you entirely. And here you are! there, just\nstand so, and let me look at you! just the same old noble countenance.'\n[To Yates's friend:] 'Just look at him! _Look _at him! Ain't it just\n_good _to look at him! _ain't_ it now? Ain't he just a picture! _Some\n_call him a picture; I call him a panorama! That's what he is--an entire\npanorama. And now I'm reminded! How I do wish I could have seen you an\nhour earlier! For twenty-four hours I've been saving up that two hundred\nand fifty dollars for you; been looking for you everywhere. I waited at\nthe Planter's from six yesterday evening till two o'clock this morning,\nwithout rest or food; my wife says, \"Where have you been all night?\"\nI said, \"This debt lies heavy on my mind.\" She says, \"In all my days I\nnever saw a man take a debt to heart the way you do.\" I said, \"It's my\nnature; how can I change it?\" She says, \"Well, do go to bed and get some\nrest.\" I said, \"Not till that poor, noble young man has got his money.\"\nSo I set up all night, and this morning out I shot, and the first man\nI struck told me you had shipped on the \"Grand Turk\" and gone to New\nOrleans. Well, sir, I had to lean up against a building and cry. So help\nme goodness, I couldn't help it. The man that owned the place come\nout cleaning up with a rag, and said he didn't like to have people cry\nagainst his building, and then it seemed to me that the whole world had\nturned against me, and it wasn't any use to live any more; and coming\nalong an hour ago, suffering no man knows what agony, I met Jim Wilson\nand paid him the two hundred and fifty dollars on account; and to think\nthat here you are, now, and I haven't got a cent! But as sure as I am\nstanding here on this ground on this particular brick,--there, I've\nscratched a mark on the brick to remember it by,--I'll borrow that money\nand pay it over to you at twelve o'clock sharp, tomorrow! Now, stand so;\nlet me look at you just once more.'\n\nAnd so on. Yates's life became a burden to him. He could not escape his\ndebtor and his debtor's awful sufferings on account of not being able\nto pay. He dreaded to show himself in the street, lest he should find\nStephen lying in wait for him at the corner.\n\nBogart's billiard saloon was a great resort for pilots in those days.\nThey met there about as much to exchange river news as to play. One\nmorning Yates was there; Stephen was there, too, but kept out of sight.\nBut by and by, when about all the pilots had arrived who were in town,\nStephen suddenly appeared in the midst, and rushed for Yates as for a\nlong-lost brother.\n\n'_Oh_, I am so glad to see you! Oh my soul, the sight of you is such a\ncomfort to my eyes! Gentlemen, I owe all of you money; among you I owe\nprobably forty thousand dollars. I want to pay it; I intend to pay it\nevery last cent of it. You all know, without my telling you, what sorrow\nit has cost me to remain so long under such deep obligations to such\npatient and generous friends; but the sharpest pang I suffer--by far\nthe sharpest--is from the debt I owe to this noble young man here; and I\nhave come to this place this morning especially to make the announcement\nthat I have at last found a method whereby I can pay off all my debts!\nAnd most especially I wanted _him _to be here when I announced it. Yes,\nmy faithful friend,--my benefactor, I've found the method! I've found\nthe method to pay off all my debts, and you'll get your money!' Hope\ndawned in Yates's eye; then Stephen, beaming benignantly, and placing\nhis hand upon Yates's head, added, 'I am going to pay them off in\nalphabetical order!'\n\nThen he turned and disappeared. The full significance of Stephen's\n'method' did not dawn upon the perplexed and musing crowd for some two\nminutes; and then Yates murmured with a sigh--\n\n'Well, the Y's stand a gaudy chance. He won't get any further than the\nC's in _this _world, and I reckon that after a good deal of eternity has\nwasted away in the next one, I'll still be referred to up there as \"that\npoor, ragged pilot that came here from St. Louis in the early days!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 18\n\nI Take a Few Extra Lessons\n\nDURING the two or two and a half years of my apprenticeship, I served\nunder many pilots, and had experience of many kinds of steamboatmen and\nmany varieties of steamboats; for it was not always convenient for Mr.\nBixby to have me with him, and in such cases he sent me with somebody\nelse. I am to this day profiting somewhat by that experience; for in\nthat brief, sharp schooling, I got personally and familiarly acquainted\nwith about all the different types of human nature that are to be found\nin fiction, biography, or history. The fact is daily borne in upon me,\nthat the average shore-employment requires as much as forty years\nto equip a man with this sort of an education. When I say I am still\nprofiting by this thing, I do not mean that it has constituted me a\njudge of men--no, it has not done that; for judges of men are born, not\nmade. My profit is various in kind and degree; but the feature of it\nwhich I value most is the zest which that early experience has given\nto my later reading. When I find a well-drawn character in fiction or\nbiography, I generally take a warm personal interest in him, for the\nreason that I have known him before--met him on the river.\n\nThe figure that comes before me oftenest, out of the shadows of that\nvanished time, is that of Brown, of the steamer 'Pennsylvania'--the man\nreferred to in a former chapter, whose memory was so good and tiresome.\nHe was a middle-aged, long, slim, bony, smooth-shaven, horse-faced,\nignorant, stingy, malicious, snarling, fault hunting, mote-magnifying\ntyrant. I early got the habit of coming on watch with dread at my heart.\nNo matter how good a time I might have been having with the off-watch\nbelow, and no matter how high my spirits might be when I started aloft,\nmy soul became lead in my body the moment I approached the pilot-house.\n\nI still remember the first time I ever entered the presence of that man.\nThe boat had backed out from St. Louis and was 'straightening down;'\nI ascended to the pilot-house in high feather, and very proud to be\nsemi-officially a member of the executive family of so fast and famous\na boat. Brown was at the wheel. I paused in the middle of the room, all\nfixed to make my bow, but Brown did not look around. I thought he took a\nfurtive glance at me out of the corner of his eye, but as not even this\nnotice was repeated, I judged I had been mistaken. By this time he was\npicking his way among some dangerous 'breaks' abreast the woodyards;\ntherefore it would not be proper to interrupt him; so I stepped softly\nto the high bench and took a seat.\n\nThere was silence for ten minutes; then my new boss turned and inspected\nme deliberately and painstakingly from head to heel for about--as\nit seemed to me--a quarter of an hour. After which he removed his\ncountenance and I saw it no more for some seconds; then it came around\nonce more, and this question greeted me--\n\n'Are you Horace Bigsby's cub?'\n\n'Yes, sir.'\n\nAfter this there was a pause and another inspection. Then--\n\n'What's your name?'\n\nI told him. He repeated it after me. It was probably the only thing he\never forgot; for although I was with him many months he never addressed\nhimself to me in any other way than 'Here!' and then his command\nfollowed.\n\n'Where was you born?'\n\n'In Florida, Missouri.'\n\nA pause. Then--\n\n'Dern sight better staid there!'\n\nBy means of a dozen or so of pretty direct questions, he pumped my\nfamily history out of me.\n\nThe leads were going now, in the first crossing. This interrupted the\ninquest. When the leads had been laid in, he resumed--\n\n'How long you been on the river?'\n\nI told him. After a pause--\n\n'Where'd you get them shoes?'\n\nI gave him the information.\n\n'Hold up your foot!'\n\nI did so. He stepped back, examined the shoe minutely and\ncontemptuously, scratching his head thoughtfully, tilting his\nhigh sugar-loaf hat well forward to facilitate the operation, then\nejaculated, 'Well, I'll be dod derned!' and returned to his wheel.\n\nWhat occasion there was to be dod derned about it is a thing which is\nstill as much of a mystery to me now as it was then. It must have\nbeen all of fifteen minutes--fifteen minutes of dull, homesick\nsilence--before that long horse-face swung round upon me again--and\nthen, what a change! It was as red as fire, and every muscle in it was\nworking. Now came this shriek--\n\n'Here!--You going to set there all day?'\n\nI lit in the middle of the floor, shot there by the electric\nsuddenness of the surprise. As soon as I could get my voice I said,\napologetically:--'I have had no orders, sir.'\n\n'You've had no _orders_! My, what a fine bird we are! We must have\n_orders_! Our father was a _gentleman_--owned slaves--and we've been\nto _school_. Yes, _we _are a gentleman, _too_, and got to have _orders!\norders_, is it? _Orders _is what you want! Dod dern my skin, _i'll_\nlearn you to swell yourself up and blow around here about your\ndod-derned _orders_! G'way from the wheel!' (I had approached it without\nknowing it.)\n\nI moved back a step or two, and stood as in a dream, all my senses\nstupefied by this frantic assault.\n\n'What you standing there for? Take that ice-pitcher down to the\ntexas-tender-come, move along, and don't you be all day about it!'\n\nThe moment I got back to the pilot-house, Brown said--\n\n'Here! What was you doing down there all this time?'\n\n'I couldn't find the texas-tender; I had to go all the way to the\npantry.'\n\n'Derned likely story! Fill up the stove.'\n\nI proceeded to do so. He watched me like a cat. Presently he shouted--\n\n'Put down that shovel! Deadest numskull I ever saw--ain't even got sense\nenough to load up a stove.'\n\nAll through the watch this sort of thing went on. Yes, and the\nsubsequent watches were much like it, during a stretch of months. As I\nhave said, I soon got the habit of coming on duty with dread. The moment\nI was in the presence, even in the darkest night, I could feel those\nyellow eyes upon me, and knew their owner was watching for a pretext to\nspit out some venom on me. Preliminarily he would say--\n\n'Here! Take the wheel.'\n\nTwo minutes later--\n\n'_Where _in the nation you going to? Pull her down! pull her down!'\n\nAfter another moment--\n\n'Say! You going to hold her all day? Let her go--meet her! meet her!'\n\nThen he would jump from the bench, snatch the wheel from me, and meet\nher himself, pouring out wrath upon me all the time.\n\nGeorge Ritchie was the other pilot's cub. He was having good times now;\nfor his boss, George Ealer, was as kindhearted as Brown wasn't. Ritchie\nhad steeled for Brown the season before; consequently he knew exactly\nhow to entertain himself and plague me, all by the one operation.\nWhenever I took the wheel for a moment on Ealer's watch, Ritchie would\nsit back on the bench and play Brown, with continual ejaculations of\n'Snatch her! snatch her! Derndest mud-cat I ever saw!' 'Here! Where you\ngoing _now_? Going to run over that snag?' 'Pull her _down_! Don't you\nhear me? Pull her _down!_' 'There she goes! _Just _as I expected! I\n_told_ you not to cramp that reef. G'way from the wheel!'\n\nSo I always had a rough time of it, no matter whose watch it was; and\nsometimes it seemed to me that Ritchie's good-natured badgering was\npretty nearly as aggravating as Brown's dead-earnest nagging.\n\nI often wanted to kill Brown, but this would not answer. A cub had\nto take everything his boss gave, in the way of vigorous comment and\ncriticism; and we all believed that there was a United States law making\nit a penitentiary offense to strike or threaten a pilot who was on\nduty. However, I could _imagine _myself killing Brown; there was no law\nagainst that; and that was the thing I used always to do the moment I\nwas abed. Instead of going over my river in my mind as was my duty,\nI threw business aside for pleasure, and killed Brown. I killed Brown\nevery night for months; not in old, stale, commonplace ways, but in new\nand picturesque ones;--ways that were sometimes surprising for freshness\nof design and ghastliness of situation and environment.\n\nBrown was _always _watching for a pretext to find fault; and if he could\nfind no plausible pretext, he would invent one. He would scold you for\nshaving a shore, and for not shaving it; for hugging a bar, and for not\nhugging it; for 'pulling down' when not invited, and for not pulling\ndown when not invited; for firing up without orders, and for waiting\n_for_ orders. In a word, it was his invariable rule to find fault with\n_everything _you did; and another invariable rule of his was to throw\nall his remarks (to you) into the form of an insult.\n\nOne day we were approaching New Madrid, bound down and heavily laden.\nBrown was at one side of the wheel, steering; I was at the other,\nstanding by to 'pull down' or 'shove up.' He cast a furtive glance at me\nevery now and then. I had long ago learned what that meant; viz., he was\ntrying to invent a trap for me. I wondered what shape it was going to\ntake. By and by he stepped back from the wheel and said in his usual\nsnarly way--\n\n'Here!--See if you've got gumption enough to round her to.'\n\nThis was simply _bound _to be a success; nothing could prevent it; for\nhe had never allowed me to round the boat to before; consequently, no\nmatter how I might do the thing, he could find free fault with it. He\nstood back there with his greedy eye on me, and the result was what\nmight have been foreseen: I lost my head in a quarter of a minute, and\ndidn't know what I was about; I started too early to bring the boat\naround, but detected a green gleam of joy in Brown's eye, and corrected\nmy mistake; I started around once more while too high up, but corrected\nmyself again in time; I made other false moves, and still managed to\nsave myself; but at last I grew so confused and anxious that I tumbled\ninto the very worst blunder of all--I got too far down before beginning\nto fetch the boat around. Brown's chance was come.\n\nHis face turned red with passion; he made one bound, hurled me across\nthe house with a sweep of his arm, spun the wheel down, and began to\npour out a stream of vituperation upon me which lasted till he was out\nof breath. In the course of this speech he called me all the different\nkinds of hard names he could think of, and once or twice I thought he\nwas even going to swear--but he didn't this time. 'Dod dern' was the\nnearest he ventured to the luxury of swearing, for he had been brought\nup with a wholesome respect for future fire and brimstone.\n\nThat was an uncomfortable hour; for there was a big audience on the\nhurricane deck. When I went to bed that night, I killed Brown in\nseventeen different ways--all of them new.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 19\n\nBrown and I Exchange Compliments\n\nTwo trips later, I got into serious trouble. Brown was steering; I was\n'pulling down.' My younger brother appeared on the hurricane deck, and\nshouted to Brown to stop at some landing or other a mile or so below.\nBrown gave no intimation that he had heard anything. But that was his\nway: he never condescended to take notice of an under clerk. The wind\nwas blowing; Brown was deaf (although he always pretended he wasn't),\nand I very much doubted if he had heard the order. If I had two heads,\nI would have spoken; but as I had only one, it seemed judicious to take\ncare of it; so I kept still.\n\nPresently, sure enough, we went sailing by that plantation. Captain\nKlinefelter appeared on the deck, and said--\n\n'Let her come around, sir, let her come around. Didn't Henry tell you to\nland here?'\n\n'_No_, sir!'\n\n'I sent him up to do, it.'\n\n'He did come up; and that's all the good it done, the dod-derned fool.\nHe never said anything.'\n\n'Didn't _you _hear him?' asked the captain of me.\n\nOf course I didn't want to be mixed up in this business, but there was\nno way to avoid it; so I said--\n\n'Yes, sir.'\n\nI knew what Brown's next remark would be, before he uttered it; it was--\n\n'Shut your mouth! you never heard anything of the kind.'\n\nI closed my mouth according to instructions. An hour later, Henry\nentered the pilot-house, unaware of what had been going on. He was a\nthoroughly inoffensive boy, and I was sorry to see him come, for I knew\nBrown would have no pity on him. Brown began, straightway--\n\n'Here! why didn't you tell me we'd got to land at that plantation?'\n\n'I did tell you, Mr. Brown.'\n\n'It's a lie!'\n\nI said--\n\n'You lie, yourself. He did tell you.'\n\nBrown glared at me in unaffected surprise; and for as much as a moment\nhe was entirely speechless; then he shouted to me--\n\n'I'll attend to your case in half a minute!' then to Henry, 'And you\nleave the pilot-house; out with you!'\n\nIt was pilot law, and must be obeyed. The boy started out, and even had\nhis foot on the upper step outside the door, when Brown, with a sudden\naccess of fury, picked up a ten-pound lump of coal and sprang after him;\nbut I was between, with a heavy stool, and I hit Brown a good honest\nblow which stretched-him out.\n\nI had committed the crime of crimes--I had lifted my hand against a\npilot on duty! I supposed I was booked for the penitentiary sure, and\ncouldn't be booked any surer if I went on and squared my long account\nwith this person while I had the chance; consequently I stuck to him and\npounded him with my fists a considerable time--I do not know how long,\nthe pleasure of it probably made it seem longer than it really was;--but\nin the end he struggled free and jumped up and sprang to the wheel: a\nvery natural solicitude, for, all this time, here was this steamboat\ntearing down the river at the rate of fifteen miles an hour and nobody\nat the helm! However, Eagle Bend was two miles wide at this bank-full\nstage, and correspondingly long and deep; and the boat was steering\nherself straight down the middle and taking no chances. Still, that was\nonly luck--a body _might _have found her charging into the woods.\n\nPerceiving, at a glance, that the 'Pennsylvania' was in no danger, Brown\ngathered up the big spy-glass, war-club fashion, and ordered me out of\nthe pilot-house with more than Comanche bluster. But I was not afraid of\nhim now; so, instead of going, I tarried, and criticized his grammar; I\nreformed his ferocious speeches for him, and put them into good English,\ncalling his attention to the advantage of pure English over the bastard\ndialect of the Pennsylvanian collieries whence he was extracted.\nHe could have done his part to admiration in a cross-fire of mere\nvituperation, of course; but he was not equipped for this species of\ncontroversy; so he presently laid aside his glass and took the wheel,\nmuttering and shaking his head; and I retired to the bench. The racket\nhad brought everybody to the hurricane deck, and I trembled when I\nsaw the old captain looking up from the midst of the crowd. I said\nto myself, 'Now I _am_ done for!'--For although, as a rule, he was so\nfatherly and indulgent toward the boat's family, and so patient of minor\nshortcomings, he could be stern enough when the fault was worth it.\n\nI tried to imagine what he _would _do to a cub pilot who had been guilty\nof such a crime as mine, committed on a boat guard-deep with costly\nfreight and alive with passengers. Our watch was nearly ended. I thought\nI would go and hide somewhere till I got a chance to slide ashore. So\nI slipped out of the pilot-house, and down the steps, and around to\nthe texas door--and was in the act of gliding within, when the captain\nconfronted me! I dropped my head, and he stood over me in silence a\nmoment or two, then said impressively--\n\n'Follow me.'\n\nI dropped into his wake; he led the way to his parlor in the forward end\nof the texas. We were alone, now. He closed the after door; then moved\nslowly to the forward one and closed that. He sat down; I stood before\nhim. He looked at me some little time, then said--\n\n'So you have been fighting Mr. Brown?'\n\nI answered meekly--\n\n'Yes, sir.'\n\n'Do you know that that is a very serious matter?'\n\n'Yes, sir.'\n\n'Are you aware that this boat was plowing down the river fully five\nminutes with no one at the wheel?'\n\n'Yes, sir.'\n\n'Did you strike him first?'\n\n'Yes, sir.'\n\n'What with?'\n\n'A stool, sir.'\n\n'Hard?'\n\n'Middling, sir.'\n\n'Did it knock him down?'\n\n'He--he fell, sir.'\n\n'Did you follow it up? Did you do anything further?'\n\n'Yes, sir.'\n\n'What did you do?'\n\n'Pounded him, sir.'\n\n'Pounded him?'\n\n'Yes, sir.'\n\n'Did you pound him much?--that is, severely?'\n\n'One might call it that, sir, maybe.'\n\n'I'm deuced glad of it! Hark ye, never mention that I said that. You\nhave been guilty of a great crime; and don't you ever be guilty of it\nagain, on this boat. _But_--lay for him ashore! Give him a good sound\nthrashing, do you hear? I'll pay the expenses. Now go--and mind you, not\na word of this to anybody. Clear out with you!--you've been guilty of a\ngreat crime, you whelp!'\n\nI slid out, happy with the sense of a close shave and a mighty\ndeliverance; and I heard him laughing to himself and slapping his fat\nthighs after I had closed his door.\n\nWhen Brown came off watch he went straight to the captain, who was\ntalking with some passengers on the boiler deck, and demanded that I be\nput ashore in New Orleans--and added--\n\n'I'll never turn a wheel on this boat again while that cub stays.'\n\nThe captain said--\n\n'But he needn't come round when you are on watch, Mr. Brown.\n\n'I won't even stay on the same boat with him. One of us has got to go\nashore.'\n\n'Very well,' said the captain, 'let it be yourself;' and resumed his\ntalk with the passengers.\n\nDuring the brief remainder of the trip, I knew how an emancipated slave\nfeels; for I was an emancipated slave myself. While we lay at landings,\nI listened to George Ealer's flute; or to his readings from his two\nbibles, that is to say, Goldsmith and Shakespeare; or I played chess\nwith him--and would have beaten him sometimes, only he always took back\nhis last move and ran the game out differently.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 20\n\nA Catastrophe\n\nWE lay three days in New Orleans, but the captain did not succeed in\nfinding another pilot; so he proposed that I should stand a daylight\nwatch, and leave the night watches to George Ealer. But I was afraid; I\nhad never stood a watch of any sort by myself, and I believed I should\nbe sure to get into trouble in the head of some chute, or ground the\nboat in a near cut through some bar or other. Brown remained in his\nplace; but he would not travel with me. So the captain gave me an order\non the captain of the 'A. T. Lacey,' for a passage to St. Louis, and\nsaid he would find a new pilot there and my steersman's berth could\nthen be resumed. The 'Lacey' was to leave a couple of days after the\n'Pennsylvania.'\n\nThe night before the '_Pennsylvania_' left, Henry and I sat chatting\non a freight pile on the levee till midnight. The subject of the chat,\nmainly, was one which I think we had not exploited before--steamboat\ndisasters. One was then on its way to us, little as we suspected it;\nthe water which was to make the steam which should cause it, was washing\npast some point fifteen hundred miles up the river while we talked;--but\nit would arrive at the right time and the right place. We doubted if\npersons not clothed with authority were of much use in cases of disaster\nand attendant panic; still, they might be of _some _use; so we decided\nthat if a disaster ever fell within our experience we would at least\nstick to the boat, and give such minor service as chance might throw in\nthe way. Henry remembered this, afterward, when the disaster came, and\nacted accordingly.\n\nThe 'Lacey' started up the river two days behind the 'Pennsylvania.' We\ntouched at Greenville, Mississippi, a couple of days out, and somebody\nshouted--\n\n'The \"Pennsylvania\" is blown up at Ship Island, and a hundred and fifty\nlives lost!'\n\nAt Napoleon, Arkansas, the same evening, we got an extra, issued by a\nMemphis paper, which gave some particulars. It mentioned my brother, and\nsaid he was not hurt.\n\nFurther up the river we got a later extra. My brother was again\nmentioned; but this time as being hurt beyond help. We did not get\nfull details of the catastrophe until we reached Memphis. This is the\nsorrowful story--\n\nIt was six o'clock on a hot summer morning. The 'Pennsylvania' was\ncreeping along, north of Ship Island, about sixty miles below Memphis on\na half-head of steam, towing a wood-flat which was fast being emptied.\nGeorge Ealer was in the pilot-house-alone, I think; the second engineer\nand a striker had the watch in the engine room; the second mate had\nthe watch on deck; George Black, Mr. Wood, and my brother, clerks, were\nasleep, as were also Brown and the head engineer, the carpenter, the\nchief mate, and one striker; Captain Klinefelter was in the barber's\nchair, and the barber was preparing to shave him. There were a good many\ncabin passengers aboard, and three or four hundred deck passengers--so\nit was said at the time--and not very many of them were astir. The wood\nbeing nearly all out of the flat now, Ealer rang to 'come ahead' full\nsteam, and the next moment four of the eight boilers exploded with a\nthunderous crash, and the whole forward third of the boat was hoisted\ntoward the sky! The main part of the mass, with the chimneys, dropped\nupon the boat again, a mountain of riddled and chaotic rubbish--and\nthen, after a little, fire broke out.\n\nMany people were flung to considerable distances, and fell in the\nriver; among these were Mr. Wood and my brother, and the carpenter. The\ncarpenter was still stretched upon his mattress when he struck the water\nseventy-five feet from the boat. Brown, the pilot, and George Black,\nchief clerk, were never seen or heard of after the explosion. The\nbarber's chair, with Captain Klinefelter in it and unhurt, was left with\nits back overhanging vacancy--everything forward of it, floor and all,\nhad disappeared; and the stupefied barber, who was also unhurt,\nstood with one toe projecting over space, still stirring his lather\nunconsciously, and saying, not a word.\n\nWhen George Ealer saw the chimneys plunging aloft in front of him, he\nknew what the matter was; so he muffled his face in the lapels of his\ncoat, and pressed both hands there tightly to keep this protection in\nits place so that no steam could get to his nose or mouth. He had ample\ntime to attend to these details while he was going up and returning. He\npresently landed on top of the unexploded boilers, forty feet below the\nformer pilot-house, accompanied by his wheel and a rain of other stuff,\nand enveloped in a cloud of scalding steam. All of the many who breathed\nthat steam, died; none escaped. But Ealer breathed none of it. He made\nhis way to the free air as quickly as he could; and when the steam\ncleared away he returned and climbed up on the boilers again, and\npatiently hunted out each and every one of his chessmen and the several\njoints of his flute.\n\nBy this time the fire was beginning to threaten. Shrieks and groans\nfilled the air. A great many persons had been scalded, a great many\ncrippled; the explosion had driven an iron crowbar through one man's\nbody--I think they said he was a priest. He did not die at once, and his\nsufferings were very dreadful. A young French naval cadet, of fifteen,\nson of a French admiral, was fearfully scalded, but bore his tortures\nmanfully. Both mates were badly scalded, but they stood to their posts,\nnevertheless. They drew the wood-boat aft, and they and the captain\nfought back the frantic herd of frightened immigrants till the wounded\ncould be brought there and placed in safety first.\n\nWhen Mr. Wood and Henry fell in the water, they struck out for shore,\nwhich was only a few hundred yards away; but Henry presently said he\nbelieved he was not hurt (what an unaccountable error!), and therefore\nwould swim back to the boat and help save the wounded. So they parted,\nand Henry returned.\n\nBy this time the fire was making fierce headway, and several persons\nwho were imprisoned under the ruins were begging piteously for help.\nAll efforts to conquer the fire proved fruitless; so the buckets were\npresently thrown aside and the officers fell-to with axes and tried to\ncut the prisoners out. A striker was one of the captives; he said he was\nnot injured, but could not free himself; and when he saw that the fire\nwas likely to drive away the workers, he begged that some one would\nshoot him, and thus save him from the more dreadful death. The fire did\ndrive the axmen away, and they had to listen, helpless, to this poor\nfellow's supplications till the flames ended his miseries.\n\nThe fire drove all into the wood-flat that could be accommodated there;\nit was cut adrift, then, and it and the burning steamer floated down\nthe river toward Ship Island. They moored the flat at the head of the\nisland, and there, unsheltered from the blazing sun, the half-naked\noccupants had to remain, without food or stimulants, or help for their\nhurts, during the rest of the day. A steamer came along, finally,\nand carried the unfortunates to Memphis, and there the most lavish\nassistance was at once forthcoming. By this time Henry was insensible.\nThe physicians examined his injuries and saw that they were fatal, and\nnaturally turned their main attention to patients who could be saved.\n\nForty of the wounded were placed upon pallets on the floor of a great\npublic hall, and among these was Henry. There the ladies of Memphis\ncame every day, with flowers, fruits, and dainties and delicacies of\nall kinds, and there they remained and nursed the wounded. All the\nphysicians stood watches there, and all the medical students; and the\nrest of the town furnished money, or whatever else was wanted. And\nMemphis knew how to do all these things well; for many a disaster\nlike the 'Pennsylvania's' had happened near her doors, and she was\nexperienced, above all other cities on the river, in the gracious office\nof the Good Samaritan.'\n\nThe sight I saw when I entered that large hall was new and strange to\nme. Two long rows of prostrate forms--more than forty, in all--and every\nface and head a shapeless wad of loose raw cotton. It was a gruesome\nspectacle. I watched there six days and nights, and a very melancholy\nexperience it was. There was one daily incident which was peculiarly\ndepressing: this was the removal of the doomed to a chamber apart. It\nwas done in order that the _morale _of the other patients might not be\ninjuriously affected by seeing one of their number in the death-agony.\nThe fated one was always carried out with as little stir as possible,\nand the stretcher was always hidden from sight by a wall of assistants;\nbut no matter: everybody knew what that cluster of bent forms, with\nits muffled step and its slow movement meant; and all eyes watched it\nwistfully, and a shudder went abreast of it like a wave.\n\nI saw many poor fellows removed to the 'death-room,' and saw them no\nmore afterward. But I saw our chief mate carried thither more than\nonce. His hurts were frightful, especially his scalds. He was clothed in\nlinseed oil and raw cotton to his waist, and resembled nothing human.\nHe was often out of his mind; and then his pains would make him rave and\nshout and sometimes shriek. Then, after a period of dumb exhaustion, his\ndisordered imagination would suddenly transform the great apartment into\na forecastle, and the hurrying throng of nurses into the crew; and\nhe would come to a sitting posture and shout, 'Hump yourselves, _hump\n_yourselves, you petrifactions, snail-bellies, pall-bearers! going to\nbe all _day_ getting that hatful of freight out?' and supplement this\nexplosion with a firmament-obliterating irruption or profanity which\nnothing could stay or stop till his crater was empty. And now and then\nwhile these frenzies possessed him, he would tear off handfuls of the\ncotton and expose his cooked flesh to view. It was horrible. It was\nbad for the others, of course--this noise and these exhibitions; so the\ndoctors tried to give him morphine to quiet him. But, in his mind or out\nof it, he would not take it. He said his wife had been killed by that\ntreacherous drug, and he would die before he would take it. He suspected\nthat the doctors were concealing it in his ordinary medicines and in his\nwater--so he ceased from putting either to his lips. Once, when he had\nbeen without water during two sweltering days, he took the dipper in his\nhand, and the sight of the limpid fluid, and the misery of his thirst,\ntempted him almost beyond his strength; but he mastered himself and\nthrew it away, and after that he allowed no more to be brought near him.\nThree times I saw him carried to the death-room, insensible and supposed\nto be dying; but each time he revived, cursed his attendants, and\ndemanded to be taken back. He lived to be mate of a steamboat again.\n\nBut he was the only one who went to the death-room and returned alive.\nDr. Peyton, a principal physician, and rich in all the attributes that\ngo to constitute high and flawless character, did all that educated\njudgment and trained skill could do for Henry; but, as the newspapers\nhad said in the beginning, his hurts were past help. On the evening of\nthe sixth day his wandering mind busied itself with matters far away,\nand his nerveless fingers 'picked at his coverlet.' His hour had struck;\nwe bore him to the death-room, poor boy.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 21\n\nA Section in My Biography\n\nIN due course I got my license. I was a pilot now, full fledged. I\ndropped into casual employments; no misfortunes resulting, intermittent\nwork gave place to steady and protracted engagements. Time drifted\nsmoothly and prosperously on, and I supposed--and hoped--that I was\ngoing to follow the river the rest of my days, and die at the wheel\nwhen my mission was ended. But by and by the war came, commerce was\nsuspended, my occupation was gone.\n\nI had to seek another livelihood. So I became a silver miner in Nevada;\nnext, a newspaper reporter; next, a gold miner, in California; next, a\nreporter in San Francisco; next, a special correspondent in the Sandwich\nIslands; next, a roving correspondent in Europe and the East; next,\nan instructional torch-bearer on the lecture platform; and, finally, I\nbecame a scribbler of books, and an immovable fixture among the other\nrocks of New England.\n\nIn so few words have I disposed of the twenty-one slow-drifting years\nthat have come and gone since I last looked from the windows of a\npilot-house.\n\nLet us resume, now.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 22\n\nI Return to My Muttons\n\nAFTER twenty-one years' absence, I felt a very strong desire to see the\nriver again, and the steamboats, and such of the boys as might be left;\nso I resolved to go out there. I enlisted a poet for company, and a\nstenographer to 'take him down,' and started westward about the middle\nof April.\n\nAs I proposed to make notes, with a view to printing, I took some\nthought as to methods of procedure. I reflected that if I were\nrecognized, on the river, I should not be as free to go and come, talk,\ninquire, and spy around, as I should be if unknown; I remembered that it\nwas the custom of steamboatmen in the old times to load up the confiding\nstranger with the most picturesque and admirable lies, and put\nthe sophisticated friend off with dull and ineffectual facts: so I\nconcluded, that, from a business point of view, it would be an advantage\nto disguise our party with fictitious names. The idea was certainly\ngood, but it bred infinite bother; for although Smith, Jones, and\nJohnson are easy names to remember when there is no occasion to remember\nthem, it is next to impossible to recollect them when they are wanted.\nHow do criminals manage to keep a brand-new _alias _in mind? This is a\ngreat mystery. I was innocent; and yet was seldom able to lay my hand on\nmy new name when it was needed; and it seemed to me that if I had had\na crime on my conscience to further confuse me, I could never have kept\nthe name by me at all.\n\nWe left per Pennsylvania Railroad, at 8 A.M. April 18.\n\n'EVENING. Speaking of dress. Grace and picturesqueness drop gradually\nout of it as one travels away from New York.'\n\nI find that among my notes. It makes no difference which direction you\ntake, the fact remains the same. Whether you move north, south, east,\nor west, no matter: you can get up in the morning and guess how far you\nhave come, by noting what degree of grace and picturesqueness is by that\ntime lacking in the costumes of the new passengers,--I do not mean of\nthe women alone, but of both sexes. It may be that _carriage _is at the\nbottom of this thing; and I think it is; for there are plenty of ladies\nand gentlemen in the provincial cities whose garments are all made\nby the best tailors and dressmakers of New York; yet this has no\nperceptible effect upon the grand fact: the educated eye never mistakes\nthose people for New-Yorkers. No, there is a godless grace, and snap,\nand style about a born and bred New-Yorker which mere clothing cannot\neffect.\n\n'APRIL 19. This morning, struck into the region of full\ngoatees--sometimes accompanied by a mustache, but only occasionally.'\n\nIt was odd to come upon this thick crop of an obsolete and uncomely\nfashion; it was like running suddenly across a forgotten acquaintance\nwhom you had supposed dead for a generation. The goatee extends over\na wide extent of country; and is accompanied by an iron-clad belief in\nAdam and the biblical history of creation, which has not suffered from\nthe assaults of the scientists.\n\n'AFTERNOON. At the railway stations the loafers carry _both _hands in\ntheir breeches pockets; it was observable, heretofore, that one hand\nwas sometimes out of doors,--here, never. This is an important fact in\ngeography.'\n\nIf the loafers determined the character of a country, it would be still\nmore important, of course.\n\n'Heretofore, all along, the station-loafer has been often observed to\nscratch one shin with the other foot; here, these remains of activity\nare wanting. This has an ominous look.'\n\nBy and by, we entered the tobacco-chewing region. Fifty years ago, the\ntobacco-chewing region covered the Union. It is greatly restricted now.\n\nNext, boots began to appear. Not in strong force, however. Later--away\ndown the Mississippi--they became the rule. They disappeared from other\nsections of the Union with the mud; no doubt they will disappear from\nthe river villages, also, when proper pavements come in.\n\nWe reached St. Louis at ten o'clock at night. At the counter of the\nhotel I tendered a hurriedly-invented fictitious name, with a miserable\nattempt at careless ease. The clerk paused, and inspected me in the\ncompassionate way in which one inspects a respectable person who is\nfound in doubtful circumstances; then he said--\n\n'It's all right; I know what sort of a room you want. Used to clerk at\nthe St. James, in New York.'\n\nAn unpromising beginning for a fraudulent career. We started to the\nsupper room, and met two other men whom I had known elsewhere. How odd\nand unfair it is: wicked impostors go around lecturing under my _Nom\nDe Guerre_ and nobody suspects them; but when an honest man attempts an\nimposture, he is exposed at once.\n\nOne thing seemed plain: we must start down the river the next day, if\npeople who could not be deceived were going to crop up at this rate:\nan unpalatable disappointment, for we had hoped to have a week in\nSt. Louis. The Southern was a good hotel, and we could have had a\ncomfortable time there. It is large, and well conducted, and its\ndecorations do not make one cry, as do those of the vast Palmer House,\nin Chicago. True, the billiard-tables were of the Old Silurian Period,\nand the cues and balls of the Post-Pliocene; but there was refreshment\nin this, not discomfort; for there is rest and healing in the\ncontemplation of antiquities.\n\nThe most notable absence observable in the billiard-room, was the\nabsence of the river man. If he was there he had taken in his sign,\nhe was in disguise. I saw there none of the swell airs and graces, and\nostentatious displays of money, and pompous squanderings of it, which\nused to distinguish the steamboat crowd from the dry-land crowd in\nthe bygone days, in the thronged billiard-rooms of St. Louis. In those\ntimes, the principal saloons were always populous with river men; given\nfifty players present, thirty or thirty-five were likely to be from\nthe river. But I suspected that the ranks were thin now, and the\nsteamboatmen no longer an aristocracy. Why, in my time they used to\ncall the 'barkeep' Bill, or Joe, or Tom, and slap him on the shoulder;\nI watched for that. But none of these people did it. Manifestly a glory\nthat once was had dissolved and vanished away in these twenty-one years.\n\nWhen I went up to my room, I found there the young man called Rogers,\ncrying. Rogers was not his name; neither was Jones, Brown, Dexter,\nFerguson, Bascom, nor Thompson; but he answered to either of these that\na body found handy in an emergency; or to any other name, in fact, if he\nperceived that you meant him. He said--\n\n'What is a person to do here when he wants a drink of water?--drink this\nslush?'\n\n'Can't you drink it?'\n\n'I could if I had some other water to wash it with.'\n\nHere was a thing which had not changed; a score of years had not\naffected this water's mulatto complexion in the least; a score of\ncenturies would succeed no better, perhaps. It comes out of the\nturbulent, bank-caving Missouri, and every tumblerful of it holds nearly\nan acre of land in solution. I got this fact from the bishop of the\ndiocese. If you will let your glass stand half an hour, you can separate\nthe land from the water as easy as Genesis; and then you will find them\nboth good: the one good to eat, the other good to drink. The land is\nvery nourishing, the water is thoroughly wholesome. The one appeases\nhunger; the other, thirst. But the natives do not take them separately,\nbut together, as nature mixed them. When they find an inch of mud in the\nbottom of a glass, they stir it up, and then take the draught as they\nwould gruel. It is difficult for a stranger to get used to this batter,\nbut once used to it he will prefer it to water. This is really the case.\nIt is good for steamboating, and good to drink; but it is worthless for\nall other purposes, except baptizing.\n\nNext morning, we drove around town in the rain. The city seemed but\nlittle changed. It _was _greatly changed, but it did not seem so;\nbecause in St. Louis, as in London and Pittsburgh, you can't persuade\na new thing to look new; the coal smoke turns it into an antiquity the\nmoment you take your hand off it. The place had just about doubled its\nsize, since I was a resident of it, and was now become a city of 400,000\ninhabitants; still, in the solid business parts, it looked about as it\nhad looked formerly. Yet I am sure there is not as much smoke in St.\nLouis now as there used to be. The smoke used to bank itself in a dense\nbillowy black canopy over the town, and hide the sky from view. This\nshelter is very much thinner now; still, there is a sufficiency of smoke\nthere, I think. I heard no complaint.\n\nHowever, on the outskirts changes were apparent enough; notably in\ndwelling-house architecture. The fine new homes are noble and beautiful\nand modern. They stand by themselves, too, with green lawns around them;\nwhereas the dwellings of a former day are packed together in blocks,\nand are all of one pattern, with windows all alike, set in an arched\nframe-work of twisted stone; a sort of house which was handsome enough\nwhen it was rarer.\n\nThere was another change--the Forest Park. This was new to me. It is\nbeautiful and very extensive, and has the excellent merit of having been\nmade mainly by nature. There are other parks, and fine ones, notably\nTower Grove and the Botanical Gardens; for St. Louis interested herself\nin such improvements at an earlier day than did the most of our cities.\n\nThe first time I ever saw St. Louis, I could have bought it for six\nmillion dollars, and it was the mistake of my life that I did not do\nit. It was bitter now to look abroad over this domed and steepled\nmetropolis, this solid expanse of bricks and mortar stretching away on\nevery hand into dim, measure-defying distances, and remember that I had\nallowed that opportunity to go by. Why I should have allowed it to go\nby seems, of course, foolish and inexplicable to-day, at a first glance;\nyet there were reasons at the time to justify this course.\n\nA Scotchman, Hon. Charles Augustus Murray, writing some forty-five\nor fifty years ago, said--'The streets are narrow, ill paved and ill\nlighted.' Those streets are narrow still, of course; many of them are\nill paved yet; but the reproach of ill lighting cannot be repeated, now.\nThe 'Catholic New Church' was the only notable building then, and Mr.\nMurray was confidently called upon to admire it, with its 'species of\nGrecian portico, surmounted by a kind of steeple, much too diminutive\nin its proportions, and surmounted by sundry ornaments' which the\nunimaginative Scotchman found himself 'quite unable to describe;' and\ntherefore was grateful when a German tourist helped him out with the\nexclamation--'By--, they look exactly like bed-posts!' St. Louis is\nwell equipped with stately and noble public buildings now, and the\nlittle church, which the people used to be so proud of, lost its\nimportance a long time ago. Still, this would not surprise Mr. Murray,\nif he could come back; for he prophesied the coming greatness of St.\nLouis with strong confidence.\n\nThe further we drove in our inspection-tour, the more sensibly I\nrealized how the city had grown since I had seen it last; changes in\ndetail became steadily more apparent and frequent than at first, too:\nchanges uniformly evidencing progress, energy, prosperity.\n\nBut the change of changes was on the 'levee.' This time, a departure\nfrom the rule. Half a dozen sound-asleep steamboats where I used to see\na solid mile of wide-awake ones! This was melancholy, this was\nwoeful. The absence of the pervading and jocund steamboatman from the\nbilliard-saloon was explained. He was absent because he is no more. His\noccupation is gone, his power has passed away, he is absorbed into the\ncommon herd, he grinds at the mill, a shorn Samson and inconspicuous.\nHalf a dozen lifeless steamboats, a mile of empty wharves, a negro\nfatigued with whiskey stretched asleep, in a wide and soundless vacancy,\nwhere the serried hosts of commerce used to contend!{footnote [Capt.\nMarryat, writing forty-five years ago says: 'St. Louis has 20,000\ninhabitants. _The river abreast of the town is crowded with steamboats,\nlying in two or three tiers_.']} Here was desolation, indeed.\n\n'The old, old sea, as one in tears, Comes murmuring, with foamy lips,\nAnd knocking at the vacant piers, Calls for his long-lost multitude of\nships.'\n\nThe towboat and the railroad had done their work, and done it well and\ncompletely. The mighty bridge, stretching along over our heads, had\ndone its share in the slaughter and spoliation. Remains of former\nsteamboatmen told me, with wan satisfaction, that the bridge doesn't\npay. Still, it can be no sufficient compensation to a corpse, to know\nthat the dynamite that laid him out was not of as good quality as it had\nbeen supposed to be.\n\nThe pavements along the river front were bad: the sidewalks were rather\nout of repair; there was a rich abundance of mud. All this was familiar\nand satisfying; but the ancient armies of drays, and struggling throngs\nof men, and mountains of freight, were gone; and Sabbath reigned in\ntheir stead. The immemorial mile of cheap foul doggeries remained, but\nbusiness was dull with them; the multitudes of poison-swilling Irishmen\nhad departed, and in their places were a few scattering handfuls of\nragged negroes, some drinking, some drunk, some nodding, others\nasleep. St. Louis is a great and prosperous and advancing city; but the\nriver-edge of it seems dead past resurrection.\n\nMississippi steamboating was born about 1812; at the end of thirty\nyears, it had grown to mighty proportions; and in less than thirty\nmore, it was dead! A strangely short life for so majestic a creature. Of\ncourse it is not absolutely dead, neither is a crippled octogenarian who\ncould once jump twenty-two feet on level ground; but as contrasted with\nwhat it was in its prime vigor, Mississippi steamboating may be called\ndead.\n\nIt killed the old-fashioned keel-boating, by reducing the freight-trip\nto New Orleans to less than a week. The railroads have killed the\nsteamboat passenger traffic by doing in two or three days what the\nsteamboats consumed a week in doing; and the towing-fleets have killed\nthe through-freight traffic by dragging six or seven steamer-loads of\nstuff down the river at a time, at an expense so trivial that steamboat\ncompetition was out of the question.\n\nFreight and passenger way-traffic remains to the steamers. This is in\nthe hands--along the two thousand miles of river between St. Paul and\nNew Orleans---of two or three close corporations well fortified with\ncapital; and by able and thoroughly business-like management and system,\nthese make a sufficiency of money out of what is left of the once\nprodigious steamboating industry. I suppose that St. Louis and New\nOrleans have not suffered materially by the change, but alas for the\nwood-yard man!\n\nHe used to fringe the river all the way; his close-ranked merchandise\nstretched from the one city to the other, along the banks, and he sold\nuncountable cords of it every year for cash on the nail; but all\nthe scattering boats that are left burn coal now, and the seldomest\nspectacle on the Mississippi to-day is a wood-pile. Where now is the\nonce wood-yard man?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 23\n\nTraveling Incognito\n\nMY idea was, to tarry a while in every town between St. Louis and New\nOrleans. To do this, it would be necessary to go from place to place by\nthe short packet lines. It was an easy plan to make, and would have been\nan easy one to follow, twenty years ago--but not now. There are wide\nintervals between boats, these days.\n\nI wanted to begin with the interesting old French settlements of St.\nGenevieve and Kaskaskia, sixty miles below St. Louis. There was only one\nboat advertised for that section--a Grand Tower packet. Still, one\nboat was enough; so we went down to look at her. She was a venerable\nrack-heap, and a fraud to boot; for she was playing herself for personal\nproperty, whereas the good honest dirt was so thickly caked all over her\nthat she was righteously taxable as real estate. There are places in\nNew England where her hurricane deck would be worth a hundred and fifty\ndollars an acre. The soil on her forecastle was quite good--the new crop\nof wheat was already springing from the cracks in protected places.\nThe companionway was of a dry sandy character, and would have been well\nsuited for grapes, with a southern exposure and a little subsoiling. The\nsoil of the boiler deck was thin and rocky, but good enough for grazing\npurposes. A colored boy was on watch here--nobody else visible. We\ngathered from him that this calm craft would go, as advertised, 'if she\ngot her trip;' if she didn't get it, she would wait for it.\n\n'Has she got any of her trip?'\n\n'Bless you, no, boss. She ain't unloadened, yit. She only come in dis\nmawnin'.'\n\nHe was uncertain as to when she might get her trip, but thought it might\nbe to-morrow or maybe next day. This would not answer at all; so we had\nto give up the novelty of sailing down the river on a farm. We had one\nmore arrow in our quiver: a Vicksburg packet, the 'Gold Dust,' was to\nleave at 5 P.M. We took passage in her for Memphis, and gave up the idea\nof stopping off here and there, as being impracticable. She was neat,\nclean, and comfortable. We camped on the boiler deck, and bought some\ncheap literature to kill time with. The vender was a venerable Irishman\nwith a benevolent face and a tongue that worked easily in the socket,\nand from him we learned that he had lived in St. Louis thirty-four years\nand had never been across the river during that period. Then he wandered\ninto a very flowing lecture, filled with classic names and allusions,\nwhich was quite wonderful for fluency until the fact became rather\napparent that this was not the first time, nor perhaps the fiftieth,\nthat the speech had been delivered. He was a good deal of a character,\nand much better company than the sappy literature he was selling. A\nrandom remark, connecting Irishmen and beer, brought this nugget of\ninformation out of him--\n\nThey don't drink it, sir. They can't drink it, sir. Give an Irishman\nlager for a month, and he's a dead man. An Irishman is lined with\ncopper, and the beer corrodes it. But whiskey polishes the copper and is\nthe saving of him, sir.'\n\nAt eight o'clock, promptly, we backed out and crossed the river. As we\ncrept toward the shore, in the thick darkness, a blinding glory of white\nelectric light burst suddenly from our forecastle, and lit up the\nwater and the warehouses as with a noon-day glare. Another big\nchange, this--no more flickering, smoky, pitch-dripping, ineffectual\ntorch-baskets, now: their day is past. Next, instead of calling out a\nscore of hands to man the stage, a couple of men and a hatful of\nsteam lowered it from the derrick where it was suspended, launched it,\ndeposited it in just the right spot, and the whole thing was over\nand done with before a mate in the olden time could have got his\nprofanity-mill adjusted to begin the preparatory services. Why this new\nand simple method of handling the stages was not thought of when the\nfirst steamboat was built, is a mystery which helps one to realize what\na dull-witted slug the average human being is.\n\nWe finally got away at two in the morning, and when I turned out at\nsix, we were rounding to at a rocky point where there was an old\nstone warehouse--at any rate, the ruins of it; two or three decayed\ndwelling-houses were near by, in the shelter of the leafy hills; but\nthere were no evidences of human or other animal life to be seen.\nI wondered if I had forgotten the river; for I had no recollection\nwhatever of this place; the shape of the river, too, was unfamiliar;\nthere was nothing in sight, anywhere, that I could remember ever having\nseen before. I was surprised, disappointed, and annoyed.\n\nWe put ashore a well-dressed lady and gentleman, and two well-dressed,\nlady-like young girls, together with sundry Russia-leather bags. A\nstrange place for such folk! No carriage was waiting. The party moved\noff as if they had not expected any, and struck down a winding country\nroad afoot.\n\nBut the mystery was explained when we got under way again; for these\npeople were evidently bound for a large town which lay shut in behind\na tow-head (i.e., new island) a couple of miles below this landing.\nI couldn't remember that town; I couldn't place it, couldn't call its\nname. So I lost part of my temper. I suspected that it might be St.\nGenevieve--and so it proved to be. Observe what this eccentric river had\nbeen about: it had built up this huge useless tow-head directly in\nfront of this town, cut off its river communications, fenced it away\ncompletely, and made a 'country' town of it. It is a fine old place,\ntoo, and deserved a better fate. It was settled by the French, and is a\nrelic of a time when one could travel from the mouths of the Mississippi\nto Quebec and be on French territory and under French rule all the way.\n\nPresently I ascended to the hurricane deck and cast a longing glance\ntoward the pilot-house.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 24\n\nMy Incognito is Exploded\n\nAFTER a close study of the face of the pilot on watch, I was satisfied\nthat I had never seen him before; so I went up there. The pilot\ninspected me; I re-inspected the pilot. These customary preliminaries\nover, I sat down on the high bench, and he faced about and went on with\nhis work. Every detail of the pilot-house was familiar to me, with one\nexception,--a large-mouthed tube under the breast-board. I puzzled over\nthat thing a considerable time; then gave up and asked what it was for.\n\n'To hear the engine-bells through.'\n\nIt was another good contrivance which ought to have been invented half a\ncentury sooner. So I was thinking, when the pilot asked--\n\n'Do you know what this rope is for?'\n\nI managed to get around this question, without committing myself.\n\n'Is this the first time you were ever in a pilot-house?'\n\nI crept under that one.\n\n'Where are you from?'\n\n'New England.'\n\n'First time you have ever been West?'\n\nI climbed over this one.\n\n'If you take an interest in such things, I can tell you what all these\nthings are for.'\n\nI said I should like it.\n\n'This,' putting his hand on a backing-bell rope, 'is to sound the\nfire-alarm; this,' putting his hand on a go-ahead bell, 'is to call the\ntexas-tender; this one,' indicating the whistle-lever, 'is to call the\ncaptain'--and so he went on, touching one object after another, and\nreeling off his tranquil spool of lies.\n\nI had never felt so like a passenger before. I thanked him, with\nemotion, for each new fact, and wrote it down in my note-book. The\npilot warmed to his opportunity, and proceeded to load me up in the good\nold-fashioned way. At times I was afraid he was going to rupture his\ninvention; but it always stood the strain, and he pulled through all\nright. He drifted, by easy stages, into revealments of the river's\nmarvelous eccentricities of one sort and another, and backed them up\nwith some pretty gigantic illustrations. For instance--\n\n'Do you see that little boulder sticking out of the water yonder? well,\nwhen I first came on the river, that was a solid ridge of rock, over\nsixty feet high and two miles long. All washed away but that.' [This\nwith a sigh.]\n\nI had a mighty impulse to destroy him, but it seemed to me that killing,\nin any ordinary way, would be too good for him.\n\nOnce, when an odd-looking craft, with a vast coal-scuttle slanting aloft\non the end of a beam, was steaming by in the distance, he indifferently\ndrew attention to it, as one might to an object grown wearisome through\nfamiliarity, and observed that it was an 'alligator boat.'\n\n'An alligator boat? What's it for?'\n\n'To dredge out alligators with.'\n\n'Are they so thick as to be troublesome?'\n\n'Well, not now, because the Government keeps them down. But they used\nto be. Not everywhere; but in favorite places, here and there, where\nthe river is wide and shoal-like Plum Point, and Stack Island, and so\non--places they call alligator beds.'\n\n'Did they actually impede navigation?'\n\n'Years ago, yes, in very low water; there was hardly a trip, then, that\nwe didn't get aground on alligators.'\n\nIt seemed to me that I should certainly have to get out my tomahawk.\nHowever, I restrained myself and said--\n\n'It must have been dreadful.'\n\n'Yes, it was one of the main difficulties about piloting. It was so\nhard to tell anything about the water; the damned things shift around\nso--never lie still five minutes at a time. You can tell a wind-reef,\nstraight off, by the look of it; you can tell a break; you can tell a\nsand-reef--that's all easy; but an alligator reef doesn't show up, worth\nanything. Nine times in ten you can't tell where the water is; and when\nyou do see where it is, like as not it ain't there when _you _get there,\nthe devils have swapped around so, meantime. Of course there were some\nfew pilots that could judge of alligator water nearly as well as they\ncould of any other kind, but they had to have natural talent for it; it\nwasn't a thing a body could learn, you had to be born with it. Let\nme see: there was Ben Thornburg, and Beck Jolly, and Squire Bell, and\nHorace Bixby, and Major Downing, and John Stevenson, and Billy Gordon,\nand Jim Brady, and George Ealer, and Billy Youngblood--all A-1 alligator\npilots. _They _could tell alligator water as far as another Christian\ncould tell whiskey. Read it?--Ah, _couldn't_ they, though! I only wish I\nhad as many dollars as they could read alligator water a mile and a half\noff. Yes, and it paid them to do it, too. A good alligator pilot could\nalways get fifteen hundred dollars a month. Nights, other people had to\nlay up for alligators, but those fellows never laid up for alligators;\nthey never laid up for anything but fog. They could _smell _the best\nalligator water it was said; I don't know whether it was so or not, and\nI think a body's got his hands full enough if he sticks to just what he\nknows himself, without going around backing up other people's say-so's,\nthough there's a plenty that ain't backward about doing it, as long as\nthey can roust out something wonderful to tell. Which is not the style\nof Robert Styles, by as much as three fathom--maybe quarter-_less_.'\n\n[My! Was this Rob Styles?--This mustached and stately figure?-A\nslim enough cub, in my time. How he has improved in comeliness in\nfive-and-twenty year and in the noble art of inflating his facts.] After\nthese musings, I said aloud--\n\n'I should think that dredging out the alligators wouldn't have done much\ngood, because they could come back again right away.'\n\n'If you had had as much experience of alligators as I have, you wouldn't\ntalk like that. You dredge an alligator once and he's _convinced_. It's\nthe last you hear of _him_. He wouldn't come back for pie. If there's\none thing that an alligator is more down on than another, it's being\ndredged. Besides, they were not simply shoved out of the way; the most\nof the scoopful were scooped aboard; they emptied them into the\nhold; and when they had got a trip, they took them to Orleans to the\nGovernment works.'\n\n'What for?'\n\n'Why, to make soldier-shoes out of their hides. All the Government shoes\nare made of alligator hide. It makes the best shoes in the world. They\nlast five years, and they won't absorb water. The alligator fishery is\na Government monopoly. All the alligators are Government property--just\nlike the live-oaks. You cut down a live-oak, and Government fines you\nfifty dollars; you kill an alligator, and up you go for misprision\nof treason--lucky duck if they don't hang you, too. And they will, if\nyou're a Democrat. The buzzard is the sacred bird of the South, and you\ncan't touch him; the alligator is the sacred bird of the Government, and\nyou've got to let him alone.'\n\n'Do you ever get aground on the alligators now?'\n\n'Oh, no! it hasn't happened for years.'\n\n'Well, then, why do they still keep the alligator boats in service?'\n\n'Just for police duty--nothing more. They merely go up and down now\nand then. The present generation of alligators know them as easy as a\nburglar knows a roundsman; when they see one coming, they break camp and\ngo for the woods.'\n\nAfter rounding-out and finishing-up and polishing-off the alligator\nbusiness, he dropped easily and comfortably into the historical vein,\nand told of some tremendous feats of half-a-dozen old-time steamboats\nof his acquaintance, dwelling at special length upon a certain\nextraordinary performance of his chief favorite among this distinguished\nfleet--and then adding--\n\n'That boat was the \"_Cyclone_,\"--last trip she ever made--she sunk, that\nvery trip--captain was Tom Ballou, the most immortal liar that ever I\nstruck. He couldn't ever seem to tell the truth, in any kind of weather.\nWhy, he would make you fairly shudder. He _was _the most scandalous\nliar! I left him, finally; I couldn't stand it. The proverb says, \"like\nmaster, like man;\" and if you stay with that kind of a man, you'll come\nunder suspicion by and by, just as sure as you live. He paid first-class\nwages; but said I, What's wages when your reputation's in danger? So I\nlet the wages go, and froze to my reputation. And I've never regretted\nit. Reputation's worth everything, ain't it? That's the way I look at\nit. He had more selfish organs than any seven men in the world--all\npacked in the stern-sheets of his skull, of course, where they belonged.\nThey weighed down the back of his head so that it made his nose tilt up\nin the air. People thought it was vanity, but it wasn't, it was malice.\nIf you only saw his foot, you'd take him to be nineteen feet high, but\nhe wasn't; it was because his foot was out of drawing. He was intended\nto be nineteen feet high, no doubt, if his foot was made first, but he\ndidn't get there; he was only five feet ten. That's what he was, and\nthat's what he is. You take the lies out of him, and he'll shrink to the\nsize of your hat; you take the malice out of him, and he'll disappear.\nThat \"Cyclone\" was a rattler to go, and the sweetest thing to steer that\never walked the waters. Set her amidships, in a big river, and just let\nher go; it was all you had to do. She would hold herself on a star\nall night, if you let her alone. You couldn't ever feel her rudder. It\nwasn't any more labor to steer her than it is to count the Republican\nvote in a South Carolina election. One morning, just at daybreak, the\nlast trip she ever made, they took her rudder aboard to mend it; I\ndidn't know anything about it; I backed her out from the wood-yard\nand went a-weaving down the river all serene. When I had gone about\ntwenty-three miles, and made four horribly crooked crossings--'\n\n'Without any rudder?'\n\n'Yes--old Capt. Tom appeared on the roof and began to find fault with me\nfor running such a dark night--'\n\n'Such a _dark night_?--Why, you said--'\n\n'Never mind what I said,--'twas as dark as Egypt now, though pretty soon\nthe moon began to rise, and--'\n\n'You mean the _sun_--because you started out just at break of--look\nhere! Was this _before _you quitted the captain on account of his lying,\nor--'\n\n'It was before--oh, a long time before. And as I was saying, he--'\n\n'But was this the trip she sunk, or was--'\n\n'Oh, no!--months afterward. And so the old man, he--'\n\n'Then she made _two _last trips, because you said--'\n\nHe stepped back from the wheel, swabbing away his perspiration, and\nsaid--\n\n'Here!' (calling me by name), '_you _take her and lie a while--you're\nhandier at it than I am. Trying to play yourself for a stranger and an\ninnocent!--why, I knew you before you had spoken seven words; and I made\nup my mind to find out what was your little game. It was to _draw me\nout_. Well, I let you, didn't I? Now take the wheel and finish the\nwatch; and next time play fair, and you won't have to work your\npassage.'\n\nThus ended the fictitious-name business. And not six hours out from St.\nLouis! but I had gained a privilege, any way, for I had been itching\nto get my hands on the wheel, from the beginning. I seemed to have\nforgotten the river, but I hadn't forgotten how to steer a steamboat,\nnor how to enjoy it, either.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 25\n\nFrom Cairo to Hickman\n\nTHE scenery, from St. Louis to Cairo--two hundred miles--is varied and\nbeautiful. The hills were clothed in the fresh foliage of spring now,\nand were a gracious and worthy setting for the broad river flowing\nbetween. Our trip began auspiciously, with a perfect day, as to\nbreeze and sunshine, and our boat threw the miles out behind her with\nsatisfactory despatch.\n\nWe found a railway intruding at Chester, Illinois; Chester has also a\npenitentiary now, and is otherwise marching on. At Grand Tower, too,\nthere was a railway; and another at Cape Girardeau. The former town gets\nits name from a huge, squat pillar of rock, which stands up out of the\nwater on the Missouri side of the river--a piece of nature's fanciful\nhandiwork--and is one of the most picturesque features of the scenery of\nthat region. For nearer or remoter neighbors, the Tower has the Devil's\nBake Oven--so called, perhaps, because it does not powerfully resemble\nanybody else's bake oven; and the Devil's Tea Table--this latter a great\nsmooth-surfaced mass of rock, with diminishing wine-glass stem, perched\nsome fifty or sixty feet above the river, beside a beflowered and\ngarlanded precipice, and sufficiently like a tea-table to answer for\nanybody, Devil or Christian. Away down the river we have the Devil's\nElbow and the Devil's Race-course, and lots of other property of his\nwhich I cannot now call to mind.\n\nThe Town of Grand Tower was evidently a busier place than it had been in\nold times, but it seemed to need some repairs here and there, and a new\ncoat of whitewash all over. Still, it was pleasant to me to see the old\ncoat once more. 'Uncle' Mumford, our second officer, said the place had\nbeen suffering from high water, and consequently was not looking its\nbest now. But he said it was not strange that it didn't waste white-wash\non itself, for more lime was made there, and of a better quality, than\nanywhere in the West; and added--'On a dairy farm you never can get any\nmilk for your coffee, nor any sugar for it on a sugar plantation; and it\nis against sense to go to a lime town to hunt for white-wash.' In my own\nexperience I knew the first two items to be true; and also that people\nwho sell candy don't care for candy; therefore there was plausibility in\nUncle Mumford's final observation that 'people who make lime run more to\nreligion than whitewash.' Uncle Mumford said, further, that Grand Tower\nwas a great coaling center and a prospering place.\n\nCape Girardeau is situated on a hillside, and makes a handsome\nappearance. There is a great Jesuit school for boys at the foot of the\ntown by the river. Uncle Mumford said it had as high a reputation for\nthoroughness as any similar institution in Missouri! There was another\ncollege higher up on an airy summit--a bright new edifice, picturesquely\nand peculiarly towered and pinnacled--a sort of gigantic casters, with\nthe cruets all complete. Uncle Mumford said that Cape Girardeau was the\nAthens of Missouri, and contained several colleges besides those already\nmentioned; and all of them on a religious basis of one kind or another.\nHe directed my attention to what he called the 'strong and pervasive\nreligious look of the town,' but I could not see that it looked more\nreligious than the other hill towns with the same slope and built of the\nsame kind of bricks. Partialities often make people see more than really\nexists.\n\nUncle Mumford has been thirty years a mate on the river. He is a man of\npractical sense and a level head; has observed; has had much experience\nof one sort and another; has opinions; has, also, just a perceptible\ndash of poetry in his composition, an easy gift of speech, a thick\ngrowl in his voice, and an oath or two where he can get at them when the\nexigencies of his office require a spiritual lift. He is a mate of the\nblessed old-time kind; and goes gravely damning around, when there is\nwork to the fore, in a way to mellow the ex-steamboatman's heart with\nsweet soft longings for the vanished days that shall come no more.\n'_Git _up there you! Going to be all day? Why d'n't you _say _you was\npetrified in your hind legs, before you shipped!'\n\nHe is a steady man with his crew; kind and just, but firm; so they\nlike him, and stay with him. He is still in the slouchy garb of the\nold generation of mates; but next trip the Anchor Line will have him in\nuniform--a natty blue naval uniform, with brass buttons, along with all\nthe officers of the line--and then he will be a totally different style\nof scenery from what he is now.\n\nUniforms on the Mississippi! It beats all the other changes put\ntogether, for surprise. Still, there is another surprise--that it was\nnot made fifty years ago. It is so manifestly sensible, that it might\nhave been thought of earlier, one would suppose. During fifty years, out\nthere, the innocent passenger in need of help and information, has been\nmistaking the mate for the cook, and the captain for the barber--and\nbeing roughly entertained for it, too. But his troubles are ended now.\nAnd the greatly improved aspect of the boat's staff is another advantage\nachieved by the dress-reform period.\n\nSteered down the bend below Cape Girardeau. They used to call it\n'Steersman's Bend;' plain sailing and plenty of water in it, always;\nabout the only place in the Upper River that a new cub was allowed to\ntake a boat through, in low water.\n\nThebes, at the head of the Grand Chain, and Commerce at the foot of it,\nwere towns easily rememberable, as they had not undergone conspicuous\nalteration. Nor the Chain, either--in the nature of things; for it is a\nchain of sunken rocks admirably arranged to capture and kill steamboats\non bad nights. A good many steamboat corpses lie buried there, out of\nsight; among the rest my first friend the 'Paul Jones;' she knocked her\nbottom out, and went down like a pot, so the historian told me--Uncle\nMumford. He said she had a gray mare aboard, and a preacher. To me,\nthis sufficiently accounted for the disaster; as it did, of course, to\nMumford, who added--\n\n'But there are many ignorant people who would scoff at such a matter,\nand call it superstition. But you will always notice that they are\npeople who have never traveled with a gray mare and a preacher. I went\ndown the river once in such company. We grounded at Bloody Island; we\ngrounded at Hanging Dog; we grounded just below this same Commerce;\nwe jolted Beaver Dam Rock; we hit one of the worst breaks in the\n'Graveyard' behind Goose Island; we had a roustabout killed in a fight;\nwe burnt a boiler; broke a shaft; collapsed a flue; and went into Cairo\nwith nine feet of water in the hold--may have been more, may have been\nless. I remember it as if it were yesterday. The men lost their heads\nwith terror. They painted the mare blue, in sight of town, and threw the\npreacher overboard, or we should not have arrived at all. The preacher\nwas fished out and saved. He acknowledged, himself, that he had been to\nblame. I remember it all, as if it were yesterday.'\n\nThat this combination--of preacher and gray mare--should breed calamity,\nseems strange, and at first glance unbelievable; but the fact is\nfortified by so much unassailable proof that to doubt is to dishonor\nreason. I myself remember a case where a captain was warned by numerous\nfriends against taking a gray mare and a preacher with him, but\npersisted in his purpose in spite of all that could be said; and the\nsame day--it may have been the next, and some say it was, though I think\nit was the same day--he got drunk and fell down the hatchway, and was\nborne to his home a corpse. This is literally true.\n\nNo vestige of Hat Island is left now; every shred of it is washed away.\nI do not even remember what part of the river it used to be in,\nexcept that it was between St. Louis and Cairo somewhere. It was a bad\nregion--all around and about Hat Island, in early days. A farmer who\nlived on the Illinois shore there, said that twenty-nine steamboats had\nleft their bones strung along within sight from his house. Between\nSt. Louis and Cairo the steamboat wrecks average one to the mile;--two\nhundred wrecks, altogether.\n\nI could recognize big changes from Commerce down. Beaver Dam Rock was\nout in the middle of the river now, and throwing a prodigious 'break;'\nit used to be close to the shore, and boats went down outside of it.\nA big island that used to be away out in mid-river, has retired to the\nMissouri shore, and boats do not go near it any more. The island called\nJacket Pattern is whittled down to a wedge now, and is booked for early\ndestruction. Goose Island is all gone but a little dab the size of a\nsteamboat. The perilous 'Graveyard,' among whose numberless wrecks\nwe used to pick our way so slowly and gingerly, is far away from the\nchannel now, and a terror to nobody. One of the islands formerly called\nthe Two Sisters is gone entirely; the other, which used to lie close\nto the Illinois shore, is now on the Missouri side, a mile away; it is\njoined solidly to the shore, and it takes a sharp eye to see where the\nseam is--but it is Illinois ground yet, and the people who live on\nit have to ferry themselves over and work the Illinois roads and pay\nIllinois taxes: singular state of things!\n\nNear the mouth of the river several islands were missing--washed away.\nCairo was still there--easily visible across the long, flat point upon\nwhose further verge it stands; but we had to steam a long way around\nto get to it. Night fell as we were going out of the 'Upper River' and\nmeeting the floods of the Ohio. We dashed along without anxiety; for\nthe hidden rock which used to lie right in the way has moved up stream\na long distance out of the channel; or rather, about one county has gone\ninto the river from the Missouri point, and the Cairo point has 'made\ndown' and added to its long tongue of territory correspondingly. The\nMississippi is a just and equitable river; it never tumbles one man's\nfarm overboard without building a new farm just like it for that man's\nneighbor. This keeps down hard feelings.\n\nGoing into Cairo, we came near killing a steamboat which paid no\nattention to our whistle and then tried to cross our bows. By doing some\nstrong backing, we saved him; which was a great loss, for he would have\nmade good literature.\n\nCairo is a brisk town now; and is substantially built, and has a city\nlook about it which is in noticeable contrast to its former estate, as\nper Mr. Dickens's portrait of it. However, it was already building with\nbricks when I had seen it last--which was when Colonel (now General)\nGrant was drilling his first command there. Uncle Mumford says the\nlibraries and Sunday-schools have done a good work in Cairo, as well as\nthe brick masons. Cairo has a heavy railroad and river trade, and her\nsituation at the junction of the two great rivers is so advantageous\nthat she cannot well help prospering.\n\nWhen I turned out, in the morning, we had passed Columbus, Kentucky,\nand were approaching Hickman, a pretty town, perched on a handsome hill.\nHickman is in a rich tobacco region, and formerly enjoyed a great and\nlucrative trade in that staple, collecting it there in her warehouses\nfrom a large area of country and shipping it by boat; but Uncle Mumford\nsays she built a railway to facilitate this commerce a little more, and\nhe thinks it facilitated it the wrong way--took the bulk of the trade\nout of her hands by 'collaring it along the line without gathering it at\nher doors.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 26\n\nUnder Fire\n\nTALK began to run upon the war now, for we were getting down into the\nupper edge of the former battle-stretch by this time. Columbus was just\nbehind us, so there was a good deal said about the famous battle of\nBelmont. Several of the boat's officers had seen active service in the\nMississippi war-fleet. I gathered that they found themselves sadly out\nof their element in that kind of business at first, but afterward got\naccustomed to it, reconciled to it, and more or less at home in it. One\nof our pilots had his first war experience in the Belmont fight, as a\npilot on a boat in the Confederate service. I had often had a curiosity\nto know how a green hand might feel, in his maiden battle, perched all\nsolitary and alone on high in a pilot house, a target for Tom, Dick\nand Harry, and nobody at his elbow to shame him from showing the white\nfeather when matters grew hot and perilous around him; so, to me his\nstory was valuable--it filled a gap for me which all histories had left\ntill that time empty.\n\nTHE PILOT'S FIRST BATTLE\n\nHe said--\n\nIt was the 7th of November. The fight began at seven in the morning. I\nwas on the 'R. H. W. Hill.' Took over a load of troops from Columbus.\nCame back, and took over a battery of artillery. My partner said he\nwas going to see the fight; wanted me to go along. I said, no, I wasn't\nanxious, I would look at it from the pilot-house. He said I was a\ncoward, and left.\n\nThat fight was an awful sight. General Cheatham made his men strip their\ncoats off and throw them in a pile, and said, 'Now follow me to hell\nor victory!' I heard him say that from the pilot-house; and then he\ngalloped in, at the head of his troops. Old General Pillow, with his\nwhite hair, mounted on a white horse, sailed in, too, leading his troops\nas lively as a boy. By and by the Federals chased the rebels back, and\nhere they came! tearing along, everybody for himself and Devil take the\nhindmost! and down under the bank they scrambled, and took shelter. I\nwas sitting with my legs hanging out of the pilot-house window. All at\nonce I noticed a whizzing sound passing my ear. Judged it was a bullet.\nI didn't stop to think about anything, I just tilted over backwards and\nlanded on the floor, and staid there. The balls came booming around.\nThree cannon-balls went through the chimney; one ball took off the\ncorner of the pilot-house; shells were screaming and bursting all\naround. Mighty warm times--I wished I hadn't come.\n\nI lay there on the pilot-house floor, while the shots came faster\nand faster. I crept in behind the big stove, in the middle of the\npilot-house. Presently a minie-ball came through the stove, and just\ngrazed my head, and cut my hat. I judged it was time to go away\nfrom there. The captain was on the roof with a red-headed major from\nMemphis--a fine-looking man. I heard him say he wanted to leave here,\nbut 'that pilot is killed.' I crept over to the starboard side to pull\nthe bell to set her back; raised up and took a look, and I saw about\nfifteen shot holes through the window panes; had come so lively I hadn't\nnoticed them. I glanced out on the water, and the spattering shot were\nlike a hailstorm. I thought best to get out of that place. I went down\nthe pilot-house guy, head first--not feet first but head first--slid\ndown--before I struck the deck, the captain said we must leave there. So\nI climbed up the guy and got on the floor again. About that time, they\ncollared my partner and were bringing him up to the pilot-house between\ntwo soldiers. Somebody had said I was killed. He put his head in and saw\nme on the floor reaching for the backing bells. He said, 'Oh, hell, he\nain't shot,' and jerked away from the men who had him by the collar, and\nran below. We were there until three o'clock in the afternoon, and then\ngot away all right.\n\nThe next time I saw my partner, I said, 'Now, come out, be honest, and\ntell me the truth. Where did you go when you went to see that battle?'\nHe says, 'I went down in the hold.'\n\nAll through that fight I was scared nearly to death. I hardly knew\nanything, I was so frightened; but you see, nobody knew that but me.\nNext day General Polk sent for me, and praised me for my bravery and\ngallant conduct. I never said anything, I let it go at that. I judged it\nwasn't so, but it was not for me to contradict a general officer.\n\nPretty soon after that I was sick, and used up, and had to go off to\nthe Hot Springs. When there, I got a good many letters from commanders\nsaying they wanted me to come back. I declined, because I wasn't well\nenough or strong enough; but I kept still, and kept the reputation I had\nmade.\n\nA plain story, straightforwardly told; but Mumford told me that that\npilot had 'gilded that scare of his, in spots;' that his subsequent\ncareer in the war was proof of it.\n\nWe struck down through the chute of Island No. 8, and I went below\nand fell into conversation with a passenger, a handsome man, with easy\ncarriage and an intelligent face. We were approaching Island No. 10,\na place so celebrated during the war. This gentleman's home was on the\nmain shore in its neighborhood. I had some talk with him about the war\ntimes; but presently the discourse fell upon 'feuds,' for in no part of\nthe South has the vendetta flourished more briskly, or held out longer\nbetween warring families, than in this particular region. This gentleman\nsaid--\n\n'There's been more than one feud around here, in old times, but I reckon\nthe worst one was between the Darnells and the Watsons. Nobody don't\nknow now what the first quarrel was about, it's so long ago; the\nDarnells and the Watsons don't know, if there's any of them living,\nwhich I don't think there is. Some says it was about a horse or a\ncow--anyway, it was a little matter; the money in it wasn't of no\nconsequence--none in the world--both families was rich. The thing could\nhave been fixed up, easy enough; but no, that wouldn't do. Rough words\nhad been passed; and so, nothing but blood could fix it up after that.\nThat horse or cow, whichever it was, cost sixty years of killing and\ncrippling! Every year or so somebody was shot, on one side or the other;\nand as fast as one generation was laid out, their sons took up the feud\nand kept it a-going. And it's just as I say; they went on shooting each\nother, year in and year out--making a kind of a religion of it, you\nsee--till they'd done forgot, long ago, what it was all about. Wherever\na Darnell caught a Watson, or a Watson caught a Darnell, one of 'em was\ngoing to get hurt--only question was, which of them got the drop on\nthe other. They'd shoot one another down, right in the presence of the\nfamily. They didn't hunt for each other, but when they happened to meet,\nthey puffed and begun. Men would shoot boys, boys would shoot men. A man\nshot a boy twelve years old--happened on him in the woods, and didn't\ngive him no chance. If he _had _'a' given him a chance, the boy'd 'a'\nshot him. Both families belonged to the same church (everybody around\nhere is religious); through all this fifty or sixty years' fuss, both\ntribes was there every Sunday, to worship. They lived each side of the\nline, and the church was at a landing called Compromise. Half the church\nand half the aisle was in Kentucky, the other half in Tennessee. Sundays\nyou'd see the families drive up, all in their Sunday clothes, men,\nwomen, and children, and file up the aisle, and set down, quiet and\norderly, one lot on the Tennessee side of the church and the other on\nthe Kentucky side; and the men and boys would lean their guns up against\nthe wall, handy, and then all hands would join in with the prayer and\npraise; though they say the man next the aisle didn't kneel down, along\nwith the rest of the family; kind of stood guard. I don't know; never\nwas at that church in my life; but I remember that that's what used to\nbe said.\n\n'Twenty or twenty-five years ago, one of the feud families caught a\nyoung man of nineteen out and killed him. Don't remember whether it was\nthe Darnells and Watsons, or one of the other feuds; but anyway, this\nyoung man rode up--steamboat laying there at the time--and the first\nthing he saw was a whole gang of the enemy. He jumped down behind a\nwood-pile, but they rode around and begun on him, he firing back, and\nthey galloping and cavorting and yelling and banging away with all their\nmight. Think he wounded a couple of them; but they closed in on him\nand chased him into the river; and as he swum along down stream, they\nfollowed along the bank and kept on shooting at him; and when he struck\nshore he was dead. Windy Marshall told me about it. He saw it. He was\ncaptain of the boat.\n\n'Years ago, the Darnells was so thinned out that the old man and his two\nsons concluded they'd leave the country. They started to take steamboat\njust above No. 10; but the Watsons got wind of it; and they arrived just\nas the two young Darnells was walking up the companion-way with their\nwives on their arms. The fight begun then, and they never got no\nfurther--both of them killed. After that, old Darnell got into trouble\nwith the man that run the ferry, and the ferry-man got the worst\nof it--and died. But his friends shot old Darnell through and\nthrough--filled him full of bullets, and ended him.'\n\nThe country gentleman who told me these things had been reared in ease\nand comfort, was a man of good parts, and was college bred. His loose\ngrammar was the fruit of careless habit, not ignorance. This habit\namong educated men in the West is not universal, but it is\nprevalent--prevalent in the towns, certainly, if not in the cities; and\nto a degree which one cannot help noticing, and marveling at. I heard a\nWesterner who would be accounted a highly educated man in any country,\nsay 'never mind, it _don't make no difference_, anyway.' A life-long\nresident who was present heard it, but it made no impression upon her.\nShe was able to recall the fact afterward, when reminded of it; but\nshe confessed that the words had not grated upon her ear at the\ntime--a confession which suggests that if educated people can hear such\nblasphemous grammar, from such a source, and be unconscious of the deed,\nthe crime must be tolerably common--so common that the general ear has\nbecome dulled by familiarity with it, and is no longer alert, no longer\nsensitive to such affronts.\n\nNo one in the world speaks blemishless grammar; no one has ever written\nit--_no_ one, either in the world or out of it (taking the Scriptures\nfor evidence on the latter point); therefore it would not be fair to\nexact grammatical perfection from the peoples of the Valley; but they\nand all other peoples may justly be required to refrain from _knowingly\nand purposely_ debauching their grammar.\n\nI found the river greatly changed at Island No. 10. The island which\nI remembered was some three miles long and a quarter of a mile wide,\nheavily timbered, and lay near the Kentucky shore--within two hundred\nyards of it, I should say. Now, however, one had to hunt for it with a\nspy-glass. Nothing was left of it but an insignificant little tuft, and\nthis was no longer near the Kentucky shore; it was clear over against\nthe opposite shore, a mile away. In war times the island had been an\nimportant place, for it commanded the situation; and, being heavily\nfortified, there was no getting by it. It lay between the upper and\nlower divisions of the Union forces, and kept them separate, until a\njunction was finally effected across the Missouri neck of land; but the\nisland being itself joined to that neck now, the wide river is without\nobstruction.\n\nIn this region the river passes from Kentucky into Tennessee, back into\nMissouri, then back into Kentucky, and thence into Tennessee again. So a\nmile or two of Missouri sticks over into Tennessee.\n\nThe town of New Madrid was looking very unwell; but otherwise unchanged\nfrom its former condition and aspect. Its blocks of frame-houses were\nstill grouped in the same old flat plain, and environed by the same\nold forests. It was as tranquil as formerly, and apparently had neither\ngrown nor diminished in size. It was said that the recent high water had\ninvaded it and damaged its looks. This was surprising news; for in low\nwater the river bank is very high there (fifty feet), and in my day an\noverflow had always been considered an impossibility. This present flood\nof 1882 Will doubtless be celebrated in the river's history for several\ngenerations before a deluge of like magnitude shall be seen. It put all\nthe unprotected low lands under water, from Cairo to the mouth; it broke\ndown the levees in a great many places, on both sides of the river;\nand in some regions south, when the flood was at its highest, the\nMississippi was _seventy miles_ wide! a number of lives were lost,\nand the destruction of property was fearful. The crops were destroyed,\nhouses washed away, and shelterless men and cattle forced to take refuge\non scattering elevations here and there in field and forest, and wait\nin peril and suffering until the boats put in commission by the national\nand local governments and by newspaper enterprise could come and rescue\nthem. The properties of multitudes of people were under water for\nmonths, and the poorer ones must have starved by the hundred if succor\nhad not been promptly afforded.{footnote [For a detailed and interesting\ndescription of the great flood, written on board of the New Orleans\n_Times-Democrat's_ relief-boat, see Appendix A]} The water had been\nfalling during a considerable time now, yet as a rule we found the banks\nstill under water.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 27\n\nSome Imported Articles\n\nWE met two steamboats at New Madrid. Two steamboats in sight at once! an\ninfrequent spectacle now in the lonesome Mississippi. The loneliness\nof this solemn, stupendous flood is impressive--and depressing. League\nafter league, and still league after league, it pours its chocolate tide\nalong, between its solid forest walls, its almost untenanted shores,\nwith seldom a sail or a moving object of any kind to disturb the surface\nand break the monotony of the blank, watery solitude; and so the day\ngoes, the night comes, and again the day--and still the same, night\nafter night and day after day--majestic, unchanging sameness of\nserenity, repose, tranquillity, lethargy, vacancy--symbol of eternity,\nrealization of the heaven pictured by priest and prophet, and longed for\nby the good and thoughtless!\n\nImmediately after the war of 1812, tourists began to come to America,\nfrom England; scattering ones at first, then a sort of procession of\nthem--a procession which kept up its plodding, patient march through the\nland during many, many years. Each tourist took notes, and went home and\npublished a book--a book which was usually calm, truthful, reasonable,\nkind; but which seemed just the reverse to our tender-footed\nprogenitors. A glance at these tourist-books shows us that in certain\nof its aspects the Mississippi has undergone no change since those\nstrangers visited it, but remains to-day about as it was then. The\nemotions produced in those foreign breasts by these aspects were not\nall formed on one pattern, of course; they _had _to be various, along\nat first, because the earlier tourists were obliged to originate their\nemotions, whereas in older countries one can always borrow emotions\nfrom one's predecessors. And, mind you, emotions are among the toughest\nthings in the world to manufacture out of whole cloth; it is easier\nto manufacture seven facts than one emotion. Captain Basil Hall. R.N.,\nwriting fifty-five years ago, says--\n\n'Here I caught the first glimpse of the object I had so long wished to\nbehold, and felt myself amply repaid at that moment for all the trouble\nI had experienced in coming so far; and stood looking at the river\nflowing past till it was too dark to distinguish anything. But it was\nnot till I had visited the same spot a dozen times, that I came to a\nright comprehension of the grandeur of the scene.'\n\nFollowing are Mrs. Trollope's emotions. She is writing a few months\nlater in the same year, 1827, and is coming in at the mouth of the\nMississippi--\n\n'The first indication of our approach to land was the appearance of this\nmighty river pouring forth its muddy mass of waters, and mingling with\nthe deep blue of the Mexican Gulf. I never beheld a scene so utterly\ndesolate as this entrance of the Mississippi. Had Dante seen it, he\nmight have drawn images of another Borgia from its horrors. One only\nobject rears itself above the eddying waters; this is the mast of a\nvessel long since wrecked in attempting to cross the bar, and it still\nstands, a dismal witness of the destruction that has been, and a boding\nprophet of that which is to come.'\n\nEmotions of Hon. Charles Augustus Murray (near St. Louis), seven years\nlater--\n\n'It is only when you ascend the mighty current for fifty or a hundred\nmiles, and use the eye of imagination as well as that of nature,\nthat you begin to understand all his might and majesty. You see him\nfertilizing a boundless valley, bearing along in his course the trophies\nof his thousand victories over the shattered forest--here carrying away\nlarge masses of soil with all their growth, and there forming islands,\ndestined at some future period to be the residence of man; and while\nindulging in this prospect, it is then time for reflection to suggest\nthat the current before you has flowed through two or three thousand\nmiles, and has yet to travel one thousand three hundred more before\nreaching its ocean destination.'\n\nReceive, now, the emotions of Captain Marryat, R.N. author of the sea\ntales, writing in 1837, three years after Mr. Murray--\n\n'Never, perhaps, in the records of nations, was there an instance of a\ncentury of such unvarying and unmitigated crime as is to be collected\nfrom the history of the turbulent and blood-stained Mississippi. The\nstream itself appears as if appropriate for the deeds which have been\ncommitted. It is not like most rivers, beautiful to the sight, bestowing\nfertility in its course; not one that the eye loves to dwell upon as\nit sweeps along, nor can you wander upon its banks, or trust yourself\nwithout danger to its stream. It is a furious, rapid, desolating\ntorrent, loaded with alluvial soil; and few of those who are received\ninto its waters ever rise again, {footnote [There was a foolish\nsuperstition of some little prevalence in that day, that the Mississippi\nwould neither buoy up a swimmer, nor permit a drowned person's body to\nrise to the surface.]} or can support themselves long upon its surface\nwithout assistance from some friendly log. It contains the coarsest and\nmost uneatable of fish, such as the cat-fish and such genus, and as\nyou descend, its banks are occupied with the fetid alligator, while the\npanther basks at its edge in the cane-brakes, almost impervious to man.\nPouring its impetuous waters through wild tracks covered with trees of\nlittle value except for firewood, it sweeps down whole forests in its\ncourse, which disappear in tumultuous confusion, whirled away by the\nstream now loaded with the masses of soil which nourished their roots,\noften blocking up and changing for a time the channel of the river,\nwhich, as if in anger at its being opposed, inundates and devastates the\nwhole country round; and as soon as it forces its way through its former\nchannel, plants in every direction the uprooted monarchs of the forest\n(upon whose branches the bird will never again perch, or the raccoon,\nthe opossum, or the squirrel climb) as traps to the adventurous\nnavigators of its waters by steam, who, borne down upon these concealed\ndangers which pierce through the planks, very often have not time to\nsteer for and gain the shore before they sink to the bottom. There are\nno pleasing associations connected with the great common sewer of\nthe Western America, which pours out its mud into the Mexican Gulf,\npolluting the clear blue sea for many miles beyond its mouth. It is a\nriver of desolation; and instead of reminding you, like other beautiful\nrivers, of an angel which has descended for the benefit of man, you\nimagine it a devil, whose energies have been only overcome by the\nwonderful power of steam.'\n\nIt is pretty crude literature for a man accustomed to handling a pen;\nstill, as a panorama of the emotions sent weltering through this noted\nvisitor's breast by the aspect and traditions of the 'great common\nsewer,' it has a value. A value, though marred in the matter of\nstatistics by inaccuracies; for the catfish is a plenty good enough fish\nfor anybody, and there are no panthers that are 'impervious to man.'\n\nLater still comes Alexander Mackay, of the Middle Temple, Barrister at\nLaw, with a better digestion, and no catfish dinner aboard, and feels as\nfollows--\n\n'The Mississippi! It was with indescribable emotions that I first felt\nmyself afloat upon its waters. How often in my schoolboy dreams, and in\nmy waking visions afterwards, had my imagination pictured to itself the\nlordly stream, rolling with tumultuous current through the boundless\nregion to which it has given its name, and gathering into itself, in its\ncourse to the ocean, the tributary waters of almost every latitude in\nthe temperate zone! Here it was then in its reality, and I, at length,\nsteaming against its tide. I looked upon it with that reverence with\nwhich everyone must regard a great feature of external nature.'\n\nSo much for the emotions. The tourists, one and all, remark upon the\ndeep, brooding loneliness and desolation of the vast river. Captain\nBasil Hall, who saw it at flood-stage, says--\n\n'Sometimes we passed along distances of twenty or thirty miles without\nseeing a single habitation. An artist, in search of hints for a painting\nof the deluge, would here have found them in abundance.'\n\nThe first shall be last, etc. just two hundred years ago, the old\noriginal first and gallantest of all the foreign tourists, pioneer, head\nof the procession, ended his weary and tedious discovery-voyage down the\nsolemn stretches of the great river--La Salle, whose name will last as\nlong as the river itself shall last. We quote from Mr. Parkman--\n\n'And now they neared their journey's end. On the sixth of April, the\nriver divided itself into three broad channels. La Salle followed that\nof the west, and D'Autray that of the east; while Tonty took the middle\npassage. As he drifted down the turbid current, between the low and\nmarshy shores, the brackish water changed to brine, and the breeze grew\nfresh with the salt breath of the sea. Then the broad bosom of the\ngreat Gulf opened on his sight, tossing its restless billows, limitless,\nvoiceless, lonely as when born of chaos, without a sail, without a sign\nof life.'\n\nThen, on a spot of solid ground, La Salle reared a column 'bearing the\narms of France; the Frenchmen were mustered under arms; and while the\nNew England Indians and their squaws looked on in wondering silence,\nthey chanted the _Te Deum, The Exaudiat_, and the _Domine Salvum Fac\nRegem_.'\n\nThen, whilst the musketry volleyed and rejoicing shouts burst forth,\nthe victorious discoverer planted the column, and made proclamation in a\nloud voice, taking formal possession of the river and the vast\ncountries watered by it, in the name of the King. The column bore this\ninscription--\n\nLOUIS LE GRAND, ROY DE FRANCE ET DE NAVARRE, REGNE; LE NEUVIEME AVRIL,\n1682.\n\nNew Orleans intended to fittingly celebrate, this present year, the\nbicentennial anniversary of this illustrious event; but when the\ntime came, all her energies and surplus money were required in other\ndirections, for the flood was upon the land then, making havoc and\ndevastation everywhere.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 28\n\nUncle Mumford Unloads\n\nALL day we swung along down the river, and had the stream almost wholly\nto ourselves. Formerly, at such a stage of the water, we should have\npassed acres of lumber rafts, and dozens of big coal barges; also\noccasional little trading-scows, peddling along from farm to farm, with\nthe peddler's family on board; possibly, a random scow, bearing a humble\nHamlet and Co. on an itinerant dramatic trip. But these were all absent.\nFar along in the day, we saw one steamboat; just one, and no more. She\nwas lying at rest in the shade, within the wooded mouth of the Obion\nRiver. The spy-glass revealed the fact that she was named for me--or\n_he_ was named for me, whichever you prefer. As this was the first time\nI had ever encountered this species of honor, it seems excusable to\nmention it, and at the same time call the attention of the authorities\nto the tardiness of my recognition of it.\n\nNoted a big change in the river, at Island 21. It was a very large\nisland, and used to be out toward mid-stream; but it is joined fast to\nthe main shore now, and has retired from business as an island.\n\nAs we approached famous and formidable Plum Point, darkness fell, but\nthat was nothing to shudder about--in these modern times. For now\nthe national government has turned the Mississippi into a sort of\ntwo-thousand-mile torchlight procession. In the head of every crossing,\nand in the foot of every crossing, the government has set up a\nclear-burning lamp. You are never entirely in the dark, now; there is\nalways a beacon in sight, either before you, or behind you, or abreast.\nOne might almost say that lamps have been squandered there. Dozens of\ncrossings are lighted which were not shoal when they were created,\nand have never been shoal since; crossings so plain, too, and also so\nstraight, that a steamboat can take herself through them without any\nhelp, after she has been through once. Lamps in such places are of\ncourse not wasted; it is much more convenient and comfortable for a\npilot to hold on them than on a spread of formless blackness that won't\nstay still; and money is saved to the boat, at the same time, for she\ncan of course make more miles with her rudder amidships than she can\nwith it squared across her stern and holding her back.\n\nBut this thing has knocked the romance out of piloting, to a large\nextent. It, and some other things together, have knocked all the romance\nout of it. For instance, the peril from snags is not now what it once\nwas. The government's snag-boats go patrolling up and down, in these\nmatter-of-fact days, pulling the river's teeth; they have rooted out\nall the old clusters which made many localities so formidable; and they\nallow no new ones to collect. Formerly, if your boat got away from you,\non a black night, and broke for the woods, it was an anxious time with\nyou; so was it also, when you were groping your way through solidified\ndarkness in a narrow chute; but all that is changed now--you flash out\nyour electric light, transform night into day in the twinkling of an\neye, and your perils and anxieties are at an end. Horace Bixby and\nGeorge Ritchie have charted the crossings and laid out the courses\nby compass; they have invented a lamp to go with the chart, and have\npatented the whole. With these helps, one may run in the fog now, with\nconsiderable security, and with a confidence unknown in the old days.\n\nWith these abundant beacons, the banishment of snags, plenty of daylight\nin a box and ready to be turned on whenever needed, and a chart and\ncompass to fight the fog with, piloting, at a good stage of water, is\nnow nearly as safe and simple as driving stage, and is hardly more than\nthree times as romantic.\n\nAnd now in these new days, these days of infinite change, the Anchor\nLine have raised the captain above the pilot by giving him the bigger\nwages of the two. This was going far, but they have not stopped there.\nThey have decreed that the pilot shall remain at his post, and stand\nhis watch clear through, whether the boat be under way or tied up to the\nshore. We, that were once the aristocrats of the river, can't go to bed\nnow, as we used to do, and sleep while a hundred tons of freight are\nlugged aboard; no, we must sit in the pilot-house; and keep awake, too.\nVerily we are being treated like a parcel of mates and engineers. The\nGovernment has taken away the romance of our calling; the Company has\ntaken away its state and dignity.\n\nPlum Point looked as it had always looked by night, with the exception\nthat now there were beacons to mark the crossings, and also a lot of\nother lights on the Point and along its shore; these latter glinting\nfrom the fleet of the United States River Commission, and from a village\nwhich the officials have built on the land for offices and for the\nemployees of the service. The military engineers of the Commission\nhave taken upon their shoulders the job of making the Mississippi over\nagain--a job transcended in size by only the original job of creating\nit. They are building wing-dams here and there, to deflect the current;\nand dikes to confine it in narrower bounds; and other dikes to make it\nstay there; and for unnumbered miles along the Mississippi, they are\nfelling the timber-front for fifty yards back, with the purpose of\nshaving the bank down to low-water mark with the slant of a house roof,\nand ballasting it with stones; and in many places they have protected\nthe wasting shores with rows of piles. One who knows the Mississippi\nwill promptly aver--not aloud, but to himself--that ten thousand River\nCommissions, with the mines of the world at their back, cannot tame that\nlawless stream, cannot curb it or confine it, cannot say to it, Go\nhere, or Go there, and make it obey; cannot save a shore which it has\nsentenced; cannot bar its path with an obstruction which it will not\ntear down, dance over, and laugh at. But a discreet man will not put\nthese things into spoken words; for the West Point engineers have not\ntheir superiors anywhere; they know all that can be known of their\nabstruse science; and so, since they conceive that they can fetter and\nhandcuff that river and boss him, it is but wisdom for the unscientific\nman to keep still, lie low, and wait till they do it. Captain Eads,\nwith his jetties, has done a work at the mouth of the Mississippi which\nseemed clearly impossible; so we do not feel full confidence now to\nprophesy against like impossibilities. Otherwise one would pipe out and\nsay the Commission might as well bully the comets in their courses and\nundertake to make them behave, as try to bully the Mississippi into\nright and reasonable conduct.\n\nI consulted Uncle Mumford concerning this and cognate matters; and I\ngive here the result, stenographically reported, and therefore to be\nrelied on as being full and correct; except that I have here and there\nleft out remarks which were addressed to the men, such as 'where in\nblazes are you going with that barrel now?' and which seemed to me to\nbreak the flow of the written statement, without compensating by adding\nto its information or its clearness. Not that I have ventured to\nstrike out all such interjections; I have removed only those which were\nobviously irrelevant; wherever one occurred which I felt any question\nabout, I have judged it safest to let it remain.\n\nUNCLE MUMFORD'S IMPRESSIONS\n\nUncle Mumford said--\n\n'As long as I have been mate of a steamboat--thirty years--I have\nwatched this river and studied it. Maybe I could have learnt more about\nit at West Point, but if I believe it I wish I may be _what are you\nsucking your fingers there for ?--collar that kag of nails!_ Four years\nat West Point, and plenty of books and schooling, will learn a man a\ngood deal, I reckon, but it won't learn him the river. You turn one\nof those little European rivers over to this Commission, with its hard\nbottom and clear water, and it would just be a holiday job for them to\nwall it, and pile it, and dike it, and tame it down, and boss it around,\nand make it go wherever they wanted it to, and stay where they put it,\nand do just as they said, every time. But this ain't that kind of a\nriver. They have started in here with big confidence, and the best\nintentions in the world; but they are going to get left. What does\nEcclesiastes vii. 13 say? Says enough to knock _their _little game\ngalley-west, don't it? Now you look at their methods once. There at\nDevil's Island, in the Upper River, they wanted the water to go one way,\nthe water wanted to go another. So they put up a stone wall. But what\ndoes the river care for a stone wall? When it got ready, it just bulged\nthrough it. Maybe they can build another that will stay; that is, up\nthere--but not down here they can't. Down here in the Lower River, they\ndrive some pegs to turn the water away from the shore and stop it from\nslicing off the bank; very well, don't it go straight over and cut\nsomebody else's bank? Certainly. Are they going to peg all the banks?\nWhy, they could buy ground and build a new Mississippi cheaper. They are\npegging Bulletin Tow-head now. It won't do any good. If the river has\ngot a mortgage on that island, it will foreclose, sure, pegs or no pegs.\nAway down yonder, they have driven two rows of piles straight through\nthe middle of a dry bar half a mile long, which is forty foot out of the\nwater when the river is low. What do you reckon that is for? If I know,\nI wish I may land in--_hump yourself, you son of an undertaker!--out\nwith that coal-oil, now, lively, lively!_ And just look at what they are\ntrying to do down there at Milliken's Bend. There's been a cut-off in\nthat section, and Vicksburg is left out in the cold. It's a country town\nnow. The river strikes in below it; and a boat can't go up to the town\nexcept in high water. Well, they are going to build wing-dams in the\nbend opposite the foot of 103, and throw the water over and cut off the\nfoot of the island and plow down into an old ditch where the river\nused to be in ancient times; and they think they can persuade the water\naround that way, and get it to strike in above Vicksburg, as it used\nto do, and fetch the town back into the world again. That is, they are\ngoing to take this whole Mississippi, and twist it around and make it\nrun several miles _up stream_. Well you've got to admire men that deal\nin ideas of that size and can tote them around without crutches; but you\nhaven't got to believe they can _do_ such miracles, have you! And yet\nyou ain't absolutely obliged to believe they can't. I reckon the safe\nway, where a man can afford it, is to copper the operation, and at the\nsame time buy enough property in Vicksburg to square you up in case they\nwin. Government is doing a deal for the Mississippi, now--spending loads\nof money on her. When there used to be four thousand steamboats and ten\nthousand acres of coal-barges, and rafts and trading scows, there wasn't\na lantern from St. Paul to New Orleans, and the snags were thicker than\nbristles on a hog's back; and now when there's three dozen steamboats\nand nary barge or raft, Government has snatched out all the snags, and\nlit up the shores like Broadway, and a boat's as safe on the river as\nshe'd be in heaven. And I reckon that by the time there ain't any boats\nleft at all, the Commission will have the old thing all reorganized, and\ndredged out, and fenced in, and tidied up, to a degree that will make\nnavigation just simply perfect, and absolutely safe and profitable; and\nall the days will be Sundays, and all the mates will be Sunday-school\nsu----_what-in-the-nation-you-fooling-around-there-for, you sons of\nunrighteousness, heirs of perdition! going to be a year getting that\nhogshead ashore?'_\n\nDuring our trip to New Orleans and back, we had many conversations\nwith river men, planters, journalists, and officers of the River\nCommission--with conflicting and confusing results. To wit:--\n\n1. Some believed in the Commission's scheme to arbitrarily and\npermanently confine (and thus deepen) the channel, preserve threatened\nshores, etc.\n\n2. Some believed that the Commission's money ought to be spent only on\nbuilding and repairing the great system of levees.\n\n3. Some believed that the higher you build your levee, the higher the\nriver's bottom will rise; and that consequently the levee system is a\nmistake.\n\n4. Some believed in the scheme to relieve the river, in flood-time, by\nturning its surplus waters off into Lake Borgne, etc.\n\n5. Some believed in the scheme of northern lake-reservoirs to replenish\nthe Mississippi in low-water seasons.\n\nWherever you find a man down there who believes in one of these theories\nyou may turn to the next man and frame your talk upon the hypothesis\nthat he does not believe in that theory; and after you have had\nexperience, you do not take this course doubtfully, or hesitatingly, but\nwith the confidence of a dying murderer--converted one, I mean. For you\nwill have come to know, with a deep and restful certainty, that you are\nnot going to meet two people sick of the same theory, one right after\nthe other. No, there will always be one or two with the other diseases\nalong between. And as you proceed, you will find out one or two other\nthings. You will find out that there is no distemper of the lot but is\ncontagious; and you cannot go where it is without catching it. You may\nvaccinate yourself with deterrent facts as much as you please--it will\ndo no good; it will seem to 'take,' but it doesn't; the moment you rub\nagainst any one of those theorists, make up your mind that it is time to\nhang out your yellow flag.\n\nYes, you are his sure victim: yet his work is not all to your hurt--only\npart of it; for he is like your family physician, who comes and cures\nthe mumps, and leaves the scarlet-fever behind. If your man is a\nLake-Borgne-relief theorist, for instance, he will exhale a cloud of\ndeadly facts and statistics which will lay you out with that disease,\nsure; but at the same time he will cure you of any other of the five\ntheories that may have previously got into your system.\n\nI have had all the five; and had them 'bad;' but ask me not, in mournful\nnumbers, which one racked me hardest, or which one numbered the biggest\nsick list, for I do not know. In truth, no one can answer the latter\nquestion. Mississippi Improvement is a mighty topic, down yonder. Every\nman on the river banks, south of Cairo, talks about it every day, during\nsuch moments as he is able to spare from talking about the war; and each\nof the several chief theories has its host of zealous partisans; but,\nas I have said, it is not possible to determine which cause numbers the\nmost recruits.\n\nAll were agreed upon one point, however: if Congress would make a\nsufficient appropriation, a colossal benefit would result. Very well;\nsince then the appropriation has been made--possibly a sufficient one,\ncertainly not too large a one. Let us hope that the prophecy will be\namply fulfilled.\n\nOne thing will be easily granted by the reader; that an opinion from Mr.\nEdward Atkinson, upon any vast national commercial matter, comes as near\nranking as authority, as can the opinion of any individual in the Union.\nWhat he has to say about Mississippi River Improvement will be found in\nthe Appendix.{footnote [See Appendix B.]}\n\nSometimes, half a dozen figures will reveal, as with a lightning-flash,\nthe importance of a subject which ten thousand labored words, with the\nsame purpose in view, had left at last but dim and uncertain. Here is a\ncase of the sort--paragraph from the 'Cincinnati Commercial'--\n\n'The towboat \"Jos. B. Williams\" is on her way to New Orleans with a\ntow of thirty-two barges, containing six hundred thousand bushels\n(seventy-six pounds to the bushel) of coal exclusive of her own fuel,\nbeing the largest tow ever taken to New Orleans or anywhere else in the\nworld. Her freight bill, at 3 cents a bushel, amounts to $18,000. It\nwould take eighteen hundred cars, of three hundred and thirty-three\nbushels to the car, to transport this amount of coal. At $10 per ton, or\n$100 per car, which would be a fair price for the distance by rail, the\nfreight bill would amount to $180,000, or $162,000 more by rail than by\nriver. The tow will be taken from Pittsburg to New Orleans in fourteen\nor fifteen days. It would take one hundred trains of eighteen cars to\nthe train to transport this one tow of six hundred thousand bushels\nof coal, and even if it made the usual speed of fast freight lines, it\nwould take one whole summer to put it through by rail.'\n\nWhen a river in good condition can enable one to save $162,000 and a\nwhole summer's time, on a single cargo, the wisdom of taking measures to\nkeep the river in good condition is made plain to even the uncommercial\nmind.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 29\n\nA Few Specimen Bricks\n\nWE passed through the Plum Point region, turned Craighead's Point,\nand glided unchallenged by what was once the formidable Fort Pillow,\nmemorable because of the massacre perpetrated there during the war.\nMassacres are sprinkled with some frequency through the histories of\nseveral Christian nations, but this is almost the only one that can be\nfound in American history; perhaps it is the only one which rises to a\nsize correspondent to that huge and somber title. We have the 'Boston\nMassacre,' where two or three people were killed; but we must bunch\nAnglo-Saxon history together to find the fellow to the Fort Pillow\ntragedy; and doubtless even then we must travel back to the days and the\nperformances of Coeur de Lion, that fine 'hero,' before we accomplish\nit.\n\nMore of the river's freaks. In times past, the channel used to strike\nabove Island 37, by Brandywine Bar, and down towards Island 39.\nAfterward, changed its course and went from Brandywine down through\nVogelman's chute in the Devil's Elbow, to Island 39--part of this course\nreversing the old order; the river running _up_ four or five miles,\ninstead of down, and cutting off, throughout, some fifteen miles of\ndistance. This in 1876. All that region is now called Centennial Island.\n\nThere is a tradition that Island 37 was one of the principal abiding\nplaces of the once celebrated 'Murel's Gang.' This was a colossal\ncombination of robbers, horse-thieves, negro-stealers, and\ncounterfeiters, engaged in business along the river some fifty or sixty\nyears ago. While our journey across the country towards St. Louis was in\nprogress we had had no end of Jesse James and his stirring history; for\nhe had just been assassinated by an agent of the Governor of Missouri,\nand was in consequence occupying a good deal of space in the newspapers.\nCheap histories of him were for sale by train boys. According to these,\nhe was the most marvelous creature of his kind that had ever existed. It\nwas a mistake. Murel was his equal in boldness; in pluck; in rapacity;\nin cruelty, brutality, heartlessness, treachery, and in general and\ncomprehensive vileness and shamelessness; and very much his superior\nin some larger aspects. James was a retail rascal; Murel, wholesale.\nJames's modest genius dreamed of no loftier flight than the planning\nof raids upon cars, coaches, and country banks; Murel projected negro\ninsurrections and the capture of New Orleans; and furthermore, on\noccasion, this Murel could go into a pulpit and edify the congregation.\nWhat are James and his half-dozen vulgar rascals compared with this\nstately old-time criminal, with his sermons, his meditated insurrections\nand city-captures, and his majestic following of ten hundred men, sworn\nto do his evil will!\n\nHere is a paragraph or two concerning this big operator, from a now\nforgotten book which was published half a century ago--\n\nHe appears to have been a most dexterous as well as consummate villain.\nWhen he traveled, his usual disguise was that of an itinerant preacher;\nand it is said that his discourses were very 'soul-moving'--interesting\nthe hearers so much that they forgot to look after their horses, which\nwere carried away by his confederates while he was preaching. But the\nstealing of horses in one State, and selling them in another, was but\na small portion of their business; the most lucrative was the enticing\nslaves to run away from their masters, that they might sell them in\nanother quarter. This was arranged as follows; they would tell a negro\nthat if he would run away from his master, and allow them to sell him,\nhe should receive a portion of the money paid for him, and that upon his\nreturn to them a second time they would send him to a free State, where\nhe would be safe.\n\nThe poor wretches complied with this request, hoping to obtain money and\nfreedom; they would be sold to another master, and run away again, to\ntheir employers; sometimes they would be sold in this manner three or\nfour times, until they had realized three or four thousand dollars by\nthem; but as, after this, there was fear of detection, the usual custom\nwas to get rid of the only witness that could be produced against them,\nwhich was the negro himself, by murdering him, and throwing his body\ninto the Mississippi. Even if it was established that they had stolen\na negro, before he was murdered, they were always prepared to evade\npunishment; for they concealed the negro who had run away, until he\nwas advertised, and a reward offered to any man who would catch him. An\nadvertisement of this kind warrants the person to take the property, if\nfound. And then the negro becomes a property in trust, when, therefore,\nthey sold the negro, it only became a breach of trust, not stealing; and\nfor a breach of trust, the owner of the property can only have redress\nby a civil action, which was useless, as the damages were never paid.\nIt may be inquired, how it was that Murel escaped Lynch law under such\ncircumstances This will be easily understood when it is stated that he\nhad _more than a thousand sworn confederates_, all ready at a moment's\nnotice to support any of the gang who might be in trouble. The names of\nall the principal confederates of Murel were obtained from himself, in\na manner which I shall presently explain. The gang was composed of two\nclasses: the Heads or Council, as they were called, who planned and\nconcerted, but seldom acted; they amounted to about four hundred.\nThe other class were the active agents, and were termed strikers, and\namounted to about six hundred and fifty. These were the tools in the\nhands of the others; they ran all the risk, and received but a small\nportion of the money; they were in the power of the leaders of the gang,\nwho would sacrifice them at any time by handing them over to justice, or\nsinking their bodies in the Mississippi. The general rendezvous of this\ngang of miscreants was on the Arkansas side of the river, where they\nconcealed their negroes in the morasses and cane-brakes.\n\nThe depredations of this extensive combination were severely felt; but\nso well were their plans arranged, that although Murel, who was always\nactive, was everywhere suspected, there was no proof to be obtained. It\nso happened, however, that a young man of the name of Stewart, who was\nlooking after two slaves which Murel had decoyed away, fell in with him\nand obtained his confidence, took the oath, and was admitted into the\ngang as one of the General Council. By this means all was discovered;\nfor Stewart turned traitor, although he had taken the oath, and having\nobtained every information, exposed the whole concern, the names of all\nthe parties, and finally succeeded in bringing home sufficient\nevidence against Murel, to procure his conviction and sentence to the\nPenitentiary (Murel was sentenced to fourteen years' imprisonment); so\nmany people who were supposed to be honest, and bore a respectable name\nin the different States, were found to be among the list of the Grand\nCouncil as published by Stewart, that every attempt was made to throw\ndiscredit upon his assertions--his character was vilified, and more\nthan one attempt was made to assassinate him. He was obliged to quit the\nSouthern States in consequence. It is, however, now well ascertained\nto have been all true; and although some blame Mr. Stewart for having\nviolated his oath, they no longer attempt to deny that his revelations\nwere correct. I will quote one or two portions of Murel's confessions to\nMr. Stewart, made to him when they were journeying together. I ought to\nhave observed, that the ultimate intentions of Murel and his associates\nwere, by his own account, on a very extended scale; having no less\nan object in view than _raising the blacks against the whites, taking\npossession of, and plundering new orleans, and making themselves\npossessors of the territory_. The following are a few extracts:--\n\n'I collected all my friends about New Orleans at one of our friends'\nhouses in that place, and we sat in council three days before we got all\nour plans to our notion; we then determined to undertake the rebellion\nat every hazard, and make as many friends as we could for that purpose.\nEvery man's business being assigned him, I started to Natchez on foot,\nhaving sold my horse in New Orleans,--with the intention of stealing\nanother after I started. I walked four days, and no opportunity offered\nfor me to get a horse. The fifth day, about twelve, I had become tired,\nand stopped at a creek to get some water and rest a little. While I was\nsitting on a log, looking down the road the way that I had come, a man\ncame in sight riding on a good-looking horse. The very moment I saw him,\nI was determined to have his horse, if he was in the garb of a traveler.\nHe rode up, and I saw from his equipage that he was a traveler. I arose\nand drew an elegant rifle pistol on him and ordered him to dismount. He\ndid so, and I took his horse by the bridle and pointed down the creek,\nand ordered him to walk before me. He went a few hundred yards and\nstopped. I hitched his horse, and then made him undress himself, all to\nhis shirt and drawers, and ordered him to turn his back to me. He said,\n'If you are determined to kill me, let me have time to pray before I\ndie,' I told him I had no time to hear him pray. He turned around and\ndropped on his knees, and I shot him through the back of the head.\n\nI ripped open his belly and took out his entrails, and sunk him in the\ncreek. I then searched his pockets, and found four hundred dollars and\nthirty-seven cents, and a number of papers that I did not take time to\nexamine. I sunk the pocket-book and papers and his hat, in the creek.\nHis boots were brand-new, and fitted me genteelly; and I put them on\nand sunk my old shoes in the creek, to atone for them. I rolled up his\nclothes and put them into his portmanteau, as they were brand-new cloth\nof the best quality. I mounted as fine a horse as ever I straddled, and\ndirected my course for Natchez in much better style than I had been for\nthe last five days.\n\n'Myself and a fellow by the name of Crenshaw gathered four good horses\nand started for Georgia. We got in company with a young South Carolinian\njust before we got to Cumberland Mountain, and Crenshaw soon knew all\nabout his business. He had been to Tennessee to buy a drove of hogs, but\nwhen he got there pork was dearer than he calculated, and he declined\npurchasing. We concluded he was a prize. Crenshaw winked at me; I\nunderstood his idea. Crenshaw had traveled the road before, but I never\nhad; we had traveled several miles on the mountain, when he passed near\na great precipice; just before we passed it Crenshaw asked me for my\nwhip, which had a pound of lead in the butt; I handed it to him, and he\nrode up by the side of the South Carolinian, and gave him a blow on the\nside of the head and tumbled him from his horse; we lit from our horses\nand fingered his pockets; we got twelve hundred and sixty-two dollars.\nCrenshaw said he knew a place to hide him, and he gathered him under his\narms, and I by his feet, and conveyed him to a deep crevice in the brow\nof the precipice, and tumbled him into it, and he went out of sight; we\nthen tumbled in his saddle, and took his horse with us, which was worth\ntwo hundred dollars.\n\n'We were detained a few days, and during that time our friend went to a\nlittle village in the neighborhood and saw the negro advertised (a negro\nin our possession), and a description of the two men of whom he had been\npurchased, and giving his suspicions of the men. It was rather squally\ntimes, but any port in a storm: we took the negro that night on the bank\nof a creek which runs by the farm of our friend, and Crenshaw shot him\nthrough the head. We took out his entrails and sunk him in the creek.\n\n'He had sold the other negro the third time on Arkansaw River for\nupwards of five hundred dollars; and then stole him and delivered him\ninto the hand of his friend, who conducted him to a swamp, and veiled\nthe tragic scene, and got the last gleanings and sacred pledge of\nsecrecy; as a game of that kind will not do unless it ends in a mystery\nto all but the fraternity. He sold the negro, first and last, for nearly\ntwo thousand dollars, and then put him for ever out of the reach of all\npursuers; and they can never graze him unless they can find the negro;\nand that they cannot do, for his carcass has fed many a tortoise and\ncatfish before this time, and the frogs have sung this many a long day\nto the silent repose of his skeleton.'\n\nWe were approaching Memphis, in front of which city, and witnessed by\nits people, was fought the most famous of the river battles of the Civil\nWar. Two men whom I had served under, in my river days, took part in\nthat fight: Mr. Bixby, head pilot of the Union fleet, and Montgomery,\nCommodore of the Confederate fleet. Both saw a great deal of active\nservice during the war, and achieved high reputations for pluck and\ncapacity.\n\nAs we neared Memphis, we began to cast about for an excuse to stay\nwith the 'Gold Dust' to the end of her course--Vicksburg. We were so\npleasantly situated, that we did not wish to make a change. I had an\nerrand of considerable importance to do at Napoleon, Arkansas, but\nperhaps I could manage it without quitting the 'Gold Dust.' I said as\nmuch; so we decided to stick to present quarters.\n\nThe boat was to tarry at Memphis till ten the next morning. It is a\nbeautiful city, nobly situated on a commanding bluff overlooking the\nriver. The streets are straight and spacious, though not paved in a way\nto incite distempered admiration. No, the admiration must be reserved\nfor the town's sewerage system, which is called perfect; a recent\nreform, however, for it was just the other way, up to a few years ago--a\nreform resulting from the lesson taught by a desolating visitation\nof the yellow-fever. In those awful days the people were swept off by\nhundreds, by thousands; and so great was the reduction caused by flight\nand by death together, that the population was diminished three-fourths,\nand so remained for a time. Business stood nearly still, and the streets\nbore an empty Sunday aspect.\n\nHere is a picture of Memphis, at that disastrous time, drawn by a German\ntourist who seems to have been an eye-witness of the scenes which he\ndescribes. It is from Chapter VII, of his book, just published, in\nLeipzig, 'Mississippi-Fahrten, von Ernst von Hesse-Wartegg.'--\n\n'In August the yellow-fever had reached its extremest height. Daily,\nhundreds fell a sacrifice to the terrible epidemic. The city was become\na mighty graveyard, two-thirds of the population had deserted the place,\nand only the poor, the aged and the sick, remained behind, a sure prey\nfor the insidious enemy. The houses were closed: little lamps burned in\nfront of many--a sign that here death had entered. Often, several lay\ndead in a single house; from the windows hung black crape. The stores\nwere shut up, for their owners were gone away or dead.\n\n'Fearful evil! In the briefest space it struck down and swept away even\nthe most vigorous victim. A slight indisposition, then an hour of\nfever, then the hideous delirium, then--the Yellow Death! On the street\ncorners, and in the squares, lay sick men, suddenly overtaken by the\ndisease; and even corpses, distorted and rigid. Food failed. Meat\nspoiled in a few hours in the fetid and pestiferous air, and turned\nblack.\n\n'Fearful clamors issue from many houses; then after a season they cease,\nand all is still: noble, self-sacrificing men come with the coffin,\nnail it up, and carry it away, to the graveyard. In the night stillness\nreigns. Only the physicians and the hearses hurry through the streets;\nand out of the distance, at intervals, comes the muffled thunder of the\nrailway train, which with the speed of the wind, and as if hunted by\nfuries, flies by the pest-ridden city without halting.'\n\nBut there is life enough there now. The population exceeds forty\nthousand and is augmenting, and trade is in a flourishing condition.\nWe drove about the city; visited the park and the sociable horde of\nsquirrels there; saw the fine residences, rose-clad and in other ways\nenticing to the eye; and got a good breakfast at the hotel.\n\nA thriving place is the Good Samaritan City of the Mississippi: has\na great wholesale jobbing trade; foundries, machine shops; and\nmanufactories of wagons, carriages, and cotton-seed oil; and is shortly\nto have cotton mills and elevators.\n\nHer cotton receipts reached five hundred thousand bales last year--an\nincrease of sixty thousand over the year before. Out from her healthy\ncommercial heart issue five trunk lines of railway; and a sixth is being\nadded.\n\nThis is a very different Memphis from the one which the vanished and\nunremembered procession of foreign tourists used to put into their books\nlong time ago. In the days of the now forgotten but once renowned and\nvigorously hated Mrs. Trollope, Memphis seems to have consisted mainly\nof one long street of log-houses, with some outlying cabins sprinkled\naround rearward toward the woods; and now and then a pig, and no end of\nmud. That was fifty-five years ago. She stopped at the hotel. Plainly it\nwas not the one which gave us our breakfast. She says--\n\n'The table was laid for fifty persons, and was nearly full. They ate in\nperfect silence, and with such astonishing rapidity that their dinner\nwas over literally before ours was begun; the only sounds heard were\nthose produced by the knives and forks, with the unceasing chorus of\ncoughing, _etc_.'\n\n'Coughing, etc.' The 'etc.' stands for an unpleasant word there, a word\nwhich she does not always charitably cover up, but sometimes prints. You\nwill find it in the following description of a steamboat dinner which\nshe ate in company with a lot of aristocratic planters; wealthy,\nwell-born, ignorant swells they were, tinselled with the usual harmless\nmilitary and judicial titles of that old day of cheap shams and windy\npretense--\n\n'The total want of all the usual courtesies of the table; the voracious\nrapidity with which the viands were seized and devoured; the strange\nuncouth phrases and pronunciation; the loathsome spitting, from the\ncontamination of which it was absolutely impossible to protect our\ndresses; the frightful manner of feeding with their knives, till the\nwhole blade seemed to enter into the mouth; and the still more frightful\nmanner of cleaning the teeth afterward with a pocket knife, soon forced\nus to feel that we were not surrounded by the generals, colonels, and\nmajors of the old world; and that the dinner hour was to be anything\nrather than an hour of enjoyment.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 30\n\nSketches by the Way\n\nIT was a big river, below Memphis; banks brimming full, everywhere, and\nvery frequently more than full, the waters pouring out over the land,\nflooding the woods and fields for miles into the interior; and in\nplaces, to a depth of fifteen feet; signs, all about, of men's hard work\ngone to ruin, and all to be done over again, with straitened means and a\nweakened courage. A melancholy picture, and a continuous one;--hundreds\nof miles of it. Sometimes the beacon lights stood in water three feet\ndeep, in the edge of dense forests which extended for miles without\nfarm, wood-yard, clearing, or break of any kind; which meant that the\nkeeper of the light must come in a skiff a great distance to discharge\nhis trust,--and often in desperate weather. Yet I was told that the\nwork is faithfully performed, in all weathers; and not always by\nmen, sometimes by women, if the man is sick or absent. The Government\nfurnishes oil, and pays ten or fifteen dollars a month for the lighting\nand tending. A Government boat distributes oil and pays wages once a\nmonth.\n\nThe Ship Island region was as woodsy and tenantless as ever. The island\nhas ceased to be an island; has joined itself compactly to the main\nshore, and wagons travel, now, where the steamboats used to navigate. No\nsigns left of the wreck of the 'Pennsylvania.' Some farmer will turn up\nher bones with his plow one day, no doubt, and be surprised.\n\nWe were getting down now into the migrating negro region. These poor\npeople could never travel when they were slaves; so they make up for\nthe privation now. They stay on a plantation till the desire to travel\nseizes them; then they pack up, hail a steamboat, and clear out. Not for\nany particular place; no, nearly any place will answer; they only want\nto be moving. The amount of money on hand will answer the rest of the\nconundrum for them. If it will take them fifty miles, very well; let it\nbe fifty. If not, a shorter flight will do.\n\nDuring a couple of days, we frequently answered these hails. Sometimes\nthere was a group of high-water-stained, tumble-down cabins, populous\nwith colored folk, and no whites visible; with grassless patches of dry\nground here and there; a few felled trees, with skeleton cattle, mules,\nand horses, eating the leaves and gnawing the bark--no other food for\nthem in the flood-wasted land. Sometimes there was a single lonely\nlanding-cabin; near it the colored family that had hailed us; little and\nbig, old and young, roosting on the scant pile of household goods; these\nconsisting of a rusty gun, some bed-ticks, chests, tinware, stools,\na crippled looking-glass, a venerable arm-chair, and six or eight\nbase-born and spiritless yellow curs, attached to the family by strings.\nThey must have their dogs; can't go without their dogs. Yet the dogs are\nnever willing; they always object; so, one after another, in ridiculous\nprocession, they are dragged aboard; all four feet braced and sliding\nalong the stage, head likely to be pulled off; but the tugger marching\ndeterminedly forward, bending to his work, with the rope over his\nshoulder for better purchase. Sometimes a child is forgotten and left on\nthe bank; but never a dog.\n\nThe usual river-gossip going on in the pilot-house. Island No. 63--an\nisland with a lovely 'chute,' or passage, behind it in the former times.\nThey said Jesse Jamieson, in the 'Skylark,' had a visiting pilot with\nhim one trip--a poor old broken-down, superannuated fellow--left him at\nthe wheel, at the foot of 63, to run off the watch. The ancient mariner\nwent up through the chute, and down the river outside; and up the chute\nand down the river again; and yet again and again; and handed the\nboat over to the relieving pilot, at the end of three hours of honest\nendeavor, at the same old foot of the island where he had originally\ntaken the wheel! A darkey on shore who had observed the boat go by,\nabout thirteen times, said, 'clar to gracious, I wouldn't be s'prised if\ndey's a whole line o' dem Sk'ylarks!'\n\nAnecdote illustrative of influence of reputation in the changing of\nopinion. The 'Eclipse' was renowned for her swiftness. One day she\npassed along; an old darkey on shore, absorbed in his own matters, did\nnot notice what steamer it was. Presently someone asked--\n\n'Any boat gone up?'\n\n'Yes, sah.'\n\n'Was she going fast?'\n\n'Oh, so-so--loafin' along.'\n\n'Now, do you know what boat that was?'\n\n'No, sah.'\n\n'Why, uncle, that was the \"Eclipse.\"'\n\n'No! Is dat so? Well, I bet it was--cause she jes' went by here\na-_sparklin_'!'\n\nPiece of history illustrative of the violent style of some of the people\ndown along here, During the early weeks of high water, A's fence rails\nwashed down on B's ground, and B's rails washed up in the eddy and\nlanded on A's ground. A said, 'Let the thing remain so; I will use your\nrails, and you use mine.' But B objected--wouldn't have it so. One day,\nA came down on B's ground to get his rails. B said, 'I'll kill you!' and\nproceeded for him with his revolver. A said, 'I'm not armed.' So B, who\nwished to do only what was right, threw down his revolver; then pulled\na knife, and cut A's throat all around, but gave his principal attention\nto the front, and so failed to sever the jugular. Struggling around, A\nmanaged to get his hands on the discarded revolver, and shot B dead with\nit--and recovered from his own injuries.\n\nFurther gossip;--after which, everybody went below to get afternoon\ncoffee, and left me at the wheel, alone, Something presently reminded\nme of our last hour in St. Louis, part of which I spent on this boat's\nhurricane deck, aft. I was joined there by a stranger, who dropped into\nconversation with me--a brisk young fellow, who said he was born in a\ntown in the interior of Wisconsin, and had never seen a steamboat until\na week before. Also said that on the way down from La Crosse he had\ninspected and examined his boat so diligently and with such passionate\ninterest that he had mastered the whole thing from stem to rudder-blade.\nAsked me where I was from. I answered, New England. 'Oh, a Yank!' said\nhe; and went chatting straight along, without waiting for assent or\ndenial. He immediately proposed to take me all over the boat and tell\nme the names of her different parts, and teach me their uses. Before I\ncould enter protest or excuse, he was already rattling glibly away at\nhis benevolent work; and when I perceived that he was misnaming the\nthings, and inhospitably amusing himself at the expense of an innocent\nstranger from a far country, I held my peace, and let him have his way.\nHe gave me a world of misinformation; and the further he went, the wider\nhis imagination expanded, and the more he enjoyed his cruel work of\ndeceit. Sometimes, after palming off a particularly fantastic and\noutrageous lie upon me, he was so 'full of laugh' that he had to\nstep aside for a minute, upon one pretext or another, to keep me from\nsuspecting. I staid faithfully by him until his comedy was finished.\nThen he remarked that he had undertaken to 'learn' me all about a\nsteamboat, and had done it; but that if he had overlooked anything, just\nask him and he would supply the lack. 'Anything about this boat that you\ndon't know the name of or the purpose of, you come to me and I'll tell\nyou.' I said I would, and took my departure; disappeared, and approached\nhim from another quarter, whence he could not see me. There he sat, all\nalone, doubling himself up and writhing this way and that, in the throes\nof unappeasable laughter. He must have made himself sick; for he was\nnot publicly visible afterward for several days. Meantime, the episode\ndropped out of my mind.\n\nThe thing that reminded me of it now, when I was alone at the wheel,\nwas the spectacle of this young fellow standing in the pilot-house door,\nwith the knob in his hand, silently and severely inspecting me. I don't\nknow when I have seen anybody look so injured as he did. He did not\nsay anything--simply stood there and looked; reproachfully looked and\npondered. Finally he shut the door, and started away; halted on the\ntexas a minute; came slowly back and stood in the door again, with that\ngrieved look in his face; gazed upon me awhile in meek rebuke, then\nsaid--\n\n'You let me learn you all about a steamboat, didn't you?'\n\n'Yes,' I confessed.\n\n'Yes, you did--_didn't_ you?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'You are the feller that--that--'\n\nLanguage failed. Pause--impotent struggle for further words--then he\ngave it up, choked out a deep, strong oath, and departed for good.\nAfterward I saw him several times below during the trip; but he was\ncold--would not look at me. Idiot, if he had not been in such a sweat to\nplay his witless practical joke upon me, in the beginning, I would have\npersuaded his thoughts into some other direction, and saved him from\ncommitting that wanton and silly impoliteness.\n\nI had myself called with the four o'clock watch, mornings, for one\ncannot see too many summer sunrises on the Mississippi. They are\nenchanting. First, there is the eloquence of silence; for a deep hush\nbroods everywhere. Next, there is the haunting sense of loneliness,\nisolation, remoteness from the worry and bustle of the world. The dawn\ncreeps in stealthily; the solid walls of black forest soften to gray,\nand vast stretches of the river open up and reveal themselves; the water\nis glass-smooth, gives off spectral little wreaths of white mist, there\nis not the faintest breath of wind, nor stir of leaf; the tranquillity\nis profound and infinitely satisfying. Then a bird pipes up, another\nfollows, and soon the pipings develop into a jubilant riot of music.\nYou see none of the birds; you simply move through an atmosphere of song\nwhich seems to sing itself. When the light has become a little stronger,\nyou have one of the fairest and softest pictures imaginable. You have\nthe intense green of the massed and crowded foliage near by; you see it\npaling shade by shade in front of you; upon the next projecting cape,\na mile off or more, the tint has lightened to the tender young green of\nspring; the cape beyond that one has almost lost color, and the furthest\none, miles away under the horizon, sleeps upon the water a mere dim\nvapor, and hardly separable from the sky above it and about it. And all\nthis stretch of river is a mirror, and you have the shadowy reflections\nof the leafage and the curving shores and the receding capes pictured in\nit. Well, that is all beautiful; soft and rich and beautiful; and when\nthe sun gets well up, and distributes a pink flush here and a powder of\ngold yonder and a purple haze where it will yield the best effect, you\ngrant that you have seen something that is worth remembering.\n\nWe had the Kentucky Bend country in the early morning--scene of a\nstrange and tragic accident in the old times, Captain Poe had a small\nstern-wheel boat, for years the home of himself and his wife. One night\nthe boat struck a snag in the head of Kentucky Bend, and sank with\nastonishing suddenness; water already well above the cabin floor when\nthe captain got aft. So he cut into his wife's state-room from above\nwith an ax; she was asleep in the upper berth, the roof a flimsier one\nthan was supposed; the first blow crashed down through the rotten boards\nand clove her skull.\n\nThis bend is all filled up now--result of a cut-off; and the same agent\nhas taken the great and once much-frequented Walnut Bend, and set\nit away back in a solitude far from the accustomed track of passing\nsteamers.\n\nHelena we visited, and also a town I had not heard of before, it being\nof recent birth--Arkansas City. It was born of a railway; the Little\nRock, Mississippi River and Texas Railroad touches the river there.\nWe asked a passenger who belonged there what sort of a place it was.\n'Well,' said he, after considering, and with the air of one who wishes\nto take time and be accurate, 'It's a hell of a place.' A description\nwhich was photographic for exactness. There were several rows and\nclusters of shabby frame-houses, and a supply of mud sufficient to\ninsure the town against a famine in that article for a hundred years;\nfor the overflow had but lately subsided. There were stagnant ponds\nin the streets, here and there, and a dozen rude scows were scattered\nabout, lying aground wherever they happened to have been when the waters\ndrained off and people could do their visiting and shopping on foot once\nmore. Still, it is a thriving place, with a rich country behind it, an\nelevator in front of it, and also a fine big mill for the manufacture of\ncotton-seed oil. I had never seen this kind of a mill before.\n\nCotton-seed was comparatively valueless in my time; but it is worth $12\nor $13 a ton now, and none of it is thrown away. The oil made from it is\ncolorless, tasteless, and almost if not entirely odorless. It is claimed\nthat it can, by proper manipulation, be made to resemble and perform the\noffice of any and all oils, and be produced at a cheaper rate than\nthe cheapest of the originals. Sagacious people shipped it to Italy,\ndoctored it, labeled it, and brought it back as olive oil. This trade\ngrew to be so formidable that Italy was obliged to put a prohibitory\nimpost upon it to keep it from working serious injury to her oil\nindustry.\n\nHelena occupies one of the prettiest situations on the Mississippi. Her\nperch is the last, the southernmost group of hills which one sees on\nthat side of the river. In its normal condition it is a pretty town; but\nthe flood (or possibly the seepage) had lately been ravaging it; whole\nstreets of houses had been invaded by the muddy water, and the outsides\nof the buildings were still belted with a broad stain extending upwards\nfrom the foundations. Stranded and discarded scows lay all about;\nplank sidewalks on stilts four feet high were still standing; the board\nsidewalks on the ground level were loose and ruinous,--a couple of men\ntrotting along them could make a blind man think a cavalry charge\nwas coming; everywhere the mud was black and deep, and in many\nplaces malarious pools of stagnant water were standing. A Mississippi\ninundation is the next most wasting and desolating infliction to a fire.\n\nWe had an enjoyable time here, on this sunny Sunday: two full hours'\nliberty ashore while the boat discharged freight. In the back streets\nbut few white people were visible, but there were plenty of colored\nfolk--mainly women and girls; and almost without exception upholstered\nin bright new clothes of swell and elaborate style and cut--a glaring\nand hilarious contrast to the mournful mud and the pensive puddles.\n\nHelena is the second town in Arkansas, in point of population--which\nis placed at five thousand. The country about it is exceptionally\nproductive. Helena has a good cotton trade; handles from forty to sixty\nthousand bales annually; she has a large lumber and grain commerce; has\na foundry, oil mills, machine shops and wagon factories--in brief has\n$1,000,000 invested in manufacturing industries. She has two railways,\nand is the commercial center of a broad and prosperous region. Her gross\nreceipts of money, annually, from all sources, are placed by the New\nOrleans 'Times-Democrat' at $4,000,000.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 31\n\nA Thumb-print and What Came of It\n\nWE were approaching Napoleon, Arkansas. So I began to think about my\nerrand there. Time, noonday; and bright and sunny. This was bad--not\nbest, anyway; for mine was not (preferably) a noonday kind of errand.\nThe more I thought, the more that fact pushed itself upon me--now in one\nform, now in another. Finally, it took the form of a distinct question:\nis it good common sense to do the errand in daytime, when, by a little\nsacrifice of comfort and inclination, you can have night for it, and\nno inquisitive eyes around. This settled it. Plain question and plain\nanswer make the shortest road out of most perplexities.\n\nI got my friends into my stateroom, and said I was sorry to create\nannoyance and disappointment, but that upon reflection it really seemed\nbest that we put our luggage ashore and stop over at Napoleon. Their\ndisapproval was prompt and loud; their language mutinous. Their main\nargument was one which has always been the first to come to the surface,\nin such cases, since the beginning of time: 'But you decided and _agreed\n_to stick to this boat, etc.; as if, having determined to do an unwise\nthing, one is thereby bound to go ahead and make _two _unwise things of\nit, by carrying out that determination.\n\nI tried various mollifying tactics upon them, with reasonably good\nsuccess: under which encouragement, I increased my efforts; and, to show\nthem that I had not created this annoying errand, and was in no way to\nblame for it, I presently drifted into its history--substantially as\nfollows:\n\nToward the end of last year, I spent a few months in Munich, Bavaria.\nIn November I was living in Fraulein Dahlweiner's _pension_, 1a,\nKarlstrasse; but my working quarters were a mile from there, in the\nhouse of a widow who supported herself by taking lodgers. She and her\ntwo young children used to drop in every morning and talk German to\nme--by request. One day, during a ramble about the city, I visited one\nof the two establishments where the Government keeps and watches corpses\nuntil the doctors decide that they are permanently dead, and not in\na trance state. It was a grisly place, that spacious room. There were\nthirty-six corpses of adults in sight, stretched on their backs on\nslightly slanted boards, in three long rows--all of them with wax-white,\nrigid faces, and all of them wrapped in white shrouds. Along the sides\nof the room were deep alcoves, like bay windows; and in each of these\nlay several marble-visaged babes, utterly hidden and buried under banks\nof fresh flowers, all but their faces and crossed hands. Around a finger\nof each of these fifty still forms, both great and small, was a ring;\nand from the ring a wire led to the ceiling, and thence to a bell in a\nwatch-room yonder, where, day and night, a watchman sits always alert\nand ready to spring to the aid of any of that pallid company who,\nwaking out of death, shall make a movement--for any, even the slightest,\nmovement will twitch the wire and ring that fearful bell. I imagined\nmyself a death-sentinel drowsing there alone, far in the dragging\nwatches of some wailing, gusty night, and having in a twinkling all\nmy body stricken to quivering jelly by the sudden clamor of that awful\nsummons! So I inquired about this thing; asked what resulted usually? if\nthe watchman died, and the restored corpse came and did what it could to\nmake his last moments easy. But I was rebuked for trying to feed an idle\nand frivolous curiosity in so solemn and so mournful a place; and went\nmy way with a humbled crest.\n\nNext morning I was telling the widow my adventure, when she exclaimed--\n\n'Come with me! I have a lodger who shall tell you all you want to know.\nHe has been a night-watchman there.'\n\nHe was a living man, but he did not look it. He was abed, and had his\nhead propped high on pillows; his face was wasted and colorless,\nhis deep-sunken eyes were shut; his hand, lying on his breast, was\ntalon-like, it was so bony and long-fingered. The widow began her\nintroduction of me. The man's eyes opened slowly, and glittered wickedly\nout from the twilight of their caverns; he frowned a black frown; he\nlifted his lean hand and waved us peremptorily away. But the widow kept\nstraight on, till she had got out the fact that I was a stranger and\nan American. The man's face changed at once; brightened, became even\neager--and the next moment he and I were alone together.\n\nI opened up in cast-iron German; he responded in quite flexible English;\nthereafter we gave the German language a permanent rest.\n\nThis consumptive and I became good friends. I visited him every day,\nand we talked about everything. At least, about everything but wives and\nchildren. Let anybody's wife or anybody's child be mentioned, and three\nthings always followed: the most gracious and loving and tender light\nglimmered in the man's eyes for a moment; faded out the next, and in its\nplace came that deadly look which had flamed there the first time I ever\nsaw his lids unclose; thirdly, he ceased from speech, there and then for\nthat day; lay silent, abstracted, and absorbed; apparently heard nothing\nthat I said; took no notice of my good-byes, and plainly did not know,\nby either sight or hearing, when I left the room.\n\nWhen I had been this Karl Ritter's daily and sole intimate during two\nmonths, he one day said, abruptly--\n\n'I will tell you my story.'\n\nA DYING MAN S CONFESSION\n\nThen he went on as follows:--\n\nI have never given up, until now. But now I have given up. I am going to\ndie. I made up my mind last night that it must be, and very soon, too.\nYou say you are going to revisit your river, by-and-bye, when you find\nopportunity. Very well; that, together with a certain strange\nexperience which fell to my lot last night, determines me to tell you my\nhistory--for you will see Napoleon, Arkansas; and for my sake you\nwill stop there, and do a certain thing for me--a thing which you will\nwillingly undertake after you shall have heard my narrative.\n\nLet us shorten the story wherever we can, for it will need it, being\nlong. You already know how I came to go to America, and how I came to\nsettle in that lonely region in the South. But you do not know that I\nhad a wife. My wife was young, beautiful, loving, and oh, so divinely\ngood and blameless and gentle! And our little girl was her mother in\nminiature. It was the happiest of happy households.\n\nOne night--it was toward the close of the war--I woke up out of a sodden\nlethargy, and found myself bound and gagged, and the air tainted with\nchloroform! I saw two men in the room, and one was saying to the other,\nin a hoarse whisper, 'I told her I would, if she made a noise, and as\nfor the child--'\n\nThe other man interrupted in a low, half-crying voice--\n\n'You said we'd only gag them and rob them, not hurt them; or I wouldn't\nhave come.'\n\n'Shut up your whining; had to change the plan when they waked up; you\ndone all you could to protect them, now let that satisfy you; come, help\nrummage.'\n\nBoth men were masked, and wore coarse, ragged 'nigger' clothes; they had\na bull's-eye lantern, and by its light I noticed that the gentler robber\nhad no thumb on his right hand. They rummaged around my poor cabin for a\nmoment; the head bandit then said, in his stage whisper--\n\n'It's a waste of time--he shall tell where it's hid. Undo his gag, and\nrevive him up.'\n\nThe other said--\n\n'All right--provided no clubbing.'\n\n'No clubbing it is, then--provided he keeps still.'\n\nThey approached me; just then there was a sound outside; a sound of\nvoices and trampling hoofs; the robbers held their breath and listened;\nthe sounds came slowly nearer and nearer; then came a shout--\n\n'_Hello_, the house! Show a light, we want water.'\n\n'The captain's voice, by G--!' said the stage-whispering ruffian,\nand both robbers fled by the way of the back door, shutting off their\nbull's-eye as they ran.\n\nThe strangers shouted several times more, then rode by--there seemed to\nbe a dozen of the horses--and I heard nothing more.\n\nI struggled, but could not free myself from my bonds. I tried to speak,\nbut the gag was effective; I could not make a sound. I listened for my\nwife's voice and my child's--listened long and intently, but no sound\ncame from the other end of the room where their bed was. This silence\nbecame more and more awful, more and more ominous, every moment. Could\nyou have endured an hour of it, do you think? Pity me, then, who had\nto endure three. Three hours--? it was three ages! Whenever the clock\nstruck, it seemed as if years had gone by since I had heard it last. All\nthis time I was struggling in my bonds; and at last, about dawn, I got\nmyself free, and rose up and stretched my stiff limbs. I was able to\ndistinguish details pretty well. The floor was littered with things\nthrown there by the robbers during their search for my savings. The\nfirst object that caught my particular attention was a document of mine\nwhich I had seen the rougher of the two ruffians glance at and then cast\naway. It had blood on it! I staggered to the other end of the room. Oh,\npoor unoffending, helpless ones, there they lay, their troubles ended,\nmine begun!\n\nDid I appeal to the law--I? Does it quench the pauper's thirst if the\nKing drink for him? Oh, no, no, no--I wanted no impertinent interference\nof the law. Laws and the gallows could not pay the debt that was owing\nto me! Let the laws leave the matter in my hands, and have no fears: I\nwould find the debtor and collect the debt. How accomplish this, do you\nsay? How accomplish it, and feel so sure about it, when I had neither\nseen the robbers' faces, nor heard their natural voices, nor had any\nidea who they might be? Nevertheless, I _was _sure--quite sure, quite\nconfident. I had a clue--a clue which you would not have valued--a clue\nwhich would not have greatly helped even a detective, since he would\nlack the secret of how to apply it. I shall come to that, presently--you\nshall see. Let us go on, now, taking things in their due order. There\nwas one circumstance which gave me a slant in a definite direction\nto begin with: Those two robbers were manifestly soldiers in tramp\ndisguise; and not new to military service, but old in it--regulars,\nperhaps; they did not acquire their soldierly attitude, gestures,\ncarriage, in a day, nor a month, nor yet in a year. So I thought,\nbut said nothing. And one of them had said, 'the captain's voice,\nby G--!'--the one whose life I would have. Two miles away, several\nregiments were in camp, and two companies of U.S. cavalry. When I\nlearned that Captain Blakely, of Company C had passed our way, that\nnight, with an escort, I said nothing, but in that company I resolved to\nseek my man. In conversation I studiously and persistently described the\nrobbers as tramps, camp followers; and among this class the people made\nuseless search, none suspecting the soldiers but me.\n\nWorking patiently, by night, in my desolated home, I made a disguise for\nmyself out of various odds and ends of clothing; in the nearest village\nI bought a pair of blue goggles. By-and-bye, when the military camp\nbroke up, and Company C was ordered a hundred miles north, to Napoleon,\nI secreted my small hoard of money in my belt, and took my departure in\nthe night. When Company C arrived in Napoleon, I was already there. Yes,\nI was there, with a new trade--fortune-teller. Not to seem partial, I\nmade friends and told fortunes among all the companies garrisoned there;\nbut I gave Company C the great bulk of my attentions. I made myself\nlimitlessly obliging to these particular men; they could ask me no\nfavor, put upon me no risk, which I would decline. I became the willing\nbutt of their jokes; this perfected my popularity; I became a favorite.\n\nI early found a private who lacked a thumb--what joy it was to me! And\nwhen I found that he alone, of all the company, had lost a thumb, my\nlast misgiving vanished; I was _sure _I was on the right track. This\nman's name was Kruger, a German. There were nine Germans in the company.\nI watched, to see who might be his intimates; but he seemed to have no\nespecial intimates. But I was his intimate; and I took care to make\nthe intimacy grow. Sometimes I so hungered for my revenge that I could\nhardly restrain myself from going on my knees and begging him to point\nout the man who had murdered my wife and child; but I managed to bridle\nmy tongue. I bided my time, and went on telling fortunes, as opportunity\noffered.\n\nMy apparatus was simple: a little red paint and a bit of white paper. I\npainted the ball of the client's thumb, took a print of it on the paper,\nstudied it that night, and revealed his fortune to him next day. What\nwas my idea in this nonsense? It was this: When I was a youth, I knew an\nold Frenchman who had been a prison-keeper for thirty years, and he told\nme that there was one thing about a person which never changed, from\nthe cradle to the grave--the lines in the ball of the thumb; and he said\nthat these lines were never exactly alike in the thumbs of any two human\nbeings. In these days, we photograph the new criminal, and hang his\npicture in the Rogues' Gallery for future reference; but that Frenchman,\nin his day, used to take a print of the ball of a new prisoner's thumb\nand put that away for future reference. He always said that pictures\nwere no good--future disguises could make them useless; 'The thumb's\nthe only sure thing,' said he; 'you can't disguise that.' And he used\nto prove his theory, too, on my friends and acquaintances; it always\nsucceeded.\n\nI went on telling fortunes. Every night I shut myself in, all alone,\nand studied the day's thumb-prints with a magnifying-glass. Imagine the\ndevouring eagerness with which I pored over those mazy red spirals,\nwith that document by my side which bore the right-hand\nthumb-and-finger-marks of that unknown murderer, printed with the\ndearest blood--to me--that was ever shed on this earth! And many and\nmany a time I had to repeat the same old disappointed remark, 'will they\n_never _correspond!'\n\nBut my reward came at last. It was the print of the thumb of the\nforty-third man of Company C whom I had experimented on--Private Franz\nAdler. An hour before, I did not know the murderer's name, or voice,\nor figure, or face, or nationality; but now I knew all these things!\nI believed I might feel sure; the Frenchman's repeated demonstrations\nbeing so good a warranty. Still, there was a way to _make _sure. I had\nan impression of Kruger's left thumb. In the morning I took him aside\nwhen he was off duty; and when we were out of sight and hearing of\nwitnesses, I said, impressively--\n\n'A part of your fortune is so grave, that I thought it would be better\nfor you if I did not tell it in public. You and another man, whose\nfortune I was studying last night,--Private Adler,--have been murdering\na woman and a child! You are being dogged: within five days both of you\nwill be assassinated.'\n\nHe dropped on his knees, frightened out of his wits; and for five\nminutes he kept pouring out the same set of words, like a demented\nperson, and in the same half-crying way which was one of my memories of\nthat murderous night in my cabin--\n\n'I didn't do it; upon my soul I didn't do it; and I tried to keep _him\n_from doing it; I did, as God is my witness. He did it alone.'\n\nThis was all I wanted. And I tried to get rid of the fool; but no, he\nclung to me, imploring me to save him from the assassin. He said--\n\n'I have money--ten thousand dollars--hid away, the fruit of loot and\nthievery; save me--tell me what to do, and you shall have it, every\npenny. Two-thirds of it is my cousin Adler's; but you can take it\nall. We hid it when we first came here. But I hid it in a new place\nyesterday, and have not told him--shall not tell him. I was going to\ndesert, and get away with it all. It is gold, and too heavy to carry\nwhen one is running and dodging; but a woman who has been gone over the\nriver two days to prepare my way for me is going to follow me with it;\nand if I got no chance to describe the hiding-place to her I was going\nto slip my silver watch into her hand, or send it to her, and she would\nunderstand. There's a piece of paper in the back of the case, which\ntells it all. Here, take the watch--tell me what to do!'\n\nHe was trying to press his watch upon me, and was exposing the paper\nand explaining it to me, when Adler appeared on the scene, about a dozen\nyards away. I said to poor Kruger--\n\n'Put up your watch, I don't want it. You shan't come to any harm. Go,\nnow; I must tell Adler his fortune. Presently I will tell you how to\nescape the assassin; meantime I shall have to examine your thumbmark\nagain. Say nothing to Adler about this thing--say nothing to anybody.'\n\nHe went away filled with fright and gratitude, poor devil. I told Adler\na long fortune--purposely so long that I could not finish it; promised\nto come to him on guard, that night, and tell him the really important\npart of it--the tragical part of it, I said--so must be out of reach of\neavesdroppers. They always kept a picket-watch outside the town--mere\ndiscipline and ceremony--no occasion for it, no enemy around.\n\nToward midnight I set out, equipped with the countersign, and picked my\nway toward the lonely region where Adler was to keep his watch. It was\nso dark that I stumbled right on a dim figure almost before I could get\nout a protecting word. The sentinel hailed and I answered, both at the\nsame moment. I added, 'It's only me--the fortune-teller.' Then I slipped\nto the poor devil's side, and without a word I drove my dirk into his\nheart! _Ya wohl_, laughed I, it _was _the tragedy part of his fortune,\nindeed! As he fell from his horse, he clutched at me, and my blue\ngoggles remained in his hand; and away plunged the beast dragging him,\nwith his foot in the stirrup.\n\nI fled through the woods, and made good my escape, leaving the accusing\ngoggles behind me in that dead man's hand.\n\nThis was fifteen or sixteen years ago. Since then I have wandered\naimlessly about the earth, sometimes at work, sometimes idle; sometimes\nwith money, sometimes with none; but always tired of life, and wishing\nit was done, for my mission here was finished, with the act of that\nnight; and the only pleasure, solace, satisfaction I had, in all those\ntedious years, was in the daily reflection, 'I have killed him!'\n\nFour years ago, my health began to fail. I had wandered into Munich, in\nmy purposeless way. Being out of money, I sought work, and got it; did\nmy duty faithfully about a year, and was then given the berth of night\nwatchman yonder in that dead-house which you visited lately. The place\nsuited my mood. I liked it. I liked being with the dead--liked being\nalone with them. I used to wander among those rigid corpses, and peer\ninto their austere faces, by the hour. The later the time, the more\nimpressive it was; I preferred the late time. Sometimes I turned the\nlights low: this gave perspective, you see; and the imagination could\nplay; always, the dim receding ranks of the dead inspired one with weird\nand fascinating fancies. Two years ago--I had been there a year then--I\nwas sitting all alone in the watch-room, one gusty winter's night,\nchilled, numb, comfortless; drowsing gradually into unconsciousness; the\nsobbing of the wind and the slamming of distant shutters falling fainter\nand fainter upon my dulling ear each moment, when sharp and suddenly\nthat dead-bell rang out a blood-curdling alarum over my head! The shock\nof it nearly paralyzed me; for it was the first time I had ever heard\nit.\n\nI gathered myself together and flew to the corpse-room. About midway\ndown the outside rank, a shrouded figure was sitting upright, wagging\nits head slowly from one side to the other--a grisly spectacle! Its side\nwas toward me. I hurried to it and peered into its face. Heavens, it was\nAdler!\n\nCan you divine what my first thought was? Put into words, it was this:\n'It seems, then, you escaped me once: there will be a different result\nthis time!'\n\nEvidently this creature was suffering unimaginable terrors. Think what\nit must have been to wake up in the midst of that voiceless hush, and,\nlook out over that grim congregation of the dead! What gratitude shone\nin his skinny white face when he saw a living form before him! And how\nthe fervency of this mute gratitude was augmented when his eyes fell\nupon the life-giving cordials which I carried in my hands! Then imagine\nthe horror which came into this pinched face when I put the cordials\nbehind me, and said mockingly--\n\n'Speak up, Franz Adler--call upon these dead. Doubtless they will listen\nand have pity; but here there is none else that will.'\n\nHe tried to speak, but that part of the shroud which bound his jaws,\nheld firm and would not let him. He tried to lift imploring hands, but\nthey were crossed upon his breast and tied. I said--\n\n'Shout, Franz Adler; make the sleepers in the distant streets hear you\nand bring help. Shout--and lose no time, for there is little to lose.\nWhat, you cannot? That is a pity; but it is no matter--it does not\nalways bring help. When you and your cousin murdered a helpless woman\nand child in a cabin in Arkansas--my wife, it was, and my child!--they\nshrieked for help, you remember; but it did no good; you remember that\nit did no good, is it not so? Your teeth chatter--then why cannot\nyou shout? Loosen the bandages with your hands--then you can. Ah, I\nsee--your hands are tied, they cannot aid you. How strangely things\nrepeat themselves, after long years; for _my_ hands were tied, that\nnight, you remember? Yes, tied much as yours are now--how odd that is.\nI could not pull free. It did not occur to you to untie me; it does not\noccur to me to untie you. Sh--! there's a late footstep. It is\ncoming this way. Hark, how near it is! One can count the\nfootfalls--one--two--three. There--it is just outside. Now is the time!\nShout, man, shout!--it is the one sole chance between you and eternity!\nAh, you see you have delayed too long--it is gone by. There--it is dying\nout. It is gone! Think of it--reflect upon it--you have heard a human\nfootstep for the last time. How curious it must be, to listen to so\ncommon a sound as that, and know that one will never hear the fellow to\nit again.'\n\nOh, my friend, the agony in that shrouded face was ecstasy to see! I\nthought of a new torture, and applied it--assisting myself with a trifle\nof lying invention--\n\n'That poor Kruger tried to save my wife and child, and I did him a\ngrateful good turn for it when the time came. I persuaded him to\nrob you; and I and a woman helped him to desert, and got him away in\nsafety.' A look as of surprise and triumph shone out dimly through the\nanguish in my victim's face. I was disturbed, disquieted. I said--\n\n'What, then--didn't he escape?'\n\nA negative shake of the head.\n\n'No? What happened, then?'\n\nThe satisfaction in the shrouded face was still plainer. The man tried\nto mumble out some words--could not succeed; tried to express something\nwith his obstructed hands--failed; paused a moment, then feebly tilted\nhis head, in a meaning way, toward the corpse that lay nearest him.\n\n'Dead?' I asked. 'Failed to escape?--caught in the act and shot?'\n\nNegative shake of the head.\n\n'How, then?'\n\nAgain the man tried to do something with his hands. I watched closely,\nbut could not guess the intent. I bent over and watched still more\nintently. He had twisted a thumb around and was weakly punching at his\nbreast with it. 'Ah--stabbed, do you mean?'\n\nAffirmative nod, accompanied by a spectral smile of such peculiar\ndevilishness, that it struck an awakening light through my dull brain,\nand I cried--\n\n'Did I stab him, mistaking him for you?--for that stroke was meant for\nnone but you.'\n\nThe affirmative nod of the re-dying rascal was as joyous as his failing\nstrength was able to put into its expression.\n\n'O, miserable, miserable me, to slaughter the pitying soul that, stood a\nfriend to my darlings when they were helpless, and would have saved them\nif he could! miserable, oh, miserable, miserable me!'\n\nI fancied I heard the muffled gurgle of a mocking laugh. I took my face\nout of my hands, and saw my enemy sinking back upon his inclined board.\n\nHe was a satisfactory long time dying. He had a wonderful vitality, an\nastonishing constitution. Yes, he was a pleasant long time at it. I got\na chair and a newspaper, and sat down by him and read. Occasionally I\ntook a sip of brandy. This was necessary, on account of the cold. But I\ndid it partly because I saw, that along at first, whenever I reached\nfor the bottle, he thought I was going to give him some. I read aloud:\nmainly imaginary accounts of people snatched from the grave's threshold\nand restored to life and vigor by a few spoonsful of liquor and a warm\nbath. Yes, he had a long, hard death of it--three hours and six minutes,\nfrom the time he rang his bell.\n\nIt is believed that in all these eighteen years that have elapsed\nsince the institution of the corpse-watch, no shrouded occupant of the\nBavarian dead-houses has ever rung its bell. Well, it is a harmless\nbelief. Let it stand at that.\n\nThe chill of that death-room had penetrated my bones. It revived and\nfastened upon me the disease which had been afflicting me, but which, up\nto that night, had been steadily disappearing. That man murdered my wife\nand my child; and in three days hence he will have added me to his list.\nNo matter--God! how delicious the memory of it!--I caught him escaping\nfrom his grave, and thrust him back into it.\n\nAfter that night, I was confined to my bed for a week; but as soon as\nI could get about, I went to the dead-house books and got the number of\nthe house which Adler had died in. A wretched lodging-house, it was.\nIt was my idea that he would naturally have gotten hold of Kruger's\neffects, being his cousin; and I wanted to get Kruger's watch, if I\ncould. But while I was sick, Adler's things had been sold and scattered,\nall except a few old letters, and some odds and ends of no value.\nHowever, through those letters, I traced out a son of Kruger's, the\nonly relative left. He is a man of thirty now, a shoemaker by trade,\nand living at No. 14 Konigstrasse, Mannheim--widower, with several small\nchildren. Without explaining to him why, I have furnished two-thirds of\nhis support, ever since.\n\nNow, as to that watch--see how strangely things happen! I traced it\naround and about Germany for more than a year, at considerable cost in\nmoney and vexation; and at last I got it. Got it, and was unspeakably\nglad; opened it, and found nothing in it! Why, I might have known that\nthat bit of paper was not going to stay there all this time. Of course\nI gave up that ten thousand dollars then; gave it up, and dropped it out\nof my mind: and most sorrowfully, for I had wanted it for Kruger's son.\n\nLast night, when I consented at last that I must die, I began to make\nready. I proceeded to burn all useless papers; and sure enough, from a\nbatch of Adler's, not previously examined with thoroughness, out dropped\nthat long-desired scrap! I recognized it in a moment. Here it is--I will\ntranslate it:\n\n'Brick livery stable, stone foundation, middle of town, corner of\nOrleans and Market. Corner toward Court-house. Third stone, fourth row.\nStick notice there, saying how many are to come.'\n\nThere--take it, and preserve it. Kruger explained that that stone was\nremovable; and that it was in the north wall of the foundation, fourth\nrow from the top, and third stone from the west. The money is secreted\nbehind it. He said the closing sentence was a blind, to mislead in\ncase the paper should fall into wrong hands. It probably performed that\noffice for Adler.\n\nNow I want to beg that when you make your intended journey down the\nriver, you will hunt out that hidden money, and send it to Adam Kruger,\ncare of the Mannheim address which I have mentioned. It will make a rich\nman of him, and I shall sleep the sounder in my grave for knowing that I\nhave done what I could for the son of the man who tried to save my\nwife and child--albeit my hand ignorantly struck him down, whereas the\nimpulse of my heart would have been to shield and serve him.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 32\n\nThe Disposal of a Bonanza\n\n'SUCH was Ritter's narrative,' said I to my two friends. There was a\nprofound and impressive silence, which lasted a considerable time; then\nboth men broke into a fusillade of exciting and admiring ejaculations\nover the strange incidents of the tale; and this, along with a rattling\nfire of questions, was kept up until all hands were about out of breath.\nThen my friends began to cool down, and draw off, under shelter of\noccasional volleys, into silence and abysmal reverie. For ten minutes\nnow, there was stillness. Then Rogers said dreamily--\n\n'Ten thousand dollars.'\n\nAdding, after a considerable pause--\n\n'Ten thousand. It is a heap of money.'\n\nPresently the poet inquired--\n\n'Are you going to send it to him right away?'\n\n'Yes,' I said. 'It is a queer question.'\n\nNo reply. After a little, Rogers asked, hesitatingly:\n\n'_All _of it?--That is--I mean--'\n\n'Certainly, all of it.'\n\nI was going to say more, but stopped--was stopped by a train of thought\nwhich started up in me. Thompson spoke, but my mind was absent, and I\ndid not catch what he said. But I heard Rogers answer--\n\n'Yes, it seems so to me. It ought to be quite sufficient; for I don't\nsee that he has done anything.'\n\nPresently the poet said--\n\n'When you come to look at it, it is more than sufficient. Just look at\nit--five thousand dollars! Why, he couldn't spend it in a lifetime! And\nit would injure him, too; perhaps ruin him--you want to look at that.\nIn a little while he would throw his last away, shut up his shop, maybe\ntake to drinking, maltreat his motherless children, drift into other\nevil courses, go steadily from bad to worse--'\n\n'Yes, that's it,' interrupted Rogers, fervently, 'I've seen it a hundred\ntimes--yes, more than a hundred. You put money into the hands of a man\nlike that, if you want to destroy him, that's all; just put money into\nhis hands, it's all you've got to do; and if it don't pull him down,\nand take all the usefulness out of him, and all the self-respect and\neverything, then I don't know human nature--ain't that so, Thompson?\nAnd even if we were to give him a _third _of it; why, in less than six\nmonths--'\n\n'Less than six _weeks_, you'd better say!' said I, warming up and\nbreaking in. 'Unless he had that three thousand dollars in safe hands\nwhere he couldn't touch it, he would no more last you six weeks than--'\n\n'Of _course _he wouldn't,' said Thompson; 'I've edited books for\nthat kind of people; and the moment they get their hands on the\nroyalty--maybe it's three thousand, maybe it's two thousand--'\n\n'What business has that shoemaker with two thousand dollars, I should\nlike to know?' broke in Rogers, earnestly. 'A man perhaps perfectly\ncontented now, there in Mannheim, surrounded by his own class, eating\nhis bread with the appetite which laborious industry alone can\ngive, enjoying his humble life, honest, upright, pure in heart; and\n_blest_!--yes, I say blest! blest above all the myriads that go in silk\nattire and walk the empty artificial round of social folly--but just\nyou put that temptation before him once! just you lay fifteen hundred\ndollars before a man like that, and say--'\n\n'Fifteen hundred devils!' cried I, '_five _hundred would rot his\nprinciples, paralyze his industry, drag him to the rumshop, thence to\nthe gutter, thence to the almshouse, thence to----'\n\n'_Why _put upon ourselves this crime, gentlemen?' interrupted the poet\nearnestly and appealingly. 'He is happy where he is, and _as _he is.\nEvery sentiment of honor, every sentiment of charity, every sentiment of\nhigh and sacred benevolence warns us, beseeches us, commands us to leave\nhim undisturbed. That is real friendship, that is true friendship. We\ncould follow other courses that would be more showy; but none that would\nbe so truly kind and wise, depend upon it.'\n\nAfter some further talk, it became evident that each of us, down in his\nheart, felt some misgivings over this settlement of the matter. It\nwas manifest that we all felt that we ought to send the poor shoemaker\n_something_. There was long and thoughtful discussion of this point; and\nwe finally decided to send him a chromo.\n\nWell, now that everything seemed to be arranged satisfactorily to\neverybody concerned, a new trouble broke out: it transpired that these\ntwo men were expecting to share equally in the money with me. That was\nnot my idea. I said that if they got half of it between them they might\nconsider themselves lucky. Rogers said--\n\n'Who would have had _any _if it hadn't been for me? I flung out the\nfirst hint--but for that it would all have gone to the shoemaker.'\n\nThompson said that he was thinking of the thing himself at the very\nmoment that Rogers had originally spoken.\n\nI retorted that the idea would have occurred to me plenty soon enough,\nand without anybody's help. I was slow about thinking, maybe, but I was\nsure.\n\nThis matter warmed up into a quarrel; then into a fight; and each man\ngot pretty badly battered. As soon as I had got myself mended up after\na fashion, I ascended to the hurricane deck in a pretty sour humor. I\nfound Captain McCord there, and said, as pleasantly as my humor would\npermit--\n\n'I have come to say good-bye, captain. I wish to go ashore at Napoleon.'\n\n'Go ashore where?'\n\n'Napoleon.'\n\nThe captain laughed; but seeing that I was not in a jovial mood, stopped\nthat and said--\n\n'But are you serious?'\n\n'Serious? I certainly am.'\n\nThe captain glanced up at the pilot-house and said--\n\n'He wants to get off at Napoleon!'\n\n'Napoleon?'\n\n'That's what he says.'\n\n'Great Caesar's ghost!'\n\nUncle Mumford approached along the deck. The captain said--\n\n'Uncle, here's a friend of yours wants to get off at Napoleon!'\n\n'Well, by--?'\n\nI said--\n\n'Come, what is all this about? Can't a man go ashore at Napoleon if he\nwants to?'\n\n'Why, hang it, don't you know? There _isn't_ any Napoleon any more.\nHasn't been for years and years. The Arkansas River burst through it,\ntore it all to rags, and emptied it into the Mississippi!'\n\n'Carried the _whole _town away?-banks, churches, jails,\nnewspaper-offices, court-house, theater, fire department, livery stable\n_everything _?'\n\n'Everything. just a fifteen-minute job.' or such a matter. Didn't leave\nhide nor hair, shred nor shingle of it, except the fag-end of a shanty\nand one brick chimney. This boat is paddling along right now, where the\ndead-center of that town used to be; yonder is the brick chimney-all\nthat's left of Napoleon. These dense woods on the right used to be a\nmile back of the town. Take a look behind you--up-stream--now you begin\nto recognize this country, don't you?'\n\n'Yes, I do recognize it now. It is the most wonderful thing I ever heard\nof; by a long shot the most wonderful--and unexpected.'\n\nMr. Thompson and Mr. Rogers had arrived, meantime, with satchels and\numbrellas, and had silently listened to the captain's news. Thompson put\na half-dollar in my hand and said softly--\n\n'For my share of the chromo.'\n\nRogers followed suit.\n\nYes, it was an astonishing thing to see the Mississippi rolling between\nunpeopled shores and straight over the spot where I used to see a good\nbig self-complacent town twenty years ago. Town that was county-seat\nof a great and important county; town with a big United States marine\nhospital; town of innumerable fights--an inquest every day; town where\nI had used to know the prettiest girl, and the most accomplished in the\nwhole Mississippi Valley; town where we were handed the first printed\nnews of the 'Pennsylvania's' mournful disaster a quarter of a century\nago; a town no more--swallowed up, vanished, gone to feed the fishes;\nnothing left but a fragment of a shanty and a crumbling brick chimney!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 33\n\nRefreshments and Ethics\n\nIN regard to Island 74, which is situated not far from the former\nNapoleon, a freak of the river here has sorely perplexed the laws of\nmen and made them a vanity and a jest. When the State of Arkansas was\nchartered, she controlled 'to the center of the river'--a most unstable\nline. The State of Mississippi claimed 'to the channel'--another shifty\nand unstable line. No. 74 belonged to Arkansas. By and by a cut-off\nthrew this big island out of Arkansas, and yet not within Mississippi.\n'Middle of the river' on one side of it, 'channel' on the other. That\nis as I understand the problem. Whether I have got the details right\nor wrong, this _fact _remains: that here is this big and exceedingly\nvaluable island of four thousand acres, thrust out in the cold, and\nbelonging to neither the one State nor the other; paying taxes to\nneither, owing allegiance to neither. One man owns the whole island, and\nof right is 'the man without a country.'\n\nIsland 92 belongs to Arkansas. The river moved it over and joined it\nto Mississippi. A chap established a whiskey shop there, without a\nMississippi license, and enriched himself upon Mississippi custom under\nArkansas protection (where no license was in those days required).\n\nWe glided steadily down the river in the usual privacy--steamboat or\nother moving thing seldom seen. Scenery as always: stretch upon stretch\nof almost unbroken forest, on both sides of the river; soundless\nsolitude. Here and there a cabin or two, standing in small openings on\nthe gray and grassless banks--cabins which had formerly stood a quarter\nor half-mile farther to the front, and gradually been pulled farther\nand farther back as the shores caved in. As at Pilcher's Point, for\ninstance, where the cabins had been moved back three hundred yards in\nthree months, so we were told; but the caving banks had already caught\nup with them, and they were being conveyed rearward once more.\n\nNapoleon had but small opinion of Greenville, Mississippi, in the old\ntimes; but behold, Napoleon is gone to the cat-fishes, and here is\nGreenville full of life and activity, and making a considerable flourish\nin the Valley; having three thousand inhabitants, it is said, and doing\na gross trade of $2,500,000 annually. A growing town.\n\nThere was much talk on the boat about the Calhoun Land Company, an\nenterprise which is expected to work wholesome results. Colonel Calhoun,\na grandson of the statesman, went to Boston and formed a syndicate\nwhich purchased a large tract of land on the river, in Chicot County,\nArkansas--some ten thousand acres--for cotton-growing. The purpose is to\nwork on a cash basis: buy at first hands, and handle their own product;\nsupply their negro laborers with provisions and necessaries at a\ntrifling profit, say 8 or 10 per cent.; furnish them comfortable\nquarters, etc., and encourage them to save money and remain on the\nplace. If this proves a financial success, as seems quite certain, they\npropose to establish a banking-house in Greenville, and lend money at an\nunburdensome rate of interest--6 per cent. is spoken of.\n\nThe trouble heretofore has been--I am quoting remarks of planters and\nsteamboatmen--that the planters, although owning the land, were without\ncash capital; had to hypothecate both land and crop to carry on the\nbusiness. Consequently, the commission dealer who furnishes the money\ntakes some risk and demands big interest--usually 10 per cent., and\n2{half} per cent. for negotiating the loan. The planter has also to buy\nhis supplies through the same dealer, paying commissions and profits.\nThen when he ships his crop, the dealer adds his commissions, insurance,\netc. So, taking it by and large, and first and last, the dealer's share\nof that crop is about 25 per cent.'{footnote ['But what can the State do\nwhere the people are under subjection to rates of interest ranging from\n18 to 30 per cent., and are also under the necessity of purchasing their\ncrops in advance even of planting, at these rates, for the privilege\nof purchasing all their supplies at 100 per cent. profit?'--_Edward\nAtkinson_.]}\n\nA cotton-planter's estimate of the average margin of profit on planting,\nin his section: One man and mule will raise ten acres of cotton, giving\nten bales cotton, worth, say, $500; cost of producing, say $350; net\nprofit, $150, or $15 per acre. There is also a profit now from\nthe cotton-seed, which formerly had little value--none where much\ntransportation was necessary. In sixteen hundred pounds crude cotton\nfour hundred are lint, worth, say, ten cents a pound; and twelve hundred\npounds of seed, worth $12 or $13 per ton. Maybe in future even the stems\nwill not be thrown away. Mr. Edward Atkinson says that for each bale\nof cotton there are fifteen hundred pounds of stems, and that these are\nvery rich in phosphate of lime and potash; that when ground and mixed\nwith ensilage or cotton-seed meal (which is too rich for use as fodder\nin large quantities), the stem mixture makes a superior food, rich in\nall the elements needed for the production of milk, meat, and bone.\nHeretofore the stems have been considered a nuisance.\n\nComplaint is made that the planter remains grouty toward the former\nslave, since the war; will have nothing but a chill business relation\nwith him, no sentiment permitted to intrude, will not keep a 'store'\nhimself, and supply the negro's wants and thus protect the negro's\npocket and make him able and willing to stay on the place and an\nadvantage to him to do it, but lets that privilege to some thrifty\nIsraelite, who encourages the thoughtless negro and wife to buy all\nsorts of things which they could do without--buy on credit, at big\nprices, month after month, credit based on the negro's share of the\ngrowing crop; and at the end of the season, the negro's share belongs\nto the Israelite,' the negro is in debt besides, is discouraged,\ndissatisfied, restless, and both he and the planter are injured; for he\nwill take steamboat and migrate, and the planter must get a stranger in\nhis place who does not know him, does not care for him, will fatten the\nIsraelite a season, and follow his predecessor per steamboat.\n\nIt is hoped that the Calhoun Company will show, by its humane and\nprotective treatment of its laborers, that its method is the most\nprofitable for both planter and negro; and it is believed that a general\nadoption of that method will then follow.\n\nAnd where so many are saying their say, shall not the barkeeper testify?\nHe is thoughtful, observant, never drinks; endeavors to earn his salary,\nand _would _earn it if there were custom enough. He says the people\nalong here in Mississippi and Louisiana will send up the river to buy\nvegetables rather than raise them, and they will come aboard at the\nlandings and buy fruits of the barkeeper. Thinks they 'don't know\nanything but cotton;' believes they don't know how to raise vegetables\nand fruit--'at least the most of them.' Says 'a nigger will go to H for\na watermelon' ('H' is all I find in the stenographer's report--means\nHalifax probably, though that seems a good way to go for a watermelon).\nBarkeeper buys watermelons for five cents up the river, brings them\ndown and sells them for fifty. 'Why does he mix such elaborate and\npicturesque drinks for the nigger hands on the boat?' Because they won't\nhave any other. 'They want a big drink; don't make any difference what\nyou make it of, they want the worth of their money. You give a nigger a\nplain gill of half-a-dollar brandy for five cents--will he touch it? No.\nAin't size enough to it. But you put up a pint of all kinds of worthless\nrubbish, and heave in some red stuff to make it beautiful--red's the\nmain thing--and he wouldn't put down that glass to go to a circus.'\n\nAll the bars on this Anchor Line are rented and owned by one firm.\nThey furnish the liquors from their own establishment, and hire the\nbarkeepers 'on salary.' Good liquors? Yes, on some of the boats, where\nthere are the kind of passengers that want it and can pay for it. On\nthe other boats? No. Nobody but the deck hands and firemen to drink it.\n'Brandy? Yes, I've got brandy, plenty of it; but you don't want any of\nit unless you've made your will.' It isn't as it used to be in the\nold times. Then everybody traveled by steamboat, everybody drank, and\neverybody treated everybody else. 'Now most everybody goes by railroad,\nand the rest don't drink.' In the old times the barkeeper owned the bar\nhimself, 'and was gay and smarty and talky and all jeweled up, and was\nthe toniest aristocrat on the boat; used to make $2,000 on a trip. A\nfather who left his son a steamboat bar, left him a fortune. Now he\nleaves him board and lodging; yes, and washing, if a shirt a trip will\ndo. Yes, indeedy, times are changed. Why, do you know, on the principal\nline of boats on the Upper Mississippi, they don't have any bar at all!\nSounds like poetry, but it's the petrified truth.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 34\n\nTough Yarns\n\nSTACK island. I remembered Stack Island; also Lake Providence,\nLouisiana--which is the first distinctly Southern-looking town you come\nto, downward-bound; lies level and low, shade-trees hung with venerable\ngray beards of Spanish moss; 'restful, pensive, Sunday aspect about the\nplace,' comments Uncle Mumford, with feeling--also with truth.\n\nA Mr. H. furnished some minor details of fact concerning this region\nwhich I would have hesitated to believe if I had not known him to be a\nsteamboat mate. He was a passenger of ours, a resident of Arkansas City,\nand bound to Vicksburg to join his boat, a little Sunflower packet.\nHe was an austere man, and had the reputation of being singularly\nunworldly, for a river man. Among other things, he said that Arkansas\nhad been injured and kept back by generations of exaggerations\nconcerning the mosquitoes here. One may smile, said he, and turn the\nmatter off as being a small thing; but when you come to look at the\neffects produced, in the way of discouragement of immigration, and\ndiminished values of property, it was quite the opposite of a small\nthing, or thing in any wise to be coughed down or sneered at. These\nmosquitoes had been persistently represented as being formidable and\nlawless; whereas 'the truth is, they are feeble, insignificant in size,\ndiffident to a fault, sensitive'--and so on, and so on; you would have\nsupposed he was talking about his family. But if he was soft on the\nArkansas mosquitoes, he was hard enough on the mosquitoes of Lake\nProvidence to make up for it--'those Lake Providence colossi,' as he\nfinely called them. He said that two of them could whip a dog, and that\nfour of them could hold a man down; and except help come, they would\nkill him--'butcher him,' as he expressed it. Referred in a sort of\ncasual way--and yet significant way--to 'the fact that the life policy\nin its simplest form is unknown in Lake Providence--they take out a\nmosquito policy besides.' He told many remarkable things about those\nlawless insects. Among others, said he had seen them try to vote.\nNoticing that this statement seemed to be a good deal of a strain on us,\nhe modified it a little: said he might have been mistaken, as to that\nparticular, but knew he had seen them around the polls 'canvassing.'\n\nThere was another passenger--friend of H.'s--who backed up the harsh\nevidence against those mosquitoes, and detailed some stirring adventures\nwhich he had had with them. The stories were pretty sizable, merely\npretty sizable; yet Mr. H. was continually interrupting with a cold,\ninexorable 'Wait--knock off twenty-five per cent. of that; now go\non;' or, 'Wait--you are getting that too strong; cut it down, cut it\ndown--you get a leetle too much costumery on to your statements: always\ndress a fact in tights, never in an ulster;' or, 'Pardon, once more: if\nyou are going to load anything more on to that statement, you want to\nget a couple of lighters and tow the rest, because it's drawing all the\nwater there is in the river already; stick to facts--just stick to\nthe cold facts; what these gentlemen want for a book is the frozen\ntruth--ain't that so, gentlemen?' He explained privately that it was\nnecessary to watch this man all the time, and keep him within bounds;\nit would not do to neglect this precaution, as he, Mr. H., 'knew to his\nsorrow.' Said he, 'I will not deceive you; he told me such a monstrous\nlie once, that it swelled my left ear up, and spread it so that I was\nactually not able to see out around it; it remained so for months, and\npeople came miles to see me fan myself with it.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 35\n\nVicksburg During the Trouble\n\nWE used to plow past the lofty hill-city, Vicksburg, down-stream; but\nwe cannot do that now. A cut-off has made a country town of it, like\nOsceola, St. Genevieve, and several others. There is currentless\nwater--also a big island--in front of Vicksburg now. You come down the\nriver the other side of the island, then turn and come up to the town;\nthat is, in high water: in low water you can't come up, but must land\nsome distance below it.\n\nSigns and scars still remain, as reminders of Vicksburg's tremendous\nwar experiences; earthworks, trees crippled by the cannon balls,\ncave-refuges in the clay precipices, etc. The caves did good service\nduring the six weeks' bombardment of the city--May 8 to July 4, 1863.\nThey were used by the non-combatants--mainly by the women and children;\nnot to live in constantly, but to fly to for safety on occasion. They\nwere mere holes, tunnels, driven into the perpendicular clay bank, then\nbranched Y shape, within the hill. Life in Vicksburg, during the six\nweeks was perhaps--but wait; here are some materials out of which to\nreproduce it:--\n\nPopulation, twenty-seven thousand soldiers and three thousand\nnon-combatants; the city utterly cut off from the world--walled solidly\nin, the frontage by gunboats, the rear by soldiers and batteries;\nhence, no buying and selling with the outside; no passing to and fro;\nno God-speeding a parting guest, no welcoming a coming one; no printed\nacres of world-wide news to be read at breakfast, mornings--a tedious\ndull absence of such matter, instead; hence, also, no running to see\nsteamboats smoking into view in the distance up or down, and plowing\ntoward the town--for none came, the river lay vacant and undisturbed;\nno rush and turmoil around the railway station, no struggling over\nbewildered swarms of passengers by noisy mobs of hackmen--all quiet\nthere; flour two hundred dollars a barrel, sugar thirty, corn ten\ndollars a bushel, bacon five dollars a pound, rum a hundred dollars a\ngallon; other things in proportion: consequently, no roar and racket of\ndrays and carriages tearing along the streets; nothing for them to\ndo, among that handful of non-combatants of exhausted means; at three\no'clock in the morning, silence; silence so dead that the measured\ntramp of a sentinel can be heard a seemingly impossible distance; out of\nhearing of this lonely sound, perhaps the stillness is absolute: all in\na moment come ground-shaking thunder-crashes of artillery, the sky\nis cobwebbed with the crisscrossing red lines streaming from soaring\nbomb-shells, and a rain of iron fragments descends upon the city;\ndescends upon the empty streets: streets which are not empty a moment\nlater, but mottled with dim figures of frantic women and children\nscurrying from home and bed toward the cave dungeons--encouraged by the\nhumorous grim soldiery, who shout 'Rats, to your holes!' and laugh.\n\nThe cannon-thunder rages, shells scream and crash overhead, the iron\nrain pours down, one hour, two hours, three, possibly six, then stops;\nsilence follows, but the streets are still empty; the silence continues;\nby-and-bye a head projects from a cave here and there and yonder, and\nreconnoitres, cautiously; the silence still continuing, bodies follow\nheads, and jaded, half smothered creatures group themselves about,\nstretch their cramped limbs, draw in deep draughts of the grateful fresh\nair, gossip with the neighbors from the next cave; maybe straggle off\nhome presently, or take a lounge through the town, if the stillness\ncontinues; and will scurry to the holes again, by-and-bye, when the\nwar-tempest breaks forth once more.\n\nThere being but three thousand of these cave-dwellers--merely the\npopulation of a village--would they not come to know each other, after a\nweek or two, and familiarly; insomuch that the fortunate or unfortunate\nexperiences of one would be of interest to all?\n\nThose are the materials furnished by history. From them might not almost\nanybody reproduce for himself the life of that time in Vicksburg? Could\nyou, who did not experience it, come nearer to reproducing it to the\nimagination of another non-participant than could a Vicksburger who did\nexperience it? It seems impossible; and yet there are reasons why it\nmight not really be. When one makes his first voyage in a ship, it is\nan experience which multitudinously bristles with striking novelties;\nnovelties which are in such sharp contrast with all this person's\nformer experiences that they take a seemingly deathless grip upon his\nimagination and memory. By tongue or pen he can make a landsman live\nthat strange and stirring voyage over with him; make him see it all and\nfeel it all. But if he wait? If he make ten voyages in succession--what\nthen? Why, the thing has lost color, snap, surprise; and has become\ncommonplace. The man would have nothing to tell that would quicken a\nlandsman's pulse.\n\nYears ago, I talked with a couple of the Vicksburg non-combatants--a man\nand his wife. Left to tell their story in their own way, those people\ntold it without fire, almost without interest.\n\nA week of their wonderful life there would have made their tongues\neloquent for ever perhaps; but they had six weeks of it, and that wore\nthe novelty all out; they got used to being bomb-shelled out of home\nand into the ground; the matter became commonplace. After that, the\npossibility of their ever being startlingly interesting in their talks\nabout it was gone. What the man said was to this effect:--\n\n'It got to be Sunday all the time. Seven Sundays in the week--to us,\nanyway. We hadn't anything to do, and time hung heavy. Seven Sundays,\nand all of them broken up at one time or another, in the day or in the\nnight, by a few hours of the awful storm of fire and thunder and iron.\nAt first we used to shin for the holes a good deal faster than we did\nafterwards. The first time, I forgot the children, and Maria fetched\nthem both along. When she was all safe in the cave she fainted. Two or\nthree weeks afterwards, when she was running for the holes, one morning,\nthrough a shell-shower, a big shell burst near her, and covered her all\nover with dirt, and a piece of the iron carried away her game-bag of\nfalse hair from the back of her head. Well, she stopped to get that\ngame-bag before she shoved along again! Was getting used to things\nalready, you see. We all got so that we could tell a good deal about\nshells; and after that we didn't always go under shelter if it was a\nlight shower. Us men would loaf around and talk; and a man would say,\n'There she goes!' and name the kind of shell it was from the sound of\nit, and go on talking--if there wasn't any danger from it. If a\nshell was bursting close over us, we stopped talking and stood\nstill;--uncomfortable, yes, but it wasn't safe to move. When it let\ngo, we went on talking again, if nobody hurt--maybe saying, 'That was a\nripper!' or some such commonplace comment before we resumed; or, maybe,\nwe would see a shell poising itself away high in the air overhead.\nIn that case, every fellow just whipped out a sudden, 'See you again,\ngents!' and shoved. Often and often I saw gangs of ladies promenading\nthe streets, looking as cheerful as you please, and keeping an eye\ncanted up watching the shells; and I've seen them stop still when they\nwere uncertain about what a shell was going to do, and wait and make\ncertain; and after that they sa'ntered along again, or lit out for\nshelter, according to the verdict. Streets in some towns have a litter\nof pieces of paper, and odds and ends of one sort or another lying\naround. Ours hadn't; they had _iron _litter. Sometimes a man\nwould gather up all the iron fragments and unbursted shells in his\nneighborhood, and pile them into a kind of monument in his front\nyard--a ton of it, sometimes. No glass left; glass couldn't stand such\na bombardment; it was all shivered out. Windows of the houses\nvacant--looked like eye-holes in a skull. _Whole _panes were as scarce\nas news.\n\n'We had church Sundays. Not many there, along at first; but by-and-bye\npretty good turnouts. I've seen service stop a minute, and everybody sit\nquiet--no voice heard, pretty funeral-like then--and all the more so on\naccount of the awful boom and crash going on outside and overhead; and\npretty soon, when a body could be heard, service would go on again.\nOrgans and church-music mixed up with a bombardment is a powerful queer\ncombination--along at first. Coming out of church, one morning, we had\nan accident--the only one that happened around me on a Sunday. I was\njust having a hearty handshake with a friend I hadn't seen for a while,\nand saying, 'Drop into our cave to-night, after bombardment; we've got\nhold of a pint of prime wh--.' Whiskey, I was going to say, you know,\nbut a shell interrupted. A chunk of it cut the man's arm off, and left\nit dangling in my hand. And do you know the thing that is going to stick\nthe longest in my memory, and outlast everything else, little and big, I\nreckon, is the mean thought I had then? It was 'the whiskey _is saved_.'\nAnd yet, don't you know, it was kind of excusable; because it was as\nscarce as diamonds, and we had only just that little; never had another\ntaste during the siege.\n\n'Sometimes the caves were desperately crowded, and always hot and close.\nSometimes a cave had twenty or twenty-five people packed into it; no\nturning-room for anybody; air so foul, sometimes, you couldn't have made\na candle burn in it. A child was born in one of those caves one night,\nThink of that; why, it was like having it born in a trunk.\n\n'Twice we had sixteen people in our cave; and a number of times we had a\ndozen. Pretty suffocating in there. We always had eight; eight belonged\nthere. Hunger and misery and sickness and fright and sorrow, and I\ndon't know what all, got so loaded into them that none of them were ever\nrightly their old selves after the siege. They all died but three of us\nwithin a couple of years. One night a shell burst in front of the hole\nand caved it in and stopped it up. It was lively times, for a while,\ndigging out. Some of us came near smothering. After that we made two\nopenings--ought to have thought of it at first.\n\n'Mule meat. No, we only got down to that the last day or two. Of course\nit was good; anything is good when you are starving.\n\nThis man had kept a diary during--six weeks? No, only the first six\ndays. The first day, eight close pages; the second, five; the third,\none--loosely written; the fourth, three or four lines; a line or two\nthe fifth and sixth days; seventh day, diary abandoned; life in terrific\nVicksburg having now become commonplace and matter of course.\n\nThe war history of Vicksburg has more about it to interest the general\nreader than that of any other of the river-towns. It is full of variety,\nfull of incident, full of the picturesque. Vicksburg held out longer\nthan any other important river-town, and saw warfare in all its phases,\nboth land and water--the siege, the mine, the assault, the repulse, the\nbombardment, sickness, captivity, famine.\n\nThe most beautiful of all the national cemeteries is here. Over the\ngreat gateway is this inscription:--\n\n\"HERE REST IN PEACE 16,600 WHO DIED FOR THEIR COUNTRY IN THE YEARS 1861\nTO 1865.\"\n\nThe grounds are nobly situated; being very high and commanding a wide\nprospect of land and river. They are tastefully laid out in broad\nterraces, with winding roads and paths; and there is profuse adornment\nin the way of semi-tropical shrubs and flowers,' and in one part is a\npiece of native wild-wood, left just as it grew, and, therefore, perfect\nin its charm. Everything about this cemetery suggests the hand of the\nnational Government. The Government's work is always conspicuous for\nexcellence, solidity, thoroughness, neatness. The Government does its\nwork well in the first place, and then takes care of it.\n\nBy winding-roads--which were often cut to so great a depth between\nperpendicular walls that they were mere roofless tunnels--we drove out a\nmile or two and visited the monument which stands upon the scene of the\nsurrender of Vicksburg to General Grant by General Pemberton. Its metal\nwill preserve it from the hackings and chippings which so defaced\nits predecessor, which was of marble; but the brick foundations\nare crumbling, and it will tumble down by-and-bye. It overlooks a\npicturesque region of wooded hills and ravines; and is not unpicturesque\nitself, being well smothered in flowering weeds. The battered remnant of\nthe marble monument has been removed to the National Cemetery.\n\nOn the road, a quarter of a mile townward, an aged colored man showed\nus, with pride, an unexploded bomb-shell which has lain in his yard\nsince the day it fell there during the siege.\n\n'I was a-stannin' heah, an' de dog was a-stannin' heah; de dog he went\nfor de shell, gwine to pick a fuss wid it; but I didn't; I says, \"Jes'\nmake you'seff at home heah; lay still whah you is, or bust up de place,\njes' as you's a mind to, but I's got business out in de woods, I has!\"'\n\nVicksburg is a town of substantial business streets and pleasant\nresidences; it commands the commerce of the Yazoo and Sunflower Rivers;\nis pushing railways in several directions, through rich agricultural\nregions, and has a promising future of prosperity and importance.\n\nApparently, nearly all the river towns, big and little, have made up\ntheir minds that they must look mainly to railroads for wealth and\nupbuilding, henceforth. They are acting upon this idea. The signs are,\nthat the next twenty years will bring about some noteworthy changes in\nthe Valley, in the direction of increased population and wealth, and in\nthe intellectual advancement and the liberalizing of opinion which go\nnaturally with these. And yet, if one may judge by the past, the river\ntowns will manage to find and use a chance, here and there, to cripple\nand retard their progress. They kept themselves back in the days of\nsteamboating supremacy, by a system of wharfage-dues so stupidly graded\nas to prohibit what may be called small _retail _traffic in freights and\npassengers. Boats were charged such heavy wharfage that they could not\nafford to land for one or two passengers or a light lot of freight.\nInstead of encouraging the bringing of trade to their doors, the towns\ndiligently and effectively discouraged it. They could have had many\nboats and low rates; but their policy rendered few boats and high\nrates compulsory. It was a policy which extended--and extends--from New\nOrleans to St. Paul.\n\nWe had a strong desire to make a trip up the Yazoo and the Sunflower--an\ninteresting region at any time, but additionally interesting at this\ntime, because up there the great inundation was still to be seen in\nforce--but we were nearly sure to have to wait a day or more for a New\nOrleans boat on our return; so we were obliged to give up the project.\n\nHere is a story which I picked up on board the boat that night. I insert\nit in this place merely because it is a good story, not because it\nbelongs here--for it doesn't. It was told by a passenger--a college\nprofessor--and was called to the surface in the course of a general\nconversation which began with talk about horses, drifted into talk\nabout astronomy, then into talk about the lynching of the gamblers\nin Vicksburg half a century ago, then into talk about dreams and\nsuperstitions; and ended, after midnight, in a dispute over free trade\nand protection.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 36\n\nThe Professor's Yarn\n\nIT was in the early days. I was not a college professor then. I was a\nhumble-minded young land-surveyor, with the world before me--to survey,\nin case anybody wanted it done. I had a contract to survey a route for a\ngreat mining-ditch in California, and I was on my way thither, by sea--a\nthree or four weeks' voyage. There were a good many passengers, but I\nhad very little to say to them; reading and dreaming were my passions,\nand I avoided conversation in order to indulge these appetites. There\nwere three professional gamblers on board--rough, repulsive fellows. I\nnever had any talk with them, yet I could not help seeing them with some\nfrequency, for they gambled in an upper-deck stateroom every day and\nnight, and in my promenades I often had glimpses of them through their\ndoor, which stood a little ajar to let out the surplus tobacco smoke and\nprofanity. They were an evil and hateful presence, but I had to put up\nwith it, of course,\n\nThere was one other passenger who fell under my eye a good deal, for he\nseemed determined to be friendly with me, and I could not have gotten\nrid of him without running some chance of hurting his feelings, and I\nwas far from wishing to do that. Besides, there was something engaging\nin his countrified simplicity and his beaming good-nature. The first\ntime I saw this Mr. John Backus, I guessed, from his clothes and his\nlooks, that he was a grazier or farmer from the backwoods of some\nwestern State--doubtless Ohio--and afterward when he dropped into his\npersonal history and I discovered that he _was _a cattle-raiser from\ninterior Ohio, I was so pleased with my own penetration that I warmed\ntoward him for verifying my instinct.\n\nHe got to dropping alongside me every day, after breakfast, to help me\nmake my promenade; and so, in the course of time, his easy-working jaw\nhad told me everything about his business, his prospects, his family,\nhis relatives, his politics--in fact everything that concerned a Backus,\nliving or dead. And meantime I think he had managed to get out of me\neverything I knew about my trade, my tribe, my purposes, my prospects,\nand myself. He was a gentle and persuasive genius, and this thing showed\nit; for I was not given to talking about my matters. I said something\nabout triangulation, once; the stately word pleased his ear; he inquired\nwhat it meant; I explained; after that he quietly and inoffensively\nignored my name, and always called me Triangle.\n\nWhat an enthusiast he was in cattle! At the bare name of a bull or\na cow, his eye would light and his eloquent tongue would turn itself\nloose. As long as I would walk and listen, he would walk and talk; he\nknew all breeds, he loved all breeds, he caressed them all with his\naffectionate tongue. I tramped along in voiceless misery whilst the\ncattle question was up; when I could endure it no longer, I used to\ndeftly insert a scientific topic into the conversation; then my eye\nfired and his faded; my tongue fluttered, his stopped; life was a joy to\nme, and a sadness to him.\n\nOne day he said, a little hesitatingly, and with somewhat of\ndiffidence--\n\n'Triangle, would you mind coming down to my stateroom a minute, and have\na little talk on a certain matter?'\n\nI went with him at once. Arrived there, he put his head out, glanced up\nand down the saloon warily, then closed the door and locked it. He sat\ndown on the sofa, and he said--\n\n'I'm a-going to make a little proposition to you, and if it strikes\nyou favorable, it'll be a middling good thing for both of us. You ain't\na-going out to Californy for fun, nuther am I--it's business, ain't that\nso? Well, you can do me a good turn, and so can I you, if we see fit.\nI've raked and scraped and saved, a considerable many years, and I've\ngot it all here.' He unlocked an old hair trunk, tumbled a chaos of\nshabby clothes aside, and drew a short stout bag into view for a moment,\nthen buried it again and relocked the trunk. Dropping his voice to a\ncautious low tone, he continued, 'She's all there--a round ten thousand\ndollars in yellow-boys; now this is my little idea: What I don't know\nabout raising cattle, ain't worth knowing. There's mints of money in it,\nin Californy. Well, I know, and you know, that all along a line that\n's being surveyed, there 's little dabs of land that they call \"gores,\"\nthat fall to the surveyor free gratis for nothing. All you've got to do,\non your side, is to survey in such a way that the \"gores\" will fall on\ngood fat land, then you turn 'em over to me, I stock 'em with cattle,\nin rolls the cash, I plank out your share of the dollars regular, right\nalong, and--'\n\nI was sorry to wither his blooming enthusiasm, but it could not be\nhelped. I interrupted, and said severely--\n\n'I am not that kind of a surveyor. Let us change the subject, Mr.\nBackus.'\n\nIt was pitiful to see his confusion and hear his awkward and shamefaced\napologies. I was as much distressed as he was--especially as he seemed\nso far from having suspected that there was anything improper in his\nproposition. So I hastened to console him and lead him on to forget his\nmishap in a conversational orgy about cattle and butchery. We were lying\nat Acapulco; and, as we went on deck, it happened luckily that the crew\nwere just beginning to hoist some beeves aboard in slings. Backus's\nmelancholy vanished instantly, and with it the memory of his late\nmistake.\n\n'Now only look at that!' cried he; 'My goodness, Triangle, what _would\n_they say to it in _Ohio_. Wouldn't their eyes bug out, to see 'em\nhandled like that?--wouldn't they, though?'\n\nAll the passengers were on deck to look--even the gamblers--and Backus\nknew them all, and had afflicted them all with his pet topic. As I moved\naway, I saw one of the gamblers approach and accost him; then another\nof them; then the third. I halted; waited; watched; the conversation\ncontinued between the four men; it grew earnest; Backus drew gradually\naway; the gamblers followed, and kept at his elbow. I was uncomfortable.\nHowever, as they passed me presently, I heard Backus say, with a tone of\npersecuted annoyance--\n\n'But it ain't any use, gentlemen; I tell you again, as I've told you a\nhalf a dozen times before, I warn't raised to it, and I ain't a-going to\nresk it.'\n\nI felt relieved. 'His level head will be his sufficient protection,' I\nsaid to myself.\n\nDuring the fortnight's run from Acapulco to San Francisco I several\ntimes saw the gamblers talking earnestly with Backus, and once I threw\nout a gentle warning to him. He chuckled comfortably and said--\n\n'Oh, yes! they tag around after me considerable--want me to play a\nlittle, just for amusement, they say--but laws-a-me, if my folks have\ntold me once to look out for that sort of live-stock, they've told me a\nthousand times, I reckon.'\n\nBy-and-bye, in due course, we were approaching San Francisco. It was\nan ugly black night, with a strong wind blowing, but there was not much\nsea. I was on deck, alone. Toward ten I started below. A figure issued\nfrom the gamblers' den, and disappeared in the darkness. I experienced\na shock, for I was sure it was Backus. I flew down the companion-way,\nlooked about for him, could not find him, then returned to the deck just\nin time to catch a glimpse of him as he re-entered that confounded nest\nof rascality. Had he yielded at last? I feared it. What had he gone\nbelow for?--His bag of coin? Possibly. I drew near the door, full of\nbodings. It was a-crack, and I glanced in and saw a sight that made me\nbitterly wish I had given my attention to saving my poor cattle-friend,\ninstead of reading and dreaming my foolish time away. He was gambling.\nWorse still, he was being plied with champagne, and was already showing\nsome effect from it. He praised the 'cider,' as he called it, and said\nnow that he had got a taste of it he almost believed he would drink it\nif it was spirits, it was so good and so ahead of anything he had ever\nrun across before. Surreptitious smiles, at this, passed from one rascal\nto another, and they filled all the glasses, and whilst Backus honestly\ndrained his to the bottom they pretended to do the same, but threw the\nwine over their shoulders.\n\nI could not bear the scene, so I wandered forward and tried to interest\nmyself in the sea and the voices of the wind. But no, my uneasy spirit\nkept dragging me back at quarter-hour intervals; and always I saw Backus\ndrinking his wine--fairly and squarely, and the others throwing theirs\naway. It was the painfullest night I ever spent.\n\nThe only hope I had was that we might reach our anchorage with\nspeed--that would break up the game. I helped the ship along all I could\nwith my prayers. At last we went booming through the Golden Gate, and my\npulses leaped for joy. I hurried back to that door and glanced in. Alas,\nthere was small room for hope--Backus's eyes were heavy and bloodshot,\nhis sweaty face was crimson, his speech maudlin and thick, his body\nsawed drunkenly about with the weaving motion of the ship. He drained\nanother glass to the dregs, whilst the cards were being dealt.\n\nHe took his hand, glanced at it, and his dull eyes lit up for a moment.\nThe gamblers observed it, and showed their gratification by hardly\nperceptible signs.\n\n'How many cards?'\n\n'None!' said Backus.\n\nOne villain--named Hank Wiley--discarded one card, the others three\neach. The betting began. Heretofore the bets had been trifling--a dollar\nor two; but Backus started off with an eagle now, Wiley hesitated a\nmoment, then 'saw it' and 'went ten dollars better.' The other two threw\nup their hands.\n\nBackus went twenty better. Wiley said--\n\n'I see that, and go you a hundred better!' then smiled and reached for\nthe money.\n\n'Let it alone,' said Backus, with drunken gravity.\n\n'What! you mean to say you're going to cover it?'\n\n'Cover it? Well, I reckon I am--and lay another hundred on top of it,\ntoo.'\n\nHe reached down inside his overcoat and produced the required sum.\n\n'Oh, that's your little game, is it? I see your raise, and raise it five\nhundred!' said Wiley.\n\n'Five hundred better.' said the foolish bull-driver, and pulled out the\namount and showered it on the pile. The three conspirators hardly tried\nto conceal their exultation.\n\nAll diplomacy and pretense were dropped now, and the sharp exclamations\ncame thick and fast, and the yellow pyramid grew higher and higher. At\nlast ten thousand dollars lay in view. Wiley cast a bag of coin on the\ntable, and said with mocking gentleness--\n\n'Five thousand dollars better, my friend from the rural districts--what\ndo you say _now_?'\n\n'I _call _you!' said Backus, heaving his golden shot-bag on the pile.\n'What have you got?'\n\n'Four kings, you d--d fool!' and Wiley threw down his cards and\nsurrounded the stakes with his arms.\n\n'Four _aces_, you ass!' thundered Backus, covering his man with a cocked\nrevolver. '_I'm a professional gambler myself, and i've been laying for\nyou duffers all this voyage!'_\n\nDown went the anchor, rumbledy-dum-dum! and the long trip was ended.\n\nWell--well, it is a sad world. One of the three gamblers was Backus's\n'pal.' It was he that dealt the fateful hands. According to an\nunderstanding with the two victims, he was to have given Backus four\nqueens, but alas, he didn't.\n\nA week later, I stumbled upon Backus--arrayed in the height of\nfashion--in Montgomery Street. He said, cheerily, as we were parting--\n\n'Ah, by-the-way, you needn't mind about those gores. I don't really know\nanything about cattle, except what I was able to pick up in a week's\napprenticeship over in Jersey just before we sailed. My cattle-culture\nand cattle-enthusiasm have served their turn--I shan't need them any\nmore.'\n\nNext day we reluctantly parted from the 'Gold Dust' and her officers,\nhoping to see that boat and all those officers again, some day. A thing\nwhich the fates were to render tragically impossible!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 37\n\nThe End of the 'Gold Dust'\n\nFOR, three months later, August 8, while I was writing one of these\nforegoing chapters, the New York papers brought this telegram--\n\nA TERRIBLE DISASTER.\n\nSEVENTEEN PERSONS KILLED BY AN EXPLOSION ON THE STEAMER 'GOLD DUST.'\n\n'NASHVILLE, Aug. 7.--A despatch from Hickman, Ky., says--\n\n'The steamer \"Gold Dust\" exploded her boilers at three o'clock to-day,\njust after leaving Hickman. Forty-seven persons were scalded and\nseventeen are missing. The boat was landed in the eddy just above the\ntown, and through the exertions of the citizens the cabin passengers,\nofficers, and part of the crew and deck passengers were taken ashore and\nremoved to the hotels and residences. Twenty-four of the injured were\nlying in Holcomb's dry-goods store at one time, where they received\nevery attention before being removed to more comfortable places.'\n\nA list of the names followed, whereby it appeared that of the seventeen\ndead, one was the barkeeper; and among the forty-seven wounded, were the\ncaptain, chief mate, second mate, and second and third clerks; also Mr.\nLem S. Gray, pilot, and several members of the crew.\n\nIn answer to a private telegram, we learned that none of these was\nseverely hurt, except Mr. Gray. Letters received afterward confirmed\nthis news, and said that Mr. Gray was improving and would get well.\nLater letters spoke less hopefully of his case; and finally came one\nannouncing his death. A good man, a most companionable and manly man,\nand worthy of a kindlier fate.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 38\n\nThe House Beautiful\n\nWE took passage in a Cincinnati boat for New Orleans; or on a Cincinnati\nboat--either is correct; the former is the eastern form of putting it,\nthe latter the western.\n\nMr. Dickens declined to agree that the Mississippi steamboats were\n'magnificent,' or that they were 'floating palaces,'--terms which\nhad always been applied to them; terms which did not over-express the\nadmiration with which the people viewed them.\n\nMr. Dickens's position was unassailable, possibly; the people's position\nwas certainly unassailable. If Mr. Dickens was comparing these boats\nwith the crown jewels; or with the Taj, or with the Matterhorn; or with\nsome other priceless or wonderful thing which he had seen, they were not\nmagnificent--he was right. The people compared them with what they had\nseen; and, thus measured, thus judged, the boats were magnificent--the\nterm was the correct one, it was not at all too strong. The people were\nas right as was Mr. Dickens. The steamboats were finer than anything on\nshore. Compared with superior dwelling-houses and first-class hotels in\nthe Valley, they were indubitably magnificent, they were 'palaces.' To\na few people living in New Orleans and St. Louis, they were not\nmagnificent, perhaps; not palaces; but to the great majority of those\npopulations, and to the entire populations spread over both banks\nbetween Baton Rouge and St. Louis, they were palaces; they tallied with\nthe citizen's dream of what magnificence was, and satisfied it.\n\nEvery town and village along that vast stretch of double river-frontage\nhad a best dwelling, finest dwelling, mansion,--the home of its\nwealthiest and most conspicuous citizen. It is easy to describe it:\nlarge grassy yard, with paling fence painted white--in fair repair;\nbrick walk from gate to door; big, square, two-story 'frame' house,\npainted white and porticoed like a Grecian temple--with this difference,\nthat the imposing fluted columns and Corinthian capitals were a pathetic\nsham, being made of white pine, and painted; iron knocker; brass door\nknob--discolored, for lack of polishing. Within, an uncarpeted hall, of\nplaned boards; opening out of it, a parlor, fifteen feet by fifteen--in\nsome instances five or ten feet larger; ingrain carpet; mahogany\ncenter-table; lamp on it, with green-paper shade--standing on a\ngridiron, so to speak, made of high-colored yarns, by the young ladies\nof the house, and called a lamp-mat; several books, piled and disposed,\nwith cast-iron exactness, according to an inherited and unchangeable\nplan; among them, Tupper, much penciled; also, 'Friendship's Offering,'\nand 'Affection's Wreath,' with their sappy inanities illustrated\nin die-away mezzotints; also, Ossian; 'Alonzo and Melissa:'\nmaybe 'Ivanhoe:' also 'Album,' full of original 'poetry' of the\nThou-hast-wounded-the-spirit-that-loved-thee breed; two or three\ngoody-goody works--'Shepherd of Salisbury Plain,' etc.; current\nnumber of the chaste and innocuous Godey's 'Lady's Book,' with painted\nfashion-plate of wax-figure women with mouths all alike--lips and\neyelids the same size--each five-foot woman with a two-inch wedge\nsticking from under her dress and letting-on to be half of her foot.\nPolished air-tight stove (new and deadly invention), with pipe passing\nthrough a board which closes up the discarded good old fireplace. On\neach end of the wooden mantel, over the fireplace, a large basket of\npeaches and other fruits, natural size, all done in plaster, rudely, or\nin wax, and painted to resemble the originals--which they don't. Over\nmiddle of mantel, engraving--Washington Crossing the Delaware; on the\nwall by the door, copy of it done in thunder-and-lightning crewels by\none of the young ladies--work of art which would have made Washington\nhesitate about crossing, if he could have foreseen what advantage was\ngoing to be taken of it. Piano--kettle in disguise--with music, bound\nand unbound, piled on it, and on a stand near by: Battle of Prague;\nBird Waltz; Arkansas Traveler; Rosin the Bow; Marseilles Hymn; On a Lone\nBarren Isle (St. Helena); The Last Link is Broken; She wore a Wreath of\nRoses the Night when last we met; Go, forget me, Why should Sorrow o'er\nthat Brow a Shadow fling; Hours there were to Memory Dearer; Long, Long\nAgo; Days of Absence; A Life on the Ocean Wave, a Home on the Rolling\nDeep; Bird at Sea; and spread open on the rack, where the plaintive\nsinger has left it, _ro_-holl on, silver _moo_-hoon, guide the\n_trav_-el-lerr his _way_, etc. Tilted pensively against the piano, a\nguitar--guitar capable of playing the Spanish Fandango by itself, if you\ngive it a start. Frantic work of art on the wall--pious motto, done on\nthe premises, sometimes in colored yarns, sometimes in faded grasses:\nprogenitor of the 'God Bless Our Home' of modern commerce. Framed in\nblack moldings on the wall, other works of arts, conceived and committed\non the premises, by the young ladies; being grim black-and-white\ncrayons; landscapes, mostly: lake, solitary sail-boat, petrified clouds,\npre-geological trees on shore, anthracite precipice; name of criminal\nconspicuous in the corner. Lithograph, Napoleon Crossing the Alps.\nLithograph, The Grave at St. Helena. Steel-plates, Trumbull's Battle of\nBunker Hill, and the Sally from Gibraltar. Copper-plates, Moses Smiting\nthe Rock, and Return of the Prodigal Son. In big gilt frame, slander\nof the family in oil: papa holding a book ('Constitution of the United\nStates'); guitar leaning against mamma, blue ribbons fluttering from\nits neck; the young ladies, as children, in slippers and scalloped\npantelettes, one embracing toy horse, the other beguiling kitten with\nball of yarn, and both simpering up at mamma, who simpers back. These\npersons all fresh, raw, and red--apparently skinned. Opposite, in\ngilt frame, grandpa and grandma, at thirty and twenty-two, stiff,\nold-fashioned, high-collared, puff-sleeved, glaring pallidly out from\na background of solid Egyptian night. Under a glass French clock dome,\nlarge bouquet of stiff flowers done in corpsy-white wax. Pyramidal\nwhat-not in the corner, the shelves occupied chiefly with bric-a-brac of\nthe period, disposed with an eye to best effect: shell, with the Lord's\nPrayer carved on it; another shell--of the long-oval sort, narrow,\nstraight orifice, three inches long, running from end to end--portrait\nof Washington carved on it; not well done; the shell had Washington's\nmouth, originally--artist should have built to that. These two are\nmemorials of the long-ago bridal trip to New Orleans and the French\nMarket. Other bric-a-brac: Californian 'specimens'--quartz, with gold\nwart adhering; old Guinea-gold locket, with circlet of ancestral hair in\nit; Indian arrow-heads, of flint; pair of bead moccasins, from uncle\nwho crossed the Plains; three 'alum' baskets of various colors--being\nskeleton-frame of wire, clothed-on with cubes of crystallized alum in\nthe rock-candy style--works of art which were achieved by the young\nladies; their doubles and duplicates to be found upon all what-nots\nin the land; convention of desiccated bugs and butterflies pinned to a\ncard; painted toy-dog, seated upon bellows-attachment--drops its\nunder jaw and squeaks when pressed upon; sugar-candy rabbit--limbs\nand features merged together, not strongly defined; pewter\npresidential-campaign medal; miniature card-board wood-sawyer, to be\nattached to the stove-pipe and operated by the heat; small Napoleon,\ndone in wax; spread-open daguerreotypes of dim children, parents,\ncousins, aunts, and friends, in all attitudes but customary ones; no\ntempled portico at back, and manufactured landscape stretching away in\nthe distance--that came in later, with the photograph; all these vague\nfigures lavishly chained and ringed--metal indicated and secured from\ndoubt by stripes and splashes of vivid gold bronze; all of them too much\ncombed, too much fixed up; and all of them uncomfortable in inflexible\nSunday-clothes of a pattern which the spectator cannot realize\ncould ever have been in fashion; husband and wife generally grouped\ntogether--husband sitting, wife standing, with hand on his shoulder--and\nboth preserving, all these fading years, some traceable effect of the\ndaguerreotypist's brisk 'Now smile, if you please!' Bracketed over\nwhat-not--place of special sacredness--an outrage in water-color, done\nby the young niece that came on a visit long ago, and died. Pity,\ntoo; for she might have repented of this in time. Horse-hair chairs,\nhorse-hair sofa which keeps sliding from under you. Window shades,\nof oil stuff, with milk-maids and ruined castles stenciled on them in\nfierce colors. Lambrequins dependent from gaudy boxings of beaten tin,\ngilded. Bedrooms with rag carpets; bedsteads of the 'corded' sort,\nwith a sag in the middle, the cords needing tightening; snuffy\nfeather-bed--not aired often enough; cane-seat chairs, splint-bottomed\nrocker; looking-glass on wall, school-slate size, veneered frame;\ninherited bureau; wash-bowl and pitcher, possibly--but not certainly;\nbrass candlestick, tallow candle, snuffers. Nothing else in the room.\nNot a bathroom in the house; and no visitor likely to come along who has\never seen one.\n\nThat was the residence of the principal citizen, all the way from the\nsuburbs of New Orleans to the edge of St. Louis. When he stepped aboard\na big fine steamboat, he entered a new and marvelous world: chimney-tops\ncut to counterfeit a spraying crown of plumes--and maybe painted red;\npilot-house, hurricane deck, boiler-deck guards, all garnished with\nwhite wooden filigree work of fanciful patterns; gilt acorns topping the\nderricks; gilt deer-horns over the big bell; gaudy symbolical picture\non the paddle-box, possibly; big roomy boiler-deck, painted blue, and\nfurnished with Windsor armchairs; inside, a far-receding snow-white\n'cabin;' porcelain knob and oil-picture on every stateroom door; curving\npatterns of filigree-work touched up with gilding, stretching overhead\nall down the converging vista; big chandeliers every little way, each\nan April shower of glittering glass-drops; lovely rainbow-light falling\neverywhere from the colored glazing of the skylights; the whole a\nlong-drawn, resplendent tunnel, a bewildering and soul-satisfying\nspectacle! In the ladies' cabin a pink and white Wilton carpet, as soft\nas mush, and glorified with a ravishing pattern of gigantic flowers.\nThen the Bridal Chamber--the animal that invented that idea was still\nalive and unhanged, at that day--Bridal Chamber whose pretentious\nflummery was necessarily overawing to the now tottering intellect of\nthat hosannahing citizen. Every state-room had its couple of cozy clean\nbunks, and perhaps a looking-glass and a snug closet; and sometimes\nthere was even a washbowl and pitcher, and part of a towel which could\nbe told from mosquito netting by an expert--though generally these\nthings were absent, and the shirt-sleeved passengers cleansed themselves\nat a long row of stationary bowls in the barber shop, where were also\npublic towels, public combs, and public soap.\n\nTake the steamboat which I have just described, and you have her in her\nhighest and finest, and most pleasing, and comfortable, and satisfactory\nestate. Now cake her over with a layer of ancient and obdurate dirt,\nand you have the Cincinnati steamer awhile ago referred to. Not all\nover--only inside; for she was ably officered in all departments except\nthe steward's.\n\nBut wash that boat and repaint her, and she would be about the\ncounterpart of the most complimented boat of the old flush times: for\nthe steamboat architecture of the West has undergone no change; neither\nhas steamboat furniture and ornamentation undergone any.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 39\n\nManufactures and Miscreants\n\nWHERE the river, in the Vicksburg region, used to be corkscrewed, it\nis now comparatively straight--made so by cut-off; a former distance\nof seventy miles is reduced to thirty-five. It is a change which threw\nVicksburg's neighbor, Delta, Louisiana, out into the country and ended\nits career as a river town. Its whole river-frontage is now occupied by\na vast sand-bar, thickly covered with young trees--a growth which will\nmagnify itself into a dense forest by-and-bye, and completely hide the\nexiled town.\n\nIn due time we passed Grand Gulf and Rodney, of war fame, and reached\nNatchez, the last of the beautiful hill-cities--for Baton Rouge, yet\nto come, is not on a hill, but only on high ground. Famous\nNatchez-under-the-hill has not changed notably in twenty years; in\noutward aspect--judging by the descriptions of the ancient procession\nof foreign tourists--it has not changed in sixty; for it is still small,\nstraggling, and shabby. It had a desperate reputation, morally, in\nthe old keel-boating and early steamboating times--plenty of drinking,\ncarousing, fisticuffing, and killing there, among the riff-raff of the\nriver, in those days. But Natchez-on-top-of-the-hill is attractive; has\nalways been attractive. Even Mrs. Trollope (1827) had to confess its\ncharms:\n\n'At one or two points the wearisome level line is relieved by bluffs,\nas they call the short intervals of high ground. The town of Natchez is\nbeautifully situated on one of those high spots. The contrast that\nits bright green hill forms with the dismal line of black forest that\nstretches on every side, the abundant growth of the pawpaw, palmetto\nand orange, the copious variety of sweet-scented flowers that flourish\nthere, all make it appear like an oasis in the desert. Natchez is the\nfurthest point to the north at which oranges ripen in the open air,\nor endure the winter without shelter. With the exception of this\nsweet spot, I thought all the little towns and villages we passed\nwretched-looking in the extreme.'\n\nNatchez, like her near and far river neighbors, has railways now, and is\nadding to them--pushing them hither and thither into all rich outlying\nregions that are naturally tributary to her. And like Vicksburg and New\nOrleans, she has her ice-factory: she makes thirty tons of ice a day.\nIn Vicksburg and Natchez, in my time, ice was jewelry; none but the rich\ncould wear it. But anybody and everybody can have it now. I visited one\nof the ice-factories in New Orleans, to see what the polar regions\nmight look like when lugged into the edge of the tropics. But there was\nnothing striking in the aspect of the place. It was merely a spacious\nhouse, with some innocent steam machinery in one end of it and some big\nporcelain pipes running here and there. No, not porcelain--they merely\nseemed to be; they were iron, but the ammonia which was being breathed\nthrough them had coated them to the thickness of your hand with solid\nmilk-white ice. It ought to have melted; for one did not require winter\nclothing in that atmosphere: but it did not melt; the inside of the pipe\nwas too cold.\n\nSunk into the floor were numberless tin boxes, a foot square and two\nfeet long, and open at the top end. These were full of clear water;\nand around each box, salt and other proper stuff was packed; also, the\nammonia gases were applied to the water in some way which will always\nremain a secret to me, because I was not able to understand the process.\nWhile the water in the boxes gradually froze, men gave it a stir or two\nwith a stick occasionally--to liberate the air-bubbles, I think. Other\nmen were continually lifting out boxes whose contents had become hard\nfrozen. They gave the box a single dip into a vat of boiling water, to\nmelt the block of ice free from its tin coffin, then they shot the block\nout upon a platform car, and it was ready for market. These big blocks\nwere hard, solid, and crystal-clear. In certain of them, big bouquets\nof fresh and brilliant tropical flowers had been frozen-in; in others,\nbeautiful silken-clad French dolls, and other pretty objects.\nThese blocks were to be set on end in a platter, in the center of\ndinner-tables, to cool the tropical air; and also to be ornamental, for\nthe flowers and things imprisoned in them could be seen as through plate\nglass. I was told that this factory could retail its ice, by wagon,\nthroughout New Orleans, in the humblest dwelling-house quantities, at\nsix or seven dollars a ton, and make a sufficient profit. This being the\ncase, there is business for ice-factories in the North; for we get ice\non no such terms there, if one take less than three hundred and fifty\npounds at a delivery.\n\nThe Rosalie Yarn Mill, of Natchez, has a capacity of 6,000 spindles and\n160 looms, and employs 100 hands. The Natchez Cotton Mills Company began\noperations four years ago in a two-story building of 50 x 190 feet, with\n4,000 spindles and 128 looms; capital $105,000, all subscribed in the\ntown. Two years later, the same stockholders increased their capital to\n$225,000; added a third story to the mill, increased its length to 317\nfeet; added machinery to increase the capacity to 10,300 spindles and\n304 looms. The company now employ 250 operatives, many of whom are\ncitizens of Natchez. 'The mill works 5,000 bales of cotton annually and\nmanufactures the best standard quality of brown shirtings and\nsheetings and drills, turning out 5,000,000 yards of these goods per\nyear.'{footnote [New Orleans Times-Democrat, 26 Aug, 1882.]} A close\ncorporation--stock held at $5,000 per share, but none in the market.\n\nThe changes in the Mississippi River are great and strange, yet were to\nbe expected; but I was not expecting to live to see Natchez and these\nother river towns become manufacturing strongholds and railway centers.\n\nSpeaking of manufactures reminds me of a talk upon that topic which I\nheard--which I overheard--on board the Cincinnati boat. I awoke out of\na fretted sleep, with a dull confusion of voices in my ears. I\nlistened--two men were talking; subject, apparently, the great\ninundation. I looked out through the open transom. The two men were\neating a late breakfast; sitting opposite each other; nobody else\naround. They closed up the inundation with a few words--having used it,\nevidently, as a mere ice-breaker and acquaintanceship-breeder--then they\ndropped into business. It soon transpired that they were drummers--one\nbelonging in Cincinnati, the other in New Orleans. Brisk men, energetic\nof movement and speech; the dollar their god, how to get it their\nreligion.\n\n'Now as to this article,' said Cincinnati, slashing into the ostensible\nbutter and holding forward a slab of it on his knife-blade, 'it's from\nour house; look at it--smell of it--taste it. Put any test on it you\nwant to. Take your own time--no hurry--make it thorough. There\nnow--what do you say? butter, ain't it. Not by a thundering sight--it's\noleomargarine! Yes, sir, that's what it is--oleomargarine. You can't\ntell it from butter; by George, an _expert _can't. It's from our house.\nWe supply most of the boats in the West; there's hardly a pound of\nbutter on one of them. We are crawling right along--_jumping _right\nalong is the word. We are going to have that entire trade. Yes, and the\nhotel trade, too. You are going to see the day, pretty soon, when you\ncan't find an ounce of butter to bless yourself with, in any hotel in\nthe Mississippi and Ohio Valleys, outside of the biggest cities. Why, we\nare turning out oleomargarine _now _by the thousands of tons. And we can\nsell it so dirt-cheap that the whole country has _got _to take it--can't\nget around it you see. Butter don't stand any show--there ain't any\nchance for competition. Butter's had its _day_--and from this out,\nbutter goes to the wall. There's more money in oleomargarine than--why,\nyou can't imagine the business we do. I've stopped in every town from\nCincinnati to Natchez; and I've sent home big orders from every one of\nthem.'\n\nAnd so-forth and so-on, for ten minutes longer, in the same fervid\nstrain. Then New Orleans piped up and said--\n\nYes, it's a first-rate imitation, that's a certainty; but it ain't the\nonly one around that's first-rate. For instance, they make olive-oil out\nof cotton-seed oil, nowadays, so that you can't tell them apart.'\n\n'Yes, that's so,' responded Cincinnati, 'and it was a tip-top business\nfor a while. They sent it over and brought it back from France and\nItaly, with the United States custom-house mark on it to indorse it for\ngenuine, and there was no end of cash in it; but France and Italy broke\nup the game--of course they naturally would. Cracked on such a rattling\nimpost that cotton-seed olive-oil couldn't stand the raise; had to hang\nup and quit.'\n\n'Oh, it _did_, did it? You wait here a minute.'\n\nGoes to his state-room, brings back a couple of long bottles, and takes\nout the corks--says:\n\n'There now, smell them, taste them, examine the bottles, inspect the\nlabels. One of 'm's from Europe, the other's never been out of this\ncountry. One's European olive-oil, the other's American cotton-seed\nolive-oil. Tell 'm apart? 'Course you can't. Nobody can. People that\nwant to, can go to the expense and trouble of shipping their oils to\nEurope and back--it's their privilege; but our firm knows a trick worth\nsix of that. We turn out the whole thing--clean from the word go--in our\nfactory in New Orleans: labels, bottles, oil, everything. Well, no, not\nlabels: been buying them abroad--get them dirt-cheap there. You see,\nthere's just one little wee speck, essence, or whatever it is, in\na gallon of cotton-seed oil, that give it a smell, or a flavor, or\nsomething--get that out, and you're all right--perfectly easy then to\nturn the oil into any kind of oil you want to, and there ain't anybody\nthat can detect the true from the false. Well, we know how to get that\none little particle out--and we're the only firm that does. And we turn\nout an olive-oil that is just simply perfect--undetectable! We are doing\na ripping trade, too--as I could easily show you by my order-book for\nthis trip. Maybe you'll butter everybody's bread pretty soon, but we'll\ncotton-seed his salad for him from the Gulf to Canada, and that's a\ndead-certain thing.'\n\nCincinnati glowed and flashed with admiration. The two scoundrels\nexchanged business-cards, and rose. As they left the table, Cincinnati\nsaid--\n\n'But you have to have custom-house marks, don't you? How do you manage\nthat?'\n\nI did not catch the answer.\n\nWe passed Port Hudson, scene of two of the most terrific episodes of the\nwar--the night-battle there between Farragut's fleet and the Confederate\nland batteries, April 14th, 1863; and the memorable land battle, two\nmonths later, which lasted eight hours--eight hours of exceptionally\nfierce and stubborn fighting--and ended, finally, in the repulse of the\nUnion forces with great slaughter.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 40\n\nCastles and Culture\n\nBATON ROUGE was clothed in flowers, like a bride--no, much more so; like\na greenhouse. For we were in the absolute South now--no modifications,\nno compromises, no half-way measures. The magnolia-trees in the Capitol\ngrounds were lovely and fragrant, with their dense rich foliage and huge\nsnow-ball blossoms. The scent of the flower is very sweet, but you want\ndistance on it, because it is so powerful. They are not good bedroom\nblossoms--they might suffocate one in his sleep. We were certainly\nin the South at last; for here the sugar region begins, and the\nplantations--vast green levels, with sugar-mill and negro quarters\nclustered together in the middle distance--were in view. And there was a\ntropical sun overhead and a tropical swelter in the air.\n\nAnd at this point, also, begins the pilot's paradise: a wide river hence\nto New Orleans, abundance of water from shore to shore, and no bars,\nsnags, sawyers, or wrecks in his road.\n\nSir Walter Scott is probably responsible for the Capitol building; for\nit is not conceivable that this little sham castle would ever have been\nbuilt if he had not run the people mad, a couple of generations ago,\nwith his medieval romances. The South has not yet recovered from the\ndebilitating influence of his books. Admiration of his fantastic heroes\nand their grotesque 'chivalry' doings and romantic juvenilities still\nsurvives here, in an atmosphere in which is already perceptible the\nwholesome and practical nineteenth-century smell of cotton-factories\nand locomotives; and traces of its inflated language and other windy\nhumbuggeries survive along with it. It is pathetic enough, that a\nwhitewashed castle, with turrets and things--materials all ungenuine\nwithin and without, pretending to be what they are not--should ever\nhave been built in this otherwise honorable place; but it is much more\npathetic to see this architectural falsehood undergoing restoration and\nperpetuation in our day, when it would have been so easy to let\ndynamite finish what a charitable fire began, and then devote this\nrestoration-money to the building of something genuine.\n\nBaton Rouge has no patent on imitation castles, however, and no monopoly\nof them. Here is a picture from the advertisement of the 'Female\nInstitute' of Columbia; Tennessee. The following remark is from the same\nadvertisement--\n\n'The Institute building has long been famed as a model of striking and\nbeautiful architecture. Visitors are charmed with its resemblance to\nthe old castles of song and story, with its towers, turreted walls, and\nivy-mantled porches.'\n\nKeeping school in a castle is a romantic thing; as romantic as keeping\nhotel in a castle.\n\nBy itself the imitation castle is doubtless harmless, and well enough;\nbut as a symbol and breeder and sustainer of maudlin Middle-Age\nromanticism here in the midst of the plainest and sturdiest and\ninfinitely greatest and worthiest of all the centuries the world has\nseen, it is necessarily a hurtful thing and a mistake.\n\nHere is an extract from the prospectus of a Kentucky 'Female College.'\nFemale college sounds well enough; but since the phrasing it in that\nunjustifiable way was done purely in the interest of brevity, it seems\nto me that she-college would have been still better--because shorter,\nand means the same thing: that is, if either phrase means anything at\nall--\n\n'The president is southern by birth, by rearing, by education, and by\nsentiment; the teachers are all southern in sentiment, and with the\nexception of those born in Europe were born and raised in the south.\nBelieving the southern to be the highest type of civilization this\ncontinent has seen, the young ladies are trained according to the\nsouthern ideas of delicacy, refinement, womanhood, religion, and\npropriety; hence we offer a first-class female college for the south and\nsolicit southern patronage.'\n\n{footnote [Illustrations of it thoughtlessly omitted by the advertiser:\n\nKNOXVILLE, Tenn., October 19.--This morning a few minutes after ten\no'clock, General Joseph A. Mabry, Thomas O'Connor, and Joseph A. Mabry,\nJr., were killed in a shooting affray. The difficulty began yesterday\nafternoon by General Mabry attacking Major O'Connor and threatening to\nkill him. This was at the fair grounds, and O'Connor told Mabry that it\nwas not the place to settle their difficulties. Mabry then told O'Connor\nhe should not live. It seems that Mabry was armed and O'Connor was not.\nThe cause of the difficulty was an old feud about the transfer of some\nproperty from Mabry to O'Connor. Later in the afternoon Mabry sent word\nto O'Connor that he would kill him on sight. This morning Major O'Connor\nwas standing in the door of the Mechanics' National Bank, of which\nhe was president. General Mabry and another gentleman walked down Gay\nStreet on the opposite side from the bank. O'Connor stepped into the\nbank, got a shot gun, took deliberate aim at General Mabry and fired.\nMabry fell dead, being shot in the left side. As he fell O'Connor fired\nagain, the shot taking effect in Mabry's thigh. O'Connor then reached\ninto the bank and got another shot gun. About this time Joseph A. Mabry,\nJr., son of General Mabry, came rushing down the street, unseen by\nO'Connor until within forty feet, when the young man fired a pistol, the\nshot taking effect in O'Connor's right breast, passing through the body\nnear the heart. The instant Mabry shot, O'Connor turned and fired, the\nload taking effect in young Mabry's right breast and side. Mabry fell\npierced with twenty buckshot, and almost instantly O'Connor fell dead\nwithout a struggle. Mabry tried to rise, but fell back dead. The whole\ntragedy occurred within two minutes, and neither of the three spoke\nafter he was shot. General Mabry had about thirty buckshot in his body.\nA bystander was painfully wounded in the thigh with a buckshot, and\nanother was wounded in the arm. Four other men had their clothing\npierced by buckshot. The affair caused great excitement, and Gay Street\nwas thronged with thousands of people. General Mabry and his son Joe\nwere acquitted only a few days ago of the murder of Moses Lusby and Don\nLusby, father and son, whom they killed a few weeks ago. Will Mabry was\nkilled by Don Lusby last Christmas. Major Thomas O'Connor was President\nof the Mechanics' National Bank here, and was the wealthiest man in the\nState.--_Associated Press Telegram_.\n\nOne day last month, Professor Sharpe, of the Somerville, Tenn.,\nFemale College, 'a quiet and gentlemanly man,' was told that his\nbrother-in-law, a Captain Burton, had threatened to kill him. Burton, it\nseems, had already killed one man and driven his knife into another. The\nProfessor armed himself with a double-barreled shot gun, started out in\nsearch of his brother-in-law, found him playing billiards in a saloon,\nand blew his brains out. The 'Memphis Avalanche' reports that the\nProfessor's course met with pretty general approval in the community;\nknowing that the law was powerless, in the actual condition of public\nsentiment, to protect him, he protected himself.\n\nAbout the same time, two young men in North Carolina quarreled about a\ngirl, and 'hostile messages' were exchanged. Friends tried to reconcile\nthem, but had their labor for their pains. On the 24th the young men\nmet in the public highway. One of them had a heavy club in his hand, the\nother an ax. The man with the club fought desperately for his life, but\nit was a hopeless fight from the first. A well-directed blow sent his\nclub whirling out of his grasp, and the next moment he was a dead man.\n\nAbout the same time, two 'highly connected' young Virginians, clerks in\na hardware store at Charlottesville, while 'skylarking,' came to blows.\nPeter Dick threw pepper in Charles Roads's eyes; Roads demanded an\napology; Dick refused to give it, and it was agreed that a duel was\ninevitable, but a difficulty arose; the parties had no pistols, and\nit was too late at night to procure them. One of them suggested that\nbutcher-knives would answer the purpose, and the other accepted the\nsuggestion; the result was that Roads fell to the floor with a gash in\nhis abdomen that may or may not prove fatal. If Dick has been arrested,\nthe news has not reached us. He 'expressed deep regret,' and we are\ntold by a Staunton correspondent of the _Philadelphia Press_ that 'every\neffort has been made to hush the matter up.'--_Extracts From The Public\nJournals_.]}\n\nWhat, warder, ho! the man that can blow so complacent a blast as that,\nprobably blows it from a castle.\n\nFrom Baton Rouge to New Orleans, the great sugar plantations border both\nsides of the river all the way, and stretch their league-wide levels\nback to the dim forest-walls of bearded cypress in the rear.\nShores lonely no longer. Plenty of dwellings all the way, on both\nbanks--standing so close together, for long distances, that the broad\nriver lying between the two rows, becomes a sort of spacious street.\nA most home-like and happy-looking region. And now and then you see a\npillared and porticoed great manor-house, embowered in trees. Here is\ntestimony of one or two of the procession of foreign tourists that filed\nalong here half a century ago. Mrs. Trollope says--\n\n'The unbroken flatness of the banks of the Mississippi continued\nunvaried for many miles above New Orleans; but the graceful and\nluxuriant palmetto, the dark and noble ilex, and the bright orange,\nwere everywhere to be seen, and it was many days before we were weary of\nlooking at them.'\n\nCaptain Basil Hall--\n\n'The district of country which lies adjacent to the Mississippi, in\nthe lower parts of Louisiana, is everywhere thickly peopled by sugar\nplanters, whose showy houses, gay piazzas, trig gardens, and numerous\nslave-villages, all clean and neat, gave an exceedingly thriving air to\nthe river scenery.\n\nAll the procession paint the attractive picture in the same way. The\ndescriptions of fifty years ago do not need to have a word changed in\norder to exactly describe the same region as it appears to-day--except\nas to the 'trigness' of the houses. The whitewash is gone from the\nnegro cabins now; and many, possibly most, of the big mansions, once so\nshining white, have worn out their paint and have a decayed, neglected\nlook. It is the blight of the war. Twenty-one years ago everything was\ntrim and trig and bright along the 'coast,' just as it had been in 1827,\nas described by those tourists.\n\nUnfortunate tourists! People humbugged them with stupid and silly lies,\nand then laughed at them for believing and printing the same. They\ntold Mrs. Trollope that the alligators--or crocodiles, as she calls\nthem--were terrible creatures; and backed up the statement with a\nblood-curdling account of how one of these slandered reptiles crept into\na squatter cabin one night, and ate up a woman and five children.\nThe woman, by herself, would have satisfied any ordinarily-impossible\nalligator; but no, these liars must make him gorge the five children\nbesides. One would not imagine that jokers of this robust breed would be\nsensitive--but they were. It is difficult, at this day, to understand,\nand impossible to justify, the reception which the book of the grave,\nhonest, intelligent, gentle, manly, charitable, well-meaning Capt. Basil\nHall got.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 41\n\nThe Metropolis of the South\n\nTHE approaches to New Orleans were familiar; general aspects were\nunchanged. When one goes flying through London along a railway propped\nin the air on tall arches, he may inspect miles of upper bedrooms\nthrough the open windows, but the lower half of the houses is under\nhis level and out of sight. Similarly, in high-river stage, in the New\nOrleans region, the water is up to the top of the enclosing levee-rim,\nthe flat country behind it lies low--representing the bottom of a\ndish--and as the boat swims along, high on the flood, one looks down\nupon the houses and into the upper windows. There is nothing but that\nfrail breastwork of earth between the people and destruction.\n\nThe old brick salt-warehouses clustered at the upper end of the city\nlooked as they had always looked; warehouses which had had a kind of\nAladdin's lamp experience, however, since I had seen them; for when the\nwar broke out the proprietor went to bed one night leaving them packed\nwith thousands of sacks of vulgar salt, worth a couple of dollars a\nsack, and got up in the morning and found his mountain of salt turned\ninto a mountain of gold, so to speak, so suddenly and to so dizzy a\nheight had the war news sent up the price of the article.\n\nThe vast reach of plank wharves remained unchanged, and there were as\nmany ships as ever: but the long array of steamboats had vanished; not\naltogether, of course, but not much of it was left.\n\nThe city itself had not changed--to the eye. It had greatly increased\nin spread and population, but the look of the town was not altered. The\ndust, waste-paper-littered, was still deep in the streets; the deep,\ntrough-like gutters alongside the curbstones were still half full of\nreposeful water with a dusty surface; the sidewalks were still--in the\nsugar and bacon region--encumbered by casks and barrels and hogsheads;\nthe great blocks of austerely plain commercial houses were as\ndusty-looking as ever.\n\nCanal Street was finer, and more attractive and stirring than formerly,\nwith its drifting crowds of people, its several processions of hurrying\nstreet-cars, and--toward evening--its broad second-story verandas\ncrowded with gentlemen and ladies clothed according to the latest mode.\n\nNot that there is any 'architecture' in Canal Street: to speak in broad,\ngeneral terms, there is no architecture in New Orleans, except in the\ncemeteries. It seems a strange thing to say of a wealthy, far-seeing,\nand energetic city of a quarter of a million inhabitants, but it is\ntrue. There is a huge granite U.S. Custom-house--costly enough, genuine\nenough, but as a decoration it is inferior to a gasometer. It looks like\na state prison. But it was built before the war. Architecture in America\nmay be said to have been born since the war. New Orleans, I believe,\nhas had the good luck--and in a sense the bad luck--to have had no great\nfire in late years. It must be so. If the opposite had been the case,\nI think one would be able to tell the 'burnt district' by the radical\nimprovement in its architecture over the old forms. One can do this\nin Boston and Chicago. The 'burnt district' of Boston was commonplace\nbefore the fire; but now there is no commercial district in any city\nin the world that can surpass it--or perhaps even rival it--in beauty,\nelegance, and tastefulness.\n\nHowever, New Orleans has begun--just this moment, as one may say. When\ncompleted, the new Cotton Exchange will be a stately and beautiful\nbuilding; massive, substantial, full of architectural graces; no shams\nor false pretenses or uglinesses about it anywhere. To the city, it will\nbe worth many times its cost, for it will breed its species. What has\nbeen lacking hitherto, was a model to build toward; something to educate\neye and taste; a _suggester_, so to speak.\n\nThe city is well outfitted with progressive men--thinking, sagacious,\nlong-headed men. The contrast between the spirit of the city and the\ncity's architecture is like the contrast between waking and sleep.\nApparently there is a 'boom' in everything but that one dead feature.\nThe water in the gutters used to be stagnant and slimy, and a potent\ndisease-breeder; but the gutters are flushed now, two or three times\na day, by powerful machinery; in many of the gutters the water never\nstands still, but has a steady current. Other sanitary improvements have\nbeen made; and with such effect that New Orleans claims to be (during\nthe long intervals between the occasional yellow-fever assaults) one\nof the healthiest cities in the Union. There's plenty of ice now for\neverybody, manufactured in the town. It is a driving place commercially,\nand has a great river, ocean, and railway business. At the date of our\nvisit, it was the best lighted city in the Union, electrically speaking.\nThe New Orleans electric lights were more numerous than those of New\nYork, and very much better. One had this modified noonday not only in\nCanal and some neighboring chief streets, but all along a stretch\nof five miles of river frontage. There are good clubs in the city\nnow--several of them but recently organized--and inviting modern-style\npleasure resorts at West End and Spanish Fort. The telephone is\neverywhere. One of the most notable advances is in journalism. The\nnewspapers, as I remember them, were not a striking feature. Now they\nare. Money is spent upon them with a free hand. They get the news,\nlet it cost what it may. The editorial work is not hack-grinding, but\nliterature. As an example of New Orleans journalistic achievement, it\nmay be mentioned that the 'Times-Democrat' of August 26, 1882, contained\na report of the year's business of the towns of the Mississippi Valley,\nfrom New Orleans all the way to St. Paul--two thousand miles. That issue\nof the paper consisted of forty pages; seven columns to the page; two\nhundred and eighty columns in all; fifteen hundred words to the column;\nan aggregate of four hundred and twenty thousand words. That is to say,\nnot much short of three times as many words as there are in this book.\nOne may with sorrow contrast this with the architecture of New Orleans.\n\nI have been speaking of public architecture only. The domestic article\nin New Orleans is reproachless, notwithstanding it remains as it always\nwas. All the dwellings are of wood--in the American part of the town, I\nmean--and all have a comfortable look. Those in the wealthy quarter are\nspacious; painted snow-white usually, and generally have wide verandas,\nor double-verandas, supported by ornamental columns. These mansions\nstand in the center of large grounds, and rise, garlanded with roses,\nout of the midst of swelling masses of shining green foliage and\nmany-colored blossoms. No houses could well be in better harmony with\ntheir surroundings, or more pleasing to the eye, or more home-like and\ncomfortable-looking.\n\nOne even becomes reconciled to the cistern presently; this is a mighty\ncask, painted green, and sometimes a couple of stories high, which\nis propped against the house-corner on stilts. There is a\nmansion-and-brewery suggestion about the combination which seems very\nincongruous at first. But the people cannot have wells, and so they\ntake rain-water. Neither can they conveniently have cellars, or\ngraves,{footnote [The Israelites are buried in graves--by permission, I\ntake it, not requirement; but none else, except the destitute, who are\nburied at public expense. The graves are but three or four feet deep.]}\nthe town being built upon 'made' ground; so they do without both, and\nfew of the living complain, and none of the others.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 42\n\nHygiene and Sentiment\n\nTHEY bury their dead in vaults, above the ground. These vaults have\na resemblance to houses--sometimes to temples; are built of marble,\ngenerally; are architecturally graceful and shapely; they face the walks\nand driveways of the cemetery; and when one moves through the midst of a\nthousand or so of them and sees their white roofs and gables stretching\ninto the distance on every hand, the phrase 'city of the dead' has all\nat once a meaning to him. Many of the cemeteries are beautiful, and\nare kept in perfect order. When one goes from the levee or the business\nstreets near it, to a cemetery, he observes to himself that if those\npeople down there would live as neatly while they are alive as they do\nafter they are dead, they would find many advantages in it; and besides,\ntheir quarter would be the wonder and admiration of the business world.\nFresh flowers, in vases of water, are to be seen at the portals of many\nof the vaults: placed there by the pious hands of bereaved parents and\nchildren, husbands and wives, and renewed daily. A milder form of sorrow\nfinds its inexpensive and lasting remembrancer in the coarse and ugly\nbut indestructible 'immortelle'--which is a wreath or cross or some such\nemblem, made of rosettes of black linen, with sometimes a yellow rosette\nat the conjunction of the cross's bars--kind of sorrowful breast-pin, so\nto say. The immortelle requires no attention: you just hang it up, and\nthere you are; just leave it alone, it will take care of your grief for\nyou, and keep it in mind better than you can; stands weather first-rate,\nand lasts like boiler-iron.\n\nOn sunny days, pretty little chameleons--gracefullest of legged\nreptiles--creep along the marble fronts of the vaults, and catch flies.\nTheir changes of color--as to variety--are not up to the creature's\nreputation. They change color when a person comes along and hangs up\nan immortelle; but that is nothing: any right-feeling reptile would do\nthat.\n\nI will gradually drop this subject of graveyards. I have been trying\nall I could to get down to the sentimental part of it, but I cannot\naccomplish it. I think there is no genuinely sentimental part to it.\nIt is all grotesque, ghastly, horrible. Graveyards may have been\njustifiable in the bygone ages, when nobody knew that for every dead\nbody put into the ground, to glut the earth and the plant-roots, and the\nair with disease-germs, five or fifty, or maybe a hundred persons must\ndie before their proper time; but they are hardly justifiable now, when\neven the children know that a dead saint enters upon a century-long\ncareer of assassination the moment the earth closes over his corpse. It\nis a grim sort of a thought. The relics of St. Anne, up in Canada, have\nnow, after nineteen hundred years, gone to curing the sick by the dozen.\nBut it is merest matter-of-course that these same relics, within a\ngeneration after St. Anne's death and burial, _made _several\nthousand people sick. Therefore these miracle-performances are simply\ncompensation, nothing more. St. Anne is somewhat slow pay, for a Saint,\nit is true; but better a debt paid after nineteen hundred years, and\noutlawed by the statute of limitations, than not paid at all; and most\nof the knights of the halo do not pay at all. Where you find one that\npays--like St. Anne--you find a hundred and fifty that take the benefit\nof the statute. And none of them pay any more than the principal of what\nthey owe--they pay none of the interest either simple or compound. A\nSaint can never _quite _return the principal, however; for his dead body\n_kills _people, whereas his relics _heal _only--they never restore the\ndead to life. That part of the account is always left unsettled.\n\n'Dr. F. Julius Le Moyne, after fifty years of medical practice, wrote:\n\"The inhumation of human bodies, dead from infectious diseases, results\nin constantly loading the atmosphere, and polluting the waters, with\nnot only the germs that rise from simply putrefaction, but also with the\n_specific_ germs of the diseases from which death resulted.\"\n\n'The gases (from buried corpses) will rise to the surface through\neight or ten feet of gravel, just as coal-gas will do, and there is\npractically no limit to their power of escape.\n\n'During the epidemic in New Orleans in 1853, Dr. E. H. Barton reported\nthat in the Fourth District the mortality was four hundred and fifty-two\nper thousand--more than double that of any other. In this district were\nthree large cemeteries, in which during the previous year more than\nthree thousand bodies had been buried. In other districts the proximity\nof cemeteries seemed to aggravate the disease.\n\n'In 1828 Professor Bianchi demonstrated how the fearful reappearance of\nthe plague at Modena was caused by excavations in ground where, _three\nhundred years previously_, the victims of the pestilence had been\nburied. Mr. Cooper, in explaining the causes of some epidemics, remarks\nthat the opening of the plague burial-grounds at Eyam resulted in an\nimmediate outbreak of disease.'--_North American Review, No. 3, Vol.\n135._\n\nIn an address before the Chicago Medical Society, in advocacy of\ncremation, Dr. Charles W. Purdy made some striking comparisons to show\nwhat a burden is laid upon society by the burial of the dead:--\n\n'One and one-fourth times more money is expended annually in funerals\nin the United States than the Government expends for public-school\npurposes. Funerals cost this country in 1880 enough money to pay the\nliabilities of all the commercial failures in the United States during\nthe same year, and give each bankrupt a capital of $8,630 with which to\nresume business. Funerals cost annually more money than the value of the\ncombined gold and silver yield of the United States in the year 1880!\nThese figures do not include the sums invested in burial-grounds and\nexpended in tombs and monuments, nor the loss from depreciation of\nproperty in the vicinity of cemeteries.'\n\nFor the rich, cremation would answer as well as burial; for the\nceremonies connected with it could be made as costly and ostentatious\nas a Hindu suttee; while for the poor, cremation would be better than\nburial, because so cheap {footnote [Four or five dollars is the minimum\ncost.]}--so cheap until the poor got to imitating the rich, which they\nwould do by-and-bye. The adoption of cremation would relieve us of a\nmuck of threadbare burial-witticisms; but, on the other hand, it would\nresurrect a lot of mildewed old cremation-jokes that have had a rest for\ntwo thousand years.\n\nI have a colored acquaintance who earns his living by odd jobs and heavy\nmanual labor. He never earns above four hundred dollars in a year, and\nas he has a wife and several young children, the closest scrimping is\nnecessary to get him through to the end of the twelve months debtless.\nTo such a man a funeral is a colossal financial disaster. While I was\nwriting one of the preceding chapters, this man lost a little child.\nHe walked the town over with a friend, trying to find a coffin that was\nwithin his means. He bought the very cheapest one he could find, plain\nwood, stained. It cost him twenty-six dollars. It would have cost less\nthan four, probably, if it had been built to put something useful into.\nHe and his family will feel that outlay a good many months.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 43\n\nThe Art of Inhumation\n\nABOUT the same time, I encountered a man in the street, whom I had not\nseen for six or seven years; and something like this talk followed. I\nsaid--\n\n'But you used to look sad and oldish; you don't now. Where did you get\nall this youth and bubbling cheerfulness? Give me the address.'\n\nHe chuckled blithely, took off his shining tile, pointed to a notched\npink circlet of paper pasted into its crown, with something lettered on\nit, and went on chuckling while I read, 'J. B----, _Undertaker_.' Then\nhe clapped his hat on, gave it an irreverent tilt to leeward, and cried\nout--\n\n'That's what's the matter! It used to be rough times with me when you\nknew me--insurance-agency business, you know; mighty irregular. Big\nfire, all right--brisk trade for ten days while people scared; after\nthat, dull policy-business till next fire. Town like this don't have\nfires often enough--a fellow strikes so many dull weeks in a row that\nhe gets discouraged. But you bet you, this is the business! People don't\nwait for examples to die. No, sir, they drop off right along--there\nain't any dull spots in the undertaker line. I just started in with\ntwo or three little old coffins and a hired hearse, and now look at the\nthing! I've worked up a business here that would satisfy any man, don't\ncare who he is. Five years ago, lodged in an attic; live in a swell\nhouse now, with a mansard roof, and all the modern inconveniences.'\n\n'Does a coffin pay so well. Is there much profit on a coffin?'\n\n'Go-way! How you talk!' Then, with a confidential wink, a dropping of\nthe voice, and an impressive laying of his hand on my arm; 'Look here;\nthere's one thing in this world which isn't ever cheap. That's a coffin.\nThere's one thing in this world which a person don't ever try to jew you\ndown on. That's a coffin. There's one thing in this world which a person\ndon't say--\"I'll look around a little, and if I find I can't do better\nI'll come back and take it.\" That's a coffin. There's one thing in this\nworld which a person won't take in pine if he can go walnut; and won't\ntake in walnut if he can go mahogany; and won't take in mahogany if he\ncan go an iron casket with silver door-plate and bronze handles. That's\na coffin. And there's one thing in this world which you don't have to\nworry around after a person to get him to pay for. And that's a coffin.\nUndertaking?--why it's the dead-surest business in Christendom, and the\nnobbiest.\n\n'Why, just look at it. A rich man won't have anything but your very\nbest; and you can just pile it on, too--pile it on and sock it to\nhim--he won't ever holler. And you take in a poor man, and if you work\nhim right he'll bust himself on a single lay-out. Or especially a woman.\nF'r instance: Mrs. O'Flaherty comes in--widow--wiping her eyes and kind\nof moaning. Unhandkerchiefs one eye, bats it around tearfully over the\nstock; says--\n\n'\"And fhat might ye ask for that wan?\"\n\n'\"Thirty-nine dollars, madam,\" says I.\n\n'\"It 's a foine big price, sure, but Pat shall be buried like a\ngintleman, as he was, if I have to work me fingers off for it. I'll have\nthat wan, sor.\"\n\n'\"Yes, madam,\" says I, \"and it is a very good one, too; not costly, to\nbe sure, but in this life we must cut our garment to our clothes, as the\nsaying is.\" And as she starts out, I heave in, kind of casually, \"This\none with the white satin lining is a beauty, but I am afraid--well,\nsixty-five dollars is a rather--rather--but no matter, I felt obliged to\nsay to Mrs. O'Shaughnessy--\"\n\n'\"D'ye mane to soy that Bridget O'Shaughnessy bought the mate to that\njoo-ul box to ship that dhrunken divil to Purgatory in?\"\n\n'\"Yes, madam.\"\n\n'\"Then Pat shall go to heaven in the twin to it, if it takes the last\nrap the O'Flaherties can raise; and moind you, stick on some extras,\ntoo, and I'll give ye another dollar.\"\n\n'And as I lay-in with the livery stables, of course I don't forget to\nmention that Mrs. O'Shaughnessy hired fifty-four dollars' worth of hacks\nand flung as much style into Dennis's funeral as if he had been a duke\nor an assassin. And of course she sails in and goes the O'Shaughnessy\nabout four hacks and an omnibus better. That used to be, but that's all\nplayed now; that is, in this particular town. The Irish got to piling up\nhacks so, on their funerals, that a funeral left them ragged and hungry\nfor two years afterward; so the priest pitched in and broke it all up.\nHe don't allow them to have but two hacks now, and sometimes only one.'\n\n'Well,' said I, 'if you are so light-hearted and jolly in ordinary\ntimes, what must you be in an epidemic?'\n\nHe shook his head.\n\n'No, you're off, there. We don't like to see an epidemic. An epidemic\ndon't pay. Well, of course I don't mean that, exactly; but it don't pay\nin proportion to the regular thing. Don't it occur to you, why?'\n\nNo.\n\n'Think.'\n\n'I can't imagine. What is it?'\n\n'It's just two things.'\n\n'Well, what are they?'\n\n'One's Embamming.'\n\n'And what's the other?'\n\n'Ice.'\n\n'How is that?'\n\n'Well, in ordinary times, a person dies, and we lay him up in ice; one\nday two days, maybe three, to wait for friends to come. Takes a lot of\nit--melts fast. We charge jewelry rates for that ice, and war-prices for\nattendance. Well, don't you know, when there's an epidemic, they rush\n'em to the cemetery the minute the breath's out. No market for ice in an\nepidemic. Same with Embamming. You take a family that's able to embam,\nand you've got a soft thing. You can mention sixteen different ways to\ndo it--though there _ain't_ only one or two ways, when you come down to\nthe bottom facts of it--and they'll take the highest-priced way, every\ntime. It's human nature--human nature in grief. It don't reason,\nyou see. Time being, it don't care a dam. All it wants is physical\nimmortality for deceased, and they're willing to pay for it. All you've\ngot to do is to just be ca'm and stack it up--they'll stand the racket.\nWhy, man, you can take a defunct that you couldn't _give _away; and get\nyour embamming traps around you and go to work; and in a couple of hours\nhe is worth a cool six hundred--that's what _he's_ worth. There ain't\nanything equal to it but trading rats for di'monds in time of famine.\nWell, don't you see, when there's an epidemic, people don't wait to\nembam. No, indeed they don't; and it hurts the business like hell-th,\nas we say--hurts it like hell-th, _health_, see?--Our little joke in the\ntrade. Well, I must be going. Give me a call whenever you need any--I\nmean, when you're going by, sometime.'\n\nIn his joyful high spirits, he did the exaggerating himself, if any has\nbeen done. I have not enlarged on him.\n\nWith the above brief references to inhumation, let us leave the subject.\nAs for me, I hope to be cremated. I made that remark to my pastor once,\nwho said, with what he seemed to think was an impressive manner--\n\n'I wouldn't worry about that, if I had your chances.' Much he knew about\nit--the family all so opposed to it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 44\n\nCity Sights\n\nTHE old French part of New Orleans--anciently the Spanish part--bears no\nresemblance to the American end of the city: the American end which lies\nbeyond the intervening brick business-center. The houses are massed in\nblocks; are austerely plain and dignified; uniform of pattern, with here\nand there a departure from it with pleasant effect; all are plastered\non the outside, and nearly all have long, iron-railed verandas running\nalong the several stories. Their chief beauty is the deep, warm,\nvaricolored stain with which time and the weather have enriched the\nplaster. It harmonizes with all the surroundings, and has as natural\na look of belonging there as has the flush upon sunset clouds. This\ncharming decoration cannot be successfully imitated; neither is it to be\nfound elsewhere in America.\n\nThe iron railings are a specialty, also. The pattern is often\nexceedingly light and dainty, and airy and graceful--with a large cipher\nor monogram in the center, a delicate cobweb of baffling, intricate\nforms, wrought in steel. The ancient railings are hand-made, and are\nnow comparatively rare and proportionately valuable. They are become\n_bric-a-brac_.\n\nThe party had the privilege of idling through this ancient quarter of\nNew Orleans with the South's finest literary genius, the author of 'the\nGrandissimes.' In him the South has found a masterly delineator of its\ninterior life and its history. In truth, I find by experience, that the\nuntrained eye and vacant mind can inspect it, and learn of it, and judge\nof it, more clearly and profitably in his books than by personal contact\nwith it.\n\nWith Mr. Cable along to see for you, and describe and explain and\nilluminate, a jog through that old quarter is a vivid pleasure. And you\nhave a vivid sense as of unseen or dimly seen things--vivid, and yet\nfitful and darkling; you glimpse salient features, but lose the fine\nshades or catch them imperfectly through the vision of the imagination:\na case, as it were, of ignorant near-sighted stranger traversing the\nrim of wide vague horizons of Alps with an inspired and enlightened\nlong-sighted native.\n\nWe visited the old St. Louis Hotel, now occupied by municipal offices.\nThere is nothing strikingly remarkable about it; but one can say of it\nas of the Academy of Music in New York, that if a broom or a shovel has\never been used in it there is no circumstantial evidence to back up the\nfact. It is curious that cabbages and hay and things do not grow in the\nAcademy of Music; but no doubt it is on account of the interruption\nof the light by the benches, and the impossibility of hoeing the\ncrop except in the aisles. The fact that the ushers grow their\nbuttonhole-bouquets on the premises shows what might be done if they had\nthe right kind of an agricultural head to the establishment.\n\nWe visited also the venerable Cathedral, and the pretty square in front\nof it; the one dim with religious light, the other brilliant with the\nworldly sort, and lovely with orange-trees and blossomy shrubs; then we\ndrove in the hot sun through the wilderness of houses and out on to the\nwide dead level beyond, where the villas are, and the water wheels to\ndrain the town, and the commons populous with cows and children; passing\nby an old cemetery where we were told lie the ashes of an early pirate;\nbut we took him on trust, and did not visit him. He was a pirate with\na tremendous and sanguinary history; and as long as he preserved\nunspotted, in retirement, the dignity of his name and the grandeur of\nhis ancient calling, homage and reverence were his from high and\nlow; but when at last he descended into politics and became a paltry\nalderman, the public 'shook' him, and turned aside and wept. When he\ndied, they set up a monument over him; and little by little he has come\ninto respect again; but it is respect for the pirate, not the alderman.\nTo-day the loyal and generous remember only what he was, and charitably\nforget what he became.\n\nThence, we drove a few miles across a swamp, along a raised shell road,\nwith a canal on one hand and a dense wood on the other; and here and\nthere, in the distance, a ragged and angular-limbed and moss-bearded\ncypress, top standing out, clear cut against the sky, and as quaint of\nform as the apple-trees in Japanese pictures--such was our course and\nthe surroundings of it. There was an occasional alligator swimming\ncomfortably along in the canal, and an occasional picturesque colored\nperson on the bank, flinging his statue-rigid reflection upon the still\nwater and watching for a bite.\n\nAnd by-and-bye we reached the West End, a collection of hotels of the\nusual light summer-resort pattern, with broad verandas all around,\nand the waves of the wide and blue Lake Pontchartrain lapping the\nthresholds. We had dinner on a ground-veranda over the water--the\nchief dish the renowned fish called the pompano, delicious as the less\ncriminal forms of sin.\n\nThousands of people come by rail and carriage to West End and to Spanish\nFort every evening, and dine, listen to the bands, take strolls in\nthe open air under the electric lights, go sailing on the lake, and\nentertain themselves in various and sundry other ways.\n\nWe had opportunities on other days and in other places to test the\npompano. Notably, at an editorial dinner at one of the clubs in the\ncity. He was in his last possible perfection there, and justified his\nfame. In his suite was a tall pyramid of scarlet cray-fish--large ones;\nas large as one's thumb--delicate, palatable, appetizing. Also deviled\nwhitebait; also shrimps of choice quality; and a platter of small\nsoft-shell crabs of a most superior breed. The other dishes were what\none might get at Delmonico's, or Buckingham Palace; those I have spoken\nof can be had in similar perfection in New Orleans only, I suppose.\n\nIn the West and South they have a new institution--the Broom Brigade.\nIt is composed of young ladies who dress in a uniform costume, and go\nthrough the infantry drill, with broom in place of musket. It is a\nvery pretty sight, on private view. When they perform on the stage of\na theater, in the blaze of colored fires, it must be a fine and\nfascinating spectacle. I saw them go through their complex manual with\ngrace, spirit, and admirable precision. I saw them do everything which\na human being can possibly do with a broom, except sweep. I did not see\nthem sweep. But I know they could learn. What they have already learned\nproves that. And if they ever should learn, and should go on the\nwar-path down Tchoupitoulas or some of those other streets around there,\nthose thoroughfares would bear a greatly improved aspect in a very few\nminutes. But the girls themselves wouldn't; so nothing would be really\ngained, after all.\n\nThe drill was in the Washington Artillery building. In this building\nwe saw many interesting relics of the war. Also a fine oil-painting\nrepresenting Stonewall Jackson's last interview with General Lee. Both\nmen are on horseback. Jackson has just ridden up, and is accosting Lee.\nThe picture is very valuable, on account of the portraits, which are\nauthentic. But, like many another historical picture, it means nothing\nwithout its label. And one label will fit it as well as another--\n\nFirst Interview between Lee and Jackson.\n\nLast Interview between Lee and Jackson.\n\nJackson Introducing Himself to Lee.\n\nJackson Accepting Lee's Invitation to Dinner.\n\nJackson Declining Lee's Invitation to Dinner--with Thanks.\n\nJackson Apologizing for a Heavy Defeat.\n\nJackson Reporting a Great Victory.\n\nJackson Asking Lee for a Match.\n\nIt tells _one _story, and a sufficient one; for it says quite plainly\nand satisfactorily, 'Here are Lee and Jackson together.' The artist\nwould have made it tell that this is Lee and Jackson's last interview if\nhe could have done it. But he couldn't, for there wasn't any way to do\nit. A good legible label is usually worth, for information, a ton of\nsignificant attitude and expression in a historical picture. In Rome,\npeople with fine sympathetic natures stand up and weep in front of the\ncelebrated 'Beatrice Cenci the Day before her Execution.' It shows what\na label can do. If they did not know the picture, they would inspect it\nunmoved, and say, 'Young girl with hay fever; young girl with her head\nin a bag.'\n\nI found the half-forgotten Southern intonations and elisions as pleasing\nto my ear as they had formerly been. A Southerner talks music. At\nleast it is music to me, but then I was born in the South. The educated\nSoutherner has no use for an r, except at the beginning of a word. He\nsays 'honah,' and 'dinnah,' and 'Gove'nuh,' and 'befo' the waw,' and so\non. The words may lack charm to the eye, in print, but they have it to\nthe ear. When did the r disappear from Southern speech, and how did it\ncome to disappear? The custom of dropping it was not borrowed from\nthe North, nor inherited from England. Many Southerners--most\nSoutherners--put a y into occasional words that begin with the k sound.\nFor instance, they say Mr. K'yahtah (Carter) and speak of playing\nk'yahds or of riding in the k'yahs. And they have the pleasant\ncustom--long ago fallen into decay in the North--of frequently employing\nthe respectful 'Sir.' Instead of the curt Yes, and the abrupt No, they\nsay 'Yes, Suh', 'No, Suh.'\n\nBut there are some infelicities. Such as 'like' for 'as,' and the\naddition of an 'at' where it isn't needed. I heard an educated gentleman\nsay, 'Like the flag-officer did.' His cook or his butler would have\nsaid, 'Like the flag-officer done.' You hear gentlemen say, 'Where have\nyou been at?' And here is the aggravated form--heard a ragged street\nArab say it to a comrade: 'I was a-ask'n' Tom whah you was a-sett'n'\nat.' The very elect carelessly say 'will' when they mean 'shall'; and\nmany of them say, 'I didn't go to do it,' meaning 'I didn't mean to do\nit.' The Northern word 'guess'--imported from England, where it used\nto be common, and now regarded by satirical Englishmen as a Yankee\noriginal--is but little used among Southerners. They say 'reckon.' They\nhaven't any 'doesn't' in their language; they say 'don't' instead.\nThe unpolished often use 'went' for 'gone.' It is nearly as bad as\nthe Northern 'hadn't ought.' This reminds me that a remark of a very\npeculiar nature was made here in my neighborhood (in the North) a few\ndays ago: 'He hadn't ought to have went.' How is that? Isn't that a good\ndeal of a triumph? One knows the orders combined in this half-breed's\narchitecture without inquiring: one parent Northern, the other Southern.\nTo-day I heard a schoolmistress ask, 'Where is John gone?' This form is\nso common--so nearly universal, in fact--that if she had used 'whither'\ninstead of 'where,' I think it would have sounded like an affectation.\n\nWe picked up one excellent word--a word worth traveling to New Orleans\nto get; a nice limber, expressive, handy word--'lagniappe.' They\npronounce it lanny-yap. It is Spanish--so they said. We discovered it\nat the head of a column of odds and ends in the Picayune, the first day;\nheard twenty people use it the second; inquired what it meant the\nthird; adopted it and got facility in swinging it the fourth. It has a\nrestricted meaning, but I think the people spread it out a little when\nthey choose. It is the equivalent of the thirteenth roll in a 'baker's\ndozen.' It is something thrown in, gratis, for good measure. The custom\noriginated in the Spanish quarter of the city. When a child or a servant\nbuys something in a shop--or even the mayor or the governor, for aught I\nknow--he finishes the operation by saying--\n\n'Give me something for lagniappe.'\n\nThe shopman always responds; gives the child a bit of licorice-root,\ngives the servant a cheap cigar or a spool of thread, gives the\ngovernor--I don't know what he gives the governor; support, likely.\n\nWhen you are invited to drink, and this does occur now and then in New\nOrleans--and you say, 'What, again?--no, I've had enough;' the other\nparty says, 'But just this one time more--this is for lagniappe.' When\nthe beau perceives that he is stacking his compliments a trifle too\nhigh, and sees by the young lady's countenance that the edifice would\nhave been better with the top compliment left off, he puts his 'I beg\npardon--no harm intended,' into the briefer form of 'Oh, that's for\nlagniappe.' If the waiter in the restaurant stumbles and spills a gill\nof coffee down the back of your neck, he says 'For lagniappe, sah,' and\ngets you another cup without extra charge.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 45\n\nSouthern Sports\n\nIN the North one hears the war mentioned, in social conversation, once a\nmonth; sometimes as often as once a week; but as a distinct subject\nfor talk, it has long ago been relieved of duty. There are sufficient\nreasons for this. Given a dinner company of six gentlemen to-day, it\ncan easily happen that four of them--and possibly five--were not in the\nfield at all. So the chances are four to two, or five to one, that the\nwar will at no time during the evening become the topic of conversation;\nand the chances are still greater that if it become the topic it will\nremain so but a little while. If you add six ladies to the company, you\nhave added six people who saw so little of the dread realities of the\nwar that they ran out of talk concerning them years ago, and now would\nsoon weary of the war topic if you brought it up.\n\nThe case is very different in the South. There, every man you meet was\nin the war; and every lady you meet saw the war. The war is the great\nchief topic of conversation. The interest in it is vivid and constant;\nthe interest in other topics is fleeting. Mention of the war will wake\nup a dull company and set their tongues going, when nearly any other\ntopic would fail. In the South, the war is what A.D. is elsewhere: they\ndate from it. All day long you hear things 'placed' as having happened\nsince the waw; or du'in' the waw; or befo' the waw; or right aftah the\nwaw; or 'bout two yeahs or five yeahs or ten yeahs befo' the waw or\naftah the waw. It shows how intimately every individual was visited, in\nhis own person, by that tremendous episode. It gives the inexperienced\nstranger a better idea of what a vast and comprehensive calamity\ninvasion is than he can ever get by reading books at the fireside.\n\nAt a club one evening, a gentleman turned to me and said, in an aside--\n\n'You notice, of course, that we are nearly always talking about the war.\nIt isn't because we haven't anything else to talk about, but because\nnothing else has so strong an interest for us. And there is another\nreason: In the war, each of us, in his own person, seems to have sampled\nall the different varieties of human experience; as a consequence, you\ncan't mention an outside matter of any sort but it will certainly remind\nsome listener of something that happened during the war--and out he\ncomes with it. Of course that brings the talk back to the war. You may\ntry all you want to, to keep other subjects before the house, and we may\nall join in and help, but there can be but one result: the most random\ntopic would load every man up with war reminiscences, and shut him up,\ntoo; and talk would be likely to stop presently, because you can't talk\npale inconsequentialities when you've got a crimson fact or fancy in\nyour head that you are burning to fetch out.'\n\nThe poet was sitting some little distance away; and presently he began\nto speak--about the moon.\n\nThe gentleman who had been talking to me remarked in an 'aside:' 'There,\nthe moon is far enough from the seat of war, but you will see that it\nwill suggest something to somebody about the war; in ten minutes from\nnow the moon, as a topic, will be shelved.'\n\nThe poet was saying he had noticed something which was a surprise to\nhim; had had the impression that down here, toward the equator, the\nmoonlight was much stronger and brighter than up North; had had the\nimpression that when he visited New Orleans, many years ago, the moon--\n\nInterruption from the other end of the room--\n\n'Let me explain that. Reminds me of an anecdote. Everything is changed\nsince the war, for better or for worse; but you'll find people down here\nborn grumblers, who see no change except the change for the worse. There\nwas an old negro woman of this sort. A young New-Yorker said in her\npresence, \"What a wonderful moon you have down here!\" She sighed and\nsaid, \"Ah, bless yo' heart, honey, you ought to seen dat moon befo' de\nwaw!\"'\n\nThe new topic was dead already. But the poet resurrected it, and gave it\na new start.\n\nA brief dispute followed, as to whether the difference between Northern\nand Southern moonlight really existed or was only imagined. Moonlight\ntalk drifted easily into talk about artificial methods of dispelling\ndarkness. Then somebody remembered that when Farragut advanced upon\nPort Hudson on a dark night--and did not wish to assist the aim of the\nConfederate gunners--he carried no battle-lanterns, but painted the\ndecks of his ships white, and thus created a dim but valuable light,\nwhich enabled his own men to grope their way around with considerable\nfacility. At this point the war got the floor again--the ten minutes not\nquite up yet.\n\nI was not sorry, for war talk by men who have been in a war is always\ninteresting; whereas moon talk by a poet who has not been in the moon is\nlikely to be dull.\n\nWe went to a cockpit in New Orleans on a Saturday afternoon. I had never\nseen a cock-fight before. There were men and boys there of all ages and\nall colors, and of many languages and nationalities. But I noticed one\nquite conspicuous and surprising absence: the traditional brutal faces.\nThere were no brutal faces. With no cock-fighting going on, you could\nhave played the gathering on a stranger for a prayer-meeting; and after\nit began, for a revival--provided you blindfolded your stranger--for the\nshouting was something prodigious.\n\nA negro and a white man were in the ring; everybody else outside. The\ncocks were brought in in sacks; and when time was called, they were\ntaken out by the two bottle-holders, stroked, caressed, poked toward\neach other, and finally liberated. The big black cock plunged instantly\nat the little gray one and struck him on the head with his spur. The\ngray responded with spirit. Then the Babel of many-tongued shoutings\nbroke out, and ceased not thenceforth. When the cocks had been fighting\nsome little time, I was expecting them momently to drop dead, for both\nwere blind, red with blood, and so exhausted that they frequently fell\ndown. Yet they would not give up, neither would they die. The negro and\nthe white man would pick them up every few seconds, wipe them off, blow\ncold water on them in a fine spray, and take their heads in their mouths\nand hold them there a moment--to warm back the perishing life perhaps;\nI do not know. Then, being set down again, the dying creatures would\ntotter gropingly about, with dragging wings, find each other, strike a\nguesswork blow or two, and fall exhausted once more.\n\nI did not see the end of the battle. I forced myself to endure it\nas long as I could, but it was too pitiful a sight; so I made frank\nconfession to that effect, and we retired. We heard afterward that the\nblack cock died in the ring, and fighting to the last.\n\nEvidently there is abundant fascination about this 'sport' for such\nas have had a degree of familiarity with it. I never saw people enjoy\nanything more than this gathering enjoyed this fight. The case was the\nsame with old gray-heads and with boys of ten. They lost themselves\nin frenzies of delight. The 'cocking-main' is an inhuman sort of\nentertainment, there is no question about that; still, it seems a much\nmore respectable and far less cruel sport than fox-hunting--for the\ncocks like it; they experience, as well as confer enjoyment; which is\nnot the fox's case.\n\nWe assisted--in the French sense--at a mule race, one day. I believe I\nenjoyed this contest more than any other mule there. I enjoyed it more\nthan I remember having enjoyed any other animal race I ever saw. The\ngrand-stand was well filled with the beauty and the chivalry of New\nOrleans. That phrase is not original with me. It is the Southern\nreporter's. He has used it for two generations. He uses it twenty\ntimes a day, or twenty thousand times a day; or a million times a\nday--according to the exigencies. He is obliged to use it a million\ntimes a day, if he have occasion to speak of respectable men and women\nthat often; for he has no other phrase for such service except that\nsingle one. He never tires of it; it always has a fine sound to him.\nThere is a kind of swell medieval bulliness and tinsel about it that\npleases his gaudy barbaric soul. If he had been in Palestine in the\nearly times, we should have had no references to 'much people' out of\nhim. No, he would have said 'the beauty and the chivalry of Galilee'\nassembled to hear the Sermon on the Mount. It is likely that the men\nand women of the South are sick enough of that phrase by this time, and\nwould like a change, but there is no immediate prospect of their getting\nit.\n\nThe New Orleans editor has a strong, compact, direct, unflowery\nstyle; wastes no words, and does not gush. Not so with his average\ncorrespondent. In the Appendix I have quoted a good letter, penned by a\ntrained hand; but the average correspondent hurls a style which differs\nfrom that. For instance--\n\nThe 'Times-Democrat' sent a relief-steamer up one of the bayous, last\nApril. This steamer landed at a village, up there somewhere, and the\nCaptain invited some of the ladies of the village to make a short trip\nwith him. They accepted and came aboard, and the steamboat shoved out\nup the creek. That was all there was 'to it.' And that is all that\nthe editor of the 'Times-Democrat' would have got out of it. There was\nnothing in the thing but statistics, and he would have got nothing else\nout of it. He would probably have even tabulated them, partly to secure\nperfect clearness of statement, and partly to save space. But his\nspecial correspondent knows other methods of handling statistics. He\njust throws off all restraint and wallows in them--\n\n'On Saturday, early in the morning, the beauty of the place graced our\ncabin, and proud of her fair freight the gallant little boat glided up\nthe bayou.'\n\nTwenty-two words to say the ladies came aboard and the boat shoved\nout up the creek, is a clean waste of ten good words, and is also\ndestructive of compactness of statement.\n\nThe trouble with the Southern reporter is--Women. They unsettle\nhim; they throw him off his balance. He is plain, and sensible, and\nsatisfactory, until a woman heaves in sight. Then he goes all to pieces;\nhis mind totters, he becomes flowery and idiotic. From reading the above\nextract, you would imagine that this student of Sir Walter Scott is\nan apprentice, and knows next to nothing about handling a pen. On the\ncontrary, he furnishes plenty of proofs, in his long letter, that he\nknows well enough how to handle it when the women are not around to give\nhim the artificial-flower complaint. For instance--\n\n'At 4 o'clock ominous clouds began to gather in the south-east, and\npresently from the Gulf there came a blow which increased in severity\nevery moment. It was not safe to leave the landing then, and there was\na delay. The oaks shook off long tresses of their mossy beards to the\ntugging of the wind, and the bayou in its ambition put on miniature\nwaves in mocking of much larger bodies of water. A lull permitted a\nstart, and homewards we steamed, an inky sky overhead and a heavy wind\nblowing. As darkness crept on, there were few on board who did not wish\nthemselves nearer home.'\n\nThere is nothing the matter with that. It is good description, compactly\nput. Yet there was great temptation, there, to drop into lurid writing.\n\nBut let us return to the mule. Since I left him, I have rummaged around\nand found a full report of the race. In it I find confirmation of the\ntheory which I broached just now--namely, that the trouble with the\nSouthern reporter is Women: Women, supplemented by Walter Scott and his\nknights and beauty and chivalry, and so on. This is an excellent report,\nas long as the women stay out of it. But when they intrude, we have this\nfrantic result--\n\n'It will be probably a long time before the ladies' stand presents such\na sea of foam-like loveliness as it did yesterday. The New Orleans women\nare always charming, but never so much so as at this time of the year,\nwhen in their dainty spring costumes they bring with them a breath of\nbalmy freshness and an odor of sanctity unspeakable. The stand was so\ncrowded with them that, walking at their feet and seeing no possibility\nof approach, many a man appreciated as he never did before the Peri's\nfeeling at the Gates of Paradise, and wondered what was the priceless\nboon that would admit him to their sacred presence. Sparkling on their\nwhite-robed breasts or shoulders were the colors of their favorite\nknights, and were it not for the fact that the doughty heroes appeared\non unromantic mules, it would have been easy to imagine one of King\nArthur's gala-days.'\n\nThere were thirteen mules in the first heat; all sorts of mules, they\nwere; all sorts of complexions, gaits, dispositions, aspects. Some were\nhandsome creatures, some were not; some were sleek, some hadn't had\ntheir fur brushed lately; some were innocently gay and frisky; some were\nfull of malice and all unrighteousness; guessing from looks, some of\nthem thought the matter on hand was war, some thought it was a lark, the\nrest took it for a religious occasion. And each mule acted according to\nhis convictions. The result was an absence of harmony well compensated\nby a conspicuous presence of variety--variety of a picturesque and\nentertaining sort.\n\nAll the riders were young gentlemen in fashionable society. If the\nreader has been wondering why it is that the ladies of New Orleans\nattend so humble an orgy as a mule-race, the thing is explained now. It\nis a fashion-freak; all connected with it are people of fashion.\n\nIt is great fun, and cordially liked. The mule-race is one of the marked\noccasions of the year. It has brought some pretty fast mules to the\nfront. One of these had to be ruled out, because he was so fast that he\nturned the thing into a one-mule contest, and robbed it of one of its\nbest features--variety. But every now and then somebody disguises him\nwith a new name and a new complexion, and rings him in again.\n\nThe riders dress in full jockey costumes of bright-colored silks,\nsatins, and velvets.\n\nThe thirteen mules got away in a body, after a couple of false starts,\nand scampered off with prodigious spirit. As each mule and each rider\nhad a distinct opinion of his own as to how the race ought to be run,\nand which side of the track was best in certain circumstances, and how\noften the track ought to be crossed, and when a collision ought to\nbe accomplished, and when it ought to be avoided, these twenty-six\nconflicting opinions created a most fantastic and picturesque confusion,\nand the resulting spectacle was killingly comical.\n\nMile heat; time 2:22. Eight of the thirteen mules distanced. I had a bet\non a mule which would have won if the procession had been reversed. The\nsecond heat was good fun; and so was the 'consolation race for beaten\nmules,' which followed later; but the first heat was the best in that\nrespect.\n\nI think that much the most enjoyable of all races is a steamboat race;\nbut, next to that, I prefer the gay and joyous mule-rush. Two red-hot\nsteamboats raging along, neck-and-neck, straining every nerve--that is\nto say, every rivet in the boilers--quaking and shaking and groaning\nfrom stem to stern, spouting white steam from the pipes, pouring black\nsmoke from the chimneys, raining down sparks, parting the river into\nlong breaks of hissing foam--this is sport that makes a body's very\nliver curl with enjoyment. A horse-race is pretty tame and colorless\nin comparison. Still, a horse-race might be well enough, in its way,\nperhaps, if it were not for the tiresome false starts. But then,\nnobody is ever killed. At least, nobody was ever killed when I was at a\nhorse-race. They have been crippled, it is true; but this is little to\nthe purpose.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 46\n\nEnchantments and Enchanters\n\nTHE largest annual event in New Orleans is a something which we arrived\ntoo late to sample--the Mardi-Gras festivities. I saw the procession of\nthe Mystic Crew of Comus there, twenty-four years ago--with knights\nand nobles and so on, clothed in silken and golden Paris-made\ngorgeousnesses, planned and bought for that single night's use; and\nin their train all manner of giants, dwarfs, monstrosities, and other\ndiverting grotesquerie--a startling and wonderful sort of show, as it\nfiled solemnly and silently down the street in the light of its smoking\nand flickering torches; but it is said that in these latter days the\nspectacle is mightily augmented, as to cost, splendor, and variety.\nThere is a chief personage--'Rex;' and if I remember rightly, neither\nthis king nor any of his great following of subordinates is known to any\noutsider. All these people are gentlemen of position and consequence;\nand it is a proud thing to belong to the organization; so the mystery in\nwhich they hide their personality is merely for romance's sake, and not\non account of the police.\n\nMardi-Gras is of course a relic of the French and Spanish occupation;\nbut I judge that the religious feature has been pretty well knocked out\nof it now. Sir Walter has got the advantage of the gentlemen of the cowl\nand rosary, and he will stay. His medieval business, supplemented by the\nmonsters and the oddities, and the pleasant creatures from fairy-land,\nis finer to look at than the poor fantastic inventions and performances\nof the reveling rabble of the priest's day, and serves quite as well,\nperhaps, to emphasize the day and admonish men that the grace-line\nbetween the worldly season and the holy one is reached.\n\nThis Mardi-Gras pageant was the exclusive possession of New Orleans\nuntil recently. But now it has spread to Memphis and St. Louis and\nBaltimore. It has probably reached its limit. It is a thing which could\nhardly exist in the practical North; would certainly last but a very\nbrief time; as brief a time as it would last in London. For the soul\nof it is the romantic, not the funny and the grotesque. Take away the\nromantic mysteries, the kings and knights and big-sounding titles, and\nMardi-Gras would die, down there in the South. The very feature that\nkeeps it alive in the South--girly-girly romance--would kill it in the\nNorth or in London. Puck and Punch, and the press universal, would fall\nupon it and make merciless fun of it, and its first exhibition would be\nalso its last.\n\nAgainst the crimes of the French Revolution and of Bonaparte may be set\ntwo compensating benefactions: the Revolution broke the chains of the\n_ancien regime_ and of the Church, and made of a nation of abject slaves\na nation of freemen; and Bonaparte instituted the setting of merit above\nbirth, and also so completely stripped the divinity from royalty, that\nwhereas crowned heads in Europe were gods before, they are only men,\nsince, and can never be gods again, but only figureheads, and answerable\nfor their acts like common clay. Such benefactions as these compensate\nthe temporary harm which Bonaparte and the Revolution did, and leave the\nworld in debt to them for these great and permanent services to liberty,\nhumanity, and progress.\n\nThen comes Sir Walter Scott with his enchantments, and by his single\nmight checks this wave of progress, and even turns it back; sets the\nworld in love with dreams and phantoms; with decayed and swinish forms\nof religion; with decayed and degraded systems of government; with\nthe sillinesses and emptinesses, sham grandeurs, sham gauds, and sham\nchivalries of a brainless and worthless long-vanished society. He did\nmeasureless harm; more real and lasting harm, perhaps, than any other\nindividual that ever wrote. Most of the world has now outlived good part\nof these harms, though by no means all of them; but in our South they\nflourish pretty forcefully still. Not so forcefully as half a generation\nago, perhaps, but still forcefully. There, the genuine and wholesome\ncivilization of the nineteenth century is curiously confused and\ncommingled with the Walter Scott Middle-Age sham civilization; and so\nyou have practical, common-sense, progressive ideas, and progressive\nworks; mixed up with the duel, the inflated speech, and the jejune\nromanticism of an absurd past that is dead, and out of charity ought\nto be buried. But for the Sir Walter disease, the character of the\nSoutherner--or Southron, according to Sir Walter's starchier way of\nphrasing it--would be wholly modern, in place of modern and medieval\nmixed, and the South would be fully a generation further advanced than\nit is. It was Sir Walter that made every gentleman in the South a Major\nor a Colonel, or a General or a Judge, before the war; and it was he,\nalso, that made these gentlemen value these bogus decorations. For it\nwas he that created rank and caste down there, and also reverence\nfor rank and caste, and pride and pleasure in them. Enough is laid on\nslavery, without fathering upon it these creations and contributions of\nSir Walter.\n\nSir Walter had so large a hand in making Southern character, as it\nexisted before the war, that he is in great measure responsible for\nthe war. It seems a little harsh toward a dead man to say that we never\nshould have had any war but for Sir Walter; and yet something of a\nplausible argument might, perhaps, be made in support of that wild\nproposition. The Southerner of the American Revolution owned slaves; so\ndid the Southerner of the Civil War: but the former resembles the latter\nas an Englishman resembles a Frenchman. The change of character can be\ntraced rather more easily to Sir Walter's influence than to that of any\nother thing or person.\n\nOne may observe, by one or two signs, how deeply that influence\npenetrated, and how strongly it holds. If one take up a Northern or\nSouthern literary periodical of forty or fifty years ago, he will\nfind it filled with wordy, windy, flowery 'eloquence,' romanticism,\nsentimentality--all imitated from Sir Walter, and sufficiently badly\ndone, too--innocent travesties of his style and methods, in fact. This\nsort of literature being the fashion in both sections of the country,\nthere was opportunity for the fairest competition; and as a consequence,\nthe South was able to show as many well-known literary names,\nproportioned to population, as the North could.\n\nBut a change has come, and there is no opportunity now for a fair\ncompetition between North and South. For the North has thrown out\nthat old inflated style, whereas the Southern writer still clings\nto it--clings to it and has a restricted market for his wares, as a\nconsequence. There is as much literary talent in the South, now, as ever\nthere was, of course; but its work can gain but slight currency under\npresent conditions; the authors write for the past, not the present;\nthey use obsolete forms, and a dead language. But when a Southerner of\ngenius writes modern English, his book goes upon crutches no longer, but\nupon wings; and they carry it swiftly all about America and England,\nand through the great English reprint publishing houses of Germany--as\nwitness the experience of Mr. Cable and Uncle Remus, two of the very\nfew Southern authors who do not write in the Southern style. Instead\nof three or four widely-known literary names, the South ought to have a\ndozen or two--and will have them when Sir Walter's time is out.\n\nA curious exemplification of the power of a single book for good or harm\nis shown in the effects wrought by 'Don Quixote' and those wrought\nby 'Ivanhoe.' The first swept the world's admiration for the medieval\nchivalry-silliness out of existence; and the other restored it. As far\nas our South is concerned, the good work done by Cervantes is pretty\nnearly a dead letter, so effectually has Scott's pernicious work\nundermined it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 47\n\nUncle Remus and Mr. Cable\n\nMR. JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS ('Uncle Remus') was to arrive from Atlanta at\nseven o'clock Sunday morning; so we got up and received him. We were\nable to detect him among the crowd of arrivals at the hotel-counter by\nhis correspondence with a description of him which had been furnished us\nfrom a trustworthy source. He was said to be undersized, red-haired,\nand somewhat freckled. He was the only man in the party whose outside\ntallied with this bill of particulars. He was said to be very shy. He\nis a shy man. Of this there is no doubt. It may not show on the surface,\nbut the shyness is there. After days of intimacy one wonders to see\nthat it is still in about as strong force as ever. There is a fine and\nbeautiful nature hidden behind it, as all know who have read the Uncle\nRemus book; and a fine genius, too, as all know by the same sign. I seem\nto be talking quite freely about this neighbor; but in talking to the\npublic I am but talking to his personal friends, and these things are\npermissible among friends.\n\nHe deeply disappointed a number of children who had flocked eagerly to\nMr. Cable's house to get a glimpse of the illustrious sage and oracle of\nthe nation's nurseries. They said--\n\n'Why, he 's white!'\n\nThey were grieved about it. So, to console them, the book was brought,\nthat they might hear Uncle Remus's Tar-Baby story from the lips of Uncle\nRemus himself--or what, in their outraged eyes, was left of him. But it\nturned out that he had never read aloud to people, and was too shy to\nventure the attempt now. Mr. Cable and I read from books of ours, to\nshow him what an easy trick it was; but his immortal shyness was proof\nagainst even this sagacious strategy, so we had to read about Brer\nRabbit ourselves.\n\nMr. Harris ought to be able to read the negro dialect better than\nanybody else, for in the matter of writing it he is the only master the\ncountry has produced. Mr. Cable is the only master in the writing of\nFrench dialects that the country has produced; and he reads them\nin perfection. It was a great treat to hear him read about Jean-ah\nPoquelin, and about Innerarity and his famous 'pigshoo' representing\n'Louisihanna _rif_-fusing to Hanter the Union,' along with passages of\nnicely-shaded German dialect from a novel which was still in manuscript.\n\nIt came out in conversation, that in two different instances Mr. Cable\ngot into grotesque trouble by using, in his books, next-to-impossible\nFrench names which nevertheless happened to be borne by living and\nsensitive citizens of New Orleans. His names were either inventions or\nwere borrowed from the ancient and obsolete past, I do not now remember\nwhich; but at any rate living bearers of them turned up, and were a good\ndeal hurt at having attention directed to themselves and their affairs\nin so excessively public a manner.\n\nMr. Warner and I had an experience of the same sort when we wrote\nthe book called 'The Gilded Age.' There is a character in it called\n'Sellers.' I do not remember what his first name was, in the beginning;\nbut anyway, Mr. Warner did not like it, and wanted it improved. He asked\nme if I was able to imagine a person named 'Eschol Sellers.' Of course I\nsaid I could not, without stimulants. He said that away out West, once,\nhe had met, and contemplated, and actually shaken hands with a man\nbearing that impossible name--'Eschol Sellers.' He added--\n\n'It was twenty years ago; his name has probably carried him off before\nthis; and if it hasn't, he will never see the book anyhow. We will\nconfiscate his name. The name you are using is common, and therefore\ndangerous; there are probably a thousand Sellerses bearing it, and the\nwhole horde will come after us; but Eschol Sellers is a safe name--it is\na rock.'\n\nSo we borrowed that name; and when the book had been out about a week,\none of the stateliest and handsomest and most aristocratic looking white\nmen that ever lived, called around, with the most formidable libel\nsuit in his pocket that ever--well, in brief, we got his permission to\nsuppress an edition of ten million {footnote [Figures taken from memory,\nand probably incorrect. Think it was more.]} copies of the book and\nchange that name to 'Mulberry Sellers' in future editions.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 48\n\nSugar and Postage\n\nONE day, on the street, I encountered the man whom, of all men, I most\nwished to see--Horace Bixby; formerly pilot under me--or rather, over\nme--now captain of the great steamer 'City of Baton Rouge,' the latest\nand swiftest addition to the Anchor Line. The same slender figure, the\nsame tight curls, the same springy step, the same alertness, the same\ndecision of eye and answering decision of hand, the same erect military\nbearing; not an inch gained or lost in girth, not an ounce gained or\nlost in weight, not a hair turned. It is a curious thing, to leave a man\nthirty-five years old, and come back at the end of twenty-one years and\nfind him still only thirty-five. I have not had an experience of this\nkind before, I believe. There were some crow's-feet, but they counted\nfor next to nothing, since they were inconspicuous.\n\nHis boat was just in. I had been waiting several days for her, purposing\nto return to St. Louis in her. The captain and I joined a party of\nladies and gentlemen, guests of Major Wood, and went down the river\nfifty-four miles, in a swift tug, to ex-Governor Warmouth's sugar\nplantation. Strung along below the city, were a number of decayed,\nram-shackly, superannuated old steamboats, not one of which had I ever\nseen before. They had all been built, and worn out, and thrown aside,\nsince I was here last. This gives one a realizing sense of the frailness\nof a Mississippi boat and the briefness of its life.\n\nSix miles below town a fat and battered brick chimney, sticking above\nthe magnolias and live-oaks, was pointed out as the monument erected by\nan appreciative nation to celebrate the battle of New Orleans--Jackson's\nvictory over the British, January 8, 1815. The war had ended, the two\nnations were at peace, but the news had not yet reached New Orleans. If\nwe had had the cable telegraph in those days, this blood would not have\nbeen spilt, those lives would not have been wasted; and better still,\nJackson would probably never have been president. We have gotten over\nthe harms done us by the war of 1812, but not over some of those done us\nby Jackson's presidency.\n\nThe Warmouth plantation covers a vast deal of ground, and the\nhospitality of the Warmouth mansion is graduated to the same large\nscale. We saw steam-plows at work, here, for the first time. The\ntraction engine travels about on its own wheels, till it reaches the\nrequired spot; then it stands still and by means of a wire rope pulls\nthe huge plow toward itself two or three hundred yards across the field,\nbetween the rows of cane. The thing cuts down into the black mold a foot\nand a half deep. The plow looks like a fore-and-aft brace of a Hudson\nriver steamer, inverted. When the negro steersman sits on one end of it,\nthat end tilts down near the ground, while the other sticks up high in\nair. This great see-saw goes rolling and pitching like a ship at sea,\nand it is not every circus rider that could stay on it.\n\nThe plantation contains two thousand six hundred acres; six hundred and\nfifty are in cane; and there is a fruitful orange grove of five thousand\ntrees. The cane is cultivated after a modern and intricate scientific\nfashion, too elaborate and complex for me to attempt to describe; but it\nlost $40,000 last year. I forget the other details. However, this year's\ncrop will reach ten or twelve hundred tons of sugar, consequently last\nyear's loss will not matter. These troublesome and expensive scientific\nmethods achieve a yield of a ton and a half and from that to two tons,\nto the acre; which is three or four times what the yield of an acre was\nin my time.\n\nThe drainage-ditches were everywhere alive with little\ncrabs--'fiddlers.' One saw them scampering sidewise in every direction\nwhenever they heard a disturbing noise. Expensive pests, these crabs;\nfor they bore into the levees, and ruin them.\n\nThe great sugar-house was a wilderness of tubs and tanks and vats and\nfilters, pumps, pipes, and machinery. The process of making sugar\nis exceedingly interesting. First, you heave your cane into the\ncentrifugals and grind out the juice; then run it through the\nevaporating pan to extract the fiber; then through the bone-filter to\nremove the alcohol; then through the clarifying tanks to discharge the\nmolasses; then through the granulating pipe to condense it; then through\nthe vacuum pan to extract the vacuum. It is now ready for market. I have\njotted these particulars down from memory. The thing looks simple and\neasy. Do not deceive yourself. To make sugar is really one of the\nmost difficult things in the world. And to make it right, is next to\nimpossible. If you will examine your own supply every now and then for\na term of years, and tabulate the result, you will find that not two men\nin twenty can make sugar without getting sand into it.\n\nWe could have gone down to the mouth of the river and visited Captain\nEads' great work, the 'jetties,' where the river has been compressed\nbetween walls, and thus deepened to twenty-six feet; but it was voted\nuseless to go, since at this stage of the water everything would be\ncovered up and invisible.\n\nWe could have visited that ancient and singular burg, 'Pilot-town,'\nwhich stands on stilts in the water--so they say; where nearly all\ncommunication is by skiff and canoe, even to the attending of weddings\nand funerals; and where the littlest boys and girls are as handy with\nthe oar as unamphibious children are with the velocipede.\n\nWe could have done a number of other things; but on account of limited\ntime, we went back home. The sail up the breezy and sparkling river was\na charming experience, and would have been satisfyingly sentimental\nand romantic but for the interruptions of the tug's pet parrot,\nwhose tireless comments upon the scenery and the guests were always\nthis-worldly, and often profane. He had also a superabundance of\nthe discordant, ear-splitting, metallic laugh common to his breed--a\nmachine-made laugh, a Frankenstein laugh, with the soul left out of it.\nHe applied it to every sentimental remark, and to every pathetic song.\nHe cackled it out with hideous energy after 'Home again, home again from\na foreign shore,' and said he 'wouldn't give a damn for a tug-load\nof such rot.' Romance and sentiment cannot long survive this sort of\ndiscouragement; so the singing and talking presently ceased; which so\ndelighted the parrot that he cursed himself hoarse for joy.\n\nThen the male members of the party moved to the forecastle, to smoke and\ngossip. There were several old steamboatmen along, and I learned from\nthem a great deal of what had been happening to my former river friends\nduring my long absence. I learned that a pilot whom I used to steer\nfor is become a spiritualist, and for more than fifteen years has been\nreceiving a letter every week from a deceased relative, through a\nNew York spiritualist medium named Manchester--postage graduated by\ndistance: from the local post-office in Paradise to New York, five\ndollars; from New York to St. Louis, three cents. I remember Mr.\nManchester very well. I called on him once, ten years ago, with a couple\nof friends, one of whom wished to inquire after a deceased uncle. This\nuncle had lost his life in a peculiarly violent and unusual way, half\na dozen years before: a cyclone blew him some three miles and knocked\na tree down with him which was four feet through at the butt and\nsixty-five feet high. He did not survive this triumph. At the seance\njust referred to, my friend questioned his late uncle, through Mr.\nManchester, and the late uncle wrote down his replies, using Mr.\nManchester's hand and pencil for that purpose. The following is a fair\nexample of the questions asked, and also of the sloppy twaddle in the\nway of answers, furnished by Manchester under the pretense that it came\nfrom the specter. If this man is not the paltriest fraud that lives, I\nowe him an apology--\n\nQUESTION. Where are you?\n\nANSWER. In the spirit world.\n\nQ. Are you happy?\n\nA. Very happy. Perfectly happy.\n\nQ. How do you amuse yourself?\n\nA. Conversation with friends, and other spirits.\n\nQ. What else?\n\nA. Nothing else. Nothing else is necessary.\n\nQ. What do you talk about?\n\nA. About how happy we are; and about friends left behind in the earth,\nand how to influence them for their good.\n\nQ. When your friends in the earth all get to the spirit land, what shall\nyou have to talk about then?--nothing but about how happy you all are?\n\nNo reply. It is explained that spirits will not answer frivolous\nquestions.\n\nQ. How is it that spirits that are content to spend an eternity in\nfrivolous employments, and accept it as happiness, are so fastidious\nabout frivolous questions upon the subject?\n\nNo reply.\n\nQ. Would you like to come back?\n\nA. No.\n\nQ. Would you say that under oath?\n\nA. Yes.\n\nQ. What do you eat there?\n\nA. We do not eat.\n\nQ. What do you drink?\n\nA. We do not drink.\n\nQ. What do you smoke?\n\nA. We do not smoke.\n\nQ. What do you read?\n\nA. We do not read.\n\nQ. Do all the good people go to your place?\n\nA. Yes.\n\nQ. You know my present way of life. Can you suggest any additions to it,\nin the way of crime, that will reasonably insure my going to some other\nplace.\n\nA. No reply.\n\nQ. When did you die?\n\nA. I did not die, I passed away.\n\nQ. Very well, then, when did you pass away? How long have you been in\nthe spirit land?\n\nA. We have no measurements of time here.\n\nQ. Though you may be indifferent and uncertain as to dates and times in\nyour present condition and environment, this has nothing to do with your\nformer condition. You had dates then. One of these is what I ask for.\nYou departed on a certain day in a certain year. Is not this true?\n\nA. Yes.\n\nQ. Then name the day of the month.\n\n(Much fumbling with pencil, on the part of the medium, accompanied by\nviolent spasmodic jerkings of his head and body, for some little time.\nFinally, explanation to the effect that spirits often forget dates, such\nthings being without importance to them.)\n\nQ. Then this one has actually forgotten the date of its translation to\nthe spirit land?\n\nThis was granted to be the case.\n\nQ. This is very curious. Well, then, what year was it?\n\n(More fumbling, jerking, idiotic spasms, on the part of the medium.\nFinally, explanation to the effect that the spirit has forgotten the\nyear.)\n\nQ. This is indeed stupendous. Let me put one more question, one last\nquestion, to you, before we part to meet no more;--for even if I fail\nto avoid your asylum, a meeting there will go for nothing as a meeting,\nsince by that time you will easily have forgotten me and my name: did\nyou die a natural death, or were you cut off by a catastrophe?\n\nA. (After long hesitation and many throes and spasms.) _Natural death_.\n\nThis ended the interview. My friend told the medium that when his\nrelative was in this poor world, he was endowed with an extraordinary\nintellect and an absolutely defectless memory, and it seemed a great\npity that he had not been allowed to keep some shred of these for\nhis amusement in the realms of everlasting contentment, and for the\namazement and admiration of the rest of the population there.\n\nThis man had plenty of clients--has plenty yet. He receives letters from\nspirits located in every part of the spirit world, and delivers them\nall over this country through the United States mail. These letters are\nfilled with advice--advice from 'spirits' who don't know as much as a\ntadpole--and this advice is religiously followed by the receivers. One\nof these clients was a man whom the spirits (if one may thus plurally\ndescribe the ingenious Manchester) were teaching how to contrive an\nimproved railway car-wheel. It is coarse employment for a spirit, but it\nis higher and wholesomer activity than talking for ever about 'how happy\nwe are.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 49\n\nEpisodes in Pilot Life\n\nIN the course of the tug-boat gossip, it came out that out of every five\nof my former friends who had quitted the river, four had chosen farming\nas an occupation. Of course this was not because they were peculiarly\ngifted, agriculturally, and thus more likely to succeed as farmers than\nin other industries: the reason for their choice must be traced to some\nother source. Doubtless they chose farming because that life is\nprivate and secluded from irruptions of undesirable strangers--like the\npilot-house hermitage. And doubtless they also chose it because on a\nthousand nights of black storm and danger they had noted the twinkling\nlights of solitary farm-houses, as the boat swung by, and pictured to\nthemselves the serenity and security and coziness of such refuges at\nsuch times, and so had by-and-bye come to dream of that retired and\npeaceful life as the one desirable thing to long for, anticipate, earn,\nand at last enjoy.\n\nBut I did not learn that any of these pilot-farmers had astonished\nanybody with their successes. Their farms do not support them: they\nsupport their farms. The pilot-farmer disappears from the river\nannually, about the breaking of spring, and is seen no more till next\nfrost. Then he appears again, in damaged homespun, combs the hayseed out\nof his hair, and takes a pilot-house berth for the winter. In this way\nhe pays the debts which his farming has achieved during the agricultural\nseason. So his river bondage is but half broken; he is still the river's\nslave the hardest half of the year.\n\nOne of these men bought a farm, but did not retire to it. He knew a\ntrick worth two of that. He did not propose to pauperize his farm by\napplying his personal ignorance to working it. No, he put the farm into\nthe hands of an agricultural expert to be worked on shares--out of every\nthree loads of corn the expert to have two and the pilot the third.\nBut at the end of the season the pilot received no corn. The expert\nexplained that his share was not reached. The farm produced only two\nloads.\n\nSome of the pilots whom I had known had had adventures--the outcome\nfortunate, sometimes, but not in all cases. Captain Montgomery, whom I\nhad steered for when he was a pilot, commanded the Confederate fleet\nin the great battle before Memphis; when his vessel went down, he swam\nashore, fought his way through a squad of soldiers, and made a gallant\nand narrow escape. He was always a cool man; nothing could disturb\nhis serenity. Once when he was captain of the 'Crescent City,' I was\nbringing the boat into port at New Orleans, and momently expecting\norders from the hurricane deck, but received none. I had stopped\nthe wheels, and there my authority and responsibility ceased. It was\nevening--dim twilight--the captain's hat was perched upon the big bell,\nand I supposed the intellectual end of the captain was in it, but such\nwas not the case. The captain was very strict; therefore I knew better\nthan to touch a bell without orders. My duty was to hold the boat\nsteadily on her calamitous course, and leave the consequences to take\ncare of themselves--which I did. So we went plowing past the sterns of\nsteamboats and getting closer and closer--the crash was bound to come\nvery soon--and still that hat never budged; for alas, the captain was\nnapping in the texas.... Things were becoming exceedingly nervous and\nuncomfortable. It seemed to me that the captain was not going to appear\nin time to see the entertainment. But he did. Just as we were walking\ninto the stern of a steamboat, he stepped out on deck, and said, with\nheavenly serenity, 'Set her back on both'--which I did; but a trifle\nlate, however, for the next moment we went smashing through that other\nboat's flimsy outer works with a most prodigious racket. The captain\nnever said a word to me about the matter afterwards, except to remark\nthat I had done right, and that he hoped I would not hesitate to act in\nthe same way again in like circumstances.\n\nOne of the pilots whom I had known when I was on the river had died a\nvery honorable death. His boat caught fire, and he remained at the wheel\nuntil he got her safe to land. Then he went out over the breast-board\nwith his clothing in flames, and was the last person to get ashore. He\ndied from his injuries in the course of two or three hours, and his was\nthe only life lost.\n\nThe history of Mississippi piloting affords six or seven instances of\nthis sort of martyrdom, and half a hundred instances of escapes from a\nlike fate which came within a second or two of being fatally too late;\n_but there is no instance of a pilot deserting his post to save his life\nwhile by remaining and sacrificing it he might secure other lives from\ndestruction._ It is well worth while to set down this noble fact, and\nwell worth while to put it in italics, too.\n\nThe 'cub' pilot is early admonished to despise all perils connected with\na pilot's calling, and to prefer any sort of death to the deep dishonor\nof deserting his post while there is any possibility of his being useful\nin it. And so effectively are these admonitions inculcated, that even\nyoung and but half-tried pilots can be depended upon to stick to the\nwheel, and die there when occasion requires. In a Memphis graveyard is\nburied a young fellow who perished at the wheel a great many years ago,\nin White River, to save the lives of other men. He said to the captain\nthat if the fire would give him time to reach a sand bar, some distance\naway, all could be saved, but that to land against the bluff bank of the\nriver would be to insure the loss of many lives. He reached the bar\nand grounded the boat in shallow water; but by that time the flames had\nclosed around him, and in escaping through them he was fatally burned.\nHe had been urged to fly sooner, but had replied as became a pilot to\nreply--\n\n'I will not go. If I go, nobody will be saved; if I stay, no one will be\nlost but me. I will stay.'\n\nThere were two hundred persons on board, and no life was lost but the\npilot's. There used to be a monument to this young fellow, in that\nMemphis graveyard. While we tarried in Memphis on our down trip, I\nstarted out to look for it, but our time was so brief that I was obliged\nto turn back before my object was accomplished.\n\nThe tug-boat gossip informed me that Dick Kennet was dead--blown up,\nnear Memphis, and killed; that several others whom I had known had\nfallen in the war--one or two of them shot down at the wheel; that\nanother and very particular friend, whom I had steered many trips for,\nhad stepped out of his house in New Orleans, one night years ago, to\ncollect some money in a remote part of the city, and had never been seen\nagain--was murdered and thrown into the river, it was thought; that Ben\nThornburgh was dead long ago; also his wild 'cub' whom I used to quarrel\nwith, all through every daylight watch. A heedless, reckless creature he\nwas, and always in hot water, always in mischief. An Arkansas passenger\nbrought an enormous bear aboard, one day, and chained him to a life-boat\non the hurricane deck. Thornburgh's 'cub' could not rest till he had\ngone there and unchained the bear, to 'see what he would do.' He was\npromptly gratified. The bear chased him around and around the deck,\nfor miles and miles, with two hundred eager faces grinning through the\nrailings for audience, and finally snatched off the lad's coat-tail and\nwent into the texas to chew it. The off-watch turned out with alacrity,\nand left the bear in sole possession. He presently grew lonesome, and\nstarted out for recreation. He ranged the whole boat--visited every part\nof it, with an advance guard of fleeing people in front of him and a\nvoiceless vacancy behind him; and when his owner captured him at last,\nthose two were the only visible beings anywhere; everybody else was in\nhiding, and the boat was a solitude.\n\nI was told that one of my pilot friends fell dead at the wheel, from\nheart disease, in 1869. The captain was on the roof at the time. He saw\nthe boat breaking for the shore; shouted, and got no answer; ran up, and\nfound the pilot lying dead on the floor.\n\nMr. Bixby had been blown up, in Madrid bend; was not injured, but the\nother pilot was lost.\n\nGeorge Ritchie had been blown up near Memphis--blown into the river from\nthe wheel, and disabled. The water was very cold; he clung to a cotton\nbale--mainly with his teeth--and floated until nearly exhausted, when\nhe was rescued by some deck hands who were on a piece of the wreck. They\ntore open the bale and packed him in the cotton, and warmed the life\nback into him, and got him safe to Memphis. He is one of Bixby's pilots\non the 'Baton Rouge' now.\n\nInto the life of a steamboat clerk, now dead, had dropped a bit of\nromance--somewhat grotesque romance, but romance nevertheless. When I\nknew him he was a shiftless young spendthrift, boisterous, goodhearted,\nfull of careless generosities, and pretty conspicuously promising to\nfool his possibilities away early, and come to nothing. In a Western\ncity lived a rich and childless old foreigner and his wife; and in their\nfamily was a comely young girl--sort of friend, sort of servant. The\nyoung clerk of whom I have been speaking--whose name was not George\nJohnson, but who shall be called George Johnson for the purposes of this\nnarrative--got acquainted with this young girl, and they sinned; and\nthe old foreigner found them out, and rebuked them. Being ashamed, they\nlied, and said they were married; that they had been privately married.\nThen the old foreigner's hurt was healed, and he forgave and blessed\nthem. After that, they were able to continue their sin without\nconcealment. By-and-bye the foreigner's wife died; and presently he\nfollowed after her. Friends of the family assembled to mourn; and among\nthe mourners sat the two young sinners. The will was opened and solemnly\nread. It bequeathed every penny of that old man's great wealth to _Mrs.\nGeorge Johnson!_\n\nAnd there was no such person. The young sinners fled forth then, and did\na very foolish thing: married themselves before an obscure Justice of\nthe Peace, and got him to antedate the thing. That did no sort of good.\nThe distant relatives flocked in and exposed the fraudful date with\nextreme suddenness and surprising ease, and carried off the fortune,\nleaving the Johnsons very legitimately, and legally, and irrevocably\nchained together in honorable marriage, but with not so much as a penny\nto bless themselves withal. Such are the actual facts; and not all\nnovels have for a base so telling a situation.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 50\n\nThe 'Original Jacobs'\n\nWE had some talk about Captain Isaiah Sellers, now many years dead. He\nwas a fine man, a high-minded man, and greatly respected both ashore and\non the river. He was very tall, well built, and handsome; and in his old\nage--as I remember him--his hair was as black as an Indian's, and his\neye and hand were as strong and steady and his nerve and judgment as\nfirm and clear as anybody's, young or old, among the fraternity of\npilots. He was the patriarch of the craft; he had been a keelboat pilot\nbefore the day of steamboats; and a steamboat pilot before any other\nsteamboat pilot, still surviving at the time I speak of, had ever turned\na wheel. Consequently his brethren held him in the sort of awe in\nwhich illustrious survivors of a bygone age are always held by their\nassociates. He knew how he was regarded, and perhaps this fact added\nsome trifle of stiffening to his natural dignity, which had been\nsufficiently stiff in its original state.\n\nHe left a diary behind him; but apparently it did not date back to his\nfirst steamboat trip, which was said to be 1811, the year the first\nsteamboat disturbed the waters of the Mississippi. At the time of his\ndeath a correspondent of the 'St. Louis Republican' culled the following\nitems from the diary--\n\n'In February, 1825, he shipped on board the steamer \"Rambler,\" at\nFlorence, Ala., and made during that year three trips to New Orleans and\nback--this on the \"Gen. Carrol,\" between Nashville and New Orleans. It\nwas during his stay on this boat that Captain Sellers introduced the tap\nof the bell as a signal to heave the lead, previous to which time it was\nthe custom for the pilot to speak to the men below when soundings were\nwanted. The proximity of the forecastle to the pilot-house, no doubt,\nrendered this an easy matter; but how different on one of our palaces of\nthe present day.\n\n'In 1827 we find him on board the \"President,\" a boat of two hundred and\neighty-five tons burden, and plying between Smithland and New Orleans.\nThence he joined the \"Jubilee\" in 1828, and on this boat he did his\nfirst piloting in the St. Louis trade; his first watch extending from\nHerculaneum to St. Genevieve. On May 26, 1836, he completed and left\nPittsburgh in charge of the steamer \"Prairie,\" a boat of four hundred\ntons, and the first steamer with a _State-Room cabin_ ever seen at St.\nLouis. In 1857 he introduced the signal for meeting boats, and which\nhas, with some slight change, been the universal custom of this day; in\nfact, is rendered obligatory by act of Congress.\n\n'As general items of river history, we quote the following marginal\nnotes from his general log--\n\n'In March, 1825, Gen. Lafayette left New Orleans for St. Louis on the\nlow-pressure steamer \"Natchez.\"\n\n'In January, 1828, twenty-one steamers left the New Orleans wharf to\ncelebrate the occasion of Gen. Jackson's visit to that city.\n\n'In 1830 the \"North American\" made the run from New Orleans to Memphis\nin six days--best time on record to that date. It has since been made in\ntwo days and ten hours.\n\n'In 1831 the Red River cut-off formed.\n\n'In 1832 steamer \"Hudson\" made the run from White River to Helena, a\ndistance of seventy-five miles, in twelve hours. This was the source of\nmuch talk and speculation among parties directly interested.\n\n'In 1839 Great Horseshoe cut-off formed.\n\n'Up to the present time, a term of thirty-five years, we ascertain, by\nreference to the diary, he has made four hundred and sixty round trips\nto New Orleans, which gives a distance of one million one hundred and\nfour thousand miles, or an average of eighty-six miles a day.'\n\nWhenever Captain Sellers approached a body of gossiping pilots, a chill\nfell there, and talking ceased. For this reason: whenever six pilots\nwere gathered together, there would always be one or two newly fledged\nones in the lot, and the elder ones would be always 'showing off' before\nthese poor fellows; making them sorrowfully feel how callow they were,\nhow recent their nobility, and how humble their degree, by talking\nlargely and vaporously of old-time experiences on the river; always\nmaking it a point to date everything back as far as they could, so as to\nmake the new men feel their newness to the sharpest degree possible,\nand envy the old stagers in the like degree. And how these complacent\nbaldheads _would_ swell, and brag, and lie, and date back--ten, fifteen,\ntwenty years,--and how they did enjoy the effect produced upon the\nmarveling and envying youngsters!\n\nAnd perhaps just at this happy stage of the proceedings, the stately\nfigure of Captain Isaiah Sellers, that real and only genuine Son of\nAntiquity, would drift solemnly into the midst. Imagine the size of the\nsilence that would result on the instant. And imagine the feelings of\nthose bald-heads, and the exultation of their recent audience when the\nancient captain would begin to drop casual and indifferent remarks of a\nreminiscent nature--about islands that had disappeared, and cutoffs that\nhad been made, a generation before the oldest bald-head in the company\nhad ever set his foot in a pilot-house!\n\nMany and many a time did this ancient mariner appear on the scene in the\nabove fashion, and spread disaster and humiliation around him. If one\nmight believe the pilots, he always dated his islands back to the misty\ndawn of river history; and he never used the same island twice; and\nnever did he employ an island that still existed, or give one a name\nwhich anybody present was old enough to have heard of before. If you\nmight believe the pilots, he was always conscientiously particular\nabout little details; never spoke of 'the State of Mississippi,' for\ninstance--no, he would say, 'When the State of Mississippi was where\nArkansas now is,' and would never speak of Louisiana or Missouri in\na general way, and leave an incorrect impression on your mind--no, he\nwould say, 'When Louisiana was up the river farther,' or 'When Missouri\nwas on the Illinois side.'\n\nThe old gentleman was not of literary turn or capacity, but he used\nto jot down brief paragraphs of plain practical information about the\nriver, and sign them '_Mark Twain_,' and give them to the 'New Orleans\nPicayune.' They related to the stage and condition of the river, and\nwere accurate and valuable; and thus far, they contained no poison.\nBut in speaking of the stage of the river to-day, at a given point, the\ncaptain was pretty apt to drop in a little remark about this being the\nfirst time he had seen the water so high or so low at that particular\npoint for forty-nine years; and now and then he would mention Island\nSo-and-so, and follow it, in parentheses, with some such observation\nas 'disappeared in 1807, if I remember rightly.' In these antique\ninterjections lay poison and bitterness for the other old pilots, and\nthey used to chaff the 'Mark Twain' paragraphs with unsparing mockery.\n\nIt so chanced that one of these paragraphs--{footnote [The original MS.\nof it, in the captain's own hand, has been sent to me from New Orleans.\nIt reads as follows--\n\nVICKSBURG May 4, 1859.\n\n'My opinion for the benefit of the citizens of New Orleans: The water\nis higher this far up than it has been since 8. My opinion is that the\nwater will be feet deep in Canal street before the first of next June.\nMrs. Turner's plantation at the head of Big Black Island is all under\nwater, and it has not been since 1815.\n\n'I. Sellers.']}\n\nbecame the text for my first newspaper article. I burlesqued it broadly,\nvery broadly, stringing my fantastics out to the extent of eight hundred\nor a thousand words. I was a 'cub' at the time. I showed my performance\nto some pilots, and they eagerly rushed it into print in the 'New\nOrleans True Delta.' It was a great pity; for it did nobody any worthy\nservice, and it sent a pang deep into a good man's heart. There was no\nmalice in my rubbish; but it laughed at the captain. It laughed at a man\nto whom such a thing was new and strange and dreadful. I did not know\nthen, though I do now, that there is no suffering comparable with that\nwhich a private person feels when he is for the first time pilloried in\nprint.\n\nCaptain Sellers did me the honor to profoundly detest me from that day\nforth. When I say he did me the honor, I am not using empty words. It\nwas a very real honor to be in the thoughts of so great a man as Captain\nSellers, and I had wit enough to appreciate it and be proud of it. It\nwas distinction to be loved by such a man; but it was a much greater\ndistinction to be hated by him, because he loved scores of people; but\nhe didn't sit up nights to hate anybody but me.\n\nHe never printed another paragraph while he lived, and he never again\nsigned 'Mark Twain' to anything. At the time that the telegraph brought\nthe news of his death, I was on the Pacific coast. I was a fresh new\njournalist, and needed a nom de guerre; so I confiscated the ancient\nmariner's discarded one, and have done my best to make it remain what it\nwas in his hands--a sign and symbol and warrant that whatever is found\nin its company may be gambled on as being the petrified truth; how I\nhave succeeded, it would not be modest in me to say.\n\nThe captain had an honorable pride in his profession and an abiding love\nfor it. He ordered his monument before he died, and kept it near\nhim until he did die. It stands over his grave now, in Bellefontaine\ncemetery, St. Louis. It is his image, in marble, standing on duty at\nthe pilot wheel; and worthy to stand and confront criticism, for it\nrepresents a man who in life would have stayed there till he burned to a\ncinder, if duty required it.\n\nThe finest thing we saw on our whole Mississippi trip, we saw as we\napproached New Orleans in the steam-tug. This was the curving frontage\nof the crescent city lit up with the white glare of five miles of\nelectric lights. It was a wonderful sight, and very beautiful.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 51\n\nReminiscences\n\nWE left for St. Louis in the 'City of Baton Rouge,' on a delightfully\nhot day, but with the main purpose of my visit but lamely accomplished.\nI had hoped to hunt up and talk with a hundred steamboatmen, but got so\npleasantly involved in the social life of the town that I got nothing\nmore than mere five-minute talks with a couple of dozen of the craft.\n\nI was on the bench of the pilot-house when we backed out and\n'straightened up' for the start--the boat pausing for a 'good ready,'\nin the old-fashioned way, and the black smoke piling out of the chimneys\nequally in the old-fashioned way. Then we began to gather momentum, and\npresently were fairly under way and booming along. It was all as natural\nand familiar--and so were the shoreward sights--as if there had been no\nbreak in my river life. There was a 'cub,' and I judged that he\nwould take the wheel now; and he did. Captain Bixby stepped into the\npilot-house. Presently the cub closed up on the rank of steamships. He\nmade me nervous, for he allowed too much water to show between our boat\nand the ships. I knew quite well what was going to happen, because\nI could date back in my own life and inspect the record. The captain\nlooked on, during a silent half-minute, then took the wheel himself, and\ncrowded the boat in, till she went scraping along within a hand-breadth\nof the ships. It was exactly the favor which he had done me, about a\nquarter of a century before, in that same spot, the first time I ever\nsteamed out of the port of New Orleans. It was a very great and sincere\npleasure to me to see the thing repeated--with somebody else as victim.\n\nWe made Natchez (three hundred miles) in twenty-two hours and a half--\nmuch the swiftest passage I have ever made over that piece of water.\n\nThe next morning I came on with the four o'clock watch, and saw Ritchie\nsuccessfully run half a dozen crossings in a fog, using for his guidance\nthe marked chart devised and patented by Bixby and himself. This\nsufficiently evidenced the great value of the chart.\n\nBy and by, when the fog began to clear off, I noticed that the\nreflection of a tree in the smooth water of an overflowed bank, six\nhundred yards away, was stronger and blacker than the ghostly tree\nitself. The faint spectral trees, dimly glimpsed through the shredding\nfog, were very pretty things to see.\n\nWe had a heavy thunder-storm at Natchez, another at Vicksburg, and\nstill another about fifty miles below Memphis. They had an old-fashioned\nenergy which had long been unfamiliar to me. This third storm was\naccompanied by a raging wind. We tied up to the bank when we saw the\ntempest coming, and everybody left the pilot-house but me. The wind bent\nthe young trees down, exposing the pale underside of the leaves; and\ngust after gust followed, in quick succession, thrashing the branches\nviolently up and down, and to this side and that, and creating swift\nwaves of alternating green and white according to the side of the leaf\nthat was exposed, and these waves raced after each other as do their\nkind over a wind-tossed field of oats. No color that was visible\nanywhere was quite natural--all tints were charged with a leaden tinge\nfrom the solid cloud-bank overhead. The river was leaden; all distances\nthe same; and even the far-reaching ranks of combing white-caps were\ndully shaded by the dark, rich atmosphere through which their swarming\nlegions marched. The thunder-peals were constant and deafening;\nexplosion followed explosion with but inconsequential intervals between,\nand the reports grew steadily sharper and higher-keyed, and more trying\nto the ear; the lightning was as diligent as the thunder, and produced\neffects which enchanted the eye and sent electric ecstasies of mixed\ndelight and apprehension shivering along every nerve in the body in\nunintermittent procession. The rain poured down in amazing volume; the\near-splitting thunder-peals broke nearer and nearer; the wind increased\nin fury and began to wrench off boughs and tree-tops and send them\nsailing away through space; the pilot-house fell to rocking and\nstraining and cracking and surging, and I went down in the hold to see\nwhat time it was.\n\nPeople boast a good deal about Alpine thunderstorms; but the storms\nwhich I have had the luck to see in the Alps were not the equals of some\nwhich I have seen in the Mississippi Valley. I may not have seen the\nAlps do their best, of course, and if they can beat the Mississippi, I\ndon't wish to.\n\nOn this up trip I saw a little towhead (infant island) half a mile long,\nwhich had been formed during the past nineteen years. Since there was\nso much time to spare that nineteen years of it could be devoted to\nthe construction of a mere towhead, where was the use, originally, in\nrushing this whole globe through in six days? It is likely that if more\ntime had been taken, in the first place, the world would have been made\nright, and this ceaseless improving and repairing would not be necessary\nnow. But if you hurry a world or a house, you are nearly sure to find\nout by and by that you have left out a towhead, or a broom-closet,\nor some other little convenience, here and there, which has got to be\nsupplied, no matter how much expense and vexation it may cost.\n\nWe had a succession of black nights, going up the river, and it was\nobservable that whenever we landed, and suddenly inundated the trees\nwith the intense sunburst of the electric light, a certain curious\neffect was always produced: hundreds of birds flocked instantly out\nfrom the masses of shining green foliage, and went careering hither and\nthither through the white rays, and often a song-bird tuned up and fell\nto singing. We judged that they mistook this superb artificial day\nfor the genuine article. We had a delightful trip in that thoroughly\nwell-ordered steamer, and regretted that it was accomplished so\nspeedily. By means of diligence and activity, we managed to hunt out\nnearly all the old friends. One was missing, however; he went to his\nreward, whatever it was, two years ago. But I found out all about him.\nHis case helped me to realize how lasting can be the effect of a\nvery trifling occurrence. When he was an apprentice-blacksmith in our\nvillage, and I a schoolboy, a couple of young Englishmen came to the\ntown and sojourned a while; and one day they got themselves up in cheap\nroyal finery and did the Richard III swordfight with maniac energy and\nprodigious powwow, in the presence of the village boys. This blacksmith\ncub was there, and the histrionic poison entered his bones. This\nvast, lumbering, ignorant, dull-witted lout was stage-struck, and\nirrecoverably. He disappeared, and presently turned up in St. Louis.\nI ran across him there, by and by. He was standing musing on a street\ncorner, with his left hand on his hip, the thumb of his right supporting\nhis chin, face bowed and frowning, slouch hat pulled down over his\nforehead--imagining himself to be Othello or some such character, and\nimagining that the passing crowd marked his tragic bearing and were\nawestruck.\n\nI joined him, and tried to get him down out of the clouds, but did not\nsucceed. However, he casually informed me, presently, that he was a\nmember of the Walnut Street theater company--and he tried to say it with\nindifference, but the indifference was thin, and a mighty exultation\nshowed through it. He said he was cast for a part in Julius Caesar, for\nthat night, and if I should come I would see him. _If_ I should come! I\nsaid I wouldn't miss it if I were dead.\n\nI went away stupefied with astonishment, and saying to myself, 'How\nstrange it is! _We_ always thought this fellow a fool; yet the moment he\ncomes to a great city, where intelligence and appreciation abound,\nthe talent concealed in this shabby napkin is at once discovered, and\npromptly welcomed and honored.'\n\nBut I came away from the theater that night disappointed and offended;\nfor I had had no glimpse of my hero, and his name was not in the bills.\nI met him on the street the next morning, and before I could speak, he\nasked--\n\n'Did you see me?'\n\n'No, you weren't there.'\n\nHe looked surprised and disappointed. He said--\n\n'Yes, I was. Indeed I was. I was a Roman soldier.'\n\n'Which one?'\n\n'Why didn't you see them Roman soldiers that stood back there in a rank,\nand sometimes marched in procession around the stage?'\n\n'Do you mean the Roman army?--those six sandaled roustabouts in\nnightshirts, with tin shields and helmets, that marched around treading\non each other's heels, in charge of a spider-legged consumptive dressed\nlike themselves?'\n\n'That's it! that's it! I was one of them Roman soldiers. I was the next\nto the last one. A half a year ago I used to always be the last one; but\nI've been promoted.'\n\nWell, they told me that that poor fellow remained a Roman soldier to\nthe last--a matter of thirty-four years. Sometimes they cast him for a\n'speaking part,' but not an elaborate one. He could be trusted to go\nand say, 'My lord, the carriage waits,' but if they ventured to add a\nsentence or two to this, his memory felt the strain and he was likely to\nmiss fire. Yet, poor devil, he had been patiently studying the part of\nHamlet for more than thirty years, and he lived and died in the belief\nthat some day he would be invited to play it!\n\nAnd this is what came of that fleeting visit of those young Englishmen\nto our village such ages and ages ago! What noble horseshoes this man\nmight have made, but for those Englishmen; and what an inadequate Roman\nsoldier he _did _make!\n\nA day or two after we reached St. Louis, I was walking along Fourth\nStreet when a grizzly-headed man gave a sort of start as he passed me,\nthen stopped, came back, inspected me narrowly, with a clouding brow,\nand finally said with deep asperity--\n\n'Look here, _have you got that drink yet?_'\n\nA maniac, I judged, at first. But all in a flash I recognized him. I\nmade an effort to blush that strained every muscle in me, and answered\nas sweetly and winningly as ever I knew how--\n\n'Been a little slow, but am just this minute closing in on the place\nwhere they keep it. Come in and help.'\n\nHe softened, and said make it a bottle of champagne and he was\nagreeable. He said he had seen my name in the papers, and had put all\nhis affairs aside and turned out, resolved to find me or die; and make\nme answer that question satisfactorily, or kill me; though the most of\nhis late asperity had been rather counterfeit than otherwise.\n\nThis meeting brought back to me the St. Louis riots of about thirty\nyears ago. I spent a week there, at that time, in a boarding-house, and\nhad this young fellow for a neighbor across the hall. We saw some of\nthe fightings and killings; and by and by we went one night to an armory\nwhere two hundred young men had met, upon call, to be armed and go forth\nagainst the rioters, under command of a military man. We drilled till\nabout ten o'clock at night; then news came that the mob were in great\nforce in the lower end of the town, and were sweeping everything before\nthem. Our column moved at once. It was a very hot night, and my musket\nwas very heavy. We marched and marched; and the nearer we approached the\nseat of war, the hotter I grew and the thirstier I got. I was behind my\nfriend; so, finally, I asked him to hold my musket while I dropped out\nand got a drink. Then I branched off and went home. I was not feeling\nany solicitude about him of course, because I knew he was so well armed,\nnow, that he could take care of himself without any trouble. If I had\nhad any doubts about that, I would have borrowed another musket for him.\nI left the city pretty early the next morning, and if this grizzled man\nhad not happened to encounter my name in the papers the other day in St.\nLouis, and felt moved to seek me out, I should have carried to my grave\na heart-torturing uncertainty as to whether he ever got out of the riots\nall right or not. I ought to have inquired, thirty years ago; I know\nthat. And I would have inquired, if I had had the muskets; but, in the\ncircumstances, he seemed better fixed to conduct the investigations than\nI was.\n\nOne Monday, near the time of our visit to St. Louis, the\n'Globe-Democrat' came out with a couple of pages of Sunday statistics,\nwhereby it appeared that 119,448 St. Louis people attended the morning\nand evening church services the day before, and 23,102 children attended\nSunday-school. Thus 142,550 persons, out of the city's total of 400,000\npopulation, respected the day religious-wise. I found these statistics,\nin a condensed form, in a telegram of the Associated Press, and\npreserved them. They made it apparent that St. Louis was in a higher\nstate of grace than she could have claimed to be in my time. But now\nthat I canvass the figures narrowly, I suspect that the telegraph\nmutilated them. It cannot be that there are more than 150,000 Catholics\nin the town; the other 250,000 must be classified as Protestants. Out\nof these 250,000, according to this questionable telegram, only 26,362\nattended church and Sunday-school, while out of the 150,000 Catholics,\n116,188 went to church and Sunday-school.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 52\n\nA Burning Brand\n\n_All _at once the thought came into my mind, 'I have not sought out Mr.\nBrown.'\n\nUpon that text I desire to depart from the direct line of my subject,\nand make a little excursion. I wish to reveal a secret which I have\ncarried with me nine years, and which has become burdensome.\n\nUpon a certain occasion, nine years ago, I had said, with strong\nfeeling, 'If ever I see St. Louis again, I will seek out Mr. Brown, the\ngreat grain merchant, and ask of him the privilege of shaking him by the\nhand.'\n\nThe occasion and the circumstances were as follows. A friend of mine, a\nclergyman, came one evening and said--\n\n'I have a most remarkable letter here, which I want to read to you, if\nI can do it without breaking down. I must preface it with some\nexplanations, however. The letter is written by an ex-thief and\nex-vagabond of the lowest origin and basest rearing, a man all stained\nwith crime and steeped in ignorance; but, thank God, with a mine of pure\ngold hidden away in him, as you shall see. His letter is written to a\nburglar named Williams, who is serving a nine-year term in a certain\nState prison, for burglary. Williams was a particularly daring burglar,\nand plied that trade during a number of years; but he was caught at last\nand jailed, to await trial in a town where he had broken into a house at\nnight, pistol in hand, and forced the owner to hand over to him $8,000\nin government bonds. Williams was not a common sort of person, by\nany means; he was a graduate of Harvard College, and came of good New\nEngland stock. His father was a clergyman. While lying in jail, his\nhealth began to fail, and he was threatened with consumption. This\nfact, together with the opportunity for reflection afforded by solitary\nconfinement, had its effect--its natural effect. He fell into serious\nthought; his early training asserted itself with power, and wrought with\nstrong influence upon his mind and heart. He put his old life behind\nhim, and became an earnest Christian. Some ladies in the town heard of\nthis, visited him, and by their encouraging words supported him in his\ngood resolutions and strengthened him to continue in his new life. The\ntrial ended in his conviction and sentence to the State prison for\nthe term of nine years, as I have before said. In the prison he became\nacquainted with the poor wretch referred to in the beginning of my talk,\nJack Hunt, the writer of the letter which I am going to read. You will\nsee that the acquaintanceship bore fruit for Hunt. When Hunt's time was\nout, he wandered to St. Louis; and from that place he wrote his letter\nto Williams. The letter got no further than the office of the prison\nwarden, of course; prisoners are not often allowed to receive letters\nfrom outside. The prison authorities read this letter, but did not\ndestroy it. They had not the heart to do it. They read it to several\npersons, and eventually it fell into the hands of those ladies of whom I\nspoke a while ago. The other day I came across an old friend of mine--a\nclergyman--who had seen this letter, and was full of it. The mere\nremembrance of it so moved him that he could not talk of it without\nhis voice breaking. He promised to get a copy of it for me; and here it\nis--an exact copy, with all the imperfections of the original preserved.\nIt has many slang expressions in it--thieves' argot--but their meaning\nhas been interlined, in parentheses, by the prison authorities'--\n\nSt. Louis, June 9th 1872.\n\nMr. W---- friend Charlie if i may call you so: i no you are surprised to\nget a letter from me, but i hope you won't be mad at my writing to you.\ni want to tell you my thanks for the way you talked to me when i was in\nprison--it has led me to try and be a better man; i guess you thought\ni did not cair for what you said, & at the first go off I didn't, but i\nnoed you was a man who had don big work with good men & want no sucker,\nnor want gasing & all the boys knod it.\n\nI used to think at nite what you said, & for it i nocked off swearing\nmonths before my time was up, for i saw it want no good, nohow--the day\nmy time was up you told me if i would shake the cross (_quit stealing_)\n& live on the square for months, it would be the best job i ever done\nin my life. The state agent give me a ticket to here, & on the car i\nthought more of what you said to me, but didn't make up my mind. When\nwe got to Chicago on the cars from there to here, I pulled off an old\nwoman's leather;\n\n(_Robbed her of her pocketbook_) i hadn't no more than got it off when i\nwished i hadn't done it, for awhile before that i made up my mind to be\na square bloke, for months on your word, but forgot it when i saw the\nleather was a grip (_easy to get_)--but i kept clos to her & when she\ngot out of the cars at a way place i said, marm have you lost anything.\n& she tumbled (_discovered_) her leather was off (_gone_)--is this\nit says i, giving it to her--well if you aint honest, says she, but i\nhadn't got cheak enough to stand that sort of talk, so i left her in a\nhurry. When i got here i had $1 and 25 cents left & i didn't get no work\nfor 3 days as i aint strong enough for roust about on a steam bote (_for\na deck hand_)--The afternoon of the 3rd day I spent my last 10 cts for\nmoons (_large, round sea-biscuit_) & cheese & i felt pretty rough & was\nthinking i would have to go on the dipe (_picking pockets_) again, when\ni thought of what you once said about a fellows calling on the Lord when\nhe was in hard luck, & i thought i would try it once anyhow, but when i\ntryed it i got stuck on the start, & all i could get off wos, Lord give\na poor fellow a chance to square it for 3 months for Christ's sake,\namen; & i kept a thinking, of it over and over as i went along--about an\nhour after that i was in 4th St. & this is what happened & is the cause\nof my being where i am now & about which i will tell you before i get\ndone writing. As i was walking along herd a big noise & saw a horse\nrunning away with a carriage with 2 children in it, & I grabed up a\npeace of box cover from the side walk & run in the middle of the street,\n& when the horse came up i smashed him over the head as hard as i could\ndrive--the bord split to peces & the horse checked up a little &\nI grabbed the reigns & pulled his head down until he stopped--the\ngentleman what owned him came running up & soon as he saw the children\nwere all rite, he shook hands with me and gave me a $50 green back, & my\nasking the Lord to help me come into my head, & i was so thunderstruck i\ncouldn't drop the reigns nor say nothing--he saw something was up, &\n\ncoming back to me said, my boy are you hurt? & the thought come into my\nhead just then to ask him for work; & i asked him to take back the bill\nand give me a job--says he, jump in here & lets talk about it, but keep\nthe money--he asked me if i could take care of horses & i said yes, for\ni used to hang round livery stables & often would help clean & drive\nhorses, he told me he wanted a man for that work, & would give me $16\na month & bord me. You bet i took that chance at once. that nite in my\nlittle room over the stable i sat a long time thinking over my past life\n& of what had just happened & i just got down on my nees & thanked the\nLord for the job & to help me to square it, & to bless you for putting\nme up to it, & the next morning i done it again & got me some new togs\n(clothes) & a bible for i made up my mind after what the Lord had done\nfor me i would read the bible every nite and morning, & ask him to keep\nan eye on me. When I had been there about a week Mr. Brown (that's his\nname) came in my room one nite and saw me reading the bible--he asked me\nif i was a Christian & i told him no--he asked me how it was i read the\nbible instead of papers & books--Well Charlie i thought i had better\ngive him a square deal in the start, so i told him all about my being in\nprison & about you, & how i had almost done give up looking for work &\nhow the Lord got me the job when I asked him; & the only way i had to\npay him back was to read the bible & square it, & i asked him to give me\na chance for 3 months--he talked to me like a father for a long time,\n& told me i could stay & then i felt better than ever i had done in my\nlife, for i had given Mr. Brown a fair start with me & now i didn't fear\nno one giving me a back cap (_exposing his past life_) & running me\noff the job--the next morning he called me into the library & gave me\nanother square talk, & advised me to study some every day, & he would\nhelp me one or 2 hours every nite, & he gave me a Arithmetic, a spelling\nbook, a Geography & a writing book, & he hers me every nite--he lets me\ncome into the house to prayers every morning, & got me put in a bible\nclass in the Sunday School which i likes very much for it helps me to\nunderstand my bible better.\n\nNow, Charlie the 3 months on the square are up 2 months ago, & as you\nsaid, it is the best job i ever did in my life, & i commenced another\nof the same sort right away, only it is to God helping me to last a\nlifetime Charlie--i wrote this letter to tell you I do think God has\nforgiven my sins & herd your prayers, for you told me you should pray\nfor me--i no i love to read his word & tell him all my troubles & he\nhelps me i know for i have plenty of chances to steal but i don't feel\nto as i once did & now i take more pleasure in going to church than to\nthe theater & that wasnt so once--our minister and others often talk\nwith me & a month ago they wanted me to join the church, but I said no,\nnot now, i may be mistaken in my feelings, i will wait awhile, but now\ni feel that God has called me & on the first Sunday in July i will join\nthe church--dear friend i wish i could write to you as i feel, but i\ncant do it yet--you no i learned to read and write while prisons & i\naint got well enough along to write as i would talk; i no i aint spelled\nall the words rite in this & lots of other mistakes but you will excuse\nit i no, for you no i was brought up in a poor house until i run away, &\nthat i never new who my father and mother was & i dont no my right name,\n& i hope you wont be mad at me, but i have as much rite to one name as\nanother & i have taken your name, for you wont use it when you get out\ni no, & you are the man i think most of in the world; so i hope you wont\nbe mad--I am doing well, i put $10 a month in bank with $25 of the $50--\nif you ever want any or all of it let me know, & it is yours. i wish\nyou would let me send you some now. I send you with this a receipt for\na year of Littles Living Age, i didn't know what you would like & i told\nMr. Brown & he said he thought you would like it--i wish i was nere you\nso i could send you chuck (_refreshments_) on holidays; it would spoil\nthis weather from here, but i will send you a box next thanksgiving any\nway--next week Mr. Brown takes me into his store as lite porter & will\nadvance me as soon as i know a little more--he keeps a big granary\nstore, wholesale--i forgot to tell you of my mission school, sunday\nschool class--the school is in the sunday afternoon, i went out two\nsunday afternoons, and picked up seven kids (_little boys_) & got them\nto come in. two of them new as much as i did & i had them put in a class\nwhere they could learn something. i dont no much myself, but as these\nkids cant read i get on nicely with them. i make sure of them by going\nafter them every Sunday hour before school time, I also got 4 girls\nto come. tell Mack and Harry about me, if they will come out here when\ntheir time is up i will get them jobs at once. i hope you will excuse\nthis long letter & all mistakes, i wish i could see you for i cant write\nas i would talk--i hope the warm weather is doing your lungs good--i was\nafraid when you was bleeding you would die--give my respects to all the\nboys and tell them how i am doing--i am doing well and every one here\ntreats me as kind as they can--Mr. Brown is going to write to you\nsometime--i hope some day you will write to me, this letter is from your\nvery true friend\n\nC---- W----\n\nwho you know as Jack Hunt.\n\nI send you Mr. Brown's card. Send my letter to him.\n\nHere was true eloquence; irresistible eloquence; and without a single\ngrace or ornament to help it out. I have seldom been so deeply stirred\nby any piece of writing. The reader of it halted, all the way through,\non a lame and broken voice; yet he had tried to fortify his feelings\nby several private readings of the letter before venturing into company\nwith it. He was practising upon me to see if there was any hope of his\nbeing able to read the document to his prayer-meeting with anything\nlike a decent command over his feelings. The result was not promising.\nHowever, he determined to risk it; and did. He got through tolerably\nwell; but his audience broke down early, and stayed in that condition to\nthe end.\n\nThe fame of the letter spread through the town. A brother minister came\nand borrowed the manuscript, put it bodily into a sermon, preached the\nsermon to twelve hundred people on a Sunday morning, and the letter\ndrowned them in their own tears. Then my friend put it into a sermon and\nwent before his Sunday morning congregation with it. It scored another\ntriumph. The house wept as one individual.\n\nMy friend went on summer vacation up into the fishing regions of our\nnorthern British neighbors, and carried this sermon with him, since he\nmight possibly chance to need a sermon. He was asked to preach, one day.\nThe little church was full. Among the people present were the late Dr.\nJ. G. Holland, the late Mr. Seymour of the 'New York Times,' Mr. Page,\nthe philanthropist and temperance advocate, and, I think, Senator Frye,\nof Maine. The marvelous letter did its wonted work; all the people were\nmoved, all the people wept; the tears flowed in a steady stream down Dr.\nHolland's cheeks, and nearly the same can be said with regard to all who\nwere there. Mr. Page was so full of enthusiasm over the letter that he\nsaid he would not rest until he made pilgrimage to that prison, and had\nspeech with the man who had been able to inspire a fellow-unfortunate to\nwrite so priceless a tract.\n\nAh, that unlucky Page!--and another man. If they had only been in\nJericho, that letter would have rung through the world and stirred all\nthe hearts of all the nations for a thousand years to come, and nobody\nmight ever have found out that it was the confoundedest, brazenest,\ningeniousest piece of fraud and humbuggery that was ever concocted to\nfool poor confiding mortals with!\n\nThe letter was a pure swindle, and that is the truth. And take it by and\nlarge, it was without a compeer among swindles. It was perfect, it was\nrounded, symmetrical, complete, colossal!\n\nThe reader learns it at this point; but we didn't learn it till some\nmiles and weeks beyond this stage of the affair. My friend came back\nfrom the woods, and he and other clergymen and lay missionaries began\nonce more to inundate audiences with their tears and the tears of\nsaid audiences; I begged hard for permission to print the letter in a\nmagazine and tell the watery story of its triumphs; numbers of people\ngot copies of the letter, with permission to circulate them in writing,\nbut not in print; copies were sent to the Sandwich Islands and other far\nregions.\n\nCharles Dudley Warner was at church, one day, when the worn letter\nwas read and wept over. At the church door, afterward, he dropped a\npeculiarly cold iceberg down the clergyman's back with the question--\n\n'Do you know that letter to be genuine?'\n\nIt was the first suspicion that had ever been voiced; but it had that\nsickening effect which first-uttered suspicions against one's idol\nalways have. Some talk followed--\n\n'Why--what should make you suspect that it isn't genuine?'\n\n'Nothing that I know of, except that it is too neat, and compact, and\nfluent, and nicely put together for an ignorant person, an unpractised\nhand. I think it was done by an educated man.'\n\nThe literary artist had detected the literary machinery. If you will\nlook at the letter now, you will detect it yourself--it is observable in\nevery line.\n\nStraightway the clergyman went off, with this seed of suspicion\nsprouting in him, and wrote to a minister residing in that town where\nWilliams had been jailed and converted; asked for light; and also asked\nif a person in the literary line (meaning me) might be allowed to print\nthe letter and tell its history. He presently received this answer--\n\nRev.--------\n\nMY dear friend,--In regard to that 'convict's letter' there can be no\ndoubt as to its genuineness. 'Williams,' to whom it was written, lay in\nour jail and professed to have been converted, and Rev. Mr.----, the\nchaplain, had great faith in the genuineness of the change--as much as\none can have in any such case.\n\nThe letter was sent to one of our ladies, who is a Sunday-school\nteacher,--sent either by Williams himself, or the chaplain of the\nState's prison, probably. She has been greatly annoyed in having so much\npublicity, lest it might seem a breach of confidence, or be an injury to\nWilliams. In regard to its publication, I can give no permission; though\nif the names and places were omitted, and especially if sent out of the\ncountry, I think you might take the responsibility and do it.\n\nIt is a wonderful letter, which no Christian genius, much less one\nunsanctified, could ever have written. As showing the work of grace in\na human heart, and in a very degraded and wicked one, it proves its own\norigin and reproves our weak faith in its power to cope with any form of\nwickedness.\n\n'Mr. Brown' of St. Louis, some one said, was a Hartford man. Do all whom\nyou send from Hartford serve their Master as well?\n\nP.S.--Williams is still in the State's prison, serving out a long\nsentence--of nine years, I think. He has been sick and threatened with\nconsumption, but I have not inquired after him lately. This lady that I\nspeak of corresponds with him, I presume, and will be quite sure to look\nafter him.\n\nThis letter arrived a few days after it was written--and up went Mr.\nWilliams's stock again. Mr. Warner's low-down suspicion was laid in the\ncold, cold grave, where it apparently belonged. It was a suspicion\nbased upon mere internal evidence, anyway; and when you come to internal\nevidence, it's a big field and a game that two can play at: as witness\nthis other internal evidence, discovered by the writer of the note above\nquoted, that 'it is a wonderful letter--which no Christian genius, much\nless one unsanctified, could ever have written.'\n\nI had permission now to print--provided I suppressed names and places\nand sent my narrative out of the country. So I chose an Australian\nmagazine for vehicle, as being far enough out of the country, and set\nmyself to work on my article. And the ministers set the pumps going\nagain, with the letter to work the handles.\n\nBut meantime Brother Page had been agitating. He had not visited the\npenitentiary, but he had sent a copy of the illustrious letter to\nthe chaplain of that institution, and accompanied it with--apparently\ninquiries. He got an answer, dated four days later than that other\nBrother's reassuring epistle; and before my article was complete, it\nwandered into my hands. The original is before me, now, and I here\nappend it. It is pretty well loaded with internal evidence of the most\nsolid description--\n\nSTATE'S PRISON, CHAPLAIN'S OFFICE, July 11, 1873.\n\n_Dear Bro. Page_,--Herewith please find the letter kindly loaned me.\nI am afraid its genuineness cannot be established. It purports to be\naddressed to some prisoner here. No such letter ever came to a prisoner\nhere. All letters received are carefully read by officers of the prison\nbefore they go into the hands of the convicts, and any such letter could\nnot be forgotten. Again, Charles Williams is not a Christian man, but a\ndissolute, cunning prodigal, whose father is a minister of the gospel.\nHis name is an assumed one. I am glad to have made your acquaintance.\nI am preparing a lecture upon life seen through prison bars, and should\nlike to deliver the same in your vicinity.\n\nAnd so ended that little drama. My poor article went into the fire;\nfor whereas the materials for it were now more abundant and infinitely\nricher than they had previously been, there were parties all around\nme, who, although longing for the publication before, were a unit\nfor suppression at this stage and complexion of the game. They said:\n'Wait--the wound is too fresh, yet.' All the copies of the famous\nletter except mine disappeared suddenly; and from that time onward, the\naforetime same old drought set in in the churches. As a rule, the town\nwas on a spacious grin for a while, but there were places in it where\nthe grin did not appear, and where it was dangerous to refer to the\nex-convict's letter.\n\nA word of explanation. 'Jack Hunt,' the professed writer of the letter,\nwas an imaginary person. The burglar Williams--Harvard graduate, son of\na minister--wrote the letter himself, to himself: got it smuggled out of\nthe prison; got it conveyed to persons who had supported and encouraged\nhim in his conversion--where he knew two things would happen: the\ngenuineness of the letter would not be doubted or inquired into; and the\nnub of it would be noticed, and would have valuable effect--the effect,\nindeed, of starting a movement to get Mr. Williams pardoned out of\nprison.\n\nThat 'nub' is so ingeniously, so casually, flung in, and immediately\nleft there in the tail of the letter, undwelt upon, that an indifferent\nreader would never suspect that it was the heart and core of the\nepistle, if he even took note of it at all, This is the 'nub'--\n\n'i hope the warm weather is doing your lungs good--_I was afraid when\nyou was bleeding you would die_--give my respects,' etc.\n\nThat is all there is of it--simply touch and go--no dwelling upon it.\nNevertheless it was intended for an eye that would be swift to see it;\nand it was meant to move a kind heart to try to effect the liberation\nof a poor reformed and purified fellow lying in the fell grip of\nconsumption.\n\nWhen I for the first time heard that letter read, nine years ago, I felt\nthat it was the most remarkable one I had ever encountered. And it\nso warmed me toward Mr. Brown of St. Louis that I said that if ever I\nvisited that city again, I would seek out that excellent man and kiss\nthe hem of his garment if it was a new one. Well, I visited St. Louis,\nbut I did not hunt for Mr. Brown; for, alas! the investigations of long\nago had proved that the benevolent Brown, like 'Jack Hunt,' was not a\nreal person, but a sheer invention of that gifted rascal, Williams--\nburglar, Harvard graduate, son of a clergyman.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 53\n\nMy Boyhood's Home\n\nWE took passage in one of the fast boats of the St. Louis and St. Paul\nPacket Company, and started up the river.\n\nWhen I, as a boy, first saw the mouth of the Missouri River, it was\ntwenty-two or twenty-three miles above St. Louis, according to the\nestimate of pilots; the wear and tear of the banks have moved it down\neight miles since then; and the pilots say that within five years the\nriver will cut through and move the mouth down five miles more, which\nwill bring it within ten miles of St. Louis.\n\nAbout nightfall we passed the large and flourishing town of Alton,\nIllinois; and before daylight next morning the town of Louisiana,\nMissouri, a sleepy village in my day, but a brisk railway center now;\nhowever, all the towns out there are railway centers now. I could not\nclearly recognize the place. This seemed odd to me, for when I retired\nfrom the rebel army in '61 I retired upon Louisiana in good order; at\nleast in good enough order for a person who had not yet learned how\nto retreat according to the rules of war, and had to trust to native\ngenius. It seemed to me that for a first attempt at a retreat it was not\nbadly done. I had done no advancing in all that campaign that was at all\nequal to it.\n\nThere was a railway bridge across the river here well sprinkled with\nglowing lights, and a very beautiful sight it was.\n\nAt seven in the morning we reached Hannibal, Missouri, where my boyhood\nwas spent. I had had a glimpse of it fifteen years ago, and another\nglimpse six years earlier, but both were so brief that they hardly\ncounted. The only notion of the town that remained in my mind was the\nmemory of it as I had known it when I first quitted it twenty-nine\nyears ago. That picture of it was still as clear and vivid to me as a\nphotograph. I stepped ashore with the feeling of one who returns out of\na dead-and-gone generation. I had a sort of realizing sense of what the\nBastille prisoners must have felt when they used to come out and look\nupon Paris after years of captivity, and note how curiously the familiar\nand the strange were mixed together before them. I saw the new houses--\nsaw them plainly enough--but they did not affect the older picture in\nmy mind, for through their solid bricks and mortar I saw the vanished\nhouses, which had formerly stood there, with perfect distinctness.\n\nIt was Sunday morning, and everybody was abed yet. So I passed through\nthe vacant streets, still seeing the town as it was, and not as it is,\nand recognizing and metaphorically shaking hands with a hundred familiar\nobjects which no longer exist; and finally climbed Holiday's Hill to get\na comprehensive view. The whole town lay spread out below me then, and I\ncould mark and fix every locality, every detail. Naturally, I was a good\ndeal moved. I said, 'Many of the people I once knew in this tranquil\nrefuge of my childhood are now in heaven; some, I trust, are in the\nother place.' The things about me and before me made me feel like a boy\nagain--convinced me that I was a boy again, and that I had simply been\ndreaming an unusually long dream; but my reflections spoiled all that;\nfor they forced me to say, 'I see fifty old houses down yonder, into\neach of which I could enter and find either a man or a woman who was a\nbaby or unborn when I noticed those houses last, or a grandmother who\nwas a plump young bride at that time.'\n\nFrom this vantage ground the extensive view up and down the river, and\nwide over the wooded expanses of Illinois, is very beautiful--one of the\nmost beautiful on the Mississippi, I think; which is a hazardous remark\nto make, for the eight hundred miles of river between St. Louis and St.\nPaul afford an unbroken succession of lovely pictures. It may be that\nmy affection for the one in question biases my judgment in its favor; I\ncannot say as to that. No matter, it was satisfyingly beautiful to me,\nand it had this advantage over all the other friends whom I was about\nto greet again: it had suffered no change; it was as young and fresh\nand comely and gracious as ever it had been; whereas, the faces of the\nothers would be old, and scarred with the campaigns of life, and marked\nwith their griefs and defeats, and would give me no upliftings of\nspirit.\n\nAn old gentleman, out on an early morning walk, came along, and we\ndiscussed the weather, and then drifted into other matters. I could not\nremember his face. He said he had been living here twenty-eight years.\nSo he had come after my time, and I had never seen him before. I asked\nhim various questions; first about a mate of mine in Sunday school--what\nbecame of him?\n\n'He graduated with honor in an Eastern college, wandered off into the\nworld somewhere, succeeded at nothing, passed out of knowledge and\nmemory years ago, and is supposed to have gone to the dogs.'\n\n'He was bright, and promised well when he was a boy.'\n\n'Yes, but the thing that happened is what became of it all.'\n\nI asked after another lad, altogether the brightest in our village\nschool when I was a boy.\n\n'He, too, was graduated with honors, from an Eastern college; but life\nwhipped him in every battle, straight along, and he died in one of the\nTerritories, years ago, a defeated man.'\n\nI asked after another of the bright boys.\n\n'He is a success, always has been, always will be, I think.'\n\nI inquired after a young fellow who came to the town to study for one of\nthe professions when I was a boy.\n\n'He went at something else before he got through--went from medicine to\nlaw, or from law to medicine--then to some other new thing; went away\nfor a year, came back with a young wife; fell to drinking, then to\ngambling behind the door; finally took his wife and two young children\nto her father's, and went off to Mexico; went from bad to worse, and\nfinally died there, without a cent to buy a shroud, and without a friend\nto attend the funeral.'\n\n'Pity, for he was the best-natured, and most cheery and hopeful young\nfellow that ever was.'\n\nI named another boy.\n\n'Oh, he is all right. Lives here yet; has a wife and children, and is\nprospering.'\n\nSame verdict concerning other boys.\n\nI named three school-girls.\n\n'The first two live here, are married and have children; the other is\nlong ago dead--never married.'\n\nI named, with emotion, one of my early sweethearts.\n\n'She is all right. Been married three times; buried two husbands,\ndivorced from the third, and I hear she is getting ready to marry an old\nfellow out in Colorado somewhere. She's got children scattered around\nhere and there, most everywheres.'\n\nThe answer to several other inquiries was brief and simple--\n\n'Killed in the war.'\n\nI named another boy.\n\n'Well, now, his case is curious! There wasn't a human being in this town\nbut knew that that boy was a perfect chucklehead; perfect dummy; just\na stupid ass, as you may say. Everybody knew it, and everybody said it.\nWell, if that very boy isn't the first lawyer in the State of Missouri\nto-day, I'm a Democrat!'\n\n'Is that so?'\n\n'It's actually so. I'm telling you the truth.'\n\n'How do you account for it?'\n\n'Account for it? There ain't any accounting for it, except that if you\nsend a damned fool to St. Louis, and you don't tell them he's a damned\nfool they'll never find it out. There's one thing sure--if I had a\ndamned fool I should know what to do with him: ship him to St. Louis--\nit's the noblest market in the world for that kind of property. Well,\nwhen you come to look at it all around, and chew at it and think it\nover, don't it just bang anything you ever heard of?'\n\n'Well, yes, it does seem to. But don't you think maybe it was the\nHannibal people who were mistaken about the boy, and not the St. Louis\npeople.'\n\n'Oh, nonsense! The people here have known him from the very cradle--\nthey knew him a hundred times better than the St. Louis idiots could\nhave known him. No, if you have got any damned fools that you want to\nrealize on, take my advice--send them to St. Louis.'\n\nI mentioned a great number of people whom I had formerly known. Some\nwere dead, some were gone away, some had prospered, some had come\nto naught; but as regarded a dozen or so of the lot, the answer was\ncomforting:\n\n'Prosperous--live here yet--town littered with their children.'\n\nI asked about Miss----.\n\nDied in the insane asylum three or four years ago--never was out of it\nfrom the time she went in; and was always suffering, too; never got a\nshred of her mind back.'\n\nIf he spoke the truth, here was a heavy tragedy, indeed. Thirty-six\nyears in a madhouse, that some young fools might have some fun! I was\na small boy, at the time; and I saw those giddy young ladies come\ntiptoeing into the room where Miss ---- sat reading at midnight by a\nlamp. The girl at the head of the file wore a shroud and a doughface,\nshe crept behind the victim, touched her on the shoulder, and she looked\nup and screamed, and then fell into convulsions. She did not recover\nfrom the fright, but went mad. In these days it seems incredible that\npeople believed in ghosts so short a time ago. But they did.\n\nAfter asking after such other folk as I could call to mind, I finally\ninquired about _myself_:\n\n'Oh, he succeeded well enough--another case of damned fool. If they'd\nsent him to St. Louis, he'd have succeeded sooner.'\n\nIt was with much satisfaction that I recognized the wisdom of having\ntold this candid gentleman, in the beginning, that my name was Smith.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 54\n\nPast and Present\n\nBeing left to myself, up there, I went on picking out old houses in the\ndistant town, and calling back their former inmates out of the moldy\npast. Among them I presently recognized the house of the father of Lem\nHackett (fictitious name). It carried me back more than a generation in\na moment, and landed me in the midst of a time when the happenings of\nlife were not the natural and logical results of great general laws,\nbut of special orders, and were freighted with very precise and distinct\npurposes--partly punitive in intent, partly admonitory; and usually\nlocal in application.\n\nWhen I was a small boy, Lem Hackett was drowned--on a Sunday. He fell\nout of an empty flat-boat, where he was playing. Being loaded with sin,\nhe went to the bottom like an anvil. He was the only boy in the village\nwho slept that night. We others all lay awake, repenting. We had not\nneeded the information, delivered from the pulpit that evening, that\nLem's was a case of special judgment--we knew that, already. There was\na ferocious thunder-storm, that night, and it raged continuously until\nnear dawn. The winds blew, the windows rattled, the rain swept along\nthe roof in pelting sheets, and at the briefest of intervals the inky\nblackness of the night vanished, the houses over the way glared out\nwhite and blinding for a quivering instant, then the solid darkness shut\ndown again and a splitting peal of thunder followed, which seemed to\nrend everything in the neighborhood to shreds and splinters. I sat up\nin bed quaking and shuddering, waiting for the destruction of the world,\nand expecting it. To me there was nothing strange or incongruous in\nheaven's making such an uproar about Lem Hackett. Apparently it was the\nright and proper thing to do. Not a doubt entered my mind that all the\nangels were grouped together, discussing this boy's case and observing\nthe awful bombardment of our beggarly little village with satisfaction\nand approval. There was one thing which disturbed me in the most serious\nway; that was the thought that this centering of the celestial interest\non our village could not fail to attract the attention of the observers\nto people among us who might otherwise have escaped notice for years.\nI felt that I was not only one of those people, but the very one most\nlikely to be discovered. That discovery could have but one result: I\nshould be in the fire with Lem before the chill of the river had been\nfairly warmed out of him. I knew that this would be only just and fair.\nI was increasing the chances against myself all the time, by feeling a\nsecret bitterness against Lem for having attracted this fatal attention\nto me, but I could not help it--this sinful thought persisted in\ninfesting my breast in spite of me. Every time the lightning glared\nI caught my breath, and judged I was gone. In my terror and misery, I\nmeanly began to suggest other boys, and mention acts of theirs which\nwere wickeder than mine, and peculiarly needed punishment--and I tried\nto pretend to myself that I was simply doing this in a casual way, and\nwithout intent to divert the heavenly attention to them for the purpose\nof getting rid of it myself. With deep sagacity I put these\nmentions into the form of sorrowing recollections and left-handed\nsham-supplications that the sins of those boys might be allowed to pass\nunnoticed--'Possibly they may repent.' 'It is true that Jim Smith broke\na window and lied about it--but maybe he did not mean any harm. And\nalthough Tom Holmes says more bad words than any other boy in the\nvillage, he probably intends to repent--though he has never said he\nwould. And whilst it is a fact that John Jones did fish a little on\nSunday, once, he didn't really catch anything but only just one small\nuseless mud-cat; and maybe that wouldn't have been so awful if he had\nthrown it back--as he says he did, but he didn't. Pity but they would\nrepent of these dreadful things--and maybe they will yet.'\n\nBut while I was shamefully trying to draw attention to these poor\nchaps--who were doubtless directing the celestial attention to me at the\nsame moment, though I never once suspected that--I had heedlessly\nleft my candle burning. It was not a time to neglect even trifling\nprecautions. There was no occasion to add anything to the facilities for\nattracting notice to me--so I put the light out.\n\nIt was a long night to me, and perhaps the most distressful one I\never spent. I endured agonies of remorse for sins which I knew I had\ncommitted, and for others which I was not certain about, yet was sure\nthat they had been set down against me in a book by an angel who was\nwiser than I and did not trust such important matters to memory.\nIt struck me, by and by, that I had been making a most foolish and\ncalamitous mistake, in one respect: doubtless I had not only made my\nown destruction sure by directing attention to those other boys, but had\nalready accomplished theirs!--Doubtless the lightning had stretched them\nall dead in their beds by this time! The anguish and the fright which\nthis thought gave me made my previous sufferings seem trifling by\ncomparison.\n\nThings had become truly serious. I resolved to turn over a new leaf\ninstantly; I also resolved to connect myself with the church the next\nday, if I survived to see its sun appear. I resolved to cease from sin\nin all its forms, and to lead a high and blameless life for ever after.\nI would be punctual at church and Sunday-school; visit the sick;\ncarry baskets of victuals to the poor (simply to fulfil the regulation\nconditions, although I knew we had none among us so poor but they would\nsmash the basket over my head for my pains); I would instruct other boys\nin right ways, and take the resulting trouncings meekly; I would subsist\nentirely on tracts; I would invade the rum shop and warn the drunkard--\nand finally, if I escaped the fate of those who early become too good to\nlive, I would go for a missionary.\n\nThe storm subsided toward daybreak, and I dozed gradually to sleep with\na sense of obligation to Lem Hackett for going to eternal suffering in\nthat abrupt way, and thus preventing a far more dreadful disaster--my\nown loss.\n\nBut when I rose refreshed, by and by, and found that those other boys\nwere still alive, I had a dim sense that perhaps the whole thing was\na false alarm; that the entire turmoil had been on Lem's account and\nnobody's else. The world looked so bright and safe that there did not\nseem to be any real occasion to turn over a new leaf. I was a little\nsubdued, during that day, and perhaps the next; after that, my purpose\nof reforming slowly dropped out of my mind, and I had a peaceful,\ncomfortable time again, until the next storm.\n\nThat storm came about three weeks later; and it was the most\nunaccountable one, to me, that I had ever experienced; for on the\nafternoon of that day, 'Dutchy' was drowned. Dutchy belonged to our\nSunday-school. He was a German lad who did not know enough to come in\nout of the rain; but he was exasperatingly good, and had a prodigious\nmemory. One Sunday he made himself the envy of all the youth and the\ntalk of all the admiring village, by reciting three thousand verses of\nScripture without missing a word; then he went off the very next day and\ngot drowned.\n\nCircumstances gave to his death a peculiar impressiveness. We were all\nbathing in a muddy creek which had a deep hole in it, and in this hole\nthe coopers had sunk a pile of green hickory hoop poles to soak, some\ntwelve feet under water. We were diving and 'seeing who could stay under\nlongest.' We managed to remain down by holding on to the hoop poles.\nDutchy made such a poor success of it that he was hailed with laughter\nand derision every time his head appeared above water. At last he seemed\nhurt with the taunts, and begged us to stand still on the bank and be\nfair with him and give him an honest count--'be friendly and kind just\nthis once, and not miscount for the sake of having the fun of laughing\nat him.' Treacherous winks were exchanged, and all said 'All right,\nDutchy--go ahead, we'll play fair.'\n\nDutchy plunged in, but the boys, instead of beginning to count, followed\nthe lead of one of their number and scampered to a range of blackberry\nbushes close by and hid behind it. They imagined Dutchy's humiliation,\nwhen he should rise after a superhuman effort and find the place silent\nand vacant, nobody there to applaud. They were 'so full of laugh' with\nthe idea, that they were continually exploding into muffled cackles.\nTime swept on, and presently one who was peeping through the briers,\nsaid, with surprise--\n\n'Why, he hasn't come up, yet!'\n\nThe laughing stopped.\n\n'Boys, it 's a splendid dive,' said one.\n\n'Never mind that,' said another, 'the joke on him is all the better for\nit.'\n\nThere was a remark or two more, and then a pause. Talking ceased, and\nall began to peer through the vines. Before long, the boys' faces\nbegan to look uneasy, then anxious, then terrified. Still there was no\nmovement of the placid water. Hearts began to beat fast, and faces\nto turn pale. We all glided out, silently, and stood on the bank, our\nhorrified eyes wandering back and forth from each other's countenances\nto the water.\n\n'Somebody must go down and see!'\n\nYes, that was plain; but nobody wanted that grisly task.\n\n'Draw straws!'\n\nSo we did--with hands which shook so, that we hardly knew what we were\nabout. The lot fell to me, and I went down. The water was so muddy I\ncould not see anything, but I felt around among the hoop poles, and\npresently grasped a limp wrist which gave me no response--and if it\nhad I should not have known it, I let it go with such a frightened\nsuddenness.\n\nThe boy had been caught among the hoop poles and entangled there,\nhelplessly. I fled to the surface and told the awful news. Some of\nus knew that if the boy were dragged out at once he might possibly\nbe resuscitated, but we never thought of that. We did not think of\nanything; we did not know what to do, so we did nothing--except that the\nsmaller lads cried, piteously, and we all struggled frantically into\nour clothes, putting on anybody's that came handy, and getting them\nwrong-side-out and upside-down, as a rule. Then we scurried away and\ngave the alarm, but none of us went back to see the end of the tragedy.\nWe had a more important thing to attend to: we all flew home, and lost\nnot a moment in getting ready to lead a better life.\n\nThe night presently closed down. Then came on that tremendous and\nutterly unaccountable storm. I was perfectly dazed; I could not\nunderstand it. It seemed to me that there must be some mistake. The\nelements were turned loose, and they rattled and banged and blazed away\nin the most blind and frantic manner. All heart and hope went out of\nme, and the dismal thought kept floating through my brain, 'If a boy who\nknows three thousand verses by heart is not satisfactory, what chance is\nthere for anybody else?'\n\nOf course I never questioned for a moment that the storm was on Dutchy's\naccount, or that he or any other inconsequential animal was worthy of\nsuch a majestic demonstration from on high; the lesson of it was the\nonly thing that troubled me; for it convinced me that if Dutchy, with\nall his perfections, was not a delight, it would be vain for me to turn\nover a new leaf, for I must infallibly fall hopelessly short of that\nboy, no matter how hard I might try. Nevertheless I did turn it over--a\nhighly educated fear compelled me to do that--but succeeding days of\ncheerfulness and sunshine came bothering around, and within a month\nI had so drifted backward that again I was as lost and comfortable as\never.\n\nBreakfast time approached while I mused these musings and called these\nancient happenings back to mind; so I got me back into the present and\nwent down the hill.\n\nOn my way through town to the hotel, I saw the house which was my home\nwhen I was a boy. At present rates, the people who now occupy it are of\nno more value than I am; but in my time they would have been worth not\nless than five hundred dollars apiece. They are colored folk.\n\nAfter breakfast, I went out alone again, intending to hunt up some of\nthe Sunday-schools and see how this generation of pupils might compare\nwith their progenitors who had sat with me in those places and had\nprobably taken me as a model--though I do not remember as to that now.\nBy the public square there had been in my day a shabby little brick\nchurch called the 'Old Ship of Zion,' which I had attended as a\nSunday-school scholar; and I found the locality easily enough, but not\nthe old church; it was gone, and a trig and rather hilarious new edifice\nwas in its place. The pupils were better dressed and better looking\nthan were those of my time; consequently they did not resemble their\nancestors; and consequently there was nothing familiar to me in their\nfaces. Still, I contemplated them with a deep interest and a yearning\nwistfulness, and if I had been a girl I would have cried; for they were\nthe offspring, and represented, and occupied the places, of boys and\ngirls some of whom I had loved to love, and some of whom I had loved to\nhate, but all of whom were dear to me for the one reason or the other,\nso many years gone by--and, Lord, where be they now!\n\nI was mightily stirred, and would have been grateful to be allowed to\nremain unmolested and look my fill; but a bald-summited superintendent\nwho had been a tow-headed Sunday-school mate of mine on that spot in the\nearly ages, recognized me, and I talked a flutter of wild nonsense to\nthose children to hide the thoughts which were in me, and which could\nnot have been spoken without a betrayal of feeling that would have been\nrecognized as out of character with me.\n\nMaking speeches without preparation is no gift of mine; and I was\nresolved to shirk any new opportunity, but in the next and larger\nSunday-school I found myself in the rear of the assemblage; so I was\nvery willing to go on the platform a moment for the sake of getting a\ngood look at the scholars. On the spur of the moment I could not recall\nany of the old idiotic talks which visitors used to insult me with when\nI was a pupil there; and I was sorry for this, since it would have given\nme time and excuse to dawdle there and take a long and satisfying look\nat what I feel at liberty to say was an array of fresh young comeliness\nnot matchable in another Sunday-school of the same size. As I talked\nmerely to get a chance to inspect; and as I strung out the random\nrubbish solely to prolong the inspection, I judged it but decent to\nconfess these low motives, and I did so.\n\nIf the Model Boy was in either of these Sunday-schools, I did not see\nhim. The Model Boy of my time--we never had but the one--was perfect:\nperfect in manners, perfect in dress, perfect in conduct, perfect in\nfilial piety, perfect in exterior godliness; but at bottom he was a\nprig; and as for the contents of his skull, they could have changed\nplace with the contents of a pie and nobody would have been the worse\noff for it but the pie. This fellow's reproachlessness was a standing\nreproach to every lad in the village. He was the admiration of all the\nmothers, and the detestation of all their sons. I was told what became\nof him, but as it was a disappointment to me, I will not enter into\ndetails. He succeeded in life.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 55\n\nA Vendetta and Other Things\n\nDURING my three days' stay in the town, I woke up every morning with the\nimpression that I was a boy--for in my dreams the faces were all young\nagain, and looked as they had looked in the old times--but I went to bed\na hundred years old, every night--for meantime I had been seeing those\nfaces as they are now.\n\nOf course I suffered some surprises, along at first, before I had become\nadjusted to the changed state of things. I met young ladies who did not\nseem to have changed at all; but they turned out to be the daughters of\nthe young ladies I had in mind--sometimes their grand-daughters. When\nyou are told that a stranger of fifty is a grandmother, there is nothing\nsurprising about it; but if, on the contrary, she is a person whom you\nknew as a little girl, it seems impossible. You say to yourself, 'How\ncan a little girl be a grandmother.' It takes some little time to accept\nand realize the fact that while you have been growing old, your friends\nhave not been standing still, in that matter.\n\nI noticed that the greatest changes observable were with the women, not\nthe men. I saw men whom thirty years had changed but slightly; but their\nwives had grown old. These were good women; it is very wearing to be\ngood.\n\nThere was a saddler whom I wished to see; but he was gone. Dead, these\nmany years, they said. Once or twice a day, the saddler used to go\ntearing down the street, putting on his coat as he went; and then\neverybody knew a steamboat was coming. Everybody knew, also, that John\nStavely was not expecting anybody by the boat--or any freight, either;\nand Stavely must have known that everybody knew this, still it made no\ndifference to him; he liked to seem to himself to be expecting a hundred\nthousand tons of saddles by this boat, and so he went on all his life,\nenjoying being faithfully on hand to receive and receipt for those\nsaddles, in case by any miracle they should come. A malicious Quincy\npaper used always to refer to this town, in derision as 'Stavely's\nLanding.' Stavely was one of my earliest admirations; I envied him his\nrush of imaginary business, and the display he was able to make of it,\nbefore strangers, as he went flying down the street struggling with his\nfluttering coat.\n\nBut there was a carpenter who was my chiefest hero. He was a mighty\nliar, but I did not know that; I believed everything he said. He was a\nromantic, sentimental, melodramatic fraud, and his bearing impressed\nme with awe. I vividly remember the first time he took me into his\nconfidence. He was planing a board, and every now and then he would\npause and heave a deep sigh; and occasionally mutter broken sentences--\nconfused and not intelligible--but out of their midst an ejaculation\nsometimes escaped which made me shiver and did me good: one was, 'O God,\nit is his blood!' I sat on the tool-chest and humbly and shudderingly\nadmired him; for I judged he was full of crime. At last he said in a low\nvoice--\n\n'My little friend, can you keep a secret?'\n\nI eagerly said I could.\n\n'A dark and dreadful one?'\n\nI satisfied him on that point.\n\n'Then I will tell you some passages in my history; for oh, I _must\n_relieve my burdened soul, or I shall die!'\n\nHe cautioned me once more to be 'as silent as the grave;' then he told\nme he was a 'red-handed murderer.' He put down his plane, held his hands\nout before him, contemplated them sadly, and said--\n\n'Look--with these hands I have taken the lives of thirty human beings!'\n\nThe effect which this had upon me was an inspiration to him, and he\nturned himself loose upon his subject with interest and energy. He\nleft generalizing, and went into details,--began with his first murder;\ndescribed it, told what measures he had taken to avert suspicion; then\npassed to his second homicide, his third, his fourth, and so on. He had\nalways done his murders with a bowie-knife, and he made all my hairs\nrise by suddenly snatching it out and showing it to me.\n\nAt the end of this first seance I went home with six of his fearful\nsecrets among my freightage, and found them a great help to my dreams,\nwhich had been sluggish for a while back. I sought him again and again,\non my Saturday holidays; in fact I spent the summer with him--all of\nit which was valuable to me. His fascinations never diminished, for\nhe threw something fresh and stirring, in the way of horror, into each\nsuccessive murder. He always gave names, dates, places--everything. This\nby and by enabled me to note two things: that he had killed his victims\nin every quarter of the globe, and that these victims were always named\nLynch. The destruction of the Lynches went serenely on, Saturday after\nSaturday, until the original thirty had multiplied to sixty--and more to\nbe heard from yet; then my curiosity got the better of my timidity, and\nI asked how it happened that these justly punished persons all bore the\nsame name.\n\nMy hero said he had never divulged that dark secret to any living being;\nbut felt that he could trust me, and therefore he would lay bare before\nme the story of his sad and blighted life. He had loved one 'too fair\nfor earth,' and she had reciprocated 'with all the sweet affection of\nher pure and noble nature.' But he had a rival, a 'base hireling' named\nArchibald Lynch, who said the girl should be his, or he would 'dye his\nhands in her heart's best blood.' The carpenter, 'innocent and happy\nin love's young dream,' gave no weight to the threat, but led his\n'golden-haired darling to the altar,' and there, the two were made one;\nthere also, just as the minister's hands were stretched in blessing over\ntheir heads, the fell deed was done--with a knife--and the bride fell\na corpse at her husband's feet. And what did the husband do? He plucked\nforth that knife, and kneeling by the body of his lost one, swore to\n'consecrate his life to the extermination of all the human scum that\nbear the hated name of Lynch.'\n\nThat was it. He had been hunting down the Lynches and slaughtering\nthem, from that day to this--twenty years. He had always used that same\nconsecrated knife; with it he had murdered his long array of Lynches,\nand with it he had left upon the forehead of each victim a peculiar\nmark--a cross, deeply incised. Said he--\n\n'The cross of the Mysterious Avenger is known in Europe, in America,\nin China, in Siam, in the Tropics, in the Polar Seas, in the deserts of\nAsia, in all the earth. Wherever in the uttermost parts of the globe,\na Lynch has penetrated, there has the Mysterious Cross been seen, and\nthose who have seen it have shuddered and said, \"It is his mark, he has\nbeen here.\" You have heard of the Mysterious Avenger--look upon him, for\nbefore you stands no less a person! But beware--breathe not a word to\nany soul. Be silent, and wait. Some morning this town will flock aghast\nto view a gory corpse; on its brow will be seen the awful sign, and\nmen will tremble and whisper, \"He has been here--it is the Mysterious\nAvenger's mark!\" You will come here, but I shall have vanished; you will\nsee me no more.'\n\nThis ass had been reading the 'Jibbenainosay,' no doubt, and had had\nhis poor romantic head turned by it; but as I had not yet seen the book\nthen, I took his inventions for truth, and did not suspect that he was a\nplagiarist.\n\nHowever, we had a Lynch living in the town; and the more I reflected\nupon his impending doom, the more I could not sleep. It seemed my plain\nduty to save him, and a still plainer and more important duty to get\nsome sleep for myself, so at last I ventured to go to Mr. Lynch and tell\nhim what was about to happen to him--under strict secrecy. I advised him\nto 'fly,' and certainly expected him to do it. But he laughed at me; and\nhe did not stop there; he led me down to the carpenter's shop, gave the\ncarpenter a jeering and scornful lecture upon his silly pretensions,\nslapped his face, made him get down on his knees and beg--then went off\nand left me to contemplate the cheap and pitiful ruin of what, in my\neyes, had so lately been a majestic and incomparable hero.\n\nThe carpenter blustered, flourished his knife, and doomed this Lynch in\nhis usual volcanic style, the size of his fateful words undiminished;\nbut it was all wasted upon me; he was a hero to me no longer, but only\na poor, foolish, exposed humbug. I was ashamed of him, and ashamed of\nmyself; I took no further interest in him, and never went to his shop\nany more. He was a heavy loss to me, for he was the greatest hero I\nhad ever known. The fellow must have had some talent; for some of his\nimaginary murders were so vividly and dramatically described that I\nremember all their details yet.\n\nThe people of Hannibal are not more changed than is the town. It is\nno longer a village; it is a city, with a mayor, and a council, and\nwater-works, and probably a debt. It has fifteen thousand people, is a\nthriving and energetic place, and is paved like the rest of the west\nand south--where a well-paved street and a good sidewalk are things so\nseldom seen, that one doubts them when he does see them. The customary\nhalf-dozen railways center in Hannibal now, and there is a new depot\nwhich cost a hundred thousand dollars. In my time the town had no\nspecialty, and no commercial grandeur; the daily packet usually landed\na passenger and bought a catfish, and took away another passenger and a\nhatful of freight; but now a huge commerce in lumber has grown up and\na large miscellaneous commerce is one of the results. A deal of money\nchanges hands there now.\n\nBear Creek--so called, perhaps, because it was always so particularly\nbare of bears--is hidden out of sight now, under islands and continents\nof piled lumber, and nobody but an expert can find it. I used to get\ndrowned in it every summer regularly, and be drained out, and inflated\nand set going again by some chance enemy; but not enough of it is\nunoccupied now to drown a person in. It was a famous breeder of chills\nand fever in its day. I remember one summer when everybody in town had\nthis disease at once. Many chimneys were shaken down, and all the houses\nwere so racked that the town had to be rebuilt. The chasm or gorge\nbetween Lover's Leap and the hill west of it is supposed by scientists\nto have been caused by glacial action. This is a mistake.\n\nThere is an interesting cave a mile or two below Hannibal, among the\nbluffs. I would have liked to revisit it, but had not time. In my\ntime the person who then owned it turned it into a mausoleum for his\ndaughter, aged fourteen. The body of this poor child was put into a\ncopper cylinder filled with alcohol, and this was suspended in one of\nthe dismal avenues of the cave. The top of the cylinder was removable;\nand it was said to be a common thing for the baser order of tourists to\ndrag the dead face into view and examine it and comment upon it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 56\n\nA Question of Law\n\nTHE slaughter-house is gone from the mouth of Bear Creek and so is the\nsmall jail (or 'calaboose') which once stood in its neighborhood. A\ncitizen asked, 'Do you remember when Jimmy Finn, the town drunkard, was\nburned to death in the calaboose?'\n\nObserve, now, how history becomes defiled, through lapse of time and\nthe help of the bad memories of men. Jimmy Finn was not burned in the\ncalaboose, but died a natural death in a tan vat, of a combination of\ndelirium tremens and spontaneous combustion. When I say natural death, I\nmean it was a natural death for Jimmy Finn to die. The calaboose victim\nwas not a citizen; he was a poor stranger, a harmless whiskey-sodden\ntramp. I know more about his case than anybody else; I knew too much\nof it, in that bygone day, to relish speaking of it. That tramp was\nwandering about the streets one chilly evening, with a pipe in his\nmouth, and begging for a match; he got neither matches nor courtesy; on\nthe contrary, a troop of bad little boys followed him around and amused\nthemselves with nagging and annoying him. I assisted; but at last, some\nappeal which the wayfarer made for forbearance, accompanying it with a\npathetic reference to his forlorn and friendless condition, touched such\nsense of shame and remnant of right feeling as were left in me, and I\nwent away and got him some matches, and then hied me home and to bed,\nheavily weighted as to conscience, and unbuoyant in spirit. An hour or\ntwo afterward, the man was arrested and locked up in the calaboose by\nthe marshal--large name for a constable, but that was his title. At two\nin the morning, the church bells rang for fire, and everybody turned\nout, of course--I with the rest. The tramp had used his matches\ndisastrously: he had set his straw bed on fire, and the oaken sheathing\nof the room had caught. When I reached the ground, two hundred men,\nwomen, and children stood massed together, transfixed with horror, and\nstaring at the grated windows of the jail. Behind the iron bars, and\ntugging frantically at them, and screaming for help, stood the tramp; he\nseemed like a black object set against a sun, so white and intense was\nthe light at his back. That marshal could not be found, and he had the\nonly key. A battering-ram was quickly improvised, and the thunder of its\nblows upon the door had so encouraging a sound that the spectators broke\ninto wild cheering, and believed the merciful battle won. But it was not\nso. The timbers were too strong; they did not yield. It was said that\nthe man's death-grip still held fast to the bars after he was dead; and\nthat in this position the fires wrapped him about and consumed him. As\nto this, I do not know. What was seen after I recognized the face that\nwas pleading through the bars was seen by others, not by me.\n\nI saw that face, so situated, every night for a long time afterward; and\nI believed myself as guilty of the man's death as if I had given him the\nmatches purposely that he might burn himself up with them. I had not a\ndoubt that I should be hanged if my connection with this tragedy were\nfound out. The happenings and the impressions of that time are burnt\ninto my memory, and the study of them entertains me as much now as they\nthemselves distressed me then. If anybody spoke of that grisly matter,\nI was all ears in a moment, and alert to hear what might be said, for I\nwas always dreading and expecting to find out that I was suspected; and\nso fine and so delicate was the perception of my guilty conscience,\nthat it often detected suspicion in the most purposeless remarks, and in\nlooks, gestures, glances of the eye which had no significance, but which\nsent me shivering away in a panic of fright, just the same. And how sick\nit made me when somebody dropped, howsoever carelessly and barren of\nintent, the remark that 'murder will out!' For a boy of ten years, I was\ncarrying a pretty weighty cargo.\n\nAll this time I was blessedly forgetting one thing--the fact that I was\nan inveterate talker in my sleep. But one night I awoke and found my\nbed-mate--my younger brother--sitting up in bed and contemplating me by\nthe light of the moon. I said--\n\n'What is the matter?'\n\n'You talk so much I can't sleep.'\n\nI came to a sitting posture in an instant, with my kidneys in my throat\nand my hair on end.\n\n'What did I say. Quick--out with it--what did I say?'\n\n'Nothing much.'\n\n'It's a lie--you know everything.'\n\n'Everything about what?'\n\n'You know well enough. About _that_.'\n\n'About _what_?--I don't know what you are talking about. I think you are\nsick or crazy or something. But anyway, you're awake, and I'll get to\nsleep while I've got a chance.'\n\nHe fell asleep and I lay there in a cold sweat, turning this new terror\nover in the whirling chaos which did duty as my mind. The burden of\nmy thought was, How much did I divulge? How much does he know?--what a\ndistress is this uncertainty! But by and by I evolved an idea--I would\nwake my brother and probe him with a supposititious case. I shook him\nup, and said--\n\n'Suppose a man should come to you drunk--'\n\n'This is foolish--I never get drunk.'\n\n'I don't mean you, idiot--I mean the man. Suppose a _man _should come\nto you drunk, and borrow a knife, or a tomahawk, or a pistol, and you\nforgot to tell him it was loaded, and--'\n\n'How could you load a tomahawk?'\n\n'I don't mean the tomahawk, and I didn't say the tomahawk; I said\nthe pistol. Now don't you keep breaking in that way, because this is\nserious. There's been a man killed.'\n\n'What! in this town?'\n\n'Yes, in this town.'\n\n'Well, go on--I won't say a single word.'\n\n'Well, then, suppose you forgot to tell him to be careful with it,\nbecause it was loaded, and he went off and shot himself with that\npistol--fooling with it, you know, and probably doing it by accident,\nbeing drunk. Well, would it be murder?'\n\n'No--suicide.'\n\n'No, no. I don't mean _his _act, I mean yours: would you be a murderer\nfor letting him have that pistol?'\n\nAfter deep thought came this answer--\n\n'Well, I should think I was guilty of something--maybe murder--yes,\nprobably murder, but I don't quite know.'\n\nThis made me very uncomfortable. However, it was not a decisive verdict.\nI should have to set out the real case--there seemed to be no other\nway. But I would do it cautiously, and keep a watch out for suspicious\neffects. I said--\n\n'I was supposing a case, but I am coming to the real one now. Do you\nknow how the man came to be burned up in the calaboose?'\n\n'No.'\n\n'Haven't you the least idea?'\n\n'Not the least.'\n\n'Wish you may die in your tracks if you have?'\n\n'Yes, wish I may die in my tracks.'\n\n'Well, the way of it was this. The man wanted some matches to light his\npipe. A boy got him some. The man set fire to the calaboose with those\nvery matches, and burnt himself up.'\n\n'Is that so?'\n\n'Yes, it is. Now, is that boy a murderer, do you think?'\n\n'Let me see. The man was drunk?'\n\n'Yes, he was drunk.'\n\n'Very drunk?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'And the boy knew it?'\n\n'Yes, he knew it.'\n\nThere was a long pause. Then came this heavy verdict--\n\n'If the man was drunk, and the boy knew it, the boy murdered that man.\nThis is certain.'\n\nFaint, sickening sensations crept along all the fibers of my body, and\nI seemed to know how a person feels who hears his death sentence\npronounced from the bench. I waited to hear what my brother would say\nnext. I believed I knew what it would be, and I was right. He said--\n\n'I know the boy.'\n\nI had nothing to say; so I said nothing. I simply shuddered. Then he\nadded--\n\n'Yes, before you got half through telling about the thing, I knew\nperfectly well who the boy was; it was Ben Coontz!'\n\nI came out of my collapse as one who rises from the dead. I said, with\nadmiration--\n\n'Why, how in the world did you ever guess it?'\n\n'You told it in your sleep.'\n\nI said to myself, 'How splendid that is! This is a habit which must be\ncultivated.'\n\nMy brother rattled innocently on--\n\n'When you were talking in your sleep, you kept mumbling something about\n\"matches,\" which I couldn't make anything out of; but just now, when\nyou began to tell me about the man and the calaboose and the matches,\nI remembered that in your sleep you mentioned Ben Coontz two or three\ntimes; so I put this and that together, you see, and right away I knew\nit was Ben that burnt that man up.'\n\nI praised his sagacity effusively. Presently he asked--\n\n'Are you going to give him up to the law?'\n\n'No,' I said; 'I believe that this will be a lesson to him. I shall keep\nan eye on him, of course, for that is but right; but if he stops where\nhe is and reforms, it shall never be said that I betrayed him.'\n\n'How good you are!'\n\n'Well, I try to be. It is all a person can do in a world like this.'\n\nAnd now, my burden being shifted to other shoulders, my terrors soon\nfaded away.\n\nThe day before we left Hannibal, a curious thing fell under my\nnotice--the surprising spread which longitudinal time undergoes there.\nI learned it from one of the most unostentatious of men--the colored\ncoachman of a friend of mine, who lives three miles from town. He was\nto call for me at the Park Hotel at 7.30 P.M., and drive me out. But he\nmissed it considerably--did not arrive till ten. He excused himself by\nsaying--\n\n'De time is mos' an hour en a half slower in de country en what it is in\nde town; you'll be in plenty time, boss. Sometimes we shoves out early\nfor church, Sunday, en fetches up dah right plum in de middle er de\nsermon. Diffunce in de time. A body can't make no calculations 'bout\nit.'\n\nI had lost two hours and a half; but I had learned a fact worth four.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 57\n\nAn Archangel\n\nFROM St. Louis northward there are all the enlivening signs of the\npresence of active, energetic, intelligent, prosperous, practical\nnineteenth-century populations. The people don't dream, they work. The\nhappy result is manifest all around in the substantial outside aspect\nof things, and the suggestions of wholesome life and comfort that\neverywhere appear.\n\nQuincy is a notable example--a brisk, handsome, well-ordered city; and\nnow, as formerly, interested in art, letters, and other high things.\n\nBut Marion City is an exception. Marion City has gone backwards in\na most unaccountable way. This metropolis promised so well that the\nprojectors tacked 'city' to its name in the very beginning, with full\nconfidence; but it was bad prophecy. When I first saw Marion City,\nthirty-five years ago, it contained one street, and nearly or quite six\nhouses. It contains but one house now, and this one, in a state of ruin,\nis getting ready to follow the former five into the river. Doubtless\nMarion City was too near to Quincy. It had another disadvantage: it was\nsituated in a flat mud bottom, below high-water mark, whereas Quincy\nstands high up on the slope of a hill.\n\nIn the beginning Quincy had the aspect and ways of a model New England\ntown: and these she has yet: broad, clean streets, trim, neat dwellings\nand lawns, fine mansions, stately blocks of commercial buildings. And\nthere are ample fair-grounds, a well kept park, and many attractive\ndrives; library, reading-rooms, a couple of colleges, some handsome and\ncostly churches, and a grand court-house, with grounds which occupy a\nsquare. The population of the city is thirty thousand. There are some\nlarge factories here, and manufacturing, of many sorts, is done on a\ngreat scale.\n\nLa Grange and Canton are growing towns, but I missed Alexandria; was\ntold it was under water, but would come up to blow in the summer.\n\nKeokuk was easily recognizable. I lived there in 1857--an extraordinary\nyear there in real-estate matters. The 'boom' was something wonderful.\nEverybody bought, everybody sold--except widows and preachers; they\nalways hold on; and when the tide ebbs, they get left. Anything in the\nsemblance of a town lot, no matter how situated, was salable, and at a\nfigure which would still have been high if the ground had been sodded\nwith greenbacks.\n\nThe town has a population of fifteen thousand now, and is progressing\nwith a healthy growth. It was night, and we could not see details, for\nwhich we were sorry, for Keokuk has the reputation of being a beautiful\ncity. It was a pleasant one to live in long ago, and doubtless has\nadvanced, not retrograded, in that respect.\n\nA mighty work which was in progress there in my day is finished now.\nThis is the canal over the Rapids. It is eight miles long, three hundred\nfeet wide, and is in no place less than six feet deep. Its masonry is\nof the majestic kind which the War Department usually deals in, and will\nendure like a Roman aqueduct. The work cost four or five millions.\n\nAfter an hour or two spent with former friends, we started up the river\nagain. Keokuk, a long time ago, was an occasional loafing-place of that\nerratic genius, Henry Clay Dean. I believe I never saw him but once; but\nhe was much talked of when I lived there. This is what was said of him--\n\nHe began life poor and without education. But he educated himself--on\nthe curbstones of Keokuk. He would sit down on a curbstone with his\nbook, careless or unconscious of the clatter of commerce and the tramp\nof the passing crowds, and bury himself in his studies by the hour,\nnever changing his position except to draw in his knees now and then\nto let a dray pass unobstructed; and when his book was finished, its\ncontents, however abstruse, had been burnt into his memory, and were his\npermanent possession. In this way he acquired a vast hoard of all sorts\nof learning, and had it pigeon-holed in his head where he could put his\nintellectual hand on it whenever it was wanted.\n\nHis clothes differed in no respect from a 'wharf-rat's,' except that\nthey were raggeder, more ill-assorted and inharmonious (and therefore\nmore extravagantly picturesque), and several layers dirtier. Nobody\ncould infer the master-mind in the top of that edifice from the edifice\nitself.\n\nHe was an orator--by nature in the first place, and later by the\ntraining of experience and practice. When he was out on a canvass, his\nname was a lodestone which drew the farmers to his stump from fifty\nmiles around. His theme was always politics. He used no notes, for\na volcano does not need notes. In 1862, a son of Keokuk's late\ndistinguished citizen, Mr. Claggett, gave me this incident concerning\nDean--\n\nThe war feeling was running high in Keokuk (in '61), and a great\nmass meeting was to be held on a certain day in the new Athenaeum. A\ndistinguished stranger was to address the house. After the building had\nbeen packed to its utmost capacity with sweltering folk of both sexes,\nthe stage still remained vacant--the distinguished stranger had failed\nto connect. The crowd grew impatient, and by and by indignant and\nrebellious. About this time a distressed manager discovered Dean on a\ncurb-stone, explained the dilemma to him, took his book away from him,\nrushed him into the building the back way, and told him to make for the\nstage and save his country.\n\nPresently a sudden silence fell upon the grumbling audience, and\neverybody's eyes sought a single point--the wide, empty, carpetless\nstage. A figure appeared there whose aspect was familiar to hardly a\ndozen persons present. It was the scarecrow Dean--in foxy shoes, down at\nthe heels; socks of odd colors, also 'down;' damaged trousers, relics of\nantiquity, and a world too short, exposing some inches of naked ankle;\nan unbuttoned vest, also too short, and exposing a zone of soiled and\nwrinkled linen between it and the waistband; shirt bosom open; long\nblack handkerchief, wound round and round the neck like a bandage;\nbob-tailed blue coat, reaching down to the small of the back,\nwith sleeves which left four inches of forearm unprotected; small,\nstiff-brimmed soldier-cap hung on a corner of the bump of--whichever\nbump it was. This figure moved gravely out upon the stage and, with\nsedate and measured step, down to the front, where it paused, and\ndreamily inspected the house, saying no word. The silence of surprise\nheld its own for a moment, then was broken by a just audible ripple\nof merriment which swept the sea of faces like the wash of a wave.\nThe figure remained as before, thoughtfully inspecting. Another wave\nstarted--laughter, this time. It was followed by another, then a\nthird--this last one boisterous.\n\nAnd now the stranger stepped back one pace, took off his soldier-cap,\ntossed it into the wing, and began to speak, with deliberation, nobody\nlistening, everybody laughing and whispering. The speaker talked on\nunembarrassed, and presently delivered a shot which went home, and\nsilence and attention resulted. He followed it quick and fast, with\nother telling things; warmed to his work and began to pour his words\nout, instead of dripping them; grew hotter and hotter, and fell to\ndischarging lightnings and thunder--and now the house began to break\ninto applause, to which the speaker gave no heed, but went hammering\nstraight on; unwound his black bandage and cast it away, still\nthundering; presently discarded the bob tailed coat and flung it aside,\nfiring up higher and higher all the time; finally flung the vest after\nthe coat; and then for an untimed period stood there, like another\nVesuvius, spouting smoke and flame, lava and ashes, raining pumice-stone\nand cinders, shaking the moral earth with intellectual crash upon crash,\nexplosion upon explosion, while the mad multitude stood upon their feet\nin a solid body, answering back with a ceaseless hurricane of cheers,\nthrough a thrashing snowstorm of waving handkerchiefs.\n\n'When Dean came,' said Claggett, 'the people thought he was an escaped\nlunatic; but when he went, they thought he was an escaped archangel.'\n\nBurlington, home of the sparkling Burdette, is another hill city; and\nalso a beautiful one; unquestionably so; a fine and flourishing\ncity, with a population of twenty-five thousand, and belted with busy\nfactories of nearly every imaginable description. It was a very sober\ncity, too--for the moment--for a most sobering bill was pending; a bill\nto forbid the manufacture, exportation, importation, purchase, sale,\nborrowing, lending, stealing, drinking, smelling, or possession, by\nconquest, inheritance, intent, accident, or otherwise, in the State of\nIowa, of each and every deleterious beverage known to the human race,\nexcept water. This measure was approved by all the rational people in\nthe State; but not by the bench of Judges.\n\nBurlington has the progressive modern city's full equipment of devices\nfor right and intelligent government; including a paid fire department,\na thing which the great city of New Orleans is without, but still\nemploys that relic of antiquity, the independent system.\n\nIn Burlington, as in all these Upper-River towns, one breathes a\ngo-ahead atmosphere which tastes good in the nostrils. An opera-house\nhas lately been built there which is in strong contrast with the shabby\ndens which usually do duty as theaters in cities of Burlington's size.\n\nWe had not time to go ashore in Muscatine, but had a daylight view of it\nfrom the boat. I lived there awhile, many years ago, but the place, now,\nhad a rather unfamiliar look; so I suppose it has clear outgrown the\ntown which I used to know. In fact, I know it has; for I remember it as\na small place--which it isn't now. But I remember it best for a\nlunatic who caught me out in the fields, one Sunday, and extracted a\nbutcher-knife from his boot and proposed to carve me up with it,\nunless I acknowledged him to be the only son of the Devil. I tried\nto compromise on an acknowledgment that he was the only member of the\nfamily I had met; but that did not satisfy him; he wouldn't have any\nhalf-measures; I must say he was the sole and only son of the Devil--he\nwhetted his knife on his boot. It did not seem worth while to make\ntrouble about a little thing like that; so I swung round to his view of\nthe matter and saved my skin whole. Shortly afterward, he went to visit\nhis father; and as he has not turned up since, I trust he is there yet.\n\nAnd I remember Muscatine--still more pleasantly--for its summer sunsets.\nI have never seen any, on either side of the ocean, that equaled them.\nThey used the broad smooth river as a canvas, and painted on it every\nimaginable dream of color, from the mottled daintinesses and delicacies\nof the opal, all the way up, through cumulative intensities, to blinding\npurple and crimson conflagrations which were enchanting to the eye, but\nsharply tried it at the same time. All the Upper Mississippi region\nhas these extraordinary sunsets as a familiar spectacle. It is the true\nSunset Land: I am sure no other country can show so good a right to the\nname. The sunrises are also said to be exceedingly fine. I do not know.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 58\n\nOn the Upper River\n\nTHE big towns drop in, thick and fast, now: and between stretch\nprocessions of thrifty farms, not desolate solitude. Hour by hour, the\nboat plows deeper and deeper into the great and populous North-west; and\nwith each successive section of it which is revealed, one's surprise\nand respect gather emphasis and increase. Such a people, and such\nachievements as theirs, compel homage. This is an independent race who\nthink for themselves, and who are competent to do it, because they are\neducated and enlightened; they read, they keep abreast of the best\nand newest thought, they fortify every weak place in their land with a\nschool, a college, a library, and a newspaper; and they live under law.\nSolicitude for the future of a race like this is not in order.\n\nThis region is new; so new that it may be said to be still in its\nbabyhood. By what it has accomplished while still teething, one may\nforecast what marvels it will do in the strength of its maturity. It\nis so new that the foreign tourist has not heard of it yet; and has not\nvisited it. For sixty years, the foreign tourist has steamed up and\ndown the river between St. Louis and New Orleans, and then gone home and\nwritten his book, believing he had seen all of the river that was worth\nseeing or that had anything to see. In not six of all these books is\nthere mention of these Upper River towns--for the reason that the five\nor six tourists who penetrated this region did it before these towns\nwere projected. The latest tourist of them all (1878) made the same old\nregulation trip--he had not heard that there was anything north of St.\nLouis.\n\nYet there was. There was this amazing region, bristling with great\ntowns, projected day before yesterday, so to speak, and built next\nmorning. A score of them number from fifteen hundred to five thousand\npeople. Then we have Muscatine, ten thousand; Winona, ten thousand;\nMoline, ten thousand; Rock Island, twelve thousand; La Crosse, twelve\nthousand; Burlington, twenty-five thousand; Dubuque, twenty-five\nthousand; Davenport, thirty thousand; St. Paul, fifty-eight thousand,\nMinneapolis, sixty thousand and upward.\n\nThe foreign tourist has never heard of these; there is no note of them\nin his books. They have sprung up in the night, while he slept. So new\nis this region, that I, who am comparatively young, am yet older than\nit is. When I was born, St. Paul had a population of three persons,\nMinneapolis had just a third as many. The then population of Minneapolis\ndied two years ago; and when he died he had seen himself undergo an\nincrease, in forty years, of fifty-nine thousand nine hundred and\nninety-nine persons. He had a frog's fertility.\n\nI must explain that the figures set down above, as the population of St.\nPaul and Minneapolis, are several months old. These towns are far larger\nnow. In fact, I have just seen a newspaper estimate which gives the\nformer seventy-one thousand, and the latter seventy-eight thousand. This\nbook will not reach the public for six or seven months yet; none of the\nfigures will be worth much then.\n\nWe had a glimpse of Davenport, which is another beautiful city, crowning\na hill--a phrase which applies to all these towns; for they are all\ncomely, all well built, clean, orderly, pleasant to the eye, and\ncheering to the spirit; and they are all situated upon hills. Therefore\nwe will give that phrase a rest. The Indians have a tradition that\nMarquette and Joliet camped where Davenport now stands, in 1673. The\nnext white man who camped there, did it about a hundred and seventy\nyears later--in 1834. Davenport has gathered its thirty thousand people\nwithin the past thirty years. She sends more children to her schools\nnow, than her whole population numbered twenty-three years ago. She has\nthe usual Upper River quota of factories, newspapers, and institutions\nof learning; she has telephones, local telegraphs, an electric alarm,\nand an admirable paid fire department, consisting of six hook and ladder\ncompanies, four steam fire engines, and thirty churches. Davenport is\nthe official residence of two bishops--Episcopal and Catholic.\n\nOpposite Davenport is the flourishing town of Rock Island, which lies at\nthe foot of the Upper Rapids. A great railroad bridge connects the two\ntowns--one of the thirteen which fret the Mississippi and the pilots,\nbetween St. Louis and St. Paul.\n\nThe charming island of Rock Island, three miles long and half a mile\nwide, belongs to the United States, and the Government has turned it\ninto a wonderful park, enhancing its natural attractions by art, and\nthreading its fine forests with many miles of drives. Near the center\nof the island one catches glimpses, through the trees, of ten vast stone\nfour-story buildings, each of which covers an acre of ground. These\nare the Government workshops; for the Rock Island establishment is a\nnational armory and arsenal.\n\nWe move up the river--always through enchanting scenery, there being no\nother kind on the Upper Mississippi--and pass Moline, a center of vast\nmanufacturing industries; and Clinton and Lyons, great lumber centers;\nand presently reach Dubuque, which is situated in a rich mineral region.\nThe lead mines are very productive, and of wide extent. Dubuque has a\ngreat number of manufacturing establishments; among them a plow factory\nwhich has for customers all Christendom in general. At least so I was\ntold by an agent of the concern who was on the boat. He said--\n\n'You show me any country under the sun where they really know how to\nplow, and if I don't show you our mark on the plow they use, I'll eat\nthat plow; and I won't ask for any Woostershyre sauce to flavor it up\nwith, either.'\n\nAll this part of the river is rich in Indian history and traditions.\nBlack Hawk's was once a puissant name hereabouts; as was\nKeokuk's, further down. A few miles below Dubuque is the Tete de\nMort--Death's-head rock, or bluff--to the top of which the French drove\na band of Indians, in early times, and cooped them up there, with death\nfor a certainty, and only the manner of it matter of choice--to starve,\nor jump off and kill themselves. Black Hawk adopted the ways of the\nwhite people, toward the end of his life; and when he died he was\nburied, near Des Moines, in Christian fashion, modified by Indian\ncustom; that is to say, clothed in a Christian military uniform, and\nwith a Christian cane in his hand, but deposited in the grave in a\nsitting posture. Formerly, a horse had always been buried with a chief.\nThe substitution of the cane shows that Black Hawk's haughty nature was\nreally humbled, and he expected to walk when he got over.\n\nWe noticed that above Dubuque the water of the Mississippi was\nolive-green--rich and beautiful and semi-transparent, with the sun on\nit. Of course the water was nowhere as clear or of as fine a complexion\nas it is in some other seasons of the year; for now it was at flood\nstage, and therefore dimmed and blurred by the mud manufactured from\ncaving banks.\n\nThe majestic bluffs that overlook the river, along through this region,\ncharm one with the grace and variety of their forms, and the soft\nbeauty of their adornment. The steep verdant slope, whose base is at\nthe water's edge is topped by a lofty rampart of broken, turreted rocks,\nwhich are exquisitely rich and mellow in color--mainly dark browns\nand dull greens, but splashed with other tints. And then you have the\nshining river, winding here and there and yonder, its sweep interrupted\nat intervals by clusters of wooded islands threaded by silver channels;\nand you have glimpses of distant villages, asleep upon capes; and of\nstealthy rafts slipping along in the shade of the forest walls; and of\nwhite steamers vanishing around remote points. And it is all as\ntranquil and reposeful as dreamland, and has nothing this-worldly about\nit--nothing to hang a fret or a worry upon.\n\nUntil the unholy train comes tearing along--which it presently does,\nripping the sacred solitude to rags and tatters with its devil's\nwarwhoop and the roar and thunder of its rushing wheels--and straightway\nyou are back in this world, and with one of its frets ready to hand for\nyour entertainment: for you remember that this is the very road whose\nstock always goes down after you buy it, and always goes up again as\nsoon as you sell it. It makes me shudder to this day, to remember that\nI once came near not getting rid of my stock at all. It must be an awful\nthing to have a railroad left on your hands.\n\nThe locomotive is in sight from the deck of the steamboat almost\nthe whole way from St. Louis to St. Paul--eight hundred miles. These\nrailroads have made havoc with the steamboat commerce. The clerk of our\nboat was a steamboat clerk before these roads were built. In that day\nthe influx of population was so great, and the freight business so\nheavy, that the boats were not able to keep up with the demands made\nupon their carrying capacity; consequently the captains were very\nindependent and airy--pretty 'biggity,' as Uncle Remus would say. The\nclerk nut-shelled the contrast between the former time and the present,\nthus--\n\n'Boat used to land--captain on hurricane roof--mighty stiff and\nstraight--iron ramrod for a spine--kid gloves, plug tile, hair parted\nbehind--man on shore takes off hat and says--\n\n'\"Got twenty-eight tons of wheat, cap'n--be great favor if you can take\nthem.\"\n\n'Captain says--\n\n'\"'ll take two of them\"--and don't even condescend to look at him.\n\n'But nowadays the captain takes off his old slouch, and smiles all the\nway around to the back of his ears, and gets off a bow which he hasn't\ngot any ramrod to interfere with, and says--\n\n'\"Glad to see you, Smith, glad to see you--you're looking well--haven't\nseen you looking so well for years--what you got for us?\"\n\n'\"Nuth'n\", says Smith; and keeps his hat on, and just turns his back and\ngoes to talking with somebody else.\n\n'Oh, yes, eight years ago, the captain was on top; but it's Smith's turn\nnow. Eight years ago a boat used to go up the river with every stateroom\nfull, and people piled five and six deep on the cabin floor; and a solid\ndeck-load of immigrants and harvesters down below, into the bargain. To\nget a first-class stateroom, you'd got to prove sixteen quarterings of\nnobility and four hundred years of descent, or be personally acquainted\nwith the nigger that blacked the captain's boots. But it's all changed\nnow; plenty staterooms above, no harvesters below--there's a patent\nself-binder now, and they don't have harvesters any more; they've gone\nwhere the woodbine twineth--and they didn't go by steamboat, either;\nwent by the train.'\n\nUp in this region we met massed acres of lumber rafts coming down--but\nnot floating leisurely along, in the old-fashioned way, manned with\njoyous and reckless crews of fiddling, song-singing, whiskey-drinking,\nbreakdown-dancing rapscallions; no, the whole thing was shoved swiftly\nalong by a powerful stern-wheeler, modern fashion, and the small\ncrews were quiet, orderly men, of a sedate business aspect, with not a\nsuggestion of romance about them anywhere.\n\nAlong here, somewhere, on a black night, we ran some exceedingly narrow\nand intricate island-chutes by aid of the electric light. Behind was\nsolid blackness--a crackless bank of it; ahead, a narrow elbow of water,\ncurving between dense walls of foliage that almost touched our bows on\nboth sides; and here every individual leaf, and every individual ripple\nstood out in its natural color, and flooded with a glare as of noonday\nintensified. The effect was strange, and fine, and very striking.\n\nWe passed Prairie du Chien, another of Father Marquette's\ncamping-places; and after some hours of progress through varied and\nbeautiful scenery, reached La Crosse. Here is a town of twelve or\nthirteen thousand population, with electric lighted streets, and with\nblocks of buildings which are stately enough, and also architecturally\nfine enough, to command respect in any city. It is a choice town, and we\nmade satisfactory use of the hour allowed us, in roaming it over, though\nthe weather was rainier than necessary.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 59\n\nLegends and Scenery\n\nWE added several passengers to our list, at La Crosse; among others an\nold gentleman who had come to this north-western region with the early\nsettlers, and was familiar with every part of it. Pardonably proud of\nit, too. He said--\n\n'You'll find scenery between here and St. Paul that can give the Hudson\npoints. You'll have the Queen's Bluff--seven hundred feet high, and\njust as imposing a spectacle as you can find anywheres; and Trempeleau\nIsland, which isn't like any other island in America, I believe, for it\nis a gigantic mountain, with precipitous sides, and is full of Indian\ntraditions, and used to be full of rattlesnakes; if you catch the sun\njust right there, you will have a picture that will stay with you. And\nabove Winona you'll have lovely prairies; and then come the Thousand\nIslands, too beautiful for anything; green? why you never saw foliage so\ngreen, nor packed so thick; it's like a thousand plush cushions afloat\non a looking-glass--when the water 's still; and then the monstrous\nbluffs on both sides of the river--ragged, rugged, dark-complected--just\nthe frame that's wanted; you always want a strong frame, you know, to\nthrow up the nice points of a delicate picture and make them stand out.'\n\nThe old gentleman also told us a touching Indian legend or two--but not\nvery powerful ones.\n\nAfter this excursion into history, he came back to the scenery, and\ndescribed it, detail by detail, from the Thousand Islands to St. Paul;\nnaming its names with such facility, tripping along his theme with such\nnimble and confident ease, slamming in a three-ton word, here and\nthere, with such a complacent air of 't\nisn't-anything,-I-can-do-it-any-time-I-want-to, and letting off fine\nsurprises of lurid eloquence at such judicious intervals, that I\npresently began to suspect--\n\nBut no matter what I began to suspect. Hear him--\n\n'Ten miles above Winona we come to Fountain City, nestling sweetly at\nthe feet of cliffs that lift their awful fronts, Jovelike, toward the\nblue depths of heaven, bathing them in virgin atmospheres that have\nknown no other contact save that of angels' wings.\n\n'And next we glide through silver waters, amid lovely and stupendous\naspects of nature that attune our hearts to adoring admiration, about\ntwelve miles, and strike Mount Vernon, six hundred feet high, with\nromantic ruins of a once first-class hotel perched far among the cloud\nshadows that mottle its dizzy heights--sole remnant of once-flourishing\nMount Vernon, town of early days, now desolate and utterly deserted.\n\n'And so we move on. Past Chimney Rock we fly--noble shaft of six hundred\nfeet; then just before landing at Minnieska our attention is attracted\nby a most striking promontory rising over five hundred feet--the ideal\nmountain pyramid. Its conic shape--thickly-wooded surface girding its\nsides, and its apex like that of a cone, cause the spectator to wonder\nat nature's workings. From its dizzy heights superb views of the\nforests, streams, bluffs, hills and dales below and beyond for miles are\nbrought within its focus. What grander river scenery can be conceived,\nas we gaze upon this enchanting landscape, from the uppermost point of\nthese bluffs upon the valleys below? The primeval wildness and awful\nloneliness of these sublime creations of nature and nature's God, excite\nfeelings of unbounded admiration, and the recollection of which can\nnever be effaced from the memory, as we view them in any direction.\n\n'Next we have the Lion's Head and the Lioness's Head, carved by nature's\nhand, to adorn and dominate the beauteous stream; and then anon the\nriver widens, and a most charming and magnificent view of the valley\nbefore us suddenly bursts upon our vision; rugged hills, clad with\nverdant forests from summit to base, level prairie lands, holding in\ntheir lap the beautiful Wabasha, City of the Healing Waters, puissant\nfoe of Bright's disease, and that grandest conception of nature's\nworks, incomparable Lake Pepin--these constitute a picture whereon the\ntourist's eye may gaze uncounted hours, with rapture unappeased and\nunappeasable.\n\n'And so we glide along; in due time encountering those majestic domes,\nthe mighty Sugar Loaf, and the sublime Maiden's Rock--which latter,\nromantic superstition has invested with a voice; and oft-times as the\nbirch canoe glides near, at twilight, the dusky paddler fancies he hears\nthe soft sweet music of the long-departed Winona, darling of Indian song\nand story.\n\n'Then Frontenac looms upon our vision, delightful resort of jaded summer\ntourists; then progressive Red Wing; and Diamond Bluff, impressive and\npreponderous in its lone sublimity; then Prescott and the St. Croix; and\nanon we see bursting upon us the domes and steeples of St. Paul, giant\nyoung chief of the North, marching with seven-league stride in the\nvan of progress, banner-bearer of the highest and newest civilization,\ncarving his beneficent way with the tomahawk of commercial enterprise,\nsounding the warwhoop of Christian culture, tearing off the reeking\nscalp of sloth and superstition to plant there the steam-plow and the\nschool-house--ever in his front stretch arid lawlessness, ignorance,\ncrime, despair; ever in his wake bloom the jail, the gallows, and the\npulpit; and ever--'\n\n'Have you ever traveled with a panorama?'\n\n'I have formerly served in that capacity.'\n\nMy suspicion was confirmed.\n\n'Do you still travel with it?'\n\n'No, she is laid up till the fall season opens. I am helping now to work\nup the materials for a Tourist's Guide which the St. Louis and St.\nPaul Packet Company are going to issue this summer for the benefit of\ntravelers who go by that line.'\n\n'When you were talking of Maiden's Rock, you spoke of the long-departed\nWinona, darling of Indian song and story. Is she the maiden of the\nrock?--and are the two connected by legend?'\n\n'Yes, and a very tragic and painful one. Perhaps the most celebrated, as\nwell as the most pathetic, of all the legends of the Mississippi.'\n\nWe asked him to tell it. He dropped out of his conversational vein and\nback into his lecture-gait without an effort, and rolled on as follows--\n\n'A little distance above Lake City is a famous point known as Maiden's\nRock, which is not only a picturesque spot, but is full of romantic\ninterest from the event which gave it its name, Not many years ago this\nlocality was a favorite resort for the Sioux Indians on account of the\nfine fishing and hunting to be had there, and large numbers of them were\nalways to be found in this locality. Among the families which used\nto resort here, was one belonging to the tribe of Wabasha. We-no-na\n(first-born) was the name of a maiden who had plighted her troth to a\nlover belonging to the same band. But her stern parents had promised her\nhand to another, a famous warrior, and insisted on her wedding him. The\nday was fixed by her parents, to her great grief. She appeared to accede\nto the proposal and accompany them to the rock, for the purpose of\ngathering flowers for the feast. On reaching the rock, We-no-na ran\nto its summit and standing on its edge upbraided her parents who were\nbelow, for their cruelty, and then singing a death-dirge, threw herself\nfrom the precipice and dashed them in pieces on the rock below.'\n\n'Dashed who in pieces--her parents?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'Well, it certainly was a tragic business, as you say. And moreover,\nthere is a startling kind of dramatic surprise about it which I was not\nlooking for. It is a distinct improvement upon the threadbare form of\nIndian legend. There are fifty Lover's Leaps along the Mississippi from\nwhose summit disappointed Indian girls have jumped, but this is the only\njump in the lot hat turned out in the right and satisfactory way. What\nbecame of Winona?'\n\n'She was a good deal jarred up and jolted: but she got herself together\nand disappeared before the coroner reached the fatal spot; and 'tis\nsaid she sought and married her true love, and wandered with him to\nsome distant clime, where she lived happy ever after, her gentle spirit\nmellowed and chastened by the romantic incident which had so early\ndeprived her of the sweet guidance of a mother's love and a father's\nprotecting arm, and thrown her, all unfriended, upon the cold charity of\na censorious world.'\n\nI was glad to hear the lecturer's description of the scenery, for it\nassisted my appreciation of what I saw of it, and enabled me to imagine\nsuch of it as we lost by the intrusion of night.\n\nAs the lecturer remarked, this whole region is blanketed with Indian\ntales and traditions. But I reminded him that people usually merely\nmention this fact--doing it in a way to make a body's mouth water--and\njudiciously stopped there. Why? Because the impression left, was that\nthese tales were full of incident and imagination--a pleasant impression\nwhich would be promptly dissipated if the tales were told. I showed him\na lot of this sort of literature which I had been collecting, and he\nconfessed that it was poor stuff, exceedingly sorry rubbish; and I\nventured to add that the legends which he had himself told us were of\nthis character, with the single exception of the admirable story of\nWinona. He granted these facts, but said that if I would hunt up Mr.\nSchoolcraft's book, published near fifty years ago, and now doubtless\nout of print, I would find some Indian inventions in it that were very\nfar from being barren of incident and imagination; that the tales in\nHiawatha were of this sort, and they came from Schoolcraft's book; and\nthat there were others in the same book which Mr. Longfellow could have\nturned into verse with good effect. For instance, there was the legend\nof 'The Undying Head.' He could not tell it, for many of the details\nhad grown dim in his memory; but he would recommend me to find it and\nenlarge my respect for the Indian imagination. He said that this tale,\nand most of the others in the book, were current among the Indians\nalong this part of the Mississippi when he first came here; and that\nthe contributors to Schoolcraft's book had got them directly from Indian\nlips, and had written them down with strict exactness, and without\nembellishments of their own.\n\nI have found the book. The lecturer was right. There are several legends\nin it which confirm what he said. I will offer two of them--'The Undying\nHead,' and 'Peboan and Seegwun, an Allegory of the Seasons.' The latter\nis used in Hiawatha; but it is worth reading in the original form, if\nonly that one may see how effective a genuine poem can be without the\nhelps and graces of poetic measure and rhythm--\n\nPEBOAN AND SEEGWUN.\n\nAn old man was sitting alone in his lodge, by the side of a frozen\nstream. It was the close of winter, and his fire was almost out, He\nappeared very old and very desolate. His locks were white with age, and\nhe trembled in every joint. Day after day passed in solitude, and he\nheard nothing but the sound of the tempest, sweeping before it the\nnew-fallen snow.\n\nOne day, as his fire was just dying, a handsome young man approached and\nentered his dwelling. His cheeks were red with the blood of youth,\nhis eyes sparkled with animation, and a smile played upon his lips. He\nwalked with a light and quick step. His forehead was bound with a wreath\nof sweet grass, in place of a warrior's frontlet, and he carried a bunch\nof flowers in his hand.\n\n'Ah, my son,' said the old man, 'I am happy to see you. Come in. Come\nand tell me of your adventures, and what strange lands you have been to\nsee. Let us pass the night together. I will tell you of my prowess and\nexploits, and what I can perform. You shall do the same, and we will\namuse ourselves.'\n\nHe then drew from his sack a curiously wrought antique pipe, and having\nfilled it with tobacco, rendered mild by a mixture of certain leaves,\nhanded it to his guest. When this ceremony was concluded they began to\nspeak.\n\n'I blow my breath,' said the old man, 'and the stream stands still. The\nwater becomes stiff and hard as clear stone.'\n\n'I breathe,' said the young man, 'and flowers spring up over the plain.'\n\n'I shake my locks,' retorted the old man, 'and snow covers the land. The\nleaves fall from the trees at my command, and my breath blows them away.\nThe birds get up from the water, and fly to a distant land. The animals\nhide themselves from my breath, and the very ground becomes as hard as\nflint.'\n\n'I shake my ringlets,' rejoined the young man, 'and warm showers of\nsoft rain fall upon the earth. The plants lift up their heads out of\nthe earth, like the eyes of children glistening with delight. My voice\nrecalls the birds. The warmth of my breath unlocks the streams. Music\nfills the groves wherever I walk, and all nature rejoices.'\n\nAt length the sun began to rise. A gentle warmth came over the place.\nThe tongue of the old man became silent. The robin and bluebird began\nto sing on the top of the lodge. The stream began to murmur by the door,\nand the fragrance of growing herbs and flowers came softly on the vernal\nbreeze.\n\nDaylight fully revealed to the young man the character of his\nentertainer. When he looked upon him, he had the icy visage of\nPeboan.{footnote [Winter.]} Streams began to flow from his eyes. As the\nsun increased, he grew less and less in stature, and anon had melted\ncompletely away. Nothing remained on the place of his lodge-fire but the\nmiskodeed,{footnote [The trailing arbutus.]} a small white flower, with\na pink border, which is one of the earliest species of northern plants.\n\n'The Undying Head' is a rather long tale, but it makes up in weird\nconceits, fairy-tale prodigies, variety of incident, and energy of\nmovement, for what it lacks in brevity.{footnote [See appendix D.]}\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 60\n\nSpeculations and Conclusions\n\nWE reached St. Paul, at the head of navigation of the Mississippi, and\nthere our voyage of two thousand miles from New Orleans ended. It is\nabout a ten-day trip by steamer. It can probably be done quicker by\nrail. I judge so because I know that one may go by rail from St. Louis\nto Hannibal--a distance of at least a hundred and twenty miles--in seven\nhours. This is better than walking; unless one is in a hurry.\n\nThe season being far advanced when we were in New Orleans, the roses and\nmagnolia blossoms were falling; but here in St. Paul it was the snow,\nIn New Orleans we had caught an occasional withering breath from over a\ncrater, apparently; here in St. Paul we caught a frequent benumbing one\nfrom over a glacier, apparently.\n\nBut I wander from my theme. St. Paul is a wonderful town. It is put\ntogether in solid blocks of honest brick and stone, and has the air of\nintending to stay. Its post-office was established thirty-six years ago;\nand by and by, when the postmaster received a letter, he carried it to\nWashington, horseback, to inquire what was to be done with it. Such is\nthe legend. Two frame houses were built that year, and several persons\nwere added to the population. A recent number of the leading St. Paul\npaper, the 'Pioneer Press,' gives some statistics which furnish a vivid\ncontrast to that old state of things, to wit: Population, autumn of the\npresent year (1882), 71,000; number of letters handled, first half of\nthe year, 1,209,387; number of houses built during three-quarters of\nthe year, 989; their cost, $3,186,000. The increase of letters over the\ncorresponding six months of last year was fifty per cent. Last year\nthe new buildings added to the city cost above $4,500,000. St.\nPaul's strength lies in her commerce--I mean his commerce. He is a\nmanufacturing city, of course--all the cities of that region are--but\nhe is peculiarly strong in the matter of commerce. Last year his jobbing\ntrade amounted to upwards of $52,000,000.\n\nHe has a custom-house, and is building a costly capitol to replace the\none recently burned--for he is the capital of the State. He has churches\nwithout end; and not the cheap poor kind, but the kind that the rich\nProtestant puts up, the kind that the poor Irish 'hired-girl' delights\nto erect. What a passion for building majestic churches the Irish\nhired-girl has. It is a fine thing for our architecture but too often we\nenjoy her stately fanes without giving her a grateful thought. In\nfact, instead of reflecting that 'every brick and every stone in this\nbeautiful edifice represents an ache or a pain, and a handful of sweat,\nand hours of heavy fatigue, contributed by the back and forehead and\nbones of poverty,' it is our habit to forget these things entirely,\nand merely glorify the mighty temple itself, without vouchsafing one\npraiseful thought to its humble builder, whose rich heart and withered\npurse it symbolizes.\n\nThis is a land of libraries and schools. St. Paul has three public\nlibraries, and they contain, in the aggregate, some forty thousand\nbooks. He has one hundred and sixteen school-houses, and pays out more\nthan seventy thousand dollars a year in teachers' salaries.\n\nThere is an unusually fine railway station; so large is it, in fact,\nthat it seemed somewhat overdone, in the matter of size, at first;\nbut at the end of a few months it was perceived that the mistake was\ndistinctly the other way. The error is to be corrected.\n\nThe town stands on high ground; it is about seven hundred feet above\nthe sea level. It is so high that a wide view of river and lowland is\noffered from its streets.\n\nIt is a very wonderful town indeed, and is not finished yet. All\nthe streets are obstructed with building material, and this is being\ncompacted into houses as fast as possible, to make room for more--for\nother people are anxious to build, as soon as they can get the use of\nthe streets to pile up their bricks and stuff in.\n\nHow solemn and beautiful is the thought, that the earliest pioneer of\ncivilization, the van-leader of civilization, is never the steamboat,\nnever the railroad, never the newspaper, never the Sabbath-school, never\nthe missionary--but always whiskey! Such is the case. Look history over;\nyou will see. The missionary comes after the whiskey--I mean he arrives\nafter the whiskey has arrived; next comes the poor immigrant, with ax\nand hoe and rifle; next, the trader; next, the miscellaneous rush; next,\nthe gambler, the desperado, the highwayman, and all their kindred in sin\nof both sexes; and next, the smart chap who has bought up an old grant\nthat covers all the land; this brings the lawyer tribe; the vigilance\ncommittee brings the undertaker. All these interests bring the\nnewspaper; the newspaper starts up politics and a railroad; all hands\nturn to and build a church and a jail--and behold, civilization\nis established for ever in the land. But whiskey, you see, was the\nvan-leader in this beneficent work. It always is. It was like a\nforeigner--and excusable in a foreigner--to be ignorant of this great\ntruth, and wander off into astronomy to borrow a symbol. But if he had\nbeen conversant with the facts, he would have said--\n\nWestward the Jug of Empire takes its way.\n\nThis great van-leader arrived upon the ground which St. Paul now\noccupies, in June 1837. Yes, at that date, Pierre Parrant, a Canadian,\nbuilt the first cabin, uncorked his jug, and began to sell whiskey to\nthe Indians. The result is before us.\n\nAll that I have said of the newness, briskness, swift progress, wealth,\nintelligence, fine and substantial architecture, and general slash\nand go, and energy of St. Paul, will apply to his near neighbor,\nMinneapolis--with the addition that the latter is the bigger of the two\ncities.\n\nThese extraordinary towns were ten miles apart, a few months ago, but\nwere growing so fast that they may possibly be joined now, and getting\nalong under a single mayor. At any rate, within five years from\nnow there will be at least such a substantial ligament of buildings\nstretching between them and uniting them that a stranger will not be\nable to tell where the one Siamese twin leaves off and the other begins.\nCombined, they will then number a population of two hundred and fifty\nthousand, if they continue to grow as they are now growing. Thus, this\ncenter of population at the head of Mississippi navigation, will then\nbegin a rivalry as to numbers, with that center of population at the\nfoot of it--New Orleans.\n\nMinneapolis is situated at the falls of St. Anthony, which stretch\nacross the river, fifteen hundred feet, and have a fall of eighty-two\nfeet--a waterpower which, by art, has been made of inestimable\nvalue, business-wise, though somewhat to the damage of the Falls as\na spectacle, or as a background against which to get your photograph\ntaken.\n\nThirty flouring-mills turn out two million barrels of the very choicest\nof flour every year; twenty sawmills produce two hundred million feet\nof lumber annually; then there are woolen mills, cotton mills, paper\nand oil mills; and sash, nail, furniture, barrel, and other factories,\nwithout number, so to speak. The great flouring-mills here and at St.\nPaul use the 'new process' and mash the wheat by rolling, instead of\ngrinding it.\n\nSixteen railroads meet in Minneapolis, and sixty-five passenger trains\narrive and depart daily. In this place, as in St. Paul, journalism\nthrives. Here there are three great dailies, ten weeklies, and three\nmonthlies.\n\nThere is a university, with four hundred students--and, better still,\nits good efforts are not confined to enlightening the one sex. There are\nsixteen public schools, with buildings which cost $500,000; there are\nsix thousand pupils and one hundred and twenty-eight teachers. There\nare also seventy churches existing, and a lot more projected. The banks\naggregate a capital of $3,000,000, and the wholesale jobbing trade of\nthe town amounts to $50,000,000 a year.\n\nNear St. Paul and Minneapolis are several points of interest--Fort\nSnelling, a fortress occupying a river-bluff a hundred feet high; the\nfalls of Minnehaha, White-bear Lake, and so forth. The beautiful falls\nof Minnehaha are sufficiently celebrated--they do not need a lift from\nme, in that direction. The White-bear Lake is less known. It is a lovely\nsheet of water, and is being utilized as a summer resort by the wealth\nand fashion of the State. It has its club-house, and its hotel, with the\nmodern improvements and conveniences; its fine summer residences; and\nplenty of fishing, hunting, and pleasant drives. There are a dozen minor\nsummer resorts around about St. Paul and Minneapolis, but the White-bear\nLake is the resort. Connected with White-bear Lake is a most idiotic\nIndian legend. I would resist the temptation to print it here, if I\ncould, but the task is beyond my strength. The guide-book names the\npreserver of the legend, and compliments his 'facile pen.' Without\nfurther comment or delay then, let us turn the said facile pen loose\nupon the reader--\n\nA LEGEND OF WHITE-BEAR LAKE.\n\nEvery spring, for perhaps a century, or as long as there has been a\nnation of red men, an island in the middle of White-bear Lake has been\nvisited by a band of Indians for the purpose of making maple sugar.\n\nTradition says that many springs ago, while upon this island, a young\nwarrior loved and wooed the daughter of his chief, and it is said, also,\nthe maiden loved the warrior. He had again and again been refused her\nhand by her parents, the old chief alleging that he was no brave, and\nhis old consort called him a woman!\n\nThe sun had again set upon the 'sugar-bush,' and the bright moon rose\nhigh in the bright blue heavens, when the young warrior took down his\nflute and went out alone, once more to sing the story of his love, the\nmild breeze gently moved the two gay feathers in his head-dress, and as\nhe mounted on the trunk of a leaning tree, the damp snow fell from his\nfeet heavily. As he raised his flute to his lips, his blanket slipped\nfrom his well-formed shoulders, and lay partly on the snow beneath. He\nbegan his weird, wild love-song, but soon felt that he was cold, and as\nhe reached back for his blanket, some unseen hand laid it gently on his\nshoulders; it was the hand of his love, his guardian angel. She took her\nplace beside him, and for the present they were happy; for the Indian\nhas a heart to love, and in this pride he is as noble as in his own\nfreedom, which makes him the child of the forest. As the legend runs, a\nlarge white-bear, thinking, perhaps, that polar snows and dismal winter\nweather extended everywhere, took up his journey southward. He at length\napproached the northern shore of the lake which now bears his name,\nwalked down the bank and made his way noiselessly through the deep heavy\nsnow toward the island. It was the same spring ensuing that the lovers\nmet. They had left their first retreat, and were now seated among the\nbranches of a large elm which hung far over the lake. (The same tree is\nstill standing, and excites universal curiosity and interest.) For fear\nof being detected, they talked almost in a whisper, and now, that they\nmight get back to camp in good time and thereby avoid suspicion, they\nwere just rising to return, when the maiden uttered a shriek which was\nheard at the camp, and bounding toward the young brave, she caught his\nblanket, but missed the direction of her foot and fell, bearing the\nblanket with her into the great arms of the ferocious monster. Instantly\nevery man, woman, and child of the band were upon the bank, but all\nunarmed. Cries and wailings went up from every mouth. What was to be\ndone'? In the meantime this white and savage beast held the breathless\nmaiden in his huge grasp, and fondled with his precious prey as if he\nwere used to scenes like this. One deafening yell from the lover warrior\nis heard above the cries of hundreds of his tribe, and dashing away\nto his wigwam he grasps his faithful knife, returns almost at a single\nbound to the scene of fear and fright, rushes out along the leaning tree\nto the spot where his treasure fell, and springing with the fury of\na mad panther, pounced upon his prey. The animal turned, and with one\nstroke of his huge paw brought the lovers heart to heart, but the next\nmoment the warrior, with one plunge of the blade of his knife, opened\nthe crimson sluices of death, and the dying bear relaxed his hold.\n\nThat night there was no more sleep for the band or the lovers, and as\nthe young and the old danced about the carcass of the dead monster, the\ngallant warrior was presented with another plume, and ere another moon\nhad set he had a living treasure added to his heart. Their children for\nmany years played upon the skin of the white-bear--from which the lake\nderives its name--and the maiden and the brave remembered long the\nfearful scene and rescue that made them one, for Kis-se-me-pa and\nKa-go-ka could never forget their fearful encounter with the huge\nmonster that came so near sending them to the happy hunting-ground.\n\nIt is a perplexing business. First, she fell down out of the tree--she\nand the blanket; and the bear caught her and fondled her--her and the\nblanket; then she fell up into the tree again--leaving the blanket;\nmeantime the lover goes war-whooping home and comes back 'heeled,'\nclimbs the tree, jumps down on the bear, the girl jumps down after\nhim--apparently, for she was up the tree--resumes her place in the\nbear's arms along with the blanket, the lover rams his knife into the\nbear, and saves--whom, the blanket? No--nothing of the sort. You get\nyourself all worked up and excited about that blanket, and then all of\na sudden, just when a happy climax seems imminent you are let down\nflat--nothing saved but the girl. Whereas, one is not interested in\nthe girl; she is not the prominent feature of the legend. Nevertheless,\nthere you are left, and there you must remain; for if you live a\nthousand years you will never know who got the blanket. A dead man could\nget up a better legend than this one. I don't mean a fresh dead man\neither; I mean a man that's been dead weeks and weeks.\n\nWe struck the home-trail now, and in a few hours were in that\nastonishing Chicago--a city where they are always rubbing the lamp, and\nfetching up the genii, and contriving and achieving new impossibilities.\nIt is hopeless for the occasional visitor to try to keep up with\nChicago--she outgrows his prophecies faster than he can make them.\nShe is always a novelty; for she is never the Chicago you saw when you\npassed through the last time. The Pennsylvania road rushed us to New\nYork without missing schedule time ten minutes anywhere on the route;\nand there ended one of the most enjoyable five-thousand-mile journeys I\nhave ever had the good fortune to make.\n\nAPPENDIX\n\nAPPENDIX A\n\n(FROM THE NEW ORLEANS TIMES DEMOCRAT OF MARCH 29, 1882.)\n\nVOYAGE OF THE TIMES-DEMOCRAT'S RELIEF BOAT THROUGH THE INUNDATED REGIONS\n\nIT was nine o'clock Thursday morning when the 'Susie' left the\nMississippi and entered Old River, or what is now called the mouth of\nthe Red. Ascending on the left, a flood was pouring in through and over\nthe levees on the Chandler plantation, the most northern point in Pointe\nCoupee parish. The water completely covered the place, although the\nlevees had given way but a short time before. The stock had been\ngathered in a large flat-boat, where, without food, as we passed, the\nanimals were huddled together, waiting for a boat to tow them off. On\nthe right-hand side of the river is Turnbull's Island, and on it is a\nlarge plantation which formerly was pronounced one of the most fertile\nin the State. The water has hitherto allowed it to go scot-free in usual\nfloods, but now broad sheets of water told only where fields were. The\ntop of the protecting levee could be seen here and there, but nearly all\nof it was submerged.\n\nThe trees have put on a greener foliage since the water has poured in,\nand the woods look bright and fresh, but this pleasant aspect to the eye\nis neutralized by the interminable waste of water. We pass mile after\nmile, and it is nothing but trees standing up to their branches in\nwater. A water-turkey now and again rises and flies ahead into the long\navenue of silence. A pirogue sometimes flits from the bushes and crosses\nthe Red River on its way out to the Mississippi, but the sad-faced\npaddlers never turn their heads to look at our boat. The puffing of the\nboat is music in this gloom, which affects one most curiously. It is not\nthe gloom of deep forests or dark caverns, but a peculiar kind of solemn\nsilence and impressive awe that holds one perforce to its recognition.\nWe passed two negro families on a raft tied up in the willows this\nmorning. They were evidently of the well-to-do class, as they had a\nsupply of meal and three or four hogs with them. Their rafts were about\ntwenty feet square, and in front of an improvised shelter earth had been\nplaced, on which they built their fire.\n\nThe current running down the Atchafalaya was very swift, the Mississippi\nshowing a predilection in that direction, which needs only to be seen to\nenforce the opinion of that river's desperate endeavors to find a short\nway to the Gulf. Small boats, skiffs, pirogues, etc., are in great\ndemand, and many have been stolen by piratical negroes, who take them\nwhere they will bring the greatest price. From what was told me by Mr.\nC. P. Ferguson, a planter near Red River Landing, whose place has just\ngone under, there is much suffering in the rear of that place. The\nnegroes had given up all thoughts of a crevasse there, as the upper\nlevee had stood so long, and when it did come they were at its mercy.\nOn Thursday a number were taken out of trees and off of cabin roofs and\nbrought in, many yet remaining.\n\nOne does not appreciate the sight of earth until he has traveled through\na flood. At sea one does not expect or look for it, but here, with\nfluttering leaves, shadowy forest aisles, house-tops barely visible, it\nis expected. In fact a grave-yard, if the mounds were above water, would\nbe appreciated. The river here is known only because there is an opening\nin the trees, and that is all. It is in width, from Fort Adams on the\nleft bank of the Mississippi to the bank of Rapides Parish, a distance\nof about sixty miles. A large portion of this was under cultivation,\nparticularly along the Mississippi and back of the Red. When Red River\nproper was entered, a strong current was running directly across it,\npursuing the same direction as that of the Mississippi.\n\nAfter a run of some hours, Black River was reached. Hardly was it\nentered before signs of suffering became visible. All the willows\nalong the banks were stripped of their leaves. One man, whom your\ncorrespondent spoke to, said that he had had one hundred and fifty head\nof cattle and one hundred head of hogs. At the first appearance of water\nhe had started to drive them to the high lands of Avoyelles, thirty-five\nmiles off, but he lost fifty head of the beef cattle and sixty hogs.\nBlack River is quite picturesque, even if its shores are under water.\nA dense growth of ash, oak, gum, and hickory make the shores almost\nimpenetrable, and where one can get a view down some avenue in\nthe trees, only the dim outlines of distant trunks can be barely\ndistinguished in the gloom.\n\nA few miles up this river, the depth of water on the banks was fully\neight feet, and on all sides could be seen, still holding against the\nstrong current, the tops of cabins. Here and there one overturned was\nsurrounded by drift-wood, forming the nucleus of possibly some future\nisland.\n\nIn order to save coal, as it was impossible to get that fuel at any\npoint to be touched during the expedition, a look-out was kept for a\nwood-pile. On rounding a point a pirogue, skilfully paddled by a youth,\nshot out, and in its bow was a girl of fifteen, of fair face, beautiful\nblack eyes, and demure manners. The boy asked for a paper, which was\nthrown to him, and the couple pushed their tiny craft out into the swell\nof the boat.\n\nPresently a little girl, not certainly over twelve years, paddled out in\nthe smallest little canoe and handled it with all the deftness of an old\nvoyageur. The little one looked more like an Indian than a white child,\nand laughed when asked if she were afraid. She had been raised in a\npirogue and could go anywhere. She was bound out to pick willow leaves\nfor the stock, and she pointed to a house near by with water three\ninches deep on the floors. At its back door was moored a raft about\nthirty feet square, with a sort of fence built upon it, and inside of\nthis some sixteen cows and twenty hogs were standing. The family did not\ncomplain, except on account of losing their stock, and promptly brought\na supply of wood in a flat.\n\nFrom this point to the Mississippi River, fifteen miles, there is not\na spot of earth above water, and to the westward for thirty-five miles\nthere is nothing but the river's flood. Black River had risen during\nThursday, the 23rd, 1{three-quarters} inches, and was going up at night\nstill. As we progress up the river habitations become more frequent,\nbut are yet still miles apart. Nearly all of them are deserted, and the\nout-houses floated off. To add to the gloom, almost every living thing\nseems to have departed, and not a whistle of a bird nor the bark of\nthe squirrel can be heard in this solitude. Sometimes a morose gar\nwill throw his tail aloft and disappear in the river, but beyond this\neverything is quiet--the quiet of dissolution. Down the river floats\nnow a neatly whitewashed hen-house, then a cluster of neatly split\nfence-rails, or a door and a bloated carcass, solemnly guarded by a pair\nof buzzards, the only bird to be seen, which feast on the carcass as it\nbears them along. A picture-frame in which there was a cheap lithograph\nof a soldier on horseback, as it floated on told of some hearth invaded\nby the water and despoiled of this ornament.\n\nAt dark, as it was not prudent to run, a place alongside the woods was\nhunted and to a tall gum-tree the boat was made fast for the night.\n\nA pretty quarter of the moon threw a pleasant light over forest and\nriver, making a picture that would be a delightful piece of landscape\nstudy, could an artist only hold it down to his canvas. The motion of\nthe engines had ceased, the puffing of the escaping steam was stilled,\nand the enveloping silence closed upon us, and such silence it was!\nUsually in a forest at night one can hear the piping of frogs, the hum\nof insects, or the dropping of limbs; but here nature was dumb. The dark\nrecesses, those aisles into this cathedral, gave forth no sound, and\neven the ripplings of the current die away.\n\nAt daylight Friday morning all hands were up, and up the Black we\nstarted. The morning was a beautiful one, and the river, which is\nremarkably straight, put on its loveliest garb. The blossoms of the haw\nperfumed the air deliciously, and a few birds whistled blithely along\nthe banks. The trees were larger, and the forest seemed of older growth\nthan below. More fields were passed than nearer the mouth, but the same\nscene presented itself--smoke-houses drifting out in the pastures,\nnegro quarters anchored in confusion against some oak, and the modest\nresidence just showing its eaves above water. The sun came up in a\nglory of carmine, and the trees were brilliant in their varied shades\nof green. Not a foot of soil is to be seen anywhere, and the water is\napparently growing deeper and deeper, for it reaches up to the branches\nof the largest trees. All along, the bordering willows have been denuded\nof leaves, showing how long the people have been at work gathering this\nfodder for their animals. An old man in a pirogue was asked how the\nwillow leaves agreed with his cattle. He stopped in his work, and with\nan ominous shake of his head replied: 'Well, sir, it 's enough to keep\nwarmth in their bodies and that's all we expect, but it's hard on the\nhogs, particularly the small ones. They is dropping off powerful fast.\nBut what can you do? It 's all we've got.'\n\nAt thirty miles above the mouth of Black River the water extends from\nNatchez on the Mississippi across to the pine hills of Louisiana, a\ndistance of seventy-three miles, and there is hardly a spot that is not\nten feet under it. The tendency of the current up the Black is toward\nthe west. In fact, so much is this the case, the waters of Red River\nhave been driven down from toward the Calcasieu country, and the waters\nof the Black enter the Red some fifteen miles above the mouth of the\nformer, a thing never before seen by even the oldest steamboatmen. The\nwater now in sight of us is entirely from the Mississippi.\n\nUp to Trinity, or rather Troy, which is but a short distance below,\nthe people have nearly all moved out, those remaining having enough for\ntheir present personal needs. Their cattle, though, are suffering and\ndying off quite fast, as the confinement on rafts and the food they get\nbreeds disease.\n\nAfter a short stop we started, and soon came to a section where there\nwere many open fields and cabins thickly scattered about. Here were seen\nmore pictures of distress. On the inside of the houses the inmates\nhad built on boxes a scaffold on which they placed the furniture. The\nbed-posts were sawed off on top, as the ceiling was not more than four\nfeet from the improvised floor. The buildings looked very insecure,\nand threatened every moment to float off. Near the houses were cattle\nstanding breast high in the water, perfectly impassive. They did not\nmove in their places, but stood patiently waiting for help to come. The\nsight was a distressing one, and the poor creatures will be sure to\ndie unless speedily rescued. Cattle differ from horses in this peculiar\nquality. A horse, after finding no relief comes, will swim off in search\nof food, whereas a beef will stand in its tracks until with exhaustion\nit drops in the water and drowns.\n\nAt half-past twelve o'clock a hail was given from a flat-boat inside the\nline of the bank. Rounding to we ran alongside, and General York stepped\naboard. He was just then engaged in getting off stock, and welcomed the\n'Times-Democrat' boat heartily, as he said there was much need for her.\nHe said that the distress was not exaggerated in the least. People were\nin a condition it was difficult even for one to imagine. The water was\nso high there was great danger of their houses being swept away. It had\nalready risen so high that it was approaching the eaves, and when it\nreaches this point there is always imminent risk of their being swept\naway. If this occurs, there will be great loss of life. The General\nspoke of the gallant work of many of the people in their attempts to\nsave their stock, but thought that fully twenty-five per cent. had\nperished. Already twenty-five hundred people had received rations from\nTroy, on Black River, and he had towed out a great many cattle, but a\nvery great quantity remained and were in dire need. The water was now\neighteen inches higher than in 1874, and there was no land between\nVidalia and the hills of Catahoula.\n\nAt two o'clock the 'Susie' reached Troy, sixty-five miles above the\nmouth of Black River. Here on the left comes in Little River; just\nbeyond that the Ouachita, and on the right the Tensas. These three\nrivers form the Black River. Troy, or a portion of it, is situated on\nand around three large Indian mounds, circular in shape, which rise\nabove the present water about twelve feet. They are about one hundred\nand fifty feet in diameter, and are about two hundred yards apart. The\nhouses are all built between these mounds, and hence are all flooded to\na depth of eighteen inches on their floors.\n\nThese elevations, built by the aborigines, hundreds of years ago, are\nthe only points of refuge for miles. When we arrived we found them\ncrowded with stock, all of which was thin and hardly able to stand up.\nThey were mixed together, sheep, hogs, horses, mules, and cattle. One of\nthese mounds has been used for many years as the grave-yard, and to-day\nwe saw attenuated cows lying against the marble tomb-stones, chewing\ntheir cud in contentment, after a meal of corn furnished by General\nYork. Here, as below, the remarkable skill of the women and girls in the\nmanagement of the smaller pirogues was noticed. Children were paddling\nabout in these most ticklish crafts with all the nonchalance of adepts.\n\nGeneral York has put into operation a perfect system in regard to\nfurnishing relief. He makes a personal inspection of the place where it\nis asked, sees what is necessary to be done, and then, having two boats\nchartered, with flats, sends them promptly to the place, when the cattle\nare loaded and towed to the pine hills and uplands of Catahoula. He\nhas made Troy his headquarters, and to this point boats come for their\nsupply of feed for cattle. On the opposite side of Little River, which\nbranches to the left out of Black, and between it and the Ouachita,\nis situated the town of Trinity, which is hourly threatened with\ndestruction. It is much lower than Troy, and the water is eight and nine\nfeet deep in the houses. A strong current sweeps through it, and it is\nremarkable that all of its houses have not gone before. The residents of\nboth Troy and Trinity have been cared for, yet some of their stock have\nto be furnished with food.\n\nAs soon as the 'Susie' reached Troy, she was turned over to General\nYork, and placed at his disposition to carry out the work of relief more\nrapidly. Nearly all her supplies were landed on one of the mounds to\nlighten her, and she was headed down stream to relieve those below.\nAt Tom Hooper's place, a few miles from Troy, a large flat, with about\nfifty head of stock on board, was taken in tow. The animals were fed,\nand soon regained some strength. To-day we go on Little River, where the\nsuffering is greatest.\n\nDOWN BLACK RIVER\n\nSaturday Evening, March 25.\n\nWe started down Black River quite early, under the direction of General\nYork, to bring out what stock could be reached. Going down river a flat\nin tow was left in a central locality, and from there men poled her back\nin the rear of plantations, picking up the animals wherever found. In\nthe loft of a gin-house there were seventeen head found, and after a\ngangway was built they were led down into the flat without difficulty.\nTaking a skiff with the General, your reporter was pulled up to a little\nhouse of two rooms, in which the water was standing two feet on the\nfloors. In one of the large rooms were huddled the horses and cows of\nthe place, while in the other the Widow Taylor and her son were seated\non a scaffold raised on the floor. One or two dug-outs were drifting\nabout in the roam ready to be put in service at any time. When the flat\nwas brought up, the side of the house was cut away as the only means of\ngetting the animals out, and the cattle were driven on board the boat.\nGeneral York, in this as in every case, inquired if the family desired\nto leave, informing them that Major Burke, of 'The Times-Democrat,' has\nsent the 'Susie' up for that purpose. Mrs. Taylor said she thanked Major\nBurke, but she would try and hold out. The remarkable tenacity of the\npeople here to their homes is beyond all comprehension. Just below, at\na point sixteen miles from Troy, information was received that the\nhouse of Mr. Tom Ellis was in danger, and his family were all in it. We\nsteamed there immediately, and a sad picture was presented. Looking out\nof the half of the window left above water, was Mrs. Ellis, who is in\nfeeble health, whilst at the door were her seven children, the oldest\nnot fourteen years. One side of the house was given up to the work\nanimals, some twelve head, besides hogs. In the next room the family\nlived, the water coming within two inches of the bed-rail. The stove was\nbelow water, and the cooking was done on a fire on top of it. The house\nthreatened to give way at any moment: one end of it was sinking, and,\nin fact, the building looked a mere shell. As the boat rounded to, Mr.\nEllis came out in a dug-out, and General York told him that he had come\nto his relief; that 'The Times-Democrat' boat was at his service, and\nwould remove his family at once to the hills, and on Monday a flat\nwould take out his stock, as, until that time, they would be busy.\nNotwithstanding the deplorable situation himself and family were in,\nMr. Ellis did not want to leave. He said he thought he would wait until\nMonday, and take the risk of his house falling. The children around the\ndoor looked perfectly contented, seeming to care little for the danger\nthey were in. These are but two instances of the many. After weeks of\nprivation and suffering, people still cling to their houses and leave\nonly when there is not room between the water and the ceiling to build\na scaffold on which to stand. It seemed to be incomprehensible, yet the\nlove for the old place was stronger than that for safety.\n\nAfter leaving the Ellis place, the next spot touched at was the Oswald\nplace. Here the flat was towed alongside the gin-house where there were\nfifteen head standing in water; and yet, as they stood on scaffolds,\ntheir heads were above the top of the entrance. It was found impossible\nto get them out without cutting away a portion of the front; and so\naxes were brought into requisition and a gap made. After much labor the\nhorses and mules were securely placed on the flat.\n\nAt each place we stop there are always three, four, or more dug-outs\narriving, bringing information of stock in other places in need.\nNotwithstanding the fact that a great many had driven a part of their\nstock to the hills some time ago, there yet remains a large quantity,\nwhich General York, who is working with indomitable energy, will get\nlanded in the pine hills by Tuesday.\n\nAll along Black River the 'Susie' has been visited by scores of\nplanters, whose tales are the repetition of those already heard of\nsuffering and loss. An old planter, who has lived on the river since\n1844, said there never was such a rise, and he was satisfied more than\none quarter of the stock has been lost. Luckily the people cared first\nfor their work stock, and when they could find it horses and mules were\nhoused in a place of safety. The rise which still continues, and was two\ninches last night, compels them to get them out to the hills; hence it\nis that the work of General York is of such a great value. From daylight\nto late at night he is going this way and that, cheering by his\nkindly words and directing with calm judgment what is to be done. One\nunpleasant story, of a certain merchant in New Orleans, is told all\nalong the river. It appears for some years past the planters have been\ndealing with this individual, and many of them had balances in his\nhands. When the overflow came they wrote for coffee, for meal, and, in\nfact, for such little necessities as were required. No response to these\nletters came, and others were written, and yet these old customers, with\nplantations under water, were refused even what was necessary to sustain\nlife. It is needless to say he is not popular now on Back River.\n\nThe hills spoken of as the place of refuge for the people and stock on\nBlack River are in Catahoula parish, twenty-four miles from Black River.\n\nAfter filling the flat with cattle we took on board the family of T. S.\nHooper, seven in number, who could not longer remain in their dwelling,\nand we are now taking them up Little River to the hills.\n\nTHE FLOOD STILL RISING\n\nTroy: March 27, 1882, noon.\n\nThe flood here is rising about three and a half inches every twenty-four\nhours, and rains have set in which will increase this. General York\nfeels now that our efforts ought to be directed towards saving life, as\nthe increase of the water has jeopardized many houses. We intend to\ngo up the Tensas in a few minutes, and then we will return and go\ndown Black River to take off families. There is a lack of steam\ntransportation here to meet the emergency. The General has three boats\nchartered, with flats in tow, but the demand for these to tow out stock\nis greater than they can meet with promptness. All are working night and\nday, and the 'Susie' hardly stops for more than an hour anywhere. The\nrise has placed Trinity in a dangerous plight, and momentarily it\nis expected that some of the houses will float off. Troy is a little\nhigher, yet all are in the water. Reports have come in that a woman\nand child have been washed away below here, and two cabins floated\noff. Their occupants are the same who refused to come off day before\nyesterday. One would not believe the utter passiveness of the people.\n\nAs yet no news has been received of the steamer 'Delia,' which is\nsupposed to be the one sunk in yesterday's storm on Lake Catahoula.\nShe is due here now, but has not arrived. Even the mail here is most\nuncertain, and this I send by skiff to Natchez to get it to you. It is\nimpossible to get accurate data as to past crops, etc., as those who\nknow much about the matter have gone, and those who remain are not well\nversed in the production of this section.\n\nGeneral York desires me to say that the amount of rations formerly sent\nshould be duplicated and sent at once. It is impossible to make any\nestimate, for the people are fleeing to the hills, so rapid is the\nrise. The residents here are in a state of commotion that can only be\nappreciated when seen, and complete demoralization has set in.\n\nIf rations are drawn for any particular section hereabouts, they would\nnot be certain to be distributed, so everything should be sent to Troy\nas a center, and the General will have it properly disposed of. He\nhas sent for one hundred tents, and, if all go to the hills who are in\nmotion now, two hundred will be required.\n\nAPPENDIX B\n\nTHE MISSISSIPPI RIVER COMMISSION\n\nTHE condition of this rich valley of the Lower Mississippi, immediately\nafter and since the war, constituted one of the disastrous effects of\nwar most to be deplored. Fictitious property in slaves was not only\nrighteously destroyed, but very much of the work which had depended upon\nthe slave labor was also destroyed or greatly impaired, especially the\nlevee system.\n\nIt might have been expected by those who have not investigated the\nsubject, that such important improvements as the construction and\nmaintenance of the levees would have been assumed at once by the several\nStates. But what can the State do where the people are under subjection\nto rates of interest ranging from 18 to 30 per cent., and are also under\nthe necessity of pledging their crops in advance even of planting, at\nthese rates, for the privilege of purchasing all of their supplies at\n100 per cent. profit?\n\nIt has needed but little attention to make it perfectly obvious that\nthe control of the Mississippi River, if undertaken at all, must be\nundertaken by the national government, and cannot be compassed by\nStates. The river must be treated as a unit; its control cannot be\ncompassed under a divided or separate system of administration.\n\nNeither are the States especially interested competent to combine among\nthemselves for the necessary operations. The work must begin far up the\nriver; at least as far as Cairo, if not beyond; and must be conducted\nupon a consistent general plan throughout the course of the river.\n\nIt does not need technical or scientific knowledge to comprehend the\nelements of the case if one will give a little time and attention to the\nsubject, and when a Mississippi River commission has been constituted,\nas the existing commission is, of thoroughly able men of different walks\nin life, may it not be suggested that their verdict in the case should\nbe accepted as conclusive, so far as any a priori theory of construction\nor control can be considered conclusive?\n\nIt should be remembered that upon this board are General Gilmore,\nGeneral Comstock, and General Suter, of the United States Engineers;\nProfessor Henry Mitchell (the most competent authority on the question\nof hydrography), of the United States Coast Survey; B. B. Harrod,\nthe State Engineer of Louisiana; Jas. B. Eads, whose success with the\njetties at New Orleans is a warrant of his competency, and Judge Taylor,\nof Indiana.\n\nIt would be presumption on the part of any single man, however skilled,\nto contest the judgment of such a board as this.\n\nThe method of improvement proposed by the commission is at once in\naccord with the results of engineering experience and with observations\nof nature where meeting our wants. As in nature the growth of trees and\ntheir proneness where undermined to fall across the slope and support\nthe bank secures at some points a fair depth of channel and some degree\nof permanence, so in the project of the engineer the use of timber and\nbrush and the encouragement of forest growth are the main features. It\nis proposed to reduce the width where excessive by brushwood dykes, at\nfirst low, but raised higher and higher as the mud of the river settles\nunder their shelter, and finally slope them back at the angle upon which\nwillows will grow freely. In this work there are many details connected\nwith the forms of these shelter dykes, their arrangements so as to\npresent a series of settling basins, etc., a description of which would\nonly complicate the conception. Through the larger part of the river\nworks of contraction will not be required, but nearly all the banks\non the concave side of the beds must be held against the wear of the\nstream, and much of the opposite banks defended at critical points.\nThe works having in view this conservative object may be generally\ndesignated works of revetment; and these also will be largely of\nbrushwood, woven in continuous carpets, or twined into wire-netting.\nThis veneering process has been successfully employed on the Missouri\nRiver; and in some cases they have so covered themselves with sediments,\nand have become so overgrown with willows, that they may be regarded as\npermanent. In securing these mats rubble-stone is to be used in small\nquantities, and in some instances the dressed slope between high and low\nriver will have to be more or less paved with stone.\n\nAny one who has been on the Rhine will have observed operations not\nunlike those to which we have just referred; and, indeed, most of the\nrivers of Europe flowing among their own alluvia have required similar\ntreatment in the interest of navigation and agriculture.\n\nThe levee is the crowning work of bank revetment, although not\nnecessarily in immediate connection. It may be set back a short distance\nfrom the revetted bank; but it is, in effect, the requisite parapet.\nThe flood river and the low river cannot be brought into register, and\ncompelled to unite in the excavation of a single permanent channel,\nwithout a complete control of all the stages; and even the abnormal rise\nmust be provided against, because this would endanger the levee, and\nonce in force behind the works of revetment would tear them also away.\n\nUnder the general principle that the local slope of a river is the\nresult and measure of the resistance of its bed, it is evident that\na narrow and deep stream should have less slope, because it has less\nfrictional surface in proportion to capacity; i.e., less perimeter in\nproportion to area of cross section. The ultimate effect of levees and\nrevetments confining the floods and bringing all the stages of the river\ninto register is to deepen the channel and let down the slope. The first\neffect of the levees is to raise the surface; but this, by inducing\ngreater velocity of flow, inevitably causes an enlargement of section,\nand if this enlargement is prevented from being made at the expense of\nthe banks, the bottom must give way and the form of the waterway be so\nimproved as to admit this flow with less rise. The actual experience\nwith levees upon the Mississippi River, with no attempt to hold the\nbanks, has been favorable, and no one can doubt, upon the evidence\nfurnished in the reports of the commission, that if the earliest levees\nhad been accompanied by revetment of banks, and made complete, we should\nhave to-day a river navigable at low water, and an adjacent country safe\nfrom inundation.\n\nOf course it would be illogical to conclude that the constrained river\ncan ever lower its flood slope so as to make levees unnecessary, but it\nis believed that, by this lateral constraint, the river as a conduit may\nbe so improved in form that even those rare floods which result from the\ncoincident rising of many tributaries will find vent without destroying\nlevees of ordinary height. That the actual capacity of a channel through\nalluvium depends upon its service during floods has been often shown,\nbut this capacity does not include anomalous, but recurrent, floods.\n\nIt is hardly worth while to consider the projects for relieving\nthe Mississippi River floods by creating new outlets, since these\nsensational propositions have commended themselves only to unthinking\nminds, and have no support among engineers. Were the river bed\ncast-iron, a resort to openings for surplus waters might be a necessity;\nbut as the bottom is yielding, and the best form of outlet is a single\ndeep channel, as realizing the least ratio of perimeter to area of\ncross section, there could not well be a more unphilosophical method of\ntreatment than the multiplication of avenues of escape.\n\nIn the foregoing statement the attempt has been made to condense in\nas limited a space as the importance of the subject would permit,\nthe general elements of the problem, and the general features of the\nproposed method of improvement which has been adopted by the Mississippi\nRiver Commission.\n\nThe writer cannot help feeling that it is somewhat presumptuous on his\npart to attempt to present the facts relating to an enterprise which\ncalls for the highest scientific skill; but it is a matter which\ninterests every citizen of the United States, and is one of the methods\nof reconstruction which ought to be approved. It is a war claim which\nimplies no private gain, and no compensation except for one of the cases\nof destruction incident to war, which may well be repaired by the people\nof the whole country.\n\nEDWARD ATKINSON.\n\nBoston: April 14, 1882.\n\nAPPENDIX C\n\nRECEPTION OF CAPTAIN BASIL HALL'S BOOK IN THE UNITED STATES\n\nHAVING now arrived nearly at the end of our travels, I am induced, ere I\nconclude, again to mention what I consider as one of the most remarkable\ntraits in the national character of the Americans; namely, their\nexquisite sensitiveness and soreness respecting everything said or\nwritten concerning them. Of this, perhaps, the most remarkable example I\ncan give is the effect produced on nearly every class of readers by the\nappearance of Captain Basil Hall's 'Travels in North America.' In fact,\nit was a sort of moral earthquake, and the vibration it occasioned\nthrough the nerves of the republic, from one corner of the Union to\nthe other, was by no means over when I left the country in July 1831, a\ncouple of years after the shock.\n\nI was in Cincinnati when these volumes came out, but it was not till\nJuly 1830, that I procured a copy of them. One bookseller to whom I\napplied told me that he had had a few copies before he understood the\nnature of the work, but that, after becoming acquainted with it, nothing\nshould induce him to sell another. Other persons of his profession must,\nhowever, have been less scrupulous; for the book was read in city, town,\nvillage, and hamlet, steamboat, and stage-coach, and a sort of war-whoop\nwas sent forth perfectly unprecedented in my recollection upon any\noccasion whatever.\n\nAn ardent desire for approbation, and a delicate sensitiveness under\ncensure, have always, I believe, been considered as amiable traits of\ncharacter; but the condition into which the appearance of Captain Hall's\nwork threw the republic shows plainly that these feelings, if carried to\nexcess, produce a weakness which amounts to imbecility.\n\nIt was perfectly astonishing to hear men who, on other subjects, were\nof some judgment, utter their opinions upon this. I never heard of any\ninstance in which the commonsense generally found in national criticism\nwas so overthrown by passion. I do not speak of the want of justice, and\nof fair and liberal interpretation: these, perhaps, were hardly to be\nexpected. Other nations have been called thin-skinned, but the citizens\nof the Union have, apparently, no skins at all; they wince if a breeze\nblows over them, unless it be tempered with adulation. It was not,\ntherefore, very surprising that the acute and forcible observations of a\ntraveler they knew would be listened to should be received testily. The\nextraordinary features of the business were, first, the excess of the\nrage into which they lashed themselves; and, secondly, the puerility of\nthe inventions by which they attempted to account for the severity with\nwhich they fancied they had been treated.\n\nNot content with declaring that the volumes contained no word of truth,\nfrom beginning to end (which is an assertion I heard made very nearly as\noften as they were mentioned), the whole country set to work to discover\nthe causes why Captain Hall had visited the United States, and why he\nhad published his book.\n\nI have heard it said with as much precision and gravity as if the\nstatement had been conveyed by an official report, that Captain Hall\nhad been sent out by the British Government expressly for the purpose\nof checking the growing admiration of England for the Government of the\nUnited States,--that it was by a commission from the treasury he had\ncome, and that it was only in obedience to orders that he had found\nanything to object to.\n\nI do not give this as the gossip of a coterie; I am persuaded that it is\nthe belief of a very considerable portion of the country. So deep is\nthe conviction of this singular people that they cannot be seen without\nbeing admired, that they will not admit the possibility that any one\nshould honestly and sincerely find aught to disapprove in them or their\ncountry.\n\nThe American Reviews are, many of them, I believe, well known in\nEngland; I need not, therefore, quote them here, but I sometimes\nwondered that they, none of them, ever thought of translating Obadiah's\ncurse into classic American; if they had done so, on placing (he, Basil\nHall) between brackets, instead of (he, Obadiah) it would have saved\nthem a world of trouble.\n\nI can hardly describe the curiosity with which I sat down at length\nto peruse these tremendous volumes; still less can I do justice to my\nsurprise at their contents. To say that I found not one exaggerated\nstatement throughout the work is by no means saying enough. It is\nimpossible for any one who knows the country not to see that Captain\nHall earnestly sought out things to admire and commend. When he praises,\nit is with evident pleasure; and when he finds fault, it is with evident\nreluctance and restraint, excepting where motives purely patriotic urge\nhim to state roundly what it is for the benefit of his country should be\nknown.\n\nIn fact, Captain Hall saw the country to the greatest possible\nadvantage. Furnished, of course, with letters of introduction to the\nmost distinguished individuals, and with the still more influential\nrecommendation of his own reputation, he was received in full\ndrawing-room style and state from one end of the Union to the other.\nHe saw the country in full dress, and had little or no opportunity\nof judging of it unhouselled, unanointed, unannealed, with all its\nimperfections on its head, as I and my family too often had.\n\nCaptain Hall had certainly excellent opportunities of making himself\nacquainted with the form of the government and the laws; and of\nreceiving, moreover, the best oral commentary upon them, in conversation\nwith the most distinguished citizens. Of these opportunities he made\nexcellent use; nothing important met his eye which did not receive that\nsort of analytical attention which an experienced and philosophical\ntraveler alone can give. This has made his volumes highly interesting\nand valuable; but I am deeply persuaded, that were a man of equal\npenetration to visit the United States with no other means of becoming\nacquainted with the national character than the ordinary working-day\nintercourse of life, he would conceive an infinitely lower idea of the\nmoral atmosphere of the country than Captain Hall appears to have done;\nand the internal conviction on my mind is strong, that if Captain\nHall had not placed a firm restraint on himself, he must have given\nexpression to far deeper indignation than any he has uttered against\nmany points in the American character, with which he shows from other\ncircumstances that he was well acquainted. His rule appears to have been\nto state just so much of the truth as would leave on the mind of his\nreaders a correct impression, at the least cost of pain to the sensitive\nfolks he was writing about. He states his own opinions and feelings, and\nleaves it to be inferred that he has good grounds for adopting them;\nbut he spares the Americans the bitterness which a detail of the\ncircumstances would have produced.\n\nIf any one chooses to say that some wicked antipathy to twelve millions\nof strangers is the origin of my opinion, I must bear it; and were the\nquestion one of mere idle speculation, I certainly would not court the\nabuse I must meet for stating it. But it is not so.\n\n. . . . . . .\n\nThe candor which he expresses, and evidently feels, they mistake for\nirony, or totally distrust; his unwillingness to give pain to\npersons from whom he has received kindness, they scornfully reject as\naffectation, and although they must know right well, in their own secret\nhearts, how infinitely more they lay at his mercy than he has chosen to\nbetray; they pretend, even to themselves, that he has exaggerated the\nbad points of their character and institutions; whereas, the truth is,\nthat he has let them off with a degree of tenderness which may be quite\nsuitable for him to exercise, however little merited; while, at the\nsame time, he has most industriously magnified their merits, whenever he\ncould possibly find anything favorable.\n\nAPPENDIX D\n\nTHE UNDYING HEAD\n\nIN a remote part of the North lived a man and his sister, who had never\nseen a human being. Seldom, if ever, had the man any cause to go from\nhome; for, as his wants demanded food, he had only to go a little\ndistance from the lodge, and there, in some particular spot, place his\narrows, with their barbs in the ground. Telling his sister where they\nhad been placed, every morning she would go in search, and never fail\nof finding each stuck through the heart of a deer. She had then only to\ndrag them into the lodge and prepare their food. Thus she lived till she\nattained womanhood, when one day her brother, whose name was Iamo, said\nto her: 'Sister, the time is at hand when you will be ill. Listen to my\nadvice. If you do not, it will probably be the cause of my death. Take\nthe implements with which we kindle our fires. Go some distance from our\nlodge and build a separate fire. When you are in want of food, I will\ntell you where to find it. You must cook for yourself, and I will for\nmyself. When you are ill, do not attempt to come near the lodge, or\nbring any of the utensils you use. Be sure always to fasten to your belt\nthe implements you need, for you do not know when the time will come. As\nfor myself, I must do the best I can.' His sister promised to obey him\nin all he had said.\n\nShortly after, her brother had cause to go from home. She was alone in\nher lodge, combing her hair. She had just untied the belt to which the\nimplements were fastened, when suddenly the event, to which her brother\nhad alluded, occurred. She ran out of the lodge, but in her haste forgot\nthe belt. Afraid to return, she stood for some time thinking. Finally,\nshe decided to enter the lodge and get it. For, thought she, my brother\nis not at home, and I will stay but a moment to catch hold of it. She\nwent back. Running in suddenly, she caught hold of it, and was coming\nout when her brother came in sight. He knew what was the matter. 'Oh,'\nhe said, 'did I not tell you to take care. But now you have killed me.'\nShe was going on her way, but her brother said to her, 'What can you\ndo there now. The accident has happened. Go in, and stay where you have\nalways stayed. And what will become of you? You have killed me.'\n\nHe then laid aside his hunting-dress and accoutrements, and soon after\nboth his feet began to turn black, so that he could not move. Still he\ndirected his sister where to place the arrows, that she might always\nhave food. The inflammation continued to increase, and had now reached\nhis first rib; and he said: 'Sister, my end is near. You must do as\nI tell you. You see my medicine-sack, and my war-club tied to it. It\ncontains all my medicines, and my war-plumes, and my paints of all\ncolors. As soon as the inflammation reaches my breast, you will take my\nwar-club. It has a sharp point, and you will cut off my head. When it is\nfree from my body, take it, place its neck in the sack, which you must\nopen at one end. Then hang it up in its former place. Do not forget\nmy bow and arrows. One of the last you will take to procure food. The\nremainder, tie in my sack, and then hang it up, so that I can look\ntowards the door. Now and then I will speak to you, but not often.' His\nsister again promised to obey.\n\nIn a little time his breast was affected. 'Now,' said he, 'take the\nclub and strike off my head.' She was afraid, but he told her to muster\ncourage. 'Strike,' said he, and a smile was on his face. Mustering all\nher courage, she gave the blow and cut off the head. 'Now,' said the\nhead, 'place me where I told you.' And fearfully she obeyed it in all\nits commands. Retaining its animation, it looked around the lodge\nas usual, and it would command its sister to go in such places as it\nthought would procure for her the flesh of different animals she needed.\nOne day the head said: 'The time is not distant when I shall be freed\nfrom this situation, and I shall have to undergo many sore evils. So\nthe superior manito decrees, and I must bear all patiently.' In this\nsituation we must leave the head.\n\nIn a certain part of the country was a village inhabited by a numerous\nand warlike band of Indians. In this village was a family of ten young\nmen--brothers. It was in the spring of the year that the youngest of\nthese blackened his face and fasted. His dreams were propitious. Having\nended his fast, he went secretly for his brothers at night, so that none\nin the village could overhear or find out the direction they intended\nto go. Though their drum was heard, yet that was a common occurrence.\nHaving ended the usual formalities, he told how favorable his dreams\nwere, and that he had called them together to know if they would\naccompany him in a war excursion. They all answered they would. The\nthird brother from the eldest, noted for his oddities, coming up with\nhis war-club when his brother had ceased speaking, jumped up. 'Yes,'\nsaid he, 'I will go, and this will be the way I will treat those I am\ngoing to fight;' and he struck the post in the center of the lodge, and\ngave a yell. The others spoke to him, saying: 'Slow, slow, Mudjikewis,\nwhen you are in other people's lodges.' So he sat down. Then, in turn,\nthey took the drum, and sang their songs, and closed with a feast. The\nyoungest told them not to whisper their intention to their wives, but\nsecretly to prepare for their journey. They all promised obedience, and\nMudjikewis was the first to say so.\n\nThe time for their departure drew near. Word was given to assemble on a\ncertain night, when they would depart immediately. Mudjikewis was loud\nin his demands for his moccasins. Several times his wife asked him the\nreason. 'Besides,' said she, 'you have a good pair on.' 'Quick, quick,'\nsaid he, 'since you must know, we are going on a war excursion; so be\nquick.' He thus revealed the secret. That night they met and started.\nThe snow was on the ground, and they traveled all night, lest others\nshould follow them. When it was daylight, the leader took snow and made\na ball of it, then tossing it into the air, he said: 'It was in this way\nI saw snow fall in a dream, so that I could not be tracked.' And he told\nthem to keep close to each other for fear of losing themselves, as the\nsnow began to fall in very large flakes. Near as they walked, it was\nwith difficulty they could see each other. The snow continued falling\nall that day and the following night, so it was impossible to track\nthem.\n\nThey had now walked for several days, and Mudjikewis was always in\nthe rear. One day, running suddenly forward, he gave the\n_saw-saw-quan_,{footnote [War-whoop.]} and struck a tree with his\nwar-club, and it broke into pieces as if struck with lightning.\n'Brothers,' said he, 'this will be the way I will serve those we are\ngoing to fight.' The leader answered, 'Slow, slow, Mudjikewis, the one I\nlead you to is not to be thought of so lightly.' Again he fell back and\nthought to himself: 'What! what! who can this be he is leading us to?'\nHe felt fearful and was silent. Day after day they traveled on, till\nthey came to an extensive plain, on the borders of which human bones\nwere bleaching in the sun. The leader spoke: 'They are the bones of\nthose who have gone before us. None has ever yet returned to tell the\nsad tale of their fate.' Again Mudjikewis became restless, and, running\nforward, gave the accustomed yell. Advancing to a large rock which stood\nabove the ground, he struck it, and it fell to pieces. 'See, brothers,'\nsaid he, 'thus will I treat those whom we are going to fight.' 'Still,\nstill,' once more said the leader; 'he to whom I am leading you is not\nto be compared to the rock.'\n\nMudjikewis fell back thoughtful, saying to himself: 'I wonder who\nthis can be that he is going to attack;' and he was afraid. Still they\ncontinued to see the remains of former warriors, who had been to the\nplace where they were now going, some of whom had retreated as far back\nas the place where they first saw the bones, beyond which no one had\never escaped. At last they came to a piece of rising ground, from which\nthey plainly distinguished, sleeping on a distant mountain, a mammoth\nbear.\n\nThe distance between them was very great, but the size of the animal\ncaused him to be plainly seen. 'There,' said the leader, 'it is he to\nwhom I am leading you; here our troubles will commence, for he is a\nmishemokwa and a manito. It is he who has that we prize so dearly (i.e.\nwampum), to obtain which, the warriors whose bones we saw, sacrificed\ntheir lives. You must not be fearful: be manly. We shall find him\nasleep.' Then the leader went forward and touched the belt around the\nanimal's neck. 'This,' said he, 'is what we must get. It contains the\nwampum.' Then they requested the eldest to try and slip the belt over\nthe bear's head, who appeared to be fast asleep, as he was not in the\nleast disturbed by the attempt to obtain the belt. All their efforts\nwere in vain, till it came to the one next the youngest. He tried, and\nthe belt moved nearly over the monster's head, but he could get it no\nfarther. Then the youngest one, and the leader, made his attempt, and\nsucceeded. Placing it on the back of the oldest, he said, 'Now we must\nrun,' and off they started. When one became fatigued with its weight,\nanother would relieve him. Thus they ran till they had passed the bones\nof all former warriors, and were some distance beyond, when looking\nback, they saw the monster slowly rising. He stood some time before he\nmissed his wampum. Soon they heard his tremendous howl, like distant\nthunder, slowly filling all the sky; and then they heard him speak and\nsay, 'Who can it be that has dared to steal my wampum? earth is not\nso large but that I can find them;' and he descended from the hill in\npursuit. As if convulsed, the earth shook with every jump he made. Very\nsoon he approached the party. They, however, kept the belt, exchanging\nit from one to another, and encouraging each other; but he gained on\nthem fast. 'Brothers,' said the leader, 'has never any one of you,\nwhen fasting, dreamed of some friendly spirit who would aid you as a\nguardian?' A dead silence followed. 'Well,' said he, 'fasting, I dreamed\nof being in danger of instant death, when I saw a small lodge, with\nsmoke curling from its top. An old man lived in it, and I dreamed he\nhelped me; and may it be verified soon,' he said, running forward and\ngiving the peculiar yell, and a howl as if the sounds came from the\ndepths of his stomach, and what is called _checaudum_. Getting upon a\npiece of rising ground, behold! a lodge, with smoke curling from its\ntop, appeared. This gave them all new strength, and they ran forward\nand entered it. The leader spoke to the old man who sat in the lodge,\nsaying, 'Nemesho, help us; we claim your protection, for the great bear\nwill kill us.' 'Sit down and eat, my grandchildren,' said the old man.\n'Who is a great manito?' said he. 'There is none but me; but let me\nlook,' and he opened the door of the lodge, when, lo! at a little\ndistance he saw the enraged animal coming on, with slow but powerful\nleaps. He closed the door. 'Yes,' said he, 'he is indeed a great manito:\nmy grandchildren, you will be the cause of my losing my life; you asked\nmy protection, and I granted it; so now, come what may, I will protect\nyou. When the bear arrives at the door, you must run out of the other\ndoor of the lodge.' Then putting his hand to the side of the lodge where\nhe sat, he brought out a bag which he opened. Taking out two small\nblack dogs, he placed them before him. 'These are the ones I use when I\nfight,' said he; and he commenced patting with both hands the sides of\none of them, and he began to swell out, so that he soon filled the lodge\nby his bulk; and he had great strong teeth. When he attained his full\nsize he growled, and from that moment, as from instinct, he jumped out\nat the door and met the bear, who in another leap would have reached the\nlodge. A terrible combat ensued. The skies rang with the howls of the\nfierce monsters. The remaining dog soon took the field. The brothers,\nat the onset, took the advice of the old man, and escaped through the\nopposite side of the lodge. They had not proceeded far before they heard\nthe dying cry of one of the dogs, and soon after of the other. 'Well,'\nsaid the leader, 'the old man will share their fate: so run; he will\nsoon be after us.' They started with fresh vigor, for they had received\nfood from the old man: but very soon the bear came in sight, and again\nwas fast gaining upon them. Again the leader asked the brothers if they\ncould do nothing for their safety. All were silent. The leader, running\nforward, did as before. 'I dreamed,' he cried, 'that, being in great\ntrouble, an old man helped me who was a manito; we shall soon see his\nlodge.' Taking courage, they still went on. After going a short distance\nthey saw the lodge of the old manito. They entered immediately and\nclaimed his protection, telling him a manito was after them. The old\nman, setting meat before them, said: 'Eat! who is a manito? there is no\nmanito but me; there is none whom I fear;' and the earth trembled as\nthe monster advanced. The old man opened the door and saw him coming.\nHe shut it slowly, and said: 'Yes, my grandchildren, you have brought\ntrouble upon me.' Procuring his medicine-sack, he took out his small\nwar-clubs of black stone, and told the young men to run through the\nother side of the lodge. As he handled the clubs, they became very\nlarge, and the old man stepped out just as the bear reached the door.\nThen striking him with one of the clubs, it broke in pieces; the bear\nstumbled. Renewing the attempt with the other war-club, that also was\nbroken, but the bear fell senseless. Each blow the old man gave him\nsounded like a clap of thunder, and the howls of the bear ran along till\nthey filled the heavens.\n\nThe young men had now run some distance, when they looked back. They\ncould see that the bear was recovering from the blows. First he moved\nhis paws, and soon they saw him rise on his feet. The old man shared\nthe fate of the first, for they now heard his cries as he was torn in\npieces. Again the monster was in pursuit, and fast overtaking them. Not\nyet discouraged, the young men kept on their way; but the bear was now\nso close, that the leader once more applied to his brothers, but they\ncould do nothing. 'Well,' said he, 'my dreams will soon be exhausted;\nafter this I have but one more.' He advanced, invoking his guardian\nspirit to aid him. 'Once,' said he, 'I dreamed that, being sorely\npressed, I came to a large lake, on the shore of which was a canoe,\npartly out of water, having ten paddles all in readiness. Do not fear,'\nhe cried, 'we shall soon get it.' And so it was, even as he had said.\nComing to the lake, they saw the canoe with ten paddles, and immediately\nthey embarked. Scarcely had they reached the center of the lake, when\nthey saw the bear arrive at its borders. Lifting himself on his hind\nlegs, he looked all around. Then he waded into the water; then losing\nhis footing he turned back, and commenced making the circuit of the\nlake. Meantime the party remained stationary in the center to watch his\nmovements. He traveled all around, till at last he came to the place\nfrom whence he started. Then he commenced drinking up the water, and\nthey saw the current fast setting in towards his open mouth. The leader\nencouraged them to paddle hard for the opposite shore. When only a short\ndistance from land, the current had increased so much, that they were\ndrawn back by it, and all their efforts to reach it were in vain.\n\nThen the leader again spoke, telling them to meet their fates manfully.\n'Now is the time, Mudjikewis,' said he, 'to show your prowess. Take\ncourage and sit at the bow of the canoe; and when it approaches his\nmouth, try what effect your club will have on his head.' He obeyed, and\nstood ready to give the blow; while the leader, who steered, directed\nthe canoe for the open mouth of the monster.\n\nRapidly advancing, they were just about to enter his mouth, when\nMudjikewis struck him a tremendous blow on the head, and gave the\n_saw-saw-quan_. The bear's limbs doubled under him, and he fell, stunned\nby the blow. But before Mudjikewis could renew it, the monster disgorged\nall the water he had drank, with a force which sent the canoe with great\nvelocity to the opposite shore. Instantly leaving the canoe, again they\nfled, and on they went till they were completely exhausted. The earth\nagain shook, and soon they saw the monster hard after them. Their\nspirits drooped, and they felt discouraged. The leader exerted himself,\nby actions and words, to cheer them up; and once more he asked them if\nthey thought of nothing, or could do nothing for their rescue; and, as\nbefore, all were silent. 'Then,' he said, 'this is the last time I can\napply to my guardian spirit. Now, if we do not succeed, our fates are\ndecided.' He ran forward, invoking his spirit with great earnestness,\nand gave the yell. 'We shall soon arrive,' said he to his brothers, 'at\nthe place where my last guardian spirit dwells. In him I place great\nconfidence. Do not, do not be afraid, or your limbs will be fear-bound.\nWe shall soon reach his lodge. Run, run,' he cried.\n\nReturning now to Iamo, he had passed all the time in the same condition\nwe had left him, the head directing his sister, in order to procure\nfood, where to place the magic arrows, and speaking at long intervals.\nOne day the sister saw the eyes of the head brighten, as if with\npleasure. At last it spoke. 'Oh, sister,' it said, 'in what a pitiful\nsituation you have been the cause of placing me! Soon, very soon, a\nparty of young men will arrive and apply to me for aid; but alas! How\ncan I give what I would have done with so much pleasure? Nevertheless,\ntake two arrows, and place them where you have been in the habit of\nplacing the others, and have meat prepared and cooked before they\narrive. When you hear them coming and calling on my name, go out and\nsay, \"Alas! it is long ago that an accident befell him. I was the cause\nof it.\" If they still come near, ask them in, and set meat before them.\nAnd now you must follow my directions strictly. When the bear is near,\ngo out and meet him. You will take my medicine-sack, bows and arrows,\nand my head. You must then untie the sack, and spread out before you my\npaints of all colors, my war-eagle feathers, my tufts of dried hair,\nand whatever else it contains. As the bear approaches, you will take\nall these articles, one by one, and say to him, \"This is my deceased\nbrother's paint,\" and so on with all the other articles, throwing each\nof them as far as you can. The virtues contained in them will cause him\nto totter; and, to complete his destruction, you will take my head, and\nthat too you will cast as far off as you can, crying aloud, \"See, this\nis my deceased brother's head.\" He will then fall senseless. By this\ntime the young men will have eaten, and you will call them to your\nassistance. You must then cut the carcass into pieces, yes, into small\npieces, and scatter them to the four winds; for, unless you do this, he\nwill again revive.' She promised that all should be done as he said.\nShe had only time to prepare the meat, when the voice of the leader\nwas heard calling upon Iamo for aid. The woman went out and said as her\nbrother had directed. But the war party being closely pursued, came\nup to the lodge. She invited them in, and placed the meat before them.\nWhile they were eating, they heard the bear approaching. Untying the\nmedicine-sack and taking the head, she had all in readiness for his\napproach. When he came up she did as she had been told; and, before she\nhad expended the paints and feathers, the bear began to totter, but,\nstill advancing, came close to the woman. Saying as she was commanded,\nshe then took the head, and cast it as far from her as she could. As it\nrolled along the ground, the blood, excited by the feelings of the\nhead in this terrible scene, gushed from the nose and mouth. The bear,\ntottering, soon fell with a tremendous noise. Then she cried for help,\nand the young men came rushing out, having partially regained their\nstrength and spirits.\n\nMudjikewis, stepping up, gave a yell and struck him a blow upon the\nhead. This he repeated, till it seemed like a mass of brains, while the\nothers, as quick as possible, cut him into very small pieces, which they\nthen scattered in every direction. While thus employed, happening to\nlook around where they had thrown the meat, wonderful to behold, they\nsaw starting up and turning off in every direction small black bears,\nsuch as are seen at the present day. The country was soon overspread\nwith these black animals. And it was from this monster that the present\nrace of bears derived their origin.\n\nHaving thus overcome their pursuer, they returned to the lodge. In the\nmeantime, the woman, gathering the implements she had used, and the\nhead, placed them again in the sack. But the head did not speak again,\nprobably from its great exertion to overcome the monster.\n\nHaving spent so much time and traversed so vast a country in their\nflight, the young men gave up the idea of ever returning to their own\ncountry, and game being plenty, they determined to remain where they\nnow were. One day they moved off some distance from the lodge for the\npurpose of hunting, having left the wampum with the woman. They were\nvery successful, and amused themselves, as all young men do when alone,\nby talking and jesting with each other. One of them spoke and said, 'We\nhave all this sport to ourselves; let us go and ask our sister if she\nwill not let us bring the head to this place, as it is still alive. It\nmay be pleased to hear us talk, and be in our company. In the meantime\ntake food to our sister.' They went and requested the head. She told\nthem to take it, and they took it to their hunting-grounds, and tried\nto amuse it, but only at times did they see its eyes beam with pleasure.\nOne day, while busy in their encampment, they were unexpectedly attacked\nby unknown Indians. The skirmish was long contested and bloody; many of\ntheir foes were slain, but still they were thirty to one. The young men\nfought desperately till they were all killed. The attacking party then\nretreated to a height of ground, to muster their men, and to count the\nnumber of missing and slain. One of their young men had stayed away,\nand, in endeavoring to overtake them, came to the place where the head\nwas hung up. Seeing that alone retain animation, he eyed it for some\ntime with fear and surprise. However, he took it down and opened the\nsack, and was much pleased to see the beautiful feathers, one of which\nhe placed on his head.\n\nStarting off, it waved gracefully over him till he reached his party,\nwhen he threw down the head and sack, and told them how he had found it,\nand that the sack was full of paints and feathers. They all looked at\nthe head and made sport of it. Numbers of the young men took the paint\nand painted themselves, and one of the party took the head by the hair\nand said--\n\n'Look, you ugly thing, and see your paints on the faces of warriors.'\n\nBut the feathers were so beautiful, that numbers of them also placed\nthem on their heads. Then again they used all kinds of indignity to the\nhead, for which they were in turn repaid by the death of those who\nhad used the feathers. Then the chief commanded them to throw away all\nexcept the head. 'We will see,' said he, 'when we get home, what we can\ndo with it. We will try to make it shut its eyes.'\n\nWhen they reached their homes they took it to the council-lodge, and\nhung it up before the fire, fastening it with raw hide soaked, which\nwould shrink and become tightened by the action of the fire. 'We will\nthen see,' they said, 'if we cannot make it shut its eyes.'\n\nMeantime, for several days, the sister had been waiting for the young\nmen to bring back the head; till, at last, getting impatient, she went\nin search of it. The young men she found lying within short distances\nof each other, dead, and covered with wounds. Various other bodies lay\nscattered in different directions around them. She searched for the head\nand sack, but they were nowhere to be found. She raised her voice and\nwept, and blackened her face. Then she walked in different directions,\ntill she came to the place from whence the head had been taken. Then she\nfound the magic bow and arrows, where the young men, ignorant of their\nqualities, had left them. She thought to herself that she would find her\nbrother's head, and came to a piece of rising ground, and there saw some\nof his paints and feathers. These she carefully put up, and hung upon\nthe branch of a tree till her return.\n\nAt dusk she arrived at the first lodge of a very extensive village. Here\nshe used a charm, common among Indians when they wish to meet with a\nkind reception. On applying to the old man and woman of the lodge, she\nwas kindly received. She made known her errand. The old man promised to\naid her, and told her the head was hung up before the council-fire, and\nthat the chiefs of the village, with their young men, kept watch over\nit continually. The former are considered as manitoes. She said she only\nwished to see it, and would be satisfied if she could only get to the\ndoor of the lodge. She knew she had not sufficient power to take it by\nforce. 'Come with me,' said the Indian, 'I will take you there.' They\nwent, and they took their seats near the door. The council-lodge was\nfilled with warriors, amusing themselves with games, and constantly\nkeeping up a fire to smoke the head, as they said, to make dry meat.\nThey saw the head move, and not knowing what to make of it, one spoke\nand said: 'Ha! ha! It is beginning to feel the effects of the smoke.'\nThe sister looked up from the door, and her eyes met those of her\nbrother, and tears rolled down the cheeks of the head. 'Well,' said the\nchief, 'I thought we would make you do something at last. Look! look at\nit--shedding tears,' said he to those around him; and they all laughed\nand passed their jokes upon it. The chief, looking around, and observing\nthe woman, after some time said to the man who came with her: 'Who have\nyou got there? I have never seen that woman before in our village.'\n'Yes,' replied the man, 'you have seen her; she is a relation of mine,\nand seldom goes out. She stays at my lodge, and asked me to allow her to\ncome with me to this place.' In the center of the lodge sat one of those\nyoung men who are always forward, and fond of boasting and displaying\nthemselves before others. 'Why,' said he, 'I have seen her often, and it\nis to this lodge I go almost every night to court her.' All the others\nlaughed and continued their games. The young man did not know he was\ntelling a lie to the woman's advantage, who by that means escaped.\n\nShe returned to the man's lodge, and immediately set out for her own\ncountry. Coming to the spot where the bodies of her adopted brothers\nlay, she placed them together, their feet toward the east. Then taking\nan ax which she had, she cast it up into the air, crying out, 'Brothers,\nget up from under it, or it will fall on you.' This she repeated three\ntimes, and the third time the brothers all arose and stood on their\nfeet.\n\nMudjikewis commenced rubbing his eyes and stretching himself. 'Why,'\nsaid he, 'I have overslept myself.' 'No, indeed,' said one of the\nothers, 'do you not know we were all killed, and that it is our sister\nwho has brought us to life?' The young men took the bodies of their\nenemies and burned them. Soon after, the woman went to procure wives for\nthem, in a distant country, they knew not where; but she returned with\nten young women, which she gave to the ten young men, beginning with the\neldest. Mudjikewis stepped to and fro, uneasy lest he should not get the\none he liked. But he was not disappointed, for she fell to his lot. And\nthey were well matched, for she was a female magician. They then all\nmoved into a very large lodge, and their sister told them that the women\nmust now take turns in going to her brother's head every night, trying\nto untie it. They all said they would do so with pleasure. The eldest\nmade the first attempt, and with a rushing noise she fled through the\nair.\n\nToward daylight she returned. She had been unsuccessful, as she\nsucceeded in untying only one of the knots. All took their turns\nregularly, and each one succeeded in untying only one knot each time.\nBut when the youngest went, she commenced the work as soon as she\nreached the lodge; although it had always been occupied, still the\nIndians never could see any one. For ten nights now, the smoke had not\nascended, but filled the lodge and drove them out. This last night they\nwere all driven out, and the young woman carried off the head.\n\nThe young people and the sister heard the young woman coming high\nthrough the air, and they heard her saying: 'Prepare the body of our\nbrother.' And as soon as they heard it, they went to a small lodge where\nthe black body of Iamo lay. His sister commenced cutting the neck part,\nfrom which the neck had been severed. She cut so deep as to cause it to\nbleed; and the others who were present, by rubbing the body and applying\nmedicines, expelled the blackness. In the meantime, the one who brought\nit, by cutting the neck of the head, caused that also to bleed.\n\nAs soon as she arrived, they placed that close to the body, and, by aid\nof medicines and various other means, succeeded in restoring Iamo to all\nhis former beauty and manliness. All rejoiced in the happy termination\nof their troubles, and they had spent some time joyfully together, when\nIamo said: 'Now I will divide the wampum,' and getting the belt which\ncontained it, he commenced with the eldest, giving it in equal portions.\nBut the youngest got the most splendid and beautiful, as the bottom of\nthe belt held the richest and rarest.\n\nThey were told that, since they had all once died, and were restored to\nlife, they were no longer mortal, but spirits, and they were assigned\ndifferent stations in the invisible world. Only Mudjikewis's place was,\nhowever, named. He was to direct the west wind, hence generally called\nKebeyun, there to remain for ever. They were commanded, as they had\nit in their power, to do good to the inhabitants of the earth, and,\nforgetting their sufferings in procuring the wampum, to give all things\nwith a liberal hand. And they were also commanded that it should also\nbe held by them sacred; those grains or shells of the pale hue to be\nemblematic of peace, while those of the darker hue would lead to evil\nand war.\n\nThe spirits then, amid songs and shouts, took their flight to their\nrespective abodes on high; while Iamo, with his sister Iamoqua,\ndescended into the depths below.\n"}
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{"2572":"\n\n\n\n\nON THE DECAY OF THE ART OF LYING\n\nby Mark Twain [Sameul Clemens]\n\n\n\n\nESSAY, FOR DISCUSSION, READ AT A MEETING OF THE HISTORICAL\nAND ANTIQUARIAN CLUB OF HARTFORD, AND OFFERED FOR THE\nTHIRTY-DOLLAR PRIZE.[*]\n\n[*] Did not take the prize.\n\n\n\nObserve, I do not mean to suggest that the _custom_ of lying has\nsuffered any decay or interruption--no, for the Lie, as a Virtue, A\nPrinciple, is eternal; the Lie, as a recreation, a solace, a refuge in\ntime of need, the fourth Grace, the tenth Muse, man's best and surest\nfriend, is immortal, and cannot perish from the earth while this club\nremains. My complaint simply concerns the decay of the _art_ of lying.\nNo high-minded man, no man of right feeling, can contemplate the\nlumbering and slovenly lying of the present day without grieving to see\na noble art so prostituted. In this veteran presence I naturally enter\nupon this theme with diffidence; it is like an old maid trying to teach\nnursery matters to the mothers in Israel. It would not become to me to\ncriticise you, gentlemen--who are nearly all my elders--and my\nsuperiors, in this thing--if I should here and there _seem_ to do it, I\ntrust it will in most cases be more in a spirit of admiration than\nfault-finding; indeed if this finest of the fine arts had everywhere\nreceived the attention, the encouragement, and conscientious practice\nand development which this club has devoted to it, I should not need to\nutter this lament, or shed a single tear. I do not say this to flatter:\nI say it in a spirit of just and appreciative recognition. [It had been\nmy intention, at this point, to mention names and to give illustrative\nspecimens, but indications observable about me admonished me to beware\nof the particulars and confine myself to generalities.]\n\nNo fact is more firmly established than that lying is a necessity of our\ncircumstances--the deduction that it is then a Virtue goes without\nsaying. No virtue can reach its highest usefulness without careful and\ndiligent cultivation--therefore, it goes without saying that this one\nought to be taught in the public schools--even in the newspapers. What\nchance has the ignorant uncultivated liar against the educated expert?\nWhat chance have I against Mr. Per--against a lawyer? _Judicious_ lying\nis what the world needs. I sometimes think it were even better and safer\nnot to lie at all than to lie injudiciously. An awkward, unscientific\nlie is often as ineffectual as the truth.\n\nNow let us see what the philosophers say. Note that venerable proverb:\nChildren and fools _always_ speak the truth. The deduction is plain\n--adults and wise persons _never_ speak it. Parkman, the historian, says,\n\"The principle of truth may itself be carried into an absurdity.\" In\nanother place in the same chapters he says, \"The saying is old that\ntruth should not be spoken at all times; and those whom a sick\nconscience worries into habitual violation of the maxim are imbeciles\nand nuisances.\" It is strong language, but true. None of us could _live_\nwith an habitual truth-teller; but thank goodness none of us has to. An\nhabitual truth-teller is simply an impossible creature; he does not\nexist; he never has existed. Of course there are people who _think_ they\nnever lie, but it is not so--and this ignorance is one of the very\nthings that shame our so-called civilization. Everybody lies--every day;\nevery hour; awake; asleep; in his dreams; in his joy; in his mourning;\nif he keeps his tongue still, his hands, his feet, his eyes, his\nattitude, will convey deception--and purposely. Even in sermons--but\nthat is a platitude.\n\nIn a far country where I once lived the ladies used to go around paying\ncalls, under the humane and kindly pretence of wanting to see each\nother; and when they returned home, they would cry out with a glad\nvoice, saying, \"We made sixteen calls and found fourteen of them out\"\n--not meaning that they found out anything important against the\nfourteen--no, that was only a colloquial phrase to signify that they\nwere not at home--and their manner of saying it expressed their lively\nsatisfaction in that fact. Now their pretence of wanting to see the\nfourteen--and the other two whom they had been less lucky with--was that\ncommonest and mildest form of lying which is sufficiently described as a\ndeflection from the truth. Is it justifiable? Most certainly. It is\nbeautiful, it is noble; for its object is, _not_ to reap profit, but to\nconvey a pleasure to the sixteen. The iron-souled truth-monger would\nplainly manifest, or even utter the fact that he didn't want to see\nthose people--and he would be an ass, and inflict totally unnecessary\npain. And next, those ladies in that far country--but never mind, they\nhad a thousand pleasant ways of lying, that grew out of gentle impulses,\nand were a credit to their intelligence and an honor to their hearts.\nLet the particulars go.\n\nThe men in that far country were liars, every one. Their mere howdy-do\nwas a lie, because _they_ didn't care how you did, except they were\nundertakers. To the ordinary inquirer you lied in return; for you made\nno conscientious diagnostic of your case, but answered at random, and\nusually missed it considerably. You lied to the undertaker, and said\nyour health was failing--a wholly commendable lie, since it cost you\nnothing and pleased the other man. If a stranger called and interrupted\nyou, you said with your hearty tongue, \"I'm glad to see you,\" and said\nwith your heartier soul, \"I wish you were with the cannibals and it was\ndinner-time.\" When he went, you said regretfully, \"_Must_ you go?\" and\nfollowed it with a \"Call again;\" but you did no harm, for you did not\ndeceive anybody nor inflict any hurt, whereas the truth would have made\nyou both unhappy.\n\nI think that all this courteous lying is a sweet and loving art, and\nshould be cultivated. The highest perfection of politeness is only a\nbeautiful edifice, built, from the base to the dome, of graceful and\ngilded forms of charitable and unselfish lying.\n\nWhat I bemoan is the growing prevalence of the brutal truth. Let us do\nwhat we can to eradicate it. An injurious truth has no merit over an\ninjurious lie. Neither should ever be uttered. The man who speaks an\ninjurious truth lest his soul be not saved if he do otherwise, should\nreflect that that sort of a soul is not strictly worth saving. The man\nwho tells a lie to help a poor devil out of trouble, is one of whom the\nangels doubtless say, \"Lo, here is an heroic soul who casts his own\nwelfare in jeopardy to succor his neighbor's; let us exalt this\nmagnanimous liar.\"\n\nAn injurious lie is an uncommendable thing; and so, also, and in the\nsame degree, is an injurious truth--a fact that is recognized by the law\nof libel.\n\nAmong other common lies, we have the _silent_ lie--the deception which\none conveys by simply keeping still and concealing the truth. Many\nobstinate truth-mongers indulge in this dissipation, imagining that if\nthey _speak_ no lie, they lie not at all. In that far country where I\nonce lived, there was a lovely spirit, a lady whose impulses were always\nhigh and pure, and whose character answered to them. One day I was there\nat dinner, and remarked, in a general way, that we are all liars. She\nwas amazed, and said, \"Not _all_?\" It was before \"Pinafore's\" time so I\ndid not make the response which would naturally follow in our day, but\nfrankly said, \"Yes, _all_--we are all liars. There are no exceptions.\"\nShe looked almost offended, \"Why, do you include _me_?\" \"Certainly,\" I\nsaid. \"I think you even rank as an expert.\" She said \"Sh-'sh! the\nchildren!\" So the subject was changed in deference to the children's\npresence, and we went on talking about other things. But as soon as the\nyoung people were out of the way, the lady came warmly back to the\nmatter and said, \"I have made a rule of my life to never tell a lie; and\nI have never departed from it in a single instance.\" I said, \"I don't\nmean the least harm or disrespect, but really you have been lying like\nsmoke ever since I've been sitting here. It has caused me a good deal of\npain, because I'm not used to it.\" She required of me an instance--just\na single instance. So I said--\n\n\"Well, here is the unfilled duplicate of the blank, which the Oakland\nhospital people sent to you by the hand of the sick-nurse when she came\nhere to nurse your little nephew through his dangerous illness. This\nblank asks all manners of questions as to the conduct of that\nsick-nurse: 'Did she ever sleep on her watch? Did she ever forget to\ngive the medicine?' and so forth and so on. You are warned to be very\ncareful and explicit in your answers, for the welfare of the service\nrequires that the nurses be promptly fined or otherwise punished for\nderelictions. You told me you were perfectly delighted with this nurse\n--that she had a thousand perfections and only one fault: you found you\nnever could depend on her wrapping Johnny up half sufficiently while he\nwaited in a chilly chair for her to rearrange the warm bed. You filled\nup the duplicate of this paper, and sent it back to the hospital by the\nhand of the nurse. How did you answer this question--'Was the nurse at\nany time guilty of a negligence which was likely to result in the\npatient's taking cold?' Come--everything is decided by a bet here in\nCalifornia: ten dollars to ten cents you lied when you answered that\nquestion.\" She said, \"I didn't; _I left it blank!_\" \"Just so--you have\ntold a _silent_ lie; you have left it to be inferred that you had no\nfault to find in that matter.\" She said, \"Oh, was that a lie? And _how_\ncould I mention her one single fault, and she is so good?--It would have\nbeen cruel.\" I said, \"One ought always to lie, when one can do good by\nit; your impulse was right, but your judgment was crude; this comes of\nunintelligent practice. Now observe the results of this inexpert\ndeflection of yours. You know Mr. Jones's Willie is lying very low with\nscarlet-fever; well, your recommendation was so enthusiastic that that\ngirl is there nursing him, and the worn-out family have all been\ntrustingly sound asleep for the last fourteen hours, leaving their\ndarling with full confidence in those fatal hands, because you, like\nyoung George Washington, have a reputa--However, if you are not going to\nhave anything to do, I will come around to-morrow and we'll attend the\nfuneral together, for, of course, you'll naturally feel a peculiar\ninterest in Willie's case--as personal a one, in fact, as the\nundertaker.\"\n\nBut that was not all lost. Before I was half-way through she was in a\ncarriage and making thirty miles an hour toward the Jones mansion to\nsave what was left of Willie and tell all she knew about the deadly\nnurse. All of which was unnecessary, as Willie wasn't sick; I had been\nlying myself. But that same day, all the same, she sent a line to the\nhospital which filled up the neglected blank, and stated the _facts,_\ntoo, in the squarest possible manner.\n\nNow, you see, this lady's fault was _not_ in lying, but in lying\ninjudiciously. She should have told the truth, _there,_ and made it up\nto the nurse with a fraudulent compliment further along in the paper.\nShe could have said, \"In one respect this sick-nurse is perfection--when\nshe is on the watch, she never snores.\" Almost any little pleasant lie\nwould have taken the sting out of that troublesome but necessary\nexpression of the truth.\n\nLying is universal--we _all_ do it. Therefore, the wise thing is for us\ndiligently to train ourselves to lie thoughtfully, judiciously; to lie\nwith a good object, and not an evil one; to lie for others' advantage,\nand not our own; to lie healingly, charitably, humanely, not cruelly,\nhurtfully, maliciously; to lie gracefully and graciously, not awkwardly\nand clumsily; to lie firmly, frankly, squarely, with head erect, not\nhaltingly, tortuously, with pusillanimous mien, as being ashamed of our\nhigh calling. Then shall we be rid of the rank and pestilent truth that\nis rotting the land; then shall we be great and good and beautiful, and\nworthy dwellers in a world where even benign Nature habitually lies,\nexcept when she promises execrable weather. Then--But I am but a new and\nfeeble student in this gracious art; I cannot instruct _this_ club.\n\nJoking aside, I think there is much need of wise examination into what\nsorts of lies are best and wholesomest to be indulged, seeing we _must_\nall lie and we _do_ all lie, and what sorts it may be best to avoid--and\nthis is a thing which I feel I can confidently put into the hands of\nthis experienced Club--a ripe body, who may be termed, in this regard,\nand without undue flattery, Old Masters.\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"2874":"\n\n\n\n\nPERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF\n\nJOAN OF ARC\n\n VOLUME 1 (of 2)\n\nBy Mark Twain\n\nConsider this unique and imposing distinction. Since the writing of\nhuman history began, Joan of Arc is the only person, of either sex, who\nhas ever held supreme command of the military forces of a nation at the\nage of seventeen\n\nLOUIS KOSSUTH.\n\n\n\nContents\n\n\nPERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF JOAN OF ARC\n\nTRANSLATOR'S PREFACE\n\nA PECULIARITY OF JOAN OF ARC'S HISTORY\n\nTHE SIEUR LOUIS DE CONTE\n\n\nBOOK I IN DOMREMY\n\nChapter 1 When Wolves Ran Free in Paris\n\nChapter 2 The Fairy Tree of Domremy\n\nChapter 3 All Aflame with Love of France\n\nChapter 4 Joan Tames the Mad Man\n\nChapter 5 Domremy Pillaged and Burned\n\nChapter 6 Joan and Archangel Michael\n\nChapter 7 She Delivers the Divine Command\n\nChapter 8 Why the Scorners Relented\n\n\nBOOK II IN COURT AND CAMP\n\nChapter 1 Joan Says Good-By\n\nChapter 2 The Governor Speeds Joan\n\nChapter 3 The Paladin Groans and Boasts\n\nChapter 4 Joan Leads Us Through the Enemy\n\nChapter 5 We Pierce the Last Ambuscades\n\nChapter 6 Joan Convinces the King\n\nChapter 7 Our Paladin in His Glory\n\nChapter 8 Joan Persuades Her Inquisitors\n\nChapter 9 She Is Made General-in-Chief\n\nChapter 10 The Maid's Sword and Banner\n\nChapter 11 The War March Is Begun\n\nChapter 12 Joan Puts Heart in Her Army\n\nChapter 13 Checked by the Folly of the Wise\n\nChapter 14 What the English Answered\n\nChapter 15 My Exquisite Poem Goes to Smash\n\nChapter 16 The Finding of the Dwarf\n\nChapter 17 Sweet Fruit of Bitter Truth\n\nChapter 18 Joan's First Battle-Field\n\nChapter 19 We Burst In Upon Ghosts\n\nChapter 20 Joan Makes Cowards Brave Victors\n\nChapter 21 She Gently Reproves Her Dear Friend\n\nChapter 22 The Fate of France Decided\n\nChapter 23 Joan Inspires the Tawdry King\n\nChapter 24 Tinsel Trappings of Nobility\n\nChapter 25 At Last\u0097Forward!\n\nChapter 26 The Last Doubts Scattered\n\nChapter 27 How Joan Took Jargeau\n\n\n\n\n\nPERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF JOAN OF ARC\n\nBy The Sieur Louis De Conte\n\n (her page and secretary)\n\nIn Two Volumes\n\nVolume 1.\n\nFreely translated out of the ancient French into modern English from the\noriginal unpublished manuscript in the National Archives of France\n\nBy Jean Francois Alden\n\nAuthorities examined in verification of the truthfulness of this\nnarrative:\n\n\n  J. E. J. QUICHERAT, Condamnation et Rehabilitation de Jeanne d'Arc.\n  J. FABRE, Proces de Condamnation de Jeanne d'Arc.\n  H. A. WALLON, Jeanne d'Arc.\n  M. SEPET, Jeanne d'Arc.\n  J. MICHELET, Jeanne d'Arc.\n  BERRIAT DE SAINT-PRIX, La Famille de Jeanne d'Arc.\n  La Comtesse A. DE CHABANNES, La Vierge Lorraine.\n  Monseigneur RICARD, Jeanne d'Arc la Venerable.\n  Lord RONALD GOWER, F.S.A., Joan of Arc. JOHN O'HAGAN, Joan of Arc.\n  JANET TUCKEY, Joan of Arc the Maid.\n\n\n\nTRANSLATOR'S PREFACE\n\nTo arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man's character one must\njudge it by the standards of his time, not ours. Judged by the standards\nof one century, the noblest characters of an earlier one lose much of\ntheir luster; judged by the standards of to-day, there is probably no\nillustrious man of four or five centuries ago whose character could meet\nthe test at all points. But the character of Joan of Arc is unique.\nIt can be measured by the standards of all times without misgiving\nor apprehension as to the result. Judged by any of them, it is still\nflawless, it is still ideally perfect; it still occupies the loftiest\nplace possible to human attainment, a loftier one than has been reached\nby any other mere mortal.\n\nWhen we reflect that her century was the brutalest, the wickedest, the\nrottenest in history since the darkest ages, we are lost in wonder at\nthe miracle of such a product from such a soil. The contrast between her\nand her century is the contrast between day and night. She was truthful\nwhen lying was the common speech of men; she was honest when honesty was\nbecome a lost virtue; she was a keeper of promises when the keeping of\na promise was expected of no one; she gave her great mind to great\nthoughts and great purposes when other great minds wasted themselves\nupon pretty fancies or upon poor ambitions; she was modest, and fine,\nand delicate when to be loud and coarse might be said to be universal;\nshe was full of pity when a merciless cruelty was the rule; she was\nsteadfast when stability was unknown, and honorable in an age which had\nforgotten what honor was; she was a rock of convictions in a time when\nmen believed in nothing and scoffed at all things; she was unfailingly\ntrue to an age that was false to the core; she maintained her personal\ndignity unimpaired in an age of fawnings and servilities; she was of a\ndauntless courage when hope and courage had perished in the hearts of\nher nation; she was spotlessly pure in mind and body when society in the\nhighest places was foul in both\u0097she was all these things in an age when\ncrime was the common business of lords and princes, and when the highest\npersonages in Christendom were able to astonish even that infamous era\nand make it stand aghast at the spectacle of their atrocious lives black\nwith unimaginable treacheries, butcheries, and beastialities.\n\nShe was perhaps the only entirely unselfish person whose name has a\nplace in profane history. No vestige or suggestion of self-seeking can\nbe found in any word or deed of hers. When she had rescued her King\nfrom his vagabondage, and set his crown upon his head, she was offered\nrewards and honors, but she refused them all, and would take nothing.\nAll she would take for herself\u0097if the King would grant it\u0097was leave\nto go back to her village home, and tend her sheep again, and feel\nher mother's arms about her, and be her housemaid and helper. The\nselfishness of this unspoiled general of victorious armies, companion of\nprinces, and idol of an applauding and grateful nation, reached but that\nfar and no farther.\n\nThe work wrought by Joan of Arc may fairly be regarded as ranking any\nrecorded in history, when one considers the conditions under which it\nwas undertaken, the obstacles in the way, and the means at her disposal.\nCaesar carried conquests far, but he did it with the trained and\nconfident veterans of Rome, and was a trained soldier himself; and\nNapoleon swept away the disciplined armies of Europe, but he also was a\ntrained soldier, and he began his work with patriot battalions inflamed\nand inspired by the miracle-working new breath of Liberty breathed upon\nthem by the Revolution\u0097eager young apprentices to the splendid trade of\nwar, not old and broken men-at-arms, despairing survivors of an age-long\naccumulation of monotonous defeats; but Joan of Arc, a mere child in\nyears, ignorant, unlettered, a poor village girl unknown and without\ninfluence, found a great nation lying in chains, helpless and hopeless\nunder an alien domination, its treasury bankrupt, its soldiers\ndisheartened and dispersed, all spirit torpid, all courage dead in the\nhearts of the people through long years of foreign and domestic outrage\nand oppression, their King cowed, resigned to its fate, and preparing\nto fly the country; and she laid her hand upon this nation, this corpse,\nand it rose and followed her. She led it from victory to victory, she\nturned back the tide of the Hundred Years' War, she fatally crippled the\nEnglish power, and died with the earned title of DELIVERER OF FRANCE,\nwhich she bears to this day.\n\nAnd for all reward, the French King, whom she had crowned, stood supine\nand indifferent, while French priests took the noble child, the most\ninnocent, the most lovely, the most adorable the ages have produced, and\nburned her alive at the stake.\n\n\n\n\n\nA PECULIARITY OF JOAN OF ARC'S HISTORY\n\nThe details of the life of Joan of Arc form a biography which is unique\namong the world's biographies in one respect: It is the only story of a\nhuman life which comes to us under oath, the only one which comes to us\nfrom the witness-stand. The official records of the Great Trial of 1431,\nand of the Process of Rehabilitation of a quarter of a century later,\nare still preserved in the National Archives of France, and they furnish\nwith remarkable fullness the facts of her life. The history of no other\nlife of that remote time is known with either the certainty or the\ncomprehensiveness that attaches to hers.\n\nThe Sieur Louis de Conte is faithful to her official history in\nhis Personal Recollections, and thus far his trustworthiness is\nunimpeachable; but his mass of added particulars must depend for credit\nupon his word alone.\n\nTHE TRANSLATOR.\n\n\n\nTHE SIEUR LOUIS DE CONTE\n\nTo his Great-Great-Grand Nephews and Nieces\n\nThis is the year 1492. I am eighty-two years of age. The things I am\ngoing to tell you are things which I saw myself as a child and as a\nyouth.\n\nIn all the tales and songs and histories of Joan of Arc, which you and\nthe rest of the world read and sing and study in the books wrought in\nthe late invented art of printing, mention is made of me, the Sieur\nLouis de Conte\u0097I was her page and secretary, I was with her from the\nbeginning until the end.\n\nI was reared in the same village with her. I played with her every day,\nwhen we were little children together, just as you play with your mates.\nNow that we perceive how great she was, now that her name fills the\nwhole world, it seems strange that what I am saying is true; for it is\nas if a perishable paltry candle should speak of the eternal sun riding\nin the heavens and say, \"He was gossip and housemate to me when we\nwere candles together.\" And yet it is true, just as I say. I was her\nplaymate, and I fought at her side in the wars; to this day I carry in\nmy mind, fine and clear, the picture of that dear little figure, with\nbreast bent to the flying horse's neck, charging at the head of the\narmies of France, her hair streaming back, her silver mail plowing\nsteadily deeper and deeper into the thick of the battle, sometimes\nnearly drowned from sight by tossing heads of horses, uplifted\nsword-arms, wind-blow plumes, and intercepting shields. I was with her\nto the end; and when that black day came whose accusing shadow will lie\nalways upon the memory of the mitered French slaves of England who were\nher assassins, and upon France who stood idle and essayed no rescue, my\nhand was the last she touched in life.\n\nAs the years and the decades drifted by, and the spectacle of the\nmarvelous child's meteor flight across the war firmament of France\nand its extinction in the smoke-clouds of the stake receded deeper and\ndeeper into the past and grew ever more strange, and wonderful, and\ndivine, and pathetic, I came to comprehend and recognize her at last for\nwhat she was\u0097the most noble life that was ever born into this world save\nonly One.\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK I IN DOMREMY\n\n\n\nChapter 1 When Wolves Ran Free in Paris\n\nI, THE SIEUR LOUIS DE CONTE, was born in Neufchateau, on the 6th of\nJanuary, 1410; that is to say, exactly two years before Joan of Arc was\nborn in Domremy. My family had fled to those distant regions from the\nneighborhood of Paris in the first years of the century. In politics\nthey were Armagnacs\u0097patriots; they were for our own French King, crazy\nand impotent as he was. The Burgundian party, who were for the English,\nhad stripped them, and done it well. They took everything but my\nfather's small nobility, and when he reached Neufchateau he reached it\nin poverty and with a broken spirit. But the political atmosphere there\nwas the sort he liked, and that was something. He came to a region of\ncomparative quiet; he left behind him a region peopled with furies,\nmadmen, devils, where slaughter was a daily pastime and no man's life\nsafe for a moment. In Paris, mobs roared through the streets nightly,\nsacking, burning, killing, unmolested, uninterrupted. The sun rose upon\nwrecked and smoking buildings, and upon mutilated corpses lying here,\nthere, and yonder about the streets, just as they fell, and stripped\nnaked by thieves, the unholy gleaners after the mob. None had the\ncourage to gather these dead for burial; they were left there to rot and\ncreate plagues.\n\nAnd plagues they did create. Epidemics swept away the people like\nflies, and the burials were conducted secretly and by night, for public\nfunerals were not allowed, lest the revelation of the magnitude of the\nplague's work unman the people and plunge them into despair. Then came,\nfinally, the bitterest winter which had visited France in five hundred\nyears. Famine, pestilence, slaughter, ice, snow\u0097Paris had all these at\nonce. The dead lay in heaps about the streets, and wolves entered the\ncity in daylight and devoured them.\n\nAh, France had fallen low\u0097so low! For more than three quarters of a\ncentury the English fangs had been bedded in her flesh, and so cowed\nhad her armies become by ceaseless rout and defeat that it was said and\naccepted that the mere sight of an English army was sufficient to put a\nFrench one to flight.\n\nWhen I was five years old the prodigious disaster of Agincourt fell upon\nFrance; and although the English King went home to enjoy his glory, he\nleft the country prostrate and a prey to roving bands of Free Companions\nin the service of the Burgundian party, and one of these bands came\nraiding through Neufchateau one night, and by the light of our burning\nroof-thatch I saw all that were dear to me in this world (save an elder\nbrother, your ancestor, left behind with the court) butchered while\nthey begged for mercy, and heard the butchers laugh at their prayers and\nmimic their pleadings. I was overlooked, and escaped without hurt. When\nthe savages were gone I crept out and cried the night away watching the\nburning houses; and I was all alone, except for the company of the dead\nand the wounded, for the rest had taken flight and hidden themselves.\n\nI was sent to Domremy, to the priest, whose housekeeper became a loving\nmother to me. The priest, in the course of time, taught me to read and\nwrite, and he and I were the only persons in the village who possessed\nthis learning.\n\nAt the time that the house of this good priest, Guillaume Fronte, became\nmy home, I was six years old. We lived close by the village church, and\nthe small garden of Joan's parents was behind the church. As to that\nfamily there were Jacques d'Arc the father, his wife Isabel Romee; three\nsons\u0097Jacques, ten years old, Pierre, eight, and Jean, seven; Joan, four,\nand her baby sister Catherine, about a year old. I had these\nchildren for playmates from the beginning. I had some other playmates\nbesides\u0097particularly four boys: Pierre Morel, Etienne Roze, Noel\nRainguesson, and Edmond Aubrey, whose father was maire at that time;\nalso two girls, about Joan's age, who by and by became her favorites;\none was named Haumetter, the other was called Little Mengette. These\ngirls were common peasant children, like Joan herself. When they grew\nup, both married common laborers. Their estate was lowly enough, you\nsee; yet a time came, many years after, when no passing stranger,\nhowsoever great he might be, failed to go and pay his reverence to\nthose two humble old women who had been honored in their youth by the\nfriendship of Joan of Arc.\n\nThese were all good children, just of the ordinary peasant type;\nnot bright, of course\u0097you would not expect that\u0097but good-hearted and\ncompanionable, obedient to their parents and the priest; and as they\ngrew up they became properly stocked with narrowness and prejudices\ngot at second hand from their elders, and adopted without reserve; and\nwithout examination also\u0097which goes without saying. Their religion was\ninherited, their politics the same. John Huss and his sort might find\nfault with the Church, in Domremy it disturbed nobody's faith; and when\nthe split came, when I was fourteen, and we had three Popes at once,\nnobody in Domremy was worried about how to choose among them\u0097the Pope of\nRome was the right one, a Pope outside of Rome was no Pope at all.\nEvery human creature in the village was an Armagnac\u0097a patriot\u0097and if we\nchildren hotly hated nothing else in the world, we did certainly hate\nthe English and Burgundian name and polity in that way.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 2 The Fairy Tree of Domremy\n\nOUR DOMREMY was like any other humble little hamlet of that remote time\nand region. It was a maze of crooked, narrow lanes and alleys shaded and\nsheltered by the overhanging thatch roofs of the barnlike houses. The\nhouses were dimly lighted by wooden-shuttered windows\u0097that is, holes in\nthe walls which served for windows. The floors were dirt, and there was\nvery little furniture. Sheep and cattle grazing was the main industry;\nall the young folks tended flocks.\n\nThe situation was beautiful. From one edge of the village a flowery\nplain extended in a wide sweep to the river\u0097the Meuse; from the rear\nedge of the village a grassy slope rose gradually, and at the top was\nthe great oak forest\u0097a forest that was deep and gloomy and dense, and\nfull of interest for us children, for many murders had been done in it\nby outlaws in old times, and in still earlier times prodigious dragons\nthat spouted fire and poisonous vapors from their nostrils had their\nhomes in there. In fact, one was still living in there in our own time.\nIt was as long as a tree, and had a body as big around as a tierce, and\nscales like overlapping great tiles, and deep ruby eyes as large as a\ncavalier's hat, and an anchor-fluke on its tail as big as I don't know\nwhat, but very big, even unusually so for a dragon, as everybody\nsaid who knew about dragons. It was thought that this dragon was of a\nbrilliant blue color, with gold mottlings, but no one had ever seen it,\ntherefore this was not known to be so, it was only an opinion. It was\nnot my opinion; I think there is no sense in forming an opinion when\nthere is no evidence to form it on. If you build a person without any\nbones in him he may look fair enough to the eye, but he will be limber\nand cannot stand up; and I consider that evidence is the bones of an\nopinion. But I will take up this matter more at large at another time,\nand try to make the justness of my position appear. As to that dragon,\nI always held the belief that its color was gold and without blue, for\nthat has always been the color of dragons. That this dragon lay but a\nlittle way within the wood at one time is shown by the fact that Pierre\nMorel was in there one day and smelt it, and recognized it by the smell.\nIt gives one a horrid idea of how near to us the deadliest danger can be\nand we not suspect it.\n\nIn the earliest times a hundred knights from many remote places in the\nearth would have gone in there one after another, to kill the dragon and\nget the reward, but in our time that method had gone out, and the priest\nhad become the one that abolished dragons. Pere Guillaume Fronte did it\nin this case. He had a procession, with candles and incense and banners,\nand marched around the edge of the wood and exorcised the dragon, and it\nwas never heard of again, although it was the opinion of many that the\nsmell never wholly passed away. Not that any had ever smelt the smell\nagain, for none had; it was only an opinion, like that other\u0097and lacked\nbones, you see. I know that the creature was there before the exorcism,\nbut whether it was there afterward or not is a thing which I cannot be\nso positive about.\n\nIn a noble open space carpeted with grass on the high ground toward\nVaucouleurs stood a most majestic beech tree with wide-reaching arms and\na grand spread of shade, and by it a limpid spring of cold water; and on\nsummer days the children went there\u0097oh, every summer for more than five\nhundred years\u0097went there and sang and danced around the tree for hours\ntogether, refreshing themselves at the spring from time to time, and\nit was most lovely and enjoyable. Also they made wreaths of flowers and\nhung them upon the tree and about the spring to please the fairies that\nlived there; for they liked that, being idle innocent little creatures,\nas all fairies are, and fond of anything delicate and pretty like wild\nflowers put together in that way. And in return for this attention the\nfairies did any friendly thing they could for the children, such as\nkeeping the spring always full and clear and cold, and driving away\nserpents and insects that sting; and so there was never any unkindness\nbetween the fairies and the children during more than five hundred\nyears\u0097tradition said a thousand\u0097but only the warmest affection and the\nmost perfect trust and confidence; and whenever a child died the fairies\nmourned just as that child's playmates did, and the sign of it was there\nto see; for before the dawn on the day of the funeral they hung a little\nimmortelle over the place where that child was used to sit under the\ntree. I know this to be true by my own eyes; it is not hearsay. And the\nreason it was known that the fairies did it was this\u0097that it was made\nall of black flowers of a sort not known in France anywhere.\n\nNow from time immemorial all children reared in Domremy were called the\nChildren of the Tree; and they loved that name, for it carried with it\na mystic privilege not granted to any others of the children of this\nworld. Which was this: whenever one of these came to die, then beyond\nthe vague and formless images drifting through his darkening mind rose\nsoft and rich and fair a vision of the Tree\u0097if all was well with his\nsoul. That was what some said. Others said the vision came in two ways:\nonce as a warning, one or two years in advance of death, when the soul\nwas the captive of sin, and then the Tree appeared in its desolate\nwinter aspect\u0097then that soul was smitten with an awful fear. If\nrepentance came, and purity of life, the vision came again, this time\nsummer-clad and beautiful; but if it were otherwise with that soul the\nvision was withheld, and it passed from life knowing its doom. Still\nothers said that the vision came but once, and then only to the sinless\ndying forlorn in distant lands and pitifully longing for some last dear\nreminder of their home. And what reminder of it could go to their hearts\nlike the picture of the Tree that was the darling of their love and the\ncomrade of their joys and comforter of their small griefs all through\nthe divine days of their vanished youth?\n\nNow the several traditions were as I have said, some believing one and\nsome another. One of them I knew to be the truth, and that was the last\none. I do not say anything against the others; I think they were true,\nbut I only know that the last one was; and it is my thought that if one\nkeep to the things he knows, and not trouble about the things which he\ncannot be sure about, he will have the steadier mind for it\u0097and there is\nprofit in that. I know that when the Children of the Tree die in a far\nland, then\u0097if they be at peace with God\u0097they turn their longing eyes\ntoward home, and there, far-shining, as through a rift in a cloud that\ncurtains heaven, they see the soft picture of the Fairy Tree, clothed\nin a dream of golden light; and they see the bloomy mead sloping away to\nthe river, and to their perishing nostrils is blown faint and sweet\nthe fragrance of the flowers of home. And then the vision fades and\npasses\u0097but they know, they know! and by their transfigured faces you\nknow also, you who stand looking on; yes, you know the message that has\ncome, and that it has come from heaven.\n\nJoan and I believed alike about this matter. But Pierre Morel and\nJacques d'Arc, and many others believed that the vision appeared\ntwice\u0097to a sinner. In fact, they and many others said they knew it.\nProbably because their fathers had known it and had told them; for one\ngets most things at second hand in this world.\n\nNow one thing that does make it quite likely that there were really two\napparitions of the Tree is this fact: From the most ancient times if one\nsaw a villager of ours with his face ash-white and rigid with a ghastly\nfright, it was common for every one to whisper to his neighbor, \"Ah, he\nis in sin, and has got his warning.\" And the neighbor would shudder at\nthe thought and whisper back, \"Yes, poor soul, he has seen the Tree.\"\n\nSuch evidences as these have their weight; they are not to be put\naside with a wave of the hand. A thing that is backed by the cumulative\nevidence of centuries naturally gets nearer and nearer to being proof\nall the time; and if this continue and continue, it will some day become\nauthority\u0097and authority is a bedded rock, and will abide.\n\nIn my long life I have seen several cases where the tree appeared\nannouncing a death which was still far away; but in none of these was\nthe person in a state of sin. No; the apparition was in these cases\nonly a special grace; in place of deferring the tidings of that soul's\nredemption till the day of death, the apparition brought them long\nbefore, and with them peace\u0097peace that might no more be disturbed\u0097the\neternal peace of God. I myself, old and broken, wait with serenity; for\nI have seen the vision of the Tree. I have seen it, and am content.\n\nAlways, from the remotest times, when the children joined hands and\ndanced around the Fairy Tree they sang a song which was the Tree's song,\nthe song of L'Arbre fee de Bourlemont. They sang it to a quaint sweet\nair\u0097a solacing sweet air which has gone murmuring through my dreaming\nspirit all my life when I was weary and troubled, resting me and\ncarrying me through night and distance home again. No stranger can know\nor feel what that song has been, through the drifting centuries, to\nexiled Children of the Tree, homeless and heavy of heart in countries\nforeign to their speech and ways. You will think it a simple thing, that\nsong, and poor, perchance; but if you will remember what it was to\nus, and what it brought before our eyes when it floated through our\nmemories, then you will respect it. And you will understand how the\nwater wells up in our eyes and makes all things dim, and our voices\nbreak and we cannot sing the last lines:\n\n\"And when, in Exile wand'ring, we Shall fainting yearn for glimpse of\nthee, Oh, rise upon our sight!\"\n\nAnd you will remember that Joan of Arc sang this song with us around the\nTree when she was a little child, and always loved it. And that hallows\nit, yes, you will grant that:\n\n\n     L'ARBRE FEE DE BOURLEMONT\n\n     SONG OF THE CHILDREN\n\n     Now what has kept your leaves so green,\n     Arbre Fee de Bourlemont?\n\n     The children's tears! They brought each grief,\n     And you did comfort them and cheer\n     Their bruised hearts, and steal a tear\n     That, healed, rose a leaf.\n\n     And what has built you up so strong,\n     Arbre Fee de Bourlemont?\n\n     The children's love! They've loved you long\n     Ten hundred years, in sooth,\n     They've nourished you with praise and song,\n     And warmed your heart and kept it young\u0097\n     A thousand years of youth!\n\n     Bide always green in our young hearts,\n     Arbre Fee de Bourlemont!\n     And we shall always youthful be,\n     Not heeding Time his flight;\n     And when, in exile wand'ring, we\n     Shall fainting yearn for glimpse of thee,\n     Oh, rise upon our sight!\n\n\nThe fairies were still there when we were children, but we never saw\nthem; because, a hundred years before that, the priest of Domremy had\nheld a religious function under the tree and denounced them as being\nblood-kin to the Fiend and barred them from redemption; and then\nhe warned them never to show themselves again, nor hang any more\nimmortelles, on pain of perpetual banishment from that parish.\n\nAll the children pleaded for the fairies, and said they were their good\nfriends and dear to them and never did them any harm, but the priest\nwould not listen, and said it was sin and shame to have such friends.\nThe children mourned and could not be comforted; and they made an\nagreement among themselves that they would always continue to hang\nflower-wreaths on the tree as a perpetual sign to the fairies that they\nwere still loved and remembered, though lost to sight.\n\nBut late one night a great misfortune befell. Edmond Aubrey's mother\npassed by the Tree, and the fairies were stealing a dance, not thinking\nanybody was by; and they were so busy, and so intoxicated with the wild\nhappiness of it, and with the bumpers of dew sharpened up with honey\nwhich they had been drinking, that they noticed nothing; so Dame Aubrey\nstood there astonished and admiring, and saw the little fantastic atoms\nholding hands, as many as three hundred of them, tearing around in a\ngreat ring half as big as an ordinary bedroom, and leaning away back\nand spreading their mouths with laughter and song, which she could hear\nquite distinctly, and kicking their legs up as much as three inches\nfrom the ground in perfect abandon and hilarity\u0097oh, the very maddest and\nwitchingest dance the woman ever saw.\n\nBut in about a minute or two minutes the poor little ruined creatures\ndiscovered her. They burst out in one heartbreaking squeak of grief and\nterror and fled every which way, with their wee hazel-nut fists in their\neyes and crying; and so disappeared.\n\nThe heartless woman\u0097no, the foolish woman; she was not heartless, but\nonly thoughtless\u0097went straight home and told the neighbors all about it,\nwhilst we, the small friends of the fairies, were asleep and not witting\nthe calamity that was come upon us, and all unconscious that we ought to\nbe up and trying to stop these fatal tongues. In the morning everybody\nknew, and the disaster was complete, for where everybody knows a thing\nthe priest knows it, of course. We all flocked to Pere Fronte, crying\nand begging\u0097and he had to cry, too, seeing our sorrow, for he had a most\nkind and gentle nature; and he did not want to banish the fairies, and\nsaid so; but said he had no choice, for it had been decreed that if they\never revealed themselves to man again, they must go. This all happened\nat the worst time possible, for Joan of Arc was ill of a fever and out\nof her head, and what could we do who had not her gifts of reasoning and\npersuasion? We flew in a swarm to her bed and cried out, \"Joan, wake!\nWake, there is no moment to lose! Come and plead for the fairies\u0097come\nand save them; only you can do it!\"\n\nBut her mind was wandering, she did not know what we said nor what we\nmeant; so we went away knowing all was lost. Yes, all was lost, forever\nlost; the faithful friends of the children for five hundred years must\ngo, and never come back any more.\n\nIt was a bitter day for us, that day that Pere Fronte held the function\nunder the tree and banished the fairies. We could not wear mourning that\nany could have noticed, it would not have been allowed; so we had to be\ncontent with some poor small rag of black tied upon our garments where\nit made no show; but in our hearts we wore mourning, big and noble and\noccupying all the room, for our hearts were ours; they could not get at\nthem to prevent that.\n\nThe great tree\u0097l'Arbre Fee de Bourlemont was its beautiful name\u0097was\nnever afterward quite as much to us as it had been before, but it was\nalways dear; is dear to me yet when I go there now, once a year in my\nold age, to sit under it and bring back the lost playmates of my youth\nand group them about me and look upon their faces through my tears\nand break my heart, oh, my God! No, the place was not quite the same\nafterward. In one or two ways it could not be; for, the fairies'\nprotection being gone, the spring lost much of its freshness and\ncoldness, and more than two-thirds of its volume, and the banished\nserpents and stinging insects returned, and multiplied, and became a\ntorment and have remained so to this day.\n\nWhen that wise little child, Joan, got well, we realized how much her\nillness had cost us; for we found that we had been right in believing\nshe could save the fairies. She burst into a great storm of anger, for\nso little a creature, and went straight to Pere Fronte, and stood up\nbefore him where he sat, and made reverence and said:\n\n\"The fairies were to go if they showed themselves to people again, is it\nnot so?\"\n\n\"Yes, that was it, dear.\"\n\n\"If a man comes prying into a person's room at midnight when that person\nis half-naked, will you be so unjust as to say that that person is\nshowing himself to that man?\"\n\n\"Well\u0097no.\" The good priest looked a little troubled and uneasy when he\nsaid it.\n\n\"Is a sin a sin, anyway, even if one did not intend to commit it?\"\n\nPere Fronte threw up his hands and cried out:\n\n\"Oh, my poor little child, I see all my fault,\" and he drew her to his\nside and put an arm around her and tried to make his peace with her, but\nher temper was up so high that she could not get it down right away, but\nburied her head against his breast and broke out crying and said:\n\n\"Then the fairies committed no sin, for there was no intention to commit\none, they not knowing that any one was by; and because they were little\ncreatures and could not speak for themselves and say the law was against\nthe intention, not against the innocent act, because they had no friend\nto think that simple thing for them and say it, they have been sent away\nfrom their home forever, and it was wrong, wrong to do it!\"\n\nThe good father hugged her yet closer to his side and said:\n\n\"Oh, out of the mouths of babes and sucklings the heedless and\nunthinking are condemned; would God I could bring the little creatures\nback, for your sake. And mine, yes, and mine; for I have been unjust.\nThere, there, don't cry\u0097nobody could be sorrier than your poor old\nfriend\u0097don't cry, dear.\"\n\n\"But I can't stop right away, I've got to. And it is no little matter,\nthis thing that you have done. Is being sorry penance enough for such an\nact?\"\n\nPere Fronte turned away his face, for it would have hurt her to see him\nlaugh, and said:\n\n\"Oh, thou remorseless but most just accuser, no, it is not. I will put\non sackcloth and ashes; there\u0097are you satisfied?\"\n\nJoan's sobs began to diminish, and she presently looked up at the old\nman through her tears, and said, in her simple way:\n\n\"Yes, that will do\u0097if it will clear you.\"\n\nPere Fronte would have been moved to laugh again, perhaps, if he had not\nremembered in time that he had made a contract, and not a very agreeable\none. It must be fulfilled. So he got up and went to the fireplace, Joan\nwatching him with deep interest, and took a shovelful of cold ashes, and\nwas going to empty them on his old gray head when a better idea came to\nhim, and he said:\n\n\"Would you mind helping me, dear?\"\n\n\"How, father?\"\n\nHe got down on his knees and bent his head low, and said:\n\n\"Take the ashes and put them on my head for me.\"\n\nThe matter ended there, of course. The victory was with the priest. One\ncan imagine how the idea of such a profanation would strike Joan or any\nother child in the village. She ran and dropped upon her knees by his\nside and said:\n\n\"Oh, it is dreadful. I didn't know that that was what one meant by\nsackcloth and ashes\u0097do please get up, father.\"\n\n\"But I can't until I am forgiven. Do you forgive me?\"\n\n\"I? Oh, you have done nothing to me, father; it is yourself that must\nforgive yourself for wronging those poor things. Please get up, father,\nwon't you?\"\n\n\"But I am worse off now than I was before. I thought I was earning\nyour forgiveness, but if it is my own, I can't be lenient; it would not\nbecome me. Now what can I do? Find me some way out of this with your\nwise little head.\"\n\nThe Pere would not stir, for all Joan's pleadings. She was about to cry\nagain; then she had an idea, and seized the shovel and deluged her\nown head with the ashes, stammering out through her chokings and\nsuffocations:\n\n\"There\u0097now it is done. Oh, please get up, father.\"\n\nThe old man, both touched and amused, gathered her to his breast and\nsaid:\n\n\"Oh, you incomparable child! It's a humble martyrdom, and not of a sort\npresentable in a picture, but the right and true spirit is in it; that I\ntestify.\"\n\nThen he brushed the ashes out of her hair, and helped her scour her face\nand neck and properly tidy herself up. He was in fine spirits now, and\nready for further argument, so he took his seat and drew Joan to his\nside again, and said:\n\n\"Joan, you were used to make wreaths there at the Fairy Tree with the\nother children; is it not so?\"\n\nThat was the way he always started out when he was going to corner me up\nand catch me in something\u0097just that gentle, indifferent way that fools\na person so, and leads him into the trap, he never noticing which way he\nis traveling until he is in and the door shut on him. He enjoyed that.\nI knew he was going to drop corn along in front of Joan now. Joan\nanswered:\n\n\"Yes, father.\"\n\n\"Did you hang them on the tree?\"\n\n\"No, father.\"\n\n\"Didn't hang them there?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you?\"\n\n\"I\u0097well, I didn't wish to.\"\n\n\"Didn't wish to?\"\n\n\"No, father.\"\n\n\"What did you do with them?\"\n\n\"I hung them in the church.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you want to hang them in the tree?\"\n\n\"Because it was said that the fairies were of kin to the Fiend, and that\nit was sinful to show them honor.\"\n\n\"Did you believe it was wrong to honor them so?\"\n\n\"Yes. I thought it must be wrong.\"\n\n\"Then if it was wrong to honor them in that way, and if they were of\nkin to the Fiend, they could be dangerous company for you and the other\nchildren, couldn't they?\"\n\n\"I suppose so\u0097yes, I think so.\"\n\nHe studied a minute, and I judged he was going to spring his trap, and\nhe did. He said:\n\n\"Then the matter stands like this. They were banned creatures, of\nfearful origin; they could be dangerous company for the children. Now\ngive me a rational reason, dear, if you can think of any, why you call\nit a wrong to drive them into banishment, and why you would have saved\nthem from it. In a word, what loss have you suffered by it?\"\n\nHow stupid of him to go and throw his case away like that! I could have\nboxed his ears for vexation if he had been a boy. He was going along all\nright until he ruined everything by winding up in that foolish and fatal\nway. What had she lost by it! Was he never going to find out what kind\nof a child Joan of Arc was? Was he never going to learn that things\nwhich merely concerned her own gain or loss she cared nothing about?\nCould he never get the simple fact into his head that the sure way and\nthe only way to rouse her up and set her on fire was to show her where\nsome other person was going to suffer wrong or hurt or loss? Why, he had\ngone and set a trap for himself\u0097that was all he had accomplished.\n\nThe minute those words were out of his mouth her temper was up, the\nindignant tears rose in her eyes, and she burst out on him with an\nenergy and passion which astonished him, but didn't astonish me, for I\nknew he had fired a mine when he touched off his ill-chosen climax.\n\n\"Oh, father, how can you talk like that? Who owns France?\"\n\n\"God and the King.\"\n\n\"Not Satan?\"\n\n\"Satan, my child? This is the footstool of the Most High\u0097Satan owns no\nhandful of its soil.\"\n\n\"Then who gave those poor creatures their home? God. Who protected them\nin it all those centuries? God. Who allowed them to dance and play there\nall those centuries and found no fault with it? God. Who disapproved of\nGod's approval and put a threat upon them? A man. Who caught them again\nin harmless sports that God allowed and a man forbade, and carried out\nthat threat, and drove the poor things away from the home the good God\ngave them in His mercy and His pity, and sent down His rain and dew and\nsunshine upon it five hundred years in token of His peace? It was their\nhome\u0097theirs, by the grace of God and His good heart, and no man had a\nright to rob them of it. And they were the gentlest, truest friends that\nchildren ever had, and did them sweet and loving service all these five\nlong centuries, and never any hurt or harm; and the children loved them,\nand now they mourn for them, and there is no healing for their grief.\nAnd what had the children done that they should suffer this cruel\nstroke? The poor fairies could have been dangerous company for the\nchildren? Yes, but never had been; and could is no argument. Kinsmen of\nthe Fiend? What of it? Kinsmen of the Fiend have rights, and these had;\nand children have rights, and these had; and if I had been there I would\nhave spoken\u0097I would have begged for the children and the fiends, and\nstayed your hand and saved them all. But now\u0097oh, now, all is lost;\neverything is lost, and there is no help more!\"\n\nThen she finished with a blast at that idea that fairy kinsmen of the\nFiend ought to be shunned and denied human sympathy and friendship\nbecause salvation was barred against them. She said that for that very\nreason people ought to pity them, and do every humane and loving thing\nthey could to make them forget the hard fate that had been put upon them\nby accident of birth and no fault of their own. \"Poor little creatures!\"\nshe said. \"What can a person's heart be made of that can pity a\nChristian's child and yet can't pity a devil's child, that a thousand\ntimes more needs it!\"\n\nShe had torn loose from Pere Fronte, and was crying, with her knuckles\nin her eyes, and stamping her small feet in a fury; and now she burst\nout of the place and was gone before we could gather our senses together\nout of this storm of words and this whirlwind of passion.\n\nThe Pere had got upon his feet, toward the last, and now he stood there\npassing his hand back and forth across his forehead like a person who is\ndazed and troubled; then he turned and wandered toward the door of\nhis little workroom, and as he passed through it I heard him murmur\nsorrowfully:\n\n\"Ah, me, poor children, poor fiends, they have rights, and she said\ntrue\u0097I never thought of that. God forgive me, I am to blame.\"\n\nWhen I heard that, I knew I was right in the thought that he had set\na trap for himself. It was so, and he had walked into it, you see. I\nseemed to feel encouraged, and wondered if mayhap I might get him into\none; but upon reflection my heart went down, for this was not my gift.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 3 All Aflame with Love of France\n\nSPEAKING of this matter reminds me of many incidents, many things that I\ncould tell, but I think I will not try to do it now. It will be more\nto my present humor to call back a little glimpse of the simple and\ncolorless good times we used to have in our village homes in those\npeaceful days\u0097especially in the winter. In the summer we children were\nout on the breezy uplands with the flocks from dawn till night, and then\nthere was noisy frolicking and all that; but winter was the cozy time,\nwinter was the snug time. Often we gathered in old Jacques d'Arc's big\ndirt-floored apartment, with a great fire going, and played games, and\nsang songs, and told fortunes, and listened to the old villagers tell\ntales and histories and lies and one thing and another till twelve\no'clock at night.\n\nOne winter's night we were gathered there\u0097it was the winter that for\nyears afterward they called the hard winter\u0097and that particular night\nwas a sharp one. It blew a gale outside, and the screaming of the wind\nwas a stirring sound, and I think I may say it was beautiful, for I\nthink it is great and fine and beautiful to hear the wind rage and storm\nand blow its clarions like that, when you are inside and comfortable.\nAnd we were. We had a roaring fire, and the pleasant spit-spit of the\nsnow and sleet falling in it down the chimney, and the yarning and\nlaughing and singing went on at a noble rate till about ten o'clock,\nand then we had a supper of hot porridge and beans, and meal cakes with\nbutter, and appetites to match.\n\nLittle Joan sat on a box apart, and had her bowl and bread on another\none, and her pets around her helping. She had more than was usual of\nthem or economical, because all the outcast cats came and took up with\nher, and homeless or unlovable animals of other kinds heard about it and\ncame, and these spread the matter to the other creatures, and they came\nalso; and as the birds and the other timid wild things of the woods were\nnot afraid of her, but always had an idea she was a friend when they\ncame across her, and generally struck up an acquaintance with her to get\ninvited to the house, she always had samples of those breeds in stock.\nShe was hospitable to them all, for an animal was an animal to her,\nand dear by mere reason of being an animal, no matter about its sort\nor social station; and as she would allow of no cages, no collars, no\nfetters, but left the creatures free to come and go as they liked, that\ncontented them, and they came; but they didn't go, to any extent, and\nso they were a marvelous nuisance, and made Jacques d'Arc swear a good\ndeal; but his wife said God gave the child the instinct, and knew what\nHe was doing when He did it, therefore it must have its course; it would\nbe no sound prudence to meddle with His affairs when no invitation had\nbeen extended. So the pets were left in peace, and here they were, as\nI have said, rabbits, birds, squirrels, cats, and other reptiles, all\naround the child, and full of interest in her supper, and helping what\nthey could. There was a very small squirrel on her shoulder, sitting\nup, as those creatures do, and turning a rocky fragment of prehistoric\nchestnut-cake over and over in its knotty hands, and hunting for the\nless indurated places, and giving its elevated bushy tail a flirt and\nits pointed ears a toss when it found one\u0097signifying thankfulness and\nsurprise\u0097and then it filed that place off with those two slender front\nteeth which a squirrel carries for that purpose and not for ornament,\nfor ornamental they never could be, as any will admit that have noticed\nthem.\n\nEverything was going fine and breezy and hilarious, but then there came\nan interruption, for somebody hammered on the door. It was one of those\nragged road-stragglers\u0097the eternal wars kept the country full of them.\nHe came in, all over snow, and stamped his feet, and shook, and brushed\nhimself, and shut the door, and took off his limp ruin of a hat, and\nslapped it once or twice against his leg to knock off its fleece of\nsnow, and then glanced around on the company with a pleased look upon\nhis thin face, and a most yearning and famished one in his eye when it\nfell upon the victuals, and then he gave us a humble and conciliatory\nsalutation, and said it was a blessed thing to have a fire like that on\nsuch a night, and a roof overhead like this, and that rich food to eat,\nand loving friends to talk with\u0097ah, yes, this was true, and God help the\nhomeless, and such as must trudge the roads in this weather.\n\nNobody said anything. The embarrassed poor creature stood there and\nappealed to one face after the other with his eyes, and found no welcome\nin any, the smile on his own face flickering and fading and perishing,\nmeanwhile; then he dropped his gaze, the muscles of his face began to\ntwitch, and he put up his hand to cover this womanish sign of weakness.\n\n\"Sit down!\"\n\nThis thunder-blast was from old Jacques d'Arc, and Joan was the object\nof it. The stranger was startled, and took his hand away, and there\nwas Joan standing before him offering him her bowl of porridge. The man\nsaid:\n\n\"God Almighty bless you, my darling!\" and then the tears came, and ran\ndown his cheeks, but he was afraid to take the bowl.\n\n\"Do you hear me? Sit down, I say!\"\n\nThere could not be a child more easy to persuade than Joan, but this was\nnot the way. Her father had not the art; neither could he learn it. Joan\nsaid:\n\n\"Father, he is hungry; I can see it.\"\n\n\"Let him work for food, then. We are being eaten out of house and home\nby his like, and I have said I would endure it no more, and will keep\nmy word. He has the face of a rascal anyhow, and a villain. Sit down, I\ntell you!\"\n\n\"I know not if he is a rascal or no, but he is hungry, father, and shall\nhave my porridge\u0097I do not need it.\"\n\n\"If you don't obey me I'll\u0097Rascals are not entitled to help from honest\npeople, and no bite nor sup shall they have in this house. Joan!\"\n\nShe set her bowl down on the box and came over and stood before her\nscowling father, and said:\n\n\"Father, if you will not let me, then it must be as you say; but I would\nthat you would think\u0097then you would see that it is not right to punish\none part of him for what the other part has done; for it is that poor\nstranger's head that does the evil things, but it is not his head that\nis hungry, it is his stomach, and it has done no harm to anybody, but is\nwithout blame, and innocent, not having any way to do a wrong, even if\nit was minded to it. Please let\u0097\"\n\n\"What an idea! It is the most idiotic speech I ever heard.\"\n\nBut Aubrey, the maire, broke in, he being fond of an argument, and\nhaving a pretty gift in that regard, as all acknowledged. Rising in his\nplace and leaning his knuckles upon the table and looking about him with\neasy dignity, after the manner of such as be orators, he began, smooth\nand persuasive:\n\n\"I will differ with you there, gossip, and will undertake to show\nthe company\"\u0097here he looked around upon us and nodded his head in a\nconfident way\u0097\"that there is a grain of sense in what the child has\nsaid; for look you, it is of a certainty most true and demonstrable that\nit is a man's head that is master and supreme ruler over his whole body.\nIs that granted? Will any deny it?\" He glanced around again; everybody\nindicated assent. \"Very well, then; that being the case, no part of\nthe body is responsible for the result when it carries out an order\ndelivered to it by the head; ergo, the head is alone responsible for\ncrimes done by a man's hands or feet or stomach\u0097do you get the idea? am\nI right thus far?\" Everybody said yes, and said it with enthusiasm, and\nsome said, one to another, that the maire was in great form to-night and\nat his very best\u0097which pleased the maire exceedingly and made his eyes\nsparkle with pleasure, for he overheard these things; so he went on in\nthe same fertile and brilliant way. \"Now, then, we will consider what\nthe term responsibility means, and how it affects the case in point.\nResponsibility makes a man responsible for only those things for which\nhe is properly responsible\"\u0097and he waved his spoon around in a\nwide sweep to indicate the comprehensive nature of that class of\nresponsibilities which render people responsible, and several exclaimed,\nadmiringly, \"He is right!\u0097he has put that whole tangled thing into a\nnutshell\u0097it is wonderful!\" After a little pause to give the interest\nopportunity to gather and grow, he went on: \"Very good. Let us suppose\nthe case of a pair of tongs that falls upon a man's foot, causing a\ncruel hurt. Will you claim that the tongs are punishable for that? The\nquestion is answered; I see by your faces that you would call such a\nclaim absurd. Now, why is it absurd? It is absurd because, there being\nno reasoning faculty\u0097that is to say, no faculty of personal command\u0097in\na pair of tongs, personal responsibility for the acts of the tongs is\nwholly absent from the tongs; and, therefore, responsibility being\nabsent, punishment cannot ensue. Am I right?\" A hearty burst of applause\nwas his answer. \"Now, then, we arrive at a man's stomach. Consider how\nexactly, how marvelously, indeed, its situation corresponds to that of\na pair of tongs. Listen\u0097and take careful note, I beg you. Can a man's\nstomach plan a murder? No. Can it plan a theft? No. Can it plan an\nincendiary fire? No. Now answer me\u0097can a pair of tongs?\" (There were\nadmiring shouts of \"No!\" and \"The cases are just exact!\" and \"Don't he\ndo it splendid!\") \"Now, then, friends and neighbors, a stomach which\ncannot plan a crime cannot be a principal in the commission of it\u0097that\nis plain, as you see. The matter is narrowed down by that much; we will\nnarrow it further. Can a stomach, of its own motion, assist at a crime?\nThe answer is no, because command is absent, the reasoning faculty is\nabsent, volition is absent\u0097as in the case of the tongs. We perceive\nnow, do we not, that the stomach is totally irresponsible for crimes\ncommitted, either in whole or in part, by it?\" He got a rousing cheer\nfor response. \"Then what do we arrive at as our verdict? Clearly this:\nthat there is no such thing in this world as a guilty stomach; that\nin the body of the veriest rascal resides a pure and innocent stomach;\nthat, whatever it's owner may do, it at least should be sacred in our\neyes; and that while God gives us minds to think just and charitable and\nhonorable thoughts, it should be, and is, our privilege, as well as\nour duty, not only to feed the hungry stomach that resides in a\nrascal, having pity for its sorrow and its need, but to do it gladly,\ngratefully, in recognition of its sturdy and loyal maintenance of\nits purity and innocence in the midst of temptation and in company so\nrepugnant to its better feelings. I am done.\"\n\nWell, you never saw such an effect! They rose\u0097the whole house rose\u0097an\nclapped, and cheered, and praised him to the skies; and one after\nanother, still clapping and shouting, they crowded forward, some with\nmoisture in their eyes, and wrung his hands, and said such glorious\nthings to him that he was clear overcome with pride and happiness,\nand couldn't say a word, for his voice would have broken, sure. It was\nsplendid to see; and everybody said he had never come up to that speech\nin his life before, and never could do it again. Eloquence is a power,\nthere is no question of that. Even old Jacques d'Arc was carried away,\nfor once in his life, and shouted out:\n\n\"It's all right, Joan\u0097give him the porridge!\"\n\nShe was embarrassed, and did not seem to know what to say, and so didn't\nsay anything. It was because she had given the man the porridge long ago\nand he had already eaten it all up. When she was asked why she had not\nwaited until a decision was arrived at, she said the man's stomach was\nvery hungry, and it would not have been wise to wait, since she could\nnot tell what the decision would be. Now that was a good and thoughtful\nidea for a child.\n\nThe man was not a rascal at all. He was a very good fellow, only he was\nout of luck, and surely that was no crime at that time in France. Now\nthat his stomach was proved to be innocent, it was allowed to make\nitself at home; and as soon as it was well filled and needed nothing\nmore, the man unwound his tongue and turned it loose, and it was really\na noble one to go. He had been in the wars for years, and the things he\ntold and the way he told them fired everybody's patriotism away up high,\nand set all hearts to thumping and all pulses to leaping; then, before\nanybody rightly knew how the change was made, he was leading us a\nsublime march through the ancient glories of France, and in fancy we saw\nthe titanic forms of the twelve paladins rise out of the mists of the\npast and face their fate; we heard the tread of the innumerable hosts\nsweeping down to shut them in; we saw this human tide flow and ebb, ebb\nand flow, and waste away before that little band of heroes; we saw each\ndetail pass before us of that most stupendous, most disastrous, yet most\nadored and glorious day in French legendary history; here and there and\nyonder, across that vast field of the dead and dying, we saw this and\nthat and the other paladin dealing his prodigious blows with weary arm\nand failing strength, and one by one we saw them fall, till only one\nremained\u0097he that was without peer, he whose name gives name to the Song\nof Songs, the song which no Frenchman can hear and keep his feelings\ndown and his pride of country cool; then, grandest and pitifulest scene\nof all, we saw his own pathetic death; and our stillness, as we sat with\nparted lips and breathless, hanging upon this man's words, gave us a\nsense of the awful stillness that reigned in that field of slaughter\nwhen that last surviving soul had passed.\n\nAnd now, in this solemn hush, the stranger gave Joan a pat or two on the\nhead and said:\n\n\"Little maid\u0097whom God keep!\u0097you have brought me from death to life this\nnight; now listen: here is your reward,\" and at that supreme time for\nsuch a heart-melting, soul-rousing surprise, without another word he\nlifted up the most noble and pathetic voice that was ever heard, and\nbegan to pour out the great Song of Roland!\n\nThink of that, with a French audience all stirred up and ready. Oh,\nwhere was your spoken eloquence now! what was it to this! How fine he\nlooked, how stately, how inspired, as he stood there with that mighty\nchant welling from his lips and his heart, his whole body transfigured,\nand his rags along with it.\n\nEverybody rose and stood while he sang, and their faces glowed and their\neyes burned; and the tears came and flowed down their cheeks and their\nforms began to sway unconsciously to the swing of the song, and their\nbosoms to heave and pant; and moanings broke out, and deep ejaculations;\nand when the last verse was reached, and Roland lay dying, all alone,\nwith his face to the field and to his slain, lying there in heaps and\nwinrows, and took off and held up his gauntlet to God with his failing\nhand, and breathed his beautiful prayer with his paling pips, all burst\nout in sobs and wailings. But when the final great note died out and the\nsong was done, they all flung themselves in a body at the singer, stark\nmad with love of him and love of France and pride in her great deeds and\nold renown, and smothered him with their embracings; but Joan was there\nfirst, hugged close to his breast, and covering his face with idolatrous\nkisses.\n\nThe storm raged on outside, but that was no matter; this was the\nstranger's home now, for as long as he might please.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 4 Joan Tames the Mad Man\n\nALL CHILDREN have nicknames, and we had ours. We got one apiece early,\nand they stuck to us; but Joan was richer in this matter, for, as time\nwent on, she earned a second, and then a third, and so on, and we gave\nthem to her. First and last she had as many as half a dozen. Several\nof these she never lost. Peasant-girls are bashful naturally; but she\nsurpassed the rule so far, and colored so easily, and was so easily\nembarrassed in the presence of strangers, that we nicknamed her the\nBashful. We were all patriots, but she was called the Patriot, because\nour warmest feeling for our country was cold beside hers. Also she\nwas called the Beautiful; and this was not merely because of the\nextraordinary beauty of her face and form, but because of the loveliness\nof her character. These names she kept, and one other\u0097the Brave.\n\nWe grew along up, in that plodding and peaceful region, and got to be\ngood-sized boys and girls\u0097big enough, in fact, to begin to know as much\nabout the wars raging perpetually to the west and north of us as our\nelders, and also to feel as stirred up over the occasional news from\nthese red fields as they did. I remember certain of these days very\nclearly. One Tuesday a crowd of us were romping and singing around the\nFairy Tree, and hanging garlands on it in memory of our lost little\nfairy friends, when Little Mengette cried out:\n\n\"Look! What is that?\"\n\nWhen one exclaims like that in a way that shows astonishment and\napprehension, he gets attention. All the panting breasts and flushed\nfaces flocked together, and all the eager eyes were turned in one\ndirection\u0097down the slope, toward the village.\n\n\"It's a black flag.\"\n\n\"A black flag! No\u0097is it?\"\n\n\"You can see for yourself that it is nothing else.\"\n\n\"It is a black flag, sure! Now, has any ever seen the like of that\nbefore?\"\n\n\"What can it mean?\"\n\n\"Mean? It means something dreadful\u0097what else?\"\n\n\"That is nothing to the point; anybody knows that without the telling.\nBut what?\u0097that is the question.\"\n\n\"It is a chance that he that bears it can answer as well as any that are\nhere, if you contain yourself till he comes.\"\n\n\"He runs well. Who is it?\"\n\nSome named one, some another; but presently all saw that it was Etienne\nRoze, called the Sunflower, because he had yellow hair and a round\npock-marked face. His ancestors had been Germans some centuries ago.\nHe came straining up the slope, now and then projecting his flag-stick\naloft and giving his black symbol of woe a wave in the air, whilst all\neyes watched him, all tongues discussed him, and every heart beat faster\nand faster with impatience to know his news. At last he sprang among us,\nand struck his flag-stick into the ground, saying:\n\n\"There! Stand there and represent France while I get my breath. She\nneeds no other flag now.\"\n\nAll the giddy chatter stopped. It was as if one had announced a death.\nIn that chilly hush there was no sound audible but the panting of the\nbreath-blown boy. When he was presently able to speak, he said:\n\n\"Black news is come. A treaty has been made at Troyes between France\nand the English and Burgundians. By it France is betrayed and delivered\nover, tied hand and foot, to the enemy. It is the work of the Duke of\nBurgundy and that she-devil, the Queen of France. It marries Henry of\nEngland to Catharine of France\u0097\"\n\n\"Is not this a lie? Marries the daughter of France to the Butcher of\nAgincourt? It is not to be believed. You have not heard aright.\"\n\n\"If you cannot believe that, Jacques d'Arc, then you have a difficult\ntask indeed before you, for worse is to come. Any child that is born of\nthat marriage\u0097if even a girl\u0097is to inherit the thrones of both England\nand France, and this double ownership is to remain with its posterity\nforever!\"\n\n\"Now that is certainly a lie, for it runs counter to our Salic law, and\nso is not legal and cannot have effect,\" said Edmond Aubrey, called the\nPaladin, because of the armies he was always going to eat up some day.\nHe would have said more, but he was drowned out by the clamors of the\nothers, who all burst into a fury over this feature of the treaty, all\ntalking at once and nobody hearing anybody, until presently Haumette\npersuaded them to be still, saying:\n\n\"It is not fair to break him up so in his tale; pray let him go on.\nYou find fault with his history because it seems to be lies. That were\nreason for satisfaction\u0097that kind of lies\u0097not discontent. Tell the rest,\nEtienne.\"\n\n\"There is but this to tell: Our King, Charles VI., is to reign until he\ndies, then Henry V. of England is to be Regent of France until a child\nof his shall be old enough to\u0097\"\n\n\"That man is to reign over us\u0097the Butcher? It is lies! all lies!\" cried\nthe Paladin. \"Besides, look you\u0097what becomes of our Dauphin? What says\nthe treaty about him?\"\n\n\"Nothing. It takes away his throne and makes him an outcast.\"\n\nThen everybody shouted at once and said the news was a lie; and all\nbegan to get cheerful again, saying, \"Our King would have to sign the\ntreaty to make it good; and that he would not do, seeing how it serves\nhis own son.\"\n\nBut the Sunflower said: \"I will ask you this: Would the Queen sign a\ntreaty disinheriting her son?\"\n\n\"That viper? Certainly. Nobody is talking of her. Nobody expects better\nof her. There is no villainy she will stick at, if it feed her spite;\nand she hates her son. Her signing it is of no consequence. The King\nmust sign.\"\n\n\"I will ask you another thing. What is the King's condition? Mad, isn't\nhe?\"\n\n\"Yes, and his people love him all the more for it. It brings him near to\nthem by his sufferings; and pitying him makes them love him.\"\n\n\"You say right, Jacques d'Arc. Well, what would you of one that is mad?\nDoes he know what he does? No. Does he do what others make him do? Yes.\nNow, then, I tell you he has signed the treaty.\"\n\n\"Who made him do it?\"\n\n\"You know, without my telling. The Queen.\"\n\nThen there was another uproar\u0097everybody talking at once, and all heaping\nexecrations upon the Queen's head. Finally Jacques d'Arc said:\n\n\"But many reports come that are not true. Nothing so shameful as this\nhas ever come before, nothing that cuts so deep, nothing that has\ndragged France so low; therefore there is hope that this tale is but\nanother idle rumor. Where did you get it?\"\n\nThe color went out of his sister Joan's face. She dreaded the answer;\nand her instinct was right.\n\n\"The cure of Maxey brought it.\"\n\nThere was a general gasp. We knew him, you see, for a trusty man.\n\n\"Did he believe it?\"\n\nThe hearts almost stopped beating. Then came the answer:\n\n\"He did. And that is not all. He said he knew it to be true.\"\n\nSome of the girls began to sob; the boys were struck silent. The\ndistress in Joan's face was like that which one sees in the face of a\ndumb animal that has received a mortal hurt. The animal bears it, making\nno complaint; she bore it also, saying no word. Her brother Jacques put\nhis hand on her head and caressed her hair to indicate his sympathy, and\nshe gathered the hand to her lips and kissed it for thanks, not saying\nanything. Presently the reaction came, and the boys began to talk. Noel\nRainguesson said:\n\n\"Oh, are we never going to be men! We do grow along so slowly, and\nFrance never needed soldiers as she needs them now, to wipe out this\nblack insult.\"\n\n\"I hate youth!\" said Pierre Morel, called the Dragon-fly because his\neyes stuck out so. \"You've always got to wait, and wait, and wait\u0097and\nhere are the great wars wasting away for a hundred years, and you never\nget a chance. If I could only be a soldier now!\"\n\n\"As for me, I'm not going to wait much longer,\" said the Paladin; \"and\nwhen I do start you'll hear from me, I promise you that. There are some\nwho, in storming a castle, prefer to be in the rear; but as for me, give\nme the front or none; I will have none in front of me but the officers.\"\n\nEven the girls got the war spirit, and Marie Dupont said:\n\n\"I would I were a man; I would start this minute!\" and looked very proud\nof herself, and glanced about for applause.\n\n\"So would I,\" said Cecile Letellier, sniffing the air like a war-horse\nthat smells the battle; \"I warrant you I would not turn back from the\nfield though all England were in front of me.\"\n\n\"Pooh!\" said the Paladin; \"girls can brag, but that's all they are good\nfor. Let a thousand of them come face to face with a handful of soldiers\nonce, if you want to see what running is like. Here's little Joan\u0097next\nshe'll be threatening to go for a soldier!\"\n\nThe idea was so funny, and got such a good laugh, that the Paladin gave\nit another trial, and said: \"Why you can just see her!\u0097see her plunge\ninto battle like any old veteran. Yes, indeed; and not a poor shabby\ncommon soldier like us, but an officer\u0097an officer, mind you, with\narmor on, and the bars of a steel helmet to blush behind and hide her\nembarrassment when she finds an army in front of her that she hasn't\nbeen introduced to. An officer? Why, she'll be a captain! A captain,\nI tell you, with a hundred men at her back\u0097or maybe girls. Oh, no\ncommon-soldier business for her! And, dear me, when she starts for that\nother army, you'll think there's a hurricane blowing it away!\"\n\nWell, he kept it up like that till he made their sides ache with\nlaughing; which was quite natural, for certainly it was a very funny\nidea\u0097at that time\u0097I mean, the idea of that gentle little creature, that\nwouldn't hurt a fly, and couldn't bear the sight of blood, and was so\ngirlish and shrinking in all ways, rushing into battle with a gang of\nsoldiers at her back. Poor thing, she sat there confused and ashamed to\nbe so laughed at; and yet at that very minute there was something about\nto happen which would change the aspect of things, and make those young\npeople see that when it comes to laughing, the person that laughs last\nhas the best chance. For just then a face which we all knew and all\nfeared projected itself from behind the Fairy Tree, and the thought that\nshot through us all was, crazy Benoist has gotten loose from his cage,\nand we are as good as dead! This ragged and hairy and horrible creature\nglided out from behind the tree, and raised an ax as he came. We all\nbroke and fled, this way and that, the girls screaming and crying. No,\nnot all; all but Joan. She stood up and faced the man, and remained so.\nAs we reached the wood that borders the grassy clearing and jumped\ninto its shelter, two or three of us glanced back to see if Benoist was\ngaining on us, and that is what we saw\u0097Joan standing, and the maniac\ngliding stealthily toward her with his ax lifted. The sight was\nsickening. We stood where we were, trembling and not able to move. I did\nnot want to see the murder done, and yet I could not take my eyes away.\nNow I saw Joan step forward to meet the man, though I believed my eyes\nmust be deceiving me. Then I saw him stop. He threatened her with his\nax, as if to warn her not to come further, but she paid no heed, but\nwent steadily on, until she was right in front of him\u0097right under his\nax. Then she stopped, and seemed to begin to talk with him. It made me\nsick, yes, giddy, and everything swam around me, and I could not see\nanything for a time\u0097whether long or brief I do not know. When this\npassed and I looked again, Joan was walking by the man's side toward the\nvillage, holding him by his hand. The ax was in her other hand.\n\nOne by one the boys and girls crept out, and we stood there gazing,\nopen-mouthed, till those two entered the village and were hid from\nsight. It was then that we named her the Brave.\n\nWe left the black flag there to continue its mournful office, for we had\nother matter to think of now. We started for the village on a run,\nto give warning, and get Joan out of her peril; though for one, after\nseeing what I had seen, it seemed to me that while Joan had the ax the\nman's chance was not the best of the two. When we arrived the danger\nwas past, the madman was in custody. All the people were flocking to the\nlittle square in front of the church to talk and exclaim and wonder over\nthe event, and it even made the town forget the black news of the treaty\nfor two or three hours.\n\nAll the women kept hugging and kissing Joan, and praising her, and\ncrying, and the men patted her on the head and said they wished she\nwas a man, they would send her to the wars and never doubt but that she\nwould strike some blows that would be heard of. She had to tear herself\naway and go and hide, this glory was so trying to her diffidence.\n\nOf course the people began to ask us for the particulars. I was so\nashamed that I made an excuse to the first comer, and got privately away\nand went back to the Fairy Tree, to get relief from the embarrassment of\nthose questionings. There I found Joan, but she was there to get relief\nfrom the embarrassment of glory. One by one the others shirked the\ninquirers and joined us in our refuge. Then we gathered around Joan, and\nasked her how she had dared to do that thing. She was very modest about\nit, and said:\n\n\"You make a great thing of it, but you mistake; it was not a great\nmatter. It was not as if I had been a stranger to the man. I know him,\nand have known him long; and he knows me, and likes me. I have fed him\nthrough the bars of his cage many times; and last December, when\nthey chopped off two of his fingers to remind him to stop seizing and\nwounding people passing by, I dressed his hand every day till it was\nwell again.\"\n\n\"That is all well enough,\" said Little Mengette, \"but he is a madman,\ndear, and so his likings and his gratitude and friendliness go for\nnothing when his rage is up. You did a perilous thing.\"\n\n\"Of course you did,\" said the Sunflower. \"Didn't he threaten to kill you\nwith the ax?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Didn't he threaten you more than once?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Didn't you feel afraid?\"\n\n\"No\u0097at least not much\u0097very little.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you?\"\n\nShe thought a moment, then said, quite simply:\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\nIt made everybody laugh. Then the Sunflower said it was like a lamb\ntrying to think out how it had come to eat a wolf, but had to give it\nup.\n\nCecile Letellier asked, \"Why didn't you run when we did?\"\n\n\"Because it was necessary to get him to his cage; else he would kill\nsome one. Then he would come to the like harm himself.\"\n\nIt is noticeable that this remark, which implies that Joan was entirely\nforgetful of herself and her own danger, and had thought and wrought\nfor the preservation of other people alone, was not challenged, or\ncriticized, or commented upon by anybody there, but was taken by all\nas matter of course and true. It shows how clearly her character was\ndefined, and how well it was known and established.\n\nThere was silence for a time, and perhaps we were all thinking of the\nsame thing\u0097namely, what a poor figure we had cut in that adventure as\ncontrasted with Joan's performance. I tried to think up some good way of\nexplaining why I had run away and left a little girl at the mercy of\na maniac armed with an ax, but all of the explanations that offered\nthemselves to me seemed so cheap and shabby that I gave the matter up\nand remained still. But others were less wise. Noel Rainguesson fidgeted\nawhile, then broke out with a remark which showed what his mind had been\nrunning on:\n\n\"The fact is, I was taken by surprise. That is the reason. If I had had\na moment to think, I would no more have thought of running that I would\nthink of running from a baby. For, after all, what is Theophile Benoist,\nthat I should seem to be afraid of him? Pooh! the idea of being afraid\nof that poor thing! I only wish he would come along now\u0097I'd show you!\"\n\n\"So do I!\" cried Pierre Morel. \"If I wouldn't make him climb this\ntree quicker than\u0097well, you'd see what I would do! Taking a person by\nsurprise, that way\u0097why, I never meant to run; not in earnest, I mean. I\nnever thought of running in earnest; I only wanted to have some fun, and\nwhen I saw Joan standing there, and him threatening her, it was all I\ncould do to restrain myself from going there and just tearing the livers\nand lights out of him. I wanted to do it bad enough, and if it was to do\nover again, I would! If ever he comes fooling around me again, I'll\u0097\"\n\n\"Oh, hush!\" said the Paladin, breaking in with an air of disdain; \"the\nway you people talk, a person would think there's something heroic\nabout standing up and facing down that poor remnant of a man. Why, it's\nnothing! There's small glory to be got in facing him down, I should say.\nWhy, I wouldn't want any better fun than to face down a hundred like\nhim. If he was to come along here now, I would walk up to him just as I\nam now\u0097I wouldn't care if he had a thousand axes\u0097and say\u0097\"\n\nAnd so he went on and on, telling the brave things he would say and the\nwonders he would do; and the others put in a word from time to time,\ndescribing over again the gory marvels they would do if ever that madman\nventured to cross their path again, for next time they would be ready\nfor him, and would soon teach him that if he thought he could surprise\nthem twice because he had surprised them once, he would find himself\nvery seriously mistaken, that's all.\n\nAnd so, in the end, they all got back their self-respect; yes, and even\nadded somewhat to it; indeed when the sitting broke up they had a finer\nopinion of themselves than they had ever had before.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 5 Domremy Pillaged and Burned\n\nTHEY WERE peaceful and pleasant, those young and smoothly flowing days\nof ours; that is, that was the case as a rule, we being remote from the\nseat of war; but at intervals roving bands approached near enough for\nus to see the flush in the sky at night which marked where they were\nburning some farmstead or village, and we all knew, or at least felt,\nthat some day they would come yet nearer, and we should have our turn.\nThis dull dread lay upon our spirits like a physical weight. It was\ngreatly augmented a couple of years after the Treaty of Troyes.\n\nIt was truly a dismal year for France. One day we had been over to have\none of our occasional pitched battles with those hated Burgundian boys\nof the village of Maxey, and had been whipped, and were arriving on our\nside of the river after dark, bruised and weary, when we heard the bell\nringing the tocsin. We ran all the way, and when we got to the square\nwe found it crowded with the excited villagers, and weirdly lighted by\nsmoking and flaring torches.\n\nOn the steps of the church stood a stranger, a Burgundian priest, who\nwas telling the people news which made them weep, and rave, and rage,\nand curse, by turns. He said our old mad King was dead, and that now we\nand France and the crown were the property of an English baby lying in\nhis cradle in London. And he urged us to give that child our allegiance,\nand be its faithful servants and well-wishers; and said we should now\nhave a strong and stable government at last, and that in a little time\nthe English armies would start on their last march, and it would be a\nbrief one, for all that it would need to do would be to conquer what\nodds and ends of our country yet remained under that rare and almost\nforgotten rag, the banner of France.\n\nThe people stormed and raged at him, and you could see dozens of them\nstretch their fists above the sea of torch-lighted faces and shake them\nat him; and it was all a wild picture, and stirring to look at; and\nthe priest was a first-rate part of it, too, for he stood there in the\nstrong glare and looked down on those angry people in the blandest and\nmost indifferent way, so that while you wanted to burn him at the stake,\nyou still admired the aggravating coolness of him. And his winding-up\nwas the coolest thing of all. For he told them how, at the funeral of\nour old King, the French King-at-Arms had broken his staff of office\nover the coffin of \"Charles VI. and his dynasty,\" at the same time\nsaying, in a loud voice, \"God grant long life to Henry, King of France\nand England, our sovereign lord!\" and then he asked them to join him\nin a hearty Amen to that! The people were white with wrath, and it tied\ntheir tongues for the moment, and they could not speak. But Joan was\nstanding close by, and she looked up in his face, and said in her sober,\nearnest way:\n\n\"I would I might see thy head struck from thy body!\"\u0097then, after a\npause, and crossing herself\u0097\"if it were the will of God.\"\n\nThis is worth remembering, and I will tell you why: it is the only harsh\nspeech Joan ever uttered in her life. When I shall have revealed to you\nthe storms she went through, and the wrongs and persecutions, then you\nwill see that it was wonderful that she said but one bitter thing while\nshe lived.\n\nFrom the day that that dreary news came we had one scare after another,\nthe marauders coming almost to our doors every now and then; so that we\nlived in ever-increasing apprehension, and yet were somehow mercifully\nspared from actual attack. But at last our turn did really come. This\nwas in the spring of '28. The Burgundians swarmed in with a great noise,\nin the middle of a dark night, and we had to jump up and fly for our\nlives. We took the road to Neufchateau, and rushed along in the wildest\ndisorder, everybody trying to get ahead, and thus the movements of all\nwere impeded; but Joan had a cool head\u0097the only cool head there\u0097and\nshe took command and brought order out of that chaos. She did her work\nquickly and with decision and despatch, and soon turned the panic flight\ninto a quite steady-going march. You will grant that for so young a\nperson, and a girl at that, this was a good piece of work.\n\nShe was sixteen now, shapely and graceful, and of a beauty so\nextraordinary that I might allow myself any extravagance of language in\ndescribing it and yet have no fear of going beyond the truth. There was\nin her face a sweetness and serenity and purity that justly reflected\nher spiritual nature. She was deeply religious, and this is a thing\nwhich sometimes gives a melancholy cast to a person's countenance, but\nit was not so in her case. Her religion made her inwardly content and\njoyous; and if she was troubled at times, and showed the pain of it in\nher face and bearing, it came of distress for her country; no part of it\nwas chargeable to her religion.\n\nA considerable part of our village was destroyed, and when it became\nsafe for us to venture back there we realized what other people had\nbeen suffering in all the various quarters of France for many years\u0097yes,\ndecades of years. For the first time we saw wrecked and smoke-blackened\nhomes, and in the lanes and alleys carcasses of dumb creatures that had\nbeen slaughtered in pure wantonness\u0097among them calves and lambs that had\nbeen pets of the children; and it was pity to see the children lament\nover them.\n\nAnd then, the taxes, the taxes! Everybody thought of that. That burden\nwould fall heavy now in the commune's crippled condition, and all faces\ngrew long with the thought of it. Joan said:\n\n\"Paying taxes with naught to pay them with is what the rest of France\nhas been doing these many years, but we never knew the bitterness of\nthat before. We shall know it now.\"\n\nAnd so she went on talking about it and growing more and more troubled\nabout it, until one could see that it was filling all her mind.\n\nAt last we came upon a dreadful object. It was the madman\u0097hacked and\nstabbed to death in his iron cage in the corner of the square. It was a\nbloody and dreadful sight. Hardly any of us young people had ever seen\na man before who had lost his life by violence; so this cadaver had an\nawful fascination for us; we could not take our eyes from it. I mean, it\nhad that sort of fascination for all of us but one. That one was Joan.\nShe turned away in horror, and could not be persuaded to go near it\nagain. There\u0097it is a striking reminder that we are but creatures of use\nand custom; yes, and it is a reminder, too, of how harshly and unfairly\nfate deals with us sometimes. For it was so ordered that the very ones\namong us who were most fascinated with mutilated and bloody death were\nto live their lives in peace, while that other, who had a native and\ndeep horror of it, must presently go forth and have it as a familiar\nspectacle every day on the field of battle.\n\nYou may well believe that we had plenty of matter for talk now, since\nthe raiding of our village seemed by long odds the greatest event that\nhad really ever occurred in the world; for although these dull peasants\nmay have thought they recognized the bigness of some of the previous\noccurrences that had filtered from the world's history dimly into their\nminds, the truth is that they hadn't. One biting little fact, visible\nto their eyes of flesh and felt in their own personal vitals, became\nat once more prodigious to them than the grandest remote episode in the\nworld's history which they had got at second hand and by hearsay. It\namuses me now when I recall how our elders talked then. They fumed and\nfretted in a fine fashion.\n\n\"Ah, yes,\" said old Jacques d'Arc, \"things are come to a pretty pass,\nindeed! The King must be informed of this. It is time that he cease from\nidleness and dreaming, and get at his proper business.\" He meant our\nyoung disinherited King, the hunted refugee, Charles VII.\n\n\"You say well,\" said the maire. \"He should be informed, and that at\nonce. It is an outrage that such things would be permitted. Why, we are\nnot safe in our beds, and he taking his ease yonder. It shall be made\nknown, indeed it shall\u0097all France shall hear of it!\"\n\nTo hear them talk, one would have imagined that all the previous ten\nthousand sackings and burnings in France had been but fables, and this\none the only fact. It is always the way; words will answer as long as it\nis only a person's neighbor who is in trouble, but when that person gets\ninto trouble himself, it is time that the King rise up and do something.\n\nThe big event filled us young people with talk, too. We let it flow in\na steady stream while we tended the flocks. We were beginning to feel\npretty important now, for I was eighteen and the other youths were from\none to four years older\u0097young men, in fact. One day the Paladin was\narrogantly criticizing the patriot generals of France and said:\n\n\"Look at Dunois, Bastard of Orleans\u0097call him a general! Just put me in\nhis place once\u0097never mind what I would do, it is not for me to say,\nI have no stomach for talk, my way is to act and let others do the\ntalking\u0097but just put me in his place once, that's all! And look at\nSaintrailles\u0097pooh! and that blustering La Hire, now what a general that\nis!\"\n\nIt shocked everybody to hear these great names so flippantly handled,\nfor to us these renowned soldiers were almost gods. In their far-off\nsplendor they rose upon our imaginations dim and huge, shadowy and\nawful, and it was a fearful thing to hear them spoken of as if they were\nmere men, and their acts open to comment and criticism. The color rose\nin Joan's face, and she said:\n\n\"I know not how any can be so hardy as to use such words regarding these\nsublime men, who are the very pillars of the French state, supporting it\nwith their strength and preserving it at daily cost of their blood. As\nfor me, I could count myself honored past all deserving if I might be\nallowed but the privilege of looking upon them once\u0097at a distance, I\nmean, for it would not become one of my degree to approach them too\nnear.\"\n\nThe Paladin was disconcerted for a moment, seeing by the faces around\nhim that Joan had put into words what the others felt, then he pulled\nhis complacency together and fell to fault-finding again. Joan's brother\nJean said:\n\n\"If you don't like what our generals do, why don't you go to the great\nwars yourself and better their work? You are always talking about going\nto the wars, but you don't go.\"\n\n\"Look you,\" said the Paladin, \"it is easy to say that. Now I will tell\nyou why I remain chafing here in a bloodless tranquillity which my\nreputation teaches you is repulsive to my nature. I do not go because\nI am not a gentleman. That is the whole reason. What can one private\nsoldier do in a contest like this? Nothing. He is not permitted to\nrise from the ranks. If I were a gentleman would I remain here? Not one\nmoment. I can save France\u0097ah, you may laugh, but I know what is in me, I\nknow what is hid under this peasant cap. I can save France, and I stand\nready to do it, but not under these present conditions. If they want me,\nlet them send for me; otherwise, let them take the consequences; I shall\nnot budge but as an officer.\"\n\n\"Alas, poor France\u0097France is lost!\" said Pierre d'Arc.\n\n\"Since you sniff so at others, why don't you go to the wars yourself,\nPierre d'Arc?\"\n\n\"Oh, I haven't been sent for, either. I am no more a gentleman than you.\nYet I will go; I promise to go. I promise to go as a private under your\norders\u0097when you are sent for.\"\n\nThey all laughed, and the Dragon-fly said:\n\n\"So soon? Then you need to begin to get ready; you might be called for\nin five years\u0097who knows? Yes, in my opinion you'll march for the wars in\nfive years.\"\n\n\"He will go sooner,\" said Joan. She said it in a low voice and musingly,\nbut several heard it.\n\n\"How do you know that, Joan?\" said the Dragon-fly, with a surprised\nlook. But Jean d'Arc broke in and said:\n\n\"I want to go myself, but as I am rather young yet, I also will wait,\nand march when the Paladin is sent for.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Joan, \"he will go with Pierre.\"\n\nShe said it as one who talks to himself aloud without knowing it, and\nnone heard it but me. I glanced at her and saw that her knitting-needles\nwere idle in her hands, and that her face had a dreamy and absent look\nin it. There were fleeting movements of her lips as if she might be\noccasionally saying parts of sentences to herself. But there was no\nsound, for I was the nearest person to her and I heard nothing. But I\nset my ears open, for those two speeches had affected me uncannily, I\nbeing superstitious and easily troubled by any little thing of a strange\nand unusual sort.\n\nNoel Rainguesson said:\n\n\"There is one way to let France have a chance for her salvation. We've\ngot one gentleman in the commune, at any rate. Why can't the Scholar\nchange name and condition with the Paladin? Then he can be an officer.\nFrance will send for him then, and he will sweep these English and\nBurgundian armies into the sea like flies.\"\n\nI was the Scholar. That was my nickname, because I could read and write.\nThere was a chorus of approval, and the Sunflower said:\n\n\"That is the very thing\u0097it settles every difficulty. The Sieur de Conte\nwill easily agree to that. Yes, he will march at the back of Captain\nPaladin and die early, covered with common-soldier glory.\"\n\n\"He will march with Jean and Pierre, and live till these wars are\nforgotten,\" Joan muttered; \"and at the eleventh hour Noel and the\nPaladin will join these, but not of their own desire.\" The voice was so\nlow that I was not perfectly sure that these were the words, but they\nseemed to be. It makes one feel creepy to hear such things.\n\n\"Come, now,\" Noel continued, \"it's all arranged; there's nothing to do\nbut organize under the Paladin's banner and go forth and rescue France.\nYou'll all join?\"\n\nAll said yes, except Jacques d'Arc, who said:\n\n\"I'll ask you to excuse me. It is pleasant to talk war, and I am with\nyou there, and I've always thought I should go soldiering about this\ntime, but the look of our wrecked village and that carved-up and bloody\nmadman have taught me that I am not made for such work and such sights.\nI could never be at home in that trade. Face swords and the big guns and\ndeath? It isn't in me. No, no; count me out. And besides, I'm the eldest\nson, and deputy prop and protector of the family. Since you are going to\ncarry Jean and Pierre to the wars, somebody must be left behind to take\ncare of our Joan and her sister. I shall stay at home, and grow old in\npeace and tranquillity.\"\n\n\"He will stay at home, but not grow old,\" murmured Joan.\n\nThe talk rattled on in the gay and careless fashion privileged to youth,\nand we got the Paladin to map out his campaigns and fight his battles\nand win his victories and extinguish the English and put our King upon\nhis throne and set his crown upon his head. Then we asked him what he\nwas going to answer when the King should require him to name his\nreward. The Paladin had it all arranged in his head, and brought it out\npromptly:\n\n\"He shall give me a dukedom, name me premier peer, and make me\nHereditary Lord High Constable of France.\"\n\n\"And marry you to a princess\u0097you're not going to leave that out, are\nyou?\"\n\nThe Paladin colored a trifle, and said, brusquely:\n\n\"He may keep his princesses\u0097I can marry more to my taste.\"\n\nMeaning Joan, though nobody suspected it at that time. If any had, the\nPaladin would have been finely ridiculed for his vanity. There was no\nfit mate in that village for Joan of Arc. Every one would have said\nthat.\n\nIn turn, each person present was required to say what reward he would\ndemand of the King if he could change places with the Paladin and do the\nwonders the Paladin was going to do. The answers were given in fun, and\neach of us tried to outdo his predecessors in the extravagance of the\nreward he would claim; but when it came to Joan's turn, and they rallied\nher out of her dreams and asked her to testify, they had to explain to\nher what the question was, for her thought had been absent, and she had\nheard none of this latter part of our talk. She supposed they wanted a\nserious answer, and she gave it. She sat considering some moments, then\nshe said:\n\n\"If the Dauphin, out of his grace and nobleness, should say to me, 'Now\nthat I am rich and am come to my own again, choose and have,' I should\nkneel and ask him to give command that our village should nevermore be\ntaxed.\"\n\nIt was so simple and out of her heart that it touched us and we did not\nlaugh, but fell to thinking. We did not laugh; but there came a day when\nwe remembered that speech with a mournful pride, and were glad that\nwe had not laughed, perceiving then how honest her words had been, and\nseeing how faithfully she made them good when the time came, asking\njust that boon of the King and refusing to take even any least thing for\nherself.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 6 Joan and Archangel Michael\n\nALL THROUGH her childhood and up to the middle of her fourteenth year,\nJoan had been the most light-hearted creature and the merriest in the\nvillage, with a hop-skip-and-jump gait and a happy and catching laugh;\nand this disposition, supplemented by her warm and sympathetic nature\nand frank and winning ways, had made her everybody's pet. She had been\na hot patriot all this time, and sometimes the war news had sobered\nher spirits and wrung her heart and made her acquainted with tears, but\nalways when these interruptions had run their course her spirits rose\nand she was her old self again.\n\nBut now for a whole year and a half she had been mainly grave; not\nmelancholy, but given to thought, abstraction, dreams. She was carrying\nFrance upon her heart, and she found the burden not light. I knew that\nthis was her trouble, but others attributed her abstraction to religious\necstasy, for she did not share her thinkings with the village at large,\nyet gave me glimpses of them, and so I knew, better than the rest, what\nwas absorbing her interest. Many a time the idea crossed my mind that\nshe had a secret\u0097a secret which she was keeping wholly to herself,\nas well from me as from the others. This idea had come to me because\nseveral times she had cut a sentence in two and changed the subject when\napparently she was on the verge of a revelation of some sort. I was to\nfind this secret out, but not just yet.\n\nThe day after the conversation which I have been reporting we were\ntogether in the pastures and fell to talking about France, as usual. For\nher sake I had always talked hopefully before, but that was mere lying,\nfor really there was not anything to hang a rag of hope for France upon.\nNow it was such a pain to lie to her, and cost me such shame to offer\nthis treachery to one so snow-pure from lying and treachery, and even\nfrom suspicion of such baseness in others, as she was, that I was\nresolved to face about now and begin over again, and never insult her\nmore with deception. I started on the new policy by saying\u0097still opening\nup with a small lie, of course, for habit is habit, and not to be flung\nout of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time:\n\n\"Joan, I have been thinking the thing all over last night, and have\nconcluded that we have been in the wrong all this time; that the case\nof France is desperate; that it has been desperate ever since Agincourt;\nand that to-day it is more than desperate, it is hopeless.\"\n\nI did not look her in the face while I was saying it; it could not be\nexpected of a person. To break her heart, to crush her hope with a so\nfrankly brutal speech as that, without one charitable soft place in\nit\u0097it seemed a shameful thing, and it was. But when it was out, the\nweight gone, and my conscience rising to the surface, I glanced at her\nface to see the result.\n\nThere was none to see. At least none that I was expecting. There was a\nbarely perceptible suggestion of wonder in her serious eyes, but that\nwas all; and she said, in her simple and placid way:\n\n\"The case of France hopeless? Why should you think that? Tell me.\"\n\nIt is a most pleasant thing to find that what you thought would inflict\na hurt upon one whom you honor, has not done it. I was relieved now,\nand could say all my say without any furtivenesses and without\nembarrassment. So I began:\n\n\"Let us put sentiment and patriotic illusions aside, and look at the\nfacts in the face. What do they say? They speak as plainly as the\nfigures in a merchant's account-book. One has only to add the two\ncolumns up to see that the French house is bankrupt, that one-half of\nits property is already in the English sheriff's hands and the other\nhalf in nobody's\u0097except those of irresponsible raiders and robbers\nconfessing allegiance to nobody. Our King is shut up with his favorites\nand fools in inglorious idleness and poverty in a narrow little patch\nof the kingdom\u0097a sort of back lot, as one may say\u0097and has no authority\nthere or anywhere else, hasn't a farthing to his name, nor a regiment of\nsoldiers; he is not fighting, he is not intending to fight, he means to\nmake no further resistance; in truth, there is but one thing that he is\nintending to do\u0097give the whole thing up, pitch his crown into the sewer,\nand run away to Scotland. There are the facts. Are they correct?\"\n\n\"Yes, they are correct.\"\n\n\"Then it is as I have said: one needs but to add them together in order\nto realize what they mean.\"\n\nShe asked, in an ordinary, level tone:\n\n\"What\u0097that the case of France is hopeless?\"\n\n\"Necessarily. In face of these facts, doubt of it is impossible.\"\n\n\"How can you say that? How can you feel like that?\"\n\n\"How can I? How could I think or feel in any other way, in the\ncircumstances? Joan, with these fatal figures before, you, have you\nreally any hope for France\u0097really and actually?\"\n\n\"Hope\u0097oh, more than that! France will win her freedom and keep it. Do\nnot doubt it.\"\n\nIt seemed to me that her clear intellect must surely be clouded to-day.\nIt must be so, or she would see that those figures could mean only one\nthing. Perhaps if I marshaled them again she would see. So I said:\n\n\"Joan, your heart, which worships France, is beguiling your head. You\nare not perceiving the importance of these figures. Here\u0097I want to make\na picture of them, here on the ground with a stick. Now, this rough\noutline is France. Through its middle, east and west, I draw a river.\"\n\n\"Yes, the Loire.\"\n\n\"Now, then, this whole northern half of the country is in the tight grip\nof the English.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And this whole southern half is really in nobody's hands at all\u0097as our\nKing confesses by meditating desertion and flight to a foreign land.\nEngland has armies here; opposition is dead; she can assume full\npossession whenever she may choose. In very truth, all France is gone,\nFrance is already lost, France has ceased to exist. What was France is\nnow but a British province. Is this true?\"\n\nHer voice was low, and just touched with emotion, but distinct:\n\n\"Yes, it is true.\"\n\n\"Very well. Now add this clinching fact, and surely the sum is complete:\nWhen have French soldiers won a victory? Scotch soldiers, under the\nFrench flag, have won a barren fight or two a few years back, but I\nam speaking of French ones. Since eight thousand Englishmen nearly\nannihilated sixty thousand Frenchmen a dozen years ago at Agincourt,\nFrench courage has been paralyzed. And so it is a common saying to-day\nthat if you confront fifty French soldiers with five English ones, the\nFrench will run.\"\n\n\"It is a pity, but even these things are true.\"\n\n\"Then certainly the day for hoping is past.\"\n\nI believed the case would be clear to her now. I thought it could not\nfail to be clear to her, and that she would say, herself, that there\nwas no longer any ground for hope. But I was mistaken; and disappointed\nalso. She said, without any doubt in her tone:\n\n\"France will rise again. You shall see.\"\n\n\"Rise?\u0097with this burden of English armies on her back!\"\n\n\"She will cast it off; she will trample it under foot!\" This with\nspirit.\n\n\"Without soldiers to fight with?\"\n\n\"The drums will summon them. They will answer, and they will march.\"\n\n\"March to the rear, as usual?\"\n\n\"No; to the front\u0097ever to the front\u0097always to the front! You shall see.\"\n\n\"And the pauper King?\"\n\n\"He will mount his throne\u0097he will wear his crown.\"\n\n\"Well, of a truth this makes one's head dizzy. Why, if I could believe\nthat in thirty years from now the English domination would be broken\nand the French monarch's head find itself hooped with a real crown of\nsovereignty\u0097\"\n\n\"Both will have happened before two years are sped.\"\n\n\"Indeed? and who is going to perform all these sublime impossibilities?\"\n\n\"God.\"\n\nIt was a reverent low note, but it rang clear.\n\nWhat could have put those strange ideas in her head? This question kept\nrunning in my mind during two or three days. It was inevitable that I\nshould think of madness. What other way was there to account for such\nthings? Grieving and brooding over the woes of France had weakened that\nstrong mind, and filled it with fantastic phantoms\u0097yes, that must be it.\n\nBut I watched her, and tested her, and it was not so. Her eye was clear\nand sane, her ways were natural, her speech direct and to the point. No,\nthere was nothing the matter with her mind; it was still the soundest in\nthe village and the best. She went on thinking for others, planning for\nothers, sacrificing herself for others, just as always before. She went\non ministering to her sick and to her poor, and still stood ready to\ngive the wayfarer her bed and content herself with the floor. There was\na secret somewhere, but madness was not the key to it. This was plain.\n\nNow the key did presently come into my hands, and the way that it\nhappened was this. You have heard all the world talk of this matter\nwhich I am about to speak of, but you have not heard an eyewitness talk\nof it before.\n\nI was coming from over the ridge, one day\u0097it was the 15th of May,\n'28\u0097and when I got to the edge of the oak forest and was about to step\nout of it upon the turfy open space in which the haunted beech tree\nstood, I happened to cast a glance from cover, first\u0097then I took a step\nbackward, and stood in the shelter and concealment of the foliage. For\nI had caught sight of Joan, and thought I would devise some sort of\nplayful surprise for her. Think of it\u0097that trivial conceit was neighbor,\nwith but a scarcely measurable interval of time between, to an event\ndestined to endure forever in histories and songs.\n\nThe day was overcast, and all that grassy space wherein the Tree stood\nlay in a soft rich shadow. Joan sat on a natural seat formed by gnarled\ngreat roots of the Tree. Her hands lay loosely, one reposing in the\nother, in her lap. Her head was bent a little toward the ground, and her\nair was that of one who is lost to thought, steeped in dreams, and\nnot conscious of herself or of the world. And now I saw a most strange\nthing, for I saw a white shadow come slowly gliding along the grass\ntoward the Tree. It was of grand proportions\u0097a robed form, with\nwings\u0097and the whiteness of this shadow was not like any other whiteness\nthat we know of, except it be the whiteness of lightnings, but even\nthe lightnings are not so intense as it was, for one can look at them\nwithout hurt, whereas this brilliancy was so blinding that it pained my\neyes and brought the water into them. I uncovered my head, perceiving\nthat I was in the presence of something not of this world. My breath\ngrew faint and difficult, because of the terror and the awe that\npossessed me.\n\nAnother strange thing. The wood had been silent\u0097smitten with that deep\nstillness which comes when a storm-cloud darkens a forest, and the wild\ncreatures lose heart and are afraid; but now all the birds burst forth\ninto song, and the joy, the rapture, the ecstasy of it was beyond\nbelief; and was so eloquent and so moving, withal, that it was plain\nit was an act of worship. With the first note of those birds Joan cast\nherself upon her knees, and bent her head low and crossed her hands upon\nher breast.\n\nShe had not seen the shadow yet. Had the song of the birds told her\nit was coming? It had that look to me. Then the like of this must have\nhappened before. Yes, there might be no doubt of that.\n\nThe shadow approached Joan slowly; the extremity of it reached her,\nflowed over her, clothed her in its awful splendor. In that immortal\nlight her face, only humanly beautiful before, became divine; flooded\nwith that transforming glory her mean peasant habit was become like to\nthe raiment of the sun-clothed children of God as we see them thronging\nthe terraces of the Throne in our dreams and imaginings.\n\nPresently she rose and stood, with her head still bowed a little, and\nwith her arms down and the ends of her fingers lightly laced together in\nfront of her; and standing so, all drenched with that wonderful light,\nand yet apparently not knowing it, she seemed to listen\u0097but I heard\nnothing. After a little she raised her head, and looked up as one might\nlook up toward the face of a giant, and then clasped her hands and\nlifted them high, imploringly, and began to plead. I heard some of the\nwords. I heard her say:\n\n\"But I am so young! oh, so young to leave my mother and my home and go\nout into the strange world to undertake a thing so great! Ah, how can I\ntalk with men, be comrade with men?\u0097soldiers! It would give me over to\ninsult, and rude usage, and contempt. How can I go to the great wars,\nand lead armies?\u0097I a girl, and ignorant of such things, knowing\nnothing of arms, nor how to mount a horse, nor ride it.... Yet\u0097if it is\ncommanded\u0097\"\n\nHer voice sank a little, and was broken by sobs, and I made out no\nmore of her words. Then I came to myself. I reflected that I had been\nintruding upon a mystery of God\u0097and what might my punishment be? I was\nafraid, and went deeper into the wood. Then I carved a mark in the bark\nof a tree, saying to myself, it may be that I am dreaming and have not\nseen this vision at all. I will come again, when I know that I am awake\nand not dreaming, and see if this mark is still here; then I shall know.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 7 She Delivers the Divine Command\n\nI HEARD my name called. It was Joan's voice. It startled me, for how\ncould she know I was there? I said to myself, it is part of the dream;\nit is all dream\u0097voice, vision and all; the fairies have done this. So I\ncrossed myself and pronounced the name of God, to break the enchantment.\nI knew I was awake now and free from the spell, for no spell can\nwithstand this exorcism. Then I heard my name called again, and I\nstepped at once from under cover, and there indeed was Joan, but not\nlooking as she had looked in the dream. For she was not crying now, but\nwas looking as she had used to look a year and a half before, when her\nheart was light and her spirits high. Her old-time energy and fire were\nback, and a something like exaltation showed itself in her face and\nbearing. It was almost as if she had been in a trance all that time and\nhad come awake again. Really, it was just as if she had been away and\nlost, and was come back to us at last; and I was so glad that I felt\nlike running to call everybody and have them flock around her and give\nher welcome. I ran to her excited and said:\n\n\"Ah, Joan, I've got such a wonderful thing to tell you about! You would\nnever imagine it. I've had a dream, and in the dream I saw you right\nhere where you are standing now, and\u0097\"\n\nBut she put up her hand and said:\n\n\"It was not a dream.\"\n\nIt gave me a shock, and I began to feel afraid again.\n\n\"Not a dream?\" I said, \"how can you know about it, Joan?\"\n\n\"Are you dreaming now?\"\n\n\"I\u0097I suppose not. I think I am not.\"\n\n\"Indeed you are not. I know you are not. And yow were not dreaming when\nyou cut the mark in the tree.\"\n\nI felt myself turning cold with fright, for now I knew of a certainty\nthat I had not been dreaming, but had really been in the presence of a\ndread something not of this world. Then I remembered that my sinful feet\nwere upon holy ground\u0097the ground where that celestial shadow had rested.\nI moved quickly away, smitten to the bones with fear. Joan followed, and\nsaid:\n\n\"Do not be afraid; indeed there is no need. Come with me. We will sit by\nthe spring and I will tell you all my secret.\"\n\nWhen she was ready to begin, I checked her and said:\n\n\"First tell me this. You could not see me in the wood; how did you know\nI cut a mark in the tree?\"\n\n\"Wait a little; I will soon come to that; then you will see.\"\n\n\"But tell me one thing now; what was that awful shadow that I saw?\"\n\n\"I will tell you, but do not be disturbed; you are not in danger. It was\nthe shadow of an archangel\u0097Michael, the chief and lord of the armies of\nheaven.\"\n\nI could but cross myself and tremble for having polluted that ground\nwith my feet.\n\n\"You were not afraid, Joan? Did you see his face\u0097did you see his form?\"\n\n\"Yes; I was not afraid, because this was not the first time. I was\nafraid the first time.\"\n\n\"When was that, Joan?\"\n\n\"It is nearly three years ago now.\"\n\n\"So long? Have you seen him many times?\"\n\n\"Yes, many times.\"\n\n\"It is this, then, that has changed you; it was this that made you\nthoughtful and not as you were before. I see it now. Why did you not\ntell us about it?\"\n\n\"It was not permitted. It is permitted now, and soon I shall tell all.\nBut only you, now. It must remain a secret for a few days still.\"\n\n\"Has none seen that white shadow before but me?\"\n\n\"No one. It has fallen upon me before when you and others were present,\nbut none could see it. To-day it has been otherwise, and I was told why;\nbut it will not be visible again to any.\"\n\n\"It was a sign to me, then\u0097and a sign with a meaning of some kind?\"\n\n\"Yes, but I may not speak of that.\"\n\n\"Strange\u0097that that dazzling light could rest upon an object before one's\neyes and not be visible.\"\n\n\"With it comes speech, also. Several saints come, attended by myriads\nof angels, and they speak to me; I hear their voices, but others do not.\nThey are very dear to me\u0097my Voices; that is what I call them to myself.\"\n\n\"Joan, what do they tell you?\"\n\n\"All manner of things\u0097about France, I mean.\"\n\n\"What things have they been used to tell you?\"\n\nShe sighed, and said:\n\n\"Disasters\u0097only disasters, and misfortunes, and humiliation. There was\nnaught else to foretell.\"\n\n\"They spoke of them to you beforehand?\" \"Yes. So that I knew what was\ngoing to happen before it happened. It made me grave\u0097as you saw. It\ncould not be otherwise. But always there was a word of hope, too. More\nthan that: France was to be rescued, and made great and free again. But\nhow and by whom\u0097that was not told. Not until to-day.\" As she said those\nlast words a sudden deep glow shone in her eyes, which I was to see\nthere many times in after-days when the bugles sounded the charge and\nlearn to call it the battle-light. Her breast heaved, and the color\nrose in her face. \"But to-day I know. God has chosen the meanest of His\ncreatures for this work; and by His command, and in His protection, and\nby His strength, not mine, I am to lead His armies, and win back France,\nand set the crown upon the head of His servant that is Dauphin and shall\nbe King.\"\n\nI was amazed, and said:\n\n\"You, Joan? You, a child, lead armies?\"\n\n\"Yes. For one little moment or two the thought crushed me; for it is as\nyou say\u0097I am only a child; a child and ignorant\u0097ignorant of everything\nthat pertains to war, and not fitted for the rough life of camps and the\ncompanionship of soldiers. But those weak moments passed; they will not\ncome again. I am enlisted, I will not turn back, God helping me, till\nthe English grip is loosed from the throat of France. My Voices have\nnever told me lies, they have not lied to-day. They say I am to go to\nRobert de Baudricourt, governor of Vaucouleurs, and he will give me\nmen-at-arms for escort and send me to the King. A year from now a blow\nwill be struck which will be the beginning of the end, and the end will\nfollow swiftly.\"\n\n\"Where will it be struck?\"\n\n\"My Voices have not said; nor what will happen this present year, before\nit is struck. It is appointed me to strike it, that is all I know; and\nfollow it with others, sharp and swift, undoing in ten weeks England's\nlong years of costly labor, and setting the crown upon the Dauphin's\nhead\u0097for such is God's will; my Voices have said it, and shall I doubt\nit? No; it will be as they have said, for they say only that which is\ntrue.\"\n\nThese were tremendous sayings. They were impossibilities to my reason,\nbut to my heart they rang true; and so, while my reason doubted, my\nheart believed\u0097believed, and held fast to the belief from that day.\nPresently I said:\n\n\"Joan, I believe the things which you have said, and now I am glad that\nI am to march with you to the great wars\u0097that is, if it is with you I am\nto march when I go.\"\n\nShe looked surprised, and said:\n\n\"It is true that you will be with me when I go to the wars, but how did\nyou know?\"\n\n\"I shall march with you, and so also will Jean and Pierre, but not\nJacques.\"\n\n\"All true\u0097it is so ordered, as was revealed to me lately, but I did not\nknow until to-day that the marching would be with me, or that I should\nmarch at all. How did you know these things?\"\n\nI told her when it was that she had said them. But she did not remember\nabout it. So then I knew that she had been asleep, or in a trance or an\necstasy of some kind, at that time. She bade me keep these and the other\nrevelations to myself for the present, and I said I would, and kept the\nfaith I promised.\n\nNone who met Joan that day failed to notice the change that had come\nover her. She moved and spoke with energy and decision; there was\na strange new fire in her eye, and also a something wholly new and\nremarkable in her carriage and in the set of her head. This new light in\nthe eye and this new bearing were born of the authority and leadership\nwhich had this day been vested in her by the decree of God, and they\nasserted that authority as plainly as speech could have done it, yet\nwithout ostentation or bravado. This calm consciousness of command, and\ncalm unconscious outward expression of it, remained with her thenceforth\nuntil her mission was accomplished.\n\nLike the other villagers, she had always accorded me the deference due\nmy rank; but now, without word said on either side, she and I changed\nplaces; she gave orders, not suggestions. I received them with the\ndeference due a superior, and obeyed them without comment. In the\nevening she said to me:\n\n\"I leave before dawn. No one will know it but you. I go to speak with\nthe governor of Vaucouleurs as commanded, who will despise me and treat\nme rudely, and perhaps refuse my prayer at this time. I go first to\nBurey, to persuade my uncle Laxart to go with me, it not being meet that\nI go alone. I may need you in Vaucouleurs; for if the governor will not\nreceive me I will dictate a letter to him, and so must have some one by\nme who knows the art of how to write and spell the words. You will go\nfrom here to-morrow in the afternoon, and remain in Vaucouleurs until I\nneed you.\"\n\nI said I would obey, and she went her way. You see how clear a head she\nhad, and what a just and level judgment. She did not order me to go with\nher; no, she would not subject her good name to gossiping remark. She\nknew that the governor, being a noble, would grant me, another noble,\naudience; but no, you see, she would not have that, either. A poor\npeasant-girl presenting a petition through a young nobleman\u0097how would\nthat look? She always protected her modesty from hurt; and so, for\nreward, she carried her good name unsmirched to the end. I knew what I\nmust do now, if I would have her approval: go to Vaucouleurs, keep out\nof her sight, and be ready when wanted.\n\nI went the next afternoon, and took an obscure lodging; the next day I\ncalled at the castle and paid my respects to the governor, who invited\nme to dine with him at noon of the following day. He was an ideal\nsoldier of the time; tall, brawny, gray-headed, rough, full of strange\noaths acquired here and there and yonder in the wars and treasured as if\nthey were decorations. He had been used to the camp all his life, and to\nhis notion war was God's best gift to man. He had his steel cuirass on,\nand wore boots that came above his knees, and was equipped with a huge\nsword; and when I looked at this martial figure, and heard the marvelous\noaths, and guessed how little of poetry and sentiment might be looked\nfor in this quarter, I hoped the little peasant-girl would not get the\nprivilege of confronting this battery, but would have to content herself\nwith the dictated letter.\n\nI came again to the castle the next day at noon, and was conducted to\nthe great dining-hall and seated by the side of the governor at a small\ntable which was raised a couple of steps higher than the general table.\nAt the small table sat several other guests besides myself, and at the\ngeneral table sat the chief officers of the garrison. At the entrance\ndoor stood a guard of halberdiers, in morion and breastplate.\n\nAs for talk, there was but one topic, of course\u0097the desperate situation\nof France. There was a rumor, some one said, that Salisbury was making\npreparations to march against Orleans. It raised a turmoil of excited\nconversation, and opinions fell thick and fast. Some believed he would\nmarch at once, others that he could not accomplish the investment before\nfall, others that the siege would be long, and bravely contested; but\nupon one thing all voices agreed: that Orleans must eventually fall, and\nwith it France. With that, the prolonged discussion ended, and there was\nsilence. Every man seemed to sink himself in his own thoughts, and to\nforget where he was. This sudden and profound stillness, where before\nhad been so much animation, was impressive and solemn. Now came a\nservant and whispered something to the governor, who said:\n\n\"Would talk with me?\"\n\n\"Yes, your Excellency.\"\n\n\"H'm! A strange idea, certainly. Bring them in.\"\n\nIt was Joan and her uncle Laxart. At the spectacle of the great people\nthe courage oozed out of the poor old peasant and he stopped midway and\nwould come no further, but remained there with his red nightcap crushed\nin his hands and bowing humbly here, there, and everywhere, stupefied\nwith embarrassment and fear. But Joan came steadily forward, erect and\nself-possessed, and stood before the governor. She recognized me, but in\nno way indicated it. There was a buzz of admiration, even the governor\ncontributing to it, for I heard him mutter, \"By God's grace, it is a\nbeautiful creature!\" He inspected her critically a moment or two, then\nsaid:\n\n\"Well, what is your errand, my child?\"\n\n\"My message is to you, Robert de Baudricourt, governor of Vaucouleurs,\nand it is this: that you will send and tell the Dauphin to wait and not\ngive battle to his enemies, for God will presently send him help.\"\n\nThis strange speech amazed the company, and many murmured, \"The poor\nyoung thing is demented.\" The governor scowled, and said:\n\n\"What nonsense is this? The King\u0097or the Dauphin, as you call him\u0097needs\nno message of that sort. He will wait, give yourself no uneasiness as to\nthat. What further do you desire to say to me?\"\n\n\"This. To beg that you will give me an escort of men-at-arms and send me\nto the Dauphin.\"\n\n\"What for?\"\n\n\"That he may make me his general, for it is appointed that I shall drive\nthe English out of France, and set the crown upon his head.\"\n\n\"What\u0097you? Why, you are but a child!\"\n\n\"Yet am I appointed to do it, nevertheless.\"\n\n\"Indeed! And when will all this happen?\"\n\n\"Next year he will be crowned, and after that will remain master of\nFrance.\"\n\nThere was a great and general burst of laughter, and when it had\nsubsided the governor said:\n\n\"Who has sent you with these extravagant messages?\"\n\n\"My Lord.\"\n\n\"What Lord?\"\n\n\"The King of Heaven.\"\n\nMany murmured, \"Ah, poor thing, poor thing!\" and others, \"Ah, her mind\nis but a wreck!\" The governor hailed Laxart, and said:\n\n\"Harkye!\u0097take this mad child home and whip her soundly. That is the best\ncure for her ailment.\"\n\nAs Joan was moving away she turned and said, with simplicity:\n\n\"You refuse me the soldiers, I know not why, for it is my Lord that has\ncommanded you. Yes, it is He that has made the command; therefore I must\ncome again, and yet again; then I shall have the men-at-arms.\"\n\nThere was a great deal of wondering talk, after she was gone; and the\nguards and servants passed the talk to the town, the town passed it to\nthe country; Domremy was already buzzing with it when we got back.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 8 Why the Scorners Relented\n\nHUMAN NATURE is the same everywhere: it defies success, it has nothing\nbut scorn for defeat. The village considered that Joan had disgraced it\nwith her grotesque performance and its ridiculous failure; so all the\ntongues were busy with the matter, and as bilious and bitter as they\nwere busy; insomuch that if the tongues had been teeth she would not\nhave survived her persecutions. Those persons who did not scold did what\nwas worse and harder to bear; for they ridiculed her, and mocked at her,\nand ceased neither day nor night from their witticisms and jeerings and\nlaughter. Haumette and Little Mengette and I stood by her, but the\nstorm was too strong for her other friends, and they avoided her, being\nashamed to be seen with her because she was so unpopular, and because\nof the sting of the taunts that assailed them on her account. She shed\ntears in secret, but none in public. In public she carried herself\nwith serenity, and showed no distress, nor any resentment\u0097conduct which\nshould have softened the feeling against her, but it did not. Her father\nwas so incensed that he could not talk in measured terms about her wild\nproject of going to the wars like a man. He had dreamed of her doing\nsuch a thing, some time before, and now he remembered that dream with\napprehension and anger, and said that rather than see her unsex herself\nand go away with the armies, he would require her brothers to drown her;\nand that if they should refuse, he would do it with his own hands.\n\nBut none of these things shook her purpose in the least. Her parents\nkept a strict watch upon her to keep her from leaving the village, but\nshe said her time was not yet; that when the time to go was come she\nshould know it, and then the keepers would watch in vain.\n\nThe summer wasted along; and when it was seen that her purpose continued\nsteadfast, the parents were glad of a chance which finally offered\nitself for bringing her projects to an end through marriage. The Paladin\nhad the effrontery to pretend that she had engaged herself to him\nseveral years before, and now he claimed a ratification of the\nengagement.\n\nShe said his statement was not true, and refused to marry him. She was\ncited to appear before the ecclesiastical court at Toul to answer\nfor her perversity; when she declined to have counsel, and elected to\nconduct her case herself, her parents and all her ill-wishers rejoiced,\nand looked upon her as already defeated. And that was natural enough;\nfor who would expect that an ignorant peasant-girl of sixteen would be\notherwise than frightened and tongue-tied when standing for the first\ntime in presence of the practised doctors of the law, and surrounded\nby the cold solemnities of a court? Yet all these people were mistaken.\nThey flocked to Toul to see and enjoy this fright and embarrassment\nand defeat, and they had their trouble for their pains. She was modest,\ntranquil, and quite at her ease. She called no witnesses, saying she\nwould content herself with examining the witnesses for the prosecution.\nWhen they had testified, she rose and reviewed their testimony in a few\nwords, pronounced it vague, confused, and of no force, then she placed\nthe Paladin again on the stand and began to search him. His previous\ntestimony went rag by rag to ruin under her ingenious hands, until at\nlast he stood bare, so to speak, he that had come so richly clothed\nin fraud and falsehood. His counsel began an argument, but the court\ndeclined to hear it, and threw out the case, adding a few words of grave\ncompliment for Joan, and referring to her as \"this marvelous child.\"\n\nAfter this victory, with this high praise from so imposing a source\nadded, the fickle village turned again, and gave Joan countenance,\ncompliment, and peace. Her mother took her back to her heart, and even\nher father relented and said he was proud of her. But the time hung\nheavy on her hands, nevertheless, for the siege of Orleans was begun,\nthe clouds lowered darker and darker over France, and still her Voices\nsaid wait, and gave her no direct commands. The winter set in, and wore\ntediously along; but at last there was a change.\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK II IN COURT AND CAMP\n\n\n\nChapter 1 Joan Says Good-By\n\nTHE 5th of January, 1429, Joan came to me with her uncle Laxart, and\nsaid:\n\n\"The time is come. My Voices are not vague now, but clear, and they have\ntold me what to do. In two months I shall be with the Dauphin.\"\n\nHer spirits were high, and her bearing martial. I caught the infection\nand felt a great impulse stirring in me that was like what one feels\nwhen he hears the roll of the drums and the tramp of marching men.\n\n\"I believe it,\" I said.\n\n\"I also believe it,\" said Laxart. \"If she had told me before, that she\nwas commanded of God to rescue France, I should not have believed; I\nshould have let her seek the governor by her own ways and held myself\nclear of meddling in the matter, not doubting she was mad. But I have\nseen her stand before those nobles and mighty men unafraid, and say her\nsay; and she had not been able to do that but by the help of God. That\nI know. Therefore with all humbleness I am at her command, to do with me\nas she will.\"\n\n\"My uncle is very good to me,\" Joan said. \"I sent and asked him to come\nand persuade my mother to let him take me home with him to tend his\nwife, who is not well. It is arranged, and we go at dawn to-morrow. From\nhis house I shall go soon to Vaucouleurs, and wait and strive until my\nprayer is granted. Who were the two cavaliers who sat to your left at\nthe governor's table that day?\"\n\n\"One was the Sieur Jean de Novelonpont de Metz, the other the Sieur\nBertrand de Poulengy.\"\n\n\"Good metal\u0097good metal, both. I marked them for men of mine.... What is\nit I see in your face? Doubt?\"\n\nI was teaching myself to speak the truth to her, not trimming it or\npolishing it; so I said:\n\n\"They considered you out of your head, and said so. It is true they\npitied you for being in such misfortune, but still they held you to be\nmad.\"\n\nThis did not seem to trouble her in any way or wound her. She only said:\n\n\"The wise change their minds when they perceive that they have been in\nerror. These will. They will march with me. I shall see them presently..\n.. You seem to doubt again? Do you doubt?\"\n\n\"N-no. Not now. I was remembering that it was a year ago, and that they\ndid not belong here, but only chanced to stop a day on their journey.\"\n\n\"They will come again. But as to matters now in hand; I came to leave\nwith you some instructions. You will follow me in a few days. Order your\naffairs, for you will be absent long.\"\n\n\"Will Jean and Pierre go with me?\"\n\n\"No; they would refuse now, but presently they will come, and with them\nthey will bring my parents' blessing, and likewise their consent that\nI take up my mission. I shall be stronger, then\u0097stronger for that; for\nlack of it I am weak now.\" She paused a little while, and the tears\ngathered in her eyes; then she went on: \"I would say good-by to Little\nMengette. Bring her outside the village at dawn; she must go with me a\nlittle of the way\u0097\"\n\n\"And Haumette?\"\n\nShe broke down and began to cry, saying:\n\n\"No, oh, no\u0097she is too dear to me, I could not bear it, knowing I should\nnever look upon her face again.\"\n\nNext morning I brought Mengette, and we four walked along the road in\nthe cold dawn till the village was far behind; then the two girls said\ntheir good-bys, clinging about each other's neck, and pouring out their\ngrief in loving words and tears, a pitiful sight to see. And Joan took\none long look back upon the distant village, and the Fairy Tree, and the\noak forest, and the flowery plain, and the river, as if she was trying\nto print these scenes on her memory so that they would abide there\nalways and not fade, for she knew she would not see them any more in\nthis life; then she turned, and went from us, sobbing bitterly. It was\nher birthday and mine. She was seventeen years old.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 2 The Governor Speeds Joan\n\nAfter a few days, Laxart took Joan to Vaucouleurs, and found lodging\nand guardianship for her with Catherine Royer, a wheelwright's wife, an\nhonest and good woman. Joan went to mass regularly, she helped do the\nhousework, earning her keep in that way, and if any wished to talk\nwith her about her mission\u0097and many did\u0097she talked freely, making no\nconcealments regarding the matter now. I was soon housed near by, and\nwitnessed the effects which followed. At once the tidings spread that a\nyoung girl was come who was appointed of God to save France. The common\npeople flocked in crowds to look at her and speak with her, and her fair\nyoung loveliness won the half of their belief, and her deep earnestness\nand transparent sincerity won the other half. The well-to-do remained\naway and scoffed, but that is their way.\n\nNext, a prophecy of Merlin's, more than eight hundred years old, was\ncalled to mind, which said that in a far future time France would be\nlost by a woman and restored by a woman. France was now, for the first\ntime, lost\u0097and by a woman, Isabel of Bavaria, her base Queen; doubtless\nthis fair and pure young girl was commissioned of Heaven to complete the\nprophecy.\n\nThis gave the growing interest a new and powerful impulse; the\nexcitement rose higher and higher, and hope and faith along with it; and\nso from Vaucouleurs wave after wave of this inspiring enthusiasm\nflowed out over the land, far and wide, invading all the villages and\nrefreshing and revivifying the perishing children of France; and from\nthese villages came people who wanted to see for themselves, hear for\nthemselves; and they did see and hear, and believe. They filled the\ntown; they more than filled it; inns and lodgings were packed, and\nyet half of the inflow had to go without shelter. And still they came,\nwinter as it was, for when a man's soul is starving, what does he care\nfor meat and roof so he can but get that nobler hunger fed? Day after\nday, and still day after day the great tide rose. Domremy was dazed,\namazed, stupefied, and said to itself, \"Was this world-wonder in our\nfamiliar midst all these years and we too dull to see it?\" Jean and\nPierre went out from the village, stared at and envied like the great\nand fortunate of the earth, and their progress to Vaucouleurs was like a\ntriumph, all the country-side flocking to see and salute the brothers\nof one with whom angels had spoken face to face, and into whose hands by\ncommand of God they had delivered the destinies of France.\n\nThe brothers brought the parents' blessing and godspeed to Joan, and\ntheir promise to bring it to her in person later; and so, with this\nculminating happiness in her heart and the high hope it inspired, she\nwent and confronted the governor again. But he was no more tractable\nthan he had been before. He refused to send her to the King. She was\ndisappointed, but in no degree discouraged. She said:\n\n\"I must still come to you until I get the men-at-arms; for so it is\ncommanded, and I may not disobey. I must go to the Dauphin, though I go\non my knees.\"\n\nI and the two brothers were with Joan daily, to see the people that came\nand hear what they said; and one day, sure enough, the Sieur Jean de\nMetz came. He talked with her in a petting and playful way, as one talks\nwith children, and said:\n\n\"What are you doing here, my little maid? Will they drive the King out\nof France, and shall we all turn English?\"\n\nShe answered him in her tranquil, serious way:\n\n\"I am come to bid Robert de Baudricourt take or send me to the King, but\nhe does not heed my words.\"\n\n\"Ah, you have an admirable persistence, truly; a whole year has not\nturned you from your wish. I saw you when you came before.\"\n\nJoan said, as tranquilly as before:\n\n\"It is not a wish, it is a purpose. He will grant it. I can wait.\"\n\n\"Ah, perhaps it will not be wise to make too sure of that, my child.\nThese governors are stubborn people to deal with. In case he shall not\ngrant your prayer\u0097\"\n\n\"He will grant it. He must. It is not a matter of choice.\"\n\nThe gentleman's playful mood began to disappear\u0097one could see that, by\nhis face. Joan's earnestness was affecting him. It always happened that\npeople who began in jest with her ended by being in earnest. They soon\nbegan to perceive depths in her that they had not suspected; and then\nher manifest sincerity and the rocklike steadfastness of her convictions\nwere forces which cowed levity, and it could not maintain its\nself-respect in their presence. The Sieur de Metz was thoughtful for a\nmoment or two, then he began, quite soberly:\n\n\"Is it necessary that you go to the King soon?\u0097that is, I mean\u0097\"\n\n\"Before Mid-Lent, even though I wear away my legs to the knees!\"\n\nShe said it with that sort of repressed fieriness that means so much\nwhen a person's heart is in a thing. You could see the response in that\nnobleman's face; you could see his eye light up; there was sympathy\nthere. He said, most earnestly:\n\n\"God knows I think you should have the men-at-arms, and that somewhat\nwould come of it. What is it that you would do? What is your hope and\npurpose?\"\n\n\"To rescue France. And it is appointed that I shall do it. For no one\nelse in the world, neither kings, nor dukes, no any other, can recover\nthe kingdom of France, and there is no help but in me.\"\n\nThe words had a pleading and pathetic sound, and they touched that good\nnobleman. I saw it plainly. Joan dropped her voice a little, and said:\n\"But indeed I would rather spin with my poor mother, for this is not my\ncalling; but I must go and do it, for it is my Lord's will.\"\n\n\"Who is your Lord?\"\n\n\"He is God.\"\n\nThen the Sieur de Metz, following the impressive old feudal fashion,\nknelt and laid his hands within Joan's in sign of fealty, and made oath\nthat by God's help he himself would take her to the king.\n\nThe next day came the Sieur Bertrand de Poulengy, and he also\npledged his oath and knightly honor to abide with her and follow her\nwitherosever she might lead.\n\nThis day, too, toward evening, a great rumor went flying abroad through\nthe town\u0097namely, that the very governor himself was going to visit the\nyoung girl in her humble lodgings. So in the morning the streets and\nlanes were packed with people waiting to see if this strange thing would\nindeed happen. And happen it did. The governor rode in state, attended\nby his guards, and the news of it went everywhere, and made a great\nsensation, and modified the scoffings of the people of quality and\nraised Joan's credit higher than ever.\n\nThe governor had made up his mind to one thing: Joan was either a witch\nor a saint, and he meant to find out which it was. So he brought a\npriest with him to exorcise the devil that was in her in case there\nwas one there. The priest performed his office, but found no devil. He\nmerely hurt Joan's feelings and offended her piety without need, for he\nhad already confessed her before this, and should have known, if he knew\nanything, that devils cannot abide the confessional, but utter cries\nof anguish and the most profane and furious cursings whenever they are\nconfronted with that holy office.\n\nThe governor went away troubled and full of thought, and not knowing\nwhat to do. And while he pondered and studied, several days went by and\nthe 14th of February was come. Then Joan went to the castle and said:\n\n\"In God's name, Robert de Baudricourt, you are too slow about sending\nme, and have caused damage thereby, for this day the Dauphin's cause has\nlost a battle near Orleans, and will suffer yet greater injury if you do\nnot send me to him soon.\"\n\nThe governor was perplexed by this speech, and said:\n\n\"To-day, child, to-day? How can you know what has happened in that\nregion to-day? It would take eight or ten days for the word to come.\"\n\n\"My Voices have brought the word to me, and it is true. A battle was\nlost to-day, and you are in fault to delay me so.\"\n\nThe governor walked the floor awhile, talking within himself, but\nletting a great oath fall outside now and then; and finally he said:\n\n\"Harkye! go in peace, and wait. If it shall turn out as you say, I will\ngive you the letter and send you to the King, and not otherwise.\"\n\nJoan said with fervor:\n\n\"Now God be thanked, these waiting days are almost done. In nine days\nyou will fetch me the letter.\"\n\nAlready the people of Vaucouleurs had given her a horse and had armed\nand equipped her as a soldier. She got no chance to try the horse and\nsee if she could ride it, for her great first duty was to abide at her\npost and lift up the hopes and spirits of all who would come to talk\nwith her, and prepare them to help in the rescue and regeneration of\nthe kingdom. This occupied every waking moment she had. But it was no\nmatter. There was nothing she could not learn\u0097and in the briefest time,\ntoo. Her horse would find this out in the first hour. Meantime the\nbrothers and I took the horse in turn and began to learn to ride. And we\nhad teaching in the use of the sword and other arms also.\n\nOn the 20th Joan called her small army together\u0097the two knights and\nher two brothers and me\u0097for a private council of war. No, it was not a\ncouncil, that is not the right name, for she did not consult with us,\nshe merely gave us orders. She mapped out the course she would travel\ntoward the King, and did it like a person perfectly versed in geography;\nand this itinerary of daily marches was so arranged as to avoid here and\nthere peculiarly dangerous regions by flank movements\u0097which showed that\nshe knew her political geography as intimately as she knew her physical\ngeography; yet she had never had a day's schooling, of course, and was\nwithout education. I was astonished, but thought her Voices must have\ntaught her. But upon reflection I saw that this was not so. By her\nreferences to what this and that and the other person had told her,\nI perceived that she had been diligently questioning those crowds of\nvisiting strangers, and that out of them she had patiently dug all this\nmass of invaluable knowledge. The two knights were filled with wonder at\nher good sense and sagacity.\n\nShe commanded us to make preparations to travel by night and sleep by\nday in concealment, as almost the whole of our long journey would be\nthrough the enemy's country.\n\nAlso, she commanded that we should keep the date of our departure a\nsecret, since she meant to get away unobserved. Otherwise we should\nbe sent off with a grand demonstration which would advertise us to the\nenemy, and we should be ambushed and captured somewhere. Finally she\nsaid:\n\n\"Nothing remains, now, but that I confide to you the date of our\ndeparture, so that you may make all needful preparation in time, leaving\nnothing to be done in haste and badly at the last moment. We march the\n23d, at eleven of the clock at night.\"\n\nThen we were dismissed. The two knights were startled\u0097yes, and troubled;\nand the Sieur Bertrand said:\n\n\"Even if the governor shall really furnish the letter and the escort,\nhe still may not do it in time to meet the date she has chosen. Then how\ncan she venture to name that date? It is a great risk\u0097a great risk to\nselect and decide upon the date, in this state of uncertainty.\"\n\nI said:\n\n\"Since she has named the 23d, we may trust her. The Voices have told\nher, I think. We shall do best to obey.\"\n\nWe did obey. Joan's parents were notified to come before the 23d, but\nprudence forbade that they be told why this limit was named.\n\nAll day, the 23d, she glanced up wistfully whenever new bodies of\nstrangers entered the house, but her parents did not appear. Still she\nwas not discouraged, but hoped on. But when night fell at last, her\nhopes perished, and the tears came; however, she dashed them away, and\nsaid:\n\n\"It was to be so, no doubt; no doubt it was so ordered; I must bear it,\nand will.\"\n\nDe Metz tried to comfort her by saying:\n\n\"The governor sends no word; it may be that they will come to-morrow,\nand\u0097\"\n\nHe got no further, for she interrupted him, saying:\n\n\"To what good end? We start at eleven to-night.\"\n\nAnd it was so. At ten the governor came, with his guard and arms, with\nhorses and equipment for me and for the brothers, and gave Joan a letter\nto the King. Then he took off his sword, and belted it about her waist\nwith his own hands, and said:\n\n\"You said true, child. The battle was lost, on the day you said. So I\nhave kept my word. Now go\u0097come of it what may.\"\n\nJoan gave him thanks, and he went his way.\n\nThe lost battle was the famous disaster that is called in history the\nBattle of the Herrings.\n\nAll the lights in the house were at once put out, and a little while\nafter, when the streets had become dark and still, we crept stealthily\nthrough them and out at the western gate and rode away under whip and\nspur.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 3 The Paladin Groans and Boasts\n\nWE WERE twenty-five strong, and well equipped. We rode in double file,\nJoan and her brothers in the center of the column, with Jean de Metz\nat the head of it and the Sieur Bertrand at its extreme rear. In two\nor three hours we should be in the enemy's country, and then none\nwould venture to desert. By and by we began to hear groans and sobs and\nexecrations from different points along the line, and upon inquiry found\nthat six of our men were peasants who had never ridden a horse before,\nand were finding it very difficult to stay in their saddles, and\nmoreover were now beginning to suffer considerable bodily torture. They\nhad been seized by the governor at the last moment and pressed into the\nservice to make up the tale, and he had placed a veteran alongside of\neach with orders to help him stick to the saddle, and kill him if he\ntried to desert.\n\nThese poor devils had kept quiet as long as they could, but their\nphysical miseries were become so sharp by this time that they were\nobliged to give them vent. But we were within the enemy's country now,\nso there was no help for them, they must continue the march, though\nJoan said that if they chose to take the risk they might depart.\nThey preferred to stay with us. We modified our pace now, and moved\ncautiously, and the new men were warned to keep their sorrows to\nthemselves and not get the command into danger with their curses and\nlamentations.\n\nToward dawn we rode deep into a forest, and soon all but the sentries\nwere sound asleep in spite of the cold ground and the frosty air.\n\nI woke at noon out of such a solid and stupefying sleep that at first my\nwits were all astray, and I did not know where I was nor what had been\nhappening. Then my senses cleared, and I remembered. As I lay there\nthinking over the strange events of the past month or two the thought\ncame into my mind, greatly surprising me, that one of Joan's prophecies\nhad failed; for where were Noel and the Paladin, who were to join us at\nthe eleventh hour? By this time, you see, I had gotten used to expecting\neverything Joan said to come true. So, being disturbed and troubled by\nthese thoughts, I opened my eyes. Well, there stood the Paladin leaning\nagainst a tree and looking down on me! How often that happens; you think\nof a person, or speak of a person, and there he stands before you, and\nyou not dreaming he is near. It looks as if his being near is really the\nthing that makes you think of him, and not just an accident, as people\nimagine. Well, be that as it may, there was the Paladin, anyway, looking\ndown in my face and waiting for me to wake. I was ever so glad to see\nhim, and jumped up and shook him by the hand, and led him a little way\nfrom the camp\u0097he limping like a cripple\u0097and told him to sit down, and\nsaid:\n\n\"Now, where have you dropped down from? And how did you happen to light\nin this place? And what do the soldier-clothes mean? Tell me all about\nit.\"\n\nHe answered:\n\n\"I marched with you last night.\"\n\n\"No!\" (To myself I said, \"The prophecy has not all failed\u0097half of it\nhas come true.\") \"Yes, I did. I hurried up from Domremy to join, and was\nwithin a half a minute of being too late. In fact, I was too late, but I\nbegged so hard that the governor was touched by my brave devotion to\nmy country's cause\u0097those are the words he used\u0097and so he yielded, and\nallowed me to come.\"\n\nI thought to myself, this is a lie, he is one of those six the governor\nrecruited by force at the last moment; I know it, for Joan's prophecy\nsaid he would join at the eleventh hour, but not by his own desire. Then\nI said aloud:\n\n\"I am glad you came; it is a noble cause, and one should not sit at home\nin times like these.\"\n\n\"Sit at home! I could no more do it than the thunderstone could stay hid\nin the clouds when the storm calls it.\"\n\n\"That is the right talk. It sounds like you.\"\n\nThat pleased him.\n\n\"I'm glad you know me. Some don't. But they will, presently. They will\nknow me well enough before I get done with this war.\"\n\n\"That is what I think. I believe that wherever danger confronts you you\nwill make yourself conspicuous.\"\n\nHe was charmed with this speech, and it swelled him up like a bladder.\nHe said:\n\n\"If I know myself\u0097and I think I do\u0097my performances in this campaign will\ngive you occasion more than once to remember those words.\"\n\n\"I were a fool to doubt it. That I know.\"\n\n\"I shall not be at my best, being but a common soldier; still, the\ncountry will hear of me. If I were where I belong; if I were in the\nplace of La Hire, or Saintrailles, or the Bastard of Orleans\u0097well, I\nsay nothing. I am not of the talking kind, like Noel Rainguesson and his\nsort, I thank God. But it will be something, I take it\u0097a novelty in this\nworld, I should say\u0097to raise the fame of a private soldier above theirs,\nand extinguish the glory of their names with its shadow.\"\n\n\"Why, look here, my friend,\" I said, \"do you know that you have hit out\na most remarkable idea there? Do you realize the gigantic proportions\nof it? For look you; to be a general of vast renown, what is that?\nNothing\u0097history is clogged and confused with them; one cannot keep their\nnames in his memory, there are so many. But a common soldier of\nsupreme renown\u0097why, he would stand alone! He would the be one moon in a\nfirmament of mustard-seed stars; his name would outlast the human race!\nMy friend, who gave you that idea?\"\n\nHe was ready to burst with happiness, but he suppressed betrayal of it\nas well as he could. He simply waved the compliment aside with his hand\nand said, with complacency:\n\n\"It is nothing. I have them often\u0097ideas like that\u0097and even greater ones.\nI do not consider this one much.\"\n\n\"You astonish me; you do, indeed. So it is really your own?\"\n\n\"Quite. And there is plenty more where it came from\"\u0097tapping his head\nwith his finger, and taking occasion at the same time to cant his morion\nover his right ear, which gave him a very self-satisfied air\u0097\"I do not\nneed to borrow my ideas, like Noel Rainguesson.\"\n\n\"Speaking of Noel, when did you see him last?\"\n\n\"Half an hour ago. He is sleeping yonder like a corpse. Rode with us\nlast night.\"\n\nI felt a great upleap in my heart, and said to myself, now I am at rest\nand glad; I will never doubt her prophecies again. Then I said aloud:\n\n\"It gives me joy. It makes me proud of our village. There is not keeping\nour lion-hearts at home in these great times, I see that.\"\n\n\"Lion-heart! Who\u0097that baby? Why, he begged like a dog to be let off.\nCried, and said he wanted to go to his mother. Him a lion-heart!\u0097that\ntumble-bug!\"\n\n\"Dear me, why I supposed he volunteered, of course. Didn't he?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, he volunteered the way people do to the headsman. Why, when he\nfound I was coming up from Domremy to volunteer, he asked me to let\nhim come along in my protection, and see the crowds and the excitement.\nWell, we arrived and saw the torches filing out at the Castle, and ran\nthere, and the governor had him seized, along with four more, and\nhe begged to be let off, and I begged for his place, and at last the\ngovernor allowed me to join, but wouldn't let Noel off, because he was\ndisgusted with him, he was such a cry-baby. Yes, and much good he'll\ndo the King's service; he'll eat for six and run for sixteen. I hate a\npygmy with half a heart and nine stomachs!\"\n\n\"Why, this is very surprising news to me, and I am sorry and\ndisappointed to hear it. I thought he was a very manly fellow.\"\n\nThe Paladin gave me an outraged look, and said:\n\n\"I don't see how you can talk like that, I'm sure I don't. I don't see\nhow you could have got such a notion. I don't dislike him, and I'm not\nsaying these things out of prejudice, for I don't allow myself to have\nprejudices against people. I like him, and have always comraded with him\nfrom the cradle, but he must allow me to speak my mind about his faults,\nand I am willing he shall speak his about mine, if I have any. And, true\nenough, maybe I have; but I reckon they'll bear inspection\u0097I have that\nidea, anyway. A manly fellow! You should have heard him whine and wail\nand swear, last night, because the saddle hurt him. Why didn't the\nsaddle hurt me? Pooh\u0097I was as much at home in it as if I had been born\nthere. And yet it was the first time I was ever on a horse. All those\nold soldiers admired my riding; they said they had never seen anything\nlike it. But him\u0097why, they had to hold him on, all the time.\"\n\nAn odor as of breakfast came stealing through the wood; the Paladin\nunconsciously inflated his nostrils in lustful response, and got up and\nlimped painfully away, saying he must go and look to his horse.\n\nAt bottom he was all right and a good-hearted giant, without any harm\nin him, for it is no harm to bark, if one stops there and does not bite,\nand it is no harm to be an ass, if one is content to bray and not kick.\nIf this vast structure of brawn and muscle and vanity and foolishness\nseemed to have a libelous tongue, what of it? There was no malice behind\nit; and besides, the defect was not of his own creation; it was the work\nof Noel Rainguesson, who had nurtured it, fostered it, built it up and\nperfected it, for the entertainment he got out of it. His careless light\nheart had to have somebody to nag and chaff and make fun of, the\nPaladin had only needed development in order to meet its requirements,\nconsequently the development was taken in hand and diligently attended\nto and looked after, gnat-and-bull fashion, for years, to the neglect\nand damage of far more important concerns. The result was an unqualified\nsuccess. Noel prized the society of the Paladin above everybody else's;\nthe Paladin preferred anybody's to Noel's. The big fellow was often seen\nwith the little fellow, but it was for the same reason that the bull is\noften seen with the gnat.\n\nWith the first opportunity, I had a talk with Noel. I welcomed him to\nour expedition, and said:\n\n\"It was fine and brave of you to volunteer, Noel.\"\n\nHis eye twinkled, and he answered:\n\n\"Yes, it was rather fine, I think. Still, the credit doesn't all belong\nto me; I had help.\"\n\n\"Who helped you?\"\n\n\"The governor.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"Well, I'll tell you the whole thing. I came up from Domremy to see the\ncrowds and the general show, for I hadn't ever had any experience of\nsuch things, of course, and this was a great opportunity; but I hadn't\nany mind to volunteer. I overtook the Paladin on the road and let him\nhave my company the rest of the way, although he did not want it and\nsaid so; and while we were gawking and blinking in the glare of the\ngovernor's torches they seized us and four more and added us to the\nescort, and that is really how I came to volunteer. But, after all, I\nwasn't sorry, remembering how dull life would have been in the village\nwithout the Paladin.\"\n\n\"How did he feel about it? Was he satisfied?\"\n\n\"I think he was glad.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because he said he wasn't. He was taken by surprise, you see, and it is\nnot likely that he could tell the truth without preparation. Not that\nhe would have prepared, if he had had the chance, for I do not think he\nwould. I am not charging him with that. In the same space of time that\nhe could prepare to speak the truth, he could also prepare to lie;\nbesides, his judgment would be cool then, and would warn him against\nfooling with new methods in an emergency. No, I am sure he was glad,\nbecause he said he wasn't.\"\n\n\"Do you think he was very glad?\"\n\n\"Yes, I know he was. He begged like a slave, and bawled for his mother.\nHe said his health was delicate, and he didn't know how to ride a horse,\nand he knew he couldn't outlive the first march. But really he wasn't\nlooking as delicate as he was feeling. There was a cask of wine there,\na proper lift for four men. The governor's temper got afire, and he\ndelivered an oath at him that knocked up the dust where it struck the\nground, and told him to shoulder that cask or he would carve him to\ncutlets and send him home in a basket. The Paladin did it, and that\nsecured his promotion to a privacy in the escort without any further\ndebate.\"\n\n\"Yes, you seem to make it quite plain that he was glad to join\u0097that is,\nif your premises are right that you start from. How did he stand the\nmarch last night?\"\n\n\"About as I did. If he made the more noise, it was the privilege of his\nbulk. We stayed in our saddles because we had help. We are equally lame\nto-day, and if he likes to sit down, let him; I prefer to stand.\"\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 4 Joan Leads Us Through the Enemy\n\nWE WERE called to quarters and subjected to a searching inspection by\nJoan. Then she made a short little talk in which she said that even the\nrude business of war could be conducted better without profanity and\nother brutalities of speech than with them, and that she should strictly\nrequire us to remember and apply this admonition. She ordered half an\nhour's horsemanship drill for the novices then, and appointed one of the\nveterans to conduct it. It was a ridiculous exhibition, but we learned\nsomething, and Joan was satisfied and complimented us. She did not take\nany instruction herself or go through the evolutions and manoeuvres, but\nmerely sat her horse like a martial little statue and looked on. That\nwas sufficient for her, you see. She would not miss or forget a detail\nof the lesson, she would take it all in with her eye and her mind, and\napply it afterward with as much certainty and confidence as if she had\nalready practised it.\n\nWe now made three night marches of twelve or thirteen leagues each,\nriding in peace and undisturbed, being taken for a roving band of Free\nCompanions. Country-folk were glad to have that sort of people go\nby without stopping. Still, they were very wearying marches, and not\ncomfortable, for the bridges were few and the streams many, and as we\nhad to ford them we found the water dismally cold, and afterward had to\nbed ourselves, still wet, on the frosty or snowy ground, and get warm\nas we might and sleep if we could, for it would not have been prudent\nto build fires. Our energies languished under these hardships and deadly\nfatigues, but Joan's did not. Her step kept its spring and firmness and\nher eye its fire. We could only wonder at this, we could not explain it.\n\nBut if we had had hard times before, I know not what to call the five\nnights that now followed, for the marches were as fatiguing, the baths\nas cold, and we were ambuscaded seven times in addition, and lost two\nnovices and three veterans in the resulting fights. The news had leaked\nout and gone abroad that the inspired Virgin of Vaucouleurs was making\nfor the King with an escort, and all the roads were being watched now.\n\nThese five nights disheartened the command a good deal. This was\naggravated by a discovery which Noel made, and which he promptly made\nknown at headquarters. Some of the men had been trying to understand why\nJoan continued to be alert, vigorous, and confident while the strongest\nmen in the company were fagged with the heavy marches and exposure and\nwere become morose and irritable. There, it shows you how men can have\neyes and yet not see. All their lives those men had seen their own\nwomen-folks hitched up with a cow and dragging the plow in the fields\nwhile the men did the driving. They had also seen other evidences that\nwomen have far more endurance and patience and fortitude than men\u0097but\nwhat good had their seeing these things been to them? None. It had\ntaught them nothing. They were still surprised to see a girl of\nseventeen bear the fatigues of war better than trained veterans of the\narmy. Moreover, they did not reflect that a great soul, with a great\npurpose, can make a weak body strong and keep it so; and here was the\ngreatest soul in the universe; but how could they know that, those dumb\ncreatures? No, they knew nothing, and their reasonings were of a piece\nwith their ignorance. They argued and discussed among themselves, with\nNoel listening, and arrived at the decision that Joan was a witch, and\nhad her strange pluck and strength from Satan; so they made a plan to\nwatch for a safe opportunity to take her life.\n\nTo have secret plottings of this sort going on in our midst was a very\nserious business, of course, and the knights asked Joan's permission to\nhang the plotters, but she refused without hesitancy. She said:\n\n\"Neither these men nor any others can take my life before my mission is\naccomplished, therefore why should I have their blood upon my hands? I\nwill inform them of this, and also admonish them. Call them before me.\"\n\nWhen they came she made that statement to them in a plain matter-of-fact\nway, and just as if the thought never entered her mind that any one\ncould doubt it after she had given her word that it was true. The men\nwere evidently amazed and impressed to hear her say such a thing in\nsuch a sure and confident way, for prophecies boldly uttered never fall\nbarren on superstitious ears. Yes, this speech certainly impressed\nthem, but her closing remark impressed them still more. It was for the\nringleader, and Joan said it sorrowfully:\n\n\"It is a pity that you should plot another's death when your own is so\nclose at hand.\"\n\nThat man's horse stumbled and fell on him in the first ford which we\ncrossed that night, and he was drowned before we could help him. We had\nno more conspiracies.\n\nThis night was harassed with ambuscades, but we got through without\nhaving any men killed. One more night would carry us over the hostile\nfrontier if we had good luck, and we saw the night close down with\na good deal of solicitude. Always before, we had been more or less\nreluctant to start out into the gloom and the silence to be frozen in\nthe fords and persecuted by the enemy, but this time we were impatient\nto get under way and have it over, although there was promise of more\nand harder fighting than any of the previous nights had furnished.\nMoreover, in front of us about three leagues there was a deep stream\nwith a frail wooden bridge over it, and as a cold rain mixed with snow\nhad been falling steadily all day we were anxious to find out whether we\nwere in a trap or not. If the swollen stream had washed away the bridge,\nwe might properly consider ourselves trapped and cut off from escape.\n\nAs soon as it was dark we filed out from the depth of the forest where\nwe had been hidden and began the march. From the time that we had begun\nto encounter ambushes Joan had ridden at the head of the column, and she\ntook this post now. By the time we had gone a league the rain and snow\nhad turned to sleet, and under the impulse of the storm-wind it lashed\nmy face like whips, and I envied Joan and the knights, who could close\ntheir visors and shut up their heads in their helmets as in a box. Now,\nout of the pitchy darkness and close at hand, came the sharp command:\n\n\"Halt!\"\n\nWe obeyed. I made out a dim mass in front of us which might be a body of\nhorsemen, but one could not be sure. A man rode up and said to Joan in a\ntone of reproof:\n\n\"Well, you have taken your time, truly. And what have you found out? Is\nshe still behind us, or in front?\"\n\nJoan answered in a level voice:\n\n\"She is still behind.\"\n\nThis news softened the stranger's tone. He said:\n\n\"If you know that to be true, you have not lost your time, Captain. But\nare you sure? How do you know?\"\n\n\"Because I have seen her.\"\n\n\"Seen her! Seen the Virgin herself?\"\n\n\"Yes, I have been in her camp.\"\n\n\"Is it possible! Captain Raymond, I ask you to pardon me for speaking in\nthat tone just now. You have performed a daring and admirable service.\nWhere was she camped?\"\n\n\"In the forest, not more than a league from here.\"\n\n\"Good! I was afraid we might be still behind her, but now that we know\nshe is behind us, everything is safe. She is our game. We will hang her.\nYou shall hang her yourself. No one has so well earned the privilege of\nabolishing this pestilent limb of Satan.\"\n\n\"I do not know how to thank you sufficiently. If we catch her, I\u0097\"\n\n\"If! I will take care of that; give yourself no uneasiness. All I want\nis just a look at her, to see what the imp is like that has been able to\nmake all this noise, then you and the halter may have her. How many men\nhas she?\"\n\n\"I counted but eighteen, but she may have had two or three pickets out.\"\n\n\"Is that all? It won't be a mouthful for my force. Is it true that she\nis only a girl?\"\n\n\"Yes; she is not more than seventeen.\"\n\n\"It passes belief! Is she robust, or slender?\"\n\n\"Slender.\"\n\nThe officer pondered a moment or two, then he said:\n\n\"Was she preparing to break camp?\"\n\n\"Not when I had my last glimpse of her.\"\n\n\"What was she doing?\"\n\n\"She was talking quietly with an officer.\"\n\n\"Quietly? Not giving orders?\"\n\n\"No, talking as quietly as we are now.\"\n\n\"That is good. She is feeling a false security. She would have been\nrestless and fussy else\u0097it is the way of her sex when danger is about.\nAs she was making no preparation to break camp\u0097\"\n\n\"She certainly was not when I saw her last.\"\n\n\"\u0097and was chatting quietly and at her ease, it means that this weather\nis not to her taste. Night-marching in sleet and wind is not for chits\nof seventeen. No; she will stay where she is. She has my thanks. We will\ncamp, ourselves; here is as good a place as any. Let us get about it.\"\n\n\"If you command it\u0097certainly. But she has two knights with her. They\nmight force her to march, particularly if the weather should improve.\"\n\nI was scared, and impatient to be getting out of this peril, and it\ndistressed and worried me to have Joan apparently set herself to work\nto make delay and increase the danger\u0097still, I thought she probably knew\nbetter than I what to do. The officer said:\n\n\"Well, in that case we are here to block the way.\"\n\n\"Yes, if they come this way. But if they should send out spies, and find\nout enough to make them want to try for the bridge through the woods? Is\nit best to allow the bridge to stand?\"\n\nIt made me shiver to hear her.\n\nThe officer considered awhile, then said:\n\n\"It might be well enough to send a force to destroy the bridge. I was\nintending to occupy it with the whole command, but that is not necessary\nnow.\"\n\nJoan said, tranquilly:\n\n\"With your permission, I will go and destroy it myself.\"\n\nAh, now I saw her idea, and was glad she had had the cleverness to\ninvent it and the ability to keep her head cool and think of it in that\ntight place. The officer replied:\n\n\"You have it, Captain, and my thanks. With you to do it, it will be well\ndone; I could send another in your place, but not a better.\"\n\nThey saluted, and we moved forward. I breathed freer. A dozen times I\nhad imagined I heard the hoofbeats of the real Captain Raymond's troop\narriving behind us, and had been sitting on pins and needles all the\nwhile that that conversation was dragging along. I breathed freer, but\nwas still not comfortable, for Joan had given only the simple command,\n\"Forward!\" Consequently we moved in a walk. Moved in a dead walk past\na dim and lengthening column of enemies at our side. The suspense was\nexhausting, yet it lasted but a short while, for when the enemy's bugles\nsang the \"Dismount!\" Joan gave the word to trot, and that was a great\nrelief to me. She was always at herself, you see. Before the command\nto dismount had been given, somebody might have wanted the countersign\nsomewhere along that line if we came flying by at speed, but now we\nseemed to be on our way to our allotted camping position, so we were\nallowed to pass unchallenged. The further we went the more formidable\nwas the strength revealed by the hostile force. Perhaps it was only a\nhundred or two, but to me it seemed a thousand. When we passed the\nlast of these people I was thankful, and the deeper we plowed into the\ndarkness beyond them the better I felt. I came nearer and nearer to\nfeeling good, for an hour; then we found the bridge still standing,\nand I felt entirely good. We crossed it and destroyed it, and then I\nfelt\u0097but I cannot describe what I felt. One has to feel it himself in\norder to know what it is like.\n\nWe had expected to hear the rush of a pursuing force behind us, for\nwe thought that the real Captain Raymond would arrive and suggest that\nperhaps the troop that had been mistaken for his belonged to the Virgin\nof Vaucouleurs; but he must have been delayed seriously, for when we\nresumed our march beyond the river there were no sounds behind us except\nthose which the storm was furnishing.\n\nI said that Joan had harvested a good many compliments intended for\nCaptain Raymond, and that he would find nothing of a crop left but a\ndry stubble of reprimands when he got back, and a commander just in the\nhumor to superintend the gathering of it in.\n\nJoan said:\n\n\"It will be as you say, no doubt; for the commander took a troop for\ngranted, in the night and unchallenged, and would have camped without\nsending a force to destroy the bridge if he had been left unadvised,\nand none are so ready to find fault with others as those who do things\nworthy of blame themselves.\"\n\nThe Sieur Bertrand was amused at Joan's naive way of referring to her\nadvice as if it had been a valuable present to a hostile leader who was\nsaved by it from making a censurable blunder of omission, and then he\nwent on to admire how ingeniously she had deceived that man and yet had\nnot told him anything that was not the truth. This troubled Joan, and\nshe said:\n\n\"I thought he was deceiving himself. I forbore to tell him lies, for\nthat would have been wrong; but if my truths deceived him, perhaps that\nmade them lies, and I am to blame. I would God I knew if I have done\nwrong.\"\n\nShe was assured that she had done right, and that in the perils and\nnecessities of war deceptions that help one's own cause and hurt the\nenemy's were always permissible; but she was not quite satisfied with\nthat, and thought that even when a great cause was in danger one ought\nto have the privilege of trying honorable ways first. Jean said:\n\n\"Joan, you told us yourself that you were going to Uncle Laxart's to\nnurse his wife, but you didn't say you were going further, yet you did\ngo on to Vaucouleurs. There!\"\n\n\"I see now,\" said Joan, sorrowfully. \"I told no lie, yet I deceived. I\nhad tried all other ways first, but I could not get away, and I had\nto get away. My mission required it. I did wrong, I think, and am to\nblame.\"\n\nShe was silent a moment, turning the matter over in her mind, then she\nadded, with quiet decision, \"But the thing itself was right, and I would\ndo it again.\"\n\nIt seemed an over-nice distinction, but nobody said anything. If we had\nknown her as well as she knew herself, and as her later history revealed\nher to us, we should have perceived that she had a clear meaning there,\nand that her position was not identical with ours, as we were supposing,\nbut occupied a higher plane. She would sacrifice herself\u0097and her best\nself; that is, her truthfulness\u0097to save her cause; but only that; she\nwould not buy her life at that cost; whereas our war-ethics permitted\nthe purchase of our lives, or any mere military advantage, small or\ngreat, by deception. Her saying seemed a commonplace at the time, the\nessence of its meaning escaping us; but one sees now that it contained a\nprinciple which lifted it above that and made it great and fine.\n\nPresently the wind died down, the sleet stopped falling, and the cold\nwas less severe. The road was become a bog, and the horses labored\nthrough it at a walk\u0097they could do no better. As the heavy time wore\non, exhaustion overcame us, and we slept in our saddles. Not even the\ndangers that threatened us could keep us awake.\n\nThis tenth night seemed longer than any of the others, and of course\nit was the hardest, because we had been accumulating fatigue from the\nbeginning, and had more of it on hand now than at any previous time.\nBut we were not molested again. When the dull dawn came at last we saw\na river before us and we knew it was the Loire; we entered the town of\nGien, and knew we were in a friendly land, with the hostiles all behind\nus. That was a glad morning for us.\n\nWe were a worn and bedraggled and shabby-looking troop; and still, as\nalways, Joan was the freshest of us all, in both body and spirits. We\nhad averaged above thirteen leagues a night, by tortuous and wretched\nroads. It was a remarkable march, and shows what men can do when they\nhave a leader with a determined purpose and a resolution that never\nflags.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 5 We Pierce the Last Ambuscades\n\nWE RESTED and otherwise refreshed ourselves two or three hours at Gien,\nbut by that time the news was abroad that the young girl commissioned\nof God to deliver France was come; wherefore, such a press of people\nflocked to our quarters to get sight of her that it seemed best to seek\na quieter place; so we pushed on and halted at a small village called\nFierbois.\n\nWe were now within six leagues of the King, who was at the Castle of\nChinon. Joan dictated a letter to him at once, and I wrote it. In it she\nsaid she had come a hundred and fifty leagues to bring him good news,\nand begged the privilege of delivering it in person. She added that\nalthough she had never seen him she would know him in any disguise and\nwould point him out.\n\nThe two knights rode away at once with the letter. The troop slept\nall the afternoon, and after supper we felt pretty fresh and fine,\nespecially our little group of young Domremians. We had the comfortable\ntap-room of the village inn to ourselves, and for the first time in ten\nunspeakably long days were exempt from bodings and terrors and hardships\nand fatiguing labors. The Paladin was suddenly become his ancient\nself again, and was swaggering up and down, a very monument of\nself-complacency. Noel Rainguesson said:\n\n\"I think it is wonderful, the way he has brought us through.\"\n\n\"Who?\" asked Jean.\n\n\"Why, the Paladin.\"\n\nThe Paladin seemed not to hear.\n\n\"What had he to do with it?\" asked Pierre d'Arc.\n\n\"Everything. It was nothing but Joan's confidence in his discretion that\nenabled her to keep up her heart. She could depend on us and on herself\nfor valor, but discretion is the winning thing in war, after all;\ndiscretion is the rarest and loftiest of qualities, and he has got more\nof it than any other man in France\u0097more of it, perhaps, than any other\nsixty men in France.\"\n\n\"Now you are getting ready to make a fool of yourself, Noel\nRainguesson,\" said the Paladin, \"and you want to coil some of that long\ntongue of yours around your neck and stick the end of it in your ear,\nthen you'll be the less likely to get into trouble.\"\n\n\"I didn't know he had more discretion than other people,\" said Pierre,\n\"for discretion argues brains, and he hasn't any more brains than the\nrest of us, in my opinion.\"\n\n\"No, you are wrong there. Discretion hasn't anything to do with brains;\nbrains are an obstruction to it, for it does not reason, it feels.\nPerfect discretion means absence of brains. Discretion is a quality\nof the heart\u0097solely a quality of the heart; it acts upon us through\nfeeling. We know this because if it were an intellectual quality it\nwould only perceive a danger, for instance, where a danger exists;\nwhereas\u0097\"\n\n\"Hear him twaddle\u0097the damned idiot!\" muttered the Paladin.\n\n\"\u0097whereas, it being purely a quality of the heart, and proceeding by\nfeeling, not reason, its reach is correspondingly wider and sublimer,\nenabling it to perceive and avoid dangers that haven't any existence at\nall; as, for instance, that night in the fog, when the Paladin took his\nhorse's ears for hostile lances and got off and climbed a tree\u0097\"\n\n\"It's a lie! a lie without shadow of foundation, and I call upon you\nall to beware you give credence to the malicious inventions of this\nramshackle slander-mill that has been doing its best to destroy my\ncharacter for years, and will grind up your own reputations for you\nnext. I got off to tighten my saddle-girth\u0097I wish I may die in my tracks\nif it isn't so\u0097and whoever wants to believe it can, and whoever don't\ncan let it alone.\"\n\n\"There, that is the way with him, you see; he never can discuss a theme\ntemperately, but always flies off the handle and becomes disagreeable.\nAnd you notice his defect of memory. He remembers getting off his horse,\nbut forgets all the rest, even the tree. But that is natural; he would\nremember getting off the horse because he was so used to doing it.\nHe always did it when there was an alarm and the clash of arms at the\nfront.\"\n\n\"Why did he choose that time for it?\" asked Jean.\n\n\"I don't know. To tighten up his girth, he thinks, to climb a tree, I\nthink; I saw him climb nine trees in a single night.\"\n\n\"You saw nothing of the kind! A person that can lie like that deserves\nno one's respect. I ask you all to answer me. Do you believe what this\nreptile has said?\"\n\nAll seemed embarrassed, and only Pierre replied. He said, hesitatingly:\n\n\"I\u0097well, I hardly know what to say. It is a delicate situation. It seems\noffensive to me to refuse to believe a person when he makes so direct a\nstatement, and yet I am obliged to say, rude as it may appear, that I\nam not able to believe the whole of it\u0097no, I am not able to believe that\nyou climbed nine trees.\"\n\n\"There!\" cried the Paladin; \"now what do you think of yourself, Noel\nRainguesson? How many do you believe I climbed, Pierre?\"\n\n\"Only eight.\"\n\nThe laughter that followed inflamed the Paladin's anger to white heat,\nand he said:\n\n\"I bide my time\u0097I bide my time. I will reckon with you all, I promise\nyou that!\"\n\n\"Don't get him started,\" Noel pleaded; \"he is a perfect lion when he\ngets started. I saw enough to teach me that, after the third skirmish.\nAfter it was over I saw him come out of the bushes and attack a dead man\nsingle-handed.\"\n\n\"It is another lie; and I give you fair warning that you are going too\nfar. You will see me attack a live one if you are not careful.\"\n\n\"Meaning me, of course. This wounds me more than any number of injurious\nand unkind speeches could do. In gratitude to one's benefactor\u0097\"\n\n\"Benefactor? What do I owe you, I should like to know?\"\n\n\"You owe me your life. I stood between the trees and the foe, and kept\nhundreds and thousands of the enemy at bay when they were thirsting for\nyour blood. And I did not do it to display my daring. I did it because I\nloved you and could not live without you.\"\n\n\"There\u0097you have said enough! I will not stay here to listen to\nthese infamies. I can endure your lies, but not your love. Keep that\ncorruption for somebody with a stronger stomach than mine. And I want to\nsay this, before I go. That you people's small performances might appear\nthe better and win you the more glory, I hid my own deeds through all\nthe march. I went always to the front, where the fighting was thickest,\nto be remote from you in order that you might not see and be discouraged\nby the things I did to the enemy. It was my purpose to keep this a\nsecret in my own breast, but you force me to reveal it. If you ask for\nmy witnesses, yonder they lie, on the road we have come. I found that\nroad mud, I paved it with corpses. I found that country sterile, I\nfertilized it with blood. Time and again I was urged to go to the rear\nbecause the command could not proceed on account of my dead. And yet\nyou, you miscreant, accuse me of climbing trees! Pah!\"\n\nAnd he strode out, with a lofty air, for the recital of his imaginary\ndeeds had already set him up again and made him feel good.\n\nNext day we mounted and faced toward Chinon. Orleans was at our back\nnow, and close by, lying in the strangling grip of the English; soon,\nplease God, we would face about and go to their relief. From Gien the\nnews had spread to Orleans that the peasant Maid of Vaucouleurs was on\nher way, divinely commissioned to raise the siege. The news made a great\nexcitement and raised a great hope\u0097the first breath of hope those poor\nsouls had breathed in five months. They sent commissioners at once to\nthe King to beg him to consider this matter, and not throw this help\nlightly away. These commissioners were already at Chinon by this time.\n\nWhen we were half-way to Chinon we happened upon yet one more squad\nof enemies. They burst suddenly out of the woods, and in considerable\nforce, too; but we were not the apprentices we were ten or twelve days\nbefore; no, we were seasoned to this kind of adventure now; our hearts\ndid not jump into our throats and our weapons tremble in our hands. We\nhad learned to be always in battle array, always alert, and always ready\nto deal with any emergency that might turn up. We were no more dismayed\nby the sight of those people than our commander was. Before they could\nform, Joan had delivered the order, \"Forward!\" and we were down upon\nthem with a rush. They stood no chance; they turned tail and scattered,\nwe plowing through them as if they had been men of straw. That was our\nlast ambuscade, and it was probably laid for us by that treacherous\nrascal, the King's own minister and favorite, De la Tremouille.\n\nWe housed ourselves in an inn, and soon the town came flocking to get a\nglimpse of the Maid.\n\nAh, the tedious King and his tedious people! Our two good knights\ncame presently, their patience well wearied, and reported. They and we\nreverently stood\u0097as becomes persons who are in the presence of kings and\nthe superiors of kings\u0097until Joan, troubled by this mark of homage and\nrespect, and not content with it nor yet used to it, although we had not\npermitted ourselves to do otherwise since the day she prophesied that\nwretched traitor's death and he was straightway drowned, thus confirming\nmany previous signs that she was indeed an ambassador commissioned of\nGod, commanded us to sit; then the Sieur de Metz said to Joan:\n\n\"The King has got the letter, but they will not let us have speech with\nhim.\"\n\n\"Who is it that forbids?\"\n\n\"None forbids, but there be three or four that are nearest his\nperson\u0097schemers and traitors every one\u0097that put obstructions in the\nway, and seek all ways, by lies and pretexts, to make delay. Chiefest of\nthese are Georges de la Tremouille and that plotting fox, the Archbishop\nof Rheims. While they keep the King idle and in bondage to his sports\nand follies, they are great and their importance grows; whereas if ever\nhe assert himself and rise and strike for crown and country like a man,\ntheir reign is done. So they but thrive, they care not if the crown go\nto destruction and the King with it.\"\n\n\"You have spoken with others besides these?\"\n\n\"Not of the Court, no\u0097the Court are the meek slaves of those reptiles,\nand watch their mouths and their actions, acting as they act, thinking\nas they think, saying as they say; wherefore they are cold to us, and\nturn aside and go another way when we appear. But we have spoken with\nthe commissioners from Orleans. They said with heat: 'It is a marvel\nthat any man in such desperate case as is the King can moon around in\nthis torpid way, and see his all go to ruin without lifting a finger to\nstay the disaster. What a most strange spectacle it is! Here he is,\nshut up in this wee corner of the realm like a rat in a trap; his\nroyal shelter this huge gloomy tomb of a castle, with wormy rags for\nupholstery and crippled furniture for use, a very house of desolation;\nin his treasure forty francs, and not a farthing more, God be witness!\nno army, nor any shadow of one; and by contrast with his hungry poverty\nyou behold this crownless pauper and his shoals of fools and favorites\ntricked out in the gaudiest silks and velvets you shall find in any\nCourt in Christendom. And look you, he knows that when our city falls\u0097as\nfall it surely will except succor come swiftly\u0097France falls; he knows\nthat when that day comes he will be an outlaw and a fugitive, and that\nbehind him the English flag will float unchallenged over every acre of\nhis great heritage; he knows these things, he knows that our faithful\ncity is fighting all solitary and alone against disease, starvation, and\nthe sword to stay this awful calamity, yet he will not strike one blow\nto save her, he will not hear our prayers, he will not even look\nupon our faces.' That is what the commissioners said, and they are in\ndespair.\"\n\nJoan said, gently:\n\n\"It is pity, but they must not despair. The Dauphin will hear them\npresently. Tell them so.\"\n\nShe almost always called the King the Dauphin. To her mind he was not\nKing yet, not being crowned.\n\n\"We will tell them so, and it will content them, for they believe you\ncome from God. The Archbishop and his confederate have for backer that\nveteran soldier Raoul de Gaucourt, Grand Master of the Palace, a worthy\nman, but simply a soldier, with no head for any greater matter. He\ncannot make out to see how a country-girl, ignorant of war, can take a\nsword in her small hand and win victories where the trained generals of\nFrance have looked for defeats only, for fifty years\u0097and always found\nthem. And so he lifts his frosty mustache and scoffs.\"\n\n\"When God fights it is but small matter whether the hand that bears His\nsword is big or little. He will perceive this in time. Is there none in\nthat Castle of Chinon who favors us?\"\n\n\"Yes, the King's mother-in-law, Yolande, Queen of Sicily, who is wise\nand good. She spoke with the Sieur Bertrand.\"\n\n\"She favors us, and she hates those others, the King's beguilers,\" said\nBertrand. \"She was full of interest, and asked a thousand questions, all\nof which I answered according to my ability. Then she sat thinking over\nthese replies until I thought she was lost in a dream and would wake no\nmore. But it was not so. At last she said, slowly, and as if she\nwere talking to herself: 'A child of seventeen\u0097a\ngirl\u0097country-bred\u0097untaught\u0097ignorant of war, the use of arms, and\nthe conduct of battles\u0097modest, gentle, shrinking\u0097yet throws away her\nshepherd's crook and clothes herself in steel, and fights her way\nthrough a hundred and fifty leagues of fear, and comes\u0097she to whom a\nking must be a dread and awful presence\u0097and will stand up before such\nan one and say, Be not afraid, God has sent me to save you! Ah, whence\ncould come a courage and conviction so sublime as this but from very God\nHimself!' She was silent again awhile, thinking and making up her mind;\nthen she said, 'And whether she comes of God or no, there is that in\nher heart that raises her above men\u0097high above all men that breathe in\nFrance to-day\u0097for in her is that mysterious something that puts heart\ninto soldiers, and turns mobs of cowards into armies of fighters that\nforget what fear is when they are in that presence\u0097fighters who go into\nbattle with joy in their eyes and songs on their lips, and sweep over\nthe field like a storm\u0097that is the spirit that can save France, and that\nalone, come it whence it may! It is in her, I do truly believe, for what\nelse could have borne up that child on that great march, and made her\ndespise its dangers and fatigues? The King must see her face to face\u0097and\nshall!' She dismissed me with those good words, and I know her promise\nwill be kept. They will delay her all they can\u0097those animals\u0097but she\nwill not fail in the end.\"\n\n\"Would she were King!\" said the other knight, fervently. \"For there is\nlittle hope that the King himself can be stirred out of his lethargy. He\nis wholly without hope, and is only thinking of throwing away everything\nand flying to some foreign land. The commissioners say there is a\nspell upon him that makes him hopeless\u0097yes, and that it is shut up in a\nmystery which they cannot fathom.\"\n\n\"I know the mystery,\" said Joan, with quiet confidence; \"I know it,\nand he knows it, but no other but God. When I see him I will tell him a\nsecret that will drive away his trouble, then he will hold up his head\nagain.\"\n\nI was miserable with curiosity to know what it was that she would tell\nhim, but she did not say, and I did not expect she would. She was but a\nchild, it is true; but she was not a chatterer to tell great matters and\nmake herself important to little people; no, she was reserved, and kept\nthings to herself, as the truly great always do.\n\nThe next day Queen Yolande got one victory over the King's keepers,\nfor, in spite of their protestations and obstructions, she procured an\naudience for our two knights, and they made the most they could out\nof their opportunity. They told the King what a spotless and beautiful\ncharacter Joan was, and how great and noble a spirit animated her, and\nthey implored him to trust in her, believe in her, and have faith that\nshe was sent to save France. They begged him to consent to see her. He\nwas strongly moved to do this, and promised that he would not drop the\nmatter out of his mind, but would consult with his council about it.\nThis began to look encouraging. Two hours later there was a great\nstir below, and the innkeeper came flying up to say a commission of\nillustrious ecclesiastics was come from the King\u0097from the King his\nvery self, understand!\u0097think of this vast honor to his humble little\nhostelry!\u0097and he was so overcome with the glory of it that he could\nhardly find breath enough in his excited body to put the facts\ninto words. They were come from the King to speak with the Maid of\nVaucouleurs. Then he flew downstairs, and presently appeared again,\nbacking into the room, and bowing to the ground with every step, in\nfront of four imposing and austere bishops and their train of servants.\n\nJoan rose, and we all stood. The bishops took seats, and for a while\nno word was said, for it was their prerogative to speak first, and they\nwere so astonished to see what a child it was that was making such a\nnoise in the world and degrading personages of their dignity to the base\nfunction of ambassadors to her in her plebeian tavern, that they could\nnot find any words to say at first. Then presently their spokesman told\nJoan they were aware that she had a message for the King, wherefore she\nwas now commanded to put it into words, briefly and without waste of\ntime or embroideries of speech.\n\nAs for me, I could hardly contain my joy\u0097our message was to reach the\nKing at last! And there was the same joy and pride and exultation in the\nfaces of our knights, too, and in those of Joan's brothers. And I knew\nthat they were all praying\u0097as I was\u0097that the awe which we felt in the\npresence of these great dignitaries, and which would have tied our\ntongues and locked our jaws, would not affect her in the like degree,\nbut that she would be enabled to word her message well, and with little\nstumbling, and so make a favorable impression here, where it would be so\nvaluable and so important.\n\nAh, dear, how little we were expecting what happened then! We were\naghast to hear her say what she said. She was standing in a reverent\nattitude, with her head down and her hands clasped in front of her; for\nshe was always reverent toward the consecrated servants of God. When\nthe spokesman had finished, she raised her head and set her calm eye on\nthose faces, not any more disturbed by their state and grandeur than a\nprincess would have been, and said, with all her ordinary simplicity and\nmodesty of voice and manner:\n\n\"Ye will forgive me, reverend sirs, but I have no message save for the\nKing's ear alone.\"\n\nThose surprised men were dumb for a moment, and their faces flushed\ndarkly; then the spokesman said:\n\n\"Hark ye, to you fling the King's command in his face and refuse to\ndeliver this message of yours to his servants appointed to receive it?\"\n\n\"God has appointed me to receive it, and another's commandment may not\ntake precedence of that. I pray you let me have speech for his grace the\nDauphin.\"\n\n\"Forbear this folly, and come at your message! Deliver it, and waste no\nmore time about it.\"\n\n\"You err indeed, most reverend fathers in God, and it is not well. I am\nnot come hither to talk, but to deliver Orleans, and lead the Dauphin to\nhis good city of Rheims, and set the crown upon his head.\"\n\n\"Is that the message you send to the King?\"\n\nBut Joan only said, in the simple fashion which was her wont:\n\n\"Ye will pardon me for reminding you again\u0097but I have no message to send\nto any one.\"\n\nThe King's messengers rose in deep anger and swept out of the place\nwithout further words, we and Joan kneeling as they passed.\n\nOur countenances were vacant, our hearts full of a sense of disaster.\nOur precious opportunity was thrown away; we could not understand Joan's\nconduct, she who had been so wise until this fatal hour. At last the\nSieur Bertrand found courage to ask her why she had let this great\nchance to get her message to the King go by.\n\n\"Who sent them here?\" she asked.\n\n\"The King.\"\n\n\"Who moved the King to send them?\" She waited for an answer; none came,\nfor we began to see what was in her mind\u0097so she answered herself: \"The\nDauphin's council moved him to it. Are they enemies to me and to the\nDauphin's weal, or are they friends?\"\n\n\"Enemies,\" answered the Sieur Bertrand.\n\n\"If one would have a message go sound and ungarbled, does one choose\ntraitors and tricksters to send it by?\"\n\nI saw that we had been fools, and she wise. They saw it too, so none\nfound anything to say. Then she went on:\n\n\"They had but small wit that contrived this trap. They thought to get\nmy message and seem to deliver it straight, yet deftly twist it from its\npurpose. You know that one part of my message is but this\u0097to move the\nDauphin by argument and reasonings to give me men-at-arms and send me\nto the siege. If an enemy carried these in the right words, the exact\nwords, and no word missing, yet left out the persuasions of gesture and\nsupplicating tone and beseeching looks that inform the words and make\nthem live, where were the value of that argument\u0097whom could it convince?\nBe patient, the Dauphin will hear me presently; have no fear.\"\n\nThe Sieur de Metz nodded his head several times, and muttered as to\nhimself:\n\n\"She was right and wise, and we are but dull fools, when all is said.\"\n\nIt was just my thought; I could have said it myself; and indeed it was\nthe thought of all there present. A sort of awe crept over us, to think\nhow that untaught girl, taken suddenly and unprepared, was yet able to\npenetrate the cunning devices of a King's trained advisers and defeat\nthem. Marveling over this, and astonished at it, we fell silent and\nspoke no more. We had come to know that she was great in courage,\nfortitude, endurance, patience, conviction, fidelity to all duties\u0097in\nall things, indeed, that make a good and trusty soldier and perfect\nhim for his post; now we were beginning to feel that maybe there\nwere greatnesses in her brain that were even greater than these great\nqualities of the heart. It set us thinking.\n\nWhat Joan did that day bore fruit the very day after. The King was\nobliged to respect the spirit of a young girl who could hold her own and\nstand her ground like that, and he asserted himself sufficiently to put\nhis respect into an act instead of into polite and empty words. He moved\nJoan out of that poor inn, and housed her, with us her servants, in the\nCastle of Courdray, personally confiding her to the care of Madame de\nBellier, wife of old Raoul de Gaucourt, Master of the Palace. Of course,\nthis royal attention had an immediate result: all the great lords\nand ladies of the Court began to flock there to see and listen to the\nwonderful girl-soldier that all the world was talking about, and who had\nanswered the King's mandate with a bland refusal to obey. Joan charmed\nthem every one with her sweetness and simplicity and unconscious\neloquence, and all the best and capablest among them recognized that\nthere was an indefinable something about her that testified that she was\nnot made of common clay, that she was built on a grander plan than the\nmass of mankind, and moved on a loftier plane. These spread her fame.\nShe always made friends and advocates that way; neither the high nor the\nlow could come within the sound of her voice and the sight of her face\nand go out from her presence indifferent.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 6 Joan Convinces the King\n\nWELL, anything to make delay. The King's council advised him against\narriving at a decision in our matter too precipitately. He arrive at a\ndecision too precipitately! So they sent a committee of priests\u0097always\npriests\u0097into Lorraine to inquire into Joan's character and history\u0097a\nmatter which would consume several weeks, of course. You see how\nfastidious they were. It was as if people should come to put out the\nfire when a man's house was burning down, and they waited till they\ncould send into another country to find out if he had always kept the\nSabbath or not, before letting him try.\n\nSo the days poked along; dreary for us young people in some ways, but\nnot in all, for we had one great anticipation in front of us; we had\nnever seen a king, and now some day we should have that prodigious\nspectacle to see and to treasure in our memories all our lives; so we\nwere on the lookout, and always eager and watching for the chance. The\nothers were doomed to wait longer than I, as it turned out. One day\ngreat news came\u0097the Orleans commissioners, with Yolande and our knights,\nhad at last turned the council's position and persuaded the King to see\nJoan.\n\nJoan received the immense news gratefully but without losing her head,\nbut with us others it was otherwise; we could not eat or sleep or do any\nrational thing for the excitement and the glory of it. During two days\nour pair of noble knights were in distress and trepidation on Joan's\naccount, for the audience was to be at night, and they were afraid that\nJoan would be so paralyzed by the glare of light from the long files\nof torches, the solemn pomps and ceremonies, the great concourse of\nrenowned personages, the brilliant costumes, and the other splendors\nof the Court, that she, a simple country-maid, and all unused to such\nthings, would be overcome by these terrors and make a piteous failure.\n\nNo doubt I could have comforted them, but I was not free to speak. Would\nJoan be disturbed by this cheap spectacle, this tinsel show, with its\nsmall King and his butterfly dukelets?\u0097she who had spoken face to face\nwith the princes of heaven, the familiars of God, and seen their retinue\nof angels stretching back into the remoteness of the sky, myriads upon\nmyriads, like a measureless fan of light, a glory like the glory of the\nsun streaming from each of those innumerable heads, the massed radiance\nfilling the deeps of space with a blinding splendor? I thought not.\n\nQueen Yolande wanted Joan to make the best possible impression upon\nthe King and the Court, so she was strenuous to have her clothed in the\nrichest stuffs, wrought upon the princeliest pattern, and set off with\njewels; but in that she had to be disappointed, of course, Joan not\nbeing persuadable to it, but begging to be simply and sincerely dressed,\nas became a servant of God, and one sent upon a mission of a serious\nsort and grave political import. So then the gracious Queen imagined and\ncontrived that simple and witching costume which I have described to\nyou so many times, and which I cannot think of even now in my dull age\nwithout being moved just as rhythmical and exquisite music moves one;\nfor that was music, that dress\u0097that is what it was\u0097music that one saw\nwith the eyes and felt in the heart. Yes, she was a poem, she was a\ndream, she was a spirit when she was clothed in that.\n\nShe kept that raiment always, and wore it several times upon occasions\nof state, and it is preserved to this day in the Treasury of Orleans,\nwith two of her swords, and her banner, and other things now sacred\nbecause they had belonged to her.\n\nAt the appointed time the Count of Vendome, a great lord of the court,\ncame richly clothed, with his train of servants and assistants, to\nconduct Joan to the King, and the two knights and I went with her, being\nentitled to this privilege by reason of our official positions near her\nperson.\n\nWhen we entered the great audience-hall, there it all was just as I have\nalready painted it. Here were ranks of guards in shining armor and with\npolished halberds; two sides of the hall were like flower-gardens for\nvariety of color and the magnificence of the costumes; light streamed\nupon these masses of color from two hundred and fifty flambeaux. There\nwas a wide free space down the middle of the hall, and at the end of it\nwas a throne royally canopied, and upon it sat a crowned and sceptered\nfigure nobly clothed and blazing with jewels.\n\nIt is true that Joan had been hindered and put off a good while, but\nnow that she was admitted to an audience at last, she was received with\nhonors granted to only the greatest personages. At the entrance door\nstood four heralds in a row, in splendid tabards, with long slender\nsilver trumpets at their mouths, with square silken banners depending\nfrom them embroidered with the arms of France. As Joan and the Count\npassed by, these trumpets gave forth in unison one long rich note, and\nas we moved down the hall under the pictured and gilded vaulting, this\nwas repeated at every fifty feet of our progress\u0097six times in all. It\nmade our good knights proud and happy, and they held themselves erect,\nand stiffened their stride, and looked fine and soldierly. They were\nnot expecting this beautiful and honorable tribute to our little\ncountry-maid.\n\nJoan walked two yards behind the Count, we three walked two yards behind\nJoan. Our solemn march ended when we were as yet some eight or ten steps\nfrom the throne. The Count made a deep obeisance, pronounced Joan's\nname, then bowed again and moved to his place among a group of officials\nnear the throne. I was devouring the crowned personage with all my eyes,\nand my heart almost stood still with awe.\n\nThe eyes of all others were fixed upon Joan in a gaze of wonder which\nwas half worship, and which seemed to say, \"How sweet\u0097how lovely\u0097how\ndivine!\" All lips were parted and motionless, which was a sure sign that\nthose people, who seldom forget themselves, had forgotten themselves\nnow, and were not conscious of anything but the one object they were\ngazing upon. They had the look of people who are under the enchantment\nof a vision.\n\nThen they presently began to come to life again, rousing themselves out\nof the spell and shaking it off as one drives away little by little a\nclinging drowsiness or intoxication. Now they fixed their attention\nupon Joan with a strong new interest of another sort; they were full of\ncuriosity to see what she would do\u0097they having a secret and particular\nreason for this curiosity. So they watched. This is what they saw:\n\nShe made no obeisance, nor even any slight inclination of her head, but\nstood looking toward the throne in silence. That was all there was to\nsee at present.\n\nI glanced up at De Metz, and was shocked at the paleness of his face. I\nwhispered and said:\n\n\"What is it, man, what is it?\"\n\nHis answering whisper was so weak I could hardly catch it:\n\n\"They have taken advantage of the hint in her letter to play a trick\nupon her! She will err, and they will laugh at her. That is not the King\nthat sits there.\"\n\nThen I glanced at Joan. She was still gazing steadfastly toward the\nthrone, and I had the curious fancy that even her shoulders and the back\nof her head expressed bewilderment. Now she turned her head slowly, and\nher eye wandered along the lines of standing courtiers till it fell\nupon a young man who was very quietly dressed; then her face lighted\njoyously, and she ran and threw herself at his feet, and clasped his\nknees, exclaiming in that soft melodious voice which was her birthright\nand was now charged with deep and tender feeling:\n\n\"God of his grace give you long life, O dear and gentle Dauphin!\"\n\nIn his astonishment and exultation De Metz cried out:\n\n\"By the shadow of God, it is an amazing thing!\" Then he mashed all the\nbones of my hand in his grateful grip, and added, with a proud shake of\nhis mane, \"Now, what have these painted infidels to say!\"\n\nMeantime the young person in the plain clothes was saying to Joan:\n\n\"Ah, you mistake, my child, I am not the King. There he is,\" and he\npointed to the throne.\n\nThe knight's face clouded, and he muttered in grief and indignation:\n\n\"Ah, it is a shame to use her so. But for this lie she had gone through\nsafe. I will go and proclaim to all the house what\u0097\"\n\n\"Stay where you are!\" whispered I and the Sieur Bertrand in a breath,\nand made him stop in his place.\n\nJoan did not stir from her knees, but still lifted her happy face toward\nthe King, and said:\n\n\"No, gracious liege, you are he, and none other.\"\n\nDe Metz's troubles vanished away, and he said:\n\n\"Verily, she was not guessing, she knew. Now, how could she know? It is\na miracle. I am content, and will meddle no more, for I perceive that\nshe is equal to her occasions, having that in her head that cannot\nprofitably be helped by the vacancy that is in mine.\"\n\nThis interruption of his lost me a remark or two of the other talk;\nhowever, I caught the King's next question:\n\n\"But tell me who you are, and what would you?\"\n\n\"I am called Joan the Maid, and am sent to say that the King of Heaven\nwills that you be crowned and consecrated in your good city of Rheims,\nand be thereafter Lieutenant of the Lord of Heaven, who is King of\nFrance. And He willeth also that you set me at my appointed work and\ngive me men-at-arms.\" After a slight pause she added, her eye lighting\nat the sound of her words, \"For then will I raise the siege of Orleans\nand break the English power!\"\n\nThe young monarch's amused face sobered a little when this martial\nspeech fell upon that sick air like a breath blown from embattled camps\nand fields of war, and this trifling smile presently faded wholly away\nand disappeared. He was grave now, and thoughtful. After a little he\nwaved his hand lightly, and all the people fell away and left those two\nby themselves in a vacant space. The knights and I moved to the opposite\nside of the hall and stood there. We saw Joan rise at a sign, then she\nand the King talked privately together.\n\nAll that host had been consumed with curiosity to see what Joan would\ndo. Well, they had seen, and now they were full of astonishment to see\nthat she had really performed that strange miracle according to the\npromise in her letter; and they were fully as much astonished to find\nthat she was not overcome by the pomps and splendors about her, but was\neven more tranquil and at her ease in holding speech with a monarch than\never they themselves had been, with all their practice and experience.\n\nAs for our two knights, they were inflated beyond measure with pride in\nJoan, but nearly dumb, as to speech, they not being able to think\nout any way to account for her managing to carry herself through this\nimposing ordeal without ever a mistake or an awkwardness of any kind to\nmar the grace and credit of her great performance.\n\nThe talk between Joan and the King was long and earnest, and held in low\nvoices. We could not hear, but we had our eyes and could note effects;\nand presently we and all the house noted one effect which was memorable\nand striking, and has been set down in memoirs and histories and in\ntestimony at the Process of Rehabilitation by some who witnessed it; for\nall knew it was big with meaning, though none knew what that meaning\nwas at that time, of course. For suddenly we saw the King shake off his\nindolent attitude and straighten up like a man, and at the same time\nlook immeasurably astonished. It was as if Joan had told him something\nalmost too wonderful for belief, and yet of a most uplifting and welcome\nnature.\n\nIt was long before we found out the secret of this conversation, but we\nknow it now, and all the world knows it. That part of the talk was like\nthis\u0097as one may read in all histories. The perplexed King asked Joan for\na sign. He wanted to believe in her and her mission, and that her Voices\nwere supernatural and endowed with knowledge hidden from mortals, but\nhow could he do this unless these Voices could prove their claim in some\nabsolutely unassailable way? It was then that Joan said:\n\n\"I will give you a sign, and you shall no more doubt. There is a secret\ntrouble in your heart which you speak of to none\u0097a doubt which wastes\naway your courage, and makes you dream of throwing all away and fleeing\nfrom your realm. Within this little while you have been praying, in your\nown breast, that God of his grace would resolve that doubt, even if the\ndoing of it must show you that no kingly right is lodged in you.\"\n\nIt was that that amazed the King, for it was as she had said: his prayer\nwas the secret of his own breast, and none but God could know about it.\nSo he said:\n\n\"The sign is sufficient. I know now that these Voices are of God. They\nhave said true in this matter; if they have said more, tell it me\u0097I will\nbelieve.\"\n\n\"They have resolved that doubt, and I bring their very words, which are\nthese: Thou art lawful heir to the King thy father, and true heir of\nFrance. God has spoken it. Now lift up thy head, and doubt no more, but\ngive me men-at-arms and let me get about my work.\"\n\nTelling him he was of lawful birth was what straightened him up and\nmade a man of him for a moment, removing his doubts upon that head and\nconvincing him of his royal right; and if any could have hanged his\nhindering and pestiferous council and set him free, he would have\nanswered Joan's prayer and set her in the field. But no, those creatures\nwere only checked, not checkmated; they could invent some more delays.\n\nWe had been made proud by the honors which had so distinguished Joan's\nentrance into that place\u0097honors restricted to personages of very high\nrank and worth\u0097but that pride was as nothing compared with the pride\nwe had in the honor done her upon leaving it. For whereas those first\nhonors were shown only to the great, these last, up to this time, had\nbeen shown only to the royal. The King himself led Joan by the hand down\nthe great hall to the door, the glittering multitude standing and making\nreverence as they passed, and the silver trumpets sounding those rich\nnotes of theirs. Then he dismissed her with gracious words, bending low\nover her hand and kissing it. Always\u0097from all companies, high or low\u0097she\nwent forth richer in honor and esteem than when she came.\n\nAnd the King did another handsome thing by Joan, for he sent us back\nto Courdray Castle torch-lighted and in state, under escort of his own\ntroop\u0097his guard of honor\u0097the only soldiers he had; and finely equipped\nand bedizened they were, too, though they hadn't seen the color of their\nwages since they were children, as a body might say. The wonders which\nJoan had been performing before the King had been carried all around\nby this time, so the road was so packed with people who wanted to get\na sight of her that we could hardly dig through; and as for talking\ntogether, we couldn't, all attempts at talk being drowned in the storm\nof shoutings and huzzas that broke out all along as we passed, and kept\nabreast of us like a wave the whole way.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 7 Our Paladin in His Glory\n\nWE WERE doomed to suffer tedious waits and delays, and we settled\nourselves down to our fate and bore it with a dreary patience, counting\nthe slow hours and the dull days and hoping for a turn when God should\nplease to send it. The Paladin was the only exception\u0097that is to say, he\nwas the only one who was happy and had no heavy times. This was partly\nowing to the satisfaction he got out of his clothes. He bought them at\nsecond hand\u0097a Spanish cavalier's complete suit, wide-brimmed hat with\nflowing plumes, lace collar and cuffs, faded velvet doublet and trunks,\nshort cloak hung from the shoulder, funnel-topped buskins, long rapier,\nand all that\u0097a graceful and picturesque costume, and the Paladin's great\nframe was the right place to hang it for effect. He wore it when off\nduty; and when he swaggered by with one hand resting on the hilt of his\nrapier, and twirling his new mustache with the other, everybody stopped\nto look and admire; and well they might, for he was a fine and stately\ncontrast to the small French gentlemen of the day squeezed into the\ntrivial French costume of the time.\n\nHe was king bee of the little village that snuggled under the shelter\nof the frowning towers and bastions of Courdray Castle, and acknowledged\nlord of the tap-room of the inn. When he opened his mouth there, he got\na hearing. Those simple artisans and peasants listened with deep and\nwondering interest; for he was a traveler and had seen the world\u0097all of\nit that lay between Chinon and Domremy, at any rate\u0097and that was a wide\nstretch more of it than they might ever hope to see; and he had been\nin battle, and knew how to paint its shock and struggle, its perils and\nsurprises, with an art that was all his own. He was cock of that walk,\nhero of that hostelry; he drew custom as honey draws flies; so he was\nthe pet of the innkeeper, and of his wife and daughter, and they were\nhis obliged and willing servants.\n\nMost people who have the narrative gift\u0097that great and rare\nendowment\u0097have with it the defect of telling their choice things over\nthe same way every time, and this injures them and causes them to sound\nstale and wearisome after several repetitions; but it was not so with\nthe Paladin, whose art was of a finer sort; it was more stirring and\ninteresting to hear him tell about a battle the tenth time than it\nwas the first time, because he did not tell it twice the same way, but\nalways made a new battle of it and a better one, with more casualties\non the enemy's side each time, and more general wreck and disaster all\naround, and more widows and orphans and suffering in the neighborhood\nwhere it happened. He could not tell his battles apart himself, except\nby their names; and by the time he had told one of then ten times it had\ngrown so that there wasn't room enough in France for it any more, but\nwas lapping over the edges. But up to that point the audience would not\nallow him to substitute a new battle, knowing that the old ones were\nthe best, and sure to improve as long as France could hold them; and so,\ninstead of saying to him as they would have said to another, \"Give us\nsomething fresh, we are fatigued with that old thing,\" they would say,\nwith one voice and with a strong interest, \"Tell about the surprise at\nBeaulieu again\u0097tell it three or four times!\" That is a compliment which\nfew narrative experts have heard in their lifetime.\n\nAt first when the Paladin heard us tell about the glories of the Royal\nAudience he was broken-hearted because he was not taken with us to it;\nnext, his talk was full of what he would have done if he had been there;\nand within two days he was telling what he did do when he was there. His\nmill was fairly started, now, and could be trusted to take care of its\naffair. Within three nights afterward all his battles were taking a\nrest, for already his worshipers in the tap-room were so infatuated with\nthe great tale of the Royal Audience that they would have nothing else,\nand so besotted with it were they that they would have cried if they\ncould not have gotten it.\n\nNoel Rainguesson hid himself and heard it, and came and told me, and\nafter that we went together to listen, bribing the inn hostess to let us\nhave her little private parlor, where we could stand at the wickets in\nthe door and see and hear.\n\nThe tap-room was large, yet had a snug and cozy look, with its inviting\nlittle tables and chairs scattered irregularly over its red brick floor,\nand its great fire flaming and crackling in the wide chimney. It was a\ncomfortable place to be in on such chilly and blustering March nights\nas these, and a goodly company had taken shelter there, and were sipping\ntheir wine in contentment and gossiping one with another in a neighborly\nway while they waited for the historian. The host, the hostess, and\ntheir pretty daughter were flying here and there and yonder among the\ntables and doing their best to keep up with the orders. The room was\nabout forty feet square, and a space or aisle down the center of it had\nbeen kept vacant and reserved for the Paladin's needs. At the end of\nit was a platform ten or twelve feet wide, with a big chair and a small\ntable on it, and three steps leading up to it.\n\nAmong the wine-sippers were many familiar faces: the cobbler, the\nfarrier, the blacksmith, the wheelwright, the armorer, the maltster, the\nweaver, the baker, the miller's man with his dusty coat, and so on; and\nconscious and important, as a matter of course, was the barber-surgeon,\nfor he is that in all villages. As he has to pull everybody's teeth and\npurge and bleed all the grown people once a month to keep their health\nsound, he knows everybody, and by constant contact with all sorts of\nfolk becomes a master of etiquette and manners and a conversationalist\nof large facility. There were plenty of carriers, drovers, and their\nsort, and journeymen artisans.\n\nWhen the Paladin presently came sauntering indolently in, he was\nreceived with a cheer, and the barber hustled forward and greeted him\nwith several low and most graceful and courtly bows, also taking his\nhand and touching his lips to it. Then he called in a loud voice for a\nstoup of wine for the Paladin, and when the host's daughter brought it\nup on the platform and dropped her courtesy and departed, the barber\ncalled after her, and told her to add the wine to his score. This won\nhim ejaculations of approval, which pleased him very much and made his\nlittle rat-eyes shine; and such applause is right and proper, for when\nwe do a liberal and gallant thing it is but natural that we should wish\nto see notice taken of it.\n\nThe barber called upon the people to rise and drink the Paladin's\nhealth, and they did it with alacrity and affectionate heartiness,\nclashing their metal flagons together with a simultaneous crash, and\nheightening the effect with a resounding cheer. It was a fine thing to\nsee how that young swashbuckler had made himself so popular in a strange\nland in so little a while, and without other helps to his advancement\nthan just his tongue and the talent to use it given him by God\u0097a talent\nwhich was but one talent in the beginning, but was now become ten\nthrough husbandry and the increment and usufruct that do naturally\nfollow that and reward it as by a law.\n\nThe people sat down and began to hammer on the tables with their flagons\nand call for \"the King's Audience!\u0097the King's Audience!\u0097the King's\nAudience!\" The Paladin stood there in one of his best attitudes, with\nhis plumed great hat tipped over to the left, the folds of his short\ncloak drooping from his shoulder, and the one hand resting upon the hilt\nof his rapier and the other lifting his beaker. As the noise died down\nhe made a stately sort of a bow, which he had picked up somewhere, then\nfetched his beaker with a sweep to his lips and tilted his head back and\ndrained it to the bottom. The barber jumped for it and set it upon the\nPaladin's table. Then the Paladin began to walk up and down his platform\nwith a great deal of dignity and quite at his ease; and as he walked he\ntalked, and every little while stopped and stood facing his house and so\nstanding continued his talk.\n\nWe went three nights in succession. It was plain that there was a\ncharm about the performance that was apart from the mere interest which\nattaches to lying. It was presently discoverable that this charm lay in\nthe Paladin's sincerity. He was not lying consciously; he believed what\nhe was saying. To him, his initial statements were facts, and whenever\nhe enlarged a statement, the enlargement became a fact too. He put his\nheart into his extravagant narrative, just as a poet puts his heart into\na heroic fiction, and his earnestness disarmed criticism\u0097disarmed it as\nfar as he himself was concerned. Nobody believed his narrative, but all\nbelieved that he believed it.\n\nHe made his enlargements without flourish, without emphasis, and so\ncasually that often one failed to notice that a change had been made.\nHe spoke of the governor of Vaucouleurs, the first night, simply as the\ngovernor of Vaucouleurs; he spoke of him the second night as his uncle\nthe governor of Vaucouleurs; the third night he was his father. He did\nnot seem to know that he was making these extraordinary changes; they\ndropped from his lips in a quite natural and effortless way. By his\nfirst night's account the governor merely attached him to the Maid's\nmilitary escort in a general and unofficial way; the second night his\nuncle the governor sent him with the Maid as lieutenant of her rear\nguard; the third night his father the governor put the whole command,\nMaid and all, in his special charge. The first night the governor spoke\nof him as a youth without name or ancestry, but \"destined to achieve\nboth\"; the second night his uncle the governor spoke of him as the\nlatest and worthiest lineal descendent of the chiefest and noblest of\nthe Twelve Paladins of Charlemagne; the third night he spoke of him as\nthe lineal descendent of the whole dozen. In three nights he promoted\nthe Count of Vendome from a fresh acquaintance to a schoolmate, and then\nbrother-in-law.\n\nAt the King's Audience everything grew, in the same way. First the four\nsilver trumpets were twelve, then thirty-five, finally ninety-six; and\nby that time he had thrown in so many drums and cymbals that he had to\nlengthen the hall from five hundred feet to nine hundred to accommodate\nthem. Under his hand the people present multiplied in the same large\nway.\n\nThe first two nights he contented himself with merely describing and\nexaggerating the chief dramatic incident of the Audience, but the third\nnight he added illustration to description. He throned the barber in his\nown high chair to represent the sham King; then he told how the Court\nwatched the Maid with intense interest and suppressed merriment,\nexpecting to see her fooled by the deception and get herself swept\npermanently out of credit by the storm of scornful laughter which would\nfollow. He worked this scene up till he got his house in a burning fever\nof excitement and anticipation, then came his climax. Turning to the\nbarber, he said:\n\n\"But mark you what she did. She gazed steadfastly upon that sham's\nvillain face as I now gaze upon yours\u0097this being her noble and simple\nattitude, just as I stand now\u0097then turned she\u0097thus\u0097to me, and stretching\nher arm out\u0097so\u0097and pointing with her finger, she said, in that firm,\ncalm tone which she was used to use in directing the conduct of a\nbattle, 'Pluck me this false knave from the throne!' I, striding forward\nas I do now, took him by the collar and lifted him out and held him\naloft\u0097thus\u0097as if he had been but a child.\" (The house rose, shouting,\nstamping, and banging with their flagons, and went fairly mad over this\nmagnificent exhibition of strength\u0097and there was not the shadow of\na laugh anywhere, though the spectacle of the limp but proud barber\nhanging there in the air like a puppy held by the scruff of its neck was\na thing that had nothing of solemnity about it.) \"Then I set him down\nupon his feet\u0097thus\u0097being minded to get him by a better hold and heave\nhim out of the window, but she bid me forbear, so by that error he\nescaped with his life.\n\n\"Then she turned her about and viewed the throng with those eyes of\nhers, which are the clear-shining windows whence her immortal wisdom\nlooketh out upon the world, resolving its falsities and coming at the\nkernel of truth that is hid within them, and presently they fell upon\na young man modestly clothed, and him she proclaimed for what he\ntruly was, saying, 'I am thy servant\u0097thou art the King!' Then all were\nastonished, and a great shout went up, the whole six thousand joining in\nit, so that the walls rocked with the volume and the tumult of it.\"\n\nHe made a fine and picturesque thing of the march-out from the Audience,\naugmenting the glories of it to the last limit of the impossibilities;\nthen he took from his finger and held up a brass nut from a bolt-head\nwhich the head ostler at the castle had given him that morning, and made\nhis conclusion\u0097thus:\n\n\"Then the King dismissed the Maid most graciously\u0097as indeed was her\ndesert\u0097and, turning to me, said, 'Take this signet-ring, son of the\nPaladins, and command me with it in your day of need; and look you,'\nsaid he, touching my temple, 'preserve this brain, France has use for\nit; and look well to its casket also, for I foresee that it will be\nhooped with a ducal coronet one day.' I took the ring, and knelt and\nkissed his hand, saying, 'Sire, where glory calls, there will I be\nfound; where danger and death are thickest, that is my native air; when\nFrance and the throne need help\u0097well, I say nothing, for I am not of the\ntalking sort\u0097let my deeds speak for me, it is all I ask.'\n\n\"So ended the most fortunate and memorable episode, so big with future\nweal for the crown and the nation, and unto God be the thanks! Rise!\nFill your flagons! Now\u0097to France and the King\u0097drink!\"\n\nThey emptied them to the bottom, then burst into cheers and huzzas, and\nkept it up as much as two minutes, the Paladin standing at stately ease\nthe while and smiling benignantly from his platform.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 8 Joan Persuades Her Inquisitors\n\nWHEN JOAN told the King what that deep secret was that was torturing his\nheart, his doubts were cleared away; he believed she was sent of God,\nand if he had been let alone he would have set her upon her great\nmission at once. But he was not let alone. Tremouille and the holy fox\nof Rheims knew their man. All they needed to say was this\u0097and they said\nit:\n\n\"Your Highness says her Voices have revealed to you, by her mouth, a\nsecret known only to yourself and God. How can you know that her Voices\nare not of Satan, and she his mouthpiece?\u0097for does not Satan know the\nsecrets of men and use his knowledge for the destruction of their\nsouls? It is a dangerous business, and your Highness will do well not to\nproceed in it without probing the matter to the bottom.\"\n\nThat was enough. It shriveled up the King's little soul like a raisin,\nwith terrors and apprehensions, and straightway he privately appointed a\ncommission of bishops to visit and question Joan daily until they should\nfind out whether her supernatural helps hailed from heaven or from hell.\n\nThe King's relative, the Duke of Alencon, three years prisoner of war to\nthe English, was in these days released from captivity through promise\nof a great ransom; and the name and fame of the Maid having reached\nhim\u0097for the same filled all mouths now, and penetrated to all parts\u0097he\ncame to Chinon to see with his own eyes what manner of creature she\nmight be. The King sent for Joan and introduced her to the Duke. She\nsaid, in her simple fashion:\n\n\"You are welcome; the more of the blood of France that is joined to this\ncause, the better for the cause and it.\"\n\nThen the two talked together, and there was just the usual result: when\nthey departed, the Duke was her friend and advocate.\n\nJoan attended the King's mass the next day, and afterward dined with the\nKing and the Duke. The King was learning to prize her company and value\nher conversation; and that might well be, for, like other kings, he\nwas used to getting nothing out of people's talk but guarded phrases,\ncolorless and non-committal, or carefully tinted to tally with the color\nof what he said himself; and so this kind of conversation only vexes and\nbores, and is wearisome; but Joan's talk was fresh and free, sincere and\nhonest, and unmarred by timorous self-watching and constraint. She\nsaid the very thing that was in her mind, and said it in a plain,\nstraightforward way. One can believe that to the King this must have\nbeen like fresh cold water from the mountains to parched lips used to\nthe water of the sun-baked puddles of the plain.\n\nAfter dinner Joan so charmed the Duke with her horsemanship and lance\npractice in the meadows by the Castle of Chinon whither the King\nalso had come to look on, that he made her a present of a great black\nwar-steed.\n\nEvery day the commission of bishops came and questioned Joan about her\nVoices and her mission, and then went to the King with their report.\nThese pryings accomplished but little. She told as much as she\nconsidered advisable, and kept the rest to herself. Both threats and\ntrickeries were wasted upon her. She did not care for the threats, and\nthe traps caught nothing. She was perfectly frank and childlike about\nthese things. She knew the bishops were sent by the King, that their\nquestions were the King's questions, and that by all law and custom a\nKing's questions must be answered; yet she told the King in her naive\nway at his own table one day that she answered only such of those\nquestions as suited her.\n\nThe bishops finally concluded that they couldn't tell whether Joan was\nsent by God or not. They were cautious, you see. There were two\npowerful parties at Court; therefore to make a decision either way would\ninfallibly embroil them with one of those parties; so it seemed to them\nwisest to roost on the fence and shift the burden to other shoulders.\nAnd that is what they did. They made final report that Joan's case was\nbeyond their powers, and recommended that it be put into the hands of\nthe learned and illustrious doctors of the University of Poitiers. Then\nthey retired from the field, leaving behind them this little item of\ntestimony, wrung from them by Joan's wise reticence: they said she was\na \"gentle and simple little shepherdess, very candid, but not given to\ntalking.\"\n\nIt was quite true\u0097in their case. But if they could have looked back\nand seen her with us in the happy pastures of Domremy, they would have\nperceived that she had a tongue that could go fast enough when no harm\ncould come of her words.\n\nSo we traveled to Poitiers, to endure there three weeks of tedious delay\nwhile this poor child was being daily questioned and badgered before a\ngreat bench of\u0097what? Military experts?\u0097since what she had come to apply\nfor was an army and the privilege of leading it to battle against\nthe enemies of France. Oh no; it was a great bench of priests and\nmonks\u0097profoundly leaned and astute casuists\u0097renowned professors of\ntheology! Instead of setting a military commission to find out if this\nvalorous little soldier could win victories, they set a company of holy\nhair-splitters and phrase-mongers to work to find out if the soldier was\nsound in her piety and had no doctrinal leaks. The rats were devouring\nthe house, but instead of examining the cat's teeth and claws, they only\nconcerned themselves to find out if it was a holy cat. If it was a pious\ncat, a moral cat, all right, never mind about the other capacities, they\nwere of no consequence.\n\nJoan was as sweetly self-possessed and tranquil before this grim\ntribunal, with its robed celebrities, its solemn state and imposing\nceremonials, as if she were but a spectator and not herself on trial.\nShe sat there, solitary on her bench, untroubled, and disconcerted the\nscience of the sages with her sublime ignorance\u0097an ignorance which was\na fortress; arts, wiles, the learning drawn from books, and all like\nmissiles rebounded from its unconscious masonry and fell to the ground\nharmless; they could not dislodge the garrison which was within\u0097Joan's\nserene great heart and spirit, the guards and keepers of her mission.\n\nShe answered all questions frankly, and she told all the story of her\nvisions and of her experiences with the angels and what they said to\nher; and the manner of the telling was so unaffected, and so earnest and\nsincere, and made it all seem so lifelike and real, that even that hard\npractical court forgot itself and sat motionless and mute, listening\nwith a charmed and wondering interest to the end. And if you would have\nother testimony than mine, look in the histories and you will find where\nan eyewitness, giving sworn testimony in the Rehabilitation process,\nsays that she told that tale \"with a noble dignity and simplicity,\" and\nas to its effect, says in substance what I have said. Seventeen, she\nwas\u0097seventeen, and all alone on her bench by herself; yet was not\nafraid, but faced that great company of erudite doctors of law and\ntheology, and by the help of no art learned in the schools, but using\nonly the enchantments which were hers by nature, of youth, sincerity, a\nvoice soft and musical, and an eloquence whose source was the heart, not\nthe head, she laid that spell upon them. Now was not that a beautiful\nthing to see? If I could, I would put it before you just as I saw it;\nthen I know what you would say.\n\nAs I have told you, she could not read. \"One day they harried and\npestered her with arguments, reasonings, objections, and other windy and\nwordy trivialities, gathered out of the works of this and that and the\nother great theological authority, until at last her patience vanished,\nand she turned upon them sharply and said:\n\n\"I don't know A from B; but I know this: that I am come by command of\nthe Lord of Heaven to deliver Orleans from the English power and crown\nthe King of Rheims, and the matters ye are puttering over are of no\nconsequence!\"\n\nNecessarily those were trying days for her, and wearing for everybody\nthat took part; but her share was the hardest, for she had no holidays,\nbut must be always on hand and stay the long hours through, whereas\nthis, that, and the other inquisitor could absent himself and rest up\nfrom his fatigues when he got worn out. And yet she showed no wear, no\nweariness, and but seldom let fly her temper. As a rule she put her\nday through calm, alert, patient, fencing with those veteran masters of\nscholarly sword-play and coming out always without a scratch.\n\nOne day a Dominican sprung upon her a question which made everybody cock\nup his ears with interest; as for me, I trembled, and said to myself she\nis done this time, poor Joan, for there is no way of answering this. The\nsly Dominican began in this way\u0097in a sort of indolent fashion, as if the\nthing he was about was a matter of no moment:\n\n\"You assert that God has willed to deliver France from this English\nbondage?\"\n\n\"Yes, He has willed it.\"\n\n\"You wish for men-at-arms, so that you may go to the relief of Orleans,\nI believe?\"\n\n\"Yes\u0097and the sooner the better.\"\n\n\"God is all-powerful, and able to do whatsoever thing He wills to do, is\nit not so?\"\n\n\"Most surely. None doubts it.\"\n\nThe Dominican lifted his head suddenly, and sprung that question I have\nspoken of, with exultation:\n\n\"Then answer me this. If He has willed to deliver France, and is able to\ndo whatsoever He wills, where is the need for men-at-arms?\"\n\nThere was a fine stir and commotion when he said that, and a sudden\nthrusting forward of heads and putting up of hands to ears to catch the\nanswer; and the Dominican wagged his head with satisfaction, and looked\nabout him collecting his applause, for it shone in every face. But Joan\nwas not disturbed. There was no note of disquiet in her voice when she\nanswered:\n\n\"He helps who help themselves. The sons of France will fight the\nbattles, but He will give the victory!\"\n\nYou could see a light of admiration sweep the house from face to face\nlike a ray from the sun. Even the Dominican himself looked pleased, to\nsee his master-stroke so neatly parried, and I heard a venerable bishop\nmutter, in the phrasing common to priest and people in that robust\ntime, \"By God, the child has said true. He willed that Goliath should be\nslain, and He sent a child like this to do it!\"\n\nAnother day, when the inquisition had dragged along until everybody\nlooked drowsy and tired but Joan, Brother Seguin, professor of theology\nat the University of Poitiers, who was a sour and sarcastic man, fell to\nplying Joan with all sorts of nagging questions in his bastard Limousin\nFrench\u0097for he was from Limoges. Finally he said:\n\n\"How is it that you understand those angels? What language did they\nspeak?\"\n\n\"French.\"\n\n\"In-deed! How pleasant to know that our language is so honored! Good\nFrench?\"\n\n\"Yes\u0097perfect.\"\n\n\"Perfect, eh? Well, certainly you ought to know. It was even better than\nyour own, eh?\"\n\n\"As to that, I\u0097I believe I cannot say,\" said she, and was going on, but\nstopped. Then she added, almost as if she were saying it to herself,\n\"Still, it was an improvement on yours!\"\n\nI knew there was a chuckle back of her eyes, for all their innocence.\nEverybody shouted. Brother Seguin was nettled, and asked brusquely:\n\n\"Do you believe in God?\"\n\nJoan answered with an irritating nonchalance:\n\n\"Oh, well, yes\u0097better than you, it is likely.\"\n\nBrother Seguin lost his patience, and heaped sarcasm after sarcasm upon\nher, and finally burst out in angry earnest, exclaiming:\n\n\"Very well, I can tell you this, you whose belief in God is so great:\nGod has not willed that any shall believe in you without a sign. Where\nis your sign?\u0097show it!\"\n\nThis roused Joan, and she was on her feet in a moment, and flung out her\nretort with spirit:\n\n\"I have not come to Poitiers to show signs and do miracles. Send me\nto Orleans and you shall have signs enough. Give me men-at-arms\u0097few or\nmany\u0097and let me go!\"\n\nThe fire was leaping from her eyes\u0097ah, the heroic little figure! can't\nyou see her? There was a great burst of acclamations, and she sat\ndown blushing, for it was not in her delicate nature to like being\nconspicuous.\n\nThis speech and that episode about the French language scored two points\nagainst Brother Seguin, while he scored nothing against Joan; yet, sour\nman as he was, he was a manly man, and honest, as you can see by the\nhistories; for at the Rehabilitation he could have hidden those unlucky\nincidents if he had chosen, but he didn't do it, but spoke them right\nout in his evidence.\n\nOn one of the latter days of that three-weeks session the gowned\nscholars and professors made one grand assault all along the line,\nfairly overwhelming Joan with objections and arguments culled from the\nwritings of every ancient and illustrious authority of the Roman Church.\nShe was well-nigh smothered; but at last she shook herself free and\nstruck back, crying out:\n\n\"Listen! The Book of God is worth more than all these ye cite, and I\nstand upon it. And I tell ye there are things in that Book that not one\namong ye can read, with all your learning!\"\n\nFrom the first she was the guest, by invitation, of the dame De\nRabateau, wife of a councilor of the Parliament of Poitiers; and to that\nhouse the great ladies of the city came nightly to see Joan and talk\nwith her; and not these only, but the old lawyers, councilors and\nscholars of the Parliament and the University. And these grave men,\naccustomed to weigh every strange and questionable thing, and cautiously\nconsider it, and turn it about this way and that and still doubt it,\ncame night after night, and night after night, falling ever deeper and\ndeeper under the influence of that mysterious something, that spell,\nthat elusive and unwordable fascination, which was the supremest\nendowment of Joan of Arc, that winning and persuasive and convincing\nsomething which high and low alike recognized and felt, but which\nneither high nor low could explain or describe, and one by one they all\nsurrendered, saying, \"This child is sent of God.\"\n\nAll day long Joan, in the great court and subject to its rigid rules of\nprocedure, was at a disadvantage; her judges had things their own way;\nbut at night she held court herself, and matters were reversed, she\npresiding, with her tongue free and her same judges there before her.\nThere could not be but one result: all the objections and hindrances\nthey could build around her with their hard labors of the day she would\ncharm away at night. In the end, she carried her judges with her in a\nmass, and got her great verdict without a dissenting voice.\n\nThe court was a sight to see when the president of it read it from his\nthrone, for all the great people of the town were there who could get\nadmission and find room. First there were some solemn ceremonies, proper\nand usual at such times; then, when there was silence again, the reading\nfollowed, penetrating the deep hush so that every word was heard in even\nthe remotest parts of the house:\n\n\"It is found, and is hereby declared, that Joan of Arc, called the Maid,\nis a good Christian and a good Catholic; that there is nothing in her\nperson or her words contrary to the faith; and that the King may and\nought to accept the succor she offers; for to repel it would be to\noffend the Holy Spirit, and render him unworthy of the air of God.\"\n\nThe court rose, and then the storm of plaudits burst forth unrebuked,\ndying down and bursting forth again and again, and I lost sight of\nJoan, for she was swallowed up in a great tide of people who rushed to\ncongratulate her and pour out benedictions upon her and upon the cause\nof France, now solemnly and irrevocably delivered into her little hands.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 9 She Is Made General-in-Chief\n\nIT WAS indeed a great day, and a stirring thing to see.\n\nShe had won! It was a mistake of Tremouille and her other ill-wishers to\nlet her hold court those nights.\n\nThe commission of priests sent to Lorraine ostensibly to inquire into\nJoan's character\u0097in fact to weary her with delays and wear out her\npurpose and make her give it up\u0097arrived back and reported her character\nperfect. Our affairs were in full career now, you see.\n\nThe verdict made a prodigious stir. Dead France woke suddenly to life,\nwherever the great news traveled. Whereas before, the spiritless and\ncowed people hung their heads and slunk away if one mentioned war to\nthem, now they came clamoring to be enlisted under the banner of the\nMaid of Vaucouleurs, and the roaring of war-songs and the thundering of\nthe drums filled all the air. I remembered now what she had said, that\ntime there in our village when I proved by facts and statistics that\nFrance's case was hopeless, and nothing could ever rouse the people from\ntheir lethargy:\n\n\"They will hear the drums\u0097and they will answer, they will march!\"\n\nIt has been said that misfortunes never come one at a time, but in a\nbody. In our case it was the same with good luck. Having got a start, it\ncame flooding in, tide after tide. Our next wave of it was of this sort.\nThere had been grave doubts among the priests as to whether the Church\nought to permit a female soldier to dress like a man. But now came a\nverdict on that head. Two of the greatest scholars and theologians\nof the time\u0097one of whom had been Chancellor of the University of\nParis\u0097rendered it. They decided that since Joan \"must do the work of\na man and a soldier, it is just and legitimate that her apparel should\nconform to the situation.\"\n\nIt was a great point gained, the Church's authority to dress as a man.\nOh, yes, wave on wave the good luck came sweeping in. Never mind about\nthe smaller waves, let us come to the largest one of all, the wave that\nswept us small fry quite off our feet and almost drowned us with joy.\nThe day of the great verdict, couriers had been despatched to the King\nwith it, and the next morning bright and early the clear notes of a\nbugle came floating to us on the crisp air, and we pricked up our\nears and began to count them. One\u0097two\u0097three; pause; one\u0097two; pause;\none\u0097two\u0097three, again\u0097and out we skipped and went flying; for that\nformula was used only when the King's herald-at-arms would deliver a\nproclamation to the people. As we hurried along, people came racing\nout of every street and house and alley, men, women, and children, all\nflushed, excited, and throwing lacking articles of clothing on as they\nran; still those clear notes pealed out, and still the rush of people\nincreased till the whole town was abroad and streaming along the\nprincipal street. At last we reached the square, which was now packed\nwith citizens, and there, high on the pedestal of the great cross, we\nsaw the herald in his brilliant costume, with his servitors about him.\nThe next moment he began his delivery in the powerful voice proper to\nhis office:\n\n\"Know all men, and take heed therefore, that the most high, the most\nillustrious Charles, by the grace of God King of France, hath been\npleased to confer upon his well-beloved servant Joan of Arc, called\nthe Maid, the title, emoluments, authorities, and dignity of\nGeneral-in-Chief of the Armies of France\u0097\"\n\nHere a thousand caps flew in the air, and the multitude burst into a\nhurricane of cheers that raged and raged till it seemed as if it would\nnever come to an end; but at last it did; then the herald went on and\nfinished:\u0097\"and hath appointed to be her lieutenant and chief of staff a\nprince of his royal house, his grace the Duke of Alencon!\"\n\nThat was the end, and the hurricane began again, and was split up into\ninnumerable strips by the blowers of it and wafted through all the lanes\nand streets of the town.\n\nGeneral of the Armies of France, with a prince of the blood for\nsubordinate! Yesterday she was nothing\u0097to-day she was this. Yesterday\nshe was not even a sergeant, not even a corporal, not even a\nprivate\u0097to-day, with one step, she was at the top. Yesterday she was\nless than nobody to the newest recruit\u0097to-day her command was law to\nLa Hire, Saintrailles, the Bastard of Orleans, and all those others,\nveterans of old renown, illustrious masters of the trade of war. These\nwere the thoughts I was thinking; I was trying to realize this strange\nand wonderful thing that had happened, you see.\n\nMy mind went travelling back, and presently lighted upon a picture\u0097a\npicture which was still so new and fresh in my memory that it seemed a\nmatter of only yesterday\u0097and indeed its date was no further back than\nthe first days of January. This is what it was. A peasant-girl in a\nfar-off village, her seventeenth year not yet quite completed, and\nherself and her village as unknown as if they had been on the other\nside of the globe. She had picked up a friendless wanderer somewhere\nand brought it home\u0097a small gray kitten in a forlorn and starving\ncondition\u0097and had fed it and comforted it and got its confidence and\nmade it believe in her, and now it was curled up in her lap asleep, and\nshe was knitting a coarse stocking and thinking\u0097dreaming\u0097about what, one\nmay never know. And now\u0097the kitten had hardly had time to become a cat,\nand yet already the girl is General of the Armies of France, with a\nprince of the blood to give orders to, and out of her village obscurity\nher name has climbed up like the sun and is visible from all corners of\nthe land! It made me dizzy to think of these things, they were so out of\nthe common order, and seemed so impossible.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 10 The Maid's Sword and Banner\n\nJOAN'S first official act was to dictate a letter to the English\ncommanders at Orleans, summoning them to deliver up all strongholds in\ntheir possession and depart out of France. She must have been thinking\nit all out before and arranging it in her mind, it flowed from her\nlips so smoothly, and framed itself into such vivacious and forcible\nlanguage. Still, it might not have been so; she always had a quick mind\nand a capable tongue, and her faculties were constantly developing\nin these latter weeks. This letter was to be forwarded presently from\nBlois. Men, provisions, and money were offering in plenty now, and\nJoan appointed Blois as a recruiting-station and depot of supplies, and\nordered up La Hire from the front to take charge.\n\nThe Great Bastard\u0097him of the ducal house, and governor of Orleans\u0097had\nbeen clamoring for weeks for Joan to be sent to him, and now came\nanother messenger, old D'Aulon, a veteran officer, a trusty man and fine\nand honest. The King kept him, and gave him to Joan to be chief of her\nhousehold, and commanded her to appoint the rest of her people herself,\nmaking their number and dignity accord with the greatness of her office;\nand at the same time he gave order that they should be properly equipped\nwith arms, clothing, and horses.\n\nMeantime the King was having a complete suit of armor made for her at\nTours. It was of the finest steel, heavily plated with silver, richly\nornamented with engraved designs, and polished like a mirror.\n\nJoan's Voices had told her that there was an ancient sword hidden\nsomewhere behind the altar of St. Catherine's at Fierbois, and she sent\nDe Metz to get it. The priests knew of no such sword, but a search was\nmade, and sure enough it was found in that place, buried a little way\nunder the ground. It had no sheath and was very rusty, but the priests\npolished it up and sent it to Tours, whither we were now to come. They\nalso had a sheath of crimson velvet made for it, and the people of Tours\nequipped it with another, made of cloth-of-gold. But Joan meant to carry\nthis sword always in battle; so she laid the showy sheaths away and\ngot one made of leather. It was generally believed that this sword had\nbelonged to Charlemagne, but that was only a matter of opinion. I wanted\nto sharpen that old blade, but she said it was not necessary, as she\nshould never kill anybody, and should carry it only as a symbol of\nauthority.\n\nAt Tours she designed her Standard, and a Scotch painter named James\nPower made it. It was of the most delicate white boucassin, with fringes\nof silk. For device it bore the image of God the Father throned in the\nclouds and holding the world in His hand; two angels knelt at His feet,\npresenting lilies; inscription, JESUS, MARIA; on the reverse the crown\nof France supported by two angels.\n\nShe also caused a smaller standard or pennon to be made, whereon was\nrepresented an angel offering a lily to the Holy Virgin.\n\nEverything was humming there at Tours. Every now and then one heard\nthe bray and crash of military music, every little while one heard the\nmeasured tramp of marching men\u0097squads of recruits leaving for Blois;\nsongs and shoutings and huzzas filled the air night and day, the town\nwas full of strangers, the streets and inns were thronged, the bustle\nof preparation was everywhere, and everybody carried a glad and cheerful\nface. Around Joan's headquarters a crowd of people was always massed,\nhoping for a glimpse of the new General, and when they got it, they went\nwild; but they seldom got it, for she was busy planning her campaign,\nreceiving reports, giving orders, despatching couriers, and giving what\nodd moments she could spare to the companies of great folk waiting in\nthe drawing-rooms. As for us boys, we hardly saw her at all, she was so\noccupied.\n\nWe were in a mixed state of mind\u0097sometimes hopeful, sometimes not;\nmostly not. She had not appointed her household yet\u0097that was our\ntrouble. We knew she was being overrun with applications for places in\nit, and that these applications were backed by great names and weighty\ninfluence, whereas we had nothing of the sort to recommend us. She could\nfill her humblest places with titled folk\u0097folk whose relationships\nwould be a bulwark for her and a valuable support at all times. In these\ncircumstances would policy allow her to consider us? We were not as\ncheerful as the rest of the town, but were inclined to be depressed and\nworried. Sometimes we discussed our slim chances and gave them as good\nan appearance as we could. But the very mention of the subject was\nanguish to the Paladin; for whereas we had some little hope, he had none\nat all. As a rule Noel Rainguesson was quite willing to let the dismal\nmatter alone; but not when the Paladin was present. Once we were talking\nthe thing over, when Noel said:\n\n\"Cheer up, Paladin, I had a dream last night, and you were the only one\namong us that got an appointment. It wasn't a high one, but it was an\nappointment, anyway\u0097some kind of a lackey or body-servant, or something\nof that kind.\"\n\nThe Paladin roused up and looked almost cheerful; for he was a believer\nin dreams, and in anything and everything of a superstitious sort, in\nfact. He said, with a rising hopefulness:\n\n\"I wish it might come true. Do you think it will come true?\"\n\n\"Certainly; I might almost say I know it will, for my dreams hardly ever\nfail.\"\n\n\"Noel, I could hug you if that dream could come true, I could, indeed!\nTo be servant of the first General of France and have all the world hear\nof it, and the news go back to the village and make those gawks stare\nthat always said I wouldn't ever amount to anything\u0097wouldn't it be\ngreat! Do you think it will come true, Noel? Don't you believe it will?\"\n\n\"I do. There's my hand on it.\"\n\n\"Noel, if it comes true I'll never forget you\u0097shake again! I should be\ndressed in a noble livery, and the news would go to the village, and\nthose animals would say, 'Him, lackey to the General-in-Chief, with the\neyes of the whole world on him, admiring\u0097well, he has shot up into the\nsky now, hasn't he!\"\n\nHe began to walk the floor and pile castles in the air so fast and so\nhigh that we could hardly keep up with him. Then all of a sudden all the\njoy went out of his face and misery took its place, and he said:\n\n\"Oh, dear, it is all a mistake, it will never come true. I forgot that\nfoolish business at Toul. I have kept out of her sight as much as I\ncould, all these weeks, hoping she would forget that and forgive it\u0097but\nI know she never will. She can't, of course. And, after all, I wasn't to\nblame. I did say she promised to marry me, but they put me up to it and\npersuaded me. I swear they did!\" The vast creature was almost crying.\nThen he pulled himself together and said, remorsefully, \"It was the only\nlie I've ever told, and\u0097\"\n\nHe was drowned out with a chorus of groans and outraged exclamations;\nand before he could begin again, one of D'Aulon's liveried servants\nappeared and said we were required at headquarters. We rose, and Noel\nsaid:\n\n\"There\u0097what did I tell you? I have a presentiment\u0097the spirit of prophecy\nis upon me. She is going to appoint him, and we are to go there and do\nhim homage. Come along!\"\n\nBut the Paladin was afraid to go, so we left him.\n\nWhen we presently stood in the presence, in front of a crowd of\nglittering officers of the army, Joan greeted us with a winning smile,\nand said she appointed all of us to places in her household, for she\nwanted her old friends by her. It was a beautiful surprise to have\nourselves honored like this when she could have had people of birth and\nconsequence instead, but we couldn't find our tongues to say so, she\nwas become so great and so high above us now. One at a time we stepped\nforward and each received his warrant from the hand of our chief,\nD'Aulon. All of us had honorable places; the two knights stood highest;\nthen Joan's two brothers; I was first page and secretary, a young\ngentleman named Raimond was second page; Noel was her messenger; she\nhad two heralds, and also a chaplain and almoner, whose name was Jean\nPasquerel. She had previously appointed a maitre d'hotel and a number of\ndomestics. Now she looked around and said:\n\n\"But where is the Paladin?\"\n\nThe Sieur Bertrand said:\n\n\"He thought he was not sent for, your Excellency.\"\n\n\"Now that is not well. Let him be called.\"\n\nThe Paladin entered humbly enough. He ventured no farther than just\nwithin the door. He stopped there, looking embarrassed and afraid. Then\nJoan spoke pleasantly, and said:\n\n\"I watched you on the road. You began badly, but improved. Of old you\nwere a fantastic talker, but there is a man in you, and I will bring it\nout.\" It was fine to see the Paladin's face light up when she said that.\n\"Will you follow where I lead?\"\n\n\"Into the fire!\" he said; and I said to myself, \"By the ring of that,\nI think she has turned this braggart into a hero. It is another of her\nmiracles, I make no doubt of it.\"\n\n\"I believe you,\" said Joan. \"Here\u0097take my banner. You will ride with me\nin every field, and when France is saved, you will give it me back.\"\n\nHe took the banner, which is now the most precious of the memorials that\nremain of Joan of Arc, and his voice was unsteady with emotion when he\nsaid:\n\n\"If I ever disgrace this trust, my comrades here will know how to do\na friend's office upon my body, and this charge I lay upon them, as\nknowing they will not fail me.\"\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 11 The War March Is Begun\n\nNOEL and I went back together\u0097silent at first, and impressed.\n\nFinally Noel came up out of his thinkings and said:\n\n\"The first shall be last and the last first\u0097there's authority for this\nsurprise. But at the same time wasn't it a lofty hoist for our big\nbull!\"\n\n\"It truly was; I am not over being stunned yet. It was the greatest\nplace in her gift.\"\n\n\"Yes, it was. There are many generals, and she can create more; but\nthere is only one Standard-Bearer.\"\n\n\"True. It is the most conspicuous place in the army, after her own.\"\n\n\"And the most coveted and honorable. Sons of two dukes tried to get\nit, as we know. And of all people in the world, this majestic windmill\ncarries it off. Well, isn't it a gigantic promotion, when you come to\nlook at it!\"\n\n\"There's no doubt about it. It's a kind of copy of Joan's own in\nminiature.\"\n\n\"I don't know how to account for it\u0097do you?\"\n\n\"Yes\u0097without any trouble at all\u0097that is, I think I do.\"\n\nNoel was surprised at that, and glanced up quickly, as if to see if I\nwas in earnest. He said:\n\n\"I thought you couldn't be in earnest, but I see you are. If you can\nmake me understand this puzzle, do it. Tell me what the explanation is.\"\n\n\"I believe I can. You have noticed that our chief knight says a good\nmany wise things and has a thoughtful head on his shoulders. One day,\nriding along, we were talking about Joan's great talents, and he said,\n'But, greatest of all her gifts, she has the seeing eye.' I said, like\nan unthinking fool, 'The seeing eye?\u0097I shouldn't count on that for\nmuch\u0097I suppose we all have it.' 'No,' he said; 'very few have it.' Then\nhe explained, and made his meaning clear. He said the common eye sees\nonly the outside of things, and judges by that, but the seeing eye\npierces through and reads the heart and the soul, finding there\ncapacities which the outside didn't indicate or promise, and which the\nother kind of eye couldn't detect. He said the mightiest military genius\nmust fail and come to nothing if it have not the seeing eye\u0097that is\nto say, if it cannot read men and select its subordinates with an\ninfallible judgment. It sees as by intuition that this man is good for\nstrategy, that one for dash and daredevil assault, the other for patient\nbulldog persistence, and it appoints each to his right place and wins,\nwhile the commander without the seeing eye would give to each the\nother's place and lose. He was right about Joan, and I saw it. When she\nwas a child and the tramp came one night, her father and all of us took\nhim for a rascal, but she saw the honest man through the rags. When I\ndined with the governor of Vaucouleurs so long ago, I saw nothing in our\ntwo knights, though I sat with them and talked with them two hours;\nJoan was there five minutes, and neither spoke with them nor heard them\nspeak, yet she marked them for men of worth and fidelity, and they have\nconfirmed her judgment. Whom has she sent for to take charge of this\nthundering rabble of new recruits at Blois, made up of old disbanded\nArmagnac raiders, unspeakable hellions, every one? Why, she has sent\nfor Satan himself\u0097that is to say, La Hire\u0097that military hurricane,\nthat godless swashbuckler, that lurid conflagration of blasphemy, that\nVesuvius of profanity, forever in eruption. Does he know how to deal\nwith that mob of roaring devils? Better than any man that lives; for\nhe is the head devil of this world his own self, he is the match of the\nwhole of them combined, and probably the father of most of them. She\nplaces him in temporary command until she can get to Blois herself\u0097and\nthen! Why, then she will certainly take them in hand personally, or I\ndon't know her as well as I ought to, after all these years of intimacy.\nThat will be a sight to see\u0097that fair spirit in her white armor,\ndelivering her will to that muck-heap, that rag-pile, that abandoned\nrefuse of perdition.\"\n\n\"La Hire!\" cried Noel, \"our hero of all these years\u0097I do want to see\nthat man!\"\n\n\"I too. His name stirs me just as it did when I was a little boy.\"\n\n\"I want to hear him swear.\"\n\n\"Of course, I would rather hear him swear than another man pray. He is\nthe frankest man there is, and the naivest. Once when he was rebuked\nfor pillaging on his raids, he said it was nothing. Said he, 'If God\nthe Father were a soldier, He would rob.' I judge he is the right man to\ntake temporary charge there at Blois. Joan has cast the seeing eye upon\nhim, you see.\"\n\n\"Which brings us back to where we started. I have an honest affection\nfor the Paladin, and not merely because he is a good fellow, but because\nhe is my child\u0097I made him what he is, the windiest blusterer and most\ncatholic liar in the kingdom. I'm glad of his luck, but I hadn't the\nseeing eye. I shouldn't have chosen him for the most dangerous post in\nthe army. I should have placed him in the rear to kill the wounded and\nviolate the dead.\"\n\n\"Well, we shall see. Joan probably knows what is in him better than\nwe do. And I'll give you another idea. When a person in Joan of Arc's\nposition tells a man he is brave, he believes it; and believing it is\nenough; in fact, to believe yourself brave is to be brave; it is the one\nonly essential thing.\"\n\n\"Now you've hit it!\" cried Noel. \"She's got the creating mouth as well\nas the seeing eye! Ah, yes, that is the thing. France was cowed and a\ncoward; Joan of Arc has spoken, and France is marching, with her head\nup!\"\n\nI was summoned now to write a letter from Joan's dictation. During the\nnext day and night our several uniforms were made by the tailors, and\nour new armor provided. We were beautiful to look upon now, whether\nclothed for peace or war. Clothed for peace, in costly stuffs and rich\ncolors, the Paladin was a tower dyed with the glories of the sunset;\nplumed and sashed and iron-clad for war, he was a still statelier thing\nto look at.\n\nOrders had been issued for the march toward Blois. It was a clear,\nsharp, beautiful morning. As our showy great company trotted out in\ncolumn, riding two and two, Joan and the Duke of Alencon in the lead,\nD'Aulon and the big standard-bearer next, and so on, we made a handsome\nspectacle, as you may well imagine; and as we plowed through the\ncheering crowds, with Joan bowing her plumed head to left and right and\nthe sun glinting from her silver mail, the spectators realized that\nthe curtain was rolling up before their eyes upon the first act of a\nprodigious drama, and their rising hopes were expressed in an enthusiasm\nthat increased with each moment, until at last one seemed to even\nphysically feel the concussion of the huzzas as well as hear them. Far\ndown the street we heard the softened strains of wind-blown music, and\nsaw a cloud of lancers moving, the sun glowing with a subdued light upon\nthe massed armor, but striking bright upon the soaring lance-heads\u0097a\nvaguely luminous nebula, so to speak, with a constellation twinkling\nabove it\u0097and that was our guard of honor. It joined us, the procession\nwas complete, the first war-march of Joan of Arc was begun, the curtain\nwas up.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 12 Joan Puts Heart in Her Army\n\nWE WERE at Blois three days. Oh, that camp, it is one of the treasures\nof my memory! Order? There was no more order among those brigands than\nthere is among the wolves and the hyenas. They went roaring and drinking\nabout, whooping, shouting, swearing, and entertaining themselves with\nall manner of rude and riotous horse-play; and the place was full of\nloud and lewd women, and they were no whit behind the men for romps and\nnoise and fantastics.\n\nIt was in the midst of this wild mob that Noel and I had our first\nglimpse of La Hire. He answered to our dearest dreams. He was of great\nsize and of martial bearing, he was cased in mail from head to heel,\nwith a bushel of swishing plumes on his helmet, and at his side the vast\nsword of the time.\n\nHe was on his way to pay his respects in state to Joan, and as he passed\nthrough the camp he was restoring order, and proclaiming that the Maid\nhad come, and he would have no such spectacle as this exposed to the\nhead of the army. His way of creating order was his own, not borrowed.\nHe did it with his great fists. As he moved along swearing and\nadmonishing, he let drive this way, that way, and the other, and\nwherever his blow landed, a man went down.\n\n\"Damn you!\" he said, \"staggering and cursing around like this, and the\nCommander-in-Chief in the camp! Straighten up!\" and he laid the man\nflat. What his idea of straightening up was, was his own secret.\n\nWe followed the veteran to headquarters, listening, observing,\nadmiring\u0097yes, devouring, you may say, the pet hero of the boys of France\nfrom our cradles up to that happy day, and their idol and ours. I called\nto mind how Joan had once rebuked the Paladin, there in the pastures\nof Domremy, for uttering lightly those mighty names, La Hire and the\nBastard of Orleans, and how she said that if she could but be permitted\nto stand afar off and let her eyes rest once upon those great men, she\nwould hold it a privilege. They were to her and the other girls just\nwhat they were to the boys. Well, here was one of them at last\u0097and what\nwas his errand? It was hard to realize it, and yet it was true; he was\ncoming to uncover his head before her and take her orders.\n\nWhile he was quieting a considerable group of his brigands in his\nsoothing way, near headquarters, we stepped on ahead and got a glimpse\nof Joan's military family, the great chiefs of the army, for they had\nall arrived now. There they were, six officers of wide renown, handsome\nmen in beautiful armor, but the Lord High Admiral of France was the\nhandsomest of them all and had the most gallant bearing.\n\nWhen La Hire entered, one could see the surprise in his face at Joan's\nbeauty and extreme youth, and one could see, too, by Joan's glad smile,\nthat it made her happy to get sight of this hero of her childhood at\nlast. La Hire bowed low, with his helmet in his gauntleted hand, and\nmade a bluff but handsome little speech with hardly an oath in it, and\none could see that those two took to each other on the spot.\n\nThe visit of ceremony was soon over, and the others went away; but La\nHire stayed, and he and Joan sat there, and he sipped her wine, and they\ntalked and laughed together like old friends. And presently she gave him\nsome instructions, in his quality as master of the camp, which made his\nbreath stand still. For, to begin with, she said that all those loose\nwomen must pack out of the place at once, she wouldn't allow one of them\nto remain. Next, the rough carousing must stop, drinking must be brought\nwithin proper and strictly defined limits, and discipline must take the\nplace of disorder. And finally she climaxed the list of surprises with\nthis\u0097which nearly lifted him out of his armor:\n\n\"Every man who joins my standard must confess before the priest and\nabsolve himself from sin; and all accepted recruits must be present at\ndivine service twice a day.\"\n\nLa Hire could not say a word for a good part of a minute, then he said,\nin deep dejection:\n\n\"Oh, sweet child, they were littered in hell, these poor darlings of\nmine! Attend mass? Why, dear heart, they'll see us both damned first!\"\n\nAnd he went on, pouring out a most pathetic stream of arguments and\nblasphemy, which broke Joan all up, and made her laugh as she had not\nlaughed since she played in the Domremy pastures. It was good to hear.\n\nBut she stuck to her point; so the soldier yielded, and said all right,\nif such were the orders he must obey, and would do the best that was in\nhim; then he refreshed himself with a lurid explosion of oaths, and said\nthat if any man in the camp refused to renounce sin and lead a pious\nlife, he would knock his head off. That started Joan off again; she was\nreally having a good time, you see. But she would not consent to that\nform of conversions. She said they must be voluntary.\n\nLa Hire said that that was all right, he wasn't going to kill the\nvoluntary ones, but only the others.\n\nNo matter, none of them must be killed\u0097Joan couldn't have it. She said\nthat to give a man a chance to volunteer, on pain of death if he didn't,\nleft him more or less trammeled, and she wanted him to be entirely free.\n\nSo the soldier sighed and said he would advertise the mass, but said he\ndoubted if there was a man in camp that was any more likely to go to it\nthan he was himself. Then there was another surprise for him, for Joan\nsaid:\n\n\"But, dear man, you are going!\"\n\n\"I? Impossible! Oh, this is lunacy!\"\n\n\"Oh, no, it isn't. You are going to the service\u0097twice a day.\"\n\n\"Oh, am I dreaming? Am I drunk\u0097or is my hearing playing me false? Why, I\nwould rather go to\u0097\"\n\n\"Never mind where. In the morning you are going to begin, and after that\nit will come easy. Now don't look downhearted like that. Soon you won't\nmind it.\"\n\nLa Hire tried to cheer up, but he was not able to do it. He sighed like\na zephyr, and presently said:\n\n\"Well, I'll do it for you, but before I would do it for another, I swear\nI\u0097\"\n\n\"But don't swear. Break it off.\"\n\n\"Break it off? It is impossible! I beg you to\u0097to\u0097Why\u0097oh, my General, it\nis my native speech!\"\n\nHe begged so hard for grace for his impediment, that Joan left him one\nfragment of it; she said he might swear by his baton, the symbol of his\ngeneralship.\n\nHe promised that he would swear only by his baton when in her presence,\nand would try to modify himself elsewhere, but doubted he could manage\nit, now that it was so old and stubborn a habit, and such a solace and\nsupport to his declining years.\n\nThat tough old lion went away from there a good deal tamed and\ncivilized\u0097not to say softened and sweetened, for perhaps those\nexpressions would hardly fit him. Noel and I believed that when he was\naway from Joan's influence his old aversions would come up so strong in\nhim that he could not master them, and so wouldn't go to mass. But we\ngot up early in the morning to see.\n\nSatan was converted, you see. Well, the rest followed. Joan rode up\nand down that camp, and wherever that fair young form appeared in its\nshining armor, with that sweet face to grace the vision and perfect\nit, the rude host seemed to think they saw the god of war in person,\ndescended out of the clouds; and first they wondered, then they\nworshiped. After that, she could do with them what she would.\n\nIn three days it was a clean camp and orderly, and those barbarians were\nherding to divine service twice a day like good children. The women\nwere gone. La Hire was stunned by these marvels; he could not understand\nthem. He went outside the camp when he wanted to swear. He was that sort\nof a man\u0097sinful by nature and habit, but full of superstitious respect\nfor holy places.\n\nThe enthusiasm of the reformed army for Joan, its devotion to her,\nand the hot desire she had aroused in it to be led against the enemy,\nexceeded any manifestations of this sort which La Hire had ever seen\nbefore in his long career. His admiration of it all, and his wonder over\nthe mystery and miracle of it, were beyond his power to put into words.\nHe had held this army cheap before, but his pride and confidence in it\nknew no limits now. He said:\n\n\"Two or three days ago it was afraid of a hen-roost; one could storm the\ngates of hell with it now.\"\n\nJoan and he were inseparable, and a quaint and pleasant contrast they\nmade. He was so big, she so little; he was so gray and so far along in\nhis pilgrimage of life, she so youthful; his face was so bronzed\nand scarred, hers so fair and pink, so fresh and smooth; she was so\ngracious, and he so stern; she was so pure, so innocent, he such a\ncyclopedia of sin. In her eye was stored all charity and compassion,\nin his lightnings; when her glance fell upon you it seemed to bring\nbenediction and the peace of God, but with his it was different,\ngenerally.\n\nThey rode through the camp a dozen times a day, visiting every corner\nof it, observing, inspecting, perfecting; and wherever they appeared\nthe enthusiasm broke forth. They rode side by side, he a great figure of\nbrawn and muscle, she a little masterwork of roundness and grace; he a\nfortress of rusty iron, she a shining statuette of silver; and when the\nreformed raiders and bandits caught sight of them they spoke out, with\naffection and welcome in their voices, and said:\n\n\"There they come\u0097Satan and the Page of Christ!\"\n\nAll the three days that we were in Blois, Joan worked earnestly and\ntirelessly to bring La Hire to God\u0097to rescue him from the bondage of\nsin\u0097to breathe into his stormy heart the serenity and peace of religion.\nShe urged, she begged, she implored him to pray. He stood out, three\ndays of our stay, begging about piteously to be let off\u0097to be let off\nfrom just that one thing, that impossible thing; he would do anything\nelse\u0097anything\u0097command, and he would obey\u0097he would go through the fire\nfor her if she said the word\u0097but spare him this, only this, for he\ncouldn't pray, had never prayed, he was ignorant of how to frame a\nprayer, he had no words to put it in.\n\nAnd yet\u0097can any believe it?\u0097she carried even that point, she won that\nincredible victory. She made La Hire pray. It shows, I think, that\nnothing was impossible to Joan of Arc. Yes, he stood there before her\nand put up his mailed hands and made a prayer. And it was not borrowed,\nbut was his very own; he had none to help him frame it, he made it out\nof his own head\u0097saying:\n\n\"Fair Sir God, I pray you to do by La Hire as he would do by you if you\nwere La Hire and he were God.\" 1\n\nThen he put on his helmet and marched out of Joan's tent as satisfied\nwith himself as any one might be who had arranged a perplexed and\ndifficult business to the content and admiration of all the parties\nconcerned in the matter.\n\nIf I had know that he had been praying, I could have understood why he\nwas feeling so superior, but of course I could not know that.\n\nI was coming to the tent at that moment, and saw him come out, and\nsaw him march away in that large fashion, and indeed it was fine and\nbeautiful to see. But when I got to the tent door I stopped and stepped\nback, grieved and shocked, for I heard Joan crying, as I mistakenly\nthought\u0097crying as if she could not contain nor endure the anguish of\nher soul, crying as if she would die. But it was not so, she was\nlaughing\u0097laughing at La Hire's prayer.\n\nIt was not until six-and-thirty years afterward that I found that out,\nand then\u0097oh, then I only cried when that picture of young care-free\nmirth rose before me out of the blur and mists of that long-vanished\ntime; for there had come a day between, when God's good gift of laughter\nhad gone out from me to come again no more in this life.\n\n\n(1) This prayer has been stolen many times and by many nations in the\npast four hundred and sixty years, but it originated with La Hire, and\nthe fact is of official record in the National Archives of France. We\nhave the authority of Michelet for this.\u0097TRANSLATOR\n\n\n\n\nChapter 13 Checked by the Folly of the Wise\n\nWE MARCHED out in great strength and splendor, and took the road toward\nOrleans. The initial part of Joan's great dream was realizing itself at\nlast. It was the first time that any of us youngsters had ever seen an\narmy, and it was a most stately and imposing spectacle to us. It was\nindeed an inspiring sight, that interminable column, stretching\naway into the fading distances, and curving itself in and out of the\ncrookedness of the road like a mighty serpent. Joan rode at the head of\nit with her personal staff; then came a body of priests singing the Veni\nCreator, the banner of the Cross rising out of their midst; after these\nthe glinting forest of spears. The several divisions were commanded by\nthe great Armagnac generals, La Hire, and Marshal de Boussac, the Sire\nde Retz, Florent d'Illiers, and Poton de Saintrailles.\n\nEach in his degree was tough, and there were three degrees\u0097tough,\ntougher, toughest\u0097and La Hire was the last by a shade, but only a shade.\nThey were just illustrious official brigands, the whole party; and\nby long habits of lawlessness they had lost all acquaintanceship with\nobedience, if they had ever had any.\n\nBut what was the good of saying that? These independent birds knew no\nlaw. They seldom obeyed the King; they never obeyed him when it didn't\nsuit them to do it. Would they obey the Maid? In the first place they\nwouldn't know how to obey her or anybody else, and in the second place\nit was of course not possible for them to take her military character\nseriously\u0097that country-girl of seventeen who had been trained for the\ncomplex and terrible business of war\u0097how? By tending sheep.\n\nThey had no idea of obeying her except in cases where their veteran\nmilitary knowledge and experience showed them that the thing she\nrequired was sound and right when gauged by the regular military\nstandards. Were they to blame for this attitude? I should think not.\nOld war-worn captains are hard-headed, practical men. They do not\neasily believe in the ability of ignorant children to plan campaigns\nand command armies. No general that ever lived could have taken Joan\nseriously (militarily) before she raised the siege of Orleans and\nfollowed it with the great campaign of the Loire.\n\nDid they consider Joan valueless? Far from it. They valued her as the\nfruitful earth values the sun\u0097they fully believed she could produce the\ncrop, but that it was in their line of business, not hers, to take\nit off. They had a deep and superstitious reverence for her as being\nendowed with a mysterious supernatural something that was able to do a\nmighty thing which they were powerless to do\u0097blow the breath of life and\nvalor into the dead corpses of cowed armies and turn them into heroes.\n\nTo their minds they were everything with her, but nothing without her.\nShe could inspire the soldiers and fit them for battle\u0097but fight\nthe battle herself? Oh, nonsense\u0097that was their function. They, the\ngenerals, would fight the battles, Joan would give the victory. That was\ntheir idea\u0097an unconscious paraphrase of Joan's reply to the Dominican.\n\nSo they began by playing a deception upon her. She had a clear idea\nof how she meant to proceed. It was her purpose to march boldly upon\nOrleans by the north bank of the Loire. She gave that order to her\ngenerals. They said to themselves, \"The idea is insane\u0097it is blunder No.\n1; it is what might have been expected of this child who is ignorant of\nwar.\" They privately sent the word to the Bastard of Orleans. He also\nrecognized the insanity of it\u0097at least he thought he did\u0097and privately\nadvised the generals to get around the order in some way.\n\nThey did it by deceiving Joan. She trusted those people, she was not\nexpecting this sort of treatment, and was not on the lookout for it. It\nwas a lesson to her; she saw to it that the game was not played a second\ntime.\n\nWhy was Joan's idea insane, from the generals' point of view, but not\nfrom hers? Because her plan was to raise the siege immediately, by\nfighting, while theirs was to besiege the besiegers and starve them out\nby closing their communications\u0097a plan which would require months in the\nconsummation.\n\nThe English had built a fence of strong fortresses called bastilles\naround Orleans\u0097fortresses which closed all the gates of the city but\none. To the French generals the idea of trying to fight their way past\nthose fortresses and lead the army into Orleans was preposterous; they\nbelieved that the result would be the army's destruction. One may not\ndoubt that their opinion was militarily sound\u0097no, would have been, but\nfor one circumstance which they overlooked. That was this: the English\nsoldiers were in a demoralized condition of superstitious terror; they\nhad become satisfied that the Maid was in league with Satan. By reason\nof this a good deal of their courage had oozed out and vanished. On the\nother hand, the Maid's soldiers were full of courage, enthusiasm, and\nzeal.\n\nJoan could have marched by the English forts. However, it was not to be.\nShe had been cheated out of her first chance to strike a heavy blow for\nher country.\n\nIn camp that night she slept in her armor on the ground. It was a cold\nnight, and she was nearly as stiff as her armor itself when we resumed\nthe march in the morning, for iron is not good material for a blanket.\nHowever, her joy in being now so far on her way to the theater of her\nmission was fire enough to warm her, and it soon did it.\n\nHer enthusiasm and impatience rose higher and higher with every mile\nof progress; but at last we reached Olivet, and down it went, and\nindignation took its place. For she saw the trick that had been played\nupon her\u0097the river lay between us and Orleans.\n\nShe was for attacking one of the three bastilles that were on our\nside of the river and forcing access to the bridge which it guarded (a\nproject which, if successful, would raise the siege instantly), but\nthe long-ingrained fear of the English came upon her generals and they\nimplored her not to make the attempt. The soldiers wanted to attack,\nbut had to suffer disappointment. So we moved on and came to a halt at a\npoint opposite Checy, six miles above Orleans.\n\nDunois, Bastard of Orleans, with a body of knights and citizens, came\nup from the city to welcome Joan. Joan was still burning with resentment\nover the trick that had been put upon her, and was not in the mood for\nsoft speeches, even to revered military idols of her childhood. She\nsaid:\n\n\"Are you the bastard?\"\n\n\"Yes, I am he, and am right glad of your coming.\"\n\n\"And did you advise that I be brought by this side of the river instead\nof straight to Talbot and the English?\"\n\nHer high manner abashed him, and he was not able to answer with anything\nlike a confident promptness, but with many hesitations and partial\nexcuses he managed to get out the confession that for what he and the\ncouncil had regarded as imperative military reasons they so advised.\n\n\"In God's name,\" said Joan, \"my Lord's counsel is safer and wiser than\nyours. You thought to deceive me, but you have deceived yourselves, for\nI bring you the best help that ever knight or city had; for it is God's\nhelp, not sent for love of me, but by God's pleasure. At the prayer of\nSt. Louis and St. Charlemagne He has had pity on Orleans, and will not\nsuffer the enemy to have both the Duke of Orleans and his city. The\nprovisions to save the starving people are here, the boats are below the\ncity, the wind is contrary, they cannot come up hither. Now then, tell\nme, in God's name, you who are so wise, what that council of yours was\nthinking about, to invent this foolish difficulty.\"\n\nDunois and the rest fumbled around the matter a moment, then gave in and\nconceded that a blunder had been made.\n\n\"Yes, a blunder has been made,\" said Joan, \"and except God take your\nproper work upon Himself and change the wind and correct your blunder\nfor you, there is none else that can devise a remedy.\"\n\nSome of these people began to perceive that with all her technical\nignorance she had practical good sense, and that with all her native\nsweetness and charm she was not the right kind of a person to play with.\n\nPresently God did take the blunder in hand, and by His grace the wind\ndid change. So the fleet of boats came up and went away loaded with\nprovisions and cattle, and conveyed that welcome succor to the hungry\ncity, managing the matter successfully under protection of a sortie\nfrom the walls against the bastille of St. Loup. Then Joan began on the\nBastard again:\n\n\"You see here the army?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"It is here on this side by advice of your council?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Now, in God's name, can that wise council explain why it is better to\nhave it here than it would be to have it in the bottom of the sea?\"\n\nDunois made some wandering attempts to explain the inexplicable and\nexcuse the inexcusable, but Joan cut him short and said:\n\n\"Answer me this, good sir\u0097has the army any value on this side of the\nriver?\"\n\nThe Bastard confessed that it hadn't\u0097that is, in view of the plan of\ncampaign which she had devised and decreed.\n\n\"And yet, knowing this, you had the hardihood to disobey my orders.\nSince the army's place is on the other side, will you explain to me how\nit is to get there?\"\n\nThe whole size of the needless muddle was apparent. Evasions were of\nno use; therefore Dunois admitted that there was no way to correct the\nblunder but to send the army all the way back to Blois, and let it begin\nover again and come up on the other side this time, according to Joan's\noriginal plan.\n\nAny other girl, after winning such a triumph as this over a veteran\nsoldier of old renown, might have exulted a little and been excusable\nfor it, but Joan showed no disposition of this sort. She dropped a word\nor two of grief over the precious time that must be lost, then began at\nonce to issue commands for the march back. She sorrowed to see her army\ngo; for she said its heart was great and its enthusiasm high, and that\nwith it at her back she did not fear to face all the might of England.\n\nAll arrangements having been completed for the return of the main body\nof the army, she took the Bastard and La Hire and a thousand men and\nwent down to Orleans, where all the town was in a fever of impatience\nto have sight of her face. It was eight in the evening when she and the\ntroops rode in at the Burgundy gate, with the Paladin preceding her with\nher standard. She was riding a white horse, and she carried in her hand\nthe sacred sword of Fierbois. You should have seen Orleans then. What\na picture it was! Such black seas of people, such a starry firmament of\ntorches, such roaring whirlwinds of welcome, such booming of bells\nand thundering of cannon! It was as if the world was come to an end.\nEverywhere in the glare of the torches one saw rank upon rank of\nupturned white faces, the mouths wide open, shouting, and the unchecked\ntears running down; Joan forged her slow way through the solid masses,\nher mailed form projecting above the pavement of heads like a silver\nstatue. The people about her struggled along, gazing up at her through\ntheir tears with the rapt look of men and women who believe they are\nseeing one who is divine; and always her feet were being kissed by\ngrateful folk, and such as failed of that privilege touched her horse\nand then kissed their fingers.\n\nNothing that Joan did escaped notice; everything she did was commented\nupon and applauded. You could hear the remarks going all the time.\n\n\"There\u0097she's smiling\u0097see!\"\n\n\"Now she's taking her little plumed cap off to somebody\u0097ah, it's fine\nand graceful!\"\n\n\"She's patting that woman on the head with her gauntlet.\"\n\n\"Oh, she was born on a horse\u0097see her turn in her saddle, and kiss the\nhilt of her sword to the ladies in the window that threw the flowers\ndown.\"\n\n\"Now there's a poor woman lifting up a child\u0097she's kissed it\u0097oh, she's\ndivine!\"\n\n\"What a dainty little figure it is, and what a lovely face\u0097and such\ncolor and animation!\"\n\nJoan's slender long banner streaming backward had an accident\u0097the fringe\ncaught fire from a torch. She leaned forward and crushed the flame in\nher hand.\n\n\"She's not afraid of fire nor anything!\" they shouted, and delivered a\nstorm of admiring applause that made everything quake.\n\nShe rode to the cathedral and gave thanks to God, and the people crammed\nthe place and added their devotions to hers; then she took up her march\nagain and picked her slow way through the crowds and the wilderness\nof torches to the house of Jacques Boucher, treasurer of the Duke of\nOrleans, where she was to be the guest of his wife as long as she stayed\nin the city, and have his young daughter for comrade and room-mate. The\ndelirium of the people went on the rest of the night, and with it the\nclamor of the joy-bells and the welcoming cannon.\n\nJoan of Arc had stepped upon her stage at last, and was ready to begin.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 14 What the English Answered\n\nSHE WAS ready, but must sit down and wait until there was an army to\nwork with.\n\nNext morning, Saturday, April 30, 1429, she set about inquiring after\nthe messenger who carried her proclamation to the English from Blois\u0097the\none which she had dictated at Poitiers. Here is a copy of it. It is\na remarkable document, for several reasons: for its matter-of-fact\ndirectness, for its high spirit and forcible diction, and for its naive\nconfidence in her ability to achieve the prodigious task which she had\nlaid upon herself, or which had been laid upon her\u0097which you please. All\nthrough it you seem to see the pomps of war and hear the rumbling of\nthe drums. In it Joan's warrior soul is revealed, and for the moment the\nsoft little shepherdess has disappeared from your view. This untaught\ncountry-damsel, unused to dictating anything at all to anybody,\nmuch less documents of state to kings and generals, poured out this\nprocession of vigorous sentences as fluently as if this sort of work had\nbeen her trade from childhood:\n\nJESUS MARIA King of England and you Duke of Bedford who call yourself\nRegent of France; William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk; and you Thomas\nLord Scales, who style yourselves lieutenants of the said Bedford\u0097do\nright to the King of Heaven. Render to the Maid who is sent by God the\nkeys of all the good towns you have taken and violated in France. She\nis sent hither by God, to restore the blood royal. She is very ready to\nmake peace if you will do her right by giving up France and paying\nfor what you have held. And you archers, companions of war, noble and\notherwise, who are before the good city of Orleans, begone into your own\nland in God's name, or expect news from the Maid who will shortly go to\nsee you to your very great hurt. King of England, if you do not so, I\nam chief of war, and whenever I shall find your people in France, I will\ndrive them out, willing or not willing; and if they do not obey I will\nslay them all, but if they obey, I will have them to mercy. I am come\nhither by God, the King of Heaven, body for body, to put you out of\nFrance, in spite of those who would work treason and mischief against\nthe kingdom. Think not you shall ever hold the kingdom from the King of\nHeaven, the Son of the Blessed Mary; King Charles shall hold it, for God\nwills it so, and has revealed it to him by the Maid. If you believe not\nthe news sent by God through the Maid, wherever we shall meet you we\nwill strike boldly and make such a noise as has not been in France these\nthousand years. Be sure that God can send more strength to the Maid than\nyou can bring to any assault against her and her good men-at-arms; and\nthen we shall see who has the better right, the King of Heaven, or\nyou. Duke of Bedford, the Maid prays you not to bring about your own\ndestruction. If you do her right, you may yet go in her company where\nthe French shall do the finest deed that has been done in Christendom,\nand if you do not, you shall be reminded shortly of your great wrongs.\n\nIn that closing sentence she invites them to go on crusade with her\nto rescue the Holy Sepulcher. No answer had been returned to this\nproclamation, and the messenger himself had not come back.\n\nSo now she sent her two heralds with a new letter warning the English\nto raise the siege and requiring them to restore that missing messenger.\nThe heralds came back without him. All they brought was notice from the\nEnglish to Joan that they would presently catch her and burn her if she\ndid not clear out now while she had a chance, and \"go back to her proper\ntrade of minding cows.\"\n\nShe held her peace, only saying it was a pity that the English would\npersist in inviting present disaster and eventual destruction when she\nwas \"doing all she could to get them out of the country with their lives\nstill in their bodies.\"\n\nPresently she thought of an arrangement that might be acceptable, and\nsaid to the heralds, \"Go back and say to Lord Talbot this, from me:\n'Come out of your bastilles with your host, and I will come with mine;\nif I beat you, go in peace out of France; if you beat me, burn me,\naccording to your desire.'\"\n\nI did not hear this, but Dunois did, and spoke of it. The challenge was\nrefused.\n\nSunday morning her Voices or some instinct gave her a warning, and\nshe sent Dunois to Blois to take command of the army and hurry it to\nOrleans. It was a wise move, for he found Regnault de Chartres and some\nmore of the King's pet rascals there trying their best to disperse the\narmy, and crippling all the efforts of Joan's generals to head it for\nOrleans. They were a fine lot, those miscreants. They turned their\nattention to Dunois now, but he had balked Joan once, with unpleasant\nresults to himself, and was not minded to meddle in that way again. He\nsoon had the army moving.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 15 My Exquisite Poem Goes to Smash\n\nWE OF the personal staff were in fairyland now, during the few days that\nwe waited for the return of the army. We went into society. To our two\nknights this was not a novelty, but to us young villagers it was a new\nand wonderful life. Any position of any sort near the person of the Maid\nof Vaucouleurs conferred high distinction upon the holder and caused\nhis society to be courted; and so the D'Arc brothers, and Noel, and the\nPaladin, humble peasants at home, were gentlemen here, personages\nof weight and influence. It was fine to see how soon their country\ndiffidences and awkwardnesses melted away under this pleasant sun of\ndeference and disappeared, and how lightly and easily they took to their\nnew atmosphere. The Paladin was as happy as it was possible for any one\nin this earth to be. His tongue went all the time, and daily he got new\ndelight out of hearing himself talk. He began to enlarge his ancestry\nand spread it out all around, and ennoble it right and left, and it was\nnot long until it consisted almost entirely of dukes. He worked up his\nold battles and tricked them out with fresh splendors; also with new\nterrors, for he added artillery now. We had seen cannon for the first\ntime at Blois\u0097a few pieces\u0097here there was plenty of it, and now and then\nwe had the impressive spectacle of a huge English bastille hidden from\nsight in a mountain of smoke from its own guns, with lances of red\nflame darting through it; and this grand picture, along with the quaking\nthunders pounding away in the heart of it, inflamed the Paladin's\nimagination and enabled him to dress out those ambuscade-skirmishes of\nours with a sublimity which made it impossible for any to recognize them\nat all except people who had not been there.\n\nYou may suspect that there was a special inspiration for these great\nefforts of the Paladin's, and there was. It was the daughter of the\nhouse, Catherine Boucher, who was eighteen, and gentle and lovely in her\nways, and very beautiful. I think she might have been as beautiful as\nJoan herself, if she had had Joan's eyes. But that could never be. There\nwas never but that one pair, there will never be another. Joan's eyes\nwere deep and rich and wonderful beyond anything merely earthly. They\nspoke all the languages\u0097they had no need of words. They produced all\neffects\u0097and just by a glance, just a single glance; a glance that could\nconvict a liar of his lie and make him confess it; that could bring down\na proud man's pride and make him humble; that could put courage into a\ncoward and strike dead the courage of the bravest; that could appease\nresentments and real hatreds; that could make the doubter believe and\nthe hopeless hope again; that could purify the impure mind; that could\npersuade\u0097ah, there it is\u0097persuasion! that is the word; what or who is\nit that it couldn't persuade? The maniac of Domremy\u0097the fairy-banishing\npriest\u0097the reverend tribunal of Toul\u0097the doubting and superstitious\nLaxart\u0097the obstinate veteran of Vaucouleurs\u0097the characterless heir\nof France\u0097the sages and scholars of the Parliament and University\nof Poitiers\u0097the darling of Satan, La Hire\u0097the masterless Bastard of\nOrleans, accustomed to acknowledge no way as right and rational but his\nown\u0097these were the trophies of that great gift that made her the wonder\nand mystery that she was.\n\nWe mingled companionably with the great folk who flocked to the big\nhouse to make Joan's acquaintance, and they made much of us and we lived\nin the clouds, so to speak. But what we preferred even to this happiness\nwas the quieter occasions, when the formal guests were gone and the\nfamily and a few dozen of its familiar friends were gathered together\nfor a social good time. It was then that we did our best, we five\nyoungsters, with such fascinations as we had, and the chief object of\nthem was Catherine. None of us had ever been in love before, and now we\nhad the misfortune to all fall in love with the same person at the same\ntime\u0097which was the first moment we saw her. She was a merry heart, and\nfull of life, and I still remember tenderly those few evenings that I\nwas permitted to have my share of her dear society and of comradeship\nwith that little company of charming people.\n\nThe Paladin made us all jealous the first night, for when he got fairly\nstarted on those battles of his he had everything to himself, and there\nwas no use in anybody else's trying to get any attention. Those people\nhad been living in the midst of real war for seven months; and to hear\nthis windy giant lay out his imaginary campaigns and fairly swim in\nblood and spatter it all around, entertained them to the verge of the\ngrave. Catherine was like to die, for pure enjoyment. She didn't laugh\nloud\u0097we, of course, wished she would\u0097but kept in the shelter of a fan,\nand shook until there was danger that she would unhitch her ribs from\nher spine. Then when the Paladin had got done with a battle and we began\nto feel thankful and hope for a change, she would speak up in a way that\nwas so sweet and persuasive that it rankled in me, and ask him about\nsome detail or other in the early part of his battle which she said had\ngreatly interested her, and would he be so good as to describe that part\nagain and with a little more particularity?\u0097which of course precipitated\nthe whole battle on us, again, with a hundred lies added that had been\noverlooked before.\n\nI do not know how to make you realize the pain I suffered. I had never\nbeen jealous before, and it seemed intolerable that this creature should\nhave this good fortune which he was so ill entitled to, and I have to\nsit and see myself neglected when I was so longing for the least little\nattention out of the thousand that this beloved girl was lavishing on\nhim. I was near her, and tried two or three times to get started on some\nof the things that I had done in those battles\u0097and I felt ashamed of\nmyself, too, for stooping to such a business\u0097but she cared for nothing\nbut his battles, and could not be got to listen; and presently when\none of my attempts caused her to lose some precious rag or other of\nhis mendacities and she asked him to repeat, thus bringing on a new\nengagement, of course, and increasing the havoc and carnage tenfold, I\nfelt so humiliated by this pitiful miscarriage of mine that I gave up\nand tried no more.\n\nThe others were as outraged by the Paladin's selfish conduct as I\nwas\u0097and by his grand luck, too, of course\u0097perhaps, indeed, that was the\nmain hurt. We talked our trouble over together, which was natural,\nfor rivals become brothers when a common affliction assails them and a\ncommon enemy bears off the victory.\n\nEach of us could do things that would please and get notice if it\nwere not for this person, who occupied all the time and gave others no\nchance. I had made a poem, taking a whole night to it\u0097a poem in which I\nmost happily and delicately celebrated that sweet girl's charms, without\nmentioning her name, but any one could see who was meant; for the bare\ntitle\u0097\"The Rose of Orleans\"\u0097would reveal that, as it seemed to me. It\npictured this pure and dainty white rose as growing up out of the rude\nsoil of war and looking abroad out of its tender eyes upon the horrid\nmachinery of death, and then\u0097note this conceit\u0097it blushes for the sinful\nnature of man, and turns red in a single night. Becomes a red rose, you\nsee\u0097a rose that was white before. The idea was my own, and quite new.\nThen it sent its sweet perfume out over the embattled city, and when the\nbeleaguering forces smelt it they laid down their arms and wept. This\nwas also my own idea, and new. That closed that part of the poem; then\nI put her into the similitude of the firmament\u0097not the whole of it, but\nonly part. That is to say, she was the moon, and all the constellations\nwere following her about, their hearts in flames for love of her, but\nshe would not halt, she would not listen, for 'twas thought she loved\nanother. 'Twas thought she loved a poor unworthy suppliant who was upon\nthe earth, facing danger, death, and possible mutilation in the bloody\nfield, waging relentless war against a heartless foe to save her from\nan all too early grave, and her city from destruction. And when the sad\npursuing constellations came to know and realize the bitter sorrow that\nwas come upon them\u0097note this idea\u0097their hearts broke and their tears\ngushed forth, filling the vault of heaven with a fiery splendor, for\nthose tears were falling stars. It was a rash idea, but beautiful;\nbeautiful and pathetic; wonderfully pathetic, the way I had it, with\nthe rhyme and all to help. At the end of each verse there was a two-line\nrefrain pitying the poor earthly lover separated so far, and perhaps\nforever, from her he loved so well, and growing always paler and weaker\nand thinner in his agony as he neared the cruel grave\u0097the most touching\nthing\u0097even the boys themselves could hardly keep back their tears, the\nway Noel said those lines. There were eight four-line stanzas in the\nfirst end of the poem\u0097the end about the rose, the horticultural end, as\nyou may say, if that is not too large a name for such a little poem\u0097and\neight in the astronomical end\u0097sixteen stanzas altogether, and I could\nhave made it a hundred and fifty if I had wanted to, I was so inspired\nand so all swelled up with beautiful thoughts and fancies; but that\nwould have been too many to sing or recite before a company that way,\nwhereas sixteen was just right, and could be done over again if desired.\nThe boys were amazed that I could make such a poem as that out of my own\nhead, and so was I, of course, it being as much a surprise to me as it\ncould be to anybody, for I did not know that it was in me. If any had\nasked me a single day before if it was in me, I should have told them\nfrankly no, it was not.\n\nThat is the way with us; we may go on half of our life not knowing such\na thing is in us, when in reality it was there all the time, and all we\nneeded was something to turn up that would call for it. Indeed, it was\nalways so without family. My grandfather had a cancer, and they never\nknew what was the matter with him till he died, and he didn't know\nhimself. It is wonderful how gifts and diseases can be concealed in that\nway. All that was necessary in my case was for this lovely and inspiring\ngirl to cross my path, and out came the poem, and no more trouble to me\nto word it and rhyme it and perfect it than it is to stone a dog. No, I\nshould have said it was not in me; but it was.\n\nThe boys couldn't say enough about it, they were so charmed and\nastonished. The thing that pleased them the most was the way it would do\nthe Paladin's business for him. They forgot everything in their anxiety\nto get him shelved and silenced. Noel Rainguesson was clear beside\nhimself with admiration of the poem, and wished he could do such a\nthing, but it was out of his line, and he couldn't, of course. He had it\nby heart in half an hour, and there was never anything so pathetic and\nbeautiful as the way he recited it. For that was just his gift\u0097that and\nmimicry. He could recite anything better than anybody in the world,\nand he could take of La Hire to the very life\u0097or anybody else, for that\nmatter. Now I never could recite worth a farthing; and when I tried with\nthis poem the boys wouldn't let me finish; they would have nobody but\nNoel. So then, as I wanted the poem to make the best possible impression\non Catherine and the company, I told Noel he might do the reciting.\nNever was anybody so delighted. He could hardly believe that I was in\nearnest, but I was. I said that to have them know that I was the author\nof it would be enough for me. The boys were full of exultation, and Noel\nsaid if he could just get one chance at those people it would be all he\nwould ask; he would make them realize that there was something higher\nand finer than war-lies to be had here.\n\nBut how to get the opportunity\u0097that was the difficulty. We invented\nseveral schemes that promised fairly, and at last we hit upon one\nthat was sure. That was, to let the Paladin get a good start in a\nmanufactured battle, and then send in a false call for him, and as\nsoon as he was out of the room, have Noel take his place and finish the\nbattle himself in the Paladin's own style, imitated to a shade. That\nwould get great applause, and win the house's favor and put it in the\nright mood to hear the poem. The two triumphs together with finish the\nStandard-Bearer\u0097modify him, anyway, to a certainty, and give the rest of\nus a chance for the future.\n\nSo the next night I kept out of the way until the Paladin had got his\nstart and was sweeping down upon the enemy like a whirlwind at the head\nof his corps, then I stepped within the door in my official uniform\nand announced that a messenger from General La Hire's quarters desired\nspeech with the Standard-Bearer. He left the room, and Noel took his\nplace and said that the interruption was to be deplored, but that\nfortunately he was personally acquainted with the details of the battle\nhimself, and if permitted would be glad to state them to the company.\nThen without waiting for the permission he turned himself to the\nPaladin\u0097a dwarfed Paladin, of course\u0097with manner, tones, gestures,\nattitudes, everything exact, and went right on with the battle, and it\nwould be impossible to imagine a more perfectly and minutely ridiculous\nimitation than he furnished to those shrieking people. They went into\nspasms, convulsions, frenzies of laughter, and the tears flowed down\ntheir cheeks in rivulets. The more they laughed, the more inspired Noel\ngrew with his theme and the greater marvels he worked, till really the\nlaughter was not properly laughing any more, but screaming. Blessedest\nfeature of all, Catherine Boucher was dying with ecstasies, and\npresently there was little left of her but gasps and suffocations.\nVictory? It was a perfect Agincourt.\n\nThe Paladin was gone only a couple of minutes; he found out at once that\na trick had been played on him, so he came back. When he approached\nthe door he heard Noel ranting in there and recognized the state of\nthe case; so he remained near the door but out of sight, and heard the\nperformance through to the end. The applause Noel got when he finished\nwas wonderful; and they kept it up and kept it up, clapping their hands\nlike mad, and shouting to him to do it over again.\n\nBut Noel was clever. He knew the very best background for a poem of deep\nand refined sentiment and pathetic melancholy was one where great and\nsatisfying merriment had prepared the spirit for the powerful contrast.\n\nSo he paused until all was quiet, then his face grew grave and assumed\nan impressive aspect, and at once all faces sobered in sympathy and took\non a look of wondering and expectant interest. Now he began in a low\nbut distinct voice the opening verses of The Rose. As he breathed the\nrhythmic measures forth, and one gracious line after another fell upon\nthose enchanted ears in that deep hush, one could catch, on every hand,\nhalf-audible ejaculations of \"How lovely\u0097how beautiful\u0097how exquisite!\"\n\nBy this time the Paladin, who had gone away for a moment with the\nopening of the poem, was back again, and had stepped within the door.\nHe stood there now, resting his great frame against the wall and gazing\ntoward the reciter like one entranced. When Noel got to the second part,\nand that heart-breaking refrain began to melt and move all listeners,\nthe Paladin began to wipe away tears with the back of first one hand\nand then the other. The next time the refrain was repeated he got to\nsnuffling, and sort of half sobbing, and went to wiping his eyes with\nthe sleeves of his doublet. He was so conspicuous that he embarrassed\nNoel a little, and also had an ill effect upon the audience. With the\nnext repetition he broke quite down and began to cry like a calf, which\nruined all the effect and started many to the audience to laughing. Then\nhe went on from bad to worse, until I never saw such a spectacle; for\nhe fetched out a towel from under his doublet and began to swab his eyes\nwith it and let go the most infernal bellowings mixed up with sobbings\nand groanings and retchings and barkings and coughings and snortings and\nscreamings and howlings\u0097and he twisted himself about on his heels and\nsquirmed this way and that, still pouring out that brutal clamor and\nflourishing his towel in the air and swabbing again and wringing it out.\nHear? You couldn't hear yourself think. Noel was wholly drowned out\nand silenced, and those people were laughing the very lungs out of\nthemselves. It was the most degrading sight that ever was. Now I heard\nthe clankety-clank that plate-armor makes when the man that is in it\nis running, and then alongside my head there burst out the most inhuman\nexplosion of laughter that ever rent the drum of a person's ear, and I\nlooked, and it was La Hire; and the stood there with his gauntlets on\nhis hips and his head tilted back and his jaws spread to that degree\nto let out his hurricanes and his thunders that it amounted to indecent\nexposure, for you could see everything that was in him. Only one thing\nmore and worse could happen, and it happened: at the other door I\nsaw the flurry and bustle and bowings and scrapings of officials and\nflunkeys which means that some great personage is coming\u0097then Joan\nof Arc stepped in, and the house rose! Yes, and tried to shut its\nindecorous mouth and make itself grave and proper; but when it saw\nthe Maid herself go to laughing, it thanked God for this mercy and the\nearthquake that followed.\n\nSuch things make a life of bitterness, and I do not wish to dwell upon\nthem. The effect of the poem was spoiled.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 16 The Finding of the Dwarf\n\nTHIS EPISODE disagreed with me and I was not able to leave my bed the\nnext day. The others were in the same condition. But for this, one or\nanother of us might have had the good luck that fell to the Paladin's\nshare that day; but it is observable that God in His compassion sends\nthe good luck to such as are ill equipped with gifts, as compensation\nfor their defect, but requires such as are more fortunately endowed to\nget by labor and talent what those others get by chance. It was Noel who\nsaid this, and it seemed to me to be well and justly thought.\n\nThe Paladin, going about the town all the day in order to be followed\nand admired and overhear the people say in an awed voice, \"'Ssh!\u0097look,\nit is the Standard-Bearer of Joan of Arc!\" had speech with all sorts and\nconditions of folk, and he learned from some boatmen that there was a\nstir of some kind going on in the bastilles on the other side of the\nriver; and in the evening, seeking further, he found a deserter from the\nfortress called the \"Augustins,\" who said that the English were going to\nsend me over to strengthen the garrisons on our side during the darkness\nof the night, and were exulting greatly, for they meant to spring upon\nDunois and the army when it was passing the bastilles and destroy it;\na thing quite easy to do, since the \"Witch\" would not be there, and\nwithout her presence the army would do like the French armies of these\nmany years past\u0097drop their weapons and run when they saw an English\nface.\n\nIt was ten at night when the Paladin brought this news and asked leave\nto speak to Joan, and I was up and on duty then. It was a bitter stroke\nto me to see what a chance I had lost. Joan made searching inquiries,\nand satisfied herself that the word was true, then she made this\nannoying remark:\n\n\"You have done well, and you have my thanks. It may be that you have\nprevented a disaster. Your name and service shall receive official\nmention.\"\n\nThen he bowed low, and when he rose he was eleven feet high. As he\nswelled out past me he covertly pulled down the corner of his eye with\nhis finger and muttered part of that defiled refrain, \"Oh, tears, ah,\ntears, oh, sad sweet tears!\u0097name in General Orders\u0097personal mention to\nthe King, you see!\"\n\nI wished Joan could have seen his conduct, but she was busy thinking\nwhat she would do. Then she had me fetch the knight Jean de Metz, and in\na minute he was off for La Hire's quarters with orders for him and the\nLord de Villars and Florent d'Illiers to report to her at five o'clock\nnext morning with five hundred picked men well mounted. The histories\nsay half past four, but it is not true, I heard the order given.\n\nWe were on our way at five to the minute, and encountered the head of\nthe arriving column between six and seven, a couple of leagues from the\ncity. Dunois was pleased, for the army had begun to get restive and show\nuneasiness now that it was getting so near to the dreaded bastilles. But\nthat all disappeared now, as the word ran down the line, with a huzza\nthat swept along the length of it like a wave, that the Maid was come.\nDunois asked her to halt and let the column pass in review, so that the\nmen could be sure that the reports of her presence was not a ruse to\nrevive their courage. So she took position at the side of the road with\nher staff, and the battalions swung by with a martial stride, huzzaing.\nJoan was armed, except her head. She was wearing the cunning little\nvelvet cap with the mass of curved white ostrich plumes tumbling\nover its edges which the city of Orleans had given her the night she\narrived\u0097the one that is in the picture that hangs in the Hotel de Ville\nat Rouen. She was looking about fifteen. The sight of soldiers always\nset her blood to leaping, and lit the fires in her eyes and brought the\nwarm rich color to her cheeks; it was then that you saw that she was\ntoo beautiful to be of the earth, or at any rate that there was a subtle\nsomething somewhere about her beauty that differed it from the human\ntypes of your experience and exalted it above them.\n\nIn the train of wains laden with supplies a man lay on top of the goods.\nHe was stretched out on his back, and his hands were tied together with\nropes, and also his ankles. Joan signed to the officer in charge of that\ndivision of the train to come to her, and he rode up and saluted.\n\n\"What is he that is bound there?\" she asked.\n\n\"A prisoner, General.\"\n\n\"What is his offense?\"\n\n\"He is a deserter.\"\n\n\"What is to be done with him?\"\n\n\"He will be hanged, but it was not convenient on the march, and there\nwas no hurry.\"\n\n\"Tell me about him.\"\n\n\"He is a good soldier, but he asked leave to go and see his wife who was\ndying, he said, but it could not be granted; so he went without leave.\nMeanwhile the march began, and he only overtook us yesterday evening.\"\n\n\"Overtook you? Did he come of his own will?\"\n\n\"Yes, it was of his own will.\"\n\n\"He a deserter! Name of God! Bring him to me.\"\n\nThe officer rode forward and loosed the man's feet and brought him back\nwith his hands still tied. What a figure he was\u0097a good seven feet high,\nand built for business! He had a strong face; he had an unkempt shock of\nblack hair which showed up a striking way when the officer removed his\nmorion for him; for weapon he had a big ax in his broad leathern belt.\nStanding by Joan's horse, he made Joan look littler than ever, for\nhis head was about on a level with her own. His face was profoundly\nmelancholy; all interest in life seemed to be dead in the man. Joan\nsaid:\n\n\"Hold up your hands.\"\n\nThe man's head was down. He lifted it when he heard that soft friendly\nvoice, and there was a wistful something in his face which made one\nthink that there had been music in it for him and that he would like\nto hear it again. When he raised his hands Joan laid her sword to his\nbonds, but the officer said with apprehension:\n\n\"Ah, madam\u0097my General!\"\n\n\"What is it?\" she said.\n\n\"He is under sentence!\"\n\n\"Yes, I know. I am responsible for him\"; and she cut the bonds. They had\nlacerated his wrists, and they were bleeding. \"Ah, pitiful!\" she said;\n\"blood\u0097I do not like it\"; and she shrank from the sight. But only for a\nmoment. \"Give me something, somebody, to bandage his wrists with.\"\n\nThe officer said:\n\n\"Ah, my General! it is not fitting. Let me bring another to do it.\"\n\n\"Another? De par le Dieu! You would seek far to find one that can do it\nbetter than I, for I learned it long ago among both men and beasts. And\nI can tie better than those that did this; if I had tied him the ropes\nhad not cut his flesh.\"\n\nThe man looked on silent, while he was being bandaged, stealing a\nfurtive glance at Joan's face occasionally, such as an animal might\nthat is receiving a kindness form an unexpected quarter and is gropingly\ntrying to reconcile the act with its source. All the staff had forgotten\nthe huzzaing army drifting by in its rolling clouds of dust, to crane\ntheir necks and watch the bandaging as if it was the most interesting\nand absorbing novelty that ever was. I have often seen people do like\nthat\u0097get entirely lost in the simplest trifle, when it is something that\nis out of their line. Now there in Poitiers, once, I saw two bishops and\na dozen of those grave and famous scholars grouped together watching a\nman paint a sign on a shop; they didn't breathe, they were as good as\ndead; and when it began to sprinkle they didn't know it at first; then\nthey noticed it, and each man hove a deep sigh, and glanced up with a\nsurprised look as wondering to see the others there, and how he came to\nbe there himself\u0097but that is the way with people, as I have said. There\nis no way of accounting for people. You have to take them as they are.\n\n\"There,\" said Joan at last, pleased with her success; \"another could\nhave done it no better\u0097not as well, I think. Tell me\u0097what is it you did?\nTell me all.\"\n\nThe giant said:\n\n\"It was this way, my angel. My mother died, then my three little\nchildren, one after the other, all in two years. It was the famine;\nothers fared so\u0097it was God's will. I saw them die; I had that grace;\nand I buried them. Then when my poor wife's fate was come, I begged for\nleave to go to her\u0097she who was so dear to me\u0097she who was all I had;\nI begged on my knees. But they would not let me. Could I let her die,\nfriendless and alone? Could I let her die believing I would not come?\nWould she let me die and she not come\u0097with her feet free to do it if\nshe would, and no cost upon it but only her life? Ah, she would come\u0097she\nwould come through the fire! So I went. I saw her. She died in my arms.\nI buried her. Then the army was gone. I had trouble to overtake it, but\nmy legs are long and there are many hours in a day; I overtook it last\nnight.\"\n\nJoan said, musingly, as if she were thinking aloud:\n\n\"It sounds true. If true, it were no great harm to suspend the law this\none time\u0097any would say that. It may not be true, but if it is true\u0097\" She\nturned suddenly to the man and said, \"I would see your eyes\u0097look up!\"\nThe eyes of the two met, and Joan said to the officer, \"This man is\npardoned. Give you good day; you may go.\" Then she said to the man, \"Did\nyou know it was death to come back to the army?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, \"I knew it.\"\n\n\"Then why did you do it?\"\n\nThe man said, quite simply:\n\n\"Because it was death. She was all I had. There was nothing left to\nlove.\"\n\n\"Ah, yes, there was\u0097France! The children of France have always their\nmother\u0097they cannot be left with nothing to love. You shall live\u0097and you\nshall serve France\u0097\"\n\n\"I will serve you!\"\u0097\"you shall fight for France\u0097\"\n\n\"I will fight for you!\"\n\n\"You shall be France's soldier\u0097\"\n\n\"I will be your soldier!\"\u0097\"you shall give all your heart to France\u0097\"\n\n\"I will give all my heart to you\u0097and all my soul, if I have one\u0097and all\nmy strength, which is great\u0097for I was dead and am alive again; I had\nnothing to live for, but now I have! You are France for me. You are my\nFrance, and I will have no other.\"\n\nJoan smiled, and was touched and pleased at the man's grave\nenthusiasm\u0097solemn enthusiasm, one may call it, for the manner of it was\ndeeper than mere gravity\u0097and she said:\n\n\"Well, it shall be as you will. What are you called?\"\n\nThe man answered with unsmiling simplicity:\n\n\"They call me the Dwarf, but I think it is more in jest than otherwise.\"\n\nIt made Joan laugh, and she said:\n\n\"It has something of that look truly! What is the office of that vast\nax?\"\n\nThe soldier replied with the same gravity\u0097which must have been born to\nhim, it sat upon him so naturally:\n\n\"It is to persuade persons to respect France.\"\n\nJoan laughed again, and said:\n\n\"Have you given many lessons?\"\n\n\"Ah, indeed, yes\u0097many.\"\n\n\"The pupils behaved to suit you, afterward?\"\n\n\"Yes; it made them quiet\u0097quite pleasant and quiet.\"\n\n\"I should think it would happen so. Would you like to be my\nman-at-arms?\u0097orderly, sentinel, or something like that?\"\n\n\"If I may!\"\n\n\"Then you shall. You shall have proper armor, and shall go on teaching\nyour art. Take one of those led horses there, and follow the staff when\nwe move.\"\n\nThat is how we came by the Dwarf; and a good fellow he was. Joan picked\nhim out on sight, but it wasn't a mistake; no one could be faithfuler\nthan he was, and he was a devil and the son of a devil when he turned\nhimself loose with his ax. He was so big that he made the Paladin look\nlike an ordinary man. He liked to like people, therefore people liked\nhim. He liked us boys from the start; and he liked the knights, and\nliked pretty much everybody he came across; but he thought more of a\nparing of Joan's finger-nail than he did of all the rest of the world\nput together.\n\nYes, that is where we got him\u0097stretched on the wain, going to his death,\npoor chap, and nobody to say a good word for him. He was a good find.\nWhy, the knights treated him almost like an equal\u0097it is the honest\ntruth; that is the sort of a man he was. They called him the Bastille\nsometimes, and sometimes they called him Hellfire, which was on account\nof his warm and sumptuous style in battle, and you know they wouldn't\nhave given him pet names if they hadn't had a good deal of affection for\nhim.\n\nTo the Dwarf, Joan was France, the spirit of France made flesh\u0097he never\ngot away from that idea that he had started with; and God knows it was\nthe true one. That was a humble eye to see so great a truth where some\nothers failed. To me that seems quite remarkable. And yet, after all,\nit was, in a way, just what nations do. When they love a great and noble\nthing, they embody it\u0097they want it so that they can see it with their\neyes; like liberty, for instance. They are not content with the cloudy\nabstract idea, they make a beautiful statue of it, and then their\nbeloved idea is substantial and they can look at it and worship it.\nAnd so it is as I say; to the Dwarf, Joan was our country embodied,\nour country made visible flesh cast in a gracious form. When she stood\nbefore others, they saw Joan of Arc, but he saw France.\n\nSometimes he would speak of her by that name. It shows you how the idea\nwas embedded in his mind, and how real it was to him. The world has\ncalled our kings by it, but I know of none of them who has had so good a\nright as she to that sublime title.\n\nWhen the march past was finished, Joan returned to the front and rode at\nthe head of the column. When we began to file past those grim bastilles\nand could glimpse the men within, standing to their guns and ready to\nempty death into our ranks, such a faintness came over me and such a\nsickness that all things seemed to turn dim and swim before my eyes;\nand the other boys looked droopy, too, I thought\u0097including the Paladin,\nalthough I do not know this for certain, because he was ahead of me\nand I had to keep my eyes out toward the bastille side, because I could\nwince better when I saw what to wince at.\n\nBut Joan was at home\u0097in Paradise, I might say. She sat up straight, and\nI could see that she was feeling different from me. The awfulest thing\nwas the silence; there wasn't a sound but the screaking of the saddles,\nthe measured tramplings, and the sneezing of the horses, afflicted by\nthe smothering dust-clouds which they kicked up. I wanted to sneeze\nmyself, but it seemed to me that I would rather go unsneezed, or suffer\neven a bitterer torture, if there is one, than attract attention to\nmyself.\n\nI was not of a rank to make suggestions, or I would have suggested that\nif we went faster we should get by sooner. It seemed to me that it was\nan ill-judged time to be taking a walk. Just as we were drifting in\nthat suffocating stillness past a great cannon that stood just within a\nraised portcullis, with nothing between me and it but the moat, a most\nuncommon jackass in there split the world with his bray, and I fell out\nof the saddle. Sir Bertrand grabbed me as I went, which was well, for if\nI had gone to the ground in my armor I could not have gotten up again by\nmyself. The English warders on the battlements laughed a coarse laugh,\nforgetting that every one must begin, and that there had been a time\nwhen they themselves would have fared no better when shot by a jackass.\n\nThe English never uttered a challenge nor fired a shot. It was said\nafterward that when their men saw the Maid riding at the front and saw\nhow lovely she was, their eager courage cooled down in many cases and\nvanished in the rest, they feeling certain that the creature was not\nmortal, but the very child of Satan, and so the officers were prudent\nand did not try to make them fight. It was said also that some of the\nofficers were affected by the same superstitious fears. Well, in any\ncase, they never offered to molest us, and we poked by all the grisly\nfortresses in peace. During the march I caught up on my devotions, which\nwere in arrears; so it was not all loss and no profit for me after all.\n\nIt was on this march that the histories say Dunois told Joan that the\nEnglish were expecting reinforcements under the command of Sir John\nFastolfe, and that she turned upon him and said:\n\n\"Bastard, Bastard, in God's name I warn you to let me know of his coming\nas soon as you hear of it; for if he passes without my knowledge you\nshall lose your head!\"\n\nIt may be so; I don't deny it; but I didn't her it. If she really said\nit I think she only meant she would take off his official head\u0097degrade\nhim from his command. It was not like her to threaten a comrade's life.\nShe did have her doubts of her generals, and was entitled to them, for\nshe was all for storm and assault, and they were for holding still and\ntiring the English out. Since they did not believe in her way and were\nexperienced old soldiers, it would be natural for them to prefer their\nown and try to get around carrying hers out.\n\nBut I did hear something that the histories didn't mention and don't\nknow about. I heard Joan say that now that the garrisons on the other\nwide had been weakened to strengthen those on our side, the most\neffective point of operations had shifted to the south shore; so she\nmeant to go over there and storm the forts which held the bridge end,\nand that would open up communication with our own dominions and raise\nthe siege. The generals began to balk, privately, right away, but they\nonly baffled and delayed her, and that for only four days.\n\nAll Orleans met the army at the gate and huzzaed it through the bannered\nstreets to its various quarters, but nobody had to rock it to sleep; it\nslumped down dog-tired, for Dunois had rushed it without mercy, and for\nthe next twenty-four hours it would be quiet, all but the snoring.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 17 Sweet Fruit of Bitter Truth\n\nWHEN WE got home, breakfast for us minor fry was waiting in our\nmess-room and the family honored us by coming in to eat it with us. The\nnice old treasurer, and in fact all three were flatteringly eager to\nhear about our adventures. Nobody asked the Paladin to begin, but he\ndid begin, because now that his specially ordained and peculiar military\nrank set him above everybody on the personal staff but old D'Aulon, who\ndidn't eat with us, he didn't care a farthing for the knights' nobility\nno mine, but took precedence in the talk whenever it suited him, which\nwas all the time, because he was born that way. He said:\n\n\"God be thanked, we found the army in admirable condition I think I have\nnever seen a finer body of animals.\"\n\n\"Animals!\" said Miss Catherine.\n\n\"I will explain to you what he means,\" said Noel. \"He\u0097\"\n\n\"I will trouble you not to trouble yourself to explain anything for me,\"\nsaid the Paladin, loftily. \"I have reason to think\u0097\"\n\n\"That is his way,\" said Noel; \"always when he thinks he has reason to\nthink, he thinks he does think, but this is an error. He didn't see the\narmy. I noticed him, and he didn't see it. He was troubled by his old\ncomplaint.\"\n\n\"What's his old complaint?\" Catherine asked.\n\n\"Prudence,\" I said, seeing my chance to help.\n\nBut it was not a fortunate remark, for the Paladin said:\n\n\"It probably isn't your turn to criticize people's prudence\u0097you who fall\nout of the saddle when a donkey brays.\"\n\nThey all laughed, and I was ashamed of myself for my hasty smartness. I\nsaid:\n\n\"It isn't quite fair for you to say I fell out on account of the\ndonkey's braying. It was emotion, just ordinary emotion.\"\n\n\"Very well, if you want to call it that, I am not objecting. What would\nyou call it, Sir Bertrand?\"\n\n\"Well, it\u0097well, whatever it was, it was excusable, I think. All of you\nhave learned how to behave in hot hand-to-hand engagements, and you\ndon't need to be ashamed of your record in that matter; but to walk\nalong in front of death, with one's hands idle, and no noise, no music,\nand nothing going on, is a very trying situation. If I were you, De\nConte, I would name the emotion; it's nothing to be ashamed of.\"\n\nIt was as straight and sensible a speech as ever I heard, and I was\ngrateful for the opening it gave me; so I came out and said:\n\n\"It was fear\u0097and thank you for the honest idea, too.\"\n\n\"It was the cleanest and best way out,\" said the old treasurer; \"you've\ndone well, my lad.\"\n\nThat made me comfortable, and when Miss Catherine said, \"It's what I\nthink, too,\" I was grateful to myself for getting into that scrape.\n\nSir Jean de Metz said:\n\n\"We were all in a body together when the donkey brayed, and it was\ndismally still at the time. I don't see how any young campaigner could\nescape some little touch of that emotion.\"\n\nHe looked about him with a pleasant expression of inquiry on his good\nface, and as each pair of eyes in turn met his head they were in\nnodded a confession. Even the Paladin delivered his nod. That surprised\neverybody, and saved the Standard-Bearer's credit. It was clever of him;\nnobody believed he could tell the truth that way without practice,\nor would tell that particular sort of a truth either with or without\npractice. I suppose he judged it would favorably impress the family.\nThen the old treasurer said:\n\n\"Passing the forts in that trying way required the same sort of nerve\nthat a person must have when ghosts are about him in the dark, I should\nthink. What does the Standard-Bearer think?\"\n\n\"Well, I don't quite know about that, sir. I've often thought I would\nlike to see a ghost if I\u0097\"\n\n\"Would you?\" exclaimed the young lady. \"We've got one! Would you try\nthat one? Will you?\"\n\nShe was so eager and pretty that the Paladin said straight out that he\nwould; and then as none of the rest had bravery enough to expose the\nfear that was in him, one volunteered after the other with a prompt\nmouth and a sick heart till all were shipped for the voyage; then the\ngirl clapped her hands in glee, and the parents were gratified, too,\nsaying that the ghosts of their house had been a dread and a misery to\nthem and their forebears for generations, and nobody had ever been found\nyet who was willing to confront them and find out what their trouble\nwas, so that the family could heal it and content the poor specters and\nbeguile them to tranquillity and peace.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 18 Joan's First Battle-Field\n\nABOUT NOON I was chatting with Madame Boucher; nothing was going on, all\nwas quiet, when Catherine Boucher suddenly entered in great excitement,\nand said:\n\n\"Fly, sir, fly! The Maid was doing in her chair in my room, when she\nsprang up and cried out, 'French blood is flowing!\u0097my arms, give me my\narms!' Her giant was on guard at the door, and he brought D'Aulon,\nwho began to arm her, and I and the giant have been warning the staff.\nFly!\u0097and stay by her; and if there really is a battle, keep her out of\nit\u0097don't let her risk herself\u0097there is no need\u0097if the men know she is\nnear and looking on, it is all that is necessary. Keep her out of the\nfight\u0097don't fail of this!\"\n\nI started on a run, saying, sarcastically\u0097for I was always fond of\nsarcasm, and it was said that I had a most neat gift that way:\n\n\"Oh, yes, nothing easier than that\u0097I'll attend to it!\"\n\nAt the furthest end of the house I met Joan, fully armed, hurrying\ntoward the door, and she said:\n\n\"Ah, French blood is being spilt, and you did not tell me.\"\n\n\"Indeed I did not know it,\" I said; \"there are no sounds of war;\neverything is quiet, your Excellency.\"\n\n\"You will hear war-sounds enough in a moment,\" she said, and was gone.\n\nIt was true. Before one could count five there broke upon the stillness\nthe swelling rush and tramp of an approaching multitude of men and\nhorses, with hoarse cries of command; and then out of the distance came\nthe muffled deep boom!\u0097boom-boom!\u0097boom! of cannon, and straightway that\nrushing multitude was roaring by the house like a hurricane.\n\nOur knights and all our staff came flying, armed, but with no horses\nready, and we burst out after Joan in a body, the Paladin in the lead\nwith the banner. The surging crowd was made up half of citizens and half\nof soldiers, and had no recognized leader. When Joan was seen a huzza\nwent up, and she shouted:\n\n\"A horse\u0097a horse!\"\n\nA dozen saddles were at her disposal in a moment. She mounted, a hundred\npeople shouting:\n\n\"Way, there\u0097way for the MAID OF ORLEANS!\" The first time that that\nimmortal name was ever uttered\u0097and I, praise God, was there to hear it!\nThe mass divided itself like the waters of the Red Sea, and down\nthis lane Joan went skimming like a bird, crying, \"Forward, French\nhearts\u0097follow me!\" and we came winging in her wake on the rest of the\nborrowed horses, the holy standard streaming above us, and the lane\nclosing together in our rear.\n\nThis was a different thing from the ghastly march past the dismal\nbastilles. No, we felt fine, now, and all awhirl with enthusiasm. The\nexplanation of this sudden uprising was this. The city and the little\ngarrison, so long hopeless and afraid, had gone wild over Joan's coming,\nand could no longer restrain their desire to get at the enemy; so,\nwithout orders from anybody, a few hundred soldiers and citizens had\nplunged out at the Burgundy gate on a sudden impulse and made a charge\non one of Lord Talbot's most formidable fortresses\u0097St. Loup\u0097and were\ngetting the worst of it. The news of this had swept through the city and\nstarted this new crowd that we were with.\n\nAs we poured out at the gate we met a force bringing in the wounded from\nthe front. The sight moved Joan, and she said:\n\n\"Ah, French blood; it makes my hair rise to see it!\"\n\nWe were soon on the field, soon in the midst of the turmoil. Joan was\nseeing her first real battle, and so were we.\n\nIt was a battle in the open field; for the garrison of St. Loup had\nsallied confidently out to meet the attack, being used to victories when\n\"witches\" were not around. The sally had been reinforced by troops from\nthe \"Paris\" bastille, and when we approached the French were getting\nwhipped and were falling back. But when Joan came charging through the\ndisorder with her banner displayed, crying \"Forward, men\u0097follow me!\"\nthere was a change; the French turned about and surged forward like a\nsolid wave of the sea, and swept the English before them, hacking and\nslashing, and being hacked and slashed, in a way that was terrible to\nsee.\n\nIn the field the Dwarf had no assignment; that is to say, he was not\nunder orders to occupy any particular place, therefore he chose his\nplace for himself, and went ahead of Joan and made a road for her.\nIt was horrible to see the iron helmets fly into fragments under his\ndreadful ax. He called it cracking nuts, and it looked like that. He\nmade a good road, and paved it well with flesh and iron. Joan and the\nrest of us followed it so briskly that we outspeeded our forces and had\nthe English behind us as well as before. The knights commanded us to\nface outward around Joan, which we did, and then there was work done\nthat was fine to see. One was obliged to respect the Paladin, now. Being\nright under Joan's exalting and transforming eye, he forgot his native\nprudence, he forgot his diffidence in the presence of danger, he forgot\nwhat fear was, and he never laid about him in his imaginary battles in a\nmore tremendous way that he did in this real one; and wherever he struck\nthere was an enemy the less.\n\nWe were in that close place only a few minutes; then our forces to\nthe rear broke through with a great shout and joined us, and then the\nEnglish fought a retreating fight, but in a fine and gallant way, and we\ndrove them to their fortress foot by foot, they facing us all the time,\nand their reserves on the walls raining showers of arrows, cross-bow\nbolts, and stone cannon-balls upon us.\n\nThe bulk of the enemy got safely within the works and left us outside\nwith piles of French and English dead and wounded for company\u0097a\nsickening sight, an awful sight to us youngsters, for our little\nambush fights in February had been in the night, and the blood and the\nmutilations and the dead faces were mercifully dim, whereas we saw these\nthings now for the first time in all their naked ghastliness.\n\nNow arrived Dunois from the city, and plunged through the battle on\nhis foam-flecked horse and galloped up to Joan, saluting, and uttering\nhandsome compliments as he came. He waved his hand toward the distant\nwalls of the city, where a multitude of flags were flaunting gaily in\nthe wind, and said the populace were up there observing her fortunate\nperformance and rejoicing over it, and added that she and the forces\nwould have a great reception now.\n\n\"Now? Hardly now, Bastard. Not yet!\"\n\n\"Why not yet? Is there more to be done?\"\n\n\"More, Bastard? We have but begun! We will take this fortress.\"\n\n\"Ah, you can't be serious! We can't take this place; let me urge you not\nto make the attempt; it is too desperate. Let me order the forces back.\"\n\nJoan's heart was overflowing with the joys and enthusiasms of war, and\nit made her impatient to hear such talk. She cried out:\n\n\"Bastard, Bastard, will ye play always with these English? Now verily I\ntell you we will not budge until this place is ours. We will carry it by\nstorm. Sound the charge!\"\n\n\"Ah, my General\u0097\"\n\n\"Waste no more time, man\u0097let the bugles sound the assault!\" and we saw\nthat strange deep light in her eye which we named the battle-light, and\nlearned to know so well in later fields.\n\nThe martial notes pealed out, the troops answered with a yell, and down\nthey came against that formidable work, whose outlines were lost in its\nown cannon-smoke, and whose sides were spouting flame and thunder.\n\nWe suffered repulse after repulse, but Joan was here and there and\neverywhere encouraging the men, and she kept them to their work. During\nthree hours the tide ebbed and flowed, flowed and ebbed; but at last\nLa Hire, who was now come, made a final and resistless charge, and the\nbastille St. Loup was ours. We gutted it, taking all its stores and\nartillery, and then destroyed it.\n\nWhen all our host was shouting itself hoarse with rejoicings, and there\nwent up a cry for the General, for they wanted to praise her and glorify\nher and do her homage for her victory, we had trouble to find her; and\nwhen we did find her, she was off by herself, sitting among a ruck of\ncorpses, with her face in her hands, crying\u0097for she was a young girl,\nyou know, and her hero heart was a young girl's heart too, with the\npity and the tenderness that are natural to it. She was thinking of the\nmothers of those dead friends and enemies.\n\nAmong the prisoners were a number of priests, and Joan took these under\nher protection and saved their lives. It was urged that they were most\nprobably combatants in disguise, but she said:\n\n\"As to that, how can any tell? They wear the livery of God, and if even\none of these wears it rightfully, surely it were better that all the\nguilty should escape than that we have upon our hands the blood of that\ninnocent man. I will lodge them where I lodge, and feed them, and sent\nthem away in safety.\"\n\nWe marched back to the city with our crop of cannon and prisoners on\nview and our banners displayed. Here was the first substantial bit of\nwar-work the imprisoned people had seen in the seven months that the\nsiege had endured, the first chance they had had to rejoice over a\nFrench exploit. You may guess that they made good use of it. They and\nthe bells went mad. Joan was their darling now, and the press of people\nstruggling and shouldering each other to get a glimpse of her was so\ngreat that we could hardly push our way through the streets at all. Her\nnew name had gone all about, and was on everybody's lips. The Holy Maid\nof Vaucouleurs was a forgotten title; the city had claimed her for its\nown, and she was the MAID OF ORLEANS now. It is a happiness to me to\nremember that I heard that name the first time it was ever uttered.\nBetween that first utterance and the last time it will be uttered on\nthis earth\u0097ah, think how many moldering ages will lie in that gap!\n\nThe Boucher family welcomed her back as if she had been a child of the\nhouse, and saved from death against all hope or probability. They chided\nher for going into the battle and exposing herself to danger during\nall those hours. They could not realize that she had meant to carry her\nwarriorship so far, and asked her if it had really been her purpose to\ngo right into the turmoil of the fight, or hadn't she got swept into\nit by accident and the rush of the troops? They begged her to be more\ncareful another time. It was good advice, maybe, but it fell upon pretty\nunfruitful soil.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 19 We Burst In Upon Ghosts\n\nBEING WORN out with the long fight, we all slept the rest of the\nafternoon away and two or three hours into the night. Then we got up\nrefreshed, and had supper. As for me, I could have been willing to let\nthe matter of the ghost drop; and the others were of a like mind, no\ndoubt, for they talked diligently of the battle and said nothing of that\nother thing. And indeed it was fine and stirring to hear the Paladin\nrehearse his deeds and see him pile his dead, fifteen here, eighteen\nthere, and thirty-five yonder; but this only postponed the trouble; it\ncould not do more. He could not go on forever; when he had carried the\nbastille by assault and eaten up the garrison there was nothing for it\nbut to stop, unless Catherine Boucher would give him a new start and\nhave it all done over again\u0097as we hoped she would, this time\u0097but she was\notherwise minded. As soon as there was a good opening and a fair chance,\nshe brought up her unwelcome subject, and we faced it the best we could.\n\nWe followed her and her parents to the haunted room at eleven o'clock,\nwith candles, and also with torches to place in the sockets on the\nwalls. It was a big house, with very thick walls, and this room was in\na remote part of it which had been left unoccupied for nobody knew how\nmany years, because of its evil repute.\n\nThis was a large room, like a salon, and had a big table in it of\nenduring oak and well preserved; but the chair were worm-eaten and\nthe tapestry on the walls was rotten and discolored by age. The dusty\ncobwebs under the ceiling had the look of not having had any business\nfor a century.\n\nCatherine said:\n\n\"Tradition says that these ghosts have never been seen\u0097they have merely\nbeen heard. It is plain that this room was once larger than it is now,\nand that the wall at this end was built in some bygone time to make and\nfence off a narrow room there. There is no communication anywhere with\nthat narrow room, and if it exists\u0097and of that there is no reasonable\ndoubt\u0097it has no light and no air, but is an absolute dungeon. Wait where\nyou are, and take note of what happens.\"\n\nThat was all. Then she and her parents left us. When their footfalls\nhad died out in the distance down the empty stone corridors an uncanny\nsilence and solemnity ensued which was dismaler to me than the mute\nmarch past the bastilles. We sat looking vacantly at each other, and it\nwas easy to see that no one there was comfortable. The longer we sat so,\nthe more deadly still that stillness got to be; and when the wind began\nto moan around the house presently, it made me sick and miserable, and\nI wished I had been brave enough to be a coward this time, for indeed\nit is no proper shame to be afraid of ghosts, seeing how helpless the\nliving are in their hands. And then these ghosts were invisible, which\nmade the matter the worse, as it seemed to me. They might be in the\nroom with us at that moment\u0097we could not know. I felt airy touches on my\nshoulders and my hair, and I shrank from them and cringed, and was not\nashamed to show this fear, for I saw the others doing the like, and knew\nthat they were feeling those faint contacts too. As this went on\u0097oh,\neternities it seemed, the time dragged so drearily\u0097all those faces\nbecame as wax, and I seemed sitting with a congress of the dead.\n\nAt last, faint and far and weird and slow, came a \"boom!\u0097boom!\u0097boom!\"\u0097a\ndistant bell tolling midnight. When the last stroke died, that\ndepressing stillness followed again, and as before I was staring at\nthose waxen faces and feeling those airy touches on my hair and my\nshoulders once more.\n\nOne minute\u0097two minutes\u0097three minutes of this, then we heard a long deep\ngroan, and everybody sprang up and stood, with his legs quaking. It\ncame from that little dungeon. There was a pause, then we herd muffled\nsobbings, mixed with pitiful ejaculations. Then there was a second\nvoice, low and not distinct, and the one seemed trying to comfort the\nother; and so the two voices went on, with moanings, and soft sobbings,\nand, ah, the tones were so full of compassion and sorry and despair!\nIndeed, it made one's heart sore to hear it.\n\nBut those sounds were so real and so human and so moving that the idea\nof ghosts passed straight out of our minds, and Sir Jean de Metz spoke\nout and said:\n\n\"Come! we will smash that wall and set those poor captives free. Here,\nwith your ax!\"\n\nThe Dwarf jumped forward, swinging his great ax with both hands, and\nothers sprang for torches and brought them.\n\nBang!\u0097whang!\u0097slam!\u0097smash went the ancient bricks, and there was a hole\nan ox could pass through. We plunged within and held up the torches.\n\nNothing there but vacancy! On the floor lay a rusty sword and a rotten\nfan.\n\nNow you know all that I know. Take the pathetic relics, and weave about\nthem the romance of the dungeon's long-vanished inmates as best you can.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 20 Joan Makes Cowards Brave Victors\n\nTHE NEXT day Joan wanted to go against the enemy again, but it was the\nfeast of the Ascension, and the holy council of bandit generals were\ntoo pious to be willing to profane it with bloodshed. But privately they\nprofaned it with plottings, a sort of industry just in their line. They\ndecided to do the only thing proper to do now in the new circumstances\nof the case\u0097feign an attack on the most important bastille on the\nOrleans side, and then, if the English weakened the far more important\nfortresses on the other side of the river to come to its help, cross in\nforce and capture those works. This would give them the bridge and free\ncommunication with the Sologne, which was French territory. They decided\nto keep this latter part of the program secret from Joan.\n\nJoan intruded and took them by surprise. She asked them what they were\nabout and what they had resolved upon. They said they had resolved to\nattack the most important of the English bastilles on the Orleans side\nnext morning\u0097and there the spokesman stopped. Joan said:\n\n\"Well, go on.\"\n\n\"There is nothing more. That is all.\"\n\n\"Am I to believe this? That is to say, am I to believe that you have\nlost your wits?\" She turned to Dunois, and said, \"Bastard, you have\nsense, answer me this: if this attack is made and the bastille taken,\nhow much better off would we be than we are now?\"\n\nThe Bastard hesitated, and then began some rambling talk not quite\ngermane to the question. Joan interrupted him and said:\n\n\"That will not do, good Bastard, you have answered. Since the Bastard is\nnot able to mention any advantage to be gained by taking that bastille\nand stopping there, it is not likely that any of you could better\nthe matter. You waste much time here in inventing plans that lead\nto nothing, and making delays that are a damage. Are you concealing\nsomething from me? Bastard, this council has a general plan, I take it;\nwithout going into details, what is it?\"\n\n\"It is the same it was in the beginning, seven months ago\u0097to get\nprovisions for a long siege, then sit down and tire the English out.\"\n\n\"In the name of God! As if seven months was not enough, you want\nto provide for a year of it. Now ye shall drop these pusillanimous\ndreams\u0097the English shall go in three days!\"\n\nSeveral exclaimed:\n\n\"Ah, General, General, be prudent!\"\n\n\"Be prudent and starve? Do ye call that war? I tell you this, if you\ndo not already know it: The new circumstances have changed the face of\nmatters. The true point of attack has shifted; it is on the other side\nof the river now. One must take the fortifications that command the\nbridge. The English know that if we are not fools and cowards we will\ntry to do that. They are grateful for your piety in wasting this day.\nThey will reinforce the bridge forts from this side to-night, knowing\nwhat ought to happen to-morrow. You have but lost a day and made our\ntask harder, for we will cross and take the bridge forts. Bastard, tell\nme the truth\u0097does not this council know that there is no other course\nfor us than the one I am speaking of?\"\n\nDunois conceded that the council did know it to be the most desirable,\nbut considered it impracticable; and he excused the council as well as\nhe could by saying that inasmuch as nothing was really and rationally to\nbe hoped for but a long continuance of the siege and wearying out of\nthe English, they were naturally a little afraid of Joan's impetuous\nnotions. He said:\n\n\"You see, we are sure that the waiting game is the best, whereas you\nwould carry everything by storm.\"\n\n\"That I would!\u0097and moreover that I will! You have my orders\u0097here and\nnow. We will move upon the forts of the south bank to-morrow at dawn.\"\n\n\"And carry them by storm?\"\n\n\"Yes, carry them by storm!\"\n\nLa Hire came clanking in, and heard the last remark. He cried out:\n\n\"By my baton, that is the music I love to hear! Yes, that is the right\ntime and the beautiful words, my General\u0097we will carry them by storm!\"\n\nHe saluted in his large way and came up and shook Joan by the hand.\n\nSome member of the council was heard to say:\n\n\"It follows, then, that we must begin with the bastille St. John, and\nthat will give the English time to\u0097\"\n\nJoan turned and said:\n\n\"Give yourselves no uneasiness about the bastille St. John. The English\nwill know enough to retire from it and fall back on the bridge bastilles\nwhen they see us coming.\" She added, with a touch of sarcasm, \"Even a\nwar-council would know enough to do that itself.\"\n\nThen she took her leave. La Hire made this general remark to the\ncouncil:\n\n\"She is a child, and that is all ye seem to see. Keep to that\nsuperstition if you must, but you perceive that this child understands\nthis complex game of war as well as any of you; and if you want my\nopinion without the trouble of asking for it, here you have it without\nruffles or embroidery\u0097by God, I think she can teach the best of you how\nto play it!\"\n\nJoan had spoken truly; the sagacious English saw that the policy of\nthe French had undergone a revolution; that the policy of paltering and\ndawdling was ended; that in place of taking blows, blows were ready to\nbe struck now; therefore they made ready for the new state of things\nby transferring heavy reinforcements to the bastilles of the south bank\nfrom those of the north.\n\nThe city learned the great news that once more in French history, after\nall these humiliating years, France was going to take the offensive;\nthat France, so used to retreating, was going to advance; that France,\nso long accustomed to skulking, was going to face about and strike. The\njoy of the people passed all bounds. The city walls were black with\nthem to see the army march out in the morning in that strange new\nposition\u0097its front, not its tail, toward an English camp. You shall\nimagine for yourselves what the excitement was like and how it expressed\nitself, when Joan rode out at the head of the host with her banner\nfloating above her.\n\nWe crossed the five in strong force, and a tedious long job it was, for\nthe boats were small and not numerous. Our landing on the island of St.\nAignan was not disputed. We threw a bridge of a few boats across the\nnarrow channel thence to the south shore and took up our march in\ngood order and unmolested; for although there was a fortress there\u0097St.\nJohn\u0097the English vacated and destroyed it and fell back on the bridge\nforts below as soon as our first boats were seen to leave the Orleans\nshore; which was what Joan had said would happen, when she was disputing\nwith the council.\n\nWe moved down the shore and Joan planted her standard before the\nbastille of the Augustins, the first of the formidable works that\nprotected the end of the bridge. The trumpets sounded the assault, and\ntwo charges followed in handsome style; but we were too weak, as yet,\nfor our main body was still lagging behind. Before we could gather for a\nthird assault the garrison of St. Prive were seen coming up to reinforce\nthe big bastille. They came on a run, and the Augustins sallied out, and\nboth forces came against us with a rush, and sent our small army flying\nin a panic, and followed us, slashing and slaying, and shouting jeers\nand insults at us.\n\nJoan was doing her best to rally the men, but their wits were gone,\ntheir hearts were dominated for the moment by the old-time dread of\nthe English. Joan's temper flamed up, and she halted and commanded the\ntrumpets to sound the advance. Then she wheeled about and cried out:\n\n\"If there is but a dozen of you that are not cowards, it is\nenough\u0097follow me!\"\n\nAway she went, and after her a few dozen who had heard her words and\nbeen inspired by them. The pursuing force was astonished to see her\nsweeping down upon them with this handful of men, and it was their turn\nnow to experience a grisly fright\u0097surely this is a witch, this is a\nchild of Satan! That was their thought\u0097and without stopping to analyze\nthe matter they turned and fled in a panic.\n\nOur flying squadrons heard the bugle and turned to look; and when they\nsaw the Maid's banner speeding in the other direction and the enemy\nscrambling ahead of it in disorder, their courage returned and they came\nscouring after us.\n\nLa Hire heard it and hurried his force forward and caught up with us\njust as we were planting our banner again before the ramparts of the\nAugustins. We were strong enough now. We had a long and tough piece of\nwork before us, but we carried it through before night, Joan keeping\nus hard at it, and she and La Hire saying we were able to take that big\nbastille, and must. The English fought like\u0097well, they fought like the\nEnglish; when that is said, there is no more to say. We made\nassault after assault, through the smoke and flame and the deafening\ncannon-blasts, and at last as the sun was sinking we carried the place\nwith a rush, and planted our standard on its walls.\n\nThe Augustins was ours. The Tourelles must be ours, too, if we\nwould free the bridge and raise the siege. We had achieved one great\nundertaking, Joan was determined to accomplish the other. We must lie on\nour arms where we were, hold fast to what we had got, and be ready\nfor business in the morning. So Joan was not minded to let the men be\ndemoralized by pillage and riot and carousings; she had the Augustins\nburned, with all its stores in it, excepting the artillery and\nammunition.\n\nEverybody was tired out with this long day's hard work, and of course\nthis was the case with Joan; still, she wanted to stay with the army\nbefore the Tourelles, to be ready for the assault in the morning. The\nchiefs argued with her, and at last persuaded her to go home and prepare\nfor the great work by taking proper rest, and also by having a leech\nlook to a wound which she had received in her foot. So we crossed with\nthem and went home.\n\nJust as usual, we found the town in a fury of joy, all the bells\nclanging, everybody shouting, and several people drunk. We never went\nout or came in without furnishing good and sufficient reasons for one\nof these pleasant tempests, and so the tempest was always on hand. There\nhad been a blank absence of reasons for this sort of upheavals for the\npast seven months, therefore the people too to the upheavals with all\nthe more relish on that account.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 21 She Gently Reproves Her Dear Friend\n\nTO GET away from the usual crowd of visitors and have a rest, Joan\nwent with Catherine straight to the apartment which the two occupied\ntogether, and there they took their supper and there the wound was\ndressed. But then, instead of going to bed, Joan, weary as she was, sent\nthe Dwarf for me, in spite of Catherine's protests and persuasions. She\nsaid she had something on her mind, and must send a courier to Domremy\nwith a letter for our old Pere Fronte to read to her mother. I came,\nand she began to dictate. After some loving words and greetings to her\nmother and family, came this:\n\n\"But the thing which moves me to write now, is to say that when you\npresently hear that I am wounded, you shall give yourself no concern\nabout it, and refuse faith to any that shall try to make you believe it\nis serious.\"\n\nShe was going on, when Catherine spoke up and said:\n\n\"Ah, but it will fright her so to read these words. Strike them out,\nJoan, strike them out, and wait only one day\u0097two days at most\u0097then write\nand say your foot was wounded but is well again\u0097for it surely be well\nthen, or very near it. Don't distress her, Joan; do as I say.\"\n\nA laugh like the laugh of the old days, the impulsive free laugh of an\nuntroubled spirit, a laugh like a chime of bells, was Joan's answer;\nthen she said:\n\n\"My foot? Why should I write about such a scratch as that? I was not\nthinking of it, dear heart.\"\n\n\"Child, have you another wound and a worse, and have not spoken of it?\nWhat have you been dreaming about, that you\u0097\"\n\nShe had jumped up, full of vague fears, to have the leech called back at\nonce, but Joan laid her hand upon her arm and made her sit down again,\nsaying:\n\n\"There, now, be tranquil, there is no other wound, as yet; I am writing\nabout one which I shall get when we storm that bastille tomorrow.\"\n\nCatherine had the look of one who is trying to understand a puzzling\nproposition but cannot quite do it. She said, in a distraught fashion:\n\n\"A wound which you are going to get? But\u0097but why grieve your mother when\nit\u0097when it may not happen?\"\n\n\"May not? Why, it will.\"\n\nThe puzzle was a puzzle still. Catherine said in that same abstracted\nway as before:\n\n\"Will. It is a strong word. I cannot seem to\u0097my mind is not able to take\nhold of this. Oh, Joan, such a presentiment is a dreadful thing\u0097it takes\none's peace and courage all away. Cast it from you!\u0097drive it out! It\nwill make your whole night miserable, and to no good; for we will hope\u0097\"\n\n\"But it isn't a presentiment\u0097it is a fact. And it will not make\nme miserable. It is uncertainties that do that, but this is not an\nuncertainty.\"\n\n\"Joan, do you know it is going to happen?\"\n\n\"Yes, I know it. My Voices told me.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" said Catherine, resignedly, \"if they told you\u0097But are you sure it\nwas they?\u0097quite sure?\"\n\n\"Yes, quite. It will happen\u0097there is no doubt.\"\n\n\"It is dreadful! Since when have you know it?\"\n\n\"Since\u0097I think it is several weeks.\" Joan turned to me. \"Louis, you will\nremember. How long is it?\"\n\n\"Your Excellency spoke of it first to the King, in Chinon,\" I answered;\n\"that was as much as seven weeks ago. You spoke of it again the 20th of\nApril, and also the 22d, two weeks ago, as I see by my record here.\"\n\nThese marvels disturbed Catherine profoundly, but I had long ceased\nto be surprised at them. One can get used to anything in this world.\nCatherine said:\n\n\"And it is to happen to-morrow?\u0097always to-morrow? Is it the same date\nalways? There has been no mistake, and no confusion?\"\n\n\"No,\" Joan said, \"the 7th of May is the date\u0097there is no other.\"\n\n\"Then you shall not go a step out of this house till that awful day is\ngone by! You will not dream of it, Joan, will you?\u0097promise that you will\nstay with us.\"\n\nBut Joan was not persuaded. She said:\n\n\"It would not help the matter, dear good friend. The wound is to come,\nand come to-morrow. If I do not seek it, it will seek me. My duty calls\nme to that place to-morrow; I should have to go if my death were waiting\nfor me there; shall I stay away for only a wound? Oh, no, we must try to\ndo better than that.\"\n\n\"Then you are determined to go?\"\n\n\"Of a certainty, yes. There is only one thing that I can do for\nFrance\u0097hearten her soldiers for battle and victory.\" She thought a\nmoment, then added, \"However, one should not be unreasonable, and I\nwould do much to please you, who are so good to me. Do you love France?\"\n\nI wondered what she might be contriving now, but I saw no clue.\nCatherine said, reproachfully:\n\n\"Ah, what have I done to deserve this question?\"\n\n\"Then you do love France. I had not doubted it, dear. Do not be hurt,\nbut answer me\u0097have you ever told a lie?\"\n\n\"In my life I have not wilfully told a lie\u0097fibs, but no lies.\"\n\n\"That is sufficient. You love France and do not tell lies; therefore I\nwill trust you. I will go or I will stay, as you shall decide.\"\n\n\"Oh, I thank you from my heart, Joan! How good and dear it is of you to\ndo this for me! Oh, you shall stay, and not go!\"\n\nIn her delight she flung her arms about Joan's neck and squandered\nendearments upon her the least of which would have made me rich, but, as\nit was, they only made me realize how poor I was\u0097how miserably poor in\nwhat I would most have prized in this world. Joan said:\n\n\"Then you will send word to my headquarters that I am not going?\"\n\n\"Oh, gladly. Leave that to me.\"\n\n\"It is good of you. And how will you word it?\u0097for it must have proper\nofficial form. Shall I word it for you?\"\n\n\"Oh, do\u0097for you know about these solemn procedures and stately\nproprieties, and I have had no experience.\"\n\n\"Then word it like this: 'The chief of staff is commanded to make\nknown to the King's forces in garrison and in the field, that the\nGeneral-in-Chief of the Armies of France will not face the English on\nthe morrow, she being afraid she may get hurt. Signed, JOAN OF ARC, by\nthe hand of CATHERINE BOUCHER, who loves France.'\"\n\nThere was a pause\u0097a silence of the sort that tortures one into stealing\na glance to see how the situation looks, and I did that. There was a\nloving smile on Joan's face, but the color was mounting in crimson waves\ninto Catherine's, and her lips were quivering and the tears gathering;\nthen she said:\n\n\"Oh, I am so ashamed of myself!\u0097and you are so noble and brave and wise,\nand I am so paltry\u0097so paltry and such a fool!\" and she broke down and\nbegan to cry, and I did so want to take her in my arms and comfort her,\nbut Joan did it, and of course I said nothing. Joan did it well, and\nmost sweetly and tenderly, but I could have done it as well, though I\nknew it would be foolish and out of place to suggest such a thing, and\nmight make an awkwardness, too, and be embarrassing to us all, so I did\nnot offer, and I hope I did right and for the best, though I could\nnot know, and was many times tortured with doubts afterward as having\nperhaps let a chance pass which might have changed all my life and made\nit happier and more beautiful than, alas, it turned out to be. For this\nreason I grieve yet, when I think of that scene, and do not like to call\nit up out of the deeps of my memory because of the pangs it brings.\n\nWell, well, a good and wholesome thing is a little harmless fun in this\nworld; it tones a body up and keeps him human and prevents him from\nsouring. To set that little trap for Catherine was as good and effective\na way as any to show her what a grotesque thing she was asking of Joan.\nIt was a funny idea now, wasn't it, when you look at it all around? Even\nCatherine dried up her tears and laughed when she thought of the English\ngetting hold of the French Commander-in-Chief's reason for staying out\nof a battle. She granted that they could have a good time over a thing\nlike that.\n\nWe got to work on the letter again, and of course did not have to strike\nout the passage about the wound. Joan was in fine spirits; but when\nshe got to sending messages to this, that, and the other playmate and\nfriend, it brought our village and the Fairy Tree and the flowery plain\nand the browsing sheep and all the peaceful beauty of our old humble\nhome-place back, and the familiar names began to tremble on her lips;\nand when she got to Haumette and Little Mengette it was no use, her\nvoice broke and she couldn't go on. She waited a moment, then said:\n\n\"Give them my love\u0097my warm love\u0097my deep love\u0097oh, out of my heart of\nhearts! I shall never see our home any more.\"\n\nNow came Pasquerel, Joan's confessor, and introduced a gallant knight,\nthe Sire de Rais, who had been sent with a message. He said he was\ninstructed to say that the council had decided that enough had been done\nfor the present; that it would be safest and best to be content with\nwhat God had already done; that the city was now well victualed and\nable to stand a long siege; that the wise course must necessarily be\nto withdraw the troops from the other side of the river and resume the\ndefensive\u0097therefore they had decided accordingly.\n\n\"The incurable cowards!\" exclaimed Joan. \"So it was to get me away from\nmy men that they pretended so much solicitude about my fatigue. Take\nthis message back, not to the council\u0097I have no speeches for those\ndisguised ladies' maids\u0097but to the Bastard and La Hire, who are men.\nTell them the army is to remain where it is, and I hold them responsible\nif this command miscarries. And say the offensive will be resumed in the\nmorning. You may go, good sir.\"\n\nThen she said to her priest:\n\n\"Rise early, and be by me all the day. There will be much work on my\nhands, and I shall be hurt between my neck and my shoulder.\"\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 22 The Fate of France Decided\n\nWE WERE up at dawn, and after mass we started. In the hall we met\nthe master of the house, who was grieved, good man, to see Joan going\nbreakfastless to such a day's work, and begged her to wait and eat, but\nshe couldn't afford the time\u0097that is to say, she couldn't afford the\npatience, she being in such a blaze of anxiety to get at that last\nremaining bastille which stood between her and the completion of the\nfirst great step in the rescue and redemption of France. Boucher put in\nanother plea:\n\n\"But think\u0097we poor beleaguered citizens who have hardly known the flavor\nof fish for these many months, have spoil of that sort again, and we owe\nit to you. There's a noble shad for breakfast; wait\u0097be persuaded.\"\n\nJoan said:\n\n\"Oh, there's going to be fish in plenty; when this day's work is done\nthe whole river-front will be yours to do as you please with.\"\n\n\"Ah, your Excellency will do well, that I know; but we don't require\nquite that much, even of you; you shall have a month for it in place of\na day. Now be beguiled\u0097wait and eat. There's a saying that he that would\ncross a river twice in the same day in a boat, will do well to eat fish\nfor luck, lest he have an accident.\"\n\n\"That doesn't fit my case, for to-day I cross but once in a boat.\"\n\n\"Oh, don't say that. Aren't you coming back to us?\"\n\n\"Yes, but not in a boat.\"\n\n\"How, then?\"\n\n\"By the bridge.\"\n\n\"Listen to that\u0097by the bridge! Now stop this jesting, dear General, and\ndo as I would have done you. It's a noble fish.\"\n\n\"Be good then, and save me some for supper; and I will bring one of\nthose Englishmen with me and he shall have his share.\"\n\n\"Ah, well, have your way if you must. But he that fasts must attempt but\nlittle and stop early. When shall you be back?\"\n\n\"When we've raised the siege of Orleans. FORWARD!\"\n\nWe were off. The streets were full of citizens and of groups and squads\nof soldiers, but the spectacle was melancholy. There was not a smile\nanywhere, but only universal gloom. It was as if some vast calamity\nhad smitten all hope and cheer dead. We were not used to this, and were\nastonished. But when they saw the Maid, there was an immediate stir, and\nthe eager question flew from mouth to mouth.\n\n\"Where is she going? Whither is she bound?\"\n\nJoan heard it, and called out:\n\n\"Whither would ye suppose? I am going to take the Tourelles.\"\n\nIt would not be possible for any to describe how those few words turned\nthat mourning into joy\u0097into exaltation\u0097into frenzy; and how a storm of\nhuzzas burst out and swept down the streets in every direction and woke\nthose corpse-like multitudes to vivid life and action and turmoil in\na moment. The soldiers broke from the crowd and came flocking to our\nstandard, and many of the citizens ran and got pikes and halberds and\njoined us. As we moved on, our numbers increased steadily, and the\nhurrahing continued\u0097yes, we moved through a solid cloud of noise, as you\nmay say, and all the windows on both sides contributed to it, for they\nwere filled with excited people.\n\nYou see, the council had closed the Burgundy gate and placed a strong\nforce there, under that stout soldier Raoul de Gaucourt, Bailly of\nOrleans, with orders to prevent Joan from getting out and resuming the\nattack on the Tourelles, and this shameful thing had plunged the city\ninto sorrow and despair. But that feeling was gone now. They believed\nthe Maid was a match for the council, and they were right.\n\nWhen we reached the gate, Joan told Gaucourt to open it and let her\npass.\n\nHe said it would be impossible to do this, for his orders were from the\ncouncil and were strict. Joan said:\n\n\"There is no authority above mine but the King's. If you have an order\nfrom the King, produce it.\"\n\n\"I cannot claim to have an order from him, General.\"\n\n\"Then make way, or take the consequences!\"\n\nHe began to argue the case, for he was like the rest of the tribe,\nalways ready to fight with words, not acts; but in the midst of his\ngabble Joan interrupted with the terse order:\n\n\"Charge!\"\n\nWe came with a rush, and brief work we made of that small job. It was\ngood to see the Bailly's surprise. He was not used to this unsentimental\npromptness. He said afterward that he was cut off in the midst of what\nhe was saying\u0097in the midst of an argument by which he could have proved\nthat he could not let Joan pass\u0097an argument which Joan could not have\nanswered.\n\n\"Still, it appears she did answer it,\" said the person he was talking\nto.\n\nWe swung through the gate in great style, with a vast accession of\nnoise, the most of which was laughter, and soon our van was over the\nriver and moving down against the Tourelles.\n\nFirst we must take a supporting work called a boulevard, and which was\notherwise nameless, before we could assault the great bastille. Its rear\ncommunicated with the bastille by a drawbridge, under which ran a\nswift and deep strip of the Loire. The boulevard was strong, and Dunois\ndoubted our ability to take it, but Joan had no such doubt. She pounded\nit with artillery all the forenoon, then about noon she ordered an\nassault and led it herself. We poured into the fosse through the smoke\nand a tempest of missiles, and Joan, shouting encouragements to her men,\nstarted to climb a scaling-ladder, when that misfortune happened which\nwe knew was to happen\u0097the iron bolt from an arbaquest struck between her\nneck and her shoulder, and tore its way down through her armor. When she\nfelt the sharp pain and saw her blood gushing over her breast, she was\nfrightened, poor girl, and as she sank to the ground she began to cry\nbitterly.\n\nThe English sent up a glad shout and came surging down in strong force\nto take her, and then for a few minutes the might of both adversaries\nwas concentrated upon that spot. Over her and above her, English and\nFrench fought with desperation\u0097for she stood for France, indeed she was\nFrance to both sides\u0097whichever won her won France, and could keep it\nforever. Right there in that small spot, and in ten minutes by the\nclock, the fate of France, for all time, was to be decided, and was\ndecided.\n\nIf the English had captured Joan then, Charles VII. would have flown the\ncountry, the Treaty of Troyes would have held good, and France, already\nEnglish property, would have become, without further dispute, an English\nprovince, to so remain until Judgment Day. A nationality and a kingdom\nwere at stake there, and no more time to decide it in than it takes to\nhard-boil an egg. It was the most momentous ten minutes that the clock\nhas ever ticked in France, or ever will. Whenever you read in histories\nabout hours or days or weeks in which the fate of one or another nation\nhung in the balance, do not you fail to remember, nor your French hearts\nto beat the quicker for the remembrance, the ten minutes that France,\ncalled otherwise Joan of Arc, lay bleeding in the fosse that day, with\ntwo nations struggling over her for her possession.\n\nAnd you will not forget the Dwarf. For he stood over her, and did the\nwork of any six of the others. He swung his ax with both hands; whenever\nit came down, he said those two words, \"For France!\" and a splintered\nhelmet flew like eggshells, and the skull that carried it had learned\nits manners and would offend the French no more. He piled a bulwark of\niron-clad dead in front of him and fought from behind it; and at last\nwhen the victory was ours we closed about him, shielding him, and he ran\nup a ladder with Joan as easily as another man would carry a child, and\nbore her out of the battle, a great crowd following and anxious, for she\nwas drenched with blood to her feet, half of it her own and the other\nhalf English, for bodies had fallen across her as she lay and had poured\ntheir red life-streams over her. One couldn't see the white armor now,\nwith that awful dressing over it.\n\nThe iron bolt was still in the wound\u0097some say it projected out behind\nthe shoulder. It may be\u0097I did not wish to see, and did not try to. It\nwas pulled out, and the pain made Joan cry again, poor thing. Some say\nshe pulled it out herself because others refused, saying they could not\nbear to hurt her. As to this I do not know; I only know it was pulled\nout, and that the wound was treated with oil and properly dressed.\n\nJoan lay on the grass, weak and suffering, hour after hour, but still\ninsisting that the fight go on. Which it did, but not to much purpose,\nfor it was only under her eye that men were heroes and not afraid. They\nwere like the Paladin; I think he was afraid of his shadow\u0097I mean in the\nafternoon, when it was very big and long; but when he was under Joan's\neye and the inspiration of her great spirit, what was he afraid of?\nNothing in this world\u0097and that is just the truth.\n\nToward night Dunois gave it up. Joan heard the bugles.\n\n\"What!\" she cried. \"Sounding the retreat!\"\n\nHer wound was forgotten in a moment. She countermanded the order, and\nsent another, to the officer in command of a battery, to stand ready to\nfire five shots in quick succession. This was a signal to the force on\nthe Orleans side of the river under La Hire, who was not, as some of\nthe histories say, with us. It was to be given whenever Joan should feel\nsure the boulevard was about to fall into her hands\u0097then that force must\nmake a counter-attack on the Tourelles by way of the bridge.\n\nJoan mounted her horse now, with her staff about her, and when our\npeople saw us coming they raised a great shout, and were at once eager\nfor another assault on the boulevard. Joan rode straight to the fosse\nwhere she had received her wound, and standing there in the rain of\nbolts and arrows, she ordered the Paladin to let her long standard blow\nfree, and to note when its fringes should touch the fortress. Presently\nhe said:\n\n\"It touches.\"\n\n\"Now, then,\" said Joan to the waiting battalions, \"the place is\nyours\u0097enter in! Bugles, sound the assault! Now, then\u0097all together\u0097go!\"\n\nAnd go it was. You never saw anything like it. We swarmed up the ladders\nand over the battlements like a wave\u0097and the place was our property.\nWhy, one might live a thousand years and never see so gorgeous a thing\nas that again. There, hand to hand, we fought like wild beasts, for\nthere was no give-up to those English\u0097there was no way to convince one\nof those people but to kill him, and even then he doubted. At least so\nit was thought, in those days, and maintained by many.\n\nWe were busy and never heard the five cannon-shots fired, but they were\nfired a moment after Joan had ordered the assault; and so, while we were\nhammering and being hammered in the smaller fortress, the reserve on the\nOrleans side poured across the bridge and attacked the Tourelles from\nthat side. A fire-boat was brought down and moored under the drawbridge\nwhich connected the Tourelles with our boulevard; wherefore, when at\nlast we drove our English ahead of us and they tried to cross that\ndrawbridge and join their friends in the Tourelles, the burning timbers\ngave way under them and emptied them in a mass into the river in their\nheavy armor\u0097and a pitiful sight it was to see brave men die such a death\nas that.\n\n\"Ah, God pity them!\" said Joan, and wept to see that sorrowful\nspectacle. She said those gentle words and wept those compassionate\ntears although one of those perishing men had grossly insulted her with\na coarse name three days before, when she had sent him a message asking\nhim to surrender. That was their leader, Sir Williams Glasdale, a most\nvalorous knight. He was clothed all in steel; so he plunged under water\nlike a lance, and of course came up no more.\n\nWe soon patched a sort of bridge together and threw ourselves against\nthe last stronghold of the English power that barred Orleans from\nfriends and supplies. Before the sun was quite down, Joan's forever\nmemorable day's work was finished, her banner floated from the fortress\nof the Tourelles, her promise was fulfilled, she had raised the siege of\nOrleans!\n\nThe seven months' beleaguerment was ended, the thing which the first\ngenerals of France had called impossible was accomplished; in spite of\nall that the King's ministers and war-councils could do to prevent it,\nthis little country-maid at seventeen had carried her immortal task\nthrough, and had done it in four days!\n\nGood news travels fast, sometimes, as well as bad. By the time we were\nready to start homeward by the bridge the whole city of Orleans was one\nred flame of bonfires, and the heavens blushed with satisfaction to see\nit; and the booming and bellowing of cannon and the banging of bells\nsurpassed by great odds anything that even Orleans had attempted before\nin the way of noise.\n\nWhen we arrived\u0097well, there is no describing that. Why, those acres\nof people that we plowed through shed tears enough to raise the river;\nthere was not a face in the glare of those fires that hadn't tears\nstreaming down it; and if Joan's feet had not been protected by iron\nthey would have kissed them off of her. \"Welcome! welcome to the Maid\nof Orleans!\" That was the cry; I heard it a hundred thousand times.\n\"Welcome to our Maid!\" some of them worded it.\n\nNo other girl in all history has ever reached such a summit of glory as\nJoan of Arc reached that day. And do you think it turned her head, and\nthat she sat up to enjoy that delicious music of homage and applause?\nNo; another girl would have done that, but not this one. That was the\ngreatest heart and the simplest that ever beat. She went straight to bed\nand to sleep, like any tired child; and when the people found she was\nwounded and would rest, they shut off all passage and traffic in that\nregion and stood guard themselves the whole night through, to see that\nhe slumbers were not disturbed. They said, \"She has given us peace, she\nshall have peace herself.\"\n\nAll knew that that region would be empty of English next day, and all\nsaid that neither the present citizens nor their posterity would ever\ncease to hold that day sacred to the memory of Joan of Arc. That word\nhas been true for more than sixty years; it will continue so always.\nOrleans will never forget the 8th of May, nor ever fail to celebrate it.\nIt is Joan of Arc's day\u0097and holy. (1)\n\n\n(1)It is still celebrated every year with civic and military pomps and\nsolemnities.\u0097TRANSLATOR.\n\n\n\n\nChapter 23 Joan Inspires the Tawdry King\n\nIN THE earliest dawn of morning, Talbot and his English forces evacuated\ntheir bastilles and marched away, not stopping to burn, destroy, or\ncarry off anything, but leaving their fortresses just as they were,\nprovisioned, armed, and equipped for a long siege. It was difficult for\nthe people to believe that this great thing had really happened; that\nthey were actually free once more, and might go and come through any\ngate they pleased, with none to molest or forbid; that the terrible\nTalbot, that scourge of the French, that man whose mere name had been\nable to annul the effectiveness of French armies, was gone, vanished,\nretreating\u0097driven away by a girl.\n\nThe city emptied itself. Out of every gate the crowds poured. They\nswarmed about the English bastilles like an invasion of ants, but\nnoisier than those creatures, and carried off the artillery and stores,\nthen turned all those dozen fortresses into monster bonfires, imitation\nvolcanoes whose lofty columns of thick smoke seemed supporting the arch\nof the sky.\n\nThe delight of the children took another form. To some of the younger\nones seven months was a sort of lifetime. They had forgotten what\ngrass was like, and the velvety green meadows seemed paradise to their\nsurprised and happy eyes after the long habit of seeing nothing but\ndirty lanes and streets. It was a wonder to them\u0097those spacious reaches\nof open country to run and dance and tumble and frolic in, after their\ndull and joyless captivity; so they scampered far and wide over the fair\nregions on both sides of the river, and came back at eventide weary,\nbut laden with flowers and flushed with new health drawn from the fresh\ncountry air and the vigorous exercise.\n\nAfter the burnings, the grown folk followed Joan from church to church\nand put in the day in thanksgivings for the city's deliverance, and at\nnight they feted her and her generals and illuminated the town, and high\nand low gave themselves up to festivities and rejoicings. By the time\nthe populace were fairly in bed, toward dawn, we were in the saddle and\naway toward Tours to report to the King.\n\nThat was a march which would have turned any one's head but Joan's. We\nmoved between emotional ranks of grateful country-people all the way.\nThey crowded about Joan to touch her feet, her horse, her armor, and\nthey even knelt in the road and kissed her horse's hoof-prints.\n\nThe land was full of her praises. The most illustrious chiefs of the\nchurch wrote to the King extolling the Maid, comparing her to the\nsaints and heroes of the Bible, and warning him not to let \"unbelief,\ningratitude, or other injustice\" hinder or impair the divine help sent\nthrough her. One might think there was a touch of prophecy in that,\nand we will let it go at that; but to my mind it had its inspiration\nin those great men's accurate knowledge of the King's trivial and\ntreacherous character.\n\nThe King had come to Tours to meet Joan. At the present day this poor\nthing is called Charles the Victorious, on account of victories which\nother people won for him, but in our time we had a private name for\nhim which described him better, and was sanctified to him by personal\ndeserving\u0097Charles the Base. When we entered the presence he sat throned,\nwith his tinseled snobs and dandies around him. He looked like a forked\ncarrot, so tightly did his clothing fit him from his waist down; he wore\nshoes with a rope-like pliant toe a foot long that had to be hitched up\nto the knee to keep it out of the way; he had on a crimson velvet cape\nthat came no lower than his elbows; on his head he had a tall felt thing\nlike a thimble, with a feather it its jeweled band that stuck up like a\npen from an inkhorn, and from under that thimble his bush of stiff hair\nstuck down to his shoulders, curving outward at the bottom, so that\nthe cap and the hair together made the head like a shuttlecock. All the\nmaterials of his dress were rich, and all the colors brilliant. In his\nlap he cuddled a miniature greyhound that snarled, lifting its lip and\nshowing its white teeth whenever any slight movement disturbed it. The\nKing's dandies were dressed in about the same fashion as himself,\nand when I remembered that Joan had called the war-council of Orleans\n\"disguised ladies' maids,\" it reminded me of people who squander all\ntheir money on a trifle and then haven't anything to invest when they\ncome across a better chance; that name ought to have been saved for\nthese creatures.\n\nJoan fell on her knees before the majesty of France, and the other\nfrivolous animal in his lap\u0097a sight which it pained me to see. What\nhad that man done for his country or for anybody in it, that she or any\nother person should kneel to him? But she\u0097she had just done the only\ngreat deed that had been done for France in fifty years, and had\nconsecrated it with the libation of her blood. The positions should have\nbeen reversed.\n\nHowever, to be fair, one must grant that Charles acquitted himself very\nwell for the most part, on that occasion\u0097very much better than he was\nin the habit of doing. He passed his pup to a courtier, and took off his\ncap to Joan as if she had been a queen. Then he stepped from his throne\nand raised her, and showed quite a spirited and manly joy and gratitude\nin welcoming her and thanking her for her extraordinary achievement\nin his service. My prejudices are of a later date than that. If he had\ncontinued as he was at that moment, I should not have acquired them.\n\nHe acted handsomely. He said:\n\n\"You shall not kneel to me, my matchless General; you have wrought\nroyally, and royal courtesies are your due.\" Noticing that she was pale,\nhe said, \"But you must not stand; you have lost blood for France, and\nyour wound is yet green\u0097come.\" He led her to a seat and sat down by her.\n\"Now, then, speak out frankly, as to one who owes you much and freely\nconfesses it before all this courtly assemblage. What shall be your\nreward? Name it.\"\n\nI was ashamed of him. And yet that was not fair, for how could he be\nexpected to know this marvelous child in these few weeks, when we who\nthought we had known her all her life were daily seeing the clouds\nuncover some new altitudes of her character whose existence was not\nsuspected by us before? But we are all that way: when we know a thing we\nhave only scorn for other people who don't happen to know it. And I was\nashamed of these courtiers, too, for the way they licked their chops,\nso to speak, as envying Joan her great chance, they not knowing her any\nbetter than the King did. A blush began to rise in Joan's cheeks at the\nthought that she was working for her country for pay, and she dropped\nher head and tried to hide her face, as girls always do when they find\nthemselves blushing; no one knows why they do, but they do, and the more\nthey blush the more they fail to get reconciled to it, and the more they\ncan't bear to have people look at them when they are doing it. The King\nmade it a great deal worse by calling attention to it, which is the\nunkindest thing a person can do when a girl is blushing; sometimes, when\nthere is a big crowd of strangers, it is even likely to make her cry if\nshe is as young as Joan was. God knows the reason for this, it is hidden\nfrom men. As for me, I would as soon blush as sneeze; in fact, I would\nrather. However, these meditations are not of consequence: I will go\non with what I was saying. The King rallied her for blushing, and this\nbrought up the rest of the blood and turned her face to fire. Then he\nwas sorry, seeing what he had done, and tried to make her comfortable by\nsaying the blush was exceeding becoming to her and not to mind it\u0097which\ncaused even the dog to notice it now, so of course the red in Joan's\nface turned to purple, and the tears overflowed and ran down\u0097I could\nhave told anybody that that would happen. The King was distressed, and\nsaw that the best thing to do would be to get away from this subject,\nso he began to say the finest kind of things about Joan's capture of\nthe Tourelles, and presently when she was more composed he mentioned the\nreward again and pressed her to name it. Everybody listened with anxious\ninterest to hear what her claim was going to be, but when her answer\ncame their faces showed that the thing she asked for was not what they\nhad been expecting.\n\n\"Oh, dear and gracious Dauphin, I have but one desire\u0097only one. If\u0097\"\n\n\"Do not be afraid, my child\u0097name it.\"\n\n\"That you will not delay a day. My army is strong and valiant, and eager\nto finish its work\u0097march with me to Rheims and receive your crown.\" You\ncould see the indolent King shrink, in his butterfly clothes.\n\n\"To Rheims\u0097oh, impossible, my General! We march through the heart of\nEngland's power?\"\n\nCould those be French faces there? Not one of them lighted in response\nto the girl's brave proposition, but all promptly showed satisfaction in\nthe King's objection. Leave this silken idleness for the rude contact of\nwar? None of these butterflies desired that. They passed their jeweled\ncomfit-boxes one to another and whispered their content in the head\nbutterfly's practical prudence. Joan pleaded with the King, saying:\n\n\"Ah, I pray you do not throw away this perfect opportunity. Everything\nis favorable\u0097everything. It is as if the circumstances were specially\nmade for it. The spirits of our army are exalted with victory, those of\nthe English forces depressed by defeat. Delay will change this. Seeing\nus hesitate to follow up our advantage, our men will wonder, doubt, lose\nconfidence, and the English will wonder, gather courage, and be bold\nagain. Now is the time\u0097pritheee let us march!\"\n\nThe King shook his head, and La Tremouille, being asked for an opinion,\neagerly furnished it:\n\n\"Sire, all prudence is against it. Think of the English strongholds\nalong the Loire; think of those that lie between us and Rheims!\"\n\nHe was going on, but Joan cut him short, and said, turning to him:\n\n\"If we wait, they will all be strengthened, reinforced. Will that\nadvantage us?\"\n\n\"Why\u0097no.\"\n\n\"Then what is your suggestion?\u0097what is it that you would propose to do?\"\n\n\"My judgment is to wait.\"\n\n\"Wait for what?\"\n\nThe minister was obliged to hesitate, for he knew of no explanation that\nwould sound well. Moreover, he was not used to being catechized in this\nfashion, with the eyes of a crowd of people on him, so he was irritated,\nand said:\n\n\"Matters of state are not proper matters for public discussion.\"\n\nJoan said placidly:\n\n\"I have to beg your pardon. My trespass came of ignorance. I did not\nknow that matters connected with your department of the government were\nmatters of state.\"\n\nThe minister lifted his brows in amused surprise, and said, with a touch\nof sarcasm:\n\n\"I am the King's chief minister, and yet you had the impression that\nmatters connected with my department are not matters of state? Pray, how\nis that?\"\n\nJoan replied, indifferently:\n\n\"Because there is no state.\"\n\n\"No state!\"\n\n\"No, sir, there is no state, and no use for a minister. France is shrunk\nto a couple of acres of ground; a sheriff's constable could take care of\nit; its affairs are not matters of state. The term is too large.\"\n\nThe King did not blush, but burst into a hearty, careless laugh, and the\ncourt laughed too, but prudently turned its head and did it silently. La\nTremouille was angry, and opened his mouth to speak, but the King put up\nhis hand, and said:\n\n\"There\u0097I take her under the royal protection. She has spoken the truth,\nthe ungilded truth\u0097how seldom I hear it! With all this tinsel on me and\nall this tinsel about me, I am but a sheriff after all\u0097a poor shabby\ntwo-acre sheriff\u0097and you are but a constable,\" and he laughed his\ncordial laugh again. \"Joan, my frank, honest General, will you name your\nreward? I would ennoble you. You shall quarter the crown and the lilies\nof France for blazon, and with them your victorious sword to defend\nthem\u0097speak the word.\"\n\nIt made an eager buzz of surprise and envy in the assemblage, but Joan\nshook her head and said:\n\n\"Ah, I cannot, dear and noble Dauphin. To be allowed to work for France,\nto spend one's self for France, is itself so supreme a reward that\nnothing can add to it\u0097nothing. Give me the one reward I ask, the dearest\nof all rewards, the highest in your gift\u0097march with me to Rheims and\nreceive your crown. I will beg it on my knees.\"\n\nBut the King put his hand on her arm, and there was a really brave\nawakening in his voice and a manly fire in his eye when he said:\n\n\"No, sit. You have conquered me\u0097it shall be as you\u0097\"\n\nBut a warning sign from his minister halted him, and he added, to the\nrelief of the court:\n\n\"Well, well, we will think of it, we will think it over and see. Does\nthat content you, impulsive little soldier?\"\n\nThe first part of the speech sent a glow of delight to Joan's face, but\nthe end of it quenched it and she looked sad, and the tears gathered\nin her eyes. After a moment she spoke out with what seemed a sort of\nterrified impulse, and said:\n\n\"Oh, use me; I beseech you, use me\u0097there is but little time!\"\n\n\"But little time?\"\n\n\"Only a year\u0097I shall last only a year.\"\n\n\"Why, child, there are fifty good years in that compact little body\nyet.\"\n\n\"Oh, you err, indeed you do. In one little year the end will come. Ah,\nthe time is so short, so short; the moments are flying, and so much to\nbe done. Oh, use me, and quickly\u0097it is life or death for France.\"\n\nEven those insects were sobered by her impassioned words. The King\nlooked very grave\u0097grave, and strongly impressed. His eyes lit suddenly\nwith an eloquent fire, and he rose and drew his sword and raised it\naloft; then he brought it slowly down upon Joan's shoulder and said:\n\n\"Ah, thou art so simple, so true, so great, so noble\u0097and by this\naccolade I join thee to the nobility of France, thy fitting place! And\nfor thy sake I do hereby ennoble all thy family and all thy kin; and all\ntheir descendants born in wedlock, not only in the male but also in the\nfemale line. And more!\u0097more! To distinguish thy house and honor it\nabove all others, we add a privilege never accorded to any before in the\nhistory of these dominions: the females of thy line shall have and hold\nthe right to ennoble their husbands when these shall be of inferior\ndegree.\" [Astonishment and envy flared up in every countenance when the\nwords were uttered which conferred this extraordinary grace. The\nKing paused and looked around upon these signs with quite evident\nsatisfaction.] \"Rise, Joan of Arc, now and henceforth surnamed Du Lis,\nin grateful acknowledgment of the good blow which you have struck\nfor the lilies of France; and they, and the royal crown, and your own\nvictorious sword, fit and fair company for each other, shall be grouped\nin you escutcheon and be and remain the symbol of your high nobility\nforever.\"\n\nAs my Lady Du Lis rose, the gilded children of privilege pressed forward\nto welcome her to their sacred ranks and call her by her new name; but\nshe was troubled, and said these honors were not meet for one of her\nlowly birth and station, and by their kind grace she would remain simple\nJoan of Arc, nothing more\u0097and so be called.\n\nNothing more! As if there could be anything more, anything higher,\nanything greater. My Lady Du Lis\u0097why, it was tinsel, petty, perishable.\nBut, JOAN OF ARC! The mere sound of it sets one's pulses leaping.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 24 Tinsel Trappings of Nobility\n\nIT WAS vexatious to see what a to-do the whole town, and next the whole\ncountry, made over the news. Joan of Arc ennobled by the King! People\nwent dizzy with wonder and delight over it. You cannot imagine how she\nwas gaped at, stared at, envied. Why, one would have supposed that some\ngreat and fortunate thing had happened to her. But we did not think any\ngreat things of it. To our minds no mere human hand could add a glory to\nJoan of Arc. To us she was the sun soaring in the heavens, and her new\nnobility a candle atop of it; to us it was swallowed up and lost in her\nown light. And she was as indifferent to it and as unconscious of it as\nthe other sun would have been.\n\nBut it was different with her brothers. They were proud and happy in\ntheir new dignity, which was quite natural. And Joan was glad it had\nbeen conferred, when she saw how pleased they were. It was a clever\nthought in the King to outflank her scruples by marching on them under\nshelter of her love for her family and her kin.\n\nJean and Pierre sported their coats-of-arms right away; and their\nsociety was courted by everybody, the nobles and commons alike. The\nStandard-Bearer said, with some touch of bitterness, that he could\nsee that they just felt good to be alive, they were so soaked with the\ncomfort of their glory; and didn't like to sleep at all, because when\nthey were asleep they didn't know they were noble, and so sleep was a\nclean loss of time. And then he said:\n\n\"They can't take precedence of me in military functions and state\nceremonies, but when it comes to civil ones and society affairs I judge\nthey'll cuddle coolly in behind you and the knights, and Noel and I will\nhave to walk behind them\u0097hey?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, \"I think you are right.\"\n\n\"I was just afraid of it\u0097just afraid of it,\" said the Standard-Bearer,\nwith a sigh. \"Afraid of it? I'm talking like a fool; of course I knew\nit. Yes, I was talking like a fool.\"\n\nNoel Rainguesson said, musingly:\n\n\"Yes, I noticed something natural about the tone of it.\"\n\nWe others laughed.\n\n\"Oh, you did, did you? You think you are very clever, don't you? I'll\ntake and wring your neck for you one of these days, Noel Rainguesson.\"\n\nThe Sieur de Metz said:\n\n\"Paladin, your fears haven't reached the top notch. They are away\nbelow the grand possibilities. Didn't it occur to you that in civil\nand society functions they will take precedence of all the rest of the\npersonal staff\u0097every one of us?\"\n\n\"Oh, come!\"\n\n\"You'll find it's so. Look at their escutcheon. Its chiefest feature is\nthe lilies of France. It's royal, man, royal\u0097do you understand the size\nof that? The lilies are there by authority of the King\u0097do you understand\nthe size of that? Though not in detail and in entirety, they do\nnevertheless substantially quarter the arms of France in their coat.\nImagine it! consider it! measure the magnitude of it! We walk in front\nof those boys? Bless you, we've done that for the last time. In my\nopinion there isn't a lay lord in this whole region that can walk in\nfront of them, except the Duke d'Alencon, prince of the blood.\"\n\nYou could have knocked the Paladin down with a feather. He seemed to\nactually turn pale. He worked his lips a moment without getting anything\nout; then it came:\n\n\"I didn't know that, nor the half of it; how could I? I've been an\nidiot. I see it now\u0097I've been an idiot. I met them this morning, and\nsung out hello to them just as I would to anybody. I didn't mean to\nbe ill-mannered, but I didn't know the half of this that you've been\ntelling. I've been an ass. Yes, that is all there is to it\u0097I've been an\nass.\"\n\nNoel Rainguesson said, in a kind of weary way:\n\n\"Yes, that is likely enough; but I don't see why you should seem\nsurprised at it.\"\n\n\"You don't, don't you? Well, why don't you?\"\n\n\"Because I don't see any novelty about it. With some people it is a\ncondition which is present all the time. Now you take a condition which\nis present all the time, and the results of that condition will be\nuniform; this uniformity of result will in time become monotonous;\nmonotonousness, by the law of its being, is fatiguing. If you had\nmanifested fatigue upon noticing that you had been an ass, that would\nhave been logical, that would have been rational; whereas it seems to me\nthat to manifest surprise was to be again an ass, because the condition\nof intellect that can enable a person to be surprised and stirred by\ninert monotonousness is a\u0097\"\n\n\"Now that is enough, Noel Rainguesson; stop where you are, before you\nget yourself into trouble. And don't bother me any more for some days or\na week an it please you, for I cannot abide your clack.\"\n\n\"Come, I like that! I didn't want to talk. I tried to get out of\ntalking. If you didn't want to hear my clack, what did you keep\nintruding your conversation on me for?\"\n\n\"I? I never dreamed of such a thing.\"\n\n\"Well, you did it, anyway. And I have a right to feel hurt, and I do\nfeel hurt, to have you treat me so. It seems to me that when a person\ngoads, and crowds, and in a manner forces another person to talk, it is\nneither very fair nor very good-mannered to call what he says clack.\"\n\n\"Oh, snuffle\u0097do! and break your heart, you poor thing. Somebody fetch\nthis sick doll a sugar-rag. Look you, Sir Jean de Metz, do you feel\nabsolutely certain about that thing?\"\n\n\"What thing?\"\n\n\"Why, that Jean and Pierre are going to take precedence of all the lay\nnoblesse hereabouts except the Duke d'Alencon?\"\n\n\"I think there is not a doubt of it.\"\n\nThe Standard-Bearer was deep in thoughts and dreams a few moments, then\nthe silk-and-velvet expanse of his vast breast rose and fell with a\nsigh, and he said:\n\n\"Dear, dear, what a lift it is! It just shows what luck can do. Well, I\ndon't care. I shouldn't care to be a painted accident\u0097I shouldn't value\nit. I am prouder to have climbed up to where I am just by sheer natural\nmerit than I would be to ride the very sun in the zenith and have to\nreflect that I was nothing but a poor little accident, and got shot up\nthere out of somebody else's catapult. To me, merit is everything\u0097in\nfact, the only thing. All else is dross.\"\n\nJust then the bugles blew the assembly, and that cut our talk short.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 25 At Last\u0097Forward!\n\nTHE DAYS began to waste away\u0097and nothing decided, nothing done. The army\nwas full of zeal, but it was also hungry. It got no pay, the treasury\nwas getting empty, it was becoming impossible to feed it; under pressure\nof privation it began to fall apart and disperse\u0097which pleased the\ntrifling court exceedingly. Joan's distress was pitiful to see. She was\nobliged to stand helpless while her victorious army dissolved away until\nhardly the skeleton of it was left.\n\nAt last one day she went to the Castle of Loches, where the King was\nidling. She found him consulting with three of his councilors, Robert le\nMaton, a former Chancellor of France, Christophe d'Harcourt, and Gerard\nMachet. The Bastard of Orleans was present also, and it is through him\nthat we know what happened. Joan threw herself at the King's feet and\nembraced his knees, saying:\n\n\"Noble Dauphin, prithee hold no more of these long and numerous\ncouncils, but come, and come quickly, to Rheims and receive your crown.\"\n\nChristophe d'Harcourt asked:\n\n\"Is it your Voices that command you to say that to the King?\"\n\n\"Yes, and urgently.\"\n\n\"Then will you not tell us in the King's presence in what way the Voices\ncommunicate with you?\"\n\nIt was another sly attempt to trap Joan into indiscreet admissions and\ndangerous pretensions. But nothing came of it. Joan's answer was simple\nand straightforward, and the smooth Bishop was not able to find any\nfault with it. She said that when she met with people who doubted the\ntruth of her mission she went aside and prayed, complaining of the\ndistrust of these, and then the comforting Voices were heard at her\near saying, soft and low, \"Go forward, Daughter of God, and I will help\nthee.\" Then she added, \"When I hear that, the joy in my heart, oh, it is\ninsupportable!\"\n\nThe Bastard said that when she said these words her face lit up as with\na flame, and she was like one in an ecstasy.\n\nJoan pleaded, persuaded, reasoned; gaining ground little by little, but\nopposed step by step by the council. She begged, she implored, leave to\nmarch. When they could answer nothing further, they granted that perhaps\nit had been a mistake to let the army waste away, but how could we help\nit now? how could we march without an army?\n\n\"Raise one!\" said Joan.\n\n\"But it will take six weeks.\"\n\n\"No matter\u0097begin! let us begin!\"\n\n\"It is too late. Without doubt the Duke of Bedford has been gathering\ntroops to push to the succor of his strongholds on the Loire.\"\n\n\"Yes, while we have been disbanding ours\u0097and pity 'tis. But we must\nthrow away no more time; we must bestir ourselves.\"\n\nThe King objected that he could not venture toward Rheims with those\nstrong places on the Loire in his path. But Joan said:\n\n\"We will break them up. Then you can march.\"\n\nWith that plan the King was willing to venture assent. He could sit\naround out of danger while the road was being cleared.\n\nJoan came back in great spirits. Straightway everything was stirring.\nProclamations were issued calling for men, a recruiting-camp was\nestablished at Selles in Berry, and the commons and the nobles began to\nflock to it with enthusiasm.\n\nA deal of the month of May had been wasted; and yet by the 6th of June\nJoan had swept together a new army and was ready to march. She had eight\nthousand men. Think of that. Think of gathering together such a body\nas that in that little region. And these were veteran soldiers, too. In\nfact, most of the men in France were soldiers, when you came to that;\nfor the wars had lasted generations now. Yes, most Frenchmen were\nsoldiers; and admirable runners, too, both by practice and inheritance;\nthey had done next to nothing but run for near a century. But that was\nnot their fault. They had had no fair and proper leadership\u0097at least\nleaders with a fair and proper chance. Away back, King and Court got the\nhabit of being treacherous to the leaders; then the leaders easily\ngot the habit of disobeying the King and going their own way, each for\nhimself and nobody for the lot. Nobody could win victories that way.\nHence, running became the habit of the French troops, and no wonder. Yet\nall that those troops needed in order to be good fighters was a leader\nwho would attend strictly to business\u0097a leader with all authority in his\nhands in place of a tenth of it along with nine other generals equipped\nwith an equal tenth apiece. They had a leader rightly clothed with\nauthority now, and with a head and heart bent on war of the most\nintensely businesslike and earnest sort\u0097and there would be results. No\ndoubt of that. They had Joan of Arc; and under that leadership their\nlegs would lose the art and mystery of running.\n\nYes, Joan was in great spirits. She was here and there and everywhere,\nall over the camp, by day and by night, pushing things. And wherever she\ncame charging down the lines, reviewing the troops, it was good to hear\nthem break out and cheer. And nobody could help cheering, she was such\na vision of young bloom and beauty and grace, and such an incarnation of\npluck and life and go! she was growing more and more ideally beautiful\nevery day, as was plain to be seen\u0097and these were days of development;\nfor she was well past seventeen now\u0097in fact, she was getting close upon\nseventeen and a half\u0097indeed, just a little woman, as you may say.\n\nThe two young Counts de Laval arrived one day\u0097fine young fellows allied\nto the greatest and most illustrious houses of France; and they could\nnot rest till they had seen Joan of Arc. So the King sent for them and\npresented them to her, and you may believe she filled the bill of their\nexpectations. When they heard that rich voice of hers they must have\nthought it was a flute; and when they saw her deep eyes and her face,\nand the soul that looked out of that face, you could see that the sight\nof her stirred them like a poem, like lofty eloquence, like martial\nmusic. One of them wrote home to his people, and in his letter he said,\n\"It seemed something divine to see her and hear her.\" Ah, yes, and it\nwas a true word. Truer word was never spoken.\n\nHe saw her when she was ready to begin her march and open the campaign,\nand this is what he said about it:\n\n\"She was clothed all in white armor save her head, and in her hand she\ncarried a little battle-ax; and when she was ready to mount her great\nblack horse he reared and plunged and would not let her. Then she said,\n'Lead him to the cross.' This cross was in front of the church close by.\nSo they led him there. Then she mounted, and he never budged, any more\nthan if he had been tied. Then she turned toward the door of the church\nand said, in her soft womanly voice, 'You, priests and people of the\nChurch, make processions and pray to God for us!' Then she spurred\naway, under her standard, with her little ax in her hand, crying\n'Forward\u0097march!' One of her brothers, who came eight days ago, departed\nwith her; and he also was clad all in white armor.\"\n\nI was there, and I saw it, too; saw it all, just as he pictures it.\nAnd I see it yet\u0097the little battle-ax, the dainty plumed cap, the\nwhite armor\u0097all in the soft June afternoon; I see it just as if it were\nyesterday. And I rode with the staff\u0097the personal staff\u0097the staff of\nJoan of Arc.\n\nThat young count was dying to go, too, but the King held him back for\nthe present. But Joan had made him a promise. In his letter he said:\n\n\"She told me that when the King starts for Rheims I shall go with him.\nBut God grant I may not have to wait till then, but may have a part in\nthe battles!\"\n\nShe made him that promise when she was taking leave of my lady the\nDuchess d'Alencon. The duchess was exacting a promise, so it seemed a\nproper time for others to do the like. The duchess was troubled for her\nhusband, for she foresaw desperate fighting; and she held Joan to her\nbreast, and stroked her hair lovingly, and said:\n\n\"You must watch over him, dear, and take care of him, and send him\nback to me safe. I require it of you; I will not let you go till you\npromise.\"\n\nJoan said:\n\n\"I give you the promise with all my heart; and it is not just words, it\nis a promise; you shall have him back without a hurt. Do you believe?\nAnd are you satisfied with me now?\"\n\nThe duchess could not speak, but she kissed Joan on the forehead; and so\nthey parted.\n\nWe left on the 6th and stopped over at Romorantin; then on the 9th Joan\nentered Orleans in state, under triumphal arches, with the welcoming\ncannon thundering and seas of welcoming flags fluttering in the breeze.\nThe Grand Staff rode with her, clothed in shining splendors of costume\nand decorations: the Duke d'Alencon; the Bastard of Orleans; the Sire\nde Boussac, Marshal of France; the Lord de Granville, Master of the\nCrossbowmen; the Sire de Culan, Admiral of France; Ambroise de Lor;\nEtienne de Vignoles, called La Hire; Gautier de Brusac, and other\nillustrious captains.\n\nIt was grand times; the usual shoutings and packed multitudes, the usual\ncrush to get sight of Joan; but at last we crowded through to our old\nlodgings, and I saw old Boucher and the wife and that dear Catherine\ngather Joan to their hearts and smother her with kisses\u0097and my heart\nached for her so! for I could have kissed Catherine better than anybody,\nand more and longer; yet was not thought of for that office, and I so\nfamished for it. Ah, she was so beautiful, and oh, so sweet! I had loved\nher the first day I ever saw her, and from that day forth she was sacred\nto me. I have carried her image in my heart for sixty-three years\u0097all\nlonely thee, yes, solitary, for it never has had company\u0097and I am grown\nso old, so old; but it, oh, it is as fresh and young and merry and\nmischievous and lovely and sweet and pure and witching and divine as\nit was when it crept in there, bringing benediction and peace to its\nhabitation so long ago, so long ago\u0097for it has not aged a day!\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 26 The Last Doubts Scattered\n\nTHIS TIME, as before, the King's last command to the generals was this:\n\"See to it that you do nothing without the sanction of the Maid.\" And\nthis time the command was obeyed; and would continue to be obeyed all\nthrough the coming great days of the Loire campaign.\n\nThat was a change! That was new! It broke the traditions. It shows you\nwhat sort of a reputation as a commander-in-chief the child had made for\nherself in ten days in the field. It was a conquering of men's doubts\nand suspicions and a capturing and solidifying of men's belief and\nconfidence such as the grayest veteran on the Grand Staff had not been\nable to achieve in thirty years. Don't you remember that when at sixteen\nJoan conducted her own case in a grim court of law and won it, the old\njudge spoke of her as \"this marvelous child\"? It was the right name, you\nsee.\n\nThese veterans were not going to branch out and do things without the\nsanction of the Maid\u0097that is true; and it was a great gain. But at the\nsame time there were some among them who still trembled at her new and\ndashing war tactics and earnestly desired to modify them. And so, during\nthe 10th, while Joan was slaving away at her plans and issuing order\nafter order with tireless industry, the old-time consultations and\narguings and speechifyings were going on among certain of the generals.\n\nIn the afternoon of that day they came in a body to hold one of these\ncouncils of war; and while they waited for Joan to join them they\ndiscussed the situation. Now this discussion is not set down in the\nhistories; but I was there, and I will speak of it, as knowing you will\ntrust me, I not being given to beguiling you with lies.\n\nGautier de Brusac was spokesman for the timid ones; Joan's side was\nresolutely upheld by d'Alencon, the Bastard, La Hire, the Admiral of\nFrance, the Marshal de Boussac, and all the other really important\nchiefs.\n\nDe Brusac argued that the situation was very grave; that Jargeau,\nthe first point of attack, was formidably strong; its imposing walls\nbristling with artillery; with seven thousand picked English veterans\nbehind them, and at their head the great Earl of Suffolk and his\ntwo redoubtable brothers, the De la Poles. It seemed to him that the\nproposal of Joan of Arc to try to take such a place by storm was a most\nrash and over-daring idea, and she ought to be persuaded to relinquish\nit in favor of the soberer and safer procedure of investment by regular\nsiege. It seemed to him that this fiery and furious new fashion of\nhurling masses of men against impregnable walls of stone, in defiance of\nthe established laws and usages of war, was\u0097\n\nBut he got no further. La Hire gave his plumed helm an impatient toss\nand burst out with:\n\n\"By God, she knows her trade, and none can teach it her!\"\n\nAnd before he could get out anything more, D'Alencon was on his feet,\nand the Bastard of Orleans, and a half a dozen others, all thundering at\nonce, and pouring out their indignant displeasure upon any and all\nthat might hold, secretly or publicly, distrust of the wisdom of the\nCommander-in-Chief. And when they had said their say, La Hire took a\nchance again, and said:\n\n\"There are some that never know how to change. Circumstances may change,\nbut those people are never able to see that they have got to change too,\nto meet those circumstances. All that they know is the one beaten\ntrack that their fathers and grandfathers have followed and that they\nthemselves have followed in their turn. If an earthquake come and rip\nthe land to chaos, and that beaten track now lead over precipices and\ninto morasses, those people can't learn that they must strike out a new\nroad\u0097no; they will march stupidly along and follow the old one, to death\nand perdition. Men, there's a new state of things; and a surpassing\nmilitary genius has perceived it with her clear eye. And a new road is\nrequired, and that same clear eye has noted where it must go, and has\nmarked it out for us. The man does not live, never has lived, never\nwill live, that can improve upon it! The old state of things was defeat,\ndefeat, defeat\u0097and by consequence we had troops with no dash, no heart,\nno hope. Would you assault stone walls with such? No\u0097there was but one\nway with that kind: sit down before a place and wait, wait\u0097starve it\nout, if you could. The new case is the very opposite; it is this: men\nall on fire with pluck and dash and vim and fury and energy\u0097a restrained\nconflagration! What would you do with it? Hold it down and let it\nsmolder and perish and go out? What would Joan of Arc do with it? Turn\nit loose, by the Lord God of heaven and earth, and let it swallow up the\nfoe in the whirlwind of its fires! Nothing shows the splendor and wisdom\nof her military genius like her instant comprehension of the size of the\nchange which has come about, and her instant perception of the right and\nonly right way to take advantage of it. With her is no sitting down and\nstarving out; no dilly-dallying and fooling around; no lazying, loafing,\nand going to sleep; no, it is storm! storm! storm! and still storm!\nstorm! storm! and forever storm! storm! storm! hunt the enemy to his\nhole, then turn her French hurricanes loose and carry him by storm!\nAnd that is my sort! Jargeau? What of Jargeau, with its battlements and\ntowers, its devastating artillery, its seven thousand picked veterans?\nJoan of Arc is to the fore, and by the splendor of God its fate is\nsealed!\"\n\nOh, he carried them. There was not another word said about persuading\nJoan to change her tactics. They sat talking comfortably enough after\nthat.\n\nBy and by Joan entered, and they rose and saluted with their swords, and\nshe asked what their pleasure might be. La Hire said:\n\n\"It is settled, my General. The matter concerned Jargeau. There were\nsome who thought we could not take the place.\"\n\nJoan laughed her pleasant laugh, her merry, carefree laugh; the laugh\nthat rippled so buoyantly from her lips and made old people feel young\nagain to hear it; and she said to the company:\n\n\"Have no fears\u0097indeed, there is no need nor any occasion for them. We\nwill strike the English boldly by assault, and you will see.\" Then a\nfaraway look came into her eyes, and I think that a picture of her home\ndrifted across the vision of her mind; for she said very gently, and as\none who muses, \"But that I know God guides us and will give us success,\nI had liefer keep sheep than endure these perils.\"\n\nWe had a homelike farewell supper that evening\u0097just the personal staff\nand the family. Joan had to miss it; for the city had given a banquet in\nher honor, and she had gone there in state with the Grand Staff, through\na riot of joy-bells and a sparkling Milky Way of illuminations.\n\nAfter supper some lively young folk whom we knew came in, and we\npresently forgot that we were soldiers, and only remembered that we\nwere boys and girls and full of animal spirits and long-pent fun; and so\nthere was dancing, and games, and romps, and screams of laughter\u0097just as\nextravagant and innocent and noisy a good time as ever I had in my life.\nDear, dear, how long ago it was!\u0097and I was young then. And outside, all\nthe while, was the measured tramp of marching battalions, belated odds\nand ends of the French power gathering for the morrow's tragedy on the\ngrim stage of war. Yes, in those days we had those contrasts side by\nside. And as I passed along to bed there was another one: the big Dwarf,\nin brave new armor, sat sentry at Joan's door\u0097the stern Spirit of War\nmade flesh, as it were\u0097and on his ample shoulder was curled a kitten\nasleep.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 27 How Joan Took Jargeau\n\nWE MADE a gallant show next day when we filed out through the frowning\ngates of Orleans, with banners flying and Joan and the Grand Staff in\nthe van of the long column. Those two young De Lavals were come now, and\nwere joined to the Grand Staff. Which was well; war being their proper\ntrade, for they were grandsons of that illustrious fighter Bertrand du\nGuesclin, Constable of France in earlier days. Louis de Bourbon, the\nMarshal de Rais, and the Vidame de Chartres were added also. We had a\nright to feel a little uneasy, for we knew that a force of five thousand\nmen was on its way under Sir John Fastolfe to reinforce Jargeau, but I\nthink we were not uneasy, nevertheless. In truth, that force was not yet\nin our neighborhood. Sir John was loitering; for some reason or other he\nwas not hurrying. He was losing precious time\u0097four days at Etampes, and\nfour more at Janville.\n\nWe reached Jargeau and began business at once. Joan sent forward a heavy\nforce which hurled itself against the outworks in handsome style, and\ngained a footing and fought hard to keep it; but it presently began to\nfall back before a sortie from the city. Seeing this, Joan raised her\nbattle-cry and led a new assault herself under a furious artillery fire.\nThe Paladin was struck down at her side wounded, but she snatched her\nstandard from his failing hand and plunged on through the ruck of flying\nmissiles, cheering her men with encouraging cries; and then for a good\ntime one had turmoil, and clash of steel, and collision and confusion\nof struggling multitudes, and the hoarse bellowing of the guns; and\nthen the hiding of it all under a rolling firmament of smoke\u0097a firmament\nthrough which veiled vacancies appeared for a moment now and then,\ngiving fitful dim glimpses of the wild tragedy enacting beyond; and\nalways at these times one caught sight of that slight figure in white\nmail which was the center and soul of our hope and trust, and whenever\nwe saw that, with its back to us and its face to the fight, we knew that\nall was well. At last a great shout went up\u0097a joyous roar of shoutings,\nin fact\u0097and that was sign sufficient that the faubourgs were ours.\n\nYes, they were ours; the enemy had been driven back within the walls. On\nthe ground which Joan had won we camped; for night was coming on.\n\nJoan sent a summons to the English, promising that if they surrendered\nshe would allow them to go in peace and take their horses with them.\nNobody knew that she could take that strong place, but she knew it\u0097knew\nit well; yet she offered that grace\u0097offered it in a time when such a\nthing was unknown in war; in a time when it was custom and usage to\nmassacre the garrison and the inhabitants of captured cities without\npity or compunction\u0097yes, even to the harmless women and children\nsometimes. There are neighbors all about you who well remember the\nunspeakable atrocities which Charles the Bold inflicted upon the men and\nwomen and children of Dinant when he took that place some years ago. It\nwas a unique and kindly grace which Joan offered that garrison; but that\nwas her way, that was her loving and merciful nature\u0097she always did her\nbest to save her enemy's life and his soldierly pride when she had the\nmastery of him.\n\nThe English asked fifteen days' armistice to consider the proposal\nin. And Fastolfe coming with five thousand men! Joan said no. But she\noffered another grace: they might take both their horses and their\nside-arms\u0097but they must go within the hour.\n\nWell, those bronzed English veterans were pretty hard-headed folk. They\ndeclined again. Then Joan gave command that her army be made ready to\nmove to the assault at nine in the morning. Considering the deal of\nmarching and fighting which the men had done that day, D'Alencon thought\nthe hour rather early; but Joan said it was best so, and so must be\nobeyed. Then she burst out with one of those enthusiasms which were\nalways burning in her when battle was imminent, and said:\n\n\"Work! work! and God will work with us!\"\n\nYes, one might say that her motto was \"Work! stick to it; keep on\nworking!\" for in war she never knew what indolence was. And whoever will\ntake that motto and live by it will likely to succeed. There's many a\nway to win in this world, but none of them is worth much without good\nhard work back out of it.\n\nI think we should have lost our big Standard-Bearer that day, if our\nbigger Dwarf had not been at hand to bring him out of the melee when he\nwas wounded. He was unconscious, and would have been trampled to death\nby our own horse, if the Dwarf had not promptly rescued him and haled\nhim to the rear and safety. He recovered, and was himself again after\ntwo or three hours; and then he was happy and proud, and made the most\nof his wound, and went swaggering around in his bandages showing off\nlike an innocent big-child\u0097which was just what he was. He was prouder of\nbeing wounded than a really modest person would be of being killed. But\nthere was no harm in his vanity, and nobody minded it. He said he was\nhit by a stone from a catapult\u0097a stone the size of a man's head. But\nthe stone grew, of course. Before he got through with it he was claiming\nthat the enemy had flung a building at him.\n\n\"Let him alone,\" said Noel Rainguesson. \"Don't interrupt his processes.\nTo-morrow it will be a cathedral.\"\n\nHe said that privately. And, sure enough, to-morrow it was a cathedral.\nI never saw anybody with such an abandoned imagination.\n\nJoan was abroad at the crack of dawn, galloping here and there and\nyonder, examining the situation minutely, and choosing what she\nconsidered the most effective positions for her artillery; and with such\naccurate judgment did she place her guns that her Lieutenant-General's\nadmiration of it still survived in his memory when his testimony was\ntaken at the Rehabilitation, a quarter of a century later.\n\nIn this testimony the Duke d'Alencon said that at Jargeau that morning\nof the 12th of June she made her dispositions not like a novice, but\n\"with the sure and clear judgment of a trained general of twenty or\nthirty years' experience.\"\n\nThe veteran captains of the armies of France said she was great in war\nin all ways, but greatest of all in her genius for posting and handling\nartillery.\n\nWho taught the shepherd-girl to do these marvels\u0097she who could not read,\nand had had no opportunity to study the complex arts of war? I do not\nknow any way to solve such a baffling riddle as that, there being no\nprecedent for it, nothing in history to compare it with and examine\nit by. For in history there is no great general, however gifted, who\narrived at success otherwise than through able teaching and hard study\nand some experience. It is a riddle which will never be guessed. I think\nthese vast powers and capacities were born in her, and that she applied\nthem by an intuition which could not err.\n\nAt eight o'clock all movement ceased, and with it all sounds, all noise.\nA mute expectancy reigned. The stillness was something awful\u0097because it\nmeant so much. There was no air stirring. The flags on the towers and\nramparts hung straight down like tassels. Wherever one saw a person,\nthat person had stopped what he was doing, and was in a waiting\nattitude, a listening attitude. We were on a commanding spot, clustered\naround Joan. Not far from us, on every hand, were the lanes and humble\ndwellings of these outlying suburbs. Many people were visible\u0097all were\nlistening, not one was moving. A man had placed a nail; he was about\nto fasten something with it to the door-post of his shop\u0097but he had\nstopped. There was his hand reaching up holding the nail; and there\nwas his other hand in the act of striking with the hammer; but he had\nforgotten everything\u0097his head was turned aside listening. Even children\nunconsciously stopped in their play; I saw a little boy with his\nhoop-stick pointed slanting toward the ground in the act of steering the\nhoop around the corner; and so he had stopped and was listening\u0097the hoop\nwas rolling away, doing its own steering. I saw a young girl prettily\nframed in an open window, a watering-pot in her hand and window-boxes of\nred flowers under its spout\u0097but the water had ceased to flow; the girl\nwas listening. Everywhere were these impressive petrified forms; and\neverywhere was suspended movement and that awful stillness.\n\nJoan of Arc raised her sword in the air. At the signal, the silence was\ntorn to rags; cannon after cannon vomited flames and smoke and delivered\nits quaking thunders; and we saw answering tongues of fire dart from the\ntowers and walls of the city, accompanied by answering deep thunders,\nand in a minute the walls and the towers disappeared, and in their place\nstood vast banks and pyramids of snowy smoke, motionless in the dead\nair. The startled girl dropped her watering-pot and clasped her hands\ntogether, and at that moment a stone cannon-ball crashed through her\nfair body.\n\nThe great artillery duel went on, each side hammering away with all its\nmight; and it was splendid for smoke and noise, and most exalting to\none's spirits. The poor little town around about us suffered cruelly.\nThe cannon-balls tore through its slight buildings, wrecking them as if\nthey had been built of cards; and every moment or two one would see a\nhuge rock come curving through the upper air above the smoke-clouds and\ngo plunging down through the roofs. Fire broke out, and columns of flame\nand smoke rose toward the sky.\n\nPresently the artillery concussions changed the weather. The sky became\novercast, and a strong wind rose and blew away the smoke that hid the\nEnglish fortresses.\n\nThen the spectacle was fine; turreted gray walls and towers, and\nstreaming bright flags, and jets of red fire and gushes of white smoke\nin long rows, all standing out with sharp vividness against the deep\nleaden background of the sky; and then the whizzing missiles began to\nknock up the dirt all around us, and I felt no more interest in the\nscenery. There was one English gun that was getting our position down\nfiner and finer all the time. Presently Joan pointed to it and said:\n\n\"Fair duke, step out of your tracks, or that machine will kill you.\"\n\nThe Duke d'Alencon did as he was bid; but Monsieur du Lude rashly took\nhis place, and that cannon tore his head off in a moment.\n\nJoan was watching all along for the right time to order the assault. At\nlast, about nine o'clock, she cried out:\n\n\"Now\u0097to the assault!\" and the buglers blew the charge.\n\nInstantly we saw the body of men that had been appointed to this service\nmove forward toward a point where the concentrated fire of our guns had\ncrumbled the upper half of a broad stretch of wall to ruins; we saw this\nforce descend into the ditch and begin to plant the scaling-ladders.\nWe were soon with them. The Lieutenant-General thought the assault\npremature. But Joan said:\n\n\"Ah, gentle duke, are you afraid? Do you not know that I have promised\nto send you home safe?\"\n\nIt was warm work in the ditches. The walls were crowded with men, and\nthey poured avalanches of stones down upon us. There was one gigantic\nEnglishman who did us more hurt than any dozen of his brethren.\nHe always dominated the places easiest of assault, and flung down\nexceedingly troublesome big stones which smashed men and ladders\nboth\u0097then he would near burst himself with laughing over what he had\ndone. But the duke settled accounts with him. He went and found the\nfamous cannoneer, Jean le Lorrain, and said:\n\n\"Train your gun\u0097kill me this demon.\"\n\nHe did it with the first shot. He hit the Englishman fair in the breast\nand knocked him backward into the city.\n\nThe enemy's resistance was so effective and so stubborn that our people\nbegan to show signs of doubt and dismay. Seeing this, Joan raised her\ninspiring battle-cry and descended into the fosse herself, the Dwarf\nhelping her and the Paladin sticking bravely at her side with the\nstandard. She started up a scaling-ladder, but a great stone flung from\nabove came crashing down upon her helmet and stretched her, wounded and\nstunned, upon the ground. But only for a moment. The Dwarf stood her\nupon her feet, and straightway she started up the ladder again, crying:\n\n\"To the assault, friends, to the assault\u0097the English are ours! It is the\nappointed hour!\"\n\nThere was a grand rush, and a fierce roar of war-cries, and we swarmed\nover the ramparts like ants. The garrison fled, we pursued; Jargeau was\nours!\n\nThe Earl of Suffolk was hemmed in and surrounded, and the Duke d'Alencon\nand the Bastard of Orleans demanded that he surrender himself. But he\nwas a proud nobleman and came of a proud race. He refused to yield his\nsword to subordinates, saying:\n\n\"I will die rather. I will surrender to the Maid of Orleans alone, and\nto no other.\"\n\nAnd so he did; and was courteously and honorably used by her.\n\nHis two brothers retreated, fighting step by step, toward the bridge,\nwe pressing their despairing forces and cutting them down by scores.\nArrived on the bridge, the slaughter still continued. Alexander de la\nPole was pushed overboard or fell over, and was drowned. Eleven hundred\nmen had fallen; John de la Pole decided to give up the struggle. But he\nwas nearly as proud and particular as his brother of Suffolk as to whom\nhe would surrender to. The French officer nearest at hand was Guillaume\nRenault, who was pressing him closely. Sir John said to him:\n\n\"Are you a gentleman?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And a knight?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nThen Sir John knighted him himself there on the bridge, giving him the\naccolade with English coolness and tranquillity in the midst of that\nstorm of slaughter and mutilation; and then bowing with high courtesy\ntook the sword by the blade and laid the hilt of it in the man's hand in\ntoken of surrender. Ah, yes, a proud tribe, those De la Poles.\n\nIt was a grand day, a memorable day, a most splendid victory. We had a\ncrowd of prisoners, but Joan would not allow them to be hurt. We took\nthem with us and marched into Orleans next day through the usual tempest\nof welcome and joy.\n\nAnd this time there was a new tribute to our leader. From everywhere in\nthe packed streets the new recruits squeezed their way to her side to\ntouch the sword of Joan of Arc, and draw from it somewhat of that\nmysterious quality which made it invincible.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"2875":"\n\n\n\n Produced by David Reed\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF\n\nJOAN OF ARC\n\n VOLUME 2 (of 2)\n\nby Mark Twain\n\n\n\nPERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF JOAN OF ARC\n\n by The Sieur Louis De Conte\n\n (her page and secretary)\n\nIn Two Volumes Freely translated out of the ancient French into modern\nEnglish from the original unpublished manuscript in the National\nArchives of France\n\n\n\nContents\n\n\nPERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF JOAN OF ARC\n\n\nBOOK II -- IN COURT AND CAMP (Continued)\n\n28 Joan Foretells Her Doom\n\n29 Fierce Talbot Reconsiders\n\n30 The Red Field of Patay\n\n31 France Begins to Live Again\n\n32 The Joyous News Flies Fast\n\n33 Joan's Five Great Deeds\n\n34 The Jests of the Burgundians\n\n35 The Heir of France is Crowned\n\n36 Joan Hears News from Home\n\n37 Again to Arms\n\n38 The King Cries \"Forward!\"\n\n39 We Win, But the King Balks\n\n40 Treachery Conquers Joan\n\n41 The Maid Will March No More\n\n\nBOOK III TRIAL AND MARTYRDOM\n\n1 The Maid in Chains\n\n2 Joan Sold to the English\n\n3 Weaving the Net About Her\n\n4 All Ready to Condemn\n\n5 Fifty Experts Against a Novice\n\n6 The Maid Baffles Her Persecutors\n\n7 Craft That Was in Vain\n\n8 Joan Tells of Her Visions\n\n9 Her Sure Deliverance Foretold\n\n10 The Inquisitors at Their Wits' End\n\n11 The Court Reorganized for Assassination\n\n12 Joan's Master-Stroke Diverted\n\n13 The Third Trial Fails\n\n14 Joan Struggles with Her Twelve Lies\n\n15 Undaunted by Threat of Burning\n\n16 Joan Stands Defiant Before the Rack\n\n17 Supreme in Direst Peril\n\n18 Condemned Yet Unafraid\n\n19 Our Last Hopes of Rescue Fail\n\n20 The Betrayal\n\n21 Respited Only for Torture\n\n22 Joan Gives the Fatal Answer\n\n23 The Time Is at Hand\n\n24 Joan the Martyr\n\n\nCONCLUSION\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK II -- IN COURT AND CAMP (Continued)\n\n\n\n28 Joan Foretells Her Doom\n\nTHE TROOPS must have a rest. Two days would be allowed for this. The\nmorning of the 14th I was writing from Joan's dictation in a small room\nwhich she sometimes used as a private office when she wanted to get away\nfrom officials and their interruptions. Catherine Boucher came in and\nsat down and said:\n\n\"Joan, dear, I want you to talk to me.\"\n\n\"Indeed, I am not sorry for that, but glad. What is in your mind?\"\n\n\"This. I scarcely slept last night, for thinking of the dangers you are\nrunning. The Paladin told me how you made the duke stand out of the way\nwhen the cannon-balls were flying all about, and so saved his life.\"\n\n\"Well, that was right, wasn't it?\"\n\n\"Right? Yes; but you stayed there yourself. Why will you do like that?\nIt seems such a wanton risk.\"\n\n\"Oh, no, it was not so. I was not in any danger.\"\n\n\"How can you say that, Joan, with those deadly things flying all about\nyou?\"\n\nJoan laughed, and tried to turn the subject, but Catherine persisted.\nShe said:\n\n\"It was horribly dangerous, and it could not be necessary to stay\nin such a place. And you led an assault again. Joan, it is tempting\nProvidence. I want you to make me a promise. I want you to promise me\nthat you will let others lead the assaults, if there must be assaults,\nand that you will take better care of yourself in those dreadful\nbattles. Will you?\"\n\nBut Joan fought away from the promise and did not give it. Catherine sat\ntroubled and discontented awhile, then she said:\n\n\"Joan, are you going to be a soldier always? These wars are so long--so\nlong. They last forever and ever and ever.\"\n\nThere was a glad flash in Joan's eye as she cried:\n\n\"This campaign will do all the really hard work that is in front of\nit in the next four days. The rest of it will be gentler--oh, far less\nbloody. Yes, in four days France will gather another trophy like the\nredemption of Orleans and make her second long step toward freedom!\"\n\nCatherine started (and so did I); then she gazed long at Joan like one\nin a trance, murmuring \"four days--four days,\" as if to herself and\nunconsciously. Finally she asked, in a low voice that had something of\nawe in it:\n\n\"Joan, tell me--how is it that you know that? For you do know it, I\nthink.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Joan, dreamily, \"I know--I know. I shall strike--and strike\nagain. And before the fourth day is finished I shall strike yet again.\"\nShe became silent. We sat wondering and still. This was for a whole\nminute, she looking at the floor and her lips moving but uttering\nnothing. Then came these words, but hardly audible: \"And in a thousand\nyears the English power in France will not rise up from that blow.\"\n\nIt made my flesh creep. It was uncanny. She was in a trance again--I\ncould see it--just as she was that day in the pastures of Domremy when\nshe prophesied about us boys in the war and afterward did not know that\nshe had done it. She was not conscious now; but Catherine did not know\nthat, and so she said, in a happy voice:\n\n\"Oh, I believe it, I believe it, and I am so glad! Then you will come\nback and bide with us all your life long, and we will love you so, and\nhonor you!\"\n\nA scarcely perceptible spasm flitted across Joan's face, and the dreamy\nvoice muttered:\n\n\"Before two years are sped I shall die a cruel death!\"\n\nI sprang forward with a warning hand up. That is why Catherine did not\nscream. She was going to do that--I saw it plainly. Then I whispered her\nto slip out of the place, and say nothing of what had happened. I said\nJoan was asleep--asleep and dreaming. Catherine whispered back, and\nsaid:\n\n\"Oh, I am so grateful that it is only a dream! It sounded like\nprophecy.\" And she was gone.\n\nLike prophecy! I knew it was prophecy; and I sat down crying, as knowing\nwe should lose her. Soon she started, shivering slightly, and came to\nherself, and looked around and saw me crying there, and jumped out of\nher chair and ran to me all in a whirl of sympathy and compassion, and\nput her hand on my head, and said:\n\n\"My poor boy! What is it? Look up and tell me.\"\n\nI had to tell her a lie; I grieved to do it, but there was no other way.\nI picked up an old letter from my table, written by Heaven knows who,\nabout some matter Heaven knows what, and told her I had just gotten it\nfrom Pere Fronte, and that in it it said the children's Fairy Tree had\nbeen chopped down by some miscreant or other, and-- I got no further.\nShe snatched the letter from my hand and searched it up and down and\nall over, turning it this way and that, and sobbing great sobs, and the\ntears flowing down her cheeks, and ejaculating all the time, \"Oh, cruel,\ncruel! how could any be so heartless? Ah, poor Arbre Fee de Bourlemont\ngone--and we children loved it so! Show me the place where it says it!\"\n\nAnd I, still lying, showed her the pretended fatal words on the\npretended fatal page, and she gazed at them through her tears, and said\nshe could see herself that they were hateful, ugly words--they \"had the\nvery look of it.\"\n\nThen we heard a strong voice down the corridor announcing:\n\n\"His majesty's messenger--with despatches for her Excellency the\nCommander-in-Chief of the Armies of France!\"\n\n\n\n\n\n29 Fierce Talbot Reconsiders\n\nI KNEW she had seen the wisdom of the Tree. But when? I could not know.\nDoubtless before she had lately told the King to use her, for that she\nhad but one year left to work in. It had not occurred to me at the time,\nbut the conviction came upon me now that at that time she had already\nseen the Tree. It had brought her a welcome message; that was plain,\notherwise she could not have been so joyous and light-hearted as she had\nbeen these latter days. The death-warning had nothing dismal about it\nfor her; no, it was remission of exile, it was leave to come home.\n\nYes, she had seen the Tree. No one had taken the prophecy to heart which\nshe made to the King; and for a good reason, no doubt; no one wanted to\ntake it to heart; all wanted to banish it away and forget it. And all\nhad succeeded, and would go on to the end placid and comfortable. All\nbut me alone. I must carry my awful secret without any to help me. A\nheavy load, a bitter burden; and would cost me a daily heartbreak. She\nwas to die; and so soon. I had never dreamed of that. How could I, and\nshe so strong and fresh and young, and every day earning a new right\nto a peaceful and honored old age? For at that time I thought old age\nvaluable. I do not know why, but I thought so. All young people think\nit, I believe, they being ignorant and full of superstitions. She\nhad seen the Tree. All that miserable night those ancient verses went\nfloating back and forth through my brain:\n\n\n     And when, in exile wand'ring, we\n     Shall fainting yearn for glimpse of thee,\n     Oh, rise upon our sight!\n\nBut at dawn the bugles and the drums burst through the dreamy hush of\nthe morning, and it was turn out all! mount and ride. For there was red\nwork to be done.\n\nWe marched to Meung without halting. There we carried the bridge by\nassault, and left a force to hold it, the rest of the army marching away\nnext morning toward Beaugency, where the lion Talbot, the terror of\nthe French, was in command. When we arrived at that place, the English\nretired into the castle and we sat down in the abandoned town.\n\nTalbot was not at the moment present in person, for he had gone away to\nwatch for and welcome Fastolfe and his reinforcement of five thousand\nmen.\n\nJoan placed her batteries and bombarded the castle till night. Then some\nnews came: Richemont, Constable of France, this long time in disgrace\nwith the King, largely because of the evil machinations of La Tremouille\nand his party, was approaching with a large body of men to offer his\nservices to Joan--and very much she needed them, now that Fastolfe\nwas so close by. Richemont had wanted to join us before, when we first\nmarched on Orleans; but the foolish King, slave of those paltry advisers\nof his, warned him to keep his distance and refused all reconciliation\nwith him.\n\nI go into these details because they are important. Important because\nthey lead up to the exhibition of a new gift in Joan's extraordinary\nmental make-up--statesmanship. It is a sufficiently strange thing to\nfind that great quality in an ignorant country-girl of seventeen and a\nhalf, but she had it.\n\nJoan was for receiving Richemont cordially, and so was La Hire and\nthe two young Lavals and other chiefs, but the Lieutenant-General,\nd'Alencon, strenuously and stubbornly opposed it. He said he had\nabsolute orders from the King to deny and defy Richemont, and that if\nthey were overridden he would leave the army. This would have been a\nheavy disaster, indeed. But Joan set herself the task of persuading him\nthat the salvation of France took precedence of all minor things--even\nthe commands of a sceptered ass; and she accomplished it. She persuaded\nhim to disobey the King in the interest of the nation, and to be\nreconciled to Count Richemont and welcome him. That was statesmanship;\nand of the highest and soundest sort. Whatever thing men call great,\nlook for it in Joan of Arc, and there you will find it.\n\nIn the early morning, June 17th, the scouts reported the approach of\nTalbot and Fastolfe with Fastolfe's succoring force. Then the drums beat\nto arms; and we set forth to meet the English, leaving Richemont and his\ntroops behind to watch the castle of Beaugency and keep its garrison\nat home. By and by we came in sight of the enemy. Fastolfe had tried to\nconvince Talbot that it would be wisest to retreat and not risk a battle\nwith Joan at this time, but distribute the new levies among the English\nstrongholds of the Loire, thus securing them against capture; then be\npatient and wait--wait for more levies from Paris; let Joan exhaust her\narmy with fruitless daily skirmishing; then at the right time fall upon\nher in resistless mass and annihilate her. He was a wise old experienced\ngeneral, was Fastolfe. But that fierce Talbot would hear of no delay. He\nwas in a rage over the punishment which the Maid had inflicted upon him\nat Orleans and since, and he swore by God and Saint George that he\nwould have it out with her if he had to fight her all alone. So Fastolfe\nyielded, though he said they were now risking the loss of everything\nwhich the English had gained by so many years' work and so many hard\nknocks.\n\nThe enemy had taken up a strong position, and were waiting, in order of\nbattle, with their archers to the front and a stockade before them.\n\nNight was coming on. A messenger came from the English with a rude\ndefiance and an offer of battle. But Joan's dignity was not ruffled, her\nbearing was not discomposed. She said to the herald:\n\n\"Go back and say it is too late to meet to-night; but to-morrow, please\nGod and our Lady, we will come to close quarters.\"\n\nThe night fell dark and rainy. It was that sort of light steady rain\nwhich falls so softly and brings to one's spirit such serenity and\npeace. About ten o'clock D'Alencon, the Bastard of Orleans, La Hire,\nPothon of Saintrailles, and two or three other generals came to our\nheadquarters tent, and sat down to discuss matters with Joan. Some\nthought it was a pity that Joan had declined battle, some thought not.\nThen Pothon asked her why she had declined it. She said:\n\n\"There was more than one reason. These English are ours--they cannot\nget away from us. Wherefore there is no need to take risks, as at other\ntimes. The day was far spent. It is good to have much time and the fair\nlight of day when one's force is in a weakened state--nine hundred of\nus yonder keeping the bridge of Meung under the Marshal de Rais, fifteen\nhundred with the Constable of France keeping the bridge and watching the\ncastle of Beaugency.\"\n\nDunois said:\n\n\"I grieve for this decision, Excellency, but it cannot be helped. And\nthe case will be the same the morrow, as to that.\"\n\nJoan was walking up and down just then. She laughed her affectionate,\ncomrady laugh, and stopping before that old war-tiger she put her small\nhand above his head and touched one of his plumes, saying:\n\n\"Now tell me, wise man, which feather is it that I touch?\"\n\n\"In sooth, Excellency, that I cannot.\"\n\n\"Name of God, Bastard, Bastard! you cannot tell me this small thing, yet\nare bold to name a large one--telling us what is in the stomach of the\nunborn morrow: that we shall not have those men. Now it is my thought\nthat they will be with us.\"\n\nThat made a stir. All wanted to know why she thought that. But La Hire\ntook the word and said:\n\n\"Let be. If she thinks it, that is enough. It will happen.\"\n\nThen Pothon of Santrailles said:\n\n\"There were other reasons for declining battle, according to the saying\nof your Excellency?\"\n\n\"Yes. One was that we being weak and the day far gone, the battle might\nnot be decisive. When it is fought it must be decisive. And it shall\nbe.\"\n\n\"God grant it, and amen. There were still other reasons?\"\n\n\"One other--yes.\" She hesitated a moment, then said: \"This was not the\nday. To-morrow is the day. It is so written.\"\n\nThey were going to assail her with eager questionings, but she put up\nher hand and prevented them. Then she said:\n\n\"It will be the most noble and beneficent victory that God has\nvouchsafed for France at any time. I pray you question me not as to\nwhence or how I know this thing, but be content that it is so.\"\n\nThere was pleasure in every face, and conviction and high confidence.\nA murmur of conversation broke out, but that was interrupted by a\nmessenger from the outposts who brought news--namely, that for an hour\nthere had been stir and movement in the English camp of a sort unusual\nat such a time and with a resting army, he said. Spies had been sent\nunder cover of the rain and darkness to inquire into it. They had just\ncome back and reported that large bodies of men had been dimly made out\nwho were slipping stealthily away in the direction of Meung.\n\nThe generals were very much surprised, as any might tell from their\nfaces.\n\n\"It is a retreat,\" said Joan.\n\n\"It has that look,\" said D'Alencon.\n\n\"It certainly has,\" observed the Bastard and La Hire.\n\n\"It was not to be expected,\" said Louis de Bourbon, \"but one can divine\nthe purpose of it.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" responded Joan. \"Talbot has reflected. His rash brain has cooled.\nHe thinks to take the bridge of Meung and escape to the other side of\nthe river. He knows that this leaves his garrison of Beaugency at the\nmercy of fortune, to escape our hands if it can; but there is no other\ncourse if he would avoid this battle, and that he also knows. But he\nshall not get the bridge. We will see to that.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said D'Alencon, \"we must follow him, and take care of that\nmatter. What of Beaugency?\"\n\n\"Leave Beaugency to me, gentle duke; I will have it in two hours, and at\nno cost of blood.\"\n\n\"It is true, Excellency. You will but need to deliver this news there\nand receive the surrender.\"\n\n\"Yes. And I will be with you at Meung with the dawn, fetching the\nConstable and his fifteen hundred; and when Talbot knows that Beaugency\nhas fallen it will have an effect upon him.\"\n\n\"By the mass, yes!\" cried La Hire. \"He will join his Meung garrison to\nhis army and break for Paris. Then we shall have our bridge force with\nus again, along with our Beaugency watchers, and be stronger for our\ngreat day's work by four-and-twenty hundred able soldiers, as was here\npromised within the hour. Verily this Englishman is doing our errands\nfor us and saving us much blood and trouble. Orders, Excellency--give us\norders!\"\n\n\"They are simple. Let the men rest three hours longer. At one o'clock\nthe advance-guard will march, under our command, with Pothon of\nSaintrailles as second; the second division will follow at two under the\nLieutenant-General. Keep well in the rear of the enemy, and see to it\nthat you avoid an engagement. I will ride under guard to Beaugency and\nmake so quick work there that I and the Constable of France will join\nyou before dawn with his men.\"\n\nShe kept her word. Her guard mounted and we rode off through the\nputtering rain, taking with us a captured English officer to confirm\nJoan's news. We soon covered the journey and summoned the castle.\nRichard Guetin, Talbot's lieutenant, being convinced that he and his\nfive hundred men were left helpless, conceded that it would be useless\nto try to hold out. He could not expect easy terms, yet Joan granted\nthem nevertheless. His garrison could keep their horses and arms, and\ncarry away property to the value of a silver mark per man. They could go\nwhither they pleased, but must not take arms against France again under\nten days.\n\nBefore dawn we were with our army again, and with us the Constable\nand nearly all his men, for we left only a small garrison in Beaugency\ncastle. We heard the dull booming of cannon to the front, and knew that\nTalbot was beginning his attack on the bridge. But some time before it\nwas yet light the sound ceased and we heard it no more.\n\nGuetin had sent a messenger through our lines under a safe-conduct given\nby Joan, to tell Talbot of the surrender. Of course this poursuivant had\narrived ahead of us. Talbot had held it wisdom to turn now and retreat\nupon Paris. When daylight came he had disappeared; and with him Lord\nScales and the garrison of Meung.\n\nWhat a harvest of English strongholds we had reaped in those three\ndays!--strongholds which had defied France with quite cool confidence\nand plenty of it until we came.\n\n\n\n\n\n30 The Red Field of Patay\n\nWHEN THE morning broke at last on that forever memorable 18th of June,\nthere was no enemy discoverable anywhere, as I have said. But that did\nnot trouble me. I knew we should find him, and that we should strike\nhim; strike him the promised blow--the one from which the English power\nin France would not rise up in a thousand years, as Joan had said in her\ntrance.\n\nThe enemy had plunged into the wide plains of La Beauce--a roadless\nwaste covered with bushes, with here and there bodies of forest trees--a\nregion where an army would be hidden from view in a very little while.\nWe found the trail in the soft wet earth and followed it. It indicated\nan orderly march; no confusion, no panic.\n\nBut we had to be cautious. In such a piece of country we could walk into\nan ambush without any trouble. Therefore Joan sent bodies of cavalry\nahead under La Hire, Pothon, and other captains, to feel the way.\nSome of the other officers began to show uneasiness; this sort of\nhide-and-go-seek business troubled them and made their confidence\na little shaky. Joan divined their state of mind and cried out\nimpetuously:\n\n\"Name of God, what would you? We must smite these English, and we will.\nThey shall not escape us. Though they were hung to the clouds we would\nget them!\"\n\nBy and by we were nearing Patay; it was about a league away. Now at this\ntime our reconnaissance, feeling its way in the bush, frightened a deer,\nand it went bounding away and was out of sight in a moment. Then hardly\na minute later a dull great shout went up in the distance toward Patay.\nIt was the English soldiery. They had been shut up in a garrison so long\non moldy food that they could not keep their delight to themselves when\nthis fine fresh meat came springing into their midst. Poor creature, it\nhad wrought damage to a nation which loved it well. For the French knew\nwhere the English were now, whereas the English had no suspicion of\nwhere the French were.\n\nLa Hire halted where he was, and sent back the tidings. Joan was radiant\nwith joy. The Duke d'Alencon said to her:\n\n\"Very well, we have found them; shall we fight them?\"\n\n\"Have you good spurs, prince?\"\n\n\"Why? Will they make us run away?\"\n\n\"Nenni, en nom de Dieu! These English are ours--they are lost. They will\nfly. Who overtakes them will need good spurs. Forward--close up!\"\n\nBy the time we had come up with La Hire the English had discovered\nour presence. Talbot's force was marching in three bodies. First his\nadvance-guard; then his artillery; then his battle-corps a good way in\nthe rear. He was now out of the bush and in a fair open country. He at\nonce posted his artillery, his advance-guard, and five hundred picked\narchers along some hedges where the French would be obliged to pass,\nand hoped to hold this position till his battle-corps could come up.\nSir John Fastolfe urged the battle-corps into a gallop. Joan saw her\nopportunity and ordered La Hire to advance--which La Hire promptly did,\nlaunching his wild riders like a storm-wind, his customary fashion.\n\nThe duke and the Bastard wanted to follow, but Joan said:\n\n\"Not yet--wait.\"\n\nSo they waited--impatiently, and fidgeting in their saddles. But she was\nready--gazing straight before her, measuring, weighing, calculating--by\nshades, minutes, fractions of minutes, seconds--with all her great soul\npresent, in eye, and set of head, and noble pose of body--but patient,\nsteady, master of herself--master of herself and of the situation.\n\nAnd yonder, receding, receding, plumes lifting and falling, lifting and\nfalling, streamed the thundering charge of La Hire's godless crew, La\nHire's great figure dominating it and his sword stretched aloft like a\nflagstaff.\n\n\"Oh, Satan and his Hellions, see them go!\" Somebody muttered it in deep\nadmiration.\n\nAnd now he was closing up--closing up on Fastolfe's rushing corps.\n\nAnd now he struck it--struck it hard, and broke its order. It lifted\nthe duke and the Bastard in their saddles to see it; and they turned,\ntrembling with excitement, to Joan, saying:\n\n\"Now!\"\n\nBut she put up her hand, still gazing, weighing, calculating, and said\nagain:\n\n\"Wait--not yet.\"\n\nFastolfe's hard-driven battle-corps raged on like an avalanche toward\nthe waiting advance-guard. Suddenly these conceived the idea that it was\nflying in panic before Joan; and so in that instant it broke and swarmed\naway in a mad panic itself, with Talbot storming and cursing after it.\n\nNow was the golden time. Joan drove her spurs home and waved the advance\nwith her sword. \"Follow me!\" she cried, and bent her head to her horse's\nneck and sped away like the wind!\n\nWe went down into the confusion of that flying rout, and for three long\nhours we cut and hacked and stabbed. At last the bugles sang \"Halt!\"\n\nThe Battle of Patay was won.\n\nJoan of Arc dismounted, and stood surveying that awful field, lost in\nthought. Presently she said:\n\n\"The praise is to God. He has smitten with a heavy hand this day.\"\nAfter a little she lifted her face, and looking afar off, said, with the\nmanner of one who is thinking aloud, \"In a thousand years--a thousand\nyears--the English power in France will not rise up from this blow.\"\nShe stood again a time thinking, then she turned toward her grouped\ngenerals, and there was a glory in her face and a noble light in her\neye; and she said:\n\n\"Oh, friends, friends, do you know?--do you comprehend? France is on the\nway to be free!\"\n\n\"And had never been, but for Joan of Arc!\" said La Hire, passing before\nher and bowing low, the other following and doing likewise; he muttering\nas he went, \"I will say it though I be damned for it.\" Then battalion\nafter battalion of our victorious army swung by, wildly cheering. And\nthey shouted, \"Live forever, Maid of Orleans, live forever!\" while Joan,\nsmiling, stood at the salute with her sword.\n\nThis was not the last time I saw the Maid of Orleans on the red field\nof Patay. Toward the end of the day I came upon her where the dead and\ndying lay stretched all about in heaps and winrows; our men had mortally\nwounded an English prisoner who was too poor to pay a ransom, and from\na distance she had seen that cruel thing done; and had galloped to the\nplace and sent for a priest, and now she was holding the head of her\ndying enemy in her lap, and easing him to his death with comforting soft\nwords, just as his sister might have done; and the womanly tears running\ndown her face all the time. (1)\n\n(1) Lord Ronald Gower (Joan of Arc, p. 82) says: \"Michelet discovered\nthis story in the deposition of Joan of Arc's page, Louis de Conte, who\nwas probably an eye-witness of the scene.\" This is true. It was a part\nof the testimony of the author of these \"Personal Recollections of\nJoan of Arc,\" given by him in the Rehabilitation proceedings of 1456.\n--TRANSLATOR.\n\n\n\n\n\n31 France Begins to Live Again\n\n JOAN HAD said true: France was on the way to be free.\n\nThe war called the Hundred Years' War was very sick to-day. Sick on its\nEnglish side--for the very first time since its birth, ninety-one years\ngone by.\n\nShall we judge battles by the numbers killed and the ruin wrought? Or\nshall we not rather judge them by the results which flowed from them?\nAny one will say that a battle is only truly great or small according to\nits results. Yes, any one will grant that, for it is the truth.\n\nJudged by results, Patay's place is with the few supremely great and\nimposing battles that have been fought since the peoples of the world\nfirst resorted to arms for the settlement of their quarrels. So\njudged, it is even possible that Patay has no peer among that few just\nmentioned, but stand alone, as the supremest of historic conflicts. For\nwhen it began France lay gasping out the remnant of an exhausted life,\nher case wholly hopeless in the view of all political physicians; when\nit ended, three hours later, she was convalescent. Convalescent, and\nnothing requisite but time and ordinary nursing to bring her back to\nperfect health. The dullest physician of them all could see this, and\nthere was none to deny it.\n\nMany death-sick nations have reached convalescence through a series\nof battles, a procession of battles, a weary tale of wasting conflicts\nstretching over years, but only one has reached it in a single day and\nby a single battle. That nation is France, and that battle Patay.\n\nRemember it and be proud of it; for you are French, and it is the\nstateliest fact in the long annals of your country. There it stands,\nwith its head in the clouds! And when you grow up you will go on\npilgrimage to the field of Patay, and stand uncovered in the presence\nof--what? A monument with its head in the clouds? Yes. For all nations\nin all times have built monuments on their battle-fields to keep green\nthe memory of the perishable deed that was wrought there and of the\nperishable name of him who wrought it; and will France neglect Patay and\nJoan of Arc? Not for long. And will she build a monument scaled to their\nrank as compared with the world's other fields and heroes? Perhaps--if\nthere be room for it under the arch of the sky.\n\nBut let us look back a little, and consider certain strange and\nimpressive facts. The Hundred Years' War began in 1337. It raged on and\non, year after year and year after year; and at last England stretched\nFrance prone with that fearful blow at Crecy. But she rose and struggled\non, year after year, and at last again she went down under another\ndevastating blow--Poitiers. She gathered her crippled strength once\nmore, and the war raged on, and on, and still on, year after year,\ndecade after decade. Children were born, grew up, married, died--the war\nraged on; their children in turn grew up, married, died--the war raged\non; their children, growing, saw France struck down again; this time\nunder the incredible disaster of Agincourt--and still the war raged on,\nyear after year, and in time these children married in their turn.\n\nFrance was a wreck, a ruin, a desolation. The half of it belonged to\nEngland, with none to dispute or deny the truth; the other half belonged\nto nobody--in three months would be flying the English flag; the French\nKing was making ready to throw away his crown and flee beyond the seas.\n\nNow came the ignorant country-maid out of her remote village and\nconfronted this hoary war, this all-consuming conflagration that had\nswept the land for three generations. Then began the briefest and most\namazing campaign that is recorded in history. In seven weeks it was\nfinished. In seven weeks she hopelessly crippled that gigantic war that\nwas ninety-one years old. At Orleans she struck it a staggering blow; on\nthe field of Patay she broke its back.\n\nThink of it. Yes, one can do that; but understand it? Ah, that is\nanother matter; none will ever be able to comprehend that stupefying\nmarvel.\n\nSeven weeks--with her and there a little bloodshed. Perhaps the most of\nit, in any single fight, at Patay, where the English began six thousand\nstrong and left two thousand dead upon the field. It is said\nand believed that in three battles alone--Crecy, Poitiers, and\nAgincourt--near a hundred thousand Frenchmen fell, without counting\nthe thousand other fights of that long war. The dead of that war make a\nmournful long list--an interminable list. Of men slain in the field the\ncount goes by tens of thousands; of innocent women and children slain by\nbitter hardship and hunger it goes by that appalling term, millions.\n\nIt was an ogre, that war; an ogre that went about for near a hundred\nyears, crunching men and dripping blood from its jaws. And with her\nlittle hand that child of seventeen struck him down; and yonder he lies\nstretched on the field of Patay, and will not get up any more while this\nold world lasts.\n\n\n\n\n\n32 The Joyous News Flies Fast\n\nTHE GREAT news of Patay was carried over the whole of France in twenty\nhours, people said. I do not know as to that; but one thing is sure,\nanyway: the moment a man got it he flew shouting and glorifying God and\ntold his neighbor; and that neighbor flew with it to the next homestead;\nand so on and so on without resting the word traveled; and when a man\ngot it in the night, at what hour soever, he jumped out of his bed and\nbore the blessed message along. And the joy that went with it was like\nthe light that flows across the land when an eclipse is receding from\nthe face of the sun; and, indeed, you may say that France had lain in\nan eclipse this long time; yes, buried in a black gloom which these\nbeneficent tidings were sweeping away now before the onrush of their\nwhite splendor.\n\nThe news beat the flying enemy to Yeuville, and the town rose against\nits English masters and shut the gates against their brethren. It flew\nto Mont Pipeau, to Saint Simon, and to this, that, and the other English\nfortress; and straightway the garrison applied the torch and took to\nthe fields and the woods. A detachment of our army occupied Meung and\npillaged it.\n\nWhen we reached Orleans that tow was as much as fifty times insaner with\njoy than we had ever seen it before--which is saying much. Night had\njust fallen, and the illuminations were on so wonderful a scale that\nwe seemed to plow through seas of fire; and as to the noise--the hoarse\ncheering of the multitude, the thundering of cannon, the clash of\nbells--indeed, there was never anything like it. And everywhere rose\na new cry that burst upon us like a storm when the column entered the\ngates, and nevermore ceased: \"Welcome to Joan of Arc--way for the SAVIOR\nOF FRANCE!\" And there was another cry: \"Crecy is avenged! Poitiers is\navenged! Agincourt is avenged!--Patay shall live forever!\"\n\nMad? Why, you never could imagine it in the world. The prisoners were\nin the center of the column. When that came along and the people caught\nsight of their masterful old enemy Talbot, that had made them dance so\nlong to his grim war-music, you may imagine what the uproar was like if\nyou can, for I can not describe it. They were so glad to see him that\npresently they wanted to have him out and hang him; so Joan had him\nbrought up to the front to ride in her protection. They made a striking\npair.\n\n\n\n\n\n33 Joan's Five Great Deeds\n\nYES, ORLEANS was in a delirium of felicity. She invited the King, and\nmade sumptuous preparations to receive him, but--he didn't come. He was\nsimply a serf at that time, and La Tremouille was his master. Master and\nserf were visiting together at the master's castle of Sully-sur-Loire.\n\nAt Beaugency Joan had engaged to bring about a reconciliation\nbetween the Constable Richemont and the King. She took Richemont to\nSully-sur-Loire and made her promise good.\n\nThe great deeds of Joan of Arc are five:\n\n1. The Raising of the Siege.\n\n2. The Victory of Patay.\n\n3. The Reconciliation at Sully-sur-Loire.\n\n4. The Coronation of the King.\n\n5. The Bloodless March.\n\nWe shall come to the Bloodless March presently (and the Coronation).\nIt was the victorious long march which Joan made through the enemy's\ncountry from Gien to Rheims, and thence to the gates of Paris, capturing\nevery English town and fortress that barred the road, from the beginning\nof the journey to the end of it; and this by the mere force of her name,\nand without shedding a drop of blood--perhaps the most extraordinary\ncampaign in this regard in history--this is the most glorious of her\nmilitary exploits.\n\nThe Reconciliation was one of Joan's most important achievements. No\none else could have accomplished it; and, in fact, no one else of\nhigh consequence had any disposition to try. In brains, in scientific\nwarfare, and in statesmanship the Constable Richemont was the ablest\nman in France. His loyalty was sincere; his probity was above\nsuspicion--(and it made him sufficiently conspicuous in that trivial and\nconscienceless Court).\n\nIn restoring Richemont to France, Joan made thoroughly secure the\nsuccessful completion of the great work which she had begun. She had\nnever seen Richemont until he came to her with his little army. Was it\nnot wonderful that at a glance she should know him for the one man who\ncould finish and perfect her work and establish it in perpetuity? How\nwas it that that child was able to do this? It was because she had the\n\"seeing eye,\" as one of our knights had once said. Yes, she had that\ngreat gift--almost the highest and rarest that has been granted to man.\nNothing of an extraordinary sort was still to be done, yet the remaining\nwork could not safely be left to the King's idiots; for it would require\nwise statesmanship and long and patient though desultory hammering of\nthe enemy. Now and then, for a quarter of a century yet, there would be\na little fighting to do, and a handy man could carry that on with small\ndisturbance to the rest of the country; and little by little, and with\nprogressive certainty, the English would disappear from France.\n\nAnd that happened. Under the influence of Richemont the King became at\na later time a man--a man, a king, a brave and capable and determined\nsoldier. Within six years after Patay he was leading storming parties\nhimself; fighting in fortress ditches up to his waist in water, and\nclimbing scaling-ladders under a furious fire with a pluck that would\nhave satisfied even Joan of Arc. In time he and Richemont cleared away\nall the English; even from regions where the people had been under their\nmastership for three hundred years. In such regions wise and careful\nwork was necessary, for the English rule had been fair and kindly; and\nmen who have been ruled in that way are not always anxious for a change.\n\nWhich of Joan's five chief deeds shall we call the chiefest? It is my\nthought that each in its turn was that. This is saying that, taken as a\nwhole, they equalized each other, and neither was then greater than its\nmate.\n\nDo you perceive? Each was a stage in an ascent. To leave out one of them\nwould defeat the journey; to achieve one of them at the wrong time and\nin the wrong place would have the same effect.\n\nConsider the Coronation. As a masterpiece of diplomacy, where can\nyou find its superior in our history? Did the King suspect its\nvast importance? No. Did his ministers? No. Did the astute Bedford,\nrepresentative of the English crown? No. An advantage of incalculable\nimportance was here under the eyes of the King and of Bedford; the King\ncould get it by a bold stroke, Bedford could get it without an effort;\nbut, being ignorant of its value, neither of them put forth his hand.\nOf all the wise people in high office in France, only one knew\nthe priceless worth of this neglected prize--the untaught child of\nseventeen, Joan of Arc--and she had known it from the beginning as an\nessential detail of her mission.\n\nHow did she know it? It was simple: she was a peasant. That tells the\nwhole story. She was of the people and knew the people; those others\nmoved in a loftier sphere and knew nothing much about them. We make\nlittle account of that vague, formless, inert mass, that mighty\nunderlying force which we call \"the people\"--an epithet which carries\ncontempt with it. It is a strange attitude; for at bottom we know that\nthe throne which the people support stands, and that when that support\nis removed nothing in this world can save it.\n\nNow, then, consider this fact, and observe its importance. Whatever the\nparish priest believes his flock believes; they love him, they revere\nhim; he is their unfailing friend, their dauntless protector, their\ncomforter in sorrow, their helper in their day of need; he has their\nwhole confidence; what he tells them to do, that they will do, with a\nblind and affectionate obedience, let it cost what it may. Add these\nfacts thoughtfully together, and what is the sum? This: The parish\npriest governs the nation. What is the King, then, if the parish priest\nwithdraws his support and deny his authority? Merely a shadow and no\nKing; let him resign.\n\nDo you get that idea? Then let us proceed. A priest is consecrated to\nhis office by the awful hand of God, laid upon him by his appointed\nrepresentative on earth. That consecration is final; nothing can undo\nit, nothing can remove it. Neither the Pope nor any other power can\nstrip the priest of his office; God gave it, and it is forever sacred\nand secure. The dull parish knows all this. To priest and parish,\nwhatsoever is anointed of God bears an office whose authority can\nno longer be disputed or assailed. To the parish priest, and to his\nsubjects the nation, an uncrowned king is a similitude of a person who\nhas been named for holy orders but has not been consecrated; he has no\noffice, he has not been ordained, another may be appointed to his place.\nIn a word, an uncrowned king is a doubtful king; but if God appoint him\nand His servant the Bishop anoint him, the doubt is annihilated; the\npriest and the parish are his loyal subjects straightway, and while he\nlives they will recognize no king but him.\n\nTo Joan of Arc, the peasant-girl, Charles VII. was no King until he was\ncrowned; to her he was only the Dauphin; that is to say, the heir. If I\nhave ever made her call him King, it was a mistake; she called him the\nDauphin, and nothing else until after the Coronation. It shows you as in\na mirror--for Joan was a mirror in which the lowly hosts of France were\nclearly reflected--that to all that vast underlying force called \"the\npeople,\" he was no King but only Dauphin before his crowning, and was\nindisputably and irrevocably King after it.\n\nNow you understand what a colossal move on the political chess-board the\nCoronation was. Bedford realized this by and by, and tried to patch up\nhis mistake by crowning his King; but what good could that do? None in\nthe world.\n\nSpeaking of chess, Joan's great acts may be likened to that game. Each\nmove was made in its proper order, and it as great and effective because\nit was made in its proper order and not out of it. Each, at the time\nmade, seemed the greatest move; but the final result made them all\nrecognizable as equally essential and equally important. This is the\ngame, as played:\n\n1. Joan moves to Orleans and Patay--check.\n\n2. Then moves the Reconciliation--but does not proclaim check, it being\na move for position, and to take effect later.\n\n3. Next she moves the Coronation--check.\n\n4. Next, the Bloodless March--check.\n\n5. Final move (after her death), the reconciled Constable Richemont to\nthe French King's elbow--checkmate.\n\n\n\n\n\n34 The Jests of the Burgundians\n\nTHE CAMPAIGN of the Loire had as good as opened the road to Rheims.\nThere was no sufficient reason now why the Coronation should not take\nplace. The Coronation would complete the mission which Joan had received\nfrom heaven, and then she would be forever done with war, and would fly\nhome to her mother and her sheep, and never stir from the hearthstone\nand happiness any more. That was her dream; and she could not rest, she\nwas so impatient to see it fulfilled. She became so possessed with this\nmatter that I began to lose faith in her two prophecies of her early\ndeath--and, of course, when I found that faith wavering I encouraged it\nto waver all the more.\n\nThe King was afraid to start to Rheims, because the road was mile-posted\nwith English fortresses, so to speak. Joan held them in light esteem and\nnot things to be afraid of in the existing modified condition of English\nconfidence.\n\nAnd she was right. As it turned out, the march to Rheims was nothing but\na holiday excursion: Joan did not even take any artillery along, she was\nso sure it would not be necessary. We marched from Gien twelve thousand\nstrong. This was the 29th of June. The Maid rode by the side of the\nKing; on his other side was the Duke d'Alencon. After the duke followed\nthree other princes of the blood. After these followed the Bastard of\nOrleans, the Marshal de Boussac, and the Admiral of France. After these\ncame La Hire, Saintrailles, Tremouille, and a long procession of knights\nand nobles.\n\nWe rested three days before Auxerre. The city provisioned the army, and\na deputation waited upon the King, but we did not enter the place.\n\nSaint-Florentin opened its gates to the King.\n\nOn the 4th of July we reached Saint-Fal, and yonder lay Troyes before\nus--a town which had a burning interest for us boys; for we remembered\nhow seven years before, in the pastures of Domremy, the Sunflower came\nwith his black flag and brought us the shameful news of the Treaty of\nTroyes--that treaty which gave France to England, and a daughter of our\nroyal line in marriage to the Butcher of Agincourt. That poor town was\nnot to blame, of course; yet we flushed hot with that old memory, and\nhoped there would be a misunderstanding here, for we dearly wanted to\nstorm the place and burn it. It was powerfully garrisoned by English and\nBurgundian soldiery, and was expecting reinforcements from Paris. Before\nnight we camped before its gates and made rough work with a sortie which\nmarched out against us.\n\nJoan summoned Troyes to surrender. Its commandant, seeing that she had\nno artillery, scoffed at the idea, and sent her a grossly insulting\nreply. Five days we consulted and negotiated. No result. The King was\nabout to turn back now and give up. He was afraid to go on, leaving this\nstrong place in his rear. Then La Hire put in a word, with a slap in it\nfor some of his Majesty's advisers:\n\n\"The Maid of Orleans undertook this expedition of her own motion; and it\nis my mind that it is her judgment that should be followed here, and not\nthat of any other, let him be of whatsoever breed and standing he may.\"\n\nThere was wisdom and righteousness in that. So the King sent for the\nMaid, and asked her how she thought the prospect looked. She said,\nwithout any tone of doubt or question in her voice:\n\n\"In three days' time the place is ours.\"\n\nThe smug Chancellor put in a word now:\n\n\"If we were sure of it we would wait her six days.\"\n\n\"Six days, forsooth! Name of God, man, we will enter the gates\nto-morrow!\"\n\nThen she mounted, and rode her lines, crying out:\n\n\"Make preparation--to your work, friends, to your work! We assault at\ndawn!\"\n\nShe worked hard that night, slaving away with her own hands like a\ncommon soldier. She ordered fascines and fagots to be prepared and\nthrown into the fosse, thereby to bridge it; and in this rough labor she\ntook a man's share.\n\nAt dawn she took her place at the head of the storming force and the\nbugles blew the assault. At that moment a flag of truce was flung to the\nbreeze from the walls, and Troyes surrendered without firing a shot.\n\nThe next day the King with Joan at his side and the Paladin bearing her\nbanner entered the town in state at the head of the army. And a goodly\narmy it was now, for it had been growing ever bigger and bigger from the\nfirst.\n\nAnd now a curious thing happened. By the terms of the treaty made with\nthe town the garrison of English and Burgundian soldiery were to be\nallowed to carry away their \"goods\" with them. This was well, for\notherwise how would they buy the wherewithal to live? Very well; these\npeople were all to go out by the one gate, and at the time set for them\nto depart we young fellows went to that gate, along with the Dwarf, to\nsee the march-out. Presently here they came in an interminable file, the\nfoot-soldiers in the lead. As they approached one could see that each\nbore a burden of a bulk and weight to sorely tax his strength; and we\nsaid among ourselves, truly these folk are well off for poor common\nsoldiers. When they were come nearer, what do you think? Every rascal\nof them had a French prisoner on his back! They were carrying away their\n\"goods,\" you see--their property--strictly according to the permission\ngranted by the treaty.\n\nNow think how clever that was, how ingenious. What could a body say?\nwhat could a body do? For certainly these people were within their\nright. These prisoners were property; nobody could deny that. My dears,\nif those had been English captives, conceive of the richness of that\nbooty! For English prisoners had been scarce and precious for a hundred\nyears; whereas it was a different matter with French prisoners. They had\nbeen over-abundant for a century. The possessor of a French prisoner\ndid not hold him long for ransom, as a rule, but presently killed him\nto save the cost of his keep. This shows you how small was the value of\nsuch a possession in those times. When we took Troyes a calf was worth\nthirty francs, a sheep sixteen, a French prisoner eight. It was an\nenormous price for those other animals--a price which naturally seems\nincredible to you. It was the war, you see. It worked two ways: it made\nmeat dear and prisoners cheap.\n\nWell, here were these poor Frenchmen being carried off. What could we\ndo? Very little of a permanent sort, but we did what we could. We sent\na messenger flying to Joan, and we and the French guards halted the\nprocession for a parley--to gain time, you see. A big Burgundian lost\nhis temper and swore a great oath that none should stop him; he would\ngo, and would take his prisoner with him. But we blocked him off, and\nhe saw that he was mistaken about going--he couldn't do it. He exploded\ninto the maddest cursings and revilings, then, and, unlashing his\nprisoner from his back, stood him up, all bound and helpless; then drew\nhis knife, and said to us with a light of sarcasting triumph in his eye:\n\n\"I may not carry him away, you say--yet he is mine, none will dispute\nit. Since I may not convey him hence, this property of mine, there is\nanother way. Yes, I can kill him; not even the dullest among you will\nquestion that right. Ah, you had not thought of that--vermin!\"\n\nThat poor starved fellow begged us with his piteous eyes to save him;\nthen spoke, and said he had a wife and little children at home. Think\nhow it wrung our heartstrings. But what could we do? The Burgundian was\nwithin his right. We could only beg and plead for the prisoner. Which we\ndid. And the Burgundian enjoyed it. He stayed his hand to hear more of\nit, and laugh at it. That stung. Then the Dwarf said:\n\n\"Prithee, young sirs, let me beguile him; for when a matter requiring\npermission is to the fore, I have indeed a gift in that sort, as any\nwill tell you that know me well. You smile; and that is punishment for\nmy vanity; and fairly earned, I grant you. Still, if I may toy a little,\njust a little--\" saying which he stepped to the Burgundian and began a\nfair soft speech, all of goodly and gentle tenor; and in the midst he\nmentioned the Maid; and was going on to say how she out of her good\nheart would prize and praise this compassionate deed which he was about\nto-- It was as far as he got. The Burgundian burst into his smooth\noration with an insult leveled at Joan of Arc. We sprang forward, but\nthe Dwarf, his face all livid, brushed us aside and said, in a most\ngrave and earnest way:\n\n\"I crave your patience. Am not I her guard of honor? This is my affair.\"\n\nAnd saying this he suddenly shot his right hand out and gripped the\ngreat Burgundian by the throat, and so held him upright on his feet.\n\"You have insulted the Maid,\" he said; \"and the Maid is France. The\ntongue that does that earns a long furlough.\"\n\nOne heard the muffled cracking of bones. The Burgundian's eyes began to\nprotrude from their sockets and stare with a leaden dullness at vacancy.\nThe color deepened in his face and became an opaque purple. His hands\nhung down limp, his body collapsed with a shiver, every muscle relaxed\nits tension and ceased from its function. The Dwarf took away his hand\nand the column of inert mortality sank mushily to the ground.\n\nWe struck the bonds from the prisoner and told him he was free. His\ncrawling humbleness changed to frantic joy in a moment, and his ghastly\nfear to a childish rage. He flew at that dead corpse and kicked it,\nspat in its face, danced upon it, crammed mud into its mouth, laughing,\njeering, cursing, and volleying forth indecencies and bestialities like\na drunken fiend. It was a thing to be expected; soldiering makes few\nsaints. Many of the onlookers laughed, others were indifferent, none\nwas surprised. But presently in his mad caperings the freed man capered\nwithin reach of the waiting file, and another Burgundian promptly\nslipped a knife through his neck, and down he went with a death-shriek,\nhis brilliant artery blood spurting ten feet as straight and bright as a\nray of light. There was a great burst of jolly laughter all around from\nfriend and foe alike; and thus closed one of the pleasantest incidents\nof my checkered military life.\n\nAnd now came Joan hurrying, and deeply troubled. She considered the\nclaim of the garrison, then said:\n\n\"You have right upon your side. It is plain. It was a careless word to\nput in the treaty, and covers too much. But ye may not take these poor\nmen away. They are French, and I will not have it. The King shall ransom\nthem, every one. Wait till I send you word from him; and hurt no hair of\ntheir heads; for I tell you, I who speak, that that would cost you very\ndear.\"\n\nThat settled it. The prisoners were safe for one while, anyway. Then she\nrode back eagerly and required that thing of the King, and would listen\nto no paltering and no excuses. So the King told her to have her way,\nand she rode straight back and bought the captives free in his name and\nlet them go.\n\n\n\n\n\n35 The Heir of France is Crowned\n\nIT WAS here hat we saw again the Grand Master of the King's Household,\nin whose castle Joan was guest when she tarried at Chinon in those\nfirst days of her coming out of her own country. She made him Bailiff of\nTroyes now by the King's permission.\n\nAnd now we marched again; Chalons surrendered to us; and there by\nChalons in a talk, Joan, being asked if she had no fears for the future,\nsaid yes, one--treachery. Who would believe it? who could dream it? And\nyet in a sense it was prophecy. Truly, man is a pitiful animal.\n\nWe marched, marched, kept on marching; and at last, on the 16th of July,\nwe came in sight of our goal, and saw the great cathedraled towers of\nRheims rise out of the distance! Huzza after huzza swept the army from\nvan to rear; and as for Joan of Arc, there where she sat her horse\ngazing, clothed all in white armor, dreamy, beautiful, and in her face\na deep, deep joy, a joy not of earth, oh, she was not flesh, she was a\nspirit! Her sublime mission was closing--closing in flawless triumph.\nTo-morrow she could say, \"It is finished--let me go free.\"\n\nWe camped, and the hurry and rush and turmoil of the grand preparations\nbegan. The Archbishop and a great deputation arrived; and after these\ncame flock after flock, crowd after crowd, of citizens and country-folk,\nhurrahing, in, with banners and music, and flowed over the camp, one\nrejoicing inundation after another, everybody drunk with happiness. And\nall night long Rheims was hard at work, hammering away, decorating\nthe town, building triumphal arches and clothing the ancient cathedral\nwithin and without in a glory of opulent splendors.\n\nWe moved betimes in the morning; the coronation ceremonies would begin\nat nine and last five hours. We were aware that the garrison of English\nand Burgundian soldiers had given up all thought of resisting the Maid,\nand that we should find the gates standing hospitably open and the whole\ncity ready to welcome us with enthusiasm.\n\nIt was a delicious morning, brilliant with sunshine, but cool and\nfresh and inspiring. The army was in great form, and fine to see, as\nit uncoiled from its lair fold by fold, and stretched away on the final\nmarch of the peaceful Coronation Campaign.\n\nJoan, on her black horse, with the Lieutenant-General and the personal\nstaff grouped about her, took post for a final review and a good-by;\nfor she was not expecting to ever be a soldier again, or ever serve with\nthese or any other soldiers any more after this day. The army knew this,\nand believed it was looking for the last time upon the girlish face of\nits invincible little Chief, its pet, its pride, its darling, whom it\nhad ennobled in its private heart with nobilities of its own creation,\ncall her \"Daughter of God,\" \"Savior of France,\" \"Victory's Sweetheart,\"\n\"The Page of Christ,\" together with still softer titles which were\nsimply naive and frank endearments such as men are used to confer upon\nchildren whom they love. And so one saw a new thing now; a thing bred of\nthe emotion that was present there on both sides. Always before, in the\nmarch-past, the battalions had gone swinging by in a storm of cheers,\nheads up and eyes flashing, the drums rolling, the bands braying paens\nof victory; but now there was nothing of that. But for one impressive\nsound, one could have closed his eyes and imagined himself in a world\nof the dead. That one sound was all that visited the ear in the summer\nstillness--just that one sound--the muffled tread of the marching host.\nAs the serried masses drifted by, the men put their right hands up to\ntheir temples, palms to the front, in military salute, turning their\neyes upon Joan's face in mute God-bless-you and farewell, and keeping\nthem there while they could. They still kept their hands up in reverent\nsalute many steps after they had passed by. Every time Joan put her\nhandkerchief to her eyes you could see a little quiver of emotion\ncrinkle along the faces of the files.\n\nThe march-past after a victory is a thing to drive the heart mad with\njubilation; but this one was a thing to break it.\n\nWe rode now to the King's lodgings, which was the Archbishop's country\npalace; and he was presently ready, and we galloped off and took\nposition at the head of the army. By this time the country-people were\narriving in multitudes from every direction and massing themselves on\nboth sides of the road to get sight of Joan--just as had been done every\nday since our first day's march began. Our march now lay through the\ngrassy plain, and those peasants made a dividing double border for that\nplain. They stretched right down through it, a broad belt of bright\ncolors on each side of the road; for every peasant girl and woman in it\nhad a white jacket on her body and a crimson skirt on the rest of her.\nEndless borders made of poppies and lilies stretching away in front of\nus--that is what it looked like. And that is the kind of lane we had\nbeen marching through all these days. Not a lane between multitudinous\nflowers standing upright on their stems--no, these flowers were always\nkneeling; kneeling, these human flowers, with their hands and faces\nlifted toward Joan of Arc, and the grateful tears streaming down. And\nall along, those closest to the road hugged her feet and kissed them\nand laid their wet cheeks fondly against them. I never, during all those\ndays, saw any of either sex stand while she passed, nor any man keep his\nhead covered. Afterward in the Great Trial these touching scenes were\nused as a weapon against her. She had been made an object of adoration\nby the people, and this was proof that she was a heretic--so claimed\nthat unjust court.\n\nAs we drew near the city the curving long sweep of ramparts and towers\nwas gay with fluttering flags and black with masses of people; and\nall the air was vibrant with the crash of artillery and gloomed with\ndrifting clouds of smoke. We entered the gates in state and moved in\nprocession through the city, with all the guilds and industries in\nholiday costume marching in our rear with their banners; and all the\nroute was hedged with a huzzaing crush of people, and all the windows\nwere full and all the roofs; and from the balconies hung costly stuffs\nof rich colors; and the waving of handkerchiefs, seen in perspective\nthrough a long vista, was like a snowstorm.\n\nJoan's name had been introduced into the prayers of the Church--an honor\ntheretofore restricted to royalty. But she had a dearer honor and an\nhonor more to be proud of, from a humbler source: the common people had\nhad leaden medals struck which bore her effigy and her escutcheon, and\nthese they wore as charms. One saw them everywhere.\n\nFrom the Archbishop's Palace, where we halted, and where the King and\nJoan were to lodge, the King sent to the Abbey Church of St. Remi,\nwhich was over toward the gate by which we had entered the city, for the\nSainte Ampoule, or flask of holy oil. This oil was not earthly oil; it\nwas made in heaven; the flask also. The flask, with the oil in it, was\nbrought down from heaven by a dove. It was sent down to St. Remi just as\nhe was going to baptize King Clovis, who had become a Christian. I know\nthis to be true. I had known it long before; for Pere Fronte told me in\nDomremy. I cannot tell you how strange and awful it made me feel when\nI saw that flask and knew I was looking with my own eyes upon a thing\nwhich had actually been in heaven, a thing which had been seen by\nangels, perhaps; and by God Himself of a certainty, for He sent it. And\nI was looking upon it--I. At one time I could have touched it. But I\nwas afraid; for I could not know but that God had touched it. It is most\nprobable that He had.\n\nFrom this flask Clovis had been anointed; and from it all the kings of\nFrance had been anointed since. Yes, ever since the time of Clovis, and\nthat was nine hundred years. And so, as I have said, that flask of holy\noil was sent for, while we waited. A coronation without that would not\nhave been a coronation at all, in my belief.\n\nNow in order to get the flask, a most ancient ceremonial had to be gone\nthrough with; otherwise the Abby of St. Remi hereditary guardian in\nperpetuity of the oil, would not deliver it. So, in accordance with\ncustom, the King deputed five great nobles to ride in solemn state and\nrichly armed and accoutered, they and their steeds, to the Abbey Church\nas a guard of honor to the Archbishop of Rheims and his canons, who were\nto bear the King's demand for the oil. When the five great lords were\nready to start, they knelt in a row and put up their mailed hands before\ntheir faces, palm joined to palm, and swore upon their lives to conduct\nthe sacred vessel safely, and safely restore it again to the Church\nof St. Remi after the anointing of the King. The Archbishop and his\nsubordinates, thus nobly escorted, took their way to St. Remi. The\nArchbishop was in grand costume, with his miter on his head and his\ncross in his hand. At the door of St. Remi they halted and formed, to\nreceive the holy vial. Soon one heard the deep tones of the organ and of\nchanting men; then one saw a long file of lights approaching through the\ndim church. And so came the Abbot, in his sacerdotal panoply, bearing\nthe vial, with his people following after. He delivered it, with solemn\nceremonies, to the Archbishop; then the march back began, and it was\nmost impressive; for it moved, the whole way, between two multitudes of\nmen and women who lay flat upon their faces and prayed in dumb silence\nand in dread while that awful thing went by that had been in heaven.\n\nThis August company arrived at the great west door of the cathedral;\nand as the Archbishop entered a noble anthem rose and filled the vast\nbuilding. The cathedral was packed with people--people in thousands.\nOnly a wide space down the center had been kept free. Down this space\nwalked the Archbishop and his canons, and after them followed those five\nstately figures in splendid harness, each bearing his feudal banner--and\nriding!\n\nOh, that was a magnificent thing to see. Riding down the cavernous\nvastness of the building through the rich lights streaming in long rays\nfrom the pictured windows--oh, there was never anything so grand!\n\nThey rode clear to the choir--as much as four hundred feet from the\ndoor, it was said. Then the Archbishop dismissed them, and they made\ndeep obeisance till their plumes touched their horses' necks, then made\nthose proud prancing and mincing and dancing creatures go backward all\nthe way to the door--which was pretty to see, and graceful; then they\nstood them on their hind-feet and spun them around and plunged away and\ndisappeared.\n\nFor some minutes there was a deep hush, a waiting pause; a silence so\nprofound that it was as if all those packed thousands there were steeped\nin dreamless slumber--why, you could even notice the faintest sounds,\nlike the drowsy buzzing of insects; then came a mighty flood of rich\nstrains from four hundred silver trumpets, and then, framed in the\npointed archway of the great west door, appeared Joan and the King. They\nadvanced slowly, side by side, through a tempest of welcome--explosion\nafter explosion of cheers and cries, mingled with the deep thunders of\nthe organ and rolling tides of triumphant song from chanting choirs.\nBehind Joan and the King came the Paladin and the Banner displayed; and\na majestic figure he was, and most proud and lofty in his bearing, for\nhe knew that the people were marking him and taking note of the gorgeous\nstate dress which covered his armor.\n\nAt his side was the Sire d'Albret, proxy for the Constable of France,\nbearing the Sword of State.\n\nAfter these, in order of rank, came a body royally attired representing\nthe lay peers of France; it consisted of three princes of the blood, and\nLa Tremouille and the young De Laval brothers.\n\nThese were followed by the representatives of the ecclesiastical\npeers--the Archbishop of Rheims, and the Bishops of Laon, Chalons,\nOrleans, and one other.\n\nBehind these came the Grand Staff, all our great generals and famous\nnames, and everybody was eager to get a sight of them. Through all the\ndin one could hear shouts all along that told you where two of them\nwere: \"Live the Bastard of Orleans!\" \"Satan La Hire forever!\"\n\nThe August procession reached its appointed place in time, and the\nsolemnities of the Coronation began. They were long and imposing--with\nprayers, and anthems, and sermons, and everything that is right for such\noccasions; and Joan was at the King's side all these hours, with her\nStandard in her hand. But at last came the grand act: the King took\nthe oath, he was anointed with the sacred oil; a splendid personage,\nfollowed by train-bearers and other attendants, approached, bearing the\nCrown of France upon a cushion, and kneeling offered it. The King seemed\nto hesitate--in fact, did hesitate; for he put out his hand and then\nstopped with it there in the air over the crown, the fingers in the\nattitude of taking hold of it. But that was for only a moment--though\na moment is a notable something when it stops the heartbeat of twenty\nthousand people and makes them catch their breath. Yes, only a moment;\nthen he caught Joan's eye, and she gave him a look with all the joy of\nher thankful great soul in it; then he smiled, and took the Crown of\nFrance in his hand, and right finely and right royally lifted it up and\nset it upon his head.\n\nThen what a crash there was! All about us cries and cheers, and the\nchanting of the choirs and groaning of the organ; and outside the\nclamoring of the bells and the booming of the cannon. The fantastic\ndream, the incredible dream, the impossible dream of the peasant-child\nstood fulfilled; the English power was broken, the Heir of France was\ncrowned.\n\nShe was like one transfigured, so divine was the joy that shone in her\nface as she sank to her knees at the King's feet and looked up at him\nthrough her tears. Her lips were quivering, and her words came soft and\nlow and broken:\n\n\"Now, O gentle King, is the pleasure of God accomplished according to\nHis command that you should come to Rheims and receive the crown that\nbelongeth of right to you, and unto none other. My work which was given\nme to do is finished; give me your peace, and let me go back to my\nmother, who is poor and old, and has need of me.\"\n\nThe King raised her up, and there before all that host he praised her\ngreat deeds in most noble terms; and there he confirmed her nobility and\ntitles, making her the equal of a count in rank, and also appointed a\nhousehold and officers for her according to her dignity; and then he\nsaid:\n\n\"You have saved the crown. Speak--require--demand; and whatsoever grace\nyou ask it shall be granted, though it make the kingdom poor to meet\nit.\"\n\nNow that was fine, that was royal. Joan was on her knees again\nstraightway, and said:\n\n\"Then, O gentle King, if out of your compassion you will speak the word,\nI pray you give commandment that my village, poor and hard pressed by\nreason of war, may have its taxes remitted.\"\n\n\"It is so commanded. Say on.\"\n\n\"That is all.\"\n\n\"All? Nothing but that?\"\n\n\"It is all. I have no other desire.\"\n\n\"But that is nothing--less than nothing. Ask--do not be afraid.\"\n\n\"Indeed, I cannot, gentle King. Do not press me. I will not have aught\nelse, but only this alone.\"\n\nThe King seemed nonplussed, and stood still a moment, as if trying to\ncomprehend and realize the full stature of this strange unselfishness.\nThen he raised his head and said:\n\n\"Who has won a kingdom and crowned its King; and all she asks and all\nshe will take is this poor grace--and even this is for others, not for\nherself. And it is well; her act being proportioned to the dignity of\none who carries in her head and heart riches which outvalue any that\nany King could add, though he gave his all. She shall have her way. Now,\ntherefore, it is decreed that from this day forth Domremy, natal village\nof Joan of Arc, Deliverer of France, called the Maid of Orleans, is\nfreed from all taxation forever.\" Whereat the silver horns blew a\njubilant blast.\n\nThere, you see, she had had a vision of this very scene the time she was\nin a trance in the pastures of Domremy and we asked her to name to boon\nshe would demand of the King if he should ever chance to tell her she\nmight claim one. But whether she had the vision or not, this act showed\nthat after all the dizzy grandeurs that had come upon her, she was still\nthe same simple, unselfish creature that she was that day.\n\nYes, Charles VII. remitted those taxes \"forever.\" Often the gratitude of\nkings and nations fades and their promises are forgotten or deliberately\nviolated; but you, who are children of France, should remember with\npride that France has kept this one faithfully. Sixty-three years have\ngone by since that day. The taxes of the region wherein Domremy lies\nhave been collected sixty-three times since then, and all the villages\nof that region have paid except that one--Domremy. The tax-gatherer\nnever visits Domremy. Domremy has long ago forgotten what that dread\nsorrow-sowing apparition is like. Sixty-three tax-books have been filed\nmeantime, and they lie yonder with the other public records, and any\nmay see them that desire it. At the top of every page in the sixty-three\nbooks stands the name of a village, and below that name its weary burden\nof taxation is figured out and displayed; in the case of all save one.\nIt is true, just as I tell you. In each of the sixty-three books there\nis a page headed \"Domremi,\" but under that name not a figure appears.\nWhere the figures should be, there are three words written; and the same\nwords have been written every year for all these years; yes, it is a\nblank page, with always those grateful words lettered across the face of\nit--a touching memorial. Thus:\n\n  DOMREMI | | | | RIEN--LA PUCELLE\n\n \"NOTHING--THE MAID OF ORLEANS.\"\n\nHow brief it is; yet how much it says! It is the nation speaking. You\nhave the spectacle of that unsentimental thing, a Government, making\nreverence to that name and saying to its agent, \"Uncover, and pass on;\nit is France that commands.\" Yes, the promise has been kept; it will be\nkept always; \"forever\" was the King's word. (1) At two o'clock in the\nafternoon the ceremonies of the Coronation came at last to an end; then\nthe procession formed once more, with Joan and the King at its head,\nand took up its solemn march through the midst of the church, all\ninstruments and all people making such clamor of rejoicing noises as\nwas, indeed, a marvel to hear. An so ended the third of the great days\nof Joan's life. And how close together they stand--May 8th, June 18th,\nJuly 17th!\n\n(1) IT was faithfully kept during three hundred and sixty years and\nmore; then the over-confident octogenarian's prophecy failed. During the\ntumult of the French Revolution the promise was forgotten and the grace\nwithdrawn. It has remained in disuse ever since. Joan never asked to be\nremembered, but France has remembered her with an inextinguishable love\nand reverence; Joan never asked for a statue, but France has lavished\nthem upon her; Joan never asked for a church for Domremy, but France\nis building one; Joan never asked for saintship, but even that is\nimpending. Everything which Joan of Arc did not ask for has been given\nher, and with a noble profusion; but the one humble little thing which\nshe did ask for and get has been taken away from her. There is something\ninfinitely pathetic about this. France owes Domremy a hundred years of\ntaxes, and could hardly find a citizen within her borders who would vote\nagainst the payment of the debt. -- NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR.\n\n\n\n\n\n36 Joan Hears News from Home\n\nWE MOUNTED and rode, a spectacle to remember, a most noble display of\nrich vestments and nodding plumes, and as we moved between the banked\nmultitudes they sank down all along abreast of us as we advanced, like\ngrain before the reaper, and kneeling hailed with a rousing welcome the\nconsecrated King and his companion the Deliverer of France. But by and\nby when we had paraded about the chief parts of the city and were come\nnear to the end of our course, we being now approaching the Archbishop's\npalace, one saw on the right, hard by the inn that is called the Zebra,\na strange thing--two men not kneeling but standing! Standing in the\nfront rank of the kneelers; unconscious, transfixed, staring. Yes, and\nclothed in the coarse garb of the peasantry, these two. Two halberdiers\nsprang at them in a fury to teach them better manners; but just as they\nseized them Joan cried out \"Forbear!\" and slid from her saddle and\nflung her arms about one of those peasants, calling him by all manner of\nendearing names, and sobbing. For it was her father; and the other was\nher uncle, Laxart.\n\nThe news flew everywhere, and shouts of welcome were raised, and in just\none little moment those two despised and unknown plebeians were become\nfamous and popular and envied, and everybody was in a fever to get sight\nof them and be able to say, all their lives long, that they had seen the\nfather of Joan of Arc and the brother of her mother. How easy it was for\nher to do miracles like to this! She was like the sun; on whatsoever dim\nand humble object her rays fell, that thing was straightway drowned in\nglory.\n\nAll graciously the King said:\n\n\"Bring them to me.\"\n\nAnd she brought them; she radiant with happiness and affection, they\ntrembling and scared, with their caps in their shaking hands; and there\nbefore all the world the King gave them his hand to kiss, while the\npeople gazed in envy and admiration; and he said to old D'Arc:\n\n\"Give God thanks for that you are father to this child, this dispenser\nof immortalities. You who bear a name that will still live in the mouths\nof men when all the race of kings has been forgotten, it is not meet\nthat you bare your head before the fleeting fames and dignities of a\nday--cover yourself!\" And truly he looked right fine and princely when\nhe said that. Then he gave order that the Bailly of Rheims be brought;\nand when he was come, and stood bent low and bare, the King said to him,\n\"These two are guests of France;\" and bade him use them hospitably.\n\nI may as well say now as later, that Papa D'Arc and Laxart were stopping\nin that little Zebra inn, and that there they remained. Finer quarters\nwere offered them by the Bailly, also public distinctions and brave\nentertainment; but they were frightened at these projects, they being\nonly humble and ignorant peasants; so they begged off, and had peace.\nThey could not have enjoyed such things. Poor souls, they did not even\nknow what to do with their hands, and it took all their attention to\nkeep from treading on them. The Bailly did the best he could in the\ncircumstances. He made the innkeeper place a whole floor at their\ndisposal, and told him to provide everything they might desire, and\ncharge all to the city. Also the Bailly gave them a horse apiece and\nfurnishings; which so overwhelmed them with pride and delight and\nastonishment that they couldn't speak a word; for in their lives they\nhad never dreamed of wealth like this, and could not believe, at first,\nthat the horses were real and would not dissolve to a mist and blow\naway. They could not unglue their minds from those grandeurs, and were\nalways wrenching the conversation out of its groove and dragging the\nmatter of animals into it, so that they could say \"my horse\" here, and\n\"my horse\" there and yonder and all around, and taste the words and lick\ntheir chops over them, and spread their legs and hitch their thumbs in\ntheir armpits, and feel as the good God feels when He looks out on His\nfleets of constellations plowing the awful deeps of space and reflects\nwith satisfaction that they are His--all His. Well, they were the\nhappiest old children one ever saw, and the simplest.\n\nThe city gave a grand banquet to the King and Joan in mid-afternoon, and\nto the Court and the Grand Staff; and about the middle of it Pere D'Arc\nand Laxart were sent for, but would not venture until it was promised\nthat they might sit in a gallery and be all by themselves and see all\nthat was to be seen and yet be unmolested. And so they sat there and\nlooked down upon the splendid spectacle, and were moved till the tears\nran down their cheeks to see the unbelievable honors that were paid to\ntheir small darling, and how naively serene and unafraid she sat there\nwith those consuming glories beating upon her.\n\nBut at last her serenity was broken up. Yes, it stood the strain of\nthe King's gracious speech; and of D'Alencon's praiseful words, and the\nBastard's; and even La Hire's thunder-blast, which took the place by\nstorm; but at last, as I have said, they brought a force to bear which\nwas too strong for her. For at the close the King put up his hand to\ncommand silence, and so waited, with his hand up, till every sound was\ndead and it was as if one could almost the stillness, so profound it\nwas. Then out of some remote corner of that vast place there rose\na plaintive voice, and in tones most tender and sweet and rich came\nfloating through that enchanted hush our poor old simple song \"L'Arbre\nFee Bourlemont!\" and then Joan broke down and put her face in her\nhands and cried. Yes, you see, all in a moment the pomps and grandeurs\ndissolved away and she was a little child again herding her sheep with\nthe tranquil pastures stretched about her, and war and wounds and blood\nand death and the mad frenzy and turmoil of battle a dream. Ah, that\nshows you the power of music, that magician of magicians, who lifts his\nwand and says his mysterious word and all things real pass away and the\nphantoms of your mind walk before you clothed in flesh.\n\nThat was the King's invention, that sweet and dear surprise. Indeed,\nhe had fine things hidden away in his nature, though one seldom got a\nglimpse of them, with that scheming Tremouille and those others always\nstanding in the light, and he so indolently content to save himself fuss\nand argument and let them have their way.\n\nAt the fall of night we the Domremy contingent of the personal staff\nwere with the father and uncle at the inn, in their private parlor,\nbrewing generous drinks and breaking ground for a homely talk about\nDomremy and the neighbors, when a large parcel arrived from Joan to be\nkept till she came; and soon she came herself and sent her guard away,\nsaying she would take one of her father's rooms and sleep under his\nroof, and so be at home again. We of the staff rose and stood, as was\nmeet, until she made us sit. Then she turned and saw that the two\nold men had gotten up too, and were standing in an embarrassed and\nunmilitary way; which made her want to laugh, but she kept it in, as\nnot wishing to hurt them; and got them to their seats and snuggled down\nbetween them, and took a hand of each of them upon her knees and nestled\nher own hands in them, and said:\n\n\"Now we will nave no more ceremony, but be kin and playmates as in other\ntimes; for I am done with the great wars now, and you two will take\nme home with you, and I shall see--\" She stopped, and for a moment her\nhappy face sobered, as if a doubt or a presentiment had flitted through\nher mind; then it cleared again, and she said, with a passionate\nyearning, \"Oh, if the day were but come and we could start!\"\n\nThe old father was surprised, and said:\n\n\"Why, child, are you in earnest? Would you leave doing these wonders\nthat make you to be praised by everybody while there is still so much\nglory to be won; and would you go out from this grand comradeship with\nprinces and generals to be a drudging villager again and a nobody? It is\nnot rational.\"\n\n\"No,\" said the uncle, Laxart, \"it is amazing to hear, and indeed not\nunderstandable. It is a stranger thing to hear her say she will stop\nthe soldiering that it was to hear her say she would begin it; and I who\nspeak to you can say in all truth that that was the strangest word that\never I had heard till this day and hour. I would it could be explained.\"\n\n\"It is not difficult,\" said Joan. \"I was not ever fond of wounds and\nsuffering, nor fitted by my nature to inflict them; and quarrelings\ndid always distress me, and noise and tumult were against my liking, my\ndisposition being toward peace and quietness, and love for all things\nthat have life; and being made like this, how could I bear to think of\nwars and blood, and the pain that goes with them, and the sorrow\nand mourning that follow after? But by his angels God laid His great\ncommands upon me, and could I disobey? I did as I was bid. Did He\ncommand me to do many things? No; only two: to raise the siege of\nOrleans, and crown the King at Rheims. The task is finished, and I am\nfree. Has ever a poor soldier fallen in my sight, whether friend or foe,\nand I not felt the pain in my own body, and the grief of his home-mates\nin my own heart? No, not one; and, oh, it is such bliss to know that my\nrelease is won, and that I shall not any more see these cruel things or\nsuffer these tortures of the mind again! Then why should I not go to\nmy village and be as I was before? It is heaven! and ye wonder that I\ndesire it. Ah, ye are men--just men! My mother would understand.\"\n\nThey didn't quite know what to say; so they sat still awhile, looking\npretty vacant. Then old D'Arc said:\n\n\"Yes, your mother--that is true. I never saw such a woman. She worries,\nand worries, and worries; and wakes nights, and lies so, thinking--that\nis, worrying; worrying about you. And when the night storms go raging\nalong, she moans and says, 'Ah, God pity her, she is out in this with\nher poor wet soldiers.' And when the lightning glares and the thunder\ncrashes she wrings her hands and trembles, saying, 'It is like the awful\ncannon and the flash, and yonder somewhere she is riding down upon the\nspouting guns and I not there to protect her.\"\n\n\"Ah, poor mother, it is pity, it is pity!\"\n\n\"Yes, a most strange woman, as I have noticed a many times. When there\nis news of a victory and all the village goes mad with pride and joy,\nshe rushes here and there in a maniacal frenzy till she finds out the\none only thing she cares to know--that you are safe; then down she goes\non her knees in the dirt and praises God as long as there is any breath\nleft in her body; and all on your account, for she never mentions\nthe battle once. And always she says, 'Now it is over--now France is\nsaved--now she will come home'--and always is disappointed and goes\nabout mourning.\"\n\n\"Don't, father! it breaks my heart. I will be so good to her when I get\nhome. I will do her work for her, and be her comfort, and she shall not\nsuffer any more through me.\"\n\nThere was some more talk of this sort, then Uncle Laxart said:\n\n\"You have done the will of God, dear, and are quits; it is true, and\nnone may deny it; but what of the King? You are his best soldier; what\nif he command you to stay?\"\n\nThat was a crusher--and sudden! It took Joan a moment or two to recover\nfrom the shock of it; then she said, quite simply and resignedly:\n\n\"The King is my Lord; I am his servant.\" She was silent and thoughtful\na little while, then she brightened up and said, cheerily, \"But let us\ndrive such thoughts away--this is no time for them. Tell me about home.\"\n\nSo the two old gossips talked and talked; talked about everything and\neverybody in the village; and it was good to hear. Joan out of her\nkindness tried to get us into the conversation, but that failed, of\ncourse. She was the Commander-in-Chief, we were nobodies; her name was\nthe mightiest in France, we were invisible atoms; she was the comrade\nof princes and heroes, we of the humble and obscure; she held rank above\nall Personages and all Puissances whatsoever in the whole earth, by\nright of baring her commission direct from God. To put it in one word,\nshe was JOAN OF ARC--and when that is said, all is said. To us she was\ndivine. Between her and us lay the bridgeless abyss which that word\nimplies. We could not be familiar with her. No, you can see yourselves\nthat that would have been impossible.\n\nAnd yet she was so human, too, and so good and kind and dear and loving\nand cheery and charming and unspoiled and unaffected! Those are all the\nwords I think of now, but they are not enough; no, they are too few and\ncolorless and meager to tell it all, or tell the half. Those simple old\nmen didn't realize her; they couldn't; they had never known any people\nbut human beings, and so they had no other standard to measure her by.\nTo them, after their first little shyness had worn off, she was just a\ngirl--that was all. It was amazing. It made one shiver, sometimes, to\nsee how calm and easy and comfortable they were in her presence, and\nhear them talk to her exactly as they would have talked to any other\ngirl in France.\n\nWhy, that simple old Laxart sat up there and droned out the most tedious\nand empty tale one ever heard, and neither he nor Papa D'Arc ever gave\na thought to the badness of the etiquette of it, or ever suspected that\nthat foolish tale was anything but dignified and valuable history. There\nwas not an atom of value in it; and whilst they thought it distressing\nand pathetic, it was in fact not pathetic at all, but actually\nridiculous. At least it seemed so to me, and it seems so yet. Indeed, I\nknow it was, because it made Joan laugh; and the more sorrowful it got\nthe more it made her laugh; and the Paladin said that he could have\nlaughed himself if she had not been there, and Noel Rainguesson said the\nsame. It was about old Laxart going to a funeral there at Domremy two or\nthree weeks back. He had spots all over his face and hands, and he got\nJoan to rub some healing ointment on them, and while she was doing it,\nand comforting him, and trying to say pitying things to him, he told\nher how it happened. And first he asked her if she remembered that black\nbull calf that she left behind when she came away, and she said indeed\nshe did, and he was a dear, and she loved him so, and was he well?--and\njust drowned him in questions about that creature. And he said it was a\nyoung bull now, and very frisky; and he was to bear a principal hand at\na funeral; and she said, \"The bull?\" and he said, \"No, myself\"; but said\nthe bull did take a hand, but not because of his being invited, for\nhe wasn't; but anyway he was away over beyond the Fairy Tree, and fell\nasleep on the grass with his Sunday funeral clothes on, and a long black\nrag on his hat and hanging down his back; and when he woke he saw by the\nsun how late it was, and not a moment to lose; and jumped up terribly\nworried, and saw the young bull grazing there, and thought maybe he\ncould ride part way on him and gain time; so he tied a rope around the\nbull's body to hold on by, and put a halter on him to steer with,\nand jumped on and started; but it was all new to the bull, and he was\ndiscontented with it, and scurried around and bellowed and reared and\npranced, and Uncle Laxart was satisfied, and wanted to get off and go\nby the next bull or some other way that was quieter, but he didn't\ndare try; and it was getting very warm for him, too, and disturbing and\nwearisome, and not proper for Sunday; but by and by the bull lost all\nhis temper, and went tearing down the slope with his tail in the air and\nblowing in the most awful way; and just in the edge of the village\nhe knocked down some beehives, and the bees turned out and joined the\nexcursion, and soared along in a black cloud that nearly hid those other\ntwo from sight, and prodded them both, and jabbed them and speared them\nand spiked them, and made them bellow and shriek, and shriek and bellow;\nand here they came roaring through the village like a hurricane, and\ntook the funeral procession right in the center, and sent that section\nof it sprawling, and galloped over it, and the rest scattered apart and\nfled screeching in every direction, every person with a layer of bees on\nhim, and not a rag of that funeral left but the corpse; and finally\nthe bull broke for the river and jumped in, and when they fished Uncle\nLaxart out he was nearly drowned, and his face looked like a pudding\nwith raisins in it. And then he turned around, this old simpleton, and\nlooked a long time in a dazed way at Joan where she had her face in a\ncushion, dying, apparently, and says:\n\n\"What do you reckon she is laughing at?\"\n\nAnd old D'Arc stood looking at her the same way, sort of absently\nscratching his head; but had to give it up, and said he didn't\nknow--\"must have been something that happened when we weren't noticing.\"\n\nYes, both of those old people thought that that tale was pathetic;\nwhereas to my mind it was purely ridiculous, and not in any way valuable\nto any one. It seemed so to me then, and it seems so to me yet. And as\nfor history, it does not resemble history; for the office of history is\nto furnish serious and important facts that teach; whereas this strange\nand useless event teaches nothing; nothing that I can see, except not\nto ride a bull to a funeral; and surely no reflecting person needs to be\ntaught that.\n\n\n\n\n\n37 Again to Arms\n\nNOW THESE were nobles, you know, by decree of the King!--these precious\nold infants. But they did not realize it; they could not be called\nconscious of it; it was an abstraction, a phantom; to them it had no\nsubstance; their minds could not take hold of it. No, they did not\nbother about their nobility; they lived in their horses. The horses were\nsolid; they were visible facts, and would make a mighty stir in Domremy.\nPresently something was said about the Coronation, and old D'Arc said\nit was going to be a grand thing to be able to say, when they got home,\nthat they were present in the very town itself when it happened. Joan\nlooked troubled, and said:\n\n\"Ah, that reminds me. You were here and you didn't send me word. In the\ntown, indeed! Why, you could have sat with the other nobles, and been\nwelcome; and could have looked upon the crowning itself, and carried\nthat home to tell. Ah, why did you use me so, and send me no word?\"\n\nThe old father was embarrassed, now, quite visibly embarrassed, and had\nthe air of one who does not quite know what to say. But Joan was looking\nup in his face, her hands upon his shoulders--waiting. He had to speak;\nso presently he drew her to his breast, which was heaving with emotion;\nand he said, getting out his words with difficulty:\n\n\"There, hide your face, child, and let your old father humble himself\nand make his confession. I--I--don't you see, don't you understand?--I\ncould not know that these grandeurs would not turn your young head--it\nwould be only natural. I might shame you before these great per--\"\n\n\"Father!\"\n\n\"And then I was afraid, as remembering that cruel thing I said once in\nmy sinful anger. Oh, appointed of God to be a soldier, and the greatest\nin the land! and in my ignorant anger I said I would drown you with my\nown hands if you unsexed yourself and brought shame to your name and\nfamily. Ah, how could I ever have said it, and you so good and dear\nand innocent! I was afraid; for I was guilty. You understand it now, my\nchild, and you forgive?\"\n\nDo you see? Even that poor groping old land-crab, with his skull full of\npulp, had pride. Isn't it wonderful? And more--he had conscience; he had\na sense of right and wrong, such as it was; he was able to find remorse.\nIt looks impossible, it looks incredible, but it is not. I believe that\nsome day it will be found out that peasants are people. Yes, beings in\na great many respects like ourselves. And I believe that some day they\nwill find this out, too--and then! Well, then I think they will rise up\nand demand to be regarded as part of the race, and that by consequence\nthere will be trouble. Whenever one sees in a book or in a king's\nproclamation those words \"the nation,\" they bring before us the upper\nclasses; only those; we know no other \"nation\"; for us and the kings no\nother \"nation\" exists. But from the day that I saw old D'Arc the peasant\nacting and feeling just as I should have acted and felt myself, I have\ncarried the conviction in my heart that our peasants are not merely\nanimals, beasts of burden put here by the good God to produce food\nand comfort for the \"nation,\" but something more and better. You\nlook incredulous. Well, that is your training; it is the training of\neverybody; but as for me, I thank that incident for giving me a better\nlight, and I have never forgotten it.\n\nLet me see--where was I? One's mind wanders around here and there and\nyonder, when one is old. I think I said Joan comforted him. Certainly,\nthat is what she would do--there was no need to say that. She coaxed him\nand petted him and caressed him, and laid the memory of that old hard\nspeech of his to rest. Laid it to rest until she should be dead. Then\nhe would remember it again--yes, yes! Lord, how those things sting, and\nburn, and gnaw--the things which we did against the innocent dead! And\nwe say in our anguish, \"If they could only come back!\" Which is all very\nwell to say, but, as far as I can see, it doesn't profit anything. In my\nopinion the best way is not to do the thing in the first place. And I am\nnot alone in this; I have heard our two knights say the same thing; and\na man there in Orleans--no, I believe it was at Beaugency, or one\nof those places--it seems more as if it was at Beaugency than the\nothers--this man said the same thing exactly; almost the same words; a\ndark man with a cast in his eye and one leg shorter than the other. His\nname was--was--it is singular that I can't call that man's name; I had\nit in my mind only a moment ago, and I know it begins with--no, I don't\nremember what it begins with; but never mind, let it go; I will think of\nit presently, and then I will tell you.\n\nWell, pretty soon the old father wanted to know how Joan felt when\nshe was in the thick of a battle, with the bright blades hacking and\nflashing all around her, and the blows rapping and slatting on her\nshield, and blood gushing on her from the cloven ghastly face and broken\nteeth of the neighbor at her elbow, and the perilous sudden back surge\nof massed horses upon a person when the front ranks give way before a\nheavy rush of the enemy, and men tumble limp and groaning out of saddles\nall around, and battle-flags falling from dead hands wipe across one's\nface and hide the tossing turmoil a moment, and in the reeling\nand swaying and laboring jumble one's horse's hoofs sink into soft\nsubstances and shrieks of pain respond, and presently--panic! rush!\nswarm! flight! and death and hell following after! And the old fellow\ngot ever so much excited; and strode up and down, his tongue going like\na mill, asking question after question and never waiting for an answer;\nand finally he stood Joan up in the middle of the room and stepped off\nand scanned her critically, and said:\n\n\"No--I don't understand it. You are so little. So little and slender.\nWhen you had your armor on, to-day, it gave one a sort of notion of it;\nbut in these pretty silks and velvets, you are only a dainty page, not\na league-striding war-colossus, moving in clouds and darkness and\nbreathing smoke and thunder. I would God I might see you at it and go\ntell your mother! That would help her sleep, poor thing! Here--teach me\nthe arts of the soldier, that I may explain them to her.\"\n\nAnd she did it. She gave him a pike, and put him through the manual\nof arms; and made him do the steps, too. His marching was incredibly\nawkward and slovenly, and so was his drill with the pike; but he didn't\nknow it, and was wonderfully pleased with himself, and mightily excited\nand charmed with the ringing, crisp words of command. I am obliged\nto say that if looking proud and happy when one is marching were\nsufficient, he would have been the perfect soldier.\n\nAnd he wanted a lesson in sword-play, and got it. But of course that\nwas beyond him; he was too old. It was beautiful to see Joan handle the\nfoils, but the old man was a bad failure. He was afraid of the things,\nand skipped and dodged and scrambled around like a woman who has lost\nher mind on account of the arrival of a bat. He was of no good as\nan exhibition. But if La Hire had only come in, that would have been\nanother matter. Those two fenced often; I saw them many times. True,\nJoan was easily his master, but it made a good show for all that, for\nLa Hire was a grand swordsman. What a swift creature Joan was! You would\nsee her standing erect with her ankle-bones together and her foil arched\nover her head, the hilt in one hand and the button in the other--the old\ngeneral opposite, bent forward, left hand reposing on his back, his\nfoil advanced, slightly wiggling and squirming, his watching eye boring\nstraight into hers--and all of a sudden she would give a spring forward,\nand back again; and there she was, with the foil arched over her head as\nbefore. La Hire had been hit, but all that the spectator saw of it was\na something like a thin flash of light in the air, but nothing distinct,\nnothing definite.\n\nWe kept the drinkables moving, for that would please the Bailly and the\nlandlord; and old Laxart and D'Arc got to feeling quite comfortable, but\nwithout being what you could call tipsy. They got out the presents which\nthey had been buying to carry home--humble things and cheap, but they\nwould be fine there, and welcome. And they gave to Joan a present from\nPere Fronte and one from her mother--the one a little leaden image of\nthe Holy Virgin, the other half a yard of blue silk ribbon; and she\nwas as pleased as a child; and touched, too, as one could see plainly\nenough. Yes, she kissed those poor things over and over again, as if\nthey had been something costly and wonderful; and she pinned the Virgin\non her doublet, and sent for her helmet and tied the ribbon on that;\nfirst one way, then another; then a new way, then another new way; and\nwith each effort perching the helmet on her hand and holding it off\nthis way and that, and canting her head to one side and then the other,\nexamining the effect, as a bird does when it has got a new bug. And she\nsaid she could almost wish she was going to the wars again; for then she\nwould fight with the better courage, as having always with her something\nwhich her mother's touch had blessed.\n\nOld Laxart said he hoped she would go to the wars again, but home first,\nfor that all the people there were cruel anxious to see her--and so he\nwent on:\n\n\"They are proud of you, dear. Yes, prouder than any village ever was of\nanybody before. And indeed it is right and rational; for it is the first\ntime a village has ever had anybody like you to be proud of and call its\nown. And it is strange and beautiful how they try to give your name to\nevery creature that has a sex that is convenient. It is but half a year\nsince you began to be spoken of and left us, and so it is surprising to\nsee how many babies there are already in that region that are named\nfor you. First it was just Joan; then it was Joan-Orleans; then\nJoan-Orleans-Beaugency-Patay; and now the next ones will have a lot\nof towns and the Coronation added, of course. Yes, and the animals the\nsame. They know how you love animals, and so they try to do you honor\nand show their love for you by naming all those creatures after you;\ninsomuch that if a body should step out and call 'Joan of Arc--come!'\nthere would be a landslide of cats and all such things, each supposing\nit was the one wanted, and all willing to take the benefit of the doubt,\nanyway, for the sake of the food that might be on delivery. The kitten\nyou left behind--the last stray you fetched home--bears you name, now,\nand belongs to Pere Fronte, and is the pet and pride of the village;\nand people have come miles to look at it and pet it and stare at it and\nwonder over it because it was Joan of Arc's cat. Everybody will tell you\nthat; and one day when a stranger threw a stone at it, not knowing it\nwas your cat, the village rose against him as one man and hanged him!\nAnd but for Pere Fronte--\"\n\nThere was an interruption. It was a messenger from the King, bearing\na note for Joan, which I read to her, saying he had reflected, and had\nconsulted his other generals, and was obliged to ask her to remain at\nthe head of the army and withdraw her resignation. Also, would she\ncome immediately and attend a council of war? Straightway, at a little\ndistance, military commands and the rumble of drums broke on the still\nnight, and we knew that her guard was approaching.\n\nDeep disappointment clouded her face for just one moment and no\nmore--it passed, and with it the homesick girl, and she was Joan of Arc,\nCommander-in-Chief again, and ready for duty.\n\n\n\n\n\n38 The King Cries \"Forward!\"\n\nIN MY double quality of page and secretary I followed Joan to the\ncouncil. She entered that presence with the bearing of a grieved\ngoddess. What was become of the volatile child that so lately was\nenchanted with a ribbon and suffocated with laughter over the distress\nof a foolish peasant who had stormed a funeral on the back of a\nbee-stung bull? One may not guess. Simply it was gone, and had left no\nsign. She moved straight to the council-table, and stood. Her glance\nswept from face to face there, and where it fell, these lit it as with a\ntorch, those it scorched as with a brand. She knew where to strike. She\nindicated the generals with a nod, and said:\n\n\"My business is not with you. You have not craved a council of war.\"\nThen she turned toward the King's privy council, and continued: \"No; it\nis with you. A council of war! It is amazing. There is but one thing to\ndo, and only one, and lo, ye call a council of war! Councils of war have\nno value but to decide between two or several doubtful courses. But a\ncouncil of war when there is only one course? Conceive of a man in a\nboat and his family in the water, and he goes out among his friends to\nask what he would better do? A council of war, name of God! To determine\nwhat?\"\n\nShe stopped, and turned till her eyes rested upon the face of La\nTremouille; and so she stood, silent, measuring him, the excitement in\nall faces burning steadily higher and higher, and all pulses beating\nfaster and faster; then she said, with deliberation:\n\n\"Every sane man--whose loyalty is to his King and not a show and a\npretense--knows that there is but one rational thing before us--the\nmarch upon Paris!\"\n\nDown came the fist of La Hire with an approving crash upon the table.\nLa Tremouille turned white with anger, but he pulled himself firmly\ntogether and held his peace. The King's lazy blood was stirred and\nhis eye kindled finely, for the spirit of war was away down in him\nsomewhere, and a frank, bold speech always found it and made it tingle\ngladsomely. Joan waited to see if the chief minister might wish to\ndefend his position; but he was experienced and wise, and not a man to\nwaste his forces where the current was against him. He would wait; the\nKing's private ear would be at his disposal by and by.\n\nThat pious fox the Chancellor of France took the word now. He washed his\nsoft hands together, smiling persuasively, and said to Joan:\n\n\"Would it be courteous, your Excellency, to move abruptly from here\nwithout waiting for an answer from the Duke of Burgundy? You may not\nknow that we are negotiating with his Highness, and that there is\nlikely to be a fortnight's truce between us; and on his part a pledge to\ndeliver Paris into our hands without the cost of a blow or the fatigue\nof a march thither.\"\n\nJoan turned to him and said, gravely:\n\n\"This is not a confessional, my lord. You were not obliged to expose\nthat shame here.\"\n\nThe Chancellor's face reddened, and he retorted:\n\n\"Shame? What is there shameful about it?\"\n\nJoan answered in level, passionless tones:\n\n\"One may describe it without hunting far for words. I knew of this poor\ncomedy, my lord, although it was not intended that I should know. It is\nto the credit of the devisers of it that they tried to conceal it--this\ncomedy whose text and impulse are describable in two words.\"\n\nThe Chancellor spoke up with a fine irony in his manner:\n\n\"Indeed? And will your Excellency be good enough to utter them?\"\n\n\"Cowardice and treachery!\"\n\nThe fists of all the generals came down this time, and again the King's\neye sparkled with pleasure. The Chancellor sprang to his feet and\nappealed to his Majesty:\n\n\"Sire, I claim your protection.\"\n\nBut the King waved him to his seat again, saying:\n\n\"Peace. She had a right to be consulted before that thing was\nundertaken, since it concerned war as well as politics. It is but just\nthat she be heard upon it now.\"\n\nThe Chancellor sat down trembling with indignation, and remarked to\nJoan:\n\n\"Out of charity I will consider that you did not know who devised this\nmeasure which you condemn in so candid language.\"\n\n\"Save your charity for another occasion, my lord,\" said Joan, as calmly\nas before. \"Whenever anything is done to injure the interests and\ndegrade the honor of France, all but the dead know how to name the two\nconspirators-in-chief--\"\n\n\"Sir, sire! this insinuation--\"\n\n\"It is not an insinuation, my lord,\" said Joan, placidly, \"it is\na charge. I bring it against the King's chief minister and his\nChancellor.\"\n\nBoth men were on their feet now, insisting that the King modify Joan's\nfrankness; but he was not minded to do it. His ordinary councils were\nstale water--his spirit was drinking wine, now, and the taste of it was\ngood. He said:\n\n\"Sit--and be patient. What is fair for one must in fairness be allowed\nthe other. Consider--and be just. When have you two spared her? What\ndark charges and harsh names have you withheld when you spoke of her?\"\nThen he added, with a veiled twinkle in his eyes, \"If these are offenses\nI see no particular difference between them, except that she says her\nhard things to your faces, whereas you say yours behind her back.\"\n\nHe was pleased with that neat shot and the way it shriveled those two\npeople up, and made La Hire laugh out loud and the other generals softly\nquake and chuckle. Joan tranquilly resumed:\n\n\"From the first, we have been hindered by this policy of shilly-shally;\nthis fashion of counseling and counseling and counseling where no\ncounseling is needed, but only fighting. We took Orleans on the 8th of\nMay, and could have cleared the region round about in three days and\nsaved the slaughter of Patay. We could have been in Rheims six weeks\nago, and in Paris now; and would see the last Englishman pass out of\nFrance in half a year. But we struck no blow after Orleans, but went off\ninto the country--what for? Ostensibly to hold councils; really to give\nBedford time to send reinforcements to Talbot--which he did; and Patay\nhad to be fought. After Patay, more counseling, more waste of precious\ntime. Oh, my King, I would that you would be persuaded!\" She began to\nwarm up, now. \"Once more we have our opportunity. If we rise and strike,\nall is well. Bid me march upon Paris. In twenty days it shall be yours,\nand in six months all France! Here is half a year's work before us; if\nthis chance be wasted, I give you twenty years to do it in. Speak the\nword, O gentle King--speak but the one--\"\n\n\"I cry you mercy!\" interrupted the Chancellor, who saw a dangerous\nenthusiasm rising in the King's face. \"March upon Paris? Does your\nExcellency forget that the way bristles with English strongholds?\"\n\n\"That for your English strongholds!\" and Joan snapped her fingers\nscornfully. \"Whence have we marched in these last days? From Gien. And\nwhither? To Rheims. What bristled between? English strongholds. What are\nthey now? French ones--and they never cost a blow!\" Here applause broke\nout from the group of generals, and Joan had to pause a moment to let it\nsubside. \"Yes, English strongholds bristled before us; now French\nones bristle behind us. What is the argument? A child can read it.\nThe strongholds between us and Paris are garrisoned by no new breed of\nEnglish, but by the same breed as those others--with the same fears, the\nsame questionings, the same weaknesses, the same disposition to see the\nheavy hand of God descending upon them. We have but to march!--on the\ninstant--and they are ours, Paris is ours, France is ours! Give the\nword, O my King, command your servant to--\"\n\n\"Stay!\" cried the Chancellor. \"It would be madness to put our affront\nupon his Highness the Duke of Burgundy. By the treaty which we have\nevery hope to make with him--\"\n\n\"Oh, the treaty which we hope to make with him! He has scorned you for\nyears, and defied you. Is it your subtle persuasions that have softened\nhis manners and beguiled him to listen to proposals? No; it was\nblows!--the blows which we gave him! That is the only teaching that\nthat sturdy rebel can understand. What does he care for wind? The treaty\nwhich we hope to make with him--alack! He deliver Paris! There is no\npauper in the land that is less able to do it. He deliver Paris! Ah, but\nthat would make great Bedford smile! Oh, the pitiful pretext! the blind\ncan see that this thin pour-parler with its fifteen-day truce has no\npurpose but to give Bedford time to hurry forward his forces against us.\nMore treachery--always treachery! We call a council of war--with nothing\nto council about; but Bedford calls no council to teach him what our\ncourse is. He knows what he would do in our place. He would hang his\ntraitors and march upon Paris! O gentle King, rouse! The way is open,\nParis beckons, France implores, Speak and we--\"\n\n\"Sire, it is madness, sheer madness! Your Excellency, we cannot, we must\nnot go back from what we have done; we have proposed to treat, we must\ntreat with the Duke of Burgundy.\"\n\n\"And we will!\" said Joan.\n\n\"Ah? How?\"\n\n\"At the point of the lance!\"\n\nThe house rose, to a man--all that had French hearts--and let go a crack\nof applause--and kept it up; and in the midst of it one heard La Hire\ngrowl out: \"At the point of the lance! By God, that is music!\" The King\nwas up, too, and drew his sword, and took it by the blade and strode to\nJoan and delivered the hilt of it into her hand, saying:\n\n\"There, the King surrenders. Carry it to Paris.\"\n\nAnd so the applause burst out again, and the historical council of war\nthat has bred so many legends was over.\n\n\n\n\n\n39 We Win, But the King Balks\n\nIT WAS away past midnight, and had been a tremendous day in the matter\nof excitement and fatigue, but that was no matter to Joan when there was\nbusiness on hand. She did not think of bed. The generals followed her to\nher official quarters, and she delivered her orders to them as fast as\nshe could talk, and they sent them off to their different commands as\nfast as delivered; wherefore the messengers galloping hither and thither\nraised a world of clatter and racket in the still streets; and soon were\nadded to this the music of distant bugles and the roll of drums--notes\nof preparation; for the vanguard would break camp at dawn.\n\nThe generals were soon dismissed, but I wasn't; nor Joan; for it was my\nturn to work, now. Joan walked the floor and dictated a summons to\nthe Duke of Burgundy to lay down his arms and make peace and exchange\npardons with the King; or, if he must fight, go fight the Saracens.\n\"Pardonnez-vous l'un--l'autre de bon coeligeur, entierement, ainsi que\ndoivent faire loyaux chretiens, et, s'il vous plait de guerroyer,\nallez contre les Sarrasins.\" It was long, but it was good, and had the\nsterling ring to it. It is my opinion that it was as fine and simple and\nstraightforward and eloquent a state paper as she ever uttered.\n\nIt was delivered into the hands of a courier, and he galloped away with\nit. The Joan dismissed me, and told me to go to the inn and stay, and in\nthe morning give to her father the parcel which she had left there. It\ncontained presents for the Domremy relatives and friends and a peasant\ndress which she had bought for herself. She said she would say good-by\nto her father and uncle in the morning if it should still be their\npurpose to go, instead of tarrying awhile to see the city.\n\nI didn't say anything, of course, but I could have said that wild horses\ncouldn't keep those men in that town half a day. They waste the glory of\nbeing the first to carry the great news to Domremy--the taxes remitted\nforever!--and hear the bells clang and clatter, and the people cheer and\nshout? Oh, not they. Patay and Orleans and the Coronation were events\nwhich in a vague way these men understood to be colossal; but they were\ncolossal mists, films, abstractions; this was a gigantic reality!\n\nWhen I got there, do you suppose they were abed! Quite the reverse.\nThey and the rest were as mellow as mellow could be; and the Paladin was\ndoing his battles in great style, and the old peasants were endangering\nthe building with their applause. He was doing Patay now; and was\nbending his big frame forward and laying out the positions and movements\nwith a rake here and a rake there of his formidable sword on the floor,\nand the peasants were stooped over with their hands on their spread\nknees observing with excited eyes and ripping out ejaculations of wonder\nand admiration all along:\n\n\"Yes, here we were, waiting--waiting for the word; our horses fidgeting\nand snorting and dancing to get away, we lying back on the bridles till\nour bodies fairly slanted to the rear; the word rang out at last--'Go!'\nand we went!\n\n\"Went? There was nothing like it ever seen! Where we swept by squads of\nscampering English, the mere wind of our passage laid them flat in\npiles and rows! Then we plunged into the ruck of Fastolfe's frantic\nbattle-corps and tore through it like a hurricane, leaving a causeway of\nthe dead stretching far behind; no tarrying, no slacking rein, but on!\non! on! far yonder in the distance lay our prey--Talbot and his host\nlooming vast and dark like a storm-cloud brooding on the sea! Down we\nswooped upon them, glooming all the air with a quivering pall of dead\nleaves flung up by the whirlwind of our flight. In another moment\nwe should have struck them as world strikes world when disorbited\nconstellations crash into the Milky way, but by misfortune and the\ninscrutable dispensation of God I was recognized! Talbot turned white,\nand shouting, 'Save yourselves, it is the Standard-Bearer of Joan of\nArc!' drove his spurs home till they met in the middle of his horse's\nentrails, and fled the field with his billowing multitudes at his back!\nI could have cursed myself for not putting on a disguise. I saw reproach\nin the eyes of her Excellency, and was bitterly ashamed. I had caused\nwhat seemed an irreparable disaster. Another might have gone aside to\ngrieve, as not seeing any way to mend it; but I thank God I am not of\nthose. Great occasions only summon as with a trumpet-call the slumbering\nreserves of my intellect. I saw my opportunity in an instant--in\nthe next I was away! Through the woods I vanished--fst!--like an\nextinguished light! Away around through the curtaining forest I sped,\nas if on wings, none knowing what was become of me, none suspecting my\ndesign. Minute after minute passed, on and on I flew; on, and still on;\nand at last with a great cheer I flung my Banner to the breeze and burst\nout in front of Talbot! Oh, it was a mighty thought! That weltering\nchaos of distracted men whirled and surged backward like a tidal wave\nwhich has struck a continent, and the day was ours! Poor helpless\ncreatures, they were in a trap; they were surrounded; they could not\nescape to the rear, for there was our army; they could not escape to the\nfront, for there was I. Their hearts shriveled in their bodies, their\nhands fell listless at their sides. They stood still, and at our leisure\nwe slaughtered them to a man; all except Talbot and Fastolfe, whom I\nsaved and brought away, one under each arm.\"\n\nWell, there is no denying it, the Paladin was in great form that night.\nSuch style! such noble grace of gesture, such grandeur of attitude,\nsuch energy when he got going! such steady rise, on such sure wing, such\nnicely graduated expenditures of voice according to the weight of\nthe matter, such skilfully calculated approaches to his surprises and\nexplosions, such belief-compelling sincerity of tone and manner, such a\nclimaxing peal from his brazen lungs, and such a lightning-vivid picture\nof his mailed form and flaunting banner when he burst out before that\ndespairing army! And oh, the gentle art of the last half of his last\nsentence--delivered in the careless and indolent tone of one who has\nfinished his real story, and only adds a colorless and inconsequential\ndetail because it has happened to occur to him in a lazy way.\n\nIt was a marvel to see those innocent peasants. Why, they went all to\npieces with enthusiasm, and roared out applauses fit to raise the roof\nand wake the dead. When they had cooled down at last and there was\nsilence but for the heaving and panting, old Laxart said, admiringly:\n\n\"As it seems to me, you are an army in your single person.\"\n\n\"Yes, that is what he is,\" said Noel Rainguesson, convincingly. \"He is\na terror; and not just in this vicinity. His mere name carries a shudder\nwith it to distant lands--just his mere name; and when he frowns, the\nshadow of it falls as far as Rome, and the chickens go to roost an hour\nbefore schedule time. Yes; and some say--\"\n\n\"Noel Rainguesson, you are preparing yourself for trouble. I will say\njust one word to you, and it will be to your advantage to--\"\n\nI saw that the usual thing had got a start. No man could prophesy when\nit would end. So I delivered Joan's message and went off to bed.\n\nJoan made her good-byes to those old fellows in the morning, with loving\nembraces and many tears, and with a packed multitude for sympathizers,\nand they rode proudly away on their precious horses to carry their\ngreat news home. I had seen better riders, some will say that; for\nhorsemanship was a new art to them.\n\nThe vanguard moved out at dawn and took the road, with bands braying\nand banners flying; the second division followed at eight. Then came the\nBurgundian ambassadors, and lost us the rest of that day and the whole\nof the next. But Joan was on hand, and so they had their journey for\ntheir pains. The rest of us took the road at dawn, next morning, July\n20th. And got how far? Six leagues. Tremouille was getting in his sly\nwork with the vacillating King, you see. The King stopped at St. Marcoul\nand prayed three days. Precious time lost--for us; precious time gained\nfor Bedford. He would know how to use it.\n\nWe could not go on without the King; that would be to leave him in the\nconspirators' camp. Joan argued, reasoned, implored; and at last we got\nunder way again.\n\nJoan's prediction was verified. It was not a campaign, it was only\nanother holiday excursion. English strongholds lined our route; they\nsurrendered without a blow; we garrisoned them with Frenchmen and passed\non. Bedford was on the march against us with his new army by this time,\nand on the 25th of July the hostile forces faced each other and made\npreparation for battle; but Bedford's good judgment prevailed, and he\nturned and retreated toward Paris. Now was our chance. Our men were in\ngreat spirits.\n\nWill you believe it? Our poor stick of a King allowed his worthless\nadvisers to persuade him to start back for Gien, whence he had set out\nwhen we first marched for Rheims and the Coronation! And we actually did\nstart back. The fifteen-day truce had just been concluded with the Duke\nof Burgundy, and we would go and tarry at Gien until he should deliver\nParis to us without a fight.\n\nWe marched to Bray; then the King changed his mind once more, and with\nit his face toward Paris. Joan dictated a letter to the citizens of\nRheims to encourage them to keep heart in spite of the truce, and\npromising to stand by them. She furnished them the news herself that the\nKin had made this truce; and in speaking of it she was her usual frank\nself. She said she was not satisfied with it, and didn't know whether\nshe would keep it or not; that if she kept it, it would be solely out of\ntenderness for the King's honor. All French children know those famous\nwords. How naive they are! \"De cette treve qui a ete faite, je ne suis\npas contente, et je ne sais si je la tiendrai. Si je la tiens, ce sera\nseulement pour garder l'honneur du roi.\" But in any case, she said, she\nwould not allow the blood royal to be abused, and would keep the army in\ngood order and ready for work at the end of the truce.\n\nPoor child, to have to fight England, Burgundy, and a French conspiracy\nall at the same time--it was too bad. She was a match for the others,\nbut a conspiracy--ah, nobody is a match for that, when the victim that\nis to be injured is weak and willing. It grieved her, these troubled\ndays, to be so hindered and delayed and baffled, and at times she was\nsad and the tears lay near the surface. Once, talking with her good old\nfaithful friend and servant, the Bastard of Orleans, she said:\n\n\"Ah, if it might but please God to let me put off this steel raiment\nand go back to my father and my mother, and tend my sheep again with my\nsister and my brothers, who would be so glad to see me!\"\n\nBy the 12th of August we were camped near Dampmartin. Later we had a\nbrush with Bedford's rear-guard, and had hopes of a big battle on the\nmorrow, but Bedford and all his force got away in the night and went on\ntoward Paris.\n\nCharles sent heralds and received the submission of Beauvais. The Bishop\nPierre Cauchon, that faithful friend and slave of the English, was not\nable to prevent it, though he did his best. He was obscure then, but his\nname was to travel round the globe presently, and live forever in the\ncurses of France! Bear with me now, while I spit in fancy upon his\ngrave.\n\nCompiegne surrendered, and hauled down the English flag. On the 14th we\ncamped two leagues from Senlis. Bedford turned and approached, and\ntook up a strong position. We went against him, but all our efforts to\nbeguile him out from his intrenchments failed, though he had promised\nus a duel in the open field. Night shut down. Let him look out for the\nmorning! But in the morning he was gone again.\n\nWe entered Compiegne the 18th of August, turning out the English\ngarrison and hoisting our own flag.\n\nOn the 23d Joan gave command to move upon Paris. The King and the clique\nwere not satisfied with this, and retired sulking to Senlis, which had\njust surrendered. Within a few days many strong places submitted--Creil,\nPont-Saint-Maxence, Choisy, Gournay-sur-Aronde, Remy, Le\nNeufville-en-Hez, Moguay, Chantilly, Saintines. The English power was\ntumbling, crash after crash! And still the King sulked and disapproved,\nand was afraid of our movement against the capital.\n\nOn the 26th of August, 1429, Joan camped at St. Denis; in effect, under\nthe walls of Paris.\n\nAnd still the King hung back and was afraid. If we could but have had\nhim there to back us with his authority! Bedford had lost heart and\ndecided to waive resistance and go an concentrate his strength in the\nbest and loyalest province remaining to him--Normandy. Ah, if we\ncould only have persuaded the King to come and countenance us with his\npresence and approval at this supreme moment!\n\n\n\n\n\n40 Treachery Conquers Joan\n\nCOURIER after courier was despatched to the King, and he promised to\ncome, but didn't. The Duke d'Alencon went to him and got his promise\nagain, which he broke again. Nine days were lost thus; then he came,\narriving at St. Denis September 7th.\n\nMeantime the enemy had begun to take heart: the spiritless conduct of\nthe King could have no other result. Preparations had now been made to\ndefend the city. Joan's chances had been diminished, but she and her\ngenerals considered them plenty good enough yet. Joan ordered the attack\nfor eight o'clock next morning, and at that hour it began.\n\nJoan placed her artillery and began to pound a strong work which\nprotected the gate St. Honor. When it was sufficiently crippled the\nassault was sounded at noon, and it was carried by storm. Then we moved\nforward to storm the gate itself, and hurled ourselves against it again\nand again, Joan in the lead with her standard at her side, the smoke\nenveloping us in choking clouds, and the missiles flying over us and\nthrough us as thick as hail.\n\nIn the midst of our last assault, which would have carried the gate\nsure and given us Paris and in effect France, Joan was struck down by\na crossbow bolt, and our men fell back instantly and almost in a\npanic--for what were they without her? She was the army, herself.\n\nAlthough disabled, she refused to retire, and begged that a new assault\nbe made, saying it must win; and adding, with the battle-light rising in\nher eyes, \"I will take Paris now or die!\" She had to be carried away by\nforce, and this was done by Gaucourt and the Duke d'Alencon.\n\nBut her spirits were at the very top notch, now. She was brimming\nwith enthusiasm. She said she would be carried before the gate in the\nmorning, and in half an hour Paris would be ours without any question.\nShe could have kept her word. About this there was no doubt. But\nshe forgot one factor--the King, shadow of that substance named La\nTremouille. The King forbade the attempt!\n\nYou see, a new Embassy had just come from the Duke of Burgundy, and\nanother sham private trade of some sort was on foot.\n\nYou would know, without my telling you, that Joan's heart was nearly\nbroken. Because of the pain of her wound and the pain at her heart she\nslept little that night. Several times the watchers heard muffled\nsobs from the dark room where she lay at St. Denis, and many times the\ngrieving words, \"It could have been taken!--it could have been taken!\"\nwhich were the only ones she said.\n\nShe dragged herself out of bed a day later with a new hope. D'Alencon\nhad thrown a bridge across the Seine near St. Denis. Might she not cross\nby that and assault Paris at another point? But the King got wind of it\nand broke the bridge down! And more--he declared the campaign ended!\nAnd more still--he had made a new truce and a long one, in which he had\nagreed to leave Paris unthreatened and unmolested, and go back to the\nLoire whence he had come!\n\nJoan of Arc, who had never been defeated by the enemy, was defeated by\nher own King. She had said once that all she feared for her cause was\ntreachery. It had struck its first blow now. She hung up her white\narmor in the royal basilica of St. Denis, and went and asked the King\nto relieve her of her functions and let her go home. As usual, she was\nwise. Grand combinations, far-reaching great military moves were at an\nend, now; for the future, when the truce should end, the war would be\nmerely a war of random and idle skirmishes, apparently; work suitable\nfor subalterns, and not requiring the supervision of a sublime military\ngenius. But the King would not let her go. The truce did not embrace all\nFrance; there were French strongholds to be watched and preserved; he\nwould need her. Really, you see, Tremouille wanted to keep her where he\ncould balk and hinder her.\n\nNow came her Voices again. They said, \"Remain at St. Denis.\" There was\nno explanation. They did not say why. That was the voice of God; it took\nprecedence of the command of the King; Joan resolved to stay. But that\nfilled La Tremouille with dread. She was too tremendous a force to be\nleft to herself; she would surely defeat all his plans. He beguiled the\nKing to use compulsion. Joan had to submit--because she was wounded and\nhelpless. In the Great Trial she said she was carried away against\nher will; and that if she had not been wounded it could not have been\naccomplished. Ah, she had a spirit, that slender girl! a spirit to brave\nall earthly powers and defy them. We shall never know why the Voices\nordered her to stay. We only know this; that if she could have obeyed,\nthe history of France would not be as it now stands written in the\nbooks. Yes, well we know that.\n\nOn the 13th of September the army, sad and spiritless, turned its\nface toward the Loire, and marched--without music! Yes, one noted that\ndetail. It was a funeral march; that is what it was. A long, dreary\nfuneral march, with never a shout or a cheer; friends looking on in\ntears, all the way, enemies laughing. We reached Gien at last--that\nplace whence we had set out on our splendid march toward Rheims\nless than three months before, with flags flying, bands playing, the\nvictory-flush of Patay glowing in our faces, and the massed multitudes\nshouting and praising and giving us godspeed. There was a dull rain\nfalling now, the day was dark, the heavens mourned, the spectators were\nfew, we had no welcome but the welcome of silence, and pity, and tears.\n\nThen the King disbanded that noble army of heroes; it furled its flags,\nit stored its arms: the disgrace of France was complete. La Tremouille\nwore the victor's crown; Joan of Arc, the unconquerable, was conquered.\n\n\n\n\n\n41 The Maid Will March No More\n\nYES, IT was as I have said: Joan had Paris and France in her grip, and\nthe Hundred Years' War under her heel, and the King made her open her\nfist and take away her foot.\n\nNow followed about eight months of drifting about with the King and his\ncouncil, and his gay and showy and dancing and flirting and hawking and\nfrolicking and serenading and dissipating court--drifting from town to\ntown and from castle to castle--a life which was pleasant to us of the\npersonal staff, but not to Joan. However, she only saw it, she didn't\nlive it. The King did his sincerest best to make her happy, and showed a\nmost kind and constant anxiety in this matter.\n\nAll others had to go loaded with the chains of an exacting court\netiquette, but she was free, she was privileged. So that she paid\nher duty to the King once a day and passed the pleasant word, nothing\nfurther was required of her. Naturally, then, she made herself a hermit,\nand grieved the weary days through in her own apartments, with her\nthoughts and devotions for company, and the planning of now forever\nunrealizable military combinations for entertainment. In fancy she moved\nbodies of men from this and that and the other point, so calculating the\ndistances to be covered, the time required for each body, and the nature\nof the country to be traversed, as to have them appear in sight of each\nother on a given day or at a given hour and concentrate for battle.\nIt was her only game, her only relief from her burden of sorrow and\ninaction. She played it hour after hour, as others play chess; and lost\nherself in it, and so got repose for her mind and healing for her heart.\n\nShe never complained, of course. It was not her way. She was the sort\nthat endure in silence.\n\nBut--she was a caged eagle just the same, and pined for the free air and\nthe alpine heights and the fierce joys of the storm.\n\nFrance was full of rovers--disbanded soldiers ready for anything that\nmight turn up. Several times, at intervals, when Joan's dull captivity\ngrew too heavy to bear, she was allowed to gather a troop of cavalry and\nmake a health-restoring dash against the enemy. These things were a bath\nto her spirits.\n\nIt was like old times, there at Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier, to see her lead\nassault after assault, be driven back again and again, but always rally\nand charge anew, all in a blaze of eagerness and delight; till at last\nthe tempest of missiles rained so intolerably thick that old D'Aulon,\nwho was wounded, sounded the retreat (for the King had charged him on\nhis head to let no harm come to Joan); and away everybody rushed after\nhim--as he supposed; but when he turned and looked, there were we of\nthe staff still hammering away; wherefore he rode back and urged her to\ncome, saying she was mad to stay there with only a dozen men. Her eye\ndanced merrily, and she turned upon him crying out:\n\n\"A dozen men! name of God, I have fifty-thousand, and will never budge\ntill this place is taken!\n\n\"Sound the charge!\"\n\nWhich he did, and over the walls we went, and the fortress was ours. Old\nD'Aulon thought her mind was wandering; but all she meant was, that\nshe felt the might of fifty thousand men surging in her heart. It was a\nfanciful expression; but, to my thinking, truer word was never said.\n\nThen there was the affair near Lagny, where we charged the intrenched\nBurgundians through the open field four times, the last time\nvictoriously; the best prize of it Franquet d'Arras, the free-booter and\npitiless scourge of the region roundabout.\n\nNow and then other such affairs; and at last, away toward the end of\nMay, 1430, we were in the neighborhood of Compiegne, and Joan resolved\nto go to the help of that place, which was being besieged by the Duke of\nBurgundy.\n\nI had been wounded lately, and was not able to ride without help; but\nthe good Dwarf took me on behind him, and I held on to him and was safe\nenough. We started at midnight, in a sullen downpour of warm rain, and\nwent slowly and softly and in dead silence, for we had to slip through\nthe enemy's lines. We were challenged only once; we made no answer, but\nheld our breath and crept steadily and stealthily along, and got through\nwithout any accident. About three or half past we reached Compiegne,\njust as the gray dawn was breaking in the east.\n\nJoan set to work at once, and concerted a plan with Guillaume de Flavy,\ncaptain of the city--a plan for a sortie toward evening against the\nenemy, who was posted in three bodies on the other side of the Oise, in\nthe level plain. From our side one of the city gates communicated with\na bridge. The end of this bridge was defended on the other side of the\nriver by one of those fortresses called a boulevard; and this boulevard\nalso commanded a raised road, which stretched from its front across the\nplain to the village of Marguy. A force of Burgundians occupied Marguy;\nanother was camped at Clairoix, a couple of miles above the raised road;\nand a body of English was holding Venette, a mile and a half below it. A\nkind of bow-and-arrow arrangement, you see; the causeway the arrow, the\nboulevard at the feather-end of it, Marguy at the barb, Venette at one\nend of the bow, Clairoix at the other.\n\nJoan's plan was to go straight per causeway against Marguy, carry it by\nassault, then turn swiftly upon Clairoix, up to the right, and capture\nthat camp in the same way, then face to the rear and be ready for heavy\nwork, for the Duke of Burgundy lay behind Clairoix with a reserve.\nFlavy's lieutenant, with archers and the artillery of the boulevard,\nwas to keep the English troops from coming up from below and seizing the\ncauseway and cutting off Joan's retreat in case she should have to\nmake one. Also, a fleet of covered boats was to be stationed near\nthe boulevard as an additional help in case a retreat should become\nnecessary.\n\nIt was the 24th of May. At four in the afternoon Joan moved out at the\nhead of six hundred cavalry--on her last march in this life!\n\nIt breaks my heart. I had got myself helped up onto the walls, and from\nthere I saw much that happened, the rest was told me long afterward by\nour two knights and other eye-witnesses. Joan crossed the bridge, and\nsoon left the boulevard behind her and went skimming away over the\nraised road with her horsemen clattering at her heels. She had on a\nbrilliant silver-gilt cape over her armor, and I could see it flap and\nflare and rise and fall like a little patch of white flame.\n\nIt was a bright day, and one could see far and wide over that plain.\nSoon we saw the English force advancing, swiftly and in handsome order,\nthe sunlight flashing from its arms.\n\nJoan crashed into the Burgundians at Marguy and was repulsed. Then she\nsaw the other Burgundians moving down from Clairoix. Joan rallied her\nmen and charged again, and was again rolled back. Two assaults occupy\na good deal of time--and time was precious here. The English were\napproaching the road now from Venette, but the boulevard opened fire on\nthem and they were checked. Joan heartened her men with inspiring words\nand led them to the charge again in great style. This time she carried\nMarguy with a hurrah. Then she turned at once to the right and plunged\ninto the plan and struck the Clairoix force, which was just arriving;\nthen there was heavy work, and plenty of it, the two armies hurling each\nother backward turn about and about, and victory inclining first to the\none, then to the other. Now all of a sudden there was a panic on our\nside. Some say one thing caused it, some another. Some say the cannonade\nmade our front ranks think retreat was being cut off by the English,\nsome say the rear ranks got the idea that Joan was killed. Anyway our\nmen broke, and went flying in a wild rout for the causeway. Joan tried\nto rally them and face them around, crying to them that victory was\nsure, but it did no good, they divided and swept by her like a wave. Old\nD'Aulon begged her to retreat while there was yet a chance for safety,\nbut she refused; so he seized her horse's bridle and bore her along with\nthe wreck and ruin in spite of herself. And so along the causeway they\ncame swarming, that wild confusion of frenzied men and horses--and the\nartillery had to stop firing, of course; consequently the English and\nBurgundians closed in in safety, the former in front, the latter behind\ntheir prey. Clear to the boulevard the French were washed in this\nenveloping inundation; and there, cornered in an angle formed by the\nflank of the boulevard and the slope of the causeway, they bravely\nfought a hopeless fight, and sank down one by one.\n\nFlavy, watching from the city wall, ordered the gate to be closed and\nthe drawbridge raised. This shut Joan out.\n\nThe little personal guard around her thinned swiftly. Both of our good\nknights went down disabled; Joan's two brothers fell wounded; then Noel\nRainguesson--all wounded while loyally sheltering Joan from blows aimed\nat her. When only the Dwarf and the Paladin were left, they would not\ngive up, but stood their ground stoutly, a pair of steel towers streaked\nand splashed with blood; and where the ax of one fell, and the sword of\nthe other, an enemy gasped and died.\n\nAnd so fighting, and loyal to their duty to the last, good simple souls,\nthey came to their honorable end. Peace to their memories! they were\nvery dear to me.\n\nThen there was a cheer and a rush, and Joan, still defiant, still laying\nabout her with her sword, was seized by her cape and dragged from her\nhorse. She was borne away a prisoner to the Duke of Burgundy's camp, and\nafter her followed the victorious army roaring its joy.\n\nThe awful news started instantly on its round; from lip to lip it flew;\nand wherever it came it struck the people as with a sort of paralysis;\nand they murmured over and over again, as if they were talking to\nthemselves, or in their sleep, \"The Maid of Orleans taken!... Joan of\nArc a prisoner!... the savior of France lost to us!\"--and would keep\nsaying that over, as if they couldn't understand how it could be, or how\nGod could permit it, poor creatures!\n\nYou know what a city is like when it is hung from eaves to pavement\nwith rustling black? Then you know what Rouse was like, and some other\ncities. But can any man tell you what the mourning in the hearts of the\npeasantry of France was like? No, nobody can tell you that, and,\npoor dumb things, they could not have told you themselves, but it was\nthere--indeed, yes. Why, it was the spirit of a whole nation hung with\ncrape!\n\nThe 24th of May. We will draw down the curtain now upon the most\nstrange, and pathetic, and wonderful military drama that has been played\nupon the stage of the world. Joan of Arc will march no more.\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK III TRIAL AND MARTYRDOM\n\n\n\n1 The Maid in Chains\n\nI CANNOT bear to dwell at great length upon the shameful history of\nthe summer and winter following the capture. For a while I was not much\ntroubled, for I was expecting every day to hear that Joan had been put\nto ransom, and that the King--no, not the King, but grateful France--had\ncome eagerly forward to pay it. By the laws of war she could not\nbe denied the privilege of ransom. She was not a rebel; she was a\nlegitimately constituted soldier, head of the armies of France by\nher King's appointment, and guilty of no crime known to military law;\ntherefore she could not be detained upon any pretext, if ransom were\nproffered.\n\nBut day after day dragged by and no ransom was offered! It seems\nincredible, but it is true. Was that reptile Tremouille busy at the\nKing's ear? All we know is, that the King was silent, and made no offer\nand no effort in behalf of this poor girl who had done so much for him.\n\nBut, unhappily, there was alacrity enough in another quarter. The news\nof the capture reached Paris the day after it happened, and the glad\nEnglish and Burgundians deafened the world all the day and all the night\nwith the clamor of their joy-bells and the thankful thunder of their\nartillery, and the next day the Vicar-General of the Inquisition sent a\nmessage to the Duke of Burgundy requiring the delivery of the prisoner\ninto the hands of the Church to be tried as an idolater.\n\nThe English had seen their opportunity, and it was the English power\nthat was really acting, not the Church. The Church was being used as a\nblind, a disguise; and for a forcible reason: the Church was not only\nable to take the life of Joan of Arc, but to blight her influence and\nthe valor-breeding inspiration of her name, whereas the English\npower could but kill her body; that would not diminish or destroy the\ninfluence of her name; it would magnify it and make it permanent. Joan\nof Arc was the only power in France that the English did not despise,\nthe only power in France that they considered formidable. If the Church\ncould be brought to take her life, or to proclaim her an idolater, a\nheretic, a witch, sent from Satan, not from heaven, it was believed that\nthe English supremacy could be at once reinstated.\n\nThe Duke of Burgundy listened--but waited. He could not doubt that the\nFrench King or the French people would come forward presently and pay a\nhigher price than the English. He kept Joan a close prisoner in a\nstrong fortress, and continued to wait, week after week. He was a French\nprince, and was at heart ashamed to sell her to the English. Yet with\nall his waiting no offer came to him from the French side.\n\nOne day Joan played a cunning trick on her jailer, and not only slipped\nout of her prison, but locked him up in it. But as she fled away she was\nseen by a sentinel, and was caught and brought back.\n\nThen she was sent to Beaurevoir, a stronger castle. This was early in\nAugust, and she had been in captivity more than two months now. Here she\nwas shut up in the top of a tower which was sixty feet high. She ate her\nheart there for another long stretch--about three months and a half.\nAnd she was aware, all these weary five months of captivity, that the\nEnglish, under cover of the Church, were dickering for her as one would\ndicker for a horse or a slave, and that France was silent, the King\nsilent, all her friends the same. Yes, it was pitiful.\n\nAnd yet when she heard at last that Compiegne was being closely besieged\nand likely to be captured, and that the enemy had declared that no\ninhabitant of it should escape massacre, not even children of seven\nyears of age, she was in a fever at once to fly to our rescue. So she\ntore her bedclothes to strips and tied them together and descended\nthis frail rope in the night, and it broke, and she fell and was badly\nbruised, and remained three days insensible, meantime neither eating nor\ndrinking.\n\nAnd now came relief to us, led by the Count of Vendome, and Compiegne\nwas saved and the siege raised. This was a disaster to the Duke of\nBurgundy. He had to save money now. It was a good time for a new bid to\nbe made for Joan of Arc. The English at once sent a French bishop--that\nforever infamous Pierre Cauchon of Beauvais. He was partly promised\nthe Archbishopric of Rouen, which was vacant, if he should succeed. He\nclaimed the right to preside over Joan's ecclesiastical trial because\nthe battle-ground where she was taken was within his diocese. By the\nmilitary usage of the time the ransom of a royal prince was 10,000\nlivres of gold, which is 61,125 francs--a fixed sum, you see. It must be\naccepted when offered; it could not be refused.\n\nCauchon brought the offer of this very sum from the English--a royal\nprince's ransom for the poor little peasant-girl of Domremy. It shows\nin a striking way the English idea of her formidable importance. It was\naccepted. For that sum Joan of Arc, the Savior of France, was sold; sold\nto her enemies; to the enemies of her country; enemies who had lashed\nand thrashed and thumped and trounced France for a century and made\nholiday sport of it; enemies who had forgotten, years and years ago,\nwhat a Frenchman's face was like, so used were they to seeing nothing\nbut his back; enemies whom she had whipped, whom she had cowed, whom she\nhad taught to respect French valor, new-born in her nation by the breath\nof her spirit; enemies who hungered for her life as being the only\npuissance able to stand between English triumph and French degradation.\nSold to a French priest by a French prince, with the French King and the\nFrench nation standing thankless by and saying nothing.\n\nAnd she--what did she say? Nothing. Not a reproach passed her lips. She\nwas too great for that--she was Joan of Arc; and when that is said, all\nis said.\n\nAs a soldier, her record was spotless. She could not be called to\naccount for anything under that head. A subterfuge must be found, and,\nas we have seen, was found. She must be tried by priests for crimes\nagainst religion. If none could be discovered, some must be invented.\nLet the miscreant Cauchon alone to contrive those.\n\nRouen was chosen as the scene of the trial. It was in the heart of the\nEnglish power; its population had been under English dominion so many\ngenerations that they were hardly French now, save in language. The\nplace was strongly garrisoned. Joan was taken there near the end of\nDecember, 1430, and flung into a dungeon. Yes, and clothed in chains,\nthat free spirit!\n\nStill France made no move. How do I account for this? I think there is\nonly one way. You will remember that whenever Joan was not at the front,\nthe French held back and ventured nothing; that whenever she led, they\nswept everything before them, so long as they could see her white\narmor or her banner; that every time she fell wounded or was reported\nkilled--as at Compiegne--they broke in panic and fled like sheep. I\nargue from this that they had undergone no real transformation as yet;\nthat at bottom they were still under the spell of a timorousness born of\ngenerations of unsuccess, and a lack of confidence in each other and\nin their leaders born of old and bitter experience in the way of\ntreacheries of all sorts--for their kings had been treacherous to their\ngreat vassals and to their generals, and these in turn were treacherous\nto the head of the state and to each other. The soldiery found that\nthey could depend utterly on Joan, and upon her alone. With her gone,\neverything was gone. She was the sun that melted the frozen torrents and\nset them boiling; with that sun removed, they froze again, and the army\nand all France became what they had been before, mere dead corpses--that\nand nothing more; incapable of thought, hope, ambition, or motion.\n\n\n\n\n\n2 Joan Sold to the English\n\nMY WOUND gave me a great deal of trouble clear into the first part of\nOctober; then the fresher weather renewed my life and strength. All this\ntime there were reports drifting about that the King was going to ransom\nJoan. I believed these, for I was young and had not yet found out the\nlittleness and meanness of our poor human race, which brags about itself\nso much, and thinks it is better and higher than the other animals.\n\nIn October I was well enough to go out with two sorties, and in the\nsecond one, on the 23d, I was wounded again. My luck had turned,\nyou see. On the night of the 25th the besiegers decamped, and in the\ndisorder and confusion one of their prisoners escaped and got safe into\nCompiegne, and hobbled into my room as pallid and pathetic an object as\nyou would wish to see.\n\n\"What? Alive? Noel Rainguesson!\"\n\nIt was indeed he. It was a most joyful meeting, that you will easily\nknow; and also as sad as it was joyful. We could not speak Joan's name.\nOne's voice would have broken down. We knew who was meant when she was\nmentioned; we could say \"she\" and \"her,\" but we could not speak the\nname.\n\nWe talked of the personal staff. Old D'Aulon, wounded and a prisoner,\nwas still with Joan and serving her, by permission of the Duke of\nBurgundy. Joan was being treated with respect due to her rank and to her\ncharacter as a prisoner of war taken in honorable conflict. And this was\ncontinued--as we learned later--until she fell into the hands of that\nbastard of Satan, Pierre Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais.\n\nNoel was full of noble and affectionate praises and appreciations of our\nold boastful big Standard-Bearer, now gone silent forever, his real and\nimaginary battles all fought, his work done, his life honorably closed\nand completed.\n\n\"And think of his luck!\" burst out Noel, with his eyes full of tears.\n\"Always the pet child of luck!\n\n\"See how it followed him and stayed by him, from his first step all\nthrough, in the field or out of it; always a splendid figure in the\npublic eye, courted and envied everywhere; always having a chance to do\nfine things and always doing them; in the beginning called the Paladin\nin joke, and called it afterward in earnest because he magnificently\nmade the title good; and at last--supremest luck of all--died in the\nfield! died with his harness on; died faithful to his charge, the\nStandard in his hand; died--oh, think of it--with the approving eye of\nJoan of Arc upon him!\n\n\"He drained the cup of glory to the last drop, and went jubilant to his\npeace, blessedly spared all part in the disaster which was to follow.\nWhat luck, what luck! And we? What was our sin that we are still here,\nwe who have also earned our place with the happy dead?\"\n\nAnd presently he said:\n\n\"They tore the sacred Standard from his dead hand and carried it away,\ntheir most precious prize after its captured owner. But they haven't it\nnow. A month ago we put our lives upon the risk--our two good knights,\nmy fellow-prisoners, and I--and stole it, and got it smuggled by\ntrusty hands to Orleans, and there it is now, safe for all time in the\nTreasury.\"\n\nI was glad and grateful to learn that. I have seen it often since, when\nI have gone to Orleans on the 8th of May to be the petted old guest of\nthe city and hold the first place of honor at the banquets and in the\nprocessions--I mean since Joan's brothers passed from this life. It will\nstill be there, sacredly guarded by French love, a thousand years from\nnow--yes, as long as any shred of it hangs together. (1) Two or three\nweeks after this talk came the tremendous news like a thunder-clap, and\nwe were aghast--Joan of Arc sold to the English!\n\nNot for a moment had we ever dreamed of such a thing. We were young, you\nsee, and did not know the human race, as I have said before. We had been\nso proud of our country, so sure of her nobleness, her magnanimity,\nher gratitude. We had expected little of the King, but of France we\nhad expected everything. Everybody knew that in various towns patriot\npriests had been marching in procession urging the people to sacrifice\nmoney, property, everything, and buy the freedom of their heaven-sent\ndeliverer. That the money would be raised we had not thought of\ndoubting.\n\nBut it was all over now, all over. It was a bitter time for us. The\nheavens seemed hung with black; all cheer went out from our hearts.\nWas this comrade here at my bedside really Noel Rainguesson, that\nlight-hearted creature whose whole life was but one long joke, and who\nused up more breath in laughter than in keeping his body alive? No, no;\nthat Noel I was to see no more. This one's heart was broken. He moved\ngrieving about, and absently, like one in a dream; the stream of his\nlaughter was dried at its source.\n\nWell, that was best. It was my own mood. We were company for each other.\nHe nursed me patiently through the dull long weeks, and at last, in\nJanuary, I was strong enough to go about again. Then he said:\n\n\"Shall we go now?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nThere was no need to explain. Our hearts were in Rouen; we would carry\nour bodies there. All that we cared for in this life was shut up in that\nfortress. We could not help her, but it would be some solace to us to be\nnear her, to breathe the air that she breathed, and look daily upon the\nstone walls that hid her. What if we should be made prisoners there?\nWell, we could but do our best, and let luck and fate decide what should\nhappen.\n\nAnd so we started. We could not realize the change which had come upon\nthe country. We seemed able to choose our own route and go whenever we\npleased, unchallenged and unmolested. When Joan of Arc was in the field\nthere was a sort of panic of fear everywhere; but now that she was out\nof the way, fear had vanished. Nobody was troubled about you or afraid\nof you, nobody was curious about you or your business, everybody was\nindifferent.\n\nWe presently saw that we could take to the Seine, and not weary\nourselves out with land travel.\n\nSo we did it, and were carried in a boat to within a league of Rouen.\nThen we got ashore; not on the hilly side, but on the other, where it\nis as level as a floor. Nobody could enter or leave the city without\nexplaining himself. It was because they feared attempts at a rescue of\nJoan.\n\nWe had no trouble. We stopped in the plain with a family of peasants and\nstayed a week, helping them with their work for board and lodging, and\nmaking friends of them. We got clothes like theirs, and wore them.\nWhen we had worked our way through their reserves and gotten their\nconfidence, we found that they secretly harbored French hearts in their\nbodies. Then we came out frankly and told them everything, and found\nthem ready to do anything they could to help us.\n\nOur plan was soon made, and was quite simple. It was to help them drive\na flock of sheep to the market of the city. One morning early we made\nthe venture in a melancholy drizzle of rain, and passed through the\nfrowning gates unmolested. Our friends had friends living over a humble\nwine shop in a quaint tall building situated in one of the narrow lanes\nthat run down from the cathedral to the river, and with these they\nbestowed us; and the next day they smuggled our own proper clothing and\nother belongings to us. The family that lodged us--the Pieroons--were\nFrench in sympathy, and we needed to have no secrets from them.\n\n(1) It remained there three hundred and sixty years, and then was\ndestroyed in a public bonfire, together with two swords, a plumed cap,\nseveral suits of state apparel, and other relics of the Maid, by a mob\nin the time of the Revolution. Nothing which the hand of Joan of Arc is\nknown to have touched now remains in existence except a few preciously\nguarded military and state papers which she signed, her pen being guided\nby a clerk or her secretary, Louis de Conte. A boulder exists from which\nshe is known to have mounted her horse when she was once setting out\nupon a campaign. Up to a quarter of a century ago there was a single\nhair from her head still in existence. It was drawn through the wax of\na seal attached to the parchment of a state document. It was\nsurreptitiously snipped out, seal and all, by some vandal relic-hunter,\nand carried off. Doubtless it still exists, but only the thief knows\nwhere. -- TRANSLATOR.\n\n\n\n\n\n3 Weaving the Net About Her\n\nIT WAS necessary for me to have some way to gain bread for Noel and\nmyself; and when the Pierrons found that I knew how to write, the\napplied to their confessor in my behalf, and he got a place for me with\na good priest named Manchon, who was to be the chief recorder in the\nGreat Trial of Joan of Arc now approaching. It was a strange position\nfor me--clerk to the recorder--and dangerous if my sympathies and the\nlate employment should be found out. But there was not much danger.\nManchon was at bottom friendly to Joan and would not betray me; and\nmy name would not, for I had discarded my surname and retained only my\ngiven one, like a person of low degree.\n\nI attended Manchon constantly straight along, out of January and into\nFebruary, and was often in the citadel with him--in the very fortress\nwhere Joan was imprisoned, though not in the dungeon where she was\nconfined, and so did not see her, of course.\n\nManchon told me everything that had been happening before my coming.\nEver since the purchase of Joan, Cauchon had been busy packing his jury\nfor the destruction of the Maid--weeks and weeks he had spent in this\nbad industry. The University of Paris had sent him a number of learned\nand able and trusty ecclesiastics of the stripe he wanted; and he had\nscraped together a clergyman of like stripe and great fame here and\nthere and yonder, until he was able to construct a formidable court\nnumbering half a hundred distinguished names. French names they were,\nbut their interests and sympathies were English.\n\nA great officer of the Inquisition was also sent from Paris for the\naccused must be tried by the forms of the Inquisition; but this was a\nbrave and righteous man, and he said squarely that this court had no\npower to try the case, wherefore he refused to act; and the same honest\ntalk was uttered by two or three others.\n\nThe Inquisitor was right. The case as here resurrected against Joan had\nalready been tried long ago at Poitiers, and decided in her favor. Yes,\nand by a higher tribunal than this one, for at the head of it was an\nArchbishop--he of Rheims--Cauchon's own metropolitan. So here, you see,\na lower court was impudently preparing to try and redecide a cause which\nhad already been decided by its superior, a court of higher authority.\nImagine it! No, the case could not properly be tried again. Cauchon\ncould not properly preside in this new court, for more than one reason:\n\nRouen was not in his diocese; Joan had not been arrested in her\ndomicile, which was still Domremy; and finally this proposed judge was\nthe prisoner's outspoken enemy, and therefore he was incompetent to\ntry her. Yet all these large difficulties were gotten rid of. The\nterritorial Chapter of Rouen finally granted territorial letters to\nCauchon--though only after a struggle and under compulsion. Force was\nalso applied to the Inquisitor, and he was obliged to submit.\n\nSo then, the little English King, by his representative, formally\ndelivered Joan into the hands of the court, but with this reservation:\nif the court failed to condemn her, he was to have her back again! Ah,\ndear, what chance was there for that forsaken and friendless child?\nFriendless, indeed--it is the right word. For she was in a black\ndungeon, with half a dozen brutal common soldiers keeping guard night\nand day in the room where her cage was--for she was in a cage; an iron\ncage, and chained to her bed by neck and hands and feet. Never a person\nnear her whom she had ever seen before; never a woman at all. Yes, this\nwas, indeed, friendlessness.\n\nNow it was a vassal of Jean de Luxembourg who captured Joan and\nCompiegne, and it was Jean who sold her to the Duke of Burgundy. Yet\nthis very De Luxembourg was shameless enough to go and show his face to\nJoan in her cage. He came with two English earls, Warwick and Stafford.\nHe was a poor reptile. He told her he would get her set free if she\nwould promise not to fight the English any more. She had been in that\ncage a long time now, but not long enough to break her spirit. She\nretorted scornfully:\n\n\"Name of God, you but mock me. I know that you have neither the power\nnor the will to do it.\"\n\nHe insisted. Then the pride and dignity of the soldier rose in Joan, and\nshe lifted her chained hands and let them fall with a clash, saying:\n\n\"See these! They know more than you, and can prophesy better. I know\nthat the English are going to kill me, for they think that when I am\ndead they can get the Kingdom of France. It is not so.\n\n\"Though there were a hundred thousand of them they would never get it.\"\n\nThis defiance infuriated Stafford, and he--now think of it--he a free,\nstrong man, she a chained and helpless girl--he drew his dagger and\nflung himself at her to stab her. But Warwick seized him and held him\nback. Warwick was wise. Take her life in that way? Send her to Heaven\nstainless and undisgraced? It would make her the idol of France, and the\nwhole nation would rise and march to victory and emancipation under the\ninspiration of her spirit. No, she must be saved for another fate than\nthat.\n\nWell, the time was approaching for the Great Trial. For more than two\nmonths Cauchon had been raking and scraping everywhere for any odds and\nends of evidence or suspicion or conjecture that might be usable against\nJoan, and carefully suppressing all evidence that came to hand in her\nfavor. He had limitless ways and means and powers at his disposal for\npreparing and strengthening the case for the prosecution, and he used\nthem all.\n\nBut Joan had no one to prepare her case for her, and she was shut up in\nthose stone walls and had no friend to appeal to for help. And as for\nwitnesses, she could not call a single one in her defense; they were\nall far away, under the French flag, and this was an English court; they\nwould have been seized and hanged if they had shown their faces at the\ngates of Rouen. No, the prisoner must be the sole witness--witness for\nthe prosecution, witness for the defense; and with a verdict of death\nresolved upon before the doors were opened for the court's first\nsitting.\n\nWhen she learned that the court was made up of ecclesiastics in the\ninterest of the English, she begged that in fairness an equal number of\npriests of the French party should be added to these.\n\nCauchon scoffed at her message, and would not even deign to answer it.\n\nBy the law of the Church--she being a minor under twenty-one--it was her\nright to have counsel to conduct her case, advise her how to answer\nwhen questioned, and protect her from falling into traps set by cunning\ndevices of the prosecution. She probably did not know that this was her\nright, and that she could demand it and require it, for there was none\nto tell her that; but she begged for this help, at any rate. Cauchon\nrefused it. She urged and implored, pleading her youth and her ignorance\nof the complexities and intricacies of the law and of legal procedure.\nCauchon refused again, and said she must get along with her case as best\nshe might by herself. Ah, his heart was a stone.\n\nCauchon prepared the proces verbal. I will simplify that by calling it\nthe Bill of Particulars. It was a detailed list of the charges against\nher, and formed the basis of the trial. Charges? It was a list of\nsuspicions and public rumors--those were the words used. It was merely\ncharged that she was suspected of having been guilty of heresies,\nwitchcraft, and other such offenses against religion.\n\nNow by the law of the Church, a trial of that sort could not be begun\nuntil a searching inquiry had been made into the history and character\nof the accused, and it was essential that the result of this inquiry be\nadded to the proces verbal and form a part of it. You remember that that\nwas the first thing they did before the trial at Poitiers. They did it\nagain now. An ecclesiastic was sent to Domremy. There and all about\nthe neighborhood he made an exhaustive search into Joan's history\nand character, and came back with his verdict. It was very clear. The\nsearcher reported that he found Joan's character to be in every way what\nhe \"would like his own sister's character to be.\" Just about the\nsame report that was brought back to Poitiers, you see. Joan's was a\ncharacter which could endure the minutest examination.\n\nThis verdict was a strong point for Joan, you will say. Yes, it would\nhave been if it could have seen the light; but Cauchon was awake, and it\ndisappeared from the proces verbal before the trial. People were prudent\nenough not to inquire what became of it.\n\nOne would imagine that Cauchon was ready to begin the trial by this\ntime. But no, he devised one more scheme for poor Joan's destruction,\nand it promised to be a deadly one.\n\nOne of the great personages picked out and sent down by the University\nof Paris was an ecclesiastic named Nicolas Loyseleur. He was tall,\nhandsome, grave, of smooth, soft speech and courteous and winning\nmanners. There was no seeming of treachery or hypocrisy about him,\nyet he was full of both. He was admitted to Joan's prison by night,\ndisguised as a cobbler; he pretended to be from her own country; he\nprofessed to be secretly a patriot; he revealed the fact that he was\na priest. She was filled with gladness to see one from the hills and\nplains that were so dear to her; happier still to look upon a priest and\ndisburden her heart in confession, for the offices of the Church were\nthe bread of life, the breath of her nostrils to her, and she had been\nlong forced to pine for them in vain. She opened her whole innocent\nheart to this creature, and in return he gave her advice concerning her\ntrial which could have destroyed her if her deep native wisdom had not\nprotected her against following it.\n\nYou will ask, what value could this scheme have, since the secrets of\nthe confessional are sacred and cannot be revealed? True--but suppose\nanother person should overhear them? That person is not bound to keep\nthe secret. Well, that is what happened. Cauchon had previously caused\na hole to be bored through the wall; and he stood with his ear to that\nhole and heard all. It is pitiful to think of these things. One wonders\nhow they could treat that poor child so. She had not done them any harm.\n\n\n\n\n\n4 All Ready to Condemn\n\nON TUESDAY, the 20th of February, while I sat at my master's work in the\nevening, he came in, looking sad, and said it had been decided to begin\nthe trial at eight o'clock the next morning, and I must get ready to\nassist him.\n\nOf course I had been expecting such news every day for many days; but no\nmatter, the shock of it almost took my breath away and set me trembling\nlike a leaf. I suppose that without knowing it I had been half imagining\nthat at the last moment something would happen, something that would\nstop this fatal trial; maybe that La Hire would burst in at the gates\nwith his hellions at his back; maybe that God would have pity and\nstretch forth His mighty hand. But now--now there was no hope.\n\nThe trial was to begin in the chapel of the fortress and would be\npublic. So I went sorrowing away and told Noel, so that he might be\nthere early and secure a place. It would give him a chance to look again\nupon the face which we so revered and which was so precious to us.\nAll the way, both going and coming, I plowed through chattering and\nrejoicing multitudes of English soldiery and English-hearted French\ncitizens. There was no talk but of the coming event. Many times I heard\nthe remark, accompanied by a pitiless laugh:\n\n\"The fat Bishop has got things as he wants them at last, and says he\nwill lead the vile witch a merry dance and a short one.\"\n\nBut here and there I glimpsed compassion and distress in a face, and\nit was not always a French one. English soldiers feared Joan, but they\nadmired her for her great deeds and her unconquerable spirit.\n\nIn the morning Manchon and I went early, yet as we approached the\nvast fortress we found crowds of men already there and still others\ngathering. The chapel was already full and the way barred against\nfurther admissions of unofficial persons. We took our appointed places.\nThroned on high sat the president, Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, in\nhis grand robes, and before him in rows sat his robed court--fifty\ndistinguished ecclesiastics, men of high degree in the Church, of\nclear-cut intellectual faces, men of deep learning, veteran adepts in\nstrategy and casuistry, practised setters of traps for ignorant minds\nand unwary feet. When I looked around upon this army of masters of\nlegal fence, gathered here to find just one verdict and no other,\nand remembered that Joan must fight for her good name and her life\nsingle-handed against them, I asked myself what chance an ignorant poor\ncountry-girl of nineteen could have in such an unequal conflict; and\nmy heart sank down low, very low. When I looked again at that obese\npresident, puffing and wheezing there, his great belly distending and\nreceding with each breath, and noted his three chins, fold above fold,\nand his knobby and knotty face, and his purple and splotchy complexion,\nand his repulsive cauliflower nose, and his cold and malignant eyes--a\nbrute, every detail of him--my heart sank lower still. And when I noted\nthat all were afraid of this man, and shrank and fidgeted in their seats\nwhen his eye smote theirs, my last poor ray of hope dissolved away and\nwholly disappeared.\n\nThere was one unoccupied seat in this place, and only one. It was over\nagainst the wall, in view of every one. It was a little wooden bench\nwithout a back, and it stood apart and solitary on a sort of dais. Tall\nmen-at-arms in morion, breastplate, and steel gauntlets stood as stiff\nas their own halberds on each side of this dais, but no other creature\nwas near by it. A pathetic little bench to me it was, for I knew whom it\nwas for; and the sight of it carried my mind back to the great court at\nPoitiers, where Joan sat upon one like it and calmly fought her cunning\nfight with the astonished doctors of the Church and Parliament, and\nrose from it victorious and applauded by all, and went forth to fill the\nworld with the glory of her name.\n\nWhat a dainty little figure she was, and how gentle and innocent, how\nwinning and beautiful in the fresh bloom of her seventeen years! Those\nwere grand days. And so recent--for she was just nineteen now--and how\nmuch she had seen since, and what wonders she had accomplished!\n\nBut now--oh, all was changed now. She had been languishing in dungeons,\naway from light and air and the cheer of friendly faces, for nearly\nthree-quarters of a year--she, born child of the sun, natural comrade of\nthe birds and of all happy free creatures. She would be weary now, and\nworn with this long captivity, her forces impaired; despondent, perhaps,\nas knowing there was no hope. Yes, all was changed.\n\nAll this time there had been a muffled hum of conversation, and rustling\nof robes and scraping of feet on the floor, a combination of dull noises\nwhich filled all the place. Suddenly:\n\n\"Produce the accused!\"\n\nIt made me catch my breath. My heart began to thump like a hammer. But\nthere was silence now--silence absolute. All those noises ceased, and\nit was as if they had never been. Not a sound; the stillness grew\noppressive; it was like a weight upon one. All faces were turned toward\nthe door; and one could properly expect that, for most of the people\nthere suddenly realized, no doubt, that they were about to see, in\nactual flesh and blood, what had been to them before only an embodied\nprodigy, a word, a phrase, a world-girdling Name.\n\nThe stillness continued. Then, far down the stone-paved corridors, one\nheard a vague slow sound approaching: clank... clink... clank--Joan of\nArc, Deliverer of France, in chains!\n\nMy head swam; all things whirled and spun about me. Ah, I was realizing,\ntoo.\n\n\n\n\n\n5 Fifty Experts Against a Novice\n\nI GIVE you my honor now that I am not going to distort or discolor the\nfacts of this miserable trial. No, I will give them to you honestly,\ndetail by detail, just as Manchon and I set them down daily in the\nofficial record of the court, and just as one may read them in the\nprinted histories.\n\nThere will be only this difference: that in talking familiarly with you,\nI shall use my right to comment upon the proceedings and explain them as\nI go along, so that you can understand them better; also, I shall throw\nin trifles which came under our eyes and have a certain interest for you\nand me, but were not important enough to go into the official record.\n(1) To take up my story now where I left off. We heard the clanking of\nJoan's chains down the corridors; she was approaching.\n\nPresently she appeared; a thrill swept the house, and one heard deep\nbreaths drawn. Two guardsmen followed her at a short distance to the\nrear. Her head was bowed a little, and she moved slowly, she being weak\nand her irons heavy. She had on men's attire--all black; a soft woolen\nstuff, intensely black, funereally black, not a speck of relieving color\nin it from her throat to the floor. A wide collar of this same black\nstuff lay in radiating folds upon her shoulders and breast; the sleeves\nof her doublet were full, down to the elbows, and tight thence to her\nmanacled wrists; below the doublet, tight black hose down to the chains\non her ankles.\n\nHalf-way to her bench she stopped, just where a wide shaft of light fell\nslanting from a window, and slowly lifted her face. Another thrill!--it\nwas totally colorless, white as snow; a face of gleaming snow set in\nvivid contrast upon that slender statue of somber unmitigated black. It\nwas smooth and pure and girlish, beautiful beyond belief, infinitely\nsad and sweet. But, dear, dear! when the challenge of those untamed\neyes fell upon that judge, and the droop vanished from her form and\nit straightened up soldierly and noble, my heart leaped for joy; and I\nsaid, all is well, all is well--they have not broken her, they have not\nconquered her, she is Joan of Arc still! Yes, it was plain to me now\nthat there was one spirit there which this dreaded judge could not quell\nnor make afraid.\n\nShe moved to her place and mounted the dais and seated herself upon her\nbench, gathering her chains into her lap and nestling her little white\nhands there. Then she waited in tranquil dignity, the only person there\nwho seemed unmoved and unexcited. A bronzed and brawny English soldier,\nstanding at martial ease in the front rank of the citizen spectators,\ndid now most gallantly and respectfully put up his great hand and give\nher the military salute; and she, smiling friendly, put up hers and\nreturned it; whereat there was a sympathetic little break of applause,\nwhich the judge sternly silence.\n\nNow the memorable inquisition called in history the Great Trial began.\nFifty experts against a novice, and no one to help the novice!\n\nThe judge summarized the circumstances of the case and the public\nreports and suspicions upon which it was based; then he required Joan to\nkneel and make oath that she would answer with exact truthfulness to all\nquestions asked her.\n\nJoan's mind was not asleep. It suspected that dangerous possibilities\nmight lie hidden under this apparently fair and reasonable demand.\nShe answered with the simplicity which so often spoiled the enemy's\nbest-laid plans in the trial at Poitiers, and said:\n\n\"No; for I do not know what you are going to ask me; you might ask of me\nthings which I would not tell you.\"\n\nThis incensed the Court, and brought out a brisk flurry of angry\nexclamations. Joan was not disturbed. Cauchon raised his voice and began\nto speak in the midst of this noise, but he was so angry that he could\nhardly get his words out. He said:\n\n\"With the divine assistance of our Lord we require you to expedite these\nproceedings for the welfare of your conscience. Swear, with your hands\nupon the Gospels, that you will answer true to the questions which shall\nbe asked you!\" and he brought down his fat hand with a crash upon his\nofficial table.\n\nJoan said, with composure:\n\n\"As concerning my father and mother, and the faith, and what things\nI have done since my coming into France, I will gladly answer; but as\nregards the revelations which I have received from God, my Voices have\nforbidden me to confide them to any save my King--\"\n\nHere there was another angry outburst of threats and expletives, and\nmuch movement and confusion; so she had to stop, and wait for the noise\nto subside; then her waxen face flushed a little and she straightened\nup and fixed her eye on the judge, and finished her sentence in a voice\nthat had the old ring to it:\n\n--\"and I will never reveal these things though you cut my head off!\"\n\nWell, maybe you know what a deliberative body of Frenchmen is like. The\njudge and half the court were on their feet in a moment, and all shaking\ntheir fists at the prisoner, and all storming and vituperating at once,\nso that you could hardly hear yourself think. They kept this up several\nminutes; and because Joan sat untroubled and indifferent they grew\nmadder and noisier all the time. Once she said, with a fleeting trace of\nthe old-time mischief in her eye and manner:\n\n\"Prithee, speak one at a time, fair lords, then I will answer all of\nyou.\"\n\nAt the end of three whole hours of furious debating over the oath,\nthe situation had not changed a jot. The Bishop was still requiring an\nunmodified oath, Joan was refusing for the twentieth time to take any\nexcept the one which she had herself proposed. There was a physical\nchange apparent, but it was confined to the court and judge; they\nwere hoarse, droopy, exhausted by their long frenzy, and had a sort of\nhaggard look in their faces, poor men, whereas Joan was still placid and\nreposeful and did not seem noticeably tired.\n\nThe noise quieted down; there was a waiting pause of some moments'\nduration. Then the judge surrendered to the prisoner, and with\nbitterness in his voice told her to take the oath after her own fashion.\nJoan sunk at once to her knees; and as she laid her hands upon the\nGospels, that big English soldier set free his mind:\n\n\"By God, if she were but English, she were not in this place another\nhalf a second!\"\n\nIt was the soldier in him responding to the soldier in her. But what\na stinging rebuke it was, what an arraignment of French character and\nFrench royalty! Would that he could have uttered just that one phrase\nin the hearing of Orleans! I know that that grateful city, that adoring\ncity, would have risen to the last man and the last woman, and marched\nupon Rouen. Some speeches--speeches that shame a man and humble\nhim--burn themselves into the memory and remain there. That one is\nburned into mine.\n\nAfter Joan had made oath, Cauchon asked her her name, and where she was\nborn, and some questions about her family; also what her age was. She\nanswered these. Then he asked her how much education she had.\n\n\"I have learned from my mother the Pater Noster, the Ave Maria, and the\nBelief. All that I know was taught me by my mother.\"\n\nQuestions of this unessential sort dribbled on for a considerable time.\nEverybody was tired out by now, except Joan. The tribunal prepared to\nrise. At this point Cauchon forbade Joan to try to escape from prison,\nupon pain of being held guilty of the crime of heresy--singular logic!\nShe answered simply:\n\n\"I am not bound by this proposition. If I could escape I would not\nreproach myself, for I have given no promise, and I shall not.\"\n\nThen she complained of the burden of her chains, and asked that they\nmight be removed, for she was strongly guarded in that dungeon and there\nwas no need of them. But the Bishop refused, and reminded her that she\nhad broken out of prison twice before. Joan of Arc was too proud to\ninsist. She only said, as she rose to go with the guard:\n\n\"It is true, I have wanted to escape, and I do want to escape.\" Then she\nadded, in a way that would touch the pity of anybody, I think, \"It is\nthe right of every prisoner.\"\n\nAnd so she went from the place in the midst of an impressive stillness,\nwhich made the sharper and more distressful to me the clank of those\npathetic chains.\n\nWhat presence of mind she had! One could never surprise her out of it.\nShe saw Noel and me there when she first took her seat on the bench,\nand we flushed to the forehead with excitement and emotion, but her face\nshowed nothing, betrayed nothing. Her eyes sought us fifty times that\nday, but they passed on and there was never any ray of recognition in\nthem. Another would have started upon seeing us, and then--why, then\nthere could have been trouble for us, of course.\n\nWe walked slowly home together, each busy with his own grief and saying\nnot a word.\n\n(1) He kept his word. His account of the Great Trial will be found to\nbe in strict and detailed accordance with the sworn facts of history.\n--TRANSLATOR.\n\n\n\n\n\n6 The Maid Baffles Her Persecutors\n\nTHAT NIGHT Manchon told me that all through the day's proceedings\nCauchon had had some clerks concealed in the embrasure of a window who\nwere to make a special report garbling Joan's answers and twisting them\nfrom their right meaning. Ah, that was surely the cruelest man and the\nmost shameless that has lived in this world. But his scheme failed.\nThose clerks had human hearts in them, and their base work revolted\nthem, and they turned to and boldly made a straight report, whereupon\nCauchon cursed them and ordered them out of his presence with a threat\nof drowning, which was his favorite and most frequent menace. The matter\nhad gotten abroad and was making great and unpleasant talk, and Cauchon\nwould not try to repeat this shabby game right away. It comforted me to\nhear that.\n\nWhen we arrived at the citadel next morning, we found that a change\nhad been made. The chapel had been found too small. The court had now\nremoved to a noble chamber situated at the end of the great hall of the\ncastle. The number of judges was increased to sixty-two--one ignorant\ngirl against such odds, and none to help her.\n\nThe prisoner was brought in. She was as white as ever, but she was\nlooking no whit worse than she looked when she had first appeared the\nday before. Isn't it a strange thing? Yesterday she had sat five hours\non that backless bench with her chains in her lap, baited, badgered,\npersecuted by that unholy crew, without even the refreshment of a cup of\nwater--for she was never offered anything, and if I have made you know\nher by this time you will know without my telling you that she was not a\nperson likely to ask favors of those people. And she had spent the night\ncaged in her wintry dungeon with her chains upon her; yet here she was,\nas I say, collected, unworn, and ready for the conflict; yes, and\nthe only person there who showed no signs of the wear and worry of\nyesterday. And her eyes--ah, you should have seen them and broken your\nhearts. Have you seen that veiled deep glow, that pathetic hurt dignity,\nthat unsubdued and unsubduable spirit that burns and smolders in the eye\nof a caged eagle and makes you feel mean and shabby under the burden of\nits mute reproach? Her eyes were like that. How capable they were, and\nhow wonderful! Yes, at all times and in all circumstances they could\nexpress as by print every shade of the wide range of her moods. In\nthem were hidden floods of gay sunshine, the softest and peacefulest\ntwilights, and devastating storms and lightnings. Not in this world have\nthere been others that were comparable to them. Such is my opinion, and\nnone that had the privilege to see them would say otherwise than this\nwhich I have said concerning them.\n\nThe seance began. And how did it begin, should you think? Exactly as it\nbegan before--with that same tedious thing which had been settled once,\nafter so much wrangling. The Bishop opened thus:\n\n\"You are required now, to take the oath pure and simple, to answer truly\nall questions asked you.\"\n\nJoan replied placidly:\n\n\"I have made oath yesterday, my lord; let that suffice.\"\n\nThe Bishop insisted and insisted, with rising temper; Joan but shook her\nhead and remained silent. At last she said:\n\n\"I made oath yesterday; it is sufficient.\" Then she sighed and said, \"Of\na truth, you do burden me too much.\"\n\nThe Bishop still insisted, still commanded, but he could not move her.\nAt last he gave it up and turned her over for the day's inquest to an\nold hand at tricks and traps and deceptive plausibilities--Beaupere, a\ndoctor of theology. Now notice the form of this sleek strategist's first\nremark--flung out in an easy, offhand way that would have thrown any\nunwatchful person off his guard:\n\n\"Now, Joan, the matter is very simple; just speak up and frankly and\ntruly answer the questions which I am going to ask you, as you have\nsworn to do.\"\n\nIt was a failure. Joan was not asleep. She saw the artifice. She said:\n\n\"No. You could ask me things which I could not tell you--and would not.\"\nThen, reflecting upon how profane and out of character it was for these\nministers of God to be prying into matters which had proceeded from His\nhands under the awful seal of His secrecy, she added, with a warning\nnote in her tone, \"If you were well informed concerning me you would\nwish me out of your hands. I have done nothing but by revelation.\"\n\nBeaupere changed his attack, and began an approach from another quarter.\nHe would slip upon her, you see, under cover of innocent and unimportant\nquestions.\n\n\"Did you learn any trade at home?\"\n\n\"Yes, to sew and to spin.\" Then the invincible soldier, victor of Patay,\nconqueror of the lion Talbot, deliverer of Orleans, restorer of a king's\ncrown, commander-in-chief of a nation's armies, straightened\nherself proudly up, gave her head a little toss, and said with naive\ncomplacency, \"And when it comes to that, I am not afraid to be matched\nagainst any woman in Rouen!\"\n\nThe crowd of spectators broke out with applause--which pleased Joan--and\nthere was many a friendly and petting smile to be seen. But Cauchon\nstormed at the people and warned them to keep still and mind their\nmanners.\n\nBeaupere asked other questions. Then:\n\n\"Had you other occupations at home?\"\n\n\"Yes. I helped my mother in the household work and went to the pastures\nwith the sheep and the cattle.\"\n\nHer voice trembled a little, but one could hardly notice it. As for me,\nit brought those old enchanted days flooding back to me, and I could not\nsee what I was writing for a little while.\n\nBeaupere cautiously edged along up with other questions toward the\nforbidden ground, and finally repeated a question which she had refused\nto answer a little while back--as to whether she had received the\nEucharist in those days at other festivals than that of Easter. Joan\nmerely said:\n\n\"Passez outre.\" Or, as one might say, \"Pass on to matters which you are\nprivileged to pry into.\"\n\nI heard a member of the court say to a neighbor:\n\n\"As a rule, witnesses are but dull creatures, and an easy prey--yes, and\neasily embarrassed, easily frightened--but truly one can neither scare\nthis child nor find her dozing.\"\n\nPresently the house pricked up its ears and began to listen eagerly,\nfor Beaupere began to touch upon Joan's Voices, a matter of consuming\ninterest and curiosity to everybody. His purpose was to trick her into\nheedless sayings that could indicate that the Voices had sometimes given\nher evil advice--hence that they had come from Satan, you see. To have\ndealing with the devil--well, that would send her to the stake in brief\norder, and that was the deliberate end and aim of this trial.\n\n\"When did you first hear these Voices?\"\n\n\"I was thirteen when I first heard a Voice coming from God to help me to\nlive well. I was frightened. It came at midday, in my father's garden in\nthe summer.\"\n\n\"Had you been fasting?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"The day before?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"From what direction did it come?\"\n\n\"From the right--from toward the church.\"\n\n\"Did it come with a bright light?\"\n\n\"Oh, indeed yes. It was brilliant. When I came into France I often heard\nthe Voices very loud.\"\n\n\"What did the Voice sound like?\"\n\n\"It was a noble Voice, and I thought it was sent to me from God. The\nthird time I heard it I recognized it as being an angel's.\"\n\n\"You could understand it?\"\n\n\"Quite easily. It was always clear.\"\n\n\"What advice did it give you as to the salvation of your soul?\"\n\n\"It told me to live rightly, and be regular in attendance upon the\nservices of the Church. And it told me that I must go to France.\"\n\n\"In what species of form did the Voice appear?\"\n\nJoan looked suspiciously at he priest a moment, then said, tranquilly:\n\n\"As to that, I will not tell you.\"\n\n\"Did the Voice seek you often?\"\n\n\"Yes. Twice or three times a week, saying, 'Leave your village and go to\nFrance.'\"\n\n\"Did you father know about your departure?\"\n\n\"No. The Voice said, 'Go to France'; therefore I could not abide at home\nany longer.\"\n\n\"What else did it say?\"\n\n\"That I should raise the siege of Orleans.\"\n\n\"Was that all?\"\n\n\"No, I was to go to Vaucouleurs, and Robert de Baudricourt would give\nme soldiers to go with me to France; and I answered, saying that I was a\npoor girl who did not know how to ride, neither how to fight.\"\n\nThen she told how she was balked and interrupted at Vaucouleurs, but\nfinally got her soldiers, and began her march.\n\n\"How were you dressed?\"\n\nThe court of Poitiers had distinctly decided and decreed that as God had\nappointed her to do a man's work, it was meet and no scandal to religion\nthat she should dress as a man; but no matter, this court was ready to\nuse any and all weapons against Joan, even broken and discredited ones,\nand much was going to be made of this one before this trial should end.\n\n\"I wore a man's dress, also a sword which Robert de Baudricourt gave me,\nbut no other weapon.\"\n\n\"Who was it that advised you to wear the dress of a man?\"\n\nJoan was suspicious again. She would not answer.\n\nThe question was repeated.\n\nShe refused again.\n\n\"Answer. It is a command!\"\n\n\"Passez outre,\" was all she said.\n\nSo Beaupere gave up the matter for the present.\n\n\"What did Baudricourt say to you when you left?\"\n\n\"He made them that were to go with me promise to take charge of me, and\nto me he said, 'Go, and let happen what may!'\" (Advienne que pourra!)\nAfter a good deal of questioning upon other matters she was asked again\nabout her attire. She said it was necessary for her to dress as a man.\n\n\"Did your Voice advise it?\"\n\nJoan merely answered placidly:\n\n\"I believe my Voice gave me good advice.\"\n\nIt was all that could be got out of her, so the questions wandered to\nother matters, and finally to her first meeting with the King at\nChinon. She said she chose out the King, who was unknown to her, by the\nrevelation of her Voices. All that happened at that time was gone over.\nFinally:\n\n\"Do you still hear those Voices?\"\n\n\"They come to me every day.\"\n\n\"What do you ask of them?\"\n\n\"I have never asked of them any recompense but the salvation of my\nsoul.\"\n\n\"Did the Voice always urge you to follow the army?\"\n\nHe is creeping upon her again. She answered:\n\n\"It required me to remain behind at St. Denis. I would have obeyed if I\nhad been free, but I was helpless by my wound, and the knights carried\nme away by force.\"\n\n\"When were you wounded?\"\n\n\"I was wounded in the moat before Paris, in the assault.\"\n\nThe next question reveals what Beaupere had been leading up to:\n\n\"Was it a feast-day?\"\n\nYou see? The suggestion that a voice coming from God would hardly advise\nor permit the violation, by war and bloodshed, of a sacred day.\n\nJoan was troubled a moment, then she answered yes, it was a feast-day.\n\n\"Now, then, tell the this: did you hold it right to make the attack on\nsuch a day?\"\n\nThis was a shot which might make the first breach in a wall which had\nsuffered no damage thus far. There was immediate silence in the court\nand intense expectancy noticeable all about. But Joan disappointed the\nhouse. She merely made a slight little motion with her hand, as when one\nbrushes away a fly, and said with reposeful indifference:\n\n\"Passez outre.\"\n\nSmiles danced for a moment in some of the sternest faces there,\nand several men even laughed outright. The trap had been long and\nlaboriously prepared; it fell, and was empty.\n\nThe court rose. It had sat for hours, and was cruelly fatigued. Most\nof the time had been taken up with apparently idle and purposeless\ninquiries about the Chinon events, the exiled Duke of Orleans, Joan's\nfirst proclamation, and so on, but all this seemingly random stuff\nhad really been sown thick with hidden traps. But Joan had fortunately\nescaped them all, some by the protecting luck which attends upon\nignorance and innocence, some by happy accident, the others by force of\nher best and surest helper, the clear vision and lightning intuitions of\nher extraordinary mind.\n\nNow, then, this daily baiting and badgering of this friendless girl, a\ncaptive in chains, was to continue a long, long time--dignified sport,\na kennel of mastiffs and bloodhounds harassing a kitten!--and I may as\nwell tell you, upon sworn testimony, what it was like from the first\nday to the last. When poor Joan had been in her grave a quarter of\na century, the Pope called together that great court which was to\nre-examine her history, and whose just verdict cleared her illustrious\nname from every spot and stain, and laid upon the verdict and conduct\nof our Rouen tribunal the blight of its everlasting execrations. Manchon\nand several of the judges who had been members of our court were among\nthe witnesses who appeared before that Tribunal of Rehabilitation.\nRecalling these miserable proceedings which I have been telling you\nabout, Manchon testified thus:--here you have it, all in fair print in\nthe unofficial history:\n\nWhen Joan spoke of her apparitions she was interrupted at almost every\nword. They wearied her with long and multiplied interrogatories upon\nall sorts of things. Almost every day the interrogatories of the morning\nlasted three or four hours; then from these morning interrogatories they\nextracted the particularly difficult and subtle points, and these served\nas material for the afternoon interrogatories, which lasted two or three\nhours. Moment by moment they skipped from one subject to another; yet\nin spite of this she always responded with an astonishing wisdom and\nmemory. She often corrected the judges, saying, \"But I have already\nanswered that once before--ask the recorder,\" referring them to me.\n\nAnd here is the testimony of one of Joan's judges. Remember, these\nwitnesses are not talking about two or three days, they are talking\nabout a tedious long procession of days:\n\nThey asked her profound questions, but she extricated herself quite\nwell. Sometimes the questioners changed suddenly and passed on to\nanother subject to see if she would not contradict herself. They\nburdened her with long interrogatories of two or three hours, from which\nthe judges themselves went forth fatigued. From the snares with which\nshe was beset the expertest man in the world could not have extricated\nhimself but with difficulty. She gave her responses with great prudence;\nindeed to such a degree that during three weeks I believed she was\ninspired.\n\nAh, had she a mind such as I have described? You see what these priests\nsay under oath--picked men, men chosen for their places in that terrible\ncourt on account of their learning, their experience, their keen and\npractised intellects, and their strong bias against the prisoner. They\nmake that poor country-girl out the match, and more than the match, of\nthe sixty-two trained adepts. Isn't it so? They from the University of\nParis, she from the sheepfold and the cow-stable!\n\nAh, yes, she was great, she was wonderful. It took six thousand years\nto produce her; her like will not be seen in the earth again in fifty\nthousand. Such is my opinion.\n\n\n\n\n\n7 Craft That Was in Vain\n\nTHE THIRD meeting of the court was in that same spacious chamber, next\nday, 24th of February.\n\nHow did it begin? In just the same old way. When the preparations were\nended, the robed sixty-two massed in their chairs and the guards and\norder-keepers distributed to their stations, Cauchon spoke from his\nthrone and commanded Joan to lay her hands upon the Gospels and swear to\ntell the truth concerning everything asked her!\n\nJoan's eyes kindled, and she rose; rose and stood, fine and noble, and\nfaced toward the Bishop and said:\n\n\"Take care what you do, my lord, you who are my judge, for you take a\nterrible responsibility on yourself and you presume too far.\"\n\nIt made a great stir, and Cauchon burst out upon her with an awful\nthreat--the threat of instant condemnation unless she obeyed. That\nmade the very bones of my body turn cold, and I saw cheeks about me\nblanch--for it meant fire and the stake! But Joan, still standing,\nanswered him back, proud and undismayed:\n\n\"Not all the clergy in Paris and Rouen could condemn me, lacking the\nright!\"\n\nThis made a great tumult, and part of it was applause from the\nspectators. Joan resumed her seat.\n\nThe Bishop still insisted. Joan said:\n\n\"I have already made oath. It is enough.\"\n\nThe Bishop shouted:\n\n\"In refusing to swear, you place yourself under suspicion!\"\n\n\"Let be. I have sworn already. It is enough.\"\n\nThe Bishop continued to insist. Joan answered that \"she would tell what\nshe knew--but not all that she knew.\"\n\nThe Bishop plagued her straight along, till at last she said, in a weary\ntone:\n\n\"I came from God; I have nothing more to do here. Return me to God, from\nwhom I came.\"\n\nIt was piteous to hear; it was the same as saying, \"You only want my\nlife; take it and let me be at peace.\"\n\nThe Bishop stormed out again:\n\n\"Once more I command you to--\"\n\nJoan cut in with a nonchalant \"Passez outre,\" and Cauchon retired from\nthe struggle; but he retired with some credit this time, for he offered\na compromise, and Joan, always clear-headed, saw protection for herself\nin it and promptly and willingly accepted it. She was to swear to tell\nthe truth \"as touching the matters et down in the proces verbal.\" They\ncould not sail her outside of definite limits, now; her course was\nover a charted sea, henceforth. The Bishop had granted more than he had\nintended, and more than he would honestly try to abide by.\n\nBy command, Beaupere resumed his examination of the accused. It being\nLent, there might be a chance to catch her neglecting some detail of\nher religious duties. I could have told him he would fail there. Why,\nreligion was her life!\n\n\"Since when have you eaten or drunk?\"\n\nIf the least thing had passed her lips in the nature of sustenance,\nneither her youth nor the fact that she was being half starved in her\nprison could save her from dangerous suspicion of contempt for the\ncommandments of the Church.\n\n\"I have done neither since yesterday at noon.\"\n\nThe priest shifted to the Voices again.\n\n\"When have you heard your Voice?\"\n\n\"Yesterday and to-day.\"\n\n\"At what time?\"\n\n\"Yesterday it was in the morning.\"\n\n\"What were you doing then?\"\n\n\"I was asleep and it woke me.\"\n\n\"By touching your arm?\"\n\n\"No, without touching me.\"\n\n\"Did you thank it? Did you kneel?\"\n\nHe had Satan in his mind, you see; and was hoping, perhaps, that by and\nby it could be shown that she had rendered homage to the arch enemy of\nGod and man.\n\n\"Yes, I thanked it; and knelt in my bed where I was chained, and joined\nmy hands and begged it to implore God's help for me so that I might have\nlight and instruction as touching the answers I should give here.\"\n\n\"Then what did the Voice say?\"\n\n\"It told me to answer boldly, and God would help me.\" Then she turned\ntoward Cauchon and said, \"You say that you are my judge; now I tell you\nagain, take care what you do, for in truth I am sent of God and you are\nputting yourself in great danger.\"\n\nBeaupere asked her if the Voice's counsels were not fickle and variable.\n\n\"No. It never contradicts itself. This very day it has told me again to\nanswer boldly.\"\n\n\"Has it forbidden you to answer only part of what is asked you?\"\n\n\"I will tell you nothing as to that. I have revelations touching the\nKing my master, and those I will not tell you.\" Then she was stirred by\na great emotion, and the tears sprang to her eyes and she spoke out as\nwith strong conviction, saying:\n\n\"I believe wholly--as wholly as I believe the Christian faith and that\nGod has redeemed us from the fires of hell, that God speaks to me by\nthat Voice!\"\n\nBeing questioned further concerning the Voice, she said she was not at\nliberty to tell all she knew.\n\n\"Do you think God would be displeased at your telling the whole truth?\"\n\n\"The Voice has commanded me to tell the King certain things, and not\nyou--and some very lately--even last night; things which I would he\nknew. He would be more easy at his dinner.\"\n\n\"Why doesn't the Voice speak to the King itself, as it did when you were\nwith him? Would it not if you asked it?\"\n\n\"I do not know if it be the wish of God.\" She was pensive a moment or\ntwo, busy with her thoughts and far away, no doubt; then she added a\nremark in which Beaupere, always watchful, always alert, detected a\npossible opening--a chance to set a trap. Do you think he jumped at\nit instantly, betraying the joy he had in his mind, as a young hand at\ncraft and artifice would do?\n\nNo, oh, no, you could not tell that he had noticed the remark at all. He\nslid indifferently away from it at once, and began to ask idle questions\nabout other things, so as to slip around and spring on it from behind,\nso to speak: tedious and empty questions as to whether the Voice had\ntold her she would escape from this prison; and if it had furnished\nanswers to be used by her in to-day's seance; if it was accompanied with\na glory of light; if it had eyes, etc. That risky remark of Joan's was\nthis:\n\n\"Without the Grace of God I could do nothing.\"\n\nThe court saw the priest's game, and watched his play with a cruel\neagerness. Poor Joan was grown dreamy and absent; possibly she was\ntired. Her life was in imminent danger, and she did not suspect it. The\ntime was ripe now, and Beaupere quietly and stealthily sprang his trap:\n\n\"Are you in a state of Grace?\"\n\nAh, we had two or three honorable brave men in that pack of judges; and\nJean Lefevre was one of them. He sprang to his feet and cried out:\n\n\"It is a terrible question! The accused is not obliged to answer it!\"\n\nCauchon's face flushed black with anger to see this plank flung to the\nperishing child, and he shouted:\n\n\"Silence! and take your seat. The accused will answer the question!\"\n\nThere was no hope, no way out of the dilemma; for whether she said yes\nor whether she said no, it would be all the same--a disastrous answer,\nfor the Scriptures had said one cannot know this thing. Think what hard\nhearts they were to set this fatal snare for that ignorant young girl\nand be proud of such work and happy in it. It was a miserable moment for\nme while we waited; it seemed a year. All the house showed excitement;\nand mainly it was glad excitement. Joan looked out upon these hungering\nfaces with innocent, untroubled eyes, and then humbly and gently she\nbrought out that immortal answer which brushed the formidable snare away\nas it had been but a cobweb:\n\n\"If I be not in a state of Grace, I pray God place me in it; if I be in\nit, I pray God keep me so.\"\n\nAh, you will never see an effect like that; no, not while you live. For\na space there was the silence of the grave. Men looked wondering into\neach other's faces, and some were awed and crossed themselves; and I\nheard Lefevre mutter:\n\n\"It was beyond the wisdom of man to devise that answer. Whence comes\nthis child's amazing inspirations?\"\n\nBeaupere presently took up his work again, but the humiliation of his\ndefeat weighed upon him, and he made but a rambling and dreary business\nof it, he not being able to put any heart in it.\n\nHe asked Joan a thousand questions about her childhood and about the oak\nwood, and the fairies, and the children's games and romps under our dear\nArbre Fee Bourlemont, and this stirring up of old memories broke her\nvoice and made her cry a little, but she bore up as well as she could,\nand answered everything.\n\nThen the priest finished by touching again upon the matter of her\napparel--a matter which was never to be lost sight of in this still-hunt\nfor this innocent creature's life, but kept always hanging over her, a\nmenace charged with mournful possibilities:\n\n\"Would you like a woman's dress?\"\n\n\"Indeed yes, if I may go out from this prison--but here, no.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n8 Joan Tells of Her Visions\n\nTHE COURT met next on Monday the 27th. Would you believe it? The Bishop\nignored the contract limiting the examination to matters set down in\nthe proces verbal and again commanded Joan to take the oath without\nreservations. She said:\n\n\"You should be content I have sworn enough.\"\n\nShe stood her ground, and Cauchon had to yield.\n\nThe examination was resumed, concerning Joan's Voices.\n\n\"You have said that you recognized them as being the voices of angels\nthe third time that you heard them. What angels were they?\"\n\n\"St. Catherine and St. Marguerite.\"\n\n\"How did you know that it was those two saints? How could you tell the\none from the other?\"\n\n\"I know it was they; and I know how to distinguish them.\"\n\n\"By what sign?\"\n\n\"By their manner of saluting me. I have been these seven years under\ntheir direction, and I knew who they were because they told me.\"\n\n\"Whose was the first Voice that came to you when you were thirteen years\nold?\"\n\n\"It was the Voice of St. Michael. I saw him before my eyes; and he was\nnot alone, but attended by a cloud of angels.\"\n\n\"Did you see the archangel and the attendant angels in the body, or in\nthe spirit?\"\n\n\"I saw them with the eyes of my body, just as I see you; and when they\nwent away I cried because they did not take me with them.\"\n\nIt made me see that awful shadow again that fell dazzling white upon her\nthat day under l'Arbre Fee de Bourlemont, and it made me shiver again,\nthough it was so long ago. It was really not very long gone by, but it\nseemed so, because so much had happened since.\n\n\"In what shape and form did St. Michael appear?\"\n\n\"As to that, I have not received permission to speak.\"\n\n\"What did the archangel say to you that first time?\"\n\n\"I cannot answer you to-day.\"\n\nMeaning, I think, that she would have to get permission of her Voices\nfirst.\n\nPresently, after some more questions as to the revelations which had\nbeen conveyed through her to the King, she complained of the unnecessity\nof all this, and said:\n\n\"I will say again, as I have said before many times in these sittings,\nthat I answered all questions of this sort before the court at Poitiers,\nand I would that you wold bring here the record of that court and read\nfrom that. Prithee, send for that book.\"\n\nThere was no answer. It was a subject that had to be got around and put\naside. That book had wisely been gotten out of the way, for it contained\nthings which would be very awkward here.\n\nAmong them was a decision that Joan's mission was from God, whereas it\nwas the intention of this inferior court to show that it was from the\ndevil; also a decision permitting Joan to wear male attire, whereas it\nwas the purpose of this court to make the male attire do hurtful work\nagainst her.\n\n\"How was it that you were moved to come into France--by your own\ndesire?\"\n\n\"Yes, and by command of God. But that it was His will I would not have\ncome. I would sooner have had my body torn in sunder by horses than\ncome, lacking that.\"\n\nBeaupere shifted once more to the matter of the male attire, now, and\nproceeded to make a solemn talk about it. That tried Joan's patience;\nand presently she interrupted and said:\n\n\"It is a trifling thing and of no consequence. And I did not put it on\nby counsel of any man, but by command of God.\"\n\n\"Robert de Baudricourt did not order you to wear it?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Did you think you did well in taking the dress of a man?\"\n\n\"I did well to do whatsoever thing God commanded me to do.\"\n\n\"But in this particular case do you think you did well in taking the\ndress of a man?\"\n\n\"I have done nothing but by command of God.\"\n\nBeaupere made various attempts to lead her into contradictions\nof herself; also to put her words and acts in disaccord with the\nScriptures. But it was lost time. He did not succeed. He returned to her\nvisions, the light which shone about them, her relations with the King,\nand so on.\n\n\"Was there an angel above the King's head the first time you saw him?\"\n\n\"By the Blessed Mary!--\"\n\nShe forced her impatience down, and finished her sentence with\ntranquillity: \"If there was one I did not see it.\"\n\n\"Was there light?\"\n\n\"There were more than three thousand soldiers there, and five hundred\ntorches, without taking account of spiritual light.\"\n\n\"What made the King believe in the revelations which you brought him?\"\n\n\"He had signs; also the counsel of the clergy.\"\n\n\"What revelations were made to the King?\"\n\n\"You will not get that out of me this year.\"\n\nPresently she added: \"During three weeks I was questioned by the clergy\nat Chinon and Poitiers. The King had a sign before he would believe; and\nthe clergy were of opinion that my acts were good and not evil.\"\n\nThe subject was dropped now for a while, and Beaupere took up the matter\nof the miraculous sword of Fierbois to see if he could not find a chance\nthere to fix the crime of sorcery upon Joan.\n\n\"How did you know that there was an ancient sword buried in the ground\nunder the rear of the altar of the church of St. Catherine of Fierbois?\"\n\nJoan had no concealments to make as to this:\n\n\"I knew the sword was there because my Voices told me so; and I sent to\nask that it be given to me to carry in the wars. It seemed to me that it\nwas not very deep in the ground. The clergy of the church caused it to\nbe sought for and dug up; and they polished it, and the rust fell easily\noff from it.\"\n\n\"Were you wearing it when you were taken in battle at Compiegne?\"\n\n\"No. But I wore it constantly until I left St. Denis after the attack\nupon Paris.\"\n\nThis sword, so mysteriously discovered and so long and so constantly\nvictorious, was suspected of being under the protection of enchantment.\n\n\"Was that sword blest? What blessing had been invoked upon it?\"\n\n\"None. I loved it because it was found in the church of St. Catherine,\nfor I loved that church very dearly.\"\n\nShe loved it because it had been built in honor of one of her angels.\n\n\"Didn't you lay it upon the altar, to the end that it might be lucky?\"\n(The altar of St. Denis.) \"No.\"\n\n\"Didn't you pray that it might be made lucky?\"\n\n\"Truly it were no harm to wish that my harness might be fortunate.\"\n\n\"Then it was not that sword which you wore in the field of Compiegne?\nWhat sword did you wear there?\"\n\n\"The sword of the Burgundian Franquet d'Arras, whom I took prisoner in\nthe engagement at Lagny. I kept it because it was a good war-sword--good\nto lay on stout thumps and blows with.\"\n\nShe said that quite simply; and the contrast between her delicate\nlittle self and the grim soldier words which she dropped with such easy\nfamiliarity from her lips made many spectators smile.\n\n\"What is become of the other sword? Where is it now?\"\n\n\"Is that in the proces verbal?\"\n\nBeaupere did not answer.\n\n\"Which do you love best, your banner or your sword?\"\n\nHer eye lighted gladly at the mention of her banner, and she cried out:\n\n\"I love my banner best--oh, forty times more than the sword! Sometimes\nI carried it myself when I charged the enemy, to avoid killing any one.\"\nThen she added, naively, and with again that curious contrast between\nher girlish little personality and her subject, \"I have never killed\nanyone.\"\n\nIt made a great many smile; and no wonder, when you consider what a\ngentle and innocent little thing she looked. One could hardly believe\nshe had ever even seen men slaughtered, she look so little fitted for\nsuch things.\n\n\"In the final assault at Orleans did you tell your soldiers that the\narrows shot by the enemy and the stones discharged from their catapults\nwould not strike any one but you?\"\n\n\"No. And the proof is, that more than a hundred of my men were struck.\nI told them to have no doubts and no fears; that they would raise the\nsiege. I was wounded in the neck by an arrow in the assault upon the\nbastille that commanded the bridge, but St. Catherine comforted me and I\nwas cured in fifteen days without having to quit the saddle and leave my\nwork.\"\n\n\"Did you know that you were going to be wounded?\"\n\n\"Yes; and I had told it to the King beforehand. I had it from my\nVoices.\"\n\n\"When you took Jargeau, why did you not put its commandant to ransom?\"\n\n\"I offered him leave to go out unhurt from the place, with all his\ngarrison; and if he would not I would take it by storm.\"\n\n\"And you did, I believe.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Had your Voices counseled you to take it by storm?\"\n\n\"As to that, I do not remember.\"\n\nThus closed a weary long sitting, without result. Every device that\ncould be contrived to trap Joan into wrong thinking, wrong doing, or\ndisloyalty to the Church, or sinfulness as a little child at home or\nlater, had been tried, and none of them had succeeded. She had come\nunscathed through the ordeal.\n\nWas the court discouraged? No. Naturally it was very much surprised,\nvery much astonished, to find its work baffling and difficult instead\nof simple and easy, but it had powerful allies in the shape of hunger,\ncold, fatigue, persecution, deception, and treachery; and opposed to\nthis array nothing but a defenseless and ignorant girl who must some\ntime or other surrender to bodily and mental exhaustion or get caught in\none of the thousand traps set for her.\n\nAnd had the court made no progress during these seemingly resultless\nsittings? Yes. It had been feeling its way, groping here, groping there,\nand had found one or two vague trails which might freshen by and by and\nlead to something. The male attire, for instance, and the visions and\nVoices. Of course no one doubted that she had seen supernatural beings\nand been spoken to and advised by them. And of course no one doubted\nthat by supernatural help miracles had been done by Joan, such as\nchoosing out the King in a crowd when she had never seen him before, and\nher discovery of the sword buried under the altar. It would have been\nfoolish to doubt these things, for we all know that the air is full of\ndevils and angels that are visible to traffickers in magic on the one\nhand and to the stainlessly holy on the other; but what many and perhaps\nmost did doubt was, that Joan's visions, Voices, and miracles came from\nGod. It was hoped that in time they could be proven to have been of\nsatanic origin. Therefore, as you see, the court's persistent fashion\nof coming back to that subject every little while and spooking around it\nand prying into it was not to pass the time--it had a strictly business\nend in view.\n\n\n\n\n\n9 Her Sure Deliverance Foretold\n\nTHE NEXT sitting opened on Thursday the first of March. Fifty-eight\njudges present--the others resting.\n\nAs usual, Joan was required to take an oath without reservations. She\nshowed no temper this time. She considered herself well buttressed by\nthe proces verbal compromise which Cauchon was so anxious to repudiate\nand creep out of; so she merely refused, distinctly and decidedly; and\nadded, in a spirit of fairness and candor:\n\n\"But as to matters set down in the proces verbal, I will freely tell the\nwhole truth--yes, as freely and fully as if I were before the Pope.\"\n\nHere was a chance! We had two or three Popes, then; only one of them\ncould be the true Pope, of course. Everybody judiciously shirked the\nquestion of which was the true Pope and refrained from naming him, it\nbeing clearly dangerous to go into particulars in this matter. Here was\nan opportunity to trick an unadvised girl into bringing herself into\nperil, and the unfair judge lost no time in taking advantage of it. He\nasked, in a plausibly indolent and absent way:\n\n\"Which one do you consider to be the true Pope?\"\n\nThe house took an attitude of deep attention, and so waited to hear the\nanswer and see the prey walk into the trap. But when the answer came it\ncovered the judge with confusion, and you could see many people covertly\nchuckling. For Joan asked in a voice and manner which almost deceived\neven me, so innocent it seemed:\n\n\"Are there two?\"\n\nOne of the ablest priests in that body and one of the best swearers\nthere, spoke right out so that half the house heard him, and said:\n\n\"By God, it was a master stroke!\"\n\nAs soon as the judge was better of his embarrassment he came back to the\ncharge, but was prudent and passed by Joan's question:\n\n\"Is it true that you received a letter from the Count of Armagnac asking\nyou which of the three Popes he ought to obey?\"\n\n\"Yes, and answered it.\"\n\nCopies of both letters were produced and read. Joan said that hers had\nnot been quite strictly copied. She said she had received the Count's\nletter when she was just mounting her horse; and added:\n\n\"So, in dictating a word or two of reply I said I would try to answer\nhim from Paris or somewhere where I could be at rest.\"\n\nShe was asked again which Pope she had considered the right one.\n\n\"I was not able to instruct the Count of Armagnac as to which one he\nought to obey\"; then she added, with a frank fearlessness which sounded\nfresh and wholesome in that den of trimmers and shufflers, \"but as for\nme, I hold that we are bound to obey our Lord the Pope who is at Rome.\"\n\nThe matter was dropped. They produced and read a copy of Joan's first\neffort at dictating--her proclamation summoning the English to retire\nfrom the siege of Orleans and vacate France--truly a great and fine\nproduction for an unpractised girl of seventeen.\n\n\"Do you acknowledge as your own the document which has just been read?\"\n\n\"Yes, except that there are errors in it--words which make me give\nmyself too much importance.\" I saw what was coming; I was troubled and\nashamed. \"For instance, I did not say 'Deliver up to the Maid' (rendez\nau la Pucelle); I said 'Deliver up to the King' (rendez au Roi); and I\ndid not call myself 'Commander-in-Chief' (chef de guerre). All those are\nwords which my secretary substituted; or mayhap he misheard me or forgot\nwhat I said.\"\n\nShe did not look at me when she said it: she spared me that\nembarrassment. I hadn't misheard her at all, and hadn't forgotten.\nI changed her language purposely, for she was Commander-in-Chief and\nentitled to call herself so, and it was becoming and proper, too; and\nwho was going to surrender anything to the King?--at that time a stick,\na cipher? If any surrendering was done, it would be to the noble Maid of\nVaucouleurs, already famed and formidable though she had not yet struck\na blow.\n\nAh, there would have been a fine and disagreeable episode (for me)\nthere, if that pitiless court had discovered that the very scribbler of\nthat piece of dictation, secretary to Joan of Arc, was present--and\nnot only present, but helping build the record; and not only that, but\ndestined at a far distant day to testify against lies and perversions\nsmuggled into it by Cauchon and deliver them over to eternal infamy!\n\n\"Do you acknowledge that you dictated this proclamation?\"\n\n\"I do.\"\n\n\"Have you repented of it? Do you retract it?\"\n\nAh, then she was indignant!\n\n\"No! Not even these chains\"--and she shook them--\"not even these chains\ncan chill the hopes that I uttered there. And more!\"--she rose, and\nstood a moment with a divine strange light kindling in her face, then\nher words burst forth as in a flood--\"I warn you now that before seven\nyears a disaster will smite the English, oh, many fold greater than the\nfall of Orleans! and--\"\n\n\"Silence! Sit down!\"\n\n\"--and then, soon after, they will lose all France!\"\n\nNow consider these things. The French armies no longer existed. The\nFrench cause was standing still, our King was standing still, there was\nno hint that by and by the Constable Richemont would come forward and\ntake up the great work of Joan of Arc and finish it. In face of all\nthis, Joan made that prophecy--made it with perfect confidence--and it\ncame true. For within five years Paris fell--1436--and our King marched\ninto it flying the victor's flag. So the first part of the prophecy was\nthen fulfilled--in fact, almost the entire prophecy; for, with Paris in\nour hands, the fulfilment of the rest of it was assured.\n\nTwenty years later all France was ours excepting a single town--Calais.\n\nNow that will remind you of an earlier prophecy of Joan's. At the time\nthat she wanted to take Paris and could have done it with ease if our\nKing had but consented, she said that that was the golden time; that,\nwith Paris ours, all France would be ours in six months. But if this\ngolden opportunity to recover France was wasted, said she, \"I give you\ntwenty years to do it in.\"\n\nShe was right. After Paris fell, in 1436, the rest of the work had to be\ndone city by city, castle by castle, and it took twenty years to finish\nit.\n\nYes, it was the first day of March, 1431, there in the court, that she\nstood in the view of everybody and uttered that strange and incredible\nprediction. Now and then, in this world, somebody's prophecy turns\nup correct, but when you come to look into it there is sure to be\nconsiderable room for suspicion that the prophecy was made after the\nfact. But here the matter is different. There in that court Joan's\nprophecy was set down in the official record at the hour and moment of\nits utterance, years before the fulfilment, and there you may read it to\nthis day.\n\nTwenty-five years after Joan's death the record was produced in the\ngreat Court of the Rehabilitation and verified under oath by Manchon\nand me, and surviving judges of our court confirmed the exactness of the\nrecord in their testimony.\n\nJoan' startling utterance on that now so celebrated first of March\nstirred up a great turmoil, and it was some time before it quieted down\nagain. Naturally, everybody was troubled, for a prophecy is a grisly and\nawful thing, whether one thinks it ascends from hell or comes down from\nheaven.\n\nAll that these people felt sure of was, that the inspiration back of it\nwas genuine and puissant.\n\nThey would have given their right hands to know the source of it.\n\nAt last the questions began again.\n\n\"How do you know that those things are going to happen?\"\n\n\"I know it by revelation. And I know it as surely as I know that you sit\nhere before me.\"\n\nThis sort of answer was not going to allay the spreading uneasiness.\nTherefore, after some further dallying the judge got the subject out of\nthe way and took up one which he could enjoy more.\n\n\"What languages do your Voices speak?\"\n\n\"French.\"\n\n\"St. Marguerite, too?\"\n\n\"Verily; why not? She is on our side, not on the English!\"\n\nSaints and angels who did not condescend to speak English is a grave\naffront. They could not be brought into court and punished for contempt,\nbut the tribunal could take silent note of Joan's remark and remember it\nagainst her; which they did. It might be useful by and by.\n\n\"Do your saints and angels wear jewelry?--crowns, rings, earrings?\"\n\nTo Joan, questions like these were profane frivolities and not worthy of\nserious notice; she answered indifferently. But the question brought to\nher mind another matter, and she turned upon Cauchon and said:\n\n\"I had two rings. They have been taken away from me during my captivity.\nYou have one of them. It is the gift of my brother. Give it back to me.\nIf not to me, then I pray that it be given to the Church.\"\n\nThe judges conceived the idea that maybe these rings were for the\nworking of enchantments.\n\nPerhaps they could be made to do Joan a damage.\n\n\"Where is the other ring?\"\n\n\"The Burgundians have it.\"\n\n\"Where did you get it?\"\n\n\"My father and mother gave it to me.\"\n\n\"Describe it.\"\n\n\"It is plain and simple and has 'Jesus and Mary' engraved upon it.\"\n\nEverybody could see that that was not a valuable equipment to do devil's\nwork with. So that trail was not worth following. Still, to make sure,\none of the judges asked Joan if she had ever cured sick people by\ntouching them with the ring. She said no.\n\n\"Now as concerning the fairies, that were used to abide near by Domremy\nwhereof there are many reports and traditions. It is said that your\ngodmother surprised these creatures on a summer's night dancing under\nthe tree called l'Arbre Fee de Bourlemont. Is it not possible that your\npretended saints and angels are but those fairies?\"\n\n\"Is that in your proces?\"\n\nShe made no other answer.\n\n\"Have you not conversed with St. Marguerite and St. Catherine under that\ntree?\"\n\n\"I do not know.\"\n\n\"Or by the fountain near the tree?\"\n\n\"Yes, sometimes.\"\n\n\"What promises did they make you?\"\n\n\"None but such as they had God's warrant for.\"\n\n\"But what promises did they make?\"\n\n\"That is not in your proces; yet I will say this much: they told me that\nthe King would become master of his kingdom in spite of his enemies.\"\n\n\"And what else?\"\n\nThere was a pause; then she said humbly:\n\n\"They promised to lead me to Paradise.\"\n\nIf faces do really betray what is passing in men's minds, a fear came\nupon many in that house, at this time, that maybe, after all, a chosen\nservant and herald of God was here being hunted to her death. The\ninterest deepened. Movements and whisperings ceased: the stillness\nbecame almost painful.\n\nHave you noticed that almost from the beginning the nature of the\nquestions asked Joan showed that in some way or other the questioner\nvery often already knew his fact before he asked his question? Have you\nnoticed that somehow or other the questioners usually knew just how and\nwere to search for Joan's secrets; that they really knew the bulk of her\nprivacies--a fact not suspected by her--and that they had no task before\nthem but to trick her into exposing those secrets?\n\nDo you remember Loyseleur, the hypocrite, the treacherous priest,\ntool of Cauchon? Do you remember that under the sacred seal of the\nconfessional Joan freely and trustingly revealed to him everything\nconcerning her history save only a few things regarding her supernatural\nrevelations which her Voices had forbidden her to tell to any one--and\nthat the unjust judge, Cauchon, was a hidden listener all the time?\n\nNow you understand how the inquisitors were able to devise that long\narray of minutely prying questions; questions whose subtlety and\ningenuity and penetration are astonishing until we come to remember\nLoyseleur's performance and recognize their source. Ah, Bishop of\nBeauvais, you are now lamenting this cruel iniquity these many years\nin hell! Yes verily, unless one has come to your help. There is but one\namong the redeemed that would do it; and it is futile to hope that that\none has not already done it--Joan of Arc.\n\nWe will return to the questionings.\n\n\"Did they make you still another promise?\"\n\n\"Yes, but that is not in your proces. I will not tell it now, but before\nthree months I will tell it you.\"\n\nThe judge seems to know the matter he is asking about, already; one gets\nthis idea from his next question.\n\n\"Did your Voices tell you that you would be liberated before three\nmonths?\"\n\nJoan often showed a little flash of surprise at the good guessing of the\njudges, and she showed one this time. I was frequently in terror to find\nmy mind (which I could not control) criticizing the Voices and saying,\n\"They counsel her to speak boldly--a thing which she would do without\nany suggestion from them or anybody else--but when it comes to telling\nher any useful thing, such as how these conspirators manage to guess\ntheir way so skilfully into her affairs, they are always off attending\nto some other business.\"\n\nI am reverent by nature; and when such thoughts swept through my head\nthey made me cold with fear, and if there was a storm and thunder at the\ntime, I was so ill that I could but with difficulty abide at my post and\ndo my work.\n\nJoan answered:\n\n\"That is not in your proces. I do not know when I shall be set free, but\nsome who wish me out of this world will go from it before me.\"\n\nIt made some of them shiver.\n\n\"Have your Voices told you that you will be delivered from this prison?\"\n\nWithout a doubt they had, and the judge knew it before he asked the\nquestion.\n\n\"Ask me again in three months and I will tell you.\" She said it with\nsuch a happy look, the tired prisoner! And I? And Noel Rainguesson,\ndrooping yonder?--why, the floods of joy went streaming through us from\ncrown to sole! It was all that we could do to hold still and keep from\nmaking fatal exposure of our feelings.\n\nShe was to be set free in three months. That was what she meant; we\nsaw it. The Voices had told her so, and told her true--true to the very\nday--May 30th. But we know now that they had mercifully hidden from her\nhow she was to be set free, but left her in ignorance. Home again!\n\nThat day was our understanding of it--Noel's and mine; that was our\ndream; and now we would count the days, the hours, the minutes. They\nwould fly lightly along; they would soon be over.\n\nYes, we would carry our idol home; and there, far from the pomps and\ntumults of the world, we would take up our happy life again and live\nit out as we had begun it, in the free air and the sunshine, with the\nfriendly sheep and the friendly people for comrades, and the grace and\ncharm of the meadows, the woods, and the river always before our eyes\nand their deep peace in our hearts. Yes, that was our dream, the dream\nthat carried us bravely through that three months to an exact and awful\nfulfilment, the thought of which would have killed us, I think, if we\nhad foreknown it and been obliged to bear the burden of it upon our\nhearts the half of those weary days.\n\nOur reading of the prophecy was this: We believed the King's soul was\ngoing to be smitten with remorse; and that he would privately plan a\nrescue with Joan's old lieutenants, D'Alencon and the Bastard and La\nHire, and that this rescue would take place at the end of the three\nmonths. So we made up our minds to be ready and take a hand in it.\n\nIn the present and also in later sittings Joan was urged to name the\nexact day of her deliverance; but she could not do that. She had not the\npermission of her Voices. Moreover, the Voices themselves did not name\nthe precise day. Ever since the fulfilment of the prophecy, I have\nbelieved that Joan had the idea that her deliverance was going to come\nin the form of death. But not that death! Divine as she was, dauntless\nas she was in battle, she was human also. She was not solely a saint,\nan angel, she was a clay-made girl also--as human a girl as any in\nthe world, and full of a human girl's sensitiveness and tenderness and\ndelicacies. And so, that death! No, she could not have lived the three\nmonths with that one before her, I think. You remember that the first\ntime she was wounded she was frightened, and cried, just as any other\ngirl of seventeen would have done, although she had known for eighteen\ndays that she was going to be wounded on that very day. No, she was\nnot afraid of any ordinary death, and an ordinary death was what she\nbelieved the prophecy of deliverance meant, I think, for her face showed\nhappiness, not horror, when she uttered it.\n\nNow I will explain why I think as I do. Five weeks before she was\ncaptured in the battle of Compiegne, her Voices told her what was\ncoming. They did not tell her the day or the place, but said she would\nbe taken prisoner and that it would be before the feast of St. John.\nShe begged that death, certain and swift, should be her fate, and the\ncaptivity brief; for she was a free spirit, and dreaded the confinement.\nThe Voices made no promise, but only told her to bear whatever came. Now\nas they did not refuse the swift death, a hopeful young thing like Joan\nwould naturally cherish that fact and make the most of it, allowing it\nto grow and establish itself in her mind. And so now that she was told\nshe was to be \"delivered\" in three months, I think she believed it meant\nthat she would die in her bed in the prison, and that that was why she\nlooked happy and content--the gates of Paradise standing open for her,\nthe time so short, you see, her troubles so soon to be over, her reward\nso close at hand. Yes, that would make her look happy, that would make\nher patient and bold, and able to fight her fight out like a soldier.\nSave herself if she could, of course, and try for the best, for that\nwas the way she was made; but die with her face to the front if die she\nmust.\n\nThen later, when she charged Cauchon with trying to kill her with a\npoisoned fish, her notion that she was to be \"delivered\" by death in the\nprison--if she had it, and I believe she had--would naturally be greatly\nstrengthened, you see.\n\nBut I am wandering from the trial. Joan was asked to definitely name the\ntime that she would be delivered from prison.\n\n\"I have always said that I was not permitted to tell you everything. I\nam to be set free, and I desire to ask leave of my Voices to tell you\nthe day. That is why I wish for delay.\"\n\n\"Do your Voices forbid you to tell the truth?\"\n\n\"Is it that you wish to know matters concerning the King of France? I\ntell you again that he will regain his kingdom, and that I know it as\nwell as I know that you sit here before me in this tribunal.\" She\nsighed and, after a little pause, added: \"I should be dead but for this\nrevelation, which comforts me always.\"\n\nSome trivial questions were asked her about St. Michael's dress and\nappearance. She answered them with dignity, but one saw that they gave\nher pain. After a little she said:\n\n\"I have great joy in seeing him, for when I see him I have the feeling\nthat I am not in mortal sin.\"\n\nShe added, \"Sometimes St. Marguerite and St. Catherine have allowed me\nto confess myself to them.\"\n\nHere was a possible chance to set a successful snare for her innocence.\n\n\"When you confessed were you in mortal sin, do you think?\"\n\nBut her reply did her no hurt. So the inquiry was shifted once more\nto the revelations made to the King--secrets which the court had tried\nagain and again to force out of Joan, but without success.\n\n\"Now as to the sign given to the King--\"\n\n\"I have already told you that I will tell you nothing about it.\"\n\n\"Do you know what the sign was?\"\n\n\"As to that, you will not find out from me.\"\n\nAll this refers to Joan's secret interview with the King--held\napart, though two or three others were present. It was known--through\nLoyseleur, of course--that this sign was a crown and was a pledge of the\nverity of Joan's mission. But that is all a mystery until this day--the\nnature of the crown, I mean--and will remain a mystery to the end of\ntime. We can never know whether a real crown descended upon the King's\nhead, or only a symbol, the mystic fabric of a vision.\n\n\"Did you see a crown upon the King's head when he received the\nrevelation?\"\n\n\"I cannot tell you as to that, without perjury.\"\n\n\"Did the King have that crown at Rheims?\"\n\n\"I think the King put upon his head a crown which he found there; but a\nmuch richer one was brought him afterward.\"\n\n\"Have you seen that one?\"\n\n\"I cannot tell you, without perjury. But whether I have seen it or not,\nI have heard say that it was rich and magnificent.\"\n\nThey went on and pestered her to weariness about that mysterious crown,\nbut they got nothing more out of her. The sitting closed. A long, hard\nday for all of us.\n\n\n\n\n\n10 The Inquisitors at Their Wits' End\n\nTHE COURT rested a day, then took up work again on Saturday, the third\nof March.\n\nThis was one of our stormiest sessions. The whole court was out\nof patience; and with good reason. These threescore distinguished\nchurchmen, illustrious tacticians, veteran legal gladiators, had left\nimportant posts where their supervision was needed, to journey\nhither from various regions and accomplish a most simple and easy\nmatter--condemn and send to death a country-lass of nineteen who could\nneither read nor write, knew nothing of the wiles and perplexities of\nlegal procedure, could not call a single witness in her defense, was\nallowed no advocate or adviser, and must conduct her case by herself\nagainst a hostile judge and a packed jury. In two hours she would be\nhopelessly entangled, routed, defeated, convicted. Nothing could be more\ncertain that this--so they thought. But it was a mistake. The two hours\nhad strung out into days; what promised to be a skirmish had expanded\ninto a siege; the thing which had looked so easy had proven to be\nsurprisingly difficult; the light victim who was to have been puffed\naway like a feather remained planted like a rock; and on top of all\nthis, if anybody had a right to laugh it was the country-lass and not\nthe court.\n\nShe was not doing that, for that was not her spirit; but others were\ndoing it. The whole town was laughing in its sleeve, and the court knew\nit, and its dignity was deeply hurt. The members could not hide their\nannoyance.\n\nAnd so, as I have said, the session was stormy. It was easy to see that\nthese men had made up their minds to force words from Joan to-day which\nshould shorten up her case and bring it to a prompt conclusion. It shows\nthat after all their experience with her they did not know her yet.\n\nThey went into the battle with energy. They did not leave the\nquestioning to a particular member; no, everybody helped. They volleyed\nquestions at Joan from all over the house, and sometimes so many were\ntalking at once that she had to ask them to deliver their fire one at a\ntime and not by platoons. The beginning was as usual:\n\n\"You are once more required to take the oath pure and simple.\"\n\n\"I will answer to what is in the proces verbal. When I do more, I will\nchoose the occasion for myself.\"\n\nThat old ground was debated and fought over inch by inch with great\nbitterness and many threats. But Joan remained steadfast, and the\nquestionings had to shift to other matters. Half an hour was spent over\nJoan's apparitions--their dress, hair, general appearance, and so on--in\nthe hope of fishing something of a damaging sort out of the replies; but\nwith no result.\n\nNext, the male attire was reverted to, of course. After many well-worn\nquestions had been re-asked, one or two new ones were put forward.\n\n\"Did not the King or the Queen sometimes ask you to quit the male\ndress?\"\n\n\"That is not in your proces.\"\n\n\"Do you think you would have sinned if you had taken the dress of your\nsex?\"\n\n\"I have done best to serve and obey my sovereign Lord and Master.\"\n\nAfter a while the matter of Joan's Standard was taken up, in the hope of\nconnecting magic and witchcraft with it.\n\n\"Did not your men copy your banner in their pennons?\"\n\n\"The lancers of my guard did it. It was to distinguish them from the\nrest of the forces. It was their own idea.\"\n\n\"Were they often renewed?\"\n\n\"Yes. When the lances were broken they were renewed.\"\n\nThe purpose of the question unveils itself in the next one.\n\n\"Did you not say to your men that pennons made like your banner would be\nlucky?\"\n\nThe soldier-spirit in Joan was offended at this puerility. She drew\nherself up, and said with dignity and fire: \"What I said to them was,\n'Ride those English down!' and I did it myself.\"\n\nWhenever she flung out a scornful speech like that at these French\nmenials in English livery it lashed them into a rage; and that is what\nhappened this time. There were ten, twenty, sometimes even thirty of\nthem on their feet at a time, storming at the prisoner minute after\nminute, but Joan was not disturbed.\n\nBy and by there was peace, and the inquiry was resumed.\n\nIt was now sought to turn against Joan the thousand loving honors which\nhad been done her when she was raising France out of the dirt and shame\nof a century of slavery and castigation.\n\n\"Did you not cause paintings and images of yourself to be made?\"\n\n\"No. At Arras I saw a painting of myself kneeling in armor before the\nKing and delivering him a letter; but I caused no such things to be\nmade.\"\n\n\"Were not masses and prayers said in your honor?\"\n\n\"If it was done it was not by my command. But if any prayed for me I\nthink it was no harm.\"\n\n\"Did the French people believe you were sent of God?\"\n\n\"As to that, I know not; but whether they believed it or not, I was not\nthe less sent of God.\"\n\n\"If they thought you were sent of God, do you think it was well\nthought?\"\n\n\"If they believed it, their trust was not abused.\"\n\n\"What impulse was it, think you, that moved the people to kiss your\nhands, your feet, and your vestments?\"\n\n\"They were glad to see me, and so they did those things; and I could\nnot have prevented them if I had had the heart. Those poor people came\nlovingly to me because I had not done them any hurt, but had done the\nbest I could for them according to my strength.\"\n\nSee what modest little words she uses to describe that touching\nspectacle, her marches about France walled in on both sides by the\nadoring multitudes: \"They were glad to see me.\" Glad?\n\nWhy they were transported with joy to see her. When they could not kiss\nher hands or her feet, they knelt in the mire and kissed the hoof-prints\nof her horse. They worshiped her; and that is what these priests were\ntrying to prove. It was nothing to them that she was not to blame for\nwhat other people did. No, if she was worshiped, it was enough; she was\nguilty of mortal sin.\n\nCurious logic, one must say.\n\n\"Did you not stand sponsor for some children baptized at Rheims?\"\n\n\"At Troyes I did, and at St. Denis; and I named the boys Charles, in\nhonor of the King, and the girls I named Joan.\"\n\n\"Did not women touch their rings to those which you wore?\"\n\n\"Yes, many did, but I did not know their reason for it.\"\n\n\"At Rheims was your Standard carried into the church? Did you stand at\nthe altar with it in your hand at the Coronation?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"In passing through the country did you confess yourself in the Churches\nand receive the sacrament?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"In the dress of a man?\"\n\n\"Yes. But I do not remember that I was in armor.\"\n\nIt was almost a concession! almost a half-surrender of the permission\ngranted her by the Church at Poitiers to dress as a man. The wily court\nshifted to another matter: to pursue this one at this time might call\nJoan's attention to her small mistake, and by her native cleverness she\nmight recover her lost ground. The tempestuous session had worn her and\ndrowsed her alertness.\n\n\"It is reported that you brought a dead child to life in the church at\nLagny. Was that in answer to your prayers?\"\n\n\"As to that, I have no knowledge. Other young girls were praying for the\nchild, and I joined them and prayed also, doing no more than they.\"\n\n\"Continue.\"\n\n\"While we prayed it came to life, and cried. It had been dead three\ndays, and was as black as my doublet. It was straight way baptized, then\nit passed from life again and was buried in holy ground.\"\n\n\"Why did you jump from the tower of Beaurevoir by night and try to\nescape?\"\n\n\"I would go to the succor of Compiegne.\"\n\nIt was insinuated that this was an attempt to commit the deep crime of\nsuicide to avoid falling into the hands of the English.\n\n\"Did you not say that you would rather die than be delivered into the\npower of the English?\"\n\nJoan answered frankly; without perceiving the trap:\n\n\"Yes; my words were, that I would rather that my soul be returned unto\nGod than that I should fall into the hands of the English.\"\n\nIt was now insinuated that when she came to, after jumping from the\ntower, she was angry and blasphemed the name of God; and that she did it\nagain when she heard of the defection of the Commandant of Soissons. She\nwas hurt and indignant at this, and said:\n\n\"It is not true. I have never cursed. It is not my custom to swear.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n11 The Court Reorganized for Assassination\n\nA HALT was called. It was time. Cauchon was losing ground in the fight,\nJoan was gaining it.\n\nThere were signs that here and there in the court a judge was being\nsoftened toward Joan by her courage, her presence of mind, her\nfortitude, her constancy, her piety, her simplicity and candor, her\nmanifest purity, the nobility of her character, her fine intelligence,\nand the good brave fight she was making, all friendless and alone,\nagainst unfair odds, and there was grave room for fear that this\nsoftening process would spread further and presently bring Cauchon's\nplans in danger.\n\nSomething must be done, and it was done. Cauchon was not distinguished\nfor compassion, but he now gave proof that he had it in his character.\nHe thought it pity to subject so many judges to the prostrating fatigues\nof this trial when it could be conducted plenty well enough by a\nhandful of them. Oh, gentle judge! But he did not remember to modify the\nfatigues for the little captive.\n\nHe would let all the judges but a handful go, but he would select the\nhandful himself, and he did.\n\nHe chose tigers. If a lamb or two got in, it was by oversight, not\nintention; and he knew what to do with lambs when discovered.\n\nHe called a small council now, and during five days they sifted the huge\nbulk of answers thus far gathered from Joan. They winnowed it of all\nchaff, all useless matter--that is, all matter favorable to Joan; they\nsaved up all matter which could be twisted to her hurt, and out of this\nthey constructed a basis for a new trial which should have the semblance\nof a continuation of the old one. Another change. It was plain that the\npublic trial had wrought damage: its proceedings had been discussed\nall over the town and had moved many to pity the abused prisoner. There\nshould be no more of that. The sittings should be secret hereafter, and\nno spectators admitted. So Noel could come no more. I sent this news\nto him. I had not the heart to carry it myself. I would give the pain a\nchance to modify before I should see him in the evening.\n\nOn the 10th of March the secret trial began. A week had passed since I\nhad seen Joan. Her appearance gave me a great shock. She looked tired\nand weak. She was listless and far away, and her answers showed that\nshe was dazed and not able to keep perfect run of all that was done and\nsaid. Another court would not have taken advantage of her state, seeing\nthat her life was at stake here, but would have adjourned and spared\nher. Did this one? No; it worried her for hours, and with a glad and\neager ferocity, making all it could out of this great chance, the first\none it had had.\n\nShe was tortured into confusing herself concerning the \"sign\" which\nhad been given the King, and the next day this was continued hour after\nhour. As a result, she made partial revealments of particulars forbidden\nby her Voices; and seemed to me to state as facts things which were but\nallegories and visions mixed with facts.\n\nThe third day she was brighter, and looked less worn. She was almost\nher normal self again, and did her work well. Many attempts were made\nto beguile her into saying indiscreet things, but she saw the purpose in\nview and answered with tact and wisdom.\n\n\"Do you know if St. Catherine and St. Marguerite hate the English?\"\n\n\"They love whom Our Lord loves, and hate whom He hates.\"\n\n\"Does God hate the English?\"\n\n\"Of the love or the hatred of God toward the English I know nothing.\"\nThen she spoke up with the old martial ring in her voice and the old\naudacity in her words, and added, \"But I know this--that God will send\nvictory to the French, and that all the English will be flung out of\nFrance but the dead ones!\"\n\n\"Was God on the side of the English when they were prosperous in\nFrance?\"\n\n\"I do not know if God hates the French, but I think that He allowed them\nto be chastised for their sins.\"\n\nIt was a sufficiently naive way to account for a chastisement which had\nnow strung out for ninety-six years. But nobody found fault with it.\nThere was nobody there who would not punish a sinner ninety-six years if\nhe could, nor anybody there who would ever dream of such a thing as the\nLord's being any shade less stringent than men.\n\n\"Have you ever embraced St. Marguerite and St. Catherine?\"\n\n\"Yes, both of them.\"\n\nThe evil face of Cauchon betrayed satisfaction when she said that.\n\n\"When you hung garlands upon L'Arbre Fee Bourlemont, did you do it in\nhonor of your apparitions?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nSatisfaction again. No doubt Cauchon would take it for granted that she\nhung them there out of sinful love for the fairies.\n\n\"When the saints appeared to you did you bow, did you make reverence,\ndid you kneel?\"\n\n\"Yes; I did them the most honor and reverence that I could.\"\n\nA good point for Cauchon if he could eventually make it appear that\nthese were no saints to whom she had done reverence, but devils in\ndisguise.\n\nNow there was the matter of Joan's keeping her supernatural commerce a\nsecret from her parents. Much might be made of that. In fact, particular\nemphasis had been given to it in a private remark written in the margin\nof the proces: \"She concealed her visions from her parents and from\nevery one.\" Possibly this disloyalty to her parents might itself be the\nsign of the satanic source of her mission.\n\n\"Do you think it was right to go away to the wars without getting your\nparents' leave? It is written one must honor his father and his mother.\"\n\n\"I have obeyed them in all things but that. And for that I have begged\ntheir forgiveness in a letter and gotten it.\"\n\n\"Ah, you asked their pardon? So you knew you were guilty of sin in going\nwithout their leave!\"\n\nJoan was stirred. Her eyes flashed, and she exclaimed:\n\n\"I was commanded of God, and it was right to go! If I had had a hundred\nfathers and mothers and been a king's daughter to boot I would have\ngone.\"\n\n\"Did you never ask your Voices if you might tell your parents?\"\n\n\"They were willing that I should tell them, but I would not for anything\nhave given my parents that pain.\"\n\nTo the minds of the questioners this headstrong conduct savored of\npride. That sort of pride would move one to see sacrilegious adorations.\n\n\"Did not your Voices call you Daughter of God?\"\n\nJoan answered with simplicity, and unsuspiciously:\n\n\"Yes; before the siege of Orleans and since, they have several times\ncalled me Daughter of God.\"\n\nFurther indications of pride and vanity were sought.\n\n\"What horse were you riding when you were captured? Who gave it you?\"\n\n\"The King.\"\n\n\"You had other things--riches--of the King?\"\n\n\"For myself I had horses and arms, and money to pay the service in my\nhousehold.\"\n\n\"Had you not a treasury?\"\n\n\"Yes. Ten or twelve thousand crowns.\" Then she said with naivete \"It was\nnot a great sum to carry on a war with.\"\n\n\"You have it yet?\"\n\n\"No. It is the King's money. My brothers hold it for him.\"\n\n\"What were the arms which you left as an offering in the church of St.\nDenis?\"\n\n\"My suit of silver mail and a sword.\"\n\n\"Did you put them there in order that they might be adored?\"\n\n\"No. It was but an act of devotion. And it is the custom of men of war\nwho have been wounded to make such offering there. I had been wounded\nbefore Paris.\"\n\nNothing appealed to these stony hearts, those dull imaginations--not\neven this pretty picture, so simply drawn, of the wounded girl-soldier\nhanging her toy harness there in curious companionship with the grim\nand dusty iron mail of the historic defenders of France. No, there\nwas nothing in it for them; nothing, unless evil and injury for that\ninnocent creature could be gotten out of it somehow.\n\n\"Which aided most--you the Standard, or the Standard you?\"\n\n\"Whether it was the Standard or whether it was I, is nothing--the\nvictories came from God.\"\n\n\"But did you base your hopes of victory in yourself or in your\nStandard?\"\n\n\"In neither. In God, and not otherwise.\"\n\n\"Was not your Standard waved around the King's head at the Coronation?\"\n\n\"No. It was not.\"\n\n\"Why was it that your Standard had place at the crowning of the King in\nthe Cathedral of Rheims, rather than those of the other captains?\"\n\nThen, soft and low, came that touching speech which will live as long\nas language lives, and pass into all tongues, and move all gentle hearts\nwheresoever it shall come, down to the latest day:\n\n\"It had borne the burden, it had earned the honor.\" (1) How simple it\nis, and how beautiful. And how it beggars the studies eloquence of the\nmasters of oratory. Eloquence was a native gift of Joan of Arc; it came\nfrom her lips without effort and without preparation. Her words were as\nsublime as her deeds, as sublime as her character; they had their source\nin a great heart and were coined in a great brain.\n\n(1) What she said has been many times translated, but never with\nsuccess. There is a haunting pathos about the original which eludes all\nefforts to convey it into our tongue. It is as subtle as an odor, and\nescapes in the transmission. Her words were these:\n\n\"Il avait, a la peine, c'etait bien raison qu'il fut a l'honneur.\"\n\nMonseigneur Ricard, Honorary Vicar-General to the Archbishop of Aix,\nfinely speaks of it (Jeanne d'Arc la Venerable, page 197) as \"that\nsublime reply, enduring in the history of celebrated sayings like the\ncry of a French and Christian soul wounded unto death in its patriotism\nand its faith.\" -- TRANSLATOR.\n\n\n\n\n\n12 Joan's Master-Stroke Diverted\n\nNOW, as a next move, this small secret court of holy assassins did a\nthing so base that even at this day, in my old age, it is hard to speak\nof it with patience.\n\nIn the beginning of her commerce with her Voices there at Domremy, the\nchild Joan solemnly devoted her life to God, vowing her pure body and\nher pure soul to His service. You will remember that her parents tried\nto stop her from going to the wars by haling her to the court at Toul\nto compel her to make a marriage which she had never promised to make--a\nmarriage with our poor, good, windy, big, hard-fighting, and most dear\nand lamented comrade, the Standard-Bearer, who fell in honorable battle\nand sleeps with God these sixty years, peace to his ashes! And you will\nremember how Joan, sixteen years old, stood up in that venerable court\nand conducted her case all by herself, and tore the poor Paladin's case\nto rags and blew it away with a breath; and how the astonished old judge\non the bench spoke of her as \"this marvelous child.\"\n\nYou remember all that. Then think what I felt, to see these false\npriests, here in the tribunal wherein Joan had fought a fourth lone\nfight in three years, deliberately twist that matter entirely around\nand try to make out that Joan haled the Paladin into court and pretended\nthat he had promised to marry her, and was bent on making him do it.\n\nCertainly there was no baseness that those people were ashamed to stoop\nto in their hunt for that friendless girl's life. What they wanted to\nshow was this--that she had committed the sin of relapsing from her vow\nand trying to violate it.\n\nJoan detailed the true history of the case, but lost her temper as she\nwent along, and finished with some words for Cauchon which he remembers\nyet, whether he is fanning himself in the world he belongs in or has\nswindled his way into the other.\n\nThe rest of this day and part of the next the court labored upon the\nold theme--the male attire. It was shabby work for those grave men to be\nengaged in; for they well knew one of Joan's reasons for clinging to the\nmale dress was, that soldiers of the guard were always present in her\nroom whether she was asleep or awake, and that the male dress was a\nbetter protection for her modesty than the other.\n\nThe court knew that one of Joan's purposes had been the deliverance of\nthe exiled Duke of Orleans, and they were curious to know how she had\nintended to manage it. Her plan was characteristically businesslike, and\nher statement of it as characteristically simple and straightforward:\n\n\"I would have taken English prisoners enough in France for his ransom;\nand failing that, I would have invaded England and brought him out by\nforce.\"\n\nThat was just her way. If a thing was to be done, it was love first, and\nhammer and tongs to follow; but no shilly-shallying between. She added\nwith a little sigh:\n\n\"If I had had my freedom three years, I would have delivered him.\"\n\n\"Have you the permission of your Voices to break out of prison whenever\nyou can?\"\n\n\"I have asked their leave several times, but they have not given it.\"\n\nI think it is as I have said, she expected the deliverance of death, and\nwithin the prison walls, before the three months should expire.\n\n\"Would you escape if you saw the doors open?\"\n\nShe spoke up frankly and said:\n\n\"Yes--for I should see in that the permission of Our Lord. God helps\nwho help themselves, the proverb says. But except I thought I had\npermission, I would not go.\"\n\nNow, then, at this point, something occurred which convinces me, every\ntime I think of it--and it struck me so at the time--that for a moment,\nat least, her hopes wandered to the King, and put into her mind the same\nnotion about her deliverance which Noel and I had settled upon--a rescue\nby her old soldiers. I think the idea of the rescue did occur to her,\nbut only as a passing thought, and that it quickly passed away.\n\nSome remark of the Bishop of Beauvais moved her to remind him once more\nthat he was an unfair judge, and had no right to preside there, and that\nhe was putting himself in great danger.\n\n\"What danger?\" he asked.\n\n\"I do not know. St. Catherine has promised me help, but I do not know\nthe form of it. I do not know whether I am to be delivered from this\nprison or whether when you sent me to the scaffold there will happen a\ntrouble by which I shall be set free. Without much thought as to this\nmatter, I am of the opinion that it may be one or the other.\" After a\npause she added these words, memorable forever--words whose meaning she\nmay have miscaught, misunderstood; as to that we can never know; words\nwhich she may have rightly understood, as to that, also, we can never\nknow; but words whose mystery fell away from them many a year ago and\nrevealed their meaning to all the world:\n\n\"But what my Voices have said clearest is, that I shall be delivered by\na great victory.\" She paused, my heart was beating fast, for to me that\ngreat victory meant the sudden bursting in of our old soldiers with the\nwar-cry and clash of steel at the last moment and the carrying off of\nJoan of Arc in triumph. But, oh, that thought had such a short life! For\nnow she raised her head and finished, with those solemn words which men\nstill so often quote and dwell upon--words which filled me with fear,\nthey sounded so like a prediction. \"And always they say 'Submit to\nwhatever comes; do not grieve for your martyrdom; from it you will\nascend into the Kingdom of Paradise.\"\n\nWas she thinking of fire and the stake? I think not. I thought of it\nmyself, but I believe she was only thinking of this slow and cruel\nmartyrdom of chains and captivity and insult. Surely, martyrdom was the\nright name for it.\n\nIt was Jean de la Fontaine who was asking the questions. He was willing\nto make the most he could out of what she had said:\n\n\"As the Voices have told you you are going to Paradise, you feel certain\nthat that will happen and that you will not be damned in hell. Is that\nso?\"\n\n\"I believe what they told me. I know that I shall be saved.\"\n\n\"It is a weighty answer.\"\n\n\"To me the knowledge that I shall be saved is a great treasure.\"\n\n\"Do you think that after that revelation you could be able to commit\nmortal sin?\"\n\n\"As to that, I do not know. My hope for salvation is in holding fast to\nmy oath to keep by body and my soul pure.\"\n\n\"Since you know you are to be saved, do you think it necessary to go to\nconfession?\"\n\nThe snare was ingeniously devised, but Joan's simple and humble answer\nleft it empty:\n\n\"One cannot keep his conscience too clean.\"\n\nWe were now arriving at the last day of this new trial. Joan had come\nthrough the ordeal well. It had been a long and wearisome struggle for\nall concerned. All ways had been tried to convict the accused, and\nall had failed, thus far. The inquisitors were thoroughly vexed and\ndissatisfied.\n\nHowever, they resolved to make one more effort, put in one more day's\nwork. This was done--March 17th. Early in the sitting a notable trap was\nset for Joan:\n\n\"Will you submit to the determination of the Church all your words and\ndeeds, whether good or bad?\"\n\nThat was well planned. Joan was in imminent peril now. If she should\nheedlessly say yes, it would put her mission itself upon trial, and\none would know how to decide its source and character promptly. If she\nshould say no, she would render herself chargeable with the crime of\nheresy.\n\nBut she was equal to the occasion. She drew a distinct line of\nseparation between the Church's authority over her as a subject member,\nand the matter of her mission. She said she loved the Church and was\nready to support the Christian faith with all her strength; but as to\nthe works done under her mission, those must be judged by God alone, who\nhad commanded them to be done.\n\nThe judge still insisted that she submit them to the decision of the\nChurch. She said:\n\n\"I will submit them to Our Lord who sent me. It would seem to me that\nHe and His Church are one, and that there should be no difficulty about\nthis matter.\" Then she turned upon the judge and said, \"Why do you make\na difficulty when there is no room for any?\"\n\nThen Jean de la Fontaine corrected her notion that there was but one\nChurch. There were two--the Church Triumphant, which is God, the saints,\nthe angels, and the redeemed, and has its seat in heaven; and the Church\nMilitant, which is our Holy Father the Pope, Vicar of God, the prelates,\nthe clergy and all good Christians and Catholics, the which Church has\nits seat in the earth, is governed by the Holy Spirit, and cannot err.\n\"Will you not submit those matters to the Church Militant?\"\n\n\"I am come to the King of France from the Church Triumphant on high by\nits commandant, and to that Church I will submit all those things which\nI have done. For the Church Militant I have no other answer now.\"\n\nThe court took note of this straitly worded refusal, and would hope to\nget profit out of it; but the matter was dropped for the present, and a\nlong chase was then made over the old hunting-ground--the fairies, the\nvisions, the male attire, and all that.\n\nIn the afternoon the satanic Bishop himself took the chair and presided\nover the closing scenes of the trial. Along toward the finish, this\nquestion was asked by one of the judges:\n\n\"You have said to my lord the Bishop that you would answer him as you\nwould answer before our Holy Father the Pope, and yet there are several\nquestions which you continually refuse to answer. Would you not answer\nthe Pope more fully than you have answered before my lord of Beauvais?\nWould you not feel obliged to answer the Pope, who is the Vicar of God,\nmore fully?\"\n\nNow a thunder-clap fell out of a clear sky:\n\n\"Take me to the Pope. I will answer to everything that I ought to.\"\n\nIt made the Bishop's purple face fairly blanch with consternation. If\nJoan had only known, if she had only know! She had lodged a mine under\nthis black conspiracy able to blow the Bishop's schemes to the four\nwinds of heaven, and she didn't know it. She had made that speech by\nmere instinct, not suspecting what tremendous forces were hidden in it,\nand there was none to tell her what she had done. I knew, and Manchon\nknew; and if she had known how to read writing we could have hoped to\nget the knowledge to her somehow; but speech was the only way, and none\nwas allowed to approach her near enough for that. So there she sat,\nonce more Joan of Arc the Victorious, but all unconscious of it. She was\nmiserably worn and tired, by the long day's struggle and by illness, or\nshe must have noticed the effect of that speech and divined the reason\nof it.\n\nShe had made many master-strokes, but this was the master-stroke. It was\nan appeal to Rome. It was her clear right; and if she had persisted\nin it Cauchon's plot would have tumbled about his ears like a house of\ncards, and he would have gone from that place the worst-beaten man of\nthe century. He was daring, but he was not daring enough to stand up\nagainst that demand if Joan had urged it. But no, she was ignorant, poor\nthing, and did not know what a blow she had struck for life and liberty.\n\nFrance was not the Church. Rome had no interest in the destruction of\nthis messenger of God.\n\nRome would have given her a fair trial, and that was all that her cause\nneeded. From that trial she would have gone forth free, and honored, and\nblessed.\n\nBut it was not so fated. Cauchon at once diverted the questions to other\nmatters and hurried the trial quickly to an end.\n\nAs Joan moved feebly away, dragging her chains, I felt stunned and\ndazed, and kept saying to myself, \"Such a little while ago she said the\nsaving word and could have gone free; and now, there she goes to her\ndeath; yes, it is to her death, I know it, I feel it. They will double\nthe guards; they will never let any come near her now between this and\nher condemnation, lest she get a hint and speak that word again. This is\nthe bitterest day that has come to me in all this miserable time.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n13 The Third Trial Fails\n\nSO THE SECOND trial in the prison was over. Over, and no definite\nresult. The character of it I have described to you. It was baser in one\nparticular than the previous one; for this time the charges had not been\ncommunicated to Joan, therefore she had been obliged to fight in the\ndark.\n\nThere was no opportunity to do any thinking beforehand; there was no\nforeseeing what traps might be set, and no way to prepare for them.\nTruly it was a shabby advantage to take of a girl situated as this\none was. One day, during the course of it, an able lawyer of Normandy,\nMaetre Lohier, happened to be in Rouen, and I will give you his opinion\nof that trial, so that you may see that I have been honest with you, and\nthat my partisanship has not made me deceive you as to its unfair\nand illegal character. Cauchon showed Lohier the proces and asked his\nopinion about the trial. Now this was the opinion which he gave to\nCauchon. He said that the whole thing was null and void; for these\nreasons: 1, because the trial was secret, and full freedom of speech and\naction on the part of those present not possible; 2, because the trial\ntouched the honor of the King of France, yet he was not summoned to\ndefend himself, nor any one appointed to represent him; 3, because the\ncharges against the prisoner were not communicated to her; 4, because\nthe accused, although young and simple, had been forced to defend her\ncause without help of counsel, notwithstanding she had so much at stake.\n\nDid that please Bishop Cauchon? It did not. He burst out upon Lohier\nwith the most savage cursings, and swore he would have him drowned.\nLohier escaped from Rouen and got out of France with all speed, and so\nsaved his life.\n\nWell, as I have said, the second trial was over, without definite\nresult. But Cauchon did not give up. He could trump up another. And\nstill another and another, if necessary. He had the half-promise of\nan enormous prize--the Archbishopric of Rouen--if he should succeed in\nburning the body and damning to hell the soul of this young girl who\nhad never done him any harm; and such a prize as that, to a man like the\nBishop of Beauvais, was worth the burning and damning of fifty harmless\ngirls, let alone one.\n\nSo he set to work again straight off next day; and with high confidence,\ntoo, intimating with brutal cheerfulness that he should succeed this\ntime. It took him and the other scavengers nine days to dig matter\nenough out of Joan's testimony and their own inventions to build up\nthe new mass of charges. And it was a formidable mass indeed, for it\nnumbered sixty-six articles.\n\nThis huge document was carried to the castle the next day, March 27th;\nand there, before a dozen carefully selected judges, the new trial was\nbegun.\n\nOpinions were taken, and the tribunal decided that Joan should hear the\narticles read this time.\n\nMaybe that was on account of Lohier's remark upon that head; or maybe it\nwas hoped that the reading would kill the prisoner with fatigue--for, as\nit turned out, this reading occupied several days. It was also decided\nthat Joan should be required to answer squarely to every article, and\nthat if she refused she should be considered convicted. You see, Cauchon\nwas managing to narrow her chances more and more all the time; he was\ndrawing the toils closer and closer.\n\nJoan was brought in, and the Bishop of Beauvais opened with a speech to\nher which ought to have made even himself blush, so laden it was with\nhypocrisy and lies. He said that this court was composed of holy and\npious churchmen whose hearts were full of benevolence and compassion\ntoward her, and that they had no wish to hurt her body, but only a\ndesire to instruct her and lead her into the way of truth and salvation.\n\nWhy, this man was born a devil; now think of his describing himself and\nthose hardened slaves of his in such language as that.\n\nAnd yet, worse was to come. For now having in mind another of Lovier's\nhints, he had the cold effrontery to make to Joan a proposition which,\nI think, will surprise you when you hear it. He said that this court,\nrecognizing her untaught estate and her inability to deal with the\ncomplex and difficult matters which were about to be considered, had\ndetermined, out of their pity and their mercifulness, to allow her to\nchoose one or more persons out of their own number to help her with\ncounsel and advice!\n\nThink of that--a court made up of Loyseleur and his breed of reptiles.\nIt was granting leave to a lamb to ask help of a wolf. Joan looked up to\nsee if he was serious, and perceiving that he was at least pretending to\nbe, she declined, of course.\n\nThe Bishop was not expecting any other reply. He had made a show of\nfairness and could have it entered on the minutes, therefore he was\nsatisfied.\n\nThen he commanded Joan to answer straitly to every accusation; and\nthreatened to cut her off from the Church if she failed to do that or\ndelayed her answers beyond a given length of time.\n\nYes, he was narrowing her chances down, step by step.\n\nThomas de Courcelles began the reading of that interminable document,\narticle by article. Joan answered to each article in its turn; sometimes\nmerely denying its truth, sometimes by saying her answer would be found\nin the records of the previous trials.\n\nWhat a strange document that was, and what an exhibition and exposure of\nthe heart of man, the one creature authorized to boast that he is made\nin the image of God. To know Joan of Arc was to know one who was wholly\nnoble, pure, truthful, brave, compassionate, generous, pious, unselfish,\nmodest, blameless as the very flowers in the fields--a nature fine and\nbeautiful, a character supremely great. To know her from that document\nwould be to know her as the exact reverse of all that. Nothing that she\nwas appears in it, everything that she was not appears there in detail.\n\nConsider some of the things it charges against her, and remember who\nit is it is speaking of. It calls her a sorceress, a false prophet,\nan invoker and companion of evil spirits, a dealer in magic, a person\nignorant of the Catholic faith, a schismatic; she is sacrilegious, an\nidolater, an apostate, a blasphemer of God and His saints, scandalous,\nseditious, a disturber of the peace; she incites men to war, and to the\nspilling of human blood; she discards the decencies and proprieties of\nher sex, irreverently assuming the dress of a man and the vocation of a\nsoldier; she beguiles both princes and people; she usurps divine honors,\nand has caused herself to be adored and venerated, offering her hands\nand her vestments to be kissed.\n\nThere it is--every fact of her life distorted, perverted, reversed. As a\nchild she had loved the fairies, she had spoken a pitying word for them\nwhen they were banished from their home, she had played under their tree\nand around their fountain--hence she was a comrade of evil spirits.\n\nShe had lifted France out of the mud and moved her to strike for\nfreedom, and led her to victory after victory--hence she was a disturber\nof the peace--as indeed she was, and a provoker of war--as indeed she\nwas again! and France will be proud of it and grateful for it for many\na century to come. And she had been adored--as if she could help that,\npoor thing, or was in any way to blame for it. The cowed veteran and the\nwavering recruit had drunk the spirit of war from her eyes and touched\nher sword with theirs and moved forward invincible--hence she was a\nsorceress.\n\nAnd so the document went on, detail by detail, turning these waters\nof life to poison, this gold to dross, these proofs of a noble and\nbeautiful life to evidences of a foul and odious one.\n\nOf course, the sixty-six articles were just a rehash of the things which\nhad come up in the course of the previous trials, so I will touch upon\nthis new trial but lightly. In fact, Joan went but little into detail\nherself, usually merely saying, \"That is not true--passez outre\"; or,\n\"I have answered that before--let the clerk read it in his record,\" or\nsaying some other brief thing.\n\nShe refused to have her mission examined and tried by the earthly\nChurch. The refusal was taken note of.\n\nShe denied the accusation of idolatry and that she had sought men's\nhomage. She said:\n\n\"If any kissed my hands and my vestments it was not by my desire, and I\ndid what I could to prevent it.\"\n\nShe had the pluck to say to that deadly tribunal that she did not know\nthe fairies to be evil beings. She knew it was a perilous thing to say,\nbut it was not in her nature to speak anything but the truth when she\nspoke at all. Danger had no weight with her in such things. Note was\ntaken of her remark.\n\nShe refused, as always before, when asked if she would put off the male\nattire if she were given permission to commune. And she added this:\n\n\"When one receives the sacrament, the manner of his dress is a small\nthing and of no value in the eyes of Our Lord.\"\n\nShe was charge with being so stubborn in clinging to her male dress that\nshe would not lay it off even to get the blessed privilege of hearing\nmass. She spoke out with spirit and said:\n\n\"I would rather die than be untrue to my oath to God.\"\n\nShe was reproached with doing man's work in the wars and thus deserting\nthe industries proper to her sex. She answered, with some little touch\nof soldierly disdain:\n\n\"As to the matter of women's work, there's plenty to do it.\"\n\nIt was always a comfort to me to see the soldier spirit crop up in her.\nWhile that remained in her she would be Joan of Arc, and able to look\ntrouble and fate in the face.\n\n\"It appears that this mission of yours which you claim you had from God,\nwas to make war and pour out human blood.\"\n\nJoan replied quite simply, contenting herself with explaining that war\nwas not her first move, but her second:\n\n\"To begin with, I demanded that peace should be made. If it was refused,\nthen I would fight.\"\n\nThe judge mixed the Burgundians and English together in speaking of the\nenemy which Joan had come to make war upon. But she showed that she\nmade a distinction between them by act and word, the Burgundians being\nFrenchmen and therefore entitled to less brusque treatment than the\nEnglish. She said:\n\n\"As to the Duke of Burgundy, I required of him, both by letters and by\nhis ambassadors, that he make peace with the King. As to the English,\nthe only peace for them was that they leave the country and go home.\"\n\nThen she said that even with the English she had shown a pacific\ndisposition, since she had warned them away by proclamation before\nattacking them.\n\n\"If they had listened to me,\" said she, \"they would have done wisely.\"\nAt this point she uttered her prophecy again, saying with emphasis,\n\"Before seven years they will see it themselves.\"\n\nThen they presently began to pester her again about her male costume,\nand tried to persuade her to voluntarily promise to discard it. I\nwas never deep, so I think it no wonder that I was puzzled by their\npersistency in what seemed a thing of no consequence, and could not make\nout what their reason could be. But we all know now. We all know now\nthat it was another of their treacherous projects. Yes, if they could\nbut succeed in getting her to formally discard it they could play a game\nupon her which would quickly destroy her. So they kept at their evil\nwork until at last she broke out and said:\n\n\"Peace! Without the permission of God I will not lay it off though you\ncut off my head!\"\n\nAt one point she corrected the proces verbal, saying:\n\n\"It makes me say that everything which I have done was done by the\ncounsel of Our Lord. I did not say that, I said 'all which I have well\ndone.'\"\n\nDoubt was cast upon the authenticity of her mission because of the\nignorance and simplicity of the messenger chosen. Joan smiled at that.\nShe could have reminded these people that Our Lord, who is no respecter\nof persons, had chosen the lowly for his high purposes even oftener\nthan he had chosen bishops and cardinals; but she phrased her rebuke in\nsimpler terms:\n\n\"It is the prerogative of Our Lord to choose His instruments where He\nwill.\"\n\nShe was asked what form of prayer she used in invoking counsel from on\nhigh. She said the form was brief and simple; then she lifted her pallid\nface and repeated it, clasping her chained hands:\n\n\"Most dear God, in honor of your holy passion I beseech you, if you love\nme, that you will reveal to me what I am to answer to these churchmen.\nAs concerns my dress, I know by what command I have put it on, but I\nknow not in what manner I am to lay it off. I pray you tell me what to\ndo.\"\n\nShe was charged with having dared, against the precepts of God and His\nsaints, to assume empire over men and make herself Commander-in-Chief.\nThat touched the soldier in her. She had a deep reverence for priests,\nbut the soldier in her had but small reverence for a priest's opinions\nabout war; so, in her answer to this charge she did not condescend to\ngo into any explanations or excuses, but delivered herself with bland\nindifference and military brevity.\n\n\"If I was Commander-in-Chief, it was to thrash the English.\"\n\nDeath was staring her in the face here all the time, but no matter;\nshe dearly loved to make these English-hearted Frenchmen squirm, and\nwhenever they gave her an opening she was prompt to jab her sting into\nit. She got great refreshment out of these little episodes. Her days\nwere a desert; these were the oases in it.\n\nHer being in the wars with men was charged against her as an indelicacy.\nShe said:\n\n\"I had a woman with me when I could--in towns and lodgings. In the field\nI always slept in my armor.\"\n\nThat she and her family had been ennobled by the King was charged\nagainst her as evidence that the source of her deeds were sordid\nself-seeking. She answered that she had not asked this grace of the\nKing; it was his own act.\n\nThis third trial was ended at last. And once again there was no definite\nresult.\n\nPossibly a fourth trial might succeed in defeating this apparently\nunconquerable girl. So the malignant Bishop set himself to work to plan\nit.\n\nHe appointed a commission to reduce the substance of the sixty-six\narticles to twelve compact lies, as a basis for the new attempt. This\nwas done. It took several days.\n\nMeantime Cauchon went to Joan's cell one day, with Manchon and two of\nthe judges, Isambard de la Pierre and Martin Ladvenue, to see if he\ncould not manage somehow to beguile Joan into submitting her mission to\nthe examination and decision of the Church Militant--that is to say, to\nthat part of the Church Militant which was represented by himself and\nhis creatures.\n\nJoan once more positively refused. Isambard de la Pierre had a heart in\nhis body, and he so pitied this persecuted poor girl that he ventured to\ndo a very daring thing; for he asked her if she would be willing to have\nher case go before the Council of Basel, and said it contained as many\npriests of her party as of the English party.\n\nJoan cried out that she would gladly go before so fairly constructed\na tribunal as that; but before Isambard could say another word Cauchon\nturned savagely upon him and exclaimed:\n\n\"Shut up, in the devil's name!\"\n\nThen Manchon ventured to do a brave thing, too, though he did it in\ngreat fear for his life. He asked Cauchon if he should enter Joan's\nsubmission to the Council of Basel upon the minutes.\n\n\"No! It is not necessary.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" said poor Joan, reproachfully, \"you set down everything that is\nagainst me, but you will not set down what is for me.\"\n\nIt was piteous. It would have touched the heart of a brute. But Cauchon\nwas more than that.\n\n\n\n\n\n14 Joan Struggles with Her Twelve Lies\n\nWE WERE now in the first days of April. Joan was ill. She had fallen ill\nthe 29th of March, the day after the close of the third trial, and was\ngrowing worse when the scene which I have just described occurred in her\ncell. It was just like Cauchon to go there and try to get some advantage\nout of her weakened state.\n\nLet us note some of the particulars in the new indictment--the Twelve\nLies.\n\nPart of the first one says Joan asserts that she has found her\nsalvation. She never said anything of the kind. It also says she refuses\nto submit herself to the Church. Not true. She was willing to submit all\nher acts to this Rouen tribunal except those done by the command of God\nin fulfilment of her mission. Those she reserved for the judgment of\nGod. She refused to recognize Cauchon and his serfs as the Church, but\nwas willing to go before the Pope or the Council of Basel.\n\nA clause of another of the Twelve says she admits having threatened with\ndeath those who would not obey her. Distinctly false. Another clause\nsays she declares that all she has done has been done by command of God.\nWhat she really said was, all that she had done well--a correction made\nby herself as you have already seen.\n\nAnother of the Twelve says she claims that she has never committed any\nsin. She never made any such claim.\n\nAnother makes the wearing of the male dress a sin. If it was, she had\nhigh Catholic authority for committing it--that of the Archbishop of\nRheims and the tribunal of Poitiers.\n\nThe Tenth Article was resentful against her for \"pretending\" that St.\nCatherine and St.\n\nMarguerite spoke French and not English, and were French in their\npolitics.\n\nThe Twelve were to be submitted first to the learned doctors of theology\nof the University of Paris for approval. They were copied out and ready\nby the night of April 4th. Then Manchon did another bold thing: he wrote\nin the margin that many of the Twelve put statements in Joan's mouth\nwhich were the exact opposite of what she had said. That fact would\nnot be considered important by the University of Paris, and would not\ninfluence its decision or stir its humanity, in case it had any--which\nit hadn't when acting in a political capacity, as at present--but it was\na brave thing for that good Manchon to do, all the same.\n\nThe Twelve were sent to Paris next day, April 5th. That afternoon there\nwas a great tumult in Rouen, and excited crowds were flocking through\nall the chief streets, chattering and seeking for news; for a report had\ngone abroad that Joan of Arc was sick until death. In truth, these\nlong seances had worn her out, and she was ill indeed. The heads of the\nEnglish party were in a state of consternation; for if Joan should die\nuncondemned by the Church and go to the grave unsmirched, the pity and\nthe love of the people would turn her wrongs and sufferings and death\ninto a holy martyrdom, and she would be even a mightier power in France\ndead than she had been when alive.\n\nThe Earl of Warwick and the English Cardinal (Winchester) hurried to\nthe castle and sent messengers flying for physicians. Warwick was a hard\nman, a rude, coarse man, a man without compassion. There lay the sick\ngirl stretched in her chains in her iron cage--not an object to move man\nto ungentle speech, one would think; yet Warwick spoke right out in her\nhearing and said to the physicians:\n\n\"Mind you take good care of her. The King of England has no mind to have\nher die a natural death. She is dear to him, for he bought her dear, and\nhe does not want her to die, save at the stake. Now then, mind you cure\nher.\"\n\nThe doctors asked Joan what had made her ill. She said the Bishop of\nBeauvais had sent her a fish and she thought it was that.\n\nThen Jean d'Estivet burst out on her, and called her names and abused\nher. He understood Joan to be charging the Bishop with poisoning her,\nyou see; and that was not pleasing to him, for he was one of Cauchon's\nmost loving and conscienceless slaves, and it outraged him to have Joan\ninjure his master in the eyes of these great English chiefs, these being\nmen who could ruin Cauchon and would promptly do it if they got\nthe conviction that he was capable of saving Joan from the stake by\npoisoning her and thus cheating the English out of all the real value\ngainable by her purchase from the Duke of Burgundy.\n\nJoan had a high fever, and the doctors proposed to bleed her. Warwick\nsaid:\n\n\"Be careful about that; she is smart and is capable of killing herself.\"\n\nHe meant that to escape the stake she might undo the bandage and let\nherself bleed to death.\n\nBut the doctors bled her anyway, and then she was better.\n\nNot for long, though. Jean d'Estivet could not hold still, he was so\nworried and angry about the suspicion of poisoning which Joan had hinted\nat; so he came back in the evening and stormed at her till he brought\nthe fever all back again.\n\nWhen Warwick heard of this he was in a fine temper, you may be sure,\nfor here was his prey threatening to escape again, and all through\nthe over-zeal of this meddling fool. Warwick gave D'Estivet a quite\nadmirable cursing--admirable as to strength, I mean, for it was said by\npersons of culture that the art of it was not good--and after that the\nmeddler kept still.\n\nJoan remained ill more than two weeks; then she grew better. She was\nstill very weak, but she could bear a little persecution now without\nmuch danger to her life. It seemed to Cauchon a good time to furnish it.\nSo he called together some of his doctors of theology and went to her\ndungeon. Manchon and I went along to keep the record--that is, to set\ndown what might be useful to Cauchon, and leave out the rest.\n\nThe sight of Joan gave me a shock. Why, she was but a shadow! It was\ndifficult for me to realize that this frail little creature with the\nsad face and drooping form was the same Joan of Arc that I had so often\nseen, all fire and enthusiasm, charging through a hail of death and\nthe lightning and thunder of the guns at the head of her battalions. It\nwrung my heart to see her looking like this.\n\nBut Cauchon was not touched. He made another of those conscienceless\nspeeches of his, all dripping with hypocrisy and guile. He told Joan\nthat among her answers had been some which had seemed to endanger\nreligion; and as she was ignorant and without knowledge of the\nScriptures, he had brought some good and wise men to instruct her, if\nshe desired it. Said he, \"We are churchmen, and disposed by our good\nwill as well as by our vocation to procure for you the salvation of your\nsoul and your body, in every way in our power, just as we would do the\nlike for our nearest kin or for ourselves. In this we but follow the\nexample of Holy Church, who never closes the refuge of her bosom against\nany that are willing to return.\"\n\nJoan thanked him for these sayings and said:\n\n\"I seem to be in danger of death from this malady; if it be the pleasure\nof God that I die here, I beg that I may be heard in confession and also\nreceive my Saviour; and that I may be buried in consecrated ground.\"\n\nCauchon thought he saw his opportunity at last; this weakened body\nhad the fear of an unblessed death before it and the pains of hell to\nfollow. This stubborn spirit would surrender now. So he spoke out and\nsaid:\n\n\"Then if you want the Sacraments, you must do as all good Catholics do,\nand submit to the Church.\"\n\nHe was eager for her answer; but when it came there was no surrender\nin it, she still stood to her guns. She turned her head away and said\nwearily:\n\n\"I have nothing more to say.\"\n\nCauchon's temper was stirred, and he raised his voice threateningly\nand said that the more she was in danger of death the more she ought to\namend her life; and again he refused the things she begged for unless\nshe would submit to the Church. Joan said:\n\n\"If I die in this prison I beg you to have me buried in holy ground; if\nyou will not, I cast myself upon my Saviour.\"\n\nThere was some more conversation of the like sort, then Cauchon demanded\nagain, and imperiously, that she submit herself and all her deeds to\nthe Church. His threatening and storming went for nothing. That body\nwas weak, but the spirit in it was the spirit of Joan of Arc; and out\nof that came the steadfast answer which these people were already so\nfamiliar with and detested so sincerely:\n\n\"Let come what may. I will neither do nor say any otherwise than I have\nsaid already in your tribunals.\"\n\nThen the good theologians took turn about and worried her with\nreasonings and arguments and Scriptures; and always they held the lure\nof the Sacraments before her famishing soul, and tried to bribe her with\nthem to surrender her mission to the Church's judgment--that is to their\njudgment--as if they were the Church! But it availed nothing. I could\nhave told them that beforehand, if they had asked me. But they never\nasked me anything; I was too humble a creature for their notice.\n\nThen the interview closed with a threat; a threat of fearful import;\na threat calculated to make a Catholic Christian feel as if the ground\nwere sinking from under him:\n\n\"The Church calls upon you to submit; disobey, and she will abandon you\nas if you were a pagan!\"\n\nThink of being abandoned by the Church!--that August Power in whose\nhands is lodged the fate of the human race; whose scepter stretches\nbeyond the furthest constellation that twinkles in the sky; whose\nauthority is over millions that live and over the billions that wait\ntrembling in purgatory for ransom or doom; whose smile opens the gates\nof heaven to you, whose frown delivers you to the fires of everlasting\nhell; a Power whose dominion overshadows and belittles the pomps and\nshows of a village. To be abandoned by one's King--yes, that is death,\nand death is much; but to be abandoned by Rome, to be abandoned by the\nChurch! Ah, death is nothing to that, for that is consignment to endless\nlife--and such a life!\n\nI could see the red waves tossing in that shoreless lake of fire, I\ncould see the black myriads of the damned rise out of them and struggle\nand sink and rise again; and I knew that Joan was seeing what I saw,\nwhile she paused musing; and I believed that she must yield now, and in\ntruth I hoped she would, for these men were able to make the threat good\nand deliver her over to eternal suffering, and I knew that it was in\ntheir natures to do it.\n\nBut I was foolish to think that thought and hope that hope. Joan of\nArc was not made as others are made. Fidelity to principle, fidelity\nto truth, fidelity to her word, all these were in her bone and in her\nflesh--they were parts of her. She could not change, she could not cast\nthem out. She was the very genius of Fidelity; she was Steadfastness\nincarnated. Where she had taken her stand and planted her foot, there\nshe would abide; hell itself could not move her from that place.\n\nHer Voices had not given her permission to make the sort of submission\nthat was required, therefore she would stand fast. She would wait, in\nperfect obedience, let come what might.\n\nMy heart was like lead in my body when I went out from that dungeon;\nbut she--she was serene, she was not troubled. She had done what she\nbelieved to be her duty, and that was sufficient; the consequences\nwere not her affair. The last thing she said that time was full of this\nserenity, full of contented repose:\n\n\"I am a good Christian born and baptized, and a good Christian I will\ndie.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n15 Undaunted by Threat of Burning\n\nTWO WEEKS went by; the second of May was come, the chill was departed\nout of the air, the wild flowers were springing in the glades and\nglens, the birds were piping in the woods, all nature was brilliant with\nsunshine, all spirits were renewed and refreshed, all hearts glad,\nthe world was alive with hope and cheer, the plain beyond the Seine\nstretched away soft and rich and green, the river was limpid and\nlovely, the leafy islands were dainty to see, and flung still daintier\nreflections of themselves upon the shining water; and from the tall\nbluffs above the bridge Rouen was become again a delight to the eye, the\nmost exquisite and satisfying picture of a town that nestles under the\narch of heaven anywhere.\n\nWhen I say that all hearts were glad and hopeful, I mean it in a general\nsense. There were exceptions--we who were the friends of Joan of Arc,\nalso Joan of Arc herself, that poor girl shut up there in that frowning\nstretch of mighty walls and towers: brooding in darkness, so close to\nthe flooding downpour of sunshine yet so impossibly far away from it;\nso longing for any little glimpse of it, yet so implacably denied it\nby those wolves in the black gowns who were plotting her death and the\nblackening of her good name.\n\nCauchon was ready to go on with his miserable work. He had a new scheme\nto try now. He would see what persuasion could do--argument, eloquence,\npoured out upon the incorrigible captive from the mouth of a trained\nexpert. That was his plan. But the reading of the Twelve Articles to\nher was not a part of it. No, even Cauchon was ashamed to lay that\nmonstrosity before her; even he had a remnant of shame in him, away down\ndeep, a million fathoms deep, and that remnant asserted itself now and\nprevailed.\n\nOn this fair second of May, then, the black company gathered itself\ntogether in the spacious chamber at the end of the great hall of the\ncastle--the Bishop of Beauvais on his throne, and sixty-two minor judges\nmassed before him, with the guards and recorders at their stations and\nthe orator at his desk.\n\nThen we heard the far clank of chains, and presently Joan entered with\nher keepers and took her seat upon her isolated bench. She was looking\nwell now, and most fair and beautiful after her fortnight's rest from\nwordy persecution.\n\nShe glanced about and noted the orator. Doubtless she divined the\nsituation.\n\nThe orator had written his speech all out, and had it in his hand,\nthough he held it back of him out of sight. It was so thick that it\nresembled a book. He began flowing, but in the midst of a flowery period\nhis memory failed him and he had to snatch a furtive glance at his\nmanuscript--which much injured the effect. Again this happened, and then\na third time. The poor man's face was red with embarrassment, the whole\ngreat house was pitying him, which made the matter worse; then Joan\ndropped in a remark which completed the trouble. She said:\n\n\"Read your book--and then I will answer you!\"\n\nWhy, it was almost cruel the way those moldy veterans laughed; and as\nfor the orator, he looked so flustered and helpless that almost anybody\nwould have pitied him, and I had difficulty to keep from doing it\nmyself. Yes, Joan was feeling very well after her rest, and the native\nmischief that was in her lay near the surface. It did not show when she\nmade the remark, but I knew it was close in there back of the words.\n\nWhen the orator had gotten back his composure he did a wise thing; for\nhe followed Joan's advice: he made no more attempts at sham impromptu\noratory, but read his speech straight from his \"book.\" In the speech he\ncompressed the Twelve Articles into six, and made these his text.\n\nEvery now and then he stopped and asked questions, and Joan replied.\nThe nature of the Church Militant was explained, and once more Joan was\nasked to submit herself to it.\n\nShe gave her usual answer.\n\nThen she was asked:\n\n\"Do you believe the Church can err?\"\n\n\"I believe it cannot err; but for those deeds and words of mine which\nwere done and uttered by command of God, I will answer to Him alone.\"\n\n\"Will you say that you have no judge upon earth? Is not our Holy Father\nthe Pope your judge?\"\n\n\"I will say nothing about it. I have a good Master who is our Lord, and\nto Him I will submit all.\"\n\nThen came these terrible words:\n\n\"If you do not submit to the Church you will be pronounced a heretic by\nthese judges here present and burned at the stake!\"\n\nAh, that would have smitten you or me dead with fright, but it only\nroused the lion heart of Joan of Arc, and in her answer rang that\nmartial note which had used to stir her soldiers like a bugle-call:\n\n\"I will not say otherwise than I have said already; and if I saw the\nfire before me I would say it again!\"\n\nIt was uplifting to hear her battle-voice once more and see the\nbattle-light burn in her eye. Many there were stirred; every man that\nwas a man was stirred, whether friend or foe; and Manchon risked his\nlife again, good soul, for he wrote in the margin of the record in good\nplain letters these brave words: \"Superba responsio!\" and there they\nhave remained these sixty years, and there you may read them to this\nday.\n\n\"Superba responsio!\" Yes, it was just that. For this \"superb answer\"\ncame from the lips of a girl of nineteen with death and hell staring her\nin the face.\n\nOf course, the matter of the male attire was gone over again; and as\nusual at wearisome length; also, as usual, the customary bribe was\noffered: if she would discard that dress voluntarily they would let her\nhear mass. But she answered as she had often answered before:\n\n\"I will go in a woman's robe to all services of the Church if I may be\npermitted, but I will resume the other dress when I return to my cell.\"\n\nThey set several traps for her in a tentative form; that is to say,\nthey placed suppositious propositions before her and cunningly tried to\ncommit her to one end of the propositions without committing themselves\nto the other. But she always saw the game and spoiled it. The trap was\nin this form:\n\n\"Would you be willing to do so and so if we should give you leave?\"\n\nHer answer was always in this form or to this effect:\n\n\"When you give me leave, then you will know.\"\n\nYes, Joan was at her best that second of May. She had all her wits about\nher, and they could not catch her anywhere. It was a long, long session,\nand all the old ground was fought over again, foot by foot, and the\norator-expert worked all his persuasions, all his eloquence; but the\nresult was the familiar one--a drawn battle, the sixty-two retiring upon\ntheir base, the solitary enemy holding her original position within her\noriginal lines.\n\n\n\n\n\n16 Joan Stands Defiant Before the Rack\n\nTHE BRILLIANT weather, the heavenly weather, the bewitching weather made\neverybody's heart to sing, as I have told you; yes, Rouen was feeling\nlight-hearted and gay, and most willing and ready to break out and laugh\nupon the least occasion; and so when the news went around that the young\ngirl in the tower had scored another defeat against Bishop Cauchon there\nwas abundant laughter--abundant laughter among the citizens of both\nparties, for they all hated the Bishop. It is true, the English-hearted\nmajority of the people wanted Joan burned, but that did not keep them\nfrom laughing at the man they hated. It would have been perilous for\nanybody to laugh at the English chiefs or at the majority of Cauchon's\nassistant judges, but to laugh at Cauchon or D'Estivet and Loyseleur was\nsafe--nobody would report it.\n\nThe difference between Cauchon and cochon (1) was not noticeable\nin speech, and so there was plenty of opportunity for puns; the\nopportunities were not thrown away.\n\nSome of the jokes got well worn in the course of two or three months,\nfrom repeated use; for every time Cauchon started a new trial the folk\nsaid \"The sow has littered (2) again\"; and every time the trial failed\nthey said it over again, with its other meaning, \"The hog has made a\nmess of it.\"\n\nAnd so, on the third of May, Noel and I, drifting about the town, heard\nmany a wide-mouthed lout let go his joke and his laugh, and then move to\nthe next group, proud of his wit and happy, to work it off again:\n\n\"'Od's blood, the sow has littered five times, and five times has made a\nmess of it!\"\n\nAnd now and then one was bold enough to say--but he said it softly:\n\n\"Sixty-three and the might of England against a girl, and she camps on\nthe field five times!\"\n\nCauchon lived in the great palace of the Archbishop, and it was guarded\nby English soldiery; but no matter, there was never a dark night but the\nwalls showed next morning that the rude joker had been there with his\npaint and brush. Yes, he had been there, and had smeared the sacred\nwalls with pictures of hogs in all attitudes except flattering ones;\nhogs clothed in a Bishop's vestments and wearing a Bishop's miter\nirreverently cocked on the side of their heads.\n\nCauchon raged and cursed over his defeats and his impotence during seven\nsays; then he conceived a new scheme. You shall see what it was; for you\nhave not cruel hearts, and you would never guess it.\n\nOn the ninth of May there was a summons, and Manchon and I got out\nmaterials together and started. But this time we were to go to one of\nthe other towers--not the one which was Joan's prison. It was round and\ngrim and massive, and built of the plainest and thickest and solidest\nmasonry--a dismal and forbidding structure. (3) We entered the circular\nroom on the ground floor, and I saw what turned me sick--the instruments\nof torture and the executioners standing ready! Here you have the black\nheart of Cauchon at the blackest, here you have the proof that in his\nnature there was no such thing as pity. One wonders if he ever knew his\nmother or ever had a sister.\n\nCauchon was there, and the Vice-Inquisitor and the Abbot of St.\nCorneille; also six others, among them that false Loyseleur. The\nguards were in their places, the rack was there, and by it stood the\nexecutioner and his aids in their crimson hose and doublets, meet color\nfor their bloody trade. The picture of Joan rose before me stretched\nupon the rack, her feet tied to one end of it, her wrists to the other,\nand those red giants turning the windlass and pulling her limbs out of\ntheir sockets. It seemed to me that I could hear the bones snap and the\nflesh tear apart, and I did not see how that body of anointed\nservants of the merciful Jesus could sit there and look so placid and\nindifferent.\n\nAfter a little, Joan arrived and was brought in. She saw the rack, she\nsaw the attendants, and the same picture which I had been seeing must\nhave risen in her mind; but do you think she quailed, do you think she\nshuddered? No, there was no sign of that sort. She straightened herself\nup, and there was a slight curl of scorn about her lip; but as for fear,\nshe showed not a vestige of it.\n\nThis was a memorable session, but it was the shortest one of all the\nlist. When Joan had taken her seat a resume of her \"crimes\" was read to\nher. Then Cauchon made a solemn speech. It in he said that in the course\nof her several trials Joan had refused to answer some of the questions\nand had answered others with lies, but that now he was going to have the\ntruth out of her, and the whole of it.\n\nHer manner was full of confidence this time; he was sure he had found a\nway at last to break this child's stubborn spirit and make her beg\nand cry. He would score a victory this time and stop the mouths of the\njokers of Rouen. You see, he was only just a man after all, and couldn't\nstand ridicule any better than other people. He talked high, and his\nsplotchy face lighted itself up with all the shifting tints and signs\nof evil pleasure and promised triumph--purple, yellow, red, green--they\nwere all there, with sometimes the dull and spongy blue of a drowned\nman, the uncanniest of them all. And finally he burst out in a great\npassion and said:\n\n\"There is the rack, and there are its ministers! You will reveal all now\nor be put to the torture.\n\n\"Speak.\"\n\nThen she made that great answer which will live forever; made it without\nfuss or bravado, and yet how fine and noble was the sound of it:\n\n\"I will tell you nothing more than I have told you; no, not even if you\ntear the limbs from my body. And even if in my pain I did say something\notherwise, I would always say afterward that it was the torture that\nspoke and not I.\"\n\nThere was no crushing that spirit. You should have seen Cauchon.\nDefeated again, and he had not dreamed of such a thing. I heard it said\nthe next day, around the town, that he had a full confession all written\nout, in his pocket and all ready for Joan to sign. I do not know that\nthat was true, but it probably was, for her mark signed at the bottom of\na confession would be the kind of evidence (for effect with the public)\nwhich Cauchon and his people were particularly value, you know.\n\nNo, there was no crushing that spirit, and no beclouding that clear\nmind. Consider the depth, the wisdom of that answer, coming from an\nignorant girl. Why, there were not six men in the world who had ever\nreflected that words forced out of a person by horrible tortures\nwere not necessarily words of verity and truth, yet this unlettered\npeasant-girl put her finger upon that flaw with an unerring instinct.\nI had always supposed that torture brought out the truth--everybody\nsupposed it; and when Joan came out with those simple common-sense words\nthey seemed to flood the place with light. It was like a lightning-flash\nat midnight which suddenly reveals a fair valley sprinkled over with\nsilver streams and gleaming villages and farmsteads where was only an\nimpenetrable world of darkness before. Manchon stole a sidewise look at\nme, and his face was full of surprise; and there was the like to be seen\nin other faces there. Consider--they were old, and deeply cultured, yet\nhere was a village maid able to teach them something which they had not\nknown before. I heard one of them mutter:\n\n\"Verily it is a wonderful creature. She has laid her hand upon an\naccepted truth that is as old as the world, and it has crumbled to dust\nand rubbish under her touch. Now whence got she that marvelous insight?\"\n\nThe judges laid their heads together and began to talk now. It was\nplain, from chance words which one caught now and then, that Cauchon and\nLoyseleur were insisting upon the application of the torture, and that\nmost of the others were urgently objecting.\n\nFinally Cauchon broke out with a good deal of asperity in his voice and\nordered Joan back to her dungeon. That was a happy surprise for me. I\nwas not expecting that the Bishop would yield.\n\nWhen Manchon came home that night he said he had found out why the\ntorture was not applied.\n\nThere were two reasons. One was, a fear that Joan might die under the\ntorture, which would not suit the English at all; the other was,\nthat the torture would effect nothing if Joan was going to take back\neverything she said under its pains; and as to putting her mark to a\nconfession, it was believed that not even the rack would ever make her\ndo that.\n\nSo all Rouen laughed again, and kept it up for three days, saying:\n\n\"The sow has littered six times, and made six messes of it.\"\n\nAnd the palace walls got a new decoration--a mitered hog carrying a\ndiscarded rack home on its shoulder, and Loyseleur weeping in its wake.\nMany rewards were offered for the capture of these painters, but nobody\napplied. Even the English guard feigned blindness and would not see the\nartists at work.\n\nThe Bishop's anger was very high now. He could not reconcile himself to\nthe idea of giving up the torture. It was the pleasantest idea he had\ninvented yet, and he would not cast it by. So he called in some of his\nsatellites on the twelfth, and urged the torture again. But it was a\nfailure.\n\nWith some, Joan's speech had wrought an effect; others feared she might\ndie under torture; others did not believe that any amount of suffering\ncould make her put her mark to a lying confession. There were fourteen\nmen present, including the Bishop. Eleven of them voted dead against the\ntorture, and stood their ground in spite of Cauchon's abuse. Two voted\nwith the Bishop and insisted upon the torture. These two were Loyseleur\nand the orator--the man whom Joan had bidden to \"read his book\"--Thomas\nde Courcelles, the renowned pleader and master of eloquence.\n\nAge has taught me charity of speech; but it fails me when I think of\nthose three names--Cauchon, Courcelles, Loyseleur.\n\n(1) Hog, pig.\n\n(2) Cochonner, to litter, to farrow; also, \"to make a mess of\"!\n\n(3) The lower half of it remains to-day just as it was then; the upper\nhalf is of a later date. -- TRANSLATOR.\n\n\n\n\n\n17 Supreme in Direst Peril\n\nANOTHER ten days' wait. The great theologians of that treasury of all\nvaluable knowledge and all wisdom, the University of Paris, were still\nweighing and considering and discussing the Twelve Lies.\n\nI had had but little to do these ten days, so I spent them mainly in\nwalks about the town with Noel. But there was no pleasure in them, our\nspirits being so burdened with cares, and the outlook for Joan\ngrowing steadily darker and darker all the time. And then we naturally\ncontrasted our circumstances with hers: this freedom and sunshine, with\nher darkness and chains; our comradeship, with her lonely estate; our\nalleviations of one sort and another, with her destitution in all.\nShe was used to liberty, but now she had none; she was an out-of-door\ncreature by nature and habit, but now she was shut up day and night in\na steel cage like an animal; she was used to the light, but now she was\nalways in a gloom where all objects about her were dim and spectral; she\nwas used to the thousand various sounds which are the cheer and music\nof a busy life, but now she heard only the monotonous footfall of the\nsentry pacing his watch; she had been fond of talking with her mates,\nbut now there was no one to talk to; she had had an easy laugh, but it\nwas gone dumb now; she had been born for comradeship, and blithe and\nbusy work, and all manner of joyous activities, but here were only\ndreariness, and leaden hours, and weary inaction, and brooding\nstillness, and thoughts that travel by day and night and night and day\nround and round in the same circle, and wear the brain and break the\nheart with weariness. It was death in life; yes, death in life, that is\nwhat it must have been. And there was another hard thing about it all. A\nyoung girl in trouble needs the soothing solace and support and\nsympathy of persons of her own sex, and the delicate offices and gentle\nministries which only these can furnish; yet in all these months of\ngloomy captivity in her dungeon Joan never saw the face of a girl or a\nwoman. Think how her heart would have leaped to see such a face.\n\nConsider. If you would realize how great Joan of Arc was, remember that\nit was out of such a place and such circumstances that she came week\nafter week and month after month and confronted the master intellects\nof France single-handed, and baffled their cunningest schemes, defeated\ntheir ablest plans, detected and avoided their secretest traps and\npitfalls, broke their lines, repelled their assaults, and camped on the\nfield after every engagement; steadfast always, true to her faith and\nher ideals; defying torture, defying the stake, and answering threats\nof eternal death and the pains of hell with a simple \"Let come what may,\nhere I take my stand and will abide.\"\n\nYes, if you would realize how great was the soul, how profound the\nwisdom, and how luminous the intellect of Joan of Arc, you must study\nher there, where she fought out that long fight all alone--and not\nmerely against the subtlest brains and deepest learning of France, but\nagainst the ignoble deceits, the meanest treacheries, and the hardest\nhearts to be found in any land, pagan or Christian.\n\nShe was great in battle--we all know that; great in foresight; great\nin loyalty and patriotism; great in persuading discontented chiefs and\nreconciling conflicting interests and passions; great in the ability to\ndiscover merit and genius wherever it lay hidden; great in picturesque\nand eloquent speech; supremely great in the gift of firing the hearts\nof hopeless men and noble enthusiasms, the gift of turning hares into\nheroes, slaves and skulkers into battalions that march to death with\nsongs on their lips. But all these are exalting activities; they keep\nhand and heart and brain keyed up to their work; there is the joy of\nachievement, the inspiration of stir and movement, the applause which\nhails success; the soul is overflowing with life and energy, the\nfaculties are at white heat; weariness, despondency, inertia--these do\nnot exist.\n\nYes, Joan of Arc was great always, great everywhere, but she was\ngreatest in the Rouen trials.\n\nThere she rose above the limitations and infirmities of our human\nnature, and accomplished under blighting and unnerving and hopeless\nconditions all that her splendid equipment of moral and intellectual\nforces could have accomplished if they had been supplemented by the\nmighty helps of hope and cheer and light, the presence of friendly\nfaces, and a fair and equal fight, with the great world looking on and\nwondering.\n\n\n\n\n\n18 Condemned Yet Unafraid\n\nTOWARD THE END of the ten-day interval the University of Paris rendered\nits decision concerning the Twelve Articles. By this finding, Joan\nwas guilty upon all the counts: she must renounce her errors and make\nsatisfaction, or be abandoned to the secular arm for punishment.\n\nThe University's mind was probably already made up before the Articles\nwere laid before it; yet it took it from the fifth to the eighteenth to\nproduce its verdict. I think the delay may have been caused by temporary\ndifficulties concerning two points:\n\n1. As to who the fiends were who were represented in Joan's Voices; 2.\nAs to whether her saints spoke French only.\n\nYou understand, the University decided emphatically that it was fiends\nwho spoke in those Voices; it would need to prove that, and it did. It\nfound out who those fiends were, and named them in the verdict: Belial,\nSatan, and Behemoth. This has always seemed a doubtful thing to me,\nand not entitled to much credit. I think so for this reason: if the\nUniversity had actually known it was those three, it would for very\nconsistency's sake have told how it knew it, and not stopped with the\nmere assertion, since it had made Joan explain how she knew they were\nnot fiends. Does not that seem reasonable? To my mind the University's\nposition was weak, and I will tell you why. It had claimed that Joan's\nangels were devils in disguise, and we all know that devils do disguise\nthemselves as angels; up to that point the University's position was\nstrong; but you see yourself that it eats its own argument when it turns\naround and pretends that it can tell who such apparitions are, while\ndenying the like ability to a person with as good a head on her\nshoulders as the best one the University could produce.\n\nThe doctors of the University had to see those creatures in order to\nknow; and if Joan was deceived, it is argument that they in their turn\ncould also be deceived, for their insight and judgment were surely not\nclearer than hers.\n\nAs to the other point which I have thought may have proved a difficulty\nand cost the University delay, I will touch but a moment upon that, and\npass on. The University decided that it was blasphemy for Joan to say\nthat her saints spoke French and not English, and were on the French\nside in political sympathies. I think that the thing which troubled the\ndoctors of theology was this: they had decided that the three Voices\nwere Satan and two other devils; but they had also decided that these\nVoices were not on the French side--thereby tacitly asserting that they\nwere on the English side; and if on the English side, then they must be\nangels and not devils. Otherwise, the situation was embarrassing. You\nsee, the University being the wisest and deepest and most erudite body\nin the world, it would like to be logical if it could, for the sake\nof its reputation; therefore it would study and study, days and days,\ntrying to find some good common-sense reason for proving the Voices to\nbe devils in Article No. 1 and proving them to be angels in Article No.\n10. However, they had to give it up. They found no way out; and so, to\nthis day, the University's verdict remains just so--devils in No. 1,\nangels in No. 10; and no way to reconcile the discrepancy.\n\nThe envoys brought the verdict to Rouen, and with it a letter for\nCauchon which was full of fervid praise. The University complimented\nhim on his zeal in hunting down this woman \"whose venom had infected the\nfaithful of the whole West,\" and as recompense it as good as promised\nhim \"a crown of imperishable glory in heaven.\" Only that!--a crown in\nheaven; a promissory note and no indorser; always something away off\nyonder; not a word about the Archbishopric of Rouen, which was the thing\nCauchon was destroying his soul for. A crown in heaven; it must have\nsounded like a sarcasm to him, after all his hard work. What should he\ndo in heaven? he did not know anybody there.\n\nOn the nineteenth of May a court of fifty judges sat in the\narchiepiscopal palace to discuss Joan's fate. A few wanted her delivered\nover to the secular arm at once for punishment, but the rest insisted\nthat she be once more \"charitably admonished\" first.\n\nSo the same court met in the castle on the twenty-third, and Joan was\nbrought to the bar. Pierre Maurice, a canon of Rouen, made a speech\nto Joan in which he admonished her to save her life and her soul by\nrenouncing her errors and surrendering to the Church. He finished with\na stern threat: if she remained obstinate the damnation of her soul was\ncertain, the destruction of her body probable. But Joan was immovable.\nShe said:\n\n\"If I were under sentence, and saw the fire before me, and the\nexecutioner ready to light it--more, if I were in the fire itself, I\nwould say none but the things which I have said in these trials; and I\nwould abide by them till I died.\"\n\nA deep silence followed now, which endured some moments. It lay upon me\nlike a weight. I knew it for an omen. Then Cauchon, grave and solemn,\nturned to Pierre Maurice:\n\n\"Have you anything further to say?\"\n\nThe priest bowed low, and said:\n\n\"Nothing, my lord.\"\n\n\"Prisoner at the bar, have you anything further to say?\"\n\n\"Nothing.\"\n\n\"Then the debate is closed. To-morrow, sentence will be pronounced.\nRemove the prisoner.\"\n\nShe seemed to go from the place erect and noble. But I do not know; my\nsight was dim with tears.\n\nTo-morrow--twenty-fourth of May! Exactly a year since I saw her go\nspeeding across the plain at the head of her troops, her silver helmet\nshining, her silvery cape fluttering in the wind, her white plumes\nflowing, her sword held aloft; saw her charge the Burgundian camp three\ntimes, and carry it; saw her wheel to the right and spur for the duke's\nreserves; saw her fling herself against it in the last assault she was\never to make. And now that fatal day was come again--and see what it was\nbringing!\n\n\n\n\n\n19 Our Last Hopes of Rescue Fail\n\nJOAN HAD been adjudged guilty of heresy, sorcery, and all the other\nterrible crimes set forth in the Twelve Articles, and her life was in\nCauchon's hands at last. He could send her to the stake at once. His\nwork was finished now, you think? He was satisfied? Not at all. What\nwould his Archbishopric be worth if the people should get the idea into\ntheir heads that this faction of interested priests, slaving under the\nEnglish lash, had wrongly condemned and burned Joan of Arc, Deliverer\nof France? That would be to make of her a holy martyr. Then her spirit\nwould rise from her body's ashes, a thousandfold reinforced, and sweep\nthe English domination into the sea, and Cauchon along with it. No,\nthe victory was not complete yet. Joan's guilt must be established by\nevidence which would satisfy the people. Where was that evidence to be\nfound? There was only one person in the world who could furnish it--Joan\nof Arc herself. She must condemn herself, and in public--at least she\nmust seem to do it.\n\nBut how was this to be managed? Weeks had been spent already in trying\nto get her to surrender--time wholly wasted; what was to persuade her\nnow? Torture had been threatened, the fire had been threatened; what was\nleft? Illness, deadly fatigue, and the sight of the fire, the presence\nof the fire! That was left.\n\nNow that was a shrewd thought. She was but a girl after all, and, under\nillness and exhaustion, subject to a girl's weaknesses.\n\nYes, it was shrewdly thought. She had tacitly said herself that under\nthe bitter pains of the rack they would be able to extort a false\nconfession from her. It was a hint worth remembering, and it was\nremembered.\n\nShe had furnished another hint at the same time: that as soon as the\npains were gone, she would retract the confession. That hint was also\nremembered.\n\nShe had herself taught them what to do, you see. First, they must wear\nout her strength, then frighten her with the fire. Second, while the\nfright was on her, she must be made to sign a paper.\n\nBut she would demand a reading of the paper. They could not venture\nto refuse this, with the public there to hear. Suppose that during the\nreading her courage should return?--she would refuse to sign then. Very\nwell, even that difficulty could be got over. They could read a short\npaper of no importance, then slip a long and deadly one into its place\nand trick her into signing that.\n\nYet there was still one other difficulty. If they made her seem to\nabjure, that would free her from the death-penalty. They could keep her\nin a prison of the Church, but they could not kill her.\n\nThat would not answer; for only her death would content the English.\nAlive she was a terror, in a prison or out of it. She had escaped from\ntwo prisons already.\n\nBut even that difficulty could be managed. Cauchon would make promises\nto her; in return she would promise to leave off the male dress. He\nwould violate his promises, and that would so situate her that she would\nnot be able to keep hers. Her lapse would condemn her to the stake, and\nthe stake would be ready.\n\nThese were the several moves; there was nothing to do but to make them,\neach in its order, and the game was won. One might almost name the day\nthat the betrayed girl, the most innocent creature in France and the\nnoblest, would go to her pitiful death.\n\nThe world knows now that Cauchon's plan was as I have sketched it to\nyou, but the world did not know it at that time. There are sufficient\nindications that Warwick and all the other English chiefs except the\nhighest one--the Cardinal of Winchester--were not let into the secret,\nalso, that only Loyseleur and Beaupere, on the French side, knew the\nscheme. Sometimes I have doubted if even Loyseleur and Beaupere knew the\nwhole of it at first. However, if any did, it was these two.\n\nIt is usual to let the condemned pass their last night of life in peace,\nbut this grace was denied to poor Joan, if one may credit the rumors of\nthe time. Loyseleur was smuggled into her presence, and in the character\nof priest, friend, and secret partisan of France and hater of England,\nhe spent some hours in beseeching her to do \"the only right an righteous\nthing\"--submit to the Church, as a good Christian should; and that then\nshe would straightway get out of the clutches of the dreaded English and\nbe transferred to the Church's prison, where she would be honorably used\nand have women about her for jailers. He knew where to touch her. He\nknew how odious to her was the presence of her rough and profane English\nguards; he knew that her Voices had vaguely promised something which she\ninterpreted to be escape, rescue, release of some sort, and the chance\nto burst upon France once more and victoriously complete the great work\nwhich she had been commissioned of Heaven to do. Also there was that\nother thing: if her failing body could be further weakened by loss of\nrest and sleep now, her tired mind would be dazed and drowsy on the\nmorrow, and in ill condition to stand out against persuasions, threats,\nand the sight of the stake, and also be purblind to traps and snares\nwhich it would be swift to detect when in its normal estate.\n\nI do not need to tell you that there was no rest for me that night. Nor\nfor Noel. We went to the main gate of the city before nightfall, with a\nhope in our minds, based upon that vague prophecy of Joan's Voices which\nseemed to promise a rescue by force at the last moment. The immense news\nhad flown swiftly far and wide that at last Joan of Arc was condemned,\nand would be sentenced and burned alive on the morrow; and so crowds of\npeople were flowing in at the gate, and other crowds were being refused\nadmission by the soldiery; these being people who brought doubtful\npasses or none at all. We scanned these crowds eagerly, but there was\nnothing about them to indicate that they were our old war-comrades in\ndisguise, and certainly there were no familiar faces among them. And\nso, when the gate was closed at last, we turned away grieved, and more\ndisappointed than we cared to admit, either in speech or thought.\n\nThe streets were surging tides of excited men. It was difficult to\nmake one's way. Toward midnight our aimless tramp brought us to the\nneighborhood of the beautiful church of St. Ouen, and there all was\nbustle and work. The square was a wilderness of torches and people;\nand through a guarded passage dividing the pack, laborers were carrying\nplanks and timbers and disappearing with them through the gate of the\nchurchyard. We asked what was going forward; the answer was:\n\n\"Scaffolds and the stake. Don't you know that the French witch is to be\nburned in the morning?\"\n\nThen we went away. We had no heart for that place.\n\nAt dawn we were at the city gate again; this time with a hope which our\nwearied bodies and fevered minds magnified into a large probability.\nWe had heard a report that the Abbot of Jumieges with all his monks was\ncoming to witness the burning. Our desire, abetted by our imagination,\nturned those nine hundred monks into Joan's old campaigners, and their\nAbbot into La Hire or the Bastard or D'Alencon; and we watched them file\nin, unchallenged, the multitude respectfully dividing and uncovering\nwhile they passed, with our hearts in our throats and our eyes swimming\nwith tears of joy and pride and exultation; and we tried to catch\nglimpses of the faces under the cowls, and were prepared to give signal\nto any recognized face that we were Joan's men and ready and eager to\nkill and be killed in the good cause. How foolish we were!\n\nBut we were young, you know, and youth hopeth all things, believeth all\nthings.\n\n\n\n\n\n20 The Betrayal\n\nIN THE MORNING I was at my official post. It was on a platform raised\nthe height of a man, in the churchyard, under the eaves of St. Ouen. On\nthis same platform was a crowd of priests and important citizens, and\nseveral lawyers. Abreast it, with a small space between, was another and\nlarger platform, handsomely canopied against sun and rain, and richly\ncarpeted; also it was furnished with comfortable chairs, and with two\nwhich were more sumptuous than the others, and raised above the general\nlevel. One of these two was occupied by a prince of the royal blood of\nEngland, his Eminence the Cardinal of Winchester; the other by Cauchon,\nBishop of Beauvais. In the rest of the chairs sat three bishops, the\nVice-Inquisitor, eight abbots, and the sixty-two friars and lawyers who\nhad sat as Joan's judges in her late trials.\n\nTwenty steps in front of the platforms was another--a table-topped\npyramid of stone, built up in retreating courses, thus forming steps.\nOut of this rose that grisly thing, the stake; about the stake bundles\nof fagots and firewood were piled. On the ground at the base of the\npyramid stood three crimson figures, the executioner and his assistants.\nAt their feet lay what had been a goodly heap of brands, but was now\na smokeless nest of ruddy coals; a foot or two from this was\na supplemental supply of wood and fagots compacted into a pile\nshoulder-high and containing as much as six packhorse loads. Think of\nthat. We seem so delicately made, so destructible, so insubstantial; yet\nit is easier to reduce a granite statue to ashes than it is to do that\nwith a man's body.\n\nThe sight of the stake sent physical pains tingling down the nerves of\nmy body; and yet, turn as I would, my eyes would keep coming back t it,\nsuch fascination has the gruesome and the terrible for us.\n\nThe space occupied by the platforms and the stake was kept open by a\nwall of English soldiery, standing elbow to elbow, erect and stalwart\nfigures, fine and sightly in their polished steel; while from behind\nthem on every hand stretched far away a level plain of human heads; and\nthere was no window and no housetop within our view, howsoever distant,\nbut was black with patches and masses of people.\n\nBut there was no noise, no stir; it was as if the world was dead. The\nimpressiveness of this silence and solemnity was deepened by a leaden\ntwilight, for the sky was hidden by a pall of low-hanging storm-clouds;\nand above the remote horizon faint winkings of heat-lightning played,\nand now and then one caught the dull mutterings and complainings of\ndistant thunder.\n\nAt last the stillness was broken. From beyond the square rose an\nindistinct sound, but familiar--court, crisp phrases of command; next I\nsaw the plain of heads dividing, and the steady swing of a marching host\nwas glimpsed between. My heart leaped for a moment. Was it La Hire and\nhis hellions? No--that was not their gait. No, it was the prisoner and\nher escort; it was Joan of Arc, under guard, that was coming; my spirits\nsank as low as they had been before. Weak as she was they made her walk;\nthey would increase her weakness all they could. The distance was not\ngreat--it was but a few hundred yards--but short as it was it was a\nheavy tax upon one who had been lying chained in one spot for months,\nand whose feet had lost their powers from inaction. Yes, and for a\nyear Joan had known only the cool damps of a dungeon, and now she was\ndragging herself through this sultry summer heat, this airless and\nsuffocating void. As she entered the gate, drooping with exhaustion,\nthere was that creature Loyseleur at her side with his head bent to her\near. We knew afterward that he had been with her again this morning in\nthe prison wearying her with his persuasions and enticing her with\nfalse promises, and that he was now still at the same work at the gate,\nimploring her to yield everything that would be required of her, and\nassuring her that if she would do this all would be well with her: she\nwould be rid of the dreaded English and find safety in the powerful\nshelter and protection of the Church. A miserable man, a stony-hearted\nman!\n\nThe moment Joan was seated on the platform she closed her eyes and\nallowed her chin to fall; and so sat, with her hands nestling in her\nlap, indifferent to everything, caring for nothing but rest. And she was\nso white again--white as alabaster.\n\nHow the faces of that packed mass of humanity lighted up with interest,\nand with what intensity all eyes gazed upon this fragile girl! And how\nnatural it was; for these people realized that at last they were looking\nupon that person whom they had so long hungered to see; a person whose\nname and fame filled all Europe, and made all other names and all other\nrenowns insignificant by comparisons; Joan of Arc, the wonder of the\ntime, and destined to be the wonder of all times!\n\nAnd I could read as by print, in their marveling countenances, the\nwords that were drifting through their minds: \"Can it be true, is it\nbelievable, that it is this little creature, this girl, this child with\nthe good face, the sweet face, the beautiful face, the dear and bonny\nface, that has carried fortresses by storm, charged at the head of\nvictorious armies, blown the might of England out of her path with a\nbreath, and fought a long campaign, solitary and alone, against the\nmassed brains and learning of France--and had won it if the fight had\nbeen fair!\"\n\nEvidently Cauchon had grown afraid of Manchon because of his pretty\napparent leanings toward Joan, for another recorder was in the chief\nplace here, which left my master and me nothing to do but sit idle and\nlook on.\n\nWell, I suppose that everything had been done which could be thought of\nto tire Joan's body and mind, but it was a mistake; one more device\nhad been invented. This was to preach a long sermon to her in that\noppressive heat.\n\nWhen the preacher began, she cast up one distressed and disappointed\nlook, then dropped her head again. This preacher was Guillaume Erard, an\noratorical celebrity. He got his text from the Twelve Lies. He emptied\nupon Joan al the calumnies in detail that had been bottled up in that\nmass of venom, and called her all the brutal names that the Twelve were\nlabeled with, working himself into a whirlwind of fury as he went on;\nbut his labors were wasted, she seemed lost in dreams, she made no sign,\nshe did not seem to hear. At last he launched this apostrophe:\n\n\"O France, how hast thou been abused! Thou hast always been the home of\nChristianity; but now, Charles, who calls himself thy King and governor,\nindorses, like the heretic and schismatic that he is, the words and\ndeeds of a worthless and infamous woman!\" Joan raised her head, and her\neyes began to burn and flash. The preacher turned to her: \"It is to you,\nJoan, that I speak, and I tell you that your King is schismatic and a\nheretic!\"\n\nAh, he might abuse her to his heart's content; she could endure that;\nbut to her dying moment she could never hear in patience a word against\nthat ingrate, that treacherous dog our King, whose proper place was\nhere, at this moment, sword in hand, routing these reptiles and saving\nthis most noble servant that ever King had in this world--and he would\nhave been there if he had not been what I have called him. Joan's loyal\nsoul was outraged, and she turned upon the preacher and flung out a few\nwords with a spirit which the crowd recognized as being in accordance\nwith the Joan of Arc traditions:\n\n\"By my faith, sir! I make bold to say and swear, on pain of death, that\nhe is the most noble Christian of all Christians, and the best lover of\nthe faith and the Church!\"\n\nThere was an explosion of applause from the crowd--which angered the\npreacher, for he had been aching long to hear an expression like this,\nand now that it was come at last it had fallen to the wrong person:\nhe had done all the work; the other had carried off all the spoil. He\nstamped his foot and shouted to the sheriff:\n\n\"Make her shut up!\"\n\nThat made the crowd laugh.\n\nA mob has small respect for a grown man who has to call on a sheriff to\nprotect him from a sick girl.\n\nJoan had damaged the preacher's cause more with one sentence than he had\nhelped it with a hundred; so he was much put out, and had trouble to get\na good start again. But he needn't have bothered; there was no occasion.\nIt was mainly an English-feeling mob. It had but obeyed a law of\nour nature--an irresistible law--to enjoy and applaud a spirited and\npromptly delivered retort, no matter who makes it. The mob was with the\npreacher; it had been beguiled for a moment, but only that; it would\nsoon return. It was there to see this girl burnt; so that it got that\nsatisfaction--without too much delay--it would be content.\n\nPresently the preacher formally summoned Joan to submit to the Church.\nHe made the demand with confidence, for he had gotten the idea from\nLoyseleur and Beaupere that she was worn to the bone, exhausted, and\nwould not be able to put forth any more resistance; and, indeed, to look\nat her it seemed that they must be right. Nevertheless, she made one\nmore effort to hold her ground, and said, wearily:\n\n\"As to that matter, I have answered my judges before. I have told them\nto report all that I have said and done to our Holy Father the Pope--to\nwhom, and to God first, I appeal.\"\n\nAgain, out of her native wisdom, she had brought those words of\ntremendous import, but was ignorant of their value. But they could have\navailed her nothing in any case, now, with the stake there and these\nthousands of enemies about her. Yet they made every churchman there\nblench, and the preacher changed the subject with all haste. Well\nmight those criminals blench, for Joan's appeal of her case to the Pope\nstripped Cauchon at once of jurisdiction over it, and annulled all\nthat he and his judges had already done in the matter and all that they\nshould do in it henceforth.\n\nJoan went on presently to reiterate, after some further talk, that she\nhad acted by command of God in her deeds and utterances; then, when an\nattempt was made to implicate the King, and friends of hers and his, she\nstopped that. She said:\n\n\"I charge my deeds and words upon no one, neither upon my King nor any\nother. If there is any fault in them, I am responsible and no other.\"\n\nShe was asked if she would not recant those of her words and deeds which\nhad been pronounced evil by her judges. Here answer made confusion and\ndamage again:\n\n\"I submit them to God and the Pope.\"\n\nThe Pope once more! It was very embarrassing. Here was a person who was\nasked to submit her case to the Church, and who frankly consents--offers\nto submit it to the very head of it. What more could any one require?\nHow was one to answer such a formidably unanswerable answer as that?\n\nThe worried judges put their heads together and whispered and planned\nand discussed. Then they brought forth this sufficiently shambling\nconclusion--but it was the best they could do, in so close a place: they\nsaid the Pope was so far away; and it was not necessary to go to him\nanyway, because the present judges had sufficient power and authority\nto deal with the present case, and were in effect \"the Church\" to that\nextent. At another time they could have smiled at this conceit, but not\nnow; they were not comfortable enough now.\n\nThe mob was getting impatient. It was beginning to put on a threatening\naspect; it was tired of standing, tired of the scorching heat; and the\nthunder was coming nearer, the lightning was flashing brighter. It was\nnecessary to hurry this matter to a close. Erard showed Joan a written\nform, which had been prepared and made all ready beforehand, and asked\nher to abjure.\n\n\"Abjure? What is abjure?\"\n\nShe did not know the word. It was explained to her by Massieu. She tried\nto understand, but she was breaking, under exhaustion, and she could not\ngather the meaning. It was all a jumble and confusion of strange words.\nIn her despair she sent out this beseeching cry:\n\n\"I appeal to the Church universal whether I ought to abjure or not!\"\n\nErard exclaimed:\n\n\"You shall abjure instantly, or instantly be burnt!\"\n\nShe glanced up, at those awful words, and for the first time she saw the\nstake and the mass of red coals--redder and angrier than ever now under\nthe constantly deepening storm-gloom. She gasped and staggered up out\nof her seat muttering and mumbling incoherently, and gazed vacantly upon\nthe people and the scene about her like one who is dazed, or thinks he\ndreams, and does not know where he is.\n\nThe priests crowded about her imploring her to sign the paper, there\nwere many voices beseeching and urging her at once, there was great\nturmoil and shouting and excitement among the populace and everywhere.\n\n\"Sign! sign!\" from the priests; \"sign--sign and be saved!\" And Loyseleur\nwas urging at her ear, \"Do as I told you--do not destroy yourself!\"\n\nJoan said plaintively to these people:\n\n\"Ah, you do not do well to seduce me.\"\n\nThe judges joined their voices to the others. Yes, even the iron in\ntheir hearts melted, and they said:\n\n\"O Joan, we pity you so! Take back what you have said, or we must\ndeliver you up to punishment.\"\n\nAnd now there was another voice--it was from the other platform--pealing\nsolemnly above the din: Cauchon's--reading the sentence of death!\n\nJoan's strength was all spent. She stood looking about her in a\nbewildered way a moment, then slowly she sank to her knees, and bowed\nher head and said:\n\n\"I submit.\"\n\nThey gave her no time to reconsider--they knew the peril of that. The\nmoment the words were out of her mouth Massieu was reading to her the\nabjuration, and she was repeating the words after him mechanically,\nunconsciously--and smiling; for her wandering mind was far away in some\nhappier world.\n\nThen this short paper of six lines was slipped aside and a long one of\nmany pages was smuggled into its place, and she, noting nothing, put her\nmark on it, saying, in pathetic apology, that she did not know how to\nwrite. But a secretary of the King of England was there to take care\nof that defect; he guided her hand with his own, and wrote her\nname--Jehanne.\n\nThe great crime was accomplished. She had signed--what? She did not\nknow--but the others knew. She had signed a paper confessing herself\na sorceress, a dealer with devils, a liar, a blasphemer of God and\nHis angels, a lover of blood, a promoter of sedition, cruel, wicked,\ncommissioned of Satan; and this signature of hers bound her to resume\nthe dress of a woman.\n\nThere were other promises, but that one would answer, without the\nothers; and that one could be made to destroy her.\n\nLoyseleur pressed forward and praised her for having done \"such a good\nday's work.\"\n\nBut she was still dreamy, she hardly heard.\n\nThen Cauchon pronounced the words which dissolved the excommunication\nand restored her to her beloved Church, with all the dear privileges of\nworship. Ah, she heard that! You could see it in the deep gratitude that\nrose in her face and transfigured it with joy.\n\nBut how transient was that happiness! For Cauchon, without a tremor of\npity in his voice, added these crushing words:\n\n\"And that she may repent of her crimes and repeat them no more, she is\nsentenced to perpetual imprisonment, with the bread of affliction and\nthe water of anguish!\"\n\nPerpetual imprisonment! She had never dreamed of that--such a thing had\nnever been hinted to her by Loyseleur or by any other. Loyseleur had\ndistinctly said and promised that \"all would be well with her.\" And the\nvery last words spoken to her by Erard, on that very platform, when he\nwas urging her to abjure, was a straight, unqualified promised--that if\nshe would do it she should go free from captivity.\n\nShe stood stunned and speechless a moment; then she remembered, with\nsuch solacement as the thought could furnish, that by another clear\npromise made by Cauchon himself--she would at least be the Church's\ncaptive, and have women about her in place of a brutal foreign soldiery.\nSo she turned to the body of priests and said, with a sad resignation:\n\n\"Now, you men of the Church, take me to your prison, and leave me no\nlonger in the hands of the English\"; and she gathered up her chains and\nprepared to move.\n\nBut alas! now came these shameful words from Cauchon--and with them a\nmocking laugh:\n\n\"Take her to the prison whence she came!\"\n\nPoor abused girl! She stood dumb, smitten, paralyzed. It was pitiful to\nsee. She had been beguiled, lied to, betrayed; she saw it all now.\n\nThe rumbling of a drum broke upon the stillness, and for just one moment\nshe thought of the glorious deliverance promised by her Voices--I read\nit in the rapture that lit her face; then she saw what it was--her\nprison escort--and that light faded, never to revive again. And now her\nhead began a piteous rocking motion, swaying slowly, this way and that,\nas is the way when one is suffering unwordable pain, or when one's heart\nis broken; then drearily she went from us, with her face in her hands,\nand sobbing bitterly.\n\n\n\n\n\n21 Respited Only for Torture\n\nTHERE IS no certainty that any one in all Rouen was in the secret of the\ndeep game which Cauchon was playing except the Cardinal of Winchester.\nThen you can imagine the astonishment and stupefaction of that vast\nmob gathered there and those crowds of churchmen assembled on the\ntwo platforms, when they saw Joan of Arc moving away, alive and\nwhole--slipping out of their grip at last, after all this tedious\nwaiting, all this tantalizing expectancy.\n\nNobody was able to stir or speak for a while, so paralyzing was the\nuniversal astonishment, so unbelievable the fact that the stake was\nactually standing there unoccupied and its prey gone.\n\nThen suddenly everybody broke into a fury of rage; maledictions and\ncharges of treachery began to fly freely; yes, and even stones: a stone\ncame near killing the Cardinal of Winchester--it just missed his head.\nBut the man who threw it was not to blame, for he was excited, and a\nperson who is excited never can throw straight.\n\nThe tumult was very great, indeed, for a while. In the midst of it\na chaplain of the Cardinal even forgot the proprieties so far as to\nopprobriously assail the August Bishop of Beauvais himself, shaking his\nfist in his face and shouting:\n\n\"By God, you are a traitor!\"\n\n\"You lie!\" responded the Bishop.\n\nHe a traitor! Oh, far from it; he certainly was the last Frenchman that\nany Briton had a right to bring that charge against.\n\nThe Earl of Warwick lost his temper, too. He was a doughty soldier, but\nwhen it came to the intellectuals--when it came to delicate chicane, and\nscheming, and trickery--he couldn't see any further through a millstone\nthan another. So he burst out in his frank warrior fashion, and swore\nthat the King of England was being treacherously used, and that Joan\nof Arc was going to be allowed to cheat the stake. But they whispered\ncomfort into his ear:\n\n\"Give yourself no uneasiness, my lord; we shall soon have her again.\"\n\nPerhaps the like tidings found their way all around, for good news\ntravels fast as well as bad. At any rate, the ragings presently quieted\ndown, and the huge concourse crumbled apart and disappeared. And thus we\nreached the noon of that fearful Thursday.\n\nWe two youths were happy; happier than any words can tell--for we were\nnot in the secret any more than the rest. Joan's life was saved. We\nknew that, and that was enough. France would hear of this day's infamous\nwork--and then! Why, then her gallant sons would flock to her standard\nby thousands and thousands, multitudes upon multitudes, and their wrath\nwould be like the wrath of the ocean when the storm-winds sweep it; and\nthey would hurl themselves against this doomed city and overwhelm it\nlike the resistless tides of that ocean, and Joan of Arc would march\nagain!\n\nIn six days--seven days--one short week--noble France, grateful France,\nindignant France, would be thundering at these gates--let us count the\nhours, let us count the minutes, let us count the seconds! O happy day,\nO day of ecstasy, how our hearts sang in our bosoms!\n\nFor we were young then, yes, we were very young.\n\nDo you think the exhausted prisoner was allowed to rest and sleep after\nshe had spent the small remnant of her strength in dragging her tired\nbody back to the dungeon?\n\nNo, there was no rest for her, with those sleuth-hounds on her track.\nCauchon and some of his people followed her to her lair straightway;\nthey found her dazed and dull, her mental and physical forces in a state\nof prostration. They told her she had abjured; that she had made certain\npromises--among them, to resume the apparel of her sex; and that if she\nrelapsed, the Church would cast her out for good and all. She heard the\nwords, but they had no meaning to her. She was like a person who has\ntaken a narcotic and is dying for sleep, dying for rest from nagging,\ndying to be let alone, and who mechanically does everything the\npersecutor asks, taking but dull note of the things done, and but dully\nrecording them in the memory. And so Joan put on the gown which Cauchon\nand his people had brought; and would come to herself by and by, and\nhave at first but a dim idea as to when and how the change had come\nabout.\n\nCauchon went away happy and content. Joan had resumed woman's dress\nwithout protest; also she had been formally warned against relapsing. He\nhad witnesses to these facts. How could matters be better?\n\nBut suppose she should not relapse?\n\nWhy, then she must be forced to do it.\n\nDid Cauchon hint to the English guards that thenceforth if they chose\nto make their prisoner's captivity crueler and bitterer than ever, no\nofficial notice would be taken of it? Perhaps so; since the guards did\nbegin that policy at once, and no official notice was taken of it.\nYes, from that moment Joan's life in that dungeon was made almost\nunendurable. Do not ask me to enlarge upon it. I will not do it.\n\n\n\n\n\n22 Joan Gives the Fatal Answer\n\nFRIDAY and Saturday were happy days for Noel and me. Our minds were full\nof our splendid dream of France aroused--France shaking her mane--France\non the march--France at the gates--Rouen in ashes, and Joan free! Our\nimagination was on fire; we were delirious with pride and joy. For we\nwere very young, as I have said.\n\nWe knew nothing about what had been happening in the dungeon in the\nyester-afternoon. We supposed that as Joan had abjured and been taken\nback into the forgiving bosom of the Church, she was being gently used\nnow, and her captivity made as pleasant and comfortable for her as the\ncircumstances would allow. So, in high contentment, we planned out our\nshare in the great rescue, and fought our part of the fight over and\nover again during those two happy days--as happy days as ever I have\nknown.\n\nSunday morning came. I was awake, enjoying the balmy, lazy weather, and\nthinking. Thinking of the rescue--what else? I had no other thought now.\nI was absorbed in that, drunk with the happiness of it.\n\nI heard a voice shouting far down the street, and soon it came nearer,\nand I caught the words:\n\n\"Joan of Arc has relapsed! The witch's time has come!\"\n\nIt stopped my heart, it turned my blood to ice. That was more than sixty\nyears ago, but that triumphant note rings as clear in my memory to-day\nas it rang in my ear that long-vanished summer morning. We are so\nstrangely made; the memories that could make us happy pass away; it is\nthe memories that break our hearts that abide.\n\nSoon other voices took up that cry--tens, scores, hundreds of voices;\nall the world seemed filled with the brutal joy of it. And there were\nother clamors--the clatter of rushing feet, merry congratulations,\nbursts of coarse laughter, the rolling of drums, the boom and crash of\ndistant bands profaning the sacred day with the music of victory and\nthanksgiving.\n\nAbout the middle of the afternoon came a summons for Manchon and me to\ngo to Joan's dungeon--a summons from Cauchon. But by that time distrust\nhad already taken possession of the English and their soldiery again,\nand all Rouen was in an angry and threatening mood. We could see plenty\nof evidences of this from our own windows--fist-shaking, black looks,\ntumultuous tides of furious men billowing by along the street.\n\nAnd we learned that up at the castle things were going very badly,\nindeed; that there was a great mob gathered there who considered the\nrelapse a lie and a priestly trick, and among them many half-drunk\nEnglish soldiers. Moreover, these people had gone beyond words. They\nhad laid hands upon a number of churchmen who were trying to enter the\ncastle, and it had been difficult work to rescue them and save their\nlives.\n\nAnd so Manchon refused to go. He said he would not go a step without\na safeguard from Warwick. So next morning Warwick sent an escort of\nsoldiers, and then we went. Matters had not grown peacefuler meantime,\nbut worse. The soldiers protected us from bodily damage, but as we\npassed through the great mob at the castle we were assailed with insults\nand shameful epithets. I bore it well enough, though, and said to\nmyself, with secret satisfaction, \"In three or four short days, my lads,\nyou will be employing your tongues in a different sort from this--and I\nshall be there to hear.\"\n\nTo my mind these were as good as dead men. How many of them would still\nbe alive after the rescue that was coming? Not more than enough to amuse\nthe executioner a short half-hour, certainly.\n\nIt turned out that the report was true. Joan had relapsed. She was\nsitting there in her chains, clothed again in her male attire.\n\nShe accused nobody. That was her way. It was not in her character to\nhold a servant to account for what his master had made him do, and her\nmind had cleared now, and she knew that the advantage which had been\ntaken of her the previous morning had its origin, not in the subordinate\nbut in the master--Cauchon.\n\nHere is what had happened. While Joan slept, in the early morning of\nSunday, one of the guards stole her female apparel and put her male\nattire in its place. When she woke she asked for the other dress, but\nthe guards refused to give it back. She protested, and said she was\nforbidden to wear the male dress. But they continued to refuse. She had\nto have clothing, for modesty's sake; moreover, she saw that she could\nnot save her life if she must fight for it against treacheries like\nthis; so she put on the forbidden garments, knowing what the end would\nbe. She was weary of the struggle, poor thing.\n\nWe had followed in the wake of Cauchon, the Vice-Inquisitor, and the\nothers--six or eight--and when I saw Joan sitting there, despondent,\nforlorn, and still in chains, when I was expecting to find her situation\nso different, I did not know what to make of it. The shock was very\ngreat. I had doubted the relapse perhaps; possibly I had believed in it,\nbut had not realized it.\n\nCauchon's victory was complete. He had had a harassed and irritated\nand disgusted look for a long time, but that was all gone now, and\ncontentment and serenity had taken its place. His purple face was full\nof tranquil and malicious happiness. He went trailing his robes and\nstood grandly in front of Joan, with his legs apart, and remained so\nmore than a minute, gloating over her and enjoying the sight of this\npoor ruined creature, who had won so lofty a place for him in the\nservice of the meek and merciful Jesus, Saviour of the World, Lord\nof the Universe--in case England kept her promise to him, who kept no\npromises himself.\n\nPresently the judges began to question Joan. One of them, named\nMarguerie, who was a man with more insight than prudence, remarked upon\nJoan's change of clothing, and said:\n\n\"There is something suspicious about this. How could it have come about\nwithout connivance on the part of others? Perhaps even something worse?\"\n\n\"Thousand devils!\" screamed Cauchon, in a fury. \"Will you shut your\nmouth?\"\n\n\"Armagnac! Traitor!\" shouted the soldiers on guard, and made a rush for\nMarguerie with their lances leveled. It was with the greatest difficulty\nthat he was saved from being run through the body. He made no more\nattempts to help the inquiry, poor man. The other judges proceeded with\nthe questionings.\n\n\"Why have you resumed this male habit?\"\n\nI did not quite catch her answer, for just then a soldier's halberd\nslipped from his fingers and fell on the stone floor with a crash; but\nI thought I understood Joan to say that she had resumed it of her own\nmotion.\n\n\"But you have promised and sworn that you would not go back to it.\"\n\nI was full of anxiety to hear her answer to that question; and when it\ncame it was just what I was expecting. She said--quiet quietly:\n\n\"I have never intended and never understood myself to swear I would not\nresume it.\"\n\nThere--I had been sure, all along, that she did not know what she was\ndoing and saying on the platform Thursday, and this answer of hers was\nproof that I had not been mistaken. Then she went on to add this:\n\n\"But I had a right to resume it, because the promises made to me have\nnot been kept--promises that I should be allowed to go to mass and\nreceive the communion, and that I should be freed from the bondage of\nthese chains--but they are still upon me, as you see.\"\n\n\"Nevertheless, you have abjured, and have especially promised to return\nno more to the dress of a man.\"\n\nThen Joan held out her fettered hands sorrowfully toward these unfeeling\nmen and said:\n\n\"I would rather die than continue so. But if they may be taken off, and\nif I may hear mass, and be removed to a penitential prison, and have a\nwoman about me, I will be good, and will do what shall seem good to you\nthat I do.\"\n\nCauchon sniffed scoffingly at that. Honor the compact which he and his\nhad made with her?\n\nFulfil its conditions? What need of that? Conditions had been a good\nthing to concede, temporarily, and for advantage; but they have served\ntheir turn--let something of a fresher sort and of more consequence\nbe considered. The resumption of the male dress was sufficient for all\npractical purposes, but perhaps Joan could be led to add something to\nthat fatal crime. So Cauchon asked her if her Voices had spoken to her\nsince Thursday--and he reminded her of her abjuration.\n\n\"Yes,\" she answered; and then it came out that the Voices had talked\nwith her about the abjuration--told her about it, I suppose. She\nguilelessly reasserted the heavenly origin of her mission, and did it\nwith the untroubled mien of one who was not conscious that she had ever\nknowingly repudiated it. So I was convinced once more that she had had\nno notion of what she was doing that Thursday morning on the platform.\nFinally she said, \"My Voices told me I did very wrong to confess\nthat what I had done was not well.\" Then she sighed, and said with\nsimplicity, \"But it was the fear of the fire that made me do so.\"\n\nThat is, fear of the fire had made her sign a paper whose contents she\nhad not understood then, but understood now by revelation of her Voices\nand by testimony of her persecutors.\n\nShe was sane now and not exhausted; her courage had come back, and\nwith it her inborn loyalty to the truth. She was bravely and serenely\nspeaking it again, knowing that it would deliver her body up to that\nvery fire which had such terrors for her.\n\nThat answer of hers was quite long, quite frank, wholly free from\nconcealments or palliations. It made me shudder; I knew she was\npronouncing sentence of death upon herself. So did poor Manchon. And he\nwrote in the margin abreast of it:\n\n\"RESPONSIO MORTIFERA.\" Fatal answer. Yes, all present knew that it was,\nindeed, a fatal answer. Then there fell a silence such as falls in a\nsick-room when the watchers of the dying draw a deep breath and say\nsoftly one to another, \"All is over.\"\n\nHere, likewise, all was over; but after some moments Cauchon, wishing to\nclinch this matter and make it final, put this question:\n\n\"Do you still believe that your Voices are St. Marguerite and St.\nCatherine?\"\n\n\"Yes--and that they come from God.\"\n\n\"Yet you denied them on the scaffold?\"\n\nThen she made direct and clear affirmation that she had never had any\nintention to deny them; and that if--I noted the if--\"if she had made\nsome retractions and revocations on the scaffold it was from fear of the\nfire, and it was a violation of the truth.\"\n\nThere it is again, you see. She certainly never knew what it was she had\ndone on the scaffold until she was told of it afterward by these people\nand by her Voices.\n\nAnd now she closed this most painful scene with these words; and there\nwas a weary note in them that was pathetic:\n\n\"I would rather do my penance all at once; let me die. I cannot endure\ncaptivity any longer.\"\n\nThe spirit born for sunshine and liberty so longed for release that it\nwould take it in any form, even that.\n\nSeveral among the company of judges went from the place troubled and\nsorrowful, the others in another mood. In the court of the castle we\nfound the Earl of Warwick and fifty English waiting, impatient for\nnews. As soon as Cauchon saw them he shouted--laughing--think of a man\ndestroying a friendless poor girl and then having the heart to laugh at\nit:\n\n\"Make yourselves comfortable--it's all over with her!\"\n\n\n\n\n\n23 The Time Is at Hand\n\nTHE YOUNG can sink into abysses of despondency, and it was so with Noel\nand me now; but the hopes of the young are quick to rise again, and it\nwas so with ours. We called back that vague promise of the Voices, and\nsaid the one to the other that the glorious release was to happen at\n\"the last moment\"--\"that other time was not the last moment, but this\nis; it will happen now; the King will come, La Hire will come, and with\nthem our veterans, and behind them all France!\" And so we were full of\nheart again, and could already hear, in fancy, that stirring music the\nclash of steel and the war-cries and the uproar of the onset, and in\nfancy see our prisoner free, her chains gone, her sword in her hand.\n\nBut this dream was to pass also, and come to nothing. Late at night,\nwhen Manchon came in, he said:\n\n\"I am come from the dungeon, and I have a message for you from that poor\nchild.\"\n\nA message to me! If he had been noticing I think he would have\ndiscovered me--discovered that my indifference concerning the prisoner\nwas a pretense; for I was caught off my guard, and was so moved and so\nexalted to be so honored by her that I must have shown my feeling in my\nface and manner.\n\n\"A message for me, your reverence?\"\n\n\"Yes. It is something she wishes done. She said she had noticed the\nyoung man who helps me, and that he had a good face; and did I think he\nwould do a kindness for her? I said I knew you would, and asked her what\nit was, and she said a letter--would you write a letter to her mother?\n\n\"And I said you would. But I said I would do it myself, and gladly; but\nshe said no, that my labors were heavy, and she thought the young man\nwould not mind the doing of this service for one not able to do it for\nherself, she not knowing how to write. Then I would have sent for you,\nand at that the sadness vanished out of her face. Why, it was as if\nshe was going to see a friend, poor friendless thing. But I was not\npermitted. I did my best, but the orders remain as strict as ever,\nthe doors are closed against all but officials; as before, none but\nofficials may speak to her. So I went back and told her, and she sighed,\nand was sad again. Now this is what she begs you to write to her mother.\nIt is partly a strange message, and to me means nothing, but she said\nher mother would understand. You will 'convey her adoring love to her\nfamily and her village friends, and say there will be no rescue, for\nthat this night--and it is the third time in the twelvemonth, and is\nfinal--she has seen the Vision of the Tree.'\"\n\n\"How strange!\"\n\n\"Yes, it is strange, but that is what she said; and said her parents\nwould understand. And for a little time she was lost in dreams and\nthinkings, and her lips moved, and I caught in her muttering these\nlines, which she said over two or three times, and they seemed to bring\npeace and contentment to her. I set them down, thinking they might have\nsome connection with her letter and be useful; but it was not so; they\nwere a mere memory, floating idly in a tired mind, and they have no\nmeaning, at least no relevancy.\"\n\nI took the piece of paper, and found what I knew I should find:\n\nAnd when in exile wand'ring, we Shall fainting yearn for glimpse of\nthee, Oh, rise upon our sight!\n\nThere was no hope any more. I knew it now. I knew that Joan's letter was\na message to Noel and me, as well as to her family, and that its object\nwas to banish vain hopes from our minds and tell us from her own mouth\nof the blow that was going to fall upon us, so that we, being her\nsoldiers, would know it for a command to bear it as became us and her,\nand so submit to the will of God; and in thus obeying, find assuagement\nof our grief. It was like her, for she was always thinking of others,\nnot of herself. Yes, her heart was sore for us; she could find time to\nthink of us, the humblest of her servants, and try to soften our pain,\nlighten the burden of our troubles--she that was drinking of the bitter\nwaters; she that was walking in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.\n\nI wrote the letter. You will know what it cost me, without my telling\nyou. I wrote it with the same wooden stylus which had put upon parchment\nthe first words ever dictated by Joan of Arc--that high summons to\nthe English to vacate France, two years past, when she was a lass of\nseventeen; it had now set down the last ones which she was ever to\ndictate. Then I broke it. For the pen that had served Joan of Arc could\nnot serve any that would come after her in this earth without abasement.\n\nThe next day, May 29th, Cauchon summoned his serfs, and forty-two\nresponded. It is charitable to believe that the other twenty were\nashamed to come. The forty-two pronounced her a relapsed heretic, and\ncondemned her to be delivered over to the secular arm. Cauchon thanked\nthem.\n\nThen he sent orders that Joan of Arc be conveyed the next morning to\nthe place known as the Old Market; and that she be then delivered to the\ncivil judge, and by the civil judge to the executioner. That meant she\nwould be burnt.\n\nAll the afternoon and evening of Tuesday, the 29th, the news was\nflying, and the people of the country-side flocking to Rouen to see the\ntragedy--all, at least, who could prove their English sympathies and\ncount upon admission. The press grew thicker and thicker in the streets,\nthe excitement grew higher and higher. And now a thing was noticeable\nagain which had been noticeable more than once before--that there was\npity for Joan in the hearts of many of these people. Whenever she had\nbeen in great danger it had manifested itself, and now it was apparent\nagain--manifest in a pathetic dumb sorrow which was visible in many\nfaces.\n\nEarly the next morning, Wednesday, Martin Ladvenu and another friar\nwere sent to Joan to prepare her for death; and Manchon and I went\nwith them--a hard service for me. We tramped through the dim corridors,\nwinding this way and that, and piercing ever deeper and deeper into that\nvast heart of stone, and at last we stood before Joan. But she did not\nknow it. She sat with her hands in her lap and her head bowed, thinking,\nand her face was very sad. One might not know what she was thinking of.\nOf her home, and the peaceful pastures, and the friends she was no more\nto see? Of her wrongs, and her forsaken estate, and the cruelties which\nhad been put upon her? Or was it of death--the death which she had\nlonged for, and which was now so close?\n\nOr was it of the kind of death she must suffer? I hoped not; for she\nfeared only one kind, and that one had for her unspeakable terrors. I\nbelieved she so feared that one that with her strong will she would shut\nthe thought of it wholly out of her mind, and hope and believe that\nGod would take pity on her and grant her an easier one; and so it\nmight chance that the awful news which we were bringing might come as a\nsurprise to her at last.\n\nWe stood silent awhile, but she was still unconscious of us, still deep\nin her sad musings and far away. Then Martin Ladvenu said, softly:\n\n\"Joan.\"\n\nShe looked up then, with a little start and a wan smile, and said:\n\n\"Speak. Have you a message for me?\"\n\n\"Yes, my poor child. Try to bear it. Do you think you can bear it?\"\n\n\"Yes\"--very softly, and her head drooped again.\n\n\"I am come to prepare you for death.\"\n\nA faint shiver trembled through her wasted body. There was a pause. In\nthe stillness we could hear our breathings. Then she said, still in that\nlow voice:\n\n\"When will it be?\"\n\nThe muffled notes of a tolling bell floated to our ears out of the\ndistance.\n\n\"Now. The time is at hand.\"\n\nThat slight shiver passed again.\n\n\"It is so soon--ah, it is so soon!\"\n\nThere was a long silence. The distant throbbings of the bell pulsed\nthrough it, and we stood motionless and listening. But it was broken at\nlast:\n\n\"What death is it?\"\n\n\"By fire!\"\n\n\"Oh, I knew it, I knew it!\" She sprang wildly to her feet, and wound her\nhands in her hair, and began to writhe and sob, oh, so piteously, and\nmourn and grieve and lament, and turn to first one and then another of\nus, and search our faces beseechingly, as hoping she might find help and\nfriendliness there, poor thing--she that had never denied these to any\ncreature, even her wounded enemy on the battle-field.\n\n\"Oh, cruel, cruel, to treat me so! And must my body, that has never been\ndefiled, be consumed today and turned to ashes? Ah, sooner would I that\nmy head were cut off seven times than suffer this woeful death. I had\nthe promise of the Church's prison when I submitted, and if I had but\nbeen there, and not left here in the hands of my enemies, this miserable\nfate had not befallen me.\n\n\"Oh, I appeal to God the Great Judge, against the injustice which has\nbeen done me.\"\n\nThere was none there that could endure it. They turned away, with the\ntears running down their faces. In a moment I was on my knees at her\nfeet. At once she thought only of my danger, and bent and whispered in\nmy hear: \"Up!--do not peril yourself, good heart. There--God bless you\nalways!\" and I felt the quick clasp of her hand. Mine was the last hand\nshe touched with hers in life. None saw it; history does not know of it\nor tell of it, yet it is true, just as I have told it. The next moment\nshe saw Cauchon coming, and she went and stood before him and reproached\nhim, saying:\n\n\"Bishop, it is by you that I die!\"\n\nHe was not shamed, not touched; but said, smoothly:\n\n\"Ah, be patient, Joan. You die because you have not kept your promise,\nbut have returned to your sins.\"\n\n\"Alas,\" she said, \"if you had put me in the Church's prison, and given\nme right and proper keepers, as you promised, this would not have\nhappened. And for this I summon you to answer before God!\"\n\nThen Cauchon winced, and looked less placidly content than before, and\nhe turned him about and went away.\n\nJoan stood awhile musing. She grew calmer, but occasionally she wiped\nher eyes, and now and then sobs shook her body; but their violence\nwas modifying now, and the intervals between them were growing longer.\nFinally she looked up and saw Pierre Maurice, who had come in with the\nBishop, and she said to him:\n\n\"Master Peter, where shall I be this night?\"\n\n\"Have you not good hope in God?\"\n\n\"Yes--and by His grace I shall be in Paradise.\"\n\nNow Martin Ladvenu heard her in confession; then she begged for the\nsacrament. But how grant the communion to one who had been publicly cut\noff from the Church, and was now no more entitled to its privileges\nthan an unbaptized pagan? The brother could not do this, but he sent\nto Cauchon to inquire what he must do. All laws, human and divine, were\nalike to that man--he respected none of them. He sent back orders to\ngrant Joan whatever she wished. Her last speech to him had reached his\nfears, perhaps; it could not reach his heart, for he had none.\n\nThe Eucharist was brought now to that poor soul that had yearned for it\nwith such unutterable longing all these desolate months. It was a solemn\nmoment. While we had been in the deeps of the prison, the public courts\nof the castle had been filling up with crowds of the humbler sort of\nmen and women, who had learned what was going on in Joan's cell, and had\ncome with softened hearts to do--they knew not what; to hear--they knew\nnot what. We knew nothing of this, for they were out of our view. And\nthere were other great crowds of the like caste gathered in\nmasses outside the castle gates. And when the lights and the other\naccompaniments of the Sacrament passed by, coming to Joan in the prison,\nall those multitudes kneeled down and began to pray for her, and many\nwept; and when the solemn ceremony of the communion began in Joan's\ncell, out of the distance a moving sound was borne moaning to our\nears--it was those invisible multitudes chanting the litany for a\ndeparting soul.\n\nThe fear of the fiery death was gone from Joan of Arc now, to come\nagain no more, except for one fleeting instant--then it would pass, and\nserenity and courage would take its place and abide till the end.\n\n\n\n\n\n24 Joan the Martyr\n\nAT NINE o'clock the Maid of Orleans, Deliverer of France, went forth in\nthe grace of her innocence and her youth to lay down her life for\nthe country she loved with such devotion, and for the King that had\nabandoned her. She sat in the cart that is used only for felons. In one\nrespect she was treated worse than a felon; for whereas she was on her\nway to be sentenced by the civil arm, she already bore her judgment\ninscribed in advance upon a miter-shaped cap which she wore:\n\nHERETIC, RELAPSED, APOSTATE, IDOLATER In the cart with her sat the friar\nMartin Ladvenu and Maetre Jean Massieu. She looked girlishly fair and\nsweet and saintly in her long white robe, and when a gush of sunlight\nflooded her as she emerged from the gloom of the prison and was yet\nfor a moment still framed in the arch of the somber gate, the massed\nmultitudes of poor folk murmured \"A vision! a vision!\" and sank to their\nknees praying, and many of the women weeping; and the moving invocation\nfor the dying arose again, and was taken up and borne along, a majestic\nwave of sound, which accompanied the doomed, solacing and blessing her,\nall the sorrowful way to the place of death. \"Christ have pity! Saint\nMargaret have pity! Pray for her, all ye saints, archangels, and blessed\nmartyrs, pray for her! Saints and angels intercede for her! From thy\nwrath, good Lord, deliver her! O Lord God, save her! Have mercy on her,\nwe beseech Thee, good Lord!\"\n\nIt is just and true what one of the histories has said: \"The poor and\nthe helpless had nothing but their prayers to give Joan of Arc; but\nthese we may believe were not unavailing. There are few more pathetic\nevents recorded in history than this weeping, helpless, praying crowd,\nholding their lighted candles and kneeling on the pavement beneath the\nprison walls of the old fortress.\"\n\nAnd it was so all the way: thousands upon thousands massed upon their\nknees and stretching far down the distances, thick-sown with the faint\nyellow candle-flames, like a field starred with golden flowers.\n\nBut there were some that did not kneel; these were the English soldiers.\nThey stood elbow to elbow, on each side of Joan's road, and walled it in\nall the way; and behind these living walls knelt the multitudes.\n\nBy and by a frantic man in priest's garb came wailing and lamenting, and\ntore through the crowd and the barriers of soldiers and flung himself\non his knees by Joan's cart and put up his hands in supplication, crying\nout:\n\n\"O forgive, forgive!\"\n\nIt was Loyseleur!\n\nAnd Joan forgave him; forgave him out of a heart that knew nothing\nbut forgiveness, nothing but compassion, nothing but pity for all that\nsuffer, let their offense be what it might. And she had no word of\nreproach for this poor wretch who had wrought day and night with deceits\nand treacheries and hypocrisies to betray her to her death.\n\nThe soldiers would have killed him, but the Earl of Warwick saved his\nlife. What became of him is not known. He hid himself from the world\nsomewhere, to endure his remorse as he might.\n\nIn the square of the Old Market stood the two platforms and the stake\nthat had stood before in the churchyard of St. Ouen. The platforms were\noccupied as before, the one by Joan and her judges, the other by\ngreat dignitaries, the principal being Cauchon and the English\nCardinal--Winchester. The square was packed with people, the windows and\nroofs of the blocks of buildings surrounding it were black with them.\n\nWhen the preparations had been finished, all noise and movement\ngradually ceased, and a waiting stillness followed which was solemn and\nimpressive.\n\nAnd now, by order of Cauchon, an ecclesiastic named Nicholas Midi\npreached a sermon, wherein he explained that when a branch of the\nvine--which is the Church--becomes diseased and corrupt, it must be cut\naway or it will corrupt and destroy the whole vine. He made it appear\nthat Joan, through her wickedness, was a menace and a peril to the\nChurch's purity and holiness, and her death therefore necessary. When he\nwas come to the end of his discourse he turned toward her and paused a\nmoment, then he said:\n\n\"Joan, the Church can no longer protect you. Go in peace!\"\n\nJoan had been placed wholly apart and conspicuous, to signify the\nChurch's abandonment of her, and she sat there in her loneliness,\nwaiting in patience and resignation for the end. Cauchon addressed her\nnow. He had been advised to read the form of her abjuration to her, and\nhad brought it with him; but he changed his mind, fearing that she would\nproclaim the truth--that she had never knowingly abjured--and so bring\nshame upon him and eternal infamy. He contented himself with admonishing\nher to keep in mind her wickednesses, and repent of them, and think of\nher salvation. Then he solemnly pronounced her excommunicate and cut off\nfrom the body of the Church. With a final word he delivered her over to\nthe secular arm for judgment and sentence.\n\nJoan, weeping, knelt and began to pray. For whom? Herself? Oh, no--for\nthe King of France. Her voice rose sweet and clear, and penetrated all\nhearts with its passionate pathos. She never thought of his treacheries\nto her, she never thought of his desertion of her, she never remembered\nthat it was because he was an ingrate that she was here to die a\nmiserable death; she remembered only that he was her King, that she was\nhis loyal and loving subject, and that his enemies had undermined his\ncause with evil reports and false charges, and he not by to defend\nhimself. And so, in the very presence of death, she forgot her own\ntroubles to implore all in her hearing to be just to him; to believe\nthat he was good and noble and sincere, and not in any way to blame\nfor any acts of hers, neither advising them nor urging them, but being\nwholly clear and free of all responsibility for them. Then, closing, she\nbegged in humble and touching words that all here present would pray\nfor her and would pardon her, both her enemies and such as might look\nfriendly upon her and feel pity for her in their hearts.\n\nThere was hardly one heart there that was not touched--even the English,\neven the judges showed it, and there was many a lip that trembled\nand many an eye that was blurred with tears; yes, even the English\nCardinal's--that man with a political heart of stone but a human heart\nof flesh.\n\nThe secular judge who should have delivered judgment and pronounced\nsentence was himself so disturbed that he forgot his duty, and Joan went\nto her death unsentenced--thus completing with an illegality what had\nbegun illegally and had so continued to the end. He only said--to the\nguards:\n\n\"Take her\"; and to the executioner, \"Do your duty.\"\n\nJoan asked for a cross. None was able to furnish one. But an English\nsoldier broke a stick in two and crossed the pieces and tied them\ntogether, and this cross he gave her, moved to it by the good heart that\nwas in him; and she kissed it and put it in her bosom. Then Isambard de\nla Pierre went to the church near by and brought her a consecrated one;\nand this one also she kissed, and pressed it to her bosom with rapture,\nand then kissed it again and again, covering it with tears and pouring\nout her gratitude to God and the saints.\n\nAnd so, weeping, and with her cross to her lips, she climbed up the\ncruel steps to the face of the stake, with the friar Isambard at her\nside. Then she was helped up to the top of the pile of wood that was\nbuilt around the lower third of the stake and stood upon it with her\nback against the stake, and the world gazing up at her breathless. The\nexecutioner ascended to her side and wound chains around her slender\nbody, and so fastened her to the stake. Then he descended to finish his\ndreadful office; and there she remained alone--she that had had so many\nfriends in the days when she was free, and had been so loved and so\ndear.\n\nAll these things I saw, albeit dimly and blurred with tears; but I could\nbear no more. I continued in my place, but what I shall deliver to you\nnow I got by others' eyes and others' mouths. Tragic sounds there were\nthat pierced my ears and wounded my heart as I sat there, but it is as\nI tell you: the latest image recorded by my eyes in that desolating hour\nwas Joan of Arc with the grace of her comely youth still unmarred; and\nthat image, untouched by time or decay, has remained with me all my\ndays. Now I will go on.\n\nIf any thought that now, in that solemn hour when all transgressors\nrepent and confess, she would revoke her revocation and say her great\ndeeds had been evil deeds and Satan and his fiends their source, they\nerred. No such thought was in her blameless mind. She was not thinking\nof herself and her troubles, but of others, and of woes that might\nbefall them. And so, turning her grieving eyes about her, where rose the\ntowers and spires of that fair city, she said:\n\n\"Oh, Rouen, Rouen, must I die here, and must you be my tomb? Ah, Rouen,\nRouen, I have great fear that you will suffer for my death.\"\n\nA whiff of smoke swept upward past her face, and for one moment terror\nseized her and she cried out, \"Water! Give me holy water!\" but the next\nmoment her fears were gone, and they came no more to torture her.\n\nShe heard the flames crackling below her, and immediately distress for\na fellow-creature who was in danger took possession of her. It was the\nfriar Isambard. She had given him her cross and begged him to raise it\ntoward her face and let her eyes rest in hope and consolation upon it\ntill she was entered into the peace of God. She made him go out from the\ndanger of the fire. Then she was satisfied, and said:\n\n\"Now keep it always in my sight until the end.\"\n\nNot even yet could Cauchon, that man without shame, endure to let her\ndie in peace, but went toward her, all black with crimes and sins as he\nwas, and cried out:\n\n\"I am come, Joan, to exhort you for the last time to repent and seek the\npardon of God.\"\n\n\"I die through you,\" she said, and these were the last words she spoke\nto any upon earth.\n\nThen the pitchy smoke, shot through with red flashes of flame, rolled\nup in a thick volume and hid her from sight; and from the heart of\nthis darkness her voice rose strong and eloquent in prayer, and when by\nmoments the wind shredded somewhat of the smoke aside, there were veiled\nglimpses of an upturned face and moving lips. At last a mercifully swift\ntide of flame burst upward, and none saw that face any more nor that\nform, and the voice was still.\n\nYes, she was gone from us: JOAN OF ARC! What little words they are, to\ntell of a rich world made empty and poor!\n\n\n\n\n\nCONCLUSION\n\nJOAN'S BROTHER Jacques died in Domremy during the Great Trial at Rouen.\nThis was according to the prophecy which Joan made that day in the\npastures the time that she said the rest of us would go to the great\nwars.\n\nWhen her poor old father heard of the martyrdom it broke his heart, and\nhe died.\n\nThe mother was granted a pension by the city of Orleans, and upon this\nshe lived out her days, which were many. Twenty-four years after her\nillustrious child's death she traveled all the way to Paris in the\nwinter-time and was present at the opening of the discussion in the\nCathedral of Notre Dame which was the first step in the Rehabilitation.\nParis was crowded with people, from all about France, who came to get\nsight of the venerable dame, and it was a touching spectacle when she\nmoved through these reverent wet-eyed multitudes on her way to the grand\nhonors awaiting her at the cathedral. With her were Jean and Pierre, no\nlonger the light-hearted youths who marched with us from Vaucouleurs,\nbut war-torn veterans with hair beginning to show frost.\n\nAfter the martyrdom Noel and I went back to Domremy, but presently when\nthe Constable Richemont superseded La Tremouille as the King's chief\nadviser and began the completion of Joan's great work, we put on our\nharness and returned to the field and fought for the King all through\nthe wars and skirmishes until France was freed of the English. It was\nwhat Joan would have desired of us; and, dead or alive, her desire was\nlaw for us. All the survivors of the personal staff were faithful to\nher memory and fought for the King to the end. Mainly we were well\nscattered, but when Paris fell we happened to be together. It was a\ngreat day and a joyous; but it was a sad one at the same time, because\nJoan was not there to march into the captured capital with us.\n\nNoel and I remained always together, and I was by his side when death\nclaimed him. It was in the last great battle of the war. In that battle\nfell also Joan's sturdy old enemy Talbot. He was eighty-five years old,\nand had spent his whole life in battle. A fine old lion he was, with his\nflowing white mane and his tameless spirit; yes, and his indestructible\nenergy as well; for he fought as knightly and vigorous a fight that day\nas the best man there.\n\nLa Hire survived the martyrdom thirteen years; and always fighting, of\ncourse, for that was all he enjoyed in life. I did not see him in all\nthat time, for we were far apart, but one was always hearing of him.\n\nThe Bastard of Orleans and D'Alencon and D'Aulon lived to see France\nfree, and to testify with Jean and Pierre d'Arc and Pasquerel and me at\nthe Rehabilitation. But they are all at rest now, these many years.\nI alone am left of those who fought at the side of Joan of Arc in the\ngreat wars.\n\nShe said I would live until those wars were forgotten--a prophecy which\nfailed. If I should live a thousand years it would still fail. For\nwhatsoever had touch with Joan of Arc, that thing is immortal.\n\nMembers of Joan's family married, and they have left descendants. Their\ndescendants are of the nobility, but their family name and blood bring\nthem honors which no other nobles receive or may hope for. You have seen\nhow everybody along the way uncovered when those children came yesterday\nto pay their duty to me. It was not because they are noble, it is\nbecause they are grandchildren of the brothers of Joan of Arc.\n\nNow as to the Rehabilitation. Joan crowned the King at Rheims. For\nreward he allowed her to be hunted to her death without making one\neffort to save her. During the next twenty-three years he remained\nindifferent to her memory; indifferent to the fact that her good name\nwas under a damning blot put there by the priest because of the deeds\nwhich she had done in saving him and his scepter; indifferent to the\nfact that France was ashamed, and longed to have the Deliverer's fair\nfame restored. Indifferent all that time. Then he suddenly changed and\nwas anxious to have justice for poor Joan himself. Why? Had he become\ngrateful at last? Had remorse attacked his hard heart? No, he had a\nbetter reason--a better one for his sort of man. This better reason was\nthat, now that the English had been finally expelled from the country,\nthey were beginning to call attention to the fact that this King had\ngotten his crown by the hands of a person proven by the priests to\nhave been in league with Satan and burned for it by them as a\nsorceress--therefore, of what value or authority was such a Kingship as\nthat? Of no value at all; no nation could afford to allow such a king to\nremain on the throne.\n\nIt was high time to stir now, and the King did it. That is how Charles\nVII. came to be smitten with anxiety to have justice done the memory of\nhis benefactress.\n\nHe appealed to the Pope, and the Pope appointed a great commission of\nchurchmen to examine into the facts of Joan's life and award judgment.\nThe Commission sat at Paris, at Domremy, at Rouen, at Orleans, and at\nseveral other places, and continued its work during several months.\nIt examined the records of Joan's trials, it examined the Bastard\nof Orleans, and the Duke d'Alencon, and D'Aulon, and Pasquerel, and\nCourcelles, and Isambard de la Pierre, and Manchon, and me, and many\nothers whose names I have made familiar to you; also they examined\nmore than a hundred witnesses whose names are less familiar to you--the\nfriends of Joan in Domremy, Vaucouleurs, Orleans, and other places,\nand a number of judges and other people who had assisted at the Rouen\ntrials, the abjuration, and the martyrdom. And out of this exhaustive\nexamination Joan's character and history came spotless and perfect, and\nthis verdict was placed upon record, to remain forever.\n\nI was present upon most of these occasions, and saw again many faces\nwhich I have not seen for a quarter of a century; among them some\nwell-beloved faces--those of our generals and that of Catherine Boucher\n(married, alas!), and also among them certain other faces that filled me\nwith bitterness--those of Beaupere and Courcelles and a number of their\nfellow-fiends. I saw Haumette and Little Mengette--edging along toward\nfifty now, and mothers of many children. I saw Noel's father, and the\nparents of the Paladin and the Sunflower.\n\nIt was beautiful to hear the Duke d'Alencon praise Joan's splendid\ncapacities as a general, and to hear the Bastard indorse these praises\nwith his eloquent tongue and then go on and tell how sweet and good Joan\nwas, and how full of pluck and fire and impetuosity, and mischief, and\nmirthfulness, and tenderness, and compassion, and everything that was\npure and fine and noble and lovely. He made her live again before me,\nand wrung my heart.\n\nI have finished my story of Joan of Arc, that wonderful child, that\nsublime personality, that spirit which in one regard has had no peer\nand will have none--this: its purity from all alloy of self-seeking,\nself-interest, personal ambition. In it no trace of these motives can\nbe found, search as you may, and this cannot be said of any other person\nwhose name appears in profane history.\n\nWith Joan of Arc love of country was more than a sentiment--it was a\npassion. She was the Genius of Patriotism--she was Patriotism embodied,\nconcreted, made flesh, and palpable to the touch and visible to the eye.\n\nLove, Mercy, Charity, Fortitude, War, Peace, Poetry, Music--these may be\nsymbolized as any shall prefer: by figures of either sex and of any age;\nbut a slender girl in her first young bloom, with the martyr's crown\nupon her head, and in her hand the sword that severed her country's\nbonds--shall not this, and no other, stand for PATRIOTISM through all\nthe ages until time shall end?\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"100":"\n\n\n\n\n1609\n\nTHE SONNETS\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\n                     1\n  From fairest creatures we desire increase,\n  That thereby beauty's rose might never die,\n  But as the riper should by time decease,\n  His tender heir might bear his memory:\n  But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,\n  Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,\n  Making a famine where abundance lies,\n  Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:\n  Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,\n  And only herald to the gaudy spring,\n  Within thine own bud buriest thy content,\n  And tender churl mak'st waste in niggarding:\n    Pity the world, or else this glutton be,\n    To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.\n\n\n                     2\n  When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,\n  And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,\n  Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now,\n  Will be a tattered weed of small worth held:\n  Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,\n  Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;\n  To say within thine own deep sunken eyes,\n  Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.\n  How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use,\n  If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine\n  Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse'\n  Proving his beauty by succession thine.\n    This were to be new made when thou art old,\n    And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.\n\n\n                     3\n  Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest,\n  Now is the time that face should form another,\n  Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,\n  Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.\n  For where is she so fair whose uneared womb\n  Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?\n  Or who is he so fond will be the tomb,\n  Of his self-love to stop posterity?\n  Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee\n  Calls back the lovely April of her prime,\n  So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,\n  Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.\n    But if thou live remembered not to be,\n    Die single and thine image dies with thee.\n\n\n                     4\n  Unthrifty loveliness why dost thou spend,\n  Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy?\n  Nature's bequest gives nothing but doth lend,\n  And being frank she lends to those are free:\n  Then beauteous niggard why dost thou abuse,\n  The bounteous largess given thee to give?\n  Profitless usurer why dost thou use\n  So great a sum of sums yet canst not live?\n  For having traffic with thy self alone,\n  Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive,\n  Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,\n  What acceptable audit canst thou leave?\n    Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,\n    Which used lives th' executor to be.\n\n\n                     5\n  Those hours that with gentle work did frame\n  The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell\n  Will play the tyrants to the very same,\n  And that unfair which fairly doth excel:\n  For never-resting time leads summer on\n  To hideous winter and confounds him there,\n  Sap checked with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,\n  Beauty o'er-snowed and bareness every where:\n  Then were not summer's distillation left\n  A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,\n  Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,\n  Nor it nor no remembrance what it was.\n    But flowers distilled though they with winter meet,\n    Leese but their show, their substance still lives sweet.\n\n\n                     6\n  Then let not winter's ragged hand deface,\n  In thee thy summer ere thou be distilled:\n  Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place,\n  With beauty's treasure ere it be self-killed:\n  That use is not forbidden usury,\n  Which happies those that pay the willing loan;\n  That's for thy self to breed another thee,\n  Or ten times happier be it ten for one,\n  Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,\n  If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:\n  Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,\n  Leaving thee living in posterity?\n    Be not self-willed for thou art much too fair,\n    To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.\n\n\n                     7\n  Lo in the orient when the gracious light\n  Lifts up his burning head, each under eye\n  Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,\n  Serving with looks his sacred majesty,\n  And having climbed the steep-up heavenly hill,\n  Resembling strong youth in his middle age,\n  Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,\n  Attending on his golden pilgrimage:\n  But when from highmost pitch with weary car,\n  Like feeble age he reeleth from the day,\n  The eyes (fore duteous) now converted are\n  From his low tract and look another way:\n    So thou, thy self out-going in thy noon:\n    Unlooked on diest unless thou get a son.\n\n\n                     8\n  Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?\n  Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:\n  Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,\n  Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?\n  If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,\n  By unions married do offend thine ear,\n  They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds\n  In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear:\n  Mark how one string sweet husband to another,\n  Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;\n  Resembling sire, and child, and happy mother,\n  Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing:\n    Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,\n    Sings this to thee, 'Thou single wilt prove none'.\n\n\n                     9\n  Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye,\n  That thou consum'st thy self in single life?\n  Ah, if thou issueless shalt hap to die,\n  The world will wail thee like a makeless wife,\n  The world will be thy widow and still weep,\n  That thou no form of thee hast left behind,\n  When every private widow well may keep,\n  By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind:\n  Look what an unthrift in the world doth spend\n  Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;\n  But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,\n  And kept unused the user so destroys it:\n    No love toward others in that bosom sits\n    That on himself such murd'rous shame commits.\n\n\n                     10\n  For shame deny that thou bear'st love to any\n  Who for thy self art so unprovident.\n  Grant if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,\n  But that thou none lov'st is most evident:\n  For thou art so possessed with murd'rous hate,\n  That 'gainst thy self thou stick'st not to conspire,\n  Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate\n  Which to repair should be thy chief desire:\n  O change thy thought, that I may change my mind,\n  Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?\n  Be as thy presence is gracious and kind,\n  Or to thy self at least kind-hearted prove,\n    Make thee another self for love of me,\n    That beauty still may live in thine or thee.\n\n\n                     11\n  As fast as thou shalt wane so fast thou grow'st,\n  In one of thine, from that which thou departest,\n  And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow'st,\n  Thou mayst call thine, when thou from youth convertest,\n  Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase,\n  Without this folly, age, and cold decay,\n  If all were minded so, the times should cease,\n  And threescore year would make the world away:\n  Let those whom nature hath not made for store,\n  Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish:\n  Look whom she best endowed, she gave thee more;\n  Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish:\n    She carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby,\n    Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.\n\n\n                     12\n  When I do count the clock that tells the time,\n  And see the brave day sunk in hideous night,\n  When I behold the violet past prime,\n  And sable curls all silvered o'er with white:\n  When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,\n  Which erst from heat did canopy the herd\n  And summer's green all girded up in sheaves\n  Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard:\n  Then of thy beauty do I question make\n  That thou among the wastes of time must go,\n  Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake,\n  And die as fast as they see others grow,\n    And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence\n    Save breed to brave him, when he takes thee hence.\n\n\n                     13\n  O that you were your self, but love you are\n  No longer yours, than you your self here live,\n  Against this coming end you should prepare,\n  And your sweet semblance to some other give.\n  So should that beauty which you hold in lease\n  Find no determination, then you were\n  Your self again after your self's decease,\n  When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.\n  Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,\n  Which husbandry in honour might uphold,\n  Against the stormy gusts of winter's day\n  And barren rage of death's eternal cold?\n    O none but unthrifts, dear my love you know,\n    You had a father, let your son say so.\n\n\n                     14\n  Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck,\n  And yet methinks I have astronomy,\n  But not to tell of good, or evil luck,\n  Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality,\n  Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell;\n  Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,\n  Or say with princes if it shall go well\n  By oft predict that I in heaven find.\n  But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,\n  And constant stars in them I read such art\n  As truth and beauty shall together thrive\n  If from thy self, to store thou wouldst convert:\n    Or else of thee this I prognosticate,\n    Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.\n\n\n                     15\n  When I consider every thing that grows\n  Holds in perfection but a little moment.\n  That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows\n  Whereon the stars in secret influence comment.\n  When I perceive that men as plants increase,\n  Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky:\n  Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,\n  And wear their brave state out of memory.\n  Then the conceit of this inconstant stay,\n  Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,\n  Where wasteful time debateth with decay\n  To change your day of youth to sullied night,\n    And all in war with Time for love of you,\n    As he takes from you, I engraft you new.\n\n\n                     16\n  But wherefore do not you a mightier way\n  Make war upon this bloody tyrant Time?\n  And fortify your self in your decay\n  With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?\n  Now stand you on the top of happy hours,\n  And many maiden gardens yet unset,\n  With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers,\n  Much liker than your painted counterfeit:\n  So should the lines of life that life repair\n  Which this (Time's pencil) or my pupil pen\n  Neither in inward worth nor outward fair\n  Can make you live your self in eyes of men.\n    To give away your self, keeps your self still,\n    And you must live drawn by your own sweet skill.\n\n\n                     17\n  Who will believe my verse in time to come\n  If it were filled with your most high deserts?\n  Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb\n  Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts:\n  If I could write the beauty of your eyes,\n  And in fresh numbers number all your graces,\n  The age to come would say this poet lies,\n  Such heavenly touches ne'er touched earthly faces.\n  So should my papers (yellowed with their age)\n  Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue,\n  And your true rights be termed a poet's rage,\n  And stretched metre of an antique song.\n    But were some child of yours alive that time,\n    You should live twice in it, and in my rhyme.\n\n\n                     18\n  Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?\n  Thou art more lovely and more temperate:\n  Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,\n  And summer's lease hath all too short a date:\n  Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,\n  And often is his gold complexion dimmed,\n  And every fair from fair sometime declines,\n  By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:\n  But thy eternal summer shall not fade,\n  Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,\n  Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,\n  When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,\n    So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,\n    So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.\n\n\n                     19\n  Devouring Time blunt thou the lion's paws,\n  And make the earth devour her own sweet brood,\n  Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,\n  And burn the long-lived phoenix, in her blood,\n  Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet'st,\n  And do whate'er thou wilt swift-footed Time\n  To the wide world and all her fading sweets:\n  But I forbid thee one most heinous crime,\n  O carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,\n  Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen,\n  Him in thy course untainted do allow,\n  For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.\n    Yet do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong,\n    My love shall in my verse ever live young.\n\n\n                     20\n  A woman's face with nature's own hand painted,\n  Hast thou the master mistress of my passion,\n  A woman's gentle heart but not acquainted\n  With shifting change as is false women's fashion,\n  An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling:\n  Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth,\n  A man in hue all hues in his controlling,\n  Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.\n  And for a woman wert thou first created,\n  Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,\n  And by addition me of thee defeated,\n  By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.\n    But since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure,\n    Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.\n\n\n                     21\n  So is it not with me as with that muse,\n  Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse,\n  Who heaven it self for ornament doth use,\n  And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,\n  Making a couplement of proud compare\n  With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems:\n  With April's first-born flowers and all things rare,\n  That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.\n  O let me true in love but truly write,\n  And then believe me, my love is as fair,\n  As any mother's child, though not so bright\n  As those gold candles fixed in heaven's air:\n    Let them say more that like of hearsay well,\n    I will not praise that purpose not to sell.\n\n\n                     22\n  My glass shall not persuade me I am old,\n  So long as youth and thou are of one date,\n  But when in thee time's furrows I behold,\n  Then look I death my days should expiate.\n  For all that beauty that doth cover thee,\n  Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,\n  Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me,\n  How can I then be elder than thou art?\n  O therefore love be of thyself so wary,\n  As I not for my self, but for thee will,\n  Bearing thy heart which I will keep so chary\n  As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.\n    Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain,\n    Thou gav'st me thine not to give back again.\n\n\n                     23\n  As an unperfect actor on the stage,\n  Who with his fear is put beside his part,\n  Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,\n  Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart;\n  So I for fear of trust, forget to say,\n  The perfect ceremony of love's rite,\n  And in mine own love's strength seem to decay,\n  O'ercharged with burthen of mine own love's might:\n  O let my looks be then the eloquence,\n  And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,\n  Who plead for love, and look for recompense,\n  More than that tongue that more hath more expressed.\n    O learn to read what silent love hath writ,\n    To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.\n\n\n                     24\n  Mine eye hath played the painter and hath stelled,\n  Thy beauty's form in table of my heart,\n  My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,\n  And perspective it is best painter's art.\n  For through the painter must you see his skill,\n  To find where your true image pictured lies,\n  Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,\n  That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes:\n  Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done,\n  Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me\n  Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun\n  Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;\n    Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art,\n    They draw but what they see, know not the heart.\n\n\n                     25\n  Let those who are in favour with their stars,\n  Of public honour and proud titles boast,\n  Whilst I whom fortune of such triumph bars\n  Unlooked for joy in that I honour most;\n  Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread,\n  But as the marigold at the sun's eye,\n  And in themselves their pride lies buried,\n  For at a frown they in their glory die.\n  The painful warrior famoused for fight,\n  After a thousand victories once foiled,\n  Is from the book of honour razed quite,\n  And all the rest forgot for which he toiled:\n    Then happy I that love and am beloved\n    Where I may not remove nor be removed.\n\n\n                     26\n  Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage\n  Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit;\n  To thee I send this written embassage\n  To witness duty, not to show my wit.\n  Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine\n  May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it;\n  But that I hope some good conceit of thine\n  In thy soul's thought (all naked) will bestow it:\n  Till whatsoever star that guides my moving,\n  Points on me graciously with fair aspect,\n  And puts apparel on my tattered loving,\n  To show me worthy of thy sweet respect,\n    Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee,\n    Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me.\n\n\n                     27\n  Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,\n  The dear respose for limbs with travel tired,\n  But then begins a journey in my head\n  To work my mind, when body's work's expired.\n  For then my thoughts (from far where I abide)\n  Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,\n  And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,\n  Looking on darkness which the blind do see.\n  Save that my soul's imaginary sight\n  Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,\n  Which like a jewel (hung in ghastly night)\n  Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.\n    Lo thus by day my limbs, by night my mind,\n    For thee, and for my self, no quiet find.\n\n\n                     28\n  How can I then return in happy plight\n  That am debarred the benefit of rest?\n  When day's oppression is not eased by night,\n  But day by night and night by day oppressed.\n  And each (though enemies to either's reign)\n  Do in consent shake hands to torture me,\n  The one by toil, the other to complain\n  How far I toil, still farther off from thee.\n  I tell the day to please him thou art bright,\n  And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:\n  So flatter I the swart-complexioned night,\n  When sparkling stars twire not thou gild'st the even.\n    But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,\n    And night doth nightly make grief's length seem stronger\n\n\n                     29\n  When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,\n  I all alone beweep my outcast state,\n  And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,\n  And look upon my self and curse my fate,\n  Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,\n  Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,\n  Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,\n  With what I most enjoy contented least,\n  Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,\n  Haply I think on thee, and then my state,\n  (Like to the lark at break of day arising\n  From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate,\n    For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,\n    That then I scorn to change my state with kings.\n\n\n                     30\n  When to the sessions of sweet silent thought,\n  I summon up remembrance of things past,\n  I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,\n  And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:\n  Then can I drown an eye (unused to flow)\n  For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,\n  And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,\n  And moan th' expense of many a vanished sight.\n  Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,\n  And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er\n  The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,\n  Which I new pay as if not paid before.\n    But if the while I think on thee (dear friend)\n    All losses are restored, and sorrows end.\n\n\n                     31\n  Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,\n  Which I by lacking have supposed dead,\n  And there reigns love and all love's loving parts,\n  And all those friends which I thought buried.\n  How many a holy and obsequious tear\n  Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye,\n  As interest of the dead, which now appear,\n  But things removed that hidden in thee lie.\n  Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,\n  Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,\n  Who all their parts of me to thee did give,\n  That due of many, now is thine alone.\n    Their images I loved, I view in thee,\n    And thou (all they) hast all the all of me.\n\n\n                     32\n  If thou survive my well-contented day,\n  When that churl death my bones with dust shall cover\n  And shalt by fortune once more re-survey\n  These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover:\n  Compare them with the bett'ring of the time,\n  And though they be outstripped by every pen,\n  Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,\n  Exceeded by the height of happier men.\n  O then vouchsafe me but this loving thought,\n  'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age,\n  A dearer birth than this his love had brought\n  To march in ranks of better equipage:\n    But since he died and poets better prove,\n    Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love'.\n\n\n                     33\n  Full many a glorious morning have I seen,\n  Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,\n  Kissing with golden face the meadows green;\n  Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy:\n  Anon permit the basest clouds to ride,\n  With ugly rack on his celestial face,\n  And from the forlorn world his visage hide\n  Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:\n  Even so my sun one early morn did shine,\n  With all triumphant splendour on my brow,\n  But out alack, he was but one hour mine,\n  The region cloud hath masked him from me now.\n    Yet him for this, my love no whit disdaineth,\n    Suns of the world may stain, when heaven's sun staineth.\n\n\n                     34\n  Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,\n  And make me travel forth without my cloak,\n  To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,\n  Hiding thy brav'ry in their rotten smoke?\n  'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,\n  To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,\n  For no man well of such a salve can speak,\n  That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:\n  Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief,\n  Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss,\n  Th' offender's sorrow lends but weak relief\n  To him that bears the strong offence's cross.\n    Ah but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,\n    And they are rich, and ransom all ill deeds.\n\n\n                     35\n  No more be grieved at that which thou hast done,\n  Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud,\n  Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,\n  And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.\n  All men make faults, and even I in this,\n  Authorizing thy trespass with compare,\n  My self corrupting salving thy amiss,\n  Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are:\n  For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,\n  Thy adverse party is thy advocate,\n  And 'gainst my self a lawful plea commence:\n  Such civil war is in my love and hate,\n    That I an accessary needs must be,\n    To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.\n\n\n                     36\n  Let me confess that we two must be twain,\n  Although our undivided loves are one:\n  So shall those blots that do with me remain,\n  Without thy help, by me be borne alone.\n  In our two loves there is but one respect,\n  Though in our lives a separable spite,\n  Which though it alter not love's sole effect,\n  Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.\n  I may not evermore acknowledge thee,\n  Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,\n  Nor thou with public kindness honour me,\n  Unless thou take that honour from thy name:\n    But do not so, I love thee in such sort,\n    As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.\n\n\n                     37\n  As a decrepit father takes delight,\n  To see his active child do deeds of youth,\n  So I, made lame by Fortune's dearest spite\n  Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth.\n  For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,\n  Or any of these all, or all, or more\n  Entitled in thy parts, do crowned sit,\n  I make my love engrafted to this store:\n  So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised,\n  Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give,\n  That I in thy abundance am sufficed,\n  And by a part of all thy glory live:\n    Look what is best, that best I wish in thee,\n    This wish I have, then ten times happy me.\n\n\n                     38\n  How can my muse want subject to invent\n  While thou dost breathe that pour'st into my verse,\n  Thine own sweet argument, too excellent,\n  For every vulgar paper to rehearse?\n  O give thy self the thanks if aught in me,\n  Worthy perusal stand against thy sight,\n  For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,\n  When thou thy self dost give invention light?\n  Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth\n  Than those old nine which rhymers invocate,\n  And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth\n  Eternal numbers to outlive long date.\n    If my slight muse do please these curious days,\n    The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.\n\n\n                     39\n  O how thy worth with manners may I sing,\n  When thou art all the better part of me?\n  What can mine own praise to mine own self bring:\n  And what is't but mine own when I praise thee?\n  Even for this, let us divided live,\n  And our dear love lose name of single one,\n  That by this separation I may give:\n  That due to thee which thou deserv'st alone:\n  O absence what a torment wouldst thou prove,\n  Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave,\n  To entertain the time with thoughts of love,\n  Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive.\n    And that thou teachest how to make one twain,\n    By praising him here who doth hence remain.\n\n\n                     40\n  Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all,\n  What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?\n  No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call,\n  All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more:\n  Then if for my love, thou my love receivest,\n  I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest,\n  But yet be blamed, if thou thy self deceivest\n  By wilful taste of what thy self refusest.\n  I do forgive thy robbery gentle thief\n  Although thou steal thee all my poverty:\n  And yet love knows it is a greater grief\n  To bear greater wrong, than hate's known injury.\n    Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,\n    Kill me with spites yet we must not be foes.\n\n\n                     41\n  Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits,\n  When I am sometime absent from thy heart,\n  Thy beauty, and thy years full well befits,\n  For still temptation follows where thou art.\n  Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,\n  Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed.\n  And when a woman woos, what woman's son,\n  Will sourly leave her till he have prevailed?\n  Ay me, but yet thou mightst my seat forbear,\n  And chide thy beauty, and thy straying youth,\n  Who lead thee in their riot even there\n  Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth:\n    Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,\n    Thine by thy beauty being false to me.\n\n\n                     42\n  That thou hast her it is not all my grief,\n  And yet it may be said I loved her dearly,\n  That she hath thee is of my wailing chief,\n  A loss in love that touches me more nearly.\n  Loving offenders thus I will excuse ye,\n  Thou dost love her, because thou know'st I love her,\n  And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,\n  Suff'ring my friend for my sake to approve her.\n  If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain,\n  And losing her, my friend hath found that loss,\n  Both find each other, and I lose both twain,\n  And both for my sake lay on me this cross,\n    But here's the joy, my friend and I are one,\n    Sweet flattery, then she loves but me alone.\n\n\n                     43\n  When most I wink then do mine eyes best see,\n  For all the day they view things unrespected,\n  But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,\n  And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.\n  Then thou whose shadow shadows doth make bright\n  How would thy shadow's form, form happy show,\n  To the clear day with thy much clearer light,\n  When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!\n  How would (I say) mine eyes be blessed made,\n  By looking on thee in the living day,\n  When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade,\n  Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!\n    All days are nights to see till I see thee,\n    And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.\n\n\n                     44\n  If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,\n  Injurious distance should not stop my way,\n  For then despite of space I would be brought,\n  From limits far remote, where thou dost stay,\n  No matter then although my foot did stand\n  Upon the farthest earth removed from thee,\n  For nimble thought can jump both sea and land,\n  As soon as think the place where he would be.\n  But ah, thought kills me that I am not thought\n  To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,\n  But that so much of earth and water wrought,\n  I must attend, time's leisure with my moan.\n    Receiving nought by elements so slow,\n    But heavy tears, badges of either's woe.\n\n\n                     45\n  The other two, slight air, and purging fire,\n  Are both with thee, wherever I abide,\n  The first my thought, the other my desire,\n  These present-absent with swift motion slide.\n  For when these quicker elements are gone\n  In tender embassy of love to thee,\n  My life being made of four, with two alone,\n  Sinks down to death, oppressed with melancholy.\n  Until life's composition be recured,\n  By those swift messengers returned from thee,\n  Who even but now come back again assured,\n  Of thy fair health, recounting it to me.\n    This told, I joy, but then no longer glad,\n    I send them back again and straight grow sad.\n\n\n                     46\n  Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,\n  How to divide the conquest of thy sight,\n  Mine eye, my heart thy picture's sight would bar,\n  My heart, mine eye the freedom of that right,\n  My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,\n  (A closet never pierced with crystal eyes)\n  But the defendant doth that plea deny,\n  And says in him thy fair appearance lies.\n  To side this title is impanelled\n  A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart,\n  And by their verdict is determined\n  The clear eye's moiety, and the dear heart's part.\n    As thus, mine eye's due is thy outward part,\n    And my heart's right, thy inward love of heart.\n\n\n                     47\n  Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,\n  And each doth good turns now unto the other,\n  When that mine eye is famished for a look,\n  Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother;\n  With my love's picture then my eye doth feast,\n  And to the painted banquet bids my heart:\n  Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,\n  And in his thoughts of love doth share a part.\n  So either by thy picture or my love,\n  Thy self away, art present still with me,\n  For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,\n  And I am still with them, and they with thee.\n    Or if they sleep, thy picture in my sight\n    Awakes my heart, to heart's and eye's delight.\n\n\n                     48\n  How careful was I when I took my way,\n  Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,\n  That to my use it might unused stay\n  From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!\n  But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are,\n  Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief,\n  Thou best of dearest, and mine only care,\n  Art left the prey of every vulgar thief.\n  Thee have I not locked up in any chest,\n  Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art,\n  Within the gentle closure of my breast,\n  From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part,\n    And even thence thou wilt be stol'n I fear,\n    For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.\n\n\n                     49\n  Against that time (if ever that time come)\n  When I shall see thee frown on my defects,\n  When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,\n  Called to that audit by advised respects,\n  Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass,\n  And scarcely greet me with that sun thine eye,\n  When love converted from the thing it was\n  Shall reasons find of settled gravity;\n  Against that time do I ensconce me here\n  Within the knowledge of mine own desert,\n  And this my hand, against my self uprear,\n  To guard the lawful reasons on thy part,\n    To leave poor me, thou hast the strength of laws,\n    Since why to love, I can allege no cause.\n\n\n                     50\n  How heavy do I journey on the way,\n  When what I seek (my weary travel's end)\n  Doth teach that case and that repose to say\n  'Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend.'\n  The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,\n  Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,\n  As if by some instinct the wretch did know\n  His rider loved not speed being made from thee:\n  The bloody spur cannot provoke him on,\n  That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,\n  Which heavily he answers with a groan,\n  More sharp to me than spurring to his side,\n    For that same groan doth put this in my mind,\n    My grief lies onward and my joy behind.\n\n\n                     51\n  Thus can my love excuse the slow offence,\n  Of my dull bearer, when from thee I speed,\n  From where thou art, why should I haste me thence?\n  Till I return of posting is no need.\n  O what excuse will my poor beast then find,\n  When swift extremity can seem but slow?\n  Then should I spur though mounted on the wind,\n  In winged speed no motion shall I know,\n  Then can no horse with my desire keep pace,\n  Therefore desire (of perfect'st love being made)\n  Shall neigh (no dull flesh) in his fiery race,\n  But love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade,\n    Since from thee going, he went wilful-slow,\n    Towards thee I'll run, and give him leave to go.\n\n\n                     52\n  So am I as the rich whose blessed key,\n  Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,\n  The which he will not every hour survey,\n  For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.\n  Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,\n  Since seldom coming in that long year set,\n  Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,\n  Or captain jewels in the carcanet.\n  So is the time that keeps you as my chest\n  Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,\n  To make some special instant special-blest,\n  By new unfolding his imprisoned pride.\n    Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,\n    Being had to triumph, being lacked to hope.\n\n\n                     53\n  What is your substance, whereof are you made,\n  That millions of strange shadows on you tend?\n  Since every one, hath every one, one shade,\n  And you but one, can every shadow lend:\n  Describe Adonis and the counterfeit,\n  Is poorly imitated after you,\n  On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set,\n  And you in Grecian tires are painted new:\n  Speak of the spring, and foison of the year,\n  The one doth shadow of your beauty show,\n  The other as your bounty doth appear,\n  And you in every blessed shape we know.\n    In all external grace you have some part,\n    But you like none, none you for constant heart.\n\n\n                     54\n  O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem,\n  By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!\n  The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem\n  For that sweet odour, which doth in it live:\n  The canker blooms have full as deep a dye,\n  As the perfumed tincture of the roses,\n  Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly,\n  When summer's breath their masked buds discloses:\n  But for their virtue only is their show,\n  They live unwooed, and unrespected fade,\n  Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so,\n  Of their sweet deaths, are sweetest odours made:\n    And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,\n    When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth.\n\n\n                     55\n  Not marble, nor the gilded monuments\n  Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,\n  But you shall shine more bright in these contents\n  Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.\n  When wasteful war shall statues overturn,\n  And broils root out the work of masonry,\n  Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn:\n  The living record of your memory.\n  'Gainst death, and all-oblivious enmity\n  Shall you pace forth, your praise shall still find room,\n  Even in the eyes of all posterity\n  That wear this world out to the ending doom.\n    So till the judgment that your self arise,\n    You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.\n\n\n                     56\n  Sweet love renew thy force, be it not said\n  Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,\n  Which but to-day by feeding is allayed,\n  To-morrow sharpened in his former might.\n  So love be thou, although to-day thou fill\n  Thy hungry eyes, even till they wink with fulness,\n  To-morrow see again, and do not kill\n  The spirit of love, with a perpetual dulness:\n  Let this sad interim like the ocean be\n  Which parts the shore, where two contracted new,\n  Come daily to the banks, that when they see:\n  Return of love, more blest may be the view.\n    Or call it winter, which being full of care,\n    Makes summer's welcome, thrice more wished, more rare.\n\n\n                     57\n  Being your slave what should I do but tend,\n  Upon the hours, and times of your desire?\n  I have no precious time at all to spend;\n  Nor services to do till you require.\n  Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour,\n  Whilst I (my sovereign) watch the clock for you,\n  Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,\n  When you have bid your servant once adieu.\n  Nor dare I question with my jealous thought,\n  Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,\n  But like a sad slave stay and think of nought\n  Save where you are, how happy you make those.\n    So true a fool is love, that in your will,\n    (Though you do any thing) he thinks no ill.\n\n\n                     58\n  That god forbid, that made me first your slave,\n  I should in thought control your times of pleasure,\n  Or at your hand th' account of hours to crave,\n  Being your vassal bound to stay your leisure.\n  O let me suffer (being at your beck)\n  Th' imprisoned absence of your liberty,\n  And patience tame to sufferance bide each check,\n  Without accusing you of injury.\n  Be where you list, your charter is so strong,\n  That you your self may privilage your time\n  To what you will, to you it doth belong,\n  Your self to pardon of self-doing crime.\n    I am to wait, though waiting so be hell,\n    Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well.\n\n\n                     59\n  If there be nothing new, but that which is,\n  Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,\n  Which labouring for invention bear amis\n  The second burthen of a former child!\n  O that record could with a backward look,\n  Even of five hundred courses of the sun,\n  Show me your image in some antique book,\n  Since mind at first in character was done.\n  That I might see what the old world could say,\n  To this composed wonder of your frame,\n  Whether we are mended, or whether better they,\n  Or whether revolution be the same.\n    O sure I am the wits of former days,\n    To subjects worse have given admiring praise.\n\n\n                     60\n  Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,\n  So do our minutes hasten to their end,\n  Each changing place with that which goes before,\n  In sequent toil all forwards do contend.\n  Nativity once in the main of light,\n  Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned,\n  Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,\n  And Time that gave, doth now his gift confound.\n  Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,\n  And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,\n  Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,\n  And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.\n    And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand\n    Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.\n\n\n                     61\n  Is it thy will, thy image should keep open\n  My heavy eyelids to the weary night?\n  Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,\n  While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?\n  Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee\n  So far from home into my deeds to pry,\n  To find out shames and idle hours in me,\n  The scope and tenure of thy jealousy?\n  O no, thy love though much, is not so great,\n  It is my love that keeps mine eye awake,\n  Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,\n  To play the watchman ever for thy sake.\n    For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,\n    From me far off, with others all too near.\n\n\n                     62\n  Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye,\n  And all my soul, and all my every part;\n  And for this sin there is no remedy,\n  It is so grounded inward in my heart.\n  Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,\n  No shape so true, no truth of such account,\n  And for my self mine own worth do define,\n  As I all other in all worths surmount.\n  But when my glass shows me my self indeed\n  beated and chopt with tanned antiquity,\n  Mine own self-love quite contrary I read:\n  Self, so self-loving were iniquity.\n    'Tis thee (my self) that for my self I praise,\n    Painting my age with beauty of thy days.\n\n\n                     63\n  Against my love shall be as I am now\n  With Time's injurious hand crushed and o'erworn,\n  When hours have drained his blood and filled his brow\n  With lines and wrinkles, when his youthful morn\n  Hath travelled on to age's steepy night,\n  And all those beauties whereof now he's king\n  Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,\n  Stealing away the treasure of his spring:\n  For such a time do I now fortify\n  Against confounding age's cruel knife,\n  That he shall never cut from memory\n  My sweet love's beauty, though my lover's life.\n    His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,\n    And they shall live, and he in them still green.\n\n\n                     64\n  When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced\n  The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age,\n  When sometime lofty towers I see down-rased,\n  And brass eternal slave to mortal rage.\n  When I have seen the hungry ocean gain\n  Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,\n  And the firm soil win of the watery main,\n  Increasing store with loss, and loss with store.\n  When I have seen such interchange of State,\n  Or state it self confounded, to decay,\n  Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate\n  That Time will come and take my love away.\n    This thought is as a death which cannot choose\n    But weep to have, that which it fears to lose.\n\n\n                     65\n  Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,\n  But sad mortality o'ersways their power,\n  How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,\n  Whose action is no stronger than a flower?\n  O how shall summer's honey breath hold out,\n  Against the wrackful siege of batt'ring days,\n  When rocks impregnable are not so stout,\n  Nor gates of steel so strong but time decays?\n  O fearful meditation, where alack,\n  Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?\n  Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back,\n  Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?\n    O none, unless this miracle have might,\n    That in black ink my love may still shine bright.\n\n\n                     66\n  Tired with all these for restful death I cry,\n  As to behold desert a beggar born,\n  And needy nothing trimmed in jollity,\n  And purest faith unhappily forsworn,\n  And gilded honour shamefully misplaced,\n  And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,\n  And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,\n  And strength by limping sway disabled\n  And art made tongue-tied by authority,\n  And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill,\n  And simple truth miscalled simplicity,\n  And captive good attending captain ill.\n    Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,\n    Save that to die, I leave my love alone.\n\n\n                     67\n  Ah wherefore with infection should he live,\n  And with his presence grace impiety,\n  That sin by him advantage should achieve,\n  And lace it self with his society?\n  Why should false painting imitate his cheek,\n  And steal dead seeming of his living hue?\n  Why should poor beauty indirectly seek,\n  Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?\n  Why should he live, now nature bankrupt is,\n  Beggared of blood to blush through lively veins,\n  For she hath no exchequer now but his,\n  And proud of many, lives upon his gains?\n    O him she stores, to show what wealth she had,\n    In days long since, before these last so bad.\n\n\n                     68\n  Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,\n  When beauty lived and died as flowers do now,\n  Before these bastard signs of fair were born,\n  Or durst inhabit on a living brow:\n  Before the golden tresses of the dead,\n  The right of sepulchres, were shorn away,\n  To live a second life on second head,\n  Ere beauty's dead fleece made another gay:\n  In him those holy antique hours are seen,\n  Without all ornament, it self and true,\n  Making no summer of another's green,\n  Robbing no old to dress his beauty new,\n    And him as for a map doth Nature store,\n    To show false Art what beauty was of yore.\n\n\n                     69\n  Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view,\n  Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend:\n  All tongues (the voice of souls) give thee that due,\n  Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.\n  Thy outward thus with outward praise is crowned,\n  But those same tongues that give thee so thine own,\n  In other accents do this praise confound\n  By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.\n  They look into the beauty of thy mind,\n  And that in guess they measure by thy deeds,\n  Then churls their thoughts (although their eyes were kind)\n  To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds:\n    But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,\n    The soil is this, that thou dost common grow.\n\n\n                     70\n  That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,\n  For slander's mark was ever yet the fair,\n  The ornament of beauty is suspect,\n  A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.\n  So thou be good, slander doth but approve,\n  Thy worth the greater being wooed of time,\n  For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,\n  And thou present'st a pure unstained prime.\n  Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days,\n  Either not assailed, or victor being charged,\n  Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,\n  To tie up envy, evermore enlarged,\n    If some suspect of ill masked not thy show,\n    Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.\n\n\n                     71\n  No longer mourn for me when I am dead,\n  Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell\n  Give warning to the world that I am fled\n  From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell:\n  Nay if you read this line, remember not,\n  The hand that writ it, for I love you so,\n  That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,\n  If thinking on me then should make you woe.\n  O if (I say) you look upon this verse,\n  When I (perhaps) compounded am with clay,\n  Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;\n  But let your love even with my life decay.\n    Lest the wise world should look into your moan,\n    And mock you with me after I am gone.\n\n\n                     72\n  O lest the world should task you to recite,\n  What merit lived in me that you should love\n  After my death (dear love) forget me quite,\n  For you in me can nothing worthy prove.\n  Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,\n  To do more for me than mine own desert,\n  And hang more praise upon deceased I,\n  Than niggard truth would willingly impart:\n  O lest your true love may seem false in this,\n  That you for love speak well of me untrue,\n  My name be buried where my body is,\n  And live no more to shame nor me, nor you.\n    For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,\n    And so should you, to love things nothing worth.\n\n\n                     73\n  That time of year thou mayst in me behold,\n  When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang\n  Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,\n  Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.\n  In me thou seest the twilight of such day,\n  As after sunset fadeth in the west,\n  Which by and by black night doth take away,\n  Death's second self that seals up all in rest.\n  In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,\n  That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,\n  As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,\n  Consumed with that which it was nourished by.\n    This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,\n    To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.\n\n\n                     74\n  But be contented when that fell arrest,\n  Without all bail shall carry me away,\n  My life hath in this line some interest,\n  Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.\n  When thou reviewest this, thou dost review,\n  The very part was consecrate to thee,\n  The earth can have but earth, which is his due,\n  My spirit is thine the better part of me,\n  So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,\n  The prey of worms, my body being dead,\n  The coward conquest of a wretch's knife,\n  Too base of thee to be remembered,\n    The worth of that, is that which it contains,\n    And that is this, and this with thee remains.\n\n\n                     75\n  So are you to my thoughts as food to life,\n  Or as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground;\n  And for the peace of you I hold such strife\n  As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found.\n  Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon\n  Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure,\n  Now counting best to be with you alone,\n  Then bettered that the world may see my pleasure,\n  Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,\n  And by and by clean starved for a look,\n  Possessing or pursuing no delight\n  Save what is had, or must from you be took.\n    Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,\n    Or gluttoning on all, or all away.\n\n\n                     76\n  Why is my verse so barren of new pride?\n  So far from variation or quick change?\n  Why with the time do I not glance aside\n  To new-found methods, and to compounds strange?\n  Why write I still all one, ever the same,\n  And keep invention in a noted weed,\n  That every word doth almost tell my name,\n  Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?\n  O know sweet love I always write of you,\n  And you and love are still my argument:\n  So all my best is dressing old words new,\n  Spending again what is already spent:\n    For as the sun is daily new and old,\n    So is my love still telling what is told.\n\n\n                     77\n  Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,\n  Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste,\n  These vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,\n  And of this book, this learning mayst thou taste.\n  The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show,\n  Of mouthed graves will give thee memory,\n  Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know,\n  Time's thievish progress to eternity.\n  Look what thy memory cannot contain,\n  Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find\n  Those children nursed, delivered from thy brain,\n  To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.\n    These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,\n    Shall profit thee, and much enrich thy book.\n\n\n                     78\n  So oft have I invoked thee for my muse,\n  And found such fair assistance in my verse,\n  As every alien pen hath got my use,\n  And under thee their poesy disperse.\n  Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing,\n  And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,\n  Have added feathers to the learned's wing,\n  And given grace a double majesty.\n  Yet be most proud of that which I compile,\n  Whose influence is thine, and born of thee,\n  In others' works thou dost but mend the style,\n  And arts with thy sweet graces graced be.\n    But thou art all my art, and dost advance\n    As high as learning, my rude ignorance.\n\n\n                     79\n  Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,\n  My verse alone had all thy gentle grace,\n  But now my gracious numbers are decayed,\n  And my sick muse doth give an other place.\n  I grant (sweet love) thy lovely argument\n  Deserves the travail of a worthier pen,\n  Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent,\n  He robs thee of, and pays it thee again,\n  He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word,\n  From thy behaviour, beauty doth he give\n  And found it in thy cheek: he can afford\n  No praise to thee, but what in thee doth live.\n    Then thank him not for that which he doth say,\n    Since what he owes thee, thou thy self dost pay.\n\n\n                     80\n  O how I faint when I of you do write,\n  Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,\n  And in the praise thereof spends all his might,\n  To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame.\n  But since your worth (wide as the ocean is)\n  The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,\n  My saucy bark (inferior far to his)\n  On your broad main doth wilfully appear.\n  Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,\n  Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride,\n  Or (being wrecked) I am a worthless boat,\n  He of tall building, and of goodly pride.\n    Then if he thrive and I be cast away,\n    The worst was this, my love was my decay.\n\n\n                     81\n  Or I shall live your epitaph to make,\n  Or you survive when I in earth am rotten,\n  From hence your memory death cannot take,\n  Although in me each part will be forgotten.\n  Your name from hence immortal life shall have,\n  Though I (once gone) to all the world must die,\n  The earth can yield me but a common grave,\n  When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie,\n  Your monument shall be my gentle verse,\n  Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read,\n  And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse,\n  When all the breathers of this world are dead,\n    You still shall live (such virtue hath my pen)\n    Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.\n\n\n                     82\n  I grant thou wert not married to my muse,\n  And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook\n  The dedicated words which writers use\n  Of their fair subject, blessing every book.\n  Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,\n  Finding thy worth a limit past my praise,\n  And therefore art enforced to seek anew,\n  Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days.\n  And do so love, yet when they have devised,\n  What strained touches rhetoric can lend,\n  Thou truly fair, wert truly sympathized,\n  In true plain words, by thy true-telling friend.\n    And their gross painting might be better used,\n    Where cheeks need blood, in thee it is abused.\n\n\n                     83\n  I never saw that you did painting need,\n  And therefore to your fair no painting set,\n  I found (or thought I found) you did exceed,\n  That barren tender of a poet's debt:\n  And therefore have I slept in your report,\n  That you your self being extant well might show,\n  How far a modern quill doth come too short,\n  Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow.\n  This silence for my sin you did impute,\n  Which shall be most my glory being dumb,\n  For I impair not beauty being mute,\n  When others would give life, and bring a tomb.\n    There lives more life in one of your fair eyes,\n    Than both your poets can in praise devise.\n\n\n                     84\n  Who is it that says most, which can say more,\n  Than this rich praise, that you alone, are you?\n  In whose confine immured is the store,\n  Which should example where your equal grew.\n  Lean penury within that pen doth dwell,\n  That to his subject lends not some small glory,\n  But he that writes of you, if he can tell,\n  That you are you, so dignifies his story.\n  Let him but copy what in you is writ,\n  Not making worse what nature made so clear,\n  And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,\n  Making his style admired every where.\n    You to your beauteous blessings add a curse,\n    Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.\n\n\n                     85\n  My tongue-tied muse in manners holds her still,\n  While comments of your praise richly compiled,\n  Reserve their character with golden quill,\n  And precious phrase by all the Muses filed.\n  I think good thoughts, whilst other write good words,\n  And like unlettered clerk still cry Amen,\n  To every hymn that able spirit affords,\n  In polished form of well refined pen.\n  Hearing you praised, I say 'tis so, 'tis true,\n  And to the most of praise add something more,\n  But that is in my thought, whose love to you\n  (Though words come hindmost) holds his rank before,\n    Then others, for the breath of words respect,\n    Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.\n\n\n                     86\n  Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,\n  Bound for the prize of (all too precious) you,\n  That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,\n  Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?\n  Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write,\n  Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?\n  No, neither he, nor his compeers by night\n  Giving him aid, my verse astonished.\n  He nor that affable familiar ghost\n  Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,\n  As victors of my silence cannot boast,\n  I was not sick of any fear from thence.\n    But when your countenance filled up his line,\n    Then lacked I matter, that enfeebled mine.\n\n\n                     87\n  Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,\n  And like enough thou know'st thy estimate,\n  The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing:\n  My bonds in thee are all determinate.\n  For how do I hold thee but by thy granting,\n  And for that riches where is my deserving?\n  The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,\n  And so my patent back again is swerving.\n  Thy self thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing,\n  Or me to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking,\n  So thy great gift upon misprision growing,\n  Comes home again, on better judgement making.\n    Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter,\n    In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.\n\n\n                     88\n  When thou shalt be disposed to set me light,\n  And place my merit in the eye of scorn,\n  Upon thy side, against my self I'll fight,\n  And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn:\n  With mine own weakness being best acquainted,\n  Upon thy part I can set down a story\n  Of faults concealed, wherein I am attainted:\n  That thou in losing me, shalt win much glory:\n  And I by this will be a gainer too,\n  For bending all my loving thoughts on thee,\n  The injuries that to my self I do,\n  Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me.\n    Such is my love, to thee I so belong,\n    That for thy right, my self will bear all wrong.\n\n\n                     89\n  Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault,\n  And I will comment upon that offence,\n  Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt:\n  Against thy reasons making no defence.\n  Thou canst not (love) disgrace me half so ill,\n  To set a form upon desired change,\n  As I'll my self disgrace, knowing thy will,\n  I will acquaintance strangle and look strange:\n  Be absent from thy walks and in my tongue,\n  Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell,\n  Lest I (too much profane) should do it wronk:\n  And haply of our old acquaintance tell.\n    For thee, against my self I'll vow debate,\n    For I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate.\n\n\n                     90\n  Then hate me when thou wilt, if ever, now,\n  Now while the world is bent my deeds to cross,\n  join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,\n  And do not drop in for an after-loss:\n  Ah do not, when my heart hath 'scaped this sorrow,\n  Come in the rearward of a conquered woe,\n  Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,\n  To linger out a purposed overthrow.\n  If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,\n  When other petty griefs have done their spite,\n  But in the onset come, so shall I taste\n  At first the very worst of fortune's might.\n    And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,\n    Compared with loss of thee, will not seem so.\n\n\n                     91\n  Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,\n  Some in their wealth, some in their body's force,\n  Some in their garments though new-fangled ill:\n  Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse.\n  And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure,\n  Wherein it finds a joy above the rest,\n  But these particulars are not my measure,\n  All these I better in one general best.\n  Thy love is better than high birth to me,\n  Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' costs,\n  Of more delight than hawks and horses be:\n  And having thee, of all men's pride I boast.\n    Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take,\n    All this away, and me most wretchcd make.\n\n\n                     92\n  But do thy worst to steal thy self away,\n  For term of life thou art assured mine,\n  And life no longer than thy love will stay,\n  For it depends upon that love of thine.\n  Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs,\n  When in the least of them my life hath end,\n  I see, a better state to me belongs\n  Than that, which on thy humour doth depend.\n  Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind,\n  Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie,\n  O what a happy title do I find,\n  Happy to have thy love, happy to die!\n    But what's so blessed-fair that fears no blot?\n    Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not.\n\n\n                     93\n  So shall I live, supposing thou art true,\n  Like a deceived husband, so love's face,\n  May still seem love to me, though altered new:\n  Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place.\n  For there can live no hatred in thine eye,\n  Therefore in that I cannot know thy change,\n  In many's looks, the false heart's history\n  Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange.\n  But heaven in thy creation did decree,\n  That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell,\n  Whate'er thy thoughts, or thy heart's workings be,\n  Thy looks should nothing thence, but sweetness tell.\n    How like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow,\n    If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show.\n\n\n                     94\n  They that have power to hurt, and will do none,\n  That do not do the thing, they most do show,\n  Who moving others, are themselves as stone,\n  Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow:\n  They rightly do inherit heaven's graces,\n  And husband nature's riches from expense,\n  Tibey are the lords and owners of their faces,\n  Others, but stewards of their excellence:\n  The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,\n  Though to it self, it only live and die,\n  But if that flower with base infection meet,\n  The basest weed outbraves his dignity:\n    For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds,\n    Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.\n\n\n                     95\n  How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame,\n  Which like a canker in the fragrant rose,\n  Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!\n  O in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose!\n  That tongue that tells the story of thy days,\n  (Making lascivious comments on thy sport)\n  Cannot dispraise, but in a kind of praise,\n  Naming thy name, blesses an ill report.\n  O what a mansion have those vices got,\n  Which for their habitation chose out thee,\n  Where beauty's veil doth cover every blot,\n  And all things turns to fair, that eyes can see!\n    Take heed (dear heart) of this large privilege,\n    The hardest knife ill-used doth lose his edge.\n\n\n                     96\n  Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness,\n  Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport,\n  Both grace and faults are loved of more and less:\n  Thou mak'st faults graces, that to thee resort:\n  As on the finger of a throned queen,\n  The basest jewel will be well esteemed:\n  So are those errors that in thee are seen,\n  To truths translated, and for true things deemed.\n  How many lambs might the stern wolf betray,\n  If like a lamb he could his looks translate!\n  How many gazers mightst thou lead away,\n  if thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state!\n    But do not so, I love thee in such sort,\n    As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.\n\n\n                     97\n  How like a winter hath my absence been\n  From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!\n  What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!\n  What old December's bareness everywhere!\n  And yet this time removed was summer's time,\n  The teeming autumn big with rich increase,\n  Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,\n  Like widowed wombs after their lords' decease:\n  Yet this abundant issue seemed to me\n  But hope of orphans, and unfathered fruit,\n  For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,\n  And thou away, the very birds are mute.\n    Or if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer,\n    That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.\n\n\n                     98\n  From you have I been absent in the spring,\n  When proud-pied April (dressed in all his trim)\n  Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing:\n  That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him.\n  Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell\n  Of different flowers in odour and in hue,\n  Could make me any summer's story tell:\n  Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:\n  Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,\n  Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose,\n  They were but sweet, but figures of delight:\n  Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.\n    Yet seemed it winter still, and you away,\n    As with your shadow I with these did play.\n\n\n                     99\n  The forward violet thus did I chide,\n  Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,\n  If not from my love's breath? The purple pride\n  Which on thy soft check for complexion dwells,\n  In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed.\n  The lily I condemned for thy hand,\n  And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair,\n  The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,\n  One blushing shame, another white despair:\n  A third nor red, nor white, had stol'n of both,\n  And to his robbery had annexed thy breath,\n  But for his theft in pride of all his growth\n  A vengeful canker eat him up to death.\n    More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,\n    But sweet, or colour it had stol'n from thee.\n\n\n                     100\n  Where art thou Muse that thou forget'st so long,\n  To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?\n  Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,\n  Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?\n  Return forgetful Muse, and straight redeem,\n  In gentle numbers time so idly spent,\n  Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem,\n  And gives thy pen both skill and argument.\n  Rise resty Muse, my love's sweet face survey,\n  If time have any wrinkle graven there,\n  If any, be a satire to decay,\n  And make time's spoils despised everywhere.\n    Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life,\n    So thou prevent'st his scythe, and crooked knife.\n\n\n                     101\n  O truant Muse what shall be thy amends,\n  For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?\n  Both truth and beauty on my love depends:\n  So dost thou too, and therein dignified:\n  Make answer Muse, wilt thou not haply say,\n  'Truth needs no colour with his colour fixed,\n  Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay:\n  But best is best, if never intermixed'?\n  Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?\n  Excuse not silence so, for't lies in thee,\n  To make him much outlive a gilded tomb:\n  And to be praised of ages yet to be.\n    Then do thy office Muse, I teach thee how,\n    To make him seem long hence, as he shows now.\n\n\n                     102\n  My love is strengthened though more weak in seeming,\n  I love not less, though less the show appear,\n  That love is merchandized, whose rich esteeming,\n  The owner's tongue doth publish every where.\n  Our love was new, and then but in the spring,\n  When I was wont to greet it with my lays,\n  As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,\n  And stops her pipe in growth of riper days:\n  Not that the summer is less pleasant now\n  Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,\n  But that wild music burthens every bough,\n  And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.\n    Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue:\n    Because I would not dull you with my song.\n\n\n                     103\n  Alack what poverty my muse brings forth,\n  That having such a scope to show her pride,\n  The argument all bare is of more worth\n  Than when it hath my added praise beside.\n  O blame me not if I no more can write!\n  Look in your glass and there appears a face,\n  That over-goes my blunt invention quite,\n  Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.\n  Were it not sinful then striving to mend,\n  To mar the subject that before was well?\n  For to no other pass my verses tend,\n  Than of your graces and your gifts to tell.\n    And more, much more than in my verse can sit,\n    Your own glass shows you, when you look in it.\n\n\n                     104\n  To me fair friend you never can be old,\n  For as you were when first your eye I eyed,\n  Such seems your beauty still: three winters cold,\n  Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,\n  Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned,\n  In process of the seasons have I seen,\n  Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,\n  Since first I saw you fresh which yet are green.\n  Ah yet doth beauty like a dial hand,\n  Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived,\n  So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand\n  Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived.\n    For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred,\n    Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.\n\n\n                     105\n  Let not my love be called idolatry,\n  Nor my beloved as an idol show,\n  Since all alike my songs and praises be\n  To one, of one, still such, and ever so.\n  Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,\n  Still constant in a wondrous excellence,\n  Therefore my verse to constancy confined,\n  One thing expressing, leaves out difference.\n  Fair, kind, and true, is all my argument,\n  Fair, kind, and true, varying to other words,\n  And in this change is my invention spent,\n  Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.\n    Fair, kind, and true, have often lived alone.\n    Which three till now, never kept seat in one.\n\n\n                     106\n  When in the chronicle of wasted time,\n  I see descriptions of the fairest wights,\n  And beauty making beautiful old rhyme,\n  In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights,\n  Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,\n  Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,\n  I see their antique pen would have expressed,\n  Even such a beauty as you master now.\n  So all their praises are but prophecies\n  Of this our time, all you prefiguring,\n  And for they looked but with divining eyes,\n  They had not skill enough your worth to sing:\n    For we which now behold these present days,\n    Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.\n\n\n                     107\n  Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul,\n  Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come,\n  Can yet the lease of my true love control,\n  Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom.\n  The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,\n  And the sad augurs mock their own presage,\n  Incertainties now crown themselves assured,\n  And peace proclaims olives of endless age.\n  Now with the drops of this most balmy time,\n  My love looks fresh, and death to me subscribes,\n  Since spite of him I'll live in this poor rhyme,\n  While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes.\n    And thou in this shalt find thy monument,\n    When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.\n\n\n                     108\n  What's in the brain that ink may character,\n  Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit,\n  What's new to speak, what now to register,\n  That may express my love, or thy dear merit?\n  Nothing sweet boy, but yet like prayers divine,\n  I must each day say o'er the very same,\n  Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,\n  Even as when first I hallowed thy fair name.\n  So that eternal love in love's fresh case,\n  Weighs not the dust and injury of age,\n  Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,\n  But makes antiquity for aye his page,\n    Finding the first conceit of love there bred,\n    Where time and outward form would show it dead.\n\n\n                     109\n  O never say that I was false of heart,\n  Though absence seemed my flame to qualify,\n  As easy might I from my self depart,\n  As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie:\n  That is my home of love, if I have ranged,\n  Like him that travels I return again,\n  Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,\n  So that my self bring water for my stain,\n  Never believe though in my nature reigned,\n  All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,\n  That it could so preposterously be stained,\n  To leave for nothing all thy sum of good:\n    For nothing this wide universe I call,\n    Save thou my rose, in it thou art my all.\n\n\n                     110\n  Alas 'tis true, I have gone here and there,\n  And made my self a motley to the view,\n  Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,\n  Made old offences of affections new.\n  Most true it is, that I have looked on truth\n  Askance and strangely: but by all above,\n  These blenches gave my heart another youth,\n  And worse essays proved thee my best of love.\n  Now all is done, have what shall have no end,\n  Mine appetite I never more will grind\n  On newer proof, to try an older friend,\n  A god in love, to whom I am confined.\n    Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,\n    Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.\n\n\n                     111\n  O for my sake do you with Fortune chide,\n  The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,\n  That did not better for my life provide,\n  Than public means which public manners breeds.\n  Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,\n  And almost thence my nature is subdued\n  To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:\n  Pity me then, and wish I were renewed,\n  Whilst like a willing patient I will drink,\n  Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection,\n  No bitterness that I will bitter think,\n  Nor double penance to correct correction.\n    Pity me then dear friend, and I assure ye,\n    Even that your pity is enough to cure me.\n\n\n                     112\n  Your love and pity doth th' impression fill,\n  Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow,\n  For what care I who calls me well or ill,\n  So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow?\n  You are my all the world, and I must strive,\n  To know my shames and praises from your tongue,\n  None else to me, nor I to none alive,\n  That my steeled sense or changes right or wrong.\n  In so profound abysm I throw all care\n  Of others' voices, that my adder's sense,\n  To critic and to flatterer stopped are:\n  Mark how with my neglect I do dispense.\n    You are so strongly in my purpose bred,\n    That all the world besides methinks are dead.\n\n\n                     113\n  Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind,\n  And that which governs me to go about,\n  Doth part his function, and is partly blind,\n  Seems seeing, but effectually is out:\n  For it no form delivers to the heart\n  Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch,\n  Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,\n  Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch:\n  For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight,\n  The most sweet favour or deformed'st creature,\n  The mountain, or the sea, the day, or night:\n  The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.\n    Incapable of more, replete with you,\n    My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.\n\n\n                     114\n  Or whether doth my mind being crowned with you\n  Drink up the monarch's plague this flattery?\n  Or whether shall I say mine eye saith true,\n  And that your love taught it this alchemy?\n  To make of monsters, and things indigest,\n  Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,\n  Creating every bad a perfect best\n  As fast as objects to his beams assemble:\n  O 'tis the first, 'tis flattery in my seeing,\n  And my great mind most kingly drinks it up,\n  Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing,\n  And to his palate doth prepare the cup.\n    If it be poisoned, 'tis the lesser sin,\n    That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.\n\n\n                     115\n  Those lines that I before have writ do lie,\n  Even those that said I could not love you dearer,\n  Yet then my judgment knew no reason why,\n  My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer,\n  But reckoning time, whose millioned accidents\n  Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,\n  Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents,\n  Divert strong minds to the course of alt'ring things:\n  Alas why fearing of time's tyranny,\n  Might I not then say 'Now I love you best,'\n  When I was certain o'er incertainty,\n  Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?\n    Love is a babe, then might I not say so\n    To give full growth to that which still doth grow.\n\n\n                     116\n  Let me not to the marriage of true minds\n  Admit impediments, love is not love\n  Which alters when it alteration finds,\n  Or bends with the remover to remove.\n  O no, it is an ever-fixed mark\n  That looks on tempests and is never shaken;\n  It is the star to every wand'ring bark,\n  Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.\n  Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks\n  Within his bending sickle's compass come,\n  Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,\n  But bears it out even to the edge of doom:\n    If this be error and upon me proved,\n    I never writ, nor no man ever loved.\n\n\n                     117\n  Accuse me thus, that I have scanted all,\n  Wherein I should your great deserts repay,\n  Forgot upon your dearest love to call,\n  Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day,\n  That I have frequent been with unknown minds,\n  And given to time your own dear-purchased right,\n  That I have hoisted sail to all the winds\n  Which should transport me farthest from your sight.\n  Book both my wilfulness and errors down,\n  And on just proof surmise, accumulate,\n  Bring me within the level of your frown,\n  But shoot not at me in your wakened hate:\n    Since my appeal says I did strive to prove\n    The constancy and virtue of your love.\n\n\n                     118\n  Like as to make our appetite more keen\n  With eager compounds we our palate urge,\n  As to prevent our maladies unseen,\n  We sicken to shun sickness when we purge.\n  Even so being full of your ne'er-cloying sweetness,\n  To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding;\n  And sick of welfare found a kind of meetness,\n  To be diseased ere that there was true needing.\n  Thus policy in love t' anticipate\n  The ills that were not, grew to faults assured,\n  And brought to medicine a healthful state\n  Which rank of goodness would by ill be cured.\n    But thence I learn and find the lesson true,\n    Drugs poison him that so feil sick of you.\n\n\n                     119\n  What potions have I drunk of Siren tears\n  Distilled from limbecks foul as hell within,\n  Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,\n  Still losing when I saw my self to win!\n  What wretched errors hath my heart committed,\n  Whilst it hath thought it self so blessed never!\n  How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted\n  In the distraction of this madding fever!\n  O benefit of ill, now I find true\n  That better is, by evil still made better.\n  And ruined love when it is built anew\n  Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.\n    So I return rebuked to my content,\n    And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent.\n\n\n                     120\n  That you were once unkind befriends me now,\n  And for that sorrow, which I then did feel,\n  Needs must I under my transgression bow,\n  Unless my nerves were brass or hammered steel.\n  For if you were by my unkindness shaken\n  As I by yours, y'have passed a hell of time,\n  And I a tyrant have no leisure taken\n  To weigh how once I suffered in your crime.\n  O that our night of woe might have remembered\n  My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,\n  And soon to you, as you to me then tendered\n  The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits!\n    But that your trespass now becomes a fee,\n    Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.\n\n\n                     121\n  'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed,\n  When not to be, receives reproach of being,\n  And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed,\n  Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing.\n  For why should others' false adulterate eyes\n  Give salutation to my sportive blood?\n  Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,\n  Which in their wills count bad what I think good?\n  No, I am that I am, and they that level\n  At my abuses, reckon up their own,\n  I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;\n  By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown\n    Unless this general evil they maintain,\n    All men are bad and in their badness reign.\n\n\n                     122\n  Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain\n  Full charactered with lasting memory,\n  Which shall above that idle rank remain\n  Beyond all date even to eternity.\n  Or at the least, so long as brain and heart\n  Have faculty by nature to subsist,\n  Till each to razed oblivion yield his part\n  Of thee, thy record never can be missed:\n  That poor retention could not so much hold,\n  Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score,\n  Therefore to give them from me was I bold,\n  To trust those tables that receive thee more:\n    To keep an adjunct to remember thee\n    Were to import forgetfulness in me.\n\n\n                     123\n  No! Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change,\n  Thy pyramids built up with newer might\n  To me are nothing novel, nothing strange,\n  They are but dressings Of a former sight:\n  Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire,\n  What thou dost foist upon us that is old,\n  And rather make them born to our desire,\n  Than think that we before have heard them told:\n  Thy registers and thee I both defy,\n  Not wond'ring at the present, nor the past,\n  For thy records, and what we see doth lie,\n  Made more or less by thy continual haste:\n    This I do vow and this shall ever be,\n    I will be true despite thy scythe and thee.\n\n\n                     124\n  If my dear love were but the child of state,\n  It might for Fortune's bastard be unfathered,\n  As subject to time's love or to time's hate,\n  Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gathered.\n  No it was builded far from accident,\n  It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls\n  Under the blow of thralled discontent,\n  Whereto th' inviting time our fashion calls:\n  It fears not policy that heretic,\n  Which works on leases of short-numbered hours,\n  But all alone stands hugely politic,\n  That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.\n    To this I witness call the fools of time,\n    Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.\n\n\n                     125\n  Were't aught to me I bore the canopy,\n  With my extern the outward honouring,\n  Or laid great bases for eternity,\n  Which proves more short than waste or ruining?\n  Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour\n  Lose all, and more by paying too much rent\n  For compound sweet; forgoing simple savour,\n  Pitiful thrivers in their gazing spent?\n  No, let me be obsequious in thy heart,\n  And take thou my oblation, poor but free,\n  Which is not mixed with seconds, knows no art,\n  But mutual render, only me for thee.\n    Hence, thou suborned informer, a true soul\n    When most impeached, stands least in thy control.\n\n\n                     126\n  O thou my lovely boy who in thy power,\n  Dost hold Time's fickle glass his fickle hour:\n  Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st,\n  Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st.\n  If Nature (sovereign mistress over wrack)\n  As thou goest onwards still will pluck thee back,\n  She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill\n  May time disgrace, and wretched minutes kill.\n  Yet fear her O thou minion of her pleasure,\n  She may detain, but not still keep her treasure!\n    Her audit (though delayed) answered must be,\n    And her quietus is to render thee.\n\n\n                     127\n  In the old age black was not counted fair,\n  Or if it were it bore not beauty's name:\n  But now is black beauty's successive heir,\n  And beauty slandered with a bastard shame,\n  For since each hand hath put on nature's power,\n  Fairing the foul with art's false borrowed face,\n  Sweet beauty hath no name no holy bower,\n  But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.\n  Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black,\n  Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem,\n  At such who not born fair no beauty lack,\n  Slandering creation with a false esteem,\n    Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe,\n    That every tongue says beauty should look so.\n\n\n                     128\n  How oft when thou, my music, music play'st,\n  Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds\n  With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway'st\n  The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,\n  Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap,\n  To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,\n  Whilst my poor lips which should that harvest reap,\n  At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand.\n  To be so tickled they would change their state\n  And situation with those dancing chips,\n  O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,\n  Making dead wood more blest than living lips,\n    Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,\n    Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.\n\n\n                     129\n  Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame\n  Is lust in action, and till action, lust\n  Is perjured, murd'rous, bloody full of blame,\n  Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,\n  Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight,\n  Past reason hunted, and no sooner had\n  Past reason hated as a swallowed bait,\n  On purpose laid to make the taker mad.\n  Mad in pursuit and in possession so,\n  Had, having, and in quest, to have extreme,\n  A bliss in proof and proved, a very woe,\n  Before a joy proposed behind a dream.\n    All this the world well knows yet none knows well,\n    To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.\n\n\n                     130\n  My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun,\n  Coral is far more red, than her lips red,\n  If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun:\n  If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head:\n  I have seen roses damasked, red and white,\n  But no such roses see I in her cheeks,\n  And in some perfumes is there more delight,\n  Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.\n  I love to hear her speak, yet well I know,\n  That music hath a far more pleasing sound:\n  I grant I never saw a goddess go,\n  My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.\n    And yet by heaven I think my love as rare,\n    As any she belied with false compare.\n\n\n                     131\n  Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,\n  As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;\n  For well thou know'st to my dear doting heart\n  Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.\n  Yet in good faith some say that thee behold,\n  Thy face hath not the power to make love groan;\n  To say they err, I dare not be so bold,\n  Although I swear it to my self alone.\n  And to be sure that is not false I swear,\n  A thousand groans but thinking on thy face,\n  One on another's neck do witness bear\n  Thy black is fairest in my judgment's place.\n    In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,\n    And thence this slander as I think proceeds.\n\n\n                     132\n  Thine eyes I love, and they as pitying me,\n  Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain,\n  Have put on black, and loving mourners be,\n  Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.\n  And truly not the morning sun of heaven\n  Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,\n  Nor that full star that ushers in the even\n  Doth half that glory to the sober west\n  As those two mourning eyes become thy face:\n  O let it then as well beseem thy heart\n  To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace,\n  And suit thy pity like in every part.\n    Then will I swear beauty herself is black,\n    And all they foul that thy complexion lack.\n\n\n                     133\n  Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan\n  For that deep wound it gives my friend and me;\n  Is't not enough to torture me alone,\n  But slave to slavery my sweet'st friend must be?\n  Me from my self thy cruel eye hath taken,\n  And my next self thou harder hast engrossed,\n  Of him, my self, and thee I am forsaken,\n  A torment thrice three-fold thus to be crossed:\n  Prison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward,\n  But then my friend's heart let my poor heart bail,\n  Whoe'er keeps me, let my heart be his guard,\n  Thou canst not then use rigour in my gaol.\n    And yet thou wilt, for I being pent in thee,\n    Perforce am thine and all that is in me.\n\n\n                     134\n  So now I have confessed that he is thine,\n  And I my self am mortgaged to thy will,\n  My self I'll forfeit, so that other mine,\n  Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still:\n  But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,\n  For thou art covetous, and he is kind,\n  He learned but surety-like to write for me,\n  Under that bond that him as fist doth bind.\n  The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,\n  Thou usurer that put'st forth all to use,\n  And sue a friend, came debtor for my sake,\n  So him I lose through my unkind abuse.\n    Him have I lost, thou hast both him and me,\n    He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.\n\n\n                     135\n  Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy will,\n  And 'Will' to boot, and 'Will' in over-plus,\n  More than enough am I that vex thee still,\n  To thy sweet will making addition thus.\n  Wilt thou whose will is large and spacious,\n  Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?\n  Shall will in others seem right gracious,\n  And in my will no fair acceptance shine?\n  The sea all water, yet receives rain still,\n  And in abundance addeth to his store,\n  So thou being rich in will add to thy will\n  One will of mine to make thy large will more.\n    Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill,\n    Think all but one, and me in that one 'Will.'\n\n\n                     136\n  If thy soul check thee that I come so near,\n  Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy 'Will',\n  And will thy soul knows is admitted there,\n  Thus far for love, my love-suit sweet fulfil.\n  'Will', will fulfil the treasure of thy love,\n  Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one,\n  In things of great receipt with case we prove,\n  Among a number one is reckoned none.\n  Then in the number let me pass untold,\n  Though in thy store's account I one must be,\n  For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold,\n  That nothing me, a something sweet to thee.\n    Make but my name thy love, and love that still,\n    And then thou lov'st me for my name is Will.\n\n\n                     137\n  Thou blind fool Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,\n  That they behold and see not what they see?\n  They know what beauty is, see where it lies,\n  Yet what the best is, take the worst to be.\n  If eyes corrupt by over-partial looks,\n  Be anchored in the bay where all men ride,\n  Why of eyes' falsehood hast thou forged hooks,\n  Whereto the judgment of my heart is tied?\n  Why should my heart think that a several plot,\n  Which my heart knows the wide world's common place?\n  Or mine eyes seeing this, say this is not\n  To put fair truth upon so foul a face?\n    In things right true my heart and eyes have erred,\n    And to this false plague are they now transferred.\n\n\n                     138\n  When my love swears that she is made of truth,\n  I do believe her though I know she lies,\n  That she might think me some untutored youth,\n  Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.\n  Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,\n  Although she knows my days are past the best,\n  Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue,\n  On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed:\n  But wherefore says she not she is unjust?\n  And wherefore say not I that I am old?\n  O love's best habit is in seeming trust,\n  And age in love, loves not to have years told.\n    Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,\n    And in our faults by lies we flattered be.\n\n\n                     139\n  O call not me to justify the wrong,\n  That thy unkindness lays upon my heart,\n  Wound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue,\n  Use power with power, and slay me not by art,\n  Tell me thou lov'st elsewhere; but in my sight,\n  Dear heart forbear to glance thine eye aside,\n  What need'st thou wound with cunning when thy might\n  Is more than my o'erpressed defence can bide?\n  Let me excuse thee, ah my love well knows,\n  Her pretty looks have been mine enemies,\n  And therefore from my face she turns my foes,\n  That they elsewhere might dart their injuries:\n    Yet do not so, but since I am near slain,\n    Kill me outright with looks, and rid my pain.\n\n\n                     140\n  Be wise as thou art cruel, do not press\n  My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain:\n  Lest sorrow lend me words and words express,\n  The manner of my pity-wanting pain.\n  If I might teach thee wit better it were,\n  Though not to love, yet love to tell me so,\n  As testy sick men when their deaths be near,\n  No news but health from their physicians know.\n  For if I should despair I should grow mad,\n  And in my madness might speak ill of thee,\n  Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,\n  Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.\n    That I may not be so, nor thou belied,\n    Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.\n\n\n                     141\n  In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes,\n  For they in thee a thousand errors note,\n  But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,\n  Who in despite of view is pleased to dote.\n  Nor are mine cars with thy tongue's tune delighted,\n  Nor tender feeling to base touches prone,\n  Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited\n  To any sensual feast with thee alone:\n  But my five wits, nor my five senses can\n  Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,\n  Who leaves unswayed the likeness of a man,\n  Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be:\n    Only my plague thus far I count my gain,\n    That she that makes me sin, awards me pain.\n\n\n                     142\n  Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,\n  Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving,\n  O but with mine, compare thou thine own state,\n  And thou shalt find it merits not reproving,\n  Or if it do, not from those lips of thine,\n  That have profaned their scarlet ornaments,\n  And sealed false bonds of love as oft as mine,\n  Robbed others' beds' revenues of their rents.\n  Be it lawful I love thee as thou lov'st those,\n  Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee,\n  Root pity in thy heart that when it grows,\n  Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.\n    If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,\n    By self-example mayst thou be denied.\n\n\n                     143\n  Lo as a careful huswife runs to catch,\n  One of her feathered creatures broke away,\n  Sets down her babe and makes all swift dispatch\n  In pursuit of the thing she would have stay:\n  Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,\n  Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent,\n  To follow that which flies before her face:\n  Not prizing her poor infant's discontent;\n  So run'st thou after that which flies from thee,\n  Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind,\n  But if thou catch thy hope turn back to me:\n  And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind.\n    So will I pray that thou mayst have thy Will,\n    If thou turn back and my loud crying still.\n\n\n                     144\n  Two loves I have of comfort and despair,\n  Which like two spirits do suggest me still,\n  The better angel is a man right fair:\n  The worser spirit a woman coloured ill.\n  To win me soon to hell my female evil,\n  Tempteth my better angel from my side,\n  And would corrupt my saint to be a devil:\n  Wooing his purity with her foul pride.\n  And whether that my angel be turned fiend,\n  Suspect I may, yet not directly tell,\n  But being both from me both to each friend,\n  I guess one angel in another's hell.\n    Yet this shall I ne'er know but live in doubt,\n    Till my bad angel fire my good one out.\n\n\n                     145\n  Those lips that Love's own hand did make,\n  Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate',\n  To me that languished for her sake:\n  But when she saw my woeful state,\n  Straight in her heart did mercy come,\n  Chiding that tongue that ever sweet,\n  Was used in giving gentle doom:\n  And taught it thus anew to greet:\n  'I hate' she altered with an end,\n  That followed it as gentle day,\n  Doth follow night who like a fiend\n  From heaven to hell is flown away.\n    'I hate', from hate away she threw,\n    And saved my life saying 'not you'.\n\n\n                     146\n  Poor soul the centre of my sinful earth,\n  My sinful earth these rebel powers array,\n  Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth\n  Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?\n  Why so large cost having so short a lease,\n  Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?\n  Shall worms inheritors of this excess\n  Eat up thy charge? is this thy body's end?\n  Then soul live thou upon thy servant's loss,\n  And let that pine to aggravate thy store;\n  Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;\n  Within be fed, without be rich no more,\n    So shall thou feed on death, that feeds on men,\n    And death once dead, there's no more dying then.\n\n\n                     147\n  My love is as a fever longing still,\n  For that which longer nurseth the disease,\n  Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,\n  Th' uncertain sickly appetite to please:\n  My reason the physician to my love,\n  Angry that his prescriptions are not kept\n  Hath left me, and I desperate now approve,\n  Desire is death, which physic did except.\n  Past cure I am, now reason is past care,\n  And frantic-mad with evermore unrest,\n  My thoughts and my discourse as mad men's are,\n  At random from the truth vainly expressed.\n    For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,\n    Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.\n\n\n                     148\n  O me! what eyes hath love put in my head,\n  Which have no correspondence with true sight,\n  Or if they have, where is my judgment fled,\n  That censures falsely what they see aright?\n  If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,\n  What means the world to say it is not so?\n  If it be not, then love doth well denote,\n  Love's eye is not so true as all men's: no,\n  How can it? O how can love's eye be true,\n  That is so vexed with watching and with tears?\n  No marvel then though I mistake my view,\n  The sun it self sees not, till heaven clears.\n    O cunning love, with tears thou keep'st me blind,\n    Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.\n\n\n                     149\n  Canst thou O cruel, say I love thee not,\n  When I against my self with thee partake?\n  Do I not think on thee when I forgot\n  Am of my self, all-tyrant, for thy sake?\n  Who hateth thee that I do call my friend,\n  On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon,\n  Nay if thou lour'st on me do I not spend\n  Revenge upon my self with present moan?\n  What merit do I in my self respect,\n  That is so proud thy service to despise,\n  When all my best doth worship thy defect,\n  Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?\n    But love hate on for now I know thy mind,\n    Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind.\n\n\n                     150\n  O from what power hast thou this powerful might,\n  With insufficiency my heart to sway,\n  To make me give the lie to my true sight,\n  And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?\n  Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,\n  That in the very refuse of thy deeds,\n  There is such strength and warrantise of skill,\n  That in my mind thy worst all best exceeds?\n  Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,\n  The more I hear and see just cause of hate?\n  O though I love what others do abhor,\n  With others thou shouldst not abhor my state.\n    If thy unworthiness raised love in me,\n    More worthy I to be beloved of thee.\n\n\n                     151\n  Love is too young to know what conscience is,\n  Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?\n  Then gentle cheater urge not my amiss,\n  Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove.\n  For thou betraying me, I do betray\n  My nobler part to my gross body's treason,\n  My soul doth tell my body that he may,\n  Triumph in love, flesh stays no farther reason,\n  But rising at thy name doth point out thee,\n  As his triumphant prize, proud of this pride,\n  He is contented thy poor drudge to be,\n  To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.\n    No want of conscience hold it that I call,\n    Her love, for whose dear love I rise and fall.\n\n\n                     152\n  In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn,\n  But thou art twice forsworn to me love swearing,\n  In act thy bed-vow broke and new faith torn,\n  In vowing new hate after new love bearing:\n  But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee,\n  When I break twenty? I am perjured most,\n  For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee:\n  And all my honest faith in thee is lost.\n  For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness:\n  Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy,\n  And to enlighten thee gave eyes to blindness,\n  Or made them swear against the thing they see.\n    For I have sworn thee fair: more perjured I,\n    To swear against the truth so foul a be.\n\n\n                     153\n  Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep,\n  A maid of Dian's this advantage found,\n  And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep\n  In a cold valley-fountain of that ground:\n  Which borrowed from this holy fire of Love,\n  A dateless lively heat still to endure,\n  And grew a seeting bath which yet men prove,\n  Against strange maladies a sovereign cure:\n  But at my mistress' eye Love's brand new-fired,\n  The boy for trial needs would touch my breast,\n  I sick withal the help of bath desired,\n  And thither hied a sad distempered guest.\n    But found no cure, the bath for my help lies,\n    Where Cupid got new fire; my mistress' eyes.\n\n\n                     154\n  The little Love-god lying once asleep,\n  Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,\n  Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep,\n  Came tripping by, but in her maiden hand,\n  The fairest votary took up that fire,\n  Which many legions of true hearts had warmed,\n  And so the general of hot desire,\n  Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarmed.\n  This brand she quenched in a cool well by,\n  Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual,\n  Growing a bath and healthful remedy,\n  For men discased, but I my mistress' thrall,\n    Came there for cure and this by that I prove,\n    Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1603\n\nALLS WELL THAT ENDS WELL\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  KING OF FRANCE\n  THE DUKE OF FLORENCE\n  BERTRAM, Count of Rousillon\n  LAFEU, an old lord\n  PAROLLES, a follower of Bertram\n  TWO FRENCH LORDS, serving with Bertram\n\n  STEWARD, Servant to the Countess of Rousillon\n  LAVACHE, a clown and Servant to the Countess of Rousillon\n  A PAGE, Servant to the Countess of Rousillon\n\n  COUNTESS OF ROUSILLON, mother to Bertram\n  HELENA, a gentlewoman protected by the Countess\n  A WIDOW OF FLORENCE.\n  DIANA, daughter to the Widow\n\n\n  VIOLENTA, neighbour and friend to the Widow\n  MARIANA, neighbour and friend to the Widow\n\n  Lords, Officers, Soldiers, etc., French and Florentine\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nRousillon; Paris; Florence; Marseilles\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 1.\nRousillon. The COUNT'S palace\n\nEnter BERTRAM, the COUNTESS OF ROUSILLON, HELENA, and LAFEU, all in black\n\n  COUNTESS. In delivering my son from me, I bury a second husband.\n  BERTRAM. And I in going, madam, weep o'er my father's death anew;\n    but I must attend his Majesty's command, to whom I am now in\n    ward, evermore in subjection.\n  LAFEU. You shall find of the King a husband, madam; you, sir, a\n    father. He that so generally is at all times good must of\n    necessity hold his virtue to you, whose worthiness would stir it\n    up where it wanted, rather than lack it where there is such\n    abundance.\n  COUNTESS. What hope is there of his Majesty's amendment?\n  LAFEU. He hath abandon'd his physicians, madam; under whose\n    practices he hath persecuted time with hope, and finds no other\n    advantage in the process but only the losing of hope by time.\n  COUNTESS. This young gentlewoman had a father- O, that 'had,' how\n    sad a passage 'tis!-whose skill was almost as great as his\n    honesty; had it stretch'd so far, would have made nature\n    immortal, and death should have play for lack of work. Would, for\n    the King's sake, he were living! I think it would be the death of\n    the King's disease.\n  LAFEU. How call'd you the man you speak of, madam?\n  COUNTESS. He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was his\n    great right to be so- Gerard de Narbon.\n  LAFEU. He was excellent indeed, madam; the King very lately spoke\n    of him admiringly and mourningly; he was skilful enough to have\n    liv'd still, if knowledge could be set up against mortality.\n  BERTRAM. What is it, my good lord, the King languishes of?\n  LAFEU. A fistula, my lord.\n  BERTRAM. I heard not of it before.\n  LAFEU. I would it were not notorious. Was this gentlewoman the\n    daughter of Gerard de Narbon?\n  COUNTESS. His sole child, my lord, and bequeathed to my\n    overlooking. I have those hopes of her good that her education\n    promises; her dispositions she inherits, which makes fair gifts\n    fairer; for where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities,\n    there commendations go with pity-they are virtues and traitors\n    too. In her they are the better for their simpleness; she derives\n    her honesty, and achieves her goodness.\n  LAFEU. Your commendations, madam, get from her tears.\n  COUNTESS. 'Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise in.\n    The remembrance of her father never approaches her heart but the\n    tyranny of her sorrows takes all livelihood from her cheek. No\n    more of this, Helena; go to, no more, lest it be rather thought\n    you affect a sorrow than to have-\n  HELENA. I do affect a sorrow indeed, but I have it too.\n  LAFEU. Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead: excessive\n    grief the enemy to the living.\n  COUNTESS. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it\n    soon mortal.\n  BERTRAM. Madam, I desire your holy wishes.\n  LAFEU. How understand we that?\n  COUNTESS. Be thou blest, Bertram, and succeed thy father\n    In manners, as in shape! Thy blood and virtue\n    Contend for empire in thee, and thy goodness\n    Share with thy birthright! Love all, trust a few,\n    Do wrong to none; be able for thine enemy\n    Rather in power than use, and keep thy friend\n    Under thy own life's key; be check'd for silence,\n    But never tax'd for speech. What heaven more will,\n    That thee may furnish, and my prayers pluck down,\n    Fall on thy head! Farewell. My lord,\n    'Tis an unseason'd courtier; good my lord,\n    Advise him.\n  LAFEU. He cannot want the best\n    That shall attend his love.\n  COUNTESS. Heaven bless him! Farewell, Bertram.            Exit\n  BERTRAM. The best wishes that can be forg'd in your thoughts be\n    servants to you!  [To HELENA]  Be comfortable to my mother, your\n    mistress, and make much of her.\n  LAFEU. Farewell, pretty lady; you must hold the credit of your\n    father.                             Exeunt BERTRAM and LAFEU\n  HELENA. O, were that all! I think not on my father;\n    And these great tears grace his remembrance more\n    Than those I shed for him. What was he like?\n    I have forgot him; my imagination\n    Carries no favour in't but Bertram's.\n    I am undone; there is no living, none,\n    If Bertram be away. 'Twere all one\n    That I should love a bright particular star\n    And think to wed it, he is so above me.\n    In his bright radiance and collateral light\n    Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.\n    Th' ambition in my love thus plagues itself:\n    The hind that would be mated by the lion\n    Must die for love. 'Twas pretty, though a plague,\n    To see him every hour; to sit and draw\n    His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,\n    In our heart's table-heart too capable\n    Of every line and trick of his sweet favour.\n    But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy\n    Must sanctify his relics. Who comes here?\n\n                       Enter PAROLLES\n\n    [Aside]  One that goes with him. I love him for his sake;\n    And yet I know him a notorious liar,\n    Think him a great way fool, solely a coward;\n    Yet these fix'd evils sit so fit in him\n    That they take place when virtue's steely bones\n    Looks bleak i' th' cold wind; withal, full oft we see\n    Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.\n  PAROLLES. Save you, fair queen!\n  HELENA. And you, monarch!\n  PAROLLES. No.\n  HELENA. And no.\n  PAROLLES. Are you meditating on virginity?\n  HELENA. Ay. You have some stain of soldier in you; let me ask you a\n    question. Man is enemy to virginity; how may we barricado it\n    against him?\n  PAROLLES. Keep him out.\n  HELENA. But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant in the\n    defence, yet is weak. Unfold to us some warlike resistance.\n  PAROLLES. There is none. Man, setting down before you, will\n    undermine you and blow you up.\n  HELENA. Bless our poor virginity from underminers and blowers-up!\n    Is there no military policy how virgins might blow up men?\n  PAROLLES. Virginity being blown down, man will quicklier be blown\n    up; marry, in blowing him down again, with the breach yourselves\n     made, you lose your city. It is not politic in the commonwealth\n    of nature to preserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rational\n    increase; and there was never virgin got till virginity was first\n    lost. That you were made of is metal to make virgins. Virginity\n    by being once lost may be ten times found; by being ever kept, it\n    is ever lost. 'Tis too cold a companion; away with't.\n  HELENA. I will stand for 't a little, though therefore I die a\n    virgin.\n  PAROLLES. There's little can be said in 't; 'tis against the rule\n    of nature. To speak on the part of virginity is to accuse your\n    mothers; which is most infallible disobedience. He that hangs\n    himself is a virgin; virginity murders itself, and should be\n    buried in highways, out of all sanctified limit, as a desperate\n    offendress against nature. Virginity breeds mites, much like a\n    cheese; consumes itself to the very paring, and so dies with\n    feeding his own stomach. Besides, virginity is peevish, proud,\n    idle, made of self-love, which is the most inhibited sin in the\n    canon. Keep it not; you cannot choose but lose by't. Out with't.\n    Within ten year it will make itself ten, which is a goodly\n    increase; and the principal itself not much the worse. Away\n    with't.\n  HELENA. How might one do, sir, to lose it to her own liking?\n  PAROLLES. Let me see. Marry, ill to like him that ne'er it likes.\n    'Tis a commodity will lose the gloss with lying; the longer kept,\n    the less worth. Off with't while 'tis vendible; answer the time\n    of request. Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out of\n    fashion, richly suited but unsuitable; just like the brooch and\n    the toothpick, which wear not now. Your date is better in your\n    pie and your porridge than in your cheek. And your virginity,\n    your old virginity, is like one of our French wither'd pears: it\n    looks ill, it eats drily; marry, 'tis a wither'd pear; it was\n    formerly better; marry, yet 'tis a wither'd pear. Will you\n    anything with it?\n  HELENA. Not my virginity yet.\n    There shall your master have a thousand loves,\n    A mother, and a mistress, and a friend,\n    A phoenix, captain, and an enemy,\n    A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign,\n    A counsellor, a traitress, and a dear;\n    His humble ambition, proud humility,\n    His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet,\n    His faith, his sweet disaster; with a world\n    Of pretty, fond, adoptious christendoms\n    That blinking Cupid gossips. Now shall he-\n    I know not what he shall. God send him well!\n    The court's a learning-place, and he is one-\n  PAROLLES. What one, i' faith?\n  HELENA. That I wish well. 'Tis pity-\n  PAROLLES. What's pity?\n  HELENA. That wishing well had not a body in't\n    Which might be felt; that we, the poorer born,\n    Whose baser stars do shut us up in wishes,\n    Might with effects of them follow our friends\n    And show what we alone must think, which never\n    Returns us thanks.\n\n                      Enter PAGE\n\n  PAGE. Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you.      Exit PAGE\n  PAROLLES. Little Helen, farewell; if I can remember thee, I will\n    think of thee at court.\n  HELENA. Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a charitable star.\n  PAROLLES. Under Mars, I.\n  HELENA. I especially think, under Mars.\n  PAROLLES. Why under Man?\n  HELENA. The wars hath so kept you under that you must needs be born\n    under Mars.\n  PAROLLES. When he was predominant.\n  HELENA. When he was retrograde, I think, rather.\n  PAROLLES. Why think you so?\n  HELENA. You go so much backward when you fight.\n  PAROLLES. That's for advantage.\n  HELENA. So is running away, when fear proposes the safety: but the\n    composition that your valour and fear makes in you is a virtue of\n    a good wing, and I like the wear well.\n  PAROLLES. I am so full of business I cannot answer thee acutely. I\n    will return perfect courtier; in the which my instruction shall\n    serve to naturalize thee, so thou wilt be capable of a courtier's\n    counsel, and understand what advice shall thrust upon thee; else\n    thou diest in thine unthankfulness, and thine ignorance makes\n    thee away. Farewell. When thou hast leisure, say thy prayers;\n    when thou hast none, remember thy friends. Get thee a good\n    husband and use him as he uses thee. So, farewell.\n Exit\n  HELENA. Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,\n    Which we ascribe to heaven. The fated sky\n    Gives us free scope; only doth backward pull\n    Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull.\n    What power is it which mounts my love so high,\n    That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye?\n    The mightiest space in fortune nature brings\n    To join like likes, and kiss like native things.\n    Impossible be strange attempts to those\n    That weigh their pains in sense, and do suppose\n    What hath been cannot be. Who ever strove\n    To show her merit that did miss her love?\n    The King's disease-my project may deceive me,\n    But my intents are fix'd, and will not leave me.        Exit\n\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 2.\nParis. The KING'S palace\n\nFlourish of cornets. Enter the KING OF FRANCE, with letters,\nand divers ATTENDANTS\n\n  KING. The Florentines and Senoys are by th' ears;\n    Have fought with equal fortune, and continue\n    A braving war.\n  FIRST LORD. So 'tis reported, sir.\n  KING. Nay, 'tis most credible. We here receive it,\n    A certainty, vouch'd from our cousin Austria,\n    With caution, that the Florentine will move us\n    For speedy aid; wherein our dearest friend\n    Prejudicates the business, and would seem\n    To have us make denial.\n  FIRST LORD. His love and wisdom,\n    Approv'd so to your Majesty, may plead\n    For amplest credence.\n  KING. He hath arm'd our answer,\n    And Florence is denied before he comes;\n    Yet, for our gentlemen that mean to see\n    The Tuscan service, freely have they leave\n    To stand on either part.\n  SECOND LORD. It well may serve\n    A nursery to our gentry, who are sick\n    For breathing and exploit.\n  KING. What's he comes here?\n\n              Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES\n\n  FIRST LORD. It is the Count Rousillon, my good lord,\n    Young Bertram.\n  KING. Youth, thou bear'st thy father's face;\n    Frank nature, rather curious than in haste,\n    Hath well compos'd thee. Thy father's moral parts\n    Mayst thou inherit too! Welcome to Paris.\n  BERTRAM. My thanks and duty are your Majesty's.\n  KING. I would I had that corporal soundness now,\n    As when thy father and myself in friendship\n    First tried our soldiership. He did look far\n    Into the service of the time, and was\n    Discipled of the bravest. He lasted long;\n    But on us both did haggish age steal on,\n    And wore us out of act. It much repairs me\n    To talk of your good father. In his youth\n    He had the wit which I can well observe\n    To-day in our young lords; but they may jest\n    Till their own scorn return to them unnoted\n    Ere they can hide their levity in honour.\n    So like a courtier, contempt nor bitterness\n    Were in his pride or sharpness; if they were,\n    His equal had awak'd them; and his honour,\n    Clock to itself, knew the true minute when\n    Exception bid him speak, and at this time\n    His tongue obey'd his hand. Who were below him\n    He us'd as creatures of another place;\n    And bow'd his eminent top to their low ranks,\n    Making them proud of his humility\n    In their poor praise he humbled. Such a man\n    Might be a copy to these younger times;\n    Which, followed well, would demonstrate them now\n    But goers backward.\n  BERTRAM. His good remembrance, sir,\n    Lies richer in your thoughts than on his tomb;\n    So in approof lives not his epitaph\n    As in your royal speech.\n  KING. Would I were with him! He would always say-\n    Methinks I hear him now; his plausive words\n    He scatter'd not in ears, but grafted them\n    To grow there, and to bear- 'Let me not live'-\n    This his good melancholy oft began,\n    On the catastrophe and heel of pastime,\n    When it was out-'Let me not live' quoth he\n    'After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff\n    Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses\n    All but new things disdain; whose judgments are\n    Mere fathers of their garments; whose constancies\n    Expire before their fashions.' This he wish'd.\n    I, after him, do after him wish too,\n    Since I nor wax nor honey can bring home,\n    I quickly were dissolved from my hive,\n    To give some labourers room.\n  SECOND LORD. You're loved, sir;\n    They that least lend it you shall lack you first.\n  KING. I fill a place, I know't. How long is't, Count,\n    Since the physician at your father's died?\n    He was much fam'd.\n  BERTRAM. Some six months since, my lord.\n  KING. If he were living, I would try him yet-\n    Lend me an arm-the rest have worn me out\n    With several applications. Nature and sickness\n    Debate it at their leisure. Welcome, Count;\n    My son's no dearer.\n  BERTRAM. Thank your Majesty.                 Exeunt [Flourish]\n\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 3.\nRousillon. The COUNT'S palace\n\nEnter COUNTESS, STEWARD, and CLOWN\n\n  COUNTESS. I will now hear; what say you of this gentlewoman?\n  STEWARD. Madam, the care I have had to even your content I wish\n    might be found in the calendar of my past endeavours; for then we\n    wound our modesty, and make foul the clearness of our deservings,\n    when of ourselves we publish them.\n  COUNTESS. What does this knave here? Get you gone, sirrah. The\n    complaints I have heard of you I do not all believe; 'tis my\n    slowness that I do not, for I know you lack not folly to commit\n    them and have ability enough to make such knaveries yours.\n  CLOWN. 'Tis not unknown to you, madam, I am a poor fellow.\n  COUNTESS. Well, sir.\n  CLOWN. No, madam, 'tis not so well that I am poor, though many of\n    the rich are damn'd; but if I may have your ladyship's good will\n    to go to the world, Isbel the woman and I will do as we may.\n  COUNTESS. Wilt thou needs be a beggar?\n  CLOWN. I do beg your good will in this case.\n  COUNTESS. In what case?\n  CLOWN. In Isbel's case and mine own. Service is no heritage; and I\n    think I shall never have the blessing of God till I have issue o'\n    my body; for they say bames are blessings.\n  COUNTESS. Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry.\n  CLOWN. My poor body, madam, requires it. I am driven on by the\n    flesh; and he must needs go that the devil drives.\n  COUNTESS. Is this all your worship's reason?\n  CLOWN. Faith, madam, I have other holy reasons, such as they are.\n  COUNTESS. May the world know them?\n  CLOWN. I have been, madam, a wicked creature, as you and all flesh\n    and blood are; and, indeed, I do marry that I may repent.\n  COUNTESS. Thy marriage, sooner than thy wickedness.\n  CLOWN. I am out o' friends, madam, and I hope to have friends for\n    my wife's sake.\n  COUNTESS. Such friends are thine enemies, knave.\n  CLOWN. Y'are shallow, madam-in great friends; for the knaves come\n    to do that for me which I am aweary of. He that ears my land\n    spares my team, and gives me leave to in the crop. If I be his\n    cuckold, he's my drudge. He that comforts my wife is the\n    cherisher of my flesh and blood; he that cherishes my flesh and\n    blood loves my flesh and blood; he that loves my flesh and blood\n    is my friend; ergo, he that kisses my wife is my friend. If men\n    could be contented to be what they are, there were no fear in\n    marriage; for young Charbon the puritan and old Poysam the\n    papist, howsome'er their hearts are sever'd in religion, their\n    heads are both one; they may jowl horns together like any deer\n    i' th' herd.\n  COUNTESS. Wilt thou ever be a foul-mouth'd and calumnious knave?\n  CLOWN. A prophet I, madam; and I speak the truth the next way:\n\n              For I the ballad will repeat,\n                Which men full true shall find:\n              Your marriage comes by destiny,\n                Your cuckoo sings by kind.\n\n  COUNTESS. Get you gone, sir; I'll talk with you more anon.\n  STEWARD. May it please you, madam, that he bid Helen come to you.\n    Of her I am to speak.\n  COUNTESS. Sirrah, tell my gentlewoman I would speak with her; Helen\n    I mean.\n  CLOWN.  [Sings]\n\n               'Was this fair face the cause' quoth she\n                 'Why the Grecians sacked Troy?\n               Fond done, done fond,\n                 Was this King Priam's joy?'\n               With that she sighed as she stood,\n               With that she sighed as she stood,\n                 And gave this sentence then:\n               'Among nine bad if one be good,\n               Among nine bad if one be good,\n                 There's yet one good in ten.'\n\n  COUNTESS. What, one good in ten? You corrupt the song, sirrah.\n  CLOWN. One good woman in ten, madam, which is a purifying o' th'\n    song. Would God would serve the world so all the year! We'd find\n    no fault with the tithe-woman, if I were the parson. One in ten,\n    quoth 'a! An we might have a good woman born before every blazing\n    star, or at an earthquake, 'twould mend the lottery well: a man\n    may draw his heart out ere 'a pluck one.\n  COUNTESS. You'll be gone, sir knave, and do as I command you.\n  CLOWN. That man should be at woman's command, and yet no hurt done!\n    Though honesty be no puritan, yet it will do no hurt; it will\n    wear the surplice of humility over the black gown of a big heart.\n    I am going, forsooth. The business is for Helen to come hither.\n Exit\n  COUNTESS. Well, now.\n  STEWARD. I know, madam, you love your gentlewoman entirely.\n  COUNTESS. Faith I do. Her father bequeath'd her to me; and she\n    herself, without other advantage, may lawfully make title to as\n    much love as she finds. There is more owing her than is paid; and\n    more shall be paid her than she'll demand.\n  STEWARD. Madam, I was very late more near her than I think she\n    wish'd me. Alone she was, and did communicate to herself her own\n    words to her own ears; she thought, I dare vow for her, they\n    touch'd not any stranger sense. Her matter was, she loved your\n    son. Fortune, she said, was no goddess, that had put such\n    difference betwixt their two estates; Love no god, that would not\n    extend his might only where qualities were level; Diana no queen\n    of virgins, that would suffer her poor knight surpris'd without\n    rescue in the first assault, or ransom afterward. This she\n    deliver'd in the most bitter touch of sorrow that e'er I heard\n    virgin exclaim in; which I held my duty speedily to acquaint you\n    withal; sithence, in the loss that may happen, it concerns you\n    something to know it.\n  COUNTESS. YOU have discharg'd this honestly; keep it to yourself.\n    Many likelihoods inform'd me of this before, which hung so\n    tott'ring in the balance that I could neither believe nor\n    misdoubt. Pray you leave me. Stall this in your bosom; and I\n    thank you for your honest care. I will speak with you further\n    anon.                                           Exit STEWARD\n\n                            Enter HELENA\n\n    Even so it was with me when I was young.\n    If ever we are nature's, these are ours; this thorn\n    Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong;\n    Our blood to us, this to our blood is born.\n    It is the show and seal of nature's truth,\n    Where love's strong passion is impress'd in youth.\n    By our remembrances of days foregone,\n    Such were our faults, or then we thought them none.\n    Her eye is sick on't; I observe her now.\n  HELENA. What is your pleasure, madam?\n  COUNTESS. You know, Helen,\n    I am a mother to you.\n  HELENA. Mine honourable mistress.\n  COUNTESS. Nay, a mother.\n    Why not a mother? When I said 'a mother,'\n    Methought you saw a serpent. What's in 'mother'\n    That you start at it? I say I am your mother,\n    And put you in the catalogue of those\n    That were enwombed mine. 'Tis often seen\n    Adoption strives with nature, and choice breeds\n    A native slip to us from foreign seeds.\n    You ne'er oppress'd me with a mother's groan,\n    Yet I express to you a mother's care.\n    God's mercy, maiden! does it curd thy blood\n    To say I am thy mother? What's the matter,\n    That this distempered messenger of wet,\n    The many-colour'd Iris, rounds thine eye?\n    Why, that you are my daughter?\n  HELENA. That I am not.\n  COUNTESS. I say I am your mother.\n  HELENA. Pardon, madam.\n    The Count Rousillon cannot be my brother:\n    I am from humble, he from honoured name;\n    No note upon my parents, his all noble.\n    My master, my dear lord he is; and I\n    His servant live, and will his vassal die.\n    He must not be my brother.\n  COUNTESS. Nor I your mother?\n  HELENA. You are my mother, madam; would you were-\n    So that my lord your son were not my brother-\n    Indeed my mother! Or were you both our mothers,\n    I care no more for than I do for heaven,\n    So I were not his sister. Can't no other,\n    But, I your daughter, he must be my brother?\n  COUNTESS. Yes, Helen, you might be my daughter-in-law.\n    God shield you mean it not! 'daughter' and 'mother'\n    So strive upon your pulse. What! pale again?\n    My fear hath catch'd your fondness. Now I see\n    The myst'ry of your loneliness, and find\n    Your salt tears' head. Now to all sense 'tis gross\n    You love my son; invention is asham'd,\n    Against the proclamation of thy passion,\n    To say thou dost not. Therefore tell me true;\n    But tell me then, 'tis so; for, look, thy cheeks\n    Confess it, th' one to th' other; and thine eyes\n    See it so grossly shown in thy behaviours\n    That in their kind they speak it; only sin\n    And hellish obstinacy tie thy tongue,\n    That truth should be suspected. Speak, is't so?\n    If it be so, you have wound a goodly clew;\n    If it be not, forswear't; howe'er, I charge thee,\n    As heaven shall work in me for thine avail,\n    To tell me truly.\n  HELENA. Good madam, pardon me.\n  COUNTESS. Do you love my son?\n  HELENA. Your pardon, noble mistress.\n  COUNTESS. Love you my son?\n  HELENA. Do not you love him, madam?\n  COUNTESS. Go not about; my love hath in't a bond\n    Whereof the world takes note. Come, come, disclose\n    The state of your affection; for your passions\n    Have to the full appeach'd.\n  HELENA. Then I confess,\n    Here on my knee, before high heaven and you,\n    That before you, and next unto high heaven,\n    I love your son.\n    My friends were poor, but honest; so's my love.\n    Be not offended, for it hurts not him\n    That he is lov'd of me; I follow him not\n    By any token of presumptuous suit,\n    Nor would I have him till I do deserve him;\n    Yet never know how that desert should be.\n    I know I love in vain, strive against hope;\n    Yet in this captious and intenible sieve\n    I still pour in the waters of my love,\n    And lack not to lose still. Thus, Indian-like,\n    Religious in mine error, I adore\n    The sun that looks upon his worshipper\n    But knows of him no more. My dearest madam,\n    Let not your hate encounter with my love,\n    For loving where you do; but if yourself,\n    Whose aged honour cites a virtuous youth,\n    Did ever in so true a flame of liking\n    Wish chastely and love dearly that your Dian\n    Was both herself and Love; O, then, give pity\n    To her whose state is such that cannot choose\n    But lend and give where she is sure to lose;\n    That seeks not to find that her search implies,\n    But, riddle-like, lives sweetly where she dies!\n  COUNTESS. Had you not lately an intent-speak truly-\n    To go to Paris?\n  HELENA. Madam, I had.\n  COUNTESS. Wherefore? Tell true.\n  HELENA. I will tell truth; by grace itself I swear.\n    You know my father left me some prescriptions\n    Of rare and prov'd effects, such as his reading\n    And manifest experience had collected\n    For general sovereignty; and that he will'd me\n    In heedfull'st reservation to bestow them,\n    As notes whose faculties inclusive were\n    More than they were in note. Amongst the rest\n    There is a remedy, approv'd, set down,\n    To cure the desperate languishings whereof\n    The King is render'd lost.\n  COUNTESS. This was your motive\n    For Paris, was it? Speak.\n  HELENA. My lord your son made me to think of this,\n    Else Paris, and the medicine, and the King,\n    Had from the conversation of my thoughts\n    Haply been absent then.\n  COUNTESS. But think you, Helen,\n    If you should tender your supposed aid,\n    He would receive it? He and his physicians\n    Are of a mind: he, that they cannot help him;\n    They, that they cannot help. How shall they credit\n    A poor unlearned virgin, when the schools,\n    Embowell'd of their doctrine, have let off\n    The danger to itself?\n  HELENA. There's something in't\n    More than my father's skill, which was the great'st\n    Of his profession, that his good receipt\n    Shall for my legacy be sanctified\n    By th' luckiest stars in heaven; and, would your honour\n    But give me leave to try success, I'd venture\n    The well-lost life of mine on his Grace's cure.\n    By such a day and hour.\n  COUNTESS. Dost thou believe't?\n  HELENA. Ay, madam, knowingly.\n  COUNTESS. Why, Helen, thou shalt have my leave and love,\n    Means and attendants, and my loving greetings\n    To those of mine in court. I'll stay at home,\n    And pray God's blessing into thy attempt.\n    Be gone to-morrow; and be sure of this,\n    What I can help thee to thou shalt not miss.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 1.\nParis. The KING'S palace\n\nFlourish of cornets. Enter the KING with divers young LORDS taking leave\nfor the Florentine war; BERTRAM and PAROLLES; ATTENDANTS\n\n  KING. Farewell, young lords; these war-like principles\n    Do not throw from you. And you, my lords, farewell;\n    Share the advice betwixt you; if both gain all,\n    The gift doth stretch itself as 'tis receiv'd,\n    And is enough for both.\n  FIRST LORD. 'Tis our hope, sir,\n    After well-ent'red soldiers, to return\n    And find your Grace in health.\n  KING. No, no, it cannot be; and yet my heart\n    Will not confess he owes the malady\n    That doth my life besiege. Farewell, young lords;\n    Whether I live or die, be you the sons\n    Of worthy Frenchmen; let higher Italy-\n    Those bated that inherit but the fall\n    Of the last monarchy-see that you come\n    Not to woo honour, but to wed it; when\n    The bravest questant shrinks, find what you seek,\n    That fame may cry you aloud. I say farewell.\n  SECOND LORD. Health, at your bidding, serve your Majesty!\n  KING. Those girls of Italy, take heed of them;\n    They say our French lack language to deny,\n    If they demand; beware of being captives\n    Before you serve.\n    BOTH. Our hearts receive your warnings.\n  KING. Farewell.  [To ATTENDANTS]  Come hither to me.\n                                       The KING retires attended\n  FIRST LORD. O my sweet lord, that you will stay behind us!\n  PAROLLES. 'Tis not his fault, the spark.\n    SECOND LORD. O, 'tis brave wars!\n  PAROLLES. Most admirable! I have seen those wars.\n  BERTRAM. I am commanded here and kept a coil with\n    'Too young' and next year' and \"Tis too early.'\n  PAROLLES. An thy mind stand to 't, boy, steal away bravely.\n  BERTRAM. I shall stay here the forehorse to a smock,\n    Creaking my shoes on the plain masonry,\n    Till honour be bought up, and no sword worn\n    But one to dance with. By heaven, I'll steal away.\n  FIRST LORD. There's honour in the theft.\n  PAROLLES. Commit it, Count.\n  SECOND LORD. I am your accessary; and so farewell.\n  BERTRAM. I grow to you, and our parting is a tortur'd body.\n  FIRST LORD. Farewell, Captain.\n  SECOND LORD. Sweet Monsieur Parolles!\n  PAROLLES. Noble heroes, my sword and yours are kin. Good sparks and\n    lustrous, a word, good metals: you shall find in the regiment of\n    the Spinii one Captain Spurio, with his cicatrice, an emblem of\n    war, here on his sinister cheek; it was this very sword\n    entrench'd it. Say to him I live; and observe his reports for me.\n  FIRST LORD. We shall, noble Captain.\n  PAROLLES. Mars dote on you for his novices!       Exeunt LORDS\n    What will ye do?\n\n                            Re-enter the KING\n\n  BERTRAM. Stay; the King!\n  PAROLLES. Use a more spacious ceremony to the noble lords; you have\n    restrain'd yourself within the list of too cold an adieu. Be more\n    expressive to them; for they wear themselves in the cap of the\n    time; there do muster true gait; eat, speak, and move, under the\n    influence of the most receiv'd star; and though the devil lead\n    the measure, such are to be followed. After them, and take a more\n    dilated farewell.\n  BERTRAM. And I will do so.\n  PAROLLES. Worthy fellows; and like to prove most sinewy sword-men.\n                                     Exeunt BERTRAM and PAROLLES\n\n                              Enter LAFEU\n\n  LAFEU.  [Kneeling]  Pardon, my lord, for me and for my tidings.\n  KING. I'll fee thee to stand up.\n  LAFEU. Then here's a man stands that has brought his pardon.\n    I would you had kneel'd, my lord, to ask me mercy;\n    And that at my bidding you could so stand up.\n  KING. I would I had; so I had broke thy pate,\n    And ask'd thee mercy for't.\n  LAFEU. Good faith, across!\n    But, my good lord, 'tis thus: will you be cur'd\n    Of your infirmity?\n  KING. No.\n  LAFEU. O, will you eat\n    No grapes, my royal fox? Yes, but you will\n    My noble grapes, an if my royal fox\n    Could reach them: I have seen a medicine\n    That's able to breathe life into a stone,\n    Quicken a rock, and make you dance canary\n    With spritely fire and motion; whose simple touch\n    Is powerful to araise King Pepin, nay,\n    To give great Charlemain a pen in's hand\n    And write to her a love-line.\n  KING. What her is this?\n  LAFEU. Why, Doctor She! My lord, there's one arriv'd,\n    If you will see her. Now, by my faith and honour,\n    If seriously I may convey my thoughts\n    In this my light deliverance, I have spoke\n    With one that in her sex, her years, profession,\n    Wisdom, and constancy, hath amaz'd me more\n    Than I dare blame my weakness. Will you see her,\n    For that is her demand, and know her business?\n    That done, laugh well at me.\n  KING. Now, good Lafeu,\n    Bring in the admiration, that we with the\n    May spend our wonder too, or take off thine\n    By wond'ring how thou took'st it.\n  LAFEU. Nay, I'll fit you,\n    And not be all day neither.                       Exit LAFEU\n  KING. Thus he his special nothing ever prologues.\n\n                   Re-enter LAFEU with HELENA\n\n  LAFEU. Nay, come your ways.\n  KING. This haste hath wings indeed.\n  LAFEU. Nay, come your ways;\n    This is his Majesty; say your mind to him.\n    A traitor you do look like; but such traitors\n    His Majesty seldom fears. I am Cressid's uncle,\n    That dare leave two together. Fare you well.            Exit\n  KING. Now, fair one, does your business follow us?\n  HELENA. Ay, my good lord.\n    Gerard de Narbon was my father,\n    In what he did profess, well found.\n  KING. I knew him.\n  HELENA. The rather will I spare my praises towards him;\n    Knowing him is enough. On's bed of death\n    Many receipts he gave me; chiefly one,\n    Which, as the dearest issue of his practice,\n    And of his old experience th' only darling,\n    He bade me store up as a triple eye,\n    Safer than mine own two, more dear. I have so:\n    And, hearing your high Majesty is touch'd\n    With that malignant cause wherein the honour\n    Of my dear father's gift stands chief in power,\n    I come to tender it, and my appliance,\n    With all bound humbleness.\n  KING. We thank you, maiden;\n    But may not be so credulous of cure,\n    When our most learned doctors leave us, and\n    The congregated college have concluded\n    That labouring art can never ransom nature\n    From her inaidable estate-I say we must not\n    So stain our judgment, or corrupt our hope,\n    To prostitute our past-cure malady\n    To empirics; or to dissever so\n    Our great self and our credit to esteem\n    A senseless help, when help past sense we deem.\n  HELENA. My duty then shall pay me for my pains.\n    I will no more enforce mine office on you;\n    Humbly entreating from your royal thoughts\n    A modest one to bear me back again.\n  KING. I cannot give thee less, to be call'd grateful.\n    Thou thought'st to help me; and such thanks I give\n    As one near death to those that wish him live.\n    But what at full I know, thou know'st no part;\n    I knowing all my peril, thou no art.\n  HELENA. What I can do can do no hurt to try,\n    Since you set up your rest 'gainst remedy.\n    He that of greatest works is finisher\n    Oft does them by the weakest minister.\n    So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown,\n    When judges have been babes. Great floods have flown\n    From simple sources, and great seas have dried\n    When miracles have by the greatest been denied.\n    Oft expectation fails, and most oft there\n    Where most it promises; and oft it hits\n    Where hope is coldest, and despair most fits.\n  KING. I must not hear thee. Fare thee well, kind maid;\n    Thy pains, not us'd, must by thyself be paid;\n    Proffers not took reap thanks for their reward.\n  HELENA. Inspired merit so by breath is barr'd.\n    It is not so with Him that all things knows,\n    As 'tis with us that square our guess by shows;\n    But most it is presumption in us when\n    The help of heaven we count the act of men.\n    Dear sir, to my endeavours give consent;\n    Of heaven, not me, make an experiment.\n    I am not an impostor, that proclaim\n    Myself against the level of mine aim;\n    But know I think, and think I know most sure,\n    My art is not past power nor you past cure.\n  KING. Art thou so confident? Within what space\n    Hop'st thou my cure?\n  HELENA. The greatest Grace lending grace.\n    Ere twice the horses of the sun shall bring\n    Their fiery torcher his diurnal ring,\n    Ere twice in murk and occidental damp\n    Moist Hesperus hath quench'd his sleepy lamp,\n    Or four and twenty times the pilot's glass\n    Hath told the thievish minutes how they pass,\n    What is infirm from your sound parts shall fly,\n    Health shall live free, and sickness freely die.\n  KING. Upon thy certainty and confidence\n    What dar'st thou venture?\n  HELENA. Tax of impudence,\n    A strumpet's boldness, a divulged shame,\n    Traduc'd by odious ballads; my maiden's name\n    Sear'd otherwise; ne worse of worst-extended\n    With vilest torture let my life be ended.\n  KING. Methinks in thee some blessed spirit doth speak\n    His powerful sound within an organ weak;\n    And what impossibility would slay\n    In common sense, sense saves another way.\n    Thy life is dear; for all that life can rate\n    Worth name of life in thee hath estimate:\n    Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, all\n    That happiness and prime can happy call.\n    Thou this to hazard needs must intimate\n    Skill infinite or monstrous desperate.\n    Sweet practiser, thy physic I will try,\n    That ministers thine own death if I die.\n  HELENA. If I break time, or flinch in property\n    Of what I spoke, unpitied let me die;\n    And well deserv'd. Not helping, death's my fee;\n    But, if I help, what do you promise me?\n  KING. Make thy demand.\n  HELENA. But will you make it even?\n  KING. Ay, by my sceptre and my hopes of heaven.\n  HELENA. Then shalt thou give me with thy kingly hand\n    What husband in thy power I will command.\n    Exempted be from me the arrogance\n    To choose from forth the royal blood of France,\n    My low and humble name to propagate\n    With any branch or image of thy state;\n    But such a one, thy vassal, whom I know\n    Is free for me to ask, thee to bestow.\n  KING. Here is my hand; the premises observ'd,\n    Thy will by my performance shall be serv'd.\n    So make the choice of thy own time, for I,\n    Thy resolv'd patient, on thee still rely.\n    More should I question thee, and more I must,\n    Though more to know could not be more to trust,\n    From whence thou cam'st, how tended on. But rest\n    Unquestion'd welcome and undoubted blest.\n    Give me some help here, ho! If thou proceed\n    As high as word, my deed shall match thy deed.\n                                              [Flourish. Exeunt]\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 2.\nRousillon. The COUNT'S palace\n\nEnter COUNTESS and CLOWN\n\n  COUNTESS. Come on, sir; I shall now put you to the height of your\n    breeding.\n  CLOWN. I will show myself highly fed and lowly taught. I know my\n    business is but to the court.\n  COUNTESS. To the court! Why, what place make you special, when you\n    put off that with such contempt? But to the court!\n  CLOWN. Truly, madam, if God have lent a man any manners, he may\n    easily put it off at court. He that cannot make a leg, put off's\n    cap, kiss his hand, and say nothing, has neither leg, hands, lip,\n    nor cap; and indeed such a fellow, to say precisely, were not for\n    the court; but for me, I have an answer will serve all men.\n  COUNTESS. Marry, that's a bountiful answer that fits all questions.\n  CLOWN. It is like a barber's chair, that fits all buttocks-the pin\n    buttock, the quatch buttock, the brawn buttock, or any buttock.\n  COUNTESS. Will your answer serve fit to all questions?\n  CLOWN. As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney, as your\n    French crown for your taffety punk, as Tib's rush for Tom's\n    forefinger, as a pancake for Shrove Tuesday, a morris for Mayday,\n    as the nail to his hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a scolding\n    quean to a wrangling knave, as the nun's lip to the friar's\n    mouth; nay, as the pudding to his skin.\n  COUNTESS. Have you, I, say, an answer of such fitness for all\n    questions?\n  CLOWN. From below your duke to beneath your constable, it will fit\n    any question.\n  COUNTESS. It must be an answer of most monstrous size that must fit\n    all demands.\n  CLOWN. But a trifle neither, in good faith, if the learned should\n    speak truth of it. Here it is, and all that belongs to't. Ask me\n    if I am a courtier: it shall do you no harm to learn.\n  COUNTESS. To be young again, if we could, I will be a fool in\n    question, hoping to be the wiser by your answer. I pray you, sir,\n    are you a courtier?\n  CLOWN. O Lord, sir!-There's a simple putting off. More, more, a\n    hundred of them.\n  COUNTESS. Sir, I am a poor friend of yours, that loves you.\n  CLOWN. O Lord, sir!-Thick, thick; spare not me.\n  COUNTESS. I think, sir, you can eat none of this homely meat.\n  CLOWN. O Lord, sir!-Nay, put me to't, I warrant you.\n  COUNTESS. You were lately whipp'd, sir, as I think.\n  CLOWN. O Lord, sir!-Spare not me.\n  COUNTESS. Do you cry 'O Lord, sir!' at your whipping, and 'spare\n    not me'? Indeed your 'O Lord, sir!' is very sequent to your\n    whipping. You would answer very well to a whipping, if you were\n    but bound to't.\n  CLOWN. I ne'er had worse luck in my life in my 'O Lord, sir!' I see\n    thing's may serve long, but not serve ever.\n  COUNTESS. I play the noble housewife with the time,\n    To entertain it so merrily with a fool.\n  CLOWN. O Lord, sir!-Why, there't serves well again.\n  COUNTESS. An end, sir! To your business: give Helen this,\n    And urge her to a present answer back;\n    Commend me to my kinsmen and my son. This is not much.\n  CLOWN. Not much commendation to them?\n  COUNTESS. Not much employment for you. You understand me?\n  CLOWN. Most fruitfully; I am there before my legs.\n  COUNTESS. Haste you again.                              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 3.\nParis. The KING'S palace\n\nEnter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES\n\n  LAFEU. They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical\n    persons to make modern and familiar things supernatural and\n    causeless. Hence is it that we make trifles of terrors,\n    ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge when we should submit\n    ourselves to an unknown fear.\n  PAROLLES. Why, 'tis the rarest argument of wonder that hath shot\n    out in our latter times.\n  BERTRAM. And so 'tis.\n  LAFEU. To be relinquish'd of the artists-\n  PAROLLES. So I say-both of Galen and Paracelsus.\n  LAFEU. Of all the learned and authentic fellows-\n  PAROLLES. Right; so I say.\n  LAFEU. That gave him out incurable-\n  PAROLLES. Why, there 'tis; so say I too.\n  LAFEU. Not to be help'd-\n  PAROLLES. Right; as 'twere a man assur'd of a-\n  LAFEU. Uncertain life and sure death.\n  PAROLLES. Just; you say well; so would I have said.\n  LAFEU. I may truly say it is a novelty to the world.\n  PAROLLES. It is indeed. If you will have it in showing, you shall\n    read it in what-do-ye-call't here.\n  LAFEU.  [Reading the ballad title]  'A Showing of a Heavenly\n    Effect in an Earthly Actor.'\n  PAROLLES. That's it; I would have said the very same.\n  LAFEU. Why, your dolphin is not lustier. 'Fore me, I speak in\n    respect-\n  PAROLLES. Nay, 'tis strange, 'tis very strange; that is the brief\n    and the tedious of it; and he's of a most facinerious spirit that\n    will not acknowledge it to be the-\n  LAFEU. Very hand of heaven.\n  PAROLLES. Ay; so I say.\n  LAFEU. In a most weak-\n  PAROLLES. And debile minister, great power, great transcendence;\n    which should, indeed, give us a further use to be made than alone\n    the recov'ry of the King, as to be-\n  LAFEU. Generally thankful.\n\n                 Enter KING, HELENA, and ATTENDANTS\n\n  PAROLLES. I would have said it; you say well. Here comes the King.\n  LAFEU. Lustig, as the Dutchman says. I'll like a maid the better,\n    whilst I have a tooth in my head. Why, he's able to lead her a\n    coranto.\n  PAROLLES. Mort du vinaigre! Is not this Helen?\n  LAFEU. 'Fore God, I think so.\n  KING. Go, call before me all the lords in court.\n                                               Exit an ATTENDANT\n    Sit, my preserver, by thy patient's side;\n    And with this healthful hand, whose banish'd sense\n    Thou has repeal'd, a second time receive\n    The confirmation of my promis'd gift,\n    Which but attends thy naming.\n\n                     Enter three or four LORDS\n\n    Fair maid, send forth thine eye. This youthful parcel\n    Of noble bachelors stand at my bestowing,\n    O'er whom both sovereign power and father's voice\n    I have to use. Thy frank election make;\n    Thou hast power to choose, and they none to forsake.\n  HELENA. To each of you one fair and virtuous mistress\n    Fall, when love please. Marry, to each but one!\n  LAFEU. I'd give bay Curtal and his furniture\n    My mouth no more were broken than these boys',\n    And writ as little beard.\n  KING. Peruse them well.\n    Not one of those but had a noble father.\n  HELENA. Gentlemen,\n    Heaven hath through me restor'd the King to health.\n  ALL. We understand it, and thank heaven for you.\n  HELENA. I am a simple maid, and therein wealthiest\n    That I protest I simply am a maid.\n    Please it your Majesty, I have done already.\n    The blushes in my cheeks thus whisper me:\n    'We blush that thou shouldst choose; but, be refused,\n    Let the white death sit on thy cheek for ever,\n    We'll ne'er come there again.'\n  KING. Make choice and see:\n    Who shuns thy love shuns all his love in me.\n  HELENA. Now, Dian, from thy altar do I fly,\n    And to imperial Love, that god most high,\n    Do my sighs stream. Sir, will you hear my suit?\n  FIRST LORD. And grant it.\n  HELENA. Thanks, sir; all the rest is mute.\n  LAFEU. I had rather be in this choice than throw ames-ace for my\n    life.\n  HELENA. The honour, sir, that flames in your fair eyes,\n    Before I speak, too threat'ningly replies.\n    Love make your fortunes twenty times above\n    Her that so wishes, and her humble love!\n  SECOND LORD. No better, if you please.\n  HELENA. My wish receive,\n    Which great Love grant; and so I take my leave.\n  LAFEU. Do all they deny her? An they were sons of mine I'd have\n    them whipt; or I would send them to th' Turk to make eunuchs of.\n  HELENA. Be not afraid that I your hand should take;\n    I'll never do you wrong for your own sake.\n    Blessing upon your vows; and in your bed\n    Find fairer fortune, if you ever wed!\n  LAFEU. These boys are boys of ice; they'll none have her.\n    Sure, they are bastards to the English; the French ne'er got 'em.\n  HELENA. You are too young, too happy, and too good,\n    To make yourself a son out of my blood.\n  FOURTH LORD. Fair one, I think not so.\n  LAFEU. There's one grape yet; I am sure thy father drunk wine-but\n    if thou be'st not an ass, I am a youth of fourteen; I have known\n    thee already.\n  HELENA.  [To BERTRAM]  I dare not say I take you; but I give\n    Me and my service, ever whilst I live,\n    Into your guiding power. This is the man.\n  KING. Why, then, young Bertram, take her; she's thy wife.\n  BERTRAM. My wife, my liege! I shall beseech your Highness,\n    In such a business give me leave to use\n    The help of mine own eyes.\n  KING. Know'st thou not, Bertram,\n    What she has done for me?\n  BERTRAM. Yes, my good lord;\n    But never hope to know why I should marry her.\n  KING. Thou know'st she has rais'd me from my sickly bed.\n  BERTRAM. But follows it, my lord, to bring me down\n    Must answer for your raising? I know her well:\n    She had her breeding at my father's charge.\n    A poor physician's daughter my wife! Disdain\n    Rather corrupt me ever!\n  KING. 'Tis only title thou disdain'st in her, the which\n    I can build up. Strange is it that our bloods,\n    Of colour, weight, and heat, pour'd all together,\n    Would quite confound distinction, yet stand off\n    In differences so mighty. If she be\n    All that is virtuous-save what thou dislik'st,\n    A poor physician's daughter-thou dislik'st\n    Of virtue for the name; but do not so.\n    From lowest place when virtuous things proceed,\n    The place is dignified by the doer's deed;\n    Where great additions swell's, and virtue none,\n    It is a dropsied honour. Good alone\n    Is good without a name. Vileness is so:\n    The property by what it is should go,\n    Not by the title. She is young, wise, fair;\n    In these to nature she's immediate heir;\n    And these breed honour. That is honour's scorn\n    Which challenges itself as honour's born\n    And is not like the sire. Honours thrive\n    When rather from our acts we them derive\n    Than our fore-goers. The mere word's a slave,\n    Debauch'd on every tomb, on every grave\n    A lying trophy; and as oft is dumb\n    Where dust and damn'd oblivion is the tomb\n    Of honour'd bones indeed. What should be said?\n    If thou canst like this creature as a maid,\n    I can create the rest. Virtue and she\n    Is her own dower; honour and wealth from me.\n  BERTRAM. I cannot love her, nor will strive to do 't.\n  KING. Thou wrong'st thyself, if thou shouldst strive to choose.\n  HELENA. That you are well restor'd, my lord, I'm glad.\n    Let the rest go.\n  KING. My honour's at the stake; which to defeat,\n    I must produce my power. Here, take her hand,\n    Proud scornful boy, unworthy this good gift,\n    That dost in vile misprision shackle up\n    My love and her desert; that canst not dream\n    We, poising us in her defective scale,\n    Shall weigh thee to the beam; that wilt not know\n    It is in us to plant thine honour where\n    We please to have it grow. Check thy contempt;\n    Obey our will, which travails in thy good;\n    Believe not thy disdain, but presently\n    Do thine own fortunes that obedient right\n    Which both thy duty owes and our power claims;\n    Or I will throw thee from my care for ever\n    Into the staggers and the careless lapse\n    Of youth and ignorance; both my revenge and hate\n    Loosing upon thee in the name of justice,\n    Without all terms of pity. Speak; thine answer.\n  BERTRAM. Pardon, my gracious lord; for I submit\n    My fancy to your eyes. When I consider\n    What great creation and what dole of honour\n    Flies where you bid it, I find that she which late\n    Was in my nobler thoughts most base is now\n    The praised of the King; who, so ennobled,\n    Is as 'twere born so.\n  KING. Take her by the hand,\n    And tell her she is thine; to whom I promise\n    A counterpoise, if not to thy estate\n    A balance more replete.\n  BERTRAM. I take her hand.\n  KING. Good fortune and the favour of the King\n    Smile upon this contract; whose ceremony\n    Shall seem expedient on the now-born brief,\n    And be perform'd to-night. The solemn feast\n    Shall more attend upon the coming space,\n    Expecting absent friends. As thou lov'st her,\n    Thy love's to me religious; else, does err.\n              Exeunt all but LAFEU and PAROLLES who stay behind,\n                                      commenting of this wedding\n  LAFEU. Do you hear, monsieur? A word with you.\n  PAROLLES. Your pleasure, sir?\n  LAFEU. Your lord and master did well to make his recantation.\n  PAROLLES. Recantation! My Lord! my master!\n  LAFEU. Ay; is it not a language I speak?\n  PAROLLES. A most harsh one, and not to be understood without bloody\n    succeeding. My master!\n  LAFEU. Are you companion to the Count Rousillon?\n  PAROLLES. To any count; to all counts; to what is man.\n  LAFEU. To what is count's man: count's master is of another style.\n  PAROLLES. You are too old, sir; let it satisfy you, you are too\n    old.\n  LAFEU. I must tell thee, sirrah, I write man; to which title age\n    cannot bring thee.\n  PAROLLES. What I dare too well do, I dare not do.\n  LAFEU. I did think thee, for two ordinaries, to be a pretty wise\n    fellow; thou didst make tolerable vent of thy travel; it might\n    pass. Yet the scarfs and the bannerets about thee did manifoldly\n    dissuade me from believing thee a vessel of too great a burden. I\n    have now found thee; when I lose thee again I care not; yet art\n    thou good for nothing but taking up; and that thou'rt scarce\n    worth.\n  PAROLLES. Hadst thou not the privilege of antiquity upon thee-\n  LAFEU. Do not plunge thyself too far in anger, lest thou hasten thy\n    trial; which if-Lord have mercy on thee for a hen! So, my good\n    window of lattice, fare thee well; thy casement I need not open,\n    for I look through thee. Give me thy hand.\n  PAROLLES. My lord, you give me most egregious indignity.\n  LAFEU. Ay, with all my heart; and thou art worthy of it.\n  PAROLLES. I have not, my lord, deserv'd it.\n  LAFEU. Yes, good faith, ev'ry dram of it; and I will not bate thee\n    a scruple.\n  PAROLLES. Well, I shall be wiser.\n  LAFEU. Ev'n as soon as thou canst, for thou hast to pull at a smack\n    o' th' contrary. If ever thou be'st bound in thy scarf and\n    beaten, thou shalt find what it is to be proud of thy bondage. I\n    have a desire to hold my acquaintance with thee, or rather my\n    knowledge, that I may say in the default 'He is a man I know.'\n  PAROLLES. My lord, you do me most insupportable vexation.\n  LAFEU. I would it were hell pains for thy sake, and my poor doing\n    eternal; for doing I am past, as I will by thee, in what motion\n    age will give me leave.                                 Exit\n  PAROLLES. Well, thou hast a son shall take this disgrace off me:\n    scurvy, old, filthy, scurvy lord! Well, I must be patient; there\n    is no fettering of authority. I'll beat him, by my life, if I can\n    meet him with any convenience, an he were double and double a\n    lord. I'll have no more pity of his age than I would have of-\n    I'll beat him, and if I could but meet him again.\n\n                         Re-enter LAFEU\n\n  LAFEU. Sirrah, your lord and master's married; there's news for\n    you; you have a new mistress.\n  PAROLLES. I most unfeignedly beseech your lordship to make some\n    reservation of your wrongs. He is my good lord: whom I serve\n    above is my master.\n  LAFEU. Who? God?\n  PAROLLES. Ay, sir.\n  LAFEU. The devil it is that's thy master. Why dost thou garter up\n    thy arms o' this fashion? Dost make hose of thy sleeves? Do other\n    servants so? Thou wert best set thy lower part where thy nose\n    stands. By mine honour, if I were but two hours younger, I'd beat\n    thee. Methink'st thou art a general offence, and every man should\n    beat thee. I think thou wast created for men to breathe\n    themselves upon thee.\n  PAROLLES. This is hard and undeserved measure, my lord.\n  LAFEU. Go to, sir; you were beaten in Italy for picking a kernel\n    out of a pomegranate; you are a vagabond, and no true traveller;\n    you are more saucy with lords and honourable personages than the\n    commission of your birth and virtue gives you heraldry. You are\n    not worth another word, else I'd call you knave. I leave you.\n Exit\n\n                           Enter BERTRAM\n\n  PAROLLES. Good, very, good, it is so then. Good, very good; let it\n    be conceal'd awhile.\n  BERTRAM. Undone, and forfeited to cares for ever!\n  PAROLLES. What's the matter, sweetheart?\n  BERTRAM. Although before the solemn priest I have sworn,\n    I will not bed her.\n  PAROLLES. What, what, sweetheart?\n  BERTRAM. O my Parolles, they have married me!\n    I'll to the Tuscan wars, and never bed her.\n  PAROLLES. France is a dog-hole, and it no more merits\n    The tread of a man's foot. To th' wars!\n  BERTRAM. There's letters from my mother; what th' import is I know\n    not yet.\n  PAROLLES. Ay, that would be known. To th' wars, my boy, to th'\n      wars!\n    He wears his honour in a box unseen\n    That hugs his kicky-wicky here at home,\n    Spending his manly marrow in her arms,\n    Which should sustain the bound and high curvet\n    Of Mars's fiery steed. To other regions!\n    France is a stable; we that dwell in't jades;\n    Therefore, to th' war!\n  BERTRAM. It shall be so; I'll send her to my house,\n    Acquaint my mother with my hate to her,\n    And wherefore I am fled; write to the King\n    That which I durst not speak. His present gift\n    Shall furnish me to those Italian fields\n    Where noble fellows strike. War is no strife\n    To the dark house and the detested wife.\n  PAROLLES. Will this capriccio hold in thee, art sure?\n  BERTRAM. Go with me to my chamber and advise me.\n    I'll send her straight away. To-morrow\n    I'll to the wars, she to her single sorrow.\n  PAROLLES. Why, these balls bound; there's noise in it. 'Tis hard:\n    A young man married is a man that's marr'd.\n    Therefore away, and leave her bravely; go.\n    The King has done you wrong; but, hush, 'tis so.      Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 4.\nParis. The KING'S palace\n\nEnter HELENA and CLOWN\n\n  HELENA. My mother greets me kindly; is she well?\n  CLOWN. She is not well, but yet she has her health; she's very\n    merry, but yet she is not well. But thanks be given, she's very\n    well, and wants nothing i' th' world; but yet she is not well.\n  HELENA. If she be very well, what does she ail that she's not very\n    well?\n  CLOWN. Truly, she's very well indeed, but for two things.\n  HELENA. What two things?\n  CLOWN. One, that she's not in heaven, whither God send her quickly!\n    The other, that she's in earth, from whence God send her quickly!\n\n                        Enter PAROLLES\n\n  PAROLLES. Bless you, my fortunate lady!\n  HELENA. I hope, sir, I have your good will to have mine own good\n    fortunes.\n  PAROLLES. You had my prayers to lead them on; and to keep them on,\n    have them still. O, my knave, how does my old lady?\n  CLOWN. So that you had her wrinkles and I her money, I would she\n    did as you say.\n  PAROLLES. Why, I say nothing.\n  CLOWN. Marry, you are the wiser man; for many a man's tongue shakes\n    out his master's undoing. To say nothing, to do nothing, to know\n    nothing, and to have nothing, is to be a great part of your\n    title, which is within a very little of nothing.\n  PAROLLES. Away! th'art a knave.\n  CLOWN. You should have said, sir, 'Before a knave th'art a knave';\n    that's 'Before me th'art a knave.' This had been truth, sir.\n  PAROLLES. Go to, thou art a witty fool; I have found thee.\n  CLOWN. Did you find me in yourself, sir, or were you taught to find\n    me? The search, sir, was profitable; and much fool may you find\n    in you, even to the world's pleasure and the increase of\n    laughter.\n  PAROLLES. A good knave, i' faith, and well fed.\n    Madam, my lord will go away to-night:\n    A very serious business calls on him.\n    The great prerogative and rite of love,\n    Which, as your due, time claims, he does acknowledge;\n    But puts it off to a compell'd restraint;\n    Whose want, and whose delay, is strew'd with sweets,\n    Which they distil now in the curbed time,\n    To make the coming hour o'erflow with joy\n    And pleasure drown the brim.\n  HELENA. What's his else?\n  PAROLLES. That you will take your instant leave o' th' King,\n    And make this haste as your own good proceeding,\n    Strength'ned with what apology you think\n    May make it probable need.\n  HELENA. What more commands he?\n  PAROLLES. That, having this obtain'd, you presently\n    Attend his further pleasure.\n  HELENA. In everything I wait upon his will.\n  PAROLLES. I shall report it so.\n  HELENA. I pray you.                              Exit PAROLLES\n    Come, sirrah.                                         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 5.\nParis. The KING'S palace\n\nEnter LAFEU and BERTRAM\n\n  LAFEU. But I hope your lordship thinks not him a soldier.\n  BERTRAM. Yes, my lord, and of very valiant approof.\n  LAFEU. You have it from his own deliverance.\n  BERTRAM. And by other warranted testimony.\n  LAFEU. Then my dial goes not true; I took this lark for a bunting.\n  BERTRAM. I do assure you, my lord, he is very great in knowledge,\n    and accordingly valiant.\n  LAFEU. I have then sinn'd against his experience and transgress'd\n    against his valour; and my state that way is dangerous, since I\n    cannot yet find in my heart to repent. Here he comes; I pray you\n    make us friends; I will pursue the amity\n\n                         Enter PAROLLES\n\n  PAROLLES.  [To BERTRAM]  These things shall be done, sir.\n  LAFEU. Pray you, sir, who's his tailor?\n  PAROLLES. Sir!\n  LAFEU. O, I know him well. Ay, sir; he, sir, 's a good workman, a\n    very good tailor.\n  BERTRAM.  [Aside to PAROLLES]  Is she gone to the King?\n  PAROLLES. She is.\n  BERTRAM. Will she away to-night?\n  PAROLLES. As you'll have her.\n  BERTRAM. I have writ my letters, casketed my treasure,\n    Given order for our horses; and to-night,\n    When I should take possession of the bride,\n    End ere I do begin.\n  LAFEU. A good traveller is something at the latter end of a dinner;\n    but one that lies three-thirds and uses a known truth to pass a\n    thousand nothings with, should be once heard and thrice beaten.\n    God save you, Captain.\n  BERTRAM. Is there any unkindness between my lord and you, monsieur?\n  PAROLLES. I know not how I have deserved to run into my lord's\n    displeasure.\n  LAFEU. You have made shift to run into 't, boots and spurs and all,\n    like him that leapt into the custard; and out of it you'll run\n    again, rather than suffer question for your residence.\n  BERTRAM. It may be you have mistaken him, my lord.\n  LAFEU. And shall do so ever, though I took him at's prayers.\n    Fare you well, my lord; and believe this of me: there can be no\n    kernal in this light nut; the soul of this man is his clothes;\n    trust him not in matter of heavy consequence; I have kept of them\n    tame, and know their natures. Farewell, monsieur; I have spoken\n    better of you than you have or will to deserve at my hand; but we\n    must do good against evil.                              Exit\n  PAROLLES. An idle lord, I swear.\n  BERTRAM. I think so.\n  PAROLLES. Why, do you not know him?\n  BERTRAM. Yes, I do know him well; and common speech\n    Gives him a worthy pass. Here comes my clog.\n\n                          Enter HELENA\n\n  HELENA. I have, sir, as I was commanded from you,\n    Spoke with the King, and have procur'd his leave\n    For present parting; only he desires\n    Some private speech with you.\n  BERTRAM. I shall obey his will.\n    You must not marvel, Helen, at my course,\n    Which holds not colour with the time, nor does\n    The ministration and required office\n    On my particular. Prepar'd I was not\n    For such a business; therefore am I found\n    So much unsettled. This drives me to entreat you\n    That presently you take your way for home,\n    And rather muse than ask why I entreat you;\n    For my respects are better than they seem,\n    And my appointments have in them a need\n    Greater than shows itself at the first view\n    To you that know them not. This to my mother.\n                                               [Giving a letter]\n    'Twill be two days ere I shall see you; so\n    I leave you to your wisdom.\n  HELENA. Sir, I can nothing say\n    But that I am your most obedient servant.\n  BERTRAM. Come, come, no more of that.\n  HELENA. And ever shall\n    With true observance seek to eke out that\n    Wherein toward me my homely stars have fail'd\n    To equal my great fortune.\n  BERTRAM. Let that go.\n    My haste is very great. Farewell; hie home.\n  HELENA. Pray, sir, your pardon.\n  BERTRAM. Well, what would you say?\n  HELENA. I am not worthy of the wealth I owe,\n    Nor dare I say 'tis mine, and yet it is;\n    But, like a timorous thief, most fain would steal\n    What law does vouch mine own.\n  BERTRAM. What would you have?\n  HELENA. Something; and scarce so much; nothing, indeed.\n    I would not tell you what I would, my lord.\n    Faith, yes:\n    Strangers and foes do sunder and not kiss.\n  BERTRAM. I pray you, stay not, but in haste to horse.\n  HELENA. I shall not break your bidding, good my lord.\n  BERTRAM. Where are my other men, monsieur?\n    Farewell!                                        Exit HELENA\n    Go thou toward home, where I will never come\n    Whilst I can shake my sword or hear the drum.\n    Away, and for our flight.\n  PAROLLES. Bravely, coragio!                             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 1.\nFlorence. The DUKE's palace\n\n        Flourish. Enter the DUKE OF FLORENCE, attended; two\n               FRENCH LORDS, with a TROOP OF SOLDIERS\n\n  DUKE. So that, from point to point, now have you hear\n    The fundamental reasons of this war;\n    Whose great decision hath much blood let forth\n    And more thirsts after.\n  FIRST LORD. Holy seems the quarrel\n    Upon your Grace's part; black and fearful\n    On the opposer.\n  DUKE. Therefore we marvel much our cousin France\n    Would in so just a business shut his bosom\n    Against our borrowing prayers.\n  SECOND LORD. Good my lord,\n    The reasons of our state I cannot yield,\n    But like a common and an outward man\n    That the great figure of a council frames\n    By self-unable motion; therefore dare not\n    Say what I think of it, since I have found\n    Myself in my incertain grounds to fail\n    As often as I guess'd.\n  DUKE. Be it his pleasure.\n  FIRST LORD. But I am sure the younger of our nature,\n    That surfeit on their ease, will day by day\n    Come here for physic.\n  DUKE. Welcome shall they be\n    And all the honours that can fly from us\n    Shall on them settle. You know your places well;\n    When better fall, for your avails they fell.\n    To-morrow to th' field. Flourish.                     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 2.\nRousillon. The COUNT'S palace\n\nEnter COUNTESS and CLOWN\n\n  COUNTESS. It hath happen'd all as I would have had it, save that he\n    comes not along with her.\n  CLOWN. By my troth, I take my young lord to be a very melancholy\n    man.\n  COUNTESS. By what observance, I pray you?\n  CLOWN. Why, he will look upon his boot and sing; mend the ruff and\n    sing; ask questions and sing; pick his teeth and sing. I know a\n    man that had this trick of melancholy sold a goodly manor for a\n    song.\n  COUNTESS. Let me see what he writes, and when he means to come.\n                                              [Opening a letter]\n  CLOWN. I have no mind to Isbel since I was at court. Our old ling\n    and our Isbels o' th' country are nothing like your old ling and\n    your Isbels o' th' court. The brains of my Cupid's knock'd out;\n    and I begin to love, as an old man loves money, with no stomach.\n  COUNTESS. What have we here?\n  CLOWN. E'en that you have there.                          Exit\n  COUNTESS.  [Reads]  'I have sent you a daughter-in-law; she hath\n    recovered the King and undone me. I have wedded her, not bedded\n    her; and sworn to make the \"not\" eternal. You shall hear I am run\n    away; know it before the report come. If there be breadth enough\n    in the world, I will hold a long distance. My duty to you.\n                                           Your unfortunate son,\n                                                       BERTRAM.'\n    This is not well, rash and unbridled boy,\n    To fly the favours of so good a king,\n    To pluck his indignation on thy head\n    By the misprizing of a maid too virtuous\n    For the contempt of empire.\n\n                           Re-enter CLOWN\n\n  CLOWN. O madam, yonder is heavy news within between two soldiers\n    and my young lady.\n  COUNTESS. What is the -matter?\n  CLOWN. Nay, there is some comfort in the news, some comfort; your\n    son will not be kill'd so soon as I thought he would.\n  COUNTESS. Why should he be kill'd?\n  CLOWN. So say I, madam, if he run away, as I hear he does the\n    danger is in standing to 't; that's the loss of men, though it be\n    the getting of children. Here they come will tell you more. For my\n    part, I only hear your son was run away.                Exit\n\n              Enter HELENA and the two FRENCH GENTLEMEN\n\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Save you, good madam.\n  HELENA. Madam, my lord is gone, for ever gone.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Do not say so.\n  COUNTESS. Think upon patience. Pray you, gentlemen-\n    I have felt so many quirks of joy and grief\n    That the first face of neither, on the start,\n    Can woman me unto 't. Where is my son, I pray you?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Madam, he's gone to serve the Duke of Florence.\n    We met him thitherward; for thence we came,\n    And, after some dispatch in hand at court,\n    Thither we bend again.\n  HELENA. Look on this letter, madam; here's my passport.\n    [Reads]  'When thou canst get the ring upon my finger, which\n    never shall come off, and show me a child begotten of thy body\n    that I am father to, then call me husband; but in such a \"then\" I\n    write a \"never.\"\n    This is a dreadful sentence.\n  COUNTESS. Brought you this letter, gentlemen?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Ay, madam;\n    And for the contents' sake are sorry for our pains.\n  COUNTESS. I prithee, lady, have a better cheer;\n    If thou engrossest all the griefs are thine,\n    Thou robb'st me of a moiety. He was my son;\n    But I do wash his name out of my blood,\n    And thou art all my child. Towards Florence is he?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Ay, madam.\n  COUNTESS. And to be a soldier?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Such is his noble purpose; and, believe 't,\n    The Duke will lay upon him all the honour\n    That good convenience claims.\n  COUNTESS. Return you thither?\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Ay, madam, with the swiftest wing of speed.\n  HELENA.  [Reads]  'Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France.'\n    'Tis bitter.\n  COUNTESS. Find you that there?\n  HELENA. Ay, madam.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. 'Tis but the boldness of his hand haply, which\n    his heart was not consenting to.\n  COUNTESS. Nothing in France until he have no wife!\n    There's nothing here that is too good for him\n    But only she; and she deserves a lord\n    That twenty such rude boys might tend upon,\n    And call her hourly mistress. Who was with him?\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. A servant only, and a gentleman\n    Which I have sometime known.\n  COUNTESS. Parolles, was it not?\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Ay, my good lady, he.\n  COUNTESS. A very tainted fellow, and full of wickedness.\n    My son corrupts a well-derived nature\n    With his inducement.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Indeed, good lady,\n    The fellow has a deal of that too much\n    Which holds him much to have.\n  COUNTESS. Y'are welcome, gentlemen.\n    I will entreat you, when you see my son,\n    To tell him that his sword can never win\n    The honour that he loses. More I'll entreat you\n    Written to bear along.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. We serve you, madam,\n    In that and all your worthiest affairs.\n  COUNTESS. Not so, but as we change our courtesies.\n    Will you draw near?            Exeunt COUNTESS and GENTLEMEN\n  HELENA. 'Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France.'\n    Nothing in France until he has no wife!\n    Thou shalt have none, Rousillon, none in France\n    Then hast thou all again. Poor lord! is't\n    That chase thee from thy country, and expose\n    Those tender limbs of thine to the event\n    Of the non-sparing war? And is it I\n    That drive thee from the sportive court, where thou\n    Wast shot at with fair eyes, to be the mark\n    Of smoky muskets? O you leaden messengers,\n    That ride upon the violent speed of fire,\n    Fly with false aim; move the still-piecing air,\n    That sings with piercing; do not touch my lord.\n    Whoever shoots at him, I set him there;\n    Whoever charges on his forward breast,\n    I am the caitiff that do hold him to't;\n    And though I kill him not, I am the cause\n    His death was so effected. Better 'twere\n    I met the ravin lion when he roar'd\n    With sharp constraint of hunger; better 'twere\n    That all the miseries which nature owes\n    Were mine at once. No; come thou home, Rousillon,\n    Whence honour but of danger wins a scar,\n    As oft it loses all. I will be gone.\n    My being here it is that holds thee hence.\n    Shall I stay here to do 't? No, no, although\n    The air of paradise did fan the house,\n    And angels offic'd all. I will be gone,\n    That pitiful rumour may report my flight\n    To consolate thine ear. Come, night; end, day.\n    For with the dark, poor thief, I'll steal away.         Exit\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 3.\nFlorence. Before the DUKE's palace\n\nFlourish. Enter the DUKE OF FLORENCE, BERTRAM, PAROLLES, SOLDIERS,\ndrum and trumpets\n\n  DUKE. The General of our Horse thou art; and we,\n    Great in our hope, lay our best love and credence\n    Upon thy promising fortune.\n  BERTRAM. Sir, it is\n    A charge too heavy for my strength; but yet\n    We'll strive to bear it for your worthy sake\n    To th' extreme edge of hazard.\n  DUKE. Then go thou forth;\n    And Fortune play upon thy prosperous helm,\n    As thy auspicious mistress!\n  BERTRAM. This very day,\n    Great Mars, I put myself into thy file;\n    Make me but like my thoughts, and I shall prove\n    A lover of thy drum, hater of love.                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 4.\nRousillon. The COUNT'S palace\n\nEnter COUNTESS and STEWARD\n\n  COUNTESS. Alas! and would you take the letter of her?\n    Might you not know she would do as she has done\n    By sending me a letter? Read it again.\n  STEWARD.  [Reads]  'I am Saint Jaques' pilgrim, thither gone.\n    Ambitious love hath so in me offended\n    That barefoot plod I the cold ground upon,\n    With sainted vow my faults to have amended.\n    Write, write, that from the bloody course of war\n    My dearest master, your dear son, may hie.\n    Bless him at home in peace, whilst I from far\n    His name with zealous fervour sanctify.\n    His taken labours bid him me forgive;\n    I, his despiteful Juno, sent him forth\n    From courtly friends, with camping foes to live,\n    Where death and danger dogs the heels of worth.\n    He is too good and fair for death and me;\n    Whom I myself embrace to set him free.'\n  COUNTESS. Ah, what sharp stings are in her mildest words!\n    Rinaldo, you did never lack advice so much\n    As letting her pass so; had I spoke with her,\n    I could have well diverted her intents,\n    Which thus she hath prevented.\n  STEWARD. Pardon me, madam;\n    If I had given you this at over-night,\n    She might have been o'er ta'en; and yet she writes\n    Pursuit would be but vain.\n  COUNTESS. What angel shall\n    Bless this unworthy husband? He cannot thrive,\n    Unless her prayers, whom heaven delights to hear\n    And loves to grant, reprieve him from the wrath\n    Of greatest justice. Write, write, Rinaldo,\n    To this unworthy husband of his wife;\n    Let every word weigh heavy of her worth\n    That he does weigh too light. My greatest grief,\n    Though little he do feel it, set down sharply.\n    Dispatch the most convenient messenger.\n    When haply he shall hear that she is gone\n    He will return; and hope I may that she,\n    Hearing so much, will speed her foot again,\n    Led hither by pure love. Which of them both\n    Is dearest to me I have no skill in sense\n    To make distinction. Provide this messenger.\n    My heart is heavy, and mine age is weak;\n    Grief would have tears, and sorrow bids me speak.     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 5.\n\nWithout the walls of Florence\nA tucket afar off. Enter an old WIDOW OF FLORENCE, her daughter DIANA,\nVIOLENTA, and MARIANA, with other CITIZENS\n\n  WIDOW. Nay, come; for if they do approach the city we shall lose\n    all the sight.\n  DIANA. They say the French count has done most honourable service.\n  WIDOW. It is reported that he has taken their great'st commander;\n    and that with his own hand he slew the Duke's brother.  [Tucket]\n    We have lost our labour; they are gone a contrary way. Hark! you\n    may know by their trumpets.\n  MARIANA. Come, let's return again, and suffice ourselves with the\n    report of it. Well, Diana, take heed of this French earl; the\n    honour of a maid is her name, and no legacy is so rich as\n    honesty.\n  WIDOW. I have told my neighbour how you have been solicited by a\n    gentleman his companion.\n  MARIANA. I know that knave, hang him! one Parolles; a filthy\n    officer he is in those suggestions for the young earl. Beware of\n    them, Diana: their promises, enticements, oaths, tokens, and all\n    these engines of lust, are not the things they go under; many a\n    maid hath been seduced by them; and the misery is, example, that\n    so terrible shows in the wreck of maidenhood, cannot for all that\n    dissuade succession, but that they are limed with the twigs that\n    threatens them. I hope I need not to advise you further; but I\n    hope your own grace will keep you where you are, though there\n    were no further danger known but the modesty which is so lost.\n  DIANA. You shall not need to fear me.\n\n            Enter HELENA in the dress of a pilgrim\n\n  WIDOW. I hope so. Look, here comes a pilgrim. I know she will lie\n    at my house: thither they send one another. I'll question her.\n    God save you, pilgrim! Whither are bound?\n  HELENA. To Saint Jaques le Grand.\n    Where do the palmers lodge, I do beseech you?\n  WIDOW. At the Saint Francis here, beside the port.\n  HELENA. Is this the way?\n                                                  [A march afar]\n  WIDOW. Ay, marry, is't. Hark you! They come this way.\n    If you will tarry, holy pilgrim,\n    But till the troops come by,\n    I will conduct you where you shall be lodg'd;\n    The rather for I think I know your hostess\n    As ample as myself.\n  HELENA. Is it yourself?\n  WIDOW. If you shall please so, pilgrim.\n  HELENA. I thank you, and will stay upon your leisure.\n  WIDOW. You came, I think, from France?\n  HELENA. I did so.\n  WIDOW. Here you shall see a countryman of yours\n    That has done worthy service.\n  HELENA. His name, I pray you.\n  DIANA. The Count Rousillon. Know you such a one?\n  HELENA. But by the ear, that hears most nobly of him;\n    His face I know not.\n  DIANA. What some'er he is,\n    He's bravely taken here. He stole from France,\n    As 'tis reported, for the King had married him\n    Against his liking. Think you it is so?\n  HELENA. Ay, surely, mere the truth; I know his lady.\n  DIANA. There is a gentleman that serves the Count\n    Reports but coarsely of her.\n  HELENA. What's his name?\n  DIANA. Monsieur Parolles.\n  HELENA. O, I believe with him,\n    In argument of praise, or to the worth\n    Of the great Count himself, she is too mean\n    To have her name repeated; all her deserving\n    Is a reserved honesty, and that\n    I have not heard examin'd.\n  DIANA. Alas, poor lady!\n    'Tis a hard bondage to become the wife\n    Of a detesting lord.\n  WIDOW. I sweet, good creature, wheresoe'er she is\n    Her heart weighs sadly. This young maid might do her\n    A shrewd turn, if she pleas'd.\n  HELENA. How do you mean?\n    May be the amorous Count solicits her\n    In the unlawful purpose.\n  WIDOW. He does, indeed;\n    And brokes with all that can in such a suit\n    Corrupt the tender honour of a maid;\n    But she is arm'd for him, and keeps her guard\n    In honestest defence.\n\n    Enter, with drum and colours, BERTRAM, PAROLLES, and the\n                          whole ARMY\n\n  MARIANA. The gods forbid else!\n  WIDOW. So, now they come.\n    That is Antonio, the Duke's eldest son;\n    That, Escalus.\n  HELENA. Which is the Frenchman?\n  DIANA. He-\n    That with the plume; 'tis a most gallant fellow.\n    I would he lov'd his wife; if he were honester\n    He were much goodlier. Is't not a handsome gentleman?\n  HELENA. I like him well.\n  DIANA. 'Tis pity he is not honest. Yond's that same knave\n    That leads him to these places; were I his lady\n    I would poison that vile rascal.\n  HELENA. Which is he?\n  DIANA. That jack-an-apes with scarfs. Why is he melancholy?\n  HELENA. Perchance he's hurt i' th' battle.\n  PAROLLES. Lose our drum! well.\n  MARIANA. He's shrewdly vex'd at something.\n    Look, he has spied us.\n  WIDOW. Marry, hang you!\n  MARIANA. And your courtesy, for a ring-carrier!\n                              Exeunt BERTRAM, PAROLLES, and ARMY\n  WIDOW. The troop is past. Come, pilgrim, I will bring you\n    Where you shall host. Of enjoin'd penitents\n    There's four or five, to great Saint Jaques bound,\n    Already at my house.\n  HELENA. I humbly thank you.\n    Please it this matron and this gentle maid\n    To eat with us to-night; the charge and thanking\n    Shall be for me, and, to requite you further,\n    I will bestow some precepts of this virgin,\n    Worthy the note.\n    BOTH. We'll take your offer kindly.                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 6.\nCamp before Florence\n\nEnter BERTRAM, and the two FRENCH LORDS\n\n  SECOND LORD. Nay, good my lord, put him to't; let him have his way.\n  FIRST LORD. If your lordship find him not a hiding, hold me no more\n    in your respect.\n  SECOND LORD. On my life, my lord, a bubble.\n  BERTRAM. Do you think I am so far deceived in him?\n  SECOND LORD. Believe it, my lord, in mine own direct knowledge,\n    without any malice, but to speak of him as my kinsman, he's a\n    most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly\n    promise-breaker, the owner of no one good quality worthy your\n    lordship's entertainment.\n  FIRST LORD. It were fit you knew him; lest, reposing too far in his\n    virtue, which he hath not, he might at some great and trusty\n    business in a main danger fail you.\n  BERTRAM. I would I knew in what particular action to try him.\n  FIRST LORD. None better than to let him fetch off his drum, which\n    you hear him so confidently undertake to do.\n  SECOND LORD. I with a troop of Florentines will suddenly surprise\n    him; such I will have whom I am sure he knows not from the enemy.\n    We will bind and hoodwink him so that he shall suppose no other\n    but that he is carried into the leaguer of the adversaries when\n    we bring him to our own tents. Be but your lordship present at\n    his examination; if he do not, for the promise of his life and in\n    the highest compulsion of base fear, offer to betray you and\n    deliver all the intelligence in his power against you, and that\n    with the divine forfeit of his soul upon oath, never trust my\n    judgment in anything.\n  FIRST LORD. O, for the love of laughter, let him fetch his drum; he\n    says he has a stratagem for't. When your lordship sees the bottom\n    of his success in't, and to what metal this counterfeit lump of\n    ore will be melted, if you give him not John Drum's\n    entertainment, your inclining cannot be removed. Here he comes.\n\n                      Enter PAROLLES\n\n  SECOND LORD. O, for the love of laughter, hinder not the honour of\n    his design; let him fetch off his drum in any hand.\n  BERTRAM. How now, monsieur! This drum sticks sorely in your\n    disposition.\n  FIRST LORD. A pox on 't; let it go; 'tis but a drum.\n  PAROLLES. But a drum! Is't but a drum? A drum so lost! There was\n    excellent command: to charge in with our horse upon our own\n    wings, and to rend our own soldiers!\n  FIRST LORD. That was not to be blam'd in the command of the\n    service; it was a disaster of war that Caesar himself could not\n    have prevented, if he had been there to command.\n  BERTRAM. Well, we cannot greatly condemn our success.\n    Some dishonour we had in the loss of that drum; but it is not to\n    be recovered.\n  PAROLLES. It might have been recovered.\n  BERTRAM. It might, but it is not now.\n  PAROLLES. It is to be recovered. But that the merit of service is\n    seldom attributed to the true and exact performer, I would have\n    that drum or another, or 'hic jacet.'\n  BERTRAM. Why, if you have a stomach, to't, monsieur. If you think\n    your mystery in stratagem can bring this instrument of honour\n    again into his native quarter, be magnanimous in the enterprise,\n    and go on; I will grace the attempt for a worthy exploit. If you\n    speed well in it, the Duke shall both speak of it and extend to\n    you what further becomes his greatness, even to the utmost\n    syllable of our worthiness.\n  PAROLLES. By the hand of a soldier, I will undertake it.\n  BERTRAM. But you must not now slumber in it.\n  PAROLLES. I'll about it this evening; and I will presently pen\n    down my dilemmas, encourage myself in my certainty, put myself\n    into my mortal preparation; and by midnight look to hear further\n    from me.\n  BERTRAM. May I be bold to acquaint his Grace you are gone about it?\n  PAROLLES. I know not what the success will be, my lord, but the\n    attempt I vow.\n  BERTRAM. I know th' art valiant; and, to the of thy soldiership,\n    will subscribe for thee. Farewell.\n  PAROLLES. I love not many words.                          Exit\n  SECOND LORD. No more than a fish loves water. Is not this a strange\n    fellow, my lord, that so confidently seems to undertake this\n    business, which he knows is not to be done; damns himself to do,\n    and dares better be damn'd than to do 't.\n  FIRST LORD. You do not know him, my lord, as we do. Certain it is\n    that he will steal himself into a man's favour, and for a week\n    escape a great deal of discoveries; but when you find him out,\n    you have him ever after.\n  BERTRAM. Why, do you think he will make no deed at all of this that\n    so seriously he does address himself unto?\n  SECOND LORD. None in the world; but return with an invention, and\n    clap upon you two or three probable lies. But we have almost\n    emboss'd him. You shall see his fall to-night; for indeed he is\n    not for your lordship's respect.\n  FIRST LORD. We'll make you some sport with the fox ere we case him.\n    He was first smok'd by the old Lord Lafeu. When his disguise and\n    he is parted, tell me what a sprat you shall find him; which you\n    shall see this very night.\n  SECOND LORD. I must go look my twigs; he shall be caught.\n  BERTRAM. Your brother, he shall go along with me.\n  SECOND LORD. As't please your lordship. I'll leave you.   Exit\n  BERTRAM. Now will I lead you to the house, and show you\n    The lass I spoke of.\n  FIRST LORD. But you say she's honest.\n  BERTRAM. That's all the fault. I spoke with her but once,\n    And found her wondrous cold; but I sent to her,\n    By this same coxcomb that we have i' th' wind,\n    Tokens and letters which she did re-send;\n    And this is all I have done. She's a fair creature;\n    Will you go see her?\n  FIRST LORD. With all my heart, my lord.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 7.\nFlorence. The WIDOW'S house\n\nEnter HELENA and WIDOW\n\n  HELENA. If you misdoubt me that I am not she,\n    I know not how I shall assure you further\n    But I shall lose the grounds I work upon.\n  WIDOW. Though my estate be fall'n, I was well born,\n    Nothing acquainted with these businesses;\n    And would not put my reputation now\n    In any staining act.\n  HELENA. Nor would I wish you.\n  FIRST give me trust the Count he is my husband,\n    And what to your sworn counsel I have spoken\n    Is so from word to word; and then you cannot,\n    By the good aid that I of you shall borrow,\n    Err in bestowing it.\n  WIDOW. I should believe you;\n    For you have show'd me that which well approves\n    Y'are great in fortune.\n  HELENA. Take this purse of gold,\n    And let me buy your friendly help thus far,\n    Which I will over-pay and pay again\n    When I have found it. The Count he woos your daughter\n    Lays down his wanton siege before her beauty,\n    Resolv'd to carry her. Let her in fine consent,\n    As we'll direct her how 'tis best to bear it.\n    Now his important blood will nought deny\n    That she'll demand. A ring the County wears\n    That downward hath succeeded in his house\n    From son to son some four or five descents\n    Since the first father wore it. This ring he holds\n    In most rich choice; yet, in his idle fire,\n    To buy his will, it would not seem too dear,\n    Howe'er repented after.\n  WIDOW. Now I see\n    The bottom of your purpose.\n  HELENA. You see it lawful then. It is no more\n    But that your daughter, ere she seems as won,\n    Desires this ring; appoints him an encounter;\n    In fine, delivers me to fill the time,\n    Herself most chastely absent. After this,\n    To marry her, I'll add three thousand crowns\n    To what is pass'd already.\n  WIDOW. I have yielded.\n    Instruct my daughter how she shall persever,\n    That time and place with this deceit so lawful\n    May prove coherent. Every night he comes\n    With musics of all sorts, and songs compos'd\n    To her unworthiness. It nothing steads us\n    To chide him from our eaves, for he persists\n    As if his life lay on 't.\n  HELENA. Why then to-night\n    Let us assay our plot; which, if it speed,\n    Is wicked meaning in a lawful deed,\n    And lawful meaning in a lawful act;\n    Where both not sin, and yet a sinful fact.\n    But let's about it.                                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 1.\nWithout the Florentine camp\n\nEnter SECOND FRENCH LORD with five or six other SOLDIERS in ambush\n\n  SECOND LORD. He can come no other way but by this hedge-corner.\n    When you sally upon him, speak what terrible language you will;\n    though you understand it not yourselves, no matter; for we must\n    not seem to understand him, unless some one among us, whom we\n    must produce for an interpreter.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Good captain, let me be th' interpreter.\n  SECOND LORD. Art not acquainted with him? Knows he not thy voice?\n  FIRST SOLDIER. No, sir, I warrant you.\n  SECOND LORD. But what linsey-woolsey has thou to speak to us again?\n  FIRST SOLDIER. E'en such as you speak to me.\n  SECOND LORD. He must think us some band of strangers i' th'\n    adversary's entertainment. Now he hath a smack of all\n    neighbouring languages, therefore we must every one be a man of\n    his own fancy; not to know what we speak one to another, so we\n    seem to know, is to know straight our purpose: choughs' language,\n    gabble enough, and good enough. As for you, interpreter, you must\n    seem very politic. But couch, ho! here he comes; to beguile two\n    hours in a sleep, and then to return and swear the lies he forges.\n\n                         Enter PAROLLES\n\n  PAROLLES. Ten o'clock. Within these three hours 'twill be time\n    enough to go home. What shall I say I have done? It must be a\n    very plausive invention that carries it. They begin to smoke me;\n    and disgraces have of late knock'd to often at my door. I find my\n    tongue is too foolhardy; but my heart hath the fear of Mars\n    before it, and of his creatures, not daring the reports of my\n    tongue.\n  SECOND LORD. This is the first truth that e'er thine own tongue was\n    guilty of.\n  PAROLLES. What the devil should move me to undertake the recovery\n    of this drum, being not ignorant of the impossibility, and\n    knowing I had no such purpose? I must give myself some hurts, and\n    say I got them in exploit. Yet slight ones will not carry it.\n    They will say 'Came you off with so little?' And great ones I\n    dare not give. Wherefore, what's the instance? Tongue, I must put\n    you into a butterwoman's mouth, and buy myself another of\n    Bajazet's mule, if you prattle me into these perils.\n  SECOND LORD. Is it possible he should know what he is, and be that\n    he is?\n  PAROLLES. I would the cutting of my garments would serve the turn,\n    or the breaking of my Spanish sword.\n  SECOND LORD. We cannot afford you so.\n  PAROLLES. Or the baring of my beard; and to say it was in\n    stratagem.\n  SECOND LORD. 'Twould not do.\n  PAROLLES. Or to drown my clothes, and say I was stripp'd.\n  SECOND LORD. Hardly serve.\n  PAROLLES. Though I swore I leap'd from the window of the citadel-\n  SECOND LORD. How deep?\n  PAROLLES. Thirty fathom.\n  SECOND LORD. Three great oaths would scarce make that be believed.\n  PAROLLES. I would I had any drum of the enemy's; I would swear I\n    recover'd it.\n  SECOND LORD. You shall hear one anon.          [Alarum within]\n  PAROLLES. A drum now of the enemy's!\n  SECOND LORD. Throca movousus, cargo, cargo, cargo.\n  ALL. Cargo, cargo, cargo, villianda par corbo, cargo.\n  PAROLLES. O, ransom, ransom! Do not hide mine eyes.\n                                            [They blindfold him]\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Boskos thromuldo boskos.\n  PAROLLES. I know you are the Muskos' regiment,\n    And I shall lose my life for want of language.\n    If there be here German, or Dane, Low Dutch,\n    Italian, or French, let him speak to me;\n    I'll discover that which shall undo the Florentine.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Boskos vauvado. I understand thee, and can speak thy\n    tongue. Kerely-bonto, sir, betake thee to thy faith, for\n    seventeen poniards are at thy bosom.\n  PAROLLES. O!\n  FIRST SOLDIER. O, pray, pray, pray! Manka revania dulche.\n  SECOND LORD. Oscorbidulchos volivorco.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. The General is content to spare thee yet;\n    And, hoodwink'd as thou art, will lead thee on\n    To gather from thee. Haply thou mayst inform\n    Something to save thy life.\n  PAROLLES. O, let me live,\n    And all the secrets of our camp I'll show,\n    Their force, their purposes. Nay, I'll speak that\n    Which you will wonder at.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. But wilt thou faithfully?\n  PAROLLES. If I do not, damn me.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Acordo linta.\n    Come on; thou art granted space.\n                   Exit, PAROLLES guarded. A short alarum within\n  SECOND LORD. Go, tell the Count Rousillon and my brother\n    We have caught the woodcock, and will keep him muffled\n    Till we do hear from them.\n  SECOND SOLDIER. Captain, I will.\n  SECOND LORD. 'A will betray us all unto ourselves-\n    Inform on that.\n  SECOND SOLDIER. So I will, sir.\n  SECOND LORD. Till then I'll keep him dark and safely lock'd.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 2.\nFlorence. The WIDOW'S house\n\nEnter BERTRAM and DIANA\n\n  BERTRAM. They told me that your name was Fontibell.\n  DIANA. No, my good lord, Diana.\n  BERTRAM. Titled goddess;\n    And worth it, with addition! But, fair soul,\n    In your fine frame hath love no quality?\n    If the quick fire of youth light not your mind,\n    You are no maiden, but a monument;\n    When you are dead, you should be such a one\n    As you are now, for you are cold and stern;\n    And now you should be as your mother was\n    When your sweet self was got.\n  DIANA. She then was honest.\n  BERTRAM. So should you be.\n  DIANA. No.\n    My mother did but duty; such, my lord,\n    As you owe to your wife.\n  BERTRAM. No more o'that!\n    I prithee do not strive against my vows.\n    I was compell'd to her; but I love the\n    By love's own sweet constraint, and will for ever\n    Do thee all rights of service.\n  DIANA. Ay, so you serve us\n    Till we serve you; but when you have our roses\n    You barely leave our thorns to prick ourselves,\n    And mock us with our bareness.\n  BERTRAM. How have I sworn!\n  DIANA. 'Tis not the many oaths that makes the truth,\n    But the plain single vow that is vow'd true.\n    What is not holy, that we swear not by,\n    But take the High'st to witness. Then, pray you, tell me:\n    If I should swear by Jove's great attributes\n    I lov'd you dearly, would you believe my oaths\n    When I did love you ill? This has no holding,\n    To swear by him whom I protest to love\n    That I will work against him. Therefore your oaths\n    Are words and poor conditions, but unseal'd-\n    At least in my opinion.\n  BERTRAM. Change it, change it;\n    Be not so holy-cruel. Love is holy;\n    And my integrity ne'er knew the crafts\n    That you do charge men with. Stand no more off,\n    But give thyself unto my sick desires,\n    Who then recovers. Say thou art mine, and ever\n    My love as it begins shall so persever.\n  DIANA. I see that men make ropes in such a scarre\n    That we'll forsake ourselves. Give me that ring.\n  BERTRAM. I'll lend it thee, my dear, but have no power\n    To give it from me.\n  DIANA. Will you not, my lord?\n  BERTRAM. It is an honour 'longing to our house,\n    Bequeathed down from many ancestors;\n    Which were the greatest obloquy i' th' world\n    In me to lose.\n  DIANA. Mine honour's such a ring:\n    My chastity's the jewel of our house,\n    Bequeathed down from many ancestors;\n    Which were the greatest obloquy i' th' world\n    In me to lose. Thus your own proper wisdom\n    Brings in the champion Honour on my part\n    Against your vain assault.\n  BERTRAM. Here, take my ring;\n    My house, mine honour, yea, my life, be thine,\n    And I'll be bid by thee.\n  DIANA. When midnight comes, knock at my chamber window;\n    I'll order take my mother shall not hear.\n    Now will I charge you in the band of truth,\n    When you have conquer'd my yet maiden bed,\n    Remain there but an hour, nor speak to me:\n    My reasons are most strong; and you shall know them\n    When back again this ring shall be deliver'd.\n    And on your finger in the night I'll put\n    Another ring, that what in time proceeds\n    May token to the future our past deeds.\n    Adieu till then; then fail not. You have won\n    A wife of me, though there my hope be done.\n  BERTRAM. A heaven on earth I have won by wooing thee.\n Exit\n  DIANA. For which live long to thank both heaven and me!\n    You may so in the end.\n    My mother told me just how he would woo,\n    As if she sat in's heart; she says all men\n    Have the like oaths. He had sworn to marry me\n    When his wife's dead; therefore I'll lie with him\n    When I am buried. Since Frenchmen are so braid,\n    Marry that will, I live and die a maid.\n    Only, in this disguise, I think't no sin\n    To cozen him that would unjustly win.                   Exit\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 3.\nThe Florentine camp\n\nEnter the two FRENCH LORDS, and two or three SOLDIERS\n\n  SECOND LORD. You have not given him his mother's letter?\n  FIRST LORD. I have deliv'red it an hour since. There is something\n    in't that stings his nature; for on the reading it he chang'd\n    almost into another man.\n  SECOND LORD. He has much worthy blame laid upon him for shaking off\n    so good a wife and so sweet a lady.\n  FIRST LORD. Especially he hath incurred the everlasting displeasure\n    of the King, who had even tun'd his bounty to sing happiness to\n    him. I will tell you a thing, but you shall let it dwell darkly\n    with you.\n  SECOND LORD. When you have spoken it, 'tis dead, and I am the grave\n    of it.\n  FIRST LORD. He hath perverted a young gentlewoman here in Florence,\n    of a most chaste renown; and this night he fleshes his will in\n    the spoil of her honour. He hath given her his monumental ring,\n    and thinks himself made in the unchaste composition.\n  SECOND LORD. Now, God delay our rebellion! As we are ourselves,\n    what things are we!\n  FIRST LORD. Merely our own traitors. And as in the common course of\n    all treasons we still see them reveal themselves till they attain\n    to their abhorr'd ends; so he that in this action contrives\n    against his own nobility, in his proper stream, o'erflows\n    himself.\n  SECOND LORD. Is it not meant damnable in us to be trumpeters of our\n    unlawful intents? We shall not then have his company to-night?\n  FIRST LORD. Not till after midnight; for he is dieted to his hour.\n  SECOND LORD. That approaches apace. I would gladly have him see his\n    company anatomiz'd, that he might take a measure of his own\n    judgments, wherein so curiously he had set this counterfeit.\n  FIRST LORD. We will not meddle with him till he come; for his\n    presence must be the whip of the other.\n  SECOND LORD. In the meantime, what hear you of these wars?\n  FIRST LORD. I hear there is an overture of peace.\n  SECOND LORD. Nay, I assure you, a peace concluded.\n  FIRST LORD. What will Count Rousillon do then? Will he travel\n    higher, or return again into France?\n  SECOND LORD. I perceive, by this demand, you are not altogether\n    of his counsel.\n  FIRST LORD. Let it be forbid, sir! So should I be a great deal\n    of his act.\n  SECOND LORD. Sir, his wife, some two months since, fled from his\n    house. Her pretence is a pilgrimage to Saint Jaques le Grand;\n    which holy undertaking with most austere sanctimony she\n    accomplish'd; and, there residing, the tenderness of her nature\n    became as a prey to her grief; in fine, made a groan of her last\n    breath, and now she sings in heaven.\n  FIRST LORD. How is this justified?\n  SECOND LORD. The stronger part of it by her own letters, which\n    makes her story true even to the point of her death. Her death\n    itself, which could not be her office to say is come, was\n    faithfully confirm'd by the rector of the place.\n  FIRST LORD. Hath the Count all this intelligence?\n  SECOND LORD. Ay, and the particular confirmations, point from\n    point, to the full arming of the verity.\n  FIRST LORD. I am heartily sorry that he'll be glad of this.\n  SECOND LORD. How mightily sometimes we make us comforts of our\n    losses!\n  FIRST LORD. And how mightily some other times we drown our gain in\n    tears! The great dignity that his valour hath here acquir'd for\n    him shall at home be encount'red with a shame as ample.\n  SECOND LORD. The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill\n    together. Our virtues would be proud if our faults whipt them\n    not; and our crimes would despair if they were not cherish'd by\n    our virtues.\n\n                      Enter a MESSENGER\n\n    How now? Where's your master?\n  SERVANT. He met the Duke in the street, sir; of whom he hath taken\n    a solemn leave. His lordship will next morning for France. The\n    Duke hath offered him letters of commendations to the King.\n  SECOND LORD. They shall be no more than needful there, if they were\n    more than they can commend.\n  FIRST LORD. They cannot be too sweet for the King's tartness.\n    Here's his lordship now.\n\n                        Enter BERTRAM\n\n    How now, my lord, is't not after midnight?\n  BERTRAM. I have to-night dispatch'd sixteen businesses, a month's\n    length apiece; by an abstract of success: I have congied with the\n    Duke, done my adieu with his nearest; buried a wife, mourn'd for\n    her; writ to my lady mother I am returning; entertain'd my\n    convoy; and between these main parcels of dispatch effected many\n    nicer needs. The last was the greatest, but that I have not ended\n    yet.\n  SECOND LORD. If the business be of any difficulty and this morning\n    your departure hence, it requires haste of your lordship.\n  BERTRAM. I mean the business is not ended, as fearing to hear of it\n    hereafter. But shall we have this dialogue between the Fool and\n    the Soldier? Come, bring forth this counterfeit module has\n    deceiv'd me like a double-meaning prophesier.\n  SECOND LORD. Bring him forth.  [Exeunt SOLDIERS]  Has sat i' th'\n    stocks all night, poor gallant knave.\n  BERTRAM. No matter; his heels have deserv'd it, in usurping his\n    spurs so long. How does he carry himself?\n  SECOND LORD. I have told your lordship already the stocks carry\n    him. But to answer you as you would be understood: he weeps like\n    a wench that had shed her milk; he hath confess'd himself to\n    Morgan, whom he supposes to be a friar, from the time of his\n    remembrance to this very instant disaster of his setting i' th'\n    stocks. And what think you he hath confess'd?\n  BERTRAM. Nothing of me, has 'a?\n  SECOND LORD. His confession is taken, and it shall be read to his\n    face; if your lordship be in't, as I believe you are, you must\n    have the patience to hear it.\n\n                   Enter PAROLLES guarded, and\n                  FIRST SOLDIER as interpreter\n\n  BERTRAM. A plague upon him! muffled! He can say nothing of me.\n  SECOND LORD. Hush, hush! Hoodman comes. Portotartarossa.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. He calls for the tortures. What will you say without\n    'em?\n  PAROLLES. I will confess what I know without constraint; if ye\n    pinch me like a pasty, I can say no more.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Bosko chimurcho.\n  SECOND LORD. Boblibindo chicurmurco.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. YOU are a merciful general. Our General bids you\n    answer to what I shall ask you out of a note.\n  PAROLLES. And truly, as I hope to live.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. 'First demand of him how many horse the Duke is\n    strong.' What say you to that?\n  PAROLLES. Five or six thousand; but very weak and unserviceable.\n    The troops are all scattered, and the commanders very poor\n    rogues, upon my reputation and credit, and as I hope to live.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Shall I set down your answer so?\n  PAROLLES. Do; I'll take the sacrament on 't, how and which way you\n    will.\n  BERTRAM. All's one to him. What a past-saving slave is this!\n  SECOND LORD. Y'are deceiv'd, my lord; this is Monsieur Parolles,\n    the gallant militarist-that was his own phrase-that had the whole\n    theoric of war in the knot of his scarf, and the practice in the\n    chape of his dagger.\n  FIRST LORD. I will never trust a man again for keeping his sword\n    clean; nor believe he can have everything in him by wearing his\n    apparel neatly.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Well, that's set down.\n  PAROLLES. 'Five or six thousand horse' I said-I will say true- 'or\n    thereabouts' set down, for I'll speak truth.\n  SECOND LORD. He's very near the truth in this.\n  BERTRAM. But I con him no thanks for't in the nature he delivers it.\n  PAROLLES. 'Poor rogues' I pray you say.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Well, that's set down.\n  PAROLLES. I humbly thank you, sir. A truth's a truth-the rogues are\n    marvellous poor.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. 'Demand of him of what strength they are a-foot.'\n    What say you to that?\n  PAROLLES. By my troth, sir, if I were to live this present hour, I\n    will tell true. Let me see: Spurio, a hundred and fifty;\n    Sebastian, so many; Corambus, so many; Jaques, so many; Guiltian,\n    Cosmo, Lodowick, and Gratii, two hundred fifty each; mine own\n    company, Chitopher, Vaumond, Bentii, two hundred fifty each; so\n    that the muster-file, rotten and sound, upon my life, amounts not\n    to fifteen thousand poll; half of the which dare not shake the\n    snow from off their cassocks lest they shake themselves to\n    pieces.\n  BERTRAM. What shall be done to him?\n  SECOND LORD. Nothing, but let him have thanks. Demand of him my\n    condition, and what credit I have with the Duke.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Well, that's set down. 'You shall demand of him\n    whether one Captain Dumain be i' th' camp, a Frenchman; what his\n    reputation is with the Duke, what his valour, honesty, expertness\n    in wars; or whether he thinks it were not possible, with\n    well-weighing sums of gold, to corrupt him to a revolt.' What say\n    you to this? What do you know of it?\n  PAROLLES. I beseech you, let me answer to the particular of the\n    inter'gatories. Demand them singly.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Do you know this Captain Dumain?\n  PAROLLES. I know him: 'a was a botcher's prentice in Paris, from\n    whence he was whipt for getting the shrieve's fool with child-a\n    dumb innocent that could not say him nay.\n  BERTRAM. Nay, by your leave, hold your hands; though I know his\n    brains are forfeit to the next tile that falls.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Well, is this captain in the Duke of Florence's\n    camp?\n  PAROLLES. Upon my knowledge, he is, and lousy.\n  SECOND LORD. Nay, look not so upon me; we shall hear of your\n    lordship anon.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. What is his reputation with the Duke?\n  PAROLLES. The Duke knows him for no other but a poor officer of\n    mine; and writ to me this other day to turn him out o' th' band.\n    I think I have his letter in my pocket.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Marry, we'll search.\n  PAROLLES. In good sadness, I do not know; either it is there or it\n    is upon a file with the Duke's other letters in my tent.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Here 'tis; here's a paper. Shall I read it to you?\n  PAROLLES. I do not know if it be it or no.\n  BERTRAM. Our interpreter does it well.\n  SECOND LORD. Excellently.\n  FIRST SOLDIER.  [Reads]  'Dian, the Count's a fool, and full of\n    gold.'\n  PAROLLES. That is not the Duke's letter, sir; that is an\n    advertisement to a proper maid in Florence, one Diana, to take\n    heed of the allurement of one Count Rousillon, a foolish idle\n    boy, but for all that very ruttish. I pray you, sir, put it up\n    again.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Nay, I'll read it first by your favour.\n  PAROLLES. My meaning in't, I protest, was very honest in the behalf\n    of the maid; for I knew the young Count to be a dangerous and\n    lascivious boy, who is a whale to virginity, and devours up all\n    the fry it finds.\n  BERTRAM. Damnable both-sides rogue!\n  FIRST SOLDIER.                                         [Reads]\n    'When he swears oaths, bid him drop gold, and take it;\n    After he scores, he never pays the score.\n    Half won is match well made; match, and well make it;\n    He ne'er pays after-debts, take it before.\n    And say a soldier, Dian, told thee this:\n    Men are to mell with, boys are not to kiss;\n    For count of this, the Count's a fool, I know it,\n    Who pays before, but not when he does owe it.\n    Thine, as he vow'd to thee in thine ear,\n                                                   PAROLLES.'\n  BERTRAM. He shall be whipt through the army with this rhyme in's\n    forehead.\n  FIRST LORD. This is your devoted friend, sir, the manifold\n    linguist, and the amnipotent soldier.\n  BERTRAM. I could endure anything before but a cat, and now he's a\n    cat to me.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. I perceive, sir, by our General's looks we shall be\n    fain to hang you.\n  PAROLLES. My life, sir, in any case! Not that I am afraid to die,\n    but that, my offences being many, I would repent out the\n    remainder of nature. Let me live, sir, in a dungeon, i' th'\n    stocks, or anywhere, so I may live.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. We'll see what may be done, so you confess freely;\n    therefore, once more to this Captain Dumain: you have answer'd to\n    his reputation with the Duke, and to his valour; what is his\n    honesty?\n  PAROLLES. He will steal, sir, an egg out of a cloister; for rapes\n    and ravishments he parallels Nessus. He professes not keeping of\n    oaths; in breaking 'em he is stronger than Hercules. He will lie,\n    sir, with such volubility that you would think truth were a fool.\n    Drunkenness is his best virtue, for he will be swine-drunk; and\n    in his sleep he does little harm, save to his bedclothes about\n    him; but they know his conditions and lay him in straw. I have\n    but little more to say, sir, of his honesty. He has everything\n    that an honest man should not have; what an honest man should\n    have he has nothing.\n  SECOND LORD. I begin to love him for this.\n  BERTRAM. For this description of thine honesty? A pox upon him! For\n    me, he's more and more a cat.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. What say you to his expertness in war?\n  PAROLLES. Faith, sir, has led the drum before the English\n    tragedians-to belie him I will not-and more of his soldier-ship\n    I know not, except in that country he had the honour to be the\n    officer at a place there called Mile-end to instruct for the\n    doubling of files-I would do the man what honour I can-but of\n    this I am not certain.\n  SECOND LORD. He hath out-villain'd villainy so far that the rarity\n    redeems him.\n  BERTRAM. A pox on him! he's a cat still.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. His qualities being at this poor price, I need not\n    to ask you if gold will corrupt him to revolt.\n  PAROLLES. Sir, for a cardecue he will sell the fee-simple of his\n    salvation, the inheritance of it; and cut th' entail from all\n    remainders and a perpetual succession for it perpetually.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. What's his brother, the other Captain Dumain?\n  FIRST LORD. Why does he ask him of me?\n  FIRST SOLDIER. What's he?\n  PAROLLES. E'en a crow o' th' same nest; not altogether so great as\n    the first in goodness, but greater a great deal in evil. He\n    excels his brother for a coward; yet his brother is reputed one\n    of the best that is. In a retreat he outruns any lackey: marry,\n    in coming on he has the cramp.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. If your life be saved, will you undertake to betray\n    the Florentine?\n  PAROLLES. Ay, and the Captain of his Horse, Count Rousillon.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. I'll whisper with the General, and know his\n    pleasure.\n  PAROLLES.  [Aside]  I'll no more drumming. A plague of all drums!\n    Only to seem to deserve well, and to beguile the supposition of\n    that lascivious young boy the Count, have I run into this danger.\n    Yet who would have suspected an ambush where I was taken?\n  FIRST SOLDIER. There is no remedy, sir, but you must die.\n    The General says you that have so traitorously discover'd the\n    secrets of your army, and made such pestiferous reports of men\n    very nobly held, can serve the world for no honest use; therefore\n    you must die. Come, headsman, of with his head.\n  PAROLLES. O Lord, sir, let me live, or let me see my death!\n  FIRST SOLDIER. That shall you, and take your leave of all your\n    friends.  [Unmuffling him]  So look about you; know you any here?\n  BERTRAM. Good morrow, noble Captain.\n  FIRST LORD. God bless you, Captain Parolles.\n  SECOND LORD. God save you, noble Captain.\n  FIRST LORD. Captain, what greeting will you to my Lord Lafeu? I am\n    for France.\n  SECOND LORD. Good Captain, will you give me a copy of the sonnet\n    you writ to Diana in behalf of the Count Rousillon? An I were not\n    a very coward I'd compel it of you; but fare you well.\n                                        Exeunt BERTRAM and LORDS\n  FIRST SOLDIER. You are undone, Captain, all but your scarf; that\n    has a knot on 't yet.\n  PAROLLES. Who cannot be crush'd with a plot?\n  FIRST SOLDIER. If you could find out a country where but women were\n    that had received so much shame, you might begin an impudent\n    nation. Fare ye well, sir; I am for France too; we shall speak of\n    you there.                                Exit with SOLDIERS\n  PAROLLES. Yet am I thankful. If my heart were great,\n    'Twould burst at this. Captain I'll be no more;\n    But I will eat, and drink, and sleep as soft\n    As captain shall. Simply the thing I am\n    Shall make me live. Who knows himself a braggart,\n    Let him fear this; for it will come to pass\n    That every braggart shall be found an ass.\n    Rust, sword; cool, blushes; and, Parolles, live\n    Safest in shame. Being fool'd, by fool'ry thrive.\n    There's place and means for every man alive.\n    I'll after them.                                        Exit\n\n\n\n\nACT IV SCENE 4.\nThe WIDOW'S house\n\nEnter HELENA, WIDOW, and DIANA\n\n  HELENA. That you may well perceive I have not wrong'd you!\n    One of the greatest in the Christian world\n    Shall be my surety; fore whose throne 'tis needful,\n    Ere I can perfect mine intents, to kneel.\n    Time was I did him a desired office,\n    Dear almost as his life; which gratitude\n    Through flinty Tartar's bosom would peep forth,\n    And answer 'Thanks.' I duly am inform'd\n    His Grace is at Marseilles, to which place\n    We have convenient convoy. You must know\n    I am supposed dead. The army breaking,\n    My husband hies him home; where, heaven aiding,\n    And by the leave of my good lord the King,\n    We'll be before our welcome.\n  WIDOW. Gentle madam,\n    You never had a servant to whose trust\n    Your business was more welcome.\n  HELENA. Nor you, mistress,\n    Ever a friend whose thoughts more truly labour\n    To recompense your love. Doubt not but heaven\n    Hath brought me up to be your daughter's dower,\n    As it hath fated her to be my motive\n    And helper to a husband. But, O strange men!\n    That can such sweet use make of what they hate,\n    When saucy trusting of the cozen'd thoughts\n    Defiles the pitchy night. So lust doth play\n    With what it loathes, for that which is away.\n    But more of this hereafter. You, Diana,\n    Under my poor instructions yet must suffer\n    Something in my behalf.\n  DIANA. Let death and honesty\n    Go with your impositions, I am yours\n    Upon your will to suffer.\n  HELENA. Yet, I pray you:\n    But with the word the time will bring on summer,\n    When briers shall have leaves as well as thorns\n    And be as sweet as sharp. We must away;\n    Our waggon is prepar'd, and time revives us.\n    All's Well that Ends Well. Still the fine's the crown.\n    Whate'er the course, the end is the renown.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT IV SCENE 5.\nRousillon. The COUNT'S palace\n\nEnter COUNTESS, LAFEU, and CLOWN\n\n  LAFEU. No, no, no, son was misled with a snipt-taffeta fellow\n    there, whose villainous saffron would have made all the unbak'd\n    and doughy youth of a nation in his colour. Your daughter-in-law\n    had been alive at this hour, and your son here at home, more\n    advanc'd by the King than by that red-tail'd humble-bee I speak\n    of.\n  COUNTESS. I would I had not known him. It was the death of the most\n    virtuous gentlewoman that ever nature had praise for creating. If\n    she had partaken of my flesh, and cost me the dearest groans of a\n    mother. I could not have owed her a more rooted love.\n  LAFEU. 'Twas a good lady, 'twas a good lady. We may pick a thousand\n    sallets ere we light on such another herb.\n  CLOWN. Indeed, sir, she was the sweet-marjoram of the sallet, or,\n    rather, the herb of grace.\n  LAFEU. They are not sallet-herbs, you knave; they are nose-herbs.\n  CLOWN. I am no great Nebuchadnezzar, sir; I have not much skill in\n    grass.\n  LAFEU. Whether dost thou profess thyself-a knave or a fool?\n  CLOWN. A fool, sir, at a woman's service, and a knave at a man's.\n  LAFEU. Your distinction?\n  CLOWN. I would cozen the man of his wife, and do his service.\n  LAFEU. So you were a knave at his service, indeed.\n  CLOWN. And I would give his wife my bauble, sir, to do her service.\n  LAFEU. I will subscribe for thee; thou art both knave and fool.\n  CLOWN. At your service.\n  LAFEU. No, no, no.\n  CLOWN. Why, sir, if I cannot serve you, I can serve as great a\n    prince as you are.\n  LAFEU. Who's that? A Frenchman?\n  CLOWN. Faith, sir, 'a has an English name; but his fisnomy is more\n    hotter in France than there.\n  LAFEU. What prince is that?\n  CLOWN. The Black Prince, sir; alias, the Prince of Darkness; alias,\n    the devil.\n  LAFEU. Hold thee, there's my purse. I give thee not this to suggest\n    thee from thy master thou talk'st of; serve him still.\n  CLOWN. I am a woodland fellow, sir, that always loved a great fire;\n    and the master I speak of ever keeps a good fire. But, sure, he\n    is the prince of the world; let his nobility remain in's court. I\n    am for the house with the narrow gate, which I take to be too\n    little for pomp to enter. Some that humble themselves may; but\n    the many will be too chill and tender: and they'll be for the\n    flow'ry way that leads to the broad gate and the great fire.\n  LAFEU. Go thy ways, I begin to be aweary of thee; and I tell thee\n    so before, because I would not fall out with thee. Go thy ways;\n    let my horses be well look'd to, without any tricks.\n  CLOWN. If I put any tricks upon 'em, sir, they shall be jades'\n    tricks, which are their own right by the law of nature.\n Exit\n  LAFEU. A shrewd knave, and an unhappy.\n  COUNTESS. So 'a is. My lord that's gone made himself much  sport\n    out of him. By his authority he remains here, which he thinks is\n    a patent for his sauciness; and indeed he has no pace, but runs\n    where he will.\n  LAFEU. I like him well; 'tis not amiss. And I was about to tell\n    you, since I heard of the good lady's death, and that my lord\n    your son was upon his return home, I moved the King my master to\n    speak in the behalf of my daughter; which, in the minority of\n    them both, his Majesty out of a self-gracious remembrance did\n    first propose. His Highness hath promis'd me to do it; and, to\n    stop up the displeasure he hath conceived against your son, there\n    is no fitter matter. How does your ladyship like it?\n  COUNTESS. With very much content, my lord; and I wish it happily\n    effected.\n  LAFEU. His Highness comes post from Marseilles, of as able body as\n    when he number'd thirty; 'a will be here to-morrow, or I am\n    deceiv'd by him that in such intelligence hath seldom fail'd.\n  COUNTESS. It rejoices me that I hope I shall see him ere I die.\n    I have letters that my son will be here to-night. I shall beseech\n    your lordship to remain with me tal they meet together.\n  LAFEU. Madam, I was thinking with what manners I might safely be\n    admitted.\n  COUNTESS. You need but plead your honourable privilege.\n  LAFEU. Lady, of that I have made a bold charter; but, I thank my\n    God, it holds yet.\n\n                         Re-enter CLOWN\n\n  CLOWN. O madam, yonder's my lord your son with a patch of velvet\n    on's face; whether there be a scar under 't or no, the velvet\n    knows; but 'tis a goodly patch of velvet. His left cheek is a\n    cheek of two pile and a half, but his right cheek is worn bare.\n  LAFEU. A scar nobly got, or a noble scar, is a good liv'ry of\n    honour; so belike is that.\n  CLOWN. But it is your carbonado'd face.\n  LAFEU. Let us go see your son, I pray you;\n    I long to talk with the young noble soldier.\n  CLOWN. Faith, there's a dozen of 'em, with delicate fine hats, and\n    most courteous feathers, which bow the head and nod at every man.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 1.\nMarseilles. A street\n\nEnter HELENA, WIDOW, and DIANA, with two ATTENDANTS\n\n  HELENA. But this exceeding posting day and night\n    Must wear your spirits low; we cannot help it.\n    But since you have made the days and nights as one,\n    To wear your gentle limbs in my affairs,\n    Be bold you do so grow in my requital\n    As nothing can unroot you.\n\n                      Enter a GENTLEMAN\n\n    In happy time!\n    This man may help me to his Majesty's ear,\n    If he would spend his power. God save you, sir.\n  GENTLEMAN. And you.\n  HELENA. Sir, I have seen you in the court of France.\n  GENTLEMAN. I have been sometimes there.\n  HELENA. I do presume, sir, that you are not fall'n\n    From the report that goes upon your goodness;\n    And therefore, goaded with most sharp occasions,\n    Which lay nice manners by, I put you to\n    The use of your own virtues, for the which\n    I shall continue thankful.\n  GENTLEMAN. What's your will?\n  HELENA. That it will please you\n    To give this poor petition to the King;\n    And aid me with that store of power you have\n    To come into his presence.\n  GENTLEMAN. The King's not here.\n  HELENA. Not here, sir?\n  GENTLEMAN. Not indeed.\n    He hence remov'd last night, and with more haste\n    Than is his use.\n  WIDOW. Lord, how we lose our pains!\n  HELENA. All's Well That Ends Well yet,\n    Though time seem so adverse and means unfit.\n    I do beseech you, whither is he gone?\n  GENTLEMAN. Marry, as I take it, to Rousillon;\n    Whither I am going.\n  HELENA. I do beseech you, sir,\n    Since you are like to see the King before me,\n    Commend the paper to his gracious hand;\n    Which I presume shall render you no blame,\n    But rather make you thank your pains for it.\n    I will come after you with what good speed\n    Our means will make us means.\n  GENTLEMAN. This I'll do for you.\n  HELENA. And you shall find yourself to be well thank'd,\n    Whate'er falls more. We must to horse again;\n    Go, go, provide.                                      Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT V SCENE 2.\nRousillon. The inner court of the COUNT'S palace\n\nEnter CLOWN and PAROLLES\n\n  PAROLLES. Good Monsieur Lavache, give my Lord Lafeu this letter. I\n    have ere now, sir, been better known to you, when I have held\n    familiarity with fresher clothes; but I am now, sir, muddied in\n    Fortune's mood, and smell somewhat strong of her strong\n    displeasure.\n  CLOWN. Truly, Fortune's displeasure is but sluttish, if it smell\n    so strongly as thou speak'st of. I will henceforth eat no fish\n    of Fortune's butt'ring. Prithee, allow the wind.\n  PAROLLES. Nay, you need not to stop your nose, sir; I spake but by\n    a metaphor.\n  CLOWN. Indeed, sir, if your metaphor stink, I will stop my nose; or\n    against any man's metaphor. Prithee, get thee further.\n  PAROLLES. Pray you, sir, deliver me this paper.\n  CLOWN. Foh! prithee stand away. A paper from Fortune's close-stool\n    to give to a nobleman! Look here he comes himself.\n\n                           Enter LAFEU\n\n    Here is a pur of Fortune's, sir, or of Fortune's cat, but not\n    a musk-cat, that has fall'n into the unclean fishpond of her\n    displeasure, and, as he says, is muddied withal. Pray you, sir,\n    use the carp as you may; for he looks like a poor, decayed,\n    ingenious, foolish, rascally knave. I do pity his distress\n    in my similes of comfort, and leave him to your lordship.\n Exit\n  PAROLLES. My lord, I am a man whom Fortune hath cruelly scratch'd.\n  LAFEU. And what would you have me to do? 'Tis too late to pare her\n    nails now. Wherein have you played the knave with Fortune, that\n    she should scratch you, who of herself is a good lady and would\n    not have knaves thrive long under her? There's a cardecue for\n    you. Let the justices make you and Fortune friends; I am for\n    other business.\n  PAROLLES. I beseech your honour to hear me one single word.\n  LAFEU. You beg a single penny more; come, you shall ha't; save your\n    word.\n  PAROLLES. My name, my good lord, is Parolles.\n  LAFEU. You beg more than word then. Cox my passion! give me your\n    hand. How does your drum?\n  PAROLLES. O my good lord, you were the first that found me.\n  LAFEU. Was I, in sooth? And I was the first that lost thee.\n  PAROLLES. It lies in you, my lord, to bring me in some grace, for\n    you did bring me out.\n  LAFEU. Out upon thee, knave! Dost thou put upon me at once both the\n    office of God and the devil? One brings the in grace, and the\n    other brings thee out.    [Trumpets sound]  The King's coming; I\n    know by his trumpets. Sirrah, inquire further after me; I had\n    talk of you last night. Though you are a fool and a knave, you\n    shall eat. Go to; follow.\n  PAROLLES. I praise God for you.                         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT V SCENE 3.\nRousillon. The COUNT'S palace\n\nFlourish. Enter KING, COUNTESS, LAFEU, the two FRENCH LORDS, with ATTENDANTS\n\n  KING. We lost a jewel of her, and our esteem\n    Was made much poorer by it; but your son,\n    As mad in folly, lack'd the sense to know\n    Her estimation home.\n  COUNTESS. 'Tis past, my liege;\n    And I beseech your Majesty to make it\n    Natural rebellion, done i' th' blaze of youth,\n    When oil and fire, too strong for reason's force,\n    O'erbears it and burns on.\n  KING. My honour'd lady,\n    I have forgiven and forgotten all;\n    Though my revenges were high bent upon him\n    And watch'd the time to shoot.\n  LAFEU. This I must say-\n    But first, I beg my pardon: the young lord\n    Did to his Majesty, his mother, and his lady,\n    Offence of mighty note; but to himself\n    The greatest wrong of all. He lost a wife\n    Whose beauty did astonish the survey\n    Of richest eyes; whose words all ears took captive;\n    Whose dear perfection hearts that scorn'd to serve\n    Humbly call'd mistress.\n  KING. Praising what is lost\n    Makes the remembrance dear. Well, call him hither;\n    We are reconcil'd, and the first view shall kill\n    All repetition. Let him not ask our pardon;\n    The nature of his great offence is dead,\n    And deeper than oblivion do we bury\n    Th' incensing relics of it; let him approach,\n    A stranger, no offender; and inform him\n    So 'tis our will he should.\n  GENTLEMAN. I shall, my liege.                 Exit GENTLEMAN\n  KING. What says he to your daughter? Have you spoke?\n  LAFEU. All that he is hath reference to your Highness.\n  KING. Then shall we have a match. I have letters sent me\n    That sets him high in fame.\n\n                          Enter BERTRAM\n\n  LAFEU. He looks well on 't.\n  KING. I am not a day of season,\n    For thou mayst see a sunshine and a hail\n    In me at once. But to the brightest beams\n    Distracted clouds give way; so stand thou forth;\n    The time is fair again.\n  BERTRAM. My high-repented blames,\n    Dear sovereign, pardon to me.\n  KING. All is whole;\n    Not one word more of the consumed time.\n    Let's take the instant by the forward top;\n    For we are old, and on our quick'st decrees\n    Th' inaudible and noiseless foot of Time\n    Steals ere we can effect them. You remember\n    The daughter of this lord?\n  BERTRAM. Admiringly, my liege. At first\n    I stuck my choice upon her, ere my heart\n    Durst make too bold herald of my tongue;\n    Where the impression of mine eye infixing,\n    Contempt his scornful perspective did lend me,\n    Which warp'd the line of every other favour,\n    Scorn'd a fair colour or express'd it stol'n,\n    Extended or contracted all proportions\n    To a most hideous object. Thence it came\n    That she whom all men prais'd, and whom myself,\n    Since I have lost, have lov'd, was in mine eye\n    The dust that did offend it.\n  KING. Well excus'd.\n    That thou didst love her, strikes some scores away\n    From the great compt; but love that comes too late,\n    Like a remorseful pardon slowly carried,\n    To the great sender turns a sour offence,\n    Crying 'That's good that's gone.' Our rash faults\n    Make trivial price of serious things we have,\n    Not knowing them until we know their grave.\n    Oft our displeasures, to ourselves unjust,\n    Destroy our friends, and after weep their dust;\n    Our own love waking cries to see what's done,\n    While shameful hate sleeps out the afternoon.\n    Be this sweet Helen's knell. And now forget her.\n    Send forth your amorous token for fair Maudlin.\n    The main consents are had; and here we'll stay\n    To see our widower's second marriage-day.\n  COUNTESS. Which better than the first, O dear heaven, bless!\n    Or, ere they meet, in me, O nature, cesse!\n  LAFEU. Come on, my son, in whom my house's name\n    Must be digested; give a favour from you,\n    To sparkle in the spirits of my daughter,\n    That she may quickly come.\n                                          [BERTRAM gives a ring]\n    By my old beard,\n    And ev'ry hair that's on 't, Helen, that's dead,\n    Was a sweet creature; such a ring as this,\n    The last that e'er I took her leave at court,\n    I saw upon her finger.\n  BERTRAM. Hers it was not.\n  KING. Now, pray you, let me see it; for mine eye,\n    While I was speaking, oft was fasten'd to't.\n    This ring was mine; and when I gave it Helen\n    I bade her, if her fortunes ever stood\n    Necessitied to help, that by this token\n    I would relieve her. Had you that craft to reave her\n    Of what should stead her most?\n  BERTRAM. My gracious sovereign,\n    Howe'er it pleases you to take it so,\n    The ring was never hers.\n  COUNTESS. Son, on my life,\n    I have seen her wear it; and she reckon'd it\n    At her life's rate.\n  LAFEU. I am sure I saw her wear it.\n  BERTRAM. You are deceiv'd, my lord; she never saw it.\n    In Florence was it from a casement thrown me,\n    Wrapp'd in a paper, which contain'd the name\n    Of her that threw it. Noble she was, and thought\n    I stood engag'd; but when I had subscrib'd\n    To mine own fortune, and inform'd her fully\n    I could not answer in that course of honour\n    As she had made the overture, she ceas'd,\n    In heavy satisfaction, and would never\n    Receive the ring again.\n  KING. Plutus himself,\n    That knows the tinct and multiplying med'cine,\n    Hath not in nature's mystery more science\n    Than I have in this ring. 'Twas mine, 'twas Helen's,\n    Whoever gave it you. Then, if you know\n    That you are well acquainted with yourself,\n    Confess 'twas hers, and by what rough enforcement\n    You got it from her. She call'd the saints to surety\n    That she would never put it from her finger\n    Unless she gave it to yourself in bed-\n    Where you have never come- or sent it us\n    Upon her great disaster.\n  BERTRAM. She never saw it.\n  KING. Thou speak'st it falsely, as I love mine honour;\n    And mak'st conjectural fears to come into me\n    Which I would fain shut out. If it should prove\n    That thou art so inhuman- 'twill not prove so.\n    And yet I know not- thou didst hate her deadly,\n    And she is dead; which nothing, but to close\n    Her eyes myself, could win me to believe\n    More than to see this ring. Take him away.\n                                          [GUARDS seize BERTRAM]\n    My fore-past proofs, howe'er the matter fall,\n    Shall tax my fears of little vanity,\n    Having vainly fear'd too little. Away with him.\n    We'll sift this matter further.\n  BERTRAM. If you shall prove\n    This ring was ever hers, you shall as easy\n    Prove that I husbanded her bed in Florence,\n    Where she yet never was.                       Exit, guarded\n  KING. I am wrapp'd in dismal thinkings.\n\n                        Enter a GENTLEMAN\n\n  GENTLEMAN. Gracious sovereign,\n    Whether I have been to blame or no, I know not:\n    Here's a petition from a Florentine,\n    Who hath, for four or five removes, come short\n    To tender it herself. I undertook it,\n    Vanquish'd thereto by the fair grace and speech\n    Of the poor suppliant, who by this, I know,\n    Is here attending; her business looks in her\n    With an importing visage; and she told me\n    In a sweet verbal brief it did concern\n    Your Highness with herself.\n  KING.  [Reads the letter]  'Upon his many protestations to marry me\n    when his wife was dead, I blush to say it, he won me. Now is the\n    Count Rousillon a widower; his vows are forfeited to me, and my\n    honour's paid to him. He stole from Florence, taking no leave,\n    and I follow him to his country for justice. Grant it me, O King!\n    in you it best lies; otherwise a seducer flourishes, and a poor\n    maid is undone.\n                                                DIANA CAPILET.'\n  LAFEU. I will buy me a son-in-law in a fair, and toll for this.\n    I'll none of him.\n  KING. The heavens have thought well on thee, Lafeu,\n    To bring forth this discov'ry. Seek these suitors.\n    Go speedily, and bring again the Count.\n                                               Exeunt ATTENDANTS\n    I am afeard the life of Helen, lady,\n    Was foully snatch'd.\n  COUNTESS. Now, justice on the doers!\n\n                       Enter BERTRAM, guarded\n\n  KING. I wonder, sir, sith wives are monsters to you.\n    And that you fly them as you swear them lordship,\n    Yet you desire to marry.\n                                           Enter WIDOW and DIANA\n    What woman's that?\n  DIANA. I am, my lord, a wretched Florentine,\n    Derived from the ancient Capilet.\n    My suit, as I do understand, you know,\n    And therefore know how far I may be pitied.\n  WIDOW. I am her mother, sir, whose age and honour\n    Both suffer under this complaint we bring,\n    And both shall cease, without your remedy.\n  KING. Come hither, Count; do you know these women?\n  BERTRAM. My lord, I neither can nor will deny\n    But that I know them. Do they charge me further?\n  DIANA. Why do you look so strange upon your wife?\n  BERTRAM. She's none of mine, my lord.\n  DIANA. If you shall marry,\n    You give away this hand, and that is mine;\n    You give away heaven's vows, and those are mine;\n    You give away myself, which is known mine;\n    For I by vow am so embodied yours\n    That she which marries you must marry me,\n    Either both or none.\n  LAFEU.  [To BERTRAM]  Your reputation comes too short for\n    my daughter; you are no husband for her.\n  BERTRAM. My lord, this is a fond and desp'rate creature\n    Whom sometime I have laugh'd with. Let your Highness\n    Lay a more noble thought upon mine honour\n    Than for to think that I would sink it here.\n  KING. Sir, for my thoughts, you have them ill to friend\n    Till your deeds gain them. Fairer prove your honour\n    Than in my thought it lies!\n  DIANA. Good my lord,\n    Ask him upon his oath if he does think\n    He had not my virginity.\n  KING. What say'st thou to her?\n  BERTRAM. She's impudent, my lord,\n    And was a common gamester to the camp.\n  DIANA. He does me wrong, my lord; if I were so\n    He might have bought me at a common price.\n    Do not believe him. o, behold this ring,\n    Whose high respect and rich validity\n    Did lack a parallel; yet, for all that,\n    He gave it to a commoner o' th' camp,\n    If I be one.\n  COUNTESS. He blushes, and 'tis it.\n    Of six preceding ancestors, that gem\n    Conferr'd by testament to th' sequent issue,\n    Hath it been ow'd and worn. This is his wife:\n    That ring's a thousand proofs.\n  KING. Methought you said\n    You saw one here in court could witness it.\n  DIANA. I did, my lord, but loath am to produce\n    So bad an instrument; his name's Parolles.\n  LAFEU. I saw the man to-day, if man he be.\n  KING. Find him, and bring him hither.        Exit an ATTENDANT\n  BERTRAM. What of him?\n    He's quoted for a most perfidious slave,\n    With all the spots o' th' world tax'd and debauch'd,\n    Whose nature sickens but to speak a truth.\n    Am I or that or this for what he'll utter\n    That will speak anything?\n  KING. She hath that ring of yours.\n  BERTRAM. I think she has. Certain it is I lik'd her,\n    And boarded her i' th' wanton way of youth.\n    She knew her distance, and did angle for me,\n    Madding my eagerness with her restraint,\n    As all impediments in fancy's course\n    Are motives of more fancy; and, in fine,\n    Her infinite cunning with her modern grace\n    Subdu'd me to her rate. She got the ring;\n    And I had that which any inferior might\n    At market-price have bought.\n  DIANA. I must be patient.\n    You that have turn'd off a first so noble wife\n    May justly diet me. I pray you yet-\n    Since you lack virtue, I will lose a husband-\n    Send for your ring, I will return it home,\n    And give me mine again.\n  BERTRAM. I have it not.\n  KING. What ring was yours, I pray you?\n  DIANA. Sir, much like\n    The same upon your finger.\n  KING. Know you this ring? This ring was his of late.\n  DIANA. And this was it I gave him, being abed.\n  KING. The story, then, goes false you threw it him\n    Out of a casement.\n  DIANA. I have spoke the truth.\n\n                       Enter PAROLLES\n\n  BERTRAM. My lord, I do confess the ring was hers.\n  KING. You boggle shrewdly; every feather starts you.\n    Is this the man you speak of?\n  DIANA. Ay, my lord.\n  KING. Tell me, sirrah-but tell me true I charge you,\n    Not fearing the displeasure of your master,\n    Which, on your just proceeding, I'll keep off-\n    By him and by this woman here what know you?\n  PAROLLES. So please your Majesty, my master hath been an honourable\n    gentleman; tricks he hath had in him, which gentlemen have.\n  KING. Come, come, to th' purpose. Did he love this woman?\n  PAROLLES. Faith, sir, he did love her; but how?\n  KING. How, I pray you?\n  PAROLLES. He did love her, sir, as a gentleman loves a woman.\n  KING. How is that?\n  PAROLLES. He lov'd her, sir, and lov'd her not.\n  KING. As thou art a knave and no knave.\n    What an equivocal companion is this!\n  PAROLLES. I am a poor man, and at your Majesty's command.\n  LAFEU. He's a good drum, my lord, but a naughty orator.\n  DIANA. Do you know he promis'd me marriage?\n  PAROLLES. Faith, I know more than I'll speak.\n  KING. But wilt thou not speak all thou know'st?\n  PAROLLES. Yes, so please your Majesty. I did go between them, as I\n    said; but more than that, he loved her-for indeed he was mad for\n    her, and talk'd of Satan, and of Limbo, and of Furies, and I know\n    not what. Yet I was in that credit with them at that time that I\n    knew of their going to bed; and of other motions, as promising\n    her marriage, and things which would derive me ill will to speak\n    of; therefore I will not speak what I know.\n  KING. Thou hast spoken all already, unless thou canst say they are\n    married; but thou art too fine in thy evidence; therefore stand\n    aside.\n    This ring, you say, was yours?\n  DIANA. Ay, my good lord.\n  KING. Where did you buy it? Or who gave it you?\n  DIANA. It was not given me, nor I did not buy it.\n  KING. Who lent it you?\n  DIANA. It was not lent me neither.\n  KING. Where did you find it then?\n  DIANA. I found it not.\n  KING. If it were yours by none of all these ways,\n    How could you give it him?\n  DIANA. I never gave it him.\n  LAFEU. This woman's an easy glove, my lord; she goes of and on at\n    pleasure.\n  KING. This ring was mine, I gave it his first wife.\n  DIANA. It might be yours or hers, for aught I know.\n  KING. Take her away, I do not like her now;\n    To prison with her. And away with him.\n    Unless thou tell'st me where thou hadst this ring,\n    Thou diest within this hour.\n  DIANA. I'll never tell you.\n  KING. Take her away.\n  DIANA. I'll put in bail, my liege.\n  KING. I think thee now some common customer.\n  DIANA. By Jove, if ever I knew man, 'twas you.\n  KING. Wherefore hast thou accus'd him all this while?\n  DIANA. Because he's guilty, and he is not guilty.\n    He knows I am no maid, and he'll swear to't:\n    I'll swear I am a maid, and he knows not.\n    Great King, I am no strumpet, by my life;\n    I am either maid, or else this old man's wife.\n                                             [Pointing to LAFEU]\n  KING. She does abuse our ears; to prison with her.\n  DIANA. Good mother, fetch my bail. Stay, royal sir;\n                                                      Exit WIDOW\n    The jeweller that owes the ring is sent for,\n    And he shall surety me. But for this lord\n    Who hath abus'd me as he knows himself,\n    Though yet he never harm'd me, here I quit him.\n    He knows himself my bed he hath defil'd;\n    And at that time he got his wife with child.\n    Dead though she be, she feels her young one kick;\n    So there's my riddle: one that's dead is quick-\n    And now behold the meaning.\n\n                     Re-enter WIDOW with HELENA\n\n  KING. Is there no exorcist\n    Beguiles the truer office of mine eyes?\n    Is't real that I see?\n  HELENA. No, my good lord;\n    'Tis but the shadow of a wife you see,\n    The name and not the thing.\n  BERTRAM. Both, both; o, pardon!\n  HELENA. O, my good lord, when I was like this maid,\n    I found you wondrous kind. There is your ring,\n    And, look you, here's your letter. This it says:\n    'When from my finger you can get this ring,\n    And are by me with child,' etc. This is done.\n    Will you be mine now you are doubly won?\n  BERTRAM. If she, my liege, can make me know this clearly,\n    I'll love her dearly, ever, ever dearly.\n  HELENA. If it appear not plain, and prove untrue,\n    Deadly divorce step between me and you!\n    O my dear mother, do I see you living?\n  LAFEU. Mine eyes smell onions; I shall weep anon. [To PAROLLES]\n    Good Tom Drum, lend me a handkercher. So, I\n    thank thee. Wait on me home, I'll make sport with thee;\n    let thy curtsies alone, they are scurvy ones.\n  KING. Let us from point to point this story know,\n    To make the even truth in pleasure flow.\n    [To DIANA]  If thou beest yet a fresh uncropped flower,\n    Choose thou thy husband, and I'll pay thy dower;\n    For I can guess that by thy honest aid\n    Thou kept'st a wife herself, thyself a maid.-\n    Of that and all the progress, more and less,\n    Resolvedly more leisure shall express.\n    All yet seems well; and if it end so meet,\n    The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.       [Flourish]\n\nEPILOGUE\n                             EPILOGUE.\n\n  KING. The King's a beggar, now the play is done.\n    All is well ended if this suit be won,\n    That you express content; which we will pay\n    With strife to please you, day exceeding day.\n    Ours be your patience then, and yours our parts;\n    Your gentle hands lend us, and take our hearts.\n                                                    Exeunt omnes\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1607\n\nTHE TRAGEDY OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  MARK ANTONY,         Triumvirs\n  OCTAVIUS CAESAR,         \"\n  M. AEMILIUS LEPIDUS,     \"\n  SEXTUS POMPEIUS,         \"\n  DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS, friend to Antony\n  VENTIDIUS,             \"    \"   \"\n  EROS,                  \"    \"   \"\n  SCARUS,                \"    \"   \"\n  DERCETAS,              \"    \"   \"\n  DEMETRIUS,             \"    \"   \"\n  PHILO,                 \"    \"   \"\n  MAECENAS,   friend to Caesar\n  AGRIPPA,       \"    \"   \"\n  DOLABELLA,     \"    \"   \"\n  PROCULEIUS,    \"    \"   \"\n  THYREUS,       \"    \"   \"\n  GALLUS,        \"    \"   \"\n  MENAS,      friend to Pompey\n  MENECRATES,    \"    \"    \"\n  VARRIUS,       \"    \"    \"\n  TAURUS, Lieutenant-General to Caesar\n  CANIDIUS, Lieutenant-General to Antony\n  SILIUS, an Officer in Ventidius's army\n  EUPHRONIUS, an Ambassador from Antony to Caesar\n  ALEXAS,   attendant on Cleopatra\n  MARDIAN,      \"     \"      \"\n  SELEUCUS,     \"     \"      \"\n  DIOMEDES,     \"     \"      \"\n  A SOOTHSAYER\n  A CLOWN\n\n  CLEOPATRA, Queen of Egypt\n  OCTAVIA, sister to Caesar and wife to Antony\n  CHARMIAN, lady attending on Cleopatra\n  IRAS,       \"      \"      \"     \"\n\n\n\n  Officers, Soldiers, Messengers, and Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nThe Roman Empire\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nAlexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace\n\nEnter DEMETRIUS and PHILO\n\n  PHILO. Nay, but this dotage of our general's\n    O'erflows the measure. Those his goodly eyes,\n    That o'er the files and musters of the war\n    Have glow'd like plated Mars, now bend, now turn,\n    The office and devotion of their view\n    Upon a tawny front. His captain's heart,\n    Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst\n    The buckles on his breast, reneges all temper,\n    And is become the bellows and the fan\n    To cool a gipsy's lust.\n\n     Flourish. Enter ANTONY, CLEOPATRA, her LADIES, the train,\n                    with eunuchs fanning her\n\n    Look where they come!\n    Take but good note, and you shall see in him\n    The triple pillar of the world transform'd\n    Into a strumpet's fool. Behold and see.\n  CLEOPATRA. If it be love indeed, tell me how much.\n  ANTONY. There's beggary in the love that can be reckon'd.\n  CLEOPATRA. I'll set a bourn how far to be belov'd.\n  ANTONY. Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth.\n\n                       Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. News, my good lord, from Rome.\n  ANTONY. Grates me the sum.\n  CLEOPATRA. Nay, hear them, Antony.\n    Fulvia perchance is angry; or who knows\n    If the scarce-bearded Caesar have not sent\n    His pow'rful mandate to you: 'Do this or this;\n    Take in that kingdom and enfranchise that;\n    Perform't, or else we damn thee.'\n  ANTONY. How, my love?\n  CLEOPATRA. Perchance? Nay, and most like,\n    You must not stay here longer; your dismission\n    Is come from Caesar; therefore hear it, Antony.\n    Where's Fulvia's process? Caesar's I would say? Both?\n    Call in the messengers. As I am Egypt's Queen,\n    Thou blushest, Antony, and that blood of thine\n    Is Caesar's homager. Else so thy cheek pays shame\n    When shrill-tongu'd Fulvia scolds. The messengers!\n  ANTONY. Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch\n    Of the rang'd empire fall! Here is my space.\n    Kingdoms are clay; our dungy earth alike\n    Feeds beast as man. The nobleness of life\n    Is to do thus [emhracing], when such a mutual pair\n    And such a twain can do't, in which I bind,\n    On pain of punishment, the world to weet\n    We stand up peerless.\n  CLEOPATRA. Excellent falsehood!\n    Why did he marry Fulvia, and not love her?\n    I'll seem the fool I am not. Antony\n    Will be himself.\n  ANTONY. But stirr'd by Cleopatra.\n    Now for the love of Love and her soft hours,\n    Let's not confound the time with conference harsh;\n    There's not a minute of our lives should stretch\n    Without some pleasure now. What sport to-night?\n  CLEOPATRA. Hear the ambassadors.\n  ANTONY. Fie, wrangling queen!\n    Whom everything becomes- to chide, to laugh,\n    To weep; whose every passion fully strives\n    To make itself in thee fair and admir'd.\n    No messenger but thine, and all alone\n    To-night we'll wander through the streets and note\n    The qualities of people. Come, my queen;\n    Last night you did desire it. Speak not to us.\n                     Exeunt ANTONY and CLEOPATRA, with the train\n  DEMETRIUS. Is Caesar with Antonius priz'd so slight?\n  PHILO. Sir, sometimes when he is not Antony,\n    He comes too short of that great property\n    Which still should go with Antony.\n  DEMETRIUS. I am full sorry\n    That he approves the common liar, who\n    Thus speaks of him at Rome; but I will hope\n    Of better deeds to-morrow. Rest you happy!            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nAlexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace\n\nEnter CHARMIAN, IRAS, ALEXAS, and a SOOTHSAYER\n\n  CHARMIAN. Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most anything Alexas, almost\n    most absolute Alexas, where's the soothsayer that you prais'd so\n    to th' Queen? O that I knew this husband, which you say must\n    charge his horns with garlands!\n  ALEXAS. Soothsayer!\n  SOOTHSAYER. Your will?\n  CHARMIAN. Is this the man? Is't you, sir, that know things?\n  SOOTHSAYER. In nature's infinite book of secrecy\n    A little I can read.\n  ALEXAS. Show him your hand.\n\n                       Enter ENOBARBUS\n\n  ENOBARBUS. Bring in the banquet quickly; wine enough\n    Cleopatra's health to drink.\n  CHARMIAN. Good, sir, give me good fortune.\n  SOOTHSAYER. I make not, but foresee.\n  CHARMIAN. Pray, then, foresee me one.\n  SOOTHSAYER. You shall be yet far fairer than you are.\n  CHARMIAN. He means in flesh.\n  IRAS. No, you shall paint when you are old.\n  CHARMIAN. Wrinkles forbid!\n  ALEXAS. Vex not his prescience; be attentive.\n  CHARMIAN. Hush!\n  SOOTHSAYER. You shall be more beloving than beloved.\n  CHARMIAN. I had rather heat my liver with drinking.\n  ALEXAS. Nay, hear him.\n  CHARMIAN. Good now, some excellent fortune! Let me be married to\n    three kings in a forenoon, and widow them all. Let me have a\n    child at fifty, to whom Herod of Jewry may do homage. Find me to\n    marry me with Octavius Caesar, and companion me with my mistress.\n  SOOTHSAYER. You shall outlive the lady whom you serve.\n  CHARMIAN. O, excellent! I love long life better than figs.\n  SOOTHSAYER. You have seen and prov'd a fairer former fortune\n    Than that which is to approach.\n  CHARMIAN. Then belike my children shall have no names.\n    Prithee, how many boys and wenches must I have?\n  SOOTHSAYER. If every of your wishes had a womb,\n    And fertile every wish, a million.\n  CHARMIAN. Out, fool! I forgive thee for a witch.\n  ALEXAS. You think none but your sheets are privy to your wishes.\n  CHARMIAN. Nay, come, tell Iras hers.\n  ALEXAS. We'll know all our fortunes.\n  ENOBARBUS. Mine, and most of our fortunes, to-night, shall be-\n    drunk to bed.\n  IRAS. There's a palm presages chastity, if nothing else.\n  CHARMIAN. E'en as the o'erflowing Nilus presageth famine.\n  IRAS. Go, you wild bedfellow, you cannot soothsay.\n  CHARMIAN. Nay, if an oily palm be not a fruitful prognostication, I\n    cannot scratch mine ear. Prithee, tell her but worky-day fortune.\n  SOOTHSAYER. Your fortunes are alike.\n  IRAS. But how, but how? Give me particulars.\n  SOOTHSAYER. I have said.\n  IRAS. Am I not an inch of fortune better than she?\n  CHARMIAN. Well, if you were but an inch of fortune better than I,\n    where would you choose it?\n  IRAS. Not in my husband's nose.\n  CHARMIAN. Our worser thoughts heavens mend! Alexas- come, his\n    fortune, his fortune! O, let him marry a woman that cannot go,\n    sweet Isis, I beseech thee! And let her die too, and give him a\n    worse! And let worse follow worse, till the worst of all follow\n    him laughing to his grave, fiftyfold a cuckold! Good Isis, hear\n    me this prayer, though thou deny me a matter of more weight; good\n    Isis, I beseech thee!\n  IRAS. Amen. Dear goddess, hear that prayer of the people! For, as\n    it is a heartbreaking to see a handsome man loose-wiv'd, so it is\n    a deadly sorrow to behold a foul knave uncuckolded. Therefore,\n    dear Isis, keep decorum, and fortune him accordingly!\n  CHARMIAN. Amen.\n  ALEXAS. Lo now, if it lay in their hands to make me a cuckold, they\n    would make themselves whores but they'ld do't!\n\n                          Enter CLEOPATRA\n\n  ENOBARBUS. Hush! Here comes Antony.\n  CHARMIAN. Not he; the Queen.\n  CLEOPATRA. Saw you my lord?\n  ENOBARBUS. No, lady.\n  CLEOPATRA. Was he not here?\n  CHARMIAN. No, madam.\n  CLEOPATRA. He was dispos'd to mirth; but on the sudden\n    A Roman thought hath struck him. Enobarbus!\n  ENOBARBUS. Madam?\n  CLEOPATRA. Seek him, and bring him hither. Where's Alexas?\n  ALEXAS. Here, at your service. My lord approaches.\n\n          Enter ANTONY, with a MESSENGER and attendants\n\n  CLEOPATRA. We will not look upon him. Go with us.\n                       Exeunt CLEOPATRA, ENOBARBUS, and the rest\n  MESSENGER. Fulvia thy wife first came into the field.\n  ANTONY. Against my brother Lucius?\n  MESSENGER. Ay.\n    But soon that war had end, and the time's state\n    Made friends of them, jointing their force 'gainst Caesar,\n    Whose better issue in the war from Italy\n    Upon the first encounter drave them.\n  ANTONY. Well, what worst?\n  MESSENGER. The nature of bad news infects the teller.\n  ANTONY. When it concerns the fool or coward. On!\n    Things that are past are done with me. 'Tis thus:\n    Who tells me true, though in his tale lie death,\n    I hear him as he flatter'd.\n  MESSENGER. Labienus-\n    This is stiff news- hath with his Parthian force\n    Extended Asia from Euphrates,\n    His conquering banner shook from Syria\n    To Lydia and to Ionia,\n    Whilst-\n  ANTONY. Antony, thou wouldst say.\n  MESSENGER. O, my lord!\n  ANTONY. Speak to me home; mince not the general tongue;\n    Name Cleopatra as she is call'd in Rome.\n    Rail thou in Fulvia's phrase, and taunt my faults\n    With such full licence as both truth and malice\n    Have power to utter. O, then we bring forth weeds\n    When our quick minds lie still, and our ills told us\n    Is as our earing. Fare thee well awhile.\n  MESSENGER. At your noble pleasure.                        Exit\n  ANTONY. From Sicyon, ho, the news! Speak there!\n  FIRST ATTENDANT. The man from Sicyon- is there such an one?\n  SECOND ATTENDANT. He stays upon your will.\n  ANTONY. Let him appear.\n    These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,\n    Or lose myself in dotage.\n\n                 Enter another MESSENGER with a letter\n\n    What are you?\n  SECOND MESSENGER. Fulvia thy wife is dead.\n  ANTONY. Where died she?\n  SECOND MESSENGER. In Sicyon.\n    Her length of sickness, with what else more serious\n    Importeth thee to know, this bears.       [Gives the letter]\n  ANTONY. Forbear me.                             Exit MESSENGER\n    There's a great spirit gone! Thus did I desire it.\n    What our contempts doth often hurl from us\n    We wish it ours again; the present pleasure,\n    By revolution low'ring, does become\n    The opposite of itself. She's good, being gone;\n    The hand could pluck her back that shov'd her on.\n    I must from this enchanting queen break off.\n    Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know,\n    My idleness doth hatch. How now, Enobarbus!\n\n                    Re-enter ENOBARBUS\n\n  ENOBARBUS. What's your pleasure, sir?\n  ANTONY. I must with haste from hence.\n  ENOBARBUS. Why, then we kill all our women. We see how mortal an\n    unkindness is to them; if they suffer our departure, death's the\n    word.\n  ANTONY. I must be gone.\n  ENOBARBUS. Under a compelling occasion, let women die. It were pity\n    to cast them away for nothing, though between them and a great\n    cause they should be esteemed nothing. Cleopatra, catching but\n    the least noise of this, dies instantly; I have seen her die\n    twenty times upon far poorer moment. I do think there is mettle\n    in death, which commits some loving act upon her, she hath such a\n    celerity in dying.\n  ANTONY. She is cunning past man's thought.\n  ENOBARBUS. Alack, sir, no! Her passions are made of nothing but the\n    finest part of pure love. We cannot call her winds and waters\n    sighs and tears; they are greater storms and tempests than\n    almanacs can report. This cannot be cunning in her; if it be, she\n    makes a show'r of rain as well as Jove.\n  ANTONY. Would I had never seen her!\n  ENOBARBUS. O Sir, you had then left unseen a wonderful piece of\n    work, which not to have been blest withal would have discredited\n    your travel.\n  ANTONY. Fulvia is dead.\n  ENOBARBUS. Sir?\n  ANTONY. Fulvia is dead.\n  ENOBARBUS. Fulvia?\n  ANTONY. Dead.\n  ENOBARBUS. Why, sir, give the gods a thankful sacrifice. When it\n    pleaseth their deities to take the wife of a man from him, it\n    shows to man the tailors of the earth; comforting therein that\n    when old robes are worn out there are members to make new. If\n    there were no more women but Fulvia, then had you indeed a cut,\n    and the case to be lamented. This grief is crown'd with\n    consolation: your old smock brings forth a new petticoat; and\n    indeed the tears live in an onion that should water this sorrow.\n  ANTONY. The business she hath broached in the state\n    Cannot endure my absence.\n  ENOBARBUS. And the business you have broach'd here cannot be\n    without you; especially that of Cleopatra's, which wholly depends\n    on your abode.\n  ANTONY. No more light answers. Let our officers\n    Have notice what we purpose. I shall break\n    The cause of our expedience to the Queen,\n    And get her leave to part. For not alone\n    The death of Fulvia, with more urgent touches,\n    Do strongly speak to us; but the letters to\n    Of many our contriving friends in Rome\n    Petition us at home. Sextus Pompeius\n    Hath given the dare to Caesar, and commands\n    The empire of the sea; our slippery people,\n    Whose love is never link'd to the deserver\n    Till his deserts are past, begin to throw\n    Pompey the Great and all his dignities\n    Upon his son; who, high in name and power,\n    Higher than both in blood and life, stands up\n    For the main soldier; whose quality, going on,\n    The sides o' th' world may danger. Much is breeding\n    Which, like the courser's hair, hath yet but life\n    And not a serpent's poison. Say our pleasure,\n    To such whose place is under us, requires\n    Our quick remove from hence.\n  ENOBARBUS. I shall do't.                                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nAlexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace\n\nEnter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and ALEXAS\n\n  CLEOPATRA. Where is he?\n  CHARMIAN. I did not see him since.\n  CLEOPATRA. See where he is, who's with him, what he does.\n    I did not send you. If you find him sad,\n    Say I am dancing; if in mirth, report\n    That I am sudden sick. Quick, and return.        Exit ALEXAS\n  CHARMIAN. Madam, methinks, if you did love him dearly,\n    You do not hold the method to enforce\n    The like from him.\n  CLEOPATRA. What should I do I do not?\n  CHARMIAN. In each thing give him way; cross him in nothing.\n  CLEOPATRA. Thou teachest like a fool- the way to lose him.\n  CHARMIAN. Tempt him not so too far; I wish, forbear;\n    In time we hate that which we often fear.\n\n                            Enter ANTONY\n\n    But here comes Antony.\n  CLEOPATRA. I am sick and sullen.\n  ANTONY. I am sorry to give breathing to my purpose-\n  CLEOPATRA. Help me away, dear Charmian; I shall fall.\n    It cannot be thus long; the sides of nature\n    Will not sustain it.\n  ANTONY. Now, my dearest queen-\n  CLEOPATRA. Pray you, stand farther from me.\n  ANTONY. What's the matter?\n  CLEOPATRA. I know by that same eye there's some good news.\n    What says the married woman? You may go.\n    Would she had never given you leave to come!\n    Let her not say 'tis I that keep you here-\n    I have no power upon you; hers you are.\n  ANTONY. The gods best know-\n  CLEOPATRA. O, never was there queen\n    So mightily betray'd! Yet at the first\n    I saw the treasons planted.\n  ANTONY. Cleopatra-\n  CLEOPATRA. Why should I think you can be mine and true,\n    Though you in swearing shake the throned gods,\n    Who have been false to Fulvia? Riotous madness,\n    To be entangled with those mouth-made vows,\n    Which break themselves in swearing!\n  ANTONY. Most sweet queen-\n  CLEOPATRA. Nay, pray you seek no colour for your going,\n    But bid farewell, and go. When you sued staying,\n    Then was the time for words. No going then!\n    Eternity was in our lips and eyes,\n    Bliss in our brows' bent, none our parts so poor\n    But was a race of heaven. They are so still,\n    Or thou, the greatest soldier of the world,\n    Art turn'd the greatest liar.\n  ANTONY. How now, lady!\n  CLEOPATRA. I would I had thy inches. Thou shouldst know\n    There were a heart in Egypt.\n  ANTONY. Hear me, queen:\n    The strong necessity of time commands\n    Our services awhile; but my full heart\n    Remains in use with you. Our Italy\n    Shines o'er with civil swords: Sextus Pompeius\n    Makes his approaches to the port of Rome;\n    Equality of two domestic powers\n    Breed scrupulous faction; the hated, grown to strength,\n    Are newly grown to love. The condemn'd Pompey,\n    Rich in his father's honour, creeps apace\n    Into the hearts of such as have not thrived\n    Upon the present state, whose numbers threaten;\n    And quietness, grown sick of rest, would purge\n    By any desperate change. My more particular,\n    And that which most with you should safe my going,\n    Is Fulvia's death.\n  CLEOPATRA. Though age from folly could not give me freedom,\n     It does from childishness. Can Fulvia die?\n  ANTONY. She's dead, my Queen.\n    Look here, and at thy sovereign leisure read\n    The garboils she awak'd. At the last, best.\n    See when and where she died.\n  CLEOPATRA. O most false love!\n    Where be the sacred vials thou shouldst fill\n    With sorrowful water? Now I see, I see,\n    In Fulvia's death how mine receiv'd shall be.\n  ANTONY. Quarrel no more, but be prepar'd to know\n    The purposes I bear; which are, or cease,\n    As you shall give th' advice. By the fire\n    That quickens Nilus' slime, I go from hence\n    Thy soldier, servant, making peace or war\n    As thou affects.\n  CLEOPATRA. Cut my lace, Charmian, come!\n    But let it be; I am quickly ill and well-\n    So Antony loves.\n  ANTONY. My precious queen, forbear,\n    And give true evidence to his love, which stands\n    An honourable trial.\n  CLEOPATRA. So Fulvia told me.\n    I prithee turn aside and weep for her;\n    Then bid adieu to me, and say the tears\n    Belong to Egypt. Good now, play one scene\n    Of excellent dissembling, and let it look\n    Like perfect honour.\n  ANTONY. You'll heat my blood; no more.\n  CLEOPATRA. You can do better yet; but this is meetly.\n  ANTONY. Now, by my sword-\n  CLEOPATRA. And target. Still he mends;\n    But this is not the best. Look, prithee, Charmian,\n    How this Herculean Roman does become\n    The carriage of his chafe.\n  ANTONY. I'll leave you, lady.\n  CLEOPATRA. Courteous lord, one word.\n    Sir, you and I must part- but that's not it.\n    Sir, you and I have lov'd- but there's not it.\n    That you know well. Something it is I would-\n    O, my oblivion is a very Antony,\n    And I am all forgotten!\n  ANTONY. But that your royalty\n    Holds idleness your subject, I should take you\n    For idleness itself.\n  CLEOPATRA. 'Tis sweating labour\n    To bear such idleness so near the heart\n    As Cleopatra this. But, sir, forgive me;\n    Since my becomings kill me when they do not\n    Eye well to you. Your honour calls you hence;\n    Therefore be deaf to my unpitied folly,\n    And all the gods go with you! Upon your sword\n    Sit laurel victory, and smooth success\n    Be strew'd before your feet!\n  ANTONY. Let us go. Come.\n    Our separation so abides and flies\n    That thou, residing here, goes yet with me,\n    And I, hence fleeting, here remain with thee.\n    Away!                                                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nRome. CAESAR'S house\n\nEnter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, reading a letter; LEPIDUS, and their train\n\n  CAESAR. You may see, Lepidus, and henceforth know,\n    It is not Caesar's natural vice to hate\n    Our great competitor. From Alexandria\n    This is the news: he fishes, drinks, and wastes\n    The lamps of night in revel; is not more manlike\n    Than Cleopatra, nor the queen of Ptolemy\n    More womanly than he; hardly gave audience, or\n    Vouchsaf'd to think he had partners. You shall find there\n    A man who is the abstract of all faults\n    That all men follow.\n  LEPIDUS. I must not think there are\n    Evils enow to darken all his goodness.\n    His faults, in him, seem as the spots of heaven,\n    More fiery by night's blackness; hereditary\n    Rather than purchas'd; what he cannot change\n    Than what he chooses.\n  CAESAR. You are too indulgent. Let's grant it is not\n    Amiss to tumble on the bed of Ptolemy,\n    To give a kingdom for a mirth, to sit\n    And keep the turn of tippling with a slave,\n    To reel the streets at noon, and stand the buffet\n    With knaves that smell of sweat. Say this becomes him-\n    As his composure must be rare indeed\n    Whom these things cannot blemish- yet must Antony\n    No way excuse his foils when we do bear\n    So great weight in his lightness. If he fill'd\n    His vacancy with his voluptuousness,\n    Full surfeits and the dryness of his bones\n    Call on him for't! But to confound such time\n    That drums him from his sport and speaks as loud\n    As his own state and ours- 'tis to be chid\n    As we rate boys who, being mature in knowledge,\n    Pawn their experience to their present pleasure,\n    And so rebel to judgment.\n\n                   Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  LEPIDUS. Here's more news.\n  MESSENGER. Thy biddings have been done; and every hour,\n    Most noble Caesar, shalt thou have report\n    How 'tis abroad. Pompey is strong at sea,\n    And it appears he is belov'd of those\n    That only have fear'd Caesar. To the ports\n    The discontents repair, and men's reports\n    Give him much wrong'd.\n  CAESAR. I should have known no less.\n    It hath been taught us from the primal state\n    That he which is was wish'd until he were;\n    And the ebb'd man, ne'er lov'd till ne'er worth love,\n    Comes dear'd by being lack'd. This common body,\n    Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream,\n    Goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide,\n    To rot itself with motion.\n  MESSENGER. Caesar, I bring thee word\n    Menecrates and Menas, famous pirates,\n    Make the sea serve them, which they ear and wound\n    With keels of every kind. Many hot inroads\n    They make in Italy; the borders maritime\n    Lack blood to think on't, and flush youth revolt.\n    No vessel can peep forth but 'tis as soon\n    Taken as seen; for Pompey's name strikes more\n    Than could his war resisted.\n  CAESAR. Antony,\n    Leave thy lascivious wassails. When thou once\n    Was beaten from Modena, where thou slew'st\n    Hirtius and Pansa, consuls, at thy heel\n    Did famine follow; whom thou fought'st against,\n    Though daintily brought up, with patience more\n    Than savages could suffer. Thou didst drink\n    The stale of horses and the gilded puddle\n    Which beasts would cough at. Thy palate then did deign\n    The roughest berry on the rudest hedge;\n    Yea, like the stag when snow the pasture sheets,\n    The barks of trees thou brows'd. On the Alps\n    It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh,\n    Which some did die to look on. And all this-\n    It wounds thine honour that I speak it now-\n    Was borne so like a soldier that thy cheek\n    So much as lank'd not.\n  LEPIDUS. 'Tis pity of him.\n  CAESAR. Let his shames quickly\n    Drive him to Rome. 'Tis time we twain\n    Did show ourselves i' th' field; and to that end\n    Assemble we immediate council. Pompey\n    Thrives in our idleness.\n  LEPIDUS. To-morrow, Caesar,\n    I shall be furnish'd to inform you rightly\n    Both what by sea and land I can be able\n    To front this present time.\n  CAESAR. Till which encounter\n    It is my business too. Farewell.\n  LEPIDUS. Farewell, my lord. What you shall know meantime\n    Of stirs abroad, I shall beseech you, sir,\n    To let me be partaker.\n  CAESAR. Doubt not, sir;\n    I knew it for my bond.                                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nAlexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace\n\nEnter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and MARDIAN\n\n  CLEOPATRA. Charmian!\n  CHARMIAN. Madam?\n  CLEOPATRA. Ha, ha!\n    Give me to drink mandragora.\n  CHARMIAN. Why, madam?\n  CLEOPATRA. That I might sleep out this great gap of time\n    My Antony is away.\n  CHARMIAN. You think of him too much.\n  CLEOPATRA. O, 'tis treason!\n  CHARMIAN. Madam, I trust, not so.\n  CLEOPATRA. Thou, eunuch Mardian!\n  MARDIAN. What's your Highness' pleasure?\n  CLEOPATRA. Not now to hear thee sing; I take no pleasure\n    In aught an eunuch has. 'Tis well for thee\n    That, being unseminar'd, thy freer thoughts\n    May not fly forth of Egypt. Hast thou affections?\n  MARDIAN. Yes, gracious madam.\n  CLEOPATRA. Indeed?\n  MARDIAN. Not in deed, madam; for I can do nothing\n    But what indeed is honest to be done.\n    Yet have I fierce affections, and think\n    What Venus did with Mars.\n  CLEOPATRA. O Charmian,\n    Where think'st thou he is now? Stands he or sits he?\n    Or does he walk? or is he on his horse?\n    O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony!\n    Do bravely, horse; for wot'st thou whom thou mov'st?\n    The demi-Atlas of this earth, the arm\n    And burgonet of men. He's speaking now,\n    Or murmuring 'Where's my serpent of old Nile?'\n    For so he calls me. Now I feed myself\n    With most delicious poison. Think on me,\n    That am with Phoebus' amorous pinches black,\n    And wrinkled deep in time? Broad-fronted Caesar,\n    When thou wast here above the ground, I was\n    A morsel for a monarch; and great Pompey\n    Would stand and make his eyes grow in my brow;\n    There would he anchor his aspect and die\n    With looking on his life.\n\n                         Enter ALEXAS\n\n  ALEXAS. Sovereign of Egypt, hail!\n  CLEOPATRA. How much unlike art thou Mark Antony!\n    Yet, coming from him, that great med'cine hath\n    With his tinct gilded thee.\n    How goes it with my brave Mark Antony?\n  ALEXAS. Last thing he did, dear Queen,\n    He kiss'd- the last of many doubled kisses-\n    This orient pearl. His speech sticks in my heart.\n  CLEOPATRA. Mine ear must pluck it thence.\n  ALEXAS. 'Good friend,' quoth he\n    'Say the firm Roman to great Egypt sends\n    This treasure of an oyster; at whose foot,\n    To mend the petty present, I will piece\n    Her opulent throne with kingdoms. All the East,\n    Say thou, shall call her mistress.' So he nodded,\n    And soberly did mount an arm-gaunt steed,\n    Who neigh'd so high that what I would have spoke\n    Was beastly dumb'd by him.\n  CLEOPATRA. What, was he sad or merry?\n  ALEXAS. Like to the time o' th' year between the extremes\n    Of hot and cold; he was nor sad nor merry.\n  CLEOPATRA. O well-divided disposition! Note him,\n    Note him, good Charmian; 'tis the man; but note him!\n    He was not sad, for he would shine on those\n    That make their looks by his; he was not merry,\n    Which seem'd to tell them his remembrance lay\n    In Egypt with his joy; but between both.\n    O heavenly mingle! Be'st thou sad or merry,\n    The violence of either thee becomes,\n    So does it no man else. Met'st thou my posts?\n  ALEXAS. Ay, madam, twenty several messengers.\n    Why do you send so thick?\n  CLEOPATRA. Who's born that day\n    When I forget to send to Antony\n    Shall die a beggar. Ink and paper, Charmian.\n    Welcome, my good Alexas. Did I, Charmian,\n    Ever love Caesar so?\n  CHARMIAN. O that brave Caesar!\n  CLEOPATRA. Be chok'd with such another emphasis!\n    Say 'the brave Antony.'\n  CHARMIAN. The valiant Caesar!\n  CLEOPATRA. By Isis, I will give thee bloody teeth\n    If thou with Caesar paragon again\n    My man of men.\n  CHARMIAN. By your most gracious pardon,\n    I sing but after you.\n  CLEOPATRA. My salad days,\n    When I was green in judgment, cold in blood,\n    To say as I said then. But come, away!\n    Get me ink and paper.\n    He shall have every day a several greeting,\n    Or I'll unpeople Egypt.                               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nMessina. POMPEY'S house\n\nEnter POMPEY, MENECRATES, and MENAS, in warlike manner\n\n  POMPEY. If the great gods be just, they shall assist\n    The deeds of justest men.\n  MENECRATES. Know, worthy Pompey,\n    That what they do delay they not deny.\n  POMPEY. Whiles we are suitors to their throne, decays\n    The thing we sue for.\n  MENECRATES. We, ignorant of ourselves,\n    Beg often our own harms, which the wise pow'rs\n    Deny us for our good; so find we profit\n    By losing of our prayers.\n  POMPEY. I shall do well.\n    The people love me, and the sea is mine;\n    My powers are crescent, and my auguring hope\n    Says it will come to th' full. Mark Antony\n    In Egypt sits at dinner, and will make\n    No wars without doors. Caesar gets money where\n    He loses hearts. Lepidus flatters both,\n    Of both is flatter'd; but he neither loves,\n    Nor either cares for him.\n  MENAS. Caesar and Lepidus\n    Are in the field. A mighty strength they carry.\n  POMPEY. Where have you this? 'Tis false.\n  MENAS. From Silvius, sir.\n  POMPEY. He dreams. I know they are in Rome together,\n    Looking for Antony. But all the charms of love,\n    Salt Cleopatra, soften thy wan'd lip!\n    Let witchcraft join with beauty, lust with both;\n    Tie up the libertine in a field of feasts,\n    Keep his brain fuming. Epicurean cooks\n    Sharpen with cloyless sauce his appetite,\n    That sleep and feeding may prorogue his honour\n    Even till a Lethe'd dullness-\n\n                       Enter VARRIUS\n\n    How now, Varrius!\n  VARRIUS. This is most certain that I shall deliver:\n    Mark Antony is every hour in Rome\n    Expected. Since he went from Egypt 'tis\n    A space for farther travel.\n  POMPEY. I could have given less matter\n    A better ear. Menas, I did not think\n    This amorous surfeiter would have donn'd his helm\n    For such a petty war; his soldiership\n    Is twice the other twain. But let us rear\n    The higher our opinion, that our stirring\n    Can from the lap of Egypt's widow pluck\n    The ne'er-lust-wearied Antony.\n  MENAS. I cannot hope\n    Caesar and Antony shall well greet together.\n    His wife that's dead did trespasses to Caesar;\n    His brother warr'd upon him; although, I think,\n    Not mov'd by Antony.\n  POMPEY. I know not, Menas,\n    How lesser enmities may give way to greater.\n    Were't not that we stand up against them all,\n    'Twere pregnant they should square between themselves;\n    For they have entertained cause enough\n    To draw their swords. But how the fear of us\n    May cement their divisions, and bind up\n    The petty difference we yet not know.\n    Be't as our gods will have't! It only stands\n    Our lives upon to use our strongest hands.\n    Come, Menas.                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nRome. The house of LEPIDUS\n\nEnter ENOBARBUS and LEPIDUS\n\n  LEPIDUS. Good Enobarbus, 'tis a worthy deed,\n    And shall become you well, to entreat your captain\n    To soft and gentle speech.\n  ENOBARBUS. I shall entreat him\n    To answer like himself. If Caesar move him,\n    Let Antony look over Caesar's head\n    And speak as loud as Mars. By Jupiter,\n    Were I the wearer of Antonius' beard,\n    I would not shave't to-day.\n  LEPIDUS. 'Tis not a time\n    For private stomaching.\n  ENOBARBUS. Every time\n    Serves for the matter that is then born in't.\n  LEPIDUS. But small to greater matters must give way.\n  ENOBARBUS. Not if the small come first.\n  LEPIDUS. Your speech is passion;\n    But pray you stir no embers up. Here comes\n    The noble Antony.\n\n                Enter ANTONY and VENTIDIUS\n\n  ENOBARBUS. And yonder, Caesar.\n\n            Enter CAESAR, MAECENAS, and AGRIPPA\n\n  ANTONY. If we compose well here, to Parthia.\n    Hark, Ventidius.\n  CAESAR. I do not know, Maecenas. Ask Agrippa.\n  LEPIDUS. Noble friends,\n    That which combin'd us was most great, and let not\n    A leaner action rend us. What's amiss,\n    May it be gently heard. When we debate\n    Our trivial difference loud, we do commit\n    Murder in healing wounds. Then, noble partners,\n    The rather for I earnestly beseech,\n    Touch you the sourest points with sweetest terms,\n    Nor curstness grow to th' matter.\n  ANTONY. 'Tis spoken well.\n    Were we before our arinies, and to fight,\n    I should do thus.                                 [Flourish]\n  CAESAR. Welcome to Rome.\n  ANTONY. Thank you.\n  CAESAR. Sit.\n  ANTONY. Sit, sir.\n  CAESAR. Nay, then.                                  [They sit]\n  ANTONY. I learn you take things ill which are not so,\n    Or being, concern you not.\n  CAESAR. I must be laugh'd at\n    If, or for nothing or a little,\n    Should say myself offended, and with you\n    Chiefly i' the world; more laugh'd at that I should\n    Once name you derogately when to sound your name\n    It not concern'd me.\n  ANTONY. My being in Egypt, Caesar,\n    What was't to you?\n  CAESAR. No more than my residing here at Rome\n    Might be to you in Egypt. Yet, if you there\n    Did practise on my state, your being in Egypt\n    Might be my question.\n  ANTONY. How intend you- practis'd?\n  CAESAR. You may be pleas'd to catch at mine intent\n    By what did here befall me. Your wife and brother\n    Made wars upon me, and their contestation\n    Was theme for you; you were the word of war.\n  ANTONY. You do mistake your business; my brother never\n    Did urge me in his act. I did inquire it,\n    And have my learning from some true reports\n    That drew their swords with you. Did he not rather\n    Discredit my authority with yours,\n    And make the wars alike against my stomach,\n    Having alike your cause? Of this my letters\n    Before did satisfy you. If you'll patch a quarrel,\n    As matter whole you have not to make it with,\n    It must not be with this.\n  CAESAR. You praise yourself\n    By laying defects of judgment to me; but\n    You patch'd up your excuses.\n  ANTONY. Not so, not so;\n    I know you could not lack, I am certain on't,\n    Very necessity of this thought, that I,\n    Your partner in the cause 'gainst which he fought,\n    Could not with graceful eyes attend those wars\n    Which fronted mine own peace. As for my wife,\n    I would you had her spirit in such another!\n    The third o' th' world is yours, which with a snaffle\n    You may pace easy, but not such a wife.\n  ENOBARBUS. Would we had all such wives, that the men might go to\n    wars with the women!\n  ANTONY. So much uncurbable, her garboils, Caesar,\n    Made out of her impatience- which not wanted\n    Shrewdness of policy too- I grieving grant\n    Did you too much disquiet. For that you must\n    But say I could not help it.\n  CAESAR. I wrote to you\n    When rioting in Alexandria; you\n    Did pocket up my letters, and with taunts\n    Did gibe my missive out of audience.\n  ANTONY. Sir,\n    He fell upon me ere admitted. Then\n    Three kings I had newly feasted, and did want\n    Of what I was i' th' morning; but next day\n    I told him of myself, which was as much\n    As to have ask'd him pardon. Let this fellow\n    Be nothing of our strife; if we contend,\n    Out of our question wipe him.\n  CAESAR. You have broken\n    The article of your oath, which you shall never\n    Have tongue to charge me with.\n  LEPIDUS. Soft, Caesar!\n  ANTONY. No;\n    Lepidus, let him speak.\n    The honour is sacred which he talks on now,\n    Supposing that I lack'd it. But on, Caesar:\n    The article of my oath-\n  CAESAR. To lend me arms and aid when I requir'd them,\n    The which you both denied.\n  ANTONY. Neglected, rather;\n    And then when poisoned hours had bound me up\n    From mine own knowledge. As nearly as I may,\n    I'll play the penitent to you; but mine honesty\n    Shall not make poor my greatness, nor my power\n    Work without it. Truth is, that Fulvia,\n    To have me out of Egypt, made wars here;\n    For which myself, the ignorant motive, do\n    So far ask pardon as befits mine honour\n    To stoop in such a case.\n  LEPIDUS. 'Tis noble spoken.\n  MAECENAS. If it might please you to enforce no further\n    The griefs between ye- to forget them quite\n    Were to remember that the present need\n    Speaks to atone you.\n  LEPIDUS. Worthily spoken, Maecenas.\n  ENOBARBUS. Or, if you borrow one another's love for the instant,\n    you may, when you hear no more words of Pompey, return it again.\n    You shall have time to wrangle in when you have nothing else to\n    do.\n  ANTONY. Thou art a soldier only. Speak no more.\n  ENOBARBUS. That truth should be silent I had almost forgot.\n  ANTONY. You wrong this presence; therefore speak no more.\n  ENOBARBUS. Go to, then- your considerate stone!\n  CAESAR. I do not much dislike the matter, but\n    The manner of his speech; for't cannot be\n    We shall remain in friendship, our conditions\n    So diff'ring in their acts. Yet if I knew\n    What hoop should hold us stanch, from edge to edge\n    O' th' world, I would pursue it.\n  AGRIPPA. Give me leave, Caesar.\n  CAESAR. Speak, Agrippa.\n  AGRIPPA. Thou hast a sister by the mother's side,\n    Admir'd Octavia. Great Mark Antony\n    Is now a widower.\n  CAESAR. Say not so, Agrippa.\n    If Cleopatra heard you, your reproof\n    Were well deserv'd of rashness.\n  ANTONY. I am not married, Caesar. Let me hear\n    Agrippa further speak.\n  AGRIPPA. To hold you in perpetual amity,\n    To make you brothers, and to knit your hearts\n    With an unslipping knot, take Antony\n    Octavia to his wife; whose beauty claims\n    No worse a husband than the best of men;\n    Whose virtue and whose general graces speak\n    That which none else can utter. By this marriage\n    All little jealousies, which now seem great,\n    And all great fears, which now import their dangers,\n    Would then be nothing. Truths would be tales,\n    Where now half tales be truths. Her love to both\n    Would each to other, and all loves to both,\n    Draw after her. Pardon what I have spoke;\n    For 'tis a studied, not a present thought,\n    By duty ruminated.\n  ANTONY. Will Caesar speak?\n  CAESAR. Not till he hears how Antony is touch'd\n    With what is spoke already.\n  ANTONY. What power is in Agrippa,\n    If I would say 'Agrippa, be it so,'\n    To make this good?\n  CAESAR. The power of Caesar, and\n    His power unto Octavia.\n  ANTONY. May I never\n    To this good purpose, that so fairly shows,\n    Dream of impediment! Let me have thy hand.\n    Further this act of grace; and from this hour\n    The heart of brothers govern in our loves\n    And sway our great designs!\n  CAESAR. There is my hand.\n    A sister I bequeath you, whom no brother\n    Did ever love so dearly. Let her live\n    To join our kingdoms and our hearts; and never\n    Fly off our loves again!\n  LEPIDUS. Happily, amen!\n  ANTONY. I did not think to draw my sword 'gainst Pompey;\n    For he hath laid strange courtesies and great\n    Of late upon me. I must thank him only,\n    Lest my remembrance suffer ill report;\n    At heel of that, defy him.\n  LEPIDUS. Time calls upon's.\n    Of us must Pompey presently be sought,\n    Or else he seeks out us.\n  ANTONY. Where lies he?\n  CAESAR. About the Mount Misenum.\n  ANTONY. What is his strength by land?\n  CAESAR. Great and increasing; but by sea\n    He is an absolute master.\n  ANTONY. So is the fame.\n    Would we had spoke together! Haste we for it.\n    Yet, ere we put ourselves in arms, dispatch we\n    The business we have talk'd of.\n  CAESAR. With most gladness;\n    And do invite you to my sister's view,\n    Whither straight I'll lead you.\n  ANTONY. Let us, Lepidus,\n    Not lack your company.\n  LEPIDUS. Noble Antony,\n    Not sickness should detain me.                    [Flourish]\n                     Exeunt all but ENOBARBUS, AGRIPPA, MAECENAS\n  MAECENAS. Welcome from Egypt, sir.\n  ENOBARBUS. Half the heart of Caesar, worthy Maecenas! My honourable\n    friend, Agrippa!\n  AGRIPPA. Good Enobarbus!\n  MAECENAS. We have cause to be glad that matters are so well\n    digested. You stay'd well by't in Egypt.\n  ENOBARBUS. Ay, sir; we did sleep day out of countenance and made\n    the night light with drinking.\n  MAECENAS. Eight wild boars roasted whole at a breakfast, and but\n    twelve persons there. Is this true?\n  ENOBARBUS. This was but as a fly by an eagle. We had much more\n    monstrous matter of feast, which worthily deserved noting.\n  MAECENAS. She's a most triumphant lady, if report be square to her.\n  ENOBARBUS. When she first met Mark Antony she purs'd up his heart,\n    upon the river of Cydnus.\n  AGRIPPA. There she appear'd indeed! Or my reporter devis'd well for\n    her.\n  ENOBARBUS. I will tell you.\n    The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,\n    Burn'd on the water. The poop was beaten gold;\n    Purple the sails, and so perfumed that\n    The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,\n    Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made\n    The water which they beat to follow faster,\n    As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,\n    It beggar'd all description. She did lie\n    In her pavilion, cloth-of-gold, of tissue,\n    O'erpicturing that Venus where we see\n    The fancy out-work nature. On each side her\n    Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,\n    With divers-colour'd fans, whose wind did seem\n    To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,\n    And what they undid did.\n  AGRIPPA. O, rare for Antony!\n  ENOBARBUS. Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,\n    So many mermaids, tended her i' th' eyes,\n    And made their bends adornings. At the helm\n    A seeming mermaid steers. The silken tackle\n    Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands\n    That yarely frame the office. From the barge\n    A strange invisible perfume hits the sense\n    Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast\n    Her people out upon her; and Antony,\n    Enthron'd i' th' market-place, did sit alone,\n    Whistling to th' air; which, but for vacancy,\n    Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,\n    And made a gap in nature.\n  AGRIPPA. Rare Egyptian!\n  ENOBARBUS. Upon her landing, Antony sent to her,\n    Invited her to supper. She replied\n    It should be better he became her guest;\n    Which she entreated. Our courteous Antony,\n    Whom ne'er the word of 'No' woman heard speak,\n    Being barber'd ten times o'er, goes to the feast,\n    And for his ordinary pays his heart\n    For what his eyes eat only.\n  AGRIPPA. Royal wench!\n    She made great Caesar lay his sword to bed.\n    He ploughed her, and she cropp'd.\n  ENOBARBUS. I saw her once\n    Hop forty paces through the public street;\n    And, having lost her breath, she spoke, and panted,\n    That she did make defect perfection,\n    And, breathless, pow'r breathe forth.\n  MAECENAS. Now Antony must leave her utterly.\n  ENOBARBUS. Never! He will not.\n    Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale\n    Her infinite variety. Other women cloy\n    The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry\n    Where most she satisfies; for vilest things\n    Become themselves in her, that the holy priests\n    Bless her when she is riggish.\n  MAECENAS. If beauty, wisdom, modesty, can settle\n    The heart of Antony, Octavia is\n    A blessed lottery to him.\n  AGRIPPA. Let us go.\n    Good Enobarbus, make yourself my guest\n    Whilst you abide here.\n  ENOBARBUS. Humbly, sir, I thank you.                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nRome. CAESAR'S house\n\nEnter ANTONY, CAESAR, OCTAVIA between them\n\n  ANTONY. The world and my great office will sometimes\n    Divide me from your bosom.\n  OCTAVIA. All which time\n    Before the gods my knee shall bow my prayers\n    To them for you.\n  ANTONY. Good night, sir. My Octavia,\n    Read not my blemishes in the world's report.\n    I have not kept my square; but that to come\n    Shall all be done by th' rule. Good night, dear lady.\n  OCTAVIA. Good night, sir.\n  CAESAR. Good night.                  Exeunt CAESAR and OCTAVIA\n\n                        Enter SOOTHSAYER\n\n  ANTONY. Now, sirrah, you do wish yourself in Egypt?\n  SOOTHSAYER. Would I had never come from thence, nor you thither!\n  ANTONY. If you can- your reason.\n  SOOTHSAYER. I see it in my motion, have it not in my tongue; but\n    yet hie you to Egypt again.\n  ANTONY. Say to me,\n    Whose fortunes shall rise higher, Caesar's or mine?\n  SOOTHSAYER. Caesar's.\n    Therefore, O Antony, stay not by his side.\n    Thy daemon, that thy spirit which keeps thee, is\n    Noble, courageous, high, unmatchable,\n    Where Caesar's is not; but near him thy angel\n    Becomes a fear, as being o'erpow'r'd. Therefore\n    Make space enough between you.\n  ANTONY. Speak this no more.\n  SOOTHSAYER. To none but thee; no more but when to thee.\n    If thou dost play with him at any game,\n    Thou art sure to lose; and of that natural luck\n    He beats thee 'gainst the odds. Thy lustre thickens\n    When he shines by. I say again, thy spirit\n    Is all afraid to govern thee near him;\n    But, he away, 'tis noble.\n  ANTONY. Get thee gone.\n    Say to Ventidius I would speak with him.\n                                                 Exit SOOTHSAYER\n    He shall to Parthia.- Be it art or hap,\n    He hath spoken true. The very dice obey him;\n    And in our sports my better cunning faints\n    Under his chance. If we draw lots, he speeds;\n    His cocks do win the battle still of mine,\n    When it is all to nought, and his quails ever\n    Beat mine, inhoop'd, at odds. I will to Egypt;\n    And though I make this marriage for my peace,\n    I' th' East my pleasure lies.\n\n                       Enter VENTIDIUS\n\n    O, come, Ventidius,\n    You must to Parthia. Your commission's ready;\n    Follow me and receive't.                              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nRome. A street\n\nEnter LEPIDUS, MAECENAS, and AGRIPPA\n\n  LEPIDUS. Trouble yourselves no further. Pray you hasten\n    Your generals after.\n  AGRIPPA. Sir, Mark Antony\n    Will e'en but kiss Octavia, and we'll follow.\n  LEPIDUS. Till I shall see you in your soldier's dress,\n    Which will become you both, farewell.\n  MAECENAS. We shall,\n    As I conceive the journey, be at th' Mount\n    Before you, Lepidus.\n  LEPIDUS. Your way is shorter;\n    My purposes do draw me much about.\n    You'll win two days upon me.\n  BOTH. Sir, good success!\n  LEPIDUS. Farewell.                                      Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nAlexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace\n\nEnter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and ALEXAS\n\n  CLEOPATRA. Give me some music- music, moody food\n    Of us that trade in love.\n  ALL. The music, ho!\n\n                    Enter MARDIAN the eunuch\n\n  CLEOPATRA. Let it alone! Let's to billiards. Come, Charmian.\n  CHARMIAN. My arm is sore; best play with Mardian.\n  CLEOPATRA. As well a woman with an eunuch play'd\n    As with a woman. Come, you'll play with me, sir?\n  MARDIAN. As well as I can, madam.\n  CLEOPATRA. And when good will is show'd, though't come too short,\n    The actor may plead pardon. I'll none now.\n    Give me mine angle- we'll to th' river. There,\n    My music playing far off, I will betray\n    Tawny-finn'd fishes; my bended hook shall pierce\n    Their slimy jaws; and as I draw them up\n    I'll think them every one an Antony,\n    And say 'Ah ha! Y'are caught.'\n  CHARMIAN. 'Twas merry when\n    You wager'd on your angling; when your diver\n    Did hang a salt fish on his hook, which he\n    With fervency drew up.\n  CLEOPATRA. That time? O times\n    I laughed him out of patience; and that night\n    I laugh'd him into patience; and next morn,\n    Ere the ninth hour, I drunk him to his bed,\n    Then put my tires and mantles on him, whilst\n    I wore his sword Philippan.\n\n                    Enter a MESSENGER\n\n    O! from Italy?\n    Ram thou thy fruitful tidings in mine ears,\n    That long time have been barren.\n  MESSENGER. Madam, madam-\n  CLEOPATRA. Antony's dead! If thou say so, villain,\n    Thou kill'st thy mistress; but well and free,\n    If thou so yield him, there is gold, and here\n    My bluest veins to kiss- a hand that kings\n    Have lipp'd, and trembled kissing.\n  MESSENGER. First, madam, he is well.\n  CLEOPATRA. Why, there's more gold.\n    But, sirrah, mark, we use\n    To say the dead are well. Bring it to that,\n    The gold I give thee will I melt and pour\n    Down thy ill-uttering throat.\n  MESSENGER. Good madam, hear me.\n  CLEOPATRA. Well, go to, I will.\n    But there's no goodness in thy face. If Antony\n    Be free and healthful- why so tart a favour\n    To trumpet such good tidings? If not well,\n    Thou shouldst come like a Fury crown'd with snakes,\n    Not like a formal man.\n  MESSENGER. Will't please you hear me?\n  CLEOPATRA. I have a mind to strike thee ere thou speak'st.\n    Yet, if thou say Antony lives, is well,\n    Or friends with Caesar, or not captive to him,\n    I'll set thee in a shower of gold, and hail\n    Rich pearls upon thee.\n  MESSENGER. Madam, he's well.\n  CLEOPATRA. Well said.\n  MESSENGER. And friends with Caesar.\n  CLEOPATRA. Th'art an honest man.\n  MESSENGER. Caesar and he are greater friends than ever.\n  CLEOPATRA. Make thee a fortune from me.\n  MESSENGER. But yet, madam-\n  CLEOPATRA. I do not like 'but yet.' It does allay\n    The good precedence; fie upon 'but yet'!\n    'But yet' is as a gaoler to bring forth\n    Some monstrous malefactor. Prithee, friend,\n    Pour out the pack of matter to mine ear,\n    The good and bad together. He's friends with Caesar;\n    In state of health, thou say'st; and, thou say'st, free.\n  MESSENGER. Free, madam! No; I made no such report.\n    He's bound unto Octavia.\n  CLEOPATRA. For what good turn?\n  MESSENGER. For the best turn i' th' bed.\n  CLEOPATRA. I am pale, Charmian.\n  MESSENGER. Madam, he's married to Octavia.\n  CLEOPATRA. The most infectious pestilence upon thee!\n                                              [Strikes him down]\n  MESSENGER. Good madam, patience.\n  CLEOPATRA. What say you? Hence,                  [Strikes him]\n    Horrible villain! or I'll spurn thine eyes\n    Like balls before me; I'll unhair thy head;\n                                     [She hales him up and down]\n    Thou shalt be whipp'd with wire and stew'd in brine,\n    Smarting in ling'ring pickle.\n  MESSENGER. Gracious madam,\n    I that do bring the news made not the match.\n  CLEOPATRA. Say 'tis not so, a province I will give thee,\n    And make thy fortunes proud. The blow thou hadst\n    Shall make thy peace for moving me to rage;\n    And I will boot thee with what gift beside\n    Thy modesty can beg.\n  MESSENGER. He's married, madam.\n  CLEOPATRA. Rogue, thou hast liv'd too long.    [Draws a knife]\n  MESSENGER. Nay, then I'll run.\n    What mean you, madam? I have made no fault.             Exit\n  CHARMIAN. Good madam, keep yourself within yourself:\n    The man is innocent.\n  CLEOPATRA. Some innocents scape not the thunderbolt.\n    Melt Egypt into Nile! and kindly creatures\n    Turn all to serpents! Call the slave again.\n    Though I am mad, I will not bite him. Call!\n  CHARMIAN. He is afear'd to come.\n  CLEOPATRA. I will not hurt him.\n    These hands do lack nobility, that they strike\n    A meaner than myself; since I myself\n    Have given myself the cause.\n\n                    Enter the MESSENGER again\n\n    Come hither, sir.\n    Though it be honest, it is never good\n    To bring bad news. Give to a gracious message\n    An host of tongues; but let ill tidings tell\n    Themselves when they be felt.\n  MESSENGER. I have done my duty.\n  CLEOPATRA. Is he married?\n    I cannot hate thee worser than I do\n    If thou again say 'Yes.'\n  MESSENGER. He's married, madam.\n  CLEOPATRA. The gods confound thee! Dost thou hold there still?\n  MESSENGER. Should I lie, madam?\n  CLEOPATRA. O, I would thou didst,\n    So half my Egypt were submerg'd and made\n    A cistern for scal'd snakes! Go, get thee hence.\n    Hadst thou Narcissus in thy face, to me\n    Thou wouldst appear most ugly. He is married?\n  MESSENGER. I crave your Highness' pardon.\n  CLEOPATRA. He is married?\n  MESSENGER. Take no offence that I would not offend you;\n    To punish me for what you make me do\n    Seems much unequal. He's married to Octavia.\n  CLEOPATRA. O, that his fault should make a knave of thee\n    That art not what th'art sure of! Get thee hence.\n    The merchandise which thou hast brought from Rome\n    Are all too dear for me. Lie they upon thy hand,\n    And be undone by 'em!                         Exit MESSENGER\n  CHARMIAN. Good your Highness, patience.\n  CLEOPATRA. In praising Antony I have disprais'd Caesar.\n  CHARMIAN. Many times, madam.\n  CLEOPATRA. I am paid for't now. Lead me from hence,\n    I faint. O Iras, Charmian! 'Tis no matter.\n    Go to the fellow, good Alexas; bid him\n    Report the feature of Octavia, her years,\n    Her inclination; let him not leave out\n    The colour of her hair. Bring me word quickly.\n                                                     Exit ALEXAS\n    Let him for ever go- let him not, Charmian-\n    Though he be painted one way like a Gorgon,\n    The other way's a Mars.                         [To MARDIAN]\n    Bid you Alexas\n    Bring me word how tall she is.- Pity me, Charmian,\n    But do not speak to me. Lead me to my chamber.        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nNear Misenum\n\nFlourish. Enter POMPEY and MENAS at one door, with drum and trumpet;\nat another, CAESAR, ANTONY, LEPIDUS, ENOBARBUS, MAECENAS, AGRIPPA,\nwith soldiers marching\n\n  POMPEY. Your hostages I have, so have you mine;\n    And we shall talk before we fight.\n  CAESAR. Most meet\n    That first we come to words; and therefore have we\n    Our written purposes before us sent;\n    Which if thou hast considered, let us know\n    If 'twill tie up thy discontented sword\n    And carry back to Sicily much tall youth\n    That else must perish here.\n  POMPEY. To you all three,\n    The senators alone of this great world,\n    Chief factors for the gods: I do not know\n    Wherefore my father should revengers want,\n    Having a son and friends, since Julius Caesar,\n    Who at Philippi the good Brutus ghosted,\n    There saw you labouring for him. What was't\n    That mov'd pale Cassius to conspire? and what\n    Made the all-honour'd honest Roman, Brutus,\n    With the arm'd rest, courtiers of beauteous freedom,\n    To drench the Capitol, but that they would\n    Have one man but a man? And that is it\n    Hath made me rig my navy, at whose burden\n    The anger'd ocean foams; with which I meant\n    To scourge th' ingratitude that despiteful Rome\n    Cast on my noble father.\n  CAESAR. Take your time.\n  ANTONY. Thou canst not fear us, Pompey, with thy sails;\n    We'll speak with thee at sea; at land thou know'st\n    How much we do o'er-count thee.\n  POMPEY. At land, indeed,\n    Thou dost o'er-count me of my father's house.\n    But since the cuckoo builds not for himself,\n    Remain in't as thou mayst.\n  LEPIDUS. Be pleas'd to tell us-\n    For this is from the present- how you take\n    The offers we have sent you.\n  CAESAR. There's the point.\n  ANTONY. Which do not be entreated to, but weigh\n    What it is worth embrac'd.\n  CAESAR. And what may follow,\n    To try a larger fortune.\n  POMPEY. You have made me offer\n    Of Sicily, Sardinia; and I must\n    Rid all the sea of pirates; then to send\n    Measures of wheat to Rome; this 'greed upon,\n    To part with unhack'd edges and bear back\n    Our targes undinted.\n  ALL. That's our offer.\n  POMPEY. Know, then,\n    I came before you here a man prepar'd\n    To take this offer; but Mark Antony\n    Put me to some impatience. Though I lose\n    The praise of it by telling, you must know,\n    When Caesar and your brother were at blows,\n    Your mother came to Sicily and did find\n    Her welcome friendly.\n  ANTONY. I have heard it, Pompey,\n    And am well studied for a liberal thanks\n    Which I do owe you.\n  POMPEY. Let me have your hand.\n    I did not think, sir, to have met you here.\n  ANTONY. The beds i' th' East are soft; and thanks to you,\n    That call'd me timelier than my purpose hither;\n    For I have gained by't.\n  CAESAR. Since I saw you last\n    There is a change upon you.\n  POMPEY. Well, I know not\n    What counts harsh fortune casts upon my face;\n    But in my bosom shall she never come\n    To make my heart her vassal.\n  LEPIDUS. Well met here.\n  POMPEY. I hope so, Lepidus. Thus we are agreed.\n    I crave our composition may be written,\n    And seal'd between us.\n  CAESAR. That's the next to do.\n  POMPEY. We'll feast each other ere we part, and let's\n    Draw lots who shall begin.\n  ANTONY. That will I, Pompey.\n  POMPEY. No, Antony, take the lot;\n    But, first or last, your fine Egyptian cookery\n    Shall have the fame. I have heard that Julius Caesar\n    Grew fat with feasting there.\n  ANTONY. You have heard much.\n  POMPEY. I have fair meanings, sir.\n  ANTONY. And fair words to them.\n  POMPEY. Then so much have I heard;\n    And I have heard Apollodorus carried-\n  ENOBARBUS. No more of that! He did so.\n  POMPEY. What, I pray you?\n  ENOBARBUS. A certain queen to Caesar in a mattress.\n  POMPEY. I know thee now. How far'st thou, soldier?\n  ENOBARBUS. Well;\n    And well am like to do, for I perceive\n    Four feasts are toward.\n  POMPEY. Let me shake thy hand.\n    I never hated thee; I have seen thee fight,\n    When I have envied thy behaviour.\n  ENOBARBUS. Sir,\n    I never lov'd you much; but I ha' prais'd ye\n    When you have well deserv'd ten times as much\n    As I have said you did.\n  POMPEY. Enjoy thy plainness;\n    It nothing ill becomes thee.\n    Aboard my galley I invite you all.\n    Will you lead, lords?\n  ALL. Show's the way, sir.\n  POMPEY. Come.               Exeunt all but ENOBARBUS and MENAS\n  MENAS. [Aside] Thy father, Pompey, would ne'er have made this\n    treaty.- You and I have known, sir.\n  ENOBARBUS. At sea, I think.\n  MENAS. We have, sir.\n  ENOBARBUS. You have done well by water.\n  MENAS. And you by land.\n  ENOBARBUS. I Will praise any man that will praise me; though it\n    cannot be denied what I have done by land.\n  MENAS. Nor what I have done by water.\n  ENOBARBUS. Yes, something you can deny for your own safety: you\n    have been a great thief by sea.\n  MENAS. And you by land.\n  ENOBARBUS. There I deny my land service. But give me your hand,\n    Menas; if our eyes had authority, here they might take two\n    thieves kissing.\n  MENAS. All men's faces are true, whatsome'er their hands are.\n  ENOBARBUS. But there is never a fair woman has a true face.\n  MENAS. No slander: they steal hearts.\n  ENOBARBUS. We came hither to fight with you.\n  MENAS. For my part, I am sorry it is turn'd to a drinking.\n    Pompey doth this day laugh away his fortune.\n  ENOBARBUS. If he do, sure he cannot weep't back again.\n  MENAS. Y'have said, sir. We look'd not for Mark Antony here. Pray\n    you, is he married to Cleopatra?\n  ENOBARBUS. Caesar' sister is call'd Octavia.\n  MENAS. True, sir; she was the wife of Caius Marcellus.\n  ENOBARBUS. But she is now the wife of Marcus Antonius.\n  MENAS. Pray ye, sir?\n  ENOBARBUS. 'Tis true.\n  MENAS. Then is Caesar and he for ever knit together.\n  ENOBARBUS. If I were bound to divine of this unity, I would not\n    prophesy so.\n  MENAS. I think the policy of that purpose made more in the marriage\n    than the love of the parties.\n  ENOBARBUS. I think so too. But you shall find the band that seems\n    to tie their friendship together will be the very strangler of\n    their amity: Octavia is of a holy, cold, and still conversation.\n  MENAS. Who would not have his wife so?\n  ENOBARBUS. Not he that himself is not so; which is Mark Antony. He\n    will to his Egyptian dish again; then shall the sighs of Octavia\n    blow the fire up in Caesar, and, as I said before, that which is\n    the strength of their amity shall prove the immediate author of\n    their variance. Antony will use his affection where it is; he\n    married but his occasion here.\n  MENAS. And thus it may be. Come, sir, will you aboard? I have a\n    health for you.\n  ENOBARBUS. I shall take it, sir. We have us'd our throats in Egypt.\n  MENAS. Come, let's away.                                Exeunt\n\nACT_2|SC_7\n                           SCENE VII.\n             On board POMPEY'S galley, off Misenum\n\n     Music plays. Enter two or three SERVANTS with a banquet\n\n  FIRST SERVANT. Here they'll be, man. Some o' their plants are\n    ill-rooted already; the least wind i' th' world will blow them\n    down.\n  SECOND SERVANT. Lepidus is high-colour'd.\n  FIRST SERVANT. They have made him drink alms-drink.\n  SECOND SERVANT. As they pinch one another by the disposition, he\n    cries out 'No more!'; reconciles them to his entreaty and himself\n    to th' drink.\n  FIRST SERVANT. But it raises the greater war between him and his\n    discretion.\n  SECOND SERVANT. Why, this it is to have a name in great men's\n    fellowship. I had as lief have a reed that will do me no service\n    as a partizan I could not heave.\n  FIRST SERVANT. To be call'd into a huge sphere, and not to be seen\n    to move in't, are the holes where eyes should be, which pitifully\n    disaster the cheeks.\n\n           A sennet sounded. Enter CAESAR, ANTONY, LEPIDUS,\n            POMPEY, AGRIPPA, MAECENAS, ENOBARBUS, MENAS,\n                         with other CAPTAINS\n\n  ANTONY. [To CAESAR] Thus do they, sir: they take the flow o' th'\n      Nile\n    By certain scales i' th' pyramid; they know\n    By th' height, the lowness, or the mean, if dearth\n    Or foison follow. The higher Nilus swells\n    The more it promises; as it ebbs, the seedsman\n    Upon the slime and ooze scatters his grain,\n    And shortly comes to harvest.\n  LEPIDUS. Y'have strange serpents there.\n  ANTONY. Ay, Lepidus.\n  LEPIDUS. Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud by the\n    operation of your sun; so is your crocodile.\n  ANTONY. They are so.\n  POMPEY. Sit- and some wine! A health to Lepidus!\n  LEPIDUS. I am not so well as I should be, but I'll ne'er out.\n  ENOBARBUS. Not till you have slept. I fear me you'll be in till\n    then.\n  LEPIDUS. Nay, certainly, I have heard the Ptolemies' pyramises are\n    very goodly things. Without contradiction I have heard that.\n  MENAS. [Aside to POMPEY] Pompey, a word.\n  POMPEY. [Aside to MENAS] Say in mine ear; what is't?\n  MENAS. [Aside to POMPEY] Forsake thy seat, I do beseech thee,\n      Captain,\n    And hear me speak a word.\n  POMPEY. [ Whispers in's ear ] Forbear me till anon-\n    This wine for Lepidus!\n  LEPIDUS. What manner o' thing is your crocodile?\n  ANTONY. It is shap'd, sir, like itself, and it is as broad as it\n    hath breadth; it is just so high as it is, and moves with it own\n    organs. It lives by that which nourisheth it, and the elements\n    once out of it, it transmigrates.\n  LEPIDUS. What colour is it of?\n  ANTONY. Of it own colour too.\n  LEPIDUS. 'Tis a strange serpent.\n  ANTONY. 'Tis so. And the tears of it are wet.\n  CAESAR. Will this description satisfy him?\n  ANTONY. With the health that Pompey gives him, else he is a very\n    epicure.\n  POMPEY. [Aside to MENAS] Go, hang, sir, hang! Tell me of that!\n      Away!\n    Do as I bid you.- Where's this cup I call'd for?\n  MENAS. [Aside to POMPEY] If for the sake of merit thou wilt hear\n      me,\n    Rise from thy stool.\n  POMPEY. [Aside to MENAS] I think th'art mad. [Rises and walks\n    aside] The matter?\n  MENAS. I have ever held my cap off to thy fortunes.\n  POMPEY. Thou hast serv'd me with much faith. What's else to say?-\n    Be jolly, lords.\n  ANTONY. These quicksands, Lepidus,\n    Keep off them, for you sink.\n  MENAS. Wilt thou be lord of all the world?\n  POMPEY. What say'st thou?\n  MENAS. Wilt thou be lord of the whole world? That's twice.\n  POMPEY. How should that be?\n  MENAS. But entertain it,\n    And though you think me poor, I am the man\n    Will give thee all the world.\n  POMPEY. Hast thou drunk well?\n  MENAS. No, Pompey, I have kept me from the cup.\n    Thou art, if thou dar'st be, the earthly Jove;\n    Whate'er the ocean pales or sky inclips\n    Is thine, if thou wilt ha't.\n  POMPEY. Show me which way.\n  MENAS. These three world-sharers, these competitors,\n    Are in thy vessel. Let me cut the cable;\n    And when we are put off, fall to their throats.\n    All there is thine.\n  POMPEY. Ah, this thou shouldst have done,\n    And not have spoke on't. In me 'tis villainy:\n    In thee't had been good service. Thou must know\n    'Tis not my profit that does lead mine honour:\n    Mine honour, it. Repent that e'er thy tongue\n    Hath so betray'd thine act. Being done unknown,\n    I should have found it afterwards well done,\n    But must condemn it now. Desist, and drink.\n  MENAS. [Aside] For this,\n    I'll never follow thy pall'd fortunes more.\n    Who seeks, and will not take when once 'tis offer'd,\n    Shall never find it more.\n  POMPEY. This health to Lepidus!\n  ANTONY. Bear him ashore. I'll pledge it for him, Pompey.\n  ENOBARBUS. Here's to thee, Menas!\n  MENAS. Enobarbus, welcome!\n  POMPEY. Fill till the cup be hid.\n  ENOBARBUS. There's a strong fellow, Menas.\n               [Pointing to the servant who carries off LEPIDUS]\n  MENAS. Why?\n  ENOBARBUS. 'A bears the third part of the world, man; see'st not?\n  MENAS. The third part, then, is drunk. Would it were all,\n    That it might go on wheels!\n  ENOBARBUS. Drink thou; increase the reels.\n  MENAS. Come.\n  POMPEY. This is not yet an Alexandrian feast.\n  ANTONY. It ripens towards it. Strike the vessels, ho!\n    Here's to Caesar!\n  CAESAR. I could well forbear't.\n    It's monstrous labour when I wash my brain\n    And it grows fouler.\n  ANTONY. Be a child o' th' time.\n  CAESAR. Possess it, I'll make answer.\n    But I had rather fast from all four days\n    Than drink so much in one.\n  ENOBARBUS. [To ANTONY] Ha, my brave emperor!\n    Shall we dance now the Egyptian Bacchanals\n    And celebrate our drink?\n  POMPEY. Let's ha't, good soldier.\n  ANTONY. Come, let's all take hands,\n    Till that the conquering wine hath steep'd our sense\n    In soft and delicate Lethe.\n  ENOBARBUS. All take hands.\n    Make battery to our ears with the loud music,\n    The while I'll place you; then the boy shall sing;\n    The holding every man shall bear as loud\n    As his strong sides can volley.\n               [Music plays. ENOBARBUS places them hand in hand]\n\n                        THE SONG\n            Come, thou monarch of the vine,\n            Plumpy Bacchus with pink eyne!\n            In thy fats our cares be drown'd,\n            With thy grapes our hairs be crown'd.\n            Cup us till the world go round,\n            Cup us till the world go round!\n\n  CAESAR. What would you more? Pompey, good night. Good brother,\n    Let me request you off; our graver business\n    Frowns at this levity. Gentle lords, let's part;\n    You see we have burnt our cheeks. Strong Enobarb\n    Is weaker than the wine, and mine own tongue\n    Splits what it speaks. The wild disguise hath almost\n    Antick'd us all. What needs more words? Good night.\n    Good Antony, your hand.\n  POMPEY. I'll try you on the shore.\n  ANTONY. And shall, sir. Give's your hand.\n  POMPEY. O Antony,\n    You have my father's house- but what? We are friends.\n    Come, down into the boat.\n  ENOBARBUS. Take heed you fall not.\n                              Exeunt all but ENOBARBUS and MENAS\n    Menas, I'll not on shore.\n  MENAS. No, to my cabin.\n    These drums! these trumpets, flutes! what!\n    Let Neptune hear we bid a loud farewell\n    To these great fellows. Sound and be hang'd, sound out!\n                                  [Sound a flourish, with drums]\n  ENOBARBUS. Hoo! says 'a. There's my cap.\n  MENAS. Hoo! Noble Captain, come.                        Exeunt\nACT_3|SC_1\n                     ACT III. SCENE I.\n                     A plain in Syria\n\n       Enter VENTIDIUS, as it were in triumph, with SILIUS\n      and other Romans, OFFICERS and soldiers; the dead body\n                of PACORUS borne before him\n\n  VENTIDIUS. Now, darting Parthia, art thou struck, and now\n    Pleas'd fortune does of Marcus Crassus' death\n    Make me revenger. Bear the King's son's body\n    Before our army. Thy Pacorus, Orodes,\n    Pays this for Marcus Crassus.\n  SILIUS. Noble Ventidius,\n    Whilst yet with Parthian blood thy sword is warm\n    The fugitive Parthians follow; spur through Media,\n    Mesopotamia, and the shelters whither\n    The routed fly. So thy grand captain, Antony,\n    Shall set thee on triumphant chariots and\n    Put garlands on thy head.\n  VENTIDIUS. O Silius, Silius,\n    I have done enough. A lower place, note well,\n    May make too great an act; for learn this, Silius:\n    Better to leave undone than by our deed\n    Acquire too high a fame when him we serve's away.\n    Caesar and Antony have ever won\n    More in their officer, than person. Sossius,\n    One of my place in Syria, his lieutenant,\n    For quick accumulation of renown,\n    Which he achiev'd by th' minute, lost his favour.\n    Who does i' th' wars more than his captain can\n    Becomes his captain's captain; and ambition,\n    The soldier's virtue, rather makes choice of loss\n    Than gain which darkens him.\n    I could do more to do Antonius good,\n    But 'twould offend him; and in his offence\n    Should my performance perish.\n  SILIUS. Thou hast, Ventidius, that\n    Without the which a soldier and his sword\n    Grants scarce distinction. Thou wilt write to Antony?\n  VENTIDIUS. I'll humbly signify what in his name,\n    That magical word of war, we have effected;\n    How, with his banners, and his well-paid ranks,\n    The ne'er-yet-beaten horse of Parthia\n    We have jaded out o' th' field.\n  SILIUS. Where is he now?\n  VENTIDIUS. He purposeth to Athens; whither, with what haste\n    The weight we must convey with's will permit,\n    We shall appear before him.- On, there; pass along.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\nACT_3|SC_2\n                            SCENE II. Rome. CAESAR'S house\n\n        Enter AGRIPPA at one door, ENOBARBUS at another\n\n  AGRIPPA. What, are the brothers parted?\n  ENOBARBUS. They have dispatch'd with Pompey; he is gone;\n    The other three are sealing. Octavia weeps\n    To part from Rome; Caesar is sad; and Lepidus,\n    Since Pompey's feast, as Menas says, is troubled\n    With the green sickness.\n  AGRIPPA. 'Tis a noble Lepidus.\n  ENOBARBUS. A very fine one. O, how he loves Caesar!\n  AGRIPPA. Nay, but how dearly he adores Mark Antony!\n  ENOBARBUS. Caesar? Why he's the Jupiter of men.\n  AGRIPPA. What's Antony? The god of Jupiter.\n  ENOBARBUS. Spake you of Caesar? How! the nonpareil!\n  AGRIPPA. O, Antony! O thou Arabian bird!\n  ENOBARBUS. Would you praise Caesar, say 'Caesar'- go no further.\n  AGRIPPA. Indeed, he plied them both with excellent praises.\n  ENOBARBUS. But he loves Caesar best. Yet he loves Antony.\n    Hoo! hearts, tongues, figures, scribes, bards, poets, cannot\n    Think, speak, cast, write, sing, number- hoo!-\n    His love to Antony. But as for Caesar,\n    Kneel down, kneel down, and wonder.\n  AGRIPPA. Both he loves.\n  ENOBARBUS. They are his shards, and he their beetle. [Trumpets\n      within] So-\n    This is to horse. Adieu, noble Agrippa.\n  AGRIPPA. Good fortune, worthy soldier, and farewell.\n\n           Enter CAESAR, ANTONY, LEPIDUS, and OCTAVIA\n\n  ANTONY. No further, sir.\n  CAESAR. You take from me a great part of myself;\n    Use me well in't. Sister, prove such a wife\n    As my thoughts make thee, and as my farthest band\n    Shall pass on thy approof. Most noble Antony,\n    Let not the piece of virtue which is set\n    Betwixt us as the cement of our love\n    To keep it builded be the ram to batter\n    The fortress of it; for better might we\n    Have lov'd without this mean, if on both parts\n    This be not cherish'd.\n  ANTONY. Make me not offended\n    In your distrust.\n  CAESAR. I have said.\n  ANTONY. You shall not find,\n    Though you be therein curious, the least cause\n    For what you seem to fear. So the gods keep you,\n    And make the hearts of Romans serve your ends!\n    We will here part.\n  CAESAR. Farewell, my dearest sister, fare thee well.\n    The elements be kind to thee and make\n    Thy spirits all of comfort! Fare thee well.\n  OCTAVIA. My noble brother!\n  ANTONY. The April's in her eyes. It is love's spring,\n    And these the showers to bring it on. Be cheerful.\n  OCTAVIA. Sir, look well to my husband's house; and-\n  CAESAR. What, Octavia?\n  OCTAVIA. I'll tell you in your ear.\n  ANTONY. Her tongue will not obey her heart, nor can\n    Her heart inform her tongue- the swan's down feather,\n    That stands upon the swell at the full of tide,\n    And neither way inclines.\n  ENOBARBUS. [Aside to AGRIPPA] Will Caesar weep?\n  AGRIPPA. [Aside to ENOBARBUS] He has a cloud in's face.\n  ENOBARBUS. [Aside to AGRIPPA] He were the worse for that, were he a\n      horse;\n    So is he, being a man.\n  AGRIPPA. [Aside to ENOBARBUS] Why, Enobarbus,\n    When Antony found Julius Caesar dead,\n    He cried almost to roaring; and he wept\n    When at Philippi he found Brutus slain.\n  ENOBARBUS. [Aside to AGRIPPA] That year, indeed, he was troubled\n      with a rheum;\n    What willingly he did confound he wail'd,\n    Believe't- till I weep too.\n  CAESAR. No, sweet Octavia,\n    You shall hear from me still; the time shall not\n    Out-go my thinking on you.\n  ANTONY. Come, sir, come;\n    I'll wrestle with you in my strength of love.\n    Look, here I have you; thus I let you go,\n    And give you to the gods.\n  CAESAR. Adieu; be happy!\n  LEPIDUS. Let all the number of the stars give light\n    To thy fair way!\n  CAESAR. Farewell, farewell!                   [Kisses OCTAVIA]\n  ANTONY. Farewell!                       Trumpets sound. Exeunt\n\nACT_3|SC_3\n                          SCENE III.\n              Alexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace\n\n         Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and ALEXAS\n\n  CLEOPATRA. Where is the fellow?\n  ALEXAS. Half afeard to come.\n  CLEOPATRA. Go to, go to.\n\n                Enter the MESSENGER as before\n\n    Come hither, sir.\n  ALEXAS. Good Majesty,\n    Herod of Jewry dare not look upon you\n    But when you are well pleas'd.\n  CLEOPATRA. That Herod's head\n    I'll have. But how, when Antony is gone,\n    Through whom I might command it? Come thou near.\n  MESSENGER. Most gracious Majesty!\n  CLEOPATRA. Didst thou behold Octavia?\n  MESSENGER. Ay, dread Queen.\n  CLEOPATRA. Where?\n  MESSENGER. Madam, in Rome\n    I look'd her in the face, and saw her led\n    Between her brother and Mark Antony.\n  CLEOPATRA. Is she as tall as me?\n  MESSENGER. She is not, madam.\n  CLEOPATRA. Didst hear her speak? Is she shrill-tongu'd or low?\n  MESSENGER. Madam, I heard her speak: she is low-voic'd.\n  CLEOPATRA. That's not so good. He cannot like her long.\n  CHARMIAN. Like her? O Isis! 'tis impossible.\n  CLEOPATRA. I think so, Charmian. Dull of tongue and dwarfish!\n    What majesty is in her gait? Remember,\n    If e'er thou look'dst on majesty.\n  MESSENGER. She creeps.\n    Her motion and her station are as one;\n    She shows a body rather than a life,\n    A statue than a breather.\n  CLEOPATRA. Is this certain?\n  MESSENGER. Or I have no observance.\n  CHARMIAN. Three in Egypt\n    Cannot make better note.\n  CLEOPATRA. He's very knowing;\n    I do perceive't. There's nothing in her yet.\n    The fellow has good judgment.\n  CHARMIAN. Excellent.\n  CLEOPATRA. Guess at her years, I prithee.\n  MESSENGER. Madam,\n    She was a widow.\n  CLEOPATRA. Widow? Charmian, hark!\n  MESSENGER. And I do think she's thirty.\n  CLEOPATRA. Bear'st thou her face in mind? Is't long or round?\n  MESSENGER. Round even to faultiness.\n  CLEOPATRA. For the most part, too, they are foolish that are so.\n    Her hair, what colour?\n  MESSENGER. Brown, madam; and her forehead\n    As low as she would wish it.\n  CLEOPATRA. There's gold for thee.\n    Thou must not take my former sharpness ill.\n    I will employ thee back again; I find thee\n    Most fit for business. Go make thee ready;\n    Our letters are prepar'd.                   Exeunt MESSENGER\n  CHARMIAN. A proper man.\n  CLEOPATRA. Indeed, he is so. I repent me much\n    That so I harried him. Why, methinks, by him,\n    This creature's no such thing.\n  CHARMIAN. Nothing, madam.\n  CLEOPATRA. The man hath seen some majesty, and should know.\n  CHARMIAN. Hath he seen majesty? Isis else defend,\n    And serving you so long!\n  CLEOPATRA. I have one thing more to ask him yet, good Charmian.\n    But 'tis no matter; thou shalt bring him to me\n    Where I will write. All may be well enough.\n  CHARMIAN. I warrant you, madam.                         Exeunt\n\nACT_3|SC_4\n                          SCENE IV.\n                  Athens. ANTONY'S house\n\n                 Enter ANTONY and OCTAVIA\n\n  ANTONY. Nay, nay, Octavia, not only that-\n    That were excusable, that and thousands more\n    Of semblable import- but he hath wag'd\n    New wars 'gainst Pompey; made his will, and read it\n    To public ear;\n    Spoke scandy of me; when perforce he could not\n    But pay me terms of honour, cold and sickly\n    He vented them, most narrow measure lent me;\n    When the best hint was given him, he not took't,\n    Or did it from his teeth.\n  OCTAVIA. O my good lord,\n    Believe not all; or if you must believe,\n    Stomach not all. A more unhappy lady,\n    If this division chance, ne'er stood between,\n    Praying for both parts.\n    The good gods will mock me presently\n    When I shall pray 'O, bless my lord and husband!'\n    Undo that prayer by crying out as loud\n    'O, bless my brother!' Husband win, win brother,\n    Prays, and destroys the prayer; no mid-way\n    'Twixt these extremes at all.\n  ANTONY. Gentle Octavia,\n    Let your best love draw to that point which seeks\n    Best to preserve it. If I lose mine honour,\n    I lose myself; better I were not yours\n    Than yours so branchless. But, as you requested,\n    Yourself shall go between's. The meantime, lady,\n    I'll raise the preparation of a war\n    Shall stain your brother. Make your soonest haste;\n    So your desires are yours.\n  OCTAVIA. Thanks to my lord.\n    The Jove of power make me, most weak, most weak,\n    Your reconciler! Wars 'twixt you twain would be\n    As if the world should cleave, and that slain men\n    Should solder up the rift.\n  ANTONY. When it appears to you where this begins,\n    Turn your displeasure that way, for our faults\n    Can never be so equal that your love\n    Can equally move with them. Provide your going;\n    Choose your own company, and command what cost\n    Your heart has mind to.                               Exeunt\n\nACT_3|SC_5\n                           SCENE V.\n                   Athens. ANTONY'S house\n\n             Enter ENOBARBUS and EROS, meeting\n\n  ENOBARBUS. How now, friend Eros!\n  EROS. There's strange news come, sir.\n  ENOBARBUS. What, man?\n  EROS. Caesar and Lepidus have made wars upon Pompey.\n  ENOBARBUS. This is old. What is the success?\n  EROS. Caesar, having made use of him in the wars 'gainst Pompey,\n    presently denied him rivality, would not let him partake in the\n    glory of the action; and not resting here, accuses him of letters\n    he had formerly wrote to Pompey; upon his own appeal, seizes him.\n    So the poor third is up, till death enlarge his confine.\n  ENOBARBUS. Then, world, thou hast a pair of chaps- no more;\n    And throw between them all the food thou hast,\n    They'll grind the one the other. Where's Antony?\n  EROS. He's walking in the garden- thus, and spurns\n    The rush that lies before him; cries 'Fool Lepidus!'\n    And threats the throat of that his officer\n    That murd'red Pompey.\n  ENOBARBUS. Our great navy's rigg'd.\n  EROS. For Italy and Caesar. More, Domitius:\n    My lord desires you presently; my news\n    I might have told hereafter.\n  ENOBARBUS. 'Twill be naught;\n    But let it be. Bring me to Antony.\n  EROS. Come, sir.                                        Exeunt\n\nACT_3|SC_6\n                          SCENE VI.\n                   Rome. CAESAR'S house\n\n             Enter CAESAR, AGRIPPA, and MAECENAS\n\n  CAESAR. Contemning Rome, he has done all this and more\n    In Alexandria. Here's the manner of't:\n    I' th' market-place, on a tribunal silver'd,\n    Cleopatra and himself in chairs of gold\n    Were publicly enthron'd; at the feet sat\n    Caesarion, whom they call my father's son,\n    And all the unlawful issue that their lust\n    Since then hath made between them. Unto her\n    He gave the stablishment of Egypt; made her\n    Of lower Syria, Cyprus, Lydia,\n    Absolute queen.\n  MAECENAS. This in the public eye?\n  CAESAR. I' th' common show-place, where they exercise.\n    His sons he there proclaim'd the kings of kings:\n    Great Media, Parthia, and Armenia,\n    He gave to Alexander; to Ptolemy he assign'd\n    Syria, Cilicia, and Phoenicia. She\n    In th' habiliments of the goddess Isis\n    That day appear'd; and oft before gave audience,\n    As 'tis reported, so.\n  MAECENAS. Let Rome be thus\n    Inform'd.\n  AGRIPPA. Who, queasy with his insolence\n    Already, will their good thoughts call from him.\n  CAESAR. The people knows it, and have now receiv'd\n    His accusations.\n  AGRIPPA. Who does he accuse?\n  CAESAR. Caesar; and that, having in Sicily\n    Sextus Pompeius spoil'd, we had not rated him\n    His part o' th' isle. Then does he say he lent me\n    Some shipping, unrestor'd. Lastly, he frets\n    That Lepidus of the triumvirate\n    Should be depos'd; and, being, that we detain\n    All his revenue.\n  AGRIPPA. Sir, this should be answer'd.\n  CAESAR. 'Tis done already, and messenger gone.\n    I have told him Lepidus was grown too cruel,\n    That he his high authority abus'd,\n    And did deserve his change. For what I have conquer'd\n    I grant him part; but then, in his Armenia\n    And other of his conquer'd kingdoms,\n    Demand the like.\n  MAECENAS. He'll never yield to that.\n  CAESAR. Nor must not then be yielded to in this.\n\n                Enter OCTAVIA, with her train\n\n  OCTAVIA. Hail, Caesar, and my lord! hail, most dear Caesar!\n  CAESAR. That ever I should call thee cast-away!\n  OCTAVIA. You have not call'd me so, nor have you cause.\n  CAESAR. Why have you stol'n upon us thus? You come not\n    Like Caesar's sister. The wife of Antony\n    Should have an army for an usher, and\n    The neighs of horse to tell of her approach\n    Long ere she did appear. The trees by th' way\n    Should have borne men, and expectation fainted,\n    Longing for what it had not. Nay, the dust\n    Should have ascended to the roof of heaven,\n    Rais'd by your populous troops. But you are come\n    A market-maid to Rome, and have prevented\n    The ostentation of our love, which left unshown\n    Is often left unlov'd. We should have met you\n    By sea and land, supplying every stage\n    With an augmented greeting.\n  OCTAVIA. Good my lord,\n    To come thus was I not constrain'd, but did it\n    On my free will. My lord, Mark Antony,\n    Hearing that you prepar'd for war, acquainted\n    My grieved ear withal; whereon I begg'd\n    His pardon for return.\n  CAESAR. Which soon he granted,\n    Being an obstruct 'tween his lust and him.\n  OCTAVIA. Do not say so, my lord.\n  CAESAR. I have eyes upon him,\n    And his affairs come to me on the wind.\n    Where is he now?\n  OCTAVIA. My lord, in Athens.\n  CAESAR. No, my most wronged sister: Cleopatra\n    Hath nodded him to her. He hath given his empire\n    Up to a whore, who now are levying\n    The kings o' th' earth for war. He hath assembled\n    Bocchus, the king of Libya; Archelaus\n    Of Cappadocia; Philadelphos, king\n    Of Paphlagonia; the Thracian king, Adallas;\n    King Manchus of Arabia; King of Pont;\n    Herod of Jewry; Mithridates, king\n    Of Comagene; Polemon and Amyntas,\n    The kings of Mede and Lycaonia, with\n    More larger list of sceptres.\n  OCTAVIA. Ay me most wretched,\n    That have my heart parted betwixt two friends,\n    That does afflict each other!\n  CAESAR. Welcome hither.\n    Your letters did withhold our breaking forth,\n    Till we perceiv'd both how you were wrong led\n    And we in negligent danger. Cheer your heart;\n    Be you not troubled with the time, which drives\n    O'er your content these strong necessities,\n    But let determin'd things to destiny\n    Hold unbewail'd their way. Welcome to Rome;\n    Nothing more dear to me. You are abus'd\n    Beyond the mark of thought, and the high gods,\n    To do you justice, make their ministers\n    Of us and those that love you. Best of comfort,\n    And ever welcome to us.\n  AGRIPPA. Welcome, lady.\n  MAECENAS. Welcome, dear madam.\n    Each heart in Rome does love and pity you;\n    Only th' adulterous Antony, most large\n    In his abominations, turns you off,\n    And gives his potent regiment to a trull\n    That noises it against us.\n  OCTAVIA. Is it so, sir?\n  CAESAR. Most certain. Sister, welcome. Pray you\n    Be ever known to patience. My dear'st sister!         Exeunt\n\nACT_3|SC_7\n                          SCENE VII.\n                  ANTONY'S camp near Actium\n\n                Enter CLEOPATRA and ENOBARBUS\n\n  CLEOPATRA. I will be even with thee, doubt it not.\n  ENOBARBUS. But why, why,\n  CLEOPATRA. Thou hast forspoke my being in these wars,\n    And say'st it is not fit.\n  ENOBARBUS. Well, is it, is it?\n  CLEOPATRA. Is't not denounc'd against us? Why should not we\n    Be there in person?\n  ENOBARBUS. [Aside] Well, I could reply:\n    If we should serve with horse and mares together\n    The horse were merely lost; the mares would bear\n    A soldier and his horse.\n  CLEOPATRA. What is't you say?\n  ENOBARBUS. Your presence needs must puzzle Antony;\n    Take from his heart, take from his brain, from's time,\n    What should not then be spar'd. He is already\n    Traduc'd for levity; and 'tis said in Rome\n    That Photinus an eunuch and your maids\n    Manage this war.\n  CLEOPATRA. Sink Rome, and their tongues rot\n    That speak against us! A charge we bear i' th' war,\n    And, as the president of my kingdom, will\n    Appear there for a man. Speak not against it;\n    I will not stay behind.\n\n                   Enter ANTONY and CANIDIUS\n\n  ENOBARBUS. Nay, I have done.\n    Here comes the Emperor.\n  ANTONY. Is it not strange, Canidius,\n    That from Tarentum and Brundusium\n    He could so quickly cut the Ionian sea,\n    And take in Toryne?- You have heard on't, sweet?\n  CLEOPATRA. Celerity is never more admir'd\n    Than by the negligent.\n  ANTONY. A good rebuke,\n    Which might have well becom'd the best of men\n    To taunt at slackness. Canidius, we\n    Will fight with him by sea.\n  CLEOPATRA. By sea! What else?\n  CANIDIUS. Why will my lord do so?\n  ANTONY. For that he dares us to't.\n  ENOBARBUS. So hath my lord dar'd him to single fight.\n  CANIDIUS. Ay, and to wage this battle at Pharsalia,\n    Where Caesar fought with Pompey. But these offers,\n    Which serve not for his vantage, he shakes off;\n    And so should you.\n  ENOBARBUS. Your ships are not well mann'd;\n    Your mariners are muleteers, reapers, people\n    Ingross'd by swift impress. In Caesar's fleet\n    Are those that often have 'gainst Pompey fought;\n    Their ships are yare; yours heavy. No disgrace\n    Shall fall you for refusing him at sea,\n    Being prepar'd for land.\n  ANTONY. By sea, by sea.\n  ENOBARBUS. Most worthy sir, you therein throw away\n    The absolute soldiership you have by land;\n    Distract your army, which doth most consist\n    Of war-mark'd footmen; leave unexecuted\n    Your own renowned knowledge; quite forgo\n    The way which promises assurance; and\n    Give up yourself merely to chance and hazard\n    From firm security.\n  ANTONY. I'll fight at sea.\n  CLEOPATRA. I have sixty sails, Caesar none better.\n  ANTONY. Our overplus of shipping will we burn,\n    And, with the rest full-mann'd, from th' head of Actium\n    Beat th' approaching Caesar. But if we fail,\n    We then can do't at land.\n\n                       Enter a MESSENGER\n\n    Thy business?\n  MESSENGER. The news is true, my lord: he is descried;\n    Caesar has taken Toryne.\n  ANTONY. Can he be there in person? 'Tis impossible-\n    Strange that his power should be. Canidius,\n    Our nineteen legions thou shalt hold by land,\n    And our twelve thousand horse. We'll to our ship.\n    Away, my Thetis!\n\n                       Enter a SOLDIER\n\n    How now, worthy soldier?\n  SOLDIER. O noble Emperor, do not fight by sea;\n    Trust not to rotten planks. Do you misdoubt\n    This sword and these my wounds? Let th' Egyptians\n    And the Phoenicians go a-ducking; we\n    Have us'd to conquer standing on the earth\n    And fighting foot to foot.\n  ANTONY. Well, well- away.\n                         Exeunt ANTONY, CLEOPATRA, and ENOBARBUS\n  SOLDIER. By Hercules, I think I am i' th' right.\n  CANIDIUS. Soldier, thou art; but his whole action grows\n    Not in the power on't. So our leader's led,\n    And we are women's men.\n  SOLDIER. You keep by land\n    The legions and the horse whole, do you not?\n  CANIDIUS. Marcus Octavius, Marcus Justeius,\n    Publicola, and Caelius are for sea;\n    But we keep whole by land. This speed of Caesar's\n    Carries beyond belief.\n  SOLDIER. While he was yet in Rome,\n    His power went out in such distractions as\n    Beguil'd all spies.\n  CANIDIUS. Who's his lieutenant, hear you?\n  SOLDIER. They say one Taurus.\n  CANIDIUS. Well I know the man.\n\n                        Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. The Emperor calls Canidius.\n  CANIDIUS. With news the time's with labour and throes forth\n    Each minute some.                                     Exeunt\n\nACT_3|SC_8\n                          SCENE VIII.\n                      A plain near Actium\n\n             Enter CAESAR, with his army, marching\n\n  CAESAR. Taurus!\n  TAURUS. My lord?\n  CAESAR. Strike not by land; keep whole; provoke not battle\n    Till we have done at sea. Do not exceed\n    The prescript of this scroll. Our fortune lies\n    Upon this jump.                                       Exeunt\n\nACT_3|SC_9\n                           SCENE IX.\n                  Another part of the plain\n\n                  Enter ANTONY and ENOBARBUS\n\n  ANTONY. Set we our squadrons on yon side o' th' hill,\n    In eye of Caesar's battle; from which place\n    We may the number of the ships behold,\n    And so proceed accordingly.                           Exeunt\n\nACT_3|SC_10\n                           SCENE X.\n                 Another part of the plain\n\n        CANIDIUS marcheth with his land army one way\n        over the stage, and TAURUS, the Lieutenant of\n      CAESAR, the other way. After their going in is heard\n                   the noise of a sea-fight\n\n                    Alarum. Enter ENOBARBUS\n\n  ENOBARBUS. Naught, naught, all naught! I can behold no longer.\n    Th' Antoniad, the Egyptian admiral,\n    With all their sixty, fly and turn the rudder.\n    To see't mine eyes are blasted.\n\n                        Enter SCARUS\n\n  SCARUS. Gods and goddesses,\n    All the whole synod of them!\n  ENOBARBUS. What's thy passion?\n  SCARUS. The greater cantle of the world is lost\n    With very ignorance; we have kiss'd away\n    Kingdoms and provinces.\n  ENOBARBUS. How appears the fight?\n  SCARUS. On our side like the token'd pestilence,\n    Where death is sure. Yon ribaudred nag of Egypt-\n    Whom leprosy o'ertake!- i' th' midst o' th' fight,\n    When vantage like a pair of twins appear'd,\n    Both as the same, or rather ours the elder-\n    The breese upon her, like a cow in June-\n    Hoists sails and flies.\n  ENOBARBUS. That I beheld;\n    Mine eyes did sicken at the sight and could not\n    Endure a further view.\n  SCARUS. She once being loof'd,\n    The noble ruin of her magic, Antony,\n    Claps on his sea-wing, and, like a doting mallard,\n    Leaving the fight in height, flies after her.\n    I never saw an action of such shame;\n    Experience, manhood, honour, ne'er before\n    Did violate so itself.\n  ENOBARBUS. Alack, alack!\n\n                       Enter CANIDIUS\n\n  CANIDIUS. Our fortune on the sea is out of breath,\n    And sinks most lamentably. Had our general\n    Been what he knew himself, it had gone well.\n    O, he has given example for our flight\n    Most grossly by his own!\n  ENOBARBUS. Ay, are you thereabouts?\n    Why then, good night indeed.\n  CANIDIUS. Toward Peloponnesus are they fled.\n  SCARUS. 'Tis easy to't; and there I will attend\n    What further comes.\n  CANIDIUS. To Caesar will I render\n    My legions and my horse; six kings already\n    Show me the way of yielding.\n  ENOBARBUS. I'll yet follow\n    The wounded chance of Antony, though my reason\n    Sits in the wind against me.                          Exeunt\n\nACT_3|SC_11\n                         SCENE XI.\n              Alexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace\n\n               Enter ANTONY With attendants\n\n  ANTONY. Hark! the land bids me tread no more upon't;\n    It is asham'd to bear me. Friends, come hither.\n    I am so lated in the world that I\n    Have lost my way for ever. I have a ship\n    Laden with gold; take that; divide it. Fly,\n    And make your peace with Caesar.\n  ALL. Fly? Not we!\n  ANTONY. I have fled myself, and have instructed cowards\n    To run and show their shoulders. Friends, be gone;\n    I have myself resolv'd upon a course\n    Which has no need of you; be gone.\n    My treasure's in the harbour, take it. O,\n    I follow'd that I blush to look upon.\n    My very hairs do mutiny; for the white\n    Reprove the brown for rashness, and they them\n    For fear and doting. Friends, be gone; you shall\n    Have letters from me to some friends that will\n    Sweep your way for you. Pray you look not sad,\n    Nor make replies of loathness; take the hint\n    Which my despair proclaims. Let that be left\n    Which leaves itself. To the sea-side straight way.\n    I will possess you of that ship and treasure.\n    Leave me, I pray, a little; pray you now;\n    Nay, do so, for indeed I have lost command;\n    Therefore I pray you. I'll see you by and by.    [Sits down]\n\n            Enter CLEOPATRA, led by CHARMIAN and IRAS,\n                         EROS following\n\n  EROS. Nay, gentle madam, to him! Comfort him.\n  IRAS. Do, most dear Queen.\n  CHARMIAN. Do? Why, what else?\n  CLEOPATRA. Let me sit down. O Juno!\n  ANTONY. No, no, no, no, no.\n  EROS. See you here, sir?\n  ANTONY. O, fie, fie, fie!\n  CHARMIAN. Madam!\n  IRAS. Madam, O good Empress!\n  EROS. Sir, sir!\n  ANTONY. Yes, my lord, yes. He at Philippi kept\n    His sword e'en like a dancer, while I struck\n    The lean and wrinkled Cassius; and 'twas I\n    That the mad Brutus ended; he alone\n    Dealt on lieutenantry, and no practice had\n    In the brave squares of war. Yet now- no matter.\n  CLEOPATRA. Ah, stand by!\n  EROS. The Queen, my lord, the Queen!\n  IRAS. Go to him, madam, speak to him.\n    He is unqualitied with very shame.\n  CLEOPATRA. Well then, sustain me. O!\n EROS. Most noble sir, arise; the Queen approaches.\n    Her head's declin'd, and death will seize her but\n    Your comfort makes the rescue.\n  ANTONY. I have offended reputation-\n    A most unnoble swerving.\n  EROS. Sir, the Queen.\n  ANTONY. O, whither hast thou led me, Egypt? See\n    How I convey my shame out of thine eyes\n    By looking back what I have left behind\n    'Stroy'd in dishonour.\n  CLEOPATRA. O my lord, my lord,\n    Forgive my fearful sails! I little thought\n    You would have followed.\n  ANTONY. Egypt, thou knew'st too well\n    My heart was to thy rudder tied by th' strings,\n    And thou shouldst tow me after. O'er my spirit\n    Thy full supremacy thou knew'st, and that\n    Thy beck might from the bidding of the gods\n    Command me.\n  CLEOPATRA. O, my pardon!\n  ANTONY. Now I must\n    To the young man send humble treaties, dodge\n    And palter in the shifts of lowness, who\n    With half the bulk o' th' world play'd as I pleas'd,\n    Making and marring fortunes. You did know\n    How much you were my conqueror, and that\n    My sword, made weak by my affection, would\n    Obey it on all cause.\n  CLEOPATRA. Pardon, pardon!\n  ANTONY. Fall not a tear, I say; one of them rates\n    All that is won and lost. Give me a kiss;\n    Even this repays me.\n    We sent our schoolmaster; is 'a come back?\n    Love, I am full of lead. Some wine,\n    Within there, and our viands! Fortune knows\n    We scorn her most when most she offers blows.         Exeunt\n\nACT_3|SC_12\n                         SCENE XII.\n                   CAESAR'S camp in Egypt\n\n   Enter CAESAR, AGRIPPA, DOLABELLA, THYREUS, with others\n\n  CAESAR. Let him appear that's come from Antony.\n    Know you him?\n  DOLABELLA. Caesar, 'tis his schoolmaster:\n    An argument that he is pluck'd, when hither\n    He sends so poor a pinion of his wing,\n    Which had superfluous kings for messengers\n    Not many moons gone by.\n\n            Enter EUPHRONIUS, Ambassador from ANTONY\n\n  CAESAR. Approach, and speak.\n  EUPHRONIUS. Such as I am, I come from Antony.\n    I was of late as petty to his ends\n    As is the morn-dew on the myrtle leaf\n    To his grand sea.\n  CAESAR. Be't so. Declare thine office.\n  EUPHRONIUS. Lord of his fortunes he salutes thee, and\n    Requires to live in Egypt; which not granted,\n    He lessens his requests and to thee sues\n    To let him breathe between the heavens and earth,\n    A private man in Athens. This for him.\n    Next, Cleopatra does confess thy greatness,\n    Submits her to thy might, and of thee craves\n    The circle of the Ptolemies for her heirs,\n    Now hazarded to thy grace.\n  CAESAR. For Antony,\n    I have no ears to his request. The Queen\n    Of audience nor desire shall fail, so she\n    From Egypt drive her all-disgraced friend,\n    Or take his life there. This if she perform,\n    She shall not sue unheard. So to them both.\n  EUPHRONIUS. Fortune pursue thee!\n  CAESAR. Bring him through the bands.           Exit EUPHRONIUS\n    [To THYREUS] To try thy eloquence, now 'tis time. Dispatch;\n    From Antony win Cleopatra. Promise,\n    And in our name, what she requires; add more,\n    From thine invention, offers. Women are not\n    In their best fortunes strong; but want will perjure\n    The ne'er-touch'd vestal. Try thy cunning, Thyreus;\n    Make thine own edict for thy pains, which we\n    Will answer as a law.\n  THYREUS. Caesar, I go.\n  CAESAR. Observe how Antony becomes his flaw,\n    And what thou think'st his very action speaks\n    In every power that moves.\n  THYREUS. Caesar, I shall.                               Exeunt\n\nACT_3|SC_13\n                           SCENE XIII.\n               Alexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace\n\n        Enter CLEOPATRA, ENOBARBUS, CHARMIAN, and IRAS\n\n  CLEOPATRA. What shall we do, Enobarbus?\n  ENOBARBUS. Think, and die.\n  CLEOPATRA. Is Antony or we in fault for this?\n  ENOBARBUS. Antony only, that would make his will\n    Lord of his reason. What though you fled\n    From that great face of war, whose several ranges\n    Frighted each other? Why should he follow?\n    The itch of his affection should not then\n    Have nick'd his captainship, at such a point,\n    When half to half the world oppos'd, he being\n    The mered question. 'Twas a shame no less\n    Than was his loss, to course your flying flags\n    And leave his navy gazing.\n  CLEOPATRA. Prithee, peace.\n\n          Enter EUPHRONIUS, the Ambassador; with ANTONY\n\n  ANTONY. Is that his answer?\n  EUPHRONIUS. Ay, my lord.\n  ANTONY. The Queen shall then have courtesy, so she\n    Will yield us up.\n  EUPHRONIUS. He says so.\n  ANTONY. Let her know't.\n    To the boy Caesar send this grizzled head,\n    And he will fill thy wishes to the brim\n    With principalities.\n  CLEOPATRA. That head, my lord?\n  ANTONY. To him again. Tell him he wears the rose\n    Of youth upon him; from which the world should note\n    Something particular. His coin, ships, legions,\n    May be a coward's whose ministers would prevail\n    Under the service of a child as soon\n    As i' th' command of Caesar. I dare him therefore\n    To lay his gay comparisons apart,\n    And answer me declin'd, sword against sword,\n    Ourselves alone. I'll write it. Follow me.\n                                    Exeunt ANTONY and EUPHRONIUS\n  EUPHRONIUS. [Aside] Yes, like enough high-battled Caesar will\n    Unstate his happiness, and be stag'd to th' show\n    Against a sworder! I see men's judgments are\n    A parcel of their fortunes, and things outward\n    Do draw the inward quality after them,\n    To suffer all alike. That he should dream,\n    Knowing all measures, the full Caesar will\n    Answer his emptiness! Caesar, thou hast subdu'd\n    His judgment too.\n\n                       Enter a SERVANT\n\n  SERVANT. A messenger from Caesar.\n  CLEOPATRA. What, no more ceremony? See, my women!\n    Against the blown rose may they stop their nose\n    That kneel'd unto the buds. Admit him, sir.     Exit SERVANT\n  ENOBARBUS. [Aside] Mine honesty and I begin to square.\n    The loyalty well held to fools does make\n    Our faith mere folly. Yet he that can endure\n    To follow with allegiance a fall'n lord\n    Does conquer him that did his master conquer,\n    And earns a place i' th' story.\n\n                       Enter THYREUS\n\n  CLEOPATRA. Caesar's will?\n  THYREUS. Hear it apart.\n  CLEOPATRA. None but friends: say boldly.\n  THYREUS. So, haply, are they friends to Antony.\n  ENOBARBUS. He needs as many, sir, as Caesar has,\n    Or needs not us. If Caesar please, our master\n    Will leap to be his friend. For us, you know\n    Whose he is we are, and that is Caesar's.\n  THYREUS. So.\n    Thus then, thou most renown'd: Caesar entreats\n    Not to consider in what case thou stand'st\n    Further than he is Caesar.\n  CLEOPATRA. Go on. Right royal!\n  THYREUS. He knows that you embrace not Antony\n    As you did love, but as you fear'd him.\n  CLEOPATRA. O!\n  THYREUS. The scars upon your honour, therefore, he\n    Does pity, as constrained blemishes,\n    Not as deserv'd.\n  CLEOPATRA. He is a god, and knows\n    What is most right. Mine honour was not yielded,\n    But conquer'd merely.\n  ENOBARBUS. [Aside] To be sure of that,\n    I will ask Antony. Sir, sir, thou art so leaky\n    That we must leave thee to thy sinking, for\n    Thy dearest quit thee.                                  Exit\n  THYREUS. Shall I say to Caesar\n    What you require of him? For he partly begs\n    To be desir'd to give. It much would please him\n    That of his fortunes you should make a staff\n    To lean upon. But it would warm his spirits\n    To hear from me you had left Antony,\n    And put yourself under his shroud,\n    The universal landlord.\n  CLEOPATRA. What's your name?\n  THYREUS. My name is Thyreus.\n  CLEOPATRA. Most kind messenger,\n    Say to great Caesar this: in deputation\n    I kiss his conquring hand. Tell him I am prompt\n    To lay my crown at 's feet, and there to kneel.\n    Tell him from his all-obeying breath I hear\n    The doom of Egypt.\n  THYREUS. 'Tis your noblest course.\n    Wisdom and fortune combating together,\n    If that the former dare but what it can,\n    No chance may shake it. Give me grace to lay\n    My duty on your hand.\n  CLEOPATRA. Your Caesar's father oft,\n    When he hath mus'd of taking kingdoms in,\n    Bestow'd his lips on that unworthy place,\n    As it rain'd kisses.\n\n                Re-enter ANTONY and ENOBARBUS\n\n  ANTONY. Favours, by Jove that thunders!\n    What art thou, fellow?\n  THYREUS. One that but performs\n    The bidding of the fullest man, and worthiest\n    To have command obey'd.\n  ENOBARBUS. [Aside] You will be whipt.\n  ANTONY. Approach there.- Ah, you kite!- Now, gods and devils!\n    Authority melts from me. Of late, when I cried 'Ho!'\n    Like boys unto a muss, kings would start forth\n    And cry 'Your will?' Have you no ears? I am\n    Antony yet.\n\n                       Enter servants\n\n    Take hence this Jack and whip him.\n  ENOBARBUS. 'Tis better playing with a lion's whelp\n    Than with an old one dying.\n  ANTONY. Moon and stars!\n    Whip him. Were't twenty of the greatest tributaries\n    That do acknowledge Caesar, should I find them\n    So saucy with the hand of she here- what's her name\n    Since she was Cleopatra? Whip him, fellows,\n    Till like a boy you see him cringe his face,\n    And whine aloud for mercy. Take him hence.\n  THYMUS. Mark Antony-\n  ANTONY. Tug him away. Being whipt,\n    Bring him again: the Jack of Caesar's shall\n    Bear us an errand to him.       Exeunt servants with THYREUS\n    You were half blasted ere I knew you. Ha!\n    Have I my pillow left unpress'd in Rome,\n    Forborne the getting of a lawful race,\n    And by a gem of women, to be abus'd\n    By one that looks on feeders?\n  CLEOPATRA. Good my lord-\n  ANTONY. You have been a boggler ever.\n    But when we in our viciousness grow hard-\n    O misery on't!- the wise gods seel our eyes,\n    In our own filth drop our clear judgments, make us\n    Adore our errors, laugh at's while we strut\n    To our confusion.\n  CLEOPATRA. O, is't come to this?\n  ANTONY. I found you as a morsel cold upon\n    Dead Caesar's trencher. Nay, you were a fragment\n    Of Cneius Pompey's, besides what hotter hours,\n    Unregist'red in vulgar fame, you have\n    Luxuriously pick'd out; for I am sure,\n    Though you can guess what temperance should be,\n    You know not what it is.\n  CLEOPATRA. Wherefore is this?\n  ANTONY. To let a fellow that will take rewards,\n    And say 'God quit you!' be familiar with\n    My playfellow, your hand, this kingly seal\n    And plighter of high hearts! O that I were\n    Upon the hill of Basan to outroar\n    The horned herd! For I have savage cause,\n    And to proclaim it civilly were like\n    A halter'd neck which does the hangman thank\n    For being yare about him.\n\n              Re-enter a SERVANT with THYREUS\n\n    Is he whipt?\n  SERVANT. Soundly, my lord.\n  ANTONY. Cried he? and begg'd 'a pardon?\n  SERVANT. He did ask favour.\n  ANTONY. If that thy father live, let him repent\n    Thou wast not made his daughter; and be thou sorry\n    To follow Caesar in his triumph, since\n    Thou hast been whipt for following him. Henceforth\n    The white hand of a lady fever thee!\n    Shake thou to look on't. Get thee back to Caesar;\n    Tell him thy entertainment; look thou say\n    He makes me angry with him; for he seems\n    Proud and disdainful, harping on what I am,\n    Not what he knew I was. He makes me angry;\n    And at this time most easy 'tis to do't,\n    When my good stars, that were my former guides,\n    Have empty left their orbs and shot their fires\n    Into th' abysm of hell. If he mislike\n    My speech and what is done, tell him he has\n    Hipparchus, my enfranched bondman, whom\n    He may at pleasure whip or hang or torture,\n    As he shall like, to quit me. Urge it thou.\n    Hence with thy stripes, be gone.                Exit THYREUS\n  CLEOPATRA. Have you done yet?\n  ANTONY. Alack, our terrene moon\n    Is now eclips'd, and it portends alone\n    The fall of Antony.\n  CLEOPATRA. I must stay his time.\n  ANTONY. To flatter Caesar, would you mingle eyes\n    With one that ties his points?\n  CLEOPATRA. Not know me yet?\n  ANTONY. Cold-hearted toward me?\n  CLEOPATRA. Ah, dear, if I be so,\n    From my cold heart let heaven engender hail,\n    And poison it in the source, and the first stone\n    Drop in my neck; as it determines, so\n    Dissolve my life! The next Caesarion smite!\n    Till by degrees the memory of my womb,\n    Together with my brave Egyptians all,\n    By the discandying of this pelleted storm,\n    Lie graveless, till the flies and gnats of Nile\n    Have buried them for prey.\n  ANTONY. I am satisfied.\n    Caesar sits down in Alexandria, where\n    I will oppose his fate. Our force by land\n    Hath nobly held; our sever'd navy to\n    Have knit again, and fleet, threat'ning most sea-like.\n    Where hast thou been, my heart? Dost thou hear, lady?\n    If from the field I shall return once more\n    To kiss these lips, I will appear in blood.\n    I and my sword will earn our chronicle.\n    There's hope in't yet.\n  CLEOPATRA. That's my brave lord!\n  ANTONY. I will be treble-sinew'd, hearted, breath'd,\n    And fight maliciously. For when mine hours\n    Were nice and lucky, men did ransom lives\n    Of me for jests; but now I'll set my teeth,\n    And send to darkness all that stop me. Come,\n    Let's have one other gaudy night. Call to me\n    All my sad captains; fill our bowls once more;\n    Let's mock the midnight bell.\n  CLEOPATRA. It is my birthday.\n    I had thought t'have held it poor; but since my lord\n    Is Antony again, I will be Cleopatra.\n  ANTONY. We will yet do well.\n  CLEOPATRA. Call all his noble captains to my lord.\n  ANTONY. Do so, we'll speak to them; and to-night I'll force\n    The wine peep through their scars. Come on, my queen,\n    There's sap in't yet. The next time I do fight\n    I'll make death love me; for I will contend\n    Even with his pestilent scythe.     Exeunt all but ENOBARBUS\n  ENOBARBUS. Now he'll outstare the lightning. To be furious\n    Is to be frighted out of fear, and in that mood\n    The dove will peck the estridge; and I see still\n    A diminution in our captain's brain\n    Restores his heart. When valour preys on reason,\n    It eats the sword it fights with. I will seek\n    Some way to leave him.                                  Exit\n\nACT_4|SC_1\n                      ACT IV. SCENE I.\n              CAESAR'S camp before Alexandria\n\n      Enter CAESAR, AGRIPPA, and MAECENAS, with his army;\n                 CAESAR reading a letter\n\n  CAESAR. He calls me boy, and chides as he had power\n    To beat me out of Egypt. My messenger\n    He hath whipt with rods; dares me to personal combat,\n    Caesar to Antony. Let the old ruffian know\n    I have many other ways to die, meantime\n    Laugh at his challenge.\n  MAECENAS. Caesar must think\n    When one so great begins to rage, he's hunted\n    Even to falling. Give him no breath, but now\n    Make boot of his distraction. Never anger\n    Made good guard for itself.\n  CAESAR. Let our best heads\n    Know that to-morrow the last of many battles\n    We mean to fight. Within our files there are\n    Of those that serv'd Mark Antony but late\n    Enough to fetch him in. See it done;\n    And feast the army; we have store to do't,\n    And they have earn'd the waste. Poor Antony!          Exeunt\n\nACT_4|SC_2\n                          SCENE II.\n               Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace\n\n      Enter ANTONY, CLEOPATRA, ENOBARBUS, CHARMIAN, IRAS,\n                     ALEXAS, with others\n\n  ANTONY. He will not fight with me, Domitius?\n  ENOBARBUS. No.\n  ANTONY. Why should he not?\n  ENOBARBUS. He thinks, being twenty times of better fortune,\n    He is twenty men to one.\n  ANTONY. To-morrow, soldier,\n    By sea and land I'll fight. Or I will live,\n    Or bathe my dying honour in the blood\n    Shall make it live again. Woo't thou fight well?\n  ENOBARBUS. I'll strike, and cry 'Take all.'\n  ANTONY. Well said; come on.\n    Call forth my household servants; let's to-night\n    Be bounteous at our meal.\n\n                Enter three or four servitors\n\n    Give me thy hand,\n    Thou has been rightly honest. So hast thou;\n    Thou, and thou, and thou. You have serv'd me well,\n    And kings have been your fellows.\n  CLEOPATRA. [Aside to ENOBARBUS] What means this?\n  ENOBARBUS. [Aside to CLEOPATRA] 'Tis one of those odd tricks which\n      sorrow shoots\n    Out of the mind.\n  ANTONY. And thou art honest too.\n    I wish I could be made so many men,\n    And all of you clapp'd up together in\n    An Antony, that I might do you service\n    So good as you have done.\n  SERVANT. The gods forbid!\n  ANTONY. Well, my good fellows, wait on me to-night.\n    Scant not my cups, and make as much of me\n    As when mine empire was your fellow too,\n    And suffer'd my command.\n  CLEOPATRA. [Aside to ENOBARBUS] What does he mean?\n    ENOBARBUS. [Aside to CLEOPATRA] To make his followers weep.\n  ANTONY. Tend me to-night;\n    May be it is the period of your duty.\n    Haply you shall not see me more; or if,\n    A mangled shadow. Perchance to-morrow\n    You'll serve another master. I look on you\n    As one that takes his leave. Mine honest friends,\n    I turn you not away; but, like a master\n    Married to your good service, stay till death.\n    Tend me to-night two hours, I ask no more,\n    And the gods yield you for't!\n  ENOBARBUS. What mean you, sir,\n    To give them this discomfort? Look, they weep;\n    And I, an ass, am onion-ey'd. For shame!\n    Transform us not to women.\n  ANTONY. Ho, ho, ho!\n    Now the witch take me if I meant it thus!\n    Grace grow where those drops fall! My hearty friends,\n    You take me in too dolorous a sense;\n    For I spake to you for your comfort, did desire you\n    To burn this night with torches. Know, my hearts,\n    I hope well of to-morrow, and will lead you\n    Where rather I'll expect victorious life\n    Than death and honour. Let's to supper, come,\n    And drown consideration.                              Exeunt\n\nACT_4|SC_3\n                          SCENE III.\n             Alexandria. Before CLEOPATRA's palace\n\n                 Enter a company of soldiers\n\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Brother, good night. To-morrow is the day.\n  SECOND SOLDIER. It will determine one way. Fare you well.\n    Heard you of nothing strange about the streets?\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Nothing. What news?\n  SECOND SOLDIER. Belike 'tis but a rumour. Good night to you.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Well, sir, good night.\n                                      [They meet other soldiers]\n  SECOND SOLDIER. Soldiers, have careful watch.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. And you. Good night, good night.\n                [The two companies separate and place themselves\n                                   in every corner of the stage]\n  SECOND SOLDIER. Here we. And if to-morrow\n    Our navy thrive, I have an absolute hope\n    Our landmen will stand up.\n  THIRD SOLDIER. 'Tis a brave army,\n    And full of purpose.\n                      [Music of the hautboys is under the stage]\n  SECOND SOLDIER. Peace, what noise?\n  THIRD SOLDIER. List, list!\n  SECOND SOLDIER. Hark!\n  THIRD SOLDIER. Music i' th' air.\n  FOURTH SOLDIER. Under the earth.\n  THIRD SOLDIER. It signs well, does it not?\n  FOURTH SOLDIER. No.\n  THIRD SOLDIER. Peace, I say!\n    What should this mean?\n  SECOND SOLDIER. 'Tis the god Hercules, whom Antony lov'd,\n    Now leaves him.\n  THIRD SOLDIER. Walk; let's see if other watchmen\n    Do hear what we do.\n  SECOND SOLDIER. How now, masters!\n  SOLDIERS. [Speaking together] How now!\n    How now! Do you hear this?\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Ay; is't not strange?\n  THIRD SOLDIER. Do you hear, masters? Do you hear?\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Follow the noise so far as we have quarter;\n    Let's see how it will give off.\n  SOLDIERS. Content. 'Tis strange.                        Exeunt\n\nACT_4|SC_4\n                           SCENE IV.\n               Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace\n\n         Enter ANTONY and CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS,\n                          with others\n\n  ANTONY. Eros! mine armour, Eros!\n  CLEOPATRA. Sleep a little.\n  ANTONY. No, my chuck. Eros! Come, mine armour, Eros!\n\n                   Enter EROS with armour\n\n    Come, good fellow, put mine iron on.\n    If fortune be not ours to-day, it is\n    Because we brave her. Come.\n  CLEOPATRA. Nay, I'll help too.\n    What's this for?\n  ANTONY. Ah, let be, let be! Thou art\n    The armourer of my heart. False, false; this, this.\n  CLEOPATRA. Sooth, la, I'll help. Thus it must be.\n  ANTONY. Well, well;\n    We shall thrive now. Seest thou, my good fellow?\n    Go put on thy defences.\n  EROS. Briefly, sir.\n  CLEOPATRA. Is not this buckled well?\n  ANTONY. Rarely, rarely!\n    He that unbuckles this, till we do please\n    To daff't for our repose, shall hear a storm.\n    Thou fumblest, Eros, and my queen's a squire\n    More tight at this than thou. Dispatch. O love,\n    That thou couldst see my wars to-day, and knew'st\n    The royal occupation! Thou shouldst see\n    A workman in't.\n\n                   Enter an armed SOLDIER\n\n    Good-morrow to thee. Welcome.\n    Thou look'st like him that knows a warlike charge.\n    To business that we love we rise betime,\n    And go to't with delight.\n  SOLDIER. A thousand, sir,\n    Early though't be, have on their riveted trim,\n    And at the port expect you.\n                            [Shout. Flourish of trumpets within]\n\n                 Enter CAPTAINS and soldiers\n\n  CAPTAIN. The morn is fair. Good morrow, General.\n  ALL. Good morrow, General.\n  ANTONY. 'Tis well blown, lads.\n    This morning, like the spirit of a youth\n    That means to be of note, begins betimes.\n    So, so. Come, give me that. This way. Well said.\n    Fare thee well, dame, whate'er becomes of me.\n    This is a soldier's kiss. Rebukeable,\n    And worthy shameful check it were, to stand\n    On more mechanic compliment; I'll leave thee\n    Now like a man of steel. You that will fight,\n    Follow me close; I'll bring you to't. Adieu.\n                      Exeunt ANTONY, EROS, CAPTAINS and soldiers\n  CHARMIAN. Please you retire to your chamber?\n  CLEOPATRA. Lead me.\n    He goes forth gallantly. That he and Caesar might\n    Determine this great war in single fight!\n    Then, Antony- but now. Well, on.                      Exeunt\n\nACT_4|SC_5\n                          SCENE V.\n                  Alexandria. ANTONY'S camp\n\n        Trumpets sound. Enter ANTONY and EROS, a SOLDIER\n                       meeting them\n\n  SOLDIER. The gods make this a happy day to Antony!\n  ANTONY. Would thou and those thy scars had once prevail'd\n    To make me fight at land!\n  SOLDIER. Hadst thou done so,\n    The kings that have revolted, and the soldier\n    That has this morning left thee, would have still\n    Followed thy heels.\n  ANTONY. Who's gone this morning?\n  SOLDIER. Who?\n    One ever near thee. Call for Enobarbus,\n    He shall not hear thee; or from Caesar's camp\n    Say 'I am none of thine.'\n  ANTONY. What say'st thou?\n  SOLDIER. Sir,\n    He is with Caesar.\n  EROS. Sir, his chests and treasure\n    He has not with him.\n  ANTONY. Is he gone?\n  SOLDIER. Most certain.\n  ANTONY. Go, Eros, send his treasure after; do it;\n    Detain no jot, I charge thee. Write to him-\n    I will subscribe- gentle adieus and greetings;\n    Say that I wish he never find more cause\n    To change a master. O, my fortunes have\n    Corrupted honest men! Dispatch. Enobarbus!            Exeunt\n\nACT_4|SC_6\n                         SCENE VI.\n                 Alexandria. CAESAR'S camp\n\n       Flourish. Enter AGRIPPA, CAESAR, With DOLABELLA\n                       and ENOBARBUS\n\n  CAESAR. Go forth, Agrippa, and begin the fight.\n    Our will is Antony be took alive;\n    Make it so known.\n  AGRIPPA. Caesar, I shall.                                 Exit\n  CAESAR. The time of universal peace is near.\n    Prove this a prosp'rous day, the three-nook'd world\n    Shall bear the olive freely.\n\n                     Enter A MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. Antony\n    Is come into the field.\n  CAESAR. Go charge Agrippa\n    Plant those that have revolted in the vant,\n    That Antony may seem to spend his fury\n    Upon himself.                       Exeunt all but ENOBARBUS\n  ENOBARBUS. Alexas did revolt and went to Jewry on\n    Affairs of Antony; there did dissuade\n    Great Herod to incline himself to Caesar\n    And leave his master Antony. For this pains\n    Casaer hath hang'd him. Canidius and the rest\n    That fell away have entertainment, but\n    No honourable trust. I have done ill,\n    Of which I do accuse myself so sorely\n    That I will joy no more.\n\n                  Enter a SOLDIER of CAESAR'S\n\n  SOLDIER. Enobarbus, Antony\n    Hath after thee sent all thy treasure, with\n    His bounty overplus. The messenger\n    Came on my guard, and at thy tent is now\n    Unloading of his mules.\n  ENOBARBUS. I give it you.\n  SOLDIER. Mock not, Enobarbus.\n    I tell you true. Best you saf'd the bringer\n    Out of the host. I must attend mine office,\n    Or would have done't myself. Your emperor\n    Continues still a Jove.                                 Exit\n  ENOBARBUS. I am alone the villain of the earth,\n    And feel I am so most. O Antony,\n    Thou mine of bounty, how wouldst thou have paid\n    My better service, when my turpitude\n    Thou dost so crown with gold! This blows my heart.\n    If swift thought break it not, a swifter mean\n    Shall outstrike thought; but thought will do't, I feel.\n    I fight against thee? No! I will go seek\n    Some ditch wherein to die; the foul'st best fits\n    My latter part of life.                                 Exit\n\nACT_4|SC_7\n                          SCENE VII.\n             Field of battle between the camps\n\n         Alarum. Drums and trumpets. Enter AGRIPPA\n                        and others\n\n  AGRIPPA. Retire. We have engag'd ourselves too far.\n    Caesar himself has work, and our oppression\n    Exceeds what we expected.                             Exeunt\n\n          Alarums. Enter ANTONY, and SCARUS wounded\n\n  SCARUS. O my brave Emperor, this is fought indeed!\n    Had we done so at first, we had droven them home\n    With clouts about their heads.\n  ANTONY. Thou bleed'st apace.\n  SCARUS. I had a wound here that was like a T,\n    But now 'tis made an H.\n  ANTONY. They do retire.\n  SCARUS. We'll beat'em into bench-holes. I have yet\n    Room for six scotches more.\n\n                        Enter EROS\n\n  EROS. They are beaten, sir, and our advantage serves\n    For a fair victory.\n  SCARUS. Let us score their backs\n    And snatch 'em up, as we take hares, behind.\n    'Tis sport to maul a runner.\n  ANTONY. I will reward thee\n    Once for thy sprightly comfort, and tenfold\n    For thy good valour. Come thee on.\n    SCARUS. I'll halt after.                              Exeunt\n\nACT_4|SC_8\n                         SCENE VIII.\n               Under the walls of Alexandria\n\n        Alarum. Enter ANTONY, again in a march; SCARUS\n                        with others\n\n  ANTONY. We have beat him to his camp. Run one before\n    And let the Queen know of our gests. To-morrow,\n    Before the sun shall see's, we'll spill the blood\n    That has to-day escap'd. I thank you all;\n    For doughty-handed are you, and have fought\n    Not as you serv'd the cause, but as't had been\n    Each man's like mine; you have shown all Hectors.\n    Enter the city, clip your wives, your friends,\n    Tell them your feats; whilst they with joyful tears\n    Wash the congealment from your wounds and kiss\n    The honour'd gashes whole.\n\n                 Enter CLEOPATRA, attended\n\n    [To SCARUS] Give me thy hand-\n    To this great fairy I'll commend thy acts,\n    Make her thanks bless thee. O thou day o' th' world,\n    Chain mine arm'd neck. Leap thou, attire and all,\n    Through proof of harness to my heart, and there\n    Ride on the pants triumphing.\n  CLEOPATRA. Lord of lords!\n    O infinite virtue, com'st thou smiling from\n    The world's great snare uncaught?\n  ANTONY. Mine nightingale,\n    We have beat them to their beds. What, girl! though grey\n    Do something mingle with our younger brown, yet ha' we\n    A brain that nourishes our nerves, and can\n    Get goal for goal of youth. Behold this man;\n    Commend unto his lips thy favouring hand-\n    Kiss it, my warrior- he hath fought to-day\n    As if a god in hate of mankind had\n    Destroyed in such a shape.\n  CLEOPATRA. I'll give thee, friend,\n    An armour all of gold; it was a king's.\n  ANTONY. He has deserv'd it, were it carbuncled\n    Like holy Phoebus' car. Give me thy hand.\n    Through Alexandria make a jolly march;\n    Bear our hack'd targets like the men that owe them.\n    Had our great palace the capacity\n    To camp this host, we all would sup together,\n    And drink carouses to the next day's fate,\n    Which promises royal peril. Trumpeters,\n    With brazen din blast you the city's ear;\n    Make mingle with our rattling tabourines,\n    That heaven and earth may strike their sounds together\n    Applauding our approach.                              Exeunt\n\nACT_4|SC_9\n                         SCENE IX.\n                      CAESAR'S camp\n\n      Enter a CENTURION and his company; ENOBARBUS follows\n\n  CENTURION. If we be not reliev'd within this hour,\n    We must return to th' court of guard. The night\n    Is shiny, and they say we shall embattle\n    By th' second hour i' th' morn.\n  FIRST WATCH. This last day was\n    A shrewd one to's.\n  ENOBARBUS. O, bear me witness, night-\n  SECOND WATCH. What man is this?\n  FIRST WATCH. Stand close and list him.\n  ENOBARBUS. Be witness to me, O thou blessed moon,\n    When men revolted shall upon record\n    Bear hateful memory, poor Enobarbus did\n    Before thy face repent!\n  CENTURION. Enobarbus?\n  SECOND WATCH. Peace!\n    Hark further.\n  ENOBARBUS. O sovereign mistress of true melancholy,\n    The poisonous damp of night disponge upon me,\n    That life, a very rebel to my will,\n    May hang no longer on me. Throw my heart\n    Against the flint and hardness of my fault,\n    Which, being dried with grief, will break to powder,\n    And finish all foul thoughts. O Antony,\n    Nobler than my revolt is infamous,\n    Forgive me in thine own particular,\n    But let the world rank me in register\n    A master-leaver and a fugitive!\n    O Antony! O Antony!                                   [Dies]\n  FIRST WATCH. Let's speak to him.\n  CENTURION. Let's hear him, for the things he speaks\n    May concern Caesar.\n  SECOND WATCH. Let's do so. But he sleeps.\n  CENTURION. Swoons rather; for so bad a prayer as his\n    Was never yet for sleep.\n  FIRST WATCH. Go we to him.\n  SECOND WATCH. Awake, sir, awake; speak to us.\n  FIRST WATCH. Hear you, sir?\n  CENTURION. The hand of death hath raught him.\n    [Drums afar off ] Hark! the drums\n    Demurely wake the sleepers. Let us bear him\n    To th' court of guard; he is of note. Our hour\n    Is fully out.\n  SECOND WATCH. Come on, then;\n    He may recover yet.                     Exeunt with the body\n\nACT_4|SC_10\n                          SCENE X.\n                    Between the two camps\n\n            Enter ANTONY and SCARUS, with their army\n\n  ANTONY. Their preparation is to-day by sea;\n    We please them not by land.\n  SCARUS. For both, my lord.\n  ANTONY. I would they'd fight i' th' fire or i' th' air;\n    We'd fight there too. But this it is, our foot\n    Upon the hills adjoining to the city\n    Shall stay with us- Order for sea is given;\n    They have put forth the haven-\n    Where their appointment we may best discover\n    And look on their endeavour.                          Exeunt\n\nACT_4|SC_11\n                         SCENE XI.\n                    Between the camps\n\n                Enter CAESAR and his army\n\n  CAESAR. But being charg'd, we will be still by land,\n    Which, as I take't, we shall; for his best force\n    Is forth to man his galleys. To the vales,\n    And hold our best advantage.                          Exeunt\n\nACT_4|SC_12\n                         SCENE XII.\n                  A hill near Alexandria\n\n                  Enter ANTONY and SCARUS\n\n  ANTONY. Yet they are not join'd. Where yond pine does stand\n    I shall discover all. I'll bring thee word\n    Straight how 'tis like to go.                           Exit\n  SCARUS. Swallows have built\n    In Cleopatra's sails their nests. The augurers\n    Say they know not, they cannot tell; look grimly,\n    And dare not speak their knowledge. Antony\n    Is valiant and dejected; and by starts\n    His fretted fortunes give him hope and fear\n    Of what he has and has not.\n                            [Alarum afar off, as at a sea-fight]\n\n                      Re-enter ANTONY\n\n  ANTONY. All is lost!\n    This foul Egyptian hath betrayed me.\n    My fleet hath yielded to the foe, and yonder\n    They cast their caps up and carouse together\n    Like friends long lost. Triple-turn'd whore! 'tis thou\n    Hast sold me to this novice; and my heart\n    Makes only wars on thee. Bid them all fly;\n    For when I am reveng'd upon my charm,\n    I have done all. Bid them all fly; begone.       Exit SCARUS\n    O sun, thy uprise shall I see no more!\n    Fortune and Antony part here; even here\n    Do we shake hands. All come to this? The hearts\n    That spaniel'd me at heels, to whom I gave\n    Their wishes, do discandy, melt their sweets\n    On blossoming Caesar; and this pine is bark'd\n    That overtopp'd them all. Betray'd I am.\n    O this false soul of Egypt! this grave charm-\n    Whose eye beck'd forth my wars and call'd them home,\n    Whose bosom was my crownet, my chief end-\n    Like a right gypsy hath at fast and loose\n    Beguil'd me to the very heart of loss.\n    What, Eros, Eros!\n\n                      Enter CLEOPATRA\n\n    Ah, thou spell! Avaunt!\n  CLEOPATRA. Why is my lord enrag'd against his love?\n  ANTONY. Vanish, or I shall give thee thy deserving\n    And blemish Caesar's triumph. Let him take thee\n    And hoist thee up to the shouting plebeians;\n    Follow his chariot, like the greatest spot\n    Of all thy sex; most monster-like, be shown\n    For poor'st diminutives, for doits, and let\n    Patient Octavia plough thy visage up\n    With her prepared nails.                      Exit CLEOPATRA\n    'Tis well th'art gone,\n    If it be well to live; but better 'twere\n    Thou fell'st into my fury, for one death\n    Might have prevented many. Eros, ho!\n    The shirt of Nessus is upon me; teach me,\n    Alcides, thou mine ancestor, thy rage;\n    Let me lodge Lichas on the horns o' th' moon,\n    And with those hands that grasp'd the heaviest club\n    Subdue my worthiest self. The witch shall die.\n    To the young Roman boy she hath sold me, and I fall\n    Under this plot. She dies for't. Eros, ho!              Exit\n\nACT_4|SC_13\n                          SCENE XIII.\n               Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace\n\n      Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and MARDIAN\n\n  CLEOPATRA. Help me, my women. O, he is more mad\n    Than Telamon for his shield; the boar of Thessaly\n    Was never so emboss'd.\n  CHARMIAN. To th'monument!\n    There lock yourself, and send him word you are dead.\n    The soul and body rive not more in parting\n    Than greatness going off.\n  CLEOPATRA. To th' monument!\n    Mardian, go tell him I have slain myself;\n    Say that the last I spoke was 'Antony'\n    And word it, prithee, piteously. Hence, Mardian,\n    And bring me how he takes my death. To th' monument!\n                                                          Exeunt\n\nACT_4|SC_14\n                          SCENE XIV.\n                     CLEOPATRA'S palace\n\n                   Enter ANTONY and EROS\n\n  ANTONY. Eros, thou yet behold'st me?\n  EROS. Ay, noble lord.\n  ANTONY. Sometime we see a cloud that's dragonish;\n    A vapour sometime like a bear or lion,\n    A tower'd citadel, a pendent rock,\n    A forked mountain, or blue promontory\n    With trees upon't that nod unto the world\n    And mock our eyes with air. Thou hast seen these signs;\n    They are black vesper's pageants.\n  EROS. Ay, my lord.\n  ANTONY. That which is now a horse, even with a thought\n    The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct,\n    As water is in water.\n  EROS. It does, my lord.\n  ANTONY. My good knave Eros, now thy captain is\n    Even such a body. Here I am Antony;\n    Yet cannot hold this visible shape, my knave.\n    I made these wars for Egypt; and the Queen-\n    Whose heart I thought I had, for she had mine,\n    Which, whilst it was mine, had annex'd unto't\n    A million moe, now lost- she, Eros, has\n    Pack'd cards with Caesar, and false-play'd my glory\n    Unto an enemy's triumph.\n    Nay, weep not, gentle Eros; there is left us\n    Ourselves to end ourselves.\n\n                         Enter MARDIAN\n\n    O, thy vile lady!\n    She has robb'd me of my sword.\n  MARDIAN. No, Antony;\n    My mistress lov'd thee, and her fortunes mingled\n    With thine entirely.\n  ANTONY. Hence, saucy eunuch; peace!\n    She hath betray'd me, and shall die the death.\n  MARDIAN. Death of one person can be paid but once,\n    And that she has discharg'd. What thou wouldst do\n    Is done unto thy hand. The last she spake\n    Was 'Antony! most noble Antony!'\n    Then in the midst a tearing groan did break\n    The name of Antony; it was divided\n    Between her heart and lips. She rend'red life,\n    Thy name so buried in her.\n  ANTONY. Dead then?\n  MARDIAN. Dead.\n  ANTONY. Unarm, Eros; the long day's task is done,\n    And we must sleep. That thou depart'st hence safe\n    Does pay thy labour richly. Go.                 Exit MARDIAN\n    Off, pluck off!\n    The sevenfold shield of Ajax cannot keep\n    The battery from my heart. O, cleave, my sides!\n    Heart, once be stronger than thy continent,\n    Crack thy frail case. Apace, Eros, apace.-\n    No more a soldier. Bruised pieces, go;\n    You have been nobly borne.- From me awhile.        Exit EROS\n    I will o'ertake thee, Cleopatra, and\n    Weep for my pardon. So it must be, for now\n    All length is torture. Since the torch is out,\n    Lie down, and stray no farther. Now all labour\n    Mars what it does; yea, very force entangles\n    Itself with strength. Seal then, and all is done.\n    Eros!- I come, my queen.- Eros!- Stay for me;\n    Where souls do couch on flowers, we'll hand in hand,\n    And with our sprightly port make the ghosts gaze.\n    Dido and her Aeneas shall want troops,\n    And all the haunt be ours.- Come, Eros, Eros!\n\n                       Re-enter EROS\n\n  EROS. What would my lord?\n  ANTONY. Since Cleopatra died,\n    I have liv'd in such dishonour that the gods\n    Detest my baseness. I, that with my sword\n    Quarter'd the world, and o'er green Neptune's back\n    With ships made cities, condemn myself to lack\n    The courage of a woman; less noble mind\n    Than she which by her death our Caesar tells\n    'I am conqueror of myself.' Thou art sworn, Eros,\n    That, when the exigent should come- which now\n    Is come indeed- when I should see behind me\n    Th' inevitable prosecution of\n    Disgrace and horror, that, on my command,\n    Thou then wouldst kill me. Do't; the time is come.\n    Thou strik'st not me; 'tis Caesar thou defeat'st.\n    Put colour in thy cheek.\n  EROS. The gods withhold me!\n    Shall I do that which all the Parthian darts,\n    Though enemy, lost aim and could not?\n  ANTONY. Eros,\n    Wouldst thou be window'd in great Rome and see\n    Thy master thus with pleach'd arms, bending down\n    His corrigible neck, his face subdu'd\n    To penetrative shame, whilst the wheel'd seat\n    Of fortunate Caesar, drawn before him, branded\n    His baseness that ensued?\n  EROS. I would not see't.\n  ANTONY. Come, then; for with a wound I must be cur'd.\n    Draw that thy honest sword, which thou hast worn\n    Most useful for thy country.\n  EROS. O, sir, pardon me!\n  ANTONY. When I did make thee free, swor'st thou not then\n    To do this when I bade thee? Do it at once,\n    Or thy precedent services are all\n    But accidents unpurpos'd. Draw, and come.\n  EROS. Turn from me then that noble countenance,\n    Wherein the worship of the whole world lies.\n  ANTONY. Lo thee!                            [Turning from him]\n  EROS. My sword is drawn.\n  ANTONY. Then let it do at once\n    The thing why thou hast drawn it.\n  EROS. My dear master,\n    My captain and my emperor, let me say,\n    Before I strike this bloody stroke, farewell.\n  ANTONY. 'Tis said, man; and farewell.\n  EROS. Farewell, great chief. Shall I strike now?\n  ANTONY. Now, Eros.\n  EROS. Why, there then! Thus do I escape the sorrow\n    Of Antony's death.                            [Kills himself\n  ANTONY. Thrice nobler than myself!\n    Thou teachest me, O valiant Eros, what\n    I should, and thou couldst not. My queen and Eros\n    Have, by their brave instruction, got upon me\n    A nobleness in record. But I will be\n    A bridegroom in my death, and run into't\n    As to a lover's bed. Come, then; and, Eros,\n    Thy master dies thy scholar. To do thus\n                                          [Falling on his sword]\n    I learn'd of thee. How? not dead? not dead?-\n    The guard, ho! O, dispatch me!\n\n                  Enter DERCETAS and a guard\n\n  FIRST GUARD. What's the noise?\n  ANTONY. I have done my work ill, friends. O, make an end\n    Of what I have begun.\n  SECOND GUARD. The star is fall'n.\n  FIRST GUARD. And time is at his period.\n  ALL. Alas, and woe!\n  ANTONY. Let him that loves me, strike me dead.\n  FIRST GUARD. Not I.\n  SECOND GUARD. Nor I.\n  THIRD GUARD. Nor any one.                         Exeunt guard\n  DERCETAS. Thy death and fortunes bid thy followers fly.\n    This sword but shown to Caesar, with this tidings,\n    Shall enter me with him.\n\n                       Enter DIOMEDES\n\n  DIOMEDES. Where's Antony?\n  DERCETAS. There, Diomed, there.\n  DIOMEDES. Lives he?\n    Wilt thou not answer, man?                     Exit DERCETAS\n  ANTONY. Art thou there, Diomed? Draw thy sword and give me\n    Sufficing strokes for death.\n  DIOMEDES. Most absolute lord,\n    My mistress Cleopatra sent me to thee.\n  ANTONY. When did she send thee?\n  DIOMEDES. Now, my lord.\n  ANTONY. Where is she?\n  DIOMEDES. Lock'd in her monument. She had a prophesying fear\n    Of what hath come to pass; for when she saw-\n    Which never shall be found- you did suspect\n    She had dispos'd with Caesar, and that your rage\n    Would not be purg'd, she sent you word she was dead;\n    But fearing since how it might work, hath sent\n    Me to proclaim the truth; and I am come,\n    I dread, too late.\n  ANTONY. Too late, good Diomed. Call my guard, I prithee.\n  DIOMEDES. What, ho! the Emperor's guard! The guard, what ho!\n    Come, your lord calls!\n\n             Enter four or five of the guard of ANTONY\n\n  ANTONY. Bear me, good friends, where Cleopatra bides;\n    'Tis the last service that I shall command you.\n  FIRST GUARD. Woe, woe are we, sir, you may not live to wear\n    All your true followers out.\n  ALL. Most heavy day!\n  ANTONY. Nay, good my fellows, do not please sharp fate\n    To grace it with your sorrows. Bid that welcome\n    Which comes to punish us, and we punish it,\n    Seeming to bear it lightly. Take me up.\n    I have led you oft; carry me now, good friends,\n    And have my thanks for all.           Exeunt, hearing ANTONY\nACT_4|SC_15\n                         SCENE XV.\n                   Alexandria. A monument\n\n      Enter CLEOPATRA and her maids aloft, with CHARMIAN\n                         and IRAS\n\n  CLEOPATRA. O Charmian, I will never go from hence!\n  CHARMIAN. Be comforted, dear madam.\n  CLEOPATRA. No, I will not.\n    All strange and terrible events are welcome,\n    But comforts we despise; our size of sorrow,\n    Proportion'd to our cause, must be as great\n    As that which makes it.\n\n                   Enter DIOMEDES, below\n\n    How now! Is he dead?\n  DIOMEDES. His death's upon him, but not dead.\n    Look out o' th' other side your monument;\n    His guard have brought him thither.\n\n            Enter, below, ANTONY, borne by the guard\n\n  CLEOPATRA. O sun,\n    Burn the great sphere thou mov'st in! Darkling stand\n    The varying shore o' th' world. O Antony,\n    Antony, Antony! Help, Charmian; help, Iras, help;\n    Help, friends below! Let's draw him hither.\n  ANTONY. Peace!\n    Not Caesar's valour hath o'erthrown Antony,\n    But Antony's hath triumph'd on itself.\n  CLEOPATRA. So it should be, that none but Antony\n    Should conquer Antony; but woe 'tis so!\n  ANTONY. I am dying, Egypt, dying; only\n    I here importune death awhile, until\n    Of many thousand kisses the poor last\n    I lay upon thy lips.\n  CLEOPATRA. I dare not, dear.\n    Dear my lord, pardon! I dare not,\n    Lest I be taken. Not th' imperious show\n    Of the full-fortun'd Caesar ever shall\n    Be brooch'd with me. If knife, drugs, serpents, have\n    Edge, sting, or operation, I am safe.\n    Your wife Octavia, with her modest eyes\n    And still conclusion, shall acquire no honour\n    Demuring upon me. But come, come, Antony-\n    Help me, my women- we must draw thee up;\n    Assist, good friends.\n  ANTONY. O, quick, or I am gone.\n  CLEOPATRA. Here's sport indeed! How heavy weighs my lord!\n    Our strength is all gone into heaviness;\n    That makes the weight. Had I great Juno's power,\n    The strong-wing'd Mercury should fetch thee up,\n    And set thee by Jove's side. Yet come a little.\n    Wishers were ever fools. O come, come,\n                          [They heave ANTONY aloft to CLEOPATRA]\n    And welcome, welcome! Die where thou hast liv'd.\n    Quicken with kissing. Had my lips that power,\n    Thus would I wear them out.\n  ALL. A heavy sight!\n  ANTONY. I am dying, Egypt, dying.\n    Give me some wine, and let me speak a little.\n  CLEOPATRA. No, let me speak; and let me rail so high\n    That the false huswife Fortune break her wheel,\n    Provok'd by my offence.\n  ANTONY. One word, sweet queen:\n    Of Caesar seek your honour, with your safety. O!\n  CLEOPATRA. They do not go together.\n  ANTONY. Gentle, hear me:\n    None about Caesar trust but Proculeius.\n  CLEOPATRA. My resolution and my hands I'll trust;\n    None about Caesar\n  ANTONY. The miserable change now at my end\n    Lament nor sorrow at; but please your thoughts\n    In feeding them with those my former fortunes\n    Wherein I liv'd the greatest prince o' th' world,\n    The noblest; and do now not basely die,\n    Not cowardly put off my helmet to\n    My countryman- a Roman by a Roman\n    Valiantly vanquish'd. Now my spirit is going\n    I can no more.\n  CLEOPATRA. Noblest of men, woo't die?\n    Hast thou no care of me? Shall I abide\n    In this dull world, which in thy absence is\n    No better than a sty? O, see, my women,        [Antony dies]\n    The crown o' th' earth doth melt. My lord!\n    O, wither'd is the garland of the war,\n    The soldier's pole is fall'n! Young boys and girls\n    Are level now with men. The odds is gone,\n    And there is nothing left remarkable\n    Beneath the visiting moon.                          [Swoons]\n  CHARMIAN. O, quietness, lady!\n  IRAS. She's dead too, our sovereign.\n  CHARMIAN. Lady!\n  IRAS. Madam!\n  CHARMIAN. O madam, madam, madam!\n  IRAS. Royal Egypt, Empress!\n  CHARMIAN. Peace, peace, Iras!\n  CLEOPATRA. No more but e'en a woman, and commanded\n    By such poor passion as the maid that milks\n    And does the meanest chares. It were for me\n    To throw my sceptre at the injurious gods;\n    To tell them that this world did equal theirs\n    Till they had stol'n our jewel. All's but nought;\n    Patience is sottish, and impatience does\n    Become a dog that's mad. Then is it sin\n    To rush into the secret house of death\n    Ere death dare come to us? How do you, women?\n    What, what! good cheer! Why, how now, Charmian!\n    My noble girls! Ah, women, women, look,\n    Our lamp is spent, it's out! Good sirs, take heart.\n    We'll bury him; and then, what's brave, what's noble,\n    Let's do it after the high Roman fashion,\n    And make death proud to take us. Come, away;\n    This case of that huge spirit now is cold.\n    Ah, women, women! Come; we have no friend\n    But resolution and the briefest end.\n                   Exeunt; those above hearing off ANTONY'S body\n\nACT_5|SC_1\n                       ACT V. SCENE I.\n                  Alexandria. CAESAR'S camp\n\n      Enter CAESAR, AGRIPPA, DOLABELLA, MAECENAS, GALLUS,\n          PROCULEIUS, and others, his Council of War\n\n  CAESAR. Go to him, Dolabella, bid him yield;\n    Being so frustrate, tell him he mocks\n    The pauses that he makes.\n  DOLABELLA. Caesar, I shall.                               Exit\n\n             Enter DERCETAS With the sword of ANTONY\n\n  CAESAR. Wherefore is that? And what art thou that dar'st\n    Appear thus to us?\n  DERCETAS. I am call'd Dercetas;\n    Mark Antony I serv'd, who best was worthy\n    Best to be serv'd. Whilst he stood up and spoke,\n    He was my master, and I wore my life\n    To spend upon his haters. If thou please\n    To take me to thee, as I was to him\n    I'll be to Caesar; if thou pleasest not,\n    I yield thee up my life.\n  CAESAR. What is't thou say'st?\n  DERCETAS. I say, O Caesar, Antony is dead.\n  CAESAR. The breaking of so great a thing should make\n    A greater crack. The round world\n    Should have shook lions into civil streets,\n    And citizens to their dens. The death of Antony\n    Is not a single doom; in the name lay\n    A moiety of the world.\n  DERCETAS. He is dead, Caesar,\n    Not by a public minister of justice,\n    Nor by a hired knife; but that self hand\n    Which writ his honour in the acts it did\n    Hath, with the courage which the heart did lend it,\n    Splitted the heart. This is his sword;\n    I robb'd his wound of it; behold it stain'd\n    With his most noble blood.\n  CAESAR. Look you sad, friends?\n    The gods rebuke me, but it is tidings\n    To wash the eyes of kings.\n  AGRIPPA. And strange it is\n    That nature must compel us to lament\n    Our most persisted deeds.\n  MAECENAS. His taints and honours\n    Wag'd equal with him.\n  AGRIPPA. A rarer spirit never\n    Did steer humanity. But you gods will give us\n    Some faults to make us men. Caesar is touch'd.\n  MAECENAS. When such a spacious mirror's set before him,\n    He needs must see himself.\n  CAESAR. O Antony,\n    I have follow'd thee to this! But we do lance\n    Diseases in our bodies. I must perforce\n    Have shown to thee such a declining day\n    Or look on thine; we could not stall together\n    In the whole world. But yet let me lament,\n    With tears as sovereign as the blood of hearts,\n    That thou, my brother, my competitor\n    In top of all design, my mate in empire,\n    Friend and companion in the front of war,\n    The arm of mine own body, and the heart\n    Where mine his thoughts did kindle- that our stars,\n    Unreconciliable, should divide\n    Our equalness to this. Hear me, good friends-\n\n                    Enter an EGYPTIAN\n\n    But I will tell you at some meeter season.\n    The business of this man looks out of him;\n    We'll hear him what he says. Whence are you?\n  EGYPTIAN. A poor Egyptian, yet the Queen, my mistress,\n    Confin'd in all she has, her monument,\n    Of thy intents desires instruction,\n    That she preparedly may frame herself\n    To th' way she's forc'd to.\n  CAESAR. Bid her have good heart.\n    She soon shall know of us, by some of ours,\n    How honourable and how kindly we\n    Determine for her; for Caesar cannot learn\n    To be ungentle.\n  EGYPTIAN. So the gods preserve thee!                      Exit\n  CAESAR. Come hither, Proculeius. Go and say\n    We purpose her no shame. Give her what comforts\n    The quality of her passion shall require,\n    Lest, in her greatness, by some mortal stroke\n    She do defeat us; for her life in Rome\n    Would be eternal in our triumph. Go,\n    And with your speediest bring us what she says,\n    And how you find her.\n  PROCULEIUS. Caesar, I shall.                              Exit\n  CAESAR. Gallus, go you along.                      Exit GALLUS\n    Where's Dolabella, to second Proculeius?\n  ALL. Dolabella!\n  CAESAR. Let him alone, for I remember now\n    How he's employ'd; he shall in time be ready.\n    Go with me to my tent, where you shall see\n    How hardly I was drawn into this war,\n    How calm and gentle I proceeded still\n    In all my writings. Go with me, and see\n    What I can show in this.                              Exeunt\n\nACT_5|SC_2\n                         SCENE II.\n                Alexandria. The monument\n\n      Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and MARDIAN\n\n  CLEOPATRA. My desolation does begin to make\n    A better life. 'Tis paltry to be Caesar:\n    Not being Fortune, he's but Fortune's knave,\n    A minister of her will; and it is great\n    To do that thing that ends all other deeds,\n    Which shackles accidents and bolts up change,\n    Which sleeps, and never palates more the dug,\n    The beggar's nurse and Caesar's.\n\n       Enter, to the gates of the monument, PROCULEIUS, GALLUS,\n                          and soldiers\n\n  PROCULEIUS. Caesar sends greetings to the Queen of Egypt,\n    And bids thee study on what fair demands\n    Thou mean'st to have him grant thee.\n  CLEOPATRA. What's thy name?\n  PROCULEIUS. My name is Proculeius.\n  CLEOPATRA. Antony\n    Did tell me of you, bade me trust you; but\n    I do not greatly care to be deceiv'd,\n    That have no use for trusting. If your master\n    Would have a queen his beggar, you must tell him\n    That majesty, to keep decorum, must\n    No less beg than a kingdom. If he please\n    To give me conquer'd Egypt for my son,\n    He gives me so much of mine own as I\n    Will kneel to him with thanks.\n  PROCULEIUS. Be of good cheer;\n    Y'are fall'n into a princely hand; fear nothing.\n    Make your full reference freely to my lord,\n    Who is so full of grace that it flows over\n    On all that need. Let me report to him\n    Your sweet dependency, and you shall find\n    A conqueror that will pray in aid for kindness\n    Where he for grace is kneel'd to.\n  CLEOPATRA. Pray you tell him\n    I am his fortune's vassal and I send him\n    The greatness he has got. I hourly learn\n    A doctrine of obedience, and would gladly\n    Look him i' th' face.\n  PROCULEIUS. This I'll report, dear lady.\n    Have comfort, for I know your plight is pitied\n    Of him that caus'd it.\n  GALLUS. You see how easily she may be surpris'd.\n\n      Here PROCULEIUS and two of the guard ascend the\n       monument by a ladder placed against a window,\n       and come behind CLEOPATRA. Some of the guard\n                unbar and open the gates\n\n    Guard her till Caesar come.                             Exit\n  IRAS. Royal Queen!\n  CHARMIAN. O Cleopatra! thou art taken, Queen!\n  CLEOPATRA. Quick, quick, good hands.        [Drawing a dagger]\n  PROCULEIUS. Hold, worthy lady, hold,             [Disarms her]\n    Do not yourself such wrong, who are in this\n    Reliev'd, but not betray'd.\n  CLEOPATRA. What, of death too,\n    That rids our dogs of languish?\n  PROCULEIUS. Cleopatra,\n    Do not abuse my master's bounty by\n    Th' undoing of yourself. Let the world see\n    His nobleness well acted, which your death\n    Will never let come forth.\n  CLEOPATRA. Where art thou, death?\n    Come hither, come! Come, come, and take a queen\n    Worth many babes and beggars!\n  PROCULEIUS. O, temperance, lady!\n  CLEOPATRA. Sir, I will eat no meat; I'll not drink, sir;\n    If idle talk will once be necessary,\n    I'll not sleep neither. This mortal house I'll ruin,\n    Do Caesar what he can. Know, sir, that I\n    Will not wait pinion'd at your master's court,\n    Nor once be chastis'd with the sober eye\n    Of dull Octavia. Shall they hoist me up,\n    And show me to the shouting varletry\n    Of censuring Rome? Rather a ditch in Egypt\n    Be gentle grave unto me! Rather on Nilus' mud\n    Lay me stark-nak'd, and let the water-flies\n    Blow me into abhorring! Rather make\n    My country's high pyramides my gibbet,\n    And hang me up in chains!\n  PROCULEIUS. You do extend\n    These thoughts of horror further than you shall\n    Find cause in Caesar.\n\n                      Enter DOLABELLA\n\n  DOLABELLA. Proculeius,\n    What thou hast done thy master Caesar knows,\n    And he hath sent for thee. For the Queen,\n    I'll take her to my guard.\n  PROCULEIUS. So, Dolabella,\n    It shall content me best. Be gentle to her.\n    [To CLEOPATRA] To Caesar I will speak what you shall please,\n    If you'll employ me to him.\n  CLEOPATRA. Say I would die.\n                                  Exeunt PROCULEIUS and soldiers\n  DOLABELLA. Most noble Empress, you have heard of me?\n  CLEOPATRA. I cannot tell.\n  DOLABELLA. Assuredly you know me.\n  CLEOPATRA. No matter, sir, what I have heard or known.\n    You laugh when boys or women tell their dreams;\n    Is't not your trick?\n  DOLABELLA. I understand not, madam.\n  CLEOPATRA. I dreamt there was an Emperor Antony-\n    O, such another sleep, that I might see\n    But such another man!\n  DOLABELLA. If it might please ye-\n  CLEOPATRA. His face was as the heav'ns, and therein stuck\n    A sun and moon, which kept their course and lighted\n    The little O, the earth.\n  DOLABELLA. Most sovereign creature-\n  CLEOPATRA. His legs bestrid the ocean; his rear'd arm\n    Crested the world. His voice was propertied\n    As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends;\n    But when he meant to quail and shake the orb,\n    He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty,\n    There was no winter in't; an autumn 'twas\n    That grew the more by reaping. His delights\n    Were dolphin-like: they show'd his back above\n    The element they liv'd in. In his livery\n    Walk'd crowns and crownets; realms and islands were\n    As plates dropp'd from his pocket.\n  DOLABELLA. Cleopatra-\n  CLEOPATRA. Think you there was or might be such a man\n    As this I dreamt of?\n  DOLABELLA. Gentle madam, no.\n  CLEOPATRA. You lie, up to the hearing of the gods.\n    But if there be nor ever were one such,\n    It's past the size of drearning. Nature wants stuff\n    To vie strange forms with fancy; yet t' imagine\n    An Antony were nature's piece 'gainst fancy,\n    Condemning shadows quite.\n  DOLABELLA. Hear me, good madam.\n    Your loss is, as yourself, great; and you bear it\n    As answering to the weight. Would I might never\n    O'ertake pursu'd success, but I do feel,\n    By the rebound of yours, a grief that smites\n    My very heart at root.\n  CLEOPATRA. I thank you, sir.\n    Know you what Caesar means to do with me?\n  DOLABELLA. I am loath to tell you what I would you knew.\n  CLEOPATRA. Nay, pray you, sir.\n  DOLABELLA. Though he be honourable-\n  CLEOPATRA. He'll lead me, then, in triumph?\n  DOLABELLA. Madam, he will. I know't.                [Flourish]\n                              [Within: 'Make way there-Caesar!']\n\n       Enter CAESAR; GALLUS, PROCULEIUS, MAECENAS, SELEUCUS,\n                     and others of his train\n\n  CAESAR. Which is the Queen of Egypt?\n  DOLABELLA. It is the Emperor, madam.        [CLEOPATPA kneels]\n  CAESAR. Arise, you shall not kneel.\n    I pray you, rise; rise, Egypt.\n  CLEOPATRA. Sir, the gods\n    Will have it thus; my master and my lord\n    I must obey.\n  CAESAR. Take to you no hard thoughts.\n    The record of what injuries you did us,\n    Though written in our flesh, we shall remember\n    As things but done by chance.\n  CLEOPATRA. Sole sir o' th' world,\n    I cannot project mine own cause so well\n    To make it clear, but do confess I have\n    Been laden with like frailties which before\n    Have often sham'd our sex.\n  CAESAR. Cleopatra, know\n    We will extenuate rather than enforce.\n    If you apply yourself to our intents-\n    Which towards you are most gentle- you shall find\n    A benefit in this change; but if you seek\n    To lay on me a cruelty by taking\n    Antony's course, you shall bereave yourself\n    Of my good purposes, and put your children\n    To that destruction which I'll guard them from,\n    If thereon you rely. I'll take my leave.\n  CLEOPATRA. And may, through all the world. 'Tis yours, and we,\n    Your scutcheons and your signs of conquest, shall\n    Hang in what place you please. Here, my good lord.\n  CAESAR. You shall advise me in all for Cleopatra.\n  CLEOPATRA. This is the brief of money, plate, and jewels,\n    I am possess'd of. 'Tis exactly valued,\n    Not petty things admitted. Where's Seleucus?\n  SELEUCUS. Here, madam.\n  CLEOPATRA. This is my treasurer; let him speak, my lord,\n    Upon his peril, that I have reserv'd\n    To myself nothing. Speak the truth, Seleucus.\n  SELEUCUS. Madam,\n    I had rather seal my lips than to my peril\n    Speak that which is not.\n  CLEOPATRA. What have I kept back?\n  SELEUCUS. Enough to purchase what you have made known.\n  CAESAR. Nay, blush not, Cleopatra; I approve\n    Your wisdom in the deed.\n  CLEOPATRA. See, Caesar! O, behold,\n    How pomp is followed! Mine will now be yours;\n    And, should we shift estates, yours would be mine.\n    The ingratitude of this Seleucus does\n    Even make me wild. O slave, of no more trust\n    Than love that's hir'd! What, goest thou back? Thou shalt\n    Go back, I warrant thee; but I'll catch thine eyes\n    Though they had wings. Slave, soulless villain, dog!\n    O rarely base!\n  CAESAR. Good Queen, let us entreat you.\n  CLEOPATRA. O Caesar, what a wounding shame is this,\n    That thou vouchsafing here to visit me,\n    Doing the honour of thy lordliness\n    To one so meek, that mine own servant should\n    Parcel the sum of my disgraces by\n    Addition of his envy! Say, good Caesar,\n    That I some lady trifles have reserv'd,\n    Immoment toys, things of such dignity\n    As we greet modern friends withal; and say\n    Some nobler token I have kept apart\n    For Livia and Octavia, to induce\n    Their mediation- must I be unfolded\n    With one that I have bred? The gods! It smites me\n    Beneath the fall I have. [To SELEUCUS] Prithee go hence;\n    Or I shall show the cinders of my spirits\n    Through th' ashes of my chance. Wert thou a man,\n    Thou wouldst have mercy on me.\n  CAESAR. Forbear, Seleucus.                       Exit SELEUCUS\n  CLEOPATRA. Be it known that we, the greatest, are misthought\n    For things that others do; and when we fall\n    We answer others' merits in our name,\n    Are therefore to be pitied.\n  CAESAR. Cleopatra,\n    Not what you have reserv'd, nor what acknowledg'd,\n    Put we i' th' roll of conquest. Still be't yours,\n    Bestow it at your pleasure; and believe\n    Caesar's no merchant, to make prize with you\n    Of things that merchants sold. Therefore be cheer'd;\n    Make not your thoughts your prisons. No, dear Queen;\n    For we intend so to dispose you as\n    Yourself shall give us counsel. Feed and sleep.\n    Our care and pity is so much upon you\n    That we remain your friend; and so, adieu.\n  CLEOPATRA. My master and my lord!\n  CAESAR. Not so. Adieu.\n                           Flourish. Exeunt CAESAR and his train\n  CLEOPATRA. He words me, girls, he words me, that I should not\n    Be noble to myself. But hark thee, Charmian!\n                                             [Whispers CHARMIAN]\n  IRAS. Finish, good lady; the bright day is done,\n    And we are for the dark.\n  CLEOPATRA. Hie thee again.\n    I have spoke already, and it is provided;\n    Go put it to the haste.\n  CHARMIAN. Madam, I will.\n\n                      Re-enter DOLABELLA\n\n  DOLABELLA. Where's the Queen?\n  CHARMIAN. Behold, sir.                                    Exit\n  CLEOPATRA. Dolabella!\n  DOLABELLA. Madam, as thereto sworn by your command,\n    Which my love makes religion to obey,\n    I tell you this: Caesar through Syria\n    Intends his journey, and within three days\n    You with your children will he send before.\n    Make your best use of this; I have perform'd\n    Your pleasure and my promise.\n  CLEOPATRA. Dolabella,\n    I shall remain your debtor.\n  DOLABELLA. I your servant.\n    Adieu, good Queen; I must attend on Caesar.\n  CLEOPATRA. Farewell, and thanks.                Exit DOLABELLA\n    Now, Iras, what think'st thou?\n    Thou an Egyptian puppet shall be shown\n    In Rome as well as I. Mechanic slaves,\n    With greasy aprons, rules, and hammers, shall\n    Uplift us to the view; in their thick breaths,\n    Rank of gross diet, shall we be enclouded,\n    And forc'd to drink their vapour.\n  IRAS. The gods forbid!\n  CLEOPATRA. Nay, 'tis most certain, Iras. Saucy lictors\n    Will catch at us like strumpets, and scald rhymers\n    Ballad us out o' tune; the quick comedians\n    Extemporally will stage us, and present\n    Our Alexandrian revels; Antony\n    Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see\n    Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness\n    I' th' posture of a whore.\n  IRAS. O the good gods!\n  CLEOPATRA. Nay, that's certain.\n  IRAS. I'll never see't, for I am sure mine nails\n    Are stronger than mine eyes.\n  CLEOPATRA. Why, that's the way\n    To fool their preparation and to conquer\n    Their most absurd intents.\n\n                      Enter CHARMIAN\n\n    Now, Charmian!\n    Show me, my women, like a queen. Go fetch\n    My best attires. I am again for Cydnus,\n    To meet Mark Antony. Sirrah, Iras, go.\n    Now, noble Charmian, we'll dispatch indeed;\n    And when thou hast done this chare, I'll give thee leave\n    To play till doomsday. Bring our crown and all.\n                                       Exit IRAS. A noise within\n    Wherefore's this noise?\n\n                     Enter a GUARDSMAN\n\n  GUARDSMAN. Here is a rural fellow\n    That will not be denied your Highness' presence.\n    He brings you figs.\n  CLEOPATRA. Let him come in.                     Exit GUARDSMAN\n    What poor an instrument\n    May do a noble deed! He brings me liberty.\n    My resolution's plac'd, and I have nothing\n    Of woman in me. Now from head to foot\n    I am marble-constant; now the fleeting moon\n    No planet is of mine.\n\n          Re-enter GUARDSMAN and CLOWN, with a basket\n\n  GUARDSMAN. This is the man.\n  CLEOPATRA. Avoid, and leave him.                Exit GUARDSMAN\n    Hast thou the pretty worm of Nilus there\n    That kills and pains not?\n  CLOWN. Truly, I have him. But I would not be the party that should\n    desire you to touch him, for his biting is immortal; those that\n    do die of it do seldom or never recover.\n  CLEOPATRA. Remember'st thou any that have died on't?\n  CLOWN. Very many, men and women too. I heard of one of them no\n    longer than yesterday: a very honest woman, but something given\n    to lie, as a woman should not do but in the way of honesty; how\n    she died of the biting of it, what pain she felt- truly she makes\n    a very good report o' th' worm. But he that will believe all that\n    they say shall never be saved by half that they do. But this is\n    most falliable, the worm's an odd worm.\n  CLEOPATRA. Get thee hence; farewell.\n  CLOWN. I wish you all joy of the worm.\n                                          [Sets down the basket]\n  CLEOPATRA. Farewell.\n  CLOWN. You must think this, look you, that the worm will do his\n    kind.\n  CLEOPATRA. Ay, ay; farewell.\n  CLOWN. Look you, the worm is not to be trusted but in the keeping\n    of wise people; for indeed there is no goodness in the worm.\n  CLEOPATRA. Take thou no care; it shall be heeded.\n  CLOWN. Very good. Give it nothing, I pray you, for it is not worth\n    the feeding.\n  CLEOPATRA. Will it eat me?\n  CLOWN. You must not think I am so simple but I know the devil\n    himself will not eat a woman. I know that a woman is a dish for\n    the gods, if the devil dress her not. But truly, these same\n    whoreson devils do the gods great harm in their women, for in\n    every ten that they make the devils mar five.\n  CLEOPATRA. Well, get thee gone; farewell.\n  CLOWN. Yes, forsooth. I wish you joy o' th' worm.         Exit\n\n             Re-enter IRAS, with a robe, crown, &c.\n\n  CLEOPATRA. Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have\n    Immortal longings in me. Now no more\n    The juice of Egypt's grape shall moist this lip.\n    Yare, yare, good Iras; quick. Methinks I hear\n    Antony call. I see him rouse himself\n    To praise my noble act. I hear him mock\n    The luck of Caesar, which the gods give men\n    To excuse their after wrath. Husband, I come.\n    Now to that name my courage prove my title!\n    I am fire and air; my other elements\n    I give to baser life. So, have you done?\n    Come then, and take the last warmth of my lips.\n    Farewell, kind Charmian. Iras, long farewell.\n                              [Kisses them. IRAS falls and dies]\n    Have I the aspic in my lips? Dost fall?\n    If thus thou and nature can so gently part,\n    The stroke of death is as a lover's pinch,\n    Which hurts and is desir'd. Dost thou lie still?\n    If thou vanishest, thou tell'st the world\n    It is not worth leave-taking.\n  CHARMIAN. Dissolve, thick cloud, and rain, that I may say\n    The gods themselves do weep.\n  CLEOPATRA. This proves me base.\n    If she first meet the curled Antony,\n    He'll make demand of her, and spend that kiss\n    Which is my heaven to have. Come, thou mortal wretch,\n                    [To an asp, which she applies to her breast]\n    With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate\n    Of life at once untie. Poor venomous fool,\n    Be angry and dispatch. O couldst thou speak,\n    That I might hear thee call great Caesar ass\n    Unpolicied!\n  CHARMIAN. O Eastern star!\n  CLEOPATRA. Peace, peace!\n    Dost thou not see my baby at my breast\n    That sucks the nurse asleep?\n  CHARMIAN. O, break! O, break!\n  CLEOPATRA. As sweet as balm, as soft as air, as gentle-\n    O Antony! Nay, I will take thee too:\n                               [Applying another asp to her arm]\n    What should I stay-                                   [Dies]\n  CHARMIAN. In this vile world? So, fare thee well.\n    Now boast thee, death, in thy possession lies\n    A lass unparallel'd. Downy windows, close;\n    And golden Phoebus never be beheld\n    Of eyes again so royal! Your crown's awry;\n    I'll mend it and then play-\n\n                  Enter the guard, rushing in\n\n  FIRST GUARD. Where's the Queen?\n  CHARMIAN. Speak softly, wake her not.\n  FIRST GUARD. Caesar hath sent-\n  CHARMIAN. Too slow a messenger.               [Applies an asp]\n    O, come apace, dispatch. I partly feel thee.\n  FIRST GUARD. Approach, ho! All's not well: Caesar's beguil'd.\n  SECOND GUARD. There's Dolabella sent from Caesar; call him.\n  FIRST GUARD. What work is here! Charmian, is this well done?\n  CHARMIAN. It is well done, and fitting for a princes\n    Descended of so many royal kings.\n    Ah, soldier!                                 [CHARMIAN dies]\n\n                      Re-enter DOLABELLA\n\n  DOLABELLA. How goes it here?\n  SECOND GUARD. All dead.\n  DOLABELLA. Caesar, thy thoughts\n    Touch their effects in this. Thyself art coming\n    To see perform'd the dreaded act which thou\n    So sought'st to hinder.\n                      [Within: 'A way there, a way for Caesar!']\n\n              Re-enter CAESAR and all his train\n\n  DOLABELLA. O sir, you are too sure an augurer:\n    That you did fear is done.\n  CAESAR. Bravest at the last,\n    She levell'd at our purposes, and being royal,\n    Took her own way. The manner of their deaths?\n    I do not see them bleed.\n  DOLABELLA. Who was last with them?\n  FIRST GUARD. A simple countryman that brought her figs.\n    This was his basket.\n  CAESAR. Poison'd then.\n  FIRST GUARD. O Caesar,\n    This Charmian liv'd but now; she stood and spake.\n    I found her trimming up the diadem\n    On her dead mistress. Tremblingly she stood,\n    And on the sudden dropp'd.\n  CAESAR. O noble weakness!\n    If they had swallow'd poison 'twould appear\n    By external swelling; but she looks like sleep,\n    As she would catch another Antony\n    In her strong toil of grace.\n  DOLABELLA. Here on her breast\n    There is a vent of blood, and something blown;\n    The like is on her arm.\n  FIRST GUARD. This is an aspic's trail; and these fig-leaves\n    Have slime upon them, such as th' aspic leaves\n    Upon the caves of Nile.\n  CAESAR. Most probable\n    That so she died; for her physician tells me\n    She hath pursu'd conclusions infinite\n    Of easy ways to die. Take up her bed,\n    And bear her women from the monument.\n    She shall be buried by her Antony;\n    No grave upon the earth shall clip in it\n    A pair so famous. High events as these\n    Strike those that make them; and their story is\n    No less in pity than his glory which\n    Brought them to be lamented. Our army shall\n    In solemn show attend this funeral,\n    And then to Rome. Come, Dolabella, see\n    High order in this great solemnity.                   Exeunt\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1601\n\nAS YOU LIKE IT\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE.\n\n  DUKE, living in exile\n  FREDERICK, his brother, and usurper of his dominions\n  AMIENS, lord attending on the banished Duke\n  JAQUES,   \"      \"       \"  \"     \"      \"\n  LE BEAU, a courtier attending upon Frederick\n  CHARLES, wrestler to Frederick\n  OLIVER, son of Sir Rowland de Boys\n  JAQUES,   \"   \"  \"    \"     \"  \"\n  ORLANDO,  \"   \"  \"    \"     \"  \"\n  ADAM,   servant to Oliver\n  DENNIS,     \"     \"   \"\n  TOUCHSTONE, the court jester\n  SIR OLIVER MARTEXT, a vicar\n  CORIN,    shepherd\n  SILVIUS,     \"\n  WILLIAM, a country fellow, in love with Audrey\n  A person representing HYMEN\n\n  ROSALIND, daughter to the banished Duke\n  CELIA, daughter to Frederick\n  PHEBE, a shepherdes\n  AUDREY, a country wench\n\n  Lords, Pages, Foresters, and Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nOLIVER'S house; FREDERICK'S court; and the Forest of Arden\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nOrchard of OLIVER'S house\n\nEnter ORLANDO and ADAM\n\n  ORLANDO. As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion bequeathed\n    me by will but poor a thousand crowns, and, as thou say'st,\n    charged my brother, on his blessing, to breed me well; and there\n    begins my sadness. My brother Jaques he keeps at school, and\n    report speaks goldenly of his profit. For my part, he keeps me\n    rustically at home, or, to speak more properly, stays me here at\n    home unkept; for call you that keeping for a gentleman of my\n    birth that differs not from the stalling of an ox? His horses are\n    bred better; for, besides that they are fair with their feeding,\n    they are taught their manage, and to that end riders dearly\n    hir'd; but I, his brother, gain nothing under him but growth; for\n    the which his animals on his dunghills are as much bound to him\n    as I. Besides this nothing that he so plentifully gives me, the\n    something that nature gave me his countenance seems to take from\n    me. He lets me feed with his hinds, bars me the place of a\n    brother, and as much as in him lies, mines my gentility with my\n    education. This is it, Adam, that grieves me; and the spirit of\n    my father, which I think is within me, begins to mutiny against\n    this servitude. I will no longer endure it, though yet I know no\n    wise remedy how to avoid it.\n\n                           Enter OLIVER\n\n  ADAM. Yonder comes my master, your brother.\n  ORLANDO. Go apart, Adam, and thou shalt hear how he will shake me\n    up.                                           [ADAM retires]\n  OLIVER. Now, sir! what make you here?\n  ORLANDO. Nothing; I am not taught to make any thing.\n  OLIVER. What mar you then, sir?\n  ORLANDO. Marry, sir, I am helping you to mar that which God made, a\n    poor unworthy brother of yours, with idleness.\n  OLIVER. Marry, sir, be better employed, and be nought awhile.\n  ORLANDO. Shall I keep your hogs, and eat husks with them? What\n    prodigal portion have I spent that I should come to such penury?\n  OLIVER. Know you where you are, sir?\n  ORLANDO. O, sir, very well; here in your orchard.\n  OLIVER. Know you before whom, sir?\n  ORLANDO. Ay, better than him I am before knows me. I know you are\n    my eldest brother; and in the gentle condition of blood, you\n    should so know me. The courtesy of nations allows you my better\n    in that you are the first-born; but the same tradition takes not\n    away my blood, were there twenty brothers betwixt us. I have as\n    much of my father in me as you, albeit I confess your coming\n    before me is nearer to his reverence.\n  OLIVER. What, boy!                               [Strikes him]\n  ORLANDO. Come, come, elder brother, you are too young in this.\n  OLIVER. Wilt thou lay hands on me, villain?\n  ORLANDO. I am no villain; I am the youngest son of Sir Rowland de\n    Boys. He was my father; and he is thrice a villain that says such\n    a father begot villains. Wert thou not my brother, I would not\n    take this hand from thy throat till this other had pull'd out thy\n    tongue for saying so. Thou has rail'd on thyself.\n  ADAM. [Coming forward] Sweet masters, be patient; for your father's\n    remembrance, be at accord.\n  OLIVER. Let me go, I say.\n  ORLANDO. I will not, till I please; you shall hear me. My father\n    charg'd you in his will to give me good education: you have\n    train'd me like a peasant, obscuring and hiding from me all\n    gentleman-like qualities. The spirit of my father grows strong in\n    me, and I will no longer endure it; therefore allow me such\n    exercises as may become a gentleman, or give me the poor\n    allottery my father left me by testament; with that I will go buy\n    my fortunes.\n  OLIVER. And what wilt thou do? Beg, when that is spent? Well, sir,\n    get you in. I will not long be troubled with you; you shall have\n    some part of your will. I pray you leave me.\n  ORLANDO. I no further offend you than becomes me for my good.\n  OLIVER. Get you with him, you old dog.\n  ADAM. Is 'old dog' my reward? Most true, I have lost my teeth in\n    your service. God be with my old master! He would not have spoke\n    such a word.\n                                         Exeunt ORLANDO and ADAM\n  OLIVER. Is it even so? Begin you to grow upon me? I will physic\n    your rankness, and yet give no thousand crowns neither. Holla,\n    Dennis!\n\n                          Enter DENNIS\n\n  DENNIS. Calls your worship?\n  OLIVER. not Charles, the Duke's wrestler, here to speak with me?\n  DENNIS. So please you, he is here at the door and importunes access\n    to you.\n  OLIVER. Call him in. [Exit DENNIS] 'Twill be a good way; and\n    to-morrow the wrestling is.\n\n                          Enter CHARLES\n\n  CHARLES. Good morrow to your worship.\n  OLIVER. Good Monsieur Charles! What's the new news at the new\n    court?\n  CHARLES. There's no news at the court, sir, but the old news; that\n    is, the old Duke is banished by his younger brother the new Duke;\n    and three or four loving lords have put themselves into voluntary\n    exile with him, whose lands and revenues enrich the new Duke;\n    therefore he gives them good leave to wander.\n  OLIVER. Can you tell if Rosalind, the Duke's daughter, be banished\n    with her father?\n  CHARLES. O, no; for the Duke's daughter, her cousin, so loves her,\n    being ever from their cradles bred together, that she would have\n    followed her exile, or have died to stay behind her. She is at\n    the court, and no less beloved of her uncle than his own\n    daughter; and never two ladies loved as they do.\n  OLIVER. Where will the old Duke live?\n  CHARLES. They say he is already in the Forest of Arden, and a many\n    merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood\n    of England. They say many young gentlemen flock to him every day,\n    and fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world.\n  OLIVER. What, you wrestle to-morrow before the new Duke?\n  CHARLES. Marry, do I, sir; and I came to acquaint you with a\n    matter. I am given, sir, secretly to understand that your younger\n    brother, Orlando, hath a disposition to come in disguis'd against\n    me to try a fall. To-morrow, sir, I wrestle for my credit; and he\n    that escapes me without some broken limb shall acquit him well.\n    Your brother is but young and tender; and, for your love, I would\n    be loath to foil him, as I must, for my own honour, if he come\n    in; therefore, out of my love to you, I came hither to acquaint\n    you withal, that either you might stay him from his intendment,\n    or brook such disgrace well as he shall run into, in that it is\n    thing of his own search and altogether against my will.\n  OLIVER. Charles, I thank thee for thy love to me, which thou shalt\n    find I will most kindly requite. I had myself notice of my\n    brother's purpose herein, and have by underhand means laboured to\n    dissuade him from it; but he is resolute. I'll tell thee,\n    Charles, it is the stubbornest young fellow of France; full of\n    ambition, an envious emulator of every man's good parts, a secret\n    and villainous contriver against me his natural brother.\n    Therefore use thy discretion: I had as lief thou didst break his\n    neck as his finger. And thou wert best look to't; for if thou\n    dost him any slight disgrace, or if he do not mightily grace\n    himself on thee, he will practise against thee by poison, entrap\n    thee by some treacherous device, and never leave thee till he\n    hath ta'en thy life by some indirect means or other; for, I\n    assure thee, and almost with tears I speak it, there is not one\n    so young and so villainous this day living. I speak but brotherly\n    of him; but should I anatomize him to thee as he is, I must blush\n    and weep, and thou must look pale and wonder.\n  CHARLES. I am heartily glad I came hither to you. If he come\n    to-morrow I'll give him his payment. If ever he go alone again,\n    I'll never wrestle for prize more. And so, God keep your worship!\n Exit\n  OLIVER. Farewell, good Charles. Now will I stir this gamester. I\n    hope I shall see an end of him; for my soul, yet I know not why,\n    hates nothing more than he. Yet he's gentle; never school'd and\n    yet learned; full of noble device; of all sorts enchantingly\n    beloved; and, indeed, so much in the heart of the world, and\n    especially of my own people, who best know him, that I am\n    altogether misprised. But it shall not be so long; this wrestler\n    shall clear all. Nothing remains but that I kindle the boy\n    thither, which now I'll go about.                       Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA lawn before the DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter ROSALIND and CELIA\n\n  CELIA. I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my coz, be merry.\n  ROSALIND. Dear Celia, I show more mirth than I am mistress of; and\n    would you yet I were merrier? Unless you could teach me to forget\n    a banished father, you must not learn me how to remember any\n    extraordinary pleasure.\n  CELIA. Herein I see thou lov'st me not with the full weight that I\n    love thee. If my uncle, thy banished father, had banished thy\n    uncle, the Duke my father, so thou hadst been still with me, I\n    could have taught my love to take thy father for mine; so wouldst\n    thou, if the truth of thy love to me were so righteously temper'd\n    as mine is to thee.\n  ROSALIND. Well, I will forget the condition of my estate, to\n    rejoice in yours.\n  CELIA. You know my father hath no child but I, nor none is like to\n    have; and, truly, when he dies thou shalt be his heir; for what\n    he hath taken away from thy father perforce, I will render thee\n    again in affection. By mine honour, I will; and when I break that\n    oath, let me turn monster; therefore, my sweet Rose, my dear\n    Rose, be merry.\n  ROSALIND. From henceforth I will, coz, and devise sports.\n    Let me see; what think you of falling in love?\n  CELIA. Marry, I prithee, do, to make sport withal; but love no man\n    in good earnest, nor no further in sport neither than with safety\n    of a pure blush thou mayst in honour come off again.\n  ROSALIND. What shall be our sport, then?\n  CELIA. Let us sit and mock the good housewife Fortune from her\n    wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally.\n  ROSALIND. I would we could do so; for her benefits are mightily\n    misplaced; and the bountiful blind woman doth most mistake in her\n    gifts to women.\n  CELIA. 'Tis true; for those that she makes fair she scarce makes\n    honest; and those that she makes honest she makes very\n    ill-favouredly.\n  ROSALIND. Nay; now thou goest from Fortune's office to Nature's:\n    Fortune reigns in gifts of the world, not in the lineaments of\n    Nature.\n\n                         Enter TOUCHSTONE\n\n  CELIA. No; when Nature hath made a fair creature, may she not by\n    Fortune fall into the fire? Though Nature hath given us wit to\n    flout at Fortune, hath not Fortune sent in this fool to cut off\n    the argument?\n  ROSALIND. Indeed, there is Fortune too hard for Nature, when\n    Fortune makes Nature's natural the cutter-off of Nature's wit.\n  CELIA. Peradventure this is not Fortune's work neither, but\n    Nature's, who perceiveth our natural wits too dull to reason of\n    such goddesses, and hath sent this natural for our whetstone; for\n    always the dullness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits. How\n    now, wit! Whither wander you?\n  TOUCHSTONE. Mistress, you must come away to your father.\n  CELIA. Were you made the messenger?\n  TOUCHSTONE. No, by mine honour; but I was bid to come for you.\n  ROSALIND. Where learned you that oath, fool?\n  TOUCHSTONE. Of a certain knight that swore by his honour they were\n    good pancakes, and swore by his honour the mustard was naught.\n    Now I'll stand to it, the pancakes were naught and the mustard\n    was good, and yet was not the knight forsworn.\n  CELIA. How prove you that, in the great heap of your knowledge?\n  ROSALIND. Ay, marry, now unmuzzle your wisdom.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Stand you both forth now: stroke your chins, and swear\n    by your beards that I am a knave.\n  CELIA. By our beards, if we had them, thou art.\n  TOUCHSTONE. By my knavery, if I had it, then I were. But if you\n    swear by that that not, you are not forsworn; no more was this\n    knight, swearing by his honour, for he never had any; or if he\n    had, he had sworn it away before ever he saw those pancackes or\n    that mustard.\n  CELIA. Prithee, who is't that thou mean'st?\n  TOUCHSTONE. One that old Frederick, your father, loves.\n  CELIA. My father's love is enough to honour him. Enough, speak no\n    more of him; you'll be whipt for taxation one of these days.\n  TOUCHSTONE. The more pity that fools may not speak wisely what wise\n    men do foolishly.\n  CELIA. By my troth, thou sayest true; for since the little wit that\n    fools have was silenced, the little foolery that wise men have\n    makes a great show. Here comes Monsieur Le Beau.\n\n                           Enter LE BEAU\n\n  ROSALIND. With his mouth full of news.\n  CELIA. Which he will put on us as pigeons feed their young.\n  ROSALIND. Then shall we be news-cramm'd.\n  CELIA. All the better; we shall be the more marketable. Bon jour,\n    Monsieur Le Beau. What's the news?\n  LE BEAU. Fair Princess, you have lost much good sport.\n  CELIA. Sport! of what colour?\n  LE BEAU. What colour, madam? How shall I answer you?\n  ROSALIND. As wit and fortune will.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Or as the Destinies decrees.\n  CELIA. Well said; that was laid on with a trowel.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Nay, if I keep not my rank-\n  ROSALIND. Thou losest thy old smell.\n  LE BEAU. You amaze me, ladies. I would have told you of good\n    wrestling, which you have lost the sight of.\n  ROSALIND. Yet tell us the manner of the wrestling.\n  LE BEAU. I will tell you the beginning, and, if it please your\n    ladyships, you may see the end; for the best is yet to do; and\n    here, where you are, they are coming to perform it.\n  CELIA. Well, the beginning, that is dead and buried.\n  LE BEAU. There comes an old man and his three sons-\n  CELIA. I could match this beginning with an old tale.\n  LE BEAU. Three proper young men, of excellent growth and presence.\n  ROSALIND. With bills on their necks: 'Be it known unto all men by\n    these presents'-\n  LE BEAU. The eldest of the three wrestled with Charles, the Duke's\n    wrestler; which Charles in a moment threw him, and broke three of\n    his ribs, that there is little hope of life in him. So he serv'd\n    the second, and so the third. Yonder they lie; the poor old man,\n    their father, making such pitiful dole over them that all the\n    beholders take his part with weeping.\n  ROSALIND. Alas!\n  TOUCHSTONE. But what is the sport, monsieur, that the ladies have\n    lost?\n  LE BEAU. Why, this that I speak of.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Thus men may grow wiser every day. It is the first time\n    that ever I heard breaking of ribs was sport for ladies.\n  CELIA. Or I, I promise thee.\n  ROSALIND. But is there any else longs to see this broken music in\n    his sides? Is there yet another dotes upon rib-breaking? Shall we\n    see this wrestling, cousin?\n  LE BEAU. You must, if you stay here; for here is the place\n    appointed for the wrestling, and they are ready to perform it.\n  CELIA. Yonder, sure, they are coming. Let us now stay and see it.\n\n           Flourish. Enter DUKE FREDERICK, LORDS, ORLANDO,\n                     CHARLES, and ATTENDANTS\n\n  FREDERICK. Come on; since the youth will not be entreated, his own\n    peril on his forwardness.\n  ROSALIND. Is yonder the man?\n  LE BEAU. Even he, madam.\n  CELIA. Alas, he is too young; yet he looks successfully.\n  FREDERICK. How now, daughter and cousin! Are you crept hither to\n    see the wrestling?\n  ROSALIND. Ay, my liege; so please you give us leave.\n  FREDERICK. You will take little delight in it, I can tell you,\n    there is such odds in the man. In pity of the challenger's youth\n    I would fain dissuade him, but he will not be entreated. Speak to\n    him, ladies; see if you can move him.\n  CELIA. Call him hither, good Monsieur Le Beau.\n  FREDERICK. Do so; I'll not be by.\n                                     [DUKE FREDERICK goes apart]\n  LE BEAU. Monsieur the Challenger, the Princess calls for you.\n  ORLANDO. I attend them with all respect and duty.\n  ROSALIND. Young man, have you challeng'd Charles the wrestler?\n  ORLANDO. No, fair Princess; he is the general challenger. I come\n    but in, as others do, to try with him the strength of my youth.\n  CELIA. Young gentleman, your spirits are too bold for your years.\n    You have seen cruel proof of this man's strength; if you saw\n    yourself with your eyes, or knew yourself with your judgment, the\n    fear of your adventure would counsel you to a more equal\n    enterprise. We pray you, for your own sake, to embrace your own\n    safety and give over this attempt.\n  ROSALIND. Do, young sir; your reputation shall not therefore be\n    misprised: we will make it our suit to the Duke that the\n    wrestling might not go forward.\n  ORLANDO. I beseech you, punish me not with your hard thoughts,\n    wherein I confess me much guilty to deny so fair and excellent\n    ladies any thing. But let your fair eyes and gentle wishes go\n    with me to my trial; wherein if I be foil'd there is but one\n    sham'd that was never gracious; if kill'd, but one dead that is\n    willing to be so. I shall do my friends no wrong, for I have none\n    to lament me; the world no injury, for in it I have nothing; only\n    in the world I fill up a place, which may be better supplied when\n    I have made it empty.\n  ROSALIND. The little strength that I have, I would it were with\n    you.\n  CELIA. And mine to eke out hers.\n  ROSALIND. Fare you well. Pray heaven I be deceiv'd in you!\n  CELIA. Your heart's desires be with you!\n  CHARLES. Come, where is this young gallant that is so desirous to\n    lie with his mother earth?\n  ORLANDO. Ready, sir; but his will hath in it a more modest working.\n  FREDERICK. You shall try but one fall.\n  CHARLES. No, I warrant your Grace, you shall not entreat him to a\n    second, that have so mightily persuaded him from a first.\n  ORLANDO. You mean to mock me after; you should not have mock'd me\n    before; but come your ways.\n  ROSALIND. Now, Hercules be thy speed, young man!\n  CELIA. I would I were invisible, to catch the strong fellow by the\n    leg.                                          [They wrestle]\n  ROSALIND. O excellent young man!\n  CELIA. If I had a thunderbolt in mine eye, I can tell who should\n    down.\n                                      [CHARLES is thrown. Shout]\n  FREDERICK. No more, no more.\n  ORLANDO. Yes, I beseech your Grace; I am not yet well breath'd.\n  FREDERICK. How dost thou, Charles?\n  LE BEAU. He cannot speak, my lord.\n  FREDERICK. Bear him away. What is thy name, young man?\n  ORLANDO. Orlando, my liege; the youngest son of Sir Rowland de\n    Boys.\n  FREDERICK. I would thou hadst been son to some man else.\n    The world esteem'd thy father honourable,\n    But I did find him still mine enemy.\n    Thou shouldst have better pleas'd me with this deed,\n    Hadst thou descended from another house.\n    But fare thee well; thou art a gallant youth;\n    I would thou hadst told me of another father.\n                                 Exeunt DUKE, train, and LE BEAU\n  CELIA. Were I my father, coz, would I do this?\n  ORLANDO. I am more proud to be Sir Rowland's son,\n    His youngest son- and would not change that calling\n    To be adopted heir to Frederick.\n  ROSALIND. My father lov'd Sir Rowland as his soul,\n    And all the world was of my father's mind;\n    Had I before known this young man his son,\n    I should have given him tears unto entreaties\n    Ere he should thus have ventur'd.\n  CELIA. Gentle cousin,\n    Let us go thank him, and encourage him;\n    My father's rough and envious disposition\n    Sticks me at heart. Sir, you have well deserv'd;\n    If you do keep your promises in love\n    But justly as you have exceeded all promise,\n    Your mistress shall be happy.\n  ROSALIND. Gentleman,        [Giving him a chain from her neck]\n    Wear this for me; one out of suits with fortune,\n    That could give more, but that her hand lacks means.\n    Shall we go, coz?\n  CELIA. Ay. Fare you well, fair gentleman.\n  ORLANDO. Can I not say 'I thank you'? My better parts\n    Are all thrown down; and that which here stands up\n    Is but a quintain, a mere lifeless block.\n  ROSALIND. He calls us back. My pride fell with my fortunes;\n    I'll ask him what he would. Did you call, sir?\n    Sir, you have wrestled well, and overthrown\n    More than your enemies.\n  CELIA. Will you go, coz?\n  ROSALIND. Have with you. Fare you well.\n                                       Exeunt ROSALIND and CELIA\n  ORLANDO. What passion hangs these weights upon my tongue?\n    I cannot speak to her, yet she urg'd conference.\n    O poor Orlando, thou art overthrown!\n    Or Charles or something weaker masters thee.\n\n                      Re-enter LE BEAU\n\n  LE BEAU. Good sir, I do in friendship counsel you\n    To leave this place. Albeit you have deserv'd\n    High commendation, true applause, and love,\n    Yet such is now the Duke's condition\n    That he misconstrues all that you have done.\n    The Duke is humorous; what he is, indeed,\n    More suits you to conceive than I to speak of.\n  ORLANDO. I thank you, sir; and pray you tell me this:\n    Which of the two was daughter of the Duke\n    That here was at the wrestling?\n  LE BEAU. Neither his daughter, if we judge by manners;\n    But yet, indeed, the smaller is his daughter;\n    The other is daughter to the banish'd Duke,\n    And here detain'd by her usurping uncle,\n    To keep his daughter company; whose loves\n    Are dearer than the natural bond of sisters.\n    But I can tell you that of late this Duke\n    Hath ta'en displeasure 'gainst his gentle niece,\n    Grounded upon no other argument\n    But that the people praise her for her virtues\n    And pity her for her good father's sake;\n    And, on my life, his malice 'gainst the lady\n    Will suddenly break forth. Sir, fare you well.\n    Hereafter, in a better world than this,\n    I shall desire more love and knowledge of you.\n  ORLANDO. I rest much bounden to you; fare you well.\n                                                    Exit LE BEAU\n    Thus must I from the smoke into the smother;\n    From tyrant Duke unto a tyrant brother.\n    But heavenly Rosalind!                                  Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe DUKE's palace\n\nEnter CELIA and ROSALIND\n\n  CELIA. Why, cousin! why, Rosalind! Cupid have mercy!\n    Not a word?\n  ROSALIND. Not one to throw at a dog.\n  CELIA. No, thy words are too precious to be cast away upon curs;\n    throw some of them at me; come, lame me with reasons.\n  ROSALIND. Then there were two cousins laid up, when the one should\n    be lam'd with reasons and the other mad without any.\n  CELIA. But is all this for your father?\n  ROSALIND. No, some of it is for my child's father. O, how full of\n    briers is this working-day world!\n  CELIA. They are but burs, cousin, thrown upon thee in holiday\n    foolery; if we walk not in the trodden paths, our very petticoats\n    will catch them.\n  ROSALIND. I could shake them off my coat: these burs are in my\n    heart.\n  CELIA. Hem them away.\n  ROSALIND. I would try, if I could cry 'hem' and have him.\n  CELIA. Come, come, wrestle with thy affections.\n  ROSALIND. O, they take the part of a better wrestler than myself.\n  CELIA. O, a good wish upon you! You will try in time, in despite of\n    a fall. But, turning these jests out of service, let us talk in\n    good earnest. Is it possible, on such a sudden, you should fall\n    into so strong a liking with old Sir Rowland's youngest son?\n  ROSALIND. The Duke my father lov'd his father dearly.\n  CELIA. Doth it therefore ensue that you should love his son dearly?\n    By this kind of chase I should hate him, for my father hated his\n    father dearly; yet I hate not Orlando.\n  ROSALIND. No, faith, hate him not, for my sake.\n  CELIA. Why should I not? Doth he not deserve well?\n\n                    Enter DUKE FREDERICK, with LORDS\n\n  ROSALIND. Let me love him for that; and do you love him because I\n    do. Look, here comes the Duke.\n  CELIA. With his eyes full of anger.\n  FREDERICK. Mistress, dispatch you with your safest haste,\n    And get you from our court.\n  ROSALIND. Me, uncle?\n  FREDERICK. You, cousin.\n    Within these ten days if that thou beest found\n    So near our public court as twenty miles,\n    Thou diest for it.\n  ROSALIND. I do beseech your Grace,\n    Let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me.\n    If with myself I hold intelligence,\n    Or have acquaintance with mine own desires;\n    If that I do not dream, or be not frantic-\n    As I do trust I am not- then, dear uncle,\n    Never so much as in a thought unborn\n    Did I offend your Highness.\n  FREDERICK. Thus do all traitors;\n    If their purgation did consist in words,\n    They are as innocent as grace itself.\n    Let it suffice thee that I trust thee not.\n  ROSALIND. Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor.\n    Tell me whereon the likelihood depends.\n  FREDERICK. Thou art thy father's daughter; there's enough.\n  ROSALIND. SO was I when your Highness took his dukedom;\n    So was I when your Highness banish'd him.\n    Treason is not inherited, my lord;\n    Or, if we did derive it from our friends,\n    What's that to me? My father was no traitor.\n    Then, good my liege, mistake me not so much\n    To think my poverty is treacherous.\n  CELIA. Dear sovereign, hear me speak.\n  FREDERICK. Ay, Celia; we stay'd her for your sake,\n    Else had she with her father rang'd along.\n  CELIA. I did not then entreat to have her stay;\n    It was your pleasure, and your own remorse;\n    I was too young that time to value her,\n    But now I know her. If she be a traitor,\n    Why so am I: we still have slept together,\n    Rose at an instant, learn'd, play'd, eat together;\n    And wheresoe'er we went, like Juno's swans,\n    Still we went coupled and inseparable.\n  FREDERICK. She is too subtle for thee; and her smoothness,\n    Her very silence and her patience,\n    Speak to the people, and they pity her.\n    Thou art a fool. She robs thee of thy name;\n    And thou wilt show more bright and seem more virtuous\n    When she is gone. Then open not thy lips.\n    Firm and irrevocable is my doom\n    Which I have pass'd upon her; she is banish'd.\n  CELIA. Pronounce that sentence, then, on me, my liege;\n    I cannot live out of her company.\n  FREDERICK. You are a fool. You, niece, provide yourself.\n    If you outstay the time, upon mine honour,\n    And in the greatness of my word, you die.\n                                           Exeunt DUKE and LORDS\n  CELIA. O my poor Rosalind! Whither wilt thou go?\n    Wilt thou change fathers? I will give thee mine.\n    I charge thee be not thou more griev'd than I am.\n  ROSALIND. I have more cause.\n  CELIA. Thou hast not, cousin.\n    Prithee be cheerful. Know'st thou not the Duke\n    Hath banish'd me, his daughter?\n  ROSALIND. That he hath not.\n  CELIA. No, hath not? Rosalind lacks, then, the love\n    Which teacheth thee that thou and I am one.\n    Shall we be sund'red? Shall we part, sweet girl?\n    No; let my father seek another heir.\n    Therefore devise with me how we may fly,\n    Whither to go, and what to bear with us;\n    And do not seek to take your charge upon you,\n    To bear your griefs yourself, and leave me out;\n    For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale,\n    Say what thou canst, I'll go along with thee.\n  ROSALIND. Why, whither shall we go?\n  CELIA. To seek my uncle in the Forest of Arden.\n  ROSALIND. Alas, what danger will it be to us,\n    Maids as we are, to travel forth so far!\n    Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.\n  CELIA. I'll put myself in poor and mean attire,\n    And with a kind of umber smirch my face;\n    The like do you; so shall we pass along,\n    And never stir assailants.\n  ROSALIND. Were it not better,\n    Because that I am more than common tall,\n    That I did suit me all points like a man?\n    A gallant curtle-axe upon my thigh,\n    A boar spear in my hand; and- in my heart\n    Lie there what hidden woman's fear there will-\n    We'll have a swashing and a martial outside,\n    As many other mannish cowards have\n    That do outface it with their semblances.\n  CELIA. What shall I call thee when thou art a man?\n  ROSALIND. I'll have no worse a name than Jove's own page,\n    And therefore look you call me Ganymede.\n    But what will you be call'd?\n  CELIA. Something that hath a reference to my state:\n    No longer Celia, but Aliena.\n  ROSALIND. But, cousin, what if we assay'd to steal\n    The clownish fool out of your father's court?\n    Would he not be a comfort to our travel?\n  CELIA. He'll go along o'er the wide world with me;\n    Leave me alone to woo him. Let's away,\n    And get our jewels and our wealth together;\n    Devise the fittest time and safest way\n    To hide us from pursuit that will be made\n    After my flight. Now go we in content\n    To liberty, and not to banishment.                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nThe Forest of Arden\n\nEnter DUKE SENIOR, AMIENS, and two or three LORDS, like foresters\n\n  DUKE SENIOR. Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,\n    Hath not old custom made this life more sweet\n    Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods\n    More free from peril than the envious court?\n    Here feel we not the penalty of Adam,\n    The seasons' difference; as the icy fang\n    And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,\n    Which when it bites and blows upon my body,\n    Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say\n    'This is no flattery; these are counsellors\n    That feelingly persuade me what I am.'\n    Sweet are the uses of adversity,\n    Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,\n    Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;\n    And this our life, exempt from public haunt,\n    Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,\n    Sermons in stones, and good in everything.\n    I would not change it.\n  AMIENS. Happy is your Grace,\n    That can translate the stubbornness of fortune\n    Into so quiet and so sweet a style.\n  DUKE SENIOR. Come, shall we go and kill us venison?\n    And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools,\n    Being native burghers of this desert city,\n    Should, in their own confines, with forked heads\n    Have their round haunches gor'd.\n  FIRST LORD. Indeed, my lord,\n    The melancholy Jaques grieves at that;\n    And, in that kind, swears you do more usurp\n    Than doth your brother that hath banish'd you.\n    To-day my Lord of Amiens and myself\n    Did steal behind him as he lay along\n    Under an oak whose antique root peeps out\n    Upon the brook that brawls along this wood!\n    To the which place a poor sequest'red stag,\n    That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt,\n    Did come to languish; and, indeed, my lord,\n    The wretched animal heav'd forth such groans\n    That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat\n    Almost to bursting; and the big round tears\n    Cours'd one another down his innocent nose\n    In piteous chase; and thus the hairy fool,\n    Much marked of the melancholy Jaques,\n    Stood on th' extremest verge of the swift brook,\n    Augmenting it with tears.\n  DUKE SENIOR. But what said Jaques?\n    Did he not moralize this spectacle?\n  FIRST LORD. O, yes, into a thousand similes.\n    First, for his weeping into the needless stream:\n    'Poor deer,' quoth he 'thou mak'st a testament\n    As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more\n    To that which had too much.' Then, being there alone,\n    Left and abandoned of his velvet friends:\n    ''Tis right'; quoth he 'thus misery doth part\n    The flux of company.' Anon, a careless herd,\n    Full of the pasture, jumps along by him\n    And never stays to greet him. 'Ay,' quoth Jaques\n    'Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens;\n    'Tis just the fashion. Wherefore do you look\n    Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?'\n    Thus most invectively he pierceth through\n    The body of the country, city, court,\n    Yea, and of this our life; swearing that we\n    Are mere usurpers, tyrants, and what's worse,\n    To fright the animals, and to kill them up\n    In their assign'd and native dwelling-place.\n  DUKE SENIOR. And did you leave him in this contemplation?\n  SECOND LORD. We did, my lord, weeping and commenting\n    Upon the sobbing deer.\n  DUKE SENIOR. Show me the place;\n    I love to cope him in these sullen fits,\n    For then he's full of matter.\n  FIRST LORD. I'll bring you to him straight.             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter DUKE FREDERICK, with LORDS\n\n  FREDERICK. Can it be possible that no man saw them?\n    It cannot be; some villains of my court\n    Are of consent and sufferance in this.\n  FIRST LORD. I cannot hear of any that did see her.\n    The ladies, her attendants of her chamber,\n    Saw her abed, and in the morning early\n    They found the bed untreasur'd of their mistress.\n  SECOND LORD. My lord, the roynish clown, at whom so oft\n    Your Grace was wont to laugh, is also missing.\n    Hisperia, the Princess' gentlewoman,\n    Confesses that she secretly o'erheard\n    Your daughter and her cousin much commend\n    The parts and graces of the wrestler\n    That did but lately foil the sinewy Charles;\n    And she believes, wherever they are gone,\n    That youth is surely in their company.\n  FREDERICK. Send to his brother; fetch that gallant hither.\n    If he be absent, bring his brother to me;\n    I'll make him find him. Do this suddenly;\n    And let not search and inquisition quail\n    To bring again these foolish runaways.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nBefore OLIVER'S house\n\nEnter ORLANDO and ADAM, meeting\n\n  ORLANDO. Who's there?\n  ADAM. What, my young master? O my gentle master!\n    O my sweet master! O you memory\n    Of old Sir Rowland! Why, what make you here?\n    Why are you virtuous? Why do people love you?\n    And wherefore are you gentle, strong, and valiant?\n    Why would you be so fond to overcome\n    The bonny prizer of the humorous Duke?\n    Your praise is come too swiftly home before you.\n    Know you not, master, to some kind of men\n    Their graces serve them but as enemies?\n    No more do yours. Your virtues, gentle master,\n    Are sanctified and holy traitors to you.\n    O, what a world is this, when what is comely\n    Envenoms him that bears it!\n  ORLANDO. Why, what's the matter?\n  ADAM. O unhappy youth!\n    Come not within these doors; within this roof\n    The enemy of all your graces lives.\n    Your brother- no, no brother; yet the son-\n    Yet not the son; I will not call him son\n    Of him I was about to call his father-\n    Hath heard your praises; and this night he means\n    To burn the lodging where you use to lie,\n    And you within it. If he fail of that,\n    He will have other means to cut you off;\n    I overheard him and his practices.\n    This is no place; this house is but a butchery;\n    Abhor it, fear it, do not enter it.\n  ORLANDO. Why, whither, Adam, wouldst thou have me go?\n  ADAM. No matter whither, so you come not here.\n  ORLANDO. What, wouldst thou have me go and beg my food,\n    Or with a base and boist'rous sword enforce\n    A thievish living on the common road?\n    This I must do, or know not what to do;\n    Yet this I will not do, do how I can.\n    I rather will subject me to the malice\n    Of a diverted blood and bloody brother.\n  ADAM. But do not so. I have five hundred crowns,\n    The thrifty hire I sav'd under your father,\n    Which I did store to be my foster-nurse,\n    When service should in my old limbs lie lame,\n    And unregarded age in corners thrown.\n    Take that, and He that doth the ravens feed,\n    Yea, providently caters for the sparrow,\n    Be comfort to my age! Here is the gold;\n    All this I give you. Let me be your servant;\n    Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty;\n    For in my youth I never did apply\n    Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood,\n    Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo\n    The means of weakness and debility;\n    Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,\n    Frosty, but kindly. Let me go with you;\n    I'll do the service of a younger man\n    In all your business and necessities.\n  ORLANDO. O good old man, how well in thee appears\n    The constant service of the antique world,\n    When service sweat for duty, not for meed!\n    Thou art not for the fashion of these times,\n    Where none will sweat but for promotion,\n    And having that do choke their service up\n    Even with the having; it is not so with thee.\n    But, poor old man, thou prun'st a rotten tree\n    That cannot so much as a blossom yield\n    In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry.\n    But come thy ways, we'll go along together,\n    And ere we have thy youthful wages spent\n    We'll light upon some settled low content.\n  ADAM. Master, go on; and I will follow the\n    To the last gasp, with truth and loyalty.\n    From seventeen years till now almost four-score\n    Here lived I, but now live here no more.\n    At seventeen years many their fortunes seek,\n    But at fourscore it is too late a week;\n    Yet fortune cannot recompense me better\n    Than to die well and not my master's debtor.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nThe Forest of Arden\n\nEnter ROSALIND for GANYMEDE, CELIA for ALIENA, and CLOWN alias TOUCHSTONE\n\n  ROSALIND. O Jupiter, how weary are my spirits!\n  TOUCHSTONE. I Care not for my spirits, if my legs were not weary.\n  ROSALIND. I could find in my heart to disgrace my man's apparel,\n    and to cry like a woman; but I must comfort the weaker vessel, as\n    doublet and hose ought to show itself courageous to petticoat;\n    therefore, courage, good Aliena.\n  CELIA. I pray you bear with me; I cannot go no further.\n  TOUCHSTONE. For my part, I had rather bear with you than bear you;\n    yet I should bear no cross if I did bear you; for I think you\n    have no money in your purse.\n  ROSALIND. Well,. this is the Forest of Arden.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Ay, now am I in Arden; the more fool I; when I was at\n    home I was in a better place; but travellers must be content.\n\n                        Enter CORIN and SILVIUS\n\n  ROSALIND. Ay, be so, good Touchstone. Look you, who comes here, a\n    young man and an old in solemn talk.\n  CORIN. That is the way to make her scorn you still.\n  SILVIUS. O Corin, that thou knew'st how I do love her!\n  CORIN. I partly guess; for I have lov'd ere now.\n  SILVIUS. No, Corin, being old, thou canst not guess,\n    Though in thy youth thou wast as true a lover\n    As ever sigh'd upon a midnight pillow.\n    But if thy love were ever like to mine,\n    As sure I think did never man love so,\n    How many actions most ridiculous\n    Hast thou been drawn to by thy fantasy?\n  CORIN. Into a thousand that I have forgotten.\n  SILVIUS. O, thou didst then never love so heartily!\n    If thou rememb'rest not the slightest folly\n    That ever love did make thee run into,\n    Thou hast not lov'd;\n    Or if thou hast not sat as I do now,\n    Wearing thy hearer in thy mistress' praise,\n    Thou hast not lov'd;\n    Or if thou hast not broke from company\n    Abruptly, as my passion now makes me,\n    Thou hast not lov'd.\n    O Phebe, Phebe, Phebe!                          Exit Silvius\n  ROSALIND. Alas, poor shepherd! searching of thy wound,\n    I have by hard adventure found mine own.\n  TOUCHSTONE. And I mine. I remember, when I was in love, I broke my\n    sword upon a stone, and bid him take that for coming a-night to\n    Jane Smile; and I remember the kissing of her batler, and the\n    cow's dugs that her pretty chopt hands had milk'd; and I remember\n    the wooing of  peascod instead of her; from whom I took two cods,\n    and giving her them again, said with weeping tears 'Wear these\n    for my sake.' We that are true lovers run into strange capers;\n    but as all is mortal in nature, so is all nature in love mortal\n    in folly.\n  ROSALIND. Thou speak'st wiser than thou art ware of.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Nay, I shall ne'er be ware of mine own wit till I break\n    my shins against it.\n  ROSALIND. Jove, Jove! this shepherd's passion\n    Is much upon my fashion.\n  TOUCHSTONE. And mine; but it grows something stale with me.\n  CELIA. I pray you, one of you question yond man\n    If he for gold will give us any food;\n    I faint almost to death.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Holla, you clown!\n  ROSALIND. Peace, fool; he's not thy Ensman.\n  CORIN. Who calls?\n  TOUCHSTONE. Your betters, sir.\n  CORIN. Else are they very wretched.\n  ROSALIND. Peace, I say. Good even to you, friend.\n  CORIN. And to you, gentle sir, and to you all.\n  ROSALIND. I prithee, shepherd, if that love or gold\n    Can in this desert place buy entertainment,\n    Bring us where we may rest ourselves and feed.\n    Here's a young maid with travel much oppress'd,\n    And faints for succour.\n  CORIN. Fair sir, I pity her,\n    And wish, for her sake more than for mine own,\n    My fortunes were more able to relieve her;\n    But I am shepherd to another man,\n    And do not shear the fleeces that I graze.\n    My master is of churlish disposition,\n    And little recks to find the way to heaven\n    By doing deeds of hospitality.\n    Besides, his cote, his flocks, and bounds of feed,\n    Are now on sale; and at our sheepcote now,\n    By reason of his absence, there is nothing\n    That you will feed on; but what is, come see,\n    And in my voice most welcome shall you be.\n  ROSALIND. What is he that shall buy his flock and pasture?\n  CORIN. That young swain that you saw here but erewhile,\n    That little cares for buying any thing.\n  ROSALIND. I pray thee, if it stand with honesty,\n    Buy thou the cottage, pasture, and the flock,\n    And thou shalt have to pay for it of us.\n  CELIA. And we will mend thy wages. I like this place,\n    And willingly could waste my time in it.\n  CORIN. Assuredly the thing is to be sold.\n    Go with me; if you like upon report\n    The soil, the profit, and this kind of life,\n    I will your very faithful feeder be,\n    And buy it with your gold right suddenly.             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nAnother part of the forest\n\nEnter AMIENS, JAQUES, and OTHERS\n\n                       SONG\n  AMIENS.    Under the greenwood tree\n               Who loves to lie with me,\n               And turn his merry note\n               Unto the sweet bird's throat,\n             Come hither, come hither, come hither.\n               Here shall he see\n               No enemy\n             But winter and rough weather.\n\n  JAQUES. More, more, I prithee, more.\n  AMIENS. It will make you melancholy, Monsieur Jaques.\n  JAQUES. I thank it. More, I prithee, more. I can suck melancholy\n    out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs. More, I prithee, more.\n  AMIENS. My voice is ragged; I know I cannot please you.\n  JAQUES. I do not desire you to please me; I do desire you to sing.\n    Come, more; another stanzo. Call you 'em stanzos?\n  AMIENS. What you will, Monsieur Jaques.\n  JAQUES. Nay, I care not for their names; they owe me nothing. Will\n    you sing?\n  AMIENS. More at your request than to please myself.\n  JAQUES. Well then, if ever I thank any man, I'll thank you; but\n    that they call compliment is like th' encounter of two dog-apes;\n    and when a man thanks me heartily, methinks have given him a\n    penny, and he renders me the beggarly thanks. Come, sing; and you\n    that will not, hold your tongues.\n  AMIENS. Well, I'll end the song. Sirs, cover the while; the Duke\n    will drink under this tree. He hath been all this day to look\n    you.\n  JAQUES. And I have been all this day to avoid him. He is to\n    disputable for my company. I think of as many matters as he; but\n    I give heaven thanks, and make no boast of them. Come, warble,\n    come.\n\n                       SONG\n              [All together here]\n\n           Who doth ambition shun,\n           And loves to live i' th' sun,\n           Seeking the food he eats,\n           And pleas'd with what he gets,\n         Come hither, come hither, come hither.\n           Here shall he see\n           No enemy\n           But winter and rough weather.\n\n  JAQUES. I'll give you a verse to this note that I made yesterday in\n    despite of my invention.\n  AMIENS. And I'll sing it.\n  JAQUES. Thus it goes:\n\n             If it do come to pass\n             That any man turn ass,\n             Leaving his wealth and ease\n             A stubborn will to please,\n           Ducdame, ducdame, ducdame;\n             Here shall he see\n             Gross fools as he,\n             An if he will come to me.\n\n  AMIENS. What's that 'ducdame'?\n  JAQUES. 'Tis a Greek invocation, to call fools into a circle. I'll\n    go sleep, if I can; if I cannot, I'll rail against all the\n    first-born of Egypt.\n  AMIENS. And I'll go seek the Duke; his banquet is prepar'd.\n                                                Exeunt severally\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nThe forest\n\nEnter ORLANDO and ADAM\n\n  ADAM. Dear master, I can go no further. O, I die for food! Here lie\n    I down, and measure out my grave. Farewell, kind master.\n  ORLANDO. Why, how now, Adam! No greater heart in thee? Live a\n    little; comfort a little; cheer thyself a little. If this uncouth\n    forest yield anything savage, I will either be food for it or\n    bring it for food to thee. Thy conceit is nearer death than thy\n    powers. For my sake be comfortable; hold death awhile at the\n    arm's end. I will here be with the presently; and if I bring thee\n    not something to eat, I will give thee leave to die; but if thou\n    diest before I come, thou art a mocker of my labour. Well said!\n    thou look'st cheerly; and I'll be with thee quickly. Yet thou\n    liest in the bleak air. Come, I will bear thee to some shelter;\n    and thou shalt not die for lack of a dinner, if there live\n    anything in this desert. Cheerly, good Adam!          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nThe forest\n\nA table set out. Enter DUKE SENIOR, AMIENS, and LORDS, like outlaws\n\n  DUKE SENIOR. I think he be transform'd into a beast;\n    For I can nowhere find him like a man.\n  FIRST LORD. My lord, he is but even now gone hence;\n    Here was he merry, hearing of a song.\n  DUKE SENIOR. If he, compact of jars, grow musical,\n    We shall have shortly discord in the spheres.\n    Go seek him; tell him I would speak with him.\n\n                         Enter JAQUES\n\n  FIRST LORD. He saves my labour by his own approach.\n  DUKE SENIOR. Why, how now, monsieur! what a life is this,\n    That your poor friends must woo your company?\n    What, you look merrily!\n  JAQUES. A fool, a fool! I met a fool i' th' forest,\n    A motley fool. A miserable world!\n    As I do live by food, I met a fool,\n    Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun,\n    And rail'd on Lady Fortune in good terms,\n    In good set terms- and yet a motley fool.\n    'Good morrow, fool,' quoth I; 'No, sir,' quoth he,\n    'Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune.'\n    And then he drew a dial from his poke,\n    And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye,\n    Says very wisely, 'It is ten o'clock;\n    Thus we may see,' quoth he, 'how the world wags;\n    'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine;\n    And after one hour more 'twill be eleven;\n    And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,\n    And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot;\n    And thereby hangs a tale.' When I did hear\n    The motley fool thus moral on the time,\n    My lungs began to crow like chanticleer\n    That fools should be so deep contemplative;\n    And I did laugh sans intermission\n    An hour by his dial. O noble fool!\n    A worthy fool! Motley's the only wear.\n  DUKE SENIOR. What fool is this?\n  JAQUES. O worthy fool! One that hath been a courtier,\n    And says, if ladies be but young and fair,\n    They have the gift to know it; and in his brain,\n    Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit\n    After a voyage, he hath strange places cramm'd\n    With observation, the which he vents\n    In mangled forms. O that I were a fool!\n    I am ambitious for a motley coat.\n  DUKE SENIOR. Thou shalt have one.\n  JAQUES. It is my only suit,\n    Provided that you weed your better judgments\n    Of all opinion that grows rank in them\n    That I am wise. I must have liberty\n    Withal, as large a charter as the wind,\n    To blow on whom I please, for so fools have;\n    And they that are most galled with my folly,\n    They most must laugh. And why, sir, must they so?\n    The why is plain as way to parish church:\n    He that a fool doth very wisely hit\n    Doth very foolishly, although he smart,\n    Not to seem senseless of the bob; if not,\n    The wise man's folly is anatomiz'd\n    Even by the squand'ring glances of the fool.\n    Invest me in my motley; give me leave\n    To speak my mind, and I will through and through\n    Cleanse the foul body of th' infected world,\n    If they will patiently receive my medicine.\n  DUKE SENIOR. Fie on thee! I can tell what thou wouldst do.\n  JAQUES. What, for a counter, would I do but good?\n  DUKE SENIOR. Most Mischievous foul sin, in chiding sin;\n    For thou thyself hast been a libertine,\n    As sensual as the brutish sting itself;\n    And all th' embossed sores and headed evils\n    That thou with license of free foot hast caught\n    Wouldst thou disgorge into the general world.\n  JAQUES. Why, who cries out on pride\n    That can therein tax any private party?\n    Doth it not flow as hugely as the sea,\n    Till that the wearer's very means do ebb?\n    What woman in the city do I name\n    When that I say the city-woman bears\n    The cost of princes on unworthy shoulders?\n    Who can come in and say that I mean her,\n    When such a one as she such is her neighbour?\n    Or what is he of basest function\n    That says his bravery is not on my cost,\n    Thinking that I mean him, but therein suits\n    His folly to the mettle of my speech?\n    There then! how then? what then? Let me see wherein\n    My tongue hath wrong'd him: if it do him right,\n    Then he hath wrong'd himself; if he be free,\n    Why then my taxing like a wild-goose flies,\n    Unclaim'd of any man. But who comes here?\n\n             Enter ORLANDO with his sword drawn\n\n  ORLANDO. Forbear, and eat no more.\n  JAQUES. Why, I have eat none yet.\n  ORLANDO. Nor shalt not, till necessity be serv'd.\n  JAQUES. Of what kind should this cock come of?\n  DUKE SENIOR. Art thou thus bolden'd, man, by thy distress?\n    Or else a rude despiser of good manners,\n    That in civility thou seem'st so empty?\n  ORLANDO. You touch'd my vein at first: the thorny point\n    Of bare distress hath ta'en from me the show\n    Of smooth civility; yet arn I inland bred,\n    And know some nurture. But forbear, I say;\n    He dies that touches any of this fruit\n    Till I and my affairs are answered.\n  JAQUES. An you will not be answer'd with reason, I must die.\n  DUKE SENIOR. What would you have? Your gentleness shall force\n    More than your force move us to gentleness.\n  ORLANDO. I almost die for food, and let me have it.\n  DUKE SENIOR. Sit down and feed, and welcome to our table.\n  ORLANDO. Speak you so gently? Pardon me, I pray you;\n    I thought that all things had been savage here,\n    And therefore put I on the countenance\n    Of stern commandment. But whate'er you are\n    That in this desert inaccessible,\n    Under the shade of melancholy boughs,\n    Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time;\n    If ever you have look'd on better days,\n    If ever been where bells have knoll'd to church,\n    If ever sat at any good man's feast,\n    If ever from your eyelids wip'd a tear,\n    And know what 'tis to pity and be pitied,\n    Let gentleness my strong enforcement be;\n    In the which hope I blush, and hide my sword.\n  DUKE SENIOR. True is it that we have seen better days,\n    And have with holy bell been knoll'd to church,\n    And sat at good men's feasts, and wip'd our eyes\n    Of drops that sacred pity hath engend'red;\n    And therefore sit you down in gentleness,\n    And take upon command what help we have\n    That to your wanting may be minist'red.\n  ORLANDO. Then but forbear your food a little while,\n    Whiles, like a doe, I go to find my fawn,\n    And give it food. There is an old poor man\n    Who after me hath many a weary step\n    Limp'd in pure love; till he be first suffic'd,\n    Oppress'd with two weak evils, age and hunger,\n    I will not touch a bit.\n  DUKE SENIOR. Go find him out.\n    And we will nothing waste till you return.\n  ORLANDO. I thank ye; and be blest for your good comfort!\n Exit\n  DUKE SENIOR. Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy:\n    This wide and universal theatre\n    Presents more woeful pageants than the scene\n    Wherein we play in.\n  JAQUES. All the world's a stage,\n    And all the men and women merely players;\n    They have their exits and their entrances;\n    And one man in his time plays many parts,\n    His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,\n    Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms;\n    Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel\n    And shining morning face, creeping like snail\n    Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,\n    Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad\n    Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,\n    Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,\n    Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,\n    Seeking the bubble reputation\n    Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,\n    In fair round belly with good capon lin'd,\n    With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,\n    Full of wise saws and modern instances;\n    And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts\n    Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,\n    With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,\n    His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide\n    For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,\n    Turning again toward childish treble, pipes\n    And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,\n    That ends this strange eventful history,\n    Is second childishness and mere oblivion;\n    Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.\n\n                  Re-enter ORLANDO with ADAM\n\n  DUKE SENIOR. Welcome. Set down your venerable burden.\n    And let him feed.\n  ORLANDO. I thank you most for him.\n  ADAM. So had you need;\n    I scarce can speak to thank you for myself.\n  DUKE SENIOR. Welcome; fall to. I will not trouble you\n    As yet to question you about your fortunes.\n    Give us some music; and, good cousin, sing.\n\n                         SONG\n            Blow, blow, thou winter wind,\n            Thou art not so unkind\n              As man's ingratitude;\n            Thy tooth is not so keen,\n            Because thou art not seen,\n              Although thy breath be rude.\n    Heigh-ho! sing heigh-ho! unto the green holly.\n    Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.\n            Then, heigh-ho, the holly!\n              This life is most jolly.\n\n            Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,\n            That dost not bite so nigh\n              As benefits forgot;\n            Though thou the waters warp,\n            Thy sting is not so sharp\n              As friend rememb'red not.\n    Heigh-ho! sing, &c.\n\n  DUKE SENIOR. If that you were the good Sir Rowland's son,\n    As you have whisper'd faithfully you were,\n    And as mine eye doth his effigies witness\n    Most truly limn'd and living in your face,\n    Be truly welcome hither. I am the Duke\n    That lov'd your father. The residue of your fortune,\n    Go to my cave and tell me. Good old man,\n    Thou art right welcome as thy master is.\n    Support him by the arm. Give me your hand,\n    And let me all your fortunes understand.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nThe palace\n\nEnter DUKE FREDERICK, OLIVER, and LORDS\n\n  FREDERICK. Not see him since! Sir, sir, that cannot be.\n    But were I not the better part made mercy,\n    I should not seek an absent argument\n    Of my revenge, thou present. But look to it:\n    Find out thy brother wheresoe'er he is;\n    Seek him with candle; bring him dead or living\n    Within this twelvemonth, or turn thou no more\n    To seek a living in our territory.\n    Thy lands and all things that thou dost call thine\n    Worth seizure do we seize into our hands,\n    Till thou canst quit thee by thy brother's mouth\n    Of what we think against thee.\n  OLIVER. O that your Highness knew my heart in this!\n    I never lov'd my brother in my life.\n  FREDERICK. More villain thou. Well, push him out of doors;\n    And let my officers of such a nature\n    Make an extent upon his house and lands.\n    Do this expediently, and turn him going.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe forest\n\nEnter ORLANDO, with a paper\n\n  ORLANDO. Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love;\n    And thou, thrice-crowned Queen of Night, survey\n    With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere above,\n    Thy huntress' name that my full life doth sway.\n    O Rosalind! these trees shall be my books,\n    And in their barks my thoughts I'll character,\n    That every eye which in this forest looks\n    Shall see thy virtue witness'd every where.\n    Run, run, Orlando; carve on every tree,\n    The fair, the chaste, and unexpressive she.             Exit\n\n                     Enter CORIN and TOUCHSTONE\n\n  CORIN. And how like you this shepherd's life, Master Touchstone?\n  TOUCHSTONE. Truly, shepherd, in respect of itself, it is a good\n    life; but in respect that it is a shepherd's life, it is nought.\n    In respect that it is solitary, I like it very well; but in\n    respect that it is private, it is a very vile life. Now in\n    respect it is in the fields, it pleaseth me well; but in respect\n    it is not in the court, it is tedious. As it is a spare life,\n    look you, it fits my humour well; but as there is no more plenty\n    in it, it goes much against my stomach. Hast any philosophy in\n    thee, shepherd?\n  CORIN. No more but that I know the more one sickens the worse at\n    ease he is; and that he that wants money, means, and content, is\n    without three good friends; that the property of rain is to wet,\n    and fire to burn; that good pasture makes fat sheep; and that a\n    great cause of the night is lack of the sun; that he that hath\n    learned no wit by nature nor art may complain of good breeding,\n    or comes of a very dull kindred.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Such a one is a natural philosopher. Wast ever in\n    court, shepherd?\n  CORIN. No, truly.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Then thou art damn'd.\n  CORIN. Nay, I hope.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Truly, thou art damn'd, like an ill-roasted egg, all on\n    one side.\n  CORIN. For not being at court? Your reason.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Why, if thou never wast at court thou never saw'st good\n    manners; if thou never saw'st good manners, then thy manners must\n    be wicked; and wickedness is sin, and sin is damnation. Thou art\n    in a parlous state, shepherd.\n  CORIN. Not a whit, Touchstone. Those that are good manners at the\n    court are as ridiculous in the country as the behaviour of the\n    country is most mockable at the court. You told me you salute not\n    at the court, but you kiss your hands; that courtesy would be\n    uncleanly if courtiers were shepherds.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Instance, briefly; come, instance.\n  CORIN. Why, we are still handling our ewes; and their fells, you\n    know, are greasy.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Why, do not your courtier's hands sweat? And is not the\n    grease of a mutton as wholesome as the sweat of a man? Shallow,\n    shallow. A better instance, I say; come.\n  CORIN. Besides, our hands are hard.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Your lips will feel them the sooner. Shallow again. A\n    more sounder instance; come.\n  CORIN. And they are often tarr'd over with the surgery of our\n    sheep; and would you have us kiss tar? The courtier's hands are\n    perfum'd with civet.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Most shallow man! thou worm's meat in respect of a good\n    piece of flesh indeed! Learn of the wise, and perpend: civet is\n    of a baser birth than tar- the very uncleanly flux of a cat. Mend\n    the instance, shepherd.\n  CORIN. You have too courtly a wit for me; I'll rest.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Wilt thou rest damn'd? God help thee, shallow man! God\n    make incision in thee! thou art raw.\n  CORIN. Sir, I am a true labourer: I earn that I eat, get that I\n    wear; owe no man hate, envy no man's happiness; glad of other\n    men's good, content with my harm; and the greatest of my pride is\n    to see my ewes graze and my lambs suck.\n  TOUCHSTONE. That is another simple sin in you: to bring the ewes\n    and the rams together, and to offer to get your living by the\n    copulation of cattle; to be bawd to a bell-wether, and to betray\n    a she-lamb of a twelvemonth to crooked-pated, old, cuckoldly ram,\n    out of all reasonable match. If thou beest not damn'd for this,\n    the devil himself will have no shepherds; I cannot see else how\n    thou shouldst scape.\n  CORIN. Here comes young Master Ganymede, my new mistress's brother.\n\n                  Enter ROSALIND, reading a paper\n\n  ROSALIND.   'From the east to western Inde,\n              No jewel is like Rosalinde.\n              Her worth, being mounted on the wind,\n              Through all the world bears Rosalinde.\n              All the pictures fairest lin'd\n              Are but black to Rosalinde.\n              Let no face be kept in mind\n              But the fair of Rosalinde.'\n  TOUCHSTONE. I'll rhyme you so eight years together, dinners, and\n    suppers, and sleeping hours, excepted. It is the right\n    butter-women's rank to market.\n  ROSALIND. Out, fool!\n  TOUCHSTONE.   For a taste:\n                If a hart do lack a hind,\n                Let him seek out Rosalinde.\n                If the cat will after kind,\n                So be sure will Rosalinde.\n                Winter garments must be lin'd,\n                So must slender Rosalinde.\n                They that reap must sheaf and bind,\n                Then to cart with Rosalinde.\n                Sweetest nut hath sourest rind,\n                Such a nut is Rosalinde.\n                He that sweetest rose will find\n                Must find love's prick and Rosalinde.\n    This is the very false gallop of verses; why do you infect\n    yourself with them?\n  ROSALIND. Peace, you dull fool! I found them on a tree.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Truly, the tree yields bad fruit.\n  ROSALIND. I'll graff it with you, and then I shall graff it with a\n    medlar. Then it will be the earliest fruit i' th' country; for\n    you'll be rotten ere you be half ripe, and that's the right\n    virtue of the medlar.\n  TOUCHSTONE. You have said; but whether wisely or no, let the forest\n    judge.\n\n                      Enter CELIA, with a writing\n\n  ROSALIND. Peace!\n    Here comes my sister, reading; stand aside.\n  CELIA.   'Why should this a desert be?\n             For it is unpeopled? No;\n           Tongues I'll hang on every tree\n             That shall civil sayings show.\n           Some, how brief the life of man\n             Runs his erring pilgrimage,\n           That the streching of a span\n             Buckles in his sum of age;\n           Some, of violated vows\n             'Twixt the souls of friend and friend;\n           But upon the fairest boughs,\n             Or at every sentence end,\n           Will I Rosalinda write,\n             Teaching all that read to know\n           The quintessence of every sprite\n             Heaven would in little show.\n           Therefore heaven Nature charg'd\n             That one body should be fill'd\n           With all graces wide-enlarg'd.\n             Nature presently distill'd\n           Helen's cheek, but not her heart,\n             Cleopatra's majesty,\n           Atalanta's better part,\n             Sad Lucretia's modesty.\n           Thus Rosalinde of many parts\n             By heavenly synod was devis'd,\n           Of many faces, eyes, and hearts,\n             To have the touches dearest priz'd.\n           Heaven would that she these gifts should have,\n           And I to live and die her slave.'\n  ROSALIND. O most gentle pulpiter! What tedious homily of love have\n    you wearied your parishioners withal, and never cried 'Have\n    patience, good people.'\n  CELIA. How now! Back, friends; shepherd, go off a little; go with\n    him, sirrah.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Come, shepherd, let us make an honourable retreat;\n    though not with bag and baggage, yet with scrip and scrippage.\n                                     Exeunt CORIN and TOUCHSTONE\n  CELIA. Didst thou hear these verses?\n  ROSALIND. O, yes, I heard them all, and more too; for some of them\n    had in them more feet than the verses would bear.\n  CELIA. That's no matter; the feet might bear the verses.\n  ROSALIND. Ay, but the feet were lame, and could not bear themselves\n    without the verse, and therefore stood lamely in the verse.\n  CELIA. But didst thou hear without wondering how thy name should be\n    hang'd and carved upon these trees?\n  ROSALIND. I was seven of the nine days out of the wonder before you\n    came; for look here what I found on a palm-tree. I was never so\n    berhym'd since Pythagoras' time that I was an Irish rat, which I\n    can hardly remember.\n  CELIA. Trow you who hath done this?\n  ROSALIND. Is it a man?\n  CELIA. And a chain, that you once wore, about his neck.\n    Change you colour?\n  ROSALIND. I prithee, who?\n  CELIA. O Lord, Lord! it is a hard matter for friends to meet; but\n    mountains may be remov'd with earthquakes, and so encounter.\n  ROSALIND. Nay, but who is it?\n  CELIA. Is it possible?\n  ROSALIND. Nay, I prithee now, with most petitionary vehemence, tell\n    me who it is.\n  CELIA. O wonderful, wonderful, most wonderful wonderful, and yet\n    again wonderful, and after that, out of all whooping!\n  ROSALIND. Good my complexion! dost thou think, though I am\n    caparison'd like a man, I have a doublet and hose in my\n    disposition? One inch of delay more is a South Sea of discovery.\n    I prithee tell me who is it quickly, and speak apace. I would\n    thou could'st stammer, that thou mightst pour this conceal'd man\n    out of thy mouth, as wine comes out of narrow-mouth'd bottle-\n    either too much at once or none at all. I prithee take the cork\n    out of thy mouth that I may drink thy tidings.\n  CELIA. So you may put a man in your belly.\n  ROSALIND. Is he of God's making? What manner of man?\n    Is his head worth a hat or his chin worth a beard?\n  CELIA. Nay, he hath but a little beard.\n  ROSALIND. Why, God will send more if the man will be thankful. Let\n    me stay the growth of his beard, if thou delay me not the\n    knowledge of his chin.\n  CELIA. It is young Orlando, that tripp'd up the wrestler's heels\n    and your heart both in an instant.\n  ROSALIND. Nay, but the devil take mocking! Speak sad brow and true\n    maid.\n  CELIA. I' faith, coz, 'tis he.\n  ROSALIND. Orlando?\n  CELIA. Orlando.\n  ROSALIND. Alas the day! what shall I do with my doublet and hose?\n    What did he when thou saw'st him? What said he? How look'd he?\n    Wherein went he? What makes he here? Did he ask for me? Where\n    remains he? How parted he with thee? And when shalt thou see him\n    again? Answer me in one word.\n  CELIA. You must borrow me Gargantua's mouth first; 'tis a word too\n    great for any mouth of this age's size. To say ay and no to these\n    particulars is more than to answer in a catechism.\n  ROSALIND. But doth he know that I am in this forest, and in man's\n    apparel? Looks he as freshly as he did the day he wrestled?\n  CELIA. It is as easy to count atomies as to resolve the\n    propositions of a lover; but take a taste of my finding him, and\n    relish it with good observance. I found him under a tree, like a\n    dropp'd acorn.\n  ROSALIND. It may well be call'd Jove's tree, when it drops forth\n    such fruit.\n  CELIA. Give me audience, good madam.\n  ROSALIND. Proceed.\n  CELIA. There lay he, stretch'd along like a wounded knight.\n  ROSALIND. Though it be pity to see such a sight, it well becomes\n    the ground.\n  CELIA. Cry 'Holla' to thy tongue, I prithee; it curvets\n    unseasonably. He was furnish'd like a hunter.\n  ROSALIND. O, ominous! he comes to kill my heart.\n  CELIA. I would sing my song without a burden; thou bring'st me out\n    of tune.\n  ROSALIND. Do you not know I am a woman? When I think, I must speak.\n    Sweet, say on.\n  CELIA. You bring me out. Soft! comes he not here?\n\n                   Enter ORLANDO and JAQUES\n\n  ROSALIND. 'Tis he; slink by, and note him.\n  JAQUES. I thank you for your company; but, good faith, I had as\n    lief have been myself alone.\n  ORLANDO. And so had I; but yet, for fashion sake, I thank you too\n    for your society.\n  JAQUES. God buy you; let's meet as little as we can.\n  ORLANDO. I do desire we may be better strangers.\n  JAQUES. I pray you mar no more trees with writing love songs in\n    their barks.\n  ORLANDO. I pray you mar no more of my verses with reading them\n    ill-favouredly.\n  JAQUES. Rosalind is your love's name?\n  ORLANDO. Yes, just.\n  JAQUES. I do not like her name.\n  ORLANDO. There was no thought of pleasing you when she was\n    christen'd.\n  JAQUES. What stature is she of?\n  ORLANDO. Just as high as my heart.\n  JAQUES. You are full of pretty answers. Have you not been\n    acquainted with goldsmiths' wives, and conn'd them out of rings?\n  ORLANDO. Not so; but I answer you right painted cloth, from whence\n    you have studied your questions.\n  JAQUES. You have a nimble wit; I think 'twas made of Atalanta's\n    heels. Will you sit down with me? and we two will rail against\n    our mistress the world, and all our misery.\n  ORLANDO. I will chide no breather in the world but myself, against\n    whom I know most faults.\n  JAQUES. The worst fault you have is to be in love.\n  ORLANDO. 'Tis a fault I will not change for your best virtue. I am\n    weary of you.\n  JAQUES. By my troth, I was seeking for a fool when I found you.\n  ORLANDO. He is drown'd in the brook; look but in, and you shall see\n    him.\n  JAQUES. There I shall see mine own figure.\n  ORLANDO. Which I take to be either a fool or a cipher.\n  JAQUES. I'll tarry no longer with you; farewell, good Signior Love.\n  ORLANDO. I am glad of your departure; adieu, good Monsieur\n    Melancholy.\n                                                     Exit JAQUES\n  ROSALIND. [Aside to CELIA] I will speak to him like a saucy lackey,\n    and under that habit play the knave with him.- Do you hear,\n    forester?\n  ORLANDO. Very well; what would you?\n  ROSALIND. I pray you, what is't o'clock?\n  ORLANDO. You should ask me what time o' day; there's no clock in\n    the forest.\n  ROSALIND. Then there is no true lover in the forest, else sighing\n    every minute and groaning every hour would detect the lazy foot\n    of Time as well as a clock.\n  ORLANDO. And why not the swift foot of Time? Had not that been as\n    proper?\n  ROSALIND. By no means, sir. Time travels in divers paces with\n    divers persons. I'll tell you who Time ambles withal, who Time\n    trots withal, who Time gallops withal, and who he stands still\n    withal.\n  ORLANDO. I prithee, who doth he trot withal?\n  ROSALIND. Marry, he trots hard with a young maid between the\n    contract of her marriage and the day it is solemniz'd; if the\n    interim be but a se'nnight, Time's pace is so hard that it seems\n    the length of seven year.\n  ORLANDO. Who ambles Time withal?\n  ROSALIND. With a priest that lacks Latin and a rich man that hath\n    not the gout; for the one sleeps easily because he cannot study,\n    and the other lives merrily because he feels no pain; the one\n    lacking the burden of lean and wasteful learning, the other\n    knowing no burden of heavy tedious penury. These Time ambles\n    withal.\n  ORLANDO. Who doth he gallop withal?\n  ROSALIND. With a thief to the gallows; for though he go as softly\n    as foot can fall, he thinks himself too soon there.\n  ORLANDO. Who stays it still withal?\n  ROSALIND. With lawyers in the vacation; for they sleep between term\n    and term, and then they perceive not how Time moves.\n  ORLANDO. Where dwell you, pretty youth?\n  ROSALIND. With this shepherdess, my sister; here in the skirts of\n    the forest, like fringe upon a petticoat.\n  ORLANDO. Are you native of this place?\n  ROSALIND. As the coney that you see dwell where she is kindled.\n  ORLANDO. Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in\n    so removed a dwelling.\n  ROSALIND. I have been told so of many; but indeed an old religious\n    uncle of mine taught me to speak, who was in his youth an inland\n    man; one that knew courtship too well, for there he fell in love.\n    I have heard him read many lectures against it; and I thank God I\n    am not a woman, to be touch'd with so many giddy offences as he\n    hath generally tax'd their whole sex withal.\n  ORLANDO. Can you remember any of the principal evils that he laid\n    to the charge of women?\n  ROSALIND. There were none principal; they were all like one another\n    as halfpence are; every one fault seeming monstrous till his\n    fellow-fault came to match it.\n  ORLANDO. I prithee recount some of them.\n  ROSALIND. No; I will not cast away my physic but on those that are\n    sick. There is a man haunts the forest that abuses our young\n    plants with carving 'Rosalind' on their barks; hangs odes upon\n    hawthorns and elegies on brambles; all, forsooth, deifying the\n    name of Rosalind. If I could meet that fancy-monger, I would give\n    him some good counsel, for he seems to have the quotidian of love\n    upon him.\n  ORLANDO. I am he that is so love-shak'd; I pray you tell me your\n    remedy.\n  ROSALIND. There is none of my uncle's marks upon you; he taught me\n    how to know a man in love; in which cage of rushes I am sure you\n    are not prisoner.\n  ORLANDO. What were his marks?\n  ROSALIND. A lean cheek, which you have not; a blue eye and sunken,\n    which you have not; an unquestionable spirit, which you have not;\n    a beard neglected, which you have not; but I pardon you for that,\n    for simply your having in beard is a younger brother's revenue.\n    Then your hose should be ungarter'd, your bonnet unbanded, your\n    sleeve unbutton'd, your shoe untied, and every thing about you\n    demonstrating a careless desolation. But you are no such man; you\n    are rather point-device in your accoutrements, as loving yourself\n    than seeming the lover of any other.\n  ORLANDO. Fair youth, I would I could make thee believe I love.\n  ROSALIND. Me believe it! You may as soon make her that you love\n    believe it; which, I warrant, she is apter to do than to confess\n    she does. That is one of the points in the which women still give\n    the lie to their consciences. But, in good sooth, are you he that\n    hangs the verses on the trees wherein Rosalind is so admired?\n  ORLANDO. I swear to thee, youth, by the white hand of Rosalind, I\n    am that he, that unfortunate he.\n  ROSALIND. But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak?\n  ORLANDO. Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much.\n  ROSALIND. Love is merely a madness; and, I tell you, deserves as\n    well a dark house and a whip as madmen do; and the reason why\n    they are not so punish'd and cured is that the lunacy is so\n    ordinary that the whippers are in love too. Yet I profess curing\n    it by counsel.\n  ORLANDO. Did you ever cure any so?\n  ROSALIND. Yes, one; and in this manner. He was to imagine me his\n    love, his mistress; and I set him every day to woo me; at which\n    time would I, being but a moonish youth, grieve, be effeminate,\n    changeable, longing and liking, proud, fantastical, apish,\n    shallow, inconstant, full of tears, full of smiles; for every\n    passion something and for no passion truly anything, as boys and\n    women are for the most part cattle of this colour; would now like\n    him, now loathe him; then entertain him, then forswear him; now\n    weep for him, then spit at him; that I drave my suitor from his\n    mad humour of love to a living humour of madness; which was, to\n    forswear the full stream of the world and to live in a nook\n    merely monastic. And thus I cur'd him; and this way will I take\n    upon me to wash your liver as clean as a sound sheep's heart,\n    that there shall not be one spot of love in 't.\n  ORLANDO. I would not be cured, youth.\n  ROSALIND. I would cure you, if you would but call me Rosalind, and\n    come every day to my cote and woo me.\n  ORLANDO. Now, by the faith of my love, I will. Tell me where it is.\n  ROSALIND. Go with me to it, and I'll show it you; and, by the way,\n    you shall tell me where in the forest you live. Will you go?\n  ORLANDO. With all my heart, good youth.\n  ROSALIND. Nay, you must call me Rosalind. Come, sister, will you\n    go?                                                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe forest\n\nEnter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY; JAQUES behind\n\n  TOUCHSTONE. Come apace, good Audrey; I will fetch up your goats,\n    Audrey. And how, Audrey, am I the man yet? Doth my simple feature\n    content you?\n  AUDREY. Your features! Lord warrant us! What features?\n  TOUCHSTONE. I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most\n    capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths.\n  JAQUES. [Aside] O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove in a\n    thatch'd house!\n  TOUCHSTONE. When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's\n    good wit seconded with the forward child understanding, it\n    strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room.\n    Truly, I would the gods had made thee poetical.\n  AUDREY. I do not know what 'poetical' is. Is it honest in deed and\n    word? Is it a true thing?\n  TOUCHSTONE. No, truly; for the truest poetry is the most feigning,\n    and lovers are given to poetry; and what they swear in poetry may\n    be said as lovers they do feign.\n  AUDREY. Do you wish, then, that the gods had made me poetical?\n  TOUCHSTONE. I do, truly, for thou swear'st to me thou art honest;\n    now, if thou wert a poet, I might have some hope thou didst\n    feign.\n  AUDREY. Would you not have me honest?\n  TOUCHSTONE. No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favour'd; for honesty\n    coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar.\n  JAQUES. [Aside] A material fool!\n  AUDREY. Well, I am not fair; and therefore I pray the gods make me\n    honest.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut were\n    to put good meat into an unclean dish.\n  AUDREY. I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Well, praised be the gods for thy foulness;\n    sluttishness may come hereafter. But be it as it may be, I will\n    marry thee; and to that end I have been with Sir Oliver Martext,\n    the vicar of the next village, who hath promis'd to meet me in\n    this place of the forest, and to couple us.\n  JAQUES. [Aside] I would fain see this meeting.\n  AUDREY. Well, the gods give us joy!\n  TOUCHSTONE. Amen. A man may, if he were of a fearful heart, stagger\n    in this attempt; for here we have no temple but the wood, no\n    assembly but horn-beasts. But what though? Courage! As horns are\n    odious, they are necessary. It is said: 'Many a man knows no end\n    of his goods.' Right! Many a man has good horns and knows no end\n    of them. Well, that is the dowry of his wife; 'tis none of his\n    own getting. Horns? Even so. Poor men alone? No, no; the noblest\n    deer hath them as huge as the rascal. Is the single man therefore\n    blessed? No; as a wall'd town is more worthier than a village, so\n    is the forehead of a married man more honourable than the bare\n    brow of a bachelor; and by how much defence is better than no\n    skill, by so much is horn more precious than to want. Here comes\n    Sir Oliver.\n\n                       Enter SIR OLIVER MARTEXT\n\n    Sir Oliver Martext, you are well met. Will you dispatch us here\n    under this tree, or shall we go with you to your chapel?\n  MARTEXT. Is there none here to give the woman?\n  TOUCHSTONE. I will not take her on gift of any man.\n  MARTEXT. Truly, she must be given, or the marriage is not lawful.\n  JAQUES. [Discovering himself] Proceed, proceed; I'll give her.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Good even, good Master What-ye-call't; how do you, sir?\n    You are very well met. Goddild you for your last company. I am\n    very glad to see you. Even a toy in hand here, sir. Nay; pray be\n    cover'd.\n  JAQUES. Will you be married, motley?\n  TOUCHSTONE. As the ox hath his bow, sir, the horse his curb, and\n    the falcon her bells, so man hath his desires; and as pigeons\n    bill, so wedlock would be nibbling.\n  JAQUES. And will you, being a man of your breeding, be married\n    under a bush, like a beggar? Get you to church and have a good\n    priest that can tell you what marriage is; this fellow will but\n    join you together as they join wainscot; then one of you will\n    prove a shrunk panel, and like green timber warp, warp.\n  TOUCHSTONE. [Aside] I am not in the mind but I were better to be\n    married of him than of another; for he is not like to marry me\n    well; and not being well married, it will be a good excuse for me\n    hereafter to leave my wife.\n  JAQUES. Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Come, sweet Audrey;\n    We must be married or we must live in bawdry.\n    Farewell, good Master Oliver. Not-\n               O sweet Oliver,\n               O brave Oliver,\n           Leave me not behind thee.\n    But-\n                 Wind away,\n               Begone, I say,\n           I will not to wedding with thee.\n                           Exeunt JAQUES, TOUCHSTONE, and AUDREY\n  MARTEXT. 'Tis no matter; ne'er a fantastical knave of them all\n    shall flout me out of my calling.                       Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nThe forest\n\nEnter ROSALIND and CELIA\n\n  ROSALIND. Never talk to me; I will weep.\n  CELIA. Do, I prithee; but yet have the grace to consider that tears\n    do not become a man.\n  ROSALIND. But have I not cause to weep?\n  CELIA. As good cause as one would desire; therefore weep.\n  ROSALIND. His very hair is of the dissembling colour.\n  CELIA. Something browner than Judas's.\n    Marry, his kisses are Judas's own children.\n  ROSALIND. I' faith, his hair is of a good colour.\n  CELIA. An excellent colour: your chestnut was ever the only colour.\n  ROSALIND. And his kissing is as full of sanctity as the touch of\n    holy bread.\n  CELIA. He hath bought a pair of cast lips of Diana. A nun of\n    winter's sisterhood kisses not more religiously; the very ice of\n    chastity is in them.\n  ROSALIND. But why did he swear he would come this morning, and\n    comes not?\n  CELIA. Nay, certainly, there is no truth in him.\n  ROSALIND. Do you think so?\n  CELIA. Yes; I think he is not a pick-purse nor a horse-stealer; but\n    for his verity in love, I do think him as concave as covered\n    goblet or a worm-eaten nut.\n  ROSALIND. Not true in love?\n  CELIA. Yes, when he is in; but I think he is not in.\n  ROSALIND. You have heard him swear downright he was.\n  CELIA. 'Was' is not 'is'; besides, the oath of a lover is no\n    stronger than the word of a tapster; they are both the confirmer\n    of false reckonings. He attends here in the forest on the Duke,\n    your father.\n  ROSALIND. I met the Duke yesterday, and had much question with him.\n    He asked me of what parentage I was; I told him, of as good as\n    he; so he laugh'd and let me go. But what talk we of fathers when\n    there is such a man as Orlando?\n  CELIA. O, that's a brave man! He writes brave verses, speaks brave\n    words, swears brave oaths, and breaks them bravely, quite\n    traverse, athwart the heart of his lover; as a puny tilter, that\n    spurs his horse but on one side, breaks his staff like a noble\n    goose. But all's brave that youth mounts and folly guides. Who\n    comes here?\n\n                         Enter CORIN\n\n  CORIN. Mistress and master, you have oft enquired\n    After the shepherd that complain'd of love,\n    Who you saw sitting by me on the turf,\n    Praising the proud disdainful shepherdess\n    That was his mistress.\n  CELIA. Well, and what of him?\n  CORIN. If you will see a pageant truly play'd\n    Between the pale complexion of true love\n    And the red glow of scorn and proud disdain,\n    Go hence a little, and I shall conduct you,\n    If you will mark it.\n  ROSALIND. O, come, let us remove!\n    The sight of lovers feedeth those in love.\n    Bring us to this sight, and you shall say\n    I'll prove a busy actor in their play.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nAnother part of the forest\n\nEnter SILVIUS and PHEBE\n\n  SILVIUS. Sweet Phebe, do not scorn me; do not, Phebe.\n    Say that you love me not; but say not so\n    In bitterness. The common executioner,\n    Whose heart th' accustom'd sight of death makes hard,\n    Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck\n    But first begs pardon. Will you sterner be\n    Than he that dies and lives by bloody drops?\n\n          Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and CORIN, at a distance\n\n  PHEBE. I would not be thy executioner;\n    I fly thee, for I would not injure thee.\n    Thou tell'st me there is murder in mine eye.\n    'Tis pretty, sure, and very probable,\n    That eyes, that are the frail'st and softest things,\n    Who shut their coward gates on atomies,\n    Should be call'd tyrants, butchers, murderers!\n    Now I do frown on thee with all my heart;\n    And if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee.\n    Now counterfeit to swoon; why, now fall down;\n    Or, if thou canst not, O, for shame, for shame,\n    Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers.\n    Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee.\n    Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains\n    Some scar of it; lean upon a rush,\n    The cicatrice and capable impressure\n    Thy palm some moment keeps; but now mine eyes,\n    Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not;\n    Nor, I am sure, there is not force in eyes\n    That can do hurt.\n  SILVIUS. O dear Phebe,\n    If ever- as that ever may be near-\n    You meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy,\n    Then shall you know the wounds invisible\n    That love's keen arrows make.\n  PHEBE. But till that time\n    Come not thou near me; and when that time comes,\n    Afflict me with thy mocks, pity me not;\n    As till that time I shall not pity thee.\n  ROSALIND. [Advancing] And why, I pray you? Who might be your\n      mother,\n    That you insult, exult, and all at once,\n    Over the wretched? What though you have no beauty-\n    As, by my faith, I see no more in you\n    Than without candle may go dark to bed-\n    Must you be therefore proud and pitiless?\n    Why, what means this? Why do you look on me?\n    I see no more in you than in the ordinary\n    Of nature's sale-work. 'Od's my little life,\n    I think she means to tangle my eyes too!\n    No faith, proud mistress, hope not after it;\n    'Tis not your inky brows, your black silk hair,\n    Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream,\n    That can entame my spirits to your worship.\n    You foolish shepherd, wherefore do you follow her,\n    Like foggy south, puffing with wind and rain?\n    You are a thousand times a properer man\n    Than she a woman. 'Tis such fools as you\n    That makes the world full of ill-favour'd children.\n    'Tis not her glass, but you, that flatters her;\n    And out of you she sees herself more proper\n    Than any of her lineaments can show her.\n    But, mistress, know yourself. Down on your knees,\n    And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's love;\n    For I must tell you friendly in your ear:\n    Sell when you can; you are not for all markets.\n    Cry the man mercy, love him, take his offer;\n    Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer.\n    So take her to thee, shepherd. Fare you well.\n  PHEBE. Sweet youth, I pray you chide a year together;\n    I had rather hear you chide than this man woo.\n  ROSALIND. He's fall'n in love with your foulness, and she'll fall\n    in love with my anger. If it be so, as fast as she answers thee\n    with frowning looks, I'll sauce her with bitter words. Why look\n    you so upon me?\n  PHEBE. For no ill will I bear you.\n  ROSALIND. I pray you do not fall in love with me,\n    For I am falser than vows made in wine;\n    Besides, I like you not. If you will know my house,\n    'Tis at the tuft of olives here hard by.\n    Will you go, sister? Shepherd, ply her hard.\n    Come, sister. Shepherdess, look on him better,\n    And be not proud; though all the world could see,\n    None could be so abus'd in sight as he.\n    Come, to our flock.        Exeunt ROSALIND, CELIA, and CORIN\n  PHEBE. Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might:\n    'Who ever lov'd that lov'd not at first sight?'\n  SILVIUS. Sweet Phebe.\n  PHEBE. Ha! what say'st thou, Silvius?\n  SILVIUS. Sweet Phebe, pity me.\n  PHEBE. Why, I arn sorry for thee, gentle Silvius.\n  SILVIUS. Wherever sorrow is, relief would be.\n    If you do sorrow at my grief in love,\n    By giving love, your sorrow and my grief\n    Were both extermin'd.\n  PHEBE. Thou hast my love; is not that neighbourly?\n  SILVIUS. I would have you.\n  PHEBE. Why, that were covetousness.\n    Silvius, the time was that I hated thee;\n    And yet it is not that I bear thee love;\n    But since that thou canst talk of love so well,\n    Thy company, which erst was irksome to me,\n    I will endure; and I'll employ thee too.\n    But do not look for further recompense\n    Than thine own gladness that thou art employ'd.\n  SILVIUS. So holy and so perfect is my love,\n    And I in such a poverty of grace,\n    That I shall think it a most plenteous crop\n    To glean the broken ears after the man\n    That the main harvest reaps; loose now and then\n    A scatt'red smile, and that I'll live upon.\n  PHEBE. Know'st thou the youth that spoke to me erewhile?\n  SILVIUS. Not very well; but I have met him oft;\n    And he hath bought the cottage and the bounds\n    That the old carlot once was master of.\n  PHEBE. Think not I love him, though I ask for him;\n    'Tis but a peevish boy; yet he talks well.\n    But what care I for words? Yet words do well\n    When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.\n    It is a pretty youth- not very pretty;\n    But, sure, he's proud; and yet his pride becomes him.\n    He'll make a proper man. The best thing in him\n    Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue\n    Did make offence, his eye did heal it up.\n    He is not very tall; yet for his years he's tall;\n    His leg is but so-so; and yet 'tis well.\n    There was a pretty redness in his lip,\n    A little riper and more lusty red\n    Than that mix'd in his cheek; 'twas just the difference\n    Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask.\n    There be some women, Silvius, had they mark'd him\n    In parcels as I did, would have gone near\n    To fall in love with him; but, for my part,\n    I love him not, nor hate him not; and yet\n    I have more cause to hate him than to love him;\n    For what had he to do to chide at me?\n    He said mine eyes were black, and my hair black,\n    And, now I am rememb'red, scorn'd at me.\n    I marvel why I answer'd not again;\n    But that's all one: omittance is no quittance.\n    I'll write to him a very taunting letter,\n    And thou shalt bear it; wilt thou, Silvius?\n  SILVIUS. Phebe, with all my heart.\n  PHEBE. I'll write it straight;\n    The matter's in my head and in my heart;\n    I will be bitter with him and passing short.\n    Go with me, Silvius.                                  Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nThe forest\n\nEnter ROSALIND, CELIA, and JAQUES\n\n  JAQUES. I prithee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted with\n    thee.\n  ROSALIND. They say you are a melancholy fellow.\n  JAQUES. I am so; I do love it better than laughing.\n  ROSALIND. Those that are in extremity of either are abominable\n    fellows, and betray themselves to every modern censure worse than\n    drunkards.\n  JAQUES. Why, 'tis good to be sad and say nothing.\n  ROSALIND. Why then, 'tis good to be a post.\n  JAQUES. I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is\n    emulation; nor the musician's, which is fantastical; nor the\n    courtier's, which is proud; nor the soldier's, which is\n    ambitious; nor the lawyer's, which is politic; nor the lady's,\n    which is nice; nor the lover's, which is all these; but it is a\n    melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted\n    from many objects, and, indeed, the sundry contemplation of my\n    travels; in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous\n    sadness.\n  ROSALIND. A traveller! By my faith, you have great reason to be\n    sad. I fear you have sold your own lands to see other men's; then\n    to have seen much and to have nothing is to have rich eyes and\n    poor hands.\n  JAQUES. Yes, I have gain'd my experience.\n\n                        Enter ORLANDO\n\n  ROSALIND. And your experience makes you sad. I had rather have a\n    fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad- and to\n    travel for it too.\n  ORLANDO. Good day, and happiness, dear Rosalind!\n  JAQUES. Nay, then, God buy you, an you talk in blank verse.\n  ROSALIND. Farewell, Monsieur Traveller; look you lisp and wear\n    strange suits, disable all the benefits of your own country, be\n    out of love with your nativity, and almost chide God for making\n    you that countenance you are; or I will scarce think you have\n    swam in a gondola. [Exit JAQUES] Why, how now, Orlando! where\n    have you been all this while? You a lover! An you serve me such\n    another trick, never come in my sight more.\n  ORLANDO. My fair Rosalind, I come within an hour of my promise.\n  ROSALIND. Break an hour's promise in love! He that will divide a\n    minute into a thousand parts, and break but a part of the\n    thousand part of a minute in the affairs of love, it may be said\n    of him that Cupid hath clapp'd him o' th' shoulder, but I'll\n    warrant him heart-whole.\n  ORLANDO. Pardon me, dear Rosalind.\n  ROSALIND. Nay, an you be so tardy, come no more in my sight. I had\n    as lief be woo'd of a snail.\n  ORLANDO. Of a snail!\n  ROSALIND. Ay, of a snail; for though he comes slowly, he carries\n    his house on his head- a better jointure, I think, than you make\n    a woman; besides, he brings his destiny with him.\n  ORLANDO. What's that?\n  ROSALIND. Why, horns; which such as you are fain to be beholding to\n    your wives for; but he comes armed in his fortune, and prevents\n    the slander of his wife.\n  ORLANDO. Virtue is no horn-maker; and my Rosalind is virtuous.\n  ROSALIND. And I am your Rosalind.\n  CELIA. It pleases him to call you so; but he hath a Rosalind of a\n    better leer than you.\n  ROSALIND. Come, woo me, woo me; for now I am in a holiday humour,\n    and like enough to consent. What would you say to me now, an I\n    were your very very Rosalind?\n  ORLANDO. I would kiss before I spoke.\n  ROSALIND. Nay, you were better speak first; and when you were\n    gravell'd for lack of matter, you might take occasion to kiss.\n    Very good orators, when they are out, they will spit; and for\n    lovers lacking- God warn us!- matter, the cleanliest shift is to\n    kiss.\n  ORLANDO. How if the kiss be denied?\n  ROSALIND. Then she puts you to entreaty, and there begins new\n    matter.\n  ORLANDO. Who could be out, being before his beloved mistress?\n  ROSALIND. Marry, that should you, if I were your mistress; or I\n    should think my honesty ranker than my wit.\n  ORLANDO. What, of my suit?\n  ROSALIND. Not out of your apparel, and yet out of your suit.\n    Am not I your Rosalind?\n  ORLANDO. I take some joy to say you are, because I would be talking\n    of her.\n  ROSALIND. Well, in her person, I say I will not have you.\n  ORLANDO. Then, in mine own person, I die.\n  ROSALIND. No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is almost six\n    thousand years old, and in all this time there was not any man\n    died in his own person, videlicet, in a love-cause. Troilus had\n    his brains dash'd out with a Grecian club; yet he did what he\n    could to die before, and he is one of the patterns of love.\n    Leander, he would have liv'd many a fair year, though Hero had\n    turn'd nun, if it had not been for a hot midsummer night; for,\n    good youth, he went but forth to wash him in the Hellespont, and,\n    being taken with the cramp, was drown'd; and the foolish\n    chroniclers of that age found it was- Hero of Sestos. But these\n    are all lies: men have died from time to time, and worms have\n    eaten them, but not for love.\n  ORLANDO. I would not have my right Rosalind of this mind; for, I\n    protest, her frown might kill me.\n  ROSALIND. By this hand, it will not kill a fly. But come, now I\n    will be your Rosalind in a more coming-on disposition; and ask me\n    what you will, I will grant it.\n  ORLANDO. Then love me, Rosalind.\n  ROSALIND. Yes, faith, will I, Fridays and Saturdays, and all.\n  ORLANDO. And wilt thou have me?\n  ROSALIND. Ay, and twenty such.\n  ORLANDO. What sayest thou?\n  ROSALIND. Are you not good?\n  ORLANDO. I hope so.\n  ROSALIND. Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing? Come,\n    sister, you shall be the priest, and marry us. Give me your hand,\n    Orlando. What do you say, sister?\n  ORLANDO. Pray thee, marry us.\n  CELIA. I cannot say the words.\n  ROSALIND. You must begin 'Will you, Orlando'-\n  CELIA. Go to. Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind?\n  ORLANDO. I will.\n  ROSALIND. Ay, but when?\n  ORLANDO. Why, now; as fast as she can marry us.\n  ROSALIND. Then you must say 'I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.'\n  ORLANDO. I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.\n  ROSALIND. I might ask you for your commission; but- I do take thee,\n    Orlando, for my husband. There's a girl goes before the priest;\n    and, certainly, a woman's thought runs before her actions.\n  ORLANDO. So do all thoughts; they are wing'd.\n  ROSALIND. Now tell me how long you would have her, after you have\n    possess'd her.\n  ORLANDO. For ever and a day.\n  ROSALIND. Say 'a day' without the 'ever.' No, no, Orlando; men are\n    April when they woo, December when they wed: maids are May when\n    they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives. I will\n    be more jealous of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen,\n    more clamorous than a parrot against rain, more new-fangled than\n    an ape, more giddy in my desires than a monkey. I will weep for\n    nothing, like Diana in the fountain, and I will do that when you\n    are dispos'd to be merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and that when\n    thou are inclin'd to sleep.\n  ORLANDO. But will my Rosalind do so?\n  ROSALIND. By my life, she will do as I do.\n  ORLANDO. O, but she is wise.\n  ROSALIND. Or else she could not have the wit to do this. The wiser,\n    the waywarder. Make the doors upon a woman's wit, and it will out\n    at the casement; shut that, and 'twill out at the key-hole; stop\n    that, 'twill fly with the smoke out at the chimney.\n  ORLANDO. A man that had a wife with such a wit, he might say 'Wit,\n    whither wilt?' ROSALIND. Nay, you might keep that check for it, till you met your\n    wife's wit going to your neighbour's bed.\n  ORLANDO. And what wit could wit have to excuse that?\n  ROSALIND. Marry, to say she came to seek you there. You shall never\n    take her without her answer, unless you take her without her\n    tongue. O, that woman that cannot make her fault her husband's\n    occasion, let her never nurse her child herself, for she will\n    breed it like a fool!\n  ORLANDO. For these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave thee.\n  ROSALIND. Alas, dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours!\n  ORLANDO. I must attend the Duke at dinner; by two o'clock I will be\n    with thee again.\n  ROSALIND. Ay, go your ways, go your ways. I knew what you would\n    prove; my friends told me as much, and I thought no less. That\n    flattering tongue of yours won me. 'Tis but one cast away, and\n    so, come death! Two o'clock is your hour?\n  ORLANDO. Ay, sweet Rosalind.\n  ROSALIND. By my troth, and in good earnest, and so God mend me, and\n    by all pretty oaths that are not dangerous, if you break one jot\n    of your promise, or come one minute behind your hour, I will\n    think you the most pathetical break-promise, and the most hollow\n    lover, and the most unworthy of her you call Rosalind, that may\n    be chosen out of the gross band of the unfaithful. Therefore\n    beware my censure, and keep your promise.\n  ORLANDO. With no less religion than if thou wert indeed my\n    Rosalind; so, adieu.\n  ROSALIND. Well, Time is the old justice that examines all such\n    offenders, and let Time try. Adieu.             Exit ORLANDO\n  CELIA. You have simply misus'd our sex in your love-prate. We must\n    have your doublet and hose pluck'd over your head, and show the\n    world what the bird hath done to her own nest.\n  ROSALIND. O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst\n    know how many fathom deep I am in love! But it cannot be sounded;\n    my affection hath an unknown bottom, like the Bay of Portugal.\n  CELIA. Or rather, bottomless; that as fast as you pour affection\n    in, it runs out.\n  ROSALIND. No; that same wicked bastard of Venus, that was begot of\n    thought, conceiv'd of spleen, and born of madness; that blind\n    rascally boy, that abuses every one's eyes, because his own are\n    out- let him be judge how deep I am in love. I'll tell thee,\n    Aliena, I cannot be out of the sight of Orlando. I'll go find a\n    shadow, and sigh till he come.\n  CELIA. And I'll sleep.                                  Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe forest\n\n        Enter JAQUES and LORDS, in the habit of foresters\n\n  JAQUES. Which is he that killed the deer?\n  LORD. Sir, it was I.\n  JAQUES. Let's present him to the Duke, like a Roman conqueror; and\n    it would do well to set the deer's horns upon his head for a\n    branch of victory. Have you no song, forester, for this purpose?\n  LORD. Yes, sir.\n  JAQUES. Sing it; 'tis no matter how it be in tune, so it make noise\n    enough.\n\n                    SONG.\n\n      What shall he have that kill'd the deer?\n      His leather skin and horns to wear.\n                              [The rest shall hear this burden:]\n           Then sing him home.\n\n      Take thou no scorn to wear the horn;\n      It was a crest ere thou wast born.\n           Thy father's father wore it;\n           And thy father bore it.\n      The horn, the horn, the lusty horn,\n      Is not a thing to laugh to scorn.                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe forest\n\nEnter ROSALIND and CELIA\n\n  ROSALIND. How say you now? Is it not past two o'clock?\n    And here much Orlando!\n  CELIA. I warrant you, with pure love and troubled brain, he hath\n    ta'en his bow and arrows, and is gone forth- to sleep. Look, who\n    comes here.\n\n                      Enter SILVIUS\n\n  SILVIUS. My errand is to you, fair youth;\n    My gentle Phebe did bid me give you this.\n    I know not the contents; but, as I guess\n    By the stern brow and waspish action\n    Which she did use as she was writing of it,\n    It bears an angry tenour. Pardon me,\n    I am but as a guiltless messenger.\n  ROSALIND. Patience herself would startle at this letter,\n    And play the swaggerer. Bear this, bear all.\n    She says I am not fair, that I lack manners;\n    She calls me proud, and that she could not love me,\n    Were man as rare as Phoenix. 'Od's my will!\n    Her love is not the hare that I do hunt;\n    Why writes she so to me? Well, shepherd, well,\n    This is a letter of your own device.\n  SILVIUS. No, I protest, I know not the contents;\n    Phebe did write it.\n  ROSALIND. Come, come, you are a fool,\n    And turn'd into the extremity of love.\n    I saw her hand; she has a leathern hand,\n    A freestone-colour'd hand; I verily did think\n    That her old gloves were on, but 'twas her hands;\n    She has a huswife's hand- but that's no matter.\n    I say she never did invent this letter:\n    This is a man's invention, and his hand.\n  SILVIUS. Sure, it is hers.\n  ROSALIND. Why, 'tis a boisterous and a cruel style;\n    A style for challengers. Why, she defies me,\n    Like Turk to Christian. Women's gentle brain\n    Could not drop forth such giant-rude invention,\n    Such Ethiope words, blacker in their effect\n    Than in their countenance. Will you hear the letter?\n  SILVIUS. So please you, for I never heard it yet;\n    Yet heard too much of Phebe's cruelty.\n  ROSALIND. She Phebes me: mark how the tyrant writes.\n                                                         [Reads]\n\n            'Art thou god to shepherd turn'd,\n            That a maiden's heart hath burn'd?'\n\n    Can a woman rail thus?\n  SILVIUS. Call you this railing?\n  ROSALIND. 'Why, thy godhead laid apart,\n             Warr'st thou with a woman's heart?'\n\n    Did you ever hear such railing?\n\n            'Whiles the eye of man did woo me,\n            That could do no vengeance to me.'\n\n    Meaning me a beast.\n\n            'If the scorn of your bright eyne\n            Have power to raise such love in mine,\n            Alack, in me what strange effect\n            Would they work in mild aspect!\n            Whiles you chid me, I did love;\n            How then might your prayers move!\n            He that brings this love to the\n            Little knows this love in me;\n            And by him seal up thy mind,\n            Whether that thy youth and kind\n            Will the faithful offer take\n            Of me and all that I can make;\n            Or else by him my love deny,\n            And then I'll study how to die.'\n  SILVIUS. Call you this chiding?\n  CELIA. Alas, poor shepherd!\n  ROSALIND. Do you pity him? No, he deserves no pity. Wilt thou love\n    such a woman? What, to make thee an instrument, and play false\n    strains upon thee! Not to be endur'd! Well, go your way to her,\n    for I see love hath made thee tame snake, and say this to her-\n    that if she love me, I charge her to love thee; if she will not,\n    I will never have her unless thou entreat for her. If you be a\n    true lover, hence, and not a word; for here comes more company.\n                                                    Exit SILVIUS\n\n                         Enter OLIVER\n\n  OLIVER. Good morrow, fair ones; pray you, if you know,\n    Where in the purlieus of this forest stands\n    A sheep-cote fenc'd about with olive trees?\n  CELIA. West of this place, down in the neighbour bottom.\n    The rank of osiers by the murmuring stream\n    Left on your right hand brings you to the place.\n    But at this hour the house doth keep itself;\n    There's none within.\n  OLIVER. If that an eye may profit by a tongue,\n    Then should I know you by description-\n    Such garments, and such years: 'The boy is fair,\n    Of female favour, and bestows himself\n    Like a ripe sister; the woman low,\n    And browner than her brother.' Are not you\n    The owner of the house I did inquire for?\n  CELIA. It is no boast, being ask'd, to say we are.\n  OLIVER. Orlando doth commend him to you both;\n    And to that youth he calls his Rosalind\n    He sends this bloody napkin. Are you he?\n  ROSALIND. I am. What must we understand by this?\n  OLIVER. Some of my shame; if you will know of me\n    What man I am, and how, and why, and where,\n    This handkercher was stain'd.\n  CELIA. I pray you, tell it.\n  OLIVER. When last the young Orlando parted from you,\n    He left a promise to return again\n    Within an hour; and, pacing through the forest,\n    Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy,\n    Lo, what befell! He threw his eye aside,\n    And mark what object did present itself.\n    Under an oak, whose boughs were moss'd with age,\n    And high top bald with dry antiquity,\n    A wretched ragged man, o'ergrown with hair,\n    Lay sleeping on his back. About his neck\n    A green and gilded snake had wreath'd itself,\n    Who with her head nimble in threats approach'd\n    The opening of his mouth; but suddenly,\n    Seeing Orlando, it unlink'd itself,\n    And with indented glides did slip away\n    Into a bush; under which bush's shade\n    A lioness, with udders all drawn dry,\n    Lay couching, head on ground, with catlike watch,\n    When that the sleeping man should stir; for 'tis\n    The royal disposition of that beast\n    To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead.\n    This seen, Orlando did approach the man,\n    And found it was his brother, his elder brother.\n  CELIA. O, I have heard him speak of that same brother;\n    And he did render him the most unnatural\n    That liv'd amongst men.\n  OLIVER. And well he might so do,\n    For well I know he was unnatural.\n  ROSALIND. But, to Orlando: did he leave him there,\n    Food to the suck'd and hungry lioness?\n  OLIVER. Twice did he turn his back, and purpos'd so;\n    But kindness, nobler ever than revenge,\n    And nature, stronger than his just occasion,\n    Made him give battle to the lioness,\n    Who quickly fell before him; in which hurtling\n    From miserable slumber I awak'd.\n  CELIA. Are you his brother?\n  ROSALIND. Was't you he rescu'd?\n  CELIA. Was't you that did so oft contrive to kill him?\n  OLIVER. 'Twas I; but 'tis not I. I do not shame\n    To tell you what I was, since my conversion\n    So sweetly tastes, being the thing I am.\n  ROSALIND. But for the bloody napkin?\n  OLIVER. By and by.\n    When from the first to last, betwixt us two,\n    Tears our recountments had most kindly bath'd,\n    As how I came into that desert place-\n    In brief, he led me to the gentle Duke,\n    Who gave me fresh array and entertainment,\n    Committing me unto my brother's love;\n    Who led me instantly unto his cave,\n    There stripp'd himself, and here upon his arm\n    The lioness had torn some flesh away,\n    Which all this while had bled; and now he fainted,\n    And cried, in fainting, upon Rosalind.\n    Brief, I recover'd him, bound up his wound,\n    And, after some small space, being strong at heart,\n    He sent me hither, stranger as I am,\n    To tell this story, that you might excuse\n    His broken promise, and to give this napkin,\n    Dy'd in his blood, unto the shepherd youth\n    That he in sport doth call his Rosalind.\n                                               [ROSALIND swoons]\n  CELIA. Why, how now, Ganymede! sweet Ganymede!\n  OLIVER. Many will swoon when they do look on blood.\n  CELIA. There is more in it. Cousin Ganymede!\n  OLIVER. Look, he recovers.\n  ROSALIND. I would I were at home.\n  CELIA. We'll lead you thither.\n    I pray you, will you take him by the arm?\n  OLIVER. Be of good cheer, youth. You a man!\n    You lack a man's heart.\n  ROSALIND. I do so, I confess it. Ah, sirrah, a body would think\n    this was well counterfeited. I pray you tell your brother how\n    well I counterfeited. Heigh-ho!\n  OLIVER. This was not counterfeit; there is too great testimony in\n    your complexion that it was a passion of earnest.\n  ROSALIND. Counterfeit, I assure you.\n  OLIVER. Well then, take a good heart and counterfeit to be a man.\n  ROSALIND. So I do; but, i' faith, I should have been a woman by\n    right.\n  CELIA. Come, you look paler and paler; pray you draw homewards.\n    Good sir, go with us.\n  OLIVER. That will I, for I must bear answer back\n    How you excuse my brother, Rosalind.\n  ROSALIND. I shall devise something; but, I pray you, commend my\n    counterfeiting to him. Will you go?                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nThe forest\n\nEnter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY\n\n  TOUCHSTONE. We shall find a time, Audrey; patience, gentle Audrey.\n  AUDREY. Faith, the priest was good enough, for all the old\n    gentleman's saying.\n  TOUCHSTONE. A most wicked Sir Oliver, Audrey, a most vile Martext.\n    But, Audrey, there is a youth here in the forest lays claim to\n    you.\n  AUDREY. Ay, I know who 'tis; he hath no interest in me in the\n    world; here comes the man you mean.\n\n                         Enter WILLIAM\n\n  TOUCHSTONE. It is meat and drink to me to see a clown. By my troth,\n    we that have good wits have much to answer for: we shall be\n    flouting; we cannot hold.\n  WILLIAM. Good ev'n, Audrey.\n  AUDREY. God ye good ev'n, William.\n  WILLIAM. And good ev'n to you, sir.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Good ev'n, gentle friend. Cover thy head, cover thy\n    head; nay, prithee be cover'd. How old are you, friend?\n  WILLIAM. Five and twenty, sir.\n  TOUCHSTONE. A ripe age. Is thy name William?\n  WILLIAM. William, sir.\n  TOUCHSTONE. A fair name. Wast born i' th' forest here?\n  WILLIAM. Ay, sir, I thank God.\n  TOUCHSTONE. 'Thank God.' A good answer.\n    Art rich?\n  WILLIAM. Faith, sir, so so.\n  TOUCHSTONE. 'So so' is good, very good, very excellent good; and\n    yet it is not; it is but so so. Art thou wise?\n  WILLIAM. Ay, sir, I have a pretty wit.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Why, thou say'st well. I do now remember a saying: 'The\n    fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be\n    a fool.' The heathen philosopher, when he had a desire to eat a\n    grape, would open his lips when he put it into his mouth; meaning\n    thereby that grapes were made to eat and lips to open. You do\n    love this maid?\n  WILLIAM. I do, sir.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Give me your hand. Art thou learned?\n  WILLIAM. No, sir.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Then learn this of me: to have is to have; for it is a\n    figure in rhetoric that drink, being pour'd out of cup into a\n    glass, by filling the one doth empty the other; for all your\n    writers do consent that ipse is he; now, you are not ipse, for I\n    am he.\n  WILLIAM. Which he, sir?\n  TOUCHSTONE. He, sir, that must marry this woman. Therefore, you\n    clown, abandon- which is in the vulgar leave- the society- which\n    in the boorish is company- of this female- which in the common is\n    woman- which together is: abandon the society of this female; or,\n    clown, thou perishest; or, to thy better understanding, diest;\n    or, to wit, I kill thee, make thee away, translate thy life into\n    death, thy liberty into bondage. I will deal in poison with thee,\n    or in bastinado, or in steel; I will bandy with thee in faction;\n    will o'er-run thee with policy; I will kill thee a hundred and\n    fifty ways; therefore tremble and depart.\n  AUDREY. Do, good William.\n  WILLIAM. God rest you merry, sir.                         Exit\n\n                          Enter CORIN\n\n  CORIN. Our master and mistress seeks you; come away, away.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Trip, Audrey, trip, Audrey. I attend, I attend.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe forest\n\nEnter ORLANDO and OLIVER\n\n  ORLANDO. Is't possible that on so little acquaintance you should\n    like her? that but seeing you should love her? and loving woo?\n    and, wooing, she should grant? and will you persever to enjoy\n    her?\n  OLIVER. Neither call the giddiness of it in question, the poverty\n    of her, the small acquaintance, my sudden wooing, nor her sudden\n    consenting; but say with me, I love Aliena; say with her that she\n    loves me; consent with both that we may enjoy each other. It\n    shall be to your good; for my father's house and all the revenue\n    that was old Sir Rowland's will I estate upon you, and here live\n    and die a shepherd.\n  ORLANDO. You have my consent. Let your wedding be to-morrow.\n    Thither will I invite the Duke and all's contented followers. Go\n    you and prepare Aliena; for, look you, here comes my Rosalind.\n\n                        Enter ROSALIND\n\n  ROSALIND. God save you, brother.\n  OLIVER. And you, fair sister.                             Exit\n  ROSALIND. O, my dear Orlando, how it grieves me to see thee wear\n    thy heart in a scarf!\n  ORLANDO. It is my arm.\n  ROSALIND. I thought thy heart had been wounded with the claws of a\n    lion.\n  ORLANDO. Wounded it is, but with the eyes of a lady.\n  ROSALIND. Did your brother tell you how I counterfeited to swoon\n    when he show'd me your handkercher?\n  ORLANDO. Ay, and greater wonders than that.\n  ROSALIND. O, I know where you are. Nay, 'tis true. There was never\n    any thing so sudden but the fight of two rams and Caesar's\n    thrasonical brag of 'I came, saw, and overcame.' For your brother\n    and my sister no sooner met but they look'd; no sooner look'd but\n    they lov'd; no sooner lov'd but they sigh'd; no sooner sigh'd but\n    they ask'd one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason but\n    they sought the remedy- and in these degrees have they made pair\n    of stairs to marriage, which they will climb incontinent, or else\n    be incontinent before marriage. They are in the very wrath of\n    love, and they will together. Clubs cannot part them.\n  ORLANDO. They shall be married to-morrow; and I will bid the Duke\n    to the nuptial. But, O, how bitter a thing it is to look into\n    happiness through another man's eyes! By so much the more shall I\n    to-morrow be at the height of heart-heaviness, by how much I\n    shall think my brother happy in having what he wishes for.\n  ROSALIND. Why, then, to-morrow I cannot serve your turn for\n    Rosalind?\n  ORLANDO. I can live no longer by thinking.\n  ROSALIND. I will weary you, then, no longer with idle talking. Know\n    of me then- for now I speak to some purpose- that I know you are\n    a gentleman of good conceit. I speak not this that you should\n    bear a good opinion of my knowledge, insomuch I say I know you\n    are; neither do I labour for a greater esteem than may in some\n    little measure draw a belief from you, to do yourself good, and\n    not to grace me. Believe then, if you please, that I can do\n    strange things. I have, since I was three year old, convers'd\n    with a magician, most profound in his art and yet not damnable.\n    If you do love Rosalind so near the heart as your gesture cries\n    it out, when your brother marries Aliena shall you marry her. I\n    know into what straits of fortune she is driven; and it is not\n    impossible to me, if it appear not inconvenient to you, to set\n    her before your eyes to-morrow, human as she is, and without any\n    danger.\n  ORLANDO. Speak'st thou in sober meanings?\n  ROSALIND. By my life, I do; which I tender dearly, though I say I\n    am a magician. Therefore put you in your best array, bid your\n    friends; for if you will be married to-morrow, you shall; and to\n    Rosalind, if you will.\n\n                     Enter SILVIUS and PHEBE\n\n    Look, here comes a lover of mine, and a lover of hers.\n  PHEBE. Youth, you have done me much ungentleness\n    To show the letter that I writ to you.\n  ROSALIND. I care not if I have. It is my study\n    To seem despiteful and ungentle to you.\n    You are there follow'd by a faithful shepherd;\n    Look upon him, love him; he worships you.\n  PHEBE. Good shepherd, tell this youth what 'tis to love.\n  SILVIUS. It is to be all made of sighs and tears;\n    And so am I for Phebe.\n  PHEBE. And I for Ganymede.\n  ORLANDO. And I for Rosalind.\n  ROSALIND. And I for no woman.\n  SILVIUS. It is to be all made of faith and service;\n    And so am I for Phebe.\n  PHEBE. And I for Ganymede.\n  ORLANDO. And I for Rosalind.\n  ROSALIND. And I for no woman.\n  SILVIUS. It is to be all made of fantasy,\n    All made of passion, and all made of wishes;\n    All adoration, duty, and observance,\n    All humbleness, all patience, and impatience,\n    All purity, all trial, all obedience;\n    And so am I for Phebe.\n  PHEBE. And so am I for Ganymede.\n  ORLANDO. And so am I for Rosalind.\n  ROSALIND. And so am I for no woman.\n  PHEBE. If this be so, why blame you me to love you?\n  SILVIUS. If this be so, why blame you me to love you?\n  ORLANDO. If this be so, why blame you me to love you?\n  ROSALIND. Why do you speak too, 'Why blame you me to love you?'\n  ORLANDO. To her that is not here, nor doth not hear.\n  ROSALIND. Pray you, no more of this; 'tis like the howling of Irish\n    wolves against the moon. [To SILVIUS] I will help you if I can.\n    [To PHEBE] I would love you if I could.- To-morrow meet me all\n    together. [ To PHEBE ] I will marry you if ever I marry woman,\n    and I'll be married to-morrow. [To ORLANDO] I will satisfy you if\n    ever I satisfied man, and you shall be married to-morrow. [To\n    Silvius] I will content you if what pleases you contents you, and\n    you shall be married to-morrow. [To ORLANDO] As you love\n    Rosalind, meet. [To SILVIUS] As you love Phebe, meet;- and as I\n    love no woman, I'll meet. So, fare you well; I have left you\n    commands.\n  SILVIUS. I'll not fail, if I live.\n  PHEBE. Nor I.\n  ORLANDO. Nor I.                                         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe forest\n\nEnter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY\n\n  TOUCHSTONE. To-morrow is the joyful day, Audre'y; to-morrow will we\n    be married.\n  AUDREY. I do desire it with all my heart; and I hope it is no\n    dishonest desire to desire to be a woman of the world. Here come\n    two of the banish'd Duke's pages.\n\n                            Enter two PAGES\n\n  FIRST PAGE. Well met, honest gentleman.\n  TOUCHSTONE. By my troth, well met. Come sit, sit, and a song.\n  SECOND PAGE. We are for you; sit i' th' middle.\n  FIRST PAGE. Shall we clap into't roundly, without hawking, or\n    spitting, or saying we are hoarse, which are the only prologues\n    to a bad voice?\n  SECOND PAGE. I'faith, i'faith; and both in a tune, like two gipsies\n    on a horse.\n\n                      SONG.\n        It was a lover and his lass,\n          With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,\n        That o'er the green corn-field did pass\n          In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,\n        When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding.\n        Sweet lovers love the spring.\n\n        Between the acres of the rye,\n          With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,\n        These pretty country folks would lie,\n          In the spring time, &c.\n\n        This carol they began that hour,\n          With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,\n        How that a life was but a flower,\n          In the spring time, &c.\n\n        And therefore take the present time,\n          With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,\n        For love is crowned with the prime,\n          In the spring time, &c.\n\n  TOUCHSTONE. Truly, young gentlemen, though there was no great\n    matter in the ditty, yet the note was very untuneable.\n  FIRST PAGE. YOU are deceiv'd, sir; we kept time, we lost not our\n    time.\n  TOUCHSTONE. By my troth, yes; I count it but time lost to hear such\n    a foolish song. God buy you; and God mend your voices. Come,\n    Audrey.                                               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nThe forest\n\nEnter DUKE SENIOR, AMIENS, JAQUES, ORLANDO, OLIVER, and CELIA\n\n  DUKE SENIOR. Dost thou believe, Orlando, that the boy\n    Can do all this that he hath promised?\n  ORLANDO. I sometimes do believe and sometimes do not:\n    As those that fear they hope, and know they fear.\n\n               Enter ROSALIND, SILVIUS, and PHEBE\n\n  ROSALIND. Patience once more, whiles our compact is urg'd:\n    You say, if I bring in your Rosalind,\n    You will bestow her on Orlando here?\n  DUKE SENIOR. That would I, had I kingdoms to give with her.\n  ROSALIND. And you say you will have her when I bring her?\n  ORLANDO. That would I, were I of all kingdoms king.\n  ROSALIND. You say you'll marry me, if I be willing?\n  PHEBE. That will I, should I die the hour after.\n  ROSALIND. But if you do refuse to marry me,\n    You'll give yourself to this most faithful shepherd?\n  PHEBE. So is the bargain.\n  ROSALIND. You say that you'll have Phebe, if she will?\n  SILVIUS. Though to have her and death were both one thing.\n  ROSALIND. I have promis'd to make all this matter even.\n    Keep you your word, O Duke, to give your daughter;\n    You yours, Orlando, to receive his daughter;\n    Keep your word, Phebe, that you'll marry me,\n    Or else, refusing me, to wed this shepherd;\n    Keep your word, Silvius, that you'll marry her\n    If she refuse me; and from hence I go,\n    To make these doubts all even.\n                                       Exeunt ROSALIND and CELIA\n  DUKE SENIOR. I do remember in this shepherd boy\n    Some lively touches of my daughter's favour.\n  ORLANDO. My lord, the first time that I ever saw him\n    Methought he was a brother to your daughter.\n    But, my good lord, this boy is forest-born,\n    And hath been tutor'd in the rudiments\n    Of many desperate studies by his uncle,\n    Whom he reports to be a great magician,\n    Obscured in the circle of this forest.\n\n                    Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY\n\n  JAQUES. There is, sure, another flood toward, and these couples are\n    coming to the ark. Here comes a pair of very strange beasts which\n    in all tongues are call'd fools.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Salutation and greeting to you all!\n  JAQUES. Good my lord, bid him welcome. This is the motley-minded\n    gentleman that I have so often met in the forest. He hath been a\n     courtier, he swears.\n  TOUCHSTONE. If any man doubt that, let him put me to my purgation.\n    I have trod a measure; I have flatt'red a lady; I have been\n    politic with my friend, smooth with mine enemy; I have undone\n    three tailors; I have had four quarrels, and like to have fought\n    one.\n  JAQUES. And how was that ta'en up?\n  TOUCHSTONE. Faith, we met, and found the quarrel was upon the\n    seventh cause.\n  JAQUES. How seventh cause? Good my lord, like this fellow.\n  DUKE SENIOR. I like him very well.\n  TOUCHSTONE. God 'ild you, sir; I desire you of the like. I press in\n    here, sir, amongst the rest of the country copulatives, to swear\n    and to forswear, according as marriage binds and blood breaks. A\n    poor virgin, sir, an ill-favour'd thing, sir, but mine own; a\n    poor humour of mine, sir, to take that that man else will. Rich\n    honesty dwells like a miser, sir, in a poor house; as your pearl\n    in your foul oyster.\n  DUKE SENIOR. By my faith, he is very swift and sententious.\n  TOUCHSTONE. According to the fool's bolt, sir, and such dulcet\n    diseases.\n  JAQUES. But, for the seventh cause: how did you find the quarrel on\n    the seventh cause?\n  TOUCHSTONE. Upon a lie seven times removed- bear your body more\n    seeming, Audrey- as thus, sir. I did dislike the cut of a certain\n    courtier's beard; he sent me word, if I said his beard was not\n    cut well, he was in the mind it was. This is call'd the Retort\n    Courteous. If I sent him word again it was not well cut, he would\n    send me word he cut it to please himself. This is call'd the Quip\n    Modest. If again it was not well cut, he disabled my judgment.\n    This is call'd the Reply Churlish. If again it was not well cut,\n    he would answer I spake not true. This is call'd the Reproof\n    Valiant. If again it was not well cut, he would say I lie. This\n    is call'd the Countercheck Quarrelsome. And so to the Lie\n    Circumstantial and the Lie Direct.\n  JAQUES. And how oft did you say his beard was not well cut?\n  TOUCHSTONE. I durst go no further than the Lie Circumstantial, nor\n    he durst not give me the Lie Direct; and so we measur'd swords\n    and parted.\n  JAQUES. Can you nominate in order now the degrees of the lie?\n  TOUCHSTONE. O, sir, we quarrel in print by the book, as you have\n    books for good manners. I will name you the degrees. The first,\n    the Retort Courteous; the second, the Quip Modest; the third, the\n    Reply Churlish; the fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth, the\n    Countercheck Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with Circumstance;\n    the seventh, the Lie Direct. All these you may avoid but the Lie\n    Direct; and you may avoid that too with an If. I knew when seven\n    justices could not take up a quarrel; but when the parties were\n    met themselves, one of them thought but of an If, as: 'If you\n    said so, then I said so.' And they shook hands, and swore\n    brothers. Your If is the only peace-maker; much virtue in If.\n  JAQUES. Is not this a rare fellow, my lord?\n    He's as good at any thing, and yet a fool.\n  DUKE SENIOR. He uses his folly like a stalking-horse, and under the\n    presentation of that he shoots his wit:\n\n          Enter HYMEN, ROSALIND, and CELIA. Still MUSIC\n\n    HYMEN.    Then is there mirth in heaven,\n              When earthly things made even\n                Atone together.\n              Good Duke, receive thy daughter;\n              Hymen from heaven brought her,\n                Yea, brought her hither,\n              That thou mightst join her hand with his,\n              Whose heart within his bosom is.\n  ROSALIND. [To DUKE] To you I give myself, for I am yours.\n    [To ORLANDO] To you I give myself, for I am yours.\n  DUKE SENIOR. If there be truth in sight, you are my daughter.\n  ORLANDO. If there be truth in sight, you are my Rosalind.\n  PHEBE. If sight and shape be true,\n    Why then, my love adieu!\n  ROSALIND. I'll have no father, if you be not he;\n    I'll have no husband, if you be not he;\n    Nor ne'er wed woman, if you be not she.\n  HYMEN.    Peace, ho! I bar confusion;\n            'Tis I must make conclusion\n              Of these most strange events.\n            Here's eight that must take hands\n            To join in Hymen's bands,\n              If truth holds true contents.\n            You and you no cross shall part;\n            You and you are heart in heart;\n            You to his love must accord,\n            Or have a woman to your lord;\n            You and you are sure together,\n            As the winter to foul weather.\n            Whiles a wedlock-hymn we sing,\n            Feed yourselves with questioning,\n            That reason wonder may diminish,\n            How thus we met, and these things finish.\n\n                       SONG\n            Wedding is great Juno's crown;\n              O blessed bond of board and bed!\n            'Tis Hymen peoples every town;\n              High wedlock then be honoured.\n            Honour, high honour, and renown,\n            To Hymen, god of every town!\n\n  DUKE SENIOR. O my dear niece, welcome thou art to me!\n    Even daughter, welcome in no less degree.\n  PHEBE. I will not eat my word, now thou art mine;\n    Thy faith my fancy to thee doth combine.\n\n                 Enter JAQUES de BOYS\n\n  JAQUES de BOYS. Let me have audience for a word or two.\n    I am the second son of old Sir Rowland,\n    That bring these tidings to this fair assembly.\n    Duke Frederick, hearing how that every day\n    Men of great worth resorted to this forest,\n    Address'd a mighty power; which were on foot,\n    In his own conduct, purposely to take\n    His brother here, and put him to the sword;\n    And to the skirts of this wild wood he came,\n    Where, meeting with an old religious man,\n    After some question with him, was converted\n    Both from his enterprise and from the world;\n    His crown bequeathing to his banish'd brother,\n    And all their lands restor'd to them again\n    That were with him exil'd. This to be true\n    I do engage my life.\n  DUKE SENIOR. Welcome, young man.\n    Thou offer'st fairly to thy brothers' wedding:\n    To one, his lands withheld; and to the other,\n    A land itself at large, a potent dukedom.\n    First, in this forest let us do those ends\n    That here were well begun and well begot;\n    And after, every of this happy number,\n    That have endur'd shrewd days and nights with us,\n    Shall share the good of our returned fortune,\n    According to the measure of their states.\n    Meantime, forget this new-fall'n dignity,\n    And fall into our rustic revelry.\n    Play, music; and you brides and bridegrooms all,\n    With measure heap'd in joy, to th' measures fall.\n  JAQUES. Sir, by your patience. If I heard you rightly,\n    The Duke hath put on a religious life,\n    And thrown into neglect the pompous court.\n  JAQUES DE BOYS. He hath.\n  JAQUES. To him will I. Out of these convertites\n    There is much matter to be heard and learn'd.\n    [To DUKE] You to your former honour I bequeath;\n    Your patience and your virtue well deserves it.\n    [To ORLANDO] You to a love that your true faith doth merit;\n    [To OLIVER] You to your land, and love, and great allies\n    [To SILVIUS] You to a long and well-deserved bed;\n    [To TOUCHSTONE] And you to wrangling; for thy loving voyage\n    Is but for two months victuall'd.- So to your pleasures;\n    I am for other than for dancing measures.\n  DUKE SENIOR. Stay, Jaques, stay.\n  JAQUES. To see no pastime I. What you would have\n    I'll stay to know at your abandon'd cave.               Exit\n  DUKE SENIOR. Proceed, proceed. We will begin these rites,\n    As we do trust they'll end, in true delights.    [A dance] Exeunt\n\nEPILOGUE\n                           EPILOGUE.\n  ROSALIND. It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue; but\n    it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord the prologue. If it\n    be true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good play\n    needs no epilogue. Yet to good wine they do use good bushes; and\n    good plays prove the better by the help of good epilogues. What a\n    case am I in then, that am neither a good epilogue, nor cannot\n    insinuate with you in the behalf of a good play! I am not\n    furnish'd like a beggar; therefore to beg will not become me. My\n    way is to conjure you; and I'll begin with the women. I charge\n    you, O women, for the love you bear to men, to like as much of\n    this play as please you; and I charge you, O men, for the love\n    you bear to women- as I perceive by your simp'ring none of you\n    hates them- that between you and the women the play may please.\n    If I were a woman, I would kiss as many of you as had beards that\n    pleas'd me, complexions that lik'd me, and breaths that I defied\n    not; and, I am sure, as many as have good beards, or good faces,\n    or sweet breaths, will, for my kind offer, when I make curtsy,\n    bid me farewell.\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n1593\n\nTHE COMEDY OF ERRORS\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\nSOLINUS, Duke of Ephesus\nAEGEON, a merchant of Syracuse\n\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS twin brothers and sons to\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Aegion and Aemelia\n\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS twin brothers, and attendants on\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE the two Antipholuses\n\nBALTHAZAR, a merchant\nANGELO, a goldsmith\nFIRST MERCHANT, friend to Antipholus of Syracuse\nSECOND MERCHANT, to whom Angelo is a debtor\nPINCH, a schoolmaster\n\nAEMILIA, wife to AEgeon; an abbess at Ephesus\nADRIANA, wife to Antipholus of Ephesus\nLUCIANA, her sister\nLUCE, servant to Adriana\n\nA COURTEZAN\n\nGaoler, Officers, Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nEphesus\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE COMEDY OF ERRORS\n\nACT I. SCENE 1\n\nA hall in the DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter the DUKE OF EPHESUS, AEGEON, the Merchant\nof Syracuse, GAOLER, OFFICERS, and other ATTENDANTS\n\nAEGEON. Proceed, Solinus, to procure my fall,\n  And by the doom of death end woes and all.\nDUKE. Merchant of Syracuse, plead no more;\n  I am not partial to infringe our laws.\n  The enmity and discord which of late\n  Sprung from the rancorous outrage of your duke\n  To merchants, our well-dealing countrymen,\n  Who, wanting guilders to redeem their lives,\n  Have seal'd his rigorous statutes with their bloods,\n  Excludes all pity from our threat'ning looks.\n  For, since the mortal and intestine jars\n  'Twixt thy seditious countrymen and us,\n  It hath in solemn synods been decreed,\n  Both by the Syracusians and ourselves,\n  To admit no traffic to our adverse towns;\n  Nay, more: if any born at Ephesus\n  Be seen at any Syracusian marts and fairs;\n  Again, if any Syracusian born\n  Come to the bay of Ephesus-he dies,\n  His goods confiscate to the Duke's dispose,\n  Unless a thousand marks be levied,\n  To quit the penalty and to ransom him.\n  Thy substance, valued at the highest rate,\n  Cannot amount unto a hundred marks;\n  Therefore by law thou art condemn'd to die.\nAEGEON. Yet this my comfort: when your words are done,\n  My woes end likewise with the evening sun.\nDUKE. Well, Syracusian, say in brief the cause\n  Why thou departed'st from thy native home,\n  And for what cause thou cam'st to Ephesus.\nAEGEON. A heavier task could not have been impos'd\n  Than I to speak my griefs unspeakable;\n  Yet, that the world may witness that my end\n  Was wrought by nature, not by vile offence,\n  I'll utter what my sorrow gives me leave.\n  In Syracuse was I born, and wed\n  Unto a woman, happy but for me,\n  And by me, had not our hap been bad.\n  With her I liv'd in joy; our wealth increas'd\n  By prosperous voyages I often made\n  To Epidamnum; till my factor's death,\n  And the great care of goods at random left,\n  Drew me from kind embracements of my spouse:\n  From whom my absence was not six months old,\n  Before herself, almost at fainting under\n  The pleasing punishment that women bear,\n  Had made provision for her following me,\n  And soon and safe arrived where I was.\n  There had she not been long but she became\n  A joyful mother of two goodly sons;\n  And, which was strange, the one so like the other\n  As could not be disdnguish'd but by names.\n  That very hour, and in the self-same inn,\n  A mean woman was delivered\n  Of such a burden, male twins, both alike.\n  Those, for their parents were exceeding poor,\n  I bought, and brought up to attend my sons.\n  My wife, not meanly proud of two such boys,\n  Made daily motions for our home return;\n  Unwilling, I agreed. Alas! too soon\n  We came aboard.\n  A league from Epidamnum had we sail'd\n  Before the always-wind-obeying deep\n  Gave any tragic instance of our harm:\n  But longer did we not retain much hope,\n  For what obscured light the heavens did grant\n  Did but convey unto our fearful minds\n  A doubtful warrant of immediate death;\n  Which though myself would gladly have embrac'd,\n  Yet the incessant weepings of my wife,\n  Weeping before for what she saw must come,\n  And piteous plainings of the pretty babes,\n  That mourn'd for fashion, ignorant what to fear,\n  Forc'd me to seek delays for them and me.\n  And this it was, for other means was none:\n  The sailors sought for safety by our boat,\n  And left the ship, then sinking-ripe, to us;\n  My wife, more careful for the latter-born,\n  Had fast'ned him unto a small spare mast,\n  Such as sea-faring men provide for storms;\n  To him one of the other twins was bound,\n  Whilst I had been like heedful of the other.\n  The children thus dispos'd, my wife and I,\n  Fixing our eyes on whom our care was fix'd,\n  Fast'ned ourselves at either end the mast,\n  And, floating straight, obedient to the stream,\n  Was carried towards Corinth, as we thought.\n  At length the sun, gazing upon the earth,\n  Dispers'd those vapours that offended us;\n  And, by the benefit of his wished light,\n  The seas wax'd calm, and we discovered\n  Two ships from far making amain to us-\n  Of Corinth that, of Epidaurus this.\n  But ere they came-O, let me say no more!\n  Gather the sequel by that went before.\nDUKE. Nay, forward, old man, do not break off so;\n  For we may pity, though not pardon thee.\nAEGEON. O, had the gods done so, I had not now\n  Worthily term'd them merciless to us!\n  For, ere the ships could meet by twice five leagues,\n  We were encount'red by a mighty rock,\n  Which being violently borne upon,\n  Our helpful ship was splitted in the midst;\n  So that, in this unjust divorce of us,\n  Fortune had left to both of us alike\n  What to delight in, what to sorrow for.\n  Her part, poor soul, seeming as burdened\n  With lesser weight, but not with lesser woe,\n  Was carried with more speed before the wind;\n  And in our sight they three were taken up\n  By fishermen of Corinth, as we thought.\n  At length another ship had seiz'd on us;\n  And, knowing whom it was their hap to save,\n  Gave healthful welcome to their ship-wreck'd guests,\n  And would have reft the fishers of their prey,\n  Had not their bark been very slow of sail;\n  And therefore homeward did they bend their course.\n  Thus have you heard me sever'd from my bliss,\n  That by misfortunes was my life prolong'd,\n  To tell sad stories of my own mishaps.\nDUKE. And, for the sake of them thou sorrowest for,\n  Do me the favour to dilate at full\n  What have befall'n of them and thee till now.\nAEGEON. My youngest boy, and yet my eldest care,\n  At eighteen years became inquisitive\n  After his brother, and importun'd me\n  That his attendant-so his case was like,\n  Reft of his brother, but retain'd his name-\n  Might bear him company in the quest of him;\n  Whom whilst I laboured of a love to see,\n  I hazarded the loss of whom I lov'd.\n  Five summers have I spent in farthest Greece,\n  Roaming clean through the bounds of Asia,\n  And, coasting homeward, came to Ephesus;\n  Hopeless to find, yet loath to leave unsought\n  Or that or any place that harbours men.\n  But here must end the story of my life;\n  And happy were I in my timely death,\n  Could all my travels warrant me they live.\nDUKE. Hapless, Aegeon, whom the fates have mark'd\n  To bear the extremity of dire mishap!\n  Now, trust me, were it not against our laws,\n  Against my crown, my oath, my dignity,\n  Which princes, would they, may not disannul,\n  My soul should sue as advocate for thee.\n  But though thou art adjudged to the death,\n  And passed sentence may not be recall'd\n  But to our honour's great disparagement,\n  Yet will I favour thee in what I can.\n  Therefore, merchant, I'll limit thee this day\n  To seek thy help by beneficial hap.\n  Try all the friends thou hast in Ephesus;\n  Beg thou, or borrow, to make up the sum,\n  And live; if no, then thou art doom'd to die.\n  Gaoler, take him to thy custody.\nGAOLER. I will, my lord.\nAEGEON. Hopeless and helpless doth Aegeon wend,\n  But to procrastinate his lifeless end.\n<Exeunt\n\n\nSCENE 2\n\nThe mart\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE, DROMIO OF SYRACUSE, and FIRST MERCHANT\n\nFIRST MERCHANT. Therefore, give out you are of Epidamnum,\n  Lest that your goods too soon be confiscate.\n  This very day a Syracusian merchant\n  Is apprehended for arrival here;\n  And, not being able to buy out his life,\n  According to the statute of the town,\n  Dies ere the weary sun set in the west.\n  There is your money that I had to keep.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Go bear it to the Centaur, where we host.\n  And stay there, Dromio, till I come to thee.\n  Within this hour it will be dinner-time;\n  Till that, I'll view the manners of the town,\n  Peruse the traders, gaze upon the buildings,\n  And then return and sleep within mine inn;\n  For with long travel I am stiff and weary.\n  Get thee away.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Many a man would take you at your word,\n  And go indeed, having so good a mean.\n<Exit\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. A trusty villain, sir, that very oft,\n  When I am dull with care and melancholy,\n  Lightens my humour with his merry jests.\n  What, will you walk with me about the town,\n  And then go to my inn and dine with me?\nFIRST MERCHANT. I am invited, sir, to certain merchants,\n  Of whom I hope to make much benefit;\n  I crave your pardon. Soon at five o'clock,\n  Please you, I'll meet with you upon the mart,\n  And afterward consort you till bed time.\n  My present business calls me from you now.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Farewell till then. I will go lose myself,\n  And wander up and down to view the city.\nFIRST MERCHANT. Sir, I commend you to your own content.\n<Exit FIRST MERCHANT\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. He that commends me to mine own content\n  Commends me to the thing I cannot get.\n  I to the world am like a drop of water\n  That in the ocean seeks another drop,\n  Who, falling there to find his fellow forth,\n  Unseen, inquisitive, confounds himself.\n  So I, to find a mother and a brother,\n  In quest of them, unhappy, lose myself.\n\nEnter DROMIO OF EPHESUS\n\n  Here comes the almanac of my true date.\n  What now? How chance thou art return'd so soon?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Return'd so soon! rather approach'd too late.\n  The capon burns, the pig falls from the spit;\n  The clock hath strucken twelve upon the bell-\n  My mistress made it one upon my cheek;\n  She is so hot because the meat is cold,\n  The meat is cold because you come not home,\n  You come not home because you have no stomach,\n  You have no stomach, having broke your fast;\n  But we, that know what 'tis to fast and pray,\n  Are penitent for your default to-day.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Stop in your wind, sir; tell me this, I pray:\n  Where have you left the money that I gave you?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. O-Sixpence that I had a Wednesday last\n  To pay the saddler for my mistress' crupper?\n  The saddler had it, sir; I kept it not.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I am not in a sportive humour now;\n  Tell me, and dally not, where is the money?\n  We being strangers here, how dar'st thou trust\n  So great a charge from thine own custody?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. I pray you jest, sir, as you sit at dinner.\n  I from my mistress come to you in post;\n  If I return, I shall be post indeed,\n  For she will score your fault upon my pate.\n  Methinks your maw, like mine, should be your clock,\n  And strike you home without a messenger.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Come, Dromio, come, these jests are out of season;\n  Reserve them till a merrier hour than this.\n  Where is the gold I gave in charge to thee?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. To me, sir? Why, you gave no gold to me.\n  ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Come on, sir knave, have done your foolishness,\n  And tell me how thou hast dispos'd thy charge.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. My charge was but to fetch you from the mart\n  Home to your house, the Phoenix, sir, to dinner.\n  My mistress and her sister stays for you.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Now, as I am a Christian, answer me\n  In what safe place you have bestow'd my money,\n  Or I shall break that merry sconce of yours,\n  That stands on tricks when I am undispos'd.\n  Where is the thousand marks thou hadst of me?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. I have some marks of yours upon my pate,\n  Some of my mistress' marks upon my shoulders,\n  But not a thousand marks between you both.\n  If I should pay your worship those again,\n  Perchance you will not bear them patiently.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thy mistress' marks! What mistress, slave, hast thou?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Your worship's wife, my mistress at the Phoenix;\n  She that doth fast till you come home to dinner,\n  And prays that you will hie you home to dinner.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What, wilt thou flout me thus unto my face,\n  Being forbid? There, take you that, sir knave.\n[Beats him]\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. What mean you, sir? For God's sake hold your hands!\n  Nay, an you will not, sir, I'll take my heels.\n<Exit\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Upon my life, by some device or other\n  The villain is o'erraught of all my money.\n  They say this town is full of cozenage;\n  As, nimble jugglers that deceive the eye,\n  Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind,\n  Soul-killing witches that deform the body,\n  Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks,\n  And many such-like liberties of sin;\n  If it prove so, I will be gone the sooner.\n  I'll to the Centaur to go seek this slave.\n  I greatly fear my money is not safe.\n<Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT Il. SCENE 1\n\nThe house of ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS\n\nEnter ADRIANA, wife to ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS, with LUCIANA, her sister\n\nADRIANA. Neither my husband nor the slave return'd\n  That in such haste I sent to seek his master!\n  Sure, Luciana, it is two o'clock.\nLUCIANA. Perhaps some merchant hath invited him,\n  And from the mart he's somewhere gone to dinner;\n  Good sister, let us dine, and never fret.\n  A man is master of his liberty;\n  Time is their master, and when they see time,\n  They'll go or come. If so, be patient, sister.\nADRIANA. Why should their liberty than ours be more?\nLUCIANA. Because their business still lies out o' door.\nADRIANA. Look when I serve him so, he takes it ill.\nLUCIANA. O, know he is the bridle of your will.\nADRIANA. There's none but asses will be bridled so.\nLUCIANA. Why, headstrong liberty is lash'd with woe.\n  There's nothing situate under heaven's eye\n  But hath his bound, in earth, in sea, in sky.\n  The beasts, the fishes, and the winged fowls,\n  Are their males' subjects, and at their controls.\n  Man, more divine, the master of all these,\n  Lord of the wide world and wild wat'ry seas,\n  Indu'd with intellectual sense and souls,\n  Of more pre-eminence than fish and fowls,\n  Are masters to their females, and their lords;\n  Then let your will attend on their accords.\nADRIANA. This servitude makes you to keep unwed.\nLUCIANA. Not this, but troubles of the marriage-bed.\nADRIANA. But, were you wedded, you would bear some sway.\nLUCIANA. Ere I learn love, I'll practise to obey.\nADRIANA. How if your husband start some other where?\nLUCIANA. Till he come home again, I would forbear.\nADRIANA. Patience unmov'd! no marvel though she pause:\n  They can be meek that have no other cause.\n  A wretched soul, bruis'd with adversity,\n  We bid be quiet when we hear it cry;\n  But were we burd'ned with like weight of pain,\n  As much, or more, we should ourselves complain.\n  So thou, that hast no unkind mate to grieve thee,\n  With urging helpless patience would relieve me;\n  But if thou live to see like right bereft,\n  This fool-begg'd patience in thee will be left.\nLUCIANA. Well, I will marry one day, but to try.\n  Here comes your man, now is your husband nigh.\n\nEnter DROMIO OF EPHESUS\n\nADRIANA. Say, is your tardy master now at hand?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Nay, he's at two hands with me, and that my two\n  ears can witness.\nADRIANA. Say, didst thou speak with him? Know'st thou his mind?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Ay, ay, he told his mind upon mine ear.\n  Beshrew his hand, I scarce could understand it.\nLUCIANA. Spake he so doubtfully thou could'st not feel his meaning?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Nay, he struck so plainly I could to\n  well feel his blows; and withal so doubtfully that I could\n  scarce understand them.\nADRIANA. But say, I prithee, is he coming home?\n  It seems he hath great care to please his wife.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Why, mistress, sure my master is horn-mad.\nADRIANA. Horn-mad, thou villain!\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. I mean not cuckold-mad;\n  But, sure, he is stark mad.\n  When I desir'd him to come home to dinner,\n  He ask'd me for a thousand marks in gold.\n  \"Tis dinner time' quoth I; 'My gold!' quoth he.\n  'Your meat doth burn' quoth I; 'My gold!' quoth he.\n  'Will you come home?' quoth I; 'My gold!' quoth he.\n  'Where is the thousand marks I gave thee, villain?'\n  'The pig' quoth I 'is burn'd'; 'My gold!' quoth he.\n  'My mistress, sir,' quoth I; 'Hang up thy mistress;\n  I know not thy mistress; out on thy mistress.'\nLUCIANA. Quoth who?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Quoth my master.\n  'I know' quoth he 'no house, no wife, no mistress.'\n  So that my errand, due unto my tongue,\n  I thank him, I bare home upon my shoulders;\n  For, in conclusion, he did beat me there.\nADRIANA. Go back again, thou slave, and fetch him home.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Go back again, and be new beaten home?\n  For God's sake, send some other messenger.\nADRIANA. Back, slave, or I will break thy pate across.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. And he will bless that cross with other beating;\n  Between you I shall have a holy head.\nADRIANA. Hence, prating peasant! Fetch thy master home.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Am I so round with you, as you with me,\n  That like a football you do spurn me thus?\n  You spurn me hence, and he will spurn me hither;\n  If I last in this service, you must case me in leather.\n<Exit\nLUCIANA. Fie, how impatience loureth in your face!\nADRIANA. His company must do his minions grace,\n  Whilst I at home starve for a merry look.\n  Hath homely age th' alluring beauty took\n  From my poor cheek? Then he hath wasted it.\n  Are my discourses dull? Barren my wit?\n  If voluble and sharp discourse be marr'd,\n  Unkindness blunts it more than marble hard.\n  Do their gay vestments his affections bait?\n  That's not my fault; he's master of my state.\n  What ruins are in me that can be found\n  By him not ruin'd? Then is he the ground\n  Of my defeatures. My decayed fair\n  A sunny look of his would soon repair.\n  But, too unruly deer, he breaks the pale,\n  And feeds from home; poor I am but his stale.\nLUCIANA. Self-harming jealousy! fie, beat it hence.\nADRIANA. Unfeeling fools can with such wrongs dispense.\n  I know his eye doth homage otherwhere;\n  Or else what lets it but he would be here?\n  Sister, you know he promis'd me a chain;\n  Would that alone a love he would detain,\n  So he would keep fair quarter with his bed!\n  I see the jewel best enamelled\n  Will lose his beauty; yet the gold bides still\n  That others touch and, often touching, will\n  Where gold; and no man that hath a name\n  By falsehood and corruption doth it shame.\n  Since that my beauty cannot please his eye,\n  I'll weep what's left away, and weeping die.\nLUCIANA. How many fond fools serve mad jealousy!\n<Exeunt\n\n\nSCENE 2\n\nThe mart\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE\n\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. The gold I gave to Dromio is laid up\n  Safe at the Centaur, and the heedful slave\n  Is wand'red forth in care to seek me out.\n  By computation and mine host's report\n  I could not speak with Dromio since at first\n  I sent him from the mart. See, here he comes.\n\nEnter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE\n\n  How now, sir, is your merry humour alter'd?\n  As you love strokes, so jest with me again.\n  You know no Centaur! You receiv'd no gold!\n  Your mistress sent to have me home to dinner!\n  My house was at the Phoenix! Wast thou mad,\n  That thus so madly thou didst answer me?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. What answer, sir? When spake I such a word?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Even now, even here, not half an hour since.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I did not see you since you sent me hence,\n  Home to the Centaur, with the gold you gave me.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Villain, thou didst deny the gold's receipt,\n  And told'st me of a mistress and a dinner;\n  For which, I hope, thou felt'st I was displeas'd.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I am glad to see you in this merry vein.\n  What means this jest? I pray you, master, tell me.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Yea, dost thou jeer and flout me in the teeth?\n  Think'st thou I jest? Hold, take thou that, and that.\n[Beating him]\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Hold, sir, for God's sake! Now your jest is earnest.\n  Upon what bargain do you give it me?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Because that I familiarly sometimes\n  Do use you for my fool and chat with you,\n  Your sauciness will jest upon my love,\n  And make a common of my serious hours.\n  When the sun shines let foolish gnats make sport,\n  But creep in crannies when he hides his beams.\n  If you will jest with me, know my aspect,\n  And fashion your demeanour to my looks,\n  Or I will beat this method in your sconce.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Sconce, call you it? So you would\n  leave battering, I had rather have it a head. An you use\n  these blows long, I must get a sconce for my head, and\n  insconce it too; or else I shall seek my wit in my shoulders.\n  But I pray, sir, why am I beaten?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Dost thou not know?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Nothing, sir, but that I am beaten.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Shall I tell you why?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Ay, sir, and wherefore; for they say\n  every why hath a wherefore.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why, first for flouting me; and then wherefore,\n  For urging it the second time to me.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Was there ever any man thus beaten out of season,\n  When in the why and the wherefore is neither rhyme nor reason?\n  Well, sir, I thank you.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thank me, sir! for what?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, for this something that you gave\n  me for nothing.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I'll make you amends next, to\n  give you nothing for something. But say, sir, is it dinnertime?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No, sir; I think the meat wants that I have.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. In good time, sir, what's that?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Basting.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Well, sir, then 'twill be dry.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. If it be, sir, I pray you eat none of it.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Your reason?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Lest it make you choleric, and purchase me\n  another dry basting.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Well, sir, learn to jest in good time;\n  there's a time for all things.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I durst have denied that, before you\n  were so choleric.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. By what rule, sir?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, by a rule as plain as the\n  plain bald pate of Father Time himself.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Let's hear it.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. There's no time for a man to recover\n  his hair that grows bald by nature.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. May he not do it by fine and recovery?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Yes, to pay a fine for a periwig, and\n  recover the lost hair of another man.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why is Time such a niggard of\n  hair, being, as it is, so plentiful an excrement?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Because it is a blessing that he bestows\n  on beasts, and what he hath scanted men in hair he hath\n  given them in wit.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why, but there's many a man\n  hath more hair than wit.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Not a man of those but he hath the\n  wit to lose his hair.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why, thou didst conclude hairy\n  men plain dealers without wit.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. The plainer dealer, the sooner lost;\n  yet he loseth it in a kind of jollity.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. For what reason?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. For two; and sound ones too.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Nay, not sound I pray you.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Sure ones, then.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Nay, not sure, in a thing falsing.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Certain ones, then.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Name them.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. The one, to save the money that he spends in\n  tiring; the other, that at dinner they should not drop in his\n  porridge.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. You would all this time have prov'd there\n  is no time for all things.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, and did, sir; namely, no time to recover\n  hair lost by nature.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. But your reason was not substantial, why\n  there is no time to recover.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Thus I mend it: Time himself is bald,\n  and therefore to the world's end will have bald followers.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I knew 't'would be a bald conclusion. But,\n  soft, who wafts us yonder?\n\nEnter ADRIANA and LUCIANA\n\nADRIANA. Ay, ay, Antipholus, look strange and frown.\n  Some other mistress hath thy sweet aspects;\n  I am not Adriana, nor thy wife.\n  The time was once when thou unurg'd wouldst vow\n  That never words were music to thine ear,\n  That never object pleasing in thine eye,\n  That never touch well welcome to thy hand,\n  That never meat sweet-savour'd in thy taste,\n  Unless I spake, or look'd, or touch'd, or carv'd to thee.\n  How comes it now, my husband, O, how comes it,\n  That thou art then estranged from thyself?\n  Thyself I call it, being strange to me,\n  That, undividable, incorporate,\n  Am better than thy dear self's better part.\n  Ah, do not tear away thyself from me;\n  For know, my love, as easy mayst thou fall\n  A drop of water in the breaking gulf,\n  And take unmingled thence that drop again\n  Without addition or diminishing,\n  As take from me thyself, and not me too.\n  How dearly would it touch thee to the quick,\n  Should'st thou but hear I were licentious,\n  And that this body, consecrate to thee,\n  By ruffian lust should be contaminate!\n  Wouldst thou not spit at me and spurn at me,\n  And hurl the name of husband in my face,\n  And tear the stain'd skin off my harlot-brow,\n  And from my false hand cut the wedding-ring,\n  And break it with a deep-divorcing vow?\n  I know thou canst, and therefore see thou do it.\n  I am possess'd with an adulterate blot;\n  My blood is mingled with the crime of lust;\n  For if we two be one, and thou play false,\n  I do digest the poison of thy flesh,\n  Being strumpeted by thy contagion.\n  Keep then fair league and truce with thy true bed;\n  I live dis-stain'd, thou undishonoured.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Plead you to me, fair dame? I know you not:\n  In Ephesus I am but two hours old,\n  As strange unto your town as to your talk,\n  Who, every word by all my wit being scann'd,\n  Wants wit in all one word to understand.\nLUCIANA. Fie, brother, how the world is chang'd with you!\n  When were you wont to use my sister thus?\n  She sent for you by Dromio home to dinner.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. By Dromio?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. By me?\nADRIANA. By thee; and this thou didst return from him-\n  That he did buffet thee, and in his blows\n  Denied my house for his, me for his wife.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Did you converse, sir, with this gentlewoman?\n  What is the course and drift of your compact?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I, Sir? I never saw her till this time.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Villain, thou liest; for even her very words\n  Didst thou deliver to me on the mart.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I never spake with her in all my life.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. How can she thus, then, call us by our names,\n  Unless it be by inspiration?\nADRIANA. How ill agrees it with your gravity\n  To counterfeit thus grossly with your slave,\n  Abetting him to thwart me in my mood!\n  Be it my wrong you are from me exempt,\n  But wrong not that wrong with a more contempt.\n  Come, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine;\n  Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine,\n  Whose weakness, married to thy stronger state,\n  Makes me with thy strength to communicate.\n  If aught possess thee from me, it is dross,\n  Usurping ivy, brier, or idle moss;\n  Who all, for want of pruning, with intrusion\n  Infect thy sap, and live on thy confusion.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. To me she speaks; she moves me for her theme.\n  What, was I married to her in my dream?\n  Or sleep I now, and think I hear all this?\n  What error drives our eyes and ears amiss?\n  Until I know this sure uncertainty,\n  I'll entertain the offer'd fallacy.\nLUCIANA. Dromio, go bid the servants spread for dinner.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. O, for my beads! I cross me for sinner.\n  This is the fairy land. O spite of spites!\n  We talk with goblins, owls, and sprites.\n  If we obey them not, this will ensue:\n  They'll suck our breath, or pinch us black and blue.\nLUCIANA. Why prat'st thou to thyself, and answer'st not?\n  Dromio, thou drone, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot!\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I am transformed, master, am not I?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I think thou art in mind, and so am I.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Nay, master, both in mind and in my shape.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thou hast thine own form.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No, I am an ape.\nLUCIANA. If thou art chang'd to aught, 'tis to an ass.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. 'Tis true; she rides me, and I long for grass.\n  'Tis so, I am an ass; else it could never be\n  But I should know her as well as she knows me.\nADRIANA. Come, come, no longer will I be a fool,\n  To put the finger in the eye and weep,\n  Whilst man and master laughs my woes to scorn.\n  Come, sir, to dinner. Dromio, keep the gate.\n  Husband, I'll dine above with you to-day,\n  And shrive you of a thousand idle pranks.\n  Sirrah, if any ask you for your master,\n  Say he dines forth, and let no creature enter.\n  Come, sister. Dromio, play the porter well.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell?\n  Sleeping or waking, mad or well-advis'd?\n  Known unto these, and to myself disguis'd!\n  I'll say as they say, and persever so,\n  And in this mist at all adventures go.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, shall I be porter at the gate?\nADRIANA. Ay; and let none enter, lest I break your pate.\nLUCIANA. Come, come, Antipholus, we dine too late.\n<Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 1\n\nBefore the house of ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS, DROMIO OF EPHESUS, ANGELO, and BALTHAZAR\n\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Good Signior Angelo, you must excuse us all;\n  My wife is shrewish when I keep not hours.\n  Say that I linger'd with you at your shop\n  To see the making of her carcanet,\n  And that to-morrow you will bring it home.\n  But here's a villain that would face me down\n  He met me on the mart, and that I beat him,\n  And charg'd him with a thousand marks in gold,\n  And that I did deny my wife and house.\n  Thou drunkard, thou, what didst thou mean by this?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Say what you will, sir, but I know what I know.\n  That you beat me at the mart I have your hand to show;\n  If the skin were parchment, and the blows you gave were ink,\n  Your own handwriting would tell you what I think.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I think thou art an ass.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Marry, so it doth appear\n  By the wrongs I suffer and the blows I bear.\n  I should kick, being kick'd; and being at that pass,\n  You would keep from my heels, and beware of an ass.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Y'are sad, Signior Balthazar; pray God our cheer\n  May answer my good will and your good welcome here.\nBALTHAZAR. I hold your dainties cheap, sir, and your welcome dear.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. O, Signior Balthazar, either at flesh or fish,\n  A table full of welcome makes scarce one dainty dish.\nBALTHAZAR. Good meat, sir, is common; that every churl affords.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. And welcome more common; for that's nothing\n  but words.\nBALTHAZAR. Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Ay, to a niggardly host and more sparing guest.\n  But though my cates be mean, take them in good part;\n  Better cheer may you have, but not with better heart.\n  But, soft, my door is lock'd; go bid them let us in.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Maud, Bridget, Marian, Cicely, Gillian, Ginn!\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. [Within] Mome, malt-horse, capon, coxcomb, idiot, patch!\n  Either get thee from the door, or sit down at the hatch.\n  Dost thou conjure for wenches, that thou call'st for such store,\n  When one is one too many? Go get thee from the door.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. What patch is made our porter?\n  My master stays in the street.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  Let him walk from whence he came,\n    lest he catch cold on's feet.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Who talks within there? Ho, open the door!\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  Right, sir; I'll tell you when,\n    an you'll tell me wherefore.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Wherefore? For my dinner;\n    I have not din'd to-day.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  Nor to-day here you must not;\n    come again when you may.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. What art thou that keep'st me out\n    from the house I owe?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  The porter for this time,\n    sir, and my name is Dromio.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. O Villain, thou hast stol'n both mine\n    office and my name!\n  The one ne'er got me credit, the other mickle blame.\n  If thou hadst been Dromio to-day in my place,\n  Thou wouldst have chang'd thy face for a name, or thy name for an ass.\n\nEnter LUCE, within\n\nLUCE.  [Within]  What a coil is there, Dromio? Who are those at the gate?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Let my master in, Luce.\nLUCE.  [Within]  Faith, no, he comes too late;\n  And so tell your master.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. O Lord, I must laugh!\n  Have at you with a proverb: Shall I set in my staff?\nLUCE.  [Within]  Have at you with another: that's-when? can you tell?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  If thy name be called Luce\n    -Luce, thou hast answer'd him well.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Do you hear, you minion? You'll let us in, I hope?\nLUCE.  [Within]  I thought to have ask'd you.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  And you said no.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. SO, Come, help: well struck! there was blow for blow.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Thou baggage, let me in.\nLUCE.  [Within]  Can you tell for whose sake?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Master, knock the door hard.\nLUCE.  [Within]  Let him knock till it ache.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. You'll cry for this, minion, if beat the door down.\nLUCE.  [Within] What needs all that, and a pair of stocks in the town?\n\nEnter ADRIANA, within\n\nADRIANA.  [Within]  Who is that at the door, that keeps all this noise?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  By my troth, your town is\n    troubled with unruly boys.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Are you there, wife? You might\n    have come before.\nADRIANA.  [Within]  Your wife, sir knave! Go get you from the door.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. If YOU went in pain, master, this 'knave' would go sore.\nANGELO. Here is neither cheer, sir, nor welcome; we would fain have either.\nBALTHAZAR. In debating which was best, we shall part with neither.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. They stand at the door, master; bid them welcome hither.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. There is something in the wind, that we cannot get in.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. You would say so, master, if your garments were thin.\n  Your cake here is warm within; you stand here in the cold;\n  It would make a man mad as a buck to be so bought and sold.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Go fetch me something; I'll break ope the gate.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  Break any breaking here,\n    and I'll break your knave's pate.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. A man may break a word with you,\n    sir; and words are but wind;\n  Ay, and break it in your face, so he break it not behind.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  It seems thou want'st breaking;\n    out upon thee, hind!\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Here's too much 'out upon thee!' pray thee let me in.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  Ay, when fowls have no\n    feathers and fish have no fin.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Well, I'll break in; go borrow me a crow.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. A crow without feather? Master, mean you so?\n  For a fish without a fin, there's a fowl without a feather;\n  If a crow help us in, sirrah, we'll pluck a crow together.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Go get thee gone; fetch me an iron crow.\nBALTHAZAR. Have patience, sir; O, let it not be so!\n  Herein you war against your reputation,\n  And draw within the compass of suspect\n  Th' unviolated honour of your wife.\n  Once this-your long experience of her wisdom,\n  Her sober virtue, years, and modesty,\n  Plead on her part some cause to you unknown;\n  And doubt not, sir, but she will well excuse\n  Why at this time the doors are made against you.\n  Be rul'd by me: depart in patience,\n  And let us to the Tiger all to dinner;\n  And, about evening, come yourself alone\n  To know the reason of this strange restraint.\n  If by strong hand you offer to break in\n  Now in the stirring passage of the day,\n  A vulgar comment will be made of it,\n  And that supposed by the common rout\n  Against your yet ungalled estimation\n  That may with foul intrusion enter in\n  And dwell upon your grave when you are dead;\n  For slander lives upon succession,\n  For ever hous'd where it gets possession.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. You have prevail'd. I will depart in quiet,\n  And in despite of mirth mean to be merry.\n  I know a wench of excellent discourse,\n  Pretty and witty; wild, and yet, too, gentle;\n  There will we dine. This woman that I mean,\n  My wife-but, I protest, without desert-\n  Hath oftentimes upbraided me withal;\n  To her will we to dinner.  [To ANGELO]  Get you home\n  And fetch the chain; by this I know 'tis made.\n  Bring it, I pray you, to the Porpentine;\n  For there's the house. That chain will I bestow-\n  Be it for nothing but to spite my wife-\n  Upon mine hostess there; good sir, make haste.\n  Since mine own doors refuse to entertain me,\n  I'll knock elsewhere, to see if they'll disdain me.\nANGELO. I'll meet you at that place some hour hence.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Do so; this jest shall cost me some expense.\n<Exeunt\n\n\nSCENE 2\n\nBefore the house of ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS\n\nEnter LUCIANA with ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE\n\nLUCIANA. And may it be that you have quite forgot\n  A husband's office? Shall, Antipholus,\n  Even in the spring of love, thy love-springs rot?\n  Shall love, in building, grow so ruinous?\n  If you did wed my sister for her wealth,\n  Then for her wealth's sake use her with more kindness;\n  Or, if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth;\n  Muffle your false love with some show of blindness;\n  Let not my sister read it in your eye;\n  Be not thy tongue thy own shame's orator;\n  Look sweet, speak fair, become disloyalty;\n  Apparel vice like virtue's harbinger;\n  Bear a fair presence, though your heart be tainted;\n  Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint;\n  Be secret-false. What need she be acquainted?\n  What simple thief brags of his own attaint?\n  'Tis double wrong to truant with your bed\n  And let her read it in thy looks at board;\n  Shame hath a bastard fame, well managed;\n  Ill deeds is doubled with an evil word.\n  Alas, poor women! make us but believe,\n  Being compact of credit, that you love us;\n  Though others have the arm, show us the sleeve;\n  We in your motion turn, and you may move us.\n  Then, gentle brother, get you in again;\n  Comfort my sister, cheer her, call her wife.\n  'Tis holy sport to be a little vain\n  When the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Sweet mistress-what your name is else, I know not,\n  Nor by what wonder you do hit of mine-\n  Less in your knowledge and your grace you show not\n  Than our earth's wonder-more than earth, divine.\n  Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak;\n  Lay open to my earthy-gross conceit,\n  Smoth'red in errors, feeble, shallow, weak,\n  The folded meaning of your words' deceit.\n  Against my soul's pure truth why labour you\n  To make it wander in an unknown field?\n  Are you a god? Would you create me new?\n  Transform me, then, and to your pow'r I'll yield.\n  But if that I am I, then well I know\n  Your weeping sister is no wife of mine,\n  Nor to her bed no homage do I owe;\n  Far more, far more, to you do I decline.\n  O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note,\n  To drown me in thy sister's flood of tears.\n  Sing, siren, for thyself, and I will dote;\n  Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs,\n  And as a bed I'll take them, and there he;\n  And in that glorious supposition think\n  He gains by death that hath such means to die.\n  Let Love, being light, be drowned if she sink.\nLUCIANA. What, are you mad, that you do reason so?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Not mad, but mated; how, I do not know.\nLUCIANA. It is a fault that springeth from your eye.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. For gazing on your beams, fair sun, being by.\nLUCIANA. Gaze where you should, and that will clear your sight.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. As good to wink, sweet love, as look on night.\nLUCIANA. Why call you me love? Call my sister so.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thy sister's sister.\nLUCIANA. That's my sister.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. No;\n  It is thyself, mine own self's better part;\n  Mine eye's clear eye, my dear heart's dearer heart,\n  My food, my fortune, and my sweet hope's aim,\n  My sole earth's heaven, and my heaven's claim.\nLUCIANA. All this my sister is, or else should be.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Call thyself sister, sweet, for I am thee;\n  Thee will I love, and with thee lead my life;\n  Thou hast no husband yet, nor I no wife.\n  Give me thy hand.\nLUCIANA. O, soft, sir, hold you still;\n  I'll fetch my sister to get her good will.\n<Exit LUCIANA\n\nEnter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.\n\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why, how now, Dromio! Where run'st thou\n  so fast?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Do you know me, sir? Am I Dromio?\n  Am I your man? Am I myself?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thou art Dromio, thou art my\n  man, thou art thyself.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I am an ass, I am a woman's man, and besides\n  myself.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What woman's man, and how besides thyself?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, besides myself, I am due\n  to a woman-one that claims me, one that haunts me, one\n  that will have me.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What claim lays she to thee?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, such claim as you would\n  lay to your horse; and she would have me as a beast: not\n  that, I being a beast, she would have me; but that she,\n  being a very beastly creature, lays claim to me.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What is she?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. A very reverent body; ay, such a one\n  as a man may not speak of without he say 'Sir-reverence.'\n  I have but lean luck in the match, and yet is she a\n  wondrous fat marriage.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. How dost thou mean a fat marriage?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, she's the kitchen-wench,\n  and all grease; and I know not what use to put her to but\n  to make a lamp of her and run from her by her own light.\n  I warrant, her rags and the tallow in them will burn\n  Poland winter. If she lives till doomsday, she'll burn\n  week longer than the whole world.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What complexion is she of?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Swart, like my shoe; but her face\n  nothing like so clean kept; for why, she sweats, a man may\n  go over shoes in the grime of it.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. That's a fault that water will mend.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No, sir, 'tis in grain; Noah's flood\n  could not do it.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What's her name?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Nell, sir; but her name and three\n  quarters, that's an ell and three quarters, will not measure\n  her from hip to hip.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Then she bears some breadth?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No longer from head to foot than\n  from hip to hip: she is spherical, like a globe; I could find\n  out countries in her.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. In what part of her body stands Ireland?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, in her buttocks; I found it out by\n  the bogs.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where Scotland?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I found it by the barrenness, hard in\n  the palm of the hand.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where France?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. In her forehead, arm'd and reverted,\n  making war against her heir.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where England?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I look'd for the chalky cliffs, but I\n  could find no whiteness in them; but I guess it stood in her\n  chin, by the salt rheum that ran between France and it.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where Spain?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Faith, I saw it not, but I felt it hot in\n  her breath.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where America, the Indies?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. O, sir, upon her nose, an o'er embellished with\n  rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich aspect to the\n  hot breath of Spain; who sent whole armadoes of caracks to be\n  ballast at her nose.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. O, Sir, I did not look so low. To\n  conclude: this drudge or diviner laid claim to me; call'd me\n  Dromio; swore I was assur'd to her; told me what privy\n  marks I had about me, as, the mark of my shoulder, the\n  mole in my neck, the great wart on my left arm, that I,\n  amaz'd, ran from her as a witch.\n  And, I think, if my breast had not been made of faith,\n    and my heart of steel,\n  She had transform'd me to a curtal dog, and made me turn i' th' wheel.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Go hie thee presently post to the road;\n  An if the wind blow any way from shore,\n  I will not harbour in this town to-night.\n  If any bark put forth, come to the mart,\n  Where I will walk till thou return to me.\n  If every one knows us, and we know none,\n  'Tis time, I think, to trudge, pack and be gone.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. As from a bear a man would run for life,\n  So fly I from her that would be my wife.\n<Exit\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. There's none but witches do inhabit here,\n  And therefore 'tis high time that I were hence.\n  She that doth call me husband, even my soul\n  Doth for a wife abhor. But her fair sister,\n  Possess'd with such a gentle sovereign grace,\n  Of such enchanting presence and discourse,\n  Hath almost made me traitor to myself;\n  But, lest myself be guilty to self-wrong,\n  I'll stop mine ears against the mermaid's song.\n\nEnter ANGELO with the chain\n\nANGELO. Master Antipholus!\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Ay, that's my name.\nANGELO. I know it well, sir. Lo, here is the chain.\n  I thought to have ta'en you at the Porpentine;\n  The chain unfinish'd made me stay thus long.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What is your will that I shall do with this?\nANGELO. What please yourself, sir; I have made it for you.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Made it for me, sir! I bespoke it not.\nANGELO. Not once nor twice, but twenty times you have.\n  Go home with it, and please your wife withal;\n  And soon at supper-time I'll visit you,\n  And then receive my money for the chain.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I pray you, sir, receive the money now,\n  For fear you ne'er see chain nor money more.\nANGELO. You are a merry man, sir; fare you well.\n<Exit\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What I should think of this cannot tell:\n  But this I think, there's no man is so vain\n  That would refuse so fair an offer'd chain.\n  I see a man here needs not live by shifts,\n  When in the streets he meets such golden gifts.\n  I'll to the mart, and there for Dromio stay;\n  If any ship put out, then straight away.\n<Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 1\n\nA public place\n\nEnter SECOND MERCHANT, ANGELO, and an OFFICER\n\nSECOND MERCHANT. You know since Pentecost the sum is due,\n  And since I have not much importun'd you;\n  Nor now I had not, but that I am bound\n  To Persia, and want guilders for my voyage.\n  Therefore make present satisfaction,\n  Or I'll attach you by this officer.\nANGELO. Even just the sum that I do owe to you\n  Is growing to me by Antipholus;\n  And in the instant that I met with you\n  He had of me a chain; at five o'clock\n  I shall receive the money for the same.\n  Pleaseth you walk with me down to his house,\n  I will discharge my bond, and thank you too.\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS, and DROMIO OF EPHESUS, from the COURTEZAN'S\n\nOFFICER. That labour may you save; see where he comes.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. While I go to the goldsmith's house, go thou\n  And buy a rope's end; that will I bestow\n  Among my wife and her confederates,\n  For locking me out of my doors by day.\n  But, soft, I see the goldsmith. Get thee gone;\n  Buy thou a rope, and bring it home to me.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. I buy a thousand pound a year; I buy a rope.\n<Exit DROMIO\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. A man is well holp up that trusts to you!\n  I promised your presence and the chain;\n  But neither chain nor goldsmith came to me.\n  Belike you thought our love would last too long,\n  If it were chain'd together, and therefore came not.\nANGELO. Saving your merry humour, here's the note\n  How much your chain weighs to the utmost carat,\n  The fineness of the gold, and chargeful fashion,\n  Which doth amount to three odd ducats more\n  Than I stand debted to this gentleman.\n  I pray you see him presently discharg'd,\n  For he is bound to sea, and stays but for it.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I am not furnish'd with the present money;\n  Besides, I have some business in the town.\n  Good signior, take the stranger to my house,\n  And with you take the chain, and bid my wife\n  Disburse the sum on the receipt thereof.\n  Perchance I will be there as soon as you.\nANGELO. Then you will bring the chain to her yourself?\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. No; bear it with you, lest I come not time enough.\nANGELO. Well, sir, I will. Have you the chain about you?\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. An if I have not, sir, I hope you have;\n  Or else you may return without your money.\nANGELO. Nay, come, I pray you, sir, give me the chain;\n  Both wind and tide stays for this gentleman,\n  And I, to blame, have held him here too long.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Good Lord! you use this dalliance to excuse\n  Your breach of promise to the Porpentine;\n  I should have chid you for not bringing it,\n  But, like a shrew, you first begin to brawl.\nSECOND MERCHANT. The hour steals on; I pray you, sir, dispatch.\nANGELO. You hear how he importunes me-the chain!\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Why, give it to my wife, and fetch your money.\nANGELO. Come, come, you know I gave it you even now.\n  Either send the chain or send by me some token.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Fie, now you run this humour out of breath!\n  Come, where's the chain? I pray you let me see it.\nSECOND MERCHANT. My business cannot brook this dalliance.\n  Good sir, say whe'r you'll answer me or no;\n  If not, I'll leave him to the officer.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I answer you! What should I answer you?\nANGELO. The money that you owe me for the chain.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I owe you none till I receive the chain.\nANGELO. You know I gave it you half an hour since.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. You gave me none; you wrong me much to say so.\nANGELO. You wrong me more, sir, in denying it.\n  Consider how it stands upon my credit.\nSECOND MERCHANT. Well, officer, arrest him at my suit.\nOFFICER. I do; and charge you in the Duke's name to obey me.\nANGELO. This touches me in reputation.\n  Either consent to pay this sum for me,\n  Or I attach you by this officer.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Consent to pay thee that I never had!\n  Arrest me, foolish fellow, if thou dar'st.\nANGELO. Here is thy fee; arrest him, officer.\n  I would not spare my brother in this case,\n  If he should scorn me so apparently.\nOFFICER. I do arrest you, sir; you hear the suit.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I do obey thee till I give thee bail.\n  But, sirrah, you shall buy this sport as dear\n  As all the metal in your shop will answer.\nANGELO. Sir, sir, I shall have law in Ephesus,\n  To your notorious shame, I doubt it not.\n\nEnter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE, from the bay\n\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, there's a bark of Epidamnum\n  That stays but till her owner comes aboard,\n  And then, sir, she bears away. Our fraughtage, sir,\n  I have convey'd aboard; and I have bought\n  The oil, the balsamum, and aqua-vitx.\n  The ship is in her trim; the merry wind\n  Blows fair from land; they stay for nought at an\n  But for their owner, master, and yourself.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. How now! a madman? Why, thou peevish sheep,\n  What ship of Epidamnum stays for me?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. A ship you sent me to, to hire waftage.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. THOU drunken slave! I sent the for a rope;\n  And told thee to what purpose and what end.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. YOU sent me for a rope's end as soon-\n  You sent me to the bay, sir, for a bark.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I Will debate this matter at more leisure,\n  And teach your ears to list me with more heed.\n  To Adriana, villain, hie thee straight;\n  Give her this key, and tell her in the desk\n  That's cover'd o'er with Turkish tapestry\n  There is a purse of ducats; let her send it.\n  Tell her I am arrested in the street,\n  And that shall bail me; hie thee, slave, be gone.\n  On, officer, to prison till it come.\n<Exeunt all but DROMIO\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. To Adriana! that is where we din'd,\n  Where Dowsabel did claim me for her husband.\n  She is too big, I hope, for me to compass.\n  Thither I must, although against my will,\n  For servants must their masters' minds fulfil.\n<Exit\n\n\nSCENE 2\n\nThe house of ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS\n\nEnter ADRIANA and LUCIANA\n\nADRIANA. Ah, Luciana, did he tempt thee so?\n  Might'st thou perceive austerely in his eye\n  That he did plead in earnest? Yea or no?\n  Look'd he or red or pale, or sad or merrily?\n  What observation mad'st thou in this case\n  Of his heart's meteors tilting in his face?\nLUCIANA. First he denied you had in him no right.\nADRIANA. He meant he did me none-the more my spite.\nLUCIANA. Then swore he that he was a stranger here.\nADRIANA. And true he swore, though yet forsworn he were.\nLUCIANA. Then pleaded I for you.\nADRIANA. And what said he?\nLUCIANA. That love I begg'd for you he begg'd of me.\nADRIANA. With what persuasion did he tempt thy love?\nLUCIANA. With words that in an honest suit might move.\n  First he did praise my beauty, then my speech.\nADRIANA. Didst speak him fair?\nLUCIANA. Have patience, I beseech.\nADRIANA. I cannot, nor I will not hold me still;\n  My tongue, though not my heart, shall have his will.\n  He is deformed, crooked, old, and sere,\n  Ill-fac'd, worse bodied, shapeless everywhere;\n  Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind;\n  Stigmatical in making, worse in mind.\nLUCIANA. Who would be jealous then of such a one?\n  No evil lost is wail'd when it is gone.\nADRIANA. Ah, but I think him better than I say,\n  And yet would herein others' eyes were worse.\n  Far from her nest the lapwing cries away;\n  My heart prays for him, though my tongue do curse.\n\nEnter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.\n\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Here go-the desk, the purse. Sweet\n  now, make haste.\nLUCIANA. How hast thou lost thy breath?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. By running fast.\nADRIANA. Where is thy master, Dromio? Is he well?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No, he's in Tartar limbo, worse than hell.\n  A devil in an everlasting garment hath him;\n  One whose hard heart is button'd up with steel;\n  A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough;\n  A wolf, nay worse, a fellow all in buff;\n  A back-friend, a shoulder-clapper, one that countermands\n  The passages of alleys, creeks, and narrow lands;\n  A hound that runs counter, and yet draws dry-foot well;\n  One that, before the Judgment, carries poor souls to hell.\nADRIANA. Why, man, what is the matter?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I do not know the matter; he is rested on the case.\nADRIANA. What, is he arrested? Tell me, at whose suit?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I know not at whose suit he is arrested well;\n  But he's in a suit of buff which 'rested him, that can I tell.\n  Will you send him, mistress, redemption, the money in his desk?\nADRIANA. Go fetch it, sister.  [Exit LUCIANA]  This I wonder at:\n  Thus he unknown to me should be in debt.\n  Tell me, was he arrested on a band?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. on a band, but on a stronger thing,\n  A chain, a chain. Do you not hear it ring?\nADRIANA. What, the chain?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No, no, the bell; 'tis time that I were gone.\n  It was two ere I left him, and now the clock strikes one.\nADRIANA. The hours come back! That did I never hear.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. O yes. If any hour meet a sergeant,\n    'a turns back for very fear.\nADRIANA. As if Time were in debt! How fondly dost thou reason!\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Time is a very bankrupt, and owes\n    more than he's worth to season.\n  Nay, he's a thief too: have you not heard men say\n  That Time comes stealing on by night and day?\n  If 'a be in debt and theft, and a sergeant in the way,\n  Hath he not reason to turn back an hour in a day?\n\nRe-enter LUCIANA with a purse\n\nADRIANA. Go, Dromio, there's the money; bear it straight,\n  And bring thy master home immediately.\n  Come, sister; I am press'd down with conceit-\n  Conceit, my comfort and my injury.\n<Exeunt\n\n\nSCENE 3\n\nThe mart\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE\n\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. There's not a man I meet but doth salute me\n  As if I were their well-acquainted friend;\n  And every one doth call me by my name.\n  Some tender money to me, some invite me,\n  Some other give me thanks for kindnesses,\n  Some offer me commodities to buy;\n  Even now a tailor call'd me in his shop,\n  And show'd me silks that he had bought for me,\n  And therewithal took measure of my body.\n  Sure, these are but imaginary wiles,\n  And Lapland sorcerers inhabit here.\n\nEnter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE\n\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, here's the gold you sent me\n  for. What, have you got the picture of old Adam new-apparell'd?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What gold is this? What Adam dost thou mean?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Not that Adam that kept the Paradise,\n  but that Adam that keeps the prison; he that goes in the\n  calf's skin that was kill'd for the Prodigal; he that came behind\n  you, sir, like an evil angel, and bid you forsake your liberty.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I understand thee not.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No? Why, 'tis a plain case: he that\n  went, like a bass-viol, in a case of leather; the man, sir,\n  that, when gentlemen are tired, gives them a sob, and rest\n  them; he, sir, that takes pity on decayed men, and give\n  them suits of durance; he that sets up his rest to do more\n  exploits with his mace than a morris-pike.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What, thou mean'st an officer?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Ay, sir, the sergeant of the band;\n  that brings any man to answer it that breaks his band; on\n  that thinks a man always going to bed, and says 'God give\n  you good rest!'\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Well, sir, there rest in your foolery. Is\n  there any ship puts forth to-night? May we be gone?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Why, sir, I brought you word an\n  hour since that the bark Expedition put forth to-night; and\n  then were you hind'red by the sergeant, to tarry for the\n  boy Delay. Here are the angels that you sent for to deliver you.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. The fellow is distract, and so am I;\n  And here we wander in illusions.\n  Some blessed power deliver us from hence!\n\nEnter a COURTEZAN\n\nCOURTEZAN. Well met, well met, Master Antipholus.\n  I see, sir, you have found the goldsmith now.\n  Is that the chain you promis'd me to-day?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Satan, avoid! I charge thee, tempt me not.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, is this Mistress Satan?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. It is the devil.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Nay, she is worse, she is the devil's\n  dam, and here she comes in the habit of a light wench; and\n  thereof comes that the wenches say 'God damn me!' That's\n  as much to say 'God make me a light wench!' It is written\n  they appear to men like angels of light; light is an effect\n  of fire, and fire will burn; ergo, light wenches will burn.\n  Come not near her.\nCOURTEZAN. Your man and you are marvellous merry, sir.\n  Will you go with me? We'll mend our dinner here.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, if you do, expect spoon-meat,\n  or bespeak a long spoon.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why, Dromio?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, he must have a long spoon\n  that must eat with the devil.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Avoid then, fiend! What tell'st thou me of supping?\n  Thou art, as you are all, a sorceress;\n  I conjure thee to leave me and be gone.\nCOURTEZAN. Give me the ring of mine you had at dinner,\n  Or, for my diamond, the chain you promis'd,\n  And I'll be gone, sir, and not trouble you.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Some devils ask but the parings of one's nail,\n  A rush, a hair, a drop of blood, a pin,\n  A nut, a cherry-stone;\n  But she, more covetous, would have a chain.\n  Master, be wise; an if you give it her,\n  The devil will shake her chain, and fright us with it.\nCOURTEZAN. I pray you, sir, my ring, or else the chain;\n  I hope you do not mean to cheat me so.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Avaunt, thou witch! Come, Dromio, let us go.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. 'Fly pride' says the peacock. Mistress, that you know.\n<Exeunt ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and DROMIO OF SYRACUSE\nCOURTEZAN. Now, out of doubt, Antipholus is mad,\n  Else would he never so demean himself.\n  A ring he hath of mine worth forty ducats,\n  And for the same he promis'd me a chain;\n  Both one and other he denies me now.\n  The reason that I gather he is mad,\n  Besides this present instance of his rage,\n  Is a mad tale he told to-day at dinner\n  Of his own doors being shut against his entrance.\n  Belike his wife, acquainted with his fits,\n  On purpose shut the doors against his way.\n  My way is now to hie home to his house,\n  And tell his wife that, being lunatic,\n  He rush'd into my house and took perforce\n  My ring away. This course I fittest choose,\n  For forty ducats is too much to lose.\n<Exit\n\n\nSCENE 4\n\nA street\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS with the OFFICER\n\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Fear me not, man; I will not break away.\n  I'll give thee, ere I leave thee, so much money,\n  To warrant thee, as I am 'rested for.\n  My wife is in a wayward mood to-day,\n  And will not lightly trust the messenger.\n  That I should be attach'd in Ephesus,\n  I tell you 'twill sound harshly in her cars.\n\nEnter DROMIO OF EPHESUS, with a rope's-end\n\n  Here comes my man; I think he brings the money.\n  How now, sir! Have you that I sent you for?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Here's that, I warrant you, will pay them all.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. But where's the money?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Why, sir, I gave the money for the rope.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Five hundred ducats, villain, for rope?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. I'll serve you, sir, five hundred at the rate.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. To what end did I bid thee hie thee home?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. To a rope's-end, sir; and to that end am I\n  return'd.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. And to that end, sir, I will welcome you.\n[Beating him]\nOFFICER. Good sir, be patient.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Nay, 'tis for me to be patient; I am in\n  adversity.\nOFFICER. Good now, hold thy tongue.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Nay, rather persuade him to hold his hands.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Thou whoreson, senseless villain!\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. I would I were senseless, sir, that I\n  might not feel your blows.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Thou art sensible in nothing but\n  blows, and so is an ass.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. I am an ass indeed; you may prove it\n  by my long 'ears. I have served him from the hour of my\n  nativity to this instant, and have nothing at his hands for\n  my service but blows. When I am cold he heats me with\n  beating; when I am warm he cools me with beating. I am\n  wak'd with it when I sleep; rais'd with it when I sit; driven\n  out of doors with it when I go from home; welcom'd home\n  with it when I return; nay, I bear it on my shoulders as\n  beggar wont her brat; and I think, when he hath lam'd me,\n  I shall beg with it from door to door.\n\nEnter ADRIANA, LUCIANA, the COURTEZAN, and a SCHOOLMASTER\ncall'd PINCH\n\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Come, go along; my wife is coming yonder.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Mistress, 'respice finem,' respect your end; or\n  rather, to prophesy like the parrot, 'Beware the rope's-end.'\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Wilt thou still talk?\n[Beating him]\nCOURTEZAN. How say you now? Is not your husband mad?\nADRIANA. His incivility confirms no less.\n  Good Doctor Pinch, you are a conjurer:\n  Establish him in his true sense again,\n  And I will please you what you will demand.\nLUCIANA. Alas, how fiery and how sharp he looks!\nCOURTEZAN. Mark how he trembles in his ecstasy.\nPINCH. Give me your hand, and let me feel your pulse.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. There is my hand, and let it feel your ear.\n[Striking him]\nPINCH. I charge thee, Satan, hous'd within this man,\n  To yield possession to my holy prayers,\n  And to thy state of darkness hie thee straight.\n  I conjure thee by all the saints in heaven.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Peace, doting wizard, peace! I am not mad.\nADRIANA. O, that thou wert not, poor distressed soul!\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. You minion, you, are these your customers?\n  Did this companion with the saffron face\n  Revel and feast it at my house to-day,\n  Whilst upon me the guilty doors were shut,\n  And I denied to enter in my house?\nADRIANA. O husband, God doth know you din'd at home,\n  Where would you had remain'd until this time,\n  Free from these slanders and this open shame!\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Din'd at home! Thou villain, what sayest thou?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Sir, Sooth to say, you did not dine at home.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Were not my doors lock'd up and I shut out?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Perdie, your doors were lock'd and you shut out.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. And did not she herself revile me there?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Sans fable, she herself revil'd you there.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Did not her kitchen-maid rail, taunt, and scorn me?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Certes, she did; the kitchen-vestal scorn'd you.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. And did not I in rage depart from thence?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. In verity, you did. My bones bear witness,\n  That since have felt the vigour of his rage.\nADRIANA. Is't good to soothe him in these contraries?\nPINCH. It is no shame; the fellow finds his vein,\n  And, yielding to him, humours well his frenzy.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Thou hast suborn'd the goldsmith to arrest me.\nADRIANA. Alas, I sent you money to redeem you,\n  By Dromio here, who came in haste for it.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Money by me! Heart and goodwill you might,\n  But surely, master, not a rag of money.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Went'st not thou to her for purse of ducats?\nADRIANA. He came to me, and I deliver'd it.\nLUCIANA. And I am witness with her that she did.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. God and the rope-maker bear me witness\n  That I was sent for nothing but a rope!\nPINCH. Mistress, both man and master is possess'd;\n  I know it by their pale and deadly looks.\n  They must be bound, and laid in some dark room.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Say, wherefore didst thou lock me forth to-day?\n  And why dost thou deny the bag of gold?\nADRIANA. I did not, gentle husband, lock thee forth.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. And, gentle master, I receiv'd no gold;\n  But I confess, sir, that we were lock'd out.\nADRIANA. Dissembling villain, thou speak'st false in both.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Dissembling harlot, thou art false in all,\n  And art confederate with a damned pack\n  To make a loathsome abject scorn of me;\n  But with these nails I'll pluck out these false eyes\n  That would behold in me this shameful sport.\nADRIANA. O, bind him, bind him; let him not come near me.\nPINCH. More company! The fiend is strong within him.\n\nEnter three or four, and offer to bind him. He strives\n\nLUCIANA. Ay me, poor man, how pale and wan he looks!\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. What, will you murder me? Thou gaoler, thou,\n  I am thy prisoner. Wilt thou suffer them\n  To make a rescue?\nOFFICER. Masters, let him go;\n  He is my prisoner, and you shall not have him.\nPINCH. Go bind this man, for he is frantic too.\n[They bind DROMIO]\nADRIANA. What wilt thou do, thou peevish officer?\n  Hast thou delight to see a wretched man\n  Do outrage and displeasure to himself?\nOFFICER. He is my prisoner; if I let him go,\n  The debt he owes will be requir'd of me.\nADRIANA. I will discharge thee ere I go from thee;\n  Bear me forthwith unto his creditor,\n  And, knowing how the debt grows, I will pay it.\n  Good Master Doctor, see him safe convey'd\n  Home to my house. O most unhappy day!\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. O most unhappy strumpet!\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Master, I am here ent'red in bond for you.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Out on thee, villian! Wherefore\n  dost thou mad me?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Will you be bound for nothing?\n  Be mad, good master; cry 'The devil!'\nLUCIANA. God help, poor souls, how idly do they talk!\nADRIANA. Go bear him hence. Sister, go you with me.\n<Exeunt all but ADRIANA, LUCIANA, OFFICERS, and COURTEZAN\n  Say now, whose suit is he arrested at?\nOFFICER. One Angelo, a goldsmith; do you know him?\nADRIANA. I know the man. What is the sum he owes?\nOFFICER. Two hundred ducats.\nADRIANA. Say, how grows it due?\nOFFICER. Due for a chain your husband had of him.\nADRIANA. He did bespeak a chain for me, but had it not.\nCOURTEZAN. When as your husband, all in rage, to-day\n  Came to my house, and took away my ring-\n  The ring I saw upon his finger now-\n  Straight after did I meet him with a chain.\nADRIANA. It may be so, but I did never see it.\n  Come, gaoler, bring me where the goldsmith is;\n  I long to know the truth hereof at large.\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE, with his rapier drawn, and\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.\n\nLUCIANA. God, for thy mercy! they are loose again.\nADRIANA. And come with naked swords.\n  Let's call more help to have them bound again.\nOFFICER. Away, they'll kill us!\n<Exeunt all but ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE as fast as may be, frighted\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I see these witches are afraid of swords.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. She that would be your wife now ran from you.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Come to the Centaur; fetch our stuff from thence.\n  I long that we were safe and sound aboard.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Faith, stay here this night; they will\n  surely do us no harm; you saw they speak us fair, give us\n  gold; methinks they are such a gentle nation that, but for\n  the mountain of mad flesh that claims marriage of me,\n  could find in my heart to stay here still and turn witch.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I will not stay to-night for all the town;\n  Therefore away, to get our stuff aboard.\n<Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 1\n\nA street before a priory\n\nEnter SECOND MERCHANT and ANGELO\n\nANGELO. I am sorry, sir, that I have hind'red you;\n  But I protest he had the chain of me,\n  Though most dishonestly he doth deny it.\nSECOND MERCHANT. How is the man esteem'd here in the city?\nANGELO. Of very reverend reputation, sir,\n  Of credit infinite, highly belov'd,\n  Second to none that lives here in the city;\n  His word might bear my wealth at any time.\nSECOND MERCHANT. Speak softly; yonder, as I think, he walks.\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and DROMIO OF SYRACUSE\n\nANGELO. 'Tis so; and that self chain about his neck\n  Which he forswore most monstrously to have.\n  Good sir, draw near to me, I'll speak to him.\n  Signior Andpholus, I wonder much\n  That you would put me to this shame and trouble;\n  And, not without some scandal to yourself,\n  With circumstance and oaths so to deny\n  This chain, which now you wear so openly.\n  Beside the charge, the shame, imprisonment,\n  You have done wrong to this my honest friend;\n  Who, but for staying on our controversy,\n  Had hoisted sail and put to sea to-day.\n  This chain you had of me; can you deny it?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I think I had; I never did deny it.\nSECOND MERCHANT. Yes, that you did, sir, and forswore it too.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Who heard me to deny it or forswear it?\nSECOND MERCHANT. These ears of mine, thou know'st, did hear thee.\n  Fie on thee, wretch! 'tis pity that thou liv'st\n  To walk where any honest men resort.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thou art a villain to impeach me thus;\n  I'll prove mine honour and mine honesty\n  Against thee presently, if thou dar'st stand.\nSECOND MERCHANT. I dare, and do defy thee for a villain.\n[They draw]\n\nEnter ADRIANA, LUCIANA, the COURTEZAN, and OTHERS\n\nADRIANA. Hold, hurt him not, for God's sake! He is mad.\n  Some get within him, take his sword away;\n  Bind Dromio too, and bear them to my house.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Run, master, run; for God's sake take a house.\n  This is some priory. In, or we are spoil'd.\n<Exeunt ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and DROMIO OF SYRACUSE to the priory\n\nEnter the LADY ABBESS\n\nABBESS. Be quiet, people. Wherefore throng you hither?\nADRIANA. To fetch my poor distracted husband hence.\n  Let us come in, that we may bind him fast,\n  And bear him home for his recovery.\nANGELO. I knew he was not in his perfect wits.\nSECOND MERCHANT. I am sorry now that I did draw on him.\nABBESS. How long hath this possession held the man?\nADRIANA. This week he hath been heavy, sour, sad,\n  And much different from the man he was;\n  But till this afternoon his passion\n  Ne'er brake into extremity of rage.\nABBESS. Hath he not lost much wealth by wreck of sea?\n  Buried some dear friend? Hath not else his eye\n  Stray'd his affection in unlawful love?\n  A sin prevailing much in youthful men\n  Who give their eyes the liberty of gazing.\n  Which of these sorrows is he subject to?\nADRIANA. To none of these, except it be the last;\n  Namely, some love that drew him oft from home.\nABBESS. You should for that have reprehended him.\nADRIANA. Why, so I did.\nABBESS. Ay, but not rough enough.\nADRIANA. As roughly as my modesty would let me.\nABBESS. Haply in private.\nADRIANA. And in assemblies too.\nABBESS. Ay, but not enough.\nADRIANA. It was the copy of our conference.\n  In bed, he slept not for my urging it;\n  At board, he fed not for my urging it;\n  Alone, it was the subject of my theme;\n  In company, I often glanced it;\n  Still did I tell him it was vile and bad.\nABBESS. And thereof came it that the man was mad.\n  The venom clamours of a jealous woman\n  Poisons more deadly than a mad dog's tooth.\n  It seems his sleeps were hind'red by thy railing,\n  And thereof comes it that his head is light.\n  Thou say'st his meat was sauc'd with thy upbraidings:\n  Unquiet meals make ill digestions;\n  Thereof the raging fire of fever bred;\n  And what's a fever but a fit of madness?\n  Thou say'st his sports were hind'red by thy brawls.\n  Sweet recreation barr'd, what doth ensue\n  But moody and dull melancholy,\n  Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair,\n  And at her heels a huge infectious troop\n  Of pale distemperatures and foes to life?\n  In food, in sport, and life-preserving rest,\n  To be disturb'd would mad or man or beast.\n  The consequence is, then, thy jealous fits\n  Hath scar'd thy husband from the use of wits.\nLUCIANA. She never reprehended him but mildly,\n  When he demean'd himself rough, rude, and wildly.\n  Why bear you these rebukes, and answer not?\nADRIANA. She did betray me to my own reproof.\n  Good people, enter, and lay hold on him.\nABBESS. No, not a creature enters in my house.\nADRIANA. Then let your servants bring my husband forth.\nABBESS. Neither; he took this place for sanctuary,\n  And it shall privilege him from your hands\n  Till I have brought him to his wits again,\n  Or lose my labour in assaying it.\nADRIANA. I will attend my husband, be his nurse,\n  Diet his sickness, for it is my office,\n  And will have no attorney but myself;\n  And therefore let me have him home with me.\nABBESS. Be patient; for I will not let him stir\n  Till I have us'd the approved means I have,\n  With wholesome syrups, drugs, and holy prayers,\n  To make of him a formal man again.\n  It is a branch and parcel of mine oath,\n  A charitable duty of my order;\n  Therefore depart, and leave him here with me.\nADRIANA. I will not hence and leave my husband here;\n  And ill it doth beseem your holiness\n  To separate the husband and the wife.\nABBESS. Be quiet, and depart; thou shalt not have him.\n<Exit\nLUCIANA. Complain unto the Duke of this indignity.\nADRIANA. Come, go; I will fall prostrate at his feet,\n  And never rise until my tears and prayers\n  Have won his Grace to come in person hither\n  And take perforce my husband from the Abbess.\nSECOND MERCHANT. By this, I think, the dial points at five;\n  Anon, I'm sure, the Duke himself in person\n  Comes this way to the melancholy vale,\n  The place of death and sorry execution,\n  Behind the ditches of the abbey here.\nANGELO. Upon what cause?\nSECOND MERCHANT. To see a reverend Syracusian merchant,\n  Who put unluckily into this bay\n  Against the laws and statutes of this town,\n  Beheaded publicly for his offence.\nANGELO. See where they come; we will behold his death.\nLUCIANA. Kneel to the Duke before he pass the abbey.\n\nEnter the DUKE, attended; AEGEON, bareheaded;\nwith the HEADSMAN and other OFFICERS\n\nDUKE. Yet once again proclaim it publicly,\n  If any friend will pay the sum for him,\n  He shall not die; so much we tender him.\nADRIANA. Justice, most sacred Duke, against the Abbess!\nDUKE. She is a virtuous and a reverend lady;\n  It cannot be that she hath done thee wrong.\nADRIANA. May it please your Grace, Antipholus, my husband,\n  Who I made lord of me and all I had\n  At your important letters-this ill day\n  A most outrageous fit of madness took him,\n  That desp'rately he hurried through the street,\n  With him his bondman all as mad as he,\n  Doing displeasure to the citizens\n  By rushing in their houses, bearing thence\n  Rings, jewels, anything his rage did like.\n  Once did I get him bound and sent him home,\n  Whilst to take order for the wrongs I went,\n  That here and there his fury had committed.\n  Anon, I wot not by what strong escape,\n  He broke from those that had the guard of him,\n  And with his mad attendant and himself,\n  Each one with ireful passion, with drawn swords,\n  Met us again and, madly bent on us,\n  Chas'd us away; till, raising of more aid,\n  We came again to bind them. Then they fled\n  Into this abbey, whither we pursu'd them;\n  And here the Abbess shuts the gates on us,\n  And will not suffer us to fetch him out,\n  Nor send him forth that we may bear him hence.\n  Therefore, most gracious Duke, with thy command\n  Let him be brought forth and borne hence for help.\nDUKE. Long since thy husband serv'd me in my wars,\n  And I to thee engag'd a prince's word,\n  When thou didst make him master of thy bed,\n  To do him all the grace and good I could.\n  Go, some of you, knock at the abbey gate,\n  And bid the Lady Abbess come to me,\n  I will determine this before I stir.\n\nEnter a MESSENGER\n\nMESSENGER. O mistress, mistress, shift and save yourself!\n  My master and his man are both broke loose,\n  Beaten the maids a-row and bound the doctor,\n  Whose beard they have sing'd off with brands of fire;\n  And ever, as it blaz'd, they threw on him\n  Great pails of puddled mire to quench the hair.\n  My master preaches patience to him, and the while\n  His man with scissors nicks him like a fool;\n  And sure, unless you send some present help,\n  Between them they will kill the conjurer.\nADRIANA. Peace, fool! thy master and his man are here,\n  And that is false thou dost report to us.\nMESSENGER. Mistress, upon my life, I tell you true;\n  I have not breath'd almost since I did see it.\n  He cries for you, and vows, if he can take you,\n  To scorch your face, and to disfigure you.\n[Cry within]\n  Hark, hark, I hear him, mistress; fly, be gone!\nDUKE. Come, stand by me; fear nothing. Guard with halberds.\nADRIANA. Ay me, it is my husband! Witness you\n  That he is borne about invisible.\n  Even now we hous'd him in the abbey here,\n  And now he's there, past thought of human reason.\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OFEPHESUS and DROMIO OFEPHESUS\n\nANTIPHOLUS OFEPHESUS. Justice, most gracious Duke; O, grant me justice!\n  Even for the service that long since I did thee,\n  When I bestrid thee in the wars, and took\n  Deep scars to save thy life; even for the blood\n  That then I lost for thee, now grant me justice.\nAEGEON. Unless the fear of death doth make me dote,\n  I see my son Antipholus, and Dromio.\nANTIPHOLUS OFEPHESUS. Justice, sweet Prince, against that woman there!\n  She whom thou gav'st to me to be my wife,\n  That hath abused and dishonoured me\n  Even in the strength and height of injury.\n  Beyond imagination is the wrong\n  That she this day hath shameless thrown on me.\nDUKE. Discover how, and thou shalt find me just.\nANTIPHOLUS OFEPHESUS. This day, great Duke, she shut the doors upon me,\n  While she with harlots feasted in my house.\nDUKE. A grievous fault. Say, woman, didst thou so?\nADRIANA. No, my good lord. Myself, he, and my sister,\n  To-day did dine together. So befall my soul\n  As this is false he burdens me withal!\nLUCIANA. Ne'er may I look on day nor sleep on night\n  But she tells to your Highness simple truth!\nANGELO. O peflur'd woman! They are both forsworn.\n  In this the madman justly chargeth them.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. My liege, I am advised what I say;\n  Neither disturbed with the effect of wine,\n  Nor heady-rash, provok'd with raging ire,\n  Albeit my wrongs might make one wiser mad.\n  This woman lock'd me out this day from dinner;\n  That goldsmith there, were he not pack'd with her,\n  Could witness it, for he was with me then;\n  Who parted with me to go fetch a chain,\n  Promising to bring it to the Porpentine,\n  Where Balthazar and I did dine together.\n  Our dinner done, and he not coming thither,\n  I went to seek him. In the street I met him,\n  And in his company that gentleman.\n  There did this perjur'd goldsmith swear me down\n  That I this day of him receiv'd the chain,\n  Which, God he knows, I saw not; for the which\n  He did arrest me with an officer.\n  I did obey, and sent my peasant home\n  For certain ducats; he with none return'd.\n  Then fairly I bespoke the officer\n  To go in person with me to my house.\n  By th' way we met my wife, her sister, and a rabble more\n  Of vile confederates. Along with them\n  They brought one Pinch, a hungry lean-fac'd villain,\n  A mere anatomy, a mountebank,\n  A threadbare juggler, and a fortune-teller,\n  A needy, hollow-ey'd, sharp-looking wretch,\n  A living dead man. This pernicious slave,\n  Forsooth, took on him as a conjurer,\n  And gazing in mine eyes, feeling my pulse,\n  And with no face, as 'twere, outfacing me,\n  Cries out I was possess'd. Then all together\n  They fell upon me, bound me, bore me thence,\n  And in a dark and dankish vault at home\n  There left me and my man, both bound together;\n  Till, gnawing with my teeth my bonds in sunder,\n  I gain'd my freedom, and immediately\n  Ran hither to your Grace; whom I beseech\n  To give me ample satisfaction\n  For these deep shames and great indignities.\nANGELO. My lord, in truth, thus far I witness with him,\n  That he din'd not at home, but was lock'd out.\nDUKE. But had he such a chain of thee, or no?\nANGELO. He had, my lord, and when he ran in here,\n  These people saw the chain about his neck.\nSECOND MERCHANT. Besides, I will be sworn these ears of mine\n  Heard you confess you had the chain of him,\n  After you first forswore it on the mart;\n  And thereupon I drew my sword on you,\n  And then you fled into this abbey here,\n  From whence, I think, you are come by miracle.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I never came within these abbey walls,\n  Nor ever didst thou draw thy sword on me;\n  I never saw the chain, so help me Heaven!\n  And this is false you burden me withal.\nDUKE. Why, what an intricate impeach is this!\n  I think you all have drunk of Circe's cup.\n  If here you hous'd him, here he would have been;\n  If he were mad, he would not plead so coldly.\n  You say he din'd at home: the goldsmith here\n  Denies that saying. Sirrah, what say you?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Sir, he din'd with her there, at the Porpentine.\nCOURTEZAN. He did; and from my finger snatch'd that ring.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. 'Tis true, my liege; this ring I had of her.\nDUKE. Saw'st thou him enter at the abbey here?\nCOURTEZAN. As sure, my liege, as I do see your Grace.\nDUKE. Why, this is strange. Go call the Abbess hither.\n  I think you are all mated or stark mad.\n<Exit one to the ABBESS\nAEGEON. Most mighty Duke, vouchsafe me speak a word:\n  Haply I see a friend will save my life\n  And pay the sum that may deliver me.\nDUKE. Speak freely, Syracusian, what thou wilt.\nAEGEON. Is not your name, sir, call'd Antipholus?\n  And is not that your bondman Dromio?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Within this hour I was his bondman, sir,\n  But he, I thank him, gnaw'd in two my cords\n  Now am I Dromio and his man unbound.\nAEGEON. I am sure you both of you remember me.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Ourselves we do remember, sir, by you;\n  For lately we were bound as you are now.\n  You are not Pinch's patient, are you, sir?\nAEGEON. Why look you strange on me? You know me well.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I never saw you in my life till now.\nAEGEON. O! grief hath chang'd me since you saw me last;\n  And careful hours with time's deformed hand\n  Have written strange defeatures in my face.\n  But tell me yet, dost thou not know my voice?\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Neither.\nAEGEON. Dromio, nor thou?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. No, trust me, sir, nor I.\nAEGEON. I am sure thou dost.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Ay, sir, but I am sure I do not; and\n  whatsoever a man denies, you are now bound to believe him.\nAEGEON. Not know my voice! O time's extremity,\n  Hast thou so crack'd and splitted my poor tongue\n  In seven short years that here my only son\n  Knows not my feeble key of untun'd cares?\n  Though now this grained face of mine be hid\n  In sap-consuming winter's drizzled snow,\n  And all the conduits of my blood froze up,\n  Yet hath my night of life some memory,\n  My wasting lamps some fading glimmer left,\n  My dull deaf ears a little use to hear;\n  All these old witnesses-I cannot err-\n  Tell me thou art my son Antipholus.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I never saw my father in my life.\nAEGEON. But seven years since, in Syracuse, boy,\n  Thou know'st we parted; but perhaps, my son,\n  Thou sham'st to acknowledge me in misery.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. The Duke and all that know me in\n  the city Can witness with me that it is not so:\n  I ne'er saw Syracuse in my life.\nDUKE. I tell thee, Syracusian, twenty years\n  Have I been patron to Antipholus,\n  During which time he ne'er saw Syracuse.\n  I see thy age and dangers make thee dote.\n\nRe-enter the ABBESS, with ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and DROMIO OF SYRACUSE\n\nABBESS. Most mighty Duke, behold a man much wrong'd.\n[All gather to see them]\nADRIANA. I see two husbands, or mine eyes deceive me.\nDUKE. One of these men is genius to the other;\n  And so of these. Which is the natural man,\n  And which the spirit? Who deciphers them?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I, sir, am Dromio; command him away.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. I, Sir, am Dromio; pray let me stay.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Aegeon, art thou not? or else his\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. O, my old master! who hath bound\nABBESS. Whoever bound him, I will loose his bonds,\n  And gain a husband by his liberty.\n  Speak, old Aegeon, if thou be'st the man\n  That hadst a wife once call'd Aemilia,\n  That bore thee at a burden two fair sons.\n  O, if thou be'st the same Aegeon, speak,\n  And speak unto the same Aemilia!\nAEGEON. If I dream not, thou art Aemilia.\n  If thou art she, tell me where is that son\n  That floated with thee on the fatal raft?\nABBESS. By men of Epidamnum he and I\n  And the twin Dromio, all were taken up;\n  But by and by rude fishermen of Corinth\n  By force took Dromio and my son from them,\n  And me they left with those of Epidamnum.\n  What then became of them I cannot tell;\n  I to this fortune that you see me in.\nDUKE. Why, here begins his morning story right.\n  These two Antipholus', these two so like,\n  And these two Dromios, one in semblance-\n  Besides her urging of her wreck at sea-\n  These are the parents to these children,\n  Which accidentally are met together.\n  Antipholus, thou cam'st from Corinth first?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. No, sir, not I; I came from Syracuse.\nDUKE. Stay, stand apart; I know not which is which.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I came from Corinth, my most gracious lord.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. And I with him.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Brought to this town by that most famous warrior,\n  Duke Menaphon, your most renowned uncle.\nADRIANA. Which of you two did dine with me to-day?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I, gentle mistress.\nADRIANA. And are not you my husband?\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. No; I say nay to that.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. And so do I, yet did she call me so;\n  And this fair gentlewoman, her sister here,\n  Did call me brother.  [To LUCIANA]  What I told you then,\n  I hope I shall have leisure to make good;\n  If this be not a dream I see and hear.\nANGELO. That is the chain, sir, which you had of me.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I think it be, sir; I deny it not.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. And you, sir, for this chain arrested me.\nANGELO. I think I did, sir; I deny it not.\nADRIANA. I sent you money, sir, to be your bail,\n  By Dromio; but I think he brought it not.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. No, none by me.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. This purse of ducats I receiv'd from you,\n  And Dromio my man did bring them me.\n  I see we still did meet each other's man,\n  And I was ta'en for him, and he for me,\n  And thereupon these ERRORS are arose.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. These ducats pawn I for my father here.\nDUKE. It shall not need; thy father hath his life.\nCOURTEZAN. Sir, I must have that diamond from you.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. There, take it; and much thanks for my\n  good cheer.\nABBESS. Renowned Duke, vouchsafe to take the pains\n  To go with us into the abbey here,\n  And hear at large discoursed all our fortunes;\n  And all that are assembled in this place\n  That by this sympathized one day's error\n  Have suffer'd wrong, go keep us company,\n  And we shall make full satisfaction.\n  Thirty-three years have I but gone in travail\n  Of you, my sons; and till this present hour\n  My heavy burden ne'er delivered.\n  The Duke, my husband, and my children both,\n  And you the calendars of their nativity,\n  Go to a gossips' feast, and go with me;\n  After so long grief, such nativity!\nDUKE. With all my heart, I'll gossip at this feast.\n<Exeunt all but ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE, ANTIPHOLUS OF\nEPHESUS, DROMIO OF SYRACUSE, and DROMIO OF EPHESUS\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, shall I fetch your stuff from shipboard?\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Dromio, what stuff of mine hast thou embark'd?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Your goods that lay at host, sir, in the Centaur.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. He speaks to me. I am your master, Dromio.\n  Come, go with us; we'll look to that anon.\n  Embrace thy brother there; rejoice with him.\n<Exeunt ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. There is a fat friend at your master's house,\n  That kitchen'd me for you to-day at dinner;\n  She now shall be my sister, not my wife.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Methinks you are my glass, and not my brother;\n  I see by you I am a sweet-fac'd youth.\n  Will you walk in to see their gossiping?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Not I, sir; you are my elder.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. That's a question; how shall we try it?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. We'll draw cuts for the senior; till then,\n    lead thou first.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Nay, then, thus:\n  We came into the world like brother and brother,\n  And now let's go hand in hand, not one before another.\n<Exeunt\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1608\n\nTHE TRAGEDY OF CORIOLANUS\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  CAIUS MARCIUS, afterwards CAIUS MARCIUS CORIOLANUS\n\n    Generals against the Volscians\n  TITUS LARTIUS\n  COMINIUS\n\n  MENENIUS AGRIPPA, friend to Coriolanus\n\n    Tribunes of the People\n  SICINIUS VELUTUS\n  JUNIUS BRUTUS\n\n  YOUNG MARCIUS, son to Coriolanus\n  A ROMAN HERALD\n  NICANOR, a Roman\n  TULLUS AUFIDIUS, General of the Volscians\n  LIEUTENANT, to Aufidius\n  CONSPIRATORS, With Aufidius\n  ADRIAN, a Volscian\n  A CITIZEN of Antium\n  TWO VOLSCIAN GUARDS\n\n  VOLUMNIA, mother to Coriolanus\n  VIRGILIA, wife to Coriolanus\n  VALERIA, friend to Virgilia\n  GENTLEWOMAN attending on Virgilia\n\n  Roman and Volscian Senators, Patricians, Aediles, Lictors,\n    Soldiers, Citizens, Messengers, Servants to Aufidius, and other\n    Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nRome and the neighbourhood; Corioli and the neighbourhood; Antium\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nRome. A street\n\nEnter a company of mutinous citizens, with staves, clubs, and other weapons\n\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Before we proceed any further, hear me speak.\n  ALL. Speak, speak.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. YOU are all resolv'd rather to die than to famish?\n  ALL. Resolv'd, resolv'd.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. First, you know Caius Marcius is chief enemy to the\n    people.\n  ALL. We know't, we know't.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Let us kill him, and we'll have corn at our own\n    price. Is't a verdict?\n  ALL. No more talking on't; let it be done. Away, away!\n  SECOND CITIZEN. One word, good citizens.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. We are accounted poor citizens, the patricians good.\n    What authority surfeits on would relieve us; if they would yield\n    us but the superfluity while it were wholesome, we might guess\n    they relieved us humanely; but they think we are too dear. The\n    leanness that afflicts us, the object of our misery, is as an\n    inventory to particularize their abundance; our sufferance is a\n    gain to them. Let us revenge this with our pikes ere we become\n    rakes; for the gods know I speak this in hunger for bread, not in\n    thirst for revenge.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Would you proceed especially against Caius Marcius?\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Against him first; he's a very dog to the\n    commonalty.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Consider you what services he has done for his\n    country?\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Very well, and could be content to give him good\n    report for't but that he pays himself with being proud.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Nay, but speak not maliciously.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. I say unto you, what he hath done famously he did it\n    to that end; though soft-conscienc'd men can be content to say it\n    was for his country, he did it to please his mother and to be\n    partly proud, which he is, even to the altitude of his virtue.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. What he cannot help in his nature you account a\n    vice in him. You must in no way say he is covetous.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. If I must not, I need not be barren of accusations;\n    he hath faults, with surplus, to tire in repetition.  [Shouts\n    within]  What shouts are these? The other side o' th' city is\n    risen. Why stay we prating here? To th' Capitol!\n  ALL. Come, come.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Soft! who comes here?\n\n                       Enter MENENIUS AGRIPPA\n\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Worthy Menenius Agrippa; one that hath always lov'd\n    the people.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. He's one honest enough; would all the rest were so!\n  MENENIUS. What work's, my countrymen, in hand? Where go you\n    With bats and clubs? The matter? Speak, I pray you.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Our business is not unknown to th' Senate; they have\n    had inkling this fortnight what we intend to do, which now we'll\n    show 'em in deeds. They say poor suitors have strong breaths;\n    they shall know we have strong arms too.\n  MENENIUS. Why, masters, my good friends, mine honest neighbours,\n    Will you undo yourselves?\n  FIRST CITIZEN. We cannot, sir; we are undone already.\n  MENENIUS. I tell you, friends, most charitable care\n    Have the patricians of you. For your wants,\n    Your suffering in this dearth, you may as well\n    Strike at the heaven with your staves as lift them\n    Against the Roman state; whose course will on\n    The way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs\n    Of more strong link asunder than can ever\n    Appear in your impediment. For the dearth,\n    The gods, not the patricians, make it, and\n    Your knees to them, not arms, must help. Alack,\n    You are transported by calamity\n    Thither where more attends you; and you slander\n    The helms o' th' state, who care for you like fathers,\n    When you curse them as enemies.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Care for us! True, indeed! They ne'er car'd for us\n    yet. Suffer us to famish, and their storehouses cramm'd with\n    grain; make edicts for usury, to support usurers; repeal daily\n    any wholesome act established against the rich, and provide more\n    piercing statutes daily to chain up and restrain the poor. If the\n    wars eat us not up, they will; and there's all the love they bear\n    us.\n  MENENIUS. Either you must\n    Confess yourselves wondrous malicious,\n    Or be accus'd of folly. I shall tell you\n    A pretty tale. It may be you have heard it;\n    But, since it serves my purpose, I will venture\n    To stale't a little more.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Well, I'll hear it, sir; yet you must not think to\n    fob off our disgrace with a tale. But, an't please you, deliver.\n  MENENIUS. There was a time when all the body's members\n    Rebell'd against the belly; thus accus'd it:\n    That only like a gulf it did remain\n    I' th' midst o' th' body, idle and unactive,\n    Still cupboarding the viand, never bearing\n    Like labour with the rest; where th' other instruments\n    Did see and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel,\n    And, mutually participate, did minister\n    Unto the appetite and affection common\n    Of the whole body. The belly answer'd-\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Well, sir, what answer made the belly?\n  MENENIUS. Sir, I shall tell you. With a kind of smile,\n    Which ne'er came from the lungs, but even thus-\n    For look you, I may make the belly smile\n    As well as speak- it tauntingly replied\n    To th' discontented members, the mutinous parts\n    That envied his receipt; even so most fitly\n    As you malign our senators for that\n    They are not such as you.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Your belly's answer- What?\n    The kingly crowned head, the vigilant eye,\n    The counsellor heart, the arm our soldier,\n    Our steed the leg, the tongue our trumpeter,\n    With other muniments and petty helps\n    Is this our fabric, if that they-\n  MENENIUS. What then?\n    Fore me, this fellow speaks! What then? What then?\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Should by the cormorant belly be restrain'd,\n    Who is the sink o' th' body-\n  MENENIUS. Well, what then?\n  FIRST CITIZEN. The former agents, if they did complain,\n    What could the belly answer?\n  MENENIUS. I will tell you;\n    If you'll bestow a small- of what you have little-\n    Patience awhile, you'st hear the belly's answer.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Y'are long about it.\n  MENENIUS. Note me this, good friend:\n    Your most grave belly was deliberate,\n    Not rash like his accusers, and thus answered.\n    'True is it, my incorporate friends,' quoth he\n    'That I receive the general food at first\n    Which you do live upon; and fit it is,\n    Because I am the storehouse and the shop\n    Of the whole body. But, if you do remember,\n    I send it through the rivers of your blood,\n    Even to the court, the heart, to th' seat o' th' brain;\n    And, through the cranks and offices of man,\n    The strongest nerves and small inferior veins\n    From me receive that natural competency\n    Whereby they live. And though that all at once\n    You, my good friends'- this says the belly; mark me.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Ay, sir; well, well.\n  MENENIUS. 'Though all at once cannot\n    See what I do deliver out to each,\n    Yet I can make my audit up, that all\n    From me do back receive the flour of all,\n    And leave me but the bran.' What say you to' t?\n  FIRST CITIZEN. It was an answer. How apply you this?\n  MENENIUS. The senators of Rome are this good belly,\n    And you the mutinous members; for, examine\n    Their counsels and their cares, digest things rightly\n    Touching the weal o' th' common, you shall find\n    No public benefit which you receive\n    But it proceeds or comes from them to you,\n    And no way from yourselves. What do you think,\n    You, the great toe of this assembly?\n  FIRST CITIZEN. I the great toe? Why the great toe?\n  MENENIUS. For that, being one o' th' lowest, basest, poorest,\n    Of this most wise rebellion, thou goest foremost.\n    Thou rascal, that art worst in blood to run,\n    Lead'st first to win some vantage.\n    But make you ready your stiff bats and clubs.\n    Rome and her rats are at the point of battle;\n    The one side must have bale.\n\n                      Enter CAIUS MARCIUS\n\n    Hail, noble Marcius!\n  MARCIUS. Thanks. What's the matter, you dissentious rogues\n    That, rubbing the poor itch of your opinion,\n    Make yourselves scabs?\n  FIRST CITIZEN. We have ever your good word.\n  MARCIUS. He that will give good words to thee will flatter\n    Beneath abhorring. What would you have, you curs,\n    That like nor peace nor war? The one affrights you,\n    The other makes you proud. He that trusts to you,\n    Where he should find you lions, finds you hares;\n    Where foxes, geese; you are no surer, no,\n    Than is the coal of fire upon the ice\n    Or hailstone in the sun. Your virtue is\n    To make him worthy whose offence subdues him,\n    And curse that justice did it. Who deserves greatness\n    Deserves your hate; and your affections are\n    A sick man's appetite, who desires most that\n    Which would increase his evil. He that depends\n    Upon your favours swims with fins of lead,\n    And hews down oaks with rushes. Hang ye! Trust ye?\n    With every minute you do change a mind\n    And call him noble that was now your hate,\n    Him vile that was your garland. What's the matter\n    That in these several places of the city\n    You cry against the noble Senate, who,\n    Under the gods, keep you in awe, which else\n    Would feed on one another? What's their seeking?\n  MENENIUS. For corn at their own rates, whereof they say\n    The city is well stor'd.\n  MARCIUS. Hang 'em! They say!\n    They'll sit by th' fire and presume to know\n    What's done i' th' Capitol, who's like to rise,\n    Who thrives and who declines; side factions, and give out\n    Conjectural marriages, making parties strong,\n    And feebling such as stand not in their liking\n    Below their cobbled shoes. They say there's grain enough!\n    Would the nobility lay aside their ruth\n    And let me use my sword, I'd make a quarry\n    With thousands of these quarter'd slaves, as high\n    As I could pick my lance.\n  MENENIUS. Nay, these are almost thoroughly persuaded;\n    For though abundantly they lack discretion,\n    Yet are they passing cowardly. But, I beseech you,\n    What says the other troop?\n  MARCIUS. They are dissolv'd. Hang 'em!\n    They said they were an-hungry; sigh'd forth proverbs-\n    That hunger broke stone walls, that dogs must eat,\n    That meat was made for mouths, that the gods sent not\n    Corn for the rich men only. With these shreds\n    They vented their complainings; which being answer'd,\n    And a petition granted them- a strange one,\n    To break the heart of generosity\n    And make bold power look pale- they threw their caps\n    As they would hang them on the horns o' th' moon,\n    Shouting their emulation.\n  MENENIUS. What is granted them?\n  MARCIUS. Five tribunes, to defend their vulgar wisdoms,\n    Of their own choice. One's Junius Brutus-\n    Sicinius Velutus, and I know not. 'Sdeath!\n    The rabble should have first unroof'd the city\n    Ere so prevail'd with me; it will in time\n    Win upon power and throw forth greater themes\n    For insurrection's arguing.\n  MENENIUS. This is strange.\n  MARCIUS. Go get you home, you fragments.\n\n                     Enter a MESSENGER, hastily\n\n  MESSENGER. Where's Caius Marcius?\n  MARCIUS. Here. What's the matter?\n  MESSENGER. The news is, sir, the Volsces are in arms.\n  MARCIUS. I am glad on't; then we shall ha' means to vent\n    Our musty superfluity. See, our best elders.\n\n         Enter COMINIUS, TITUS LARTIUS, with other SENATORS;\n                  JUNIUS BRUTUS and SICINIUS VELUTUS\n\n  FIRST SENATOR. Marcius, 'tis true that you have lately told us:\n    The Volsces are in arms.\n  MARCIUS. They have a leader,\n    Tullus Aufidius, that will put you to't.\n    I sin in envying his nobility;\n    And were I anything but what I am,\n    I would wish me only he.\n  COMINIUS. You have fought together?\n  MARCIUS. Were half to half the world by th' ears, and he\n    Upon my party, I'd revolt, to make\n    Only my wars with him. He is a lion\n    That I am proud to hunt.\n  FIRST SENATOR. Then, worthy Marcius,\n    Attend upon Cominius to these wars.\n  COMINIUS. It is your former promise.\n  MARCIUS. Sir, it is;\n    And I am constant. Titus Lartius, thou\n    Shalt see me once more strike at Tullus' face.\n    What, art thou stiff? Stand'st out?\n  LARTIUS. No, Caius Marcius;\n    I'll lean upon one crutch and fight with t'other\n    Ere stay behind this business.\n  MENENIUS. O, true bred!\n  FIRST SENATOR. Your company to th' Capitol; where, I know,\n    Our greatest friends attend us.\n  LARTIUS.  [To COMINIUS]  Lead you on.\n    [To MARCIUS]  Follow Cominius; we must follow you;\n    Right worthy you priority.\n  COMINIUS. Noble Marcius!\n  FIRST SENATOR.  [To the Citizens]  Hence to your homes; be gone.\n  MARCIUS. Nay, let them follow.\n    The Volsces have much corn: take these rats thither\n    To gnaw their garners. Worshipful mutineers,\n    Your valour puts well forth; pray follow.\n         Ciitzens steal away. Exeunt all but SICINIUS and BRUTUS\n  SICINIUS. Was ever man so proud as is this Marcius?\n  BRUTUS. He has no equal.\n  SICINIUS. When we were chosen tribunes for the people-\n  BRUTUS. Mark'd you his lip and eyes?\n  SICINIUS. Nay, but his taunts!\n  BRUTUS. Being mov'd, he will not spare to gird the gods.\n  SICINIUS. Bemock the modest moon.\n  BRUTUS. The present wars devour him! He is grown\n    Too proud to be so valiant.\n  SICINIUS. Such a nature,\n    Tickled with good success, disdains the shadow\n    Which he treads on at noon. But I do wonder\n    His insolence can brook to be commanded\n    Under Cominius.\n  BRUTUS. Fame, at the which he aims-\n    In whom already he is well grac'd- cannot\n    Better be held nor more attain'd than by\n    A place below the first; for what miscarries\n    Shall be the general's fault, though he perform\n    To th' utmost of a man, and giddy censure\n    Will then cry out of Marcius 'O, if he\n    Had borne the business!'\n  SICINIUS. Besides, if things go well,\n    Opinion, that so sticks on Marcius, shall\n    Of his demerits rob Cominius.\n  BRUTUS. Come.\n    Half all Cominius' honours are to Marcius,\n    Though Marcius earn'd them not; and all his faults\n    To Marcius shall be honours, though indeed\n    In aught he merit not.\n  SICINIUS. Let's hence and hear\n    How the dispatch is made, and in what fashion,\n    More than his singularity, he goes\n    Upon this present action.\n  BRUTUS. Let's along.                                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nCorioli. The Senate House.\n\nEnter TULLUS AUFIDIUS with SENATORS of Corioli\n\n  FIRST SENATOR. So, your opinion is, Aufidius,\n    That they of Rome are ent'red in our counsels\n    And know how we proceed.\n  AUFIDIUS. Is it not yours?\n    What ever have been thought on in this state\n    That could be brought to bodily act ere Rome\n    Had circumvention? 'Tis not four days gone\n    Since I heard thence; these are the words- I think\n    I have the letter here;.yes, here it is:\n    [Reads]  'They have press'd a power, but it is not known\n    Whether for east or west. The dearth is great;\n    The people mutinous; and it is rumour'd,\n    Cominius, Marcius your old enemy,\n    Who is of Rome worse hated than of you,\n    And Titus Lartius, a most valiant Roman,\n    These three lead on this preparation\n    Whither 'tis bent. Most likely 'tis for you;\n    Consider of it.'\n  FIRST SENATOR. Our army's in the field;\n    We never yet made doubt but Rome was ready\n    To answer us.\n  AUFIDIUS. Nor did you think it folly\n    To keep your great pretences veil'd till when\n    They needs must show themselves; which in the hatching,\n    It seem'd, appear'd to Rome. By the discovery\n    We shall be short'ned in our aim, which was\n    To take in many towns ere almost Rome\n    Should know we were afoot.\n  SECOND SENATOR. Noble Aufidius,\n    Take your commission; hie you to your bands;\n    Let us alone to guard Corioli.\n    If they set down before's, for the remove\n    Bring up your army; but I think you'll find\n    Th' have not prepar'd for us.\n  AUFIDIUS. O, doubt not that!\n    I speak from certainties. Nay more,\n    Some parcels of their power are forth already,\n    And only hitherward. I leave your honours.\n    If we and Caius Marcius chance to meet,\n    'Tis sworn between us we shall ever strike\n    Till one can do no more.\n  ALL. The gods assist you!\n  AUFIDIUS. And keep your honours safe!\n  FIRST SENATOR. Farewell.\n  SECOND SENATOR. Farewell.\n  ALL. Farewell.                                           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nRome. MARCIUS' house\n\nEnter VOLUMNIA and VIRGILIA, mother and wife to MARCIUS;\nthey set them down on two low stools and sew\n\n  VOLUMNIA. I pray you, daughter, sing, or express yourself in a more\n    comfortable sort. If my son were my husband, I should freelier\n    rejoice in that absence wherein he won honour than in the\n    embracements of his bed where he would show most love. When yet\n    he was but tender-bodied, and the only son of my womb; when youth\n    with comeliness pluck'd all gaze his way; when, for a day of\n    kings' entreaties, a mother should not sell him an hour from her\n    beholding; I, considering how honour would become such a person-\n    that it was no better than picture-like to hang by th' wall, if\n    renown made it not stir- was pleas'd to let him seek danger where\n    he was to find fame. To a cruel war I sent him, from whence he\n    return'd his brows bound with oak. I tell thee, daughter, I\n    sprang not more in joy at first hearing he was a man-child than\n    now in first seeing he had proved himself a man.\n  VIRGILIA. But had he died in the business, madam, how then?\n  VOLUMNIA. Then his good report should have been my son; I therein\n    would have found issue. Hear me profess sincerely: had I a dozen\n    sons, each in my love alike, and none less dear than thine and my\n    good Marcius, I had rather had eleven die nobly for their country\n    than one voluptuously surfeit out of action.\n\n                        Enter a GENTLEWOMAN\n\n  GENTLEWOMAN. Madam, the Lady Valeria is come to visit you.\n  VIRGILIA. Beseech you give me leave to retire myself.\n  VOLUMNIA. Indeed you shall not.\n    Methinks I hear hither your husband's drum;\n    See him pluck Aufidius down by th' hair;\n    As children from a bear, the Volsces shunning him.\n    Methinks I see him stamp thus, and call thus:\n    'Come on, you cowards! You were got in fear,\n    Though you were born in Rome.' His bloody brow\n    With his mail'd hand then wiping, forth he goes,\n    Like to a harvest-man that's task'd to mow\n    Or all or lose his hire.\n  VIRGILIA. His bloody brow? O Jupiter, no blood!\n  VOLUMNIA. Away, you fool! It more becomes a man\n    Than gilt his trophy. The breasts of Hecuba,\n    When she did suckle Hector, look'd not lovelier\n    Than Hector's forehead when it spit forth blood\n    At Grecian sword, contemning. Tell Valeria\n    We are fit to bid her welcome.              Exit GENTLEWOMAN\n  VIRGILIA. Heavens bless my lord from fell Aufidius!\n  VOLUMNIA. He'll beat Aufidius' head below his knee\n    And tread upon his neck.\n\n         Re-enter GENTLEWOMAN, With VALERIA and an usher\n\n  VALERIA. My ladies both, good day to you.\n  VOLUMNIA. Sweet madam!\n  VIRGILIA. I am glad to see your ladyship.\n  VALERIA. How do you both? You are manifest housekeepers. What are\n    you sewing here? A fine spot, in good faith. How does your little\n    son?\n  VIRGILIA. I thank your ladyship; well, good madam.\n  VOLUMNIA. He had rather see the swords and hear a drum than look\n    upon his schoolmaster.\n  VALERIA. O' my word, the father's son! I'll swear 'tis a very\n    pretty boy. O' my troth, I look'd upon him a Wednesday half an\n    hour together; has such a confirm'd countenance! I saw him run\n    after a gilded butterfly; and when he caught it he let it go\n    again, and after it again, and over and over he comes, and up\n    again, catch'd it again; or whether his fall enrag'd him, or how\n    'twas, he did so set his teeth and tear it. O, I warrant, how he\n    mammock'd it!\n  VOLUMNIA. One on's father's moods.\n  VALERIA. Indeed, la, 'tis a noble child.\n  VIRGILIA. A crack, madam.\n  VALERIA. Come, lay aside your stitchery; I must have you play the\n    idle huswife with me this afternoon.\n  VIRGILIA. No, good madam; I will not out of doors.\n  VALERIA. Not out of doors!\n  VOLUMNIA. She shall, she shall.\n  VIRGILIA. Indeed, no, by your patience; I'll not over the threshold\n    till my lord return from the wars.\n  VALERIA. Fie, you confine yourself most unreasonably; come, you\n    must go visit the good lady that lies in.\n  VIRGILIA. I will wish her speedy strength, and visit her with my\n    prayers; but I cannot go thither.\n  VOLUMNIA. Why, I pray you?\n  VIRGILIA. 'Tis not to save labour, nor that I want love.\n  VALERIA. You would be another Penelope; yet they say all the yarn\n    she spun in Ulysses' absence did but fill Ithaca full of moths.\n    Come, I would your cambric were sensible as your finger, that you\n    might leave pricking it for pity. Come, you shall go with us.\n  VIRGILIA. No, good madam, pardon me; indeed I will not forth.\n  VALERIA. In truth, la, go with me; and I'll tell you excellent news\n    of your husband.\n  VIRGILIA. O, good madam, there can be none yet.\n  VALERIA. Verily, I do not jest with you; there came news from him\n    last night.\n  VIRGILIA. Indeed, madam?\n  VALERIA. In earnest, it's true; I heard a senator speak it. Thus it\n    is: the Volsces have an army forth; against whom Cominius the\n    general is gone, with one part of our Roman power. Your lord and\n    Titus Lartius are set down before their city Corioli; they\n    nothing doubt prevailing and to make it brief wars. This is true,\n    on mine honour; and so, I pray, go with us.\n  VIRGILIA. Give me excuse, good madam; I will obey you in everything\n    hereafter.\n  VOLUMNIA. Let her alone, lady; as she is now, she will but disease\n    our better mirth.\n  VALERIA. In troth, I think she would. Fare you well, then. Come,\n    good sweet lady. Prithee, Virgilia, turn thy solemness out o'\n    door and go along with us.\n  VIRGILIA. No, at a word, madam; indeed I must not. I wish you much\n    mirth.\n  VALERIA. Well then, farewell.                           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nBefore Corioli\n\nEnter MARCIUS, TITUS LARTIUS, with drum and colours,\nwith CAPTAINS and soldiers. To them a MESSENGER\n\n  MARCIUS. Yonder comes news; a wager- they have met.\n  LARTIUS. My horse to yours- no.\n  MARCIUS. 'Tis done.\n  LARTIUS. Agreed.\n  MARCIUS. Say, has our general met the enemy?\n  MESSENGER. They lie in view, but have not spoke as yet.\n  LARTIUS. So, the good horse is mine.\n  MARCIUS. I'll buy him of you.\n  LARTIUS. No, I'll nor sell nor give him; lend you him I will\n    For half a hundred years. Summon the town.\n  MARCIUS. How far off lie these armies?\n  MESSENGER. Within this mile and half.\n  MARCIUS. Then shall we hear their 'larum, and they ours.\n    Now, Mars, I prithee, make us quick in work,\n    That we with smoking swords may march from hence\n    To help our fielded friends! Come, blow thy blast.\n\n          They sound a parley. Enter two SENATORS with others,\n                      on the walls of Corioli\n\n    Tullus Aufidius, is he within your walls?\n  FIRST SENATOR. No, nor a man that fears you less than he:\n    That's lesser than a little.  [Drum afar off]  Hark, our drums\n    Are bringing forth our youth. We'll break our walls\n    Rather than they shall pound us up; our gates,\n    Which yet seem shut, we have but pinn'd with rushes;\n    They'll open of themselves.  [Alarum far off]  Hark you far off!\n    There is Aufidius. List what work he makes\n    Amongst your cloven army.\n  MARCIUS. O, they are at it!\n  LARTIUS. Their noise be our instruction. Ladders, ho!\n\n                   Enter the army of the Volsces\n\n  MARCIUS. They fear us not, but issue forth their city.\n    Now put your shields before your hearts, and fight\n    With hearts more proof than shields. Advance, brave Titus.\n    They do disdain us much beyond our thoughts,\n    Which makes me sweat with wrath. Come on, my fellows.\n    He that retires, I'll take him for a Volsce,\n    And he shall feel mine edge.\n\n          Alarum. The Romans are beat back to their trenches.\n                      Re-enter MARCIUS, cursing\n\n  MARCIUS. All the contagion of the south light on you,\n    You shames of Rome! you herd of- Boils and plagues\n    Plaster you o'er, that you may be abhorr'd\n    Farther than seen, and one infect another\n    Against the wind a mile! You souls of geese\n    That bear the shapes of men, how have you run\n    From slaves that apes would beat! Pluto and hell!\n    All hurt behind! Backs red, and faces pale\n    With flight and agued fear! Mend and charge home,\n    Or, by the fires of heaven, I'll leave the foe\n    And make my wars on you. Look to't. Come on;\n    If you'll stand fast we'll beat them to their wives,\n    As they us to our trenches. Follow me.\n\n         Another alarum. The Volsces fly, and MARCIUS follows\n                          them to the gates\n\n    So, now the gates are ope; now prove good seconds;\n    'Tis for the followers fortune widens them,\n    Not for the fliers. Mark me, and do the like.\n\n                    [MARCIUS enters the gates]\n\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Fool-hardiness; not I.\n  SECOND SOLDIER. Not I.                    [MARCIUS is shut in]\n  FIRST SOLDIER. See, they have shut him in.\n  ALL. To th' pot, I warrant him.             [Alarum continues]\n\n                      Re-enter TITUS LARTIUS\n\n  LARTIUS. What is become of Marcius?\n  ALL. Slain, sir, doubtless.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Following the fliers at the very heels,\n    With them he enters; who, upon the sudden,\n    Clapp'd to their gates. He is himself alone,\n    To answer all the city.\n  LARTIUS. O noble fellow!\n    Who sensibly outdares his senseless sword,\n    And when it bows stand'st up. Thou art left, Marcius;\n    A carbuncle entire, as big as thou art,\n    Were not so rich a jewel. Thou wast a soldier\n    Even to Cato's wish, not fierce and terrible\n    Only in strokes; but with thy grim looks and\n    The thunder-like percussion of thy sounds\n    Thou mad'st thine enemies shake, as if the world\n    Were feverous and did tremble.\n\n          Re-enter MARCIUS, bleeding, assaulted by the enemy\n\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Look, sir.\n  LARTIUS. O, 'tis Marcius!\n    Let's fetch him off, or make remain alike.\n                            [They fight, and all enter the city]\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nWithin Corioli. A street\n\nEnter certain Romans, with spoils\n\n  FIRST ROMAN. This will I carry to Rome.\n  SECOND ROMAN. And I this.\n  THIRD ROMAN. A murrain on 't! I took this for silver.\n                               [Alarum continues still afar off]\n\n          Enter MARCIUS and TITUS LARTIUS With a trumpeter\n\n  MARCIUS. See here these movers that do prize their hours\n    At a crack'd drachma! Cushions, leaden spoons,\n    Irons of a doit, doublets that hangmen would\n    Bury with those that wore them, these base slaves,\n    Ere yet the fight be done, pack up. Down with them!\n                                                Exeunt pillagers\n    And hark, what noise the general makes! To him!\n    There is the man of my soul's hate, Aufidius,\n    Piercing our Romans; then, valiant Titus, take\n    Convenient numbers to make good the city;\n    Whilst I, with those that have the spirit, will haste\n    To help Cominius.\n  LARTIUS. Worthy sir, thou bleed'st;\n    Thy exercise hath been too violent\n    For a second course of fight.\n  MARCIUS. Sir, praise me not;\n    My work hath yet not warm'd me. Fare you well;\n    The blood I drop is rather physical\n    Than dangerous to me. To Aufidius thus\n    I will appear, and fight.\n  LARTIUS. Now the fair goddess, Fortune,\n    Fall deep in love with thee, and her great charms\n    Misguide thy opposers' swords! Bold gentleman,\n    Prosperity be thy page!\n  MARCIUS. Thy friend no less\n    Than those she placeth highest! So farewell.\n  LARTIUS. Thou worthiest Marcius!                  Exit MARCIUS\n    Go sound thy trumpet in the market-place;\n    Call thither all the officers o' th' town,\n    Where they shall know our mind. Away!                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nNear the camp of COMINIUS\n\nEnter COMINIUS, as it were in retire, with soldiers\n\n  COMINIUS. Breathe you, my friends. Well fought; we are come off\n    Like Romans, neither foolish in our stands\n    Nor cowardly in retire. Believe me, sirs,\n    We shall be charg'd again. Whiles we have struck,\n    By interims and conveying gusts we have heard\n    The charges of our friends. The Roman gods,\n    Lead their successes as we wish our own,\n    That both our powers, with smiling fronts encount'ring,\n    May give you thankful sacrifice!\n\n                         Enter A MESSENGER\n\n    Thy news?\n  MESSENGER. The citizens of Corioli have issued\n    And given to Lartius and to Marcius battle;\n    I saw our party to their trenches driven,\n    And then I came away.\n  COMINIUS. Though thou speak'st truth,\n    Methinks thou speak'st not well. How long is't since?\n  MESSENGER. Above an hour, my lord.\n  COMINIUS. 'Tis not a mile; briefly we heard their drums.\n    How couldst thou in a mile confound an hour,\n    And bring thy news so late?\n  MESSENGER. Spies of the Volsces\n    Held me in chase, that I was forc'd to wheel\n    Three or four miles about; else had I, sir,\n    Half an hour since brought my report.\n\n                           Enter MARCIUS\n\n  COMINIUS. Who's yonder\n    That does appear as he were flay'd? O gods!\n    He has the stamp of Marcius, and I have\n    Before-time seen him thus.\n  MARCIUS. Come I too late?\n  COMINIUS. The shepherd knows not thunder from a tabor\n    More than I know the sound of Marcius' tongue\n    From every meaner man.\n  MARCIUS. Come I too late?\n  COMINIUS. Ay, if you come not in the blood of others,\n    But mantled in your own.\n  MARCIUS. O! let me clip ye\n    In arms as sound as when I woo'd, in heart\n    As merry as when our nuptial day was done,\n    And tapers burn'd to bedward.\n  COMINIUS. Flower of warriors,\n    How is't with Titus Lartius?\n  MARCIUS. As with a man busied about decrees:\n    Condemning some to death and some to exile;\n    Ransoming him or pitying, threat'ning th' other;\n    Holding Corioli in the name of Rome\n    Even like a fawning greyhound in the leash,\n    To let him slip at will.\n  COMINIUS. Where is that slave\n    Which told me they had beat you to your trenches?\n    Where is he? Call him hither.\n  MARCIUS. Let him alone;\n    He did inform the truth. But for our gentlemen,\n    The common file- a plague! tribunes for them!\n    The mouse ne'er shunn'd the cat as they did budge\n    From rascals worse than they.\n  COMINIUS. But how prevail'd you?\n  MARCIUS. Will the time serve to tell? I do not think.\n    Where is the enemy? Are you lords o' th' field?\n    If not, why cease you till you are so?\n  COMINIUS. Marcius,\n    We have at disadvantage fought, and did\n    Retire to win our purpose.\n  MARCIUS. How lies their battle? Know you on which side\n    They have plac'd their men of trust?\n  COMINIUS. As I guess, Marcius,\n    Their bands i' th' vaward are the Antiates,\n    Of their best trust; o'er them Aufidius,\n    Their very heart of hope.\n  MARCIUS. I do beseech you,\n    By all the battles wherein we have fought,\n    By th' blood we have shed together, by th' vows\n    We have made to endure friends, that you directly\n    Set me against Aufidius and his Antiates;\n    And that you not delay the present, but,\n    Filling the air with swords advanc'd and darts,\n    We prove this very hour.\n  COMINIUS. Though I could wish\n    You were conducted to a gentle bath\n    And balms applied to you, yet dare I never\n    Deny your asking: take your choice of those\n    That best can aid your action.\n  MARCIUS. Those are they\n    That most are willing. If any such be here-\n    As it were sin to doubt- that love this painting\n    Wherein you see me smear'd; if any fear\n    Lesser his person than an ill report;\n    If any think brave death outweighs bad life\n    And that his country's dearer than himself;\n    Let him alone, or so many so minded,\n    Wave thus to express his disposition,\n    And follow Marcius.           [They all shout and wave their\n       swords, take him up in their arms and cast up their caps]\n    O, me alone! Make you a sword of me?\n    If these shows be not outward, which of you\n    But is four Volsces? None of you but is\n    Able to bear against the great Aufidius\n    A shield as hard as his. A certain number,\n    Though thanks to all, must I select from all; the rest\n    Shall bear the business in some other fight,\n    As cause will be obey'd. Please you to march;\n    And four shall quickly draw out my command,\n    Which men are best inclin'd.\n  COMINIUS. March on, my fellows;\n    Make good this ostentation, and you shall\n    Divide in all with us.                                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nThe gates of Corioli\n\nTITUS LARTIUS, having set a guard upon Corioli, going with drum and trumpet\ntoward COMINIUS and CAIUS MARCIUS, enters with a LIEUTENANT, other soldiers,\nand a scout\n\n  LARTIUS. So, let the ports be guarded; keep your duties\n    As I have set them down. If I do send, dispatch\n    Those centuries to our aid; the rest will serve\n    For a short holding. If we lose the field\n    We cannot keep the town.\n  LIEUTENANT. Fear not our care, sir.\n  LARTIUS. Hence, and shut your gates upon's.\n    Our guider, come; to th' Roman camp conduct us.       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VIII.\nA field of battle between the Roman and the Volscian camps\n\nAlarum, as in battle. Enter MARCIUS and AUFIDIUS at several doors\n\n  MARCIUS. I'll fight with none but thee, for I do hate thee\n    Worse than a promise-breaker.\n  AUFIDIUS. We hate alike:\n    Not Afric owns a serpent I abhor\n    More than thy fame and envy. Fix thy foot.\n  MARCIUS. Let the first budger die the other's slave,\n    And the gods doom him after!\n  AUFIDIUS. If I fly, Marcius,\n    Halloa me like a hare.\n  MARCIUS. Within these three hours, Tullus,\n    Alone I fought in your Corioli walls,\n    And made what work I pleas'd. 'Tis not my blood\n    Wherein thou seest me mask'd. For thy revenge\n    Wrench up thy power to th' highest.\n  AUFIDIUS. Wert thou the Hector\n    That was the whip of your bragg'd progeny,\n    Thou shouldst not scape me here.\n\n       Here they fight, and certain Volsces come in the aid\n        of AUFIDIUS. MARCIUS fights till they be driven in\n                             breathless\n\n    Officious, and not valiant, you have sham'd me\n    In your condemned seconds.                            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IX.\nThe Roman camp\n\nFlourish. Alarum. A retreat is sounded. Enter, at one door,\nCOMINIUS with the Romans; at another door, MARCIUS, with his arm in a scarf\n\n  COMINIUS. If I should tell thee o'er this thy day's work,\n    Thou't not believe thy deeds; but I'll report it\n    Where senators shall mingle tears with smiles;\n    Where great patricians shall attend, and shrug,\n    I' th' end admire; where ladies shall be frighted\n    And, gladly quak'd, hear more; where the dull tribunes,\n    That with the fusty plebeians hate thine honours,\n    Shall say against their hearts 'We thank the gods\n    Our Rome hath such a soldier.'\n    Yet cam'st thou to a morsel of this feast,\n    Having fully din'd before.\n\n         Enter TITUS LARTIUS, with his power, from the pursuit\n\n  LARTIUS. O General,\n    Here is the steed, we the caparison.\n    Hadst thou beheld-\n  MARCIUS. Pray now, no more; my mother,\n    Who has a charter to extol her blood,\n    When she does praise me grieves me. I have done\n    As you have done- that's what I can; induc'd\n    As you have been- that's for my country.\n    He that has but effected his good will\n    Hath overta'en mine act.\n  COMINIUS. You shall not be\n    The grave of your deserving; Rome must know\n    The value of her own. 'Twere a concealment\n    Worse than a theft, no less than a traducement,\n    To hide your doings and to silence that\n    Which, to the spire and top of praises vouch'd,\n    Would seem but modest. Therefore, I beseech you,\n    In sign of what you are, not to reward\n    What you have done, before our army hear me.\n  MARCIUS. I have some wounds upon me, and they smart\n    To hear themselves rememb'red.\n  COMINIUS. Should they not,\n    Well might they fester 'gainst ingratitude\n    And tent themselves with death. Of all the horses-\n    Whereof we have ta'en good, and good store- of all\n    The treasure in this field achiev'd and city,\n    We render you the tenth; to be ta'en forth\n    Before the common distribution at\n    Your only choice.\n  MARCIUS. I thank you, General,\n    But cannot make my heart consent to take\n    A bribe to pay my sword. I do refuse it,\n    And stand upon my common part with those\n    That have beheld the doing.\n\n           A long flourish. They all cry 'Marcius, Marcius!'\n   cast up their caps and lances. COMINIUS and LARTIUS stand bare\n\n    May these same instruments which you profane\n    Never sound more! When drums and trumpets shall\n    I' th' field prove flatterers, let courts and cities be\n    Made all of false-fac'd soothing. When steel grows\n    Soft as the parasite's silk, let him be made\n    An overture for th' wars. No more, I say.\n    For that I have not wash'd my nose that bled,\n    Or foil'd some debile wretch, which without note\n    Here's many else have done, you shout me forth\n    In acclamations hyperbolical,\n    As if I lov'd my little should be dieted\n    In praises sauc'd with lies.\n  COMINIUS. Too modest are you;\n    More cruel to your good report than grateful\n    To us that give you truly. By your patience,\n    If 'gainst yourself you be incens'd, we'll put you-\n    Like one that means his proper harm- in manacles,\n    Then reason safely with you. Therefore be it known,\n    As to us, to all the world, that Caius Marcius\n    Wears this war's garland; in token of the which,\n    My noble steed, known to the camp, I give him,\n    With all his trim belonging; and from this time,\n    For what he did before Corioli, can him\n    With all th' applause-and clamour of the host,\n    Caius Marcius Coriolanus.\n    Bear th' addition nobly ever!\n                           [Flourish. Trumpets sound, and drums]\n  ALL. Caius Marcius Coriolanus!\n  CORIOLANUS. I will go wash;\n    And when my face is fair you shall perceive\n    Whether I blush or no. Howbeit, I thank you;\n    I mean to stride your steed, and at all times\n    To undercrest your good addition\n    To th' fairness of my power.\n  COMINIUS. So, to our tent;\n    Where, ere we do repose us, we will write\n    To Rome of our success. You, Titus Lartius,\n    Must to Corioli back. Send us to Rome\n    The best, with whom we may articulate\n    For their own good and ours.\n  LARTIUS. I shall, my lord.\n  CORIOLANUS. The gods begin to mock me. I, that now\n    Refus'd most princely gifts, am bound to beg\n    Of my Lord General.\n  COMINIUS. Take't- 'tis yours; what is't?\n  CORIOLANUS. I sometime lay here in Corioli\n    At a poor man's house; he us'd me kindly.\n    He cried to me; I saw him prisoner;\n    But then Aufidius was within my view,\n    And wrath o'erwhelm'd my pity. I request you\n    To give my poor host freedom.\n  COMINIUS. O, well begg'd!\n    Were he the butcher of my son, he should\n    Be free as is the wind. Deliver him, Titus.\n  LARTIUS. Marcius, his name?\n  CORIOLANUS. By Jupiter, forgot!\n    I am weary; yea, my memory is tir'd.\n    Have we no wine here?\n  COMINIUS. Go we to our tent.\n    The blood upon your visage dries; 'tis time\n    It should be look'd to. Come.                         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE X.\nThe camp of the Volsces\n\nA flourish. Cornets. Enter TULLUS AUFIDIUS bloody, with two or three soldiers\n\n  AUFIDIUS. The town is ta'en.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. 'Twill be deliver'd back on good condition.\n  AUFIDIUS. Condition!\n    I would I were a Roman; for I cannot,\n    Being a Volsce, be that I am. Condition?\n    What good condition can a treaty find\n    I' th' part that is at mercy? Five times, Marcius,\n    I have fought with thee; so often hast thou beat me;\n    And wouldst do so, I think, should we encounter\n    As often as we eat. By th' elements,\n    If e'er again I meet him beard to beard,\n    He's mine or I am his. Mine emulation\n    Hath not that honour in't it had; for where\n    I thought to crush him in an equal force,\n    True sword to sword, I'll potch at him some way,\n    Or wrath or craft may get him.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. He's the devil.\n  AUFIDIUS. Bolder, though not so subtle. My valour's poison'd\n    With only suff'ring stain by him; for him\n    Shall fly out of itself. Nor sleep nor sanctuary,\n    Being naked, sick, nor fane nor Capitol,\n    The prayers of priests nor times of sacrifice,\n    Embarquements all of fury, shall lift up\n    Their rotten privilege and custom 'gainst\n    My hate to Marcius. Where I find him, were it\n    At home, upon my brother's guard, even there,\n    Against the hospitable canon, would I\n    Wash my fierce hand in's heart. Go you to th' city;\n    Learn how 'tis held, and what they are that must\n    Be hostages for Rome.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Will not you go?\n  AUFIDIUS. I am attended at the cypress grove; I pray you-\n    'Tis south the city mills- bring me word thither\n    How the world goes, that to the pace of it\n    I may spur on my journey.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. I shall, sir.                            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nRome. A public place\n\nEnter MENENIUS, with the two Tribunes of the people, SICINIUS and BRUTUS\n\n  MENENIUS. The augurer tells me we shall have news tonight.\n  BRUTUS. Good or bad?\n  MENENIUS. Not according to the prayer of the people, for they love\n    not Marcius.\n  SICINIUS. Nature teaches beasts to know their friends.\n  MENENIUS. Pray you, who does the wolf love?\n  SICINIUS. The lamb.\n  MENENIUS. Ay, to devour him, as the hungry plebeians would the\n    noble Marcius.\n  BRUTUS. He's a lamb indeed, that baes like a bear.\n  MENENIUS. He's a bear indeed, that lives fike a lamb. You two are\n    old men; tell me one thing that I shall ask you.\n  BOTH TRIBUNES. Well, sir.\n  MENENIUS. In what enormity is Marcius poor in that you two have not\n    in abundance?\n  BRUTUS. He's poor in no one fault, but stor'd with all.\n  SICINIUS. Especially in pride.\n  BRUTUS. And topping all others in boasting.\n  MENENIUS. This is strange now. Do you two know how you are censured\n    here in the city- I mean of us o' th' right-hand file? Do you?\n  BOTH TRIBUNES. Why, how are we censur'd?\n  MENENIUS. Because you talk of pride now- will you not be angry?\n  BOTH TRIBUNES. Well, well, sir, well.\n  MENENIUS. Why, 'tis no great matter; for a very little thief of\n    occasion will rob you of a great deal of patience. Give your\n    dispositions the reins, and be angry at your pleasures- at the\n    least, if you take it as a pleasure to you in being so. You blame\n    Marcius for being proud?\n  BRUTUS. We do it not alone, sir.\n  MENENIUS. I know you can do very little alone; for your helps are\n    many, or else your actions would grow wondrous single: your\n    abilities are too infant-like for doing much alone. You talk of\n    pride. O that you could turn your eyes toward the napes of your\n    necks, and make but an interior survey of your good selves! O\n    that you could!\n  BOTH TRIBUNES. What then, sir?\n  MENENIUS. Why, then you should discover a brace of unmeriting,\n    proud, violent, testy magistrates-alias fools- as any in Rome.\n  SICINIUS. Menenius, you are known well enough too.\n  MENENIUS. I am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that loves\n    a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying Tiber in't; said to\n    be something imperfect in favouring the first complaint, hasty\n    and tinder-like upon too trivial motion; one that converses more\n    with the buttock of the night than with the forehead of the\n    morning. What I think I utter, and spend my malice in my breath.\n    Meeting two such wealsmen as you are- I cannot call you\n    Lycurguses- if the drink you give me touch my palate adversely, I\n    make a crooked face at it. I cannot say your worships have\n    deliver'd the matter well, when I find the ass in compound with\n    the major part of your syllables; and though I must be content to\n    bear with those that say you are reverend grave men, yet they lie\n    deadly that tell you you have good faces. If you see this in the\n    map of my microcosm, follows it that I am known well enough too?\n    What harm can your bisson conspectuities glean out of this\n    character, if I be known well enough too?\n  BRUTUS. Come, sir, come, we know you well enough.\n  MENENIUS. You know neither me, yourselves, nor any thing. You are\n    ambitious for poor knaves' caps and legs; you wear out a good\n    wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between an orange-wife and\n    a fosset-seller, and then rejourn the controversy of threepence\n    to a second day of audience. When you are hearing a matter\n    between party and party, if you chance to be pinch'd with the\n    colic, you make faces like mummers, set up the bloody flag\n    against all patience, and, in roaring for a chamber-pot, dismiss\n    the controversy bleeding, the more entangled by your hearing. All\n    the peace you make in their cause is calling both the parties\n    knaves. You are a pair of strange ones.\n  BRUTUS. Come, come, you are well understood to be a perfecter giber\n    for the table than a necessary bencher in the Capitol.\n  MENENIUS. Our very priests must become mockers, if they shall\n    encounter such ridiculous subjects as you are. When you speak\n    best unto the purpose, it is not worth the wagging of your\n    beards; and your beards deserve not so honourable a grave as to\n    stuff a botcher's cushion or to be entomb'd in an ass's\n    pack-saddle. Yet you must be saying Marcius is proud; who, in a\n    cheap estimation, is worth all your predecessors since Deucalion;\n    though peradventure some of the best of 'em were hereditary\n    hangmen. God-den to your worships. More of your conversation\n    would infect my brain, being the herdsmen of the beastly\n    plebeians. I will be bold to take my leave of you.\n                                  [BRUTUS and SICINIUS go aside]\n\n               Enter VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, and VALERIA\n\n    How now, my as fair as noble ladies- and the moon, were she\n    earthly, no nobler- whither do you follow your eyes so fast?\n  VOLUMNIA. Honourable Menenius, my boy Marcius approaches; for the\n    love of Juno, let's go.\n  MENENIUS. Ha! Marcius coming home?\n  VOLUMNIA. Ay, worthy Menenius, and with most prosperous\n    approbation.\n  MENENIUS. Take my cap, Jupiter, and I thank thee. Hoo!\n    Marcius coming home!\n  VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA. Nay, 'tis true.\n  VOLUMNIA. Look, here's a letter from him; the state hath another,\n    his wife another; and I think there's one at home for you.\n  MENENIUS. I will make my very house reel to-night. A letter for me?\n  VIRGILIA. Yes, certain, there's a letter for you; I saw't.\n  MENENIUS. A letter for me! It gives me an estate of seven years'\n    health; in which time I will make a lip at the physician. The\n    most sovereign prescription in Galen is but empiricutic and, to\n    this preservative, of no better report than a horse-drench. Is he\n    not wounded? He was wont to come home wounded.\n  VIRGILIA. O, no, no, no.\n  VOLUMNIA. O, he is wounded, I thank the gods for't.\n  MENENIUS. So do I too, if it be not too much. Brings a victory in\n    his pocket? The wounds become him.\n  VOLUMNIA. On's brows, Menenius, he comes the third time home with\n    the oaken garland.\n  MENENIUS. Has he disciplin'd Aufidius soundly?\n  VOLUMNIA. Titus Lartius writes they fought together, but Aufidius\n    got off.\n  MENENIUS. And 'twas time for him too, I'll warrant him that; an he\n    had stay'd by him, I would not have been so fidius'd for all the\n    chests in Corioli and the gold that's in them. Is the Senate\n    possess'd of this?\n  VOLUMNIA. Good ladies, let's go. Yes, yes, yes: the Senate has\n    letters from the general, wherein he gives my son the whole name\n    of the war; he hath in this action outdone his former deeds\n    doubly.\n  VALERIA. In troth, there's wondrous things spoke of him.\n  MENENIUS. Wondrous! Ay, I warrant you, and not without his true\n    purchasing.\n  VIRGILIA. The gods grant them true!\n  VOLUMNIA. True! pow, waw.\n  MENENIUS. True! I'll be sworn they are true. Where is he wounded?\n    [To the TRIBUNES]  God save your good worships! Marcius is coming\n    home; he has more cause to be proud. Where is he wounded?\n  VOLUMNIA. I' th' shoulder and i' th' left arm; there will be large\n    cicatrices to show the people when he shall stand for his place.\n    He received in the repulse of Tarquin seven hurts i' th' body.\n  MENENIUS. One i' th' neck and two i' th' thigh- there's nine that I\n    know.\n  VOLUMNIA. He had before this last expedition twenty-five wounds\n    upon him.\n  MENENIUS. Now it's twenty-seven; every gash was an enemy's grave.\n    [A shout and flourish]  Hark! the trumpets.\n  VOLUMNIA. These are the ushers of Marcius. Before him he carries\n      noise, and behind him he leaves tears;\n    Death, that dark spirit, in's nervy arm doth lie,\n    Which, being advanc'd, declines, and then men die.\n\n            A sennet. Trumpets sound. Enter COMINIUS the\n              GENERAL, and TITUS LARTIUS; between them,\n           CORIOLANUS, crown'd with an oaken garland; with\n                   CAPTAINS and soldiers and a HERALD\n\n  HERALD. Know, Rome, that all alone Marcius did fight\n    Within Corioli gates, where he hath won,\n    With fame, a name to Caius Marcius; these\n    In honour follows Coriolanus.\n    Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus!             [Flourish]\n  ALL. Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus!\n  CORIOLANUS. No more of this, it does offend my heart.\n    Pray now, no more.\n  COMINIUS. Look, sir, your mother!\n  CORIOLANUS. O,\n    You have, I know, petition'd all the gods\n    For my prosperity!                                  [Kneels]\n  VOLUMNIA. Nay, my good soldier, up;\n    My gentle Marcius, worthy Caius, and\n    By deed-achieving honour newly nam'd-\n    What is it? Coriolanus must I can thee?\n    But, O, thy wife!\n  CORIOLANUS. My gracious silence, hail!\n    Wouldst thou have laugh'd had I come coffin'd home,\n    That weep'st to see me triumph? Ah, my dear,\n    Such eyes the widows in Corioli wear,\n    And mothers that lack sons.\n  MENENIUS. Now the gods crown thee!\n  CORIOLANUS. And live you yet?  [To VALERIA]  O my sweet lady,\n    pardon.\n  VOLUMNIA. I know not where to turn.\n    O, welcome home! And welcome, General.\n    And y'are welcome all.\n  MENENIUS. A hundred thousand welcomes. I could weep\n    And I could laugh; I am light and heavy. Welcome!\n    A curse begin at very root on's heart\n    That is not glad to see thee! You are three\n    That Rome should dote on; yet, by the faith of men,\n    We have some old crab trees here at home that will not\n    Be grafted to your relish. Yet welcome, warriors.\n    We call a nettle but a nettle, and\n    The faults of fools but folly.\n  COMINIUS. Ever right.\n  CORIOLANUS. Menenius ever, ever.\n  HERALD. Give way there, and go on.\n  CORIOLANUS.  [To his wife and mother]  Your hand, and yours.\n    Ere in our own house I do shade my head,\n    The good patricians must be visited;\n    From whom I have receiv'd not only greetings,\n    But with them change of honours.\n  VOLUMNIA. I have lived\n    To see inherited my very wishes,\n    And the buildings of my fancy; only\n    There's one thing wanting, which I doubt not but\n    Our Rome will cast upon thee.\n  CORIOLANUS. Know, good mother,\n    I had rather be their servant in my way\n    Than sway with them in theirs.\n  COMINIUS. On, to the Capitol.\n                 [Flourish. Cornets. Exeunt in state, as before]\n\n                BRUTUS and SICINIUS come forward\n\n  BRUTUS. All tongues speak of him and the bleared sights\n    Are spectacled to see him. Your prattling nurse\n    Into a rapture lets her baby cry\n    While she chats him; the kitchen malkin pins\n    Her richest lockram 'bout her reechy neck,\n    Clamb'ring the walls to eye him; stalls, bulks, windows,\n    Are smother'd up, leads fill'd and ridges hors'd\n    With variable complexions, all agreeing\n    In earnestness to see him. Seld-shown flamens\n    Do press among the popular throngs and puff\n    To win a vulgar station; our veil'd dames\n    Commit the war of white and damask in\n    Their nicely gawded cheeks to th' wanton spoil\n    Of Phoebus' burning kisses. Such a pother,\n    As if that whatsoever god who leads him\n    Were slily crept into his human powers,\n    And gave him graceful posture.\n  SICINIUS. On the sudden\n    I warrant him consul.\n  BRUTUS. Then our office may\n    During his power go sleep.\n  SICINIUS. He cannot temp'rately transport his honours\n    From where he should begin and end, but will\n    Lose those he hath won.\n  BRUTUS. In that there's comfort.\n  SICINIUS. Doubt not\n    The commoners, for whom we stand, but they\n    Upon their ancient malice will forget\n    With the least cause these his new honours; which\n    That he will give them make I as little question\n    As he is proud to do't.\n  BRUTUS. I heard him swear,\n    Were he to stand for consul, never would he\n    Appear i' th' market-place, nor on him put\n    The napless vesture of humility;\n    Nor, showing, as the manner is, his wounds\n    To th' people, beg their stinking breaths.\n  SICINIUS. 'Tis right.\n  BRUTUS. It was his word. O, he would miss it rather\n    Than carry it but by the suit of the gentry to him\n    And the desire of the nobles.\n  SICINIUS. I wish no better\n    Than have him hold that purpose, and to put it\n    In execution.\n  BRUTUS. 'Tis most like he will.\n  SICINIUS. It shall be to him then as our good wills:\n    A sure destruction.\n  BRUTUS. So it must fall out\n    To him or our authorities. For an end,\n    We must suggest the people in what hatred\n    He still hath held them; that to's power he would\n    Have made them mules, silenc'd their pleaders, and\n    Dispropertied their freedoms; holding them\n    In human action and capacity\n    Of no more soul nor fitness for the world\n    Than camels in their war, who have their provand\n    Only for bearing burdens, and sore blows\n    For sinking under them.\n  SICINIUS. This, as you say, suggested\n    At some time when his soaring insolence\n    Shall touch the people- which time shall not want,\n    If he be put upon't, and that's as easy\n    As to set dogs on sheep- will be his fire\n    To kindle their dry stubble; and their blaze\n    Shall darken him for ever.\n\n                           Enter A MESSENGER\n\n  BRUTUS. What's the matter?\n  MESSENGER. You are sent for to the Capitol. 'Tis thought\n    That Marcius shall be consul.\n    I have seen the dumb men throng to see him and\n    The blind to hear him speak; matrons flung gloves,\n    Ladies and maids their scarfs and handkerchers,\n    Upon him as he pass'd; the nobles bended\n    As to Jove's statue, and the commons made\n    A shower and thunder with their caps and shouts.\n    I never saw the like.\n  BRUTUS. Let's to the Capitol,\n    And carry with us ears and eyes for th' time,\n    But hearts for the event.\n  SICINIUS. Have with you.                                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nRome. The Capitol\n\nEnter two OFFICERS, to lay cushions, as it were in the Capitol\n\n  FIRST OFFICER. Come, come, they are almost here. How many stand for\n    consulships?\n  SECOND OFFICER. Three, they say; but 'tis thought of every one\n    Coriolanus will carry it.\n  FIRST OFFICER. That's a brave fellow; but he's vengeance proud and\n    loves not the common people.\n  SECOND OFFICER. Faith, there have been many great men that have\n    flatter'd the people, who ne'er loved them; and there be many\n    that they have loved, they know not wherefore; so that, if they\n    love they know not why, they hate upon no better a ground.\n    Therefore, for Coriolanus neither to care whether they love or\n    hate him manifests the true knowledge he has in their\n    disposition, and out of his noble carelessness lets them plainly\n    see't.\n  FIRST OFFICER. If he did not care whether he had their love or no,\n    he waved indifferently 'twixt doing them neither good nor harm;\n    but he seeks their hate with greater devotion than they can\n    render it him, and leaves nothing undone that may fully discover\n    him their opposite. Now to seem to affect the malice and\n    displeasure of the people is as bad as that which he dislikes- to\n    flatter them for their love.\n  SECOND OFFICER. He hath deserved worthily of his country; and his\n    ascent is not by such easy degrees as those who, having been\n    supple and courteous to the people, bonneted, without any further\n    deed to have them at all, into their estimation and report; but\n    he hath so planted his honours in their eyes and his actions in\n    their hearts that for their tongues to be silent and not confess\n    so much were a kind of ingrateful injury; to report otherwise\n    were a malice that, giving itself the lie, would pluck reproof\n    and rebuke from every car that heard it.\n  FIRST OFFICER. No more of him; he's a worthy man. Make way, they\n    are coming.\n\n         A sennet. Enter the PATRICIANS and the TRIBUNES\n         OF THE PEOPLE, LICTORS before them; CORIOLANUS,\n            MENENIUS, COMINIUS the Consul. SICINIUS and\n               BRUTUS take their places by themselves.\n                         CORIOLANUS stands\n\n  MENENIUS. Having determin'd of the Volsces, and\n    To send for Titus Lartius, it remains,\n    As the main point of this our after-meeting,\n    To gratify his noble service that\n    Hath thus stood for his country. Therefore please you,\n    Most reverend and grave elders, to desire\n    The present consul and last general\n    In our well-found successes to report\n    A little of that worthy work perform'd\n    By Caius Marcius Coriolanus; whom\n    We met here both to thank and to remember\n    With honours like himself.                 [CORIOLANUS sits]\n  FIRST SENATOR. Speak, good Cominius.\n    Leave nothing out for length, and make us think\n    Rather our state's defective for requital\n    Than we to stretch it out. Masters o' th' people,\n    We do request your kindest ears; and, after,\n    Your loving motion toward the common body,\n    To yield what passes here.\n  SICINIUS. We are convented\n    Upon a pleasing treaty, and have hearts\n    Inclinable to honour and advance\n    The theme of our assembly.\n  BRUTUS. Which the rather\n    We shall be bless'd to do, if he remember\n    A kinder value of the people than\n    He hath hereto priz'd them at.\n  MENENIUS. That's off, that's off;\n    I would you rather had been silent. Please you\n    To hear Cominius speak?\n  BRUTUS. Most willingly.\n    But yet my caution was more pertinent\n    Than the rebuke you give it.\n  MENENIUS. He loves your people;\n    But tie him not to be their bedfellow.\n    Worthy Cominius, speak.\n                       [CORIOLANUS rises, and offers to go away]\n    Nay, keep your place.\n  FIRST SENATOR. Sit, Coriolanus, never shame to hear\n    What you have nobly done.\n  CORIOLANUS. Your Honours' pardon.\n    I had rather have my wounds to heal again\n    Than hear say how I got them.\n  BRUTUS. Sir, I hope\n    My words disbench'd you not.\n  CORIOLANUS. No, sir; yet oft,\n    When blows have made me stay, I fled from words.\n    You sooth'd not, therefore hurt not. But your people,\n    I love them as they weigh-\n  MENENIUS. Pray now, sit down.\n  CORIOLANUS. I had rather have one scratch my head i' th' sun\n    When the alarum were struck than idly sit\n    To hear my nothings monster'd.                          Exit\n  MENENIUS. Masters of the people,\n    Your multiplying spawn how can he flatter-\n    That's thousand to one good one- when you now see\n    He had rather venture all his limbs for honour\n    Than one on's ears to hear it? Proceed, Cominius.\n  COMINIUS. I shall lack voice; the deeds of Coriolanus\n    Should not be utter'd feebly. It is held\n    That valour is the chiefest virtue and\n    Most dignifies the haver. If it be,\n    The man I speak of cannot in the world\n    Be singly counterpois'd. At sixteen years,\n    When Tarquin made a head for Rome, he fought\n    Beyond the mark of others; our then Dictator,\n    Whom with all praise I point at, saw him fight\n    When with his Amazonian chin he drove\n    The bristled lips before him; he bestrid\n    An o'erpress'd Roman and i' th' consul's view\n    Slew three opposers; Tarquin's self he met,\n    And struck him on his knee. In that day's feats,\n    When he might act the woman in the scene,\n    He prov'd best man i' th' field, and for his meed\n    Was brow-bound with the oak. His pupil age\n    Man-ent'red thus, he waxed like a sea,\n    And in the brunt of seventeen battles since\n    He lurch'd all swords of the garland. For this last,\n    Before and in Corioli, let me say\n    I cannot speak him home. He stopp'd the fliers,\n    And by his rare example made the coward\n    Turn terror into sport; as weeds before\n    A vessel under sail, so men obey'd\n    And fell below his stem. His sword, death's stamp,\n    Where it did mark, it took; from face to foot\n    He was a thing of blood, whose every motion\n    Was tim'd with dying cries. Alone he ent'red\n    The mortal gate of th' city, which he painted\n    With shunless destiny; aidless came off,\n    And with a sudden re-enforcement struck\n    Corioli like a planet. Now all's his.\n    When by and by the din of war 'gan pierce\n    His ready sense, then straight his doubled spirit\n    Re-quick'ned what in flesh was fatigate,\n    And to the battle came he; where he did\n    Run reeking o'er the lives of men, as if\n    'Twere a perpetual spoil; and till we call'd\n    Both field and city ours he never stood\n    To ease his breast with panting.\n  MENENIUS. Worthy man!\n  FIRST SENATOR. He cannot but with measure fit the honours\n    Which we devise him.\n  COMINIUS. Our spoils he kick'd at,\n    And look'd upon things precious as they were\n    The common muck of the world. He covets less\n    Than misery itself would give, rewards\n    His deeds with doing them, and is content\n    To spend the time to end it.\n  MENENIUS. He's right noble;\n    Let him be call'd for.\n  FIRST SENATOR. Call Coriolanus.\n    OFFICER. He doth appear.\n\n                            Re-enter CORIOLANUS\n\n  MENENIUS. The Senate, Coriolanus, are well pleas'd\n    To make thee consul.\n  CORIOLANUS. I do owe them still\n    My life and services.\n  MENENIUS. It then remains\n    That you do speak to the people.\n  CORIOLANUS. I do beseech you\n    Let me o'erleap that custom; for I cannot\n    Put on the gown, stand naked, and entreat them\n    For my wounds' sake to give their suffrage. Please you\n    That I may pass this doing.\n  SICINIUS. Sir, the people\n    Must have their voices; neither will they bate\n    One jot of ceremony.\n  MENENIUS. Put them not to't.\n    Pray you go fit you to the custom, and\n    Take to you, as your predecessors have,\n    Your honour with your form.\n  CORIOLANUS. It is a part\n    That I shall blush in acting, and might well\n    Be taken from the people.\n  BRUTUS. Mark you that?\n  CORIOLANUS. To brag unto them 'Thus I did, and thus!'\n    Show them th' unaching scars which I should hide,\n    As if I had receiv'd them for the hire\n    Of their breath only!\n  MENENIUS. Do not stand upon't.\n    We recommend to you, Tribunes of the People,\n    Our purpose to them; and to our noble consul\n    Wish we all joy and honour.\n  SENATORS. To Coriolanus come all joy and honour!\n                             [Flourish. Cornets. Then exeunt all\n                                        but SICINIUS and BRUTUS]\n  BRUTUS. You see how he intends to use the people.\n  SICINIUS. May they perceive's intent! He will require them\n    As if he did contemn what he requested\n    Should be in them to give.\n  BRUTUS. Come, we'll inform them\n    Of our proceedings here. On th' market-place\n    I know they do attend us.                             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nRome. The Forum\n\nEnter seven or eight citizens\n\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Once, if he do require our voices, we ought not to\n    deny him.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. We may, sir, if we will.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. We have power in ourselves to do it, but it is a\n    power that we have no power to do; for if he show us his wounds\n    and tell us his deeds, we are to put our tongues into those\n    wounds and speak for them; so, if he tell us his noble deeds, we\n    must also tell him our noble acceptance of them. Ingratitude is\n    monstrous, and for the multitude to be ingrateful were to make a\n    monster of the multitude; of the which we being members should\n    bring ourselves to be monstrous members.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. And to make us no better thought of, a little help\n    will serve; for once we stood up about the corn, he himself stuck\n    not to call us the many-headed multitude.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. We have been call'd so of many; not that our heads\n    are some brown, some black, some abram, some bald, but that our\n    wits are so diversely colour'd; and truly I think if all our wits\n    were to issue out of one skull, they would fly east, west, north,\n    south, and their consent of one direct way should be at once to\n    all the points o' th' compass.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Think you so? Which way do you judge my wit would\n    fly?\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Nay, your wit will not so soon out as another man's\n    will- 'tis strongly wedg'd up in a block-head; but if it were at\n    liberty 'twould sure southward.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Why that way?\n  THIRD CITIZEN. To lose itself in a fog; where being three parts\n   melted away with rotten dews, the fourth would return for\n    conscience' sake, to help to get thee a wife.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. YOU are never without your tricks; you may, you\n    may.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Are you all resolv'd to give your voices? But that's\n    no matter, the greater part carries it. I say, if he would\n    incline to the people, there was never a worthier man.\n\n                Enter CORIOLANUS, in a gown of humility,\n                               with MENENIUS\n\n    Here he comes, and in the gown of humility. Mark his behaviour.\n    We are not to stay all together, but to come by him where he\n    stands, by ones, by twos, and by threes. He's to make his\n    requests by particulars, wherein every one of us has a single\n    honour, in giving him our own voices with our own tongues;\n    therefore follow me, and I'll direct you how you shall go by him.\n  ALL. Content, content.                         Exeunt citizens\n  MENENIUS. O sir, you are not right; have you not known\n    The worthiest men have done't?\n  CORIOLANUS. What must I say?\n    'I pray, sir'- Plague upon't! I cannot bring\n    My tongue to such a pace. 'Look, sir, my wounds\n    I got them in my country's service, when\n    Some certain of your brethren roar'd and ran\n    From th' noise of our own drums.'\n  MENENIUS. O me, the gods!\n    You must not speak of that. You must desire them\n    To think upon you.\n  CORIOLANUS. Think upon me? Hang 'em!\n    I would they would forget me, like the virtues\n    Which our divines lose by 'em.\n  MENENIUS. You'll mar all.\n    I'll leave you. Pray you speak to 'em, I pray you,\n    In wholesome manner.                                    Exit\n\n                       Re-enter three of the citizens\n\n  CORIOLANUS. Bid them wash their faces\n    And keep their teeth clean. So, here comes a brace.\n    You know the cause, sir, of my standing here.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. We do, sir; tell us what hath brought you to't.\n  CORIOLANUS. Mine own desert.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Your own desert?\n  CORIOLANUS. Ay, not mine own desire.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. How, not your own desire?\n  CORIOLANUS. No, sir, 'twas never my desire yet to trouble the poor\n    with begging.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. YOU MUST think, if we give you anything, we hope to\n    gain by you.\n  CORIOLANUS. Well then, I pray, your price o' th' consulship?\n  FIRST CITIZEN. The price is to ask it kindly.\n  CORIOLANUS. Kindly, sir, I pray let me ha't. I have wounds to show\n    you, which shall be yours in private. Your good voice, sir; what\n    say you?\n  SECOND CITIZEN. You shall ha' it, worthy sir.\n  CORIOLANUS. A match, sir. There's in all two worthy voices begg'd.\n    I have your alms. Adieu.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. But this is something odd.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. An 'twere to give again- but 'tis no matter.\n                                       Exeunt the three citizens\n\n                      Re-enter two other citizens\n\n  CORIOLANUS. Pray you now, if it may stand with the tune of your\n    voices that I may be consul, I have here the customary gown.\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. You have deserved nobly of your country, and you\n    have not deserved nobly.\n  CORIOLANUS. Your enigma?\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. You have been a scourge to her enemies; you have\n    been a rod to her friends. You have not indeed loved the common\n    people.\n  CORIOLANUS. You should account me the more virtuous, that I have\n    not been common in my love. I will, sir, flatter my sworn\n    brother, the people, to earn a dearer estimation of them; 'tis a\n    condition they account gentle; and since the wisdom of their\n    choice is rather to have my hat than my heart, I will practise\n    the insinuating nod and be off to them most counterfeitly. That\n    is, sir, I will counterfeit the bewitchment of some popular man\n    and give it bountiful to the desirers. Therefore, beseech you I\n    may be consul.\n  FIFTH CITIZEN. We hope to find you our friend; and therefore give\n    you our voices heartily.\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. You have received many wounds for your country.\n  CORIOLANUS. I will not seal your knowledge with showing them. I\n    will make much of your voices, and so trouble you no farther.\n  BOTH CITIZENS. The gods give you joy, sir, heartily!\n                                                 Exeunt citizens\n  CORIOLANUS. Most sweet voices!\n    Better it is to die, better to starve,\n    Than crave the hire which first we do deserve.\n    Why in this wolvish toge should I stand here\n    To beg of Hob and Dick that do appear\n    Their needless vouches? Custom calls me to't.\n    What custom wills, in all things should we do't,\n    The dust on antique time would lie unswept,\n    And mountainous error be too highly heap'd\n    For truth to o'erpeer. Rather than fool it so,\n    Let the high office and the honour go\n    To one that would do thus. I am half through:\n    The one part suffered, the other will I do.\n\n                      Re-enter three citizens more\n\n    Here come moe voices.\n    Your voices. For your voices I have fought;\n    Watch'd for your voices; for your voices bear\n    Of wounds two dozen odd; battles thrice six\n    I have seen and heard of; for your voices have\n    Done many things, some less, some more. Your voices?\n    Indeed, I would be consul.\n  SIXTH CITIZEN. He has done nobly, and cannot go without any honest\n    man's voice.\n  SEVENTH CITIZEN. Therefore let him be consul. The gods give him\n    joy, and make him good friend to the people!\n  ALL. Amen, amen. God save thee, noble consul!\n                                                 Exeunt citizens\n  CORIOLANUS. Worthy voices!\n\n             Re-enter MENENIUS with BRUTUS and SICINIUS\n\n  MENENIUS. You have stood your limitation, and the tribunes\n    Endue you with the people's voice. Remains\n    That, in th' official marks invested, you\n    Anon do meet the Senate.\n  CORIOLANUS. Is this done?\n  SICINIUS. The custom of request you have discharg'd.\n    The people do admit you, and are summon'd\n    To meet anon, upon your approbation.\n  CORIOLANUS. Where? At the Senate House?\n  SICINIUS. There, Coriolanus.\n  CORIOLANUS. May I change these garments?\n  SICINIUS. You may, sir.\n  CORIOLANUS. That I'll straight do, and, knowing myself again,\n    Repair to th' Senate House.\n  MENENIUS. I'll keep you company. Will you along?\n  BRUTUS. We stay here for the people.\n  SICINIUS. Fare you well.\n                                  Exeunt CORIOLANUS and MENENIUS\n    He has it now; and by his looks methinks\n    'Tis warm at's heart.\n  BRUTUS. With a proud heart he wore\n    His humble weeds. Will you dismiss the people?\n\n                            Re-enter citizens\n\n  SICINIUS. How now, my masters! Have you chose this man?\n  FIRST CITIZEN. He has our voices, sir.\n  BRUTUS. We pray the gods he may deserve your loves.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Amen, sir. To my poor unworthy notice,\n    He mock'd us when he begg'd our voices.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Certainly;\n    He flouted us downright.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. No, 'tis his kind of speech- he did not mock us.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Not one amongst us, save yourself, but says\n    He us'd us scornfully. He should have show'd us\n    His marks of merit, wounds receiv'd for's country.\n  SICINIUS. Why, so he did, I am sure.\n  ALL. No, no; no man saw 'em.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. He said he had wounds which he could show in\n      private,\n    And with his hat, thus waving it in scorn,\n    'I would be consul,' says he; 'aged custom\n    But by your voices will not so permit me;\n    Your voices therefore.' When we granted that,\n    Here was 'I thank you for your voices. Thank you,\n    Your most sweet voices. Now you have left your voices,\n    I have no further with you.' Was not this mockery?\n  SICINIUS. Why either were you ignorant to see't,\n    Or, seeing it, of such childish friendliness\n    To yield your voices?\n  BRUTUS. Could you not have told him-\n    As you were lesson'd- when he had no power\n    But was a petty servant to the state,\n    He was your enemy; ever spake against\n    Your liberties and the charters that you bear\n    I' th' body of the weal; and now, arriving\n    A place of potency and sway o' th' state,\n    If he should still malignantly remain\n    Fast foe to th' plebeii, your voices might\n    Be curses to yourselves? You should have said\n    That as his worthy deeds did claim no less\n    Than what he stood for, so his gracious nature\n    Would think upon you for your voices, and\n    Translate his malice towards you into love,\n    Standing your friendly lord.\n  SICINIUS. Thus to have said,\n    As you were fore-advis'd, had touch'd his spirit\n    And tried his inclination; from him pluck'd\n    Either his gracious promise, which you might,\n    As cause had call'd you up, have held him to;\n    Or else it would have gall'd his surly nature,\n    Which easily endures not article\n    Tying him to aught. So, putting him to rage,\n    You should have ta'en th' advantage of his choler\n    And pass'd him unelected.\n  BRUTUS. Did you perceive\n    He did solicit you in free contempt\n    When he did need your loves; and do you think\n    That his contempt shall not be bruising to you\n    When he hath power to crush? Why, had your bodies\n    No heart among you? Or had you tongues to cry\n    Against the rectorship of judgment?\n  SICINIUS. Have you\n    Ere now denied the asker, and now again,\n    Of him that did not ask but mock, bestow\n    Your su'd-for tongues?\n  THIRD CITIZEN. He's not confirm'd: we may deny him yet.\n  SECOND CITIZENS. And will deny him;\n    I'll have five hundred voices of that sound.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. I twice five hundred, and their friends to piece\n    'em.\n  BRUTUS. Get you hence instantly, and tell those friends\n    They have chose a consul that will from them take\n    Their liberties, make them of no more voice\n    Than dogs, that are as often beat for barking\n    As therefore kept to do so.\n  SICINIUS. Let them assemble;\n    And, on a safer judgment, all revoke\n    Your ignorant election. Enforce his pride\n    And his old hate unto you; besides, forget not\n    With what contempt he wore the humble weed;\n    How in his suit he scorn'd you; but your loves,\n    Thinking upon his services, took from you\n    Th' apprehension of his present portance,\n    Which, most gibingly, ungravely, he did fashion\n    After the inveterate hate he bears you.\n  BRUTUS. Lay\n    A fault on us, your tribunes, that we labour'd,\n    No impediment between, but that you must\n    Cast your election on him.\n  SICINIUS. Say you chose him\n    More after our commandment than as guided\n    By your own true affections; and that your minds,\n    Pre-occupied with what you rather must do\n    Than what you should, made you against the grain\n    To voice him consul. Lay the fault on us.\n  BRUTUS. Ay, spare us not. Say we read lectures to you,\n    How youngly he began to serve his country,\n    How long continued; and what stock he springs of-\n    The noble house o' th' Marcians; from whence came\n    That Ancus Marcius, Numa's daughter's son,\n    Who, after great Hostilius, here was king;\n    Of the same house Publius and Quintus were,\n    That our best water brought by conduits hither;\n    And Censorinus, nobly named so,\n    Twice being by the people chosen censor,\n    Was his great ancestor.\n  SICINIUS. One thus descended,\n    That hath beside well in his person wrought\n    To be set high in place, we did commend\n    To your remembrances; but you have found,\n    Scaling his present bearing with his past,\n    That he's your fixed enemy, and revoke\n    Your sudden approbation.\n  BRUTUS. Say you ne'er had done't-\n    Harp on that still- but by our putting on;\n    And presently, when you have drawn your number,\n    Repair to th' Capitol.\n  CITIZENS. will will so; almost all\n    Repent in their election.                   Exeunt plebeians\n  BRUTUS. Let them go on;\n    This mutiny were better put in hazard\n    Than stay, past doubt, for greater.\n    If, as his nature is, he fall in rage\n    With their refusal, both observe and answer\n    The vantage of his anger.\n  SICINIUS. To th' Capitol, come.\n    We will be there before the stream o' th' people;\n    And this shall seem, as partly 'tis, their own,\n    Which we have goaded onward.                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nRome. A street\n\nCornets. Enter CORIOLANUS, MENENIUS, all the GENTRY, COMINIUS,\nTITUS LARTIUS, and other SENATORS\n\n  CORIOLANUS. Tullus Aufidius, then, had made new head?\n  LARTIUS. He had, my lord; and that it was which caus'd\n    Our swifter composition.\n  CORIOLANUS. So then the Volsces stand but as at first,\n    Ready, when time shall prompt them, to make road\n    Upon's again.\n  COMINIUS. They are worn, Lord Consul, so\n    That we shall hardly in our ages see\n    Their banners wave again.\n  CORIOLANUS. Saw you Aufidius?\n  LARTIUS. On safeguard he came to me, and did curse\n    Against the Volsces, for they had so vilely\n    Yielded the town. He is retir'd to Antium.\n  CORIOLANUS. Spoke he of me?\n  LARTIUS. He did, my lord.\n  CORIOLANUS. How? What?\n  LARTIUS. How often he had met you, sword to sword;\n    That of all things upon the earth he hated\n    Your person most; that he would pawn his fortunes\n    To hopeless restitution, so he might\n    Be call'd your vanquisher.\n  CORIOLANUS. At Antium lives he?\n  LARTIUS. At Antium.\n  CORIOLANUS. I wish I had a cause to seek him there,\n    To oppose his hatred fully. Welcome home.\n\n                       Enter SICINIUS and BRUTUS\n\n    Behold, these are the tribunes of the people,\n    The tongues o' th' common mouth. I do despise them,\n    For they do prank them in authority,\n    Against all noble sufferance.\n  SICINIUS. Pass no further.\n  CORIOLANUS. Ha! What is that?\n  BRUTUS. It will be dangerous to go on- no further.\n  CORIOLANUS. What makes this change?\n  MENENIUS. The matter?\n  COMINIUS. Hath he not pass'd the noble and the common?\n  BRUTUS. Cominius, no.\n  CORIOLANUS. Have I had children's voices?\n  FIRST SENATOR. Tribunes, give way: he shall to th' market-place.\n  BRUTUS. The people are incens'd against him.\n  SICINIUS. Stop,\n    Or all will fall in broil.\n  CORIOLANUS. Are these your herd?\n    Must these have voices, that can yield them now\n    And straight disclaim their tongues? What are your offices?\n    You being their mouths, why rule you not their teeth?\n    Have you not set them on?\n  MENENIUS. Be calm, be calm.\n  CORIOLANUS. It is a purpos'd thing, and grows by plot,\n    To curb the will of the nobility;\n    Suffer't, and live with such as cannot rule\n    Nor ever will be rul'd.\n  BRUTUS. Call't not a plot.\n    The people cry you mock'd them; and of late,\n    When corn was given them gratis, you repin'd;\n    Scandal'd the suppliants for the people, call'd them\n    Time-pleasers, flatterers, foes to nobleness.\n  CORIOLANUS. Why, this was known before.\n  BRUTUS. Not to them all.\n  CORIOLANUS. Have you inform'd them sithence?\n  BRUTUS. How? I inform them!\n  COMINIUS. You are like to do such business.\n  BRUTUS. Not unlike\n    Each way to better yours.\n  CORIOLANUS. Why then should I be consul? By yond clouds,\n    Let me deserve so ill as you, and make me\n    Your fellow tribune.\n  SICINIUS. You show too much of that\n    For which the people stir; if you will pass\n    To where you are bound, you must enquire your way,\n    Which you are out of, with a gentler spirit,\n    Or never be so noble as a consul,\n    Nor yoke with him for tribune.\n  MENENIUS. Let's be calm.\n  COMINIUS. The people are abus'd; set on. This palt'ring\n    Becomes not Rome; nor has Coriolanus\n    Deserved this so dishonour'd rub, laid falsely\n    I' th' plain way of his merit.\n  CORIOLANUS. Tell me of corn!\n    This was my speech, and I will speak't again-\n  MENENIUS. Not now, not now.\n  FIRST SENATOR. Not in this heat, sir, now.\n  CORIOLANUS. Now, as I live, I will.\n    My nobler friends, I crave their pardons.\n    For the mutable, rank-scented meiny, let them\n    Regard me as I do not flatter, and\n    Therein behold themselves. I say again,\n    In soothing them we nourish 'gainst our Senate\n    The cockle of rebellion, insolence, sedition,\n    Which we ourselves have plough'd for, sow'd, and scatter'd,\n    By mingling them with us, the honour'd number,\n    Who lack not virtue, no, nor power, but that\n    Which they have given to beggars.\n  MENENIUS. Well, no more.\n  FIRST SENATOR. No more words, we beseech you.\n  CORIOLANUS. How? no more!\n    As for my country I have shed my blood,\n    Not fearing outward force, so shall my lungs\n    Coin words till their decay against those measles\n    Which we disdain should tetter us, yet sought\n    The very way to catch them.\n  BRUTUS. You speak o' th' people\n    As if you were a god, to punish; not\n    A man of their infirmity.\n  SICINIUS. 'Twere well\n    We let the people know't.\n  MENENIUS. What, what? his choler?\n  CORIOLANUS. Choler!\n    Were I as patient as the midnight sleep,\n    By Jove, 'twould be my mind!\n  SICINIUS. It is a mind\n    That shall remain a poison where it is,\n    Not poison any further.\n  CORIOLANUS. Shall remain!\n    Hear you this Triton of the minnows? Mark you\n    His absolute 'shall'?\n  COMINIUS. 'Twas from the canon.\n  CORIOLANUS. 'Shall'!\n    O good but most unwise patricians! Why,\n    You grave but reckless senators, have you thus\n    Given Hydra here to choose an officer\n    That with his peremptory 'shall,' being but\n    The horn and noise o' th' monster's, wants not spirit\n    To say he'll turn your current in a ditch,\n    And make your channel his? If he have power,\n    Then vail your ignorance; if none, awake\n    Your dangerous lenity. If you are learn'd,\n    Be not as common fools; if you are not,\n    Let them have cushions by you. You are plebeians,\n    If they be senators; and they are no less,\n    When, both your voices blended, the great'st taste\n    Most palates theirs. They choose their magistrate;\n    And such a one as he, who puts his 'shall,'\n    His popular 'shall,' against a graver bench\n    Than ever frown'd in Greece. By Jove himself,\n    It makes the consuls base; and my soul aches\n    To know, when two authorities are up,\n    Neither supreme, how soon confusion\n    May enter 'twixt the gap of both and take\n    The one by th' other.\n  COMINIUS. Well, on to th' market-place.\n  CORIOLANUS. Whoever gave that counsel to give forth\n    The corn o' th' storehouse gratis, as 'twas us'd\n    Sometime in Greece-\n  MENENIUS. Well, well, no more of that.\n  CORIOLANUS. Though there the people had more absolute pow'r-\n    I say they nourish'd disobedience, fed\n    The ruin of the state.\n  BRUTUS. Why shall the people give\n    One that speaks thus their voice?\n  CORIOLANUS. I'll give my reasons,\n    More worthier than their voices. They know the corn\n    Was not our recompense, resting well assur'd\n    They ne'er did service for't; being press'd to th' war\n    Even when the navel of the state was touch'd,\n    They would not thread the gates. This kind of service\n    Did not deserve corn gratis. Being i' th' war,\n    Their mutinies and revolts, wherein they show'd\n    Most valour, spoke not for them. Th' accusation\n    Which they have often made against the Senate,\n    All cause unborn, could never be the native\n    Of our so frank donation. Well, what then?\n    How shall this bosom multiplied digest\n    The Senate's courtesy? Let deeds express\n    What's like to be their words: 'We did request it;\n    We are the greater poll, and in true fear\n    They gave us our demands.' Thus we debase\n    The nature of our seats, and make the rabble\n    Call our cares fears; which will in time\n    Break ope the locks o' th' Senate and bring in\n    The crows to peck the eagles.\n  MENENIUS. Come, enough.\n  BRUTUS. Enough, with over measure.\n  CORIOLANUS. No, take more.\n    What may be sworn by, both divine and human,\n    Seal what I end withal! This double worship,\n    Where one part does disdain with cause, the other\n    Insult without all reason; where gentry, title, wisdom,\n    Cannot conclude but by the yea and no\n    Of general ignorance- it must omit\n    Real necessities, and give way the while\n    To unstable slightness. Purpose so barr'd, it follows\n    Nothing is done to purpose. Therefore, beseech you-\n    You that will be less fearful than discreet;\n    That love the fundamental part of state\n    More than you doubt the change on't; that prefer\n    A noble life before a long, and wish\n    To jump a body with a dangerous physic\n    That's sure of death without it- at once pluck out\n    The multitudinous tongue; let them not lick\n    The sweet which is their poison. Your dishonour\n    Mangles true judgment, and bereaves the state\n    Of that integrity which should become't,\n    Not having the power to do the good it would,\n    For th' ill which doth control't.\n  BRUTUS. Has said enough.\n  SICINIUS. Has spoken like a traitor and shall answer\n    As traitors do.\n  CORIOLANUS. Thou wretch, despite o'erwhelm thee!\n    What should the people do with these bald tribunes,\n    On whom depending, their obedience fails\n    To the greater bench? In a rebellion,\n    When what's not meet, but what must be, was law,\n    Then were they chosen; in a better hour\n    Let what is meet be said it must be meet,\n    And throw their power i' th' dust.\n  BRUTUS. Manifest treason!\n  SICINIUS. This a consul? No.\n  BRUTUS. The aediles, ho!\n\n                           Enter an AEDILE\n\n    Let him be apprehended.\n  SICINIUS. Go call the people,  [Exit AEDILE]  in whose name myself\n    Attach thee as a traitorous innovator,\n    A foe to th' public weal. Obey, I charge thee,\n    And follow to thine answer.\n  CORIOLANUS. Hence, old goat!\n  PATRICIANS. We'll surety him.\n  COMINIUS. Ag'd sir, hands off.\n  CORIOLANUS. Hence, rotten thing! or I shall shake thy bones\n    Out of thy garments.\n  SICINIUS. Help, ye citizens!\n\n              Enter a rabble of plebeians, with the AEDILES\n\n  MENENIUS. On both sides more respect.\n  SICINIUS. Here's he that would take from you all your power.\n  BRUTUS. Seize him, aediles.\n    PLEBEIANS. Down with him! down with him!\n  SECOND SENATOR. Weapons, weapons, weapons!\n                              [They all bustle about CORIOLANUS]\n  ALL. Tribunes! patricians! citizens! What, ho! Sicinius!\n    Brutus! Coriolanus! Citizens!\n  PATRICIANS. Peace, peace, peace; stay, hold, peace!\n  MENENIUS. What is about to be? I am out of breath;\n    Confusion's near; I cannot speak. You tribunes\n    To th' people- Coriolanus, patience!\n    Speak, good Sicinius.\n  SICINIUS. Hear me, people; peace!\n  PLEBEIANS. Let's hear our tribune. Peace! Speak, speak, speak.\n  SICINIUS. You are at point to lose your liberties.\n    Marcius would have all from you; Marcius,\n    Whom late you have nam'd for consul.\n  MENENIUS. Fie, fie, fie!\n    This is the way to kindle, not to quench.\n  FIRST SENATOR. To unbuild the city, and to lay all flat.\n  SICINIUS. What is the city but the people?\n  PLEBEIANS. True,\n    The people are the city.\n  BRUTUS. By the consent of all we were establish'd\n    The people's magistrates.\n  PLEBEIANS. You so remain.\n  MENENIUS. And so are like to do.\n  COMINIUS. That is the way to lay the city flat,\n    To bring the roof to the foundation,\n    And bury all which yet distinctly ranges\n    In heaps and piles of ruin.\n  SICINIUS. This deserves death.\n  BRUTUS. Or let us stand to our authority\n    Or let us lose it. We do here pronounce,\n    Upon the part o' th' people, in whose power\n    We were elected theirs: Marcius is worthy\n    Of present death.\n  SICINIUS. Therefore lay hold of him;\n    Bear him to th' rock Tarpeian, and from thence\n    Into destruction cast him.\n  BRUTUS. AEdiles, seize him.\n  PLEBEIANS. Yield, Marcius, yield.\n  MENENIUS. Hear me one word; beseech you, Tribunes,\n    Hear me but a word.\n  AEDILES. Peace, peace!\n  MENENIUS. Be that you seem, truly your country's friend,\n    And temp'rately proceed to what you would\n    Thus violently redress.\n  BRUTUS. Sir, those cold ways,\n    That seem like prudent helps, are very poisonous\n    Where the disease is violent. Lay hands upon him\n    And bear him to the rock.\n                                    [CORIOLANUS draws his sword]\n  CORIOLANUS. No: I'll die here.\n    There's some among you have beheld me fighting;\n    Come, try upon yourselves what you have seen me.\n  MENENIUS. Down with that sword! Tribunes, withdraw awhile.\n  BRUTUS. Lay hands upon him.\n  MENENIUS. Help Marcius, help,\n    You that be noble; help him, young and old.\n  PLEBEIANS. Down with him, down with him!\n                      [In this mutiny the TRIBUNES, the AEDILES,\n                                     and the people are beat in]\n  MENENIUS. Go, get you to your house; be gone, away.\n    All will be nought else.\n  SECOND SENATOR. Get you gone.\n  CORIOLANUS. Stand fast;\n    We have as many friends as enemies.\n  MENENIUS. Shall it be put to that?\n  FIRST SENATOR. The gods forbid!\n    I prithee, noble friend, home to thy house;\n    Leave us to cure this cause.\n  MENENIUS. For 'tis a sore upon us\n    You cannot tent yourself; be gone, beseech you.\n  COMINIUS. Come, sir, along with us.\n  CORIOLANUS. I would they were barbarians, as they are,\n    Though in Rome litter'd; not Romans, as they are not,\n    Though calved i' th' porch o' th' Capitol.\n  MENENIUS. Be gone.\n    Put not your worthy rage into your tongue;\n    One time will owe another.\n  CORIOLANUS. On fair ground\n    I could beat forty of them.\n  MENENIUS. I could myself\n    Take up a brace o' th' best of them; yea, the two tribunes.\n  COMINIUS. But now 'tis odds beyond arithmetic,\n    And manhood is call'd foolery when it stands\n    Against a falling fabric. Will you hence,\n    Before the tag return? whose rage doth rend\n    Like interrupted waters, and o'erbear\n    What they are us'd to bear.\n  MENENIUS. Pray you be gone.\n    I'll try whether my old wit be in request\n    With those that have but little; this must be patch'd\n    With cloth of any colour.\n  COMINIUS. Nay, come away.\n                     Exeunt CORIOLANUS and COMINIUS, with others\n  PATRICIANS. This man has marr'd his fortune.\n  MENENIUS. His nature is too noble for the world:\n    He would not flatter Neptune for his trident,\n    Or Jove for's power to thunder. His heart's his mouth;\n    What his breast forges, that his tongue must vent;\n    And, being angry, does forget that ever\n    He heard the name of death.                 [A noise within]\n    Here's goodly work!\n  PATRICIANS. I would they were a-bed.\n  MENENIUS. I would they were in Tiber.\n    What the vengeance, could he not speak 'em fair?\n\n            Re-enter BRUTUS and SICINIUS, the rabble again\n\n  SICINIUS. Where is this viper\n    That would depopulate the city and\n    Be every man himself?\n  MENENIUS. You worthy Tribunes-\n  SICINIUS. He shall be thrown down the Tarpeian rock\n    With rigorous hands; he hath resisted law,\n    And therefore law shall scorn him further trial\n    Than the severity of the public power,\n    Which he so sets at nought.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. He shall well know\n    The noble tribunes are the people's mouths,\n    And we their hands.\n  PLEBEIANS. He shall, sure on't.\n  MENENIUS. Sir, sir-\n  SICINIUS. Peace!\n  MENENIUS. Do not cry havoc, where you should but hunt\n    With modest warrant.\n  SICINIUS. Sir, how comes't that you\n    Have holp to make this rescue?\n  MENENIUS. Hear me speak.\n    As I do know the consul's worthiness,\n    So can I name his faults.\n  SICINIUS. Consul! What consul?\n  MENENIUS. The consul Coriolanus.\n  BRUTUS. He consul!\n  PLEBEIANS. No, no, no, no, no.\n  MENENIUS. If, by the tribunes' leave, and yours, good people,\n    I may be heard, I would crave a word or two;\n    The which shall turn you to no further harm\n    Than so much loss of time.\n  SICINIUS. Speak briefly, then,\n    For we are peremptory to dispatch\n    This viperous traitor; to eject him hence\n    Were but one danger, and to keep him here\n    Our certain death; therefore it is decreed\n    He dies to-night.\n  MENENIUS. Now the good gods forbid\n    That our renowned Rome, whose gratitude\n    Towards her deserved children is enroll'd\n    In Jove's own book, like an unnatural dam\n    Should now eat up her own!\n  SICINIUS. He's a disease that must be cut away.\n  MENENIUS. O, he's a limb that has but a disease-\n    Mortal, to cut it off: to cure it, easy.\n    What has he done to Rome that's worthy death?\n    Killing our enemies, the blood he hath lost-\n    Which I dare vouch is more than that he hath\n    By many an ounce- he dropt it for his country;\n    And what is left, to lose it by his country\n    Were to us all that do't and suffer it\n    A brand to th' end o' th' world.\n  SICINIUS. This is clean kam.\n  BRUTUS. Merely awry. When he did love his country,\n    It honour'd him.\n  SICINIUS. The service of the foot,\n    Being once gangren'd, is not then respected\n    For what before it was.\n  BRUTUS. We'll hear no more.\n    Pursue him to his house and pluck him thence,\n    Lest his infection, being of catching nature,\n    Spread further.\n  MENENIUS. One word more, one word\n    This tiger-footed rage, when it shall find\n    The harm of unscann'd swiftness, will, too late,\n    Tie leaden pounds to's heels. Proceed by process,\n    Lest parties- as he is belov'd- break out,\n    And sack great Rome with Romans.\n  BRUTUS. If it were so-\n  SICINIUS. What do ye talk?\n    Have we not had a taste of his obedience-\n    Our aediles smote, ourselves resisted? Come!\n  MENENIUS. Consider this: he has been bred i' th' wars\n    Since 'a could draw a sword, and is ill school'd\n    In bolted language; meal and bran together\n    He throws without distinction. Give me leave,\n    I'll go to him and undertake to bring him\n    Where he shall answer by a lawful form,\n    In peace, to his utmost peril.\n  FIRST SENATOR. Noble Tribunes,\n    It is the humane way; the other course\n    Will prove too bloody, and the end of it\n    Unknown to the beginning.\n  SICINIUS. Noble Menenius,\n    Be you then as the people's officer.\n    Masters, lay down your weapons.\n  BRUTUS. Go not home.\n  SICINIUS. Meet on the market-place. We'll attend you there;\n    Where, if you bring not Marcius, we'll proceed\n    In our first way.\n  MENENIUS. I'll bring him to you.\n    [To the SENATORS]  Let me desire your company; he must come,\n    Or what is worst will follow.\n  FIRST SENATOR. Pray you let's to him.                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nRome. The house of CORIOLANUS\n\nEnter CORIOLANUS with NOBLES\n\n  CORIOLANUS. Let them pull all about mine ears, present me\n    Death on the wheel or at wild horses' heels;\n    Or pile ten hills on the Tarpeian rock,\n    That the precipitation might down stretch\n    Below the beam of sight; yet will I still\n    Be thus to them.\n  FIRST PATRICIAN. You do the nobler.\n  CORIOLANUS. I muse my mother\n    Does not approve me further, who was wont\n    To call them woollen vassals, things created\n    To buy and sell with groats; to show bare heads\n    In congregations, to yawn, be still, and wonder,\n    When one but of my ordinance stood up\n    To speak of peace or war.\n\n                          Enter VOLUMNIA\n\n    I talk of you:\n    Why did you wish me milder? Would you have me\n    False to my nature? Rather say I play\n    The man I am.\n  VOLUMNIA. O, sir, sir, sir,\n    I would have had you put your power well on\n    Before you had worn it out.\n  CORIOLANUS. Let go.\n  VOLUMNIA. You might have been enough the man you are\n    With striving less to be so; lesser had been\n    The thwartings of your dispositions, if\n    You had not show'd them how ye were dispos'd,\n    Ere they lack'd power to cross you.\n  CORIOLANUS. Let them hang.\n  VOLUMNIA. Ay, and burn too.\n\n                    Enter MENENIUS with the SENATORS\n\n  MENENIUS. Come, come, you have been too rough, something too rough;\n    You must return and mend it.\n  FIRST SENATOR. There's no remedy,\n    Unless, by not so doing, our good city\n    Cleave in the midst and perish.\n  VOLUMNIA. Pray be counsell'd;\n    I have a heart as little apt as yours,\n    But yet a brain that leads my use of anger\n    To better vantage.\n  MENENIUS. Well said, noble woman!\n    Before he should thus stoop to th' herd, but that\n    The violent fit o' th' time craves it as physic\n    For the whole state, I would put mine armour on,\n    Which I can scarcely bear.\n  CORIOLANUS. What must I do?\n  MENENIUS. Return to th' tribunes.\n  CORIOLANUS. Well, what then, what then?\n  MENENIUS. Repent what you have spoke.\n  CORIOLANUS. For them! I cannot do it to the gods;\n    Must I then do't to them?\n  VOLUMNIA. You are too absolute;\n    Though therein you can never be too noble\n    But when extremities speak. I have heard you say\n    Honour and policy, like unsever'd friends,\n    I' th' war do grow together; grant that, and tell me\n    In peace what each of them by th' other lose\n    That they combine not there.\n  CORIOLANUS. Tush, tush!\n  MENENIUS. A good demand.\n  VOLUMNIA. If it be honour in your wars to seem\n    The same you are not, which for your best ends\n    You adopt your policy, how is it less or worse\n    That it shall hold companionship in peace\n    With honour as in war; since that to both\n    It stands in like request?\n  CORIOLANUS. Why force you this?\n  VOLUMNIA. Because that now it lies you on to speak\n    To th' people, not by your own instruction,\n    Nor by th' matter which your heart prompts you,\n    But with such words that are but roted in\n    Your tongue, though but bastards and syllables\n    Of no allowance to your bosom's truth.\n    Now, this no more dishonours you at all\n    Than to take in a town with gentle words,\n    Which else would put you to your fortune and\n    The hazard of much blood.\n    I would dissemble with my nature where\n    My fortunes and my friends at stake requir'd\n    I should do so in honour. I am in this\n    Your wife, your son, these senators, the nobles;\n    And you will rather show our general louts\n    How you can frown, than spend a fawn upon 'em\n    For the inheritance of their loves and safeguard\n    Of what that want might ruin.\n  MENENIUS. Noble lady!\n    Come, go with us, speak fair; you may salve so,\n    Not what is dangerous present, but the los\n    Of what is past.\n  VOLUMNIA. I prithee now, My son,\n    Go to them with this bonnet in thy hand;\n    And thus far having stretch'd it- here be with them-\n    Thy knee bussing the stones- for in such busines\n    Action is eloquence, and the eyes of th' ignorant\n    More learned than the ears- waving thy head,\n    Which often thus correcting thy-stout heart,\n    Now humble as the ripest mulberry\n    That will not hold the handling. Or say to them\n    Thou art their soldier and, being bred in broils,\n    Hast not the soft way which, thou dost confess,\n    Were fit for thee to use, as they to claim,\n    In asking their good loves; but thou wilt frame\n    Thyself, forsooth, hereafter theirs, so far\n    As thou hast power and person.\n  MENENIUS. This but done\n    Even as she speaks, why, their hearts were yours;\n    For they have pardons, being ask'd, as free\n    As words to little purpose.\n  VOLUMNIA. Prithee now,\n    Go, and be rul'd; although I know thou hadst rather\n    Follow thine enemy in a fiery gulf\n    Than flatter him in a bower.\n\n                           Enter COMINIUS\n\n    Here is Cominius.\n  COMINIUS. I have been i' th' market-place; and, sir, 'tis fit\n    You make strong party, or defend yourself\n    By calmness or by absence; all's in anger.\n  MENENIUS. Only fair speech.\n  COMINIUS. I think 'twill serve, if he\n    Can thereto frame his spirit.\n  VOLUMNIA. He must and will.\n    Prithee now, say you will, and go about it.\n  CORIOLANUS. Must I go show them my unbarb'd sconce? Must I\n    With my base tongue give to my noble heart\n    A lie that it must bear? Well, I will do't;\n    Yet, were there but this single plot to lose,\n    This mould of Marcius, they to dust should grind it,\n    And throw't against the wind. To th' market-place!\n    You have put me now to such a part which never\n    I shall discharge to th' life.\n  COMINIUS. Come, come, we'll prompt you.\n  VOLUMNIA. I prithee now, sweet son, as thou hast said\n    My praises made thee first a soldier, so,\n    To have my praise for this, perform a part\n    Thou hast not done before.\n  CORIOLANUS. Well, I must do't.\n    Away, my disposition, and possess me\n    Some harlot's spirit! My throat of war be turn'd,\n    Which quier'd with my drum, into a pipe\n    Small as an eunuch or the virgin voice\n    That babies lulls asleep! The smiles of knaves\n    Tent in my cheeks, and schoolboys' tears take up\n    The glasses of my sight! A beggar's tongue\n    Make motion through my lips, and my arm'd knees,\n    Who bow'd but in my stirrup, bend like his\n    That hath receiv'd an alms! I will not do't,\n    Lest I surcease to honour mine own truth,\n    And by my body's action teach my mind\n    A most inherent baseness.\n  VOLUMNIA. At thy choice, then.\n    To beg of thee, it is my more dishonour\n    Than thou of them. Come all to ruin. Let\n    Thy mother rather feel thy pride than fear\n    Thy dangerous stoutness; for I mock at death\n    With as big heart as thou. Do as thou list.\n    Thy valiantness was mine, thou suck'dst it from me;\n    But owe thy pride thyself.\n  CORIOLANUS. Pray be content.\n    Mother, I am going to the market-place;\n    Chide me no more. I'll mountebank their loves,\n    Cog their hearts from them, and come home belov'd\n    Of all the trades in Rome. Look, I am going.\n    Commend me to my wife. I'll return consul,\n    Or never trust to what my tongue can do\n    I' th' way of flattery further.\n  VOLUMNIA. Do your will.                                   Exit\n  COMINIUS. Away! The tribunes do attend you. Arm yourself\n    To answer mildly; for they are prepar'd\n    With accusations, as I hear, more strong\n    Than are upon you yet.\n  CORIOLANUS. The word is 'mildly.' Pray you let us go.\n    Let them accuse me by invention; I\n    Will answer in mine honour.\n  MENENIUS. Ay, but mildly.\n  CORIOLANUS. Well, mildly be it then- mildly.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nRome. The Forum\n\nEnter SICINIUS and BRUTUS\n\n  BRUTUS. In this point charge him home, that he affects\n    Tyrannical power. If he evade us there,\n    Enforce him with his envy to the people,\n    And that the spoil got on the Antiates\n    Was ne'er distributed.\n\n                           Enter an AEDILE\n\n    What, will he come?\n  AEDILE. He's coming.\n  BRUTUS. How accompanied?\n  AEDILE. With old Menenius, and those senators\n    That always favour'd him.\n  SICINIUS. Have you a catalogue\n    Of all the voices that we have procur'd,\n    Set down by th' poll?\n  AEDILE. I have; 'tis ready.\n  SICINIUS. Have you corrected them by tribes?\n  AEDILE. I have.\n  SICINIUS. Assemble presently the people hither;\n    And when they hear me say 'It shall be so\n    I' th' right and strength o' th' commons' be it either\n    For death, for fine, or banishment, then let them,\n    If I say fine, cry 'Fine!'- if death, cry 'Death!'\n    Insisting on the old prerogative\n    And power i' th' truth o' th' cause.\n  AEDILE. I shall inform them.\n  BRUTUS. And when such time they have begun to cry,\n    Let them not cease, but with a din confus'd\n    Enforce the present execution\n    Of what we chance to sentence.\n  AEDILE. Very well.\n  SICINIUS. Make them be strong, and ready for this hint,\n    When we shall hap to give't them.\n  BRUTUS. Go about it.                               Exit AEDILE\n    Put him to choler straight. He hath been us'd\n    Ever to conquer, and to have his worth\n    Of contradiction; being once chaf'd, he cannot\n    Be rein'd again to temperance; then he speaks\n    What's in his heart, and that is there which looks\n    With us to break his neck.\n\n          Enter CORIOLANUS, MENENIUS and COMINIUS, with others\n\n  SICINIUS. Well, here he comes.\n  MENENIUS. Calmly, I do beseech you.\n  CORIOLANUS. Ay, as an ostler, that for th' poorest piece\n    Will bear the knave by th' volume. Th' honour'd gods\n    Keep Rome in safety, and the chairs of justice\n    Supplied with worthy men! plant love among's!\n    Throng our large temples with the shows of peace,\n    And not our streets with war!\n  FIRST SENATOR. Amen, amen!\n  MENENIUS. A noble wish.\n\n                  Re-enter the.AEDILE,with the plebeians\n\n  SICINIUS. Draw near, ye people.\n  AEDILE. List to your tribunes. Audience! peace, I say!\n  CORIOLANUS. First, hear me speak.\n  BOTH TRIBUNES. Well, say. Peace, ho!\n  CORIOLANUS. Shall I be charg'd no further than this present?\n    Must all determine here?\n  SICINIUS. I do demand,\n    If you submit you to the people's voices,\n    Allow their officers, and are content\n    To suffer lawful censure for such faults\n    As shall be prov'd upon you.\n  CORIOLANUS. I am content.\n  MENENIUS. Lo, citizens, he says he is content.\n    The warlike service he has done, consider; think\n    Upon the wounds his body bears, which show\n    Like graves i' th' holy churchyard.\n  CORIOLANUS. Scratches with briers,\n    Scars to move laughter only.\n  MENENIUS. Consider further,\n    That when he speaks not like a citizen,\n    You find him like a soldier; do not take\n    His rougher accents for malicious sounds,\n    But, as I say, such as become a soldier\n    Rather than envy you.\n  COMINIUS. Well, well! No more.\n  CORIOLANUS. What is the matter,\n    That being pass'd for consul with full voice,\n    I am so dishonour'd that the very hour\n    You take it off again?\n  SICINIUS. Answer to us.\n  CORIOLANUS. Say then; 'tis true, I ought so.\n  SICINIUS. We charge you that you have contriv'd to take\n    From Rome all season'd office, and to wind\n    Yourself into a power tyrannical;\n    For which you are a traitor to the people.\n  CORIOLANUS. How- traitor?\n  MENENIUS. Nay, temperately! Your promise.\n  CORIOLANUS. The fires i' th' lowest hell fold in the people!\n    Call me their traitor! Thou injurious tribune!\n    Within thine eyes sat twenty thousand deaths,\n    In thy hands clutch'd as many millions, in\n    Thy lying tongue both numbers, I would say\n    'Thou liest' unto thee with a voice as free\n    As I do pray the gods.\n  SICINIUS. Mark you this, people?\n  PLEBEIANS. To th' rock, to th' rock, with him!\n  SICINIUS. Peace!\n    We need not put new matter to his charge.\n    What you have seen him do and heard him speak,\n    Beating your officers, cursing yourselves,\n    Opposing laws with strokes, and here defying\n    Those whose great power must try him- even this,\n    So criminal and in such capital kind,\n    Deserves th' extremest death.\n  BRUTUS. But since he hath\n    Serv'd well for Rome-\n  CORIOLANUS. What do you prate of service?\n  BRUTUS. I talk of that that know it.\n  CORIOLANUS. You!\n  MENENIUS. Is this the promise that you made your mother?\n  COMINIUS. Know, I pray you-\n  CORIOLANUS. I'll know no further.\n    Let them pronounce the steep Tarpeian death,\n    Vagabond exile, flaying, pent to linger\n    But with a grain a day, I would not buy\n    Their mercy at the price of one fair word,\n    Nor check my courage for what they can give,\n    To have't with saying 'Good morrow.'\n  SICINIUS. For that he has-\n    As much as in him lies- from time to time\n    Envied against the people, seeking means\n    To pluck away their power; as now at last\n    Given hostile strokes, and that not in the presence\n    Of dreaded justice, but on the ministers\n    That do distribute it- in the name o' th' people,\n    And in the power of us the tribunes, we,\n    Ev'n from this instant, banish him our city,\n    In peril of precipitation\n    From off the rock Tarpeian, never more\n    To enter our Rome gates. I' th' people's name,\n    I say it shall be so.\n  PLEBEIANS. It shall be so, it shall be so! Let him away!\n    He's banish'd, and it shall be so.\n  COMINIUS. Hear me, my masters and my common friends-\n  SICINIUS. He's sentenc'd; no more hearing.\n  COMINIUS. Let me speak.\n    I have been consul, and can show for Rome\n    Her enemies' marks upon me. I do love\n    My country's good with a respect more tender,\n    More holy and profound, than mine own life,\n    My dear wife's estimate, her womb's increase\n    And treasure of my loins. Then if I would\n    Speak that-\n  SICINIUS. We know your drift. Speak what?\n  BRUTUS. There's no more to be said, but he is banish'd,\n    As enemy to the people and his country.\n    It shall be so.\n  PLEBEIANS. It shall be so, it shall be so.\n  CORIOLANUS. YOU common cry of curs, whose breath I hate\n    As reek o' th' rotten fens, whose loves I prize\n    As the dead carcasses of unburied men\n    That do corrupt my air- I banish you.\n    And here remain with your uncertainty!\n    Let every feeble rumour shake your hearts;\n    Your enemies, with nodding of their plumes,\n    Fan you into despair! Have the power still\n    To banish your defenders, till at length\n    Your ignorance- which finds not till it feels,\n    Making but reservation of yourselves\n    Still your own foes- deliver you\n    As most abated captives to some nation\n    That won you without blows! Despising\n    For you the city, thus I turn my back;\n    There is a world elsewhere.\n                                              Exeunt CORIOLANUS,\n                   COMINIUS, MENENIUS, with the other PATRICIANS\n  AEDILE. The people's enemy is gone, is gone!\n                        [They all shout and throw up their caps]\n  PLEBEIANS. Our enemy is banish'd, he is gone! Hoo-oo!\n  SICINIUS. Go see him out at gates, and follow him,\n    As he hath follow'd you, with all despite;\n    Give him deserv'd vexation. Let a guard\n    Attend us through the city.\n  PLEBEIANS. Come, come, let's see him out at gates; come!\n    The gods preserve our noble tribunes! Come.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nRome. Before a gate of the city\n\nEnter CORIOLANUS, VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, MENENIUS, COMINIUS,\nwith the young NOBILITY of Rome\n\n  CORIOLANUS. Come, leave your tears; a brief farewell. The beast\n    With many heads butts me away. Nay, mother,\n    Where is your ancient courage? You were us'd\n    To say extremities was the trier of spirits;\n    That common chances common men could bear;\n    That when the sea was calm all boats alike\n    Show'd mastership in floating; fortune's blows,\n    When most struck home, being gentle wounded craves\n    A noble cunning. You were us'd to load me\n    With precepts that would make invincible\n    The heart that conn'd them.\n  VIRGILIA. O heavens! O heavens!\n  CORIOLANUS. Nay, I prithee, woman-\n  VOLUMNIA. Now the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome,\n    And occupations perish!\n  CORIOLANUS. What, what, what!\n    I shall be lov'd when I am lack'd. Nay, mother,\n    Resume that spirit when you were wont to say,\n    If you had been the wife of Hercules,\n    Six of his labours you'd have done, and sav'd\n    Your husband so much sweat. Cominius,\n    Droop not; adieu. Farewell, my wife, my mother.\n    I'll do well yet. Thou old and true Menenius,\n    Thy tears are salter than a younger man's\n    And venomous to thine eyes. My sometime General,\n    I have seen thee stern, and thou hast oft beheld\n    Heart-hard'ning spectacles; tell these sad women\n    'Tis fond to wail inevitable strokes,\n    As 'tis to laugh at 'em. My mother, you wot well\n    My hazards still have been your solace; and\n    Believe't not lightly- though I go alone,\n    Like to a lonely dragon, that his fen\n    Makes fear'd and talk'd of more than seen- your son\n    Will or exceed the common or be caught\n    With cautelous baits and practice.\n  VOLUMNIA. My first son,\n    Whither wilt thou go? Take good Cominius\n    With thee awhile; determine on some course\n    More than a wild exposture to each chance\n    That starts i' th' way before thee.\n  VIRGILIA. O the gods!\n  COMINIUS. I'll follow thee a month, devise with the\n    Where thou shalt rest, that thou mayst hear of us,\n    And we of thee; so, if the time thrust forth\n    A cause for thy repeal, we shall not send\n    O'er the vast world to seek a single man,\n    And lose advantage, which doth ever cool\n    I' th' absence of the needer.\n  CORIOLANUS. Fare ye well;\n    Thou hast years upon thee, and thou art too full\n    Of the wars' surfeits to go rove with one\n    That's yet unbruis'd; bring me but out at gate.\n    Come, my sweet wife, my dearest mother, and\n    My friends of noble touch; when I am forth,\n    Bid me farewell, and smile. I pray you come.\n    While I remain above the ground you shall\n    Hear from me still, and never of me aught\n    But what is like me formerly.\n  MENENIUS. That's worthily\n    As any ear can hear. Come, let's not weep.\n    If I could shake off but one seven years\n    From these old arms and legs, by the good gods,\n    I'd with thee every foot.\n  CORIOLANUS. Give me thy hand.\n    Come.                                                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nRome. A street near the gate\n\nEnter the two Tribunes, SICINIUS and BRUTUS with the AEDILE\n\n  SICINIUS. Bid them all home; he's gone, and we'll no further.\n    The nobility are vex'd, whom we see have sided\n    In his behalf.\n  BRUTUS. Now we have shown our power,\n    Let us seem humbler after it is done\n    Than when it was a-doing.\n  SICINIUS. Bid them home.\n    Say their great enemy is gone, and they\n    Stand in their ancient strength.\n  BRUTUS. Dismiss them home.                         Exit AEDILE\n    Here comes his mother.\n\n                   Enter VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, and MENENIUS\n\n  SICINIUS. Let's not meet her.\n  BRUTUS. Why?\n  SICINIUS. They say she's mad.\n  BRUTUS. They have ta'en note of us; keep on your way.\n  VOLUMNIA. O, Y'are well met; th' hoarded plague o' th' gods\n    Requite your love!\n  MENENIUS. Peace, peace, be not so loud.\n  VOLUMNIA. If that I could for weeping, you should hear-\n    Nay, and you shall hear some.  [To BRUTUS] Will you be gone?\n  VIRGILIA.  [To SICINIUS]  You shall stay too. I would I had the\n      power\n    To say so to my husband.\n  SICINIUS. Are you mankind?\n  VOLUMNIA. Ay, fool; is that a shame? Note but this, fool:\n    Was not a man my father? Hadst thou foxship\n    To banish him that struck more blows for Rome\n    Than thou hast spoken words?\n  SICINIUS. O blessed heavens!\n  VOLUMNIA. Moe noble blows than ever thou wise words;\n    And for Rome's good. I'll tell thee what- yet go!\n    Nay, but thou shalt stay too. I would my son\n    Were in Arabia, and thy tribe before him,\n    His good sword in his hand.\n  SICINIUS. What then?\n  VIRGILIA. What then!\n    He'd make an end of thy posterity.\n  VOLUMNIA. Bastards and all.\n    Good man, the wounds that he does bear for Rome!\n  MENENIUS. Come, come, peace.\n  SICINIUS. I would he had continued to his country\n    As he began, and not unknit himself\n    The noble knot he made.\n  BRUTUS. I would he had.\n  VOLUMNIA. 'I would he had!' 'Twas you incens'd the rabble-\n    Cats that can judge as fitly of his worth\n    As I can of those mysteries which heaven\n    Will not have earth to know.\n  BRUTUS. Pray, let's go.\n  VOLUMNIA. Now, pray, sir, get you gone;\n    You have done a brave deed. Ere you go, hear this:\n    As far as doth the Capitol exceed\n    The meanest house in Rome, so far my son-\n    This lady's husband here, this, do you see?-\n    Whom you have banish'd does exceed you an.\n  BRUTUS. Well, well, we'll leave you.\n  SICINIUS. Why stay we to be baited\n    With one that wants her wits?                Exeunt TRIBUNES\n  VOLUMNIA. Take my prayers with you.\n    I would the gods had nothing else to do\n    But to confirm my curses. Could I meet 'em\n    But once a day, it would unclog my heart\n    Of what lies heavy to't.\n  MENENIUS. You have told them home,\n    And, by my troth, you have cause. You'll sup with me?\n  VOLUMNIA. Anger's my meat; I sup upon myself,\n    And so shall starve with feeding. Come, let's go.\n    Leave this faint puling and lament as I do,\n    In anger, Juno-like. Come, come, come.\n                                    Exeunt VOLUMNIA and VIRGILIA\n  MENENIUS. Fie, fie, fie!                                  Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nA highway between Rome and Antium\n\nEnter a ROMAN and a VOLSCE, meeting\n\n  ROMAN. I know you well, sir, and you know me; your name, I think,\n    is Adrian.\n  VOLSCE. It is so, sir. Truly, I have forgot you.\n  ROMAN. I am a Roman; and my services are, as you are, against 'em.\n    Know you me yet?\n  VOLSCE. Nicanor? No!\n  ROMAN. The same, sir.\n  VOLSCE. YOU had more beard when I last saw you, but your favour is\n    well appear'd by your tongue. What's the news in Rome? I have a\n    note from the Volscian state, to find you out there. You have\n    well saved me a day's journey.\n  ROMAN. There hath been in Rome strange insurrections: the people\n    against the senators, patricians, and nobles.\n  VOLSCE. Hath been! Is it ended, then? Our state thinks not so; they\n    are in a most warlike preparation, and hope to come upon them in\n    the heat of their division.\n  ROMAN. The main blaze of it is past, but a small thing would make\n    it flame again; for the nobles receive so to heart the banishment\n    of that worthy Coriolanus that they are in a ripe aptness to take\n    all power from the people, and to pluck from them their tribunes\n    for ever. This lies glowing, I can tell you, and is almost mature\n    for the violent breaking out.\n  VOLSCE. Coriolanus banish'd!\n  ROMAN. Banish'd, sir.\n  VOLSCE. You will be welcome with this intelligence, Nicanor.\n  ROMAN. The day serves well for them now. I have heard it said the\n    fittest time to corrupt a man's wife is when she's fall'n out\n    with her husband. Your noble Tullus Aufidius will appear well in\n    these wars, his great opposer, Coriolanus, being now in no\n    request of his country.\n  VOLSCE. He cannot choose. I am most fortunate thus accidentally to\n    encounter you; you have ended my business, and I will merrily\n    accompany you home.\n  ROMAN. I shall between this and supper tell you most strange things\n    from Rome, all tending to the good of their adversaries. Have you\n    an army ready, say you?\n  VOLSCE. A most royal one: the centurions and their charges,\n    distinctly billeted, already in th' entertainment, and to be on\n    foot at an hour's warning.\n  ROMAN. I am joyful to hear of their readiness, and am the man, I\n    think, that shall set them in present action. So, sir, heartily\n    well met, and most glad of your company.\n  VOLSCE. You take my part from me, sir. I have the most cause to be\n    glad of yours.\n  ROMAN. Well, let us go together.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nAntium. Before AUFIDIUS' house\n\nEnter CORIOLANUS, in mean apparel, disguis'd and muffled\n\n  CORIOLANUS. A goodly city is this Antium. City,\n    'Tis I that made thy widows: many an heir\n    Of these fair edifices fore my wars\n    Have I heard groan and drop. Then know me not.\n    Lest that thy wives with spits and boys with stones,\n    In puny battle slay me.\n\n                           Enter A CITIZEN\n\n    Save you, sir.\n  CITIZEN. And you.\n  CORIOLANUS. Direct me, if it be your will,\n    Where great Aufidius lies. Is he in Antium?\n  CITIZEN. He is, and feasts the nobles of the state\n    At his house this night.\n  CORIOLANUS. Which is his house, beseech you?\n  CITIZEN. This here before you.\n  CORIOLANUS. Thank you, sir; farewell.             Exit CITIZEN\n    O world, thy slippery turns! Friends now fast sworn,\n    Whose double bosoms seems to wear one heart,\n    Whose hours, whose bed, whose meal and exercise\n    Are still together, who twin, as 'twere, in love,\n    Unseparable, shall within this hour,\n    On a dissension of a doit, break out\n    To bitterest enmity; so fellest foes,\n    Whose passions and whose plots have broke their sleep\n    To take the one the other, by some chance,\n    Some trick not worth an egg, shall grow dear friends\n    And interjoin their issues. So with me:\n    My birthplace hate I, and my love's upon\n    This enemy town. I'll enter. If he slay me,\n    He does fair justice: if he give me way,\n    I'll do his country service.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nAntium. AUFIDIUS' house\n\nMusic plays. Enter A SERVINGMAN\n\n  FIRST SERVANT. Wine, wine, wine! What service is here! I think our\n    fellows are asleep.                                     Exit\n\n                     Enter another SERVINGMAN\n\n  SECOND SERVANT.Where's Cotus? My master calls for him.\n    Cotus!                                                  Exit\n\n                       Enter CORIOLANUS\n\n  CORIOLANUS. A goodly house. The feast smells well, but I\n    Appear not like a guest.\n\n                 Re-enter the first SERVINGMAN\n\n  FIRST SERVANT. What would you have, friend?\n    Whence are you? Here's no place for you: pray go to the door.\n Exit\n  CORIOLANUS. I have deserv'd no better entertainment\n    In being Coriolanus.\n\n                   Re-enter second SERVINGMAN\n\n  SECOND SERVANT. Whence are you, sir? Has the porter his eyes in his\n    head that he gives entrance to such companions? Pray get you out.\n  CORIOLANUS. Away!\n  SECOND SERVANT. Away? Get you away.\n  CORIOLANUS. Now th' art troublesome.\n  SECOND SERVANT. Are you so brave? I'll have you talk'd with anon.\n\n          Enter a third SERVINGMAN. The first meets him\n\n  THIRD SERVANT. What fellow's this?\n  FIRST SERVANT. A strange one as ever I look'd on. I cannot get him\n    out o' th' house. Prithee call my master to him.\n  THIRD SERVANT. What have you to do here, fellow? Pray you avoid the\n    house.\n  CORIOLANUS. Let me but stand- I will not hurt your hearth.\n  THIRD SERVANT. What are you?\n  CORIOLANUS. A gentleman.\n  THIRD SERVANT. A marv'llous poor one.\n  CORIOLANUS. True, so I am.\n  THIRD SERVANT. Pray you, poor gentleman, take up some other\n    station; here's no place for you. Pray you avoid. Come.\n  CORIOLANUS. Follow your function, go and batten on cold bits.\n                                      [Pushes him away from him]\n  THIRD SERVANT. What, you will not? Prithee tell my master what a\n    strange guest he has here.\n  SECOND SERVANT. And I shall.                              Exit\n  THIRD SERVANT. Where dwell'st thou?\n  CORIOLANUS. Under the canopy.\n  THIRD SERVANT. Under the canopy?\n  CORIOLANUS. Ay.\n  THIRD SERVANT. Where's that?\n  CORIOLANUS. I' th' city of kites and crows.\n  THIRD SERVANT. I' th' city of kites and crows!\n    What an ass it is! Then thou dwell'st with daws too?\n  CORIOLANUS. No, I serve not thy master.\n  THIRD SERVANT. How, sir! Do you meddle with my master?\n  CORIOLANUS. Ay; 'tis an honester service than to meddle with thy\n    mistress. Thou prat'st and prat'st; serve with thy trencher;\n    hence!                                      [Beats him away]\n\n             Enter AUFIDIUS with the second SERVINGMAN\n\n  AUFIDIUS. Where is this fellow?\n  SECOND SERVANT. Here, sir; I'd have beaten him like a dog, but for\n    disturbing the lords within.\n  AUFIDIUS. Whence com'st thou? What wouldst thou? Thy name?\n    Why speak'st not? Speak, man. What's thy name?\n  CORIOLANUS.  [Unmuffling]  If, Tullus,\n    Not yet thou know'st me, and, seeing me, dost not\n    Think me for the man I am, necessity\n    Commands me name myself.\n  AUFIDIUS. What is thy name?\n  CORIOLANUS. A name unmusical to the Volscians' ears,\n    And harsh in sound to thine.\n  AUFIDIUS. Say, what's thy name?\n    Thou has a grim appearance, and thy face\n    Bears a command in't; though thy tackle's torn,\n    Thou show'st a noble vessel. What's thy name?\n  CORIOLANUS. Prepare thy brow to frown- know'st thou me yet?\n  AUFIDIUS. I know thee not. Thy name?\n  CORIOLANUS. My name is Caius Marcius, who hath done\n    To thee particularly, and to all the Volsces,\n    Great hurt and mischief; thereto witness may\n    My surname, Coriolanus. The painful service,\n    The extreme dangers, and the drops of blood\n    Shed for my thankless country, are requited\n    But with that surname- a good memory\n    And witness of the malice and displeasure\n    Which thou shouldst bear me. Only that name remains;\n    The cruelty and envy of the people,\n    Permitted by our dastard nobles, who\n    Have all forsook me, hath devour'd the rest,\n    An suffer'd me by th' voice of slaves to be\n    Whoop'd out of Rome. Now this extremity\n    Hath brought me to thy hearth; not out of hope,\n    Mistake me not, to save my life; for if\n    I had fear'd death, of all the men i' th' world\n    I would have 'voided thee; but in mere spite,\n    To be full quit of those my banishers,\n    Stand I before thee here. Then if thou hast\n    A heart of wreak in thee, that wilt revenge\n    Thine own particular wrongs and stop those maims\n    Of shame seen through thy country, speed thee straight\n    And make my misery serve thy turn. So use it\n    That my revengeful services may prove\n    As benefits to thee; for I will fight\n    Against my cank'red country with the spleen\n    Of all the under fiends. But if so be\n    Thou dar'st not this, and that to prove more fortunes\n    Th'art tir'd, then, in a word, I also am\n    Longer to live most weary, and present\n    My throat to thee and to thy ancient malice;\n    Which not to cut would show thee but a fool,\n    Since I have ever followed thee with hate,\n    Drawn tuns of blood out of thy country's breast,\n    And cannot live but to thy shame, unless\n    It be to do thee service.\n  AUFIDIUS. O Marcius, Marcius!\n    Each word thou hast spoke hath weeded from my heart\n    A root of ancient envy. If Jupiter\n    Should from yond cloud speak divine things,\n    And say ''Tis true,' I'd not believe them more\n    Than thee, all noble Marcius. Let me twine\n    Mine arms about that body, where against\n    My grained ash an hundred times hath broke\n    And scarr'd the moon with splinters; here I clip\n    The anvil of my sword, and do contest\n    As hotly and as nobly with thy love\n    As ever in ambitious strength I did\n    Contend against thy valour. Know thou first,\n    I lov'd the maid I married; never man\n    Sigh'd truer breath; but that I see thee here,\n    Thou noble thing, more dances my rapt heart\n    Than when I first my wedded mistress saw\n    Bestride my threshold. Why, thou Mars, I tell the\n    We have a power on foot, and I had purpose\n    Once more to hew thy target from thy brawn,\n    Or lose mine arm for't. Thou hast beat me out\n    Twelve several times, and I have nightly since\n    Dreamt of encounters 'twixt thyself and me-\n    We have been down together in my sleep,\n    Unbuckling helms, fisting each other's throat-\n    And wak'd half dead with nothing. Worthy Marcius,\n    Had we no other quarrel else to Rome but that\n    Thou art thence banish'd, we would muster all\n    From twelve to seventy, and, pouring war\n    Into the bowels of ungrateful Rome,\n    Like a bold flood o'erbeat. O, come, go in,\n    And take our friendly senators by th' hands,\n    Who now are here, taking their leaves of me\n    Who am prepar'd against your territories,\n    Though not for Rome itself.\n  CORIOLANUS. You bless me, gods!\n  AUFIDIUS. Therefore, most. absolute sir, if thou wilt have\n    The leading of thine own revenges, take\n    Th' one half of my commission, and set down-\n    As best thou art experienc'd, since thou know'st\n    Thy country's strength and weakness- thine own ways,\n    Whether to knock against the gates of Rome,\n    Or rudely visit them in parts remote\n    To fright them ere destroy. But come in;\n    Let me commend thee first to those that shall\n    Say yea to thy desires. A thousand welcomes!\n    And more a friend than e'er an enemy;\n    Yet, Marcius, that was much. Your hand; most welcome!\n                                  Exeunt CORIOLANUS and AUFIDIUS\n\n                    The two SERVINGMEN come forward\n\n  FIRST SERVANT. Here's a strange alteration!\n  SECOND SERVANT. By my hand, I had thought to have strucken him with\n    a cudgel; and yet my mind gave me his clothes made a false report\n    of him.\n  FIRST SERVANT. What an arm he has! He turn'd me about with his\n    finger and his thumb, as one would set up a top.\n  SECOND SERVANT. Nay, I knew by his face that there was something in\n    him; he had, sir, a kind of face, methought- I cannot tell how to\n    term it.\n  FIRST SERVANT. He had so, looking as it were- Would I were hang'd,\n    but I thought there was more in him than I could think.\n  SECOND SERVANT. So did I, I'll be sworn. He is simply the rarest\n    man i' th' world.\n  FIRST SERVANT. I think he is; but a greater soldier than he you wot\n    on.\n  SECOND SERVANT. Who, my master?\n  FIRST SERVANT. Nay, it's no matter for that.\n  SECOND SERVANT. Worth six on him.\n  FIRST SERVANT. Nay, not so neither; but I take him to be the\n    greater soldier.\n  SECOND SERVANT. Faith, look you, one cannot tell how to say that;\n    for the defence of a town our general is excellent.\n  FIRST SERVANT. Ay, and for an assault too.\n\n                       Re-enter the third SERVINGMAN\n\n  THIRD SERVANT. O slaves, I can tell you news- news, you rascals!\n  BOTH. What, what, what? Let's partake.\n  THIRD SERVANT. I would not be a Roman, of all nations;\n    I had as lief be a condemn'd man.\n  BOTH. Wherefore? wherefore?\n  THIRD SERVANT. Why, here's he that was wont to thwack our general-\n    Caius Marcius.\n  FIRST SERVANT. Why do you say 'thwack our general'?\n  THIRD SERVANT. I do not say 'thwack our general,' but he was always\n    good enough for him.\n  SECOND SERVANT. Come, we are fellows and friends. He was ever too\n    hard for him, I have heard him say so himself.\n  FIRST SERVANT. He was too hard for him directly, to say the troth\n    on't; before Corioli he scotch'd him and notch'd him like a\n    carbonado.\n  SECOND SERVANT. An he had been cannibally given, he might have\n    broil'd and eaten him too.\n  FIRST SERVANT. But more of thy news!\n  THIRD SERVANT. Why, he is so made on here within as if he were son\n    and heir to Mars; set at upper end o' th' table; no question\n    asked him by any of the senators but they stand bald before him.\n    Our general himself makes a mistress of him, sanctifies himself\n    with's hand, and turns up the white o' th' eye to his discourse.\n    But the bottom of the news is, our general is cut i' th' middle\n    and but one half of what he was yesterday, for the other has half\n    by the entreaty and grant of the whole table. He'll go, he says,\n    and sowl the porter of Rome gates by th' ears; he will mow all\n    down before him, and leave his passage poll'd.\n  SECOND SERVANT. And he's as like to do't as any man I can imagine.\n  THIRD SERVANT. Do't! He will do't; for look you, sir, he has as\n    many friends as enemies; which friends, sir, as it were, durst\n    not- look you, sir- show themselves, as we term it, his friends,\n    whilst he's in directitude.\n  FIRST SERVANT. Directitude? What's that?\n  THIRD SERVANT. But when they shall see, sir, his crest up again and\n    the man in blood, they will out of their burrows, like conies\n    after rain, and revel an with him.\n  FIRST SERVANT. But when goes this forward?\n  THIRD SERVANT. To-morrow, to-day, presently. You shall have the\n    drum struck up this afternoon; 'tis as it were parcel of their\n    feast, and to be executed ere they wipe their lips.\n  SECOND SERVANT. Why, then we shall have a stirring world again.\n    This peace is nothing but to rust iron, increase tailors, and\n    breed ballad-makers.\n  FIRST SERVANT. Let me have war, say I; it exceeds peace as far as\n    day does night; it's spritely, waking, audible, and full of vent.\n    Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy; mull'd, deaf, sleepy,\n    insensible; a getter of more bastard children than war's a\n    destroyer of men.\n  SECOND SERVANT. 'Tis so; and as war in some sort may be said to be\n    a ravisher, so it cannot be denied but peace is a great maker of\n    cuckolds.\n  FIRST SERVANT. Ay, and it makes men hate one another.\n  THIRD SERVANT. Reason: because they then less need one another. The\n    wars for my money. I hope to see Romans as cheap as Volscians.\n    They are rising, they are rising.\n  BOTH. In, in, in, in!                                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nRome. A public place\n\nEnter the two Tribunes, SICINIUS and BRUTUS\n\n  SICINIUS. We hear not of him, neither need we fear him.\n    His remedies are tame. The present peace\n    And quietness of the people, which before\n    Were in wild hurry, here do make his friends\n    Blush that the world goes well; who rather had,\n    Though they themselves did suffer by't, behold\n    Dissentious numbers pest'ring streets than see\n    Our tradesmen singing in their shops, and going\n    About their functions friendly.\n\n                          Enter MENENIUS\n\n  BRUTUS. We stood to't in good time. Is this Menenius?\n  SICINIUS. 'Tis he, 'tis he. O, he is grown most kind\n    Of late. Hail, sir!\n  MENENIUS. Hail to you both!\n  SICINIUS. Your Coriolanus is not much miss'd\n    But with his friends. The commonwealth doth stand,\n    And so would do, were he more angry at it.\n  MENENIUS. All's well, and might have been much better\n    He could have temporiz'd.\n  SICINIUS. Where is he, hear you?\n  MENENIUS. Nay, I hear nothing; his mother and his wife\n    Hear nothing from him.\n\n                     Enter three or four citizens\n\n  CITIZENS. The gods preserve you both!\n  SICINIUS. God-den, our neighbours.\n  BRUTUS. God-den to you all, god-den to you an.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Ourselves, our wives, and children, on our knees\n    Are bound to pray for you both.\n  SICINIUS. Live and thrive!\n  BRUTUS. Farewell, kind neighbours; we wish'd Coriolanus\n    Had lov'd you as we did.\n  CITIZENS. Now the gods keep you!\n  BOTH TRIBUNES. Farewell, farewell.             Exeunt citizens\n  SICINIUS. This is a happier and more comely time\n    Than when these fellows ran about the streets\n    Crying confusion.\n  BRUTUS. Caius Marcius was\n    A worthy officer i' the war, but insolent,\n    O'ercome with pride, ambitious past all thinking,\n    Self-loving-\n  SICINIUS. And affecting one sole throne,\n    Without assistance.\n  MENENIUS. I think not so.\n  SICINIUS. We should by this, to all our lamentation,\n    If he had gone forth consul, found it so.\n  BRUTUS. The gods have well prevented it, and Rome\n    Sits safe and still without him.\n\n                             Enter an AEDILE\n\n  AEDILE. Worthy tribunes,\n    There is a slave, whom we have put in prison,\n    Reports the Volsces with several powers\n    Are ent'red in the Roman territories,\n    And with the deepest malice of the war\n    Destroy what lies before 'em.\n  MENENIUS. 'Tis Aufidius,\n    Who, hearing of our Marcius' banishment,\n    Thrusts forth his horns again into the world,\n    Which were inshell'd when Marcius stood for Rome,\n    And durst not once peep out.\n  SICINIUS. Come, what talk you of Marcius?\n  BRUTUS. Go see this rumourer whipp'd. It cannot be\n    The Volsces dare break with us.\n  MENENIUS. Cannot be!\n    We have record that very well it can;\n    And three examples of the like hath been\n    Within my age. But reason with the fellow\n    Before you punish him, where he heard this,\n    Lest you shall chance to whip your information\n    And beat the messenger who bids beware\n    Of what is to be dreaded.\n  SICINIUS. Tell not me.\n    I know this cannot be.\n  BRUTUS. Not Possible.\n\n                           Enter A MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. The nobles in great earnestness are going\n    All to the Senate House; some news is come\n    That turns their countenances.\n  SICINIUS. 'Tis this slave-\n    Go whip him fore the people's eyes- his raising,\n    Nothing but his report.\n  MESSENGER. Yes, worthy sir,\n    The slave's report is seconded, and more,\n    More fearful, is deliver'd.\n  SICINIUS. What more fearful?\n  MESSENGER. It is spoke freely out of many mouths-\n    How probable I do not know- that Marcius,\n    Join'd with Aufidius, leads a power 'gainst Rome,\n    And vows revenge as spacious as between\n    The young'st and oldest thing.\n  SICINIUS. This is most likely!\n  BRUTUS. Rais'd only that the weaker sort may wish\n    Good Marcius home again.\n  SICINIUS. The very trick on 't.\n  MENENIUS. This is unlikely.\n    He and Aufidius can no more atone\n    Than violent'st contrariety.\n\n                      Enter a second MESSENGER\n\n  SECOND MESSENGER. You are sent for to the Senate.\n    A fearful army, led by Caius Marcius\n    Associated with Aufidius, rages\n    Upon our territories, and have already\n    O'erborne their way, consum'd with fire and took\n    What lay before them.\n\n                            Enter COMINIUS\n\n  COMINIUS. O, you have made good work!\n  MENENIUS. What news? what news?\n  COMINIUS. You have holp to ravish your own daughters and\n    To melt the city leads upon your pates,\n    To see your wives dishonour'd to your noses-\n  MENENIUS. What's the news? What's the news?\n  COMINIUS. Your temples burned in their cement, and\n    Your franchises, whereon you stood, confin'd\n    Into an auger's bore.\n  MENENIUS. Pray now, your news?\n    You have made fair work, I fear me. Pray, your news.\n    If Marcius should be join'd wi' th' Volscians-\n  COMINIUS. If!\n    He is their god; he leads them like a thing\n    Made by some other deity than Nature,\n    That shapes man better; and they follow him\n    Against us brats with no less confidence\n    Than boys pursuing summer butterflies,\n    Or butchers killing flies.\n  MENENIUS. You have made good work,\n    You and your apron men; you that stood so much\n    Upon the voice of occupation and\n    The breath of garlic-eaters!\n  COMINIUS. He'll shake\n    Your Rome about your ears.\n  MENENIUS. As Hercules\n    Did shake down mellow fruit. You have made fair work!\n  BRUTUS. But is this true, sir?\n  COMINIUS. Ay; and you'll look pale\n    Before you find it other. All the regions\n    Do smilingly revolt, and who resists\n    Are mock'd for valiant ignorance,\n    And perish constant fools. Who is't can blame him?\n    Your enemies and his find something in him.\n  MENENIUS. We are all undone unless\n    The noble man have mercy.\n  COMINIUS. Who shall ask it?\n    The tribunes cannot do't for shame; the people\n    Deserve such pity of him as the wolf\n    Does of the shepherds; for his best friends, if they\n    Should say 'Be good to Rome'- they charg'd him even\n    As those should do that had deserv'd his hate,\n    And therein show'd fike enemies.\n  MENENIUS. 'Tis true;\n    If he were putting to my house the brand\n    That should consume it, I have not the face\n    To say 'Beseech you, cease.' You have made fair hands,\n    You and your crafts! You have crafted fair!\n  COMINIUS. You have brought\n    A trembling upon Rome, such as was never\n    S' incapable of help.\n  BOTH TRIBUNES. Say not we brought it.\n  MENENIUS. How! Was't we? We lov'd him, but, like beasts\n    And cowardly nobles, gave way unto your clusters,\n    Who did hoot him out o' th' city.\n  COMINIUS. But I fear\n    They'll roar him in again. Tullus Aufidius,\n    The second name of men, obeys his points\n    As if he were his officer. Desperation\n    Is all the policy, strength, and defence,\n    That Rome can make against them.\n\n                       Enter a troop of citizens\n\n  MENENIUS. Here comes the clusters.\n    And is Aufidius with him? You are they\n    That made the air unwholesome when you cast\n    Your stinking greasy caps in hooting at\n    Coriolanus' exile. Now he's coming,\n    And not a hair upon a soldier's head\n    Which will not prove a whip; as many coxcombs\n    As you threw caps up will he tumble down,\n    And pay you for your voices. 'Tis no matter;\n    If he could burn us all into one coal\n    We have deserv'd it.\n  PLEBEIANS. Faith, we hear fearful news.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. For mine own part,\n    When I said banish him, I said 'twas pity.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. And so did I.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. And so did I; and, to say the truth, so did very\n    many of us. That we did, we did for the best; and though we\n    willingly consented to his banishment, yet it was against our\n    will.\n  COMINIUS. Y'are goodly things, you voices!\n  MENENIUS. You have made\n    Good work, you and your cry! Shall's to the Capitol?\n  COMINIUS. O, ay, what else?\n                                    Exeunt COMINIUS and MENENIUS\n  SICINIUS. Go, masters, get you be not dismay'd;\n    These are a side that would be glad to have\n    This true which they so seem to fear. Go home,\n    And show no sign of fear.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. The gods be good to us! Come, masters, let's home. I\n    ever said we were i' th' wrong when we banish'd him.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. So did we all. But come, let's home.\n                                                 Exeunt citizens\n  BRUTUS. I do not like this news.\n  SICINIUS. Nor I.\n  BRUTUS. Let's to the Capitol. Would half my wealth\n    Would buy this for a lie!\n  SICINIUS. Pray let's go.                                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nA camp at a short distance from Rome\n\nEnter AUFIDIUS with his LIEUTENANT\n\n  AUFIDIUS. Do they still fly to th' Roman?\n  LIEUTENANT. I do not know what witchcraft's in him, but\n    Your soldiers use him as the grace fore meat,\n    Their talk at table, and their thanks at end;\n    And you are dark'ned in this action, sir,\n    Even by your own.\n  AUFIDIUS. I cannot help it now,\n    Unless by using means I lame the foot\n    Of our design. He bears himself more proudlier,\n    Even to my person, than I thought he would\n    When first I did embrace him; yet his nature\n    In that's no changeling, and I must excuse\n    What cannot be amended.\n  LIEUTENANT. Yet I wish, sir-\n    I mean, for your particular- you had not\n    Join'd in commission with him, but either\n    Had borne the action of yourself, or else\n    To him had left it solely.\n  AUFIDIUS. I understand thee well; and be thou sure,\n    When he shall come to his account, he knows not\n    What I can urge against him. Although it seems,\n    And so he thinks, and is no less apparent\n    To th' vulgar eye, that he bears all things fairly\n    And shows good husbandry for the Volscian state,\n    Fights dragon-like, and does achieve as soon\n    As draw his sword; yet he hath left undone\n    That which shall break his neck or hazard mine\n    Whene'er we come to our account.\n  LIEUTENANT. Sir, I beseech you, think you he'll carry Rome?\n  AUFIDIUS. All places yield to him ere he sits down,\n    And the nobility of Rome are his;\n    The senators and patricians love him too.\n    The tribunes are no soldiers, and their people\n    Will be as rash in the repeal as hasty\n    To expel him thence. I think he'll be to Rome\n    As is the osprey to the fish, who takes it\n    By sovereignty of nature. First he was\n    A noble servant to them, but he could not\n    Carry his honours even. Whether 'twas pride,\n    Which out of daily fortune ever taints\n    The happy man; whether defect of judgment,\n    To fail in the disposing of those chances\n    Which he was lord of; or whether nature,\n    Not to be other than one thing, not moving\n    From th' casque to th' cushion, but commanding peace\n    Even with the same austerity and garb\n    As he controll'd the war; but one of these-\n    As he hath spices of them all- not all,\n    For I dare so far free him- made him fear'd,\n    So hated, and so banish'd. But he has a merit\n    To choke it in the utt'rance. So our virtues\n    Lie in th' interpretation of the time;\n    And power, unto itself most commendable,\n    Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair\n    T' extol what it hath done.\n    One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail;\n    Rights by rights falter, strengths by strengths do fail.\n    Come, let's away. When, Caius, Rome is thine,\n    Thou art poor'st of all; then shortly art thou mine.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nRome. A public place\n\nEnter MENENIUS, COMINIUS, SICINIUS and BRUTUS, the two Tribunes, with others\n\n  MENENIUS. No, I'll not go. You hear what he hath said\n    Which was sometime his general, who lov'd him\n    In a most dear particular. He call'd me father;\n    But what o' that? Go, you that banish'd him:\n    A mile before his tent fall down, and knee\n    The way into his mercy. Nay, if he coy'd\n    To hear Cominius speak, I'll keep at home.\n  COMINIUS. He would not seem to know me.\n  MENENIUS. Do you hear?\n  COMINIUS. Yet one time he did call me by my name.\n    I urg'd our old acquaintance, and the drops\n    That we have bled together. 'Coriolanus'\n    He would not answer to; forbid all names;\n    He was a kind of nothing, titleless,\n    Till he had forg'd himself a name i' th' fire\n    Of burning Rome.\n  MENENIUS. Why, so! You have made good work.\n    A pair of tribunes that have wrack'd for Rome\n    To make coals cheap- a noble memory!\n  COMINIUS. I minded him how royal 'twas to pardon\n    When it was less expected; he replied,\n    It was a bare petition of a state\n    To one whom they had punish'd.\n  MENENIUS. Very well.\n    Could he say less?\n  COMINIUS. I offer'd to awaken his regard\n    For's private friends; his answer to me was,\n    He could not stay to pick them in a pile\n    Of noisome musty chaff. He said 'twas folly,\n    For one poor grain or two, to leave unburnt\n    And still to nose th' offence.\n  MENENIUS. For one poor grain or two!\n    I am one of those. His mother, wife, his child,\n    And this brave fellow too- we are the grains:\n    You are the musty chaff, and you are smelt\n    Above the moon. We must be burnt for you.\n  SICINIUS. Nay, pray be patient; if you refuse your aid\n    In this so never-needed help, yet do not\n    Upbraid's with our distress. But sure, if you\n    Would be your country's pleader, your good tongue,\n    More than the instant army we can make,\n    Might stop our countryman.\n  MENENIUS. No; I'll not meddle.\n  SICINIUS. Pray you go to him.\n  MENENIUS. What should I do?\n  BRUTUS. Only make trial what your love can do\n    For Rome, towards Marcius.\n  MENENIUS. Well, and say that Marcius\n    Return me, as Cominius is return'd,\n    Unheard- what then?\n    But as a discontented friend, grief-shot\n    With his unkindness? Say't be so?\n  SICINIUS. Yet your good will\n    Must have that thanks from Rome after the measure\n    As you intended well.\n  MENENIUS. I'll undertake't;\n    I think he'll hear me. Yet to bite his lip\n    And hum at good Cominius much unhearts me.\n    He was not taken well: he had not din'd;\n    The veins unfill'd, our blood is cold, and then\n    We pout upon the morning, are unapt\n    To give or to forgive; but when we have stuff'd\n    These pipes and these conveyances of our blood\n    With wine and feeding, we have suppler souls\n    Than in our priest-like fasts. Therefore I'll watch him\n    Till he be dieted to my request,\n    And then I'll set upon him.\n  BRUTUS. You know the very road into his kindness\n    And cannot lose your way.\n  MENENIUS. Good faith, I'll prove him,\n    Speed how it will. I shall ere long have knowledge\n    Of my success.                                          Exit\n  COMINIUS. He'll never hear him.\n  SICINIUS. Not?\n  COMINIUS. I tell you he does sit in gold, his eye\n    Red as 'twould burn Rome, and his injury\n    The gaoler to his pity. I kneel'd before him;\n    'Twas very faintly he said 'Rise'; dismiss'd me\n    Thus with his speechless hand. What he would do,\n    He sent in writing after me; what he would not,\n    Bound with an oath to yield to his conditions;\n    So that all hope is vain,\n    Unless his noble mother and his wife,\n    Who, as I hear, mean to solicit him\n    For mercy to his country. Therefore let's hence,\n    And with our fair entreaties haste them on.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe Volscian camp before Rome\n\nEnter MENENIUS to the WATCH on guard\n\n  FIRST WATCH. Stay. Whence are you?\n  SECOND WATCH. Stand, and go back.\n  MENENIUS. You guard like men, 'tis well; but, by your leave,\n    I am an officer of state and come\n    To speak with Coriolanus.\n  FIRST WATCH. From whence?\n  MENENIUS. From Rome.\n  FIRST WATCH. YOU may not pass; you must return. Our general\n    Will no more hear from thence.\n  SECOND WATCH. You'll see your Rome embrac'd with fire before\n    You'll speak with Coriolanus.\n  MENENIUS. Good my friends,\n    If you have heard your general talk of Rome\n    And of his friends there, it is lots to blanks\n    My name hath touch'd your ears: it is Menenius.\n  FIRST WATCH. Be it so; go back. The virtue of your name\n    Is not here passable.\n  MENENIUS. I tell thee, fellow,\n    Thy general is my lover. I have been\n    The book of his good acts whence men have read\n    His fame unparallel'd haply amplified;\n    For I have ever verified my friends-\n    Of whom he's chief- with all the size that verity\n    Would without lapsing suffer. Nay, sometimes,\n    Like to a bowl upon a subtle ground,\n    I have tumbled past the throw, and in his praise\n    Have almost stamp'd the leasing; therefore, fellow,\n    I must have leave to pass.\n  FIRST WATCH. Faith, sir, if you had told as many lies in his behalf\n    as you have uttered words in your own, you should not pass here;\n    no, though it were as virtuous to lie as to live chastely.\n    Therefore go back.\n  MENENIUS. Prithee, fellow, remember my name is Menenius, always\n    factionary on the party of your general.\n  SECOND WATCH. Howsoever you have been his liar, as you say you\n    have, I am one that, telling true under him, must say you cannot\n    pass. Therefore go back.\n  MENENIUS. Has he din'd, canst thou tell? For I would not speak with\n    him till after dinner.\n  FIRST WATCH. You are a Roman, are you?\n  MENENIUS. I am as thy general is.\n  FIRST WATCH. Then you should hate Rome, as he does. Can you, when\n    you have push'd out your gates the very defender of them, and in\n    a violent popular ignorance given your enemy your shield, think\n    to front his revenges with the easy groans of old women, the\n    virginal palms of your daughters, or with the palsied\n    intercession of such a decay'd dotant as you seem to be? Can you\n    think to blow out the intended fire your city is ready to flame\n    in with such weak breath as this? No, you are deceiv'd; therefore\n    back to Rome and prepare for your execution. You are condemn'd;\n    our general has sworn you out of reprieve and pardon.\n  MENENIUS. Sirrah, if thy captain knew I were here, he would use me\n    with estimation.\n  FIRST WATCH. Come, my captain knows you not.\n  MENENIUS. I mean thy general.\n  FIRST WATCH. My general cares not for you. Back, I say; go, lest I\n    let forth your half pint of blood. Back- that's the utmost of\n    your having. Back.\n  MENENIUS. Nay, but fellow, fellow-\n\n                      Enter CORIOLANUS with AUFIDIUS\n\n  CORIOLANUS. What's the matter?\n  MENENIUS. Now, you companion, I'll say an errand for you; you shall\n    know now that I am in estimation; you shall perceive that a Jack\n    guardant cannot office me from my son Coriolanus. Guess but by my\n    entertainment with him if thou stand'st not i' th' state of\n    hanging, or of some death more long in spectatorship and crueller\n    in suffering; behold now presently, and swoon for what's to come\n    upon thee. The glorious gods sit in hourly synod about thy\n    particular prosperity, and love thee no worse than thy old father\n    Menenius does! O my son! my son! thou art preparing fire for us;\n    look thee, here's water to quench it. I was hardly moved to come\n    to thee; but being assured none but myself could move thee, I\n    have been blown out of your gates with sighs, and conjure thee to\n    pardon Rome and thy petitionary countrymen. The good gods assuage\n    thy wrath, and turn the dregs of it upon this varlet here; this,\n    who, like a block, hath denied my access to thee.\n  CORIOLANUS. Away!\n  MENENIUS. How! away!\n  CORIOLANUS. Wife, mother, child, I know not. My affairs\n    Are servanted to others. Though I owe\n    My revenge properly, my remission lies\n    In Volscian breasts. That we have been familiar,\n    Ingrate forgetfulness shall poison rather\n    Than pity note how much. Therefore be gone.\n    Mine ears against your suits are stronger than\n    Your gates against my force. Yet, for I lov'd thee,\n    Take this along; I writ it for thy sake     [Gives a letter]\n    And would have sent it. Another word, Menenius,\n    I will not hear thee speak. This man, Aufidius,\n    Was my belov'd in Rome; yet thou behold'st.\n  AUFIDIUS. You keep a constant temper.\n                                  Exeunt CORIOLANUS and Aufidius\n  FIRST WATCH. Now, sir, is your name Menenius?\n  SECOND WATCH. 'Tis a spell, you see, of much power! You know the\n    way home again.\n  FIRST WATCH. Do you hear how we are shent for keeping your\n    greatness back?\n  SECOND WATCH. What cause, do you think, I have to swoon?\n  MENENIUS. I neither care for th' world nor your general; for such\n    things as you, I can scarce think there's any, y'are so slight.\n    He that hath a will to die by himself fears it not from another.\n    Let your general do his worst. For you, be that you are, long;\n    and your misery increase with your age! I say to you, as I was\n    said to: Away!                                          Exit\n  FIRST WATCH. A noble fellow, I warrant him.\n  SECOND WATCH. The worthy fellow is our general; he's the rock, the\n    oak not to be wind-shaken.                            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe tent of CORIOLANUS\n\nEnter CORIOLANUS, AUFIDIUS, and others\n\n  CORIOLANUS. We will before the walls of Rome to-morrow\n    Set down our host. My partner in this action,\n    You must report to th' Volscian lords how plainly\n    I have borne this business.\n  AUFIDIUS. Only their ends\n    You have respected; stopp'd your ears against\n    The general suit of Rome; never admitted\n    A private whisper- no, not with such friends\n    That thought them sure of you.\n  CORIOLANUS. This last old man,\n    Whom with crack'd heart I have sent to Rome,\n    Lov'd me above the measure of a father;\n    Nay, godded me indeed. Their latest refuge\n    Was to send him; for whose old love I have-\n    Though I show'd sourly to him- once more offer'd\n    The first conditions, which they did refuse\n    And cannot now accept. To grace him only,\n    That thought he could do more, a very little\n    I have yielded to; fresh embassies and suits,\n    Nor from the state nor private friends, hereafter\n    Will I lend ear to.  [Shout within]  Ha! what shout is this?\n    Shall I be tempted to infringe my vow\n    In the same time 'tis made? I will not.\n\n       Enter, in mourning habits, VIRGILIA, VOLUMNIA, VALERIA,\n                   YOUNG MARCIUS, with attendants\n\n    My wife comes foremost, then the honour'd mould\n    Wherein this trunk was fram'd, and in her hand\n    The grandchild to her blood. But out, affection!\n    All bond and privilege of nature, break!\n    Let it be virtuous to be obstinate.\n    What is that curtsy worth? or those doves' eyes,\n    Which can make gods forsworn? I melt, and am not\n    Of stronger earth than others. My mother bows,\n    As if Olympus to a molehill should\n    In supplication nod; and my young boy\n    Hath an aspect of intercession which\n    Great nature cries 'Deny not.' Let the Volsces\n    Plough Rome and harrow Italy; I'll never\n    Be such a gosling to obey instinct, but stand\n    As if a man were author of himself\n    And knew no other kin.\n  VIRGILIA. My lord and husband!\n  CORIOLANUS. These eyes are not the same I wore in Rome.\n  VIRGILIA. The sorrow that delivers us thus chang'd\n    Makes you think so.\n  CORIOLANUS. Like a dull actor now\n    I have forgot my part and I am out,\n    Even to a full disgrace. Best of my flesh,\n    Forgive my tyranny; but do not say,\n    For that, 'Forgive our Romans.' O, a kiss\n    Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge!\n    Now, by the jealous queen of heaven, that kiss\n    I carried from thee, dear, and my true lip\n    Hath virgin'd it e'er since. You gods! I prate,\n    And the most noble mother of the world\n    Leave unsaluted. Sink, my knee, i' th' earth;       [Kneels]\n    Of thy deep duty more impression show\n    Than that of common sons.\n  VOLUMNIA. O, stand up blest!\n    Whilst with no softer cushion than the flint\n    I kneel before thee, and unproperly\n    Show duty, as mistaken all this while\n    Between the child and parent.                       [Kneels]\n  CORIOLANUS. What's this?\n    Your knees to me, to your corrected son?\n    Then let the pebbles on the hungry beach\n    Fillip the stars; then let the mutinous winds\n    Strike the proud cedars 'gainst the fiery sun,\n    Murd'ring impossibility, to make\n    What cannot be slight work.\n  VOLUMNIA. Thou art my warrior;\n    I holp to frame thee. Do you know this lady?\n  CORIOLANUS. The noble sister of Publicola,\n    The moon of Rome, chaste as the icicle\n    That's curdied by the frost from purest snow,\n    And hangs on Dian's temple- dear Valeria!\n  VOLUMNIA. This is a poor epitome of yours,\n    Which by th' interpretation of full time\n    May show like all yourself.\n  CORIOLANUS. The god of soldiers,\n    With the consent of supreme Jove, inform\n    Thy thoughts with nobleness, that thou mayst prove\n    To shame unvulnerable, and stick i' th' wars\n    Like a great sea-mark, standing every flaw,\n    And saving those that eye thee!\n  VOLUMNIA. Your knee, sirrah.\n  CORIOLANUS. That's my brave boy.\n  VOLUMNIA. Even he, your wife, this lady, and myself,\n    Are suitors to you.\n  CORIOLANUS. I beseech you, peace!\n    Or, if you'd ask, remember this before:\n    The thing I have forsworn to grant may never\n    Be held by you denials. Do not bid me\n    Dismiss my soldiers, or capitulate\n    Again with Rome's mechanics. Tell me not\n    Wherein I seem unnatural; desire not\n    T'allay my rages and revenges with\n    Your colder reasons.\n  VOLUMNIA. O, no more, no more!\n    You have said you will not grant us any thing-\n    For we have nothing else to ask but that\n    Which you deny already; yet we will ask,\n    That, if you fail in our request, the blame\n    May hang upon your hardness; therefore hear us.\n  CORIOLANUS. Aufidius, and you Volsces, mark; for we'll\n    Hear nought from Rome in private. Your request?\n  VOLUMNIA. Should we be silent and not speak, our raiment\n    And state of bodies would bewray what life\n    We have led since thy exile. Think with thyself\n    How more unfortunate than all living women\n    Are we come hither; since that thy sight, which should\n    Make our eyes flow with joy, hearts dance with comforts,\n    Constrains them weep and shake with fear and sorrow,\n    Making the mother, wife, and child, to see\n    The son, the husband, and the father, tearing\n    His country's bowels out. And to poor we\n    Thine enmity's most capital: thou bar'st us\n    Our prayers to the gods, which is a comfort\n    That all but we enjoy. For how can we,\n    Alas, how can we for our country pray,\n    Whereto we are bound, together with thy victory,\n    Whereto we are bound? Alack, or we must lose\n    The country, our dear nurse, or else thy person,\n    Our comfort in the country. We must find\n    An evident calamity, though we had\n    Our wish, which side should win; for either thou\n    Must as a foreign recreant be led\n    With manacles through our streets, or else\n    Triumphantly tread on thy country's ruin,\n    And bear the palm for having bravely shed\n    Thy wife and children's blood. For myself, son,\n    I purpose not to wait on fortune till\n    These wars determine; if I can not persuade thee\n    Rather to show a noble grace to both parts\n    Than seek the end of one, thou shalt no sooner\n    March to assault thy country than to tread-\n    Trust to't, thou shalt not- on thy mother's womb\n    That brought thee to this world.\n  VIRGILIA. Ay, and mine,\n    That brought you forth this boy to keep your name\n    Living to time.\n  BOY. 'A shall not tread on me!\n    I'll run away till I am bigger, but then I'll fight.\n  CORIOLANUS. Not of a woman's tenderness to be\n    Requires nor child nor woman's face to see.\n    I have sat too long.                                [Rising]\n  VOLUMNIA. Nay, go not from us thus.\n    If it were so that our request did tend\n    To save the Romans, thereby to destroy\n    The Volsces whom you serve, you might condemn us\n    As poisonous of your honour. No, our suit\n    Is that you reconcile them: while the Volsces\n    May say 'This mercy we have show'd,' the Romans\n    'This we receiv'd,' and each in either side\n    Give the all-hail to thee, and cry 'Be blest\n    For making up this peace!' Thou know'st, great son,\n    The end of war's uncertain; but this certain,\n    That, if thou conquer Rome, the benefit\n    Which thou shalt thereby reap is such a name\n    Whose repetition will be dogg'd with curses;\n    Whose chronicle thus writ: 'The man was noble,\n    But with his last attempt he wip'd it out,\n    Destroy'd his country, and his name remains\n    To th' ensuing age abhorr'd.' Speak to me, son.\n    Thou hast affected the fine strains of honour,\n    To imitate the graces of the gods,\n    To tear with thunder the wide cheeks o' th' air,\n    And yet to charge thy sulphur with a bolt\n    That should but rive an oak. Why dost not speak?\n    Think'st thou it honourable for a noble man\n    Still to remember wrongs? Daughter, speak you:\n    He cares not for your weeping. Speak thou, boy;\n    Perhaps thy childishness will move him more\n    Than can our reasons. There's no man in the world\n    More bound to's mother, yet here he lets me prate\n    Like one i' th' stocks. Thou hast never in thy life\n    Show'd thy dear mother any courtesy,\n    When she, poor hen, fond of no second brood,\n    Has cluck'd thee to the wars, and safely home\n    Loaden with honour. Say my request's unjust,\n    And spurn me back; but if it he not so,\n    Thou art not honest, and the gods will plague thee,\n    That thou restrain'st from me the duty which\n    To a mother's part belongs. He turns away.\n    Down, ladies; let us shame him with our knees.\n    To his surname Coriolanus 'longs more pride\n    Than pity to our prayers. Down. An end;\n    This is the last. So we will home to Rome,\n    And die among our neighbours. Nay, behold's!\n    This boy, that cannot tell what he would have\n    But kneels and holds up hands for fellowship,\n    Does reason our petition with more strength\n    Than thou hast to deny't. Come, let us go.\n    This fellow had a Volscian to his mother;\n    His wife is in Corioli, and his child\n    Like him by chance. Yet give us our dispatch.\n    I am hush'd until our city be afire,\n    And then I'll speak a little.\n                              [He holds her by the hand, silent]\n  CORIOLANUS. O mother, mother!\n    What have you done? Behold, the heavens do ope,\n    The gods look down, and this unnatural scene\n    They laugh at. O my mother, mother! O!\n    You have won a happy victory to Rome;\n    But for your son- believe it, O, believe it!-\n    Most dangerously you have with him prevail'd,\n    If not most mortal to him. But let it come.\n    Aufidius, though I cannot make true wars,\n    I'll frame convenient peace. Now, good Aufidius,\n    Were you in my stead, would you have heard\n    A mother less, or granted less, Aufidius?\n  AUFIDIUS. I was mov'd withal.\n  CORIOLANUS. I dare be sworn you were!\n    And, sir, it is no little thing to make\n    Mine eyes to sweat compassion. But, good sir,\n    What peace you'fl make, advise me. For my part,\n    I'll not to Rome, I'll back with you; and pray you\n    Stand to me in this cause. O mother! wife!\n  AUFIDIUS.  [Aside]  I am glad thou hast set thy mercy and thy\n      honour\n    At difference in thee. Out of that I'll work\n    Myself a former fortune.\n  CORIOLANUS.  [To the ladies]  Ay, by and by;\n    But we will drink together; and you shall bear\n    A better witness back than words, which we,\n    On like conditions, will have counter-seal'd.\n    Come, enter with us. Ladies, you deserve\n    To have a temple built you. All the swords\n    In Italy, and her confederate arms,\n    Could not have made this peace.                       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nRome. A public place\n\nEnter MENENIUS and SICINIUS\n\n  MENENIUS. See you yond coign o' th' Capitol, yond cornerstone?\n  SICINIUS. Why, what of that?\n  MENENIUS. If it be possible for you to displace it with your little\n    finger, there is some hope the ladies of Rome, especially his\n    mother, may prevail with him. But I say there is no hope in't;\n    our throats are sentenc'd, and stay upon execution.\n  SICINIUS. Is't possible that so short a time can alter the\n    condition of a man?\n  MENENIUS. There is differency between a grub and a butterfly; yet\n    your butterfly was a grub. This Marcius is grown from man to\n    dragon; he has wings, he's more than a creeping thing.\n  SICINIUS. He lov'd his mother dearly.\n  MENENIUS. So did he me; and he no more remembers his mother now\n    than an eight-year-old horse. The tartness of his face sours ripe\n    grapes; when he walks, he moves like an engine and the ground\n    shrinks before his treading. He is able to pierce a corslet with\n    his eye, talks like a knell, and his hum is a battery. He sits in\n    his state as a thing made for Alexander. What he bids be done is\n    finish'd with his bidding. He wants nothing of a god but\n    eternity, and a heaven to throne in.\n  SICINIUS. Yes- mercy, if you report him truly.\n  MENENIUS. I paint him in the character. Mark what mercy his mother\n    shall bring from him. There is no more mercy in him than there is\n    milk in a male tiger; that shall our poor city find. And all this\n    is 'long of you.\n  SICINIUS. The gods be good unto us!\n  MENENIUS. No, in such a case the gods will not be good unto us.\n    When we banish'd him we respected not them; and, he returning to\n    break our necks, they respect not us.\n\n                           Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. Sir, if you'd save your life, fly to your house.\n    The plebeians have got your fellow tribune\n    And hale him up and down; all swearing if\n    The Roman ladies bring not comfort home\n    They'll give him death by inches.\n\n                         Enter another MESSENGER\n\n  SICINIUS. What's the news?\n  SECOND MESSENGER. Good news, good news! The ladies have prevail'd,\n    The Volscians are dislodg'd, and Marcius gone.\n    A merrier day did never yet greet Rome,\n    No, not th' expulsion of the Tarquins.\n  SICINIUS. Friend,\n    Art thou certain this is true? Is't most certain?\n  SECOND MESSENGER. As certain as I know the sun is fire.\n    Where have you lurk'd, that you make doubt of it?\n    Ne'er through an arch so hurried the blown tide\n    As the recomforted through th' gates. Why, hark you!\n                  [Trumpets, hautboys, drums beat, all together]\n    The trumpets, sackbuts, psalteries, and fifes,\n    Tabors and cymbals, and the shouting Romans,\n    Make the sun dance. Hark you!               [A shout within]\n  MENENIUS. This is good news.\n    I will go meet the ladies. This Volumnia\n    Is worth of consuls, senators, patricians,\n    A city full; of tribunes such as you,\n    A sea and land full. You have pray'd well to-day:\n    This morning for ten thousand of your throats\n    I'd not have given a doit. Hark, how they joy!\n                                   [Sound still with the shouts]\n  SICINIUS. First, the gods bless you for your tidings; next,\n    Accept my thankfulness.\n  SECOND MESSENGER. Sir, we have all\n    Great cause to give great thanks.\n  SICINIUS. They are near the city?\n  MESSENGER. Almost at point to enter.\n  SICINIUS. We'll meet them,\n    And help the joy.                                     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nRome. A street near the gate\n\nEnter two SENATORS With VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, VALERIA, passing over the stage,\n'With other LORDS\n\n  FIRST SENATOR. Behold our patroness, the life of Rome!\n    Call all your tribes together, praise the gods,\n    And make triumphant fires; strew flowers before them.\n    Unshout the noise that banish'd Marcius,\n    Repeal him with the welcome of his mother;\n  ALL. Welcome, ladies, welcome!\n                    [A flourish with drums and trumpets. Exeunt]\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nCorioli. A public place\n\nEnter TULLUS AUFIDIUS with attendents\n\n  AUFIDIUS. Go tell the lords o' th' city I am here;\n    Deliver them this paper' having read it,\n    Bid them repair to th' market-place, where I,\n    Even in theirs and in the commons' ears,\n    Will vouch the truth of it. Him I accuse\n    The city ports by this hath enter'd and\n    Intends t' appear before the people, hoping\n    To purge himself with words. Dispatch.\n                                               Exeunt attendants\n\n           Enter three or four CONSPIRATORS of AUFIDIUS' faction\n\n    Most welcome!\n  FIRST CONSPIRATOR. How is it with our general?\n  AUFIDIUS. Even so\n    As with a man by his own alms empoison'd,\n    And with his charity slain.\n  SECOND CONSPIRATOR. Most noble sir,\n    If you do hold the same intent wherein\n    You wish'd us parties, we'll deliver you\n    Of your great danger.\n  AUFIDIUS. Sir, I cannot tell;\n    We must proceed as we do find the people.\n  THIRD CONSPIRATOR. The people will remain uncertain whilst\n    'Twixt you there's difference; but the fall of either\n    Makes the survivor heir of all.\n  AUFIDIUS. I know it;\n    And my pretext to strike at him admits\n    A good construction. I rais'd him, and I pawn'd\n    Mine honour for his truth; who being so heighten'd,\n    He watered his new plants with dews of flattery,\n    Seducing so my friends; and to this end\n    He bow'd his nature, never known before\n    But to be rough, unswayable, and free.\n  THIRD CONSPIRATOR. Sir, his stoutness\n    When he did stand for consul, which he lost\n    By lack of stooping-\n  AUFIDIUS. That I would have spoken of.\n    Being banish'd for't, he came unto my hearth,\n    Presented to my knife his throat. I took him;\n    Made him joint-servant with me; gave him way\n    In all his own desires; nay, let him choose\n    Out of my files, his projects to accomplish,\n    My best and freshest men; serv'd his designments\n    In mine own person; holp to reap the fame\n    Which he did end all his, and took some pride\n    To do myself this wrong. Till, at the last,\n    I seem'd his follower, not partner; and\n    He wag'd me with his countenance as if\n    I had been mercenary.\n  FIRST CONSPIRATOR. So he did, my lord.\n    The army marvell'd at it; and, in the last,\n    When he had carried Rome and that we look'd\n    For no less spoil than glory-\n  AUFIDIUS. There was it;\n    For which my sinews shall be stretch'd upon him.\n    At a few drops of women's rheum, which are\n    As cheap as lies, he sold the blood and labour\n    Of our great action; therefore shall he die,\n    And I'll renew me in his fall. But, hark!\n                                                      [Drums and\n                trumpets sound, with great shouts of the people]\n  FIRST CONSPIRATOR. Your native town you enter'd like a post,\n    And had no welcomes home; but he returns\n    Splitting the air with noise.\n  SECOND CONSPIRATOR. And patient fools,\n    Whose children he hath slain, their base throats tear\n    With giving him glory.\n  THIRD CONSPIRATOR. Therefore, at your vantage,\n    Ere he express himself or move the people\n    With what he would say, let him feel your sword,\n    Which we will second. When he lies along,\n    After your way his tale pronounc'd shall bury\n    His reasons with his body.\n  AUFIDIUS. Say no more:\n    Here come the lords.\n\n                     Enter the LORDS of the city\n\n  LORDS. You are most welcome home.\n  AUFIDIUS. I have not deserv'd it.\n    But, worthy lords, have you with heed perused\n    What I have written to you?\n  LORDS. We have.\n  FIRST LORD. And grieve to hear't.\n    What faults he made before the last, I think\n    Might have found easy fines; but there to end\n    Where he was to begin, and give away\n    The benefit of our levies, answering us\n    With our own charge, making a treaty where\n    There was a yielding- this admits no excuse.\n  AUFIDIUS. He approaches; you shall hear him.\n\n            Enter CORIOLANUS, marching with drum and colours;\n                      the commoners being with him\n\n  CORIOLANUS. Hail, lords! I am return'd your soldier;\n    No more infected with my country's love\n    Than when I parted hence, but still subsisting\n    Under your great command. You are to know\n    That prosperously I have attempted, and\n    With bloody passage led your wars even to\n    The gates of Rome. Our spoils we have brought home\n    Doth more than counterpoise a full third part\n    The charges of the action. We have made peace\n    With no less honour to the Antiates\n    Than shame to th' Romans; and we here deliver,\n    Subscrib'd by th' consuls and patricians,\n    Together with the seal o' th' Senate, what\n    We have compounded on.\n  AUFIDIUS. Read it not, noble lords;\n    But tell the traitor in the highest degree\n    He hath abus'd your powers.\n  CORIOLANUS. Traitor! How now?\n  AUFIDIUS. Ay, traitor, Marcius.\n  CORIOLANUS. Marcius!\n  AUFIDIUS. Ay, Marcius, Caius Marcius! Dost thou think\n    I'll grace thee with that robbery, thy stol'n name\n    Coriolanus, in Corioli?\n    You lords and heads o' th' state, perfidiously\n    He has betray'd your business and given up,\n    For certain drops of salt, your city Rome-\n    I say your city- to his wife and mother;\n    Breaking his oath and resolution like\n    A twist of rotten silk; never admitting\n    Counsel o' th' war; but at his nurse's tears\n    He whin'd and roar'd away your victory,\n    That pages blush'd at him, and men of heart\n    Look'd wond'ring each at others.\n  CORIOLANUS. Hear'st thou, Mars?\n  AUFIDIUS. Name not the god, thou boy of tears-\n  CORIOLANUS. Ha!\n  AUFIDIUS. -no more.\n  CORIOLANUS. Measureless liar, thou hast made my heart\n    Too great for what contains it. 'Boy'! O slave!\n    Pardon me, lords, 'tis the first time that ever\n    I was forc'd to scold. Your judgments, my grave lords,\n    Must give this cur the lie; and his own notion-\n    Who wears my stripes impress'd upon him, that\n    Must bear my beating to his grave- shall join\n    To thrust the lie unto him.\n  FIRST LORD. Peace, both, and hear me speak.\n  CORIOLANUS. Cut me to pieces, Volsces; men and lads,\n    Stain all your edges on me. 'Boy'! False hound!\n    If you have writ your annals true, 'tis there\n    That, like an eagle in a dove-cote, I\n    Flutter'd your Volscians in Corioli.\n    Alone I did it. 'Boy'!\n  AUFIDIUS. Why, noble lords,\n    Will you be put in mind of his blind fortune,\n    Which was your shame, by this unholy braggart,\n    Fore your own eyes and ears?\n  CONSPIRATORS. Let him die for't.\n  ALL THE PEOPLE. Tear him to pieces. Do it presently. He kill'd my\n    son. My daughter. He kill'd my cousin Marcus. He kill'd my\n    father.\n  SECOND LORD. Peace, ho! No outrage- peace!\n    The man is noble, and his fame folds in\n    This orb o' th' earth. His last offences to us\n    Shall have judicious hearing. Stand, Aufidius,\n    And trouble not the peace.\n  CORIOLANUS. O that I had him,\n    With six Aufidiuses, or more- his tribe,\n    To use my lawful sword!\n  AUFIDIUS. Insolent villain!\n  CONSPIRATORS. Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill him!\n           [The CONSPIRATORS draw and kill CORIOLANUS,who falls.\n                                         AUFIDIUS stands on him]\n  LORDS. Hold, hold, hold, hold!\n  AUFIDIUS. My noble masters, hear me speak.\n  FIRST LORD. O Tullus!\n  SECOND LORD. Thou hast done a deed whereat valour will weep.\n  THIRD LORD. Tread not upon him. Masters all, be quiet;\n    Put up your swords.\n  AUFIDIUS. My lords, when you shall know- as in this rage,\n    Provok'd by him, you cannot- the great danger\n    Which this man's life did owe you, you'll rejoice\n    That he is thus cut off. Please it your honours\n    To call me to your Senate, I'll deliver\n    Myself your loyal servant, or endure\n    Your heaviest censure.\n  FIRST LORD. Bear from hence his body,\n    And mourn you for him. Let him be regarded\n    As the most noble corse that ever herald\n    Did follow to his um.\n  SECOND LORD. His own impatience\n    Takes from Aufidius a great part of blame.\n    Let's make the best of it.\n  AUFIDIUS. My rage is gone,\n    And I am struck with sorrow. Take him up.\n    Help, three o' th' chiefest soldiers; I'll be one.\n    Beat thou the drum, that it speak mournfully;\n    Trail your steel pikes. Though in this city he\n    Hath widowed and unchilded many a one,\n    Which to this hour bewail the injury,\n    Yet he shall have a noble memory.\n    Assist.               Exeunt, bearing the body of CORIOLANUS\n                                          [A dead march sounded]\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1609\n\nCYMBELINE\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  CYMBELINE, King of Britain\n  CLOTEN, son to the Queen by a former husband\n  POSTHUMUS LEONATUS, a gentleman, husband to Imogen\n  BELARIUS, a banished lord, disguised under the name of Morgan\n\n  GUIDERIUS and ARVIRAGUS, sons to Cymbeline, disguised under the\n            names of POLYDORE and CADWAL, supposed sons to Belarius\n  PHILARIO, Italian, friend to Posthumus\n  IACHIMO,  Italian, friend to Philario\n  A FRENCH GENTLEMAN, friend to Philario\n  CAIUS LUCIUS, General of the Roman Forces\n  A ROMAN CAPTAIN\n  TWO BRITISH CAPTAINS\n  PISANIO, servant to Posthumus\n  CORNELIUS, a physician\n  TWO LORDS of Cymbeline's court\n  TWO GENTLEMEN of the same\n  TWO GAOLERS\n\n  QUEEN, wife to Cymbeline\n  IMOGEN, daughter to Cymbeline by a former queen\n  HELEN, a lady attending on Imogen\n\n  APPARITIONS\n\n  Lords, Ladies, Roman Senators, Tribunes, a Soothsayer, a\n    Dutch Gentleman, a Spanish Gentleman, Musicians, Officers,\n    Captains, Soldiers, Messengers, and Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nBritain; Italy\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nBritain. The garden of CYMBELINE'S palace\n\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. You do not meet a man but frowns; our bloods\n    No more obey the heavens than our courtiers\n    Still seem as does the King's.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. But what's the matter?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. His daughter, and the heir of's kingdom, whom\n    He purpos'd to his wife's sole son- a widow\n    That late he married- hath referr'd herself\n    Unto a poor but worthy gentleman. She's wedded;\n    Her husband banish'd; she imprison'd. All\n    Is outward sorrow, though I think the King\n    Be touch'd at very heart.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. None but the King?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. He that hath lost her too. So is the Queen,\n    That most desir'd the match. But not a courtier,\n    Although they wear their faces to the bent\n    Of the King's looks, hath a heart that is not\n    Glad at the thing they scowl at.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. And why so?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. He that hath miss'd the Princess is a thing\n    Too bad for bad report; and he that hath her-\n    I mean that married her, alack, good man!\n    And therefore banish'd- is a creature such\n    As, to seek through the regions of the earth\n    For one his like, there would be something failing\n    In him that should compare. I do not think\n    So fair an outward and such stuff within\n    Endows a man but he.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. You speak him far.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I do extend him, sir, within himself;\n    Crush him together rather than unfold\n    His measure duly.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. What's his name and birth?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I cannot delve him to the root; his father\n    Was call'd Sicilius, who did join his honour\n    Against the Romans with Cassibelan,\n    But had his titles by Tenantius, whom\n    He serv'd with glory and admir'd success,\n    So gain'd the sur-addition Leonatus;\n    And had, besides this gentleman in question,\n    Two other sons, who, in the wars o' th' time,\n    Died with their swords in hand; for which their father,\n    Then old and fond of issue, took such sorrow\n    That he quit being; and his gentle lady,\n    Big of this gentleman, our theme, deceas'd\n    As he was born. The King he takes the babe\n    To his protection, calls him Posthumus Leonatus,\n    Breeds him and makes him of his bed-chamber,\n    Puts to him all the learnings that his time\n    Could make him the receiver of; which he took,\n    As we do air, fast as 'twas minist'red,\n    And in's spring became a harvest, liv'd in court-\n    Which rare it is to do- most prais'd, most lov'd,\n    A sample to the youngest; to th' more mature\n    A glass that feated them; and to the graver\n    A child that guided dotards. To his mistress,\n    For whom he now is banish'd- her own price\n    Proclaims how she esteem'd him and his virtue;\n    By her election may be truly read\n    What kind of man he is.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I honour him\n    Even out of your report. But pray you tell me,\n    Is she sole child to th' King?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. His only child.\n    He had two sons- if this be worth your hearing,\n    Mark it- the eldest of them at three years old,\n    I' th' swathing clothes the other, from their nursery\n    Were stol'n; and to this hour no guess in knowledge\n    Which way they went.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. How long is this ago?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Some twenty years.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. That a king's children should be so convey'd,\n    So slackly guarded, and the search so slow\n    That could not trace them!\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Howsoe'er 'tis strange,\n    Or that the negligence may well be laugh'd at,\n    Yet is it true, sir.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I do well believe you.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. We must forbear; here comes the gentleman,\n    The Queen, and Princess.                              Exeunt\n\n              Enter the QUEEN, POSTHUMUS, and IMOGEN\n\n  QUEEN. No, be assur'd you shall not find me, daughter,\n    After the slander of most stepmothers,\n    Evil-ey'd unto you. You're my prisoner, but\n    Your gaoler shall deliver you the keys\n    That lock up your restraint. For you, Posthumus,\n    So soon as I can win th' offended King,\n    I will be known your advocate. Marry, yet\n    The fire of rage is in him, and 'twere good\n    You lean'd unto his sentence with what patience\n    Your wisdom may inform you.\n  POSTHUMUS. Please your Highness,\n    I will from hence to-day.\n  QUEEN. You know the peril.\n    I'll fetch a turn about the garden, pitying\n    The pangs of barr'd affections, though the King\n    Hath charg'd you should not speak together.             Exit\n  IMOGEN. O dissembling courtesy! How fine this tyrant\n    Can tickle where she wounds! My dearest husband,\n    I something fear my father's wrath, but nothing-\n    Always reserv'd my holy duty- what\n    His rage can do on me. You must be gone;\n    And I shall here abide the hourly shot\n    Of angry eyes, not comforted to live\n    But that there is this jewel in the world\n    That I may see again.\n  POSTHUMUS. My queen! my mistress!\n    O lady, weep no more, lest I give cause\n    To be suspected of more tenderness\n    Than doth become a man. I will remain\n    The loyal'st husband that did e'er plight troth;\n    My residence in Rome at one Philario's,\n    Who to my father was a friend, to me\n    Known but by letter; thither write, my queen,\n    And with mine eyes I'll drink the words you send,\n    Though ink be made of gall.\n\n                     Re-enter QUEEN\n\n  QUEEN. Be brief, I pray you.\n    If the King come, I shall incur I know not\n    How much of his displeasure. [Aside] Yet I'll move him\n    To walk this way. I never do him wrong\n    But he does buy my injuries, to be friends;\n    Pays dear for my offences.                              Exit\n  POSTHUMUS. Should we be taking leave\n    As long a term as yet we have to live,\n    The loathness to depart would grow. Adieu!\n  IMOGEN. Nay, stay a little.\n    Were you but riding forth to air yourself,\n    Such parting were too petty. Look here, love:\n    This diamond was my mother's; take it, heart;\n    But keep it till you woo another wife,\n    When Imogen is dead.\n  POSTHUMUS. How, how? Another?\n    You gentle gods, give me but this I have,\n    And sear up my embracements from a next\n    With bonds of death! Remain, remain thou here\n                                              [Puts on the ring]\n    While sense can keep it on. And, sweetest, fairest,\n    As I my poor self did exchange for you,\n    To your so infinite loss, so in our trifles\n    I still win of you. For my sake wear this;\n    It is a manacle of love; I'll place it\n    Upon this fairest prisoner.     [Puts a bracelet on her arm]\n  IMOGEN. O the gods!\n    When shall we see again?\n\n                  Enter CYMBELINE and LORDS\n\n  POSTHUMUS. Alack, the King!\n  CYMBELINE. Thou basest thing, avoid; hence from my sight\n    If after this command thou fraught the court\n    With thy unworthiness, thou diest. Away!\n    Thou'rt poison to my blood.\n  POSTHUMUS. The gods protect you,\n    And bless the good remainders of the court!\n    I am gone.                                              Exit\n  IMOGEN. There cannot be a pinch in death\n    More sharp than this is.\n  CYMBELINE. O disloyal thing,\n    That shouldst repair my youth, thou heap'st\n    A year's age on me!\n  IMOGEN. I beseech you, sir,\n    Harm not yourself with your vexation.\n    I am senseless of your wrath; a touch more rare\n    Subdues all pangs, all fears.\n  CYMBELINE. Past grace? obedience?\n  IMOGEN. Past hope, and in despair; that way past grace.\n  CYMBELINE. That mightst have had the sole son of my queen!\n  IMOGEN. O blessed that I might not! I chose an eagle,\n    And did avoid a puttock.\n  CYMBELINE. Thou took'st a beggar, wouldst have made my throne\n    A seat for baseness.\n  IMOGEN. No; I rather added\n    A lustre to it.\n  CYMBELINE. O thou vile one!\n  IMOGEN. Sir,\n    It is your fault that I have lov'd Posthumus.\n    You bred him as my playfellow, and he is\n    A man worth any woman; overbuys me\n    Almost the sum he pays.\n  CYMBELINE. What, art thou mad?\n  IMOGEN. Almost, sir. Heaven restore me! Would I were\n    A neat-herd's daughter, and my Leonatus\n    Our neighbour shepherd's son!\n\n                          Re-enter QUEEN\n\n  CYMBELINE. Thou foolish thing!\n    [To the QUEEN] They were again together. You have done\n    Not after our command. Away with her,\n    And pen her up.\n  QUEEN. Beseech your patience.- Peace,\n    Dear lady daughter, peace!- Sweet sovereign,\n    Leave us to ourselves, and make yourself some comfort\n    Out of your best advice.\n  CYMBELINE. Nay, let her languish\n    A drop of blood a day and, being aged,\n    Die of this folly.                          Exit, with LORDS\n\n                          Enter PISANIO\n\n  QUEEN. Fie! you must give way.\n    Here is your servant. How now, sir! What news?\n  PISANIO. My lord your son drew on my master.\n  QUEEN. Ha!\n    No harm, I trust, is done?\n  PISANIO. There might have been,\n    But that my master rather play'd than fought,\n    And had no help of anger; they were parted\n    By gentlemen at hand.\n  QUEEN. I am very glad on't.\n  IMOGEN. Your son's my father's friend; he takes his part\n    To draw upon an exile! O brave sir!\n    I would they were in Afric both together;\n    Myself by with a needle, that I might prick\n    The goer-back. Why came you from your master?\n  PISANIO. On his command. He would not suffer me\n    To bring him to the haven; left these notes\n    Of what commands I should be subject to,\n    When't pleas'd you to employ me.\n  QUEEN. This hath been\n    Your faithful servant. I dare lay mine honour\n    He will remain so.\n  PISANIO. I humbly thank your Highness.\n  QUEEN. Pray walk awhile.\n  IMOGEN. About some half-hour hence,\n    Pray you speak with me. You shall at least\n    Go see my lord aboard. For this time leave me.        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBritain. A public place\n\nEnter CLOTEN and two LORDS\n\n  FIRST LORD. Sir, I would advise you to shift a shirt; the violence\n    of action hath made you reek as a sacrifice. Where air comes out,\n    air comes in; there's none abroad so wholesome as that you vent.\n  CLOTEN. If my shirt were bloody, then to shift it. Have I hurt him?\n  SECOND LORD. [Aside] No, faith; not so much as his patience.\n  FIRST LORD. Hurt him! His body's a passable carcass if he be not\n    hurt. It is a throughfare for steel if it be not hurt.\n  SECOND LORD. [Aside] His steel was in debt; it went o' th' back\n    side the town.\n  CLOTEN. The villain would not stand me.\n  SECOND LORD. [Aside] No; but he fled forward still, toward your\n    face.\n  FIRST LORD. Stand you? You have land enough of your own; but he\n    added to your having, gave you some ground.\n  SECOND LORD. [Aside] As many inches as you have oceans.\n    Puppies!\n  CLOTEN. I would they had not come between us.\n  SECOND LORD. [Aside] So would I, till you had measur'd how long a\n    fool you were upon the ground.\n  CLOTEN. And that she should love this fellow, and refuse me!\n  SECOND LORD. [Aside] If it be a sin to make a true election, she is\n    damn'd.\n  FIRST LORD. Sir, as I told you always, her beauty and her brain go\n    not together; she's a good sign, but I have seen small reflection\n    of her wit.\n  SECOND LORD. [Aside] She shines not upon fools, lest the reflection\n    should hurt her.\n  CLOTEN. Come, I'll to my chamber. Would there had been some hurt\n    done!\n  SECOND LORD. [Aside] I wish not so; unless it had been the fall of\n    an ass, which is no great hurt.\n  CLOTEN. You'll go with us?\n  FIRST LORD. I'll attend your lordship.\n  CLOTEN. Nay, come, let's go together.\n  SECOND LORD. Well, my lord.                             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nBritain. CYMBELINE'S palace\n\nEnter IMOGEN and PISANIO\n\n  IMOGEN. I would thou grew'st unto the shores o' th' haven,\n    And questioned'st every sail; if he should write,\n    And I not have it, 'twere a paper lost,\n    As offer'd mercy is. What was the last\n    That he spake to thee?\n  PISANIO. It was: his queen, his queen!\n  IMOGEN. Then wav'd his handkerchief?\n  PISANIO. And kiss'd it, madam.\n  IMOGEN. Senseless linen, happier therein than I!\n    And that was all?\n  PISANIO. No, madam; for so long\n    As he could make me with his eye, or care\n    Distinguish him from others, he did keep\n    The deck, with glove, or hat, or handkerchief,\n    Still waving, as the fits and stirs of's mind\n    Could best express how slow his soul sail'd on,\n    How swift his ship.\n  IMOGEN. Thou shouldst have made him\n    As little as a crow, or less, ere left\n    To after-eye him.\n  PISANIO. Madam, so I did.\n  IMOGEN. I would have broke mine eyestrings, crack'd them but\n    To look upon him, till the diminution\n    Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle;\n    Nay, followed him till he had melted from\n    The smallness of a gnat to air, and then\n    Have turn'd mine eye and wept. But, good Pisanio,\n    When shall we hear from him?\n  PISANIO. Be assur'd, madam,\n    With his next vantage.\n  IMOGEN. I did not take my leave of him, but had\n    Most pretty things to say. Ere I could tell him\n    How I would think on him at certain hours\n    Such thoughts and such; or I could make him swear\n    The shes of Italy should not betray\n    Mine interest and his honour; or have charg'd him,\n    At the sixth hour of morn, at noon, at midnight,\n    T' encounter me with orisons, for then\n    I am in heaven for him; or ere I could\n    Give him that parting kiss which I had set\n    Betwixt two charming words, comes in my father,\n    And like the tyrannous breathing of the north\n    Shakes all our buds from growing.\n\n                        Enter a LADY\n\n  LADY. The Queen, madam,\n    Desires your Highness' company.\n  IMOGEN. Those things I bid you do, get them dispatch'd.\n    I will attend the Queen.\n  PISANIO. Madam, I shall.                                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nRome. PHILARIO'S house\n\nEnter PHILARIO, IACHIMO, a FRENCHMAN, a DUTCHMAN, and a SPANIARD\n\n  IACHIMO. Believe it, sir, I have seen him in Britain. He was then\n    of a crescent note, expected to prove so worthy as since he hath\n    been allowed the name of. But I could then have look'd on him\n    without the help of admiration, though the catalogue of his\n    endowments had been tabled by his side, and I to peruse him by\n    items.\n  PHILARIO. You speak of him when he was less furnish'd than now he\n    is with that which makes him both without and within.\n  FRENCHMAN. I have seen him in France; we had very many there could\n    behold the sun with as firm eyes as he.\n  IACHIMO. This matter of marrying his king's daughter, wherein he\n    must be weighed rather by her value than his own, words him, I\n    doubt not, a great deal from the matter.\n  FRENCHMAN. And then his banishment.\n  IACHIMO. Ay, and the approbation of those that weep this lamentable\n    divorce under her colours are wonderfully to extend him, be it\n    but to fortify her judgment, which else an easy battery might lay\n    flat, for taking a beggar, without less quality. But how comes it\n    he is to sojourn with you? How creeps acquaintance?\n  PHILARIO. His father and I were soldiers together, to whom I have\n    been often bound for no less than my life.\n\n                       Enter POSTHUMUS\n\n    Here comes the Briton. Let him be so entertained amongst you as\n    suits with gentlemen of your knowing to a stranger of his\n    quality. I beseech you all be better known to this gentleman,\n    whom I commend to you as a noble friend of mine. How worthy he is\n    I will leave to appear hereafter, rather than story him in his\n    own hearing.\n  FRENCHMAN. Sir, we have known together in Orleans.\n  POSTHUMUS. Since when I have been debtor to you for courtesies,\n    which I will be ever to pay and yet pay still.\n  FRENCHMAN. Sir, you o'errate my poor kindness. I was glad I did\n    atone my countryman and you; it had been pity you should have\n    been put together with so mortal a purpose as then each bore,\n    upon importance of so slight and trivial a nature.\n  POSTHUMUS. By your pardon, sir. I was then a young traveller;\n    rather shunn'd to go even with what I heard than in my every\n    action to be guided by others' experiences; but upon my mended\n    judgment- if I offend not to say it is mended- my quarrel was not\n    altogether slight.\n  FRENCHMAN. Faith, yes, to be put to the arbitrement of swords, and\n    by such two that would by all likelihood have confounded one the\n    other or have fall'n both.\n  IACHIMO. Can we, with manners, ask what was the difference?\n  FRENCHMAN. Safely, I think. 'Twas a contention in public, which\n    may, without contradiction, suffer the report. It was much like\n    an argument that fell out last night, where each of us fell in\n    praise of our country mistresses; this gentleman at that time\n    vouching- and upon warrant of bloody affirmation- his to be more\n    fair, virtuous, wise, chaste, constant, qualified, and less\n    attemptable, than any the rarest of our ladies in France.\n  IACHIMO. That lady is not now living, or this gentleman's opinion,\n    by this, worn out.\n  POSTHUMUS. She holds her virtue still, and I my mind.\n  IACHIMO. You must not so far prefer her fore ours of Italy.\n  POSTHUMUS. Being so far provok'd as I was in France, I would abate\n    her nothing, though I profess myself her adorer, not her friend.\n  IACHIMO. As fair and as good- a kind of hand-in-hand comparison-\n    had been something too fair and too good for any lady in Britain.\n    If she went before others I have seen as that diamond of yours\n    outlustres many I have beheld, I could not but believe she\n    excelled many; but I have not seen the most precious diamond that\n    is, nor you the lady.\n  POSTHUMUS. I prais'd her as I rated her. So do I my stone.\n  IACHIMO. What do you esteem it at?\n  POSTHUMUS. More than the world enjoys.\n  IACHIMO. Either your unparagon'd mistress is dead, or she's\n    outpriz'd by a trifle.\n  POSTHUMUS. You are mistaken: the one may be sold or given, if there\n    were wealth enough for the purchase or merit for the gift; the\n    other is not a thing for sale, and only the gift of the gods.\n  IACHIMO. Which the gods have given you?\n  POSTHUMUS. Which by their graces I will keep.\n  IACHIMO. You may wear her in title yours; but you know strange fowl\n    light upon neighbouring ponds. Your ring may be stol'n too. So\n    your brace of unprizable estimations, the one is but frail and\n    the other casual; a cunning thief, or a that-way-accomplish'd\n    courtier, would hazard the winning both of first and last.\n  POSTHUMUS. Your Italy contains none so accomplish'd a courtier to\n    convince the honour of my mistress, if in the holding or loss of\n    that you term her frail. I do nothing doubt you have store of\n    thieves; notwithstanding, I fear not my ring.\n  PHILARIO. Let us leave here, gentlemen.\n  POSTHUMUS. Sir, with all my heart. This worthy signior, I thank\n    him, makes no stranger of me; we are familiar at first.\n  IACHIMO. With five times so much conversation I should get ground\n    of your fair mistress; make her go back even to the yielding, had\n    I admittance and opportunity to friend.\n  POSTHUMUS. No, no.\n  IACHIMO. I dare thereupon pawn the moiety of my estate to your\n    ring, which, in my opinion, o'ervalues it something. But I make\n    my wager rather against your confidence than her reputation; and,\n    to bar your offence herein too, I durst attempt it against any\n    lady in the world.\n  POSTHUMUS. You are a great deal abus'd in too bold a persuasion,\n    and I doubt not you sustain what y'are worthy of by your attempt.\n  IACHIMO. What's that?\n  POSTHUMUS. A repulse; though your attempt, as you call it, deserve\n    more- a punishment too.\n  PHILARIO. Gentlemen, enough of this. It came in too suddenly; let\n    it die as it was born, and I pray you be better acquainted.\n  IACHIMO. Would I had put my estate and my neighbour's on th'\n    approbation of what I have spoke!\n  POSTHUMUS. What lady would you choose to assail?\n  IACHIMO. Yours, whom in constancy you think stands so safe. I will\n    lay you ten thousand ducats to your ring that, commend me to the\n    court where your lady is, with no more advantage than the\n    opportunity of a second conference, and I will bring from thence\n    that honour of hers which you imagine so reserv'd.\n  POSTHUMUS. I will wage against your gold, gold to it. My ring I\n    hold dear as my finger; 'tis part of it.\n  IACHIMO. You are a friend, and therein the wiser. If you buy\n    ladies' flesh at a million a dram, you cannot preserve it from\n    tainting. But I see you have some religion in you, that you fear.\n  POSTHUMUS. This is but a custom in your tongue; you bear a graver\n    purpose, I hope.\n  IACHIMO. I am the master of my speeches, and would undergo what's\n    spoken, I swear.\n  POSTHUMUS. Will you? I Shall but lend my diamond till your return.\n    Let there be covenants drawn between's. My mistress exceeds in\n    goodness the hugeness of your unworthy thinking. I dare you to\n    this match: here's my ring.\n  PHILARIO. I will have it no lay.\n  IACHIMO. By the gods, it is one. If I bring you no sufficient\n    testimony that I have enjoy'd the dearest bodily part of your\n    mistress, my ten thousand ducats are yours; so is your diamond\n    too. If I come off, and leave her in such honour as you have\n    trust in, she your jewel, this your jewel, and my gold are yours-\n    provided I have your commendation for my more free entertainment.\n  POSTHUMUS. I embrace these conditions; let us have articles betwixt\n    us. Only, thus far you shall answer: if you make your voyage upon\n    her, and give me directly to understand you have prevail'd, I am\n    no further your enemy- she is not worth our debate; if she remain\n    unseduc'd, you not making it appear otherwise, for your ill\n    opinion and th' assault you have made to her chastity you shall\n    answer me with your sword.\n  IACHIMO. Your hand- a covenant! We will have these things set down\n    by lawful counsel, and straight away for Britain, lest the\n    bargain should catch cold and starve. I will fetch my gold and\n    have our two wagers recorded.\n  POSTHUMUS. Agreed.                Exeunt POSTHUMUS and IACHIMO\n  FRENCHMAN. Will this hold, think you?\n  PHILARIO. Signior Iachimo will not from it. Pray let us follow 'em.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nBritain. CYMBELINE'S palace\n\nEnter QUEEN, LADIES, and CORNELIUS\n\n  QUEEN. Whiles yet the dew's on ground, gather those flowers;\n    Make haste; who has the note of them?\n  LADY. I, madam.\n  QUEEN. Dispatch.                                 Exeunt LADIES\n    Now, Master Doctor, have you brought those drugs?\n  CORNELIUS. Pleaseth your Highness, ay. Here they are, madam.\n                                              [Presenting a box]\n    But I beseech your Grace, without offence-\n    My conscience bids me ask- wherefore you have\n    Commanded of me these most poisonous compounds\n    Which are the movers of a languishing death,\n    But, though slow, deadly?\n  QUEEN. I wonder, Doctor,\n    Thou ask'st me such a question. Have I not been\n    Thy pupil long? Hast thou not learn'd me how\n    To make perfumes? distil? preserve? yea, so\n    That our great king himself doth woo me oft\n    For my confections? Having thus far proceeded-\n    Unless thou think'st me devilish- is't not meet\n    That I did amplify my judgment in\n    Other conclusions? I will try the forces\n    Of these thy compounds on such creatures as\n    We count not worth the hanging- but none human-\n    To try the vigour of them, and apply\n    Allayments to their act, and by them gather\n    Their several virtues and effects.\n  CORNELIUS. Your Highness\n    Shall from this practice but make hard your heart;\n    Besides, the seeing these effects will be\n    Both noisome and infectious.\n  QUEEN. O, content thee.\n\n                        Enter PISANIO\n\n    [Aside] Here comes a flattering rascal; upon him\n    Will I first work. He's for his master,\n    An enemy to my son.- How now, Pisanio!\n    Doctor, your service for this time is ended;\n    Take your own way.\n  CORNELIUS. [Aside] I do suspect you, madam;\n    But you shall do no harm.\n  QUEEN. [To PISANIO] Hark thee, a word.\n  CORNELIUS. [Aside] I do not like her. She doth think she has\n    Strange ling'ring poisons. I do know her spirit,\n    And will not trust one of her malice with\n    A drug of such damn'd nature. Those she has\n    Will stupefy and dull the sense awhile,\n    Which first perchance she'll prove on cats and dogs,\n    Then afterward up higher; but there is\n    No danger in what show of death it makes,\n    More than the locking up the spirits a time,\n    To be more fresh, reviving. She is fool'd\n    With a most false effect; and I the truer\n    So to be false with her.\n  QUEEN. No further service, Doctor,\n    Until I send for thee.\n  CORNELIUS. I humbly take my leave.                        Exit\n  QUEEN. Weeps she still, say'st thou? Dost thou think in time\n    She will not quench, and let instructions enter\n    Where folly now possesses? Do thou work.\n    When thou shalt bring me word she loves my son,\n    I'll tell thee on the instant thou art then\n    As great as is thy master; greater, for\n    His fortunes all lie speechless, and his name\n    Is at last gasp. Return he cannot, nor\n    Continue where he is. To shift his being\n    Is to exchange one misery with another,\n    And every day that comes comes comes to\n    A day's work in him. What shalt thou expect\n    To be depender on a thing that leans,\n    Who cannot be new built, nor has no friends\n    So much as but to prop him?\n                  [The QUEEN drops the box. PISANIO takes it up]\n    Thou tak'st up\n    Thou know'st not what; but take it for thy labour.\n    It is a thing I made, which hath the King\n    Five times redeem'd from death. I do not know\n    What is more cordial. Nay, I prithee take it;\n    It is an earnest of a further good\n    That I mean to thee. Tell thy mistress how\n    The case stands with her; do't as from thyself.\n    Think what a chance thou changest on; but think\n    Thou hast thy mistress still; to boot, my son,\n    Who shall take notice of thee. I'll move the King\n    To any shape of thy preferment, such\n    As thou'lt desire; and then myself, I chiefly,\n    That set thee on to this desert, am bound\n    To load thy merit richly. Call my women.\n    Think on my words.                              Exit PISANIO\n    A sly and constant knave,\n    Not to be shak'd; the agent for his master,\n    And the remembrancer of her to hold\n    The hand-fast to her lord. I have given him that\n    Which, if he take, shall quite unpeople her\n    Of leigers for her sweet; and which she after,\n    Except she bend her humour, shall be assur'd\n    To taste of too.\n\n                   Re-enter PISANIO and LADIES\n\n    So, so. Well done, well done.\n    The violets, cowslips, and the primroses,\n    Bear to my closet. Fare thee well, Pisanio;\n    Think on my words.                   Exeunt QUEEN and LADIES\n  PISANIO. And shall do.\n    But when to my good lord I prove untrue\n    I'll choke myself- there's all I'll do for you.         Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nBritain. The palace\n\nEnter IMOGEN alone\n\n  IMOGEN. A father cruel and a step-dame false;\n    A foolish suitor to a wedded lady\n    That hath her husband banish'd. O, that husband!\n    My supreme crown of grief! and those repeated\n    Vexations of it! Had I been thief-stol'n,\n    As my two brothers, happy! but most miserable\n    Is the desire that's glorious. Blessed be those,\n    How mean soe'er, that have their honest wills,\n    Which seasons comfort. Who may this be? Fie!\n\n                    Enter PISANIO and IACHIMO\n\n  PISANIO. Madam, a noble gentleman of Rome\n    Comes from my lord with letters.\n  IACHIMO. Change you, madam?\n    The worthy Leonatus is in safety,\n    And greets your Highness dearly.         [Presents a letter]\n  IMOGEN. Thanks, good sir.\n    You're kindly welcome.\n  IACHIMO. [Aside] All of her that is out of door most rich!\n    If she be furnish'd with a mind so rare,\n    She is alone th' Arabian bird, and I\n    Have lost the wager. Boldness be my friend!\n    Arm me, audacity, from head to foot!\n    Or, like the Parthian, I shall flying fight;\n    Rather, directly fly.\n  IMOGEN. [Reads] 'He is one of the noblest note, to whose\n    kindnesses I am most infinitely tied. Reflect upon him\n    accordingly, as you value your trust.       LEONATUS.'\n\n    So far I read aloud;\n    But even the very middle of my heart\n    Is warm'd by th' rest and takes it thankfully.\n    You are as welcome, worthy sir, as I\n    Have words to bid you; and shall find it so\n    In all that I can do.\n  IACHIMO. Thanks, fairest lady.\n    What, are men mad? Hath nature given them eyes\n    To see this vaulted arch and the rich crop\n    Of sea and land, which can distinguish 'twixt\n    The fiery orbs above and the twinn'd stones\n    Upon the number'd beach, and can we not\n    Partition make with spectacles so precious\n    'Twixt fair and foul?\n  IMOGEN. What makes your admiration?\n  IACHIMO. It cannot be i' th' eye, for apes and monkeys,\n    'Twixt two such shes, would chatter this way and\n    Contemn with mows the other; nor i' th' judgment,\n    For idiots in this case of favour would\n    Be wisely definite; nor i' th' appetite;\n    Sluttery, to such neat excellence oppos'd,\n    Should make desire vomit emptiness,\n    Not so allur'd to feed.\n  IMOGEN. What is the matter, trow?\n  IACHIMO. The cloyed will-\n    That satiate yet unsatisfied desire, that tub\n    Both fill'd and running- ravening first the lamb,\n    Longs after for the garbage.\n  IMOGEN. What, dear sir,\n    Thus raps you? Are you well?\n  IACHIMO. Thanks, madam; well.- Beseech you, sir,\n    Desire my man's abode where I did leave him.\n    He's strange and peevish.\n  PISANIO. I was going, sir,\n    To give him welcome.                                    Exit\n  IMOGEN. Continues well my lord? His health beseech you?\n  IACHIMO. Well, madam.\n  IMOGEN. Is he dispos'd to mirth? I hope he is.\n  IACHIMO. Exceeding pleasant; none a stranger there\n    So merry and so gamesome. He is call'd\n    The Britain reveller.\n  IMOGEN. When he was here\n    He did incline to sadness, and oft-times\n    Not knowing why.\n  IACHIMO. I never saw him sad.\n    There is a Frenchman his companion, one\n    An eminent monsieur that, it seems, much loves\n    A Gallian girl at home. He furnaces\n    The thick sighs from him; whiles the jolly Briton-\n    Your lord, I mean- laughs from's free lungs, cries 'O,\n    Can my sides hold, to think that man- who knows\n    By history, report, or his own proof,\n    What woman is, yea, what she cannot choose\n    But must be- will's free hours languish for\n    Assured bondage?'\n  IMOGEN. Will my lord say so?\n  IACHIMO. Ay, madam, with his eyes in flood with laughter.\n    It is a recreation to be by\n    And hear him mock the Frenchman. But heavens know\n    Some men are much to blame.\n  IMOGEN. Not he, I hope.\n  IACHIMO. Not he; but yet heaven's bounty towards him might\n    Be us'd more thankfully. In himself, 'tis much;\n    In you, which I account his, beyond all talents.\n    Whilst I am bound to wonder, I am bound\n    To pity too.\n  IMOGEN. What do you pity, sir?\n  IACHIMO. Two creatures heartily.\n  IMOGEN. Am I one, sir?\n    You look on me: what wreck discern you in me\n    Deserves your pity?\n  IACHIMO. Lamentable! What,\n    To hide me from the radiant sun and solace\n    I' th' dungeon by a snuff?\n  IMOGEN. I pray you, sir,\n    Deliver with more openness your answers\n    To my demands. Why do you pity me?\n  IACHIMO. That others do,\n    I was about to say, enjoy your- But\n    It is an office of the gods to venge it,\n    Not mine to speak on't.\n  IMOGEN. You do seem to know\n    Something of me, or what concerns me; pray you-\n    Since doubting things go ill often hurts more\n    Than to be sure they do; for certainties\n    Either are past remedies, or, timely knowing,\n    The remedy then born- discover to me\n    What both you spur and stop.\n  IACHIMO. Had I this cheek\n    To bathe my lips upon; this hand, whose touch,\n    Whose every touch, would force the feeler's soul\n    To th' oath of loyalty; this object, which\n    Takes prisoner the wild motion of mine eye,\n    Fixing it only here; should I, damn'd then,\n    Slaver with lips as common as the stairs\n    That mount the Capitol; join gripes with hands\n    Made hard with hourly falsehood- falsehood as\n    With labour; then by-peeping in an eye\n    Base and illustrious as the smoky light\n    That's fed with stinking tallow- it were fit\n    That all the plagues of hell should at one time\n    Encounter such revolt.\n  IMOGEN. My lord, I fear,\n    Has forgot Britain.\n  IACHIMO. And himself. Not I\n    Inclin'd to this intelligence pronounce\n    The beggary of his change; but 'tis your graces\n    That from my mutest conscience to my tongue\n    Charms this report out.\n  IMOGEN. Let me hear no more.\n  IACHIMO. O dearest soul, your cause doth strike my heart\n    With pity that doth make me sick! A lady\n    So fair, and fasten'd to an empery,\n    Would make the great'st king double, to be partner'd\n    With tomboys hir'd with that self exhibition\n    Which your own coffers yield! with diseas'd ventures\n    That play with all infirmities for gold\n    Which rottenness can lend nature! such boil'd stuff\n    As well might poison poison! Be reveng'd;\n    Or she that bore you was no queen, and you\n    Recoil from your great stock.\n  IMOGEN. Reveng'd?\n    How should I be reveng'd? If this be true-\n    As I have such a heart that both mine ears\n    Must not in haste abuse- if it be true,\n    How should I be reveng'd?\n  IACHIMO. Should he make me\n    Live like Diana's priest betwixt cold sheets,\n    Whiles he is vaulting variable ramps,\n    In your despite, upon your purse? Revenge it.\n    I dedicate myself to your sweet pleasure,\n    More noble than that runagate to your bed,\n    And will continue fast to your affection,\n    Still close as sure.\n  IMOGEN. What ho, Pisanio!\n  IACHIMO. Let me my service tender on your lips.\n  IMOGEN. Away! I do condemn mine ears that have\n    So long attended thee. If thou wert honourable,\n    Thou wouldst have told this tale for virtue, not\n    For such an end thou seek'st, as base as strange.\n    Thou wrong'st a gentleman who is as far\n    From thy report as thou from honour; and\n    Solicits here a lady that disdains\n    Thee and the devil alike.- What ho, Pisanio!-\n    The King my father shall be made acquainted\n    Of thy assault. If he shall think it fit\n    A saucy stranger in his court to mart\n    As in a Romish stew, and to expound\n    His beastly mind to us, he hath a court\n    He little cares for, and a daughter who\n    He not respects at all.- What ho, Pisanio!\n  IACHIMO. O happy Leonatus! I may say\n    The credit that thy lady hath of thee\n    Deserves thy trust, and thy most perfect goodness\n    Her assur'd credit. Blessed live you long,\n    A lady to the worthiest sir that ever\n    Country call'd his! and you his mistress, only\n    For the most worthiest fit! Give me your pardon.\n    I have spoke this to know if your affiance\n    Were deeply rooted, and shall make your lord\n    That which he is new o'er; and he is one\n    The truest manner'd, such a holy witch\n    That he enchants societies into him,\n    Half all men's hearts are his.\n  IMOGEN. You make amends.\n  IACHIMO. He sits 'mongst men like a descended god:\n    He hath a kind of honour sets him of\n    More than a mortal seeming. Be not angry,\n    Most mighty Princess, that I have adventur'd\n    To try your taking of a false report, which hath\n    Honour'd with confirmation your great judgment\n    In the election of a sir so rare,\n    Which you know cannot err. The love I bear him\n    Made me to fan you thus; but the gods made you,\n    Unlike all others, chaffless. Pray your pardon.\n  IMOGEN. All's well, sir; take my pow'r i' th' court for yours.\n  IACHIMO. My humble thanks. I had almost forgot\n    T' entreat your Grace but in a small request,\n    And yet of moment too, for it concerns\n    Your lord; myself and other noble friends\n    Are partners in the business.\n  IMOGEN. Pray what is't?\n  IACHIMO. Some dozen Romans of us, and your lord-\n    The best feather of our wing- have mingled sums\n    To buy a present for the Emperor;\n    Which I, the factor for the rest, have done\n    In France. 'Tis plate of rare device, and jewels\n    Of rich and exquisite form, their values great;\n    And I am something curious, being strange,\n    To have them in safe stowage. May it please you\n    To take them in protection?\n  IMOGEN. Willingly;\n    And pawn mine honour for their safety. Since\n    My lord hath interest in them, I will keep them\n    In my bedchamber.\n  IACHIMO. They are in a trunk,\n    Attended by my men. I will make bold\n    To send them to you only for this night;\n    I must aboard to-morrow.\n  IMOGEN. O, no, no.\n  IACHIMO. Yes, I beseech; or I shall short my word\n    By length'ning my return. From Gallia\n    I cross'd the seas on purpose and on promise\n    To see your Grace.\n  IMOGEN. I thank you for your pains.\n    But not away to-morrow!\n  IACHIMO. O, I must, madam.\n    Therefore I shall beseech you, if you please\n    To greet your lord with writing, do't to-night.\n    I have outstood my time, which is material\n    'To th' tender of our present.\n  IMOGEN. I will write.\n    Send your trunk to me; it shall safe be kept\n    And truly yielded you. You're very welcome.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nBritain. Before CYMBELINE'S palace\n\nEnter CLOTEN and the two LORDS\n\n  CLOTEN. Was there ever man had such luck! When I kiss'd the jack,\n    upon an up-cast to be hit away! I had a hundred pound on't; and\n    then a whoreson jackanapes must take me up for swearing, as if I\n    borrowed mine oaths of him, and might not spend them at my\n    pleasure.\n  FIRST LORD. What got he by that? You have broke his pate with your\n    bowl.\n  SECOND LORD. [Aside] If his wit had been like him that broke it, it\n    would have run all out.\n  CLOTEN. When a gentleman is dispos'd to swear, it is not for any\n    standers-by to curtail his oaths. Ha?\n  SECOND LORD. No, my lord; [Aside] nor crop the ears of them.\n  CLOTEN. Whoreson dog! I give him satisfaction? Would he had been\n    one of my rank!\n  SECOND LORD. [Aside] To have smell'd like a fool.\n  CLOTEN. I am not vex'd more at anything in th' earth. A pox on't! I\n    had rather not be so noble as I am; they dare not fight with me,\n    because of the Queen my mother. Every jackslave hath his bellyful\n    of fighting, and I must go up and down like a cock that nobody\n    can match.\n  SECOND LORD. [Aside] You are cock and capon too; and you crow,\n    cock, with your comb on.\n  CLOTEN. Sayest thou?\n  SECOND LORD. It is not fit your lordship should undertake every\n    companion that you give offence to.\n  CLOTEN. No, I know that; but it is fit I should commit offence to\n    my inferiors.\n  SECOND LORD. Ay, it is fit for your lordship only.\n  CLOTEN. Why, so I say.\n  FIRST LORD. Did you hear of a stranger that's come to court\n    to-night?\n  CLOTEN. A stranger, and I not known on't?\n  SECOND LORD. [Aside] He's a strange fellow himself, and knows it\n    not.\n  FIRST LORD. There's an Italian come, and, 'tis thought, one of\n    Leonatus' friends.\n  CLOTEN. Leonatus? A banish'd rascal; and he's another, whatsoever\n    he be. Who told you of this stranger?\n  FIRST LORD. One of your lordship's pages.\n  CLOTEN. Is it fit I went to look upon him? Is there no derogation\n    in't?\n  SECOND LORD. You cannot derogate, my lord.\n  CLOTEN. Not easily, I think.\n  SECOND LORD. [Aside] You are a fool granted; therefore your issues,\n    being foolish, do not derogate.\n  CLOTEN. Come, I'll go see this Italian. What I have lost to-day at\n    bowls I'll win to-night of him. Come, go.\n  SECOND LORD. I'll attend your lordship.\n                                    Exeunt CLOTEN and FIRST LORD\n    That such a crafty devil as is his mother\n    Should yield the world this ass! A woman that\n    Bears all down with her brain; and this her son\n    Cannot take two from twenty, for his heart,\n    And leave eighteen. Alas, poor princess,\n    Thou divine Imogen, what thou endur'st,\n    Betwixt a father by thy step-dame govern'd,\n    A mother hourly coining plots, a wooer\n    More hateful than the foul expulsion is\n    Of thy dear husband, than that horrid act\n    Of the divorce he'd make! The heavens hold firm\n    The walls of thy dear honour, keep unshak'd\n    That temple, thy fair mind, that thou mayst stand\n    T' enjoy thy banish'd lord and this great land!         Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBritain. IMOGEN'S bedchamber in CYMBELINE'S palace; a trunk in one corner\n\nEnter IMOGEN in her bed, and a LADY attending\n\n  IMOGEN. Who's there? My woman? Helen?\n  LADY. Please you, madam.\n  IMOGEN. What hour is it?\n  LADY. Almost midnight, madam.\n  IMOGEN. I have read three hours then. Mine eyes are weak;\n    Fold down the leaf where I have left. To bed.\n    Take not away the taper, leave it burning;\n    And if thou canst awake by four o' th' clock,\n    I prithee call me. Sleep hath seiz'd me wholly.    Exit LADY\n    To your protection I commend me, gods.\n    From fairies and the tempters of the night\n    Guard me, beseech ye!\n                          [Sleeps. IACHIMO comes from the trunk]\n  IACHIMO. The crickets sing, and man's o'er-labour'd sense\n    Repairs itself by rest. Our Tarquin thus\n    Did softly press the rushes ere he waken'd\n    The chastity he wounded. Cytherea,\n    How bravely thou becom'st thy bed! fresh lily,\n    And whiter than the sheets! That I might touch!\n    But kiss; one kiss! Rubies unparagon'd,\n    How dearly they do't! 'Tis her breathing that\n    Perfumes the chamber thus. The flame o' th' taper\n    Bows toward her and would under-peep her lids\n    To see th' enclosed lights, now canopied\n    Under these windows white and azure, lac'd\n    With blue of heaven's own tinct. But my design\n    To note the chamber. I will write all down:\n    Such and such pictures; there the window; such\n    Th' adornment of her bed; the arras, figures-\n    Why, such and such; and the contents o' th' story.\n    Ah, but some natural notes about her body\n    Above ten thousand meaner movables\n    Would testify, t' enrich mine inventory.\n    O sleep, thou ape of death, lie dull upon her!\n    And be her sense but as a monument,\n    Thus in a chapel lying! Come off, come off;\n                                       [Taking off her bracelet]\n    As slippery as the Gordian knot was hard!\n    'Tis mine; and this will witness outwardly,\n    As strongly as the conscience does within,\n    To th' madding of her lord. On her left breast\n    A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops\n    I' th' bottom of a cowslip. Here's a voucher\n    Stronger than ever law could make; this secret\n    Will force him think I have pick'd the lock and ta'en\n    The treasure of her honour. No more. To what end?\n    Why should I write this down that's riveted,\n    Screw'd to my memory? She hath been reading late\n    The tale of Tereus; here the leaf's turn'd down\n    Where Philomel gave up. I have enough.\n    To th' trunk again, and shut the spring of it.\n    Swift, swift, you dragons of the night, that dawning\n    May bare the raven's eye! I lodge in fear;\n    Though this a heavenly angel, hell is here.  [Clock strikes]\n    One, two, three. Time, time!             Exit into the trunk\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nCYMBELINE'S palace. An ante-chamber adjoining IMOGEN'S apartments\n\nEnter CLOTEN and LORDS\n\n  FIRST LORD. Your lordship is the most patient man in loss, the most\n    coldest that ever turn'd up ace.\n  CLOTEN. It would make any man cold to lose.\n  FIRST LORD. But not every man patient after the noble temper of\n    your lordship. You are most hot and furious when you win.\n  CLOTEN. Winning will put any man into courage. If I could get this\n    foolish Imogen, I should have gold enough. It's almost morning,\n    is't not?\n  FIRST LORD. Day, my lord.\n  CLOTEN. I would this music would come. I am advised to give her\n    music a mornings; they say it will penetrate.\n\n                       Enter musicians\n\n    Come on, tune. If you can penetrate her with your fingering, so.\n    We'll try with tongue too. If none will do, let her remain; but\n    I'll never give o'er. First, a very excellent good-conceited\n    thing; after, a wonderful sweet air, with admirable rich words to\n    it- and then let her consider.\n\n                 SONG\n\n      Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,\n        And Phoebus 'gins arise,\n      His steeds to water at those springs\n        On chalic'd flow'rs that lies;\n      And winking Mary-buds begin\n        To ope their golden eyes.\n      With everything that pretty bin,\n        My lady sweet, arise;\n          Arise, arise!\n\n    So, get you gone. If this penetrate, I will consider your music\n    the better; if it do not, it is a vice in her ears which\n    horsehairs and calves' guts, nor the voice of unpaved eunuch to\n    boot, can never amend.                      Exeunt musicians\n\n                    Enter CYMBELINE and QUEEN\n\n  SECOND LORD. Here comes the King.\n  CLOTEN. I am glad I was up so late, for that's the reason I was up\n    so early. He cannot choose but take this service I have done\n    fatherly.- Good morrow to your Majesty and to my gracious mother.\n  CYMBELINE. Attend you here the door of our stern daughter?\n    Will she not forth?\n  CLOTEN. I have assail'd her with musics, but she vouchsafes no\n    notice.\n  CYMBELINE. The exile of her minion is too new;\n    She hath not yet forgot him; some more time\n    Must wear the print of his remembrance out,\n    And then she's yours.\n  QUEEN. You are most bound to th' King,\n    Who lets go by no vantages that may\n    Prefer you to his daughter. Frame yourself\n    To orderly soliciting, and be friended\n    With aptness of the season; make denials\n    Increase your services; so seem as if\n    You were inspir'd to do those duties which\n    You tender to her; that you in all obey her,\n    Save when command to your dismission tends,\n    And therein you are senseless.\n  CLOTEN. Senseless? Not so.\n\n                    Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. So like you, sir, ambassadors from Rome;\n    The one is Caius Lucius.\n  CYMBELINE. A worthy fellow,\n    Albeit he comes on angry purpose now;\n    But that's no fault of his. We must receive him\n    According to the honour of his sender;\n    And towards himself, his goodness forespent on us,\n    We must extend our notice. Our dear son,\n    When you have given good morning to your mistress,\n    Attend the Queen and us; we shall have need\n    T' employ you towards this Roman. Come, our queen.\n                                           Exeunt all but CLOTEN\n  CLOTEN. If she be up, I'll speak with her; if not,\n    Let her lie still and dream. By your leave, ho!     [Knocks]\n    I know her women are about her; what\n    If I do line one of their hands? 'Tis gold\n    Which buys admittance; oft it doth-yea, and makes\n    Diana's rangers false themselves, yield up\n    Their deer to th' stand o' th' stealer; and 'tis gold\n    Which makes the true man kill'd and saves the thief;\n    Nay, sometime hangs both thief and true man. What\n    Can it not do and undo? I will make\n    One of her women lawyer to me, for\n    I yet not understand the case myself.\n    By your leave.                                      [Knocks]\n\n                            Enter a LADY\n\n  LADY. Who's there that knocks?\n  CLOTEN. A gentleman.\n  LADY. No more?\n  CLOTEN. Yes, and a gentlewoman's son.\n  LADY. That's more\n    Than some whose tailors are as dear as yours\n    Can justly boast of. What's your lordship's pleasure?\n  CLOTEN. Your lady's person; is she ready?\n  LADY. Ay,\n    To keep her chamber.\n  CLOTEN. There is gold for you; sell me your good report.\n  LADY. How? My good name? or to report of you\n    What I shall think is good? The Princess!\n\n                        Enter IMOGEN\n\n  CLOTEN. Good morrow, fairest sister. Your sweet hand.\n                                                       Exit LADY\n  IMOGEN. Good morrow, sir. You lay out too much pains\n    For purchasing but trouble. The thanks I give\n    Is telling you that I am poor of thanks,\n    And scarce can spare them.\n  CLOTEN. Still I swear I love you.\n  IMOGEN. If you but said so, 'twere as deep with me.\n    If you swear still, your recompense is still\n    That I regard it not.\n  CLOTEN. This is no answer.\n  IMOGEN. But that you shall not say I yield, being silent,\n    I would not speak. I pray you spare me. Faith,\n    I shall unfold equal discourtesy\n    To your best kindness; one of your great knowing\n    Should learn, being taught, forbearance.\n  CLOTEN. To leave you in your madness 'twere my sin;\n    I will not.\n  IMOGEN. Fools are not mad folks.\n  CLOTEN. Do you call me fool?\n  IMOGEN. As I am mad, I do;\n    If you'll be patient, I'll no more be mad;\n    That cures us both. I am much sorry, sir,\n    You put me to forget a lady's manners\n    By being so verbal; and learn now, for all,\n    That I, which know my heart, do here pronounce,\n    By th' very truth of it, I care not for you,\n    And am so near the lack of charity\n    To accuse myself I hate you; which I had rather\n    You felt than make't my boast.\n  CLOTEN. You sin against\n    Obedience, which you owe your father. For\n    The contract you pretend with that base wretch,\n    One bred of alms and foster'd with cold dishes,\n    With scraps o' th' court- it is no contract, none.\n    And though it be allowed in meaner parties-\n    Yet who than he more mean?- to knit their souls-\n    On whom there is no more dependency\n    But brats and beggary- in self-figur'd knot,\n    Yet you are curb'd from that enlargement by\n    The consequence o' th' crown, and must not foil\n    The precious note of it with a base slave,\n    A hilding for a livery, a squire's cloth,\n    A pantler- not so eminent!\n  IMOGEN. Profane fellow!\n    Wert thou the son of Jupiter, and no more\n    But what thou art besides, thou wert too base\n    To be his groom. Thou wert dignified enough,\n    Even to the point of envy, if 'twere made\n    Comparative for your virtues to be styl'd\n    The under-hangman of his kingdom, and hated\n    For being preferr'd so well.\n  CLOTEN. The south fog rot him!\n  IMOGEN. He never can meet more mischance than come\n    To be but nam'd of thee. His mean'st garment\n    That ever hath but clipp'd his body is dearer\n    In my respect than all the hairs above thee,\n    Were they all made such men. How now, Pisanio!\n\n                    Enter PISANIO\n\n  CLOTEN. 'His garments'! Now the devil-\n  IMOGEN. To Dorothy my woman hie thee presently.\n  CLOTEN. 'His garment'!\n  IMOGEN. I am sprited with a fool;\n    Frighted, and ang'red worse. Go bid my woman\n    Search for a jewel that too casually\n    Hath left mine arm. It was thy master's; shrew me,\n    If I would lose it for a revenue\n    Of any king's in Europe! I do think\n    I saw't this morning; confident I am\n    Last night 'twas on mine arm; I kiss'd it.\n    I hope it be not gone to tell my lord\n    That I kiss aught but he.\n  PISANIO. 'Twill not be lost.\n  IMOGEN. I hope so. Go and search.                 Exit PISANIO\n  CLOTEN. You have abus'd me.\n    'His meanest garment'!\n  IMOGEN. Ay, I said so, sir.\n    If you will make 't an action, call witness to 't.\n  CLOTEN. I will inform your father.\n  IMOGEN. Your mother too.\n    She's my good lady and will conceive, I hope,\n    But the worst of me. So I leave you, sir,\n    To th' worst of discontent.                             Exit\n  CLOTEN. I'll be reveng'd.\n    'His mean'st garment'! Well.                            Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nRome. PHILARIO'S house\n\nEnter POSTHUMUS and PHILARIO\n\n  POSTHUMUS. Fear it not, sir; I would I were so sure\n    To win the King as I am bold her honour\n    Will remain hers.\n  PHILARIO. What means do you make to him?\n  POSTHUMUS. Not any; but abide the change of time,\n    Quake in the present winter's state, and wish\n    That warmer days would come. In these fear'd hopes\n    I barely gratify your love; they failing,\n    I must die much your debtor.\n  PHILARIO. Your very goodness and your company\n    O'erpays all I can do. By this your king\n    Hath heard of great Augustus. Caius Lucius\n    Will do's commission throughly; and I think\n    He'll grant the tribute, send th' arrearages,\n    Or look upon our Romans, whose remembrance\n    Is yet fresh in their grief.\n  POSTHUMUS. I do believe\n    Statist though I am none, nor like to be,\n    That this will prove a war; and you shall hear\n    The legions now in Gallia sooner landed\n    In our not-fearing Britain than have tidings\n    Of any penny tribute paid. Our countrymen\n    Are men more order'd than when Julius Caesar\n    Smil'd at their lack of skill, but found their courage\n    Worthy his frowning at. Their discipline,\n    Now mingled with their courages, will make known\n    To their approvers they are people such\n    That mend upon the world.\n\n                      Enter IACHIMO\n\n  PHILARIO. See! Iachimo!\n  POSTHUMUS. The swiftest harts have posted you by land,\n    And winds of all the comers kiss'd your sails,\n    To make your vessel nimble.\n  PHILARIO. Welcome, sir.\n  POSTHUMUS. I hope the briefness of your answer made\n    The speediness of your return.\n  IACHIMO. Your lady\n    Is one of the fairest that I have look'd upon.\n  POSTHUMUS. And therewithal the best; or let her beauty\n    Look through a casement to allure false hearts,\n    And be false with them.\n  IACHIMO. Here are letters for you.\n  POSTHUMUS. Their tenour good, I trust.\n  IACHIMO. 'Tis very like.\n  PHILARIO. Was Caius Lucius in the Britain court\n    When you were there?\n  IACHIMO. He was expected then,\n    But not approach'd.\n  POSTHUMUS. All is well yet.\n    Sparkles this stone as it was wont, or is't not\n    Too dull for your good wearing?\n  IACHIMO. If I have lost it,\n    I should have lost the worth of it in gold.\n    I'll make a journey twice as far t' enjoy\n    A second night of such sweet shortness which\n    Was mine in Britain; for the ring is won.\n  POSTHUMUS. The stone's too hard to come by.\n  IACHIMO. Not a whit,\n    Your lady being so easy.\n  POSTHUMUS. Make not, sir,\n    Your loss your sport. I hope you know that we\n    Must not continue friends.\n  IACHIMO. Good sir, we must,\n    If you keep covenant. Had I not brought\n    The knowledge of your mistress home, I grant\n    We were to question farther; but I now\n    Profess myself the winner of her honour,\n    Together with your ring; and not the wronger\n    Of her or you, having proceeded but\n    By both your wills.\n  POSTHUMUS. If you can make't apparent\n    That you have tasted her in bed, my hand\n    And ring is yours. If not, the foul opinion\n    You had of her pure honour gains or loses\n    Your sword or mine, or masterless leaves both\n    To who shall find them.\n  IACHIMO. Sir, my circumstances,\n    Being so near the truth as I will make them,\n    Must first induce you to believe- whose strength\n    I will confirm with oath; which I doubt not\n    You'll give me leave to spare when you shall find\n    You need it not.\n  POSTHUMUS. Proceed.\n  IACHIMO. First, her bedchamber,\n    Where I confess I slept not, but profess\n    Had that was well worth watching-it was hang'd\n    With tapestry of silk and silver; the story,\n    Proud Cleopatra when she met her Roman\n    And Cydnus swell'd above the banks, or for\n    The press of boats or pride. A piece of work\n    So bravely done, so rich, that it did strive\n    In workmanship and value; which I wonder'd\n    Could be so rarely and exactly wrought,\n    Since the true life on't was-\n  POSTHUMUS. This is true;\n    And this you might have heard of here, by me\n    Or by some other.\n  IACHIMO. More particulars\n    Must justify my knowledge.\n  POSTHUMUS. So they must,\n    Or do your honour injury.\n  IACHIMO. The chimney\n    Is south the chamber, and the chimneypiece\n    Chaste Dian bathing. Never saw I figures\n    So likely to report themselves. The cutter\n    Was as another nature, dumb; outwent her,\n    Motion and breath left out.\n  POSTHUMUS. This is a thing\n    Which you might from relation likewise reap,\n    Being, as it is, much spoke of.\n  IACHIMO. The roof o' th' chamber\n    With golden cherubins is fretted; her andirons-\n    I had forgot them- were two winking Cupids\n    Of silver, each on one foot standing, nicely\n    Depending on their brands.\n  POSTHUMUS. This is her honour!\n    Let it be granted you have seen all this, and praise\n    Be given to your remembrance; the description\n    Of what is in her chamber nothing saves\n    The wager you have laid.\n  IACHIMO. Then, if you can,                [Shows the bracelet]\n    Be pale. I beg but leave to air this jewel. See!\n    And now 'tis up again. It must be married\n    To that your diamond; I'll keep them.\n  POSTHUMUS. Jove!\n    Once more let me behold it. Is it that\n    Which I left with her?\n  IACHIMO. Sir- I thank her- that.\n    She stripp'd it from her arm; I see her yet;\n    Her pretty action did outsell her gift,\n    And yet enrich'd it too. She gave it me, and said\n    She priz'd it once.\n  POSTHUMUS. May be she pluck'd it of\n    To send it me.\n  IACHIMO. She writes so to you, doth she?\n  POSTHUMUS. O, no, no, no! 'tis true. Here, take this too;\n                                                [Gives the ring]\n    It is a basilisk unto mine eye,\n    Kills me to look on't. Let there be no honour\n    Where there is beauty; truth where semblance; love\n    Where there's another man. The vows of women\n    Of no more bondage be to where they are made\n    Than they are to their virtues, which is nothing.\n    O, above measure false!\n  PHILARIO. Have patience, sir,\n    And take your ring again; 'tis not yet won.\n    It may be probable she lost it, or\n    Who knows if one her women, being corrupted\n    Hath stol'n it from her?\n  POSTHUMUS. Very true;\n    And so I hope he came by't. Back my ring.\n    Render to me some corporal sign about her,\n    More evident than this; for this was stol'n.\n  IACHIMO. By Jupiter, I had it from her arm!\n  POSTHUMUS. Hark you, he swears; by Jupiter he swears.\n    'Tis true- nay, keep the ring, 'tis true. I am sure\n    She would not lose it. Her attendants are\n    All sworn and honourable- they induc'd to steal it!\n    And by a stranger! No, he hath enjoy'd her.\n    The cognizance of her incontinency\n    Is this: she hath bought the name of whore thus dearly.\n    There, take thy hire; and all the fiends of hell\n    Divide themselves between you!\n  PHILARIO. Sir, be patient;\n    This is not strong enough to be believ'd\n    Of one persuaded well of.\n  POSTHUMUS. Never talk on't;\n    She hath been colted by him.\n  IACHIMO. If you seek\n    For further satisfying, under her breast-\n    Worthy the pressing- lies a mole, right proud\n    Of that most delicate lodging. By my life,\n    I kiss'd it; and it gave me present hunger\n    To feed again, though full. You do remember\n    This stain upon her?\n  POSTHUMUS. Ay, and it doth confirm\n    Another stain, as big as hell can hold,\n    Were there no more but it.\n  IACHIMO. Will you hear more?\n  POSTHUMUS. Spare your arithmetic; never count the turns.\n    Once, and a million!\n  IACHIMO. I'll be sworn-\n  POSTHUMUS. No swearing.\n    If you will swear you have not done't, you lie;\n    And I will kill thee if thou dost deny\n    Thou'st made me cuckold.\n  IACHIMO. I'll deny nothing.\n  POSTHUMUS. O that I had her here to tear her limb-meal!\n    I will go there and do't, i' th' court, before\n    Her father. I'll do something-                          Exit\n  PHILARIO. Quite besides\n    The government of patience! You have won.\n    Let's follow him and pervert the present wrath\n    He hath against himself.\n  IACHIMO. With all my heart.                             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nRome. Another room in PHILARIO'S house\n\nEnter POSTHUMUS\n\n  POSTHUMUS. Is there no way for men to be, but women\n    Must be half-workers? We are all bastards,\n    And that most venerable man which I\n    Did call my father was I know not where\n    When I was stamp'd. Some coiner with his tools\n    Made me a counterfeit; yet my mother seem'd\n    The Dian of that time. So doth my wife\n    The nonpareil of this. O, vengeance, vengeance!\n    Me of my lawful pleasure she restrain'd,\n    And pray'd me oft forbearance; did it with\n    A pudency so rosy, the sweet view on't\n    Might well have warm'd old Saturn; that I thought her\n    As chaste as unsunn'd snow. O, all the devils!\n    This yellow Iachimo in an hour- was't not?\n    Or less!- at first? Perchance he spoke not, but,\n    Like a full-acorn'd boar, a German one,\n    Cried 'O!' and mounted; found no opposition\n    But what he look'd for should oppose and she\n    Should from encounter guard. Could I find out\n    The woman's part in me! For there's no motion\n    That tends to vice in man but I affirm\n    It is the woman's part. Be it lying, note it,\n    The woman's; flattering, hers; deceiving, hers;\n    Lust and rank thoughts, hers, hers; revenges, hers;\n    Ambitions, covetings, change of prides, disdain,\n    Nice longing, slanders, mutability,\n    All faults that man may name, nay, that hell knows,\n    Why, hers, in part or all; but rather all;\n    For even to vice\n    They are not constant, but are changing still\n    One vice but of a minute old for one\n    Not half so old as that. I'll write against them,\n    Detest them, curse them. Yet 'tis greater skill\n    In a true hate to pray they have their will:\n    The very devils cannot plague them better.              Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nBritain. A hall in CYMBELINE'S palace\n\nEnter in state, CYMBELINE, QUEEN, CLOTEN, and LORDS at one door,\nand at another CAIUS LUCIUS and attendants\n\n  CYMBELINE. Now say, what would Augustus Caesar with us?\n  LUCIUS. When Julius Caesar- whose remembrance yet\n    Lives in men's eyes, and will to ears and tongues\n    Be theme and hearing ever- was in this Britain,\n    And conquer'd it, Cassibelan, thine uncle,\n    Famous in Caesar's praises no whit less\n    Than in his feats deserving it, for him\n    And his succession granted Rome a tribute,\n    Yearly three thousand pounds, which by thee lately\n    Is left untender'd.\n  QUEEN. And, to kill the marvel,\n    Shall be so ever.\n  CLOTEN. There be many Caesars\n    Ere such another Julius. Britain is\n    A world by itself, and we will nothing pay\n    For wearing our own noses.\n  QUEEN. That opportunity,\n    Which then they had to take from 's, to resume\n    We have again. Remember, sir, my liege,\n    The kings your ancestors, together with\n    The natural bravery of your isle, which stands\n    As Neptune's park, ribb'd and pal'd in\n    With rocks unscalable and roaring waters,\n    With sands that will not bear your enemies' boats\n    But suck them up to th' top-mast. A kind of conquest\n    Caesar made here; but made not here his brag\n    Of 'came, and saw, and overcame.' With shame-\n    The first that ever touch'd him- he was carried\n    From off our coast, twice beaten; and his shipping-\n    Poor ignorant baubles!- on our terrible seas,\n    Like egg-shells mov'd upon their surges, crack'd\n    As easily 'gainst our rocks; for joy whereof\n    The fam'd Cassibelan, who was once at point-\n    O, giglot fortune!- to master Caesar's sword,\n    Made Lud's Town with rejoicing fires bright\n    And Britons strut with courage.\n  CLOTEN. Come, there's no more tribute to be paid. Our kingdom is\n    stronger than it was at that time; and, as I said, there is no\n    moe such Caesars. Other of them may have crook'd noses; but to\n    owe such straight arms, none.\n  CYMBELINE. Son, let your mother end.\n  CLOTEN. We have yet many among us can gripe as hard as Cassibelan.\n    I do not say I am one; but I have a hand. Why tribute? Why should\n    we pay tribute? If Caesar can hide the sun from us with a blanket,\n    or put the moon in his pocket, we will pay him tribute for light;\n    else, sir, no more tribute, pray you now.\n  CYMBELINE. You must know,\n    Till the injurious Romans did extort\n    This tribute from us, we were free. Caesar's ambition-\n    Which swell'd so much that it did almost stretch\n    The sides o' th' world- against all colour here\n    Did put the yoke upon's; which to shake of\n    Becomes a warlike people, whom we reckon\n    Ourselves to be.\n  CLOTEN. We do.\n  CYMBELINE. Say then to Caesar,\n    Our ancestor was that Mulmutius which\n    Ordain'd our laws- whose use the sword of Caesar\n    Hath too much mangled; whose repair and franchise\n    Shall, by the power we hold, be our good deed,\n    Though Rome be therefore angry. Mulmutius made our laws,\n    Who was the first of Britain which did put\n    His brows within a golden crown, and call'd\n    Himself a king.\n  LUCIUS. I am sorry, Cymbeline,\n    That I am to pronounce Augustus Caesar-\n    Caesar, that hath moe kings his servants than\n    Thyself domestic officers- thine enemy.\n    Receive it from me, then: war and confusion\n    In Caesar's name pronounce I 'gainst thee; look\n    For fury not to be resisted. Thus defied,\n    I thank thee for myself.\n  CYMBELINE. Thou art welcome, Caius.\n    Thy Caesar knighted me; my youth I spent\n    Much under him; of him I gather'd honour,\n    Which he to seek of me again, perforce,\n    Behoves me keep at utterance. I am perfect\n    That the Pannonians and Dalmatians for\n    Their liberties are now in arms, a precedent\n    Which not to read would show the Britons cold;\n    So Caesar shall not find them.\n  LUCIUS. Let proof speak.\n  CLOTEN. His majesty bids you welcome. Make pastime with us a day or\n    two, or longer. If you seek us afterwards in other terms, you\n    shall find us in our salt-water girdle. If you beat us out of it,\n    it is yours; if you fall in the adventure, our crows shall fare\n    the better for you; and there's an end.\n  LUCIUS. So, sir.\n  CYMBELINE. I know your master's pleasure, and he mine;\n    All the remain is, welcome.                           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBritain. Another room in CYMBELINE'S palace\n\nEnter PISANIO reading of a letter\n\n  PISANIO. How? of adultery? Wherefore write you not\n    What monsters her accuse? Leonatus!\n    O master, what a strange infection\n    Is fall'n into thy ear! What false Italian-\n    As poisonous-tongu'd as handed- hath prevail'd\n    On thy too ready hearing? Disloyal? No.\n    She's punish'd for her truth, and undergoes,\n    More goddess-like than wife-like, such assaults\n    As would take in some virtue. O my master!\n    Thy mind to her is now as low as were\n    Thy fortunes. How? that I should murder her?\n    Upon the love, and truth, and vows, which I\n    Have made to thy command? I, her? Her blood?\n    If it be so to do good service, never\n    Let me be counted serviceable. How look I\n    That I should seem to lack humanity\n    So much as this fact comes to? [Reads] 'Do't. The letter\n    That I have sent her, by her own command\n    Shall give thee opportunity.' O damn'd paper,\n    Black as the ink that's on thee! Senseless bauble,\n    Art thou a fedary for this act, and look'st\n    So virgin-like without? Lo, here she comes.\n\n                      Enter IMOGEN\n\n    I am ignorant in what I am commanded.\n  IMOGEN. How now, Pisanio!\n  PISANIO. Madam, here is a letter from my lord.\n  IMOGEN. Who? thy lord? That is my lord- Leonatus?\n    O, learn'd indeed were that astronomer\n    That knew the stars as I his characters-\n    He'd lay the future open. You good gods,\n    Let what is here contain'd relish of love,\n    Of my lord's health, of his content; yet not\n    That we two are asunder- let that grieve him!\n    Some griefs are med'cinable; that is one of them,\n    For it doth physic love- of his content,\n    All but in that. Good wax, thy leave. Blest be\n    You bees that make these locks of counsel! Lovers\n    And men in dangerous bonds pray not alike;\n    Though forfeiters you cast in prison, yet\n    You clasp young Cupid's tables. Good news, gods!\n                                                         [Reads]\n    'Justice and your father's wrath, should he take me in his\n    dominion, could not be so cruel to me as you, O the dearest of\n    creatures, would even renew me with your eyes. Take notice that I\n    am in Cambria, at Milford Haven. What your own love will out of\n    this advise you, follow. So he wishes you all happiness that\n    remains loyal to his vow, and your increasing in love\n                                            LEONATUS POSTHUMUS.'\n\n    O for a horse with wings! Hear'st thou, Pisanio?\n    He is at Milford Haven. Read, and tell me\n    How far 'tis thither. If one of mean affairs\n    May plod it in a week, why may not I\n    Glide thither in a day? Then, true Pisanio-\n    Who long'st like me to see thy lord, who long'st-\n    O, let me 'bate!- but not like me, yet long'st,\n    But in a fainter kind- O, not like me,\n    For mine's beyond beyond!-say, and speak thick-\n    Love's counsellor should fill the bores of hearing\n    To th' smothering of the sense- how far it is\n    To this same blessed Milford. And by th' way\n    Tell me how Wales was made so happy as\n    T' inherit such a haven. But first of all,\n    How we may steal from hence; and for the gap\n    That we shall make in time from our hence-going\n    And our return, to excuse. But first, how get hence.\n    Why should excuse be born or ere begot?\n    We'll talk of that hereafter. Prithee speak,\n    How many score of miles may we well ride\n    'Twixt hour and hour?\n  PISANIO. One score 'twixt sun and sun,\n    Madam, 's enough for you, and too much too.\n  IMOGEN. Why, one that rode to's execution, man,\n    Could never go so slow. I have heard of riding wagers\n    Where horses have been nimbler than the sands\n    That run i' th' clock's behalf. But this is fool'ry.\n    Go bid my woman feign a sickness; say\n    She'll home to her father; and provide me presently\n    A riding suit, no costlier than would fit\n    A franklin's huswife.\n  PISANIO. Madam, you're best consider.\n  IMOGEN. I see before me, man. Nor here, nor here,\n    Nor what ensues, but have a fog in them\n    That I cannot look through. Away, I prithee;\n    Do as I bid thee. There's no more to say;\n    Accessible is none but Milford way.                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nWales. A mountainous country with a cave\n\nEnter from the cave BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS\n\n  BELARIUS. A goodly day not to keep house with such\n    Whose roof's as low as ours! Stoop, boys; this gate\n    Instructs you how t' adore the heavens, and bows you\n    To a morning's holy office. The gates of monarchs\n    Are arch'd so high that giants may jet through\n    And keep their impious turbans on without\n    Good morrow to the sun. Hail, thou fair heaven!\n    We house i' th' rock, yet use thee not so hardly\n    As prouder livers do.\n  GUIDERIUS. Hail, heaven!\n  ARVIRAGUS. Hail, heaven!\n  BELARIUS. Now for our mountain sport. Up to yond hill,\n    Your legs are young; I'll tread these flats. Consider,\n    When you above perceive me like a crow,\n    That it is place which lessens and sets off;\n    And you may then revolve what tales I have told you\n    Of courts, of princes, of the tricks in war.\n    This service is not service so being done,\n    But being so allow'd. To apprehend thus\n    Draws us a profit from all things we see,\n    And often to our comfort shall we find\n    The sharded beetle in a safer hold\n    Than is the full-wing'd eagle. O, this life\n    Is nobler than attending for a check,\n    Richer than doing nothing for a bribe,\n    Prouder than rustling in unpaid-for silk:\n    Such gain the cap of him that makes him fine,\n    Yet keeps his book uncross'd. No life to ours!\n  GUIDERIUS. Out of your proof you speak. We, poor unfledg'd,\n    Have never wing'd from view o' th' nest, nor know not\n    What air's from home. Haply this life is best,\n    If quiet life be best; sweeter to you\n    That have a sharper known; well corresponding\n    With your stiff age. But unto us it is\n    A cell of ignorance, travelling abed,\n    A prison for a debtor that not dares\n    To stride a limit.\n  ARVIRAGUS. What should we speak of\n    When we are old as you? When we shall hear\n    The rain and wind beat dark December, how,\n    In this our pinching cave, shall we discourse.\n    The freezing hours away? We have seen nothing;\n    We are beastly: subtle as the fox for prey,\n    Like warlike as the wolf for what we eat.\n    Our valour is to chase what flies; our cage\n    We make a choir, as doth the prison'd bird,\n    And sing our bondage freely.\n  BELARIUS. How you speak!\n    Did you but know the city's usuries,\n    And felt them knowingly- the art o' th' court,\n    As hard to leave as keep, whose top to climb\n    Is certain falling, or so slipp'ry that\n    The fear's as bad as falling; the toil o' th' war,\n    A pain that only seems to seek out danger\n    I' th'name of fame and honour, which dies i' th'search,\n    And hath as oft a sland'rous epitaph\n    As record of fair act; nay, many times,\n    Doth ill deserve by doing well; what's worse-\n    Must curtsy at the censure. O, boys, this story\n    The world may read in me; my body's mark'd\n    With Roman swords, and my report was once\n    first with the best of note. Cymbeline lov'd me;\n    And when a soldier was the theme, my name\n    Was not far off. Then was I as a tree\n    Whose boughs did bend with fruit; but in one night\n    A storm, or robbery, call it what you will,\n    Shook down my mellow hangings, nay, my leaves,\n    And left me bare to weather.\n  GUIDERIUS. Uncertain favour!\n  BELARIUS. My fault being nothing- as I have told you oft-\n    But that two villains, whose false oaths prevail'd\n    Before my perfect honour, swore to Cymbeline\n    I was confederate with the Romans. So\n    Follow'd my banishment, and this twenty years\n    This rock and these demesnes have been my world,\n    Where I have liv'd at honest freedom, paid\n    More pious debts to heaven than in all\n    The fore-end of my time. But up to th' mountains!\n    This is not hunters' language. He that strikes\n    The venison first shall be the lord o' th' feast;\n    To him the other two shall minister;\n    And we will fear no poison, which attends\n    In place of greater state. I'll meet you in the valleys.\n                                  Exeunt GUIDERIUS and ARVIRAGUS\n    How hard it is to hide the sparks of nature!\n    These boys know little they are sons to th' King,\n    Nor Cymbeline dreams that they are alive.\n    They think they are mine; and though train'd up thus meanly\n    I' th' cave wherein they bow, their thoughts do hit\n    The roofs of palaces, and nature prompts them\n    In simple and low things to prince it much\n    Beyond the trick of others. This Polydore,\n    The heir of Cymbeline and Britain, who\n    The King his father call'd Guiderius- Jove!\n    When on my three-foot stool I sit and tell\n    The warlike feats I have done, his spirits fly out\n    Into my story; say 'Thus mine enemy fell,\n    And thus I set my foot on's neck'; even then\n    The princely blood flows in his cheek, he sweats,\n    Strains his young nerves, and puts himself in posture\n    That acts my words. The younger brother, Cadwal,\n    Once Arviragus, in as like a figure\n    Strikes life into my speech, and shows much more\n    His own conceiving. Hark, the game is rous'd!\n    O Cymbeline, heaven and my conscience knows\n    Thou didst unjustly banish me! Whereon,\n    At three and two years old, I stole these babes,\n    Thinking to bar thee of succession as\n    Thou refts me of my lands. Euriphile,\n    Thou wast their nurse; they took thee for their mother,\n    And every day do honour to her grave.\n    Myself, Belarius, that am Morgan call'd,\n    They take for natural father. The game is up.           Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nWales, near Milford Haven\n\nEnter PISANIO and IMOGEN\n\n  IMOGEN. Thou told'st me, when we came from horse, the place\n    Was near at hand. Ne'er long'd my mother so\n    To see me first as I have now. Pisanio! Man!\n    Where is Posthumus? What is in thy mind\n    That makes thee stare thus? Wherefore breaks that sigh\n    From th' inward of thee? One but painted thus\n    Would be interpreted a thing perplex'd\n    Beyond self-explication. Put thyself\n    Into a haviour of less fear, ere wildness\n    Vanquish my staider senses. What's the matter?\n    Why tender'st thou that paper to me with\n    A look untender! If't be summer news,\n    Smile to't before; if winterly, thou need'st\n    But keep that count'nance still. My husband's hand?\n    That drug-damn'd Italy hath out-craftied him,\n    And he's at some hard point. Speak, man; thy tongue\n    May take off some extremity, which to read\n    Would be even mortal to me.\n  PISANIO. Please you read,\n    And you shall find me, wretched man, a thing\n    The most disdain'd of fortune.\n  IMOGEN. [Reads] 'Thy mistress, Pisanio, hath play'd the strumpet in\n    my bed, the testimonies whereof lie bleeding in me. I speak not\n    out of weak surmises, but from proof as strong as my grief and as\n    certain as I expect my revenge. That part thou, Pisanio, must act\n    for me, if thy faith be not tainted with the breach of hers. Let\n    thine own hands take away her life; I shall give thee opportunity\n    at Milford Haven; she hath my letter for the purpose; where, if\n    thou fear to strike, and to make me certain it is done, thou art\n    the pander to her dishonour, and equally to me disloyal.'\n  PISANIO. What shall I need to draw my sword? The paper\n    Hath cut her throat already. No, 'tis slander,\n    Whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose tongue\n    Outvenoms all the worms of Nile, whose breath\n    Rides on the posting winds and doth belie\n    All corners of the world. Kings, queens, and states,\n    Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave,\n    This viperous slander enters. What cheer, madam?\n  IMOGEN. False to his bed? What is it to be false?\n    To lie in watch there, and to think on him?\n    To weep twixt clock and clock? If sleep charge nature,\n    To break it with a fearful dream of him,\n    And cry myself awake? That's false to's bed,\n    Is it?\n  PISANIO. Alas, good lady!\n  IMOGEN. I false! Thy conscience witness! Iachimo,\n    Thou didst accuse him of incontinency;\n    Thou then look'dst like a villain; now, methinks,\n    Thy favour's good enough. Some jay of Italy,\n    Whose mother was her painting, hath betray'd him.\n    Poor I am stale, a garment out of fashion,\n    And for I am richer than to hang by th' walls\n    I must be ripp'd. To pieces with me! O,\n    Men's vows are women's traitors! All good seeming,\n    By thy revolt, O husband, shall be thought\n    Put on for villainy; not born where't grows,\n    But worn a bait for ladies.\n  PISANIO. Good madam, hear me.\n  IMOGEN. True honest men being heard, like false Aeneas,\n    Were, in his time, thought false; and Sinon's weeping\n    Did scandal many a holy tear, took pity\n    From most true wretchedness. So thou, Posthumus,\n    Wilt lay the leaven on all proper men:\n    Goodly and gallant shall be false and perjur'd\n    From thy great fail. Come, fellow, be thou honest;\n    Do thou thy master's bidding; when thou seest him,\n    A little witness my obedience. Look!\n    I draw the sword myself; take it, and hit\n    The innocent mansion of my love, my heart.\n    Fear not; 'tis empty of all things but grief;\n    Thy master is not there, who was indeed\n    The riches of it. Do his bidding; strike.\n    Thou mayst be valiant in a better cause,\n    But now thou seem'st a coward.\n  PISANIO. Hence, vile instrument!\n    Thou shalt not damn my hand.\n  IMOGEN. Why, I must die;\n    And if I do not by thy hand, thou art\n    No servant of thy master's. Against self-slaughter\n    There is a prohibition so divine\n    That cravens my weak hand. Come, here's my heart-\n    Something's afore't. Soft, soft! we'll no defence!-\n    Obedient as the scabbard. What is here?\n    The scriptures of the loyal Leonatus\n    All turn'd to heresy? Away, away,\n    Corrupters of my faith! you shall no more\n    Be stomachers to my heart. Thus may poor fools\n    Believe false teachers; though those that are betray'd\n    Do feel the treason sharply, yet the traitor\n    Stands in worse case of woe. And thou, Posthumus,\n    That didst set up my disobedience 'gainst the King\n    My father, and make me put into contempt the suits\n    Of princely fellows, shalt hereafter find\n    It is no act of common passage but\n    A strain of rareness; and I grieve myself\n    To think, when thou shalt be disedg'd by her\n    That now thou tirest on, how thy memory\n    Will then be pang'd by me. Prithee dispatch.\n    The lamp entreats the butcher. Where's thy knife?\n    Thou art too slow to do thy master's bidding,\n    When I desire it too.\n  PISANIO. O gracious lady,\n    Since I receiv'd command to do this busines\n    I have not slept one wink.\n  IMOGEN. Do't, and to bed then.\n  PISANIO. I'll wake mine eyeballs first.\n  IMOGEN. Wherefore then\n    Didst undertake it? Why hast thou abus'd\n    So many miles with a pretence? This place?\n    Mine action and thine own? our horses' labour?\n    The time inviting thee? the perturb'd court,\n    For my being absent?- whereunto I never\n    Purpose return. Why hast thou gone so far\n    To be unbent when thou hast ta'en thy stand,\n    Th' elected deer before thee?\n  PISANIO. But to win time\n    To lose so bad employment, in the which\n    I have consider'd of a course. Good lady,\n    Hear me with patience.\n  IMOGEN. Talk thy tongue weary- speak.\n    I have heard I am a strumpet, and mine ear,\n    Therein false struck, can take no greater wound,\n    Nor tent to bottom that. But speak.\n  PISANIO. Then, madam,\n    I thought you would not back again.\n  IMOGEN. Most like-\n    Bringing me here to kill me.\n  PISANIO. Not so, neither;\n    But if I were as wise as honest, then\n    My purpose would prove well. It cannot be\n    But that my master is abus'd. Some villain,\n    Ay, and singular in his art, hath done you both\n    This cursed injury.\n  IMOGEN. Some Roman courtezan!\n  PISANIO. No, on my life!\n    I'll give but notice you are dead, and send him\n    Some bloody sign of it, for 'tis commanded\n    I should do so. You shall be miss'd at court,\n    And that will well confirm it.\n  IMOGEN. Why, good fellow,\n    What shall I do the while? where bide? how live?\n    Or in my life what comfort, when I am\n    Dead to my husband?\n  PISANIO. If you'll back to th' court-\n  IMOGEN. No court, no father, nor no more ado\n    With that harsh, noble, simple nothing-\n    That Cloten, whose love-suit hath been to me\n    As fearful as a siege.\n  PISANIO. If not at court,\n    Then not in Britain must you bide.\n  IMOGEN. Where then?\n    Hath Britain all the sun that shines? Day, night,\n    Are they not but in Britain? I' th' world's volume\n    Our Britain seems as of it, but not in't;\n    In a great pool a swan's nest. Prithee think\n    There's livers out of Britain.\n  PISANIO. I am most glad\n    You think of other place. Th' ambassador,\n  LUCIUS the Roman, comes to Milford Haven\n    To-morrow. Now, if you could wear a mind\n    Dark as your fortune is, and but disguise\n    That which t' appear itself must not yet be\n    But by self-danger, you should tread a course\n    Pretty and full of view; yea, happily, near\n    The residence of Posthumus; so nigh, at least,\n    That though his actions were not visible, yet\n    Report should render him hourly to your ear\n    As truly as he moves.\n  IMOGEN. O! for such means,\n    Though peril to my modesty, not death on't,\n    I would adventure.\n  PISANIO. Well then, here's the point:\n    You must forget to be a woman; change\n    Command into obedience; fear and niceness-\n    The handmaids of all women, or, more truly,\n    Woman it pretty self- into a waggish courage;\n    Ready in gibes, quick-answer'd, saucy, and\n    As quarrelous as the weasel. Nay, you must\n    Forget that rarest treasure of your cheek,\n    Exposing it- but, O, the harder heart!\n    Alack, no remedy!- to the greedy touch\n    Of common-kissing Titan, and forget\n    Your laboursome and dainty trims wherein\n    You made great Juno angry.\n  IMOGEN. Nay, be brief;\n    I see into thy end, and am almost\n    A man already.\n  PISANIO. First, make yourself but like one.\n    Fore-thinking this, I have already fit-\n    'Tis in my cloak-bag- doublet, hat, hose, all\n    That answer to them. Would you, in their serving,\n    And with what imitation you can borrow\n    From youth of such a season, fore noble Lucius\n    Present yourself, desire his service, tell him\n    Wherein you're happy- which will make him know\n    If that his head have ear in music; doubtless\n    With joy he will embrace you; for he's honourable,\n    And, doubling that, most holy. Your means abroad-\n    You have me, rich; and I will never fail\n    Beginning nor supplyment.\n  IMOGEN. Thou art all the comfort\n    The gods will diet me with. Prithee away!\n    There's more to be consider'd; but we'll even\n    All that good time will give us. This attempt\n    I am soldier to, and will abide it with\n    A prince's courage. Away, I prithee.\n  PISANIO. Well, madam, we must take a short farewell,\n    Lest, being miss'd, I be suspected of\n    Your carriage from the court. My noble mistress,\n    Here is a box; I had it from the Queen.\n    What's in't is precious. If you are sick at sea\n    Or stomach-qualm'd at land, a dram of this\n    Will drive away distemper. To some shade,\n    And fit you to your manhood. May the gods\n    Direct you to the best!\n  IMOGEN. Amen. I thank thee.                   Exeunt severally\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nBritain. CYMBELINE'S palace\n\nEnter CYMBELINE, QUEEN, CLOTEN, LUCIUS, and LORDS\n\n  CYMBELINE. Thus far; and so farewell.\n  LUCIUS. Thanks, royal sir.\n    My emperor hath wrote; I must from hence,\n    And am right sorry that I must report ye\n    My master's enemy.\n  CYMBELINE. Our subjects, sir,\n    Will not endure his yoke; and for ourself\n    To show less sovereignty than they, must needs\n    Appear unkinglike.\n  LUCIUS. So, sir. I desire of you\n    A conduct overland to Milford Haven.\n    Madam, all joy befall your Grace, and you!\n  CYMBELINE. My lords, you are appointed for that office;\n    The due of honour in no point omit.\n    So farewell, noble Lucius.\n  LUCIUS. Your hand, my lord.\n  CLOTEN. Receive it friendly; but from this time forth\n    I wear it as your enemy.\n  LUCIUS. Sir, the event\n    Is yet to name the winner. Fare you well.\n  CYMBELINE. Leave not the worthy Lucius, good my lords,\n    Till he have cross'd the Severn. Happiness!\n                                         Exeunt LUCIUS and LORDS\n  QUEEN. He goes hence frowning; but it honours us\n    That we have given him cause.\n  CLOTEN. 'Tis all the better;\n    Your valiant Britons have their wishes in it.\n  CYMBELINE. Lucius hath wrote already to the Emperor\n    How it goes here. It fits us therefore ripely\n    Our chariots and our horsemen be in readiness.\n    The pow'rs that he already hath in Gallia\n    Will soon be drawn to head, from whence he moves\n    His war for Britain.\n  QUEEN. 'Tis not sleepy business,\n    But must be look'd to speedily and strongly.\n  CYMBELINE. Our expectation that it would be thus\n    Hath made us forward. But, my gentle queen,\n    Where is our daughter? She hath not appear'd\n    Before the Roman, nor to us hath tender'd\n    The duty of the day. She looks us like\n    A thing more made of malice than of duty;\n    We have noted it. Call her before us, for\n    We have been too slight in sufferance.      Exit a MESSENGER\n  QUEEN. Royal sir,\n    Since the exile of Posthumus, most retir'd\n    Hath her life been; the cure whereof, my lord,\n    'Tis time must do. Beseech your Majesty,\n    Forbear sharp speeches to her; she's a lady\n    So tender of rebukes that words are strokes,\n    And strokes death to her.\n\n                 Re-enter MESSENGER\n\n  CYMBELINE. Where is she, sir? How\n    Can her contempt be answer'd?\n  MESSENGER. Please you, sir,\n    Her chambers are all lock'd, and there's no answer\n    That will be given to th' loud of noise we make.\n  QUEEN. My lord, when last I went to visit her,\n    She pray'd me to excuse her keeping close;\n    Whereto constrain'd by her infirmity\n    She should that duty leave unpaid to you\n    Which daily she was bound to proffer. This\n    She wish'd me to make known; but our great court\n    Made me to blame in memory.\n  CYMBELINE. Her doors lock'd?\n    Not seen of late? Grant, heavens, that which I fear\n    Prove false!                                            Exit\n  QUEEN. Son, I say, follow the King.\n  CLOTEN. That man of hers, Pisanio, her old servant,\n    I have not seen these two days.\n  QUEEN. Go, look after.                             Exit CLOTEN\n    Pisanio, thou that stand'st so for Posthumus!\n    He hath a drug of mine. I pray his absence\n    Proceed by swallowing that; for he believes\n    It is a thing most precious. But for her,\n    Where is she gone? Haply despair hath seiz'd her;\n    Or, wing'd with fervour of her love, she's flown\n    To her desir'd Posthumus. Gone she is\n    To death or to dishonour, and my end\n    Can make good use of either. She being down,\n    I have the placing of the British crown.\n\n                   Re-enter CLOTEN\n\n    How now, my son?\n  CLOTEN. 'Tis certain she is fled.\n    Go in and cheer the King. He rages; none\n    Dare come about him.\n  QUEEN. All the better. May\n    This night forestall him of the coming day!             Exit\n  CLOTEN. I love and hate her; for she's fair and royal,\n    And that she hath all courtly parts more exquisite\n    Than lady, ladies, woman. From every one\n    The best she hath, and she, of all compounded,\n    Outsells them all. I love her therefore; but\n    Disdaining me and throwing favours on\n    The low Posthumus slanders so her judgment\n    That what's else rare is chok'd; and in that point\n    I will conclude to hate her, nay, indeed,\n    To be reveng'd upon her. For when fools\n    Shall-\n\n                    Enter PISANIO\n\n    Who is here? What, are you packing, sirrah?\n    Come hither. Ah, you precious pander! Villain,\n    Where is thy lady? In a word, or else\n    Thou art straightway with the fiends.\n  PISANIO. O good my lord!\n  CLOTEN. Where is thy lady? or, by Jupiter-\n    I will not ask again. Close villain,\n    I'll have this secret from thy heart, or rip\n    Thy heart to find it. Is she with Posthumus?\n    From whose so many weights of baseness cannot\n    A dram of worth be drawn.\n  PISANIO. Alas, my lord,\n    How can she be with him? When was she miss'd?\n    He is in Rome.\n  CLOTEN. Where is she, sir? Come nearer.\n    No farther halting! Satisfy me home\n    What is become of her.\n  PISANIO. O my all-worthy lord!\n  CLOTEN. All-worthy villain!\n    Discover where thy mistress is at once,\n    At the next word. No more of 'worthy lord'!\n    Speak, or thy silence on the instant is\n    Thy condemnation and thy death.\n  PISANIO. Then, sir,\n    This paper is the history of my knowledge\n    Touching her flight.                   [Presenting a letter]\n  CLOTEN. Let's see't. I will pursue her\n    Even to Augustus' throne.\n  PISANIO. [Aside] Or this or perish.\n    She's far enough; and what he learns by this\n    May prove his travel, not her danger.\n  CLOTEN. Humh!\n  PISANIO. [Aside] I'll write to my lord she's dead. O Imogen,\n    Safe mayst thou wander, safe return again!\n  CLOTEN. Sirrah, is this letter true?\n  PISANIO. Sir, as I think.\n  CLOTEN. It is Posthumus' hand; I know't. Sirrah, if thou wouldst\n    not be a villain, but do me true service, undergo those\n    employments wherein I should have cause to use thee with a\n    serious industry- that is, what villainy soe'er I bid thee do, to\n    perform it directly and truly- I would think thee an honest man;\n    thou shouldst neither want my means for thy relief nor my voice\n    for thy preferment.\n  PISANIO. Well, my good lord.\n  CLOTEN. Wilt thou serve me? For since patiently and constantly thou\n    hast stuck to the bare fortune of that beggar Posthumus, thou\n    canst not, in the course of gratitude, but be a diligent follower\n    of mine. Wilt thou serve me?\n  PISANIO. Sir, I will.\n  CLOTEN. Give me thy hand; here's my purse. Hast any of thy late\n    master's garments in thy possession?\n  PISANIO. I have, my lord, at my lodging, the same suit he wore when\n    he took leave of my lady and mistress.\n  CLOTEN. The first service thou dost me, fetch that suit hither. Let\n    it be thy first service; go.\n  PISANIO. I shall, my lord.                                Exit\n  CLOTEN. Meet thee at Milford Haven! I forgot to ask him one thing;\n    I'll remember't anon. Even there, thou villain Posthumus, will I\n    kill thee. I would these garments were come. She said upon a\n    time- the bitterness of it I now belch from my heart- that she\n    held the very garment of Posthumus in more respect than my noble\n    and natural person, together with the adornment of my qualities.\n    With that suit upon my back will I ravish her; first kill him,\n    and in her eyes. There shall she see my valour, which will then\n    be a torment to her contempt. He on the ground, my speech of\n    insultment ended on his dead body, and when my lust hath dined-\n    which, as I say, to vex her I will execute in the clothes that\n    she so prais'd- to the court I'll knock her back, foot her home\n    again. She hath despis'd me rejoicingly, and I'll be merry in my\n    revenge.\n\n                Re-enter PISANIO, with the clothes\n\n    Be those the garments?\n  PISANIO. Ay, my noble lord.\n  CLOTEN. How long is't since she went to Milford Haven?\n  PISANIO. She can scarce be there yet.\n  CLOTEN. Bring this apparel to my chamber; that is the second thing\n    that I have commanded thee. The third is that thou wilt be a\n    voluntary mute to my design. Be but duteous and true, preferment\n    shall tender itself to thee. My revenge is now at Milford, would\n    I had wings to follow it! Come, and be true.            Exit\n  PISANIO. Thou bid'st me to my loss; for true to thee\n    Were to prove false, which I will never be,\n    To him that is most true. To Milford go,\n    And find not her whom thou pursuest. Flow, flow,\n    You heavenly blessings, on her! This fool's speed\n    Be cross'd with slowness! Labour be his meed!           Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nWales. Before the cave of BELARIUS\n\nEnter IMOGEN alone, in boy's clothes\n\n  IMOGEN. I see a man's life is a tedious one.\n    I have tir'd myself, and for two nights together\n    Have made the ground my bed. I should be sick\n    But that my resolution helps me. Milford,\n    When from the mountain-top Pisanio show'd thee,\n    Thou wast within a ken. O Jove! I think\n    Foundations fly the wretched; such, I mean,\n    Where they should be reliev'd. Two beggars told me\n    I could not miss my way. Will poor folks lie,\n    That have afflictions on them, knowing 'tis\n    A punishment or trial? Yes; no wonder,\n    When rich ones scarce tell true. To lapse in fulness\n    Is sorer than to lie for need; and falsehood\n    Is worse in kings than beggars. My dear lord!\n    Thou art one o' th' false ones. Now I think on thee\n    My hunger's gone; but even before, I was\n    At point to sink for food. But what is this?\n    Here is a path to't; 'tis some savage hold.\n    I were best not call; I dare not call. Yet famine,\n    Ere clean it o'erthrow nature, makes it valiant.\n    Plenty and peace breeds cowards; hardness ever\n    Of hardiness is mother. Ho! who's here?\n    If anything that's civil, speak; if savage,\n    Take or lend. Ho! No answer? Then I'll enter.\n    Best draw my sword; and if mine enemy\n    But fear the sword, like me, he'll scarcely look on't.\n    Such a foe, good heavens!                 Exit into the cave\n\n            Enter BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS\n\n  BELARIUS. You, Polydore, have prov'd best woodman and\n    Are master of the feast. Cadwal and I\n    Will play the cook and servant; 'tis our match.\n    The sweat of industry would dry and die\n    But for the end it works to. Come, our stomachs\n    Will make what's homely savoury; weariness\n    Can snore upon the flint, when resty sloth\n    Finds the down pillow hard. Now, peace be here,\n    Poor house, that keep'st thyself!\n  GUIDERIUS. I am thoroughly weary.\n  ARVIRAGUS. I am weak with toil, yet strong in appetite.\n  GUIDERIUS. There is cold meat i' th' cave; we'll browse on that\n    Whilst what we have kill'd be cook'd.\n  BELARIUS. [Looking into the cave] Stay, come not in.\n    But that it eats our victuals, I should think\n    Here were a fairy.\n  GUIDERIUS. What's the matter, sir?\n  BELARIUS.. By Jupiter, an angel! or, if not,\n    An earthly paragon! Behold divineness\n    No elder than a boy!\n\n                       Re-enter IMOGEN\n\n  IMOGEN. Good masters, harm me not.\n    Before I enter'd here I call'd, and thought\n    To have begg'd or bought what I have took. Good troth,\n    I have stol'n nought; nor would not though I had found\n    Gold strew'd i' th' floor. Here's money for my meat.\n    I would have left it on the board, so soon\n    As I had made my meal, and parted\n    With pray'rs for the provider.\n  GUIDERIUS. Money, youth?\n  ARVIRAGUS. All gold and silver rather turn to dirt,\n    As 'tis no better reckon'd but of those\n    Who worship dirty gods.\n  IMOGEN. I see you're angry.\n    Know, if you kill me for my fault, I should\n    Have died had I not made it.\n  BELARIUS. Whither bound?\n  IMOGEN. To Milford Haven.\n  BELARIUS. What's your name?\n  IMOGEN. Fidele, sir. I have a kinsman who\n    Is bound for Italy; he embark'd at Milford;\n    To whom being going, almost spent with hunger,\n    I am fall'n in this offence.\n  BELARIUS. Prithee, fair youth,\n    Think us no churls, nor measure our good minds\n    By this rude place we live in. Well encounter'd!\n    'Tis almost night; you shall have better cheer\n    Ere you depart, and thanks to stay and eat it.\n    Boys, bid him welcome.\n  GUIDERIUS. Were you a woman, youth,\n    I should woo hard but be your groom. In honesty\n    I bid for you as I'd buy.\n  ARVIRAGUS. I'll make't my comfort\n    He is a man. I'll love him as my brother;\n    And such a welcome as I'd give to him\n    After long absence, such is yours. Most welcome!\n    Be sprightly, for you fall 'mongst friends.\n  IMOGEN. 'Mongst friends,\n    If brothers. [Aside] Would it had been so that they\n    Had been my father's sons! Then had my prize\n    Been less, and so more equal ballasting\n    To thee, Posthumus.\n  BELARIUS. He wrings at some distress.\n  GUIDERIUS. Would I could free't!\n  ARVIRAGUS. Or I, whate'er it be,\n    What pain it cost, what danger! Gods!\n  BELARIUS. [Whispering] Hark, boys.\n  IMOGEN. [Aside] Great men,\n    That had a court no bigger than this cave,\n    That did attend themselves, and had the virtue\n    Which their own conscience seal'd them, laying by\n    That nothing-gift of differing multitudes,\n    Could not out-peer these twain. Pardon me, gods!\n    I'd change my sex to be companion with them,\n    Since Leonatus' false.\n  BELARIUS. It shall be so.\n    Boys, we'll go dress our hunt. Fair youth, come in.\n    Discourse is heavy, fasting; when we have supp'd,\n    We'll mannerly demand thee of thy story,\n    So far as thou wilt speak it.\n  GUIDERIUS. Pray draw near.\n  ARVIRAGUS. The night to th' owl and morn to th' lark less welcome.\n  IMOGEN. Thanks, sir.\n  ARVIRAGUS. I pray draw near.                            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nRome. A public place\n\nEnter two ROMAN SENATORS and TRIBUNES\n\n  FIRST SENATOR. This is the tenour of the Emperor's writ:\n    That since the common men are now in action\n    'Gainst the Pannonians and Dalmatians,\n    And that the legions now in Gallia are\n    Full weak to undertake our wars against\n    The fall'n-off Britons, that we do incite\n    The gentry to this business. He creates\n    Lucius proconsul; and to you, the tribunes,\n    For this immediate levy, he commands\n    His absolute commission. Long live Caesar!\n  TRIBUNE. Is Lucius general of the forces?\n  SECOND SENATOR. Ay.\n  TRIBUNE. Remaining now in Gallia?\n  FIRST SENATOR. With those legions\n    Which I have spoke of, whereunto your levy\n    Must be supplyant. The words of your commission\n    Will tie you to the numbers and the time\n    Of their dispatch.\n  TRIBUNE. We will discharge our duty.                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nWales. Near the cave of BELARIUS\n\nEnter CLOTEN alone\n\n  CLOTEN. I am near to th' place where they should meet, if Pisanio\n    have mapp'd it truly. How fit his garments serve me! Why should\n    his mistress, who was made by him that made the tailor, not be\n    fit too? The rather- saving reverence of the word- for 'tis said\n    a woman's fitness comes by fits. Therein I must play the workman.\n    I dare speak it to myself, for it is not vain-glory for a man and\n    his glass to confer in his own chamber- I mean, the lines of my\n    body are as well drawn as his; no less young, more strong, not\n    beneath him in fortunes, beyond him in the advantage of the time,\n    above him in birth, alike conversant in general services, and\n    more remarkable in single oppositions. Yet this imperceiverant\n    thing loves him in my despite. What mortality is! Posthumus, thy\n    head, which now is growing upon thy shoulders, shall within this\n    hour be off; thy mistress enforced; thy garments cut to pieces\n    before her face; and all this done, spurn her home to her father,\n    who may, haply, be a little angry for my so rough usage; but my\n    mother, having power of his testiness, shall turn all into my\n    commendations. My horse is tied up safe. Out, sword, and to a\n    sore purpose! Fortune, put them into my hand. This is the very\n    description of their meeting-place; and the fellow dares not\n    deceive me.                                             Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nWales. Before the cave of BELARIUS\n\nEnter, from the cave, BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, ARVIRAGUS, and IMOGEN\n\n  BELARIUS. [To IMOGEN] You are not well. Remain here in the cave;\n    We'll come to you after hunting.\n  ARVIRAGUS. [To IMOGEN] Brother, stay here.\n    Are we not brothers?\n  IMOGEN. So man and man should be;\n    But clay and clay differs in dignity,\n    Whose dust is both alike. I am very sick.\n  GUIDERIUS. Go you to hunting; I'll abide with him.\n  IMOGEN. So sick I am not, yet I am not well;\n    But not so citizen a wanton as\n    To seem to die ere sick. So please you, leave me;\n    Stick to your journal course. The breach of custom\n    Is breach of all. I am ill, but your being by me\n    Cannot amend me; society is no comfort\n    To one not sociable. I am not very sick,\n    Since I can reason of it. Pray you trust me here.\n    I'll rob none but myself; and let me die,\n    Stealing so poorly.\n  GUIDERIUS. I love thee; I have spoke it.\n    How much the quantity, the weight as much\n    As I do love my father.\n  BELARIUS. What? how? how?\n  ARVIRAGUS. If it be sin to say so, sir, I yoke me\n    In my good brother's fault. I know not why\n    I love this youth, and I have heard you say\n    Love's reason's without reason. The bier at door,\n    And a demand who is't shall die, I'd say\n    'My father, not this youth.'\n  BELARIUS. [Aside] O noble strain!\n    O worthiness of nature! breed of greatness!\n    Cowards father cowards and base things sire base.\n    Nature hath meal and bran, contempt and grace.\n    I'm not their father; yet who this should be\n    Doth miracle itself, lov'd before me.-\n    'Tis the ninth hour o' th' morn.\n  ARVIRAGUS. Brother, farewell.\n  IMOGEN. I wish ye sport.\n  ARVIRAGUS. Your health. [To BELARIUS] So please you, sir.\n  IMOGEN. [Aside] These are kind creatures. Gods, what lies I have\n      heard!\n    Our courtiers say all's savage but at court.\n    Experience, O, thou disprov'st report!\n    Th' imperious seas breed monsters; for the dish,\n    Poor tributary rivers as sweet fish.\n    I am sick still; heart-sick. Pisanio,\n    I'll now taste of thy drug.                  [Swallows some]\n  GUIDERIUS. I could not stir him.\n    He said he was gentle, but unfortunate;\n    Dishonestly afflicted, but yet honest.\n  ARVIRAGUS. Thus did he answer me; yet said hereafter\n    I might know more.\n  BELARIUS. To th' field, to th' field!\n    We'll leave you for this time. Go in and rest.\n  ARVIRAGUS. We'll not be long away.\n  BELARIUS. Pray be not sick,\n    For you must be our huswife.\n  IMOGEN. Well, or ill,\n    I am bound to you.\n  BELARIUS. And shalt be ever.         Exit IMOGEN into the cave\n    This youth, howe'er distress'd, appears he hath had\n    Good ancestors.\n  ARVIRAGUS. How angel-like he sings!\n  GUIDERIUS. But his neat cookery! He cut our roots in characters,\n    And sauc'd our broths as Juno had been sick,\n    And he her dieter.\n  ARVIRAGUS. Nobly he yokes\n    A smiling with a sigh, as if the sigh\n    Was that it was for not being such a smile;\n    The smile mocking the sigh that it would fly\n    From so divine a temple to commix\n    With winds that sailors rail at.\n  GUIDERIUS. I do note\n    That grief and patience, rooted in him both,\n    Mingle their spurs together.\n  ARVIRAGUS. Grow patience!\n    And let the stinking elder, grief, untwine\n    His perishing root with the increasing vine!\n  BELARIUS. It is great morning. Come, away! Who's there?\n\n                      Enter CLOTEN\n\n  CLOTEN. I cannot find those runagates; that villain\n    Hath mock'd me. I am faint.\n  BELARIUS. Those runagates?\n    Means he not us? I partly know him; 'tis\n    Cloten, the son o' th' Queen. I fear some ambush.\n    I saw him not these many years, and yet\n    I know 'tis he. We are held as outlaws. Hence!\n  GUIDERIUS. He is but one; you and my brother search\n    What companies are near. Pray you away;\n    Let me alone with him.         Exeunt BELARIUS and ARVIRAGUS\n  CLOTEN. Soft! What are you\n    That fly me thus? Some villain mountaineers?\n    I have heard of such. What slave art thou?\n  GUIDERIUS. A thing\n    More slavish did I ne'er than answering\n    'A slave' without a knock.\n  CLOTEN. Thou art a robber,\n    A law-breaker, a villain. Yield thee, thief.\n  GUIDERIUS. To who? To thee? What art thou? Have not I\n    An arm as big as thine, a heart as big?\n    Thy words, I grant, are bigger, for I wear not\n    My dagger in my mouth. Say what thou art;\n    Why I should yield to thee.\n  CLOTEN. Thou villain base,\n    Know'st me not by my clothes?\n  GUIDERIUS. No, nor thy tailor, rascal,\n    Who is thy grandfather; he made those clothes,\n    Which, as it seems, make thee.\n  CLOTEN. Thou precious varlet,\n    My tailor made them not.\n  GUIDERIUS. Hence, then, and thank\n    The man that gave them thee. Thou art some fool;\n    I am loath to beat thee.\n  CLOTEN. Thou injurious thief,\n    Hear but my name, and tremble.\n  GUIDERIUS. What's thy name?\n  CLOTEN. Cloten, thou villain.\n  GUIDERIUS. Cloten, thou double villain, be thy name,\n    I cannot tremble at it. Were it toad, or adder, spider,\n    'Twould move me sooner.\n  CLOTEN. To thy further fear,\n    Nay, to thy mere confusion, thou shalt know\n    I am son to th' Queen.\n  GUIDERIUS. I'm sorry for't; not seeming\n    So worthy as thy birth.\n  CLOTEN. Art not afeard?\n  GUIDERIUS. Those that I reverence, those I fear- the wise:\n    At fools I laugh, not fear them.\n  CLOTEN. Die the death.\n    When I have slain thee with my proper hand,\n    I'll follow those that even now fled hence,\n    And on the gates of Lud's Town set your heads.\n    Yield, rustic mountaineer.                  Exeunt, fighting\n\n                Re-enter BELARIUS and ARVIRAGUS\n\n  BELARIUS. No company's abroad.\n  ARVIRAGUS. None in the world; you did mistake him, sure.\n  BELARIUS. I cannot tell; long is it since I saw him,\n    But time hath nothing blurr'd those lines of favour\n    Which then he wore; the snatches in his voice,\n    And burst of speaking, were as his. I am absolute\n    'Twas very Cloten.\n  ARVIRAGUS. In this place we left them.\n    I wish my brother make good time with him,\n    You say he is so fell.\n  BELARIUS. Being scarce made up,\n    I mean to man, he had not apprehension\n    Or roaring terrors; for defect of judgment\n    Is oft the cease of fear.\n\n              Re-enter GUIDERIUS with CLOTEN'S head\n\n    But, see, thy brother.\n  GUIDERIUS. This Cloten was a fool, an empty purse;\n    There was no money in't. Not Hercules\n    Could have knock'd out his brains, for he had none;\n    Yet I not doing this, the fool had borne\n    My head as I do his.\n  BELARIUS. What hast thou done?\n  GUIDERIUS. I am perfect what: cut off one Cloten's head,\n    Son to the Queen, after his own report;\n    Who call'd me traitor, mountaineer, and swore\n    With his own single hand he'd take us in,\n    Displace our heads where- thank the gods!- they grow,\n    And set them on Lud's Town.\n  BELARIUS. We are all undone.\n  GUIDERIUS. Why, worthy father, what have we to lose\n    But that he swore to take, our lives? The law\n    Protects not us; then why should we be tender\n    To let an arrogant piece of flesh threat us,\n    Play judge and executioner all himself,\n    For we do fear the law? What company\n    Discover you abroad?\n  BELARIUS. No single soul\n    Can we set eye on, but in an safe reason\n    He must have some attendants. Though his humour\n    Was nothing but mutation- ay, and that\n    From one bad thing to worse- not frenzy, not\n    Absolute madness could so far have rav'd,\n    To bring him here alone. Although perhaps\n    It may be heard at court that such as we\n    Cave here, hunt here, are outlaws, and in time\n    May make some stronger head- the which he hearing,\n    As it is like him, might break out and swear\n    He'd fetch us in; yet is't not probable\n    To come alone, either he so undertaking\n    Or they so suffering. Then on good ground we fear,\n    If we do fear this body hath a tail\n    More perilous than the head.\n  ARVIRAGUS. Let ordinance\n    Come as the gods foresay it. Howsoe'er,\n    My brother hath done well.\n  BELARIUS. I had no mind\n    To hunt this day; the boy Fidele's sickness\n    Did make my way long forth.\n  GUIDERIUS. With his own sword,\n    Which he did wave against my throat, I have ta'en\n    His head from him. I'll throw't into the creek\n    Behind our rock, and let it to the sea\n    And tell the fishes he's the Queen's son, Cloten.\n    That's all I reck.                                      Exit\n  BELARIUS. I fear'twill be reveng'd.\n    Would, Polydore, thou hadst not done't! though valour\n    Becomes thee well enough.\n  ARVIRAGUS. Would I had done't,\n    So the revenge alone pursu'd me! Polydore,\n    I love thee brotherly, but envy much\n    Thou hast robb'd me of this deed. I would revenges,\n    That possible strength might meet, would seek us through,\n    And put us to our answer.\n  BELARIUS. Well, 'tis done.\n    We'll hunt no more to-day, nor seek for danger\n    Where there's no profit. I prithee to our rock.\n    You and Fidele play the cooks; I'll stay\n    Till hasty Polydore return, and bring him\n    To dinner presently.\n  ARVIRAGUS. Poor sick Fidele!\n    I'll willingly to him; to gain his colour\n    I'd let a parish of such Cloten's blood,\n    And praise myself for charity.                          Exit\n  BELARIUS. O thou goddess,\n    Thou divine Nature, thou thyself thou blazon'st\n    In these two princely boys! They are as gentle\n    As zephyrs blowing below the violet,\n    Not wagging his sweet head; and yet as rough,\n    Their royal blood enchaf'd, as the rud'st wind\n    That by the top doth take the mountain pine\n    And make him stoop to th' vale. 'Tis wonder\n    That an invisible instinct should frame them\n    To royalty unlearn'd, honour untaught,\n    Civility not seen from other, valour\n    That wildly grows in them, but yields a crop\n    As if it had been sow'd. Yet still it's strange\n    What Cloten's being here to us portends,\n    Or what his death will bring us.\n\n                    Re-enter GUIDERIUS\n\n  GUIDERIUS. Where's my brother?\n    I have sent Cloten's clotpoll down the stream,\n    In embassy to his mother; his body's hostage\n    For his return.                               [Solemn music]\n  BELARIUS. My ingenious instrument!\n    Hark, Polydore, it sounds. But what occasion\n    Hath Cadwal now to give it motion? Hark!\n  GUIDERIUS. Is he at home?\n  BELARIUS. He went hence even now.\n  GUIDERIUS. What does he mean? Since death of my dear'st mother\n    It did not speak before. All solemn things\n    Should answer solemn accidents. The matter?\n    Triumphs for nothing and lamenting toys\n    Is jollity for apes and grief for boys.\n    Is Cadwal mad?\n\n       Re-enter ARVIRAGUS, with IMOGEN as dead, bearing\n                         her in his arms\n\n  BELARIUS. Look, here he comes,\n    And brings the dire occasion in his arms\n    Of what we blame him for!\n  ARVIRAGUS. The bird is dead\n    That we have made so much on. I had rather\n    Have skipp'd from sixteen years of age to sixty,\n    To have turn'd my leaping time into a crutch,\n    Than have seen this.\n  GUIDERIUS. O sweetest, fairest lily!\n    My brother wears thee not the one half so well\n    As when thou grew'st thyself.\n  BELARIUS. O melancholy!\n    Who ever yet could sound thy bottom? find\n    The ooze to show what coast thy sluggish crare\n    Might'st easiliest harbour in? Thou blessed thing!\n    Jove knows what man thou mightst have made; but I,\n    Thou diedst, a most rare boy, of melancholy.\n    How found you him?\n  ARVIRAGUS. Stark, as you see;\n    Thus smiling, as some fly had tickled slumber,\n    Not as death's dart, being laugh'd at; his right cheek\n    Reposing on a cushion.\n  GUIDERIUS. Where?\n  ARVIRAGUS. O' th' floor;\n    His arms thus leagu'd. I thought he slept, and put\n    My clouted brogues from off my feet, whose rudeness\n    Answer'd my steps too loud.\n  GUIDERIUS. Why, he but sleeps.\n    If he be gone he'll make his grave a bed;\n    With female fairies will his tomb be haunted,\n    And worms will not come to thee.\n  ARVIRAGUS. With fairest flowers,\n    Whilst summer lasts and I live here, Fidele,\n    I'll sweeten thy sad grave. Thou shalt not lack\n    The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose; nor\n    The azur'd hare-bell, like thy veins; no, nor\n    The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander,\n    Out-sweet'ned not thy breath. The ruddock would,\n    With charitable bill- O bill, sore shaming\n    Those rich-left heirs that let their fathers lie\n    Without a monument!- bring thee all this;\n    Yea, and furr'd moss besides, when flow'rs are none,\n    To winter-ground thy corse-\n  GUIDERIUS. Prithee have done,\n    And do not play in wench-like words with that\n    Which is so serious. Let us bury him,\n    And not protract with admiration what\n    Is now due debt. To th' grave.\n  ARVIRAGUS. Say, where shall's lay him?\n  GUIDERIUS. By good Euriphile, our mother.\n  ARVIRAGUS. Be't so;\n    And let us, Polydore, though now our voices\n    Have got the mannish crack, sing him to th' ground,\n    As once to our mother; use like note and words,\n    Save that Euriphile must be Fidele.\n  GUIDERIUS. Cadwal,\n    I cannot sing. I'll weep, and word it with thee;\n    For notes of sorrow out of tune are worse\n    Than priests and fanes that lie.\n  ARVIRAGUS. We'll speak it, then.\n  BELARIUS. Great griefs, I see, med'cine the less, for Cloten\n    Is quite forgot. He was a queen's son, boys;\n    And though he came our enemy, remember\n    He was paid for that. Though mean and mighty rotting\n    Together have one dust, yet reverence-\n    That angel of the world- doth make distinction\n    Of place 'tween high and low. Our foe was princely;\n    And though you took his life, as being our foe,\n    Yet bury him as a prince.\n  GUIDERIUS. Pray you fetch him hither.\n    Thersites' body is as good as Ajax',\n    When neither are alive.\n  ARVIRAGUS. If you'll go fetch him,\n    We'll say our song the whilst. Brother, begin.\n                                                   Exit BELARIUS\n  GUIDERIUS. Nay, Cadwal, we must lay his head to th' East;\n    My father hath a reason for't.\n  ARVIRAGUS. 'Tis true.\n  GUIDERIUS. Come on, then, and remove him.\n  ARVIRAGUS. So. Begin.\n\n                      SONG\n\n  GUIDERIUS. Fear no more the heat o' th' sun\n               Nor the furious winter's rages;\n             Thou thy worldly task hast done,\n               Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages.\n             Golden lads and girls all must,\n             As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.\n\n  ARVIRAGUS. Fear no more the frown o' th' great;\n               Thou art past the tyrant's stroke.\n             Care no more to clothe and eat;\n               To thee the reed is as the oak.\n             The sceptre, learning, physic, must\n             All follow this and come to dust.\n\n  GUIDERIUS. Fear no more the lightning flash,\n  ARVIRAGUS.   Nor th' all-dreaded thunder-stone;\n  GUIDERIUS. Fear not slander, censure rash;\n  ARVIRAGUS.   Thou hast finish'd joy and moan.\n  BOTH.      All lovers young, all lovers must\n             Consign to thee and come to dust.\n\n  GUIDERIUS. No exorciser harm thee!\n  ARVIRAGUS. Nor no witchcraft charm thee!\n  GUIDERIUS. Ghost unlaid forbear thee!\n  ARVIRAGUS. Nothing ill come near thee!\n  BOTH.      Quiet consummation have,\n             And renowned be thy grave!\n\n         Re-enter BELARIUS with the body of CLOTEN\n\n  GUIDERIUS. We have done our obsequies. Come, lay him down.\n  BELARIUS. Here's a few flowers; but 'bout midnight, more.\n    The herbs that have on them cold dew o' th' night\n    Are strewings fit'st for graves. Upon their faces.\n    You were as flow'rs, now wither'd. Even so\n    These herblets shall which we upon you strew.\n    Come on, away. Apart upon our knees.\n    The ground that gave them first has them again.\n    Their pleasures here are past, so is their pain.\n                                           Exeunt all but IMOGEN\n  IMOGEN. [Awaking] Yes, sir, to Milford Haven. Which is the way?\n    I thank you. By yond bush? Pray, how far thither?\n    'Ods pittikins! can it be six mile yet?\n    I have gone all night. Faith, I'll lie down and sleep.\n    But, soft! no bedfellow. O gods and goddesses!\n                                               [Seeing the body]\n    These flow'rs are like the pleasures of the world;\n    This bloody man, the care on't. I hope I dream;\n    For so I thought I was a cave-keeper,\n    And cook to honest creatures. But 'tis not so;\n    'Twas but a bolt of nothing, shot at nothing,\n    Which the brain makes of fumes. Our very eyes\n    Are sometimes, like our judgments, blind. Good faith,\n    I tremble still with fear; but if there be\n    Yet left in heaven as small a drop of pity\n    As a wren's eye, fear'd gods, a part of it!\n    The dream's here still. Even when I wake it is\n    Without me, as within me; not imagin'd, felt.\n    A headless man? The garments of Posthumus?\n    I know the shape of's leg; this is his hand,\n    His foot Mercurial, his Martial thigh,\n    The brawns of Hercules; but his Jovial face-\n    Murder in heaven! How! 'Tis gone. Pisanio,\n    All curses madded Hecuba gave the Greeks,\n    And mine to boot, be darted on thee! Thou,\n    Conspir'd with that irregulous devil, Cloten,\n    Hath here cut off my lord. To write and read\n    Be henceforth treacherous! Damn'd Pisanio\n    Hath with his forged letters- damn'd Pisanio-\n    From this most bravest vessel of the world\n    Struck the main-top. O Posthumus! alas,\n    Where is thy head? Where's that? Ay me! where's that?\n    Pisanio might have kill'd thee at the heart,\n    And left this head on. How should this be? Pisanio?\n    'Tis he and Cloten; malice and lucre in them\n    Have laid this woe here. O, 'tis pregnant, pregnant!\n    The drug he gave me, which he said was precious\n    And cordial to me, have I not found it\n    Murd'rous to th' senses? That confirms it home.\n    This is Pisanio's deed, and Cloten. O!\n    Give colour to my pale cheek with thy blood,\n    That we the horrider may seem to those\n    Which chance to find us. O, my lord, my lord!\n                                    [Falls fainting on the body]\n\n           Enter LUCIUS, CAPTAINS, and a SOOTHSAYER\n\n  CAPTAIN. To them the legions garrison'd in Gallia,\n    After your will, have cross'd the sea, attending\n    You here at Milford Haven; with your ships,\n    They are in readiness.\n  LUCIUS. But what from Rome?\n  CAPTAIN. The Senate hath stirr'd up the confiners\n    And gentlemen of Italy, most willing spirits,\n    That promise noble service; and they come\n    Under the conduct of bold Iachimo,\n    Sienna's brother.\n  LUCIUS. When expect you them?\n  CAPTAIN. With the next benefit o' th' wind.\n  LUCIUS. This forwardness\n    Makes our hopes fair. Command our present numbers\n    Be muster'd; bid the captains look to't. Now, sir,\n    What have you dream'd of late of this war's purpose?\n  SOOTHSAYER. Last night the very gods show'd me a vision-\n    I fast and pray'd for their intelligence- thus:\n    I saw Jove's bird, the Roman eagle, wing'd\n    From the spongy south to this part of the west,\n    There vanish'd in the sunbeams; which portends,\n    Unless my sins abuse my divination,\n    Success to th' Roman host.\n  LUCIUS. Dream often so,\n    And never false. Soft, ho! what trunk is here\n    Without his top? The ruin speaks that sometime\n    It was a worthy building. How? a page?\n    Or dead or sleeping on him? But dead, rather;\n    For nature doth abhor to make his bed\n    With the defunct, or sleep upon the dead.\n    Let's see the boy's face.\n  CAPTAIN. He's alive, my lord.\n  LUCIUS. He'll then instruct us of this body. Young one,\n    Inform us of thy fortunes; for it seems\n    They crave to be demanded. Who is this\n    Thou mak'st thy bloody pillow? Or who was he\n    That, otherwise than noble nature did,\n    Hath alter'd that good picture? What's thy interest\n    In this sad wreck? How came't? Who is't? What art thou?\n  IMOGEN. I am nothing; or if not,\n    Nothing to be were better. This was my master,\n    A very valiant Briton and a good,\n    That here by mountaineers lies slain. Alas!\n    There is no more such masters. I may wander\n    From east to occident; cry out for service;\n    Try many, all good; serve truly; never\n    Find such another master.\n  LUCIUS. 'Lack, good youth!\n    Thou mov'st no less with thy complaining than\n    Thy master in bleeding. Say his name, good friend.\n  IMOGEN. Richard du Champ. [Aside] If I do lie, and do\n    No harm by it, though the gods hear, I hope\n    They'll pardon it.- Say you, sir?\n  LUCIUS. Thy name?\n  IMOGEN. Fidele, sir.\n  LUCIUS. Thou dost approve thyself the very same;\n    Thy name well fits thy faith, thy faith thy name.\n    Wilt take thy chance with me? I will not say\n    Thou shalt be so well master'd; but, be sure,\n    No less belov'd. The Roman Emperor's letters,\n    Sent by a consul to me, should not sooner\n    Than thine own worth prefer thee. Go with me.\n  IMOGEN. I'll follow, sir. But first, an't please the gods,\n    I'll hide my master from the flies, as deep\n    As these poor pickaxes can dig; and when\n    With wild wood-leaves and weeds I ha' strew'd his grave,\n    And on it said a century of prayers,\n    Such as I can, twice o'er, I'll weep and sigh;\n    And leaving so his service, follow you,\n    So please you entertain me.\n  LUCIUS. Ay, good youth;\n    And rather father thee than master thee.\n    My friends,\n    The boy hath taught us manly duties; let us\n    Find out the prettiest daisied plot we can,\n    And make him with our pikes and partisans\n    A grave. Come, arm him. Boy, he is preferr'd\n    By thee to us; and he shall be interr'd\n    As soldiers can. Be cheerful; wipe thine eyes.\n    Some falls are means the happier to arise.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nBritain. CYMBELINE'S palace\n\nEnter CYMBELINE, LORDS, PISANIO, and attendants\n\n  CYMBELINE. Again! and bring me word how 'tis with her.\n                                               Exit an attendant\n    A fever with the absence of her son;\n    A madness, of which her life's in danger. Heavens,\n    How deeply you at once do touch me! Imogen,\n    The great part of my comfort, gone; my queen\n    Upon a desperate bed, and in a time\n    When fearful wars point at me; her son gone,\n    So needful for this present. It strikes me past\n    The hope of comfort. But for thee, fellow,\n    Who needs must know of her departure and\n    Dost seem so ignorant, we'll enforce it from thee\n    By a sharp torture.\n  PISANIO. Sir, my life is yours;\n    I humbly set it at your will; but for my mistress,\n    I nothing know where she remains, why gone,\n    Nor when she purposes return. Beseech your Highness,\n    Hold me your loyal servant.\n  LORD. Good my liege,\n    The day that she was missing he was here.\n    I dare be bound he's true and shall perform\n    All parts of his subjection loyally. For Cloten,\n    There wants no diligence in seeking him,\n    And will no doubt be found.\n  CYMBELINE. The time is troublesome.\n    [To PISANIO] We'll slip you for a season; but our jealousy\n    Does yet depend.\n  LORD. So please your Majesty,\n    The Roman legions, all from Gallia drawn,\n    Are landed on your coast, with a supply\n    Of Roman gentlemen by the Senate sent.\n  CYMBELINE. Now for the counsel of my son and queen!\n    I am amaz'd with matter.\n  LORD. Good my liege,\n    Your preparation can affront no less\n    Than what you hear of. Come more, for more you're ready.\n    The want is but to put those pow'rs in motion\n    That long to move.\n  CYMBELINE. I thank you. Let's withdraw,\n    And meet the time as it seeks us. We fear not\n    What can from Italy annoy us; but\n    We grieve at chances here. Away!      Exeunt all but PISANIO\n  PISANIO. I heard no letter from my master since\n    I wrote him Imogen was slain. 'Tis strange.\n    Nor hear I from my mistress, who did promise\n    To yield me often tidings. Neither know\n    What is betid to Cloten, but remain\n    Perplex'd in all. The heavens still must work.\n    Wherein I am false I am honest; not true, to be true.\n    These present wars shall find I love my country,\n    Even to the note o' th' King, or I'll fall in them.\n    All other doubts, by time let them be clear'd:\n    Fortune brings in some boats that are not steer'd.      Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nWales. Before the cave of BELARIUS\n\nEnter BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS\n\n  GUIDERIUS. The noise is round about us.\n  BELARIUS. Let us from it.\n  ARVIRAGUS. What pleasure, sir, find we in life, to lock it\n    From action and adventure?\n  GUIDERIUS. Nay, what hope\n    Have we in hiding us? This way the Romans\n    Must or for Britons slay us, or receive us\n    For barbarous and unnatural revolts\n    During their use, and slay us after.\n  BELARIUS. Sons,\n    We'll higher to the mountains; there secure us.\n    To the King's party there's no going. Newness\n    Of Cloten's death- we being not known, not muster'd\n    Among the bands-may drive us to a render\n    Where we have liv'd, and so extort from's that\n    Which we have done, whose answer would be death,\n    Drawn on with torture.\n  GUIDERIUS. This is, sir, a doubt\n    In such a time nothing becoming you\n    Nor satisfying us.\n  ARVIRAGUS. It is not likely\n    That when they hear the Roman horses neigh,\n    Behold their quarter'd fires, have both their eyes\n    And ears so cloy'd importantly as now,\n    That they will waste their time upon our note,\n    To know from whence we are.\n  BELARIUS. O, I am known\n    Of many in the army. Many years,\n    Though Cloten then but young, you see, not wore him\n    From my remembrance. And, besides, the King\n    Hath not deserv'd my service nor your loves,\n    Who find in my exile the want of breeding,\n    The certainty of this hard life; aye hopeless\n    To have the courtesy your cradle promis'd,\n    But to be still hot summer's tanlings and\n    The shrinking slaves of winter.\n  GUIDERIUS. Than be so,\n    Better to cease to be. Pray, sir, to th' army.\n    I and my brother are not known; yourself\n    So out of thought, and thereto so o'ergrown,\n    Cannot be questioned.\n  ARVIRAGUS. By this sun that shines,\n    I'll thither. What thing is't that I never\n    Did see man die! scarce ever look'd on blood\n    But that of coward hares, hot goats, and venison!\n    Never bestrid a horse, save one that had\n    A rider like myself, who ne'er wore rowel\n    Nor iron on his heel! I am asham'd\n    To look upon the holy sun, to have\n    The benefit of his blest beams, remaining\n    So long a poor unknown.\n  GUIDERIUS. By heavens, I'll go!\n    If you will bless me, sir, and give me leave,\n    I'll take the better care; but if you will not,\n    The hazard therefore due fall on me by\n    The hands of Romans!\n  ARVIRAGUS. So say I. Amen.\n  BELARIUS. No reason I, since of your lives you set\n    So slight a valuation, should reserve\n    My crack'd one to more care. Have with you, boys!\n    If in your country wars you chance to die,\n    That is my bed too, lads, and there I'll lie.\n    Lead, lead. [Aside] The time seems long; their blood thinks scorn\n    Till it fly out and show them princes born.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nBritain. The Roman camp\n\nEnter POSTHUMUS alone, with a bloody handkerchief\n\n  POSTHUMUS. Yea, bloody cloth, I'll keep thee; for I wish'd\n    Thou shouldst be colour'd thus. You married ones,\n    If each of you should take this course, how many\n    Must murder wives much better than themselves\n    For wrying but a little! O Pisanio!\n    Every good servant does not all commands;\n    No bond but to do just ones. Gods! if you\n    Should have ta'en vengeance on my faults, I never\n    Had liv'd to put on this; so had you saved\n    The noble Imogen to repent, and struck\n    Me, wretch more worth your vengeance. But alack,\n    You snatch some hence for little faults; that's love,\n    To have them fall no more. You some permit\n    To second ills with ills, each elder worse,\n    And make them dread it, to the doer's thrift.\n    But Imogen is your own. Do your best wills,\n    And make me blest to obey. I am brought hither\n    Among th' Italian gentry, and to fight\n    Against my lady's kingdom. 'Tis enough\n    That, Britain, I have kill'd thy mistress; peace!\n    I'll give no wound to thee. Therefore, good heavens,\n    Hear patiently my purpose. I'll disrobe me\n    Of these Italian weeds, and suit myself\n    As does a Britain peasant. So I'll fight\n    Against the part I come with; so I'll die\n    For thee, O Imogen, even for whom my life\n    Is every breath a death. And thus unknown,\n    Pitied nor hated, to the face of peril\n    Myself I'll dedicate. Let me make men know\n    More valour in me than my habits show.\n    Gods, put the strength o' th' Leonati in me!\n    To shame the guise o' th' world, I will begin\n    The fashion- less without and more within.              Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBritain. A field of battle between the British and Roman camps\n\nEnter LUCIUS, IACHIMO, and the Roman army at one door, and the British army\nat another, LEONATUS POSTHUMUS following like a poor soldier.\nThey march over and go out.  Alarums.  Then enter again, in skirmish,\nIACHIMO and POSTHUMUS.  He vanquisheth and disarmeth IACHIMO,\nand then leaves him\n\n  IACHIMO. The heaviness and guilt within my bosom\n    Takes off my manhood. I have belied a lady,\n    The Princess of this country, and the air on't\n    Revengingly enfeebles me; or could this carl,\n    A very drudge of nature's, have subdu'd me\n    In my profession? Knighthoods and honours borne\n    As I wear mine are titles but of scorn.\n    If that thy gentry, Britain, go before\n    This lout as he exceeds our lords, the odds\n    Is that we scarce are men, and you are gods.            Exit\n\n    The battle continues; the BRITONS fly; CYMBELINE is taken.\n    Then enter to his rescue BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS\n\n  BELARIUS. Stand, stand! We have th' advantage of the ground;\n    The lane is guarded; nothing routs us but\n    The villainy of our fears.\n  GUIDERIUS and ARVIRAGUS. Stand, stand, and fight!\n\n    Re-enter POSTHUMUS, and seconds the Britons; they rescue\n    CYMBELINE, and exeunt. Then re-enter LUCIUS and IACHIMO,\n                         with IMOGEN\n\n  LUCIUS. Away, boy, from the troops, and save thyself;\n    For friends kill friends, and the disorder's such\n    As war were hoodwink'd.\n  IACHIMO. 'Tis their fresh supplies.\n  LUCIUS. It is a day turn'd strangely. Or betimes\n    Let's reinforce or fly.                               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nAnother part of the field\n\nEnter POSTHUMUS and a Britain LORD\n\n  LORD. Cam'st thou from where they made the stand?\n  POSTHUMUS. I did:\n    Though you, it seems, come from the fliers.\n  LORD. I did.\n  POSTHUMUS. No blame be to you, sir, for all was lost,\n    But that the heavens fought. The King himself\n    Of his wings destitute, the army broken,\n    And but the backs of Britons seen, an flying,\n    Through a strait lane- the enemy, full-hearted,\n    Lolling the tongue with slaught'ring, having work\n    More plentiful than tools to do't, struck down\n    Some mortally, some slightly touch'd, some falling\n    Merely through fear, that the strait pass was damm'd\n    With dead men hurt behind, and cowards living\n    To die with length'ned shame.\n  LORD. Where was this lane?\n  POSTHUMUS. Close by the battle, ditch'd, and wall'd with turf,\n    Which gave advantage to an ancient soldier-\n    An honest one, I warrant, who deserv'd\n    So long a breeding as his white beard came to,\n    In doing this for's country. Athwart the lane\n    He, with two striplings- lads more like to run\n    The country base than to commit such slaughter;\n    With faces fit for masks, or rather fairer\n    Than those for preservation cas'd or shame-\n    Made good the passage, cried to those that fled\n    'Our Britain's harts die flying, not our men.\n    To darkness fleet souls that fly backwards! Stand;\n    Or we are Romans and will give you that,\n    Like beasts, which you shun beastly, and may save\n    But to look back in frown. Stand, stand!' These three,\n    Three thousand confident, in act as many-\n    For three performers are the file when all\n    The rest do nothing- with this word 'Stand, stand!'\n    Accommodated by the place, more charming\n    With their own nobleness, which could have turn'd\n    A distaff to a lance, gilded pale looks,\n    Part shame, part spirit renew'd; that some turn'd coward\n    But by example- O, a sin in war\n    Damn'd in the first beginners!- gan to look\n    The way that they did and to grin like lions\n    Upon the pikes o' th' hunters. Then began\n    A stop i' th' chaser, a retire; anon\n    A rout, confusion thick. Forthwith they fly,\n    Chickens, the way which they stoop'd eagles; slaves,\n    The strides they victors made; and now our cowards,\n    Like fragments in hard voyages, became\n    The life o' th' need. Having found the back-door open\n    Of the unguarded hearts, heavens, how they wound!\n    Some slain before, some dying, some their friends\n    O'erborne i' th' former wave. Ten chas'd by one\n    Are now each one the slaughterman of twenty.\n    Those that would die or ere resist are grown\n    The mortal bugs o' th' field.\n  LORD. This was strange chance:\n    A narrow lane, an old man, and two boys.\n  POSTHUMUS. Nay, do not wonder at it; you are made\n    Rather to wonder at the things you hear\n    Than to work any. Will you rhyme upon't,\n    And vent it for a mock'ry? Here is one:\n    'Two boys, an old man (twice a boy), a lane,\n    Preserv'd the Britons, was the Romans' bane.'\n  LORD. Nay, be not angry, sir.\n  POSTHUMUS. 'Lack, to what end?\n    Who dares not stand his foe I'll be his friend;\n    For if he'll do as he is made to do,\n    I know he'll quickly fly my friendship too.\n    You have put me into rhyme.\n  LORD. Farewell; you're angry.                             Exit\n  POSTHUMUS. Still going? This is a lord! O noble misery,\n    To be i' th' field and ask 'What news?' of me!\n    To-day how many would have given their honours\n    To have sav'd their carcasses! took heel to do't,\n    And yet died too! I, in mine own woe charm'd,\n    Could not find death where I did hear him groan,\n    Nor feel him where he struck. Being an ugly monster,\n    'Tis strange he hides him in fresh cups, soft beds,\n    Sweet words; or hath moe ministers than we\n    That draw his knives i' th' war. Well, I will find him;\n    For being now a favourer to the Briton,\n    No more a Briton, I have resum'd again\n    The part I came in. Fight I will no more,\n    But yield me to the veriest hind that shall\n    Once touch my shoulder. Great the slaughter is\n    Here made by th' Roman; great the answer be\n    Britons must take. For me, my ransom's death;\n    On either side I come to spend my breath,\n    Which neither here I'll keep nor bear again,\n    But end it by some means for Imogen.\n\n            Enter two BRITISH CAPTAINS and soldiers\n\n  FIRST CAPTAIN. Great Jupiter be prais'd! Lucius is taken.\n    'Tis thought the old man and his sons were angels.\n  SECOND CAPTAIN. There was a fourth man, in a silly habit,\n    That gave th' affront with them.\n  FIRST CAPTAIN. So 'tis reported;\n    But none of 'em can be found. Stand! who's there?\n  POSTHUMUS. A Roman,\n    Who had not now been drooping here if seconds\n    Had answer'd him.\n  SECOND CAPTAIN. Lay hands on him; a dog!\n    A leg of Rome shall not return to tell\n    What crows have peck'd them here. He brags his service,\n    As if he were of note. Bring him to th' King.\n\n   Enter CYMBELINE, BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, ARVIRAGUS, PISANIO, and Roman\n   captives. The CAPTAINS present POSTHUMUS to CYMBELINE, who delivers\n            him over to a gaoler. Exeunt omnes\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nBritain. A prison\n\nEnter POSTHUMUS and two GAOLERS\n\n  FIRST GAOLER. You shall not now be stol'n, you have locks upon you;\n    So graze as you find pasture.\n  SECOND GAOLER. Ay, or a stomach.                Exeunt GAOLERS\n  POSTHUMUS. Most welcome, bondage! for thou art a way,\n    I think, to liberty. Yet am I better\n    Than one that's sick o' th' gout, since he had rather\n    Groan so in perpetuity than be cur'd\n    By th' sure physician death, who is the key\n    T' unbar these locks. My conscience, thou art fetter'd\n    More than my shanks and wrists; you good gods, give me\n    The penitent instrument to pick that bolt,\n    Then, free for ever! Is't enough I am sorry?\n    So children temporal fathers do appease;\n    Gods are more full of mercy. Must I repent,\n    I cannot do it better than in gyves,\n    Desir'd more than constrain'd. To satisfy,\n    If of my freedom 'tis the main part, take\n    No stricter render of me than my all.\n    I know you are more clement than vile men,\n    Who of their broken debtors take a third,\n    A sixth, a tenth, letting them thrive again\n    On their abatement; that's not my desire.\n    For Imogen's dear life take mine; and though\n    'Tis not so dear, yet 'tis a life; you coin'd it.\n    'Tween man and man they weigh not every stamp;\n    Though light, take pieces for the figure's sake;\n    You rather mine, being yours. And so, great pow'rs,\n    If you will take this audit, take this life,\n    And cancel these cold bonds. O Imogen!\n    I'll speak to thee in silence.                      [Sleeps]\n\n        Solemn music. Enter, as in an apparition, SICILIUS\n        LEONATUS, father to POSTHUMUS, an old man attired\n         like a warrior; leading in his hand an ancient\n          matron, his WIFE, and mother to POSTHUMUS, with\n        music before them. Then, after other music, follows\n           the two young LEONATI, brothers to POSTHUMUS,\n              with wounds, as they died in the wars.\n          They circle POSTHUMUS round as he lies sleeping\n\n  SICILIUS. No more, thou thunder-master, show\n              Thy spite on mortal flies.\n            With Mars fall out, with Juno chide,\n              That thy adulteries\n                Rates and revenges.\n            Hath my poor boy done aught but well,\n              Whose face I never saw?\n            I died whilst in the womb he stay'd\n              Attending nature's law;\n            Whose father then, as men report\n              Thou orphans' father art,\n            Thou shouldst have been, and shielded him\n              From this earth-vexing smart.\n\n  MOTHER.   Lucina lent not me her aid,\n              But took me in my throes,\n            That from me was Posthumus ripp'd,\n              Came crying 'mongst his foes,\n                A thing of pity.\n\n  SICILIUS. Great Nature like his ancestry\n              Moulded the stuff so fair\n            That he deserv'd the praise o' th' world\n              As great Sicilius' heir.\n\n  FIRST BROTHER. When once he was mature for man,\n              In Britain where was he\n            That could stand up his parallel,\n              Or fruitful object be\n            In eye of Imogen, that best\n              Could deem his dignity?\n\n  MOTHER.   With marriage wherefore was he mock'd,\n              To be exil'd and thrown\n            From Leonati seat and cast\n            From her his dearest one,\n              Sweet Imogen?\n\n  SICILIUS. Why did you suffer Iachimo,\n              Slight thing of Italy,\n            To taint his nobler heart and brain\n              With needless jealousy,\n            And to become the geck and scorn\n              O' th' other's villainy?\n\n  SECOND BROTHER. For this from stiller seats we came,\n              Our parents and us twain,\n            That, striking in our country's cause,\n              Fell bravely and were slain,\n            Our fealty and Tenantius' right\n              With honour to maintain.\n\n  FIRST BROTHER. Like hardiment Posthumus hath\n              To Cymbeline perform'd.\n            Then, Jupiter, thou king of gods,\n              Why hast thou thus adjourn'd\n            The graces for his merits due,\n              Being all to dolours turn'd?\n\n  SICILIUS. Thy crystal window ope; look out;\n              No longer exercise\n            Upon a valiant race thy harsh\n              And potent injuries.\n\n  MOTHER.   Since, Jupiter, our son is good,\n              Take off his miseries.\n\n  SICILIUS. Peep through thy marble mansion. Help!\n              Or we poor ghosts will cry\n            To th' shining synod of the rest\n              Against thy deity.\n\n  BROTHERS. Help, Jupiter! or we appeal,\n              And from thy justice fly.\n\n       JUPITER descends-in thunder and lightning, sitting\n       upon an eagle. He throws a thunderbolt. The GHOSTS\n                     fall on their knees\n\n  JUPITER. No more, you petty spirits of region low,\n    Offend our hearing; hush! How dare you ghosts\n    Accuse the Thunderer whose bolt, you know,\n    Sky-planted, batters all rebelling coasts?\n    Poor shadows of Elysium, hence and rest\n    Upon your never-withering banks of flow'rs.\n    Be not with mortal accidents opprest:\n    No care of yours it is; you know 'tis ours.\n    Whom best I love I cross; to make my gift,\n    The more delay'd, delighted. Be content;\n    Your low-laid son our godhead will uplift;\n    His comforts thrive, his trials well are spent.\n    Our Jovial star reign'd at his birth, and in\n    Our temple was he married. Rise and fade!\n    He shall be lord of Lady Imogen,\n    And happier much by his affliction made.\n    This tablet lay upon his breast, wherein\n    Our pleasure his full fortune doth confine;\n    And so, away; no farther with your din\n    Express impatience, lest you stir up mine.\n    Mount, eagle, to my palace crystalline.            [Ascends]\n  SICILIUS. He came in thunder; his celestial breath\n    Was sulpherous to smell; the holy eagle\n    Stoop'd as to foot us. His ascension is\n    More sweet than our blest fields. His royal bird\n    Prunes the immortal wing, and cloys his beak,\n    As when his god is pleas'd.\n  ALL. Thanks, Jupiter!\n  SICILIUS. The marble pavement closes, he is enter'd\n    His radiant roof. Away! and, to be blest,\n    Let us with care perform his great behest.   [GHOSTS vanish]\n\n  POSTHUMUS. [Waking] Sleep, thou has been a grandsire and begot\n    A father to me; and thou hast created\n    A mother and two brothers. But, O scorn,\n    Gone! They went hence so soon as they were born.\n    And so I am awake. Poor wretches, that depend\n    On greatness' favour, dream as I have done;\n    Wake and find nothing. But, alas, I swerve;\n    Many dream not to find, neither deserve,\n    And yet are steep'd in favours; so am I,\n    That have this golden chance, and know not why.\n    What fairies haunt this ground? A book? O rare one!\n    Be not, as is our fangled world, a garment\n    Nobler than that it covers. Let thy effects\n    So follow to be most unlike our courtiers,\n    As good as promise.\n\n    [Reads] 'When as a lion's whelp shall, to himself unknown,\n    without seeking find, and be embrac'd by a piece of tender air;\n    and when from a stately cedar shall be lopp'd branches which,\n    being dead many years, shall after revive, be jointed to the old\n    stock, and freshly grow; then shall Posthumus end his miseries,\n    Britain be fortunate and flourish in peace and plenty.'\n\n    'Tis still a dream, or else such stuff as madmen\n    Tongue, and brain not; either both or nothing,\n    Or senseless speaking, or a speaking such\n    As sense cannot untie. Be what it is,\n    The action of my life is like it, which\n    I'll keep, if but for sympathy.\n\n                  Re-enter GAOLER\n\n  GAOLER. Come, sir, are you ready for death?\n  POSTHUMUS. Over-roasted rather; ready long ago.\n  GAOLER. Hanging is the word, sir; if you be ready for that, you are\n    well cook'd.\n  POSTHUMUS. So, if I prove a good repast to the spectators, the dish\n    pays the shot.\n  GAOLER. A heavy reckoning for you, sir. But the comfort is, you\n    shall be called to no more payments, fear no more tavern bills,\n    which are often the sadness of parting, as the procuring of mirth.\n    You come in faint for want of meat, depart reeling with too much\n    drink; sorry that you have paid too much, and sorry that you are\n    paid too much; purse and brain both empty; the brain the heavier\n    for being too light, the purse too light, being drawn of\n    heaviness. O, of this contradiction you shall now be quit. O, the\n    charity of a penny cord! It sums up thousands in a trice. You\n    have no true debitor and creditor but it; of what's past, is, and\n    to come, the discharge. Your neck, sir, is pen, book, and\n    counters; so the acquittance follows.\n  POSTHUMUS. I am merrier to die than thou art to live.\n  GAOLER. Indeed, sir, he that sleeps feels not the toothache. But a\n    man that were to sleep your sleep, and a hangman to help him to\n    bed, I think he would change places with his officer; for look\n    you, sir, you know not which way you shall go.\n  POSTHUMUS. Yes indeed do I, fellow.\n  GAOLER. Your death has eyes in's head, then; I have not seen him so\n    pictur'd. You must either be directed by some that take upon them\n    to know, or to take upon yourself that which I am sure you do not\n    know, or jump the after-inquiry on your own peril. And how you\n    shall speed in your journey's end, I think you'll never return to\n    tell one.\n  POSTHUMUS. I tell thee, fellow, there are none want eyes to direct\n    them the way I am going, but such as wink and will not use them.\n  GAOLER. What an infinite mock is this, that a man should have the\n    best use of eyes to see the way of blindness! I am sure hanging's\n    the way of winking.\n\n                        Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. Knock off his manacles; bring your prisoner to the King.\n  POSTHUMUS. Thou bring'st good news: I am call'd to be made free.\n  GAOLER. I'll be hang'd then.\n  POSTHUMUS. Thou shalt be then freer than a gaoler; no bolts for the\n    dead.                         Exeunt POSTHUMUS and MESSENGER\n  GAOLER. Unless a man would marry a gallows and beget young gibbets,\n    I never saw one so prone. Yet, on my conscience, there are verier\n    knaves desire to live, for all he be a Roman; and there be some\n    of them too that die against their wills; so should I, if I were\n    one. I would we were all of one mind, and one mind good. O, there\n    were desolation of gaolers and gallowses! I speak against my\n    present profit, but my wish hath a preferment in't.     Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nBritain. CYMBELINE'S tent\n\nEnter CYMBELINE, BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, ARVIRAGUS, PISANIO, LORDS,\nOFFICERS, and attendants\n\n  CYMBELINE. Stand by my side, you whom the gods have made\n    Preservers of my throne. Woe is my heart\n    That the poor soldier that so richly fought,\n    Whose rags sham'd gilded arms, whose naked breast\n    Stepp'd before targes of proof, cannot be found.\n    He shall be happy that can find him, if\n    Our grace can make him so.\n  BELARIUS. I never saw\n    Such noble fury in so poor a thing;\n    Such precious deeds in one that promis'd nought\n    But beggary and poor looks.\n  CYMBELINE. No tidings of him?\n  PISANIO. He hath been search'd among the dead and living,\n    But no trace of him.\n  CYMBELINE. To my grief, I am\n    The heir of his reward; [To BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS]\n      which I will add\n    To you, the liver, heart, and brain, of Britain,\n    By whom I grant she lives. 'Tis now the time\n    To ask of whence you are. Report it.\n  BELARIUS. Sir,\n    In Cambria are we born, and gentlemen;\n    Further to boast were neither true nor modest,\n    Unless I add we are honest.\n  CYMBELINE. Bow your knees.\n    Arise my knights o' th' battle; I create you\n    Companions to our person, and will fit you\n    With dignities becoming your estates.\n\n             Enter CORNELIUS and LADIES\n\n    There's business in these faces. Why so sadly\n    Greet you our victory? You look like Romans,\n    And not o' th' court of Britain.\n  CORNELIUS. Hail, great King!\n    To sour your happiness I must report\n    The Queen is dead.\n  CYMBELINE. Who worse than a physician\n    Would this report become? But I consider\n    By med'cine'life may be prolong'd, yet death\n    Will seize the doctor too. How ended she?\n  CORNELIUS. With horror, madly dying, like her life;\n    Which, being cruel to the world, concluded\n    Most cruel to herself. What she confess'd\n    I will report, so please you; these her women\n    Can trip me if I err, who with wet cheeks\n    Were present when she finish'd.\n  CYMBELINE. Prithee say.\n  CORNELIUS. First, she confess'd she never lov'd you; only\n    Affected greatness got by you, not you;\n    Married your royalty, was wife to your place;\n    Abhorr'd your person.\n  CYMBELINE. She alone knew this;\n    And but she spoke it dying, I would not\n    Believe her lips in opening it. Proceed.\n  CORNELIUS. Your daughter, whom she bore in hand to love\n    With such integrity, she did confess\n    Was as a scorpion to her sight; whose life,\n    But that her flight prevented it, she had\n    Ta'en off by poison.\n  CYMBELINE. O most delicate fiend!\n    Who is't can read a woman? Is there more?\n  CORNELIUS. More, sir, and worse. She did confess she had\n    For you a mortal mineral, which, being took,\n    Should by the minute feed on life, and ling'ring,\n    By inches waste you. In which time she purpos'd,\n    By watching, weeping, tendance, kissing, to\n    O'ercome you with her show; and in time,\n    When she had fitted you with her craft, to work\n    Her son into th' adoption of the crown;\n    But failing of her end by his strange absence,\n    Grew shameless-desperate, open'd, in despite\n    Of heaven and men, her purposes, repented\n    The evils she hatch'd were not effected; so,\n    Despairing, died.\n  CYMBELINE. Heard you all this, her women?\n  LADY. We did, so please your Highness.\n  CYMBELINE. Mine eyes\n    Were not in fault, for she was beautiful;\n    Mine ears, that heard her flattery; nor my heart\n    That thought her like her seeming. It had been vicious\n    To have mistrusted her; yet, O my daughter!\n    That it was folly in me thou mayst say,\n    And prove it in thy feeling. Heaven mend all!\n\n         Enter LUCIUS, IACHIMO, the SOOTHSAYER, and other\n      Roman prisoners, guarded; POSTHUMUS behind, and IMOGEN\n\n    Thou com'st not, Caius, now for tribute; that\n    The Britons have raz'd out, though with the loss\n    Of many a bold one, whose kinsmen have made suit\n    That their good souls may be appeas'd with slaughter\n    Of you their captives, which ourself have granted;\n    So think of your estate.\n  LUCIUS. Consider, sir, the chance of war. The day\n    Was yours by accident; had it gone with us,\n    We should not, when the blood was cool, have threaten'd\n    Our prisoners with the sword. But since the gods\n    Will have it thus, that nothing but our lives\n    May be call'd ransom, let it come. Sufficeth\n    A Roman with a Roman's heart can suffer.\n    Augustus lives to think on't; and so much\n    For my peculiar care. This one thing only\n    I will entreat: my boy, a Briton born,\n    Let him be ransom'd. Never master had\n    A page so kind, so duteous, diligent,\n    So tender over his occasions, true,\n    So feat, so nurse-like; let his virtue join\n    With my request, which I'll make bold your Highness\n    Cannot deny; he hath done no Briton harm\n    Though he have serv'd a Roman. Save him, sir,\n    And spare no blood beside.\n  CYMBELINE. I have surely seen him;\n    His favour is familiar to me. Boy,\n    Thou hast look'd thyself into my grace,\n    And art mine own. I know not why, wherefore\n    To say 'Live, boy.' Ne'er thank thy master. Live;\n    And ask of Cymbeline what boon thou wilt,\n    Fitting my bounty and thy state, I'll give it;\n    Yea, though thou do demand a prisoner,\n    The noblest ta'en.\n  IMOGEN. I humbly thank your Highness.\n  LUCIUS. I do not bid thee beg my life, good lad,\n    And yet I know thou wilt.\n  IMOGEN. No, no! Alack,\n    There's other work in hand. I see a thing\n    Bitter to me as death; your life, good master,\n    Must shuffle for itself.\n  LUCIUS. The boy disdains me,\n    He leaves me, scorns me. Briefly die their joys\n    That place them on the truth of girls and boys.\n    Why stands he so perplex'd?\n  CYMBELINE. What wouldst thou, boy?\n    I love thee more and more; think more and more\n    What's best to ask. Know'st him thou look'st on? Speak,\n    Wilt have him live? Is he thy kin? thy friend?\n  IMOGEN. He is a Roman, no more kin to me\n    Than I to your Highness; who, being born your vassal,\n    Am something nearer.\n  CYMBELINE. Wherefore ey'st him so?\n  IMOGEN. I'll tell you, sir, in private, if you please\n    To give me hearing.\n  CYMBELINE. Ay, with all my heart,\n    And lend my best attention. What's thy name?\n  IMOGEN. Fidele, sir.\n  CYMBELINE. Thou'rt my good youth, my page;\n    I'll be thy master. Walk with me; speak freely.\n                           [CYMBELINE and IMOGEN converse apart]\n  BELARIUS. Is not this boy reviv'd from death?\n  ARVIRAGUS. One sand another\n    Not more resembles- that sweet rosy lad\n    Who died and was Fidele. What think you?\n  GUIDERIUS. The same dead thing alive.\n  BELARIUS. Peace, peace! see further. He eyes us not; forbear.\n    Creatures may be alike; were't he, I am sure\n    He would have spoke to us.\n  GUIDERIUS. But we saw him dead.\n  BELARIUS. Be silent; let's see further.\n  PISANIO. [Aside] It is my mistress.\n    Since she is living, let the time run on\n    To good or bad.               [CYMBELINE and IMOGEN advance]\n  CYMBELINE. Come, stand thou by our side;\n    Make thy demand aloud. [To IACHIMO] Sir, step you forth;\n    Give answer to this boy, and do it freely,\n    Or, by our greatness and the grace of it,\n    Which is our honour, bitter torture shall\n    Winnow the truth from falsehood. On, speak to him.\n  IMOGEN. My boon is that this gentleman may render\n    Of whom he had this ring.\n  POSTHUMUS. [Aside] What's that to him?\n  CYMBELINE. That diamond upon your finger, say\n    How came it yours?\n  IACHIMO. Thou'lt torture me to leave unspoken that\n    Which to be spoke would torture thee.\n  CYMBELINE. How? me?\n  IACHIMO. I am glad to be constrain'd to utter that\n    Which torments me to conceal. By villainy\n    I got this ring; 'twas Leonatus' jewel,\n    Whom thou didst banish; and- which more may grieve thee,\n    As it doth me- a nobler sir ne'er liv'd\n    'Twixt sky and ground. Wilt thou hear more, my lord?\n  CYMBELINE. All that belongs to this.\n  IACHIMO. That paragon, thy daughter,\n    For whom my heart drops blood and my false spirits\n    Quail to remember- Give me leave, I faint.\n  CYMBELINE. My daughter? What of her? Renew thy strength;\n    I had rather thou shouldst live while nature will\n    Than die ere I hear more. Strive, man, and speak.\n  IACHIMO. Upon a time- unhappy was the clock\n    That struck the hour!- was in Rome- accurs'd\n    The mansion where!- 'twas at a feast- O, would\n    Our viands had been poison'd, or at least\n    Those which I heav'd to head!- the good Posthumus-\n    What should I say? he was too good to be\n    Where ill men were, and was the best of all\n    Amongst the rar'st of good ones- sitting sadly\n    Hearing us praise our loves of Italy\n    For beauty that made barren the swell'd boast\n    Of him that best could speak; for feature, laming\n    The shrine of Venus or straight-pight Minerva,\n    Postures beyond brief nature; for condition,\n    A shop of all the qualities that man\n    Loves woman for; besides that hook of wiving,\n    Fairness which strikes the eye-\n  CYMBELINE. I stand on fire.\n    Come to the matter.\n  IACHIMO. All too soon I shall,\n    Unless thou wouldst grieve quickly. This Posthumus,\n    Most like a noble lord in love and one\n    That had a royal lover, took his hint;\n    And not dispraising whom we prais'd- therein\n    He was as calm as virtue- he began\n    His mistress' picture; which by his tongue being made,\n    And then a mind put in't, either our brags\n    Were crack'd of kitchen trulls, or his description\n    Prov'd us unspeaking sots.\n  CYMBELINE. Nay, nay, to th' purpose.\n  IACHIMO. Your daughter's chastity- there it begins.\n    He spake of her as Dian had hot dreams\n    And she alone were cold; whereat I, wretch,\n    Made scruple of his praise, and wager'd with him\n    Pieces of gold 'gainst this which then he wore\n    Upon his honour'd finger, to attain\n    In suit the place of's bed, and win this ring\n    By hers and mine adultery. He, true knight,\n    No lesser of her honour confident\n    Than I did truly find her, stakes this ring;\n    And would so, had it been a carbuncle\n    Of Phoebus' wheel; and might so safely, had it\n    Been all the worth of's car. Away to Britain\n    Post I in this design. Well may you, sir,\n    Remember me at court, where I was taught\n    Of your chaste daughter the wide difference\n    'Twixt amorous and villainous. Being thus quench'd\n    Of hope, not longing, mine Italian brain\n    Gan in your duller Britain operate\n    Most vilely; for my vantage, excellent;\n    And, to be brief, my practice so prevail'd\n    That I return'd with simular proof enough\n    To make the noble Leonatus mad,\n    By wounding his belief in her renown\n    With tokens thus and thus; averring notes\n    Of chamber-hanging, pictures, this her bracelet-\n    O cunning, how I got it!- nay, some marks\n    Of secret on her person, that he could not\n    But think her bond of chastity quite crack'd,\n    I having ta'en the forfeit. Whereupon-\n    Methinks I see him now-\n  POSTHUMUS. [Coming forward] Ay, so thou dost,\n    Italian fiend! Ay me, most credulous fool,\n    Egregious murderer, thief, anything\n    That's due to all the villains past, in being,\n    To come! O, give me cord, or knife, or poison,\n    Some upright justicer! Thou, King, send out\n    For torturers ingenious. It is I\n    That all th' abhorred things o' th' earth amend\n    By being worse than they. I am Posthumus,\n    That kill'd thy daughter; villain-like, I lie-\n    That caus'd a lesser villain than myself,\n    A sacrilegious thief, to do't. The temple\n    Of virtue was she; yea, and she herself.\n    Spit, and throw stones, cast mire upon me, set\n    The dogs o' th' street to bay me. Every villain\n    Be call'd Posthumus Leonatus, and\n    Be villainy less than 'twas! O Imogen!\n    My queen, my life, my wife! O Imogen,\n    Imogen, Imogen!\n  IMOGEN. Peace, my lord. Hear, hear!\n  POSTHUMUS. Shall's have a play of this? Thou scornful page,\n    There lies thy part.                [Strikes her. She falls]\n  PISANIO. O gentlemen, help!\n    Mine and your mistress! O, my lord Posthumus!\n    You ne'er kill'd Imogen till now. Help, help!\n    Mine honour'd lady!\n  CYMBELINE. Does the world go round?\n  POSTHUMUS. How comes these staggers on me?\n  PISANIO. Wake, my mistress!\n  CYMBELINE. If this be so, the gods do mean to strike me\n    To death with mortal joy.\n  PISANIO. How fares my mistress?\n  IMOGEN. O, get thee from my sight;\n    Thou gav'st me poison. Dangerous fellow, hence!\n    Breathe not where princes are.\n  CYMBELINE. The tune of Imogen!\n  PISANIO. Lady,\n    The gods throw stones of sulphur on me, if\n    That box I gave you was not thought by me\n    A precious thing! I had it from the Queen.\n  CYMBELINE. New matter still?\n  IMOGEN. It poison'd me.\n  CORNELIUS. O gods!\n    I left out one thing which the Queen confess'd,\n    Which must approve thee honest. 'If Pisanio\n    Have' said she 'given his mistress that confection\n    Which I gave him for cordial, she is serv'd\n    As I would serve a rat.'\n  CYMBELINE. What's this, Cornelius?\n  CORNELIUS. The Queen, sir, very oft importun'd me\n    To temper poisons for her; still pretending\n    The satisfaction of her knowledge only\n    In killing creatures vile, as cats and dogs,\n    Of no esteem. I, dreading that her purpose\n    Was of more danger, did compound for her\n    A certain stuff, which, being ta'en would cease\n    The present pow'r of life, but in short time\n    All offices of nature should again\n    Do their due functions. Have you ta'en of it?\n  IMOGEN. Most like I did, for I was dead.\n  BELARIUS. My boys,\n    There was our error.\n  GUIDERIUS. This is sure Fidele.\n  IMOGEN. Why did you throw your wedded lady from you?\n    Think that you are upon a rock, and now\n    Throw me again.                              [Embracing him]\n  POSTHUMUS. Hang there like fruit, my soul,\n    Till the tree die!\n  CYMBELINE. How now, my flesh? my child?\n    What, mak'st thou me a dullard in this act?\n    Wilt thou not speak to me?\n  IMOGEN. [Kneeling] Your blessing, sir.\n  BELARIUS. [To GUIDERIUS and ARVIRAGUS] Though you did love this\n      youth, I blame ye not;\n    You had a motive for't.\n  CYMBELINE. My tears that fall\n    Prove holy water on thee! Imogen,\n    Thy mother's dead.\n  IMOGEN. I am sorry for't, my lord.\n  CYMBELINE. O, she was naught, and long of her it was\n    That we meet here so strangely; but her son\n    Is gone, we know not how nor where.\n  PISANIO. My lord,\n    Now fear is from me, I'll speak troth. Lord Cloten,\n    Upon my lady's missing, came to me\n    With his sword drawn, foam'd at the mouth, and swore,\n    If I discover'd not which way she was gone,\n    It was my instant death. By accident\n    I had a feigned letter of my master's\n    Then in my pocket, which directed him\n    To seek her on the mountains near to Milford;\n    Where, in a frenzy, in my master's garments,\n    Which he enforc'd from me, away he posts\n    With unchaste purpose, and with oath to violate\n    My lady's honour. What became of him\n    I further know not.\n  GUIDERIUS. Let me end the story:\n    I slew him there.\n  CYMBELINE. Marry, the gods forfend!\n    I would not thy good deeds should from my lips\n    Pluck a hard sentence. Prithee, valiant youth,\n    Deny't again.\n  GUIDERIUS. I have spoke it, and I did it.\n  CYMBELINE. He was a prince.\n  GUIDERIUS. A most incivil one. The wrongs he did me\n    Were nothing prince-like; for he did provoke me\n    With language that would make me spurn the sea,\n    If it could so roar to me. I cut off's head,\n    And am right glad he is not standing here\n    To tell this tale of mine.\n  CYMBELINE. I am sorry for thee.\n    By thine own tongue thou art condemn'd, and must\n    Endure our law. Thou'rt dead.\n  IMOGEN. That headless man\n    I thought had been my lord.\n  CYMBELINE. Bind the offender,\n    And take him from our presence.\n  BELARIUS. Stay, sir King.\n    This man is better than the man he slew,\n    As well descended as thyself, and hath\n    More of thee merited than a band of Clotens\n    Had ever scar for. [To the guard] Let his arms alone;\n    They were not born for bondage.\n  CYMBELINE. Why, old soldier,\n    Wilt thou undo the worth thou art unpaid for\n    By tasting of our wrath? How of descent\n    As good as we?\n  ARVIRAGUS. In that he spake too far.\n  CYMBELINE. And thou shalt die for't.\n  BELARIUS. We will die all three;\n    But I will prove that two on's are as good\n    As I have given out him. My sons, I must\n    For mine own part unfold a dangerous speech,\n    Though haply well for you.\n  ARVIRAGUS. Your danger's ours.\n  GUIDERIUS. And our good his.\n  BELARIUS. Have at it then by leave!\n    Thou hadst, great King, a subject who\n    Was call'd Belarius.\n  CYMBELINE. What of him? He is\n    A banish'd traitor.\n  BELARIUS. He it is that hath\n    Assum'd this age; indeed a banish'd man;\n    I know not how a traitor.\n  CYMBELINE. Take him hence,\n    The whole world shall not save him.\n  BELARIUS. Not too hot.\n    First pay me for the nursing of thy sons,\n    And let it be confiscate all, so soon\n    As I have receiv'd it.\n  CYMBELINE. Nursing of my sons?\n  BELARIUS. I am too blunt and saucy: here's my knee.\n    Ere I arise I will prefer my sons;\n    Then spare not the old father. Mighty sir,\n    These two young gentlemen that call me father,\n    And think they are my sons, are none of mine;\n    They are the issue of your loins, my liege,\n    And blood of your begetting.\n  CYMBELINE. How? my issue?\n  BELARIUS. So sure as you your father's. I, old Morgan,\n    Am that Belarius whom you sometime banish'd.\n    Your pleasure was my mere offence, my punishment\n    Itself, and all my treason; that I suffer'd\n    Was all the harm I did. These gentle princes-\n    For such and so they are- these twenty years\n    Have I train'd up; those arts they have as\n    Could put into them. My breeding was, sir, as\n    Your Highness knows. Their nurse, Euriphile,\n    Whom for the theft I wedded, stole these children\n    Upon my banishment; I mov'd her to't,\n    Having receiv'd the punishment before\n    For that which I did then. Beaten for loyalty\n    Excited me to treason. Their dear loss,\n    The more of you 'twas felt, the more it shap'd\n    Unto my end of stealing them. But, gracious sir,\n    Here are your sons again, and I must lose\n    Two of the sweet'st companions in the world.\n    The benediction of these covering heavens\n    Fall on their heads like dew! for they are worthy\n    To inlay heaven with stars.\n  CYMBELINE. Thou weep'st and speak'st.\n    The service that you three have done is more\n    Unlike than this thou tell'st. I lost my children.\n    If these be they, I know not how to wish\n    A pair of worthier sons.\n  BELARIUS. Be pleas'd awhile.\n    This gentleman, whom I call Polydore,\n    Most worthy prince, as yours, is true Guiderius;\n    This gentleman, my Cadwal, Arviragus,\n    Your younger princely son; he, sir, was lapp'd\n    In a most curious mantle, wrought by th' hand\n    Of his queen mother, which for more probation\n    I can with ease produce.\n  CYMBELINE. Guiderius had\n    Upon his neck a mole, a sanguine star;\n    It was a mark of wonder.\n  BELARIUS. This is he,\n    Who hath upon him still that natural stamp.\n    It was wise nature's end in the donation,\n    To be his evidence now.\n  CYMBELINE. O, what am I?\n    A mother to the birth of three? Ne'er mother\n    Rejoic'd deliverance more. Blest pray you be,\n    That, after this strange starting from your orbs,\n    You may reign in them now! O Imogen,\n    Thou hast lost by this a kingdom.\n  IMOGEN. No, my lord;\n    I have got two worlds by't. O my gentle brothers,\n    Have we thus met? O, never say hereafter\n    But I am truest speaker! You call'd me brother,\n    When I was but your sister: I you brothers,\n    When we were so indeed.\n  CYMBELINE. Did you e'er meet?\n  ARVIRAGUS. Ay, my good lord.\n  GUIDERIUS. And at first meeting lov'd,\n    Continu'd so until we thought he died.\n  CORNELIUS. By the Queen's dram she swallow'd.\n  CYMBELINE. O rare instinct!\n    When shall I hear all through? This fierce abridgment\n    Hath to it circumstantial branches, which\n    Distinction should be rich in. Where? how liv'd you?\n    And when came you to serve our Roman captive?\n    How parted with your brothers? how first met them?\n    Why fled you from the court? and whither? These,\n    And your three motives to the battle, with\n    I know not how much more, should be demanded,\n    And all the other by-dependences,\n    From chance to chance; but nor the time nor place\n    Will serve our long interrogatories. See,\n    Posthumus anchors upon Imogen;\n    And she, like harmless lightning, throws her eye\n    On him, her brothers, me, her master, hitting\n    Each object with a joy; the counterchange\n    Is severally in all. Let's quit this ground,\n    And smoke the temple with our sacrifices.\n    [To BELARIUS] Thou art my brother; so we'll hold thee ever.\n  IMOGEN. You are my father too, and did relieve me\n    To see this gracious season.\n  CYMBELINE. All o'erjoy'd\n    Save these in bonds. Let them be joyful too,\n    For they shall taste our comfort.\n  IMOGEN. My good master,\n    I will yet do you service.\n  LUCIUS. Happy be you!\n  CYMBELINE. The forlorn soldier, that so nobly fought,\n    He would have well becom'd this place and grac'd\n    The thankings of a king.\n  POSTHUMUS. I am, sir,\n    The soldier that did company these three\n    In poor beseeming; 'twas a fitment for\n    The purpose I then follow'd. That I was he,\n    Speak, Iachimo. I had you down, and might\n    Have made you finish.\n  IACHIMO. [Kneeling] I am down again;\n    But now my heavy conscience sinks my knee,\n    As then your force did. Take that life, beseech you,\n    Which I so often owe; but your ring first,\n    And here the bracelet of the truest princess\n    That ever swore her faith.\n  POSTHUMUS. Kneel not to me.\n    The pow'r that I have on you is to spare you;\n    The malice towards you to forgive you. Live,\n    And deal with others better.\n  CYMBELINE. Nobly doom'd!\n    We'll learn our freeness of a son-in-law;\n    Pardon's the word to all.\n  ARVIRAGUS. You holp us, sir,\n    As you did mean indeed to be our brother;\n    Joy'd are we that you are.\n  POSTHUMUS. Your servant, Princes. Good my lord of Rome,\n    Call forth your soothsayer. As I slept, methought\n    Great Jupiter, upon his eagle back'd,\n    Appear'd to me, with other spritely shows\n    Of mine own kindred. When I wak'd, I found\n    This label on my bosom; whose containing\n    Is so from sense in hardness that I can\n    Make no collection of it. Let him show\n    His skill in the construction.\n  LUCIUS. Philarmonus!\n  SOOTHSAYER. Here, my good lord.\n  LUCIUS. Read, and declare the meaning.\n  SOOTHSAYER. [Reads] 'When as a lion's whelp shall, to himself\n    unknown, without seeking find, and be embrac'd by\n    a piece of tender air; and when from a stately cedar shall\n    be lopp'd branches which, being dead many years, shall\n    after revive, be jointed to the old stock, and freshly grow;\n    then shall Posthumus end his miseries, Britain be fortunate\n    and flourish in peace and plenty.'\n    Thou, Leonatus, art the lion's whelp;\n    The fit and apt construction of thy name,\n    Being Leo-natus, doth import so much.\n    [To CYMBELINE] The piece of tender air, thy virtuous daughter,\n    Which we call 'mollis aer,' and 'mollis aer'\n    We term it 'mulier'; which 'mulier' I divine\n    Is this most constant wife, who even now\n    Answering the letter of the oracle,\n    Unknown to you, unsought, were clipp'd about\n    With this most tender air.\n  CYMBELINE. This hath some seeming.\n  SOOTHSAYER. The lofty cedar, royal Cymbeline,\n    Personates thee; and thy lopp'd branches point\n    Thy two sons forth, who, by Belarius stol'n,\n    For many years thought dead, are now reviv'd,\n    To the majestic cedar join'd, whose issue\n    Promises Britain peace and plenty.\n  CYMBELINE. Well,\n    My peace we will begin. And, Caius Lucius,\n    Although the victor, we submit to Caesar\n    And to the Roman empire, promising\n    To pay our wonted tribute, from the which\n    We were dissuaded by our wicked queen,\n    Whom heavens in justice, both on her and hers,\n    Have laid most heavy hand.\n  SOOTHSAYER. The fingers of the pow'rs above do tune\n    The harmony of this peace. The vision\n    Which I made known to Lucius ere the stroke\n    Of yet this scarce-cold battle, at this instant\n    Is full accomplish'd; for the Roman eagle,\n    From south to west on wing soaring aloft,\n    Lessen'd herself and in the beams o' th' sun\n    So vanish'd; which foreshow'd our princely eagle,\n    Th'imperial Caesar, Caesar, should again unite\n    His favour with the radiant Cymbeline,\n    Which shines here in the west.\n  CYMBELINE. Laud we the gods;\n    And let our crooked smokes climb to their nostrils\n    From our bless'd altars. Publish we this peace\n    To all our subjects. Set we forward; let\n    A Roman and a British ensign wave\n    Friendly together. So through Lud's Town march;\n    And in the temple of great Jupiter\n    Our peace we'll ratify; seal it with feasts.\n    Set on there! Never was a war did cease,\n    Ere bloody hands were wash'd, with such a peace.      Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1604\n\n\nTHE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK\n\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  Claudius, King of Denmark.\n  Marcellus, Officer.\n  Hamlet, son to the former, and nephew to the present king.\n  Polonius, Lord Chamberlain.\n  Horatio, friend to Hamlet.\n  Laertes, son to Polonius.\n  Voltemand, courtier.\n  Cornelius, courtier.\n  Rosencrantz, courtier.\n  Guildenstern, courtier.\n  Osric, courtier.\n  A Gentleman, courtier.\n  A Priest.\n  Marcellus, officer.\n  Bernardo, officer.\n  Francisco, a soldier\n  Reynaldo, servant to Polonius.\n  Players.\n  Two Clowns, gravediggers.\n  Fortinbras, Prince of Norway.\n  A Norwegian Captain.\n  English Ambassadors.\n\n  Getrude, Queen of Denmark, mother to Hamlet.\n  Ophelia, daughter to Polonius.\n\n  Ghost of Hamlet's Father.\n\n  Lords, ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Sailors, Messengers, Attendants.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE.- Elsinore.\n\n\nACT I. Scene I.\nElsinore. A platform before the Castle.\n\nEnter two Sentinels-[first,] Francisco, [who paces up and down\nat his post; then] Bernardo, [who approaches him].\n\n  Ber. Who's there.?\n  Fran. Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.\n  Ber. Long live the King!\n  Fran. Bernardo?\n  Ber. He.\n  Fran. You come most carefully upon your hour.\n  Ber. 'Tis now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Francisco.\n  Fran. For this relief much thanks. 'Tis bitter cold,\n    And I am sick at heart.\n  Ber. Have you had quiet guard?\n  Fran. Not a mouse stirring.\n  Ber. Well, good night.\n    If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,\n    The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.\n\n                    Enter Horatio and Marcellus.\n\n  Fran. I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who is there?\n  Hor. Friends to this ground.\n  Mar. And liegemen to the Dane.\n  Fran. Give you good night.\n  Mar. O, farewell, honest soldier.\n    Who hath reliev'd you?\n  Fran. Bernardo hath my place.\n    Give you good night.                                   Exit.\n  Mar. Holla, Bernardo!\n  Ber. Say-\n    What, is Horatio there ?\n  Hor. A piece of him.\n  Ber. Welcome, Horatio. Welcome, good Marcellus.\n  Mar. What, has this thing appear'd again to-night?\n  Ber. I have seen nothing.\n  Mar. Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy,\n    And will not let belief take hold of him\n    Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us.\n    Therefore I have entreated him along,\n    With us to watch the minutes of this night,\n    That, if again this apparition come,\n    He may approve our eyes and speak to it.\n  Hor. Tush, tush, 'twill not appear.\n  Ber. Sit down awhile,\n    And let us once again assail your ears,\n    That are so fortified against our story,\n    What we two nights have seen.\n  Hor. Well, sit we down,\n    And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.\n  Ber. Last night of all,\n    When yond same star that's westward from the pole\n    Had made his course t' illume that part of heaven\n    Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,\n    The bell then beating one-\n\n                        Enter Ghost.\n\n  Mar. Peace! break thee off! Look where it comes again!\n  Ber. In the same figure, like the King that's dead.\n  Mar. Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.\n  Ber. Looks it not like the King? Mark it, Horatio.\n  Hor. Most like. It harrows me with fear and wonder.\n  Ber. It would be spoke to.\n  Mar. Question it, Horatio.\n  Hor. What art thou that usurp'st this time of night\n    Together with that fair and warlike form\n    In which the majesty of buried Denmark\n    Did sometimes march? By heaven I charge thee speak!\n  Mar. It is offended.\n  Ber. See, it stalks away!\n  Hor. Stay! Speak, speak! I charge thee speak!\n                                                     Exit Ghost.\n  Mar. 'Tis gone and will not answer.\n  Ber. How now, Horatio? You tremble and look pale.\n    Is not this something more than fantasy?\n    What think you on't?\n  Hor. Before my God, I might not this believe\n    Without the sensible and true avouch\n    Of mine own eyes.\n  Mar. Is it not like the King?\n  Hor. As thou art to thyself.\n    Such was the very armour he had on\n    When he th' ambitious Norway combated.\n    So frown'd he once when, in an angry parle,\n    He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.\n    'Tis strange.\n  Mar. Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour,\n    With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.\n  Hor. In what particular thought to work I know not;\n    But, in the gross and scope of my opinion,\n    This bodes some strange eruption to our state.\n  Mar. Good now, sit down, and tell me he that knows,\n    Why this same strict and most observant watch\n    So nightly toils the subject of the land,\n    And why such daily cast of brazen cannon\n    And foreign mart for implements of war;\n    Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task\n    Does not divide the Sunday from the week.\n    What might be toward, that this sweaty haste\n    Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day?\n    Who is't that can inform me?\n  Hor. That can I.\n    At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king,\n    Whose image even but now appear'd to us,\n    Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,\n    Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,\n    Dar'd to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet\n    (For so this side of our known world esteem'd him)\n    Did slay this Fortinbras; who, by a seal'd compact,\n    Well ratified by law and heraldry,\n    Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands\n    Which he stood seiz'd of, to the conqueror;\n    Against the which a moiety competent\n    Was gaged by our king; which had return'd\n    To the inheritance of Fortinbras,\n    Had he been vanquisher, as, by the same comart\n    And carriage of the article design'd,\n    His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,\n    Of unimproved mettle hot and full,\n    Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,\n    Shark'd up a list of lawless resolutes,\n    For food and diet, to some enterprise\n    That hath a stomach in't; which is no other,\n    As it doth well appear unto our state,\n    But to recover of us, by strong hand\n    And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands\n    So by his father lost; and this, I take it,\n    Is the main motive of our preparations,\n    The source of this our watch, and the chief head\n    Of this post-haste and romage in the land.\n  Ber. I think it be no other but e'en so.\n    Well may it sort that this portentous figure\n    Comes armed through our watch, so like the King\n    That was and is the question of these wars.\n  Hor. A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye.\n    In the most high and palmy state of Rome,\n    A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,\n    The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead\n    Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets;\n    As stars with trains of fire, and dews of blood,\n    Disasters in the sun; and the moist star\n    Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands\n    Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.\n    And even the like precurse of fierce events,\n    As harbingers preceding still the fates\n    And prologue to the omen coming on,\n    Have heaven and earth together demonstrated\n    Unto our climature and countrymen.\n\n                      Enter Ghost again.\n\n    But soft! behold! Lo, where it comes again!\n    I'll cross it, though it blast me.- Stay illusion!\n                                               Spreads his arms.\n    If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,\n    Speak to me.\n    If there be any good thing to be done,\n    That may to thee do ease, and, race to me,\n    Speak to me.\n    If thou art privy to thy country's fate,\n    Which happily foreknowing may avoid,\n    O, speak!\n    Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life\n    Extorted treasure in the womb of earth\n    (For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death),\n                                                 The cock crows.\n    Speak of it! Stay, and speak!- Stop it, Marcellus!\n  Mar. Shall I strike at it with my partisan?\n  Hor. Do, if it will not stand.\n  Ber. 'Tis here!\n  Hor. 'Tis here!\n  Mar. 'Tis gone!\n                                                     Exit Ghost.\n    We do it wrong, being so majestical,\n    To offer it the show of violence;\n    For it is as the air, invulnerable,\n    And our vain blows malicious mockery.\n  Ber. It was about to speak, when the cock crew.\n  Hor. And then it started, like a guilty thing\n    Upon a fearful summons. I have heard\n    The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,\n    Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat\n    Awake the god of day; and at his warning,\n    Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,\n    Th' extravagant and erring spirit hies\n    To his confine; and of the truth herein\n    This present object made probation.\n  Mar. It faded on the crowing of the cock.\n    Some say that ever, 'gainst that season comes\n    Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,\n    The bird of dawning singeth all night long;\n    And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,\n    The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,\n    No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,\n    So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.\n  Hor. So have I heard and do in part believe it.\n    But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,\n    Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill.\n    Break we our watch up; and by my advice\n    Let us impart what we have seen to-night\n    Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life,\n    This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.\n    Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,\n    As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?\n    Let's do't, I pray; and I this morning know\n    Where we shall find him most conveniently.           Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nElsinore. A room of state in the Castle.\n\nFlourish. [Enter Claudius, King of Denmark, Gertrude the Queen, Hamlet,\nPolonius, Laertes and his sister Ophelia, [Voltemand, Cornelius,]\nLords Attendant.\n\n  King. Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death\n    The memory be green, and that it us befitted\n    To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom\n    To be contracted in one brow of woe,\n    Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature\n    That we with wisest sorrow think on him\n    Together with remembrance of ourselves.\n    Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,\n    Th' imperial jointress to this warlike state,\n    Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,\n    With an auspicious, and a dropping eye,\n    With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage,\n    In equal scale weighing delight and dole,\n    Taken to wife; nor have we herein barr'd\n    Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone\n    With this affair along. For all, our thanks.\n    Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,\n    Holding a weak supposal of our worth,\n    Or thinking by our late dear brother's death\n    Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,\n    Colleagued with this dream of his advantage,\n    He hath not fail'd to pester us with message\n    Importing the surrender of those lands\n    Lost by his father, with all bands of law,\n    To our most valiant brother. So much for him.\n    Now for ourself and for this time of meeting.\n    Thus much the business is: we have here writ\n    To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,\n    Who, impotent and bedrid, scarcely hears\n    Of this his nephew's purpose, to suppress\n    His further gait herein, in that the levies,\n    The lists, and full proportions are all made\n    Out of his subject; and we here dispatch\n    You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltemand,\n    For bearers of this greeting to old Norway,\n    Giving to you no further personal power\n    To business with the King, more than the scope\n    Of these dilated articles allow.            [Gives a paper.]\n    Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty.\n  Cor., Volt. In that, and all things, will we show our duty.\n  King. We doubt it nothing. Heartily farewell.\n                                 Exeunt Voltemand and Cornelius.\n    And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?\n    You told us of some suit. What is't, Laertes?\n    You cannot speak of reason to the Dane\n    And lose your voice. What wouldst thou beg, Laertes,\n    That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?\n    The head is not more native to the heart,\n    The hand more instrumental to the mouth,\n    Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.\n    What wouldst thou have, Laertes?\n  Laer. My dread lord,\n    Your leave and favour to return to France;\n    From whence though willingly I came to Denmark\n    To show my duty in your coronation,\n    Yet now I must confess, that duty done,\n    My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France\n    And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.\n  King. Have you your father's leave? What says Polonius?\n  Pol. He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave\n    By laboursome petition, and at last\n    Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent.\n    I do beseech you give him leave to go.\n  King. Take thy fair hour, Laertes. Time be thine,\n    And thy best graces spend it at thy will!\n    But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son-\n  Ham. [aside] A little more than kin, and less than kind!\n  King. How is it that the clouds still hang on you?\n  Ham. Not so, my lord. I am too much i' th' sun.\n  Queen. Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,\n    And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.\n    Do not for ever with thy vailed lids\n    Seek for thy noble father in the dust.\n    Thou know'st 'tis common. All that lives must die,\n    Passing through nature to eternity.\n  Ham. Ay, madam, it is common.\n  Queen. If it be,\n    Why seems it so particular with thee?\n  Ham. Seems, madam, Nay, it is. I know not 'seems.'\n    'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,\n    Nor customary suits of solemn black,\n    Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath,\n    No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,\n    Nor the dejected havior of the visage,\n    Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,\n    'That can denote me truly. These indeed seem,\n    For they are actions that a man might play;\n    But I have that within which passeth show-\n    These but the trappings and the suits of woe.\n  King. 'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,\n    To give these mourning duties to your father;\n    But you must know, your father lost a father;\n    That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound\n    In filial obligation for some term\n    To do obsequious sorrow. But to persever\n    In obstinate condolement is a course\n    Of impious stubbornness. 'Tis unmanly grief;\n    It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,\n    A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,\n    An understanding simple and unschool'd;\n    For what we know must be, and is as common\n    As any the most vulgar thing to sense,\n    Why should we in our peevish opposition\n    Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven,\n    A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,\n    To reason most absurd, whose common theme\n    Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,\n    From the first corse till he that died to-day,\n    'This must be so.' We pray you throw to earth\n    This unprevailing woe, and think of us\n    As of a father; for let the world take note\n    You are the most immediate to our throne,\n    And with no less nobility of love\n    Than that which dearest father bears his son\n    Do I impart toward you. For your intent\n    In going back to school in Wittenberg,\n    It is most retrograde to our desire;\n    And we beseech you, bend you to remain\n    Here in the cheer and comfort of our eye,\n    Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.\n  Queen. Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet.\n    I pray thee stay with us, go not to Wittenberg.\n  Ham. I shall in all my best obey you, madam.\n  King. Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply.\n    Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come.\n    This gentle and unforc'd accord of Hamlet\n    Sits smiling to my heart; in grace whereof,\n    No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day\n    But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,\n    And the King's rouse the heaven shall bruit again,\n    Respeaking earthly thunder. Come away.\n                                Flourish. Exeunt all but Hamlet.\n  Ham. O that this too too solid flesh would melt,\n    Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!\n    Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd\n    His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!\n    How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable\n    Seem to me all the uses of this world!\n    Fie on't! ah, fie! 'Tis an unweeded garden\n    That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature\n    Possess it merely. That it should come to this!\n    But two months dead! Nay, not so much, not two.\n    So excellent a king, that was to this\n    Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother\n    That he might not beteem the winds of heaven\n    Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!\n    Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him\n    As if increase of appetite had grown\n    By what it fed on; and yet, within a month-\n    Let me not think on't! Frailty, thy name is woman!-\n    A little month, or ere those shoes were old\n    With which she followed my poor father's body\n    Like Niobe, all tears- why she, even she\n    (O God! a beast that wants discourse of reason\n    Would have mourn'd longer) married with my uncle;\n    My father's brother, but no more like my father\n    Than I to Hercules. Within a month,\n    Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears\n    Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,\n    She married. O, most wicked speed, to post\n    With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!\n    It is not, nor it cannot come to good.\n    But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue!\n\n          Enter Horatio, Marcellus, and Bernardo.\n\n  Hor. Hail to your lordship!\n  Ham. I am glad to see you well.\n    Horatio!- or I do forget myself.\n  Hor. The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever.\n  Ham. Sir, my good friend- I'll change that name with you.\n    And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?\n    Marcellus?\n  Mar. My good lord!\n  Ham. I am very glad to see you.- [To Bernardo] Good even, sir.-\n    But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?\n  Hor. A truant disposition, good my lord.\n  Ham. I would not hear your enemy say so,\n    Nor shall you do my ear that violence\n    To make it truster of your own report\n    Against yourself. I know you are no truant.\n    But what is your affair in Elsinore?\n    We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.\n  Hor. My lord, I came to see your father's funeral.\n  Ham. I prithee do not mock me, fellow student.\n    I think it was to see my mother's wedding.\n  Hor. Indeed, my lord, it followed hard upon.\n  Ham. Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral bak'd meats\n    Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.\n    Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven\n    Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!\n    My father- methinks I see my father.\n  Hor. O, where, my lord?\n  Ham. In my mind's eye, Horatio.\n  Hor. I saw him once. He was a goodly king.\n  Ham. He was a man, take him for all in all.\n    I shall not look upon his like again.\n  Hor. My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.\n  Ham. Saw? who?\n  Hor. My lord, the King your father.\n  Ham. The King my father?\n  Hor. Season your admiration for a while\n    With an attent ear, till I may deliver\n    Upon the witness of these gentlemen,\n    This marvel to you.\n  Ham. For God's love let me hear!\n  Hor. Two nights together had these gentlemen\n    (Marcellus and Bernardo) on their watch\n    In the dead vast and middle of the night\n    Been thus encount'red. A figure like your father,\n    Armed at point exactly, cap-a-pe,\n    Appears before them and with solemn march\n    Goes slow and stately by them. Thrice he walk'd\n    By their oppress'd and fear-surprised eyes,\n    Within his truncheon's length; whilst they distill'd\n    Almost to jelly with the act of fear,\n    Stand dumb and speak not to him. This to me\n    In dreadful secrecy impart they did,\n    And I with them the third night kept the watch;\n    Where, as they had deliver'd, both in time,\n    Form of the thing, each word made true and good,\n    The apparition comes. I knew your father.\n    These hands are not more like.\n  Ham. But where was this?\n  Mar. My lord, upon the platform where we watch'd.\n  Ham. Did you not speak to it?\n  Hor. My lord, I did;\n    But answer made it none. Yet once methought\n    It lifted up it head and did address\n    Itself to motion, like as it would speak;\n    But even then the morning cock crew loud,\n    And at the sound it shrunk in haste away\n    And vanish'd from our sight.\n  Ham. 'Tis very strange.\n  Hor. As I do live, my honour'd lord, 'tis true;\n    And we did think it writ down in our duty\n    To let you know of it.\n  Ham. Indeed, indeed, sirs. But this troubles me.\n    Hold you the watch to-night?\n  Both [Mar. and Ber.] We do, my lord.\n  Ham. Arm'd, say you?\n  Both. Arm'd, my lord.\n  Ham. From top to toe?\n  Both. My lord, from head to foot.\n  Ham. Then saw you not his face?\n  Hor. O, yes, my lord! He wore his beaver up.\n  Ham. What, look'd he frowningly.\n  Hor. A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.\n  Ham. Pale or red?\n  Hor. Nay, very pale.\n  Ham. And fix'd his eyes upon you?\n  Hor. Most constantly.\n  Ham. I would I had been there.\n  Hor. It would have much amaz'd you.\n  Ham. Very like, very like. Stay'd it long?\n  Hor. While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.\n  Both. Longer, longer.\n  Hor. Not when I saw't.\n  Ham. His beard was grizzled- no?\n  Hor. It was, as I have seen it in his life,\n    A sable silver'd.\n  Ham. I will watch to-night.\n    Perchance 'twill walk again.\n  Hor. I warr'nt it will.\n  Ham. If it assume my noble father's person,\n    I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gape\n    And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,\n    If you have hitherto conceal'd this sight,\n    Let it be tenable in your silence still;\n    And whatsoever else shall hap to-night,\n    Give it an understanding but no tongue.\n    I will requite your loves. So, fare you well.\n    Upon the platform, 'twixt eleven and twelve,\n    I'll visit you.\n  All. Our duty to your honour.\n  Ham. Your loves, as mine to you. Farewell.\n                                        Exeunt [all but Hamlet].\n    My father's spirit- in arms? All is not well.\n    I doubt some foul play. Would the night were come!\n    Till then sit still, my soul. Foul deeds will rise,\n    Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes.\nExit.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nElsinore. A room in the house of Polonius.\n\nEnter Laertes and Ophelia.\n\n  Laer. My necessaries are embark'd. Farewell.\n    And, sister, as the winds give benefit\n    And convoy is assistant, do not sleep,\n    But let me hear from you.\n  Oph. Do you doubt that?\n  Laer. For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favour,\n    Hold it a fashion, and a toy in blood;\n    A violet in the youth of primy nature,\n    Forward, not permanent- sweet, not lasting;\n    The perfume and suppliance of a minute;\n    No more.\n  Oph. No more but so?\n  Laer. Think it no more.\n    For nature crescent does not grow alone\n    In thews and bulk; but as this temple waxes,\n    The inward service of the mind and soul\n    Grows wide withal. Perhaps he loves you now,\n    And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch\n    The virtue of his will; but you must fear,\n    His greatness weigh'd, his will is not his own;\n    For he himself is subject to his birth.\n    He may not, as unvalued persons do,\n    Carve for himself, for on his choice depends\n    The safety and health of this whole state,\n    And therefore must his choice be circumscrib'd\n    Unto the voice and yielding of that body\n    Whereof he is the head. Then if he says he loves you,\n    It fits your wisdom so far to believe it\n    As he in his particular act and place\n    May give his saying deed; which is no further\n    Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal.\n    Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain\n    If with too credent ear you list his songs,\n    Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open\n    To his unmast'red importunity.\n    Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister,\n    And keep you in the rear of your affection,\n    Out of the shot and danger of desire.\n    The chariest maid is prodigal enough\n    If she unmask her beauty to the moon.\n    Virtue itself scopes not calumnious strokes.\n    The canker galls the infants of the spring\n    Too oft before their buttons be disclos'd,\n    And in the morn and liquid dew of youth\n    Contagious blastments are most imminent.\n    Be wary then; best safety lies in fear.\n    Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.\n  Oph. I shall th' effect of this good lesson keep\n    As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother,\n    Do not as some ungracious pastors do,\n    Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,\n    Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,\n    Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads\n    And recks not his own rede.\n  Laer. O, fear me not!\n\n                       Enter Polonius.\n\n    I stay too long. But here my father comes.\n    A double blessing is a double grace;\n    Occasion smiles upon a second leave.\n  Pol. Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard, for shame!\n    The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,\n    And you are stay'd for. There- my blessing with thee!\n    And these few precepts in thy memory\n    Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,\n    Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.\n    Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar:\n    Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,\n    Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel;\n    But do not dull thy palm with entertainment\n    Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware\n    Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,\n    Bear't that th' opposed may beware of thee.\n    Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice;\n    Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.\n    Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,\n    But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;\n    For the apparel oft proclaims the man,\n    And they in France of the best rank and station\n    Are most select and generous, chief in that.\n    Neither a borrower nor a lender be;\n    For loan oft loses both itself and friend,\n    And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.\n    This above all- to thine own self be true,\n    And it must follow, as the night the day,\n    Thou canst not then be false to any man.\n    Farewell. My blessing season this in thee!\n  Laer. Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.\n  Pol. The time invites you. Go, your servants tend.\n  Laer. Farewell, Ophelia, and remember well\n    What I have said to you.\n  Oph. 'Tis in my memory lock'd,\n    And you yourself shall keep the key of it.\n  Laer. Farewell.                                          Exit.\n  Pol. What is't, Ophelia, he hath said to you?\n  Oph. So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.\n  Pol. Marry, well bethought!\n    'Tis told me he hath very oft of late\n    Given private time to you, and you yourself\n    Have of your audience been most free and bounteous.\n    If it be so- as so 'tis put on me,\n    And that in way of caution- I must tell you\n    You do not understand yourself so clearly\n    As it behooves my daughter and your honour.\n    What is between you? Give me up the truth.\n  Oph. He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders\n    Of his affection to me.\n  Pol. Affection? Pooh! You speak like a green girl,\n    Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.\n    Do you believe his tenders, as you call them?\n  Oph. I do not know, my lord, what I should think,\n  Pol. Marry, I will teach you! Think yourself a baby\n    That you have ta'en these tenders for true pay,\n    Which are not sterling. Tender yourself more dearly,\n    Or (not to crack the wind of the poor phrase,\n    Running it thus) you'll tender me a fool.\n  Oph. My lord, he hath importun'd me with love\n    In honourable fashion.\n  Pol. Ay, fashion you may call it. Go to, go to!\n  Oph. And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord,\n    With almost all the holy vows of heaven.\n  Pol. Ay, springes to catch woodcocks! I do know,\n    When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul\n    Lends the tongue vows. These blazes, daughter,\n    Giving more light than heat, extinct in both\n    Even in their promise, as it is a-making,\n    You must not take for fire. From this time\n    Be something scanter of your maiden presence.\n    Set your entreatments at a higher rate\n    Than a command to parley. For Lord Hamlet,\n    Believe so much in him, that he is young,\n    And with a larger tether may he walk\n    Than may be given you. In few, Ophelia,\n    Do not believe his vows; for they are brokers,\n    Not of that dye which their investments show,\n    But mere implorators of unholy suits,\n    Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds,\n    The better to beguile. This is for all:\n    I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth\n    Have you so slander any moment leisure\n    As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.\n    Look to't, I charge you. Come your ways.\n  Oph. I shall obey, my lord.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nElsinore. The platform before the Castle.\n\nEnter Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus.\n\n  Ham. The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.\n  Hor. It is a nipping and an eager air.\n  Ham. What hour now?\n  Hor. I think it lacks of twelve.\n  Mar. No, it is struck.\n  Hor. Indeed? I heard it not. It then draws near the season\n    Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.\n                   A flourish of trumpets, and two pieces go off.\n    What does this mean, my lord?\n  Ham. The King doth wake to-night and takes his rouse,\n    Keeps wassail, and the swagg'ring upspring reels,\n    And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,\n    The kettledrum and trumpet thus bray out\n    The triumph of his pledge.\n  Hor. Is it a custom?\n  Ham. Ay, marry, is't;\n    But to my mind, though I am native here\n    And to the manner born, it is a custom\n    More honour'd in the breach than the observance.\n    This heavy-headed revel east and west\n    Makes us traduc'd and tax'd of other nations;\n    They clip us drunkards and with swinish phrase\n    Soil our addition; and indeed it takes\n    From our achievements, though perform'd at height,\n    The pith and marrow of our attribute.\n    So oft it chances in particular men\n    That, for some vicious mole of nature in them,\n    As in their birth,- wherein they are not guilty,\n    Since nature cannot choose his origin,-\n    By the o'ergrowth of some complexion,\n    Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason,\n    Or by some habit that too much o'erleavens\n    The form of plausive manners, that these men\n    Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,\n    Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,\n    Their virtues else- be they as pure as grace,\n    As infinite as man may undergo-\n    Shall in the general censure take corruption\n    From that particular fault. The dram of e'il\n    Doth all the noble substance often dout To his own scandal.\n\n                         Enter Ghost.\n\n  Hor. Look, my lord, it comes!\n  Ham. Angels and ministers of grace defend us!\n    Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,\n    Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,\n    Be thy intents wicked or charitable,\n    Thou com'st in such a questionable shape\n    That I will speak to thee. I'll call thee Hamlet,\n    King, father, royal Dane. O, answer me?\n    Let me not burst in ignorance, but tell\n    Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death,\n    Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre\n    Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd,\n    Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws\n    To cast thee up again. What may this mean\n    That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel,\n    Revisits thus the glimpses of the moon,\n    Making night hideous, and we fools of nature\n    So horridly to shake our disposition\n    With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?\n    Say, why is this? wherefore? What should we do?\n                                           Ghost beckons Hamlet.\n  Hor. It beckons you to go away with it,\n    As if it some impartment did desire\n    To you alone.\n  Mar. Look with what courteous action\n    It waves you to a more removed ground.\n    But do not go with it!\n  Hor. No, by no means!\n  Ham. It will not speak. Then will I follow it.\n  Hor. Do not, my lord!\n  Ham. Why, what should be the fear?\n    I do not set my life at a pin's fee;\n    And for my soul, what can it do to that,\n    Being a thing immortal as itself?\n    It waves me forth again. I'll follow it.\n  Hor. What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,\n    Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff\n    That beetles o'er his base into the sea,\n    And there assume some other, horrible form\n    Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason\n    And draw you into madness? Think of it.\n    The very place puts toys of desperation,\n    Without more motive, into every brain\n    That looks so many fadoms to the sea\n    And hears it roar beneath.\n  Ham. It waves me still.\n    Go on. I'll follow thee.\n  Mar. You shall not go, my lord.\n  Ham. Hold off your hands!\n  Hor. Be rul'd. You shall not go.\n  Ham. My fate cries out\n    And makes each petty artire in this body\n    As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve.\n                                                [Ghost beckons.]\n    Still am I call'd. Unhand me, gentlemen.\n    By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me!-\n    I say, away!- Go on. I'll follow thee.\n                                        Exeunt Ghost and Hamlet.\n  Hor. He waxes desperate with imagination.\n  Mar. Let's follow. 'Tis not fit thus to obey him.\n  Hor. Have after. To what issue wail this come?\n  Mar. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.\n  Hor. Heaven will direct it.\n  Mar. Nay, let's follow him.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene V.\nElsinore. The Castle. Another part of the fortifications.\n\nEnter Ghost and Hamlet.\n\n  Ham. Whither wilt thou lead me? Speak! I'll go no further.\n  Ghost. Mark me.\n  Ham. I will.\n  Ghost. My hour is almost come,\n    When I to sulph'rous and tormenting flames\n    Must render up myself.\n  Ham. Alas, poor ghost!\n  Ghost. Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing\n    To what I shall unfold.\n  Ham. Speak. I am bound to hear.\n  Ghost. So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.\n  Ham. What?\n  Ghost. I am thy father's spirit,\n    Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,\n    And for the day confin'd to fast in fires,\n    Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature\n    Are burnt and purg'd away. But that I am forbid\n    To tell the secrets of my prison house,\n    I could a tale unfold whose lightest word\n    Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,\n    Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,\n    Thy knotted and combined locks to part,\n    And each particular hair to stand an end\n    Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.\n    But this eternal blazon must not be\n    To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O, list!\n    If thou didst ever thy dear father love-\n  Ham. O God!\n  Ghost. Revenge his foul and most unnatural murther.\n  Ham. Murther?\n  Ghost. Murther most foul, as in the best it is;\n    But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.\n  Ham. Haste me to know't, that I, with wings as swift\n    As meditation or the thoughts of love,\n    May sweep to my revenge.\n  Ghost. I find thee apt;\n    And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed\n    That rots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,\n    Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear.\n    'Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,\n    A serpent stung me. So the whole ear of Denmark\n    Is by a forged process of my death\n    Rankly abus'd. But know, thou noble youth,\n    The serpent that did sting thy father's life\n    Now wears his crown.\n  Ham. O my prophetic soul!\n    My uncle?\n  Ghost. Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,\n    With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts-\n    O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power\n    So to seduce!- won to his shameful lust\n    The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen.\n    O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there,\n    From me, whose love was of that dignity\n    That it went hand in hand even with the vow\n    I made to her in marriage, and to decline\n    Upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor\n    To those of mine!\n    But virtue, as it never will be mov'd,\n    Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven,\n    So lust, though to a radiant angel link'd,\n    Will sate itself in a celestial bed\n    And prey on garbage.\n    But soft! methinks I scent the morning air.\n    Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard,\n    My custom always of the afternoon,\n    Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,\n    With juice of cursed hebona in a vial,\n    And in the porches of my ears did pour\n    The leperous distilment; whose effect\n    Holds such an enmity with blood of man\n    That swift as quicksilverr it courses through\n    The natural gates and alleys of the body,\n    And with a sudden vigour it doth posset\n    And curd, like eager droppings into milk,\n    The thin and wholesome blood. So did it mine;\n    And a most instant tetter bark'd about,\n    Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust\n    All my smooth body.\n    Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand\n    Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatch'd;\n    Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,\n    Unhous'led, disappointed, unanel'd,\n    No reckoning made, but sent to my account\n    With all my imperfections on my head.\n  Ham. O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible!\n  Ghost. If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not.\n    Let not the royal bed of Denmark be\n    A couch for luxury and damned incest.\n    But, howsoever thou pursuest this act,\n    Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive\n    Against thy mother aught. Leave her to heaven,\n    And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge\n    To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once.\n    The glowworm shows the matin to be near\n    And gins to pale his uneffectual fire.\n    Adieu, adieu, adieu! Remember me.                      Exit.\n  Ham. O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else?\n    And shall I couple hell? Hold, hold, my heart!\n    And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,\n    But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee?\n    Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat\n    In this distracted globe. Remember thee?\n    Yea, from the table of my memory\n    I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,\n    All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past\n    That youth and observation copied there,\n    And thy commandment all alone shall live\n    Within the book and volume of my brain,\n    Unmix'd with baser matter. Yes, by heaven!\n    O most pernicious woman!\n    O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!\n    My tables! Meet it is I set it down\n    That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;\n    At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark.        [Writes.]\n    So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word:\n    It is 'Adieu, adieu! Remember me.'\n    I have sworn't.\n  Hor. (within) My lord, my lord!\n\n                   Enter Horatio and Marcellus.\n\n  Mar. Lord Hamlet!\n  Hor. Heaven secure him!\n  Ham. So be it!\n  Mar. Illo, ho, ho, my lord!\n  Ham. Hillo, ho, ho, boy! Come, bird, come.\n  Mar. How is't, my noble lord?\n  Hor. What news, my lord?\n  Mar. O, wonderful!\n  Hor. Good my lord, tell it.\n  Ham. No, you will reveal it.\n  Hor. Not I, my lord, by heaven!\n  Mar. Nor I, my lord.\n  Ham. How say you then? Would heart of man once think it?\n    But you'll be secret?\n  Both. Ay, by heaven, my lord.\n  Ham. There's neer a villain dwelling in all Denmark\n    But he's an arrant knave.\n  Hor. There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave\n    To tell us this.\n  Ham. Why, right! You are in the right!\n    And so, without more circumstance at all,\n    I hold it fit that we shake hands and part;\n    You, as your business and desires shall point you,\n    For every man hath business and desire,\n    Such as it is; and for my own poor part,\n    Look you, I'll go pray.\n  Hor. These are but wild and whirling words, my lord.\n  Ham. I am sorry they offend you, heartily;\n    Yes, faith, heartily.\n  Hor. There's no offence, my lord.\n  Ham. Yes, by Saint Patrick, but there is, Horatio,\n    And much offence too. Touching this vision here,\n    It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you.\n    For your desire to know what is between us,\n    O'ermaster't as you may. And now, good friends,\n    As you are friends, scholars, and soldiers,\n    Give me one poor request.\n  Hor. What is't, my lord? We will.\n  Ham. Never make known what you have seen to-night.\n  Both. My lord, we will not.\n  Ham. Nay, but swear't.\n  Hor. In faith,\n    My lord, not I.\n  Mar. Nor I, my lord- in faith.\n  Ham. Upon my sword.\n  Mar. We have sworn, my lord, already.\n  Ham. Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.\n\n                 Ghost cries under the stage.\n\n  Ghost. Swear.\n  Ham. Aha boy, say'st thou so? Art thou there, truepenny?\n    Come on! You hear this fellow in the cellarage.\n    Consent to swear.\n  Hor. Propose the oath, my lord.\n  Ham. Never to speak of this that you have seen.\n    Swear by my sword.\n  Ghost. [beneath] Swear.\n  Ham. Hic et ubique? Then we'll shift our ground.\n    Come hither, gentlemen,\n    And lay your hands again upon my sword.\n    Never to speak of this that you have heard:\n    Swear by my sword.\n  Ghost. [beneath] Swear by his sword.\n  Ham. Well said, old mole! Canst work i' th' earth so fast?\n    A worthy pioner! Once more remove, good friends.\"\n  Hor. O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!\n  Ham. And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.\n    There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,\n    Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.\n    But come!\n    Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,\n    How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself\n    (As I perchance hereafter shall think meet\n    To put an antic disposition on),\n    That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,\n    With arms encumb'red thus, or this head-shake,\n    Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,\n    As 'Well, well, we know,' or 'We could, an if we would,'\n    Or 'If we list to speak,' or 'There be, an if they might,'\n    Or such ambiguous giving out, to note\n    That you know aught of me- this is not to do,\n    So grace and mercy at your most need help you,\n    Swear.\n  Ghost. [beneath] Swear.\n                                                   [They swear.]\n  Ham. Rest, rest, perturbed spirit! So, gentlemen,\n    With all my love I do commend me to you;\n    And what so poor a man as Hamlet is\n    May do t' express his love and friending to you,\n    God willing, shall not lack. Let us go in together;\n    And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.\n    The time is out of joint. O cursed spite\n    That ever I was born to set it right!\n    Nay, come, let's go together.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAct II. Scene I.\nElsinore. A room in the house of Polonius.\n\nEnter Polonius and Reynaldo.\n\n  Pol. Give him this money and these notes, Reynaldo.\n  Rey. I will, my lord.\n  Pol. You shall do marvell's wisely, good Reynaldo,\n    Before You visit him, to make inquire\n    Of his behaviour.\n  Rey. My lord, I did intend it.\n  Pol. Marry, well said, very well said. Look you, sir,\n    Enquire me first what Danskers are in Paris;\n    And how, and who, what means, and where they keep,\n    What company, at what expense; and finding\n    By this encompassment and drift of question\n    That they do know my son, come you more nearer\n    Than your particular demands will touch it.\n    Take you, as 'twere, some distant knowledge of him;\n    As thus, 'I know his father and his friends,\n    And in part him.' Do you mark this, Reynaldo?\n  Rey. Ay, very well, my lord.\n  Pol. 'And in part him, but,' you may say, 'not well.\n    But if't be he I mean, he's very wild\n    Addicted so and so'; and there put on him\n    What forgeries you please; marry, none so rank\n    As may dishonour him- take heed of that;\n    But, sir, such wanton, wild, and usual slips\n    As are companions noted and most known\n    To youth and liberty.\n  Rey. As gaming, my lord.\n  Pol. Ay, or drinking, fencing, swearing, quarrelling,\n    Drabbing. You may go so far.\n  Rey. My lord, that would dishonour him.\n  Pol. Faith, no, as you may season it in the charge.\n    You must not put another scandal on him,\n    That he is open to incontinency.\n    That's not my meaning. But breathe his faults so quaintly\n    That they may seem the taints of liberty,\n    The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind,\n    A savageness in unreclaimed blood,\n    Of general assault.\n  Rey. But, my good lord-\n  Pol. Wherefore should you do this?\n  Rey. Ay, my lord,\n    I would know that.\n  Pol. Marry, sir, here's my drift,\n    And I believe it is a fetch of warrant.\n    You laying these slight sullies on my son\n    As 'twere a thing a little soil'd i' th' working,\n    Mark you,\n    Your party in converse, him you would sound,\n    Having ever seen in the prenominate crimes\n    The youth you breathe of guilty, be assur'd\n    He closes with you in this consequence:\n    'Good sir,' or so, or 'friend,' or 'gentleman'-\n    According to the phrase or the addition\n    Of man and country-\n  Rey. Very good, my lord.\n  Pol. And then, sir, does 'a this- 'a does- What was I about to say?\n    By the mass, I was about to say something! Where did I leave?\n  Rey. At 'closes in the consequence,' at 'friend or so,' and\n    gentleman.'\n  Pol. At 'closes in the consequence'- Ay, marry!\n    He closes thus: 'I know the gentleman.\n    I saw him yesterday, or t'other day,\n    Or then, or then, with such or such; and, as you say,\n    There was 'a gaming; there o'ertook in's rouse;\n    There falling out at tennis'; or perchance,\n    'I saw him enter such a house of sale,'\n    Videlicet, a brothel, or so forth.\n    See you now-\n    Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth;\n    And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,\n    With windlasses and with assays of bias,\n    By indirections find directions out.\n    So, by my former lecture and advice,\n    Shall you my son. You have me, have you not\n  Rey. My lord, I have.\n  Pol. God b' wi' ye, fare ye well!\n  Rey. Good my lord!                                    [Going.]\n  Pol. Observe his inclination in yourself.\n  Rey. I shall, my lord.\n  Pol. And let him ply his music.\n  Rey. Well, my lord.\n  Pol. Farewell!\n                                                  Exit Reynaldo.\n\n                       Enter Ophelia.\n\n    How now, Ophelia? What's the matter?\n  Oph. O my lord, my lord, I have been so affrighted!\n  Pol. With what, i' th' name of God I\n  Oph. My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,\n    Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbrac'd,\n    No hat upon his head, his stockings foul'd,\n    Ungart'red, and down-gyved to his ankle;\n    Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other,\n    And with a look so piteous in purport\n    As if he had been loosed out of hell\n    To speak of horrors- he comes before me.\n  Pol. Mad for thy love?\n  Oph. My lord, I do not know,\n    But truly I do fear it.\n  Pol. What said he?\n  Oph. He took me by the wrist and held me hard;\n    Then goes he to the length of all his arm,\n    And, with his other hand thus o'er his brow,\n    He falls to such perusal of my face\n    As he would draw it. Long stay'd he so.\n    At last, a little shaking of mine arm,\n    And thrice his head thus waving up and down,\n    He rais'd a sigh so piteous and profound\n    As it did seem to shatter all his bulk\n    And end his being. That done, he lets me go,\n    And with his head over his shoulder turn'd\n    He seem'd to find his way without his eyes,\n    For out o' doors he went without their help\n    And to the last bended their light on me.\n  Pol. Come, go with me. I will go seek the King.\n    This is the very ecstasy of love,\n    Whose violent property fordoes itself\n    And leads the will to desperate undertakings\n    As oft as any passion under heaven\n    That does afflict our natures. I am sorry.\n    What, have you given him any hard words of late?\n  Oph. No, my good lord; but, as you did command,\n    I did repel his letters and denied\n    His access to me.\n  Pol. That hath made him mad.\n    I am sorry that with better heed and judgment\n    I had not quoted him. I fear'd he did but trifle\n    And meant to wrack thee; but beshrew my jealousy!\n    By heaven, it is as proper to our age\n    To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions\n    As it is common for the younger sort\n    To lack discretion. Come, go we to the King.\n    This must be known; which, being kept close, might move\n    More grief to hide than hate to utter love.\n    Come.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\nScene II.\nElsinore. A room in the Castle.\n\nFlourish. [Enter King and Queen, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, cum aliis.\n\n  King. Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.\n    Moreover that we much did long to see you,\n    The need we have to use you did provoke\n    Our hasty sending. Something have you heard\n    Of Hamlet's transformation. So I call it,\n    Sith nor th' exterior nor the inward man\n    Resembles that it was. What it should be,\n    More than his father's death, that thus hath put him\n    So much from th' understanding of himself,\n    I cannot dream of. I entreat you both\n    That, being of so young clays brought up with him,\n    And since so neighbour'd to his youth and haviour,\n    That you vouchsafe your rest here in our court\n    Some little time; so by your companies\n    To draw him on to pleasures, and to gather\n    So much as from occasion you may glean,\n    Whether aught to us unknown afflicts him thus\n    That, open'd, lies within our remedy.\n  Queen. Good gentlemen, he hath much talk'd of you,\n    And sure I am two men there are not living\n    To whom he more adheres. If it will please you\n    To show us so much gentry and good will\n    As to expend your time with us awhile\n    For the supply and profit of our hope,\n    Your visitation shall receive such thanks\n    As fits a king's remembrance.\n  Ros. Both your Majesties\n    Might, by the sovereign power you have of us,\n    Put your dread pleasures more into command\n    Than to entreaty.\n  Guil. But we both obey,\n    And here give up ourselves, in the full bent,\n    To lay our service freely at your feet,\n    To be commanded.\n  King. Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.\n  Queen. Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz.\n    And I beseech you instantly to visit\n    My too much changed son.- Go, some of you,\n    And bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is.\n  Guil. Heavens make our presence and our practices\n    Pleasant and helpful to him!\n  Queen. Ay, amen!\n                 Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, [with some\n                                                    Attendants].\n\n                         Enter Polonius.\n\n  Pol. Th' ambassadors from Norway, my good lord,\n    Are joyfully return'd.\n  King. Thou still hast been the father of good news.\n  Pol. Have I, my lord? Assure you, my good liege,\n    I hold my duty as I hold my soul,\n    Both to my God and to my gracious king;\n    And I do think- or else this brain of mine\n    Hunts not the trail of policy so sure\n    As it hath us'd to do- that I have found\n    The very cause of Hamlet's lunacy.\n  King. O, speak of that! That do I long to hear.\n  Pol. Give first admittance to th' ambassadors.\n    My news shall be the fruit to that great feast.\n  King. Thyself do grace to them, and bring them in.\n                                                [Exit Polonius.]\n    He tells me, my dear Gertrude, he hath found\n    The head and source of all your son's distemper.\n  Queen. I doubt it is no other but the main,\n    His father's death and our o'erhasty marriage.\n  King. Well, we shall sift him.\n\n              Enter Polonius, Voltemand, and Cornelius.\n\n    Welcome, my good friends.\n    Say, Voltemand, what from our brother Norway?\n  Volt. Most fair return of greetings and desires.\n    Upon our first, he sent out to suppress\n    His nephew's levies; which to him appear'd\n    To be a preparation 'gainst the Polack,\n    But better look'd into, he truly found\n    It was against your Highness; whereat griev'd,\n    That so his sickness, age, and impotence\n    Was falsely borne in hand, sends out arrests\n    On Fortinbras; which he, in brief, obeys,\n    Receives rebuke from Norway, and, in fine,\n    Makes vow before his uncle never more\n    To give th' assay of arms against your Majesty.\n    Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy,\n    Gives him three thousand crowns in annual fee\n    And his commission to employ those soldiers,\n    So levied as before, against the Polack;\n    With an entreaty, herein further shown,\n                                                [Gives a paper.]\n    That it might please you to give quiet pass\n    Through your dominions for this enterprise,\n    On such regards of safety and allowance\n    As therein are set down.\n  King. It likes us well;\n    And at our more consider'd time we'll read,\n    Answer, and think upon this business.\n    Meantime we thank you for your well-took labour.\n    Go to your rest; at night we'll feast together.\n    Most welcome home!                       Exeunt Ambassadors.\n  Pol. This business is well ended.\n    My liege, and madam, to expostulate\n    What majesty should be, what duty is,\n    Why day is day, night is night, and time is time.\n    Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time.\n    Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,\n    And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,\n    I will be brief. Your noble son is mad.\n    Mad call I it; for, to define true madness,\n    What is't but to be nothing else but mad?\n    But let that go.\n  Queen. More matter, with less art.\n  Pol. Madam, I swear I use no art at all.\n    That he is mad, 'tis true: 'tis true 'tis pity;\n    And pity 'tis 'tis true. A foolish figure!\n    But farewell it, for I will use no art.\n    Mad let us grant him then. And now remains\n    That we find out the cause of this effect-\n    Or rather say, the cause of this defect,\n    For this effect defective comes by cause.\n    Thus it remains, and the remainder thus.\n    Perpend.\n    I have a daughter (have while she is mine),\n    Who in her duty and obedience, mark,\n    Hath given me this. Now gather, and surmise.\n                                             [Reads] the letter.\n    'To the celestial, and my soul's idol, the most beautified\n      Ophelia,'-\n\n    That's an ill phrase, a vile phrase; 'beautified' is a vile\n      phrase.\n    But you shall hear. Thus:\n                                                        [Reads.]\n    'In her excellent white bosom, these, &c.'\n  Queen. Came this from Hamlet to her?\n  Pol. Good madam, stay awhile. I will be faithful.     [Reads.]\n\n          'Doubt thou the stars are fire;\n            Doubt that the sun doth move;\n          Doubt truth to be a liar;\n            But never doubt I love.\n      'O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers; I have not art to\n    reckon my groans; but that I love thee best, O most best, believe\n    it. Adieu.\n      'Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine is to him,\n                                                          HAMLET.'\n\n    This, in obedience, hath my daughter shown me;\n    And more above, hath his solicitings,\n    As they fell out by time, by means, and place,\n    All given to mine ear.\n  King. But how hath she\n    Receiv'd his love?\n  Pol. What do you think of me?\n  King. As of a man faithful and honourable.\n  Pol. I would fain prove so. But what might you think,\n    When I had seen this hot love on the wing\n    (As I perceiv'd it, I must tell you that,\n    Before my daughter told me), what might you,\n    Or my dear Majesty your queen here, think,\n    If I had play'd the desk or table book,\n    Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb,\n    Or look'd upon this love with idle sight?\n    What might you think? No, I went round to work\n    And my young mistress thus I did bespeak:\n    'Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star.\n    This must not be.' And then I prescripts gave her,\n    That she should lock herself from his resort,\n    Admit no messengers, receive no tokens.\n    Which done, she took the fruits of my advice,\n    And he, repulsed, a short tale to make,\n    Fell into a sadness, then into a fast,\n    Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness,\n    Thence to a lightness, and, by this declension,\n    Into the madness wherein now he raves,\n    And all we mourn for.\n  King. Do you think 'tis this?\n  Queen. it may be, very like.\n  Pol. Hath there been such a time- I would fain know that-\n    That I have Positively said ''Tis so,'\n    When it prov'd otherwise.?\n  King. Not that I know.\n  Pol. [points to his head and shoulder] Take this from this, if this\n      be otherwise.\n    If circumstances lead me, I will find\n    Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed\n    Within the centre.\n  King. How may we try it further?\n  Pol. You know sometimes he walks four hours together\n    Here in the lobby.\n  Queen. So he does indeed.\n  Pol. At such a time I'll loose my daughter to him.\n    Be you and I behind an arras then.\n    Mark the encounter. If he love her not,\n    And he not from his reason fall'n thereon\n    Let me be no assistant for a state,\n    But keep a farm and carters.\n  King. We will try it.\n\n                 Enter Hamlet, reading on a book.\n\n  Queen. But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.\n  Pol. Away, I do beseech you, both away\n    I'll board him presently. O, give me leave.\n                       Exeunt King and Queen, [with Attendants].\n    How does my good Lord Hamlet?\n  Ham. Well, God-a-mercy.\n  Pol. Do you know me, my lord?\n  Ham. Excellent well. You are a fishmonger.\n  Pol. Not I, my lord.\n  Ham. Then I would you were so honest a man.\n  Pol. Honest, my lord?\n  Ham. Ay, sir. To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man\n    pick'd out of ten thousand.\n  Pol. That's very true, my lord.\n  Ham. For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god\n    kissing carrion- Have you a daughter?\n  Pol. I have, my lord.\n  Ham. Let her not walk i' th' sun. Conception is a blessing, but not\n    as your daughter may conceive. Friend, look to't.\n  Pol. [aside] How say you by that? Still harping on my daughter. Yet\n    he knew me not at first. He said I was a fishmonger. He is far\n    gone, far gone! And truly in my youth I suff'red much extremity\n    for love- very near this. I'll speak to him again.- What do you\n    read, my lord?\n  Ham. Words, words, words.\n  Pol. What is the matter, my lord?\n  Ham. Between who?\n  Pol. I mean, the matter that you read, my lord.\n  Ham. Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says here that old men\n    have grey beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes\n    purging thick amber and plum-tree gum; and that they have a\n    plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams. All which,\n    sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it\n    not honesty to have it thus set down; for you yourself, sir,\n    should be old as I am if, like a crab, you could go backward.\n  Pol. [aside] Though this be madness, yet there is a method in't.-\n   Will You walk out of the air, my lord?\n  Ham. Into my grave?\n  Pol. Indeed, that is out o' th' air. [Aside] How pregnant sometimes\n    his replies are! a happiness that often madness hits on, which\n    reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. I\n    will leave him and suddenly contrive the means of meeting between\n    him and my daughter.- My honourable lord, I will most humbly take\n    my leave of you.\n  Ham. You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more\n    willingly part withal- except my life, except my life, except my\n    life,\n\n                    Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.\n\n  Pol. Fare you well, my lord.\n  Ham. These tedious old fools!\n  Pol. You go to seek the Lord Hamlet. There he is.\n  Ros. [to Polonius] God save you, sir!\n                                                Exit [Polonius].\n  Guil. My honour'd lord!\n  Ros. My most dear lord!\n  Ham. My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern? Ah,\n    Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do ye both?\n  Ros. As the indifferent children of the earth.\n  Guil. Happy in that we are not over-happy.\n    On Fortune's cap we are not the very button.\n  Ham. Nor the soles of her shoe?\n  Ros. Neither, my lord.\n  Ham. Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her\n    favours?\n  Guil. Faith, her privates we.\n  Ham. In the secret parts of Fortune? O! most true! she is a\n    strumpet. What news ?\n  Ros. None, my lord, but that the world's grown honest.\n  Ham. Then is doomsday near! But your news is not true. Let me\n    question more in particular. What have you, my good friends,\n    deserved at the hands of Fortune that she sends you to prison\n    hither?\n  Guil. Prison, my lord?\n  Ham. Denmark's a prison.\n  Ros. Then is the world one.\n  Ham. A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and\n    dungeons, Denmark being one o' th' worst.\n  Ros. We think not so, my lord.\n  Ham. Why, then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good\n    or bad but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison.\n  Ros. Why, then your ambition makes it one. 'Tis too narrow for your\n    mind.\n  Ham. O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a\n    king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.\n  Guil. Which dreams indeed are ambition; for the very substance of\n    the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.\n  Ham. A dream itself is but a shadow.\n  Ros. Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that\n    it is but a shadow's shadow.\n  Ham. Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretch'd\n    heroes the beggars' shadows. Shall we to th' court? for, by my\n    fay, I cannot reason.\n  Both. We'll wait upon you.\n  Ham. No such matter! I will not sort you with the rest of my\n    servants; for, to speak to you like an honest man, I am most\n    dreadfully attended. But in the beaten way of friendship, what\n    make you at Elsinore?\n  Ros. To visit you, my lord; no other occasion.\n  Ham. Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I thank you;\n    and sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear a halfpenny. Were\n    you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free\n    visitation? Come, deal justly with me. Come, come! Nay, speak.\n  Guil. What should we say, my lord?\n  Ham. Why, anything- but to th' purpose. You were sent for; and\n    there is a kind of confession in your looks, which your modesties\n    have not craft enough to colour. I know the good King and Queen\n    have sent for you.\n  Ros. To what end, my lord?\n  Ham. That you must teach me. But let me conjure you by the rights\n    of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the\n    obligation of our ever-preserved love, and by what more dear a\n    better proposer could charge you withal, be even and direct with\n    me, whether you were sent for or no.\n  Ros. [aside to Guildenstern] What say you?\n  Ham. [aside] Nay then, I have an eye of you.- If you love me, hold\n    not off.\n  Guil. My lord, we were sent for.\n  Ham. I will tell you why. So shall my anticipation prevent your\n    discovery, and your secrecy to the King and Queen moult no\n    feather. I have of late- but wherefore I know not- lost all my\n    mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed, it goes so\n    heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth,\n    seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the\n    air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical\n    roof fretted with golden fire- why, it appeareth no other thing\n    to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a\n    piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in\n    faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable! in\n    action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the\n    beauty of the world, the paragon of animals! And yet to me what\n    is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me- no, nor woman\n    neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.\n  Ros. My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.\n  Ham. Why did you laugh then, when I said 'Man delights not me'?\n  Ros. To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what lenten\n    entertainment the players shall receive from you. We coted them\n    on the way, and hither are they coming to offer you service.\n  Ham. He that plays the king shall be welcome- his Majesty shall\n    have tribute of me; the adventurous knight shall use his foil and\n    target; the lover shall not sigh gratis; the humorous man shall\n    end his part in peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose\n    lungs are tickle o' th' sere; and the lady shall say her mind\n    freely, or the blank verse shall halt fort. What players are\n    they?\n  Ros. Even those you were wont to take such delight in, the\n    tragedians of the city.\n  Ham. How chances it they travel? Their residence, both in\n    reputation and profit, was better both ways.\n  Ros. I think their inhibition comes by the means of the late\n    innovation.\n  Ham. Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the\n    city? Are they so follow'd?\n  Ros. No indeed are they not.\n  Ham. How comes it? Do they grow rusty?\n  Ros. Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace; but there is,\n    sir, an eyrie of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top\n    of question and are most tyrannically clapp'd fort. These are now\n    the fashion, and so berattle the common stages (so they call\n    them) that many wearing rapiers are afraid of goosequills and\n    dare scarce come thither.\n  Ham. What, are they children? Who maintains 'em? How are they\n    escoted? Will they pursue the quality no longer than they can\n    sing? Will they not say afterwards, if they should grow\n    themselves to common players (as it is most like, if their means\n    are no better), their writers do them wrong to make them exclaim\n    against their own succession.\n  Ros. Faith, there has been much to do on both sides; and the nation\n    holds it no sin to tarre them to controversy. There was, for a\n    while, no money bid for argument unless the poet and the player\n    went to cuffs in the question.\n  Ham. Is't possible?\n  Guil. O, there has been much throwing about of brains.\n  Ham. Do the boys carry it away?\n  Ros. Ay, that they do, my lord- Hercules and his load too.\n  Ham. It is not very strange; for my uncle is King of Denmark, and\n    those that would make mows at him while my father lived give\n    twenty, forty, fifty, a hundred ducats apiece for his picture in\n    little. 'Sblood, there is something in this more than natural, if\n    philosophy could find it out.\n\n                     Flourish for the Players.\n\n  Guil. There are the players.\n  Ham. Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands, come! Th'\n    appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony. Let me comply\n    with you in this garb, lest my extent to the players (which I\n    tell you must show fairly outwards) should more appear like\n    entertainment than yours. You are welcome. But my uncle-father\n    and aunt-mother are deceiv'd.\n  Guil. In what, my dear lord?\n  Ham. I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly I\n    know a hawk from a handsaw.\n\n                            Enter Polonius.\n\n  Pol. Well be with you, gentlemen!\n  Ham. Hark you, Guildenstern- and you too- at each ear a hearer!\n    That great baby you see there is not yet out of his swaddling\n    clouts.\n  Ros. Happily he's the second time come to them; for they say an old\n    man is twice a child.\n  Ham. I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players. Mark it.-\n   You say right, sir; a Monday morning; twas so indeed.\n  Pol. My lord, I have news to tell you.\n  Ham. My lord, I have news to tell you. When Roscius was an actor in\n    Rome-\n  Pol. The actors are come hither, my lord.\n  Ham. Buzz, buzz!\n  Pol. Upon my honour-\n  Ham. Then came each actor on his ass-\n  Pol. The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy,\n    history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral,\n    tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral; scene\n    individable, or poem unlimited. Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor\n    Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are\n    the only men.\n  Ham. O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!\n  Pol. What treasure had he, my lord?\n  Ham. Why,\n\n         'One fair daughter, and no more,\n           The which he loved passing well.'\n\n  Pol. [aside] Still on my daughter.\n  Ham. Am I not i' th' right, old Jephthah?\n  Pol. If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter that I\n    love passing well.\n  Ham. Nay, that follows not.\n  Pol. What follows then, my lord?\n  Ham. Why,\n\n           'As by lot, God wot,'\n\n and then, you know,\n\n           'It came to pass, as most like it was.'\n\n    The first row of the pious chanson will show you more; for look\n    where my abridgment comes.\n\n                     Enter four or five Players.\n\n    You are welcome, masters; welcome, all.- I am glad to see thee\n    well.- Welcome, good friends.- O, my old friend? Why, thy face is\n    valanc'd since I saw thee last. Com'st' thou to' beard me in\n    Denmark?- What, my young lady and mistress? By'r Lady, your\n    ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I saw you last by the\n    altitude of a chopine. Pray God your voice, like a piece of\n    uncurrent gold, be not crack'd within the ring.- Masters, you are\n    all welcome. We'll e'en to't like French falconers, fly at\n    anything we see. We'll have a speech straight. Come, give us a\n    taste of your quality. Come, a passionate speech.\n  1. Play. What speech, my good lord?\n  Ham. I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was never acted;\n    or if it was, not above once; for the play, I remember, pleas'd\n    not the million, 'twas caviary to the general; but it was (as I\n    receiv'd it, and others, whose judgments in such matters cried in\n    the top of mine) an excellent play, well digested in the scenes,\n    set down with as much modesty as cunning. I remember one said\n    there were no sallets in the lines to make the matter savoury,\n    nor no matter in the phrase that might indict the author of\n    affectation; but call'd it an honest method, as wholesome as\n    sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine. One speech in't\n    I chiefly lov'd. 'Twas AEneas' tale to Dido, and thereabout of it\n    especially where he speaks of Priam's slaughter. If it live in\n    your memory, begin at this line- let me see, let me see:\n\n         'The rugged Pyrrhus, like th' Hyrcanian beast-'\n\n    'Tis not so; it begins with Pyrrhus:\n\n         'The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,\n         Black as his purpose, did the night resemble\n         When he lay couched in the ominous horse,\n         Hath now this dread and black complexion smear'd\n         With heraldry more dismal. Head to foot\n         Now is be total gules, horridly trick'd\n         With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,\n         Bak'd and impasted with the parching streets,\n         That lend a tyrannous and a damned light\n         To their lord's murther. Roasted in wrath and fire,\n         And thus o'ersized with coagulate gore,\n         With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus\n         Old grandsire Priam seeks.'\n\n    So, proceed you.\n  Pol. Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and good\n     discretion.\n\n  1. Play. 'Anon he finds him,\n      Striking too short at Greeks. His antique sword,\n      Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,\n      Repugnant to command. Unequal match'd,\n      Pyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage strikes wide;\n      But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword\n      Th' unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium,\n      Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top\n      Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash\n      Takes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear. For lo! his sword,\n      Which was declining on the milky head\n      Of reverend Priam, seem'd i' th' air to stick.\n      So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood,\n      And, like a neutral to his will and matter,\n      Did nothing.\n      But, as we often see, against some storm,\n      A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,\n      The bold winds speechless, and the orb below\n      As hush as death- anon the dreadful thunder\n      Doth rend the region; so, after Pyrrhus' pause,\n      Aroused vengeance sets him new awork;\n      And never did the Cyclops' hammers fall\n      On Mars's armour, forg'd for proof eterne,\n      With less remorse than Pyrrhus' bleeding sword\n      Now falls on Priam.\n      Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune! All you gods,\n      In general synod take away her power;\n      Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,\n      And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven,\n      As low as to the fiends!\n\n  Pol. This is too long.\n  Ham. It shall to the barber's, with your beard.- Prithee say on.\n    He's for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps. Say on; come to\n    Hecuba.\n\n  1. Play. 'But who, O who, had seen the mobled queen-'\n\n  Ham. 'The mobled queen'?\n  Pol. That's good! 'Mobled queen' is good.\n\n  1. Play. 'Run barefoot up and down, threat'ning the flames\n      With bisson rheum; a clout upon that head\n      Where late the diadem stood, and for a robe,\n      About her lank and all o'erteemed loins,\n      A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up-\n      Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep'd\n      'Gainst Fortune's state would treason have pronounc'd.\n      But if the gods themselves did see her then,\n      When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport\n      In Mincing with his sword her husband's limbs,\n      The instant burst of clamour that she made\n      (Unless things mortal move them not at all)\n      Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven\n      And passion in the gods.'\n\n  Pol. Look, whe'r he has not turn'd his colour, and has tears in's\n    eyes. Prithee no more!\n  Ham. 'Tis well. I'll have thee speak out the rest of this soon.-\n    Good my lord, will you see the players well bestow'd? Do you\n    hear? Let them be well us'd; for they are the abstract and brief\n    chronicles of the time. After your death you were better have a\n    bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.\n  Pol. My lord, I will use them according to their desert.\n  Ham. God's bodykins, man, much better! Use every man after his\n    desert, and who should scape whipping? Use them after your own\n    honour and dignity. The less they deserve, the more merit is in\n    your bounty. Take them in.\n  Pol. Come, sirs.\n  Ham. Follow him, friends. We'll hear a play to-morrow.\n                 Exeunt Polonius and Players [except the First].\n    Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can you play 'The Murther of\n    Gonzago'?\n  1. Play. Ay, my lord.\n  Ham. We'll ha't to-morrow night. You could, for a need, study a\n    speech of some dozen or sixteen lines which I would set down and\n    insert in't, could you not?\n  1. Play. Ay, my lord.\n  Ham. Very well. Follow that lord- and look you mock him not.\n                                            [Exit First Player.]\n    My good friends, I'll leave you till night. You are welcome to\n    Elsinore.\n  Ros. Good my lord!\n  Ham. Ay, so, God b' wi' ye!\n                            [Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern\n    Now I am alone.\n    O what a rogue and peasant slave am I!\n    Is it not monstrous that this player here,\n    But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,\n    Could force his soul so to his own conceit\n    That, from her working, all his visage wann'd,\n    Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,\n    A broken voice, and his whole function suiting\n    With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing!\n    For Hecuba!\n    What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,\n    That he should weep for her? What would he do,\n    Had he the motive and the cue for passion\n    That I have? He would drown the stage with tears\n    And cleave the general ear with horrid speech;\n    Make mad the guilty and appal the free,\n    Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed\n    The very faculties of eyes and ears.\n    Yet I,\n    A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak\n    Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,\n    And can say nothing! No, not for a king,\n    Upon whose property and most dear life\n    A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward?\n    Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?\n    Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face?\n    Tweaks me by th' nose? gives me the lie i' th' throat\n    As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this, ha?\n    'Swounds, I should take it! for it cannot be\n    But I am pigeon-liver'd and lack gall\n    To make oppression bitter, or ere this\n    I should have fatted all the region kites\n    With this slave's offal. Bloody bawdy villain!\n    Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!\n    O, vengeance!\n    Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,\n    That I, the son of a dear father murther'd,\n    Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,\n    Must (like a whore) unpack my heart with words\n    And fall a-cursing like a very drab,\n    A scullion!\n    Fie upon't! foh! About, my brain! Hum, I have heard\n    That guilty creatures, sitting at a play,\n    Have by the very cunning of the scene\n    Been struck so to the soul that presently\n    They have proclaim'd their malefactions;\n    For murther, though it have no tongue, will speak\n    With most miraculous organ, I'll have these Players\n    Play something like the murther of my father\n    Before mine uncle. I'll observe his looks;\n    I'll tent him to the quick. If he but blench,\n    I know my course. The spirit that I have seen\n    May be a devil; and the devil hath power\n    T' assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps\n    Out of my weakness and my melancholy,\n    As he is very potent with such spirits,\n    Abuses me to damn me. I'll have grounds\n    More relative than this. The play's the thing\n    Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King.         Exit.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. Scene I.\nElsinore. A room in the Castle.\n\nEnter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Lords.\n\n  King. And can you by no drift of circumstance\n    Get from him why he puts on this confusion,\n    Grating so harshly all his days of quiet\n    With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?\n  Ros. He does confess he feels himself distracted,\n    But from what cause he will by no means speak.\n  Guil. Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,\n    But with a crafty madness keeps aloof\n    When we would bring him on to some confession\n    Of his true state.\n  Queen. Did he receive you well?\n  Ros. Most like a gentleman.\n  Guil. But with much forcing of his disposition.\n  Ros. Niggard of question, but of our demands\n    Most free in his reply.\n  Queen. Did you assay him\n    To any pastime?\n  Ros. Madam, it so fell out that certain players\n    We o'erraught on the way. Of these we told him,\n    And there did seem in him a kind of joy\n    To hear of it. They are here about the court,\n    And, as I think, they have already order\n    This night to play before him.\n  Pol. 'Tis most true;\n    And he beseech'd me to entreat your Majesties\n    To hear and see the matter.\n  King. With all my heart, and it doth much content me\n    To hear him so inclin'd.\n    Good gentlemen, give him a further edge\n    And drive his purpose on to these delights.\n  Ros. We shall, my lord.\n                            Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.\n  King. Sweet Gertrude, leave us too;\n    For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,\n    That he, as 'twere by accident, may here\n    Affront Ophelia.\n    Her father and myself (lawful espials)\n    Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing unseen,\n    We may of their encounter frankly judge\n    And gather by him, as he is behav'd,\n    If't be th' affliction of his love, or no,\n    That thus he suffers for.\n  Queen. I shall obey you;\n    And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish\n    That your good beauties be the happy cause\n    Of Hamlet's wildness. So shall I hope your virtues\n    Will bring him to his wonted way again,\n    To both your honours.\n  Oph. Madam, I wish it may.\n                                                   [Exit Queen.]\n  Pol. Ophelia, walk you here.- Gracious, so please you,\n    We will bestow ourselves.- [To Ophelia] Read on this book,\n    That show of such an exercise may colour\n    Your loneliness.- We are oft to blame in this,\n    'Tis too much prov'd, that with devotion's visage\n    And pious action we do sugar o'er\n    The Devil himself.\n  King. [aside] O, 'tis too true!\n    How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!\n    The harlot's cheek, beautied with plast'ring art,\n    Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it\n    Than is my deed to my most painted word.\n    O heavy burthen!\n  Pol. I hear him coming. Let's withdraw, my lord.\n                                      Exeunt King and Polonius].\n\n                           Enter Hamlet.\n\n  Ham. To be, or not to be- that is the question:\n    Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer\n    The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune\n    Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,\n    And by opposing end them. To die- to sleep-\n    No more; and by a sleep to say we end\n    The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks\n    That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation\n    Devoutly to be wish'd. To die- to sleep.\n    To sleep- perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub!\n    For in that sleep of death what dreams may come\n    When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,\n    Must give us pause. There's the respect\n    That makes calamity of so long life.\n    For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,\n    Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,\n    The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,\n    The insolence of office, and the spurns\n    That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,\n    When he himself might his quietus make\n    With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear,\n    To grunt and sweat under a weary life,\n    But that the dread of something after death-\n    The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn\n    No traveller returns- puzzles the will,\n    And makes us rather bear those ills we have\n    Than fly to others that we know not of?\n    Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,\n    And thus the native hue of resolution\n    Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,\n    And enterprises of great pith and moment\n    With this regard their currents turn awry\n    And lose the name of action.- Soft you now!\n    The fair Ophelia!- Nymph, in thy orisons\n    Be all my sins rememb'red.\n  Oph. Good my lord,\n    How does your honour for this many a day?\n  Ham. I humbly thank you; well, well, well.\n  Oph. My lord, I have remembrances of yours\n    That I have longed long to re-deliver.\n    I pray you, now receive them.\n  Ham. No, not I!\n    I never gave you aught.\n  Oph. My honour'd lord, you know right well you did,\n    And with them words of so sweet breath compos'd\n    As made the things more rich. Their perfume lost,\n    Take these again; for to the noble mind\n    Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.\n    There, my lord.\n  Ham. Ha, ha! Are you honest?\n  Oph. My lord?\n  Ham. Are you fair?\n  Oph. What means your lordship?\n  Ham. That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no\n    discourse to your beauty.\n  Oph. Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?\n  Ham. Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform\n    honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can\n    translate beauty into his likeness. This was sometime a paradox,\n    but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.\n  Oph. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.\n  Ham. You should not have believ'd me; for virtue cannot so\n    inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it. I loved you\n    not.\n  Oph. I was the more deceived.\n  Ham. Get thee to a nunnery! Why wouldst thou be a breeder of\n    sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse\n    me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me.\n    I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at my\n    beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give\n    them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I\n    do, crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves all;\n    believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your\n    father?\n  Oph. At home, my lord.\n  Ham. Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool\n    nowhere but in's own house. Farewell.\n  Oph. O, help him, you sweet heavens!\n  Ham. If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry:\n    be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape\n    calumny. Get thee to a nunnery. Go, farewell. Or if thou wilt\n    needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough what\n    monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go; and quickly too.\n    Farewell.\n  Oph. O heavenly powers, restore him!\n  Ham. I have heard of your paintings too, well enough. God hath\n    given you one face, and you make yourselves another. You jig, you\n    amble, and you lisp; you nickname God's creatures and make your\n    wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't! it hath made\n    me mad. I say, we will have no moe marriages. Those that are\n    married already- all but one- shall live; the rest shall keep as\n    they are. To a nunnery, go.                            Exit.\n  Oph. O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!\n    The courtier's, scholar's, soldier's, eye, tongue, sword,\n    Th' expectancy and rose of the fair state,\n    The glass of fashion and the mould of form,\n    Th' observ'd of all observers- quite, quite down!\n    And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,\n    That suck'd the honey of his music vows,\n    Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,\n    Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;\n    That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth\n    Blasted with ecstasy. O, woe is me\n    T' have seen what I have seen, see what I see!\n\n                   Enter King and Polonius.\n\n  King. Love? his affections do not that way tend;\n    Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little,\n    Was not like madness. There's something in his soul\n    O'er which his melancholy sits on brood;\n    And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose\n    Will be some danger; which for to prevent,\n    I have in quick determination\n    Thus set it down: he shall with speed to England\n    For the demand of our neglected tribute.\n    Haply the seas, and countries different,\n    With variable objects, shall expel\n    This something-settled matter in his heart,\n    Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus\n    From fashion of himself. What think you on't?\n  Pol. It shall do well. But yet do I believe\n    The origin and commencement of his grief\n    Sprung from neglected love.- How now, Ophelia?\n    You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said.\n    We heard it all.- My lord, do as you please;\n    But if you hold it fit, after the play\n    Let his queen mother all alone entreat him\n    To show his grief. Let her be round with him;\n    And I'll be plac'd so please you, in the ear\n    Of all their conference. If she find him not,\n    To England send him; or confine him where\n    Your wisdom best shall think.\n  King. It shall be so.\n    Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go.         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nElsinore. hall in the Castle.\n\nEnter Hamlet and three of the Players.\n\n  Ham. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounc'd it to you,\n    trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of our\n    players do, I had as live the town crier spoke my lines. Nor do\n    not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all\n    gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say)\n    whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a\n    temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the\n    soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to\n    tatters, to very rags, to split the cars of the groundlings, who\n    (for the most part) are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb\n    shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipp'd for o'erdoing\n    Termagant. It out-herods Herod. Pray you avoid it.\n  Player. I warrant your honour.\n  Ham. Be not too tame neither; but let your own discretion be your\n    tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with\n    this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of\n    nature: for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing,\n    whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as\n    'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show Virtue her own feature,\n    scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his\n    form and pressure. Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though\n    it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious\n    grieve; the censure of the which one must in your allowance\n    o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players that I\n    have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly (not to\n    speak it profanely), that, neither having the accent of\n    Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so\n    strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of Nature's\n    journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated\n    humanity so abominably.\n  Player. I hope we have reform'd that indifferently with us, sir.\n  Ham. O, reform it altogether! And let those that play your clowns\n    speak no more than is set down for them. For there be of them\n    that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren\n    spectators to laugh too, though in the mean time some necessary\n    question of the play be then to be considered. That's villanous\n    and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go\n    make you ready.\n                                                 Exeunt Players.\n\n            Enter Polonius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern.\n\n    How now, my lord? Will the King hear this piece of work?\n  Pol. And the Queen too, and that presently.\n  Ham. Bid the players make haste, [Exit Polonius.] Will you two\n    help to hasten them?\n  Both. We will, my lord.                       Exeunt they two.\n  Ham. What, ho, Horatio!\n\n                      Enter Horatio.\n\n  Hor. Here, sweet lord, at your service.\n  Ham. Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man\n    As e'er my conversation cop'd withal.\n  Hor. O, my dear lord!\n  Ham. Nay, do not think I flatter;\n    For what advancement may I hope from thee,\n    That no revenue hast but thy good spirits\n    To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flatter'd?\n    No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,\n    And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee\n    Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?\n    Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice\n    And could of men distinguish, her election\n    Hath scald thee for herself. For thou hast been\n    As one, in suff'ring all, that suffers nothing;\n    A man that Fortune's buffets and rewards\n    Hast ta'en with equal thanks; and blest are those\n    Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled\n    That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger\n    To sound what stop she please. Give me that man\n    That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him\n    In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,\n    As I do thee. Something too much of this I\n    There is a play to-night before the King.\n    One scene of it comes near the circumstance,\n    Which I have told thee, of my father's death.\n    I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot,\n    Even with the very comment of thy soul\n    Observe my uncle. If his occulted guilt\n    Do not itself unkennel in one speech,\n    It is a damned ghost that we have seen,\n    And my imaginations are as foul\n    As Vulcan's stithy. Give him heedful note;\n    For I mine eyes will rivet to his face,\n    And after we will both our judgments join\n    In censure of his seeming.\n  Hor. Well, my lord.\n    If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing,\n    And scape detecting, I will pay the theft.\n\n    Sound a flourish. [Enter Trumpets and Kettledrums. Danish\n    march. [Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz,\n      Guildenstern, and other Lords attendant, with the Guard\n                       carrying torches.\n\n  Ham. They are coming to the play. I must be idle.\n    Get you a place.\n  King. How fares our cousin Hamlet?\n  Ham. Excellent, i' faith; of the chameleon's dish. I eat the air,\n    promise-cramm'd. You cannot feed capons so.\n  King. I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet. These words are not\n    mine.\n  Ham. No, nor mine now. [To Polonius] My lord, you play'd once\n    i' th' university, you say?\n  Pol. That did I, my lord, and was accounted a good actor.\n  Ham. What did you enact?\n  Pol. I did enact Julius Caesar; I was kill'd i' th' Capitol; Brutus\n    kill'd me.\n  Ham. It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there. Be\n    the players ready.\n  Ros. Ay, my lord. They stay upon your patience.\n  Queen. Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.\n  Ham. No, good mother. Here's metal more attractive.\n  Pol. [to the King] O, ho! do you mark that?\n  Ham. Lady, shall I lie in your lap?\n                                  [Sits down at Ophelia's feet.]\n  Oph. No, my lord.\n  Ham. I mean, my head upon your lap?\n  Oph. Ay, my lord.\n  Ham. Do you think I meant country matters?\n  Oph. I think nothing, my lord.\n  Ham. That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.\n  Oph. What is, my lord?\n  Ham. Nothing.\n  Oph. You are merry, my lord.\n  Ham. Who, I?\n  Oph. Ay, my lord.\n  Ham. O God, your only jig-maker! What should a man do but be merry?\n    For look you how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died\n    within 's two hours.\n  Oph. Nay 'tis twice two months, my lord.\n  Ham. So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for I'll have a\n    suit of sables. O heavens! die two months ago, and not forgotten\n    yet? Then there's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life\n    half a year. But, by'r Lady, he must build churches then; or else\n    shall he suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse, whose\n    epitaph is 'For O, for O, the hobby-horse is forgot!'\n\n               Hautboys play. The dumb show enters.\n\n    Enter a King and a Queen very lovingly; the Queen embracing\n    him and he her. She kneels, and makes show of protestation\n    unto him. He takes her up, and declines his head upon her\n    neck. He lays him down upon a bank of flowers. She, seeing\n    him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his\n    crown, kisses it, pours poison in the sleeper's ears, and\n    leaves him. The Queen returns, finds the King dead, and makes\n    passionate action. The Poisoner with some three or four Mutes,\n    comes in again, seem to condole with her. The dead body is\n    carried away. The Poisoner wooes the Queen with gifts; she\n    seems harsh and unwilling awhile, but in the end accepts\n    his love.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n  Oph. What means this, my lord?\n  Ham. Marry, this is miching malhecho; it means mischief.\n  Oph. Belike this show imports the argument of the play.\n\n                      Enter Prologue.\n\n  Ham. We shall know by this fellow. The players cannot keep counsel;\n    they'll tell all.\n  Oph. Will he tell us what this show meant?\n  Ham. Ay, or any show that you'll show him. Be not you asham'd to\n    show, he'll not shame to tell you what it means.\n  Oph. You are naught, you are naught! I'll mark the play.\n\n    Pro. For us, and for our tragedy,\n      Here stooping to your clemency,\n      We beg your hearing patiently.                     [Exit.]\n\n  Ham. Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?\n  Oph. 'Tis brief, my lord.\n  Ham. As woman's love.\n\n              Enter [two Players as] King and Queen.\n\n    King. Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round\n      Neptune's salt wash and Tellus' orbed ground,\n      And thirty dozed moons with borrowed sheen\n      About the world have times twelve thirties been,\n      Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands,\n      Unite comutual in most sacred bands.\n    Queen. So many journeys may the sun and moon\n      Make us again count o'er ere love be done!\n      But woe is me! you are so sick of late,\n      So far from cheer and from your former state.\n      That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,\n      Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must;\n      For women's fear and love holds quantity,\n      In neither aught, or in extremity.\n      Now what my love is, proof hath made you know;\n      And as my love is siz'd, my fear is so.\n      Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;\n      Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.\n    King. Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too;\n      My operant powers their functions leave to do.\n      And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,\n      Honour'd, belov'd, and haply one as kind\n      For husband shalt thou-\n    Queen. O, confound the rest!\n      Such love must needs be treason in my breast.\n      When second husband let me be accurst!\n      None wed the second but who killed the first.\n\n  Ham. [aside] Wormwood, wormwood!\n\n    Queen. The instances that second marriage move\n      Are base respects of thrift, but none of love.\n      A second time I kill my husband dead\n      When second husband kisses me in bed.\n    King. I do believe you think what now you speak;\n      But what we do determine oft we break.\n      Purpose is but the slave to memory,\n      Of violent birth, but poor validity;\n      Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree,\n      But fill unshaken when they mellow be.\n      Most necessary 'tis that we forget\n      To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt.\n      What to ourselves in passion we propose,\n      The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.\n      The violence of either grief or joy\n      Their own enactures with themselves destroy.\n      Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;\n      Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.\n      This world is not for aye, nor 'tis not strange\n      That even our loves should with our fortunes change;\n      For 'tis a question left us yet to prove,\n      Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.\n      The great man down, you mark his favourite flies,\n      The poor advanc'd makes friends of enemies;\n      And hitherto doth love on fortune tend,\n      For who not needs shall never lack a friend,\n      And who in want a hollow friend doth try,\n      Directly seasons him his enemy.\n      But, orderly to end where I begun,\n      Our wills and fates do so contrary run\n      That our devices still are overthrown;\n      Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.\n      So think thou wilt no second husband wed;\n      But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.\n    Queen. Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light,\n      Sport and repose lock from me day and night,\n      To desperation turn my trust and hope,\n      An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope,\n      Each opposite that blanks the face of joy\n      Meet what I would have well, and it destroy,\n      Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,\n      If, once a widow, ever I be wife!\n\n  Ham. If she should break it now!\n\n    King. 'Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile.\n      My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile\n      The tedious day with sleep.\n    Queen. Sleep rock thy brain,\n                                                    [He] sleeps.\n      And never come mischance between us twain!\nExit.\n\n  Ham. Madam, how like you this play?\n  Queen. The lady doth protest too much, methinks.\n  Ham. O, but she'll keep her word.\n  King. Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in't?\n  Ham. No, no! They do but jest, poison in jest; no offence i' th'\n    world.\n  King. What do you call the play?\n  Ham. 'The Mousetrap.' Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the\n    image of a murther done in Vienna. Gonzago is the duke's name;\n    his wife, Baptista. You shall see anon. 'Tis a knavish piece of\n    work; but what o' that? Your Majesty, and we that have free\n    souls, it touches us not. Let the gall'd jade winch; our withers\n    are unwrung.\n\n                         Enter Lucianus.\n\n    This is one Lucianus, nephew to the King.\n  Oph. You are as good as a chorus, my lord.\n  Ham. I could interpret between you and your love, if I could see\n    the puppets dallying.\n  Oph. You are keen, my lord, you are keen.\n  Ham. It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.\n  Oph. Still better, and worse.\n  Ham. So you must take your husbands.- Begin, murtherer. Pox, leave\n    thy damnable faces, and begin! Come, the croaking raven doth\n    bellow for revenge.\n\n    Luc. Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing;\n      Confederate season, else no creature seeing;\n      Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,\n      With Hecate's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,\n      Thy natural magic and dire property\n      On wholesome life usurp immediately.\n                                   Pours the poison in his ears.\n\n  Ham. He poisons him i' th' garden for's estate. His name's Gonzago.\n    The story is extant, and written in very choice Italian. You\n    shall see anon how the murtherer gets the love of Gonzago's wife.\n  Oph. The King rises.\n  Ham. What, frighted with false fire?\n  Queen. How fares my lord?\n  Pol. Give o'er the play.\n  King. Give me some light! Away!\n  All. Lights, lights, lights!\n                              Exeunt all but Hamlet and Horatio.\n  Ham.   Why, let the strucken deer go weep,\n          The hart ungalled play;\n         For some must watch, while some must sleep:\n          Thus runs the world away.\n    Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers- if the rest of my\n    fortunes turn Turk with me-with two Provincial roses on my raz'd\n    shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir?\n  Hor. Half a share.\n  Ham.   A whole one I!\n         For thou dost know, O Damon dear,\n           This realm dismantled was\n         Of Jove himself; and now reigns here\n           A very, very- pajock.\n  Hor. You might have rhym'd.\n  Ham. O good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word for a thousand\n    pound! Didst perceive?\n  Hor. Very well, my lord.\n  Ham. Upon the talk of the poisoning?\n  Hor. I did very well note him.\n  Ham.   Aha! Come, some music! Come, the recorders!\n         For if the King like not the comedy,\n         Why then, belike he likes it not, perdy.\n    Come, some music!\n\n                Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.\n\n  Guil. Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.\n  Ham. Sir, a whole history.\n  Guil. The King, sir-\n  Ham. Ay, sir, what of him?\n  Guil. Is in his retirement, marvellous distemper'd.\n  Ham. With drink, sir?\n  Guil. No, my lord; rather with choler.\n  Ham. Your wisdom should show itself more richer to signify this to\n    the doctor; for me to put him to his purgation would perhaps\n    plunge him into far more choler.\n  Guil. Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and start\n    not so wildly from my affair.\n  Ham. I am tame, sir; pronounce.\n  Guil. The Queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit\n    hath sent me to you.\n  Ham. You are welcome.\n  Guil. Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed.\n    If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do\n    your mother's commandment; if not, your pardon and my return\n    shall be the end of my business.\n  Ham. Sir, I cannot.\n  Guil. What, my lord?\n  Ham. Make you a wholesome answer; my wit's diseas'd. But, sir, such\n    answer is I can make, you shall command; or rather, as you say,\n    my mother. Therefore no more, but to the matter! My mother, you\n    say-\n  Ros. Then thus she says: your behaviour hath struck her into\n    amazement and admiration.\n  Ham. O wonderful son, that can so stonish a mother! But is there no\n    sequel at the heels of this mother's admiration? Impart.\n  Ros. She desires to speak with you in her closet ere you go to bed.\n  Ham. We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any\n    further trade with us?\n  Ros. My lord, you once did love me.\n  Ham. And do still, by these pickers and stealers!\n  Ros. Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? You do surely\n    bar the door upon your own liberty, if you deny your griefs to\n    your friend.\n  Ham. Sir, I lack advancement.\n  Ros. How can that be, when you have the voice of the King himself\n    for your succession in Denmark?\n  Ham. Ay, sir, but 'while the grass grows'- the proverb is something\n    musty.\n\n                     Enter the Players with recorders.\n\n    O, the recorders! Let me see one. To withdraw with you- why do\n    you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me\n    into a toil?\n  Guil. O my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.\n  Ham. I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?\n  Guil. My lord, I cannot.\n  Ham. I pray you.\n  Guil. Believe me, I cannot.\n  Ham. I do beseech you.\n  Guil. I know, no touch of it, my lord.\n  Ham. It is as easy as lying. Govern these ventages with your\n    fingers and thumbs, give it breath with your mouth, and it will\n    discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.\n  Guil. But these cannot I command to any utt'rance of harmony. I\n    have not the skill.\n  Ham. Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You\n    would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would\n    pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my\n    lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much music,\n    excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it\n    speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be play'd on than a\n    pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me,\n    you cannot play upon me.\n\n                        Enter Polonius.\n\n    God bless you, sir!\n  Pol. My lord, the Queen would speak with you, and presently.\n  Ham. Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?\n  Pol. By th' mass, and 'tis like a camel indeed.\n  Ham. Methinks it is like a weasel.\n  Pol. It is back'd like a weasel.\n  Ham. Or like a whale.\n  Pol. Very like a whale.\n  Ham. Then will I come to my mother by-and-by.- They fool me to the\n    top of my bent.- I will come by-and-by.\n  Pol. I will say so.                                      Exit.\n  Ham. 'By-and-by' is easily said.- Leave me, friends.\n                                        [Exeunt all but Hamlet.]\n    'Tis now the very witching time of night,\n    When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out\n    Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood\n    And do such bitter business as the day\n    Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother!\n    O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever\n    The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom.\n    Let me be cruel, not unnatural;\n    I will speak daggers to her, but use none.\n    My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites-\n    How in my words somever she be shent,\n    To give them seals never, my soul, consent!             Exit.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nA room in the Castle.\n\nEnter King, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern.\n\n  King. I like him not, nor stands it safe with us\n    To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you;\n    I your commission will forthwith dispatch,\n    And he to England shall along with you.\n    The terms of our estate may not endure\n    Hazard so near us as doth hourly grow\n    Out of his lunacies.\n  Guil. We will ourselves provide.\n    Most holy and religious fear it is\n    To keep those many many bodies safe\n    That live and feed upon your Majesty.\n  Ros. The single and peculiar life is bound\n    With all the strength and armour of the mind\n    To keep itself from noyance; but much more\n    That spirit upon whose weal depends and rests\n    The lives of many. The cesse of majesty\n    Dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw\n    What's near it with it. It is a massy wheel,\n    Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount,\n    To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things\n    Are mortis'd and adjoin'd; which when it falls,\n    Each small annexment, petty consequence,\n    Attends the boist'rous ruin. Never alone\n    Did the king sigh, but with a general groan.\n  King. Arm you, I pray you, to th', speedy voyage;\n    For we will fetters put upon this fear,\n    Which now goes too free-footed.\n  Both. We will haste us.\n                                               Exeunt Gentlemen.\n\n                   Enter Polonius.\n\n  Pol. My lord, he's going to his mother's closet.\n    Behind the arras I'll convey myself\n    To hear the process. I'll warrant she'll tax him home;\n    And, as you said, and wisely was it said,\n    'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother,\n    Since nature makes them partial, should o'erhear\n    The speech, of vantage. Fare you well, my liege.\n    I'll call upon you ere you go to bed\n    And tell you what I know.\n  King. Thanks, dear my lord.\n                                                Exit [Polonius].\n    O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven;\n    It hath the primal eldest curse upon't,\n    A brother's murther! Pray can I not,\n    Though inclination be as sharp as will.\n    My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent,\n    And, like a man to double business bound,\n    I stand in pause where I shall first begin,\n    And both neglect. What if this cursed hand\n    Were thicker than itself with brother's blood,\n    Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens\n    To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy\n    But to confront the visage of offence?\n    And what's in prayer but this twofold force,\n    To be forestalled ere we come to fall,\n    Or pardon'd being down? Then I'll look up;\n    My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer\n    Can serve my turn? 'Forgive me my foul murther'?\n    That cannot be; since I am still possess'd\n    Of those effects for which I did the murther-\n    My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.\n    May one be pardon'd and retain th' offence?\n    In the corrupted currents of this world\n    Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice,\n    And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself\n    Buys out the law; but 'tis not so above.\n    There is no shuffling; there the action lies\n    In his true nature, and we ourselves compell'd,\n    Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,\n    To give in evidence. What then? What rests?\n    Try what repentance can. What can it not?\n    Yet what can it when one cannot repent?\n    O wretched state! O bosom black as death!\n    O limed soul, that, struggling to be free,\n    Art more engag'd! Help, angels! Make assay.\n    Bow, stubborn knees; and heart with strings of steel,\n    Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe!\n    All may be well.                                  He kneels.\n\n                         Enter Hamlet.\n\n  Ham. Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;\n    And now I'll do't. And so he goes to heaven,\n    And so am I reveng'd. That would be scann'd.\n    A villain kills my father; and for that,\n    I, his sole son, do this same villain send\n    To heaven.\n    Why, this is hire and salary, not revenge!\n    He took my father grossly, full of bread,\n    With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;\n    And how his audit stands, who knows save heaven?\n    But in our circumstance and course of thought,\n    'Tis heavy with him; and am I then reveng'd,\n    To take him in the purging of his soul,\n    When he is fit and seasoned for his passage?\n    No.\n    Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent.\n    When he is drunk asleep; or in his rage;\n    Or in th' incestuous pleasure of his bed;\n    At gaming, swearing, or about some act\n    That has no relish of salvation in't-\n    Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,\n    And that his soul may be as damn'd and black\n    As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays.\n    This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.              Exit.\n  King. [rises] My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.\n    Words without thoughts never to heaven go.             Exit.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nThe Queen's closet.\n\nEnter Queen and Polonius.\n\n  Pol. He will come straight. Look you lay home to him.\n    Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with,\n    And that your Grace hath screen'd and stood between\n    Much heat and him. I'll silence me even here.\n    Pray you be round with him.\n  Ham. (within) Mother, mother, mother!\n  Queen. I'll warrant you; fear me not. Withdraw; I hear him coming.\n                              [Polonius hides behind the arras.]\n\n                          Enter Hamlet.\n\n  Ham. Now, mother, what's the matter?\n  Queen. Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.\n  Ham. Mother, you have my father much offended.\n  Queen. Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.\n  Ham. Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.\n  Queen. Why, how now, Hamlet?\n  Ham. What's the matter now?\n  Queen. Have you forgot me?\n  Ham. No, by the rood, not so!\n    You are the Queen, your husband's brother's wife,\n    And (would it were not so!) you are my mother.\n  Queen. Nay, then I'll set those to you that can speak.\n  Ham. Come, come, and sit you down. You shall not budge I\n    You go not till I set you up a glass\n    Where you may see the inmost part of you.\n  Queen. What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murther me?\n    Help, help, ho!\n  Pol. [behind] What, ho! help, help, help!\n  Ham. [draws] How now? a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead!\n            [Makes a pass through the arras and] kills Polonius.\n  Pol. [behind] O, I am slain!\n  Queen. O me, what hast thou done?\n  Ham. Nay, I know not. Is it the King?\n  Queen. O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!\n  Ham. A bloody deed- almost as bad, good mother,\n    As kill a king, and marry with his brother.\n  Queen. As kill a king?\n  Ham. Ay, lady, it was my word.\n                         [Lifts up the arras and sees Polonius.]\n    Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!\n    I took thee for thy better. Take thy fortune.\n    Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger.\n    Leave wringing of your hinds. Peace! sit you down\n    And let me wring your heart; for so I shall\n    If it be made of penetrable stuff;\n    If damned custom have not braz'd it so\n    That it is proof and bulwark against sense.\n  Queen. What have I done that thou dar'st wag thy tongue\n    In noise so rude against me?\n  Ham. Such an act\n    That blurs the grace and blush of modesty;\n    Calls virtue hypocrite; takes off the rose\n    From the fair forehead of an innocent love,\n    And sets a blister there; makes marriage vows\n    As false as dicers' oaths. O, such a deed\n    As from the body of contraction plucks\n    The very soul, and sweet religion makes\n    A rhapsody of words! Heaven's face doth glow;\n    Yea, this solidity and compound mass,\n    With tristful visage, as against the doom,\n    Is thought-sick at the act.\n  Queen. Ay me, what act,\n    That roars so loud and thunders in the index?\n  Ham. Look here upon th's picture, and on this,\n    The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.\n    See what a grace was seated on this brow;\n    Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;\n    An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;\n    A station like the herald Mercury\n    New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill:\n    A combination and a form indeed\n    Where every god did seem to set his seal\n    To give the world assurance of a man.\n    This was your husband. Look you now what follows.\n    Here is your husband, like a mildew'd ear\n    Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?\n    Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,\n    And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes\n    You cannot call it love; for at your age\n    The heyday in the blood is tame, it's humble,\n    And waits upon the judgment; and what judgment\n    Would step from this to this? Sense sure you have,\n    Else could you not have motion; but sure that sense\n    Is apoplex'd; for madness would not err,\n    Nor sense to ecstacy was ne'er so thrall'd\n    But it reserv'd some quantity of choice\n    To serve in such a difference. What devil was't\n    That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?\n    Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,\n    Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,\n    Or but a sickly part of one true sense\n    Could not so mope.\n    O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,\n    If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,\n    To flaming youth let virtue be as wax\n    And melt in her own fire. Proclaim no shame\n    When the compulsive ardour gives the charge,\n    Since frost itself as actively doth burn,\n    And reason panders will.\n  Queen. O Hamlet, speak no more!\n    Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul,\n    And there I see such black and grained spots\n    As will not leave their tinct.\n  Ham. Nay, but to live\n    In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,\n    Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love\n    Over the nasty sty!\n  Queen. O, speak to me no more!\n    These words like daggers enter in mine ears.\n    No more, sweet Hamlet!\n  Ham. A murtherer and a villain!\n    A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe\n    Of your precedent lord; a vice of kings;\n    A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,\n    That from a shelf the precious diadem stole\n    And put it in his pocket!\n  Queen. No more!\n\n                Enter the Ghost in his nightgown.\n\n  Ham. A king of shreds and patches!-\n    Save me and hover o'er me with your wings,\n    You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?\n  Queen. Alas, he's mad!\n  Ham. Do you not come your tardy son to chide,\n    That, laps'd in time and passion, lets go by\n    Th' important acting of your dread command?\n    O, say!\n  Ghost. Do not forget. This visitation\n    Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.\n    But look, amazement on thy mother sits.\n    O, step between her and her fighting soul\n    Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.\n    Speak to her, Hamlet.\n  Ham. How is it with you, lady?\n  Queen. Alas, how is't with you,\n    That you do bend your eye on vacancy,\n    And with th' encorporal air do hold discourse?\n    Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;\n    And, as the sleeping soldiers in th' alarm,\n    Your bedded hairs, like life in excrements,\n    Start up and stand an end. O gentle son,\n    Upon the beat and flame of thy distemper\n    Sprinkle cool patience! Whereon do you look?\n  Ham. On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares!\n    His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones,\n    Would make them capable.- Do not look upon me,\n    Lest with this piteous action you convert\n    My stern effects. Then what I have to do\n    Will want true colour- tears perchance for blood.\n  Queen. To whom do you speak this?\n  Ham. Do you see nothing there?\n  Queen. Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.\n  Ham. Nor did you nothing hear?\n  Queen. No, nothing but ourselves.\n  Ham. Why, look you there! Look how it steals away!\n    My father, in his habit as he liv'd!\n    Look where he goes even now out at the portal!\n                                                     Exit Ghost.\n  Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain.\n    This bodiless creation ecstasy\n    Is very cunning in.\n  Ham. Ecstasy?\n    My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time\n    And makes as healthful music. It is not madness\n    That I have utt'red. Bring me to the test,\n    And I the matter will reword; which madness\n    Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,\n    Lay not that flattering unction to your soul\n    That not your trespass but my madness speaks.\n    It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,\n    Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,\n    Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;\n    Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;\n    And do not spread the compost on the weeds\n    To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue;\n    For in the fatness of these pursy times\n    Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg-\n    Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.\n  Queen. O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.\n  Ham. O, throw away the worser part of it,\n    And live the purer with the other half,\n    Good night- but go not to my uncle's bed.\n    Assume a virtue, if you have it not.\n    That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat\n    Of habits evil, is angel yet in this,\n    That to the use of actions fair and good\n    He likewise gives a frock or livery,\n    That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night,\n    And that shall lend a kind of easiness\n    To the next abstinence; the next more easy;\n    For use almost can change the stamp of nature,\n    And either [master] the devil, or throw him out\n    With wondrous potency. Once more, good night;\n    And when you are desirous to be blest,\n    I'll blessing beg of you.- For this same lord,\n    I do repent; but heaven hath pleas'd it so,\n    To punish me with this, and this with me,\n    That I must be their scourge and minister.\n    I will bestow him, and will answer well\n    The death I gave him. So again, good night.\n    I must be cruel, only to be kind;\n    Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.\n    One word more, good lady.\n  Queen. What shall I do?\n  Ham. Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:\n    Let the bloat King tempt you again to bed;\n    Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse;\n    And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,\n    Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd fingers,\n    Make you to ravel all this matter out,\n    That I essentially am not in madness,\n    But mad in craft. 'Twere good you let him know;\n    For who that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,\n    Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib\n    Such dear concernings hide? Who would do so?\n    No, in despite of sense and secrecy,\n    Unpeg the basket on the house's top,\n    Let the birds fly, and like the famous ape,\n    To try conclusions, in the basket creep\n    And break your own neck down.\n  Queen. Be thou assur'd, if words be made of breath,\n    And breath of life, I have no life to breathe\n    What thou hast said to me.\n  Ham. I must to England; you know that?\n  Queen. Alack,\n    I had forgot! 'Tis so concluded on.\n  Ham. There's letters seal'd; and my two schoolfellows,\n    Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd,\n    They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way\n    And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;\n    For 'tis the sport to have the enginer\n    Hoist with his own petar; and 't shall go hard\n    But I will delve one yard below their mines\n    And blow them at the moon. O, 'tis most sweet\n    When in one line two crafts directly meet.\n    This man shall set me packing.\n    I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room.-\n    Mother, good night.- Indeed, this counsellor\n    Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,\n    Who was in life a foolish peating knave.\n    Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.\n    Good night, mother.\n                  [Exit the Queen. Then] Exit Hamlet, tugging in\n                                                       Polonius.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. Scene I.\nElsinore. A room in the Castle.\n\nEnter King and Queen, with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.\n\n  King. There's matter in these sighs. These profound heaves\n    You must translate; 'tis fit we understand them.\n    Where is your son?\n  Queen. Bestow this place on us a little while.\n                          [Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.]\n    Ah, mine own lord, what have I seen to-night!\n  King. What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?\n  Queen. Mad as the sea and wind when both contend\n    Which is the mightier. In his lawless fit\n    Behind the arras hearing something stir,\n    Whips out his rapier, cries 'A rat, a rat!'\n    And in this brainish apprehension kills\n    The unseen good old man.\n  King. O heavy deed!\n    It had been so with us, had we been there.\n    His liberty is full of threats to all-\n    To you yourself, to us, to every one.\n    Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answer'd?\n    It will be laid to us, whose providence\n    Should have kept short, restrain'd, and out of haunt\n    This mad young man. But so much was our love\n    We would not understand what was most fit,\n    But, like the owner of a foul disease,\n    To keep it from divulging, let it feed\n    Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone?\n  Queen. To draw apart the body he hath kill'd;\n    O'er whom his very madness, like some ore\n    Among a mineral of metals base,\n    Shows itself pure. He weeps for what is done.\n  King. O Gertrude, come away!\n    The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch\n    But we will ship him hence; and this vile deed\n    We must with all our majesty and skill\n    Both countenance and excuse. Ho, Guildenstern!\n\n             Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.\n\n    Friends both, go join you with some further aid.\n    Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,\n    And from his mother's closet hath he dragg'd him.\n    Go seek him out; speak fair, and bring the body\n    Into the chapel. I pray you haste in this.\n                          Exeunt [Rosencrantz and Guildenstern].\n    Come, Gertrude, we'll call up our wisest friends\n    And let them know both what we mean to do\n    And what's untimely done. [So haply slander-]\n    Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter,\n    As level as the cannon to his blank,\n    Transports his poisoned shot- may miss our name\n    And hit the woundless air.- O, come away!\n    My soul is full of discord and dismay.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nElsinore. A passage in the Castle.\n\nEnter Hamlet.\n\n  Ham. Safely stow'd.\n  Gentlemen. (within) Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!\n  Ham. But soft! What noise? Who calls on Hamlet? O, here they come.\n\n               Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.\n\n  Ros. What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?\n  Ham. Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis kin.\n  Ros. Tell us where 'tis, that we may take it thence\n    And bear it to the chapel.\n  Ham. Do not believe it.\n  Ros. Believe what?\n  Ham. That I can keep your counsel, and not mine own. Besides, to be\n    demanded of a sponge, what replication should be made by the son\n    of a king?\n  Ros. Take you me for a sponge, my lord?\n  Ham. Ay, sir; that soaks up the King's countenance, his rewards,\n    his authorities. But such officers do the King best service in\n    the end. He keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw;\n    first mouth'd, to be last Swallowed. When he needs what you have\n    glean'd, it is but squeezing you and, sponge, you shall be dry\n    again.\n  Ros. I understand you not, my lord.\n  Ham. I am glad of it. A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.\n  Ros. My lord, you must tell us where the body is and go with us to\n    the King.\n  Ham. The body is with the King, but the King is not with the body.\n    The King is a thing-\n  Guil. A thing, my lord?\n  Ham. Of nothing. Bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nElsinore. A room in the Castle.\n\nEnter King.\n\n  King. I have sent to seek him and to find the body.\n    How dangerous is it that this man goes loose!\n    Yet must not we put the strong law on him.\n    He's lov'd of the distracted multitude,\n    Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes;\n    And where 'tis so, th' offender's scourge is weigh'd,\n    But never the offence. To bear all smooth and even,\n    This sudden sending him away must seem\n    Deliberate pause. Diseases desperate grown\n    By desperate appliance are reliev'd,\n    Or not at all.\n\n                    Enter Rosencrantz.\n\n    How now O What hath befall'n?\n  Ros. Where the dead body is bestow'd, my lord,\n    We cannot get from him.\n  King. But where is he?\n  Ros. Without, my lord; guarded, to know your pleasure.\n  King. Bring him before us.\n  Ros. Ho, Guildenstern! Bring in my lord.\n\n        Enter Hamlet and Guildenstern [with Attendants].\n\n  King. Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?\n  Ham. At supper.\n  King. At supper? Where?\n  Ham. Not where he eats, but where he is eaten. A certain\n    convocation of politic worms are e'en at him. Your worm is your\n    only emperor for diet. We fat all creatures else to fat us, and\n    we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar\n    is but variable service- two dishes, but to one table. That's the\n    end.\n  King. Alas, alas!\n  Ham. A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat\n    of the fish that hath fed of that worm.\n  King. What dost thou mean by this?\n  Ham. Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through\n    the guts of a beggar.\n  King. Where is Polonius?\n  Ham. In heaven. Send thither to see. If your messenger find him not\n    there, seek him i' th' other place yourself. But indeed, if you\n    find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up\n    the stair, into the lobby.\n  King. Go seek him there. [To Attendants.]\n  Ham. He will stay till you come.\n                                            [Exeunt Attendants.]\n  King. Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety,-\n    Which we do tender as we dearly grieve\n    For that which thou hast done,- must send thee hence\n    With fiery quickness. Therefore prepare thyself.\n    The bark is ready and the wind at help,\n    Th' associates tend, and everything is bent\n    For England.\n  Ham. For England?\n  King. Ay, Hamlet.\n  Ham. Good.\n  King. So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes.\n  Ham. I see a cherub that sees them. But come, for England!\n    Farewell, dear mother.\n  King. Thy loving father, Hamlet.\n  Ham. My mother! Father and mother is man and wife; man and wife is\n    one flesh; and so, my mother. Come, for England!\nExit.\n  King. Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed aboard.\n    Delay it not; I'll have him hence to-night.\n    Away! for everything is seal'd and done\n    That else leans on th' affair. Pray you make haste.\n                            Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern]\n    And, England, if my love thou hold'st at aught,-\n    As my great power thereof may give thee sense,\n    Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red\n    After the Danish sword, and thy free awe\n    Pays homage to us,- thou mayst not coldly set\n    Our sovereign process, which imports at full,\n    By letters congruing to that effect,\n    The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England;\n    For like the hectic in my blood he rages,\n    And thou must cure me. Till I know 'tis done,\n    Howe'er my haps, my joys were ne'er begun.             Exit.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nNear Elsinore.\n\nEnter Fortinbras with his Army over the stage.\n\n  For. Go, Captain, from me greet the Danish king.\n    Tell him that by his license Fortinbras\n    Craves the conveyance of a promis'd march\n    Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous.\n    if that his Majesty would aught with us,\n    We shall express our duty in his eye;\n    And let him know so.\n  Capt. I will do't, my lord.\n  For. Go softly on.\n                                   Exeunt [all but the Captain].\n\n       Enter Hamlet, Rosencrantz, [Guildenstern,] and others.\n\n  Ham. Good sir, whose powers are these?\n  Capt. They are of Norway, sir.\n  Ham. How purpos'd, sir, I pray you?\n  Capt. Against some part of Poland.\n  Ham. Who commands them, sir?\n  Capt. The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.\n  Ham. Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,\n    Or for some frontier?\n  Capt. Truly to speak, and with no addition,\n    We go to gain a little patch of ground\n    That hath in it no profit but the name.\n    To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it;\n    Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole\n    A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.\n  Ham. Why, then the Polack never will defend it.\n  Capt. Yes, it is already garrison'd.\n  Ham. Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats\n    Will not debate the question of this straw.\n    This is th' imposthume of much wealth and peace,\n    That inward breaks, and shows no cause without\n    Why the man dies.- I humbly thank you, sir.\n  Capt. God b' wi' you, sir.                             [Exit.]\n  Ros. Will't please you go, my lord?\n  Ham. I'll be with you straight. Go a little before.\n                                        [Exeunt all but Hamlet.]\n    How all occasions do inform against me\n    And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,\n    If his chief good and market of his time\n    Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.\n    Sure he that made us with such large discourse,\n    Looking before and after, gave us not\n    That capability and godlike reason\n    To fust in us unus'd. Now, whether it be\n    Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple\n    Of thinking too precisely on th' event,-\n    A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom\n    And ever three parts coward,- I do not know\n    Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do,'\n    Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means\n    To do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me.\n    Witness this army of such mass and charge,\n    Led by a delicate and tender prince,\n    Whose spirit, with divine ambition puff'd,\n    Makes mouths at the invisible event,\n    Exposing what is mortal and unsure\n    To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,\n    Even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great\n    Is not to stir without great argument,\n    But greatly to find quarrel in a straw\n    When honour's at the stake. How stand I then,\n    That have a father klll'd, a mother stain'd,\n    Excitements of my reason and my blood,\n    And let all sleep, while to my shame I see\n    The imminent death of twenty thousand men\n    That for a fantasy and trick of fame\n    Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot\n    Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,\n    Which is not tomb enough and continent\n    To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,\n    My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!            Exit.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nScene V.\nElsinore. A room in the Castle.\n\nEnter Horatio, Queen, and a Gentleman.\n\n  Queen. I will not speak with her.\n  Gent. She is importunate, indeed distract.\n    Her mood will needs be pitied.\n  Queen. What would she have?\n  Gent. She speaks much of her father; says she hears\n    There's tricks i' th' world, and hems, and beats her heart;\n    Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt,\n    That carry but half sense. Her speech is nothing,\n    Yet the unshaped use of it doth move\n    The hearers to collection; they aim at it,\n    And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts;\n    Which, as her winks and nods and gestures yield them,\n    Indeed would make one think there might be thought,\n    Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.\n  Hor. 'Twere good she were spoken with; for she may strew\n    Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.\n  Queen. Let her come in.\n                                               [Exit Gentleman.]\n    [Aside] To my sick soul (as sin's true nature is)\n    Each toy seems Prologue to some great amiss.\n    So full of artless jealousy is guilt\n    It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.\n\n                 Enter Ophelia distracted.\n\n  Oph. Where is the beauteous Majesty of Denmark?\n  Queen. How now, Ophelia?\n  Oph. (sings)\n         How should I your true-love know\n           From another one?\n         By his cockle bat and' staff\n           And his sandal shoon.\n\n  Queen. Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?\n  Oph. Say you? Nay, pray You mark.\n\n    (Sings) He is dead and gone, lady,\n              He is dead and gone;\n            At his head a grass-green turf,\n              At his heels a stone.\n\n    O, ho!\n  Queen. Nay, but Ophelia-\n  Oph. Pray you mark.\n\n    (Sings) White his shroud as the mountain snow-\n\n                    Enter King.\n\n  Queen. Alas, look here, my lord!\n  Oph. (Sings)\n           Larded all with sweet flowers;\n         Which bewept to the grave did not go\n           With true-love showers.\n\n  King. How do you, pretty lady?\n  Oph. Well, God dild you! They say the owl was a baker's daughter.\n    Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be. God be at\n    your table!\n  King. Conceit upon her father.\n  Oph. Pray let's have no words of this; but when they ask, you what\n    it means, say you this:\n\n    (Sings) To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,\n              All in the morning bedtime,\n            And I a maid at your window,\n              To be your Valentine.\n\n            Then up he rose and donn'd his clo'es\n              And dupp'd the chamber door,\n            Let in the maid, that out a maid\n              Never departed more.\n\n  King. Pretty Ophelia!\n  Oph. Indeed, la, without an oath, I'll make an end on't!\n\n    [Sings] By Gis and by Saint Charity,\n              Alack, and fie for shame!\n            Young men will do't if they come to't\n              By Cock, they are to blame.\n\n            Quoth she, 'Before you tumbled me,\n              You promis'd me to wed.'\n\n    He answers:\n\n            'So would I 'a' done, by yonder sun,\n              An thou hadst not come to my bed.'\n\n  King. How long hath she been thus?\n  Oph. I hope all will be well. We must be patient; but I cannot\n    choose but weep to think they would lay him i' th' cold ground.\n    My brother shall know of it; and so I thank you for your good\n    counsel. Come, my coach! Good night, ladies. Good night, sweet\n    ladies. Good night, good night.                         Exit\n  King. Follow her close; give her good watch, I pray you.\n                                                 [Exit Horatio.]\n    O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs\n    All from her father's death. O Gertrude, Gertrude,\n    When sorrows come, they come not single spies.\n    But in battalions! First, her father slain;\n    Next, Your son gone, and he most violent author\n    Of his own just remove; the people muddied,\n    Thick and and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers\n    For good Polonius' death, and we have done but greenly\n    In hugger-mugger to inter him; Poor Ophelia\n    Divided from herself and her fair-judgment,\n    Without the which we are Pictures or mere beasts;\n    Last, and as such containing as all these,\n    Her brother is in secret come from France;\n    And wants not buzzers to infect his ear\n    Feeds on his wonder, keep, himself in clouds,\n    With pestilent speeches of his father's death,\n    Wherein necessity, of matter beggar'd,\n    Will nothing stick Our person to arraign\n    In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,\n    Like to a murd'ring piece, in many places\n    Give, me superfluous death.                  A noise within.\n  Queen. Alack, what noise is this?\n  King. Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.\n\n                     Enter a Messenger.\n\n    What is the matter?\n  Mess. Save Yourself, my lord:\n    The ocean, overpeering of his list,\n    Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste\n    Than Young Laertes, in a riotous head,\n    O'erbears Your offices. The rabble call him lord;\n    And, as the world were now but to begin,\n    Antiquity forgot, custom not known,\n    The ratifiers and props of every word,\n    They cry 'Choose we! Laertes shall be king!'\n    Caps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds,\n    'Laertes shall be king! Laertes king!'\n                                                 A noise within.\n  Queen. How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!\n    O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!\n  King. The doors are broke.\n\n                    Enter Laertes with others.\n\n  Laer. Where is this king?- Sirs, staid you all without.\n  All. No, let's come in!\n  Laer. I pray you give me leave.\n  All. We will, we will!\n  Laer. I thank you. Keep the door.      [Exeunt his Followers.]\n    O thou vile king,\n    Give me my father!\n  Queen. Calmly, good Laertes.\n  Laer. That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me bastard;\n    Cries cuckold to my father; brands the harlot\n    Even here between the chaste unsmirched brows\n    Of my true mother.\n  King. What is the cause, Laertes,\n    That thy rebellion looks so giantlike?\n    Let him go, Gertrude. Do not fear our person.\n    There's such divinity doth hedge a king\n    That treason can but peep to what it would,\n    Acts little of his will. Tell me, Laertes,\n    Why thou art thus incens'd. Let him go, Gertrude.\n    Speak, man.\n  Laer. Where is my father?\n  King. Dead.\n  Queen. But not by him!\n  King. Let him demand his fill.\n  Laer. How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with:\n    To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil\n    Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!\n    I dare damnation. To this point I stand,\n    That both the world, I give to negligence,\n    Let come what comes; only I'll be reveng'd\n    Most throughly for my father.\n  King. Who shall stay you?\n  Laer. My will, not all the world!\n    And for my means, I'll husband them so well\n    They shall go far with little.\n  King. Good Laertes,\n    If you desire to know the certainty\n    Of your dear father's death, is't writ in Your revenge\n    That swoopstake you will draw both friend and foe,\n    Winner and loser?\n  Laer. None but his enemies.\n  King. Will you know them then?\n  Laer. To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms\n    And, like the kind life-rend'ring pelican,\n    Repast them with my blood.\n  King. Why, now You speak\n    Like a good child and a true gentleman.\n    That I am guiltless of your father's death,\n    And am most sensibly in grief for it,\n    It shall as level to your judgment pierce\n    As day does to your eye.\n                              A noise within: 'Let her come in.'\n  Laer. How now? What noise is that?\n\n                      Enter Ophelia.\n\n    O heat, dry up my brains! Tears seven times salt\n    Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!\n    By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight\n    Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May!\n    Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!\n    O heavens! is't possible a young maid's wits\n    Should be as mortal as an old man's life?\n    Nature is fine in love, and where 'tis fine,\n    It sends some precious instance of itself\n    After the thing it loves.\n\n  Oph. (sings)\n         They bore him barefac'd on the bier\n           (Hey non nony, nony, hey nony)\n         And in his grave rain'd many a tear.\n\n    Fare you well, my dove!\n  Laer. Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,\n    It could not move thus.\n  Oph. You must sing 'A-down a-down, and you call him a-down-a.' O,\n    how the wheel becomes it! It is the false steward, that stole his\n    master's daughter.\n  Laer. This nothing's more than matter.\n  Oph. There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you, love,\n    remember. And there is pansies, that's for thoughts.\n  Laer. A document in madness! Thoughts and remembrance fitted.\n  Oph. There's fennel for you, and columbines. There's rue for you,\n    and here's some for me. We may call it herb of grace o' Sundays.\n    O, you must wear your rue with a difference! There's a daisy. I\n    would give you some violets, but they wither'd all when my father\n    died. They say he made a good end.\n\n    [Sings] For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.\n\n  Laer. Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself,\n    She turns to favour and to prettiness.\n  Oph. (sings)\n         And will he not come again?\n         And will he not come again?\n           No, no, he is dead;\n           Go to thy deathbed;\n         He never will come again.\n\n         His beard was as white as snow,\n         All flaxen was his poll.\n           He is gone, he is gone,\n           And we cast away moan.\n         God 'a'mercy on his soul!\n\n    And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God b' wi', you.\nExit.\n  Laer. Do you see this, O God?\n  King. Laertes, I must commune with your grief,\n    Or you deny me right. Go but apart,\n    Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will,\n    And they shall hear and judge 'twixt you and me.\n    If by direct or by collateral hand\n    They find us touch'd, we will our kingdom give,\n    Our crown, our life, and all that we call ours,\n    To you in satisfaction; but if not,\n    Be you content to lend your patience to us,\n    And we shall jointly labour with your soul\n    To give it due content.\n  Laer. Let this be so.\n    His means of death, his obscure funeral-\n    No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o'er his bones,\n    No noble rite nor formal ostentation,-\n    Cry to be heard, as 'twere from heaven to earth,\n    That I must call't in question.\n  King. So you shall;\n    And where th' offence is let the great axe fall.\n    I pray you go with me.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nScene VI.\nElsinore. Another room in the Castle.\n\nEnter Horatio with an Attendant.\n\n  Hor. What are they that would speak with me?\n  Servant. Seafaring men, sir. They say they have letters for you.\n  Hor. Let them come in.\n                                               [Exit Attendant.]\n    I do not know from what part of the world\n    I should be greeted, if not from Lord Hamlet.\n\n                          Enter Sailors.\n\n  Sailor. God bless you, sir.\n  Hor. Let him bless thee too.\n  Sailor. 'A shall, sir, an't please him. There's a letter for you,\n    sir,- it comes from th' ambassador that was bound for England- if\n    your name be Horatio, as I am let to know it is.\n  Hor. (reads the letter) 'Horatio, when thou shalt have overlook'd\n    this, give these fellows some means to the King. They have\n    letters for him. Ere we were two days old at sea, a pirate of\n    very warlike appointment gave us chase. Finding ourselves too\n    slow of sail, we put on a compelled valour, and in the grapple I\n    boarded them. On the instant they got clear of our ship; so I\n    alone became their prisoner. They have dealt with me like thieves\n    of mercy; but they knew what they did: I am to do a good turn for\n    them. Let the King have the letters I have sent, and repair thou\n    to me with as much speed as thou wouldst fly death. I have words\n    to speak in thine ear will make thee dumb; yet are they much too\n    light for the bore of the matter. These good fellows will bring\n    thee where I am. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their course\n    for England. Of them I have much to tell thee. Farewell.\n                            'He that thou knowest thine, HAMLET.'\n\n    Come, I will give you way for these your letters,\n    And do't the speedier that you may direct me\n    To him from whom you brought them.                   Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nScene VII.\nElsinore. Another room in the Castle.\n\nEnter King and Laertes.\n\n  King. Now must your conscience my acquittance seal,\n    And You must put me in your heart for friend,\n    Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear,\n    That he which hath your noble father slain\n    Pursued my life.\n  Laer. It well appears. But tell me\n    Why you proceeded not against these feats\n    So crimeful and so capital in nature,\n    As by your safety, wisdom, all things else,\n    You mainly were stirr'd up.\n  King. O, for two special reasons,\n    Which may to you, perhaps, seein much unsinew'd,\n    But yet to me they are strong. The Queen his mother\n    Lives almost by his looks; and for myself,-\n    My virtue or my plague, be it either which,-\n    She's so conjunctive to my life and soul\n    That, as the star moves not but in his sphere,\n    I could not but by her. The other motive\n    Why to a public count I might not go\n    Is the great love the general gender bear him,\n    Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,\n    Would, like the spring that turneth wood to stone,\n    Convert his gives to graces; so that my arrows,\n    Too slightly timber'd for so loud a wind,\n    Would have reverted to my bow again,\n    And not where I had aim'd them.\n  Laer. And so have I a noble father lost;\n    A sister driven into desp'rate terms,\n    Whose worth, if praises may go back again,\n    Stood challenger on mount of all the age\n    For her perfections. But my revenge will come.\n  King. Break not your sleeps for that. You must not think\n    That we are made of stuff so flat and dull\n    That we can let our beard be shook with danger,\n    And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more.\n    I lov'd your father, and we love ourself,\n    And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine-\n\n                 Enter a Messenger with letters.\n\n    How now? What news?\n  Mess. Letters, my lord, from Hamlet:\n    This to your Majesty; this to the Queen.\n  King. From Hamlet? Who brought them?\n  Mess. Sailors, my lord, they say; I saw them not.\n    They were given me by Claudio; he receiv'd them\n    Of him that brought them.\n  King. Laertes, you shall hear them.\n    Leave us.\n                                                 Exit Messenger.\n    [Reads]'High and Mighty,-You shall know I am set naked on your\n    kingdom. To-morrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes;\n    when I shall (first asking your pardon thereunto) recount the\n    occasion of my sudden and more strange return.\n                                                     'HAMLET.'\n    What should this mean? Are all the rest come back?\n    Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?\n  Laer. Know you the hand?\n  King. 'Tis Hamlet's character. 'Naked!'\n    And in a postscript here, he says 'alone.'\n    Can you advise me?\n  Laer. I am lost in it, my lord. But let him come!\n    It warms the very sickness in my heart\n    That I shall live and tell him to his teeth,\n    'Thus didest thou.'\n  King. If it be so, Laertes\n    (As how should it be so? how otherwise?),\n    Will you be rul'd by me?\n  Laer. Ay my lord,\n    So you will not o'errule me to a peace.\n  King. To thine own peace. If he be now return'd\n    As checking at his voyage, and that he means\n    No more to undertake it, I will work him\n    To exploit now ripe in my device,\n    Under the which he shall not choose but fall;\n    And for his death no wind\n    But even his mother shall uncharge the practice\n    And call it accident.\n  Laer. My lord, I will be rul'd;\n    The rather, if you could devise it so\n    That I might be the organ.\n  King. It falls right.\n    You have been talk'd of since your travel much,\n    And that in Hamlet's hearing, for a quality\n    Wherein they say you shine, Your sun of parts\n    Did not together pluck such envy from him\n    As did that one; and that, in my regard,\n    Of the unworthiest siege.\n  Laer. What part is that, my lord?\n  King. A very riband in the cap of youth-\n    Yet needfull too; for youth no less becomes\n    The light and careless livery that it wears\n    Thin settled age his sables and his weeds,\n    Importing health and graveness. Two months since\n    Here was a gentleman of Normandy.\n    I have seen myself, and serv'd against, the French,\n    And they can well on horseback; but this gallant\n    Had witchcraft in't. He grew unto his seat,\n    And to such wondrous doing brought his horse\n    As had he been incorps'd and demi-natur'd\n    With the brave beast. So far he topp'd my thought\n    That I, in forgery of shapes and tricks,\n    Come short of what he did.\n  Laer. A Norman was't?\n  King. A Norman.\n  Laer. Upon my life, Lamound.\n  King. The very same.\n  Laer. I know him well. He is the broach indeed\n    And gem of all the nation.\n  King. He made confession of you;\n    And gave you such a masterly report\n    For art and exercise in your defence,\n    And for your rapier most especially,\n    That he cried out 'twould be a sight indeed\n    If one could match you. The scrimers of their nation\n    He swore had neither motion, guard, nor eye,\n    If you oppos'd them. Sir, this report of his\n    Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy\n    That he could nothing do but wish and beg\n    Your sudden coming o'er to play with you.\n    Now, out of this-\n  Laer. What out of this, my lord?\n  King. Laertes, was your father dear to you?\n    Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,\n    A face without a heart,'\n  Laer. Why ask you this?\n  King. Not that I think you did not love your father;\n    But that I know love is begun by time,\n    And that I see, in passages of proof,\n    Time qualifies the spark and fire of it.\n    There lives within the very flame of love\n    A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it;\n    And nothing is at a like goodness still;\n    For goodness, growing to a plurisy,\n    Dies in his own too-much. That we would do,\n    We should do when we would; for this 'would' changes,\n    And hath abatements and delays as many\n    As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;\n    And then this 'should' is like a spendthrift sigh,\n    That hurts by easing. But to the quick o' th' ulcer!\n    Hamlet comes back. What would you undertake\n    To show yourself your father's son in deed\n    More than in words?\n  Laer. To cut his throat i' th' church!\n  King. No place indeed should murther sanctuarize;\n    Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes,\n    Will you do this? Keep close within your chamber.\n    Will return'd shall know you are come home.\n    We'll put on those shall praise your excellence\n    And set a double varnish on the fame\n    The Frenchman gave you; bring you in fine together\n    And wager on your heads. He, being remiss,\n    Most generous, and free from all contriving,\n    Will not peruse the foils; so that with ease,\n    Or with a little shuffling, you may choose\n    A sword unbated, and, in a pass of practice,\n    Requite him for your father.\n  Laer. I will do't!\n    And for that purpose I'll anoint my sword.\n    I bought an unction of a mountebank,\n    So mortal that, but dip a knife in it,\n    Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare,\n    Collected from all simples that have virtue\n    Under the moon, can save the thing from death\n    This is but scratch'd withal. I'll touch my point\n    With this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly,\n    It may be death.\n  King. Let's further think of this,\n    Weigh what convenience both of time and means\n    May fit us to our shape. If this should fall,\n    And that our drift look through our bad performance.\n    'Twere better not assay'd. Therefore this project\n    Should have a back or second, that might hold\n    If this did blast in proof. Soft! let me see.\n    We'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings-\n    I ha't!\n    When in your motion you are hot and dry-\n    As make your bouts more violent to that end-\n    And that he calls for drink, I'll have prepar'd him\n    A chalice for the nonce; whereon but sipping,\n    If he by chance escape your venom'd stuck,\n    Our purpose may hold there.- But stay, what noise,\n\n                           Enter Queen.\n\n    How now, sweet queen?\n  Queen. One woe doth tread upon another's heel,\n    So fast they follow. Your sister's drown'd, Laertes.\n  Laer. Drown'd! O, where?\n  Queen. There is a willow grows aslant a brook,\n    That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.\n    There with fantastic garlands did she come\n    Of crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,\n    That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,\n    But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them.\n    There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds\n    Clamb'ring to hang, an envious sliver broke,\n    When down her weedy trophies and herself\n    Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide\n    And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up;\n    Which time she chaunted snatches of old tunes,\n    As one incapable of her own distress,\n    Or like a creature native and indued\n    Unto that element; but long it could not be\n    Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,\n    Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay\n    To muddy death.\n  Laer. Alas, then she is drown'd?\n  Queen. Drown'd, drown'd.\n  Laer. Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,\n    And therefore I forbid my tears; but yet\n    It is our trick; nature her custom holds,\n    Let shame say what it will. When these are gone,\n    The woman will be out. Adieu, my lord.\n    I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze\n    But that this folly douts it.                          Exit.\n  King. Let's follow, Gertrude.\n    How much I had to do to calm his rage I\n    Now fear I this will give it start again;\n    Therefore let's follow.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. Scene I.\nElsinore. A churchyard.\n\nEnter two Clowns, [with spades and pickaxes].\n\n  Clown. Is she to be buried in Christian burial when she wilfully\n    seeks her own salvation?\n  Other. I tell thee she is; therefore make her grave straight.\n    The crowner hath sate on her, and finds it Christian burial.\n  Clown. How can that be, unless she drown'd herself in her own\n    defence?\n  Other. Why, 'tis found so.\n  Clown. It must be se offendendo; it cannot be else. For here lies\n    the point: if I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act; and an\n    act hath three branches-it is to act, to do, and to perform;\n    argal, she drown'd herself wittingly.\n  Other. Nay, but hear you, Goodman Delver!\n  Clown. Give me leave. Here lies the water; good. Here stands the\n    man; good. If the man go to this water and drown himself, it is,\n    will he nill he, he goes- mark you that. But if the water come to\n    him and drown him, he drowns not himself. Argal, he that is not\n    guilty of his own death shortens not his own life.\n  Other. But is this law?\n  Clown. Ay, marry, is't- crowner's quest law.\n  Other. Will you ha' the truth an't? If this had not been a\n    gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o' Christian burial.\n  Clown. Why, there thou say'st! And the more pity that great folk\n    should have count'nance in this world to drown or hang themselves\n    more than their even-Christen. Come, my spade! There is no\n    ancient gentlemen but gard'ners, ditchers, and grave-makers. They\n    hold up Adam's profession.\n  Other. Was he a gentleman?\n  Clown. 'A was the first that ever bore arms.\n  Other. Why, he had none.\n  Clown. What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the Scripture?\n    The Scripture says Adam digg'd. Could he dig without arms? I'll\n    put another question to thee. If thou answerest me not to the\n    purpose, confess thyself-\n  Other. Go to!\n  Clown. What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the\n    shipwright, or the carpenter?\n  Other. The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand\n    tenants.\n  Clown. I like thy wit well, in good faith. The gallows does well.\n    But how does it well? It does well to those that do ill. Now,\n    thou dost ill to say the gallows is built stronger than the\n    church. Argal, the gallows may do well to thee. To't again, come!\n  Other. Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a\n    carpenter?\n  Clown. Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.\n  Other. Marry, now I can tell!\n  Clown. To't.\n  Other. Mass, I cannot tell.\n\n                 Enter Hamlet and Horatio afar off.\n\n  Clown. Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will\n    not mend his pace with beating; and when you are ask'd this\n    question next, say 'a grave-maker.' The houses he makes lasts\n    till doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan; fetch me a stoup of\n    liquor.\n                                            [Exit Second Clown.]\n\n                       [Clown digs and] sings.\n\n       In youth when I did love, did love,\n         Methought it was very sweet;\n       To contract- O- the time for- a- my behove,\n         O, methought there- a- was nothing- a- meet.\n\n  Ham. Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he sings at\n    grave-making?\n  Hor. Custom hath made it in him a Property of easiness.\n  Ham. 'Tis e'en so. The hand of little employment hath the daintier\n    sense.\n  Clown. (sings)\n         But age with his stealing steps\n           Hath clawed me in his clutch,\n         And hath shipped me intil the land,\n           As if I had never been such.\n                                            [Throws up a skull.]\n\n  Ham. That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once. How the\n    knave jowls it to the ground,as if 'twere Cain's jawbone, that\n    did the first murther! This might be the pate of a Politician,\n    which this ass now o'erreaches; one that would circumvent God,\n    might it not?\n  Hor. It might, my lord.\n  Ham. Or of a courtier, which could say 'Good morrow, sweet lord!\n    How dost thou, good lord?' This might be my Lord Such-a-one, that\n    prais'd my Lord Such-a-one's horse when he meant to beg it- might\n    it not?\n  Hor. Ay, my lord.\n  Ham. Why, e'en so! and now my Lady Worm's, chapless, and knock'd\n    about the mazzard with a sexton's spade. Here's fine revolution,\n    and we had the trick to see't. Did these bones cost no more the\n    breeding but to play at loggets with 'em? Mine ache to think\n    on't.\n  Clown. (Sings)\n         A pickaxe and a spade, a spade,\n           For and a shrouding sheet;\n         O, a Pit of clay for to be made\n           For such a guest is meet.\n                                      Throws up [another skull].\n\n  Ham. There's another. Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer?\n    Where be his quiddits now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures,\n    and his tricks? Why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock\n    him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him\n    of his action of battery? Hum! This fellow might be in's time a\n    great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his\n    fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries. Is this the fine of\n    his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine\n    pate full of fine dirt? Will his vouchers vouch him no more of\n    his purchases, and double ones too, than the length and breadth\n    of a pair of indentures? The very conveyances of his lands will\n    scarcely lie in this box; and must th' inheritor himself have no\n    more, ha?\n  Hor. Not a jot more, my lord.\n  Ham. Is not parchment made of sheepskins?\n  Hor. Ay, my lord, And of calveskins too.\n  Ham. They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance in that. I\n    will speak to this fellow. Whose grave's this, sirrah?\n  Clown. Mine, sir.\n\n    [Sings] O, a pit of clay for to be made\n              For such a guest is meet.\n\n  Ham. I think it be thine indeed, for thou liest in't.\n  Clown. You lie out on't, sir, and therefore 'tis not yours.\n    For my part, I do not lie in't, yet it is mine.\n  Ham. Thou dost lie in't, to be in't and say it is thine. 'Tis for\n    the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest.\n  Clown. 'Tis a quick lie, sir; 'twill away again from me to you.\n  Ham. What man dost thou dig it for?\n  Clown. For no man, sir.\n  Ham. What woman then?\n  Clown. For none neither.\n  Ham. Who is to be buried in't?\n  Clown. One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead.\n  Ham. How absolute the knave is! We must speak by the card, or\n    equivocation will undo us. By the Lord, Horatio, this three years\n    I have taken note of it, the age is grown so picked that the toe\n    of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier he galls\n    his kibe.- How long hast thou been a grave-maker?\n  Clown. Of all the days i' th' year, I came to't that day that our\n    last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.\n  Ham. How long is that since?\n  Clown. Cannot you tell that? Every fool can tell that. It was the\n    very day that young Hamlet was born- he that is mad, and sent\n    into England.\n  Ham. Ay, marry, why was be sent into England?\n  Clown. Why, because 'a was mad. 'A shall recover his wits there;\n    or, if 'a do not, 'tis no great matter there.\n  Ham. Why?\n  Clown. 'Twill not he seen in him there. There the men are as mad as\n    he.\n  Ham. How came he mad?\n  Clown. Very strangely, they say.\n  Ham. How strangely?\n  Clown. Faith, e'en with losing his wits.\n  Ham. Upon what ground?\n  Clown. Why, here in Denmark. I have been sexton here, man and boy\n    thirty years.\n  Ham. How long will a man lie i' th' earth ere he rot?\n  Clown. Faith, if 'a be not rotten before 'a die (as we have many\n    pocky corses now-a-days that will scarce hold the laying in, I\n    will last you some eight year or nine year. A tanner will last\n    you nine year.\n  Ham. Why he more than another?\n  Clown. Why, sir, his hide is so tann'd with his trade that 'a will\n    keep out water a great while; and your water is a sore decayer of\n    your whoreson dead body. Here's a skull now. This skull hath lien\n    you i' th' earth three-and-twenty years.\n  Ham. Whose was it?\n  Clown. A whoreson, mad fellow's it was. Whose do you think it was?\n  Ham. Nay, I know not.\n  Clown. A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! 'A pour'd a flagon of\n    Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, sir, was Yorick's\n    skull, the King's jester.\n  Ham. This?\n  Clown. E'en that.\n  Ham. Let me see. [Takes the skull.] Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him,\n    Horatio. A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He\n    hath borne me on his back a thousand tunes. And now how abhorred\n    in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those\n    lips that I have kiss'd I know not how oft. Where be your gibes\n    now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment that\n    were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your\n    own grinning? Quite chap- fall'n? Now get you to my lady's\n    chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this\n    favour she must come. Make her laugh at that. Prithee, Horatio,\n    tell me one thing.\n  Hor. What's that, my lord?\n  Ham. Dost thou think Alexander look'd o' this fashion i' th' earth?\n  Hor. E'en so.\n  Ham. And smelt so? Pah!\n                                          [Puts down the skull.]\n  Hor. E'en so, my lord.\n  Ham. To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not\n    imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander till he find it\n    stopping a bunghole?\n  Hor. 'Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.\n  Ham. No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with modesty\n    enough, and likelihood to lead it; as thus: Alexander died,\n    Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is\n    earth; of earth we make loam; and why of that loam (whereto he\n    was converted) might they not stop a beer barrel?\n    Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,\n    Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.\n    O, that that earth which kept the world in awe\n    Should patch a wall t' expel the winter's flaw!\n    But soft! but soft! aside! Here comes the King-\n\n    Enter [priests with] a coffin [in funeral procession], King,\n             Queen, Laertes, with Lords attendant.]\n\n    The Queen, the courtiers. Who is this they follow?\n    And with such maimed rites? This doth betoken\n    The corse they follow did with desp'rate hand\n    Fordo it own life. 'Twas of some estate.\n    Couch we awhile, and mark.\n                                         [Retires with Horatio.]\n  Laer. What ceremony else?\n  Ham. That is Laertes,\n    A very noble youth. Mark.\n  Laer. What ceremony else?\n  Priest. Her obsequies have been as far enlarg'd\n    As we have warranty. Her death was doubtful;\n    And, but that great command o'ersways the order,\n    She should in ground unsanctified have lodg'd\n    Till the last trumpet. For charitable prayers,\n    Shards, flints, and pebbles should be thrown on her.\n    Yet here she is allow'd her virgin crants,\n    Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home\n    Of bell and burial.\n  Laer. Must there no more be done?\n  Priest. No more be done.\n    We should profane the service of the dead\n    To sing a requiem and such rest to her\n    As to peace-parted souls.\n  Laer. Lay her i' th' earth;\n    And from her fair and unpolluted flesh\n    May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest,\n    A minist'ring angel shall my sister be\n    When thou liest howling.\n  Ham. What, the fair Ophelia?\n  Queen. Sweets to the sweet! Farewell.\n                                             [Scatters flowers.]\n    I hop'd thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife;\n    I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid,\n    And not have strew'd thy grave.\n  Laer. O, treble woe\n    Fall ten times treble on that cursed head\n    Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense\n    Depriv'd thee of! Hold off the earth awhile,\n    Till I have caught her once more in mine arms.\n                                             Leaps in the grave.\n    Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead\n    Till of this flat a mountain you have made\n    T' o'ertop old Pelion or the skyish head\n    Of blue Olympus.\n  Ham. [comes forward] What is he whose grief\n    Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow\n    Conjures the wand'ring stars, and makes them stand\n    Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,\n    Hamlet the Dane.                    [Leaps in after Laertes.\n  Laer. The devil take thy soul!\n                                            [Grapples with him].\n  Ham. Thou pray'st not well.\n    I prithee take thy fingers from my throat;\n    For, though I am not splenitive and rash,\n    Yet have I in me something dangerous,\n    Which let thy wisdom fear. Hold off thy hand!\n  King. Pluck thein asunder.\n  Queen. Hamlet, Hamlet!\n  All. Gentlemen!\n  Hor. Good my lord, be quiet.\n             [The Attendants part them, and they come out of the\n                                                         grave.]\n  Ham. Why, I will fight with him upon this theme\n    Until my eyelids will no longer wag.\n  Queen. O my son, what theme?\n  Ham. I lov'd Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers\n    Could not (with all their quantity of love)\n    Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?\n  King. O, he is mad, Laertes.\n  Queen. For love of God, forbear him!\n  Ham. 'Swounds, show me what thou't do.\n    Woo't weep? woo't fight? woo't fast? woo't tear thyself?\n    Woo't drink up esill? eat a crocodile?\n    I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine?\n    To outface me with leaping in her grave?\n    Be buried quick with her, and so will I.\n    And if thou prate of mountains, let them throw\n    Millions of acres on us, till our ground,\n    Singeing his pate against the burning zone,\n    Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou'lt mouth,\n    I'll rant as well as thou.\n  Queen. This is mere madness;\n    And thus a while the fit will work on him.\n    Anon, as patient as the female dove\n    When that her golden couplets are disclos'd,\n    His silence will sit drooping.\n  Ham. Hear you, sir!\n    What is the reason that you use me thus?\n    I lov'd you ever. But it is no matter.\n    Let Hercules himself do what he may,\n    The cat will mew, and dog will have his day.\nExit.\n  King. I pray thee, good Horatio, wait upon him.\n                                                   Exit Horatio.\n    [To Laertes] Strengthen your patience in our last night's speech.\n    We'll put the matter to the present push.-\n    Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.-\n    This grave shall have a living monument.\n    An hour of quiet shortly shall we see;\n    Till then in patience our proceeding be.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nElsinore. A hall in the Castle.\n\nEnter Hamlet and Horatio.\n\n  Ham. So much for this, sir; now shall you see the other.\n    You do remember all the circumstance?\n  Hor. Remember it, my lord!\n  Ham. Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting\n    That would not let me sleep. Methought I lay\n    Worse than the mutinies in the bilboes. Rashly-\n    And prais'd be rashness for it; let us know,\n    Our indiscretion sometime serves us well\n    When our deep plots do pall; and that should learn us\n    There's a divinity that shapes our ends,\n    Rough-hew them how we will-\n  Hor. That is most certain.\n  Ham. Up from my cabin,\n    My sea-gown scarf'd about me, in the dark\n    Grop'd I to find out them; had my desire,\n    Finger'd their packet, and in fine withdrew\n    To mine own room again; making so bold\n    (My fears forgetting manners) to unseal\n    Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio\n    (O royal knavery!), an exact command,\n    Larded with many several sorts of reasons,\n    Importing Denmark's health, and England's too,\n    With, hoo! such bugs and goblins in my life-\n    That, on the supervise, no leisure bated,\n    No, not to stay the finding of the axe,\n    My head should be struck off.\n  Hor. Is't possible?\n  Ham. Here's the commission; read it at more leisure.\n    But wilt thou bear me how I did proceed?\n  Hor. I beseech you.\n  Ham. Being thus benetted round with villanies,\n    Or I could make a prologue to my brains,\n    They had begun the play. I sat me down;\n    Devis'd a new commission; wrote it fair.\n    I once did hold it, as our statists do,\n    A baseness to write fair, and labour'd much\n    How to forget that learning; but, sir, now\n    It did me yeoman's service. Wilt thou know\n    Th' effect of what I wrote?\n  Hor. Ay, good my lord.\n  Ham. An earnest conjuration from the King,\n    As England was his faithful tributary,\n    As love between them like the palm might flourish,\n    As peace should still her wheaten garland wear\n    And stand a comma 'tween their amities,\n    And many such-like as's of great charge,\n    That, on the view and knowing of these contents,\n    Without debatement further, more or less,\n    He should the bearers put to sudden death,\n    Not shriving time allow'd.\n  Hor. How was this seal'd?\n  Ham. Why, even in that was heaven ordinant.\n    I had my father's signet in my purse,\n    which was the model of that Danish seal;\n    Folded the writ up in the form of th' other,\n    Subscrib'd it, gave't th' impression, plac'd it safely,\n    The changeling never known. Now, the next day\n    Was our sea-fight; and what to this was sequent\n    Thou know'st already.\n  Hor. So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to't.\n  Ham. Why, man, they did make love to this employment!\n    They are not near my conscience; their defeat\n    Does by their own insinuation grow.\n    'Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes\n    Between the pass and fell incensed points\n    Of mighty opposites.\n  Hor. Why, what a king is this!\n  Ham. Does it not, thinks't thee, stand me now upon-\n    He that hath kill'd my king, and whor'd my mother;\n    Popp'd in between th' election and my hopes;\n    Thrown out his angle for my Proper life,\n    And with such coz'nage- is't not perfect conscience\n    To quit him with this arm? And is't not to be damn'd\n    To let this canker of our nature come\n    In further evil?\n  Hor. It must be shortly known to him from England\n    What is the issue of the business there.\n  Ham. It will be short; the interim is mine,\n    And a man's life is no more than to say 'one.'\n    But I am very sorry, good Horatio,\n    That to Laertes I forgot myself,\n    For by the image of my cause I see\n    The portraiture of his. I'll court his favours.\n    But sure the bravery of his grief did put me\n    Into a tow'ring passion.\n  Hor. Peace! Who comes here?\n\n                 Enter young Osric, a courtier.\n\n  Osr. Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.\n  Ham. I humbly thank you, sir. [Aside to Horatio] Dost know this\n    waterfly?\n  Hor. [aside to Hamlet] No, my good lord.\n  Ham. [aside to Horatio] Thy state is the more gracious; for 'tis a\n    vice to know him. He hath much land, and fertile. Let a beast be\n    lord of beasts, and his crib shall stand at the king's mess. 'Tis\n    a chough; but, as I say, spacious in the possession of dirt.\n  Osr. Sweet lord, if your lordship were at leisure, I should impart\n    a thing to you from his Majesty.\n  Ham. I will receive it, sir, with all diligence of spirit. Put your\n    bonnet to his right use. 'Tis for the head.\n  Osr. I thank your lordship, it is very hot.\n  Ham. No, believe me, 'tis very cold; the wind is northerly.\n  Osr. It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.\n  Ham. But yet methinks it is very sultry and hot for my complexion.\n  Osr. Exceedingly, my lord; it is very sultry, as 'twere- I cannot\n    tell how. But, my lord, his Majesty bade me signify to you that\n    he has laid a great wager on your head. Sir, this is the matter-\n  Ham. I beseech you remember.\n                           [Hamlet moves him to put on his hat.]\n  Osr. Nay, good my lord; for mine ease, in good faith. Sir, here is\n    newly come to court Laertes; believe me, an absolute gentleman,\n    full of most excellent differences, of very soft society and\n    great showing. Indeed, to speak feelingly of him, he is the card\n    or calendar of gentry; for you shall find in him the continent of\n    what part a gentleman would see.\n  Ham. Sir, his definement suffers no perdition in you; though, I\n    know, to divide him inventorially would dozy th' arithmetic of\n    memory, and yet but yaw neither in respect of his quick sail.\n    But, in the verity of extolment, I take him to be a soul of great\n    article, and his infusion of such dearth and rareness as, to make\n    true diction of him, his semblable is his mirror, and who else\n    would trace him, his umbrage, nothing more.\n  Osr. Your lordship speaks most infallibly of him.\n  Ham. The concernancy, sir? Why do we wrap the gentleman in our more\n    rawer breath\n  Osr. Sir?\n  Hor [aside to Hamlet] Is't not possible to understand in another\n    tongue? You will do't, sir, really.\n  Ham. What imports the nomination of this gentleman\n  Osr. Of Laertes?\n  Hor. [aside] His purse is empty already. All's golden words are\n    spent.\n  Ham. Of him, sir.\n  Osr. I know you are not ignorant-\n  Ham. I would you did, sir; yet, in faith, if you did, it would not\n    much approve me. Well, sir?\n  Osr. You are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is-\n  Ham. I dare not confess that, lest I should compare with him in\n    excellence; but to know a man well were to know himself.\n  Osr. I mean, sir, for his weapon; but in the imputation laid on him\n    by them, in his meed he's unfellowed.\n  Ham. What's his weapon?\n  Osr. Rapier and dagger.\n  Ham. That's two of his weapons- but well.\n  Osr. The King, sir, hath wager'd with him six Barbary horses;\n    against the which he has impon'd, as I take it, six French\n    rapiers and poniards, with their assigns, as girdle, hangers, and\n    so. Three of the carriages, in faith, are very dear to fancy,\n    very responsive to the hilts, most delicate carriages, and of\n    very liberal conceit.\n  Ham. What call you the carriages?\n  Hor. [aside to Hamlet] I knew you must be edified by the margent\n    ere you had done.\n  Osr. The carriages, sir, are the hangers.\n  Ham. The phrase would be more germane to the matter if we could\n    carry cannon by our sides. I would it might be hangers till then.\n    But on! Six Barbary horses against six French swords, their\n    assigns, and three liberal-conceited carriages: that's the French\n    bet against the Danish. Why is this all impon'd, as you call it?\n  Osr. The King, sir, hath laid that, in a dozen passes between\n    yourself and him, he shall not exceed you three hits; he hath\n    laid on twelve for nine, and it would come to immediate trial\n    if your lordship would vouchsafe the answer.\n  Ham. How if I answer no?\n  Osr. I mean, my lord, the opposition of your person in trial.\n  Ham. Sir, I will walk here in the hall. If it please his Majesty,\n    it is the breathing time of day with me. Let the foils be\n    brought, the gentleman willing, and the King hold his purpose,\n    I will win for him if I can; if not, I will gain nothing but my\n    shame and the odd hits.\n  Osr. Shall I redeliver you e'en so?\n  Ham. To this effect, sir, after what flourish your nature will.\n  Osr. I commend my duty to your lordship.\n  Ham. Yours, yours. [Exit Osric.] He does well to commend it\n    himself; there are no tongues else for's turn.\n  Hor. This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head.\n  Ham. He did comply with his dug before he suck'd it. Thus has he,\n    and many more of the same bevy that I know the drossy age dotes\n    on, only got the tune of the time and outward habit of encounter-\n    a kind of yesty collection, which carries them through and\n    through the most fann'd and winnowed opinions; and do but blow\n    them to their trial-the bubbles are out,\n\n                            Enter a Lord.\n\n  Lord. My lord, his Majesty commended him to you by young Osric, who\n    brings back to him, that you attend him in the hall. He sends to\n    know if your pleasure hold to play with Laertes, or that you will\n    take longer time.\n  Ham. I am constant to my purposes; they follow the King's pleasure.\n    If his fitness speaks, mine is ready; now or whensoever, provided\n    I be so able as now.\n  Lord. The King and Queen and all are coming down.\n  Ham. In happy time.\n  Lord. The Queen desires you to use some gentle entertainment to\n    Laertes before you fall to play.\n  Ham. She well instructs me.\n                                                    [Exit Lord.]\n  Hor. You will lose this wager, my lord.\n  Ham. I do not think so. Since he went into France I have been in\n    continual practice. I shall win at the odds. But thou wouldst not\n    think how ill all's here about my heart. But it is no matter.\n  Hor. Nay, good my lord -\n  Ham. It is but foolery; but it is such a kind of gaingiving as\n    would perhaps trouble a woman.\n  Hor. If your mind dislike anything, obey it. I will forestall their\n    repair hither and say you are not fit.\n  Ham. Not a whit, we defy augury; there's a special providence in\n    the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come', if it be\n    not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come:\n    the readiness is all. Since no man knows aught of what he leaves,\n    what is't to leave betimes? Let be.\n\n    Enter King, Queen, Laertes, Osric, and Lords, with other\n              Attendants with foils and gauntlets.\n               A table and flagons of wine on it.\n\n  King. Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me.\n                    [The King puts Laertes' hand into Hamlet's.]\n  Ham. Give me your pardon, sir. I have done you wrong;\n    But pardon't, as you are a gentleman.\n    This presence knows,\n    And you must needs have heard, how I am punish'd\n    With sore distraction. What I have done\n    That might your nature, honour, and exception\n    Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness.\n    Was't Hamlet wrong'd Laertes? Never Hamlet.\n    If Hamlet from himself be taken away,\n    And when he's not himself does wrong Laertes,\n    Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it.\n    Who does it, then? His madness. If't be so,\n    Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong'd;\n    His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy.\n    Sir, in this audience,\n    Let my disclaiming from a purpos'd evil\n    Free me so far in your most generous thoughts\n    That I have shot my arrow o'er the house\n    And hurt my brother.\n  Laer. I am satisfied in nature,\n    Whose motive in this case should stir me most\n    To my revenge. But in my terms of honour\n    I stand aloof, and will no reconcilement\n    Till by some elder masters of known honour\n    I have a voice and precedent of peace\n    To keep my name ungor'd. But till that time\n    I do receive your offer'd love like love,\n    And will not wrong it.\n  Ham. I embrace it freely,\n    And will this brother's wager frankly play.\n    Give us the foils. Come on.\n  Laer. Come, one for me.\n  Ham. I'll be your foil, Laertes. In mine ignorance\n    Your skill shall, like a star i' th' darkest night,\n    Stick fiery off indeed.\n  Laer. You mock me, sir.\n  Ham. No, by this bad.\n  King. Give them the foils, young Osric. Cousin Hamlet,\n    You know the wager?\n  Ham. Very well, my lord.\n    Your Grace has laid the odds o' th' weaker side.\n  King. I do not fear it, I have seen you both;\n    But since he is better'd, we have therefore odds.\n  Laer. This is too heavy; let me see another.\n  Ham. This likes me well. These foils have all a length?\n                                                Prepare to play.\n  Osr. Ay, my good lord.\n  King. Set me the stoups of wine upon that table.\n    If Hamlet give the first or second hit,\n    Or quit in answer of the third exchange,\n    Let all the battlements their ordnance fire;\n    The King shall drink to Hamlet's better breath,\n    And in the cup an union shall he throw\n    Richer than that which four successive kings\n    In Denmark's crown have worn. Give me the cups;\n    And let the kettle to the trumpet speak,\n    The trumpet to the cannoneer without,\n    The cannons to the heavens, the heaven to earth,\n    'Now the King drinks to Hamlet.' Come, begin.\n    And you the judges, bear a wary eye.\n  Ham. Come on, sir.\n  Laer. Come, my lord.                                They play.\n  Ham. One.\n  Laer. No.\n  Ham. Judgment!\n  Osr. A hit, a very palpable hit.\n  Laer. Well, again!\n  King. Stay, give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine;\n    Here's to thy health.\n               [Drum; trumpets sound; a piece goes off [within].\n    Give him the cup.\n  Ham. I'll play this bout first; set it by awhile.\n    Come. (They play.) Another hit. What say you?\n  Laer. A touch, a touch; I do confess't.\n  King. Our son shall win.\n  Queen. He's fat, and scant of breath.\n    Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows.\n    The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.\n  Ham. Good madam!\n  King. Gertrude, do not drink.\n  Queen. I will, my lord; I pray you pardon me.          Drinks.\n  King. [aside] It is the poison'd cup; it is too late.\n  Ham. I dare not drink yet, madam; by-and-by.\n  Queen. Come, let me wipe thy face.\n  Laer. My lord, I'll hit him now.\n  King. I do not think't.\n  Laer. [aside] And yet it is almost against my conscience.\n  Ham. Come for the third, Laertes! You but dally.\n    pray You Pass with your best violence;\n    I am afeard You make a wanton of me.\n  Laer. Say you so? Come on.                               Play.\n  Osr. Nothing neither way.\n  Laer. Have at you now!\n                [Laertes wounds Hamlet; then] in scuffling, they\n                    change rapiers, [and Hamlet wounds Laertes].\n  King. Part them! They are incens'd.\n  Ham. Nay come! again!                         The Queen falls.\n  Osr. Look to the Queen there, ho!\n  Hor. They bleed on both sides. How is it, my lord?\n  Osr. How is't, Laertes?\n  Laer. Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe, Osric.\n    I am justly kill'd with mine own treachery.\n  Ham. How does the Queen?\n  King. She sounds to see them bleed.\n  Queen. No, no! the drink, the drink! O my dear Hamlet!\n    The drink, the drink! I am poison'd.                 [Dies.]\n  Ham. O villany! Ho! let the door be lock'd.\n    Treachery! Seek it out.\n                                                [Laertes falls.]\n  Laer. It is here, Hamlet. Hamlet, thou art slain;\n    No medicine in the world can do thee good.\n    In thee there is not half an hour of life.\n    The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,\n    Unbated and envenom'd. The foul practice\n    Hath turn'd itself on me. Lo, here I lie,\n    Never to rise again. Thy mother's poison'd.\n    I can no more. The King, the King's to blame.\n  Ham. The point envenom'd too?\n    Then, venom, to thy work.                    Hurts the King.\n  All. Treason! treason!\n  King. O, yet defend me, friends! I am but hurt.\n  Ham. Here, thou incestuous, murd'rous, damned Dane,\n    Drink off this potion! Is thy union here?\n    Follow my mother.                                 King dies.\n  Laer. He is justly serv'd.\n    It is a poison temper'd by himself.\n    Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet.\n    Mine and my father's death come not upon thee,\n    Nor thine on me!                                       Dies.\n  Ham. Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee.\n    I am dead, Horatio. Wretched queen, adieu!\n    You that look pale and tremble at this chance,\n    That are but mutes or audience to this act,\n    Had I but time (as this fell sergeant, Death,\n    Is strict in his arrest) O, I could tell you-\n    But let it be. Horatio, I am dead;\n    Thou liv'st; report me and my cause aright\n    To the unsatisfied.\n  Hor. Never believe it.\n    I am more an antique Roman than a Dane.\n    Here's yet some liquor left.\n  Ham. As th'art a man,\n    Give me the cup. Let go! By heaven, I'll ha't.\n    O good Horatio, what a wounded name\n    (Things standing thus unknown) shall live behind me!\n    If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,\n    Absent thee from felicity awhile,\n    And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,\n    To tell my story.         [March afar off, and shot within.]\n    What warlike noise is this?\n  Osr. Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from Poland,\n    To the ambassadors of England gives\n    This warlike volley.\n  Ham. O, I die, Horatio!\n    The potent poison quite o'ercrows my spirit.\n    I cannot live to hear the news from England,\n    But I do prophesy th' election lights\n    On Fortinbras. He has my dying voice.\n    So tell him, with th' occurrents, more and less,\n    Which have solicited- the rest is silence.             Dies.\n  Hor. Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,\n    And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!\n                                                 [March within.]\n    Why does the drum come hither?\n\n    Enter Fortinbras and English Ambassadors, with Drum,\n                  Colours, and Attendants.\n\n  Fort. Where is this sight?\n  Hor. What is it you will see?\n    If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.\n  Fort. This quarry cries on havoc. O proud Death,\n    What feast is toward in thine eternal cell\n    That thou so many princes at a shot\n    So bloodily hast struck.\n  Ambassador. The sight is dismal;\n    And our affairs from England come too late.\n    The ears are senseless that should give us bearing\n    To tell him his commandment is fulfill'd\n    That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.\n    Where should We have our thanks?\n  Hor. Not from his mouth,\n    Had it th' ability of life to thank you.\n    He never gave commandment for their death.\n    But since, so jump upon this bloody question,\n    You from the Polack wars, and you from England,\n    Are here arriv'd, give order that these bodies\n    High on a stage be placed to the view;\n    And let me speak to the yet unknowing world\n    How these things came about. So shall You hear\n    Of carnal, bloody and unnatural acts;\n    Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters;\n    Of deaths put on by cunning and forc'd cause;\n    And, in this upshot, purposes mistook\n    Fall'n on th' inventors' heads. All this can I\n    Truly deliver.\n  Fort. Let us haste to hear it,\n    And call the noblest to the audience.\n    For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune.\n    I have some rights of memory in this kingdom\n    Which now, to claim my vantage doth invite me.\n  Hor. Of that I shall have also cause to speak,\n    And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more.\n    But let this same be presently perform'd,\n    Even while men's minds are wild, lest more mischance\n    On plots and errors happen.\n  Fort. Let four captains\n    Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage;\n    For he was likely, had he been put on,\n    To have prov'd most royally; and for his passage\n    The soldiers' music and the rites of war\n    Speak loudly for him.\n    Take up the bodies. Such a sight as this\n    Becomes the field but here shows much amiss.\n    Go, bid the soldiers shoot.\n            Exeunt marching; after the which a peal of ordnance\n                                                   are shot off.\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1598\n\nTHE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY THE FOURTH\n\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  King Henry the Fourth.\n  Henry, Prince of Wales, son to the King.\n  Prince John of Lancaster, son to the King.\n  Earl of Westmoreland.\n  Sir Walter Blunt.\n  Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester.\n  Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland.\n  Henry Percy, surnamed Hotspur, his son.\n  Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March.\n  Richard Scroop, Archbishop of York.\n  Archibald, Earl of Douglas.\n  Owen Glendower.\n  Sir Richard Vernon.\n  Sir John Falstaff.\n  Sir Michael, a friend to the Archbishop of York.\n  Poins.\n  Gadshill\n  Peto.\n  Bardolph.\n\n  Lady Percy, wife to Hotspur, and sister to Mortimer.\n  Lady Mortimer, daughter to Glendower, and wife to Mortimer.\n  Mistress Quickly, hostess of the Boar's Head in Eastcheap.\n\n  Lords, Officers, Sheriff, Vintner, Chamberlain, Drawers, two\n    Carriers, Travellers, and Attendants.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE.--England and Wales.\n\n\nACT I. Scene I.\nLondon. The Palace.\n\nEnter the King, Lord John of Lancaster, Earl of Westmoreland,\n[Sir Walter Blunt,] with others.\n\n  King. So shaken as we are, so wan with care,\n    Find we a time for frighted peace to pant\n    And breathe short-winded accents of new broils\n    To be commenc'd in stronds afar remote.\n    No more the thirsty entrance of this soil\n    Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood.\n    No more shall trenching war channel her fields,\n    Nor Bruise her flow'rets with the armed hoofs\n    Of hostile paces. Those opposed eyes\n    Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven,\n    All of one nature, of one substance bred,\n    Did lately meet in the intestine shock\n    And furious close of civil butchery,\n    Shall now in mutual well-beseeming ranks\n    March all one way and be no more oppos'd\n    Against acquaintance, kindred, and allies.\n    The edge of war, like an ill-sheathed knife,\n    No more shall cut his master. Therefore, friends,\n    As far as to the sepulchre of Christ-\n    Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross\n    We are impressed and engag'd to fight-\n    Forthwith a power of English shall we levy,\n    Whose arms were moulded in their mother's womb\n    To chase these pagans in those holy fields\n    Over whose acres walk'd those blessed feet\n    Which fourteen hundred years ago were nail'd\n    For our advantage on the bitter cross.\n    But this our purpose now is twelvemonth old,\n    And bootless 'tis to tell you we will go.\n    Therefore we meet not now. Then let me hear\n    Of you, my gentle cousin Westmoreland,\n    What yesternight our Council did decree\n    In forwarding this dear expedience.\n  West. My liege, this haste was hot in question\n    And many limits of the charge set down\n    But yesternight; when all athwart there came\n    A post from Wales, loaden with heavy news;\n    Whose worst was that the noble Mortimer,\n    Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight\n    Against the irregular and wild Glendower,\n    Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken,\n    A thousand of his people butchered;\n    Upon whose dead corpse there was such misuse,\n    Such beastly shameless transformation,\n    By those Welshwomen done as may not be\n    Without much shame retold or spoken of.\n  King. It seems then that the tidings of this broil\n    Brake off our business for the Holy Land.\n  West. This, match'd with other, did, my gracious lord;\n    For more uneven and unwelcome news\n    Came from the North, and thus it did import:\n    On Holy-rood Day the gallant Hotspur there,\n    Young Harry Percy, and brave Archibald,\n    That ever-valiant and approved Scot,\n    At Holmedon met,\n    Where they did spend a sad and bloody hour;\n    As by discharge of their artillery\n    And shape of likelihood the news was told;\n    For he that brought them, in the very heat\n    And pride of their contention did take horse,\n    Uncertain of the issue any way.\n  King. Here is a dear, a true-industrious friend,\n    Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse,\n    Stain'd with the variation of each soil\n    Betwixt that Holmedon and this seat of ours,\n    And he hath brought us smooth and welcome news.\n    The Earl of Douglas is discomfited;\n    Ten thousand bold Scots, two-and-twenty knights,\n    Balk'd in their own blood did Sir Walter see\n    On Holmedon's plains. Of prisoners, Hotspur took\n    Mordake Earl of Fife and eldest son\n    To beaten Douglas, and the Earl of Athol,\n    Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith.\n    And is not this an honourable spoil?\n    A gallant prize? Ha, cousin, is it not?\n  West. In faith,\n    It is a conquest for a prince to boast of.\n  King. Yea, there thou mak'st me sad, and mak'st me sin\n    In envy that my Lord Northumberland\n    Should be the father to so blest a son-\n    A son who is the theme of honour's tongue,\n    Amongst a grove the very straightest plant;\n    Who is sweet Fortune's minion and her pride;\n    Whilst I, by looking on the praise of him,\n    See riot and dishonour stain the brow\n    Of my young Harry. O that it could be prov'd\n    That some night-tripping fairy had exchang'd\n    In cradle clothes our children where they lay,\n    And call'd mine Percy, his Plantagenet!\n    Then would I have his Harry, and he mine.\n    But let him from my thoughts. What think you, coz,\n    Of this young Percy's pride? The prisoners\n    Which he in this adventure hath surpris'd\n    To his own use he keeps, and sends me word\n    I shall have none but Mordake Earl of Fife.\n  West. This is his uncle's teaching, this Worcester,\n    Malevolent to you In all aspects,\n    Which makes him prune himself and bristle up\n    The crest of youth against your dignity.\n  King. But I have sent for him to answer this;\n    And for this cause awhile we must neglect\n    Our holy purpose to Jerusalem.\n    Cousin, on Wednesday next our council we\n    Will hold at Windsor. So inform the lords;\n    But come yourself with speed to us again;\n    For more is to be said and to be done\n    Than out of anger can be uttered.\n  West. I will my liege.                                 Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nLondon. An apartment of the Prince's.\n\nEnter Prince of Wales and Sir John Falstaff.\n\n  Fal. Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?\n  Prince. Thou art so fat-witted with drinking of old sack, and\n    unbuttoning thee after supper, and sleeping upon benches after\n    noon, that thou hast forgotten to demand that truly which thou\n    wouldest truly know. What a devil hast thou to do with the time\n    of the day, Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons,\n    and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping\n    houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in\n    flame-coloured taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst be so\n    superfluous to demand the time of the day.\n  Fal. Indeed you come near me now, Hal; for we that take purses go\n    by the moon And the seven stars, and not by Phoebus, he, that\n    wand'ring knight so fair. And I prithee, sweet wag, when thou art\n    king, as, God save thy Grace-Majesty I should say, for grace thou\n    wilt have none-\n  Prince. What, none?\n  Fal. No, by my troth; not so much as will serve to be prologue to\n    an egg and butter.\n  Prince. Well, how then? Come, roundly, roundly.\n  Fal. Marry, then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let not us that\n    are squires of the night's body be called thieves of the day's\n    beauty. Let us be Diana's Foresters, Gentlemen of the Shade,\n    Minions of the Moon; and let men say we be men of good\n    government, being governed as the sea is, by our noble and chaste\n    mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal.\n  Prince. Thou sayest well, and it holds well too; for the fortune of\n    us that are the moon's men doth ebb and flow like the sea, being\n    governed, as the sea is, by the moon. As, for proof now: a purse\n    of gold most resolutely snatch'd on Monday night and most\n    dissolutely spent on Tuesday morning; got with swearing 'Lay by,'\n    and spent with crying 'Bring in'; now ill as low an ebb as the\n    foot of the ladder, and by-and-by in as high a flow as the ridge\n    of the gallows.\n  Fal. By the Lord, thou say'st true, lad- and is not my hostess of\n    the tavern a most sweet wench?\n  Prince. As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of the castle- and is not\n    a buff jerkin a most sweet robe of durance?\n  Fal. How now, how now, mad wag? What, in thy quips and thy\n    quiddities? What a plague have I to do with a buff jerkin?\n  Prince. Why, what a pox have I to do with my hostess of the tavern?\n  Fal. Well, thou hast call'd her to a reckoning many a time and oft.\n  Prince. Did I ever call for thee to pay thy part?\n  Fal. No; I'll give thee thy due, thou hast paid all there.\n  Prince. Yea, and elsewhere, so far as my coin would stretch; and\n    where it would not, I have used my credit.\n  Fal. Yea, and so us'd it that, were it not here apparent that thou\n    art heir apparent- But I prithee, sweet wag, shall there be\n    gallows standing in England when thou art king? and resolution\n    thus fubb'd as it is with the rusty curb of old father antic the\n    law? Do not thou, when thou art king, hang a thief.\n  Prince. No; thou shalt.\n  Fal. Shall I? O rare! By the Lord, I'll be a brave judge.\n  Prince. Thou judgest false already. I mean, thou shalt have the\n    hanging of the thieves and so become a rare hangman.\n  Fal. Well, Hal, well; and in some sort it jumps with my humour as\n    well as waiting in the court, I can tell you.\n  Prince. For obtaining of suits?\n  Fal. Yea, for obtaining of suits, whereof the hangman hath no lean\n    wardrobe. 'Sblood, I am as melancholy as a gib-cat or a lugg'd\n    bear.\n  Prince. Or an old lion, or a lover's lute.\n  Fal. Yea, or the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe.\n  Prince. What sayest thou to a hare, or the melancholy of Moor\n    Ditch?\n  Fal. Thou hast the most unsavoury similes, and art indeed the most\n    comparative, rascalliest, sweet young prince. But, Hal, I prithee\n    trouble me no more with vanity. I would to God thou and I knew\n    where a commodity of good names were to be bought. An old lord of\n    the Council rated me the other day in the street about you, sir,\n    but I mark'd him not; and yet he talked very wisely, but I\n    regarded him not; and yet he talk'd wisely, and in the street\n    too.\n  Prince. Thou didst well; for wisdom cries out in the streets, and\n    no man regards it.\n  Fal. O, thou hast damnable iteration, and art indeed able to\n    corrupt a saint. Thou hast done much harm upon me, Hal- God\n    forgive thee for it! Before I knew thee, Hal, I knew nothing; and\n    now am I, if a man should speak truly, little better than one of\n    the wicked. I must give over this life, and I will give it over!\n    By the Lord, an I do not, I am a villain! I'll be damn'd for\n    never a king's son in Christendom.\n  Prince. Where shall we take a purse tomorrow, Jack?\n  Fal. Zounds, where thou wilt, lad! I'll make one. An I do not, call\n    me villain and baffle me.\n  Prince. I see a good amendment of life in thee- from praying to\n    purse-taking.\n  Fal. Why, Hal, 'tis my vocation, Hal. 'Tis no sin for a man to\n    labour in his vocation.\n\n                             Enter Poins.\n\n    Poins! Now shall we know if Gadshill have set a match. O, if men\n    were to be saved by merit, what hole in hell were hot enough for\n    him? This is the most omnipotent villain that ever cried 'Stand!'\n    to a true man.\n  Prince. Good morrow, Ned.\n  Poins. Good morrow, sweet Hal. What says Monsieur Remorse? What\n    says Sir John Sack and Sugar? Jack, how agrees the devil and thee\n    about thy soul, that thou soldest him on Good Friday last for a\n    cup of Madeira and a cold capon's leg?\n  Prince. Sir John stands to his word, the devil shall have his\n    bargain; for he was never yet a breaker of proverbs. He will give\n    the devil his due.\n  Poins. Then art thou damn'd for keeping thy word with the devil.\n  Prince. Else he had been damn'd for cozening the devil.\n  Poins. But, my lads, my lads, to-morrow morning, by four o'clock\n    early, at Gadshill! There are pilgrims gong to Canterbury with\n    rich offerings, and traders riding to London with fat purses. I\n    have vizards for you all; you have horses for yourselves.\n    Gadshill lies to-night in Rochester. I have bespoke supper\n    to-morrow night in Eastcheap. We may do it as secure as sleep. If\n    you will go, I will stuff your purses full of crowns; if you will\n    not, tarry at home and be hang'd!\n  Fal. Hear ye, Yedward: if I tarry at home and go not, I'll hang you\n    for going.\n  Poins. You will, chops?\n  Fal. Hal, wilt thou make one?\n  Prince. Who, I rob? I a thief? Not I, by my faith.\n  Fal. There's neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellowship in thee,\n    nor thou cam'st not of the blood royal if thou darest not stand\n    for ten shillings.\n  Prince. Well then, once in my days I'll be a madcap.\n  Fal. Why, that's well said.\n  Prince. Well, come what will, I'll tarry at home.\n  Fal. By the Lord, I'll be a traitor then, when thou art king.\n  Prince. I care not.\n  Poins. Sir John, I prithee, leave the Prince and me alone. I will\n    lay him down such reasons for this adventure that he shall go.\n  Fal. Well, God give thee the spirit of persuasion and him the ears\n    of profiting, that what thou speakest may move and what he hears\n    may be believed, that the true prince may (for recreation sake)\n    prove a false thief; for the poor abuses of the time want\n    countenance. Farewell; you shall find me in Eastcheap.\n  Prince. Farewell, thou latter spring! farewell, All-hallown summer!\n                                                  Exit Falstaff.\n  Poins. Now, my good sweet honey lord, ride with us to-morrow. I\n    have a jest to execute that I cannot manage alone. Falstaff,\n    Bardolph, Peto, and Gadshill shall rob those men that we have\n    already waylaid; yourself and I will not be there; and when they\n    have the booty, if you and I do not rob them, cut this head off\n    from my shoulders.\n  Prince. How shall we part with them in setting forth?\n  Poins. Why, we will set forth before or after them and appoint them\n    a place of meeting, wherein it is at our pleasure to fail; and\n    then will they adventure upon the exploit themselves; which they\n    shall have no sooner achieved, but we'll set upon them.\n  Prince. Yea, but 'tis like that they will know us by our horses, by\n    our habits, and by every other appointment, to be ourselves.\n  Poins. Tut! our horses they shall not see- I'll tie them in the\n    wood; our wizards we will change after we leave them; and,\n    sirrah, I have cases of buckram for the nonce, to immask our\n    noted outward garments.\n  Prince. Yea, but I doubt they will be too hard for us.\n  Poins. Well, for two of them, I know them to be as true-bred\n    cowards as ever turn'd back; and for the third, if he fight\n    longer than he sees reason, I'll forswear arms. The virtue of\n    this jest will lie the incomprehensible lies that this same fat\n    rogue will tell us when we meet at supper: how thirty, at least,\n    he fought with; what wards, what blows, what extremities he\n    endured; and in the reproof of this lies the jest.\n  Prince. Well, I'll go with thee. Provide us all things necessary\n    and meet me to-night in Eastcheap. There I'll sup. Farewell.\n  Poins. Farewell, my lord.                                Exit.\n  Prince. I know you all, and will awhile uphold\n    The unyok'd humour of your idleness.\n    Yet herein will I imitate the sun,\n    Who doth permit the base contagious clouds\n    To smother up his beauty from the world,\n    That, when he please again to lie himself,\n    Being wanted, he may be more wond'red at\n    By breaking through the foul and ugly mists\n    Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.\n    If all the year were playing holidays,\n    To sport would be as tedious as to work;\n    But when they seldom come, they wish'd-for come,\n    And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.\n    So, when this loose behaviour I throw off\n    And pay the debt I never promised,\n    By how much better than my word I am,\n    By so much shall I falsify men's hopes;\n    And, like bright metal on a sullen ground,\n    My reformation, glitt'ring o'er my fault,\n    Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes\n    Than that which hath no foil to set it off.\n    I'll so offend to make offence a skill,\n    Redeeming time when men think least I will.            Exit.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nLondon. The Palace.\n\nEnter the King, Northumberland, Worcester, Hotspur, Sir Walter Blunt,\nwith others.\n\n  King. My blood hath been too cold and temperate,\n    Unapt to stir at these indignities,\n    And you have found me, for accordingly\n    You tread upon my patience; but be sure\n    I will from henceforth rather be myself,\n    Mighty and to be fear'd, than my condition,\n    Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down,\n    And therefore lost that title of respect\n    Which the proud soul ne'er pays but to the proud.\n  Wor. Our house, my sovereign liege, little deserves\n    The scourge of greatness to be us'd on it-\n    And that same greatness too which our own hands\n    Have holp to make so portly.\n  North. My lord-\n  King. Worcester, get thee gone; for I do see\n    Danger and disobedience in thine eye.\n    O, sir, your presence is too bold and peremptory,\n    And majesty might never yet endure\n    The moody frontier of a servant brow.\n    Tou have good leave to leave us. When we need\n    'Your use and counsel, we shall send for you.\n                                                 Exit Worcester.\n    You were about to speak.\n  North. Yea, my good lord.\n    Those prisoners in your Highness' name demanded\n    Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took,\n    Were, as he says, not with such strength denied\n    As is delivered to your Majesty.\n    Either envy, therefore, or misprision\n    Is guilty of this fault, and not my son.\n  Hot. My liege, I did deny no prisoners.\n    But I remember, when the fight was done,\n    When I was dry with rage and extreme toll,\n    Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,\n    Came there a certain lord, neat and trimly dress'd,\n    Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin new reap'd\n    Show'd like a stubble land at harvest home.\n    He was perfumed like a milliner,\n    And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held\n    A pouncet box, which ever and anon\n    He gave his nose, and took't away again;\n    Who therewith angry, when it next came there,\n    Took it in snuff; and still he smil'd and talk'd;\n    And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,\n    He call'd them untaught knaves, unmannerly,\n    To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse\n    Betwixt the wind and his nobility.\n    With many holiday and lady terms\n    He questioned me, amongst the rest demanded\n    My prisoners in your Majesty's behalf.\n    I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold,\n    To be so pest'red with a popingay,\n    Out of my grief and my impatience\n    Answer'd neglectingly, I know not what-\n    He should, or he should not; for he made me mad\n    To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,\n    And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman\n    Of guns and drums and wounds- God save the mark!-\n    And telling me the sovereignest thing on earth\n    Was parmacity for an inward bruise;\n    And that it was great pity, so it was,\n    This villanous saltpetre should be digg'd\n    Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,\n    Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd\n    So cowardly; and but for these vile 'guns,\n    He would himself have been a soldier.\n    This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord,\n    I answered indirectly, as I said,\n    And I beseech you, let not his report\n    Come current for an accusation\n    Betwixt my love and your high majesty.\n  Blunt. The circumstance considered, good my lord,\n    Whate'er Lord Harry Percy then had said\n    To such a person, and in such a place,\n    At such a time, with all the rest retold,\n    May reasonably die, and never rise\n    To do him wrong, or any way impeach\n    What then he said, so he unsay it now.\n  King. Why, yet he doth deny his prisoners,\n    But with proviso and exception,\n    That we at our own charge shall ransom straight\n    His brother-in-law, the foolish Mortimer;\n    Who, on my soul, hath wilfully betray'd\n    The lives of those that he did lead to fight\n    Against that great magician, damn'd Glendower,\n    Whose daughter, as we hear, the Earl of March\n    Hath lately married. Shall our coffers, then,\n    Be emptied to redeem a traitor home?\n    Shall we buy treason? and indent with fears\n    When they have lost and forfeited themselves?\n    No, on the barren mountains let him starve!\n    For I shall never hold that man my friend\n    Whose tongue shall ask me for one penny cost\n    To ransom home revolted Mortimer.\n  Hot. Revolted Mortimer?\n    He never did fall off, my sovereign liege,\n    But by the chance of war. To prove that true\n    Needs no more but one tongue for all those wounds,\n    Those mouthed wounds, which valiantly he took\n    When on the gentle Severn's sedgy bank,\n    In single opposition hand to hand,\n    He did confound the best part of an hour\n    In changing hardiment with great Glendower.\n    Three times they breath'd, and three times did they drink,\n    Upon agreement, of swift Severn's flood;\n    Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks,\n    Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds\n    And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank,\n    Bloodstained with these valiant cohabitants.\n    Never did base and rotten policy\n    Colour her working with such deadly wounds;\n    Nor never could the noble Mortimer\n    Receive so many, and all willingly.\n    Then let not him be slandered with revolt.\n  King. Thou dost belie him, Percy, thou dost belie him!\n    He never did encounter with Glendower.\n    I tell thee\n    He durst as well have met the devil alone\n    As Owen Glendower for an enemy.\n    Art thou not asham'd? But, sirrah, henceforth\n    Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer.\n    Send me your prisoners with the speediest means,\n    Or you shall hear in such a kind from me\n    As will displease you. My Lord Northumberland,\n    We license your departure with your son.-\n    Send us your prisoners, or you will hear of it.\n                                 Exeunt King, [Blunt, and Train]\n  Hot. An if the devil come and roar for them,\n    I will not send them. I will after straight\n    And tell him so; for I will else my heart,\n    Albeit I make a hazard of my head.\n  North. What, drunk with choler? Stay, and pause awhile.\n    Here comes your uncle.\n\n                          Enter Worcester.\n\n  Hot. Speak of Mortimer?\n    Zounds, I will speak of him, and let my soul\n    Want mercy if I do not join with him!\n    Yea, on his part I'll empty all these veins,\n    And shed my dear blood drop by drop in the dust,\n    But I will lift the downtrod Mortimer\n    As high in the air as this unthankful king,\n    As this ingrate and cank'red Bolingbroke.\n  North. Brother, the King hath made your nephew mad.\n  Wor. Who struck this heat up after I was gone?\n  Hot. He will (forsooth) have all my prisoners;\n    And when I urg'd the ransom once again\n    Of my wive's brother, then his cheek look'd pale,\n    And on my face he turn'd an eye of death,\n    Trembling even at the name of Mortimer.\n  Wor. I cannot blame him. Was not he proclaim'd\n    By Richard that dead is, the next of blood?\n  North. He was; I heard the proclamation.\n    And then it was when the unhappy King\n    (Whose wrongs in us God pardon!) did set forth\n    Upon his Irish expedition;\n    From whence he intercepted did return\n    To be depos'd, and shortly murdered.\n  Wor. And for whose death we in the world's wide mouth\n    Live scandaliz'd and foully spoken of.\n  Hot. But soft, I pray you. Did King Richard then\n    Proclaim my brother Edmund Mortimer\n    Heir to the crown?\n  North. He did; myself did hear it.\n  Hot. Nay, then I cannot blame his cousin king,\n    That wish'd him on the barren mountains starve.\n    But shall it be that you, that set the crown\n    Upon the head of this forgetful man,\n    And for his sake wear the detested blot\n    Of murtherous subornation- shall it be\n    That you a world of curses undergo,\n    Being the agents or base second means,\n    The cords, the ladder, or the hangman rather?\n    O, pardon me that I descend so low\n    To show the line and the predicament\n    Wherein you range under this subtile king!\n    Shall it for shame be spoken in these days,\n    Or fill up chronicles in time to come,\n    That men of your nobility and power\n    Did gage them both in an unjust behalf\n    (As both of you, God pardon it! have done)\n    To put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose,\n    And plant this thorn, this canker, Bolingbroke?\n    And shall it in more shame be further spoken\n    That you are fool'd, discarded, and shook off\n    By him for whom these shames ye underwent?\n    No! yet time serves wherein you may redeem\n    Your banish'd honours and restore yourselves\n    Into the good thoughts of the world again;\n    Revenge the jeering and disdain'd contempt\n    Of this proud king, who studies day and night\n    To answer all the debt he owes to you\n    Even with the bloody payment of your deaths.\n    Therefore I say-\n  Wor. Peace, cousin, say no more;\n    And now, I will unclasp a secret book,\n    And to your quick-conceiving discontents\n    I'll read you matter deep and dangerous,\n    As full of peril and adventurous spirit\n    As to o'erwalk a current roaring loud\n    On the unsteadfast footing of a spear.\n  Hot. If he fall in, good night, or sink or swim!\n    Send danger from the east unto the west,\n    So honour cross it from the north to south,\n    And let them grapple. O, the blood more stirs\n    To rouse a lion than to start a hare!\n  North. Imagination of some great exploit\n    Drives him beyond the bounds of patience.\n  Hot. By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap\n    To pluck bright honour from the pale-fac'd moon,\n    Or dive into the bottom of the deep,\n    Where fadom line could never touch the ground,\n    And pluck up drowned honour by the locks,\n    So he that doth redeem her thence might wear\n    Without corrival all her dignities;\n    But out upon this half-fac'd fellowship!\n  Wor. He apprehends a world of figures here,\n    But not the form of what he should attend.\n    Good cousin, give me audience for a while.\n  Hot. I cry you mercy.\n  Wor. Those same noble Scots\n    That are your prisoners-\n  Hot. I'll keep them all.\n    By God, he shall not have a Scot of them!\n    No, if a Scot would save his soul, he shall not.\n    I'll keep them, by this hand!\n  Wor. You start away.\n    And lend no ear unto my purposes.\n    Those prisoners you shall keep.\n  Hot. Nay, I will! That is flat!\n    He said he would not ransom Mortimer,\n    Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer,\n    But I will find him when he lies asleep,\n    And in his ear I'll holloa 'Mortimer.'\n    Nay;\n    I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak\n    Nothing but 'Mortimer,' and give it him\n    To keep his anger still in motion.\n  Wor. Hear you, cousin, a word.\n  Hot. All studies here I solemnly defy\n    Save how to gall and pinch this Bolingbroke;\n    And that same sword-and-buckler Prince of Wales-\n    But that I think his father loves him not\n    And would be glad he met with some mischance,\n    I would have him poisoned with a pot of ale.\n  Wor. Farewell, kinsman. I will talk to you\n    When you are better temper'd to attend.\n  North. Why, what a wasp-stung and impatient fool\n    Art thou to break into this woman's mood,\n    Tying thine ear to no tongue but thine own!\n  Hot. Why, look you, I am whipp'd and scourg'd with rods,\n    Nettled, and stung with pismires when I hear\n    Of this vile politician, Bolingbroke.\n    In Richard's time- what do you call the place-\n    A plague upon it! it is in GIoucestershire-\n    'Twas where the madcap Duke his uncle kept-\n    His uncle York- where I first bow'd my knee\n    Unto this king of smiles, this Bolingbroke-\n    'S blood!\n    When you and he came back from Ravenspurgh-\n  North. At Berkeley Castle.\n  Hot. You say true.\n    Why, what a candy deal of courtesy\n    This fawning greyhound then did proffer me!\n    Look, 'when his infant fortune came to age,'\n    And 'gentle Harry Percy,' and 'kind cousin'-\n    O, the devil take such cozeners!- God forgive me!\n    Good uncle, tell your tale, for I have done.\n  Wor. Nay, if you have not, to it again.\n    We will stay your leisure.\n  Hot. I have done, i' faith.\n  Wor. Then once more to your Scottish prisoners.\n    Deliver them up without their ransom straight,\n    And make the Douglas' son your only mean\n    For powers In Scotland; which, for divers reasons\n    Which I shall send you written, be assur'd\n    Will easily be granted. [To Northumberland] You, my lord,\n    Your son in Scotland being thus employ'd,\n    Shall secretly into the bosom creep\n    Of that same noble prelate well-belov'd,\n    The Archbishop.\n  Hot. Of York, is it not?\n  Wor. True; who bears hard\n    His brother's death at Bristow, the Lord Scroop.\n    I speak not this in estimation,\n    As what I think might be, but what I know\n    Is ruminated, plotted, and set down,\n    And only stays but to behold the face\n    Of that occasion that shall bring it on.\n  Hot. I smell it. Upon my life, it will do well.\n  North. Before the game is afoot thou still let'st slip.\n  Hot. Why, it cannot choose but be a noble plot.\n    And then the power of Scotland and of York\n    To join with Mortimer, ha?\n  Wor. And so they shall.\n  Hot. In faith, it is exceedingly well aim'd.\n  Wor. And 'tis no little reason bids us speed,\n    To save our heads by raising of a head;\n    For, bear ourselves as even as we can,\n    The King will always think him in our debt,\n    And think we think ourselves unsatisfied,\n    Till he hath found a time to pay us home.\n    And see already how he doth begin\n    To make us strangers to his looks of love.\n  Hot. He does, he does! We'll be reveng'd on him.\n  Wor. Cousin, farewell. No further go in this\n    Than I by letters shall direct your course.\n    When time is ripe, which will be suddenly,\n    I'll steal to Glendower and Lord Mortimer,\n    Where you and Douglas, and our pow'rs at once,\n    As I will fashion it, shall happily meet,\n    To bear our fortunes in our own strong arms,\n    Which now we hold at much uncertainty.\n  North. Farewell, good brother. We shall thrive, I trust.\n  Hot. Uncle, adieu. O, let the hours be short\n    Till fields and blows and groans applaud our sport!    Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. Scene I.\nRochester. An inn yard.\n\nEnter a Carrier with a lantern in his hand.\n\n  1. Car. Heigh-ho! an it be not four by the day, I'll be hang'd.\n    Charles' wain is over the new chimney, and yet our horse not\n    pack'd.- What, ostler!\n  Ost. [within] Anon, anon.\n  1. Car. I prithee, Tom, beat Cut's saddle, put a few flocks in the\n    point. Poor jade is wrung in the withers out of all cess.\n\n                        Enter another Carrier.\n\n  2. Car. Peas and beans are as dank here as a dog, and that is the\n    next way to give poor jades the bots. This house is turned upside\n    down since Robin Ostler died.\n  1. Car. Poor fellow never joyed since the price of oats rose. It\n    was the death of him.\n  2. Car. I think this be the most villanous house in all London road\n    for fleas. I am stung like a tench.\n  1. Car. Like a tench I By the mass, there is ne'er a king christen\n    could be better bit than I have been since the first cock.\n  2. Car. Why, they will allow us ne'er a jordan, and then we leak in\n    your chimney, and your chamber-lye breeds fleas like a loach.\n  1. Car. What, ostler! come away and be hang'd! come away!\n  2. Car. I have a gammon of bacon and two razes of ginger, to be\n    delivered as far as Charing Cross.\n  1. Car. God's body! the turkeys in my pannier are quite starved.\n    What, ostler! A plague on thee! hast thou never an eye in thy\n    head? Canst not hear? An 'twere not as good deed as drink to\n    break the pate on thee, I am a very villain. Come, and be hang'd!\n    Hast no faith in thee?\n\n                           Enter Gadshill.\n\n  Gads. Good morrow, carriers. What's o'clock?\n  1. Car. I think it be two o'clock.\n  Gads. I prithee lend me this lantern to see my gelding in the\n    stable.\n  1. Car. Nay, by God, soft! I know a trick worth two of that,\n    i' faith.\n  Gads. I pray thee lend me thine.\n  2. Car. Ay, when? canst tell? Lend me thy lantern, quoth he? Marry,\n    I'll see thee hang'd first!\n  Gads. Sirrah carrier, what time do you mean to come to London?\n  2. Car. Time enough to go to bed with a candle, I warrant thee.\n    Come, neighbour Mugs, we'll call up the gentlemen. They will\n    along with company, for they have great charge.\n                                              Exeunt [Carriers].\n  Gads. What, ho! chamberlain!\n\n                            Enter Chamberlain.\n\n  Cham. At hand, quoth pickpurse.\n  Gads. That's even as fair as- 'at hand, quoth the chamberlain'; for\n    thou variest no more from picking of purses than giving direction\n    doth from labouring: thou layest the plot how.\n  Cham. Good morrow, Master Gadshill. It holds current that I told\n    you yesternight. There's a franklin in the Wild of Kent hath\n    brought three hundred marks with him in gold. I heard him tell it\n    to one of his company last night at supper- a kind of auditor;\n    one that hath abundance of charge too, God knows what. They are\n    up already and call for eggs and butter. They will away\n    presently.\n  Gads. Sirrah, if they meet not with Saint Nicholas' clerks, I'll\n    give thee this neck.\n  Cham. No, I'll none of it. I pray thee keep that for the hangman;\n    for I know thou worshippest Saint Nicholas as truly as a man of\n    falsehood may.\n  Gads. What talkest thou to me of the hangman? If I hang, I'll make\n    a fat pair of gallows; for if I hang, old Sir John hangs with me,\n    and thou knowest he is no starveling. Tut! there are other\n    Troyans that thou dream'st not of, the which for sport sake are\n    content to do the profession some grace; that would (if matters\n    should be look'd into) for their own credit sake make all whole.\n    I am joined with no foot land-rakers, no long-staff sixpenny\n    strikers, none of these mad mustachio purple-hued maltworms; but\n    with nobility, and tranquillity, burgomasters and great oneyers,\n    such as can hold in, such as will strike sooner than speak, and\n    speak sooner than drink, and drink sooner than pray; and yet,\n    zounds, I lie; for they pray continually to their saint, the\n    commonwealth, or rather, not pray to her, but prey on her, for\n    they ride up and down on her and make her their boots.\n  Cham. What, the commonwealth their boots? Will she hold out water\n    in foul way?\n  Gads. She will, she will! Justice hath liquor'd her. We steal as in\n    a castle, cocksure. We have the receipt of fernseed, we walk\n    invisible.\n  Cham. Nay, by my faith, I think you are more beholding to the night\n    than to fernseed for your walking invisible.\n  Gads. Give me thy hand. Thou shalt have a share in our purchase, as\n    I and a true man.\n  Cham. Nay, rather let me have it, as you are a false thief.\n  Gads. Go to; 'homo' is a common name to all men. Bid the ostler\n    bring my gelding out of the stable. Farewell, you muddy knave.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nThe highway near Gadshill.\n\nEnter Prince and Poins.\n\n  Poins. Come, shelter, shelter! I have remov'd Falstaff's horse, and\n    he frets like a gumm'd velvet.\n  Prince. Stand close.                        [They step aside.]\n\n                             Enter Falstaff.\n\n  Fal. Poins! Poins, and be hang'd! Poins!\n  Prince. I comes forward I Peace, ye fat-kidney'd rascal! What a\n    brawling dost thou keep!\n  Fal. Where's Poins, Hal?\n  Prince. He is walk'd up to the top of the hill. I'll go seek him.\n                                                  [Steps aside.]\n  Fal. I am accurs'd to rob in that thief's company. The rascal hath\n    removed my horse and tied him I know not where. If I travel but\n    four foot by the squire further afoot, I shall break my wind.\n    Well, I doubt not but to die a fair death for all this, if I\n    scape hanging for killing that rogue. I have forsworn his company\n    hourly any time this two-and-twenty years, and yet I am bewitch'd\n    with the rogue's company. If the rascal have not given me\n    medicines to make me love him, I'll be hang'd. It could not be\n    else. I have drunk medicines. Poins! Hal! A plague upon you both!\n    Bardolph! Peto! I'll starve ere I'll rob a foot further. An\n    'twere not as good a deed as drink to turn true man and to leave\n    these rogues, I am the veriest varlet that ever chewed with a\n    tooth. Eight yards of uneven ground is threescore and ten miles\n    afoot with me, and the stony-hearted villains know it well\n    enough. A plague upon it when thieves cannot be true one to\n    another! (They whistle.) Whew! A plague upon you all! Give me my\n    horse, you rogues! give me my horse and be hang'd!\n  Prince. [comes forward] Peace, ye fat-guts! Lie down, lay thine ear\n    close to the ground, and list if thou canst hear the tread of\n    travellers.\n  Fal. Have you any levers to lift me up again, being down? 'Sblood,\n    I'll not bear mine own flesh so far afoot again for all the coin\n    in thy father's exchequer. What a plague mean ye to colt me thus?\n  Prince. Thou liest; thou art not colted, thou art uncolted.\n  Fal. I prithee, good Prince Hal, help me to my horse, good king's\n    son.\n  Prince. Out, ye rogue! Shall I be your ostler?\n  Fal. Go hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent garters! If I be\n    ta'en, I'll peach for this. An I have not ballads made on you\n    all, and sung to filthy tunes, let a cup of sack be my poison.\n    When a jest is so forward- and afoot too- I hate it.\n\n             Enter Gadshill, [Bardolph and Peto with him].\n\n  Gads. Stand!\n  Fal. So I do, against my will.\n  Poins. [comes fortward] O, 'tis our setter. I know his voice.\n    Bardolph, what news?\n  Bar. Case ye, case ye! On with your vizards! There's money of the\n    King's coming down the hill; 'tis going to the King's exchequer.\n  Fal. You lie, ye rogue! 'Tis going to the King's tavern.\n  Gads. There's enough to make us all.\n  Fal. To be hang'd.\n  Prince. Sirs, you four shall front them in the narrow lane; Ned\n    Poins and I will walk lower. If they scape from your encounter,\n    then they light on us.\n  Peto. How many be there of them?\n  Gads. Some eight or ten.\n  Fal. Zounds, will they not rob us?\n  Prince. What, a coward, Sir John Paunch?\n  Fal. Indeed, I am not John of Gaunt, your grandfather; but yet no\n    coward, Hal.\n  Prince. Well, we leave that to the proof.\n  Poins. Sirrah Jack, thy horse stands behind the hedge. When thou\n    need'st him, there thou shalt find him. Farewell and stand fast.\n  Fal. Now cannot I strike him, if I should be hang'd.\n  Prince. [aside to Poins] Ned, where are our disguises?\n  Poins. [aside to Prince] Here, hard by. Stand close.\n                                      [Exeunt Prince and Poins.]\n  Fal. Now, my masters, happy man be his dole, say I. Every man to\n    his business.\n\n                         Enter the Travellers.\n\n  Traveller. Come, neighbour.\n    The boy shall lead our horses down the hill;\n    We'll walk afoot awhile and ease our legs.\n  Thieves. Stand!\n  Traveller. Jesus bless us!\n  Fal. Strike! down with them! cut the villains' throats! Ah,\n    whoreson caterpillars! bacon-fed knaves! they hate us youth. Down\n    with them! fleece them!\n  Traveller. O, we are undone, both we and ours for ever!\n  Fal. Hang ye, gorbellied knaves, are ye undone? No, ye fat chuffs;\n    I would your store were here! On, bacons on! What, ye knaves!\n    young men must live. You are grandjurors, are ye? We'll jure ye,\n    faith!\n                            Here they rob and bind them. Exeunt.\n\n            Enter the Prince and Poins [in buckram suits].\n\n  Prince. The thieves have bound the true men. Now could thou and I\n    rob the thieves and go merrily to London, it would be argument\n    for a week, laughter for a month, and a good jest for ever.\n  Poins. Stand close! I hear them coming.\n                                             [They stand aside.]\n\n                       Enter the Thieves again.\n\n  Fal. Come, my masters, let us share, and then to horse before day.\n    An the Prince and Poins be not two arrant cowards, there's no\n    equity stirring. There's no more valour in that Poins than in a\n    wild duck.\n\n        [As they are sharing, the Prince and Poins set upon\n        them. THey all run away, and Falstaff, after a blow or\n        two, runs awasy too, leaving the booty behind them.]\n\n  Prince. Your money!\n  Poins. Villains!\n\n  Prince. Got with much ease. Now merrily to horse.\n    The thieves are scattered, and possess'd with fear\n    So strongly that they dare not meet each other.\n    Each takes his fellow for an officer.\n    Away, good Ned. Falstaff sweats to death\n    And lards the lean earth as he walks along.\n    Were't not for laughing, I should pity him.\n  Poins. How the rogue roar'd!                           Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nWarkworth Castle.\n\nEnter Hotspur solus, reading a letter.\n\n  Hot. 'But, for mine own part, my lord, I could be well contented to\n    be there, in respect of the love I bear your house.' He could be\n    contented- why is he not then? In respect of the love he bears\n    our house! He shows in this he loves his own barn better than he\n    loves our house. Let me see some more. 'The purpose you undertake\n    is dangerous'- Why, that's certain! 'Tis dangerous to take a\n    cold, to sleep, to drink; but I tell you, my lord fool, out of\n    this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety. 'The purpose\n    you undertake is dangerous, the friends you have named uncertain,\n    the time itself unsorted, and your whole plot too light for the\n    counterpoise of so great an opposition.' Say you so, say you so?\n    I say unto you again, you are a shallow, cowardly hind, and you\n    lie. What a lack-brain is this! By the Lord, our plot is a good\n    plot as ever was laid; our friends true and constant: a good\n    plot, good friends, and full of expectation; an excellent plot,\n    very good friends. What a frosty-spirited rogue is this! Why, my\n    Lord of York commends the plot and the general course of the\n    action. Zounds, an I were now by this rascal, I could brain him\n    with his lady's fan. Is there not my father, my uncle, and\n    myself; Lord Edmund Mortimer, my Lord of York, and Owen\n    Glendower? Is there not, besides, the Douglas? Have I not all\n    their letters to meet me in arms by the ninth of the next month,\n    and are they not some of them set forward already? What a pagan\n    rascal is this! an infidel! Ha! you shall see now, in very\n    sincerity of fear and cold heart will he to the King and lay open\n    all our proceedings. O, I could divide myself and go to buffets\n    for moving such a dish of skim milk with so honourable an action!\n    Hang him, let him tell the King! we are prepared. I will set\n    forward to-night.\n\n                         Enter his Lady.\n\n    How now, Kate? I must leave you within these two hours.\n  Lady. O my good lord, why are you thus alone?\n    For what offence have I this fortnight been\n    A banish'd woman from my Harry's bed,\n    Tell me, sweet lord, what is't that takes from thee\n    Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep?\n    Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth,\n    And start so often when thou sit'st alone?\n    Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks\n    And given my treasures and my rights of thee\n    To thick-ey'd musing and curs'd melancholy?\n    In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watch'd,\n    And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars,\n    Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed,\n    Cry 'Courage! to the field!' And thou hast talk'd\n    Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tent,\n    Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets,\n    Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin,\n    Of prisoners' ransom, and of soldiers slain,\n    And all the currents of a heady fight.\n    Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war,\n    And thus hath so bestirr'd thee in thy sleep,\n    That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow\n    Like bubbles ill a late-disturbed stream,\n    And in thy face strange motions have appear'd,\n    Such as we see when men restrain their breath\n    On some great sudden hest. O, what portents are these?\n    Some heavy business hath my lord in hand,\n    And I must know it, else he loves me not.\n  Hot. What, ho!\n\n                    [Enter a Servant.]\n\n    Is Gilliams with the packet gone?\n  Serv. He is, my lord, an hour ago.\n  Hot. Hath Butler brought those horses from the sheriff?\n  Serv. One horse, my lord, he brought even now.\n  Hot. What horse? A roan, a crop-ear, is it not?\n  Serv. It is, my lord.\n  Hot. That roan shall be my throne.\n    Well, I will back him straight. O esperance!\n    Bid Butler lead him forth into the park.\n                                                 [Exit Servant.]\n  Lady. But hear you, my lord.\n  Hot. What say'st thou, my lady?\n  Lady. What is it carries you away?\n  Hot. Why, my horse, my love- my horse!\n  Lady. Out, you mad-headed ape!\n    A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen\n    As you are toss'd with. In faith,\n    I'll know your business, Harry; that I will!\n    I fear my brother Mortimer doth stir\n    About his title and hath sent for you\n    To line his enterprise; but if you go-\n  Hot. So far afoot, I shall be weary, love.\n  Lady. Come, come, you paraquito, answer me\n    Directly unto this question that I ask.\n    I'll break thy little finger, Harry,\n    An if thou wilt not tell my all things true.\n  Hot. Away.\n    Away, you trifler! Love? I love thee not;\n    I care not for thee, Kate. This is no world\n    To play with mammets and to tilt with lips.\n    We must have bloody noses and crack'd crowns,\n    And pass them current too. Gods me, my horse!\n    What say'st thou, Kate? What wouldst thou have with me?\n  Lady. Do you not love me? do you not indeed?\n    Well, do not then; for since you love me not,\n    I will not love myself. Do you not love me?\n    Nay, tell me if you speak in jest or no.\n  Hot. Come, wilt thou see me ride?\n    And when I am a-horseback, I will swear\n    I love thee infinitely. But hark you. Kate:\n    I must not have you henceforth question me\n    Whither I go, nor reason whereabout.\n    Whither I must, I must; and to conclude,\n    This evening must I leave you, gentle Kate.\n    I know you wise; but yet no farther wise\n    Than Harry Percy's wife; constant you are,\n    But yet a woman; and for secrecy,\n    No lady closer, for I well believe\n    Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know,\n    And so far will I trust thee, gentle Kate.\n  Lady. How? so far?\n  Hot. Not an inch further. But hark you, Kate:\n    Whither I go, thither shall you go too;\n    To-day will I set forth, to-morrow you.\n    Will this content you, Kate,?\n  Lady. It must of force.                                Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nEastcheap. The Boar's Head Tavern.\n\nEnter Prince and Poins.\n\n  Prince. Ned, prithee come out of that fat-room and lend me thy hand\n    to laugh a little.\n  Poins. Where hast been, Hal?\n    Prince,. With three or four loggerheads amongst three or\n    fourscore hogsheads. I have sounded the very bass-string of\n    humility. Sirrah, I am sworn brother to a leash of drawers and\n    can call them all by their christen names, as Tom, Dick, and\n    Francis. They take it already upon their salvation that, though\n    I be but Prince of Wales, yet I am the king of courtesy; and tell\n    me flatly I am no proud Jack like Falstaff, but a Corinthian, a\n    lad of mettle, a good boy (by the Lord, so they call me!), and\n    when I am King of England I shall command all the good lads\n    Eastcheap. They call drinking deep, dying scarlet; and when\n    you breathe in your watering, they cry 'hem!' and bid you play it\n    off. To conclude, I am so good a proficient in one quarter of an\n    hour that I can drink with any tinker in his own language during\n    my life. I tell thee, Ned, thou hast lost much honour that thou\n    wert not with me in this action. But, sweet Ned- to sweeten which\n    name of Ned, I give thee this pennyworth of sugar, clapp'd even\n    now into my hand by an under-skinker, one that never spake other\n    English in his life than 'Eight shillings and sixpence,' and 'You\n    are welcome,' with this shrill addition, 'Anon, anon, sir! Score\n    a pint of bastard in the Half-moon,' or so- but, Ned, to drive\n    away the time till Falstaff come, I prithee do thou stand in some\n    by-room while I question my puny drawer to what end be gave me\n    the sugar; and do thou never leave calling 'Francis!' that his\n    tale to me may be nothing but 'Anon!' Step aside, and I'll show\n    thee a precedent.\n  Poins. Francis!\n  Prince. Thou art perfect.\n  Poins. Francis!                                  [Exit Poins.]\n\n                    Enter [Francis, a] Drawer.\n\n  Fran. Anon, anon, sir.- Look down into the Pomgarnet, Ralph.\n  Prince. Come hither, Francis.\n  Fran. My lord?\n  Prince. How long hast thou to serve, Francis?\n  Fran. Forsooth, five years, and as much as to-\n  Poins. [within] Francis!\n  Fran. Anon, anon, sir.\n  Prince. Five year! by'r Lady, a long lease for the clinking of\n    Pewter. But, Francis, darest thou be so valiant as to play the\n    coward with thy indenture and show it a fair pair of heels and\n    run from it?\n  Fran. O Lord, sir, I'll be sworn upon all the books in England I\n    could find in my heart-\n  Poins. [within] Francis!\n  Fran. Anon, sir.\n  Prince. How old art thou, Francis?\n  Fran. Let me see. About Michaelmas next I shall be-\n  Poins. [within] Francis!\n  Fran. Anon, sir. Pray stay a little, my lord.\n  Prince. Nay, but hark you, Francis. For the sugar thou gavest me-\n    'twas a pennyworth, wast not?\n  Fran. O Lord! I would it had been two!\n  Prince. I will give thee for it a thousand pound. Ask me when thou\n    wilt, and, thou shalt have it.\n  Poins. [within] Francis!\n  Fran. Anon, anon.\n  Prince. Anon, Francis? No, Francis; but to-morrow, Francis; or,\n    Francis, a Thursday; or indeed, Francis, when thou wilt. But\n    Francis-\n  Fran. My lord?\n  Prince. Wilt thou rob this leathern-jerkin, crystal-button,\n    not-pated, agate-ring, puke-stocking, caddis-garter,\n    smooth-tongue, Spanish-pouch-\n  Fran. O Lord, sir, who do you mean?\n  Prince. Why then, your brown bastard is your only drink; for look\n    you, Francis, your white canvas doublet will sully. In Barbary,\n    sir, it cannot come to so much.\n  Fran. What, sir?\n  Poins. [within] Francis!\n  Prince. Away, you rogue! Dost thou not hear them call?\n              Here they both call him. The Drawer stands amazed,\n                                    not knowing which way to go.\n\n                         Enter Vintner.\n\n  Vint. What, stand'st thou still, and hear'st such a calling? Look\n    to the guests within. [Exit Francis.] My lord, old Sir John, with\n    half-a-dozen more, are at the door. Shall I let them in?\n  Prince. Let them alone awhile, and then open the door.\n                                                  [Exit Vintner.]\n    Poins!\n  Poins. [within] Anon, anon, sir.\n\n                          Enter Poins.\n\n  Prince. Sirrah, Falstaff and the rest of the thieves are at the\n    door. Shall we be merry?\n  Poins. As merry as crickets, my lad. But hark ye; what cunning\n    match have you made with this jest of the drawer? Come, what's\n    the issue?\n  Prince. I am now of all humours that have showed themselves humours\n    since the old days of goodman Adam to the pupil age of this\n    present this twelve o'clock at midnight.\n\n                         [Enter Francis.]\n\n    What's o'clock, Francis?\n  Fran. Anon, anon, sir.                                 [Exit.]\n  Prince. That ever this fellow should have fewer words than a\n    parrot, and yet the son of a woman! His industry is upstairs and\n    downstairs, his eloquence the parcel of a reckoning. I am not yet\n    of Percy's mind, the Hotspur of the North; he that kills me some\n    six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast, washes his hands, and\n    says to his wife, 'Fie upon this quiet life! I want work.' 'O my\n    sweet Harry,' says she, 'how many hast thou  kill'd to-day?'\n    'Give my roan horse a drench,' says he, and answers 'Some\n    fourteen,' an hour after, 'a trifle, a trifle.' I prithee call in\n    Falstaff. I'll play Percy, and that damn'd brawn shall play Dame\n    Mortimer his wife. 'Rivo!' says the drunkard. Call in ribs, call\n    in tallow.\n\n           Enter Falstaff, [Gadshill, Bardolph, and Peto;\n                   Francis follows with wine].\n\n  Poins. Welcome, Jack. Where hast thou been?\n  Fal. A plague of all cowards, I say, and a vengeance too! Marry and\n    amen! Give me a cup of sack, boy. Ere I lead this life long, I'll\n    sew nether-stocks, and mend them and foot them too. A plague of\n    all cowards! Give me a cup of sack, rogue. Is there no virtue\n    extant?\n                                                    He drinketh.\n  Prince. Didst thou never see Titan kiss a dish of butter?\n    Pitiful-hearted butter, that melted at the sweet tale of the sun!\n    If thou didst, then behold that compound.\n  Fal. You rogue, here's lime in this sack too! There is nothing but\n    roguery to be found in villanous man. Yet a coward is worse than\n    a cup of sack with lime in it- a villanous coward! Go thy ways,\n    old Jack, die when thou wilt; if manhood, good manhood, be not\n    forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I a shotten herring.\n    There lives not three good men unhang'd in England; and one of\n    them is fat, and grows old. God help the while! A bad world, I\n    say. I would I were a weaver; I could sing psalms or anything. A\n    plague of all cowards I say still!\n  Prince. How now, woolsack? What mutter you?\n  Fal. A king's son! If I do not beat thee out of thy kingdom with a\n    dagger of lath and drive all thy subjects afore thee like a flock\n    of wild geese, I'll never wear hair on my face more. You Prince\n    of Wales?\n  Prince. Why, you whoreson round man, what's the matter?\n  Fal. Are not you a coward? Answer me to that- and Poins there?\n  Poins. Zounds, ye fat paunch, an ye call me coward, by the\n    Lord, I'll stab thee.\n  Fal. I call thee coward? I'll see thee damn'd ere I call thee\n    coward, but I would give a thousand pound I could run as fast as\n    thou canst. You are straight enough in the shoulders; you care\n    not who sees Your back. Call you that backing of your friends? A\n    plague upon such backing! Give me them that will face me. Give me\n    a cup of sack. I am a rogue if I drunk to-day.\n  Prince. O villain! thy lips are scarce wip'd since thou drunk'st\n    last.\n  Fal. All is one for that. (He drinketh.) A plague of all cowards\n    still say I.\n  Prince. What's the matter?\n  Fal. What's the matter? There be four of us here have ta'en a\n    thousand pound this day morning.\n  Prince. Where is it, Jack? Where is it?\n  Fal. Where is it, Taken from us it is. A hundred upon poor four of\n    us!\n  Prince. What, a hundred, man?\n  Fal. I am a rogue if I were not at half-sword with a dozen of them\n    two hours together. I have scap'd by miracle. I am eight times\n    thrust through the doublet, four through the hose; my buckler cut\n    through and through; my sword hack'd like a handsaw- ecce signum!\n    I never dealt better since I was a man. All would not do. A\n    plague of all cowards! Let them speak, If they speak more or less\n    than truth, they are villains and the sons of darkness.\n  Prince. Speak, sirs. How was it?\n  Gads. We four set upon some dozen-\n  Fal. Sixteen at least, my lord.\n  Gads. And bound them.\n  Peto. No, no, they were not bound.\n  Fal. You rogue, they were bound, every man of them, or I am a Jew\n    else- an Ebrew Jew.\n  Gads. As we were sharing, some six or seven fresh men sea upon us-\n  Fal. And unbound the rest, and then come in the other.\n  Prince. What, fought you with them all?\n  Fal. All? I know not what you call all, but if I fought not with\n    fifty of them, I am a bunch of radish! If there were not two or\n    three and fifty upon poor old Jack, then am I no two-legg'd\n    creature.\n  Prince. Pray God you have not murd'red some of them.\n  Fal. Nay, that's past praying for. I have pepper'd two of them. Two\n    I am sure I have paid, two rogues in buckram suits. I tell thee\n    what, Hal- if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face, call me horse.\n    Thou knowest my old ward. Here I lay, and thus I bore my point.\n    Four rogues in buckram let drive at me.\n  Prince. What, four? Thou saidst but two even now.\n  Fal. Four, Hal. I told thee four.\n  Poins. Ay, ay, he said four.\n  Fal. These four came all afront and mainly thrust at me. I made me\n    no more ado but took all their seven points in my target, thus.\n  Prince. Seven? Why, there were but four even now.\n  Fal. In buckram?\n  Poins. Ay, four, in buckram suits.\n  Fal. Seven, by these hilts, or I am a villain else.\n  Prince. [aside to Poins] Prithee let him alone. We shall have more\n    anon.\n  Fal. Dost thou hear me, Hal?\n  Prince. Ay, and mark thee too, Jack.\n  Fal. Do so, for it is worth the list'ning to. These nine in buckram\n    that I told thee of-\n  Prince. So, two more already.\n  Fal. Their points being broken-\n  Poins. Down fell their hose.\n  Fal. Began to give me ground; but I followed me close, came in,\n    foot and hand, and with a thought seven of the eleven I paid.\n  Prince. O monstrous! Eleven buckram men grown out of two!\n  Fal. But, as the devil would have it, three misbegotten knaves in\n    Kendal green came at my back and let drive at me; for it was so\n    dark, Hal, that thou couldst not see thy hand.\n  Prince. These lies are like their father that begets them- gross as\n    a mountain, open, palpable. Why, thou clay-brain'd guts, thou\n    knotty-pated fool, thou whoreson obscene greasy tallow-catch-\n  Fal. What, art thou mad? art thou mad? Is not the truth the truth?\n  Prince. Why, how couldst thou know these men in Kendal green when\n    it was so dark thou couldst not see thy hand? Come, tell us your\n    reason. What sayest thou to this?\n  Poins. Come, your reason, Jack, your reason.\n  Fal. What, upon compulsion? Zounds, an I were at the strappado or\n    all the racks in the world, I would not tell you on compulsion.\n    Give you a reason on compulsion? If reasons were as plentiful as\n    blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, I.\n  Prince. I'll be no longer guilty, of this sin; this sanguine\n    coward, this bed-presser, this horseback-breaker, this huge hill\n    of flesh-\n  Fal. 'Sblood, you starveling, you elf-skin, you dried\n    neat's-tongue, you bull's sizzle, you stockfish- O for breath to\n    utter what is like thee!- you tailor's yard, you sheath, you\n    bowcase, you vile standing tuck!\n  Prince. Well, breathe awhile, and then to it again; and when thou\n    hast tired thyself in base comparisons, hear me speak but this.\n  Poins. Mark, Jack.\n  Prince. We two saw you four set on four, and bound them and were\n    masters of their wealth. Mark now how a plain tale shall put you\n    down. Then did we two set on you four and, with a word, outfac'd\n    you from your prize, and have it; yea, and can show it you here\n    in the house. And, Falstaff, you carried your guts away as\n    nimbly, with as quick dexterity, and roar'd for mercy, and still\n    run and roar'd, as ever I heard bullcalf. What a slave art thou\n    to hack thy sword as thou hast done, and then say it was in\n    fight! What trick, what device, what starting hole canst thou now\n    find out to hide thee from this open and apparent shame?\n  Poins. Come, let's hear, Jack. What trick hast thou now?\n  Fal. By the Lord, I knew ye as well as he that made ye. Why, hear\n    you, my masters. Was it for me to kill the heir apparent? Should\n    I turn upon the true prince? Why, thou knowest I am as valiant as\n    Hercules; but beware instinct. The lion will not touch the true\n    prince. Instinct is a great matter. I was now a coward on\n    instinct. I shall think the better of myself, and thee, during my\n    life- I for a valiant lion, and thou for a true prince. But, by\n    the Lord, lads, I am glad you have the money. Hostess, clap to\n    the doors. Watch to-night, pray to-morrow. Gallants, lads, boys,\n    hearts of gold, all the titles of good fellowship come to you!\n    What, shall we be merry? Shall we have a play extempore?\n  Prince. Content- and the argument shall be thy running away.\n  Fal. Ah, no more of that, Hal, an thou lovest me!\n\n                             Enter Hostess.\n\n  Host. O Jesu, my lord the Prince!\n  Prince. How now, my lady the hostess? What say'st thou to me?\n  Host. Marry, my lord, there is a nobleman of the court at door\n    would speak with you. He says he comes from your father.\n  Prince. Give him as much as will make him a royal man, and send him\n    back again to my mother.\n  Fal. What manner of man is he?\n  Host. An old man.\n  Fal. What doth gravity out of his bed at midnight? Shall I give him\n    his answer?\n  Prince. Prithee do, Jack.\n  Fal. Faith, and I'll send him packing.\nExit.\n  Prince. Now, sirs. By'r Lady, you fought fair; so did you, Peto; so\n    did you, Bardolph. You are lions too, you ran away upon instinct,\n    you will not touch the true prince; no- fie!\n  Bard. Faith, I ran when I saw others run.\n  Prince. Tell me now in earnest, how came Falstaff's sword so\n    hack'd?\n  Peto. Why, he hack'd it with his dagger, and said he would swear\n    truth out of England but he would make you believe it was done in\n    fight, and persuaded us to do the like.\n  Bard. Yea, and to tickle our noses with speargrass to make them\n    bleed, and then to beslubber our garments with it and swear it\n    was the blood of true men. I did that I did not this seven year\n    before- I blush'd to hear his monstrous devices.\n  Prince. O villain! thou stolest a cup of sack eighteen years ago\n    and wert taken with the manner, and ever since thou hast blush'd\n    extempore. Thou hadst fire and sword on thy side, and yet thou\n    ran'st away. What instinct hadst thou for it?\n  Bard. My lord, do you see these meteors? Do you behold these\n    exhalations?\n  Prince. I do.\n  Bard. What think you they portend?\n  Prince. Hot livers and cold purses.\n  Bard. Choler, my lord, if rightly taken.\n  Prince. No, if rightly taken, halter.\n\n                         Enter Falstaff.\n\n    Here comes lean Jack; here comes bare-bone. How now, my sweet\n    creature of bombast? How long is't ago, Jack, since thou sawest\n    thine own knee?\n  Fal. My own knee? When I was about thy years, Hal, I was not an\n    eagle's talent in the waist; I could have crept into any\n    alderman's thumb-ring. A plague of sighing and grief! It blows a\n    man up like a bladder. There's villanous news abroad. Here was\n    Sir John Bracy from your father. You must to the court in the\n    morning. That same mad fellow of the North, Percy, and he of\n    Wales that gave Amamon the bastinado, and made Lucifer cuckold,\n    and swore the devil his true liegeman upon the cross of a Welsh\n    hook- what a plague call you him?\n  Poins. O, Glendower.\n  Fal. Owen, Owen- the same; and his son-in-law Mortimer, and old\n    Northumberland, and that sprightly Scot of Scots, Douglas, that\n    runs a-horseback up a hill perpendicular-\n  Prince. He that rides at high speed and with his pistol kills a\n    sparrow flying.\n  Fal. You have hit it.\n  Prince. So did he never the sparrow.\n  Fal. Well, that rascal hath good metal in him; he will not run.\n  Prince. Why, what a rascal art thou then, to praise him so for\n    running!\n  Fal. A-horseback, ye cuckoo! but afoot he will not budge a foot.\n  Prince. Yes, Jack, upon instinct.\n  Fal. I grant ye, upon instinct. Well, he is there too, and one\n    Mordake, and a thousand bluecaps more. Worcester is stol'n away\n    to-night; thy father's beard is turn'd white with the news; you\n    may buy land now as cheap as stinking mack'rel.\n  Prince. Why then, it is like, if there come a hot June, and this\n    civil buffeting hold, we shall buy maidenheads as they buy\n    hobnails, by the hundreds.\n  Fal. By the mass, lad, thou sayest true; it is like we shall have\n    good trading that way. But tell me, Hal, art not thou horrible\n    afeard? Thou being heir apparent, could the world pick thee out\n    three such enemies again as that fiend Douglas, that spirit\n    Percy, and that devil Glendower? Art thou not horribly afraid?\n    Doth not thy blood thrill at it?\n  Prince. Not a whit, i' faith. I lack some of thy instinct.\n  Fal. Well, thou wilt be horribly chid to-morrow when thou comest to\n    thy father. If thou love me, practise an answer.\n  Prince. Do thou stand for my father and examine me upon the\n    particulars of my life.\n  Fal. Shall I? Content. This chair shall be my state, this dagger my\n    sceptre, and this cushion my, crown.\n  Prince. Thy state is taken for a join'd-stool, thy golden sceptre\n    for a leaden dagger, and thy precious rich crown for a pitiful\n    bald crown.\n  Fal. Well, an the fire of grace be not quite out of thee, now shalt\n    thou be moved. Give me a cup of sack to make my eyes look red,\n    that it may be thought I have wept; for I must speak in passion,\n    and I will do it in King Cambyses' vein.\n  Prince. Well, here is my leg.\n  Fal. And here is my speech. Stand aside, nobility.\n  Host. O Jesu, this is excellent sport, i' faith!\n  Fal. Weep not, sweet queen, for trickling tears are vain.\n  Host. O, the Father, how he holds his countenance!\n  Fal. For God's sake, lords, convey my tristful queen!\n    For tears do stop the floodgates of her eyes.\n  Host. O Jesu, he doth it as like one of these harlotry players as\n    ever I see!\n  Fal. Peace, good pintpot. Peace, good tickle-brain.- Harry, I do\n    not only marvel where thou spendest thy time, but also how thou\n    art accompanied. For though the camomile, the more it is trodden\n    on, the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted, the\n    sooner it wears. That thou art my son I have partly thy mother's\n    word, partly my own opinion, but chiefly a villanous trick of\n    thine eye and a foolish hanging of thy nether lip that doth\n    warrant me. If then thou be son to me, here lies the point: why,\n    being son to me, art thou so pointed at? Shall the blessed sun of\n    heaven prove a micher and eat blackberries? A question not to be\n    ask'd. Shall the son of England prove a thief and take purses? A\n    question to be ask'd. There is a thing, Harry, which thou hast\n    often heard of, and it is known to many in our land by the name\n    of pitch. This pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile;\n    so doth the company thou keepest. For, Harry, now I do not speak\n    to thee in drink, but in tears; not in pleasure, but in passion;\n    not in words only, but in woes also: and yet there is a virtuous\n    man whom I have often noted in thy company, but I know not  his\n    name.\n  Prince. What manner of man, an it like your Majesty?\n  Fal. A goodly portly man, i' faith, and a corpulent; of a cheerful\n    look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage; and, as I think,\n    his age some fifty, or, by'r Lady, inclining to threescore; and\n    now I remember me, his name is Falstaff. If that man should be\n    lewdly, given, he deceiveth me; for, Harry, I see virtue in his\n    looks. If then the tree may be known by the fruit, as the fruit\n    by the tree, then, peremptorily I speak it, there is virtue in\n    that Falstaff. Him keep with, the rest banish. And tell me now,\n    thou naughty varlet, tell me where hast thou been this month?\n  Prince. Dost thou speak like a king? Do thou stand for me, and I'll\n    play my father.\n  Fal. Depose me? If thou dost it half so gravely, so majestically,\n    both in word and matter, hang me up by the heels for a\n    rabbit-sucker or a poulter's hare.\n  Prince. Well, here I am set.\n  Fal. And here I stand. Judge, my masters.\n  Prince. Now, Harry, whence come you?\n  Fal. My noble lord, from Eastcheap.\n  Prince. The complaints I hear of thee are grievous.\n  Fal. 'Sblood, my lord, they are false! Nay, I'll tickle ye for a\n    young prince, i' faith.\n  Prince. Swearest thou, ungracious boy? Henceforth ne'er look on me.\n    Thou art violently carried away from grace. There is a devil\n    haunts thee in the likeness of an old fat man; a tun of man is\n    thy companion. Why dost thou converse with that trunk of humours,\n    that bolting hutch of beastliness, that swoll'n parcel of\n    dropsies, that huge bombard of sack, that stuff'd cloakbag of\n    guts, that roasted Manningtree ox with the pudding in his belly,\n    that reverend vice, that grey iniquity, that father ruffian, that\n    vanity in years? Wherein is he good, but to taste sack and drink\n    it? wherein neat and cleanly, but to carve a capon and eat it?\n    wherein cunning, but in craft? wherein crafty, but in villany?\n    wherein villanous, but in all things? wherein worthy, but in\n    nothing?\n  Fal. I would your Grace would take me with you. Whom means your\n    Grace?\n  Prince. That villanous abominable misleader of youth, Falstaff,\n    that old white-bearded Satan.\n  Fal. My lord, the man I know.\n  Prince. I know thou dost.\n  Fal. But to say I know more harm in him than in myself were to say\n    more than I know. That he is old (the more the pity) his white\n    hairs do witness it; but that he is (saving your reverence) a\n    whoremaster, that I utterly deny. If sack and sugar be a fault,\n    God help the wicked! If to be old and merry be a sin, then many\n    an old host that I know is damn'd. If to be fat be to be hated,\n    then Pharaoh's lean kine are to be loved. No, my good lord.\n    Banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins; but for sweet Jack\n    Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack\n    Falstaff, and therefore more valiant being, as he is, old Jack\n    Falstaff, banish not him thy Harry's company, banish not him thy\n    Harry's company. Banish plump Jack, and banish all the world!\n  Prince. I do, I will.                      [A knocking heard.]\n                        [Exeunt Hostess, Francis, and Bardolph.]\n\n                     Enter Bardolph, running.\n\n  Bard. O, my lord, my lord! the sheriff with a most monstrous watch\n    is at the door.\n  Fal. Out, ye rogue! Play out the play. I have much to say in the\n    behalf of that Falstaff.\n\n                       Enter the Hostess.\n\n  Host. O Jesu, my lord, my lord!\n  Prince. Heigh, heigh, the devil rides upon a fiddlestick!\n    What's the matter?\n  Host. The sheriff and all the watch are at the door. They are come\n    to search the house. Shall I let them in?\n  Fal. Dost thou hear, Hal? Never call a true piece of gold a\n    counterfeit. Thou art essentially mad without seeming so.\n  Prince. And thou a natural coward without instinct.\n  Fal. I deny your major. If you will deny the sheriff, so; if not,\n    let him enter. If I become not a cart as well as another man, a\n    plague on my bringing up! I hope I shall as soon be strangled\n    with a halter as another.\n  Prince. Go hide thee behind the arras. The rest walk, up above.\n    Now, my masters, for a true face and good conscience.\n  Fal. Both which I have had; but their date is out, and therefore\n    I'll hide me.                                          Exit.\n  Prince. Call in the sheriff.\n                            [Exeunt Manent the Prince and Peto.]\n\n                    Enter Sheriff and the Carrier.\n\n    Now, Master Sheriff, what is your will with me?\n  Sher. First, pardon me, my lord. A hue and cry\n    Hath followed certain men unto this house.\n  Prince. What men?\n  Sher. One of them is well known, my gracious lord-\n    A gross fat man.\n  Carrier. As fat as butter.\n  Prince. The man, I do assure you, is not here,\n    For I myself at this time have employ'd him.\n    And, sheriff, I will engage my word to thee\n    That I will by to-morrow dinner time\n    Send him to answer thee, or any man,\n    For anything he shall be charg'd withal;\n    And so let me entreat you leave the house.\n  Sher. I will, my lord. There are two gentlemen\n    Have in this robbery lost three hundred marks.\n  Prince. It may be so. If he have robb'd these men,\n    He shall be answerable; and so farewell.\n  Sher. Good night, my noble lord.\n  Prince. I think it is good morrow, is it not?\n  Sher. Indeed, my lord, I think it be two o'clock.\n                                            Exit [with Carrier].\n  Prince. This oily rascal is known as well as Paul's. Go call him\n    forth.\n  Peto. Falstaff! Fast asleep behind the arras, and snorting like a\n    horse.\n  Prince. Hark how hard he fetches breath. Search his pockets.\n            He searcheth his pockets and findeth certain papers.\n    What hast thou found?\n  Peto. Nothing but papers, my lord.\n  Prince. Let's see whit they be. Read them.\n\n  Peto. [reads] 'Item. A capon. . . . . . . . . . . . .  ii s. ii d.\n                 Item, Sauce. . . . . . . . . . . . . .      iiii d.\n                 Item, Sack two gallons . . . . . . . . v s. viii d.\n                 Item, Anchovies and sack after supper.  ii s. vi d.\n                 Item, Bread. . . . . . . . . . . . . .          ob.'\n\n  Prince. O monstrous! but one halfpennyworth of bread to this\n    intolerable deal of sack! What there is else, keep close; we'll\n    read it at more advantage. There let him sleep till day. I'll to\n    the court in the morning . We must all to the wars. and thy place\n    shall be honourable. I'll procure this fat rogue a charge of\n    foot; and I know, his death will be a march of twelve score. The\n    money shall be paid back again with advantage. Be with me betimes\n    in the morning, and so good morrow, Peto.\n  Peto. Good morrow, good my lord.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. Scene I.\nBangor. The Archdeacon's house.\n\nEnter Hotspur, Worcester, Lord Mortimer, Owen Glendower.\n\n  Mort. These promises are fair, the parties sure,\n    And our induction full of prosperous hope.\n  Hot. Lord Mortimer, and cousin Glendower,\n    Will you sit down?\n    And uncle Worcester. A plague upon it!\n    I have forgot the map.\n  Glend. No, here it is.\n    Sit, cousin Percy; sit, good cousin Hotspur,\n    For by that name as oft as Lancaster\n    Doth speak of you, his cheek looks pale, and with\n    A rising sigh he wisheth you in heaven.\n  Hot. And you in hell, as oft as he hears\n    Owen Glendower spoke of.\n  Glend. I cannot blame him. At my nativity\n    The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes\n    Of burning cressets, and at my birth\n    The frame and huge foundation of the earth\n    Shak'd like a coward.\n  Hot. Why, so it would have done at the same season, if your\n    mother's cat had but kitten'd, though yourself had never been\n    born.\n  Glend. I say the earth did shake when I was born.\n  Hot. And I say the earth was not of my mind,\n    If you suppose as fearing you it shook.\n  Glend. The heavens were all on fire, the earth did tremble.\n  Hot. O, then the earth shook to see the heavens on fire,\n    And not in fear of your nativity.\n    Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth\n    In strange eruptions; oft the teeming earth\n    Is with a kind of colic pinch'd and vex'd\n    By the imprisoning of unruly wind\n    Within her womb, which, for enlargement striving,\n    Shakes the old beldame earth and topples down\n    Steeples and mossgrown towers. At your birth\n    Our grandam earth, having this distemp'rature,\n    In passion shook.\n  Glend. Cousin, of many men\n    I do not bear these crossings. Give me leave\n    To tell you once again that at my birth\n    The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,\n    The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds\n    Were strangely clamorous to the frighted fields.\n    These signs have mark'd me extraordinary,\n    And all the courses of my life do show\n    I am not in the roll of common men.\n    Where is he living, clipp'd in with the sea\n    That chides the banks of England, Scotland, Wales,\n    Which calls me pupil or hath read to me?\n    And bring him out that is but woman's son\n    Can trace me in the tedious ways of art\n    And hold me pace in deep experiments.\n  Hot. I think there's no man speaks better Welsh. I'll to dinner.\n  Mort. Peace, cousin Percy; you will make him mad.\n  Glend. I can call spirits from the vasty deep.\n  Hot. Why, so can I, or so can any man;\n    But will they come when you do call for them?\n  Glend. Why, I can teach you, cousin, to command the devil.\n  Hot. And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil-\n    By telling truth. Tell truth and shame the devil.\n    If thou have power to raise him, bring him hither,\n    And I'll be sworn I have power to shame him hence.\n    O, while you live, tell truth and shame the devil!\n  Mort. Come, come, no more of this unprofitable chat.\n  Glend. Three times hath Henry Bolingbroke made head\n    Against my power; thrice from the banks of Wye\n    And sandy-bottom'd Severn have I sent him\n    Bootless home and weather-beaten back.\n  Hot. Home without boots, and in foul weather too?\n    How scapes he agues, in the devil's name\n  Glend. Come, here's the map. Shall we divide our right\n    According to our threefold order ta'en?\n  Mort. The Archdeacon hath divided it\n    Into three limits very equally.\n    England, from Trent and Severn hitherto,\n    By south and east is to my part assign'd;\n    All westward, Wales beyond the Severn shore,\n    And all the fertile land within that bound,\n    To Owen Glendower; and, dear coz, to you\n    The remnant northward lying off from Trent.\n    And our indentures tripartite are drawn;\n    Which being sealed interchangeably\n    (A business that this night may execute),\n    To-morrow, cousin Percy, you and I\n    And my good Lord of Worcester will set forth\n    To meet your father and the Scottish bower,\n    As is appointed us, at Shrewsbury.\n    My father Glendower is not ready yet,\n    Nor shall we need his help these fourteen days.\n    [To Glend.] Within that space you may have drawn together\n    Your tenants, friends, and neighbouring gentlemen.\n  Glend. A shorter time shall send me to you, lords;\n    And in my conduct shall your ladies come,\n    From whom you now must steal and take no leave,\n    For there will be a world of water shed\n    Upon the parting of your wives and you.\n  Hot. Methinks my moiety, north from Burton here,\n    In quantity equals not one of yours.\n    See how this river comes me cranking in\n    And cuts me from the best of all my land\n    A huge half-moon, a monstrous cantle out.\n    I'll have the current ill this place damm'd up,\n    And here the smug and sliver Trent shall run\n    In a new channel fair and evenly.\n    It shall not wind with such a deep indent\n    To rob me of so rich a bottom here.\n  Glend. Not wind? It shall, it must! You see it doth.\n  Mort. Yea, but\n    Mark how he bears his course, and runs me up\n    With like advantage on the other side,\n    Gelding the opposed continent as much\n    As on the other side it takes from you.\n  Wor. Yea, but a little charge will trench him here\n    And on this north side win this cape of land;\n    And then he runs straight and even.\n  Hot. I'll have it so. A little charge will do it.\n  Glend. I will not have it alt'red.\n  Hot. Will not you?\n  Glend. No, nor you shall not.\n  Hot. Who shall say me nay?\n  Glend. No, that will I.\n  Hot. Let me not understand you then; speak it in Welsh.\n  Glend. I can speak English, lord, as well as you;\n    For I was train'd up in the English court,\n    Where, being but young, I framed to the harp\n    Many an English ditty lovely well,\n    And gave the tongue a helpful ornament-\n    A virtue that was never seen in you.\n  Hot. Marry,\n    And I am glad of it with all my heart!\n    I had rather be a kitten and cry mew\n    Than one of these same metre ballet-mongers.\n    I had rather hear a brazen canstick turn'd\n    Or a dry wheel grate on the axletree,\n    And that would set my teeth nothing on edge,\n    Nothing so much as mincing poetry.\n    'Tis like the forc'd gait of a shuffling nag,\n  Glend. Come, you shall have Trent turn'd.\n  Hot. I do not care. I'll give thrice so much land\n    To any well-deserving friend;\n    But in the way of bargain, mark ye me,\n    I'll cavil on the ninth part of a hair\n    Are the indentures drawn? Shall we be gone?\n  Glend. The moon shines fair; you may away by night.\n    I'll haste the writer, and withal\n    Break with your wives of your departure hence.\n    I am afraid my daughter will run mad,\n    So much she doteth on her Mortimer.                    Exit.\n  Mort. Fie, cousin Percy! how you cross my father!\n  Hot. I cannot choose. Sometimes he angers me\n    With telling me of the moldwarp and the ant,\n    Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies,\n    And of a dragon and a finless fish,\n    A clip-wing'd griffin and a moulten raven,\n    A couching lion and a ramping cat,\n    And such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff\n    As puts me from my faith. I tell you what-\n    He held me last night at least nine hours\n    In reckoning up the several devils' names\n    That were his lackeys. I cried 'hum,' and 'Well, go to!'\n    But mark'd him not a word. O, he is as tedious\n    As a tired horse, a railing wife;\n    Worse than a smoky house. I had rather live\n    With cheese and garlic in a windmill far\n    Than feed on cates and have him talk to me\n    In any summer house in Christendom).\n  Mort. In faith, he is a worthy gentleman,\n    Exceedingly well read, and profited\n    In strange concealments, valiant as a lion,\n    And wondrous affable, and as bountiful\n    As mines of India. Shall I tell you, cousin?\n    He holds your temper in a high respect\n    And curbs himself even of his natural scope\n    When you come 'cross his humour. Faith, he does.\n    I warrant you that man is not alive\n    Might so have tempted him as you have done\n    Without the taste of danger and reproof.\n    But do not use it oft, let me entreat you.\n  Wor. In faith, my lord, you are too wilful-blame,\n    And since your coming hither have done enough\n    To put him quite besides his patience.\n    You must needs learn, lord, to amend this fault.\n    Though sometimes it show greatness, courage, blood-\n    And that's the dearest grace it renders you-\n    Yet oftentimes it doth present harsh rage,\n    Defect of manners, want of government,\n    Pride, haughtiness, opinion, and disdain;\n    The least of which haunting a nobleman\n    Loseth men's hearts, and leaves behind a stain\n    Upon the beauty of all parts besides,\n    Beguiling them of commendation.\n  Hot. Well, I am school'd. Good manners be your speed!\n    Here come our wives, and let us take our leave.\n\n            Enter Glendower with the Ladies.\n\n  Mort. This is the deadly spite that angers me-\n    My wife can speak no English, I no Welsh.\n  Glend. My daughter weeps; she will not part with you;\n    She'll be a soldier too, she'll to the wars.\n  Mort. Good father, tell her that she and my aunt Percy\n    Shall follow in your conduct speedily.\n               Glendower speaks to her in Welsh, and she answers\n                                                him in the same.\n  Glend. She is desperate here. A peevish self-will'd harlotry,\n    One that no persuasion can do good upon.\n                                       The Lady speaks in Welsh.\n  Mort. I understand thy looks. That pretty Welsh\n    Which thou pourest down from these swelling heavens\n    I am too perfect in; and, but for shame,\n    In such a Barley should I answer thee.\n                                        The Lady again in Welsh.\n    I understand thy kisses, and thou mine,\n    And that's a feeling disputation.\n    But I will never be a truant, love,\n    Till I have learnt thy language: for thy tongue\n    Makes Welsh as sweet as ditties highly penn'd,\n    Sung by a fair queen in a summer's bow'r,\n    With ravishing division, to her lute.\n  Glend. Nay, if you melt, then will she run mad.\n                                 The Lady speaks again in Welsh.\n  Mort. O, I am ignorance itself in this!\n  Glend. She bids you on the wanton rushes lay you down\n    And rest your gentle head upon her lap,\n    And she will sing the song that pleaseth you\n    And on your eyelids crown the god of sleep,\n    Charming your blood with pleasing heaviness,\n    Making such difference 'twixt wake and sleep\n    As is the difference betwixt day and night\n    The hour before the heavenly-harness'd team\n    Begins his golden progress in the East.\n  Mort. With all my heart I'll sit and hear her sing.\n    By that time will our book, I think, be drawn.\n  Glend. Do so,\n    And those musicians that shall play to you\n    Hang in the air a thousand leagues from hence,\n    And straight they shall be here. Sit, and attend.\n  Hot. Come, Kate, thou art perfect in lying down. Come, quick,\n    quick, that I may lay my head in thy lap.\n  Lady P. Go, ye giddy goose.\n                                                The music plays.\n  Hot. Now I perceive the devil understands Welsh;\n    And 'tis no marvel, be is so humorous.\n    By'r Lady, he is a good musician.\n  Lady P. Then should you be nothing but musical; for you are\n    altogether govern'd by humours. Lie still, ye thief, and hear the\n    lady sing in Welsh.\n  Hot. I had rather hear Lady, my brach, howl in Irish.\n  Lady P. Wouldst thou have thy head broken?\n  Hot. No.\n  Lady P. Then be still.\n  Hot. Neither! 'Tis a woman's fault.\n  Lady P. Now God help thee!\n  Hot. To the Welsh lady's bed.\n  Lady P. What's that?\n  Hot. Peace! she sings.\n                               Here the Lady sings a Welsh song.\n    Come, Kate, I'll have your song too.\n  Lady P. Not mine, in good sooth.\n  Hot. Not yours, in good sooth? Heart! you swear like a\n    comfit-maker's wife. 'Not you, in good sooth!' and 'as true as I\n    live!' and 'as God shall mend me!' and 'as sure as day!'\n    And givest such sarcenet surety for thy oaths\n    As if thou ne'er walk'st further than Finsbury.\n    Swear me, Kate, like a lady as thou art,\n    A good mouth-filling oath; and leave 'in sooth'\n    And such protest of pepper gingerbread\n    To velvet guards and Sunday citizens. Come, sing.\n  Lady P. I will not sing.\n  Hot. 'Tis the next way to turn tailor or be redbreast-teacher. An\n    the indentures be drawn, I'll away within these two hours; and so\n    come in when ye will.                                  Exit.\n  Glend. Come, come, Lord Mortimer. You are as slow\n    As hot Lord Percy is on fire to go.\n    By this our book is drawn; we'll but seal,\n    And then to horse immediately.\n  Mort. With all my heart.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nLondon. The Palace.\n\nEnter the King, Prince of Wales, and others.\n\n  King. Lords, give us leave. The Prince of Wales and I\n    Must have some private conference; but be near at hand,\n    For we shall presently have need of you.\n                                                   Exeunt Lords.\n    I know not whether God will have it so,\n    For some displeasing service I have done,\n    That, in his secret doom, out of my blood\n    He'll breed revengement and a scourge for me;\n    But thou dost in thy passages of life\n    Make me believe that thou art only mark'd\n    For the hot vengeance and the rod of heaven\n    To punish my mistreadings. Tell me else,\n    Could such inordinate and low desires,\n    Such poor, such bare, such lewd, such mean attempts,\n    Such barren pleasures, rude society,\n    As thou art match'd withal and grafted to,\n    Accompany the greatness of thy blood\n    And hold their level with thy princely heart?\n  Prince. So please your Majesty, I would I could\n    Quit all offences with as clear excuse\n    As well as I am doubtless I can purge\n    Myself of many I am charged withal.\n    Yet such extenuation let me beg\n    As, in reproof of many tales devis'd,\n    Which oft the ear of greatness needs must bear\n    By, smiling pickthanks and base newsmongers,\n    I may, for some things true wherein my youth\n    Hath faulty wand'red and irregular,\n    And pardon on lily true submission.\n  King. God pardon thee! Yet let me wonder, Harry,\n    At thy affections, which do hold a wing,\n    Quite from the flight of all thy ancestors.\n    Thy place in Council thou hast rudely lost,\n    Which by thy younger brother is supplied,\n    And art almost an alien to the hearts\n    Of all the court and princes of my blood.\n    The hope and expectation of thy time\n    Is ruin'd, and the soul of every man\n    Prophetically do forethink thy fall.\n    Had I so lavish of my presence been,\n    So common-hackney'd in the eyes of men,\n    So stale and cheap to vulgar company,\n    Opinion, that did help me to the crown,\n    Had still kept loyal to possession\n    And left me in reputeless banishment,\n    A fellow of no mark nor likelihood.\n    By being seldom seen, I could not stir\n    But, like a comet, I Was wond'red at;\n    That men would tell their children, 'This is he!'\n    Others would say, 'Where? Which is Bolingbroke?'\n    And then I stole all courtesy from heaven,\n    And dress'd myself in such humility\n    That I did pluck allegiance from men's hearts,\n    Loud shouts and salutations from their mouths\n    Even in the presence of the crowned King.\n    Thus did I keep my person fresh and new,\n    My presence, like a robe pontifical,\n    Ne'er seen but wond'red at; and so my state,\n    Seldom but sumptuous, show'd like a feast\n    And won by rareness such solemnity.\n    The skipping King, he ambled up and down\n    With shallow jesters and rash bavin wits,\n    Soon kindled and soon burnt; carded his state;\n    Mingled his royalty with cap'ring fools;\n    Had his great name profaned with their scorns\n    And gave his countenance, against his name,\n    To laugh at gibing boys and stand the push\n    Of every beardless vain comparative;\n    Grew a companion to the common streets,\n    Enfeoff'd himself to popularity;\n    That, being dally swallowed by men's eyes,\n    They surfeited with honey and began\n    To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little\n    More than a little is by much too much.\n    So, when he had occasion to be seen,\n    He was but as the cuckoo is in June,\n    Heard, not regarded- seen, but with such eyes\n    As, sick and blunted with community,\n    Afford no extraordinary gaze,\n    Such as is bent on unlike majesty\n    When it shines seldom in admiring eyes;\n    But rather drows'd and hung their eyelids down,\n    Slept in his face, and rend'red such aspect\n    As cloudy men use to their adversaries,\n    Being with his presence glutted, gorg'd, and full.\n    And in that very line, Harry, standest thou;\n    For thou hast lost thy princely privilege\n    With vile participation. Not an eye\n    But is aweary of thy common sight,\n    Save mine, which hath desir'd to see thee more;\n    Which now doth that I would not have it do-\n    Make blind itself with foolish tenderness.\n  Prince. I shall hereafter, my thrice-gracious lord,\n    Be more myself.\n  King. For all the world,\n    As thou art to this hour, was Richard then\n    When I from France set foot at Ravenspurgh;\n    And even as I was then is Percy now.\n    Now, by my sceptre, and my soul to boot,\n    He hath more worthy interest to the state\n    Than thou, the shadow of succession;\n    For of no right, nor colour like to right,\n    He doth fill fields with harness in the realm,\n    Turns head against the lion's armed jaws,\n    And, Being no more in debt to years than thou,\n    Leads ancient lords and reverend Bishops on\n    To bloody battles and to bruising arms.\n    What never-dying honour hath he got\n    Against renowmed Douglas! whose high deeds,\n    Whose hot incursions and great name in arms\n    Holds from all soldiers chief majority\n    And military title capital\n    Through all the kingdoms that acknowledge Christ.\n    Thrice hath this Hotspur, Mars in swathling clothes,\n    This infant warrior, in his enterprises\n    Discomfited great Douglas; ta'en him once,\n    Enlarged him, and made a friend of him,\n    To fill the mouth of deep defiance up\n    And shake the peace and safety of our throne.\n    And what say you to this? Percy, Northumberland,\n    The Archbishop's Grace of York, Douglas, Mortimer\n    Capitulate against us and are up.\n    But wherefore do I tell these news to thee\n    Why, Harry, do I tell thee of my foes,\n    Which art my nearest and dearest enemy'\n    Thou that art like enough, through vassal fear,\n    Base inclination, and the start of spleen,\n    To fight against me under Percy's pay,\n    To dog his heels and curtsy at his frowns,\n    To show how much thou art degenerate.\n  Prince. Do not think so. You shall not find it so.\n    And God forgive them that so much have sway'd\n    Your Majesty's good thoughts away from me!\n    I will redeem all this on Percy's head\n    And, in the closing of some glorious day,\n    Be bold to tell you that I am your son,\n    When I will wear a garment all of blood,\n    And stain my favours in a bloody mask,\n    Which, wash'd away, shall scour my shame with it.\n    And that shall be the day, whene'er it lights,\n    That this same child of honour and renown,\n    This gallant Hotspur, this all-praised knight,\n    And your unthought of Harry chance to meet.\n    For every honour sitting on his helm,\n    Would they were multitudes, and on my head\n    My shames redoubled! For the time will come\n    That I shall make this Northern youth exchange\n    His glorious deeds for my indignities.\n    Percy is but my factor, good my lord,\n    To engross up glorious deeds on my behalf;\n    And I will call hall to so strict account\n    That he shall render every glory up,\n    Yea, even the slightest worship of his time,\n    Or I will tear the reckoning from his heart.\n    This in the name of God I promise here;\n    The which if he be pleas'd I shall perform,\n    I do beseech your Majesty may salve\n    The long-grown wounds of my intemperance.\n    If not, the end of life cancels all bands,\n    And I will die a hundred thousand deaths\n    Ere break the smallest parcel of this vow.\n  King. A hundred thousand rebels die in this!\n    Thou shalt have charge and sovereign trust herein.\n\n                        Enter Blunt.\n\n    How now, good Blunt? Thy looks are full of speed.\n  Blunt. So hath the business that I come to speak of.\n    Lord Mortimer of Scotland hath sent word\n    That Douglas and the English rebels met\n    The eleventh of this month at Shrewsbury.\n    A mighty and a fearful head they are,\n    If promises be kept oil every hand,\n    As ever off'red foul play in a state.\n  King. The Earl of Westmoreland set forth to-day;\n    With him my son, Lord John of Lancaster;\n    For this advertisement is five days old.\n    On Wednesday next, Harry, you shall set forward;\n    On Thursday we ourselves will march. Our meeting\n    Is Bridgenorth; and, Harry, you shall march\n    Through Gloucestershire; by which account,\n    Our business valued, some twelve days hence\n    Our general forces at Bridgenorth shall meet.\n    Our hands are full of business. Let's away.\n    Advantage feeds him fat while men delay.            Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nEastcheap. The Boar's Head Tavern.\n\nEnter Falstaff and Bardolph.\n\n  Fal. Bardolph, am I not fall'n away vilely since this last action?\n    Do I not bate? Do I not dwindle? Why, my skin hangs about me like\n    an old lady's loose gown! I am withered like an old apple John.\n    Well, I'll repent, and that suddenly, while I am in some liking.\n    I shall be out of heart shortly, and then I shall have no\n    strength to repent. An I have not forgotten what the inside of a\n    church is made of, I am a peppercorn, a brewer's horse. The\n    inside of a church! Company, villanous company, hath been the\n    spoil of me.\n  Bard. Sir John, you are so fretful you cannot live long.\n  Fal. Why, there is it! Come, sing me a bawdy song; make me merry. I\n    was as virtuously given as a gentleman need to be, virtuous\n    enough: swore little, dic'd not above seven times a week, went to\n    a bawdy house not above once in a quarter- of an hour, paid money\n    that I borrowed- three or four times, lived well, and in good\n    compass; and now I live out of all order, out of all compass.\n  Bard. Why, you are so fat, Sir John, that you must needs be out of\n    all compass- out of all reasonable compass, Sir John.\n  Fal. Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life. Thou art our\n    admiral, thou bearest the lantern in the poop- but 'tis in the\n    nose of thee. Thou art the Knight of the Burning Lamp.\n  Bard. Why, Sir John, my face does you no harm.\n  Fal. No, I'll be sworn. I make as good use of it as many a man doth\n    of a death's-head or a memento mori. I never see thy face but I\n    think upon hellfire and Dives that lived in purple; for there he\n    is in his robes, burning, burning. if thou wert any way given to\n    virtue, I would swear by thy face; my oath should be 'By this\n    fire, that's God's angel.' But thou art altogether given over,\n    and wert indeed, but for the light in thy face, the son of utter\n    darkness. When thou ran'st up Gadshill in the night to catch my\n    horse, if I did not think thou hadst been an ignis fatuus or a\n    ball of wildfire, there's no purchase in money. O, thou art a\n    perpetual triumph, an everlasting bonfire-light! Thou hast saved\n    me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in\n    the night betwixt tavern and tavern; but the sack that thou hast\n    drunk me would have bought me lights as good cheap at the dearest\n    chandler's in Europe. I have maintained that salamander of yours\n    with fire any time this two-and-thirty years. God reward me for\n    it!\n  Bard. 'Sblood, I would my face were in your belly!\n  Fal. God-a-mercy! so should I be sure to be heart-burn'd.\n\n                          Enter Hostess.\n\n    How now, Dame Partlet the hen? Have you enquir'd yet who pick'd\n    my pocket?\n  Host. Why, Sir John, what do you think, Sir John? Do you think I\n    keep thieves in my house? I have search'd, I have enquired, so\n    has my husband, man by man, boy by boy, servant by servant. The\n    tithe of a hair was never lost in my house before.\n  Fal. Ye lie, hostess. Bardolph was shav'd and lost many a hair, and\n    I'll be sworn my pocket was pick'd. Go to, you are a woman, go!\n  Host. Who, I? No; I defy thee! God's light, I was never call'd so\n    in mine own house before!\n  Fal. Go to, I know you well enough.\n  Host. No, Sir John; you do not know me, Sir John. I know you, Sir\n    John. You owe me money, Sir John, and now you pick a quarrel to\n    beguile me of it. I bought you a dozen of shirts to your back.\n  Fal. Dowlas, filthy dowlas! I have given them away to bakers'\n    wives; they have made bolters of them.\n  Host. Now, as I am a true woman, holland of eight shillings an ell.\n    You owe money here besides, Sir John, for your diet and\n    by-drinkings, and money lent you, four-and-twenty pound.\n  Fal. He had his part of it; let him pay.\n  Host. He? Alas, he is poor; he hath nothing.\n  Fal. How? Poor? Look upon his face. What call you rich? Let them\n    coin his nose, let them coin his cheeks. I'll not pay a denier.\n    What, will you make a younker of me? Shall I not take mine ease\n    in mine inn but I shall have my pocket pick'd? I have lost a\n    seal-ring of my grandfather's worth forty mark.\n  Host. O Jesu, I have heard the Prince tell him, I know not how oft,\n    that that ring was copper!\n  Fal. How? the Prince is a Jack, a sneak-cup. 'Sblood, an he were\n    here, I would cudgel him like a dog if he would say so.\n\n      Enter the Prince [and Poins], marching; and Falstaff meets\n          them, playing upon his truncheon like a fife.\n\n    How now, lad? Is the wind in that door, i' faith? Must we all\n    march?\n  Bard. Yea, two and two, Newgate fashion.\n  Host. My lord, I pray you hear me.\n  Prince. What say'st thou, Mistress Quickly? How doth thy husband?\n    I love him well; he is an honest man.\n  Host. Good my lord, hear me.\n  Fal. Prithee let her alone and list to me.\n  Prince. What say'st thou, Jack?\n  Fal. The other night I fell asleep here behind the arras and had my\n    pocket pick'd. This house is turn'd bawdy house; they pick\n    pockets.\n  Prince. What didst thou lose, Jack?\n  Fal. Wilt thou believe me, Hal? Three or four bonds of forty pound\n    apiece and a seal-ring of my grandfather's.\n  Prince. A trifle, some eightpenny matter.\n  Host. So I told him, my lord, and I said I heard your Grace say so;\n    and, my lord, he speaks most vilely of you, like a foul-mouth'd\n    man as he is, and said he would cudgel you.\n  Prince. What! he did not?\n  Host. There's neither faith, truth, nor womanhood in me else.\n  Fal. There's no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune, nor no\n    more truth in thee than in a drawn fox; and for woman-hood, Maid\n    Marian may be the deputy's wife of the ward to thee. Go, you\n    thing, go!\n  Host. Say, what thing? what thing?\n  Fal. What thing? Why, a thing to thank God on.\n  Host. I am no thing to thank God on, I would thou shouldst know it!\n    I am an honest man's wife, and, setting thy knight-hood aside,\n    thou art a knave to call me so.\n  Fal. Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast to say\n    otherwise.\n  Host. Say, what beast, thou knave, thou?\n  Fal. What beast? Why, an otter.\n  Prince. An otter, Sir John? Why an otter?\n  Fal. Why, she's neither fish nor flesh; a man knows not where to\n    have her.\n  Host. Thou art an unjust man in saying so. Thou or any man knows\n    where to have me, thou knave, thou!\n  Prince. Thou say'st true, hostess, and he slanders thee most\n    grossly.\n  Host. So he doth you, my lord, and said this other day you ought\n    him a thousand pound.\n  Prince. Sirrah, do I owe you a thousand pound?\n  Fal. A thousand pound, Hal? A million! Thy love is worth a million;\n    thou owest me thy love.\n  Host. Nay, my lord, he call'd you Jack and said he would cudgel\n    you.\n  Fal. Did I, Bardolph?\n  Bard. Indeed, Sir John, you said so.\n  Fal. Yea. if he said my ring was copper.\n  Prince. I say, 'tis copper. Darest thou be as good as thy word now?\n  Fal. Why, Hal, thou knowest, as thou art but man, I dare; but as\n    thou art Prince, I fear thee as I fear the roaring of the lion's\n    whelp.\n  Prince. And why not as the lion?\n  Fal. The King himself is to be feared as the lion. Dost thou think\n    I'll fear thee as I fear thy father? Nay, an I do, I pray God my\n    girdle break.\n  Prince. O, if it should, how would thy guts fall about thy knees!\n    But, sirrah, there's no room for faith, truth, nor honesty in\n    this bosom of thine. It is all fill'd up with guts and midriff.\n    Charge an honest woman with picking thy pocket? Why, thou\n    whoreson, impudent, emboss'd rascal, if there were anything in\n    thy pocket but tavern reckonings, memorandums of bawdy houses,\n    and one poor pennyworth of sugar candy to make thee long-winded-\n    if thy pocket were enrich'd with any other injuries but these, I\n    am a villain. And yet you will stand to it; you will not pocket\n    up wrong. Art thou not ashamed?\n  Fal. Dost thou hear, Hal? Thou knowest in the state of innocency\n    Adam fell; and what should poor Jack Falstaff do in the days of\n    villany? Thou seest I have more flesh than another man, and\n    therefore more frailty. You confess then, you pick'd my pocket?\n  Prince. It appears so by the story.\n  Fal. Hostess, I forgive thee. Go make ready breakfast. Love thy\n    husband, look to thy servants, cherish thy guests. Thou shalt\n    find me tractable to any honest reason. Thou seest I am pacified.\n    -Still?- Nay, prithee be gone. [Exit Hostess.] Now, Hal, to the\n    news at court. For the robbery, lad- how is that answered?\n  Prince. O my sweet beef, I must still be good angel to thee.\n    The money is paid back again.\n  Fal. O, I do not like that paying back! 'Tis a double labour.\n  Prince. I am good friends with my father, and may do anything.\n  Fal. Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou doest, and do it\n    with unwash'd hands too.\n  Bard. Do, my lord.\n  Prince. I have procured thee, Jack, a charge of foot.\n  Fal. I would it had been of horse. Where shall I find one that can\n    steal well? O for a fine thief of the age of two-and-twenty or\n    thereabouts! I am heinously unprovided. Well, God be thanked for\n    these rebels. They offend none but the virtuous. I laud them, I\n    praise them.\n  Prince. Bardolph!\n  Bard. My lord?\n  Prince. Go bear this letter to Lord John of Lancaster,\n    To my brother John; this to my Lord of Westmoreland.\n                                                [Exit Bardolph.]\n    Go, Poins, to horse, to horse; for thou and I\n    Have thirty miles to ride yet ere dinner time.\n                                                   [Exit Poins.]\n    Jack, meet me to-morrow in the Temple Hall\n    At two o'clock in the afternoon.\n    There shalt thou know thy charge. and there receive\n    Money and order for their furniture.\n    The land is burning; Percy stands on high;\n    And either they or we must lower lie.                [Exit.]\n  Fal. Rare words! brave world! Hostess, my breakfast, come.\n    O, I could wish this tavern were my drum!\nExit.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. Scene I.\nThe rebel camp near Shrewsbury.\n\nEnter Harry Hotspur, Worcester, and Douglas.\n\n  Hot. Well said, my noble Scot. If speaking truth\n    In this fine age were not thought flattery,\n    Such attribution should the Douglas have\n    As not a soldier of this season's stamp\n    Should go so general current through the world.\n    By God, I cannot flatter, I defy\n    The tongues of soothers! but a braver place\n    In my heart's love hath no man than yourself.\n    Nay, task me to my word; approve me, lord.\n  Doug. Thou art the king of honour.\n    No man so potent breathes upon the ground\n    But I will beard him.\n\n                     Enter one with letters.\n\n  Hot. Do so, and 'tis well.-\n    What letters hast thou there?- I can but thank you.\n  Messenger. These letters come from your father.\n  Hot. Letters from him? Why comes he not himself?\n  Mess. He cannot come, my lord; he is grievous sick.\n  Hot. Zounds! how has he the leisure to be sick\n    In such a justling time? Who leads his power?\n    Under whose government come they along?\n  Mess. His letters bears his mind, not I, my lord.\n  Wor. I prithee tell me, doth he keep his bed?\n  Mess. He did, my lord, four days ere I set forth,\n    And at the time of my departure thence\n    He was much fear'd by his physicians.\n  Wor. I would the state of time had first been whole\n    Ere he by sickness had been visited.\n    His health was never better worth than now.\n  Hot. Sick now? droop now? This sickness doth infect\n    The very lifeblood of our enterprise.\n    'Tis catching hither, even to our camp.\n    He writes me here that inward sickness-\n    And that his friends by deputation could not\n    So soon be drawn; no did he think it meet\n    To lay so dangerous and dear a trust\n    On any soul remov'd but on his own.\n    Yet doth he give us bold advertisement,\n    That with our small conjunction we should on,\n    To see how fortune is dispos'd to us;\n    For, as he writes, there is no quailing now,\n    Because the King is certainly possess'd\n    Of all our purposes. What say you to it?\n  Wor. Your father's sickness is a maim to us.\n  Hot. A perilous gash, a very limb lopp'd off.\n    And yet, in faith, it is not! His present want\n    Seems more than we shall find it. Were it good\n    To set the exact wealth of all our states\n    All at one cast? to set so rich a man\n    On the nice hazard of one doubtful hour?\n    It were not good; for therein should we read\n    The very bottom and the soul of hope,\n    The very list, the very utmost bound\n    Of all our fortunes.\n  Doug. Faith, and so we should;\n    Where now remains a sweet reversion.\n    We may boldly spend upon the hope of what\n    Is to come in.\n    A comfort of retirement lives in this.\n  Hot. A rendezvous, a home to fly unto,\n    If that the devil and mischance look big\n    Upon the maidenhead of our affairs.\n  Wor. But yet I would your father had been here.\n    The quality and hair of our attempt\n    Brooks no division. It will be thought\n    By some that know not why he is away,\n    That wisdom, loyalty, and mere dislike\n    Of our proceedings kept the Earl from hence.\n    And think how such an apprehension\n    May turn the tide of fearful faction\n    And breed a kind of question in our cause.\n    For well you know we of the off'ring side\n    Must keep aloof from strict arbitrement,\n    And stop all sight-holes, every loop from whence\n    The eye of reason may pry in upon us.\n    This absence of your father's draws a curtain\n    That shows the ignorant a kind of fear\n    Before not dreamt of.\n  Hot. You strain too far.\n    I rather of his absence make this use:\n    It lends a lustre and more great opinion,\n    A larger dare to our great enterprise,\n    Than if the Earl were here; for men must think,\n    If we, without his help, can make a head\n    To push against a kingdom, with his help\n    We shall o'erturn it topsy-turvy down.\n    Yet all goes well; yet all our joints are whole.\n  Doug. As heart can think. There is not such a word\n    Spoke of in Scotland as this term of fear.\n\n                 Enter Sir Richard Vernon.\n\n  Hot. My cousin Vernon! welcome, by my soul.\n  Ver. Pray God my news be worth a welcome, lord.\n    The Earl of Westmoreland, seven thousand strong,\n    Is marching hitherwards; with him Prince John.\n  Hot. No harm. What more?\n  Ver. And further, I have learn'd\n    The King himself in person is set forth,\n    Or hitherwards intended speedily,\n    With strong and mighty preparation.\n  Hot. He shall be welcome too. Where is his son,\n    The nimble-footed madcap Prince of Wales,\n    And his comrades, that daff'd the world aside\n    And bid it pass?\n  Ver. All furnish'd, all in arms;\n    All plum'd like estridges that with the wind\n    Bated like eagles having lately bath'd;\n    Glittering in golden coats like images;\n    As full of spirit as the month of May\n    And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer;\n    Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls.\n    I saw young Harry with his beaver on\n    His cushes on his thighs, gallantly arm'd,\n    Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury,\n    And vaulted with such ease into his seat\n    As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds\n    To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus\n    And witch the world with noble horsemanship.\n  Hot. No more, no more! Worse than the sun in March,\n    This praise doth nourish agues. Let them come.\n    They come like sacrifices in their trim,\n    And to the fire-ey'd maid of smoky war\n    All hot and bleeding Will we offer them.\n    The mailed Mars Shall on his altar sit\n    Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire\n    To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh,\n    And yet not ours. Come, let me taste my horse,\n    Who is to bear me like a thunderbolt\n    Against the bosom of the Prince of Wales.\n    Harry to Harry shall, hot horse to horse,\n    Meet, and ne'er part till one drop down a corse.\n    that Glendower were come!\n  Ver. There is more news.\n    I learn'd in Worcester, as I rode along,\n    He cannot draw his power this fourteen days.\n  Doug. That's the worst tidings that I hear of yet.\n  Wor. Ay, by my faith, that bears a frosty sound.\n  Hot. What may the King's whole battle reach unto?\n  Ver. To thirty thousand.\n  Hot. Forty let it be.\n    My father and Glendower being both away,\n    The powers of us may serve so great a day.\n    Come, let us take a muster speedily.\n    Doomsday is near. Die all, die merrily.\n  Doug. Talk not of dying. I am out of fear\n    Of death or death's hand for this one half-year.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nA public road near Coventry.\n\nEnter Falstaff and Bardolph.\n\n  Fal. Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry; fill me a bottle of\n    sack. Our soldiers shall march through. We'll to Sutton Co'fil'\n    to-night.\n  Bard. Will you give me money, Captain?\n  Fal. Lay out, lay out.\n  Bald. This bottle makes an angel.\n  Fal. An if it do, take it for thy labour; an if it make twenty,\n    take them all; I'll answer the coinage. Bid my lieutenant Peto\n    meet me at town's end.\n  Bard. I Will, Captain. Farewell.                         Exit.\n  Fal. If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a sous'd gurnet. I\n    have misused the King's press damnably. I have got in exchange of\n    a hundred and fifty soldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I\n    press me none but good householders, yeomen's sons; inquire me\n    out contracted bachelors, such as had been ask'd twice on the\n    banes- such a commodity of warm slaves as had as lieve hear the\n    devil as a drum; such as fear the report of a caliver worse than\n    a struck fowl or a hurt wild duck. I press'd me none but such\n    toasts-and-butter, with hearts in their bellies no bigger than\n    pins' heads, and they have bought out their services; and now my\n    whole charge consists of ancients, corporals, lieutenants,\n    gentlemen of companies- slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the\n    painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs licked his sores; and\n    such as indeed were never soldiers, but discarded unjust\n    serving-men, younger sons to Younger brothers, revolted tapsters,\n    and ostlers trade-fall'n; the cankers of a calm world and a long\n    peace; ten times more dishonourable ragged than an old fac'd\n    ancient; and such have I to fill up the rooms of them that have\n    bought out their services that you would think that I had a\n    hundred and fifty tattered Prodigals lately come from\n    swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks. A mad fellow met me\n    on the way, and told me I had unloaded all the gibbets and\n    press'd the dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scarecrows. I'll\n    not march through Coventry with them, that's flat. Nay, and the\n    villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had gyves on;\n    for indeed I had the most of them out of prison. There's but a\n    shirt and a half in all my company; and the half-shirt is two\n    napkins tack'd together and thrown over the shoulders like a\n    herald's coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say the truth,\n    stol'n from my host at Saint Alban's, or the red-nose innkeeper\n    of Daventry. But that's all one; they'll find linen enough on\n    every hedge.\n\n              Enter the Prince and the Lord of Westmoreland.\n\n  Prince. How now, blown Jack? How now, quilt?\n  Fal. What, Hal? How now, mad wag? What a devil dost thou in\n    Warwickshire? My good Lord of Westmoreland, I cry you mercy. I\n    thought your honour had already been at Shrewsbury.\n  West. Faith, Sir John, 'tis more than time that I were there, and\n    you too; but my powers are there already. The King, I can tell\n    you, looks for us all. We must away all, to-night.\n  Fal. Tut, never fear me. I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream.\n  Prince. I think, to steal cream indeed, for thy theft hath already\n    made thee butter. But tell me, Jack, whose fellows are these that\n    come after?\n  Fal. Mine, Hal, mine.\n  Prince. I did never see such pitiful rascals.\n  Fal. Tut, tut! good enough to toss; food for powder, food for\n    powder. They'll fill a pit as well as better. Tush, man, mortal\n    men, mortal men.\n  West. Ay, but, Sir John, methinks they are exceeding poor and bare-\n    too beggarly.\n  Fal. Faith, for their poverty, I know, not where they had that; and\n    for their bareness, I am surd they never learn'd that of me.\n  Prince. No, I'll be sworn, unless you call three fingers on the\n    ribs bare. But, sirrah, make haste. Percy 's already in the\n    field.\nExit.\n  Fal. What, is the King encamp'd?\n  West. He is, Sir John. I fear we shall stay too long.\n                                                         [Exit.]\n  Fal. Well,\n    To the latter end of a fray and the beginning of a feast\n    Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest.                  Exit.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nThe rebel camp near Shrewsbury.\n\nEnter Hotspur, Worcester, Douglas, Vernon.\n\n  Hot. We'll fight with him to-night.\n  Wor. It may not be.\n  Doug. You give him then advantage.\n  Ver. Not a whit.\n  Hot. Why say you so? Looks he no for supply?\n  Ver. So do we.\n  Hot. His is certain, ours 's doubtful.\n  Wor. Good cousin, be advis'd; stir not to-night.\n  Ver. Do not, my lord.\n  Doug. You do not counsel well.\n    You speak it out of fear and cold heart.\n  Ver. Do me no slander, Douglas. By my life-\n    And I dare well maintain it with my life-\n    If well-respected honour bid me on\n    I hold as little counsel with weak fear\n    As you, my lord, or any Scot that this day lives.\n    Let it be seen to-morrow in the battle\n    Which of us fears.\n  Doug. Yea, or to-night.\n  Ver. Content.\n  Hot. To-night, say I.\n    Come, come, it may not be. I wonder much,\n    Being men of such great leading as you are,\n    That you foresee not what impediments\n    Drag back our expedition. Certain horse\n    Of my cousin Vernon's are not yet come up.\n    Your uncle Worcester's horse came but to-day;\n    And now their pride and mettle is asleep,\n    Their courage with hard labour tame and dull,\n    That not a horse is half the half of himself.\n  Hot. So are the horses of the enemy,\n    In general journey-bated and brought low.\n    The better part of ours are full of rest.\n  Wor. The number of the King exceedeth ours.\n    For God's sake, cousin, stay till all come in.\n\n              The trumpet sounds a parley.\n\n                 Enter Sir Walter Blunt.\n\n  Blunt. I come with gracious offers from the King,\n    If you vouchsafe me hearing and respect.\n  Hot. Welcome, Sir Walter Blunt, and would to God\n    You were of our determination!\n    Some of us love you well; and even those some\n    Envy your great deservings and good name,\n    Because you are not of our quality,\n    But stand against us like an enemy.\n  Blunt. And God defend but still I should stand so,\n    So long as out of limit and true rule\n    You stand against anointed majesty!\n    But to my charge. The King hath sent to know\n    The nature of your griefs; and whereupon\n    You conjure from the breast of civil peace\n    Such bold hostility, teaching his duteous land\n    Audacious cruelty. If that the King\n    Have any way your good deserts forgot,\n    Which he confesseth to be manifold,\n    He bids you name your griefs, and with all speed\n    You shall have your desires with interest,\n    And pardon absolute for yourself and these\n    Herein misled by your suggestion.\n  Hot. The King is kind; and well we know the King\n    Knows at what time to promise, when to pay.\n    My father and my uncle and myself\n    Did give him that same royalty he wears;\n    And when he was not six-and-twenty strong,\n    Sick in the world's regard, wretched and low,\n    A poor unminded outlaw sneaking home,\n    My father gave him welcome to the shore;\n    And when he heard him swear and vow to God\n    He came but to be Duke of Lancaster,\n    To sue his livery and beg his peace,\n    With tears of innocency and terms of zeal,\n    My father, in kind heart and pity mov'd,\n    Swore him assistance, and performed it too.\n    Now, when the lords and barons of the realm\n    Perceiv'd Northumberland did lean to him,\n    The more and less came in with cap and knee;\n    Met him on boroughs, cities, villages,\n    Attended him on bridges, stood in lanes,\n    Laid gifts before him, proffer'd him their oaths,\n    Give him their heirs as pages, followed him\n    Even at the heels in golden multitudes.\n    He presently, as greatness knows itself,\n    Steps me a little higher than his vow\n    Made to my father, while his blood was poor,\n    Upon the naked shore at Ravenspurgh;\n    And now, forsooth, takes on him to reform\n    Some certain edicts and some strait decrees\n    That lie too heavy on the commonwealth;\n    Cries out upon abuses, seems to weep\n    Over his country's wrongs; and by this face,\n    This seeming brow of justice, did he win\n    The hearts of all that he did angle for;\n    Proceeded further- cut me off the heads\n    Of all the favourites that the absent King\n    In deputation left behind him here\n    When he was personal in the Irish war.\n    But. Tut! I came not to hear this.\n  Hot. Then to the point.\n    In short time after lie depos'd the King;\n    Soon after that depriv'd him of his life;\n    And in the neck of that task'd the whole state;\n    To make that worse, suff'red his kinsman March\n    (Who is, if every owner were well placid,\n    Indeed his king) to be engag'd in Wales,\n    There without ransom to lie forfeited;\n    Disgrac'd me in my happy victories,\n    Sought to entrap me by intelligence;\n    Rated mine uncle from the Council board;\n    In rage dismiss'd my father from the court;\n    Broke an oath on oath, committed wrong on wrong;\n    And in conclusion drove us to seek out\n    This head of safety, and withal to pry\n    Into his title, the which we find\n    Too indirect for long continuance.\n  Blunt. Shall I return this answer to the King?\n  Hot. Not so, Sir Walter. We'll withdraw awhile.\n    Go to the King; and let there be impawn'd\n    Some surety for a safe return again,\n    And In the morning early shall mine uncle\n    Bring him our purposes; and so farewell.\n  Blunt. I would you would accept of grace and love.\n  Hot. And may be so we shall.\n  Blunt. Pray God you do.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nYork. The Archbishop's Palace.\n\nEnter the Archbishop of York and Sir Michael.\n\n  Arch. Hie, good Sir Michael; bear this sealed brief\n    With winged haste to the Lord Marshal;\n    This to my cousin Scroop; and all the rest\n    To whom they are directed. If you knew\n    How much they do import, you would make haste.\n  Sir M. My good lord,\n    I guess their tenour.\n  Arch. Like enough you do.\n    To-morrow, good Sir Michael, is a day\n    Wherein the fortune of ten thousand men\n    Must bide the touch; for, sir, at Shrewsbury,\n    As I am truly given to understand,\n    The King with mighty and quick-raised power\n    Meets with Lord Harry; and I fear, Sir Michael,\n    What with the sickness of Northumberland,\n    Whose power was in the first proportion,\n    And what with Owen Glendower's absence thence,\n    Who with them was a rated sinew too\n    And comes not in, overrul'd by prophecies-\n    I fear the power of Percy is too weak\n    To wage an instant trial with the King.\n  Sir M. Why, my good lord, you need not fear;\n    There is Douglas and Lord Mortimer.\n  Arch. No, Mortimer is not there.\n  Sir M. But there is Mordake, Vernon, Lord Harry Percy,\n    And there is my Lord of Worcester, and a head\n    Of gallant warriors, noble gentlemen.\n  Arch. And so there is; but yet the King hath drawn\n    The special head of all the land together-\n    The Prince of Wales, Lord John of Lancaster,\n    The noble Westmoreland and warlike Blunt,\n    And many moe corrivals and dear men\n    Of estimation and command in arms.\n  Sir M. Doubt not, my lord, they shall be well oppos'd.\n  Arch. I hope no less, yet needful 'tis to fear;\n    And, to prevent the worst, Sir Michael, speed.\n    For if Lord Percy thrive not, ere the King\n    Dismiss his power, he means to visit us,\n    For he hath heard of our confederacy,\n    And 'tis but wisdom to make strong against him.\n    Therefore make haste. I must go write again\n    To other friends; and so farewell, Sir Michael.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. Scene I.\nThe King's camp near Shrewsbury.\n\nEnter the King, Prince of Wales, Lord John of Lancaster, Sir Walter Blunt,\nFalstaff.\n\n  King. How bloodily the sun begins to peer\n    Above yon busky hill! The day looks pale\n    At his distemp'rature.\n  Prince. The southern wind\n    Doth play the trumpet to his purposes\n    And by his hollow whistling in the leaves\n    Foretells a tempest and a blust'ring day.\n  King. Theft with the losers let it sympathize,\n    For nothing can seem foul to those that win.\n\n     The trumpet sounds. Enter Worcester [and Vernon].\n\n    How, now, my Lord of Worcester? 'Tis not well\n    That you and I should meet upon such terms\n    As now we meet. You have deceiv'd our trust\n    And made us doff our easy robes of peace\n    To crush our old limbs in ungentle steel.\n    This is not well, my lord; this is not well.\n    What say you to it? Will you again unknit\n    This churlish knot of all-abhorred war,\n    And move in that obedient orb again\n    Where you did give a fair and natural light,\n    And be no more an exhal'd meteor,\n    A prodigy of fear, and a portent\n    Of broached mischief to the unborn times?\n  Wor. Hear me, my liege.\n    For mine own part, I could be well content\n    To entertain the lag-end of my life\n    With quiet hours; for I do protest\n    I have not sought the day of this dislike.\n  King. You have not sought it! How comes it then,\n  Fal. Rebellion lay in his way, and he found it.\n  Prince. Peace, chewet, peace!\n  Wor. It pleas'd your Majesty to turn your looks\n    Of favour from myself and all our house;\n    And yet I must remember you, my lord,\n    We were the first and dearest of your friends.\n    For you my staff of office did I break\n    In Richard's time, and posted day and night\n    To meet you on the way and kiss your hand\n    When yet you were in place and in account\n    Nothing so strong and fortunate as I.\n    It was myself, my brother, and his son\n    That brought you home and boldly did outdare\n    The dangers of the time. You swore to us,\n    And you did swear that oath at Doncaster,\n    That you did nothing purpose 'gainst the state,\n    Nor claim no further than your new-fall'n right,\n    The seat of Gaunt, dukedom of Lancaster.\n    To this we swore our aid. But in short space\n    It it rain'd down fortune show'ring on your head,\n    And such a flood of greatness fell on you-\n    What with our help, what with the absent King,\n    What with the injuries of a wanton time,\n    The seeming sufferances that you had borne,\n    And the contrarious winds that held the King\n    So long in his unlucky Irish wars\n    That all in England did repute him dead-\n    And from this swarm of fair advantages\n    You took occasion to be quickly woo'd\n    To gripe the general sway into your hand;\n    Forgot your oath to us at Doncaster;\n    And, being fed by us, you us'd us so\n    As that ungentle gull, the cuckoo's bird,\n    Useth the sparrow- did oppress our nest;\n    Grew, by our feeding to so great a bulk\n    That even our love thirst not come near your sight\n    For fear of swallowing; but with nimble wing\n    We were enforc'd for safety sake to fly\n    Out of your sight and raise this present head;\n    Whereby we stand opposed by such means\n    As you yourself have forg'd against yourself\n    By unkind usage, dangerous countenance,\n    And violation of all faith and troth\n    Sworn to tis in your younger enterprise.\n  King. These things, indeed, you have articulate,\n    Proclaim'd at market crosses, read in churches,\n    To face the garment of rebellion\n    With some fine colour that may please the eye\n    Of fickle changelings and poor discontents,\n    Which gape and rub the elbow at the news\n    Of hurlyburly innovation.\n    And never yet did insurrection want\n    Such water colours to impaint his cause,\n    Nor moody beggars, starving for a time\n    Of pell-mell havoc and confusion.\n  Prince. In both our armies there is many a soul\n    Shall pay full dearly for this encounter,\n    If once they join in trial. Tell your nephew\n    The Prince of Wales doth join with all the world\n    In praise of Henry Percy. By my hopes,\n    This present enterprise set off his head,\n    I do not think a braver gentleman,\n    More active-valiant or more valiant-young,\n    More daring or more bold, is now alive\n    To grace this latter age with noble deeds.\n    For my part, I may speak it to my shame,\n    I have a truant been to chivalry;\n    And so I hear he doth account me too.\n    Yet this before my father's Majesty-\n    I am content that he shall take the odds\n    Of his great name and estimation,\n    And will to save the blood on either side,\n    Try fortune with him in a single fight.\n  King. And, Prince of Wales, so dare we venture thee,\n    Albeit considerations infinite\n    Do make against it. No, good Worcester, no!\n    We love our people well; even those we love\n    That are misled upon your cousin's part;\n    And, will they take the offer of our grace,\n    Both he, and they, and you, yea, every man\n    Shall be my friend again, and I'll be his.\n    So tell your cousin, and bring me word\n    What he will do. But if he will not yield,\n    Rebuke and dread correction wait on us,\n    And they shall do their office. So be gone.\n    We will not now be troubled with reply.\n    We offer fair; take it advisedly.\n                                    Exit Worcester [with Vernon]\n  Prince. It will not be accepted, on my life.\n    The Douglas and the Hotspur both together\n    Are confident against the world in arms.\n  King. Hence, therefore, every leader to his charge;\n    For, on their answer, will we set on them,\n    And God befriend us as our cause is just!\n                                Exeunt. Manent Prince, Falstaff.\n  Fal. Hal, if thou see me down in the battle and bestride me, so!\n    'Tis a point of friendship.\n  Prince. Nothing but a Colossus can do thee that friendship.\n    Say thy prayers, and farewell.\n  Fal. I would 'twere bedtime, Hal, and all well.\n  Prince. Why, thou owest God a death.\nExit.\n  Fal. 'Tis not due yet. I would be loath to pay him before his day.\n    What need I be so forward with him that calls not on me? Well,\n    'tis no matter; honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick\n    me off when I come on? How then? Can honor set to a leg? No. Or\n    an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour hath no\n    skill in surgery then? No. What is honour? A word. What is that\n    word honour? Air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? He that died a\n    Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth be bear it? No. 'Tis\n    insensible then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the\n    living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I'll\n    none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon- and so ends my catechism.\nExit.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nThe rebel camp.\n\nEnter Worcester and Sir Richard Vernon.\n\n  Wor. O no, my nephew must not know, Sir Richard,\n    The liberal and kind offer of the King.\n  Ver. 'Twere best he did.\n  Wor. Then are we all undone.\n    It is not possible, it cannot be\n    The King should keep his word in loving us.\n    He will suspect us still and find a time\n    To punish this offence in other faults.\n    Suspicion all our lives shall be stuck full of eyes;\n    For treason is but trusted like the fox\n    Who, ne'er so tame, so cherish'd and lock'd up,\n    Will have a wild trick of his ancestors.\n    Look how we can, or sad or merrily,\n    Interpretation will misquote our looks,\n    And we shall feed like oxen at a stall,\n    The better cherish'd, still the nearer death.\n    My nephew's trespass may be well forgot;\n    It hath the excuse of youth and heat of blood,\n    And an adopted name of privilege-\n    A hare-brained Hotspur govern'd by a spleen.\n    All his offences live upon my head\n    And on his father's. We did train him on;\n    And, his corruption being taken from us,\n    We, as the spring of all, shall pay for all.\n    Therefore, good cousin, let not Harry know,\n    In any case, the offer of the King.\n\n               Enter Hotspur [and Douglas].\n\n  Ver. Deliver what you will, I'll say 'tis so.\n    Here comes your cousin.\n  Hot. My uncle is return'd.\n    Deliver up my Lord of Westmoreland.\n    Uncle, what news?\n  Wor. The King will bid you battle presently.\n  Doug. Defy him by the Lord Of Westmoreland.\n  Hot. Lord Douglas, go you and tell him so.\n  Doug. Marry, and shall, and very willingly.\nExit.\n  Wor. There is no seeming mercy in the King.\n  Hot. Did you beg any, God forbid!\n  Wor. I told him gently of our grievances,\n    Of his oath-breaking; which he mended thus,\n    By now forswearing that he is forsworn.\n    He calls us rebels, traitors, aid will scourge\n    With haughty arms this hateful name in us.\n\n                       Enter Douglas.\n\n  Doug. Arm, gentlemen! to arms! for I have thrown\n    A brave defiance in King Henry's teeth,\n    And Westmoreland, that was engag'd, did bear it;\n    Which cannot choose but bring him quickly on.\n  Wor. The Prince of Wales stepp'd forth before the King\n    And, nephew, challeng'd you to single fight.\n  Hot. O, would the quarrel lay upon our heads,\n    And that no man might draw short breath to-day\n    But I and Harry Monmouth! Tell me, tell me,\n    How show'd his tasking? Seem'd it in contempt?\n    No, by my soul. I never in my life\n    Did hear a challenge urg'd more modestly,\n    Unless a brother should a brother dare\n    To gentle exercise and proof of arms.\n    He gave you all the duties of a man;\n    Trimm'd up your praises with a princely tongue;\n    Spoke your deservings like a chronicle;\n    Making you ever better than his praise\n    By still dispraising praise valued with you;\n    And, which became him like a prince indeed,\n    He made a blushing cital of himself,\n    And chid his truant youth with such a grace\n    As if lie mast'red there a double spirit\n    Of teaching and of learning instantly.\n    There did he pause; but let me tell the world,\n    If he outlive the envy of this day,\n    England did never owe so sweet a hope,\n    So much misconstrued in his wantonness.\n  Hot. Cousin, I think thou art enamoured\n    Upon his follies. Never did I hear\n    Of any prince so wild a libertine.\n    But be he as he will, yet once ere night\n    I will embrace him with a soldier's arm,\n    That he shall shrink under my courtesy.\n    Arm, arm with speed! and, fellows, soldiers, friends,\n    Better consider what you have to do\n    Than I, that have not well the gift of tongue,\n    Can lift your blood up with persuasion.\n\n                       Enter a Messenger.\n\n  Mess. My lord, here are letters for you.\n  Hot. I cannot read them now.-\n    O gentlemen, the time of life is short!\n    To spend that shortness basely were too long\n    If life did ride upon a dial's point,\n    Still ending at the arrival of an hour.\n    An if we live, we live to tread on kings;\n    If die, brave death, when princes die with us!\n    Now for our consciences, the arms are fair,\n    When the intent of bearing them is just.\n\n                  Enter another Messenger.\n\n  Mess. My lord, prepare. The King comes on apace.\n  Hot. I thank him that he cuts me from my tale,\n    For I profess not talking. Only this-\n    Let each man do his best; and here draw I\n    A sword whose temper I intend to stain\n    With the best blood that I can meet withal\n    In the adventure of this perilous day.\n    Now, Esperance! Percy! and set on.\n    Sound all the lofty instruments of war,\n    And by that music let us all embrace;\n    For, heaven to earth, some of us never shall\n    A second time do such a courtesy.\n                          Here they embrace. The trumpets sound.\n                                                       [Exeunt.]\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nPlain between the camps.\n\nThe King enters with his Power.  Alarum to the battle.  Then enter Douglas\nand Sir Walter Blunt.\n\n  Blunt. What is thy name, that in the battle thus\n    Thou crossest me? What honour dost thou seek\n    Upon my head?\n  Doug. Know then my name is Douglas,\n    And I do haunt thee in the battle thus\n    Because some tell me that thou art a king.\n  Blunt. They tell thee true.\n  Doug. The Lord of Stafford dear to-day hath bought\n    Thy likeness; for instead of thee, King Harry,\n    This sword hath ended him. So shall it thee,\n    Unless thou yield thee as my prisoner.\n  Blunt. I was not born a yielder, thou proud Scot;\n    And thou shalt find a king that will revenge\n    Lord Stafford's death.\n\n    They fight. Douglas kills Blunt. Then enter Hotspur.\n\n  Hot. O Douglas, hadst thou fought at Holmedon thus,\n    I never had triumph'd upon a Scot.\n  Doug. All's done, all's won. Here breathless lies the King.\n  Hot. Where?\n  Doug. Here.\n  Hot. This, Douglas? No. I know this face full well.\n    A gallant knight he was, his name was Blunt;\n    Semblably furnish'd like the King himself.\n  Doug. A fool go with thy soul, whither it goes!\n    A borrowed title hast thou bought too dear:\n    Why didst thou tell me that thou wert a king?\n  Hot. The King hath many marching in his coats.\n  Doug. Now, by my sword, I will kill all his coats;\n    I'll murder all his wardrop, piece by piece,\n    Until I meet the King.\n  Hot. Up and away!\n    Our soldiers stand full fairly for the day.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n                 Alarum. Enter Falstaff solus.\n\n  Fal. Though I could scape shot-free at London, I fear the shot\n    here. Here's no scoring but upon the pate. Soft! who are you?\n    Sir Walter Blunt. There's honour for you! Here's no vanity! I am\n    as hot as molten lead, and as heavy too. God keep lead out of me!\n    I need no more weight than mine own bowels. I have led my\n    rag-of-muffins where they are pepper'd. There's not three of my\n    hundred and fifty left alive; and they are for the town's end, to\n    beg during life. But who comes here?\n\n                         Enter the Prince.\n\n  Prince. What, stand'st thou idle here? Lend me thy sword.\n    Many a nobleman lies stark and stiff\n    Under the hoofs of vaunting enemies,\n    Whose deaths are yet unreveng'd. I prithee\n    Rend me thy sword.\n  Fal. O Hal, I prithee give me leave to breathe awhile. Turk Gregory\n    never did such deeds in arms as I have done this day. I have paid\n    Percy; I have made him sure.\n  Prince. He is indeed, and living to kill thee.\n    I prithee lend me thy sword.\n  Fal. Nay, before God, Hal, if Percy be alive, thou get'st not my\n    sword; but take my pistol, if thou wilt.\n  Prince. Give it me. What, is it in the case?\n  Fal. Ay, Hal. 'Tis hot, 'tis hot. There's that will sack a city.\n\n    The Prince draws it out and finds it to he a bottle of sack.\n\n    What, is it a time to jest and dally now?\n                              He throws the bottle at him. Exit.\n  Fal. Well, if Percy be alive, I'll pierce him. If he do come in my\n    way, so; if he do not, if I come in his willingly, let him make a\n    carbonado of me. I like not such grinning honour as Sir Walter\n    hath. Give me life; which if I can save, so; if not, honour comes\n    unlook'd for, and there's an end.                      Exit.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nAnother part of the field.\n\nAlarum. Excursions. Enter the King, the Prince, Lord John of Lancaster,\nEarl of Westmoreland\n\n  King. I prithee,\n    Harry, withdraw thyself; thou bleedest too much.\n    Lord John of Lancaster, go you unto him.\n  John. Not I, my lord, unless I did bleed too.\n  Prince. I do beseech your Majesty make up,\n    Lest Your retirement do amaze your friends.\n  King. I will do so.\n    My Lord of Westmoreland, lead him to his tent.\n  West. Come, my lord, I'll lead you to your tent.\n  Prince. Lead me, my lord, I do not need your help;\n    And God forbid a shallow scratch should drive\n    The Prince of Wales from such a field as this,\n    Where stain'd nobility lies trodden on,\n    And rebels' arms triumph in massacres!\n  John. We breathe too long. Come, cousin Westmoreland,\n    Our duty this way lies. For God's sake, come.\n                          [Exeunt Prince John and Westmoreland.]\n  Prince. By God, thou hast deceiv'd me, Lancaster!\n    I did not think thee lord of such a spirit.\n    Before, I lov'd thee as a brother, John;\n    But now, I do respect thee as my soul.\n  King. I saw him hold Lord Percy at the point\n    With lustier maintenance than I did look for\n    Of such an ungrown warrior.\n  Prince. O, this boy\n    Lends mettle to us all!                                Exit.\n\n                         Enter Douglas.\n\n  Doug. Another king? They grow like Hydra's heads.\n    I am the Douglas, fatal to all those\n    That wear those colours on them. What art thou\n    That counterfeit'st the person of a king?\n  King. The King himself, who, Douglas, grieves at heart\n    So many of his shadows thou hast met,\n    And not the very King. I have two boys\n    Seek Percy and thyself about the field;\n    But, seeing thou fall'st on me so luckily,\n    I will assay thee. So defend thyself.\n  Doug. I fear thou art another counterfeit;\n    And yet, in faith, thou bearest thee like a king.\n    But mine I am sure thou art, whoe'er thou be,\n    And thus I win thee.\n\n   They fight. The King being in danger, enter Prince of Wales.\n\n  Prince. Hold up thy head, vile Scot, or thou art like\n    Never to hold it up again! The spirits\n    Of valiant Shirley, Stafford, Blunt are in my arms.\n    It is the Prince of Wales that threatens thee,\n    Who never promiseth but he means to pay.\n                                     They fight. Douglas flieth.\n    Cheerly, my lord. How fares your Grace?\n    Sir Nicholas Gawsey hath for succour sent,\n    And so hath Clifton. I'll to Clifton straight.\n  King. Stay and breathe awhile.\n    Thou hast redeem'd thy lost opinion,\n    And show'd thou mak'st some tender of my life,\n    In this fair rescue thou hast brought to me.\n  Prince. O God! they did me too much injury\n    That ever said I heark'ned for your death.\n    If it were so, I might have let alone\n    The insulting hand of Douglas over you,\n    Which would have been as speedy in your end\n    As all the poisonous potions in the world,\n    And sav'd the treacherous labour of your son.\n  King. Make up to Clifton; I'll to Sir Nicholas Gawsey.\nExit.\n\n                      Enter Hotspur.\n\n  Hot. If I mistake not, thou art Harry Monmouth.\n  Prince. Thou speak'st as if I would deny my name.\n  Hot. My name is Harry Percy.\n  Prince. Why, then I see\n    A very valiant rebel of the name.\n    I am the Prince of Wales; and think not, Percy,\n    To share with me in glory any more.\n    Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere,\n    Nor can one England brook a double reign\n    Of Harry Percy and the Prince of Wales.\n  Hot. Nor shall it, Harry; for the hour is come\n    To end the one of us and would to God\n    Thy name in arms were now as great as mine!\n  Prince. I'll make it greater ere I part from thee,\n    And all the budding honours on thy crest\n    I'll crop to make a garland for my head.\n  Hot. I can no longer brook thy vanities.\n                                                     They fight.\n\n                      Enter Falstaff.\n\n  Fal. Well said, Hal! to it, Hal! Nay, you shall find no boy's play\n    here, I can tell you.\n\n   Enter Douglas. He fighteth with Falstaff, who falls down as if\n      he were dead. [Exit Douglas.] The Prince killeth Percy.\n\n  Hot. O Harry, thou hast robb'd me of my youth!\n    I better brook the loss of brittle life\n    Than those proud titles thou hast won of me.\n    They wound my thoughts worse than thy sword my flesh.\n    But thoughts the slave, of life, and life time's fool,\n    And time, that takes survey of all the world,\n    Must have a stop. O, I could prophesy,\n    But that the earthy and cold hand of death\n    Lies on my tongue. No, Percy, thou art dust,\n    And food for-                                        [Dies.]\n  Prince. For worms, brave Percy. Fare thee well, great heart!\n    Ill-weav'd ambition, how much art thou shrunk!\n    When that this body did contain a spirit,\n    A kingdom for it was too small a bound;\n    But now two paces of the vilest earth\n    Is room enough. This earth that bears thee dead\n    Bears not alive so stout a gentleman.\n    If thou wert sensible of courtesy,\n    I should not make so dear a show of zeal.\n    But let my favours hide thy mangled face;\n    And, even in thy behalf, I'll thank myself\n    For doing these fair rites of tenderness.\n    Adieu, and take thy praise with thee to heaven!\n    Thy ignominy sleep with thee in the grave,\n    But not rememb'red in thy epitaph!\n                               He spieth Falstaff on the ground.\n    What, old acquaintance? Could not all this flesh\n    Keep in a little life? Poor Jack, farewell!\n    I could have better spar'd a better man.\n    O, I should have a heavy miss of thee\n    If I were much in love with vanity!\n    Death hath not struck so fat a deer to-day,\n    Though many dearer, in this bloody fray.\n    Embowell'd will I see thee by-and-by;\n    Till then in blood by noble Percy lie.                 Exit.\n\n                     Falstaff riseth up.\n\n  Fal. Embowell'd? If thou embowel me to-day, I'll give you leave to\n    powder me and eat me too to-morrow. 'Sblood, 'twas time to\n    counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had paid me scot and lot\n    too. Counterfeit? I lie; I am no counterfeit. To die is to be a\n    counterfeit; for he is but the counterfeit of a man who hath not\n    the life of a man; but to counterfeit dying when a man thereby\n    liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image\n    of life indeed. The better part of valour is discretion; in the\n    which better part I have saved my life. Zounds, I am afraid of\n    this gunpowder Percy, though he be dead. How if he should\n    counterfeit too, and rise? By my faith, I am afraid he would\n    prove the better counterfeit. Therefore I'll make him sure; yea,\n    and I'll swear I kill'd him. Why may not he rise as well as I?\n    Nothing confutes me but eyes, and nobody sees me. Therefore,\n    sirrah [stabs him], with a new wound in your thigh, come you\n    along with me.\n\n   He takes up Hotspur on his hack. [Enter Prince, and John of\n                            Lancaster.\n\n  Prince. Come, brother John; full bravely hast thou flesh'd\n    Thy maiden sword.\n  John. But, soft! whom have we here?\n    Did you not tell me this fat man was dead?\n  Prince. I did; I saw him dead,\n    Breathless and bleeding on the ground. Art thou alive,\n    Or is it fantasy that plays upon our eyesight?\n    I prithee speak. We will not trust our eyes\n    Without our ears. Thou art not what thou seem'st.\n  Fal. No, that's certain! I am not a double man; but if I be not\n    Jack Falstaff, then am I a Jack. There 's Percy. If your father\n    will do me any honour, so; if not, let him kill the next Percy\n    himself. I look to be either earl or duke, I can assure you.\n  Prince. Why, Percy I kill'd myself, and saw thee dead!\n  Fal. Didst thou? Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying! I\n    grant you I was down, and out of breath, and so was he; but we\n    rose both at an instant and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury\n    clock. If I may be believ'd, so; if not, let them that should\n    reward valour bear the sin upon their own heads. I'll take it\n    upon my death, I gave him this wound in the thigh. If the man\n    were alive and would deny it, zounds! I would make him eat a\n    piece of my sword.\n  John. This is the strangest tale that ever I beard.\n  Prince. This is the strangest fellow, brother John.\n    Come, bring your luggage nobly on your back.\n    For my part, if a lie may do thee grace,\n    I'll gild it with the happiest terms I have.\n                                           A retreat is sounded.\n    The trumpet sounds retreat; the day is ours.\n    Come, brother, let's to the highest of the field,\n    To see what friends are living, who are dead.\n                          Exeunt [Prince Henry and Prince John].\n  Fal. I'll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards me, God\n    reward him! If I do grow great, I'll grow less; for I'll purge,\n    and leave sack, and live cleanly, as a nobleman should do.\n                                    Exit [bearing off the body].\n\n\n\n\nScene V.\nAnother part of the field.\n\nThe trumpets sound. [Enter the King, Prince of Wales, Lord John of Lancaster,\nEarl of Westmoreland, with Worcester and Vernon prisoners.\n\n  King. Thus ever did rebellion find rebuke.\n    Ill-spirited Worcester! did not we send grace,\n    Pardon, and terms of love to all of you?\n    And wouldst thou turn our offers contrary?\n    Misuse the tenour of thy kinsman's trust?\n    Three knights upon our party slain to-day,\n    A noble earl, and many a creature else\n    Had been alive this hour,\n    If like a Christian thou hadst truly borne\n    Betwixt our armies true intelligence.\n  Wor. What I have done my safety urg'd me to;\n    And I embrace this fortune patiently,\n    Since not to be avoided it fails on me.\n  King. Bear Worcester to the death, and Vernon too;\n    Other offenders we will pause upon.\n                         Exeunt Worcester and Vernon, [guarded].\n    How goes the field?\n  Prince. The noble Scot, Lord Douglas, when he saw\n    The fortune of the day quite turn'd from him,\n    The Noble Percy slain and all his men\n    Upon the foot of fear, fled with the rest;\n    And falling from a hill,he was so bruis'd\n    That the pursuers took him. At my tent\n    The Douglas is, and I beseech Your Grace\n    I may dispose of him.\n  King. With all my heart.\n  Prince. Then brother John of Lancaster, to you\n    This honourable bounty shall belong.\n    Go to the Douglas and deliver him\n    Up to his pleasure, ransomless and free.\n    His valour shown upon our crests today\n    Hath taught us how to cherish such high deeds,\n    Even in the bosom of our adversaries.\n  John. I thank your Grace for this high courtesy,\n    Which I shall give away immediately.\n  King. Then this remains, that we divide our power.\n    You, son John, and my cousin Westmoreland,\n    Towards York shall bend you with your dearest speed\n    To meet Northumberland and the prelate Scroop,\n    Who, as we hear, are busily in arms.\n    Myself and you, son Harry, will towards Wales\n    To fight with Glendower and the Earl of March.\n    Rebellion in this laud shall lose his sway,\n    Meeting the check of such another day;\n    And since this business so fair is done,\n    Let us not leave till all our own be won.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1598\n\n\nSECOND PART OF KING HENRY IV\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  RUMOUR, the Presenter\n  KING HENRY THE FOURTH\n\n  HENRY, PRINCE OF WALES, afterwards HENRY\n  PRINCE JOHN OF LANCASTER\n  PRINCE HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER\n  THOMAS, DUKE OF CLARENCE\n    Sons of Henry IV\n\n  EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND\n  SCROOP, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK\n  LORD MOWBRAY\n  LORD HASTINGS\n  LORD BARDOLPH\n  SIR JOHN COLVILLE\n  TRAVERS and MORTON, retainers of Northumberland\n    Opposites against King Henry IV\n\n  EARL OF WARWICK\n  EARL OF WESTMORELAND\n  EARL OF SURREY\n  EARL OF KENT\n  GOWER\n  HARCOURT\n  BLUNT\n    Of the King's party\n\n  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE\n  SERVANT, to Lord Chief Justice\n\n  SIR JOHN FALSTAFF\n  EDWARD POINS\n  BARDOLPH\n  PISTOL\n  PETO\n    Irregular humourists\n\n  PAGE, to Falstaff\n\n  ROBERT SHALLOW and SILENCE, country Justices\n  DAVY, servant to Shallow\n\n  FANG and SNARE, Sheriff's officers\n\n  RALPH MOULDY\n  SIMON SHADOW\n  THOMAS WART\n  FRANCIS FEEBLE\n  PETER BULLCALF\n    Country soldiers\n\n  FRANCIS, a drawer\n\n  LADY NORTHUMBERLAND\n  LADY PERCY, Percy's widow\n  HOSTESS QUICKLY, of the Boar's Head, Eastcheap\n  DOLL TEARSHEET\n\n  LORDS, Attendants, Porter, Drawers, Beadles, Grooms, Servants,\n    Speaker of the Epilogue\n\n                       SCENE: England\n\nINDUCTION\n                         INDUCTION.\n           Warkworth. Before NORTHUMBERLAND'S Castle\n\n            Enter RUMOUR, painted full of tongues\n\n  RUMOUR. Open your ears; for which of you will stop\n    The vent of hearing when loud Rumour speaks?\n    I, from the orient to the drooping west,\n    Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold\n    The acts commenced on this ball of earth.\n    Upon my tongues continual slanders ride,\n    The which in every language I pronounce,\n    Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.\n    I speak of peace while covert emnity,\n    Under the smile of safety, wounds the world;\n    And who but Rumour, who but only I,\n    Make fearful musters and prepar'd defence,\n    Whiles the big year, swoln with some other grief,\n    Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war,\n    And no such matter? Rumour is a pipe\n    Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures,\n    And of so easy and so plain a stop\n    That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,\n    The still-discordant wav'ring multitude,\n    Can play upon it. But what need I thus\n    My well-known body to anatomize\n    Among my household? Why is Rumour here?\n    I run before King Harry's victory,\n    Who, in a bloody field by Shrewsbury,\n    Hath beaten down young Hotspur and his troops,\n    Quenching the flame of bold rebellion\n    Even with the rebels' blood. But what mean I\n    To speak so true at first? My office is\n    To noise abroad that Harry Monmouth fell\n    Under the wrath of noble Hotspur's sword,\n    And that the King before the Douglas' rage\n    Stoop'd his anointed head as low as death.\n    This have I rumour'd through the peasant towns\n    Between that royal field of Shrewsbury\n    And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,\n    Where Hotspur's father, old Northumberland,\n    Lies crafty-sick. The posts come tiring on,\n    And not a man of them brings other news\n    Than they have learnt of me. From Rumour's tongues\n    They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs.\n Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nWarkworth. Before NORTHUMBERLAND'S Castle\n\nEnter LORD BARDOLPH\n\n  LORD BARDOLPH. Who keeps the gate here, ho?\n\n                   The PORTER opens the gate\n\n    Where is the Earl?\n  PORTER. What shall I say you are?\n  LORD BARDOLPH. Tell thou the Earl\n    That the Lord Bardolph doth attend him here.\n  PORTER. His lordship is walk'd forth into the orchard.\n    Please it your honour knock but at the gate,\n    And he himself will answer.\n\n                      Enter NORTHUMBERLAND\n\n  LORD BARDOLPH. Here comes the Earl.                Exit PORTER\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. What news, Lord Bardolph? Every minute now\n    Should be the father of some stratagem.\n    The times are wild; contention, like a horse\n    Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose\n    And bears down all before him.\n  LORD BARDOLPH. Noble Earl,\n    I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Good, an God will!\n  LORD BARDOLPH. As good as heart can wish.\n    The King is almost wounded to the death;\n    And, in the fortune of my lord your son,\n    Prince Harry slain outright; and both the Blunts\n    Kill'd by the hand of Douglas; young Prince John,\n    And Westmoreland, and Stafford, fled the field;\n    And Harry Monmouth's brawn, the hulk Sir John,\n    Is prisoner to your son. O, such a day,\n    So fought, so followed, and so fairly won,\n    Came not till now to dignify the times,\n    Since Cxsar's fortunes!\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. How is this deriv'd?\n    Saw you the field? Came you from Shrewsbury?\n  LORD BARDOLPH. I spake with one, my lord, that came from thence;\n    A gentleman well bred and of good name,\n    That freely rend'red me these news for true.\n\n                         Enter TRAVERS\n\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Here comes my servant Travers, whom I sent\n    On Tuesday last to listen after news.\n  LORD BARDOLPH. My lord, I over-rode him on the way;\n    And he is furnish'd with no certainties\n    More than he haply may retail from me.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Now, Travers, what good tidings comes with you?\n  TRAVERS. My lord, Sir John Umfrevile turn'd me back\n    With joyful tidings; and, being better hors'd,\n    Out-rode me. After him came spurring hard\n    A gentleman, almost forspent with speed,\n    That stopp'd by me to breathe his bloodied horse.\n    He ask'd the way to Chester; and of him\n    I did demand what news from Shrewsbury.\n    He told me that rebellion had bad luck,\n    And that young Harry Percy's spur was cold.\n    With that he gave his able horse the head\n    And, bending forward, struck his armed heels\n    Against the panting sides of his poor jade\n    Up to the rowel-head; and starting so,\n    He seem'd in running to devour the way,\n    Staying no longer question.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Ha! Again:\n    Said he young Harry Percy's spur was cold?\n    Of Hotspur, Coldspur? that rebellion\n    Had met ill luck?\n  LORD BARDOLPH. My lord, I'll tell you what:\n    If my young lord your son have not the day,\n    Upon mine honour, for a silken point\n    I'll give my barony. Never talk of it.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Why should that gentleman that rode by Travers\n    Give then such instances of loss?\n  LORD BARDOLPH. Who- he?\n    He was some hilding fellow that had stol'n\n    The horse he rode on and, upon my life,\n    Spoke at a venture. Look, here comes more news.\n\n                        Enter Morton\n\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Yea, this man's brow, like to a title-leaf,\n    Foretells the nature of a tragic volume.\n    So looks the strand whereon the imperious flood\n    Hath left a witness'd usurpation.\n    Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?\n  MORTON. I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord;\n    Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask\n    To fright our party.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. How doth my son and brother?\n    Thou tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek\n    Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.\n    Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,\n    So dull, so dread in look, so woe-begone,\n    Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night\n    And would have told him half his Troy was burnt;\n    But Priam found the fire ere he his tongue,\n    And I my Percy's death ere thou report'st it.\n    This thou wouldst say: 'Your son did thus and thus;\n    Your brother thus; so fought the noble Douglas'-\n    Stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds;\n    But in the end, to stop my ear indeed,\n    Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise,\n    Ending with 'Brother, son, and all, are dead.'\n  MORTON. Douglas is living, and your brother, yet;\n    But for my lord your son-\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Why, he is dead.\n    See what a ready tongue suspicion hath!\n    He that but fears the thing he would not know\n    Hath by instinct knowledge from others' eyes\n    That what he fear'd is chanced. Yet speak, Morton;\n    Tell thou an earl his divination lies,\n    And I will take it as a sweet disgrace\n    And make thee rich for doing me such wrong.\n  MORTON. You are too great to be by me gainsaid;\n    Your spirit is too true, your fears too certain.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Yet, for all this, say not that Percy's dead.\n    I see a strange confession in thine eye;\n    Thou shak'st thy head, and hold'st it fear or sin\n    To speak a truth. If he be slain, say so:\n    The tongue offends not that reports his death;\n    And he doth sin that doth belie the dead,\n    Not he which says the dead is not alive.\n    Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news\n    Hath but a losing office, and his tongue\n    Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,\n    Rememb'red tolling a departing friend.\n  LORD BARDOLPH. I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead.\n  MORTON. I am sorry I should force you to believe\n    That which I would to God I had not seen;\n    But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state,\n    Rend'ring faint quittance, wearied and out-breath'd,\n    To Harry Monmouth, whose swift wrath beat down\n    The never-daunted Percy to the earth,\n    From whence with life he never more sprung up.\n    In few, his death- whose spirit lent a fire\n    Even to the dullest peasant in his camp-\n    Being bruited once, took fire and heat away\n    From the best-temper'd courage in his troops;\n    For from his metal was his party steeled;\n    Which once in him abated, an the rest\n    Turn'd on themselves, like dull and heavy lead.\n    And as the thing that's heavy in itself\n    Upon enforcement flies with greatest speed,\n    So did our men, heavy in Hotspur's loss,\n    Lend to this weight such lightness with their fear\n    That arrows fled not swifter toward their aim\n    Than did our soldiers, aiming at their safety,\n    Fly from the field. Then was that noble Worcester\n    Too soon ta'en prisoner; and that furious Scot,\n    The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword\n    Had three times slain th' appearance of the King,\n    Gan vail his stomach and did grace the shame\n    Of those that turn'd their backs, and in his flight,\n    Stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of all\n    Is that the King hath won, and hath sent out\n    A speedy power to encounter you, my lord,\n    Under the conduct of young Lancaster\n    And Westmoreland. This is the news at full.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. For this I shall have time enough to mourn.\n    In poison there is physic; and these news,\n    Having been well, that would have made me sick,\n    Being sick, have in some measure made me well;\n    And as the wretch whose fever-weak'ned joints,\n    Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life,\n    Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fire\n    Out of his keeper's arms, even so my limbs,\n    Weak'ned with grief, being now enrag'd with grief,\n    Are thrice themselves. Hence, therefore, thou nice crutch!\n    A scaly gauntlet now with joints of steel\n    Must glove this hand; and hence, thou sickly coif!\n    Thou art a guard too wanton for the head\n    Which princes, flesh'd with conquest, aim to hit.\n    Now bind my brows with iron; and approach\n    The ragged'st hour that time and spite dare bring\n    To frown upon th' enrag'd Northumberland!\n    Let heaven kiss earth! Now let not Nature's hand\n    Keep the wild flood confin'd! Let order die!\n    And let this world no longer be a stage\n    To feed contention in a ling'ring act;\n    But let one spirit of the first-born Cain\n    Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set\n    On bloody courses, the rude scene may end\n    And darkness be the burier of the dead!\n  LORD BARDOLPH. This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord.\n  MORTON. Sweet Earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour.\n    The lives of all your loving complices\n    Lean on your health; the which, if you give o'er\n    To stormy passion, must perforce decay.\n    You cast th' event of war, my noble lord,\n    And summ'd the account of chance before you said\n    'Let us make head.' It was your pre-surmise\n    That in the dole of blows your son might drop.\n    You knew he walk'd o'er perils on an edge,\n    More likely to fall in than to get o'er;\n    You were advis'd his flesh was capable\n    Of wounds and scars, and that his forward spirit\n    Would lift him where most trade of danger rang'd;\n    Yet did you say 'Go forth'; and none of this,\n    Though strongly apprehended, could restrain\n    The stiff-borne action. What hath then befall'n,\n    Or what hath this bold enterprise brought forth\n    More than that being which was like to be?\n  LORD BARDOLPH. We all that are engaged to this loss\n    Knew that we ventured on such dangerous seas\n    That if we wrought out life 'twas ten to one;\n    And yet we ventur'd, for the gain propos'd\n    Chok'd the respect of likely peril fear'd;\n    And since we are o'erset, venture again.\n    Come, we will put forth, body and goods.\n  MORTON. 'Tis more than time. And, my most noble lord,\n    I hear for certain, and dare speak the truth:\n    The gentle Archbishop of York is up\n    With well-appointed pow'rs. He is a man\n    Who with a double surety binds his followers.\n    My lord your son had only but the corpse,\n    But shadows and the shows of men, to fight;\n    For that same word 'rebellion' did divide\n    The action of their bodies from their souls;\n    And they did fight with queasiness, constrain'd,\n    As men drink potions; that their weapons only\n    Seem'd on our side, but for their spirits and souls\n    This word 'rebellion'- it had froze them up,\n    As fish are in a pond. But now the Bishop\n    Turns insurrection to religion.\n    Suppos'd sincere and holy in his thoughts,\n    He's follow'd both with body and with mind;\n    And doth enlarge his rising with the blood\n    Of fair King Richard, scrap'd from Pomfret stones;\n    Derives from heaven his quarrel and his cause;\n    Tells them he doth bestride a bleeding land,\n    Gasping for life under great Bolingbroke;\n    And more and less do flock to follow him.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. I knew of this before; but, to speak truth,\n    This present grief had wip'd it from my mind.\n    Go in with me; and counsel every man\n    The aptest way for safety and revenge.\n    Get posts and letters, and make friends with speed-\n    Never so few, and never yet more need.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nLondon. A street\n\nEnter SIR JOHN FALSTAFF, with his PAGE bearing his sword and buckler\n\n  FALSTAFF. Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water?\n  PAGE. He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy water; but\n    for the party that owed it, he might have moe diseases than he\n    knew for.\n  FALSTAFF. Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me. The brain of\n    this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to invent anything\n    that intends to laughter, more than I invent or is invented on\n    me. I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in\n    other men. I do here walk before thee like a sow that hath\n    overwhelm'd all her litter but one. If the Prince put thee into\n    my service for any other reason than to set me off, why then I\n    have no judgment. Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be\n    worn in my cap than to wait at my heels. I was never mann'd with\n    an agate till now; but I will inset you neither in gold nor\n    silver, but in vile apparel, and send you back again to your\n    master, for a jewel- the juvenal, the Prince your master, whose\n    chin is not yet fledge. I will sooner have a beard grow in the\n    palm of my hand than he shall get one off his cheek; and yet he\n    will not stick to say his face is a face-royal. God may finish it\n    when he will, 'tis not a hair amiss yet. He may keep it still at\n    a face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence out of it;\n    and yet he'll be crowing as if he had writ man ever since his\n    father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he's almost\n    out of mine, I can assure him. What said Master Dommelton about\n    the satin for my short cloak and my slops?\n  PAGE. He said, sir, you should procure him better assurance than\n    Bardolph. He would not take his band and yours; he liked not the\n    security.\n  FALSTAFF. Let him be damn'd, like the Glutton; pray God his tongue\n    be hotter! A whoreson Achitophel! A rascal-yea-forsooth knave, to\n    bear a gentleman in hand, and then stand upon security! The\n    whoreson smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, and\n    bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is through with\n    them in honest taking-up, then they must stand upon security. I\n    had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth as offer to stop\n    it with security. I look'd 'a should have sent me two and twenty\n    yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and he sends me security.\n    Well, he may sleep in security; for he hath the horn of\n    abundance, and the lightness of his wife shines through it; and\n    yet cannot he see, though he have his own lanthorn to light him.\n    Where's Bardolph?\n  PAGE. He's gone into Smithfield to buy your worship horse.\n  FALSTAFF. I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me a horse in\n    Smithfield. An I could get me but a wife in the stews, I were\n    mann'd, hors'd, and wiv'd.\n\n              Enter the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE and SERVANT\n\n  PAGE. Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the\n    Prince for striking him about Bardolph.\n  FALSTAFF. Wait close; I will not see him.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. What's he that goes there?\n  SERVANT. Falstaff, an't please your lordship.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. He that was in question for the robb'ry?\n  SERVANT. He, my lord; but he hath since done good service at\n    Shrewsbury, and, as I hear, is now going with some charge to the\n    Lord John of Lancaster.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. What, to York? Call him back again.\n  SERVANT. Sir John Falstaff!\n  FALSTAFF. Boy, tell him I am deaf.\n  PAGE. You must speak louder; my master is deaf.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. I am sure he is, to the hearing of anything good.\n    Go, pluck him by the elbow; I must speak with him.\n  SERVANT. Sir John!\n  FALSTAFF. What! a young knave, and begging! Is there not wars? Is\n    there not employment? Doth not the King lack subjects? Do not the\n    rebels need soldiers? Though it be a shame to be on any side but\n    one, it is worse shame to beg than to be on the worst side, were\n    it worse than the name of rebellion can tell how to make it.\n  SERVANT. You mistake me, sir.\n  FALSTAFF. Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man? Setting my\n    knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied in my throat if I\n    had said so.\n  SERVANT. I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and your\n    soldiership aside; and give me leave to tell you you in your\n    throat, if you say I am any other than an honest man.\n  FALSTAFF. I give thee leave to tell me so! I lay aside that which\n    grows to me! If thou get'st any leave of me, hang me; if thou\n    tak'st leave, thou wert better be hang'd. You hunt counter.\n    Hence! Avaunt!\n  SERVANT. Sir, my lord would speak with you.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Sir John Falstaff, a word with you.\n  FALSTAFF. My good lord! God give your lordship good time of day. I\n    am glad to see your lordship abroad. I heard say your lordship\n    was sick; I hope your lordship goes abroad by advice. Your\n    lordship, though not clean past your youth, hath yet some smack\n    of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time; and I most\n    humbly beseech your lordship to have a reverend care of your\n    health.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to\n    Shrewsbury.\n  FALSTAFF. An't please your lordship, I hear his Majesty is return'd\n    with some discomfort from Wales.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. I talk not of his Majesty. You would not come when I\n    sent for you.\n  FALSTAFF. And I hear, moreover, his Highness is fall'n into this\n    same whoreson apoplexy.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Well God mend him! I pray you let me speak with you.\n  FALSTAFF. This apoplexy, as I take it, is a kind of lethargy, an't\n    please your lordship, a kind of sleeping in the blood, a whoreson\n    tingling.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. What tell you me of it? Be it as it is.\n  FALSTAFF. It hath it original from much grief, from study, and\n    perturbation of the brain. I have read the cause of his effects\n    in Galen; it is a kind of deafness.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. I think you are fall'n into the disease, for you\n    hear not what I say to you.\n  FALSTAFF. Very well, my lord, very well. Rather an't please you, it\n    is the disease of not listening, the malady of not marking, that\n    I am troubled withal.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. To punish you by the heels would amend the attention\n    of your ears; and I care not if I do become your physician.\n  FALSTAFF. I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient. Your\n    lordship may minister the potion of imprisonment to me in respect\n    of poverty; but how I should be your patient to follow your\n    prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a scruple, or\n    indeed a scruple itself.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. I sent for you, when there were matters against you\n    for your life, to come speak with me.\n  FALSTAFF. As I was then advis'd by my learned counsel in the laws\n    of this land-service, I did not come.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great\n    infamy.\n  FALSTAFF. He that buckles himself in my belt cannot live in less.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Your means are very slender, and your waste is\n    great.\n  FALSTAFF. I would it were otherwise; I would my means were greater\n    and my waist slenderer.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. You have misled the youthful Prince.\n  FALSTAFF. The young Prince hath misled me. I am the fellow with the\n    great belly, and he my dog.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Well, I am loath to gall a new-heal'd wound. Your\n    day's service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your\n    night's exploit on Gadshill. You may thank th' unquiet time for\n    your quiet o'erposting that action.\n  FALSTAFF. My lord-\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a\n    sleeping wolf.\n  FALSTAFF. To wake a wolf is as bad as smell a fox.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt\n    out.\n  FALSTAFF. A wassail candle, my lord- all tallow; if I did say of\n    wax, my growth would approve the truth.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. There is not a white hair in your face but should\n    have his effect of gravity.\n  FALSTAFF. His effect of gravy, gravy,\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. You follow the young Prince up and down, like his\n    ill angel.\n  FALSTAFF. Not so, my lord. Your ill angel is light; but  hope he\n    that looks upon me will take me without weighing. And yet in some\n    respects, I grant, I cannot go- I cannot tell. Virtue is of so\n    little regard in these costermongers' times that true valour is\n    turn'd berod; pregnancy is made a tapster, and his quick wit\n    wasted in giving reckonings; all the other gifts appertinent to\n    man, as the malice of this age shapes them, are not worth a\n    gooseberry. You that are old consider not the capacities of us\n    that are young; you do measure the heat of our livers with the\n    bitterness of your galls; and we that are in the vaward of our\n    youth, must confess, are wags too.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth,\n    that are written down old with all the characters of age? Have\n    you not a moist eye, a dry hand, a yellow cheek, a white beard, a\n    decreasing leg, an increasing belly? Is not your voice broken,\n    your wind short, your chin double, your wit single, and every\n    part about you blasted with antiquity? And will you yet call\n    yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir John!\n  FALSTAFF. My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the\n    afternoon, with a white head and something a round belly. For my\n    voice- I have lost it with hallooing and singing of anthems. To\n    approve my youth further, I will not. The truth is, I am only old\n    in judgment and understanding; and he that will caper with me for\n    a thousand marks, let him lend me the money, and have at him. For\n    the box of the ear that the Prince gave you- he gave it like a\n    rude prince, and you took it like a sensible lord. I have check'd\n    him for it; and the young lion repents- marry, not in ashes and\n    sackcloth, but in new silk and old sack.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Well, God send the Prince a better companion!\n  FALSTAFF. God send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my\n    hands of him.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Well, the King hath sever'd you. I hear you are\n    going with Lord John of Lancaster against the Archbishop and the\n    Earl of Northumberland.\n  FALSTAFF. Yea; I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look you\n    pray, all you that kiss my Lady Peace at home, that our armies\n    join not in a hot day; for, by the Lord, I take but two shirts\n    out with me, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily. If it be a\n    hot day, and I brandish anything but a bottle, I would I might\n    never spit white again. There is not a dangerous action can peep\n    out his head but I am thrust upon it. Well, I cannot last ever;\n    but it was alway yet the trick of our English nation, if they\n    have a good thing, to make it too common. If ye will needs say I\n    am an old man, you should give me rest. I would to God my name\n    were not so terrible to the enemy as it is. I were better to be\n    eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with\n    perpetual motion.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Well, be honest, be honest; and God bless your\n    expedition!\n  FALSTAFF. Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound to furnish me\n    forth?\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Not a penny, not a penny; you are too impatient to\n    bear crosses. Fare you well. Commend me to my cousin\n    Westmoreland.\n                                Exeunt CHIEF JUSTICE and SERVANT\n  FALSTAFF. If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle. A man can no\n    more separate age and covetousness than 'a can part young limbs\n    and lechery; but the gout galls the one, and the pox pinches the\n    other; and so both the degrees prevent my curses. Boy!\n  PAGE. Sir?\n  FALSTAFF. What money is in my purse?\n  PAGE. Seven groats and two pence.\n  FALSTAFF. I can get no remedy against this consumption of the\n    purse; borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease\n    is incurable. Go bear this letter to my Lord of Lancaster; this\n    to the Prince; this to the Earl of Westmoreland; and this to old\n    Mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly sworn to marry since I\n    perceiv'd the first white hair of my chin. About it; you know\n    where to find me.  [Exit PAGE]  A pox of this gout! or, a gout of\n    this pox! for the one or the other plays the rogue with my great\n    toe. 'Tis no matter if I do halt; I have the wars for my colour,\n    and my pension shall seem the more reasonable. A good wit will\n    make use of anything. I will turn diseases to commodity.\n Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nYork. The ARCHBISHOP'S palace\n\nEnter the ARCHBISHOP, THOMAS MOWBRAY the EARL MARSHAL, LORD HASTINGS,\nand LORD BARDOLPH\n\n  ARCHBISHOP. Thus have you heard our cause and known our means;\n    And, my most noble friends, I pray you all\n    Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes-\n    And first, Lord Marshal, what say you to it?\n  MOWBRAY. I well allow the occasion of our amis;\n    But gladly would be better satisfied\n    How, in our means, we should advance ourselves\n    To look with forehead bold and big enough\n    Upon the power and puissance of the King.\n  HASTINGS. Our present musters grow upon the file\n    To five and twenty thousand men of choice;\n    And our supplies live largely in the hope\n    Of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns\n    With an incensed fire of injuries.\n  LORD BARDOLPH. The question then, Lord Hastings, standeth thus:\n    Whether our present five and twenty thousand\n    May hold up head without Northumberland?\n  HASTINGS. With him, we may.\n  LORD BARDOLPH. Yea, marry, there's the point;\n    But if without him we be thought too feeble,\n    My judgment is we should not step too far\n    Till we had his assistance by the hand;\n    For, in a theme so bloody-fac'd as this,\n    Conjecture, expectation, and surmise\n    Of aids incertain, should not be admitted.\n  ARCHBISHOP. 'Tis very true, Lord Bardolph; for indeed\n    It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury.\n  LORD BARDOLPH. It was, my lord; who lin'd himself with hope,\n    Eating the air and promise of supply,\n    Flatt'ring himself in project of a power\n    Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts;\n    And so, with great imagination\n    Proper to madmen, led his powers to death,\n    And, winking, leapt into destruction.\n  HASTINGS. But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt\n    To lay down likelihoods and forms of hope.\n  LORD BARDOLPH. Yes, if this present quality of war-\n    Indeed the instant action, a cause on foot-\n    Lives so in hope, as in an early spring\n    We see th' appearing buds; which to prove fruit\n    Hope gives not so much warrant, as despair\n    That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build,\n    We first survey the plot, then draw the model;\n    And when we see the figure of the house,\n    Then we must rate the cost of the erection;\n    Which if we find outweighs ability,\n    What do we then but draw anew the model\n    In fewer offices, or at least desist\n    To build at all? Much more, in this great work-\n    Which is almost to pluck a kingdom down\n    And set another up- should we survey\n    The plot of situation and the model,\n    Consent upon a sure foundation,\n    Question surveyors, know our own estate\n    How able such a work to undergo-\n    To weigh against his opposite; or else\n    We fortify in paper and in figures,\n    Using the names of men instead of men;\n    Like one that draws the model of a house\n    Beyond his power to build it; who, half through,\n    Gives o'er and leaves his part-created cost\n    A naked subject to the weeping clouds\n    And waste for churlish winter's tyranny.\n  HASTINGS. Grant that our hopes- yet likely of fair birth-\n    Should be still-born, and that we now possess'd\n    The utmost man of expectation,\n    I think we are so a body strong enough,\n    Even as we are, to equal with the King.\n  LORD BARDOLPH. What, is the King but five and twenty thousand?\n  HASTINGS. To us no more; nay, not so much, Lord Bardolph;\n    For his divisions, as the times do brawl,\n    Are in three heads: one power against the French,\n    And one against Glendower; perforce a third\n    Must take up us. So is the unfirm King\n    In three divided; and his coffers sound\n    With hollow poverty and emptiness.\n  ARCHBISHOP. That he should draw his several strengths together\n    And come against us in full puissance\n    Need not be dreaded.\n  HASTINGS. If he should do so,\n    He leaves his back unarm'd, the French and Welsh\n    Baying at his heels. Never fear that.\n  LORD BARDOLPH. Who is it like should lead his forces hither?\n  HASTINGS. The Duke of Lancaster and Westmoreland;\n    Against the Welsh, himself and Harry Monmouth;\n    But who is substituted against the French\n    I have no certain notice.\n  ARCHBISHOP. Let us on,\n    And publish the occasion of our arms.\n    The commonwealth is sick of their own choice;\n    Their over-greedy love hath surfeited.\n    An habitation giddy and unsure\n    Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart.\n    O thou fond many, with what loud applause\n    Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke\n    Before he was what thou wouldst have him be!\n    And being now trimm'd in thine own desires,\n    Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him\n    That thou provok'st thyself to cast him up.\n    So, so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge\n    Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard;\n    And now thou wouldst eat thy dead vomit up,\n    And howl'st to find it. What trust is in these times?\n    They that, when Richard liv'd, would have him die\n    Are now become enamour'd on his grave.\n    Thou that threw'st dust upon his goodly head,\n    When through proud London he came sighing on\n    After th' admired heels of Bolingbroke,\n    Criest now 'O earth, yield us that king again,\n    And take thou this!' O thoughts of men accurs'd!\n    Past and to come seems best; things present, worst.\n  MOWBRAY. Shall we go draw our numbers, and set on?\n  HASTINGS. We are time's subjects, and time bids be gone.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nLondon. A street\n\nEnter HOSTESS with two officers, FANG and SNARE\n\n  HOSTESS. Master Fang, have you ent'red the action?\n  FANG. It is ent'red.\n  HOSTESS. Where's your yeoman? Is't a lusty yeoman? Will 'a stand\n    to't?\n  FANG. Sirrah, where's Snare?\n  HOSTESS. O Lord, ay! good Master Snare.\n  SNARE. Here, here.\n  FANG. Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff.\n  HOSTESS. Yea, good Master Snare; I have ent'red him and all.\n  SNARE. It may chance cost some of our lives, for he will stab.\n  HOSTESS. Alas the day! take heed of him; he stabb'd me in mine own\n    house, and that most beastly. In good faith, 'a cares not what\n    mischief he does, if his weapon be out; he will foin like any\n    devil; he will spare neither man, woman, nor child.\n  FANG. If I can close with him, I care not for his thrust.\n  HOSTESS. No, nor I neither; I'll be at your elbow.\n  FANG. An I but fist him once; an 'a come but within my vice!\n  HOSTESS. I am undone by his going; I warrant you, he's an\n    infinitive thing upon my score. Good Master Fang, hold him sure.\n    Good Master Snare, let him not scape. 'A comes continuantly to\n    Pie-corner- saving your manhoods- to buy a saddle; and he is\n    indited to dinner to the Lubber's Head in Lumbert Street, to\n    Master Smooth's the silkman. I pray you, since my exion is\n    ent'red, and my case so openly known to the world, let him be\n    brought in to his answer. A hundred mark is a long one for a poor\n    lone woman to bear; and I have borne, and borne, and borne; and\n    have been fubb'd off, and fubb'd off, and fubb'd off, from this\n    day to that day, that it is a shame to be thought on. There is no\n    honesty in such dealing; unless a woman should be made an ass and\n    a beast, to bear every knave's wrong.\n\n            Enter SIR JOHN FALSTAFF, PAGE, and BARDOLPH\n\n    Yonder he comes; and that arrant malmsey-nose knave, Bardolph,\n    with him. Do your offices, do your offices, Master Fang and\n    Master Snare; do me, do me, do me your offices.\n  FALSTAFF. How now! whose mare's dead? What's the matter?\n  FANG. Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of Mistress Quickly.\n  FALSTAFF. Away, varlets! Draw, Bardolph. Cut me off the villian's\n    head. Throw the quean in the channel.\n  HOSTESS. Throw me in the channel! I'll throw thee in the channel.\n    Wilt thou? wilt thou? thou bastardly rogue! Murder, murder! Ah,\n    thou honeysuckle villain! wilt thou kill God's officers and the\n    King's? Ah, thou honey-seed rogue! thou art a honey-seed; a\n    man-queller and a woman-queller.\n  FALSTAFF. Keep them off, Bardolph.\n  FANG. A rescue! a rescue!\n  HOSTESS. Good people, bring a rescue or two. Thou wot, wot thou!\n    thou wot, wot ta? Do, do, thou rogue! do, thou hemp-seed!\n  PAGE. Away, you scullion! you rampallian! you fustilarian!\n    I'll tickle your catastrophe.\n\n              Enter the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE and his men\n\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. What is the matter? Keep the peace here, ho!\n  HOSTESS. Good my lord, be good to me. I beseech you, stand to me.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. How now, Sir John! what, are you brawling here?\n    Doth this become your place, your time, and business?\n    You should have been well on your way to York.\n    Stand from him, fellow; wherefore hang'st thou upon him?\n  HOSTESS. O My most worshipful lord, an't please your Grace, I am a\n    poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. For what sum?\n  HOSTESS. It is more than for some, my lord; it is for all- all I\n    have. He hath eaten me out of house and home; he hath put all my\n    substance into that fat belly of his. But I will have some of it\n    out again, or I will ride thee a nights like a mare.\n  FALSTAFF. I think I am as like to ride the mare, if I have any\n    vantage of ground to get up.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. How comes this, Sir John? Fie! What man of good\n    temper would endure this tempest of exclamation? Are you not\n    ashamed to enforce a poor widow to so rough a course to come by\n    her own?\n  FALSTAFF. What is the gross sum that I owe thee?\n  HOSTESS. Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself and the money\n    too. Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in\n    my Dolphin chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, upon\n    Wednesday in Wheeson week, when the Prince broke thy head for\n    liking his father to singing-man of Windsor- thou didst swear to\n    me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me and make me my\n    lady thy wife. Canst thou deny it? Did not goodwife Keech, the\n    butcher's wife, come in then and call me gossip Quickly? Coming\n    in to borrow a mess of vinegar, telling us she had a good dish of\n    prawns, whereby thou didst desire to eat some, whereby I told\n    thee they were ill for green wound? And didst thou not, when she\n    was gone down stairs, desire me to be no more so familiarity with\n    such poor people, saying that ere long they should call me madam?\n    And didst thou not kiss me, and bid me fetch the thirty\n    shillings? I put thee now to thy book-oath. Deny it, if thou\n    canst.\n  FALSTAFF. My lord, this is a poor mad soul, and she says up and\n    down the town that her eldest son is like you. She hath been in\n    good case, and, the truth is, poverty hath distracted her. But\n    for these foolish officers, I beseech you I may have redress\n    against them.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Sir John, Sir John, I am well acquainted with your\n    manner of wrenching the true cause the false way. It is not a\n    confident brow, nor the throng of words that come with such more\n    than impudent sauciness from you, can thrust me from a level\n    consideration. You have, as it appears to me, practis'd upon the\n    easy yielding spirit of this woman, and made her serve your uses\n    both in purse and in person.\n  HOSTESS. Yea, in truth, my lord.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Pray thee, peace. Pay her the debt you owe her, and\n    unpay the villainy you have done with her; the one you may do\n    with sterling money, and the other with current repentance.\n  FALSTAFF. My lord, I will not undergo this sneap without reply. You\n    call honourable boldness impudent sauciness; if a man will make\n    curtsy and say nothing, he is virtuous. No, my lord, my humble\n    duty rememb'red, I will not be your suitor. I say to you I do\n    desire deliverance from these officers, being upon hasty\n    employment in the King's affairs.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. You speak as having power to do wrong; but answer in\n    th' effect of your reputation, and satisfy the poor woman.\n  FALSTAFF. Come hither, hostess.\n\n                               Enter GOWER\n\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Now, Master Gower, what news?\n  GOWER. The King, my lord, and Harry Prince of Wales\n    Are near at hand. The rest the paper tells. [Gives a letter]\n  FALSTAFF. As I am a gentleman!\n  HOSTESS. Faith, you said so before.\n  FALSTAFF. As I am a gentleman! Come, no more words of it.\n  HOSTESS. By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be fain to pawn\n    both my plate and the tapestry of my dining-chambers.\n  FALSTAFF. Glasses, glasses, is the only drinking; and for thy\n    walls, a pretty slight drollery, or the story of the Prodigal, or\n    the German hunting, in water-work, is worth a thousand of these\n    bed-hangers and these fly-bitten tapestries. Let it be ten pound,\n    if thou canst. Come, and 'twere not for thy humours, there's not\n    a better wench in England. Go, wash thy face, and draw the\n    action. Come, thou must not be in this humour with me; dost not\n    know me? Come, come, I know thou wast set on to this.\n  HOSTESS. Pray thee, Sir John, let it be but twenty nobles;\n    i' faith, I am loath to pawn my plate, so God save me, la!\n  FALSTAFF. Let it alone; I'll make other shift. You'll be a fool\n    still.\n  HOSTESS. Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my gown.\n    I hope you'll come to supper. you'll pay me all together?\n  FALSTAFF. Will I live?  [To BARDOLPH]  Go, with her, with her; hook\n    on, hook on.\n  HOSTESS. Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at supper?\n  FALSTAFF. No more words; let's have her.\n                          Exeunt HOSTESS, BARDOLPH, and OFFICERS\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. I have heard better news.\n  FALSTAFF. What's the news, my lord?\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Where lay the King to-night?\n  GOWER. At Basingstoke, my lord.\n  FALSTAFF. I hope, my lord, all's well. What is the news, my lord?\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Come all his forces back?\n  GOWER. No; fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse,\n    Are march'd up to my Lord of Lancaster,\n    Against Northumberland and the Archbishop.\n  FALSTAFF. Comes the King back from Wales, my noble lord?\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. You shall have letters of me presently.\n    Come, go along with me, good Master Gower.\n  FALSTAFF. My lord!\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. What's the matter?\n  FALSTAFF. Master Gower, shall I entreat you with me to dinner?\n  GOWER. I must wait upon my good lord here, I thank you, good Sir\n    John.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Sir John, you loiter here too long, being you are to\n    take soldiers up in counties as you go.\n  FALSTAFF. Will you sup with me, Master Gower?\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. What foolish master taught you these manners, Sir\n    John?\n  FALSTAFF. Master Gower, if they become me not, he was a fool that\n    taught them me. This is the right fencing grace, my lord; tap for\n    tap, and so part fair.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Now, the Lord lighten thee! Thou art a great fool.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nLondon. Another street\n\nEnter PRINCE HENRY and POINS\n\n  PRINCE. Before God, I am exceeding weary.\n  POINS. Is't come to that? I had thought weariness durst not have\n    attach'd one of so high blood.\n  PRINCE. Faith, it does me; though it discolours the complexion of\n    my greatness to acknowledge it. Doth it not show vilely in me to\n    desire small beer?\n  POINS. Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied as to\n    remember so weak a composition.\n  PRINCE. Belike then my appetite was not-princely got; for, by my\n    troth, I do now remember the poor creature, small beer. But\n    indeed these humble considerations make me out of love with my\n    greatness. What a disgrace is it to me to remember thy name, or\n    to know thy face to-morrow, or to take note how many pair of silk\n    stockings thou hast- viz., these, and those that were thy\n    peach-colour'd ones- or to bear the inventory of thy shirts- as,\n    one for superfluity, and another for use! But that the\n    tennis-court-keeper knows better than I; for it is a low ebb of\n    linen with thee when thou keepest not racket there; as thou hast\n    not done a great while, because the rest of thy low countries\n    have made a shift to eat up thy holland. And God knows whether\n    those that bawl out of the ruins of thy linen shall inherit his\n    kingdom; but the midwives say the children are not in the fault;\n    whereupon the world increases, and kindreds are mightily\n    strengthened.\n  POINS. How ill it follows, after you have laboured so hard, you\n    should talk so idly! Tell me, how many good young princes would\n    do so, their fathers being so sick as yours at this time is?\n  PRINCE. Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins?\n  POINS. Yes, faith; and let it be an excellent good thing.\n  PRINCE. It shall serve among wits of no higher breeding than thine.\n  POINS. Go to; I stand the push of your one thing that you will\n    tell.\n  PRINCE. Marry, I tell thee it is not meet that I should be sad, now\n    my father is sick; albeit I could tell to thee- as to one it\n    pleases me, for fault of a better, to call my friend- I could be\n    sad and sad indeed too.\n  POINS. Very hardly upon such a subject.\n  PRINCE. By this hand, thou thinkest me as far in the devil's book\n    as thou and Falstaff for obduracy and persistency: let the end\n    try the man. But I tell thee my heart bleeds inwardly that my\n    father is so sick; and keeping such vile company as thou art hath\n    in reason taken from me all ostentation of sorrow.\n  POINS. The reason?\n  PRINCE. What wouldst thou think of me if I should weep?\n  POINS. I would think thee a most princely hypocrite.\n  PRINCE. It would be every man's thought; and thou art a blessed\n    fellow to think as every man thinks. Never a man's thought in the\n    world keeps the road-way better than thine. Every man would think\n    me an hypocrite indeed. And what accites your most worshipful\n    thought to think so?\n  POINS. Why, because you have been so lewd and so much engraffed to\n    Falstaff.\n  PRINCE. And to thee.\n  POINS. By this light, I am well spoke on; I can hear it with mine\n    own ears. The worst that they can say of me is that I am a second\n    brother and that I am a proper fellow of my hands; and those two\n    things, I confess, I cannot help. By the mass, here comes\n    Bardolph.\n\n                         Enter BARDOLPH and PAGE\n\n  PRINCE. And the boy that I gave Falstaff. 'A had him from me\n    Christian; and look if the fat villain have not transform'd him\n    ape.\n  BARDOLPH. God save your Grace!\n  PRINCE. And yours, most noble Bardolph!\n  POINS. Come, you virtuous ass, you bashful fool, must you be\n    blushing? Wherefore blush you now? What a maidenly man-at-arms\n    are you become! Is't such a matter to get a pottle-pot's\n    maidenhead?\n  PAGE. 'A calls me e'en now, my lord, through a red lattice, and I\n    could discern no part of his face from the window. At last I\n    spied his eyes; and methought he had made two holes in the\n    alewife's new petticoat, and so peep'd through.\n  PRINCE. Has not the boy profited?\n  BARDOLPH. Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away!\n  PAGE. Away, you rascally Althaea's dream, away!\n  PRINCE. Instruct us, boy; what dream, boy?\n  PAGE. Marry, my lord, Althaea dreamt she was delivered of a\n    firebrand; and therefore I call him her dream.\n  PRINCE. A crown's worth of good interpretation. There 'tis, boy.\n                                                [Giving a crown]\n  POINS. O that this blossom could be kept from cankers!\n    Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee.\n  BARDOLPH. An you do not make him be hang'd among you, the gallows\n    shall have wrong.\n  PRINCE. And how doth thy master, Bardolph?\n  BARDOLPH. Well, my lord. He heard of your Grace's coming to town.\n    There's a letter for you.\n  POINS. Deliver'd with good respect. And how doth the martlemas,\n    your master?\n  BARDOLPH. In bodily health, sir.\n  POINS. Marry, the immortal part needs a physician; but that moves\n    not him. Though that be sick, it dies not.\n  PRINCE. I do allow this well to be as familiar with me as my dog;\n    and he holds his place, for look you how he writes.\n  POINS.  [Reads]  'John Falstaff, knight'- Every man must know that\n    as oft as he has occasion to name himself, even like those that\n    are kin to the King; for they never prick their finger but they\n    say 'There's some of the King's blood spilt.' 'How comes that?'\n    says he that takes upon him not to conceive. The answer is as\n    ready as a borrower's cap: 'I am the King's poor cousin, sir.'\n  PRINCE. Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it from\n    Japhet. But the letter:  [Reads]  'Sir John Falstaff, knight, to\n    the son of the King nearest his father, Harry Prince of Wales,\n    greeting.'\n  POINS. Why, this is a certificate.\n  PRINCE. Peace!  [Reads]  'I will imitate the honourable Romans in\n    brevity.'-\n  POINS. He sure means brevity in breath, short-winded.\n  PRINCE.  [Reads]  'I commend me to thee, I commend thee, and I\n    leave thee. Be not too familiar with Poins; for he misuses thy\n    favours so much that he swears thou art to marry his sister Nell.\n    Repent at idle times as thou mayst, and so farewell.\n      Thine, by yea and no- which is as much as to say as\n        thou usest him- JACK FALSTAFF with my familiars,\n        JOHN with my brothers and sisters, and SIR JOHN with\n        all Europe.'\n  POINS. My lord, I'll steep this letter in sack and make him eat it.\n  PRINCE. That's to make him eat twenty of his words. But do you use\n    me thus, Ned? Must I marry your sister?\n  POINS. God send the wench no worse fortune! But I never said so.\n  PRINCE. Well, thus we play the fools with the time, and the spirits\n    of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us. Is your master here in\n    London?\n  BARDOLPH. Yea, my lord.\n  PRINCE. Where sups he? Doth the old boar feed in the old frank?\n  BARDOLPH. At the old place, my lord, in Eastcheap.\n  PRINCE. What company?\n  PAGE. Ephesians, my lord, of the old church.\n  PRINCE. Sup any women with him?\n  PAGE. None, my lord, but old Mistress Quickly and Mistress Doll\n    Tearsheet.\n  PRINCE. What pagan may that be?\n  PAGE. A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kinswoman of my master's.\n  PRINCE. Even such kin as the parish heifers are to the town bull.\n    Shall we steal upon them, Ned, at supper?\n  POINS. I am your shadow, my lord; I'll follow you.\n  PRINCE. Sirrah, you boy, and Bardolph, no word to your master that\n    I am yet come to town. There's for your silence.\n  BARDOLPH. I have no tongue, sir.\n  PAGE. And for mine, sir, I will govern it.\n  PRINCE. Fare you well; go.            Exeunt BARDOLPH and PAGE\n    This Doll Tearsheet should be some road.\n  POINS. I warrant you, as common as the way between Saint Albans and\n    London.\n  PRINCE. How might we see Falstaff bestow himself to-night in his\n    true colours, and not ourselves be seen?\n  POINS. Put on two leathern jerkins and aprons, and wait upon him at\n    his table as drawers.\n  PRINCE. From a god to a bull? A heavy descension! It was Jove's\n    case. From a prince to a prentice? A low transformation! That\n    shall be mine; for in everything the purpose must weigh with the\n    folly. Follow me, Ned.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nWarkworth. Before the castle\n\nEnter NORTHUMBERLAND, LADY NORTHUMBERLAND, and LADY PERCY\n\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. I pray thee, loving wife, and gentle daughter,\n    Give even way unto my rough affairs;\n    Put not you on the visage of the times\n    And be, like them, to Percy troublesome.\n  LADY NORTHUMBERLAND. I have given over, I will speak no more.\n    Do what you will; your wisdom be your guide.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Alas, sweet wife, my honour is at pawn;\n    And but my going nothing can redeem it.\n  LADY PERCY. O, yet, for God's sake, go not to these wars!\n    The time was, father, that you broke your word,\n    When you were more endear'd to it than now;\n    When your own Percy, when my heart's dear Harry,\n    Threw many a northward look to see his father\n    Bring up his powers; but he did long in vain.\n    Who then persuaded you to stay at home?\n    There were two honours lost, yours and your son's.\n    For yours, the God of heaven brighten it!\n    For his, it stuck upon him as the sun\n    In the grey vault of heaven; and by his light\n    Did all the chivalry of England move\n    To do brave acts. He was indeed the glass\n    Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves.\n    He had no legs that practis'd not his gait;\n    And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish,\n    Became the accents of the valiant;\n    For those who could speak low and tardily\n    Would turn their own perfection to abuse\n    To seem like him: so that in speech, in gait,\n    In diet, in affections of delight,\n    In military rules, humours of blood,\n    He was the mark and glass, copy and book,\n    That fashion'd others. And him- O wondrous him!\n    O miracle of men!- him did you leave-\n    Second to none, unseconded by you-\n    To look upon the hideous god of war\n    In disadvantage, to abide a field\n    Where nothing but the sound of Hotspur's name\n    Did seem defensible. So you left him.\n    Never, O never, do his ghost the wrong\n    To hold your honour more precise and nice\n    With others than with him! Let them alone.\n    The Marshal and the Archbishop are strong.\n    Had my sweet Harry had but half their numbers,\n    To-day might I, hanging on Hotspur's neck,\n    Have talk'd of Monmouth's grave.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Beshrew your heart,\n    Fair daughter, you do draw my spirits from me\n    With new lamenting ancient oversights.\n    But I must go and meet with danger there,\n    Or it will seek me in another place,\n    And find me worse provided.\n  LADY NORTHUMBERLAND. O, fly to Scotland\n    Till that the nobles and the armed commons\n    Have of their puissance made a little taste.\n  LADY PERCY. If they get ground and vantage of the King,\n    Then join you with them, like a rib of steel,\n    To make strength stronger; but, for all our loves,\n    First let them try themselves. So did your son;\n    He was so suff'red; so came I a widow;\n    And never shall have length of life enough\n    To rain upon remembrance with mine eyes,\n    That it may grow and sprout as high as heaven,\n    For recordation to my noble husband.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Come, come, go in with me. 'Tis with my mind\n    As with the tide swell'd up unto his height,\n    That makes a still-stand, running neither way.\n    Fain would I go to meet the Archbishop,\n    But many thousand reasons hold me back.\n    I will resolve for Scotland. There am I,\n    Till time and vantage crave my company.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nLondon. The Boar's Head Tavern in Eastcheap\n\nEnter FRANCIS and another DRAWER\n\n  FRANCIS. What the devil hast thou brought there-apple-johns? Thou\n    knowest Sir John cannot endure an apple-john.\n  SECOND DRAWER. Mass, thou say'st true. The Prince once set a dish\n    of apple-johns before him, and told him there were five more Sir\n    Johns; and, putting off his hat, said 'I will now take my leave\n    of these six dry, round, old, withered knights.' It ang'red him\n    to the heart; but he hath forgot that.\n  FRANCIS. Why, then, cover and set them down; and see if thou canst\n    find out Sneak's noise; Mistress Tearsheet would fain hear some\n    music.\n\n                        Enter third DRAWER\n\n  THIRD DRAWER. Dispatch! The room where they supp'd is too hot;\n    they'll come in straight.\n  FRANCIS. Sirrah, here will be the Prince and Master Poins anon; and\n    they will put on two of our jerkins and aprons; and Sir John must\n    not know of it. Bardolph hath brought word.\n  THIRD DRAWER. By the mass, here will be old uds; it will be an\n    excellent stratagem.\n  SECOND DRAWER. I'll see if I can find out Sneak.\n                                 Exeunt second and third DRAWERS\n\n                Enter HOSTESS and DOLL TEARSHEET\n\n  HOSTESS. I' faith, sweetheart, methinks now you are in an excellent\n    good temperality. Your pulsidge beats as extraordinarily as heart\n    would desire; and your colour, I warrant you, is as red as any\n    rose, in good truth, la! But, i' faith, you have drunk too much\n    canaries; and that's a marvellous searching wine, and it perfumes\n    the blood ere one can say 'What's this?' How do you now?\n  DOLL. Better than I was- hem.\n  HOSTESS. Why, that's well said; a good heart's worth gold.\n    Lo, here comes Sir John.\n\n                          Enter FALSTAFF\n\n  FALSTAFF.  [Singing]  'When Arthur first in court'- Empty the\n    jordan.  [Exit FRANCIS]- [Singing]  'And was a worthy king'- How\n    now, Mistress Doll!\n  HOSTESS. Sick of a calm; yea, good faith.\n  FALSTAFF. So is all her sect; and they be once in a calm, they are\n    sick.\n  DOLL. A pox damn you, you muddy rascal! Is that all the comfort you\n    give me?\n  FALSTAFF. You make fat rascals, Mistress Doll.\n  DOLL. I make them! Gluttony and diseases make them: I make them\n    not.\n  FALSTAFF. If the cook help to make the gluttony, you help to make\n    the diseases, Doll. We catch of you, Doll, we catch of you; grant\n    that, my poor virtue, grant that.\n  DOLL. Yea, joy, our chains and our jewels.\n  FALSTAFF. 'Your brooches, pearls, and ouches.' For to serve bravely\n    is to come halting off; you know, to come off the breach with his\n    pike bent bravely, and to surgery bravely; to venture upon the\n    charg'd chambers bravely-\n  DOLL. Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself!\n  HOSTESS. By my troth, this is the old fashion; you two never meet\n    but you fall to some discord. You are both, i' good truth, as\n    rheumatic as two dry toasts; you cannot one bear with another's\n    confirmities. What the good-year! one must bear, and that must be\n    you. You are the weaker vessel, as as they say, the emptier\n    vessel.\n  DOLL. Can a weak empty vessel bear such a huge full hogs-head?\n    There's a whole merchant's venture of Bourdeaux stuff in him; you\n    have not seen a hulk better stuff'd in the hold. Come, I'll be\n    friends with thee, Jack. Thou art going to the wars; and whether\n    I shall ever see thee again or no, there is nobody cares.\n\n                            Re-enter FRANCIS\n\n  FRANCIS. Sir, Ancient Pistol's below and would speak with you.\n  DOLL. Hang him, swaggering rascal! Let him not come hither; it is\n    the foul-mouth'dst rogue in England.\n  HOSTESS. If he swagger, let him not come here. No, by my faith! I\n    must live among my neighbours; I'll no swaggerers. I am in good\n    name and fame with the very best. Shut the door. There comes no\n    swaggerers here; I have not liv'd all this while to have\n    swaggering now. Shut the door, I pray you.\n  FALSTAFF. Dost thou hear, hostess?\n  HOSTESS. Pray ye, pacify yourself, Sir John; there comes no\n    swaggerers here.\n  FALSTAFF. Dost thou hear? It is mine ancient.\n  HOSTESS. Tilly-fally, Sir John, ne'er tell me; and your ancient\n    swagg'rer comes not in my doors. I was before Master Tisick, the\n    debuty, t' other day; and, as he said to me- 'twas no longer ago\n    than Wednesday last, i' good faith!- 'Neighbour Quickly,' says\n    he- Master Dumbe, our minister, was by then- 'Neighbour Quickly,'\n    says he 'receive those that are civil, for' said he 'you are in\n    an ill name.' Now 'a said so, I can tell whereupon. 'For' says he\n    'you are an honest woman and well thought on, therefore take heed\n    what guests you receive. Receive' says he 'no swaggering\n    companions.' There comes none here. You would bless you to hear\n    what he said. No, I'll no swagg'rers.\n  FALSTAFF. He's no swagg'rer, hostess; a tame cheater, i' faith; you\n    may stroke him as gently as a puppy greyhound. He'll not swagger\n    with a Barbary hen, if her feathers turn back in any show of\n    resistance. Call him up, drawer.\n                                                    Exit FRANCIS\n  HOSTESS. Cheater, call you him? I will bar no honest man my house,\n    nor no cheater; but I do not love swaggering, by my troth. I am\n    the worse when one says 'swagger.' Feel, masters, how I shake;\n    look you, I warrant you.\n  DOLL. So you do, hostess.\n  HOSTESS. Do I? Yea, in very truth, do I, an 'twere an aspen leaf. I\n    cannot abide swagg'rers.\n\n                   Enter PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and PAGE\n\n  PISTOL. God save you, Sir John!\n  FALSTAFF. Welcome, Ancient Pistol. Here, Pistol, I charge you with\n    a cup of sack; do you discharge upon mine hostess.\n  PISTOL. I will discharge upon her, Sir John, with two bullets.\n  FALSTAFF. She is pistol-proof, sir; you shall not hardly offend\n    her.\n  HOSTESS. Come, I'll drink no proofs nor no bullets. I'll drink no\n    more than will do me good, for no man's pleasure, I.\n  PISTOL. Then to you, Mistress Dorothy; I will charge you.\n  DOLL. Charge me! I scorn you, scurvy companion. What! you poor,\n    base, rascally, cheating, lack-linen mate! Away, you mouldy\n    rogue, away! I am meat for your master.\n  PISTOL. I know you, Mistress Dorothy.\n  DOLL. Away, you cut-purse rascal! you filthy bung, away! By this\n    wine, I'll thrust my knife in your mouldy chaps, an you play the\n    saucy cuttle with me. Away, you bottle-ale rascal! you\n    basket-hilt stale juggler, you! Since when, I pray you, sir?\n    God's light, with two points on your shoulder? Much!\n  PISTOL. God let me not live but I will murder your ruff for this.\n  FALSTAFF. No more, Pistol; I would not have you go off here.\n    Discharge yourself of our company, Pistol.\n  HOSTESS. No, good Captain Pistol; not here, sweet captain.\n  DOLL. Captain! Thou abominable damn'd cheater, art thou not ashamed\n    to be called captain? An captains were of my mind, they would\n    truncheon you out, for taking their names upon you before you\n    have earn'd them. You a captain! you slave, for what? For tearing\n    a poor whore's ruff in a bawdy-house? He a captain! hang him,\n    rogue! He lives upon mouldy stew'd prunes and dried cakes. A\n    captain! God's light, these villains will make the word as odious\n    as the word 'occupy'; which was an excellent good word before it\n    was ill sorted. Therefore captains had need look to't.\n  BARDOLPH. Pray thee go down, good ancient.\n  FALSTAFF. Hark thee hither, Mistress Doll.\n  PISTOL. Not I! I tell thee what, Corporal Bardolph, I could tear\n    her; I'll be reveng'd of her.\n  PAGE. Pray thee go down.\n  PISTOL. I'll see her damn'd first; to Pluto's damn'd lake, by this\n    hand, to th' infernal deep, with Erebus and tortures vile also.\n    Hold hook and line, say I. Down, down, dogs! down, faitors! Have\n    we not Hiren here?\n  HOSTESS. Good Captain Peesel, be quiet; 'tis very late, i' faith; I\n    beseek you now, aggravate your choler.\n  PISTOL. These be good humours, indeed! Shall packhorses,\n    And hollow pamper'd jades of Asia,\n    Which cannot go but thirty mile a day,\n    Compare with Caesars, and with Cannibals,\n    And Troiant Greeks? Nay, rather damn them with\n    King Cerberus; and let the welkin roar.\n    Shall we fall foul for toys?\n  HOSTESS. By my troth, Captain, these are very bitter words.\n  BARDOLPH. Be gone, good ancient; this will grow to a brawl anon.\n  PISTOL. Die men like dogs! Give crowns like pins! Have we not Hiren\n    here?\n  HOSTESS. O' my word, Captain, there's none such here. What the\n    good-year! do you think I would deny her? For God's sake, be\n    quiet.\n  PISTOL. Then feed and be fat, my fair Calipolis.\n    Come, give's some sack.\n    'Si fortune me tormente sperato me contento.'\n    Fear we broadsides? No, let the fiend give fire.\n    Give me some sack; and, sweetheart, lie thou there.\n                                         [Laying down his sword]\n    Come we to full points here, and are etceteras nothings?\n  FALSTAFF. Pistol, I would be quiet.\n  PISTOL. Sweet knight, I kiss thy neaf. What! we have seen the seven\n    stars.\n  DOLL. For God's sake thrust him down stairs; I cannot endure such a\n    fustian rascal.\n  PISTOL. Thrust him down stairs! Know we not Galloway nags?\n  FALSTAFF. Quoit him down, Bardolph, like a shove-groat shilling.\n    Nay, an 'a do nothing but speak nothing, 'a shall be nothing\n    here.\n  BARDOLPH. Come, get you down stairs.\n  PISTOL. What! shall we have incision? Shall we imbrue?\n                                        [Snatching up his sword]\n    Then death rock me asleep, abridge my doleful days!\n    Why, then, let grievous, ghastly, gaping wounds\n    Untwine the Sisters Three! Come, Atropos, I say!\n  HOSTESS. Here's goodly stuff toward!\n  FALSTAFF. Give me my rapier, boy.\n  DOLL. I pray thee, Jack, I pray thee, do not draw.\n  FALSTAFF. Get you down stairs.\n                                [Drawing and driving PISTOL out]\n  HOSTESS. Here's a goodly tumult! I'll forswear keeping house afore\n    I'll be in these tirrits and frights. So; murder, I warrant now.\n    Alas, alas! put up your naked weapons, put up your naked weapons.\n                                      Exeunt PISTOL and BARDOLPH\n  DOLL. I pray thee, Jack, be quiet; the rascal's gone. Ah, you\n    whoreson little valiant villain, you!\n  HOSTESS. Are you not hurt i' th' groin? Methought 'a made a shrewd\n    thrust at your belly.\n\n                        Re-enter BARDOLPH\n\n  FALSTAFF. Have you turn'd him out a doors?\n  BARDOLPH. Yea, sir. The rascal's drunk. You have hurt him, sir, i'\n    th' shoulder.\n  FALSTAFF. A rascal! to brave me!\n  DOLL. Ah, you sweet little rogue, you! Alas, poor ape, how thou\n    sweat'st! Come, let me wipe thy face. Come on, you whoreson\n    chops. Ah, rogue! i' faith, I love thee. Thou art as valorous as\n    Hector of Troy, worth five of Agamemnon, and ten times better\n    than the Nine Worthies. Ah, villain!\n  FALSTAFF. A rascally slave! I will toss the rogue in a blanket.\n  DOLL. Do, an thou dar'st for thy heart. An thou dost, I'll canvass\n    thee between a pair of sheets.\n\n                          Enter musicians\n\n  PAGE. The music is come, sir.\n  FALSTAFF. Let them play. Play, sirs. Sit on my knee, Don. A rascal\n    bragging slave! The rogue fled from me like quick-silver.\n  DOLL. I' faith, and thou follow'dst him like a church. Thou\n    whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig, when wilt thou leave\n    fighting a days and foining a nights, and begin to patch up thine\n    old body for heaven?\n\n       Enter, behind, PRINCE HENRY and POINS disguised as drawers\n\n  FALSTAFF. Peace, good Doll! Do not speak like a death's-head; do\n    not bid me remember mine end.\n  DOLL. Sirrah, what humour's the Prince of?\n  FALSTAFF. A good shallow young fellow. 'A would have made a good\n    pantler; 'a would ha' chipp'd bread well.\n  DOLL. They say Poins has a good wit.\n  FALSTAFF. He a good wit! hang him, baboon! His wit's as thick as\n    Tewksbury mustard; there's no more conceit in him than is in a\n    mallet.\n  DOLL. Why does the Prince love him so, then?\n  FALSTAFF. Because their legs are both of a bigness, and 'a plays at\n    quoits well, and eats conger and fennel, and drinks off candles'\n    ends for flap-dragons, and rides the wild mare with the boys, and\n    jumps upon join'd-stools, and swears with a good grace, and wears\n    his boots very smooth, like unto the sign of the Leg, and breeds\n    no bate with telling of discreet stories; and such other gambol\n    faculties 'a has, that show a weak mind and an able body, for the\n    which the Prince admits him. For the Prince himself is such\n    another; the weight of a hair will turn the scales between their\n    avoirdupois.\n  PRINCE. Would not this nave of a wheel have his ears cut off?\n  POINS. Let's beat him before his whore.\n  PRINCE. Look whe'er the wither'd elder hath not his poll claw'd\n    like a parrot.\n  POINS. Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive\n    performance?\n  FALSTAFF. Kiss me, Doll.\n  PRINCE. Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction! What says th'\n    almanac to that?\n  POINS. And look whether the fiery Trigon, his man, be not lisping\n    to his master's old tables, his note-book, his counsel-keeper.\n  FALSTAFF. Thou dost give me flattering busses.\n  DOLL. By my troth, I kiss thee with a most constant heart.\n  FALSTAFF. I am old, I am old.\n  DOLL. I love thee better than I love e'er a scurvy young boy of\n    them all.\n  FALSTAFF. What stuff wilt have a kirtle of? I shall receive money a\n    Thursday. Shalt have a cap to-morrow. A merry song, come. 'A\n    grows late; we'll to bed. Thou't forget me when I am gone.\n  DOLL. By my troth, thou't set me a-weeping, an thou say'st so.\n    Prove that ever I dress myself handsome till thy return. Well,\n    hearken a' th' end.\n  FALSTAFF. Some sack, Francis.\n  PRINCE & POINS. Anon, anon, sir.                   [Advancing]\n  FALSTAFF. Ha! a bastard son of the King's? And art thou not Poins\n    his brother?\n  PRINCE. Why, thou globe of sinful continents, what a life dost thou\n    lead!\n  FALSTAFF. A better than thou. I am a gentleman: thou art a drawer.\n  PRINCE. Very true, sir, and I come to draw you out by the ears.\n  HOSTESS. O, the Lord preserve thy Grace! By my troth, welcome to\n    London. Now the Lord bless that sweet face of thine. O Jesu, are\n    you come from Wales?\n  FALSTAFF. Thou whoreson mad compound of majesty, by this light\n    flesh and corrupt blood, thou art welcome.\n                                    [Leaning his band upon DOLL]\n  DOLL. How, you fat fool! I scorn you.\n  POINS. My lord, he will drive you out of your revenge and turn all\n    to a merriment, if you take not the heat.\n  PRINCE. YOU whoreson candle-mine, you, how vilely did you speak of\n    me even now before this honest, virtuous, civil gentlewoman!\n  HOSTESS. God's blessing of your good heart! and so she is, by my\n    troth.\n  FALSTAFF. Didst thou hear me?\n  PRINCE. Yea; and you knew me, as you did when you ran away by\n    Gadshill. You knew I was at your back, and spoke it on purpose to\n    try my patience.\n  FALSTAFF. No, no, no; not so; I did not think thou wast within\n    hearing.\n  PRINCE. I shall drive you then to confess the wilful abuse, and\n    then I know how to handle you.\n  FALSTAFF. No abuse, Hal, o' mine honour; no abuse.\n  PRINCE. Not- to dispraise me, and call me pander, and\n    bread-chipper, and I know not what!\n  FALSTAFF. No abuse, Hal.\n  POINS. No abuse!\n  FALSTAFF. No abuse, Ned, i' th' world; honest Ned, none. I\n    disprais'd him before the wicked- that the wicked might not fall\n    in love with thee; in which doing, I have done the part of a\n    careful friend and a true subject; and thy father is to give me\n    thanks for it. No abuse, Hal; none, Ned, none; no, faith, boys,\n    none.\n  PRINCE. See now, whether pure fear and entire cowardice doth not\n    make thee wrong this virtuous gentlewoman to close with us? Is\n    she of the wicked? Is thine hostess here of the wicked? Or is thy\n    boy of the wicked? Or honest Bardolph, whose zeal burns in his\n    nose, of the wicked?\n  POINS. Answer, thou dead elm, answer.\n  FALSTAFF. The fiend hath prick'd down Bardolph irrecoverable; and\n    his face is Lucifer's privy-kitchen, where he doth nothing but\n    roast malt-worms. For the boy- there is a good angel about him;\n    but the devil outbids him too.\n  PRINCE. For the women?\n  FALSTAFF. For one of them- she's in hell already, and burns poor\n    souls. For th' other- I owe her money; and whether she be damn'd\n    for that, I know not.\n  HOSTESS. No, I warrant you.\n  FALSTAFF. No, I think thou art not; I think thou art quit for that.\n    Marry, there is another indictment upon thee for suffering flesh\n    to be eaten in thy house, contrary to the law; for the which I\n    think thou wilt howl.\n  HOSTESS. All vict'lers do so. What's a joint of mutton or two in a\n    whole Lent?\n  PRINCE. You, gentlewoman-\n  DOLL. What says your Grace?\n  FALSTAFF. His Grace says that which his flesh rebels against.\n                                               [Knocking within]\n  HOSTESS. Who knocks so loud at door? Look to th' door there,\n    Francis.\n\n                              Enter PETO\n\n  PRINCE. Peto, how now! What news?\n  PETO. The King your father is at Westminster;\n    And there are twenty weak and wearied posts\n    Come from the north; and as I came along\n    I met and overtook a dozen captains,\n    Bare-headed, sweating, knocking at the taverns,\n    And asking every one for Sir John Falstaff.\n  PRINCE. By heaven, Poins, I feel me much to blame\n    So idly to profane the precious time,\n    When tempest of commotion, like the south,\n    Borne with black vapour, doth begin to melt\n    And drop upon our bare unarmed heads.\n    Give me my sword and cloak. Falstaff, good night.\n\n                        Exeunt PRINCE, POINS, PETO, and BARDOLPH\n\n  FALSTAFF. Now comes in the sweetest morsel of the night, and we\n    must hence, and leave it unpick'd.  [Knocking within]  More\n    knocking at the door!\n\n                      Re-enter BARDOLPH\n\n    How now! What's the matter?\n  BARDOLPH. You must away to court, sir, presently;\n    A dozen captains stay at door for you.\n  FALSTAFF.  [To the PAGE]. Pay the musicians, sirrah.- Farewell,\n    hostess; farewell, Doll. You see, my good wenches, how men of\n    merit are sought after; the undeserver may sleep, when the man of\n    action is call'd on. Farewell, good wenches. If I be not sent\n    away post, I will see you again ere I go.\n  DOLL. I cannot speak. If my heart be not ready to burst!\n    Well, sweet Jack, have a care of thyself.\n  FALSTAFF. Farewell, farewell.\n                                    Exeunt FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH\n  HOSTESS. Well, fare thee well. I have known thee these twenty-nine\n    years, come peascod-time; but an honester and truer-hearted man\n    -well fare thee well.\n  BARDOLPH.  [ Within]  Mistress Tearsheet!\n  HOSTESS. What's the matter?\n  BARDOLPH.  [ Within]  Bid Mistress Tearsheet come to my master.\n  HOSTESS. O, run Doll, run, run, good Come.  [To BARDOLPH]  She\n    comes blubber'd.- Yea, will you come, Doll?           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nWestminster. The palace\n\nEnter the KING in his nightgown, with a page\n\n  KING. Go call the Earls of Surrey and of Warwick;\n    But, ere they come, bid them o'er-read these letters\n    And well consider of them. Make good speed.        Exit page\n    How many thousands of my poorest subjects\n    Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep,\n    Nature's soft nurse, how have I frightened thee,\n    That thou no more will weigh my eyelids down,\n    And steep my senses in forgetfulness?\n    Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,\n    Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,\n    And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,\n    Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great,\n    Under the canopies of costly state,\n    And lull'd with sound of sweetest melody?\n    O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile\n    In loathsome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch\n    A watch-case or a common 'larum-bell?\n    Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast\n    Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains\n    In cradle of the rude imperious surge,\n    And in the visitation of the winds,\n    Who take the ruffian billows by the top,\n    Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them\n    With deafing clamour in the slippery clouds,\n    That with the hurly death itself awakes?\n    Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose\n    To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude;\n    And in the calmest and most stillest night,\n    With all appliances and means to boot,\n    Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down!\n    Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.\n\n                    Enter WARWICK and Surrey\n\n  WARWICK. Many good morrows to your Majesty!\n  KING. Is it good morrow, lords?\n  WARWICK. 'Tis one o'clock, and past.\n  KING. Why then, good morrow to you all, my lords.\n    Have you read o'er the letters that I sent you?\n  WARWICK. We have, my liege.\n  KING. Then you perceive the body of our kingdom\n    How foul it is; what rank diseases grow,\n    And with what danger, near the heart of it.\n  WARWICK. It is but as a body yet distempered;\n    Which to his former strength may be restored\n    With good advice and little medicine.\n    My Lord Northumberland will soon be cool'd.\n  KING. O God! that one might read the book of fate,\n    And see the revolution of the times\n    Make mountains level, and the continent,\n    Weary of solid firmness, melt itself\n    Into the sea; and other times to see\n    The beachy girdle of the ocean\n    Too wide for Neptune's hips; how chances mock,\n    And changes fill the cup of alteration\n    With divers liquors! O, if this were seen,\n    The happiest youth, viewing his progress through,\n    What perils past, what crosses to ensue,\n    Would shut the book and sit him down and die.\n    'Tis not ten years gone\n    Since Richard and Northumberland, great friends,\n    Did feast together, and in two years after\n    Were they at wars. It is but eight years since\n    This Percy was the man nearest my soul;\n    Who like a brother toil'd in my affairs\n    And laid his love and life under my foot;\n    Yea, for my sake, even to the eyes of Richard\n    Gave him defiance. But which of you was by-\n    [To WARWICK]  You, cousin Nevil, as I may remember-\n    When Richard, with his eye brim full of tears,\n    Then check'd and rated by Northumberland,\n    Did speak these words, now prov'd a prophecy?\n    'Northumberland, thou ladder by the which\n    My cousin Bolingbroke ascends my throne'-\n    Though then, God knows, I had no such intent\n    But that necessity so bow'd the state\n    That I and greatness were compell'd to kiss-\n    'The time shall come'- thus did he follow it-\n    'The time will come that foul sin, gathering head,\n    Shall break into corruption' so went on,\n    Foretelling this same time's condition\n    And the division of our amity.\n  WARWICK. There is a history in all men's lives,\n    Figuring the natures of the times deceas'd;\n    The which observ'd, a man may prophesy,\n    With a near aim, of the main chance of things\n    As yet not come to life, who in their seeds\n    And weak beginning lie intreasured.\n    Such things become the hatch and brood of time;\n    And, by the necessary form of this,\n    King Richard might create a perfect guess\n    That great Northumberland, then false to him,\n    Would of that seed grow to a greater falseness;\n    Which should not find a ground to root upon\n    Unless on you.\n  KING. Are these things then necessities?\n    Then let us meet them like necessities;\n    And that same word even now cries out on us.\n    They say the Bishop and Northumberland\n    Are fifty thousand strong.\n  WARWICK. It cannot be, my lord.\n    Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo,\n    The numbers of the feared. Please it your Grace\n    To go to bed. Upon my soul, my lord,\n    The powers that you already have sent forth\n    Shall bring this prize in very easily.\n    To comfort you the more, I have receiv'd\n    A certain instance that Glendower is dead.\n    Your Majesty hath been this fortnight ill;\n    And these unseasoned hours perforce must ad\n    Unto your sickness.\n  KING. I will take your counsel.\n    And, were these inward wars once out of hand,\n    We would, dear lords, unto the Holy Land.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nGloucestershire. Before Justice, SHALLOW'S house\n\nEnter SHALLOW and SILENCE, meeting; MOULDY, SHADOW, WART, FEEBLE, BULLCALF,\nand servants behind\n\n  SHALLOW. Come on, come on, come on; give me your hand, sir; give me\n    your hand, sir. An early stirrer, by the rood! And how doth my\n    good cousin Silence?\n  SILENCE. Good morrow, good cousin Shallow.\n  SHALLOW. And how doth my cousin, your bed-fellow? and your fairest\n    daughter and mine, my god-daughter Ellen?\n  SILENCE. Alas, a black ousel, cousin Shallow!\n  SHALLOW. By yea and no, sir. I dare say my cousin William is become\n    a good scholar; he is at Oxford still, is he not?\n  SILENCE. Indeed, sir, to my cost.\n  SHALLOW. 'A must, then, to the Inns o' Court shortly. I was once of\n    Clement's Inn; where I think they will talk of mad Shallow yet.\n  SILENCE. You were call'd 'lusty Shallow' then, cousin.\n  SHALLOW. By the mass, I was call'd anything; and I would have done\n    anything indeed too, and roundly too. There was I, and little\n    John Doit of Staffordshire, and black George Barnes, and Francis\n    Pickbone, and Will Squele a Cotsole man- you had not four such\n    swinge-bucklers in all the Inns of Court again. And I may say to\n    you we knew where the bona-robas were, and had the best of them\n    all at commandment. Then was Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, boy,\n    and page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk.\n  SILENCE. This Sir John, cousin, that comes hither anon about\n    soldiers?\n  SHALLOW. The same Sir John, the very same. I see him break\n    Scoggin's head at the court gate, when 'a was a crack not thus\n    high; and the very same day did I fight with one Sampson\n    Stockfish, a fruiterer, behind Gray's Inn. Jesu, Jesu, the mad\n    days that I have spent! and to see how many of my old\n    acquaintance are dead!\n  SILENCE. We shall all follow, cousin.\n  SHALLOW. Certain, 'tis certain; very sure, very sure. Death, as the\n    Psalmist saith, is certain to all; all shall die. How a good yoke\n    of bullocks at Stamford fair?\n  SILENCE. By my troth, I was not there.\n  SHALLOW. Death is certain. Is old Double of your town living yet?\n  SILENCE. Dead, sir.\n  SHALLOW. Jesu, Jesu, dead! drew a good bow; and dead! 'A shot a\n    fine shoot. John a Gaunt loved him well, and betted much money on\n    his head. Dead! 'A would have clapp'd i' th' clout at twelve\n    score, and carried you a forehand shaft a fourteen and fourteen\n    and a half, that it would have done a man's heart good to see.\n    How a score of ewes now?\n  SILENCE. Thereafter as they be- a score of good ewes may be worth\n    ten pounds.\n  SHALLOW. And is old Double dead?\n\n                    Enter BARDOLPH, and one with him\n\n  SILENCE. Here come two of Sir John Falstaffs men, as I think.\n  SHALLOW. Good morrow, honest gentlemen.\n  BARDOLPH. I beseech you, which is Justice Shallow?\n  SHALLOW. I am Robert Shallow, sir, a poor esquire of this county,\n    and one of the King's justices of the peace. What is your good\n    pleasure with me?\n  BARDOLPH. My captain, sir, commends him to you; my captain, Sir\n    John Falstaff- a tall gentleman, by heaven, and a most gallant\n    leader.\n  SHALLOW. He greets me well, sir; I knew him a good back-sword man.\n    How doth the good knight? May I ask how my lady his wife doth?\n  BARDOLPH. Sir, pardon; a soldier is better accommodated than with a\n    wife.\n  SHALLOW. It is well said, in faith, sir; and it is well said indeed\n    too. 'Better accommodated!' It is good; yea, indeed, is it. Good\n    phrases are surely, and ever were, very commendable.\n    'Accommodated!' It comes of accommodo. Very good; a good phrase.\n  BARDOLPH. Pardon, sir; I have heard the word. 'Phrase' call you it?\n    By this day, I know not the phrase; but I will maintain the word\n    with my sword to be a soldier-like word, and a word of exceeding\n    good command, by heaven. Accommodated: that is, when a man is, as\n    they say, accommodated; or, when a man is being-whereby 'a may be\n    thought to be accommodated; which is an excellent thing.\n\n                              Enter FALSTAFF\n\n  SHALLOW. It is very just. Look, here comes good Sir John. Give me\n    your good hand, give me your worship's good hand. By my troth,\n    you like well and bear your years very well. Welcome, good Sir\n    John.\n  FALSTAFF. I am glad to see you well, good Master Robert Shallow.\n    Master Surecard, as I think?\n  SHALLOW. No, Sir John; it is my cousin Silence, in commission with\n   me.\n  FALSTAFF. Good Master Silence, it well befits you should be of the\n    peace.\n  SILENCE. Your good worship is welcome.\n  FALSTAFF. Fie! this is hot weather. Gentlemen, have you provided me\n    here half a dozen sufficient men?\n  SHALLOW. Marry, have we, sir. Will you sit?\n  FALSTAFF. Let me see them, I beseech you.\n  SHALLOW. Where's the roll? Where's the roll? Where's the roll? Let\n    me see, let me see, let me see. So, so, so, so,- so, so- yea,\n    marry, sir. Rafe Mouldy! Let them appear as I call; let them do\n    so, let them do so. Let me see; where is Mouldy?\n  MOULDY. Here, an't please you.\n  SHALLOW. What think you, Sir John? A good-limb'd fellow; young,\n    strong, and of good friends.\n  FALSTAFF. Is thy name Mouldy?\n  MOULDY. Yea, an't please you.\n  FALSTAFF. 'Tis the more time thou wert us'd.\n  SHALLOW. Ha, ha, ha! most excellent, i' faith! Things that are\n    mouldy lack use. Very singular good! In faith, well said, Sir\n    John; very well said.\n  FALSTAFF. Prick him.\n  MOULDY. I was prick'd well enough before, an you could have let me\n    alone. My old dame will be undone now for one to do her husbandry\n    and her drudgery. You need not to have prick'd me; there are\n    other men fitter to go out than I.\n  FALSTAFF. Go to; peace, Mouldy; you shall go. Mouldy, it is time\n    you were spent.\n  MOULDY. Spent!\n  SHALLOW. Peace, fellow, peace; stand aside; know you where you are?\n    For th' other, Sir John- let me see. Simon Shadow!\n  FALSTAFF. Yea, marry, let me have him to sit under. He's like to be\n    a cold soldier.\n  SHALLOW. Where's Shadow?\n  SHADOW. Here, sir.\n  FALSTAFF. Shadow, whose son art thou?\n  SHADOW. My mother's son, sir.\n  FALSTAFF. Thy mother's son! Like enough; and thy father's shadow.\n    So the son of the female is the shadow of the male. It is often\n    so indeed; but much of the father's substance!\n  SHALLOW. Do you like him, Sir John?\n  FALSTAFF. Shadow will serve for summer. Prick him; for we have a\n    number of shadows fill up the muster-book.\n  SHALLOW. Thomas Wart!\n  FALSTAFF. Where's he?\n  WART. Here, sir.\n  FALSTAFF. Is thy name Wart?\n  WART. Yea, sir.\n  FALSTAFF. Thou art a very ragged wart.\n  SHALLOW. Shall I prick him, Sir John?\n  FALSTAFF. It were superfluous; for his apparel is built upon his\n    back, and the whole frame stands upon pins. Prick him no more.\n  SHALLOW. Ha, ha, ha! You can do it, sir; you can do it. I commend\n    you well. Francis Feeble!\n  FEEBLE. Here, sir.\n  FALSTAFF. What trade art thou, Feeble?\n  FEEBLE. A woman's tailor, sir.\n  SHALLOW. Shall I prick him, sir?\n  FALSTAFF. You may; but if he had been a man's tailor, he'd ha'\n    prick'd you. Wilt thou make as many holes in an enemy's battle as\n    thou hast done in a woman's petticoat?\n  FEEBLE. I will do my good will, sir; you can have no more.\n  FALSTAFF. Well said, good woman's tailor! well said, courageous\n    Feeble! Thou wilt be as valiant as the wrathful dove or most\n    magnanimous mouse. Prick the woman's tailor- well, Master\n    Shallow, deep, Master Shallow.\n  FEEBLE. I would Wart might have gone, sir.\n  FALSTAFF. I would thou wert a man's tailor, that thou mightst mend\n    him and make him fit to go. I cannot put him to a private\n    soldier, that is the leader of so many thousands. Let that\n    suffice, most forcible Feeble.\n  FEEBLE. It shall suffice, sir.\n  FALSTAFF. I am bound to thee, reverend Feeble. Who is next?\n  SHALLOW. Peter Bullcalf o' th' green!\n  FALSTAFF. Yea, marry, let's see Bullcalf.\n  BULLCALF. Here, sir.\n  FALSTAFF. Fore God, a likely fellow! Come, prick me Bullcalf till\n    he roar again.\n  BULLCALF. O Lord! good my lord captain-\n  FALSTAFF. What, dost thou roar before thou art prick'd?\n  BULLCALF. O Lord, sir! I am a diseased man.\n  FALSTAFF. What disease hast thou?\n  BULLCALF. A whoreson cold, sir, a cough, sir, which I caught with\n    ringing in the King's affairs upon his coronation day, sir.\n  FALSTAFF. Come, thou shalt go to the wars in a gown. We will have\n    away thy cold; and I will take such order that thy friends shall\n    ring for thee. Is here all?\n  SHALLOW. Here is two more call'd than your number. You must have\n    but four here, sir; and so, I pray you, go in with me to dinner.\n  FALSTAFF. Come, I will go drink with you, but I cannot tarry\n    dinner. I am glad to see you, by my troth, Master Shallow.\n  SHALLOW. O, Sir John, do you remember since we lay all night in the\n    windmill in Saint George's Field?\n  FALSTAFF. No more of that, Master Shallow, no more of that.\n  SHALLOW. Ha, 'twas a merry night. And is Jane Nightwork alive?\n  FALSTAFF. She lives, Master Shallow.\n  SHALLOW. She never could away with me.\n  FALSTAFF. Never, never; she would always say she could not abide\n    Master Shallow.\n  SHALLOW. By the mass, I could anger her to th' heart. She was then\n    a bona-roba. Doth she hold her own well?\n  FALSTAFF. Old, old, Master Shallow.\n  SHALLOW. Nay, she must be old; she cannot choose but be old;\n    certain she's old; and had Robin Nightwork, by old Nightwork,\n    before I came to Clement's Inn.\n  SILENCE. That's fifty-five year ago.\n  SHALLOW. Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that that this\n    knight and I have seen! Ha, Sir John, said I well?\n  FALSTAFF. We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.\n  SHALLOW. That we have, that we have, that we have; in faith, Sir\n    John, we have. Our watchword was 'Hem, boys!' Come, let's to\n    dinner; come, let's to dinner. Jesus, the days that we have seen!\n    Come, come.\n                                Exeunt FALSTAFF and the JUSTICES\n  BULLCALF. Good Master Corporate Bardolph, stand my friend; and\n    here's four Harry ten shillings in French crowns for you. In very\n    truth, sir, I had as lief be hang'd, sir, as go. And yet, for\n    mine own part, sir, I do not care; but rather because I am\n    unwilling and, for mine own part, have a desire to stay with my\n    friends; else, sir, I did not care for mine own part so much.\n  BARDOLPH. Go to; stand aside.\n  MOULDY. And, good Master Corporal Captain, for my old dame's sake,\n    stand my friend. She has nobody to do anything about her when I\n    am gone; and she is old, and cannot help herself. You shall have\n    forty, sir.\n  BARDOLPH. Go to; stand aside.\n  FEEBLE. By my troth, I care not; a man can die but once; we owe God\n    a death. I'll ne'er bear a base mind. An't be my destiny, so;\n    an't be not, so. No man's too good to serve 's Prince; and, let\n    it go which way it will, he that dies this year is quit for the\n    next.\n  BARDOLPH. Well said; th'art a good fellow.\n  FEEBLE. Faith, I'll bear no base mind.\n\n                    Re-enter FALSTAFF and the JUSTICES\n\n  FALSTAFF. Come, sir, which men shall I have?\n  SHALLOW. Four of which you please.\n  BARDOLPH. Sir, a word with you. I have three pound to free Mouldy\n    and Bullcalf.\n  FALSTAFF. Go to; well.\n  SHALLOW. Come, Sir John, which four will you have?\n  FALSTAFF. Do you choose for me.\n  SHALLOW. Marry, then- Mouldy, Bullcalf, Feeble, and Shadow.\n  FALSTAFF. Mouldy and Bullcalf: for you, Mouldy, stay at home till\n    you are past service; and for your part, Bullcalf, grow you come\n    unto it. I will none of you.\n  SHALLOW. Sir John, Sir John, do not yourself wrong. They are your\n    likeliest men, and I would have you serv'd with the best.\n  FALSTAFF. Will you tell me, Master Shallow, how to choose a man?\n    Care I for the limb, the thews, the stature, bulk, and big\n    assemblance of a man! Give me the spirit, Master Shallow. Here's\n    Wart; you see what a ragged appearance it is. 'A shall charge you\n    and discharge you with the motion of a pewterer's hammer, come\n    off and on swifter than he that gibbets on the brewer's bucket.\n    And this same half-fac'd fellow, Shadow- give me this man. He\n    presents no mark to the enemy; the foeman may with as great aim\n    level at the edge of a penknife. And, for a retreat- how swiftly\n    will this Feeble, the woman's tailor, run off! O, give me the\n    spare men, and spare me the great ones. Put me a caliver into\n    Wart's hand, Bardolph.\n  BARDOLPH. Hold, Wart. Traverse- thus, thus, thus.\n  FALSTAFF. Come, manage me your caliver. So- very well. Go to; very\n    good; exceeding good. O, give me always a little, lean, old,\n    chopt, bald shot. Well said, i' faith, Wart; th'art a good scab.\n    Hold, there's a tester for thee.\n  SHALLOW. He is not his craft's master, he doth not do it right. I\n    remember at Mile-end Green, when I lay at Clement's Inn- I was\n    then Sir Dagonet in Arthur's show- there was a little quiver\n    fellow, and 'a would manage you his piece thus; and 'a would\n    about and about, and come you in and come you in. 'Rah, tah,\n    tah!' would 'a say; 'Bounce!' would 'a say; and away again would\n    'a go, and again would 'a come. I shall ne'er see such a fellow.\n  FALSTAFF. These fellows will do well. Master Shallow, God keep you!\n    Master Silence, I will not use many words with you: Fare you\n    well! Gentlemen both, I thank you. I must a dozen mile to-night.\n    Bardolph, give the soldiers coats.\n  SHALLOW. Sir John, the Lord bless you; God prosper your affairs;\n    God send us peace! At your return, visit our house; let our old\n    acquaintance be renewed. Peradventure I will with ye to the\n    court.\n  FALSTAFF. Fore God, would you would.\n  SHALLOW. Go to; I have spoke at a word. God keep you.\n  FALSTAFF. Fare you well, gentle gentlemen.  [Exeunt JUSTICES]  On,\n    Bardolph; lead the men away.  [Exeunt all but FALSTAFF]  As I\n    return, I will fetch off these justices. I do see the bottom of\n    justice Shallow. Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this\n    vice of lying! This same starv'd justice hath done nothing but\n    prate to me of the wildness of his youth and the feats he hath\n    done about Turnbull Street; and every third word a lie, duer paid\n    to the hearer than the Turk's tribute. I do remember him at\n    Clement's Inn, like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring.\n    When 'a was naked, he was for all the world like a fork'd radish,\n    with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife. 'A was so\n    forlorn that his dimensions to any thick sight were invisible. 'A\n    was the very genius of famine; yet lecherous as a monkey, and the\n    whores call'd him mandrake. 'A came ever in the rearward of the\n    fashion, and sung those tunes to the overscutch'd huswifes that\n    he heard the carmen whistle, and sware they were his fancies or\n    his good-nights. And now is this Vice's dagger become a squire,\n    and talks as familiarly of John a Gaunt as if he had been sworn\n    brother to him; and I'll be sworn 'a ne'er saw him but once in\n    the Tiltyard; and then he burst his head for crowding among the\n    marshal's men. I saw it, and told John a Gaunt he beat his own\n    name; for you might have thrust him and all his apparel into an\n    eel-skin; the case of a treble hautboy was a mansion for him, a\n    court- and now has he land and beeves. Well, I'll be acquainted\n    with him if I return; and 't shall go hard but I'll make him a\n    philosopher's two stones to me. If the young dace be a bait for\n    the old pike, I see no reason in the law of nature but I may snap\n    at him. Let time shape, and there an end.               Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nYorkshire. Within the Forest of Gaultree\n\nEnter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, MOWBRAY, HASTINGS, and others\n\n  ARCHBISHOP. What is this forest call'd\n  HASTINGS. 'Tis Gaultree Forest, an't shall please your Grace.\n  ARCHBISHOP. Here stand, my lords, and send discoverers forth\n    To know the numbers of our enemies.\n  HASTINGS. We have sent forth already.\n  ARCHBISHOP. 'Tis well done.\n    My friends and brethren in these great affairs,\n    I must acquaint you that I have receiv'd\n    New-dated letters from Northumberland;\n    Their cold intent, tenour, and substance, thus:\n    Here doth he wish his person, with such powers\n    As might hold sortance with his quality,\n    The which he could not levy; whereupon\n    He is retir'd, to ripe his growing fortunes,\n    To Scotland; and concludes in hearty prayers\n    That your attempts may overlive the hazard\n    And fearful meeting of their opposite.\n  MOWBRAY. Thus do the hopes we have in him touch ground\n    And dash themselves to pieces.\n\n                          Enter A MESSENGER\n\n  HASTINGS. Now, what news?\n  MESSENGER. West of this forest, scarcely off a mile,\n    In goodly form comes on the enemy;\n    And, by the ground they hide, I judge their number\n    Upon or near the rate of thirty thousand.\n  MOWBRAY. The just proportion that we gave them out.\n    Let us sway on and face them in the field.\n\n                        Enter WESTMORELAND\n\n  ARCHBISHOP. What well-appointed leader fronts us here?\n  MOWBRAY. I think it is my Lord of Westmoreland.\n  WESTMORELAND. Health and fair greeting from our general,\n    The Prince, Lord John and Duke of Lancaster.\n  ARCHBISHOP. Say on, my Lord of Westmoreland, in peace,\n    What doth concern your coming.\n  WESTMORELAND. Then, my lord,\n    Unto your Grace do I in chief address\n    The substance of my speech. If that rebellion\n    Came like itself, in base and abject routs,\n    Led on by bloody youth, guarded with rags,\n    And countenanc'd by boys and beggary-\n    I say, if damn'd commotion so appear'd\n    In his true, native, and most proper shape,\n    You, reverend father, and these noble lords,\n    Had not been here to dress the ugly form\n    Of base and bloody insurrection\n    With your fair honours. You, Lord Archbishop,\n    Whose see is by a civil peace maintain'd,\n    Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touch'd,\n    Whose learning and good letters peace hath tutor'd,\n    Whose white investments figure innocence,\n    The dove, and very blessed spirit of peace-\n    Wherefore you do so ill translate yourself\n    Out of the speech of peace, that bears such grace,\n    Into the harsh and boist'rous tongue of war;\n    Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood,\n    Your pens to lances, and your tongue divine\n    To a loud trumpet and a point of war?\n  ARCHBISHOP. Wherefore do I this? So the question stands.\n    Briefly to this end: we are all diseas'd\n    And with our surfeiting and wanton hours\n    Have brought ourselves into a burning fever,\n    And we must bleed for it; of which disease\n    Our late King, Richard, being infected, died.\n    But, my most noble Lord of Westmoreland,\n    I take not on me here as a physician;\n    Nor do I as an enemy to peace\n    Troop in the throngs of military men;\n    But rather show awhile like fearful war\n    To diet rank minds sick of happiness,\n    And purge th' obstructions which begin to stop\n    Our very veins of life. Hear me more plainly.\n    I have in equal balance justly weigh'd\n    What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we suffer,\n    And find our griefs heavier than our offences.\n    We see which way the stream of time doth run\n    And are enforc'd from our most quiet there\n    By the rough torrent of occasion;\n    And have the summary of all our griefs,\n    When time shall serve, to show in articles;\n    Which long ere this we offer'd to the King,\n    And might by no suit gain our audience:\n    When we are wrong'd, and would unfold our griefs,\n    We are denied access unto his person,\n    Even by those men that most have done us wrong.\n    The dangers of the days but newly gone,\n    Whose memory is written on the earth\n    With yet appearing blood, and the examples\n    Of every minute's instance, present now,\n    Hath put us in these ill-beseeming arms;\n    Not to break peace, or any branch of it,\n    But to establish here a peace indeed,\n    Concurring both in name and quality.\n  WESTMORELAND. When ever yet was your appeal denied;\n    Wherein have you been galled by the King;\n    What peer hath been suborn'd to grate on you\n    That you should seal this lawless bloody book\n    Of forg'd rebellion with a seal divine,\n    And consecrate commotion's bitter edge?\n  ARCHBISHOP. My brother general, the commonwealth,\n    To brother horn an household cruelty,\n    I make my quarrel in particular.\n  WESTMORELAND. There is no need of any such redress;\n    Or if there were, it not belongs to you.\n  MOWBRAY. Why not to him in part, and to us all\n    That feel the bruises of the days before,\n    And suffer the condition of these times\n    To lay a heavy and unequal hand\n    Upon our honours?\n  WESTMORELAND. O my good Lord Mowbray,\n    Construe the times to their necessities,\n    And you shall say, indeed, it is the time,\n    And not the King, that doth you injuries.\n    Yet, for your part, it not appears to me,\n    Either from the King or in the present time,\n    That you should have an inch of any ground\n    To build a grief on. Were you not restor'd\n    To all the Duke of Norfolk's signiories,\n    Your noble and right well-rememb'red father's?\n  MOWBRAY. What thing, in honour, had my father lost\n    That need to be reviv'd and breath'd in me?\n    The King that lov'd him, as the state stood then,\n    Was force perforce compell'd to banish him,\n    And then that Henry Bolingbroke and he,\n    Being mounted and both roused in their seats,\n    Their neighing coursers daring of the spur,\n    Their armed staves in charge, their beavers down,\n    Their eyes of fire sparkling through sights of steel,\n    And the loud trumpet blowing them together-\n    Then, then, when there was nothing could have stay'd\n    My father from the breast of Bolingbroke,\n    O, when the King did throw his warder down-\n    His own life hung upon the staff he threw-\n    Then threw he down himself, and all their lives\n    That by indictment and by dint of sword\n    Have since miscarried under Bolingbroke.\n  WESTMORELAND. You speak, Lord Mowbray, now you know not what.\n    The Earl of Hereford was reputed then\n    In England the most valiant gentleman.\n    Who knows on whom fortune would then have smil'd?\n    But if your father had been victor there,\n    He ne'er had borne it out of Coventry;\n    For all the country, in a general voice,\n    Cried hate upon him; and all their prayers and love\n    Were set on Hereford, whom they doted on,\n    And bless'd and grac'd indeed more than the King.\n    But this is mere digression from my purpose.\n    Here come I from our princely general\n    To know your griefs; to tell you from his Grace\n    That he will give you audience; and wherein\n    It shall appear that your demands are just,\n    You shall enjoy them, everything set off\n    That might so much as think you enemies.\n  MOWBRAY. But he hath forc'd us to compel this offer;\n    And it proceeds from policy, not love.\n  WESTMORELAND. Mowbray. you overween to take it so.\n    This offer comes from mercy, not from fear;\n    For, lo! within a ken our army lies-\n    Upon mine honour, all too confident\n    To give admittance to a thought of fear.\n    Our battle is more full of names than yours,\n    Our men more perfect in the use of arms,\n    Our armour all as strong, our cause the best;\n    Then reason will our hearts should be as good.\n    Say you not, then, our offer is compell'd.\n  MOWBRAY. Well, by my will we shall admit no parley.\n  WESTMORELAND. That argues but the shame of your offence:\n    A rotten case abides no handling.\n  HASTINGS. Hath the Prince John a full commission,\n    In very ample virtue of his father,\n    To hear and absolutely to determine\n    Of what conditions we shall stand upon?\n  WESTMORELAND. That is intended in the general's name.\n    I muse you make so slight a question.\n  ARCHBISHOP. Then take, my Lord of Westmoreland, this schedule,\n    For this contains our general grievances.\n    Each several article herein redress'd,\n    All members of our cause, both here and hence,\n    That are insinewed to this action,\n    Acquitted by a true substantial form,\n    And present execution of our wills\n    To us and to our purposes confin'd-\n    We come within our awful banks again,\n    And knit our powers to the arm of peace.\n  WESTMORELAND. This will I show the general. Please you, lords,\n    In sight of both our battles we may meet;\n    And either end in peace- which God so frame!-\n    Or to the place of diff'rence call the swords\n    Which must decide it.\n  ARCHBISHOP. My lord, we will do so.          Exit WESTMORELAND\n  MOWBRAY. There is a thing within my bosom tells me\n    That no conditions of our peace can stand.\n  HASTINGS. Fear you not that: if we can make our peace\n    Upon such large terms and so absolute\n    As our conditions shall consist upon,\n    Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.\n  MOWBRAY. Yea, but our valuation shall be such\n    That every slight and false-derived cause,\n    Yea, every idle, nice, and wanton reason,\n    Shall to the King taste of this action;\n    That, were our royal faiths martyrs in love,\n    We shall be winnow'd with so rough a wind\n    That even our corn shall seem as light as chaff,\n    And good from bad find no partition.\n  ARCHBISHOP. No, no, my lord. Note this: the King is weary\n    Of dainty and such picking grievances;\n    For he hath found to end one doubt by death\n    Revives two greater in the heirs of life;\n    And therefore will he wipe his tables clean,\n    And keep no tell-tale to his memory\n    That may repeat and history his los\n    To new remembrance. For full well he knows\n    He cannot so precisely weed this land\n    As his misdoubts present occasion:\n    His foes are so enrooted with his friends\n    That, plucking to unfix an enemy,\n    He doth unfasten so and shake a friend.\n    So that this land, like an offensive wife\n    That hath enrag'd him on to offer strokes,\n    As he is striking, holds his infant up,\n    And hangs resolv'd correction in the arm\n    That was uprear'd to execution.\n  HASTINGS. Besides, the King hath wasted all his rods\n    On late offenders, that he now doth lack\n    The very instruments of chastisement;\n    So that his power, like to a fangless lion,\n    May offer, but not hold.\n  ARCHBISHOP. 'Tis very true;\n    And therefore be assur'd, my good Lord Marshal,\n    If we do now make our atonement well,\n    Our peace will, like a broken limb united,\n    Grow stronger for the breaking.\n  MOWBRAY. Be it so.\n    Here is return'd my Lord of Westmoreland.\n\n                       Re-enter WESTMORELAND\n\n  WESTMORELAND. The Prince is here at hand. Pleaseth your lordship\n    To meet his Grace just distance 'tween our armies?\n  MOWBRAY. Your Grace of York, in God's name then, set forward.\n  ARCHBISHOP. Before, and greet his Grace. My lord, we come.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nAnother part of the forest\n\nEnter, from one side, MOWBRAY, attended; afterwards, the ARCHBISHOP,\nHASTINGS, and others; from the other side, PRINCE JOHN of LANCASTER,\nWESTMORELAND, OFFICERS, and others\n\n  PRINCE JOHN. You are well encount'red here, my cousin Mowbray.\n    Good day to you, gentle Lord Archbishop;\n    And so to you, Lord Hastings, and to all.\n    My Lord of York, it better show'd with you\n    When that your flock, assembled by the bell,\n    Encircled you to hear with reverence\n    Your exposition on the holy text\n    Than now to see you here an iron man,\n    Cheering a rout of rebels with your drum,\n    Turning the word to sword, and life to death.\n    That man that sits within a monarch's heart\n    And ripens in the sunshine of his favour,\n    Would he abuse the countenance of the king,\n    Alack, what mischiefs might he set abroach\n    In shadow of such greatness! With you, Lord Bishop,\n    It is even so. Who hath not heard it spoken\n    How deep you were within the books of God?\n    To us the speaker in His parliament,\n    To us th' imagin'd voice of God himself,\n    The very opener and intelligencer\n    Between the grace, the sanctities of heaven,\n    And our dull workings. O, who shall believe\n    But you misuse the reverence of your place,\n    Employ the countenance and grace of heav'n\n    As a false favourite doth his prince's name,\n    In deeds dishonourable? You have ta'en up,\n    Under the counterfeited zeal of God,\n    The subjects of His substitute, my father,\n    And both against the peace of heaven and him\n    Have here up-swarm'd them.\n  ARCHBISHOP. Good my Lord of Lancaster,\n    I am not here against your father's peace;\n    But, as I told my Lord of Westmoreland,\n    The time misord'red doth, in common sense,\n    Crowd us and crush us to this monstrous form\n    To hold our safety up. I sent your Grace\n    The parcels and particulars of our grief,\n    The which hath been with scorn shov'd from the court,\n    Whereon this hydra son of war is born;\n    Whose dangerous eyes may well be charm'd asleep\n    With grant of our most just and right desires;\n    And true obedience, of this madness cur'd,\n    Stoop tamely to the foot of majesty.\n  MOWBRAY. If not, we ready are to try our fortunes\n    To the last man.\n  HASTINGS. And though we here fall down,\n    We have supplies to second our attempt.\n    If they miscarry, theirs shall second them;\n    And so success of mischief shall be born,\n    And heir from heir shall hold this quarrel up\n    Whiles England shall have generation.\n  PRINCE JOHN. YOU are too shallow, Hastings, much to shallow,\n    To sound the bottom of the after-times.\n  WESTMORELAND. Pleaseth your Grace to answer them directly\n    How far forth you do like their articles.\n  PRINCE JOHN. I like them all and do allow them well;\n    And swear here, by the honour of my blood,\n    My father's purposes have been mistook;\n    And some about him have too lavishly\n    Wrested his meaning and authority.\n    My lord, these griefs shall be with speed redress'd;\n    Upon my soul, they shall. If this may please you,\n    Discharge your powers unto their several counties,\n    As we will ours; and here, between the armies,\n    Let's drink together friendly and embrace,\n    That all their eyes may bear those tokens home\n    Of our restored love and amity.\n  ARCHBISHOP. I take your princely word for these redresses.\n  PRINCE JOHN. I give it you, and will maintain my word;\n    And thereupon I drink unto your Grace.\n  HASTINGS. Go, Captain, and deliver to the army\n    This news of peace. Let them have pay, and part.\n    I know it will please them. Hie thee, Captain.\n                                                    Exit Officer\n  ARCHBISHOP. To you, my noble Lord of Westmoreland.\n  WESTMORELAND. I pledge your Grace; and if you knew what pains\n    I have bestow'd to breed this present peace,\n    You would drink freely; but my love to ye\n    Shall show itself more openly hereafter.\n  ARCHBISHOP. I do not doubt you.\n  WESTMORELAND. I am glad of it.\n    Health to my lord and gentle cousin, Mowbray.\n  MOWBRAY. You wish me health in very happy season,\n    For I am on the sudden something ill.\n  ARCHBISHOP. Against ill chances men are ever merry;\n    But heaviness foreruns the good event.\n  WESTMORELAND. Therefore be merry, coz; since sudden sorrow\n    Serves to say thus, 'Some good thing comes to-morrow.'\n  ARCHBISHOP. Believe me, I am passing light in spirit.\n  MOWBRAY. So much the worse, if your own rule be true.\n                                                 [Shouts within]\n  PRINCE JOHN. The word of peace is rend'red. Hark, how they shout!\n  MOWBRAY. This had been cheerful after victory.\n  ARCHBISHOP. A peace is of the nature of a conquest;\n    For then both parties nobly are subdu'd,\n    And neither party loser.\n  PRINCE JOHN. Go, my lord,\n    And let our army be discharged too.\n                                               Exit WESTMORELAND\n    And, good my lord, so please you let our trains\n    March by us, that we may peruse the men\n    We should have cop'd withal.\n  ARCHBISHOP. Go, good Lord Hastings,\n    And, ere they be dismiss'd, let them march by.\n                                                   Exit HASTINGS\n  PRINCE JOHN. I trust, lords, we shall lie to-night together.\n\n                      Re-enter WESTMORELAND\n\n    Now, cousin, wherefore stands our army still?\n  WESTMORELAND. The leaders, having charge from you to stand,\n    Will not go off until they hear you speak.\n  PRINCE JOHN. They know their duties.\n\n                        Re-enter HASTINGS\n\n  HASTINGS. My lord, our army is dispers'd already.\n    Like youthful steers unyok'd, they take their courses\n    East, west, north, south; or like a school broke up,\n    Each hurries toward his home and sporting-place.\n  WESTMORELAND. Good tidings, my Lord Hastings; for the which\n    I do arrest thee, traitor, of high treason;\n    And you, Lord Archbishop, and you, Lord Mowbray,\n    Of capital treason I attach you both.\n  MOWBRAY. Is this proceeding just and honourable?\n  WESTMORELAND. Is your assembly so?\n  ARCHBISHOP. Will you thus break your faith?\n  PRINCE JOHN. I pawn'd thee none:\n    I promis'd you redress of these same grievances\n    Whereof you did complain; which, by mine honour,\n    I will perform with a most Christian care.\n    But for you, rebels- look to taste the due\n    Meet for rebellion and such acts as yours.\n    Most shallowly did you these arms commence,\n    Fondly brought here, and foolishly sent hence.\n    Strike up our drums, pursue the scatt'red stray.\n    God, and not we, hath safely fought to-day.\n    Some guard these traitors to the block of death,\n    Treason's true bed and yielder-up of breath.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nAnother part of the forest\n\nAlarum; excursions. Enter FALSTAFF and COLVILLE, meeting\n\n  FALSTAFF. What's your name, sir? Of what condition are you, and of\n    what place, I pray?\n  COLVILLE. I am a knight sir; and my name is Colville of the Dale.\n  FALSTAFF. Well then, Colville is your name, a knight is your\n    degree, and your place the Dale. Colville shall still be your\n    name, a traitor your degree, and the dungeon your place- a place\n    deep enough; so shall you be still Colville of the Dale.\n  COLVILLE. Are not you Sir John Falstaff?\n  FALSTAFF. As good a man as he, sir, whoe'er I am. Do you yield,\n    sir, or shall I sweat for you? If I do sweat, they are the drops\n    of thy lovers, and they weep for thy death; therefore rouse up\n    fear and trembling, and do observance to my mercy.\n  COLVILLE. I think you are Sir John Falstaff, and in that thought\n    yield me.\n  FALSTAFF. I have a whole school of tongues in this belly of mine;\n    and not a tongue of them all speaks any other word but my name.\n    An I had but a belly of any indifferency, I were simply the most\n    active fellow in Europe. My womb, my womb, my womb undoes me.\n    Here comes our general.\n\n            Enter PRINCE JOHN OF LANCASTER, WESTMORELAND,\n                            BLUNT, and others\n\n  PRINCE JOHN. The heat is past; follow no further now.\n    Call in the powers, good cousin Westmoreland.\n                                               Exit WESTMORELAND\n    Now, Falstaff, where have you been all this while?\n    When everything is ended, then you come.\n    These tardy tricks of yours will, on my life,\n    One time or other break some gallows' back.\n  FALSTAFF. I would be sorry, my lord, but it should be thus: I never\n    knew yet but rebuke and check was the reward of valour. Do you\n    think me a swallow, an arrow, or a bullet? Have I, in my poor and\n    old motion, the expedition of thought? I have speeded hither with\n    the very extremest inch of possibility; I have found'red nine\n    score and odd posts; and here, travel tainted as I am, have, in\n    my pure and immaculate valour, taken Sir John Colville of the\n    Dale,a most furious knight and valorous enemy. But what of that?\n    He saw me, and yielded; that I may justly say with the hook-nos'd\n    fellow of Rome-I came, saw, and overcame.\n  PRINCE JOHN. It was more of his courtesy than your deserving.\n  FALSTAFF. I know not. Here he is, and here I yield him; and I\n    beseech your Grace, let it be book'd with the rest of this day's\n    deeds; or, by the Lord, I will have it in a particular ballad\n    else, with mine own picture on the top on't, Colville kissing my\n    foot; to the which course if I be enforc'd, if you do not all\n    show like gilt twopences to me, and I, in the clear sky of fame,\n    o'ershine you as much as the full moon doth the cinders of the\n    element, which show like pins' heads to her, believe not the word\n    of the noble. Therefore let me have right, and let desert mount.\n  PRINCE JOHN. Thine's too heavy to mount.\n  FALSTAFF. Let it shine, then.\n  PRINCE JOHN. Thine's too thick to shine.\n  FALSTAFF. Let it do something, my good lord, that may do me good,\n    and call it what you will.\n  PRINCE JOHN. Is thy name Colville?\n  COLVILLE. It is, my lord.\n  PRINCE JOHN. A famous rebel art thou, Colville.\n  FALSTAFF. And a famous true subject took him.\n  COLVILLE. I am, my lord, but as my betters are\n    That led me hither. Had they been rul'd by me,\n    You should have won them dearer than you have.\n  FALSTAFF. I know not how they sold themselves; but thou, like a\n    kind fellow, gavest thyself away gratis; and I thank thee for\n    thee.\n\n                       Re-enter WESTMORELAND\n\n  PRINCE JOHN. Now, have you left pursuit?\n  WESTMORELAND. Retreat is made, and execution stay'd.\n  PRINCE JOHN. Send Colville, with his confederates,\n    To York, to present execution.\n    Blunt, lead him hence; and see you guard him sure.\n                                         Exeunt BLUNT and others\n    And now dispatch we toward the court, my lords.\n    I hear the King my father is sore sick.\n    Our news shall go before us to his Majesty,\n    Which, cousin, you shall bear to comfort him\n    And we with sober speed will follow you.\n  FALSTAFF. My lord, I beseech you, give me leave to go through\n    Gloucestershire; and, when you come to court, stand my good lord,\n    pray, in your good report.\n  PRINCE JOHN. Fare you well, Falstaff. I, in my condition,\n    Shall better speak of you than you deserve.\n                                         Exeunt all but FALSTAFF\n  FALSTAFF. I would you had but the wit; 'twere better than your\n    dukedom. Good faith, this same young sober-blooded boy doth not\n    love me; nor a man cannot make him laugh- but that's no marvel;\n    he drinks no wine. There's never none of these demure boys come\n    to any proof; for thin drink doth so over-cool their blood, and\n    making many fish-meals, that they fall into a kind of male\n    green-sickness; and then, when they marry, they get wenches. They\n    are generally fools and cowards-which some of us should be too,\n    but for inflammation. A good sherris-sack hath a two-fold\n    operation in it. It ascends me into the brain; dries me there all\n    the foolish and dull and crudy vapours which environ it; makes it\n    apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and\n    delectable shapes; which delivered o'er to the voice, the tongue,\n    which is the birth, becomes excellent wit. The second property of\n    your excellent sherris is the warming of the blood; which before,\n    cold and settled, left the liver white and pale, which is the\n    badge of pusillanimity and cowardice; but the sherris warms it,\n    and makes it course from the inwards to the parts extremes. It\n    illumineth the face, which, as a beacon, gives warning to all the\n    rest of this little kingdom, man, to arm; and then the vital\n    commoners and inland petty spirits muster me all to their\n    captain, the heart, who, great and puff'd up with this retinue,\n    doth any deed of courage- and this valour comes of sherris. So\n    that skill in the weapon is nothing without sack, for that sets\n    it a-work; and learning, a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil\n    till sack commences it and sets it in act and use. Hereof comes\n    it that Prince Harry is valiant; for the cold blood he did\n    naturally inherit of his father, he hath, like lean, sterile, and\n    bare land, manured, husbanded, and till'd, with excellent\n    endeavour of drinking good and good store of fertile sherris,\n    that he is become very hot and valiant. If I had a thousand sons,\n    the first humane principle I would teach them should be to\n    forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack.\n\n                           Enter BARDOLPH\n\n    How now, Bardolph!\n  BARDOLPH. The army is discharged all and gone.\n  FALSTAFF. Let them go. I'll through Gloucestershire, and there will\n    I visit Master Robert Shallow, Esquire. I have him already\n    temp'ring between my finger and my thumb, and shortly will I seal\n    with him. Come away.                                  Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nWestminster. The Jerusalem Chamber\n\nEnter the KING, PRINCE THOMAS OF CLARENCE, PRINCE HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER,\nWARWICK, and others\n\n  KING. Now, lords, if God doth give successful end\n    To this debate that bleedeth at our doors,\n    We will our youth lead on to higher fields,\n    And draw no swords but what are sanctified.\n    Our navy is address'd, our power connected,\n    Our substitutes in absence well invested,\n    And everything lies level to our wish.\n    Only we want a little personal strength;\n    And pause us till these rebels, now afoot,\n    Come underneath the yoke of government.\n  WARWICK. Both which we doubt not but your Majesty\n    Shall soon enjoy.\n  KING. Humphrey, my son of Gloucester,\n    Where is the Prince your brother?\n  PRINCE HUMPHREY. I think he's gone to hunt, my lord, at Windsor.\n  KING. And how accompanied?\n  PRINCE HUMPHREY. I do not know, my lord.\n  KING. Is not his brother, Thomas of Clarence, with him?\n  PRINCE HUMPHREY. No, my good lord, he is in presence here.\n  CLARENCE. What would my lord and father?\n  KING. Nothing but well to thee, Thomas of Clarence.\n    How chance thou art not with the Prince thy brother?\n    He loves thee, and thou dost neglect him, Thomas.\n    Thou hast a better place in his affection\n    Than all thy brothers; cherish it, my boy,\n    And noble offices thou mayst effect\n    Of mediation, after I am dead,\n    Between his greatness and thy other brethren.\n    Therefore omit him not; blunt not his love,\n    Nor lose the good advantage of his grace\n    By seeming cold or careless of his will;\n    For he is gracious if he be observ'd.\n    He hath a tear for pity and a hand\n    Open as day for melting charity;\n    Yet notwithstanding, being incens'd, he is flint;\n    As humorous as winter, and as sudden\n    As flaws congealed in the spring of day.\n    His temper, therefore, must be well observ'd.\n    Chide him for faults, and do it reverently,\n    When you perceive his blood inclin'd to mirth;\n    But, being moody, give him line and scope\n    Till that his passions, like a whale on ground,\n    Confound themselves with working. Learn this, Thomas,\n    And thou shalt prove a shelter to thy friends,\n    A hoop of gold to bind thy brothers in,\n    That the united vessel of their blood,\n    Mingled with venom of suggestion-\n    As, force perforce, the age will pour it in-\n    Shall never leak, though it do work as strong\n    As aconitum or rash gunpowder.\n  CLARENCE. I shall observe him with all care and love.\n  KING. Why art thou not at Windsor with him, Thomas?\n  CLARENCE. He is not there to-day; he dines in London.\n  KING. And how accompanied? Canst thou tell that?\n  CLARENCE. With Poins, and other his continual followers.\n  KING. Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds;\n    And he, the noble image of my youth,\n    Is overspread with them; therefore my grief\n    Stretches itself beyond the hour of death.\n    The blood weeps from my heart when I do shape,\n    In forms imaginary, th'unguided days\n    And rotten times that you shall look upon\n    When I am sleeping with my ancestors.\n    For when his headstrong riot hath no curb,\n    When rage and hot blood are his counsellors\n    When means and lavish manners meet together,\n    O, with what wings shall his affections fly\n    Towards fronting peril and oppos'd decay!\n  WARWICK. My gracious lord, you look beyond him quite.\n    The Prince but studies his companions\n    Like a strange tongue, wherein, to gain the language,\n    'Tis needful that the most immodest word\n    Be look'd upon and learnt; which once attain'd,\n    Your Highness knows, comes to no further use\n    But to be known and hated. So, like gross terms,\n    The Prince will, in the perfectness of time,\n    Cast off his followers; and their memory\n    Shall as a pattern or a measure live\n    By which his Grace must mete the lives of other,\n    Turning past evils to advantages.\n  KING. 'Tis seldom when the bee doth leave her comb\n    In the dead carrion.\n\n                      Enter WESTMORELAND\n\n    Who's here? Westmoreland?\n  WESTMORELAND. Health to my sovereign, and new happiness\n    Added to that that am to deliver!\n    Prince John, your son, doth kiss your Grace's hand.\n    Mowbray, the Bishop Scroop, Hastings, and all,\n    Are brought to the correction of your law.\n    There is not now a rebel's sword unsheath'd,\n    But Peace puts forth her olive everywhere.\n    The manner how this action hath been borne\n    Here at more leisure may your Highness read,\n    With every course in his particular.\n  KING. O Westmoreland, thou art a summer bird,\n    Which ever in the haunch of winter sings\n    The lifting up of day.\n\n                        Enter HARCOURT\n\n    Look here's more news.\n  HARCOURT. From enemies heaven keep your Majesty;\n    And, when they stand against you, may they fall\n    As those that I am come to tell you of!\n    The Earl Northumberland and the Lord Bardolph,\n    With a great power of English and of Scots,\n    Are by the shrieve of Yorkshire overthrown.\n    The manner and true order of the fight\n    This packet, please it you, contains at large.\n  KING. And wherefore should these good news make me sick?\n    Will Fortune never come with both hands full,\n    But write her fair words still in foulest letters?\n    She either gives a stomach and no food-\n    Such are the poor, in health- or else a feast,\n    And takes away the stomach- such are the rich\n    That have abundance and enjoy it not.\n    I should rejoice now at this happy news;\n    And now my sight fails, and my brain is giddy.\n    O me! come near me now I am much ill.\n  PRINCE HUMPHREY. Comfort, your Majesty!\n  CLARENCE. O my royal father!\n  WESTMORELAND. My sovereign lord, cheer up yourself, look up.\n  WARWICK. Be patient, Princes; you do know these fits\n    Are with his Highness very ordinary.\n    Stand from him, give him air; he'll straight be well.\n  CLARENCE. No, no; he cannot long hold out these pangs.\n    Th' incessant care and labour of his mind\n    Hath wrought the mure that should confine it in\n    So thin that life looks through, and will break out.\n  PRINCE HUMPHREY. The people fear me; for they do observe\n    Unfather'd heirs and loathly births of nature.\n    The seasons change their manners, as the year\n    Had found some months asleep, and leapt them over.\n  CLARENCE. The river hath thrice flow'd, no ebb between;\n    And the old folk, Time's doting chronicles,\n    Say it did so a little time before\n    That our great grandsire, Edward, sick'd and died.\n  WARWICK. Speak lower, Princes, for the King recovers.\n  PRINCE HUMPHREY. This apoplexy will certain be his end.\n  KING. I pray you take me up, and bear me hence\n    Into some other chamber. Softly, pray.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nWestminster. Another chamber\n\nThe KING lying on a bed; CLARENCE, GLOUCESTER, WARWICK,\nand others in attendance\n\n  KING. Let there be no noise made, my gentle friends;\n    Unless some dull and favourable hand\n    Will whisper music to my weary spirit.\n  WARWICK. Call for the music in the other room.\n  KING. Set me the crown upon my pillow here.\n  CLARENCE. His eye is hollow, and he changes much.\n  WARWICK. Less noise! less noise!\n\n                        Enter PRINCE HENRY\n\n  PRINCE. Who saw the Duke of Clarence?\n  CLARENCE. I am here, brother, full of heaviness.\n  PRINCE. How now! Rain within doors, and none abroad!\n    How doth the King?\n  PRINCE HUMPHREY. Exceeding ill.\n  PRINCE. Heard he the good news yet? Tell it him.\n  PRINCE HUMPHREY. He alt'red much upon the hearing it.\n  PRINCE. If he be sick with joy, he'll recover without physic.\n  WARWICK. Not so much noise, my lords. Sweet Prince, speak low;\n    The King your father is dispos'd to sleep.\n  CLARENCE. Let us withdraw into the other room.\n  WARWICK. Will't please your Grace to go along with us?\n  PRINCE. No; I will sit and watch here by the King.\n                                       Exeunt all but the PRINCE\n    Why doth the crown lie there upon his pillow,\n    Being so troublesome a bedfellow?\n    O polish'd perturbation! golden care!\n    That keep'st the ports of slumber open wide\n    To many a watchful night! Sleep with it now!\n    Yet not so sound and half so deeply sweet\n    As he whose brow with homely biggen bound\n    Snores out the watch of night. O majesty!\n    When thou dost pinch thy bearer, thou dost sit\n    Like a rich armour worn in heat of day\n    That scald'st with safety. By his gates of breath\n    There lies a downy feather which stirs not.\n    Did he suspire, that light and weightless down\n    Perforce must move. My gracious lord! my father!\n    This sleep is sound indeed; this is a sleep\n    That from this golden rigol hath divorc'd\n    So many English kings. Thy due from me\n    Is tears and heavy sorrows of the blood\n    Which nature, love, and filial tenderness,\n    Shall, O dear father, pay thee plenteously.\n    My due from thee is this imperial crown,\n    Which, as immediate from thy place and blood,\n    Derives itself to me.  [Putting on the crown]  Lo where it sits-\n    Which God shall guard; and put the world's whole strength\n    Into one giant arm, it shall not force\n    This lineal honour from me. This from thee\n    Will I to mine leave as 'tis left to me.                Exit\n  KING. Warwick! Gloucester! Clarence!\n\n           Re-enter WARWICK, GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE\n\n  CLARENCE. Doth the King call?\n  WARWICK. What would your Majesty? How fares your Grace?\n  KING. Why did you leave me here alone, my lords?\n  CLARENCE. We left the Prince my brother here, my liege,\n    Who undertook to sit and watch by you.\n  KING. The Prince of Wales! Where is he? Let me see him.\n    He is not here.\n  WARWICK. This door is open; he is gone this way.\n  PRINCE HUMPHREY. He came not through the chamber where we stay'd.\n  KING. Where is the crown? Who took it from my pillow?\n  WARWICK. When we withdrew, my liege, we left it here.\n  KING. The Prince hath ta'en it hence. Go, seek him out.\n    Is he so hasty that he doth suppose\n    My sleep my death?\n    Find him, my lord of Warwick; chide him hither.\n                                                    Exit WARWICK\n    This part of his conjoins with my disease\n    And helps to end me. See, sons, what things you are!\n    How quickly nature falls into revolt\n    When gold becomes her object!\n    For this the foolish over-careful fathers\n    Have broke their sleep with thoughts,\n    Their brains with care, their bones with industry;\n    For this they have engrossed and pil'd up\n    The cank'red heaps of strange-achieved gold;\n    For this they have been thoughtful to invest\n    Their sons with arts and martial exercises;\n    When, like the bee, tolling from every flower\n    The virtuous sweets,\n    Our thighs with wax, our mouths with honey pack'd,\n    We bring it to the hive, and, like the bees,\n    Are murd'red for our pains. This bitter taste\n    Yields his engrossments to the ending father.\n\n                         Re-enter WARWICK\n\n    Now where is he that will not stay so long\n    Till his friend sickness hath determin'd me?\n  WARWICK. My lord, I found the Prince in the next room,\n    Washing with kindly tears his gentle cheeks,\n    With such a deep demeanour in great sorrow,\n    That tyranny, which never quaff'd but blood,\n    Would, by beholding him, have wash'd his knife\n    With gentle eye-drops. He is coming hither.\n  KING. But wherefore did he take away the crown?\n\n                        Re-enter PRINCE HENRY\n\n    Lo where he comes. Come hither to me, Harry.\n    Depart the chamber, leave us here alone.\n                          Exeunt all but the KING and the PRINCE\n  PRINCE. I never thought to hear you speak again.\n  KING. Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought.\n    I stay too long by thee, I weary thee.\n    Dost thou so hunger for mine empty chair\n    That thou wilt needs invest thee with my honours\n    Before thy hour be ripe? O foolish youth!\n    Thou seek'st the greatness that will overwhelm thee.\n    Stay but a little, for my cloud of dignity\n    Is held from falling with so weak a wind\n    That it will quickly drop; my day is dim.\n    Thou hast stol'n that which, after some few hours,\n    Were thine without offense; and at my death\n    Thou hast seal'd up my expectation.\n    Thy life did manifest thou lov'dst me not,\n    And thou wilt have me die assur'd of it.\n    Thou hid'st a thousand daggers in thy thoughts,\n    Which thou hast whetted on thy stony heart,\n    To stab at half an hour of my life.\n    What, canst thou not forbear me half an hour?\n    Then get thee gone, and dig my grave thyself;\n    And bid the merry bells ring to thine ear\n    That thou art crowned, not that I am dead.\n    Let all the tears that should bedew my hearse\n    Be drops of balm to sanctify thy head;\n    Only compound me with forgotten dust;\n    Give that which gave thee life unto the worms.\n    Pluck down my officers, break my decrees;\n    For now a time is come to mock at form-\n    Harry the Fifth is crown'd. Up, vanity:\n    Down, royal state. All you sage counsellors, hence.\n    And to the English court assemble now,\n    From every region, apes of idleness.\n    Now, neighbour confines, purge you of your scum.\n    Have you a ruffian that will swear, drink, dance,\n    Revel the night, rob, murder, and commit\n    The oldest sins the newest kind of ways?\n    Be happy, he will trouble you no more.\n    England shall double gild his treble guilt;\n    England shall give him office, honour, might;\n    For the fifth Harry from curb'd license plucks\n    The muzzle of restraint, and the wild dog\n    Shall flesh his tooth on every innocent.\n    O my poor kingdom, sick with civil blows!\n    When that my care could not withhold thy riots,\n    What wilt thou do when riot is thy care?\n    O, thou wilt be a wilderness again.\n    Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants!\n  PRINCE. O, pardon me, my liege! But for my tears,\n    The moist impediments unto my speech,\n    I had forestall'd this dear and deep rebuke\n    Ere you with grief had spoke and I had heard\n    The course of it so far. There is your crown,\n    And he that wears the crown immortally\n    Long guard it yours!  [Kneeling]  If I affect it more\n    Than as your honour and as your renown,\n    Let me no more from this obedience rise,\n    Which my most inward true and duteous spirit\n    Teacheth this prostrate and exterior bending!\n    God witness with me, when I here came in\n    And found no course of breath within your Majesty,\n    How cold it struck my heart! If I do feign,\n    O, let me in my present wildness die,\n    And never live to show th' incredulous world\n    The noble change that I have purposed!\n    Coming to look on you, thinking you dead-\n    And dead almost, my liege, to think you were-\n    I spake unto this crown as having sense,\n    And thus upbraided it: 'The care on thee depending\n    Hath fed upon the body of my father;\n    Therefore thou best of gold art worst of gold.\n    Other, less fine in carat, is more precious,\n    Preserving life in med'cine potable;\n    But thou, most fine, most honour'd, most renown'd,\n    Hast eat thy bearer up.' Thus, my most royal liege,\n    Accusing it, I put it on my head,\n    To try with it- as with an enemy\n    That had before my face murd'red my father-\n    The quarrel of a true inheritor.\n    But if it did infect my blood with joy,\n    Or swell my thoughts to any strain of pride;\n    If any rebel or vain spirit of mine\n    Did with the least affection of a welcome\n    Give entertainment to the might of it,\n    Let God for ever keep it from my head,\n    And make me as the poorest vassal is,\n    That doth with awe and terror kneel to it!\n  KING. O my son,\n    God put it in thy mind to take it hence,\n    That thou mightst win the more thy father's love,\n    Pleading so wisely in excuse of it!\n    Come hither, Harry; sit thou by my bed,\n    And hear, I think, the very latest counsel\n    That ever I shall breathe. God knows, my son,\n    By what by-paths and indirect crook'd ways\n    I met this crown; and I myself know well\n    How troublesome it sat upon my head:\n    To thee it shall descend with better quiet,\n    Better opinion, better confirmation;\n    For all the soil of the achievement goes\n    With me into the earth. It seem'd in me\n    But as an honour snatch'd with boist'rous hand;\n    And I had many living to upbraid\n    My gain of it by their assistances;\n    Which daily grew to quarrel and to bloodshed,\n    Wounding supposed peace. All these bold fears\n    Thou seest with peril I have answered;\n    For all my reign hath been but as a scene\n    Acting that argument. And now my death\n    Changes the mood; for what in me was purchas'd\n    Falls upon thee in a more fairer sort;\n    So thou the garland wear'st successively.\n    Yet, though thou stand'st more sure than I could do,\n    Thou art not firm enough, since griefs are green;\n    And all my friends, which thou must make thy friends,\n    Have but their stings and teeth newly ta'en out;\n    By whose fell working I was first advanc'd,\n    And by whose power I well might lodge a fear\n    To be again displac'd; which to avoid,\n    I cut them off; and had a purpose now\n    To lead out many to the Holy Land,\n    Lest rest and lying still might make them look\n    Too near unto my state. Therefore, my Harry,\n    Be it thy course to busy giddy minds\n    With foreign quarrels, that action, hence borne out,\n    May waste the memory of the former days.\n    More would I, but my lungs are wasted so\n    That strength of speech is utterly denied me.\n    How I came by the crown, O God, forgive;\n    And grant it may with thee in true peace live!\n  PRINCE. My gracious liege,\n    You won it, wore it, kept it, gave it me;\n    Then plain and right must my possession be;\n    Which I with more than with a common pain\n    'Gainst all the world will rightfully maintain.\n\n       Enter PRINCE JOHN OF LANCASTER, WARWICK, LORDS, and others\n\n  KING. Look, look, here comes my John of Lancaster.\n  PRINCE JOHN. Health, peace, and happiness, to my royal father!\n  KING. Thou bring'st me happiness and peace, son John;\n    But health, alack, with youthful wings is flown\n    From this bare wither'd trunk. Upon thy sight\n    My worldly business makes a period.\n    Where is my Lord of Warwick?\n  PRINCE. My Lord of Warwick!\n  KING. Doth any name particular belong\n    Unto the lodging where I first did swoon?\n  WARWICK. 'Tis call'd Jerusalem, my noble lord.\n  KING. Laud be to God! Even there my life must end.\n    It hath been prophesied to me many years,\n    I should not die but in Jerusalem;\n    Which vainly I suppos'd the Holy Land.\n    But bear me to that chamber; there I'll lie;\n    In that Jerusalem shall Harry die.                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nGloucestershire. SHALLOW'S house\n\nEnter SHALLOW, FALSTAFF, BARDOLPH, and PAGE\n\n  SHALLOW. By cock and pie, sir, you shall not away to-night.\n    What, Davy, I say!\n  FALSTAFF. You must excuse me, Master Robert Shallow.\n  SHALLOW. I will not excuse you; you shall not be excus'd; excuses\n    shall not be admitted; there is no excuse shall serve; you shall\n    not be excus'd. Why, Davy!\n\n                            Enter DAVY\n\n  DAVY. Here, sir.\n  SHALLOW. Davy, Davy, Davy, Davy; let me see, Davy; let me see,\n    Davy; let me see- yea, marry, William cook, bid him come hither.\n    Sir John, you shall not be excus'd.\n  DAVY. Marry, sir, thus: those precepts cannot be served; and,\n    again, sir- shall we sow the headland with wheat?\n  SHALLOW. With red wheat, Davy. But for William cook- are there no\n    young pigeons?\n  DAVY. Yes, sir. Here is now the smith's note for shoeing and\n    plough-irons.\n  SHALLOW. Let it be cast, and paid. Sir John, you shall not be\n    excused.\n  DAVY. Now, sir, a new link to the bucket must needs be had; and,\n    sir, do you mean to stop any of William's wages about the sack he\n    lost the other day at Hinckley fair?\n  SHALLOW. 'A shall answer it. Some pigeons, Davy, a couple of\n    short-legg'd hens, a joint of mutton, and any pretty little tiny\n    kickshaws, tell William cook.\n  DAVY. Doth the man of war stay all night, sir?\n  SHALLOW. Yea, Davy; I will use him well. A friend i' th' court is\n    better than a penny in purse. Use his men well, Davy; for they\n    are arrant knaves and will backbite.\n  DAVY. No worse than they are backbitten, sir; for they have\n    marvellous foul linen.\n  SHALLOW. Well conceited, Davy- about thy business, Davy.\n  DAVY. I beseech you, sir, to countenance William Visor of Woncot\n    against Clement Perkes o' th' hill.\n  SHALLOW. There, is many complaints, Davy, against that Visor. That\n    Visor is an arrant knave, on my knowledge.\n  DAVY. I grant your worship that he is a knave, sir; but yet God\n    forbid, sir, but a knave should have some countenance at his\n    friend's request. An honest man, sir, is able to speak for\n    himself, when a knave is not. I have serv'd your worship truly,\n    sir, this eight years; an I cannot once or twice in a quarter\n    bear out a knave against an honest man, I have but a very little\n    credit with your worship. The knave is mine honest friend, sir;\n    therefore, I beseech you, let him be countenanc'd.\n  SHALLOW. Go to; I say he shall have no wrong. Look about,\n  DAVY.  [Exit DAVY]  Where are you, Sir John? Come, come, come, off\n    with your boots. Give me your hand, Master Bardolph.\n  BARDOLPH. I am glad to see your worship.\n  SHALLOW. I thank thee with all my heart, kind Master Bardolph.\n    [To the PAGE]  And welcome, my tall fellow. Come, Sir John.\n  FALSTAFF. I'll follow you, good Master Robert Shallow.\n    [Exit SHALLOW]  Bardolph, look to our horses.  [Exeunt BARDOLPH\n    and PAGE]  If I were sawed into quantities, I should make four\n    dozen of such bearded hermits' staves as Master Shallow. It is a\n    wonderful thing to see the semblable coherence of his men's\n    spirits and his. They, by observing of him, do bear themselves\n    like foolish justices: he, by conversing with them, is turned\n    into a justice-like serving-man. Their spirits are so married in\n    conjunction with the participation of society that they flock\n    together in consent, like so many wild geese. If I had a suit to\n    Master Shallow, I would humour his men with the imputation of\n    being near their master; if to his men, I would curry with Master\n    Shallow that no man could better command his servants. It is\n    certain that either wise bearing or ignorant carriage is caught,\n    as men take diseases, one of another; therefore let men take heed\n    of their company. I will devise matter enough out of this Shallow\n    to keep Prince Harry in continual laughter the wearing out of six\n    fashions, which is four terms, or two actions; and 'a shall laugh\n    without intervallums. O, it is much that a lie with a slight\n    oath, and a jest with a sad brow will do with a fellow that never\n    had the ache in his shoulders! O, you shall see him laugh till\n    his face be like a wet cloak ill laid up!\n  SHALLOW.  [Within]  Sir John!\n  FALSTAFF. I come, Master Shallow; I come, Master Shallow.\n Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nWestminster. The palace\n\nEnter, severally, WARWICK, and the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE\n\n  WARWICK. How now, my Lord Chief Justice; whither away?\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. How doth the King?\n  WARWICK. Exceeding well; his cares are now all ended.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. I hope, not dead.\n  WARWICK. He's walk'd the way of nature;\n    And to our purposes he lives no more.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. I would his Majesty had call'd me with him.\n    The service that I truly did his life\n    Hath left me open to all injuries.\n  WARWICK. Indeed, I think the young king loves you not.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. I know he doth not, and do arm myself\n    To welcome the condition of the time,\n    Which cannot look more hideously upon me\n    Than I have drawn it in my fantasy.\n\n              Enter LANCASTER, CLARENCE, GLOUCESTER,\n                     WESTMORELAND, and others\n\n  WARWICK. Here comes the heavy issue of dead Harry.\n    O that the living Harry had the temper\n    Of he, the worst of these three gentlemen!\n    How many nobles then should hold their places\n    That must strike sail to spirits of vile sort!\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. O God, I fear all will be overturn'd.\n  PRINCE JOHN. Good morrow, cousin Warwick, good morrow.\n  GLOUCESTER & CLARENCE. Good morrow, cousin.\n  PRINCE JOHN. We meet like men that had forgot to speak.\n  WARWICK. We do remember; but our argument\n    Is all too heavy to admit much talk.\n  PRINCE JOHN. Well, peace be with him that hath made us heavy!\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Peace be with us, lest we be heavier!\n  PRINCE HUMPHREY. O, good my lord, you have lost a friend indeed;\n    And I dare swear you borrow not that face\n    Of seeming sorrow- it is sure your own.\n  PRINCE JOHN. Though no man be assur'd what grace to find,\n    You stand in coldest expectation.\n    I am the sorrier; would 'twere otherwise.\n  CLARENCE. Well, you must now speak Sir John Falstaff fair;\n    Which swims against your stream of quality.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Sweet Princes, what I did, I did in honour,\n    Led by th' impartial conduct of my soul;\n    And never shall you see that I will beg\n    A ragged and forestall'd remission.\n    If truth and upright innocency fail me,\n    I'll to the King my master that is dead,\n    And tell him who hath sent me after him.\n  WARWICK. Here comes the Prince.\n\n            Enter KING HENRY THE FIFTH, attended\n\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Good morrow, and God save your Majesty!\n  KING. This new and gorgeous garment, majesty,\n    Sits not so easy on me as you think.\n    Brothers, you mix your sadness with some fear.\n    This is the English, not the Turkish court;\n    Not Amurath an Amurath succeeds,\n    But Harry Harry. Yet be sad, good brothers,\n    For, by my faith, it very well becomes you.\n    Sorrow so royally in you appears\n    That I will deeply put the fashion on,\n    And wear it in my heart. Why, then, be sad;\n    But entertain no more of it, good brothers,\n    Than a joint burden laid upon us all.\n    For me, by heaven, I bid you be assur'd,\n    I'll be your father and your brother too;\n    Let me but bear your love, I'll bear your cares.\n    Yet weep that Harry's dead, and so will I;\n    But Harry lives that shall convert those tears\n    By number into hours of happiness.\n  BROTHERS. We hope no otherwise from your Majesty.\n  KING. You all look strangely on me; and you most.\n    You are, I think, assur'd I love you not.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. I am assur'd, if I be measur'd rightly,\n    Your Majesty hath no just cause to hate me.\n  KING. No?\n    How might a prince of my great hopes forget\n    So great indignities you laid upon me?\n    What, rate, rebuke, and roughly send to prison,\n    Th' immediate heir of England! Was this easy?\n    May this be wash'd in Lethe and forgotten?\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. I then did use the person of your father;\n    The image of his power lay then in me;\n    And in th' administration of his law,\n    Whiles I was busy for the commonwealth,\n    Your Highness pleased to forget my place,\n    The majesty and power of law and justice,\n    The image of the King whom I presented,\n    And struck me in my very seat of judgment;\n    Whereon, as an offender to your father,\n    I gave bold way to my authority\n    And did commit you. If the deed were ill,\n    Be you contented, wearing now the garland,\n    To have a son set your decrees at nought,\n    To pluck down justice from your awful bench,\n    To trip the course of law, and blunt the sword\n    That guards the peace and safety of your person;\n    Nay, more, to spurn at your most royal image,\n    And mock your workings in a second body.\n    Question your royal thoughts, make the case yours;\n    Be now the father, and propose a son;\n    Hear your own dignity so much profan'd,\n    See your most dreadful laws so loosely slighted,\n    Behold yourself so by a son disdain'd;\n    And then imagine me taking your part\n    And, in your power, soft silencing your son.\n    After this cold considerance, sentence me;\n    And, as you are a king, speak in your state\n    What I have done that misbecame my place,\n    My person, or my liege's sovereignty.\n  KING. You are right, Justice, and you weigh this well;\n    Therefore still bear the balance and the sword;\n    And I do wish your honours may increase\n    Till you do live to see a son of mine\n    Offend you, and obey you, as I did.\n    So shall I live to speak my father's words:\n    'Happy am I that have a man so bold\n    That dares do justice on my proper son;\n    And not less happy, having such a son\n    That would deliver up his greatness so\n    Into the hands of justice.' You did commit me;\n    For which I do commit into your hand\n    Th' unstained sword that you have us'd to bear;\n    With this remembrance- that you use the same\n    With the like bold, just, and impartial spirit\n    As you have done 'gainst me. There is my hand.\n    You shall be as a father to my youth;\n    My voice shall sound as you do prompt mine ear;\n    And I will stoop and humble my intents\n    To your well-practis'd wise directions.\n    And, Princes all, believe me, I beseech you,\n    My father is gone wild into his grave,\n    For in his tomb lie my affections;\n    And with his spirits sadly I survive,\n    To mock the expectation of the world,\n    To frustrate prophecies, and to raze out\n    Rotten opinion, who hath writ me down\n    After my seeming. The tide of blood in me\n    Hath proudly flow'd in vanity till now.\n    Now doth it turn and ebb back to the sea,\n    Where it shall mingle with the state of floods,\n    And flow henceforth in formal majesty.\n    Now call we our high court of parliament;\n    And let us choose such limbs of noble counsel,\n    That the great body of our state may go\n    In equal rank with the best govern'd nation;\n    That war, or peace, or both at once, may be\n    As things acquainted and familiar to us;\n    In which you, father, shall have foremost hand.\n    Our coronation done, we will accite,\n    As I before rememb'red, all our state;\n    And- God consigning to my good intents-\n    No prince nor peer shall have just cause to say,\n    God shorten Harry's happy life one day.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nGloucestershire. SHALLOW'S orchard\n\nEnter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, SILENCE, BARDOLPH, the PAGE, and DAVY\n\n  SHALLOW. Nay, you shall see my orchard, where, in an arbour, we\n    will eat a last year's pippin of mine own graffing, with a dish\n    of caraways, and so forth. Come, cousin Silence. And then to bed.\n  FALSTAFF. Fore God, you have here a goodly dwelling and rich.\n  SHALLOW. Barren, barren, barren; beggars all, beggars all, Sir John\n    -marry, good air. Spread, Davy, spread, Davy; well said, Davy.\n  FALSTAFF. This Davy serves you for good uses; he is your\n    serving-man and your husband.\n  SHALLOW. A good varlet, a good varlet, a very good varlet, Sir\n    John. By the mass, I have drunk too much sack at supper. A good\n    varlet. Now sit down, now sit down; come, cousin.\n  SILENCE. Ah, sirrah! quoth-a- we shall               [Singing]\n\n              Do nothing but eat and make good cheer,\n              And praise God for the merry year;\n              When flesh is cheap and females dear,\n              And lusty lads roam here and there,\n                  So merrily,\n                And ever among so merrily.\n\n  FALSTAFF. There's a merry heart! Good Master Silence, I'll give you\n    a health for that anon.\n  SHALLOW. Give Master Bardolph some wine, Davy.\n  DAVY. Sweet sir, sit; I'll be with you anon; most sweet sir, sit.\n    Master Page, good Master Page, sit. Proface! What you want in\n    meat, we'll have in drink. But you must bear; the heart's all.\n Exit\n  SHALLOW. Be merry, Master Bardolph; and, my little soldier there,\n    be merry.\n  SILENCE.  [Singing]\n\n         Be merry, be merry, my wife has all;\n         For women are shrews, both short and tall;\n         'Tis merry in hall when beards wag an;\n           And welcome merry Shrove-tide.\n         Be merry, be merry.\n\n  FALSTAFF. I did not think Master Silence had been a man of this\n    mettle.\n  SILENCE. Who, I? I have been merry twice and once ere now.\n\n                          Re-enter DAVY\n\n  DAVY.  [To BARDOLPH]  There's a dish of leather-coats for you.\n  SHALLOW. Davy!\n  DAVY. Your worship! I'll be with you straight.  [To BARDOLPH]\n    A cup of wine, sir?\n  SILENCE.  [Singing]\n\n         A cup of wine that's brisk and fine,\n         And drink unto the leman mine;\n           And a merry heart lives long-a.\n\n  FALSTAFF. Well said, Master Silence.\n  SILENCE. An we shall be merry, now comes in the sweet o' th' night.\n  FALSTAFF. Health and long life to you, Master Silence!\n  SILENCE.  [Singing]\n\n         Fill the cup, and let it come,\n         I'll pledge you a mile to th' bottom.\n\n  SHALLOW. Honest Bardolph, welcome; if thou want'st anything and\n    wilt not call, beshrew thy heart. Welcome, my little tiny thief\n    and welcome indeed too. I'll drink to Master Bardolph, and to all\n    the cabileros about London.\n  DAVY. I hope to see London once ere I die.\n  BARDOLPH. An I might see you there, Davy!\n  SHALLOW. By the mass, you'R crack a quart together- ha! will you\n    not, Master Bardolph?\n  BARDOLPH. Yea, sir, in a pottle-pot.\n  SHALLOW. By God's liggens, I thank thee. The knave will stick by\n    thee, I can assure thee that. 'A will not out, 'a; 'tis true\n    bred.\n  BARDOLPH. And I'll stick by him, sir.\n  SHALLOW. Why, there spoke a king. Lack nothing; be merry.\n    [One knocks at door]  Look who's at door there, ho! Who knocks?\n                                                       Exit DAVY\n  FALSTAFF.  [To SILENCE, who has drunk a bumper]  Why, now you have\n    done me right.\n  SILENCE.  [Singing]\n\n         Do me right,\n         And dub me knight.\n           Samingo.\n\n    Is't not so?\n  FALSTAFF. 'Tis so.\n  SILENCE. Is't so? Why then, say an old man can do somewhat.\n\n                        Re-enter DAVY\n\n  DAVY. An't please your worship, there's one Pistol come from the\n    court with news.\n  FALSTAFF. From the court? Let him come in.\n\n                        Enter PISTOL\n\n    How now, Pistol?\n  PISTOL. Sir John, God save you!\n  FALSTAFF. What wind blew you hither, Pistol?\n  PISTOL. Not the ill wind which blows no man to good. Sweet knight,\n    thou art now one of the greatest men in this realm.\n  SILENCE. By'r lady, I think 'a be, but goodman Puff of Barson.\n  PISTOL. Puff!\n    Puff in thy teeth, most recreant coward base!\n    Sir John, I am thy Pistol and thy friend,\n    And helter-skelter have I rode to thee;\n    And tidings do I bring, and lucky joys,\n    And golden times, and happy news of price.\n  FALSTAFF. I pray thee now, deliver them like a man of this world.\n  PISTOL. A foutra for the world and worldlings base!\n    I speak of Africa and golden joys.\n  FALSTAFF. O base Assyrian knight, what is thy news?\n    Let King Cophetua know the truth thereof.\n  SILENCE.  [Singing]  And Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John.\n  PISTOL. Shall dunghill curs confront the Helicons?\n    And shall good news be baffled?\n    Then, Pistol, lay thy head in Furies' lap.\n  SHALLOW. Honest gentleman, I know not your breeding.\n  PISTOL. Why, then, lament therefore.\n  SHALLOW. Give me pardon, sir. If, sir, you come with news from the\n    court, I take it there's but two ways- either to utter them or\n    conceal them. I am, sir, under the King, in some authority.\n  PISTOL. Under which king, Bezonian? Speak, or die.\n  SHALLOW. Under King Harry.\n  PISTOL. Harry the Fourth- or Fifth?\n  SHALLOW. Harry the Fourth.\n  PISTOL. A foutra for thine office!\n    Sir John, thy tender lambkin now is King;\n    Harry the Fifth's the man. I speak the truth.\n    When Pistol lies, do this; and fig me, like\n    The bragging Spaniard.\n  FALSTAFF. What, is the old king dead?\n  PISTOL. As nail in door. The things I speak are just.\n  FALSTAFF. Away, Bardolph! saddle my horse. Master Robert Shallow,\n    choose what office thou wilt in the land, 'tis thine. Pistol, I\n    will double-charge thee with dignities.\n  BARDOLPH. O joyful day!\n    I would not take a knighthood for my fortune.\n  PISTOL. What, I do bring good news?\n  FALSTAFF. Carry Master Silence to bed. Master Shallow, my Lord\n    Shallow, be what thou wilt- I am Fortune's steward. Get on thy\n    boots; we'll ride all night. O sweet Pistol! Away, Bardolph!\n    [Exit BARDOLPH]  Come, Pistol, utter more to me; and withal\n    devise something to do thyself good. Boot, boot, Master Shallow!\n    I know the young King is sick for me. Let us take any man's\n    horses: the laws of England are at my commandment. Blessed are\n    they that have been my friends; and woe to my Lord Chief Justice!\n  PISTOL. Let vultures vile seize on his lungs also!\n    'Where is the life that late I led?' say they.\n    Why, here it is; welcome these pleasant days!         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nLondon. A street\n\nEnter BEADLES, dragging in HOSTESS QUICKLY and DOLL TEARSHEET\n\n  HOSTESS. No, thou arrant knave; I would to God that I might die,\n    that I might have thee hang'd. Thou hast drawn my shoulder out of\n    joint.\n  FIRST BEADLE. The constables have delivered her over to me; and she\n    shall have whipping-cheer enough, I warrant her. There hath been\n    a man or two lately kill'd about her.\n  DOLL. Nut-hook, nut-hook, you lie. Come on; I'll tell thee what,\n    thou damn'd tripe-visag'd rascal, an the child I now go with do\n    miscarry, thou wert better thou hadst struck thy mother, thou\n    paper-fac'd villain.\n  HOSTESS. O the Lord, that Sir John were come! He would make this a\n    bloody day to somebody. But I pray God the fruit of her womb\n    miscarry!\n  FIRST BEADLE. If it do, you shall have a dozen of cushions again;\n    you have but eleven now. Come, I charge you both go with me; for\n    the man is dead that you and Pistol beat amongst you.\n  DOLL. I'll tell you what, you thin man in a censer, I will have you\n    as soundly swing'd for this- you blue-bottle rogue, you filthy\n    famish'd correctioner, if you be not swing'd, I'll forswear\n    half-kirtles.\n  FIRST BEADLE. Come, come, you she knight-errant, come.\n  HOSTESS. O God, that right should thus overcome might!\n    Well, of sufferance comes ease.\n  DOLL. Come, you rogue, come; bring me to a justice.\n  HOSTESS. Ay, come, you starv'd bloodhound.\n  DOLL. Goodman death, goodman bones!\n  HOSTESS. Thou atomy, thou!\n  DOLL. Come, you thin thing! come, you rascal!\n  FIRST BEADLE. Very well.                                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nWestminster. Near the Abbey\n\nEnter GROOMS, strewing rushes\n\n  FIRST GROOM. More rushes, more rushes!\n  SECOND GROOM. The trumpets have sounded twice.\n  THIRD GROOM. 'Twill be two o'clock ere they come from the\n    coronation. Dispatch, dispatch.                       Exeunt\n\n        Trumpets sound, and the KING and his train pass\n       over the stage. After them enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW,\n                  PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and page\n\n  FALSTAFF. Stand here by me, Master Robert Shallow; I will make the\n    King do you grace. I will leer upon him, as 'a comes by; and do\n    but mark the countenance that he will give me.\n  PISTOL. God bless thy lungs, good knight!\n  FALSTAFF. Come here, Pistol; stand behind me.  [To SHALLOW]  O, if\n    I had had to have made new liveries, I would have bestowed the\n    thousand pound I borrowed of you. But 'tis no matter; this poor\n    show doth better; this doth infer the zeal I had to see him.\n  SHALLOW. It doth so.\n  FALSTAFF. It shows my earnestness of affection-\n  SHALLOW. It doth so.\n  FALSTAFF. My devotion-\n  SHALLOW. It doth, it doth, it doth.\n  FALSTAFF. As it were, to ride day and night; and not to deliberate,\n    not to remember, not to have patience to shift me-\n  SHALLOW. It is best, certain.\n  FALSTAFF. But to stand stained with travel, and sweating with\n    desire to see him; thinking of nothing else, putting all affairs\n    else in oblivion, as if there were nothing else to be done but to\n    see him.\n  PISTOL. 'Tis 'semper idem' for 'obsque hoc nihil est.' 'Tis all in\n    every part.\n  SHALLOW. 'Tis so, indeed.\n  PISTOL. My knight, I will inflame thy noble liver\n    And make thee rage.\n    Thy Doll, and Helen of thy noble thoughts,\n    Is in base durance and contagious prison;\n    Hal'd thither\n    By most mechanical and dirty hand.\n    Rouse up revenge from ebon den with fell Alecto's snake,\n    For Doll is in. Pistol speaks nought but truth.\n  FALSTAFF. I will deliver her.\n                         [Shouts,within, and the trumpets sound]\n  PISTOL. There roar'd the sea, and trumpet-clangor sounds.\n\n        Enter the KING and his train, the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE\n                               among them\n\n  FALSTAFF. God save thy Grace, King Hal; my royal Hal!\n  PISTOL. The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame!\n  FALSTAFF. God save thee, my sweet boy!\n  KING. My Lord Chief Justice, speak to that vain man.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Have you your wits? Know you what 'tis you speak?\n  FALSTAFF. My king! my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart!\n  KING. I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers.\n    How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!\n    I have long dreamt of such a kind of man,\n    So surfeit-swell'd, so old, and so profane;\n    But being awak'd, I do despise my dream.\n    Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace;\n    Leave gormandizing; know the grave doth gape\n    For thee thrice wider than for other men-\n    Reply not to me with a fool-born jest;\n    Presume not that I am the thing I was,\n    For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,\n    That I have turn'd away my former self;\n    So will I those that kept me company.\n    When thou dost hear I am as I have been,\n    Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast,\n    The tutor and the feeder of my riots.\n    Till then I banish thee, on pain of death,\n    As I have done the rest of my misleaders,\n    Not to come near our person by ten mile.\n    For competence of life I will allow you,\n    That lack of means enforce you not to evils;\n    And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,\n    We will, according to your strengths and qualities,\n    Give you advancement. Be it your charge, my lord,\n    To see perform'd the tenour of our word.\n    Set on.                        Exeunt the KING and his train\n  FALSTAFF. Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pounds.\n  SHALLOW. Yea, marry, Sir John; which I beseech you to let me have\n    home with me.\n  FALSTAFF. That can hardly be, Master Shallow. Do not you grieve at\n    this; I shall be sent for in private to him. Look you, he must\n    seem thus to the world. Fear not your advancements; I will be the\n    man yet that shall make you great.\n  SHALLOW. I cannot perceive how, unless you give me your doublet,\n    and stuff me out with straw. I beseech you, good Sir John, let me\n    have five hundred of my thousand.\n  FALSTAFF. Sir, I will be as good as my word. This that you heard\n    was but a colour.\n  SHALLOW. A colour that I fear you will die in, Sir John.\n  FALSTAFF. Fear no colours; go with me to dinner. Come, Lieutenant\n    Pistol; come, Bardolph. I shall be sent for soon at night.\n\n            Re-enter PRINCE JOHN, the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE,\n                            with officers\n\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet;\n    Take all his company along with him.\n  FALSTAFF. My lord, my lord-\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. I cannot now speak. I will hear you soon.\n    Take them away.\n  PISTOL. Si fortuna me tormenta, spero me contenta.\n           Exeunt all but PRINCE JOHN and the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE\n  PRINCE JOHN. I like this fair proceeding of the King's.\n    He hath intent his wonted followers\n    Shall all be very well provided for;\n    But all are banish'd till their conversations\n    Appear more wise and modest to the world.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. And so they are.\n  PRINCE JOHN. The King hath call'd his parliament, my lord.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. He hath.\n  PRINCE JOHN. I will lay odds that, ere this year expire,\n    We bear our civil swords and native fire\n    As far as France. I heard a bird so sing,\n    Whose music, to my thinking, pleas'd the King.\n    Come, will you hence?                                 Exeunt\n\nEPILOGUE\n                           EPILOGUE.\n\n  First my fear, then my curtsy, last my speech. My fear, is your\ndispleasure; my curtsy, my duty; and my speech, to beg your pardons.\nIf you look for a good speech now, you undo me; for what I have to say\nis of mine own making; and what, indeed, I should say will, I doubt,\nprove mine own marring. But to the purpose, and so to the venture.\nBe it known to you, as it is very well, I was lately here in the end\nof a displeasing play, to pray your patience for it and to promise you\na better. I meant, indeed, to pay you with this; which if like an\nill venture it come unluckily home, I break, and you, my gentle\ncreditors, lose. Here I promis'd you I would be, and here I commit\nmy body to your mercies. Bate me some, and I will pay you some, and,\nas most debtors do, promise you infinitely; and so I kneel down before\nyou- but, indeed, to pray for the Queen.\n  If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will you command me to\nuse my legs? And yet that were but light payment-to dance out of\nyour debt. But a good conscience will make any possible\nsatisfaction, and so would I. All the gentlewomen here have forgiven\nme. If the gentlemen will not, then the gentlemen do not agree with\nthe gentlewomen, which was never seen before in such an assembly.\n  One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too much cloy'd with fat\nmeat, our humble author will continue the story, with Sir John in\nit, and make you merry with fair Katherine of France; where, for\nanything I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already 'a be\nkilled with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr and this\nis not the man. My tongue is weary; when my legs are too, I will bid\nyou good night.\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1599\n\nTHE LIFE OF KING HENRY THE FIFTH\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  CHORUS\n  KING HENRY THE FIFTH\n  DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, brother to the King\n  DUKE OF BEDFORD,       \"     \"  \"    \"\n  DUKE OF EXETER, Uncle to the King\n  DUKE OF YORK, cousin to the King\n  EARL OF SALISBURY\n  EARL OF WESTMORELAND\n  EARL OF WARWICK\n  ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY\n  BISHOP OF ELY\n\n  EARL OF CAMBRIDGE, conspirator against the King\n  LORD SCROOP,            \"         \"     \"    \"\n  SIR THOMAS GREY,        \"         \"     \"    \"\n  SIR THOMAS ERPINGHAM, officer in the King's army\n  GOWER,                  \"      \"  \"    \"     \"\n  FLUELLEN,               \"      \"  \"    \"     \"\n  MACMORRIS,              \"      \"  \"    \"     \"\n  JAMY,                   \"      \"  \"    \"     \"\n\n  BATES,    soldier in the King's army\n  COURT,       \"    \"   \"    \"     \"\n  WILLIAMS,    \"    \"   \"    \"     \"\n  NYM,         \"    \"   \"    \"     \"\n  BARDOLPH,    \"    \"   \"    \"     \"\n  PISTOL,      \"    \"   \"    \"     \"\n\n  BOY                               A HERALD\n\n  CHARLES THE SIXTH, King of France\n  LEWIS, the Dauphin                DUKE OF BURGUNDY\n  DUKE OF ORLEANS                   DUKE OF BRITAINE\n  DUKE OF BOURBON                   THE CONSTABLE OF FRANCE\n  RAMBURES, French Lord\n  GRANDPRE,    \"    \"\n  GOVERNOR OF HARFLEUR              MONTJOY, a French herald\n  AMBASSADORS to the King of England\n\n  ISABEL, Queen of France\n  KATHERINE, daughter to Charles and Isabel\n  ALICE, a lady attending her\n  HOSTESS of the Boar's Head, Eastcheap; formerly Mrs. Quickly, now\n    married to Pistol\n\n  Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Messengers, Attendants\n\n\n                              SCENE:\n                        England and France\n\nPROLOGUE\n                            PROLOGUE.\n\n                          Enter CHORUS\n\n CHORUS. O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend\n   The brightest heaven of invention,\n   A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,\n   And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!\n   Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,\n   Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,\n   Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire,\n   Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,\n   The flat unraised spirits that hath dar'd\n   On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth\n   So great an object. Can this cockpit hold\n   The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram\n   Within this wooden O the very casques\n   That did affright the air at Agincourt?\n   O, pardon! since a crooked figure may\n   Attest in little place a million;\n   And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,\n   On your imaginary forces work.\n   Suppose within the girdle of these walls\n   Are now confin'd two mighty monarchies,\n   Whose high upreared and abutting fronts\n   The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder.\n   Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts:\n   Into a thousand parts divide one man,\n   And make imaginary puissance;\n   Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them\n   Printing their proud hoofs i' th' receiving earth;\n   For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,\n   Carry them here and there, jumping o'er times,\n   Turning th' accomplishment of many years\n   Into an hour-glass; for the which supply,\n   Admit me Chorus to this history;\n   Who prologue-like, your humble patience pray\n   Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.               Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nLondon. An ante-chamber in the KING'S palace\n\nEnter the ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY and the BISHOP OF ELY\n\n CANTERBURY. My lord, I'll tell you: that self bill is urg'd\n   Which in th' eleventh year of the last king's reign\n   Was like, and had indeed against us pass'd\n   But that the scambling and unquiet time\n   Did push it out of farther question.\n ELY. But how, my lord, shall we resist it now?\n CANTERBURY. It must be thought on. If it pass against us,\n   We lose the better half of our possession;\n   For all the temporal lands which men devout\n   By testament have given to the church\n   Would they strip from us; being valu'd thus-\n   As much as would maintain, to the King's honour,\n   Full fifteen earls and fifteen hundred knights,\n   Six thousand and two hundred good esquires;\n   And, to relief of lazars and weak age,\n   Of indigent faint souls, past corporal toil,\n   A hundred alms-houses right well supplied;\n   And to the coffers of the King, beside,\n   A thousand pounds by th' year: thus runs the bill.\n ELY. This would drink deep.\n CANTERBURY. 'T would drink the cup and all.\n ELY. But what prevention?\n CANTERBURY. The King is full of grace and fair regard.\n ELY. And a true lover of the holy Church.\n CANTERBURY. The courses of his youth promis'd it not.\n   The breath no sooner left his father's body\n   But that his wildness, mortified in him,\n   Seem'd to die too; yea, at that very moment,\n   Consideration like an angel came\n   And whipp'd th' offending Adam out of him,\n   Leaving his body as a paradise\n   T'envelop and contain celestial spirits.\n   Never was such a sudden scholar made;\n   Never came reformation in a flood,\n   With such a heady currance, scouring faults;\n   Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulnes\n   So soon did lose his seat, and all at once,\n   As in this king.\n ELY. We are blessed in the change.\n CANTERBURY. Hear him but reason in divinity,\n   And, all-admiring, with an inward wish\n   You would desire the King were made a prelate;\n   Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,\n   You would say it hath been all in all his study;\n   List his discourse of war, and you shall hear\n   A fearful battle rend'red you in music.\n   Turn him to any cause of policy,\n   The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,\n   Familiar as his garter; that, when he speaks,\n   The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,\n   And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears\n   To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences;\n   So that the art and practic part of life\n   Must be the mistress to this theoric;\n   Which is a wonder how his Grace should glean it,\n   Since his addiction was to courses vain,\n   His companies unletter'd, rude, and shallow,\n   His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports;\n   And never noted in him any study,\n   Any retirement, any sequestration\n   From open haunts and popularity.\n ELY. The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,\n   And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best\n   Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality;\n   And so the Prince obscur'd his contemplation\n   Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt,\n   Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,\n   Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.\n CANTERBURY. It must be so; for miracles are ceas'd;\n   And therefore we must needs admit the means\n   How things are perfected.\n ELY. But, my good lord,\n   How now for mitigation of this bill\n   Urg'd by the Commons? Doth his Majesty\n   Incline to it, or no?\n CANTERBURY. He seems indifferent\n   Or rather swaying more upon our part\n   Than cherishing th' exhibiters against us;\n   For I have made an offer to his Majesty-\n   Upon our spiritual convocation\n   And in regard of causes now in hand,\n   Which I have open'd to his Grace at large,\n   As touching France- to give a greater sum\n   Than ever at one time the clergy yet\n   Did to his predecessors part withal.\n ELY. How did this offer seem receiv'd, my lord?\n CANTERBURY. With good acceptance of his Majesty;\n   Save that there was not time enough to hear,\n   As I perceiv'd his Grace would fain have done,\n   The severals and unhidden passages\n   Of his true tides to some certain dukedoms,\n   And generally to the crown and seat of France,\n   Deriv'd from Edward, his great-grandfather.\n ELY. What was th' impediment that broke this off?\n CANTERBURY. The French ambassador upon that instant\n   Crav'd audience; and the hour, I think, is come\n   To give him hearing: is it four o'clock?\n ELY. It is.\n CANTERBURY. Then go we in, to know his embassy;\n   Which I could with a ready guess declare,\n   Before the Frenchman speak a word of it.\n ELY. I'll wait upon you, and I long to hear it.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nLondon. The Presence Chamber in the KING'S palace\n\nEnter the KING, GLOUCESTER, BEDFORD, EXETER, WARWICK, WESTMORELAND,\nand attendants\n\n  KING HENRY. Where is my gracious Lord of Canterbury?\n  EXETER. Not here in presence.\n  KING HENRY. Send for him, good uncle.\n  WESTMORELAND. Shall we call in th' ambassador, my liege?\n  KING HENRY. Not yet, my cousin; we would be resolv'd,\n    Before we hear him, of some things of weight\n    That task our thoughts, concerning us and France.\n\n              Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY and\n                       the BISHOP OF ELY\n\n  CANTERBURY. God and his angels guard your sacred throne,\n    And make you long become it!\n  KING HENRY. Sure, we thank you.\n    My learned lord, we pray you to proceed,\n    And justly and religiously unfold\n    Why the law Salique, that they have in France,\n    Or should or should not bar us in our claim;\n    And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord,\n    That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading,\n    Or nicely charge your understanding soul\n    With opening titles miscreate whose right\n    Suits not in native colours with the truth;\n    For God doth know how many, now in health,\n    Shall drop their blood in approbation\n    Of what your reverence shall incite us to.\n    Therefore take heed how you impawn our person,\n    How you awake our sleeping sword of war-\n    We charge you, in the name of God, take heed;\n    For never two such kingdoms did contend\n    Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless drops\n    Are every one a woe, a sore complaint,\n    'Gainst him whose wrongs gives edge unto the swords\n    That makes such waste in brief mortality.\n    Under this conjuration speak, my lord;\n    For we will hear, note, and believe in heart,\n    That what you speak is in your conscience wash'd\n    As pure as sin with baptism.\n  CANTERBURY. Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and you peers,\n    That owe yourselves, your lives, and services,\n    To this imperial throne. There is no bar\n    To make against your Highness' claim to France\n    But this, which they produce from Pharamond:\n    'In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant'-\n    'No woman shall succeed in Salique land';\n    Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze\n    To be the realm of France, and Pharamond\n    The founder of this law and female bar.\n    Yet their own authors faithfully affirm\n    That the land Salique is in Germany,\n    Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe;\n    Where Charles the Great, having subdu'd the Saxons,\n    There left behind and settled certain French;\n    Who, holding in disdain the German women\n    For some dishonest manners of their life,\n    Establish'd then this law: to wit, no female\n    Should be inheritrix in Salique land;\n    Which Salique, as I said, 'twixt Elbe and Sala,\n    Is at this day in Germany call'd Meisen.\n    Then doth it well appear the Salique law\n    Was not devised for the realm of France;\n    Nor did the French possess the Salique land\n    Until four hundred one and twenty years\n    After defunction of King Pharamond,\n    Idly suppos'd the founder of this law;\n    Who died within the year of our redemption\n    Four hundred twenty-six; and Charles the Great\n    Subdu'd the Saxons, and did seat the French\n    Beyond the river Sala, in the year\n    Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say,\n    King Pepin, which deposed Childeric,\n    Did, as heir general, being descended\n    Of Blithild, which was daughter to King Clothair,\n    Make claim and title to the crown of France.\n    Hugh Capet also, who usurp'd the crown\n    Of Charles the Duke of Lorraine, sole heir male\n    Of the true line and stock of Charles the Great,\n    To find his title with some shows of truth-\n    Though in pure truth it was corrupt and naught-\n    Convey'd himself as th' heir to th' Lady Lingare,\n    Daughter to Charlemain, who was the son\n    To Lewis the Emperor, and Lewis the son\n    Of Charles the Great. Also King Lewis the Tenth,\n    Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet,\n    Could not keep quiet in his conscience,\n    Wearing the crown of France, till satisfied\n    That fair Queen Isabel, his grandmother,\n    Was lineal of the Lady Ermengare,\n    Daughter to Charles the foresaid Duke of Lorraine;\n    By the which marriage the line of Charles the Great\n    Was re-united to the Crown of France.\n    So that, as clear as is the summer's sun,\n    King Pepin's title, and Hugh Capet's claim,\n    King Lewis his satisfaction, all appear\n    To hold in right and tide of the female;\n    So do the kings of France unto this day,\n    Howbeit they would hold up this Salique law\n    To bar your Highness claiming from the female;\n    And rather choose to hide them in a net\n    Than amply to imbar their crooked tides\n    Usurp'd from you and your progenitors.\n  KING HENRY. May I with right and conscience make this claim?\n  CANTERBURY. The sin upon my head, dread sovereign!\n    For in the book of Numbers is it writ,\n    When the man dies, let the inheritance\n    Descend unto the daughter. Gracious lord,\n    Stand for your own, unwind your bloody flag,\n    Look back into your mighty ancestors.\n    Go, my dread lord, to your great-grandsire's tomb,\n    From whom you claim; invoke his warlike spirit,\n    And your great-uncle's, Edward the Black Prince,\n    Who on the French ground play'd a tragedy,\n    Making defeat on the fun power of France,\n    Whiles his most mighty father on a hill\n    Stood smiling to behold his lion's whelp\n    Forage in blood of French nobility.\n    O noble English, that could entertain\n    With half their forces the full pride of France,\n    And let another half stand laughing by,\n    All out of work and cold for action!\n  ELY. Awake remembrance of these valiant dead,\n    And with your puissant arm renew their feats.\n    You are their heir; you sit upon their throne;\n    The blood and courage that renowned them\n    Runs in your veins; and my thrice-puissant liege\n    Is in the very May-morn of his youth,\n    Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises.\n  EXETER. Your brother kings and monarchs of the earth\n    Do all expect that you should rouse yourself,\n    As did the former lions of your blood.\n  WESTMORELAND. They know your Grace hath cause and means and might-\n    So hath your Highness; never King of England\n    Had nobles richer and more loyal subjects,\n    Whose hearts have left their bodies here in England\n    And lie pavilion'd in the fields of France.\n  CANTERBURY. O, let their bodies follow, my dear liege,\n    With blood and sword and fire to win your right!\n    In aid whereof we of the spiritualty\n    Will raise your Highness such a mighty sum\n    As never did the clergy at one time\n    Bring in to any of your ancestors.\n  KING HENRY. We must not only arm t' invade the French,\n    But lay down our proportions to defend\n    Against the Scot, who will make road upon us\n    With all advantages.\n  CANTERBURY. They of those marches, gracious sovereign,\n    Shall be a wall sufficient to defend\n    Our inland from the pilfering borderers.\n  KING HENRY. We do not mean the coursing snatchers only,\n    But fear the main intendment of the Scot,\n    Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us;\n    For you shall read that my great-grandfather\n    Never went with his forces into France\n    But that the Scot on his unfurnish'd kingdom\n    Came pouring, like the tide into a breach,\n    With ample and brim fulness of his force,\n    Galling the gleaned land with hot assays,\n    Girdling with grievous siege castles and towns;\n    That England, being empty of defence,\n    Hath shook and trembled at th' ill neighbourhood.\n  CANTERBURY. She hath been then more fear'd than harm'd, my liege;\n    For hear her but exampled by herself:\n    When all her chivalry hath been in France,\n    And she a mourning widow of her nobles,\n    She hath herself not only well defended\n    But taken and impounded as a stray\n    The King of Scots; whom she did send to France,\n    To fill King Edward's fame with prisoner kings,\n    And make her chronicle as rich with praise\n    As is the ooze and bottom of the sea\n    With sunken wreck and sumless treasuries.\n  WESTMORELAND. But there's a saying, very old and true:\n\n          'If that you will France win,\n          Then with Scotland first begin.'\n\n    For once the eagle England being in prey,\n    To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot\n    Comes sneaking, and so sucks her princely eggs,\n    Playing the mouse in absence of the cat,\n    To tear and havoc more than she can eat.\n  EXETER. It follows, then, the cat must stay at home;\n    Yet that is but a crush'd necessity,\n    Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries\n    And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves.\n    While that the armed hand doth fight abroad,\n    Th' advised head defends itself at home;\n    For government, though high, and low, and lower,\n    Put into parts, doth keep in one consent,\n    Congreeing in a full and natural close,\n    Like music.\n  CANTERBURY. Therefore doth heaven divide\n    The state of man in divers functions,\n    Setting endeavour in continual motion;\n    To which is fixed as an aim or but\n    Obedience; for so work the honey bees,\n    Creatures that by a rule in nature teach\n    The act of order to a peopled kingdom.\n    They have a king, and officers of sorts,\n    Where some like magistrates correct at home;\n    Others like merchants venture trade abroad;\n    Others like soldiers, armed in their stings,\n    Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds,\n    Which pillage they with merry march bring home\n    To the tent-royal of their emperor;\n    Who, busied in his majesty, surveys\n    The singing masons building roofs of gold,\n    The civil citizens kneading up the honey,\n    The poor mechanic porters crowding in\n    Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate,\n    The sad-ey'd justice, with his surly hum,\n    Delivering o'er to executors pale\n    The lazy yawning drone. I this infer,\n    That many things, having full reference\n    To one consent, may work contrariously;\n    As many arrows loosed several ways\n    Come to one mark, as many ways meet in one town,\n    As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea,\n    As many lines close in the dial's centre;\n    So many a thousand actions, once afoot,\n    End in one purpose, and be all well home\n    Without defeat. Therefore to France, my liege.\n    Divide your happy England into four;\n    Whereof take you one quarter into France,\n    And you withal shall make all Gallia shake.\n    If we, with thrice such powers left at home,\n    Cannot defend our own doors from the dog,\n    Let us be worried, and our nation lose\n    The name of hardiness and policy.\n  KING HENRY. Call in the messengers sent from the Dauphin.\n                                          Exeunt some attendants\n    Now are we well resolv'd; and, by God's help\n    And yours, the noble sinews of our power,\n    France being ours, we'll bend it to our awe,\n    Or break it all to pieces; or there we'll sit,\n    Ruling in large and ample empery\n    O'er France and all her almost kingly dukedoms,\n    Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn,\n    Tombless, with no remembrance over them.\n    Either our history shall with full mouth\n    Speak freely of our acts, or else our grave,\n    Like Turkish mute, shall have a tongueless mouth,\n    Not worshipp'd with a waxen epitaph.\n\n                  Enter AMBASSADORS of France\n\n    Now are we well prepar'd to know the pleasure\n    Of our fair cousin Dauphin; for we hear\n    Your greeting is from him, not from the King.\n  AMBASSADOR. May't please your Majesty to give us leave\n    Freely to render what we have in charge;\n    Or shall we sparingly show you far of\n    The Dauphin's meaning and our embassy?\n  KING HENRY. We are no tyrant, but a Christian king,\n    Unto whose grace our passion is as subject\n    As are our wretches fett'red in our prisons;\n    Therefore with frank and with uncurbed plainness\n    Tell us the Dauphin's mind.\n  AMBASSADOR. Thus then, in few.\n    Your Highness, lately sending into France,\n    Did claim some certain dukedoms in the right\n    Of your great predecessor, King Edward the Third.\n    In answer of which claim, the Prince our master\n    Says that you savour too much of your youth,\n    And bids you be advis'd there's nought in France\n    That can be with a nimble galliard won;\n    You cannot revel into dukedoms there.\n    He therefore sends you, meeter for your spirit,\n    This tun of treasure; and, in lieu of this,\n    Desires you let the dukedoms that you claim\n    Hear no more of you. This the Dauphin speaks.\n  KING HENRY. What treasure, uncle?\n  EXETER. Tennis-balls, my liege.\n  KING HENRY. We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us;\n    His present and your pains we thank you for.\n    When we have match'd our rackets to these balls,\n    We will in France, by God's grace, play a set\n    Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard.\n    Tell him he hath made a match with such a wrangler\n    That all the courts of France will be disturb'd\n    With chaces. And we understand him well,\n    How he comes o'er us with our wilder days,\n    Not measuring what use we made of them.\n    We never valu'd this poor seat of England;\n    And therefore, living hence, did give ourself\n    To barbarous licence; as 'tis ever common\n    That men are merriest when they are from home.\n    But tell the Dauphin I will keep my state,\n    Be like a king, and show my sail of greatness,\n    When I do rouse me in my throne of France;\n    For that I have laid by my majesty\n    And plodded like a man for working-days;\n    But I will rise there with so full a glory\n    That I will dazzle all the eyes of France,\n    Yea, strike the Dauphin blind to look on us.\n    And tell the pleasant Prince this mock of his\n    Hath turn'd his balls to gun-stones, and his soul\n    Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance\n    That shall fly with them; for many a thousand widows\n    Shall this his mock mock of their dear husbands;\n    Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down;\n    And some are yet ungotten and unborn\n    That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin's scorn.\n    But this lies all within the will of God,\n    To whom I do appeal; and in whose name,\n    Tell you the Dauphin, I am coming on,\n    To venge me as I may and to put forth\n    My rightful hand in a well-hallow'd cause.\n    So get you hence in peace; and tell the Dauphin\n    His jest will savour but of shallow wit,\n    When thousands weep more than did laugh at it.\n    Convey them with safe conduct. Fare you well.\n                                              Exeunt AMBASSADORS\n  EXETER. This was a merry message.\n  KING HENRY. We hope to make the sender blush at it.\n    Therefore, my lords, omit no happy hour\n    That may give furth'rance to our expedition;\n    For we have now no thought in us but France,\n    Save those to God, that run before our business.\n    Therefore let our proportions for these wars\n    Be soon collected, and all things thought upon\n    That may with reasonable swiftness ad\n    More feathers to our wings; for, God before,\n    We'll chide this Dauphin at his father's door.\n    Therefore let every man now task his thought\n    That this fair action may on foot be brought.         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. PROLOGUE.\n\nFlourish. Enter CHORUS\n\n  CHORUS. Now all the youth of England are on fire,\n    And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies;\n    Now thrive the armourers, and honour's thought\n    Reigns solely in the breast of every man;\n    They sell the pasture now to buy the horse,\n    Following the mirror of all Christian kings\n    With winged heels, as English Mercuries.\n    For now sits Expectation in the air,\n    And hides a sword from hilts unto the point\n    With crowns imperial, crowns, and coronets,\n    Promis'd to Harry and his followers.\n    The French, advis'd by good intelligence\n    Of this most dreadful preparation,\n    Shake in their fear and with pale policy\n    Seek to divert the English purposes.\n    O England! model to thy inward greatness,\n    Like little body with a mighty heart,\n    What mightst thou do that honour would thee do,\n    Were all thy children kind and natural!\n    But see thy fault! France hath in thee found out\n    A nest of hollow bosoms, which he fills\n    With treacherous crowns; and three corrupted men-\n    One, Richard Earl of Cambridge, and the second,\n    Henry Lord Scroop of Masham, and the third,\n    Sir Thomas Grey, knight, of Northumberland,\n    Have, for the gilt of France- O guilt indeed!-\n    Confirm'd conspiracy with fearful France;\n    And by their hands this grace of kings must die-\n    If hell and treason hold their promises,\n    Ere he take ship for France- and in Southampton.\n    Linger your patience on, and we'll digest\n    Th' abuse of distance, force a play.\n    The sum is paid, the traitors are agreed,\n    The King is set from London, and the scene\n    Is now transported, gentles, to Southampton;\n    There is the play-house now, there must you sit,\n    And thence to France shall we convey you safe\n    And bring you back, charming the narrow seas\n    To give you gentle pass; for, if we may,\n    We'll not offend one stomach with our play.\n    But, till the King come forth, and not till then,\n    Unto Southampton do we shift our scene.                 Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE I.\nLondon. Before the Boar's Head Tavern, Eastcheap\n\nEnter CORPORAL NYM and LIEUTENANT BARDOLPH\n\n  BARDOLPH. Well met, Corporal Nym.\n  NYM. Good morrow, Lieutenant Bardolph.\n  BARDOLPH. What, are Ancient Pistol and you friends yet?\n  NYM. For my part, I care not; I say little, but when time shall\n    serve, there shall be smiles- but that shall be as it may. I dare\n    not fight; but I will wink and hold out mine iron. It is a simple\n    one; but what though? It will toast cheese, and it will endure\n    cold as another man's sword will; and there's an end.\n  BARDOLPH. I will bestow a breakfast to make you friends; and we'll\n    be all three sworn brothers to France. Let't be so, good Corporal\n    Nym.\n  NYM. Faith, I will live so long as I may, that's the certain of it;\n    and when I cannot live any longer, I will do as I may. That is my\n    rest, that is the rendezvous of it.\n  BARDOLPH. It is certain, Corporal, that he is married to Nell\n    Quickly; and certainly she did you wrong, for you were\n    troth-plight to her.\n  NYM. I cannot tell; things must be as they may. Men may sleep, and\n    they may have their throats about them at that time; and some say\n    knives have edges. It must be as it may; though patience be a\n    tired mare, yet she will plod. There must be conclusions. Well, I\n    cannot tell.\n\n                     Enter PISTOL and HOSTESS\n\n  BARDOLPH. Here comes Ancient Pistol and his wife. Good Corporal, be\n    patient here.\n  NYM. How now, mine host Pistol!\n  PISTOL. Base tike, call'st thou me host?\n    Now by this hand, I swear I scorn the term;\n    Nor shall my Nell keep lodgers.\n  HOSTESS. No, by my troth, not long; for we cannot lodge and board a\n    dozen or fourteen gentlewomen that live honestly by the prick of\n    their needles, but it will be thought we keep a bawdy-house\n    straight. [Nym draws] O well-a-day, Lady, if he be not drawn! Now\n    we shall see wilful adultery and murder committed.\n  BARDOLPH. Good Lieutenant, good Corporal, offer nothing here.\n  NYM. Pish!\n  PISTOL. Pish for thee, Iceland dog! thou prick-ear'd cur of\n    Iceland!\n  HOSTESS. Good Corporal Nym, show thy valour, and put up your sword.\n  NYM. Will you shog off? I would have you solus.\n  PISTOL. 'Solus,' egregious dog? O viper vile!\n    The 'solus' in thy most mervailous face;\n    The 'solus' in thy teeth, and in thy throat,\n    And in thy hateful lungs, yea, in thy maw, perdy;\n    And, which is worse, within thy nasty mouth!\n    I do retort the 'solus' in thy bowels;\n    For I can take, and Pistol's cock is up,\n    And flashing fire will follow.\n  NYM. I am not Barbason: you cannot conjure me. I have an humour to\n    knock you indifferently well. If you grow foul with me, Pistol, I\n    will scour you with my rapier, as I may, in fair terms; if you\n    would walk off I would prick your guts a little, in good terms,\n    as I may, and thaes the humour of it.\n  PISTOL. O braggart vile and damned furious wight!\n    The grave doth gape and doting death is near;\n    Therefore exhale.                             [PISTOL draws]\n  BARDOLPH. Hear me, hear me what I say: he that strikes the first\n    stroke I'll run him up to the hilts, as I am a soldier.\n                                                         [Draws]\n  PISTOL. An oath of mickle might; and fury shall abate.\n                           [PISTOL and Nym sheathe their swords]\n    Give me thy fist, thy fore-foot to me give;\n    Thy spirits are most tall.\n  NYM. I will cut thy throat one time or other, in fair terms; that\n    is the humour of it.\n  PISTOL. 'Couple a gorge!'\n    That is the word. I thee defy again.\n    O hound of Crete, think'st thou my spouse to get?\n    No; to the spital go,\n    And from the powd'ring tub of infamy\n    Fetch forth the lazar kite of Cressid's kind,\n    Doll Tearsheet she by name, and her espouse.\n    I have, and I will hold, the quondam Quickly\n    For the only she; and- pauca, there's enough.\n    Go to.\n\n                        Enter the Boy\n\n  BOY. Mine host Pistol, you must come to my master; and your\n    hostess- he is very sick, and would to bed. Good Bardolph, put\n    thy face between his sheets, and do the office of a warming-pan.\n    Faith, he's very ill.\n  BARDOLPH. Away, you rogue.\n  HOSTESS. By my troth, he'll yield the crow a pudding one of these\n    days: the King has kill'd his heart. Good husband, come home\n    presently.                            Exeunt HOSTESS and BOY\n  BARDOLPH. Come, shall I make you two friends? We must to France\n    together; why the devil should we keep knives to cut one\n    another's throats?\n  PISTOL. Let floods o'erswell, and fiends for food howl on!\n  NYM. You'll pay me the eight shillings I won of you at betting?\n  PISTOL. Base is the slave that pays.\n  NYM. That now I will have; that's the humour of it.\n  PISTOL. As manhood shall compound: push home.\n                                           [PISTOL and Nym draw]\n  BARDOLPH. By this sword, he that makes the first thrust I'll kill\n    him; by this sword, I will.\n  PISTOL. Sword is an oath, and oaths must have their course.\n                                            [Sheathes his sword]\n  BARDOLPH. Corporal Nym, an thou wilt be friends, be friends; an\n    thou wilt not, why then be enemies with me too. Prithee put up.\n  NYM. I shall have my eight shillings I won of you at betting?\n  PISTOL. A noble shalt thou have, and present pay;\n    And liquor likewise will I give to thee,\n    And friendship shall combine, and brotherhood.\n    I'll live by Nym and Nym shall live by me.\n    Is not this just? For I shall sutler be\n    Unto the camp, and profits will accrue.\n    Give me thy hand.\n  NYM. [Sheathing his sword] I shall have my noble?\n  PISTOL. In cash most justly paid.\n  NYM. [Shaking hands] Well, then, that's the humour of't.\n\n                       Re-enter HOSTESS\n\n  HOSTESS. As ever you come of women, come in quickly to Sir John.\n    Ah, poor heart! he is so shak'd of a burning quotidian tertian\n    that it is most lamentable to behold. Sweet men, come to him.\n  NYM. The King hath run bad humours on the knight; that's the even\n    of it.\n  PISTOL. Nym, thou hast spoke the right;\n    His heart is fracted and corroborate.\n  NYM. The King is a good king, but it must be as it may; he passes\n    some humours and careers.\n  PISTOL. Let us condole the knight; for, lambkins, we will live.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nSouthampton. A council-chamber\n\nEnter EXETER, BEDFORD, and WESTMORELAND\n\n  BEDFORD. Fore God, his Grace is bold, to trust these traitors.\n  EXETER. They shall be apprehended by and by.\n  WESTMORELAND. How smooth and even they do bear themselves,\n    As if allegiance in their bosoms sat,\n    Crowned with faith and constant loyalty!\n  BEDFORD. The King hath note of all that they intend,\n    By interception which they dream not of.\n  EXETER. Nay, but the man that was his bedfellow,\n    Whom he hath dull'd and cloy'd with gracious favours-\n    That he should, for a foreign purse, so sell\n    His sovereign's life to death and treachery!\n\n               Trumpets sound. Enter the KING, SCROOP,\n                  CAMBRIDGE, GREY, and attendants\n\n  KING HENRY. Now sits the wind fair, and we will aboard.\n    My Lord of Cambridge, and my kind Lord of Masham,\n    And you, my gentle knight, give me your thoughts.\n    Think you not that the pow'rs we bear with us\n    Will cut their passage through the force of France,\n    Doing the execution and the act\n    For which we have in head assembled them?\n  SCROOP. No doubt, my liege, if each man do his best.\n  KING HENRY. I doubt not that, since we are well persuaded\n    We carry not a heart with us from hence\n    That grows not in a fair consent with ours;\n    Nor leave not one behind that doth not wish\n    Success and conquest to attend on us.\n  CAMBRIDGE. Never was monarch better fear'd and lov'd\n    Than is your Majesty. There's not, I think, a subject\n    That sits in heart-grief and uneasines\n    Under the sweet shade of your government.\n  GREY. True: those that were your father's enemies\n    Have steep'd their galls in honey, and do serve you\n    With hearts create of duty and of zeal.\n  KING HENRY. We therefore have great cause of thankfulness,\n    And shall forget the office of our hand\n    Sooner than quittance of desert and merit\n    According to the weight and worthiness.\n  SCROOP. So service shall with steeled sinews toil,\n    And labour shall refresh itself with hope,\n    To do your Grace incessant services.\n  KING HENRY. We judge no less. Uncle of Exeter,\n    Enlarge the man committed yesterday\n    That rail'd against our person. We consider\n    It was excess of wine that set him on;\n    And on his more advice we pardon him.\n  SCROOP. That's mercy, but too much security.\n    Let him be punish'd, sovereign, lest example\n    Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind.\n  KING HENRY. O, let us yet be merciful!\n  CAMBRIDGE. So may your Highness, and yet punish too.\n  GREY. Sir,\n    You show great mercy if you give him life,\n    After the taste of much correction.\n  KING HENRY. Alas, your too much love and care of me\n    Are heavy orisons 'gainst this poor wretch!\n    If little faults proceeding on distemper\n    Shall not be wink'd at, how shall we stretch our eye\n    When capital crimes, chew'd, swallow'd, and digested,\n    Appear before us? We'll yet enlarge that man,\n    Though Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey, in their dear care\n    And tender preservation of our person,\n    Would have him punish'd. And now to our French causes:\n    Who are the late commissioners?\n  CAMBRIDGE. I one, my lord.\n    Your Highness bade me ask for it to-day.\n  SCROOP. So did you me, my liege.\n  GREY. And I, my royal sovereign.\n  KING HENRY. Then, Richard Earl of Cambridge, there is yours;\n    There yours, Lord Scroop of Masham; and, Sir Knight,\n    Grey of Northumberland, this same is yours.\n    Read them, and know I know your worthiness.\n    My Lord of Westmoreland, and uncle Exeter,\n    We will aboard to-night. Why, how now, gentlemen?\n    What see you in those papers, that you lose\n    So much complexion? Look ye how they change!\n    Their cheeks are paper. Why, what read you there\n    That have so cowarded and chas'd your blood\n    Out of appearance?\n  CAMBRIDGE. I do confess my fault,\n    And do submit me to your Highness' mercy.\n  GREY, SCROOP. To which we all appeal.\n  KING HENRY. The mercy that was quick in us but late\n   By your own counsel is suppress'd and kill'd.\n    You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy;\n    For your own reasons turn into your bosoms\n    As dogs upon their masters, worrying you.\n    See you, my princes and my noble peers,\n    These English monsters! My Lord of Cambridge here-\n    You know how apt our love was to accord\n    To furnish him with an appertinents\n    Belonging to his honour; and this man\n    Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly conspir'd,\n    And sworn unto the practices of France\n    To kill us here in Hampton; to the which\n    This knight, no less for bounty bound to us\n    Than Cambridge is, hath likewise sworn. But, O,\n    What shall I say to thee, Lord Scroop, thou cruel,\n    Ingrateful, savage, and inhuman creature?\n    Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels,\n    That knew'st the very bottom of my soul,\n    That almost mightst have coin'd me into gold,\n    Wouldst thou have practis'd on me for thy use-\n    May it be possible that foreign hire\n    Could out of thee extract one spark of evil\n    That might annoy my finger? 'Tis so strange\n    That, though the truth of it stands off as gross\n    As black and white, my eye will scarcely see it.\n    Treason and murder ever kept together,\n    As two yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose,\n    Working so grossly in a natural cause\n    That admiration did not whoop at them;\n    But thou, 'gainst all proportion, didst bring in\n    Wonder to wait on treason and on murder;\n    And whatsoever cunning fiend it was\n    That wrought upon thee so preposterously\n    Hath got the voice in hell for excellence;\n    And other devils that suggest by treasons\n    Do botch and bungle up damnation\n    With patches, colours, and with forms, being fetch'd\n    From glist'ring semblances of piety;\n    But he that temper'd thee bade thee stand up,\n    Gave thee no instance why thou shouldst do treason,\n    Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor.\n    If that same demon that hath gull'd thee thus\n    Should with his lion gait walk the whole world,\n    He might return to vasty Tartar back,\n    And tell the legions 'I can never win\n    A soul so easy as that Englishman's.'\n    O, how hast thou with jealousy infected\n    The sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful?\n    Why, so didst thou. Seem they grave and learned?\n    Why, so didst thou. Come they of noble family?\n    Why, so didst thou. Seem they religious?\n    Why, so didst thou. Or are they spare in diet,\n    Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger,\n    Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood,\n    Garnish'd and deck'd in modest complement,\n    Not working with the eye without the ear,\n    And but in purged judgment trusting neither?\n    Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem;\n    And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot\n    To mark the full-fraught man and best indued\n    With some suspicion. I will weep for thee;\n    For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like\n    Another fall of man. Their faults are open.\n    Arrest them to the answer of the law;\n    And God acquit them of their practices!\n  EXETER. I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Richard Earl\n      of Cambridge.\n    I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Henry Lord Scroop\n      of Masham.\n    I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Thomas Grey,\n      knight, of Northumberland.\n  SCROOP. Our purposes God justly hath discover'd,\n    And I repent my fault more than my death;\n    Which I beseech your Highness to forgive,\n    Although my body pay the price of it.\n  CAMBRIDGE. For me, the gold of France did not seduce,\n    Although I did admit it as a motive\n    The sooner to effect what I intended;\n    But God be thanked for prevention,\n    Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice,\n    Beseeching God and you to pardon me.\n  GREY. Never did faithful subject more rejoice\n    At the discovery of most dangerous treason\n    Than I do at this hour joy o'er myself,\n    Prevented from a damned enterprise.\n    My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign.\n  KING HENRY. God quit you in his mercy! Hear your sentence.\n    You have conspir'd against our royal person,\n    Join'd with an enemy proclaim'd, and from his coffers\n    Receiv'd the golden earnest of our death;\n    Wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter,\n    His princes and his peers to servitude,\n    His subjects to oppression and contempt,\n    And his whole kingdom into desolation.\n    Touching our person seek we no revenge;\n    But we our kingdom's safety must so tender,\n    Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws\n    We do deliver you. Get you therefore hence,\n    Poor miserable wretches, to your death;\n    The taste whereof God of his mercy give\n    You patience to endure, and true repentance\n    Of all your dear offences. Bear them hence.\n                     Exeunt CAMBRIDGE, SCROOP, and GREY, guarded\n    Now, lords, for France; the enterprise whereof\n    Shall be to you as us like glorious.\n    We doubt not of a fair and lucky war,\n    Since God so graciously hath brought to light\n    This dangerous treason, lurking in our way\n    To hinder our beginnings; we doubt not now\n    But every rub is smoothed on our way.\n    Then, forth, dear countrymen; let us deliver\n    Our puissance into the hand of God,\n    Putting it straight in expedition.\n    Cheerly to sea; the signs of war advance;\n    No king of England, if not king of France!\n                                                Flourish. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nEastcheap. Before the Boar's Head tavern\n\nEnter PISTOL, HOSTESS, NYM, BARDOLPH, and Boy\n\n  HOSTESS. Prithee, honey-sweet husband, let me bring thee to\n     Staines.\n  PISTOL. No; for my manly heart doth earn.\n    Bardolph, be blithe; Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins;\n    Boy, bristle thy courage up. For Falstaff he is dead,\n    And we must earn therefore.\n  BARDOLPH. Would I were with him, wheresome'er he is, either in\n    heaven or in hell!\n  HOSTESS. Nay, sure, he's not in hell: he's in Arthur's bosom, if\n    ever man went to Arthur's bosom. 'A made a finer end, and went\n    away an it had been any christom child; 'a parted ev'n just\n    between twelve and one, ev'n at the turning o' th' tide; for\n    after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers,\n    and smile upon his fingers' end, I knew there was but one way;\n    for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'a babbl'd of green\n    fields. 'How now, Sir John!' quoth I 'What, man, be o' good\n    cheer.' So 'a cried out 'God, God, God!' three or four times. Now\n    I, to comfort him, bid him 'a should not think of God; I hop'd\n    there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet.\n    So 'a bade me lay more clothes on his feet; I put my hand into\n    the bed and felt them, and they were as cold as any stone; then I\n    felt to his knees, and so upward and upward, and all was as cold\n    as any stone.\n  NYM. They say he cried out of sack.\n  HOSTESS. Ay, that 'a did.\n  BARDOLPH. And of women.\n  HOSTESS. Nay, that 'a did not.\n  BOY. Yes, that 'a did, and said they were devils incarnate.\n  HOSTESS. 'A could never abide carnation; 'twas a colour he never\n    liked.\n  BOY. 'A said once the devil would have him about women.\n  HOSTESS. 'A did in some sort, indeed, handle women; but then he was\n    rheumatic, and talk'd of the Whore of Babylon.\n  BOY. Do you not remember 'a saw a flea stick upon Bardolph's nose,\n    and 'a said it was a black soul burning in hell?\n  BARDOLPH. Well, the fuel is gone that maintain'd that fire: that's\n    all the riches I got in his service.\n  NYM. Shall we shog? The King will be gone from Southampton.\n  PISTOL. Come, let's away. My love, give me thy lips.\n    Look to my chattles and my moveables;\n    Let senses rule. The word is 'Pitch and Pay.'\n    Trust none;\n    For oaths are straws, men's faiths are wafer-cakes,\n    And Holdfast is the only dog, my duck.\n    Therefore, Caveto be thy counsellor.\n    Go, clear thy crystals. Yoke-fellows in arms,\n    Let us to France, like horse-leeches, my boys,\n    To suck, to suck, the very blood to suck.\n  BOY. And that's but unwholesome food, they say.\n  PISTOL. Touch her soft mouth and march.\n  BARDOLPH. Farewell, hostess.                     [Kissing her]\n  NYM. I cannot kiss, that is the humour of it; but adieu.\n  PISTOL. Let housewifery appear; keep close, I thee command.\n  HOSTESS. Farewell; adieu.                               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nFrance. The KING'S palace\n\nFlourish. Enter the FRENCH KING, the DAUPHIN, the DUKES OF BERRI\nand BRITAINE, the CONSTABLE, and others\n\n  FRENCH KING. Thus comes the English with full power upon us;\n    And more than carefully it us concerns\n    To answer royally in our defences.\n    Therefore the Dukes of Berri and of Britaine,\n    Of Brabant and of Orleans, shall make forth,\n    And you, Prince Dauphin, with all swift dispatch,\n    To line and new repair our towns of war\n    With men of courage and with means defendant;\n    For England his approaches makes as fierce\n    As waters to the sucking of a gulf.\n    It fits us, then, to be as provident\n    As fear may teach us, out of late examples\n    Left by the fatal and neglected English\n    Upon our fields.\n  DAUPHIN. My most redoubted father,\n    It is most meet we arm us 'gainst the foe;\n    For peace itself should not so dull a kingdom,\n    Though war nor no known quarrel were in question,\n    But that defences, musters, preparations,\n    Should be maintain'd, assembled, and collected,\n    As were a war in expectation.\n    Therefore, I say, 'tis meet we all go forth\n    To view the sick and feeble parts of France;\n    And let us do it with no show of fear-\n    No, with no more than if we heard that England\n    Were busied with a Whitsun morris-dance;\n    For, my good liege, she is so idly king'd,\n    Her sceptre so fantastically borne\n    By a vain, giddy, shallow, humorous youth,\n    That fear attends her not.\n  CONSTABLE. O peace, Prince Dauphin!\n    You are too much mistaken in this king.\n    Question your Grace the late ambassadors\n    With what great state he heard their embassy,\n    How well supplied with noble counsellors,\n    How modest in exception, and withal\n    How terrible in constant resolution,\n    And you shall find his vanities forespent\n    Were but the outside of the Roman Brutus,\n    Covering discretion with a coat of folly;\n    As gardeners do with ordure hide those roots\n    That shall first spring and be most delicate.\n  DAUPHIN. Well, 'tis not so, my Lord High Constable;\n    But though we think it so, it is no matter.\n    In cases of defence 'tis best to weigh\n    The enemy more mighty than he seems;\n    So the proportions of defence are fill'd;\n    Which of a weak and niggardly projection\n    Doth like a miser spoil his coat with scanting\n    A little cloth.\n  FRENCH KING. Think we King Harry strong;\n    And, Princes, look you strongly arm to meet him.\n    The kindred of him hath been flesh'd upon us;\n    And he is bred out of that bloody strain\n    That haunted us in our familiar paths.\n    Witness our too much memorable shame\n    When Cressy battle fatally was struck,\n    And all our princes capdv'd by the hand\n    Of that black name, Edward, Black Prince of Wales;\n    Whiles that his mountain sire- on mountain standing,\n    Up in the air, crown'd with the golden sun-\n    Saw his heroical seed, and smil'd to see him,\n    Mangle the work of nature, and deface\n    The patterns that by God and by French fathers\n    Had twenty years been made. This is a stern\n    Of that victorious stock; and let us fear\n    The native mightiness and fate of him.\n\n                      Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. Ambassadors from Harry King of England\n    Do crave admittance to your Majesty.\n  FRENCH KING. We'll give them present audience. Go and bring them.\n                              Exeunt MESSENGER and certain LORDS\n    You see this chase is hotly followed, friends.\n  DAUPHIN. Turn head and stop pursuit; for coward dogs\n    Most spend their mouths when what they seem to threaten\n    Runs far before them. Good my sovereign,\n    Take up the English short, and let them know\n    Of what a monarchy you are the head.\n    Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin\n    As self-neglecting.\n\n               Re-enter LORDS, with EXETER and train\n\n  FRENCH KING. From our brother of England?\n  EXETER. From him, and thus he greets your Majesty:\n    He wills you, in the name of God Almighty,\n    That you divest yourself, and lay apart\n    The borrowed glories that by gift of heaven,\n    By law of nature and of nations, 'longs\n    To him and to his heirs- namely, the crown,\n    And all wide-stretched honours that pertain,\n    By custom and the ordinance of times,\n    Unto the crown of France. That you may know\n    'Tis no sinister nor no awkward claim,\n    Pick'd from the worm-holes of long-vanish'd days,\n    Nor from the dust of old oblivion rak'd,\n    He sends you this most memorable line,       [Gives a paper]\n    In every branch truly demonstrative;\n    Willing you overlook this pedigree.\n    And when you find him evenly deriv'd\n    From his most fam'd of famous ancestors,\n    Edward the Third, he bids you then resign\n    Your crown and kingdom, indirectly held\n    From him, the native and true challenger.\n  FRENCH KING. Or else what follows?\n  EXETER. Bloody constraint; for if you hide the crown\n    Even in your hearts, there will he rake for it.\n    Therefore in fierce tempest is he coming,\n    In thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove,\n    That if requiring fail, he will compel;\n    And bids you, in the bowels of the Lord,\n    Deliver up the crown; and to take mercy\n    On the poor souls for whom this hungry war\n    Opens his vasty jaws; and on your head\n    Turning the widows' tears, the orphans' cries,\n    The dead men's blood, the privy maidens' groans,\n    For husbands, fathers, and betrothed lovers,\n    That shall be swallowed in this controversy.\n    This is his claim, his threat'ning, and my message;\n    Unless the Dauphin be in presence here,\n    To whom expressly I bring greeting too.\n  FRENCH KING. For us, we will consider of this further;\n    To-morrow shall you bear our full intent\n    Back to our brother of England.\n  DAUPHIN. For the Dauphin:\n    I stand here for him. What to him from England?\n  EXETER. Scorn and defiance, slight regard, contempt,\n    And anything that may not misbecome\n    The mighty sender, doth he prize you at.\n    Thus says my king: an if your father's Highness\n    Do not, in grant of all demands at large,\n    Sweeten the bitter mock you sent his Majesty,\n    He'll call you to so hot an answer of it\n    That caves and womby vaultages of France\n    Shall chide your trespass and return your mock\n    In second accent of his ordinance.\n  DAUPHIN. Say, if my father render fair return,\n    It is against my will; for I desire\n    Nothing but odds with England. To that end,\n    As matching to his youth and vanity,\n    I did present him with the Paris balls.\n  EXETER. He'll make your Paris Louvre shake for it,\n    Were it the mistress court of mighty Europe;\n    And be assur'd you'll find a difference,\n    As we his subjects have in wonder found,\n    Between the promise of his greener days\n    And these he masters now. Now he weighs time\n    Even to the utmost grain; that you shall read\n    In your own losses, if he stay in France.\n  FRENCH KING. To-morrow shall you know our mind at full.\n  EXETER. Dispatch us with all speed, lest that our king\n    Come here himself to question our delay;\n    For he is footed in this land already.\n  FRENCH KING. You shall be soon dispatch'd with fair conditions.\n    A night is but small breath and little pause\n    To answer matters of this consequence.      Flourish. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. PROLOGUE.\n\nFlourish. Enter CHORUS\n\n  CHORUS. Thus with imagin'd wing our swift scene flies,\n    In motion of no less celerity\n    Than that of thought. Suppose that you have seen\n    The well-appointed King at Hampton pier\n    Embark his royalty; and his brave fleet\n    With silken streamers the young Phorbus fanning.\n    Play with your fancies; and in them behold\n    Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing;\n    Hear the shrill whistle which doth order give\n    To sounds confus'd; behold the threaden sails,\n    Borne with th' invisible and creeping wind,\n    Draw the huge bottoms through the furrowed sea,\n    Breasting the lofty surge. O, do but think\n    You stand upon the rivage and behold\n    A city on th' inconstant billows dancing;\n    For so appears this fleet majestical,\n    Holding due course to Harfleur. Follow, follow!\n    Grapple your minds to sternage of this navy\n    And leave your England as dead midnight still,\n    Guarded with grandsires, babies, and old women,\n    Either past or not arriv'd to pith and puissance;\n    For who is he whose chin is but enrich'd\n    With one appearing hair that will not follow\n    These cull'd and choice-drawn cavaliers to France?\n    Work, work your thoughts, and therein see a siege;\n    Behold the ordnance on their carriages,\n    With fatal mouths gaping on girded Harfleur.\n    Suppose th' ambassador from the French comes back;\n    Tells Harry that the King doth offer him\n    Katherine his daughter, and with her to dowry\n    Some petty and unprofitable dukedoms.\n    The offer likes not; and the nimble gunner\n    With linstock now the devilish cannon touches,\n                                   [Alarum, and chambers go off]\n    And down goes all before them. Still be kind,\n    And eke out our performance with your mind.             Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE I.\nFrance. Before Harfleur\n\nAlarum. Enter the KING, EXETER, BEDFORD, GLOUCESTER,\nand soldiers with scaling-ladders\n\n  KING. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;\n    Or close the wall up with our English dead.\n    In peace there's nothing so becomes a man\n    As modest stillness and humility;\n    But when the blast of war blows in our ears,\n    Then imitate the action of the tiger:\n    Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,\n    Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;\n    Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;\n    Let it pry through the portage of the head\n    Like the brass cannon: let the brow o'erwhelm it\n    As fearfully as doth a galled rock\n    O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,\n    Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.\n    Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide;\n    Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit\n    To his full height. On, on, you noblest English,\n    Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof-\n    Fathers that like so many Alexanders\n    Have in these parts from morn till even fought,\n    And sheath'd their swords for lack of argument.\n    Dishonour not your mothers; now attest\n    That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.\n    Be copy now to men of grosser blood,\n    And teach them how to war. And you, good yeomen,\n    Whose limbs were made in England, show us here\n    The mettle of your pasture; let us swear\n    That you are worth your breeding- which I doubt not;\n    For there is none of you so mean and base\n    That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.\n    I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,\n    Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:\n    Follow your spirit; and upon this charge\n    Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'\n                           [Exeunt. Alarum, and chambers go off]\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBefore Harfleur\n\nEnter NYM, BARDOLPH, PISTOL, and BOY\n\n  BARDOLPH. On, on, on, on, on! to the breach, to the breach!\n  NYM. Pray thee, Corporal, stay; the knocks are too hot, and for\n    mine own part I have not a case of lives. The humour of it is too\n    hot; that is the very plain-song of it.\n  PISTOL. The plain-song is most just; for humours do abound:\n\n        Knocks go and come; God's vassals drop and die;\n                    And sword and shield\n                    In bloody field\n                 Doth win immortal fame.\n\n  BOY. Would I were in an alehouse in London! I wouid give all my\n    fame for a pot of ale and safety.\n  PISTOL. And I:\n\n               If wishes would prevail with me,\n               My purpose should not fail with me,\n                   But thither would I hie.\n\n  BOY.             As duly, but not as truly,\n                   As bird doth sing on bough.\n\n                         Enter FLUELLEN\n\n  FLUELLEN. Up to the breach, you dogs!\n    Avaunt, you cullions!                 [Driving them forward]\n  PISTOL. Be merciful, great duke, to men of mould.\n    Abate thy rage, abate thy manly rage;\n    Abate thy rage, great duke.\n    Good bawcock, bate thy rage. Use lenity, sweet chuck.\n  NYM. These be good humours. Your honour wins bad humours.\n                                              Exeunt all but BOY\n  BOY. As young as I am, I have observ'd these three swashers. I am\n    boy to them all three; but all they three, though they would\n    serve me, could not be man to me; for indeed three such antics do\n    not amount to a man. For Bardolph, he is white-liver'd and\n    red-fac'd; by the means whereof 'a faces it out, but fights not.\n    For Pistol, he hath a killing tongue and a quiet sword; by the\n    means whereof 'a breaks words and keeps whole weapons. For Nym,\n    he hath heard that men of few words are the best men, and\n    therefore he scorns to say his prayers lest 'a should be thought\n    a coward; but his few bad words are match'd with as few good\n    deeds; for 'a never broke any man's head but his own, and that\n    was against a post when he was drunk. They will steal anything,\n    and call it purchase. Bardolph stole a lute-case, bore it twelve\n    leagues, and sold it for three halfpence. Nym and Bardolph are\n    sworn brothers in filching, and in Calais they stole a\n    fire-shovel; I knew by that piece of service the men would carry\n    coals. They would have me as familiar with men's pockets as their\n    gloves or their handkerchers; which makes much against my\n    manhood, if I should take from another's pocket to put into mine;\n    for it is plain pocketing up of wrongs. I must leave them and\n    seek some better service; their villainy goes against my weak\n    stomach, and therefore I must cast it up.               Exit\n\n                 Re-enter FLUELLEN, GOWER following\n\n  GOWER. Captain Fluellen, you must come presently to the mines; the\n    Duke of Gloucester would speak with you.\n  FLUELLEN. To the mines! Tell you the Duke it is not so good to come\n    to the mines; for, look you, the mines is not according to the\n    disciplines of the war; the concavities of it is not sufficient.\n    For, look you, th' athversary- you may discuss unto the Duke,\n    look you- is digt himself four yard under the countermines; by\n    Cheshu, I think 'a will plow up all, if there is not better\n    directions.\n  GOWER. The Duke of Gloucester, to whom the order of the siege is\n    given, is altogether directed by an Irishman- a very vallant\n    gentleman, i' faith.\n  FLUELLEN. It is Captain Macmorris, is it not?\n  GOWER. I think it be.\n  FLUELLEN. By Cheshu, he is an ass, as in the world: I will verify\n    as much in his beard; he has no more directions in the true\n    disciplines of the wars, look you, of the Roman disciplines, than\n    is a puppy-dog.\n\n                 Enter MACMORRIS and CAPTAIN JAMY\n\n  GOWER. Here 'a comes; and the Scots captain, Captain Jamy, with\n    him.\n  FLUELLEN. Captain Jamy is a marvellous falorous gentleman, that is\n    certain, and of great expedition and knowledge in th' aunchient\n    wars, upon my particular knowledge of his directions. By Cheshu,\n    he will maintain his argument as well as any military man in the\n    world, in the disciplines of the pristine wars of the Romans.\n  JAMY. I say gud day, Captain Fluellen.\n  FLUELLEN. God-den to your worship, good Captain James.\n  GOWER. How now, Captain Macmorris! Have you quit the mines? Have\n    the pioneers given o'er?\n  MACMORRIS. By Chrish, la, tish ill done! The work ish give over,\n    the trompet sound the retreat. By my hand, I swear, and my\n    father's soul, the work ish ill done; it ish give over; I would\n    have blowed up the town, so Chrish save me, la, in an hour. O,\n    tish ill done, tish ill done; by my hand, tish ill done!\n  FLUELLEN. Captain Macmorris, I beseech you now, will you voutsafe\n    me, look you, a few disputations with you, as partly touching or\n    concerning the disciplines of the war, the Roman wars, in the way\n    of argument, look you, and friendly communication; partly to\n    satisfy my opinion, and partly for the satisfaction, look you, of\n    my mind, as touching the direction of the military discipline,\n    that is the point.\n  JAMY. It sall be vary gud, gud feith, gud captains bath; and I sall\n    quit you with gud leve, as I may pick occasion; that sall I,\n    marry.\n  MACMORRIS. It is no time to discourse, so Chrish save me. The day\n    is hot, and the weather, and the wars, and the King, and the\n    Dukes; it is no time to discourse. The town is beseech'd, and the\n    trumpet call us to the breach; and we talk and, be Chrish, do\n    nothing. 'Tis shame for us all, so God sa' me, 'tis shame to\n    stand still; it is shame, by my hand; and there is throats to be\n    cut, and works to be done; and there ish nothing done, so Chrish\n    sa' me, la.\n  JAMY. By the mess, ere theise eyes of mine take themselves to\n    slomber, ay'll de gud service, or I'll lig i' th' grund for it;\n    ay, or go to death. And I'll pay't as valorously as I may, that\n    sall I suerly do, that is the breff and the long. Marry, I wad\n    full fain heard some question 'tween you tway.\n  FLUELLEN. Captain Macmorris, I think, look you, under your\n    correction, there is not many of your nation-\n  MACMORRIS. Of my nation? What ish my nation? Ish a villain, and a\n    bastard, and a knave, and a rascal. What ish my nation? Who talks\n    of my nation?\n  FLUELLEN. Look you, if you take the matter otherwise than is meant,\n    Captain Macmorris, peradventure I shall think you do not use me\n    with that affability as in discretion you ought to use me, look\n    you; being as good a man as yourself, both in the disciplines of\n    war and in the derivation of my birth, and in other\n    particularities.\n  MACMORRIS. I do not know you so good a man as myself; so\n    Chrish save me, I will cut off your head.\n  GOWER. Gentlemen both, you will mistake each other.\n  JAMY. Ah! that's a foul fault.              [A parley sounded]\n  GOWER. The town sounds a parley.\n  FLUELLEN. Captain Macmorris, when there is more better opportunity\n    to be required, look you, I will be so bold as to tell you I know\n    the disciplines of war; and there is an end.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nBefore the gates of Harfleur\n\nEnter the GOVERNOR and some citizens on the walls.  Enter the KING\nand all his train before the gates\n\n  KING HENRY. How yet resolves the Governor of the town?\n    This is the latest parle we will admit;\n    Therefore to our best mercy give yourselves\n    Or, like to men proud of destruction,\n    Defy us to our worst; for, as I am a soldier,\n    A name that in my thoughts becomes me best,\n    If I begin the batt'ry once again,\n    I will not leave the half-achieved Harfleur\n    Till in her ashes she lie buried.\n    The gates of mercy shall be all shut up,\n    And the flesh'd soldier, rough and hard of heart,\n    In liberty of bloody hand shall range\n    With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass\n    Your fresh fair virgins and your flow'ring infants.\n    What is it then to me if impious war,\n    Array'd in flames, like to the prince of fiends,\n    Do, with his smirch'd complexion, all fell feats\n    Enlink'd to waste and desolation?\n    What is't to me when you yourselves are cause,\n    If your pure maidens fall into the hand\n    Of hot and forcing violation?\n    What rein can hold licentious wickednes\n    When down the hill he holds his fierce career?\n    We may as bootless spend our vain command\n    Upon th' enraged soldiers in their spoil,\n    As send precepts to the Leviathan\n    To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur,\n    Take pity of your town and of your people\n    Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command;\n    Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace\n    O'erblows the filthy and contagious clouds\n    Of heady murder, spoil, and villainy.\n    If not- why, in a moment look to see\n    The blind and bloody with foul hand\n    Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters;\n    Your fathers taken by the silver beards,\n    And their most reverend heads dash'd to the walls;\n    Your naked infants spitted upon pikes,\n    Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confus'd\n    Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry\n    At Herod's bloody-hunting slaughtermen.\n    What say you? Will you yield, and this avoid?\n    Or, guilty in defence, be thus destroy'd?\n  GOVERNOR. Our expectation hath this day an end:\n    The Dauphin, whom of succours we entreated,\n    Returns us that his powers are yet not ready\n    To raise so great a siege. Therefore, great King,\n    We yield our town and lives to thy soft mercy.\n    Enter our gates; dispose of us and ours;\n    For we no longer are defensible.\n  KING HENRY. Open your gates. [Exit GOVERNOR] Come, uncle Exeter,\n    Go you and enter Harfleur; there remain,\n    And fortify it strongly 'gainst the French;\n    Use mercy to them all. For us, dear uncle,\n    The winter coming on, and sickness growing\n    Upon our soldiers, we will retire to Calais.\n    To-night in Harfleur will we be your guest;\n    To-morrow for the march are we addrest.\n               [Flourish. The KING and his train enter the town]\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nRouen. The FRENCH KING'S palace\n\nEnter KATHERINE and ALICE\n\n  KATHERINE. Alice, tu as ete en Angleterre, et tu parles bien le\n    langage.\n  ALICE. Un peu, madame.\n  KATHERINE. Je te prie, m'enseignez; il faut que j'apprenne a\n    parler. Comment appelez-vous la main en Anglais?\n  ALICE. La main? Elle est appelee de hand.\n  KATHERINE. De hand. Et les doigts?\n  ALICE. Les doigts? Ma foi, j'oublie les doigts; mais je me\n    souviendrai. Les doigts? Je pense qu'ils sont appeles de fingres;\n    oui, de fingres.\n  KATHERINE. La main, de hand; les doigts, de fingres. Je pense que\n    je suis le bon ecolier; j'ai gagne deux mots d'Anglais vitement.\n    Comment appelez-vous les ongles?\n  ALICE. Les ongles? Nous les appelons de nails.\n  KATHERINE. De nails. Ecoutez; dites-moi si je parle bien: de hand,\n    de fingres, et de nails.\n  ALICE. C'est bien dit, madame; il est fort bon Anglais.\n  KATHERINE. Dites-moi l'Anglais pour le bras.\n  ALICE. De arm, madame.\n  KATHERINE. Et le coude?\n  ALICE. D'elbow.\n  KATHERINE. D'elbow. Je m'en fais la repetition de tous les mots que\n    vous m'avez appris des a present.\n  ALICE. Il est trop difficile, madame, comme je pense.\n  KATHERINE. Excusez-moi, Alice; ecoutez: d'hand, de fingre, de\n    nails, d'arma, de bilbow.\n  ALICE. D'elbow, madame.\n  KATHERINE. O Seigneur Dieu, je m'en oublie! D'elbow.\n    Comment appelez-vous le col?\n  ALICE. De nick, madame.\n  KATHERINE. De nick. Et le menton?\n  ALICE. De chin.\n  KATHERINE. De sin. Le col, de nick; le menton, de sin.\n  ALICE. Oui. Sauf votre honneur, en verite, vous prononcez les mots\n    aussi droit que les natifs d'Angleterre.\n  KATHERINE. Je ne doute point d'apprendre, par la grace de Dieu, et\n    en peu de temps.\n  ALICE. N'avez-vous pas deja oublie ce que je vous ai enseigne?\n  KATHERINE. Non, je reciterai a vous promptement: d'hand, de fingre,\n    de mails-\n  ALICE. De nails, madame.\n  KATHERINE. De nails, de arm, de ilbow.\n  ALICE. Sauf votre honneur, d'elbow.\n  KATHERINE. Ainsi dis-je; d'elbow, de nick, et de sin. Comment\n    appelez-vous le pied et la robe?\n  ALICE. Le foot, madame; et le count.\n  KATHERINE. Le foot et le count. O Seigneur Dieu! ils sont mots de\n    son mauvais, corruptible, gros, et impudique, et non pour les\n    dames d'honneur d'user: je ne voudrais prononcer ces mots devant\n    les seigneurs de France pour tout le monde. Foh! le foot et le\n    count! Neanmoins, je reciterai une autre fois ma lecon ensemble:\n    d'hand, de fingre, de nails, d'arm, d'elbow, de nick, de sin, de\n    foot, le count.\n  ALICE. Excellent, madame!\n  KATHERINE. C'est assez pour une fois: allons-nous a diner.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nThe FRENCH KING'S palace\n\nEnter the KING OF FRANCE, the DAUPHIN, DUKE OF BRITAINE,\nthe CONSTABLE OF FRANCE, and others\n\n  FRENCH KING. 'Tis certain he hath pass'd the river Somme.\n  CONSTABLE. And if he be not fought withal, my lord,\n    Let us not live in France; let us quit an,\n    And give our vineyards to a barbarous people.\n  DAUPHIN. O Dieu vivant! Shall a few sprays of us,\n    The emptying of our fathers' luxury,\n    Our scions, put in wild and savage stock,\n    Spirt up so suddenly into the clouds,\n    And overlook their grafters?\n  BRITAINE. Normans, but bastard Normans, Norman bastards!\n    Mort Dieu, ma vie! if they march along\n    Unfought withal, but I will sell my dukedom\n    To buy a slobb'ry and a dirty farm\n    In that nook-shotten isle of Albion.\n  CONSTABLE. Dieu de batailles! where have they this mettle?\n    Is not their climate foggy, raw, and dull;\n    On whom, as in despite, the sun looks pale,\n    Killing their fruit with frowns? Can sodden water,\n    A drench for sur-rein'd jades, their barley-broth,\n    Decoct their cold blood to such valiant heat?\n    And shall our quick blood, spirited with wine,\n    Seem frosty? O, for honour of our land,\n    Let us not hang like roping icicles\n    Upon our houses' thatch, whiles a more frosty people\n    Sweat drops of gallant youth in our rich fields-\n    Poor we call them in their native lords!\n  DAUPHIN. By faith and honour,\n    Our madams mock at us and plainly say\n    Our mettle is bred out, and they will give\n    Their bodies to the lust of English youth\n    To new-store France with bastard warriors.\n  BRITAINE. They bid us to the English dancing-schools\n    And teach lavoltas high and swift corantos,\n    Saying our grace is only in our heels\n    And that we are most lofty runaways.\n  FRENCH KING. Where is Montjoy the herald? Speed him hence;\n    Let him greet England with our sharp defiance.\n    Up, Princes, and, with spirit of honour edged\n    More sharper than your swords, hie to the field:\n    Charles Delabreth, High Constable of France;\n    You Dukes of Orleans, Bourbon, and of Berri,\n    Alengon, Brabant, Bar, and Burgundy;\n    Jaques Chatillon, Rambures, Vaudemont,\n    Beaumont, Grandpre, Roussi, and Fauconbridge,\n    Foix, Lestrake, Bouciqualt, and Charolois;\n    High dukes, great princes, barons, lords, and knights,\n    For your great seats now quit you of great shames.\n    Bar Harry England, that sweeps through our land\n    With pennons painted in the blood of Harfleur.\n    Rush on his host as doth the melted snow\n    Upon the valleys, whose low vassal seat\n    The Alps doth spit and void his rheum upon;\n    Go down upon him, you have power enough,\n    And in a captive chariot into Rouen\n    Bring him our prisoner.\n  CONSTABLE. This becomes the great.\n    Sorry am I his numbers are so few,\n    His soldiers sick and famish'd in their march;\n    For I am sure, when he shall see our army,\n    He'll drop his heart into the sink of fear,\n    And for achievement offer us his ransom.\n  FRENCH KING. Therefore, Lord Constable, haste on Montjoy,\n    And let him say to England that we send\n    To know what willing ransom he will give.\n    Prince Dauphin, you shall stay with us in Rouen.\n  DAUPHIN. Not so, I do beseech your Majesty.\n  FRENCH KING. Be patient, for you shall remain with us.\n    Now forth, Lord Constable and Princes all,\n    And quickly bring us word of England's fall.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nThe English camp in Picardy\n\nEnter CAPTAINS, English and Welsh, GOWER and FLUELLEN\n\n  GOWER. How now, Captain Fluellen! Come you from the bridge?\n  FLUELLEN. I assure you there is very excellent services committed\n    at the bridge.\n  GOWER. Is the Duke of Exeter safe?\n  FLUELLEN. The Duke of Exeter is as magnanimous as Agamemnon; and a\n    man that I love and honour with my soul, and my heart, and my\n    duty, and my live, and my living, and my uttermost power. He is\n    not- God be praised and blessed!- any hurt in the world, but\n    keeps the bridge most valiantly, with excellent discipline. There\n    is an aunchient Lieutenant there at the bridge- I think in my\n    very conscience he is as valiant a man as Mark Antony; and he is\n    man of no estimation in the world; but I did see him do as\n    gallant service.\n  GOWER. What do you call him?\n  FLUELLEN. He is call'd Aunchient Pistol.\n  GOWER. I know him not.\n\n                            Enter PISTOL\n\n  FLUELLEN. Here is the man.\n  PISTOL. Captain, I thee beseech to do me favours.\n    The Duke of Exeter doth love thee well.\n  FLUELLEN. Ay, I praise God; and I have merited some love at his\n    hands.\n  PISTOL. Bardolph, a soldier, firm and sound of heart,\n    And of buxom valour, hath by cruel fate\n    And giddy Fortune's furious fickle wheel,\n    That goddess blind,\n    That stands upon the rolling restless stone-\n  FLUELLEN. By your patience, Aunchient Pistol. Fortune is painted\n    blind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to signify to you that\n    Fortune is blind; and she is painted also with a wheel, to\n    signify to you, which is the moral of it, that she is turning,\n    and inconstant, and mutability, and variation; and her foot, look\n    you, is fixed upon a spherical stone, which rolls, and rolls, and\n    rolls. In good truth, the poet makes a most excellent description\n    of it: Fortune is an excellent moral.\n  PISTOL. Fortune is Bardolph's foe, and frowns on him;\n    For he hath stol'n a pax, and hanged must 'a be-\n    A damned death!\n    Let gallows gape for dog; let man go free,\n    And let not hemp his windpipe suffocate.\n    But Exeter hath given the doom of death\n    For pax of little price.\n    Therefore, go speak- the Duke will hear thy voice;\n    And let not Bardolph's vital thread be cut\n    With edge of penny cord and vile reproach.\n    Speak, Captain, for his life, and I will thee requite.\n  FLUELLEN. Aunchient Pistol, I do partly understand your meaning.\n  PISTOL. Why then, rejoice therefore.\n  FLUELLEN. Certainly, Aunchient, it is not a thing to rejoice at;\n    for if, look you, he were my brother, I would desire the Duke to\n    use his good pleasure, and put him to execution; for discipline\n    ought to be used.\n  PISTOL. Die and be damn'd! and figo for thy friendship!\n  FLUELLEN. It is well.\n  PISTOL. The fig of Spain!                                 Exit\n  FLUELLEN. Very good.\n  GOWER. Why, this is an arrant counterfeit rascal; I remember him\n    now- a bawd, a cutpurse.\n  FLUELLEN. I'll assure you, 'a utt'red as prave words at the pridge\n    as you shall see in a summer's day. But it is very well; what he\n    has spoke to me, that is well, I warrant you, when time is serve.\n  GOWER. Why, 'tis a gull a fool a rogue, that now and then goes to\n    the wars to grace himself, at his return into London, under the\n    form of a soldier. And such fellows are perfect in the great\n    commanders' names; and they will learn you by rote where services\n    were done- at such and such a sconce, at such a breach, at such a\n    convoy; who came off bravely, who was shot, who disgrac'd, what\n    terms the enemy stood on; and this they con perfectly in the\n    phrase of war, which they trick up with new-tuned oaths; and what\n    a beard of the General's cut and a horrid suit of the camp will\n    do among foaming bottles and ale-wash'd wits is wonderful to be\n    thought on. But you must learn to know such slanders of the age,\n    or else you may be marvellously mistook.\n  FLUELLEN. I tell you what, Captain Gower, I do perceive he is not\n    the man that he would gladly make show to the world he is; if I\n    find a hole in his coat I will tell him my mind. [Drum within]\n    Hark you, the King is coming; and I must speak with him from the\n    pridge.\n\n         Drum and colours. Enter the KING and his poor soldiers,\n                          and GLOUCESTER\n\n    God pless your Majesty!\n  KING HENRY. How now, Fluellen! Cam'st thou from the bridge?\n  FLUELLEN. Ay, so please your Majesty. The Duke of Exeter has very\n    gallantly maintain'd the pridge; the French is gone off, look\n    you, and there is gallant and most prave passages. Marry, th'\n    athversary was have possession of the pridge; but he is enforced\n    to retire, and the Duke of Exeter is master of the pridge; I can\n    tell your Majesty the Duke is a prave man.\n  KING HENRY. What men have you lost, Fluellen!\n  FLUELLEN. The perdition of th' athversary hath been very great,\n    reasonable great; marry, for my part, I think the Duke hath lost\n    never a man, but one that is like to be executed for robbing a\n    church- one Bardolph, if your Majesty know the man; his face is\n    all bubukles, and whelks, and knobs, and flames o' fire; and his\n    lips blows at his nose, and it is like a coal of fire, sometimes\n    plue and sometimes red; but his nose is executed and his fire's\n    out.\n  KING HENRY. We would have all such offenders so cut off. And we\n    give express charge that in our marches through the country there\n    be nothing compell'd from the villages, nothing taken but paid\n    for, none of the French upbraided or abused in disdainful\n    language; for when lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom the\n    gentler gamester is the soonest winner.\n\n                        Tucket. Enter MONTJOY\n\n  MONTJOY. You know me by my habit.\n  KING HENRY. Well then, I know thee; what shall I know of thee?\n  MONTJOY. My master's mind.\n  KING HENRY. Unfold it.\n  MONTJOY. Thus says my king. Say thou to Harry of England: Though we\n    seem'd dead we did but sleep; advantage is a better soldier than\n    rashness. Tell him we could have rebuk'd him at Harfleur, but\n    that we thought not good to bruise an injury till it were full\n    ripe. Now we speak upon our cue, and our voice is imperial:\n    England shall repent his folly, see his weakness, and admire our\n    sufferance. Bid him therefore consider of his ransom, which must\n    proportion the losses we have borne, the subjects we have lost,\n    the disgrace we have digested; which, in weight to re-answer, his\n    pettiness would bow under. For our losses his exchequer is too\n    poor; for th' effusion of our blood, the muster of his kingdom\n    too faint a number; and for our disgrace, his own person kneeling\n    at our feet but a weak and worthless satisfaction. To this add\n    defiance; and tell him, for conclusion, he hath betrayed his\n    followers, whose condemnation is pronounc'd. So far my king and\n    master; so much my office.\n  KING HENRY. What is thy name? I know thy quality.\n  MONTJOY. Montjoy.\n  KING HENRY. Thou dost thy office fairly. Turn thee back,\n    And tell thy king I do not seek him now,\n    But could be willing to march on to Calais\n    Without impeachment; for, to say the sooth-\n    Though 'tis no wisdom to confess so much\n    Unto an enemy of craft and vantage-\n    My people are with sickness much enfeebled;\n    My numbers lessen'd; and those few I have\n    Almost no better than so many French;\n    Who when they were in health, I tell thee, herald,\n    I thought upon one pair of English legs\n    Did march three Frenchmen. Yet forgive me, God,\n    That I do brag thus; this your air of France\n    Hath blown that vice in me; I must repent.\n    Go, therefore, tell thy master here I am;\n    My ransom is this frail and worthless trunk;\n    My army but a weak and sickly guard;\n    Yet, God before, tell him we will come on,\n    Though France himself and such another neighbour\n    Stand in our way. There's for thy labour, Montjoy.\n    Go, bid thy master well advise himself.\n    If we may pass, we will; if we be hind'red,\n    We shall your tawny ground with your red blood\n    Discolour; and so, Montjoy, fare you well.\n    The sum of all our answer is but this:\n    We would not seek a battle as we are;\n    Nor as we are, we say, we will not shun it.\n    So tell your master.\n  MONTJOY. I shall deliver so. Thanks to your Highness.     Exit\n  GLOUCESTER. I hope they will not come upon us now.\n  KING HENRY. We are in God's hand, brother, not in theirs.\n    March to the bridge, it now draws toward night;\n    Beyond the river we'll encamp ourselves,\n    And on to-morrow bid them march away.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nThe French camp near Agincourt\n\nEnter the CONSTABLE OF FRANCE, the LORD RAMBURES, the DUKE OF ORLEANS,\nthe DAUPHIN, with others\n\n  CONSTABLE. Tut! I have the best armour of the world.\n    Would it were day!\n  ORLEANS. You have an excellent armour; but let my horse have his\n    due.\n  CONSTABLE. It is the best horse of Europe.\n  ORLEANS. Will it never be morning?\n  DAUPHIN. My Lord of Orleans and my Lord High Constable, you talk of\n    horse and armour?\n  ORLEANS. You are as well provided of both as any prince in the\n    world.\n  DAUPHIN. What a long night is this! I will not change my horse with\n    any that treads but on four pasterns. Ca, ha! he bounds from the\n    earth as if his entrails were hairs; le cheval volant, the\n    Pegasus, chez les narines de feu! When I bestride him I soar, I\n    am a hawk. He trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it;\n    the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of\n    Hermes.\n  ORLEANS. He's of the colour of the nutmeg.\n  DAUPHIN. And of the heat of the ginger. It is a beast for Perseus:\n    he is pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water\n    never appear in him, but only in patient stillness while his\n    rider mounts him; he is indeed a horse, and all other jades you\n    may call beasts.\n  CONSTABLE. Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent\n    horse.\n  DAUPHIN. It is the prince of palfreys; his neigh is like the\n    bidding of a monarch, and his countenance enforces homage.\n  ORLEANS. No more, cousin.\n  DAUPHIN. Nay, the man hath no wit that cannot, from the rising of\n    the lark to the lodging of the lamb, vary deserved praise on my\n    palfrey. It is a theme as fluent as the sea: turn the sands into\n    eloquent tongues, and my horse is argument for them all: 'tis a\n    subject for a sovereign to reason on, and for a sovereign's\n    sovereign to ride on; and for the world- familiar to us and\n    unknown- to lay apart their particular functions and wonder at\n    him. I once writ a sonnet in his praise and began thus: 'Wonder\n    of nature'-\n  ORLEANS. I have heard a sonnet begin so to one's mistress.\n  DAUPHIN. Then did they imitate that which I compos'd to my courser;\n    for my horse is my mistress.\n  ORLEANS. Your mistress bears well.\n  DAUPHIN. Me well; which is the prescript praise and perfection of a\n    good and particular mistress.\n  CONSTABLE. Nay, for methought yesterday your mistress shrewdly\n    shook your back.\n  DAUPHIN. So perhaps did yours.\n  CONSTABLE. Mine was not bridled.\n  DAUPHIN. O, then belike she was old and gentle; and you rode like a\n    kern of Ireland, your French hose off and in your strait\n    strossers.\n  CONSTABLE. You have good judgment in horsemanship.\n  DAUPHIN. Be warn'd by me, then: they that ride so, and ride not\n    warily, fall into foul bogs. I had rather have my horse to my\n    mistress.\n  CONSTABLE. I had as lief have my mistress a jade.\n  DAUPHIN. I tell thee, Constable, my mistress wears his own hair.\n  CONSTABLE. I could make as true a boast as that, if I had a sow to\n    my mistress.\n  DAUPHIN. 'Le chien est retourne a son propre vomissement, et la\n    truie lavee au bourbier.' Thou mak'st use of anything.\n  CONSTABLE. Yet do I not use my horse for my mistress, or any such\n    proverb so little kin to the purpose.\n  RAMBURES. My Lord Constable, the armour that I saw in your tent\n    to-night- are those stars or suns upon it?\n  CONSTABLE. Stars, my lord.\n  DAUPHIN. Some of them will fall to-morrow, I hope.\n  CONSTABLE. And yet my sky shall not want.\n  DAUPHIN. That may be, for you bear a many superfluously, and 'twere\n    more honour some were away.\n  CONSTABLE. Ev'n as your horse bears your praises, who would trot as\n    well were some of your brags dismounted.\n  DAUPHIN. Would I were able to load him with his desert! Will it\n    never be day? I will trot to-morrow a mile, and my way shall be\n    paved with English faces.\n  CONSTABLE. I will not say so, for fear I should be fac'd out of my\n    way; but I would it were morning, for I would fain be about the\n    ears of the English.\n  RAMBURES. Who will go to hazard with me for twenty prisoners?\n  CONSTABLE. You must first go yourself to hazard ere you have them.\n  DAUPHIN. 'Tis midnight; I'll go arm myself.               Exit\n  ORLEANS. The Dauphin longs for morning.\n  RAMBURES. He longs to eat the English.\n  CONSTABLE. I think he will eat all he kills.\n  ORLEANS. By the white hand of my lady, he's a gallant prince.\n  CONSTABLE. Swear by her foot, that she may tread out the oath.\n  ORLEANS. He is simply the most active gentleman of France.\n  CONSTABLE. Doing is activity, and he will still be doing.\n  ORLEANS. He never did harm that I heard of.\n  CONSTABLE. Nor will do none to-morrow: he will keep that good name\n    still.\n  ORLEANS. I know him to be valiant.\n  CONSTABLE. I was told that by one that knows him better than you.\n  ORLEANS. What's he?\n  CONSTABLE. Marry, he told me so himself; and he said he car'd not\n    who knew it.\n  ORLEANS. He needs not; it is no hidden virtue in him.\n  CONSTABLE. By my faith, sir, but it is; never anybody saw it but\n      his lackey.\n    'Tis a hooded valour, and when it appears it will bate.\n  ORLEANS. Ill-wind never said well.\n  CONSTABLE. I will cap that proverb with 'There is flattery in\n    friendship.'\n  ORLEANS. And I will take up that with 'Give the devil his due.'\n  CONSTABLE. Well plac'd! There stands your friend for the devil;\n    have at the very eye of that proverb with 'A pox of the devil!'\n  ORLEANS. You are the better at proverbs by how much 'A fool's bolt\n    is soon shot.'\n  CONSTABLE. You have shot over.\n  ORLEANS. 'Tis not the first time you were overshot.\n\n                          Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. My Lord High Constable, the English lie within fifteen\n    hundred paces of your tents.\n  CONSTABLE. Who hath measur'd the ground?\n  MESSENGER. The Lord Grandpre.\n  CONSTABLE. A valiant and most expert gentleman. Would it were day!\n    Alas, poor Harry of England! he longs not for the dawning as we\n    do.\n  ORLEANS. What a wretched and peevish fellow is this King of\n    England, to mope with his fat-brain'd followers so far out of his\n    knowledge!\n  CONSTABLE. If the English had any apprehension, they would run\n    away.\n  ORLEANS. That they lack; for if their heads had any intellectual\n    armour, they could never wear such heavy head-pieces.\n  RAMBURES. That island of England breeds very valiant creatures;\n    their mastiffs are of unmatchable courage.\n  ORLEANS. Foolish curs, that run winking into the mouth of a Russian\n    bear, and have their heads crush'd like rotten apples! You may as\n    well say that's a valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast on the\n    lip of a lion.\n  CONSTABLE. Just, just! and the men do sympathise with the mastiffs\n    in robustious and rough coming on, leaving their wits with their\n    wives; and then give them great meals of beef and iron and steel;\n    they will eat like wolves and fight like devils.\n  ORLEANS. Ay, but these English are shrewdly out of beef.\n  CONSTABLE. Then shall we find to-morrow they have only stomachs to\n    eat, and none to fight. Now is it time to arm. Come, shall we\n    about it?\n  ORLEANS. It is now two o'clock; but let me see- by ten\n    We shall have each a hundred Englishmen.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. PROLOGUE.\n\nEnter CHORUS\n\n  CHORUS. Now entertain conjecture of a time\n    When creeping murmur and the poring dark\n    Fills the wide vessel of the universe.\n    From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night,\n    The hum of either army stilly sounds,\n    That the fix'd sentinels almost receive\n    The secret whispers of each other's watch.\n    Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames\n    Each battle sees the other's umber'd face;\n    Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs\n    Piercing the night's dull ear; and from the tents\n    The armourers accomplishing the knights,\n    With busy hammers closing rivets up,\n    Give dreadful note of preparation.\n    The country cocks do crow, the clocks do ton,\n    And the third hour of drowsy morning name.\n    Proud of their numbers and secure in soul,\n    The confident and over-lusty French\n    Do the low-rated English play at dice;\n    And chide the cripple tardy-gaited night\n    Who like a foul and ugly witch doth limp\n    So tediously away. The poor condemned English,\n    Like sacrifices, by their watchful fires\n    Sit patiently and inly ruminate\n    The morning's danger; and their gesture sad\n    Investing lank-lean cheeks and war-worn coats\n    Presenteth them unto the gazing moon\n    So many horrid ghosts. O, now, who will behold\n    The royal captain of this ruin'd band\n    Walking from watch to watch, from tent to tent,\n    Let him cry 'Praise and glory on his head!'\n    For forth he goes and visits all his host;\n    Bids them good morrow with a modest smile,\n    And calls them brothers, friends, and countrymen.\n    Upon his royal face there is no note\n    How dread an army hath enrounded him;\n    Nor doth he dedicate one jot of colour\n    Unto the weary and all-watched night;\n    But freshly looks, and over-bears attaint\n    With cheerful semblance and sweet majesty;\n    That every wretch, pining and pale before,\n    Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks;\n    A largess universal, like the sun,\n    His liberal eye doth give to every one,\n    Thawing cold fear, that mean and gentle all\n    Behold, as may unworthiness define,\n    A little touch of Harry in the night.\n    And so our scene must to the battle fly;\n    Where- O for pity!- we shall much disgrace\n    With four or five most vile and ragged foils,\n    Right ill-dispos'd in brawl ridiculous,\n    The name of Agincourt. Yet sit and see,\n    Minding true things by what their mock'ries be.         Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE I.\nFrance. The English camp at Agincourt\n\nEnter the KING, BEDFORD, and GLOUCESTER\n\n  KING HENRY. Gloucester, 'tis true that we are in great danger;\n    The greater therefore should our courage be.\n    Good morrow, brother Bedford. God Almighty!\n    There is some soul of goodness in things evil,\n    Would men observingly distil it out;\n    For our bad neighbour makes us early stirrers,\n    Which is both healthful and good husbandry.\n    Besides, they are our outward consciences\n    And preachers to us all, admonishing\n    That we should dress us fairly for our end.\n    Thus may we gather honey from the weed,\n    And make a moral of the devil himself.\n\n                        Enter ERPINGHAM\n\n    Good morrow, old Sir Thomas Erpingham:\n    A good soft pillow for that good white head\n    Were better than a churlish turf of France.\n  ERPINGHAM. Not so, my liege; this lodging likes me better,\n    Since I may say 'Now lie I like a king.'\n  KING HENRY. 'Tis good for men to love their present pains\n    Upon example; so the spirit is eased;\n    And when the mind is quick'ned, out of doubt\n    The organs, though defunct and dead before,\n    Break up their drowsy grave and newly move\n    With casted slough and fresh legerity.\n    Lend me thy cloak, Sir Thomas. Brothers both,\n    Commend me to the princes in our camp;\n    Do my good morrow to them, and anon\n    Desire them all to my pavilion.\n  GLOUCESTER. We shall, my liege.\n  ERPINGHAM. Shall I attend your Grace?\n  KING HENRY. No, my good knight:\n    Go with my brothers to my lords of England;\n    I and my bosom must debate awhile,\n    And then I would no other company.\n  ERPINGHAM. The Lord in heaven bless thee, noble Harry!\n                                         Exeunt all but the KING\n  KING HENRY. God-a-mercy, old heart! thou speak'st cheerfully.\n\n                          Enter PISTOL\n\n  PISTOL. Qui va la?\n  KING HENRY. A friend.\n  PISTOL. Discuss unto me: art thou officer,\n    Or art thou base, common, and popular?\n  KING HENRY. I am a gentleman of a company.\n  PISTOL. Trail'st thou the puissant pike?\n  KING HENRY. Even so. What are you?\n  PISTOL. As good a gentleman as the Emperor.\n  KING HENRY. Then you are a better than the King.\n  PISTOL. The King's a bawcock and a heart of gold,\n    A lad of life, an imp of fame;\n    Of parents good, of fist most valiant.\n    I kiss his dirty shoe, and from heart-string\n    I love the lovely bully. What is thy name?\n  KING HENRY. Harry le Roy.\n  PISTOL. Le Roy! a Cornish name; art thou of Cornish crew?\n  KING HENRY. No, I am a Welshman.\n  PISTOL. Know'st thou Fluellen?\n  KING HENRY. Yes.\n  PISTOL. Tell him I'll knock his leek about his pate\n    Upon Saint Davy's day.\n  KING HENRY. Do not you wear your dagger in your cap that day, lest\n    he knock that about yours.\n  PISTOL. Art thou his friend?\n  KING HENRY. And his kinsman too.\n  PISTOL. The figo for thee, then!\n  KING HENRY. I thank you; God be with you!\n  PISTOL. My name is Pistol call'd.                         Exit\n  KING HENRY. It sorts well with your fierceness.\n\n                    Enter FLUELLEN and GOWER\n\n  GOWER. Captain Fluellen!\n  FLUELLEN. So! in the name of Jesu Christ, speak fewer. It is the\n    greatest admiration in the universal world, when the true and\n    aunchient prerogatifes and laws of the wars is not kept: if you\n    would take the pains but to examine the wars of Pompey the Great,\n    you shall find, I warrant you, that there is no tiddle-taddle nor\n    pibble-pabble in Pompey's camp; I warrant you, you shall find the\n    ceremonies of the wars, and the cares of it, and the forms of it,\n    and the sobriety of it, and the modesty of it, to be otherwise.\n  GOWER. Why, the enemy is loud; you hear him all night.\n  FLUELLEN. If the enemy is an ass, and a fool, and a prating\n    coxcomb, is it meet, think you, that we should also, look you, be\n    an ass, and a fool, and a prating coxcomb? In your own\n    conscience, now?\n  GOWER. I will speak lower.\n  FLUELLEN. I pray you and beseech you that you will.\n                                       Exeunt GOWER and FLUELLEN\n  KING HENRY. Though it appear a little out of fashion,\n    There is much care and valour in this Welshman.\n\n          Enter three soldiers: JOHN BATES, ALEXANDER COURT,\n                       and MICHAEL WILLIAMS\n\n  COURT. Brother John Bates, is not that the morning which breaks\n    yonder?\n  BATES. I think it be; but we have no great cause to desire the\n    approach of day.\n  WILLIAMS. We see yonder the beginning of the day, but I think we\n    shall never see the end of it. Who goes there?\n  KING HENRY. A friend.\n  WILLIAMS. Under what captain serve you?\n  KING HENRY. Under Sir Thomas Erpingham.\n  WILLIAMS. A good old commander and a most kind gentleman. I pray\n    you, what thinks he of our estate?\n  KING HENRY. Even as men wreck'd upon a sand, that look to be wash'd\n    off the next tide.\n  BATES. He hath not told his thought to the King?\n  KING HENRY. No; nor it is not meet he should. For though I speak it\n    to you, I think the King is but a man as I am: the violet smells\n    to him as it doth to me; the element shows to him as it doth to\n    me; all his senses have but human conditions; his ceremonies laid\n    by, in his nakedness he appears but a man; and though his\n    affections are higher mounted than ours, yet, when they stoop,\n    they stoop with the like wing. Therefore, when he sees reason of\n    fears, as we do, his fears, out of doubt, be of the same relish\n    as ours are; yet, in reason, no man should possess him with any\n    appearance of fear, lest he, by showing it, should dishearten his\n    army.\n  BATES. He may show what outward courage he will; but I believe, as\n    cold a night as 'tis, he could wish himself in Thames up to the\n    neck; and so I would he were, and I by him, at all adventures, so\n    we were quit here.\n  KING HENRY. By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the King: I\n    think he would not wish himself anywhere but where he is.\n  BATES. Then I would he were here alone; so should he be sure to be\n    ransomed, and a many poor men's lives saved.\n  KING HENRY. I dare say you love him not so ill to wish him here\n    alone, howsoever you speak this, to feel other men's minds;\n    methinks I could not die anywhere so contented as in the King's\n    company, his cause being just and his quarrel honourable.\n  WILLIAMS. That's more than we know.\n  BATES. Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we know enough if\n    we know we are the King's subjects. If his cause be wrong, our\n    obedience to the King wipes the crime of it out of us.\n  WILLIAMS. But if the cause be not good, the King himself hath a\n    heavy reckoning to make when all those legs and arms and heads,\n    chopp'd off in a battle, shall join together at the latter day\n    and cry all 'We died at such a place'- some swearing, some crying\n    for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some\n    upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I\n    am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how\n    can they charitably dispose of anything when blood is their\n    argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black\n    matter for the King that led them to it; who to disobey were\n    against all proportion of subjection.\n  KING HENRY. So, if a son that is by his father sent about\n    merchandise do sinfully miscarry upon the sea, the imputation of\n    his wickedness, by your rule, should be imposed upon his father\n    that sent him; or if a servant, under his master's command\n    transporting a sum of money, be assailed by robbers and die in\n    many irreconcil'd iniquities, you may call the business of the\n    master the author of the servant's damnation. But this is not so:\n    the King is not bound to answer the particular endings of his\n    soldiers, the father of his son, nor the master of his servant;\n    for they purpose not their death when they purpose their\n    services. Besides, there is no king, be his cause never so\n    spotless, if it come to the arbitrement of swords, can try it out\n    with all unspotted soldiers: some peradventure have on them the\n    guilt of premeditated and contrived murder; some, of beguiling\n    virgins with the broken seals of perjury; some, making the wars\n    their bulwark, that have before gored the gentle bosom of peace\n    with pillage and robbery. Now, if these men have defeated the law\n    and outrun native punishment, though they can outstrip men they\n    have no wings to fly from God: war is His beadle, war is His\n    vengeance; so that here men are punish'd for before-breach of the\n    King's laws in now the King's quarrel. Where they feared the\n    death they have borne life away; and where they would be safe\n    they perish. Then if they die unprovided, no more is the King\n    guilty of their damnation than he was before guilty of those\n    impieties for the which they are now visited. Every subject's\n    duty is the King's; but every subject's soul is his own.\n    Therefore should every soldier in the wars do as every sick man\n    in his bed- wash every mote out of his conscience; and dying so,\n    death is to him advantage; or not dying, the time was blessedly\n    lost wherein such preparation was gained; and in him that escapes\n    it were not sin to think that, making God so free an offer, He\n    let him outlive that day to see His greatness, and to teach\n    others how they should prepare.\n  WILLIAMS. 'Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill upon his\n    own head- the King is not to answer for it.\n  BATES. I do not desire he should answer for me, and yet I determine\n    to fight lustily for him.\n  KING HENRY. I myself heard the King say he would not be ransom'd.\n  WILLIAMS. Ay, he said so, to make us fight cheerfully; but when our\n    throats are cut he may be ransom'd, and we ne'er the wiser.\n  KING HENRY. If I live to see it, I will never trust his word after.\n  WILLIAMS. You pay him then! That's a perilous shot out of an\n    elder-gun, that a poor and a private displeasure can do against a\n    monarch! You may as well go about to turn the sun to ice with\n    fanning in his face with a peacock's feather. You'll never trust\n    his word after! Come, 'tis a foolish saying.\n  KING HENRY. Your reproof is something too round; I should be angry\n    with you, if the time were convenient.\n  WILLIAMS. Let it be a quarrel between us if you live.\n  KING HENRY. I embrace it.\n  WILLIAMS. How shall I know thee again?\n  KING HENRY. Give me any gage of thine, and I will wear it in my\n    bonnet; then if ever thou dar'st acknowledge it, I will make it\n    my quarrel.\n  WILLIAMS. Here's my glove; give me another of thine.\n  KING HENRY. There.\n  WILLIAMS. This will I also wear in my cap; if ever thou come to me\n    and say, after to-morrow, 'This is my glove,' by this hand I will\n    take thee a box on the ear.\n  KING HENRY. If ever I live to see it, I will challenge it.\n  WILLIAMS. Thou dar'st as well be hang'd.\n  KING HENRY. Well, I will do it, though I take thee in the King's\n    company.\n  WILLIAMS. Keep thy word. Fare thee well.\n  BATES. Be friends, you English fools, be friends; we have\n    French quarrels enow, if you could tell how to reckon.\n  KING HENRY. Indeed, the French may lay twenty French crowns to one\n    they will beat us, for they bear them on their shoulders; but it\n    is no English treason to cut French crowns, and to-morrow the\n    King himself will be a clipper.\n                                                 Exeunt soldiers\n    Upon the King! Let us our lives, our souls,\n    Our debts, our careful wives,\n    Our children, and our sins, lay on the King!\n    We must bear all. O hard condition,\n    Twin-born with greatness, subject to the breath\n    Of every fool, whose sense no more can feel\n    But his own wringing! What infinite heart's ease\n    Must kings neglect that private men enjoy!\n    And what have kings that privates have not too,\n    Save ceremony- save general ceremony?\n    And what art thou, thou idol Ceremony?\n    What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more\n    Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers?\n    What are thy rents? What are thy comings-in?\n    O Ceremony, show me but thy worth!\n    What is thy soul of adoration?\n    Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form,\n    Creating awe and fear in other men?\n    Wherein thou art less happy being fear'd\n    Than they in fearing.\n    What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,\n    But poison'd flattery? O, be sick, great greatness,\n    And bid thy ceremony give thee cure!\n    Thinks thou the fiery fever will go out\n    With titles blown from adulation?\n    Will it give place to flexure and low bending?\n    Canst thou, when thou command'st the beggar's knee,\n    Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream,\n    That play'st so subtly with a king's repose.\n    I am a king that find thee; and I know\n    'Tis not the balm, the sceptre, and the ball,\n    The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,\n    The intertissued robe of gold and pearl,\n    The farced tide running fore the king,\n    The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp\n    That beats upon the high shore of this world-\n    No, not all these, thrice gorgeous ceremony,\n    Not all these, laid in bed majestical,\n    Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave\n    Who, with a body fill'd and vacant mind,\n    Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread;\n    Never sees horrid night, the child of hell;\n    But, like a lackey, from the rise to set\n    Sweats in the eye of Pheebus, and all night\n    Sleeps in Elysium; next day, after dawn,\n    Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse;\n    And follows so the ever-running year\n    With profitable labour, to his grave.\n    And but for ceremony, such a wretch,\n    Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep,\n    Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king.\n    The slave, a member of the country's peace,\n    Enjoys it; but in gross brain little wots\n    What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace\n    Whose hours the peasant best advantages.\n\n                       Enter ERPINGHAM\n\n  ERPINGHAM. My lord, your nobles, jealous of your absence,\n    Seek through your camp to find you.\n  KING. Good old knight,\n    Collect them all together at my tent:\n    I'll be before thee.\n  ERPINGHAM. I shall do't, my lord.                         Exit\n  KING. O God of battles, steel my soldiers' hearts,\n    Possess them not with fear! Take from them now\n    The sense of reck'ning, if th' opposed numbers\n    Pluck their hearts from them! Not to-day, O Lord,\n    O, not to-day, think not upon the fault\n    My father made in compassing the crown!\n    I Richard's body have interred new,\n    And on it have bestowed more contrite tears\n    Than from it issued forced drops of blood;\n    Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay,\n    Who twice a day their wither'd hands hold up\n    Toward heaven, to pardon blood; and I have built\n    Two chantries, where the sad and solemn priests\n    Sing still for Richard's soul. More will I do;\n    Though all that I can do is nothing worth,\n    Since that my penitence comes after all,\n    Imploring pardon.\n\n                         Enter GLOUCESTER\n\n  GLOUCESTER. My liege!\n  KING HENRY. My brother Gloucester's voice? Ay;\n    I know thy errand, I will go with thee;\n    The day, my friends, and all things, stay for me.     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe French camp\n\nEnter the DAUPHIN, ORLEANS, RAMBURES, and others\n\n  ORLEANS. The sun doth gild our armour; up, my lords!\n  DAUPHIN. Montez a cheval! My horse! Varlet, laquais! Ha!\n  ORLEANS. O brave spirit!\n  DAUPHIN. Via! Les eaux et la terre-\n  ORLEANS. Rien puis? L'air et le feu.\n  DAUPHIN. Ciel! cousin Orleans.\n\n                        Enter CONSTABLE\n\n    Now, my Lord Constable!\n  CONSTABLE. Hark how our steeds for present service neigh!\n  DAUPHIN. Mount them, and make incision in their hides,\n    That their hot blood may spin in English eyes,\n    And dout them with superfluous courage, ha!\n  RAMBURES. What, will you have them weep our horses' blood?\n    How shall we then behold their natural tears?\n\n                        Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. The English are embattl'd, you French peers.\n  CONSTABLE. To horse, you gallant Princes! straight to horse!\n    Do but behold yon poor and starved band,\n    And your fair show shall suck away their souls,\n    Leaving them but the shales and husks of men.\n    There is not work enough for all our hands;\n    Scarce blood enough in all their sickly veins\n    To give each naked curtle-axe a stain\n    That our French gallants shall to-day draw out,\n    And sheathe for lack of sport. Let us but blow on them,\n    The vapour of our valour will o'erturn them.\n    'Tis positive 'gainst all exceptions, lords,\n    That our superfluous lackeys and our peasants-\n    Who in unnecessary action swarm\n    About our squares of battle- were enow\n    To purge this field of, such a hilding foe;\n    Though we upon this mountain's basis by\n    Took stand for idle speculation-\n    But that our honours must not. What's to say?\n    A very little little let us do,\n    And all is done. Then let the trumpets sound\n    The tucket sonance and the note to mount;\n    For our approach shall so much dare the field\n    That England shall couch down in fear and yield.\n\n                        Enter GRANDPRE\n\n  GRANDPRE. Why do you stay so long, my lords of France?\n    Yond island carrions, desperate of their bones,\n    Ill-favouredly become the morning field;\n    Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose,\n    And our air shakes them passing scornfully;\n    Big Mars seems bankrupt in their beggar'd host,\n    And faintly through a rusty beaver peeps.\n    The horsemen sit like fixed candlesticks\n    With torch-staves in their hand; and their poor jades\n    Lob down their heads, dropping the hides and hips,\n    The gum down-roping from their pale-dead eyes,\n    And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal'd bit\n    Lies foul with chaw'd grass, still and motionless;\n    And their executors, the knavish crows,\n    Fly o'er them, all impatient for their hour.\n    Description cannot suit itself in words\n    To demonstrate the life of such a battle\n    In life so lifeless as it shows itself.\n  CONSTABLE. They have said their prayers and they stay for death.\n  DAUPHIN. Shall we go send them dinners and fresh suits,\n    And give their fasting horses provender,\n    And after fight with them?\n  CONSTABLE. I stay but for my guidon. To the field!\n    I will the banner from a trumpet take,\n    And use it for my haste. Come, come, away!\n    The sun is high, and we outwear the day.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe English camp\n\nEnter GLOUCESTER, BEDFORD, EXETER, ERPINGHAM, with all his host;\nSALISBURY and WESTMORELAND\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Where is the King?\n  BEDFORD. The King himself is rode to view their battle.\n  WESTMORELAND. Of fighting men they have full three-score thousand.\n  EXETER. There's five to one; besides, they all are fresh.\n  SALISBURY. God's arm strike with us! 'tis a fearful odds.\n    God bye you, Princes all; I'll to my charge.\n    If we no more meet till we meet in heaven,\n    Then joyfully, my noble Lord of Bedford,\n    My dear Lord Gloucester, and my good Lord Exeter,\n    And my kind kinsman- warriors all, adieu!\n  BEDFORD. Farewell, good Salisbury; and good luck go with thee!\n  EXETER. Farewell, kind lord. Fight valiantly to-day;\n    And yet I do thee wrong to mind thee of it,\n    For thou art fram'd of the firm truth of valour.\n                                                  Exit SALISBURY\n  BEDFORD. He is as full of valour as of kindness;\n    Princely in both.\n\n                            Enter the KING\n\n  WESTMORELAND. O that we now had here\n    But one ten thousand of those men in England\n    That do no work to-day!\n  KING. What's he that wishes so?\n    My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;\n    If we are mark'd to die, we are enow\n    To do our country loss; and if to live,\n    The fewer men, the greater share of honour.\n    God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.\n    By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,\n    Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;\n    It yearns me not if men my garments wear;\n    Such outward things dwell not in my desires.\n    But if it be a sin to covet honour,\n    I am the most offending soul alive.\n    No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.\n    God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour\n    As one man more methinks would share from me\n    For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!\n    Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,\n    That he which hath no stomach to this fight,\n    Let him depart; his passport shall be made,\n    And crowns for convoy put into his purse;\n    We would not die in that man's company\n    That fears his fellowship to die with us.\n    This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.\n    He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,\n    Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,\n    And rouse him at the name of Crispian.\n    He that shall live this day, and see old age,\n    Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,\n    And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'\n    Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,\n    And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'\n    Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,\n    But he'll remember, with advantages,\n    What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,\n    Familiar in his mouth as household words-\n    Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,\n    Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-\n    Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.\n    This story shall the good man teach his son;\n    And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,\n    From this day to the ending of the world,\n    But we in it shall be remembered-\n    We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;\n    For he to-day that sheds his blood with me\n    Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,\n    This day shall gentle his condition;\n    And gentlemen in England now-a-bed\n    Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,\n    And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks\n    That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.\n\n                      Re-enter SALISBURY\n\n  SALISBURY. My sovereign lord, bestow yourself with speed:\n    The French are bravely in their battles set,\n    And will with all expedience charge on us.\n  KING HENRY. All things are ready, if our minds be so.\n  WESTMORELAND. Perish the man whose mind is backward now!\n  KING HENRY. Thou dost not wish more help from England, coz?\n  WESTMORELAND. God's will, my liege! would you and I alone,\n    Without more help, could fight this royal battle!\n  KING HENRY. Why, now thou hast unwish'd five thousand men;\n    Which likes me better than to wish us one.\n    You know your places. God be with you all!\n\n                     Tucket. Enter MONTJOY\n\n  MONTJOY. Once more I come to know of thee, King Harry,\n    If for thy ransom thou wilt now compound,\n    Before thy most assured overthrow;\n    For certainly thou art so near the gulf\n    Thou needs must be englutted. Besides, in mercy,\n    The constable desires thee thou wilt mind\n    Thy followers of repentance, that their souls\n    May make a peaceful and a sweet retire\n    From off these fields, where, wretches, their poor bodies\n    Must lie and fester.\n  KING HENRY. Who hath sent thee now?\n  MONTJOY. The Constable of France.\n  KING HENRY. I pray thee bear my former answer back:\n    Bid them achieve me, and then sell my bones.\n    Good God! why should they mock poor fellows thus?\n    The man that once did sell the lion's skin\n    While the beast liv'd was kill'd with hunting him.\n    A many of our bodies shall no doubt\n    Find native graves; upon the which, I trust,\n    Shall witness live in brass of this day's work.\n    And those that leave their valiant bones in France,\n    Dying like men, though buried in your dunghills,\n    They shall be fam'd; for there the sun shall greet them\n    And draw their honours reeking up to heaven,\n    Leaving their earthly parts to choke your clime,\n    The smell whereof shall breed a plague in France.\n    Mark then abounding valour in our English,\n    That, being dead, like to the bullet's grazing\n    Break out into a second course of mischief,\n    Killing in relapse of mortality.\n    Let me speak proudly: tell the Constable\n    We are but warriors for the working-day;\n    Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirch'd\n    With rainy marching in the painful field;\n    There's not a piece of feather in our host-\n    Good argument, I hope, we will not fly-\n    And time hath worn us into slovenry.\n    But, by the mass, our hearts are in the trim;\n    And my poor soldiers tell me yet ere night\n    They'll be in fresher robes, or they will pluck\n    The gay new coats o'er the French soldiers' heads\n    And turn them out of service. If they do this-\n    As, if God please, they shall- my ransom then\n    Will soon be levied. Herald, save thou thy labour;\n    Come thou no more for ransom, gentle herald;\n    They shall have none, I swear, but these my joints;\n    Which if they have, as I will leave 'em them,\n    Shall yield them little, tell the Constable.\n  MONTJOY. I shall, King Harry. And so fare thee well:\n    Thou never shalt hear herald any more.                  Exit\n  KING HENRY. I fear thou wilt once more come again for a ransom.\n\n                    Enter the DUKE OF YORK\n\n  YORK. My lord, most humbly on my knee I beg\n    The leading of the vaward.\n  KING HENRY. Take it, brave York. Now, soldiers, march away;\n    And how thou pleasest, God, dispose the day!          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nThe field of battle\n\nAlarum.  Excursions.  Enter FRENCH SOLDIER, PISTOL, and BOY\n\n  PISTOL. Yield, cur!\n  FRENCH SOLDIER. Je pense que vous etes le gentilhomme de bonne\n    qualite.\n  PISTOL. Cality! Calen o custure me! Art thou a gentleman?\n    What is thy name? Discuss.\n  FRENCH SOLDIER. O Seigneur Dieu!\n  PISTOL. O, Signieur Dew should be a gentleman.\n    Perpend my words, O Signieur Dew, and mark:\n    O Signieur Dew, thou diest on point of fox,\n    Except, O Signieur, thou do give to me\n    Egregious ransom.\n  FRENCH SOLDIER. O, prenez misericorde; ayez pitie de moi!\n  PISTOL. Moy shall not serve; I will have forty moys;\n    Or I will fetch thy rim out at thy throat\n    In drops of crimson blood.\n  FRENCH SOLDIER. Est-il impossible d'echapper la force de ton bras?\n  PISTOL. Brass, cur?\n    Thou damned and luxurious mountain-goat,\n    Offer'st me brass?\n  FRENCH SOLDIER. O, pardonnez-moi!\n  PISTOL. Say'st thou me so? Is that a ton of moys?\n    Come hither, boy; ask me this slave in French\n    What is his name.\n  BOY. Ecoutez: comment etes-vous appele?\n  FRENCH SOLDIER. Monsieur le Fer.\n  BOY. He says his name is Master Fer.\n  PISTOL. Master Fer! I'll fer him, and firk him, and ferret him-\n   discuss the same in French unto him.\n  BOY. I do not know the French for fer, and ferret, and firk.\n  PISTOL. Bid him prepare; for I will cut his throat.\n  FRENCH SOLDIER. Que dit-il, monsieur?\n  BOY. Il me commande a vous dire que vous faites vous pret; car ce\n    soldat ici est dispose tout a cette heure de couper votre gorge.\n  PISTOL. Owy, cuppele gorge, permafoy!\n    Peasant, unless thou give me crowns, brave crowns;\n    Or mangled shalt thou be by this my sword.\n  FRENCH SOLDIER. O, je vous supplie, pour l'amour de Dieu, me\n    pardonner! Je suis gentilhomme de bonne maison. Gardez ma vie, et\n    je vous donnerai deux cents ecus.\n  PISTOL. What are his words?\n  BOY. He prays you to save his life; he is a gentleman of a good\n    house, and for his ransom he will give you two hundred crowns.\n  PISTOL. Tell him my fury shall abate, and I\n    The crowns will take.\n  FRENCH SOLDIER. Petit monsieur, que dit-il?\n  BOY. Encore qu'il est contre son jurement de pardonner aucun\n    prisonnier, neamnoins, pour les ecus que vous l'avez promis, il\n    est content a vous donner la liberte, le franchisement.\n  FRENCH SOLDIER. Sur mes genoux je vous donne mille remercimens; et\n    je m'estime heureux que je suis tombe entre les mains d'un\n    chevalier, je pense, le plus brave, vaillant, et tres distingue\n    seigneur d'Angleterre.\n  PISTOL. Expound unto me, boy.\n  BOY. He gives you, upon his knees, a thousand thanks; and he\n    esteems himself happy that he hath fall'n into the hands of one-\n    as he thinks- the most brave, valorous, and thrice-worthy\n    signieur of England.\n  PISTOL. As I suck blood, I will some mercy show.\n    Follow me.                                              Exit\n  BOY. Suivez-vous le grand capitaine.       Exit FRENCH SOLDIER\n    I did never know so full a voice issue from so empty a heart; but\n    the saying is true- the empty vessel makes the greatest sound.\n    Bardolph and Nym had ten times more valour than this roaring\n    devil i' th' old play, that every one may pare his nails with a\n    wooden dagger; and they are both hang'd; and so would this be, if\n    he durst steal anything adventurously. I must stay with the\n    lackeys, with the luggage of our camp. The French might have a\n    good prey of us, if he knew of it; for there is none to guard it\n    but boys.                                               Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nAnother part of the field of battle\n\nEnter CONSTABLE, ORLEANS, BOURBON, DAUPHIN, and RAMBURES\n\n  CONSTABLE. O diable!\n  ORLEANS. O Seigneur! le jour est perdu, tout est perdu!\n  DAUPHIN. Mort Dieu, ma vie! all is confounded, all!\n    Reproach and everlasting shame\n    Sits mocking in our plumes.                 [A short alarum]\n    O mechante fortune! Do not run away.\n  CONSTABLE. Why, an our ranks are broke.\n  DAUPHIN. O perdurable shame! Let's stab ourselves.\n    Be these the wretches that we play'd at dice for?\n  ORLEANS. Is this the king we sent to for his ransom?\n  BOURBON. Shame, and eternal shame, nothing but shame!\n    Let us die in honour: once more back again;\n    And he that will not follow Bourbon now,\n    Let him go hence and, with his cap in hand\n    Like a base pander, hold the chamber-door\n    Whilst by a slave, no gender than my dog,\n    His fairest daughter is contaminated.\n  CONSTABLE. Disorder, that hath spoil'd us, friend us now!\n    Let us on heaps go offer up our lives.\n  ORLEANS. We are enow yet living in the field\n    To smother up the English in our throngs,\n    If any order might be thought upon.\n  BOURBON. The devil take order now! I'll to the throng.\n    Let life be short, else shame will be too long.       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nAnother part of the field\n\nAlarum. Enter the KING and his train, with prisoners; EXETER, and others\n\n  KING HENRY. Well have we done, thrice-valiant countrymen;\n    But all's not done- yet keep the French the field.\n  EXETER. The Duke of York commends him to your Majesty.\n  KING HENRY. Lives he, good uncle? Thrice within this hour\n    I saw him down; thrice up again, and fighting;\n    From helmet to the spur all blood he was.\n  EXETER. In which array, brave soldier, doth he lie\n    Larding the plain; and by his bloody side,\n    Yoke-fellow to his honour-owing wounds,\n    The noble Earl of Suffolk also lies.\n    Suffolk first died; and York, all haggled over,\n    Comes to him, where in gore he lay insteeped,\n    And takes him by the beard, kisses the gashes\n    That bloodily did yawn upon his face,\n    He cries aloud 'Tarry, my cousin Suffolk.\n    My soul shall thine keep company to heaven;\n    Tarry, sweet soul, for mine, then fly abreast;\n    As in this glorious and well-foughten field\n    We kept together in our chivalry.'\n    Upon these words I came and cheer'd him up;\n    He smil'd me in the face, raught me his hand,\n    And, with a feeble grip, says 'Dear my lord,\n    Commend my service to my sovereign.'\n    So did he turn, and over Suffolk's neck\n    He threw his wounded arm and kiss'd his lips;\n    And so, espous'd to death, with blood he seal'd\n    A testament of noble-ending love.\n    The pretty and sweet manner of it forc'd\n    Those waters from me which I would have stopp'd;\n    But I had not so much of man in me,\n    And all my mother came into mine eyes\n    And gave me up to tears.\n  KING HENRY. I blame you not;\n    For, hearing this, I must perforce compound\n    With mistful eyes, or they will issue too.          [Alarum]\n    But hark! what new alarum is this same?\n    The French have reinforc'd their scatter'd men.\n    Then every soldier kill his prisoners;\n    Give the word through.                                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nAnother part of the field\n\nEnter FLUELLEN and GOWER\n\n  FLUELLEN. Kill the poys and the luggage! 'Tis expressly against the\n    law of arms; 'tis as arrant a piece of knavery, mark you now, as\n    can be offert; in your conscience, now, is it not?\n  GOWER. 'Tis certain there's not a boy left alive; and the cowardly\n    rascals that ran from the battle ha' done this slaughter;\n    besides, they have burned and carried away all that was in the\n    King's tent; wherefore the King most worthily hath caus'd every\n    soldier to cut his prisoner's throat. O, 'tis a gallant King!\n  FLUELLEN. Ay, he was porn at Monmouth, Captain Gower. What call you\n    the town's name where Alexander the Pig was born?\n  GOWER. Alexander the Great.\n  FLUELLEN. Why, I pray you, is not 'pig' great? The pig, or great,\n    or the mighty, or the huge, or the magnanimous, are all one\n    reckonings, save the phrase is a little variations.\n  GOWER. I think Alexander the Great was born in Macedon; his father\n    was called Philip of Macedon, as I take it.\n  FLUELLEN. I think it is in Macedon where Alexander is porn. I tell\n    you, Captain, if you look in the maps of the 'orld, I warrant you\n    sall find, in the comparisons between Macedon and Monmouth, that\n    the situations, look you, is both alike. There is a river in\n    Macedon; and there is also moreover a river at Monmouth; it is\n    call'd Wye at Monmouth, but it is out of my prains what is the\n    name of the other river; but 'tis all one, 'tis alike as my\n    fingers is to my fingers, and there is salmons in both. If you\n    mark Alexander's life well, Harry of Monmouth's life is come\n    after it indifferent well; for there is figures in all things.\n    Alexander- God knows, and you know- in his rages, and his furies,\n    and his wraths, and his cholers, and his moods, and his\n    displeasures, and his indignations, and also being a little\n    intoxicates in his prains, did, in his ales and his angers, look\n    you, kill his best friend, Cleitus.\n  GOWER. Our king is not like him in that: he never kill'd any of his\n    friends.\n  FLUELLEN. It is not well done, mark you now, to take the tales out\n    of my mouth ere it is made and finished. I speak but in the\n    figures and comparisons of it; as Alexander kill'd his friend\n    Cleitus, being in his ales and his cups, so also Harry Monmouth,\n    being in his right wits and his good judgments, turn'd away the\n    fat knight with the great belly doublet; he was full of jests,\n    and gipes, and knaveries, and mocks; I have forgot his name.\n  GOWER. Sir John Falstaff.\n  FLUELLEN. That is he. I'll tell you there is good men porn at\n    Monmouth.\n  GOWER. Here comes his Majesty.\n\n            Alarum. Enter the KING, WARWICK, GLOUCESTER,\n            EXETER, and others, with prisoners. Flourish\n\n  KING HENRY. I was not angry since I came to France\n    Until this instant. Take a trumpet, herald,\n    Ride thou unto the horsemen on yond hill;\n    If they will fight with us, bid them come down\n    Or void the field; they do offend our sight.\n    If they'll do neither, we will come to them\n    And make them skirr away as swift as stones\n    Enforced from the old Assyrian slings;\n    Besides, we'll cut the throats of those we have,\n    And not a man of them that we shall take\n    Shall taste our mercy. Go and tell them so.\n\n                      Enter MONTJOY\n\n  EXETER. Here comes the herald of the French, my liege.\n  GLOUCESTER. His eyes are humbler than they us'd to be.\n  KING HENRY. How now! What means this, herald? know'st thou not\n    That I have fin'd these bones of mine for ransom?\n    Com'st thou again for ransom?\n  MONTJOY. No, great King;\n    I come to thee for charitable licence,\n    That we may wander o'er this bloody field\n    To book our dead, and then to bury them;\n    To sort our nobles from our common men;\n    For many of our princes- woe the while!-\n    Lie drown'd and soak'd in mercenary blood;\n    So do our vulgar drench their peasant limbs\n    In blood of princes; and their wounded steeds\n    Fret fetlock deep in gore, and with wild rage\n    Yerk out their armed heels at their dead masters,\n    Killing them twice. O, give us leave, great King,\n    To view the field in safety, and dispose\n    Of their dead bodies!\n  KING HENRY. I tell thee truly, herald,\n    I know not if the day be ours or no;\n    For yet a many of your horsemen peer\n    And gallop o'er the field.\n  MONTJOY. The day is yours.\n  KING HENRY. Praised be God, and not our strength, for it!\n    What is this castle call'd that stands hard by?\n  MONTJOY. They call it Agincourt.\n  KING HENRY. Then call we this the field of Agincourt,\n    Fought on the day of Crispin Crispianus.\n  FLUELLEN. Your grandfather of famous memory, an't please your\n    Majesty, and your great-uncle Edward the Plack Prince of Wales,\n    as I have read in the chronicles, fought a most prave pattle here\n    in France.\n  KING HENRY. They did, Fluellen.\n  FLUELLEN. Your Majesty says very true; if your Majesties is\n    rememb'red of it, the Welshmen did good service in garden where\n    leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps; which your\n    Majesty know to this hour is an honourable badge of the service;\n    and I do believe your Majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek\n    upon Saint Tavy's day.\n  KING HENRY. I wear it for a memorable honour;\n    For I am Welsh, you know, good countryman.\n  FLUELLEN. All the water in Wye cannot wash your Majesty's Welsh\n    plood out of your pody, I can tell you that. Got pless it and\n    preserve it as long as it pleases his Grace and his Majesty too!\n  KING HENRY. Thanks, good my countryman.\n  FLUELLEN. By Jeshu, I am your Majesty's countryman, care not who\n    know it; I will confess it to all the 'orld: I need not be\n    asham'd of your Majesty, praised be Got, so long as your Majesty\n    is an honest man.\n\n                       Enter WILLIAMS\n\n  KING HENRY. God keep me so! Our heralds go with him:\n    Bring me just notice of the numbers dead\n    On both our parts. Call yonder fellow hither.\n                                     Exeunt heralds with MONTJOY\n  EXETER. Soldier, you must come to the King.\n  KING HENRY. Soldier, why wear'st thou that glove in thy cap?\n  WILLIAMS. An't please your Majesty, 'tis the gage of one that I\n    should fight withal, if he be alive.\n  KING HENRY. An Englishman?\n  WILLIAMS. An't please your Majesty, a rascal that swagger'd with me\n    last night; who, if 'a live and ever dare to challenge this\n    glove, I have sworn to take him a box o' th' ear; or if I can see\n    my glove in his cap- which he swore, as he was a soldier, he\n    would wear if alive- I will strike it out soundly.\n  KING HENRY. What think you, Captain Fluellen, is it fit this\n    soldier keep his oath?\n  FLUELLEN. He is a craven and a villain else, an't please your\n    Majesty, in my conscience.\n  KING HENRY. It may be his enemy is a gentlemen of great sort, quite\n    from the answer of his degree.\n  FLUELLEN. Though he be as good a gentleman as the Devil is, as\n    Lucifier and Belzebub himself, it is necessary, look your Grace,\n    that he keep his vow and his oath; if he be perjur'd, see you\n    now, his reputation is as arrant a villain and a Jacksauce as\n    ever his black shoe trod upon God's ground and his earth, in my\n    conscience, la.\n  KING HENRY. Then keep thy vow, sirrah, when thou meet'st the\n    fellow.\n  WILLIAMS. So I Will, my liege, as I live.\n  KING HENRY. Who serv'st thou under?\n  WILLIAMS. Under Captain Gower, my liege.\n  FLUELLEN. Gower is a good captain, and is good knowledge and\n    literatured in the wars.\n  KING HENRY. Call him hither to me, soldier.\n  WILLIAMS. I will, my liege.                               Exit\n  KING HENRY. Here, Fluellen; wear thou this favour for me, and stick\n    it in thy cap; when Alencon and myself were down together, I\n    pluck'd this glove from his helm. If any man challenge this, he\n    is a friend to Alencon and an enemy to our person; if thou\n    encounter any such, apprehend him, an thou dost me love.\n  FLUELLEN. Your Grace does me as great honours as can be desir'd in\n    the hearts of his subjects. I would fain see the man that has but\n    two legs that shall find himself aggrief'd at this glove, that is\n    all; but I would fain see it once, an please God of his grace\n    that I might see.\n  KING HENRY. Know'st thou Gower?\n  FLUELLEN. He is my dear friend, an please you.\n  KING HENRY. Pray thee, go seek him, and bring him to my tent.\n  FLUELLEN. I will fetch him.                               Exit\n  KING HENRY. My Lord of Warwick and my brother Gloucester,\n    Follow Fluellen closely at the heels;\n    The glove which I have given him for a favour\n    May haply purchase him a box o' th' ear.\n    It is the soldier's: I, by bargain, should\n    Wear it myself. Follow, good cousin Warwick;\n    If that the soldier strike him, as I judge\n    By his blunt bearing he will keep his word,\n    Some sudden mischief may arise of it;\n    For I do know Fluellen valiant,\n    And touch'd with choler, hot as gunpowder,\n    And quickly will return an injury;\n    Follow, and see there be no harm between them.\n    Go you with me, uncle of Exeter.                      Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VIII.\nBefore KING HENRY'S PAVILION\n\nEnter GOWER and WILLIAMS\n\n  WILLIAMS. I warrant it is to knight you, Captain.\n\n                         Enter FLUELLEN\n\n  FLUELLEN. God's will and his pleasure, Captain, I beseech you now,\n    come apace to the King: there is more good toward you\n    peradventure than is in your knowledge to dream of.\n  WILLIAMS. Sir, know you this glove?\n  FLUELLEN. Know the glove? I know the glove is a glove.\n  WILLIAMS. I know this; and thus I challenge it.  [Strikes him]\n  FLUELLEN. 'Sblood, an arrant traitor as any's in the universal\n    world, or in France, or in England!\n  GOWER. How now, sir! you villain!\n  WILLIAMS. Do you think I'll be forsworn?\n  FLUELLEN. Stand away, Captain Gower; I will give treason his\n    payment into plows, I warrant you.\n  WILLIAMS. I am no traitor.\n  FLUELLEN. That's a lie in thy throat. I charge you in his Majesty's\n    name, apprehend him: he's a friend of the Duke Alencon's.\n\n                  Enter WARWICK and GLOUCESTER\n\n  WARWICK. How now! how now! what's the matter?\n  FLUELLEN. My Lord of Warwick, here is- praised be God for it!- a\n    most contagious treason come to light, look you, as you shall\n    desire in a summer's day. Here is his Majesty.\n\n                  Enter the KING and EXETER\n\n  KING HENRY. How now! what's the matter?\n  FLUELLEN. My liege, here is a villain and a traitor, that, look\n    your Grace, has struck the glove which your Majesty is take out\n    of the helmet of Alencon.\n  WILLIAMS. My liege, this was my glove: here is the fellow of it;\n    and he that I gave it to in change promis'd to wear it in his\n    cap; I promis'd to strike him if he did; I met this man with my\n    glove in his cap, and I have been as good as my word.\n  FLUELLEN. Your Majesty hear now, saving your Majesty's manhood,\n    what an arrant, rascally, beggarly, lousy knave it is; I hope\n    your Majesty is pear me testimony and witness, and will\n    avouchment, that this is the glove of Alencon that your Majesty\n    is give me; in your conscience, now.\n  KING HENRY. Give me thy glove, soldier; look, here is the fellow of\n      it.\n    'Twas I, indeed, thou promised'st to strike,\n    And thou hast given me most bitter terms.\n  FLUELLEN. An please your Majesty, let his neck answer for it, if\n    there is any martial law in the world.\n  KING HENRY. How canst thou make me satisfaction?\n  WILLIAMS. All offences, my lord, come from the heart; never came\n    any from mine that might offend your Majesty.\n  KING HENRY. It was ourself thou didst abuse.\n  WILLIAMS. Your Majesty came not like yourself: you appear'd to me\n    but as a common man; witness the night, your garments, your\n    lowliness; and what your Highness suffer'd under that shape I\n    beseech you take it for your own fault, and not mine; for had you\n    been as I took you for, I made no offence; therefore, I beseech\n    your Highness pardon me.\n  KING HENRY. Here, uncle Exeter, fill this glove with crowns,\n    And give it to this fellow. Keep it, fellow;\n    And wear it for an honour in thy cap\n    Till I do challenge it. Give him the crowns;\n    And, Captain, you must needs be friends with him.\n  FLUELLEN. By this day and this light, the fellow has mettle enough\n    in his belly: hold, there is twelve pence for you; and I pray you\n    to serve God, and keep you out of prawls, and prabbles, and\n    quarrels, and dissensions, and, I warrant you, it is the better\n    for you.\n  WILLIAMS. I will none of your money.\n  FLUELLEN. It is with a good will; I can tell you it will serve you\n    to mend your shoes. Come, wherefore should you be so pashful?\n    Your shoes is not so good. 'Tis a good silling, I warrant you, or\n    I will change it.\n\n                      Enter an ENGLISH HERALD\n\n  KING HENRY. Now, herald, are the dead numb'red?\n  HERALD. Here is the number of the slaught'red French.\n                                                 [Gives a paper]\n  KING HENRY. What prisoners of good sort are taken, uncle?\n  EXETER. Charles Duke of Orleans, nephew to the King;\n    John Duke of Bourbon, and Lord Bouciqualt;\n    Of other lords and barons, knights and squires,\n    Full fifteen hundred, besides common men.\n  KING HENRY. This note doth tell me of ten thousand French\n    That in the field lie slain; of princes in this number,\n    And nobles bearing banners, there lie dead\n    One hundred twenty-six; added to these,\n    Of knights, esquires, and gallant gentlemen,\n    Eight thousand and four hundred; of the which\n    Five hundred were but yesterday dubb'd knights.\n    So that, in these ten thousand they have lost,\n    There are but sixteen hundred mercenaries;\n    The rest are princes, barons, lords, knights, squires,\n    And gentlemen of blood and quality.\n    The names of those their nobles that lie dead:\n    Charles Delabreth, High Constable of France;\n    Jaques of Chatillon, Admiral of France;\n    The master of the cross-bows, Lord Rambures;\n    Great Master of France, the brave Sir Guichard Dolphin;\n    John Duke of Alencon; Antony Duke of Brabant,\n    The brother to the Duke of Burgundy;\n    And Edward Duke of Bar. Of lusty earls,\n    Grandpre and Roussi, Fauconbridge and Foix,\n    Beaumont and Marle, Vaudemont and Lestrake.\n    Here was a royal fellowship of death!\n    Where is the number of our English dead?\n                                 [HERALD presents another paper]\n    Edward the Duke of York, the Earl of Suffolk,\n    Sir Richard Kikely, Davy Gam, Esquire;\n    None else of name; and of all other men\n    But five and twenty. O God, thy arm was here!\n    And not to us, but to thy arm alone,\n    Ascribe we all. When, without stratagem,\n    But in plain shock and even play of battle,\n    Was ever known so great and little los\n    On one part and on th' other? Take it, God,\n    For it is none but thine.\n  EXETER. 'Tis wonderful!\n  KING HENRY. Come, go we in procession to the village;\n    And be it death proclaimed through our host\n    To boast of this or take that praise from God\n    Which is his only.\n  FLUELLEN. Is it not lawful, an please your Majesty, to tell how\n    many is kill'd?\n  KING HENRY. Yes, Captain; but with this acknowledgment,\n    That God fought for us.\n  FLUELLEN. Yes, my conscience, he did us great good.\n  KING HENRY. Do we all holy rites:\n    Let there be sung 'Non nobis' and 'Te Deum';\n    The dead with charity enclos'd in clay-\n    And then to Calais; and to England then;\n    Where ne'er from France arriv'd more happy men.       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. PROLOGUE.\n\nEnter CHORUS\n\n  CHORUS. Vouchsafe to those that have not read the story\n    That I may prompt them; and of such as have,\n    I humbly pray them to admit th' excuse\n    Of time, of numbers, and due course of things,\n    Which cannot in their huge and proper life\n    Be here presented. Now we bear the King\n    Toward Calais. Grant him there. There seen,\n    Heave him away upon your winged thoughts\n    Athwart the sea. Behold, the English beach\n    Pales in the flood with men, with wives, and boys,\n    Whose shouts and claps out-voice the deep-mouth'd sea,\n    Which, like a mighty whiffler, fore the King\n    Seems to prepare his way. So let him land,\n    And solemnly see him set on to London.\n    So swift a pace hath thought that even now\n    You may imagine him upon Blackheath;\n    Where that his lords desire him to have borne\n    His bruised helmet and his bended sword\n    Before him through the city. He forbids it,\n    Being free from vainness and self-glorious pride;\n    Giving full trophy, signal, and ostent,\n    Quite from himself to God. But now behold\n    In the quick forge and working-house of thought,\n    How London doth pour out her citizens!\n    The mayor and all his brethren in best sort-\n    Like to the senators of th' antique Rome,\n    With the plebeians swarming at their heels-\n    Go forth and fetch their conqu'ring Caesar in;\n    As, by a lower but loving likelihood,\n    Were now the General of our gracious Empress-\n    As in good time he may- from Ireland coming,\n    Bringing rebellion broached on his sword,\n    How many would the peaceful city quit\n    To welcome him! Much more, and much more cause,\n    Did they this Harry. Now in London place him-\n    As yet the lamentation of the French\n    Invites the King of England's stay at home;\n    The Emperor's coming in behalf of France\n    To order peace between them; and omit\n    All the occurrences, whatever chanc'd,\n    Till Harry's back-return again to France.\n    There must we bring him; and myself have play'd\n    The interim, by rememb'ring you 'tis past.\n    Then brook abridgment; and your eyes advance,\n    After your thoughts, straight back again to France.     Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE I.\nFrance.  The English camp\n\nEnter FLUELLEN and GOWER\n\n  GOWER. Nay, that's right; but why wear you your leek to-day? Saint\n    Davy's day is past.\n  FLUELLEN. There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all\n    things. I will tell you, ass my friend, Captain Gower: the\n    rascally, scald, beggarly, lousy, pragging knave, Pistol- which\n    you and yourself and all the world know to be no petter than a\n    fellow, look you now, of no merits- he is come to me, and prings\n    me pread and salt yesterday, look you, and bid me eat my leek; it\n    was in a place where I could not breed no contendon with him; but\n    I will be so bold as to wear it in my cap till I see him once\n    again, and then I will tell him a little piece of my desires.\n\n                          Enter PISTOL\n\n  GOWER. Why, here he comes, swelling like a turkey-cock.\n  FLUELLEN. 'Tis no matter for his swellings nor his turkey-cocks.\n    God pless you, Aunchient Pistol! you scurvy, lousy knave, God\n    pless you!\n  PISTOL. Ha! art thou bedlam? Dost thou thirst, base Troyan,\n    To have me fold up Parca's fatal web?\n    Hence! I am qualmish at the smell of leek.\n  FLUELLEN. I peseech you heartily, scurvy, lousy knave, at my\n    desires, and my requests, and my petitions, to eat, look you,\n    this leek; because, look you, you do not love it, nor your\n    affections, and your appetites, and your digestions, does not\n    agree with it, I would desire you to eat it.\n  PISTOL. Not for Cadwallader and all his goats.\n  FLUELLEN. There is one goat for you.  [Strikes him]  Will you be so\n    good, scald knave, as eat it?\n  PISTOL. Base Troyan, thou shalt die.\n  FLUELLEN. You say very true, scald knave- when God's will is. I\n    will desire you to live in the meantime, and eat your victuals;\n    come, there is sauce for it.  [Striking him again]  You call'd me\n    yesterday mountain-squire; but I will make you to-day a squire of\n    low degree. I pray you fall to; if you can mock a leek, you can\n    eat a leek.\n  GOWER. Enough, Captain, you have astonish'd him.\n  FLUELLEN. I say I will make him eat some part of my leek, or I will\n    peat his pate four days. Bite, I pray you, it is good for your\n    green wound and your ploody coxcomb.\n  PISTOL. Must I bite?\n  FLUELLEN. Yes, certainly, and out of doubt, and out of question\n    too, and ambiguides.\n  PISTOL. By this leek, I will most horribly revenge- I eat and eat,\n    I swear-\n  FLUELLEN. Eat, I pray you; will you have some more sauce to your\n    leek? There is not enough leek to swear by.\n  PISTOL. Quiet thy cudgel: thou dost see I eat.\n  FLUELLEN. Much good do you, scald knave, heartily. Nay, pray you\n    throw none away; the skin is good for your broken coxcomb. When\n    you take occasions to see leeks hereafter, I pray you mock at\n    'em; that is all.\n  PISTOL. Good.\n  FLUELLEN. Ay, leeks is good. Hold you, there is a groat to heal\n    your pate.\n  PISTOL. Me a groat!\n  FLUELLEN. Yes, verily and in truth, you shall take it; or I have\n    another leek in my pocket which you shall eat.\n  PISTOL. I take thy groat in earnest of revenge.\n  FLUELLEN. If I owe you anything I will pay you in cudgels; you\n    shall be a woodmonger, and buy nothing of me but cudgels. God bye\n    you, and keep you, and heal your pate.\n Exit\n  PISTOL. All hell shall stir for this.\n  GOWER. Go, go: you are a couterfeit cowardly knave. Will you mock\n    at an ancient tradition, begun upon an honourable respect, and\n    worn as a memorable trophy of predeceased valour, and dare not\n    avouch in your deeds any of your words? I have seen you gleeking\n    and galling at this gentleman twice or thrice. You thought,\n    because he could not speak English in the native garb, he could\n    not therefore handle an English cudgel; you find it otherwise,\n    and henceforth let a Welsh correction teach you a good English\n    condition. Fare ye well.                                Exit\n  PISTOL. Doth Fortune play the huswife with me now?\n    News have I that my Nell is dead i' th' spital\n    Of malady of France;\n    And there my rendezvous is quite cut off.\n    Old I do wax; and from my weary limbs\n    Honour is cudgell'd. Well, bawd I'll turn,\n    And something lean to cutpurse of quick hand.\n    To England will I steal, and there I'll steal;\n    And patches will I get unto these cudgell'd scars,\n    And swear I got them in the Gallia wars.                Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nFrance. The FRENCH KING'S palace\n\nEnter at one door, KING HENRY, EXETER, BEDFORD, GLOUCESTER, WARWICK,\nWESTMORELAND, and other LORDS; at another, the FRENCH KING, QUEEN ISABEL,\nthe PRINCESS KATHERINE, ALICE, and other LADIES; the DUKE OF BURGUNDY,\nand his train\n\n  KING HENRY. Peace to this meeting, wherefore we are met!\n    Unto our brother France, and to our sister,\n    Health and fair time of day; joy and good wishes\n    To our most fair and princely cousin Katherine.\n    And, as a branch and member of this royalty,\n    By whom this great assembly is contriv'd,\n    We do salute you, Duke of Burgundy.\n    And, princes French, and peers, health to you all!\n  FRENCH KING. Right joyous are we to behold your face,\n    Most worthy brother England; fairly met!\n    So are you, princes English, every one.\n  QUEEN ISABEL. So happy be the issue, brother England,\n    Of this good day and of this gracious meeting\n    As we are now glad to behold your eyes-\n    Your eyes, which hitherto have home in them,\n    Against the French that met them in their bent,\n    The fatal balls of murdering basilisks;\n    The venom of such looks, we fairly hope,\n    Have lost their quality; and that this day\n    Shall change all griefs and quarrels into love.\n  KING HENRY. To cry amen to that, thus we appear.\n  QUEEN ISABEL. You English princes an, I do salute you.\n  BURGUNDY. My duty to you both, on equal love,\n    Great Kings of France and England! That I have labour'd\n    With all my wits, my pains, and strong endeavours,\n    To bring your most imperial Majesties\n    Unto this bar and royal interview,\n    Your mightiness on both parts best can witness.\n    Since then my office hath so far prevail'd\n    That face to face and royal eye to eye\n    You have congreeted, let it not disgrace me\n    If I demand, before this royal view,\n    What rub or what impediment there is\n    Why that the naked, poor, and mangled Peace,\n    Dear nurse of arts, plenties, and joyful births,\n    Should not in this best garden of the world,\n    Our fertile France, put up her lovely visage?\n    Alas, she hath from France too long been chas'd!\n    And all her husbandry doth lie on heaps,\n    Corrupting in it own fertility.\n    Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart,\n    Unpruned dies; her hedges even-pleach'd,\n    Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair,\n    Put forth disorder'd twigs; her fallow leas\n    The darnel, hemlock, and rank fumitory,\n    Doth root upon, while that the coulter rusts\n    That should deracinate such savagery;\n    The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth\n    The freckled cowslip, burnet, and green clover,\n    Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank,\n    Conceives by idleness, and nothing teems\n    But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burs,\n    Losing both beauty and utility.\n    And as our vineyards, fallows, meads, and hedges,\n    Defective in their natures, grow to wildness;\n    Even so our houses and ourselves and children\n    Have lost, or do not learn for want of time,\n    The sciences that should become our country;\n    But grow, like savages- as soldiers will,\n    That nothing do but meditate on blood-\n    To swearing and stern looks, diffus'd attire,\n    And everything that seems unnatural.\n    Which to reduce into our former favout\n    You are assembled; and my speech entreats\n    That I may know the let why gentle Peace\n    Should not expel these inconveniences\n    And bless us with her former qualities.\n  KING HENRY. If, Duke of Burgundy, you would the peace\n    Whose want gives growth to th' imperfections\n    Which you have cited, you must buy that peace\n    With full accord to all our just demands;\n    Whose tenours and particular effects\n    You have, enschedul'd briefly, in your hands.\n  BURGUNDY. The King hath heard them; to the which as yet\n    There is no answer made.\n  KING HENRY. Well then, the peace,\n    Which you before so urg'd, lies in his answer.\n  FRENCH KING. I have but with a cursorary eye\n    O'erglanced the articles; pleaseth your Grace\n    To appoint some of your council presently\n    To sit with us once more, with better heed\n    To re-survey them, we will suddenly\n    Pass our accept and peremptory answer.\n  KING HENRY. Brother, we shall. Go, uncle Exeter,\n    And brother Clarence, and you, brother Gloucester,\n    Warwick, and Huntington, go with the King;\n    And take with you free power to ratify,\n    Augment, or alter, as your wisdoms best\n    Shall see advantageable for our dignity,\n    Any thing in or out of our demands;\n    And we'll consign thereto. Will you, fair sister,\n    Go with the princes or stay here with us?\n  QUEEN ISABEL. Our gracious brother, I will go with them;\n    Haply a woman's voice may do some good,\n    When articles too nicely urg'd be stood on.\n  KING HENRY. Yet leave our cousin Katherine here with us;\n    She is our capital demand, compris'd\n    Within the fore-rank of our articles.\n  QUEEN ISABEL. She hath good leave.\n                   Exeunt all but the KING, KATHERINE, and ALICE\n  KING HENRY. Fair Katherine, and most fair,\n    Will you vouchsafe to teach a soldier terms\n    Such as will enter at a lady's ear,\n    And plead his love-suit to her gentle heart?\n  KATHERINE. Your Majesty shall mock me; I cannot speak your England.\n  KING HENRY. O fair Katherine, if you will love me soundly with your\n    French heart, I will be glad to hear you confess it brokenly with\n    your English tongue. Do you like me, Kate?\n  KATHERINE. Pardonnez-moi, I cannot tell vat is like me.\n  KING HENRY. An angel is like you, Kate, and you are like an angel.\n  KATHERINE. Que dit-il? que je suis semblable a les anges?\n  ALICE. Oui, vraiment, sauf votre grace, ainsi dit-il.\n  KING HENRY. I said so, dear Katherine, and I must not blush to\n    affirm it.\n  KATHERINE. O bon Dieu! les langues des hommes sont pleines de\n    tromperies.\n  KING HENRY. What says she, fair one? that the tongues of men are\n    full of deceits?\n  ALICE. Oui, dat de tongues of de mans is be full of deceits- dat is\n    de Princess.\n  KING HENRY. The Princess is the better English-woman. I' faith,\n    Kate, my wooing is fit for thy understanding: I am glad thou\n    canst speak no better English; for if thou couldst, thou wouldst\n    find me such a plain king that thou wouldst think I had sold my\n    farm to buy my crown. I know no ways to mince it in love, but\n    directly to say 'I love you.' Then, if you urge me farther than\n    to say 'Do you in faith?' I wear out my suit. Give me your\n    answer; i' faith, do; and so clap hands and a bargain. How say\n    you, lady?\n  KATHERINE. Sauf votre honneur, me understand well.\n  KING HENRY. Marry, if you would put me to verses or to dance for\n    your sake, Kate, why you undid me; for the one I have neither\n    words nor measure, and for the other I have no strength in\n    measure, yet a reasonable measure in strength. If I could win a\n    lady at leap-frog, or by vaulting into my saddle with my armour\n    on my back, under the correction of bragging be it spoken, I\n    should quickly leap into wife. Or if I might buffet for my love,\n    or bound my horse for her favours, I could lay on like a butcher,\n    and sit like a jack-an-apes, never off. But, before God, Kate, I\n    cannot look greenly, nor gasp out my cloquence, nor I have no\n    cunning in protestation; only downright oaths, which I never use\n    till urg'd, nor never break for urging. If thou canst love a\n    fellow of this temper, Kate, whose face is not worth sunburning,\n    that never looks in his glass for love of anything he sees there,\n    let thine eye be thy cook. I speak to thee plain soldier. If thou\n    canst love me for this, take me; if not, to say to thee that I\n    shall die is true- but for thy love, by the Lord, no; yet I love\n    thee too. And while thou liv'st, dear Kate, take a fellow of\n    plain and uncoined constancy; for he perforce must do thee right,\n    because he hath not the gift to woo in other places; for these\n    fellows of infinite tongue, that can rhyme themselves into\n    ladies' favours, they do always reason themselves out again.\n    What! a speaker is but a prater: a rhyme is but a ballad. A good\n    leg will fall; a straight back will stoop; a black beard will\n    turn white; a curl'd pate will grow bald; a fair face will\n    wither; a full eye will wax hollow. But a good heart, Kate, is\n    the sun and the moon; or, rather, the sun, and not the moon- for\n    it shines bright and never changes, but keeps his course truly.\n    If thou would have such a one, take me; and take me, take a\n    soldier; take a soldier, take a king. And what say'st thou, then,\n    to my love? Speak, my fair, and fairly, I pray thee.\n  KATHERINE. Is it possible dat I sould love de enemy of France?\n  KING HENRY. No, it is not possible you should love the enemy of\n    France, Kate, but in loving me you should love the friend of\n    France; for I love France so well that I will not part with a\n    village of it; I will have it all mine. And, Kate, when France is\n    mine and I am yours, then yours is France and you are mine.\n  KATHERINE. I cannot tell vat is dat.\n  KING HENRY. No, Kate? I will tell thee in French, which I am sure\n    will hang upon my tongue like a new-married wife about her\n    husband's neck, hardly to be shook off. Je quand sur le\n    possession de France, et quand vous avez le possession de moi-\n    let me see, what then? Saint Denis be my speed!- donc votre est\n    France et vous etes mienne. It is as easy for me, Kate, to\n    conquer the kingdom as to speak so much more French: I shall\n    never move thee in French, unless it be to laugh at me.\n  KATHERINE. Sauf votre honneur, le Francais que vous parlez, il est\n    meilleur que l'Anglais lequel je parle.\n  KING HENRY. No, faith, is't not, Kate; but thy speaking of my\n    tongue, and I thine, most truly falsely, must needs be granted to\n    be much at one. But, Kate, dost thou understand thus much\n    English- Canst thou love me?\n  KATHERINE. I cannot tell.\n  KING HENRY. Can any of your neighbours tell, Kate? I'll ask them.\n    Come, I know thou lovest me; and at night, when you come into\n    your closet, you'll question this gentlewoman about me; and I\n    know, Kate, you will to her dispraise those parts in me that you\n    love with your heart. But, good Kate, mock me mercifully; the\n    rather, gentle Princess, because I love thee cruelly. If ever\n    thou beest mine, Kate, as I have a saving faith within me tells\n    me thou shalt, I get thee with scambling, and thou must therefore\n    needs prove a good soldier-breeder. Shall not thou and I, between\n    Saint Denis and Saint George, compound a boy, half French, half\n    English, that shall go to Constantinople and take the Turk by the\n    beard? Shall we not? What say'st thou, my fair flower-de-luce?\n  KATHERINE. I do not know dat.\n  KING HENRY. No: 'tis hereafter to know, but now to promise; do but\n    now promise, Kate, you will endeavour for your French part of\n    such a boy; and for my English moiety take the word of a king and\n    a bachelor. How answer you, la plus belle Katherine du monde, mon\n   tres cher et divin deesse?\n  KATHERINE. Your Majestee ave fausse French enough to deceive de\n    most sage damoiselle dat is en France.\n  KING HENRY. Now, fie upon my false French! By mine honour, in true\n    English, I love thee, Kate; by which honour I dare not swear thou\n    lovest me; yet my blood begins to flatter me that thou dost,\n    notwithstanding the poor and untempering effect of my visage. Now\n    beshrew my father's ambition! He was thinking of civil wars when\n    he got me; therefore was I created with a stubborn outside, with\n    an aspect of iron, that when I come to woo ladies I fright them.\n    But, in faith, Kate, the elder I wax, the better I shall appear:\n    my comfort is, that old age, that in layer-up of beauty, can do\n    no more spoil upon my face; thou hast me, if thou hast me, at the\n    worst; and thou shalt wear me, if thou wear me, better and\n    better. And therefore tell me, most fair Katherine, will you have\n    me? Put off your maiden blushes; avouch the thoughts of your\n    heart with the looks of an empress; take me by the hand and say\n    'Harry of England, I am thine.' Which word thou shalt no sooner\n    bless mine ear withal but I will tell thee aloud 'England is\n    thine, Ireland is thine, France is thine, and Henry Plantagenet\n    is thine'; who, though I speak it before his face, if he be not\n    fellow with the best king, thou shalt find the best king of good\n    fellows. Come, your answer in broken music- for thy voice is\n    music and thy English broken; therefore, Queen of all, Katherine,\n    break thy mind to me in broken English, wilt thou have me?\n  KATHERINE. Dat is as it shall please de roi mon pere.\n  KING HENRY. Nay, it will please him well, Kate- it shall please\n    him, Kate.\n  KATHERINE. Den it sall also content me.\n  KING HENRY. Upon that I kiss your hand, and I can you my queen.\n  KATHERINE. Laissez, mon seigneur, laissez, laissez! Ma foi, je ne\n    veux point que vous abaissiez votre grandeur en baisant la main\n    d'une, notre seigneur, indigne serviteur; excusez-moi, je vous\n    supplie, mon tres puissant seigneur.\n  KING HENRY. Then I will kiss your lips, Kate.\n  KATHERINE. Les dames et demoiselles pour etre baisees devant leur\n    noces, il n'est pas la coutume de France.\n  KING HENRY. Madame my interpreter, what says she?\n  ALICE. Dat it is not be de fashion pour le ladies of France- I\n    cannot tell vat is baiser en Anglish.\n  KING HENRY. To kiss.\n  ALICE. Your Majestee entendre bettre que moi.\n  KING HENRY. It is not a fashion for the maids in France to kiss\n    before they are married, would she say?\n  ALICE. Oui, vraiment.\n  KING HENRY. O Kate, nice customs curtsy to great kings. Dear Kate,\n    you and I cannot be confin'd within the weak list of a country's\n    fashion; we are the makers of manners, Kate; and the liberty that\n    follows our places stops the mouth of all find-faults- as I will\n    do yours for upholding the nice fashion of your country in\n    denying me a kiss; therefore, patiently and yielding.  [Kissing\n    her]  You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate: there is more\n    eloquence in a sugar touch of them than in the tongues of the\n    French council; and they should sooner persuade Henry of England\n    than a general petition of monarchs. Here comes your father.\n\n             Enter the FRENCH POWER and the ENGLISH LORDS\n\n  BURGUNDY. God save your Majesty! My royal cousin,\n    Teach you our princess English?\n  KING HENRY. I would have her learn, my fair cousin, how perfectly I\n    love her; and that is good English.\n  BURGUNDY. Is she not apt?\n  KING HENRY. Our tongue is rough, coz, and my condition is not\n    smooth; so that, having neither the voice nor the heart of\n    flattery about me, I cannot so conjure up the spirit of love in\n    her that he will appear in his true likeness.\n  BURGUNDY. Pardon the frankness of my mirth, if I answer you for\n    that. If you would conjure in her, you must make a circle; if\n    conjure up love in her in his true likeness, he must appear naked\n    and blind. Can you blame her, then, being a maid yet ros'd over\n    with the virgin crimson of modesty, if she deny the appearance of\n    a naked blind boy in her naked seeing self? It were, my lord, a\n    hard condition for a maid to consign to.\n  KING HENRY. Yet they do wink and yield, as love is blind and\n    enforces.\n  BURGUNDY. They are then excus'd, my lord, when they see not what\n    they do.\n  KING HENRY. Then, good my lord, teach your cousin to consent\n    winking.\n  BURGUNDY. I will wink on her to consent, my lord, if you will teach\n    her to know my meaning; for maids well summer'd and warm kept are\n    like flies at Bartholomew-tide, blind, though they have their\n    eyes; and then they will endure handling, which before would not\n    abide looking on.\n  KING HENRY. This moral ties me over to time and a hot summer; and\n    so I shall catch the fly, your cousin, in the latter end, and she\n    must be blind too.\n  BURGUNDY. As love is, my lord, before it loves.\n  KING HENRY. It is so; and you may, some of you, thank love for my\n    blindness, who cannot see many a fair French city for one fair\n    French maid that stands in my way.\n  FRENCH KING. Yes, my lord, you see them perspectively, the cities\n    turned into a maid; for they are all girdled with maiden walls\n    that war hath never ent'red.\n  KING HENRY. Shall Kate be my wife?\n  FRENCH KING. So please you.\n  KING HENRY. I am content, so the maiden cities you talk of may wait\n    on her; so the maid that stood in the way for my wish shall show\n    me the way to my will.\n  FRENCH KING. We have consented to all terms of reason.\n  KING HENRY. Is't so, my lords of England?\n  WESTMORELAND. The king hath granted every article:\n    His daughter first; and then in sequel, all,\n    According to their firm proposed natures.\n  EXETER. Only he hath not yet subscribed this:\n      Where your Majesty demands that the King of France, having any\n    occasion to write for matter of grant, shall name your Highness\n    in this form and with this addition, in French, Notre tres cher\n    fils Henri, Roi d'Angleterre, Heritier de France; and thus in\n    Latin, Praeclarissimus filius noster Henricus, Rex Angliae et\n    Haeres Franciae.\n  FRENCH KING. Nor this I have not, brother, so denied\n    But our request shall make me let it pass.\n  KING HENRY. I pray you, then, in love and dear alliance,\n    Let that one article rank with the rest;\n    And thereupon give me your daughter.\n  FRENCH KING. Take her, fair son, and from her blood raise up\n    Issue to me; that the contending kingdoms\n    Of France and England, whose very shores look pale\n    With envy of each other's happiness,\n    May cease their hatred; and this dear conjunction\n    Plant neighbourhood and Christian-like accord\n    In their sweet bosoms, that never war advance\n    His bleeding sword 'twixt England and fair France.\n  LORDS. Amen!\n  KING HENRY. Now, welcome, Kate; and bear me witness all,\n    That here I kiss her as my sovereign queen.       [Floulish]\n  QUEEN ISABEL. God, the best maker of all marriages,\n    Combine your hearts in one, your realms in one!\n    As man and wife, being two, are one in love,\n    So be there 'twixt your kingdoms such a spousal\n    That never may ill office or fell jealousy,\n    Which troubles oft the bed of blessed marriage,\n    Thrust in between the paction of these kingdoms,\n    To make divorce of their incorporate league;\n    That English may as French, French Englishmen,\n    Receive each other. God speak this Amen!\n  ALL. Amen!\n  KING HENRY. Prepare we for our marriage; on which day,\n    My Lord of Burgundy, we'll take your oath,\n    And all the peers', for surety of our leagues.\n    Then shall I swear to Kate, and you to me,\n    And may our oaths well kept and prosp'rous be!\n                                                  Sennet. Exeunt\n\nEPILOGUE\n                           EPILOGUE.\n\n                          Enter CHORUS\n\n  CHORUS. Thus far, with rough and all-unable pen,\n    Our bending author hath pursu'd the story,\n    In little room confining mighty men,\n    Mangling by starts the full course of their glory.\n    Small time, but, in that small, most greatly lived\n    This star of England. Fortune made his sword;\n    By which the world's best garden he achieved,\n    And of it left his son imperial lord.\n    Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crown'd king\n    Of France and England, did this king succeed;\n    Whose state so many had the managing\n    That they lost France and made his England bleed;\n    Which oft our stage hath shown; and, for their sake,\n    In your fair minds let this acceptance take.            Exit\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1592\n\nTHE FIRST PART OF HENRY THE SIXTH\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  KING HENRY THE SIXTH\n  DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, uncle to the King, and Protector\n  DUKE OF BEDFORD, uncle to the King, and Regent of France\n  THOMAS BEAUFORT, DUKE OF EXETER, great-uncle to the king\n  HENRY BEAUFORT, great-uncle to the King, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER,\n     and afterwards CARDINAL\n  JOHN BEAUFORT, EARL OF SOMERSET, afterwards Duke\n  RICHARD PLANTAGENET, son of Richard late Earl of Cambridge,\n    afterwards DUKE OF YORK\n  EARL OF WARWICK\n  EARL OF SALISBURY\n  EARL OF SUFFOLK\n  LORD TALBOT, afterwards EARL OF SHREWSBURY\n  JOHN TALBOT, his son\n  EDMUND MORTIMER, EARL OF MARCH\n  SIR JOHN FASTOLFE\n  SIR WILLIAM LUCY\n  SIR WILLIAM GLANSDALE\n  SIR THOMAS GARGRAVE\n  MAYOR of LONDON\n  WOODVILLE, Lieutenant of the Tower\n  VERNON, of the White Rose or York faction\n  BASSET, of the Red Rose or Lancaster faction\n  A LAWYER\n  GAOLERS, to Mortimer\n  CHARLES, Dauphin, and afterwards King of France\n  REIGNIER, DUKE OF ANJOU, and titular King of Naples\n  DUKE OF BURGUNDY\n  DUKE OF ALENCON\n  BASTARD OF ORLEANS\n  GOVERNOR OF PARIS\n  MASTER-GUNNER OF ORLEANS, and his SON\n  GENERAL OF THE FRENCH FORCES in Bordeaux\n  A FRENCH SERGEANT\n  A PORTER\n  AN OLD SHEPHERD, father to Joan la Pucelle\n  MARGARET, daughter to Reignier, afterwards married to\n    King Henry\n  COUNTESS OF AUVERGNE\n  JOAN LA PUCELLE, Commonly called JOAN OF ARC\n\n  Lords, Warders of the Tower, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers,\n  Messengers, English and French Attendants. Fiends appearing\n    to La Pucelle\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nEngland and France\n\n\n\n\nThe First Part of King Henry the Sixth\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 1.\n\nWestminster Abbey\n\nDead March. Enter the funeral of KING HENRY THE FIFTH,\nattended on by the DUKE OF BEDFORD, Regent of France,\nthe DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, Protector, the DUKE OF EXETER,\nthe EARL OF WARWICK, the BISHOP OF WINCHESTER\n\n  BEDFORD. Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to\n    night! Comets, importing change of times and states,\n    Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky\n    And with them scourge the bad revolting stars\n    That have consented unto Henry's death!\n    King Henry the Fifth, too famous to live long!\n    England ne'er lost a king of so much worth.\n  GLOUCESTER. England ne'er had a king until his time.\n    Virtue he had, deserving to command;\n    His brandish'd sword did blind men with his beams;\n    His arms spread wider than a dragon's wings;\n    His sparkling eyes, replete with wrathful fire,\n    More dazzled and drove back his enemies\n    Than mid-day sun fierce bent against their faces.\n    What should I say? His deeds exceed all speech:\n    He ne'er lift up his hand but conquered.\n  EXETER. We mourn in black; why mourn we not in blood?\n    Henry is dead and never shall revive.\n    Upon a wooden coffin we attend;\n    And death's dishonourable victory\n    We with our stately presence glorify,\n    Like captives bound to a triumphant car.\n    What! shall we curse the planets of mishap\n    That plotted thus our glory's overthrow?\n    Or shall we think the subtle-witted French\n    Conjurers and sorcerers, that, afraid of him,\n    By magic verses have contriv'd his end?\n  WINCHESTER. He was a king bless'd of the King of kings;\n    Unto the French the dreadful judgment-day\n    So dreadful will not be as was his sight.\n    The battles of the Lord of Hosts he fought;\n    The Church's prayers made him so prosperous.\n  GLOUCESTER. The Church! Where is it? Had not churchmen\n    pray'd,\n    His thread of life had not so soon decay'd.\n    None do you like but an effeminate prince,\n    Whom like a school-boy you may overawe.\n  WINCHESTER. Gloucester, whate'er we like, thou art\n    Protector\n    And lookest to command the Prince and realm.\n    Thy wife is proud; she holdeth thee in awe\n    More than God or religious churchmen may.\n  GLOUCESTER. Name not religion, for thou lov'st the flesh;\n    And ne'er throughout the year to church thou go'st,\n    Except it be to pray against thy foes.\n  BEDFORD. Cease, cease these jars and rest your minds in peace;\n    Let's to the altar. Heralds, wait on us.\n    Instead of gold, we'll offer up our arms,\n    Since arms avail not, now that Henry's dead.\n    Posterity, await for wretched years,\n    When at their mothers' moist'ned eyes babes shall suck,\n    Our isle be made a nourish of salt tears,\n    And none but women left to wail the dead.\n  HENRY the Fifth, thy ghost I invocate:\n    Prosper this realm, keep it from civil broils,\n    Combat with adverse planets in the heavens.\n    A far more glorious star thy soul will make\n    Than Julius Caesar or bright\n\n                          Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. My honourable lords, health to you all!\n    Sad tidings bring I to you out of France,\n    Of loss, of slaughter, and discomfiture:\n    Guienne, Champagne, Rheims, Orleans,\n    Paris, Guysors, Poictiers, are all quite lost.\n  BEDFORD. What say'st thou, man, before dead Henry's corse?\n    Speak softly, or the loss of those great towns\n    Will make him burst his lead and rise from death.\n  GLOUCESTER. Is Paris lost? Is Rouen yielded up?\n    If Henry were recall'd to life again,\n    These news would cause him once more yield the ghost.\n  EXETER. How were they lost? What treachery was us'd?\n  MESSENGER. No treachery, but want of men and money.\n    Amongst the soldiers this is muttered\n    That here you maintain several factions;\n    And whilst a field should be dispatch'd and fought,\n    You are disputing of your generals:\n    One would have ling'ring wars, with little cost;\n    Another would fly swift, but wanteth wings;\n    A third thinks, without expense at all,\n    By guileful fair words peace may be obtain'd.\n    Awake, awake, English nobility!\n    Let not sloth dim your honours, new-begot.\n    Cropp'd are the flower-de-luces in your arms;\n    Of England's coat one half is cut away.\n  EXETER. Were our tears wanting to this funeral,\n    These tidings would call forth their flowing tides.\n  BEDFORD. Me they concern; Regent I am of France.\n    Give me my steeled coat; I'll fight for France.\n    Away with these disgraceful wailing robes!\n    Wounds will I lend the French instead of eyes,\n    To weep their intermissive miseries.\n\n                   Enter a second MESSENGER\n\n  SECOND MESSENGER. Lords, view these letters full of bad\n    mischance.\n    France is revolted from the English quite,\n    Except some petty towns of no import.\n    The Dauphin Charles is crowned king in Rheims;\n    The Bastard of Orleans with him is join'd;\n    Reignier, Duke of Anjou, doth take his part;\n    The Duke of Alencon flieth to his side.\n  EXETER. The Dauphin crowned king! all fly to him!\n    O, whither shall we fly from this reproach?\n  GLOUCESTER. We will not fly but to our enemies' throats.\n    Bedford, if thou be slack I'll fight it out.\n  BEDFORD. Gloucester, why doubt'st thou of my forwardness?\n    An army have I muster'd in my thoughts,\n    Wherewith already France is overrun.\n\n                   Enter a third MESSENGER\n\n  THIRD MESSENGER. My gracious lords, to add to your\n    laments,\n    Wherewith you now bedew King Henry's hearse,\n    I must inform you of a dismal fight\n    Betwixt the stout Lord Talbot and the French.\n  WINCHESTER. What! Wherein Talbot overcame? Is't so?\n  THIRD MESSENGER. O, no; wherein Lord Talbot was\n    o'erthrown.\n    The circumstance I'll tell you more at large.\n    The tenth of August last this dreadful lord,\n    Retiring from the siege of Orleans,\n    Having full scarce six thousand in his troop,\n    By three and twenty thousand of the French\n    Was round encompassed and set upon.\n    No leisure had he to enrank his men;\n    He wanted pikes to set before his archers;\n    Instead whereof sharp stakes pluck'd out of hedges\n    They pitched in the ground confusedly\n    To keep the horsemen off from breaking in.\n    More than three hours the fight continued;\n    Where valiant Talbot, above human thought,\n    Enacted wonders with his sword and lance:\n    Hundreds he sent to hell, and none durst stand him;\n    Here, there, and everywhere, enrag'd he slew\n    The French exclaim'd the devil was in arms;\n    All the whole army stood agaz'd on him.\n    His soldiers, spying his undaunted spirit,\n    'A Talbot! a Talbot!' cried out amain,\n    And rush'd into the bowels of the battle.\n    Here had the conquest fully been seal'd up\n    If Sir John Fastolfe had not play'd the coward.\n    He, being in the vaward plac'd behind\n    With purpose to relieve and follow them-\n    Cowardly fled, not having struck one stroke;\n    Hence grew the general wreck and massacre.\n    Enclosed were they with their enemies.\n    A base Walloon, to win the Dauphin's grace,\n    Thrust Talbot with a spear into the back;\n    Whom all France, with their chief assembled strength,\n    Durst not presume to look once in the face.\n  BEDFORD. Is Talbot slain? Then I will slay myself,\n    For living idly here in pomp and ease,\n    Whilst such a worthy leader, wanting aid,\n    Unto his dastard foemen is betray'd.\n  THIRD MESSENGER. O no, he lives, but is took prisoner,\n    And Lord Scales with him, and Lord Hungerford;\n    Most of the rest slaughter'd or took likewise.\n  BEDFORD. His ransom there is none but I shall pay.\n    I'll hale the Dauphin headlong from his throne;\n    His crown shall be the ransom of my friend;\n    Four of their lords I'll change for one of ours.\n    Farewell, my masters; to my task will I;\n    Bonfires in France forthwith I am to make\n    To keep our great Saint George's feast withal.\n    Ten thousand soldiers with me I will take,\n    Whose bloody deeds shall make an Europe quake.\n  THIRD MESSENGER. So you had need; for Orleans is besieg'd;\n    The English army is grown weak and faint;\n    The Earl of Salisbury craveth supply\n    And hardly keeps his men from mutiny,\n    Since they, so few, watch such a multitude.\n  EXETER. Remember, lords, your oaths to Henry sworn,\n    Either to quell the Dauphin utterly,\n    Or bring him in obedience to your yoke.\n  BEDFORD. I do remember it, and here take my leave\n    To go about my preparation.                             Exit\n  GLOUCESTER. I'll to the Tower with all the haste I can\n    To view th' artillery and munition;\n    And then I will proclaim young Henry king.              Exit\n  EXETER. To Eltham will I, where the young King is,\n    Being ordain'd his special governor;\n    And for his safety there I'll best devise.              Exit\n  WINCHESTER.  [Aside]  Each hath his place and function to\n    attend:\n    I am left out; for me nothing remains.\n    But long I will not be Jack out of office.\n    The King from Eltham I intend to steal,\n    And sit at chiefest stern of public weal.             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                          SCENE 2.\n\n                  France. Before Orleans\n\n      Sound a flourish. Enter CHARLES THE DAUPHIN, ALENCON,\n           and REIGNIER, marching with drum and soldiers\n\n  CHARLES. Mars his true moving, even as in the heavens\n    So in the earth, to this day is not known.\n    Late did he shine upon the English side;\n    Now we are victors, upon us he smiles.\n    What towns of any moment but we have?\n    At pleasure here we lie near Orleans;\n    Otherwhiles the famish'd English, like pale ghosts,\n    Faintly besiege us one hour in a month.\n  ALENCON. They want their porridge and their fat bull\n    beeves.\n    Either they must be dieted like mules\n    And have their provender tied to their mouths,\n    Or piteous they will look, like drowned mice.\n  REIGNIER. Let's raise the siege. Why live we idly here?\n    Talbot is taken, whom we wont to fear;\n    Remaineth none but mad-brain'd Salisbury,\n    And he may well in fretting spend his gall\n    Nor men nor money hath he to make war.\n  CHARLES. Sound, sound alarum; we will rush on them.\n    Now for the honour of the forlorn French!\n    Him I forgive my death that killeth me,\n    When he sees me go back one foot or flee.             Exeunt\n\n       Here alarum. They are beaten hack by the English, with\n         great loss. Re-enter CHARLES, ALENCON, and REIGNIER\n\n  CHARLES. Who ever saw the like? What men have I!\n    Dogs! cowards! dastards! I would ne'er have fled\n    But that they left me midst my enemies.\n  REIGNIER. Salisbury is a desperate homicide;\n    He fighteth as one weary of his life.\n    The other lords, like lions wanting food,\n    Do rush upon us as their hungry prey.\n  ALENCON. Froissart, a countryman of ours, records\n    England all Olivers and Rowlands bred\n    During the time Edward the Third did reign.\n    More truly now may this be verified;\n    For none but Samsons and Goliases\n    It sendeth forth to skirmish. One to ten!\n    Lean raw-bon'd rascals! Who would e'er suppose\n    They had such courage and audacity?\n  CHARLES. Let's leave this town; for they are hare-brain'd\n    slaves,\n    And hunger will enforce them to be more eager.\n    Of old I know them; rather with their teeth\n    The walls they'll tear down than forsake the siege.\n  REIGNIER. I think by some odd gimmers or device\n    Their arms are set, like clocks, still to strike on;\n    Else ne'er could they hold out so as they do.\n    By my consent, we'll even let them alone.\n  ALENCON. Be it so.\n\n                   Enter the BASTARD OF ORLEANS\n\n  BASTARD. Where's the Prince Dauphin? I have news for him.\n  CHARLES. Bastard of Orleans, thrice welcome to us.\n  BASTARD. Methinks your looks are sad, your cheer appall'd.\n    Hath the late overthrow wrought this offence?\n    Be not dismay'd, for succour is at hand.\n    A holy maid hither with me I bring,\n    Which, by a vision sent to her from heaven,\n    Ordained is to raise this tedious siege\n    And drive the English forth the bounds of France.\n    The spirit of deep prophecy she hath,\n    Exceeding the nine sibyls of old Rome:\n    What's past and what's to come she can descry.\n    Speak, shall I call her in? Believe my words,\n    For they are certain and unfallible.\n  CHARLES. Go, call her in.                       [Exit BASTARD]\n    But first, to try her skill,\n    Reignier, stand thou as Dauphin in my place;\n    Question her proudly; let thy looks be stern;\n    By this means shall we sound what skill she hath.\n\n                  Re-enter the BASTARD OF ORLEANS with\n                          JOAN LA PUCELLE\n\n  REIGNIER. Fair maid, is 't thou wilt do these wondrous feats?\n  PUCELLE. Reignier, is 't thou that thinkest to beguile me?\n    Where is the Dauphin? Come, come from behind;\n    I know thee well, though never seen before.\n    Be not amaz'd, there's nothing hid from me.\n    In private will I talk with thee apart.\n    Stand back, you lords, and give us leave awhile.\n  REIGNIER. She takes upon her bravely at first dash.\n  PUCELLE. Dauphin, I am by birth a shepherd's daughter,\n    My wit untrain'd in any kind of art.\n    Heaven and our Lady gracious hath it pleas'd\n    To shine on my contemptible estate.\n    Lo, whilst I waited on my tender lambs\n    And to sun's parching heat display'd my cheeks,\n    God's Mother deigned to appear to me,\n    And in a vision full of majesty\n    Will'd me to leave my base vocation\n    And free my country from calamity\n    Her aid she promis'd and assur'd success.\n    In complete glory she reveal'd herself;\n    And whereas I was black and swart before,\n    With those clear rays which she infus'd on me\n    That beauty am I bless'd with which you may see.\n    Ask me what question thou canst possible,\n    And I will answer unpremeditated.\n    My courage try by combat if thou dar'st,\n    And thou shalt find that I exceed my sex.\n    Resolve on this: thou shalt be fortunate\n    If thou receive me for thy warlike mate.\n  CHARLES. Thou hast astonish'd me with thy high terms.\n    Only this proof I'll of thy valour make\n    In single combat thou shalt buckle with me;\n    And if thou vanquishest, thy words are true;\n    Otherwise I renounce all confidence.\n  PUCELLE. I am prepar'd; here is my keen-edg'd sword,\n    Deck'd with five flower-de-luces on each side,\n    The which at Touraine, in Saint Katherine's churchyard,\n    Out of a great deal of old iron I chose forth.\n  CHARLES. Then come, o' God's name; I fear no woman.\n  PUCELLE. And while I live I'll ne'er fly from a man.\n                 [Here they fight and JOAN LA PUCELLE overcomes]\n  CHARLES. Stay, stay thy hands; thou art an Amazon,\n    And fightest with the sword of Deborah.\n  PUCELLE. Christ's Mother helps me, else I were too weak.\n  CHARLES. Whoe'er helps thee, 'tis thou that must help me.\n    Impatiently I burn with thy desire;\n    My heart and hands thou hast at once subdu'd.\n    Excellent Pucelle, if thy name be so,\n    Let me thy servant and not sovereign be.\n    'Tis the French Dauphin sueth to thee thus.\n  PUCELLE. I must not yield to any rites of love,\n    For my profession's sacred from above.\n    When I have chased all thy foes from hence,\n    Then will I think upon a recompense.\n  CHARLES. Meantime look gracious on thy prostrate thrall.\n  REIGNIER. My lord, methinks, is very long in talk.\n  ALENCON. Doubtless he shrives this woman to her smock;\n    Else ne'er could he so long protract his speech.\n  REIGNIER. Shall we disturb him, since he keeps no mean?\n  ALENCON. He may mean more than we poor men do know;\n    These women are shrewd tempters with their tongues.\n  REIGNIER. My lord, where are you? What devise you on?\n    Shall we give o'er Orleans, or no?\n  PUCELLE. Why, no, I say; distrustful recreants!\n    Fight till the last gasp; I will be your guard.\n  CHARLES. What she says I'll confirm; we'll fight it out.\n  PUCELLE. Assign'd am I to be the English scourge.\n    This night the siege assuredly I'll raise.\n    Expect Saint Martin's summer, halcyon days,\n    Since I have entered into these wars.\n    Glory is like a circle in the water,\n    Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself\n    Till by broad spreading it disperse to nought.\n    With Henry's death the English circle ends;\n    Dispersed are the glories it included.\n    Now am I like that proud insulting ship\n    Which Caesar and his fortune bare at once.\n  CHARLES. Was Mahomet inspired with a dove?\n    Thou with an eagle art inspired then.\n    Helen, the mother of great Constantine,\n    Nor yet Saint Philip's daughters were like thee.\n    Bright star of Venus, fall'n down on the earth,\n    How may I reverently worship thee enough?\n  ALENCON. Leave off delays, and let us raise the siege.\n  REIGNIER. Woman, do what thou canst to save our honours;\n    Drive them from Orleans, and be immortaliz'd.\n  CHARLES. Presently we'll try. Come, let's away about it.\n    No prophet will I trust if she prove false.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                          SCENE 3.\n\n                London. Before the Tower gates\n\n       Enter the DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, with his serving-men\n                       in blue coats\n\n  GLOUCESTER. I am come to survey the Tower this day;\n    Since Henry's death, I fear, there is conveyance.\n    Where be these warders that they wait not here?\n    Open the gates; 'tis Gloucester that calls.\n  FIRST WARDER.  [Within]  Who's there that knocks so\n    imperiously?\n  FIRST SERVING-MAN. It is the noble Duke of Gloucester.\n  SECOND WARDER.  [Within]  Whoe'er he be, you may not be\n    let in.\n  FIRST SERVING-MAN. Villains, answer you so the Lord\n    Protector?\n  FIRST WARDER.  [Within]  The Lord protect him! so we\n    answer him.\n    We do no otherwise than we are will'd.\n  GLOUCESTER. Who willed you, or whose will stands but\n    mine?\n    There's none Protector of the realm but I.\n    Break up the gates, I'll be your warrantize.\n    Shall I be flouted thus by dunghill grooms?\n                  [GLOUCESTER'S men rush at the Tower gates, and\n                         WOODVILLE the Lieutenant speaks within]\n  WOODVILLE.  [Within]  What noise is this? What traitors\n    have we here?\n  GLOUCESTER. Lieutenant, is it you whose voice I hear?\n    Open the gates; here's Gloucester that would enter.\n  WOODVILLE.  [Within]  Have patience, noble Duke, I may\n    not open;\n    The Cardinal of Winchester forbids.\n    From him I have express commandment\n    That thou nor none of thine shall be let in.\n  GLOUCESTER. Faint-hearted Woodville, prizest him fore me?\n    Arrogant Winchester, that haughty prelate\n    Whom Henry, our late sovereign, ne'er could brook!\n    Thou art no friend to God or to the King.\n    Open the gates, or I'll shut thee out shortly.\n  SERVING-MEN. Open the gates unto the Lord Protector,\n    Or we'll burst them open, if that you come not quickly.\n\n       Enter to the PROTECTOR at the Tower gates WINCHESTER\n                   and his men in tawny coats\n\n  WINCHESTER. How now, ambitious Humphry! What means\n    this?\n  GLOUCESTER. Peel'd priest, dost thou command me to be\n    shut out?\n  WINCHESTER. I do, thou most usurping proditor,\n    And not Protector of the King or realm.\n  GLOUCESTER. Stand back, thou manifest conspirator,\n    Thou that contrived'st to murder our dead lord;\n    Thou that giv'st whores indulgences to sin.\n    I'll canvass thee in thy broad cardinal's hat,\n    If thou proceed in this thy insolence.\n  WINCHESTER. Nay, stand thou back; I will not budge a foot.\n    This be Damascus; be thou cursed Cain,\n    To slay thy brother Abel, if thou wilt.\n  GLOUCESTER. I will not slay thee, but I'll drive thee back.\n    Thy scarlet robes as a child's bearing-cloth\n    I'll use to carry thee out of this place.\n  WINCHESTER. Do what thou dar'st; I beard thee to thy face.\n  GLOUCESTER. What! am I dar'd and bearded to my face?\n    Draw, men, for all this privileged place\n    Blue-coats to tawny-coats. Priest, beware your beard;\n    I mean to tug it, and to cuff you soundly;\n    Under my feet I stamp thy cardinal's hat;\n    In spite of Pope or dignities of church,\n    Here by the cheeks I'll drag thee up and down.\n  WINCHESTER. Gloucester, thou wilt answer this before the\n    Pope.\n  GLOUCESTER. Winchester goose! I cry 'A rope, a rope!'\n    Now beat them hence; why do you let them stay?\n    Thee I'll chase hence, thou wolf in sheep's array.\n    Out, tawny-coats! Out, scarlet hypocrite!\n\n         Here GLOUCESTER'S men beat out the CARDINAL'S\n        men; and enter in the hurly burly the MAYOR OF\n                  LONDON and his OFFICERS\n\n  MAYOR. Fie, lords! that you, being supreme magistrates,\n    Thus contumeliously should break the peace!\n  GLOUCESTER. Peace, Mayor! thou know'st little of my wrongs:\n    Here's Beaufort, that regards nor God nor King,\n    Hath here distrain'd the Tower to his use.\n  WINCHESTER. Here's Gloucester, a foe to citizens;\n    One that still motions war and never peace,\n    O'ercharging your free purses with large fines;\n    That seeks to overthrow religion,\n    Because he is Protector of the realm,\n    And would have armour here out of the Tower,\n    To crown himself King and suppress the Prince.\n  GLOUCESTER. I Will not answer thee with words, but blows.\n                                      [Here they skirmish again]\n  MAYOR. Nought rests for me in this tumultuous strife\n    But to make open proclamation.\n    Come, officer, as loud as e'er thou canst,\n    Cry.\n  OFFICER.  [Cries]  All manner of men assembled here in arms\n    this day against God's peace and the King's, we charge\n    and command you, in his Highness' name, to repair to\n    your several dwelling-places; and not to wear, handle, or\n    use, any sword, weapon, or dagger, henceforward, upon\n    pain of death.\n  GLOUCESTER. Cardinal, I'll be no breaker of the law;\n    But we shall meet and break our minds at large.\n  WINCHESTER. Gloucester, we'll meet to thy cost, be sure;\n    Thy heart-blood I will have for this day's work.\n  MAYOR. I'll call for clubs if you will not away.\n    This Cardinal's more haughty than the devil.\n  GLOUCESTER. Mayor, farewell; thou dost but what thou\n    mayst.\n  WINCHESTER. Abominable Gloucester, guard thy head,\n    For I intend to have it ere long.\n                    Exeunt, severally, GLOUCESTER and WINCHESTER\n                                             with their servants\n  MAYOR. See the coast clear'd, and then we will depart.\n    Good God, these nobles should such stomachs bear!\n    I myself fight not once in forty year.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                               SCENE 4.\n\n                        France. Before Orleans\n\n               Enter, on the walls, the MASTER-GUNNER\n                       OF ORLEANS and his BOY\n\n  MASTER-GUNNER. Sirrah, thou know'st how Orleans is\n    besieg'd,\n    And how the English have the suburbs won.\n  BOY. Father, I know; and oft have shot at them,\n    Howe'er unfortunate I miss'd my aim.\n  MASTER-GUNNER. But now thou shalt not. Be thou rul'd\n    by me.\n    Chief master-gunner am I of this town;\n    Something I must do to procure me grace.\n    The Prince's espials have informed me\n    How the English, in the suburbs close intrench'd,\n    Wont, through a secret grate of iron bars\n    In yonder tower, to overpeer the city,\n    And thence discover how with most advantage\n    They may vex us with shot or with assault.\n    To intercept this inconvenience,\n    A piece of ordnance 'gainst it I have plac'd;\n    And even these three days have I watch'd\n    If I could see them. Now do thou watch,\n    For I can stay no longer.\n    If thou spy'st any, run and bring me word;\n    And thou shalt find me at the Governor's.               Exit\n  BOY. Father, I warrant you; take you no care;\n    I'll never trouble you, if I may spy them.              Exit\n\n          Enter SALISBURY and TALBOT on the turrets, with\n            SIR WILLIAM GLANSDALE, SIR THOMAS GARGRAVE,\n                            and others\n\n  SALISBURY. Talbot, my life, my joy, again return'd!\n    How wert thou handled being prisoner?\n    Or by what means got'st thou to be releas'd?\n    Discourse, I prithee, on this turret's top.\n  TALBOT. The Earl of Bedford had a prisoner\n    Call'd the brave Lord Ponton de Santrailles;\n    For him was I exchang'd and ransomed.\n    But with a baser man of arms by far\n    Once, in contempt, they would have barter'd me;\n    Which I disdaining scorn'd, and craved death\n    Rather than I would be so vile esteem'd.\n    In fine, redeem'd I was as I desir'd.\n    But, O! the treacherous Fastolfe wounds my heart\n    Whom with my bare fists I would execute,\n    If I now had him brought into my power.\n  SALISBURY. Yet tell'st thou not how thou wert entertain'd.\n  TALBOT. With scoffs, and scorns, and contumelious taunts,\n    In open market-place produc'd they me\n    To be a public spectacle to all;\n    Here, said they, is the terror of the French,\n    The scarecrow that affrights our children so.\n    Then broke I from the officers that led me,\n    And with my nails digg'd stones out of the ground\n    To hurl at the beholders of my shame;\n    My grisly countenance made others fly;\n    None durst come near for fear of sudden death.\n    In iron walls they deem'd me not secure;\n    So great fear of my name 'mongst them was spread\n    That they suppos'd I could rend bars of steel\n    And spurn in pieces posts of adamant;\n    Wherefore a guard of chosen shot I had\n    That walk'd about me every minute-while;\n    And if I did but stir out of my bed,\n    Ready they were to shoot me to the heart.\n\n                Enter the BOY with a linstock\n\n  SALISBURY. I grieve to hear what torments you endur'd;\n    But we will be reveng'd sufficiently.\n    Now it is supper-time in Orleans:\n    Here, through this grate, I count each one\n    And view the Frenchmen how they fortify.\n    Let us look in; the sight will much delight thee.\n    Sir Thomas Gargrave and Sir William Glansdale,\n    Let me have your express opinions\n    Where is best place to make our batt'ry next.\n  GARGRAVE. I think at the North Gate; for there stand lords.\n  GLANSDALE. And I here, at the bulwark of the bridge.\n  TALBOT. For aught I see, this city must be famish'd,\n    Or with light skirmishes enfeebled.\n                     [Here they shoot and SALISBURY and GARGRAVE\n                                                      fall down]\n  SALISBURY. O Lord, have mercy on us, wretched sinners!\n  GARGRAVE. O Lord, have mercy on me, woeful man!\n  TALBOT. What chance is this that suddenly hath cross'd us?\n    Speak, Salisbury; at least, if thou canst speak.\n    How far'st thou, mirror of all martial men?\n    One of thy eyes and thy cheek's side struck off!\n    Accursed tower! accursed fatal hand\n    That hath contriv'd this woeful tragedy!\n    In thirteen battles Salisbury o'ercame;\n    Henry the Fifth he first train'd to the wars;\n    Whilst any trump did sound or drum struck up,\n    His sword did ne'er leave striking in the field.\n    Yet liv'st thou, Salisbury? Though thy speech doth fail,\n    One eye thou hast to look to heaven for grace;\n    The sun with one eye vieweth all the world.\n    Heaven, be thou gracious to none alive\n    If Salisbury wants mercy at thy hands!\n    Bear hence his body; I will help to bury it.\n    Sir Thomas Gargrave, hast thou any life?\n    Speak unto Talbot; nay, look up to him.\n    Salisbury, cheer thy spirit with this comfort,\n    Thou shalt not die whiles\n    He beckons with his hand and smiles on me,\n    As who should say 'When I am dead and gone,\n    Remember to avenge me on the French.'\n    Plantagenet, I will; and like thee, Nero,\n    Play on the lute, beholding the towns burn.\n    Wretched shall France be only in my name.\n                  [Here an alarum, and it thunders and lightens]\n    What stir is this? What tumult's in the heavens?\n    Whence cometh this alarum and the noise?\n\n                          Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. My lord, my lord, the French have gather'd\n    head\n    The Dauphin, with one Joan la Pucelle join'd,\n    A holy prophetess new risen up,\n    Is come with a great power to raise the siege.\n                  [Here SALISBURY lifteth himself up and groans]\n  TALBOT. Hear, hear how dying Salisbury doth groan.\n    It irks his heart he cannot be reveng'd.\n    Frenchmen, I'll be a Salisbury to you.\n    Pucelle or puzzel, dolphin or dogfish,\n    Your hearts I'll stamp out with my horse's heels\n    And make a quagmire of your mingled brains.\n    Convey me Salisbury into his tent,\n    And then we'll try what these dastard Frenchmen dare.\n                                                  Alarum. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 5.\n\n                          Before Orleans\n\n         Here an alarum again, and TALBOT pursueth the\n      DAUPHIN and driveth him. Then enter JOAN LA PUCELLE\n       driving Englishmen before her. Then enter TALBOT\n\n  TALBOT. Where is my strength, my valour, and my force?\n    Our English troops retire, I cannot stay them;\n    A woman clad in armour chaseth them.\n\n                          Enter LA PUCELLE\n\n    Here, here she comes. I'll have a bout with thee.\n    Devil or devil's dam, I'll conjure thee;\n    Blood will I draw on thee-thou art a witch\n    And straightway give thy soul to him thou serv'st.\n  PUCELLE. Come, come, 'tis only I that must disgrace thee.\n                                               [Here they fight]\n  TALBOT. Heavens, can you suffer hell so to prevail?\n    My breast I'll burst with straining of my courage.\n    And from my shoulders crack my arms asunder,\n    But I will chastise this high minded strumpet.\n                                              [They fight again]\n  PUCELLE. Talbot, farewell; thy hour is not yet come.\n    I must go victual Orleans forthwith.\n             [A short alarum; then enter the town with soldiers]\n    O'ertake me if thou canst; I scorn thy strength.\n    Go, go, cheer up thy hungry starved men;\n    Help Salisbury to make his testament.\n    This day is ours, as many more shall be.                Exit\n  TALBOT. My thoughts are whirled like a potter's wheel;\n    I know not where I am nor what I do.\n    A witch by fear, not force, like Hannibal,\n    Drives back our troops and conquers as she lists.\n    So bees with smoke and doves with noisome stench\n    Are from their hives and houses driven away.\n    They call'd us, for our fierceness, English dogs;\n    Now like to whelps we crying run away.\n                                                [A short alarum]\n    Hark, countrymen! Either renew the fight\n    Or tear the lions out of England's coat;\n    Renounce your soil, give sheep in lions' stead:\n    Sheep run not half so treacherous from the wolf,\n    Or horse or oxen from the leopard,\n    As you fly from your oft subdued slaves.\n                                 [Alarum. Here another skirmish]\n    It will not be-retire into your trenches.\n    You all consented unto Salisbury's death,\n    For none would strike a stroke in his revenge.\n    Pucelle is ent'red into Orleans\n    In spite of us or aught that we could do.\n    O, would I were to die with Salisbury!\n    The shame hereof will make me hide my head.\n                                    Exit TALBOT. Alarum; retreat\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 6.\n\n                              ORLEANS\n\n        Flourish. Enter on the walls, LA PUCELLE, CHARLES,\n                REIGNIER, ALENCON, and soldiers\n\n  PUCELLE. Advance our waving colours on the walls;\n    Rescu'd is Orleans from the English.\n    Thus Joan la Pucelle hath perform'd her word.\n  CHARLES. Divinest creature, Astraea's daughter,\n    How shall I honour thee for this success?\n    Thy promises are like Adonis' gardens,\n    That one day bloom'd and fruitful were the next.\n    France, triumph in thy glorious prophetess.\n    Recover'd is the town of Orleans.\n    More blessed hap did ne'er befall our state.\n  REIGNIER. Why ring not out the bells aloud throughout the\n    town?\n    Dauphin, command the citizens make bonfires\n    And feast and banquet in the open streets\n    To celebrate the joy that God hath given us.\n  ALENCON. All France will be replete with mirth and joy\n    When they shall hear how we have play'd the men.\n  CHARLES. 'Tis Joan, not we, by whom the day is won;\n    For which I will divide my crown with her;\n    And all the priests and friars in my realm\n    Shall in procession sing her endless praise.\n    A statelier pyramis to her I'll rear\n    Than Rhodope's of Memphis ever was.\n    In memory of her, when she is dead,\n    Her ashes, in an urn more precious\n    Than the rich jewel'd coffer of Darius,\n    Transported shall be at high festivals\n    Before the kings and queens of France.\n    No longer on Saint Denis will we cry,\n    But Joan la Pucelle shall be France's saint.\n    Come in, and let us banquet royally\n    After this golden day of victory. Flourish.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 1.\n\nBefore Orleans\n\nEnter a FRENCH SERGEANT and two SENTINELS\n\n  SERGEANT. Sirs, take your places and be vigilant.\n    If any noise or soldier you perceive\n    Near to the walls, by some apparent sign\n    Let us have knowledge at the court of guard.\n  FIRST SENTINEL. Sergeant, you shall.           [Exit SERGEANT]\n    Thus are poor servitors,\n    When others sleep upon their quiet beds,\n    Constrain'd to watch in darkness, rain, and cold.\n\n             Enter TALBOT, BEDFORD, BURGUNDY, and forces,\n          with scaling-ladders; their drums beating a dead\n                              march\n\n  TALBOT. Lord Regent, and redoubted Burgundy,\n    By whose approach the regions of Artois,\n    Wallon, and Picardy, are friends to us,\n    This happy night the Frenchmen are secure,\n    Having all day carous'd and banqueted;\n    Embrace we then this opportunity,\n    As fitting best to quittance their deceit,\n    Contriv'd by art and baleful sorcery.\n  BEDFORD. Coward of France, how much he wrongs his fame,\n    Despairing of his own arm's fortitude,\n    To join with witches and the help of hell!\n  BURGUNDY. Traitors have never other company.\n    But what's that Pucelle whom they term so pure?\n  TALBOT. A maid, they say.\n  BEDFORD. A maid! and be so martial!\n  BURGUNDY. Pray God she prove not masculine ere long,\n    If underneath the standard of the French\n    She carry armour as she hath begun.\n  TALBOT. Well, let them practise and converse with spirits:\n    God is our fortress, in whose conquering name\n    Let us resolve to scale their flinty bulwarks.\n  BEDFORD. Ascend, brave Talbot; we will follow thee.\n  TALBOT. Not all together; better far, I guess,\n    That we do make our entrance several ways;\n    That if it chance the one of us do fail\n    The other yet may rise against their force.\n  BEDFORD. Agreed; I'll to yond corner.\n  BURGUNDY. And I to this.\n  TALBOT. And here will Talbot mount or make his grave.\n    Now, Salisbury, for thee, and for the right\n    Of English Henry, shall this night appear\n    How much in duty I am bound to both.\n             [The English scale the walls and cry 'Saint George!\n                                                     a Talbot!']\n    SENTINEL. Arm! arm! The enemy doth make assault.\n\n           The French leap o'er the walls in their shirts.\n           Enter, several ways, BASTARD, ALENCON, REIGNIER,\n                     half ready and half unready\n\n  ALENCON. How now, my lords? What, all unready so?\n  BASTARD. Unready! Ay, and glad we 'scap'd so well.\n  REIGNIER. 'Twas time, I trow, to wake and leave our beds,\n    Hearing alarums at our chamber doors.\n  ALENCON. Of all exploits since first I follow'd arms\n    Ne'er heard I of a warlike enterprise\n    More venturous or desperate than this.\n  BASTARD. I think this Talbot be a fiend of hell.\n  REIGNIER. If not of hell, the heavens, sure, favour him\n  ALENCON. Here cometh Charles; I marvel how he sped.\n\n                    Enter CHARLES and LA PUCELLE\n\n  BASTARD. Tut! holy Joan was his defensive guard.\n  CHARLES. Is this thy cunning, thou deceitful dame?\n    Didst thou at first, to flatter us withal,\n    Make us partakers of a little gain\n    That now our loss might be ten times so much?\n  PUCELLE. Wherefore is Charles impatient with his friend?\n    At all times will you have my power alike?\n    Sleeping or waking, must I still prevail\n    Or will you blame and lay the fault on me?\n    Improvident soldiers! Had your watch been good\n    This sudden mischief never could have fall'n.\n  CHARLES. Duke of Alencon, this was your default\n    That, being captain of the watch to-night,\n    Did look no better to that weighty charge.\n  ALENCON. Had all your quarters been as safely kept\n    As that whereof I had the government,\n    We had not been thus shamefully surpris'd.\n  BASTARD. Mine was secure.\n  REIGNIER. And so was mine, my lord.\n  CHARLES. And, for myself, most part of all this night,\n    Within her quarter and mine own precinct\n    I was employ'd in passing to and fro\n    About relieving of the sentinels.\n    Then how or which way should they first break in?\n  PUCELLE. Question, my lords, no further of the case,\n    How or which way; 'tis sure they found some place\n    But weakly guarded, where the breach was made.\n    And now there rests no other shift but this\n    To gather our soldiers, scatter'd and dispers'd,\n    And lay new platforms to endamage them.\n\n               Alarum. Enter an ENGLISH SOLDIER, crying\n            'A Talbot! A Talbot!' They fly, leaving their\n                           clothes behind\n\n  SOLDIER. I'll be so bold to take what they have left.\n    The cry of Talbot serves me for a sword;\n    For I have loaden me with many spoils,\n    Using no other weapon but his name.                     Exit\n\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 2.\n\n                      ORLEANS. Within the town\n\n            Enter TALBOT, BEDFORD, BURGUNDY, a CAPTAIN,\n                           and others\n\n  BEDFORD. The day begins to break, and night is fled\n    Whose pitchy mantle over-veil'd the earth.\n    Here sound retreat and cease our hot pursuit.\n                                               [Retreat sounded]\n  TALBOT. Bring forth the body of old Salisbury\n    And here advance it in the market-place,\n    The middle centre of this cursed town.\n    Now have I paid my vow unto his soul;\n    For every drop of blood was drawn from him\n    There hath at least five Frenchmen died to-night.\n    And that hereafter ages may behold\n    What ruin happened in revenge of him,\n    Within their chiefest temple I'll erect\n    A tomb, wherein his corpse shall be interr'd;\n    Upon the which, that every one may read,\n    Shall be engrav'd the sack of Orleans,\n    The treacherous manner of his mournful death,\n    And what a terror he had been to France.\n    But, lords, in all our bloody massacre,\n    I muse we met not with the Dauphin's grace,\n    His new-come champion, virtuous Joan of Arc,\n    Nor any of his false confederates.\n  BEDFORD. 'Tis thought, Lord Talbot, when the fight began,\n    Rous'd on the sudden from their drowsy beds,\n    They did amongst the troops of armed men\n    Leap o'er the walls for refuge in the field.\n  BURGUNDY. Myself, as far as I could well discern\n    For smoke and dusky vapours of the night,\n    Am sure I scar'd the Dauphin and his trull,\n    When arm in arm they both came swiftly running,\n    Like to a pair of loving turtle-doves\n    That could not live asunder day or night.\n    After that things are set in order here,\n    We'll follow them with all the power we have.\n\n                          Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. All hail, my lords! Which of this princely train\n    Call ye the warlike Talbot, for his acts\n    So much applauded through the realm of France?\n  TALBOT. Here is the Talbot; who would speak with him?\n  MESSENGER. The virtuous lady, Countess of Auvergne,\n    With modesty admiring thy renown,\n    By me entreats, great lord, thou wouldst vouchsafe\n    To visit her poor castle where she lies,\n    That she may boast she hath beheld the man\n    Whose glory fills the world with loud report.\n  BURGUNDY. Is it even so? Nay, then I see our wars\n    Will turn into a peaceful comic sport,\n    When ladies crave to be encount'red with.\n    You may not, my lord, despise her gentle suit.\n  TALBOT. Ne'er trust me then; for when a world of men\n    Could not prevail with all their oratory,\n    Yet hath a woman's kindness overrul'd;\n    And therefore tell her I return great thanks\n    And in submission will attend on her.\n    Will not your honours bear me company?\n  BEDFORD. No, truly; 'tis more than manners will;\n    And I have heard it said unbidden guests\n    Are often welcomest when they are gone.\n  TALBOT. Well then, alone, since there's no remedy,\n    I mean to prove this lady's courtesy.\n    Come hither, Captain.  [Whispers]   You perceive my mind?\n  CAPTAIN. I do, my lord, and mean accordingly.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 3.\n\n                      AUVERGNE. The Castle\n\n               Enter the COUNTESS and her PORTER\n\n  COUNTESS. Porter, remember what I gave in charge;\n    And when you have done so, bring the keys to me.\n  PORTER. Madam, I will.\n  COUNTESS. The plot is laid; if all things fall out right,\n    I shall as famous be by this exploit.\n    As Scythian Tomyris by Cyrus' death.\n    Great is the rumour of this dreadful knight,\n    And his achievements of no less account.\n    Fain would mine eyes be witness with mine ears\n    To give their censure of these rare reports.\n\n    Enter MESSENGER and TALBOT.\n\n  MESSENGER. Madam, according as your ladyship desir'd,\n    By message crav'd, so is Lord Talbot come.\n  COUNTESS. And he is welcome. What! is this the man?\n  MESSENGER. Madam, it is.\n  COUNTESS. Is this the scourge of France?\n    Is this Talbot, so much fear'd abroad\n    That with his name the mothers still their babes?\n    I see report is fabulous and false.\n    I thought I should have seen some Hercules,\n    A second Hector, for his grim aspect\n    And large proportion of his strong-knit limbs.\n    Alas, this is a child, a silly dwarf!\n    It cannot be this weak and writhled shrimp\n    Should strike such terror to his enemies.\n  TALBOT. Madam, I have been bold to trouble you;\n    But since your ladyship is not at leisure,\n    I'll sort some other time to visit you.              [Going]\n  COUNTESS. What means he now? Go ask him whither he\n    goes.\n  MESSENGER. Stay, my Lord Talbot; for my lady craves\n    To know the cause of your abrupt departure.\n  TALBOT. Marry, for that she's in a wrong belief,\n    I go to certify her Talbot's here.\n\n                      Re-enter PORTER With keys\n\n  COUNTESS. If thou be he, then art thou prisoner.\n  TALBOT. Prisoner! To whom?\n  COUNTESS. To me, blood-thirsty lord\n    And for that cause I train'd thee to my house.\n    Long time thy shadow hath been thrall to me,\n    For in my gallery thy picture hangs;\n    But now the substance shall endure the like\n    And I will chain these legs and arms of thine\n    That hast by tyranny these many years\n    Wasted our country, slain our citizens,\n    And sent our sons and husbands captivate.\n  TALBOT. Ha, ha, ha!\n  COUNTESS. Laughest thou, wretch? Thy mirth shall turn to\n    moan.\n  TALBOT. I laugh to see your ladyship so fond\n    To think that you have aught but Talbot's shadow\n    Whereon to practise your severity.\n  COUNTESS. Why, art not thou the man?\n  TALBOT. I am indeed.\n  COUNTESS. Then have I substance too.\n  TALBOT. No, no, I am but shadow of myself.\n    You are deceiv'd, my substance is not here;\n    For what you see is but the smallest part\n    And least proportion of humanity.\n    I tell you, madam, were the whole frame here,\n    It is of such a spacious lofty pitch\n    Your roof were not sufficient to contain 't.\n  COUNTESS. This is a riddling merchant for the nonce;\n    He will be here, and yet he is not here.\n    How can these contrarieties agree?\n  TALBOT. That will I show you presently.\n\n                   Winds his horn; drums strike up;\n                  a peal of ordnance. Enter soldiers\n\n    How say you, madam? Are you now persuaded\n    That Talbot is but shadow of himself?\n    These are his substance, sinews, arms, and strength,\n    With which he yoketh your rebellious necks,\n    Razeth your cities, and subverts your towns,\n    And in a moment makes them desolate.\n  COUNTESS. Victorious Talbot! pardon my abuse.\n    I find thou art no less than fame hath bruited,\n    And more than may be gathered by thy shape.\n    Let my presumption not provoke thy wrath,\n    For I am sorry that with reverence\n    I did not entertain thee as thou art.\n  TALBOT. Be not dismay'd, fair lady; nor misconster\n    The mind of Talbot as you did mistake\n    The outward composition of his body.\n    What you have done hath not offended me.\n    Nor other satisfaction do I crave\n    But only, with your patience, that we may\n    Taste of your wine and see what cates you have,\n    For soldiers' stomachs always serve them well.\n  COUNTESS. With all my heart, and think me honoured\n    To feast so great a warrior in my house.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                            SCENE 4.\n\n                   London. The Temple garden\n\n         Enter the EARLS OF SOMERSET, SUFFOLK, and WARWICK;\n           RICHARD PLANTAGENET, VERNON, and another LAWYER\n\n  PLANTAGENET. Great lords and gentlemen, what means this\n    silence?\n    Dare no man answer in a case of truth?\n  SUFFOLK. Within the Temple Hall we were too loud;\n    The garden here is more convenient.\n  PLANTAGENET. Then say at once if I maintain'd the truth;\n    Or else was wrangling Somerset in th' error?\n  SUFFOLK. Faith, I have been a truant in the law\n    And never yet could frame my will to it;\n    And therefore frame the law unto my will.\n  SOMERSET. Judge you, my Lord of Warwick, then, between us.\n  WARWICK. Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch;\n    Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth;\n    Between two blades, which bears the better temper;\n    Between two horses, which doth bear him best;\n    Between two girls, which hath the merriest eye\n    I have perhaps some shallow spirit of judgment;\n    But in these nice sharp quillets of the law,\n    Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw.\n  PLANTAGENET. Tut, tut, here is a mannerly forbearance:\n    The truth appears so naked on my side\n    That any purblind eye may find it out.\n  SOMERSET. And on my side it is so well apparell'd,\n    So clear, so shining, and so evident,\n    That it will glimmer through a blind man's eye.\n  PLANTAGENET. Since you are tongue-tied and so loath to speak,\n    In dumb significants proclaim your thoughts.\n    Let him that is a true-born gentleman\n    And stands upon the honour of his birth,\n    If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,\n    From off this brier pluck a white rose with me.\n  SOMERSET. Let him that is no coward nor no flatterer,\n    But dare maintain the party of the truth,\n    Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me.\n  WARWICK. I love no colours; and, without all colour\n    Of base insinuating flattery,\n    I pluck this white rose with Plantagenet.\n  SUFFOLK. I pluck this red rose with young Somerset,\n    And say withal I think he held the right.\n  VERNON. Stay, lords and gentlemen, and pluck no more\n    Till you conclude that he upon whose side\n    The fewest roses are cropp'd from the tree\n    Shall yield the other in the right opinion.\n  SOMERSET. Good Master Vernon, it is well objected;\n    If I have fewest, I subscribe in silence.\n  PLANTAGENET. And I.\n  VERNON. Then, for the truth and plainness of the case,\n    I pluck this pale and maiden blossom here,\n    Giving my verdict on the white rose side.\n  SOMERSET. Prick not your finger as you pluck it off,\n    Lest, bleeding, you do paint the white rose red,\n    And fall on my side so, against your will.\n  VERNON. If I, my lord, for my opinion bleed,\n    Opinion shall be surgeon to my hurt\n    And keep me on the side where still I am.\n  SOMERSET. Well, well, come on; who else?\n  LAWYER.  [To Somerset]  Unless my study and my books be\n    false,\n    The argument you held was wrong in you;\n    In sign whereof I pluck a white rose too.\n  PLANTAGENET. Now, Somerset, where is your argument?\n  SOMERSET. Here in my scabbard, meditating that\n    Shall dye your white rose in a bloody red.\n  PLANTAGENET. Meantime your cheeks do counterfeit our\n    roses;\n    For pale they look with fear, as witnessing\n    The truth on our side.\n  SOMERSET. No, Plantagenet,\n    'Tis not for fear but anger that thy cheeks\n    Blush for pure shame to counterfeit our roses,\n    And yet thy tongue will not confess thy error.\n  PLANTAGENET. Hath not thy rose a canker, Somerset?\n  SOMERSET. Hath not thy rose a thorn, Plantagenet?\n  PLANTAGENET. Ay, sharp and piercing, to maintain his truth;\n    Whiles thy consuming canker eats his falsehood.\n  SOMERSET. Well, I'll find friends to wear my bleeding roses,\n    That shall maintain what I have said is true,\n    Where false Plantagenet dare not be seen.\n  PLANTAGENET. Now, by this maiden blossom in my hand,\n    I scorn thee and thy fashion, peevish boy.\n  SUFFOLK. Turn not thy scorns this way, Plantagenet.\n  PLANTAGENET. Proud Pole, I will, and scorn both him and\n    thee.\n  SUFFOLK. I'll turn my part thereof into thy throat.\n  SOMERSET. Away, away, good William de la Pole!\n    We grace the yeoman by conversing with him.\n  WARWICK. Now, by God's will, thou wrong'st him, Somerset;\n    His grandfather was Lionel Duke of Clarence,\n    Third son to the third Edward, King of England.\n    Spring crestless yeomen from so deep a root?\n  PLANTAGENET. He bears him on the place's privilege,\n    Or durst not for his craven heart say thus.\n  SOMERSET. By Him that made me, I'll maintain my words\n    On any plot of ground in Christendom.\n    Was not thy father, Richard Earl of Cambridge,\n    For treason executed in our late king's days?\n    And by his treason stand'st not thou attainted,\n    Corrupted, and exempt from ancient gentry?\n    His trespass yet lives guilty in thy blood;\n    And till thou be restor'd thou art a yeoman.\n  PLANTAGENET. My father was attached, not attainted;\n    Condemn'd to die for treason, but no traitor;\n    And that I'll prove on better men than Somerset,\n    Were growing time once ripened to my will.\n    For your partaker Pole, and you yourself,\n    I'll note you in my book of memory\n    To scourge you for this apprehension.\n    Look to it well, and say you are well warn'd.\n  SOMERSET. Ay, thou shalt find us ready for thee still;\n    And know us by these colours for thy foes\n    For these my friends in spite of thee shall wear.\n  PLANTAGENET. And, by my soul, this pale and angry rose,\n    As cognizance of my blood-drinking hate,\n    Will I for ever, and my faction, wear,\n    Until it wither with me to my grave,\n    Or flourish to the height of my degree.\n  SUFFOLK. Go forward, and be chok'd with thy ambition!\n    And so farewell until I meet thee next.                 Exit\n  SOMERSET. Have with thee, Pole. Farewell, ambitious\n    Richard.                                                Exit\n  PLANTAGENET. How I am brav'd, and must perforce endure\n    it!\n  WARWICK. This blot that they object against your house\n    Shall be wip'd out in the next Parliament,\n    Call'd for the truce of Winchester and Gloucester;\n    And if thou be not then created York,\n    I will not live to be accounted Warwick.\n    Meantime, in signal of my love to thee,\n    Against proud Somerset and William Pole,\n    Will I upon thy party wear this rose;\n    And here I prophesy: this brawl to-day,\n    Grown to this faction in the Temple Garden,\n    Shall send between the Red Rose and the White\n    A thousand souls to death and deadly night.\n  PLANTAGENET. Good Master Vernon, I am bound to you\n    That you on my behalf would pluck a flower.\n  VERNON. In your behalf still will I wear the same.\n  LAWYER. And so will I.\n  PLANTAGENET. Thanks, gentle sir.\n    Come, let us four to dinner. I dare say\n    This quarrel will drink blood another day.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 5.\n\n                       The Tower of London\n\n         Enter MORTIMER, brought in a chair, and GAOLERS\n\n  MORTIMER. Kind keepers of my weak decaying age,\n    Let dying Mortimer here rest himself.\n    Even like a man new haled from the rack,\n    So fare my limbs with long imprisonment;\n    And these grey locks, the pursuivants of death,\n    Nestor-like aged in an age of care,\n    Argue the end of Edmund Mortimer.\n    These eyes, like lamps whose wasting oil is spent,\n    Wax dim, as drawing to their exigent;\n    Weak shoulders, overborne with burdening grief,\n    And pithless arms, like to a withered vine\n    That droops his sapless branches to the ground.\n    Yet are these feet, whose strengthless stay is numb,\n    Unable to support this lump of clay,\n    Swift-winged with desire to get a grave,\n    As witting I no other comfort have.\n    But tell me, keeper, will my nephew come?\n  FIRST KEEPER. Richard Plantagenet, my lord, will come.\n    We sent unto the Temple, unto his chamber;\n    And answer was return'd that he will come.\n  MORTIMER. Enough; my soul shall then be satisfied.\n    Poor gentleman! his wrong doth equal mine.\n    Since Henry Monmouth first began to reign,\n    Before whose glory I was great in arms,\n    This loathsome sequestration have I had;\n    And even since then hath Richard been obscur'd,\n    Depriv'd of honour and inheritance.\n    But now the arbitrator of despairs,\n    Just Death, kind umpire of men's miseries,\n    With sweet enlargement doth dismiss me hence.\n    I would his troubles likewise were expir'd,\n    That so he might recover what was lost.\n\n                     Enter RICHARD PLANTAGENET\n\n  FIRST KEEPER. My lord, your loving nephew now is come.\n  MORTIMER. Richard Plantagenet, my friend, is he come?\n  PLANTAGENET. Ay, noble uncle, thus ignobly us'd,\n    Your nephew, late despised Richard, comes.\n  MORTIMER. Direct mine arms I may embrace his neck\n    And in his bosom spend my latter gasp.\n    O, tell me when my lips do touch his cheeks,\n    That I may kindly give one fainting kiss.\n    And now declare, sweet stem from York's great stock,\n    Why didst thou say of late thou wert despis'd?\n  PLANTAGENET. First, lean thine aged back against mine arm;\n    And, in that ease, I'll tell thee my disease.\n    This day, in argument upon a case,\n    Some words there grew 'twixt Somerset and me;\n    Among which terms he us'd his lavish tongue\n    And did upbraid me with my father's death;\n    Which obloquy set bars before my tongue,\n    Else with the like I had requited him.\n    Therefore, good uncle, for my father's sake,\n    In honour of a true Plantagenet,\n    And for alliance sake, declare the cause\n    My father, Earl of Cambridge, lost his head.\n  MORTIMER. That cause, fair nephew, that imprison'd me\n    And hath detain'd me all my flow'ring youth\n    Within a loathsome dungeon, there to pine,\n    Was cursed instrument of his decease.\n  PLANTAGENET. Discover more at large what cause that was,\n    For I am ignorant and cannot guess.\n  MORTIMER. I will, if that my fading breath permit\n    And death approach not ere my tale be done.\n    Henry the Fourth, grandfather to this king,\n    Depos'd his nephew Richard, Edward's son,\n    The first-begotten and the lawful heir\n    Of Edward king, the third of that descent;\n    During whose reign the Percies of the north,\n    Finding his usurpation most unjust,\n    Endeavour'd my advancement to the throne.\n    The reason mov'd these warlike lords to this\n    Was, for that-young Richard thus remov'd,\n    Leaving no heir begotten of his body-\n    I was the next by birth and parentage;\n    For by my mother I derived am\n    From Lionel Duke of Clarence, third son\n    To King Edward the Third; whereas he\n    From John of Gaunt doth bring his pedigree,\n    Being but fourth of that heroic line.\n    But mark: as in this haughty great attempt\n    They laboured to plant the rightful heir,\n    I lost my liberty, and they their lives.\n    Long after this, when Henry the Fifth,\n    Succeeding his father Bolingbroke, did reign,\n    Thy father, Earl of Cambridge, then deriv'd\n    From famous Edmund Langley, Duke of York,\n    Marrying my sister, that thy mother was,\n    Again, in pity of my hard distress,\n    Levied an army, weening to redeem\n    And have install'd me in the diadem;\n    But, as the rest, so fell that noble earl,\n    And was beheaded. Thus the Mortimers,\n    In whom the title rested, were suppress'd.\n  PLANTAGENET. Of Which, my lord, your honour is the last.\n  MORTIMER. True; and thou seest that I no issue have,\n    And that my fainting words do warrant death.\n    Thou art my heir; the rest I wish thee gather;\n    But yet be wary in thy studious care.\n  PLANTAGENET. Thy grave admonishments prevail with me.\n    But yet methinks my father's execution\n    Was nothing less than bloody tyranny.\n  MORTIMER. With silence, nephew, be thou politic;\n    Strong fixed is the house of Lancaster\n    And like a mountain not to be remov'd.\n    But now thy uncle is removing hence,\n    As princes do their courts when they are cloy'd\n    With long continuance in a settled place.\n  PLANTAGENET. O uncle, would some part of my young years\n    Might but redeem the passage of your age!\n  MORTIMER. Thou dost then wrong me, as that slaughterer\n    doth\n    Which giveth many wounds when one will kill.\n    Mourn not, except thou sorrow for my good;\n    Only give order for my funeral.\n    And so, farewell; and fair be all thy hopes,\n    And prosperous be thy life in peace and war!          [Dies]\n  PLANTAGENET. And peace, no war, befall thy parting soul!\n    In prison hast thou spent a pilgrimage,\n    And like a hermit overpass'd thy days.\n    Well, I will lock his counsel in my breast;\n    And what I do imagine, let that rest.\n    Keepers, convey him hence; and I myself\n    Will see his burial better than his life.\n                Exeunt GAOLERS, hearing out the body of MORTIMER\n    Here dies the dusky torch of Mortimer,\n    Chok'd with ambition of the meaner sort;\n    And for those wrongs, those bitter injuries,\n    Which Somerset hath offer'd to my house,\n    I doubt not but with honour to redress;\n    And therefore haste I to the Parliament,\n    Either to be restored to my blood,\n    Or make my ill th' advantage of my good.                Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 1.\n\nLondon. The Parliament House\n\nFlourish. Enter the KING, EXETER, GLOUCESTER, WARWICK, SOMERSET, and SUFFOLK;\nthe BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, RICHARD PLANTAGENET, and others.\nGLOUCESTER offers to put up a bill; WINCHESTER snatches it, and tears it\n\n  WINCHESTER. Com'st thou with deep premeditated lines,\n    With written pamphlets studiously devis'd?\n    Humphrey of Gloucester, if thou canst accuse\n    Or aught intend'st to lay unto my charge,\n    Do it without invention, suddenly;\n    I with sudden and extemporal speech\n    Purpose to answer what thou canst object.\n  GLOUCESTER. Presumptuous priest, this place commands my\n    patience,\n    Or thou shouldst find thou hast dishonour'd me.\n    Think not, although in writing I preferr'd\n    The manner of thy vile outrageous crimes,\n    That therefore I have forg'd, or am not able\n    Verbatim to rehearse the method of my pen.\n    No, prelate; such is thy audacious wickedness,\n    Thy lewd, pestiferous, and dissentious pranks,\n    As very infants prattle of thy pride.\n    Thou art a most pernicious usurer;\n    Froward by nature, enemy to peace;\n    Lascivious, wanton, more than well beseems\n    A man of thy profession and degree;\n    And for thy treachery, what's more manifest\n    In that thou laid'st a trap to take my life,\n    As well at London Bridge as at the Tower?\n    Beside, I fear me, if thy thoughts were sifted,\n    The King, thy sovereign, is not quite exempt\n    From envious malice of thy swelling heart.\n  WINCHESTER. Gloucester, I do defy thee. Lords, vouchsafe\n    To give me hearing what I shall reply.\n    If I were covetous, ambitious, or perverse,\n    As he will have me, how am I so poor?\n    Or how haps it I seek not to advance\n    Or raise myself, but keep my wonted calling?\n    And for dissension, who preferreth peace\n    More than I do, except I be provok'd?\n    No, my good lords, it is not that offends;\n    It is not that that incens'd hath incens'd the Duke:\n    It is because no one should sway but he;\n    No one but he should be about the King;\n    And that engenders thunder in his breast\n    And makes him roar these accusations forth.\n    But he shall know I am as good\n  GLOUCESTER. As good!\n    Thou bastard of my grandfather!\n  WINCHESTER. Ay, lordly sir; for what are you, I pray,\n    But one imperious in another's throne?\n  GLOUCESTER. Am I not Protector, saucy priest?\n  WINCHESTER. And am not I a prelate of the church?\n  GLOUCESTER. Yes, as an outlaw in a castle keeps,\n    And useth it to patronage his theft.\n  WINCHESTER. Unreverent Gloucester!\n  GLOUCESTER. Thou art reverend\n    Touching thy spiritual function, not thy life.\n  WINCHESTER. Rome shall remedy this.\n  WARWICK. Roam thither then.\n  SOMERSET. My lord, it were your duty to forbear.\n  WARWICK. Ay, see the bishop be not overborne.\n  SOMERSET. Methinks my lord should be religious,\n    And know the office that belongs to such.\n  WARWICK. Methinks his lordship should be humbler;\n    It fitteth not a prelate so to plead.\n  SOMERSET. Yes, when his holy state is touch'd so near.\n  WARWICK. State holy or unhallow'd, what of that?\n    Is not his Grace Protector to the King?\n  PLANTAGENET.  [Aside]  Plantagenet, I see, must hold his\n    tongue,\n    Lest it be said 'Speak, sirrah, when you should;\n    Must your bold verdict enter talk with lords?'\n    Else would I have a fling at Winchester.\n  KING HENRY. Uncles of Gloucester and of Winchester,\n    The special watchmen of our English weal,\n    I would prevail, if prayers might prevail\n    To join your hearts in love and amity.\n    O, what a scandal is it to our crown\n    That two such noble peers as ye should jar!\n    Believe me, lords, my tender years can tell\n    Civil dissension is a viperous worm\n    That gnaws the bowels of the commonwealth.\n                  [A noise within: 'Down with the tawny coats!']\n    What tumult's this?\n  WARWICK. An uproar, I dare warrant,\n    Begun through malice of the Bishop's men.\n                              [A noise again: 'Stones! Stones!']\n\n                Enter the MAYOR OF LONDON, attended\n\n  MAYOR. O, my good lords, and virtuous Henry,\n    Pity the city of London, pity us!\n    The Bishop and the Duke of Gloucester's men,\n    Forbidden late to carry any weapon,\n    Have fill'd their pockets full of pebble stones\n    And, banding themselves in contrary parts,\n    Do pelt so fast at one another's pate\n    That many have their giddy brains knock'd out.\n    Our windows are broke down in every street,\n    And we for fear compell'd to shut our shops.\n\n        Enter in skirmish, the retainers of GLOUCESTER and\n               WINCHESTER, with bloody pates\n\n  KING HENRY. We charge you, on allegiance to ourself,\n    To hold your slaught'ring hands and keep the peace.\n    Pray, uncle Gloucester, mitigate this strife.\n  FIRST SERVING-MAN. Nay, if we be forbidden stones, we'll\n    fall to it with our teeth.\n  SECOND SERVING-MAN. Do what ye dare, we are as resolute.\n                                                [Skirmish again]\n  GLOUCESTER. You of my household, leave this peevish broil,\n    And set this unaccustom'd fight aside.\n  THIRD SERVING-MAN. My lord, we know your Grace to be a\n    man\n    Just and upright, and for your royal birth\n    Inferior to none but to his Majesty;\n    And ere that we will suffer such a prince,\n    So kind a father of the commonweal,\n    To be disgraced by an inkhorn mate,\n    We and our wives and children all will fight\n    And have our bodies slaught'red by thy foes.\n  FIRST SERVING-MAN. Ay, and the very parings of our nails\n    Shall pitch a field when we are dead.          [Begin again]\n  GLOUCESTER. Stay, stay, I say!\n    And if you love me, as you say you do,\n    Let me persuade you to forbear awhile.\n  KING HENRY. O, how this discord doth afflict my soul!\n    Can you, my Lord of Winchester, behold\n    My sighs and tears and will not once relent?\n    Who should be pitiful, if you be not?\n    Or who should study to prefer a peace,\n    If holy churchmen take delight in broils?\n  WARWICK. Yield, my Lord Protector; yield, Winchester;\n    Except you mean with obstinate repulse\n    To slay your sovereign and destroy the realm.\n    You see what mischief, and what murder too,\n    Hath been enacted through your enmity;\n    Then be at peace, except ye thirst for blood.\n  WINCHESTER. He shall submit, or I will never yield.\n  GLOUCESTER. Compassion on the King commands me stoop,\n    Or I would see his heart out ere the priest\n    Should ever get that privilege of me.\n  WARWICK. Behold, my Lord of Winchester, the Duke\n    Hath banish'd moody discontented fury,\n    As by his smoothed brows it doth appear;\n    Why look you still so stem and tragical?\n  GLOUCESTER. Here, Winchester, I offer thee my hand.\n  KING HENRY. Fie, uncle Beaufort! I have heard you preach\n    That malice was a great and grievous sin;\n    And will not you maintain the thing you teach,\n    But prove a chief offender in the same?\n  WARWICK. Sweet King! The Bishop hath a kindly gird.\n    For shame, my Lord of Winchester, relent;\n    What, shall a child instruct you what to do?\n  WINCHESTER. Well, Duke of Gloucester, I will yield to thee;\n    Love for thy love and hand for hand I give.\n  GLOUCESTER  [Aside]  Ay, but, I fear me, with a hollow\n    heart.\n    See here, my friends and loving countrymen:\n    This token serveth for a flag of truce\n    Betwixt ourselves and all our followers.\n    So help me God, as I dissemble not!\n  WINCHESTER  [Aside]  So help me God, as I intend it not!\n  KING HENRY. O loving uncle, kind Duke of Gloucester,\n    How joyful am I made by this contract!\n    Away, my masters! trouble us no more;\n    But join in friendship, as your lords have done.\n  FIRST SERVING-MAN. Content: I'll to the surgeon's.\n  SECOND SERVING-MAN. And so will I.\n  THIRD SERVING-MAN. And I will see what physic the tavern\n    affords.                         Exeunt servants, MAYOR, &C.\n  WARWICK. Accept this scroll, most gracious sovereign;\n    Which in the right of Richard Plantagenet\n    We do exhibit to your Majesty.\n  GLOUCESTER. Well urg'd, my Lord of Warwick; for, sweet\n    prince,\n    An if your Grace mark every circumstance,\n    You have great reason to do Richard right;\n    Especially for those occasions\n    At Eltham Place I told your Majesty.\n  KING HENRY. And those occasions, uncle, were of force;\n    Therefore, my loving lords, our pleasure is\n    That Richard be restored to his blood.\n  WARWICK. Let Richard be restored to his blood;\n    So shall his father's wrongs be recompens'd.\n  WINCHESTER. As will the rest, so willeth Winchester.\n  KING HENRY. If Richard will be true, not that alone\n    But all the whole inheritance I give\n    That doth belong unto the house of York,\n    From whence you spring by lineal descent.\n  PLANTAGENET. Thy humble servant vows obedience\n    And humble service till the point of death.\n  KING HENRY. Stoop then and set your knee against my foot;\n    And in reguerdon of that duty done\n    I girt thee with the valiant sword of York.\n    Rise, Richard, like a true Plantagenet,\n    And rise created princely Duke of York.\n  PLANTAGENET. And so thrive Richard as thy foes may fall!\n    And as my duty springs, so perish they\n    That grudge one thought against your Majesty!\n  ALL. Welcome, high Prince, the mighty Duke of York!\n  SOMERSET.  [Aside]  Perish, base Prince, ignoble Duke of\n    York!\n  GLOUCESTER. Now will it best avail your Majesty\n    To cross the seas and to be crown'd in France:\n    The presence of a king engenders love\n    Amongst his subjects and his loyal friends,\n    As it disanimates his enemies.\n  KING HENRY. When Gloucester says the word, King Henry\n    goes;\n    For friendly counsel cuts off many foes.\n  GLOUCESTER. Your ships already are in readiness.\n                         Sennet. Flourish. Exeunt all but EXETER\n  EXETER. Ay, we may march in England or in France,\n    Not seeing what is likely to ensue.\n    This late dissension grown betwixt the peers\n    Burns under feigned ashes of forg'd love\n    And will at last break out into a flame;\n    As fest'red members rot but by degree\n    Till bones and flesh and sinews fall away,\n    So will this base and envious discord breed.\n    And now I fear that fatal prophecy.\n    Which in the time of Henry nam'd the Fifth\n    Was in the mouth of every sucking babe:\n    That Henry born at Monmouth should win all,\n    And Henry born at Windsor should lose all.\n    Which is so plain that Exeter doth wish\n    His days may finish ere that hapless time.              Exit\n\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 2.\n\n                      France. Before Rouen\n\n       Enter LA PUCELLE disguis'd, with four soldiers dressed\n            like countrymen, with sacks upon their backs\n\n  PUCELLE. These are the city gates, the gates of Rouen,\n    Through which our policy must make a breach.\n    Take heed, be wary how you place your words;\n    Talk like the vulgar sort of market-men\n    That come to gather money for their corn.\n    If we have entrance, as I hope we shall,\n    And that we find the slothful watch but weak,\n    I'll by a sign give notice to our friends,\n    That Charles the Dauphin may encounter them.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Our sacks shall be a mean to sack the city,\n    And we be lords and rulers over Rouen;\n    Therefore we'll knock.                              [Knocks]\n  WATCH.  [Within]  Qui est la?\n  PUCELLE. Paysans, pauvres gens de France\n    Poor market-folks that come to sell their corn.\n  WATCH. Enter, go in; the market-bell is rung.\n  PUCELLE. Now, Rouen, I'll shake thy bulwarks to the\n    ground.\n\n                               [LA PUCELLE, &c., enter the town]\n\n        Enter CHARLES, BASTARD, ALENCON, REIGNIER, and forces\n\n  CHARLES. Saint Denis bless this happy stratagem!\n    And once again we'll sleep secure in Rouen.\n  BASTARD. Here ent'red Pucelle and her practisants;\n    Now she is there, how will she specify\n    Here is the best and safest passage in?\n  ALENCON. By thrusting out a torch from yonder tower;\n    Which once discern'd shows that her meaning is\n    No way to that, for weakness, which she ent'red.\n\n             Enter LA PUCELLE, on the top, thrusting out\n                         a torch burning\n\n  PUCELLE. Behold, this is the happy wedding torch\n    That joineth Rouen unto her countrymen,\n    But burning fatal to the Talbotites.                    Exit\n  BASTARD. See, noble Charles, the beacon of our friend;\n    The burning torch in yonder turret stands.\n  CHARLES. Now shine it like a comet of revenge,\n    A prophet to the fall of all our foes!\n  ALENCON. Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends;\n    Enter, and cry 'The Dauphin!' presently,\n    And then do execution on the watch. Alarum.           Exeunt\n\n              An alarum. Enter TALBOT in an excursion\n\n  TALBOT. France, thou shalt rue this treason with thy tears,\n    If Talbot but survive thy treachery.\n  PUCELLE, that witch, that damned sorceress,\n    Hath wrought this hellish mischief unawares,\n    That hardly we escap'd the pride of France.             Exit\n\n        An alarum; excursions. BEDFORD brought in sick in\n          a chair. Enter TALBOT and BURGUNDY without;\n         within, LA PUCELLE, CHARLES, BASTARD, ALENCON,\n                 and REIGNIER, on the walls\n\n  PUCELLE. Good morrow, gallants! Want ye corn for bread?\n    I think the Duke of Burgundy will fast\n    Before he'll buy again at such a rate.\n    'Twas full of darnel-do you like the taste?\n  BURGUNDY. Scoff on, vile fiend and shameless courtezan.\n    I trust ere long to choke thee with thine own,\n    And make thee curse the harvest of that corn.\n  CHARLES. Your Grace may starve, perhaps, before that time.\n  BEDFORD. O, let no words, but deeds, revenge this treason!\n  PUCELLE. What you do, good grey beard? Break a\n    lance,\n    And run a tilt at death within a chair?\n  TALBOT. Foul fiend of France and hag of all despite,\n    Encompass'd with thy lustful paramours,\n    Becomes it thee to taunt his valiant age\n    And twit with cowardice a man half dead?\n    Damsel, I'll have a bout with you again,\n    Or else let Talbot perish with this shame.\n  PUCELLE. Are ye so hot, sir? Yet, Pucelle, hold thy peace;\n    If Talbot do but thunder, rain will follow.\n                 [The English party whisper together in council]\n    God speed the parliament! Who shall be the Speaker?\n  TALBOT. Dare ye come forth and meet us in the field?\n  PUCELLE. Belike your lordship takes us then for fools,\n    To try if that our own be ours or no.\n  TALBOT. I speak not to that railing Hecate,\n    But unto thee, Alencon, and the rest.\n    Will ye, like soldiers, come and fight it out?\n  ALENCON. Signior, no.\n  TALBOT. Signior, hang! Base muleteers of France!\n    Like peasant foot-boys do they keep the walls,\n    And dare not take up arms like gentlemen.\n  PUCELLE. Away, captains! Let's get us from the walls;\n    For Talbot means no goodness by his looks.\n    God b'uy, my lord; we came but to tell you\n    That we are here.                      Exeunt from the walls\n  TALBOT. And there will we be too, ere it be long,\n    Or else reproach be Talbot's greatest fame!\n    Vow, Burgundy, by honour of thy house,\n    Prick'd on by public wrongs sustain'd in France,\n    Either to get the town again or die;\n    And I, as sure as English Henry lives\n    And as his father here was conqueror,\n    As sure as in this late betrayed town\n    Great Coeur-de-lion's heart was buried\n    So sure I swear to get the town or die.\n  BURGUNDY. My vows are equal partners with thy vows.\n  TALBOT. But ere we go, regard this dying prince,\n    The valiant Duke of Bedford. Come, my lord,\n    We will bestow you in some better place,\n    Fitter for sickness and for crazy age.\n  BEDFORD. Lord Talbot, do not so dishonour me;\n    Here will I sit before the walls of Rouen,\n    And will be partner of your weal or woe.\n  BURGUNDY. Courageous Bedford, let us now persuade you.\n  BEDFORD. Not to be gone from hence; for once I read\n    That stout Pendragon in his litter sick\n    Came to the field, and vanquished his foes.\n    Methinks I should revive the soldiers' hearts,\n    Because I ever found them as myself.\n  TALBOT. Undaunted spirit in a dying breast!\n    Then be it so. Heavens keep old Bedford safe!\n    And now no more ado, brave Burgundy,\n    But gather we our forces out of hand\n    And set upon our boasting enemy.\n          Exeunt against the town all but BEDFORD and attendants\n\n           An alarum; excursions. Enter SIR JOHN FASTOLFE,\n                           and a CAPTAIN\n\n  CAPTAIN. Whither away, Sir John Fastolfe, in such haste?\n  FASTOLFE. Whither away? To save myself by flight:\n    We are like to have the overthrow again.\n  CAPTAIN. What! Will you and leave Lord Talbot?\n  FASTOLFE. Ay,\n    All the Talbots in the world, to save my life.          Exit\n  CAPTAIN. Cowardly knight! ill fortune follow thee!\n                                              Exit into the town\n\n         Retreat; excursions. LA PUCELLE, ALENCON,\n                      and CHARLES fly\n\n  BEDFORD. Now, quiet soul, depart when heaven please,\n    For I have seen our enemies' overthrow.\n    What is the trust or strength of foolish man?\n    They that of late were daring with their scoffs\n    Are glad and fain by flight to save themselves.\n            [BEDFORD dies and is carried in by two in his chair]\n\n          An alarum. Re-enter TALBOT, BURGUNDY, and the rest\n\n  TALBOT. Lost and recovered in a day again!\n    This is a double honour, Burgundy.\n    Yet heavens have glory for this victory!\n  BURGUNDY. Warlike and martial Talbot, Burgundy\n    Enshrines thee in his heart, and there erects\n    Thy noble deeds as valour's monuments.\n  TALBOT. Thanks, gentle Duke. But where is Pucelle now?\n    I think her old familiar is asleep.\n    Now where's the Bastard's braves, and Charles his gleeks?\n    What, all amort? Rouen hangs her head for grief\n    That such a valiant company are fled.\n    Now will we take some order in the town,\n    Placing therein some expert officers;\n    And then depart to Paris to the King,\n    For there young Henry with his nobles lie.\n  BURGUNDY. What Lord Talbot pleaseth Burgundy.\n  TALBOT. But yet, before we go, let's not forget\n    The noble Duke of Bedford, late deceas'd,\n    But see his exequies fulfill'd in Rouen.\n    A braver soldier never couched lance,\n    A gentler heart did never sway in court;\n    But kings and mightiest potentates must die,\n    For that's the end of human misery.                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 3.\n\n                      The plains near Rouen\n\n        Enter CHARLES, the BASTARD, ALENCON, LA PUCELLE,\n                          and forces\n\n  PUCELLE. Dismay not, Princes, at this accident,\n    Nor grieve that Rouen is so recovered.\n    Care is no cure, but rather corrosive,\n    For things that are not to be remedied.\n    Let frantic Talbot triumph for a while\n    And like a peacock sweep along his tail;\n    We'll pull his plumes and take away his train,\n    If Dauphin and the rest will be but rul'd.\n  CHARLES. We have guided by thee hitherto,\n    And of thy cunning had no diffidence;\n    One sudden foil shall never breed distrust\n  BASTARD. Search out thy wit for secret policies,\n    And we will make thee famous through the world.\n    ALENCON. We'll set thy statue in some holy place,\n    And have thee reverenc'd like a blessed saint.\n    Employ thee, then, sweet virgin, for our good.\n  PUCELLE. Then thus it must be; this doth Joan devise:\n    By fair persuasions, mix'd with sug'red words,\n    We will entice the Duke of Burgundy\n    To leave the Talbot and to follow us.\n  CHARLES. Ay, marry, sweeting, if we could do that,\n    France were no place for Henry's warriors;\n    Nor should that nation boast it so with us,\n    But be extirped from our provinces.\n  ALENCON. For ever should they be expuls'd from France,\n    And not have tide of an earldom here.\n  PUCELLE. Your honours shall perceive how I will work\n    To bring this matter to the wished end.\n                                          [Drum sounds afar off]\n    Hark! by the sound of drum you may perceive\n    Their powers are marching unto Paris-ward.\n\n          Here sound an English march. Enter, and pass over\n                at a distance, TALBOT and his forces\n\n    There goes the Talbot, with his colours spread,\n    And all the troops of English after him.\n\n            French march. Enter the DUKE OF BURGUNDY and\n                         his forces\n\n    Now in the rearward comes the Duke and his.\n    Fortune in favour makes him lag behind.\n    Summon a parley; we will talk with him.\n                                       [Trumpets sound a parley]\n  CHARLES. A parley with the Duke of Burgundy!\n  BURGUNDY. Who craves a parley with the Burgundy?\n  PUCELLE. The princely Charles of France, thy countryman.\n  BURGUNDY. What say'st thou, Charles? for I am marching\n    hence.\n  CHARLES. Speak, Pucelle, and enchant him with thy words.\n  PUCELLE. Brave Burgundy, undoubted hope of France!\n    Stay, let thy humble handmaid speak to thee.\n  BURGUNDY. Speak on; but be not over-tedious.\n  PUCELLE. Look on thy country, look on fertile France,\n    And see the cities and the towns defac'd\n    By wasting ruin of the cruel foe;\n    As looks the mother on her lowly babe\n    When death doth close his tender dying eyes,\n    See, see the pining malady of France;\n    Behold the wounds, the most unnatural wounds,\n    Which thou thyself hast given her woeful breast.\n    O, turn thy edged sword another way;\n    Strike those that hurt, and hurt not those that help!\n    One drop of blood drawn from thy country's bosom\n    Should grieve thee more than streams of foreign gore.\n    Return thee therefore with a flood of tears,\n    And wash away thy country's stained spots.\n  BURGUNDY. Either she hath bewitch'd me with her words,\n    Or nature makes me suddenly relent.\n  PUCELLE. Besides, all French and France exclaims on thee,\n    Doubting thy birth and lawful progeny.\n    Who join'st thou with but with a lordly nation\n    That will not trust thee but for profit's sake?\n    When Talbot hath set footing once in France,\n    And fashion'd thee that instrument of ill,\n    Who then but English Henry will be lord,\n    And thou be thrust out like a fugitive?\n    Call we to mind-and mark but this for proof:\n    Was not the Duke of Orleans thy foe?\n    And was he not in England prisoner?\n    But when they heard he was thine enemy\n    They set him free without his ransom paid,\n    In spite of Burgundy and all his friends.\n    See then, thou fight'st against thy countrymen,\n    And join'st with them will be thy slaughtermen.\n    Come, come, return; return, thou wandering lord;\n    Charles and the rest will take thee in their arms.\n  BURGUNDY. I am vanquished; these haughty words of hers\n    Have batt'red me like roaring cannon-shot\n    And made me almost yield upon my knees.\n    Forgive me, country, and sweet countrymen\n    And, lords, accept this hearty kind embrace.\n    My forces and my power of men are yours;\n    So, farewell, Talbot; I'll no longer trust thee.\n  PUCELLE. Done like a Frenchman-  [Aside]  turn and turn\n    again.\n  CHARLES. Welcome, brave Duke! Thy friendship makes us\n    fresh.\n  BASTARD. And doth beget new courage in our breasts.\n  ALENCON. Pucelle hath bravely play'd her part in this,\n    And doth deserve a coronet of gold.\n  CHARLES. Now let us on, my lords, and join our powers,\n    And seek how we may prejudice the foe.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                          SCENE 4.\n\n                     Paris. The palace\n\n         Enter the KING, GLOUCESTER, WINCHESTER, YORK,\n             SUFFOLK, SOMERSET, WARWICK, EXETER,\n           VERNON, BASSET, and others. To them, with\n                     his soldiers, TALBOT\n\n  TALBOT. My gracious Prince, and honourable peers,\n    Hearing of your arrival in this realm,\n    I have awhile given truce unto my wars\n    To do my duty to my sovereign;\n    In sign whereof, this arm that hath reclaim'd\n    To your obedience fifty fortresses,\n    Twelve cities, and seven walled towns of strength,\n    Beside five hundred prisoners of esteem,\n    Lets fall his sword before your Highness' feet,\n    And with submissive loyalty of heart\n    Ascribes the glory of his conquest got\n    First to my God and next unto your Grace.           [Kneels]\n  KING HENRY. Is this the Lord Talbot, uncle Gloucester,\n    That hath so long been resident in France?\n  GLOUCESTER. Yes, if it please your Majesty, my liege.\n  KING HENRY. Welcome, brave captain and victorious lord!\n    When I was young, as yet I am not old,\n    I do remember how my father said\n    A stouter champion never handled sword.\n    Long since we were resolved of your truth,\n    Your faithful service, and your toil in war;\n    Yet never have you tasted our reward,\n    Or been reguerdon'd with so much as thanks,\n    Because till now we never saw your face.\n    Therefore stand up; and for these good deserts\n    We here create you Earl of Shrewsbury;\n    And in our coronation take your place.\n              Sennet. Flourish. Exeunt all but VERNON and BASSET\n  VERNON. Now, sir, to you, that were so hot at sea,\n    Disgracing of these colours that I wear\n    In honour of my noble Lord of York\n    Dar'st thou maintain the former words thou spak'st?\n  BASSET. Yes, sir; as well as you dare patronage\n    The envious barking of your saucy tongue\n    Against my lord the Duke of Somerset.\n  VERNON. Sirrah, thy lord I honour as he is.\n  BASSET. Why, what is he? As good a man as York!\n  VERNON. Hark ye: not so. In witness, take ye that.\n                                                   [Strikes him]\n  BASSET. Villain, thou knowest the law of arms is such\n    That whoso draws a sword 'tis present death,\n    Or else this blow should broach thy dearest blood.\n    But I'll unto his Majesty and crave\n    I may have liberty to venge this wrong;\n    When thou shalt see I'll meet thee to thy cost.\n  VERNON. Well, miscreant, I'll be there as soon as you;\n    And, after, meet you sooner than you would.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 1.\n\nPark. The palace\n\nEnter the KING, GLOUCESTER, WINCHESTER, YORK, SUFFOLK, SOMERSET, WARWICK,\nTALBOT, EXETER, the GOVERNOR OF PARIS, and others\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Lord Bishop, set the crown upon his head.\n  WINCHESTER. God save King Henry, of that name the Sixth!\n  GLOUCESTER. Now, Governor of Paris, take your oath\n                                               [GOVERNOR kneels]\n    That you elect no other king but him,\n    Esteem none friends but such as are his friends,\n    And none your foes but such as shall pretend\n    Malicious practices against his state.\n    This shall ye do, so help you righteous God!\n                                   Exeunt GOVERNOR and his train\n\n                    Enter SIR JOHN FASTOLFE\n\n  FASTOLFE. My gracious sovereign, as I rode from Calais,\n    To haste unto your coronation,\n    A letter was deliver'd to my hands,\n    Writ to your Grace from th' Duke of Burgundy.\n  TALBOT. Shame to the Duke of Burgundy and thee!\n    I vow'd, base knight, when I did meet thee next\n    To tear the Garter from thy craven's leg,  [Plucking it off]\n    Which I have done, because unworthily\n    Thou wast installed in that high degree.\n    Pardon me, princely Henry, and the rest:\n    This dastard, at the battle of Patay,\n    When but in all I was six thousand strong,\n    And that the French were almost ten to one,\n    Before we met or that a stroke was given,\n    Like to a trusty squire did run away;\n    In which assault we lost twelve hundred men;\n    Myself and divers gentlemen beside\n    Were there surpris'd and taken prisoners.\n    Then judge, great lords, if I have done amiss,\n    Or whether that such cowards ought to wear\n    This ornament of knighthood-yea or no.\n  GLOUCESTER. To say the truth, this fact was infamous\n    And ill beseeming any common man,\n    Much more a knight, a captain, and a leader.\n  TALBOT. When first this order was ordain'd, my lords,\n    Knights of the Garter were of noble birth,\n    Valiant and virtuous, full of haughty courage,\n    Such as were grown to credit by the wars;\n    Not fearing death nor shrinking for distress,\n    But always resolute in most extremes.\n    He then that is not furnish'd in this sort\n    Doth but usurp the sacred name of knight,\n    Profaning this most honourable order,\n    And should, if I were worthy to be judge,\n    Be quite degraded, like a hedge-born swain\n    That doth presume to boast of gentle blood.\n  KING HENRY. Stain to thy countrymen, thou hear'st thy\n    doom.\n    Be packing, therefore, thou that wast a knight;\n    Henceforth we banish thee on pain of death.\n                                                   Exit FASTOLFE\n    And now, my Lord Protector, view the letter\n    Sent from our uncle Duke of Burgundy.\n  GLOUCESTER.  [Viewing the superscription]  What means his\n    Grace, that he hath chang'd his style?\n    No more but plain and bluntly 'To the King!'\n    Hath he forgot he is his sovereign?\n    Or doth this churlish superscription\n    Pretend some alteration in good-will?\n    What's here?  [Reads]  'I have, upon especial cause,\n    Mov'd with compassion of my country's wreck,\n    Together with the pitiful complaints\n    Of such as your oppression feeds upon,\n    Forsaken your pernicious faction,\n    And join'd with Charles, the rightful King of France.'\n    O monstrous treachery! Can this be so\n    That in alliance, amity, and oaths,\n    There should be found such false dissembling guile?\n  KING HENRY. What! Doth my uncle Burgundy revolt?\n  GLOUCESTER. He doth, my lord, and is become your foe.\n  KING HENRY. Is that the worst this letter doth contain?\n  GLOUCESTER. It is the worst, and all, my lord, he writes.\n  KING HENRY. Why then Lord Talbot there shall talk with\n    him\n    And give him chastisement for this abuse.\n    How say you, my lord, are you not content?\n  TALBOT. Content, my liege! Yes; but that I am prevented,\n    I should have begg'd I might have been employ'd.\n  KING HENRY. Then gather strength and march unto him\n    straight;\n    Let him perceive how ill we brook his treason.\n    And what offence it is to flout his friends.\n  TALBOT. I go, my lord, in heart desiring still\n    You may behold confusion of your foes.                  Exit\n\n                       Enter VERNON and BASSET\n\n  VERNON. Grant me the combat, gracious sovereign.\n  BASSET. And me, my lord, grant me the combat too.\n  YORK. This is my servant: hear him, noble Prince.\n  SOMERSET. And this is mine: sweet Henry, favour him.\n  KING HENRY. Be patient, lords, and give them leave to speak.\n    Say, gentlemen, what makes you thus exclaim,\n    And wherefore crave you combat, or with whom?\n  VERNON. With him, my lord; for he hath done me wrong.\n  BASSET. And I with him; for he hath done me wrong.\n  KING HENRY. What is that wrong whereof you both\n    complain? First let me know, and then I'll answer you.\n  BASSET. Crossing the sea from England into France,\n    This fellow here, with envious carping tongue,\n    Upbraided me about the rose I wear,\n    Saying the sanguine colour of the leaves\n    Did represent my master's blushing cheeks\n    When stubbornly he did repugn the truth\n    About a certain question in the law\n    Argu'd betwixt the Duke of York and him;\n    With other vile and ignominious terms\n    In confutation of which rude reproach\n    And in defence of my lord's worthiness,\n    I crave the benefit of law of arms.\n  VERNON. And that is my petition, noble lord;\n    For though he seem with forged quaint conceit\n    To set a gloss upon his bold intent,\n    Yet know, my lord, I was provok'd by him,\n    And he first took exceptions at this badge,\n    Pronouncing that the paleness of this flower\n    Bewray'd the faintness of my master's heart.\n  YORK. Will not this malice, Somerset, be left?\n  SOMERSET. Your private grudge, my Lord of York, will out,\n    Though ne'er so cunningly you smother it.\n  KING HENRY. Good Lord, what madness rules in brainsick\n    men, When for so slight and frivolous a cause\n    Such factious emulations shall arise!\n    Good cousins both, of York and Somerset,\n    Quiet yourselves, I pray, and be at peace.\n  YORK. Let this dissension first be tried by fight,\n    And then your Highness shall command a peace.\n  SOMERSET. The quarrel toucheth none but us alone;\n    Betwixt ourselves let us decide it then.\n  YORK. There is my pledge; accept it, Somerset.\n  VERNON. Nay, let it rest where it began at first.\n  BASSET. Confirm it so, mine honourable lord.\n  GLOUCESTER. Confirm it so? Confounded be your strife;\n    And perish ye, with your audacious prate!\n    Presumptuous vassals, are you not asham'd\n    With this immodest clamorous outrage\n    To trouble and disturb the King and us?\n    And you, my lords- methinks you do not well\n    To bear with their perverse objections,\n    Much less to take occasion from their mouths\n    To raise a mutiny betwixt yourselves.\n    Let me persuade you take a better course.\n  EXETER. It grieves his Highness. Good my lords, be friends.\n  KING HENRY. Come hither, you that would be combatants:\n    Henceforth I charge you, as you love our favour,\n    Quite to forget this quarrel and the cause.\n    And you, my lords, remember where we are:\n    In France, amongst a fickle wavering nation;\n    If they perceive dissension in our looks\n    And that within ourselves we disagree,\n    How will their grudging stomachs be provok'd\n    To wilful disobedience, and rebel!\n    Beside, what infamy will there arise\n    When foreign princes shall be certified\n    That for a toy, a thing of no regard,\n    King Henry's peers and chief nobility\n    Destroy'd themselves and lost the realm of France!\n    O, think upon the conquest of my father,\n    My tender years; and let us not forgo\n    That for a trifle that was bought with blood!\n    Let me be umpire in this doubtful strife.\n    I see no reason, if I wear this rose,\n                                         [Putting on a red rose]\n    That any one should therefore be suspicious\n    I more incline to Somerset than York:\n    Both are my kinsmen, and I love them both.\n    As well they may upbraid me with my crown,\n    Because, forsooth, the King of Scots is crown'd.\n    But your discretions better can persuade\n    Than I am able to instruct or teach;\n    And, therefore, as we hither came in peace,\n    So let us still continue peace and love.\n    Cousin of York, we institute your Grace\n    To be our Regent in these parts of France.\n    And, good my Lord of Somerset, unite\n    Your troops of horsemen with his bands of foot;\n    And like true subjects, sons of your progenitors,\n    Go cheerfully together and digest\n    Your angry choler on your enemies.\n    Ourself, my Lord Protector, and the rest,\n    After some respite will return to Calais;\n    From thence to England, where I hope ere long\n    To be presented by your victories\n    With Charles, Alencon, and that traitorous rout.\n                         Flourish. Exeunt all but YORK, WARWICK,\n                                                  EXETER, VERNON\n  WARWICK. My Lord of York, I promise you, the King\n    Prettily, methought, did play the orator.\n  YORK. And so he did; but yet I like it not,\n    In that he wears the badge of Somerset.\n  WARWICK. Tush, that was but his fancy; blame him not;\n    I dare presume, sweet prince, he thought no harm.\n  YORK. An if I wist he did-but let it rest;\n    Other affairs must now be managed.\n                                           Exeunt all but EXETER\n  EXETER. Well didst thou, Richard, to suppress thy voice;\n    For had the passions of thy heart burst out,\n    I fear we should have seen decipher'd there\n    More rancorous spite, more furious raging broils,\n    Than yet can be imagin'd or suppos'd.\n    But howsoe'er, no simple man that sees\n    This jarring discord of nobility,\n    This shouldering of each other in the court,\n    This factious bandying of their favourites,\n    But that it doth presage some ill event.\n    'Tis much when sceptres are in children's hands;\n    But more when envy breeds unkind division:\n    There comes the ruin, there begins confusion.           Exit\n\n\n\n\n                               SCENE 2.\n\n                        France. Before Bordeaux\n\n                   Enter TALBOT, with trump and drum\n\n  TALBOT. Go to the gates of Bordeaux, trumpeter;\n    Summon their general unto the wall.\n\n             Trumpet sounds a parley. Enter, aloft, the\n                 GENERAL OF THE FRENCH, and others\n\n    English John Talbot, Captains, calls you forth,\n    Servant in arms to Harry King of England;\n    And thus he would open your city gates,\n    Be humble to us, call my sovereignvours\n    And do him homage as obedient subjects,\n    And I'll withdraw me and my bloody power;\n    But if you frown upon this proffer'd peace,\n    You tempt the fury of my three attendants,\n    Lean famine, quartering steel, and climbing fire;\n    Who in a moment even with the earth\n    Shall lay your stately and air braving towers,\n    If you forsake the offer of their love.\n  GENERAL OF THE FRENCH. Thou ominous and fearful owl of\n    death,\n    Our nation's terror and their bloody scourge!\n    The period of thy tyranny approacheth.\n    On us thou canst not enter but by death;\n    For, I protest, we are well fortified,\n    And strong enough to issue out and fight.\n    If thou retire, the Dauphin, well appointed,\n    Stands with the snares of war to tangle thee.\n    On either hand thee there are squadrons pitch'd\n    To wall thee from the liberty of flight,\n    And no way canst thou turn thee for redress\n    But death doth front thee with apparent spoil\n    And pale destruction meets thee in the face.\n    Ten thousand French have ta'en the sacrament\n    To rive their dangerous artillery\n    Upon no Christian soul but English Talbot.\n    Lo, there thou stand'st, a breathing valiant man,\n    Of an invincible unconquer'd spirit!\n    This is the latest glory of thy praise\n    That I, thy enemy, due thee withal;\n    For ere the glass that now begins to run\n    Finish the process of his sandy hour,\n    These eyes that see thee now well coloured\n    Shall see thee withered, bloody, pale, and dead.\n                                                 [Drum afar off]\n    Hark! hark! The Dauphin's drum, a warning bell,\n    Sings heavy music to thy timorous soul;\n    And mine shall ring thy dire departure out.             Exit\n  TALBOT. He fables not; I hear the enemy.\n    Out, some light horsemen, and peruse their wings.\n    O, negligent and heedless discipline!\n    How are we park'd and bounded in a pale\n    A little herd of England's timorous deer,\n    Maz'd with a yelping kennel of French curs!\n    If we be English deer, be then in blood;\n    Not rascal-like to fall down with a pinch,\n    But rather, moody-mad and desperate stags,\n    Turn on the bloody hounds with heads of steel\n    And make the cowards stand aloof at bay.\n    Sell every man his life as dear as mine,\n    And they shall find dear deer of us, my friends.\n    God and Saint George, Talbot and England's right,\n    Prosper our colours in this dangerous fight!          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                          SCENE 3.\n\n                      Plains in Gascony\n\n        Enter YORK, with trumpet and many soldiers. A\n                   MESSENGER meets him\n\n  YORK. Are not the speedy scouts return'd again\n    That dogg'd the mighty army of the Dauphin?\n  MESSENGER. They are return'd, my lord, and give it out\n    That he is march'd to Bordeaux with his power\n    To fight with Talbot; as he march'd along,\n    By your espials were discovered\n    Two mightier troops than that the Dauphin led,\n    Which join'd with him and made their march for\n    Bordeaux.\n  YORK. A plague upon that villain Somerset\n    That thus delays my promised supply\n    Of horsemen that were levied for this siege!\n    Renowned Talbot doth expect my aid,\n    And I am louted by a traitor villain\n    And cannot help the noble chevalier.\n    God comfort him in this necessity!\n    If he miscarry, farewell wars in France.\n\n                      Enter SIR WILLIAM LUCY\n\n  LUCY. Thou princely leader of our English strength,\n    Never so needful on the earth of France,\n    Spur to the rescue of the noble Talbot,\n    Who now is girdled with a waist of iron\n    And hemm'd about with grim destruction.\n    To Bordeaux, warlike Duke! to Bordeaux, York!\n    Else, farewell Talbot, France, and England's honour.\n  YORK. O God, that Somerset, who in proud heart\n    Doth stop my cornets, were in Talbot's place!\n    So should we save a valiant gentleman\n    By forfeiting a traitor and a coward.\n    Mad ire and wrathful fury makes me weep\n    That thus we die while remiss traitors sleep.\n  LUCY. O, send some succour to the distress'd lord!\n  YORK. He dies; we lose; I break my warlike word.\n    We mourn: France smiles. We lose: they daily get-\n    All long of this vile traitor Somerset.\n  LUCY. Then God take mercy on brave Talbot's soul,\n    And on his son, young John, who two hours since\n    I met in travel toward his warlike father.\n    This seven years did not Talbot see his son;\n    And now they meet where both their lives are done.\n  YORK. Alas, what joy shall noble Talbot have\n    To bid his young son welcome to his grave?\n    Away! vexation almost stops my breath,\n    That sund'red friends greet in the hour of death.\n    Lucy, farewell; no more my fortune can\n    But curse the cause I cannot aid the man.\n    Maine, Blois, Poictiers, and Tours, are won away\n    Long all of Somerset and his delay.         Exit with forces\n  LUCY. Thus, while the vulture of sedition\n    Feeds in the bosom of such great commanders,\n    Sleeping neglection doth betray to loss\n    The conquest of our scarce cold conqueror,\n    That ever-living man of memory,\n    Henry the Fifth. Whiles they each other cross,\n    Lives, honours, lands, and all, hurry to loss.          Exit\n\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 4.\n\n                     Other plains of Gascony\n\n        Enter SOMERSET, With his forces; an OFFICER of\n                     TALBOT'S with him\n\n  SOMERSET. It is too late; I cannot send them now.\n    This expedition was by York and Talbot\n    Too rashly plotted; all our general force\n    Might with a sally of the very town\n    Be buckled with. The over daring Talbot\n    Hath sullied all his gloss of former honour\n    By this unheedful, desperate, wild adventure.\n    York set him on to fight and die in shame.\n    That, Talbot dead, great York might bear the name.\n  OFFICER. Here is Sir William Lucy, who with me\n    Set from our o'er-match'd forces forth for aid.\n\n                       Enter SIR WILLIAM LUCY\n\n  SOMERSET. How now, Sir William! Whither were you sent?\n  LUCY. Whither, my lord! From bought and sold Lord\n    Talbot,\n    Who, ring'd about with bold adversity,\n    Cries out for noble York and Somerset\n    To beat assailing death from his weak legions;\n    And whiles the honourable captain there\n    Drops bloody sweat from his war-wearied limbs\n    And, in advantage ling'ring, looks for rescue,\n    You, his false hopes, the trust of England's honour,\n    Keep off aloof with worthless emulation.\n    Let not your private discord keep away\n    The levied succours that should lend him aid,\n    While he, renowned noble gentleman,\n    Yield up his life unto a world of odds.\n    Orleans the Bastard, Charles, Burgundy,\n    Alencon, Reignier, compass him about,\n    And Talbot perisheth by your default.\n  SOMERSET. York set him on; York should have sent him aid.\n  LUCY. And York as fast upon your Grace exclaims,\n    Swearing that you withhold his levied host,\n    Collected for this expedition.\n  SOMERSET. York lies; he might have sent and had the horse.\n    I owe him little duty and less love,\n    And take foul scorn to fawn on him by sending.\n  LUCY. The fraud of England, not the force of France,\n    Hath now entrapp'd the noble minded Talbot.\n    Never to England shall he bear his life,\n    But dies betray'd to fortune by your strife.\n  SOMERSET. Come, go; I will dispatch the horsemen straight;\n    Within six hours they will be at his aid.\n  LUCY. Too late comes rescue; he is ta'en or slain,\n    For fly he could not if he would have fled;\n    And fly would Talbot never, though he might.\n  SOMERSET. If he be dead, brave Talbot, then, adieu!\n  LUCY. His fame lives in the world, his shame in you.       Exeunt\n\n\n                               SCENE 5.\n\n                   The English camp near Bordeaux\n\n                    Enter TALBOT and JOHN his son\n\n  TALBOT. O young John Talbot! I did send for thee\n    To tutor thee in stratagems of war,\n    That Talbot's name might be in thee reviv'd\n    When sapless age and weak unable limbs\n    Should bring thy father to his drooping chair.\n    But, O malignant and ill-boding stars!\n    Now thou art come unto a feast of death,\n    A terrible and unavoided danger;\n    Therefore, dear boy, mount on my swiftest horse,\n    And I'll direct thee how thou shalt escape\n    By sudden flight. Come, dally not, be gone.\n  JOHN. Is my name Talbot, and am I your son?\n    And shall I fly? O, if you love my mother,\n    Dishonour not her honourable name,\n    To make a bastard and a slave of me!\n    The world will say he is not Talbot's blood\n    That basely fled when noble Talbot stood.\n  TALBOT. Fly to revenge my death, if I be slain.\n  JOHN. He that flies so will ne'er return again.\n  TALBOT. If we both stay, we both are sure to die.\n  JOHN. Then let me stay; and, father, do you fly.\n    Your loss is great, so your regard should be;\n    My worth unknown, no loss is known in me;\n    Upon my death the French can little boast;\n    In yours they will, in you all hopes are lost.\n    Flight cannot stain the honour you have won;\n    But mine it will, that no exploit have done;\n    You fled for vantage, every one will swear;\n    But if I bow, they'll say it was for fear.\n    There is no hope that ever I will stay\n    If the first hour I shrink and run away.\n    Here, on my knee, I beg mortality,\n    Rather than life preserv'd with infamy.\n  TALBOT. Shall all thy mother's hopes lie in one tomb?\n  JOHN. Ay, rather than I'll shame my mother's womb.\n  TALBOT. Upon my blessing I command thee go.\n  JOHN. To fight I will, but not to fly the foe.\n  TALBOT. Part of thy father may be sav'd in thee.\n  JOHN. No part of him but will be shame in me.\n  TALBOT. Thou never hadst renown, nor canst not lose it.\n  JOHN. Yes, your renowned name; shall flight abuse it?\n  TALBOT. Thy father's charge shall clear thee from that stain.\n  JOHN. You cannot witness for me, being slain.\n    If death be so apparent, then both fly.\n  TALBOT. And leave my followers here to fight and die?\n    My age was never tainted with such shame.\n  JOHN. And shall my youth be guilty of such blame?\n    No more can I be severed from your side\n    Than can yourself yourself yourself in twain divide.\n    Stay, go, do what you will, the like do I;\n    For live I will not if my father die.\n  TALBOT. Then here I take my leave of thee, fair son,\n    Born to eclipse thy life this afternoon.\n    Come, side by side together live and die;\n    And soul with soul from France to heaven fly.         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 6.\n\n                         A field of battle\n\n         Alarum: excursions wherein JOHN TALBOT is hemm'd\n                  about, and TALBOT rescues him\n\n  TALBOT. Saint George and victory! Fight, soldiers, fight.\n    The Regent hath with Talbot broke his word\n    And left us to the rage of France his sword.\n    Where is John Talbot? Pause and take thy breath;\n    I gave thee life and rescu'd thee from death.\n  JOHN. O, twice my father, twice am I thy son!\n    The life thou gav'st me first was lost and done\n    Till with thy warlike sword, despite of fate,\n    To my determin'd time thou gav'st new date.\n  TALBOT. When from the Dauphin's crest thy sword struck\n    fire,\n    It warm'd thy father's heart with proud desire\n    Of bold-fac'd victory. Then leaden age,\n    Quicken'd with youthful spleen and warlike rage,\n    Beat down Alencon, Orleans, Burgundy,\n    And from the pride of Gallia rescued thee.\n    The ireful bastard Orleans, that drew blood\n    From thee, my boy, and had the maidenhood\n    Of thy first fight, I soon encountered\n    And, interchanging blows, I quickly shed\n    Some of his bastard blood; and in disgrace\n    Bespoke him thus: 'Contaminated, base,\n    And misbegotten blood I spill of thine,\n    Mean and right poor, for that pure blood of mine\n    Which thou didst force from Talbot, my brave boy.'\n    Here purposing the Bastard to destroy,\n    Came in strong rescue. Speak, thy father's care;\n    Art thou not weary, John? How dost thou fare?\n    Wilt thou yet leave the battle, boy, and fly,\n    Now thou art seal'd the son of chivalry?\n    Fly, to revenge my death when I am dead:\n    The help of one stands me in little stead.\n    O, too much folly is it, well I wot,\n    To hazard all our lives in one small boat!\n    If I to-day die not with Frenchmen's rage,\n    To-morrow I shall die with mickle age.\n    By me they nothing gain an if I stay:\n    'Tis but the short'ning of my life one day.\n    In thee thy mother dies, our household's name,\n    My death's revenge, thy youth, and England's fame.\n    All these and more we hazard by thy stay;\n    All these are sav'd if thou wilt fly away.\n  JOHN. The sword of Orleans hath not made me smart;\n    These words of yours draw life-blood from my heart.\n    On that advantage, bought with such a shame,\n    To save a paltry life and slay bright fame,\n    Before young Talbot from old Talbot fly,\n    The coward horse that bears me fall and die!\n    And like me to the peasant boys of France,\n    To be shame's scorn and subject of mischance!\n    Surely, by all the glory you have won,\n    An if I fly, I am not Talbot's son;\n    Then talk no more of flight, it is no boot;\n    If son to Talbot, die at Talbot's foot.\n  TALBOT. Then follow thou thy desp'rate sire of Crete,\n    Thou Icarus; thy life to me is sweet.\n    If thou wilt fight, fight by thy father's side;\n    And, commendable prov'd, let's die in pride.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                               SCENE 7.\n\n                      Another part of the field\n\n       Alarum; excursions. Enter old TALBOT led by a SERVANT\n\n  TALBOT. Where is my other life? Mine own is gone.\n    O, where's young Talbot? Where is valiant John?\n    Triumphant death, smear'd with captivity,\n    Young Talbot's valour makes me smile at thee.\n    When he perceiv'd me shrink and on my knee,\n    His bloody sword he brandish'd over me,\n    And like a hungry lion did commence\n    Rough deeds of rage and stern impatience;\n    But when my angry guardant stood alone,\n    Tend'ring my ruin and assail'd of none,\n    Dizzy-ey'd fury and great rage of heart\n    Suddenly made him from my side to start\n    Into the clust'ring battle of the French;\n    And in that sea of blood my boy did drench\n    His overmounting spirit; and there died,\n    My Icarus, my blossom, in his pride.\n\n         Enter soldiers, bearing the body of JOHN TALBOT\n\n  SERVANT. O my dear lord, lo where your son is borne!\n  TALBOT. Thou antic Death, which laugh'st us here to scorn,\n    Anon, from thy insulting tyranny,\n    Coupled in bonds of perpetuity,\n    Two Talbots, winged through the lither sky,\n    In thy despite shall scape mortality.\n    O thou whose wounds become hard-favoured Death,\n    Speak to thy father ere thou yield thy breath!\n    Brave Death by speaking, whether he will or no;\n    Imagine him a Frenchman and thy foe.\n    Poor boy! he smiles, methinks, as who should say,\n    Had Death been French, then Death had died to-day.\n    Come, come, and lay him in his father's arms.\n    My spirit can no longer bear these harms.\n    Soldiers, adieu! I have what I would have,\n    Now my old arms are young John Talbot's grave.        [Dies]\n\n            Enter CHARLES, ALENCON, BURGUNDY, BASTARD,\n                     LA PUCELLE, and forces\n\n  CHARLES. Had York and Somerset brought rescue in,\n    We should have found a bloody day of this.\n  BASTARD. How the young whelp of Talbot's, raging wood,\n    Did flesh his puny sword in Frenchmen's blood!\n  PUCELLE. Once I encount'red him, and thus I said:\n    'Thou maiden youth, be vanquish'd by a maid.'\n    But with a proud majestical high scorn\n    He answer'd thus: 'Young Talbot was not born\n    To be the pillage of a giglot wench.'\n    So, rushing in the bowels of the French,\n    He left me proudly, as unworthy fight.\n  BURGUNDY. Doubtless he would have made a noble knight.\n    See where he lies inhearsed in the arms\n    Of the most bloody nurser of his harms!\n  BASTARD. Hew them to pieces, hack their bones asunder,\n    Whose life was England's glory, Gallia's wonder.\n  CHARLES. O, no; forbear! For that which we have fled\n    During the life, let us not wrong it dead.\n\n            Enter SIR WILLIAM Lucy, attended; a FRENCH\n                         HERALD preceding\n\n  LUCY. Herald, conduct me to the Dauphin's tent,\n    To know who hath obtain'd the glory of the day.\n  CHARLES. On what submissive message art thou sent?\n  LUCY. Submission, Dauphin! 'Tis a mere French word:\n    We English warriors wot not what it means.\n    I come to know what prisoners thou hast ta'en,\n    And to survey the bodies of the dead.\n  CHARLES. For prisoners ask'st thou? Hell our prison is.\n    But tell me whom thou seek'st.\n  LUCY. But where's the great Alcides of the field,\n    Valiant Lord Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury,\n    Created for his rare success in arms\n    Great Earl of Washford, Waterford, and Valence,\n    Lord Talbot of Goodrig and Urchinfield,\n    Lord Strange of Blackmere, Lord Verdun of Alton,\n    Lord Cromwell of Wingfield, Lord Furnival of Sheffield,\n    The thrice victorious Lord of Falconbridge,\n    Knight of the noble order of Saint George,\n    Worthy Saint Michael, and the Golden Fleece,\n    Great Marshal to Henry the Sixth\n    Of all his wars within the realm of France?\n  PUCELLE. Here's a silly-stately style indeed!\n    The Turk, that two and fifty kingdoms hath,\n    Writes not so tedious a style as this.\n    Him that thou magnifi'st with all these tides,\n    Stinking and fly-blown lies here at our feet.\n  LUCY. Is Talbot slain-the Frenchmen's only scourge,\n    Your kingdom's terror and black Nemesis?\n    O, were mine eye-bans into bullets turn'd,\n    That I in rage might shoot them at your faces!\n    O that I could but can these dead to life!\n    It were enough to fright the realm of France.\n    Were but his picture left amongst you here,\n    It would amaze the proudest of you all.\n    Give me their bodies, that I may bear them hence\n    And give them burial as beseems their worth.\n  PUCELLE. I think this upstart is old Talbot's ghost,\n    He speaks with such a proud commanding spirit.\n    For God's sake, let him have them; to keep them here,\n    They would but stink, and putrefy the air.\n  CHARLES. Go, take their bodies hence.\n  LUCY. I'll bear them hence; but from their ashes shall be\n    rear'd\n    A phoenix that shall make all France afeard.\n  CHARLES. So we be rid of them, do with them what thou\n    wilt.\n    And now to Paris in this conquering vein!\n    All will be ours, now bloody Talbot's slain.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 1.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nSennet. Enter the KING, GLOUCESTER, and EXETER\n\n  KING HENRY. Have you perus'd the letters from the Pope,\n    The Emperor, and the Earl of Armagnac?\n  GLOUCESTER. I have, my lord; and their intent is this:\n    They humbly sue unto your Excellence\n    To have a godly peace concluded of\n    Between the realms of England and of France.\n  KING HENRY. How doth your Grace affect their motion?\n  GLOUCESTER. Well, my good lord, and as the only means\n    To stop effusion of our Christian blood\n    And stablish quietness on every side.\n  KING HENRY. Ay, marry, uncle; for I always thought\n    It was both impious and unnatural\n    That such immanity and bloody strife\n    Should reign among professors of one faith.\n  GLOUCESTER. Beside, my lord, the sooner to effect\n    And surer bind this knot of amity,\n    The Earl of Armagnac, near knit to Charles,\n    A man of great authority in France,\n    Proffers his only daughter to your Grace\n    In marriage, with a large and sumptuous dowry.\n  KING HENRY. Marriage, uncle! Alas, my years are young\n    And fitter is my study and my books\n    Than wanton dalliance with a paramour.\n    Yet call th' ambassadors, and, as you please,\n    So let them have their answers every one.\n    I shall be well content with any choice\n    Tends to God's glory and my country's weal.\n\n                   Enter in Cardinal's habit\n        BEAUFORT, the PAPAL LEGATE, and two AMBASSADORS\n\n  EXETER. What! Is my Lord of Winchester install'd\n    And call'd unto a cardinal's degree?\n    Then I perceive that will be verified\n    Henry the Fifth did sometime prophesy:\n    'If once he come to be a cardinal,\n    He'll make his cap co-equal with the crown.'\n  KING HENRY. My Lords Ambassadors, your several suits\n    Have been consider'd and debated on.\n    Your purpose is both good and reasonable,\n    And therefore are we certainly resolv'd\n    To draw conditions of a friendly peace,\n    Which by my Lord of Winchester we mean\n    Shall be transported presently to France.\n  GLOUCESTER. And for the proffer of my lord your master,\n    I have inform'd his Highness so at large,\n    As, liking of the lady's virtuous gifts,\n    Her beauty, and the value of her dower,\n    He doth intend she shall be England's Queen.\n  KING HENRY.  [To AMBASSADOR]  In argument and proof of\n    which contract,\n    Bear her this jewel, pledge of my affection.\n    And so, my Lord Protector, see them guarded\n    And safely brought to Dover; where inshipp'd,\n    Commit them to the fortune of the sea.\n\n                        Exeunt all but WINCHESTER and the LEGATE\n  WINCHESTER. Stay, my Lord Legate; you shall first receive\n    The sum of money which I promised\n    Should be delivered to his Holiness\n    For clothing me in these grave ornaments.\n  LEGATE. I will attend upon your lordship's leisure.\n  WINCHESTER.  [Aside]  Now Winchester will not submit, I\n    trow,\n    Or be inferior to the proudest peer.\n    Humphrey of Gloucester, thou shalt well perceive\n    That neither in birth or for authority\n    The Bishop will be overborne by thee.\n    I'll either make thee stoop and bend thy knee,\n    Or sack this country with a mutiny.                   Exeunt\n\n\n                              SCENE 2.\n\n                       France. Plains in Anjou\n\n              Enter CHARLES, BURGUNDY, ALENCON, BASTARD,\n                   REIGNIER, LA PUCELLE, and forces\n\n  CHARLES. These news, my lords, may cheer our drooping\n    spirits:\n    'Tis said the stout Parisians do revolt\n    And turn again unto the warlike French.\n  ALENCON. Then march to Paris, royal Charles of France,\n    And keep not back your powers in dalliance.\n  PUCELLE. Peace be amongst them, if they turn to us;\n    Else ruin combat with their palaces!\n\n                            Enter a SCOUT\n\n  SCOUT. Success unto our valiant general,\n    And happiness to his accomplices!\n  CHARLES. What tidings send our scouts? I prithee speak.\n  SCOUT. The English army, that divided was\n    Into two parties, is now conjoin'd in one,\n    And means to give you battle presently.\n  CHARLES. Somewhat too sudden, sirs, the warning is;\n    But we will presently provide for them.\n  BURGUNDY. I trust the ghost of Talbot is not there.\n    Now he is gone, my lord, you need not fear.\n  PUCELLE. Of all base passions fear is most accurs'd.\n    Command the conquest, Charles, it shall be thine,\n    Let Henry fret and all the world repine.\n  CHARLES. Then on, my lords; and France be fortunate!\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                            SCENE 3.\n\n                         Before Angiers\n\n              Alarum, excursions. Enter LA PUCELLE\n\n  PUCELLE. The Regent conquers and the Frenchmen fly.\n    Now help, ye charming spells and periapts;\n    And ye choice spirits that admonish me\n    And give me signs of future accidents;             [Thunder]\n    You speedy helpers that are substitutes\n    Under the lordly monarch of the north,\n    Appear and aid me in this enterprise!\n\n                          Enter FIENDS\n\n    This speedy and quick appearance argues proof\n    Of your accustom'd diligence to me.\n    Now, ye familiar spirits that are cull'd\n    Out of the powerful regions under earth,\n    Help me this once, that France may get the field.\n                                       [They walk and speak not]\n    O, hold me not with silence over-long!\n    Where I was wont to feed you with my blood,\n    I'll lop a member off and give it you\n    In earnest of a further benefit,\n    So you do condescend to help me now.\n                                         [They hang their heads]\n    No hope to have redress? My body shall\n    Pay recompense, if you will grant my suit.\n                                        [They shake their heads]\n    Cannot my body nor blood sacrifice\n    Entreat you to your wonted furtherance?\n    Then take my soul-my body, soul, and all,\n    Before that England give the French the foil.\n                                                   [They depart]\n    See! they forsake me. Now the time is come\n    That France must vail her lofty-plumed crest\n    And let her head fall into England's lap.\n    My ancient incantations are too weak,\n    And hell too strong for me to buckle with.\n    Now, France, thy glory droopeth to the dust.            Exit\n\n          Excursions. Enter French and English, fighting.\n         LA PUCELLE and YORK fight hand to hand; LA PUCELLE\n                    is taken. The French fly\n\n  YORK. Damsel of France, I think I have you fast.\n    Unchain your spirits now with spelling charms,\n    And try if they can gain your liberty.\n    A goodly prize, fit for the devil's grace!\n    See how the ugly witch doth bend her brows\n    As if, with Circe, she would change my shape!\n  PUCELLE. Chang'd to a worser shape thou canst not be.\n  YORK. O, Charles the Dauphin is a proper man:\n    No shape but his can please your dainty eye.\n  PUCELLE. A plaguing mischief fight on Charles and thee!\n    And may ye both be suddenly surpris'd\n    By bloody hands, in sleeping on your beds!\n  YORK. Fell banning hag; enchantress, hold thy tongue.\n  PUCELLE. I prithee give me leave to curse awhile.\n  YORK. Curse, miscreant, when thou comest to the stake.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n          Alarum. Enter SUFFOLK, with MARGARET in his hand\n\n  SUFFOLK. Be what thou wilt, thou art my prisoner.\n                                                  [Gazes on her]\n    O fairest beauty, do not fear nor fly!\n    For I will touch thee but with reverent hands;\n    I kiss these fingers for eternal peace,\n    And lay them gently on thy tender side.\n    Who art thou? Say, that I may honour thee.\n  MARGARET. Margaret my name, and daughter to a king,\n    The King of Naples-whosoe'er thou art.\n  SUFFOLK. An earl I am, and Suffolk am I call'd.\n    Be not offended, nature's miracle,\n    Thou art allotted to be ta'en by me.\n    So doth the swan her downy cygnets save,\n    Keeping them prisoner underneath her wings.\n    Yet, if this servile usage once offend,\n    Go and be free again as Suffolk's friend.     [She is going]\n    O, stay!  [Aside]  I have no power to let her pass;\n    My hand would free her, but my heart says no.\n    As plays the sun upon the glassy streams,\n    Twinkling another counterfeited beam,\n    So seems this gorgeous beauty to mine eyes.\n    Fain would I woo her, yet I dare not speak.\n    I'll call for pen and ink, and write my mind.\n    Fie, de la Pole! disable not thyself;\n    Hast not a tongue? Is she not here thy prisoner?\n    Wilt thou be daunted at a woman's sight?\n    Ay, beauty's princely majesty is such\n    Confounds the tongue and makes the senses rough.\n  MARGARET. Say, Earl of Suffolk, if thy name be so,\n    What ransom must I pay before I pass?\n    For I perceive I am thy prisoner.\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  How canst thou tell she will deny thy\n    suit,\n    Before thou make a trial of her love?\n  MARGARET. Why speak'st thou not? What ransom must I\n    pay?\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  She's beautiful, and therefore to be woo'd;\n    She is a woman, therefore to be won.\n  MARGARET. Wilt thou accept of ransom-yea or no?\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  Fond man, remember that thou hast a\n    wife;\n    Then how can Margaret be thy paramour?\n  MARGARET. I were best leave him, for he will not hear.\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  There all is marr'd; there lies a cooling\n    card.\n  MARGARET. He talks at random; sure, the man is mad.\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  And yet a dispensation may be had.\n  MARGARET. And yet I would that you would answer me.\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  I'll win this Lady Margaret. For whom?\n    Why, for my King! Tush, that's a wooden thing!\n  MARGARET. He talks of wood. It is some carpenter.\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  Yet so my fancy may be satisfied,\n    And peace established between these realms.\n    But there remains a scruple in that too;\n    For though her father be the King of Naples,\n    Duke of Anjou and Maine, yet is he poor,\n    And our nobility will scorn the match.\n  MARGARET. Hear ye, Captain-are you not at leisure?\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  It shall be so, disdain they ne'er so much.\n    Henry is youthful, and will quickly yield.\n    Madam, I have a secret to reveal.\n  MARGARET.  [Aside]  What though I be enthrall'd? He seems\n    a knight,\n    And will not any way dishonour me.\n  SUFFOLK. Lady, vouchsafe to listen what I say.\n  MARGARET.  [Aside]  Perhaps I shall be rescu'd by the French;\n    And then I need not crave his courtesy.\n  SUFFOLK. Sweet madam, give me hearing in a cause\n  MARGARET.  [Aside]  Tush! women have been captivate ere\n    now.\n  SUFFOLK. Lady, wherefore talk you so?\n  MARGARET. I cry you mercy, 'tis but quid for quo.\n  SUFFOLK. Say, gentle Princess, would you not suppose\n    Your bondage happy, to be made a queen?\n  MARGARET. To be a queen in bondage is more vile\n    Than is a slave in base servility;\n    For princes should be free.\n  SUFFOLK. And so shall you,\n    If happy England's royal king be free.\n  MARGARET. Why, what concerns his freedom unto me?\n  SUFFOLK. I'll undertake to make thee Henry's queen,\n    To put a golden sceptre in thy hand\n    And set a precious crown upon thy head,\n    If thou wilt condescend to be my-\n  MARGARET. What?\n  SUFFOLK. His love.\n  MARGARET. I am unworthy to be Henry's wife.\n  SUFFOLK. No, gentle madam; I unworthy am\n    To woo so fair a dame to be his wife\n    And have no portion in the choice myself.\n    How say you, madam? Are ye so content?\n  MARGARET. An if my father please, I am content.\n  SUFFOLK. Then call our captains and our colours forth!\n    And, madam, at your father's castle walls\n    We'll crave a parley to confer with him.\n\n           Sound a parley. Enter REIGNIER on the walls\n\n    See, Reignier, see, thy daughter prisoner!\n  REIGNIER. To whom?\n  SUFFOLK. To me.\n  REIGNIER. Suffolk, what remedy?\n    I am a soldier and unapt to weep\n    Or to exclaim on fortune's fickleness.\n  SUFFOLK. Yes, there is remedy enough, my lord.\n    Consent, and for thy honour give consent,\n    Thy daughter shall be wedded to my king,\n    Whom I with pain have woo'd and won thereto;\n    And this her easy-held imprisonment\n    Hath gain'd thy daughter princely liberty.\n  REIGNIER. Speaks Suffolk as he thinks?\n  SUFFOLK. Fair Margaret knows\n    That Suffolk doth not flatter, face, or feign.\n  REIGNIER. Upon thy princely warrant I descend\n    To give thee answer of thy just demand.\n                                    Exit REIGNIER from the walls\n  SUFFOLK. And here I will expect thy coming.\n\n                Trumpets sound. Enter REIGNIER below\n\n  REIGNIER. Welcome, brave Earl, into our territories;\n    Command in Anjou what your Honour pleases.\n  SUFFOLK. Thanks, Reignier, happy for so sweet a child,\n    Fit to be made companion with a king.\n    What answer makes your Grace unto my suit?\n  REIGNIER. Since thou dost deign to woo her little worth\n    To be the princely bride of such a lord,\n    Upon condition I may quietly\n    Enjoy mine own, the country Maine and Anjou,\n    Free from oppression or the stroke of war,\n    My daughter shall be Henry's, if he please.\n  SUFFOLK. That is her ransom; I deliver her.\n    And those two counties I will undertake\n    Your Grace shall well and quietly enjoy.\n  REIGNIER. And I again, in Henry's royal name,\n    As deputy unto that gracious king,\n    Give thee her hand for sign of plighted faith.\n  SUFFOLK. Reignier of France, I give thee kingly thanks,\n    Because this is in traffic of a king.\n    [Aside]  And yet, methinks, I could be well content\n    To be mine own attorney in this case.\n    I'll over then to England with this news,\n    And make this marriage to be solemniz'd.\n    So, farewell, Reignier. Set this diamond safe\n    In golden palaces, as it becomes.\n  REIGNIER. I do embrace thee as I would embrace\n    The Christian prince, King Henry, were he here.\n  MARGARET. Farewell, my lord. Good wishes, praise, and\n    prayers,\n    Shall Suffolk ever have of Margaret.          [She is going]\n  SUFFOLK. Farewell, sweet madam. But hark you, Margaret\n    No princely commendations to my king?\n  MARGARET. Such commendations as becomes a maid,\n    A virgin, and his servant, say to him.\n  SUFFOLK. Words sweetly plac'd and modestly directed.\n    But, madam, I must trouble you again\n    No loving token to his Majesty?\n  MARGARET. Yes, my good lord: a pure unspotted heart,\n    Never yet taint with love, I send the King.\n  SUFFOLK. And this withal.                         [Kisses her]\n  MARGARET. That for thyself, I will not so presume\n    To send such peevish tokens to a king.\n                                    Exeunt REIGNIER and MARGARET\n  SUFFOLK. O, wert thou for myself! But, Suffolk, stay;\n    Thou mayst not wander in that labyrinth:\n    There Minotaurs and ugly treasons lurk.\n    Solicit Henry with her wondrous praise.\n    Bethink thee on her virtues that surmount,\n    And natural graces that extinguish art;\n    Repeat their semblance often on the seas,\n    That, when thou com'st to kneel at Henry's feet,\n    Thou mayst bereave him of his wits with wonder.         Exit\n\n\n\n\n                               SCENE 4.\n\n                  Camp of the DUKE OF YORK in Anjou\n\n                   Enter YORK, WARWICK, and others\n  YORK. Bring forth that sorceress, condemn'd to burn.\n\n              Enter LA PUCELLE, guarded, and a SHEPHERD\n\n  SHEPHERD. Ah, Joan, this kills thy father's heart outright!\n    Have I sought every country far and near,\n    And, now it is my chance to find thee out,\n    Must I behold thy timeless cruel death?\n    Ah, Joan, sweet daughter Joan, I'll die with thee!\n  PUCELLE. Decrepit miser! base ignoble wretch!\n    I am descended of a gentler blood;\n    Thou art no father nor no friend of mine.\n  SHEPHERD. Out, out! My lords, an please you, 'tis not so;\n    I did beget her, all the parish knows.\n    Her mother liveth yet, can testify\n    She was the first fruit of my bach'lorship.\n  WARWICK. Graceless, wilt thou deny thy parentage?\n  YORK. This argues what her kind of life hath been-\n    Wicked and vile; and so her death concludes.\n  SHEPHERD. Fie, Joan, that thou wilt be so obstacle!\n    God knows thou art a collop of my flesh;\n    And for thy sake have I shed many a tear.\n    Deny me not, I prithee, gentle Joan.\n  PUCELLE. Peasant, avaunt! You have suborn'd this man\n    Of purpose to obscure my noble birth.\n  SHEPHERD. 'Tis true, I gave a noble to the priest\n    The morn that I was wedded to her mother.\n    Kneel down and take my blessing, good my girl.\n    Wilt thou not stoop? Now cursed be the time\n    Of thy nativity. I would the milk\n    Thy mother gave thee when thou suck'dst her breast\n    Had been a little ratsbane for thy sake.\n    Or else, when thou didst keep my lambs afield,\n    I wish some ravenous wolf had eaten thee.\n    Dost thou deny thy father, cursed drab?\n    O, burn her, burn her! Hanging is too good.             Exit\n  YORK. Take her away; for she hath liv'd too long,\n    To fill the world with vicious qualities.\n  PUCELLE. First let me tell you whom you have condemn'd:\n    Not me begotten of a shepherd swain,\n    But issued from the progeny of kings;\n    Virtuous and holy, chosen from above\n    By inspiration of celestial grace,\n    To work exceeding miracles on earth.\n    I never had to do with wicked spirits.\n    But you, that are polluted with your lusts,\n    Stain'd with the guiltless blood of innocents,\n    Corrupt and tainted with a thousand vices,\n    Because you want the grace that others have,\n    You judge it straight a thing impossible\n    To compass wonders but by help of devils.\n    No, misconceived! Joan of Arc hath been\n    A virgin from her tender infancy,\n    Chaste and immaculate in very thought;\n    Whose maiden blood, thus rigorously effus'd,\n    Will cry for vengeance at the gates of heaven.\n  YORK. Ay, ay. Away with her to execution!\n  WARWICK. And hark ye, sirs; because she is a maid,\n    Spare for no fagots, let there be enow.\n    Place barrels of pitch upon the fatal stake,\n    That so her torture may be shortened.\n  PUCELLE. Will nothing turn your unrelenting hearts?\n    Then, Joan, discover thine infirmity\n    That warranteth by law to be thy privilege:\n    I am with child, ye bloody homicides;\n    Murder not then the fruit within my womb,\n    Although ye hale me to a violent death.\n  YORK. Now heaven forfend! The holy maid with child!\n  WARWICK. The greatest miracle that e'er ye wrought:\n    Is all your strict preciseness come to this?\n  YORK. She and the Dauphin have been juggling.\n    I did imagine what would be her refuge.\n  WARWICK. Well, go to; we'll have no bastards live;\n    Especially since Charles must father it.\n  PUCELLE. You are deceiv'd; my child is none of his:\n    It was Alencon that enjoy'd my love.\n  YORK. Alencon, that notorious Machiavel!\n    It dies, an if it had a thousand lives.\n  PUCELLE. O, give me leave, I have deluded you.\n    'Twas neither Charles nor yet the Duke I nam'd,\n    But Reignier, King of Naples, that prevail'd.\n  WARWICK. A married man! That's most intolerable.\n  YORK. Why, here's a girl! I think she knows not well\n    There were so many-whom she may accuse.\n  WARWICK. It's sign she hath been liberal and free.\n  YORK. And yet, forsooth, she is a virgin pure.\n    Strumpet, thy words condemn thy brat and thee.\n    Use no entreaty, for it is in vain.\n  PUCELLE. Then lead me hence-with whom I leave my\n    curse:\n    May never glorious sun reflex his beams\n    Upon the country where you make abode;\n    But darkness and the gloomy shade of death\n    Environ you, till mischief and despair\n    Drive you to break your necks or hang yourselves!\n                                                   Exit, guarded\n  YORK. Break thou in pieces and consume to ashes,\n    Thou foul accursed minister of hell!\n\n               Enter CARDINAL BEAUFORT, attended\n\n  CARDINAL. Lord Regent, I do greet your Excellence\n    With letters of commission from the King.\n    For know, my lords, the states of Christendom,\n    Mov'd with remorse of these outrageous broils,\n    Have earnestly implor'd a general peace\n    Betwixt our nation and the aspiring French;\n    And here at hand the Dauphin and his train\n    Approacheth, to confer about some matter.\n  YORK. Is all our travail turn'd to this effect?\n    After the slaughter of so many peers,\n    So many captains, gentlemen, and soldiers,\n    That in this quarrel have been overthrown\n    And sold their bodies for their country's benefit,\n    Shall we at last conclude effeminate peace?\n    Have we not lost most part of all the towns,\n    By treason, falsehood, and by treachery,\n    Our great progenitors had conquered?\n    O Warwick, Warwick! I foresee with grief\n    The utter loss of all the realm of France.\n  WARWICK. Be patient, York. If we conclude a peace,\n    It shall be with such strict and severe covenants\n    As little shall the Frenchmen gain thereby.\n\n        Enter CHARLES, ALENCON, BASTARD, REIGNIER, and others\n\n  CHARLES. Since, lords of England, it is thus agreed\n    That peaceful truce shall be proclaim'd in France,\n    We come to be informed by yourselves\n    What the conditions of that league must be.\n  YORK. Speak, Winchester; for boiling choler chokes\n    The hollow passage of my poison'd voice,\n    By sight of these our baleful enemies.\n  CARDINAL. Charles, and the rest, it is enacted thus:\n    That, in regard King Henry gives consent,\n    Of mere compassion and of lenity,\n    To ease your country of distressful war,\n    An suffer you to breathe in fruitful peace,\n    You shall become true liegemen to his crown;\n    And, Charles, upon condition thou wilt swear\n    To pay him tribute and submit thyself,\n    Thou shalt be plac'd as viceroy under him,\n    And still enjoy thy regal dignity.\n  ALENCON. Must he be then as shadow of himself?\n    Adorn his temples with a coronet\n    And yet, in substance and authority,\n    Retain but privilege of a private man?\n    This proffer is absurd and reasonless.\n  CHARLES. 'Tis known already that I am possess'd\n    With more than half the Gallian territories,\n    And therein reverenc'd for their lawful king.\n    Shall I, for lucre of the rest unvanquish'd,\n    Detract so much from that prerogative\n    As to be call'd but viceroy of the whole?\n    No, Lord Ambassador; I'll rather keep\n    That which I have than, coveting for more,\n    Be cast from possibility of all.\n  YORK. Insulting Charles! Hast thou by secret means\n    Us'd intercession to obtain a league,\n    And now the matter grows to compromise\n    Stand'st thou aloof upon comparison?\n    Either accept the title thou usurp'st,\n    Of benefit proceeding from our king\n    And not of any challenge of desert,\n    Or we will plague thee with incessant wars.\n  REIGNIER.  [To CHARLES]  My lord, you do not well in\n    obstinacy\n    To cavil in the course of this contract.\n    If once it be neglected, ten to one\n    We shall not find like opportunity.\n  ALENCON.  [To CHARLES]  To say the truth, it is your policy\n    To save your subjects from such massacre\n    And ruthless slaughters as are daily seen\n    By our proceeding in hostility;\n    And therefore take this compact of a truce,\n    Although you break it when your pleasure serves.\n  WARWICK. How say'st thou, Charles? Shall our condition\n    stand?\n  CHARLES. It shall;\n    Only reserv'd, you claim no interest\n    In any of our towns of garrison.\n  YORK. Then swear allegiance to his Majesty:\n    As thou art knight, never to disobey\n    Nor be rebellious to the crown of England\n    Thou, nor thy nobles, to the crown of England.\n                    [CHARLES and the rest give tokens of fealty]\n    So, now dismiss your army when ye please;\n    Hang up your ensigns, let your drums be still,\n    For here we entertain a solemn peace.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                              SCENE 5.\n\n                         London. The palace\n\n            Enter SUFFOLK, in conference with the KING,\n                     GLOUCESTER and EXETER\n\n  KING HENRY. Your wondrous rare description, noble Earl,\n    Of beauteous Margaret hath astonish'd me.\n    Her virtues, graced with external gifts,\n    Do breed love's settled passions in my heart;\n    And like as rigour of tempestuous gusts\n    Provokes the mightiest hulk against the tide,\n    So am I driven by breath of her renown\n    Either to suffer shipwreck or arrive\n    Where I may have fruition of her love.\n  SUFFOLK. Tush, my good lord! This superficial tale\n    Is but a preface of her worthy praise.\n    The chief perfections of that lovely dame,\n    Had I sufficient skill to utter them,\n    Would make a volume of enticing lines,\n    Able to ravish any dull conceit;\n    And, which is more, she is not so divine,\n    So full-replete with choice of all delights,\n    But with as humble lowliness of mind\n    She is content to be at your command\n    Command, I mean, of virtuous intents,\n    To love and honour Henry as her lord.\n  KING HENRY. And otherwise will Henry ne'er presume.\n    Therefore, my Lord Protector, give consent\n    That Margaret may be England's royal Queen.\n  GLOUCESTER. So should I give consent to flatter sin.\n    You know, my lord, your Highness is betroth'd\n    Unto another lady of esteem.\n    How shall we then dispense with that contract,\n    And not deface your honour with reproach?\n  SUFFOLK. As doth a ruler with unlawful oaths;\n    Or one that at a triumph, having vow'd\n    To try his strength, forsaketh yet the lists\n    By reason of his adversary's odds:\n    A poor earl's daughter is unequal odds,\n    And therefore may be broke without offence.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, what, I pray, is Margaret more than\n    that?\n    Her father is no better than an earl,\n    Although in glorious titles he excel.\n  SUFFOLK. Yes, my lord, her father is a king,\n    The King of Naples and Jerusalem;\n    And of such great authority in France\n    As his alliance will confirm our peace,\n    And keep the Frenchmen in allegiance.\n  GLOUCESTER. And so the Earl of Armagnac may do,\n    Because he is near kinsman unto Charles.\n  EXETER. Beside, his wealth doth warrant a liberal dower;\n    Where Reignier sooner will receive than give.\n  SUFFOLK. A dow'r, my lords! Disgrace not so your king,\n    That he should be so abject, base, and poor,\n    To choose for wealth and not for perfect love.\n    Henry is able to enrich his queen,\n    And not to seek a queen to make him rich.\n    So worthless peasants bargain for their wives,\n    As market-men for oxen, sheep, or horse.\n    Marriage is a matter of more worth\n    Than to be dealt in by attorneyship;\n    Not whom we will, but whom his Grace affects,\n    Must be companion of his nuptial bed.\n    And therefore, lords, since he affects her most,\n    It most of all these reasons bindeth us\n    In our opinions she should be preferr'd;\n    For what is wedlock forced but a hell,\n    An age of discord and continual strife?\n    Whereas the contrary bringeth bliss,\n    And is a pattern of celestial peace.\n    Whom should we match with Henry, being a king,\n    But Margaret, that is daughter to a king?\n    Her peerless feature, joined with her birth,\n    Approves her fit for none but for a king;\n    Her valiant courage and undaunted spirit,\n    More than in women commonly is seen,\n    Will answer our hope in issue of a king;\n    For Henry, son unto a conqueror,\n    Is likely to beget more conquerors,\n    If with a lady of so high resolve\n    As is fair Margaret he be link'd in love.\n    Then yield, my lords; and here conclude with me\n    That Margaret shall be Queen, and none but she.\n  KING HENRY. Whether it be through force of your report,\n    My noble Lord of Suffolk, or for that\n    My tender youth was never yet attaint\n    With any passion of inflaming love,\n    I cannot tell; but this I am assur'd,\n    I feel such sharp dissension in my breast,\n    Such fierce alarums both of hope and fear,\n    As I am sick with working of my thoughts.\n    Take therefore shipping; post, my lord, to France;\n    Agree to any covenants; and procure\n    That Lady Margaret do vouchsafe to come\n    To cross the seas to England, and be crown'd\n    King Henry's faithful and anointed queen.\n    For your expenses and sufficient charge,\n    Among the people gather up a tenth.\n    Be gone, I say; for till you do return\n    I rest perplexed with a thousand cares.\n    And you, good uncle, banish all offence:\n    If you do censure me by what you were,\n    Not what you are, I know it will excuse\n    This sudden execution of my will.\n    And so conduct me where, from company,\n    I may revolve and ruminate my grief.                    Exit\n  GLOUCESTER. Ay, grief, I fear me, both at first and last.\n                                    Exeunt GLOUCESTER and EXETER\n  SUFFOLK. Thus Suffolk hath prevail'd; and thus he goes,\n    As did the youthful Paris once to Greece,\n    With hope to find the like event in love\n    But prosper better than the Troyan did.\n    Margaret shall now be Queen, and rule the King;\n    But I will rule both her, the King, and realm.          Exit\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1591\n\nTHE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  KING HENRY THE SIXTH\n  HUMPHREY, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, his uncle\n  CARDINAL BEAUFORT, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, great-uncle to the King\n  RICHARD PLANTAGENET, DUKE OF YORK\n  EDWARD and RICHARD, his sons\n  DUKE OF SOMERSET\n  DUKE OF SUFFOLK\n  DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM\n  LORD CLIFFORD\n  YOUNG CLIFFORD, his son\n  EARL OF SALISBURY\n  EARL OF WARWICK\n  LORD SCALES\n  LORD SAY\n  SIR HUMPHREY STAFFORD\n  WILLIAM STAFFORD, his brother\n  SIR JOHN STANLEY\n  VAUX\n  MATTHEW GOFFE\n  A LIEUTENANT, a SHIPMASTER, a MASTER'S MATE, and WALTER WHITMORE\n  TWO GENTLEMEN, prisoners with Suffolk\n  JOHN HUME and JOHN SOUTHWELL, two priests\n  ROGER BOLINGBROKE, a conjurer\n  A SPIRIT raised by him\n  THOMAS HORNER, an armourer\n  PETER, his man\n  CLERK OF CHATHAM\n  MAYOR OF SAINT ALBANS\n  SAUNDER SIMPCOX, an impostor\n  ALEXANDER IDEN, a Kentish gentleman\n  JACK CADE, a rebel\n  GEORGE BEVIS, JOHN HOLLAND, DICK THE BUTCHER, SMITH THE WEAVER,\n    MICHAEL, &c., followers of Cade\n  TWO MURDERERS\n\n  MARGARET, Queen to King Henry\n  ELEANOR, Duchess of Gloucester\n  MARGERY JOURDAIN, a witch\n  WIFE to SIMPCOX\n\n  Lords, Ladies, and Attendants; Petitioners, Aldermen, a Herald,\n    a Beadle, a Sheriff, Officers, Citizens, Prentices, Falconers,\n    Guards, Soldiers, Messengers, &c.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nEngland\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nLondon. The palace\n\nFlourish of trumpets; then hautboys. Enter the KING, DUKE HUMPHREY\nOF GLOUCESTER, SALISBURY, WARWICK, and CARDINAL BEAUFORT, on the one side;\nthe QUEEN, SUFFOLK, YORK, SOMERSET, and BUCKINGHAM, on the other\n\n  SUFFOLK. As by your high imperial Majesty\n    I had in charge at my depart for France,\n    As procurator to your Excellence,\n    To marry Princess Margaret for your Grace;\n    So, in the famous ancient city Tours,\n    In presence of the Kings of France and Sicil,\n    The Dukes of Orleans, Calaber, Bretagne, and Alencon,\n    Seven earls, twelve barons, and twenty reverend bishops,\n    I have perform'd my task, and was espous'd;\n    And humbly now upon my bended knee,\n    In sight of England and her lordly peers,\n    Deliver up my title in the Queen\n    To your most gracious hands, that are the substance\n    Of that great shadow I did represent:\n    The happiest gift that ever marquis gave,\n    The fairest queen that ever king receiv'd.\n  KING HENRY. Suffolk, arise. Welcome, Queen Margaret:\n    I can express no kinder sign of love\n    Than this kind kiss. O Lord, that lends me life,\n    Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness!\n    For thou hast given me in this beauteous face\n    A world of earthly blessings to my soul,\n    If sympathy of love unite our thoughts.\n  QUEEN. Great King of England, and my gracious lord,\n    The mutual conference that my mind hath had,\n    By day, by night, waking and in my dreams,\n    In courtly company or at my beads,\n    With you, mine alder-liefest sovereign,\n    Makes me the bolder to salute my king\n    With ruder terms, such as my wit affords\n    And over-joy of heart doth minister.\n  KING HENRY. Her sight did ravish, but her grace in speech,\n    Her words y-clad with wisdom's majesty,\n    Makes me from wond'ring fall to weeping joys,\n    Such is the fulness of my heart's content.\n    Lords, with one cheerful voice welcome my love.\n  ALL. [Kneeling] Long live Queen Margaret, England's happiness!\n  QUEEN. We thank you all.                            [Flourish]\n  SUFFOLK. My Lord Protector, so it please your Grace,\n    Here are the articles of contracted peace\n    Between our sovereign and the French King Charles,\n    For eighteen months concluded by consent.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Reads] 'Imprimis: It is agreed between the French King\n    Charles and William de la Pole, Marquess of Suffolk, ambassador\n    for Henry King of England, that the said Henry shall espouse the\n    Lady Margaret, daughter unto Reignier King of Naples, Sicilia,\n    and Jerusalem, and crown her Queen of England ere the thirtieth\n    of May next ensuing.\n      Item: That the duchy of Anjou and the county of Maine shall be\n    released and delivered to the King her father'-\n                                           [Lets the paper fall]\n  KING HENRY. Uncle, how now!\n  GLOUCESTER. Pardon me, gracious lord;\n    Some sudden qualm hath struck me at the heart,\n    And dimm'd mine eyes, that I can read no further.\n  KING HENRY. Uncle of Winchester, I pray read on.\n  CARDINAL. [Reads] 'Item: It is further agreed between them that the\n    duchies of Anjou and Maine shall be released and delivered over\n    to the King her father, and she sent over of the King of\n    England's own proper cost and charges, without having any dowry.'\n  KING HENRY. They please us well. Lord Marquess, kneel down.\n    We here create thee the first Duke of Suffolk,\n    And girt thee with the sword. Cousin of York,\n    We here discharge your Grace from being Regent\n    I' th' parts of France, till term of eighteen months\n    Be full expir'd. Thanks, uncle Winchester,\n    Gloucester, York, Buckingham, Somerset,\n    Salisbury, and Warwick;\n    We thank you all for this great favour done\n    In entertainment to my princely queen.\n    Come, let us in, and with all speed provide\n    To see her coronation be perform'd.\n                                 Exeunt KING, QUEEN, and SUFFOLK\n  GLOUCESTER. Brave peers of England, pillars of the state,\n    To you Duke Humphrey must unload his grief\n    Your grief, the common grief of all the land.\n    What! did my brother Henry spend his youth,\n    His valour, coin, and people, in the wars?\n    Did he so often lodge in open field,\n    In winter's cold and summer's parching heat,\n    To conquer France, his true inheritance?\n    And did my brother Bedford toil his wits\n    To keep by policy what Henry got?\n    Have you yourselves, Somerset, Buckingham,\n    Brave York, Salisbury, and victorious Warwick,\n    Receiv'd deep scars in France and Normandy?\n    Or hath mine uncle Beaufort and myself,\n    With all the learned Council of the realm,\n    Studied so long, sat in the Council House\n    Early and late, debating to and fro\n    How France and Frenchmen might be kept in awe?\n    And had his Highness in his infancy\n    Crowned in Paris, in despite of foes?\n    And shall these labours and these honours die?\n    Shall Henry's conquest, Bedford's vigilance,\n    Your deeds of war, and all our counsel die?\n    O peers of England, shameful is this league!\n    Fatal this marriage, cancelling your fame,\n    Blotting your names from books of memory,\n    Razing the characters of your renown,\n    Defacing monuments of conquer'd France,\n    Undoing all, as all had never been!\n  CARDINAL. Nephew, what means this passionate discourse,\n    This peroration with such circumstance?\n    For France, 'tis ours; and we will keep it still.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ay, uncle, we will keep it if we can;\n    But now it is impossible we should.\n    Suffolk, the new-made duke that rules the roast,\n    Hath given the duchy of Anjou and Maine\n    Unto the poor King Reignier, whose large style\n    Agrees not with the leanness of his purse.\n  SALISBURY. Now, by the death of Him that died for all,\n    These counties were the keys of Normandy!\n    But wherefore weeps Warwick, my valiant son?\n  WARWICK. For grief that they are past recovery;\n    For were there hope to conquer them again\n    My sword should shed hot blood, mine eyes no tears.\n    Anjou and Maine! myself did win them both;\n    Those provinces these arms of mine did conquer;\n    And are the cities that I got with wounds\n    Deliver'd up again with peaceful words?\n    Mort Dieu!\n  YORK. For Suffolk's duke, may he be suffocate,\n    That dims the honour of this warlike isle!\n    France should have torn and rent my very heart\n    Before I would have yielded to this league.\n    I never read but England's kings have had\n    Large sums of gold and dowries with their wives;\n    And our King Henry gives away his own\n    To match with her that brings no vantages.\n  GLOUCESTER. A proper jest, and never heard before,\n    That Suffolk should demand a whole fifteenth\n    For costs and charges in transporting her!\n    She should have stay'd in France, and starv'd in France,\n    Before-\n  CARDINAL. My Lord of Gloucester, now ye grow too hot:\n    It was the pleasure of my lord the King.\n  GLOUCESTER. My Lord of Winchester, I know your mind;\n    'Tis not my speeches that you do mislike,\n    But 'tis my presence that doth trouble ye.\n    Rancour will out: proud prelate, in thy face\n    I see thy fury; if I longer stay\n    We shall begin our ancient bickerings.\n    Lordings, farewell; and say, when I am gone,\n    I prophesied France will be lost ere long.              Exit\n  CARDINAL. So, there goes our Protector in a rage.\n    'Tis known to you he is mine enemy;\n    Nay, more, an enemy unto you all,\n    And no great friend, I fear me, to the King.\n    Consider, lords, he is the next of blood\n    And heir apparent to the English crown.\n    Had Henry got an empire by his marriage\n    And all the wealthy kingdoms of the west,\n    There's reason he should be displeas'd at it.\n    Look to it, lords; let not his smoothing words\n    Bewitch your hearts; be wise and circumspect.\n    What though the common people favour him,\n    Calling him 'Humphrey, the good Duke of Gloucester,'\n    Clapping their hands, and crying with loud voice\n    'Jesu maintain your royal excellence!'\n    With 'God preserve the good Duke Humphrey!'\n    I fear me, lords, for all this flattering gloss,\n    He will be found a dangerous Protector.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Why should he then protect our sovereign,\n    He being of age to govern of himself?\n    Cousin of Somerset, join you with me,\n    And all together, with the Duke of Suffolk,\n    We'll quickly hoise Duke Humphrey from his seat.\n  CARDINAL. This weighty business will not brook delay;\n    I'll to the Duke of Suffolk presently.                  Exit\n  SOMERSET. Cousin of Buckingham, though Humphrey's pride\n    And greatness of his place be grief to us,\n    Yet let us watch the haughty cardinal;\n    His insolence is more intolerable\n    Than all the princes in the land beside;\n    If Gloucester be displac'd, he'll be Protector.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Or thou or I, Somerset, will be Protector,\n    Despite Duke Humphrey or the Cardinal.\n                                  Exeunt BUCKINGHAM and SOMERSET\n  SALISBURY. Pride went before, ambition follows him.\n    While these do labour for their own preferment,\n    Behoves it us to labour for the realm.\n    I never saw but Humphrey Duke of Gloucester\n    Did bear him like a noble gentleman.\n    Oft have I seen the haughty Cardinal-\n    More like a soldier than a man o' th' church,\n    As stout and proud as he were lord of all-\n    Swear like a ruffian and demean himself\n    Unlike the ruler of a commonweal.\n    Warwick my son, the comfort of my age,\n    Thy deeds, thy plainness, and thy housekeeping,\n    Hath won the greatest favour of the commons,\n    Excepting none but good Duke Humphrey.\n    And, brother York, thy acts in Ireland,\n    In bringing them to civil discipline,\n    Thy late exploits done in the heart of France\n    When thou wert Regent for our sovereign,\n    Have made thee fear'd and honour'd of the people:\n    Join we together for the public good,\n    In what we can, to bridle and suppress\n    The pride of Suffolk and the Cardinal,\n    With Somerset's and Buckingham's ambition;\n    And, as we may, cherish Duke Humphrey's deeds\n    While they do tend the profit of the land.\n  WARWICK. So God help Warwick, as he loves the land\n    And common profit of his country!\n  YORK. And so says York- [Aside] for he hath greatest cause.\n  SALISBURY. Then let's make haste away and look unto the main.\n  WARWICK. Unto the main! O father, Maine is lost-\n    That Maine which by main force Warwick did win,\n    And would have kept so long as breath did last.\n    Main chance, father, you meant; but I meant Maine,\n    Which I will win from France, or else be slain.\n                                    Exeunt WARWICK and SALISBURY\n  YORK. Anjou and Maine are given to the French;\n    Paris is lost; the state of Normandy\n    Stands on a tickle point now they are gone.\n    Suffolk concluded on the articles;\n    The peers agreed; and Henry was well pleas'd\n    To changes two dukedoms for a duke's fair daughter.\n    I cannot blame them all: what is't to them?\n    'Tis thine they give away, and not their own.\n    Pirates may make cheap pennyworths of their pillage,\n    And purchase friends, and give to courtezans,\n    Still revelling like lords till all be gone;\n    While as the silly owner of the goods\n    Weeps over them and wrings his hapless hands\n    And shakes his head and trembling stands aloof,\n    While all is shar'd and all is borne away,\n    Ready to starve and dare not touch his own.\n    So York must sit and fret and bite his tongue,\n    While his own lands are bargain'd for and sold.\n    Methinks the realms of England, France, and Ireland,\n    Bear that proportion to my flesh and blood\n    As did the fatal brand Althaea burnt\n    Unto the prince's heart of Calydon.\n    Anjou and Maine both given unto the French!\n    Cold news for me, for I had hope of France,\n    Even as I have of fertile England's soil.\n    A day will come when York shall claim his own;\n    And therefore I will take the Nevils' parts,\n    And make a show of love to proud Duke Humphrey,\n    And when I spy advantage, claim the crown,\n    For that's the golden mark I seek to hit.\n    Nor shall proud Lancaster usurp my right,\n    Nor hold the sceptre in his childish fist,\n    Nor wear the diadem upon his head,\n    Whose church-like humours fits not for a crown.\n    Then, York, be still awhile, till time do serve;\n    Watch thou and wake, when others be asleep,\n    To pry into the secrets of the state;\n    Till Henry, surfeiting in joys of love\n    With his new bride and England's dear-bought queen,\n    And Humphrey with the peers be fall'n at jars;\n    Then will I raise aloft the milk-white rose,\n    With whose sweet smell the air shall be perfum'd,\n    And in my standard bear the arms of York,\n    To grapple with the house of Lancaster;\n    And force perforce I'll make him yield the crown,\n    Whose bookish rule hath pull'd fair England down.       Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe DUKE OF GLOUCESTER'S house\n\nEnter DUKE and his wife ELEANOR\n\n  DUCHESS. Why droops my lord, like over-ripen'd corn\n    Hanging the head at Ceres' plenteous load?\n    Why doth the great Duke Humphrey knit his brows,\n    As frowning at the favours of the world?\n    Why are thine eyes fix'd to the sullen earth,\n    Gazing on that which seems to dim thy sight?\n    What see'st thou there? King Henry's diadem,\n    Enchas'd with all the honours of the world?\n    If so, gaze on, and grovel on thy face\n    Until thy head be circled with the same.\n    Put forth thy hand, reach at the glorious gold.\n    What, is't too short? I'll lengthen it with mine;\n    And having both together heav'd it up,\n    We'll both together lift our heads to heaven,\n    And never more abase our sight so low\n    As to vouchsafe one glance unto the ground.\n  GLOUCESTER. O Nell, sweet Nell, if thou dost love thy lord,\n    Banish the canker of ambitious thoughts!\n    And may that thought, when I imagine ill\n    Against my king and nephew, virtuous Henry,\n    Be my last breathing in this mortal world!\n    My troublous dreams this night doth make me sad.\n  DUCHESS. What dream'd my lord? Tell me, and I'll requite it\n    With sweet rehearsal of my morning's dream.\n  GLOUCESTER. Methought this staff, mine office-badge in court,\n    Was broke in twain; by whom I have forgot,\n    But, as I think, it was by th' Cardinal;\n    And on the pieces of the broken wand\n    Were plac'd the heads of Edmund Duke of Somerset\n    And William de la Pole, first Duke of Suffolk.\n    This was my dream; what it doth bode God knows.\n  DUCHESS. Tut, this was nothing but an argument\n    That he that breaks a stick of Gloucester's grove\n    Shall lose his head for his presumption.\n    But list to me, my Humphrey, my sweet Duke:\n    Methought I sat in seat of majesty\n    In the cathedral church of Westminster,\n    And in that chair where kings and queens were crown'd;\n    Where Henry and Dame Margaret kneel'd to me,\n    And on my head did set the diadem.\n  GLOUCESTER. Nay, Eleanor, then must I chide outright.\n    Presumptuous dame, ill-nurtur'd Eleanor!\n    Art thou not second woman in the realm,\n    And the Protector's wife, belov'd of him?\n    Hast thou not worldly pleasure at command\n    Above the reach or compass of thy thought?\n    And wilt thou still be hammering treachery\n    To tumble down thy husband and thyself\n    From top of honour to disgrace's feet?\n    Away from me, and let me hear no more!\n  DUCHESS. What, what, my lord! Are you so choleric\n    With Eleanor for telling but her dream?\n    Next time I'll keep my dreams unto myself\n    And not be check'd.\n  GLOUCESTER. Nay, be not angry; I am pleas'd again.\n\n                       Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. My Lord Protector, 'tis his Highness' pleasure\n    You do prepare to ride unto Saint Albans,\n    Where as the King and Queen do mean to hawk.\n  GLOUCESTER. I go. Come, Nell, thou wilt ride with us?\n  DUCHESS. Yes, my good lord, I'll follow presently.\n                                 Exeunt GLOUCESTER and MESSENGER\n    Follow I must; I cannot go before,\n    While Gloucester bears this base and humble mind.\n    Were I a man, a duke, and next of blood,\n    I would remove these tedious stumbling-blocks\n    And smooth my way upon their headless necks;\n    And, being a woman, I will not be slack\n    To play my part in Fortune's pageant.\n    Where are you there, Sir John? Nay, fear not, man,\n    We are alone; here's none but thee and I.\n\n                           Enter HUME\n\n  HUME. Jesus preserve your royal Majesty!\n  DUCHESS. What say'st thou? Majesty! I am but Grace.\n  HUME. But, by the grace of God and Hume's advice,\n    Your Grace's title shall be multiplied.\n  DUCHESS. What say'st thou, man? Hast thou as yet conferr'd\n    With Margery Jourdain, the cunning witch of Eie,\n    With Roger Bolingbroke, the conjurer?\n    And will they undertake to do me good?\n  HUME. This they have promised, to show your Highness\n    A spirit rais'd from depth of underground\n    That shall make answer to such questions\n    As by your Grace shall be propounded him\n  DUCHESS. It is enough; I'll think upon the questions;\n    When from Saint Albans we do make return\n    We'll see these things effected to the full.\n    Here, Hume, take this reward; make merry, man,\n    With thy confederates in this weighty cause.            Exit\n  HUME. Hume must make merry with the Duchess' gold;\n    Marry, and shall. But, how now, Sir John Hume!\n    Seal up your lips and give no words but mum:\n    The business asketh silent secrecy.\n    Dame Eleanor gives gold to bring the witch:\n    Gold cannot come amiss were she a devil.\n    Yet have I gold flies from another coast-\n    I dare not say from the rich Cardinal,\n    And from the great and new-made Duke of Suffolk;\n    Yet I do find it so; for, to be plain,\n    They, knowing Dame Eleanor's aspiring humour,\n    Have hired me to undermine the Duchess,\n    And buzz these conjurations in her brain.\n    They say 'A crafty knave does need no broker';\n    Yet am I Suffolk and the Cardinal's broker.\n    Hume, if you take not heed, you shall go near\n    To call them both a pair of crafty knaves.\n    Well, so its stands; and thus, I fear, at last\n    Hume's knavery will be the Duchess' wreck,\n    And her attainture will be Humphrey's fall\n    Sort how it will, I shall have gold for all.            Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter three or four PETITIONERS, PETER, the Armourer's man, being one\n\n  FIRST PETITIONER. My masters, let's stand close; my Lord Protector\n    will come this way by and by, and then we may deliver our\n    supplications in the quill.\n  SECOND PETITIONER. Marry, the Lord protect him, for he's a good\n    man, Jesu bless him!\n\n                       Enter SUFFOLK and QUEEN\n\n  FIRST PETITIONER. Here 'a comes, methinks, and the Queen with him.\n    I'll be the first, sure.\n  SECOND PETITIONER. Come back, fool; this is the Duke of Suffolk and\n    not my Lord Protector.\n  SUFFOLK. How now, fellow! Wouldst anything with me?\n  FIRST PETITIONER. I pray, my lord, pardon me; I took ye for my Lord\n    Protector.\n  QUEEN. [Reads] 'To my Lord Protector!' Are your supplications to\n    his lordship? Let me see them. What is thine?\n  FIRST PETITIONER. Mine is, an't please your Grace, against John\n    Goodman, my Lord Cardinal's man, for keeping my house and lands,\n    and wife and all, from me.\n  SUFFOLK. Thy wife too! That's some wrong indeed. What's yours?\n    What's here! [Reads] 'Against the Duke of Suffolk, for enclosing\n    the commons of Melford.' How now, sir knave!\n  SECOND PETITIONER. Alas, sir, I am but a poor petitioner of our\n    whole township.\n  PETER. [Presenting his petition] Against my master, Thomas Horner,\n    for saying that the Duke of York was rightful heir to the crown.\n  QUEEN. What say'st thou? Did the Duke of York say he was rightful\n    heir to the crown?\n  PETER. That my master was? No, forsooth. My master said that he\n    was, and that the King was an usurper.\n  SUFFOLK. Who is there? [Enter servant] Take this fellow in, and\n    send for his master with a pursuivant presently. We'll hear more\n    of your matter before the King.\n                                         Exit servant with PETER\n  QUEEN. And as for you, that love to be protected\n    Under the wings of our Protector's grace,\n    Begin your suits anew, and sue to him.\n                                       [Tears the supplications]\n    Away, base cullions! Suffolk, let them go.\n  ALL. Come, let's be gone.                               Exeunt\n  QUEEN. My Lord of Suffolk, say, is this the guise,\n    Is this the fashions in the court of England?\n    Is this the government of Britain's isle,\n    And this the royalty of Albion's king?\n    What, shall King Henry be a pupil still,\n    Under the surly Gloucester's governance?\n    Am I a queen in title and in style,\n    And must be made a subject to a duke?\n    I tell thee, Pole, when in the city Tours\n    Thou ran'st a tilt in honour of my love\n    And stol'st away the ladies' hearts of France,\n    I thought King Henry had resembled thee\n    In courage, courtship, and proportion;\n    But all his mind is bent to holiness,\n    To number Ave-Maries on his beads;\n    His champions are the prophets and apostles;\n    His weapons, holy saws of sacred writ;\n    His study is his tilt-yard, and his loves\n    Are brazen images of canonized saints.\n    I would the college of the Cardinals\n    Would choose him Pope, and carry him to Rome,\n    And set the triple crown upon his head;\n    That were a state fit for his holiness.\n  SUFFOLK. Madam, be patient. As I was cause\n    Your Highness came to England, so will I\n    In England work your Grace's full content.\n  QUEEN. Beside the haughty Protector, have we Beaufort\n    The imperious churchman; Somerset, Buckingham,\n    And grumbling York; and not the least of these\n    But can do more in England than the King.\n  SUFFOLK. And he of these that can do most of all\n    Cannot do more in England than the Nevils;\n    Salisbury and Warwick are no simple peers.\n  QUEEN. Not all these lords do vex me half so much\n    As that proud dame, the Lord Protector's wife.\n    She sweeps it through the court with troops of ladies,\n    More like an empress than Duke Humphrey's wife.\n    Strangers in court do take her for the Queen.\n    She bears a duke's revenues on her back,\n    And in her heart she scorns our poverty;\n    Shall I not live to be aveng'd on her?\n    Contemptuous base-born callet as she is,\n    She vaunted 'mongst her minions t' other day\n    The very train of her worst wearing gown\n    Was better worth than all my father's lands,\n    Till Suffolk gave two dukedoms for his daughter.\n  SUFFOLK. Madam, myself have lim'd a bush for her,\n    And plac'd a quire of such enticing birds\n    That she will light to listen to the lays,\n    And never mount to trouble you again.\n    So, let her rest. And, madam, list to me,\n    For I am bold to counsel you in this:\n    Although we fancy not the Cardinal,\n    Yet must we join with him and with the lords,\n    Till we have brought Duke Humphrey in disgrace.\n    As for the Duke of York, this late complaint\n    Will make but little for his benefit.\n    So one by one we'll weed them all at last,\n    And you yourself shall steer the happy helm.\n\n          Sound a sennet. Enter the KING, DUKE HUMPHREY,\n     CARDINAL BEAUFORT, BUCKINGHAM, YORK, SOMERSET, SALISBURY,\n              WARWICK, and the DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER\n\n  KING HENRY. For my part, noble lords, I care not which:\n    Or Somerset or York, all's one to me.\n  YORK. If York have ill demean'd himself in France,\n    Then let him be denay'd the regentship.\n  SOMERSET. If Somerset be unworthy of the place,\n    Let York be Regent; I will yield to him.\n  WARWICK. Whether your Grace be worthy, yea or no,\n    Dispute not that; York is the worthier.\n  CARDINAL. Ambitious Warwick, let thy betters speak.\n  WARWICK. The Cardinal's not my better in the field.\n  BUCKINGHAM. All in this presence are thy betters, Warwick.\n  WARWICK. Warwick may live to be the best of all.\n  SALISBURY. Peace, son! And show some reason, Buckingham,\n    Why Somerset should be preferr'd in this.\n  QUEEN. Because the King, forsooth, will have it so.\n  GLOUCESTER. Madam, the King is old enough himself\n    To give his censure. These are no women's matters.\n  QUEEN. If he be old enough, what needs your Grace\n    To be Protector of his Excellence?\n  GLOUCESTER. Madam, I am Protector of the realm;\n    And at his pleasure will resign my place.\n  SUFFOLK. Resign it then, and leave thine insolence.\n    Since thou wert king- as who is king but thou?-\n    The commonwealth hath daily run to wrack,\n    The Dauphin hath prevail'd beyond the seas,\n    And all the peers and nobles of the realm\n    Have been as bondmen to thy sovereignty.\n  CARDINAL. The commons hast thou rack'd; the clergy's bags\n    Are lank and lean with thy extortions.\n  SOMERSET. Thy sumptuous buildings and thy wife's attire\n    Have cost a mass of public treasury.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Thy cruelty in execution\n    Upon offenders hath exceeded law,\n    And left thee to the mercy of the law.\n  QUEEN. Thy sale of offices and towns in France,\n    If they were known, as the suspect is great,\n    Would make thee quickly hop without thy head.\n                  Exit GLOUCESTER. The QUEEN drops QUEEN her fan\n    Give me my fan. What, minion, can ye not?\n                        [She gives the DUCHESS a box on the ear]\n    I cry your mercy, madam; was it you?\n  DUCHESS. Was't I? Yea, I it was, proud Frenchwoman.\n    Could I come near your beauty with my nails,\n    I could set my ten commandments in your face.\n  KING HENRY. Sweet aunt, be quiet; 'twas against her will.\n  DUCHESS. Against her will, good King? Look to 't in time;\n    She'll hamper thee and dandle thee like a baby.\n    Though in this place most master wear no breeches,\n    She shall not strike Dame Eleanor unreveng'd.           Exit\n  BUCKINGHAM. Lord Cardinal, I will follow Eleanor,\n    And listen after Humphrey, how he proceeds.\n    She's tickled now; her fume needs no spurs,\n    She'll gallop far enough to her destruction.            Exit\n\n                      Re-enter GLOUCESTER\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Now, lords, my choler being overblown\n    With walking once about the quadrangle,\n    I come to talk of commonwealth affairs.\n    As for your spiteful false objections,\n    Prove them, and I lie open to the law;\n    But God in mercy so deal with my soul\n    As I in duty love my king and country!\n    But to the matter that we have in hand:\n    I say, my sovereign, York is meetest man\n    To be your Regent in the realm of France.\n  SUFFOLK. Before we make election, give me leave\n    To show some reason, of no little force,\n    That York is most unmeet of any man.\n  YORK. I'll tell thee, Suffolk, why I am unmeet:\n    First, for I cannot flatter thee in pride;\n    Next, if I be appointed for the place,\n    My Lord of Somerset will keep me here\n    Without discharge, money, or furniture,\n    Till France be won into the Dauphin's hands.\n    Last time I danc'd attendance on his will\n    Till Paris was besieg'd, famish'd, and lost.\n  WARWICK. That can I witness; and a fouler fact\n    Did never traitor in the land commit.\n  SUFFOLK. Peace, headstrong Warwick!\n  WARWICK. Image of pride, why should I hold my peace?\n\n        Enter HORNER, the Armourer, and his man PETER, guarded\n\n  SUFFOLK. Because here is a man accus'd of treason:\n    Pray God the Duke of York excuse himself!\n  YORK. Doth any one accuse York for a traitor?\n  KING HENRY. What mean'st thou, Suffolk? Tell me, what are these?\n  SUFFOLK. Please it your Majesty, this is the man\n    That doth accuse his master of high treason;\n    His words were these: that Richard Duke of York\n    Was rightful heir unto the English crown,\n    And that your Majesty was an usurper.\n  KING HENRY. Say, man, were these thy words?\n  HORNER. An't shall please your Majesty, I never said nor thought\n    any such matter. God is my witness, I am falsely accus'd by the\n    villain.\n  PETER. [Holding up his hands] By these ten bones, my lords, he did\n    speak them to me in the garret one night, as we were scouring my\n    Lord of York's armour.\n  YORK. Base dunghill villain and mechanical,\n    I'll have thy head for this thy traitor's speech.\n    I do beseech your royal Majesty,\n    Let him have all the rigour of the law.\n  HORNER`. Alas, my lord, hang me if ever I spake the words. My\n    accuser is my prentice; and when I did correct him for his fault\n    the other day, he did vow upon his knees he would be even with\n    me. I have good witness of this; therefore I beseech your\n    Majesty, do not cast away an honest man for a villain's\n    accusation.\n  KING HENRY. Uncle, what shall we say to this in law?\n  GLOUCESTER. This doom, my lord, if I may judge:\n    Let Somerset be Regent o'er the French,\n    Because in York this breeds suspicion;\n    And let these have a day appointed them\n    For single combat in convenient place,\n    For he hath witness of his servant's malice.\n    This is the law, and this Duke Humphrey's doom.\n  SOMERSET. I humbly thank your royal Majesty.\n  HORNER. And I accept the combat willingly.\n  PETER. Alas, my lord, I cannot fight; for God's sake, pity my case!\n    The spite of man prevaileth against me. O Lord, have mercy upon\n    me, I shall never be able to fight a blow! O Lord, my heart!\n  GLOUCESTER. Sirrah, or you must fight or else be hang'd.\n  KING HENRY. Away with them to prison; and the day of combat shall\n    be the last of the next month.\n    Come, Somerset, we'll see thee sent away.   Flourish. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nLondon. The DUKE OF GLOUCESTER'S garden\n\nEnter MARGERY JOURDAIN, the witch; the two priests, HUME and SOUTHWELL;\nand BOLINGBROKE\n\n  HUME. Come, my masters; the Duchess, I tell you, expects\n    performance of your promises.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Master Hume, we are therefore provided; will her\n    ladyship behold and hear our exorcisms?\n  HUME. Ay, what else? Fear you not her courage.\n  BOLINGBROKE. I have heard her reported to be a woman of an\n    invincible spirit; but it shall be convenient, Master Hume, that\n    you be by her aloft while we be busy below; and so I pray you go,\n    in God's name, and leave us. [Exit HUME] Mother Jourdain, be you\n    prostrate and grovel on the earth; John Southwell, read you; and\n    let us to our work.\n\n                 Enter DUCHESS aloft, followed by HUME\n\n  DUCHESS. Well said, my masters; and welcome all. To this gear, the\n    sooner the better.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Patience, good lady; wizards know their times:\n    Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night,\n    The time of night when Troy was set on fire;\n    The time when screech-owls cry and ban-dogs howl,\n    And spirits walk and ghosts break up their graves-\n    That time best fits the work we have in hand.\n    Madam, sit you, and fear not: whom we raise\n    We will make fast within a hallow'd verge.\n\n     [Here they do the ceremonies belonging, and make the circle;\n          BOLINGBROKE or SOUTHWELL reads: 'Conjuro te,' &c.\n     It thunders and lightens terribly; then the SPIRIT riseth]\n\n  SPIRIT. Adsum.\n  MARGERY JOURDAIN. Asmath,\n    By the eternal God, whose name and power\n    Thou tremblest at, answer that I shall ask;\n    For till thou speak thou shalt not pass from hence.\n  SPIRIT. Ask what thou wilt; that I had said and done.\n  BOLINGBROKE. [Reads] 'First of the king: what shall of him become?'\n  SPIRIT. The Duke yet lives that Henry shall depose;\n    But him outlive, and die a violent death.\n             [As the SPIRIT speaks, SOUTHWELL writes the answer]\n  BOLINGBROKE. 'What fates await the Duke of Suffolk?'\n  SPIRIT. By water shall he die and take his end.\n  BOLINGBROKE. 'What shall befall the Duke of Somerset?'\n  SPIRIT. Let him shun castles:\n    Safer shall he be upon the sandy plains\n    Than where castles mounted stand.\n    Have done, for more I hardly can endure.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Descend to darkness and the burning lake;\n    False fiend, avoid!       Thunder and lightning. Exit SPIRIT\n\n               Enter the DUKE OF YORK and the DUKE OF\n                 BUCKINGHAM with guard, and break in\n\n  YORK. Lay hands upon these traitors and their trash.\n    Beldam, I think we watch'd you at an inch.\n    What, madam, are you there? The King and commonweal\n    Are deeply indebted for this piece of pains;\n    My Lord Protector will, I doubt it not,\n    See you well guerdon'd for these good deserts.\n  DUCHESS. Not half so bad as thine to England's king,\n    Injurious Duke, that threatest where's no cause.\n  BUCKINGHAM. True, madam, none at all. What can you this?\n    Away with them! let them be clapp'd up close,\n    And kept asunder. You, madam, shall with us.\n    Stafford, take her to thee.\n    We'll see your trinkets here all forthcoming.\n    All, away!\n                Exeunt, above, DUCHESS and HUME, guarded; below,\n                       WITCH, SOUTHWELL and BOLINGBROKE, guarded\n  YORK. Lord Buckingham, methinks you watch'd her well.\n    A pretty plot, well chosen to build upon!\n    Now, pray, my lord, let's see the devil's writ.\n    What have we here?                                   [Reads]\n    'The duke yet lives that Henry shall depose;\n    But him outlive, and die a violent death.'\n    Why, this is just\n    'Aio te, Aeacida, Romanos vincere posse.'\n    Well, to the rest:\n    'Tell me what fate awaits the Duke of Suffolk?'\n    'By water shall he die and take his end.'\n    'What shall betide the Duke of Somerset?'\n    'Let him shun castles;\n    Safer shall he be upon the sandy plains\n    Than where castles mounted stand.'\n    Come, come, my lords;\n    These oracles are hardly attain'd,\n    And hardly understood.\n    The King is now in progress towards Saint Albans,\n    With him the husband of this lovely lady;\n    Thither go these news as fast as horse can carry them-\n    A sorry breakfast for my Lord Protector.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Your Grace shall give me leave, my Lord of York,\n    To be the post, in hope of his reward.\n  YORK. At your pleasure, my good lord.\n    Who's within there, ho?\n\n                       Enter a serving-man\n\n    Invite my Lords of Salisbury and Warwick\n    To sup with me to-morrow night. Away!                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nSaint Albans\n\nEnter the KING, QUEEN, GLOUCESTER, CARDINAL, and SUFFOLK,\nwith Falconers halloing\n\n  QUEEN. Believe me, lords, for flying at the brook,\n    I saw not better sport these seven years' day;\n    Yet, by your leave, the wind was very high,\n    And ten to one old Joan had not gone out.\n  KING HENRY. But what a point, my lord, your falcon made,\n    And what a pitch she flew above the rest!\n    To see how God in all His creatures works!\n    Yea, man and birds are fain of climbing high.\n  SUFFOLK. No marvel, an it like your Majesty,\n    My Lord Protector's hawks do tow'r so well;\n    They know their master loves to be aloft,\n    And bears his thoughts above his falcon's pitch.\n  GLOUCESTER. My lord, 'tis but a base ignoble mind\n    That mounts no higher than a bird can soar.\n  CARDINAL. I thought as much; he would be above the clouds.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ay, my lord Cardinal, how think you by that?\n    Were it not good your Grace could fly to heaven?\n  KING HENRY. The treasury of everlasting joy!\n  CARDINAL. Thy heaven is on earth; thine eyes and thoughts\n    Beat on a crown, the treasure of thy heart;\n    Pernicious Protector, dangerous peer,\n    That smooth'st it so with King and commonweal.\n  GLOUCESTER. What, Cardinal, is your priesthood grown peremptory?\n    Tantaene animis coelestibus irae?\n    Churchmen so hot? Good uncle, hide such malice;\n    With such holiness can you do it?\n  SUFFOLK. No malice, sir; no more than well becomes\n    So good a quarrel and so bad a peer.\n  GLOUCESTER. As who, my lord?\n  SUFFOLK. Why, as you, my lord,\n    An't like your lordly Lord's Protectorship.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, Suffolk, England knows thine insolence.\n  QUEEN. And thy ambition, Gloucester.\n  KING HENRY. I prithee, peace,\n    Good Queen, and whet not on these furious peers;\n    For blessed are the peacemakers on earth.\n  CARDINAL. Let me be blessed for the peace I make\n    Against this proud Protector with my sword!\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CARDINAL] Faith, holy uncle, would 'twere\n    come to that!\n  CARDINAL. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Marry, when thou dar'st.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CARDINAL] Make up no factious numbers for the\n      matter;\n    In thine own person answer thy abuse.\n  CARDINAL. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Ay, where thou dar'st not peep; an\n      if thou dar'st,\n    This evening on the east side of the grove.\n  KING HENRY. How now, my lords!\n  CARDINAL. Believe me, cousin Gloucester,\n    Had not your man put up the fowl so suddenly,\n    We had had more sport. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Come with thy\n      two-hand sword.\n  GLOUCESTER. True, uncle.\n  CARDINAL. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Are ye advis'd? The east side of\n    the grove?\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CARDINAL] Cardinal, I am with you.\n  KING HENRY. Why, how now, uncle Gloucester!\n  GLOUCESTER. Talking of hawking; nothing else, my lord.\n    [Aside to CARDINAL] Now, by God's Mother, priest,\n    I'll shave your crown for this,\n    Or all my fence shall fail.\n  CARDINAL. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Medice, teipsum;\n    Protector, see to't well; protect yourself.\n  KING HENRY. The winds grow high; so do your stomachs, lords.\n    How irksome is this music to my heart!\n    When such strings jar, what hope of harmony?\n    I pray, my lords, let me compound this strife.\n\n         Enter a TOWNSMAN of Saint Albans, crying 'A miracle!'\n\n  GLOUCESTER. What means this noise?\n    Fellow, what miracle dost thou proclaim?\n  TOWNSMAN. A miracle! A miracle!\n  SUFFOLK. Come to the King, and tell him what miracle.\n  TOWNSMAN. Forsooth, a blind man at Saint Albans shrine\n    Within this half hour hath receiv'd his sight;\n    A man that ne'er saw in his life before.\n  KING HENRY. Now God be prais'd that to believing souls\n    Gives light in darkness, comfort in despair!\n\n           Enter the MAYOR OF SAINT ALBANS and his brethren,\n               bearing Simpcox between two in a chair;\n                 his WIFE and a multitude following\n\n  CARDINAL. Here comes the townsmen on procession\n    To present your Highness with the man.\n  KING HENRY. Great is his comfort in this earthly vale,\n    Although by his sight his sin be multiplied.\n  GLOUCESTER. Stand by, my masters; bring him near the King;\n    His Highness' pleasure is to talk with him.\n  KING HENRY. Good fellow, tell us here the circumstance,\n    That we for thee may glorify the Lord.\n    What, hast thou been long blind and now restor'd?\n  SIMPCOX. Born blind, an't please your Grace.\n  WIFE. Ay indeed was he.\n  SUFFOLK. What woman is this?\n  WIFE. His wife, an't like your worship.\n  GLOUCESTER. Hadst thou been his mother, thou couldst have better\n    told.\n  KING HENRY. Where wert thou born?\n  SIMPCOX. At Berwick in the north, an't like your Grace.\n  KING HENRY. Poor soul, God's goodness hath been great to thee.\n    Let never day nor night unhallowed pass,\n    But still remember what the Lord hath done.\n  QUEEN. Tell me, good fellow, cam'st thou here by chance,\n    Or of devotion, to this holy shrine?\n  SIMPCOX. God knows, of pure devotion; being call'd\n    A hundred times and oft'ner, in my sleep,\n    By good Saint Alban, who said 'Simpcox, come,\n    Come, offer at my shrine, and I will help thee.'\n  WIFE. Most true, forsooth; and many time and oft\n    Myself have heard a voice to call him so.\n  CARDINAL. What, art thou lame?\n  SIMPCOX. Ay, God Almighty help me!\n  SUFFOLK. How cam'st thou so?\n  SIMPCOX. A fall off of a tree.\n  WIFE. A plum tree, master.\n  GLOUCESTER. How long hast thou been blind?\n  SIMPCOX. O, born so, master!\n  GLOUCESTER. What, and wouldst climb a tree?\n  SIMPCOX. But that in all my life, when I was a youth.\n  WIFE. Too true; and bought his climbing very dear.\n  GLOUCESTER. Mass, thou lov'dst plums well, that wouldst venture so.\n  SIMPCOX. Alas, good master, my wife desir'd some damsons\n    And made me climb, With danger of my life.\n  GLOUCESTER. A subtle knave! But yet it shall not serve:\n    Let me see thine eyes; wink now; now open them;\n    In my opinion yet thou seest not well.\n  SIMPCOX. Yes, master, clear as day, I thank God and Saint Alban.\n  GLOUCESTER. Say'st thou me so? What colour is this cloak of?\n  SIMPCOX. Red, master; red as blood.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, that's well said. What colour is my gown of?\n  SIMPCOX. Black, forsooth; coal-black as jet.\n  KING HENRY. Why, then, thou know'st what colour jet is of?\n  SUFFOLK. And yet, I think, jet did he never see.\n  GLOUCESTER. But cloaks and gowns before this day a many.\n  WIFE. Never before this day in all his life.\n  GLOUCESTER. Tell me, sirrah, what's my name?\n  SIMPCOX. Alas, master, I know not.\n  GLOUCESTER. What's his name?\n  SIMPCOX. I know not.\n  GLOUCESTER. Nor his?\n  SIMPCOX. No, indeed, master.\n  GLOUCESTER. What's thine own name?\n  SIMPCOX. Saunder Simpcox, an if it please you, master.\n  GLOUCESTER. Then, Saunder, sit there, the lying'st knave in\n    Christendom. If thou hadst been born blind, thou mightst as well\n    have known all our names as thus to name the several colours we\n    do wear. Sight may distinguish of colours; but suddenly to\n    nominate them all, it is impossible. My lords, Saint Alban here\n    hath done a miracle; and would ye not think his cunning to be\n    great that could restore this cripple to his legs again?\n  SIMPCOX. O master, that you could!\n  GLOUCESTER. My masters of Saint Albans, have you not beadles in\n    your town, and things call'd whips?\n  MAYOR. Yes, my lord, if it please your Grace.\n  GLOUCESTER. Then send for one presently.\n  MAYOR. Sirrah, go fetch the beadle hither straight.\n                                               Exit an attendant\n  GLOUCESTER. Now fetch me a stool hither by and by. [A stool\n    brought] Now, sirrah, if you mean to save yourself from whipping,\n    leap me over this stool and run away.\n  SIMPCOX. Alas, master, I am not able to stand alone!\n    You go about to torture me in vain.\n\n                         Enter a BEADLE with whips\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Well, sir, we must have you find your legs.\n    Sirrah beadle, whip him till he leap over that same stool.\n  BEADLE. I will, my lord. Come on, sirrah; off with your doublet\n    quickly.\n  SIMPCOX. Alas, master, what shall I do? I am not able to stand.\n\n           After the BEADLE hath hit him once, he leaps over\n           the stool and runs away; and they follow and cry\n                             'A miracle!'\n\n  KING HENRY. O God, seest Thou this, and bearest so long?\n  QUEEN. It made me laugh to see the villain run.\n  GLOUCESTER. Follow the knave, and take this drab away.\n  WIFE. Alas, sir, we did it for pure need!\n  GLOUCESTER. Let them be whipp'd through every market town till they\n    come to Berwick, from whence they came.\n                                 Exeunt MAYOR, BEADLE, WIFE, &c.\n  CARDINAL. Duke Humphrey has done a miracle to-day.\n  SUFFOLK. True; made the lame to leap and fly away.\n  GLOUCESTER. But you have done more miracles than I:\n    You made in a day, my lord, whole towns to fly.\n\n                         Enter BUCKINGHAM\n\n  KING HENRY. What tidings with our cousin Buckingham?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Such as my heart doth tremble to unfold:\n    A sort of naughty persons, lewdly bent,\n    Under the countenance and confederacy\n    Of Lady Eleanor, the Protector's wife,\n    The ringleader and head of all this rout,\n    Have practis'd dangerously against your state,\n    Dealing with witches and with conjurers,\n    Whom we have apprehended in the fact,\n    Raising up wicked spirits from under ground,\n    Demanding of King Henry's life and death\n    And other of your Highness' Privy Council,\n    As more at large your Grace shall understand.\n  CARDINAL. And so, my Lord Protector, by this means\n    Your lady is forthcoming yet at London.\n    This news, I think, hath turn'd your weapon's edge;\n    'Tis like, my lord, you will not keep your hour.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ambitious churchman, leave to afflict my heart.\n    Sorrow and grief have vanquish'd all my powers;\n    And, vanquish'd as I am, I yield to the\n    Or to the meanest groom.\n  KING HENRY. O God, what mischiefs work the wicked ones,\n    Heaping confusion on their own heads thereby!\n  QUEEN. Gloucester, see here the tainture of thy nest;\n    And look thyself be faultless, thou wert best.\n  GLOUCESTER. Madam, for myself, to heaven I do appeal\n    How I have lov'd my King and commonweal;\n    And for my wife I know not how it stands.\n    Sorry I am to hear what I have heard.\n    Noble she is; but if she have forgot\n    Honour and virtue, and convers'd with such\n    As, like to pitch, defile nobility,\n    I banish her my bed and company\n    And give her as a prey to law and shame,\n    That hath dishonoured Gloucester's honest name.\n  KING HENRY. Well, for this night we will repose us here.\n    To-morrow toward London back again\n    To look into this business thoroughly\n    And call these foul offenders to their answers,\n    And poise the cause in justice' equal scales,\n    Whose beam stands sure, whose rightful cause prevails.\n                                                Flourish. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nLondon. The DUKE OF YORK'S garden\n\nEnter YORK, SALISBURY, and WARWICK\n\n  YORK. Now, my good Lords of Salisbury and Warwick,\n    Our simple supper ended, give me leave\n    In this close walk to satisfy myself\n    In craving your opinion of my tide,\n    Which is infallible, to England's crown.\n  SALISBURY. My lord, I long to hear it at full.\n  WARWICK. Sweet York, begin; and if thy claim be good,\n    The Nevils are thy subjects to command.\n  YORK. Then thus:\n    Edward the Third, my lords, had seven sons;\n    The first, Edward the Black Prince, Prince of Wales;\n    The second, William of Hatfield; and the third,\n    Lionel Duke of Clarence; next to whom\n    Was John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster;\n    The fifth was Edmund Langley, Duke of York;\n    The sixth was Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester;\n    William of Windsor was the seventh and last.\n    Edward the Black Prince died before his father\n    And left behind him Richard, his only son,\n    Who, after Edward the Third's death, reign'd as king\n    Till Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster,\n    The eldest son and heir of John of Gaunt,\n    Crown'd by the name of Henry the Fourth,\n    Seiz'd on the realm, depos'd the rightful king,\n    Sent his poor queen to France, from whence she came.\n    And him to Pomfret, where, as all you know,\n    Harmless Richard was murdered traitorously.\n  WARWICK. Father, the Duke hath told the truth;\n    Thus got the house of Lancaster the crown.\n  YORK. Which now they hold by force, and not by right;\n    For Richard, the first son's heir, being dead,\n    The issue of the next son should have reign'd.\n  SALISBURY. But William of Hatfield died without an heir.\n  YORK. The third son, Duke of Clarence, from whose line\n    I claim the crown, had issue Philippe, a daughter,\n    Who married Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March;\n    Edmund had issue, Roger Earl of March;\n    Roger had issue, Edmund, Anne, and Eleanor.\n  SALISBURY. This Edmund, in the reign of Bolingbroke,\n    As I have read, laid claim unto the crown;\n    And, but for Owen Glendower, had been king,\n    Who kept him in captivity till he died.\n    But, to the rest.\n  YORK. His eldest sister, Anne,\n    My mother, being heir unto the crown,\n    Married Richard Earl of Cambridge, who was\n    To Edmund Langley, Edward the Third's fifth son, son.\n    By her I claim the kingdom: she was heir\n    To Roger Earl of March, who was the son\n    Of Edmund Mortimer, who married Philippe,\n    Sole daughter unto Lionel Duke of Clarence;\n    So, if the issue of the elder son\n    Succeed before the younger, I am King.\n  WARWICK. What plain proceedings is more plain than this?\n    Henry doth claim the crown from John of Gaunt,\n    The fourth son: York claims it from the third.\n    Till Lionel's issue fails, his should not reign.\n    It fails not yet, but flourishes in thee\n    And in thy sons, fair slips of such a stock.\n    Then, father Salisbury, kneel we together,\n    And in this private plot be we the first\n    That shall salute our rightful sovereign\n    With honour of his birthright to the crown.\n  BOTH. Long live our sovereign Richard, England's King!\n  YORK. We thank you, lords. But I am not your king\n    Till I be crown'd, and that my sword be stain'd\n    With heart-blood of the house of Lancaster;\n    And that's not suddenly to be perform'd,\n    But with advice and silent secrecy.\n    Do you as I do in these dangerous days:\n    Wink at the Duke of Suffolk's insolence,\n    At Beaufort's pride, at Somerset's ambition,\n    At Buckingham, and all the crew of them,\n    Till they have snar'd the shepherd of the flock,\n    That virtuous prince, the good Duke Humphrey;\n    'Tis that they seek; and they, in seeking that,\n    Shall find their deaths, if York can prophesy.\n  SALISBURY. My lord, break we off; we know your mind at full.\n  WARWICK. My heart assures me that the Earl of Warwick\n    Shall one day make the Duke of York a king.\n  YORK. And, Nevil, this I do assure myself,\n    Richard shall live to make the Earl of Warwick\n    The greatest man in England but the King.             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nLondon. A hall of justice\n\nSound trumpets. Enter the KING and State: the QUEEN, GLOUCESTER, YORK,\nSUFFOLK, and SALISBURY, with guard, to banish the DUCHESS. Enter, guarded,\nthe DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER, MARGERY JOURDAIN, HUME, SOUTHWELL, and BOLINGBROKE\n\n  KING HENRY. Stand forth, Dame Eleanor Cobham, Gloucester's wife:\n    In sight of God and us, your guilt is great;\n    Receive the sentence of the law for sins\n    Such as by God's book are adjudg'd to death.\n    You four, from hence to prison back again;\n    From thence unto the place of execution:\n    The witch in Smithfield shall be burnt to ashes,\n    And you three shall be strangled on the gallows.\n    You, madam, for you are more nobly born,\n    Despoiled of your honour in your life,\n    Shall, after three days' open penance done,\n    Live in your country here in banishment\n    With Sir John Stanley in the Isle of Man.\n  DUCHESS. Welcome is banishment; welcome were my death.\n  GLOUCESTER. Eleanor, the law, thou seest, hath judged thee.\n    I cannot justify whom the law condemns.\n             Exeunt the DUCHESS and the other prisoners, guarded\n    Mine eyes are full of tears, my heart of grief.\n    Ah, Humphrey, this dishonour in thine age\n    Will bring thy head with sorrow to the ground!\n    I beseech your Majesty give me leave to go;\n    Sorrow would solace, and mine age would ease.\n  KING HENRY. Stay, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester; ere thou go,\n    Give up thy staff; Henry will to himself\n    Protector be; and God shall be my hope,\n    My stay, my guide, and lantern to my feet.\n    And go in peace, Humphrey, no less belov'd\n    Than when thou wert Protector to thy King.\n  QUEEN. I see no reason why a king of years\n    Should be to be protected like a child.\n    God and King Henry govern England's realm!\n    Give up your staff, sir, and the King his realm.\n  GLOUCESTER. My staff! Here, noble Henry, is my staff.\n    As willingly do I the same resign\n    As ere thy father Henry made it mine;\n    And even as willingly at thy feet I leave it\n    As others would ambitiously receive it.\n    Farewell, good King; when I am dead and gone,\n    May honourable peace attend thy throne!                 Exit\n  QUEEN. Why, now is Henry King, and Margaret Queen,\n    And Humphrey Duke of Gloucester scarce himself,\n    That bears so shrewd a maim: two pulls at once-\n    His lady banish'd and a limb lopp'd off.\n    This staff of honour raught, there let it stand\n    Where it best fits to be, in Henry's hand.\n  SUFFOLK. Thus droops this lofty pine and hangs his sprays;\n    Thus Eleanor's pride dies in her youngest days.\n  YORK. Lords, let him go. Please it your Majesty,\n    This is the day appointed for the combat;\n    And ready are the appellant and defendant,\n    The armourer and his man, to enter the lists,\n    So please your Highness to behold the fight.\n  QUEEN. Ay, good my lord; for purposely therefore\n    Left I the court, to see this quarrel tried.\n  KING HENRY. A God's name, see the lists and all things fit;\n    Here let them end it, and God defend the right!\n  YORK. I never saw a fellow worse bested,\n    Or more afraid to fight, than is the appellant,\n    The servant of his armourer, my lords.\n\n        Enter at one door, HORNER, the Armourer, and his\n         NEIGHBOURS, drinking to him so much that he is\n        drunk; and he enters with a drum before him and\n       his staff with a sand-bag fastened to it; and at the\n        other door PETER, his man, with a drum and sandbag,\n                  and PRENTICES drinking to him\n\n  FIRST NEIGHBOUR. Here, neighbour Horner, I drink to you in a cup of\n    sack; and fear not, neighbour, you shall do well enough.\n  SECOND NEIGHBOUR. And here, neighbour, here's a cup of charneco.\n  THIRD NEIGHBOUR. And here's a pot of good double beer, neighbour;\n    drink, and fear not your man.\n  HORNER. Let it come, i' faith, and I'll pledge you all; and a fig\n    for Peter!\n  FIRST PRENTICE. Here, Peter, I drink to thee; and be not afraid.\n  SECOND PRENTICE. Be merry, Peter, and fear not thy master: fight\n    for credit of the prentices.\n  PETER. I thank you all. Drink, and pray for me, I pray you; for I\n    think I have taken my last draught in this world. Here, Robin, an\n    if I die, I give thee my apron; and, Will, thou shalt have my\n    hammer; and here, Tom, take all the money that I have. O Lord\n    bless me, I pray God! for I am never able to deal with my master,\n    he hath learnt so much fence already.\n  SALISBURY. Come, leave your drinking and fall to blows.\n    Sirrah, what's thy name?\n  PETER. Peter, forsooth.\n  SALISBURY. Peter? What more?\n  PETER. Thump.\n  SALISBURY. Thump? Then see thou thump thy master well.\n  HORNER. Masters, I am come hither, as it were, upon my man's\n    instigation, to prove him a knave and myself an honest man; and\n    touching the Duke of York, I will take my death I never meant him\n    any ill, nor the King, nor the Queen; and therefore, Peter, have\n    at thee with a down right blow!\n  YORK. Dispatch- this knave's tongue begins to double.\n    Sound, trumpets, alarum to the combatants!\n                 [Alarum. They fight and PETER strikes him down]\n  HORNER. Hold, Peter, hold! I confess, I confess treason.\n                                                          [Dies]\n  YORK. Take away his weapon. Fellow, thank God, and the good wine in\n    thy master's way.\n  PETER. O God, have I overcome mine enemies in this presence? O\n    Peter, thou hast prevail'd in right!\n  KING HENRY. Go, take hence that traitor from our sight,\n    For by his death we do perceive his guilt;\n    And God in justice hath reveal'd to us\n    The truth and innocence of this poor fellow,\n    Which he had thought to have murder'd wrongfully.\n    Come, fellow, follow us for thy reward.\n                                        Sound a flourish. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nLondon. A street\n\nEnter DUKE HUMPHREY and his men, in mourning cloaks\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Thus sometimes hath the brightest day a cloud,\n    And after summer evermore succeeds\n    Barren winter, with his wrathful nipping cold;\n    So cares and joys abound, as seasons fleet.\n    Sirs, what's o'clock?\n  SERVING-MAN. Ten, my lord.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ten is the hour that was appointed me\n    To watch the coming of my punish'd duchess.\n    Uneath may she endure the flinty streets\n    To tread them with her tender-feeling feet.\n    Sweet Nell, ill can thy noble mind abrook\n    The abject people gazing on thy face,\n    With envious looks, laughing at thy shame,\n    That erst did follow thy proud chariot wheels\n    When thou didst ride in triumph through the streets.\n    But, soft! I think she comes, and I'll prepare\n    My tear-stain'd eyes to see her miseries.\n\n          Enter the DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER in a white sheet,\n            and a taper burning in her hand, with SIR JOHN\n               STANLEY, the SHERIFF, and OFFICERS\n\n  SERVING-MAN. So please your Grace, we'll take her from the sheriff.\n  GLOUCESTER. No, stir not for your lives; let her pass by.\n  DUCHESS. Come you, my lord, to see my open shame?\n    Now thou dost penance too. Look how they gaze!\n    See how the giddy multitude do point\n    And nod their heads and throw their eyes on thee;\n    Ah, Gloucester, hide thee from their hateful looks,\n    And, in thy closet pent up, rue my shame\n    And ban thine enemies, both mine and thine!\n  GLOUCESTER. Be patient, gentle Nell; forget this grief.\n  DUCHESS. Ah, Gloucester, teach me to forget myself!\n    For whilst I think I am thy married wife\n    And thou a prince, Protector of this land,\n    Methinks I should not thus be led along,\n    Mail'd up in shame, with papers on my back,\n    And follow'd with a rabble that rejoice\n    To see my tears and hear my deep-fet groans.\n    The ruthless flint doth cut my tender feet,\n    And when I start, the envious people laugh\n    And bid me be advised how I tread.\n    Ah, Humphrey, can I bear this shameful yoke?\n    Trowest thou that e'er I'll look upon the world\n    Or count them happy that enjoy the sun?\n    No; dark shall be my light and night my day;\n    To think upon my pomp shall be my hell.\n    Sometimes I'll say I am Duke Humphrey's wife,\n    And he a prince, and ruler of the land;\n    Yet so he rul'd, and such a prince he was,\n    As he stood by whilst I, his forlorn duchess,\n    Was made a wonder and a pointing-stock\n    To every idle rascal follower.\n    But be thou mild, and blush not at my shame,\n    Nor stir at nothing till the axe of death\n    Hang over thee, as sure it shortly will.\n    For Suffolk- he that can do all in all\n    With her that hateth thee and hates us all-\n    And York, and impious Beaufort, that false priest,\n    Have all lim'd bushes to betray thy wings,\n    And, fly thou how thou canst, they'll tangle thee.\n    But fear not thou until thy foot be snar'd,\n    Nor never seek prevention of thy foes.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ah, Nell, forbear! Thou aimest all awry.\n    I must offend before I be attainted;\n    And had I twenty times so many foes,\n    And each of them had twenty times their power,\n    All these could not procure me any scathe\n    So long as I am loyal, true, and crimeless.\n    Wouldst have me rescue thee from this reproach?\n    Why, yet thy scandal were not wip'd away,\n    But I in danger for the breach of law.\n    Thy greatest help is quiet, gentle Nell.\n    I pray thee sort thy heart to patience;\n    These few days' wonder will be quickly worn.\n\n                          Enter a HERALD\n\n  HERALD. I summon your Grace to his Majesty's Parliament,\n    Holden at Bury the first of this next month.\n  GLOUCESTER. And my consent ne'er ask'd herein before!\n    This is close dealing. Well, I will be there.    Exit HERALD\n    My Nell, I take my leave- and, master sheriff,\n    Let not her penance exceed the King's commission.\n  SHERIFF. An't please your Grace, here my commission stays;\n    And Sir John Stanley is appointed now\n    To take her with him to the Isle of Man.\n  GLOUCESTER. Must you, Sir John, protect my lady here?\n  STANLEY. So am I given in charge, may't please your Grace.\n  GLOUCESTER. Entreat her not the worse in that I pray\n    You use her well; the world may laugh again,\n    And I may live to do you kindness if\n    You do it her. And so, Sir John, farewell.\n  DUCHESS. What, gone, my lord, and bid me not farewell!\n  GLOUCESTER. Witness my tears, I cannot stay to speak.\n                                  Exeunt GLOUCESTER and servants\n  DUCHESS. Art thou gone too? All comfort go with thee!\n    For none abides with me. My joy is death-\n    Death, at whose name I oft have been afeard,\n    Because I wish'd this world's eternity.\n    Stanley, I prithee go, and take me hence;\n    I care not whither, for I beg no favour,\n    Only convey me where thou art commanded.\n  STANLEY. Why, madam, that is to the Isle of Man,\n    There to be us'd according to your state.\n  DUCHESS. That's bad enough, for I am but reproach-\n    And shall I then be us'd reproachfully?\n  STANLEY. Like to a duchess and Duke Humphrey's lady;\n    According to that state you shall be us'd.\n  DUCHESS. Sheriff, farewell, and better than I fare,\n    Although thou hast been conduct of my shame.\n  SHERIFF. It is my office; and, madam, pardon me.\n  DUCHESS. Ay, ay, farewell; thy office is discharg'd.\n    Come, Stanley, shall we go?\n  STANLEY. Madam, your penance done, throw off this sheet,\n    And go we to attire you for our journey.\n  DUCHESS. My shame will not be shifted with my sheet.\n    No, it will hang upon my richest robes\n    And show itself, attire me how I can.\n    Go, lead the way; I long to see my prison.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nThe Abbey at Bury St. Edmunds\n\nSound a sennet. Enter the KING, the QUEEN, CARDINAL, SUFFOLK, YORK,\nBUCKINGHAM, SALISBURY, and WARWICK, to the Parliament\n\n  KING HENRY. I muse my Lord of Gloucester is not come.\n    'Tis not his wont to be the hindmost man,\n    Whate'er occasion keeps him from us now.\n  QUEEN. Can you not see, or will ye not observe\n    The strangeness of his alter'd countenance?\n    With what a majesty he bears himself;\n    How insolent of late he is become,\n    How proud, how peremptory, and unlike himself?\n    We know the time since he was mild and affable,\n    And if we did but glance a far-off look\n    Immediately he was upon his knee,\n    That all the court admir'd him for submission.\n    But meet him now and be it in the morn,\n    When every one will give the time of day,\n    He knits his brow and shows an angry eye\n    And passeth by with stiff unbowed knee,\n    Disdaining duty that to us belongs.\n    Small curs are not regarded when they grin,\n    But great men tremble when the lion roars,\n    And Humphrey is no little man in England.\n    First note that he is near you in descent,\n    And should you fall he is the next will mount;\n    Me seemeth, then, it is no policy-\n    Respecting what a rancorous mind he bears,\n    And his advantage following your decease-\n    That he should come about your royal person\n    Or be admitted to your Highness' Council.\n    By flattery hath he won the commons' hearts;\n    And when he please to make commotion,\n    'Tis to be fear'd they all will follow him.\n    Now 'tis the spring, and weeds are shallow-rooted;\n    Suffer them now, and they'll o'ergrow the garden\n    And choke the herbs for want of husbandry.\n    The reverent care I bear unto my lord\n    Made me collect these dangers in the Duke.\n    If it be fond, can it a woman's fear;\n    Which fear if better reasons can supplant,\n    I will subscribe, and say I wrong'd the Duke.\n    My Lord of Suffolk, Buckingham, and York,\n    Reprove my allegation if you can,\n    Or else conclude my words effectual.\n  SUFFOLK. Well hath your Highness seen into this duke;\n    And had I first been put to speak my mind,\n    I think I should have told your Grace's tale.\n    The Duchess, by his subornation,\n    Upon my life, began her devilish practices;\n    Or if he were not privy to those faults,\n    Yet by reputing of his high descent-\n    As next the King he was successive heir-\n    And such high vaunts of his nobility,\n    Did instigate the bedlam brainsick Duchess\n    By wicked means to frame our sovereign's fall.\n    Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep,\n    And in his simple show he harbours treason.\n    The fox barks not when he would steal the lamb.\n    No, no, my sovereign, Gloucester is a man\n    Unsounded yet, and full of deep deceit.\n  CARDINAL. Did he not, contrary to form of law,\n    Devise strange deaths for small offences done?\n  YORK. And did he not, in his protectorship,\n    Levy great sums of money through the realm\n    For soldiers' pay in France, and never sent it?\n    By means whereof the towns each day revolted.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Tut, these are petty faults to faults unknown\n    Which time will bring to light in smooth Duke Humphrey.\n  KING HENRY. My lords, at once: the care you have of us,\n    To mow down thorns that would annoy our foot,\n    Is worthy praise; but shall I speak my conscience?\n    Our kinsman Gloucester is as innocent\n    From meaning treason to our royal person\n    As is the sucking lamb or harmless dove:\n    The Duke is virtuous, mild, and too well given\n    To dream on evil or to work my downfall.\n  QUEEN. Ah, what's more dangerous than this fond affiance?\n    Seems he a dove? His feathers are but borrow'd,\n    For he's disposed as the hateful raven.\n    Is he a lamb? His skin is surely lent him,\n    For he's inclin'd as is the ravenous wolf.\n    Who cannot steal a shape that means deceit?\n    Take heed, my lord; the welfare of us all\n    Hangs on the cutting short that fraudful man.\n\n                          Enter SOMERSET\n\n  SOMERSET. All health unto my gracious sovereign!\n  KING HENRY. Welcome, Lord Somerset. What news from France?\n  SOMERSET. That all your interest in those territories\n    Is utterly bereft you; all is lost.\n  KING HENRY. Cold news, Lord Somerset; but God's will be done!\n  YORK. [Aside] Cold news for me; for I had hope of France\n    As firmly as I hope for fertile England.\n    Thus are my blossoms blasted in the bud,\n    And caterpillars eat my leaves away;\n    But I will remedy this gear ere long,\n    Or sell my title for a glorious grave.\n\n                         Enter GLOUCESTER\n\n  GLOUCESTER. All happiness unto my lord the King!\n    Pardon, my liege, that I have stay'd so long.\n  SUFFOLK. Nay, Gloucester, know that thou art come too soon,\n    Unless thou wert more loyal than thou art.\n    I do arrest thee of high treason here.\n  GLOUCESTER. Well, Suffolk, thou shalt not see me blush\n    Nor change my countenance for this arrest:\n    A heart unspotted is not easily daunted.\n    The purest spring is not so free from mud\n    As I am clear from treason to my sovereign.\n    Who can accuse me? Wherein am I guilty?\n  YORK. 'Tis thought, my lord, that you took bribes of France\n    And, being Protector, stay'd the soldiers' pay;\n    By means whereof his Highness hath lost France.\n  GLOUCESTER. Is it but thought so? What are they that think it?\n    I never robb'd the soldiers of their pay\n    Nor ever had one penny bribe from France.\n    So help me God, as I have watch'd the night-\n    Ay, night by night- in studying good for England!\n    That doit that e'er I wrested from the King,\n    Or any groat I hoarded to my use,\n    Be brought against me at my trial-day!\n    No; many a pound of mine own proper store,\n    Because I would not tax the needy commons,\n    Have I dispursed to the garrisons,\n    And never ask'd for restitution.\n  CARDINAL. It serves you well, my lord, to say so much.\n  GLOUCESTER. I say no more than truth, so help me God!\n  YORK. In your protectorship you did devise\n    Strange tortures for offenders, never heard of,\n    That England was defam'd by tyranny.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, 'tis well known that whiles I was Protector\n    Pity was all the fault that was in me;\n    For I should melt at an offender's tears,\n    And lowly words were ransom for their fault.\n    Unless it were a bloody murderer,\n    Or foul felonious thief that fleec'd poor passengers,\n    I never gave them condign punishment.\n    Murder indeed, that bloody sin, I tortur'd\n    Above the felon or what trespass else.\n  SUFFOLK. My lord, these faults are easy, quickly answer'd;\n    But mightier crimes are laid unto your charge,\n    Whereof you cannot easily purge yourself.\n    I do arrest you in His Highness' name,\n    And here commit you to my Lord Cardinal\n    To keep until your further time of trial.\n  KING HENRY. My Lord of Gloucester, 'tis my special hope\n    That you will clear yourself from all suspense.\n    My conscience tells me you are innocent.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ah, gracious lord, these days are dangerous!\n    Virtue is chok'd with foul ambition,\n    And charity chas'd hence by rancour's hand;\n    Foul subornation is predominant,\n    And equity exil'd your Highness' land.\n    I know their complot is to have my life;\n    And if my death might make this island happy\n    And prove the period of their tyranny,\n    I would expend it with all willingness.\n    But mine is made the prologue to their play;\n    For thousands more that yet suspect no peril\n    Will not conclude their plotted tragedy.\n    Beaufort's red sparkling eyes blab his heart's malice,\n    And Suffolk's cloudy brow his stormy hate;\n    Sharp Buckingham unburdens with his tongue\n    The envious load that lies upon his heart;\n    And dogged York, that reaches at the moon,\n    Whose overweening arm I have pluck'd back,\n    By false accuse doth level at my life.\n    And you, my sovereign lady, with the rest,\n    Causeless have laid disgraces on my head,\n    And with your best endeavour have stirr'd up\n    My liefest liege to be mine enemy;\n    Ay, all of you have laid your heads together-\n    Myself had notice of your conventicles-\n    And all to make away my guiltless life.\n    I shall not want false witness to condemn me\n    Nor store of treasons to augment my guilt.\n    The ancient proverb will be well effected:\n    'A staff is quickly found to beat a dog.'\n  CARDINAL. My liege, his railing is intolerable.\n    If those that care to keep your royal person\n    From treason's secret knife and traitor's rage\n    Be thus upbraided, chid, and rated at,\n    And the offender granted scope of speech,\n    'Twill make them cool in zeal unto your Grace.\n  SUFFOLK. Hath he not twit our sovereign lady here\n    With ignominious words, though clerkly couch'd,\n    As if she had suborned some to swear\n    False allegations to o'erthrow his state?\n  QUEEN. But I can give the loser leave to chide.\n  GLOUCESTER. Far truer spoke than meant: I lose indeed.\n    Beshrew the winners, for they play'd me false!\n    And well such losers may have leave to speak.\n  BUCKINGHAM. He'll wrest the sense, and hold us here all day.\n    Lord Cardinal, he is your prisoner.\n  CARDINAL. Sirs, take away the Duke, and guard him sure.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ah, thus King Henry throws away his crutch\n    Before his legs be firm to bear his body!\n    Thus is the shepherd beaten from thy side,\n    And wolves are gnarling who shall gnaw thee first.\n    Ah, that my fear were false! ah, that it were!\n    For, good King Henry, thy decay I fear.        Exit, guarded\n  KING HENRY. My lords, what to your wisdoms seemeth best\n    Do or undo, as if ourself were here.\n  QUEEN. What, will your Highness leave the Parliament?\n  KING HENRY. Ay, Margaret; my heart is drown'd with grief,\n    Whose flood begins to flow within mine eyes;\n    My body round engirt with misery-\n    For what's more miserable than discontent?\n    Ah, uncle Humphrey, in thy face I see\n    The map of honour, truth, and loyalty!\n    And yet, good Humphrey, is the hour to come\n    That e'er I prov'd thee false or fear'd thy faith.\n    What louring star now envies thy estate\n    That these great lords, and Margaret our Queen,\n    Do seek subversion of thy harmless life?\n    Thou never didst them wrong, nor no man wrong;\n    And as the butcher takes away the calf,\n    And binds the wretch, and beats it when it strays,\n    Bearing it to the bloody slaughter-house,\n    Even so, remorseless, have they borne him hence;\n    And as the dam runs lowing up and down,\n    Looking the way her harmless young one went,\n    And can do nought but wail her darling's loss,\n    Even so myself bewails good Gloucester's case\n    With sad unhelpful tears, and with dimm'd eyes\n    Look after him, and cannot do him good,\n    So mighty are his vowed enemies.\n    His fortunes I will weep, and 'twixt each groan\n    Say 'Who's a traitor? Gloucester he is none.'           Exit\n  QUEEN. Free lords, cold snow melts with the sun's hot beams:\n    Henry my lord is cold in great affairs,\n    Too full of foolish pity; and Gloucester's show\n    Beguiles him as the mournful crocodile\n    With sorrow snares relenting passengers;\n    Or as the snake, roll'd in a flow'ring bank,\n    With shining checker'd slough, doth sting a child\n    That for the beauty thinks it excellent.\n    Believe me, lords, were none more wise than I-\n    And yet herein I judge mine own wit good-\n    This Gloucester should be quickly rid the world\n    To rid us from the fear we have of him.\n  CARDINAL. That he should die is worthy policy;\n    But yet we want a colour for his death.\n    'Tis meet he be condemn'd by course of law.\n  SUFFOLK. But, in my mind, that were no policy:\n    The King will labour still to save his life;\n    The commons haply rise to save his life;\n    And yet we have but trivial argument,\n    More than mistrust, that shows him worthy death.\n  YORK. So that, by this, you would not have him die.\n  SUFFOLK. Ah, York, no man alive so fain as I!\n  YORK. 'Tis York that hath more reason for his death.\n    But, my Lord Cardinal, and you, my Lord of Suffolk,\n    Say as you think, and speak it from your souls:\n    Were't not all one an empty eagle were set\n    To guard the chicken from a hungry kite\n    As place Duke Humphrey for the King's Protector?\n  QUEEN. So the poor chicken should be sure of death.\n  SUFFOLK. Madam, 'tis true; and were't not madness then\n    To make the fox surveyor of the fold?\n    Who being accus'd a crafty murderer,\n    His guilt should be but idly posted over,\n    Because his purpose is not executed.\n    No; let him die, in that he is a fox,\n    By nature prov'd an enemy to the flock,\n    Before his chaps be stain'd with crimson blood,\n    As Humphrey, prov'd by reasons, to my liege.\n    And do not stand on quillets how to slay him;\n    Be it by gins, by snares, by subtlety,\n    Sleeping or waking, 'tis no matter how,\n    So he be dead; for that is good deceit\n    Which mates him first that first intends deceit.\n  QUEEN. Thrice-noble Suffolk, 'tis resolutely spoke.\n  SUFFOLK. Not resolute, except so much were done,\n    For things are often spoke and seldom meant;\n    But that my heart accordeth with my tongue,\n    Seeing the deed is meritorious,\n    And to preserve my sovereign from his foe,\n    Say but the word, and I will be his priest.\n  CARDINAL. But I would have him dead, my Lord of Suffolk,\n    Ere you can take due orders for a priest;\n    Say you consent and censure well the deed,\n    And I'll provide his executioner-\n    I tender so the safety of my liege.\n  SUFFOLK. Here is my hand the deed is worthy doing.\n  QUEEN. And so say I.\n  YORK. And I. And now we three have spoke it,\n    It skills not greatly who impugns our doom.\n\n                          Enter a POST\n\n  POST. Great lords, from Ireland am I come amain\n    To signify that rebels there are up\n    And put the Englishmen unto the sword.\n    Send succours, lords, and stop the rage betime,\n    Before the wound do grow uncurable;\n    For, being green, there is great hope of help.\n  CARDINAL. A breach that craves a quick expedient stop!\n    What counsel give you in this weighty cause?\n  YORK. That Somerset be sent as Regent thither;\n    'Tis meet that lucky ruler be employ'd,\n    Witness the fortune he hath had in France.\n  SOMERSET. If York, with all his far-fet policy,\n    Had been the Regent there instead of me,\n    He never would have stay'd in France so long.\n  YORK. No, not to lose it all as thou hast done.\n    I rather would have lost my life betimes\n    Than bring a burden of dishonour home\n    By staying there so long till all were lost.\n    Show me one scar character'd on thy skin:\n    Men's flesh preserv'd so whole do seldom win.\n  QUEEN. Nay then, this spark will prove a raging fire,\n    If wind and fuel be brought to feed it with;\n    No more, good York; sweet Somerset, be still.\n    Thy fortune, York, hadst thou been Regent there,\n    Might happily have prov'd far worse than his.\n  YORK. What, worse than nought? Nay, then a shame take all!\n  SOMERSET. And in the number, thee that wishest shame!\n  CARDINAL. My Lord of York, try what your fortune is.\n    Th' uncivil kerns of Ireland are in arms\n    And temper clay with blood of Englishmen;\n    To Ireland will you lead a band of men,\n    Collected choicely, from each county some,\n    And try your hap against the Irishmen?\n  YORK. I will, my lord, so please his Majesty.\n  SUFFOLK. Why, our authority is his consent,\n    And what we do establish he confirms;\n    Then, noble York, take thou this task in hand.\n  YORK. I am content; provide me soldiers, lords,\n    Whiles I take order for mine own affairs.\n  SUFFOLK. A charge, Lord York, that I will see perform'd.\n    But now return we to the false Duke Humphrey.\n  CARDINAL. No more of him; for I will deal with him\n    That henceforth he shall trouble us no more.\n    And so break off; the day is almost spent.\n    Lord Suffolk, you and I must talk of that event.\n  YORK. My Lord of Suffolk, within fourteen days\n    At Bristol I expect my soldiers;\n    For there I'll ship them all for Ireland.\n  SUFFOLK. I'll see it truly done, my Lord of York.\n                                             Exeunt all but YORK\n  YORK. Now, York, or never, steel thy fearful thoughts\n    And change misdoubt to resolution;\n    Be that thou hop'st to be; or what thou art\n    Resign to death- it is not worth th' enjoying.\n    Let pale-fac'd fear keep with the mean-born man\n    And find no harbour in a royal heart.\n    Faster than spring-time show'rs comes thought on thought,\n    And not a thought but thinks on dignity.\n    My brain, more busy than the labouring spider,\n    Weaves tedious snares to trap mine enemies.\n    Well, nobles, well, 'tis politicly done\n    To send me packing with an host of men.\n    I fear me you but warm the starved snake,\n    Who, cherish'd in your breasts, will sting your hearts.\n    'Twas men I lack'd, and you will give them me;\n    I take it kindly. Yet be well assur'd\n    You put sharp weapons in a madman's hands.\n    Whiles I in Ireland nourish a mighty band,\n    I will stir up in England some black storm\n    Shall blow ten thousand souls to heaven or hell;\n    And this fell tempest shall not cease to rage\n    Until the golden circuit on my head,\n    Like to the glorious sun's transparent beams,\n    Do calm the fury of this mad-bred flaw.\n    And for a minister of my intent\n    I have seduc'd a headstrong Kentishman,\n    John Cade of Ashford,\n    To make commotion, as full well he can,\n    Under the tide of John Mortimer.\n    In Ireland have I seen this stubborn Cade\n    Oppose himself against a troop of kerns,\n    And fought so long tiff that his thighs with darts\n    Were almost like a sharp-quill'd porpentine;\n    And in the end being rescu'd, I have seen\n    Him caper upright like a wild Morisco,\n    Shaking the bloody darts as he his bells.\n    Full often, like a shag-hair'd crafty kern,\n    Hath he conversed with the enemy,\n    And undiscover'd come to me again\n    And given me notice of their villainies.\n    This devil here shall be my substitute;\n    For that John Mortimer, which now is dead,\n    In face, in gait, in speech, he doth resemble.\n    By this I shall perceive the commons' mind,\n    How they affect the house and claim of York.\n    Say he be taken, rack'd, and tortured;\n    I know no pain they can inflict upon him\n    Will make him say I mov'd him to those arms.\n    Say that he thrive, as 'tis great like he will,\n    Why, then from Ireland come I with my strength,\n    And reap the harvest which that rascal sow'd;\n    For Humphrey being dead, as he shall be,\n    And Henry put apart, the next for me.                   Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBury St. Edmunds. A room of state\n\nEnter two or three MURDERERS running over the stage,\nfrom the murder of DUKE HUMPHREY\n\n  FIRST MURDERER. Run to my Lord of Suffolk; let him know\n    We have dispatch'd the Duke, as he commanded.\n  SECOND MURDERER. O that it were to do! What have we done?\n    Didst ever hear a man so penitent?\n\n                           Enter SUFFOLK\n\n  FIRST MURDERER. Here comes my lord.\n  SUFFOLK. Now, sirs, have you dispatch'd this thing?\n  FIRST MURDERER. Ay, my good lord, he's dead.\n  SUFFOLK. Why, that's well said. Go, get you to my house;\n    I will reward you for this venturous deed.\n    The King and all the peers are here at hand.\n    Have you laid fair the bed? Is all things well,\n    According as I gave directions?\n  FIRST MURDERER. 'Tis, my good lord.\n  SUFFOLK. Away! be gone.                       Exeunt MURDERERS\n\n             Sound trumpets. Enter the KING, the QUEEN,\n                CARDINAL, SOMERSET, with attendants\n\n  KING HENRY. Go call our uncle to our presence straight;\n    Say we intend to try his Grace to-day,\n    If he be guilty, as 'tis published.\n  SUFFOLK. I'll call him presently, my noble lord.          Exit\n  KING HENRY. Lords, take your places; and, I pray you all,\n    Proceed no straiter 'gainst our uncle Gloucester\n    Than from true evidence, of good esteem,\n    He be approv'd in practice culpable.\n  QUEEN. God forbid any malice should prevail\n    That faultless may condemn a nobleman!\n    Pray God he may acquit him of suspicion!\n  KING HENRY. I thank thee, Meg; these words content me much.\n\n                           Re-enter SUFFOLK\n\n    How now! Why look'st thou pale? Why tremblest thou?\n    Where is our uncle? What's the matter, Suffolk?\n  SUFFOLK. Dead in his bed, my lord; Gloucester is dead.\n  QUEEN. Marry, God forfend!\n  CARDINAL. God's secret judgment! I did dream to-night\n    The Duke was dumb and could not speak a word.\n                                               [The KING swoons]\n  QUEEN. How fares my lord? Help, lords! The King is dead.\n  SOMERSET. Rear up his body; wring him by the nose.\n  QUEEN. Run, go, help, help! O Henry, ope thine eyes!\n  SUFFOLK. He doth revive again; madam, be patient.\n  KING. O heavenly God!\n  QUEEN. How fares my gracious lord?\n  SUFFOLK. Comfort, my sovereign! Gracious Henry, comfort!\n  KING HENRY. What, doth my Lord of Suffolk comfort me?\n    Came he right now to sing a raven's note,\n    Whose dismal tune bereft my vital pow'rs;\n    And thinks he that the chirping of a wren,\n    By crying comfort from a hollow breast,\n    Can chase away the first conceived sound?\n    Hide not thy poison with such sug'red words;\n    Lay not thy hands on me; forbear, I say,\n    Their touch affrights me as a serpent's sting.\n    Thou baleful messenger, out of my sight!\n    Upon thy eye-balls murderous tyranny\n    Sits in grim majesty to fright the world.\n    Look not upon me, for thine eyes are wounding;\n    Yet do not go away; come, basilisk,\n    And kill the innocent gazer with thy sight;\n    For in the shade of death I shall find joy-\n    In life but double death,'now Gloucester's dead.\n  QUEEN. Why do you rate my Lord of Suffolk thus?\n    Although the Duke was enemy to him,\n    Yet he most Christian-like laments his death;\n    And for myself- foe as he was to me-\n    Might liquid tears, or heart-offending groans,\n    Or blood-consuming sighs, recall his life,\n    I would be blind with weeping, sick with groans,\n    Look pale as primrose with blood-drinking sighs,\n    And all to have the noble Duke alive.\n    What know I how the world may deem of me?\n    For it is known we were but hollow friends:\n    It may be judg'd I made the Duke away;\n    So shall my name with slander's tongue be wounded,\n    And princes' courts be fill'd with my reproach.\n    This get I by his death. Ay me, unhappy!\n    To be a queen and crown'd with infamy!\n  KING HENRY. Ah, woe is me for Gloucester, wretched man!\n  QUEEN. Be woe for me, more wretched than he is.\n    What, dost thou turn away, and hide thy face?\n    I am no loathsome leper- look on me.\n    What, art thou like the adder waxen deaf?\n    Be poisonous too, and kill thy forlorn Queen.\n    Is all thy comfort shut in Gloucester's tomb?\n    Why, then Dame Margaret was ne'er thy joy.\n    Erect his statue and worship it,\n    And make my image but an alehouse sign.\n    Was I for this nigh wreck'd upon the sea,\n    And twice by awkward wind from England's bank\n    Drove back again unto my native clime?\n    What boded this but well-forewarning wind\n    Did seem to say 'Seek not a scorpion's nest,\n    Nor set no footing on this unkind shore'?\n    What did I then but curs'd the gentle gusts,\n    And he that loos'd them forth their brazen caves;\n    And bid them blow towards England's blessed shore,\n    Or turn our stern upon a dreadful rock?\n    Yet Aeolus would not be a murderer,\n    But left that hateful office unto thee.\n    The pretty-vaulting sea refus'd to drown me,\n    Knowing that thou wouldst have me drown'd on shore\n    With tears as salt as sea through thy unkindness;\n    The splitting rocks cow'r'd in the sinking sands\n    And would not dash me with their ragged sides,\n    Because thy flinty heart, more hard than they,\n    Might in thy palace perish Margaret.\n    As far as I could ken thy chalky cliffs,\n    When from thy shore the tempest beat us back,\n    I stood upon the hatches in the storm;\n    And when the dusky sky began to rob\n    My earnest-gaping sight of thy land's view,\n    I took a costly jewel from my neck-\n    A heart it was, bound in with diamonds-\n    And threw it towards thy land. The sea receiv'd it;\n    And so I wish'd thy body might my heart.\n    And even with this I lost fair England's view,\n    And bid mine eyes be packing with my heart,\n    And call'd them blind and dusky spectacles\n    For losing ken of Albion's wished coast.\n    How often have I tempted Suffolk's tongue-\n    The agent of thy foul inconstancy-\n    To sit and witch me, as Ascanius did\n    When he to madding Dido would unfold\n    His father's acts commenc'd in burning Troy!\n    Am I not witch'd like her? Or thou not false like him?\n    Ay me, I can no more! Die, Margaret,\n    For Henry weeps that thou dost live so long.\n\n               Noise within. Enter WARWICK, SALISBURY,\n                          and many commons\n\n  WARWICK. It is reported, mighty sovereign,\n    That good Duke Humphrey traitorously is murd'red\n    By Suffolk and the Cardinal Beaufort's means.\n    The commons, like an angry hive of bees\n    That want their leader, scatter up and down\n    And care not who they sting in his revenge.\n    Myself have calm'd their spleenful mutiny\n    Until they hear the order of his death.\n  KING HENRY. That he is dead, good Warwick, 'tis too true;\n    But how he died God knows, not Henry.\n    Enter his chamber, view his breathless corpse,\n    And comment then upon his sudden death.\n  WARWICK. That shall I do, my liege. Stay, Salisbury,\n    With the rude multitude till I return.                  Exit\n                                   Exit SALISBURY with the commons\n  KING HENRY. O Thou that judgest all things, stay my thoughts-\n    My thoughts that labour to persuade my soul\n    Some violent hands were laid on Humphrey's life!\n    If my suspect be false, forgive me, God;\n    For judgment only doth belong to Thee.\n    Fain would I go to chafe his paly lips\n    With twenty thousand kisses and to drain\n    Upon his face an ocean of salt tears\n    To tell my love unto his dumb deaf trunk;\n    And with my fingers feel his hand un-feeling;\n    But all in vain are these mean obsequies;\n    And to survey his dead and earthy image,\n    What were it but to make my sorrow greater?\n\n               Bed put forth with the body. Enter WARWICK\n\n  WARWICK. Come hither, gracious sovereign, view this body.\n  KING HENRY. That is to see how deep my grave is made;\n    For with his soul fled all my worldly solace,\n    For, seeing him, I see my life in death.\n  WARWICK. As surely as my soul intends to live\n    With that dread King that took our state upon Him\n    To free us from his Father's wrathful curse,\n    I do believe that violent hands were laid\n    Upon the life of this thrice-famed Duke.\n  SUFFOLK. A dreadful oath, sworn with a solemn tongue!\n    What instance gives Lord Warwick for his vow?\n  WARWICK. See how the blood is settled in his face.\n    Oft have I seen a timely-parted ghost,\n    Of ashy semblance, meagre, pale, and bloodless,\n    Being all descended to the labouring heart,\n    Who, in the conflict that it holds with death,\n    Attracts the same for aidance 'gainst the enemy,\n    Which with the heart there cools, and ne'er returneth\n    To blush and beautify the cheek again.\n    But see, his face is black and full of blood;\n    His eye-balls further out than when he liv'd,\n    Staring full ghastly like a strangled man;\n    His hair uprear'd, his nostrils stretch'd with struggling;\n    His hands abroad display'd, as one that grasp'd\n    And tugg'd for life, and was by strength subdu'd.\n    Look, on the sheets his hair, you see, is sticking;\n    His well-proportion'd beard made rough and rugged,\n    Like to the summer's corn by tempest lodged.\n    It cannot be but he was murd'red here:\n    The least of all these signs were probable.\n  SUFFOLK. Why, Warwick, who should do the Duke to death?\n    Myself and Beaufort had him in protection;\n    And we, I hope, sir, are no murderers.\n  WARWICK. But both of you were vow'd Duke Humphrey's foes;\n    And you, forsooth, had the good Duke to keep.\n    'Tis like you would not feast him like a friend;\n    And 'tis well seen he found an enemy.\n  QUEEN. Then you, belike, suspect these noblemen\n    As guilty of Duke Humphrey's timeless death.\n  WARWICK. Who finds the heifer dead and bleeding fresh,\n    And sees fast by a butcher with an axe,\n    But will suspect 'twas he that made the slaughter?\n    Who finds the partridge in the puttock's nest\n    But may imagine how the bird was dead,\n    Although the kite soar with unbloodied beak?\n    Even so suspicious is this tragedy.\n  QUEEN. Are you the butcher, Suffolk? Where's your knife?\n    Is Beaufort term'd a kite? Where are his talons?\n  SUFFOLK. I wear no knife to slaughter sleeping men;\n    But here's a vengeful sword, rusted with ease,\n    That shall be scoured in his rancorous heart\n    That slanders me with murder's crimson badge.\n    Say if thou dar'st, proud Lord of Warwickshire,\n    That I am faulty in Duke Humphrey's death.\n                           Exeunt CARDINAL, SOMERSET, and others\n  WARWICK. What dares not Warwick, if false Suffolk dare him?\n  QUEEN. He dares not calm his contumelious spirit,\n    Nor cease to be an arrogant controller,\n    Though Suffolk dare him twenty thousand times.\n  WARWICK. Madam, be still- with reverence may I say;\n    For every word you speak in his behalf\n    Is slander to your royal dignity.\n  SUFFOLK. Blunt-witted lord, ignoble in demeanour,\n    If ever lady wrong'd her lord so much,\n    Thy mother took into her blameful bed\n    Some stern untutor'd churl, and noble stock\n    Was graft with crab-tree slip, whose fruit thou art,\n    And never of the Nevils' noble race.\n  WARWICK. But that the guilt of murder bucklers thee,\n    And I should rob the deathsman of his fee,\n    Quitting thee thereby of ten thousand shames,\n    And that my sovereign's presence makes me mild,\n    I would, false murd'rous coward, on thy knee\n    Make thee beg pardon for thy passed speech\n    And say it was thy mother that thou meant'st,\n    That thou thyself was born in bastardy;\n    And, after all this fearful homage done,\n    Give thee thy hire and send thy soul to hell,\n    Pernicious blood-sucker of sleeping men.\n  SUFFOLK. Thou shalt be waking while I shed thy blood,\n    If from this presence thou dar'st go with me.\n  WARWICK. Away even now, or I will drag thee hence.\n    Unworthy though thou art, I'll cope with thee,\n    And do some service to Duke Humphrey's ghost.\n                                      Exeunt SUFFOLK and WARWICK\n  KING HENRY. What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted?\n    Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just;\n    And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel,\n    Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.\n                                                [A noise within]\n  QUEEN. What noise is this?\n\n       Re-enter SUFFOLK and WARWICK, with their weapons drawn\n\n  KING. Why, how now, lords, your wrathful weapons drawn\n    Here in our presence! Dare you be so bold?\n    Why, what tumultuous clamour have we here?\n  SUFFOLK. The trait'rous Warwick, with the men of Bury,\n    Set all upon me, mighty sovereign.\n\n                        Re-enter SALISBURY\n\n  SALISBURY. [To the Commons within] Sirs, stand apart, the King\n      shall know your mind.\n    Dread lord, the commons send you word by me\n    Unless Lord Suffolk straight be done to death,\n    Or banished fair England's territories,\n    They will by violence tear him from your palace\n    And torture him with grievous ling'ring death.\n    They say by him the good Duke Humphrey died;\n    They say in him they fear your Highness' death;\n    And mere instinct of love and loyalty,\n    Free from a stubborn opposite intent,\n    As being thought to contradict your liking,\n    Makes them thus forward in his banishment.\n    They say, in care of your most royal person,\n    That if your Highness should intend to sleep\n    And charge that no man should disturb your rest,\n    In pain of your dislike or pain of death,\n    Yet, notwithstanding such a strait edict,\n    Were there a serpent seen with forked tongue\n    That slily glided towards your Majesty,\n    It were but necessary you were wak'd,\n    Lest, being suffer'd in that harmful slumber,\n    The mortal worm might make the sleep eternal.\n    And therefore do they cry, though you forbid,\n    That they will guard you, whe'er you will or no,\n    From such fell serpents as false Suffolk is;\n    With whose envenomed and fatal sting\n    Your loving uncle, twenty times his worth,\n    They say, is shamefully bereft of life.\n  COMMONS. [Within] An answer from the King, my Lord of Salisbury!\n  SUFFOLK. 'Tis like the commons, rude unpolish'd hinds,\n    Could send such message to their sovereign;\n    But you, my lord, were glad to be employ'd,\n    To show how quaint an orator you are.\n    But all the honour Salisbury hath won\n    Is that he was the lord ambassador\n    Sent from a sort of tinkers to the King.\n  COMMONS. [Within] An answer from the King, or we will all break in!\n  KING HENRY. Go, Salisbury, and tell them all from me\n    I thank them for their tender loving care;\n    And had I not been cited so by them,\n    Yet did I purpose as they do entreat;\n    For sure my thoughts do hourly prophesy\n    Mischance unto my state by Suffolk's means.\n    And therefore by His Majesty I swear,\n    Whose far unworthy deputy I am,\n    He shall not breathe infection in this air\n    But three days longer, on the pain of death.\n                                                  Exit SALISBURY\n  QUEEN. O Henry, let me plead for gentle Suffolk!\n  KING HENRY. Ungentle Queen, to call him gentle Suffolk!\n    No more, I say; if thou dost plead for him,\n    Thou wilt but add increase unto my wrath.\n    Had I but said, I would have kept my word;\n    But when I swear, it is irrevocable.\n    If after three days' space thou here be'st found\n    On any ground that I am ruler of,\n    The world shall not be ransom for thy life.\n    Come, Warwick, come, good Warwick, go with me;\n    I have great matters to impart to thee.\n                                Exeunt all but QUEEN and SUFFOLK\n  QUEEN. Mischance and sorrow go along with you!\n    Heart's discontent and sour affliction\n    Be playfellows to keep you company!\n    There's two of you; the devil make a third,\n    And threefold vengeance tend upon your steps!\n  SUFFOLK. Cease, gentle Queen, these execrations,\n    And let thy Suffolk take his heavy leave.\n  QUEEN. Fie, coward woman and soft-hearted wretch,\n    Has thou not spirit to curse thine enemy?\n  SUFFOLK. A plague upon them! Wherefore should I curse them?\n    Would curses kill as doth the mandrake's groan,\n    I would invent as bitter searching terms,\n    As curst, as harsh, and horrible to hear,\n    Deliver'd strongly through my fixed teeth,\n    With full as many signs of deadly hate,\n    As lean-fac'd Envy in her loathsome cave.\n    My tongue should stumble in mine earnest words,\n    Mine eyes should sparkle like the beaten flint,\n    Mine hair be fix'd an end, as one distract;\n    Ay, every joint should seem to curse and ban;\n    And even now my burden'd heart would break,\n    Should I not curse them. Poison be their drink!\n    Gall, worse than gall, the daintiest that they taste!\n    Their sweetest shade a grove of cypress trees!\n    Their chiefest prospect murd'ring basilisks!\n    Their softest touch as smart as lizards' stings!\n    Their music frightful as the serpent's hiss,\n    And boding screech-owls make the consort full!\n    all the foul terrors in dark-seated hell-\n  QUEEN. Enough, sweet Suffolk, thou torment'st thyself;\n    And these dread curses, like the sun 'gainst glass,\n    Or like an overcharged gun, recoil,\n    And turns the force of them upon thyself.\n  SUFFOLK. You bade me ban, and will you bid me leave?\n    Now, by the ground that I am banish'd from,\n    Well could I curse away a winter's night,\n    Though standing naked on a mountain top\n    Where biting cold would never let grass grow,\n    And think it but a minute spent in sport.\n  QUEEN. O, let me entreat thee cease! Give me thy hand,\n    That I may dew it with my mournful tears;\n    Nor let the rain of heaven wet this place\n    To wash away my woeful monuments.\n    O, could this kiss be printed in thy hand,\n    That thou might'st think upon these by the seal,\n    Through whom a thousand sighs are breath'd for thee!\n    So, get thee gone, that I may know my grief;\n    'Tis but surmis'd whiles thou art standing by,\n    As one that surfeits thinking on a want.\n    I will repeal thee or, be well assur'd,\n    Adventure to be banished myself;\n    And banished I am, if but from thee.\n    Go, speak not to me; even now be gone.\n    O, go not yet! Even thus two friends condemn'd\n    Embrace, and kiss, and take ten thousand leaves,\n    Loather a hundred times to part than die.\n    Yet now, farewell; and farewell life with thee!\n  SUFFOLK. Thus is poor Suffolk ten times banished,\n    Once by the King and three times thrice by thee,\n    'Tis not the land I care for, wert thou thence;\n    A wilderness is populous enough,\n    So Suffolk had thy heavenly company;\n    For where thou art, there is the world itself,\n    With every several pleasure in the world;\n    And where thou art not, desolation.\n    I can no more: Live thou to joy thy life;\n    Myself no joy in nought but that thou liv'st.\n\n                           Enter VAUX\n\n  QUEEN. Whither goes Vaux so fast? What news, I prithee?\n  VAUX. To signify unto his Majesty\n    That Cardinal Beaufort is at point of death;\n    For suddenly a grievous sickness took him\n    That makes him gasp, and stare, and catch the air,\n    Blaspheming God, and cursing men on earth.\n    Sometime he talks as if Duke Humphrey's ghost\n    Were by his side; sometime he calls the King\n    And whispers to his pillow, as to him,\n    The secrets of his overcharged soul;\n    And I am sent to tell his Majesty\n    That even now he cries aloud for him.\n  QUEEN. Go tell this heavy message to the King.       Exit VAUX\n    Ay me! What is this world! What news are these!\n    But wherefore grieve I at an hour's poor loss,\n    Omitting Suffolk's exile, my soul's treasure?\n    Why only, Suffolk, mourn I not for thee,\n    And with the southern clouds contend in tears-\n    Theirs for the earth's increase, mine for my sorrows?\n    Now get thee hence: the King, thou know'st, is coming;\n    If thou be found by me; thou art but dead.\n  SUFFOLK. If I depart from thee I cannot live;\n    And in thy sight to die, what were it else\n    But like a pleasant slumber in thy lap?\n    Here could I breathe my soul into the air,\n    As mild and gentle as the cradle-babe\n    Dying with mother's dug between its lips;\n    Where, from thy sight, I should be raging mad\n    And cry out for thee to close up mine eyes,\n    To have thee with thy lips to stop my mouth;\n    So shouldst thou either turn my flying soul,\n    Or I should breathe it so into thy body,\n    And then it liv'd in sweet Elysium.\n    To die by thee were but to die in jest:\n    From thee to die were torture more than death.\n    O, let me stay, befall what may befall!\n  QUEEN. Away! Though parting be a fretful corrosive,\n    It is applied to a deathful wound.\n    To France, sweet Suffolk. Let me hear from thee;\n    For whereso'er thou art in this world's globe\n    I'll have an Iris that shall find thee out.\n  SUFFOLK. I go.\n  QUEEN. And take my heart with thee.           [She kisses him]\n  SUFFOLK. A jewel, lock'd into the woefull'st cask\n    That ever did contain a thing of worth.\n    Even as a splitted bark, so sunder we:\n    This way fall I to death.\n  QUEEN. This way for me.                       Exeunt severally\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nLondon. CARDINAL BEAUFORT'S bedchamber\n\nEnter the KING, SALISBURY, and WARWICK, to the CARDINAL in bed\n\n  KING HENRY. How fares my lord? Speak, Beaufort, to thy sovereign.\n  CARDINAL. If thou be'st Death I'll give thee England's treasure,\n    Enough to purchase such another island,\n    So thou wilt let me live and feel no pain.\n  KING HENRY. Ah, what a sign it is of evil life\n    Where death's approach is seen so terrible!\n  WARWICK. Beaufort, it is thy sovereign speaks to thee.\n  CARDINAL. Bring me unto my trial when you will.\n    Died he not in his bed? Where should he die?\n    Can I make men live, whe'er they will or no?\n    O, torture me no more! I will confess.\n    Alive again? Then show me where he is;\n    I'll give a thousand pound to look upon him.\n    He hath no eyes, the dust hath blinded them.\n    Comb down his hair; look, look! it stands upright,\n    Like lime-twigs set to catch my winged soul!\n    Give me some drink; and bid the apothecary\n    Bring the strong poison that I bought of him.\n  KING HENRY. O Thou eternal Mover of the heavens,\n    Look with a gentle eye upon this wretch!\n    O, beat away the busy meddling fiend\n    That lays strong siege unto this wretch's soul,\n    And from his bosom purge this black despair!\n  WARWICK. See how the pangs of death do make him grin\n  SALISBURY. Disturb him not, let him pass peaceably.\n  KING HENRY. Peace to his soul, if God's good pleasure be!\n    Lord Card'nal, if thou think'st on heaven's bliss,\n    Hold up thy hand, make signal of thy hope.\n    He dies, and makes no sign: O God, forgive him!\n  WARWICK. So bad a death argues a monstrous life.\n  KING HENRY. Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all.\n    Close up his eyes, and draw the curtain close;\n    And let us all to meditation.                         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nThe coast of Kent\n\nAlarum.  Fight at sea.  Ordnance goes off.  Enter a LIEUTENANT,\na SHIPMASTER and his MATE, and WALTER WHITMORE, with sailors;\nSUFFOLK and other GENTLEMEN, as prisoners\n\n  LIEUTENANT. The gaudy, blabbing, and remorseful day\n    Is crept into the bosom of the sea;\n    And now loud-howling wolves arouse the jades\n    That drag the tragic melancholy night;\n    Who with their drowsy, slow, and flagging wings\n    Clip dead men's graves, and from their misty jaws\n    Breathe foul contagious darkness in the air.\n    Therefore bring forth the soldiers of our prize;\n    For, whilst our pinnace anchors in the Downs,\n    Here shall they make their ransom on the sand,\n    Or with their blood stain this discoloured shore.\n    Master, this prisoner freely give I thee;\n    And thou that art his mate make boot of this;\n    The other, Walter Whitmore, is thy share.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. What is my ransom, master, let me know?\n  MASTER. A thousand crowns, or else lay down your head.\n  MATE. And so much shall you give, or off goes yours.\n  LIEUTENANT. What, think you much to pay two thousand crowns,\n    And bear the name and port of gentlemen?\n    Cut both the villains' throats- for die you shall;\n    The lives of those which we have lost in fight\n    Be counterpois'd with such a petty sum!\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I'll give it, sir: and therefore spare my life.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. And so will I, and write home for it straight.\n  WHITMORE. I lost mine eye in laying the prize aboard,\n    [To SUFFOLK] And therefore, to revenge it, shalt thou die;\n    And so should these, if I might have my will.\n  LIEUTENANT. Be not so rash; take ransom, let him live.\n  SUFFOLK. Look on my George, I am a gentleman:\n    Rate me at what thou wilt, thou shalt be paid.\n  WHITMORE. And so am I: my name is Walter Whitmore.\n    How now! Why start'st thou? What, doth death affright?\n  SUFFOLK. Thy name affrights me, in whose sound is death.\n    A cunning man did calculate my birth\n    And told me that by water I should die;\n    Yet let not this make thee be bloody-minded;\n    Thy name is Gualtier, being rightly sounded.\n  WHITMORE. Gualtier or Walter, which it is I care not:\n    Never yet did base dishonour blur our name\n    But with our sword we wip'd away the blot;\n    Therefore, when merchant-like I sell revenge,\n    Broke be my sword, my arms torn and defac'd,\n    And I proclaim'd a coward through the world.\n  SUFFOLK. Stay, Whitmore, for thy prisoner is a prince,\n    The Duke of Suffolk, William de la Pole.\n  WHITMORE. The Duke of Suffolk muffled up in rags?\n  SUFFOLK. Ay, but these rags are no part of the Duke:\n    Jove sometime went disguis'd, and why not I?\n  LIEUTENANT. But Jove was never slain, as thou shalt be.\n  SUFFOLK. Obscure and lowly swain, King Henry's blood,\n    The honourable blood of Lancaster,\n    Must not be shed by such a jaded groom.\n    Hast thou not kiss'd thy hand and held my stirrup,\n    Bareheaded plodded by my foot-cloth mule,\n    And thought thee happy when I shook my head?\n    How often hast thou waited at my cup,\n    Fed from my trencher, kneel'd down at the board,\n    When I have feasted with Queen Margaret?\n    Remember it, and let it make thee crestfall'n,\n    Ay, and allay thus thy abortive pride,\n    How in our voiding-lobby hast thou stood\n    And duly waited for my coming forth.\n    This hand of mine hath writ in thy behalf,\n    And therefore shall it charm thy riotous tongue.\n  WHITMORE. Speak, Captain, shall I stab the forlorn swain?\n  LIEUTENANT. First let my words stab him, as he hath me.\n  SUFFOLK. Base slave, thy words are blunt, and so art thou.\n  LIEUTENANT. Convey him hence, and on our longboat's side\n    Strike off his head.\n  SUFFOLK. Thou dar'st not, for thy own.\n  LIEUTENANT. Poole!\n  SUFFOLK. Poole?\n  LIEUTENANT. Ay, kennel, puddle, sink, whose filth and dirt\n    Troubles the silver spring where England drinks;\n    Now will I dam up this thy yawning mouth\n    For swallowing the treasure of the realm.\n    Thy lips, that kiss'd the Queen, shall sweep the ground;\n    And thou that smil'dst at good Duke Humphrey's death\n    Against the senseless winds shalt grin in vain,\n    Who in contempt shall hiss at thee again;\n    And wedded be thou to the hags of hell\n    For daring to affy a mighty lord\n    Unto the daughter of a worthless king,\n    Having neither subject, wealth, nor diadem.\n    By devilish policy art thou grown great,\n    And, like ambitious Sylla, overgorg'd\n    With gobbets of thy mother's bleeding heart.\n    By thee Anjou and Maine were sold to France;\n    The false revolting Normans thorough thee\n    Disdain to call us lord; and Picardy\n    Hath slain their governors, surpris'd our forts,\n    And sent the ragged soldiers wounded home.\n    The princely Warwick, and the Nevils all,\n    Whose dreadful swords were never drawn in vain,\n    As hating thee, are rising up in arms;\n    And now the house of York- thrust from the crown\n    By shameful murder of a guiltless king\n    And lofty proud encroaching tyranny-\n    Burns with revenging fire, whose hopeful colours\n    Advance our half-fac'd sun, striving to shine,\n    Under the which is writ 'Invitis nubibus.'\n    The commons here in Kent are up in arms;\n    And to conclude, reproach and beggary\n    Is crept into the palace of our King,\n    And all by thee. Away! convey him hence.\n  SUFFOLK. O that I were a god, to shoot forth thunder\n    Upon these paltry, servile, abject drudges!\n    Small things make base men proud: this villain here,\n    Being captain of a pinnace, threatens more\n    Than Bargulus, the strong Illyrian pirate.\n    Drones suck not eagles' blood but rob beehives.\n    It is impossible that I should die\n    By such a lowly vassal as thyself.\n    Thy words move rage and not remorse in me.\n    I go of message from the Queen to France:\n    I charge thee waft me safely cross the Channel.\n  LIEUTENANT. Walter-\n  WHITMORE. Come, Suffolk, I must waft thee to thy death.\n  SUFFOLK. Gelidus timor occupat artus: it is thee I fear.\n  WHITMORE. Thou shalt have cause to fear before I leave thee.\n    What, are ye daunted now? Now will ye stoop?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. My gracious lord, entreat him, speak him fair.\n  SUFFOLK. Suffolk's imperial tongue is stem and rough,\n    Us'd to command, untaught to plead for favour.\n    Far be it we should honour such as these\n    With humble suit: no, rather let my head\n    Stoop to the block than these knees bow to any\n    Save to the God of heaven and to my king;\n    And sooner dance upon a bloody pole\n    Than stand uncover'd to the vulgar groom.\n    True nobility is exempt from fear:\n    More can I bear than you dare execute.\n  LIEUTENANT. Hale him away, and let him talk no more.\n  SUFFOLK. Come, soldiers, show what cruelty ye can,\n    That this my death may never be forgot-\n    Great men oft die by vile bezonians:\n    A Roman sworder and banditto slave\n    Murder'd sweet Tully; Brutus' bastard hand\n    Stabb'd Julius Caesar; savage islanders\n    Pompey the Great; and Suffolk dies by pirates.\n                                        Exit WALTER with SUFFOLK\n  LIEUTENANT. And as for these, whose ransom we have set,\n    It is our pleasure one of them depart;\n    Therefore come you with us, and let him go.\n                              Exeunt all but the FIRST GENTLEMAN\n\n                Re-enter WHITMORE with SUFFOLK'S body\n\n  WHITMORE. There let his head and lifeless body lie,\n    Until the Queen his mistress bury it.                   Exit\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. O barbarous and bloody spectacle!\n    His body will I bear unto the King.\n    If he revenge it not, yet will his friends;\n    So will the Queen, that living held him dear.\n                                              Exit with the body\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBlackheath\n\nEnter GEORGE BEVIS and JOHN HOLLAND\n\n  GEORGE. Come and get thee a sword, though made of a lath; they have\n    been up these two days.\n  JOHN. They have the more need to sleep now, then.\n  GEORGE. I tell thee Jack Cade the clothier means to dress the\n    commonwealth, and turn it, and set a new nap upon it.\n  JOHN. So he had need, for 'tis threadbare. Well, I say it was never\n    merry world in England since gentlemen came up.\n  GEORGE. O miserable age! Virtue is not regarded in handicraftsmen.\n  JOHN. The nobility think scorn to go in leather aprons.\n  GEORGE. Nay, more, the King's Council are no good workmen.\n  JOHN. True; and yet it is said 'Labour in thy vocation'; which is\n    as much to say as 'Let the magistrates be labouring men'; and\n    therefore should we be magistrates.\n  GEORGE. Thou hast hit it; for there's no better sign of a brave\n    mind than a hard hand.\n  JOHN. I see them! I see them! There's Best's son, the tanner of\n    Wingham-\n  GEORGE. He shall have the skins of our enemies to make dog's\n    leather of.\n  JOHN. And Dick the butcher-\n  GEORGE. Then is sin struck down, like an ox, and iniquity's throat\n    cut like a calf.\n  JOHN. And Smith the weaver-\n  GEORGE. Argo, their thread of life is spun.\n  JOHN. Come, come, let's fall in with them.\n\n                Drum. Enter CADE, DICK THE BUTCHER, SMITH\n             THE WEAVER, and a SAWYER, with infinite numbers\n\n  CADE. We John Cade, so term'd of our supposed father-\n  DICK. [Aside] Or rather, of stealing a cade of herrings.\n  CADE. For our enemies shall fall before us, inspired with the\n    spirit of putting down kings and princes- command silence.\n  DICK. Silence!\n  CADE. My father was a Mortimer-\n  DICK. [Aside] He was an honest man and a good bricklayer.\n  CADE. My mother a Plantagenet-\n  DICK. [Aside] I knew her well; she was a midwife.\n  CADE. My wife descended of the Lacies-\n  DICK. [Aside] She was, indeed, a pedlar's daughter, and sold many\n    laces.\n  SMITH. [Aside] But now of late, not able to travel with her furr'd\n    pack, she washes bucks here at home.\n  CADE. Therefore am I of an honourable house.\n  DICK. [Aside] Ay, by my faith, the field is honourable, and there\n    was he born, under a hedge, for his father had never a house but\n    the cage.\n  CADE. Valiant I am.\n  SMITH. [Aside] 'A must needs; for beggary is valiant.\n  CADE. I am able to endure much.\n  DICK. [Aside] No question of that; for I have seen him whipt three\n    market days together.\n  CADE. I fear neither sword nor fire.\n  SMITH. [Aside] He need not fear the sword, for his coat is of\n    proof.\n  DICK. [Aside] But methinks he should stand in fear of fire, being\n    burnt i' th' hand for stealing of sheep.\n  CADE. Be brave, then, for your captain is brave, and vows\n    reformation. There shall be in England seven halfpenny loaves\n    sold for a penny; the three-hoop'd pot shall have ten hoops; and\n    I will make it felony to drink small beer. All the realm shall be\n    in common, and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to grass. And\n    when I am king- as king I will be\n  ALL. God save your Majesty!\n  CADE. I thank you, good people- there shall be no money; all shall\n    eat and drink on my score, and I will apparel them all in one\n    livery, that they may agree like brothers and worship me their\n    lord.\n  DICK. The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.\n  CADE. Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable thing, that\n    of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment? That\n    parchment, being scribbl'd o'er, should undo a man? Some say the\n    bee stings; but I say 'tis the bee's wax; for I did but seal once\n    to a thing, and I was never mine own man since. How now! Who's\n    there?\n\n              Enter some, bringing in the CLERK OF CHATHAM\n\n  SMITH. The clerk of Chatham. He can write and read and cast\n    accompt.\n  CADE. O monstrous!\n  SMITH. We took him setting of boys' copies.\n  CADE. Here's a villain!\n  SMITH. Has a book in his pocket with red letters in't.\n  CADE. Nay, then he is a conjurer.\n  DICK. Nay, he can make obligations and write court-hand.\n  CADE. I am sorry for't; the man is a proper man, of mine honour;\n    unless I find him guilty, he shall not die. Come hither, sirrah,\n    I must examine thee. What is thy name?\n  CLERK. Emmanuel.\n  DICK. They use to write it on the top of letters; 'twill go hard\n    with you.\n  CADE. Let me alone. Dost thou use to write thy name, or hast thou a\n    mark to thyself, like a honest plain-dealing man?\n  CLERK. Sir, I thank God, I have been so well brought up that I can\n    write my name.\n  ALL. He hath confess'd. Away with him! He's a villain and a\n    traitor.\n  CADE. Away with him, I say! Hang him with his pen and inkhorn about\n    his neck.                            Exit one with the CLERK\n\n                           Enter MICHAEL\n\n  MICHAEL. Where's our General?\n  CADE. Here I am, thou particular fellow.\n  MICHAEL. Fly, fly, fly! Sir Humphrey Stafford and his brother are\n    hard by, with the King's forces.\n  CADE. Stand, villain, stand, or I'll fell thee down. He shall be\n    encount'red with a man as good as himself. He is but a knight,\n    is 'a?\n  MICHAEL. No.\n  CADE. To equal him, I will make myself a knight presently.\n    [Kneels] Rise up, Sir John Mortimer. [Rises] Now have at him!\n\n                Enter SIR HUMPHREY STAFFORD and WILLIAM\n                  his brother, with drum and soldiers\n\n  STAFFORD. Rebellious hinds, the filth and scum of Kent,\n    Mark'd for the gallows, lay your weapons down;\n    Home to your cottages, forsake this groom;\n    The King is merciful if you revolt.\n  WILLIAM STAFFORD. But angry, wrathful, and inclin'd to blood,\n    If you go forward; therefore yield or die.\n  CADE. As for these silken-coated slaves, I pass not;\n    It is to you, good people, that I speak,\n    O'er whom, in time to come, I hope to reign;\n    For I am rightful heir unto the crown.\n  STAFFORD. Villain, thy father was a plasterer;\n    And thou thyself a shearman, art thou not?\n  CADE. And Adam was a gardener.\n  WILLIAM STAFFORD. And what of that?\n  CADE. Marry, this: Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March,\n    Married the Duke of Clarence' daughter, did he not?\n  STAFFORD. Ay, sir.\n  CADE. By her he had two children at one birth.\n  WILLIAM STAFFORD. That's false.\n  CADE. Ay, there's the question; but I say 'tis true.\n    The elder of them being put to nurse,\n    Was by a beggar-woman stol'n away,\n    And, ignorant of his birth and parentage,\n    Became a bricklayer when he came to age.\n    His son am I; deny it if you can.\n  DICK. Nay, 'tis too true; therefore he shall be king.\n  SMITH. Sir, he made a chimney in my father's house, and the bricks\n    are alive at this day to testify it; therefore deny it not.\n  STAFFORD. And will you credit this base drudge's words\n    That speaks he knows not what?\n  ALL. Ay, marry, will we; therefore get ye gone.\n  WILLIAM STAFFORD. Jack Cade, the Duke of York hath taught you this.\n  CADE. [Aside] He lies, for I invented it myself- Go to, sirrah,\n    tell the King from me that for his father's sake, Henry the\n    Fifth, in whose time boys went to span-counter for French crowns,\n    I am content he shall reign; but I'll be Protector over him.\n  DICK. And furthermore, we'll have the Lord Say's head for selling\n    the dukedom of Maine.\n  CADE. And good reason; for thereby is England main'd and fain to go\n    with a staff, but that my puissance holds it up. Fellow kings, I\n    tell you that that Lord Say hath gelded the commonwealth and made\n    it an eunuch; and more than that, he can speak French, and\n    therefore he is a traitor.\n  STAFFORD. O gross and miserable ignorance!\n  CADE. Nay, answer if you can; the Frenchmen are our enemies. Go to,\n    then, I ask but this: can he that speaks with the tongue of an\n    enemy be a good counsellor, or no?\n  ALL. No, no; and therefore we'll have his head.\n  WILLIAM STAFFORD. Well, seeing gentle words will not prevail,\n    Assail them with the army of the King.\n  STAFFORD. Herald, away; and throughout every town\n    Proclaim them traitors that are up with Cade;\n    That those which fly before the battle ends\n    May, even in their wives'and children's sight,\n    Be hang'd up for example at their doors.\n    And you that be the King's friends, follow me.\n                           Exeunt the TWO STAFFORDS and soldiers\n  CADE. And you that love the commons follow me.\n    Now show yourselves men; 'tis for liberty.\n    We will not leave one lord, one gentleman;\n    Spare none but such as go in clouted shoon,\n    For they are thrifty honest men and such\n    As would- but that they dare not- take our parts.\n  DICK. They are all in order, and march toward us.\n  CADE. But then are we in order when we are most out of order. Come,\n    march forward.                                        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nAnother part of Blackheath\n\nAlarums to the fight, wherein both the STAFFORDS are slain.\nEnter CADE and the rest\n\n  CADE. Where's Dick, the butcher of Ashford?\n  DICK. Here, sir.\n  CADE. They fell before thee like sheep and oxen, and thou behavedst\n    thyself as if thou hadst been in thine own slaughter-house;\n    therefore thus will I reward thee- the Lent shall be as long\n    again as it is, and thou shalt have a licence to kill for a\n    hundred lacking one.\n  DICK. I desire no more.\n  CADE. And, to speak truth, thou deserv'st no less. [Putting on SIR\n    HUMPHREY'S brigandine] This monument of the victory will I bear,\n    and the bodies shall be dragged at my horse heels till I do come\n    to London, where we will have the mayor's sword borne before us.\n  DICK. If we mean to thrive and do good, break open the gaols and\n    let out the prisoners.\n  CADE. Fear not that, I warrant thee. Come, let's march towards\n    London.                                               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter the KING with a supplication, and the QUEEN with SUFFOLK'S head;\nthe DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, and the LORD SAY\n\n  QUEEN. Oft have I heard that grief softens the mind\n    And makes it fearful and degenerate;\n    Think therefore on revenge and cease to weep.\n    But who can cease to weep, and look on this?\n    Here may his head lie on my throbbing breast;\n    But where's the body that I should embrace?\n  BUCKINGHAM. What answer makes your Grace to the rebels'\n    supplication?\n  KING HENRY. I'll send some holy bishop to entreat;\n    For God forbid so many simple souls\n    Should perish by the sword! And I myself,\n    Rather than bloody war shall cut them short,\n    Will parley with Jack Cade their general.\n    But stay, I'll read it over once again.\n  QUEEN. Ah, barbarous villains! Hath this lovely face\n    Rul'd like a wandering planet over me,\n    And could it not enforce them to relent\n    That were unworthy to behold the same?\n  KING HENRY. Lord Say, Jack Cade hath sworn to have thy head.\n  SAY. Ay, but I hope your Highness shall have his.\n  KING HENRY. How now, madam!\n    Still lamenting and mourning for Suffolk's death?\n    I fear me, love, if that I had been dead,\n    Thou wouldst not have mourn'd so much for me.\n  QUEEN. No, my love, I should not mourn, but die for thee.\n\n                        Enter A MESSENGER\n\n  KING HENRY. How now! What news? Why com'st thou in such haste?\n  MESSENGER. The rebels are in Southwark; fly, my lord!\n    Jack Cade proclaims himself Lord Mortimer,\n    Descended from the Duke of Clarence' house,\n    And calls your Grace usurper, openly,\n    And vows to crown himself in Westminster.\n    His army is a ragged multitude\n    Of hinds and peasants, rude and merciless;\n    Sir Humphrey Stafford and his brother's death\n    Hath given them heart and courage to proceed.\n    All scholars, lawyers, courtiers, gentlemen,\n    They call false caterpillars and intend their death.\n  KING HENRY. O graceless men! they know not what they do.\n  BUCKINGHAM. My gracious lord, retire to Killingworth\n    Until a power be rais'd to put them down.\n  QUEEN. Ah, were the Duke of Suffolk now alive,\n    These Kentish rebels would be soon appeas'd!\n  KING HENRY. Lord Say, the traitors hate thee;\n    Therefore away with us to Killingworth.\n  SAY. So might your Grace's person be in danger.\n    The sight of me is odious in their eyes;\n    And therefore in this city will I stay\n    And live alone as secret as I may.\n\n                      Enter another MESSENGER\n\n  SECOND MESSENGER. Jack Cade hath gotten London Bridge.\n    The citizens fly and forsake their houses;\n    The rascal people, thirsting after prey,\n    Join with the traitor; and they jointly swear\n    To spoil the city and your royal court.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Then linger not, my lord; away, take horse.\n  KING HENRY. Come Margaret; God, our hope, will succour us.\n  QUEEN. My hope is gone, now Suffolk is deceas'd.\n  KING HENRY. [To LORD SAY] Farewell, my lord, trust not the Kentish\n    rebels.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Trust nobody, for fear you be betray'd.\n  SAY. The trust I have is in mine innocence,\n    And therefore am I bold and resolute.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nLondon. The Tower\n\nEnter LORD SCALES Upon the Tower, walking. Then enter two or three CITIZENS,\nbelow\n\n  SCALES. How now! Is Jack Cade slain?\n  FIRST CITIZEN. No, my lord, nor likely to be slain; for they have\n    won the bridge, killing all those that withstand them.\n    The Lord Mayor craves aid of your honour from the\n    Tower, to defend the city from the rebels.\n  SCALES. Such aid as I can spare you shall command,\n    But I am troubled here with them myself;\n    The rebels have assay'd to win the Tower.\n    But get you to Smithfield, and gather head,\n    And thither I will send you Matthew Goffe;\n    Fight for your King, your country, and your lives;\n    And so, farewell, for I must hence again.             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nLondon. Cannon street\n\nEnter JACK CADE and the rest, and strikes his staff on London Stone\n\n  CADE. Now is Mortimer lord of this city. And here, sitting upon\n    London Stone, I charge and command that, of the city's cost, the\n    pissing conduit run nothing but claret wine this first year of\n    our reign. And now henceforward it shall be treason for any that\n    calls me other than Lord Mortimer.\n\n                    Enter a SOLDIER, running\n\n  SOLDIER. Jack Cade! Jack Cade!\n  CADE. Knock him down there.                    [They kill him]\n  SMITH. If this fellow be wise, he'll never call ye Jack Cade more;\n    I think he hath a very fair warning.\n  DICK. My lord, there's an army gathered together in Smithfield.\n  CADE. Come then, let's go fight with them. But first go and set\n    London Bridge on fire; and, if you can, burn down the Tower too.\n    Come, let's away.                                     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nLondon. Smithfield\n\nAlarums. MATTHEW GOFFE is slain, and all the rest.  Then enter JACK CADE,\nwith his company\n\n  CADE. So, sirs. Now go some and pull down the Savoy; others to th'\n    Inns of Court; down with them all.\n  DICK. I have a suit unto your lordship.\n  CADE. Be it a lordship, thou shalt have it for that word.\n  DICK. Only that the laws of England may come out of your mouth.\n  JOHN. [Aside] Mass, 'twill be sore law then; for he was thrust in\n    the mouth with a spear, and 'tis not whole yet.\n  SMITH. [Aside] Nay, John, it will be stinking law; for his breath\n    stinks with eating toasted cheese.\n  CADE. I have thought upon it; it shall be so. Away, burn all the\n    records of the realm. My mouth shall be the Parliament of\n    England.\n  JOHN. [Aside] Then we are like to have biting statutes, unless his\n    teeth be pull'd out.\n  CADE. And henceforward all things shall be in common.\n\n                          Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. My lord, a prize, a prize! Here's the Lord Say, which\n    sold the towns in France; he that made us pay one and twenty\n    fifteens, and one shining to the pound, the last subsidy.\n\n                Enter GEORGE BEVIS, with the LORD SAY\n\n  CADE. Well, he shall be beheaded for it ten times. Ah, thou say,\n    thou serge, nay, thou buckram lord! Now art thou within point\n    blank of our jurisdiction regal. What canst thou answer to my\n    Majesty for giving up of Normandy unto Mounsieur Basimecu the\n    Dauphin of France? Be it known unto thee by these presence, even\n    the presence of Lord Mortimer, that I am the besom that must\n    sweep the court clean of such filth as thou art. Thou hast most\n    traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a\n    grammar school; and whereas, before, our forefathers had no other\n    books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to\n    be us'd, and, contrary to the King, his crown, and dignity, thou\n    hast built a paper-mill. It will be proved to thy face that thou\n    hast men about thee that usually talk of a noun and a verb, and\n    such abominable words as no Christian ear can endure to hear.\n    Thou hast appointed justices of peace, to call poor men before\n    them about matters they were not able to answer. Moreover, thou\n    hast put them in prison, and because they could not read, thou\n    hast hang'd them, when, indeed, only for that cause they have\n    been most worthy to live. Thou dost ride in a foot-cloth, dost\n    thou not?\n  SAY. What of that?\n  CADE. Marry, thou ought'st not to let thy horse wear a cloak, when\n    honester men than thou go in their hose and doublets.\n  DICK. And work in their shirt too, as myself, for example, that am\n    a butcher.\n  SAY. You men of Kent-\n  DICK. What say you of Kent?\n  SAY. Nothing but this: 'tis 'bona terra, mala gens.'\n  CADE. Away with him, away with him! He speaks Latin.\n  SAY. Hear me but speak, and bear me where you will.\n    Kent, in the Commentaries Caesar writ,\n    Is term'd the civil'st place of all this isle.\n    Sweet is the country, because full of riches;\n    The people liberal valiant, active, wealthy;\n    Which makes me hope you are not void of pity.\n    I sold not Maine, I lost not Normandy;\n    Yet, to recover them, would lose my life.\n    Justice with favour have I always done;\n    Pray'rs and tears have mov'd me, gifts could never.\n    When have I aught exacted at your hands,\n    But to maintain the King, the realm, and you?\n    Large gifts have I bestow'd on learned clerks,\n    Because my book preferr'd me to the King,\n    And seeing ignorance is the curse of God,\n    Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven,\n    Unless you be possess'd with devilish spirits\n    You cannot but forbear to murder me.\n    This tongue hath parley'd unto foreign kings\n    For your behoof.\n  CADE. Tut, when struck'st thou one blow in the field?\n  SAY. Great men have reaching hands. Oft have I struck\n    Those that I never saw, and struck them dead.\n  GEORGE. O monstrous coward! What, to come behind folks?\n  SAY. These cheeks are pale for watching for your good.\n  CADE. Give him a box o' th' ear, and that will make 'em red again.\n  SAY. Long sitting to determine poor men's causes\n    Hath made me full of sickness and diseases.\n  CADE. Ye shall have a hempen caudle then, and the help of hatchet.\n  DICK. Why dost thou quiver, man?\n  SAY. The palsy, and not fear, provokes me.\n  CADE. Nay, he nods at us, as who should say 'I'll be even with\n    you'; I'll see if his head will stand steadier on a pole, or no.\n    Take him away, and behead him.\n  SAY. Tell me: wherein have I offended most?\n    Have I affected wealth or honour? Speak.\n    Are my chests fill'd up with extorted gold?\n    Is my apparel sumptuous to behold?\n    Whom have I injur'd, that ye seek my death?\n    These hands are free from guiltless bloodshedding,\n    This breast from harbouring foul deceitful thoughts.\n    O, let me live!\n  CADE. [Aside] I feel remorse in myself with his words; but I'll\n    bridle it. He shall die, an it be but for pleading so well for\n    his life.- Away with him! He has a familiar under his tongue; he\n    speaks not o' God's name. Go, take him away, I say, and strike\n    off his head presently, and then break into his son-in-law's\n    house, Sir James Cromer, and strike off his head, and bring them\n    both upon two poles hither.\n  ALL. It shall be done.\n  SAY. Ah, countrymen! if when you make your pray'rs,\n    God should be so obdurate as yourselves,\n    How would it fare with your departed souls?\n    And therefore yet relent and save my life.\n  CADE. Away with him, and do as I command ye.  [Exeunt some with\n    LORD SAY]  The proudest peer in the realm shall not wear a head\n    on his shoulders, unless he pay me tribute; there shall not a\n    maid be married, but she shall pay to me her maidenhead ere they\n    have it. Men shall hold of me in capite; and we charge and\n    command that their wives be as free as heart can wish or tongue\n    can tell.\n  DICK. My lord, when shall we go to Cheapside, and take up\n    commodities upon our bills?\n  CADE. Marry, presently.\n  ALL. O, brave!\n\n                      Re-enter one with the heads\n\n  CADE. But is not this braver? Let them kiss one another, for they\n    lov'd well when they were alive. Now part them again, lest they\n    consult about the giving up of some more towns in France.\n    Soldiers, defer the spoil of the city until night; for with these\n    borne before us instead of maces will we ride through the\n    streets, and at every corner have them kiss. Away!     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VIII.\nSouthwark\n\nAlarum and retreat. Enter again CADE and all his rabblement\n\n  CADE. Up Fish Street! down Saint Magnus' Corner! Kill and knock\n    down! Throw them into Thames!               [Sound a parley]\n    What noise is this I hear? Dare any be so bold to sound retreat\n    or parley when I command them kill?\n\n            Enter BUCKINGHAM and old CLIFFORD, attended\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. Ay, here they be that dare and will disturb thee.\n    And therefore yet relent, and save my life.\n    Know, Cade, we come ambassadors from the King\n    Unto the commons whom thou hast misled;\n    And here pronounce free pardon to them all\n    That will forsake thee and go home in peace.\n  CLIFFORD. What say ye, countrymen? Will ye relent\n    And yield to mercy whilst 'tis offer'd you,\n    Or let a rebel lead you to your deaths?\n    Who loves the King, and will embrace his pardon,\n    Fling up his cap and say 'God save his Majesty!'\n    Who hateth him and honours not his father,\n    Henry the Fifth, that made all France to quake,\n    Shake he his weapon at us and pass by.\n  ALL. God save the King! God save the King!\n  CADE. What, Buckingham and Clifford, are ye so brave?\n    And you, base peasants, do ye believe him? Will you needs be\n    hang'd with your about your necks? Hath my sword therefore broke\n    through London gates, that you should leave me at the White Hart\n    in Southwark? I thought ye would never have given out these arms\n    till you had recovered your ancient freedom. But you are all\n    recreants and dastards, and delight to live in slavery to the\n    nobility. Let them break your backs with burdens, take your\n    houses over your heads, ravish your wives and daughters before\n    your faces. For me, I will make shift for one; and so God's curse\n    light upon you all!\n  ALL. We'll follow Cade, we'll follow Cade!\n  CLIFFORD. Is Cade the son of Henry the Fifth,\n    That thus you do exclaim you'll go with him?\n    Will he conduct you through the heart of France,\n    And make the meanest of you earls and dukes?\n    Alas, he hath no home, no place to fly to;\n    Nor knows he how to live but by the spoil,\n    Unless by robbing of your friends and us.\n    Were't not a shame that whilst you live at jar\n    The fearful French, whom you late vanquished,\n    Should make a start o'er seas and vanquish you?\n    Methinks already in this civil broil\n    I see them lording it in London streets,\n    Crying 'Villiago!' unto all they meet.\n    Better ten thousand base-born Cades miscarry\n    Than you should stoop unto a Frenchman's mercy.\n    To France, to France, and get what you have lost;\n    Spare England, for it is your native coast.\n    Henry hath money; you are strong and manly.\n    God on our side, doubt not of victory.\n  ALL. A Clifford! a Clifford! We'll follow the King and Clifford.\n  CADE. Was ever feather so lightly blown to and fro as this\n    multitude? The name of Henry the Fifth hales them to an hundred\n    mischiefs, and makes them leave me desolate. I see them lay their\n    heads together to surprise me. My sword make way for me for here\n    is no staying. In despite of the devils and hell, have through\n    the very middest of you! and heavens and honour be witness that\n    no want of resolution in me, but only my followers' base and\n    ignominious treasons, makes me betake me to my heels.\n Exit\n  BUCKINGHAM. What, is he fled? Go some, and follow him;\n    And he that brings his head unto the King\n    Shall have a thousand crowns for his reward.\n                                             Exeunt some of them\n    Follow me, soldiers; we'll devise a mean\n    To reconcile you all unto the King.                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IX.\nKilling, worth Castle\n\nSound trumpets. Enter KING, QUEEN, and SOMERSET, on the terrace\n\n  KING HENRY. Was ever king that joy'd an earthly throne\n    And could command no more content than I?\n    No sooner was I crept out of my cradle\n    But I was made a king, at nine months old.\n    Was never subject long'd to be a King\n    As I do long and wish to be a subject.\n\n               Enter BUCKINGHAM and old CLIFFORD\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. Health and glad tidings to your Majesty!\n  KING HENRY. Why, Buckingham, is the traitor Cade surpris'd?\n    Or is he but retir'd to make him strong?\n\n     Enter, below, multitudes, with halters about their necks\n\n  CLIFFORD. He is fled, my lord, and all his powers do yield,\n    And humbly thus, with halters on their necks,\n    Expect your Highness' doom of life or death.\n  KING HENRY. Then, heaven, set ope thy everlasting gates,\n    To entertain my vows of thanks and praise!\n    Soldiers, this day have you redeem'd your lives,\n    And show'd how well you love your Prince and country.\n    Continue still in this so good a mind,\n    And Henry, though he be infortunate,\n    Assure yourselves, will never be unkind.\n    And so, with thanks and pardon to you all,\n    I do dismiss you to your several countries.\n  ALL. God save the King! God save the King!\n\n                     Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. Please it your Grace to be advertised\n    The Duke of York is newly come from Ireland\n    And with a puissant and a mighty power\n    Of gallowglasses and stout kerns\n    Is marching hitherward in proud array,\n    And still proclaimeth, as he comes along,\n    His arms are only to remove from thee\n    The Duke of Somerset, whom he terms a traitor.\n  KING HENRY. Thus stands my state, 'twixt Cade and York distress'd;\n    Like to a ship that, having scap'd a tempest,\n    Is straightway calm'd, and boarded with a pirate;\n    But now is Cade driven back, his men dispers'd,\n    And now is York in arms to second him.\n    I pray thee, Buckingham, go and meet him\n    And ask him what's the reason of these arms.\n    Tell him I'll send Duke Edmund to the Tower-\n    And Somerset, we will commit thee thither\n    Until his army be dismiss'd from him.\n  SOMERSET. My lord,\n    I'll yield myself to prison willingly,\n    Or unto death, to do my country good.\n  KING HENRY. In any case be not too rough in terms,\n    For he is fierce and cannot brook hard language.\n  BUCKINGHAM. I will, my lord, and doubt not so to deal\n    As all things shall redound unto your good.\n  KING HENRY. Come, wife, let's in, and learn to govern better;\n    For yet may England curse my wretched reign.\n                                                Flourish. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE X.\nKent. Iden's garden\n\nEnter CADE\n\n  CADE. Fie on ambitions! Fie on myself, that have a sword and yet am\n    ready to famish! These five days have I hid me in these woods and\n    durst not peep out, for all the country is laid for me; but now\n    am I so hungry that, if I might have a lease of my life for a\n    thousand years, I could stay no longer. Wherefore, on a brick\n    wall have I climb'd into this garden, to see if I can eat grass\n    or pick a sallet another while, which is not amiss to cool a\n    man's stomach this hot weather. And I think this word 'sallet'\n    was born to do me good; for many a time, but for a sallet, my\n    brain-pain had been cleft with a brown bill; and many a time,\n    when I have been dry, and bravely marching, it hath serv'd me\n    instead of a quart-pot to drink in; and now the word 'sallet'\n    must serve me to feed on.\n\n                             Enter IDEN\n\n  IDEN. Lord, who would live turmoiled in the court\n    And may enjoy such quiet walks as these?\n    This small inheritance my father left me\n    Contenteth me, and worth a monarchy.\n    I seek not to wax great by others' waning\n    Or gather wealth I care not with what envy;\n    Sufficeth that I have maintains my state,\n    And sends the poor well pleased from my gate.\n  CADE. Here's the lord of the soil come to seize me for a stray, for\n    entering his fee-simple without leave. Ah, villain, thou wilt\n    betray me, and get a thousand crowns of the King by carrying my\n    head to him; but I'll make thee eat iron like an ostrich and\n    swallow my sword like a great pin ere thou and I part.\n  IDEN. Why, rude companion, whatsoe'er thou be,\n    I know thee not; why then should I betray thee?\n    Is't not enough to break into my garden\n    And like a thief to come to rob my grounds,\n    Climbing my walls in spite of me the owner,\n    But thou wilt brave me with these saucy terms?\n  CADE. Brave thee? Ay, by the best blood that ever was broach'd, and\n    beard thee too. Look on me well: I have eat no meat these five\n    days, yet come thou and thy five men and if I do not leave you\n    all as dead as a door-nail, I pray God I may never eat grass\n    more.\n  IDEN. Nay, it shall ne'er be said, while England stands,\n    That Alexander Iden, an esquire of Kent,\n    Took odds to combat a poor famish'd man.\n    Oppose thy steadfast-gazing eyes to mine;\n    See if thou canst outface me with thy looks;\n    Set limb to limb, and thou art far the lesser;\n    Thy hand is but a finger to my fist,\n    Thy leg a stick compared with this truncheon;\n    My foot shall fight with all the strength thou hast,\n    And if mine arm be heaved in the air,\n    Thy grave is digg'd already in the earth.\n    As for words, whose greatness answers words,\n    Let this my sword report what speech forbears.\n  CADE. By my valour, the most complete champion that ever I heard!\n    Steel, if thou turn the edge, or cut not out the burly bon'd\n    clown in chines of beef ere thou sleep in thy sheath, I beseech\n    God on my knees thou mayst be turn'd to hobnails. [Here they\n    fight; CADE falls] O, I am slain! famine and no other hath slain\n    me. Let ten thousand devils come against me, and give me but the\n    ten meals I have lost, and I'd defy them all. Wither, garden, and\n    be henceforth a burying place to all that do dwell in this house,\n    because the unconquered soul of Cade is fled.\n  IDEN. Is't Cade that I have slain, that monstrous traitor?\n    Sword, I will hallow thee for this thy deed\n    And hang thee o'er my tomb when I am dead.\n    Ne'er shall this blood be wiped from thy point,\n    But thou shalt wear it as a herald's coat\n    To emblaze the honour that thy master got.\n  CADE. Iden, farewell; and be proud of thy victory. Tell Kent from\n    me she hath lost her best man, and exhort all the world to be\n    cowards; for I, that never feared any, am vanquished by famine,\n    not by valour.                                        [Dies]\n  IDEN. How much thou wrong'st me, heaven be my judge.\n    Die, damned wretch, the curse of her that bare thee!\n    And as I thrust thy body in with my sword,\n    So wish I, I might thrust thy soul to hell.\n    Hence will I drag thee headlong by the heels\n    Unto a dunghill, which shall be thy grave,\n    And there cut off thy most ungracious head,\n    Which I will bear in triumph to the King,\n    Leaving thy trunk for crows to feed upon.               Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nFields between Dartford and Blackheath\n\nEnter YORK, and his army of Irish, with drum and colours\n\n  YORK. From Ireland thus comes York to claim his right\n    And pluck the crown from feeble Henry's head:\n    Ring bells aloud, burn bonfires clear and bright,\n    To entertain great England's lawful king.\n    Ah, sancta majestas! who would not buy thee dear?\n    Let them obey that knows not how to rule;\n    This hand was made to handle nought but gold.\n    I cannot give due action to my words\n    Except a sword or sceptre balance it.\n    A sceptre shall it have, have I a soul\n    On which I'll toss the flower-de-luce of France.\n\n                         Enter BUCKINGHAM\n\n    [Aside] Whom have we here? Buckingham, to disturb me?\n    The King hath sent him, sure: I must dissemble.\n  BUCKINGHAM. York, if thou meanest well I greet thee well.\n  YORK. Humphrey of Buckingham, I accept thy greeting.\n    Art thou a messenger, or come of pleasure?\n  BUCKINGHAM. A messenger from Henry, our dread liege,\n    To know the reason of these arms in peace;\n    Or why thou, being a subject as I am,\n    Against thy oath and true allegiance sworn,\n    Should raise so great a power without his leave,\n    Or dare to bring thy force so near the court.\n  YORK. [Aside] Scarce can I speak, my choler is so great.\n    O, I could hew up rocks and fight with flint,\n    I am so angry at these abject terms;\n    And now, like Ajax Telamonius,\n    On sheep or oxen could I spend my fury.\n    I am far better born than is the King,\n    More like a king, more kingly in my thoughts;\n    But I must make fair weather yet awhile,\n    Till Henry be more weak and I more strong.-\n    Buckingham, I prithee, pardon me\n    That I have given no answer all this while;\n    My mind was troubled with deep melancholy.\n    The cause why I have brought this army hither\n    Is to remove proud Somerset from the King,\n    Seditious to his Grace and to the state.\n  BUCKINGHAM. That is too much presumption on thy part;\n    But if thy arms be to no other end,\n    The King hath yielded unto thy demand:\n    The Duke of Somerset is in the Tower.\n  YORK. Upon thine honour, is he prisoner?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Upon mine honour, he is prisoner.\n  YORK. Then, Buckingham, I do dismiss my pow'rs.\n    Soldiers, I thank you all; disperse yourselves;\n    Meet me to-morrow in Saint George's field,\n    You shall have pay and everything you wish.\n    And let my sovereign, virtuous Henry,\n    Command my eldest son, nay, all my sons,\n    As pledges of my fealty and love.\n    I'll send them all as willing as I live:\n    Lands, goods, horse, armour, anything I have,\n    Is his to use, so Somerset may die.\n  BUCKINGHAM. York, I commend this kind submission.\n    We twain will go into his Highness' tent.\n\n                  Enter the KING, and attendants\n\n  KING HENRY. Buckingham, doth York intend no harm to us,\n    That thus he marcheth with thee arm in arm?\n  YORK. In all submission and humility\n    York doth present himself unto your Highness.\n  KING HENRY. Then what intends these forces thou dost bring?\n  YORK. To heave the traitor Somerset from hence,\n    And fight against that monstrous rebel Cade,\n    Who since I heard to be discomfited.\n\n                    Enter IDEN, with CADE's head\n\n  IDEN. If one so rude and of so mean condition\n    May pass into the presence of a king,\n    Lo, I present your Grace a traitor's head,\n    The head of Cade, whom I in combat slew.\n  KING HENRY. The head of Cade! Great God, how just art Thou!\n    O, let me view his visage, being dead,\n    That living wrought me such exceeding trouble.\n    Tell me, my friend, art thou the man that slew him?\n  IDEN. I was, an't like your Majesty.\n  KING HENRY. How art thou call'd? And what is thy degree?\n  IDEN. Alexander Iden, that's my name;\n    A poor esquire of Kent that loves his king.\n  BUCKINGHAM. So please it you, my lord, 'twere not amiss\n    He were created knight for his good service.\n  KING HENRY. Iden, kneel down. [He kneels] Rise up a knight.\n    We give thee for reward a thousand marks,\n    And will that thou thenceforth attend on us.\n  IDEN. May Iden live to merit such a bounty,\n    And never live but true unto his liege!\n\n                    Enter the QUEEN and SOMERSET\n\n  KING HENRY. See, Buckingham! Somerset comes with th' Queen:\n    Go, bid her hide him quickly from the Duke.\n  QUEEN. For thousand Yorks he shall not hide his head,\n    But boldly stand and front him to his face.\n  YORK. How now! Is Somerset at liberty?\n    Then, York, unloose thy long-imprisoned thoughts\n    And let thy tongue be equal with thy heart.\n    Shall I endure the sight of Somerset?\n    False king, why hast thou broken faith with me,\n    Knowing how hardly I can brook abuse?\n    King did I call thee? No, thou art not king;\n    Not fit to govern and rule multitudes,\n    Which dar'st not, no, nor canst not rule a traitor.\n    That head of thine doth not become a crown;\n    Thy hand is made to grasp a palmer's staff,\n    And not to grace an awful princely sceptre.\n    That gold must round engirt these brows of mine,\n    Whose smile and frown, like to Achilles' spear,\n    Is able with the change to kill and cure.\n    Here is a hand to hold a sceptre up,\n    And with the same to act controlling laws.\n    Give place. By heaven, thou shalt rule no more\n    O'er him whom heaven created for thy ruler.\n  SOMERSET. O monstrous traitor! I arrest thee, York,\n    Of capital treason 'gainst the King and crown.\n    Obey, audacious traitor; kneel for grace.\n  YORK. Wouldst have me kneel? First let me ask of these,\n    If they can brook I bow a knee to man.\n    Sirrah, call in my sons to be my bail:        Exit attendant\n    I know, ere thy will have me go to ward,\n    They'll pawn their swords for my enfranchisement.\n  QUEEN. Call hither Clifford; bid him come amain,\n    To say if that the bastard boys of York\n    Shall be the surety for their traitor father.\n                                                 Exit BUCKINGHAM\n  YORK. O blood-bespotted Neapolitan,\n    Outcast of Naples, England's bloody scourge!\n    The sons of York, thy betters in their birth,\n    Shall be their father's bail; and bane to those\n    That for my surety will refuse the boys!\n\n               Enter EDWARD and RICHARD PLANTAGENET\n\n    See where they come: I'll warrant they'll make it good.\n\n                     Enter CLIFFORD and his SON\n\n  QUEEN. And here comes Clifford to deny their bail.\n  CLIFFORD. Health and all happiness to my lord the King!\n                                                        [Kneels]\n  YORK. I thank thee, Clifford. Say, what news with thee?\n    Nay, do not fright us with an angry look.\n    We are thy sovereign, Clifford, kneel again;\n    For thy mistaking so, we pardon thee.\n  CLIFFORD. This is my King, York, I do not mistake;\n    But thou mistakes me much to think I do.\n    To Bedlam with him! Is the man grown mad?\n  KING HENRY. Ay, Clifford; a bedlam and ambitious humour\n    Makes him oppose himself against his king.\n  CLIFFORD. He is a traitor; let him to the Tower,\n    And chop away that factious pate of his.\n  QUEEN. He is arrested, but will not obey;\n    His sons, he says, shall give their words for him.\n  YORK. Will you not, sons?\n  EDWARD. Ay, noble father, if our words will serve.\n  RICHARD. And if words will not, then our weapons shall.\n  CLIFFORD. Why, what a brood of traitors have we here!\n  YORK. Look in a glass, and call thy image so:\n    I am thy king, and thou a false-heart traitor.\n    Call hither to the stake my two brave bears,\n    That with the very shaking of their chains\n    They may astonish these fell-lurking curs.\n    Bid Salisbury and Warwick come to me.\n\n               Enter the EARLS OF WARWICK and SALISBURY\n\n  CLIFFORD. Are these thy bears? We'll bait thy bears to death,\n    And manacle the berard in their chains,\n    If thou dar'st bring them to the baiting-place.\n  RICHARD. Oft have I seen a hot o'er weening cur\n    Run back and bite, because he was withheld;\n    Who, being suffer'd, with the bear's fell paw,\n    Hath clapp'd his tail between his legs and cried;\n    And such a piece of service will you do,\n    If you oppose yourselves to match Lord Warwick.\n  CLIFFORD. Hence, heap of wrath, foul indigested lump,\n    As crooked in thy manners as thy shape!\n  YORK. Nay, we shall heat you thoroughly anon.\n  CLIFFORD. Take heed, lest by your heat you burn yourselves.\n  KING HENRY. Why, Warwick, hath thy knee forgot to bow?\n    Old Salisbury, shame to thy silver hair,\n    Thou mad misleader of thy brainsick son!\n    What, wilt thou on thy death-bed play the ruffian\n    And seek for sorrow with thy spectacles?\n    O, where is faith? O, where is loyalty?\n    If it be banish'd from the frosty head,\n    Where shall it find a harbour in the earth?\n    Wilt thou go dig a grave to find out war\n    And shame thine honourable age with blood?\n    Why art thou old, and want'st experience?\n    Or wherefore dost abuse it, if thou hast it?\n    For shame! In duty bend thy knee to me,\n    That bows unto the grave with mickle age.\n  SALISBURY. My lord, I have considered with myself\n    The tide of this most renowned duke,\n    And in my conscience do repute his Grace\n    The rightful heir to England's royal seat.\n  KING HENRY. Hast thou not sworn allegiance unto me?\n  SALISBURY. I have.\n  KING HENRY. Canst thou dispense with heaven for such an oath?\n  SALISBURY. It is great sin to swear unto a sin;\n    But greater sin to keep a sinful oath.\n    Who can be bound by any solemn vow\n    To do a murd'rous deed, to rob a man,\n    To force a spotless virgin's chastity,\n    To reave the orphan of his patrimony,\n    To wring the widow from her custom'd right,\n    And have no other reason for this wrong\n    But that he was bound by a solemn oath?\n  QUEEN. A subtle traitor needs no sophister.\n  KING HENRY. Call Buckingham, and bid him arm himself.\n  YORK. Call Buckingham, and all the friends thou hast,\n    I am resolv'd for death or dignity.\n  CLIFFORD. The first I warrant thee, if dreams prove true.\n  WARWICK. You were best to go to bed and dream again\n    To keep thee from the tempest of the field.\n  CLIFFORD. I am resolv'd to bear a greater storm\n    Than any thou canst conjure up to-day;\n    And that I'll write upon thy burgonet,\n    Might I but know thee by thy household badge.\n  WARWICK. Now, by my father's badge, old Nevil's crest,\n    The rampant bear chain'd to the ragged staff,\n    This day I'll wear aloft my burgonet,\n    As on a mountain-top the cedar shows,\n    That keeps his leaves in spite of any storm,\n    Even to affright thee with the view thereof.\n  CLIFFORD. And from thy burgonet I'll rend thy bear\n    And tread it under foot with all contempt,\n    Despite the berard that protects the bear.\n  YOUNG CLIFFORD. And so to arms, victorious father,\n    To quell the rebels and their complices.\n  RICHARD. Fie! charity, for shame! Speak not in spite,\n    For you shall sup with Jesu Christ to-night.\n  YOUNG CLIFFORD. Foul stigmatic, that's more than thou canst tell.\n  RICHARD. If not in heaven, you'll surely sup in hell.\n                                                Exeunt severally\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nSaint Albans\n\nAlarums to the battle. Enter WARWICK\n\n  WARWICK. Clifford of Cumberland, 'tis Warwick calls;\n    And if thou dost not hide thee from the bear,\n    Now, when the angry trumpet sounds alarum\n    And dead men's cries do fill the empty air,\n    Clifford, I say, come forth and fight with me.\n    Proud northern lord, Clifford of Cumberland,\n  WARWICK is hoarse with calling thee to arms.\n\n                          Enter YORK\n\n    How now, my noble lord! what, all a-foot?\n  YORK. The deadly-handed Clifford slew my steed;\n    But match to match I have encount'red him,\n    And made a prey for carrion kites and crows\n    Even of the bonny beast he lov'd so well.\n\n                      Enter OLD CLIFFORD\n\n  WARWICK. Of one or both of us the time is come.\n  YORK. Hold, Warwick, seek thee out some other chase,\n    For I myself must hunt this deer to death.\n  WARWICK. Then, nobly, York; 'tis for a crown thou fight'st.\n    As I intend, Clifford, to thrive to-day,\n    It grieves my soul to leave thee unassail'd.            Exit\n  CLIFFORD. What seest thou in me, York? Why dost thou pause?\n  YORK. With thy brave bearing should I be in love\n    But that thou art so fast mine enemy.\n  CLIFFORD. Nor should thy prowess want praise and esteem\n    But that 'tis shown ignobly and in treason.\n  YORK. So let it help me now against thy sword,\n    As I in justice and true right express it!\n  CLIFFORD. My soul and body on the action both!\n  YORK. A dreadful lay! Address thee instantly.\n                                 [They fight and CLIFFORD falls]\n  CLIFFORD. La fin couronne les oeuvres.                  [Dies]\n  YORK. Thus war hath given thee peace, for thou art still.\n    Peace with his soul, heaven, if it be thy will!         Exit\n\n                     Enter YOUNG CLIFFORD\n\n  YOUNG CLIFFORD. Shame and confusion! All is on the rout;\n    Fear frames disorder, and disorder wounds\n    Where it should guard. O war, thou son of hell,\n    Whom angry heavens do make their minister,\n    Throw in the frozen bosoms of our part\n    Hot coals of vengeance! Let no soldier fly.\n    He that is truly dedicate to war\n    Hath no self-love; nor he that loves himself\n    Hath not essentially, but by circumstance,\n    The name of valour.                 [Sees his father's body]\n    O, let the vile world end\n    And the premised flames of the last day\n    Knit earth and heaven together!\n    Now let the general trumpet blow his blast,\n    Particularities and petty sounds\n    To cease! Wast thou ordain'd, dear father,\n    To lose thy youth in peace and to achieve\n    The silver livery of advised age,\n    And in thy reverence and thy chair-days thus\n    To die in ruffian battle? Even at this sight\n    My heart is turn'd to stone; and while 'tis mine\n    It shall be stony. York not our old men spares;\n    No more will I their babes. Tears virginal\n    Shall be to me even as the dew to fire;\n    And beauty, that the tyrant oft reclaims,\n    Shall to my flaming wrath be oil and flax.\n    Henceforth I will not have to do with pity:\n    Meet I an infant of the house of York,\n    Into as many gobbets will I cut it\n    As wild Medea young Absyrtus did;\n    In cruelty will I seek out my fame.\n    Come, thou new ruin of old Clifford's house;\n    As did Aeneas old Anchises bear,\n    So bear I thee upon my manly shoulders;\n    But then Aeneas bare a living load,\n    Nothing so heavy as these woes of mine.\n                                              Exit with the body\n\n       Enter RICHARD and SOMERSET to fight. SOMERSET is killed\n\n  RICHARD. So, lie thou there;\n    For underneath an alehouse' paltry sign,\n    The Castle in Saint Albans, Somerset\n    Hath made the wizard famous in his death.\n    Sword, hold thy temper; heart, be wrathful still:\n    Priests pray for enemies, but princes kill.             Exit\n\n        Fight. Excursions. Enter KING, QUEEN, and others\n\n  QUEEN. Away, my lord! You are slow; for shame, away!\n  KING HENRY. Can we outrun the heavens? Good Margaret, stay.\n  QUEEN. What are you made of? You'll nor fight nor fly.\n    Now is it manhood, wisdom, and defence,\n    To give the enemy way, and to secure us\n    By what we can, which can no more but fly.\n                                               [Alarum afar off]\n    If you be ta'en, we then should see the bottom\n    Of all our fortunes; but if we haply scape-\n    As well we may, if not through your neglect-\n    We shall to London get, where you are lov'd,\n    And where this breach now in our fortunes made\n    May readily be stopp'd.\n\n                     Re-enter YOUNG CLIFFORD\n\n  YOUNG CLIFFORD. But that my heart's on future mischief set,\n    I would speak blasphemy ere bid you fly;\n    But fly you must; uncurable discomfit\n    Reigns in the hearts of all our present parts.\n    Away, for your relief! and we will live\n    To see their day and them our fortune give.\n    Away, my lord, away!                                  Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nFields near Saint Albans\n\nAlarum. Retreat. Enter YORK, RICHARD, WARWICK, and soldiers,\nwith drum and colours\n\n  YORK. Of Salisbury, who can report of him,\n    That winter lion, who in rage forgets\n    Aged contusions and all brush of time\n    And, like a gallant in the brow of youth,\n    Repairs him with occasion? This happy day\n    Is not itself, nor have we won one foot,\n    If Salisbury be lost.\n  RICHARD. My noble father,\n    Three times to-day I holp him to his horse,\n    Three times bestrid him, thrice I led him off,\n    Persuaded him from any further act;\n    But still where danger was, still there I met him;\n    And like rich hangings in a homely house,\n    So was his will in his old feeble body.\n    But, noble as he is, look where he comes.\n\n                         Enter SALISBURY\n\n  SALISBURY. Now, by my sword, well hast thou fought to-day!\n    By th' mass, so did we all. I thank you, Richard:\n    God knows how long it is I have to live,\n    And it hath pleas'd Him that three times to-day\n    You have defended me from imminent death.\n    Well, lords, we have not got that which we have;\n    'Tis not enough our foes are this time fled,\n    Being opposites of such repairing nature.\n  YORK. I know our safety is to follow them;\n    For, as I hear, the King is fled to London\n    To call a present court of Parliament.\n    Let us pursue him ere the writs go forth.\n    What says Lord Warwick? Shall we after them?\n  WARWICK. After them? Nay, before them, if we can.\n    Now, by my faith, lords, 'twas a glorious day:\n    Saint Albans' battle, won by famous York,\n    Shall be eterniz'd in all age to come.\n    Sound drum and trumpets and to London all;\n    And more such days as these to us befall!             Exeunt\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1591\n\nTHE THIRD PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  KING HENRY THE SIXTH\n  EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALES, his son\n  LEWIS XI, King of France           DUKE OF SOMERSET\n  DUKE OF EXETER                     EARL OF OXFORD\n  EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND             EARL OF WESTMORELAND\n  LORD CLIFFORD\n  RICHARD PLANTAGENET, DUKE OF YORK\n  EDWARD, EARL OF MARCH, afterwards KING EDWARD IV, his son\n  EDMUND, EARL OF RUTLAND, his son\n  GEORGE, afterwards DUKE OF CLARENCE, his son\n  RICHARD, afterwards DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, his son\n  DUKE OF NORFOLK                    MARQUIS OF MONTAGUE\n  EARL OF WARWICK                    EARL OF PEMBROKE\n  LORD HASTINGS                      LORD STAFFORD\n  SIR JOHN MORTIMER, uncle to the Duke of York\n  SIR HUGH MORTIMER, uncle to the Duke of York\n  HENRY, EARL OF RICHMOND, a youth\n  LORD RIVERS, brother to Lady Grey\n  SIR WILLIAM STANLEY                SIR JOHN MONTGOMERY\n  SIR JOHN SOMERVILLE                TUTOR, to Rutland\n  MAYOR OF YORK                      LIEUTENANT OF THE TOWER\n  A NOBLEMAN                         TWO KEEPERS\n  A HUNTSMAN\n  A SON that has killed his father\n  A FATHER that has killed his son\n\n  QUEEN MARGARET\n  LADY GREY, afterwards QUEEN to Edward IV\n  BONA, sister to the French Queen\n\n  Soldiers, Attendants, Messengers, Watchmen, etc.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nEngland and France\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nLondon. The Parliament House\n\nAlarum. Enter DUKE OF YORK, EDWARD, RICHARD, NORFOLK, MONTAGUE, WARWICK,\nand soldiers, with white roses in their hats\n\n  WARWICK. I wonder how the King escap'd our hands.\n  YORK. While we pursu'd the horsemen of the north,\n    He slily stole away and left his men;\n    Whereat the great Lord of Northumberland,\n    Whose warlike ears could never brook retreat,\n    Cheer'd up the drooping army, and himself,\n    Lord Clifford, and Lord Stafford, all abreast,\n    Charg'd our main battle's front, and, breaking in,\n    Were by the swords of common soldiers slain.\n  EDWARD. Lord Stafford's father, Duke of Buckingham,\n    Is either slain or wounded dangerous;\n    I cleft his beaver with a downright blow.\n    That this is true, father, behold his blood.\n  MONTAGUE. And, brother, here's the Earl of Wiltshire's blood,\n    Whom I encount'red as the battles join'd.\n  RICHARD. Speak thou for me, and tell them what I did.\n                                 [Throwing down SOMERSET'S head]\n  YORK. Richard hath best deserv'd of all my sons.\n    But is your Grace dead, my Lord of Somerset?\n  NORFOLK. Such hope have all the line of John of Gaunt!\n  RICHARD. Thus do I hope to shake King Henry's head.\n  WARWICK. And so do I. Victorious Prince of York,\n    Before I see thee seated in that throne\n    Which now the house of Lancaster usurps,\n    I vow by heaven these eyes shall never close.\n    This is the palace of the fearful King,\n    And this the regal seat. Possess it, York;\n    For this is thine, and not King Henry's heirs'.\n  YORK. Assist me then, sweet Warwick, and I will;\n    For hither we have broken in by force.\n  NORFOLK. We'll all assist you; he that flies shall die.\n  YORK. Thanks, gentle Norfolk. Stay by me, my lords;\n    And, soldiers, stay and lodge by me this night.\n                                                    [They go up]\n  WARWICK. And when the King comes, offer him no violence.\n    Unless he seek to thrust you out perforce.\n  YORK. The Queen this day here holds her parliament,\n    But little thinks we shall be of her council.\n    By words or blows here let us win our right.\n  RICHARD. Arm'd as we are, let's stay within this house.\n  WARWICK. The bloody parliament shall this be call'd,\n    Unless Plantagenet, Duke of York, be King,\n    And bashful Henry depos'd, whose cowardice\n    Hath made us by-words to our enemies.\n  YORK. Then leave me not, my lords; be resolute:\n    I mean to take possession of my right.\n  WARWICK. Neither the King, nor he that loves him best,\n    The proudest he that holds up Lancaster,\n    Dares stir a wing if Warwick shake his bells.\n    I'll plant Plantagenet, root him up who dares.\n    Resolve thee, Richard; claim the English crown.\n                                      [YORK occupies the throne]\n\n       Flourish. Enter KING HENRY, CLIFFORD, NORTHUMBERLAND,\n        WESTMORELAND, EXETER, and others, with red roses in\n                            their hats\n\n  KING HENRY. My lords, look where the sturdy rebel sits,\n    Even in the chair of state! Belike he means,\n    Back'd by the power of Warwick, that false peer,\n    To aspire unto the crown and reign as king.\n    Earl of Northumberland, he slew thy father;\n    And thine, Lord Clifford; and you both have vow'd revenge\n    On him, his sons, his favourites, and his friends.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. If I be not, heavens be reveng'd on me!\n  CLIFFORD. The hope thereof makes Clifford mourn in steel.\n  WESTMORELAND. What, shall we suffer this? Let's pluck him down;\n    My heart for anger burns; I cannot brook it.\n  KING HENRY. Be patient, gentle Earl of Westmoreland.\n  CLIFFORD. Patience is for poltroons such as he;\n    He durst not sit there had your father liv'd.\n    My gracious lord, here in the parliament\n    Let us assail the family of York.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Well hast thou spoken, cousin; be it so.\n  KING HENRY. Ah, know you not the city favours them,\n    And they have troops of soldiers at their beck?\n  EXETER. But when the Duke is slain they'll quickly fly.\n  KING HENRY. Far be the thought of this from Henry's heart,\n    To make a shambles of the parliament house!\n    Cousin of Exeter, frowns, words, and threats,\n    Shall be the war that Henry means to use.\n    Thou factious Duke of York, descend my throne\n    And kneel for grace and mercy at my feet;\n    I am thy sovereign.\n  YORK. I am thine.\n  EXETER. For shame, come down; he made thee Duke of York.\n  YORK. 'Twas my inheritance, as the earldom was.\n  EXETER. Thy father was a traitor to the crown.\n  WARWICK. Exeter, thou art a traitor to the crown\n    In following this usurping Henry.\n  CLIFFORD. Whom should he follow but his natural king?\n  WARWICK. True, Clifford; and that's Richard Duke of York.\n  KING HENRY. And shall I stand, and thou sit in my throne?\n  YORK. It must and shall be so; content thyself.\n  WARWICK. Be Duke of Lancaster; let him be King.\n  WESTMORELAND. He is both King and Duke of Lancaster;\n    And that the Lord of Westmoreland shall maintain.\n  WARWICK. And Warwick shall disprove it. You forget\n    That we are those which chas'd you from the field,\n    And slew your fathers, and with colours spread\n    March'd through the city to the palace gates.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Yes, Warwick, I remember it to my grief;\n    And, by his soul, thou and thy house shall rue it.\n  WESTMORELAND. Plantagenet, of thee, and these thy sons,\n    Thy kinsmen, and thy friends, I'll have more lives\n    Than drops of blood were in my father's veins.\n  CLIFFORD. Urge it no more; lest that instead of words\n    I send thee, Warwick, such a messenger\n    As shall revenge his death before I stir.\n  WARWICK. Poor Clifford, how I scorn his worthless threats!\n  YORK. Will you we show our title to the crown?\n    If not, our swords shall plead it in the field.\n  KING HENRY. What title hast thou, traitor, to the crown?\n    Thy father was, as thou art, Duke of York;\n    Thy grandfather, Roger Mortimer, Earl of March:\n    I am the son of Henry the Fifth,\n    Who made the Dauphin and the French to stoop,\n    And seiz'd upon their towns and provinces.\n  WARWICK. Talk not of France, sith thou hast lost it all.\n  KING HENRY. The Lord Protector lost it, and not I:\n    When I was crown'd, I was but nine months old.\n  RICHARD. You are old enough now, and yet methinks you lose.\n    Father, tear the crown from the usurper's head.\n  EDWARD. Sweet father, do so; set it on your head.\n  MONTAGUE. Good brother, as thou lov'st and honourest arms,\n    Let's fight it out and not stand cavilling thus.\n  RICHARD. Sound drums and trumpets, and the King will fly.\n  YORK. Sons, peace!\n  KING HENRY. Peace thou! and give King Henry leave to speak.\n  WARWICK. Plantagenet shall speak first. Hear him, lords;\n    And be you silent and attentive too,\n    For he that interrupts him shall not live.\n  KING HENRY. Think'st thou that I will leave my kingly throne,\n    Wherein my grandsire and my father sat?\n    No; first shall war unpeople this my realm;\n    Ay, and their colours, often borne in France,\n    And now in England to our heart's great sorrow,\n    Shall be my winding-sheet. Why faint you, lords?\n    My title's good, and better far than his.\n  WARWICK. Prove it, Henry, and thou shalt be King.\n  KING HENRY. Henry the Fourth by conquest got the crown.\n  YORK. 'Twas by rebellion against his king.\n  KING HENRY. [Aside] I know not what to say; my title's weak.-\n    Tell me, may not a king adopt an heir?\n  YORK. What then?\n  KING HENRY. An if he may, then am I lawful King;\n    For Richard, in the view of many lords,\n    Resign'd the crown to Henry the Fourth,\n    Whose heir my father was, and I am his.\n  YORK. He rose against him, being his sovereign,\n    And made him to resign his crown perforce.\n  WARWICK. Suppose, my lords, he did it unconstrain'd,\n    Think you 'twere prejudicial to his crown?\n  EXETER. No; for he could not so resign his crown\n    But that the next heir should succeed and reign.\n  KING HENRY. Art thou against us, Duke of Exeter?\n  EXETER. His is the right, and therefore pardon me.\n  YORK. Why whisper you, my lords, and answer not?\n  EXETER. My conscience tells me he is lawful King.\n  KING HENRY. [Aside] All will revolt from me, and turn to him.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Plantagenet, for all the claim thou lay'st,\n    Think not that Henry shall be so depos'd.\n  WARWICK. Depos'd he shall be, in despite of all.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Thou art deceiv'd. 'Tis not thy southern power\n    Of Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, nor of Kent,\n    Which makes thee thus presumptuous and proud,\n    Can set the Duke up in despite of me.\n  CLIFFORD. King Henry, be thy title right or wrong,\n    Lord Clifford vows to fight in thy defence.\n    May that ground gape, and swallow me alive,\n    Where I shall kneel to him that slew my father!\n  KING HENRY. O Clifford, how thy words revive my heart!\n  YORK. Henry of Lancaster, resign thy crown.\n    What mutter you, or what conspire you, lords?\n  WARWICK. Do right unto this princely Duke of York;\n    Or I will fill the house with armed men,\n    And over the chair of state, where now he sits,\n    Write up his title with usurping blood.\n                                [He stamps with his foot and the\n                                       soldiers show themselves]\n  KING HENRY. My Lord of Warwick, hear but one word:\n    Let me for this my life-time reign as king.\n  YORK. Confirm the crown to me and to mine heirs,\n    And thou shalt reign in quiet while thou liv'st.\n  KING HENRY. I am content. Richard Plantagenet,\n    Enjoy the kingdom after my decease.\n  CLIFFORD. What wrong is this unto the Prince your son!\n  WARWICK. What good is this to England and himself!\n  WESTMORELAND. Base, fearful, and despairing Henry!\n  CLIFFORD. How hast thou injur'd both thyself and or us!\n  WESTMORELAND. I cannot stay to hear these articles.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Nor I.\n  CLIFFORD. Come, cousin, let us tell the Queen these news.\n  WESTMORELAND. Farewell, faint-hearted and degenerate king,\n    In whose cold blood no spark of honour bides.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Be thou a prey unto the house of York\n    And die in bands for this unmanly deed!\n  CLIFFORD. In dreadful war mayst thou be overcome,\n    Or live in peace abandon'd and despis'd!\n                                Exeunt NORTHUMBERLAND, CLIFFORD,\n                                                and WESTMORELAND\n  WARWICK. Turn this way, Henry, and regard them not.\n  EXETER. They seek revenge, and therefore will not yield.\n  KING HENRY. Ah, Exeter!\n  WARWICK. Why should you sigh, my lord?\n  KING HENRY. Not for myself, Lord Warwick, but my son,\n    Whom I unnaturally shall disinherit.\n    But be it as it may. [To YORK] I here entail\n    The crown to thee and to thine heirs for ever;\n    Conditionally, that here thou take an oath\n    To cease this civil war, and, whilst I live,\n    To honour me as thy king and sovereign,\n    And neither by treason nor hostility\n    To seek to put me down and reign thyself.\n  YORK. This oath I willingly take, and will perform.\n                                        [Coming from the throne]\n  WARWICK. Long live King Henry! Plantagenet, embrace him.\n  KING HENRY. And long live thou, and these thy forward sons!\n  YORK. Now York and Lancaster are reconcil'd.\n  EXETER. Accurs'd be he that seeks to make them foes!\n                                   [Sennet. Here they come down]\n  YORK. Farewell, my gracious lord; I'll to my castle.\n  WARWICK. And I'll keep London with my soldiers.\n  NORFOLK. And I to Norfolk with my followers.\n  MONTAGUE. And I unto the sea, from whence I came.\n                                             Exeunt the YORKISTS\n  KING HENRY. And I, with grief and sorrow, to the court.\n\n            Enter QUEEN MARGARET and the PRINCE OF WALES\n\n  EXETER. Here comes the Queen, whose looks bewray her anger.\n    I'll steal away.\n  KING HENRY. Exeter, so will I.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Nay, go not from me; I will follow thee.\n  KING HENRY. Be patient, gentle queen, and I will stay.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Who can be patient in such extremes?\n    Ah, wretched man! Would I had died a maid,\n    And never seen thee, never borne thee son,\n    Seeing thou hast prov'd so unnatural a father!\n    Hath he deserv'd to lose his birthright thus?\n    Hadst thou but lov'd him half so well as I,\n    Or felt that pain which I did for him once,\n    Or nourish'd him as I did with my blood,\n    Thou wouldst have left thy dearest heart-blood there\n    Rather than have made that savage duke thine heir,\n    And disinherited thine only son.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. Father, you cannot disinherit me.\n    If you be King, why should not I succeed?\n  KING HENRY. Pardon me, Margaret; pardon me, sweet son.\n    The Earl of Warwick and the Duke enforc'd me.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Enforc'd thee! Art thou King and wilt be\n      forc'd?\n    I shame to hear thee speak. Ah, timorous wretch!\n    Thou hast undone thyself, thy son, and me;\n    And giv'n unto the house of York such head\n    As thou shalt reign but by their sufferance.\n    To entail him and his heirs unto the crown,\n    What is it but to make thy sepulchre\n    And creep into it far before thy time?\n    Warwick is Chancellor and the lord of Calais;\n    Stern Falconbridge commands the narrow seas;\n    The Duke is made Protector of the realm;\n    And yet shalt thou be safe? Such safety finds\n    The trembling lamb environed with wolves.\n    Had I been there, which am a silly woman,\n    The soldiers should have toss'd me on their pikes\n    Before I would have granted to that act.\n    But thou prefer'st thy life before thine honour;\n    And seeing thou dost, I here divorce myself,\n    Both from thy table, Henry, and thy bed,\n    Until that act of parliament be repeal'd\n    Whereby my son is disinherited.\n    The northern lords that have forsworn thy colours\n    Will follow mine, if once they see them spread;\n    And spread they shall be, to thy foul disgrace\n    And utter ruin of the house of York.\n    Thus do I leave thee. Come, son, let's away;\n    Our army is ready; come, we'll after them.\n  KING HENRY. Stay, gentle Margaret, and hear me speak.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Thou hast spoke too much already; get thee gone.\n  KING HENRY. Gentle son Edward, thou wilt stay with me?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, to be murder'd by his enemies.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. When I return with victory from the field\n    I'll see your Grace; till then I'll follow her.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Come, son, away; we may not linger thus.\n                            Exeunt QUEEN MARGARET and the PRINCE\n  KING HENRY. Poor queen! How love to me and to her son\n    Hath made her break out into terms of rage!\n    Reveng'd may she be on that hateful Duke,\n    Whose haughty spirit, winged with desire,\n    Will cost my crown, and like an empty eagle\n    Tire on the flesh of me and of my son!\n    The loss of those three lords torments my heart.\n    I'll write unto them, and entreat them fair;\n    Come, cousin, you shall be the messenger.\n  EXETER. And I, I hope, shall reconcile them all.        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nSandal Castle, near Wakefield, in Yorkshire\n\nFlourish. Enter EDWARD, RICHARD, and MONTAGUE\n\n  RICHARD. Brother, though I be youngest, give me leave.\n  EDWARD. No, I can better play the orator.\n  MONTAGUE. But I have reasons strong and forcible.\n\n                     Enter the DUKE OF YORK\n\n  YORK. Why, how now, sons and brother! at a strife?\n    What is your quarrel? How began it first?\n  EDWARD. No quarrel, but a slight contention.\n  YORK. About what?\n  RICHARD. About that which concerns your Grace and us-\n    The crown of England, father, which is yours.\n  YORK. Mine, boy? Not till King Henry be dead.\n  RICHARD. Your right depends not on his life or death.\n  EDWARD. Now you are heir, therefore enjoy it now.\n    By giving the house of Lancaster leave to breathe,\n    It will outrun you, father, in the end.\n  YORK. I took an oath that he should quietly reign.\n  EDWARD. But for a kingdom any oath may be broken:\n    I would break a thousand oaths to reign one year.\n  RICHARD. No; God forbid your Grace should be forsworn.\n  YORK. I shall be, if I claim by open war.\n  RICHARD. I'll prove the contrary, if you'll hear me speak.\n  YORK. Thou canst not, son; it is impossible.\n  RICHARD. An oath is of no moment, being not took\n    Before a true and lawful magistrate\n    That hath authority over him that swears.\n    Henry had none, but did usurp the place;\n    Then, seeing 'twas he that made you to depose,\n    Your oath, my lord, is vain and frivolous.\n    Therefore, to arms. And, father, do but think\n    How sweet a thing it is to wear a crown,\n    Within whose circuit is Elysium\n    And all that poets feign of bliss and joy.\n    Why do we linger thus? I cannot rest\n    Until the white rose that I wear be dy'd\n    Even in the lukewarm blood of Henry's heart.\n  YORK. Richard, enough; I will be King, or die.\n    Brother, thou shalt to London presently\n    And whet on Warwick to this enterprise.\n    Thou, Richard, shalt to the Duke of Norfolk\n    And tell him privily of our intent.\n    You, Edward, shall unto my Lord Cobham,\n    With whom the Kentishmen will willingly rise;\n    In them I trust, for they are soldiers,\n    Witty, courteous, liberal, full of spirit.\n    While you are thus employ'd, what resteth more\n    But that I seek occasion how to rise,\n    And yet the King not privy to my drift,\n    Nor any of the house of Lancaster?\n\n                      Enter a MESSENGER\n\n    But, stay. What news? Why com'st thou in such post?\n  MESSENGER. The Queen with all the northern earls and lords\n    Intend here to besiege you in your castle.\n    She is hard by with twenty thousand men;\n    And therefore fortify your hold, my lord.\n  YORK. Ay, with my sword. What! think'st thou that we fear them?\n    Edward and Richard, you shall stay with me;\n    My brother Montague shall post to London.\n    Let noble Warwick, Cobham, and the rest,\n    Whom we have left protectors of the King,\n    With pow'rful policy strengthen themselves\n    And trust not simple Henry nor his oaths.\n  MONTAGUE. Brother, I go; I'll win them, fear it not.\n    And thus most humbly I do take my leave.                Exit\n\n              Enter SIR JOHN and SIR HUGH MORTIMER\n\n  YORK. Sir john and Sir Hugh Mortimer, mine uncles!\n    You are come to Sandal in a happy hour;\n    The army of the Queen mean to besiege us.\n  SIR JOHN. She shall not need; we'll meet her in the field.\n  YORK. What, with five thousand men?\n  RICHARD. Ay, with five hundred, father, for a need.\n    A woman's general; what should we fear?\n                                              [A march afar off]\n  EDWARD. I hear their drums. Let's set our men in order,\n    And issue forth and bid them battle straight.\n  YORK. Five men to twenty! Though the odds be great,\n    I doubt not, uncle, of our victory.\n    Many a battle have I won in France,\n    When as the enemy hath been ten to one;\n    Why should I not now have the like success?           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nField of battle between Sandal Castle and Wakefield\n\nAlarum. Enter RUTLAND and his TUTOR\n\n  RUTLAND. Ah, whither shall I fly to scape their hands?\n    Ah, tutor, look where bloody Clifford comes!\n\n                  Enter CLIFFORD and soldiers\n\n  CLIFFORD. Chaplain, away! Thy priesthood saves thy life.\n    As for the brat of this accursed duke,\n    Whose father slew my father, he shall die.\n  TUTOR. And I, my lord, will bear him company.\n  CLIFFORD. Soldiers, away with him!\n  TUTOR. Ah, Clifford, murder not this innocent child,\n    Lest thou be hated both of God and man.\n                                    Exit, forced off by soldiers\n  CLIFFORD. How now, is he dead already? Or is it fear\n    That makes him close his eyes? I'll open them.\n  RUTLAND. So looks the pent-up lion o'er the wretch\n    That trembles under his devouring paws;\n    And so he walks, insulting o'er his prey,\n    And so he comes, to rend his limbs asunder.\n    Ah, gentle Clifford, kill me with thy sword,\n    And not with such a cruel threat'ning look!\n    Sweet Clifford, hear me speak before I die.\n    I am too mean a subject for thy wrath;\n    Be thou reveng'd on men, and let me live.\n  CLIFFORD. In vain thou speak'st, poor boy; my father's blood\n    Hath stopp'd the passage where thy words should enter.\n  RUTLAND. Then let my father's blood open it again:\n    He is a man, and, Clifford, cope with him.\n  CLIFFORD. Had I thy brethren here, their lives and thine\n    Were not revenge sufficient for me;\n    No, if I digg'd up thy forefathers' graves\n    And hung their rotten coffins up in chains,\n    It could not slake mine ire nor ease my heart.\n    The sight of any of the house of York\n    Is as a fury to torment my soul;\n    And till I root out their accursed line\n    And leave not one alive, I live in hell.\n    Therefore-\n  RUTLAND. O, let me pray before I take my death!\n    To thee I pray: sweet Clifford, pity me.\n  CLIFFORD. Such pity as my rapier's point affords.\n  RUTLAND. I never did thee harm; why wilt thou slay me?\n  CLIFFORD. Thy father hath.\n  RUTLAND. But 'twas ere I was born.\n    Thou hast one son; for his sake pity me,\n    Lest in revenge thereof, sith God is just,\n    He be as miserably slain as I.\n    Ah, let me live in prison all my days;\n    And when I give occasion of offence\n    Then let me die, for now thou hast no cause.\n  CLIFFORD. No cause!\n    Thy father slew my father; therefore, die.       [Stabs him]\n  RUTLAND. Di faciant laudis summa sit ista tuae!         [Dies]\n  CLIFFORD. Plantagenet, I come, Plantagenet;\n    And this thy son's blood cleaving to my blade\n    Shall rust upon my weapon, till thy blood,\n    Congeal'd with this, do make me wipe off both.          Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nAnother part of the field\n\nAlarum. Enter the DUKE OF YORK\n\n  YORK. The army of the Queen hath got the field.\n    My uncles both are slain in rescuing me;\n    And all my followers to the eager foe\n    Turn back and fly, like ships before the wind,\n    Or lambs pursu'd by hunger-starved wolves.\n    My sons- God knows what hath bechanced them;\n    But this I know- they have demean'd themselves\n    Like men born to renown by life or death.\n    Three times did Richard make a lane to me,\n    And thrice cried 'Courage, father! fight it out.'\n    And full as oft came Edward to my side\n    With purple falchion, painted to the hilt\n    In blood of those that had encount'red him.\n    And when the hardiest warriors did retire,\n    Richard cried 'Charge, and give no foot of ground!'\n    And cried 'A crown, or else a glorious tomb!\n    A sceptre, or an earthly sepulchre!'\n    With this we charg'd again; but out alas!\n    We bodg'd again; as I have seen a swan\n    With bootless labour swim against the tide\n    And spend her strength with over-matching waves.\n                                         [A short alarum within]\n    Ah, hark! The fatal followers do pursue,\n    And I am faint and cannot fly their fury;\n    And were I strong, I would not shun their fury.\n    The sands are numb'red that make up my life;\n    Here must I stay, and here my life must end.\n\n         Enter QUEEN MARGARET, CLIFFORD, NORTHUMBERLAND,\n               the PRINCE OF WALES, and soldiers\n\n    Come, bloody Clifford, rough Northumberland,\n    I dare your quenchless fury to more rage;\n    I am your butt, and I abide your shot.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Yield to our mercy, proud Plantagenet.\n  CLIFFORD. Ay, to such mercy as his ruthless arm\n    With downright payment show'd unto my father.\n    Now Phaethon hath tumbled from his car,\n    And made an evening at the noontide prick.\n  YORK. My ashes, as the phoenix, may bring forth\n    A bird that will revenge upon you all;\n    And in that hope I throw mine eyes to heaven,\n    Scorning whate'er you can afflict me with.\n    Why come you not? What! multitudes, and fear?\n  CLIFFORD. So cowards fight when they can fly no further;\n    So doves do peck the falcon's piercing talons;\n    So desperate thieves, all hopeless of their lives,\n    Breathe out invectives 'gainst the officers.\n  YORK. O Clifford, but bethink thee once again,\n    And in thy thought o'errun my former time;\n    And, if thou canst for blushing, view this face,\n    And bite thy tongue that slanders him with cowardice\n    Whose frown hath made thee faint and fly ere this!\n  CLIFFORD. I will not bandy with thee word for word,\n    But buckler with thee blows, twice two for one.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Hold, valiant Clifford; for a thousand causes\n    I would prolong awhile the traitor's life.\n    Wrath makes him deaf; speak thou, Northumberland.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Hold, Clifford! do not honour him so much\n    To prick thy finger, though to wound his heart.\n    What valour were it, when a cur doth grin,\n    For one to thrust his hand between his teeth,\n    When he might spurn him with his foot away?\n    It is war's prize to take all vantages;\n    And ten to one is no impeach of valour.\n                         [They lay hands on YORK, who struggles]\n  CLIFFORD. Ay, ay, so strives the woodcock with the gin.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. So doth the cony struggle in the net.\n  YORK. So triumph thieves upon their conquer'd booty;\n    So true men yield, with robbers so o'er-match'd.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. What would your Grace have done unto him now?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Brave warriors, Clifford and Northumberland,\n    Come, make him stand upon this molehill here\n    That raught at mountains with outstretched arms,\n    Yet parted but the shadow with his hand.\n    What, was it you that would be England's king?\n    Was't you that revell'd in our parliament\n    And made a preachment of your high descent?\n    Where are your mess of sons to back you now?\n    The wanton Edward and the lusty George?\n    And where's that valiant crook-back prodigy,\n    Dicky your boy, that with his grumbling voice\n    Was wont to cheer his dad in mutinies?\n    Or, with the rest, where is your darling Rutland?\n    Look, York: I stain'd this napkin with the blood\n    That valiant Clifford with his rapier's point\n    Made issue from the bosom of the boy;\n    And if thine eyes can water for his death,\n    I give thee this to dry thy cheeks withal.\n    Alas, poor York! but that I hate thee deadly,\n    I should lament thy miserable state.\n    I prithee grieve to make me merry, York.\n    What, hath thy fiery heart so parch'd thine entrails\n    That not a tear can fall for Rutland's death?\n    Why art thou patient, man? Thou shouldst be mad;\n    And I to make thee mad do mock thee thus.\n    Stamp, rave, and fret, that I may sing and dance.\n    Thou wouldst be fee'd, I see, to make me sport;\n    York cannot speak unless he wear a crown.\n    A crown for York!-and, lords, bow low to him.\n    Hold you his hands whilst I do set it on.\n                             [Putting a paper crown on his head]\n    Ay, marry, sir, now looks he like a king!\n    Ay, this is he that took King Henry's chair,\n    And this is he was his adopted heir.\n    But how is it that great Plantagenet\n    Is crown'd so soon and broke his solemn oath?\n    As I bethink me, you should not be King\n    Till our King Henry had shook hands with death.\n    And will you pale your head in Henry's glory,\n    And rob his temples of the diadem,\n    Now in his life, against your holy oath?\n    O, 'tis a fault too too\n    Off with the crown and with the crown his head;\n    And, whilst we breathe, take time to do him dead.\n  CLIFFORD. That is my office, for my father's sake.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Nay, stay; let's hear the orisons he makes.\n  YORK. She-wolf of France, but worse than wolves of France,\n    Whose tongue more poisons than the adder's tooth!\n    How ill-beseeming is it in thy sex\n    To triumph like an Amazonian trull\n    Upon their woes whom fortune captivates!\n    But that thy face is visard-like, unchanging,\n    Made impudent with use of evil deeds,\n    I would assay, proud queen, to make thee blush.\n    To tell thee whence thou cam'st, of whom deriv'd,\n    Were shame enough to shame thee, wert thou not shameless.\n    Thy father bears the type of King of Naples,\n    Of both the Sicils and Jerusalem,\n    Yet not so wealthy as an English yeoman.\n    Hath that poor monarch taught thee to insult?\n    It needs not, nor it boots thee not, proud queen;\n    Unless the adage must be verified,\n    That beggars mounted run their horse to death.\n    'Tis beauty that doth oft make women proud;\n    But, God He knows, thy share thereof is small.\n    'Tis virtue that doth make them most admir'd;\n    The contrary doth make thee wond'red at.\n    'Tis government that makes them seem divine;\n    The want thereof makes thee abominable.\n    Thou art as opposite to every good\n    As the Antipodes are unto us,\n    Or as the south to the septentrion.\n    O tiger's heart wrapp'd in a woman's hide!\n    How couldst thou drain the life-blood of the child,\n    To bid the father wipe his eyes withal,\n    And yet be seen to bear a woman's face?\n    Women are soft, mild, pitiful, and flexible:\n    Thou stern, obdurate, flinty, rough, remorseless.\n    Bid'st thou me rage? Why, now thou hast thy wish;\n    Wouldst have me weep? Why, now thou hast thy will;\n    For raging wind blows up incessant showers,\n    And when the rage allays, the rain begins.\n    These tears are my sweet Rutland's obsequies;\n    And every drop cries vengeance for his death\n    'Gainst thee, fell Clifford, and thee, false Frenchwoman.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Beshrew me, but his passions move me so\n    That hardly can I check my eyes from tears.\n  YORK. That face of his the hungry cannibals\n    Would not have touch'd, would not have stain'd with blood;\n    But you are more inhuman, more inexorable-\n    O, ten times more- than tigers of Hyrcania.\n    See, ruthless queen, a hapless father's tears.\n    This cloth thou dipp'dst in blood of my sweet boy,\n    And I with tears do wash the blood away.\n    Keep thou the napkin, and go boast of this;\n    And if thou tell'st the heavy story right,\n    Upon my soul, the hearers will shed tears;\n    Yea, even my foes will shed fast-falling tears\n    And say 'Alas, it was a piteous deed!'\n    There, take the crown, and with the crown my curse;\n    And in thy need such comfort come to thee\n    As now I reap at thy too cruel hand!\n    Hard-hearted Clifford, take me from the world;\n    My soul to heaven, my blood upon your heads!\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Had he been slaughter-man to all my kin,\n    I should not for my life but weep with him,\n    To see how inly sorrow gripes his soul.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. What, weeping-ripe, my Lord Northumberland?\n    Think but upon the wrong he did us all,\n    And that will quickly dry thy melting tears.\n  CLIFFORD. Here's for my oath, here's for my father's death.\n                                                  [Stabbing him]\n  QUEEN MARGARET. And here's to right our gentle-hearted king.\n                                                  [Stabbing him]\n  YORK. Open Thy gate of mercy, gracious God!\n    My soul flies through these wounds to seek out Thee.\n                                                          [Dies]\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Off with his head, and set it on York gates;\n    So York may overlook the town of York.\n                                                Flourish. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nA plain near Mortimer's Cross in Herefordshire\n\nA march. Enter EDWARD, RICHARD, and their power\n\n  EDWARD. I wonder how our princely father scap'd,\n    Or whether he be scap'd away or no\n    From Clifford's and Northumberland's pursuit.\n    Had he been ta'en, we should have heard the news;\n    Had he been slain, we should have heard the news;\n    Or had he scap'd, methinks we should have heard\n    The happy tidings of his good escape.\n    How fares my brother? Why is he so sad?\n  RICHARD. I cannot joy until I be resolv'd\n    Where our right valiant father is become.\n    I saw him in the battle range about,\n    And watch'd him how he singled Clifford forth.\n    Methought he bore him in the thickest troop\n    As doth a lion in a herd of neat;\n    Or as a bear, encompass'd round with dogs,\n    Who having pinch'd a few and made them cry,\n    The rest stand all aloof and bark at him.\n    So far'd our father with his enemies;\n    So fled his enemies my warlike father.\n    Methinks 'tis prize enough to be his son.\n    See how the morning opes her golden gates\n    And takes her farewell of the glorious sun.\n    How well resembles it the prime of youth,\n    Trimm'd like a younker prancing to his love!\n  EDWARD. Dazzle mine eyes, or do I see three suns?\n  RICHARD. Three glorious suns, each one a perfect sun;\n    Not separated with the racking clouds,\n    But sever'd in a pale clear-shining sky.\n    See, see! they join, embrace, and seem to kiss,\n    As if they vow'd some league inviolable.\n    Now are they but one lamp, one light, one sun.\n    In this the heaven figures some event.\n  EDWARD. 'Tis wondrous strange, the like yet never heard of.\n    I think it cites us, brother, to the field,\n    That we, the sons of brave Plantagenet,\n    Each one already blazing by our meeds,\n    Should notwithstanding join our lights together\n    And overshine the earth, as this the world.\n    Whate'er it bodes, henceforward will I bear\n    Upon my target three fair shining suns.\n  RICHARD. Nay, bear three daughters- by your leave I speak it,\n    You love the breeder better than the male.\n\n                 Enter a MESSENGER, blowing\n\n    But what art thou, whose heavy looks foretell\n    Some dreadful story hanging on thy tongue?\n  MESSENGER. Ah, one that was a woeful looker-on\n    When as the noble Duke of York was slain,\n    Your princely father and my loving lord!\n  EDWARD. O, speak no more! for I have heard too much.\n  RICHARD. Say how he died, for I will hear it all.\n  MESSENGER. Environed he was with many foes,\n    And stood against them as the hope of Troy\n    Against the Greeks that would have ent'red Troy.\n    But Hercules himself must yield to odds;\n    And many strokes, though with a little axe,\n    Hews down and fells the hardest-timber'd oak.\n    By many hands your father was subdu'd;\n    But only slaught'red by the ireful arm\n    Of unrelenting Clifford and the Queen,\n    Who crown'd the gracious Duke in high despite,\n    Laugh'd in his face; and when with grief he wept,\n    The ruthless Queen gave him to dry his cheeks\n    A napkin steeped in the harmless blood\n    Of sweet young Rutland, by rough Clifford slain;\n    And after many scorns, many foul taunts,\n    They took his head, and on the gates of York\n    They set the same; and there it doth remain,\n    The saddest spectacle that e'er I view'd.\n  EDWARD. Sweet Duke of York, our prop to lean upon,\n    Now thou art gone, we have no staff, no stay.\n    O Clifford, boist'rous Clifford, thou hast slain\n    The flow'r of Europe for his chivalry;\n    And treacherously hast thou vanquish'd him,\n    For hand to hand he would have vanquish'd thee.\n    Now my soul's palace is become a prison.\n    Ah, would she break from hence, that this my body\n    Might in the ground be closed up in rest!\n    For never henceforth shall I joy again;\n    Never, O never, shall I see more joy.\n  RICHARD. I cannot weep, for all my body's moisture\n    Scarce serves to quench my furnace-burning heart;\n    Nor can my tongue unload my heart's great burden,\n    For self-same wind that I should speak withal\n    Is kindling coals that fires all my breast,\n    And burns me up with flames that tears would quench.\n    To weep is to make less the depth of grief.\n    Tears then for babes; blows and revenge for me!\n    Richard, I bear thy name; I'll venge thy death,\n    Or die renowned by attempting it.\n  EDWARD. His name that valiant duke hath left with thee;\n    His dukedom and his chair with me is left.\n  RICHARD. Nay, if thou be that princely eagle's bird,\n    Show thy descent by gazing 'gainst the sun;\n    For chair and dukedom, throne and kingdom, say:\n    Either that is thine, or else thou wert not his.\n\n         March. Enter WARWICK, MONTAGUE, and their army\n\n  WARWICK. How now, fair lords! What fare? What news abroad?\n  RICHARD. Great Lord of Warwick, if we should recount\n    Our baleful news and at each word's deliverance\n    Stab poinards in our flesh till all were told,\n    The words would add more anguish than the wounds.\n    O valiant lord, the Duke of York is slain!\n  EDWARD. O Warwick, Warwick! that Plantagenet\n    Which held thee dearly as his soul's redemption\n    Is by the stern Lord Clifford done to death.\n  WARWICK. Ten days ago I drown'd these news in tears;\n    And now, to add more measure to your woes,\n    I come to tell you things sith then befall'n.\n    After the bloody fray at Wakefield fought,\n    Where your brave father breath'd his latest gasp,\n    Tidings, as swiftly as the posts could run,\n    Were brought me of your loss and his depart.\n    I, then in London, keeper of the King,\n    Muster'd my soldiers, gathered flocks of friends,\n    And very well appointed, as I thought,\n    March'd toward Saint Albans to intercept the Queen,\n    Bearing the King in my behalf along;\n    For by my scouts I was advertised\n    That she was coming with a full intent\n    To dash our late decree in parliament\n    Touching King Henry's oath and your succession.\n    Short tale to make- we at Saint Albans met,\n    Our battles join'd, and both sides fiercely fought;\n    But whether 'twas the coldness of the King,\n    Who look'd full gently on his warlike queen,\n    That robb'd my soldiers of their heated spleen,\n    Or whether 'twas report of her success,\n    Or more than common fear of Clifford's rigour,\n    Who thunders to his captives blood and death,\n    I cannot judge; but, to conclude with truth,\n    Their weapons like to lightning came and went:\n    Our soldiers', like the night-owl's lazy flight\n    Or like an idle thresher with a flail,\n    Fell gently down, as if they struck their friends.\n    I cheer'd them up with justice of our cause,\n    With promise of high pay and great rewards,\n    But all in vain; they had no heart to fight,\n    And we in them no hope to win the day;\n    So that we fled: the King unto the Queen;\n    Lord George your brother, Norfolk, and myself,\n    In haste post-haste are come to join with you;\n    For in the marches here we heard you were\n    Making another head to fight again.\n  EDWARD. Where is the Duke of Norfolk, gentle Warwick?\n    And when came George from Burgundy to England?\n  WARWICK. Some six miles off the Duke is with the soldiers;\n    And for your brother, he was lately sent\n    From your kind aunt, Duchess of Burgundy,\n    With aid of soldiers to this needful war.\n  RICHARD. 'Twas odds, belike, when valiant Warwick fled.\n    Oft have I heard his praises in pursuit,\n    But ne'er till now his scandal of retire.\n  WARWICK. Nor now my scandal, Richard, dost thou hear;\n    For thou shalt know this strong right hand of mine\n    Can pluck the diadem from faint Henry's head\n    And wring the awful sceptre from his fist,\n    Were he as famous and as bold in war\n    As he is fam'd for mildness, peace, and prayer.\n  RICHARD. I know it well, Lord Warwick; blame me not.\n    'Tis love I bear thy glories makes me speak.\n    But in this troublous time what's to be done?\n    Shall we go throw away our coats of steel\n    And wrap our bodies in black mourning-gowns,\n    Numbering our Ave-Maries with our beads?\n    Or shall we on the helmets of our foes\n    Tell our devotion with revengeful arms?\n    If for the last, say 'Ay,' and to it, lords.\n  WARWICK. Why, therefore Warwick came to seek you out;\n    And therefore comes my brother Montague.\n    Attend me, lords. The proud insulting Queen,\n    With Clifford and the haught Northumberland,\n    And of their feather many moe proud birds,\n    Have wrought the easy-melting King like wax.\n    He swore consent to your succession,\n    His oath enrolled in the parliament;\n    And now to London all the crew are gone\n    To frustrate both his oath and what beside\n    May make against the house of Lancaster.\n    Their power, I think, is thirty thousand strong.\n    Now if the help of Norfolk and myself,\n    With all the friends that thou, brave Earl of March,\n    Amongst the loving Welshmen canst procure,\n    Will but amount to five and twenty thousand,\n    Why, Via! to London will we march amain,\n    And once again bestride our foaming steeds,\n    And once again cry 'Charge upon our foes!'\n    But never once again turn back and fly.\n  RICHARD. Ay, now methinks I hear great Warwick speak.\n    Ne'er may he live to see a sunshine day\n    That cries 'Retire!' if Warwick bid him stay.\n  EDWARD. Lord Warwick, on thy shoulder will I lean;\n    And when thou fail'st- as God forbid the hour!-\n    Must Edward fall, which peril heaven forfend.\n  WARWICK. No longer Earl of March, but Duke of York;\n    The next degree is England's royal throne,\n    For King of England shalt thou be proclaim'd\n    In every borough as we pass along;\n    And he that throws not up his cap for joy\n    Shall for the fault make forfeit of his head.\n    King Edward, valiant Richard, Montague,\n    Stay we no longer, dreaming of renown,\n    But sound the trumpets and about our task.\n  RICHARD. Then, Clifford, were thy heart as hard as steel,\n    As thou hast shown it flinty by thy deeds,\n    I come to pierce it or to give thee mine.\n  EDWARD. Then strike up drums. God and Saint George for us!\n\n                       Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  WARWICK. How now! what news?\n  MESSENGER. The Duke of Norfolk sends you word by me\n    The Queen is coming with a puissant host,\n    And craves your company for speedy counsel.\n  WARWICK. Why, then it sorts; brave warriors, let's away.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBefore York\n\nFlourish. Enter KING HENRY, QUEEN MARGARET, the PRINCE OF WALES, CLIFFORD,\nNORTHUMBERLAND, with drum and trumpets\n\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Welcome, my lord, to this brave town of York.\n    Yonder's the head of that arch-enemy\n    That sought to be encompass'd with your crown.\n    Doth not the object cheer your heart, my lord?\n  KING HENRY. Ay, as the rocks cheer them that fear their wreck-\n    To see this sight, it irks my very soul.\n    Withhold revenge, dear God; 'tis not my fault,\n    Nor wittingly have I infring'd my vow.\n  CLIFFORD. My gracious liege, this too much lenity\n    And harmful pity must be laid aside.\n    To whom do lions cast their gentle looks?\n    Not to the beast that would usurp their den.\n    Whose hand is that the forest bear doth lick?\n    Not his that spoils her young before her face.\n    Who scapes the lurking serpent's mortal sting?\n    Not he that sets his foot upon her back,\n    The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on,\n    And doves will peck in safeguard of their brood.\n    Ambitious York did level at thy crown,\n    Thou smiling while he knit his angry brows.\n    He, but a Duke, would have his son a king,\n    And raise his issue like a loving sire:\n    Thou, being a king, bless'd with a goodly son,\n    Didst yield consent to disinherit him,\n    Which argued thee a most unloving father.\n    Unreasonable creatures feed their young;\n    And though man's face be fearful to their eyes,\n    Yet, in protection of their tender ones,\n    Who hath not seen them- even with those wings\n    Which sometime they have us'd with fearful flight-\n    Make war with him that climb'd unto their nest,\n    Offering their own lives in their young's defence\n    For shame, my liege, make them your precedent!\n    Were it not pity that this goodly boy\n    Should lose his birthright by his father's fault,\n    And long hereafter say unto his child\n    'What my great-grandfather and grandsire got\n    My careless father fondly gave away'?\n    Ah, what a shame were this! Look on the boy;\n    And let his manly face, which promiseth\n    Successful fortune, steel thy melting heart\n    To hold thine own and leave thine own with him.\n  KING HENRY. Full well hath Clifford play'd the orator,\n    Inferring arguments of mighty force.\n    But, Clifford, tell me, didst thou never hear\n    That things ill got had ever bad success?\n    And happy always was it for that son\n    Whose father for his hoarding went to hell?\n    I'll leave my son my virtuous deeds behind;\n    And would my father had left me no more!\n    For all the rest is held at such a rate\n    As brings a thousand-fold more care to keep\n    Than in possession any jot of pleasure.\n    Ah, cousin York! would thy best friends did know\n    How it doth grieve me that thy head is here!\n  QUEEN MARGARET. My lord, cheer up your spirits; our foes are nigh,\n    And this soft courage makes your followers faint.\n    You promis'd knighthood to our forward son:\n    Unsheathe your sword and dub him presently.\n    Edward, kneel down.\n  KING HENRY. Edward Plantagenet, arise a knight;\n    And learn this lesson: Draw thy sword in right.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. My gracious father, by your kingly leave,\n    I'll draw it as apparent to the crown,\n    And in that quarrel use it to the death.\n  CLIFFORD. Why, that is spoken like a toward prince.\n\n                      Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. Royal commanders, be in readiness;\n    For with a band of thirty thousand men\n    Comes Warwick, backing of the Duke of York,\n    And in the towns, as they do march along,\n    Proclaims him king, and many fly to him.\n    Darraign your battle, for they are at hand.\n  CLIFFORD. I would your Highness would depart the field:\n    The Queen hath best success when you are absent.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, good my lord, and leave us to our fortune.\n  KING HENRY. Why, that's my fortune too; therefore I'll stay.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Be it with resolution, then, to fight.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. My royal father, cheer these noble lords,\n    And hearten those that fight in your defence.\n    Unsheathe your sword, good father; cry 'Saint George!'\n\n         March. Enter EDWARD, GEORGE, RICHARD, WARWICK,\n                NORFOLK, MONTAGUE, and soldiers\n\n  EDWARD. Now, perjur'd Henry, wilt thou kneel for grace\n    And set thy diadem upon my head,\n    Or bide the mortal fortune of the field?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Go rate thy minions, proud insulting boy.\n    Becomes it thee to be thus bold in terms\n    Before thy sovereign and thy lawful king?\n  EDWARD. I am his king, and he should bow his knee.\n    I was adopted heir by his consent:\n    Since when, his oath is broke; for, as I hear,\n    You that are King, though he do wear the crown,\n    Have caus'd him by new act of parliament\n    To blot out me and put his own son in.\n  CLIFFORD. And reason too:\n    Who should succeed the father but the son?\n  RICHARD. Are you there, butcher? O, I cannot speak!\n  CLIFFORD. Ay, crook-back, here I stand to answer thee,\n    Or any he, the proudest of thy sort.\n  RICHARD. 'Twas you that kill'd young Rutland, was it not?\n  CLIFFORD. Ay, and old York, and yet not satisfied.\n  RICHARD. For God's sake, lords, give signal to the fight.\n  WARWICK. What say'st thou, Henry? Wilt thou yield the crown?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Why, how now, long-tongu'd Warwick! Dare you speak?\n    When you and I met at Saint Albans last\n    Your legs did better service than your hands.\n  WARWICK. Then 'twas my turn to fly, and now 'tis thine.\n  CLIFFORD. You said so much before, and yet you fled.\n  WARWICK. 'Twas not your valour, Clifford, drove me thence.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. No, nor your manhood that durst make you stay.\n  RICHARD. Northumberland, I hold thee reverently.\n    Break off the parley; for scarce I can refrain\n    The execution of my big-swol'n heart\n    Upon that Clifford, that cruel child-killer.\n  CLIFFORD. I slew thy father; call'st thou him a child?\n  RICHARD. Ay, like a dastard and a treacherous coward,\n    As thou didst kill our tender brother Rutland;\n    But ere sunset I'll make thee curse the deed.\n  KING HENRY. Have done with words, my lords, and hear me speak.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Defy them then, or else hold close thy lips.\n  KING HENRY. I prithee give no limits to my tongue:\n    I am a king, and privileg'd to speak.\n  CLIFFORD. My liege, the wound that bred this meeting here\n    Cannot be cur'd by words; therefore be still.\n  RICHARD. Then, executioner, unsheathe thy sword.\n    By Him that made us all, I am resolv'd\n    That Clifford's manhood lies upon his tongue.\n  EDWARD. Say, Henry, shall I have my right, or no?\n    A thousand men have broke their fasts to-day\n    That ne'er shall dine unless thou yield the crown.\n  WARWICK. If thou deny, their blood upon thy head;\n    For York in justice puts his armour on.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. If that be right which Warwick says is right,\n    There is no wrong, but every thing is right.\n  RICHARD. Whoever got thee, there thy mother stands;\n    For well I wot thou hast thy mother's tongue.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. But thou art neither like thy sire nor dam;\n    But like a foul misshapen stigmatic,\n    Mark'd by the destinies to be avoided,\n    As venom toads or lizards' dreadful stings.\n  RICHARD. Iron of Naples hid with English gilt,\n    Whose father bears the title of a king-\n    As if a channel should be call'd the sea-\n    Sham'st thou not, knowing whence thou art extraught,\n    To let thy tongue detect thy base-born heart?\n  EDWARD. A wisp of straw were worth a thousand crowns\n    To make this shameless callet know herself.\n    Helen of Greece was fairer far than thou,\n    Although thy husband may be Menelaus;\n    And ne'er was Agamemmon's brother wrong'd\n    By that false woman as this king by thee.\n    His father revell'd in the heart of France,\n    And tam'd the King, and made the Dauphin stoop;\n    And had he match'd according to his state,\n    He might have kept that glory to this day;\n    But when he took a beggar to his bed\n    And grac'd thy poor sire with his bridal day,\n    Even then that sunshine brew'd a show'r for him\n    That wash'd his father's fortunes forth of France\n    And heap'd sedition on his crown at home.\n    For what hath broach'd this tumult but thy pride?\n    Hadst thou been meek, our title still had slept;\n    And we, in pity of the gentle King,\n    Had slipp'd our claim until another age.\n  GEORGE. But when we saw our sunshine made thy spring,\n    And that thy summer bred us no increase,\n    We set the axe to thy usurping root;\n    And though the edge hath something hit ourselves,\n    Yet know thou, since we have begun to strike,\n    We'll never leave till we have hewn thee down,\n    Or bath'd thy growing with our heated bloods.\n  EDWARD. And in this resolution I defy thee;\n    Not willing any longer conference,\n    Since thou deniest the gentle King to speak.\n    Sound trumpets; let our bloody colours wave,\n    And either victory or else a grave!\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Stay, Edward.\n  EDWARD. No, wrangling woman, we'll no longer stay;\n    These words will cost ten thousand lives this day.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nA field of battle between Towton and Saxton, in Yorkshire\n\nAlarum; excursions. Enter WARWICK\n\n  WARWICK. Forspent with toil, as runners with a race,\n    I lay me down a little while to breathe;\n    For strokes receiv'd and many blows repaid\n    Have robb'd my strong-knit sinews of their strength,\n    And spite of spite needs must I rest awhile.\n\n                     Enter EDWARD, running\n\n  EDWARD. Smile, gentle heaven, or strike, ungentle death;\n    For this world frowns, and Edward's sun is clouded.\n  WARWICK. How now, my lord. What hap? What hope of good?\n\n                         Enter GEORGE\n\n  GEORGE. Our hap is lost, our hope but sad despair;\n    Our ranks are broke, and ruin follows us.\n    What counsel give you? Whither shall we fly?\n  EDWARD. Bootless is flight: they follow us with wings;\n    And weak we are, and cannot shun pursuit.\n\n                         Enter RICHARD\n\n  RICHARD. Ah, Warwick, why hast thou withdrawn thyself?\n    Thy brother's blood the thirsty earth hath drunk,\n    Broach'd with the steely point of Clifford's lance;\n    And in the very pangs of death he cried,\n    Like to a dismal clangor heard from far,\n    'Warwick, revenge! Brother, revenge my death.'\n    So, underneath the belly of their steeds,\n    That stain'd their fetlocks in his smoking blood,\n    The noble gentleman gave up the ghost.\n  WARWICK. Then let the earth be drunken with our blood.\n    I'll kill my horse, because I will not fly.\n    Why stand we like soft-hearted women here,\n    Wailing our losses, whiles the foe doth rage,\n    And look upon, as if the tragedy\n    Were play'd in jest by counterfeiting actors?\n    Here on my knee I vow to God above\n    I'll never pause again, never stand still,\n    Till either death hath clos'd these eyes of mine\n    Or fortune given me measure of revenge.\n  EDWARD. O Warwick, I do bend my knee with thine,\n    And in this vow do chain my soul to thine!\n    And ere my knee rise from the earth's cold face\n    I throw my hands, mine eyes, my heart to Thee,\n    Thou setter-up and plucker-down of kings,\n    Beseeching Thee, if with Thy will it stands\n    That to my foes this body must be prey,\n    Yet that Thy brazen gates of heaven may ope\n    And give sweet passage to my sinful soul.\n    Now, lords, take leave until we meet again,\n    Where'er it be, in heaven or in earth.\n  RICHARD. Brother, give me thy hand; and, gentle Warwick,\n    Let me embrace thee in my weary arms.\n    I that did never weep now melt with woe\n    That winter should cut off our spring-time so.\n  WARWICK. Away, away! Once more, sweet lords, farewell.\n  GEORGE. Yet let us all together to our troops,\n    And give them leave to fly that will not stay,\n    And call them pillars that will stand to us;\n    And if we thrive, promise them such rewards\n    As victors wear at the Olympian games.\n    This may plant courage in their quailing breasts,\n    For yet is hope of life and victory.\n    Forslow no longer; make we hence amain.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nAnother part of the field\n\nExcursions. Enter RICHARD and CLIFFORD\n\n  RICHARD. Now, Clifford, I have singled thee alone.\n    Suppose this arm is for the Duke of York,\n    And this for Rutland; both bound to revenge,\n    Wert thou environ'd with a brazen wall.\n  CLIFFORD. Now, Richard, I am with thee here alone.\n    This is the hand that stabbed thy father York;\n    And this the hand that slew thy brother Rutland;\n    And here's the heart that triumphs in their death\n    And cheers these hands that slew thy sire and brother\n    To execute the like upon thyself;\n    And so, have at thee!                           [They fight]\n\n                 Enter WARWICK; CLIFFORD flies\n\n  RICHARD. Nay, Warwick, single out some other chase;\n    For I myself will hunt this wolf to death.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nAnother part of the field\n\nAlarum. Enter KING HENRY alone\n\n  KING HENRY. This battle fares like to the morning's war,\n    When dying clouds contend with growing light,\n    What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails,\n    Can neither call it perfect day nor night.\n    Now sways it this way, like a mighty sea\n    Forc'd by the tide to combat with the wind;\n    Now sways it that way, like the selfsame sea\n    Forc'd to retire by fury of the wind.\n    Sometime the flood prevails, and then the wind;\n    Now one the better, then another best;\n    Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast,\n    Yet neither conqueror nor conquered.\n    So is the equal poise of this fell war.\n    Here on this molehill will I sit me down.\n    To whom God will, there be the victory!\n    For Margaret my queen, and Clifford too,\n    Have chid me from the battle, swearing both\n    They prosper best of all when I am thence.\n    Would I were dead, if God's good will were so!\n    For what is in this world but grief and woe?\n    O God! methinks it were a happy life\n    To be no better than a homely swain;\n    To sit upon a hill, as I do now,\n    To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,\n    Thereby to see the minutes how they run-\n    How many makes the hour full complete,\n    How many hours brings about the day,\n    How many days will finish up the year,\n    How many years a mortal man may live.\n    When this is known, then to divide the times-\n    So many hours must I tend my flock;\n    So many hours must I take my rest;\n    So many hours must I contemplate;\n    So many hours must I sport myself;\n    So many days my ewes have been with young;\n    So many weeks ere the poor fools will can;\n    So many years ere I shall shear the fleece:\n    So minutes, hours, days, months, and years,\n    Pass'd over to the end they were created,\n    Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.\n    Ah, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely!\n    Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade\n    To shepherds looking on their silly sheep,\n    Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy\n    To kings that fear their subjects' treachery?\n    O yes, it doth; a thousand-fold it doth.\n    And to conclude: the shepherd's homely curds,\n    His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,\n    His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade,\n    All which secure and sweetly he enjoys,\n    Is far beyond a prince's delicates-\n    His viands sparkling in a golden cup,\n    His body couched in a curious bed,\n    When care, mistrust, and treason waits on him.\n\n       Alarum. Enter a son that hath kill'd his Father, at\n       one door; and a FATHER that hath kill'd his Son, at\n                         another door\n\n  SON. Ill blows the wind that profits nobody.\n    This man whom hand to hand I slew in fight\n    May be possessed with some store of crowns;\n    And I, that haply take them from him now,\n    May yet ere night yield both my life and them\n    To some man else, as this dead man doth me.\n    Who's this? O God! It is my father's face,\n    Whom in this conflict I unwares have kill'd.\n    O heavy times, begetting such events!\n    From London by the King was I press'd forth;\n    My father, being the Earl of Warwick's man,\n    Came on the part of York, press'd by his master;\n    And I, who at his hands receiv'd my life,\n    Have by my hands of life bereaved him.\n    Pardon me, God, I knew not what I did.\n    And pardon, father, for I knew not thee.\n    My tears shall wipe away these bloody marks;\n    And no more words till they have flow'd their fill.\n  KING HENRY. O piteous spectacle! O bloody times!\n    Whiles lions war and battle for their dens,\n    Poor harmless lambs abide their enmity.\n    Weep, wretched man; I'll aid thee tear for tear;\n    And let our hearts and eyes, like civil war,\n    Be blind with tears and break o'ercharg'd with grief.\n\n               Enter FATHER, bearing of his SON\n\n  FATHER. Thou that so stoutly hath resisted me,\n    Give me thy gold, if thou hast any gold;\n    For I have bought it with an hundred blows.\n    But let me see. Is this our foeman's face?\n    Ah, no, no, no, no, it is mine only son!\n    Ah, boy, if any life be left in thee,\n    Throw up thine eye! See, see what show'rs arise,\n    Blown with the windy tempest of my heart\n    Upon thy wounds, that kills mine eye and heart!\n    O, pity, God, this miserable age!\n    What stratagems, how fell, how butcherly,\n    Erroneous, mutinous, and unnatural,\n    This deadly quarrel daily doth beget!\n    O boy, thy father gave thee life too soon,\n    And hath bereft thee of thy life too late!\n  KING HENRY. Woe above woe! grief more than common grief!\n    O that my death would stay these ruthful deeds!\n    O pity, pity, gentle heaven, pity!\n    The red rose and the white are on his face,\n    The fatal colours of our striving houses:\n    The one his purple blood right well resembles;\n    The other his pale cheeks, methinks, presenteth.\n    Wither one rose, and let the other flourish!\n    If you contend, a thousand lives must perish.\n  SON. How will my mother for a father's death\n    Take on with me, and ne'er be satisfied!\n  FATHER. How will my wife for slaughter of my son\n    Shed seas of tears, and ne'er be satisfied!\n  KING HENRY. How will the country for these woeful chances\n    Misthink the King, and not be satisfied!\n  SON. Was ever son so rued a father's death?\n  FATHER. Was ever father so bemoan'd his son?\n  KING HENRY. Was ever king so griev'd for subjects' woe?\n    Much is your sorrow; mine ten times so much.\n  SON. I'll bear thee hence, where I may weep my fill.\n                                              Exit with the body\n  FATHER. These arms of mine shall be thy winding-sheet;\n    My heart, sweet boy, shall be thy sepulchre,\n    For from my heart thine image ne'er shall go;\n    My sighing breast shall be thy funeral bell;\n    And so obsequious will thy father be,\n    Even for the loss of thee, having no more,\n    As Priam was for all his valiant sons.\n    I'll bear thee hence; and let them fight that will,\n    For I have murdered where I should not kill.\n                                              Exit with the body\n  KING HENRY. Sad-hearted men, much overgone with care,\n    Here sits a king more woeful than you are.\n\n           Alarums, excursions. Enter QUEEN MARGARET,\n                  PRINCE OF WALES, and EXETER\n\n  PRINCE OF WALES. Fly, father, fly; for all your friends are fled,\n    And Warwick rages like a chafed bull.\n    Away! for death doth hold us in pursuit.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Mount you, my lord; towards Berwick post amain.\n    Edward and Richard, like a brace of greyhounds\n    Having the fearful flying hare in sight,\n    With fiery eyes sparkling for very wrath,\n    And bloody steel grasp'd in their ireful hands,\n    Are at our backs; and therefore hence amain.\n  EXETER. Away! for vengeance comes along with them.\n    Nay, stay not to expostulate; make speed;\n    Or else come after. I'll away before.\n  KING HENRY. Nay, take me with thee, good sweet Exeter.\n    Not that I fear to stay, but love to go\n    Whither the Queen intends. Forward; away!             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nAnother part of the field\n\nA loud alarum. Enter CLIFFORD, wounded\n\n  CLIFFORD. Here burns my candle out; ay, here it dies,\n    Which, whiles it lasted, gave King Henry light.\n    O Lancaster, I fear thy overthrow\n    More than my body's parting with my soul!\n    My love and fear glu'd many friends to thee;\n    And, now I fall, thy tough commixture melts,\n    Impairing Henry, strength'ning misproud York.\n    The common people swarm like summer flies;\n    And whither fly the gnats but to the sun?\n    And who shines now but Henry's enemies?\n    O Phoebus, hadst thou never given consent\n    That Phaethon should check thy fiery steeds,\n    Thy burning car never had scorch'd the earth!\n    And, Henry, hadst thou sway'd as kings should do,\n    Or as thy father and his father did,\n    Giving no ground unto the house of York,\n    They never then had sprung like summer flies;\n    I and ten thousand in this luckless realm\n    Had left no mourning widows for our death;\n    And thou this day hadst kept thy chair in peace.\n    For what doth cherish weeds but gentle air?\n    And what makes robbers bold but too much lenity?\n    Bootless are plaints, and cureless are my wounds.\n    No way to fly, nor strength to hold out flight.\n    The foe is merciless and will not pity;\n    For at their hands I have deserv'd no pity.\n    The air hath got into my deadly wounds,\n    And much effuse of blood doth make me faint.\n    Come, York and Richard, Warwick and the rest;\n    I stabb'd your fathers' bosoms: split my breast.\n                                                     [He faints]\n\n       Alarum and retreat. Enter EDWARD, GEORGE, RICHARD\n               MONTAGUE, WARWICK, and soldiers\n\n  EDWARD. Now breathe we, lords. Good fortune bids us pause\n    And smooth the frowns of war with peaceful looks.\n    Some troops pursue the bloody-minded Queen\n    That led calm Henry, though he were a king,\n    As doth a sail, fill'd with a fretting gust,\n    Command an argosy to stern the waves.\n    But think you, lords, that Clifford fled with them?\n  WARWICK. No, 'tis impossible he should escape;\n    For, though before his face I speak the words,\n    Your brother Richard mark'd him for the grave;\n    And, whereso'er he is, he's surely dead.\n                                     [CLIFFORD groans, and dies]\n  RICHARD. Whose soul is that which takes her heavy leave?\n    A deadly groan, like life and death's departing.\n    See who it is.\n  EDWARD. And now the battle's ended,\n    If friend or foe, let him be gently used.\n  RICHARD. Revoke that doom of mercy, for 'tis Clifford;\n    Who not contented that he lopp'd the branch\n    In hewing Rutland when his leaves put forth,\n    But set his murd'ring knife unto the root\n    From whence that tender spray did sweetly spring-\n    I mean our princely father, Duke of York.\n  WARWICK. From off the gates of York fetch down the head,\n    Your father's head, which Clifford placed there;\n    Instead whereof let this supply the room.\n    Measure for measure must be answered.\n  EDWARD. Bring forth that fatal screech-owl to our house,\n    That nothing sung but death to us and ours.\n    Now death shall stop his dismal threat'ning sound,\n    And his ill-boding tongue no more shall speak.\n  WARWICK. I think his understanding is bereft.\n    Speak, Clifford, dost thou know who speaks to thee?\n    Dark cloudy death o'ershades his beams of life,\n    And he nor sees nor hears us what we say.\n  RICHARD. O, would he did! and so, perhaps, he doth.\n    'Tis but his policy to counterfeit,\n    Because he would avoid such bitter taunts\n    Which in the time of death he gave our father.\n  GEORGE. If so thou think'st, vex him with eager words.\n  RICHARD. Clifford, ask mercy and obtain no grace.\n  EDWARD. Clifford, repent in bootless penitence.\n  WARWICK. Clifford, devise excuses for thy faults.\n  GEORGE. While we devise fell tortures for thy faults.\n  RICHARD. Thou didst love York, and I am son to York.\n  EDWARD. Thou pitied'st Rutland, I will pity thee.\n  GEORGE. Where's Captain Margaret, to fence you now?\n  WARWICK. They mock thee, Clifford; swear as thou wast wont.\n  RICHARD. What, not an oath? Nay, then the world goes hard\n    When Clifford cannot spare his friends an oath.\n    I know by that he's dead; and by my soul,\n    If this right hand would buy two hours' life,\n    That I in all despite might rail at him,\n    This hand should chop it off, and with the issuing blood\n    Stifle the villain whose unstanched thirst\n    York and young Rutland could not satisfy.\n  WARWICK. Ay, but he's dead. Off with the traitor's head,\n    And rear it in the place your father's stands.\n    And now to London with triumphant march,\n    There to be crowned England's royal King;\n    From whence shall Warwick cut the sea to France,\n    And ask the Lady Bona for thy queen.\n    So shalt thou sinew both these lands together;\n    And, having France thy friend, thou shalt not dread\n    The scatt'red foe that hopes to rise again;\n    For though they cannot greatly sting to hurt,\n    Yet look to have them buzz to offend thine ears.\n    First will I see the coronation;\n    And then to Brittany I'll cross the sea\n    To effect this marriage, so it please my lord.\n  EDWARD. Even as thou wilt, sweet Warwick, let it be;\n    For in thy shoulder do I build my seat,\n    And never will I undertake the thing\n    Wherein thy counsel and consent is wanting.\n    Richard, I will create thee Duke of Gloucester;\n    And George, of Clarence; Warwick, as ourself,\n    Shall do and undo as him pleaseth best.\n  RICHARD. Let me be Duke of Clarence, George of Gloucester;\n    For Gloucester's dukedom is too ominous.\n  WARWICK. Tut, that's a foolish observation.\n    Richard, be Duke of Gloucester. Now to London\n    To see these honours in possession.                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nA chase in the north of England\n\nEnter two KEEPERS, with cross-bows in their hands\n\n  FIRST KEEPER. Under this thick-grown brake we'll shroud ourselves,\n    For through this laund anon the deer will come;\n    And in this covert will we make our stand,\n    Culling the principal of all the deer.\n  SECOND KEEPER. I'll stay above the hill, so both may shoot.\n  FIRST KEEPER. That cannot be; the noise of thy cross-bow\n    Will scare the herd, and so my shoot is lost.\n    Here stand we both, and aim we at the best;\n    And, for the time shall not seem tedious,\n    I'll tell thee what befell me on a day\n    In this self-place where now we mean to stand.\n  SECOND KEEPER. Here comes a man; let's stay till he be past.\n\n        Enter KING HENRY, disguised, with a prayer-book\n\n  KING HENRY. From Scotland am I stol'n, even of pure love,\n    To greet mine own land with my wishful sight.\n    No, Harry, Harry, 'tis no land of thine;\n    Thy place is fill'd, thy sceptre wrung from thee,\n    Thy balm wash'd off wherewith thou wast anointed.\n    No bending knee will call thee Caesar now,\n    No humble suitors press to speak for right,\n    No, not a man comes for redress of thee;\n    For how can I help them and not myself?\n  FIRST KEEPER. Ay, here's a deer whose skin's a keeper's fee.\n    This is the quondam King; let's seize upon him.\n  KING HENRY. Let me embrace thee, sour adversity,\n    For wise men say it is the wisest course.\n  SECOND KEEPER. Why linger we? let us lay hands upon him.\n  FIRST KEEPER. Forbear awhile; we'll hear a little more.\n  KING HENRY. My Queen and son are gone to France for aid;\n    And, as I hear, the great commanding Warwick\n    Is thither gone to crave the French King's sister\n    To wife for Edward. If this news be true,\n    Poor queen and son, your labour is but lost;\n    For Warwick is a subtle orator,\n    And Lewis a prince soon won with moving words.\n    By this account, then, Margaret may win him;\n    For she's a woman to be pitied much.\n    Her sighs will make a batt'ry in his breast;\n    Her tears will pierce into a marble heart;\n    The tiger will be mild whiles she doth mourn;\n    And Nero will be tainted with remorse\n    To hear and see her plaints, her brinish tears.\n    Ay, but she's come to beg: Warwick, to give.\n    She, on his left side, craving aid for Henry:\n    He, on his right, asking a wife for Edward.\n    She weeps, and says her Henry is depos'd:\n    He smiles, and says his Edward is install'd;\n    That she, poor wretch, for grief can speak no more;\n    Whiles Warwick tells his title, smooths the wrong,\n    Inferreth arguments of mighty strength,\n    And in conclusion wins the King from her\n    With promise of his sister, and what else,\n    To strengthen and support King Edward's place.\n    O Margaret, thus 'twill be; and thou, poor soul,\n    Art then forsaken, as thou went'st forlorn!\n  SECOND KEEPER. Say, what art thou that talk'st of kings and queens?\n  KING HENRY. More than I seem, and less than I was born to:\n    A man at least, for less I should not be;\n    And men may talk of kings, and why not I?\n  SECOND KEEPER. Ay, but thou talk'st as if thou wert a king.\n  KING HENRY. Why, so I am- in mind; and that's enough.\n  SECOND KEEPER. But, if thou be a king, where is thy crown?\n  KING HENRY. My crown is in my heart, not on my head;\n    Not deck'd with diamonds and Indian stones,\n    Not to be seen. My crown is call'd content;\n    A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.\n  SECOND KEEPER. Well, if you be a king crown'd with content,\n    Your crown content and you must be contented\n    To go along with us; for as we think,\n    You are the king King Edward hath depos'd;\n    And we his subjects, sworn in all allegiance,\n    Will apprehend you as his enemy.\n  KING HENRY. But did you never swear, and break an oath?\n  SECOND KEEPER. No, never such an oath; nor will not now.\n  KING HENRY. Where did you dwell when I was King of England?\n  SECOND KEEPER. Here in this country, where we now remain.\n  KING HENRY. I was anointed king at nine months old;\n    My father and my grandfather were kings;\n    And you were sworn true subjects unto me;\n    And tell me, then, have you not broke your oaths?\n  FIRST KEEPER. No;\n    For we were subjects but while you were king.\n  KING HENRY. Why, am I dead? Do I not breathe a man?\n    Ah, simple men, you know not what you swear!\n    Look, as I blow this feather from my face,\n    And as the air blows it to me again,\n    Obeying with my wind when I do blow,\n    And yielding to another when it blows,\n    Commanded always by the greater gust,\n    Such is the lightness of you common men.\n    But do not break your oaths; for of that sin\n    My mild entreaty shall not make you guilty.\n    Go where you will, the King shall be commanded;\n    And be you kings: command, and I'll obey.\n  FIRST KEEPER. We are true subjects to the King, King Edward.\n  KING HENRY. So would you be again to Henry,\n    If he were seated as King Edward is.\n  FIRST KEEPER. We charge you, in God's name and the King's,\n    To go with us unto the officers.\n  KING HENRY. In God's name, lead; your King's name be obey'd;\n    And what God will, that let your King perform;\n    And what he will, I humbly yield unto.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter KING EDWARD, GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, and LADY GREY\n\n  KING EDWARD. Brother of Gloucester, at Saint Albans' field\n    This lady's husband, Sir Richard Grey, was slain,\n    His land then seiz'd on by the conqueror.\n    Her suit is now to repossess those lands;\n    Which we in justice cannot well deny,\n    Because in quarrel of the house of York\n    The worthy gentleman did lose his life.\n  GLOUCESTER. Your Highness shall do well to grant her suit;\n    It were dishonour to deny it her.\n  KING EDWARD. It were no less; but yet I'll make a pause.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CLARENCE] Yea, is it so?\n    I see the lady hath a thing to grant,\n    Before the King will grant her humble suit.\n  CLARENCE. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] He knows the game; how true he\n    keeps the wind!\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CLARENCE] Silence!\n  KING EDWARD. Widow, we will consider of your suit;\n    And come some other time to know our mind.\n  LADY GREY. Right gracious lord, I cannot brook delay.\n    May it please your Highness to resolve me now;\n    And what your pleasure is shall satisfy me.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] Ay, widow? Then I'll warrant you all your\n      lands,\n    An if what pleases him shall pleasure you.\n    Fight closer or, good faith, you'll catch a blow.\n  CLARENCE. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] I fear her not, unless she chance\n    to fall.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CLARENCE] God forbid that, for he'll take\n    vantages.\n  KING EDWARD. How many children hast thou, widow, tell me.\n  CLARENCE. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] I think he means to beg a child of\n    her.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CLARENCE] Nay, then whip me; he'll rather\n    give her two.\n  LADY GREY. Three, my most gracious lord.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] You shall have four if you'll be rul'd by him.\n  KING EDWARD. 'Twere pity they should lose their father's lands.\n  LADY GREY. Be pitiful, dread lord, and grant it, then.\n  KING EDWARD. Lords, give us leave; I'll try this widow's wit.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] Ay, good leave have you; for you will have\n      leave\n    Till youth take leave and leave you to the crutch.\n                              [GLOUCESTER and CLARENCE withdraw]\n  KING EDWARD. Now tell me, madam, do you love your children?\n  LADY GREY. Ay, full as dearly as I love myself.\n  KING EDWARD. And would you not do much to do them good?\n  LADY GREY. To do them good I would sustain some harm.\n  KING EDWARD. Then get your husband's lands, to do them good.\n  LADY GREY. Therefore I came unto your Majesty.\n  KING EDWARD. I'll tell you how these lands are to be got.\n  LADY GREY. So shall you bind me to your Highness' service.\n  KING EDWARD. What service wilt thou do me if I give them?\n  LADY GREY. What you command that rests in me to do.\n  KING EDWARD. But you will take exceptions to my boon.\n  LADY GREY. No, gracious lord, except I cannot do it.\n  KING EDWARD. Ay, but thou canst do what I mean to ask.\n  LADY GREY. Why, then I will do what your Grace commands.\n  GLOUCESTER. He plies her hard; and much rain wears the marble.\n  CLARENCE. As red as fire! Nay, then her wax must melt.\n  LADY GREY. Why stops my lord? Shall I not hear my task?\n  KING EDWARD. An easy task; 'tis but to love a king.\n  LADY GREY. That's soon perform'd, because I am a subject.\n  KING EDWARD. Why, then, thy husband's lands I freely give thee.\n  LADY GREY. I take my leave with many thousand thanks.\n  GLOUCESTER. The match is made; she seals it with a curtsy.\n  KING EDWARD. But stay thee- 'tis the fruits of love I mean.\n  LADY GREY. The fruits of love I mean, my loving liege.\n  KING EDWARD. Ay, but, I fear me, in another sense.\n    What love, thinkst thou, I sue so much to get?\n  LADY GREY. My love till death, my humble thanks, my prayers;\n    That love which virtue begs and virtue grants.\n  KING EDWARD. No, by my troth, I did not mean such love.\n  LADY GREY. Why, then you mean not as I thought you did.\n  KING EDWARD. But now you partly may perceive my mind.\n  LADY GREY. My mind will never grant what I perceive\n    Your Highness aims at, if I aim aright.\n  KING EDWARD. To tell thee plain, I aim to lie with thee.\n  LADY GREY. To tell you plain, I had rather lie in prison.\n  KING EDWARD. Why, then thou shalt not have thy husband's lands.\n  LADY GREY. Why, then mine honesty shall be my dower;\n    For by that loss I will not purchase them.\n  KING EDWARD. Therein thou wrong'st thy children mightily.\n  LADY GREY. Herein your Highness wrongs both them and me.\n    But, mighty lord, this merry inclination\n    Accords not with the sadness of my suit.\n    Please you dismiss me, either with ay or no.\n  KING EDWARD. Ay, if thou wilt say ay to my request;\n    No, if thou dost say no to my demand.\n  LADY GREY. Then, no, my lord. My suit is at an end.\n  GLOUCESTER. The widow likes him not; she knits her brows.\n  CLARENCE. He is the bluntest wooer in Christendom.\n  KING EDWARD. [Aside] Her looks doth argue her replete with modesty;\n    Her words doth show her wit incomparable;\n    All her perfections challenge sovereignty.\n    One way or other, she is for a king;\n    And she shall be my love, or else my queen.\n    Say that King Edward take thee for his queen?\n  LADY GREY. 'Tis better said than done, my gracious lord.\n    I am a subject fit to jest withal,\n    But far unfit to be a sovereign.\n  KING EDWARD. Sweet widow, by my state I swear to thee\n    I speak no more than what my soul intends;\n    And that is to enjoy thee for my love.\n  LADY GREY. And that is more than I will yield unto.\n    I know I am too mean to be your queen,\n    And yet too good to be your concubine.\n  KING EDWARD. You cavil, widow; I did mean my queen.\n  LADY GREY. 'Twill grieve your Grace my sons should call you father.\n  KING EDWARD.No more than when my daughters call thee mother.\n    Thou art a widow, and thou hast some children;\n    And, by God's Mother, I, being but a bachelor,\n    Have other some. Why, 'tis a happy thing\n    To be the father unto many sons.\n    Answer no more, for thou shalt be my queen.\n  GLOUCESTER. The ghostly father now hath done his shrift.\n  CLARENCE. When he was made a shriver, 'twas for shrift.\n  KING EDWARD. Brothers, you muse what chat we two have had.\n  GLOUCESTER. The widow likes it not, for she looks very sad.\n  KING EDWARD. You'd think it strange if I should marry her.\n  CLARENCE. To who, my lord?\n  KING EDWARD. Why, Clarence, to myself.\n  GLOUCESTER. That would be ten days' wonder at the least.\n  CLARENCE. That's a day longer than a wonder lasts.\n  GLOUCESTER. By so much is the wonder in extremes.\n  KING EDWARD. Well, jest on, brothers; I can tell you both\n    Her suit is granted for her husband's lands.\n\n                       Enter a NOBLEMAN\n\n  NOBLEMAN. My gracious lord, Henry your foe is taken\n    And brought your prisoner to your palace gate.\n  KING EDWARD. See that he be convey'd unto the Tower.\n    And go we, brothers, to the man that took him\n    To question of his apprehension.\n    Widow, go you along. Lords, use her honourably.\n                                       Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER\n  GLOUCESTER. Ay, Edward will use women honourably.\n    Would he were wasted, marrow, bones, and all,\n    That from his loins no hopeful branch may spring\n    To cross me from the golden time I look for!\n    And yet, between my soul's desire and me-\n    The lustful Edward's title buried-\n    Is Clarence, Henry, and his son young Edward,\n    And all the unlook'd for issue of their bodies,\n    To take their rooms ere I can place myself.\n    A cold premeditation for my purpose!\n    Why, then I do but dream on sovereignty;\n    Like one that stands upon a promontory\n    And spies a far-off shore where he would tread,\n    Wishing his foot were equal with his eye;\n    And chides the sea that sunders him from thence,\n    Saying he'll lade it dry to have his way-\n    So do I wish the crown, being so far off;\n    And so I chide the means that keeps me from it;\n    And so I say I'll cut the causes off,\n    Flattering me with impossibilities.\n    My eye's too quick, my heart o'erweens too much,\n    Unless my hand and strength could equal them.\n    Well, say there is no kingdom then for Richard;\n    What other pleasure can the world afford?\n    I'll make my heaven in a lady's lap,\n    And deck my body in gay ornaments,\n    And witch sweet ladies with my words and looks.\n    O miserable thought! and more unlikely\n    Than to accomplish twenty golden crowns.\n    Why, love forswore me in my mother's womb;\n    And, for I should not deal in her soft laws,\n    She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe\n    To shrink mine arm up like a wither'd shrub\n    To make an envious mountain on my back,\n    Where sits deformity to mock my body;\n    To shape my legs of an unequal size;\n    To disproportion me in every part,\n    Like to a chaos, or an unlick'd bear-whelp\n    That carries no impression like the dam.\n    And am I, then, a man to be belov'd?\n    O monstrous fault to harbour such a thought!\n    Then, since this earth affords no joy to me\n    But to command, to check, to o'erbear such\n    As are of better person than myself,\n    I'll make my heaven to dream upon the crown,\n    And whiles I live t' account this world but hell,\n    Until my misshap'd trunk that bear this head\n    Be round impaled with a glorious crown.\n    And yet I know not how to get the crown,\n    For many lives stand between me and home;\n    And I- like one lost in a thorny wood\n    That rents the thorns and is rent with the thorns,\n    Seeking a way and straying from the way\n    Not knowing how to find the open air,\n    But toiling desperately to find it out-\n    Torment myself to catch the English crown;\n    And from that torment I will free myself\n    Or hew my way out with a bloody axe.\n    Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile,\n    And cry 'Content!' to that which grieves my heart,\n    And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,\n    And frame my face to all occasions.\n    I'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall;\n    I'll slay more gazers than the basilisk;\n    I'll play the orator as well as Nestor,\n    Deceive more slily than Ulysses could,\n    And, like a Sinon, take another Troy.\n    I can add colours to the chameleon,\n    Change shapes with Protheus for advantages,\n    And set the murderous Machiavel to school.\n    Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?\n    Tut, were it farther off, I'll pluck it down.           Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nFrance.  The KING'S palace\n\nFlourish.  Enter LEWIS the French King, his sister BONA,\nhis Admiral call'd BOURBON; PRINCE EDWARD, QUEEN MARGARET,\nand the EARL of OXFORD.  LEWIS sits, and riseth up again\n\n  LEWIS. Fair Queen of England, worthy Margaret,\n    Sit down with us. It ill befits thy state\n    And birth that thou shouldst stand while Lewis doth sit.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. No, mighty King of France. Now Margaret\n    Must strike her sail and learn a while to serve\n    Where kings command. I was, I must confess,\n    Great Albion's Queen in former golden days;\n    But now mischance hath trod my title down\n    And with dishonour laid me on the ground,\n    Where I must take like seat unto my fortune,\n    And to my humble seat conform myself.\n  LEWIS. Why, say, fair Queen, whence springs this deep despair?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. From such a cause as fills mine eyes with tears\n    And stops my tongue, while heart is drown'd in cares.\n  LEWIS. Whate'er it be, be thou still like thyself,\n    And sit thee by our side. [Seats her by him] Yield not thy neck\n    To fortune's yoke, but let thy dauntless mind\n    Still ride in triumph over all mischance.\n    Be plain, Queen Margaret, and tell thy grief;\n    It shall be eas'd, if France can yield relief.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Those gracious words revive my drooping thoughts\n    And give my tongue-tied sorrows leave to speak.\n    Now therefore be it known to noble Lewis\n    That Henry, sole possessor of my love,\n    Is, of a king, become a banish'd man,\n    And forc'd to live in Scotland a forlorn;\n    While proud ambitious Edward Duke of York\n    Usurps the regal title and the seat\n    Of England's true-anointed lawful King.\n    This is the cause that I, poor Margaret,\n    With this my son, Prince Edward, Henry's heir,\n    Am come to crave thy just and lawful aid;\n    And if thou fail us, all our hope is done.\n    Scotland hath will to help, but cannot help;\n    Our people and our peers are both misled,\n    Our treasure seiz'd, our soldiers put to flight,\n    And, as thou seest, ourselves in heavy plight.\n  LEWIS. Renowned Queen, with patience calm the storm,\n    While we bethink a means to break it off.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. The more we stay, the stronger grows our foe.\n  LEWIS. The more I stay, the more I'll succour thee.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. O, but impatience waiteth on true sorrow.\n    And see where comes the breeder of my sorrow!\n\n                        Enter WARWICK\n\n  LEWIS. What's he approacheth boldly to our presence?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Our Earl of Warwick, Edward's greatest friend.\n  LEWIS. Welcome, brave Warwick! What brings thee to France?\n                                      [He descends. She ariseth]\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, now begins a second storm to rise;\n    For this is he that moves both wind and tide.\n  WARWICK. From worthy Edward, King of Albion,\n    My lord and sovereign, and thy vowed friend,\n    I come, in kindness and unfeigned love,\n    First to do greetings to thy royal person,\n    And then to crave a league of amity,\n    And lastly to confirm that amity\n    With nuptial knot, if thou vouchsafe to grant\n    That virtuous Lady Bona, thy fair sister,\n    To England's King in lawful marriage.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. [Aside] If that go forward, Henry's hope is done.\n  WARWICK. [To BONA] And, gracious madam, in our king's behalf,\n    I am commanded, with your leave and favour,\n    Humbly to kiss your hand, and with my tongue\n    To tell the passion of my sovereign's heart;\n    Where fame, late ent'ring at his heedful ears,\n    Hath plac'd thy beauty's image and thy virtue.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. King Lewis and Lady Bona, hear me speak\n    Before you answer Warwick. His demand\n    Springs not from Edward's well-meant honest love,\n    But from deceit bred by necessity;\n    For how can tyrants safely govern home\n    Unless abroad they purchase great alliance?\n    To prove him tyrant this reason may suffice,\n    That Henry liveth still; but were he dead,\n    Yet here Prince Edward stands, King Henry's son.\n    Look therefore, Lewis, that by this league and marriage\n    Thou draw not on thy danger and dishonour;\n    For though usurpers sway the rule a while\n    Yet heav'ns are just, and time suppresseth wrongs.\n  WARWICK. Injurious Margaret!\n  PRINCE OF WALES. And why not Queen?\n  WARWICK. Because thy father Henry did usurp;\n    And thou no more art prince than she is queen.\n  OXFORD. Then Warwick disannuls great John of Gaunt,\n    Which did subdue the greatest part of Spain;\n    And, after John of Gaunt, Henry the Fourth,\n    Whose wisdom was a mirror to the wisest;\n    And, after that wise prince, Henry the Fifth,\n    Who by his prowess conquered all France.\n    From these our Henry lineally descends.\n  WARWICK. Oxford, how haps it in this smooth discourse\n    You told not how Henry the Sixth hath lost\n    All that which Henry the Fifth had gotten?\n    Methinks these peers of France should smile at that.\n    But for the rest: you tell a pedigree\n    Of threescore and two years- a silly time\n    To make prescription for a kingdom's worth.\n  OXFORD. Why, Warwick, canst thou speak against thy liege,\n    Whom thou obeyed'st thirty and six years,\n    And not betray thy treason with a blush?\n  WARWICK. Can Oxford that did ever fence the right\n    Now buckler falsehood with a pedigree?\n    For shame! Leave Henry, and call Edward king.\n  OXFORD. Call him my king by whose injurious doom\n    My elder brother, the Lord Aubrey Vere,\n    Was done to death; and more than so, my father,\n    Even in the downfall of his mellow'd years,\n    When nature brought him to the door of death?\n    No, Warwick, no; while life upholds this arm,\n    This arm upholds the house of Lancaster.\n  WARWICK. And I the house of York.\n  LEWIS. Queen Margaret, Prince Edward, and Oxford,\n    Vouchsafe at our request to stand aside\n    While I use further conference with Warwick.\n                                              [They stand aloof]\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Heavens grant that Warwick's words bewitch him not!\n  LEWIS. Now, Warwick, tell me, even upon thy conscience,\n    Is Edward your true king? for I were loath\n    To link with him that were not lawful chosen.\n  WARWICK. Thereon I pawn my credit and mine honour.\n  LEWIS. But is he gracious in the people's eye?\n  WARWICK. The more that Henry was unfortunate.\n  LEWIS. Then further: all dissembling set aside,\n    Tell me for truth the measure of his love\n    Unto our sister Bona.\n  WARWICK. Such it seems\n    As may beseem a monarch like himself.\n    Myself have often heard him say and swear\n    That this his love was an eternal plant\n    Whereof the root was fix'd in virtue's ground,\n    The leaves and fruit maintain'd with beauty's sun,\n    Exempt from envy, but not from disdain,\n    Unless the Lady Bona quit his pain.\n  LEWIS. Now, sister, let us hear your firm resolve.\n  BONA. Your grant or your denial shall be mine.\n    [To WARWICK] Yet I confess that often ere this day,\n    When I have heard your king's desert recounted,\n    Mine ear hath tempted judgment to desire.\n  LEWIS. Then, Warwick, thus: our sister shall be Edward's.\n    And now forthwith shall articles be drawn\n    Touching the jointure that your king must make,\n    Which with her dowry shall be counterpois'd.\n    Draw near, Queen Margaret, and be a witness\n    That Bona shall be wife to the English king.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. To Edward, but not to the English king.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Deceitful Warwick, it was thy device\n    By this alliance to make void my suit.\n    Before thy coming, Lewis was Henry's friend.\n  LEWIS. And still is friend to him and Margaret.\n    But if your title to the crown be weak,\n    As may appear by Edward's good success,\n    Then 'tis but reason that I be releas'd\n    From giving aid which late I promised.\n    Yet shall you have all kindness at my hand\n    That your estate requires and mine can yield.\n  WARWICK. Henry now lives in Scotland at his case,\n    Where having nothing, nothing can he lose.\n    And as for you yourself, our quondam queen,\n    You have a father able to maintain you,\n    And better 'twere you troubled him than France.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Peace, impudent and shameless Warwick,\n    Proud setter up and puller down of kings!\n    I will not hence till with my talk and tears,\n    Both full of truth, I make King Lewis behold\n    Thy sly conveyance and thy lord's false love;\n    For both of you are birds of self-same feather.\n                                    [POST blowing a horn within]\n  LEWIS. Warwick, this is some post to us or thee.\n\n                       Enter the POST\n\n  POST. My lord ambassador, these letters are for you,\n    Sent from your brother, Marquis Montague.\n    These from our King unto your Majesty.\n    And, madam, these for you; from whom I know not.\n                                   [They all read their letters]\n  OXFORD. I like it well that our fair Queen and mistress\n    Smiles at her news, while Warwick frowns at his.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. Nay, mark how Lewis stamps as he were nettled.\n    I hope all's for the best.\n  LEWIS. Warwick, what are thy news? And yours, fair Queen?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Mine such as fill my heart with unhop'd joys.\n  WARWICK. Mine, full of sorrow and heart's discontent.\n  LEWIS. What, has your king married the Lady Grey?\n    And now, to soothe your forgery and his,\n    Sends me a paper to persuade me patience?\n    Is this th' alliance that he seeks with France?\n    Dare he presume to scorn us in this manner?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. I told your Majesty as much before.\n    This proveth Edward's love and Warwick's honesty.\n  WARWICK. King Lewis, I here protest in sight of heaven,\n    And by the hope I have of heavenly bliss,\n    That I am clear from this misdeed of Edward's-\n    No more my king, for he dishonours me,\n    But most himself, if he could see his shame.\n    Did I forget that by the house of York\n    My father came untimely to his death?\n    Did I let pass th' abuse done to my niece?\n    Did I impale him with the regal crown?\n    Did I put Henry from his native right?\n    And am I guerdon'd at the last with shame?\n    Shame on himself! for my desert is honour;\n    And to repair my honour lost for him\n    I here renounce him and return to Henry.\n    My noble Queen, let former grudges pass,\n    And henceforth I am thy true servitor.\n    I will revenge his wrong to Lady Bona,\n    And replant Henry in his former state.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Warwick, these words have turn'd my hate to love;\n    And I forgive and quite forget old faults,\n    And joy that thou becom'st King Henry's friend.\n  WARWICK. So much his friend, ay, his unfeigned friend,\n    That if King Lewis vouchsafe to furnish us\n    With some few bands of chosen soldiers,\n    I'll undertake to land them on our coast\n    And force the tyrant from his seat by war.\n    'Tis not his new-made bride shall succour him;\n    And as for Clarence, as my letters tell me,\n    He's very likely now to fall from him\n    For matching more for wanton lust than honour\n    Or than for strength and safety of our country.\n  BONA. Dear brother, how shall Bona be reveng'd\n    But by thy help to this distressed queen?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Renowned Prince, how shall poor Henry live\n    Unless thou rescue him from foul despair?\n  BONA. My quarrel and this English queen's are one.\n  WARWICK. And mine, fair Lady Bona, joins with yours.\n  LEWIS. And mine with hers, and thine, and Margaret's.\n    Therefore, at last, I firmly am resolv'd\n    You shall have aid.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Let me give humble thanks for all at once.\n  LEWIS. Then, England's messenger, return in post\n    And tell false Edward, thy supposed king,\n    That Lewis of France is sending over masquers\n    To revel it with him and his new bride.\n    Thou seest what's past; go fear thy king withal.\n  BONA. Tell him, in hope he'll prove a widower shortly,\n    I'll wear the willow-garland for his sake.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Tell him my mourning weeds are laid aside,\n    And I am ready to put armour on.\n  WARWICK. Tell him from me that he hath done me wrong,\n    And therefore I'll uncrown him ere't be long.\n    There's thy reward; be gone.                       Exit POST\n  LEWIS. But, Warwick,\n    Thou and Oxford, with five thousand men,\n    Shall cross the seas and bid false Edward battle:\n    And, as occasion serves, this noble Queen\n    And Prince shall follow with a fresh supply.\n    Yet, ere thou go, but answer me one doubt:\n    What pledge have we of thy firm loyalty?\n  WARWICK. This shall assure my constant loyalty:\n    That if our Queen and this young Prince agree,\n    I'll join mine eldest daughter and my joy\n    To him forthwith in holy wedlock bands.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Yes, I agree, and thank you for your motion.\n    Son Edward, she is fair and virtuous,\n    Therefore delay not- give thy hand to Warwick;\n    And with thy hand thy faith irrevocable\n    That only Warwick's daughter shall be thine.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. Yes, I accept her, for she well deserves it;\n    And here, to pledge my vow, I give my hand.\n                                  [He gives his hand to WARWICK]\n  LEWIS. stay we now? These soldiers shall be levied;\n    And thou, Lord Bourbon, our High Admiral,\n    Shall waft them over with our royal fleet.\n    I long till Edward fall by war's mischance\n    For mocking marriage with a dame of France.\n                                          Exeunt all but WARWICK\n  WARWICK. I came from Edward as ambassador,\n    But I return his sworn and mortal foe.\n    Matter of marriage was the charge he gave me,\n    But dreadful war shall answer his demand.\n    Had he none else to make a stale but me?\n    Then none but I shall turn his jest to sorrow.\n    I was the chief that rais'd him to the crown,\n    And I'll be chief to bring him down again;\n    Not that I pity Henry's misery,\n    But seek revenge on Edward's mockery.                   Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, SOMERSET, and MONTAGUE\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Now tell me, brother Clarence, what think you\n    Of this new marriage with the Lady Grey?\n    Hath not our brother made a worthy choice?\n  CLARENCE. Alas, you know 'tis far from hence to France!\n    How could he stay till Warwick made return?\n  SOMERSET. My lords, forbear this talk; here comes the King.\n\n           Flourish. Enter KING EDWARD, attended; LADY\n          GREY, as Queen; PEMBROKE, STAFFORD, HASTINGS,\n      and others. Four stand on one side, and four on the other\n\n  GLOUCESTER. And his well-chosen bride.\n  CLARENCE. I mind to tell him plainly what I think.\n  KING EDWARD. Now, brother of Clarence, how like you our choice\n    That you stand pensive as half malcontent?\n  CLARENCE. As well as Lewis of France or the Earl of Warwick,\n    Which are so weak of courage and in judgment\n    That they'll take no offence at our abuse.\n  KING EDWARD. Suppose they take offence without a cause;\n    They are but Lewis and Warwick: I am Edward,\n    Your King and Warwick's and must have my will.\n  GLOUCESTER. And shall have your will, because our King.\n    Yet hasty marriage seldom proveth well.\n  KING EDWARD. Yea, brother Richard, are you offended too?\n  GLOUCESTER. Not I.\n    No, God forbid that I should wish them sever'd\n    Whom God hath join'd together; ay, and 'twere pity\n    To sunder them that yoke so well together.\n  KING EDWARD. Setting your scorns and your mislike aside,\n    Tell me some reason why the Lady Grey\n    Should not become my wife and England's Queen.\n    And you too, Somerset and Montague,\n    Speak freely what you think.\n  CLARENCE. Then this is mine opinion: that King Lewis\n    Becomes your enemy for mocking him\n    About the marriage of the Lady Bona.\n  GLOUCESTER. And Warwick, doing what you gave in charge,\n    Is now dishonoured by this new marriage.\n  KING EDWARD. What if both Lewis and Warwick be appeas'd\n    By such invention as I can devise?\n  MONTAGUE. Yet to have join'd with France in such alliance\n    Would more have strength'ned this our commonwealth\n    'Gainst foreign storms than any home-bred marriage.\n  HASTINGS. Why, knows not Montague that of itself\n    England is safe, if true within itself?\n  MONTAGUE. But the safer when 'tis back'd with France.\n  HASTINGS. 'Tis better using France than trusting France.\n    Let us be back'd with God, and with the seas\n    Which He hath giv'n for fence impregnable,\n    And with their helps only defend ourselves.\n    In them and in ourselves our safety lies.\n  CLARENCE. For this one speech Lord Hastings well deserves\n    To have the heir of the Lord Hungerford.\n  KING EDWARD. Ay, what of that? it was my will and grant;\n    And for this once my will shall stand for law.\n  GLOUCESTER. And yet methinks your Grace hath not done well\n    To give the heir and daughter of Lord Scales\n    Unto the brother of your loving bride.\n    She better would have fitted me or Clarence;\n    But in your bride you bury brotherhood.\n  CLARENCE. Or else you would not have bestow'd the heir\n    Of the Lord Bonville on your new wife's son,\n    And leave your brothers to go speed elsewhere.\n  KING EDWARD. Alas, poor Clarence! Is it for a wife\n    That thou art malcontent? I will provide thee.\n  CLARENCE. In choosing for yourself you show'd your judgment,\n    Which being shallow, you shall give me leave\n    To play the broker in mine own behalf;\n    And to that end I shortly mind to leave you.\n  KING EDWARD. Leave me or tarry, Edward will be King,\n    And not be tied unto his brother's will.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. My lords, before it pleas'd his Majesty\n    To raise my state to title of a queen,\n    Do me but right, and you must all confess\n    That I was not ignoble of descent:\n    And meaner than myself have had like fortune.\n    But as this title honours me and mine,\n    So your dislikes, to whom I would be pleasing,\n    Doth cloud my joys with danger and with sorrow.\n  KING EDWARD. My love, forbear to fawn upon their frowns.\n    What danger or what sorrow can befall thee,\n    So long as Edward is thy constant friend\n    And their true sovereign whom they must obey?\n    Nay, whom they shall obey, and love thee too,\n    Unless they seek for hatred at my hands;\n    Which if they do, yet will I keep thee safe,\n    And they shall feel the vengeance of my wrath.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] I hear, yet say not much, but think the more.\n\n                          Enter a POST\n\n  KING EDWARD. Now, messenger, what letters or what news\n    From France?\n  MESSENGER. My sovereign liege, no letters, and few words,\n    But such as I, without your special pardon,\n    Dare not relate.\n  KING EDWARD. Go to, we pardon thee; therefore, in brief,\n    Tell me their words as near as thou canst guess them.\n    What answer makes King Lewis unto our letters?\n  MESSENGER. At my depart, these were his very words:\n    'Go tell false Edward, the supposed king,\n    That Lewis of France is sending over masquers\n    To revel it with him and his new bride.'\n  KING EDWARD. IS Lewis so brave? Belike he thinks me Henry.\n    But what said Lady Bona to my marriage?\n  MESSENGER. These were her words, utt'red with mild disdain:\n    'Tell him, in hope he'll prove a widower shortly,\n    I'll wear the willow-garland for his sake.'\n  KING EDWARD. I blame not her: she could say little less;\n    She had the wrong. But what said Henry's queen?\n    For I have heard that she was there in place.\n  MESSENGER. 'Tell him' quoth she 'my mourning weeds are done,\n    And I am ready to put armour on.'\n  KING EDWARD. Belike she minds to play the Amazon.\n    But what said Warwick to these injuries?\n  MESSENGER. He, more incens'd against your Majesty\n    Than all the rest, discharg'd me with these words:\n    'Tell him from me that he hath done me wrong;\n    And therefore I'll uncrown him ere't be long.'\n  KING EDWARD. Ha! durst the traitor breathe out so proud words?\n    Well, I will arm me, being thus forewarn'd.\n    They shall have wars and pay for their presumption.\n    But say, is Warwick friends with Margaret?\n  MESSENGER. Ay, gracious sovereign; they are so link'd in friendship\n    That young Prince Edward marries Warwick's daughter.\n  CLARENCE. Belike the elder; Clarence will have the younger.\n    Now, brother king, farewell, and sit you fast,\n    For I will hence to Warwick's other daughter;\n    That, though I want a kingdom, yet in marriage\n    I may not prove inferior to yourself.\n    You that love me and Warwick, follow me.\n                                      Exit, and SOMERSET follows\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] Not I.\n    My thoughts aim at a further matter; I\n    Stay not for the love of Edward but the crown.\n  KING EDWARD. Clarence and Somerset both gone to Warwick!\n    Yet am I arm'd against the worst can happen;\n    And haste is needful in this desp'rate case.\n    Pembroke and Stafford, you in our behalf\n    Go levy men and make prepare for war;\n    They are already, or quickly will be landed.\n    Myself in person will straight follow you.\n                                    Exeunt PEMBROKE and STAFFORD\n    But ere I go, Hastings and Montague,\n    Resolve my doubt. You twain, of all the rest,\n    Are near to Warwick by blood and by alliance.\n    Tell me if you love Warwick more than me?\n    If it be so, then both depart to him:\n    I rather wish you foes than hollow friends.\n    But if you mind to hold your true obedience,\n    Give me assurance with some friendly vow,\n    That I may never have you in suspect.\n  MONTAGUE. So God help Montague as he proves true!\n  HASTINGS. And Hastings as he favours Edward's cause!\n  KING EDWARD. Now, brother Richard, will you stand by us?\n  GLOUCESTER. Ay, in despite of all that shall withstand you.\n  KING EDWARD. Why, so! then am I sure of victory.\n    Now therefore let us hence, and lose no hour\n    Till we meet Warwick with his foreign pow'r.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA plain in Warwickshire\n\nEnter WARWICK and OXFORD, with French soldiers\n\n  WARWICK. Trust me, my lord, all hitherto goes well;\n    The common people by numbers swarm to us.\n\n                 Enter CLARENCE and SOMERSET\n\n    But see where Somerset and Clarence comes.\n    Speak suddenly, my lords- are we all friends?\n  CLARENCE. Fear not that, my lord.\n  WARWICK. Then, gentle Clarence, welcome unto Warwick;\n    And welcome, Somerset. I hold it cowardice\n    To rest mistrustful where a noble heart\n    Hath pawn'd an open hand in sign of love;\n    Else might I think that Clarence, Edward's brother,\n    Were but a feigned friend to our proceedings.\n    But welcome, sweet Clarence; my daughter shall be thine.\n    And now what rests but, in night's coverture,\n    Thy brother being carelessly encamp'd,\n    His soldiers lurking in the towns about,\n    And but attended by a simple guard,\n    We may surprise and take him at our pleasure?\n    Our scouts have found the adventure very easy;\n    That as Ulysses and stout Diomede\n    With sleight and manhood stole to Rhesus' tents,\n    And brought from thence the Thracian fatal steeds,\n    So we, well cover'd with the night's black mantle,\n    At unawares may beat down Edward's guard\n    And seize himself- I say not 'slaughter him,'\n    For I intend but only to surprise him.\n    You that will follow me to this attempt,\n    Applaud the name of Henry with your leader.\n                                         [They all cry 'Henry!']\n    Why then, let's on our way in silent sort.\n    For Warwick and his friends, God and Saint George!    Exeunt\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nEdward's camp, near Warwick\n\nEnter three WATCHMEN, to guard the KING'S tent\n\n  FIRST WATCHMAN. Come on, my masters, each man take his stand;\n    The King by this is set him down to sleep.\n  SECOND WATCHMAN. What, will he not to bed?\n  FIRST WATCHMAN. Why, no; for he hath made a solemn vow\n    Never to lie and take his natural rest\n    Till Warwick or himself be quite suppress'd.\n  SECOND WATCHMAN. To-morrow then, belike, shall be the day,\n    If Warwick be so near as men report.\n  THIRD WATCHMAN. But say, I pray, what nobleman is that\n    That with the King here resteth in his tent?\n  FIRST WATCHMAN. 'Tis the Lord Hastings, the King's chiefest friend.\n  THIRD WATCHMAN. O, is it So? But why commands the King\n    That his chief followers lodge in towns about him,\n    While he himself keeps in the cold field?\n  SECOND WATCHMAN. 'Tis the more honour, because more dangerous.\n  THIRD WATCHMAN. Ay, but give me worship and quietness;\n    I like it better than dangerous honour.\n    If Warwick knew in what estate he stands,\n    'Tis to be doubted he would waken him.\n  FIRST WATCHMAN. Unless our halberds did shut up his passage.\n  SECOND WATCHMAN. Ay, wherefore else guard we his royal tent\n    But to defend his person from night-foes?\n\n             Enter WARWICK, CLARENCE, OXFORD, SOMERSET,\n                   and French soldiers, silent all\n\n  WARWICK. This is his tent; and see where stand his guard.\n    Courage, my masters! Honour now or never!\n    But follow me, and Edward shall be ours.\n  FIRST WATCHMAN. Who goes there?\n  SECOND WATCHMAN. Stay, or thou diest.\n\n       WARWICK and the rest cry all 'Warwick! Warwick!' and\n      set upon the guard, who fly, crying 'Arm! Arm!' WARWICK\n                   and the rest following them\n\n      The drum playing and trumpet sounding, re-enter WARWICK\n         and the rest, bringing the KING out in his gown,\n   sitting in a chair. GLOUCESTER and HASTINGS fly over the stage\n\n  SOMERSET. What are they that fly there?\n  WARWICK. Richard and Hastings. Let them go; here is the Duke.\n  KING EDWARD. The Duke! Why, Warwick, when we parted,\n    Thou call'dst me King?\n  WARWICK. Ay, but the case is alter'd.\n    When you disgrac'd me in my embassade,\n    Then I degraded you from being King,\n    And come now to create you Duke of York.\n    Alas, how should you govern any kingdom\n    That know not how to use ambassadors,\n    Nor how to be contented with one wife,\n    Nor how to use your brothers brotherly,\n    Nor how to study for the people's welfare,\n    Nor how to shroud yourself from enemies?\n  KING EDWARD. Yea, brother of Clarence, art thou here too?\n    Nay, then I see that Edward needs must down.\n    Yet, Warwick, in despite of all mischance,\n    Of thee thyself and all thy complices,\n    Edward will always bear himself as King.\n    Though fortune's malice overthrow my state,\n    My mind exceeds the compass of her wheel.\n  WARWICK. Then, for his mind, be Edward England's king;\n                                           [Takes off his crown]\n    But Henry now shall wear the English crown\n    And be true King indeed; thou but the shadow.\n    My Lord of Somerset, at my request,\n    See that forthwith Duke Edward be convey'd\n    Unto my brother, Archbishop of York.\n    When I have fought with Pembroke and his fellows,\n    I'll follow you and tell what answer\n    Lewis and the Lady Bona send to him.\n    Now for a while farewell, good Duke of York.\n  KING EDWARD. What fates impose, that men must needs abide;\n    It boots not to resist both wind and tide.\n                                    [They lead him out forcibly]\n  OXFORD. What now remains, my lords, for us to do\n    But march to London with our soldiers?\n  WARWICK. Ay, that's the first thing that we have to do;\n    To free King Henry from imprisonment,\n    And see him seated in the regal throne.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter QUEEN ELIZABETH and RIVERS\n\n  RIVERS. Madam, what makes you in this sudden change?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Why, brother Rivers, are you yet to learn\n    What late misfortune is befall'n King Edward?\n  RIVERS. What, loss of some pitch'd battle against Warwick?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. No, but the loss of his own royal person.\n  RIVERS. Then is my sovereign slain?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ay, almost slain, for he is taken prisoner;\n    Either betray'd by falsehood of his guard\n    Or by his foe surpris'd at unawares;\n    And, as I further have to understand,\n    Is new committed to the Bishop of York,\n    Fell Warwick's brother, and by that our foe.\n  RIVERS. These news, I must confess, are full of grief;\n    Yet, gracious madam, bear it as you may:\n    Warwick may lose that now hath won the day.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Till then, fair hope must hinder life's decay.\n    And I the rather wean me from despair\n    For love of Edward's offspring in my womb.\n    This is it that makes me bridle passion\n    And bear with mildness my misfortune's cross;\n    Ay, ay, for this I draw in many a tear\n    And stop the rising of blood-sucking sighs,\n    Lest with my sighs or tears I blast or drown\n    King Edward's fruit, true heir to th' English crown.\n  RIVERS. But, madam, where is Warwick then become?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. I am inform'd that he comes towards London\n    To set the crown once more on Henry's head.\n    Guess thou the rest: King Edward's friends must down.\n    But to prevent the tyrant's violence-\n    For trust not him that hath once broken faith-\n    I'll hence forthwith unto the sanctuary\n    To save at least the heir of Edward's right.\n    There shall I rest secure from force and fraud.\n    Come, therefore, let us fly while we may fly:\n    If Warwick take us, we are sure to die.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nA park near Middleham Castle in Yorkshire\n\nEnter GLOUCESTER, LORD HASTINGS, SIR WILLIAM STANLEY, and others\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Now, my Lord Hastings and Sir William Stanley,\n    Leave off to wonder why I drew you hither\n    Into this chiefest thicket of the park.\n    Thus stands the case: you know our King, my brother,\n    Is prisoner to the Bishop here, at whose hands\n    He hath good usage and great liberty;\n    And often but attended with weak guard\n    Comes hunting this way to disport himself.\n    I have advertis'd him by secret means\n    That if about this hour he make this way,\n    Under the colour of his usual game,\n    He shall here find his friends, with horse and men,\n    To set him free from his captivity.\n\n             Enter KING EDWARD and a HUNTSMAN with him\n\n  HUNTSMAN. This way, my lord; for this way lies the game.\n  KING EDWARD. Nay, this way, man. See where the huntsmen stand.\n    Now, brother of Gloucester, Lord Hastings, and the rest,\n    Stand you thus close to steal the Bishop's deer?\n  GLOUCESTER. Brother, the time and case requireth haste;\n    Your horse stands ready at the park corner.\n  KING EDWARD. But whither shall we then?\n  HASTINGS. To Lynn, my lord; and shipt from thence to Flanders.\n  GLOUCESTER. Well guess'd, believe me; for that was my meaning.\n  KING EDWARD. Stanley, I will requite thy forwardness.\n  GLOUCESTER. But wherefore stay we? 'Tis no time to talk.\n  KING EDWARD. Huntsman, what say'st thou? Wilt thou go along?\n  HUNTSMAN. Better do so than tarry and be hang'd.\n  GLOUCESTER. Come then, away; let's ha' no more ado.\n  KING EDWARD. Bishop, farewell. Shield thee from Warwick's frown,\n    And pray that I may repossess the crown.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nLondon. The Tower\n\nFlourish. Enter KING HENRY, CLARENCE, WARWICK, SOMERSET, young HENRY,\nEARL OF RICHMOND, OXFORD, MONTAGUE, LIEUTENANT OF THE TOWER, and attendants\n\n  KING HENRY. Master Lieutenant, now that God and friends\n    Have shaken Edward from the regal seat\n    And turn'd my captive state to liberty,\n    My fear to hope, my sorrows unto joys,\n    At our enlargement what are thy due fees?\n  LIEUTENANT. Subjects may challenge nothing of their sov'reigns;\n    But if an humble prayer may prevail,\n    I then crave pardon of your Majesty.\n  KING HENRY. For what, Lieutenant? For well using me?\n    Nay, be thou sure I'll well requite thy kindness,\n    For that it made my imprisonment a pleasure;\n    Ay, such a pleasure as incaged birds\n    Conceive when, after many moody thoughts,\n    At last by notes of household harmony\n    They quite forget their loss of liberty.\n    But, Warwick, after God, thou set'st me free,\n    And chiefly therefore I thank God and thee;\n    He was the author, thou the instrument.\n    Therefore, that I may conquer fortune's spite\n    By living low where fortune cannot hurt me,\n    And that the people of this blessed land\n    May not be punish'd with my thwarting stars,\n    Warwick, although my head still wear the crown,\n    I here resign my government to thee,\n    For thou art fortunate in all thy deeds.\n  WARWICK. Your Grace hath still been fam'd for virtuous,\n    And now may seem as wise as virtuous\n    By spying and avoiding fortune's malice,\n    For few men rightly temper with the stars;\n    Yet in this one thing let me blame your Grace,\n    For choosing me when Clarence is in place.\n  CLARENCE. No, Warwick, thou art worthy of the sway,\n    To whom the heav'ns in thy nativity\n    Adjudg'd an olive branch and laurel crown,\n    As likely to be blest in peace and war;\n    And therefore I yield thee my free consent.\n  WARWICK. And I choose Clarence only for Protector.\n  KING HENRY. Warwick and Clarence, give me both your hands.\n    Now join your hands, and with your hands your hearts,\n    That no dissension hinder government.\n    I make you both Protectors of this land,\n    While I myself will lead a private life\n    And in devotion spend my latter days,\n    To sin's rebuke and my Creator's praise.\n  WARWICK. What answers Clarence to his sovereign's will?\n  CLARENCE. That he consents, if Warwick yield consent,\n    For on thy fortune I repose myself.\n  WARWICK. Why, then, though loath, yet must I be content.\n    We'll yoke together, like a double shadow\n    To Henry's body, and supply his place;\n    I mean, in bearing weight of government,\n    While he enjoys the honour and his ease.\n    And, Clarence, now then it is more than needful\n    Forthwith that Edward be pronounc'd a traitor,\n    And all his lands and goods confiscated.\n  CLARENCE. What else? And that succession be determin'd.\n  WARWICK. Ay, therein Clarence shall not want his part.\n  KING HENRY. But, with the first of all your chief affairs,\n    Let me entreat- for I command no more-\n    That Margaret your Queen and my son Edward\n    Be sent for to return from France with speed;\n    For till I see them here, by doubtful fear\n    My joy of liberty is half eclips'd.\n  CLARENCE. It shall be done, my sovereign, with all speed.\n  KING HENRY. My Lord of Somerset, what youth is that,\n    Of whom you seem to have so tender care?\n  SOMERSET. My liege, it is young Henry, Earl of Richmond.\n  KING HENRY. Come hither, England's hope.\n                                     [Lays his hand on his head]\n    If secret powers\n    Suggest but truth to my divining thoughts,\n    This pretty lad will prove our country's bliss.\n    His looks are full of peaceful majesty;\n    His head by nature fram'd to wear a crown,\n    His hand to wield a sceptre; and himself\n    Likely in time to bless a regal throne.\n    Make much of him, my lords; for this is he\n    Must help you more than you are hurt by me.\n\n                          Enter a POST\n\n  WARWICK. What news, my friend?\n  POST. That Edward is escaped from your brother\n    And fled, as he hears since, to Burgundy.\n  WARWICK. Unsavoury news! But how made he escape?\n  POST. He was convey'd by Richard Duke of Gloucester\n    And the Lord Hastings, who attended him\n    In secret ambush on the forest side\n    And from the Bishop's huntsmen rescu'd him;\n    For hunting was his daily exercise.\n  WARWICK. My brother was too careless of his charge.\n    But let us hence, my sovereign, to provide\n    A salve for any sore that may betide.\n                   Exeunt all but SOMERSET, RICHMOND, and OXFORD\n  SOMERSET. My lord, I like not of this flight of Edward's;\n    For doubtless Burgundy will yield him help,\n    And we shall have more wars befor't be long.\n    As Henry's late presaging prophecy\n    Did glad my heart with hope of this young Richmond,\n    So doth my heart misgive me, in these conflicts,\n    What may befall him to his harm and ours.\n    Therefore, Lord Oxford, to prevent the worst,\n    Forthwith we'll send him hence to Brittany,\n    Till storms be past of civil enmity.\n  OXFORD. Ay, for if Edward repossess the crown,\n    'Tis like that Richmond with the rest shall down.\n  SOMERSET. It shall be so; he shall to Brittany.\n    Come therefore, let's about it speedily.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nBefore York\n\nFlourish. Enter KING EDWARD, GLOUCESTER, HASTINGS, and soldiers\n\n  KING EDWARD. Now, brother Richard, Lord Hastings, and the rest,\n    Yet thus far fortune maketh us amends,\n    And says that once more I shall interchange\n    My waned state for Henry's regal crown.\n    Well have we pass'd and now repass'd the seas,\n    And brought desired help from Burgundy;\n    What then remains, we being thus arriv'd\n    From Ravenspurgh haven before the gates of York,\n    But that we enter, as into our dukedom?\n  GLOUCESTER. The gates made fast! Brother, I like not this;\n    For many men that stumble at the threshold\n    Are well foretold that danger lurks within.\n  KING EDWARD. Tush, man, abodements must not now affright us.\n    By fair or foul means we must enter in,\n    For hither will our friends repair to us.\n  HASTINGS. My liege, I'll knock once more to summon them.\n\n         Enter, on the walls, the MAYOR OF YORK and\n                       his BRETHREN\n\n  MAYOR. My lords, we were forewarned of your coming\n    And shut the gates for safety of ourselves,\n    For now we owe allegiance unto Henry.\n  KING EDWARD. But, Master Mayor, if Henry be your King,\n    Yet Edward at the least is Duke of York.\n  MAYOR. True, my good lord; I know you for no less.\n  KING EDWARD. Why, and I challenge nothing but my dukedom,\n    As being well content with that alone.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] But when the fox hath once got in his nose,\n    He'll soon find means to make the body follow.\n  HASTINGS. Why, Master Mayor, why stand you in a doubt?\n    Open the gates; we are King Henry's friends.\n  MAYOR. Ay, say you so? The gates shall then be open'd.\n                                                   [He descends]\n  GLOUCESTER. A wise stout captain, and soon persuaded!\n  HASTINGS. The good old man would fain that all were well,\n    So 'twere not long of him; but being ent'red,\n    I doubt not, I, but we shall soon persuade\n    Both him and all his brothers unto reason.\n\n             Enter, below, the MAYOR and two ALDERMEN\n\n  KING EDWARD. So, Master Mayor. These gates must not be shut\n    But in the night or in the time of war.\n    What! fear not, man, but yield me up the keys;\n                                                [Takes his keys]\n    For Edward will defend the town and thee,\n    And all those friends that deign to follow me.\n\n           March. Enter MONTGOMERY with drum and soldiers\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Brother, this is Sir John Montgomery,\n    Our trusty friend, unless I be deceiv'd.\n  KING EDWARD. Welcome, Sir john! But why come you in arms?\n  MONTGOMERY. To help King Edward in his time of storm,\n    As every loyal subject ought to do.\n  KING EDWARD. Thanks, good Montgomery; but we now forget\n    Our title to the crown, and only claim\n    Our dukedom till God please to send the rest.\n  MONTGOMERY. Then fare you well, for I will hence again.\n    I came to serve a king and not a duke.\n    Drummer, strike up, and let us march away.\n                                      [The drum begins to march]\n  KING EDWARD. Nay, stay, Sir John, a while, and we'll debate\n    By what safe means the crown may be recover'd.\n  MONTGOMERY. What talk you of debating? In few words:\n    If you'll not here proclaim yourself our King,\n    I'll leave you to your fortune and be gone\n    To keep them back that come to succour you.\n    Why shall we fight, if you pretend no title?\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, brother, wherefore stand you on nice points?\n  KING EDWARD. When we grow stronger, then we'll make our claim;\n    Till then 'tis wisdom to conceal our meaning.\n  HASTINGS. Away with scrupulous wit! Now arms must rule.\n  GLOUCESTER. And fearless minds climb soonest unto crowns.\n    Brother, we will proclaim you out of hand;\n    The bruit thereof will bring you many friends.\n  KING EDWARD. Then be it as you will; for 'tis my right,\n    And Henry but usurps the diadem.\n  MONTGOMERY. Ay, now my sovereign speaketh like himself;\n    And now will I be Edward's champion.\n  HASTINGS. Sound trumpet; Edward shall be here proclaim'd.\n    Come, fellow soldier, make thou proclamation.\n                                   [Gives him a paper. Flourish]\n  SOLDIER. [Reads] 'Edward the Fourth, by the grace of God,\n    King of England and France, and Lord of Ireland, &c.'\n  MONTGOMERY. And whoso'er gainsays King Edward's right,\n    By this I challenge him to single fight.\n                                          [Throws down gauntlet]\n  ALL. Long live Edward the Fourth!\n  KING EDWARD. Thanks, brave Montgomery, and thanks unto you all;\n    If fortune serve me, I'll requite this kindness.\n    Now for this night let's harbour here in York;\n    And when the morning sun shall raise his car\n    Above the border of this horizon,\n    We'll forward towards Warwick and his mates;\n    For well I wot that Henry is no soldier.\n    Ah, froward Clarence, how evil it beseems the\n    To flatter Henry and forsake thy brother!\n    Yet, as we may, we'll meet both thee and Warwick.\n    Come on, brave soldiers; doubt not of the day,\n    And, that once gotten, doubt not of large pay.        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VIII.\nLondon. The palace\n\nFlourish. Enter KING HENRY, WARWICK, MONTAGUE, CLARENCE, OXFORD, and EXETER\n\n  WARWICK. What counsel, lords? Edward from Belgia,\n    With hasty Germans and blunt Hollanders,\n    Hath pass'd in safety through the narrow seas\n    And with his troops doth march amain to London;\n    And many giddy people flock to him.\n  KING HENRY. Let's levy men and beat him back again.\n  CLARENCE. A little fire is quickly trodden out,\n    Which, being suffer'd, rivers cannot quench.\n  WARWICK. In Warwickshire I have true-hearted friends,\n    Not mutinous in peace, yet bold in war;\n    Those will I muster up, and thou, son Clarence,\n    Shalt stir up in Suffolk, Norfolk, and in Kent,\n    The knights and gentlemen to come with thee.\n    Thou, brother Montague, in Buckingham,\n    Northampton, and in Leicestershire, shalt find\n    Men well inclin'd to hear what thou command'st.\n    And thou, brave Oxford, wondrous well belov'd,\n    In Oxfordshire shalt muster up thy friends.\n    My sovereign, with the loving citizens,\n    Like to his island girt in with the ocean\n    Or modest Dian circled with her nymphs,\n    Shall rest in London till we come to him.\n    Fair lords, take leave and stand not to reply.\n    Farewell, my sovereign.\n  KING HENRY. Farewell, my Hector and my Troy's true hope.\n  CLARENCE. In sign of truth, I kiss your Highness' hand.\n  KING HENRY. Well-minded Clarence, be thou fortunate!\n  MONTAGUE. Comfort, my lord; and so I take my leave.\n  OXFORD. [Kissing the KING'S band] And thus I seal my truth and bid\n    adieu.\n  KING HENRY. Sweet Oxford, and my loving Montague,\n    And all at once, once more a happy farewell.\n  WARWICK. Farewell, sweet lords; let's meet at Coventry.\n                              Exeunt all but the KING and EXETER\n  KING HENRY. Here at the palace will I rest a while.\n    Cousin of Exeter, what thinks your lordship?\n    Methinks the power that Edward hath in field\n    Should not be able to encounter mine.\n  EXETER. The doubt is that he will seduce the rest.\n  KING HENRY. That's not my fear; my meed hath got me fame:\n    I have not stopp'd mine ears to their demands,\n    Nor posted off their suits with slow delays;\n    My pity hath been balm to heal their wounds,\n    My mildness hath allay'd their swelling griefs,\n    My mercy dried their water-flowing tears;\n    I have not been desirous of their wealth,\n    Nor much oppress'd them with great subsidies,\n    Nor forward of revenge, though they much err'd.\n    Then why should they love Edward more than me?\n    No, Exeter, these graces challenge grace;\n    And, when the lion fawns upon the lamb,\n    The lamb will never cease to follow him.\n                      [Shout within 'A Lancaster! A Lancaster!']\n  EXETER. Hark, hark, my lord! What shouts are these?\n\n            Enter KING EDWARD, GLOUCESTER, and soldiers\n\n  KING EDWARD. Seize on the shame-fac'd Henry, bear him hence;\n    And once again proclaim us King of England.\n    You are the fount that makes small brooks to flow.\n    Now stops thy spring; my sea shall suck them dry,\n    And swell so much the higher by their ebb.\n    Hence with him to the Tower: let him not speak.\n                                     Exeunt some with KING HENRY\n    And, lords, towards Coventry bend we our course,\n    Where peremptory Warwick now remains.\n    The sun shines hot; and, if we use delay,\n    Cold biting winter mars our hop'd-for hay.\n  GLOUCESTER. Away betimes, before his forces join,\n    And take the great-grown traitor unawares.\n    Brave warriors, march amain towards Coventry.         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nCoventry\n\nEnter WARWICK, the MAYOR OF COVENTRY, two MESSENGERS,\nand others upon the walls\n\n  WARWICK. Where is the post that came from valiant Oxford?\n    How far hence is thy lord, mine honest fellow?\n  FIRST MESSENGER. By this at Dunsmore, marching hitherward.\n  WARWICK. How far off is our brother Montague?\n    Where is the post that came from Montague?\n  SECOND MESSENGER. By this at Daintry, with a puissant troop.\n\n                   Enter SIR JOHN SOMERVILLE\n\n  WARWICK. Say, Somerville, what says my loving son?\n    And by thy guess how nigh is Clarence now?\n  SOMERVILLE. At Southam I did leave him with his forces,\n    And do expect him here some two hours hence.\n                                                    [Drum heard]\n  WARWICK. Then Clarence is at hand; I hear his drum.\n  SOMERVILLE. It is not his, my lord; here Southam lies.\n    The drum your Honour hears marcheth from Warwick.\n  WARWICK. Who should that be? Belike unlook'd for friends.\n  SOMERVILLE. They are at hand, and you shall quickly know.\n\n        March. Flourish. Enter KING EDWARD, GLOUCESTER,\n                         and soldiers\n\n  KING EDWARD. Go, trumpet, to the walls, and sound a parle.\n  GLOUCESTER. See how the surly Warwick mans the wall.\n  WARWICK. O unbid spite! Is sportful Edward come?\n    Where slept our scouts or how are they seduc'd\n    That we could hear no news of his repair?\n  KING EDWARD. Now, Warwick, wilt thou ope the city gates,\n    Speak gentle words, and humbly bend thy knee,\n    Call Edward King, and at his hands beg mercy?\n    And he shall pardon thee these outrages.\n  WARWICK. Nay, rather, wilt thou draw thy forces hence,\n    Confess who set thee up and pluck'd thee down,\n    Call Warwick patron, and be penitent?\n    And thou shalt still remain the Duke of York.\n  GLOUCESTER. I thought, at least, he would have said the King;\n    Or did he make the jest against his will?\n  WARWICK. Is not a dukedom, sir, a goodly gift?\n  GLOUCESTER. Ay, by my faith, for a poor earl to give.\n    I'll do thee service for so good a gift.\n  WARWICK. 'Twas I that gave the kingdom to thy brother.\n  KING EDWARD. Why then 'tis mine, if but by Warwick's gift.\n  WARWICK. Thou art no Atlas for so great a weight;\n    And, weakling, Warwick takes his gift again;\n    And Henry is my King, Warwick his subject.\n  KING EDWARD. But Warwick's king is Edward's prisoner.\n    And, gallant Warwick, do but answer this:\n    What is the body when the head is off?\n  GLOUCESTER. Alas, that Warwick had no more forecast,\n    But, whiles he thought to steal the single ten,\n    The king was slily finger'd from the deck!\n    You left poor Henry at the Bishop's palace,\n    And ten to one you'll meet him in the Tower.\n  KING EDWARD. 'Tis even so; yet you are Warwick still.\n  GLOUCESTER. Come, Warwick, take the time; kneel down, kneel down.\n    Nay, when? Strike now, or else the iron cools.\n  WARWICK. I had rather chop this hand off at a blow,\n    And with the other fling it at thy face,\n    Than bear so low a sail to strike to thee.\n  KING EDWARD. Sail how thou canst, have wind and tide thy friend,\n    This hand, fast wound about thy coal-black hair,\n    Shall, whiles thy head is warm and new cut off,\n    Write in the dust this sentence with thy blood:\n    'Wind-changing Warwick now can change no more.'\n\n               Enter OXFORD, with drum and colours\n\n  WARWICK. O cheerful colours! See where Oxford comes.\n  OXFORD. Oxford, Oxford, for Lancaster!\n                              [He and his forces enter the city]\n  GLOUCESTER. The gates are open, let us enter too.\n  KING EDWARD. So other foes may set upon our backs.\n    Stand we in good array, for they no doubt\n    Will issue out again and bid us battle;\n    If not, the city being but of small defence,\n    We'll quietly rouse the traitors in the same.\n  WARWICK. O, welcome, Oxford! for we want thy help.\n\n             Enter MONTAGUE, with drum and colours\n\n  MONTAGUE. Montague, Montague, for Lancaster!\n                              [He and his forces enter the city]\n  GLOUCESTER. Thou and thy brother both shall buy this treason\n    Even with the dearest blood your bodies bear.\n  KING EDWARD. The harder match'd, the greater victory.\n    My mind presageth happy gain and conquest.\n\n             Enter SOMERSET, with drum and colours\n\n  SOMERSET. Somerset, Somerset, for Lancaster!\n                              [He and his forces enter the city]\n  GLOUCESTER. Two of thy name, both Dukes of Somerset,\n    Have sold their lives unto the house of York;\n    And thou shalt be the third, if this sword hold.\n\n             Enter CLARENCE, with drum and colours\n\n  WARWICK. And lo where George of Clarence sweeps along,\n    Of force enough to bid his brother battle;\n    With whom an upright zeal to right prevails\n    More than the nature of a brother's love.\n  CLARENCE. Clarence, Clarence, for Lancaster!\n  KING EDWARD. Et tu Brute- wilt thou stab Caesar too?\n    A parley, sirrah, to George of Clarence.\n                  [Sound a parley. RICHARD and CLARENCE whisper]\n  WARWICK. Come, Clarence, come. Thou wilt if Warwick call.\n  CLARENCE. [Taking the red rose from his hat and throwing\n      it at WARWICK]\n    Father of Warwick, know you what this means?\n    Look here, I throw my infamy at thee.\n    I will not ruinate my father's house,\n    Who gave his blood to lime the stones together,\n    And set up Lancaster. Why, trowest thou, Warwick,\n    That Clarence is so harsh, so blunt, unnatural,\n    To bend the fatal instruments of war\n    Against his brother and his lawful King?\n    Perhaps thou wilt object my holy oath.\n    To keep that oath were more impiety\n    Than Jephtha when he sacrific'd his daughter.\n    I am so sorry for my trespass made\n    That, to deserve well at my brother's hands,\n    I here proclaim myself thy mortal foe;\n    With resolution whereso'er I meet thee-\n    As I will meet thee, if thou stir abroad-\n    To plague thee for thy foul misleading me.\n    And so, proud-hearted Warwick, I defy thee,\n    And to my brother turn my blushing cheeks.\n    Pardon me, Edward, I will make amends;\n    And, Richard, do not frown upon my faults,\n    For I will henceforth be no more unconstant.\n  KING EDWARD. Now welcome more, and ten times more belov'd,\n    Than if thou never hadst deserv'd our hate.\n  GLOUCESTER. Welcome, good Clarence; this is brother-like.\n  WARWICK. O passing traitor, perjur'd and unjust!\n  KING EDWARD. What, Warwick, wilt thou leave die town and fight?\n    Or shall we beat the stones about thine ears?\n  WARWICK. Alas, I am not coop'd here for defence!\n    I will away towards Barnet presently\n    And bid thee battle, Edward, if thou dar'st.\n  KING EDWARD. Yes, Warwick, Edward dares and leads the way.\n    Lords, to the field; Saint George and victory!\n                                                 Exeunt YORKISTS\n                         [March. WARWICK and his company follow]\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA field of battle near Barnet\n\nAlarum and excursions. Enter KING EDWARD, bringing forth WARWICK, wounded\n\n  KING EDWARD. So, lie thou there. Die thou, and die our fear;\n    For Warwick was a bug that fear'd us all.\n    Now, Montague, sit fast; I seek for thee,\n    That Warwick's bones may keep thine company.            Exit\n  WARWICK. Ah, who is nigh? Come to me, friend or foe,\n    And tell me who is victor, York or Warwick?\n    Why ask I that? My mangled body shows,\n    My blood, my want of strength, my sick heart shows,\n    That I must yield my body to the earth\n    And, by my fall, the conquest to my foe.\n    Thus yields the cedar to the axe's edge,\n    Whose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle,\n    Under whose shade the ramping lion slept,\n    Whose top-branch overpeer'd Jove's spreading tree\n    And kept low shrubs from winter's pow'rful wind.\n    These eyes, that now are dimm'd with death's black veil,\n    Have been as piercing as the mid-day sun\n    To search the secret treasons of the world;\n    The wrinkles in my brows, now fill'd with blood,\n    Were lik'ned oft to kingly sepulchres;\n    For who liv'd King, but I could dig his grave?\n    And who durst smile when Warwick bent his brow?\n    Lo now my glory smear'd in dust and blood!\n    My parks, my walks, my manors, that I had,\n    Even now forsake me; and of all my lands\n    Is nothing left me but my body's length.\n    what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust?\n    And live we how we can, yet die we must.\n\n                  Enter OXFORD and SOMERSET\n\n  SOMERSET. Ah, Warwick, Warwick! wert thou as we are,\n    We might recover all our loss again.\n    The Queen from France hath brought a puissant power;\n    Even now we heard the news. Ah, couldst thou fly!\n  WARWICK. Why then, I would not fly. Ah, Montague,\n    If thou be there, sweet brother, take my hand,\n    And with thy lips keep in my soul a while!\n    Thou lov'st me not; for, brother, if thou didst,\n    Thy tears would wash this cold congealed blood\n    That glues my lips and will not let me speak.\n    Come quickly, Montague, or I am dead.\n  SOMERSET. Ah, Warwick! Montague hath breath'd his last;\n    And to the latest gasp cried out for Warwick,\n    And said 'Commend me to my valiant brother.'\n    And more he would have said; and more he spoke,\n    Which sounded like a clamour in a vault,\n    That mought not be distinguish'd; but at last,\n    I well might hear, delivered with a groan,\n    'O farewell, Warwick!'\n  WARWICK. Sweet rest his soul! Fly, lords, and save yourselves:\n    For Warwick bids you all farewell, to meet in heaven.\n                                                          [Dies]\n  OXFORD. Away, away, to meet the Queen's great power!\n                                  [Here they bear away his body]\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nAnother part of the field\n\nFlourish. Enter KING in triumph; with GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, and the rest\n\n  KING EDWARD. Thus far our fortune keeps an upward course,\n    And we are grac'd with wreaths of victory.\n    But in the midst of this bright-shining day\n    I spy a black, suspicious, threat'ning cloud\n    That will encounter with our glorious sun\n    Ere he attain his easeful western bed-\n    I mean, my lords, those powers that the Queen\n    Hath rais'd in Gallia have arriv'd our coast\n    And, as we hear, march on to fight with us.\n  CLARENCE. A little gale will soon disperse that cloud\n    And blow it to the source from whence it came;\n    Thy very beams will dry those vapours up,\n    For every cloud engenders not a storm.\n  GLOUCESTER. The Queen is valued thirty thousand strong,\n    And Somerset, with Oxford, fled to her.\n    If she have time to breathe, be well assur'd\n    Her faction will be full as strong as ours.\n  KING EDWARD. are advertis'd by our loving friends\n    That they do hold their course toward Tewksbury;\n    We, having now the best at Barnet field,\n    Will thither straight, for willingness rids way;\n    And as we march our strength will be augmented\n    In every county as we go along.\n    Strike up the drum; cry 'Courage!' and away.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nPlains wear Tewksbury\n\nFlourish. March. Enter QUEEN MARGARET, PRINCE EDWARD, SOMERSET, OXFORD,\nand SOLDIERS\n\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Great lords, wise men ne'er sit and wail their\n      loss,\n    But cheerly seek how to redress their harms.\n    What though the mast be now blown overboard,\n    The cable broke, the holding-anchor lost,\n    And half our sailors swallow'd in the flood;\n    Yet lives our pilot still. Is't meet that he\n    Should leave the helm and, like a fearful lad,\n    With tearful eyes add water to the sea\n    And give more strength to that which hath too much;\n    Whiles, in his moan, the ship splits on the rock,\n    Which industry and courage might have sav'd?\n    Ah, what a shame! ah, what a fault were this!\n    Say Warwick was our anchor; what of that?\n    And Montague our top-mast; what of him?\n    Our slaught'red friends the tackles; what of these?\n    Why, is not Oxford here another anchor?\n    And Somerset another goodly mast?\n    The friends of France our shrouds and tacklings?\n    And, though unskilful, why not Ned and I\n    For once allow'd the skilful pilot's charge?\n    We will not from the helm to sit and weep,\n    But keep our course, though the rough wind say no,\n    From shelves and rocks that threaten us with wreck,\n    As good to chide the waves as speak them fair.\n    And what is Edward but a ruthless sea?\n    What Clarence but a quicksand of deceit?\n    And Richard but a ragged fatal rock?\n    All these the enemies to our poor bark.\n    Say you can swim; alas, 'tis but a while!\n    Tread on the sand; why, there you quickly sink.\n    Bestride the rock; the tide will wash you off,\n    Or else you famish- that's a threefold death.\n    This speak I, lords, to let you understand,\n    If case some one of you would fly from us,\n    That there's no hop'd-for mercy with the brothers\n    More than with ruthless waves, with sands, and rocks.\n    Why, courage then! What cannot be avoided\n    'Twere childish weakness to lament or fear.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. Methinks a woman of this valiant spirit\n    Should, if a coward hear her speak these words,\n    Infuse his breast with magnanimity\n    And make him naked foil a man-at-arms.\n    I speak not this as doubting any here;\n    For did I but suspect a fearful man,\n    He should have leave to go away betimes,\n    Lest in our need he might infect another\n    And make him of the like spirit to himself.\n    If any such be here- as God forbid!-\n    Let him depart before we need his help.\n  OXFORD. Women and children of so high a courage,\n    And warriors faint! Why, 'twere perpetual shame.\n    O brave young Prince! thy famous grandfather\n    Doth live again in thee. Long mayst thou Eve\n    To bear his image and renew his glories!\n  SOMERSET. And he that will not fight for such a hope,\n    Go home to bed and, like the owl by day,\n    If he arise, be mock'd and wond'red at.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Thanks, gentle Somerset; sweet Oxford, thanks.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. And take his thanks that yet hath nothing else.\n\n                        Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. Prepare you, lords, for Edward is at hand\n    Ready to fight; therefore be resolute.\n  OXFORD. I thought no less. It is his policy\n    To haste thus fast, to find us unprovided.\n  SOMERSET. But he's deceiv'd; we are in readiness.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. This cheers my heart, to see your forwardness.\n  OXFORD. Here pitch our battle; hence we will not budge.\n\n      Flourish and march. Enter, at a distance, KING EDWARD,\n               GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, and soldiers\n\n  KING EDWARD. Brave followers, yonder stands the thorny wood\n    Which, by the heavens' assistance and your strength,\n    Must by the roots be hewn up yet ere night.\n    I need not add more fuel to your fire,\n    For well I wot ye blaze to burn them out.\n    Give signal to the fight, and to it, lords.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Lords, knights, and gentlemen, what I should say\n    My tears gainsay; for every word I speak,\n    Ye see, I drink the water of my eye.\n    Therefore, no more but this: Henry, your sovereign,\n    Is prisoner to the foe; his state usurp'd,\n    His realm a slaughter-house, his subjects slain,\n    His statutes cancell'd, and his treasure spent;\n    And yonder is the wolf that makes this spoil.\n    You fight in justice. Then, in God's name, lords,\n    Be valiant, and give signal to the fight.\n                             Alarum, retreat, excursions. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nAnother part of the field\n\nFlourish. Enter KING EDWARD, GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, and forces,\nWith QUEEN MARGARET, OXFORD, and SOMERSET, prisoners\n\n  KING EDWARD. Now here a period of tumultuous broils.\n    Away with Oxford to Hames Castle straight;\n    For Somerset, off with his guilty head.\n    Go, bear them hence; I will not hear them speak.\n  OXFORD. For my part, I'll not trouble thee with words.\n  SOMERSET. Nor I, but stoop with patience to my fortune.\n                             Exeunt OXFORD and SOMERSET, guarded\n  QUEEN MARGARET. So part we sadly in this troublous world,\n    To meet with joy in sweet Jerusalem.\n  KING EDWARD. Is proclamation made that who finds Edward\n    Shall have a high reward, and he his life?\n  GLOUCESTER. It is; and lo where youthful Edward comes.\n\n                Enter soldiers, with PRINCE EDWARD\n\n  KING EDWARD. Bring forth the gallant; let us hear him speak.\n    What, can so young a man begin to prick?\n    Edward, what satisfaction canst thou make\n    For bearing arms, for stirring up my subjects,\n    And all the trouble thou hast turn'd me to?\n  PRINCE OF WALES. Speak like a subject, proud ambitious York.\n    Suppose that I am now my father's mouth;\n    Resign thy chair, and where I stand kneel thou,\n    Whilst I propose the self-same words to the\n    Which, traitor, thou wouldst have me answer to.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Ah, that thy father had been so resolv'd!\n  GLOUCESTER. That you might still have worn the petticoat\n    And ne'er have stol'n the breech from Lancaster.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. Let Aesop fable in a winter's night;\n    His currish riddle sorts not with this place.\n  GLOUCESTER. By heaven, brat, I'll plague ye for that word.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, thou wast born to be a plague to men.\n  GLOUCESTER. For God's sake, take away this captive scold.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. Nay, take away this scolding crookback rather.\n  KING EDWARD. Peace, wilful boy, or I will charm your tongue.\n  CLARENCE. Untutor'd lad, thou art too malapert.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. I know my duty; you are all undutiful.\n    Lascivious Edward, and thou perjur'd George,\n    And thou misshapen Dick, I tell ye all\n    I am your better, traitors as ye are;\n    And thou usurp'st my father's right and mine.\n  KING EDWARD. Take that, the likeness of this railer here.\n                                                     [Stabs him]\n  GLOUCESTER. Sprawl'st thou? Take that, to end thy agony.\n                                                     [Stabs him]\n  CLARENCE. And there's for twitting me with perjury.\n                                                     [Stabs him]\n  QUEEN MARGARET. O, kill me too!\n  GLOUCESTER. Marry, and shall.             [Offers to kill her]\n  KING EDWARD. Hold, Richard, hold; for we have done to much.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why should she live to fill the world with words?\n  KING EDWARD. What, doth she swoon? Use means for her recovery.\n  GLOUCESTER. Clarence, excuse me to the King my brother.\n    I'll hence to London on a serious matter;\n    Ere ye come there, be sure to hear some news.\n  CLARENCE. What? what?\n  GLOUCESTER. The Tower! the Tower!                         Exit\n  QUEEN MARGARET. O Ned, sweet Ned, speak to thy mother, boy!\n    Canst thou not speak? O traitors! murderers!\n    They that stabb'd Caesar shed no blood at all,\n    Did not offend, nor were not worthy blame,\n    If this foul deed were by to equal it.\n    He was a man: this, in respect, a child;\n    And men ne'er spend their fury on a child.\n    What's worse than murderer, that I may name it?\n    No, no, my heart will burst, an if I speak-\n    And I will speak, that so my heart may burst.\n    Butchers and villains! bloody cannibals!\n    How sweet a plant have you untimely cropp'd!\n    You have no children, butchers, if you had,\n    The thought of them would have stirr'd up remorse.\n    But if you ever chance to have a child,\n    Look in his youth to have him so cut off\n    As, deathsmen, you have rid this sweet young prince!\n  KING EDWARD. Away with her; go, bear her hence perforce.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Nay, never bear me hence; dispatch me here.\n    Here sheathe thy sword; I'll pardon thee my death.\n    What, wilt thou not? Then, Clarence, do it thou.\n  CLARENCE. By heaven, I will not do thee so much ease.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Good Clarence, do; sweet Clarence, do thou do it.\n  CLARENCE. Didst thou not hear me swear I would not do it?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, but thou usest to forswear thyself.\n    'Twas sin before, but now 'tis charity.\n    What! wilt thou not? Where is that devil's butcher,\n    Hard-favour'd Richard? Richard, where art thou?\n    Thou art not here. Murder is thy alms-deed;\n    Petitioners for blood thou ne'er put'st back.\n  KING EDWARD. Away, I say; I charge ye bear her hence.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. So come to you and yours as to this prince.\n                                          Exit, led out forcibly\n  KING EDWARD. Where's Richard gone?\n  CLARENCE. To London, all in post; and, as I guess,\n    To make a bloody supper in the Tower.\n  KING EDWARD. He's sudden, if a thing comes in his head.\n    Now march we hence. Discharge the common sort\n    With pay and thanks; and let's away to London\n    And see our gentle queen how well she fares.\n    By this, I hope, she hath a son for me.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nLondon. The Tower\n\nEnter KING HENRY and GLOUCESTER with the LIEUTENANT, on the walls\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Good day, my lord. What, at your book so hard?\n  KING HENRY. Ay, my good lord- my lord, I should say rather.\n    'Tis sin to flatter; 'good' was little better.\n    'Good Gloucester' and 'good devil' were alike,\n    And both preposterous; therefore, not 'good lord.'\n  GLOUCESTER. Sirrah, leave us to ourselves; we must confer.\n                                                 Exit LIEUTENANT\n  KING HENRY. So flies the reckless shepherd from the wolf;\n    So first the harmless sheep doth yield his fleece,\n    And next his throat unto the butcher's knife.\n    What scene of death hath Roscius now to act?\n  GLOUCESTER. Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind:\n    The thief doth fear each bush an officer.\n  KING HENRY. The bird that hath been limed in a bush\n    With trembling wings misdoubteth every bush;\n    And I, the hapless male to one sweet bird,\n    Have now the fatal object in my eye\n    Where my poor young was lim'd, was caught, and kill'd.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, what a peevish fool was that of Crete\n    That taught his son the office of a fowl!\n    And yet, for all his wings, the fool was drown'd.\n  KING HENRY. I, Daedalus; my poor boy, Icarus;\n    Thy father, Minos, that denied our course;\n    The sun that sear'd the wings of my sweet boy,\n    Thy brother Edward; and thyself, the sea\n    Whose envious gulf did swallow up his life.\n    Ah, kill me with thy weapon, not with words!\n    My breast can better brook thy dagger's point\n    Than can my ears that tragic history.\n    But wherefore dost thou come? Is't for my life?\n  GLOUCESTER. Think'st thou I am an executioner?\n  KING HENRY. A persecutor I am sure thou art.\n    If murdering innocents be executing,\n    Why, then thou are an executioner.\n  GLOUCESTER. Thy son I kill'd for his presumption.\n  KING HENRY. Hadst thou been kill'd when first thou didst presume,\n    Thou hadst not liv'd to kill a son of mine.\n    And thus I prophesy, that many a thousand\n    Which now mistrust no parcel of my fear,\n    And many an old man's sigh, and many a widow's,\n    And many an orphan's water-standing eye-\n    Men for their sons, wives for their husbands,\n    Orphans for their parents' timeless death-\n    Shall rue the hour that ever thou wast born.\n    The owl shriek'd at thy birth- an evil sign;\n    The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time;\n    Dogs howl'd, and hideous tempest shook down trees;\n    The raven rook'd her on the chimney's top,\n    And chatt'ring pies in dismal discords sung;\n    Thy mother felt more than a mother's pain,\n    And yet brought forth less than a mother's hope,\n    To wit, an indigest deformed lump,\n    Not like the fruit of such a goodly tree.\n    Teeth hadst thou in thy head when thou wast born,\n    To signify thou cam'st to bite the world;\n    And if the rest be true which I have heard,\n    Thou cam'st-\n  GLOUCESTER. I'll hear no more. Die, prophet, in thy speech.\n                                                     [Stabs him]\n    For this, amongst the rest, was I ordain'd.\n  KING HENRY. Ay, and for much more slaughter after this.\n    O, God forgive my sins and pardon thee!               [Dies]\n  GLOUCESTER. What, will the aspiring blood of Lancaster\n    Sink in the ground? I thought it would have mounted.\n    See how my sword weeps for the poor King's death.\n    O, may such purple tears be always shed\n    From those that wish the downfall of our house!\n    If any spark of life be yet remaining,\n    Down, down to hell; and say I sent thee thither-\n                                               [Stabs him again]\n    I, that have neither pity, love, nor fear.\n    Indeed, 'tis true that Henry told me of;\n    For I have often heard my mother say\n    I came into the world with my legs forward.\n    Had I not reason, think ye, to make haste\n    And seek their ruin that usurp'd our right?\n    The midwife wonder'd; and the women cried\n    'O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!'\n    And so I was, which plainly signified\n    That I should snarl, and bite, and play the dog.\n    Then, since the heavens have shap'd my body so,\n    Let hell make crook'd my mind to answer it.\n    I have no brother, I am like no brother;\n    And this word 'love,' which greybeards call divine,\n    Be resident in men like one another,\n    And not in me! I am myself alone.\n    Clarence, beware; thou keep'st me from the light,\n    But I will sort a pitchy day for thee;\n    For I will buzz abroad such prophecies\n    That Edward shall be fearful of his life;\n    And then to purge his fear, I'll be thy death.\n    King Henry and the Prince his son are gone.\n    Clarence, thy turn is next, and then the rest;\n    Counting myself but bad till I be best.\n    I'll throw thy body in another room,\n    And triumph, Henry, in thy day of doom.\n                                              Exit with the body\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nLondon. The palace\n\nFlourish. Enter KING EDWARD, QUEEN ELIZABETH, CLARENCE, GLOUCESTER,\nHASTINGS, NURSE, with the Young PRINCE, and attendants\n\n  KING EDWARD. Once more we sit in England's royal throne,\n    Repurchas'd with the blood of enemies.\n    What valiant foemen, like to autumn's corn,\n    Have we mow'd down in tops of all their pride!\n    Three Dukes of Somerset, threefold renown'd\n    For hardy and undoubted champions;\n    Two Cliffords, as the father and the son;\n    And two Northumberlands- two braver men\n    Ne'er spurr'd their coursers at the trumpet's sound;\n    With them the two brave bears, Warwick and Montague,\n    That in their chains fetter'd the kingly lion\n    And made the forest tremble when they roar'd.\n    Thus have we swept suspicion from our seat\n    And made our footstool of security.\n    Come hither, Bess, and let me kiss my boy.\n    Young Ned, for thee thine uncles and myself\n    Have in our armours watch'd the winter's night,\n    Went all afoot in summer's scalding heat,\n    That thou might'st repossess the crown in peace;\n    And of our labours thou shalt reap the gain.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] I'll blast his harvest if your head were laid;\n    For yet I am not look'd on in the world.\n    This shoulder was ordain'd so thick to heave;\n    And heave it shall some weight or break my back.\n    Work thou the way- and that shall execute.\n  KING EDWARD. Clarence and Gloucester, love my lovely queen;\n    And kiss your princely nephew, brothers both.\n  CLARENCE. The duty that I owe unto your Majesty\n    I seal upon the lips of this sweet babe.\n  KING EDWARD. Thanks, noble Clarence; worthy brother, thanks.\n  GLOUCESTER. And that I love the tree from whence thou sprang'st,\n    Witness the loving kiss I give the fruit.\n    [Aside] To say the truth, so Judas kiss'd his master\n    And cried 'All hail!' when as he meant all harm.\n  KING EDWARD. Now am I seated as my soul delights,\n    Having my country's peace and brothers' loves.\n  CLARENCE. What will your Grace have done with Margaret?\n    Reignier, her father, to the King of France\n    Hath pawn'd the Sicils and Jerusalem,\n    And hither have they sent it for her ransom.\n  KING EDWARD. Away with her, and waft her hence to France.\n    And now what rests but that we spend the time\n    With stately triumphs, mirthful comic shows,\n    Such as befits the pleasure of the court?\n    Sound drums and trumpets. Farewell, sour annoy!\n    For here, I hope, begins our lasting joy.             Exeunt\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1611\n\nKING HENRY THE EIGHTH\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  KING HENRY THE EIGHTH\n  CARDINAL WOLSEY               CARDINAL CAMPEIUS\n  CAPUCIUS, Ambassador from the Emperor Charles V\n  CRANMER, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY\n  DUKE OF NORFOLK               DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM\n  DUKE OF SUFFOLK               EARL OF SURREY\n  LORD CHAMBERLAIN              LORD CHANCELLOR\n  GARDINER, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER\n  BISHOP OF LINCOLN             LORD ABERGAVENNY\n  LORD SANDYS                   SIR HENRY GUILDFORD\n  SIR THOMAS LOVELL             SIR ANTHONY DENNY\n  SIR NICHOLAS VAUX             SECRETARIES to Wolsey\n  CROMWELL, servant to Wolsey\n  GRIFFITH, gentleman-usher to Queen Katharine\n  THREE GENTLEMEN\n  DOCTOR BUTTS, physician to the King\n  GARTER KING-AT-ARMS\n  SURVEYOR to the Duke of Buckingham\n  BRANDON, and a SERGEANT-AT-ARMS\n  DOORKEEPER Of the Council chamber\n  PORTER, and his MAN           PAGE to Gardiner\n  A CRIER\n\n  QUEEN KATHARINE, wife to King Henry, afterwards divorced\n  ANNE BULLEN, her Maid of Honour, afterwards Queen\n  AN OLD LADY, friend to Anne Bullen\n  PATIENCE, woman to Queen Katharine\n\n  Lord Mayor, Aldermen, Lords and Ladies in the Dumb\n       Shows; Women attending upon the Queen; Scribes,\n       Officers, Guards, and other Attendants; Spirits\n\n                          SCENE:\n\n              London; Westminster; Kimbolton\n\n\n\n                 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH\n\n                     THE PROLOGUE.\n\n    I come no more to make you laugh; things now\n    That bear a weighty and a serious brow,\n    Sad, high, and working, full of state and woe,\n    Such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow,\n    We now present. Those that can pity here\n    May, if they think it well, let fall a tear:\n    The subject will deserve it. Such as give\n    Their money out of hope they may believe\n    May here find truth too. Those that come to see\n    Only a show or two, and so agree\n    The play may pass, if they be still and willing,\n    I'll undertake may see away their shilling\n    Richly in two short hours. Only they\n    That come to hear a merry bawdy play,\n    A noise of targets, or to see a fellow\n    In a long motley coat guarded with yellow,\n    Will be deceiv'd; for, gentle hearers, know,\n    To rank our chosen truth with such a show\n    As fool and fight is, beside forfeiting\n    Our own brains, and the opinion that we bring\n    To make that only true we now intend,\n    Will leave us never an understanding friend.\n    Therefore, for goodness sake, and as you are known\n    The first and happiest hearers of the town,\n    Be sad, as we would make ye. Think ye see\n    The very persons of our noble story\n    As they were living; think you see them great,\n    And follow'd with the general throng and sweat\n    Of thousand friends; then, in a moment, see\n    How soon this mightiness meets misery.\n    And if you can be merry then, I'll say\n    A man may weep upon his wedding-day.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 1.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter the DUKE OF NORFOLK at one door; at the other,\nthe DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM and the LORD ABERGAVENNY\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. Good morrow, and well met. How have ye done\n    Since last we saw in France?\n  NORFOLK. I thank your Grace,\n    Healthful; and ever since a fresh admirer\n    Of what I saw there.\n  BUCKINGHAM. An untimely ague\n    Stay'd me a prisoner in my chamber when\n    Those suns of glory, those two lights of men,\n    Met in the vale of Andren.\n  NORFOLK. 'Twixt Guynes and Arde-\n    I was then present, saw them salute on horseback;\n    Beheld them, when they lighted, how they clung\n    In their embracement, as they grew together;\n    Which had they, what four thron'd ones could have weigh'd\n    Such a compounded one?\n  BUCKINGHAM. All the whole time\n    I was my chamber's prisoner.\n  NORFOLK. Then you lost\n    The view of earthly glory; men might say,\n    Till this time pomp was single, but now married\n    To one above itself. Each following day\n    Became the next day's master, till the last\n    Made former wonders its. To-day the French,\n    All clinquant, all in gold, like heathen gods,\n    Shone down the English; and to-morrow they\n    Made Britain India: every man that stood\n    Show'd like a mine. Their dwarfish pages were\n    As cherubins, an gilt; the madams too,\n    Not us'd to toil, did almost sweat to bear\n    The pride upon them, that their very labour\n    Was to them as a painting. Now this masque\n    Was cried incomparable; and th' ensuing night\n    Made it a fool and beggar. The two kings,\n    Equal in lustre, were now best, now worst,\n    As presence did present them: him in eye\n    still him in praise; and being present both,\n    'Twas said they saw but one, and no discerner\n    Durst wag his tongue in censure. When these suns-\n    For so they phrase 'em-by their heralds challeng'd\n    The noble spirits to arms, they did perform\n    Beyond thought's compass, that former fabulous story,\n    Being now seen possible enough, got credit,\n    That Bevis was believ'd.\n  BUCKINGHAM. O, you go far!\n  NORFOLK. As I belong to worship, and affect\n    In honour honesty, the tract of ev'rything\n    Would by a good discourser lose some life\n    Which action's self was tongue to. All was royal:\n    To the disposing of it nought rebell'd;\n    Order gave each thing view. The office did\n    Distinctly his full function.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Who did guide-\n    I mean, who set the body and the limbs\n    Of this great sport together, as you guess?\n  NORFOLK. One, certes, that promises no element\n    In such a business.\n  BUCKINGHAM. I pray you, who, my lord?\n  NORFOLK. All this was ord'red by the good discretion\n    Of the right reverend Cardinal of York.\n  BUCKINGHAM. The devil speed him! No man's pie is freed\n    From his ambitious finger. What had he\n    To do in these fierce vanities? I wonder\n    That such a keech can with his very bulk\n    Take up the rays o' th' beneficial sun,\n    And keep it from the earth.\n  NORFOLK. Surely, sir,\n    There's in him stuff that puts him to these ends;\n    For, being not propp'd by ancestry, whose grace\n    Chalks successors their way, nor call'd upon\n    For high feats done to th' crown, neither allied\n    To eminent assistants, but spider-like,\n    Out of his self-drawing web, 'a gives us note\n    The force of his own merit makes his way-\n    A gift that heaven gives for him, which buys\n    A place next to the King.\n  ABERGAVENNY. I cannot tell\n    What heaven hath given him-let some graver eye\n    Pierce into that; but I can see his pride\n    Peep through each part of him. Whence has he that?\n    If not from hell, the devil is a niggard\n    Or has given all before, and he begins\n    A new hell in himself.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Why the devil,\n    Upon this French going out, took he upon him-\n    Without the privity o' th' King-t' appoint\n    Who should attend on him? He makes up the file\n    Of all the gentry; for the most part such\n    To whom as great a charge as little honour\n    He meant to lay upon; and his own letter,\n    The honourable board of council out,\n    Must fetch him in he papers.\n  ABERGAVENNY. I do know\n    Kinsmen of mine, three at the least, that have\n    By this so sicken'd their estates that never\n    They shall abound as formerly.\n  BUCKINGHAM. O, many\n    Have broke their backs with laying manors on 'em\n    For this great journey. What did this vanity\n    But minister communication of\n    A most poor issue?\n  NORFOLK. Grievingly I think\n    The peace between the French and us not values\n    The cost that did conclude it.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Every man,\n    After the hideous storm that follow'd, was\n    A thing inspir'd, and, not consulting, broke\n    Into a general prophecy-that this tempest,\n    Dashing the garment of this peace, aboded\n    The sudden breach on't.\n  NORFOLK. Which is budded out;\n    For France hath flaw'd the league, and hath attach'd\n    Our merchants' goods at Bordeaux.\n  ABERGAVENNY. Is it therefore\n    Th' ambassador is silenc'd?\n  NORFOLK. Marry, is't.\n  ABERGAVENNY. A proper tide of a peace, and purchas'd\n    At a superfluous rate!\n  BUCKINGHAM. Why, all this business\n    Our reverend Cardinal carried.\n  NORFOLK. Like it your Grace,\n    The state takes notice of the private difference\n    Betwixt you and the Cardinal. I advise you-\n    And take it from a heart that wishes towards you\n    Honour and plenteous safety-that you read\n    The Cardinal's malice and his potency\n    Together; to consider further, that\n    What his high hatred would effect wants not\n    A minister in his power. You know his nature,\n    That he's revengeful; and I know his sword\n    Hath a sharp edge-it's long and't may be said\n    It reaches far, and where 'twill not extend,\n    Thither he darts it. Bosom up my counsel\n    You'll find it wholesome. Lo, where comes that rock\n    That I advise your shunning.\n\n      Enter CARDINAL WOLSEY, the purse borne before\n      him, certain of the guard, and two SECRETARIES\n      with papers. The CARDINAL in his passage fixeth his\n      eye on BUCKINGHAM, and BUCKINGHAM on him,\n      both full of disdain\n\n  WOLSEY. The Duke of Buckingham's surveyor? Ha!\n    Where's his examination?\n  SECRETARY. Here, so please you.\n  WOLSEY. Is he in person ready?\n  SECRETARY. Ay, please your Grace.\n  WOLSEY. Well, we shall then know more, and Buckingham\n    shall lessen this big look.\n                                          Exeunt WOLSEY and his train\n  BUCKINGHAM. This butcher's cur is venom-mouth'd, and I\n    Have not the power to muzzle him; therefore best\n    Not wake him in his slumber. A beggar's book\n    Outworths a noble's blood.\n  NORFOLK. What, are you chaf'd?\n    Ask God for temp'rance; that's th' appliance only\n    Which your disease requires.\n  BUCKINGHAM. I read in's looks\n    Matter against me, and his eye revil'd\n    Me as his abject object. At this instant\n    He bores me with some trick. He's gone to th' King;\n    I'll follow, and outstare him.\n  NORFOLK. Stay, my lord,\n    And let your reason with your choler question\n    What 'tis you go about. To climb steep hills\n    Requires slow pace at first. Anger is like\n    A full hot horse, who being allow'd his way,\n    Self-mettle tires him. Not a man in England\n    Can advise me like you; be to yourself\n    As you would to your friend.\n  BUCKINGHAM. I'll to the King,\n    And from a mouth of honour quite cry down\n    This Ipswich fellow's insolence; or proclaim\n    There's difference in no persons.\n  NORFOLK. Be advis'd:\n    Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot\n    That it do singe yourself. We may outrun\n    By violent swiftness that which we run at,\n    And lose by over-running. Know you not\n    The fire that mounts the liquor till't run o'er\n    In seeming to augment it wastes it? Be advis'd.\n    I say again there is no English soul\n    More stronger to direct you than yourself,\n    If with the sap of reason you would quench\n    Or but allay the fire of passion.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Sir,\n    I am thankful to you, and I'll go along\n    By your prescription; but this top-proud fellow-\n    Whom from the flow of gan I name not, but\n    From sincere motions, by intelligence,\n    And proofs as clear as founts in July when\n    We see each grain of gravel-I do know\n    To be corrupt and treasonous.\n  NORFOLK. Say not treasonous.\n  BUCKINGHAM. To th' King I'll say't, and make my vouch as strong\n    As shore of rock. Attend: this holy fox,\n    Or wolf, or both-for he is equal rav'nous\n    As he is subtle, and as prone to mischief\n    As able to perform't, his mind and place\n    Infecting one another, yea, reciprocally-\n    Only to show his pomp as well in France\n    As here at home, suggests the King our master\n    To this last costly treaty, th' interview\n    That swallowed so much treasure and like a glass\n    Did break i' th' wrenching.\n  NORFOLK. Faith, and so it did.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Pray, give me favour, sir; this cunning cardinal\n    The articles o' th' combination drew\n    As himself pleas'd; and they were ratified\n    As he cried 'Thus let be' to as much end\n    As give a crutch to th' dead. But our Count-Cardinal\n    Has done this, and 'tis well; for worthy Wolsey,\n    Who cannot err, he did it. Now this follows,\n    Which, as I take it, is a kind of puppy\n    To th' old dam treason: Charles the Emperor,\n    Under pretence to see the Queen his aunt-\n    For 'twas indeed his colour, but he came\n    To whisper Wolsey-here makes visitation-\n    His fears were that the interview betwixt\n    England and France might through their amity\n    Breed him some prejudice; for from this league\n    Peep'd harms that menac'd him-privily\n    Deals with our Cardinal; and, as I trow-\n    Which I do well, for I am sure the Emperor\n    Paid ere he promis'd; whereby his suit was granted\n    Ere it was ask'd-but when the way was made,\n    And pav'd with gold, the Emperor thus desir'd,\n    That he would please to alter the King's course,\n    And break the foresaid peace. Let the King know,\n    As soon he shall by me, that thus the Cardinal\n    Does buy and sell his honour as he pleases,\n    And for his own advantage.\n  NORFOLK. I am sorry\n    To hear this of him, and could wish he were\n    Something mistaken in't.\n  BUCKINGHAM. No, not a syllable:\n    I do pronounce him in that very shape\n    He shall appear in proof.\n\n       Enter BRANDON, a SERGEANT-AT-ARMS before him,\n              and two or three of the guard\n\n  BRANDON. Your office, sergeant: execute it.\n  SERGEANT. Sir,\n    My lord the Duke of Buckingham, and Earl\n    Of Hereford, Stafford, and Northampton, I\n    Arrest thee of high treason, in the name\n    Of our most sovereign King.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Lo you, my lord,\n    The net has fall'n upon me! I shall perish\n    Under device and practice.\n  BRANDON. I am sorry\n    To see you ta'en from liberty, to look on\n    The business present; 'tis his Highness' pleasure\n    You shall to th' Tower.\n  BUCKINGHAM. It will help nothing\n    To plead mine innocence; for that dye is on me\n    Which makes my whit'st part black. The will of heav'n\n    Be done in this and all things! I obey.\n    O my Lord Aberga'ny, fare you well!\n  BRANDON. Nay, he must bear you company.\n    [To ABERGAVENNY]  The King\n    Is pleas'd you shall to th' Tower, till you know\n    How he determines further.\n  ABERGAVENNY. As the Duke said,\n    The will of heaven be done, and the King's pleasure\n    By me obey'd.\n  BRANDON. Here is warrant from\n    The King t' attach Lord Montacute and the bodies\n    Of the Duke's confessor, John de la Car,\n    One Gilbert Peck, his chancellor-\n  BUCKINGHAM. So, so!\n    These are the limbs o' th' plot; no more, I hope.\n  BRANDON. A monk o' th' Chartreux.\n  BUCKINGHAM. O, Nicholas Hopkins?\n  BRANDON. He.\n  BUCKINGHAM. My surveyor is false. The o'er-great Cardinal\n    Hath show'd him gold; my life is spann'd already.\n    I am the shadow of poor Buckingham,\n    Whose figure even this instant cloud puts on\n    By dark'ning my clear sun. My lord, farewell.\n    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 2.\n\nLondon. The Council Chamber\n\nCornets. Enter KING HENRY, leaning on the CARDINAL'S shoulder, the NOBLES,\nand SIR THOMAS LOVELL, with others. The CARDINAL places himself\nunder the KING'S feet on his right side\n\n  KING. My life itself, and the best heart of it,\n    Thanks you for this great care; I stood i' th' level\n    Of a full-charg'd confederacy, and give thanks\n    To you that chok'd it. Let be call'd before us\n    That gentleman of Buckingham's. In person\n    I'll hear his confessions justify;\n    And point by point the treasons of his master\n    He shall again relate.\n\n      A noise within, crying 'Room for the Queen!'\n      Enter the QUEEN, usher'd by the DUKES OF NORFOLK\n      and SUFFOLK; she kneels. The KING riseth\n      from his state, takes her up, kisses and placeth her\n      by him\n\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. Nay, we must longer kneel: I am suitor.\n  KING. Arise, and take place by us. Half your suit\n    Never name to us: you have half our power.\n    The other moiety ere you ask is given;\n    Repeat your will, and take it.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. Thank your Majesty.\n    That you would love yourself, and in that love\n    Not unconsidered leave your honour nor\n    The dignity of your office, is the point\n    Of my petition.\n  KING. Lady mine, proceed.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. I am solicited, not by a few,\n    And those of true condition, that your subjects\n    Are in great grievance: there have been commissions\n    Sent down among 'em which hath flaw'd the heart\n    Of all their loyalties; wherein, although,\n    My good Lord Cardinal, they vent reproaches\n    Most bitterly on you as putter-on\n    Of these exactions, yet the King our master-\n    Whose honour Heaven shield from soil!-even he escapes not\n    Language unmannerly; yea, such which breaks\n    The sides of loyalty, and almost appears\n    In loud rebellion.\n  NORFOLK. Not almost appears-\n    It doth appear; for, upon these taxations,\n    The clothiers all, not able to maintain\n    The many to them 'longing, have put of\n    The spinsters, carders, fullers, weavers, who\n    Unfit for other life, compell'd by hunger\n    And lack of other means, in desperate manner\n    Daring th' event to th' teeth, are all in uproar,\n    And danger serves among them.\n  KING. Taxation!\n    Wherein? and what taxation? My Lord Cardinal,\n    You that are blam'd for it alike with us,\n    Know you of this taxation?\n  WOLSEY. Please you, sir,\n    I know but of a single part in aught\n    Pertains to th' state, and front but in that file\n    Where others tell steps with me.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. No, my lord!\n    You know no more than others! But you frame\n    Things that are known alike, which are not wholesome\n    To those which would not know them, and yet must\n    Perforce be their acquaintance. These exactions,\n    Whereof my sovereign would have note, they are\n    Most pestilent to th' hearing; and to bear 'em\n    The back is sacrifice to th' load. They say\n    They are devis'd by you, or else you suffer\n    Too hard an exclamation.\n  KING. Still exaction!\n    The nature of it? In what kind, let's know,\n    Is this exaction?\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. I am much too venturous\n    In tempting of your patience, but am bold'ned\n    Under your promis'd pardon. The subjects' grief\n    Comes through commissions, which compels from each\n    The sixth part of his substance, to be levied\n    Without delay; and the pretence for this\n    Is nam'd your wars in France. This makes bold mouths;\n    Tongues spit their duties out, and cold hearts freeze\n    Allegiance in them; their curses now\n    Live where their prayers did; and it's come to pass\n    This tractable obedience is a slave\n    To each incensed will. I would your Highness\n    Would give it quick consideration, for\n    There is no primer business.\n  KING. By my life,\n    This is against our pleasure.\n  WOLSEY. And for me,\n    I have no further gone in this than by\n    A single voice; and that not pass'd me but\n    By learned approbation of the judges. If I am\n    Traduc'd by ignorant tongues, which neither know\n    My faculties nor person, yet will be\n    The chronicles of my doing, let me say\n    'Tis but the fate of place, and the rough brake\n    That virtue must go through. We must not stint\n    Our necessary actions in the fear\n    To cope malicious censurers, which ever\n    As rav'nous fishes do a vessel follow\n    That is new-trimm'd, but benefit no further\n    Than vainly longing. What we oft do best,\n    By sick interpreters, once weak ones, is\n    Not ours, or not allow'd; what worst, as oft\n    Hitting a grosser quality, is cried up\n    For our best act. If we shall stand still,\n    In fear our motion will be mock'd or carp'd at,\n    We should take root here where we sit, or sit\n    State-statues only.\n  KING. Things done well\n    And with a care exempt themselves from fear:\n    Things done without example, in their issue\n    Are to be fear'd. Have you a precedent\n    Of this commission? I believe, not any.\n    We must not rend our subjects from our laws,\n    And stick them in our will. Sixth part of each?\n    A trembling contribution! Why, we take\n    From every tree lop, bark, and part o' th' timber;\n    And though we leave it with a root, thus hack'd,\n    The air will drink the sap. To every county\n    Where this is question'd send our letters with\n    Free pardon to each man that has denied\n    The force of this commission. Pray, look tot;\n    I put it to your care.\n  WOLSEY. [Aside to the SECRETARY]  A word with you.\n    Let there be letters writ to every shire\n    Of the King's grace and pardon. The grieved commons\n    Hardly conceive of me-let it be nois'd\n    That through our intercession this revokement\n    And pardon comes. I shall anon advise you\n    Further in the proceeding.                         Exit SECRETARY\n\n                    Enter SURVEYOR\n\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. I am sorry that the Duke of Buckingham\n    Is run in your displeasure.\n  KING. It grieves many.\n    The gentleman is learn'd and a most rare speaker;\n    To nature none more bound; his training such\n    That he may furnish and instruct great teachers\n    And never seek for aid out of himself. Yet see,\n    When these so noble benefits shall prove\n    Not well dispos'd, the mind growing once corrupt,\n    They turn to vicious forms, ten times more ugly\n    Than ever they were fair. This man so complete,\n    Who was enroll'd 'mongst wonders, and when we,\n    Almost with ravish'd list'ning, could not find\n    His hour of speech a minute-he, my lady,\n    Hath into monstrous habits put the graces\n    That once were his, and is become as black\n    As if besmear'd in hell. Sit by us; you shall hear-\n    This was his gentleman in trust-of him\n    Things to strike honour sad. Bid him recount\n    The fore-recited practices, whereof\n    We cannot feel too little, hear too much.\n  WOLSEY. Stand forth, and with bold spirit relate what you,\n    Most like a careful subject, have collected\n    Out of the Duke of Buckingham.\n  KING. Speak freely.\n  SURVEYOR. First, it was usual with him-every day\n    It would infect his speech-that if the King\n    Should without issue die, he'll carry it so\n    To make the sceptre his. These very words\n    I've heard him utter to his son-in-law,\n    Lord Aberga'ny, to whom by oath he menac'd\n    Revenge upon the Cardinal.\n  WOLSEY. Please your Highness, note\n    This dangerous conception in this point:\n    Not friended by his wish, to your high person\n    His will is most malignant, and it stretches\n    Beyond you to your friends.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. My learn'd Lord Cardinal,\n    Deliver all with charity.\n  KING. Speak on.\n    How grounded he his title to the crown\n    Upon our fail? To this point hast thou heard him\n    At any time speak aught?\n  SURVEYOR. He was brought to this\n    By a vain prophecy of Nicholas Henton.\n  KING. What was that Henton?\n  SURVEYOR. Sir, a Chartreux friar,\n    His confessor, who fed him every minute\n    With words of sovereignty.\n  KING. How know'st thou this?\n  SURVEYOR. Not long before your Highness sped to France,\n    The Duke being at the Rose, within the parish\n    Saint Lawrence Poultney, did of me demand\n    What was the speech among the Londoners\n    Concerning the French journey. I replied\n    Men fear'd the French would prove perfidious,\n    To the King's danger. Presently the Duke\n    Said 'twas the fear indeed and that he doubted\n    'Twould prove the verity of certain words\n    Spoke by a holy monk 'that oft' says he\n    'Hath sent to me, wishing me to permit\n    John de la Car, my chaplain, a choice hour\n    To hear from him a matter of some moment;\n    Whom after under the confession's seal\n    He solemnly had sworn that what he spoke\n    My chaplain to no creature living but\n    To me should utter, with demure confidence\n    This pausingly ensu'd: \"Neither the King nor's heirs,\n    Tell you the Duke, shall prosper; bid him strive\n    To gain the love o' th' commonalty; the Duke\n    Shall govern England.\"'\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. If I know you well,\n    You were the Duke's surveyor, and lost your office\n    On the complaint o' th' tenants. Take good heed\n    You charge not in your spleen a noble person\n    And spoil your nobler soul. I say, take heed;\n    Yes, heartily beseech you.\n  KING. Let him on.\n    Go forward.\n  SURVEYOR. On my soul, I'll speak but truth.\n    I told my lord the Duke, by th' devil's illusions\n    The monk might be deceiv'd, and that 'twas dangerous\n      for him\n    To ruminate on this so far, until\n    It forg'd him some design, which, being believ'd,\n    It was much like to do. He answer'd 'Tush,\n    It can do me no damage'; adding further\n    That, had the King in his last sickness fail'd,\n    The Cardinal's and Sir Thomas Lovell's heads\n    Should have gone off.\n  KING. Ha! what, so rank? Ah ha!\n    There's mischief in this man. Canst thou say further?\n  SURVEYOR. I can, my liege.\n  KING. Proceed.\n  SURVEYOR. Being at Greenwich,\n    After your Highness had reprov'd the Duke\n    About Sir William Bulmer-\n  KING. I remember\n    Of such a time: being my sworn servant,\n    The Duke retain'd him his. But on: what hence?\n  SURVEYOR. 'If' quoth he 'I for this had been committed-\n    As to the Tower I thought-I would have play'd\n    The part my father meant to act upon\n    Th' usurper Richard; who, being at Salisbury,\n    Made suit to come in's presence, which if granted,\n    As he made semblance of his duty, would\n    Have put his knife into him.'\n  KING. A giant traitor!\n  WOLSEY. Now, madam, may his Highness live in freedom,\n    And this man out of prison?\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. God mend all!\n  KING. There's something more would out of thee: what say'st?\n  SURVEYOR. After 'the Duke his father' with the 'knife,'\n    He stretch'd him, and, with one hand on his dagger,\n    Another spread on's breast, mounting his eyes,\n    He did discharge a horrible oath, whose tenour\n    Was, were he evil us'd, he would outgo\n    His father by as much as a performance\n    Does an irresolute purpose.\n  KING. There's his period,\n    To sheath his knife in us. He is attach'd;\n    Call him to present trial. If he may\n    Find mercy in the law, 'tis his; if none,\n    Let him not seek't of us. By day and night!\n    He's traitor to th' height.                                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 3.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter the LORD CHAMBERLAIN and LORD SANDYS\n\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Is't possible the spells of France should juggle\n    Men into such strange mysteries?\n  SANDYS. New customs,\n    Though they be never so ridiculous,\n    Nay, let 'em be unmanly, yet are follow'd.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. As far as I see, all the good our English\n    Have got by the late voyage is but merely\n    A fit or two o' th' face; but they are shrewd ones;\n    For when they hold 'em, you would swear directly\n    Their very noses had been counsellors\n    To Pepin or Clotharius, they keep state so.\n  SANDYS. They have all new legs, and lame ones. One would take it,\n    That never saw 'em pace before, the spavin\n    Or springhalt reign'd among 'em.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Death! my lord,\n    Their clothes are after such a pagan cut to't,\n    That sure th' have worn out Christendom.\n\n           Enter SIR THOMAS LOVELL\n\n    How now?\n    What news, Sir Thomas Lovell?\n  LOVELL. Faith, my lord,\n    I hear of none but the new proclamation\n    That's clapp'd upon the court gate.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. What is't for?\n  LOVELL. The reformation of our travell'd gallants,\n    That fill the court with quarrels, talk, and tailors.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. I am glad 'tis there. Now I would pray our monsieurs\n    To think an English courtier may be wise,\n    And never see the Louvre.\n  LOVELL. They must either,\n    For so run the conditions, leave those remnants\n    Of fool and feather that they got in France,\n    With all their honourable points of ignorance\n    Pertaining thereunto-as fights and fireworks;\n    Abusing better men than they can be,\n    Out of a foreign wisdom-renouncing clean\n    The faith they have in tennis, and tall stockings,\n    Short blist'red breeches, and those types of travel\n    And understand again like honest men,\n    Or pack to their old playfellows. There, I take it,\n    They may, cum privilegio, wear away\n    The lag end of their lewdness and be laugh'd at.\n  SANDYS. 'Tis time to give 'em physic, their diseases\n    Are grown so catching.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. What a loss our ladies\n    Will have of these trim vanities!\n  LOVELL. Ay, marry,\n    There will be woe indeed, lords: the sly whoresons\n    Have got a speeding trick to lay down ladies.\n    A French song and a fiddle has no fellow.\n  SANDYS. The devil fiddle 'em! I am glad they are going,\n    For sure there's no converting 'em. Now\n    An honest country lord, as I am, beaten\n    A long time out of play, may bring his plainsong\n    And have an hour of hearing; and, by'r Lady,\n    Held current music too.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Well said, Lord Sandys;\n    Your colt's tooth is not cast yet.\n  SANDYS. No, my lord,\n    Nor shall not while I have a stamp.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Sir Thomas,\n    Whither were you a-going?\n  LOVELL. To the Cardinal's;\n    Your lordship is a guest too.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. O, 'tis true;\n    This night he makes a supper, and a great one,\n    To many lords and ladies; there will be\n    The beauty of this kingdom, I'll assure you.\n  LOVELL. That churchman bears a bounteous mind indeed,\n    A hand as fruitful as the land that feeds us;\n    His dews fall everywhere.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. No doubt he's noble;\n    He had a black mouth that said other of him.\n  SANDYS. He may, my lord; has wherewithal. In him\n    Sparing would show a worse sin than ill doctrine:\n    Men of his way should be most liberal,\n    They are set here for examples.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. True, they are so;\n    But few now give so great ones. My barge stays;\n    Your lordship shall along. Come, good Sir Thomas,\n    We shall be late else; which I would not be,\n    For I was spoke to, with Sir Henry Guildford,\n    This night to be comptrollers.\n  SANDYS. I am your lordship's.                                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 4.\n\nLondon. The Presence Chamber in York Place\n\nHautboys. A small table under a state for the Cardinal,\na longer table for the guests. Then enter ANNE BULLEN,\nand divers other LADIES and GENTLEMEN, as guests, at one door;\nat another door enter SIR HENRY GUILDFORD\n\n  GUILDFORD. Ladies, a general welcome from his Grace\n    Salutes ye all; this night he dedicates\n    To fair content and you. None here, he hopes,\n    In all this noble bevy, has brought with her\n    One care abroad; he would have all as merry\n    As, first, good company, good wine, good welcome,\n    Can make good people.\n\n       Enter LORD CHAMBERLAIN, LORD SANDYS, and SIR\n                  THOMAS LOVELL\n\n    O, my lord, y'are tardy,\n    The very thought of this fair company\n    Clapp'd wings to me.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. You are young, Sir Harry Guildford.\n  SANDYS. Sir Thomas Lovell, had the Cardinal\n    But half my lay thoughts in him, some of these\n    Should find a running banquet ere they rested\n    I think would better please 'em. By my life,\n    They are a sweet society of fair ones.\n  LOVELL. O that your lordship were but now confessor\n    To one or two of these!\n  SANDYS. I would I were;\n    They should find easy penance.\n  LOVELL. Faith, how easy?\n  SANDYS. As easy as a down bed would afford it.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Sweet ladies, will it please you sit? Sir Harry,\n    Place you that side; I'll take the charge of this.\n    His Grace is ent'ring. Nay, you must not freeze:\n    Two women plac'd together makes cold weather.\n    My Lord Sandys, you are one will keep 'em waking:\n    Pray sit between these ladies.\n  SANDYS. By my faith,\n    And thank your lordship. By your leave, sweet ladies.\n                 [Seats himself between ANNE BULLEN and another lady]\n    If I chance to talk a little wild, forgive me;\n    I had it from my father.\n  ANNE. Was he mad, sir?\n  SANDYS. O, very mad, exceeding mad, in love too.\n    But he would bite none; just as I do now,\n    He would kiss you twenty with a breath.              [Kisses her]\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Well said, my lord.\n    So, now y'are fairly seated. Gentlemen,\n    The penance lies on you if these fair ladies\n    Pass away frowning.\n  SANDYS. For my little cure,\n    Let me alone.\n\n         Hautboys. Enter CARDINAL WOLSEY, attended; and\n                         takes his state\n\n  WOLSEY. Y'are welcome, my fair guests. That noble lady\n    Or gentleman that is not freely merry\n    Is not my friend. This, to confirm my welcome-\n    And to you all, good health!                             [Drinks]\n  SANDYS. Your Grace is noble.\n    Let me have such a bowl may hold my thanks\n    And save me so much talking.\n  WOLSEY. My Lord Sandys,\n    I am beholding to you. Cheer your neighbours.\n    Ladies, you are not merry. Gentlemen,\n    Whose fault is this?\n  SANDYS. The red wine first must rise\n    In their fair cheeks, my lord; then we shall have 'em\n    Talk us to silence.\n  ANNE. You are a merry gamester,\n    My Lord Sandys.\n  SANDYS. Yes, if I make my play.\n    Here's to your ladyship; and pledge it, madam,\n    For 'tis to such a thing-\n  ANNE. You cannot show me.\n  SANDYS. I told your Grace they would talk anon.\n                             [Drum and trumpet. Chambers discharg'd]\n  WOLSEY. What's that?\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Look out there, some of ye.             Exit a SERVANT\n  WOLSEY. What warlike voice,\n    And to what end, is this? Nay, ladies, fear not:\n    By all the laws of war y'are privileg'd.\n\n            Re-enter SERVANT\n\n  CHAMBERLAIN. How now! what is't?\n  SERVANT. A noble troop of strangers-\n    For so they seem. Th' have left their barge and landed,\n    And hither make, as great ambassadors\n    From foreign princes.\n  WOLSEY. Good Lord Chamberlain,\n    Go, give 'em welcome; you can speak the French tongue;\n    And pray receive 'em nobly and conduct 'em\n    Into our presence, where this heaven of beauty\n    Shall shine at full upon them. Some attend him.\n              Exit CHAMBERLAIN attended. All rise, and tables remov'd\n    You have now a broken banquet, but we'll mend it.\n    A good digestion to you all; and once more\n    I show'r a welcome on ye; welcome all.\n\n      Hautboys. Enter the KING, and others, as maskers,\n      habited like shepherds, usher'd by the LORD CHAMBERLAIN.\n      They pass directly before the CARDINAL,\n      and gracefully salute him\n\n    A noble company! What are their pleasures?\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Because they speak no English, thus they pray'd\n    To tell your Grace, that, having heard by fame\n    Of this so noble and so fair assembly\n    This night to meet here, they could do no less,\n    Out of the great respect they bear to beauty,\n    But leave their flocks and, under your fair conduct,\n    Crave leave to view these ladies and entreat\n    An hour of revels with 'em.\n  WOLSEY. Say, Lord Chamberlain,\n    They have done my poor house grace; for which I pay 'em\n    A thousand thanks, and pray 'em take their pleasures.\n                   [They choose ladies. The KING chooses ANNE BULLEN]\n  KING. The fairest hand I ever touch'd! O beauty,\n    Till now I never knew thee!                        [Music. Dance]\n  WOLSEY. My lord!\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Your Grace?\n  WOLSEY. Pray tell 'em thus much from me:\n    There should be one amongst 'em, by his person,\n    More worthy this place than myself; to whom,\n    If I but knew him, with my love and duty\n    I would surrender it.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. I will, my lord.\n                                         [He whispers to the maskers]\n  WOLSEY. What say they?\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Such a one, they all confess,\n    There is indeed; which they would have your Grace\n    Find out, and he will take it.\n  WOLSEY. Let me see, then.                    [Comes from his state]\n    By all your good leaves, gentlemen, here I'll make\n    My royal choice.\n  KING.  [Unmasking]  Ye have found him, Cardinal.\n    You hold a fair assembly; you do well, lord.\n    You are a churchman, or, I'll tell you, Cardinal,\n    I should judge now unhappily.\n  WOLSEY. I am glad\n    Your Grace is grown so pleasant.\n  KING. My Lord Chamberlain,\n    Prithee come hither: what fair lady's that?\n  CHAMBERLAIN. An't please your Grace, Sir Thomas Bullen's\n      daughter-\n    The Viscount Rochford-one of her Highness' women.\n  KING. By heaven, she is a dainty one. Sweet heart,\n    I were unmannerly to take you out\n    And not to kiss you. A health, gentlemen!\n    Let it go round.\n  WOLSEY. Sir Thomas Lovell, is the banquet ready\n    I' th' privy chamber?\n  LOVELL. Yes, my lord.\n  WOLSEY. Your Grace,\n    I fear, with dancing is a little heated.\n  KING. I fear, too much.\n  WOLSEY. There's fresher air, my lord,\n    In the next chamber.\n  KING. Lead in your ladies, ev'ry one. Sweet partner,\n    I must not yet forsake you. Let's be merry:\n    Good my Lord Cardinal, I have half a dozen healths\n    To drink to these fair ladies, and a measure\n    To lead 'em once again; and then let's dream\n    Who's best in favour. Let the music knock it.\n                                                Exeunt, with trumpets\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 1.\n\nWestminster. A street\n\nEnter two GENTLEMEN, at several doors\n\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Whither away so fast?\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. O, God save ye!\n    Ev'n to the Hall, to hear what shall become\n    Of the great Duke of Buckingham.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I'll save you\n    That labour, sir. All's now done but the ceremony\n    Of bringing back the prisoner.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Were you there?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Yes, indeed, was I.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Pray, speak what has happen'd.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. You may guess quickly what.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Is he found guilty?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Yes, truly is he, and condemn'd upon't.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I am sorry for't.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. So are a number more.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. But, pray, how pass'd it?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I'll tell you in a little. The great Duke.\n    Came to the bar; where to his accusations\n    He pleaded still not guilty, and alleged\n    Many sharp reasons to defeat the law.\n    The King's attorney, on the contrary,\n    Urg'd on the examinations, proofs, confessions,\n    Of divers witnesses; which the Duke desir'd\n    To have brought, viva voce, to his face;\n    At which appear'd against him his surveyor,\n    Sir Gilbert Peck his chancellor, and John Car,\n    Confessor to him, with that devil-monk,\n    Hopkins, that made this mischief.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. That was he\n    That fed him with his prophecies?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. The same.\n    All these accus'd him strongly, which he fain\n    Would have flung from him; but indeed he could not;\n    And so his peers, upon this evidence,\n    Have found him guilty of high treason. Much\n    He spoke, and learnedly, for life; but all\n    Was either pitied in him or forgotten.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. After all this, how did he bear him-self\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. When he was brought again to th' bar to hear\n    His knell rung out, his judgment, he was stirr'd\n    With such an agony he sweat extremely,\n    And something spoke in choler, ill and hasty;\n    But he fell to himself again, and sweetly\n    In all the rest show'd a most noble patience.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I do not think he fears death.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Sure, he does not;\n    He never was so womanish; the cause\n    He may a little grieve at.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Certainly\n    The Cardinal is the end of this.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. 'Tis likely,\n    By all conjectures: first, Kildare's attainder,\n    Then deputy of Ireland, who remov'd,\n    Earl Surrey was sent thither, and in haste too,\n    Lest he should help his father.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. That trick of state\n    Was a deep envious one.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. At his return\n    No doubt he will requite it. This is noted,\n    And generally: whoever the King favours\n    The Cardinal instantly will find employment,\n    And far enough from court too.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. All the commons\n    Hate him perniciously, and, o' my conscience,\n    Wish him ten fathom deep: this Duke as much\n    They love and dote on; call him bounteous Buckingham,\n    The mirror of all courtesy-\n\n      Enter BUCKINGHAM from his arraignment, tip-staves\n      before him; the axe with the edge towards him; halberds\n      on each side; accompanied with SIR THOMAS\n      LOVELL, SIR NICHOLAS VAUX, SIR WILLIAM SANDYS,\n      and common people, etc.\n\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Stay there, sir,\n    And see the noble ruin'd man you speak of.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Let's stand close, and behold him.\n  BUCKINGHAM. All good people,\n    You that thus far have come to pity me,\n    Hear what I say, and then go home and lose me.\n    I have this day receiv'd a traitor's judgment,\n    And by that name must die; yet, heaven bear witness,\n    And if I have a conscience, let it sink me\n    Even as the axe falls, if I be not faithful!\n    The law I bear no malice for my death:\n    'T has done, upon the premises, but justice.\n    But those that sought it I could wish more Christians.\n    Be what they will, I heartily forgive 'em;\n    Yet let 'em look they glory not in mischief\n    Nor build their evils on the graves of great men,\n    For then my guiltless blood must cry against 'em.\n    For further life in this world I ne'er hope\n    Nor will I sue, although the King have mercies\n    More than I dare make faults. You few that lov'd me\n    And dare be bold to weep for Buckingham,\n    His noble friends and fellows, whom to leave\n    Is only bitter to him, only dying,\n    Go with me like good angels to my end;\n    And as the long divorce of steel falls on me\n    Make of your prayers one sweet sacrifice,\n    And lift my soul to heaven. Lead on, a God's name.\n  LOVELL. I do beseech your Grace, for charity,\n    If ever any malice in your heart\n    Were hid against me, now to forgive me frankly.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Sir Thomas Lovell, I as free forgive you\n    As I would be forgiven. I forgive all.\n    There cannot be those numberless offences\n    'Gainst me that I cannot take peace with. No black envy\n    Shall mark my grave. Commend me to his Grace;\n    And if he speak of Buckingham, pray tell him\n    You met him half in heaven. My vows and prayers\n    Yet are the King's, and, till my soul forsake,\n    Shall cry for blessings on him. May he live\n    Longer than I have time to tell his years;\n    Ever belov'd and loving may his rule be;\n    And when old time Shall lead him to his end,\n    Goodness and he fill up one monument!\n  LOVELL. To th' water side I must conduct your Grace;\n    Then give my charge up to Sir Nicholas Vaux,\n    Who undertakes you to your end.\n  VAUX. Prepare there;\n    The Duke is coming; see the barge be ready;\n    And fit it with such furniture as suits\n    The greatness of his person.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Nay, Sir Nicholas,\n    Let it alone; my state now will but mock me.\n    When I came hither I was Lord High Constable\n    And Duke of Buckingham; now, poor Edward Bohun.\n    Yet I am richer than my base accusers\n    That never knew what truth meant; I now seal it;\n    And with that blood will make 'em one day groan fort.\n    My noble father, Henry of Buckingham,\n    Who first rais'd head against usurping Richard,\n    Flying for succour to his servant Banister,\n    Being distress'd, was by that wretch betray'd\n    And without trial fell; God's peace be with him!\n    Henry the Seventh succeeding, truly pitying\n    My father's loss, like a most royal prince,\n    Restor'd me to my honours, and out of ruins\n    Made my name once more noble. Now his son,\n    Henry the Eighth, life, honour, name, and all\n    That made me happy, at one stroke has taken\n    For ever from the world. I had my trial,\n    And must needs say a noble one; which makes me\n    A little happier than my wretched father;\n    Yet thus far we are one in fortunes: both\n    Fell by our servants, by those men we lov'd most-\n    A most unnatural and faithless service.\n    Heaven has an end in all. Yet, you that hear me,\n    This from a dying man receive as certain:\n    Where you are liberal of your loves and counsels,\n    Be sure you be not loose; for those you make friends\n    And give your hearts to, when they once perceive\n    The least rub in your fortunes, fall away\n    Like water from ye, never found again\n    But where they mean to sink ye. All good people,\n    Pray for me! I must now forsake ye; the last hour\n    Of my long weary life is come upon me.\n    Farewell;\n    And when you would say something that is sad,\n    Speak how I fell. I have done; and God forgive me!\n                                          Exeunt BUCKINGHAM and train\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. O, this is full of pity! Sir, it calls,\n    I fear, too many curses on their heads\n    That were the authors.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. If the Duke be guiltless,\n    'Tis full of woe; yet I can give you inkling\n    Of an ensuing evil, if it fall,\n    Greater than this.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Good angels keep it from us!\n    What may it be? You do not doubt my faith, sir?\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. This secret is so weighty, 'twill require\n    A strong faith to conceal it.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Let me have it;\n    I do not talk much.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I am confident.\n    You shall, sir. Did you not of late days hear\n    A buzzing of a separation\n    Between the King and Katharine?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Yes, but it held not;\n    For when the King once heard it, out of anger\n    He sent command to the Lord Mayor straight\n    To stop the rumour and allay those tongues\n    That durst disperse it.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. But that slander, sir,\n    Is found a truth now; for it grows again\n    Fresher than e'er it was, and held for certain\n    The King will venture at it. Either the Cardinal\n    Or some about him near have, out of malice\n    To the good Queen, possess'd him with a scruple\n    That will undo her. To confirm this too,\n    Cardinal Campeius is arriv'd and lately;\n    As all think, for this business.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. 'Tis the Cardinal;\n    And merely to revenge him on the Emperor\n    For not bestowing on him at his asking\n    The archbishopric of Toledo, this is purpos'd.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I think you have hit the mark; but is't\n        not cruel\n    That she should feel the smart of this? The Cardinal\n    Will have his will, and she must fall.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. 'Tis woeful.\n    We are too open here to argue this;\n    Let's think in private more.                               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 2.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter the LORD CHAMBERLAIN reading this letter\n\n  CHAMBERLAIN. 'My lord,\n    'The horses your lordship sent for, with all the care\n    had, I saw well chosen, ridden, and furnish'd. They were\n    young and handsome, and of the best breed in the north.\n    When they were ready to set out for London, a man of\n    my Lord Cardinal's, by commission, and main power, took\n    'em from me, with this reason: his master would be serv'd\n    before a subject, if not before the King; which stopp'd\n    our mouths, sir.'\n\n    I fear he will indeed. Well, let him have them.\n    He will have all, I think.\n\n    Enter to the LORD CHAMBERLAIN the DUKES OF NORFOLK and SUFFOLK\n\n  NORFOLK. Well met, my Lord Chamberlain.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Good day to both your Graces.\n  SUFFOLK. How is the King employ'd?\n  CHAMBERLAIN. I left him private,\n    Full of sad thoughts and troubles.\n  NORFOLK. What's the cause?\n  CHAMBERLAIN. It seems the marriage with his brother's wife\n    Has crept too near his conscience.\n  SUFFOLK. No, his conscience\n    Has crept too near another lady.\n  NORFOLK. 'Tis so;\n    This is the Cardinal's doing; the King-Cardinal,\n    That blind priest, like the eldest son of fortune,\n    Turns what he list. The King will know him one day.\n  SUFFOLK. Pray God he do! He'll never know himself else.\n  NORFOLK. How holily he works in all his business!\n    And with what zeal! For, now he has crack'd the league\n    Between us and the Emperor, the Queen's great nephew,\n    He dives into the King's soul and there scatters\n    Dangers, doubts, wringing of the conscience,\n    Fears, and despairs-and all these for his marriage;\n    And out of all these to restore the King,\n    He counsels a divorce, a loss of her\n    That like a jewel has hung twenty years\n    About his neck, yet never lost her lustre;\n    Of her that loves him with that excellence\n    That angels love good men with; even of her\n    That, when the greatest stroke of fortune falls,\n    Will bless the King-and is not this course pious?\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Heaven keep me from such counsel! 'Tis most true\n    These news are everywhere; every tongue speaks 'em,\n    And every true heart weeps for 't. All that dare\n    Look into these affairs see this main end-\n    The French King's sister. Heaven will one day open\n    The King's eyes, that so long have slept upon\n    This bold bad man.\n  SUFFOLK. And free us from his slavery.\n  NORFOLK. We had need pray, and heartily, for our deliverance;\n    Or this imperious man will work us an\n    From princes into pages. All men's honours\n    Lie like one lump before him, to be fashion'd\n    Into what pitch he please.\n  SUFFOLK. For me, my lords,\n    I love him not, nor fear him-there's my creed;\n    As I am made without him, so I'll stand,\n    If the King please; his curses and his blessings\n    Touch me alike; th' are breath I not believe in.\n    I knew him, and I know him; so I leave him\n    To him that made him proud-the Pope.\n  NORFOLK. Let's in;\n    And with some other business put the King\n    From these sad thoughts that work too much upon him.\n    My lord, you'll bear us company?\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Excuse me,\n    The King has sent me otherwhere; besides,\n    You'll find a most unfit time to disturb him.\n    Health to your lordships!\n  NORFOLK. Thanks, my good Lord Chamberlain.\n                            Exit LORD CHAMBERLAIN; and the KING draws\n                               the curtain and sits reading pensively\n  SUFFOLK. How sad he looks; sure, he is much afflicted.\n  KING. Who's there, ha?\n  NORFOLK. Pray God he be not angry.\n  KING HENRY. Who's there, I say? How dare you thrust yourselves\n    Into my private meditations?\n    Who am I, ha?\n  NORFOLK. A gracious king that pardons all offences\n    Malice ne'er meant. Our breach of duty this way\n    Is business of estate, in which we come\n    To know your royal pleasure.\n  KING. Ye are too bold.\n    Go to; I'll make ye know your times of business.\n    Is this an hour for temporal affairs, ha?\n\n      Enter WOLSEY and CAMPEIUS with a commission\n\n    Who's there? My good Lord Cardinal? O my Wolsey,\n    The quiet of my wounded conscience,\n    Thou art a cure fit for a King.  [To CAMPEIUS]  You're\n      welcome,\n    Most learned reverend sir, into our kingdom.\n    Use us and it.  [To WOLSEY]  My good lord, have great care\n    I be not found a talker.\n  WOLSEY. Sir, you cannot.\n    I would your Grace would give us but an hour\n    Of private conference.\n  KING.  [To NORFOLK and SUFFOLK]  We are busy; go.\n  NORFOLK.  [Aside to SUFFOLK]  This priest has no pride in him!\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside to NORFOLK]  Not to speak of!\n    I would not be so sick though for his place.\n    But this cannot continue.\n  NORFOLK.  [Aside to SUFFOLK]  If it do,\n    I'll venture one have-at-him.\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside to NORFOLK]  I another.\n                                           Exeunt NORFOLK and SUFFOLK\n  WOLSEY. Your Grace has given a precedent of wisdom\n    Above all princes, in committing freely\n    Your scruple to the voice of Christendom.\n    Who can be angry now? What envy reach you?\n    The Spaniard, tied by blood and favour to her,\n    Must now confess, if they have any goodness,\n    The trial just and noble. All the clerks,\n    I mean the learned ones, in Christian kingdoms\n    Have their free voices. Rome the nurse of judgment,\n    Invited by your noble self, hath sent\n    One general tongue unto us, this good man,\n    This just and learned priest, Cardinal Campeius,\n    Whom once more I present unto your Highness.\n  KING. And once more in mine arms I bid him welcome,\n    And thank the holy conclave for their loves.\n    They have sent me such a man I would have wish'd for.\n  CAMPEIUS. Your Grace must needs deserve an strangers' loves,\n    You are so noble. To your Highness' hand\n    I tender my commission; by whose virtue-\n    The court of Rome commanding-you, my Lord\n    Cardinal of York, are join'd with me their servant\n    In the unpartial judging of this business.\n  KING. Two equal men. The Queen shall be acquainted\n    Forthwith for what you come. Where's Gardiner?\n  WOLSEY. I know your Majesty has always lov'd her\n    So dear in heart not to deny her that\n    A woman of less place might ask by law-\n    Scholars allow'd freely to argue for her.\n  KING. Ay, and the best she shall have; and my favour\n    To him that does best. God forbid else. Cardinal,\n    Prithee call Gardiner to me, my new secretary;\n    I find him a fit fellow.                              Exit WOLSEY\n\n          Re-enter WOLSEY with GARDINER\n\n  WOLSEY.  [Aside to GARDINER]  Give me your hand: much\n      joy and favour to you;\n    You are the King's now.\n  GARDINER.  [Aside to WOLSEY]  But to be commanded\n    For ever by your Grace, whose hand has rais'd me.\n  KING. Come hither, Gardiner.                   [Walks and whispers]\n  CAMPEIUS. My Lord of York, was not one Doctor Pace\n    In this man's place before him?\n  WOLSEY. Yes, he was.\n  CAMPEIUS. Was he not held a learned man?\n  WOLSEY. Yes, surely.\n  CAMPEIUS. Believe me, there's an ill opinion spread then,\n    Even of yourself, Lord Cardinal.\n  WOLSEY. How! Of me?\n  CAMPEIUS. They will not stick to say you envied him\n    And, fearing he would rise, he was so virtuous,\n    Kept him a foreign man still; which so griev'd him\n    That he ran mad and died.\n  WOLSEY. Heav'n's peace be with him!\n    That's Christian care enough. For living murmurers\n    There's places of rebuke. He was a fool,\n    For he would needs be virtuous: that good fellow,\n    If I command him, follows my appointment.\n    I will have none so near else. Learn this, brother,\n    We live not to be grip'd by meaner persons.\n  KING. Deliver this with modesty to th' Queen.\n                                                        Exit GARDINER\n    The most convenient place that I can think of\n    For such receipt of learning is Blackfriars;\n    There ye shall meet about this weighty business-\n    My Wolsey, see it furnish'd. O, my lord,\n    Would it not grieve an able man to leave\n    So sweet a bedfellow? But, conscience, conscience!\n    O, 'tis a tender place! and I must leave her.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 3.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter ANNE BULLEN and an OLD LADY\n\n  ANNE. Not for that neither. Here's the pang that pinches:\n    His Highness having liv'd so long with her, and she\n    So good a lady that no tongue could ever\n    Pronounce dishonour of her-by my life,\n    She never knew harm-doing-O, now, after\n    So many courses of the sun enthroned,\n    Still growing in a majesty and pomp, the which\n    To leave a thousand-fold more bitter than\n    'Tis sweet at first t' acquire-after this process,\n    To give her the avaunt, it is a pity\n    Would move a monster.\n  OLD LADY. Hearts of most hard temper\n    Melt and lament for her.\n  ANNE. O, God's will! much better\n    She ne'er had known pomp; though't be temporal,\n    Yet, if that quarrel, fortune, do divorce\n    It from the bearer, 'tis a sufferance panging\n    As soul and body's severing.\n  OLD LADY. Alas, poor lady!\n    She's a stranger now again.\n  ANNE. So much the more\n    Must pity drop upon her. Verily,\n    I swear 'tis better to be lowly born\n    And range with humble livers in content\n    Than to be perk'd up in a glist'ring grief\n    And wear a golden sorrow.\n  OLD LADY. Our content\n    Is our best having.\n  ANNE. By my troth and maidenhead,\n    I would not be a queen.\n  OLD LADY. Beshrew me, I would,\n    And venture maidenhead for 't; and so would you,\n    For all this spice of your hypocrisy.\n    You that have so fair parts of woman on you\n    Have too a woman's heart, which ever yet\n    Affected eminence, wealth, sovereignty;\n    Which, to say sooth, are blessings; and which gifts,\n    Saving your mincing, the capacity\n    Of your soft cheveril conscience would receive\n    If you might please to stretch it.\n  ANNE. Nay, good troth.\n  OLD LADY. Yes, troth and troth. You would not be a queen!\n  ANNE. No, not for all the riches under heaven.\n  OLD LADY. 'Tis strange: a threepence bow'd would hire me,\n    Old as I am, to queen it. But, I pray you,\n    What think you of a duchess? Have you limbs\n    To bear that load of title?\n  ANNE. No, in truth.\n  OLD LADY. Then you are weakly made. Pluck off a little;\n    I would not be a young count in your way\n    For more than blushing comes to. If your back\n    Cannot vouchsafe this burden, 'tis too weak\n    Ever to get a boy.\n  ANNE. How you do talk!\n    I swear again I would not be a queen\n    For all the world.\n  OLD LADY. In faith, for little England\n    You'd venture an emballing. I myself\n    Would for Carnarvonshire, although there long'd\n    No more to th' crown but that. Lo, who comes here?\n\n         Enter the LORD CHAMBERLAIN\n\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Good morrow, ladies. What were't worth to know\n    The secret of your conference?\n  ANNE. My good lord,\n    Not your demand; it values not your asking.\n    Our mistress' sorrows we were pitying.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. It was a gentle business and becoming\n    The action of good women; there is hope\n    All will be well.\n  ANNE. Now, I pray God, amen!\n  CHAMBERLAIN. You bear a gentle mind, and heav'nly blessings\n    Follow such creatures. That you may, fair lady,\n    Perceive I speak sincerely and high notes\n    Ta'en of your many virtues, the King's Majesty\n    Commends his good opinion of you to you, and\n    Does purpose honour to you no less flowing\n    Than Marchioness of Pembroke; to which tide\n    A thousand pound a year, annual support,\n    Out of his grace he adds.\n  ANNE. I do not know\n    What kind of my obedience I should tender;\n    More than my all is nothing, nor my prayers\n    Are not words duly hallowed, nor my wishes\n    More worth than empty vanities; yet prayers and wishes\n    Are all I can return. Beseech your lordship,\n    Vouchsafe to speak my thanks and my obedience,\n    As from a blushing handmaid, to his Highness;\n    Whose health and royalty I pray for.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Lady,\n    I shall not fail t' approve the fair conceit\n    The King hath of you.  [Aside]  I have perus'd her well:\n    Beauty and honour in her are so mingled\n    That they have caught the King; and who knows yet\n    But from this lady may proceed a gem\n    To lighten all this isle?-I'll to the King\n    And say I spoke with you.\n  ANNE. My honour'd lord!                       Exit LORD CHAMBERLAIN\n  OLD LADY. Why, this it is: see, see!\n    I have been begging sixteen years in court-\n    Am yet a courtier beggarly-nor could\n    Come pat betwixt too early and too late\n    For any suit of pounds; and you, O fate!\n    A very fresh-fish here-fie, fie, fie upon\n    This compell'd fortune!-have your mouth fill'd up\n    Before you open it.\n  ANNE. This is strange to me.\n  OLD LADY. How tastes it? Is it bitter? Forty pence, no.\n    There was a lady once-'tis an old story-\n    That would not be a queen, that would she not,\n    For all the mud in Egypt. Have you heard it?\n  ANNE. Come, you are pleasant.\n  OLD LADY. With your theme I could\n    O'ermount the lark. The Marchioness of Pembroke!\n    A thousand pounds a year for pure respect!\n    No other obligation! By my life,\n    That promises moe thousands: honour's train\n    Is longer than his foreskirt. By this time\n    I know your back will bear a duchess. Say,\n    Are you not stronger than you were?\n  ANNE. Good lady,\n    Make yourself mirth with your particular fancy,\n    And leave me out on't. Would I had no being,\n    If this salute my blood a jot; it faints me\n    To think what follows.\n    The Queen is comfortless, and we forgetful\n    In our long absence. Pray, do not deliver\n    What here y' have heard to her.\n  OLD LADY. What do you think me?                              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 4.\n\nLondon. A hall in Blackfriars\n\nTrumpets, sennet, and cornets. Enter two VERGERS, with short silver wands;\nnext them, two SCRIBES, in the habit of doctors; after them,\nthe ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY alone; after him, the BISHOPS OF LINCOLN, ELY,\nROCHESTER, and SAINT ASAPH; next them, with some small distance,\nfollows a GENTLEMAN bearing the purse, with the great seal,\nand a Cardinal's hat; then two PRIESTS, bearing each silver cross;\nthen a GENTLEMAN USHER bareheaded, accompanied with a SERGEANT-AT-ARMS\nbearing a silver mace; then two GENTLEMEN bearing two great silver pillars;\nafter them, side by side, the two CARDINALS, WOLSEY and CAMPEIUS;\ntwo NOBLEMEN with the sword and mace. Then enter the KING and QUEEN\nand their trains. The KING takes place under the cloth of state;\nthe two CARDINALS sit under him as judges. The QUEEN takes place\nsome distance from the KING. The BISHOPS place themselves on each side\nof the court, in manner of consistory; below them the SCRIBES.\nThe LORDS sit next the BISHOPS. The rest of the attendants stand\nin convenient order about the stage\n\n  WOLSEY. Whilst our commission from Rome is read,\n    Let silence be commanded.\n  KING. What's the need?\n    It hath already publicly been read,\n    And on all sides th' authority allow'd;\n    You may then spare that time.\n  WOLSEY. Be't so; proceed.\n  SCRIBE. Say 'Henry King of England, come into the court.'\n  CRIER. Henry King of England, &c.\n  KING. Here.\n  SCRIBE. Say 'Katharine Queen of England, come into the court.'\n  CRIER. Katharine Queen of England, &c.\n\n     The QUEEN makes no answer, rises out of her chair,\n     goes about the court, comes to the KING, and kneels\n     at his feet; then speaks\n\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. Sir, I desire you do me right and justice,\n    And to bestow your pity on me; for\n    I am a most poor woman and a stranger,\n    Born out of your dominions, having here\n    No judge indifferent, nor no more assurance\n    Of equal friendship and proceeding. Alas, sir,\n    In what have I offended you? What cause\n    Hath my behaviour given to your displeasure\n    That thus you should proceed to put me of\n    And take your good grace from me? Heaven witness,\n    I have been to you a true and humble wife,\n    At all times to your will conformable,\n    Ever in fear to kindle your dislike,\n    Yea, subject to your countenance-glad or sorry\n    As I saw it inclin'd. When was the hour\n    I ever contradicted your desire\n    Or made it not mine too? Or which of your friends\n    Have I not strove to love, although I knew\n    He were mine enemy? What friend of mine\n    That had to him deriv'd your anger did\n    Continue in my liking? Nay, gave notice\n    He was from thence discharg'd? Sir, call to mind\n    That I have been your wife in this obedience\n    Upward of twenty years, and have been blest\n    With many children by you. If, in the course\n    And process of this time, you can report,\n    And prove it too against mine honour, aught,\n    My bond to wedlock or my love and duty,\n    Against your sacred person, in God's name,\n    Turn me away and let the foul'st contempt\n    Shut door upon me, and so give me up\n    To the sharp'st kind of justice. Please you, sir,\n    The King, your father, was reputed for\n    A prince most prudent, of an excellent\n    And unmatch'd wit and judgment; Ferdinand,\n    My father, King of Spain, was reckon'd one\n    The wisest prince that there had reign'd by many\n    A year before. It is not to be question'd\n    That they had gather'd a wise council to them\n    Of every realm, that did debate this business,\n    Who deem'd our marriage lawful. Wherefore I humbly\n    Beseech you, sir, to spare me till I may\n    Be by my friends in Spain advis'd, whose counsel\n    I will implore. If not, i' th' name of God,\n    Your pleasure be fulfill'd!\n  WOLSEY. You have here, lady,\n    And of your choice, these reverend fathers-men\n    Of singular integrity and learning,\n    Yea, the elect o' th' land, who are assembled\n    To plead your cause. It shall be therefore bootless\n    That longer you desire the court, as well\n    For your own quiet as to rectify\n    What is unsettled in the King.\n  CAMPEIUS. His Grace\n    Hath spoken well and justly; therefore, madam,\n    It's fit this royal session do proceed\n    And that, without delay, their arguments\n    Be now produc'd and heard.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. Lord Cardinal,\n    To you I speak.\n  WOLSEY. Your pleasure, madam?\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. Sir,\n    I am about to weep; but, thinking that\n    We are a queen, or long have dream'd so, certain\n    The daughter of a king, my drops of tears\n    I'll turn to sparks of fire.\n  WOLSEY. Be patient yet.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. I Will, when you are humble; nay, before\n    Or God will punish me. I do believe,\n    Induc'd by potent circumstances, that\n    You are mine enemy, and make my challenge\n    You shall not be my judge; for it is you\n    Have blown this coal betwixt my lord and me-\n    Which God's dew quench! Therefore I say again,\n    I utterly abhor, yea, from my soul\n    Refuse you for my judge, whom yet once more\n    I hold my most malicious foe and think not\n    At all a friend to truth.\n  WOLSEY. I do profess\n    You speak not like yourself, who ever yet\n    Have stood to charity and display'd th' effects\n    Of disposition gentle and of wisdom\n    O'ertopping woman's pow'r. Madam, you do me wrong:\n    I have no spleen against you, nor injustice\n    For you or any; how far I have proceeded,\n    Or how far further shall, is warranted\n    By a commission from the Consistory,\n    Yea, the whole Consistory of Rome. You charge me\n    That I have blown this coal: I do deny it.\n    The King is present; if it be known to him\n    That I gainsay my deed, how may he wound,\n    And worthily, my falsehood! Yea, as much\n    As you have done my truth. If he know\n    That I am free of your report, he knows\n    I am not of your wrong. Therefore in him\n    It lies to cure me, and the cure is to\n    Remove these thoughts from you; the which before\n    His Highness shall speak in, I do beseech\n    You, gracious madam, to unthink your speaking\n    And to say so no more.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. My lord, my lord,\n    I am a simple woman, much too weak\n    T' oppose your cunning. Y'are meek and humble-mouth'd;\n    You sign your place and calling, in full seeming,\n    With meekness and humility; but your heart\n    Is cramm'd with arrogancy, spleen, and pride.\n    You have, by fortune and his Highness' favours,\n    Gone slightly o'er low steps, and now are mounted\n    Where pow'rs are your retainers, and your words,\n    Domestics to you, serve your will as't please\n    Yourself pronounce their office. I must tell you\n    You tender more your person's honour than\n    Your high profession spiritual; that again\n    I do refuse you for my judge and here,\n    Before you all, appeal unto the Pope,\n    To bring my whole cause 'fore his Holiness\n    And to be judg'd by him.\n                     [She curtsies to the KING, and offers to depart]\n  CAMPEIUS. The Queen is obstinate,\n    Stubborn to justice, apt to accuse it, and\n    Disdainful to be tried by't; 'tis not well.\n    She's going away.\n  KING. Call her again.\n  CRIER. Katharine Queen of England, come into the court.\n  GENTLEMAN USHER. Madam, you are call'd back.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. What need you note it? Pray you keep your way;\n    When you are call'd, return. Now the Lord help!\n    They vex me past my patience. Pray you pass on.\n    I will not tarry; no, nor ever more\n    Upon this business my appearance make\n    In any of their courts.           Exeunt QUEEN and her attendants\n  KING. Go thy ways, Kate.\n    That man i' th' world who shall report he has\n    A better wife, let him in nought be trusted\n    For speaking false in that. Thou art, alone-\n    If thy rare qualities, sweet gentleness,\n    Thy meekness saint-like, wife-like government,\n    Obeying in commanding, and thy parts\n    Sovereign and pious else, could speak thee out-\n    The queen of earthly queens. She's noble born;\n    And like her true nobility she has\n    Carried herself towards me.\n  WOLSEY. Most gracious sir,\n    In humblest manner I require your Highness\n    That it shall please you to declare in hearing\n    Of all these ears-for where I am robb'd and bound,\n    There must I be unloos'd, although not there\n    At once and fully satisfied-whether ever I\n    Did broach this business to your Highness, or\n    Laid any scruple in your way which might\n    Induce you to the question on't, or ever\n    Have to you, but with thanks to God for such\n    A royal lady, spake one the least word that might\n    Be to the prejudice of her present state,\n    Or touch of her good person?\n  KING. My Lord Cardinal,\n    I do excuse you; yea, upon mine honour,\n    I free you from't. You are not to be taught\n    That you have many enemies that know not\n    Why they are so, but, like to village curs,\n    Bark when their fellows do. By some of these\n    The Queen is put in anger. Y'are excus'd.\n    But will you be more justified? You ever\n    Have wish'd the sleeping of this business; never desir'd\n    It to be stirr'd; but oft have hind'red, oft,\n    The passages made toward it. On my honour,\n    I speak my good Lord Cardinal to this point,\n    And thus far clear him. Now, what mov'd me to't,\n    I will be bold with time and your attention.\n    Then mark th' inducement. Thus it came-give heed to't:\n    My conscience first receiv'd a tenderness,\n    Scruple, and prick, on certain speeches utter'd\n    By th' Bishop of Bayonne, then French ambassador,\n    Who had been hither sent on the debating\n    A marriage 'twixt the Duke of Orleans and\n    Our daughter Mary. I' th' progress of this business,\n    Ere a determinate resolution, he-\n    I mean the Bishop-did require a respite\n    Wherein he might the King his lord advertise\n    Whether our daughter were legitimate,\n    Respecting this our marriage with the dowager,\n    Sometimes our brother's wife. This respite shook\n    The bosom of my conscience, enter'd me,\n    Yea, with a splitting power, and made to tremble\n    The region of my breast, which forc'd such way\n    That many maz'd considerings did throng\n    And press'd in with this caution. First, methought\n    I stood not in the smile of heaven, who had\n    Commanded nature that my lady's womb,\n    If it conceiv'd a male child by me, should\n    Do no more offices of life to't than\n    The grave does to the dead; for her male issue\n    Or died where they were made, or shortly after\n    This world had air'd them. Hence I took a thought\n    This was a judgment on me, that my kingdom,\n    Well worthy the best heir o' th' world, should not\n    Be gladded in't by me. Then follows that\n    I weigh'd the danger which my realms stood in\n    By this my issue's fail, and that gave to me\n    Many a groaning throe. Thus hulling in\n    The wild sea of my conscience, I did steer\n    Toward this remedy, whereupon we are\n    Now present here together; that's to say\n    I meant to rectify my conscience, which\n    I then did feel full sick, and yet not well,\n    By all the reverend fathers of the land\n    And doctors learn'd. First, I began in private\n    With you, my Lord of Lincoln; you remember\n    How under my oppression I did reek,\n    When I first mov'd you.\n  LINCOLN. Very well, my liege.\n  KING. I have spoke long; be pleas'd yourself to say\n    How far you satisfied me.\n  LINCOLN. So please your Highness,\n    The question did at first so stagger me-\n    Bearing a state of mighty moment in't\n    And consequence of dread-that I committed\n    The daring'st counsel which I had to doubt,\n    And did entreat your Highness to this course\n    Which you are running here.\n  KING. I then mov'd you,\n    My Lord of Canterbury, and got your leave\n    To make this present summons. Unsolicited\n    I left no reverend person in this court,\n    But by particular consent proceeded\n    Under your hands and seals; therefore, go on,\n    For no dislike i' th' world against the person\n    Of the good Queen, but the sharp thorny points\n    Of my alleged reasons, drives this forward.\n    Prove but our marriage lawful, by my life\n    And kingly dignity, we are contented\n    To wear our moral state to come with her,\n    Katharine our queen, before the primest creature\n    That's paragon'd o' th' world.\n  CAMPEIUS. So please your Highness,\n    The Queen being absent, 'tis a needful fitness\n    That we adjourn this court till further day;\n    Meanwhile must be an earnest motion\n    Made to the Queen to call back her appeal\n    She intends unto his Holiness.\n  KING.  [Aside]  I may perceive\n    These cardinals trifle with me. I abhor\n    This dilatory sloth and tricks of Rome.\n    My learn'd and well-beloved servant, Cranmer,\n    Prithee return. With thy approach I know\n    My comfort comes along. -Break up the court;\n    I say, set on.                   Exuent in manner as they entered\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 1.\n\nLondon. The QUEEN'S apartments\n\nEnter the QUEEN and her women, as at work\n\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. Take thy lute, wench. My soul grows\n      sad with troubles;\n    Sing and disperse 'em, if thou canst. Leave working.\n\n                    SONG\n\n        Orpheus with his lute made trees,\n        And the mountain tops that freeze,\n          Bow themselves when he did sing;\n        To his music plants and flowers\n        Ever sprung, as sun and showers\n          There had made a lasting spring.\n\n        Every thing that heard him play,\n        Even the billows of the sea,\n          Hung their heads and then lay by.\n        In sweet music is such art,\n        Killing care and grief of heart\n          Fall asleep or hearing die.\n\n              Enter a GENTLEMAN\n\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. How now?\n  GENTLEMAN. An't please your Grace, the two great Cardinals\n    Wait in the presence.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. Would they speak with me?\n  GENTLEMAN. They will'd me say so, madam.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. Pray their Graces\n    To come near. [Exit GENTLEMAN] What can be their business\n    With me, a poor weak woman, fall'n from favour?\n    I do not like their coming. Now I think on't,\n    They should be good men, their affairs as righteous;\n    But all hoods make not monks.\n\n         Enter the two CARDINALS, WOLSEY and CAMPEIUS\n\n  WOLSEY. Peace to your Highness!\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. Your Graces find me here part of housewife;\n    I would be all, against the worst may happen.\n    What are your pleasures with me, reverend lords?\n  WOLSEY. May it please you, noble madam, to withdraw\n    Into your private chamber, we shall give you\n    The full cause of our coming.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. Speak it here;\n    There's nothing I have done yet, o' my conscience,\n    Deserves a corner. Would all other women\n    Could speak this with as free a soul as I do!\n    My lords, I care not-so much I am happy\n    Above a number-if my actions\n    Were tried by ev'ry tongue, ev'ry eye saw 'em,\n    Envy and base opinion set against 'em,\n    I know my life so even. If your business\n    Seek me out, and that way I am wife in,\n    Out with it boldly; truth loves open dealing.\n  WOLSEY. Tanta est erga te mentis integritas, regina serenis-sima-\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. O, good my lord, no Latin!\n    I am not such a truant since my coming,\n    As not to know the language I have liv'd in;\n    A strange tongue makes my cause more strange, suspicious;\n    Pray speak in English. Here are some will thank you,\n    If you speak truth, for their poor mistress' sake:\n    Believe me, she has had much wrong. Lord Cardinal,\n    The willing'st sin I ever yet committed\n    May be absolv'd in English.\n  WOLSEY. Noble lady,\n    I am sorry my integrity should breed,\n    And service to his Majesty and you,\n    So deep suspicion, where all faith was meant\n    We come not by the way of accusation\n    To taint that honour every good tongue blesses,\n    Nor to betray you any way to sorrow-\n    You have too much, good lady; but to know\n    How you stand minded in the weighty difference\n    Between the King and you, and to deliver,\n    Like free and honest men, our just opinions\n    And comforts to your cause.\n  CAMPEIUS. Most honour'd madam,\n    My Lord of York, out of his noble nature,\n    Zeal and obedience he still bore your Grace,\n    Forgetting, like a good man, your late censure\n    Both of his truth and him-which was too far-\n    Offers, as I do, in a sign of peace,\n    His service and his counsel.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE.  [Aside]  To betray me.-\n    My lords, I thank you both for your good wins;\n    Ye speak like honest men-pray God ye prove so!\n    But how to make ye suddenly an answer,\n    In such a point of weight, so near mine honour,\n    More near my life, I fear, with my weak wit,\n    And to such men of gravity and learning,\n    In truth I know not. I was set at work\n    Among my maids, full little, God knows, looking\n    Either for such men or such business.\n    For her sake that I have been-for I feel\n    The last fit of my greatness-good your Graces,\n    Let me have time and counsel for my cause.\n    Alas, I am a woman, friendless, hopeless!\n  WOLSEY. Madam, you wrong the King's love with these fears;\n    Your hopes and friends are infinite.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. In England\n    But little for my profit; can you think, lords,\n    That any Englishman dare give me counsel?\n    Or be a known friend, 'gainst his Highness' pleasure-\n    Though he be grown so desperate to be honest-\n    And live a subject? Nay, forsooth, my friends,\n    They that must weigh out my afflictions,\n    They that my trust must grow to, live not here;\n    They are, as all my other comforts, far hence,\n    In mine own country, lords.\n  CAMPEIUS. I would your Grace\n    Would leave your griefs, and take my counsel.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. How, sir?\n  CAMPEIUS. Put your main cause into the King's protection;\n    He's loving and most gracious. 'Twill be much\n    Both for your honour better and your cause;\n    For if the trial of the law o'ertake ye\n    You'll part away disgrac'd.\n  WOLSEY. He tells you rightly.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. Ye tell me what ye wish for both-my ruin.\n    Is this your Christian counsel? Out upon ye!\n    Heaven is above all yet: there sits a Judge\n    That no king can corrupt.\n  CAMPEIUS. Your rage mistakes us.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. The more shame for ye; holy men I thought ye,\n    Upon my soul, two reverend cardinal virtues;\n    But cardinal sins and hollow hearts I fear ye.\n    Mend 'em, for shame, my lords. Is this your comfort?\n    The cordial that ye bring a wretched lady-\n    A woman lost among ye, laugh'd at, scorn'd?\n    I will not wish ye half my miseries:\n    I have more charity; but say I warned ye.\n    Take heed, for heaven's sake take heed, lest at once\n    The burden of my sorrows fall upon ye.\n  WOLSEY. Madam, this is a mere distraction;\n    You turn the good we offer into envy.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. Ye turn me into nothing. Woe upon ye,\n    And all such false professors! Would you have me-\n    If you have any justice, any pity,\n    If ye be any thing but churchmen's habits-\n    Put my sick cause into his hands that hates me?\n    Alas! has banish'd me his bed already,\n    His love too long ago! I am old, my lords,\n    And all the fellowship I hold now with him\n    Is only my obedience. What can happen\n    To me above this wretchedness? All your studies\n    Make me a curse like this.\n  CAMPEIUS. Your fears are worse.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. Have I liv'd thus long-let me speak myself,\n    Since virtue finds no friends-a wife, a true one?\n    A woman, I dare say without vain-glory,\n    Never yet branded with suspicion?\n    Have I with all my full affections\n    Still met the King, lov'd him next heav'n, obey'd him,\n    Been, out of fondness, superstitious to him,\n    Almost forgot my prayers to content him,\n    And am I thus rewarded? 'Tis not well, lords.\n    Bring me a constant woman to her husband,\n    One that ne'er dream'd a joy beyond his pleasure,\n    And to that woman, when she has done most,\n    Yet will I add an honour-a great patience.\n  WOLSEY. Madam, you wander from the good we aim at.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. My lord, I dare not make myself so guilty,\n    To give up willingly that noble title\n    Your master wed me to: nothing but death\n    Shall e'er divorce my dignities.\n  WOLSEY. Pray hear me.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. Would I had never trod this English earth,\n    Or felt the flatteries that grow upon it!\n    Ye have angels' faces, but heaven knows your hearts.\n    What will become of me now, wretched lady?\n    I am the most unhappy woman living.\n    [To her WOMEN]  Alas, poor wenches, where are now\n      your fortunes?\n    Shipwreck'd upon a kingdom, where no pity,\n    No friends, no hope; no kindred weep for me;\n    Almost no grave allow'd me. Like the My,\n    That once was mistress of the field, and flourish'd,\n    I'll hang my head and perish.\n  WOLSEY. If your Grace\n    Could but be brought to know our ends are honest,\n    You'd feel more comfort. Why should we, good lady,\n    Upon what cause, wrong you? Alas, our places,\n    The way of our profession is against it;\n    We are to cure such sorrows, not to sow 'em.\n    For goodness' sake, consider what you do;\n    How you may hurt yourself, ay, utterly\n    Grow from the King's acquaintance, by this carriage.\n    The hearts of princes kiss obedience,\n    So much they love it; but to stubborn spirits\n    They swell and grow as terrible as storms.\n    I know you have a gentle, noble temper,\n    A soul as even as a calm. Pray think us\n    Those we profess, peace-makers, friends, and servants.\n  CAMPEIUS. Madam, you'll find it so. You wrong your virtues\n    With these weak women's fears. A noble spirit,\n    As yours was put into you, ever casts\n    Such doubts as false coin from it. The King loves you;\n    Beware you lose it not. For us, if you please\n    To trust us in your business, we are ready\n    To use our utmost studies in your service.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. Do what ye will my lords; and pray\n      forgive me\n    If I have us'd myself unmannerly;\n    You know I am a woman, lacking wit\n    To make a seemly answer to such persons.\n    Pray do my service to his Majesty;\n    He has my heart yet, and shall have my prayers\n    While I shall have my life. Come, reverend fathers,\n    Bestow your counsels on me; she now begs\n    That little thought, when she set footing here,\n    She should have bought her dignities so dear.              Exeunt\n\n\n\nACT III.SCENE 2.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter the DUKE OF NORFOLK, the DUKE OF SUFFOLK, the EARL OF SURREY,\nand the LORD CHAMBERLAIN\n\n  NORFOLK. If you will now unite in your complaints\n    And force them with a constancy, the Cardinal\n    Cannot stand under them: if you omit\n    The offer of this time, I cannot promise\n    But that you shall sustain moe new disgraces\n    With these you bear already.\n  SURREY. I am joyful\n    To meet the least occasion that may give me\n    Remembrance of my father-in-law, the Duke,\n    To be reveng'd on him.\n  SUFFOLK. Which of the peers\n    Have uncontemn'd gone by him, or at least\n    Strangely neglected? When did he regard\n    The stamp of nobleness in any person\n    Out of himself?\n  CHAMBERLAIN. My lords, you speak your pleasures.\n    What he deserves of you and me I know;\n    What we can do to him-though now the time\n    Gives way to us-I much fear. If you cannot\n    Bar his access to th' King, never attempt\n    Anything on him; for he hath a witchcraft\n    Over the King in's tongue.\n  NORFOLK. O, fear him not!\n    His spell in that is out; the King hath found\n    Matter against him that for ever mars\n    The honey of his language. No, he's settled,\n    Not to come off, in his displeasure.\n  SURREY. Sir,\n    I should be glad to hear such news as this\n    Once every hour.\n  NORFOLK. Believe it, this is true:\n    In the divorce his contrary proceedings\n    Are all unfolded; wherein he appears\n    As I would wish mine enemy.\n  SURREY. How came\n    His practices to light?\n  SUFFOLK. Most Strangely.\n  SURREY. O, how, how?\n  SUFFOLK. The Cardinal's letters to the Pope miscarried,\n    And came to th' eye o' th' King; wherein was read\n    How that the Cardinal did entreat his Holiness\n    To stay the judgment o' th' divorce; for if\n    It did take place, 'I do' quoth he 'perceive\n    My king is tangled in affection to\n    A creature of the Queen's, Lady Anne Bullen.'\n  SURREY. Has the King this?\n  SUFFOLK. Believe it.\n  SURREY. Will this work?\n  CHAMBERLAIN. The King in this perceives him how he coasts\n    And hedges his own way. But in this point\n    All his tricks founder, and he brings his physic\n    After his patient's death: the King already\n    Hath married the fair lady.\n  SURREY. Would he had!\n  SUFFOLK. May you be happy in your wish, my lord!\n    For, I profess, you have it.\n  SURREY. Now, all my joy\n    Trace the conjunction!\n  SUFFOLK. My amen to't!\n  NORFOLK. An men's!\n  SUFFOLK. There's order given for her coronation;\n    Marry, this is yet but young, and may be left\n    To some ears unrecounted. But, my lords,\n    She is a gallant creature, and complete\n    In mind and feature. I persuade me from her\n    Will fall some blessing to this land, which shall\n    In it be memoriz'd.\n  SURREY. But will the King\n    Digest this letter of the Cardinal's?\n    The Lord forbid!\n  NORFOLK. Marry, amen!\n  SUFFOLK. No, no;\n    There be moe wasps that buzz about his nose\n    Will make this sting the sooner. Cardinal Campeius\n    Is stol'n away to Rome; hath ta'en no leave;\n    Has left the cause o' th' King unhandled, and\n    Is posted, as the agent of our Cardinal,\n    To second all his plot. I do assure you\n    The King cried 'Ha!' at this.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Now, God incense him,\n    And let him cry 'Ha!' louder!\n  NORFOLK. But, my lord,\n    When returns Cranmer?\n  SUFFOLK. He is return'd in his opinions; which\n    Have satisfied the King for his divorce,\n    Together with all famous colleges\n    Almost in Christendom. Shortly, I believe,\n    His second marriage shall be publish'd, and\n    Her coronation. Katharine no more\n    Shall be call'd queen, but princess dowager\n    And widow to Prince Arthur.\n  NORFOLK. This same Cranmer's\n    A worthy fellow, and hath ta'en much pain\n    In the King's business.\n  SUFFOLK. He has; and we shall see him\n    For it an archbishop.\n  NORFOLK. So I hear.\n  SUFFOLK. 'Tis so.\n\n        Enter WOLSEY and CROMWELL\n\n    The Cardinal!\n  NORFOLK. Observe, observe, he's moody.\n  WOLSEY. The packet, Cromwell,\n    Gave't you the King?\n  CROMWELL. To his own hand, in's bedchamber.\n  WOLSEY. Look'd he o' th' inside of the paper?\n  CROMWELL. Presently\n    He did unseal them; and the first he view'd,\n    He did it with a serious mind; a heed\n    Was in his countenance. You he bade\n    Attend him here this morning.\n  WOLSEY. Is he ready\n    To come abroad?\n  CROMWELL. I think by this he is.\n  WOLSEY. Leave me awhile.                              Exit CROMWELL\n    [Aside]  It shall be to the Duchess of Alencon,\n    The French King's sister; he shall marry her.\n    Anne Bullen! No, I'll no Anne Bullens for him;\n    There's more in't than fair visage. Bullen!\n    No, we'll no Bullens. Speedily I wish\n    To hear from Rome. The Marchioness of Pembroke!\n  NORFOLK. He's discontented.\n  SUFFOLK. May be he hears the King\n    Does whet his anger to him.\n  SURREY. Sharp enough,\n    Lord, for thy justice!\n  WOLSEY.  [Aside]  The late Queen's gentlewoman, a knight's\n      daughter,\n    To be her mistress' mistress! The Queen's queen!\n    This candle burns not clear. 'Tis I must snuff it;\n    Then out it goes. What though I know her virtuous\n    And well deserving? Yet I know her for\n    A spleeny Lutheran; and not wholesome to\n    Our cause that she should lie i' th' bosom of\n    Our hard-rul'd King. Again, there is sprung up\n    An heretic, an arch one, Cranmer; one\n    Hath crawl'd into the favour of the King,\n    And is his oracle.\n  NORFOLK. He is vex'd at something.\n\n        Enter the KING, reading of a schedule, and LOVELL\n\n  SURREY. I would 'twere something that would fret the string,\n    The master-cord on's heart!\n  SUFFOLK. The King, the King!\n  KING. What piles of wealth hath he accumulated\n    To his own portion! And what expense by th' hour\n    Seems to flow from him! How, i' th' name of thrift,\n    Does he rake this together?-Now, my lords,\n    Saw you the Cardinal?\n  NORFOLK. My lord, we have\n    Stood here observing him. Some strange commotion\n    Is in his brain: he bites his lip and starts,\n    Stops on a sudden, looks upon the ground,\n    Then lays his finger on his temple; straight\n    Springs out into fast gait; then stops again,\n    Strikes his breast hard; and anon he casts\n    His eye against the moon. In most strange postures\n    We have seen him set himself.\n  KING. It may well be\n    There is a mutiny in's mind. This morning\n    Papers of state he sent me to peruse,\n    As I requir'd; and wot you what I found\n    There-on my conscience, put unwittingly?\n    Forsooth, an inventory, thus importing\n    The several parcels of his plate, his treasure,\n    Rich stuffs, and ornaments of household; which\n    I find at such proud rate that it outspeaks\n    Possession of a subject.\n  NORFOLK. It's heaven's will;\n    Some spirit put this paper in the packet\n    To bless your eye withal.\n  KING. If we did think\n    His contemplation were above the earth\n    And fix'd on spiritual object, he should still\n    dwell in his musings; but I am afraid\n    His thinkings are below the moon, not worth\n    His serious considering.\n                        [The KING takes his seat and whispers LOVELL,\n                                           who goes to the CARDINAL]\n  WOLSEY. Heaven forgive me!\n    Ever God bless your Highness!\n  KING. Good, my lord,\n    You are full of heavenly stuff, and bear the inventory\n    Of your best graces in your mind; the which\n    You were now running o'er. You have scarce time\n    To steal from spiritual leisure a brief span\n    To keep your earthly audit; sure, in that\n    I deem you an ill husband, and am glad\n    To have you therein my companion.\n  WOLSEY. Sir,\n    For holy offices I have a time; a time\n    To think upon the part of business which\n    I bear i' th' state; and nature does require\n    Her times of preservation, which perforce\n    I, her frail son, amongst my brethren mortal,\n    Must give my tendance to.\n  KING. You have said well.\n  WOLSEY. And ever may your Highness yoke together,\n    As I will lend you cause, my doing well\n    With my well saying!\n  KING. 'Tis well said again;\n    And 'tis a kind of good deed to say well;\n    And yet words are no deeds. My father lov'd you:\n    He said he did; and with his deed did crown\n    His word upon you. Since I had my office\n    I have kept you next my heart; have not alone\n    Employ'd you where high profits might come home,\n    But par'd my present havings to bestow\n    My bounties upon you.\n  WOLSEY.  [Aside]  What should this mean?\n  SURREY.  [Aside]  The Lord increase this business!\n  KING. Have I not made you\n    The prime man of the state? I pray you tell me\n    If what I now pronounce you have found true;\n    And, if you may confess it, say withal\n    If you are bound to us or no. What say you?\n  WOLSEY. My sovereign, I confess your royal graces,\n    Show'r'd on me daily, have been more than could\n    My studied purposes requite; which went\n    Beyond all man's endeavours. My endeavours,\n    Have ever come too short of my desires,\n    Yet fil'd with my abilities; mine own ends\n    Have been mine so that evermore they pointed\n    To th' good of your most sacred person and\n    The profit of the state. For your great graces\n    Heap'd upon me, poor undeserver, I\n    Can nothing render but allegiant thanks;\n    My pray'rs to heaven for you; my loyalty,\n    Which ever has and ever shall be growing,\n    Till death, that winter, kill it.\n  KING. Fairly answer'd!\n    A loyal and obedient subject is\n    Therein illustrated; the honour of it\n    Does pay the act of it, as, i' th' contrary,\n    The foulness is the punishment. I presume\n    That, as my hand has open'd bounty to you,\n    My heart dropp'd love, my pow'r rain'd honour, more\n    On you than any, so your hand and heart,\n    Your brain, and every function of your power,\n    Should, notwithstanding that your bond of duty,\n    As 'twere in love's particular, be more\n    To me, your friend, than any.\n  WOLSEY. I do profess\n    That for your Highness' good I ever labour'd\n    More than mine own; that am, have, and will be-\n    Though all the world should crack their duty to you,\n    And throw it from their soul; though perils did\n    Abound as thick as thought could make 'em, and\n    Appear in forms more horrid-yet my duty,\n    As doth a rock against the chiding flood,\n    Should the approach of this wild river break,\n    And stand unshaken yours.\n  KING. 'Tis nobly spoken.\n    Take notice, lords, he has a loyal breast,\n    For you have seen him open 't. Read o'er this;\n                                                  [Giving him papers]\n    And after, this; and then to breakfast with\n    What appetite you have.\n                Exit the KING, frowning upon the CARDINAL; the NOBLES\n                             throng after him, smiling and whispering\n  WOLSEY. What should this mean?\n    What sudden anger's this? How have I reap'd it?\n    He parted frowning from me, as if ruin\n    Leap'd from his eyes; so looks the chafed lion\n    Upon the daring huntsman that has gall'd him-\n    Then makes him nothing. I must read this paper;\n    I fear, the story of his anger. 'Tis so;\n    This paper has undone me. 'Tis th' account\n    Of all that world of wealth I have drawn together\n    For mine own ends; indeed to gain the popedom,\n    And fee my friends in Rome. O negligence,\n    Fit for a fool to fall by! What cross devil\n    Made me put this main secret in the packet\n    I sent the King? Is there no way to cure this?\n    No new device to beat this from his brains?\n    I know 'twill stir him strongly; yet I know\n    A way, if it take right, in spite of fortune,\n    Will bring me off again. What's this? 'To th' Pope.'\n    The letter, as I live, with all the business\n    I writ to's Holiness. Nay then, farewell!\n    I have touch'd the highest point of all my greatness,\n    And from that full meridian of my glory\n    I haste now to my setting. I shall fall\n    Like a bright exhalation in the evening,\n    And no man see me more.\n\n        Re-enter to WOLSEY the DUKES OF NORFOLK and\n        SUFFOLK, the EARL OF SURREY, and the LORD\n        CHAMBERLAIN\n\n  NORFOLK. Hear the King's pleasure, Cardinal, who commands you\n    To render up the great seal presently\n    Into our hands, and to confine yourself\n    To Asher House, my Lord of Winchester's,\n    Till you hear further from his Highness.\n  WOLSEY. Stay:\n    Where's your commission, lords? Words cannot carry\n    Authority so weighty.\n  SUFFOLK. Who dares cross 'em,\n    Bearing the King's will from his mouth expressly?\n  WOLSEY. Till I find more than will or words to do it-\n    I mean your malice-know, officious lords,\n    I dare and must deny it. Now I feel\n    Of what coarse metal ye are moulded-envy;\n    How eagerly ye follow my disgraces,\n    As if it fed ye; and how sleek and wanton\n    Ye appear in every thing may bring my ruin!\n    Follow your envious courses, men of malice;\n    You have Christian warrant for 'em, and no doubt\n    In time will find their fit rewards. That seal\n    You ask with such a violence, the King-\n    Mine and your master-with his own hand gave me;\n    Bade me enjoy it, with the place and honours,\n    During my life; and, to confirm his goodness,\n    Tied it by letters-patents. Now, who'll take it?\n  SURREY. The King, that gave it.\n  WOLSEY. It must be himself then.\n  SURREY. Thou art a proud traitor, priest.\n  WOLSEY. Proud lord, thou liest.\n    Within these forty hours Surrey durst better\n    Have burnt that tongue than said so.\n  SURREY. Thy ambition,\n    Thou scarlet sin, robb'd this bewailing land\n    Of noble Buckingham, my father-in-law.\n    The heads of all thy brother cardinals,\n    With thee and all thy best parts bound together,\n    Weigh'd not a hair of his. Plague of your policy!\n    You sent me deputy for Ireland;\n    Far from his succour, from the King, from all\n    That might have mercy on the fault thou gav'st him;\n    Whilst your great goodness, out of holy pity,\n    Absolv'd him with an axe.\n  WOLSEY. This, and all else\n    This talking lord can lay upon my credit,\n    I answer is most false. The Duke by law\n    Found his deserts; how innocent I was\n    From any private malice in his end,\n    His noble jury and foul cause can witness.\n    If I lov'd many words, lord, I should tell you\n    You have as little honesty as honour,\n    That in the way of loyalty and truth\n    Toward the King, my ever royal master,\n    Dare mate a sounder man than Surrey can be\n    And an that love his follies.\n  SURREY. By my soul,\n    Your long coat, priest, protects you; thou shouldst feel\n    My sword i' the life-blood of thee else. My lords\n    Can ye endure to hear this arrogance?\n    And from this fellow? If we live thus tamely,\n    To be thus jaded by a piece of scarlet,\n    Farewell nobility! Let his Grace go forward\n    And dare us with his cap like larks.\n  WOLSEY. All goodness\n    Is poison to thy stomach.\n  SURREY. Yes, that goodness\n    Of gleaning all the land's wealth into one,\n    Into your own hands, Cardinal, by extortion;\n    The goodness of your intercepted packets\n    You writ to th' Pope against the King; your goodness,\n    Since you provoke me, shall be most notorious.\n    My Lord of Norfolk, as you are truly noble,\n    As you respect the common good, the state\n    Of our despis'd nobility, our issues,\n    Whom, if he live, will scarce be gentlemen-\n    Produce the grand sum of his sins, the articles\n    Collected from his life. I'll startle you\n    Worse than the sacring bell, when the brown wench\n    Lay kissing in your arms, Lord Cardinal.\n  WOLSEY. How much, methinks, I could despise this man,\n    But that I am bound in charity against it!\n  NORFOLK. Those articles, my lord, are in the King's hand;\n    But, thus much, they are foul ones.\n  WOLSEY. So much fairer\n    And spotless shall mine innocence arise,\n    When the King knows my truth.\n  SURREY. This cannot save you.\n    I thank my memory I yet remember\n    Some of these articles; and out they shall.\n    Now, if you can blush and cry guilty, Cardinal,\n    You'll show a little honesty.\n  WOLSEY. Speak on, sir;\n    I dare your worst objections. If I blush,\n    It is to see a nobleman want manners.\n  SURREY. I had rather want those than my head. Have at you!\n    First, that without the King's assent or knowledge\n    You wrought to be a legate; by which power\n    You maim'd the jurisdiction of all bishops.\n  NORFOLK. Then, that in all you writ to Rome, or else\n    To foreign princes, 'Ego et Rex meus'\n    Was still inscrib'd; in which you brought the King\n    To be your servant.\n  SUFFOLK. Then, that without the knowledge\n    Either of King or Council, when you went\n    Ambassador to the Emperor, you made bold\n    To carry into Flanders the great seal.\n  SURREY. Item, you sent a large commission\n    To Gregory de Cassado, to conclude,\n    Without the King's will or the state's allowance,\n    A league between his Highness and Ferrara.\n  SUFFOLK. That out of mere ambition you have caus'd\n    Your holy hat to be stamp'd on the King's coin.\n  SURREY. Then, that you have sent innumerable substance,\n    By what means got I leave to your own conscience,\n    To furnish Rome and to prepare the ways\n    You have for dignities, to the mere undoing\n    Of all the kingdom. Many more there are,\n    Which, since they are of you, and odious,\n    I will not taint my mouth with.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. O my lord,\n    Press not a falling man too far! 'Tis virtue.\n    His faults lie open to the laws; let them,\n    Not you, correct him. My heart weeps to see him\n    So little of his great self.\n  SURREY. I forgive him.\n  SUFFOLK. Lord Cardinal, the King's further pleasure is-\n    Because all those things you have done of late,\n    By your power legatine within this kingdom,\n    Fall into th' compass of a praemunire-\n    That therefore such a writ be sued against you:\n    To forfeit all your goods, lands, tenements,\n    Chattels, and whatsoever, and to be\n    Out of the King's protection. This is my charge.\n  NORFOLK. And so we'll leave you to your meditations\n    How to live better. For your stubborn answer\n    About the giving back the great seal to us,\n    The King shall know it, and, no doubt, shall thank you.\n    So fare you well, my little good Lord Cardinal.\n                                                Exeunt all but WOLSEY\n  WOLSEY. So farewell to the little good you bear me.\n    Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness!\n    This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth\n    The tender leaves of hopes; to-morrow blossoms\n    And bears his blushing honours thick upon him;\n    The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,\n    And when he thinks, good easy man, full surely\n    His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,\n    And then he falls, as I do. I have ventur'd,\n    Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,\n    This many summers in a sea of glory;\n    But far beyond my depth. My high-blown pride\n    At length broke under me, and now has left me,\n    Weary and old with service, to the mercy\n    Of a rude stream, that must for ever hide me.\n    Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye;\n    I feel my heart new open'd. O, how wretched\n    Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favours!\n    There is betwixt that smile we would aspire to,\n    That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin\n    More pangs and fears than wars or women have;\n    And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,\n    Never to hope again.\n\n         Enter CROMWELL, standing amazed\n\n    Why, how now, Cromwell!\n  CROMWELL. I have no power to speak, sir.\n  WOLSEY. What, amaz'd\n    At my misfortunes? Can thy spirit wonder\n    A great man should decline? Nay, an you weep,\n    I am fall'n indeed.\n  CROMWELL. How does your Grace?\n  WOLSEY. Why, well;\n    Never so truly happy, my good Cromwell.\n    I know myself now, and I feel within me\n    A peace above all earthly dignities,\n    A still and quiet conscience. The King has cur'd me,\n    I humbly thank his Grace; and from these shoulders,\n    These ruin'd pillars, out of pity, taken\n    A load would sink a navy-too much honour.\n    O, 'tis a burden, Cromwell, 'tis a burden\n    Too heavy for a man that hopes for heaven!\n  CROMWELL. I am glad your Grace has made that right use of it.\n  WOLSEY. I hope I have. I am able now, methinks,\n    Out of a fortitude of soul I feel,\n    To endure more miseries and greater far\n    Than my weak-hearted enemies dare offer.\n    What news abroad?\n  CROMWELL. The heaviest and the worst\n    Is your displeasure with the King.\n  WOLSEY. God bless him!\n  CROMWELL. The next is that Sir Thomas More is chosen\n    Lord Chancellor in your place.\n  WOLSEY. That's somewhat sudden.\n    But he's a learned man. May he continue\n    Long in his Highness' favour, and do justice\n    For truth's sake and his conscience; that his bones\n    When he has run his course and sleeps in blessings,\n    May have a tomb of orphans' tears wept on him!\n    What more?\n  CROMWELL. That Cranmer is return'd with welcome,\n    Install'd Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.\n  WOLSEY. That's news indeed.\n  CROMWELL. Last, that the Lady Anne,\n    Whom the King hath in secrecy long married,\n    This day was view'd in open as his queen,\n    Going to chapel; and the voice is now\n    Only about her coronation.\n  WOLSEY. There was the weight that pull'd me down.\n      O Cromwell,\n    The King has gone beyond me. All my glories\n    In that one woman I have lost for ever.\n    No sun shall ever usher forth mine honours,\n    Or gild again the noble troops that waited\n    Upon my smiles. Go get thee from me, Cromwell;\n    I am a poor fall'n man, unworthy now\n    To be thy lord and master. Seek the King;\n    That sun, I pray, may never set! I have told him\n    What and how true thou art. He will advance thee;\n    Some little memory of me will stir him-\n    I know his noble nature-not to let\n    Thy hopeful service perish too. Good Cromwell,\n    Neglect him not; make use now, and provide\n    For thine own future safety.\n  CROMWELL. O my lord,\n    Must I then leave you? Must I needs forgo\n    So good, so noble, and so true a master?\n    Bear witness, all that have not hearts of iron,\n    With what a sorrow Cromwell leaves his lord.\n    The King shall have my service; but my prayers\n    For ever and for ever shall be yours.\n  WOLSEY. Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear\n    In all my miseries; but thou hast forc'd me,\n    Out of thy honest truth, to play the woman.\n    Let's dry our eyes; and thus far hear me, Cromwell,\n    And when I am forgotten, as I shall be,\n    And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention\n    Of me more must be heard of, say I taught thee-\n    Say Wolsey, that once trod the ways of glory,\n    And sounded all the depths and shoals of honour,\n    Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise in-\n    A sure and safe one, though thy master miss'd it.\n    Mark but my fall and that that ruin'd me.\n    Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition:\n    By that sin fell the angels. How can man then,\n    The image of his Maker, hope to win by it?\n    Love thyself last; cherish those hearts that hate thee;\n    Corruption wins not more than honesty.\n    Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace\n    To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not;\n    Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's,\n    Thy God's, and truth's; then, if thou fall'st, O Cromwell,\n    Thou fall'st a blessed martyr!\n    Serve the King, and-prithee lead me in.\n    There take an inventory of all I have\n    To the last penny; 'tis the King's. My robe,\n    And my integrity to heaven, is all\n    I dare now call mine own. O Cromwell, Cromwell!\n    Had I but serv'd my God with half the zeal\n    I serv'd my King, he would not in mine age\n    Have left me naked to mine enemies.\n  CROMWELL. Good sir, have patience.\n  WOLSEY. So I have. Farewell\n    The hopes of court! My hopes in heaven do dwell.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 1.\n\nA street in Westminster\n\nEnter two GENTLEMEN, meeting one another\n\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Y'are well met once again.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. So are you.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. You come to take your stand here, and\n      behold\n    The Lady Anne pass from her coronation?\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. 'Tis all my business. At our last encounter\n    The Duke of Buckingham came from his trial.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. 'Tis very true. But that time offer'd\n      sorrow;\n    This, general joy.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. 'Tis well. The citizens,\n    I am sure, have shown at full their royal minds-\n    As, let 'em have their rights, they are ever forward-\n    In celebration of this day with shows,\n    Pageants, and sights of honour.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Never greater,\n    Nor, I'll assure you, better taken, sir.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. May I be bold to ask what that contains,\n    That paper in your hand?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Yes; 'tis the list\n    Of those that claim their offices this day,\n    By custom of the coronation.\n    The Duke of Suffolk is the first, and claims\n    To be High Steward; next, the Duke of Norfolk,\n    He to be Earl Marshal. You may read the rest.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I thank you, sir; had I not known\n      those customs,\n    I should have been beholding to your paper.\n    But, I beseech you, what's become of Katharine,\n    The Princess Dowager? How goes her business?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. That I can tell you too. The Archbishop\n    Of Canterbury, accompanied with other\n    Learned and reverend fathers of his order,\n    Held a late court at Dunstable, six miles of\n    From Ampthill, where the Princess lay; to which\n    She was often cited by them, but appear'd not.\n    And, to be short, for not appearance and\n    The King's late scruple, by the main assent\n    Of all these learned men, she was divorc'd,\n    And the late marriage made of none effect;\n    Since which she was removed to Kimbolton,\n    Where she remains now sick.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Alas, good lady!                       [Trumpets]\n    The trumpets sound. Stand close, the Queen is coming.\n[Hautboys]\n\n              THE ORDER OF THE CORONATION.\n\n    1. A lively flourish of trumpets.\n    2. Then two JUDGES.\n    3. LORD CHANCELLOR, with purse and mace before him.\n    4. CHORISTERS singing.                                    [Music]\n    5. MAYOR OF LONDON, bearing the mace. Then GARTER, in\n       his coat of arms, and on his head he wore a gilt copper\n       crown.\n    6. MARQUIS DORSET, bearing a sceptre of gold, on his head a\n       demi-coronal of gold. With him, the EARL OF SURREY,\n       bearing the rod of silver with the dove, crowned with an\n       earl's coronet. Collars of Esses.\n    7. DUKE OF SUFFOLK, in his robe of estate, his coronet on\n       his head, bearing a long white wand, as High Steward.\n       With him, the DUKE OF NORFOLK, with the rod of\n       marshalship, a coronet on his head. Collars of Esses.\n    8. A canopy borne by four of the CINQUE-PORTS; under it\n       the QUEEN in her robe; in her hair richly adorned with\n       pearl, crowned. On each side her, the BISHOPS OF LONDON\n       and WINCHESTER.\n    9. The old DUCHESS OF NORFOLK, in a coronal of gold\n       wrought with flowers, bearing the QUEEN'S train.\n   10. Certain LADIES or COUNTESSES, with plain circlets of gold\n       without flowers.\n\n             Exeunt, first passing over the stage in order and state,\n                                and then a great flourish of trumpets\n\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. A royal train, believe me. These know.\n    Who's that that bears the sceptre?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Marquis Dorset;\n    And that the Earl of Surrey, with the rod.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. A bold brave gentleman. That should be\n    The Duke of Suffolk?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. 'Tis the same-High Steward.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. And that my Lord of Norfolk?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Yes.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN.  [Looking on the QUEEN]  Heaven\n      bless thee!\n    Thou hast the sweetest face I ever look'd on.\n    Sir, as I have a soul, she is an angel;\n    Our king has all the Indies in his arms,\n    And more and richer, when he strains that lady;\n    I cannot blame his conscience.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. They that bear\n    The cloth of honour over her are four barons\n    Of the Cinque-ports.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Those men are happy; and so are all\n      are near her.\n    I take it she that carries up the train\n    Is that old noble lady, Duchess of Norfolk.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. It is; and all the rest are countesses.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Their coronets say so. These are stars indeed,\n    And sometimes falling ones.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. No more of that.\n                   Exit Procession, with a great flourish of trumpets\n\n               Enter a third GENTLEMAN\n\n    God save you, sir! Where have you been broiling?\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Among the crowds i' th' Abbey, where a finger\n    Could not be wedg'd in more; I am stifled\n    With the mere rankness of their joy.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. You saw\n    The ceremony?\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. That I did.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. How was it?\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Well worth the seeing.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Good sir, speak it to us.\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. As well as I am able. The rich stream\n    Of lords and ladies, having brought the Queen\n    To a prepar'd place in the choir, fell of\n    A distance from her, while her Grace sat down\n    To rest awhile, some half an hour or so,\n    In a rich chair of state, opposing freely\n    The beauty of her person to the people.\n    Believe me, sir, she is the goodliest woman\n    That ever lay by man; which when the people\n    Had the full view of, such a noise arose\n    As the shrouds make at sea in a stiff tempest,\n    As loud, and to as many tunes; hats, cloaks-\n    Doublets, I think-flew up, and had their faces\n    Been loose, this day they had been lost. Such joy\n    I never saw before. Great-bellied women,\n    That had not half a week to go, like rams\n    In the old time of war, would shake the press,\n    And make 'em reel before 'em. No man living\n    Could say 'This is my wife' there, all were woven\n    So strangely in one piece.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. But what follow'd?\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. At length her Grace rose, and with\n      modest paces\n    Came to the altar, where she kneel'd, and saintlike\n    Cast her fair eyes to heaven, and pray'd devoutly.\n    Then rose again, and bow'd her to the people;\n    When by the Archbishop of Canterbury\n    She had all the royal makings of a queen:\n    As holy oil, Edward Confessor's crown,\n    The rod, and bird of peace, and all such emblems\n    Laid nobly on her; which perform'd, the choir,\n    With all the choicest music of the kingdom,\n    Together sung 'Te Deum.' So she parted,\n    And with the same full state pac'd back again\n    To York Place, where the feast is held.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Sir,\n    You must no more call it York Place: that's past:\n    For since the Cardinal fell that title's lost.\n    'Tis now the King's, and called Whitehall.\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. I know it;\n    But 'tis so lately alter'd that the old name\n    Is fresh about me.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. What two reverend bishops\n    Were those that went on each side of the Queen?\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Stokesly and Gardiner: the one of Winchester,\n    Newly preferr'd from the King's secretary;\n    The other, London.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. He of Winchester\n    Is held no great good lover of the Archbishop's,\n    The virtuous Cranmer.\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. All the land knows that;\n    However, yet there is no great breach. When it comes,\n    Cranmer will find a friend will not shrink from him.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Who may that be, I pray you?\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Thomas Cromwell,\n    A man in much esteem with th' King, and truly\n    A worthy friend. The King has made him Master\n    O' th' jewel House,\n    And one, already, of the Privy Council.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. He will deserve more.\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Yes, without all doubt.\n    Come, gentlemen, ye shall go my way, which\n    Is to th' court, and there ye shall be my guests:\n    Something I can command. As I walk thither,\n    I'll tell ye more.\n  BOTH. You may command us, sir.                               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 2.\n\nKimbolton\n\nEnter KATHARINE, Dowager, sick; led between GRIFFITH, her Gentleman Usher,\nand PATIENCE, her woman\n\n  GRIFFITH. How does your Grace?\n  KATHARINE. O Griffith, sick to death!\n    My legs like loaden branches bow to th' earth,\n    Willing to leave their burden. Reach a chair.\n    So-now, methinks, I feel a little ease.\n    Didst thou not tell me, Griffith, as thou led'st me,\n    That the great child of honour, Cardinal Wolsey,\n    Was dead?\n  GRIFFITH. Yes, madam; but I think your Grace,\n    Out of the pain you suffer'd, gave no ear to't.\n  KATHARINE. Prithee, good Griffith, tell me how he died.\n    If well, he stepp'd before me, happily,\n    For my example.\n  GRIFFITH. Well, the voice goes, madam;\n    For after the stout Earl Northumberland\n    Arrested him at York and brought him forward,\n    As a man sorely tainted, to his answer,\n    He fell sick suddenly, and grew so ill\n    He could not sit his mule.\n  KATHARINE. Alas, poor man!\n  GRIFFITH. At last, with easy roads, he came to Leicester,\n    Lodg'd in the abbey; where the reverend abbot,\n    With all his covent, honourably receiv'd him;\n    To whom he gave these words: 'O father Abbot,\n    An old man, broken with the storms of state,\n    Is come to lay his weary bones among ye;\n    Give him a little earth for charity!'\n    So went to bed; where eagerly his sickness\n    Pursu'd him still And three nights after this,\n    About the hour of eight-which he himself\n    Foretold should be his last-full of repentance,\n    Continual meditations, tears, and sorrows,\n    He gave his honours to the world again,\n    His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace.\n  KATHARINE. So may he rest; his faults lie gently on him!\n    Yet thus far, Griffith, give me leave to speak him,\n    And yet with charity. He was a man\n    Of an unbounded stomach, ever ranking\n    Himself with princes; one that, by suggestion,\n    Tied all the kingdom. Simony was fair play;\n    His own opinion was his law. I' th' presence\n    He would say untruths, and be ever double\n    Both in his words and meaning. He was never,\n    But where he meant to ruin, pitiful.\n    His promises were, as he then was, mighty;\n    But his performance, as he is now, nothing.\n    Of his own body he was ill, and gave\n    The clergy ill example.\n  GRIFFITH. Noble madam,\n    Men's evil manners live in brass: their virtues\n    We write in water. May it please your Highness\n    To hear me speak his good now?\n  KATHARINE. Yes, good Griffith;\n    I were malicious else.\n  GRIFFITH. This Cardinal,\n    Though from an humble stock, undoubtedly\n    Was fashion'd to much honour from his cradle.\n    He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one;\n    Exceeding wise, fair-spoken, and persuading;\n    Lofty and sour to them that lov'd him not,\n    But to those men that sought him sweet as summer.\n    And though he were unsatisfied in getting-\n    Which was a sin-yet in bestowing, madam,\n    He was most princely: ever witness for him\n    Those twins of learning that he rais'd in you,\n    Ipswich and Oxford! One of which fell with him,\n    Unwilling to outlive the good that did it;\n    The other, though unfinish'd, yet so famous,\n    So excellent in art, and still so rising,\n    That Christendom shall ever speak his virtue.\n    His overthrow heap'd happiness upon him;\n    For then, and not till then, he felt himself,\n    And found the blessedness of being little.\n    And, to add greater honours to his age\n    Than man could give him, he died fearing God.\n  KATHARINE. After my death I wish no other herald,\n    No other speaker of my living actions,\n    To keep mine honour from corruption,\n    But such an honest chronicler as Griffith.\n    Whom I most hated living, thou hast made me,\n    With thy religious truth and modesty,\n    Now in his ashes honour. Peace be with him!\n    patience, be near me still, and set me lower:\n    I have not long to trouble thee. Good Griffith,\n    Cause the musicians play me that sad note\n    I nam'd my knell, whilst I sit meditating\n    On that celestial harmony I go to.\n                                              [Sad and solemn music]\n  GRIFFITH. She is asleep. Good wench, let's sit down quiet,\n    For fear we wake her. Softly, gentle Patience.\n\n                 THE VISION.\n\n      Enter, solemnly tripping one after another, six\n      PERSONAGES clad in white robes, wearing on their\n      heads garlands of bays, and golden vizards on their\n      faces; branches of bays or palm in their hands. They\n      first congee unto her, then dance; and, at certain\n      changes, the first two hold a spare garland over her\n      head, at which the other four make reverent curtsies.\n      Then the two that held the garland deliver the\n      same to the other next two, who observe the same\n      order in their changes, and holding the garland over\n      her head; which done, they deliver the same garland\n      to the last two, who likewise observe the same order;\n      at which, as it were by inspiration, she makes\n      in her sleep signs of rejoicing, and holdeth up her\n      hands to heaven. And so in their dancing vanish,\n      carrying the garland with them. The music continues\n\n  KATHARINE. Spirits of peace, where are ye? Are ye all gone?\n    And leave me here in wretchedness behind ye?\n  GRIFFITH. Madam, we are here.\n  KATHARINE. It is not you I call for.\n    Saw ye none enter since I slept?\n  GRIFFITH. None, madam.\n  KATHARINE. No? Saw you not, even now, a blessed troop\n    Invite me to a banquet; whose bright faces\n    Cast thousand beams upon me, like the sun?\n    They promis'd me eternal happiness,\n    And brought me garlands, Griffith, which I feel\n    I am not worthy yet to wear. I shall, assuredly.\n  GRIFFITH. I am most joyful, madam, such good dreams\n    Possess your fancy.\n  KATHARINE. Bid the music leave,\n    They are harsh and heavy to me.                    [Music ceases]\n  PATIENCE. Do you note\n    How much her Grace is alter'd on the sudden?\n    How long her face is drawn! How pale she looks,\n    And of an earthly cold! Mark her eyes.\n  GRIFFITH. She is going, wench. Pray, pray.\n  PATIENCE. Heaven comfort her!\n\n             Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. An't like your Grace-\n  KATHARINE. You are a saucy fellow.\n    Deserve we no more reverence?\n  GRIFFITH. You are to blame,\n    Knowing she will not lose her wonted greatness,\n    To use so rude behaviour. Go to, kneel.\n  MESSENGER. I humbly do entreat your Highness' pardon;\n    My haste made me unmannerly. There is staying\n    A gentleman, sent from the King, to see you.\n  KATHARINE. Admit him entrance, Griffith; but this fellow\n    Let me ne'er see again.                            Exit MESSENGER\n\n              Enter LORD CAPUCIUS\n\n    If my sight fail not,\n    You should be Lord Ambassador from the Emperor,\n    My royal nephew, and your name Capucius.\n  CAPUCIUS. Madam, the same-your servant.\n  KATHARINE. O, my Lord,\n    The times and titles now are alter'd strangely\n    With me since first you knew me. But, I pray you,\n    What is your pleasure with me?\n  CAPUCIUS. Noble lady,\n    First, mine own service to your Grace; the next,\n    The King's request that I would visit you,\n    Who grieves much for your weakness, and by me\n    Sends you his princely commendations\n    And heartily entreats you take good comfort.\n  KATHARINE. O my good lord, that comfort comes too late,\n    'Tis like a pardon after execution:\n    That gentle physic, given in time, had cur'd me;\n    But now I am past all comforts here, but prayers.\n    How does his Highness?\n  CAPUCIUS. Madam, in good health.\n  KATHARINE. So may he ever do! and ever flourish\n    When I shall dwell with worms, and my poor name\n    Banish'd the kingdom! Patience, is that letter\n    I caus'd you write yet sent away?\n  PATIENCE. No, madam.                       [Giving it to KATHARINE]\n  KATHARINE. Sir, I most humbly pray you to deliver\n    This to my lord the King.\n  CAPUCIUS. Most willing, madam.\n  KATHARINE. In which I have commended to his goodness\n    The model of our chaste loves, his young daughter-\n    The dews of heaven fall thick in blessings on her!-\n    Beseeching him to give her virtuous breeding-\n    She is young, and of a noble modest nature;\n    I hope she will deserve well-and a little\n    To love her for her mother's sake, that lov'd him,\n    Heaven knows how dearly. My next poor petition\n    Is that his noble Grace would have some pity\n    Upon my wretched women that so long\n    Have follow'd both my fortunes faithfully;\n    Of which there is not one, I dare avow-\n    And now I should not lie-but will deserve,\n    For virtue and true beauty of the soul,\n    For honesty and decent carriage,\n    A right good husband, let him be a noble;\n    And sure those men are happy that shall have 'em.\n    The last is for my men-they are the poorest,\n    But poverty could never draw 'em from me-\n    That they may have their wages duly paid 'em,\n    And something over to remember me by.\n    If heaven had pleas'd to have given me longer life\n    And able means, we had not parted thus.\n    These are the whole contents; and, good my lord,\n    By that you love the dearest in this world,\n    As you wish Christian peace to souls departed,\n    Stand these poor people's friend, and urge the King\n    To do me this last right.\n  CAPUCIUS. By heaven, I will,\n    Or let me lose the fashion of a man!\n  KATHARINE. I thank you, honest lord. Remember me\n    In all humility unto his Highness;\n    Say his long trouble now is passing\n    Out of this world. Tell him in death I bless'd him,\n    For so I will. Mine eyes grow dim. Farewell,\n    My lord. Griffith, farewell. Nay, Patience,\n    You must not leave me yet. I must to bed;\n    Call in more women. When I am dead, good wench,\n    Let me be us'd with honour; strew me over\n    With maiden flowers, that all the world may know\n    I was a chaste wife to my grave. Embalm me,\n    Then lay me forth; although unqueen'd, yet like\n    A queen, and daughter to a king, inter me.\n    I can no more.                          Exeunt, leading KATHARINE\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 1.\n\nLondon. A gallery in the palace\n\nEnter GARDINER, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, a PAGE with a torch before him,\nmet by SIR THOMAS LOVELL\n\n  GARDINER. It's one o'clock, boy, is't not?\n  BOY. It hath struck.\n  GARDINER. These should be hours for necessities,\n    Not for delights; times to repair our nature\n    With comforting repose, and not for us\n    To waste these times. Good hour of night, Sir Thomas!\n    Whither so late?\n  LOVELL. Came you from the King, my lord?\n  GARDINER. I did, Sir Thomas, and left him at primero\n    With the Duke of Suffolk.\n  LOVELL. I must to him too,\n    Before he go to bed. I'll take my leave.\n  GARDINER. Not yet, Sir Thomas Lovell. What's the matter?\n    It seems you are in haste. An if there be\n    No great offence belongs to't, give your friend\n    Some touch of your late business. Affairs that walk-\n    As they say spirits do-at midnight, have\n    In them a wilder nature than the business\n    That seeks despatch by day.\n  LOVELL. My lord, I love you;\n    And durst commend a secret to your ear\n    Much weightier than this work. The Queen's in labour,\n    They say in great extremity, and fear'd\n    She'll with the labour end.\n  GARDINER. The fruit she goes with\n    I pray for heartily, that it may find\n    Good time, and live; but for the stock, Sir Thomas,\n    I wish it grubb'd up now.\n  LOVELL. Methinks I could\n    Cry thee amen; and yet my conscience says\n    She's a good creature, and, sweet lady, does\n    Deserve our better wishes.\n  GARDINER. But, sir, sir-\n    Hear me, Sir Thomas. Y'are a gentleman\n    Of mine own way; I know you wise, religious;\n    And, let me tell you, it will ne'er be well-\n    'Twill not, Sir Thomas Lovell, take't of me-\n    Till Cranmer, Cromwell, her two hands, and she,\n    Sleep in their graves.\n  LOVELL. Now, sir, you speak of two\n    The most remark'd i' th' kingdom. As for Cromwell,\n    Beside that of the Jewel House, is made Master\n    O' th' Rolls, and the King's secretary; further, sir,\n    Stands in the gap and trade of moe preferments,\n    With which the time will load him. Th' Archbishop\n    Is the King's hand and tongue, and who dare speak\n    One syllable against him?\n  GARDINER. Yes, yes, Sir Thomas,\n    There are that dare; and I myself have ventur'd\n    To speak my mind of him; and indeed this day,\n    Sir-I may tell it you-I think I have\n    Incens'd the lords o' th' Council, that he is-\n    For so I know he is, they know he is-\n    A most arch heretic, a pestilence\n    That does infect the land; with which they moved\n    Have broken with the King, who hath so far\n    Given ear to our complaint-of his great grace\n    And princely care, foreseeing those fell mischiefs\n    Our reasons laid before him-hath commanded\n    To-morrow morning to the Council board\n    He be convented. He's a rank weed, Sir Thomas,\n    And we must root him out. From your affairs\n    I hinder you too long-good night, Sir Thomas.\n  LOVELL. Many good nights, my lord; I rest your servant.\n                                             Exeunt GARDINER and PAGE\n\n         Enter the KING and the DUKE OF SUFFOLK\n\n  KING. Charles, I will play no more to-night;\n    My mind's not on't; you are too hard for me.\n  SUFFOLK. Sir, I did never win of you before.\n  KING. But little, Charles;\n    Nor shall not, when my fancy's on my play.\n    Now, Lovell, from the Queen what is the news?\n  LOVELL. I could not personally deliver to her\n    What you commanded me, but by her woman\n    I sent your message; who return'd her thanks\n    In the great'st humbleness, and desir'd your Highness\n    Most heartily to pray for her.\n  KING. What say'st thou, ha?\n    To pray for her? What, is she crying out?\n  LOVELL. So said her woman; and that her suff'rance made\n    Almost each pang a death.\n  KING. Alas, good lady!\n  SUFFOLK. God safely quit her of her burden, and\n    With gentle travail, to the gladding of\n    Your Highness with an heir!\n  KING. 'Tis midnight, Charles;\n    Prithee to bed; and in thy pray'rs remember\n    Th' estate of my poor queen. Leave me alone,\n    For I must think of that which company\n    Will not be friendly to.\n  SUFFOLK. I wish your Highness\n    A quiet night, and my good mistress will\n    Remember in my prayers.\n  KING. Charles, good night.                             Exit SUFFOLK\n\n         Enter SIR ANTHONY DENNY\n\n    Well, sir, what follows?\n  DENNY. Sir, I have brought my lord the Archbishop,\n    As you commanded me.\n  KING. Ha! Canterbury?\n  DENNY. Ay, my good lord.\n  KING. 'Tis true. Where is he, Denny?\n  DENNY. He attends your Highness' pleasure.\n  KING. Bring him to us.                                   Exit DENNY\n  LOVELL.  [Aside]  This is about that which the bishop spake.\n    I am happily come hither.\n\n         Re-enter DENNY, With CRANMER\n\n  KING. Avoid the gallery.                     [LOVELL seems to stay]\n    Ha! I have said. Be gone.\n    What!                                     Exeunt LOVELL and DENNY\n  CRANMER.  [Aside]  I am fearful-wherefore frowns he thus?\n    'Tis his aspect of terror. All's not well.\n  KING. How now, my lord? You do desire to know\n    Wherefore I sent for you.\n  CRANMER.  [Kneeling]  It is my duty\n    T'attend your Highness' pleasure.\n  KING. Pray you, arise,\n    My good and gracious Lord of Canterbury.\n    Come, you and I must walk a turn together;\n    I have news to tell you; come, come, me your hand.\n    Ah, my good lord, I grieve at what I speak,\n    And am right sorry to repeat what follows.\n    I have, and most unwillingly, of late\n    Heard many grievous-I do say, my lord,\n    Grievous-complaints of you; which, being consider'd,\n    Have mov'd us and our Council that you shall\n    This morning come before us; where I know\n    You cannot with such freedom purge yourself\n    But that, till further trial in those charges\n    Which will require your answer, you must take\n    Your patience to you and be well contented\n    To make your house our Tow'r. You a brother of us,\n    It fits we thus proceed, or else no witness\n    Would come against you.\n  CRANMER. I humbly thank your Highness\n    And am right glad to catch this good occasion\n    Most throughly to be winnowed where my chaff\n    And corn shall fly asunder; for I know\n    There's none stands under more calumnious tongues\n    Than I myself, poor man.\n  KING. Stand up, good Canterbury;\n    Thy truth and thy integrity is rooted\n    In us, thy friend. Give me thy hand, stand up;\n    Prithee let's walk. Now, by my holidame,\n    What manner of man are you? My lord, I look'd\n    You would have given me your petition that\n    I should have ta'en some pains to bring together\n    Yourself and your accusers, and to have heard you\n    Without indurance further.\n  CRANMER. Most dread liege,\n    The good I stand on is my truth and honesty;\n    If they shall fail, I with mine enemies\n    Will triumph o'er my person; which I weigh not,\n    Being of those virtues vacant. I fear nothing\n    What can be said against me.\n  KING. Know you not\n    How your state stands i' th' world, with the whole world?\n    Your enemies are many, and not small; their practices\n    Must bear the same proportion; and not ever\n    The justice and the truth o' th' question carries\n    The due o' th' verdict with it; at what ease\n    Might corrupt minds procure knaves as corrupt\n    To swear against you? Such things have been done.\n    You are potently oppos'd, and with a malice\n    Of as great size. Ween you of better luck,\n    I mean in perjur'd witness, than your Master,\n    Whose minister you are, whiles here He liv'd\n    Upon this naughty earth? Go to, go to;\n    You take a precipice for no leap of danger,\n    And woo your own destruction.\n  CRANMER. God and your Majesty\n    Protect mine innocence, or I fall into\n    The trap is laid for me!\n  KING. Be of good cheer;\n    They shall no more prevail than we give way to.\n    Keep comfort to you, and this morning see\n    You do appear before them; if they shall chance,\n    In charging you with matters, to commit you,\n    The best persuasions to the contrary\n    Fail not to use, and with what vehemency\n    Th' occasion shall instruct you. If entreaties\n    Will render you no remedy, this ring\n    Deliver them, and your appeal to us\n    There make before them. Look, the good man weeps!\n    He's honest, on mine honour. God's blest Mother!\n    I swear he is true-hearted, and a soul\n    None better in my kingdom. Get you gone,\n    And do as I have bid you.\n                                                         Exit CRANMER\n    He has strangled his language in his tears.\n\n           Enter OLD LADY\n\n  GENTLEMAN.  [Within]  Come back; what mean you?\n  OLD LADY. I'll not come back; the tidings that I bring\n    Will make my boldness manners. Now, good angels\n    Fly o'er thy royal head, and shade thy person\n    Under their blessed wings!\n  KING. Now, by thy looks\n    I guess thy message. Is the Queen deliver'd?\n    Say ay, and of a boy.\n  OLD LADY. Ay, ay, my liege;\n    And of a lovely boy. The God of Heaven\n    Both now and ever bless her! 'Tis a girl,\n    Promises boys hereafter. Sir, your queen\n    Desires your visitation, and to be\n    Acquainted with this stranger; 'tis as like you\n    As cherry is to cherry.\n  KING. Lovell!\n\n           Enter LOVELL\n\n  LOVELL. Sir?\n  KING. Give her an hundred marks. I'll to the Queen.            Exit\n  OLD LADY. An hundred marks? By this light, I'll ha' more!\n    An ordinary groom is for such payment.\n    I will have more, or scold it out of him.\n    Said I for this the girl was like to him! I'll\n    Have more, or else unsay't; and now, while 'tis hot,\n    I'll put it to the issue.                                  Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 2.\n\nLobby before the Council Chamber\n\nEnter CRANMER, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY\n\n  CRANMER. I hope I am not too late; and yet the gentleman\n    That was sent to me from the Council pray'd me\n    To make great haste. All fast? What means this? Ho!\n    Who waits there? Sure you know me?\n\n           Enter KEEPER\n\n  KEEPER. Yes, my lord;\n    But yet I cannot help you.\n  CRANMER. Why?\n  KEEPER. Your Grace must wait till you be call'd for.\n\n           Enter DOCTOR BUTTS\n\n  CRANMER. So.\n  BUTTS.  [Aside]  This is a piece of malice. I am glad\n    I came this way so happily; the King\n    Shall understand it presently.                               Exit\n  CRANMER.  [Aside]  'Tis Butts,\n    The King's physician; as he pass'd along,\n    How earnestly he cast his eyes upon me!\n    Pray heaven he sound not my disgrace! For certain,\n    This is of purpose laid by some that hate me-\n    God turn their hearts! I never sought their malice-\n    To quench mine honour; they would shame to make me\n    Wait else at door, a fellow councillor,\n    'Mong boys, grooms, and lackeys. But their pleasures\n    Must be fulfill'd, and I attend with patience.\n\n         Enter the KING and BUTTS at window above\n\n  BUTTS. I'll show your Grace the strangest sight-\n  KING. What's that, Butts?\n  BUTTS. I think your Highness saw this many a day.\n  KING. Body a me, where is it?\n  BUTTS. There my lord:\n    The high promotion of his Grace of Canterbury;\n    Who holds his state at door, 'mongst pursuivants,\n    Pages, and footboys.\n  KING. Ha, 'tis he indeed.\n    Is this the honour they do one another?\n    'Tis well there's one above 'em yet. I had thought\n    They had parted so much honesty among 'em-\n    At least good manners-as not thus to suffer\n    A man of his place, and so near our favour,\n    To dance attendance on their lordships' pleasures,\n    And at the door too, like a post with packets.\n    By holy Mary, Butts, there's knavery!\n    Let 'em alone, and draw the curtain close;\n    We shall hear more anon.                                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 3.\n\nThe Council Chamber\n\nA Council table brought in, with chairs and stools, and placed\nunder the state. Enter LORD CHANCELLOR, places himself at the upper end\nof the table on the left band, a seat being left void above him,\nas for Canterbury's seat. DUKE OF SUFFOLK, DUKE OF NORFOLK, SURREY,\nLORD CHAMBERLAIN, GARDINER, seat themselves in order on each side;\nCROMWELL at lower end, as secretary. KEEPER at the door\n\n  CHANCELLOR. Speak to the business, master secretary;\n    Why are we met in council?\n  CROMWELL. Please your honours,\n    The chief cause concerns his Grace of Canterbury.\n  GARDINER. Has he had knowledge of it?\n  CROMWELL. Yes.\n  NORFOLK. Who waits there?\n  KEEPER. Without, my noble lords?\n  GARDINER. Yes.\n  KEEPER. My Lord Archbishop;\n    And has done half an hour, to know your pleasures.\n  CHANCELLOR. Let him come in.\n  KEEPER. Your Grace may enter now.\n\n      CRANMER approaches the Council table\n\n  CHANCELLOR. My good Lord Archbishop, I am very sorry\n    To sit here at this present, and behold\n    That chair stand empty; but we all are men,\n    In our own natures frail and capable\n    Of our flesh; few are angels; out of which frailty\n    And want of wisdom, you, that best should teach us,\n    Have misdemean'd yourself, and not a little,\n    Toward the King first, then his laws, in filling\n    The whole realm by your teaching and your chaplains-\n    For so we are inform'd-with new opinions,\n    Divers and dangerous; which are heresies,\n    And, not reform'd, may prove pernicious.\n  GARDINER. Which reformation must be sudden too,\n    My noble lords; for those that tame wild horses\n    Pace 'em not in their hands to make 'em gentle,\n    But stop their mouth with stubborn bits and spur 'em\n    Till they obey the manage. If we suffer,\n    Out of our easiness and childish pity\n    To one man's honour, this contagious sickness,\n    Farewell all physic; and what follows then?\n    Commotions, uproars, with a general taint\n    Of the whole state; as of late days our neighbours,\n    The upper Germany, can dearly witness,\n    Yet freshly pitied in our memories.\n  CRANMER. My good lords, hitherto in all the progress\n    Both of my life and office, I have labour'd,\n    And with no little study, that my teaching\n    And the strong course of my authority\n    Might go one way, and safely; and the end\n    Was ever to do well. Nor is there living-\n    I speak it with a single heart, my lords-\n    A man that more detests, more stirs against,\n    Both in his private conscience and his place,\n    Defacers of a public peace than I do.\n    Pray heaven the King may never find a heart\n    With less allegiance in it! Men that make\n    Envy and crooked malice nourishment\n    Dare bite the best. I do beseech your lordships\n    That, in this case of justice, my accusers,\n    Be what they will, may stand forth face to face\n    And freely urge against me.\n  SUFFOLK. Nay, my lord,\n    That cannot be; you are a councillor,\n    And by that virtue no man dare accuse you.\n  GARDINER. My lord, because we have business of more moment,\n    We will be short with you. 'Tis his Highness' pleasure\n    And our consent, for better trial of you,\n    From hence you be committed to the Tower;\n    Where, being but a private man again,\n    You shall know many dare accuse you boldly,\n    More than, I fear, you are provided for.\n  CRANMER. Ah, my good Lord of Winchester, I thank you;\n    You are always my good friend; if your will pass,\n    I shall both find your lordship judge and juror,\n    You are so merciful. I see your end-\n    'Tis my undoing. Love and meekness, lord,\n    Become a churchman better than ambition;\n    Win straying souls with modesty again,\n    Cast none away. That I shall clear myself,\n    Lay all the weight ye can upon my patience,\n    I make as little doubt as you do conscience\n    In doing daily wrongs. I could say more,\n    But reverence to your calling makes me modest.\n  GARDINER. My lord, my lord, you are a sectary;\n    That's the plain truth. Your painted gloss discovers,\n    To men that understand you, words and weakness.\n  CROMWELL. My Lord of Winchester, y'are a little,\n    By your good favour, too sharp; men so noble,\n    However faulty, yet should find respect\n    For what they have been; 'tis a cruelty\n    To load a falling man.\n  GARDINER. Good Master Secretary,\n    I cry your honour mercy; you may, worst\n    Of all this table, say so.\n  CROMWELL. Why, my lord?\n  GARDINER. Do not I know you for a favourer\n    Of this new sect? Ye are not sound.\n  CROMWELL. Not sound?\n  GARDINER. Not sound, I say.\n  CROMWELL. Would you were half so honest!\n    Men's prayers then would seek you, not their fears.\n  GARDINER. I shall remember this bold language.\n  CROMWELL. Do.\n    Remember your bold life too.\n  CHANCELLOR. This is too much;\n    Forbear, for shame, my lords.\n  GARDINER. I have done.\n  CROMWELL. And I.\n  CHANCELLOR. Then thus for you, my lord: it stands agreed,\n    I take it, by all voices, that forthwith\n    You be convey'd to th' Tower a prisoner;\n    There to remain till the King's further pleasure\n    Be known unto us. Are you all agreed, lords?\n  ALL. We are.\n  CRANMER. Is there no other way of mercy,\n    But I must needs to th' Tower, my lords?\n  GARDINER. What other\n    Would you expect? You are strangely troublesome.\n    Let some o' th' guard be ready there.\n\n           Enter the guard\n\n  CRANMER. For me?\n    Must I go like a traitor thither?\n  GARDINER. Receive him,\n    And see him safe i' th' Tower.\n  CRANMER. Stay, good my lords,\n    I have a little yet to say. Look there, my lords;\n    By virtue of that ring I take my cause\n    Out of the gripes of cruel men and give it\n    To a most noble judge, the King my master.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. This is the King's ring.\n  SURREY. 'Tis no counterfeit.\n  SUFFOLK. 'Tis the right ring, by heav'n. I told ye all,\n    When we first put this dangerous stone a-rolling,\n    'Twould fall upon ourselves.\n  NORFOLK. Do you think, my lords,\n    The King will suffer but the little finger\n    Of this man to be vex'd?\n  CHAMBERLAIN. 'Tis now too certain;\n    How much more is his life in value with him!\n    Would I were fairly out on't!\n  CROMWELL. My mind gave me,\n    In seeking tales and informations\n    Against this man-whose honesty the devil\n    And his disciples only envy at-\n    Ye blew the fire that burns ye. Now have at ye!\n\n      Enter the KING frowning on them; he takes his seat\n\n  GARDINER. Dread sovereign, how much are we bound to heaven\n    In daily thanks, that gave us such a prince;\n    Not only good and wise but most religious;\n    One that in all obedience makes the church\n    The chief aim of his honour and, to strengthen\n    That holy duty, out of dear respect,\n    His royal self in judgment comes to hear\n    The cause betwixt her and this great offender.\n  KING. You were ever good at sudden commendations,\n    Bishop of Winchester. But know I come not\n    To hear such flattery now, and in my presence\n    They are too thin and bare to hide offences.\n    To me you cannot reach you play the spaniel,\n    And think with wagging of your tongue to win me;\n    But whatsoe'er thou tak'st me for, I'm sure\n    Thou hast a cruel nature and a bloody.\n    [To CRANMER]  Good man, sit down. Now let me see the proudest\n    He that dares most but wag his finger at thee.\n    By all that's holy, he had better starve\n    Than but once think this place becomes thee not.\n  SURREY. May it please your Grace-\n  KING. No, sir, it does not please me.\n    I had thought I had had men of some understanding\n    And wisdom of my Council; but I find none.\n    Was it discretion, lords, to let this man,\n    This good man-few of you deserve that title-\n    This honest man, wait like a lousy footboy\n    At chamber door? and one as great as you are?\n    Why, what a shame was this! Did my commission\n    Bid ye so far forget yourselves? I gave ye\n    Power as he was a councillor to try him,\n    Not as a groom. There's some of ye, I see,\n    More out of malice than integrity,\n    Would try him to the utmost, had ye mean;\n    Which ye shall never have while I live.\n  CHANCELLOR. Thus far,\n    My most dread sovereign, may it like your Grace\n    To let my tongue excuse all. What was purpos'd\n    concerning his imprisonment was rather-\n    If there be faith in men-meant for his trial\n    And fair purgation to the world, than malice,\n    I'm sure, in me.\n  KING. Well, well, my lords, respect him;\n    Take him, and use him well, he's worthy of it.\n    I will say thus much for him: if a prince\n    May be beholding to a subject,\n    Am for his love and service so to him.\n    Make me no more ado, but all embrace him;\n    Be friends, for shame, my lords! My Lord of Canterbury,\n    I have a suit which you must not deny me:\n    That is, a fair young maid that yet wants baptism;\n    You must be godfather, and answer for her.\n  CRANMER. The greatest monarch now alive may glory\n    In such an honour; how may I deserve it,\n    That am a poor and humble subject to you?\n  KING. Come, come, my lord, you'd spare your spoons. You\n      shall have\n    Two noble partners with you: the old Duchess of Norfolk\n    And Lady Marquis Dorset. Will these please you?\n    Once more, my Lord of Winchester, I charge you,\n    Embrace and love this man.\n  GARDINER. With a true heart\n    And brother-love I do it.\n  CRANMER. And let heaven\n    Witness how dear I hold this confirmation.\n  KING. Good man, those joyful tears show thy true heart.\n    The common voice, I see, is verified\n    Of thee, which says thus: 'Do my Lord of Canterbury\n    A shrewd turn and he's your friend for ever.'\n    Come, lords, we trifle time away; I long\n    To have this young one made a Christian.\n    As I have made ye one, lords, one remain;\n    So I grow stronger, you more honour gain.                  Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 4.\n\nThe palace yard\n\nNoise and tumult within. Enter PORTER and his MAN\n\n  PORTER. You'll leave your noise anon, ye rascals. Do you\n    take the court for Paris garden? Ye rude slaves, leave your\n    gaping.\n    [Within: Good master porter, I belong to th' larder.]\n  PORTER. Belong to th' gallows, and be hang'd, ye rogue! Is\n    this a place to roar in? Fetch me a dozen crab-tree staves,\n    and strong ones; these are but switches to 'em. I'll scratch\n    your heads. You must be seeing christenings? Do you look\n    for ale and cakes here, you rude rascals?\n  MAN. Pray, sir, be patient; 'tis as much impossible,\n    Unless we sweep 'em from the door with cannons,\n    To scatter 'em as 'tis to make 'em sleep\n    On May-day morning; which will never be.\n    We may as well push against Paul's as stir 'em.\n  PORTER. How got they in, and be hang'd?\n  MAN. Alas, I know not: how gets the tide in?\n    As much as one sound cudgel of four foot-\n    You see the poor remainder-could distribute,\n    I made no spare, sir.\n  PORTER. You did nothing, sir.\n  MAN. I am not Samson, nor Sir Guy, nor Colbrand,\n    To mow 'em down before me; but if I spar'd any\n    That had a head to hit, either young or old,\n    He or she, cuckold or cuckold-maker,\n    Let me ne'er hope to see a chine again;\n    And that I would not for a cow, God save her!\n    [ Within: Do you hear, master porter?]\n  PORTER. I shall be with you presently, good master puppy.\n    Keep the door close, sirrah.\n  MAN. What would you have me do?\n  PORTER. What should you do, but knock 'em down by th'\n    dozens? Is this Moorfields to muster in? Or have we some\n    strange Indian with the great tool come to court, the\n    women so besiege us? Bless me, what a fry of fornication\n    is at door! On my Christian conscience, this one christening\n    will beget a thousand: here will be father, godfather,\n    and all together.\n  MAN. The spoons will be the bigger, sir. There is a fellow\n    somewhat near the door, he should be a brazier by his\n    face, for, o' my conscience, twenty of the dog-days now\n    reign in's nose; all that stand about him are under the line,\n    they need no other penance. That fire-drake did I hit three\n    times on the head, and three times was his nose discharged\n    against me; he stands there like a mortar-piece, to blow us.\n    There was a haberdasher's wife of small wit near him, that\n    rail'd upon me till her pink'd porringer fell off her head,\n    for kindling such a combustion in the state. I miss'd the\n    meteor once, and hit that woman, who cried out 'Clubs!'\n    when I might see from far some forty truncheoners draw\n    to her succour, which were the hope o' th' Strand, where\n    she was quartered. They fell on; I made good my place.\n    At length they came to th' broomstaff to me; I defied 'em\n    still; when suddenly a file of boys behind 'em, loose shot,\n    deliver'd such a show'r of pebbles that I was fain to draw\n    mine honour in and let 'em win the work: the devil was\n    amongst 'em, I think surely.\n  PORTER. These are the youths that thunder at a playhouse\n    and fight for bitten apples; that no audience but the tribulation\n    of Tower-hill or the limbs of Limehouse, their dear\n    brothers, are able to endure. I have some of 'em in Limbo\n    Patrum, and there they are like to dance these three days;\n    besides the running banquet of two beadles that is to come.\n\n          Enter the LORD CHAMBERLAIN\n\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Mercy o' me, what a multitude are here!\n    They grow still too; from all parts they are coming,\n    As if we kept a fair here! Where are these porters,\n    These lazy knaves? Y'have made a fine hand, fellows.\n    There's a trim rabble let in: are all these\n    Your faithful friends o' th' suburbs? We shall have\n    Great store of room, no doubt, left for the ladies,\n    When they pass back from the christening.\n  PORTER. An't please your honour,\n    We are but men; and what so many may do,\n    Not being torn a pieces, we have done.\n    An army cannot rule 'em.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. As I live,\n    If the King blame me for't, I'll lay ye an\n    By th' heels, and suddenly; and on your heads\n    Clap round fines for neglect. Y'are lazy knaves;\n    And here ye lie baiting of bombards, when\n    Ye should do service. Hark! the trumpets sound;\n    Th' are come already from the christening.\n    Go break among the press and find a way out\n    To let the troops pass fairly, or I'll find\n    A Marshalsea shall hold ye play these two months.\n  PORTER. Make way there for the Princess.\n  MAN. You great fellow,\n    Stand close up, or I'll make your head ache.\n  PORTER. You i' th' camlet, get up o' th' rail;\n    I'll peck you o'er the pales else.                         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 5.\n\nThe palace\n\nEnter TRUMPETS, sounding; then two ALDERMEN, LORD MAYOR, GARTER, CRANMER,\nDUKE OF NORFOLK, with his marshal's staff, DUKE OF SUFFOLK,\ntwo Noblemen bearing great standing-bowls for the christening gifts;\nthen four Noblemen bearing a canopy, under which the DUCHESS OF NORFOLK,\ngodmother, bearing the CHILD richly habited in a mantle, etc.,\ntrain borne by a LADY; then follows the MARCHIONESS DORSET,\nthe other godmother, and LADIES. The troop pass once about the stage,\nand GARTER speaks\n\n  GARTER. Heaven, from thy endless goodness, send prosperous\n    life, long and ever-happy, to the high and mighty\n    Princess of England, Elizabeth!\n\n           Flourish. Enter KING and guard\n\n  CRANMER.  [Kneeling]  And to your royal Grace and the\n      good Queen!\n    My noble partners and myself thus pray:\n    All comfort, joy, in this most gracious lady,\n    Heaven ever laid up to make parents happy,\n    May hourly fall upon ye!\n  KING. Thank you, good Lord Archbishop.\n    What is her name?\n  CRANMER. Elizabeth.\n  KING. Stand up, lord.                   [The KING kisses the child]\n    With this kiss take my blessing: God protect thee!\n    Into whose hand I give thy life.\n  CRANMER. Amen.\n  KING. My noble gossips, y'have been too prodigal;\n    I thank ye heartily. So shall this lady,\n    When she has so much English.\n  CRANMER. Let me speak, sir,\n    For heaven now bids me; and the words I utter\n    Let none think flattery, for they'll find 'em truth.\n    This royal infant-heaven still move about her!-\n    Though in her cradle, yet now promises\n    Upon this land a thousand blessings,\n    Which time shall bring to ripeness. She shall be-\n    But few now living can behold that goodness-\n    A pattern to all princes living with her,\n    And all that shall succeed. Saba was never\n    More covetous of wisdom and fair virtue\n    Than this pure soul shall be. All princely graces\n    That mould up such a mighty piece as this is,\n    With all the virtues that attend the good,\n    Shall still be doubled on her. Truth shall nurse her,\n    Holy and heavenly thoughts still counsel her;\n    She shall be lov'd and fear'd. Her own shall bless her:\n    Her foes shake like a field of beaten corn,\n    And hang their heads with sorrow. Good grows with her;\n    In her days every man shall eat in safety\n    Under his own vine what he plants, and sing\n    The merry songs of peace to all his neighbours.\n    God shall be truly known; and those about her\n    From her shall read the perfect ways of honour,\n    And by those claim their greatness, not by blood.\n    Nor shall this peace sleep with her; but as when\n    The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix\n    Her ashes new create another heir\n    As great in admiration as herself,\n    So shall she leave her blessedness to one-\n    When heaven shall call her from this cloud of darkness-\n    Who from the sacred ashes of her honour\n    Shall star-like rise, as great in fame as she was,\n    And so stand fix'd. Peace, plenty, love, truth, terror,\n    That were the servants to this chosen infant,\n    Shall then be his, and like a vine grow to him;\n    Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine,\n    His honour and the greatness of his name\n    Shall be, and make new nations; he shall flourish,\n    And like a mountain cedar reach his branches\n    To all the plains about him; our children's children\n    Shall see this and bless heaven.\n  KING. Thou speakest wonders.\n  CRANMER. She shall be, to the happiness of England,\n    An aged princess; many days shall see her,\n    And yet no day without a deed to crown it.\n    Would I had known no more! But she must die-\n    She must, the saints must have her-yet a virgin;\n    A most unspotted lily shall she pass\n    To th' ground, and all the world shall mourn her.\n  KING. O Lord Archbishop,\n    Thou hast made me now a man; never before\n    This happy child did I get anything.\n    This oracle of comfort has so pleas'd me\n    That when I am in heaven I shall desire\n    To see what this child does, and praise my Maker.\n    I thank ye all. To you, my good Lord Mayor,\n    And you, good brethren, I am much beholding;\n    I have receiv'd much honour by your presence,\n    And ye shall find me thankful. Lead the way, lords;\n    Ye must all see the Queen, and she must thank ye,\n    She will be sick else. This day, no man think\n    Has business at his house; for all shall stay.\n    This little one shall make it holiday.                     Exeunt\n\nKING_HENRY_VIII|EPILOGUE\n              THE EPILOGUE.\n\n    'Tis ten to one this play can never please\n    All that are here. Some come to take their ease\n    And sleep an act or two; but those, we fear,\n    W'have frighted with our trumpets; so, 'tis clear,\n    They'll say 'tis nought; others to hear the city\n    Abus'd extremely, and to cry 'That's witty!'\n    Which we have not done neither; that, I fear,\n    All the expected good w'are like to hear\n    For this play at this time is only in\n    The merciful construction of good women;\n    For such a one we show'd 'em. If they smile\n    And say 'twill do, I know within a while\n    All the best men are ours; for 'tis ill hap\n    If they hold when their ladies bid 'em clap.\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1597\n\nKING JOHN\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n    KING JOHN\n    PRINCE HENRY, his son\n    ARTHUR, DUKE OF BRITAINE, son of Geffrey, late Duke of\n      Britaine, the elder brother of King John\n    EARL OF PEMBROKE\n    EARL OF ESSEX\n    EARL OF SALISBURY\n    LORD BIGOT\n    HUBERT DE BURGH\n    ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE, son to Sir Robert Faulconbridge\n    PHILIP THE BASTARD, his half-brother\n    JAMES GURNEY, servant to Lady Faulconbridge\n    PETER OF POMFRET, a prophet\n\n    KING PHILIP OF FRANCE\n    LEWIS, the Dauphin\n    LYMOGES, Duke of Austria\n    CARDINAL PANDULPH, the Pope's legate\n    MELUN, a French lord\n    CHATILLON, ambassador from France to King John\n\n    QUEEN ELINOR, widow of King Henry II and mother to\n      King John\n    CONSTANCE, Mother to Arthur\n    BLANCH OF SPAIN, daughter to the King of Castile\n      and niece to King John\n    LADY FAULCONBRIDGE, widow of Sir Robert Faulconbridge\n\n    Lords, Citizens of Angiers, Sheriff, Heralds, Officers,\n      Soldiers, Executioners, Messengers, Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nEngland and France\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 1\n\nKING JOHN's palace\n\nEnter KING JOHN, QUEEN ELINOR, PEMBROKE, ESSEX, SALISBURY, and others,\nwith CHATILLON\n\n  KING JOHN. Now, say, Chatillon, what would France with us?\n  CHATILLON. Thus, after greeting, speaks the King of France\n    In my behaviour to the majesty,\n    The borrowed majesty, of England here.\n  ELINOR. A strange beginning- 'borrowed majesty'!\n  KING JOHN. Silence, good mother; hear the embassy.\n  CHATILLON. Philip of France, in right and true behalf\n    Of thy deceased brother Geffrey's son,\n    Arthur Plantagenet, lays most lawful claim\n    To this fair island and the territories,\n    To Ireland, Poictiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine,\n    Desiring thee to lay aside the sword\n    Which sways usurpingly these several titles,\n    And put the same into young Arthur's hand,\n    Thy nephew and right royal sovereign.\n  KING JOHN. What follows if we disallow of this?\n  CHATILLON. The proud control of fierce and bloody war,\n    To enforce these rights so forcibly withheld.\n  KING JOHN. Here have we war for war, and blood for blood,\n    Controlment for controlment- so answer France.\n  CHATILLON. Then take my king's defiance from my mouth-\n    The farthest limit of my embassy.\n  KING JOHN. Bear mine to him, and so depart in peace;\n    Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France;\n    For ere thou canst report I will be there,\n    The thunder of my cannon shall be heard.\n    So hence! Be thou the trumpet of our wrath\n    And sullen presage of your own decay.\n    An honourable conduct let him have-\n    Pembroke, look to 't. Farewell, Chatillon.\n                                        Exeunt CHATILLON and PEMBROKE\n  ELINOR. What now, my son! Have I not ever said\n    How that ambitious Constance would not cease\n    Till she had kindled France and all the world\n    Upon the right and party of her son?\n    This might have been prevented and made whole\n    With very easy arguments of love,\n    Which now the manage of two kingdoms must\n    With fearful bloody issue arbitrate.\n  KING JOHN. Our strong possession and our right for us!\n  ELINOR. Your strong possession much more than your right,\n    Or else it must go wrong with you and me;\n    So much my conscience whispers in your ear,\n    Which none but heaven and you and I shall hear.\n\n                  Enter a SHERIFF\n\n  ESSEX. My liege, here is the strangest controversy\n    Come from the country to be judg'd by you\n    That e'er I heard. Shall I produce the men?\n  KING JOHN. Let them approach.                          Exit SHERIFF\n    Our abbeys and our priories shall pay\n    This expedition's charge.\n\n     Enter ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE and PHILIP, his bastard\n                     brother\n\n    What men are you?\n  BASTARD. Your faithful subject I, a gentleman\n    Born in Northamptonshire, and eldest son,\n    As I suppose, to Robert Faulconbridge-\n    A soldier by the honour-giving hand\n    Of Coeur-de-lion knighted in the field.\n  KING JOHN. What art thou?\n  ROBERT. The son and heir to that same Faulconbridge.\n  KING JOHN. Is that the elder, and art thou the heir?\n    You came not of one mother then, it seems.\n  BASTARD. Most certain of one mother, mighty king-\n    That is well known- and, as I think, one father;\n    But for the certain knowledge of that truth\n    I put you o'er to heaven and to my mother.\n    Of that I doubt, as all men's children may.\n  ELINOR. Out on thee, rude man! Thou dost shame thy mother,\n    And wound her honour with this diffidence.\n  BASTARD. I, madam? No, I have no reason for it-\n    That is my brother's plea, and none of mine;\n    The which if he can prove, 'a pops me out\n    At least from fair five hundred pound a year.\n    Heaven guard my mother's honour and my land!\n  KING JOHN. A good blunt fellow. Why, being younger born,\n    Doth he lay claim to thine inheritance?\n  BASTARD. I know not why, except to get the land.\n    But once he slander'd me with bastardy;\n    But whe'er I be as true begot or no,\n    That still I lay upon my mother's head;\n    But that I am as well begot, my liege-\n    Fair fall the bones that took the pains for me!-\n    Compare our faces and be judge yourself.\n    If old Sir Robert did beget us both\n    And were our father, and this son like him-\n    O old Sir Robert, father, on my knee\n    I give heaven thanks I was not like to thee!\n  KING JOHN. Why, what a madcap hath heaven lent us here!\n  ELINOR. He hath a trick of Coeur-de-lion's face;\n    The accent of his tongue affecteth him.\n    Do you not read some tokens of my son\n    In the large composition of this man?\n  KING JOHN. Mine eye hath well examined his parts\n    And finds them perfect Richard. Sirrah, speak,\n    What doth move you to claim your brother's land?\n  BASTARD. Because he hath a half-face, like my father.\n    With half that face would he have all my land:\n    A half-fac'd groat five hundred pound a year!\n  ROBERT. My gracious liege, when that my father liv'd,\n    Your brother did employ my father much-\n  BASTARD. Well, sir, by this you cannot get my land:\n    Your tale must be how he employ'd my mother.\n  ROBERT. And once dispatch'd him in an embassy\n    To Germany, there with the Emperor\n    To treat of high affairs touching that time.\n    Th' advantage of his absence took the King,\n    And in the meantime sojourn'd at my father's;\n    Where how he did prevail I shame to speak-\n    But truth is truth: large lengths of seas and shores\n    Between my father and my mother lay,\n    As I have heard my father speak himself,\n    When this same lusty gentleman was got.\n    Upon his death-bed he by will bequeath'd\n    His lands to me, and took it on his death\n    That this my mother's son was none of his;\n    And if he were, he came into the world\n    Full fourteen weeks before the course of time.\n    Then, good my liege, let me have what is mine,\n    My father's land, as was my father's will.\n  KING JOHN. Sirrah, your brother is legitimate:\n    Your father's wife did after wedlock bear him,\n    And if she did play false, the fault was hers;\n    Which fault lies on the hazards of all husbands\n    That marry wives. Tell me, how if my brother,\n    Who, as you say, took pains to get this son,\n    Had of your father claim'd this son for his?\n    In sooth, good friend, your father might have kept\n    This calf, bred from his cow, from all the world;\n    In sooth, he might; then, if he were my brother's,\n    My brother might not claim him; nor your father,\n    Being none of his, refuse him. This concludes:\n    My mother's son did get your father's heir;\n    Your father's heir must have your father's land.\n  ROBERT. Shall then my father's will be of no force\n    To dispossess that child which is not his?\n  BASTARD. Of no more force to dispossess me, sir,\n    Than was his will to get me, as I think.\n  ELINOR. Whether hadst thou rather be a Faulconbridge,\n    And like thy brother, to enjoy thy land,\n    Or the reputed son of Coeur-de-lion,\n    Lord of thy presence and no land beside?\n  BASTARD. Madam, an if my brother had my shape\n    And I had his, Sir Robert's his, like him;\n    And if my legs were two such riding-rods,\n    My arms such eel-skins stuff'd, my face so thin\n    That in mine ear I durst not stick a rose\n    Lest men should say 'Look where three-farthings goes!'\n    And, to his shape, were heir to all this land-\n    Would I might never stir from off this place,\n    I would give it every foot to have this face!\n    I would not be Sir Nob in any case.\n  ELINOR. I like thee well. Wilt thou forsake thy fortune,\n    Bequeath thy land to him and follow me?\n    I am a soldier and now bound to France.\n  BASTARD. Brother, take you my land, I'll take my chance.\n    Your face hath got five hundred pound a year,\n    Yet sell your face for fivepence and 'tis dear.\n    Madam, I'll follow you unto the death.\n  ELINOR. Nay, I would have you go before me thither.\n  BASTARD. Our country manners give our betters way.\n  KING JOHN. What is thy name?\n  BASTARD. Philip, my liege, so is my name begun:\n    Philip, good old Sir Robert's wife's eldest son.\n  KING JOHN. From henceforth bear his name whose form thou bearest:\n    Kneel thou down Philip, but rise more great-\n    Arise Sir Richard and Plantagenet.\n  BASTARD. Brother by th' mother's side, give me your hand;\n    My father gave me honour, yours gave land.\n    Now blessed be the hour, by night or day,\n    When I was got, Sir Robert was away!\n  ELINOR. The very spirit of Plantagenet!\n    I am thy grandam, Richard: call me so.\n  BASTARD. Madam, by chance, but not by truth; what though?\n    Something about, a little from the right,\n    In at the window, or else o'er the hatch;\n    Who dares not stir by day must walk by night;\n    And have is have, however men do catch.\n    Near or far off, well won is still well shot;\n    And I am I, howe'er I was begot.\n  KING JOHN. Go, Faulconbridge; now hast thou thy desire:\n    A landless knight makes thee a landed squire.\n    Come, madam, and come, Richard, we must speed\n    For France, for France, for it is more than need.\n  BASTARD. Brother, adieu. Good fortune come to thee!\n    For thou wast got i' th' way of honesty.\n                                           Exeunt all but the BASTARD\n    A foot of honour better than I was;\n    But many a many foot of land the worse.\n    Well, now can I make any Joan a lady.\n    'Good den, Sir Richard!'-'God-a-mercy, fellow!'\n    And if his name be George, I'll call him Peter;\n    For new-made honour doth forget men's names:\n    'Tis too respective and too sociable\n    For your conversion. Now your traveller,\n    He and his toothpick at my worship's mess-\n    And when my knightly stomach is suffic'd,\n    Why then I suck my teeth and catechize\n    My picked man of countries: 'My dear sir,'\n    Thus leaning on mine elbow I begin\n    'I shall beseech you'-That is question now;\n    And then comes answer like an Absey book:\n    'O sir,' says answer 'at your best command,\n    At your employment, at your service, sir!'\n    'No, sir,' says question 'I, sweet sir, at yours.'\n    And so, ere answer knows what question would,\n    Saving in dialogue of compliment,\n    And talking of the Alps and Apennines,\n    The Pyrenean and the river Po-\n    It draws toward supper in conclusion so.\n    But this is worshipful society,\n    And fits the mounting spirit like myself;\n    For he is but a bastard to the time\n    That doth not smack of observation-\n    And so am I, whether I smack or no;\n    And not alone in habit and device,\n    Exterior form, outward accoutrement,\n    But from the inward motion to deliver\n    Sweet, sweet, sweet poison for the age's tooth;\n    Which, though I will not practise to deceive,\n    Yet, to avoid deceit, I mean to learn;\n    For it shall strew the footsteps of my rising.\n    But who comes in such haste in riding-robes?\n    What woman-post is this? Hath she no husband\n    That will take pains to blow a horn before her?\n\n      Enter LADY FAULCONBRIDGE, and JAMES GURNEY\n\n    O me, 'tis my mother! How now, good lady!\n    What brings you here to court so hastily?\n  LADY FAULCONBRIDGE. Where is that slave, thy brother?\n      Where is he\n    That holds in chase mine honour up and down?\n  BASTARD. My brother Robert, old Sir Robert's son?\n    Colbrand the giant, that same mighty man?\n    Is it Sir Robert's son that you seek so?\n  LADY FAULCONBRIDGE. Sir Robert's son! Ay, thou unreverend boy,\n    Sir Robert's son! Why scorn'st thou at Sir Robert?\n    He is Sir Robert's son, and so art thou.\n  BASTARD. James Gurney, wilt thou give us leave awhile?\n  GURNEY. Good leave, good Philip.\n  BASTARD. Philip-Sparrow! James,\n    There's toys abroad-anon I'll tell thee more.\n                                                          Exit GURNEY\n    Madam, I was not old Sir Robert's son;\n    Sir Robert might have eat his part in me\n    Upon Good Friday, and ne'er broke his fast.\n    Sir Robert could do: well-marry, to confess-\n    Could he get me? Sir Robert could not do it:\n    We know his handiwork. Therefore, good mother,\n    To whom am I beholding for these limbs?\n    Sir Robert never holp to make this leg.\n  LADY FAULCONBRIDGE. Hast thou conspired with thy brother too,\n    That for thine own gain shouldst defend mine honour?\n    What means this scorn, thou most untoward knave?\n  BASTARD. Knight, knight, good mother, Basilisco-like.\n    What! I am dubb'd; I have it on my shoulder.\n    But, mother, I am not Sir Robert's son:\n    I have disclaim'd Sir Robert and my land;\n    Legitimation, name, and all is gone.\n    Then, good my mother, let me know my father-\n    Some proper man, I hope. Who was it, mother?\n  LADY FAULCONBRIDGE. Hast thou denied thyself a Faulconbridge?\n  BASTARD. As faithfully as I deny the devil.\n  LADY FAULCONBRIDGE. King Richard Coeur-de-lion was thy father.\n    By long and vehement suit I was seduc'd\n    To make room for him in my husband's bed.\n    Heaven lay not my transgression to my charge!\n    Thou art the issue of my dear offence,\n    Which was so strongly urg'd past my defence.\n  BASTARD. Now, by this light, were I to get again,\n    Madam, I would not wish a better father.\n    Some sins do bear their privilege on earth,\n    And so doth yours: your fault was not your folly;\n    Needs must you lay your heart at his dispose,\n    Subjected tribute to commanding love,\n    Against whose fury and unmatched force\n    The aweless lion could not wage the fight\n    Nor keep his princely heart from Richard's hand.\n    He that perforce robs lions of their hearts\n    May easily win a woman's. Ay, my mother,\n    With all my heart I thank thee for my father!\n    Who lives and dares but say thou didst not well\n    When I was got, I'll send his soul to hell.\n    Come, lady, I will show thee to my kin;\n    And they shall say when Richard me begot,\n    If thou hadst said him nay, it had been sin.\n    Who says it was, he lies; I say 'twas not.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 1\n\nFrance. Before Angiers\n\nEnter, on one side, AUSTRIA and forces; on the other, KING PHILIP OF FRANCE,\nLEWIS the Dauphin, CONSTANCE, ARTHUR, and forces\n\n  KING PHILIP. Before Angiers well met, brave Austria.\n    Arthur, that great forerunner of thy blood,\n    Richard, that robb'd the lion of his heart\n    And fought the holy wars in Palestine,\n    By this brave duke came early to his grave;\n    And for amends to his posterity,\n    At our importance hither is he come\n    To spread his colours, boy, in thy behalf;\n    And to rebuke the usurpation\n    Of thy unnatural uncle, English John.\n    Embrace him, love him, give him welcome hither.\n  ARTHUR. God shall forgive you Coeur-de-lion's death\n    The rather that you give his offspring life,\n    Shadowing their right under your wings of war.\n    I give you welcome with a powerless hand,\n    But with a heart full of unstained love;\n    Welcome before the gates of Angiers, Duke.\n  KING PHILIP. A noble boy! Who would not do thee right?\n  AUSTRIA. Upon thy cheek lay I this zealous kiss\n    As seal to this indenture of my love:\n    That to my home I will no more return\n    Till Angiers and the right thou hast in France,\n    Together with that pale, that white-fac'd shore,\n    Whose foot spurns back the ocean's roaring tides\n    And coops from other lands her islanders-\n    Even till that England, hedg'd in with the main,\n    That water-walled bulwark, still secure\n    And confident from foreign purposes-\n    Even till that utmost corner of the west\n    Salute thee for her king. Till then, fair boy,\n    Will I not think of home, but follow arms.\n  CONSTANCE. O, take his mother's thanks, a widow's thanks,\n    Till your strong hand shall help to give him strength\n    To make a more requital to your love!\n  AUSTRIA. The peace of heaven is theirs that lift their swords\n    In such a just and charitable war.\n  KING PHILIP. Well then, to work! Our cannon shall be bent\n    Against the brows of this resisting town;\n    Call for our chiefest men of discipline,\n    To cull the plots of best advantages.\n    We'll lay before this town our royal bones,\n    Wade to the market-place in Frenchmen's blood,\n    But we will make it subject to this boy.\n  CONSTANCE. Stay for an answer to your embassy,\n    Lest unadvis'd you stain your swords with blood;\n    My Lord Chatillon may from England bring\n    That right in peace which here we urge in war,\n    And then we shall repent each drop of blood\n    That hot rash haste so indirectly shed.\n\n                  Enter CHATILLON\n\n  KING PHILIP. A wonder, lady! Lo, upon thy wish,\n    Our messenger Chatillon is arriv'd.\n    What England says, say briefly, gentle lord;\n    We coldly pause for thee. Chatillon, speak.\n  CHATILLON. Then turn your forces from this paltry siege\n    And stir them up against a mightier task.\n    England, impatient of your just demands,\n    Hath put himself in arms. The adverse winds,\n    Whose leisure I have stay'd, have given him time\n    To land his legions all as soon as I;\n    His marches are expedient to this town,\n    His forces strong, his soldiers confident.\n    With him along is come the mother-queen,\n    An Ate, stirring him to blood and strife;\n    With her the Lady Blanch of Spain;\n    With them a bastard of the king's deceas'd;\n    And all th' unsettled humours of the land-\n    Rash, inconsiderate, fiery voluntaries,\n    With ladies' faces and fierce dragons' spleens-\n    Have sold their fortunes at their native homes,\n    Bearing their birthrights proudly on their backs,\n    To make a hazard of new fortunes here.\n    In brief, a braver choice of dauntless spirits\n    Than now the English bottoms have waft o'er\n    Did never float upon the swelling tide\n    To do offence and scathe in Christendom.             [Drum beats]\n    The interruption of their churlish drums\n    Cuts off more circumstance: they are at hand;\n    To parley or to fight, therefore prepare.\n  KING PHILIP. How much unlook'd for is this expedition!\n  AUSTRIA. By how much unexpected, by so much\n    We must awake endeavour for defence,\n    For courage mounteth with occasion.\n    Let them be welcome then; we are prepar'd.\n\n       Enter KING JOHN, ELINOR, BLANCH, the BASTARD,\n                 PEMBROKE, and others\n\n  KING JOHN. Peace be to France, if France in peace permit\n    Our just and lineal entrance to our own!\n    If not, bleed France, and peace ascend to heaven,\n    Whiles we, God's wrathful agent, do correct\n    Their proud contempt that beats His peace to heaven!\n  KING PHILIP. Peace be to England, if that war return\n    From France to England, there to live in peace!\n    England we love, and for that England's sake\n    With burden of our armour here we sweat.\n    This toil of ours should be a work of thine;\n    But thou from loving England art so far\n    That thou hast under-wrought his lawful king,\n    Cut off the sequence of posterity,\n    Outfaced infant state, and done a rape\n    Upon the maiden virtue of the crown.\n    Look here upon thy brother Geffrey's face:\n    These eyes, these brows, were moulded out of his;\n    This little abstract doth contain that large\n    Which died in Geffrey, and the hand of time\n    Shall draw this brief into as huge a volume.\n    That Geffrey was thy elder brother born,\n    And this his son; England was Geffrey's right,\n    And this is Geffrey's. In the name of God,\n    How comes it then that thou art call'd a king,\n    When living blood doth in these temples beat\n    Which owe the crown that thou o'er-masterest?\n  KING JOHN. From whom hast thou this great commission, France,\n    To draw my answer from thy articles?\n  KING PHILIP. From that supernal judge that stirs good thoughts\n    In any breast of strong authority\n    To look into the blots and stains of right.\n    That judge hath made me guardian to this boy,\n    Under whose warrant I impeach thy wrong,\n    And by whose help I mean to chastise it.\n  KING JOHN. Alack, thou dost usurp authority.\n  KING PHILIP. Excuse it is to beat usurping down.\n  ELINOR. Who is it thou dost call usurper, France?\n  CONSTANCE. Let me make answer: thy usurping son.\n  ELINOR. Out, insolent! Thy bastard shall be king,\n    That thou mayst be a queen and check the world!\n  CONSTANCE. My bed was ever to thy son as true\n    As thine was to thy husband; and this boy\n    Liker in feature to his father Geffrey\n    Than thou and John in manners-being as Eke\n    As rain to water, or devil to his dam.\n    My boy a bastard! By my soul, I think\n    His father never was so true begot;\n    It cannot be, an if thou wert his mother.\n  ELINOR. There's a good mother, boy, that blots thy father.\n  CONSTANCE. There's a good grandam, boy, that would blot thee.\n  AUSTRIA. Peace!\n  BASTARD. Hear the crier.\n  AUSTRIA. What the devil art thou?\n  BASTARD. One that will play the devil, sir, with you,\n    An 'a may catch your hide and you alone.\n    You are the hare of whom the proverb goes,\n    Whose valour plucks dead lions by the beard;\n    I'll smoke your skin-coat an I catch you right;\n    Sirrah, look to 't; i' faith I will, i' faith.\n  BLANCH. O, well did he become that lion's robe\n    That did disrobe the lion of that robe!\n  BASTARD. It lies as sightly on the back of him\n    As great Alcides' shows upon an ass;\n    But, ass, I'll take that burden from your back,\n    Or lay on that shall make your shoulders crack.\n  AUSTRIA. What cracker is this same that deafs our ears\n    With this abundance of superfluous breath?\n    King Philip, determine what we shall do straight.\n  KING PHILIP. Women and fools, break off your conference.\n    King John, this is the very sum of all:\n    England and Ireland, Anjou, Touraine, Maine,\n    In right of Arthur, do I claim of thee;\n    Wilt thou resign them and lay down thy arms?\n  KING JOHN. My life as soon. I do defy thee, France.\n    Arthur of Britaine, yield thee to my hand,\n    And out of my dear love I'll give thee more\n    Than e'er the coward hand of France can win.\n    Submit thee, boy.\n  ELINOR. Come to thy grandam, child.\n  CONSTANCE. Do, child, go to it grandam, child;\n    Give grandam kingdom, and it grandam will\n    Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig.\n    There's a good grandam!\n  ARTHUR. Good my mother, peace!\n    I would that I were low laid in my grave:\n    I am not worth this coil that's made for me.\n  ELINOR. His mother shames him so, poor boy, he weeps.\n  CONSTANCE. Now shame upon you, whe'er she does or no!\n    His grandam's wrongs, and not his mother's shames,\n    Draws those heaven-moving pearls from his poor eyes,\n    Which heaven shall take in nature of a fee;\n    Ay, with these crystal beads heaven shall be brib'd\n    To do him justice and revenge on you.\n  ELINOR. Thou monstrous slanderer of heaven and earth!\n  CONSTANCE. Thou monstrous injurer of heaven and earth,\n    Call not me slanderer! Thou and thine usurp\n    The dominations, royalties, and rights,\n    Of this oppressed boy; this is thy eldest son's son,\n    Infortunate in nothing but in thee.\n    Thy sins are visited in this poor child;\n    The canon of the law is laid on him,\n    Being but the second generation\n    Removed from thy sin-conceiving womb.\n  KING JOHN. Bedlam, have done.\n  CONSTANCE. I have but this to say-\n    That he is not only plagued for her sin,\n    But God hath made her sin and her the plague\n    On this removed issue, plagued for her\n    And with her plague; her sin his injury,\n    Her injury the beadle to her sin;\n    All punish'd in the person of this child,\n    And all for her-a plague upon her!\n  ELINOR. Thou unadvised scold, I can produce\n    A will that bars the title of thy son.\n  CONSTANCE. Ay, who doubts that? A will, a wicked will;\n    A woman's will; a cank'red grandam's will!\n  KING PHILIP. Peace, lady! pause, or be more temperate.\n    It ill beseems this presence to cry aim\n    To these ill-tuned repetitions.\n    Some trumpet summon hither to the walls\n    These men of Angiers; let us hear them speak\n    Whose title they admit, Arthur's or John's.\n\n      Trumpet sounds. Enter citizens upon the walls\n\n  CITIZEN. Who is it that hath warn'd us to the walls?\n  KING PHILIP. 'Tis France, for England.\n  KING JOHN. England for itself.\n    You men of Angiers, and my loving subjects-\n  KING PHILIP. You loving men of Angiers, Arthur's subjects,\n    Our trumpet call'd you to this gentle parle-\n  KING JOHN. For our advantage; therefore hear us first.\n    These flags of France, that are advanced here\n    Before the eye and prospect of your town,\n    Have hither march'd to your endamagement;\n    The cannons have their bowels full of wrath,\n    And ready mounted are they to spit forth\n    Their iron indignation 'gainst your walls;\n    All preparation for a bloody siege\n    And merciless proceeding by these French\n    Confront your city's eyes, your winking gates;\n    And but for our approach those sleeping stones\n    That as a waist doth girdle you about\n    By the compulsion of their ordinance\n    By this time from their fixed beds of lime\n    Had been dishabited, and wide havoc made\n    For bloody power to rush upon your peace.\n    But on the sight of us your lawful king,\n    Who painfully with much expedient march\n    Have brought a countercheck before your gates,\n    To save unscratch'd your city's threat'ned cheeks-\n    Behold, the French amaz'd vouchsafe a parle;\n    And now, instead of bullets wrapp'd in fire,\n    To make a shaking fever in your walls,\n    They shoot but calm words folded up in smoke,\n    To make a faithless error in your cars;\n    Which trust accordingly, kind citizens,\n    And let us in-your King, whose labour'd spirits,\n    Forwearied in this action of swift speed,\n    Craves harbourage within your city walls.\n  KING PHILIP. When I have said, make answer to us both.\n    Lo, in this right hand, whose protection\n    Is most divinely vow'd upon the right\n    Of him it holds, stands young Plantagenet,\n    Son to the elder brother of this man,\n    And king o'er him and all that he enjoys;\n    For this down-trodden equity we tread\n    In warlike march these greens before your town,\n    Being no further enemy to you\n    Than the constraint of hospitable zeal\n    In the relief of this oppressed child\n    Religiously provokes. Be pleased then\n    To pay that duty which you truly owe\n    To him that owes it, namely, this young prince;\n    And then our arms, like to a muzzled bear,\n    Save in aspect, hath all offence seal'd up;\n    Our cannons' malice vainly shall be spent\n    Against th' invulnerable clouds of heaven;\n    And with a blessed and unvex'd retire,\n    With unhack'd swords and helmets all unbruis'd,\n    We will bear home that lusty blood again\n    Which here we came to spout against your town,\n    And leave your children, wives, and you, in peace.\n    But if you fondly pass our proffer'd offer,\n    'Tis not the roundure of your old-fac'd walls\n    Can hide you from our messengers of war,\n    Though all these English and their discipline\n    Were harbour'd in their rude circumference.\n    Then tell us, shall your city call us lord\n    In that behalf which we have challeng'd it;\n    Or shall we give the signal to our rage,\n    And stalk in blood to our possession?\n  CITIZEN. In brief: we are the King of England's subjects;\n    For him, and in his right, we hold this town.\n  KING JOHN. Acknowledge then the King, and let me in.\n  CITIZEN. That can we not; but he that proves the King,\n    To him will we prove loyal. Till that time\n    Have we ramm'd up our gates against the world.\n  KING JOHN. Doth not the crown of England prove the King?\n    And if not that, I bring you witnesses:\n    Twice fifteen thousand hearts of England's breed-\n  BASTARD. Bastards and else.\n  KING JOHN. To verify our title with their lives.\n  KING PHILIP. As many and as well-born bloods as those-\n  BASTARD. Some bastards too.\n  KING PHILIP. Stand in his face to contradict his claim.\n  CITIZEN. Till you compound whose right is worthiest,\n    We for the worthiest hold the right from both.\n  KING JOHN. Then God forgive the sin of all those souls\n    That to their everlasting residence,\n    Before the dew of evening fall shall fleet\n    In dreadful trial of our kingdom's king!\n  KING PHILIP. Amen, Amen! Mount, chevaliers; to arms!\n  BASTARD. Saint George, that swing'd the dragon, and e'er since\n    Sits on's horse back at mine hostess' door,\n    Teach us some fence!  [To AUSTRIA]  Sirrah, were I at home,\n    At your den, sirrah, with your lioness,\n    I would set an ox-head to your lion's hide,\n    And make a monster of you.\n  AUSTRIA. Peace! no more.\n  BASTARD. O, tremble, for you hear the lion roar!\n  KING JOHN. Up higher to the plain, where we'll set forth\n    In best appointment all our regiments.\n  BASTARD. Speed then to take advantage of the field.\n  KING PHILIP. It shall be so; and at the other hill\n    Command the rest to stand. God and our right!              Exeunt\n\n    Here, after excursions, enter the HERALD OF FRANCE,\n              with trumpets, to the gates\n\n  FRENCH HERALD. You men of Angiers, open wide your gates\n    And let young Arthur, Duke of Britaine, in,\n    Who by the hand of France this day hath made\n    Much work for tears in many an English mother,\n    Whose sons lie scattered on the bleeding ground;\n    Many a widow's husband grovelling lies,\n    Coldly embracing the discoloured earth;\n    And victory with little loss doth play\n    Upon the dancing banners of the French,\n    Who are at hand, triumphantly displayed,\n    To enter conquerors, and to proclaim\n    Arthur of Britaine England's King and yours.\n\n         Enter ENGLISH HERALD, with trumpet\n\n  ENGLISH HERALD. Rejoice, you men of Angiers, ring your bells:\n    King John, your king and England's, doth approach,\n    Commander of this hot malicious day.\n    Their armours that march'd hence so silver-bright\n    Hither return all gilt with Frenchmen's blood.\n    There stuck no plume in any English crest\n    That is removed by a staff of France;\n    Our colours do return in those same hands\n    That did display them when we first march'd forth;\n    And like a jolly troop of huntsmen come\n    Our lusty English, all with purpled hands,\n    Dy'd in the dying slaughter of their foes.\n    Open your gates and give the victors way.\n  CITIZEN. Heralds, from off our tow'rs we might behold\n    From first to last the onset and retire\n    Of both your armies, whose equality\n    By our best eyes cannot be censured.\n    Blood hath bought blood, and blows have answer'd blows;\n    Strength match'd with strength, and power confronted power;\n    Both are alike, and both alike we like.\n    One must prove greatest. While they weigh so even,\n    We hold our town for neither, yet for both.\n\n    Enter the two KINGS, with their powers, at several doors\n\n  KING JOHN. France, hast thou yet more blood to cast away?\n    Say, shall the current of our right run on?\n    Whose passage, vex'd with thy impediment,\n    Shall leave his native channel and o'erswell\n    With course disturb'd even thy confining shores,\n    Unless thou let his silver water keep\n    A peaceful progress to the ocean.\n  KING PHILIP. England, thou hast not sav'd one drop of blood\n    In this hot trial more than we of France;\n    Rather, lost more. And by this hand I swear,\n    That sways the earth this climate overlooks,\n    Before we will lay down our just-borne arms,\n    We'll put thee down, 'gainst whom these arms we bear,\n    Or add a royal number to the dead,\n    Gracing the scroll that tells of this war's loss\n    With slaughter coupled to the name of kings.\n  BASTARD. Ha, majesty! how high thy glory tow'rs\n    When the rich blood of kings is set on fire!\n    O, now doth Death line his dead chaps with steel;\n    The swords of soldiers are his teeth, his fangs;\n    And now he feasts, mousing the flesh of men,\n    In undetermin'd differences of kings.\n    Why stand these royal fronts amazed thus?\n    Cry 'havoc!' kings; back to the stained field,\n    You equal potents, fiery kindled spirits!\n    Then let confusion of one part confirm\n    The other's peace. Till then, blows, blood, and death!\n  KING JOHN. Whose party do the townsmen yet admit?\n  KING PHILIP. Speak, citizens, for England; who's your king?\n  CITIZEN. The King of England, when we know the King.\n  KING PHILIP. Know him in us that here hold up his right.\n  KING JOHN. In us that are our own great deputy\n    And bear possession of our person here,\n    Lord of our presence, Angiers, and of you.\n  CITIZEN. A greater pow'r than we denies all this;\n    And till it be undoubted, we do lock\n    Our former scruple in our strong-barr'd gates;\n    King'd of our fears, until our fears, resolv'd,\n    Be by some certain king purg'd and depos'd.\n  BASTARD. By heaven, these scroyles of Angiers flout you, kings,\n    And stand securely on their battlements\n    As in a theatre, whence they gape and point\n    At your industrious scenes and acts of death.\n    Your royal presences be rul'd by me:\n    Do like the mutines of Jerusalem,\n    Be friends awhile, and both conjointly bend\n    Your sharpest deeds of malice on this town.\n    By east and west let France and England mount\n    Their battering cannon, charged to the mouths,\n    Till their soul-fearing clamours have brawl'd down\n    The flinty ribs of this contemptuous city.\n    I'd play incessantly upon these jades,\n    Even till unfenced desolation\n    Leave them as naked as the vulgar air.\n    That done, dissever your united strengths\n    And part your mingled colours once again,\n    Turn face to face and bloody point to point;\n    Then in a moment Fortune shall cull forth\n    Out of one side her happy minion,\n    To whom in favour she shall give the day,\n    And kiss him with a glorious victory.\n    How like you this wild counsel, mighty states?\n    Smacks it not something of the policy?\n  KING JOHN. Now, by the sky that hangs above our heads,\n    I like it well. France, shall we knit our pow'rs\n    And lay this Angiers even with the ground;\n    Then after fight who shall be king of it?\n  BASTARD. An if thou hast the mettle of a king,\n    Being wrong'd as we are by this peevish town,\n    Turn thou the mouth of thy artillery,\n    As we will ours, against these saucy walls;\n    And when that we have dash'd them to the ground,\n    Why then defy each other, and pell-mell\n    Make work upon ourselves, for heaven or hell.\n  KING PHILIP. Let it be so. Say, where will you assault?\n  KING JOHN. We from the west will send destruction\n    Into this city's bosom.\n  AUSTRIA. I from the north.\n  KING PHILIP. Our thunder from the south\n    Shall rain their drift of bullets on this town.\n  BASTARD.  [Aside]  O prudent discipline! From north to south,\n    Austria and France shoot in each other's mouth.\n    I'll stir them to it.-Come, away, away!\n  CITIZEN. Hear us, great kings: vouchsafe awhile to stay,\n    And I shall show you peace and fair-fac'd league;\n    Win you this city without stroke or wound;\n    Rescue those breathing lives to die in beds\n    That here come sacrifices for the field.\n    Persever not, but hear me, mighty kings.\n  KING JOHN. Speak on with favour; we are bent to hear.\n  CITIZEN. That daughter there of Spain, the Lady Blanch,\n    Is niece to England; look upon the years\n    Of Lewis the Dauphin and that lovely maid.\n    If lusty love should go in quest of beauty,\n    Where should he find it fairer than in Blanch?\n    If zealous love should go in search of virtue,\n    Where should he find it purer than in Blanch?\n    If love ambitious sought a match of birth,\n    Whose veins bound richer blood than Lady Blanch?\n    Such as she is, in beauty, virtue, birth,\n    Is the young Dauphin every way complete-\n    If not complete of, say he is not she;\n    And she again wants nothing, to name want,\n    If want it be not that she is not he.\n    He is the half part of a blessed man,\n    Left to be finished by such as she;\n    And she a fair divided excellence,\n    Whose fulness of perfection lies in him.\n    O, two such silver currents, when they join,\n    Do glorify the banks that bound them in;\n    And two such shores to two such streams made one,\n    Two such controlling bounds, shall you be, Kings,\n    To these two princes, if you marry them.\n    This union shall do more than battery can\n    To our fast-closed gates; for at this match\n    With swifter spleen than powder can enforce,\n    The mouth of passage shall we fling wide ope\n    And give you entrance; but without this match,\n    The sea enraged is not half so deaf,\n    Lions more confident, mountains and rocks\n    More free from motion-no, not Death himself\n    In mortal fury half so peremptory\n    As we to keep this city.\n  BASTARD. Here's a stay\n    That shakes the rotten carcass of old Death\n    Out of his rags! Here's a large mouth, indeed,\n    That spits forth death and mountains, rocks and seas;\n    Talks as familiarly of roaring lions\n    As maids of thirteen do of puppy-dogs!\n    What cannoneer begot this lusty blood?\n    He speaks plain cannon-fire, and smoke and bounce;\n    He gives the bastinado with his tongue;\n    Our ears are cudgell'd; not a word of his\n    But buffets better than a fist of France.\n    Zounds! I was never so bethump'd with words\n    Since I first call'd my brother's father dad.\n  ELINOR. Son, list to this conjunction, make this match;\n    Give with our niece a dowry large enough;\n    For by this knot thou shalt so surely tie\n    Thy now unsur'd assurance to the crown\n    That yon green boy shall have no sun to ripe\n    The bloom that promiseth a mighty fruit.\n    I see a yielding in the looks of France;\n    Mark how they whisper. Urge them while their souls\n    Are capable of this ambition,\n    Lest zeal, now melted by the windy breath\n    Of soft petitions, pity, and remorse,\n    Cool and congeal again to what it was.\n  CITIZEN. Why answer not the double majesties\n    This friendly treaty of our threat'ned town?\n  KING PHILIP. Speak England first, that hath been forward first\n    To speak unto this city: what say you?\n  KING JOHN. If that the Dauphin there, thy princely son,\n    Can in this book of beauty read 'I love,'\n    Her dowry shall weigh equal with a queen;\n    For Anjou, and fair Touraine, Maine, Poictiers,\n    And all that we upon this side the sea-\n    Except this city now by us besieg'd-\n    Find liable to our crown and dignity,\n    Shall gild her bridal bed, and make her rich\n    In titles, honours, and promotions,\n    As she in beauty, education, blood,\n    Holds hand with any princess of the world.\n  KING PHILIP. What say'st thou, boy? Look in the lady's face.\n  LEWIS. I do, my lord, and in her eye I find\n    A wonder, or a wondrous miracle,\n    The shadow of myself form'd in her eye;\n    Which, being but the shadow of your son,\n    Becomes a sun, and makes your son a shadow.\n    I do protest I never lov'd myself\n    Till now infixed I beheld myself\n    Drawn in the flattering table of her eye.\n                                               [Whispers with BLANCH]\n  BASTARD.  [Aside]  Drawn in the flattering table of her eye,\n    Hang'd in the frowning wrinkle of her brow,\n    And quarter'd in her heart-he doth espy\n    Himself love's traitor. This is pity now,\n    That hang'd and drawn and quarter'd there should be\n    In such a love so vile a lout as he.\n  BLANCH. My uncle's will in this respect is mine.\n    If he see aught in you that makes him like,\n    That anything he sees which moves his liking\n    I can with ease translate it to my will;\n    Or if you will, to speak more properly,\n    I will enforce it eas'ly to my love.\n    Further I will not flatter you, my lord,\n    That all I see in you is worthy love,\n    Than this: that nothing do I see in you-\n    Though churlish thoughts themselves should be your judge-\n    That I can find should merit any hate.\n  KING JOHN. What say these young ones? What say you, my niece?\n  BLANCH. That she is bound in honour still to do\n    What you in wisdom still vouchsafe to say.\n  KING JOHN. Speak then, Prince Dauphin; can you love this lady?\n  LEWIS. Nay, ask me if I can refrain from love;\n    For I do love her most unfeignedly.\n  KING JOHN. Then do I give Volquessen, Touraine, Maine,\n    Poictiers, and Anjou, these five provinces,\n    With her to thee; and this addition more,\n    Full thirty thousand marks of English coin.\n    Philip of France, if thou be pleas'd withal,\n    Command thy son and daughter to join hands.\n  KING PHILIP. It likes us well; young princes, close your hands.\n  AUSTRIA. And your lips too; for I am well assur'd\n    That I did so when I was first assur'd.\n  KING PHILIP. Now, citizens of Angiers, ope your gates,\n    Let in that amity which you have made;\n    For at Saint Mary's chapel presently\n    The rites of marriage shall be solemniz'd.\n    Is not the Lady Constance in this troop?\n    I know she is not; for this match made up\n    Her presence would have interrupted much.\n    Where is she and her son? Tell me, who knows.\n  LEWIS. She is sad and passionate at your Highness' tent.\n  KING PHILIP. And, by my faith, this league that we have made\n    Will give her sadness very little cure.\n    Brother of England, how may we content\n    This widow lady? In her right we came;\n    Which we, God knows, have turn'd another way,\n    To our own vantage.\n  KING JOHN. We will heal up all,\n    For we'll create young Arthur Duke of Britaine,\n    And Earl of Richmond; and this rich fair town\n    We make him lord of. Call the Lady Constance;\n    Some speedy messenger bid her repair\n    To our solemnity. I trust we shall,\n    If not fill up the measure of her will,\n    Yet in some measure satisfy her so\n    That we shall stop her exclamation.\n    Go we as well as haste will suffer us\n    To this unlook'd-for, unprepared pomp.\n                                           Exeunt all but the BASTARD\n  BASTARD. Mad world! mad kings! mad composition!\n    John, to stop Arthur's tide in the whole,\n    Hath willingly departed with a part;\n    And France, whose armour conscience buckled on,\n    Whom zeal and charity brought to the field\n    As God's own soldier, rounded in the ear\n    With that same purpose-changer, that sly devil,\n    That broker that still breaks the pate of faith,\n    That daily break-vow, he that wins of all,\n    Of kings, of beggars, old men, young men, maids,\n    Who having no external thing to lose\n    But the word 'maid,' cheats the poor maid of that;\n    That smooth-fac'd gentleman, tickling commodity,\n    Commodity, the bias of the world-\n    The world, who of itself is peised well,\n    Made to run even upon even ground,\n    Till this advantage, this vile-drawing bias,\n    This sway of motion, this commodity,\n    Makes it take head from all indifferency,\n    From all direction, purpose, course, intent-\n    And this same bias, this commodity,\n    This bawd, this broker, this all-changing word,\n    Clapp'd on the outward eye of fickle France,\n    Hath drawn him from his own determin'd aid,\n    From a resolv'd and honourable war,\n    To a most base and vile-concluded peace.\n    And why rail I on this commodity?\n    But for because he hath not woo'd me yet;\n    Not that I have the power to clutch my hand\n    When his fair angels would salute my palm,\n    But for my hand, as unattempted yet,\n    Like a poor beggar raileth on the rich.\n    Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail\n    And say there is no sin but to be rich;\n    And being rich, my virtue then shall be\n    To say there is no vice but beggary.\n    Since kings break faith upon commodity,\n    Gain, be my lord, for I will worship thee.                   Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 1.\n\nFrance. The FRENCH KING'S camp\n\nEnter CONSTANCE, ARTHUR, and SALISBURY\n\n  CONSTANCE. Gone to be married! Gone to swear a peace!\n    False blood to false blood join'd! Gone to be friends!\n    Shall Lewis have Blanch, and Blanch those provinces?\n    It is not so; thou hast misspoke, misheard;\n    Be well advis'd, tell o'er thy tale again.\n    It cannot be; thou dost but say 'tis so;\n    I trust I may not trust thee, for thy word\n    Is but the vain breath of a common man:\n    Believe me I do not believe thee, man;\n    I have a king's oath to the contrary.\n    Thou shalt be punish'd for thus frighting me,\n    For I am sick and capable of fears,\n    Oppress'd with wrongs, and therefore full of fears;\n    A widow, husbandless, subject to fears;\n    A woman, naturally born to fears;\n    And though thou now confess thou didst but jest,\n    With my vex'd spirits I cannot take a truce,\n    But they will quake and tremble all this day.\n    What dost thou mean by shaking of thy head?\n    Why dost thou look so sadly on my son?\n    What means that hand upon that breast of thine?\n    Why holds thine eye that lamentable rheum,\n    Like a proud river peering o'er his bounds?\n    Be these sad signs confirmers of thy words?\n    Then speak again-not all thy former tale,\n    But this one word, whether thy tale be true.\n  SALISBURY. As true as I believe you think them false\n    That give you cause to prove my saying true.\n  CONSTANCE. O, if thou teach me to believe this sorrow,\n    Teach thou this sorrow how to make me die;\n    And let belief and life encounter so\n    As doth the fury of two desperate men\n    Which in the very meeting fall and die!\n    Lewis marry Blanch! O boy, then where art thou?\n    France friend with England; what becomes of me?\n    Fellow, be gone: I cannot brook thy sight;\n    This news hath made thee a most ugly man.\n  SALISBURY. What other harm have I, good lady, done\n    But spoke the harm that is by others done?\n  CONSTANCE. Which harm within itself so heinous is\n    As it makes harmful all that speak of it.\n  ARTHUR. I do beseech you, madam, be content.\n  CONSTANCE. If thou that bid'st me be content wert grim,\n    Ugly, and sland'rous to thy mother's womb,\n    Full of unpleasing blots and sightless stains,\n    Lame, foolish, crooked, swart, prodigious,\n    Patch'd with foul moles and eye-offending marks,\n    I would not care, I then would be content;\n    For then I should not love thee; no, nor thou\n    Become thy great birth, nor deserve a crown.\n    But thou art fair, and at thy birth, dear boy,\n    Nature and Fortune join'd to make thee great:\n    Of Nature's gifts thou mayst with lilies boast,\n    And with the half-blown rose; but Fortune, O!\n    She is corrupted, chang'd, and won from thee;\n    Sh' adulterates hourly with thine uncle John,\n    And with her golden hand hath pluck'd on France\n    To tread down fair respect of sovereignty,\n    And made his majesty the bawd to theirs.\n    France is a bawd to Fortune and King John-\n    That strumpet Fortune, that usurping John!\n    Tell me, thou fellow, is not France forsworn?\n    Envenom him with words, or get thee gone\n    And leave those woes alone which I alone\n    Am bound to under-bear.\n  SALISBURY. Pardon me, madam,\n    I may not go without you to the kings.\n  CONSTANCE. Thou mayst, thou shalt; I will not go with thee;\n    I will instruct my sorrows to be proud,\n    For grief is proud, and makes his owner stoop.\n    To me, and to the state of my great grief,\n    Let kings assemble; for my grief's so great\n    That no supporter but the huge firm earth\n    Can hold it up.                     [Seats herself on the ground]\n    Here I and sorrows sit;\n    Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it.\n\n       Enter KING JOHN, KING PHILIP, LEWIS, BLANCH,\n       ELINOR, the BASTARD, AUSTRIA, and attendants\n\n  KING PHILIP. 'Tis true, fair daughter, and this blessed day\n    Ever in France shall be kept festival.\n    To solemnize this day the glorious sun\n    Stays in his course and plays the alchemist,\n    Turning with splendour of his precious eye\n    The meagre cloddy earth to glittering gold.\n    The yearly course that brings this day about\n    Shall never see it but a holiday.\n  CONSTANCE.  [Rising]  A wicked day, and not a holy day!\n    What hath this day deserv'd? what hath it done\n    That it in golden letters should be set\n    Among the high tides in the calendar?\n    Nay, rather turn this day out of the week,\n    This day of shame, oppression, perjury;\n    Or, if it must stand still, let wives with child\n    Pray that their burdens may not fall this day,\n    Lest that their hopes prodigiously be cross'd;\n    But on this day let seamen fear no wreck;\n    No bargains break that are not this day made;\n    This day, all things begun come to ill end,\n    Yea, faith itself to hollow falsehood change!\n  KING PHILIP. By heaven, lady, you shall have no cause\n    To curse the fair proceedings of this day.\n    Have I not pawn'd to you my majesty?\n  CONSTANCE. You have beguil'd me with a counterfeit\n    Resembling majesty, which, being touch'd and tried,\n    Proves valueless; you are forsworn, forsworn;\n    You came in arms to spill mine enemies' blood,\n    But now in arms you strengthen it with yours.\n    The grappling vigour and rough frown of war\n    Is cold in amity and painted peace,\n    And our oppression hath made up this league.\n    Arm, arm, you heavens, against these perjur'd kings!\n    A widow cries: Be husband to me, heavens!\n    Let not the hours of this ungodly day\n    Wear out the day in peace; but, ere sunset,\n    Set armed discord 'twixt these perjur'd kings!\n    Hear me, O, hear me!\n  AUSTRIA. Lady Constance, peace!\n  CONSTANCE. War! war! no peace! Peace is to me a war.\n    O Lymoges! O Austria! thou dost shame\n    That bloody spoil. Thou slave, thou wretch, thou coward!\n    Thou little valiant, great in villainy!\n    Thou ever strong upon the stronger side!\n    Thou Fortune's champion that dost never fight\n    But when her humorous ladyship is by\n    To teach thee safety! Thou art perjur'd too,\n    And sooth'st up greatness. What a fool art thou,\n    A ramping fool, to brag and stamp and swear\n    Upon my party! Thou cold-blooded slave,\n    Hast thou not spoke like thunder on my side,\n    Been sworn my soldier, bidding me depend\n    Upon thy stars, thy fortune, and thy strength,\n    And dost thou now fall over to my foes?\n    Thou wear a lion's hide! Doff it for shame,\n    And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant limbs.\n  AUSTRIA. O that a man should speak those words to me!\n  BASTARD. And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant limbs.\n  AUSTRIA. Thou dar'st not say so, villain, for thy life.\n  BASTARD. And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant limbs.\n  KING JOHN. We like not this: thou dost forget thyself.\n\n                  Enter PANDULPH\n\n  KING PHILIP. Here comes the holy legate of the Pope.\n  PANDULPH. Hail, you anointed deputies of heaven!\n    To thee, King John, my holy errand is.\n    I Pandulph, of fair Milan cardinal,\n    And from Pope Innocent the legate here,\n    Do in his name religiously demand\n    Why thou against the Church, our holy mother,\n    So wilfully dost spurn; and force perforce\n    Keep Stephen Langton, chosen Archbishop\n    Of Canterbury, from that holy see?\n    This, in our foresaid holy father's name,\n    Pope Innocent, I do demand of thee.\n  KING JOHN. What earthly name to interrogatories\n    Can task the free breath of a sacred king?\n    Thou canst not, Cardinal, devise a name\n    So slight, unworthy, and ridiculous,\n    To charge me to an answer, as the Pope.\n    Tell him this tale, and from the mouth of England\n    Add thus much more, that no Italian priest\n    Shall tithe or toll in our dominions;\n    But as we under heaven are supreme head,\n    So, under Him that great supremacy,\n    Where we do reign we will alone uphold,\n    Without th' assistance of a mortal hand.\n    So tell the Pope, all reverence set apart\n    To him and his usurp'd authority.\n  KING PHILIP. Brother of England, you blaspheme in this.\n  KING JOHN. Though you and all the kings of Christendom\n    Are led so grossly by this meddling priest,\n    Dreading the curse that money may buy out,\n    And by the merit of vile gold, dross, dust,\n    Purchase corrupted pardon of a man,\n    Who in that sale sells pardon from himself-\n    Though you and all the rest, so grossly led,\n    This juggling witchcraft with revenue cherish;\n    Yet I alone, alone do me oppose\n    Against the Pope, and count his friends my foes.\n  PANDULPH. Then by the lawful power that I have\n    Thou shalt stand curs'd and excommunicate;\n    And blessed shall he be that doth revolt\n    From his allegiance to an heretic;\n    And meritorious shall that hand be call'd,\n    Canonized, and worshipp'd as a saint,\n    That takes away by any secret course\n    Thy hateful life.\n  CONSTANCE. O, lawful let it be\n    That I have room with Rome to curse awhile!\n    Good father Cardinal, cry thou 'amen'\n    To my keen curses; for without my wrong\n    There is no tongue hath power to curse him right.\n  PANDULPH. There's law and warrant, lady, for my curse.\n  CONSTANCE. And for mine too; when law can do no right,\n    Let it be lawful that law bar no wrong;\n    Law cannot give my child his kingdom here,\n    For he that holds his kingdom holds the law;\n    Therefore, since law itself is perfect wrong,\n    How can the law forbid my tongue to curse?\n  PANDULPH. Philip of France, on peril of a curse,\n    Let go the hand of that arch-heretic,\n    And raise the power of France upon his head,\n    Unless he do submit himself to Rome.\n  ELINOR. Look'st thou pale, France? Do not let go thy hand.\n  CONSTANCE. Look to that, devil, lest that France repent\n    And by disjoining hands hell lose a soul.\n  AUSTRIA. King Philip, listen to the Cardinal.\n  BASTARD. And hang a calf's-skin on his recreant limbs.\n  AUSTRIA. Well, ruffian, I must pocket up these wrongs,\n    Because-\n  BASTARD. Your breeches best may carry them.\n  KING JOHN. Philip, what say'st thou to the Cardinal?\n  CONSTANCE. What should he say, but as the Cardinal?\n  LEWIS. Bethink you, father; for the difference\n    Is purchase of a heavy curse from Rome\n    Or the light loss of England for a friend.\n    Forgo the easier.\n  BLANCH. That's the curse of Rome.\n  CONSTANCE. O Lewis, stand fast! The devil tempts thee here\n    In likeness of a new untrimmed bride.\n  BLANCH. The Lady Constance speaks not from her faith,\n    But from her need.\n  CONSTANCE. O, if thou grant my need,\n    Which only lives but by the death of faith,\n    That need must needs infer this principle-\n    That faith would live again by death of need.\n    O then, tread down my need, and faith mounts up:\n    Keep my need up, and faith is trodden down!\n  KING JOHN. The King is mov'd, and answers not to this.\n  CONSTANCE. O be remov'd from him, and answer well!\n  AUSTRIA. Do so, King Philip; hang no more in doubt.\n  BASTARD. Hang nothing but a calf's-skin, most sweet lout.\n  KING PHILIP. I am perplex'd and know not what to say.\n  PANDULPH. What canst thou say but will perplex thee more,\n    If thou stand excommunicate and curs'd?\n  KING PHILIP. Good reverend father, make my person yours,\n    And tell me how you would bestow yourself.\n    This royal hand and mine are newly knit,\n    And the conjunction of our inward souls\n    Married in league, coupled and link'd together\n    With all religious strength of sacred vows;\n    The latest breath that gave the sound of words\n    Was deep-sworn faith, peace, amity, true love,\n    Between our kingdoms and our royal selves;\n    And even before this truce, but new before,\n    No longer than we well could wash our hands,\n    To clap this royal bargain up of peace,\n    Heaven knows, they were besmear'd and overstain'd\n    With slaughter's pencil, where revenge did paint\n    The fearful difference of incensed kings.\n    And shall these hands, so lately purg'd of blood,\n    So newly join'd in love, so strong in both,\n    Unyoke this seizure and this kind regreet?\n    Play fast and loose with faith? so jest with heaven,\n    Make such unconstant children of ourselves,\n    As now again to snatch our palm from palm,\n    Unswear faith sworn, and on the marriage-bed\n    Of smiling peace to march a bloody host,\n    And make a riot on the gentle brow\n    Of true sincerity? O, holy sir,\n    My reverend father, let it not be so!\n    Out of your grace, devise, ordain, impose,\n    Some gentle order; and then we shall be blest\n    To do your pleasure, and continue friends.\n  PANDULPH. All form is formless, order orderless,\n    Save what is opposite to England's love.\n    Therefore, to arms! be champion of our church,\n    Or let the church, our mother, breathe her curse-\n    A mother's curse-on her revolting son.\n    France, thou mayst hold a serpent by the tongue,\n    A chafed lion by the mortal paw,\n    A fasting tiger safer by the tooth,\n    Than keep in peace that hand which thou dost hold.\n  KING PHILIP. I may disjoin my hand, but not my faith.\n  PANDULPH. So mak'st thou faith an enemy to faith;\n    And like. a civil war set'st oath to oath.\n    Thy tongue against thy tongue. O, let thy vow\n    First made to heaven, first be to heaven perform'd,\n    That is, to be the champion of our Church.\n    What since thou swor'st is sworn against thyself\n    And may not be performed by thyself,\n    For that which thou hast sworn to do amiss\n    Is not amiss when it is truly done;\n    And being not done, where doing tends to ill,\n    The truth is then most done not doing it;\n    The better act of purposes mistook\n    Is to mistake again; though indirect,\n    Yet indirection thereby grows direct,\n    And falsehood cures, as fire cools fire\n    Within the scorched veins of one new-burn'd.\n    It is religion that doth make vows kept;\n    But thou hast sworn against religion\n    By what thou swear'st against the thing thou swear'st,\n    And mak'st an oath the surety for thy truth\n    Against an oath; the truth thou art unsure\n    To swear swears only not to be forsworn;\n    Else what a mockery should it be to swear!\n    But thou dost swear only to be forsworn;\n    And most forsworn to keep what thou dost swear.\n    Therefore thy later vows against thy first\n    Is in thyself rebellion to thyself;\n    And better conquest never canst thou make\n    Than arm thy constant and thy nobler parts\n    Against these giddy loose suggestions;\n    Upon which better part our pray'rs come in,\n    If thou vouchsafe them. But if not, then know\n    The peril of our curses fight on thee\n    So heavy as thou shalt not shake them off,\n    But in despair die under the black weight.\n  AUSTRIA. Rebellion, flat rebellion!\n  BASTARD. Will't not be?\n    Will not a calf's-skin stop that mouth of thine?\n  LEWIS. Father, to arms!\n  BLANCH. Upon thy wedding-day?\n    Against the blood that thou hast married?\n    What, shall our feast be kept with slaughtered men?\n    Shall braying trumpets and loud churlish drums,\n    Clamours of hell, be measures to our pomp?\n    O husband, hear me! ay, alack, how new\n    Is 'husband' in my mouth! even for that name,\n    Which till this time my tongue did ne'er pronounce,\n    Upon my knee I beg, go not to arms\n    Against mine uncle.\n  CONSTANCE. O, upon my knee,\n    Made hard with kneeling, I do pray to thee,\n    Thou virtuous Dauphin, alter not the doom\n    Forethought by heaven!\n  BLANCH. Now shall I see thy love. What motive may\n    Be stronger with thee than the name of wife?\n  CONSTANCE. That which upholdeth him that thee upholds,\n    His honour. O, thine honour, Lewis, thine honour!\n  LEWIS. I muse your Majesty doth seem so cold,\n    When such profound respects do pull you on.\n  PANDULPH. I will denounce a curse upon his head.\n  KING PHILIP. Thou shalt not need. England, I will fall from thee.\n  CONSTANCE. O fair return of banish'd majesty!\n  ELINOR. O foul revolt of French inconstancy!\n  KING JOHN. France, thou shalt rue this hour within this hour.\n  BASTARD. Old Time the clock-setter, that bald sexton Time,\n    Is it as he will? Well then, France shall rue.\n  BLANCH. The sun's o'ercast with blood. Fair day, adieu!\n    Which is the side that I must go withal?\n    I am with both: each army hath a hand;\n    And in their rage, I having hold of both,\n    They whirl asunder and dismember me.\n    Husband, I cannot pray that thou mayst win;\n    Uncle, I needs must pray that thou mayst lose;\n    Father, I may not wish the fortune thine;\n    Grandam, I will not wish thy wishes thrive.\n    Whoever wins, on that side shall I lose:\n    Assured loss before the match be play'd.\n  LEWIS. Lady, with me, with me thy fortune lies.\n  BLANCH. There where my fortune lives, there my life dies.\n  KING JOHN. Cousin, go draw our puissance together.\n                                                         Exit BASTARD\n    France, I am burn'd up with inflaming wrath,\n    A rage whose heat hath this condition\n    That nothing can allay, nothing but blood,\n    The blood, and dearest-valu'd blood, of France.\n  KING PHILIP. Thy rage shall burn thee up, and thou shalt turn\n    To ashes, ere our blood shall quench that fire.\n    Look to thyself, thou art in jeopardy.\n  KING JOHN. No more than he that threats. To arms let's hie!\n                                                     Exeunt severally\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nFrance. Plains near Angiers\n\nAlarums, excursions. Enter the BASTARD with AUSTRIA'S head\n\n  BASTARD. Now, by my life, this day grows wondrous hot;\n    Some airy devil hovers in the sky\n    And pours down mischief. Austria's head lie there,\n    While Philip breathes.\n\n          Enter KING JOHN, ARTHUR, and HUBERT\n\n  KING JOHN. Hubert, keep this boy. Philip, make up:\n    My mother is assailed in our tent,\n    And ta'en, I fear.\n  BASTARD. My lord, I rescued her;\n    Her Highness is in safety, fear you not;\n    But on, my liege, for very little pains\n    Will bring this labour to an happy end.                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nFrance. Plains near Angiers\n\nAlarums, excursions, retreat. Enter KING JOHN, ELINOR, ARTHUR,\nthe BASTARD, HUBERT, and LORDS\n\n  KING JOHN.  [To ELINOR]  So shall it be; your Grace shall stay\n      behind,\n    So strongly guarded.  [To ARTHUR]  Cousin, look not sad;\n    Thy grandam loves thee, and thy uncle will\n    As dear be to thee as thy father was.\n  ARTHUR. O, this will make my mother die with grief!\n  KING JOHN.  [To the BASTARD]  Cousin, away for England! haste\n      before,\n    And, ere our coming, see thou shake the bags\n    Of hoarding abbots; imprisoned angels\n    Set at liberty; the fat ribs of peace\n    Must by the hungry now be fed upon.\n    Use our commission in his utmost force.\n  BASTARD. Bell, book, and candle, shall not drive me back,\n    When gold and silver becks me to come on.\n    I leave your Highness. Grandam, I will pray,\n    If ever I remember to be holy,\n    For your fair safety. So, I kiss your hand.\n  ELINOR. Farewell, gentle cousin.\n  KING JOHN. Coz, farewell.\n                                                         Exit BASTARD\n  ELINOR. Come hither, little kinsman; hark, a word.\n  KING JOHN. Come hither, Hubert. O my gentle Hubert,\n    We owe thee much! Within this wall of flesh\n    There is a soul counts thee her creditor,\n    And with advantage means to pay thy love;\n    And, my good friend, thy voluntary oath\n    Lives in this bosom, dearly cherished.\n    Give me thy hand. I had a thing to say-\n    But I will fit it with some better time.\n    By heaven, Hubert, I am almost asham'd\n    To say what good respect I have of thee.\n  HUBERT. I am much bounden to your Majesty.\n  KING JOHN. Good friend, thou hast no cause to say so yet,\n    But thou shalt have; and creep time ne'er so slow,\n    Yet it shall come for me to do thee good.\n    I had a thing to say-but let it go:\n    The sun is in the heaven, and the proud day,\n    Attended with the pleasures of the world,\n    Is all too wanton and too full of gawds\n    To give me audience. If the midnight bell\n    Did with his iron tongue and brazen mouth\n    Sound on into the drowsy race of night;\n    If this same were a churchyard where we stand,\n    And thou possessed with a thousand wrongs;\n    Or if that surly spirit, melancholy,\n    Had bak'd thy blood and made it heavy-thick,\n    Which else runs tickling up and down the veins,\n    Making that idiot, laughter, keep men's eyes\n    And strain their cheeks to idle merriment,\n    A passion hateful to my purposes;\n    Or if that thou couldst see me without eyes,\n    Hear me without thine cars, and make reply\n    Without a tongue, using conceit alone,\n    Without eyes, ears, and harmful sound of words-\n    Then, in despite of brooded watchful day,\n    I would into thy bosom pour my thoughts.\n    But, ah, I will not! Yet I love thee well;\n    And, by my troth, I think thou lov'st me well.\n  HUBERT. So well that what you bid me undertake,\n    Though that my death were adjunct to my act,\n    By heaven, I would do it.\n  KING JOHN. Do not I know thou wouldst?\n    Good Hubert, Hubert, Hubert, throw thine eye\n    On yon young boy. I'll tell thee what, my friend,\n    He is a very serpent in my way;\n    And wheresoe'er this foot of mine doth tread,\n    He lies before me. Dost thou understand me?\n    Thou art his keeper.\n  HUBERT. And I'll keep him so\n    That he shall not offend your Majesty.\n  KING JOHN. Death.\n  HUBERT. My lord?\n  KING JOHN. A grave.\n  HUBERT. He shall not live.\n  KING JOHN. Enough!\n    I could be merry now. Hubert, I love thee.\n    Well, I'll not say what I intend for thee.\n    Remember. Madam, fare you well;\n    I'll send those powers o'er to your Majesty.\n  ELINOR. My blessing go with thee!\n  KING JOHN.  [To ARTHUR]  For England, cousin, go;\n    Hubert shall be your man, attend on you\n    With all true duty. On toward Calais, ho!                  Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\n\nFrance. The FRENCH KING's camp\n\nEnter KING PHILIP, LEWIS, PANDULPH, and attendants\n\n  KING PHILIP. So by a roaring tempest on the flood\n    A whole armado of convicted sail\n    Is scattered and disjoin'd from fellowship.\n  PANDULPH. Courage and comfort! All shall yet go well.\n  KING PHILIP. What can go well, when we have run so ill.\n    Are we not beaten? Is not Angiers lost?\n    Arthur ta'en prisoner? Divers dear friends slain?\n    And bloody England into England gone,\n    O'erbearing interruption, spite of France?\n  LEWIS. he hath won, that hath he fortified;\n    So hot a speed with such advice dispos'd,\n    Such temperate order in so fierce a cause,\n    Doth want example; who hath read or heard\n    Of any kindred action like to this?\n  KING PHILIP. Well could I bear that England had this praise,\n    So we could find some pattern of our shame.\n\n                   Enter CONSTANCE\n\n    Look who comes here! a grave unto a soul;\n    Holding th' eternal spirit, against her will,\n    In the vile prison of afflicted breath.\n    I prithee, lady, go away with me.\n  CONSTANCE. Lo now! now see the issue of your peace!\n  KING PHILIP. Patience, good lady! Comfort, gentle Constance!\n  CONSTANCE. No, I defy all counsel, all redress,\n    But that which ends all counsel, true redress-\n    Death, death; O amiable lovely death!\n    Thou odoriferous stench! sound rottenness!\n    Arise forth from the couch of lasting night,\n    Thou hate and terror to prosperity,\n    And I will kiss thy detestable bones,\n    And put my eyeballs in thy vaulty brows,\n    And ring these fingers with thy household worms,\n    And stop this gap of breath with fulsome dust,\n    And be a carrion monster like thyself.\n    Come, grin on me, and I will think thou smil'st,\n    And buss thee as thy wife. Misery's love,\n    O, come to me!\n  KING PHILIP. O fair affliction, peace!\n  CONSTANCE. No, no, I will not, having breath to cry.\n    O that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth!\n    Then with a passion would I shake the world,\n    And rouse from sleep that fell anatomy\n    Which cannot hear a lady's feeble voice,\n    Which scorns a modern invocation.\n  PANDULPH. Lady, you utter madness and not sorrow.\n  CONSTANCE. Thou art not holy to belie me so.\n    I am not mad: this hair I tear is mine;\n    My name is Constance; I was Geffrey's wife;\n    Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost.\n    I am not mad-I would to heaven I were!\n    For then 'tis like I should forget myself.\n    O, if I could, what grief should I forget!\n    Preach some philosophy to make me mad,\n    And thou shalt be canoniz'd, Cardinal;\n    For, being not mad, but sensible of grief,\n    My reasonable part produces reason\n    How I may be deliver'd of these woes,\n    And teaches me to kill or hang myself.\n    If I were mad I should forget my son,\n    Or madly think a babe of clouts were he.\n    I am not mad; too well, too well I feel\n    The different plague of each calamity.\n  KING PHILIP. Bind up those tresses. O, what love I note\n    In the fair multitude of those her hairs!\n    Where but by a chance a silver drop hath fall'n,\n    Even to that drop ten thousand wiry friends\n    Do glue themselves in sociable grief,\n    Like true, inseparable, faithful loves,\n    Sticking together in calamity.\n  CONSTANCE. To England, if you will.\n  KING PHILIP. Bind up your hairs.\n  CONSTANCE. Yes, that I will; and wherefore will I do it?\n    I tore them from their bonds, and cried aloud\n    'O that these hands could so redeem my son,\n    As they have given these hairs their liberty!'\n    But now I envy at their liberty,\n    And will again commit them to their bonds,\n    Because my poor child is a prisoner.\n    And, father Cardinal, I have heard you say\n    That we shall see and know our friends in heaven;\n    If that be true, I shall see my boy again;\n    For since the birth of Cain, the first male child,\n    To him that did but yesterday suspire,\n    There was not such a gracious creature born.\n    But now will canker sorrow eat my bud\n    And chase the native beauty from his cheek,\n    And he will look as hollow as a ghost,\n    As dim and meagre as an ague's fit;\n    And so he'll die; and, rising so again,\n    When I shall meet him in the court of heaven\n    I shall not know him. Therefore never, never\n    Must I behold my pretty Arthur more.\n  PANDULPH. You hold too heinous a respect of grief.\n  CONSTANCE. He talks to me that never had a son.\n  KING PHILIP. You are as fond of grief as of your child.\n  CONSTANCE. Grief fills the room up of my absent child,\n    Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,\n    Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,\n    Remembers me of all his gracious parts,\n    Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;\n    Then have I reason to be fond of grief.\n    Fare you well; had you such a loss as I,\n    I could give better comfort than you do.\n    I will not keep this form upon my head,\n                                                   [Tearing her hair]\n    When there is such disorder in my wit.\n    O Lord! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son!\n    My life, my joy, my food, my ail the world!\n    My widow-comfort, and my sorrows' cure!                      Exit\n  KING PHILIP. I fear some outrage, and I'll follow her.         Exit\n  LEWIS. There's nothing in this world can make me joy.\n    Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale\n    Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man;\n    And bitter shame hath spoil'd the sweet world's taste,\n    That it yields nought but shame and bitterness.\n  PANDULPH. Before the curing of a strong disease,\n    Even in the instant of repair and health,\n    The fit is strongest; evils that take leave\n    On their departure most of all show evil;\n    What have you lost by losing of this day?\n  LEWIS. All days of glory, joy, and happiness.\n  PANDULPH. If you had won it, certainly you had.\n    No, no; when Fortune means to men most good,\n    She looks upon them with a threat'ning eye.\n    'Tis strange to think how much King John hath lost\n    In this which he accounts so clearly won.\n    Are not you griev'd that Arthur is his prisoner?\n  LEWIS. As heartily as he is glad he hath him.\n  PANDULPH. Your mind is all as youthful as your blood.\n    Now hear me speak with a prophetic spirit;\n    For even the breath of what I mean to speak\n    Shall blow each dust, each straw, each little rub,\n    Out of the path which shall directly lead\n    Thy foot to England's throne. And therefore mark:\n    John hath seiz'd Arthur; and it cannot be\n    That, whiles warm life plays in that infant's veins,\n    The misplac'd John should entertain an hour,\n    One minute, nay, one quiet breath of rest.\n    A sceptre snatch'd with an unruly hand\n    Must be boisterously maintain'd as gain'd,\n    And he that stands upon a slipp'ry place\n    Makes nice of no vile hold to stay him up;\n    That John may stand then, Arthur needs must fall;\n    So be it, for it cannot be but so.\n  LEWIS. But what shall I gain by young Arthur's fall?\n  PANDULPH. You, in the right of Lady Blanch your wife,\n    May then make all the claim that Arthur did.\n  LEWIS. And lose it, life and all, as Arthur did.\n  PANDULPH. How green you are and fresh in this old world!\n    John lays you plots; the times conspire with you;\n    For he that steeps his safety in true blood\n    Shall find but bloody safety and untrue.\n    This act, so evilly borne, shall cool the hearts\n    Of all his people and freeze up their zeal,\n    That none so small advantage shall step forth\n    To check his reign but they will cherish it;\n    No natural exhalation in the sky,\n    No scope of nature, no distemper'd day,\n    No common wind, no customed event,\n    But they will pluck away his natural cause\n    And call them meteors, prodigies, and signs,\n    Abortives, presages, and tongues of heaven,\n    Plainly denouncing vengeance upon John.\n  LEWIS. May be he will not touch young Arthur's life,\n    But hold himself safe in his prisonment.\n  PANDULPH. O, Sir, when he shall hear of your approach,\n    If that young Arthur be not gone already,\n    Even at that news he dies; and then the hearts\n    Of all his people shall revolt from him,\n    And kiss the lips of unacquainted change,\n    And pick strong matter of revolt and wrath\n    Out of the bloody fingers' ends of john.\n    Methinks I see this hurly all on foot;\n    And, O, what better matter breeds for you\n    Than I have nam'd! The bastard Faulconbridge\n    Is now in England ransacking the Church,\n    Offending charity; if but a dozen French\n    Were there in arms, they would be as a can\n    To train ten thousand English to their side;\n    Or as a little snow, tumbled about,\n    Anon becomes a mountain. O noble Dauphin,\n    Go with me to the King. 'Tis wonderful\n    What may be wrought out of their discontent,\n    Now that their souls are topful of offence.\n    For England go; I will whet on the King.\n  LEWIS. Strong reasons makes strong actions. Let us go;\n    If you say ay, the King will not say no.                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 1.\n\nEngland. A castle\n\nEnter HUBERT and EXECUTIONERS\n\n  HUBERT. Heat me these irons hot; and look thou stand\n    Within the arras. When I strike my foot\n    Upon the bosom of the ground, rush forth\n    And bind the boy which you shall find with me\n    Fast to the chair. Be heedful; hence, and watch.\n  EXECUTIONER. I hope your warrant will bear out the deed.\n  HUBERT. Uncleanly scruples! Fear not you. Look to't.\n                                                  Exeunt EXECUTIONERS\n    Young lad, come forth; I have to say with you.\n\n                    Enter ARTHUR\n\n  ARTHUR. Good morrow, Hubert.\n  HUBERT. Good morrow, little Prince.\n  ARTHUR. As little prince, having so great a tide\n    To be more prince, as may be. You are sad.\n  HUBERT. Indeed I have been merrier.\n  ARTHUR. Mercy on me!\n    Methinks no body should be sad but I;\n    Yet, I remember, when I was in France,\n    Young gentlemen would be as sad as night,\n    Only for wantonness. By my christendom,\n    So I were out of prison and kept sheep,\n    I should be as merry as the day is long;\n    And so I would be here but that I doubt\n    My uncle practises more harm to me;\n    He is afraid of me, and I of him.\n    Is it my fault that I was Geffrey's son?\n    No, indeed, ist not; and I would to heaven\n    I were your son, so you would love me, Hubert.\n  HUBERT.  [Aside]  If I talk to him, with his innocent prate\n    He will awake my mercy, which lies dead;\n    Therefore I will be sudden and dispatch.\n  ARTHUR. Are you sick, Hubert? You look pale to-day;\n    In sooth, I would you were a little sick,\n    That I might sit all night and watch with you.\n    I warrant I love you more than you do me.\n  HUBERT.  [Aside]  His words do take possession of my bosom.-\n    Read here, young Arthur.                        [Showing a paper]\n      [Aside]  How now, foolish rheum!\n    Turning dispiteous torture out of door!\n    I must be brief, lest resolution drop\n    Out at mine eyes in tender womanish tears.-\n    Can you not read it? Is it not fair writ?\n  ARTHUR. Too fairly, Hubert, for so foul effect.\n    Must you with hot irons burn out both mine eyes?\n  HUBERT. Young boy, I must.\n  ARTHUR. And will you?\n  HUBERT. And I will.\n  ARTHUR. Have you the heart? When your head did but ache,\n    I knit my handkerchief about your brows-\n    The best I had, a princess wrought it me-\n    And I did never ask it you again;\n    And with my hand at midnight held your head;\n    And, like the watchful minutes to the hour,\n    Still and anon cheer'd up the heavy time,\n    Saying 'What lack you?' and 'Where lies your grief?'\n    Or 'What good love may I perform for you?'\n    Many a poor man's son would have lyen still,\n    And ne'er have spoke a loving word to you;\n    But you at your sick service had a prince.\n    Nay, you may think my love was crafty love,\n    And call it cunning. Do, an if you will.\n    If heaven be pleas'd that you must use me ill,\n    Why, then you must. Will you put out mine eyes,\n    These eyes that never did nor never shall\n    So much as frown on you?\n  HUBERT. I have sworn to do it;\n    And with hot irons must I burn them out.\n  ARTHUR. Ah, none but in this iron age would do it!\n    The iron of itself, though heat red-hot,\n    Approaching near these eyes would drink my tears,\n    And quench his fiery indignation\n    Even in the matter of mine innocence;\n    Nay, after that, consume away in rust\n    But for containing fire to harm mine eye.\n    Are you more stubborn-hard than hammer'd iron?\n    An if an angel should have come to me\n    And told me Hubert should put out mine eyes,\n    I would not have believ'd him-no tongue but Hubert's.\n  HUBERT.  [Stamps]  Come forth.\n\n     Re-enter EXECUTIONERS, With cord, irons, etc.\n\n    Do as I bid you do.\n  ARTHUR. O, save me, Hubert, save me! My eyes are out\n    Even with the fierce looks of these bloody men.\n  HUBERT. Give me the iron, I say, and bind him here.\n  ARTHUR. Alas, what need you be so boist'rous rough?\n    I will not struggle, I will stand stone-still.\n    For heaven sake, Hubert, let me not be bound!\n    Nay, hear me, Hubert! Drive these men away,\n    And I will sit as quiet as a lamb;\n    I will not stir, nor wince, nor speak a word,\n    Nor look upon the iron angrily;\n    Thrust but these men away, and I'll forgive you,\n    Whatever torment you do put me to.\n  HUBERT. Go, stand within; let me alone with him.\n  EXECUTIONER. I am best pleas'd to be from such a deed.\n                                                  Exeunt EXECUTIONERS\n  ARTHUR. Alas, I then have chid away my friend!\n    He hath a stern look but a gentle heart.\n    Let him come back, that his compassion may\n    Give life to yours.\n  HUBERT. Come, boy, prepare yourself.\n  ARTHUR. Is there no remedy?\n  HUBERT. None, but to lose your eyes.\n  ARTHUR. O heaven, that there were but a mote in yours,\n    A grain, a dust, a gnat, a wandering hair,\n    Any annoyance in that precious sense!\n    Then, feeling what small things are boisterous there,\n    Your vile intent must needs seem horrible.\n  HUBERT. Is this your promise? Go to, hold your tongue.\n  ARTHUR. Hubert, the utterance of a brace of tongues\n    Must needs want pleading for a pair of eyes.\n    Let me not hold my tongue, let me not, Hubert;\n    Or, Hubert, if you will, cut out my tongue,\n    So I may keep mine eyes. O, spare mine eyes,\n    Though to no use but still to look on you!\n    Lo, by my troth, the instrument is cold\n    And would not harm me.\n  HUBERT. I can heat it, boy.\n  ARTHUR. No, in good sooth; the fire is dead with grief,\n    Being create for comfort, to be us'd\n    In undeserved extremes. See else yourself:\n    There is no malice in this burning coal;\n    The breath of heaven hath blown his spirit out,\n    And strew'd repentant ashes on his head.\n  HUBERT. But with my breath I can revive it, boy.\n  ARTHUR. An if you do, you will but make it blush\n    And glow with shame of your proceedings, Hubert.\n    Nay, it perchance will sparkle in your eyes,\n    And, like a dog that is compell'd to fight,\n    Snatch at his master that doth tarre him on.\n    All things that you should use to do me wrong\n    Deny their office; only you do lack\n    That mercy which fierce fire and iron extends,\n    Creatures of note for mercy-lacking uses.\n  HUBERT. Well, see to live; I will not touch thine eye\n    For all the treasure that thine uncle owes.\n    Yet I am sworn, and I did purpose, boy,\n    With this same very iron to burn them out.\n  ARTHUR. O, now you look like Hubert! All this while\n    You were disguis'd.\n  HUBERT. Peace; no more. Adieu.\n    Your uncle must not know but you are dead:\n    I'll fill these dogged spies with false reports;\n    And, pretty child, sleep doubtless and secure\n    That Hubert, for the wealth of all the world,\n    Will not offend thee.\n  ARTHUR. O heaven! I thank you, Hubert.\n  HUBERT. Silence; no more. Go closely in with me.\n    Much danger do I undergo for thee.                         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nEngland. KING JOHN'S palace\n\nEnter KING JOHN, PEMBROKE, SALISBURY, and other LORDS\n\n  KING JOHN. Here once again we sit, once again crown'd,\n    And look'd upon, I hope, with cheerful eyes.\n  PEMBROKE. This once again, but that your Highness pleas'd,\n    Was once superfluous: you were crown'd before,\n    And that high royalty was ne'er pluck'd off,\n    The faiths of men ne'er stained with revolt;\n    Fresh expectation troubled not the land\n    With any long'd-for change or better state.\n  SALISBURY. Therefore, to be possess'd with double pomp,\n    To guard a title that was rich before,\n    To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,\n    To throw a perfume on the violet,\n    To smooth the ice, or add another hue\n    Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light\n    To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,\n    Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.\n  PEMBROKE. But that your royal pleasure must be done,\n    This act is as an ancient tale new told\n    And, in the last repeating, troublesome,\n    Being urged at a time unseasonable.\n  SALISBURY. In this the antique and well-noted face\n    Of plain old form is much disfigured;\n    And like a shifted wind unto a sail\n    It makes the course of thoughts to fetch about,\n    Startles and frights consideration,\n    Makes sound opinion sick, and truth suspected,\n    For putting on so new a fashion'd robe.\n  PEMBROKE. When workmen strive to do better than well,\n    They do confound their skill in covetousness;\n    And oftentimes excusing of a fault\n    Doth make the fault the worse by th' excuse,\n    As patches set upon a little breach\n    Discredit more in hiding of the fault\n    Than did the fault before it was so patch'd.\n  SALISBURY. To this effect, before you were new-crown'd,\n    We breath'd our counsel; but it pleas'd your Highness\n    To overbear it; and we are all well pleas'd,\n    Since all and every part of what we would\n    Doth make a stand at what your Highness will.\n  KING JOHN. Some reasons of this double coronation\n    I have possess'd you with, and think them strong;\n    And more, more strong, when lesser is my fear,\n    I shall indue you with. Meantime but ask\n    What you would have reform'd that is not well,\n    And well shall you perceive how willingly\n    I will both hear and grant you your requests.\n  PEMBROKE. Then I, as one that am the tongue of these,\n    To sound the purposes of all their hearts,\n    Both for myself and them- but, chief of all,\n    Your safety, for the which myself and them\n    Bend their best studies, heartily request\n    Th' enfranchisement of Arthur, whose restraint\n    Doth move the murmuring lips of discontent\n    To break into this dangerous argument:\n    If what in rest you have in right you hold,\n    Why then your fears-which, as they say, attend\n    The steps of wrong-should move you to mew up\n    Your tender kinsman, and to choke his days\n    With barbarous ignorance, and deny his youth\n    The rich advantage of good exercise?\n    That the time's enemies may not have this\n    To grace occasions, let it be our suit\n    That you have bid us ask his liberty;\n    Which for our goods we do no further ask\n    Than whereupon our weal, on you depending,\n    Counts it your weal he have his liberty.\n  KING JOHN. Let it be so. I do commit his youth\n    To your direction.\n\n                     Enter HUBERT\n\n    [Aside]  Hubert, what news with you?\n  PEMBROKE. This is the man should do the bloody deed:\n    He show'd his warrant to a friend of mine;\n    The image of a wicked heinous fault\n    Lives in his eye; that close aspect of his\n    Doth show the mood of a much troubled breast,\n    And I do fearfully believe 'tis done\n    What we so fear'd he had a charge to do.\n  SALISBURY. The colour of the King doth come and go\n    Between his purpose and his conscience,\n    Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles set.\n    His passion is so ripe it needs must break.\n  PEMBROKE. And when it breaks, I fear will issue thence\n    The foul corruption of a sweet child's death.\n  KING JOHN. We cannot hold mortality's strong hand.\n    Good lords, although my will to give is living,\n    The suit which you demand is gone and dead:\n    He tells us Arthur is deceas'd to-night.\n  SALISBURY. Indeed, we fear'd his sickness was past cure.\n  PEMBROKE. Indeed, we heard how near his death he was,\n    Before the child himself felt he was sick.\n    This must be answer'd either here or hence.\n  KING JOHN. Why do you bend such solemn brows on me?\n    Think you I bear the shears of destiny?\n    Have I commandment on the pulse of life?\n  SALISBURY. It is apparent foul-play; and 'tis shame\n    That greatness should so grossly offer it.\n    So thrive it in your game! and so, farewell.\n  PEMBROKE. Stay yet, Lord Salisbury, I'll go with thee\n    And find th' inheritance of this poor child,\n    His little kingdom of a forced grave.\n    That blood which ow'd the breadth of all this isle\n    Three foot of it doth hold-bad world the while!\n    This must not be thus borne: this will break out\n    To all our sorrows, and ere long I doubt.            Exeunt LORDS\n  KING JOHN. They burn in indignation. I repent.\n    There is no sure foundation set on blood,\n    No certain life achiev'd by others' death.\n\n                 Enter a MESSENGER\n\n    A fearful eye thou hast; where is that blood\n    That I have seen inhabit in those cheeks?\n    So foul a sky clears not without a storm.\n    Pour down thy weather-how goes all in France?\n  MESSENGER. From France to England. Never such a pow'r\n    For any foreign preparation\n    Was levied in the body of a land.\n    The copy of your speed is learn'd by them,\n    For when you should be told they do prepare,\n    The tidings comes that they are all arriv'd.\n  KING JOHN. O, where hath our intelligence been drunk?\n    Where hath it slept? Where is my mother's care,\n    That such an army could be drawn in France,\n    And she not hear of it?\n  MESSENGER. My liege, her ear\n    Is stopp'd with dust: the first of April died\n    Your noble mother; and as I hear, my lord,\n    The Lady Constance in a frenzy died\n    Three days before; but this from rumour's tongue\n    I idly heard-if true or false I know not.\n  KING JOHN. Withhold thy speed, dreadful occasion!\n    O, make a league with me, till I have pleas'd\n    My discontented peers! What! mother dead!\n    How wildly then walks my estate in France!\n    Under whose conduct came those pow'rs of France\n    That thou for truth giv'st out are landed here?\n  MESSENGER. Under the Dauphin.\n  KING JOHN. Thou hast made me giddy\n    With these in tidings.\n\n         Enter the BASTARD and PETER OF POMFRET\n\n    Now! What says the world\n    To your proceedings? Do not seek to stuff\n    My head with more ill news, for it is fun.\n  BASTARD. But if you be afear'd to hear the worst,\n    Then let the worst, unheard, fall on your head.\n  KING JOHN. Bear with me, cousin, for I was amaz'd\n    Under the tide; but now I breathe again\n    Aloft the flood, and can give audience\n    To any tongue, speak it of what it will.\n  BASTARD. How I have sped among the clergymen\n    The sums I have collected shall express.\n    But as I travell'd hither through the land,\n    I find the people strangely fantasied;\n    Possess'd with rumours, full of idle dreams.\n    Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear;\n    And here's a prophet that I brought with me\n    From forth the streets of Pomfret, whom I found\n    With many hundreds treading on his heels;\n    To whom he sung, in rude harsh-sounding rhymes,\n    That, ere the next Ascension-day at noon,\n    Your Highness should deliver up your crown.\n  KING JOHN. Thou idle dreamer, wherefore didst thou so?\n  PETER. Foreknowing that the truth will fall out so.\n  KING JOHN. Hubert, away with him; imprison him;\n    And on that day at noon whereon he says\n    I shall yield up my crown let him be hang'd.\n    Deliver him to safety; and return,\n    For I must use thee.\n                                               Exit HUBERT with PETER\n    O my gentle cousin,\n    Hear'st thou the news abroad, who are arriv'd?\n  BASTARD. The French, my lord; men's mouths are full of it;\n    Besides, I met Lord Bigot and Lord Salisbury,\n    With eyes as red as new-enkindled fire,\n    And others more, going to seek the grave\n    Of Arthur, whom they say is kill'd to-night\n    On your suggestion.\n  KING JOHN. Gentle kinsman, go\n    And thrust thyself into their companies.\n    I have a way to will their loves again;\n    Bring them before me.\n  BASTARD. I Will seek them out.\n  KING JOHN. Nay, but make haste; the better foot before.\n    O, let me have no subject enemies\n    When adverse foreigners affright my towns\n    With dreadful pomp of stout invasion!\n    Be Mercury, set feathers to thy heels,\n    And fly like thought from them to me again.\n  BASTARD. The spirit of the time shall teach me speed.\n  KING JOHN. Spoke like a sprightful noble gentleman.\n                                                         Exit BASTARD\n    Go after him; for he perhaps shall need\n    Some messenger betwixt me and the peers;\n    And be thou he.\n  MESSENGER. With all my heart, my liege.                        Exit\n  KING JOHN. My mother dead!\n\n                   Re-enter HUBERT\n\n  HUBERT. My lord, they say five moons were seen to-night;\n    Four fixed, and the fifth did whirl about\n    The other four in wondrous motion.\n  KING JOHN. Five moons!\n  HUBERT. Old men and beldams in the streets\n    Do prophesy upon it dangerously;\n    Young Arthur's death is common in their mouths;\n    And when they talk of him, they shake their heads,\n    And whisper one another in the ear;\n    And he that speaks doth gripe the hearer's wrist,\n    Whilst he that hears makes fearful action\n    With wrinkled brows, with nods, with rolling eyes.\n    I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,\n    The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool,\n    With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news;\n    Who, with his shears and measure in his hand,\n    Standing on slippers, which his nimble haste\n    Had falsely thrust upon contrary feet,\n    Told of a many thousand warlike French\n    That were embattailed and rank'd in Kent.\n    Another lean unwash'd artificer\n    Cuts off his tale, and talks of Arthur's death.\n  KING JOHN. Why seek'st thou to possess me with these fears?\n    Why urgest thou so oft young Arthur's death?\n    Thy hand hath murd'red him. I had a mighty cause\n    To wish him dead, but thou hadst none to kill him.\n  HUBERT. No had, my lord! Why, did you not provoke me?\n  KING JOHN. It is the curse of kings to be attended\n    By slaves that take their humours for a warrant\n    To break within the bloody house of life,\n    And on the winking of authority\n    To understand a law; to know the meaning\n    Of dangerous majesty, when perchance it frowns\n    More upon humour than advis'd respect.\n  HUBERT. Here is your hand and seal for what I did.\n  KING JOHN. O, when the last account 'twixt heaven and earth\n    Is to be made, then shall this hand and seal\n    Witness against us to damnation!\n    How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds\n    Make deeds ill done! Hadst not thou been by,\n    A fellow by the hand of nature mark'd,\n    Quoted and sign'd to do a deed of shame,\n    This murder had not come into my mind;\n    But, taking note of thy abhorr'd aspect,\n    Finding thee fit for bloody villainy,\n    Apt, liable to be employ'd in danger,\n    I faintly broke with thee of Arthur's death;\n    And thou, to be endeared to a king,\n    Made it no conscience to destroy a prince.\n  HUBERT. My lord-\n  KING JOHN. Hadst thou but shook thy head or made pause,\n    When I spake darkly what I purposed,\n    Or turn'd an eye of doubt upon my face,\n    As bid me tell my tale in express words,\n    Deep shame had struck me dumb, made me break off,\n    And those thy fears might have wrought fears in me.\n    But thou didst understand me by my signs,\n    And didst in signs again parley with sin;\n    Yea, without stop, didst let thy heart consent,\n    And consequently thy rude hand to act\n    The deed which both our tongues held vile to name.\n    Out of my sight, and never see me more!\n    My nobles leave me; and my state is braved,\n    Even at my gates, with ranks of foreign pow'rs;\n    Nay, in the body of the fleshly land,\n    This kingdom, this confine of blood and breath,\n    Hostility and civil tumult reigns\n    Between my conscience and my cousin's death.\n  HUBERT. Arm you against your other enemies,\n    I'll make a peace between your soul and you.\n    Young Arthur is alive. This hand of mine\n    Is yet a maiden and an innocent hand,\n    Not painted with the crimson spots of blood.\n    Within this bosom never ent'red yet\n    The dreadful motion of a murderous thought\n    And you have slander'd nature in my form,\n    Which, howsoever rude exteriorly,\n    Is yet the cover of a fairer mind\n    Than to be butcher of an innocent child.\n  KING JOHN. Doth Arthur live? O, haste thee to the peers,\n    Throw this report on their incensed rage\n    And make them tame to their obedience!\n    Forgive the comment that my passion made\n    Upon thy feature; for my rage was blind,\n    And foul imaginary eyes of blood\n    Presented thee more hideous than thou art.\n    O, answer not; but to my closet bring\n    The angry lords with all expedient haste.\n    I conjure thee but slowly; run more fast.                  Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nEngland. Before the castle\n\nEnter ARTHUR, on the walls\n\n  ARTHUR. The wall is high, and yet will I leap down.\n    Good ground, be pitiful and hurt me not!\n    There's few or none do know me; if they did,\n    This ship-boy's semblance hath disguis'd me quite.\n    I am afraid; and yet I'll venture it.\n    If I get down and do not break my limbs,\n    I'll find a thousand shifts to get away.\n    As good to die and go, as die and stay.              [Leaps down]\n    O me! my uncle's spirit is in these stones.\n    Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones!\n    [Dies]\n\n          Enter PEMBROKE, SALISBURY, and BIGOT\n\n  SALISBURY. Lords, I will meet him at Saint Edmundsbury;\n    It is our safety, and we must embrace\n    This gentle offer of the perilous time.\n  PEMBROKE. Who brought that letter from the Cardinal?\n  SALISBURY. The Count Melun, a noble lord of France,\n    Whose private with me of the Dauphin's love\n    Is much more general than these lines import.\n  BIGOT. To-morrow morning let us meet him then.\n  SALISBURY. Or rather then set forward; for 'twill be\n    Two long days' journey, lords, or ere we meet.\n\n                 Enter the BASTARD\n\n  BASTARD. Once more to-day well met, distemper'd lords!\n    The King by me requests your presence straight.\n  SALISBURY. The King hath dispossess'd himself of us.\n    We will not line his thin bestained cloak\n    With our pure honours, nor attend the foot\n    That leaves the print of blood where'er it walks.\n    Return and tell him so. We know the worst.\n  BASTARD. Whate'er you think, good words, I think, were best.\n  SALISBURY. Our griefs, and not our manners, reason now.\n  BASTARD. But there is little reason in your grief;\n    Therefore 'twere reason you had manners now.\n  PEMBROKE. Sir, sir, impatience hath his privilege.\n  BASTARD. 'Tis true-to hurt his master, no man else.\n  SALISBURY. This is the prison. What is he lies here?\n  PEMBROKE. O death, made proud with pure and princely beauty!\n    The earth had not a hole to hide this deed.\n  SALISBURY. Murder, as hating what himself hath done,\n    Doth lay it open to urge on revenge.\n  BIGOT. Or, when he doom'd this beauty to a grave,\n    Found it too precious-princely for a grave.\n  SALISBURY. Sir Richard, what think you? Have you beheld,\n    Or have you read or heard, or could you think?\n    Or do you almost think, although you see,\n    That you do see? Could thought, without this object,\n    Form such another? This is the very top,\n    The height, the crest, or crest unto the crest,\n    Of murder's arms; this is the bloodiest shame,\n    The wildest savagery, the vilest stroke,\n    That ever wall-ey'd wrath or staring rage\n    Presented to the tears of soft remorse.\n  PEMBROKE. All murders past do stand excus'd in this;\n    And this, so sole and so unmatchable,\n    Shall give a holiness, a purity,\n    To the yet unbegotten sin of times,\n    And prove a deadly bloodshed but a jest,\n    Exampled by this heinous spectacle.\n  BASTARD. It is a damned and a bloody work;\n    The graceless action of a heavy hand,\n    If that it be the work of any hand.\n  SALISBURY. If that it be the work of any hand!\n    We had a kind of light what would ensue.\n    It is the shameful work of Hubert's hand;\n    The practice and the purpose of the King;\n    From whose obedience I forbid my soul\n    Kneeling before this ruin of sweet life,\n    And breathing to his breathless excellence\n    The incense of a vow, a holy vow,\n    Never to taste the pleasures of the world,\n    Never to be infected with delight,\n    Nor conversant with ease and idleness,\n    Till I have set a glory to this hand\n    By giving it the worship of revenge.\n  PEMBROKE. and BIGOT. Our souls religiously confirm thy words.\n\n                     Enter HUBERT\n\n  HUBERT. Lords, I am hot with haste in seeking you.\n    Arthur doth live; the King hath sent for you.\n  SALISBURY. O, he is bold, and blushes not at death!\n    Avaunt, thou hateful villain, get thee gone!\n  HUBERT. I am no villain.\n  SALISBURY. Must I rob the law?                  [Drawing his sword]\n  BASTARD. Your sword is bright, sir; put it up again.\n  SALISBURY. Not till I sheathe it in a murderer's skin.\n  HUBERT. Stand back, Lord Salisbury, stand back, I say;\n    By heaven, I think my sword's as sharp as yours.\n    I would not have you, lord, forget yourself,\n    Nor tempt the danger of my true defence;\n    Lest I, by marking of your rage, forget\n    Your worth, your greatness and nobility.\n  BIGOT. Out, dunghill! Dar'st thou brave a nobleman?\n  HUBERT. Not for my life; but yet I dare defend\n    My innocent life against an emperor.\n  SALISBURY. Thou art a murderer.\n  HUBERT. Do not prove me so.\n    Yet I am none. Whose tongue soe'er speaks false,\n    Not truly speaks; who speaks not truly, lies.\n  PEMBROKE. Cut him to pieces.\n  BASTARD. Keep the peace, I say.\n  SALISBURY. Stand by, or I shall gall you, Faulconbridge.\n  BASTARD. Thou wert better gall the devil, Salisbury.\n    If thou but frown on me, or stir thy foot,\n    Or teach thy hasty spleen to do me shame,\n    I'll strike thee dead. Put up thy sword betime;\n    Or I'll so maul you and your toasting-iron\n    That you shall think the devil is come from hell.\n  BIGOT. What wilt thou do, renowned Faulconbridge?\n    Second a villain and a murderer?\n  HUBERT. Lord Bigot, I am none.\n  BIGOT. Who kill'd this prince?\n  HUBERT. 'Tis not an hour since I left him well.\n    I honour'd him, I lov'd him, and will weep\n    My date of life out for his sweet life's loss.\n  SALISBURY. Trust not those cunning waters of his eyes,\n    For villainy is not without such rheum;\n    And he, long traded in it, makes it seem\n    Like rivers of remorse and innocency.\n    Away with me, all you whose souls abhor\n    Th' uncleanly savours of a slaughter-house;\n    For I am stifled with this smell of sin.\n  BIGOT. Away toward Bury, to the Dauphin there!\n  PEMBROKE. There tell the King he may inquire us out.\n                                                         Exeunt LORDS\n  BASTARD. Here's a good world! Knew you of this fair work?\n    Beyond the infinite and boundless reach\n    Of mercy, if thou didst this deed of death,\n    Art thou damn'd, Hubert.\n  HUBERT. Do but hear me, sir.\n  BASTARD. Ha! I'll tell thee what:\n    Thou'rt damn'd as black-nay, nothing is so black-\n    Thou art more deep damn'd than Prince Lucifer;\n    There is not yet so ugly a fiend of hell\n    As thou shalt be, if thou didst kill this child.\n  HUBERT. Upon my soul-\n  BASTARD. If thou didst but consent\n    To this most cruel act, do but despair;\n    And if thou want'st a cord, the smallest thread\n    That ever spider twisted from her womb\n    Will serve to strangle thee; a rush will be a beam\n    To hang thee on; or wouldst thou drown thyself,\n    Put but a little water in a spoon\n    And it shall be as all the ocean,\n    Enough to stifle such a villain up\n    I do suspect thee very grievously.\n  HUBERT. If I in act, consent, or sin of thought,\n    Be guilty of the stealing that sweet breath\n    Which was embounded in this beauteous clay,\n    Let hell want pains enough to torture me!\n    I left him well.\n  BASTARD. Go, bear him in thine arms.\n    I am amaz'd, methinks, and lose my way\n    Among the thorns and dangers of this world.\n    How easy dost thou take all England up!\n    From forth this morsel of dead royalty\n    The life, the right, and truth of all this realm\n    Is fled to heaven; and England now is left\n    To tug and scamble, and to part by th' teeth\n    The unowed interest of proud-swelling state.\n    Now for the bare-pick'd bone of majesty\n    Doth dogged war bristle his angry crest\n    And snarleth in the gentle eyes of peace;\n    Now powers from home and discontents at home\n    Meet in one line; and vast confusion waits,\n    As doth a raven on a sick-fall'n beast,\n    The imminent decay of wrested pomp.\n    Now happy he whose cloak and cincture can\n    Hold out this tempest. Bear away that child,\n    And follow me with speed. I'll to the King;\n    A thousand businesses are brief in hand,\n    And heaven itself doth frown upon the land.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 1.\nEngland. KING JOHN'S palace\n\nEnter KING JOHN, PANDULPH, and attendants\n\n  KING JOHN. Thus have I yielded up into your hand\n    The circle of my glory.\n  PANDULPH.  [Gives back the crown]  Take again\n    From this my hand, as holding of the Pope,\n    Your sovereign greatness and authority.\n  KING JOHN. Now keep your holy word; go meet the French;\n    And from his Holiness use all your power\n    To stop their marches fore we are inflam'd.\n    Our discontented counties do revolt;\n    Our people quarrel with obedience,\n    Swearing allegiance and the love of soul\n    To stranger blood, to foreign royalty.\n    This inundation of mistemp'red humour\n    Rests by you only to be qualified.\n    Then pause not; for the present time's so sick\n    That present med'cine must be minist'red\n    Or overthrow incurable ensues.\n  PANDULPH. It was my breath that blew this tempest up,\n    Upon your stubborn usage of the Pope;\n    But since you are a gentle convertite,\n    My tongue shall hush again this storm of war\n    And make fair weather in your blust'ring land.\n    On this Ascension-day, remember well,\n    Upon your oath of service to the Pope,\n    Go I to make the French lay down their arms.                 Exit\n  KING JOHN. Is this Ascension-day? Did not the prophet\n    Say that before Ascension-day at noon\n    My crown I should give off? Even so I have.\n    I did suppose it should be on constraint;\n    But, heaven be thank'd, it is but voluntary.\n\n                 Enter the BASTARD\n\n  BASTARD. All Kent hath yielded; nothing there holds out\n    But Dover Castle. London hath receiv'd,\n    Like a kind host, the Dauphin and his powers.\n    Your nobles will not hear you, but are gone\n    To offer service to your enemy;\n    And wild amazement hurries up and down\n    The little number of your doubtful friends.\n  KING JOHN. Would not my lords return to me again\n    After they heard young Arthur was alive?\n    BASTARD. They found him dead, and cast into the streets,\n    An empty casket, where the jewel of life\n    By some damn'd hand was robbed and ta'en away.\n  KING JOHN. That villain Hubert told me he did live.\n  BASTARD. So, on my soul, he did, for aught he knew.\n    But wherefore do you droop? Why look you sad?\n    Be great in act, as you have been in thought;\n    Let not the world see fear and sad distrust\n    Govern the motion of a kingly eye.\n    Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire;\n    Threaten the threat'ner, and outface the brow\n    Of bragging horror; so shall inferior eyes,\n    That borrow their behaviours from the great,\n    Grow great by your example and put on\n    The dauntless spirit of resolution.\n    Away, and glister like the god of war\n    When he intendeth to become the field;\n    Show boldness and aspiring confidence.\n    What, shall they seek the lion in his den,\n    And fright him there, and make him tremble there?\n    O, let it not be said! Forage, and run\n    To meet displeasure farther from the doors\n    And grapple with him ere he come so nigh.\n  KING JOHN. The legate of the Pope hath been with me,\n    And I have made a happy peace with him;\n    And he hath promis'd to dismiss the powers\n    Led by the Dauphin.\n  BASTARD. O inglorious league!\n    Shall we, upon the footing of our land,\n    Send fair-play orders, and make compromise,\n    Insinuation, parley, and base truce,\n    To arms invasive? Shall a beardless boy,\n    A cock'red silken wanton, brave our fields\n    And flesh his spirit in a warlike soil,\n    Mocking the air with colours idly spread,\n    And find no check? Let us, my liege, to arms.\n    Perchance the Cardinal cannot make your peace;\n    Or, if he do, let it at least be said\n    They saw we had a purpose of defence.\n  KING JOHN. Have thou the ordering of this present time.\n  BASTARD. Away, then, with good courage!\n    Yet, I know\n    Our party may well meet a prouder foe.                     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\nEngland. The DAUPHIN'S camp at Saint Edmundsbury\n\nEnter, in arms, LEWIS, SALISBURY, MELUN, PEMBROKE, BIGOT, and soldiers\n\n  LEWIS. My Lord Melun, let this be copied out\n    And keep it safe for our remembrance;\n    Return the precedent to these lords again,\n    That, having our fair order written down,\n    Both they and we, perusing o'er these notes,\n    May know wherefore we took the sacrament,\n    And keep our faiths firm and inviolable.\n  SALISBURY. Upon our sides it never shall be broken.\n    And, noble Dauphin, albeit we swear\n    A voluntary zeal and an unurg'd faith\n    To your proceedings; yet, believe me, Prince,\n    I am not glad that such a sore of time\n    Should seek a plaster by contemn'd revolt,\n    And heal the inveterate canker of one wound\n    By making many. O, it grieves my soul\n    That I must draw this metal from my side\n    To be a widow-maker! O, and there\n    Where honourable rescue and defence\n    Cries out upon the name of Salisbury!\n    But such is the infection of the time\n    That, for the health and physic of our right,\n    We cannot deal but with the very hand\n    Of stern injustice and confused wrong.\n    And is't not pity, O my grieved friends!\n    That we, the sons and children of this isle,\n    Were born to see so sad an hour as this;\n    Wherein we step after a stranger-march\n    Upon her gentle bosom, and fill up\n    Her enemies' ranks-I must withdraw and weep\n    Upon the spot of this enforced cause-\n    To grace the gentry of a land remote\n    And follow unacquainted colours here?\n    What, here? O nation, that thou couldst remove!\n    That Neptune's arms, who clippeth thee about,\n    Would bear thee from the knowledge of thyself\n    And grapple thee unto a pagan shore,\n    Where these two Christian armies might combine\n    The blood of malice in a vein of league,\n    And not to spend it so unneighbourly!\n  LEWIS. A noble temper dost thou show in this;\n    And great affections wrestling in thy bosom\n    Doth make an earthquake of nobility.\n    O, what a noble combat hast thou fought\n    Between compulsion and a brave respect!\n    Let me wipe off this honourable dew\n    That silverly doth progress on thy cheeks.\n    My heart hath melted at a lady's tears,\n    Being an ordinary inundation;\n    But this effusion of such manly drops,\n    This show'r, blown up by tempest of the soul,\n    Startles mine eyes and makes me more amaz'd\n    Than had I seen the vaulty top of heaven\n    Figur'd quite o'er with burning meteors.\n    Lift up thy brow, renowned Salisbury,\n    And with a great heart heave away this storm;\n    Commend these waters to those baby eyes\n    That never saw the giant world enrag'd,\n    Nor met with fortune other than at feasts,\n    Full of warm blood, of mirth, of gossiping.\n    Come, come; for thou shalt thrust thy hand as deep\n    Into the purse of rich prosperity\n    As Lewis himself. So, nobles, shall you all,\n    That knit your sinews to the strength of mine.\n\n                Enter PANDULPH\n\n    And even there, methinks, an angel spake:\n    Look where the holy legate comes apace,\n    To give us warrant from the hand of heaven\n    And on our actions set the name of right\n    With holy breath.\n  PANDULPH. Hail, noble prince of France!\n    The next is this: King John hath reconcil'd\n    Himself to Rome; his spirit is come in,\n    That so stood out against the holy Church,\n    The great metropolis and see of Rome.\n    Therefore thy threat'ning colours now wind up\n    And tame the savage spirit of wild war,\n    That, like a lion fostered up at hand,\n    It may lie gently at the foot of peace\n    And be no further harmful than in show.\n  LEWIS. Your Grace shall pardon me, I will not back:\n    I am too high-born to be propertied,\n    To be a secondary at control,\n    Or useful serving-man and instrument\n    To any sovereign state throughout the world.\n    Your breath first kindled the dead coal of wars\n    Between this chastis'd kingdom and myself\n    And brought in matter that should feed this fire;\n    And now 'tis far too huge to be blown out\n    With that same weak wind which enkindled it.\n    You taught me how to know the face of right,\n    Acquainted me with interest to this land,\n    Yea, thrust this enterprise into my heart;\n    And come ye now to tell me John hath made\n    His peace with Rome? What is that peace to me?\n    I, by the honour of my marriage-bed,\n    After young Arthur, claim this land for mine;\n    And, now it is half-conquer'd, must I back\n    Because that John hath made his peace with Rome?\n    Am I Rome's slave? What penny hath Rome borne,\n    What men provided, what munition sent,\n    To underprop this action? Is 't not I\n    That undergo this charge? Who else but I,\n    And such as to my claim are liable,\n    Sweat in this business and maintain this war?\n    Have I not heard these islanders shout out\n    'Vive le roi!' as I have bank'd their towns?\n    Have I not here the best cards for the game\n    To will this easy match, play'd for a crown?\n    And shall I now give o'er the yielded set?\n    No, no, on my soul, it never shall be said.\n  PANDULPH. You look but on the outside of this work.\n  LEWIS. Outside or inside, I will not return\n    Till my attempt so much be glorified\n    As to my ample hope was promised\n    Before I drew this gallant head of war,\n    And cull'd these fiery spirits from the world\n    To outlook conquest, and to will renown\n    Even in the jaws of danger and of death.\n                                                     [Trumpet sounds]\n    What lusty trumpet thus doth summon us?\n\n             Enter the BASTARD, attended\n\n  BASTARD. According to the fair play of the world,\n    Let me have audience: I am sent to speak.\n    My holy lord of Milan, from the King\n    I come, to learn how you have dealt for him;\n    And, as you answer, I do know the scope\n    And warrant limited unto my tongue.\n  PANDULPH. The Dauphin is too wilful-opposite,\n    And will not temporize with my entreaties;\n    He flatly says he'll not lay down his arms.\n  BASTARD. By all the blood that ever fury breath'd,\n    The youth says well. Now hear our English King;\n    For thus his royalty doth speak in me.\n    He is prepar'd, and reason too he should.\n    This apish and unmannerly approach,\n    This harness'd masque and unadvised revel\n    This unhair'd sauciness and boyish troops,\n    The King doth smile at; and is well prepar'd\n    To whip this dwarfish war, these pigmy arms,\n    From out the circle of his territories.\n    That hand which had the strength, even at your door.\n    To cudgel you and make you take the hatch,\n    To dive like buckets in concealed wells,\n    To crouch in litter of your stable planks,\n    To lie like pawns lock'd up in chests and trunks,\n    To hug with swine, to seek sweet safety out\n    In vaults and prisons, and to thrill and shake\n    Even at the crying of your nation's crow,\n    Thinking this voice an armed Englishman-\n    Shall that victorious hand be feebled here\n    That in your chambers gave you chastisement?\n    No. Know the gallant monarch is in arms\n    And like an eagle o'er his aery tow'rs\n    To souse annoyance that comes near his nest.\n    And you degenerate, you ingrate revolts,\n    You bloody Neroes, ripping up the womb\n    Of your dear mother England, blush for shame;\n    For your own ladies and pale-visag'd maids,\n    Like Amazons, come tripping after drums,\n    Their thimbles into armed gauntlets change,\n    Their needles to lances, and their gentle hearts\n    To fierce and bloody inclination.\n  LEWIS. There end thy brave, and turn thy face in peace;\n    We grant thou canst outscold us. Fare thee well;\n    We hold our time too precious to be spent\n    With such a brabbler.\n  PANDULPH. Give me leave to speak.\n  BASTARD. No, I will speak.\n  LEWIS. We will attend to neither.\n    Strike up the drums; and let the tongue of war,\n    Plead for our interest and our being here.\n  BASTARD. Indeed, your drums, being beaten, will cry out;\n    And so shall you, being beaten. Do but start\n    And echo with the clamour of thy drum,\n    And even at hand a drum is ready brac'd\n    That shall reverberate all as loud as thine:\n    Sound but another, and another shall,\n    As loud as thine, rattle the welkin's ear\n    And mock the deep-mouth'd thunder; for at hand-\n    Not trusting to this halting legate here,\n    Whom he hath us'd rather for sport than need-\n    Is warlike John; and in his forehead sits\n    A bare-ribb'd death, whose office is this day\n    To feast upon whole thousands of the French.\n  LEWIS. Strike up our drums to find this danger out.\n  BASTARD. And thou shalt find it, Dauphin, do not doubt.\n    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nEngland. The field of battle\n\nAlarums. Enter KING JOHN and HUBERT\n\n  KING JOHN. How goes the day with us? O, tell me, Hubert.\n  HUBERT. Badly, I fear. How fares your Majesty?\n  KING JOHN. This fever that hath troubled me so long\n    Lies heavy on me. O, my heart is sick!\n\n                  Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. My lord, your valiant kinsman, Faulconbridge,\n    Desires your Majesty to leave the field\n    And send him word by me which way you go.\n  KING JOHN. Tell him, toward Swinstead, to the abbey there.\n  MESSENGER. Be of good comfort; for the great supply\n    That was expected by the Dauphin here\n    Are wreck'd three nights ago on Goodwin Sands;\n    This news was brought to Richard but even now.\n    The French fight coldly, and retire themselves.\n  KING JOHN. Ay me, this tyrant fever burns me up\n    And will not let me welcome this good news.\n    Set on toward Swinstead; to my litter straight;\n    Weakness possesseth me, and I am faint.                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\n\nEngland. Another part of the battlefield\n\nEnter SALISBURY, PEMBROKE, and BIGOT\n\n  SALISBURY. I did not think the King so stor'd with friends.\n  PEMBROKE. Up once again; put spirit in the French;\n    If they miscarry, we miscarry too.\n  SALISBURY. That misbegotten devil, Faulconbridge,\n    In spite of spite, alone upholds the day.\n  PEMBROKE. They say King John, sore sick, hath left the field.\n\n                 Enter MELUN, wounded\n\n  MELUN. Lead me to the revolts of England here.\n  SALISBURY. When we were happy we had other names.\n  PEMBROKE. It is the Count Melun.\n  SALISBURY. Wounded to death.\n  MELUN. Fly, noble English, you are bought and sold;\n    Unthread the rude eye of rebellion,\n    And welcome home again discarded faith.\n    Seek out King John, and fall before his feet;\n    For if the French be lords of this loud day,\n    He means to recompense the pains you take\n    By cutting off your heads. Thus hath he sworn,\n    And I with him, and many moe with me,\n    Upon the altar at Saint Edmundsbury;\n    Even on that altar where we swore to you\n    Dear amity and everlasting love.\n  SALISBURY. May this be possible? May this be true?\n  MELUN. Have I not hideous death within my view,\n    Retaining but a quantity of life,\n    Which bleeds away even as a form of wax\n    Resolveth from his figure 'gainst the fire?\n    What in the world should make me now deceive,\n    Since I must lose the use of all deceit?\n    Why should I then be false, since it is true\n    That I must die here, and live hence by truth?\n    I say again, if Lewis do will the day,\n    He is forsworn if e'er those eyes of yours\n    Behold another day break in the east;\n    But even this night, whose black contagious breath\n    Already smokes about the burning crest\n    Of the old, feeble, and day-wearied sun,\n    Even this ill night, your breathing shall expire,\n    Paying the fine of rated treachery\n    Even with a treacherous fine of all your lives.\n    If Lewis by your assistance win the day.\n    Commend me to one Hubert, with your King;\n    The love of him-and this respect besides,\n    For that my grandsire was an Englishman-\n    Awakes my conscience to confess all this.\n    In lieu whereof, I pray you, bear me hence\n    From forth the noise and rumour of the field,\n    Where I may think the remnant of my thoughts\n    In peace, and part this body and my soul\n    With contemplation and devout desires.\n  SALISBURY. We do believe thee; and beshrew my soul\n    But I do love the favour and the form\n    Of this most fair occasion, by the which\n    We will untread the steps of damned flight,\n    And like a bated and retired flood,\n    Leaving our rankness and irregular course,\n    Stoop low within those bounds we have o'erlook'd,\n    And calmly run on in obedience\n    Even to our ocean, to great King John.\n    My arm shall give thee help to bear thee hence;\n    For I do see the cruel pangs of death\n    Right in thine eye. Away, my friends! New flight,\n    And happy newness, that intends old right.\n                                            Exeunt, leading off MELUN\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 5.\n\nEngland. The French camp\n\nEnter LEWIS and his train\n\n  LEWIS. The sun of heaven, methought, was loath to set,\n    But stay'd and made the western welkin blush,\n    When English measure backward their own ground\n    In faint retire. O, bravely came we off,\n    When with a volley of our needless shot,\n    After such bloody toil, we bid good night;\n    And wound our tott'ring colours clearly up,\n    Last in the field and almost lords of it!\n\n                 Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. Where is my prince, the Dauphin?\n  LEWIS. Here; what news?\n  MESSENGER. The Count Melun is slain; the English lords\n    By his persuasion are again fall'n off,\n    And your supply, which you have wish'd so long,\n    Are cast away and sunk on Goodwin Sands.\n  LEWIS. Ah, foul shrewd news! Beshrew thy very heart!\n    I did not think to be so sad to-night\n    As this hath made me. Who was he that said\n    King John did fly an hour or two before\n    The stumbling night did part our weary pow'rs?\n  MESSENGER. Whoever spoke it, it is true, my lord.\n  LEWIS. keep good quarter and good care to-night;\n    The day shall not be up so soon as I\n    To try the fair adventure of to-morrow.                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 6.\n\nAn open place wear Swinstead Abbey\n\nEnter the BASTARD and HUBERT, severally\n\n  HUBERT. Who's there? Speak, ho! speak quickly, or I shoot.\n  BASTARD. A friend. What art thou?\n  HUBERT. Of the part of England.\n  BASTARD. Whither dost thou go?\n  HUBERT. What's that to thee? Why may I not demand\n    Of thine affairs as well as thou of mine?\n  BASTARD. Hubert, I think.\n  HUBERT. Thou hast a perfect thought.\n    I will upon all hazards well believe\n    Thou art my friend that know'st my tongue so well.\n    Who art thou?\n  BASTARD. Who thou wilt. And if thou please,\n    Thou mayst befriend me so much as to think\n    I come one way of the Plantagenets.\n  HUBERT. Unkind remembrance! thou and eyeless night\n    Have done me shame. Brave soldier, pardon me\n    That any accent breaking from thy tongue\n    Should scape the true acquaintance of mine ear.\n  BASTARD. Come, come; sans compliment, what news abroad?\n  HUBERT. Why, here walk I in the black brow of night\n    To find you out.\n  BASTARD. Brief, then; and what's the news?\n  HUBERT. O, my sweet sir, news fitting to the night,\n    Black, fearful, comfortless, and horrible.\n  BASTARD. Show me the very wound of this ill news;\n    I am no woman, I'll not swoon at it.\n  HUBERT. The King, I fear, is poison'd by a monk;\n    I left him almost speechless and broke out\n    To acquaint you with this evil, that you might\n    The better arm you to the sudden time\n    Than if you had at leisure known of this.\n  BASTARD. How did he take it; who did taste to him?\n  HUBERT. A monk, I tell you; a resolved villain,\n    Whose bowels suddenly burst out. The King\n    Yet speaks, and peradventure may recover.\n  BASTARD. Who didst thou leave to tend his Majesty?\n  HUBERT. Why, know you not? The lords are all come back,\n    And brought Prince Henry in their company;\n    At whose request the King hath pardon'd them,\n    And they are all about his Majesty.\n  BASTARD. Withhold thine indignation, mighty heaven,\n    And tempt us not to bear above our power!\n    I'll tell thee, Hubert, half my power this night,\n    Passing these flats, are taken by the tide-\n    These Lincoln Washes have devoured them;\n    Myself, well-mounted, hardly have escap'd.\n    Away, before! conduct me to the King;\n    I doubt he will be dead or ere I come.                     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 7.\n\nThe orchard at Swinstead Abbey\n\nEnter PRINCE HENRY, SALISBURY, and BIGOT\n\n  PRINCE HENRY. It is too late; the life of all his blood\n    Is touch'd corruptibly, and his pure brain.\n    Which some suppose the soul's frail dwelling-house,\n    Doth by the idle comments that it makes\n    Foretell the ending of mortality.\n\n                   Enter PEMBROKE\n\n  PEMBROKE. His Highness yet doth speak, and holds belief\n    That, being brought into the open air,\n    It would allay the burning quality\n    Of that fell poison which assaileth him.\n  PRINCE HENRY. Let him be brought into the orchard here.\n    Doth he still rage?                                    Exit BIGOT\n  PEMBROKE. He is more patient\n    Than when you left him; even now he sung.\n  PRINCE HENRY. O vanity of sickness! Fierce extremes\n    In their continuance will not feel themselves.\n    Death, having prey'd upon the outward parts,\n    Leaves them invisible, and his siege is now\n    Against the mind, the which he pricks and wounds\n    With many legions of strange fantasies,\n    Which, in their throng and press to that last hold,\n    Confound themselves. 'Tis strange that death should sing.\n    I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan\n    Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death,\n    And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings\n    His soul and body to their lasting rest.\n  SALISBURY. Be of good comfort, Prince; for you are born\n    To set a form upon that indigest\n    Which he hath left so shapeless and so rude.\n\n       Re-enter BIGOT and attendants, who bring in\n                KING JOHN in a chair\n\n  KING JOHN. Ay, marry, now my soul hath elbow-room;\n    It would not out at windows nor at doors.\n    There is so hot a summer in my bosom\n    That all my bowels crumble up to dust.\n    I am a scribbled form drawn with a pen\n    Upon a parchment, and against this fire\n    Do I shrink up.\n  PRINCE HENRY. How fares your Majesty?\n  KING JOHN. Poison'd-ill-fare! Dead, forsook, cast off;\n    And none of you will bid the winter come\n    To thrust his icy fingers in my maw,\n    Nor let my kingdom's rivers take their course\n    Through my burn'd bosom, nor entreat the north\n    To make his bleak winds kiss my parched lips\n    And comfort me with cold. I do not ask you much;\n    I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait\n    And so ingrateful you deny me that.\n  PRINCE HENRY. O that there were some virtue in my tears,\n    That might relieve you!\n  KING JOHN. The salt in them is hot.\n    Within me is a hell; and there the poison\n    Is as a fiend confin'd to tyrannize\n    On unreprievable condemned blood.\n\n                 Enter the BASTARD\n\n  BASTARD. O, I am scalded with my violent motion\n    And spleen of speed to see your Majesty!\n  KING JOHN. O cousin, thou art come to set mine eye!\n    The tackle of my heart is crack'd and burnt,\n    And all the shrouds wherewith my life should sail\n    Are turned to one thread, one little hair;\n    My heart hath one poor string to stay it by,\n    Which holds but till thy news be uttered;\n    And then all this thou seest is but a clod\n    And module of confounded royalty.\n  BASTARD. The Dauphin is preparing hitherward,\n    Where God He knows how we shall answer him;\n    For in a night the best part of my pow'r,\n    As I upon advantage did remove,\n    Were in the Washes all unwarily\n    Devoured by the unexpected flood.                 [The KING dies]\n  SALISBURY. You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear.\n    My liege! my lord! But now a king-now thus.\n  PRINCE HENRY. Even so must I run on, and even so stop.\n    What surety of the world, what hope, what stay,\n    When this was now a king, and now is clay?\n  BASTARD. Art thou gone so? I do but stay behind\n    To do the office for thee of revenge,\n    And then my soul shall wait on thee to heaven,\n    As it on earth hath been thy servant still.\n    Now, now, you stars that move in your right spheres,\n    Where be your pow'rs? Show now your mended faiths,\n    And instantly return with me again\n    To push destruction and perpetual shame\n    Out of the weak door of our fainting land.\n    Straight let us seek, or straight we shall be sought;\n    The Dauphin rages at our very heels.\n  SALISBURY. It seems you know not, then, so much as we:\n    The Cardinal Pandulph is within at rest,\n    Who half an hour since came from the Dauphin,\n    And brings from him such offers of our peace\n    As we with honour and respect may take,\n    With purpose presently to leave this war.\n  BASTARD. He will the rather do it when he sees\n    Ourselves well sinewed to our defence.\n  SALISBURY. Nay, 'tis in a manner done already;\n    For many carriages he hath dispatch'd\n    To the sea-side, and put his cause and quarrel\n    To the disposing of the Cardinal;\n    With whom yourself, myself, and other lords,\n    If you think meet, this afternoon will post\n    To consummate this business happily.\n  BASTARD. Let it be so. And you, my noble Prince,\n    With other princes that may best be spar'd,\n    Shall wait upon your father's funeral.\n  PRINCE HENRY. At Worcester must his body be interr'd;\n    For so he will'd it.\n  BASTARD. Thither shall it, then;\n    And happily may your sweet self put on\n    The lineal state and glory of the land!\n    To whom, with all submission, on my knee\n    I do bequeath my faithful services\n    And true subjection everlastingly.\n  SALISBURY. And the like tender of our love we make,\n    To rest without a spot for evermore.\n  PRINCE HENRY. I have a kind soul that would give you thanks,\n    And knows not how to do it but with tears.\n  BASTARD. O, let us pay the time but needful woe,\n    Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs.\n    This England never did, nor never shall,\n    Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,\n    But when it first did help to wound itself.\n    Now these her princes are come home again,\n    Come the three corners of the world in arms,\n    And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue,\n    If England to itself do rest but true.                     Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1599\n\n\nTHE TRAGEDY OF JULIUS CAESAR\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  JULIUS CAESAR, Roman statesman and general\n  OCTAVIUS, Triumvir after Caesar's death, later Augustus Caesar,\n    first emperor of Rome\n  MARK ANTONY, general and friend of Caesar, a Triumvir after his death\n  LEPIDUS, third member of the Triumvirate\n  MARCUS BRUTUS, leader of the conspiracy against Caesar\n  CASSIUS, instigator of the conspiracy\n  CASCA,          conspirator against Caesar\n  TREBONIUS,           \"          \"     \"\n  CAIUS LIGARIUS,      \"          \"     \"\n  DECIUS BRUTUS,       \"          \"     \"\n  METELLUS CIMBER,     \"          \"     \"\n  CINNA,               \"          \"     \"\n  CALPURNIA, wife of Caesar\n  PORTIA, wife of Brutus\n  CICERO,     senator\n  POPILIUS,      \"\n  POPILIUS LENA, \"\n  FLAVIUS, tribune\n  MARULLUS, tribune\n  CATO,     supportor of Brutus\n  LUCILIUS,     \"     \"    \"\n  TITINIUS,     \"     \"    \"\n  MESSALA,      \"     \"    \"\n  VOLUMNIUS,    \"     \"    \"\n  ARTEMIDORUS, a teacher of rhetoric\n  CINNA, a poet\n  VARRO,     servant to Brutus\n  CLITUS,       \"    \"     \"\n  CLAUDIO,      \"    \"     \"\n  STRATO,       \"    \"     \"\n  LUCIUS,       \"    \"     \"\n  DARDANIUS,    \"    \"     \"\n  PINDARUS, servant to Cassius\n  The Ghost of Caesar\n  A Soothsayer\n  A Poet\n  Senators, Citizens, Soldiers, Commoners, Messengers, and Servants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE: Rome, the conspirators' camp near Sardis,  and the plains of Philippi.\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nRome. A street.\n\nEnter Flavius, Marullus, and certain Commoners.\n\n  FLAVIUS. Hence, home, you idle creatures, get you home.\n    Is this a holiday? What, know you not,\n    Being mechanical, you ought not walk\n    Upon a laboring day without the sign\n    Of your profession? Speak, what trade art thou?\n  FIRST COMMONER. Why, sir, a carpenter.\n  MARULLUS. Where is thy leather apron and thy rule?\n    What dost thou with thy best apparel on?\n    You, sir, what trade are you?\n  SECOND COMMONER. Truly, sir, in respect of a fine workman, I am\n    but, as you would say, a cobbler.\n  MARULLUS. But what trade art thou? Answer me directly.\n  SECOND COMMONER. A trade, sir, that, I hope, I may use with a safe\n    conscience, which is indeed, sir, a mender of bad soles.\n  MARULLUS. What trade, thou knave? Thou naughty knave, what trade?\n  SECOND COMMONER. Nay, I beseech you, sir, be not out with me; yet,\n    if you be out, sir, I can mend you.\n  MARULLUS. What mean'st thou by that? Mend me, thou saucy fellow!\n  SECOND COMMONER. Why, sir, cobble you.\n  FLAVIUS. Thou art a cobbler, art thou?\n  SECOND COMMONER. Truly, Sir, all that I live by is with the awl; I\n    meddle with no tradesman's matters, nor women's matters, but with\n    awl. I am indeed, sir, a surgeon to old shoes; when they are in\n    great danger, I recover them. As proper men as ever trod upon\n    neat's leather have gone upon my handiwork.\n  FLAVIUS. But wherefore art not in thy shop today?\n    Why dost thou lead these men about the streets?\n  SECOND COMMONER. Truly, sir, to wear out their shoes to get myself\n    into more work. But indeed, sir, we make holiday to see Caesar\n    and to rejoice in his triumph.\n  MARULLUS. Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?\n    What tributaries follow him to Rome\n    To grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels?\n    You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!\n    O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,\n    Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft\n    Have you climb'd up to walls and battlements,\n    To towers and windows, yea, to chimney tops,\n    Your infants in your arms, and there have sat\n    The livelong day with patient expectation\n    To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome.\n    And when you saw his chariot but appear,\n    Have you not made an universal shout\n    That Tiber trembled underneath her banks\n    To hear the replication of your sounds\n    Made in her concave shores?\n    And do you now put on your best attire?\n    And do you now cull out a holiday?\n    And do you now strew flowers in his way\n    That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood?\n    Be gone!\n    Run to your houses, fall upon your knees,\n    Pray to the gods to intermit the plague\n    That needs must light on this ingratitude.\n  FLAVIUS. Go, go, good countrymen, and, for this fault,\n    Assemble all the poor men of your sort,\n    Draw them to Tiber banks, and weep your tears\n    Into the channel, till the lowest stream\n    Do kiss the most exalted shores of all.\n                                           Exeunt all Commoners.\n    See whether their basest metal be not moved;\n    They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness.\n    Go you down that way towards the Capitol;\n    This way will I. Disrobe the images\n    If you do find them deck'd with ceremonies.\n  MARULLUS. May we do so?\n    You know it is the feast of Lupercal.\n  FLAVIUS. It is no matter; let no images\n    Be hung with Caesar's trophies. I'll about\n    And drive away the vulgar from the streets;\n    So do you too, where you perceive them thick.\n    These growing feathers pluck'd from Caesar's wing\n    Will make him fly an ordinary pitch,\n    Who else would soar above the view of men\n    And keep us all in servile fearfulness.              Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA public place.\n\nFlourish. Enter Caesar; Antony, for the course; Calpurnia, Portia,\nDecius, Cicero, Brutus, Cassius, and Casca; a great crowd follows,\namong them a Soothsayer.\n\n  CAESAR. Calpurnia!\n  CASCA. Peace, ho! Caesar speaks.\n                                                   Music ceases.\n  CAESAR. Calpurnia!\n  CALPURNIA. Here, my lord.\n  CAESAR. Stand you directly in Antonio's way,\n    When he doth run his course. Antonio!\n  ANTONY. Caesar, my lord?\n  CAESAR. Forget not in your speed, Antonio,\n    To touch Calpurnia, for our elders say\n    The barren, touched in this holy chase,\n    Shake off their sterile curse.\n  ANTONY. I shall remember.\n    When Caesar says \"Do this,\" it is perform'd.\n  CAESAR. Set on, and leave no ceremony out.           Flourish.\n  SOOTHSAYER. Caesar!\n  CAESAR. Ha! Who calls?\n  CASCA. Bid every noise be still. Peace yet again!\n  CAESAR. Who is it in the press that calls on me?\n    I hear a tongue, shriller than all the music,\n    Cry \"Caesar.\" Speak, Caesar is turn'd to hear.\n  SOOTHSAYER. Beware the ides of March.\n  CAESAR. What man is that?\n  BRUTUS. A soothsayer you beware the ides of March.\n  CAESAR. Set him before me let me see his face.\n  CASSIUS. Fellow, come from the throng; look upon Caesar.\n  CAESAR. What say'st thou to me now? Speak once again.\n  SOOTHSAYER. Beware the ides of March.\n  CAESAR. He is a dreamer; let us leave him. Pass.\n                      Sennet. Exeunt all but Brutus and Cassius.\n  CASSIUS. Will you go see the order of the course?\n  BRUTUS. Not I.\n  CASSIUS. I pray you, do.\n  BRUTUS. I am not gamesome; I do lack some part\n    Of that quick spirit that is in Antony.\n    Let me not hinder, Cassius, your desires;\n    I'll leave you.\n  CASSIUS. Brutus, I do observe you now of late;\n    I have not from your eyes that gentleness\n    And show of love as I was wont to have;\n    You bear too stubborn and too strange a hand\n    Over your friend that loves you.\n  BRUTUS. Cassius,\n    Be not deceived; if I have veil'd my look,\n    I turn the trouble of my countenance\n    Merely upon myself. Vexed I am\n    Of late with passions of some difference,\n    Conceptions only proper to myself,\n    Which give some soil perhaps to my behaviors;\n    But let not therefore my good friends be grieved-\n    Among which number, Cassius, be you one-\n    Nor construe any further my neglect\n    Than that poor Brutus with himself at war\n    Forgets the shows of love to other men.\n  CASSIUS. Then, Brutus, I have much mistook your passion,\n    By means whereof this breast of mine hath buried\n    Thoughts of great value, worthy cogitations.\n    Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face?\n  BRUTUS. No, Cassius, for the eye sees not itself\n    But by reflection, by some other things.\n  CASSIUS. 'Tis just,\n    And it is very much lamented, Brutus,\n    That you have no such mirrors as will turn\n    Your hidden worthiness into your eye\n    That you might see your shadow. I have heard\n    Where many of the best respect in Rome,\n    Except immortal Caesar, speaking of Brutus\n    And groaning underneath this age's yoke,\n    Have wish'd that noble Brutus had his eyes.\n  BRUTUS. Into what dangers would you lead me, Cassius,\n    That you would have me seek into myself\n    For that which is not in me?\n  CASSIUS. Therefore, good Brutus, be prepared to hear,\n    And since you know you cannot see yourself\n    So well as by reflection, I your glass\n    Will modestly discover to yourself\n    That of yourself which you yet know not of.\n    And be not jealous on me, gentle Brutus;\n    Were I a common laugher, or did use\n    To stale with ordinary oaths my love\n    To every new protester, if you know\n    That I do fawn on men and hug them hard\n    And after scandal them, or if you know\n    That I profess myself in banqueting\n    To all the rout, then hold me dangerous.\n                                             Flourish and shout.\n  BRUTUS. What means this shouting? I do fear the people\n    Choose Caesar for their king.\n  CASSIUS. Ay, do you fear it?\n    Then must I think you would not have it so.\n  BRUTUS. I would not, Cassius, yet I love him well.\n    But wherefore do you hold me here so long?\n    What is it that you would impart to me?\n    If it be aught toward the general good,\n    Set honor in one eye and death i' the other\n    And I will look on both indifferently.\n    For let the gods so speed me as I love\n    The name of honor more than I fear death.\n  CASSIUS. I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus,\n    As well as I do know your outward favor.\n    Well, honor is the subject of my story.\n    I cannot tell what you and other men\n    Think of this life, but, for my single self,\n    I had as lief not be as live to be\n    In awe of such a thing as I myself.\n    I was born free as Caesar, so were you;\n    We both have fed as well, and we can both\n    Endure the winter's cold as well as he.\n    For once, upon a raw and gusty day,\n    The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores,\n    Caesar said to me, \"Darest thou, Cassius, now\n    Leap in with me into this angry flood\n    And swim to yonder point?\" Upon the word,\n    Accoutred as I was, I plunged in\n    And bade him follow. So indeed he did.\n    The torrent roar'd, and we did buffet it\n    With lusty sinews, throwing it aside\n    And stemming it with hearts of controversy.\n    But ere we could arrive the point proposed,\n    Caesar cried, \"Help me, Cassius, or I sink!\n    I, as Aeneas our great ancestor\n    Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder\n    The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber\n    Did I the tired Caesar. And this man\n    Is now become a god, and Cassius is\n    A wretched creature and must bend his body\n    If Caesar carelessly but nod on him.\n    He had a fever when he was in Spain,\n    And when the fit was on him I did mark\n    How he did shake. 'Tis true, this god did shake;\n    His coward lips did from their color fly,\n    And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world\n    Did lose his luster. I did hear him groan.\n    Ay, and that tongue of his that bade the Romans\n    Mark him and write his speeches in their books,\n    Alas, it cried, \"Give me some drink, Titinius,\"\n    As a sick girl. Ye gods! It doth amaze me\n    A man of such a feeble temper should\n    So get the start of the majestic world\n    And bear the palm alone. Shout.                    Flourish.\n  BRUTUS. Another general shout!\n    I do believe that these applauses are\n    For some new honors that are heap'd on Caesar.\n  CASSIUS. Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world\n    Like a Colossus, and we petty men\n    Walk under his huge legs and peep about\n    To find ourselves dishonorable graves.\n    Men at some time are masters of their fates:\n    The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,\n    But in ourselves that we are underlings.\n    Brutus and Caesar: what should be in that \"Caesar\"?\n    Why should that name be sounded more than yours?\n    Write them together, yours is as fair a name;\n    Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well;\n    Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with 'em,\n    \"Brutus\" will start a spirit as soon as \"Caesar.\"\n    Now, in the names of all the gods at once,\n    Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed\n    That he is grown so great? Age, thou art shamed!\n    Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!\n    When went there by an age since the great flood\n    But it was famed with more than with one man?\n    When could they say till now that talk'd of Rome\n    That her wide walls encompass'd but one man?\n    Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough,\n    When there is in it but one only man.\n    O, you and I have heard our fathers say\n    There was a Brutus once that would have brook'd\n    The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome\n    As easily as a king.\n  BRUTUS. That you do love me, I am nothing jealous;\n    What you would work me to, I have some aim.\n    How I have thought of this and of these times,\n    I shall recount hereafter; for this present,\n    I would not, so with love I might entreat you,\n    Be any further moved. What you have said\n    I will consider; what you have to say\n    I will with patience hear, and find a time\n    Both meet to hear and answer such high things.\n    Till then, my noble friend, chew upon this:\n    Brutus had rather be a villager\n    Than to repute himself a son of Rome\n    Under these hard conditions as this time\n    Is like to lay upon us.\n  CASSIUS. I am glad that my weak words\n    Have struck but thus much show of fire from Brutus.\n\n            Re-enter Caesar and his Train.\n\n  BRUTUS. The games are done, and Caesar is returning.\n  CASSIUS. As they pass by, pluck Casca by the sleeve,\n    And he will, after his sour fashion, tell you\n    What hath proceeded worthy note today.\n  BRUTUS. I will do so. But, look you, Cassius,\n    The angry spot doth glow on Caesar's brow,\n    And all the rest look like a chidden train:\n    Calpurnia's cheek is pale, and Cicero\n    Looks with such ferret and such fiery eyes\n    As we have seen him in the Capitol,\n    Being cross'd in conference by some senators.\n  CASSIUS. Casca will tell us what the matter is.\n  CAESAR. Antonio!\n  ANTONY. Caesar?\n  CAESAR. Let me have men about me that are fat,\n    Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights:\n    Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;\n    He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.\n  ANTONY. Fear him not, Caesar; he's not dangerous;\n    He is a noble Roman and well given.\n  CAESAR. Would he were fatter! But I fear him not,\n    Yet if my name were liable to fear,\n    I do not know the man I should avoid\n    So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much,\n    He is a great observer, and he looks\n    Quite through the deeds of men. He loves no plays,\n    As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music;\n    Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort\n    As if he mock'd himself and scorn'd his spirit\n    That could be moved to smile at anything.\n    Such men as he be never at heart's ease\n    Whiles they behold a greater than themselves,\n    And therefore are they very dangerous.\n    I rather tell thee what is to be fear'd\n    Than what I fear, for always I am Caesar.\n    Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf,\n    And tell me truly what thou think'st of him.\n              Sennet. Exeunt Caesar and all his Train but Casca.\n  CASCA. You pull'd me by the cloak; would you speak with me?\n  BRUTUS. Ay, Casca, tell us what hath chanced today\n    That Caesar looks so sad.\n  CASCA. Why, you were with him, were you not?\n  BRUTUS. I should not then ask Casca what had chanced.\n  CASCA. Why, there was a crown offered him, and being offered him,\n     he put it by with the back of his hand, thus, and then the\n     people fell ashouting.\n  BRUTUS. What was the second noise for?\n  CASCA. Why, for that too.\n  CASSIUS. They shouted thrice. What was the last cry for?\n  CASCA. Why, for that too.\n  BRUTUS. Was the crown offered him thrice?\n  CASCA. Ay, marry, wast, and he put it by thrice, every time gentler\n    than other, and at every putting by mine honest neighbors\n    shouted.\n  CASSIUS. Who offered him the crown?\n  CASCA. Why, Antony.\n  BRUTUS. Tell us the manner of it, gentle Casca.\n  CASCA. I can as well be hang'd as tell the manner of it. It was\n    mere foolery; I did not mark it. I saw Mark Antony offer him a\n    crown (yet 'twas not a crown neither, 'twas one of these\n    coronets) and, as I told you, he put it by once. But for all\n    that, to my thinking, he would fain have had it. Then he offered\n    it to him again; then he put it by again. But, to my thinking, he\n    was very loath to lay his fingers off it. And then he offered it\n    the third time; he put it the third time by; and still as he\n    refused it, the rabblement hooted and clapped their chopped hands\n    and threw up their sweaty nightcaps and uttered such a deal of\n    stinking breath because Caesar refused the crown that it had\n    almost choked Caesar, for he swounded and fell down at it. And\n    for mine own part, I durst not laugh for fear of opening my lips\n    and receiving the bad air.\n  CASSIUS. But, soft, I pray you, what, did Caesars wound?\n  CASCA. He fell down in the marketplace and foamed at mouth and was\n    speechless.\n  BRUTUS. 'Tis very like. He hath the falling sickness.\n  CASSIUS. No, Caesar hath it not, but you, and I,\n    And honest Casca, we have the falling sickness.\n  CASCA. I know not what you mean by that, but I am sure Caesar fell\n    down. If the tagrag people did not clap him and hiss him\n    according as he pleased and displeased them, as they use to do\n    the players in the theatre, I am no true man.\n  BRUTUS. What said he when he came unto himself?\n  CASCA. Marry, before he fell down, when he perceived the common\n    herd was glad he refused the crown, he plucked me ope his doublet\n    and offered them his throat to cut. An had been a man of any\n    occupation, if I would not have taken him at a word, I would I\n    might go to hell among the rogues. And so he fell. When he came\n    to himself again, he said, if he had done or said anything amiss,\n    he desired their worships to think it was his infirmity. Three or\n    four wenches where I stood cried, \"Alas, good soul!\" and forgave\n    him with all their hearts. But there's no heed to be taken of\n    them; if Caesar had stabbed their mothers, they would have done\n    no less.\n  BRUTUS. And after that he came, thus sad, away?\n  CASCA. Ay.\n  CASSIUS. Did Cicero say anything?\n  CASCA. Ay, he spoke Greek.\n  CASSIUS. To what effect?\n  CASCA. Nay, an I tell you that, I'll ne'er look you i' the face\n    again; but those that understood him smiled at one another and\n    shook their heads; but for mine own part, it was Greek to me. I\n    could tell you more news too: Marullus and Flavius, for pulling\n    scarfs off Caesar's images, are put to silence. Fare you well.\n    There was more foolery yet, if could remember it.\n  CASSIUS. Will you sup with me tonight, Casca?\n  CASCA. No, I am promised forth.\n  CASSIUS. Will you dine with me tomorrow?\n  CASCA. Ay, if I be alive, and your mind hold, and your dinner worth\n    the eating.\n  CASSIUS. Good, I will expect you.\n  CASCA. Do so, farewell, both.                            Exit.\n  BRUTUS. What a blunt fellow is this grown to be!\n    He was quick mettle when he went to school.\n  CASSIUS. So is he now in execution\n    Of any bold or noble enterprise,\n    However he puts on this tardy form.\n    This rudeness is a sauce to his good wit,\n    Which gives men stomach to digest his words\n    With better appetite.\n  BRUTUS. And so it is. For this time I will leave you.\n    Tomorrow, if you please to speak with me,\n    I will come home to you, or, if you will,\n    Come home to me and I will wait for you.\n  CASSIUS. I will do so. Till then, think of the world.\n                                                    Exit Brutus.\n    Well, Brutus, thou art noble; yet, I see\n    Thy honorable mettle may be wrought\n    From that it is disposed; therefore it is meet\n    That noble minds keep ever with their likes;\n    For who so firm that cannot be seduced?\n    Caesar doth bear me hard, but he loves Brutus.\n    If I were Brutus now and he were Cassius,\n    He should not humor me. I will this night,\n    In several hands, in at his windows throw,\n    As if they came from several citizens,\n    Writings, all tending to the great opinion\n    That Rome holds of his name, wherein obscurely\n    Caesar's ambition shall be glanced at.\n    And after this let Caesar seat him sure;\n    For we will shake him, or worse days endure.           Exit.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nA street. Thunder and lightning.\n\nEnter, from opposite sides, Casca, with his sword drawn, and Cicero.\n\n  CICERO. Good even, Casca. Brought you Caesar home?\n    Why are you breathless, and why stare you so?\n  CASCA. Are not you moved, when all the sway of earth\n    Shakes like a thing unfirm? O Cicero,\n    I have seen tempests when the scolding winds\n    Have rived the knotty oaks, and I have seen\n    The ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam\n    To be exalted with the threatening clouds,\n    But never till tonight, never till now,\n    Did I go through a tempest dropping fire.\n    Either there is a civil strife in heaven,\n    Or else the world too saucy with the gods\n    Incenses them to send destruction.\n  CICERO. Why, saw you anything more wonderful?\n  CASCA. A common slave- you know him well by sight-\n    Held up his left hand, which did flame and burn\n    Like twenty torches join'd, and yet his hand\n    Not sensible of fire remain'd unscorch'd.\n    Besides- I ha' not since put up my sword-\n    Against the Capitol I met a lion,\n    Who glaz'd upon me and went surly by\n    Without annoying me. And there were drawn\n    Upon a heap a hundred ghastly women\n    Transformed with their fear, who swore they saw\n    Men all in fire walk up and down the streets.\n    And yesterday the bird of night did sit\n    Even at noonday upon the marketplace,\n    Howling and shrieking. When these prodigies\n    Do so conjointly meet, let not men say\n    \"These are their reasons; they are natural\":\n    For I believe they are portentous things\n    Unto the climate that they point upon.\n  CICERO. Indeed, it is a strange-disposed time.\n    But men may construe things after their fashion,\n    Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.\n    Comes Caesar to the Capitol tomorrow?\n  CASCA. He doth, for he did bid Antonio\n    Send word to you he would be there tomorrow.\n  CICERO. Good then, Casca. This disturbed sky\n    Is not to walk in.\n  CASCA. Farewell, Cicero.                          Exit Cicero.\n\n                        Enter Cassius.\n\n  CASSIUS. Who's there?\n  CASCA. A Roman.\n  CASSIUS. Casca, by your voice.\n  CASCA. Your ear is good. Cassius, what night is this!\n  CASSIUS. A very pleasing night to honest men.\n  CASCA. Who ever knew the heavens menace so?\n  CASSIUS. Those that have known the earth so full of faults.\n    For my part, I have walk'd about the streets,\n    Submitting me unto the perilous night,\n    And thus unbraced, Casca, as you see,\n    Have bared my bosom to the thunderstone;\n    And when the cross blue lightning seem'd to open\n    The breast of heaven, I did present myself\n    Even in the aim and very flash of it.\n  CASCA. But wherefore did you so much tempt the heavens?\n    It is the part of men to fear and tremble\n    When the most mighty gods by tokens send\n    Such dreadful heralds to astonish us.\n  CASSIUS. You are dull, Casca, and those sparks of life\n    That should be in a Roman you do want,\n    Or else you use not. You look pale and gaze\n    And put on fear and cast yourself in wonder\n    To see the strange impatience of the heavens.\n    But if you would consider the true cause\n    Why all these fires, why all these gliding ghosts,\n    Why birds and beasts from quality and kind,\n    Why old men, fools, and children calculate,\n    Why all these things change from their ordinance,\n    Their natures, and preformed faculties\n    To monstrous quality, why, you shall find\n    That heaven hath infused them with these spirits\n    To make them instruments of fear and warning\n    Unto some monstrous state.\n    Now could I, Casca, name to thee a man\n    Most like this dreadful night,\n    That thunders, lightens, opens graves, and roars\n    As doth the lion in the Capitol,\n    A man no mightier than thyself or me\n    In personal action, yet prodigious grown\n    And fearful, as these strange eruptions are.\n  CASCA. 'Tis Caesar that you mean, is it not, Cassius?\n  CASSIUS. Let it be who it is, for Romans now\n    Have thews and limbs like to their ancestors.\n    But, woe the while! Our fathers' minds are dead,\n    And we are govern'd with our mothers' spirits;\n    Our yoke and sufferance show us womanish.\n  CASCA. Indeed they say the senators tomorrow\n    Mean to establish Caesar as a king,\n    And he shall wear his crown by sea and land\n    In every place save here in Italy.\n  CASSIUS. I know where I will wear this dagger then:\n    Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius.\n    Therein, ye gods, you make the weak most strong;\n    Therein, ye gods, you tyrants do defeat.\n    Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass,\n    Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron\n    Can be retentive to the strength of spirit;\n    But life, being weary of these worldly bars,\n    Never lacks power to dismiss itself.\n    If I know this, know all the world besides,\n    That part of tyranny that I do bear\n    I can shake off at pleasure.                  Thunder still.\n  CASCA. So can I.\n    So every bondman in his own hand bears\n    The power to cancel his captivity.\n  CASSIUS. And why should Caesar be a tyrant then?\n    Poor man! I know he would not be a wolf\n    But that he sees the Romans are but sheep.\n    He were no lion, were not Romans hinds.\n    Those that with haste will make a mighty fire\n    Begin it with weak straws. What trash is Rome,\n    What rubbish, and what offal, when it serves\n    For the base matter to illuminate\n    So vile a thing as Caesar? But, O grief,\n    Where hast thou led me? I perhaps speak this\n    Before a willing bondman; then I know\n    My answer must be made. But I am arm'd,\n    And dangers are to me indifferent.\n  CASCA. You speak to Casca, and to such a man\n    That is no fleering tell-tale. Hold, my hand.\n    Be factious for redress of all these griefs,\n    And I will set this foot of mine as far\n    As who goes farthest.\n  CASSIUS. There's a bargain made.\n    Now know you, Casca, I have moved already\n    Some certain of the noblest-minded Romans\n    To undergo with me an enterprise\n    Of honorable-dangerous consequence;\n    And I do know by this, they stay for me\n    In Pompey's Porch. For now, this fearful night,\n    There is no stir or walking in the streets,\n    And the complexion of the element\n    In favor's like the work we have in hand,\n    Most bloody, fiery, and most terrible.\n\n                       Enter Cinna.\n\n  CASCA. Stand close awhile, for here comes one in haste.\n  CASSIUS. 'Tis Cinna, I do know him by his gait;\n    He is a friend. Cinna, where haste you so?\n  CINNA. To find out you. Who's that? Metellus Cimber?\n  CASSIUS. No, it is Casca, one incorporate\n    To our attempts. Am I not stay'd for, Cinna?\n  CINNA. I am glad on't. What a fearful night is this!\n    There's two or three of us have seen strange sights.\n  CASSIUS. Am I not stay'd for? Tell me.\n  CINNA. Yes, you are.\n    O Cassius, if you could\n    But win the noble Brutus to our party-\n  CASSIUS. Be you content. Good Cinna, take this paper,\n    And look you lay it in the praetor's chair,\n    Where Brutus may but find it; and throw this\n    In at his window; set this up with wax\n    Upon old Brutus' statue. All this done,\n    Repair to Pompey's Porch, where you shall find us.\n    Is Decius Brutus and Trebonius there?\n  CINNA. All but Metellus Cimber, and he's gone\n    To seek you at your house. Well, I will hie\n    And so bestow these papers as you bade me.\n  CASSIUS. That done, repair to Pompey's Theatre.\n                                                     Exit Cinna.\n    Come, Casca, you and I will yet ere day\n    See Brutus at his house. Three parts of him\n    Is ours already, and the man entire\n    Upon the next encounter yields him ours.\n  CASCA. O, he sits high in all the people's hearts,\n    And that which would appear offense in us,\n    His countenance, like richest alchemy,\n    Will change to virtue and to worthiness.\n  CASSIUS. Him and his worth and our great need of him\n    You have right well conceited. Let us go,\n    For it is after midnight, and ere day\n    We will awake him and be sure of him.                Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\n\nEnter Brutus in his orchard.\n\n  BRUTUS. What, Lucius, ho!\n    I cannot, by the progress of the stars,\n    Give guess how near to day. Lucius, I say!\n    I would it were my fault to sleep so soundly.\n    When, Lucius, when? Awake, I say! What, Lucius!\n\n                            Enter Lucius.\n\n  LUCIUS. Call'd you, my lord?\n  BRUTUS. Get me a taper in my study, Lucius.\n    When it is lighted, come and call me here.\n  LUCIUS. I will, my lord.                                 Exit.\n  BRUTUS. It must be by his death, and, for my part,\n    I know no personal cause to spurn at him,\n    But for the general. He would be crown'd:\n    How that might change his nature, there's the question.\n    It is the bright day that brings forth the adder\n    And that craves wary walking. Crown him that,\n    And then, I grant, we put a sting in him\n    That at his will he may do danger with.\n    The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins\n    Remorse from power, and, to speak truth of Caesar,\n    I have not known when his affections sway'd\n    More than his reason. But 'tis a common proof\n    That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,\n    Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;\n    But when he once attains the upmost round,\n    He then unto the ladder turns his back,\n    Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees\n    By which he did ascend. So Caesar may;\n    Then, lest he may, prevent. And, since the quarrel\n    Will bear no color for the thing he is,\n    Fashion it thus, that what he is, augmented,\n    Would run to these and these extremities;\n    And therefore think him as a serpent's egg\n    Which hatch'd would as his kind grow mischievous,\n    And kill him in the shell.\n\n                        Re-enter Lucius.\n\n  LUCIUS. The taper burneth in your closet, sir.\n    Searching the window for a flint I found\n    This paper thus seal'd up, and I am sure\n    It did not lie there when I went to bed.\n                                           Gives him the letter.\n  BRUTUS. Get you to bed again, it is not day.\n    Is not tomorrow, boy, the ides of March?\n  LUCIUS. I know not, sir.\n  BRUTUS. Look in the calendar and bring me word.\n  LUCIUS. I will, sir.                                     Exit.\n  BRUTUS. The exhalations whizzing in the air\n    Give so much light that I may read by them.\n                                     Opens the letter and reads.\n    \"Brutus, thou sleep'st: awake and see thyself!\n    Shall Rome, etc. Speak, strike, redress!\"\n\n    \"Brutus, thou sleep'st: awake!\"\n    Such instigations have been often dropp'd\n    Where I have took them up.\n    \"Shall Rome, etc.\" Thus must I piece it out.\n    Shall Rome stand under one man's awe? What, Rome?\n    My ancestors did from the streets of Rome\n    The Tarquin drive, when he was call'd a king.\n    \"Speak, strike, redress!\" Am I entreated\n    To speak and strike? O Rome, I make thee promise,\n    If the redress will follow, thou receivest\n    Thy full petition at the hand of Brutus!\n\n                        Re-enter Lucius.\n\n  LUCIUS. Sir, March is wasted fifteen days.\n                                                Knocking within.\n  BRUTUS. 'Tis good. Go to the gate, somebody knocks.\n                                                    Exit Lucius.\n    Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar\n    I have not slept.\n    Between the acting of a dreadful thing\n    And the first motion, all the interim is\n    Like a phantasma or a hideous dream;\n    The genius and the mortal instruments\n    Are then in council, and the state of man,\n    Like to a little kingdom, suffers then\n    The nature of an insurrection.\n\n                         Re-enter Lucius.\n\n  LUCIUS. Sir, 'tis your brother Cassius at the door,\n    Who doth desire to see you.\n  BRUTUS. Is he alone?\n  LUCIUS. No, sir, there are more with him.\n  BRUTUS. Do you know them?\n  LUCIUS. No, sir, their hats are pluck'd about their ears,\n    And half their faces buried in their cloaks,\n    That by no means I may discover them\n    By any mark of favor.\n  BRUTUS. Let 'em enter.                            Exit Lucius.\n    They are the faction. O Conspiracy,\n    Shamest thou to show thy dangerous brow by night,\n    When evils are most free? O, then, by day\n    Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough\n    To mask thy monstrous visage? Seek none, Conspiracy;\n    Hide it in smiles and affability;\n    For if thou path, thy native semblance on,\n    Not Erebus itself were dim enough\n    To hide thee from prevention.\n\n    Enter the conspirators, Cassius, Casca, Decius, Cinna,\n                Metellus Cimber, and Trebonius.\n\n  CASSIUS. I think we are too bold upon your rest.\n    Good morrow, Brutus, do we trouble you?\n  BRUTUS. I have been up this hour, awake all night.\n    Know I these men that come along with you?\n  CASSIUS. Yes, every man of them, and no man here\n    But honors you, and every one doth wish\n    You had but that opinion of yourself\n    Which every noble Roman bears of you.\n    This is Trebonius.\n  BRUTUS. He is welcome hither.\n  CASSIUS. This, Decius Brutus.\n  BRUTUS. He is welcome too.\nCASSIUS. This, Casca; this, Cinna; and this, Metellus Cimber.\n  BRUTUS. They are all welcome.\n    What watchful cares do interpose themselves\n    Betwixt your eyes and night?\n  CASSIUS. Shall I entreat a word?                 They whisper.\n  DECIUS. Here lies the east. Doth not the day break here?\n  CASCA. No.\n  CINNA. O, pardon, sir, it doth, and yongrey lines\n    That fret the clouds are messengers of day.\n  CASCA. You shall confess that you are both deceived.\n    Here, as I point my sword, the sun arises,\n    Which is a great way growing on the south,\n    Weighing the youthful season of the year.\n    Some two months hence up higher toward the north\n    He first presents his fire, and the high east\n    Stands as the Capitol, directly here.\n  BRUTUS. Give me your hands all over, one by one.\n  CASSIUS. And let us swear our resolution.\n  BRUTUS. No, not an oath. If not the face of men,\n    The sufferance of our souls, the time's abuse-\n    If these be motives weak, break off betimes,\n    And every man hence to his idle bed;\n    So let high-sighted tyranny range on\n    Till each man drop by lottery. But if these,\n    As I am sure they do, bear fire enough\n    To kindle cowards and to steel with valor\n    The melting spirits of women, then, countrymen,\n    What need we any spur but our own cause\n    To prick us to redress? What other bond\n    Than secret Romans that have spoke the word\n    And will not palter? And what other oath\n    Than honesty to honesty engaged\n    That this shall be or we will fall for it?\n    Swear priests and cowards and men cautelous,\n    Old feeble carrions and such suffering souls\n    That welcome wrongs; unto bad causes swear\n    Such creatures as men doubt; but do not stain\n    The even virtue of our enterprise,\n    Nor the insuppressive mettle of our spirits,\n    To think that or our cause or our performance\n    Did need an oath; when every drop of blood\n    That every Roman bears, and nobly bears,\n    Is guilty of a several bastardy\n    If he do break the smallest particle\n    Of any promise that hath pass'd from him.\n  CASSIUS. But what of Cicero? Shall we sound him?\n    I think he will stand very strong with us.\n  CASCA. Let us not leave him out.\n  CINNA. No, by no means.\n  METELLUS. O, let us have him, for his silver hairs\n    Will purchase us a good opinion,\n    And buy men's voices to commend our deeds.\n    It shall be said his judgement ruled our hands;\n    Our youths and wildness shall no whit appear,\n    But all be buried in his gravity.\n  BRUTUS. O, name him not; let us not break with him,\n    For he will never follow anything\n    That other men begin.\n  CASSIUS. Then leave him out.\n  CASCA. Indeed he is not fit.\n  DECIUS. Shall no man else be touch'd but only Caesar?\n  CASSIUS. Decius, well urged. I think it is not meet\n    Mark Antony, so well beloved of Caesar,\n    Should outlive Caesar. We shall find of him\n    A shrewd contriver; and you know his means,\n    If he improve them, may well stretch so far\n    As to annoy us all, which to prevent,\n    Let Antony and Caesar fall together.\n  BRUTUS. Our course will seem too bloody, Caius Cassius,\n    To cut the head off and then hack the limbs\n    Like wrath in death and envy afterwards;\n    For Antony is but a limb of Caesar.\n    Let us be sacrificers, but not butchers, Caius.\n    We all stand up against the spirit of Caesar,\n    And in the spirit of men there is no blood.\n    O, that we then could come by Caesar's spirit,\n    And not dismember Caesar! But, alas,\n    Caesar must bleed for it! And, gentle friends,\n    Let's kill him boldly, but not wrathfully;\n    Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods,\n    Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds;\n    And let our hearts, as subtle masters do,\n    Stir up their servants to an act of rage\n    And after seem to chide 'em. This shall make\n    Our purpose necessary and not envious,\n    Which so appearing to the common eyes,\n    We shall be call'd purgers, not murderers.\n    And for Mark Antony, think not of him,\n    For he can do no more than Caesar's arm\n    When Caesar's head is off.\n  CASSIUS. Yet I fear him,\n    For in the ingrated love he bears to Caesar-\n  BRUTUS. Alas, good Cassius, do not think of him.\n    If he love Caesar, all that he can do\n    Is to himself, take thought and die for Caesar.\n    And that were much he should, for he is given\n    To sports, to wildness, and much company.\n  TREBONIUS. There is no fear in him-let him not die,\n    For he will live and laugh at this hereafter.\n                                                  Clock strikes.\n  BRUTUS. Peace, count the clock.\n  CASSIUS. The clock hath stricken three.\n  TREBONIUS. 'Tis time to part.\n  CASSIUS. But it is doubtful yet\n    Whether Caesar will come forth today or no,\n    For he is superstitious grown of late,\n    Quite from the main opinion he held once\n    Of fantasy, of dreams, and ceremonies.\n    It may be these apparent prodigies,\n    The unaccustom'd terror of this night,\n    And the persuasion of his augurers\n    May hold him from the Capitol today.\n  DECIUS. Never fear that. If he be so resolved,\n    I can o'ersway him, for he loves to hear\n    That unicorns may be betray'd with trees,\n    And bears with glasses, elephants with holes,\n    Lions with toils, and men with flatterers;\n    But when I tell him he hates flatterers,\n    He says he does, being then most flattered.\n    Let me work;\n    For I can give his humor the true bent,\n    And I will bring him to the Capitol.\n  CASSIUS. Nay, we will all of us be there to fetch him.\n  BRUTUS. By the eighth hour. Is that the utter most?\n  CINNA. Be that the uttermost, and fail not then.\n  METELLUS. Caius Ligarius doth bear Caesar hard,\n    Who rated him for speaking well of Pompey.\n    I wonder none of you have thought of him.\n  BRUTUS. Now, good Metellus, go along by him.\n    He loves me well, and I have given him reasons;\n    Send him but hither, and I'll fashion him.\n  CASSIUS. The morning comes upon 's. We'll leave you, Brutus,\n    And, friends, disperse yourselves, but all remember\n    What you have said and show yourselves true Romans.\n  BRUTUS. Good gentlemen, look fresh and merrily;\n    Let not our looks put on our purposes,\n    But bear it as our Roman actors do,\n    With untired spirits and formal constancy.\n    And so, good morrow to you every one.\n                                          Exeunt all but Brutus.\n    Boy! Lucius! Fast asleep? It is no matter.\n    Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber;\n    Thou hast no figures nor no fantasies,\n    Which busy care draws in the brains of men;\n    Therefore thou sleep'st so sound.\n\n                           Enter Portia.\n\n  PORTIA. Brutus, my lord!\n  BRUTUS. Portia, what mean you? Wherefore rise you now?\n    It is not for your health thus to commit\n    Your weak condition to the raw cold morning.\n  PORTIA. Nor for yours neither. have ungently, Brutus,\n    Stole from my bed; and yesternight at supper\n    You suddenly arose and walk'd about,\n    Musing and sighing, with your arms across;\n    And when I ask'd you what the matter was,\n    You stared upon me with ungentle looks.\n    I urged you further; then you scratch'd your head,\n    And too impatiently stamp'd with your foot.\n    Yet I insisted, yet you answer'd not,\n    But with an angry waiter of your hand\n    Gave sign for me to leave you. So I did,\n    Fearing to strengthen that impatience\n    Which seem'd too much enkindled, and withal\n    Hoping it was but an effect of humor,\n    Which sometime hath his hour with every man.\n    It will not let you eat, nor talk, nor sleep,\n    And, could it work so much upon your shape\n    As it hath much prevail'd on your condition,\n    I should not know you, Brutus. Dear my lord,\n    Make me acquainted with your cause of grief.\n  BRUTUS. I am not well in health, and that is all.\n  PORTIA. Brutus is wise, and, were he not in health,\n    He would embrace the means to come by it.\n  BRUTUS. Why, so I do. Good Portia, go to bed.\n  PORTIA. Is Brutus sick, and is it physical\n    To walk unbraced and suck up the humors\n    Of the dank morning? What, is Brutus sick,\n    And will he steal out of his wholesome bed\n    To dare the vile contagion of the night\n    And tempt the rheumy and unpurged air\n    To add unto his sickness? No, my Brutus,\n    You have some sick offense within your mind,\n    Which by the right and virtue of my place\n    I ought to know of; and, upon my knees,\n    I charm you, by my once commended beauty,\n    By all your vows of love and that great vow\n    Which did incorporate and make us one,\n    That you unfold to me, yourself, your half,\n    Why you are heavy and what men tonight\n    Have had resort to you; for here have been\n    Some six or seven, who did hide their faces\n    Even from darkness.\n  BRUTUS. Kneel not, gentle Portia.\n  PORTIA. I should not need, if you were gentle Brutus.\n    Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus,\n    Is it excepted I should know no secrets\n    That appertain to you? Am I yourself\n    But, as it were, in sort or limitation,\n    To keep with you at meals, comfort your bed,\n    And talk to you sometimes? Dwell I but in the suburbs\n    Of your good pleasure? If it be no more,\n    Portia is Brutus' harlot, not his wife.\n  BRUTUS. You are my true and honorable wife,\n    As dear to me as are the ruddy drops\n    That visit my sad heart.\n  PORTIA. If this were true, then should I know this secret.\n    I grant I am a woman, but withal\n    A woman that Lord Brutus took to wife.\n    I grant I am a woman, but withal\n    A woman well reputed, Cato's daughter.\n    Think you I am no stronger than my sex,\n    Being so father'd and so husbanded?\n    Tell me your counsels, I will not disclose 'em.\n    I have made strong proof of my constancy,\n    Giving myself a voluntary wound\n    Here in the thigh. Can I bear that with patience\n    And not my husband's secrets?\n  BRUTUS. O ye gods,\n    Render me worthy of this noble wife! Knocking within.\n    Hark, hark, one knocks. Portia, go in awhile,\n    And by and by thy bosom shall partake\n    The secrets of my heart.\n    All my engagements I will construe to thee,\n    All the charactery of my sad brows.\n    Leave me with haste. [Exit Portia.] Lucius, who's that knocks?\n\n                  Re-enter Lucius with Ligarius.\n\n  LUCIUS. Here is a sick man that would speak with you.\n  BRUTUS. Caius Ligarius, that Metellus spake of.\n    Boy, stand aside. Caius Ligarius, how?\n  LIGARIUS. Vouchsafe good morrow from a feeble tongue.\n  BRUTUS. O, what a time have you chose out, brave Caius,\n    To wear a kerchief! Would you were not sick!\n  LIGARIUS. I am not sick, if Brutus have in hand\n    Any exploit worthy the name of honor.\n  BRUTUS. Such an exploit have I in hand, Ligarius,\n    Had you a healthful ear to hear of it.\n  LIGARIUS. By all the gods that Romans bow before,\n    I here discard my sickness! Soul of Rome!\n    Brave son, derived from honorable loins!\n    Thou, like an exorcist, hast conjured up\n    My mortified spirit. Now bid me run,\n    And I will strive with things impossible,\n    Yea, get the better of them. What's to do?\n  BRUTUS. A piece of work that will make sick men whole.\n  LIGARIUS. But are not some whole that we must make sick?\n  BRUTUS. That must we also. What it is, my Caius,\n    I shall unfold to thee, as we are going\n    To whom it must be done.\n  LIGARIUS. Set on your foot,\n    And with a heart new-fired I follow you,\n    To do I know not what; but it sufficeth\n    That Brutus leads me on.\n  BRUTUS. Follow me then.                                Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nCaesar's house. Thunder and lightning.\n\nEnter Caesar, in his nightgown.\n\n  CAESAR. Nor heaven nor earth have been at peace tonight.\n    Thrice hath Calpurnia in her sleep cried out,\n    \"Help, ho! They murther Caesar!\" Who's within?\n\n                         Enter a Servant.\n\n  SERVANT. My lord?\n  CAESAR. Go bid the priests do present sacrifice,\n    And bring me their opinions of success.\n  SERVANT. I will, my lord.                                Exit.\n\n                         Enter Calpurnia.\n\n  CALPURNIA. What mean you, Caesar? Think you to walk forth?\n    You shall not stir out of your house today.\n  CAESAR. Caesar shall forth: the things that threaten'd me\n    Ne'er look'd but on my back; when they shall see\n    The face of Caesar, they are vanished.\n  CALPURNIA. Caesar, I I stood on ceremonies,\n    Yet now they fright me. There is one within,\n    Besides the things that we have heard and seen,\n    Recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch.\n    A lioness hath whelped in the streets;\n    And graves have yawn'd, and yielded up their dead;\n    Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds,\n    In ranks and squadrons and right form of war,\n    Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol;\n    The noise of battle hurtled in the air,\n    Horses did neigh and dying men did groan,\n    And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets.\n    O Caesar! These things are beyond all use,\n    And I do fear them.\n  CAESAR. What can be avoided\n    Whose end is purposed by the mighty gods?\n    Yet Caesar shall go forth, for these predictions\n    Are to the world in general as to Caesar.\n  CALPURNIA. When beggars die, there are no comets seen;\n    The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.\n  CAESAR. Cowards die many times before their deaths;\n    The valiant never taste of death but once.\n    Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,\n    It seems to me most strange that men should fear\n    Seeing that death, a necessary end,\n    Will come when it will come.\n\n                      Re-enter Servant.\n\n    What say the augurers?\n  SERVANT. They would not have you to stir forth today.\n    Plucking the entrails of an offering forth,\n    They could not find a heart within the beast.\n  CAESAR. The gods do this in shame of cowardice.\n    Caesar should be a beast without a heart\n    If he should stay at home today for fear.\n    No, Caesar shall not. Danger knows full well\n    That Caesar is more dangerous than he.\n    We are two lions litter'd in one day,\n    And I the elder and more terrible.\n    And Caesar shall go forth.\n  CALPURNIA. Alas, my lord,\n    Your wisdom is consumed in confidence.\n    Do not go forth today. Call it my fear\n    That keeps you in the house and not your own.\n    We'll send Mark Antony to the Senate House,\n    And he shall say you are not well today.\n    Let me, upon my knee, prevail in this.\n  CAESAR. Mark Antony shall say I am not well,\n    And, for thy humor, I will stay at home.\n\n                        Enter Decius.\n\n    Here's Decius Brutus, he shall tell them so.\n  DECIUS. Caesar, all hail! Good morrow, worthy Caesar!\n    I come to fetch you to the Senate House.\n  CAESAR. And you are come in very happy time\n    To bear my greeting to the senators\n    And tell them that I will not come today.\n    Cannot, is false, and that I dare not, falser:\n    I will not come today. Tell them so, Decius.\n  CALPURNIA. Say he is sick.\n  CAESAR. Shall Caesar send a lie?\n    Have I in conquest stretch'd mine arm so far\n    To be afeard to tell greybeards the truth?\n    Decius, go tell them Caesar will not come.\n  DECIUS. Most mighty Caesar, let me know some cause,\n    Lest I be laugh'd at when I tell them so.\n  CAESAR. The cause is in my will: I will not come,\n    That is enough to satisfy the Senate.\n    But, for your private satisfaction,\n    Because I love you, I will let you know.\n    Calpurnia here, my wife, stays me at home;\n    She dreamt tonight she saw my statue,\n    Which, like a fountain with an hundred spouts,\n    Did run pure blood, and many lusty Romans\n    Came smiling and did bathe their hands in it.\n    And these does she apply for warnings and portents\n    And evils imminent, and on her knee\n    Hath begg'd that I will stay at home today.\n  DECIUS. This dream is all amiss interpreted;\n    It was a vision fair and fortunate.\n    Your statue spouting blood in many pipes,\n    In which so many smiling Romans bathed,\n    Signifies that from you great Rome shall suck\n    Reviving blood, and that great men shall press\n    For tinctures, stains, relics, and cognizance.\n    This by Calpurnia's dream is signified.\n  CAESAR. And this way have you well expounded it.\n  DECIUS. I have, when you have heard what I can say.\n    And know it now, the Senate have concluded\n    To give this day a crown to mighty Caesar.\n    If you shall send them word you will not come,\n    Their minds may change. Besides, it were a mock\n    Apt to be render'd, for someone to say\n    \"Break up the Senate till another time,\n    When Caesar's wife shall meet with better dreams.\"\n    If Caesar hide himself, shall they not whisper\n    \"Lo, Caesar is afraid\"?\n    Pardon me, Caesar, for my dear dear love\n    To your proceeding bids me tell you this,\n    And reason to my love is liable.\n  CAESAR. How foolish do your fears seem now, Calpurnia!\n    I am ashamed I did yield to them.\n    Give me my robe, for I will go.\n\n         Enter Publius, Brutus, Ligarius, Metellus, Casca,\n                     Trebonius, and Cinna.\n\n    And look where Publius is come to fetch me.\n  PUBLIUS. Good morrow,Caesar.\n  CAESAR. Welcome, Publius.\n    What, Brutus, are you stirr'd so early too?\n    Good morrow, Casca. Caius Ligarius,\n    Caesar was ne'er so much your enemy\n    As that same ague which hath made you lean.\n    What is't o'clock?\n  BRUTUS. Caesar, 'tis strucken eight.\n  CAESAR. I thank you for your pains and courtesy.\n\n                           Enter Antony.\n\n    See, Antony, that revels long o' nights,\n    Is notwithstanding up. Good morrow, Antony.\n  ANTONY. So to most noble Caesar.\n  CAESAR. Bid them prepare within.\n    I am to blame to be thus waited for.\n    Now, Cinna; now, Metellus; what, Trebonius,\n    I have an hour's talk in store for you;\n    Remember that you call on me today;\n    Be near me, that I may remember you.\n  TREBONIUS. Caesar, I will. [Aside.] And so near will I be\n    That your best friends shall wish I had been further.\n  CAESAR. Good friends, go in and taste some wine with me,\n    And we like friends will straightway go together.\n  BRUTUS. [Aside.] That every like is not the same, O Caesar,\n    The heart of Brutus yearns to think upon!            Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nA street near the Capitol.\n\nEnter Artemidorus, reading paper.\n\n  ARTEMIDORUS. \"Caesar, beware of Brutus; take heed of Cassius; come\n    not near Casca; have an eye to Cinna; trust not Trebonius; mark\n    well Metellus Cimber; Decius Brutus loves thee not; thou hast\n    wronged Caius Ligarius. There is but one mind in all these men,\n    and it is bent against Caesar. If thou beest not immortal, look\n    about you. Security gives way to conspiracy. The mighty gods\n    defend thee!\n                                        Thy lover, Artemidorus.\"\n    Here will I stand till Caesar pass along,\n    And as a suitor will I give him this.\n    My heart laments that virtue cannot live\n    Out of the teeth of emulation.\n    If thou read this, O Caesar, thou mayest live;\n    If not, the Fates with traitors do contrive.           Exit.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nAnother part of the same street, before the house of Brutus.\n\nEnter Portia and Lucius.\n\n  PORTIA. I prithee, boy, run to the Senate House;\n    Stay not to answer me, but get thee gone.\n    Why dost thou stay?\n  LUCIUS. To know my errand, madam.\n  PORTIA. I would have had thee there, and here again,\n    Ere I can tell thee what thou shouldst do there.\n    O constancy, be strong upon my side!\n    Set a huge mountain 'tween my heart and tongue!\n    I have a man's mind, but a woman's might.\n    How hard it is for women to keep counsel!\n    Art thou here yet?\n  LUCIUS. Madam, what should I do?\n    Run to the Capitol, and nothing else?\n    And so return to you, and nothing else?\n  PORTIA. Yes, bring me word, boy, if thy lord look well,\n    For he went sickly forth; and take good note\n    What Caesar doth, what suitors press to him.\n    Hark, boy, what noise is that?\n  LUCIUS. I hear none, madam.\n  PORTIA. Prithee, listen well.\n    I heard a bustling rumor like a fray,\n    And the wind brings it from the Capitol.\n  LUCIUS. Sooth, madam, I hear nothing.\n\n                     Enter the Soothsayer.\n\n  PORTIA. Come hither, fellow;\n    Which way hast thou been?\n  SOOTHSAYER. At mine own house, good lady.\n  PORTIA. What is't o'clock?\n  SOOTHSAYER. About the ninth hour, lady.\n  PORTIA. Is Caesar yet gone to the Capitol?\n  SOOTHSAYER. Madam, not yet. I go to take my stand\n    To see him pass on to the Capitol.\n  PORTIA. Thou hast some suit to Caesar, hast thou not?\n  SOOTHSAYER. That I have, lady. If it will please Caesar\n    To be so good to Caesar as to hear me,\n    I shall beseech him to befriend himself.\n  PORTIA. Why, know'st thou any harm's intended towards him?\n  SOOTHSAYER. None that I know will be, much that I fear may chance.\n    Good morrow to you. Here the street is narrow,\n    The throng that follows Caesar at the heels,\n    Of senators, of praetors, common suitors,\n    Will crowd a feeble man almost to death.\n    I'll get me to a place more void and there\n    Speak to great Caesar as he comes along.               Exit.\n  PORTIA. I must go in. Ay me, how weak a thing\n    The heart of woman is! O Brutus,\n    The heavens speed thee in thine enterprise!\n    Sure, the boy heard me. Brutus hath a suit\n    That Caesar will not grant. O, I grow faint.\n    Run, Lucius, and commend me to my lord;\n    Say I am merry. Come to me again,\n    And bring me word what he doth say to thee.\n                                               Exeunt severally.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nRome. Before the Capitol; the Senate sitting above.\nA crowd of people, among them Artemidorus and the Soothsayer.\n\nFlourish. Enter Caesar, Brutus, Cassius, Casca, Decius, Metellus,\nTrebonius, Cinna, Antony, Lepidus, Popilius, Publius, and others.\n\n  CAESAR. The ides of March are come.\n  SOOTHSAYER. Ay, Caesar, but not gone.\n  A Hail, Caesar! Read this schedule.\n  DECIUS. Trebonius doth desire you to o'er read,\n    At your best leisure, this his humble suit.\n  ARTEMIDORUS. O Caesar, read mine first, for mine's a suit\n    That touches Caesar nearer. Read it, great Caesar.\n  CAESAR. What touches us ourself shall be last served.\n  ARTEMIDORUS. Delay not, Caesar; read it instantly.\n  CAESAR. What, is the fellow mad?\n  PUBLIUS. Sirrah, give place.\n  CASSIUS. What, urge you your petitions in the street?\n    Come to the Capitol.\n\n      Caesar goes up to the Senate House, the rest follow.\n\n  POPILIUS. I wish your enterprise today may thrive.\n  CASSIUS. What enterprise, Popilius?\n  POPILIUS. Fare you well.\n                                             Advances to Caesar.\n  BRUTUS. What said Popilius Lena?\n  CASSIUS. He wish'd today our enterprise might thrive.\n    I fear our purpose is discovered.\n  BRUTUS. Look, how he makes to Caesar. Mark him.\n  CASSIUS. Casca,\n    Be sudden, for we fear prevention.\n    Brutus, what shall be done? If this be known,\n    Cassius or Caesar never shall turn back,\n    For I will slay myself.\n  BRUTUS. Cassius, be constant.\n    Popilius Lena speaks not of our purposes;\n    For, look, he smiles, and Caesar doth not change.\n  CASSIUS. Trebonius knows his time, for, look you, Brutus,\n    He draws Mark Antony out of the way.\n                                    Exeunt Antony and Trebonius.\n  DECIUS. Where is Metellus Cimber? Let him\n    And presently prefer his suit to Caesar.\n  BRUTUS. He is address'd; press near and second him.\n  CINNA. Casca, you are the first that rears your hand.\n  CAESAR. Are we all ready? What is now amiss\n    That Caesar and his Senate must redress?\n  METELLUS. Most high, most mighty, and most puissant Caesar,\n    Metellus Cimber throws before thy seat\n    An humble heart.                                     Kneels.\n  CAESAR. I must prevent thee, Cimber.\n    These couchings and these lowly courtesies\n    Might fire the blood of ordinary men\n    And turn preordinance and first decree\n    Into the law of children. Be not fond\n    To think that Caesar bears such rebel blood\n    That will be thaw'd from the true quality\n    With that which melteth fools- I mean sweet words,\n    Low-crooked court'sies, and base spaniel-fawning.\n    Thy brother by decree is banished.\n    If thou dost bend and pray and fawn for him,\n    I spurn thee like a cur out of my way.\n    Know, Caesar doth not wrong, nor without cause\n    Will he be satisfied.\n  METELLUS. Is there no voice more worthy than my own,\n    To sound more sweetly in great Caesar's ear\n    For the repealing of my banish'd brother?\n  BRUTUS. I kiss thy hand, but not in flattery, Caesar,\n    Desiring thee that Publius Cimber may\n    Have an immediate freedom of repeal.\n  CAESAR. What, Brutus?\n  CASSIUS. Pardon, Caesar! Caesar, pardon!\n    As low as to thy foot doth Cassius fall\n    To beg enfranchisement for Publius Cimber.\n  CAESAR. I could be well moved, if I were as you;\n    If I could pray to move, prayers would move me;\n    But I am constant as the northern star,\n    Of whose true-fix'd and resting quality\n    There is no fellow in the firmament.\n    The skies are painted with unnumber'd sparks;\n    They are all fire and every one doth shine;\n    But there's but one in all doth hold his place.\n    So in the world, 'tis furnish'd well with men,\n    And men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive;\n    Yet in the number I do know but one\n    That unassailable holds on his rank,\n    Unshaked of motion; and that I am he,\n    Let me a little show it, even in this;\n    That I was constant Cimber should be banish'd,\n    And constant do remain to keep him so.\n  CINNA. O Caesar-\n  CAESAR. Hence! Wilt thou lift up Olympus?\n  DECIUS. Great Caesar-\n  CAESAR. Doth not Brutus bootless kneel?\n  CASCA. Speak, hands, for me!\n                        Casca first, then the other Conspirators\n                                  and Marcus Brutus stab Caesar.\n  CAESAR. Et tu, Brute?- Then fall, Caesar! Dies.\n  CINNA. Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!\n    Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets.\n  CASSIUS. Some to the common pulpits and cry out\n    \"Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement!\"\n  BRUTUS. People and senators, be not affrighted,\n    Fly not, stand still; ambition's debt is paid.\n  CASCA. Go to the pulpit, Brutus.\n  DECIUS. And Cassius too.\n  BRUTUS. Where's Publius?\n  CINNA. Here, quite confounded with this mutiny.\n  METELLUS. Stand fast together, lest some friend of Caesar's\n    Should chance-\n  BRUTUS. Talk not of standing. Publius, good cheer,\n    There is no harm intended to your person,\n    Nor to no Roman else. So tell them, Publius.\n  CASSIUS. And leave us, Publius, lest that the people\n    Rushing on us should do your age some mischief.\n  BRUTUS. Do so, and let no man abide this deed\n    But we the doers.\n\n                        Re-enter Trebonius.\n\n  CASSIUS. Where is Antony?\n  TREBONIUS. Fled to his house amazed.\n    Men, wives, and children stare, cry out, and run\n    As it were doomsday.\n  BRUTUS. Fates, we will know your pleasures.\n    That we shall die, we know; 'tis but the time\n    And drawing days out that men stand upon.\n  CASSIUS. Why, he that cuts off twenty years of life\n    Cuts off so many years of fearing death.\n  BRUTUS. Grant that, and then is death a benefit;\n    So are we Caesar's friends that have abridged\n    His time of fearing death. Stoop, Romans, stoop,\n    And let us bathe our hands in Caesar's blood\n    Up to the elbows, and besmear our swords;\n    Then walk we forth, even to the marketplace,\n    And waving our red weapons o'er our heads,\n    Let's all cry, \"Peace, freedom, and liberty!\"\n  CASSIUS. Stoop then, and wash. How many ages hence\n    Shall this our lofty scene be acted over\n    In states unborn and accents yet unknown!\n  BRUTUS. How many times shall Caesar bleed in sport,\n    That now on Pompey's basis lies along\n    No worthier than the dust!\n  CASSIUS. So oft as that shall be,\n    So often shall the knot of us be call'd\n    The men that gave their country liberty.\n  DECIUS. What, shall we forth?\n  CASSIUS. Ay, every man away.\n    Brutus shall lead, and we will grace his heels\n    With the most boldest and best hearts of Rome.\n\n                        Enter a Servant.\n\n  BRUTUS. Soft, who comes here? A friend of Antony's.\n  SERVANT. Thus, Brutus, did my master bid me kneel,\n    Thus did Mark Antony bid me fall down,\n    And, being prostrate, thus he bade me say:\n    Brutus is noble, wise, valiant, and honest;\n    Caesar was mighty, bold, royal, and loving.\n    Say I love Brutus and I honor him;\n    Say I fear'd Caesar, honor'd him, and loved him.\n    If Brutus will vouchsafe that Antony\n    May safely come to him and be resolved\n    How Caesar hath deserved to lie in death,\n    Mark Antony shall not love Caesar dead\n    So well as Brutus living, but will follow\n    The fortunes and affairs of noble Brutus\n    Thorough the hazards of this untrod state\n    With all true faith. So says my master Antony.\n  BRUTUS. Thy master is a wise and valiant Roman;\n    I never thought him worse.\n    Tell him, so please him come unto this place,\n    He shall be satisfied and, by my honor,\n    Depart untouch'd.\n  SERVANT. I'll fetch him presently.                       Exit.\n  BRUTUS. I know that we shall have him well to friend.\n  CASSIUS. I wish we may, but yet have I a mind\n    That fears him much, and my misgiving still\n    Falls shrewdly to the purpose.\n\n                          Re-enter Antony.\n\n  BRUTUS. But here comes Antony. Welcome, Mark Antony.\n  ANTONY. O mighty Caesar! Dost thou lie so low?\n    Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils,\n    Shrunk to this little measure? Fare thee well.\n    I know not, gentlemen, what you intend,\n    Who else must be let blood, who else is rank.\n    If I myself, there is no hour so fit\n    As Caesar's death's hour, nor no instrument\n    Of half that worth as those your swords, made rich\n    With the most noble blood of all this world.\n    I do beseech ye, if you bear me hard,\n    Now, whilst your purpled hands do reek and smoke,\n    Fulfill your pleasure. Live a thousand years,\n    I shall not find myself so apt to die;\n    No place will please me so, no means of death,\n    As here by Caesar, and by you cut off,\n    The choice and master spirits of this age.\n  BRUTUS. O Antony, beg not your death of us!\n    Though now we must appear bloody and cruel,\n    As, by our hands and this our present act\n    You see we do, yet see you but our hands\n    And this the bleeding business they have done.\n    Our hearts you see not; they are pitiful;\n    And pity to the general wrong of Rome-\n    As fire drives out fire, so pity pity-\n    Hath done this deed on Caesar. For your part,\n    To you our swords have leaden points, Mark Antony;\n    Our arms in strength of malice, and our hearts\n    Of brothers' temper, do receive you in\n    With all kind love, good thoughts, and reverence.\n  CASSIUS. Your voice shall be as strong as any man's\n    In the disposing of new dignities.\n  BRUTUS. Only be patient till we have appeased\n    The multitude, beside themselves with fear,\n    And then we will deliver you the cause\n    Why I, that did love Caesar when I struck him,\n    Have thus proceeded.\n  ANTONY. I doubt not of your wisdom.\n    Let each man render me his bloody hand.\n    First, Marcus Brutus, will I shake with you;\n    Next, Caius Cassius, do I take your hand;\n    Now, Decius Brutus, yours; now yours, Metellus;\n    Yours, Cinna; and, my valiant Casca, yours;\n    Though last, not least in love, yours, good Trebonius.\n    Gentlemen all- alas, what shall I say?\n    My credit now stands on such slippery ground,\n    That one of two bad ways you must conceit me,\n    Either a coward or a flatterer.\n    That I did love thee, Caesar, O, 'tis true!\n    If then thy spirit look upon us now,\n    Shall it not grieve thee dearer than thy death\n    To see thy Antony making his peace,\n    Shaking the bloody fingers of thy foes,\n    Most noble! In the presence of thy corse?\n    Had I as many eyes as thou hast wounds,\n    Weeping as fast as they stream forth thy blood,\n    It would become me better than to close\n    In terms of friendship with thine enemies.\n    Pardon me, Julius! Here wast thou bay'd, brave hart,\n    Here didst thou fall, and here thy hunters stand,\n    Sign'd in thy spoil, and crimson'd in thy Lethe.\n    O world, thou wast the forest to this hart,\n    And this, indeed, O world, the heart of thee.\n    How like a deer strucken by many princes\n    Dost thou here lie!\n  CASSIUS. Mark Antony-\n  ANTONY. Pardon me, Caius Cassius.\n    The enemies of Caesar shall say this:\n    Then, in a friend, it is cold modesty.\n  CASSIUS. I blame you not for praising Caesar so;\n    But what compact mean you to have with us?\n    Will you be prick'd in number of our friends,\n    Or shall we on, and not depend on you?\n  ANTONY. Therefore I took your hands, but was indeed\n    Sway'd from the point by looking down on Caesar.\n    Friends am I with you all and love you all,\n    Upon this hope that you shall give me reasons\n    Why and wherein Caesar was dangerous.\n  BRUTUS. Or else were this a savage spectacle.\n    Our reasons are so full of good regard\n    That were you, Antony, the son of Caesar,\n    You should be satisfied.\n  ANTONY. That's all I seek;\n    And am moreover suitor that I may\n    Produce his body to the marketplace,\n    And in the pulpit, as becomes a friend,\n    Speak in the order of his funeral.\n  BRUTUS. You shall, Mark Antony.\n  CASSIUS. Brutus, a word with you.\n    [Aside to Brutus.] You know not what you do. Do not consent\n    That Antony speak in his funeral.\n    Know you how much the people may be moved\n    By that which he will utter?\n  BRUTUS. By your pardon,\n    I will myself into the pulpit first,\n    And show the reason of our Caesar's death.\n    What Antony shall speak, I will protest\n    He speaks by leave and by permission,\n    And that we are contented Caesar shall\n    Have all true rites and lawful ceremonies.\n    It shall advantage more than do us wrong.\n  CASSIUS. I know not what may fall; I like it not.\n  BRUTUS. Mark Antony, here, take you Caesar's body.\n    You shall not in your funeral speech blame us,\n    But speak all good you can devise of Caesar,\n    And say you do't by our permission,\n    Else shall you not have any hand at all\n    About his funeral. And you shall speak\n    In the same pulpit whereto I am going,\n    After my speech is ended.\n  ANTONY. Be it so,\n    I do desire no more.\n  BRUTUS. Prepare the body then, and follow us.\n                                          Exeunt all but Antony.\n  ANTONY. O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,\n    That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!\n    Thou art the ruins of the noblest man\n    That ever lived in the tide of times.\n    Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!\n    Over thy wounds now do I prophesy\n    (Which like dumb mouths do ope their ruby lips\n    To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue)\n    A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;\n    Domestic fury and fierce civil strife\n    Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;\n    Blood and destruction shall be so in use,\n    And dreadful objects so familiar,\n    That mothers shall but smile when they behold\n    Their infants quarter'd with the hands of war;\n    All pity choked with custom of fell deeds,\n    And Caesar's spirit ranging for revenge,\n    With Ate by his side come hot from hell,\n    Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice\n    Cry \"Havoc!\" and let slip the dogs of war,\n    That this foul deed shall smell above the earth\n    With carrion men, groaning for burial.\n\n                        Enter a Servant.\n\n    You serve Octavius Caesar, do you not?\n  SERVANT. I do, Mark Antony.\n  ANTONY. Caesar did write for him to come to Rome.\n  SERVANT. He did receive his letters, and is coming,\n    And bid me say to you by word of mouth-\n    O Caesar!                                     Sees the body.\n  ANTONY. Thy heart is big; get thee apart and weep.\n    Passion, I see, is catching, for mine eyes,\n    Seeing those beads of sorrow stand in thine,\n    Began to water. Is thy master coming?\n  SERVANT. He lies tonight within seven leagues of Rome.\n  ANTONY. Post back with speed and tell him what hath chanced.\n    Here is a mourning Rome, a dangerous Rome,\n    No Rome of safety for Octavius yet;\n    Hie hence, and tell him so. Yet stay awhile,\n    Thou shalt not back till I have borne this corse\n    Into the marketplace. There shall I try,\n    In my oration, how the people take\n    The cruel issue of these bloody men,\n    According to the which thou shalt discourse\n    To young Octavius of the state of things.\n    Lend me your hand.                Exeunt with Caesar's body.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe Forum.\n\nEnter Brutus and Cassius, and a throng of Citizens.\n\n  CITIZENS. We will be satisfied! Let us be satisfied!\n  BRUTUS. Then follow me and give me audience, friends.\n    Cassius, go you into the other street\n    And part the numbers.\n    Those that will hear me speak, let 'em stay here;\n    Those that will follow Cassius, go with him;\n    And public reasons shall be rendered\n    Of Caesar's death.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. I will hear Brutus speak.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. I will hear Cassius and compare their reasons,\n    When severally we hear them rendered.\n                               Exit Cassius, with some Citizens.\n                                    Brutus goes into the pulpit.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. The noble Brutus is ascended. Silence!\n  BRUTUS. Be patient till the last.\n    Romans, countrymen, and lovers! Hear me for my cause, and be\n    silent, that you may hear. Believe me for mine honor, and have\n    respect to mine honor, that you may believe. Censure me in your\n    wisdom, and awake your senses, that you may the better judge. If\n    there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar's, to\n    him I say that Brutus' love to Caesar was no less than his. If\n    then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is\n    my answer: Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome\n    more. Had you rather Caesar were living and die all slaves, than\n    that Caesar were dead to live all freemen? As Caesar loved me, I\n    weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was\n    valiant, I honor him; but as he was ambitious, I slew him. There\n    is tears for his love, joy for his fortune, honor for his valor,\n    and death for his ambition. Who is here so base that would be a\n    bondman? If any, speak, for him have I offended. Who is here so\n    rude that would not be a Roman? If any, speak, for him have I\n    offended. Who is here so vile that will not love his country? If\n    any, speak, for him have I offended. I pause for a reply.\n  ALL. None, Brutus, none.\n  BRUTUS. Then none have I offended. I have done no more to Caesar\n    than you shall do to Brutus. The question of his death is\n    enrolled in the Capitol, his glory not extenuated, wherein he was\n    worthy, nor his offenses enforced, for which he suffered death.\n\n              Enter Antony and others, with Caesar's body.\n\n    Here comes his body, mourned by Mark Antony, who, though he had\n    no hand in his death, shall receive the benefit of his dying, a\n    place in the commonwealth, as which of you shall not? With this I\n    depart- that, as I slew my best lover for the good of Rome, I\n    have the same dagger for myself, when it shall please my country\n    to need my death.\n  ALL. Live, Brutus, live, live!\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Bring him with triumph home unto his house.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Give him a statue with his ancestors.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Let him be Caesar.\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. Caesar's better parts\n    Shall be crown'd in Brutus.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. We'll bring him to his house with shouts and\n    clamors.\n  BRUTUS. My countrymen-\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Peace! Silence! Brutus speaks.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Peace, ho!\n  BRUTUS. Good countrymen, let me depart alone,\n    And, for my sake, stay here with Antony.\n    Do grace to Caesar's corse, and grace his speech\n    Tending to Caesar's glories, which Mark Antony,\n    By our permission, is allow'd to make.\n    I do entreat you, not a man depart,\n    Save I alone, till Antony have spoke.                  Exit.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Stay, ho, and let us hear Mark Antony.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Let him go up into the public chair;\n    We'll hear him. Noble Antony, go up.\n  ANTONY. For Brutus' sake, I am beholding to you.\n                                           Goes into the pulpit.\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. What does he say of Brutus?\n  THIRD CITIZEN. He says, for Brutus' sake,\n    He finds himself beholding to us all.\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. 'Twere best he speak no harm of Brutus here.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. This Caesar was a tyrant.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Nay, that's certain.\n    We are blest that Rome is rid of him.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Peace! Let us hear what Antony can say.\n  ANTONY. You gentle Romans-\n  ALL. Peace, ho! Let us hear him.\n  ANTONY. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!\n    I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.\n    The evil that men do lives after them,\n    The good is oft interred with their bones;\n    So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus\n    Hath told you Caesar was ambitious;\n    If it were so, it was a grievous fault,\n    And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.\n    Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest-\n    For Brutus is an honorable man;\n    So are they all, all honorable men-\n    Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.\n    He was my friend, faithful and just to me;\n    But Brutus says he was ambitious,\n    And Brutus is an honorable man.\n    He hath brought many captives home to Rome,\n    Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill.\n    Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?\n    When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept;\n    Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:\n    Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,\n    And Brutus is an honorable man.\n    You all did see that on the Lupercal\n    I thrice presented him a kingly crown,\n    Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?\n    Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,\n    And sure he is an honorable man.\n    I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,\n    But here I am to speak what I do know.\n    You all did love him once, not without cause;\n    What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?\n    O judgement, thou art fled to brutish beasts,\n    And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;\n    My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,\n    And I must pause till it come back to me.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Methinks there is much reason in his sayings.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. If thou consider rightly of the matter,\n    Caesar has had great wrong.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Has he, masters?\n    I fear there will a worse come in his place.\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. Mark'd ye his words? He would not take the crown;\n    Therefore 'tis certain he was not ambitious.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. If it be found so, some will dear abide it.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Poor soul, his eyes are red as fire with weeping.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. There's not a nobler man in Rome than Antony.\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. Now mark him, he begins again to speak.\n  ANTONY. But yesterday the word of Caesar might\n    Have stood against the world. Now lies he there,\n    And none so poor to do him reverence.\n    O masters! If I were disposed to stir\n    Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,\n    I should do Brutus wrong and Cassius wrong,\n    Who, you all know, are honorable men.\n    I will not do them wrong; I rather choose\n    To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you,\n    Than I will wrong such honorable men.\n    But here's a parchment with the seal of Caesar;\n    I found it in his closet, 'tis his will.\n    Let but the commons hear this testament-\n    Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read-\n    And they would go and kiss dead Caesar's wounds\n    And dip their napkins in his sacred blood,\n    Yea, beg a hair of him for memory,\n    And, dying, mention it within their wills,\n    Bequeathing it as a rich legacy\n    Unto their issue.\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. We'll hear the will. Read it, Mark Antony.\n  ALL. The will, the will! We will hear Caesar's will.\n  ANTONY. Have patience, gentle friends, I must not read it;\n    It is not meet you know how Caesar loved you.\n    You are not wood, you are not stones, but men;\n    And, being men, hearing the will of Caesar,\n    It will inflame you, it will make you mad.\n    'Tis good you know not that you are his heirs,\n    For if you should, O, what would come of it!\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. Read the will; we'll hear it, Antony.\n    You shall read us the will, Caesar's will.\n  ANTONY. Will you be patient? Will you stay awhile?\n    I have o'ershot myself to tell you of it.\n    I fear I wrong the honorable men\n    Whose daggers have stabb'd Caesar; I do fear it.\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. They were traitors. Honorable men!\n  ALL. The will! The testament!\n  SECOND CITIZEN. They were villains, murtherers. The will!\n    Read the will!\n  ANTONY. You will compel me then to read the will?\n    Then make a ring about the corse of Caesar,\n    And let me show you him that made the will.\n    Shall I descend? And will you give me leave?\n  ALL. Come down.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Descend.\n                                  He comes down from the pulpit.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. You shall have leave.\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. A ring, stand round.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Stand from the hearse, stand from the body.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Room for Antony, most noble Antony.\n  ANTONY. Nay, press not so upon me, stand far off.\n  ALL. Stand back; room, bear back!\n  ANTONY. If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.\n    You all do know this mantle. I remember\n    The first time ever Caesar put it on;\n    'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent,\n    That day he overcame the Nervii.\n    Look, in this place ran Cassius' dagger through;\n    See what a rent the envious Casca made;\n    Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabb'd;\n    And as he pluck'd his cursed steel away,\n    Mark how the blood of Caesar follow'd it,\n    As rushing out of doors, to be resolved\n    If Brutus so unkindly knock'd, or no;\n    For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel.\n    Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him!\n    This was the most unkindest cut of all;\n    For when the noble Caesar saw him stab,\n    Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms,\n    Quite vanquish'd him. Then burst his mighty heart,\n    And, in his mantle muffling up his face,\n    Even at the base of Pompey's statue,\n    Which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell.\n    O, what a fall was there, my countrymen!\n    Then I, and you, and all of us fell down,\n    Whilst bloody treason flourish'd over us.\n    O, now you weep, and I perceive you feel\n    The dint of pity. These are gracious drops.\n    Kind souls, what weep you when you but behold\n    Our Caesar's vesture wounded? Look you here,\n    Here is himself, marr'd, as you see, with traitors.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. O piteous spectacle!\n  SECOND CITIZEN. O noble Caesar!\n  THIRD CITIZEN. O woeful day!\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. O traitors villains!\n  FIRST CITIZEN. O most bloody sight!\n  SECOND CITIZEN. We will be revenged.\n  ALL. Revenge! About! Seek! Burn! Fire! Kill!\n    Slay! Let not a traitor live!\n  ANTONY. Stay, countrymen.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Peace there! Hear the noble Antony.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. We'll hear him, we'll follow him, we'll die with\n    him.\n  ANTONY. Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up\n    To such a sudden flood of mutiny.\n    They that have done this deed are honorable.\n    What private griefs they have, alas, I know not,\n    That made them do it. They are wise and honorable,\n    And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you.\n    I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts.\n    I am no orator, as Brutus is;\n    But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man,\n    That love my friend, and that they know full well\n    That gave me public leave to speak of him.\n    For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,\n    Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech,\n    To stir men's blood. I only speak right on;\n    I tell you that which you yourselves do know;\n    Show you sweet Caesar's wounds, poor dumb mouths,\n    And bid them speak for me. But were I Brutus,\n    And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony\n    Would ruffle up your spirits and put a tongue\n    In every wound of Caesar that should move\n    The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.\n  ALL. We'll mutiny.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. We'll burn the house of Brutus.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Away, then! Come, seek the conspirators.\n  ANTONY. Yet hear me, countrymen; yet hear me speak.\n  ALL. Peace, ho! Hear Antony, most noble Antony!\n  ANTONY. Why, friends, you go to do you know not what.\n    Wherein hath Caesar thus deserved your loves?\n    Alas, you know not; I must tell you then.\n    You have forgot the will I told you of.\n  ALL. Most true, the will! Let's stay and hear the will.\n  ANTONY. Here is the will, and under Caesar's seal.\n    To every Roman citizen he gives,\n    To every several man, seventy-five drachmas.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Most noble Caesar! We'll revenge his death.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. O royal Caesar!\n  ANTONY. Hear me with patience.\n  ALL. Peace, ho!\n  ANTONY. Moreover, he hath left you all his walks,\n    His private arbors, and new-planted orchards,\n    On this side Tiber; he hath left them you,\n    And to your heirs forever- common pleasures,\n    To walk abroad and recreate yourselves.\n    Here was a Caesar! When comes such another?\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Never, never. Come, away, away!\n    We'll burn his body in the holy place\n    And with the brands fire the traitors' houses.\n    Take up the body.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Go fetch fire.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Pluck down benches.\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. Pluck down forms, windows, anything.\n                                  Exeunt Citizens with the body.\n  ANTONY. Now let it work. Mischief, thou art afoot,\n    Take thou what course thou wilt.\n\n                        Enter a Servant.\n\n    How now, fellow?\n  SERVANT. Sir, Octavius is already come to Rome.\n  ANTONY. Where is he?\n  SERVANT. He and Lepidus are at Caesar's house.\n  ANTONY. And thither will I straight to visit him.\n    He comes upon a wish. Fortune is merry,\n    And in this mood will give us anything.\n  SERVANT. I heard him say Brutus and Cassius\n    Are rid like madmen through the gates of Rome.\n  ANTONY. Be like they had some notice of the people,\n    How I had moved them. Bring me to Octavius.          Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nA street.\n\nEnter Cinna the poet.\n\n  CINNA. I dreamt tonight that I did feast with Caesar,\n    And things unluckily charge my fantasy.\n    I have no will to wander forth of doors,\n    Yet something leads me forth.\n\n                        Enter Citizens.\n\n  FIRST CITIZEN. What is your name?\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Whither are you going?\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Where do you dwell?\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. Are you a married man or a bachelor?\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Answer every man directly.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Ay, and briefly.\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. Ay, and wisely.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Ay, and truly, you were best.\n  CINNA. What is my name? Whither am I going? Where do I dwell? Am I\n    a married man or a bachelor? Then, to answer every man directly\n    and briefly, wisely and truly: wisely I say, I am a bachelor.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. That's as much as to say they are fools that marry.\n    You'll bear me a bang for that, I fear. Proceed directly.\n  CINNA. Directly, I am going to Caesar's funeral.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. As a friend or an enemy?\n  CINNA. As a friend.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. That matter is answered directly.\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. For your dwelling, briefly.\n  CINNA. Briefly, I dwell by the Capitol.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Your name, sir, truly.\n  CINNA. Truly, my name is Cinna.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Tear him to pieces, he's a conspirator.\n  CINNA. I am Cinna the poet, I am Cinna the poet.\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. Tear him for his bad verses, tear him for his bad\n    verses.\n  CINNA. I am not Cinna the conspirator.\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. It is no matter, his name's Cinna. Pluck but his\n    name out of his heart, and turn him going.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Tear him, tear him! Come, brands, ho, firebrands. To\n    Brutus', to Cassius'; burn all. Some to Decius' house, and some\n    to Casca's, some to Ligarius'. Away, go!             Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nA house in Rome. Antony, Octavius, and Lepidus, seated at a table.\n\n  ANTONY. These many then shall die, their names are prick'd.\n  OCTAVIUS. Your brother too must die; consent you, Lepidus?\n  LEPIDUS. I do consent-\n  OCTAVIUS. Prick him down, Antony.\n  LEPIDUS. Upon condition Publius shall not live,\n    Who is your sister's son, Mark Antony.\n  ANTONY. He shall not live; look, with a spot I damn him.\n    But, Lepidus, go you to Caesar's house,\n    Fetch the will hither, and we shall determine\n    How to cut off some charge in legacies.\n  LEPIDUS. What, shall I find you here?\n  OCTAVIUS. Or here, or at the Capitol.            Exit Lepidus.\n  ANTONY. This is a slight unmeritable man,\n    Meet to be sent on errands. Is it fit,\n    The three-fold world divided, he should stand\n    One of the three to share it?\n  OCTAVIUS. So you thought him,\n    And took his voice who should be prick'd to die\n    In our black sentence and proscription.\n  ANTONY. Octavius, I have seen more days than you,\n    And though we lay these honors on this man\n    To ease ourselves of divers slanderous loads,\n    He shall but bear them as the ass bears gold,\n    To groan and sweat under the business,\n    Either led or driven, as we point the way;\n    And having brought our treasure where we will,\n    Then take we down his load and turn him off,\n    Like to the empty ass, to shake his ears\n    And graze in commons.\n  OCTAVIUS. You may do your will,\n    But he's a tried and valiant soldier.\n  ANTONY. So is my horse, Octavius, and for that\n    I do appoint him store of provender.\n    It is a creature that I teach to fight,\n    To wind, to stop, to run directly on,\n    His corporal motion govern'd by my spirit.\n    And, in some taste, is Lepidus but so:\n    He must be taught, and train'd, and bid go forth;\n    A barren-spirited fellow, one that feeds\n    On objects, arts, and imitations,\n    Which, out of use and staled by other men,\n    Begin his fashion. Do not talk of him\n    But as a property. And now, Octavius,\n    Listen great things. Brutus and Cassius\n    Are levying powers; we must straight make head;\n    Therefore let our alliance be combined,\n    Our best friends made, our means stretch'd;\n    And let us presently go sit in council,\n    How covert matters may be best disclosed,\n    And open perils surest answered.\n  OCTAVIUS. Let us do so, for we are at the stake,\n    And bay'd about with many enemies;\n    And some that smile have in their hearts, I fear,\n    Millions of mischiefs.                               Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nCamp near Sardis. Before Brutus' tent. Drum.\n\nEnter Brutus, Lucilius, Lucius, and Soldiers; Titinius and Pindarus meet them.\n\n  BRUTUS. Stand, ho!\n  LUCILIUS. Give the word, ho, and stand.\n  BRUTUS. What now, Lucilius, is Cassius near?\n  LUCILIUS. He is at hand, and Pindarus is come\n    To do you salutation from his master.\n  BRUTUS. He greets me well. Your master, Pindarus,\n    In his own change, or by ill officers,\n    Hath given me some worthy cause to wish\n    Things done undone; but if he be at hand,\n    I shall be satisfied.\n  PINDARUS. I do not doubt\n    But that my noble master will appear\n    Such as he is, full of regard and honor.\n  BRUTUS. He is not doubted. A word, Lucilius,\n    How he received you. Let me be resolved.\n  LUCILIUS. With courtesy and with respect enough,\n    But not with such familiar instances,\n    Nor with such free and friendly conference,\n    As he hath used of old.\n  BRUTUS. Thou hast described\n    A hot friend cooling. Ever note, Lucilius,\n    When love begins to sicken and decay\n    It useth an enforced ceremony.\n    There are no tricks in plain and simple faith;\n    But hollow men, like horses hot at hand,\n    Make gallant show and promise of their mettle;\n    But when they should endure the bloody spur,\n    They fall their crests and like deceitful jades\n    Sink in the trial. Comes his army on?\n  LUCILIUS. They meant his night in Sard is to be quarter'd;\n    The greater part, the horse in general,\n    Are come with Cassius.                     Low march within.\n  BRUTUS. Hark, he is arrived.\n    March gently on to meet him.\n\n                  Enter Cassius and his Powers.\n\n  CASSIUS. Stand, ho!\n  BRUTUS. Stand, ho! Speak the word along.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Stand!\n  SECOND SOLDIER. Stand!\n  THIRD SOLDIER. Stand!\n  CASSIUS. Most noble brother, you have done me wrong.\n  BRUTUS. Judge me, you gods! Wrong I mine enemies?\n    And, if not so, how should I wrong a brother?\n  CASSIUS. Brutus, this sober form of yours hides wrongs,\n    And when you do them-\n  BRUTUS. Cassius, be content,\n    Speak your griefs softly, I do know you well.\n    Before the eyes of both our armies here,\n    Which should perceive nothing but love from us,\n    Let us not wrangle. Bid them move away;\n    Then in my tent, Cassius, enlarge your griefs,\n    And I will give you audience.\n  CASSIUS. Pindarus,\n    Bid our commanders lead their charges off\n    A little from this ground.\n  BRUTUS. Lucilius, do you the like, and let no man\n    Come to our tent till we have done our conference.\n    Let Lucius and Titinius guard our door.             Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nBrutus' tent.\n\nEnter Brutus and Cassius.\n\n  CASSIUS. That you have wrong'd me doth appear in this:\n    You have condemn'd and noted Lucius Pella\n    For taking bribes here of the Sardians,\n    Wherein my letters, praying on his side,\n    Because I knew the man, were slighted off.\n  BRUTUS. You wrong'd yourself to write in such a case.\n  CASSIUS. In such a time as this it is not meet\n    That every nice offense should bear his comment.\n  BRUTUS. Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself\n    Are much condemn'd to have an itching palm,\n    To sell and mart your offices for gold\n    To undeservers.\n  CASSIUS. I an itching palm?\n    You know that you are Brutus that speaks this,\n    Or, by the gods, this speech were else your last.\n  BRUTUS. The name of Cassius honors this corruption,\n    And chastisement doth therefore hide his head.\n  CASSIUS. Chastisement?\n  BRUTUS. Remember March, the ides of March remember.\n    Did not great Julius bleed for justice' sake?\n    What villain touch'd his body, that did stab,\n    And not for justice? What, shall one of us,\n    That struck the foremost man of all this world\n    But for supporting robbers, shall we now\n    Contaminate our fingers with base bribes\n    And sell the mighty space of our large honors\n    For so much trash as may be grasped thus?\n    I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon,\n    Than such a Roman.\n  CASSIUS. Brutus, bait not me,\n    I'll not endure it. You forget yourself\n    To hedge me in. I am a soldier, I,\n    Older in practice, abler than yourself\n    To make conditions.\n  BRUTUS. Go to, you are not, Cassius.\n  CASSIUS. I am.\n  BRUTUS. I say you are not.\n  CASSIUS. Urge me no more, I shall forget myself;\n    Have mind upon your health, tempt me no farther.\n  BRUTUS. Away, slight man!\n  CASSIUS. Is't possible?\n  BRUTUS. Hear me, for I will speak.\n    Must I give way and room to your rash choler?\n    Shall I be frighted when a madman stares?\n  CASSIUS. O gods, ye gods! Must I endure all this?\n  BRUTUS. All this? Ay, more. Fret till your proud heart break.\n    Go show your slaves how choleric you are,\n    And make your bondmen tremble. Must I bouge?\n    Must I observe you? Must I stand and crouch\n    Under your testy humor? By the gods,\n    You shall digest the venom of your spleen,\n    Though it do split you, for, from this day forth,\n    I'll use you for my mirth, yea, for my laughter,\n    When you are waspish.\n  CASSIUS. Is it come to this?\n  BRUTUS. You say you are a better soldier:\n    Let it appear so, make your vaunting true,\n    And it shall please me well. For mine own part,\n    I shall be glad to learn of noble men.\n  CASSIUS. You wrong me every way, you wrong me, Brutus.\n    I said, an elder soldier, not a better.\n    Did I say \"better\"?\n  BRUTUS. If you did, I care not.\n  CASSIUS. When Caesar lived, he durst not thus have moved me.\n  BRUTUS. Peace, peace! You durst not so have tempted him.\n  CASSIUS. I durst not?\n  BRUTUS. No.\n  CASSIUS. What, durst not tempt him?\n  BRUTUS. For your life you durst not.\n  CASSIUS. Do not presume too much upon my love;\n    I may do that I shall be sorry for.\n  BRUTUS. You have done that you should be sorry for.\n    There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats,\n    For I am arm'd so strong in honesty,\n    That they pass by me as the idle wind\n    Which I respect not. I did send to you\n    For certain sums of gold, which you denied me,\n    For I can raise no money by vile means.\n    By heaven, I had rather coin my heart\n    And drop my blood for drachmas than to wring\n    From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash\n    By any indirection. I did send\n    To you for gold to pay my legions,\n    Which you denied me. Was that done like Cassius?\n    Should I have answer'd Caius Cassius so?\n    When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous\n    To lock such rascal counters from his friends,\n    Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts,\n    Dash him to pieces!\n  CASSIUS. I denied you not.\n  BRUTUS. You did.\n  CASSIUS. I did not. He was but a fool\n    That brought my answer back. Brutus hath rived my heart.\n    A friend should bear his friend's infirmities,\n    But Brutus makes mine greater than they are.\n  BRUTUS. I do not, till you practise them on me.\n  CASSIUS. You love me not.\n  BRUTUS. I do not like your faults.\n  CASSIUS. A friendly eye could never see such faults.\n  BRUTUS. A flatterer's would not, though they do appear\n    As huge as high Olympus.\n  CASSIUS. Come, Antony, and young Octavius, come,\n    Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius,\n    For Cassius is aweary of the world:\n    Hated by one he loves; braved by his brother;\n    Check'd like a bondman; all his faults observed,\n    Set in a notebook, learn'd and conn'd by rote,\n    To cast into my teeth. O, I could weep\n    My spirit from mine eyes! There is my dagger,\n    And here my naked breast; within, a heart\n    Dearer than Pluto's mine, richer than gold.\n    If that thou best a Roman, take it forth;\n    I, that denied thee gold, will give my heart.\n    Strike, as thou didst at Caesar, for I know,\n    When thou didst hate him worst, thou lovedst him better\n    Than ever thou lovedst Cassius.\n  BRUTUS. Sheathe your dagger.\n    Be angry when you will, it shall have scope;\n    Do what you will, dishonor shall be humor.\n    O Cassius, you are yoked with a lamb,\n    That carries anger as the flint bears fire,\n    Who, much enforced, shows a hasty spark\n    And straight is cold again.\n  CASSIUS. Hath Cassius lived\n    To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus,\n    When grief and blood ill-temper'd vexeth him?\n  BRUTUS. When I spoke that, I was ill-temper'd too.\n  CASSIUS. Do you confess so much? Give me your hand.\n  BRUTUS. And my heart too.\n  CASSIUS. O Brutus!\n  BRUTUS. What's the matter?\n  CASSIUS. Have not you love enough to bear with me\n    When that rash humor which my mother gave me\n    Makes me forgetful?\n  BRUTUS. Yes, Cassius, and from henceforth,\n    When you are overearnest with your Brutus,\n    He'll think your mother chides, and leave you so.\n  POET. [Within.] Let me go in to see the generals.\n    There is some grudge between 'em, 'tis not meet\n    They be alone.\n  LUCILIUS. [Within.] You shall not come to them.\n  POET. [Within.] Nothing but death shall stay me.\n\n      Enter Poet, followed by Lucilius, Titinius, and Lucius.\n\n  CASSIUS. How now, what's the matter?\n  POET. For shame, you generals! What do you mean?\n    Love, and be friends, as two such men should be;\n    For I have seen more years, I'm sure, than ye.\n  CASSIUS. Ha, ha! How vilely doth this cynic rhyme!\n  BRUTUS. Get you hence, sirrah; saucy fellow, hence!\n  CASSIUS. Bear with him, Brutus; 'tis his fashion.\n  BRUTUS. I'll know his humor when he knows his time.\n    What should the wars do with these jigging fools?\n    Companion, hence!\n  CASSIUS. Away, away, be gone!                       Exit Poet.\n  BRUTUS. Lucilius and Titinius, bid the commanders\n    Prepare to lodge their companies tonight.\n  CASSIUS. And come yourselves and bring Messala with you\n    Immediately to us.             Exeunt Lucilius and Titinius.\n  BRUTUS. Lucius, a bowl of wine!                   Exit Lucius.\n  CASSIUS. I did not think you could have been so angry.\n  BRUTUS. O Cassius, I am sick of many griefs.\n  CASSIUS. Of your philosophy you make no use,\n    If you give place to accidental evils.\n  BRUTUS. No man bears sorrow better. Portia is dead.\n  CASSIUS. Ha? Portia?\n  BRUTUS. She is dead.\n  CASSIUS. How 'scaped killing when I cross'd you so?\n    O insupportable and touching loss!\n    Upon what sickness?\n  BRUTUS. Impatient of my absence,\n    And grief that young Octavius with Mark Antony\n    Have made themselves so strong- for with her death\n    That tidings came- with this she fell distract,\n    And (her attendants absent) swallow'd fire.\n  CASSIUS. And died so?\n  BRUTUS. Even so.\n  CASSIUS. O ye immortal gods!\n\n               Re-enter Lucius, with wine and taper.\n\n  BRUTUS. Speak no more of her. Give me a bowl of wine.\n    In this I bury all unkindness, Cassius.              Drinks.\n  CASSIUS. My heart is thirsty for that noble pledge.\n  Fill, Lucius, till the wine o'erswell the cup;\n  I cannot drink too much of Brutus' love.               Drinks.\n  BRUTUS. Come in, Titinius!                        Exit Lucius.\n\n                 Re-enter Titinius, with Messala.\n\n    Welcome, good Messala.\n    Now sit we close about this taper here,\n    And call in question our necessities.\n  CASSIUS. Portia, art thou gone?\n  BRUTUS. No more, I pray you.\n    Messala, I have here received letters\n    That young Octavius and Mark Antony\n    Come down upon us with a mighty power,\n    Bending their expedition toward Philippi.\n  MESSALA. Myself have letters of the selfsame tenure.\n  BRUTUS. With what addition?\n  MESSALA. That by proscription and bills of outlawry\n    Octavius, Antony, and Lepidus\n    Have put to death an hundred senators.\n  BRUTUS. There in our letters do not well agree;\n    Mine speak of seventy senators that died\n    By their proscriptions, Cicero being one.\n  CASSIUS. Cicero one!\n  MESSALA. Cicero is dead,\n    And by that order of proscription.\n    Had you your letters from your wife, my lord?\n  BRUTUS. No, Messala.\n  MESSALA. Nor nothing in your letters writ of her?\n  BRUTUS. Nothing, Messala.\n  MESSALA. That, methinks, is strange.\n  BRUTUS. Why ask you? Hear you aught of her in yours?\n  MESSALA. No, my lord.\n  BRUTUS. Now, as you are a Roman, tell me true.\n  MESSALA. Then like a Roman bear the truth I tell:\n    For certain she is dead, and by strange manner.\n  BRUTUS. Why, farewell, Portia. We must die, Messala.\n    With meditating that she must die once\n    I have the patience to endure it now.\n  MESSALA. Even so great men great losses should endure.\n  CASSIUS. I have as much of this in art as you,\n    But yet my nature could not bear it so.\n  BRUTUS. Well, to our work alive. What do you think\n    Of marching to Philippi presently?\n  CASSIUS. I do not think it good.\n  BRUTUS. Your reason?\n  CASSIUS. This it is:\n    'Tis better that the enemy seek us;\n    So shall he waste his means, weary his soldiers,\n    Doing himself offense, whilst we lying still\n    Are full of rest, defense, and nimbleness.\n  BRUTUS. Good reasons must of force give place to better.\n    The people 'twixt Philippi and this ground\n    Do stand but in a forced affection,\n    For they have grudged us contribution.\n    The enemy, marching along by them,\n    By them shall make a fuller number up,\n    Come on refresh'd, new-added, and encouraged;\n    From which advantage shall we cut him off\n    If at Philippi we do face him there,\n    These people at our back.\n  CASSIUS. Hear me, good brother.\n  BRUTUS. Under your pardon. You must note beside\n    That we have tried the utmost of our friends,\n    Our legions are brim-full, our cause is ripe:\n    The enemy increaseth every day;\n    We, at the height, are ready to decline.\n    There is a tide in the affairs of men\n    Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune;\n    Omitted, all the voyage of their life\n    Is bound in shallows and in miseries.\n    On such a full sea are we now afloat,\n    And we must take the current when it serves,\n    Or lose our ventures.\n  CASSIUS. Then, with your will, go on;\n    We'll along ourselves and meet them at Philippi.\n  BRUTUS. The deep of night is crept upon our talk,\n    And nature must obey necessity,\n    Which we will niggard with a little rest.\n    There is no more to say?\n  CASSIUS. No more. Good night.\n    Early tomorrow will we rise and hence.\n  BRUTUS. Lucius!\n\n                       Re-enter Lucius.\n\n    My gown.                                        Exit Lucius.\n    Farewell, good Messala;\n    Good night, Titinius; noble, noble Cassius,\n    Good night and good repose.\n  CASSIUS. O my dear brother!\n    This was an ill beginning of the night.\n    Never come such division 'tween our souls!\n    Let it not, Brutus.\n  BRUTUS. Everything is well.\n  CASSIUS. Good night, my lord.\n  BRUTUS. Good night, good brother.\n  TITINIUS. MESSALA. Good night, Lord Brutus.\n  BRUTUS. Farewell, everyone.\n                                          Exeunt all but Brutus.\n\n               Re-enter Lucius, with the gown.\n\n    Give me the gown. Where is thy instrument?\n  LUCIUS. Here in the tent.\n  BRUTUS. What, thou speak'st drowsily?\n    Poor knave, I blame thee not, thou art o'erwatch'd.\n    Call Claudio and some other of my men,\n    I'll have them sleep on cushions in my tent.\n  LUCIUS. Varro and Claudio!\n\n                   Enter Varro and Claudio.\n\n  VARRO. Calls my lord?\n  BRUTUS. I pray you, sirs, lie in my tent and sleep;\n    It may be I shall raise you by and by\n    On business to my brother Cassius.\n  VARRO. So please you, we will stand and watch your pleasure.\n  BRUTUS. I would not have it so. Lie down, good sirs.\n    It may be I shall otherwise bethink me.\n    Look Lucius, here's the book I sought for so;\n    I put it in the pocket of my gown.\n                                     Varro and Claudio lie down.\n  LUCIUS. I was sure your lordship did not give it me.\n  BRUTUS. Bear with me, good boy, I am much forgetful.\n    Canst thou hold up thy heavy eyes awhile,\n    And touch thy instrument a strain or two?\n  LUCIUS. Ay, my lord, an't please you.\n  BRUTUS. It does, my boy.\n    I trouble thee too much, but thou art willing.\n  LUCIUS. It is my duty, sir.\n  BRUTUS. I should not urge thy duty past thy might;\n    I know young bloods look for a time of rest.\n  LUCIUS. I have slept, my lord, already.\n  BRUTUS. It was well done, and thou shalt sleep again;\n    I will not hold thee long. If I do live,\n    I will be good to thee.                   Music, and a song.\n    This is a sleepy tune. O murtherous slumber,\n    Layest thou thy leaden mace upon my boy\n    That plays thee music? Gentle knave, good night.\n    I will not do thee so much wrong to wake thee.\n    If thou dost nod, thou break'st thy instrument;\n    I'll take it from thee; and, good boy, good night.\n    Let me see, let me see; is not the leaf turn'd down\n    Where I left reading? Here it is, I think.        Sits down.\n\n                 Enter the Ghost of Caesar.\n\n    How ill this taper burns! Ha, who comes here?\n    I think it is the weakness of mine eyes\n    That shapes this monstrous apparition.\n    It comes upon me. Art thou anything?\n    Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil\n    That makest my blood cold and my hair to stare?\n    Speak to me what thou art.\n  GHOST. Thy evil spirit, Brutus.\n  BRUTUS. Why comest thou?\n  GHOST. To tell thee thou shalt see me at Philippi.\n  BRUTUS. Well, then I shall see thee again?\n  GHOST. Ay, at Philippi.\n  BRUTUS. Why, I will see thee at Philippi then.     Exit Ghost.\n    Now I have taken heart thou vanishest.\n    Ill spirit, I would hold more talk with thee.\n    Boy! Lucius! Varro! Claudio! Sirs, awake!\n    Claudio!\n  LUCIUS. The strings, my lord, are false.\n  BRUTUS. He thinks he still is at his instrument.\n    Lucius, awake!\n  LUCIUS. My lord?\n  BRUTUS. Didst thou dream, Lucius, that thou so criedst out?\n  LUCIUS. My lord, I do not know that I did cry.\n  BRUTUS. Yes, that thou didst. Didst thou see anything?\n  LUCIUS. Nothing, my lord.\n  BRUTUS. Sleep again, Lucius. Sirrah Claudio!\n    [To Varro.] Fellow thou, awake!\n  VARRO. My lord?\n  CLAUDIO. My lord?\n  BRUTUS. Why did you so cry out, sirs, in your sleep?\n  VARRO. CLAUDIO. Did we, my lord?\n  BRUTUS. Ay, saw you anything?\n  VARRO. No, my lord, I saw nothing.\n  CLAUDIO. Nor I, my lord.\n  BRUTUS. Go and commend me to my brother Cassius;\n    Bid him set on his powers betimes before,\n    And we will follow.\n  VARRO. CLAUDIO. It shall be done, my lord.             Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nThe plains of Philippi.\n\nEnter Octavius, Antony, and their Army.\n\n  OCTAVIUS. Now, Antony, our hopes are answered.\n    You said the enemy would not come down,\n    But keep the hills and upper regions.\n    It proves not so. Their battles are at hand;\n    They mean to warn us at Philippi here,\n    Answering before we do demand of them.\n  ANTONY. Tut, I am in their bosoms, and I know\n    Wherefore they do it. They could be content\n    To visit other places, and come down\n    With fearful bravery, thinking by this face\n    To fasten in our thoughts that they have courage;\n    But 'tis not so.\n\n                    Enter a Messenger.\n\n  MESSENGER. Prepare you, generals.\n    The enemy comes on in gallant show;\n    Their bloody sign of battle is hung out,\n    And something to be done immediately.\n  ANTONY. Octavius, lead your battle softly on,\n    Upon the left hand of the even field.\n  OCTAVIUS. Upon the right hand I, keep thou the left.\n  ANTONY. Why do you cross me in this exigent?\n  OCTAVIUS. I do not cross you, but I will do so.\n\n      March. Drum. Enter Brutus, Cassius, and their Army;\n           Lucilius, Titinius, Messala, and others.\n\n  BRUTUS. They stand, and would have parley.\n  CASSIUS. Stand fast, Titinius; we must out and talk.\n  OCTAVIUS. Mark Antony, shall we give sign of battle?\n  ANTONY. No, Caesar, we will answer on their charge.\n    Make forth, the generals would have some words.\n  OCTAVIUS. Stir not until the signal not until the signal.\n  BRUTUS. Words before blows. Is it so, countrymen?\n  OCTAVIUS. Not that we love words better, as you do.\n  BRUTUS. Good words are better than bad strokes, Octavius.\n  ANTONY. In your bad strokes, Brutus, you give good words.\n    Witness the hole you made in Caesar's heart,\n    Crying \"Long live! Hail, Caesar!\"\n  CASSIUS. Antony,\n    The posture of your blows are yet unknown;\n    But for your words, they rob the Hybla bees,\n    And leave them honeyless.\n  ANTONY. Not stingless too.\n  BRUTUS. O, yes, and soundless too,\n    For you have stol'n their buzzing, Antony,\n    And very wisely threat before you sting.\n  ANTONY. Villains! You did not so when your vile daggers\n    Hack'd one another in the sides of Caesar.\n    You show'd your teeth like apes, and fawn'd like hounds,\n    And bow'd like bondmen, kissing Caesar's feet;\n    Whilst damned Casca, like a cur, behind\n    Strooke Caesar on the neck. O you flatterers!\n  CASSIUS. Flatterers? Now, Brutus, thank yourself.\n    This tongue had not offended so today,\n    If Cassius might have ruled.\n  OCTAVIUS. Come, come, the cause. If arguing make us sweat,\n    The proof of it will turn to redder drops.\n    Look,\n    I draw a sword against conspirators;\n    When think you that the sword goes up again?\n    Never, till Caesar's three and thirty wounds\n    Be well avenged, or till another Caesar\n    Have added slaughter to the sword of traitors.\n  BRUTUS. Caesar, thou canst not die by traitors' hands,\n    Unless thou bring'st them with thee.\n  OCTAVIUS. So I hope,\n    I was not born to die on Brutus' sword.\n  BRUTUS. O, if thou wert the noblest of thy strain,\n    Young man, thou couldst not die more honorable.\n  CASSIUS. A peevish school boy, worthless of such honor,\n    Join'd with a masker and a reveler!\n  ANTONY. Old Cassius still!\n  OCTAVIUS. Come, Antony, away!\n    Defiance, traitors, hurl we in your teeth.\n    If you dare fight today, come to the field;\n    If not, when you have stomachs.\n                        Exeunt Octavius, Antony, and their Army.\n  CASSIUS. Why, now, blow and, swell billow, and swim bark!\n    The storm is up, and all is on the hazard.\n  BRUTUS. Ho, Lucilius! Hark, a word with you.\n  LUCILIUS. [Stands forth.] My lord?\n                             Brutus and Lucilius converse apart.\n  CASSIUS. Messala!\n  MESSALA. [Stands forth.] What says my general?\n  CASSIUS. Messala,\n    This is my birthday, as this very day\n    Was Cassius born. Give me thy hand, Messala.\n    Be thou my witness that, against my will,\n    As Pompey was, am I compell'd to set\n    Upon one battle all our liberties.\n    You know that I held Epicurus strong,\n    And his opinion. Now I change my mind,\n    And partly credit things that do presage.\n    Coming from Sardis, on our former ensign\n    Two mighty eagles fell, and there they perch'd,\n    Gorging and feeding from our soldiers' hands,\n    Who to Philippi here consorted us.\n    This morning are they fled away and gone,\n    And in their steads do ravens, crows, and kites\n    Fly o'er our heads and downward look on us,\n    As we were sickly prey. Their shadows seem\n    A canopy most fatal, under which\n    Our army lies, ready to give up the ghost.\n  MESSALA. Believe not so.\n  CASSIUS. I but believe it partly,\n    For I am fresh of spirit and resolved\n    To meet all perils very constantly.\n  BRUTUS. Even so, Lucilius.\n  CASSIUS. Now, most noble Brutus,\n    The gods today stand friendly that we may,\n    Lovers in peace, lead on our days to age!\n    But, since the affairs of men rest still incertain,\n    Let's reason with the worst that may befall.\n    If we do lose this battle, then is this\n    The very last time we shall speak together.\n    What are you then determined to do?\n  BRUTUS. Even by the rule of that philosophy\n    By which I did blame Cato for the death\n    Which he did give himself- I know not how,\n    But I do find it cowardly and vile,\n    For fear of what might fall, so to prevent\n    The time of life- arming myself with patience\n    To stay the providence of some high powers\n    That govern us below.\n  CASSIUS. Then, if we lose this battle,\n    You are contented to be led in triumph\n    Thorough the streets of Rome?\n  BRUTUS. No, Cassius, no. Think not, thou noble Roman,\n    That ever Brutus will go bound to Rome;\n    He bears too great a mind. But this same day\n    Must end that work the ides of March begun.\n    And whether we shall meet again I know not.\n    Therefore our everlasting farewell take.\n    Forever, and forever, farewell, Cassius!\n    If we do meet again, why, we shall smile;\n    If not, why then this parting was well made.\n  CASSIUS. Forever and forever farewell, Brutus!\n    If we do meet again, we'll smile indeed;\n    If not, 'tis true this parting was well made.\n  BRUTUS. Why then, lead on. O, that a man might know\n    The end of this day's business ere it come!\n    But it sufficeth that the day will end,\n    And then the end is known. Come, ho! Away!           Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe field of battle.\n\nAlarum. Enter Brutus and Messala.\n\n  BRUTUS. Ride, ride, Messala, ride, and give these bills\n    Unto the legions on the other side.             Loud alarum.\n    Let them set on at once, for I perceive\n    But cold demeanor in Octavia's wing,\n    And sudden push gives them the overthrow.\n    Ride, ride, Messala. Let them all come down.         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nAnother part of the field.\n\nAlarums. Enter Cassius and Titinius.\n\n  CASSIUS. O, look, Titinius, look, the villains fly!\n    Myself have to mine own turn'd enemy.\n    This ensign here of mine was turning back;\n    I slew the coward, and did take it from him.\n  TITINIUS. O Cassius, Brutus gave the word too early,\n    Who, having some advantage on Octavius,\n    Took it too eagerly. His soldiers fell to spoil,\n    Whilst we by Antony are all enclosed.\n\n                       Enter Pindarus.\n\n  PINDARUS. Fly further off, my lord, fly further off;\n    Mark Antony is in your tents, my lord;\n    Fly, therefore, noble Cassius, fly far off.\n  CASSIUS. This hill is far enough. Look, look, Titinius:\n    Are those my tents where I perceive the fire?\n  TITINIUS. They are, my lord.\n  CASSIUS. Titinius, if thou lovest me,\n    Mount thou my horse and hide thy spurs in him,\n    Till he have brought thee up to yonder troops\n    And here again, that I may rest assured\n    Whether yond troops are friend or enemy.\n  TITINIUS. I will be here again, even with a thought.     Exit.\n  CASSIUS. Go, Pindarus, get higher on that hill;\n    My sight was ever thick; regard Titinius,\n    And tell me what thou notest about the field.\n                                      Pindarus ascends the hill.\n    This day I breathed first: time is come round,\n    And where I did begin, there shall I end;\n    My life is run his compass. Sirrah, what news?\n  PINDARUS. [Above.] O my lord!\n  CASSIUS. What news?\n  PINDARUS. [Above.] Titinius is enclosed round about\n    With horsemen, that make to him on the spur;\n    Yet he spurs on. Now they are almost on him.\n    Now, Titinius! Now some light. O, he lights too.\n    He's ta'en [Shout.] And, hark! They shout for joy.\n  CASSIUS. Come down; behold no more.\n    O, coward that I am, to live so long,\n    To see my best friend ta'en before my face!\n                                              Pindarus descends.\n    Come hither, sirrah.\n    In Parthia did I take thee prisoner,\n    And then I swore thee, saving of thy life,\n    That whatsoever I did bid thee do,\n    Thou shouldst attempt it. Come now, keep thine oath;\n    Now be a freeman, and with this good sword,\n    That ran through Caesar's bowels, search this bosom.\n    Stand not to answer: here, take thou the hilts;\n    And when my face is cover'd, as 'tis now,\n    Guide thou the sword. [Pindarus stabs him.] Caesar, thou art\n      revenged,\n    Even with the sword that kill'd thee.                  Dies.\n  PINDARUS. So, I am free, yet would not so have been,\n    Durst I have done my will. O Cassius!\n    Far from this country Pindarus shall run,\n    Where never Roman shall take note of him.              Exit.\n\n                Re-enter Titinius with Messala.\n\n  MESSALA. It is but change, Titinius, for Octavius\n    Is overthrown by noble Brutus' power,\n    As Cassius' legions are by Antony.\n  TITINIUS. These tidings would well comfort Cassius.\n  MESSALA. Where did you leave him?\n  TITINIUS. All disconsolate,\n    With Pindarus his bondman, on this hill.\n  MESSALA. Is not that he that lies upon the ground?\n  TITINIUS. He lies not like the living. O my heart!\n  MESSALA. Is not that he?\n  TITINIUS. No, this was he, Messala,\n    But Cassius is no more. O setting sun,\n    As in thy red rays thou dost sink to night,\n    So in his red blood Cassius' day is set,\n    The sun of Rome is set! Our day is gone;\n    Clouds, dews, and dangers come; our deeds are done!\n    Mistrust of my success hath done this deed.\n  MESSALA. Mistrust of good success hath done this deed.\n    O hateful error, melancholy's child,\n    Why dost thou show to the apt thoughts of men\n    The things that are not? O error, soon conceived,\n    Thou never comest unto a happy birth,\n    But kill'st the mother that engender'd thee!\n  TITINIUS. What, Pindarus! Where art thou, Pindarus?\n  MESSALA. Seek him, Titinius, whilst I go to meet\n    The noble Brutus, thrusting this report\n    Into his ears. I may say \"thrusting\" it,\n    For piercing steel and darts envenomed\n    Shall be as welcome to the ears of Brutus\n    As tidings of this sight.\n  TITINIUS. Hie you, Messala,\n    And I will seek for Pindarus the while.        Exit Messala.\n    Why didst thou send me forth, brave Cassius?\n    Did I not meet thy friends? And did not they\n    Put on my brows this wreath of victory,\n    And bid me give it thee? Didst thou not hear their shouts?\n    Alas, thou hast misconstrued everything!\n    But, hold thee, take this garland on thy brow;\n    Thy Brutus bid me give it thee, and I\n    Will do his bidding. Brutus, come apace,\n    And see how I regarded Caius Cassius.\n    By your leave, gods, this is a Roman's part.\n    Come, Cassius' sword, and find Titinius' heart.\n                                                  Kills himself.\n\n       Alarum. Re-enter Messala, with Brutus, young Cato,\n                         and others.\n\n  BRUTUS. Where, where, Messala, doth his body lie?\n  MESSALA. Lo, yonder, and Titinius mourning it.\n  BRUTUS. Titinius' face is upward.\n  CATO. He is slain.\n  BRUTUS. O Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet!\n    Thy spirit walks abroad, and turns our swords\n    In our own proper entrails.                     Low alarums.\n  CATO. Brave Titinius!\n    Look whe'er he have not crown'd dead Cassius!\n  BRUTUS. Are yet two Romans living such as these?\n    The last of all the Romans, fare thee well!\n    It is impossible that ever Rome\n    Should breed thy fellow. Friends, I owe moe tears\n    To this dead man than you shall see me pay.\n    I shall find time, Cassius, I shall find time.\n    Come therefore, and to Thasos send his body;\n    His funerals shall not be in our camp,\n    Lest it discomfort us. Lucilius, come,\n    And come, young Cato; let us to the field.\n    Labio and Flavio, set our battles on.\n    'Tis three o'clock, and Romans, yet ere night\n    We shall try fortune in a second fight.              Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nAnother part of the field.\n\nAlarum. Enter, fighting, Soldiers of both armies; then Brutus, young Cato,\nLucilius, and others.\n\n  BRUTUS. Yet, countrymen, O, yet hold up your heads!\n  CATO. What bastard doth not? Who will go with me?\n    I will proclaim my name about the field.\n    I am the son of Marcus Cato, ho!\n    A foe to tyrants, and my country's friend.\n    I am the son of Marcus Cato, ho!\n  BRUTUS. And I am Brutus, Marcus Brutus, I;\n    Brutus, my country's friend; know me for Brutus!       Exit.\n  LUCILIUS. O young and noble Cato, art thou down?\n    Why, now thou diest as bravely as Titinius,\n    And mayst be honor'd, being Cato's son.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Yield, or thou diest.\n  LUCILIUS. Only I yield to die.\n    [Offers money.] There is so much that thou wilt kill me straight:\n    Kill Brutus, and be honor'd in his death.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. We must not. A noble prisoner!\n  SECOND SOLDIER. Room, ho! Tell Antony, Brutus is ta'en.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. I'll tell the news. Here comes the general.\n\n                         Enter Antony.\n\n    Brutus is ta'en, Brutus is ta'en, my lord.\n  ANTONY. Where is he?\n  LUCILIUS. Safe, Antony, Brutus is safe enough.\n    I dare assure thee that no enemy\n    Shall ever take alive the noble Brutus;\n    The gods defend him from so great a shame!\n    When you do find him, or alive or dead,\n    He will be found like Brutus, like himself.\n  ANTONY. This is not Brutus, friend, but, I assure you,\n    A prize no less in worth. Keep this man safe,\n    Give him all kindness; I had rather have\n    Such men my friends than enemies. Go on,\n    And see wheer Brutus be alive or dead,\n    And bring us word unto Octavius' tent\n    How everything is chanced.                           Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nAnother part of the field.\n\nEnter Brutus, Dardanius, Clitus, Strato, and Volumnius.\n\n  BRUTUS. Come, poor remains of friends, rest on this rock.\n  CLITUS. Statilius show'd the torchlight, but, my lord,\n    He came not back. He is or ta'en or slain.\n  BRUTUS. Sit thee down, Clitus. Slaying is the word:\n    It is a deed in fashion. Hark thee, Clitus.        Whispers.\n  CLITUS. What, I, my lord? No, not for all the world.\n  BRUTUS. Peace then, no words.\n  CLITUS. I'll rather kill myself.\n  BRUTUS. Hark thee, Dardanius.                        Whispers.\n  DARDANIUS. Shall I do such a deed?\n  CLITUS. O Dardanius!\n  DARDANIUS. O Clitus!\n  CLITUS. What ill request did Brutus make to thee?\n  DARDANIUS. To kill him, Clitus. Look, he meditates.\n  CLITUS. Now is that noble vessel full of grief,\n    That it runs over even at his eyes.\n  BRUTUS. Come hither, good Volumnius, list a word.\n  VOLUMNIUS. What says my lord?\n  BRUTUS. Why, this, Volumnius:\n    The ghost of Caesar hath appear'd to me\n    Two several times by night; at Sardis once,\n    And this last night here in Philippi fields.\n    I know my hour is come.\n  VOLUMNIUS. Not so, my lord.\n  BRUTUS. Nay I am sure it is, Volumnius.\n    Thou seest the world, Volumnius, how it goes;\n    Our enemies have beat us to the pit;            Low alarums.\n    It is more worthy to leap in ourselves\n    Than tarry till they push us. Good Volumnius,\n    Thou know'st that we two went to school together;\n    Even for that our love of old, I prithee,\n    Hold thou my sword-hilts, whilst I run on it.\n  VOLUMNIUS. That's not an office for a friend, my lord.\n                                                   Alarum still.\n  CLITUS. Fly, fly, my lord, there is no tarrying here.\n  BRUTUS. Farewell to you, and you, and you, Volumnius.\n    Strato, thou hast been all this while asleep;\n    Farewell to thee too, Strato. Countrymen,\n    My heart doth joy that yet in all my life\n    I found no man but he was true to me.\n    I shall have glory by this losing day,\n    More than Octavius and Mark Antony\n    By this vile conquest shall attain unto.\n    So, fare you well at once, for Brutus' tongue\n    Hath almost ended his life's history.\n    Night hangs upon mine eyes, my bones would rest\n    That have but labor'd to attain this hour.\n                            Alarum. Cry within, \"Fly, fly, fly!\"\n  CLITUS. Fly, my lord, fly.\n  BRUTUS. Hence! I will follow.\n                        Exeunt Clitus, Dardanius, and Volumnius.\n    I prithee, Strato, stay thou by thy lord.\n    Thou art a fellow of a good respect;\n    Thy life hath had some smatch of honor in it.\n    Hold then my sword, and turn away thy face,\n    While I do run upon it. Wilt thou, Strato?\n  STRATO. Give me your hand first. Fare you well, my lord.\n  BRUTUS. Farewell, good Strato.              Runs on his sword.\n    Caesar, now be still;\n    I kill'd not thee with half so good a will.            Dies.\n\n     Alarum. Retreat. Enter Octavius, Antony, Messala,\n                 Lucilius, and the Army.\n\n  OCTAVIUS. What man is that?\n  MESSALA. My master's man. Strato, where is thy master?\n  STRATO. Free from the bondage you are in, Messala:\n    The conquerors can but make a fire of him;\n    For Brutus only overcame himself,\n    And no man else hath honor by his death.\n  LUCILIUS. So Brutus should be found. I thank thee, Brutus,\n    That thou hast proved Lucilius' saying true.\n  OCTAVIUS. All that served Brutus, I will entertain them.\n    Fellow, wilt thou bestow thy time with me?\n  STRATO. Ay, if Messala will prefer me to you.\n  OCTAVIUS. Do so, good Messala.\n  MESSALA. How died my master, Strato?\n  STRATO. I held the sword, and he did run on it.\n  MESSALA. Octavius, then take him to follow thee\n    That did the latest service to my master.\n  ANTONY. This was the noblest Roman of them all.\n    All the conspirators, save only he,\n    Did that they did in envy of great Caesar;\n    He only, in a general honest thought\n    And common good to all, made one of them.\n    His life was gentle, and the elements\n    So mix'd in him that Nature might stand up\n    And say to all the world, \"This was a man!\"\n  OCTAVIUS. According to his virtue let us use him\n    With all respect and rites of burial.\n    Within my tent his bones tonight shall lie,\n    Most like a soldier, ordered honorably.\n    So call the field to rest, and let's away,\n    To part the glories of this happy day.              Exeunt.\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1606\n\n\nTHE TRAGEDY OF KING LEAR\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n      Lear, King of Britain.\n      King of France.\n      Duke of Burgundy.\n      Duke of Cornwall.\n      Duke of Albany.\n      Earl of Kent.\n      Earl of Gloucester.\n      Edgar, son of Gloucester.\n      Edmund, bastard son to Gloucester.\n      Curan, a courtier.\n      Old Man, tenant to Gloucester.\n      Doctor.\n      Lear's Fool.\n      Oswald, steward to Goneril.\n      A Captain under Edmund's command.\n      Gentlemen.\n      A Herald.\n      Servants to Cornwall.\n\n      Goneril, daughter to Lear.\n      Regan, daughter to Lear.\n      Cordelia, daughter to Lear.\n\n      Knights attending on Lear, Officers, Messengers, Soldiers,\n        Attendants.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nScene: - Britain.\n\n\nACT I. Scene I.\n[King Lear's Palace.]\n\nEnter Kent, Gloucester, and Edmund. [Kent and Glouceste converse.\nEdmund stands back.]\n\n  Kent. I thought the King had more affected the Duke of Albany than\n     Cornwall.\n  Glou. It did always seem so to us; but now, in the division of the\n     kingdom, it appears not which of the Dukes he values most, for\n     equalities are so weigh'd that curiosity in neither can make\n     choice of either's moiety.\n  Kent. Is not this your son, my lord?\n  Glou. His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge. I have so often\n     blush'd to acknowledge him that now I am braz'd to't.\n  Kent. I cannot conceive you.\n  Glou. Sir, this young fellow's mother could; whereupon she grew\n     round-womb'd, and had indeed, sir, a son for her cradle ere she\n     had a husband for her bed. Do you smell a fault?\n  Kent. I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it being so\n     proper.\n  Glou. But I have, sir, a son by order of law, some year elder than\n     this, who yet is no dearer in my account. Though this knave came\n     something saucily into the world before he was sent for, yet was\n     his mother fair, there was good sport at his making, and the\n     whoreson must be acknowledged.- Do you know this noble gentleman,\n     Edmund?\n  Edm. [comes forward] No, my lord.\n  Glou. My Lord of Kent. Remember him hereafter as my honourable\n     friend.\n  Edm. My services to your lordship.\n  Kent. I must love you, and sue to know you better.\n  Edm. Sir, I shall study deserving.\n  Glou. He hath been out nine years, and away he shall again.\n                                                 Sound a sennet.\n     The King is coming.\n\n      Enter one bearing a coronet; then Lear; then the Dukes of\n      Albany and Cornwall; next, Goneril, Regan, Cordelia, with\n                              Followers.\n\n  Lear. Attend the lords of France and Burgundy, Gloucester.\n  Glou. I shall, my liege.\n                                 Exeunt [Gloucester and Edmund].\n  Lear. Meantime we shall express our darker purpose.\n     Give me the map there. Know we have divided\n     In three our kingdom; and 'tis our fast intent\n     To shake all cares and business from our age,\n     Conferring them on younger strengths while we\n     Unburthen'd crawl toward death. Our son of Cornwall,\n     And you, our no less loving son of Albany,\n     We have this hour a constant will to publish\n     Our daughters' several dowers, that future strife\n     May be prevented now. The princes, France and Burgundy,\n     Great rivals in our youngest daughter's love,\n     Long in our court have made their amorous sojourn,\n     And here are to be answer'd. Tell me, my daughters\n     (Since now we will divest us both of rule,\n     Interest of territory, cares of state),\n     Which of you shall we say doth love us most?\n     That we our largest bounty may extend\n     Where nature doth with merit challenge. Goneril,\n     Our eldest-born, speak first.\n  Gon. Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter;\n     Dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty;\n     Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare;\n     No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour;\n     As much as child e'er lov'd, or father found;\n     A love that makes breath poor, and speech unable.\n     Beyond all manner of so much I love you.\n  Cor. [aside] What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent.\n  Lear. Of all these bounds, even from this line to this,\n     With shadowy forests and with champains rich'd,\n     With plenteous rivers and wide-skirted meads,\n     We make thee lady. To thine and Albany's issue\n     Be this perpetual.- What says our second daughter,\n     Our dearest Regan, wife to Cornwall? Speak.\n  Reg. Sir, I am made\n     Of the selfsame metal that my sister is,\n     And prize me at her worth. In my true heart\n     I find she names my very deed of love;\n     Only she comes too short, that I profess\n     Myself an enemy to all other joys\n     Which the most precious square of sense possesses,\n     And find I am alone felicitate\n     In your dear Highness' love.\n  Cor. [aside] Then poor Cordelia!\n     And yet not so; since I am sure my love's\n     More richer than my tongue.\n  Lear. To thee and thine hereditary ever\n     Remain this ample third of our fair kingdom,\n     No less in space, validity, and pleasure\n     Than that conferr'd on Goneril.- Now, our joy,\n     Although the last, not least; to whose young love\n     The vines of France and milk of Burgundy\n     Strive to be interest; what can you say to draw\n     A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.\n  Cor. Nothing, my lord.\n  Lear. Nothing?\n  Cor. Nothing.\n  Lear. Nothing can come of nothing. Speak again.\n  Cor. Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave\n     My heart into my mouth. I love your Majesty\n     According to my bond; no more nor less.\n  Lear. How, how, Cordelia? Mend your speech a little,\n     Lest it may mar your fortunes.\n  Cor. Good my lord,\n     You have begot me, bred me, lov'd me; I\n     Return those duties back as are right fit,\n     Obey you, love you, and most honour you.\n     Why have my sisters husbands, if they say\n     They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,\n     That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry\n     Half my love with him, half my care and duty.\n     Sure I shall never marry like my sisters,\n     To love my father all.\n  Lear. But goes thy heart with this?\n  Cor. Ay, good my lord.\n  Lear. So young, and so untender?\n  Cor. So young, my lord, and true.\n  Lear. Let it be so! thy truth then be thy dower!\n     For, by the sacred radiance of the sun,\n     The mysteries of Hecate and the night;\n     By all the operation of the orbs\n     From whom we do exist and cease to be;\n     Here I disclaim all my paternal care,\n     Propinquity and property of blood,\n     And as a stranger to my heart and me\n     Hold thee from this for ever. The barbarous Scythian,\n     Or he that makes his generation messes\n     To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom\n     Be as well neighbour'd, pitied, and reliev'd,\n     As thou my sometime daughter.\n  Kent. Good my liege-\n  Lear. Peace, Kent!\n     Come not between the dragon and his wrath.\n     I lov'd her most, and thought to set my rest\n     On her kind nursery.- Hence and avoid my sight!-\n     So be my grave my peace as here I give\n     Her father's heart from her! Call France! Who stirs?\n     Call Burgundy! Cornwall and Albany,\n     With my two daughters' dowers digest this third;\n     Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her.\n     I do invest you jointly in my power,\n     Preeminence, and all the large effects\n     That troop with majesty. Ourself, by monthly course,\n     With reservation of an hundred knights,\n     By you to be sustain'd, shall our abode\n     Make with you by due turns. Only we still retain\n     The name, and all th' additions to a king. The sway,\n     Revenue, execution of the rest,\n     Beloved sons, be yours; which to confirm,\n     This coronet part betwixt you.\n  Kent. Royal Lear,\n     Whom I have ever honour'd as my king,\n     Lov'd as my father, as my master follow'd,\n     As my great patron thought on in my prayers-\n  Lear. The bow is bent and drawn; make from the shaft.\n  Kent. Let it fall rather, though the fork invade\n     The region of my heart! Be Kent unmannerly\n     When Lear is mad. What wouldst thou do, old man?\n     Think'st thou that duty shall have dread to speak\n     When power to flattery bows? To plainness honour's bound\n     When majesty falls to folly. Reverse thy doom;\n     And in thy best consideration check\n     This hideous rashness. Answer my life my judgment,\n     Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least,\n     Nor are those empty-hearted whose low sound\n     Reverbs no hollowness.\n  Lear. Kent, on thy life, no more!\n  Kent. My life I never held but as a pawn\n     To wage against thine enemies; nor fear to lose it,\n     Thy safety being the motive.\n  Lear. Out of my sight!\n  Kent. See better, Lear, and let me still remain\n     The true blank of thine eye.\n  Lear. Now by Apollo-\n  Kent. Now by Apollo, King,\n     Thou swear'st thy gods in vain.\n  Lear. O vassal! miscreant!\n                                   [Lays his hand on his sword.]\n  Alb., Corn. Dear sir, forbear!\n  Kent. Do!\n     Kill thy physician, and the fee bestow\n     Upon the foul disease. Revoke thy gift,\n     Or, whilst I can vent clamour from my throat,\n     I'll tell thee thou dost evil.\n  Lear. Hear me, recreant!\n     On thine allegiance, hear me!\n     Since thou hast sought to make us break our vow-\n     Which we durst never yet- and with strain'd pride\n     To come between our sentence and our power,-\n     Which nor our nature nor our place can bear,-\n     Our potency made good, take thy reward.\n     Five days we do allot thee for provision\n     To shield thee from diseases of the world,\n     And on the sixth to turn thy hated back\n     Upon our kingdom. If, on the tenth day following,\n     Thy banish'd trunk be found in our dominions,\n     The moment is thy death. Away! By Jupiter,\n     This shall not be revok'd.\n  Kent. Fare thee well, King. Since thus thou wilt appear,\n     Freedom lives hence, and banishment is here.\n     [To Cordelia] The gods to their dear shelter take thee, maid,\n     That justly think'st and hast most rightly said!\n     [To Regan and Goneril] And your large speeches may your deeds\n        approve,\n     That good effects may spring from words of love.\n     Thus Kent, O princes, bids you all adieu;\n     He'll shape his old course in a country new.\nExit.\n\n  Flourish. Enter Gloucester, with France and Burgundy; Attendants.\n\n  Glou. Here's France and Burgundy, my noble lord.\n  Lear. My Lord of Burgundy,\n     We first address toward you, who with this king\n     Hath rivall'd for our daughter. What in the least\n     Will you require in present dower with her,\n     Or cease your quest of love?\n  Bur. Most royal Majesty,\n     I crave no more than hath your Highness offer'd,\n     Nor will you tender less.\n  Lear. Right noble Burgundy,\n     When she was dear to us, we did hold her so;\n     But now her price is fall'n. Sir, there she stands.\n     If aught within that little seeming substance,\n     Or all of it, with our displeasure piec'd,\n     And nothing more, may fitly like your Grace,\n     She's there, and she is yours.\n  Bur. I know no answer.\n  Lear. Will you, with those infirmities she owes,\n     Unfriended, new adopted to our hate,\n     Dow'r'd with our curse, and stranger'd with our oath,\n     Take her, or leave her?\n  Bur. Pardon me, royal sir.\n     Election makes not up on such conditions.\n  Lear. Then leave her, sir; for, by the pow'r that made me,\n     I tell you all her wealth. [To France] For you, great King,\n     I would not from your love make such a stray\n     To match you where I hate; therefore beseech you\n     T' avert your liking a more worthier way\n     Than on a wretch whom nature is asham'd\n     Almost t' acknowledge hers.\n  France. This is most strange,\n     That she that even but now was your best object,\n     The argument of your praise, balm of your age,\n     Most best, most dearest, should in this trice of time\n     Commit a thing so monstrous to dismantle\n     So many folds of favour. Sure her offence\n     Must be of such unnatural degree\n     That monsters it, or your fore-vouch'd affection\n     Fall'n into taint; which to believe of her\n     Must be a faith that reason without miracle\n     Should never plant in me.\n  Cor. I yet beseech your Majesty,\n     If for I want that glib and oily art\n     To speak and purpose not, since what I well intend,\n     I'll do't before I speak- that you make known\n     It is no vicious blot, murther, or foulness,\n     No unchaste action or dishonoured step,\n     That hath depriv'd me of your grace and favour;\n     But even for want of that for which I am richer-\n     A still-soliciting eye, and such a tongue\n     As I am glad I have not, though not to have it\n     Hath lost me in your liking.\n  Lear. Better thou\n     Hadst not been born than not t' have pleas'd me better.\n  France. Is it but this- a tardiness in nature\n     Which often leaves the history unspoke\n     That it intends to do? My Lord of Burgundy,\n     What say you to the lady? Love's not love\n     When it is mingled with regards that stands\n     Aloof from th' entire point. Will you have her?\n     She is herself a dowry.\n  Bur. Royal Lear,\n     Give but that portion which yourself propos'd,\n     And here I take Cordelia by the hand,\n     Duchess of Burgundy.\n  Lear. Nothing! I have sworn; I am firm.\n  Bur. I am sorry then you have so lost a father\n     That you must lose a husband.\n  Cor. Peace be with Burgundy!\n     Since that respects of fortune are his love,\n     I shall not be his wife.\n  France. Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich, being poor;\n     Most choice, forsaken; and most lov'd, despis'd!\n     Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon.\n     Be it lawful I take up what's cast away.\n     Gods, gods! 'tis strange that from their cold'st neglect\n     My love should kindle to inflam'd respect.\n     Thy dow'rless daughter, King, thrown to my chance,\n     Is queen of us, of ours, and our fair France.\n     Not all the dukes in wat'rish Burgundy\n     Can buy this unpriz'd precious maid of me.\n     Bid them farewell, Cordelia, though unkind.\n     Thou losest here, a better where to find.\n  Lear. Thou hast her, France; let her be thine; for we\n     Have no such daughter, nor shall ever see\n     That face of hers again. Therefore be gone\n     Without our grace, our love, our benison.\n     Come, noble Burgundy.\n             Flourish. Exeunt Lear, Burgundy, [Cornwall, Albany,\n                                    Gloucester, and Attendants].\n  France. Bid farewell to your sisters.\n  Cor. The jewels of our father, with wash'd eyes\n     Cordelia leaves you. I know you what you are;\n     And, like a sister, am most loath to call\n     Your faults as they are nam'd. Use well our father.\n     To your professed bosoms I commit him;\n     But yet, alas, stood I within his grace,\n     I would prefer him to a better place!\n     So farewell to you both.\n  Gon. Prescribe not us our duties.\n  Reg. Let your study\n     Be to content your lord, who hath receiv'd you\n     At fortune's alms. You have obedience scanted,\n     And well are worth the want that you have wanted.\n  Cor. Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides.\n     Who cover faults, at last shame them derides.\n     Well may you prosper!\n  France. Come, my fair Cordelia.\n                                     Exeunt France and Cordelia.\n  Gon. Sister, it is not little I have to say of what most nearly\n     appertains to us both. I think our father will hence to-night.\n  Reg. That's most certain, and with you; next month with us.\n  Gon. You see how full of changes his age is. The observation we\n     have made of it hath not been little. He always lov'd our\n     sister most, and with what poor judgment he hath now cast her\n     off appears too grossly.\n  Reg. 'Tis the infirmity of his age; yet he hath ever but slenderly\n     known himself.\n  Gon. The best and soundest of his time hath been but rash; then\n     must we look to receive from his age, not alone the\n     imperfections of long-ingraffed condition, but therewithal\n     the unruly waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with\n     them.\n  Reg. Such unconstant starts are we like to have from him as this\n     of Kent's banishment.\n  Gon. There is further compliment of leave-taking between France and\n     him. Pray you let's hit together. If our father carry authority\n     with such dispositions as he bears, this last surrender of his\n     will but offend us.\n  Reg. We shall further think on't.\n  Gon. We must do something, and i' th' heat.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nThe Earl of Gloucester's Castle.\n\nEnter [Edmund the] Bastard solus, [with a letter].\n\n  Edm. Thou, Nature, art my goddess; to thy law\n     My services are bound. Wherefore should I\n     Stand in the plague of custom, and permit\n     The curiosity of nations to deprive me,\n     For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines\n     Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base?\n     When my dimensions are as well compact,\n     My mind as generous, and my shape as true,\n     As honest madam's issue? Why brand they us\n     With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?\n     Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take\n     More composition and fierce quality\n     Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed,\n     Go to th' creating a whole tribe of fops\n     Got 'tween asleep and wake? Well then,\n     Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land.\n     Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund\n     As to th' legitimate. Fine word- 'legitimate'!\n     Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,\n     And my invention thrive, Edmund the base\n     Shall top th' legitimate. I grow; I prosper.\n     Now, gods, stand up for bastards!\n\n                          Enter Gloucester.\n\n  Glou. Kent banish'd thus? and France in choler parted?\n     And the King gone to-night? subscrib'd his pow'r?\n     Confin'd to exhibition? All this done\n     Upon the gad? Edmund, how now? What news?\n  Edm. So please your lordship, none.\n                                           [Puts up the letter.]\n  Glou. Why so earnestly seek you to put up that letter?\n  Edm. I know no news, my lord.\n  Glou. What paper were you reading?\n  Edm. Nothing, my lord.\n  Glou. No? What needed then that terrible dispatch of it into your\n     pocket? The quality of nothing hath not such need to hide\n     itself. Let's see. Come, if it be nothing, I shall not need\n     spectacles.\n  Edm. I beseech you, sir, pardon me. It is a letter from my brother\n     that I have not all o'er-read; and for so much as I have\n     perus'd, I find it not fit for your o'erlooking.\n  Glou. Give me the letter, sir.\n  Edm. I shall offend, either to detain or give it. The contents, as\n     in part I understand them, are to blame.\n  Glou. Let's see, let's see!\n  Edm. I hope, for my brother's justification, he wrote this but as\n     an essay or taste of my virtue.\n\n  Glou. (reads) 'This policy and reverence of age makes the world\n     bitter to the best of our times; keeps our fortunes from us\n     till our oldness cannot relish them. I begin to find an idle\n     and fond bondage in the oppression of aged tyranny, who sways,\n     not as it hath power, but as it is suffer'd. Come to me, that\n     of this I may speak more. If our father would sleep till I\n     wak'd him, you should enjoy half his revenue for ever, and live\n     the beloved of your brother,\n                                                        'EDGAR.'\n\n     Hum! Conspiracy? 'Sleep till I wak'd him, you should enjoy half\n     his revenue.' My son Edgar! Had he a hand to write this? a heart\n     and brain to breed it in? When came this to you? Who brought it?\n  Edm. It was not brought me, my lord: there's the cunning of it. I\n     found it thrown in at the casement of my closet.\n  Glou. You know the character to be your brother's?\n  Edm. If the matter were good, my lord, I durst swear it were his;\n     but in respect of that, I would fain think it were not.\n  Glou. It is his.\n  Edm. It is his hand, my lord; but I hope his heart is not in the\n     contents.\n  Glou. Hath he never before sounded you in this business?\n  Edm. Never, my lord. But I have heard him oft maintain it to be fit\n     that, sons at perfect age, and fathers declining, the father\n     should be as ward to the son, and the son manage his revenue.\n  Glou. O villain, villain! His very opinion in the letter! Abhorred\n     villain! Unnatural, detested, brutish villain! worse than\n     brutish! Go, sirrah, seek him. I'll apprehend him. Abominable\n     villain! Where is he?\n  Edm. I do not well know, my lord. If it shall please you to suspend\n     your indignation against my brother till you can derive from him\n     better testimony of his intent, you should run a certain course;\n     where, if you violently proceed against him, mistaking his\n     purpose, it would make a great gap in your own honour and shake\n     in pieces the heart of his obedience. I dare pawn down my life\n     for him that he hath writ this to feel my affection to your\n     honour, and to no other pretence of danger.\n  Glou. Think you so?\n  Edm. If your honour judge it meet, I will place you where you shall\n     hear us confer of this and by an auricular assurance have your\n     satisfaction, and that without any further delay than this very\n     evening.\n  Glou. He cannot be such a monster.\n  Edm. Nor is not, sure.\n  Glou. To his father, that so tenderly and entirely loves him.\n     Heaven and earth! Edmund, seek him out; wind me into him, I pray\n     you; frame the business after your own wisdom. I would unstate\n     myself to be in a due resolution.\n  Edm. I will seek him, sir, presently; convey the business as I\n     shall find means, and acquaint you withal.\n  Glou. These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to\n     us. Though the wisdom of nature can reason it thus and thus, yet\n     nature finds itself scourg'd by the sequent effects. Love cools,\n     friendship falls off, brothers divide. In cities, mutinies; in\n     countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the bond crack'd\n     'twixt son and father. This villain of mine comes under the\n     prediction; there's son against father: the King falls from bias\n     of nature; there's father against child. We have seen the best\n     of our time. Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all\n     ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves. Find out\n     this villain, Edmund; it shall lose thee nothing; do it\n     carefully. And the noble and true-hearted Kent banish'd! his\n     offence, honesty! 'Tis strange.                       Exit.\n  Edm. This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are\n     sick in fortune, often the surfeit of our own behaviour, we make\n     guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars; as if\n     we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion;\n     knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical pre-dominance;\n     drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforc'd obedience of\n     planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine\n     thrusting on. An admirable evasion of whore-master man, to lay\n     his goatish disposition to the charge of a star! My father\n     compounded with my mother under the Dragon's Tail, and my\n     nativity was under Ursa Major, so that it follows I am rough and\n     lecherous. Fut! I should have been that I am, had the\n     maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.\n     Edgar-\n\n                             Enter Edgar.\n\n     and pat! he comes, like the catastrophe of the old comedy. My\n     cue is villainous melancholy, with a sigh like Tom o' Bedlam.\n     O, these eclipses do portend these divisions! Fa, sol, la, mi.\n  Edg. How now, brother Edmund? What serious contemplation are you\n     in?\n  Edm. I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this other day,\n     what should follow these eclipses.\n  Edg. Do you busy yourself with that?\n  Edm. I promise you, the effects he writes of succeed unhappily: as\n     of unnaturalness between the child and the parent; death,\n     dearth, dissolutions of ancient amities; divisions in state,\n     menaces and maledictions against king and nobles; needless\n     diffidences, banishment of friends, dissipation of cohorts,\n     nuptial breaches, and I know not what.\n  Edg. How long have you been a sectary astronomical?\n  Edm. Come, come! When saw you my father last?\n  Edg. The night gone by.\n  Edm. Spake you with him?\n  Edg. Ay, two hours together.\n  Edm. Parted you in good terms? Found you no displeasure in him by\n     word or countenance\n  Edg. None at all.\n  Edm. Bethink yourself wherein you may have offended him; and at my\n     entreaty forbear his presence until some little time hath\n     qualified the heat of his displeasure, which at this instant so\n     rageth in him that with the mischief of your person it would\n     scarcely allay.\n  Edg. Some villain hath done me wrong.\n  Edm. That's my fear. I pray you have a continent forbearance till\n     the speed of his rage goes slower; and, as I say, retire with me\n     to my lodging, from whence I will fitly bring you to hear my\n     lord speak. Pray ye, go! There's my key. If you do stir abroad,\n     go arm'd.\n  Edg. Arm'd, brother?\n  Edm. Brother, I advise you to the best. Go arm'd. I am no honest man\n     if there be any good meaning toward you. I have told you what I\n     have seen and heard; but faintly, nothing like the image and\n     horror of it. Pray you, away!\n  Edg. Shall I hear from you anon?\n  Edm. I do serve you in this business.\n                                                     Exit Edgar.\n     A credulous father! and a brother noble,\n     Whose nature is so far from doing harms\n     That he suspects none; on whose foolish honesty\n     My practices ride easy! I see the business.\n     Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit;\n     All with me's meet that I can fashion fit.\nExit.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nThe Duke of Albany's Palace.\n\nEnter Goneril and [her] Steward [Oswald].\n\n  Gon. Did my father strike my gentleman for chiding of his fool?\n  Osw. Ay, madam.\n  Gon. By day and night, he wrongs me! Every hour\n     He flashes into one gross crime or other\n     That sets us all at odds. I'll not endure it.\n     His knights grow riotous, and himself upbraids us\n     On every trifle. When he returns from hunting,\n     I will not speak with him. Say I am sick.\n     If you come slack of former services,\n     You shall do well; the fault of it I'll answer.\n                                                 [Horns within.]\n  Osw. He's coming, madam; I hear him.\n  Gon. Put on what weary negligence you please,\n     You and your fellows. I'd have it come to question.\n     If he distaste it, let him to our sister,\n     Whose mind and mine I know in that are one,\n     Not to be overrul'd. Idle old man,\n     That still would manage those authorities\n     That he hath given away! Now, by my life,\n     Old fools are babes again, and must be us'd\n     With checks as flatteries, when they are seen abus'd.\n     Remember what I have said.\n  Osw. Very well, madam.\n  Gon. And let his knights have colder looks among you.\n     What grows of it, no matter. Advise your fellows so.\n     I would breed from hence occasions, and I shall,\n     That I may speak. I'll write straight to my sister\n     To hold my very course. Prepare for dinner.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nThe Duke of Albany's Palace.\n\nEnter Kent, [disguised].\n\n  Kent. If but as well I other accents borrow,\n     That can my speech defuse, my good intent\n     May carry through itself to that full issue\n     For which I raz'd my likeness. Now, banish'd Kent,\n     If thou canst serve where thou dost stand condemn'd,\n     So may it come, thy master, whom thou lov'st,\n     Shall find thee full of labours.\n\n         Horns within. Enter Lear, [Knights,] and Attendants.\n\n  Lear. Let me not stay a jot for dinner; go get it ready. [Exit\n     an Attendant.] How now? What art thou?\n  Kent. A man, sir.\n  Lear. What dost thou profess? What wouldst thou with us?\n  Kent. I do profess to be no less than I seem, to serve him truly\n     that will put me in trust, to love him that is honest, to\n     converse with him that is wise and says little, to fear\n     judgment, to fight when I cannot choose, and to eat no fish.\n  Lear. What art thou?\n  Kent. A very honest-hearted fellow, and as poor as the King.\n  Lear. If thou be'st as poor for a subject as he's for a king, thou\n     art poor enough. What wouldst thou?\n  Kent. Service.\n  Lear. Who wouldst thou serve?\n  Kent. You.\n  Lear. Dost thou know me, fellow?\n  Kent. No, sir; but you have that in your countenance which I would\n     fain call master.\n  Lear. What's that?\n  Kent. Authority.\n  Lear. What services canst thou do?\n  Kent. I can keep honest counsel, ride, run, mar a curious tale in\n     telling it and deliver a plain message bluntly. That which\n     ordinary men are fit for, I am qualified in, and the best of me\n     is diligence.\n  Lear. How old art thou?\n  Kent. Not so young, sir, to love a woman for singing, nor so old to\n     dote on her for anything. I have years on my back forty-eight.\n  Lear. Follow me; thou shalt serve me. If I like thee no worse after\n     dinner, I will not part from thee yet. Dinner, ho, dinner!\n     Where's my knave? my fool? Go you and call my fool hither.\n\n                                            [Exit an attendant.]\n\n                     Enter [Oswald the] Steward.\n\n     You, you, sirrah, where's my daughter?\n  Osw. So please you-                                      Exit.\n  Lear. What says the fellow there? Call the clotpoll back.\n     [Exit a Knight.] Where's my fool, ho? I think the world's\n     asleep.\n\n                            [Enter Knight]\n\n     How now? Where's that mongrel?\n  Knight. He says, my lord, your daughter is not well.\n  Lear. Why came not the slave back to me when I call'd him?\n  Knight. Sir, he answered me in the roundest manner, he would not.\n  Lear. He would not?\n  Knight. My lord, I know not what the matter is; but to my judgment\n     your Highness is not entertain'd with that ceremonious affection\n     as you were wont. There's a great abatement of kindness appears\n     as well in the general dependants as in the Duke himself also\n     and your daughter.\n  Lear. Ha! say'st thou so?\n  Knight. I beseech you pardon me, my lord, if I be mistaken; for\n     my duty cannot be silent when I think your Highness wrong'd.\n  Lear. Thou but rememb'rest me of mine own conception. I have\n     perceived a most faint neglect of late, which I have rather\n     blamed as mine own jealous curiosity than as a very pretence\n     and purpose of unkindness. I will look further into't. But\n     where's my fool? I have not seen him this two days.\n  Knight. Since my young lady's going into France, sir, the fool\n     hath much pined away.\n  Lear. No more of that; I have noted it well. Go you and tell my\n     daughter I would speak with her. [Exit Knight.] Go you, call\n     hither my fool.\n                                            [Exit an Attendant.]\n\n                     Enter [Oswald the] Steward.\n\n     O, you, sir, you! Come you hither, sir. Who am I, sir?\n  Osw. My lady's father.\n  Lear. 'My lady's father'? My lord's knave! You whoreson dog! you\n     slave! you cur!\n  Osw. I am none of these, my lord; I beseech your pardon.\n  Lear. Do you bandy looks with me, you rascal?\n                                                  [Strikes him.]\n  Osw. I'll not be strucken, my lord.\n  Kent. Nor tripp'd neither, you base football player?\n                                            [Trips up his heels.\n  Lear. I thank thee, fellow. Thou serv'st me, and I'll love thee.\n  Kent. Come, sir, arise, away! I'll teach you differences. Away,\n     away! If you will measure your lubber's length again, tarry; but\n     away! Go to! Have you wisdom? So.\n                                               [Pushes him out.]\n  Lear. Now, my friendly knave, I thank thee. There's earnest of thy\n     service.                                     [Gives money.]\n\n                             Enter Fool.\n\n  Fool. Let me hire him too. Here's my coxcomb.\n                                          [Offers Kent his cap.]\n  Lear. How now, my pretty knave? How dost thou?\n  Fool. Sirrah, you were best take my coxcomb.\n  Kent. Why, fool?\n  Fool. Why? For taking one's part that's out of favour. Nay, an thou\n     canst not smile as the wind sits, thou'lt catch cold shortly.\n     There, take my coxcomb! Why, this fellow hath banish'd two on's\n     daughters, and did the third a blessing against his will. If\n     thou follow him, thou must needs wear my coxcomb.- How now,\n     nuncle? Would I had two coxcombs and two daughters!\n  Lear. Why, my boy?\n  Fool. If I gave them all my living, I'ld keep my coxcombs myself.\n     There's mine! beg another of thy daughters.\n  Lear. Take heed, sirrah- the whip.\n  Fool. Truth's a dog must to kennel; he must be whipp'd out, when\n     Lady the brach may stand by th' fire and stink.\n  Lear. A pestilent gall to me!\n  Fool. Sirrah, I'll teach thee a speech.\n  Lear. Do.\n  Fool. Mark it, nuncle.\n          Have more than thou showest,\n          Speak less than thou knowest,\n          Lend less than thou owest,\n          Ride more than thou goest,\n          Learn more than thou trowest,\n          Set less than thou throwest;\n          Leave thy drink and thy whore,\n          And keep in-a-door,\n          And thou shalt have more\n          Than two tens to a score.\n  Kent. This is nothing, fool.\n  Fool. Then 'tis like the breath of an unfeed lawyer- you gave me\n     nothing for't. Can you make no use of nothing, nuncle?\n  Lear. Why, no, boy. Nothing can be made out of nothing.\n  Fool. [to Kent] Prithee tell him, so much the rent of his land\n     comes to. He will not believe a fool.\n  Lear. A bitter fool!\n  Fool. Dost thou know the difference, my boy, between a bitter\n     fool and a sweet fool?\n  Lear. No, lad; teach me.\n  Fool.   That lord that counsell'd thee\n            To give away thy land,\n          Come place him here by me-\n            Do thou for him stand.\n          The sweet and bitter fool\n            Will presently appear;\n          The one in motley here,\n            The other found out there.\n  Lear. Dost thou call me fool, boy?\n  Fool. All thy other titles thou hast given away; that thou wast\n     born with.\n  Kent. This is not altogether fool, my lord.\n  Fool. No, faith; lords and great men will not let me. If I had a\n     monopoly out, they would have part on't. And ladies too, they\n     will not let me have all the fool to myself; they'll be\n     snatching. Give me an egg, nuncle, and I'll give thee two\n     crowns.\n  Lear. What two crowns shall they be?\n  Fool. Why, after I have cut the egg i' th' middle and eat up the\n     meat, the two crowns of the egg. When thou clovest thy crown i'\n     th' middle and gav'st away both parts, thou bor'st thine ass on\n     thy back o'er the dirt. Thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown\n     when thou gav'st thy golden one away. If I speak like myself in\n     this, let him be whipp'd that first finds it so.\n\n     [Sings]    Fools had ne'er less grace in a year,\n                  For wise men are grown foppish;\n                They know not how their wits to wear,\n                  Their manners are so apish.\n\n  Lear. When were you wont to be so full of songs, sirrah?\n  Fool. I have us'd it, nuncle, ever since thou mad'st thy daughters\n     thy mother; for when thou gav'st them the rod, and put'st down\n     thine own breeches,\n\n     [Sings]    Then they for sudden joy did weep,\n                  And I for sorrow sung,\n                That such a king should play bo-peep\n                  And go the fools among.\n\n     Prithee, nuncle, keep a schoolmaster that can teach thy fool to\n     lie. I would fain learn to lie.\n  Lear. An you lie, sirrah, we'll have you whipp'd.\n  Fool. I marvel what kin thou and thy daughters are. They'll have me\n     whipp'd for speaking true; thou'lt have me whipp'd for lying;\n     and sometimes I am whipp'd for holding my peace. I had rather be\n     any kind o' thing than a fool! And yet I would not be thee,\n     nuncle. Thou hast pared thy wit o' both sides and left nothing\n     i' th' middle. Here comes one o' the parings.\n\n                            Enter Goneril.\n\n  Lear. How now, daughter? What makes that frontlet on? Methinks you\n     are too much o' late i' th' frown.\n  Fool. Thou wast a pretty fellow when thou hadst no need to care for\n     her frowning. Now thou art an O without a figure. I am better\n     than thou art now: I am a fool, thou art nothing.\n     [To Goneril] Yes, forsooth, I will hold my tongue. So your face\n     bids me, though you say nothing. Mum, mum!\n\n            He that keeps nor crust nor crum,\n            Weary of all, shall want some.-\n\n     [Points at Lear] That's a sheal'd peascod.\n  Gon. Not only, sir, this your all-licens'd fool,\n     But other of your insolent retinue\n     Do hourly carp and quarrel, breaking forth\n     In rank and not-to-be-endured riots. Sir,\n     I had thought, by making this well known unto you,\n     To have found a safe redress, but now grow fearful,\n     By what yourself, too, late have spoke and done,\n     That you protect this course, and put it on\n     By your allowance; which if you should, the fault\n     Would not scape censure, nor the redresses sleep,\n     Which, in the tender of a wholesome weal,\n     Might in their working do you that offence\n     Which else were shame, that then necessity\n     Must call discreet proceeding.\n  Fool. For you know, nuncle,\n\n          The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long\n          That it had it head bit off by it young.\n\n     So out went the candle, and we were left darkling.\n  Lear. Are you our daughter?\n  Gon. Come, sir,\n     I would you would make use of that good wisdom\n     Whereof I know you are fraught, and put away\n     These dispositions that of late transform you\n     From what you rightly are.\n  Fool. May not an ass know when the cart draws the horse?\n     Whoop, Jug, I love thee!\n  Lear. Doth any here know me? This is not Lear.\n     Doth Lear walk thus? speak thus? Where are his eyes?\n     Either his notion weakens, his discernings\n     Are lethargied- Ha! waking? 'Tis not so!\n     Who is it that can tell me who I am?\n  Fool. Lear's shadow.\n  Lear. I would learn that; for, by the marks of sovereignty,\n     Knowledge, and reason, I should be false persuaded\n     I had daughters.\n  Fool. Which they will make an obedient father.\n  Lear. Your name, fair gentlewoman?\n  Gon. This admiration, sir, is much o' th' savour\n     Of other your new pranks. I do beseech you\n     To understand my purposes aright.\n     As you are old and reverend, you should be wise.\n     Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires;\n     Men so disorder'd, so debosh'd, and bold\n     That this our court, infected with their manners,\n     Shows like a riotous inn. Epicurism and lust\n     Make it more like a tavern or a brothel\n     Than a grac'd palace. The shame itself doth speak\n     For instant remedy. Be then desir'd\n     By her that else will take the thing she begs\n     A little to disquantity your train,\n     And the remainder that shall still depend\n     To be such men as may besort your age,\n     Which know themselves, and you.\n  Lear. Darkness and devils!\n     Saddle my horses! Call my train together!\n     Degenerate bastard, I'll not trouble thee;\n     Yet have I left a daughter.\n  Gon. You strike my people, and your disorder'd rabble\n     Make servants of their betters.\n\n                            Enter Albany.\n\n  Lear. Woe that too late repents!- O, sir, are you come?\n     Is it your will? Speak, sir!- Prepare my horses.\n     Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend,\n     More hideous when thou show'st thee in a child\n     Than the sea-monster!\n  Alb. Pray, sir, be patient.\n  Lear. [to Goneril] Detested kite, thou liest!\n     My train are men of choice and rarest parts,\n     That all particulars of duty know\n     And in the most exact regard support\n     The worships of their name.- O most small fault,\n     How ugly didst thou in Cordelia show!\n     Which, like an engine, wrench'd my frame of nature\n     From the fix'd place; drew from my heart all love\n     And added to the gall. O Lear, Lear, Lear!\n     Beat at this gate that let thy folly in  [Strikes his head.]\n     And thy dear judgment out! Go, go, my people.\n  Alb. My lord, I am guiltless, as I am ignorant\n     Of what hath mov'd you.\n  Lear. It may be so, my lord.\n     Hear, Nature, hear! dear goddess, hear!\n     Suspend thy purpose, if thou didst intend\n     To make this creature fruitful.\n     Into her womb convey sterility;\n     Dry up in her the organs of increase;\n     And from her derogate body never spring\n     A babe to honour her! If she must teem,\n     Create her child of spleen, that it may live\n     And be a thwart disnatur'd torment to her.\n     Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth,\n     With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks,\n     Turn all her mother's pains and benefits\n     To laughter and contempt, that she may feel\n     How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is\n     To have a thankless child! Away, away!                Exit.\n  Alb. Now, gods that we adore, whereof comes this?\n  Gon. Never afflict yourself to know the cause;\n     But let his disposition have that scope\n     That dotage gives it.\n\n                             Enter Lear.\n\n  Lear. What, fifty of my followers at a clap?\n     Within a fortnight?\n  Alb. What's the matter, sir?\n  Lear. I'll tell thee. [To Goneril] Life and death! I am asham'd\n     That thou hast power to shake my manhood thus;\n     That these hot tears, which break from me perforce,\n     Should make thee worth them. Blasts and fogs upon thee!\n     Th' untented woundings of a father's curse\n     Pierce every sense about thee!- Old fond eyes,\n     Beweep this cause again, I'll pluck ye out,\n     And cast you, with the waters that you lose,\n     To temper clay. Yea, is it come to this?\n     Let it be so. Yet have I left a daughter,\n     Who I am sure is kind and comfortable.\n     When she shall hear this of thee, with her nails\n     She'll flay thy wolvish visage. Thou shalt find\n     That I'll resume the shape which thou dost think\n     I have cast off for ever; thou shalt, I warrant thee.\n                            Exeunt [Lear, Kent, and Attendants].\n  Gon. Do you mark that, my lord?\n  Alb. I cannot be so partial, Goneril,\n     To the great love I bear you -\n  Gon. Pray you, content.- What, Oswald, ho!\n     [To the Fool] You, sir, more knave than fool, after your master!\n  Fool. Nuncle Lear, nuncle Lear, tarry! Take the fool with thee.\n\n          A fox when one has caught her,\n          And such a daughter,\n          Should sure to the slaughter,\n          If my cap would buy a halter.\n          So the fool follows after.                       Exit.\n  Gon. This man hath had good counsel! A hundred knights?\n     'Tis politic and safe to let him keep\n     At point a hundred knights; yes, that on every dream,\n     Each buzz, each fancy, each complaint, dislike,\n     He may enguard his dotage with their pow'rs\n     And hold our lives in mercy.- Oswald, I say!\n  Alb. Well, you may fear too far.\n  Gon. Safer than trust too far.\n     Let me still take away the harms I fear,\n     Not fear still to be taken. I know his heart.\n     What he hath utter'd I have writ my sister.\n     If she sustain him and his hundred knights,\n     When I have show'd th' unfitness-\n\n                     Enter [Oswald the] Steward.\n\n     How now, Oswald?\n     What, have you writ that letter to my sister?\n  Osw. Yes, madam.\n  Gon. Take you some company, and away to horse!\n     Inform her full of my particular fear,\n     And thereto add such reasons of your own\n     As may compact it more. Get you gone,\n     And hasten your return. [Exit Oswald.] No, no, my lord!\n     This milky gentleness and course of yours,\n     Though I condemn it not, yet, under pardon,\n     You are much more at task for want of wisdom\n     Than prais'd for harmful mildness.\n  Alb. How far your eyes may pierce I cannot tell.\n     Striving to better, oft we mar what's well.\n  Gon. Nay then-\n  Alb. Well, well; th' event.                            Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene V.\nCourt before the Duke of Albany's Palace.\n\nEnter Lear, Kent, and Fool.\n\n  Lear. Go you before to Gloucester with these letters. Acquaint my\n     daughter no further with anything you know than comes from her\n     demand out of the letter. If your diligence be not speedy, I\n     shall be there afore you.\n  Kent. I will not sleep, my lord, till I have delivered your letter.\nExit.\n  Fool. If a man's brains were in's heels, were't not in danger of\n     kibes?\n  Lear. Ay, boy.\n  Fool. Then I prithee be merry. Thy wit shall ne'er go slip-shod.\n  Lear. Ha, ha, ha!\n  Fool. Shalt see thy other daughter will use thee kindly; for though\n     she's as like this as a crab's like an apple, yet I can tell\n     what I can tell.\n  Lear. What canst tell, boy?\n  Fool. She'll taste as like this as a crab does to a crab. Thou\n     canst tell why one's nose stands i' th' middle on's face?\n  Lear. No.\n  Fool. Why, to keep one's eyes of either side's nose, that what a\n     man cannot smell out, 'a may spy into.\n  Lear. I did her wrong.\n  Fool. Canst tell how an oyster makes his shell?\n  Lear. No.\n  Fool. Nor I neither; but I can tell why a snail has a house.\n  Lear. Why?\n  Fool. Why, to put's head in; not to give it away to his daughters,\n     and leave his horns without a case.\n  Lear. I will forget my nature. So kind a father!- Be my horses\n     ready?\n  Fool. Thy asses are gone about 'em. The reason why the seven stars\n     are no moe than seven is a pretty reason.\n  Lear. Because they are not eight?\n  Fool. Yes indeed. Thou wouldst make a good fool.\n  Lear. To tak't again perforce! Monster ingratitude!\n  Fool. If thou wert my fool, nuncle, I'ld have thee beaten for being\n     old before thy time.\n  Lear. How's that?\n  Fool. Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise.\n  Lear. O, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven!\n     Keep me in temper; I would not be mad!\n\n                         [Enter a Gentleman.]\n\n     How now? Are the horses ready?\n  Gent. Ready, my lord.\n  Lear. Come, boy.\n  Fool. She that's a maid now, and laughs at my departure,\n     Shall not be a maid long, unless things be cut shorter\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. Scene I.\nA court within the Castle of the Earl of Gloucester.\n\nEnter [Edmund the] Bastard and Curan, meeting.\n\n  Edm. Save thee, Curan.\n  Cur. And you, sir. I have been with your father, and given him\n     notice that the Duke of Cornwall and Regan his Duchess will be\n     here with him this night.\n  Edm. How comes that?\n  Cur. Nay, I know not. You have heard of the news abroad- I mean the\n     whisper'd ones, for they are yet but ear-kissing arguments?\n  Edm. Not I. Pray you, what are they?\n  Cur. Have you heard of no likely wars toward 'twixt the two Dukes\n     of Cornwall and Albany?\n  Edm. Not a word.\n  Cur. You may do, then, in time. Fare you well, sir.      Exit.\n  Edm. The Duke be here to-night? The better! best!\n     This weaves itself perforce into my business.\n     My father hath set guard to take my brother;\n     And I have one thing, of a queasy question,\n     Which I must act. Briefness and fortune, work!\n     Brother, a word! Descend! Brother, I say!\n\n                             Enter Edgar.\n\n     My father watches. O sir, fly this place!\n     Intelligence is given where you are hid.\n     You have now the good advantage of the night.\n     Have you not spoken 'gainst the Duke of Cornwall?\n     He's coming hither; now, i' th' night, i' th' haste,\n     And Regan with him. Have you nothing said\n     Upon his party 'gainst the Duke of Albany?\n     Advise yourself.\n  Edg. I am sure on't, not a word.\n  Edm. I hear my father coming. Pardon me!\n     In cunning I must draw my sword upon you.\n     Draw, seem to defend yourself; now quit you well.-\n     Yield! Come before my father. Light, ho, here!\n     Fly, brother.- Torches, torches!- So farewell.\n                                                     Exit Edgar.\n     Some blood drawn on me would beget opinion\n     Of my more fierce endeavour. [Stabs his arm.] I have seen\n        drunkards\n     Do more than this in sport.- Father, father!-\n     Stop, stop! No help?\n\n             Enter Gloucester, and Servants with torches.\n\n  Glou. Now, Edmund, where's the villain?\n  Edm. Here stood he in the dark, his sharp sword out,\n     Mumbling of wicked charms, conjuring the moon\n     To stand 's auspicious mistress.\n  Glou. But where is he?\n  Edm. Look, sir, I bleed.\n  Glou. Where is the villain, Edmund?\n  Edm. Fled this way, sir. When by no means he could-\n  Glou. Pursue him, ho! Go after.        [Exeunt some Servants].\n     By no means what?\n  Edm. Persuade me to the murther of your lordship;\n     But that I told him the revenging gods\n     'Gainst parricides did all their thunders bend;\n     Spoke with how manifold and strong a bond\n     The child was bound to th' father- sir, in fine,\n     Seeing how loathly opposite I stood\n     To his unnatural purpose, in fell motion\n     With his prepared sword he charges home\n     My unprovided body, lanch'd mine arm;\n     But when he saw my best alarum'd spirits,\n     Bold in the quarrel's right, rous'd to th' encounter,\n     Or whether gasted by the noise I made,\n     Full suddenly he fled.\n  Glou. Let him fly far.\n     Not in this land shall he remain uncaught;\n     And found- dispatch. The noble Duke my master,\n     My worthy arch and patron, comes to-night.\n     By his authority I will proclaim it\n     That he which find, him shall deserve our thanks,\n     Bringing the murderous caitiff to the stake;\n     He that conceals him, death.\n  Edm. When I dissuaded him from his intent\n     And found him pight to do it, with curst speech\n     I threaten'd to discover him. He replied,\n     'Thou unpossessing bastard, dost thou think,\n     If I would stand against thee, would the reposal\n     Of any trust, virtue, or worth in thee\n     Make thy words faith'd? No. What I should deny\n     (As this I would; ay, though thou didst produce\n     My very character), I'ld turn it all\n     To thy suggestion, plot, and damned practice;\n     And thou must make a dullard of the world,\n     If they not thought the profits of my death\n     Were very pregnant and potential spurs\n     To make thee seek it.'\n  Glou. Strong and fast'ned villain!\n     Would he deny his letter? I never got him.\n                                                  Tucket within.\n     Hark, the Duke's trumpets! I know not why he comes.\n     All ports I'll bar; the villain shall not scape;\n     The Duke must grant me that. Besides, his picture\n     I will send far and near, that all the kingdom\n     May have due note of him, and of my land,\n     Loyal and natural boy, I'll work the means\n     To make thee capable.\n\n                Enter Cornwall, Regan, and Attendants.\n\n  Corn. How now, my noble friend? Since I came hither\n     (Which I can call but now) I have heard strange news.\n  Reg. If it be true, all vengeance comes too short\n     Which can pursue th' offender. How dost, my lord?\n  Glou. O madam, my old heart is crack'd, it's crack'd!\n  Reg. What, did my father's godson seek your life?\n     He whom my father nam'd? Your Edgar?\n  Glou. O lady, lady, shame would have it hid!\n  Reg. Was he not companion with the riotous knights\n     That tend upon my father?\n  Glou. I know not, madam. 'Tis too bad, too bad!\n  Edm. Yes, madam, he was of that consort.\n  Reg. No marvel then though he were ill affected.\n     'Tis they have put him on the old man's death,\n     To have th' expense and waste of his revenues.\n     I have this present evening from my sister\n     Been well inform'd of them, and with such cautions\n     That, if they come to sojourn at my house,\n     I'll not be there.\n  Corn. Nor I, assure thee, Regan.\n     Edmund, I hear that you have shown your father\n     A childlike office.\n  Edm. 'Twas my duty, sir.\n  Glou. He did bewray his practice, and receiv'd\n     This hurt you see, striving to apprehend him.\n  Corn. Is he pursued?\n  Glou. Ay, my good lord.\n  Corn. If he be taken, he shall never more\n     Be fear'd of doing harm. Make your own purpose,\n     How in my strength you please. For you, Edmund,\n     Whose virtue and obedience doth this instant\n     So much commend itself, you shall be ours.\n     Natures of such deep trust we shall much need;\n     You we first seize on.\n  Edm. I shall serve you, sir,\n     Truly, however else.\n  Glou. For him I thank your Grace.\n  Corn. You know not why we came to visit you-\n  Reg. Thus out of season, threading dark-ey'd night.\n     Occasions, noble Gloucester, of some poise,\n     Wherein we must have use of your advice.\n     Our father he hath writ, so hath our sister,\n     Of differences, which I best thought it fit\n     To answer from our home. The several messengers\n     From hence attend dispatch. Our good old friend,\n     Lay comforts to your bosom, and bestow\n     Your needful counsel to our business,\n     Which craves the instant use.\n  Glou. I serve you, madam.\n     Your Graces are right welcome.\n                                               Exeunt. Flourish.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nBefore Gloucester's Castle.\n\nEnter Kent and [Oswald the] Steward, severally.\n\n  Osw. Good dawning to thee, friend. Art of this house?\n  Kent. Ay.\n  Osw. Where may we set our horses?\n  Kent. I' th' mire.\n  Osw. Prithee, if thou lov'st me, tell me.\n  Kent. I love thee not.\n  Osw. Why then, I care not for thee.\n  Kent. If I had thee in Lipsbury Pinfold, I would make thee care for\n     me.\n  Osw. Why dost thou use me thus? I know thee not.\n  Kent. Fellow, I know thee.\n  Osw. What dost thou know me for?\n  Kent. A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud,\n     shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy,\n     worsted-stocking knave; a lily-liver'd, action-taking, whoreson,\n     glass-gazing, superserviceable, finical rogue;\n     one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd in way of\n     good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave,\n     beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch;\n     one whom I will beat into clamorous whining, if thou deny the\n     least syllable of thy addition.\n  Osw. Why, what a monstrous fellow art thou, thus to rail on one\n     that's neither known of thee nor knows thee!\n  Kent. What a brazen-fac'd varlet art thou, to deny thou knowest me!\n     Is it two days ago since I beat thee and tripp'd up thy heels\n     before the King? [Draws his sword.] Draw, you rogue! for, though\n     it be night, yet the moon shines. I'll make a sop o' th'\n     moonshine o' you. Draw, you whoreson cullionly barbermonger!\n     draw!\n  Osw. Away! I have nothing to do with thee.\n  Kent. Draw, you rascal! You come with letters against the King, and\n     take Vanity the puppet's part against the royalty of her father.\n     Draw, you rogue, or I'll so carbonado your shanks! Draw, you\n     rascal! Come your ways!\n  Osw. Help, ho! murther! help!\n  Kent. Strike, you slave! Stand, rogue! Stand, you neat slave!\n     Strike!                                        [Beats him.]\n  Osw. Help, ho! murther! murther!\n\n      Enter Edmund, with his rapier drawn, Gloucester, Cornwall,\n                           Regan, Servants.\n\n  Edm. How now? What's the matter?                 Parts [them].\n  Kent. With you, goodman boy, an you please! Come, I'll flesh ye!\n     Come on, young master!\n  Glou. Weapons? arms? What's the matter here?\n  Corn. Keep peace, upon your lives!\n     He dies that strikes again. What is the matter?\n  Reg. The messengers from our sister and the King\n  Corn. What is your difference? Speak.\n  Osw. I am scarce in breath, my lord.\n  Kent. No marvel, you have so bestirr'd your valour. You cowardly\n     rascal, nature disclaims in thee; a tailor made thee.\n  Corn. Thou art a strange fellow. A tailor make a man?\n  Kent. Ay, a tailor, sir. A stonecutter or a painter could not have\n     made him so ill, though he had been but two hours at the trade.\n  Corn. Speak yet, how grew your quarrel?\n  Osw. This ancient ruffian, sir, whose life I have spar'd\n     At suit of his grey beard-\n  Kent. Thou whoreson zed! thou unnecessary letter! My lord, if\n     you'll give me leave, I will tread this unbolted villain into\n     mortar and daub the walls of a jakes with him. 'Spare my grey\n     beard,' you wagtail?\n  Corn. Peace, sirrah!\n     You beastly knave, know you no reverence?\n  Kent. Yes, sir, but anger hath a privilege.\n  Corn. Why art thou angry?\n  Kent. That such a slave as this should wear a sword,\n     Who wears no honesty. Such smiling rogues as these,\n     Like rats, oft bite the holy cords atwain\n     Which are too intrinse t' unloose; smooth every passion\n     That in the natures of their lords rebel,\n     Bring oil to fire, snow to their colder moods;\n     Renege, affirm, and turn their halcyon beaks\n     With every gale and vary of their masters,\n     Knowing naught (like dogs) but following.\n     A plague upon your epileptic visage!\n     Smile you my speeches, as I were a fool?\n     Goose, an I had you upon Sarum Plain,\n     I'ld drive ye cackling home to Camelot.\n  Corn. What, art thou mad, old fellow?\n  Glou. How fell you out? Say that.\n  Kent. No contraries hold more antipathy\n     Than I and such a knave.\n  Corn. Why dost thou call him knave? What is his fault?\n  Kent. His countenance likes me not.\n  Corn. No more perchance does mine, or his, or hers.\n  Kent. Sir, 'tis my occupation to be plain.\n     I have seen better faces in my time\n     Than stands on any shoulder that I see\n     Before me at this instant.\n  Corn. This is some fellow\n     Who, having been prais'd for bluntness, doth affect\n     A saucy roughness, and constrains the garb\n     Quite from his nature. He cannot flatter, he!\n     An honest mind and plain- he must speak truth!\n     An they will take it, so; if not, he's plain.\n     These kind of knaves I know which in this plainness\n     Harbour more craft and more corrupter ends\n     Than twenty silly-ducking observants\n     That stretch their duties nicely.\n  Kent. Sir, in good faith, in sincere verity,\n     Under th' allowance of your great aspect,\n     Whose influence, like the wreath of radiant fire\n     On flickering Phoebus' front-\n  Corn. What mean'st by this?\n  Kent. To go out of my dialect, which you discommend so much. I\n     know, sir, I am no flatterer. He that beguil'd you in a plain\n     accent was a plain knave, which, for my part, I will not be,\n     though I should win your displeasure to entreat me to't.\n  Corn. What was th' offence you gave him?\n  Osw. I never gave him any.\n     It pleas'd the King his master very late\n     To strike at me, upon his misconstruction;\n     When he, conjunct, and flattering his displeasure,\n     Tripp'd me behind; being down, insulted, rail'd\n     And put upon him such a deal of man\n     That worthied him, got praises of the King\n     For him attempting who was self-subdu'd;\n     And, in the fleshment of this dread exploit,\n     Drew on me here again.\n  Kent. None of these rogues and cowards\n     But Ajax is their fool.\n  Corn. Fetch forth the stocks!\n     You stubborn ancient knave, you reverent braggart,\n     We'll teach you-\n  Kent. Sir, I am too old to learn.\n     Call not your stocks for me. I serve the King;\n     On whose employment I was sent to you.\n     You shall do small respect, show too bold malice\n     Against the grace and person of my master,\n     Stocking his messenger.\n  Corn. Fetch forth the stocks! As I have life and honour,\n     There shall he sit till noon.\n  Reg. Till noon? Till night, my lord, and all night too!\n  Kent. Why, madam, if I were your father's dog,\n     You should not use me so.\n  Reg. Sir, being his knave, I will.\n  Corn. This is a fellow of the selfsame colour\n     Our sister speaks of. Come, bring away the stocks!\n                                             Stocks brought out.\n  Glou. Let me beseech your Grace not to do so.\n     His fault is much, and the good King his master\n     Will check him for't. Your purpos'd low correction\n     Is such as basest and contemn'dest wretches\n     For pilf'rings and most common trespasses\n     Are punish'd with. The King must take it ill\n     That he, so slightly valued in his messenger,\n     Should have him thus restrain'd.\n  Corn. I'll answer that.\n  Reg. My sister may receive it much more worse,\n     To have her gentleman abus'd, assaulted,\n     For following her affairs. Put in his legs.-\n                                    [Kent is put in the stocks.]\n     Come, my good lord, away.\n                           Exeunt [all but Gloucester and Kent].\n  Glou. I am sorry for thee, friend. 'Tis the Duke's pleasure,\n     Whose disposition, all the world well knows,\n     Will not be rubb'd nor stopp'd. I'll entreat for thee.\n  Kent. Pray do not, sir. I have watch'd and travell'd hard.\n     Some time I shall sleep out, the rest I'll whistle.\n     A good man's fortune may grow out at heels.\n     Give you good morrow!\n  Glou. The Duke 's to blame in this; 'twill be ill taken.\nExit.\n  Kent. Good King, that must approve the common saw,\n     Thou out of heaven's benediction com'st\n     To the warm sun!\n     Approach, thou beacon to this under globe,\n     That by thy comfortable beams I may\n     Peruse this letter. Nothing almost sees miracles\n     But misery. I know 'tis from Cordelia,\n     Who hath most fortunately been inform'd\n     Of my obscured course- and [reads] 'shall find time\n     From this enormous state, seeking to give\n     Losses their remedies'- All weary and o'erwatch'd,\n     Take vantage, heavy eyes, not to behold\n     This shameful lodging.\n     Fortune, good night; smile once more, turn thy wheel.\n                                                         Sleeps.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nThe open country.\n\nEnter Edgar.\n\n  Edg. I heard myself proclaim'd,\n     And by the happy hollow of a tree\n     Escap'd the hunt. No port is free, no place\n     That guard and most unusual vigilance\n     Does not attend my taking. Whiles I may scape,\n     I will preserve myself; and am bethought\n     To take the basest and most poorest shape\n     That ever penury, in contempt of man,\n     Brought near to beast. My face I'll grime with filth,\n     Blanket my loins, elf all my hair in knots,\n     And with presented nakedness outface\n     The winds and persecutions of the sky.\n     The country gives me proof and precedent\n     Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices,\n     Strike in their numb'd and mortified bare arms\n     Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary;\n     And with this horrible object, from low farms,\n     Poor pelting villages, sheepcotes, and mills,\n     Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers,\n     Enforce their charity. 'Poor Turlygod! poor Tom!'\n     That's something yet! Edgar I nothing am.             Exit.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nBefore Gloucester's Castle; Kent in the stocks.\n\nEnter Lear, Fool, and Gentleman.\n\n  Lear. 'Tis strange that they should so depart from home,\n     And not send back my messenger.\n  Gent. As I learn'd,\n     The night before there was no purpose in them\n     Of this remove.\n  Kent. Hail to thee, noble master!\n  Lear. Ha!\n     Mak'st thou this shame thy pastime?\n  Kent. No, my lord.\n  Fool. Ha, ha! look! he wears cruel garters. Horses are tied by the\n     head, dogs and bears by th' neck, monkeys by th' loins, and men\n     by th' legs. When a man's over-lusty at legs, then he wears\n     wooden nether-stocks.\n  Lear. What's he that hath so much thy place mistook\n     To set thee here?\n  Kent. It is both he and she-\n     Your son and daughter.\n  Lear. No.\n  Kent. Yes.\n  Lear. No, I say.\n  Kent. I say yea.\n  Lear. No, no, they would not!\n  Kent. Yes, they have.\n  Lear. By Jupiter, I swear no!\n  Kent. By Juno, I swear ay!\n  Lear. They durst not do't;\n     They would not, could not do't. 'Tis worse than murther\n     To do upon respect such violent outrage.\n     Resolve me with all modest haste which way\n     Thou mightst deserve or they impose this usage,\n     Coming from us.\n  Kent. My lord, when at their home\n     I did commend your Highness' letters to them,\n     Ere I was risen from the place that show'd\n     My duty kneeling, came there a reeking post,\n     Stew'd in his haste, half breathless, panting forth\n     From Goneril his mistress salutations;\n     Deliver'd letters, spite of intermission,\n     Which presently they read; on whose contents,\n     They summon'd up their meiny, straight took horse,\n     Commanded me to follow and attend\n     The leisure of their answer, gave me cold looks,\n     And meeting here the other messenger,\n     Whose welcome I perceiv'd had poison'd mine-\n     Being the very fellow which of late\n     Display'd so saucily against your Highness-\n     Having more man than wit about me, drew.\n     He rais'd the house with loud and coward cries.\n     Your son and daughter found this trespass worth\n     The shame which here it suffers.\n  Fool. Winter's not gone yet, if the wild geese fly that way.\n\n          Fathers that wear rags\n            Do make their children blind;\n          But fathers that bear bags\n            Shall see their children kind.\n          Fortune, that arrant whore,\n          Ne'er turns the key to th' poor.\n\n     But for all this, thou shalt have as many dolours for thy\n     daughters as thou canst tell in a year.\n  Lear. O, how this mother swells up toward my heart!\n     Hysterica passio! Down, thou climbing sorrow!\n     Thy element's below! Where is this daughter?\n  Kent. With the Earl, sir, here within.\n  Lear. Follow me not;\n     Stay here.                                            Exit.\n  Gent. Made you no more offence but what you speak of?\n  Kent. None.\n     How chance the King comes with so small a number?\n  Fool. An thou hadst been set i' th' stocks for that question,\n     thou'dst well deserv'd it.\n  Kent. Why, fool?\n  Fool. We'll set thee to school to an ant, to teach thee there's no\n     labouring i' th' winter. All that follow their noses are led by\n     their eyes but blind men, and there's not a nose among twenty\n     but can smell him that's stinking. Let go thy hold when a great\n     wheel runs down a hill, lest it break thy neck with following\n     it; but the great one that goes upward, let him draw thee after.\n     When a wise man gives thee better counsel, give me mine again. I\n     would have none but knaves follow it, since a fool gives it.\n          That sir which serves and seeks for gain,\n            And follows but for form,\n          Will pack when it begins to rain\n            And leave thee in the storm.\n          But I will tarry; the fool will stay,\n            And let the wise man fly.\n          The knave turns fool that runs away;\n            The fool no knave, perdy.\n  Kent. Where learn'd you this, fool?\n  Fool. Not i' th' stocks, fool.\n\n                      Enter Lear and Gloucester\n\n  Lear. Deny to speak with me? They are sick? they are weary?\n     They have travell'd all the night? Mere fetches-\n     The images of revolt and flying off!\n     Fetch me a better answer.\n  Glou. My dear lord,\n     You know the fiery quality of the Duke,\n     How unremovable and fix'd he is\n     In his own course.\n  Lear. Vengeance! plague! death! confusion!\n     Fiery? What quality? Why, Gloucester, Gloucester,\n     I'ld speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife.\n  Glou. Well, my good lord, I have inform'd them so.\n  Lear. Inform'd them? Dost thou understand me, man?\n  Glou. Ay, my good lord.\n  Lear. The King would speak with Cornwall; the dear father\n     Would with his daughter speak, commands her service.\n     Are they inform'd of this? My breath and blood!\n     Fiery? the fiery Duke? Tell the hot Duke that-\n     No, but not yet! May be he is not well.\n     Infirmity doth still neglect all office\n     Whereto our health is bound. We are not ourselves\n     When nature, being oppress'd, commands the mind\n     To suffer with the body. I'll forbear;\n     And am fallen out with my more headier will,\n     To take the indispos'd and sickly fit\n     For the sound man.- Death on my state! Wherefore\n     Should be sit here? This act persuades me\n     That this remotion of the Duke and her\n     Is practice only. Give me my servant forth.\n     Go tell the Duke and 's wife I'ld speak with them-\n     Now, presently. Bid them come forth and hear me,\n     Or at their chamber door I'll beat the drum\n     Till it cry sleep to death.\n  Glou. I would have all well betwixt you.                 Exit.\n  Lear. O me, my heart, my rising heart! But down!\n  Fool. Cry to it, nuncle, as the cockney did to the eels when she\n     put 'em i' th' paste alive. She knapp'd 'em o' th' coxcombs with\n     a stick and cried 'Down, wantons, down!' 'Twas her brother that,\n     in pure kindness to his horse, buttered his hay.\n\n             Enter Cornwall, Regan, Gloucester, Servants.\n\n  Lear. Good morrow to you both.\n  Corn. Hail to your Grace!\n                                       Kent here set at liberty.\n  Reg. I am glad to see your Highness.\n  Lear. Regan, I think you are; I know what reason\n     I have to think so. If thou shouldst not be glad,\n     I would divorce me from thy mother's tomb,\n     Sepulchring an adultress. [To Kent] O, are you free?\n     Some other time for that.- Beloved Regan,\n     Thy sister's naught. O Regan, she hath tied\n     Sharp-tooth'd unkindness, like a vulture, here!\n                                   [Lays his hand on his heart.]\n     I can scarce speak to thee. Thou'lt not believe\n     With how deprav'd a quality- O Regan!\n  Reg. I pray you, sir, take patience. I have hope\n     You less know how to value her desert\n     Than she to scant her duty.\n  Lear. Say, how is that?\n  Reg. I cannot think my sister in the least\n     Would fail her obligation. If, sir, perchance\n     She have restrain'd the riots of your followers,\n     'Tis on such ground, and to such wholesome end,\n     As clears her from all blame.\n  Lear. My curses on her!\n  Reg. O, sir, you are old!\n     Nature in you stands on the very verge\n     Of her confine. You should be rul'd, and led\n     By some discretion that discerns your state\n     Better than you yourself. Therefore I pray you\n     That to our sister you do make return;\n     Say you have wrong'd her, sir.\n  Lear. Ask her forgiveness?\n     Do you but mark how this becomes the house:\n     'Dear daughter, I confess that I am old.          [Kneels.]\n     Age is unnecessary. On my knees I beg\n     That you'll vouchsafe me raiment, bed, and food.'\n  Reg. Good sir, no more! These are unsightly tricks.\n     Return you to my sister.\n  Lear. [rises] Never, Regan!\n     She hath abated me of half my train;\n     Look'd black upon me; struck me with her tongue,\n     Most serpent-like, upon the very heart.\n     All the stor'd vengeances of heaven fall\n     On her ingrateful top! Strike her young bones,\n     You taking airs, with lameness!\n  Corn. Fie, sir, fie!\n  Lear. You nimble lightnings, dart your blinding flames\n     Into her scornful eyes! Infect her beauty,\n     You fen-suck'd fogs, drawn by the pow'rful sun,\n     To fall and blast her pride!\n  Reg. O the blest gods! so will you wish on me\n     When the rash mood is on.\n  Lear. No, Regan, thou shalt never have my curse.\n     Thy tender-hefted nature shall not give\n     Thee o'er to harshness. Her eyes are fierce; but thine\n     Do comfort, and not burn. 'Tis not in thee\n     To grudge my pleasures, to cut off my train,\n     To bandy hasty words, to scant my sizes,\n     And, in conclusion, to oppose the bolt\n     Against my coming in. Thou better know'st\n     The offices of nature, bond of childhood,\n     Effects of courtesy, dues of gratitude.\n     Thy half o' th' kingdom hast thou not forgot,\n     Wherein I thee endow'd.\n  Reg. Good sir, to th' purpose.\n                                                  Tucket within.\n  Lear. Who put my man i' th' stocks?\n  Corn. What trumpet's that?\n  Reg. I know't- my sister's. This approves her letter,\n     That she would soon be here.\n\n                     Enter [Oswald the] Steward.\n\n     Is your lady come?\n  Lear. This is a slave, whose easy-borrowed pride\n     Dwells in the fickle grace of her he follows.\n     Out, varlet, from my sight!\n  Corn. What means your Grace?\n\n                            Enter Goneril.\n\n  Lear. Who stock'd my servant? Regan, I have good hope\n     Thou didst not know on't.- Who comes here? O heavens!\n     If you do love old men, if your sweet sway\n     Allow obedience- if yourselves are old,\n     Make it your cause! Send down, and take my part!\n     [To Goneril] Art not asham'd to look upon this beard?-\n     O Regan, wilt thou take her by the hand?\n  Gon. Why not by th' hand, sir? How have I offended?\n     All's not offence that indiscretion finds\n     And dotage terms so.\n  Lear. O sides, you are too tough!\n     Will you yet hold? How came my man i' th' stocks?\n  Corn. I set him there, sir; but his own disorders\n     Deserv'd much less advancement.\n  Lear. You? Did you?\n  Reg. I pray you, father, being weak, seem so.\n     If, till the expiration of your month,\n     You will return and sojourn with my sister,\n     Dismissing half your train, come then to me.\n     I am now from home, and out of that provision\n     Which shall be needful for your entertainment.\n  Lear. Return to her, and fifty men dismiss'd?\n     No, rather I abjure all roofs, and choose\n     To wage against the enmity o' th' air,\n     To be a comrade with the wolf and owl-\n     Necessity's sharp pinch! Return with her?\n     Why, the hot-blooded France, that dowerless took\n     Our youngest born, I could as well be brought\n     To knee his throne, and, squire-like, pension beg\n     To keep base life afoot. Return with her?\n     Persuade me rather to be slave and sumpter\n     To this detested groom.                 [Points at Oswald.]\n  Gon. At your choice, sir.\n  Lear. I prithee, daughter, do not make me mad.\n     I will not trouble thee, my child; farewell.\n     We'll no more meet, no more see one another.\n     But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter;\n     Or rather a disease that's in my flesh,\n     Which I must needs call mine. Thou art a boil,\n     A plague sore, an embossed carbuncle\n     In my corrupted blood. But I'll not chide thee.\n     Let shame come when it will, I do not call it.\n     I do not bid the Thunder-bearer shoot\n     Nor tell tales of thee to high-judging Jove.\n     Mend when thou canst; be better at thy leisure;\n     I can be patient, I can stay with Regan,\n     I and my hundred knights.\n  Reg. Not altogether so.\n     I look'd not for you yet, nor am provided\n     For your fit welcome. Give ear, sir, to my sister;\n     For those that mingle reason with your passion\n     Must be content to think you old, and so-\n     But she knows what she does.\n  Lear. Is this well spoken?\n  Reg. I dare avouch it, sir. What, fifty followers?\n     Is it not well? What should you need of more?\n     Yea, or so many, sith that both charge and danger\n     Speak 'gainst so great a number? How in one house\n     Should many people, under two commands,\n     Hold amity? 'Tis hard; almost impossible.\n  Gon. Why might not you, my lord, receive attendance\n     From those that she calls servants, or from mine?\n  Reg. Why not, my lord? If then they chanc'd to slack ye,\n     We could control them. If you will come to me\n     (For now I spy a danger), I entreat you\n     To bring but five-and-twenty. To no more\n     Will I give place or notice.\n  Lear. I gave you all-\n  Reg. And in good time you gave it!\n  Lear. Made you my guardians, my depositaries;\n     But kept a reservation to be followed\n     With such a number. What, must I come to you\n     With five-and-twenty, Regan? Said you so?\n  Reg. And speak't again my lord. No more with me.\n  Lear. Those wicked creatures yet do look well-favour'd\n     When others are more wicked; not being the worst\n     Stands in some rank of praise. [To Goneril] I'll go with thee.\n     Thy fifty yet doth double five-and-twenty,\n     And thou art twice her love.\n  Gon. Hear, me, my lord.\n     What need you five-and-twenty, ten, or five,\n     To follow in a house where twice so many\n     Have a command to tend you?\n  Reg. What need one?\n  Lear. O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars\n     Are in the poorest thing superfluous.\n     Allow not nature more than nature needs,\n     Man's life is cheap as beast's. Thou art a lady:\n     If only to go warm were gorgeous,\n     Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st\n     Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But, for true need-\n     You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need!\n     You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,\n     As full of grief as age; wretched in both.\n     If it be you that stirs these daughters' hearts\n     Against their father, fool me not so much\n     To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger,\n     And let not women's weapons, water drops,\n     Stain my man's cheeks! No, you unnatural hags!\n     I will have such revenges on you both\n     That all the world shall- I will do such things-\n     What they are yet, I know not; but they shall be\n     The terrors of the earth! You think I'll weep.\n     No, I'll not weep.\n     I have full cause of weeping, but this heart\n     Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws\n     Or ere I'll weep. O fool, I shall go mad!\n              Exeunt Lear, Gloucester, Kent, and Fool. Storm and\n                                                        tempest.\n  Corn. Let us withdraw; 'twill be a storm.\n  Reg. This house is little; the old man and 's people\n     Cannot be well bestow'd.\n  Gon. 'Tis his own blame; hath put himself from rest\n     And must needs taste his folly.\n  Reg. For his particular, I'll receive him gladly,\n     But not one follower.\n  Gon. So am I purpos'd.\n     Where is my Lord of Gloucester?\n  Corn. Followed the old man forth.\n\n                          Enter Gloucester.\n\n     He is return'd.\n  Glou. The King is in high rage.\n  Corn. Whither is he going?\n  Glou. He calls to horse, but will I know not whither.\n  Corn. 'Tis best to give him way; he leads himself.\n  Gon. My lord, entreat him by no means to stay.\n  Glou. Alack, the night comes on, and the bleak winds\n     Do sorely ruffle. For many miles about\n     There's scarce a bush.\n  Reg. O, sir, to wilful men\n     The injuries that they themselves procure\n     Must be their schoolmasters. Shut up your doors.\n     He is attended with a desperate train,\n     And what they may incense him to, being apt\n     To have his ear abus'd, wisdom bids fear.\n  Corn. Shut up your doors, my lord: 'tis a wild night.\n     My Regan counsels well. Come out o' th' storm.        [Exeunt.]\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. Scene I.\nA heath.\n\nStorm still. Enter Kent and a Gentleman at several doors.\n\n  Kent. Who's there, besides foul weather?\n  Gent. One minded like the weather, most unquietly.\n  Kent. I know you. Where's the King?\n  Gent. Contending with the fretful elements;\n     Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea,\n     Or swell the curled waters 'bove the main,\n     That things might change or cease; tears his white hair,\n     Which the impetuous blasts, with eyeless rage,\n     Catch in their fury and make nothing of;\n     Strives in his little world of man to outscorn\n     The to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain.\n     This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch,\n     The lion and the belly-pinched wolf\n     Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs,\n     And bids what will take all.\n  Kent. But who is with him?\n  Gent. None but the fool, who labours to outjest\n     His heart-struck injuries.\n  Kent. Sir, I do know you,\n     And dare upon the warrant of my note\n     Commend a dear thing to you. There is division\n     (Although as yet the face of it be cover'd\n     With mutual cunning) 'twixt Albany and Cornwall;\n     Who have (as who have not, that their great stars\n     Thron'd and set high?) servants, who seem no less,\n     Which are to France the spies and speculations\n     Intelligent of our state. What hath been seen,\n     Either in snuffs and packings of the Dukes,\n     Or the hard rein which both of them have borne\n     Against the old kind King, or something deeper,\n     Whereof, perchance, these are but furnishings-\n     But, true it is, from France there comes a power\n     Into this scattered kingdom, who already,\n     Wise in our negligence, have secret feet\n     In some of our best ports and are at point\n     To show their open banner. Now to you:\n     If on my credit you dare build so far\n     To make your speed to Dover, you shall find\n     Some that will thank you, making just report\n     Of how unnatural and bemadding sorrow\n     The King hath cause to plain.\n     I am a gentleman of blood and breeding,\n     And from some knowledge and assurance offer\n     This office to you.\n  Gent. I will talk further with you.\n  Kent. No, do not.\n     For confirmation that I am much more\n     Than my out-wall, open this purse and take\n     What it contains. If you shall see Cordelia\n     (As fear not but you shall), show her this ring,\n     And she will tell you who your fellow is\n     That yet you do not know. Fie on this storm!\n     I will go seek the King.\n  Gent. Give me your hand. Have you no more to say?\n  Kent. Few words, but, to effect, more than all yet:\n     That, when we have found the King (in which your pain\n     That way, I'll this), he that first lights on him\n     Holla the other.\n                                             Exeunt [severally].\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nAnother part of the heath.\n\nStorm still. Enter Lear and Fool.\n\n  Lear. Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!\n     You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout\n     Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!\n     You sulph'rous and thought-executing fires,\n     Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,\n     Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,\n     Strike flat the thick rotundity o' th' world,\n     Crack Nature's moulds, all germains spill at once,\n     That makes ingrateful man!\n  Fool. O nuncle, court holy water in a dry house is better than this\n     rain water out o' door. Good nuncle, in, and ask thy daughters\n     blessing! Here's a night pities nether wise men nor fools.\n  Lear. Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout, rain!\n     Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire are my daughters.\n     I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness.\n     I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children,\n     You owe me no subscription. Then let fall\n     Your horrible pleasure. Here I stand your slave,\n     A poor, infirm, weak, and despis'd old man.\n     But yet I call you servile ministers,\n     That will with two pernicious daughters join\n     Your high-engender'd battles 'gainst a head\n     So old and white as this! O! O! 'tis foul!\n  Fool. He that has a house to put 's head in has a good head-piece.\n          The codpiece that will house\n            Before the head has any,\n          The head and he shall louse:\n            So beggars marry many.\n          The man that makes his toe\n            What he his heart should make\n          Shall of a corn cry woe,\n            And turn his sleep to wake.\n     For there was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a\n     glass.\n\n                             Enter Kent.\n\n  Lear. No, I will be the pattern of all patience;\n     I will say nothing.\n  Kent. Who's there?\n  Fool. Marry, here's grace and a codpiece; that's a wise man and a\n     fool.\n  Kent. Alas, sir, are you here? Things that love night\n     Love not such nights as these. The wrathful skies\n     Gallow the very wanderers of the dark\n     And make them keep their caves. Since I was man,\n     Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder,\n     Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never\n     Remember to have heard. Man's nature cannot carry\n     Th' affliction nor the fear.\n  Lear. Let the great gods,\n     That keep this dreadful pudder o'er our heads,\n     Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch,\n     That hast within thee undivulged crimes\n     Unwhipp'd of justice. Hide thee, thou bloody hand;\n     Thou perjur'd, and thou simular man of virtue\n     That art incestuous. Caitiff, in pieces shake\n     That under covert and convenient seeming\n     Hast practis'd on man's life. Close pent-up guilts,\n     Rive your concealing continents, and cry\n     These dreadful summoners grace. I am a man\n     More sinn'd against than sinning.\n  Kent. Alack, bareheaded?\n     Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel;\n     Some friendship will it lend you 'gainst the tempest.\n     Repose you there, whilst I to this hard house\n     (More harder than the stones whereof 'tis rais'd,\n     Which even but now, demanding after you,\n     Denied me to come in) return, and force\n     Their scanted courtesy.\n  Lear. My wits begin to turn.\n     Come on, my boy. How dost, my boy? Art cold?\n     I am cold myself. Where is this straw, my fellow?\n     The art of our necessities is strange,\n     That can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel.\n     Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart\n     That's sorry yet for thee.\n  Fool. [sings]\n\n          He that has and a little tiny wit-\n            With hey, ho, the wind and the rain-\n          Must make content with his fortunes fit,\n             For the rain it raineth every day.\n\n  Lear. True, my good boy. Come, bring us to this hovel.\n                                         Exeunt [Lear and Kent].\n  Fool. This is a brave night to cool a courtesan. I'll speak a\n     prophecy ere I go:\n          When priests are more in word than matter;\n          When brewers mar their malt with water;\n          When nobles are their tailors' tutors,\n          No heretics burn'd, but wenches' suitors;\n          When every case in law is right,\n          No squire in debt nor no poor knight;\n          When slanders do not live in tongues,\n          Nor cutpurses come not to throngs;\n          When usurers tell their gold i' th' field,\n          And bawds and whores do churches build:\n          Then shall the realm of Albion\n          Come to great confusion.\n          Then comes the time, who lives to see't,\n          That going shall be us'd with feet.\n     This prophecy Merlin shall make, for I live before his time.\nExit.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nGloucester's Castle.\n\nEnter Gloucester and Edmund.\n\n  Glou. Alack, alack, Edmund, I like not this unnatural dealing! When\n     I desir'd their leave that I might pity him, they took from me\n     the use of mine own house, charg'd me on pain of perpetual\n     displeasure neither to speak of him, entreat for him, nor any\n     way sustain him.\n  Edm. Most savage and unnatural!\n  Glou. Go to; say you nothing. There is division betwixt the Dukes,\n     and a worse matter than that. I have received a letter this\n     night- 'tis dangerous to be spoken- I have lock'd the letter in\n     my closet. These injuries the King now bears will be revenged\n     home; there's part of a power already footed; we must incline to\n     the King. I will seek him and privily relieve him. Go you and\n     maintain talk with the Duke, that my charity be not of him\n     perceived. If he ask for me, I am ill and gone to bed. Though I\n     die for't, as no less is threat'ned me, the King my old master\n     must be relieved. There is some strange thing toward, Edmund.\n     Pray you be careful.                                  Exit.\n  Edm. This courtesy, forbid thee, shall the Duke\n     Instantly know, and of that letter too.\n     This seems a fair deserving, and must draw me\n     That which my father loses- no less than all.\n     The younger rises when the old doth fall.             Exit.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nThe heath. Before a hovel.\n\nStorm still. Enter Lear, Kent, and Fool.\n\n  Kent. Here is the place, my lord. Good my lord, enter.\n     The tyranny of the open night 's too rough\n     For nature to endure.\n  Lear. Let me alone.\n  Kent. Good my lord, enter here.\n  Lear. Wilt break my heart?\n  Kent. I had rather break mine own. Good my lord, enter.\n  Lear. Thou think'st 'tis much that this contentious storm\n     Invades us to the skin. So 'tis to thee;\n     But where the greater malady is fix'd,\n     The lesser is scarce felt. Thou'dst shun a bear;\n     But if thy flight lay toward the raging sea,\n     Thou'dst meet the bear i' th' mouth. When the mind's free,\n     The body's delicate. The tempest in my mind\n     Doth from my senses take all feeling else\n     Save what beats there. Filial ingratitude!\n     Is it not as this mouth should tear this hand\n     For lifting food to't? But I will punish home!\n     No, I will weep no more. In such a night\n     'To shut me out! Pour on; I will endure.\n     In such a night as this! O Regan, Goneril!\n     Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all!\n     O, that way madness lies; let me shun that!\n     No more of that.\n  Kent. Good my lord, enter here.\n  Lear. Prithee go in thyself; seek thine own ease.\n     This tempest will not give me leave to ponder\n     On things would hurt me more. But I'll go in.\n     [To the Fool] In, boy; go first.- You houseless poverty-\n     Nay, get thee in. I'll pray, and then I'll sleep.\n                                                    Exit [Fool].\n     Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,\n     That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,\n     How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,\n     Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you\n     From seasons such as these? O, I have ta'en\n     Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp;\n     Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,\n     That thou mayst shake the superflux to them\n     And show the heavens more just.\n  Edg. [within] Fathom and half, fathom and half! Poor Tom!\n\n                     Enter Fool [from the hovel].\n\n  Fool. Come not in here, nuncle, here's a spirit. Help me, help me!\n  Kent. Give me thy hand. Who's there?\n  Fool. A spirit, a spirit! He says his name's poor Tom.\n  Kent. What art thou that dost grumble there i' th' straw?\n     Come forth.\n\n                 Enter Edgar [disguised as a madman].\n\n  Edg. Away! the foul fiend follows me! Through the sharp hawthorn\n     blows the cold wind. Humh! go to thy cold bed, and warm thee.\n  Lear. Hast thou given all to thy two daughters, and art thou come\n     to this?\n  Edg. Who gives anything to poor Tom? whom the foul fiend hath led\n     through fire and through flame, through ford and whirlpool, o'er\n     bog and quagmire; that hath laid knives under his pillow and\n     halters in his pew, set ratsbane by his porridge, made him proud\n     of heart, to ride on a bay trotting horse over four-inch'd\n     bridges, to course his own shadow for a traitor. Bless thy five\n     wits! Tom 's acold. O, do de, do de, do de. Bless thee from\n     whirlwinds, star-blasting, and taking! Do poor Tom some charity,\n     whom the foul fiend vexes. There could I have him now- and there-\n     and there again- and there!\n                                                    Storm still.\n  Lear. What, have his daughters brought him to this pass?\n     Couldst thou save nothing? Didst thou give 'em all?\n  Fool. Nay, he reserv'd a blanket, else we had been all sham'd.\n  Lear. Now all the plagues that in the pendulous air\n     Hang fated o'er men's faults light on thy daughters!\n  Kent. He hath no daughters, sir.\n  Lear. Death, traitor! nothing could have subdu'd nature\n     To such a lowness but his unkind daughters.\n     Is it the fashion that discarded fathers\n     Should have thus little mercy on their flesh?\n     Judicious punishment! 'Twas this flesh begot\n     Those pelican daughters.\n  Edg. Pillicock sat on Pillicock's Hill. 'Allow, 'allow, loo, loo!\n  Fool. This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen.\n  Edg. Take heed o' th' foul fiend; obey thy parents: keep thy word\n     justly; swear not; commit not with man's sworn spouse; set not\n     thy sweet heart on proud array. Tom 's acold.\n  Lear. What hast thou been?\n  Edg. A servingman, proud in heart and mind; that curl'd my hair,\n     wore gloves in my cap; serv'd the lust of my mistress' heart and\n     did the act of darkness with her; swore as many oaths as I spake\n     words, and broke them in the sweet face of heaven; one that\n     slept in the contriving of lust, and wak'd to do it. Wine lov'd\n     I deeply, dice dearly; and in woman out-paramour'd the Turk.\n     False of heart, light of ear, bloody of hand; hog in sloth, fox\n     in stealth, wolf in greediness, dog in madness, lion in prey.\n     Let not the creaking of shoes nor the rustling of silks betray\n     thy poor heart to woman. Keep thy foot out of brothel, thy hand\n     out of placket, thy pen from lender's book, and defy the foul\n     fiend. Still through the hawthorn blows the cold wind; says\n     suum, mun, hey, no, nonny. Dolphin my boy, my boy, sessa! let\n     him trot by.\n                                                    Storm still.\n  Lear. Why, thou wert better in thy grave than to answer with thy\n     uncover'd body this extremity of the skies. Is man no more than\n     this? Consider him well. Thou ow'st the worm no silk, the beast\n     no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha! Here's three\n     on's are sophisticated! Thou art the thing itself;\n     unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked\n     animal as thou art. Off, off, you lendings! Come, unbutton\n     here.\n                                         [Tears at his clothes.]\n  Fool. Prithee, nuncle, be contented! 'Tis a naughty night to swim\n     in. Now a little fire in a wild field were like an old lecher's\n     heart- a small spark, all the rest on's body cold. Look, here\n     comes a walking fire.\n\n                    Enter Gloucester with a torch.\n\n  Edg. This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet. He begins at curfew,\n     and walks till the first cock. He gives the web and the pin,\n     squints the eye, and makes the harelip; mildews the white wheat,\n     and hurts the poor creature of earth.\n\n           Saint Withold footed thrice the 'old;\n           He met the nightmare, and her nine fold;\n              Bid her alight\n              And her troth plight,\n           And aroint thee, witch, aroint thee!\n\n  Kent. How fares your Grace?\n  Lear. What's he?\n  Kent. Who's there? What is't you seek?\n  Glou. What are you there? Your names?\n  Edg. Poor Tom, that eats the swimming frog, the toad, the todpole,\n     the wall-newt and the water; that in the fury of his heart, when\n     the foul fiend rages, eats cow-dung for sallets, swallows the\n     old rat and the ditch-dog, drinks the green mantle of the\n     standing pool; who is whipp'd from tithing to tithing, and\n     stock-punish'd and imprison'd; who hath had three suits to his\n     back, six shirts to his body, horse to ride, and weapons to\n     wear;\n\n          But mice and rats, and such small deer,\n          Have been Tom's food for seven long year.\n\n     Beware my follower. Peace, Smulkin! peace, thou fiend!\n  Glou. What, hath your Grace no better company?\n  Edg. The prince of darkness is a gentleman!\n     Modo he's call'd, and Mahu.\n  Glou. Our flesh and blood is grown so vile, my lord,\n     That it doth hate what gets it.\n  Edg. Poor Tom 's acold.\n  Glou. Go in with me. My duty cannot suffer\n     T' obey in all your daughters' hard commands.\n     Though their injunction be to bar my doors\n     And let this tyrannous night take hold upon you,\n     Yet have I ventur'd to come seek you out\n     And bring you where both fire and food is ready.\n  Lear. First let me talk with this philosopher.\n     What is the cause of thunder?\n  Kent. Good my lord, take his offer; go into th' house.\n  Lear. I'll talk a word with this same learned Theban.\n     What is your study?\n  Edg. How to prevent the fiend and to kill vermin.\n  Lear. Let me ask you one word in private.\n  Kent. Importune him once more to go, my lord.\n     His wits begin t' unsettle.\n  Glou. Canst thou blame him?\n                                                    Storm still.\n     His daughters seek his death. Ah, that good Kent!\n     He said it would be thus- poor banish'd man!\n     Thou say'st the King grows mad: I'll tell thee, friend,\n     I am almost mad myself. I had a son,\n     Now outlaw'd from my blood. He sought my life\n     But lately, very late. I lov'd him, friend-\n     No father his son dearer. True to tell thee,\n     The grief hath craz'd my wits. What a night 's this!\n     I do beseech your Grace-\n  Lear. O, cry you mercy, sir.\n     Noble philosopher, your company.\n  Edg. Tom's acold.\n  Glou. In, fellow, there, into th' hovel; keep thee warm.\n  Lear. Come, let's in all.\n  Kent. This way, my lord.\n  Lear. With him!\n     I will keep still with my philosopher.\n  Kent. Good my lord, soothe him; let him take the fellow.\n  Glou. Take him you on.\n  Kent. Sirrah, come on; go along with us.\n  Lear. Come, good Athenian.\n  Glou. No words, no words! hush.\n  Edg. Child Rowland to the dark tower came;\n     His word was still\n\n          Fie, foh, and fum!\n          I smell the blood of a British man.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\nScene V.\nGloucester's Castle.\n\nEnter Cornwall and Edmund.\n\n  Corn. I will have my revenge ere I depart his house.\n  Edm. How, my lord, I may be censured, that nature thus gives way to\n     loyalty, something fears me to think of.\n  Corn. I now perceive it was not altogether your brother's evil\n     disposition made him seek his death; but a provoking merit, set\n     awork by a reproveable badness in himself.\n  Edm. How malicious is my fortune that I must repent to be just!\n     This is the letter he spoke of, which approves him an\n     intelligent party to the advantages of France. O heavens! that\n     this treason were not- or not I the detector!\n  Corn. Go with me to the Duchess.\n  Edm. If the matter of this paper be certain, you have mighty\n     business in hand.\n  Corn. True or false, it hath made thee Earl of Gloucester.\n     Seek out where thy father is, that he may be ready for our\n     apprehension.\n  Edm. [aside] If I find him comforting the King, it will stuff his\n     suspicion more fully.- I will persever in my course of loyalty,\n     though the conflict be sore between that and my blood.\n  Corn. I will lay trust upon thee, and thou shalt find a dearer\n     father in my love.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene VI.\nA farmhouse near Gloucester's Castle.\n\nEnter Gloucester, Lear, Kent, Fool, and Edgar.\n\n  Glou. Here is better than the open air; take it thankfully. I will\n     piece out the comfort with what addition I can. I will not be\n     long from you.\n  Kent. All the power of his wits have given way to his impatience.\n     The gods reward your kindness!\n                                              Exit [Gloucester].\n  Edg. Frateretto calls me, and tells me Nero is an angler in the\n     lake of darkness. Pray, innocent, and beware the foul fiend.\n  Fool. Prithee, nuncle, tell me whether a madman be a gentleman or a\n     yeoman.\n  Lear. A king, a king!\n  Fool. No, he's a yeoman that has a gentleman to his son; for he's a\n     mad yeoman that sees his son a gentleman before him.\n  Lear. To have a thousand with red burning spits\n     Come hizzing in upon 'em-\n  Edg. The foul fiend bites my back.\n  Fool. He's mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse's\n     health, a boy's love, or a whore's oath.\n  Lear. It shall be done; I will arraign them straight.\n     [To Edgar] Come, sit thou here, most learned justicer.\n     [To the Fool] Thou, sapient sir, sit here. Now, you she-foxes!\n  Edg. Look, where he stands and glares! Want'st thou eyes at trial,\n     madam?\n\n             Come o'er the bourn, Bessy, to me.\n\n  Fool.      Her boat hath a leak,\n             And she must not speak\n           Why she dares not come over to thee.\n\n  Edg. The foul fiend haunts poor Tom in the voice of a nightingale.\n     Hoppedance cries in Tom's belly for two white herring. Croak\n     not, black angel; I have no food for thee.\n  Kent. How do you, sir? Stand you not so amaz'd.\n     Will you lie down and rest upon the cushions?\n  Lear. I'll see their trial first. Bring in their evidence.\n     [To Edgar] Thou, robed man of justice, take thy place.\n     [To the Fool] And thou, his yokefellow of equity,\n     Bench by his side. [To Kent] You are o' th' commission,\n     Sit you too.\n  Edg. Let us deal justly.\n\n          Sleepest or wakest thou, jolly shepherd?\n            Thy sheep be in the corn;\n          And for one blast of thy minikin mouth\n            Thy sheep shall take no harm.\n\n     Purr! the cat is gray.\n  Lear. Arraign her first. 'Tis Goneril. I here take my oath before\n     this honourable assembly, she kicked the poor King her father.\n  Fool. Come hither, mistress. Is your name Goneril?\n  Lear. She cannot deny it.\n  Fool. Cry you mercy, I took you for a joint-stool.\n  Lear. And here's another, whose warp'd looks proclaim\n     What store her heart is made on. Stop her there!\n     Arms, arms! sword! fire! Corruption in the place!\n     False justicer, why hast thou let her scape?\n  Edg. Bless thy five wits!\n  Kent. O pity! Sir, where is the patience now\n     That you so oft have boasted to retain?\n  Edg. [aside] My tears begin to take his part so much\n     They'll mar my counterfeiting.\n  Lear. The little dogs and all,\n     Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me.\n  Edg. Tom will throw his head at them. Avaunt, you curs!\n           Be thy mouth or black or white,\n           Tooth that poisons if it bite;\n           Mastiff, greyhound, mongrel grim,\n           Hound or spaniel, brach or lym,\n           Bobtail tyke or trundle-tall-\n           Tom will make them weep and wail;\n           For, with throwing thus my head,\n           Dogs leap the hatch, and all are fled.\n     Do de, de, de. Sessa! Come, march to wakes and fairs and market\n     towns. Poor Tom, thy horn is dry.\n  Lear. Then let them anatomize Regan. See what breeds about her\n     heart. Is there any cause in nature that makes these hard\n     hearts? [To Edgar] You, sir- I entertain you for one of my\n     hundred; only I do not like the fashion of your garments. You'll\n     say they are Persian attire; but let them be chang'd.\n  Kent. Now, good my lord, lie here and rest awhile.\n  Lear. Make no noise, make no noise; draw the curtains.\n     So, so, so. We'll go to supper i' th' morning. So, so, so.\n  Fool. And I'll go to bed at noon.\n\n                          Enter Gloucester.\n\n  Glou. Come hither, friend. Where is the King my master?\n  Kent. Here, sir; but trouble him not; his wits are gone.\n  Glou. Good friend, I prithee take him in thy arms.\n     I have o'erheard a plot of death upon him.\n     There is a litter ready; lay him in't\n     And drive towards Dover, friend, where thou shalt meet\n     Both welcome and protection. Take up thy master.\n     If thou shouldst dally half an hour, his life,\n     With thine, and all that offer to defend him,\n     Stand in assured loss. Take up, take up!\n     And follow me, that will to some provision\n     Give thee quick conduct.\n  Kent. Oppressed nature sleeps.\n     This rest might yet have balm'd thy broken senses,\n     Which, if convenience will not allow,\n     Stand in hard cure. [To the Fool] Come, help to bear thy master.\n     Thou must not stay behind.\n  Glou. Come, come, away!\n                                         Exeunt [all but Edgar].\n  Edg. When we our betters see bearing our woes,\n     We scarcely think our miseries our foes.\n     Who alone suffers suffers most i' th' mind,\n     Leaving free things and happy shows behind;\n     But then the mind much sufferance doth o'erskip\n     When grief hath mates, and bearing fellowship.\n     How light and portable my pain seems now,\n     When that which makes me bend makes the King bow,\n     He childed as I fathered! Tom, away!\n     Mark the high noises, and thyself bewray\n     When false opinion, whose wrong thought defiles thee,\n     In thy just proof repeals and reconciles thee.\n     What will hap more to-night, safe scape the King!\n     Lurk, lurk.                                         [Exit.]\n\n\n\n\nScene VII.\nGloucester's Castle.\n\nEnter Cornwall, Regan, Goneril, [Edmund the] Bastard, and Servants.\n\n  Corn. [to Goneril] Post speedily to my lord your husband, show him\n     this letter. The army of France is landed.- Seek out the traitor\n     Gloucester.\n                                  [Exeunt some of the Servants.]\n  Reg. Hang him instantly.\n  Gon. Pluck out his eyes.\n  Corn. Leave him to my displeasure. Edmund, keep you our sister\n     company. The revenges we are bound to take upon your traitorous\n     father are not fit for your beholding. Advise the Duke where you\n     are going, to a most festinate preparation. We are bound to the\n     like. Our posts shall be swift and intelligent betwixt us.\n     Farewell, dear sister; farewell, my Lord of Gloucester.\n\n                     Enter [Oswald the] Steward.\n\n     How now? Where's the King?\n  Osw. My Lord of Gloucester hath convey'd him hence.\n     Some five or six and thirty of his knights,\n     Hot questrists after him, met him at gate;\n     Who, with some other of the lord's dependants,\n     Are gone with him towards Dover, where they boast\n     To have well-armed friends.\n  Corn. Get horses for your mistress.\n  Gon. Farewell, sweet lord, and sister.\n  Corn. Edmund, farewell.\n                           Exeunt Goneril, [Edmund, and Oswald].\n     Go seek the traitor Gloucester,\n     Pinion him like a thief, bring him before us.\n                                        [Exeunt other Servants.]\n     Though well we may not pass upon his life\n     Without the form of justice, yet our power\n     Shall do a court'sy to our wrath, which men\n     May blame, but not control.\n\n            Enter Gloucester, brought in by two or three.\n\n     Who's there? the traitor?\n  Reg. Ingrateful fox! 'tis he.\n  Corn. Bind fast his corky arms.\n  Glou. What mean, your Graces? Good my friends, consider\n     You are my guests. Do me no foul play, friends.\n  Corn. Bind him, I say.\n                                            [Servants bind him.]\n  Reg. Hard, hard. O filthy traitor!\n  Glou. Unmerciful lady as you are, I am none.\n  Corn. To this chair bind him. Villain, thou shalt find-\n                                       [Regan plucks his beard.]\n  Glou. By the kind gods, 'tis most ignobly done\n     To pluck me by the beard.\n  Reg. So white, and such a traitor!\n  Glou. Naughty lady,\n     These hairs which thou dost ravish from my chin\n     Will quicken, and accuse thee. I am your host.\n     With robber's hands my hospitable favours\n     You should not ruffle thus. What will you do?\n  Corn. Come, sir, what letters had you late from France?\n  Reg. Be simple-answer'd, for we know the truth.\n  Corn. And what confederacy have you with the traitors\n     Late footed in the kingdom?\n  Reg. To whose hands have you sent the lunatic King?\n     Speak.\n  Glou. I have a letter guessingly set down,\n     Which came from one that's of a neutral heart,\n     And not from one oppos'd.\n  Corn. Cunning.\n  Reg. And false.\n  Corn. Where hast thou sent the King?\n  Glou. To Dover.\n  Reg. Wherefore to Dover? Wast thou not charg'd at peril-\n  Corn. Wherefore to Dover? Let him first answer that.\n  Glou. I am tied to th' stake, and I must stand the course.\n  Reg. Wherefore to Dover, sir?\n  Glou. Because I would not see thy cruel nails\n     Pluck out his poor old eyes; nor thy fierce sister\n     In his anointed flesh stick boarish fangs.\n     The sea, with such a storm as his bare head\n     In hell-black night endur'd, would have buoy'd up\n     And quench'd the steeled fires.\n     Yet, poor old heart, he holp the heavens to rain.\n     If wolves had at thy gate howl'd that stern time,\n     Thou shouldst have said, 'Good porter, turn the key.'\n     All cruels else subscrib'd. But I shall see\n     The winged vengeance overtake such children.\n  Corn. See't shalt thou never. Fellows, hold the chair.\n     Upon these eyes of thine I'll set my foot.\n  Glou. He that will think to live till he be old,\n     Give me some help!- O cruel! O ye gods!\n  Reg. One side will mock another. Th' other too!\n  Corn. If you see vengeance-\n  1. Serv. Hold your hand, my lord!\n     I have serv'd you ever since I was a child;\n     But better service have I never done you\n     Than now to bid you hold.\n  Reg. How now, you dog?\n  1. Serv. If you did wear a beard upon your chin,\n     I'ld shake it on this quarrel.\n  Reg. What do you mean?\n  Corn. My villain!                               Draw and fight.\n  1. Serv. Nay, then, come on, and take the chance of anger.\n  Reg. Give me thy sword. A peasant stand up thus?\n                        She takes a sword and runs at him behind.\n  1. Serv. O, I am slain! My lord, you have one eye left\n     To see some mischief on him. O!                     He dies.\n  Corn. Lest it see more, prevent it. Out, vile jelly!\n     Where is thy lustre now?\n  Glou. All dark and comfortless! Where's my son Edmund?\n     Edmund, enkindle all the sparks of nature\n     To quit this horrid act.\n  Reg. Out, treacherous villain!\n     Thou call'st on him that hates thee. It was he\n     That made the overture of thy treasons to us;\n     Who is too good to pity thee.\n  Glou. O my follies! Then Edgar was abus'd.\n     Kind gods, forgive me that, and prosper him!\n  Reg. Go thrust him out at gates, and let him smell\n     His way to Dover.\n                                     Exit [one] with Gloucester.\n     How is't, my lord? How look you?\n  Corn. I have receiv'd a hurt. Follow me, lady.\n     Turn out that eyeless villain. Throw this slave\n     Upon the dunghill. Regan, I bleed apace.\n     Untimely comes this hurt. Give me your arm.\n                                  Exit [Cornwall, led by Regan].\n  2. Serv. I'll never care what wickedness I do,\n     If this man come to good.\n  3. Serv. If she live long,\n     And in the end meet the old course of death,\n     Women will all turn monsters.\n  2. Serv. Let's follow the old Earl, and get the bedlam\n     To lead him where he would. His roguish madness\n     Allows itself to anything.\n  3. Serv. Go thou. I'll fetch some flax and whites of eggs\n     To apply to his bleeding face. Now heaven help him!\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. Scene I.\nThe heath.\n\nEnter Edgar.\n\n  Edg. Yet better thus, and known to be contemn'd,\n     Than still contemn'd and flatter'd. To be worst,\n     The lowest and most dejected thing of fortune,\n     Stands still in esperance, lives not in fear.\n     The lamentable change is from the best;\n     The worst returns to laughter. Welcome then,\n     Thou unsubstantial air that I embrace!\n     The wretch that thou hast blown unto the worst\n     Owes nothing to thy blasts.\n\n                 Enter Gloucester, led by an Old Man.\n\n     But who comes here?\n     My father, poorly led? World, world, O world!\n     But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee,\n     Life would not yield to age.\n  Old Man. O my good lord,\n     I have been your tenant, and your father's tenant,\n     These fourscore years.\n  Glou. Away, get thee away! Good friend, be gone.\n     Thy comforts can do me no good at all;\n     Thee they may hurt.\n  Old Man. You cannot see your way.\n  Glou. I have no way, and therefore want no eyes;\n     I stumbled when I saw. Full oft 'tis seen\n     Our means secure us, and our mere defects\n     Prove our commodities. Ah dear son Edgar,\n     The food of thy abused father's wrath!\n     Might I but live to see thee in my touch,\n     I'ld say I had eyes again!\n  Old Man. How now? Who's there?\n  Edg. [aside] O gods! Who is't can say 'I am at the worst'?\n     I am worse than e'er I was.\n  Old Man. 'Tis poor mad Tom.\n  Edg. [aside] And worse I may be yet. The worst is not\n     So long as we can say 'This is the worst.'\n  Old Man. Fellow, where goest?\n  Glou. Is it a beggarman?\n  Old Man. Madman and beggar too.\n  Glou. He has some reason, else he could not beg.\n     I' th' last night's storm I such a fellow saw,\n     Which made me think a man a worm. My son\n     Came then into my mind, and yet my mind\n     Was then scarce friends with him. I have heard more since.\n     As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods.\n     They kill us for their sport.\n  Edg. [aside] How should this be?\n     Bad is the trade that must play fool to sorrow,\n     Ang'ring itself and others.- Bless thee, master!\n  Glou. Is that the naked fellow?\n  Old Man. Ay, my lord.\n  Glou. Then prithee get thee gone. If for my sake\n     Thou wilt o'ertake us hence a mile or twain\n     I' th' way toward Dover, do it for ancient love;\n     And bring some covering for this naked soul,\n     Who I'll entreat to lead me.\n  Old Man. Alack, sir, he is mad!\n  Glou. 'Tis the time's plague when madmen lead the blind.\n     Do as I bid thee, or rather do thy pleasure.\n     Above the rest, be gone.\n  Old Man. I'll bring him the best 'parel that I have,\n     Come on't what will.                                  Exit.\n  Glou. Sirrah naked fellow-\n  Edg. Poor Tom's acold. [Aside] I cannot daub it further.\n  Glou. Come hither, fellow.\n  Edg. [aside] And yet I must.- Bless thy sweet eyes, they bleed.\n  Glou. Know'st thou the way to Dover?\n  Edg. Both stile and gate, horseway and footpath. Poor Tom hath been\n     scar'd out of his good wits. Bless thee, good man's son, from\n     the foul fiend! Five fiends have been in poor Tom at once: of\n     lust, as Obidicut; Hobbididence, prince of dumbness; Mahu, of\n     stealing; Modo, of murder; Flibbertigibbet, of mopping and\n     mowing, who since possesses chambermaids and waiting women. So,\n     bless thee, master!\n  Glou. Here, take this Purse, thou whom the heavens' plagues\n     Have humbled to all strokes. That I am wretched\n     Makes thee the happier. Heavens, deal so still!\n     Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man,\n     That slaves your ordinance, that will not see\n     Because he does not feel, feel your pow'r quickly;\n     So distribution should undo excess,\n     And each man have enough. Dost thou know Dover?\n  Edg. Ay, master.\n  Glou. There is a cliff, whose high and bending head\n     Looks fearfully in the confined deep.\n     Bring me but to the very brim of it,\n     And I'll repair the misery thou dost bear\n     With something rich about me. From that place\n     I shall no leading need.\n  Edg. Give me thy arm.\n     Poor Tom shall lead thee.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nBefore the Duke of Albany's Palace.\n\nEnter Goneril and [Edmund the] Bastard.\n\n  Gon. Welcome, my lord. I marvel our mild husband\n     Not met us on the way.\n\n                     Enter [Oswald the] Steward.\n\n     Now, where's your master?\n  Osw. Madam, within, but never man so chang'd.\n     I told him of the army that was landed:\n     He smil'd at it. I told him you were coming:\n     His answer was, 'The worse.' Of Gloucester's treachery\n     And of the loyal service of his son\n     When I inform'd him, then he call'd me sot\n     And told me I had turn'd the wrong side out.\n     What most he should dislike seems pleasant to him;\n     What like, offensive.\n  Gon. [to Edmund] Then shall you go no further.\n     It is the cowish terror of his spirit,\n     That dares not undertake. He'll not feel wrongs\n     Which tie him to an answer. Our wishes on the way\n     May prove effects. Back, Edmund, to my brother.\n     Hasten his musters and conduct his pow'rs.\n     I must change arms at home and give the distaff\n     Into my husband's hands. This trusty servant\n     Shall pass between us. Ere long you are like to hear\n     (If you dare venture in your own behalf)\n     A mistress's command. Wear this.          [Gives a favour.]\n     Spare speech.\n     Decline your head. This kiss, if it durst speak,\n     Would stretch thy spirits up into the air.\n     Conceive, and fare thee well.\n  Edm. Yours in the ranks of death!                        Exit.\n  Gon. My most dear Gloucester!\n     O, the difference of man and man!\n     To thee a woman's services are due;\n     My fool usurps my body.\n  Osw. Madam, here comes my lord.                          Exit.\n\n                            Enter Albany.\n\n  Gon. I have been worth the whistle.\n  Alb. O Goneril,\n     You are not worth the dust which the rude wind\n     Blows in your face! I fear your disposition.\n     That nature which contemns it origin\n     Cannot be bordered certain in itself.\n     She that herself will sliver and disbranch\n     From her material sap, perforce must wither\n     And come to deadly use.\n  Gon. No more! The text is foolish.\n  Alb. Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile;\n     Filths savour but themselves. What have you done?\n     Tigers, not daughters, what have you perform'd?\n     A father, and a gracious aged man,\n     Whose reverence even the head-lugg'd bear would lick,\n     Most barbarous, most degenerate, have you madded.\n     Could my good brother suffer you to do it?\n     A man, a prince, by him so benefited!\n     If that the heavens do not their visible spirits\n     Send quickly down to tame these vile offences,\n     It will come,\n     Humanity must perforce prey on itself,\n     Like monsters of the deep.\n  Gon. Milk-liver'd man!\n     That bear'st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs;\n     Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerning\n     Thine honour from thy suffering; that not know'st\n     Fools do those villains pity who are punish'd\n     Ere they have done their mischief. Where's thy drum?\n     France spreads his banners in our noiseless land,\n     With plumed helm thy state begins to threat,\n     Whiles thou, a moral fool, sit'st still, and criest\n     'Alack, why does he so?'\n  Alb. See thyself, devil!\n     Proper deformity seems not in the fiend\n     So horrid as in woman.\n  Gon. O vain fool!\n  Alb. Thou changed and self-cover'd thing, for shame!\n     Bemonster not thy feature! Were't my fitness\n     To let these hands obey my blood,\n     They are apt enough to dislocate and tear\n     Thy flesh and bones. Howe'er thou art a fiend,\n     A woman's shape doth shield thee.\n  Gon. Marry, your manhood mew!\n\n                          Enter a Gentleman.\n\n  Alb. What news?\n  Gent. O, my good lord, the Duke of Cornwall 's dead,\n     Slain by his servant, going to put out\n     The other eye of Gloucester.\n  Alb. Gloucester's eyes?\n  Gent. A servant that he bred, thrill'd with remorse,\n     Oppos'd against the act, bending his sword\n     To his great master; who, thereat enrag'd,\n     Flew on him, and amongst them fell'd him dead;\n     But not without that harmful stroke which since\n     Hath pluck'd him after.\n  Alb. This shows you are above,\n     You justicers, that these our nether crimes\n     So speedily can venge! But O poor Gloucester!\n     Lose he his other eye?\n  Gent. Both, both, my lord.\n     This letter, madam, craves a speedy answer.\n     'Tis from your sister.\n  Gon. [aside] One way I like this well;\n     But being widow, and my Gloucester with her,\n     May all the building in my fancy pluck\n     Upon my hateful life. Another way\n     The news is not so tart.- I'll read, and answer.\nExit.\n  Alb. Where was his son when they did take his eyes?\n  Gent. Come with my lady hither.\n  Alb. He is not here.\n  Gent. No, my good lord; I met him back again.\n  Alb. Knows he the wickedness?\n  Gent. Ay, my good lord. 'Twas he inform'd against him,\n     And quit the house on purpose, that their punishment\n     Might have the freer course.\n  Alb. Gloucester, I live\n     To thank thee for the love thou show'dst the King,\n     And to revenge thine eyes. Come hither, friend.\n     Tell me what more thou know'st.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nThe French camp near Dover.\n\nEnter Kent and a Gentleman.\n\n  Kent. Why the King of France is so suddenly gone back know you the\n     reason?\n  Gent. Something he left imperfect in the state, which since his\n     coming forth is thought of, which imports to the kingdom so much\n     fear and danger that his personal return was most required and\n     necessary.\n  Kent. Who hath he left behind him general?\n  Gent. The Marshal of France, Monsieur La Far.\n  Kent. Did your letters pierce the Queen to any demonstration of\n     grief?\n  Gent. Ay, sir. She took them, read them in my presence,\n     And now and then an ample tear trill'd down\n     Her delicate cheek. It seem'd she was a queen\n     Over her passion, who, most rebel-like,\n     Sought to be king o'er her.\n  Kent. O, then it mov'd her?\n  Gent. Not to a rage. Patience and sorrow strove\n     Who should express her goodliest. You have seen\n     Sunshine and rain at once: her smiles and tears\n     Were like, a better way. Those happy smilets\n     That play'd on her ripe lip seem'd not to know\n     What guests were in her eyes, which parted thence\n     As pearls from diamonds dropp'd. In brief,\n     Sorrow would be a rarity most belov'd,\n     If all could so become it.\n  Kent. Made she no verbal question?\n  Gent. Faith, once or twice she heav'd the name of father\n     Pantingly forth, as if it press'd her heart;\n     Cried 'Sisters, sisters! Shame of ladies! Sisters!\n     Kent! father! sisters! What, i' th' storm? i' th' night?\n     Let pity not be believ'd!' There she shook\n     The holy water from her heavenly eyes,\n     And clamour moisten'd. Then away she started\n     To deal with grief alone.\n  Kent. It is the stars,\n     The stars above us, govern our conditions;\n     Else one self mate and mate could not beget\n     Such different issues. You spoke not with her since?\n  Gent. No.\n  Kent. Was this before the King return'd?\n  Gent. No, since.\n  Kent. Well, sir, the poor distressed Lear's i' th' town;\n     Who sometime, in his better tune, remembers\n     What we are come about, and by no means\n     Will yield to see his daughter.\n  Gent. Why, good sir?\n  Kent. A sovereign shame so elbows him; his own unkindness,\n     That stripp'd her from his benediction, turn'd her\n     To foreign casualties, gave her dear rights\n     To his dog-hearted daughters- these things sting\n     His mind so venomously that burning shame\n     Detains him from Cordelia.\n  Gent. Alack, poor gentleman!\n  Kent. Of Albany's and Cornwall's powers you heard not?\n  Gent. 'Tis so; they are afoot.\n  Kent. Well, sir, I'll bring you to our master Lear\n     And leave you to attend him. Some dear cause\n     Will in concealment wrap me up awhile.\n     When I am known aright, you shall not grieve\n     Lending me this acquaintance. I pray you go\n     Along with me.                                      Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nThe French camp.\n\nEnter, with Drum and Colours, Cordelia, Doctor, and Soldiers.\n\n  Cor. Alack, 'tis he! Why, he was met even now\n     As mad as the vex'd sea, singing aloud,\n     Crown'd with rank fumiter and furrow weeds,\n     With hardocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo flow'rs,\n     Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow\n     In our sustaining corn. A century send forth.\n     Search every acre in the high-grown field\n     And bring him to our eye. [Exit an Officer.] What can man's\n        wisdom\n     In the restoring his bereaved sense?\n     He that helps him take all my outward worth.\n  Doct. There is means, madam.\n     Our foster nurse of nature is repose,\n     The which he lacks. That to provoke in him\n     Are many simples operative, whose power\n     Will close the eye of anguish.\n  Cor. All blest secrets,\n     All you unpublish'd virtues of the earth,\n     Spring with my tears! be aidant and remediate\n     In the good man's distress! Seek, seek for him!\n     Lest his ungovern'd rage dissolve the life\n     That wants the means to lead it.\n\n                           Enter Messenger.\n\n  Mess. News, madam.\n     The British pow'rs are marching hitherward.\n  Cor. 'Tis known before. Our preparation stands\n     In expectation of them. O dear father,\n     It is thy business that I go about.\n     Therefore great France\n     My mourning and important tears hath pitied.\n     No blown ambition doth our arms incite,\n     But love, dear love, and our ag'd father's right.\n     Soon may I hear and see him!\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene V.\nGloucester's Castle.\n\nEnter Regan and [Oswald the] Steward.\n\n  Reg. But are my brother's pow'rs set forth?\n  Osw. Ay, madam.\n  Reg. Himself in person there?\n  Osw. Madam, with much ado.\n     Your sister is the better soldier.\n  Reg. Lord Edmund spake not with your lord at home?\n  Osw. No, madam.\n  Reg. What might import my sister's letter to him?\n  Osw. I know not, lady.\n  Reg. Faith, he is posted hence on serious matter.\n     It was great ignorance, Gloucester's eyes being out,\n     To let him live. Where he arrives he moves\n     All hearts against us. Edmund, I think, is gone,\n     In pity of his misery, to dispatch\n     His nighted life; moreover, to descry\n     The strength o' th' enemy.\n  Osw. I must needs after him, madam, with my letter.\n  Reg. Our troops set forth to-morrow. Stay with us.\n     The ways are dangerous.\n  Osw. I may not, madam.\n     My lady charg'd my duty in this business.\n  Reg. Why should she write to Edmund? Might not you\n     Transport her purposes by word? Belike,\n     Something- I know not what- I'll love thee much-\n     Let me unseal the letter.\n  Osw. Madam, I had rather-\n  Reg. I know your lady does not love her husband;\n     I am sure of that; and at her late being here\n     She gave strange eliads and most speaking looks\n     To noble Edmund. I know you are of her bosom.\n  Osw. I, madam?\n  Reg. I speak in understanding. Y'are! I know't.\n     Therefore I do advise you take this note.\n     My lord is dead; Edmund and I have talk'd,\n     And more convenient is he for my hand\n     Than for your lady's. You may gather more.\n     If you do find him, pray you give him this;\n     And when your mistress hears thus much from you,\n     I pray desire her call her wisdom to her.\n     So farewell.\n     If you do chance to hear of that blind traitor,\n     Preferment falls on him that cuts him off.\n  Osw. Would I could meet him, madam! I should show\n     What party I do follow.\n  Reg. Fare thee well.                                   Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene VI.\nThe country near Dover.\n\nEnter Gloucester, and Edgar [like a Peasant].\n\n  Glou. When shall I come to th' top of that same hill?\n  Edg. You do climb up it now. Look how we labour.\n  Glou. Methinks the ground is even.\n  Edg. Horrible steep.\n     Hark, do you hear the sea?\n  Glou. No, truly.\n  Edg. Why, then, your other senses grow imperfect\n     By your eyes' anguish.\n  Glou. So may it be indeed.\n     Methinks thy voice is alter'd, and thou speak'st\n     In better phrase and matter than thou didst.\n  Edg. Y'are much deceiv'd. In nothing am I chang'd\n     But in my garments.\n  Glou. Methinks y'are better spoken.\n  Edg. Come on, sir; here's the place. Stand still. How fearful\n     And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low!\n     The crows and choughs that wing the midway air\n     Show scarce so gross as beetles. Halfway down\n     Hangs one that gathers sampire- dreadful trade!\n     Methinks he seems no bigger than his head.\n     The fishermen that walk upon the beach\n     Appear like mice; and yond tall anchoring bark,\n     Diminish'd to her cock; her cock, a buoy\n     Almost too small for sight. The murmuring surge\n     That on th' unnumb'red idle pebble chafes\n     Cannot be heard so high. I'll look no more,\n     Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight\n     Topple down headlong.\n  Glou. Set me where you stand.\n  Edg. Give me your hand. You are now within a foot\n     Of th' extreme verge. For all beneath the moon\n     Would I not leap upright.\n  Glou. Let go my hand.\n     Here, friend, is another purse; in it a jewel\n     Well worth a poor man's taking. Fairies and gods\n     Prosper it with thee! Go thou further off;\n     Bid me farewell, and let me hear thee going.\n  Edg. Now fare ye well, good sir.\n  Glou. With all my heart.\n  Edg. [aside]. Why I do trifle thus with his despair\n     Is done to cure it.\n  Glou. O you mighty gods!                            He kneels.\n     This world I do renounce, and, in your sights,\n     Shake patiently my great affliction off.\n     If I could bear it longer and not fall\n     To quarrel with your great opposeless wills,\n     My snuff and loathed part of nature should\n     Burn itself out. If Edgar live, O, bless him!\n     Now, fellow, fare thee well.\n                                  He falls [forward and swoons].\n  Edg. Gone, sir, farewell.-\n     And yet I know not how conceit may rob\n     The treasury of life when life itself\n     Yields to the theft. Had he been where he thought,\n     By this had thought been past.- Alive or dead?\n     Ho you, sir! friend! Hear you, sir? Speak!-\n     Thus might he pass indeed. Yet he revives.\n     What are you, sir?\n  Glou. Away, and let me die.\n  Edg. Hadst thou been aught but gossamer, feathers, air,\n     So many fadom down precipitating,\n     Thou'dst shiver'd like an egg; but thou dost breathe;\n     Hast heavy substance; bleed'st not; speak'st; art sound.\n     Ten masts at each make not the altitude\n     Which thou hast perpendicularly fell.\n     Thy life is a miracle. Speak yet again.\n  Glou. But have I fall'n, or no?\n  Edg. From the dread summit of this chalky bourn.\n     Look up a-height. The shrill-gorg'd lark so far\n     Cannot be seen or heard. Do but look up.\n  Glou. Alack, I have no eyes!\n     Is wretchedness depriv'd that benefit\n     To end itself by death? 'Twas yet some comfort\n     When misery could beguile the tyrant's rage\n     And frustrate his proud will.\n  Edg. Give me your arm.\n     Up- so. How is't? Feel you your legs? You stand.\n  Glou. Too well, too well.\n  Edg. This is above all strangeness.\n     Upon the crown o' th' cliff what thing was that\n     Which parted from you?\n  Glou. A poor unfortunate beggar.\n  Edg. As I stood here below, methought his eyes\n     Were two full moons; he had a thousand noses,\n     Horns whelk'd and wav'd like the enridged sea.\n     It was some fiend. Therefore, thou happy father,\n     Think that the clearest gods, who make them honours\n     Of men's impossibility, have preserv'd thee.\n  Glou. I do remember now. Henceforth I'll bear\n     Affliction till it do cry out itself\n     'Enough, enough,' and die. That thing you speak of,\n     I took it for a man. Often 'twould say\n     'The fiend, the fiend'- he led me to that place.\n  Edg. Bear free and patient thoughts.\n\n         Enter Lear, mad, [fantastically dressed with weeds].\n\n     But who comes here?\n     The safer sense will ne'er accommodate\n     His master thus.\n  Lear. No, they cannot touch me for coming;\n     I am the King himself.\n  Edg. O thou side-piercing sight!\n  Lear. Nature 's above art in that respect. There's your press\n     money. That fellow handles his bow like a crow-keeper. Draw me\n     a clothier's yard. Look, look, a mouse! Peace, peace; this piece\n     of toasted cheese will do't. There's my gauntlet; I'll prove it\n     on a giant. Bring up the brown bills. O, well flown, bird! i'\n     th' clout, i' th' clout! Hewgh! Give the word.\n  Edg. Sweet marjoram.\n  Lear. Pass.\n  Glou. I know that voice.\n  Lear. Ha! Goneril with a white beard? They flatter'd me like a dog,\n     and told me I had white hairs in my beard ere the black ones\n     were there. To say 'ay' and 'no' to everything I said! 'Ay' and\n     'no' too was no good divinity. When the rain came to wet me\n     once, and the wind to make me chatter; when the thunder would\n     not peace at my bidding; there I found 'em, there I smelt 'em\n     out. Go to, they are not men o' their words! They told me I was\n     everything. 'Tis a lie- I am not ague-proof.\n  Glou. The trick of that voice I do well remember.\n     Is't not the King?\n  Lear. Ay, every inch a king!\n     When I do stare, see how the subject quakes.\n     I pardon that man's life. What was thy cause?\n     Adultery?\n     Thou shalt not die. Die for adultery? No.\n     The wren goes to't, and the small gilded fly\n     Does lecher in my sight.\n     Let copulation thrive; for Gloucester's bastard son\n     Was kinder to his father than my daughters\n     Got 'tween the lawful sheets.\n     To't, luxury, pell-mell! for I lack soldiers.\n     Behold yond simp'ring dame,\n     Whose face between her forks presageth snow,\n     That minces virtue, and does shake the head\n     To hear of pleasure's name.\n     The fitchew nor the soiled horse goes to't\n     With a more riotous appetite.\n     Down from the waist they are Centaurs,\n     Though women all above.\n     But to the girdle do the gods inherit,\n     Beneath is all the fiend's.\n     There's hell, there's darkness, there's the sulphurous pit;\n     burning, scalding, stench, consumption. Fie, fie, fie! pah, pah!\n     Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, to sweeten my\n     imagination. There's money for thee.\n  Glou. O, let me kiss that hand!\n  Lear. Let me wipe it first; it smells of mortality.\n  Glou. O ruin'd piece of nature! This great world\n     Shall so wear out to naught. Dost thou know me?\n  Lear. I remember thine eyes well enough. Dost thou squiny at me?\n     No, do thy worst, blind Cupid! I'll not love. Read thou this\n     challenge; mark but the penning of it.\n  Glou. Were all the letters suns, I could not see one.\n  Edg. [aside] I would not take this from report. It is,\n     And my heart breaks at it.\n  Lear. Read.\n  Glou. What, with the case of eyes?\n  Lear. O, ho, are you there with me? No eyes in your head, nor no\n     money in your purse? Your eyes are in a heavy case, your purse\n     in a light. Yet you see how this world goes.\n  Glou. I see it feelingly.\n  Lear. What, art mad? A man may see how the world goes with no eyes.\n     Look with thine ears. See how yond justice rails upon yond\n     simple thief. Hark in thine ear. Change places and, handy-dandy,\n     which is the justice, which is the thief? Thou hast seen a\n     farmer's dog bark at a beggar?\n  Glou. Ay, sir.\n  Lear. And the creature run from the cur? There thou mightst behold\n     the great image of authority: a dog's obeyed in office.\n     Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand!\n     Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back.\n     Thou hotly lusts to use her in that kind\n     For which thou whip'st her. The usurer hangs the cozener.\n     Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear;\n     Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,\n     And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;\n     Arm it in rags, a pygmy's straw does pierce it.\n     None does offend, none- I say none! I'll able 'em.\n     Take that of me, my friend, who have the power\n     To seal th' accuser's lips. Get thee glass eyes\n     And, like a scurvy politician, seem\n     To see the things thou dost not. Now, now, now, now!\n     Pull off my boots. Harder, harder! So.\n  Edg. O, matter and impertinency mix'd!\n     Reason, in madness!\n  Lear. If thou wilt weep my fortunes, take my eyes.\n     I know thee well enough; thy name is Gloucester.\n     Thou must be patient. We came crying hither;\n     Thou know'st, the first time that we smell the air\n     We wawl and cry. I will preach to thee. Mark.\n  Glou. Alack, alack the day!\n  Lear. When we are born, we cry that we are come\n     To this great stage of fools. This' a good block.\n     It were a delicate stratagem to shoe\n     A troop of horse with felt. I'll put't in proof,\n     And when I have stol'n upon these sons-in-law,\n     Then kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!\n\n                 Enter a Gentleman [with Attendants].\n\n  Gent. O, here he is! Lay hand upon him.- Sir,\n     Your most dear daughter-\n  Lear. No rescue? What, a prisoner? I am even\n     The natural fool of fortune. Use me well;\n     You shall have ransom. Let me have a surgeon;\n     I am cut to th' brains.\n  Gent. You shall have anything.\n  Lear. No seconds? All myself?\n     Why, this would make a man a man of salt,\n     To use his eyes for garden waterpots,\n     Ay, and laying autumn's dust.\n  Gent. Good sir-\n  Lear. I will die bravely, like a smug bridegroom. What!\n     I will be jovial. Come, come, I am a king;\n     My masters, know you that?\n  Gent. You are a royal one, and we obey you.\n  Lear. Then there's life in't. Nay, an you get it, you shall get it\n     by running. Sa, sa, sa, sa!\n                              Exit running. [Attendants follow.]\n  Gent. A sight most pitiful in the meanest wretch,\n     Past speaking of in a king! Thou hast one daughter\n     Who redeems nature from the general curse\n     Which twain have brought her to.\n  Edg. Hail, gentle sir.\n  Gent. Sir, speed you. What's your will?\n  Edg. Do you hear aught, sir, of a battle toward?\n  Gent. Most sure and vulgar. Every one hears that\n     Which can distinguish sound.\n  Edg. But, by your favour,\n     How near's the other army?\n  Gent. Near and on speedy foot. The main descry\n     Stands on the hourly thought.\n  Edg. I thank you sir. That's all.\n  Gent. Though that the Queen on special cause is here,\n     Her army is mov'd on.\n  Edg. I thank you, sir\n                                               Exit [Gentleman].\n  Glou. You ever-gentle gods, take my breath from me;\n     Let not my worser spirit tempt me again\n     To die before you please!\n  Edg. Well pray you, father.\n  Glou. Now, good sir, what are you?\n  Edg. A most poor man, made tame to fortune's blows,\n     Who, by the art of known and feeling sorrows,\n     Am pregnant to good pity. Give me your hand;\n     I'll lead you to some biding.\n  Glou. Hearty thanks.\n     The bounty and the benison of heaven\n     To boot, and boot!\n\n                     Enter [Oswald the] Steward.\n\n  Osw. A proclaim'd prize! Most happy!\n     That eyeless head of thine was first fram'd flesh\n     To raise my fortunes. Thou old unhappy traitor,\n     Briefly thyself remember. The sword is out\n     That must destroy thee.\n  Glou. Now let thy friendly hand\n     Put strength enough to't.\n                                             [Edgar interposes.]\n  Osw. Wherefore, bold peasant,\n     Dar'st thou support a publish'd traitor? Hence!\n     Lest that th' infection of his fortune take\n     Like hold on thee. Let go his arm.\n  Edg. Chill not let go, zir, without vurther 'cagion.\n  Osw. Let go, slave, or thou diest!\n  Edg. Good gentleman, go your gait, and let poor voke pass. An chud\n     ha' bin zwagger'd out of my life, 'twould not ha' bin zo long as\n     'tis by a vortnight. Nay, come not near th' old man. Keep out,\n     che vore ye, or Ise try whether your costard or my ballow be the\n     harder. Chill be plain with you.\n  Osw. Out, dunghill!\n                                                     They fight.\n  Edg. Chill pick your teeth, zir. Come! No matter vor your foins.\n                                                 [Oswald falls.]\n  Osw. Slave, thou hast slain me. Villain, take my purse.\n     If ever thou wilt thrive, bury my body,\n     And give the letters which thou find'st about me\n     To Edmund Earl of Gloucester. Seek him out\n     Upon the British party. O, untimely death! Death!\n                                                        He dies.\n  Edg. I know thee well. A serviceable villain,\n     As duteous to the vices of thy mistress\n     As badness would desire.\n  Glou. What, is he dead?\n  Edg. Sit you down, father; rest you.\n     Let's see his pockets; these letters that he speaks of\n     May be my friends. He's dead. I am only sorry\n     He had no other deathsman. Let us see.\n     Leave, gentle wax; and, manners, blame us not.\n     To know our enemies' minds, we'ld rip their hearts;\n     Their papers, is more lawful.             Reads the letter.\n\n       'Let our reciprocal vows be rememb'red. You have many\n     opportunities to cut him off. If your will want not, time and\n     place will be fruitfully offer'd. There is nothing done, if he\n     return the conqueror. Then am I the prisoner, and his bed my\n     jail; from the loathed warmth whereof deliver me, and supply the\n     place for your labour.\n           'Your (wife, so I would say) affectionate servant,\n                                                          'Goneril.'\n\n     O indistinguish'd space of woman's will!\n     A plot upon her virtuous husband's life,\n     And the exchange my brother! Here in the sands\n     Thee I'll rake up, the post unsanctified\n     Of murtherous lechers; and in the mature time\n     With this ungracious paper strike the sight\n     Of the death-practis'd Duke, For him 'tis well\n     That of thy death and business I can tell.\n  Glou. The King is mad. How stiff is my vile sense,\n     That I stand up, and have ingenious feeling\n     Of my huge sorrows! Better I were distract.\n     So should my thoughts be sever'd from my griefs,\n     And woes by wrong imaginations lose\n     The knowledge of themselves.\n                                                A drum afar off.\n  Edg. Give me your hand.\n     Far off methinks I hear the beaten drum.\n     Come, father, I'll bestow you with a friend.        Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene VII.\nA tent in the French camp.\n\nEnter Cordelia, Kent, Doctor, and Gentleman.\n\n  Cor. O thou good Kent, how shall I live and work\n     To match thy goodness? My life will be too short\n     And every measure fail me.\n  Kent. To be acknowledg'd, madam, is o'erpaid.\n     All my reports go with the modest truth;\n     Nor more nor clipp'd, but so.\n  Cor. Be better suited.\n     These weeds are memories of those worser hours.\n     I prithee put them off.\n  Kent. Pardon, dear madam.\n     Yet to be known shortens my made intent.\n     My boon I make it that you know me not\n     Till time and I think meet.\n  Cor. Then be't so, my good lord. [To the Doctor] How, does the King?\n  Doct. Madam, sleeps still.\n  Cor. O you kind gods,\n     Cure this great breach in his abused nature!\n     Th' untun'd and jarring senses, O, wind up\n     Of this child-changed father!\n  Doct. So please your Majesty\n     That we may wake the King? He hath slept long.\n  Cor. Be govern'd by your knowledge, and proceed\n     I' th' sway of your own will. Is he array'd?\n\n              Enter Lear in a chair carried by Servants.\n\n  Gent. Ay, madam. In the heaviness of sleep\n     We put fresh garments on him.\n  Doct. Be by, good madam, when we do awake him.\n     I doubt not of his temperance.\n  Cor. Very well.\n                                                          Music.\n  Doct. Please you draw near. Louder the music there!\n  Cor. O my dear father, restoration hang\n     Thy medicine on my lips, and let this kiss\n     Repair those violent harms that my two sisters\n     Have in thy reverence made!\n  Kent. Kind and dear princess!\n  Cor. Had you not been their father, these white flakes\n     Had challeng'd pity of them. Was this a face\n     To be oppos'd against the warring winds?\n     To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder?\n     In the most terrible and nimble stroke\n     Of quick cross lightning? to watch- poor perdu!-\n     With this thin helm? Mine enemy's dog,\n     Though he had bit me, should have stood that night\n     Against my fire; and wast thou fain, poor father,\n     To hovel thee with swine and rogues forlorn,\n     In short and musty straw? Alack, alack!\n     'Tis wonder that thy life and wits at once\n     Had not concluded all.- He wakes. Speak to him.\n  Doct. Madam, do you; 'tis fittest.\n  Cor. How does my royal lord? How fares your Majesty?\n  Lear. You do me wrong to take me out o' th' grave.\n     Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound\n     Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears\n     Do scald like molten lead.\n  Cor. Sir, do you know me?\n  Lear. You are a spirit, I know. When did you die?\n  Cor. Still, still, far wide!\n  Doct. He's scarce awake. Let him alone awhile.\n  Lear. Where have I been? Where am I? Fair daylight,\n     I am mightily abus'd. I should e'en die with pity,\n     To see another thus. I know not what to say.\n     I will not swear these are my hands. Let's see.\n     I feel this pin prick. Would I were assur'd\n     Of my condition!\n  Cor. O, look upon me, sir,\n     And hold your hands in benediction o'er me.\n     No, sir, you must not kneel.\n  Lear. Pray, do not mock me.\n     I am a very foolish fond old man,\n     Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less;\n     And, to deal plainly,\n     I fear I am not in my perfect mind.\n     Methinks I should know you, and know this man;\n     Yet I am doubtful; for I am mainly ignorant\n     What place this is; and all the skill I have\n     Remembers not these garments; nor I know not\n     Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me;\n     For (as I am a man) I think this lady\n     To be my child Cordelia.\n  Cor. And so I am! I am!\n  Lear. Be your tears wet? Yes, faith. I pray weep not.\n     If you have poison for me, I will drink it.\n     I know you do not love me; for your sisters\n     Have, as I do remember, done me wrong.\n     You have some cause, they have not.\n  Cor. No cause, no cause.\n  Lear. Am I in France?\n  Kent. In your own kingdom, sir.\n  Lear. Do not abuse me.\n  Doct. Be comforted, good madam. The great rage\n     You see is kill'd in him; and yet it is danger\n     To make him even o'er the time he has lost.\n     Desire him to go in. Trouble him no more\n     Till further settling.\n  Cor. Will't please your Highness walk?\n  Lear. You must bear with me.\n     Pray you now, forget and forgive. I am old and foolish.\n                              Exeunt. Manent Kent and Gentleman.\n  Gent. Holds it true, sir, that the Duke of Cornwall was so slain?\n  Kent. Most certain, sir.\n  Gent. Who is conductor of his people?\n  Kent. As 'tis said, the bastard son of Gloucester.\n  Gent. They say Edgar, his banish'd son, is with the Earl of Kent\n     in Germany.\n  Kent. Report is changeable. 'Tis time to look about; the powers of\n     the kingdom approach apace.\n  Gent. The arbitrement is like to be bloody.\n     Fare you well, sir.                                 [Exit.]\n  Kent. My point and period will be throughly wrought,\n     Or well or ill, as this day's battle's fought.        Exit.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. Scene I.\nThe British camp near Dover.\n\nEnter, with Drum and Colours, Edmund, Regan, Gentleman, and Soldiers.\n\n  Edm. Know of the Duke if his last purpose hold,\n     Or whether since he is advis'd by aught\n     To change the course. He's full of alteration\n     And self-reproving. Bring his constant pleasure.\n                                              [Exit an Officer.]\n  Reg. Our sister's man is certainly miscarried.\n  Edm. Tis to be doubted, madam.\n  Reg. Now, sweet lord,\n     You know the goodness I intend upon you.\n     Tell me- but truly- but then speak the truth-\n     Do you not love my sister?\n  Edm. In honour'd love.\n  Reg. But have you never found my brother's way\n     To the forfended place?\n  Edm. That thought abuses you.\n  Reg. I am doubtful that you have been conjunct\n     And bosom'd with her, as far as we call hers.\n  Edm. No, by mine honour, madam.\n  Reg. I never shall endure her. Dear my lord,\n     Be not familiar with her.\n  Edm. Fear me not.\n     She and the Duke her husband!\n\n       Enter, with Drum and Colours, Albany, Goneril, Soldiers.\n\n  Gon. [aside] I had rather lose the battle than that sister\n     Should loosen him and me.\n  Alb. Our very loving sister, well bemet.\n     Sir, this I hear: the King is come to his daughter,\n     With others whom the rigour of our state\n     Forc'd to cry out. Where I could not be honest,\n     I never yet was valiant. For this business,\n     It toucheth us as France invades our land,\n     Not bolds the King, with others whom, I fear,\n     Most just and heavy causes make oppose.\n  Edm. Sir, you speak nobly.\n  Reg. Why is this reason'd?\n  Gon. Combine together 'gainst the enemy;\n     For these domestic and particular broils\n     Are not the question here.\n  Alb. Let's then determine\n     With th' ancient of war on our proceeding.\n  Edm. I shall attend you presently at your tent.\n  Reg. Sister, you'll go with us?\n  Gon. No.\n  Reg. 'Tis most convenient. Pray you go with us.\n  Gon. [aside] O, ho, I know the riddle.- I will go.\n\n          [As they are going out,] enter Edgar [disguised].\n\n  Edg. If e'er your Grace had speech with man so poor,\n     Hear me one word.\n  Alb. I'll overtake you.- Speak.\n                              Exeunt [all but Albany and Edgar].\n  Edg. Before you fight the battle, ope this letter.\n     If you have victory, let the trumpet sound\n     For him that brought it. Wretched though I seem,\n     I can produce a champion that will prove\n     What is avouched there. If you miscarry,\n     Your business of the world hath so an end,\n     And machination ceases. Fortune love you!\n  Alb. Stay till I have read the letter.\n  Edg. I was forbid it.\n     When time shall serve, let but the herald cry,\n     And I'll appear again.\n  Alb. Why, fare thee well. I will o'erlook thy paper.\n                                                   Exit [Edgar].\n\n                            Enter Edmund.\n\n  Edm. The enemy 's in view; draw up your powers.\n     Here is the guess of their true strength and forces\n     By diligent discovery; but your haste\n     Is now urg'd on you.\n  Alb. We will greet the time.                             Exit.\n  Edm. To both these sisters have I sworn my love;\n     Each jealous of the other, as the stung\n     Are of the adder. Which of them shall I take?\n     Both? one? or neither? Neither can be enjoy'd,\n     If both remain alive. To take the widow\n     Exasperates, makes mad her sister Goneril;\n     And hardly shall I carry out my side,\n     Her husband being alive. Now then, we'll use\n     His countenance for the battle, which being done,\n     Let her who would be rid of him devise\n     His speedy taking off. As for the mercy\n     Which he intends to Lear and to Cordelia-\n     The battle done, and they within our power,\n     Shall never see his pardon; for my state\n     Stands on me to defend, not to debate.                Exit.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nA field between the two camps.\n\nAlarum within. Enter, with Drum and Colours, the Powers of France\nover the stage, Cordelia with her Father in her hand, and exeunt.\n\nEnter Edgar and Gloucester.\n\n  Edg. Here, father, take the shadow of this tree\n     For your good host. Pray that the right may thrive.\n     If ever I return to you again,\n     I'll bring you comfort.\n  Glou. Grace go with you, sir!\n                                                   Exit [Edgar].\n\n               Alarum and retreat within. Enter Edgar,\n\n  Edg. Away, old man! give me thy hand! away!\n     King Lear hath lost, he and his daughter ta'en.\n     Give me thy hand! come on!\n  Glou. No further, sir. A man may rot even here.\n  Edg. What, in ill thoughts again? Men must endure\n     Their going hence, even as their coming hither;\n     Ripeness is all. Come on.\n  Glou. And that's true too.                             Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nThe British camp, near Dover.\n\nEnter, in conquest, with Drum and Colours, Edmund; Lear and Cordelia\nas prisoners; Soldiers, Captain.\n\n  Edm. Some officers take them away. Good guard\n     Until their greater pleasures first be known\n     That are to censure them.\n  Cor. We are not the first\n     Who with best meaning have incurr'd the worst.\n     For thee, oppressed king, am I cast down;\n     Myself could else outfrown false Fortune's frown.\n     Shall we not see these daughters and these sisters?\n  Lear. No, no, no, no! Come, let's away to prison.\n     We two alone will sing like birds i' th' cage.\n     When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down\n     And ask of thee forgiveness. So we'll live,\n     And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh\n     At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues\n     Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too-\n     Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out-\n     And take upon 's the mystery of things,\n     As if we were God's spies; and we'll wear out,\n     In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones\n     That ebb and flow by th' moon.\n  Edm. Take them away.\n  Lear. Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia,\n     The gods themselves throw incense. Have I caught thee?\n     He that parts us shall bring a brand from heaven\n     And fire us hence like foxes. Wipe thine eyes.\n     The goodyears shall devour 'em, flesh and fell,\n     Ere they shall make us weep! We'll see 'em starv'd first.\n     Come.                  Exeunt [Lear and Cordelia, guarded].\n  Edm. Come hither, Captain; hark.\n     Take thou this note [gives a paper]. Go follow them to prison.\n     One step I have advanc'd thee. If thou dost\n     As this instructs thee, thou dost make thy way\n     To noble fortunes. Know thou this, that men\n     Are as the time is. To be tender-minded\n     Does not become a sword. Thy great employment\n     Will not bear question. Either say thou'lt do't,\n     Or thrive by other means.\n  Capt. I'll do't, my lord.\n  Edm. About it! and write happy when th' hast done.\n     Mark- I say, instantly; and carry it so\n     As I have set it down.\n  Capt. I cannot draw a cart, nor eat dried oats;\n     If it be man's work, I'll do't.                       Exit.\n\n          Flourish. Enter Albany, Goneril, Regan, Soldiers.\n\n  Alb. Sir, you have show'd to-day your valiant strain,\n     And fortune led you well. You have the captives\n     Who were the opposites of this day's strife.\n     We do require them of you, so to use them\n     As we shall find their merits and our safety\n     May equally determine.\n  Edm. Sir, I thought it fit\n     To send the old and miserable King\n     To some retention and appointed guard;\n     Whose age has charms in it, whose title more,\n     To pluck the common bosom on his side\n     And turn our impress'd lances in our eyes\n     Which do command them. With him I sent the Queen,\n     My reason all the same; and they are ready\n     To-morrow, or at further space, t' appear\n     Where you shall hold your session. At this time\n     We sweat and bleed: the friend hath lost his friend;\n     And the best quarrels, in the heat, are curs'd\n     By those that feel their sharpness.\n     The question of Cordelia and her father\n     Requires a fitter place.\n  Alb. Sir, by your patience,\n     I hold you but a subject of this war,\n     Not as a brother.\n  Reg. That's as we list to grace him.\n     Methinks our pleasure might have been demanded\n     Ere you had spoke so far. He led our powers,\n     Bore the commission of my place and person,\n     The which immediacy may well stand up\n     And call itself your brother.\n  Gon. Not so hot!\n     In his own grace he doth exalt himself\n     More than in your addition.\n  Reg. In my rights\n     By me invested, he compeers the best.\n  Gon. That were the most if he should husband you.\n  Reg. Jesters do oft prove prophets.\n  Gon. Holla, holla!\n     That eye that told you so look'd but asquint.\n  Reg. Lady, I am not well; else I should answer\n     From a full-flowing stomach. General,\n     Take thou my soldiers, prisoners, patrimony;\n     Dispose of them, of me; the walls are thine.\n     Witness the world that I create thee here\n     My lord and master.\n  Gon. Mean you to enjoy him?\n  Alb. The let-alone lies not in your good will.\n  Edm. Nor in thine, lord.\n  Alb. Half-blooded fellow, yes.\n  Reg. [to Edmund] Let the drum strike, and prove my title thine.\n  Alb. Stay yet; hear reason. Edmund, I arrest thee\n     On capital treason; and, in thine attaint,\n     This gilded serpent [points to Goneril]. For your claim, fair\n        sister,\n     I bar it in the interest of my wife.\n     'Tis she is subcontracted to this lord,\n     And I, her husband, contradict your banes.\n     If you will marry, make your loves to me;\n     My lady is bespoke.\n  Gon. An interlude!\n  Alb. Thou art arm'd, Gloucester. Let the trumpet sound.\n     If none appear to prove upon thy person\n     Thy heinous, manifest, and many treasons,\n     There is my pledge [throws down a glove]! I'll prove it on thy\n        heart,\n     Ere I taste bread, thou art in nothing less\n     Than I have here proclaim'd thee.\n  Reg. Sick, O, sick!\n  Gon. [aside] If not, I'll ne'er trust medicine.\n  Edm. There's my exchange [throws down a glove]. What in the world\n        he is\n     That names me traitor, villain-like he lies.\n     Call by thy trumpet. He that dares approach,\n     On him, on you, who not? I will maintain\n     My truth and honour firmly.\n  Alb. A herald, ho!\n  Edm. A herald, ho, a herald!\n  Alb. Trust to thy single virtue; for thy soldiers,\n     All levied in my name, have in my name\n     Took their discharge.\n  Reg. My sickness grows upon me.\n  Alb. She is not well. Convey her to my tent.\n                                              [Exit Regan, led.]\n\n                           Enter a Herald.\n\n     Come hither, herald. Let the trumpet sound,\n     And read out this.\n  Capt. Sound, trumpet!                        A trumpet sounds.\n\n  Her. (reads) 'If any man of quality or degree within the lists of\n     the army will maintain upon Edmund, supposed Earl of Gloucester,\n     that he is a manifold traitor, let him appear by the third sound\n     of the trumpet. He is bold in his defence.'\n\n  Edm. Sound!                                     First trumpet.\n  Her. Again!                                    Second trumpet.\n  Her. Again!                                     Third trumpet.\n                                         Trumpet answers within.\n\n    Enter Edgar, armed, at the third sound, a Trumpet before him.\n\n  Alb. Ask him his purposes, why he appears\n     Upon this call o' th' trumpet.\n  Her. What are you?\n     Your name, your quality? and why you answer\n     This present summons?\n  Edg. Know my name is lost;\n     By treason's tooth bare-gnawn and canker-bit.\n     Yet am I noble as the adversary\n     I come to cope.\n  Alb. Which is that adversary?\n  Edg. What's he that speaks for Edmund Earl of Gloucester?\n  Edm. Himself. What say'st thou to him?\n  Edg. Draw thy sword,\n     That, if my speech offend a noble heart,\n     Thy arm may do thee justice. Here is mine.\n     Behold, it is the privilege of mine honours,\n     My oath, and my profession. I protest-\n     Maugre thy strength, youth, place, and eminence,\n     Despite thy victor sword and fire-new fortune,\n     Thy valour and thy heart- thou art a traitor;\n     False to thy gods, thy brother, and thy father;\n     Conspirant 'gainst this high illustrious prince;\n     And from th' extremest upward of thy head\n     To the descent and dust beneath thy foot,\n     A most toad-spotted traitor. Say thou 'no,'\n     This sword, this arm, and my best spirits are bent\n     To prove upon thy heart, whereto I speak,\n     Thou liest.\n  Edm. In wisdom I should ask thy name;\n     But since thy outside looks so fair and warlike,\n     And that thy tongue some say of breeding breathes,\n     What safe and nicely I might well delay\n     By rule of knighthood, I disdain and spurn.\n     Back do I toss those treasons to thy head;\n     With the hell-hated lie o'erwhelm thy heart;\n     Which- for they yet glance by and scarcely bruise-\n     This sword of mine shall give them instant way\n     Where they shall rest for ever. Trumpets, speak!\n                                 Alarums. Fight. [Edmund falls.]\n  Alb. Save him, save him!\n  Gon. This is mere practice, Gloucester.\n     By th' law of arms thou wast not bound to answer\n     An unknown opposite. Thou art not vanquish'd,\n     But cozen'd and beguil'd.\n  Alb. Shut your mouth, dame,\n     Or with this paper shall I stop it. [Shows her her letter to\n     Edmund.]- [To Edmund]. Hold, sir.\n     [To Goneril] Thou worse than any name, read thine own evil.\n     No tearing, lady! I perceive you know it.\n  Gon. Say if I do- the laws are mine, not thine.\n     Who can arraign me for't?\n  Alb. Most monstrous!\n     Know'st thou this paper?\n  Gon. Ask me not what I know.                             Exit.\n  Alb. Go after her. She's desperate; govern her.\n                                              [Exit an Officer.]\n  Edm. What, you have charg'd me with, that have I done,\n     And more, much more. The time will bring it out.\n     'Tis past, and so am I.- But what art thou\n     That hast this fortune on me? If thou'rt noble,\n     I do forgive thee.\n  Edg. Let's exchange charity.\n     I am no less in blood than thou art, Edmund;\n     If more, the more th' hast wrong'd me.\n     My name is Edgar and thy father's son.\n     The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices\n     Make instruments to scourge us.\n     The dark and vicious place where thee he got\n     Cost him his eyes.\n  Edm. Th' hast spoken right; 'tis true.\n     The wheel is come full circle; I am here.\n  Alb. Methought thy very gait did prophesy\n     A royal nobleness. I must embrace thee.\n     Let sorrow split my heart if ever I\n     Did hate thee, or thy father!\n  Edg. Worthy prince, I know't.\n  Alb. Where have you hid yourself?\n     How have you known the miseries of your father?\n  Edg. By nursing them, my lord. List a brief tale;\n     And when 'tis told, O that my heart would burst!\n     The bloody proclamation to escape\n     That follow'd me so near (O, our lives' sweetness!\n     That with the pain of death would hourly die\n     Rather than die at once!) taught me to shift\n     Into a madman's rags, t' assume a semblance\n     That very dogs disdain'd; and in this habit\n     Met I my father with his bleeding rings,\n     Their precious stones new lost; became his guide,\n     Led him, begg'd for him, sav'd him from despair;\n     Never (O fault!) reveal'd myself unto him\n     Until some half hour past, when I was arm'd,\n     Not sure, though hoping of this good success,\n     I ask'd his blessing, and from first to last\n     Told him my pilgrimage. But his flaw'd heart\n     (Alack, too weak the conflict to support!)\n     'Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief,\n     Burst smilingly.\n  Edm. This speech of yours hath mov'd me,\n     And shall perchance do good; but speak you on;\n     You look as you had something more to say.\n  Alb. If there be more, more woful, hold it in;\n     For I am almost ready to dissolve,\n     Hearing of this.\n  Edg. This would have seem'd a period\n     To such as love not sorrow; but another,\n     To amplify too much, would make much more,\n     And top extremity.\n     Whilst I was big in clamour, came there a man,\n     Who, having seen me in my worst estate,\n     Shunn'd my abhorr'd society; but then, finding\n     Who 'twas that so endur'd, with his strong arms\n     He fastened on my neck, and bellowed out\n     As he'd burst heaven; threw him on my father;\n     Told the most piteous tale of Lear and him\n     That ever ear receiv'd; which in recounting\n     His grief grew puissant, and the strings of life\n     Began to crack. Twice then the trumpets sounded,\n     And there I left him tranc'd.\n  Alb. But who was this?\n  Edg. Kent, sir, the banish'd Kent; who in disguise\n     Followed his enemy king and did him service\n     Improper for a slave.\n\n                Enter a Gentleman with a bloody knife.\n\n  Gent. Help, help! O, help!\n  Edg. What kind of help?\n  Alb. Speak, man.\n  Edg. What means that bloody knife?\n  Gent. 'Tis hot, it smokes.\n     It came even from the heart of- O! she's dead!\n  Alb. Who dead? Speak, man.\n  Gent. Your lady, sir, your lady! and her sister\n     By her is poisoned; she hath confess'd it.\n  Edm. I was contracted to them both. All three\n     Now marry in an instant.\n\n                             Enter Kent.\n\n  Edg. Here comes Kent.\n  Alb. Produce their bodies, be they alive or dead.\n                                               [Exit Gentleman.]\n     This judgement of the heavens, that makes us tremble\n     Touches us not with pity. O, is this he?\n     The time will not allow the compliment\n     That very manners urges.\n  Kent. I am come\n     To bid my king and master aye good night.\n     Is he not here?\n  Alb. Great thing of us forgot!\n     Speak, Edmund, where's the King? and where's Cordelia?\n                 The bodies of Goneril and Regan are brought in.\n     Seest thou this object, Kent?\n  Kent. Alack, why thus?\n  Edm. Yet Edmund was belov'd.\n     The one the other poisoned for my sake,\n     And after slew herself.\n  Alb. Even so. Cover their faces.\n  Edm. I pant for life. Some good I mean to do,\n     Despite of mine own nature. Quickly send\n     (Be brief in't) to the castle; for my writ\n     Is on the life of Lear and on Cordelia.\n     Nay, send in time.\n  Alb. Run, run, O, run!\n  Edg. To who, my lord? Who has the office? Send\n     Thy token of reprieve.\n  Edm. Well thought on. Take my sword;\n     Give it the Captain.\n  Alb. Haste thee for thy life.                    [Exit Edgar.]\n  Edm. He hath commission from thy wife and me\n     To hang Cordelia in the prison and\n     To lay the blame upon her own despair\n     That she fordid herself.\n  Alb. The gods defend her! Bear him hence awhile.\n                                          [Edmund is borne off.]\n\n    Enter Lear, with Cordelia [dead] in his arms, [Edgar, Captain,\n                        and others following].\n\n  Lear. Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stone.\n     Had I your tongues and eyes, I'ld use them so\n     That heaven's vault should crack. She's gone for ever!\n     I know when one is dead, and when one lives.\n     She's dead as earth. Lend me a looking glass.\n     If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,\n     Why, then she lives.\n  Kent. Is this the promis'd end?\n  Edg. Or image of that horror?\n  Alb. Fall and cease!\n  Lear. This feather stirs; she lives! If it be so,\n     It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows\n     That ever I have felt.\n  Kent. O my good master!\n  Lear. Prithee away!\n  Edg. 'Tis noble Kent, your friend.\n  Lear. A plague upon you, murderers, traitors all!\n     I might have sav'd her; now she's gone for ever!\n     Cordelia, Cordelia! stay a little. Ha!\n     What is't thou say'st, Her voice was ever soft,\n     Gentle, and low- an excellent thing in woman.\n     I kill'd the slave that was a-hanging thee.\n  Capt. 'Tis true, my lords, he did.\n  Lear. Did I not, fellow?\n     I have seen the day, with my good biting falchion\n     I would have made them skip. I am old now,\n     And these same crosses spoil me. Who are you?\n     Mine eyes are not o' th' best. I'll tell you straight.\n  Kent. If fortune brag of two she lov'd and hated,\n     One of them we behold.\n  Lear. This' a dull sight. Are you not Kent?\n  Kent. The same-\n     Your servant Kent. Where is your servant Caius?\n  Lear. He's a good fellow, I can tell you that.\n     He'll strike, and quickly too. He's dead and rotten.\n  Kent. No, my good lord; I am the very man-\n  Lear. I'll see that straight.\n  Kent. That from your first of difference and decay\n     Have followed your sad steps.\n  Lear. You're welcome hither.\n  Kent. Nor no man else! All's cheerless, dark, and deadly.\n     Your eldest daughters have fordone themselves,\n     And desperately are dead.\n  Lear. Ay, so I think.\n  Alb. He knows not what he says; and vain is it\n     That we present us to him.\n  Edg. Very bootless.\n\n                           Enter a Captain.\n\n  Capt. Edmund is dead, my lord.\n  Alb. That's but a trifle here.\n     You lords and noble friends, know our intent.\n     What comfort to this great decay may come\n     Shall be applied. For us, we will resign,\n     During the life of this old Majesty,\n     To him our absolute power; [to Edgar and Kent] you to your\n        rights;\n     With boot, and Such addition as your honours\n     Have more than merited.- All friends shall taste\n     The wages of their virtue, and all foes\n     The cup of their deservings.- O, see, see!\n  Lear. And my poor fool is hang'd! No, no, no life!\n     Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,\n     And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more,\n     Never, never, never, never, never!\n     Pray you undo this button. Thank you, sir.\n     Do you see this? Look on her! look! her lips!\n     Look there, look there!                            He dies.\n  Edg. He faints! My lord, my lord!\n  Kent. Break, heart; I prithee break!\n  Edg. Look up, my lord.\n  Kent. Vex not his ghost. O, let him pass! He hates him\n     That would upon the rack of this tough world\n     Stretch him out longer.\n  Edg. He is gone indeed.\n  Kent. The wonder is, he hath endur'd so long.\n     He but usurp'd his life.\n  Alb. Bear them from hence. Our present business\n     Is general woe. [To Kent and Edgar] Friends of my soul, you\n        twain\n     Rule in this realm, and the gor'd state sustain.\n  Kent. I have a journey, sir, shortly to go.\n     My master calls me; I must not say no.\n  Alb. The weight of this sad time we must obey,\n     Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.\n     The oldest have borne most; we that are young\n     Shall never see so much, nor live so long.\n                                       Exeunt with a dead march.\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1595\n\nLOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae.\n\n  FERDINAND, King of Navarre\n  BEROWNE,    lord attending on the King\n  LONGAVILLE,  \"      \"      \"   \"   \"\n  DUMAIN,      \"      \"      \"   \"   \"\n  BOYET,   lord attending on the Princess of France\n  MARCADE,   \"     \"       \"  \"     \"      \"    \"\n  DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO, fantastical Spaniard\n  SIR NATHANIEL, a curate\n  HOLOFERNES, a schoolmaster\n  DULL, a constable\n  COSTARD, a clown\n  MOTH, page to Armado\n  A FORESTER\n\n  THE PRINCESS OF FRANCE\n  ROSALINE, lady attending on the Princess\n  MARIA,      \"     \"       \"  \"     \"\n  KATHARINE, lady attending on the Princess\n  JAQUENETTA, a country wench\n\n  Lords, Attendants, etc.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nNavarre\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nNavarre. The King's park\n\nEnter the King, BEROWNE, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN\n\n  KING. Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,\n    Live regist'red upon our brazen tombs,\n    And then grace us in the disgrace of death;\n    When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,\n    Th' endeavour of this present breath may buy\n    That honour which shall bate his scythe's keen edge,\n    And make us heirs of all eternity.\n    Therefore, brave conquerors- for so you are\n    That war against your own affections\n    And the huge army of the world's desires-\n    Our late edict shall strongly stand in force:\n    Navarre shall be the wonder of the world;\n    Our court shall be a little Academe,\n    Still and contemplative in living art.\n    You three, Berowne, Dumain, and Longaville,\n    Have sworn for three years' term to live with me\n    My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes\n    That are recorded in this schedule here.\n    Your oaths are pass'd; and now subscribe your names,\n    That his own hand may strike his honour down\n    That violates the smallest branch herein.\n    If you are arm'd to do as sworn to do,\n    Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too.\n  LONGAVILLE. I am resolv'd; 'tis but a three years' fast.\n    The mind shall banquet, though the body pine.\n    Fat paunches have lean pates; and dainty bits\n    Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits.\n  DUMAIN. My loving lord, Dumain is mortified.\n    The grosser manner of these world's delights\n    He throws upon the gross world's baser slaves;\n    To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die,\n    With all these living in philosophy.\n  BEROWNE. I can but say their protestation over;\n    So much, dear liege, I have already sworn,\n    That is, to live and study here three years.\n    But there are other strict observances,\n    As: not to see a woman in that term,\n    Which I hope well is not enrolled there;\n    And one day in a week to touch no food,\n    And but one meal on every day beside,\n    The which I hope is not enrolled there;\n    And then to sleep but three hours in the night\n    And not be seen to wink of all the day-\n    When I was wont to think no harm all night,\n    And make a dark night too of half the day-\n    Which I hope well is not enrolled there.\n    O, these are barren tasks, too hard to keep,\n    Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep!\n  KING. Your oath is pass'd to pass away from these.\n  BEROWNE. Let me say no, my liege, an if you please:\n    I only swore to study with your Grace,\n    And stay here in your court for three years' space.\n  LONGAVILLE. You swore to that, Berowne, and to the rest.\n  BEROWNE. By yea and nay, sir, then I swore in jest.\n    What is the end of study, let me know.\n  KING. Why, that to know which else we should not know.\n  BEROWNE. Things hid and barr'd, you mean, from common sense?\n  KING. Ay, that is study's god-like recompense.\n  BEROWNE. Come on, then; I will swear to study so,\n    To know the thing I am forbid to know,\n    As thus: to study where I well may dine,\n    When I to feast expressly am forbid;\n    Or study where to meet some mistress fine,\n    When mistresses from common sense are hid;\n    Or, having sworn too hard-a-keeping oath,\n    Study to break it, and not break my troth.\n    If study's gain be thus, and this be so,\n    Study knows that which yet it doth not know.\n    Swear me to this, and I will ne'er say no.\n  KING. These be the stops that hinder study quite,\n    And train our intellects to vain delight.\n  BEROWNE. Why, all delights are vain; but that most vain\n    Which, with pain purchas'd, doth inherit pain,\n    As painfully to pore upon a book\n    To seek the light of truth; while truth the while\n    Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look.\n    Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile;\n    So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,\n    Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.\n    Study me how to please the eye indeed,\n    By fixing it upon a fairer eye;\n    Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed,\n    And give him light that it was blinded by.\n    Study is like the heaven's glorious sun,\n    That will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks;\n    Small have continual plodders ever won,\n    Save base authority from others' books.\n    These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights\n    That give a name to every fixed star\n    Have no more profit of their shining nights\n    Than those that walk and wot not what they are.\n    Too much to know is to know nought but fame;\n    And every godfather can give a name.\n  KING. How well he's read, to reason against reading!\n  DUMAIN. Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding!\n  LONGAVILLE. He weeds the corn, and still lets grow the weeding.\n  BEROWNE. The spring is near, when green geese are a-breeding.\n  DUMAIN. How follows that?\n  BEROWNE. Fit in his place and time.\n  DUMAIN. In reason nothing.\n  BEROWNE. Something then in rhyme.\n  LONGAVILLE. Berowne is like an envious sneaping frost\n    That bites the first-born infants of the spring.\n  BEROWNE. Well, say I am; why should proud summer boast\n    Before the birds have any cause to sing?\n    Why should I joy in any abortive birth?\n    At Christmas I no more desire a rose\n    Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled shows;\n    But like of each thing that in season grows;\n    So you, to study now it is too late,\n    Climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate.\n  KING. Well, sit out; go home, Berowne; adieu.\n  BEROWNE. No, my good lord; I have sworn to stay with you;\n    And though I have for barbarism spoke more\n    Than for that angel knowledge you can say,\n    Yet confident I'll keep what I have swore,\n    And bide the penance of each three years' day.\n    Give me the paper; let me read the same;\n    And to the strictest decrees I'll write my name.\n  KING. How well this yielding rescues thee from shame!\n  BEROWNE. [Reads] 'Item. That no woman shall come within a mile of\n    my court'- Hath this been proclaimed?\n  LONGAVILLE. Four days ago.\n  BEROWNE. Let's see the penalty. [Reads] '-on pain of losing her\n    tongue.' Who devis'd this penalty?\n  LONGAVILLE. Marry, that did I.\n  BEROWNE. Sweet lord, and why?\n  LONGAVILLE. To fright them hence with that dread penalty.\n  BEROWNE. A dangerous law against gentility.\n    [Reads] 'Item. If any man be seen to talk with a woman within\n    the term of three years, he shall endure such public shame as the\n    rest of the court can possibly devise.'\n    This article, my liege, yourself must break;\n    For well you know here comes in embassy\n    The French king's daughter, with yourself to speak-\n    A mild of grace and complete majesty-\n    About surrender up of Aquitaine\n    To her decrepit, sick, and bedrid father;\n    Therefore this article is made in vain,\n    Or vainly comes th' admired princess hither.\n  KING. What say you, lords? Why, this was quite forgot.\n  BEROWNE. So study evermore is over-shot.\n    While it doth study to have what it would,\n    It doth forget to do the thing it should;\n    And when it hath the thing it hunteth most,\n    'Tis won as towns with fire- so won, so lost.\n  KING. We must of force dispense with this decree;\n    She must lie here on mere necessity.\n  BEROWNE. Necessity will make us all forsworn\n    Three thousand times within this three years' space;\n    For every man with his affects is born,\n    Not by might mast'red, but by special grace.\n    If I break faith, this word shall speak for me:\n    I am forsworn on mere necessity.\n    So to the laws at large I write my name;        [Subscribes]\n    And he that breaks them in the least degree\n    Stands in attainder of eternal shame.\n    Suggestions are to other as to me;\n    But I believe, although I seem so loath,\n    I am the last that will last keep his oath.\n    But is there no quick recreation granted?\n  KING. Ay, that there is. Our court, you know, is haunted\n    With a refined traveller of Spain,\n    A man in all the world's new fashion planted,\n    That hath a mint of phrases in his brain;\n    One who the music of his own vain tongue\n    Doth ravish like enchanting harmony;\n    A man of complements, whom right and wrong\n    Have chose as umpire of their mutiny.\n    This child of fancy, that Armado hight,\n    For interim to our studies shall relate,\n    In high-born words, the worth of many a knight\n    From tawny Spain lost in the world's debate.\n    How you delight, my lords, I know not, I;\n    But I protest I love to hear him lie,\n    And I will use him for my minstrelsy.\n  BEROWNE. Armado is a most illustrious wight,\n    A man of fire-new words, fashion's own knight.\n  LONGAVILLE. Costard the swain and he shall be our sport;\n    And so to study three years is but short.\n\n      Enter DULL, a constable, with a letter, and COSTARD\n\n  DULL. Which is the Duke's own person?\n  BEROWNE. This, fellow. What wouldst?\n  DULL. I myself reprehend his own person, for I am his Grace's\n    farborough; but I would see his own person in flesh and blood.\n  BEROWNE. This is he.\n  DULL. Signior Arme- Arme- commends you. There's villainy abroad;\n    this letter will tell you more.\n  COSTARD. Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me.\n  KING. A letter from the magnificent Armado.\n  BEROWNE. How low soever the matter, I hope in God for high words.\n  LONGAVILLE. A high hope for a low heaven. God grant us patience!\n  BEROWNE. To hear, or forbear hearing?\n  LONGAVILLE. To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately; or, to\n    forbear both.\n  BEROWNE. Well, sir, be it as the style shall give us cause to climb\n    in the merriness.\n  COSTARD. The matter is to me, sir, as concerning Jaquenetta.\n    The manner of it is, I was taken with the manner.\n  BEROWNE. In what manner?\n  COSTARD. In manner and form following, sir; all those three: I was\n    seen with her in the manor-house, sitting with her upon the form,\n    and taken following her into the park; which, put together, is in\n    manner and form following. Now, sir, for the manner- it is the\n    manner of a man to speak to a woman. For the form- in some form.\n  BEROWNE. For the following, sir?\n  COSTARD. As it shall follow in my correction; and God defend the\n    right!\n  KING. Will you hear this letter with attention?\n  BEROWNE. As we would hear an oracle.\n  COSTARD. Such is the simplicity of man to hearken after the flesh.\n  KING. [Reads] 'Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent and sole\n    dominator of Navarre, my soul's earth's god and body's fost'ring\n    patron'-\n  COSTARD. Not a word of Costard yet.\n  KING. [Reads] 'So it is'-\n  COSTARD. It may be so; but if he say it is so, he is, in telling\n    true, but so.\n  KING. Peace!\n  COSTARD. Be to me, and every man that dares not fight!\n  KING. No words!\n  COSTARD. Of other men's secrets, I beseech you.\n  KING. [Reads] 'So it is, besieged with sable-coloured melancholy, I\n    did commend the black oppressing humour to the most wholesome\n    physic of thy health-giving air; and, as I am a gentleman, betook\n    myself to walk. The time When? About the sixth hour; when beasts\n    most graze, birds best peck, and men sit down to that nourishment\n    which is called supper. So much for the time When. Now for the\n    ground Which? which, I mean, I upon; it is ycleped thy park. Then\n    for the place Where? where, I mean, I did encounter that obscene\n    and most prepost'rous event that draweth from my snow-white pen\n    the ebon-coloured ink which here thou viewest, beholdest,\n    surveyest, or seest. But to the place Where? It standeth\n    north-north-east and by east from the west corner of thy\n    curious-knotted garden. There did I see that low-spirited swain,\n    that base minnow of thy mirth,'\n  COSTARD. Me?\n  KING. 'that unlettered small-knowing soul,'\n  COSTARD. Me?\n  KING. 'that shallow vassal,'\n  COSTARD. Still me?\n  KING. 'which, as I remember, hight Costard,'\n  COSTARD. O, me!\n  KING. 'sorted and consorted, contrary to thy established proclaimed\n    edict and continent canon; which, with, O, with- but with this I\n    passion to say wherewith-'\n  COSTARD. With a wench.\n    King. 'with a child of our grandmother Eve, a female; or, for thy\n    more sweet understanding, a woman. Him I, as my ever-esteemed\n    duty pricks me on, have sent to thee, to receive the meed of\n    punishment, by thy sweet Grace's officer, Antony Dull, a man of\n    good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation.'\n  DULL. Me, an't shall please you; I am Antony Dull.\n  KING. 'For Jaquenetta- so is the weaker vessel called, which I\n    apprehended with the aforesaid swain- I keep her as a vessel of\n    thy law's fury; and shall, at the least of thy sweet notice,\n    bring her to trial. Thine, in all compliments of devoted and\n    heart-burning heat of duty,\n                                         DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.'\n\n  BEROWNE. This is not so well as I look'd for, but the best that\n    ever I heard.\n  KING. Ay, the best for the worst. But, sirrah, what say you to\n    this?\n  COSTARD. Sir, I confess the wench.\n  KING. Did you hear the proclamation?\n  COSTARD. I do confess much of the hearing it, but little of the\n    marking of it.\n  KING. It was proclaimed a year's imprisonment to be taken with a\n    wench.\n  COSTARD. I was taken with none, sir; I was taken with a damsel.\n  KING. Well, it was proclaimed damsel.\n  COSTARD. This was no damsel neither, sir; she was a virgin.\n  KING. It is so varied too, for it was proclaimed virgin.\n  COSTARD. If it were, I deny her virginity; I was taken with a maid.\n  KING. This 'maid' not serve your turn, sir.\n  COSTARD. This maid will serve my turn, sir.\n  KING. Sir, I will pronounce your sentence: you shall fast a week\n    with bran and water.\n  COSTARD. I had rather pray a month with mutton and porridge.\n  KING. And Don Armado shall be your keeper.\n    My Lord Berowne, see him delivered o'er;\n    And go we, lords, to put in practice that\n    Which each to other hath so strongly sworn.\n                             Exeunt KING, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN\n  BEROWNE. I'll lay my head to any good man's hat\n    These oaths and laws will prove an idle scorn.\n    Sirrah, come on.\n  COSTARD. I suffer for the truth, sir; for true it is I was taken\n    with Jaquenetta, and Jaquenetta is a true girl; and therefore\n    welcome the sour cup of prosperity! Affliction may one day smile\n    again; and till then, sit thee down, sorrow.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe park\n\nEnter ARMADO and MOTH, his page\n\n  ARMADO. Boy, what sign is it when a man of great spirit grows\n    melancholy?\n  MOTH. A great sign, sir, that he will look sad.\n  ARMADO. Why, sadness is one and the self-same thing, dear imp.\n  MOTH. No, no; O Lord, sir, no!\n  ARMADO. How canst thou part sadness and melancholy, my tender\n    juvenal?\n  MOTH. By a familiar demonstration of the working, my tough signior.\n  ARMADO. Why tough signior? Why tough signior?\n  MOTH. Why tender juvenal? Why tender juvenal?\n  ARMADO. I spoke it, tender juvenal, as a congruent epitheton\n    appertaining to thy young days, which we may nominate tender.\n  MOTH. And I, tough signior, as an appertinent title to your old\n    time, which we may name tough.\n  ARMADO. Pretty and apt.\n  MOTH. How mean you, sir? I pretty, and my saying apt? or I apt, and\n    my saying pretty?\n  ARMADO. Thou pretty, because little.\n  MOTH. Little pretty, because little. Wherefore apt?\n  ARMADO. And therefore apt, because quick.\n  MOTH. Speak you this in my praise, master?\n  ARMADO. In thy condign praise.\n  MOTH. I will praise an eel with the same praise.\n  ARMADO. that an eel is ingenious?\n  MOTH. That an eel is quick.\n  ARMADO. I do say thou art quick in answers; thou heat'st my blood.\n  MOTH. I am answer'd, sir.\n  ARMADO. I love not to be cross'd.\n  MOTH. [Aside] He speaks the mere contrary: crosses love not him.\n  ARMADO. I have promised to study three years with the Duke.\n  MOTH. You may do it in an hour, sir.\n  ARMADO. Impossible.\n  MOTH. How many is one thrice told?\n  ARMADO. I am ill at reck'ning; it fitteth the spirit of a tapster.\n  MOTH. You are a gentleman and a gamester, sir.\n  ARMADO. I confess both; they are both the varnish of a complete\n    man.\n  MOTH. Then I am sure you know how much the gross sum of deuce-ace\n    amounts to.\n  ARMADO. It doth amount to one more than two.\n  MOTH. Which the base vulgar do call three.\n  ARMADO. True.\n  MOTH. Why, sir, is this such a piece of study? Now here is three\n    studied ere ye'll thrice wink; and how easy it is to put 'years'\n    to the word 'three,' and study three years in two words, the\n    dancing horse will tell you.\n  ARMADO. A most fine figure!\n  MOTH. [Aside] To prove you a cipher.\n  ARMADO. I will hereupon confess I am in love. And as it is base for\n    a soldier to love, so am I in love with a base wench. If drawing\n    my sword against the humour of affection would deliver me from\n    the reprobate thought of it, I would take Desire prisoner, and\n    ransom him to any French courtier for a new-devis'd curtsy. I\n    think scorn to sigh; methinks I should out-swear Cupid. Comfort\n    me, boy; what great men have been in love?\n  MOTH. Hercules, master.\n  ARMADO. Most sweet Hercules! More authority, dear boy, name more;\n    and, sweet my child, let them be men of good repute and carriage.\n  MOTH. Samson, master; he was a man of good carriage, great\n    carriage, for he carried the town gates on his back like a\n    porter; and he was in love.\n  ARMADO. O well-knit Samson! strong-jointed Samson! I do excel thee\n    in my rapier as much as thou didst me in carrying gates. I am in\n    love too. Who was Samson's love, my dear Moth?\n  MOTH. A woman, master.\n  ARMADO. Of what complexion?\n  MOTH. Of all the four, or the three, or the two, or one of the\n    four.\n  ARMADO. Tell me precisely of what complexion.\n  MOTH. Of the sea-water green, sir.\n  ARMADO. Is that one of the four complexions?\n  MOTH. As I have read, sir; and the best of them too.\n  ARMADO. Green, indeed, is the colour of lovers; but to have a love\n    of that colour, methinks Samson had small reason for it. He\n    surely affected her for her wit.\n  MOTH. It was so, sir; for she had a green wit.\n  ARMADO. My love is most immaculate white and red.\n  MOTH. Most maculate thoughts, master, are mask'd under such\n    colours.\n  ARMADO. Define, define, well-educated infant.\n  MOTH. My father's wit my mother's tongue assist me!\n  ARMADO. Sweet invocation of a child; most pretty, and pathetical!\n  MOTH.      If she be made of white and red,\n               Her faults will ne'er be known;\n             For blushing cheeks by faults are bred,\n               And fears by pale white shown.\n             Then if she fear, or be to blame,\n               By this you shall not know;\n             For still her cheeks possess the same\n               Which native she doth owe.\n    A dangerous rhyme, master, against the reason of white and red.\n  ARMADO. Is there not a ballad, boy, of the King and the Beggar?\n  MOTH. The world was very guilty of such a ballad some three ages\n    since; but I think now 'tis not to be found; or if it were, it\n    would neither serve for the writing nor the tune.\n  ARMADO. I will have that subject newly writ o'er, that I may\n    example my digression by some mighty precedent. Boy, I do love\n    that country girl that I took in the park with the rational hind\n    Costard; she deserves well.\n  MOTH. [Aside] To be whipt; and yet a better love than my master.\n  ARMADO. Sing, boy; my spirit grows heavy in love.\n  MOTH. And that's great marvel, loving a light wench.\n  ARMADO. I say, sing.\n  MOTH. Forbear till this company be past.\n\n                Enter DULL, COSTARD, and JAQUENETTA\n\n  DULL. Sir, the Duke's pleasure is that you keep Costard safe; and\n    you must suffer him to take no delight nor no penance; but 'a\n    must fast three days a week. For this damsel, I must keep her at\n    the park; she is allow'd for the day-woman. Fare you well.\n  ARMADO. I do betray myself with blushing. Maid!\n  JAQUENETTA. Man!\n  ARMADO. I will visit thee at the lodge.\n  JAQUENETTA. That's hereby.\n  ARMADO. I know where it is situate.\n  JAQUENETTA. Lord, how wise you are!\n  ARMADO. I will tell thee wonders.\n  JAQUENETTA. With that face?\n  ARMADO. I love thee.\n  JAQUENETTA. So I heard you say.\n  ARMADO. And so, farewell.\n  JAQUENETTA. Fair weather after you!\n  DULL. Come, Jaquenetta, away.             Exit with JAQUENETTA\n  ARMADO. Villain, thou shalt fast for thy offences ere thou be\n    pardoned.\n  COSTARD. Well, sir, I hope when I do it I shall do it on a full\n    stomach.\n  ARMADO. Thou shalt be heavily punished.\n  COSTARD. I am more bound to you than your fellows, for they are but\n    lightly rewarded.\n  ARMADO. Take away this villain; shut him up.\n  MOTH. Come, you transgressing slave, away.\n  COSTARD. Let me not be pent up, sir; I will fast, being loose.\n  MOTH. No, sir; that were fast, and loose. Thou shalt to prison.\n  COSTARD. Well, if ever I do see the merry days of desolation that I\n    have seen, some shall see.\n  MOTH. What shall some see?\n  COSTARD. Nay, nothing, Master Moth, but what they look upon. It is\n    not for prisoners to be too silent in their words, and therefore\n    I will say nothing. I thank God I have as little patience as\n    another man, and therefore I can be quiet.\n                                         Exeunt MOTH and COSTARD\n  ARMADO. I do affect the very ground, which is base, where her shoe,\n    which is baser, guided by her foot, which is basest, doth tread.\n    I shall be forsworn- which is a great argument of falsehood- if I\n    love. And how can that be true love which is falsely attempted?\n    Love is a familiar; Love is a devil. There is no evil angel but\n    Love. Yet was Samson so tempted, and he had an excellent\n    strength; yet was Solomon so seduced, and he had a very good wit.\n    Cupid's butt-shaft is too hard for Hercules' club, and therefore\n    too much odds for a Spaniard's rapier. The first and second cause\n    will not serve my turn; the passado he respects not, the duello\n    he regards not; his disgrace is to be called boy, but his glory\n    is to subdue men. Adieu, valour; rust, rapier; be still, drum;\n    for your manager is in love; yea, he loveth. Assist me, some\n    extemporal god of rhyme, for I am sure I shall turn sonnet.\n    Devise, wit; write, pen; for I am for whole volumes in folio.\n Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE II.\nThe park\n\nEnter the PRINCESS OF FRANCE, with three attending ladies,\nROSALINE, MARIA, KATHARINE, BOYET, and two other LORDS\n\n  BOYET. Now, madam, summon up your dearest spirits.\n    Consider who the King your father sends,\n    To whom he sends, and what's his embassy:\n    Yourself, held precious in the world's esteem,\n    To parley with the sole inheritor\n    Of all perfections that a man may owe,\n    Matchless Navarre; the plea of no less weight\n    Than Aquitaine, a dowry for a queen.\n    Be now as prodigal of all dear grace\n    As Nature was in making graces dear,\n    When she did starve the general world beside\n    And prodigally gave them all to you.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean,\n    Needs not the painted flourish of your praise.\n    Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye,\n    Not utt'red by base sale of chapmen's tongues;\n    I am less proud to hear you tell my worth\n    Than you much willing to be counted wise\n    In spending your wit in the praise of mine.\n    But now to task the tasker: good Boyet,\n    You are not ignorant all-telling fame\n    Doth noise abroad Navarre hath made a vow,\n    Till painful study shall outwear three years,\n    No woman may approach his silent court.\n    Therefore to's seemeth it a needful course,\n    Before we enter his forbidden gates,\n    To know his pleasure; and in that behalf,\n    Bold of your worthiness, we single you\n    As our best-moving fair solicitor.\n    Tell him the daughter of the King of France,\n    On serious business, craving quick dispatch,\n    Importunes personal conference with his Grace.\n    Haste, signify so much; while we attend,\n    Like humble-visag'd suitors, his high will.\n  BOYET. Proud of employment, willingly I go.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. All pride is willing pride, and yours is so.\n                                                      Exit BOYET\n    Who are the votaries, my loving lords,\n    That are vow-fellows with this virtuous duke?\n  FIRST LORD. Lord Longaville is one.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Know you the man?\n  MARIA. I know him, madam; at a marriage feast,\n    Between Lord Perigort and the beauteous heir\n    Of Jaques Falconbridge, solemnized\n    In Normandy, saw I this Longaville.\n    A man of sovereign parts, peerless esteem'd,\n    Well fitted in arts, glorious in arms;\n    Nothing becomes him ill that he would well.\n    The only soil of his fair virtue's gloss,\n    If virtue's gloss will stain with any soil,\n    Is a sharp wit match'd with too blunt a will,\n    Whose edge hath power to cut, whose will still wills\n    It should none spare that come within his power.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Some merry mocking lord, belike; is't so?\n  MARIA. They say so most that most his humours know.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Such short-liv'd wits do wither as they grow.\n    Who are the rest?\n  KATHARINE. The young Dumain, a well-accomplish'd youth,\n    Of all that virtue love for virtue loved;\n    Most power to do most harm, least knowing ill,\n    For he hath wit to make an ill shape good,\n    And shape to win grace though he had no wit.\n    I saw him at the Duke Alencon's once;\n    And much too little of that good I saw\n    Is my report to his great worthiness.\n  ROSALINE. Another of these students at that time\n    Was there with him, if I have heard a truth.\n    Berowne they call him; but a merrier man,\n    Within the limit of becoming mirth,\n    I never spent an hour's talk withal.\n    His eye begets occasion for his wit,\n    For every object that the one doth catch\n    The other turns to a mirth-moving jest,\n    Which his fair tongue, conceit's expositor,\n    Delivers in such apt and gracious words\n    That aged ears play truant at his tales,\n    And younger hearings are quite ravished;\n    So sweet and voluble is his discourse.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. God bless my ladies! Are they all in love,\n    That every one her own hath garnished\n    With such bedecking ornaments of praise?\n  FIRST LORD. Here comes Boyet.\n\n                       Re-enter BOYET\n\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Now, what admittance, lord?\n  BOYET. Navarre had notice of your fair approach,\n    And he and his competitors in oath\n    Were all address'd to meet you, gentle lady,\n    Before I came. Marry, thus much I have learnt:\n    He rather means to lodge you in the field,\n    Like one that comes here to besiege his court,\n    Than seek a dispensation for his oath,\n    To let you enter his unpeopled house.\n                                    [The LADIES-IN-WAITING mask]\n\n             Enter KING, LONGAVILLE, DUMAIN, BEROWNE,\n                         and ATTENDANTS\n\n    Here comes Navarre.\n  KING. Fair Princess, welcome to the court of Navarre.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. 'Fair' I give you back again; and 'welcome' I\n    have not yet. The roof of this court is too high to be yours, and\n    welcome to the wide fields too base to be mine.\n  KING. You shall be welcome, madam, to my court.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. I will be welcome then; conduct me thither.\n  KING. Hear me, dear lady: I have sworn an oath-\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Our Lady help my lord! He'll be forsworn.\n  KING. Not for the world, fair madam, by my will.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Why, will shall break it; will, and nothing\n    else.\n  KING. Your ladyship is ignorant what it is.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Were my lord so, his ignorance were wise,\n    Where now his knowledge must prove ignorance.\n    I hear your Grace hath sworn out house-keeping.\n    'Tis deadly sin to keep that oath, my lord,\n    And sin to break it.\n    But pardon me, I am too sudden bold;\n    To teach a teacher ill beseemeth me.\n    Vouchsafe to read the purpose of my coming,\n    And suddenly resolve me in my suit.         [Giving a paper]\n  KING. Madam, I will, if suddenly I may.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. YOU Will the sooner that I were away,\n    For you'll prove perjur'd if you make me stay.\n  BEROWNE. Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?\n  KATHARINE. Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?\n  BEROWNE. I know you did.\n  KATHARINE. How needless was it then to ask the question!\n  BEROWNE. You must not be so quick.\n  KATHARINE. 'Tis long of you, that spur me with such questions.\n  BEROWNE. Your wit 's too hot, it speeds too fast, 'twill tire.\n  KATHARINE. Not till it leave the rider in the mire.\n  BEROWNE. What time o' day?\n  KATHARINE. The hour that fools should ask.\n  BEROWNE. Now fair befall your mask!\n  KATHARINE. Fair fall the face it covers!\n  BEROWNE. And send you many lovers!\n  KATHARINE. Amen, so you be none.\n  BEROWNE. Nay, then will I be gone.\n  KING. Madam, your father here doth intimate\n    The payment of a hundred thousand crowns;\n    Being but the one half of an entire sum\n    Disbursed by my father in his wars.\n    But say that he or we, as neither have,\n    Receiv'd that sum, yet there remains unpaid\n    A hundred thousand more, in surety of the which,\n    One part of Aquitaine is bound to us,\n    Although not valued to the money's worth.\n    If then the King your father will restore\n    But that one half which is unsatisfied,\n    We will give up our right in Aquitaine,\n    And hold fair friendship with his Majesty.\n    But that, it seems, he little purposeth,\n    For here he doth demand to have repaid\n    A hundred thousand crowns; and not demands,\n    On payment of a hundred thousand crowns,\n    To have his title live in Aquitaine;\n    Which we much rather had depart withal,\n    And have the money by our father lent,\n    Than Aquitaine so gelded as it is.\n    Dear Princess, were not his requests so far\n    From reason's yielding, your fair self should make\n    A yielding 'gainst some reason in my breast,\n    And go well satisfied to France again.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. You do the King my father too much wrong,\n    And wrong the reputation of your name,\n    In so unseeming to confess receipt\n    Of that which hath so faithfully been paid.\n  KING. I do protest I never heard of it;\n    And, if you prove it, I'll repay it back\n    Or yield up Aquitaine.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. We arrest your word.\n    Boyet, you can produce acquittances\n    For such a sum from special officers\n    Of Charles his father.\n  KING. Satisfy me so.\n  BOYET. So please your Grace, the packet is not come,\n    Where that and other specialties are bound;\n    To-morrow you shall have a sight of them.\n  KING. It shall suffice me; at which interview\n    All liberal reason I will yield unto.\n    Meantime receive such welcome at my hand\n    As honour, without breach of honour, may\n    Make tender of to thy true worthiness.\n    You may not come, fair Princess, within my gates;\n    But here without you shall be so receiv'd\n    As you shall deem yourself lodg'd in my heart,\n    Though so denied fair harbour in my house.\n    Your own good thoughts excuse me, and farewell.\n    To-morrow shall we visit you again.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Sweet health and fair desires consort your\n    Grace!\n  KING. Thy own wish wish I thee in every place.\n                                            Exit with attendants\n  BEROWNE. Lady, I will commend you to mine own heart.\n  ROSALINE. Pray you, do my commendations;\n    I would be glad to see it.\n  BEROWNE. I would you heard it groan.\n  ROSALINE. Is the fool sick?\n  BEROWNE. Sick at the heart.\n  ROSALINE. Alack, let it blood.\n  BEROWNE. Would that do it good?\n  ROSALINE. My physic says 'ay.'\n  BEROWNE. Will YOU prick't with your eye?\n  ROSALINE. No point, with my knife.\n  BEROWNE. Now, God save thy life!\n  ROSALINE. And yours from long living!\n  BEROWNE. I cannot stay thanksgiving.                [Retiring]\n  DUMAIN. Sir, I pray you, a word: what lady is that same?\n  BOYET. The heir of Alencon, Katharine her name.\n  DUMAIN. A gallant lady! Monsieur, fare you well.          Exit\n  LONGAVILLE. I beseech you a word: what is she in the white?\n  BOYET. A woman sometimes, an you saw her in the light.\n  LONGAVILLE. Perchance light in the light. I desire her name.\n  BOYET. She hath but one for herself; to desire that were a shame.\n  LONGAVILLE. Pray you, sir, whose daughter?\n  BOYET. Her mother's, I have heard.\n  LONGAVILLE. God's blessing on your beard!\n  BOYET. Good sir, be not offended;\n    She is an heir of Falconbridge.\n  LONGAVILLE. Nay, my choler is ended.\n    She is a most sweet lady.\n  BOYET. Not unlike, sir; that may be.           Exit LONGAVILLE\n  BEROWNE. What's her name in the cap?\n  BOYET. Rosaline, by good hap.\n  BEROWNE. Is she wedded or no?\n  BOYET. To her will, sir, or so.\n  BEROWNE. You are welcome, sir; adieu!\n  BOYET. Farewell to me, sir, and welcome to you.\n                                     Exit BEROWNE. LADIES Unmask\n  MARIA. That last is Berowne, the merry mad-cap lord;\n    Not a word with him but a jest.\n  BOYET. And every jest but a word.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. It was well done of you to take him at his\n    word.\n  BOYET. I was as willing to grapple as he was to board.\n  KATHARINE. Two hot sheeps, marry!\n  BOYET. And wherefore not ships?\n    No sheep, sweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips.\n  KATHARINE. You sheep and I pasture- shall that finish the jest?\n  BOYET. So you grant pasture for me.     [Offering to kiss her]\n  KATHARINE. Not so, gentle beast;\n    My lips are no common, though several they be.\n  BOYET. Belonging to whom?\n  KATHARINE. To my fortunes and me.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Good wits will be jangling; but, gentles,\n      agree;\n    This civil war of wits were much better used\n    On Navarre and his book-men, for here 'tis abused.\n  BOYET. If my observation, which very seldom lies,\n    By the heart's still rhetoric disclosed with eyes,\n    Deceive me not now, Navarre is infected.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. With what?\n  BOYET. With that which we lovers entitle 'affected.'\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Your reason?\n  BOYET. Why, all his behaviours did make their retire\n    To the court of his eye, peeping thorough desire.\n    His heart, like an agate, with your print impressed,\n    Proud with his form, in his eye pride expressed;\n    His tongue, all impatient to speak and not see,\n    Did stumble with haste in his eyesight to be;\n    All senses to that sense did make their repair,\n    To feel only looking on fairest of fair.\n    Methought all his senses were lock'd in his eye,\n    As jewels in crystal for some prince to buy;\n    Who, tend'ring their own worth from where they were glass'd,\n    Did point you to buy them, along as you pass'd.\n    His face's own margent did quote such amazes\n    That all eyes saw his eyes enchanted with gazes.\n    I'll give you Aquitaine and all that is his,\n    An you give him for my sake but one loving kiss.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Come, to our pavilion. Boyet is dispos'd.\n  BOYET. But to speak that in words which his eye hath disclos'd;\n    I only have made a mouth of his eye,\n    By adding a tongue which I know will not lie.\n  MARIA. Thou art an old love-monger, and speakest skilfully.\n  KATHARINE. He is Cupid's grandfather, and learns news of him.\n  ROSALINE. Then was Venus like her mother; for her father is but\n    grim.\n  BOYET. Do you hear, my mad wenches?\n  MARIA. No.\n  BOYET. What, then; do you see?\n  MARIA. Ay, our way to be gone.\n  BOYET. You are too hard for me.                         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nThe park\n\nEnter ARMADO and MOTH\n\n  ARMADO. Warble, child; make passionate my sense of hearing.\n                                         [MOTH sings Concolinel]\n  ARMADO. Sweet air! Go, tenderness of years, take this key, give\n    enlargement to the swain, bring him festinately hither; I must\n    employ him in a letter to my love.\n  MOTH. Master, will you win your love with a French brawl?\n  ARMADO. How meanest thou? Brawling in French?\n  MOTH. No, my complete master; but to jig off a tune at the tongue's\n    end, canary to it with your feet, humour it with turning up your\n    eyelids, sigh a note and sing a note, sometime through the\n    throat, as if you swallowed love with singing love, sometime\n    through the nose, as if you snuff'd up love by smelling love,\n    with your hat penthouse-like o'er the shop of your eyes, with\n    your arms cross'd on your thin-belly doublet, like a rabbit on a\n    spit, or your hands in your pocket, like a man after the old\n    painting; and keep not too long in one tune, but a snip and away.\n    These are complements, these are humours; these betray nice\n    wenches, that would be betrayed without these; and make them men\n    of note- do you note me?- that most are affected to these.\n  ARMADO. How hast thou purchased this experience?\n  MOTH. By my penny of observation.\n  ARMADO. But O- but O-\n  MOTH. The hobby-horse is forgot.\n  ARMADO. Call'st thou my love 'hobby-horse'?\n  MOTH. No, master; the hobby-horse is but a colt, and your love\n    perhaps a hackney. But have you forgot your love?\n  ARMADO. Almost I had.\n  MOTH. Negligent student! learn her by heart.\n  ARMADO. By heart and in heart, boy.\n  MOTH. And out of heart, master; all those three I will prove.\n  ARMADO. What wilt thou prove?\n  MOTH. A man, if I live; and this, by, in, and without, upon the\n    instant. By heart you love her, because your heart cannot come by\n    her; in heart you love her, because your heart is in love with\n    her; and out of heart you love her, being out of heart that you\n    cannot enjoy her.\n  ARMADO. I am all these three.\n  MOTH. And three times as much more, and yet nothing at all.\n  ARMADO. Fetch hither the swain; he must carry me a letter.\n  MOTH. A message well sympathiz'd- a horse to be ambassador for an\n    ass.\n  ARMADO. Ha, ha, what sayest thou?\n  MOTH. Marry, sir, you must send the ass upon the horse, for he is\n    very slow-gaited. But I go.\n  ARMADO. The way is but short; away.\n  MOTH. As swift as lead, sir.\n  ARMADO. The meaning, pretty ingenious?\n    Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow?\n  MOTH. Minime, honest master; or rather, master, no.\n  ARMADO. I say lead is slow.\n  MOTH. You are too swift, sir, to say so:\n    Is that lead slow which is fir'd from a gun?\n  ARMADO. Sweet smoke of rhetoric!\n    He reputes me a cannon; and the bullet, that's he;\n    I shoot thee at the swain.\n  MOTH. Thump, then, and I flee.                            Exit\n  ARMADO. A most acute juvenal; volable and free of grace!\n    By thy favour, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face;\n    Most rude melancholy, valour gives thee place.\n    My herald is return'd.\n\n                       Re-enter MOTH with COSTARD\n\n  MOTH. A wonder, master! here's a costard broken in a shin.\n  ARMADO. Some enigma, some riddle; come, thy l'envoy; begin.\n  COSTARD. No egma, no riddle, no l'envoy; no salve in the mail, sir.\n    O, sir, plantain, a plain plantain; no l'envoy, no l'envoy; no\n    salve, sir, but a plantain!\n  ARMADO. By virtue thou enforcest laughter; thy silly thought, my\n    spleen; the heaving of my lungs provokes me to ridiculous\n    smiling. O, pardon me, my stars! Doth the inconsiderate take\n    salve for l'envoy, and the word 'l'envoy' for a salve?\n  MOTH. Do the wise think them other? Is not l'envoy a salve?\n  ARMADO. No, page; it is an epilogue or discourse to make plain\n    Some obscure precedence that hath tofore been sain.\n    I will example it:\n           The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,\n           Were still at odds, being but three.\n    There's the moral. Now the l'envoy.\n  MOTH. I will add the l'envoy. Say the moral again.\n  ARMADO.  The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,\n           Were still at odds, being but three.\n  MOTH.    Until the goose came out of door,\n           And stay'd the odds by adding four.\n    Now will I begin your moral, and do you follow with my l'envoy.\n           The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,\n           Were still at odds, being but three.\n  ARMADO.  Until the goose came out of door,\n           Staying the odds by adding four.\n  MOTH. A good l'envoy, ending in the goose; would you desire more?\n  COSTARD. The boy hath sold him a bargain, a goose, that's flat.\n    Sir, your pennyworth is good, an your goose be fat.\n    To sell a bargain well is as cunning as fast and loose;\n    Let me see: a fat l'envoy; ay, that's a fat goose.\n  ARMADO. Come hither, come hither. How did this argument begin?\n  MOTH. By saying that a costard was broken in a shin.\n    Then call'd you for the l'envoy.\n  COSTARD. True, and I for a plantain. Thus came your argument in;\n    Then the boy's fat l'envoy, the goose that you bought;\n    And he ended the market.\n  ARMADO. But tell me: how was there a costard broken in a shin?\n  MOTH. I will tell you sensibly.\n  COSTARD. Thou hast no feeling of it, Moth; I will speak that\n      l'envoy.\n    I, Costard, running out, that was safely within,\n    Fell over the threshold and broke my shin.\n  ARMADO. We will talk no more of this matter.\n  COSTARD. Till there be more matter in the shin.\n  ARMADO. Sirrah Costard. I will enfranchise thee.\n  COSTARD. O, Marry me to one Frances! I smell some l'envoy, some\n    goose, in this.\n  ARMADO. By my sweet soul, I mean setting thee at liberty,\n    enfreedoming thy person; thou wert immured, restrained,\n    captivated, bound.\n  COSTARD. True, true; and now you will be my purgation, and let me\n    loose.\n  ARMADO. I give thee thy liberty, set thee from durance; and, in\n    lieu thereof, impose on thee nothing but this: bear this\n    significant [giving a letter] to the country maid Jaquenetta;\n    there is remuneration, for the best ward of mine honour is\n    rewarding my dependents. Moth, follow.                  Exit\n  MOTH. Like the sequel, I. Signior Costard, adieu.\n  COSTARD. My sweet ounce of man's flesh, my incony Jew!\n                                                       Exit MOTH\n    Now will I look to his remuneration. Remuneration! O, that's the\n    Latin word for three farthings. Three farthings- remuneration.\n    'What's the price of this inkle?'- 'One penny.'- 'No, I'll give\n    you a remuneration.' Why, it carries it. Remuneration! Why, it is\n    a fairer name than French crown. I will never buy and sell out of\n    this word.\n\n                          Enter BEROWNE\n\n  BEROWNE. My good knave Costard, exceedingly well met!\n  COSTARD. Pray you, sir, how much carnation ribbon may a man buy for\n    a remuneration?\n  BEROWNE. What is a remuneration?\n  COSTARD. Marry, sir, halfpenny farthing.\n  BEROWNE. Why, then, three-farthing worth of silk.\n  COSTARD. I thank your worship. God be wi' you!\n  BEROWNE. Stay, slave; I must employ thee.\n    As thou wilt win my favour, good my knave,\n    Do one thing for me that I shall entreat.\n  COSTARD. When would you have it done, sir?\n  BEROWNE. This afternoon.\n  COSTARD. Well, I will do it, sir; fare you well.\n  BEROWNE. Thou knowest not what it is.\n  COSTARD. I shall know, sir, when I have done it.\n  BEROWNE. Why, villain, thou must know first.\n  COSTARD. I will come to your worship to-morrow morning.\n  BEROWNE. It must be done this afternoon.\n    Hark, slave, it is but this:\n    The Princess comes to hunt here in the park,\n    And in her train there is a gentle lady;\n    When tongues speak sweetly, then they name her name,\n    And Rosaline they call her. Ask for her,\n    And to her white hand see thou do commend\n    This seal'd-up counsel. There's thy guerdon; go.\n                                         [Giving him a shilling]\n  COSTARD. Gardon, O sweet gardon! better than remuneration; a\n    'leven-pence farthing better; most sweet gardon! I will do it,\n    sir, in print. Gardon- remuneration!                    Exit\n  BEROWNE. And I, forsooth, in love; I, that have been love's whip;\n    A very beadle to a humorous sigh;\n    A critic, nay, a night-watch constable;\n    A domineering pedant o'er the boy,\n    Than whom no mortal so magnificent!\n    This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy,\n    This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid;\n    Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms,\n    Th' anointed sovereign of sighs and groans,\n    Liege of all loiterers and malcontents,\n    Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces,\n    Sole imperator, and great general\n    Of trotting paritors. O my little heart!\n    And I to be a corporal of his field,\n    And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop!\n    What! I love, I sue, I seek a wife-\n    A woman, that is like a German clock,\n    Still a-repairing, ever out of frame,\n    And never going aright, being a watch,\n    But being watch'd that it may still go right!\n    Nay, to be perjur'd, which is worst of all;\n    And, among three, to love the worst of all,\n    A whitely wanton with a velvet brow,\n    With two pitch balls stuck in her face for eyes;\n    Ay, and, by heaven, one that will do the deed,\n    Though Argus were her eunuch and her guard.\n    And I to sigh for her! to watch for her!\n    To pray for her! Go to; it is a plague\n    That Cupid will impose for my neglect\n    Of his almighty dreadful little might.\n    Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue, and groan:\n    Some men must love my lady, and some Joan.              Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nThe park\n\nEnter the PRINCESS, ROSALINE, MARIA, KATHARINE, BOYET, LORDS, ATTENDANTS,\nand a FORESTER\n\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Was that the King that spurr'd his horse so\n      hard\n    Against the steep uprising of the hill?\n  BOYET. I know not; but I think it was not he.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Whoe'er 'a was, 'a show'd a mounting mind.\n    Well, lords, to-day we shall have our dispatch;\n    On Saturday we will return to France.\n    Then, forester, my friend, where is the bush\n    That we must stand and play the murderer in?\n  FORESTER. Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice;\n    A stand where you may make the fairest shoot.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. I thank my beauty I am fair that shoot,\n    And thereupon thou speak'st the fairest shoot.\n  FORESTER. Pardon me, madam, for I meant not so.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. What, what? First praise me, and again say no?\n    O short-liv'd pride! Not fair? Alack for woe!\n  FORESTER. Yes, madam, fair.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Nay, never paint me now;\n    Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the brow.\n    Here, good my glass, take this for telling true:\n                                             [ Giving him money]\n    Fair payment for foul words is more than due.\n  FORESTER. Nothing but fair is that which you inherit.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. See, see, my beauty will be sav'd by merit.\n    O heresy in fair, fit for these days!\n    A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise.\n    But come, the bow. Now mercy goes to kill,\n    And shooting well is then accounted ill;\n    Thus will I save my credit in the shoot:\n    Not wounding, pity would not let me do't;\n    If wounding, then it was to show my skill,\n    That more for praise than purpose meant to kill.\n    And, out of question, so it is sometimes:\n    Glory grows guilty of detested crimes,\n    When, for fame's sake, for praise, an outward part,\n    We bend to that the working of the heart;\n    As I for praise alone now seek to spill\n    The poor deer's blood that my heart means no ill.\n  BOYET. Do not curst wives hold that self-sovereignty\n    Only for praise sake, when they strive to be\n    Lords o'er their lords?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Only for praise; and praise we may afford\n    To any lady that subdues a lord.\n\n                       Enter COSTARD\n\n  BOYET. Here comes a member of the commonwealth.\n  COSTARD. God dig-you-den all! Pray you, which is the head lady?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Thou shalt know her, fellow, by the rest that\n    have no heads.\n  COSTARD. Which is the greatest lady, the highest?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. The thickest and the tallest.\n  COSTARD. The thickest and the tallest! It is so; truth is truth.\n    An your waist, mistress, were as slender as my wit,\n    One o' these maids' girdles for your waist should be fit.\n    Are not you the chief woman? You are the thickest here.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. What's your will, sir? What's your will?\n  COSTARD. I have a letter from Monsieur Berowne to one\n    Lady Rosaline.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. O, thy letter, thy letter! He's a good friend\n      of mine.\n    Stand aside, good bearer. Boyet, you can carve.\n    Break up this capon.\n  BOYET. I am bound to serve.\n    This letter is mistook; it importeth none here.\n    It is writ to Jaquenetta.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. We will read it, I swear.\n    Break the neck of the wax, and every one give ear.\n  BOYET. [Reads] 'By heaven, that thou art fair is most infallible;\n    true that thou art beauteous; truth itself that thou art lovely.\n    More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous, truer than truth\n    itself, have commiseration on thy heroical vassal. The\n    magnanimous and most illustrate king Cophetua set eye upon the\n    pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon; and he it was that\n    might rightly say, 'Veni, vidi, vici'; which to annothanize in\n    the vulgar,- O base and obscure vulgar!- videlicet, He came, saw,\n    and overcame. He came, one; saw, two; overcame, three. Who came?-\n    the king. Why did he come?- to see. Why did he see?-to overcome.\n    To whom came he?- to the beggar. What saw he?- the beggar. Who\n    overcame he?- the beggar. The conclusion is victory; on whose\n    side?- the king's. The captive is enrich'd; on whose side?- the\n    beggar's. The catastrophe is a nuptial; on whose side?- the\n    king's. No, on both in one, or one in both. I am the king, for so\n    stands the comparison; thou the beggar, for so witnesseth thy\n    lowliness. Shall I command thy love? I may. Shall I enforce thy\n    love? I could. Shall I entreat thy love? I will. What shalt thou\n    exchange for rags?- robes, for tittles?- titles, for thyself?\n    -me. Thus expecting thy reply, I profane my lips on thy foot, my\n    eyes on thy picture, and my heart on thy every part.\n                  Thine in the dearest design of industry,\n                                           DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.\n\n    'Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar\n    'Gainst thee, thou lamb, that standest as his prey;\n    Submissive fall his princely feet before,\n    And he from forage will incline to play.\n    But if thou strive, poor soul, what are thou then?\n    Food for his rage, repasture for his den.'\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. What plume of feathers is he that indited this\n      letter?\n    What vane? What weathercock? Did you ever hear better?\n  BOYET. I am much deceived but I remember the style.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Else your memory is bad, going o'er it\n    erewhile.\n  BOYET. This Armado is a Spaniard, that keeps here in court;\n    A phantasime, a Monarcho, and one that makes sport\n    To the Prince and his book-mates.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Thou fellow, a word.\n    Who gave thee this letter?\n  COSTARD. I told you: my lord.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. To whom shouldst thou give it?\n  COSTARD. From my lord to my lady.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. From which lord to which lady?\n  COSTARD. From my Lord Berowne, a good master of mine,\n    To a lady of France that he call'd Rosaline.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Thou hast mistaken his letter. Come, lords,\n      away.\n    [To ROSALINE] Here, sweet, put up this; 'twill be thine another\n      day.                             Exeunt PRINCESS and TRAIN\n  BOYET. Who is the shooter? who is the shooter?\n  ROSALINE. Shall I teach you to know?\n  BOYET. Ay, my continent of beauty.\n  ROSALINE. Why, she that bears the bow.\n    Finely put off!\n  BOYET. My lady goes to kill horns; but, if thou marry,\n    Hang me by the neck, if horns that year miscarry.\n    Finely put on!\n  ROSALINE. Well then, I am the shooter.\n  BOYET. And who is your deer?\n  ROSALINE. If we choose by the horns, yourself come not near.\n    Finely put on indeed!\n  MARIA. You Still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes at the\n    brow.\n  BOYET. But she herself is hit lower. Have I hit her now?\n  ROSALINE. Shall I come upon thee with an old saying, that was a man\n    when King Pepin of France was a little boy, as touching the hit\n    it?\n  BOYET. So I may answer thee with one as old, that was a woman when\n    Queen Guinever of Britain was a little wench, as touching the hit\n    it.\n  ROSALINE. [Singing]\n            Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it,\n            Thou canst not hit it, my good man.\n  BOYET.    An I cannot, cannot, cannot,\n            An I cannot, another can.\n                                   Exeunt ROSALINE and KATHARINE\n  COSTARD. By my troth, most pleasant! How both did fit it!\n  MARIA. A mark marvellous well shot; for they both did hit it.\n  BOYET. A mark! O, mark but that mark! A mark, says my lady!\n    Let the mark have a prick in't, to mete at, if it may be.\n  MARIA. Wide o' the bow-hand! I' faith, your hand is out.\n  COSTARD. Indeed, 'a must shoot nearer, or he'll ne'er hit the\n    clout.\n  BOYET. An if my hand be out, then belike your hand is in.\n  COSTARD. Then will she get the upshoot by cleaving the pin.\n  MARIA. Come, come, you talk greasily; your lips grow foul.\n  COSTARD. She's too hard for you at pricks, sir; challenge her to\n    bowl.\n  BOYET. I fear too much rubbing; good-night, my good owl.\n                                          Exeunt BOYET and MARIA\n  COSTARD. By my soul, a swain, a most simple clown!\n    Lord, Lord! how the ladies and I have put him down!\n    O' my troth, most sweet jests, most incony vulgar wit!\n    When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it were, so fit.\n    Armado a th' t'one side- O, a most dainty man!\n    To see him walk before a lady and to bear her fan!\n    To see him kiss his hand, and how most sweetly 'a will swear!\n    And his page a t' other side, that handful of wit!\n    Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit!\n    Sola, sola!                                     Exit COSTARD\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe park\n\nFrom the shooting within, enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL\n\n  NATHANIEL. Very reverent sport, truly; and done in the testimony of\n    a good conscience.\n  HOLOFERNES. The deer was, as you know, sanguis, in blood; ripe as\n    the pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of caelo,\n    the sky, the welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a crab on\n    the face of terra, the soil, the land, the earth.\n  NATHANIEL. Truly, Master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly\n    varied, like a scholar at the least; but, sir, I assure ye it was\n    a buck of the first head.\n  HOLOFERNES. Sir Nathaniel, haud credo.\n  DULL. 'Twas not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket.\n  HOLOFERNES. Most barbarous intimation! yet a kind of insinuation,\n    as it were, in via, in way, of explication; facere, as it were,\n    replication, or rather, ostentare, to show, as it were, his\n    inclination, after his undressed, unpolished, uneducated,\n    unpruned, untrained, or rather unlettered, or ratherest\n    unconfirmed fashion, to insert again my haud credo for a deer.\n  DULL. I Said the deer was not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket.\n  HOLOFERNES. Twice-sod simplicity, bis coctus!\n    O thou monster Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!\n  NATHANIEL. Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in\n      a book;\n    He hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink; his\n    intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible\n    in the duller parts;\n    And such barren plants are set before us that we thankful should\n      be-\n    Which we of taste and feeling are- for those parts that do\n      fructify in us more than he.\n    For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or a fool,\n    So, were there a patch set on learning, to see him in a school.\n    But, omne bene, say I, being of an old father's mind:\n    Many can brook the weather that love not the wind.\n  DULL. You two are book-men: can you tell me by your wit\n    What was a month old at Cain's birth that's not five weeks old as\n      yet?\n  HOLOFERNES. Dictynna, goodman Dull; Dictynna, goodman Dull.\n  DULL. What is Dictynna?\n  NATHANIEL. A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon.\n  HOLOFERNES. The moon was a month old when Adam was no more,\n    And raught not to five weeks when he came to five-score.\n    Th' allusion holds in the exchange.\n  DULL. 'Tis true, indeed; the collusion holds in the exchange.\n  HOLOFERNES. God comfort thy capacity! I say th' allusion holds in\n    the exchange.\n  DULL. And I say the polusion holds in the exchange; for the moon is\n    never but a month old; and I say, beside, that 'twas a pricket\n    that the Princess kill'd.\n  HOLOFERNES. Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on\n    the death of the deer? And, to humour the ignorant, call the deer\n    the Princess kill'd a pricket.\n  NATHANIEL. Perge, good Master Holofernes, perge, so it shall please\n    you to abrogate scurrility.\n  HOLOFERNES. I Will something affect the letter, for it argues\n    facility.\n\n    The preyful Princess pierc'd and prick'd a pretty pleasing\n      pricket.\n    Some say a sore; but not a sore till now made sore with shooting.\n    The dogs did yell; put el to sore, then sorel jumps from thicket-\n    Or pricket sore, or else sorel; the people fall a-hooting.\n    If sore be sore, then L to sore makes fifty sores o' sorel.\n    Of one sore I an hundred make by adding but one more L.\n\n  NATHANIEL. A rare talent!\n  DULL. [Aside] If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with a\n    talent.\n  HOLOFERNES. This is a gift that I have, simple, simple; a foolish\n    extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects,\n    ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions. These are begot in\n    the ventricle of memory, nourish'd in the womb of pia mater, and\n    delivered upon the mellowing of occasion. But the gift is good in\n    those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it.\n  NATHANIEL. Sir, I praise the Lord for you, and so may my\n    parishioners; for their sons are well tutor'd by you, and their\n    daughters profit very greatly under you. You are a good member of\n    the commonwealth.\n  HOLOFERNES. Mehercle, if their sons be ingenious, they shall want\n    no instruction; if their daughters be capable, I will put it to\n    them; but, vir sapit qui pauca loquitur. A soul feminine saluteth\n    us.\n\n                    Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD\n\n  JAQUENETTA. God give you good morrow, Master Person.\n  HOLOFERNES. Master Person, quasi pers-one. And if one should be\n    pierc'd which is the one?\n  COSTARD. Marry, Master Schoolmaster, he that is likest to a\n    hogshead.\n  HOLOFERNES. Piercing a hogshead! A good lustre of conceit in a turf\n    of earth; fire enough for a flint, pearl enough for a swine; 'tis\n    pretty; it is well.\n  JAQUENETTA. Good Master Parson, be so good as read me this letter;\n    it was given me by Costard, and sent me from Don Armado. I\n    beseech you read it.\n  HOLOFERNES. Fauste, precor gelida quando pecus omne sub umbra\n    Ruminat-\n    and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! I may speak of thee as\n    the traveller doth of Venice:\n                   Venetia, Venetia,\n                   Chi non ti vede, non ti pretia.\n    Old Mantuan, old Mantuan! Who understandeth thee not,\n    loves thee not-\n                      Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa.\n    Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? or rather as\n    Horace says in his- What, my soul, verses?\n  NATHANIEL. Ay, sir, and very learned.\n  HOLOFERNES. Let me hear a staff, a stanze, a verse; lege, domine.\n  NATHANIEL. [Reads] 'If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to\n      love?\n    Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vowed!\n    Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll faithful prove;\n    Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers bowed.\n    Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine eyes,\n    Where all those pleasures live that art would comprehend.\n    If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice;\n    Well learned is that tongue that well can thee commend;\n    All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder;\n    Which is to me some praise that I thy parts admire.\n    Thy eye Jove's lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful thunder,\n    Which, not to anger bent, is music and sweet fire.\n    Celestial as thou art, O, pardon love this wrong,\n    That singes heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue.'\n  HOLOFERNES. You find not the apostrophas, and so miss the accent:\n    let me supervise the canzonet. Here are only numbers ratified;\n    but, for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy,\n    caret. Ovidius Naso was the man. And why, indeed, 'Naso' but for\n    smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of\n    invention? Imitari is nothing: so doth the hound his master, the\n    ape his keeper, the tired horse his rider. But, damosella virgin,\n    was this directed to you?\n  JAQUENETTA. Ay, sir, from one Monsieur Berowne, one of the strange\n    queen's lords.\n  HOLOFERNES. I will overglance the superscript: 'To the snow-white\n    hand of the most beauteous Lady Rosaline.' I will look again on\n    the intellect of the letter, for the nomination of the party\n    writing to the person written unto: 'Your Ladyship's in all\n    desired employment, Berowne.' Sir Nathaniel, this Berowne is one\n    of the votaries with the King; and here he hath framed a letter\n    to a sequent of the stranger queen's which accidentally, or by\n    the way of progression, hath miscarried. Trip and go, my sweet;\n    deliver this paper into the royal hand of the King; it may\n    concern much. Stay not thy compliment; I forgive thy duty. Adieu.\n  JAQUENETTA. Good Costard, go with me. Sir, God save your life!\n  COSTARD. Have with thee, my girl.\n                                   Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA\n  NATHANIEL. Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very\n    religiously; and, as a certain father saith-\n  HOLOFERNES. Sir, tell not me of the father; I do fear colourable\n    colours. But to return to the verses: did they please you, Sir\n    Nathaniel?\n  NATHANIEL. Marvellous well for the pen.\n  HOLOFERNES. I do dine to-day at the father's of a certain pupil of\n    mine; where, if, before repast, it shall please you to gratify\n    the table with a grace, I will, on my privilege I have with the\n    parents of the foresaid child or pupil, undertake your ben\n    venuto; where I will prove those verses to be very unlearned,\n    neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention. I beseech your\n    society.\n  NATHANIEL. And thank you too; for society, saith the text, is the\n    happiness of life.\n  HOLOFERNES. And certes, the text most infallibly concludes it.\n    [To DULL] Sir, I do invite you too; you shall not say me nay:\n    pauca verba. Away; the gentles are at their game, and we will to\n    our recreation.                                       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe park\n\nEnter BEROWNE, with a paper his band, alone\n\n  BEROWNE. The King he is hunting the deer: I am coursing myself.\n    They have pitch'd a toil: I am tolling in a pitch- pitch that\n    defiles. Defile! a foul word. Well, 'set thee down, sorrow!' for\n    so they say the fool said, and so say I, and I am the fool. Well\n    proved, wit. By the Lord, this love is as mad as Ajax: it kills\n    sheep; it kills me- I a sheep. Well proved again o' my side. I\n    will not love; if I do, hang me. I' faith, I will not. O, but her\n    eye! By this light, but for her eye, I would not love her- yes,\n    for her two eyes. Well, I do nothing in the world but lie, and\n    lie in my throat. By heaven, I do love; and it hath taught me to\n    rhyme, and to be melancholy; and here is part of my rhyme, and\n    here my melancholy. Well, she hath one o' my sonnets already; the\n    clown bore it, the fool sent it, and the lady hath it: sweet\n    clown, sweeter fool, sweetest lady! By the world, I would not\n    care a pin if the other three were in. Here comes one with a\n    paper; God give him grace to groan!\n                                            [Climbs into a tree]\n\n                      Enter the KING, with a paper\n\n  KING. Ay me!\n  BEROWNE. Shot, by heaven! Proceed, sweet Cupid; thou hast thump'd\n    him with thy bird-bolt under the left pap. In faith, secrets!\n  KING. [Reads]\n      'So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not\n      To those fresh morning drops upon the rose,\n      As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote\n      The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows;\n      Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright\n      Through the transparent bosom of the deep,\n      As doth thy face through tears of mine give light.\n      Thou shin'st in every tear that I do weep;\n      No drop but as a coach doth carry thee;\n      So ridest thou triumphing in my woe.\n      Do but behold the tears that swell in me,\n      And they thy glory through my grief will show.\n      But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep\n      My tears for glasses, and still make me weep.\n      O queen of queens! how far dost thou excel\n      No thought can think nor tongue of mortal tell.'\n    How shall she know my griefs? I'll drop the paper-\n    Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here?\n                                                   [Steps aside]\n\n                  Enter LONGAVILLE, with a paper\n\n    What, Longaville, and reading! Listen, car.\n  BEROWNE. Now, in thy likeness, one more fool appear!\n  LONGAVILLE. Ay me, I am forsworn!\n  BEROWNE. Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers.\n  KING. In love, I hope; sweet fellowship in shame!\n  BEROWNE. One drunkard loves another of the name.\n  LONGAVILLE. Am I the first that have been perjur'd so?\n  BEROWNE. I could put thee in comfort: not by two that I know;\n    Thou makest the triumviry, the corner-cap of society,\n    The shape of Love's Tyburn that hangs up simplicity.\n  LONGAVILLE. I fear these stubborn lines lack power to move.\n    O sweet Maria, empress of my love!\n    These numbers will I tear, and write in prose.\n  BEROWNE. O, rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid's hose:\n    Disfigure not his slop.\n  LONGAVILLE. This same shall go.          [He reads the sonnet]\n      'Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,\n      'Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,\n      Persuade my heart to this false perjury?\n      Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.\n      A woman I forswore; but I will prove,\n      Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee:\n      My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;\n      Thy grace being gain'd cures all disgrace in me.\n      Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is;\n      Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine,\n      Exhal'st this vapour-vow; in thee it is.\n      If broken, then it is no fault of mine;\n      If by me broke, what fool is not so wise\n      To lose an oath to win a paradise?'\n  BEROWNE. This is the liver-vein, which makes flesh a deity,\n    A green goose a goddess- pure, pure idolatry.\n    God amend us, God amend! We are much out o' th' way.\n\n                      Enter DUMAIN, with a paper\n\n  LONGAVILLE. By whom shall I send this?- Company! Stay.\n                                                   [Steps aside]\n  BEROWNE. 'All hid, all hid'- an old infant play.\n    Like a demigod here sit I in the sky,\n    And wretched fools' secrets heedfully o'er-eye.\n    More sacks to the mill! O heavens, I have my wish!\n    Dumain transformed! Four woodcocks in a dish!\n  DUMAIN. O most divine Kate!\n  BEROWNE. O most profane coxcomb!\n  DUMAIN. By heaven, the wonder in a mortal eye!\n  BEROWNE. By earth, she is not, corporal: there you lie.\n  DUMAIN. Her amber hairs for foul hath amber quoted.\n  BEROWNE. An amber-colour'd raven was well noted.\n  DUMAIN. As upright as the cedar.\n  BEROWNE. Stoop, I say;\n    Her shoulder is with child.\n  DUMAIN. As fair as day.\n  BEROWNE. Ay, as some days; but then no sun must shine.\n  DUMAIN. O that I had my wish!\n  LONGAVILLE. And I had mine!\n  KING. And I mine too,.good Lord!\n  BEROWNE. Amen, so I had mine! Is not that a good word?\n  DUMAIN. I would forget her; but a fever she\n    Reigns in my blood, and will rememb'red be.\n  BEROWNE. A fever in your blood? Why, then incision\n    Would let her out in saucers. Sweet misprision!\n  DUMAIN. Once more I'll read the ode that I have writ.\n  BEROWNE. Once more I'll mark how love can vary wit.\n  DUMAIN. [Reads]\n        'On a day-alack the day!-\n        Love, whose month is ever May,\n        Spied a blossom passing fair\n        Playing in the wanton air.\n        Through the velvet leaves the wind,\n        All unseen, can passage find;\n        That the lover, sick to death,\n        Wish'd himself the heaven's breath.\n        \"Air,\" quoth he \"thy cheeks may blow;\n        Air, would I might triumph so!\n        But, alack, my hand is sworn\n        Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn;\n        Vow, alack, for youth unmeet,\n        Youth so apt to pluck a sweet.\n        Do not call it sin in me\n        That I am forsworn for thee;\n        Thou for whom Jove would swear\n        Juno but an Ethiope were;\n        And deny himself for Jove,\n        Turning mortal for thy love.\"'\n    This will I send; and something else more plain\n    That shall express my true love's fasting pain.\n    O, would the King, Berowne and Longaville,\n    Were lovers too! Ill, to example ill,\n    Would from my forehead wipe a perjur'd note;\n    For none offend where all alike do dote.\n  LONGAVILLE. [Advancing] Dumain, thy love is far from charity,\n    That in love's grief desir'st society;\n    You may look pale, but I should blush, I know,\n    To be o'erheard and taken napping so.\n  KING. [Advancing] Come, sir, you blush; as his, your case is such.\n    You chide at him, offending twice as much:\n    You do not love Maria! Longaville\n    Did never sonnet for her sake compile;\n    Nor never lay his wreathed arms athwart\n    His loving bosom, to keep down his heart.\n    I have been closely shrouded in this bush,\n    And mark'd you both, and for you both did blush.\n    I heard your guilty rhymes, observ'd your fashion,\n    Saw sighs reek from you, noted well your passion.\n    'Ay me!' says one. 'O Jove!' the other cries.\n    One, her hairs were gold; crystal the other's eyes.\n    [To LONGAVILLE] You would for paradise break faith and troth;\n    [To Dumain] And Jove for your love would infringe an oath.\n    What will Berowne say when that he shall hear\n    Faith infringed which such zeal did swear?\n    How will he scorn, how will he spend his wit!\n    How will he triumph, leap, and laugh at it!\n    For all the wealth that ever I did see,\n    I would not have him know so much by me.\n  BEROWNE. [Descending] Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy,\n    Ah, good my liege, I pray thee pardon me.\n    Good heart, what grace hast thou thus to reprove\n    These worms for loving, that art most in love?\n    Your eyes do make no coaches; in your tears\n    There is no certain princess that appears;\n    You'll not be perjur'd; 'tis a hateful thing;\n    Tush, none but minstrels like of sonneting.\n    But are you not ashamed? Nay, are you not,\n    All three of you, to be thus much o'ershot?\n    You found his mote; the King your mote did see;\n    But I a beam do find in each of three.\n    O, what a scene of fool'ry have I seen,\n    Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow, and of teen!\n    O, me, with what strict patience have I sat,\n    To see a king transformed to a gnat!\n    To see great Hercules whipping a gig,\n    And profound Solomon to tune a jig,\n    And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys,\n    And critic Timon laugh at idle toys!\n    Where lies thy grief, O, tell me, good Dumain?\n    And, gentle Longaville, where lies thy pain?\n    And where my liege's? All about the breast.\n    A caudle, ho!\n  KING. Too bitter is thy jest.\n    Are we betrayed thus to thy over-view?\n  BEROWNE. Not you by me, but I betrayed to you.\n    I that am honest, I that hold it sin\n    To break the vow I am engaged in;\n    I am betrayed by keeping company\n    With men like you, men of inconstancy.\n    When shall you see me write a thing in rhyme?\n    Or groan for Joan? or spend a minute's time\n    In pruning me? When shall you hear that I\n    Will praise a hand, a foot, a face, an eye,\n    A gait, a state, a brow, a breast, a waist,\n    A leg, a limb-\n  KING. Soft! whither away so fast?\n    A true man or a thief that gallops so?\n  BEROWNE. I post from love; good lover, let me go.\n\n                 Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD\n\n  JAQUENETTA. God bless the King!\n  KING. What present hast thou there?\n  COSTARD. Some certain treason.\n  KING. What makes treason here?\n  COSTARD. Nay, it makes nothing, sir.\n  KING. If it mar nothing neither,\n    The treason and you go in peace away together.\n  JAQUENETTA. I beseech your Grace, let this letter be read;\n    Our person misdoubts it: 'twas treason, he said.\n  KING. Berowne, read it over.        [BEROWNE reads the letter]\n    Where hadst thou it?\n  JAQUENETTA. Of Costard.\n  KING. Where hadst thou it?\n  COSTARD. Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio.\n                                      [BEROWNE tears the letter]\n  KING. How now! What is in you? Why dost thou tear it?\n  BEROWNE. A toy, my liege, a toy! Your Grace needs not fear it.\n  LONGAVILLE. It did move him to passion, and therefore let's hear\n     it.\n  DUMAIN. It is Berowne's writing, and here is his name.\n                                       [Gathering up the pieces]\n  BEROWNE. [ To COSTARD] Ah, you whoreson loggerhead, you were born\n      to do me shame.\n    Guilty, my lord, guilty! I confess, I confess.\n  KING. What?\n  BEROWNE. That you three fools lack'd me fool to make up the mess;\n    He, he, and you- and you, my liege!- and I\n    Are pick-purses in love, and we deserve to die.\n    O, dismiss this audience, and I shall tell you more.\n    DUMAIN. Now the number is even.\n  BEROWNE. True, true, we are four.\n    Will these turtles be gone?\n  KING. Hence, sirs, away.\n  COSTARD. Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay.\n                                   Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA\n  BEROWNE. Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O, let us embrace!\n    As true we are as flesh and blood can be.\n    The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face;\n    Young blood doth not obey an old decree.\n    We cannot cross the cause why we were born,\n    Therefore of all hands must we be forsworn.\n  KING. What, did these rent lines show some love of thine?\n  BEROWNE. 'Did they?' quoth you. Who sees the heavenly Rosaline\n    That, like a rude and savage man of Inde\n    At the first op'ning of the gorgeous east,\n    Bows not his vassal head and, strucken blind,\n    Kisses the base ground with obedient breast?\n    What peremptory eagle-sighted eye\n    Dares look upon the heaven of her brow\n    That is not blinded by her majesty?\n  KING. What zeal, what fury hath inspir'd thee now?\n    My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon;\n    She, an attending star, scarce seen a light.\n  BEROWNE. My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Berowne.\n    O, but for my love, day would turn to night!\n    Of all complexions the cull'd sovereignty\n    Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek,\n    Where several worthies make one dignity,\n    Where nothing wants that want itself doth seek.\n    Lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues-\n    Fie, painted rhetoric! O, she needs it not!\n    To things of sale a seller's praise belongs:\n    She passes praise; then praise too short doth blot.\n    A wither'd hermit, five-score winters worn,\n    Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye.\n    Beauty doth varnish age, as if new-born,\n    And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy.\n    O, 'tis the sun that maketh all things shine!\n  KING. By heaven, thy love is black as ebony.\n  BEROWNE. Is ebony like her? O wood divine!\n    A wife of such wood were felicity.\n    O, who can give an oath? Where is a book?\n    That I may swear beauty doth beauty lack,\n    If that she learn not of her eye to look.\n    No face is fair that is not full so black.\n  KING. O paradox! Black is the badge of hell,\n    The hue of dungeons, and the school of night;\n    And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well.\n  BEROWNE. Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light.\n    O, if in black my lady's brows be deckt,\n    It mourns that painting and usurping hair\n    Should ravish doters with a false aspect;\n    And therefore is she born to make black fair.\n    Her favour turns the fashion of the days;\n    For native blood is counted painting now;\n    And therefore red that would avoid dispraise\n    Paints itself black, to imitate her brow.\n  DUMAIN. To look like her are chimney-sweepers black.\n  LONGAVILLE. And since her time are colliers counted bright.\n  KING. And Ethiopes of their sweet complexion crack.\n  DUMAIN. Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light.\n  BEROWNE. Your mistresses dare never come in rain\n    For fear their colours should be wash'd away.\n  KING. 'Twere good yours did; for, sir, to tell you plain,\n    I'll find a fairer face not wash'd to-day.\n  BEROWNE. I'll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday here.\n  KING. No devil will fright thee then so much as she.\n  DUMAIN. I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear.\n  LONGAVILLE. Look, here's thy love: my foot and her face see.\n                                              [Showing his shoe]\n  BEROWNE. O, if the streets were paved with thine eyes,\n    Her feet were much too dainty for such tread!\n  DUMAIN. O vile! Then, as she goes, what upward lies\n    The street should see as she walk'd overhead.\n  KING. But what of this? Are we not all in love?\n  BEROWNE. Nothing so sure; and thereby all forsworn.\n  KING. Then leave this chat; and, good Berowne, now prove\n    Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn.\n  DUMAIN. Ay, marry, there; some flattery for this evil.\n  LONGAVILLE. O, some authority how to proceed;\n    Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil!\n  DUMAIN. Some salve for perjury.\n  BEROWNE. 'Tis more than need.\n    Have at you, then, affection's men-at-arms.\n    Consider what you first did swear unto:\n    To fast, to study, and to see no woman-\n    Flat treason 'gainst the kingly state of youth.\n    Say, can you fast? Your stomachs are too young,\n    And abstinence engenders maladies.\n    And, where that you you have vow'd to study, lords,\n    In that each of you have forsworn his book,\n    Can you still dream, and pore, and thereon look?\n    For when would you, my lord, or you, or you,\n    Have found the ground of study's excellence\n    Without the beauty of a woman's face?\n    From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:\n    They are the ground, the books, the academes,\n    From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire.\n    Why, universal plodding poisons up\n    The nimble spirits in the arteries,\n    As motion and long-during action tires\n    The sinewy vigour of the traveller.\n    Now, for not looking on a woman's face,\n    You have in that forsworn the use of eyes,\n    And study too, the causer of your vow;\n    For where is author in the world\n    Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye?\n    Learning is but an adjunct to ourself,\n    And where we are our learning likewise is;\n    Then when ourselves we see in ladies' eyes,\n    With ourselves.\n    Do we not likewise see our learning there?\n    O, we have made a vow to study, lords,\n    And in that vow we have forsworn our books.\n    For when would you, my liege, or you, or you,\n    In leaden contemplation have found out\n    Such fiery numbers as the prompting eyes\n    Of beauty's tutors have enrich'd you with?\n    Other slow arts entirely keep the brain;\n    And therefore, finding barren practisers,\n    Scarce show a harvest of their heavy toil;\n    But love, first learned in a lady's eyes,\n    Lives not alone immured in the brain,\n    But with the motion of all elements\n    Courses as swift as thought in every power,\n    And gives to every power a double power,\n    Above their functions and their offices.\n    It adds a precious seeing to the eye:\n    A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind.\n    A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound,\n    When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd.\n    Love's feeling is more soft and sensible\n    Than are the tender horns of cockled snails:\n    Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste.\n    For valour, is not Love a Hercules,\n    Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?\n    Subtle as Sphinx; as sweet and musical\n    As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair.\n    And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods\n    Make heaven drowsy with the harmony.\n    Never durst poet touch a pen to write\n    Until his ink were temp'red with Love's sighs;\n    O, then his lines would ravish savage ears,\n    And plant in tyrants mild humility.\n    From women's eyes this doctrine I derive.\n    They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;\n    They are the books, the arts, the academes,\n    That show, contain, and nourish, all the world,\n    Else none at all in aught proves excellent.\n    Then fools you were these women to forswear;\n    Or, keeping what is sworn, you will prove fools.\n    For wisdom's sake, a word that all men love;\n    Or for Love's sake, a word that loves all men;\n    Or for men's sake, the authors of these women;\n    Or women's sake, by whom we men are men-\n    Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves,\n    Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths.\n    It is religion to be thus forsworn;\n    For charity itself fulfils the law,\n    And who can sever love from charity?\n  KING. Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the field!\n  BEROWNE. Advance your standards, and upon them, lords;\n    Pell-mell, down with them! be first advis'd,\n    In conflict, that you get the sun of them.\n  LONGAVILLE. Now to plain-dealing; lay these glozes by.\n    Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France?\n  KING. And win them too; therefore let us devise\n    Some entertainment for them in their tents.\n  BEROWNE. First, from the park let us conduct them thither;\n    Then homeward every man attach the hand\n    Of his fair mistress. In the afternoon\n    We will with some strange pastime solace them,\n    Such as the shortness of the time can shape;\n    For revels, dances, masks, and merry hours,\n    Forerun fair Love, strewing her way with flowers.\n  KING. Away, away! No time shall be omitted\n    That will betime, and may by us be fitted.\n  BEROWNE. Allons! allons! Sow'd cockle reap'd no corn,\n    And justice always whirls in equal measure.\n    Light wenches may prove plagues to men forsworn;\n    If so, our copper buys no better treasure.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nThe park\n\nEnter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL\n\n  HOLOFERNES. Satis quod sufficit.\n  NATHANIEL. I praise God for you, sir. Your reasons at dinner have\n    been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty\n    without affection, audacious without impudency, learned without\n    opinion, and strange without heresy. I did converse this quondam\n    day with a companion of the King's who is intituled, nominated,\n    or called, Don Adriano de Armado.\n  HOLOFERNES. Novi hominem tanquam te. His humour is lofty, his\n    discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his\n    gait majestical and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and\n    thrasonical. He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd,\n    as it were, too peregrinate, as I may call it.\n  NATHANIEL. A most singular and choice epithet.\n                                      [Draws out his table-book]\n  HOLOFERNES. He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than\n    the staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical phantasimes,\n    such insociable and point-devise companions; such rackers of\n    orthography, as to speak 'dout' fine, when he should say 'doubt';\n    'det' when he should pronounce 'debt'- d, e, b, t, not d, e, t.\n    He clepeth a calf 'cauf,' half 'hauf'; neighbour vocatur\n    'nebour'; 'neigh' abbreviated 'ne.' This is abhominable- which he\n    would call 'abbominable.' It insinuateth me of insanie: ne\n    intelligis, domine? to make frantic, lunatic.\n  NATHANIEL. Laus Deo, bone intelligo.\n  HOLOFERNES. 'Bone'?- 'bone' for 'bene.' Priscian a little\n    scratch'd; 'twill serve.\n\n                 Enter ARMADO, MOTH, and COSTARD\n\n  NATHANIEL. Videsne quis venit?\n  HOLOFERNES. Video, et gaudeo.\n  ARMADO. [To MOTH] Chirrah!\n  HOLOFERNES. Quare 'chirrah,' not 'sirrah'?\n  ARMADO. Men of peace, well encount'red.\n  HOLOFERNES. Most military sir, salutation.\n  MOTH. [Aside to COSTARD] They have been at a great feast of\n    languages and stol'n the scraps.\n  COSTARD. O, they have liv'd long on the alms-basket of words. I\n    marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word, for thou are\n    not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus; thou art\n    easier swallowed than a flap-dragon.\n  MOTH. Peace! the peal begins.\n  ARMADO. [To HOLOFERNES] Monsieur, are you not lett'red?\n  MOTH. Yes, yes; he teaches boys the hornbook. What is a, b, spelt\n    backward with the horn on his head?\n  HOLOFERNES. Ba, pueritia, with a horn added.\n  MOTH. Ba, most silly sheep with a horn. You hear his learning.\n  HOLOFERNES. Quis, quis, thou consonant?\n  MOTH. The third of the five vowels, if You repeat them; or the\n    fifth, if I.\n  HOLOFERNES. I will repeat them: a, e, I-\n  MOTH. The sheep; the other two concludes it: o, U.\n  ARMADO. Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum, a sweet touch,\n    a quick venue of wit- snip, snap, quick and home. It rejoiceth my\n    intellect. True wit!\n  MOTH. Offer'd by a child to an old man; which is wit-old.\n  HOLOFERNES. What is the figure? What is the figure?\n  MOTH. Horns.\n  HOLOFERNES. Thou disputes like an infant; go whip thy gig.\n  MOTH. Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your\n    infamy circum circa- a gig of a cuckold's horn.\n  COSTARD. An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it\n    to buy ginger-bread. Hold, there is the very remuneration I had\n    of thy master, thou halfpenny purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of\n    discretion. O, an the heavens were so pleased that thou wert but\n    my bastard, what a joyful father wouldst thou make me! Go to;\n    thou hast it ad dunghill, at the fingers' ends, as they say.\n  HOLOFERNES. O, I smell false Latin; 'dunghill' for unguem.\n  ARMADO. Arts-man, preambulate; we will be singuled from the\n    barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the charge-house on the\n    top of the mountain?\n  HOLOFERNES. Or mons, the hill.\n  ARMADO. At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain.\n  HOLOFERNES. I do, sans question.\n  ARMADO. Sir, it is the King's most sweet pleasure and affection to\n    congratulate the Princess at her pavilion, in the posteriors of\n    this day; which the rude multitude call the afternoon.\n  HOLOFERNES. The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is liable,\n    congruent, and measurable, for the afternoon. The word is well\n    cull'd, chose, sweet, and apt, I do assure you, sir, I do assure.\n  ARMADO. Sir, the King is a noble gentleman, and my familiar, I do\n    assure ye, very good friend. For what is inward between us, let\n    it pass. I do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy. I beseech\n    thee, apparel thy head. And among other importunate and most\n    serious designs, and of great import indeed, too- but let that\n    pass; for I must tell thee it will please his Grace, by the\n    world, sometime to lean upon my poor shoulder, and with his royal\n    finger thus dally with my excrement, with my mustachio; but,\n    sweet heart, let that pass. By the world, I recount no fable:\n    some certain special honours it pleaseth his greatness to impart\n    to Armado, a soldier, a man of travel, that hath seen the world;\n    but let that pass. The very all of all is- but, sweet heart, I do\n    implore secrecy- that the King would have me present the\n    Princess, sweet chuck, with some delightful ostentation, or show,\n    or pageant, or antic, or firework. Now, understanding that the\n    curate and your sweet self are good at such eruptions and sudden\n    breaking-out of mirth, as it were, I have acquainted you withal,\n    to the end to crave your assistance.\n  HOLOFERNES. Sir, you shall present before her the Nine Worthies.\n    Sir Nathaniel, as concerning some entertainment of time, some\n    show in the posterior of this day, to be rend'red by our\n    assistance, the King's command, and this most gallant,\n    illustrate, and learned gentleman, before the Princess- I say\n    none so fit as to present the Nine Worthies.\n  NATHANIEL. Where will you find men worthy enough to present them?\n  HOLOFERNES. Joshua, yourself; myself, Alexander; this gallant\n    gentleman, Judas Maccabaeus; this swain, because of his great\n    limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the Great; the page, Hercules.\n  ARMADO. Pardon, sir; error: he is not quantity enough for that\n    Worthy's thumb; he is not so big as the end of his club.\n  HOLOFERNES. Shall I have audience? He shall present Hercules in\n    minority: his enter and exit shall be strangling a snake; and I\n    will have an apology for that purpose.\n  MOTH. An excellent device! So, if any of the audience hiss, you may\n    cry 'Well done, Hercules; now thou crushest the snake!' That is\n    the way to make an offence gracious, though few have the grace to\n    do it.\n  ARMADO. For the rest of the Worthies?\n  HOLOFERNES. I will play three myself.\n  MOTH. Thrice-worthy gentleman!\n  ARMADO. Shall I tell you a thing?\n  HOLOFERNES. We attend.\n  ARMADO. We will have, if this fadge not, an antic. I beseech you,\n    follow.\n  HOLOFERNES. Via, goodman Dull! Thou has spoken no word all this\n    while.\n  DULL. Nor understood none neither, sir.\n  HOLOFERNES. Allons! we will employ thee.\n  DULL. I'll make one in a dance, or so, or I will play\n    On the tabor to the Worthies, and let them dance the hay.\n  HOLOFERNES. Most dull, honest Dull! To our sport, away.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe park\n\nEnter the PRINCESS, MARIA, KATHARINE, and ROSALINE\n\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart,\n    If fairings come thus plentifully in.\n    A lady wall'd about with diamonds!\n    Look you what I have from the loving King.\n  ROSALINE. Madam, came nothing else along with that?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Nothing but this! Yes, as much love in rhyme\n    As would be cramm'd up in a sheet of paper\n    Writ o' both sides the leaf, margent and all,\n    That he was fain to seal on Cupid's name.\n  ROSALINE. That was the way to make his godhead wax;\n    For he hath been five thousand year a boy.\n  KATHARINE. Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows too.\n  ROSALINE. You'll ne'er be friends with him: 'a kill'd your sister.\n  KATHARINE. He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy;\n    And so she died. Had she been light, like you,\n    Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit,\n    She might 'a been a grandam ere she died.\n    And so may you; for a light heart lives long.\n  ROSALINE. What's your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word?\n  KATHARINE. A light condition in a beauty dark.\n  ROSALINE. We need more light to find your meaning out.\n  KATHARINE. You'll mar the light by taking it in snuff;\n    Therefore I'll darkly end the argument.\n  ROSALINE. Look what you do, you do it still i' th' dark.\n  KATHARINE. So do not you; for you are a light wench.\n  ROSALINE. Indeed, I weigh not you; and therefore light.\n  KATHARINE. You weigh me not? O, that's you care not for me.\n  ROSALINE. Great reason; for 'past cure is still past care.'\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Well bandied both; a set of wit well play'd.\n    But, Rosaline, you have a favour too?\n    Who sent it? and what is it?\n  ROSALINE. I would you knew.\n    An if my face were but as fair as yours,\n    My favour were as great: be witness this.\n    Nay, I have verses too, I thank Berowne;\n    The numbers true, and, were the numb'ring too,\n    I were the fairest goddess on the ground.\n    I am compar'd to twenty thousand fairs.\n    O, he hath drawn my picture in his letter!\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Anything like?\n  ROSALINE. Much in the letters; nothing in the praise.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Beauteous as ink- a good conclusion.\n  KATHARINE. Fair as a text B in a copy-book.\n  ROSALINE. Ware pencils, ho! Let me not die your debtor,\n    My red dominical, my golden letter:\n    O that your face were not so full of O's!\n  KATHARINE. A pox of that jest! and I beshrew all shrows!\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. But, Katharine, what was sent to you from fair\n    Dumain?\n  KATHARINE. Madam, this glove.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Did he not send you twain?\n  KATHARINE. Yes, madam; and, moreover,\n    Some thousand verses of a faithful lover;\n    A huge translation of hypocrisy,\n    Vilely compil'd, profound simplicity.\n  MARIA. This, and these pearl, to me sent Longaville;\n    The letter is too long by half a mile.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. I think no less. Dost thou not wish in heart\n    The chain were longer and the letter short?\n  MARIA. Ay, or I would these hands might never part.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. We are wise girls to mock our lovers so.\n  ROSALINE. They are worse fools to purchase mocking so.\n    That same Berowne I'll torture ere I go.\n    O that I knew he were but in by th' week!\n    How I would make him fawn, and beg, and seek,\n    And wait the season, and observe the times,\n    And spend his prodigal wits in bootless rhymes,\n    And shape his service wholly to my hests,\n    And make him proud to make me proud that jests!\n    So pertaunt-like would I o'ersway his state\n    That he should be my fool, and I his fate.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. None are so surely caught, when they are\n      catch'd,\n    As wit turn'd fool; folly, in wisdom hatch'd,\n    Hath wisdom's warrant and the help of school,\n    And wit's own grace to grace a learned fool.\n  ROSALINE. The blood of youth burns not with such excess\n    As gravity's revolt to wantonness.\n  MARIA. Folly in fools bears not so strong a note\n    As fool'ry in the wise when wit doth dote,\n    Since all the power thereof it doth apply\n    To prove, by wit, worth in simplicity.\n\n                          Enter BOYET\n\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Here comes Boyet, and mirth is in his face.\n  BOYET. O, I am stabb'd with laughter! Where's her Grace?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Thy news, Boyet?\n  BOYET. Prepare, madam, prepare!\n    Arm, wenches, arm! Encounters mounted are\n    Against your peace. Love doth approach disguis'd,\n    Armed in arguments; you'll be surpris'd.\n    Muster your wits; stand in your own defence;\n    Or hide your heads like cowards, and fly hence.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Saint Dennis to Saint Cupid! What are they\n    That charge their breath against us? Say, scout, say.\n  BOYET. Under the cool shade of a sycamore\n    I thought to close mine eyes some half an hour;\n    When, lo, to interrupt my purpos'd rest,\n    Toward that shade I might behold addrest\n    The King and his companions; warily\n    I stole into a neighbour thicket by,\n    And overheard what you shall overhear-\n    That, by and by, disguis'd they will be here.\n    Their herald is a pretty knavish page,\n    That well by heart hath conn'd his embassage.\n    Action and accent did they teach him there:\n    'Thus must thou speak' and 'thus thy body bear,'\n    And ever and anon they made a doubt\n    Presence majestical would put him out;\n    'For' quoth the King 'an angel shalt thou see;\n    Yet fear not thou, but speak audaciously.'\n    The boy replied 'An angel is not evil;\n    I should have fear'd her had she been a devil.'\n    With that all laugh'd, and clapp'd him on the shoulder,\n    Making the bold wag by their praises bolder.\n    One rubb'd his elbow, thus, and fleer'd, and swore\n    A better speech was never spoke before.\n    Another with his finger and his thumb\n    Cried 'Via! we will do't, come what will come.'\n    The third he caper'd, and cried 'All goes well.'\n    The fourth turn'd on the toe, and down he fell.\n    With that they all did tumble on the ground,\n    With such a zealous laughter, so profound,\n    That in this spleen ridiculous appears,\n    To check their folly, passion's solemn tears.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. But what, but what, come they to visit us?\n  BOYET. They do, they do, and are apparell'd thus,\n    Like Muscovites or Russians, as I guess.\n    Their purpose is to parley, court, and dance;\n    And every one his love-feat will advance\n    Unto his several mistress; which they'll know\n    By favours several which they did bestow.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. And will they so? The gallants shall be task'd,\n    For, ladies, we will every one be mask'd;\n    And not a man of them shall have the grace,\n    Despite of suit, to see a lady's face.\n    Hold, Rosaline, this favour thou shalt wear,\n    And then the King will court thee for his dear;\n    Hold, take thou this, my sweet, and give me thine,\n    So shall Berowne take me for Rosaline.\n    And change you favours too; so shall your loves\n    Woo contrary, deceiv'd by these removes.\n  ROSALINE. Come on, then, wear the favours most in sight.\n  KATHARINE. But, in this changing, what is your intent?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. The effect of my intent is to cross theirs.\n    They do it but in mocking merriment,\n    And mock for mock is only my intent.\n    Their several counsels they unbosom shall\n    To loves mistook, and so be mock'd withal\n    Upon the next occasion that we meet\n    With visages display'd to talk and greet.\n  ROSALINE. But shall we dance, if they desire us to't?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. No, to the death, we will not move a foot,\n    Nor to their penn'd speech render we no grace;\n    But while 'tis spoke each turn away her face.\n  BOYET. Why, that contempt will kill the speaker's heart,\n    And quite divorce his memory from his part.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Therefore I do it; and I make no doubt\n    The rest will ne'er come in, if he be out.\n    There's no such sport as sport by sport o'erthrown,\n    To make theirs ours, and ours none but our own;\n    So shall we stay, mocking intended game,\n    And they well mock'd depart away with shame.\n                                         [Trumpet sounds within]\n  BOYET. The trumpet sounds; be mask'd; the maskers come.\n                                               [The LADIES mask]\n\n          Enter BLACKAMOORS music, MOTH as Prologue, the\n     KING and his LORDS as maskers, in the guise of Russians\n\n  MOTH. All hail, the richest heauties on the earth!\n  BOYET. Beauties no richer than rich taffeta.\n  MOTH. A holy parcel of the fairest dames\n                            [The LADIES turn their backs to him]\n    That ever turn'd their- backs- to mortal views!\n  BEROWNE. Their eyes, villain, their eyes.\n  MOTH. That ever turn'd their eyes to mortal views!\n    Out-\n  BOYET. True; out indeed.\n  MOTH. Out of your favours, heavenly spirits, vouchsafe\n    Not to behold-\n  BEROWNE. Once to behold, rogue.\n  MOTH. Once to behold with your sun-beamed eyes- with your\n    sun-beamed eyes-\n  BOYET. They will not answer to that epithet;\n    You were best call it 'daughter-beamed eyes.'\n  MOTH. They do not mark me, and that brings me out.\n  BEROWNE. Is this your perfectness? Be gone, you rogue.\n                                                       Exit MOTH\n  ROSALINE. What would these strangers? Know their minds, Boyet.\n    If they do speak our language, 'tis our will\n    That some plain man recount their purposes.\n    Know what they would.\n  BOYET. What would you with the Princess?\n  BEROWNE. Nothing but peace and gentle visitation.\n  ROSALINE. What would they, say they?\n  BOYET. Nothing but peace and gentle visitation.\n  ROSALINE. Why, that they have; and bid them so be gone.\n  BOYET. She says you have it, and you may be gone.\n  KING. Say to her we have measur'd many miles\n    To tread a measure with her on this grass.\n  BOYET. They say that they have measur'd many a mile\n    To tread a measure with you on this grass.\n  ROSALINE. It is not so. Ask them how many inches\n    Is in one mile? If they have measured many,\n    The measure, then, of one is eas'ly told.\n  BOYET. If to come hither you have measur'd miles,\n    And many miles, the Princess bids you tell\n    How many inches doth fill up one mile.\n  BEROWNE. Tell her we measure them by weary steps.\n  BOYET. She hears herself.\n  ROSALINE. How many weary steps\n    Of many weary miles you have o'ergone\n    Are numb'red in the travel of one mile?\n  BEROWNE. We number nothing that we spend for you;\n    Our duty is so rich, so infinite,\n    That we may do it still without accompt.\n    Vouchsafe to show the sunshine of your face,\n    That we, like savages, may worship it.\n  ROSALINE. My face is but a moon, and clouded too.\n  KING. Blessed are clouds, to do as such clouds do.\n    Vouchsafe, bright moon, and these thy stars, to shine,\n    Those clouds removed, upon our watery eyne.\n  ROSALINE. O vain petitioner! beg a greater matter;\n    Thou now requests but moonshine in the water.\n  KING. Then in our measure do but vouchsafe one change.\n    Thou bid'st me beg; this begging is not strange.\n  ROSALINE. Play, music, then. Nay, you must do it soon.\n    Not yet? No dance! Thus change I like the moon.\n  KING. Will you not dance? How come you thus estranged?\n  ROSALINE. You took the moon at full; but now she's changed.\n  KING. Yet still she is the Moon, and I the Man.\n    The music plays; vouchsafe some motion to it.\n  ROSALINE. Our ears vouchsafe it.\n  KING. But your legs should do it.\n  ROSALINE. Since you are strangers, and come here by chance,\n    We'll not be nice; take hands. We will not dance.\n  KING. Why take we hands then?\n  ROSALINE. Only to part friends.\n    Curtsy, sweet hearts; and so the measure ends.\n  KING. More measure of this measure; be not nice.\n  ROSALINE. We can afford no more at such a price.\n  KING. Price you yourselves. What buys your company?\n  ROSALINE. Your absence only.\n  KING. That can never be.\n  ROSALINE. Then cannot we be bought; and so adieu-\n    Twice to your visor and half once to you.\n  KING. If you deny to dance, let's hold more chat.\n  ROSALINE. In private then.\n  KING. I am best pleas'd with that.       [They converse apart]\n  BEROWNE. White-handed mistress, one sweet word with thee.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Honey, and milk, and sugar; there is three.\n  BEROWNE. Nay, then, two treys, an if you grow so nice,\n    Metheglin, wort, and malmsey; well run dice!\n    There's half a dozen sweets.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Seventh sweet, adieu!\n    Since you can cog, I'll play no more with you.\n  BEROWNE. One word in secret.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Let it not be sweet.\n  BEROWNE. Thou grievest my gall.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Gall! bitter.\n  BEROWNE. Therefore meet.                 [They converse apart]\n  DUMAIN. Will you vouchsafe with me to change a word?\n  MARIA. Name it.\n  DUMAIN. Fair lady-\n  MARIA. Say you so? Fair lord-\n    Take that for your fair lady.\n  DUMAIN. Please it you,\n    As much in private, and I'll bid adieu.\n                                           [They converse apart]\n  KATHARINE. What, was your vizard made without a tongue?\n  LONGAVILLE. I know the reason, lady, why you ask.\n  KATHARINE. O for your reason! Quickly, sir; I long.\n  LONGAVILLE. You have a double tongue within your mask,\n    And would afford my speechless vizard half.\n  KATHARINE. 'Veal' quoth the Dutchman. Is not 'veal' a calf?\n  LONGAVILLE. A calf, fair lady!\n  KATHARINE. No, a fair lord calf.\n  LONGAVILLE. Let's part the word.\n  KATHARINE. No, I'll not be your half.\n    Take all and wean it; it may prove an ox.\n  LONGAVILLE. Look how you butt yourself in these sharp mocks!\n    Will you give horns, chaste lady? Do not so.\n  KATHARINE. Then die a calf, before your horns do grow.\n  LONGAVILLE. One word in private with you ere I die.\n  KATHARINE. Bleat softly, then; the butcher hears you cry.\n                                           [They converse apart]\n  BOYET. The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen\n    As is the razor's edge invisible,\n    Cutting a smaller hair than may be seen,\n    Above the sense of sense; so sensible\n    Seemeth their conference; their conceits have wings,\n    Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, swifter things.\n  ROSALINE. Not one word more, my maids; break off, break off.\n  BEROWNE. By heaven, all dry-beaten with pure scoff!\n  KING. Farewell, mad wenches; you have simple wits.\n                             Exeunt KING, LORDS, and BLACKAMOORS\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Twenty adieus, my frozen Muscovits.\n    Are these the breed of wits so wondered at?\n  BOYET. Tapers they are, with your sweet breaths puff'd out.\n  ROSALINE. Well-liking wits they have; gross, gross; fat, fat.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. O poverty in wit, kingly-poor flout!\n    Will they not, think you, hang themselves to-night?\n    Or ever but in vizards show their faces?\n    This pert Berowne was out of count'nance quite.\n  ROSALINE. They were all in lamentable cases!\n    The King was weeping-ripe for a good word.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Berowne did swear himself out of all suit.\n  MARIA. Dumain was at my service, and his sword.\n    'No point' quoth I; my servant straight was mute.\n  KATHARINE. Lord Longaville said I came o'er his heart;\n    And trow you what he call'd me?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Qualm, perhaps.\n  KATHARINE. Yes, in good faith.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Go, sickness as thou art!\n  ROSALINE. Well, better wits have worn plain statute-caps.\n    But will you hear? The King is my love sworn.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. And quick Berowne hath plighted faith to me.\n  KATHARINE. And Longaville was for my service born.\n  MARIA. Dumain is mine, as sure as bark on tree.\n  BOYET. Madam, and pretty mistresses, give ear:\n    Immediately they will again be here\n    In their own shapes; for it can never be\n    They will digest this harsh indignity.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Will they return?\n  BOYET. They will, they will, God knows,\n    And leap for joy, though they are lame with blows;\n    Therefore, change favours; and, when they repair,\n    Blow like sweet roses in this summer air.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. How blow? how blow? Speak to be understood.\n  BOYET. Fair ladies mask'd are roses in their bud:\n    Dismask'd, their damask sweet commixture shown,\n    Are angels vailing clouds, or roses blown.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Avaunt, perplexity! What shall we do\n    If they return in their own shapes to woo?\n  ROSALINE. Good madam, if by me you'll be advis'd,\n    Let's mock them still, as well known as disguis'd.\n    Let us complain to them what fools were here,\n    Disguis'd like Muscovites, in shapeless gear;\n    And wonder what they were, and to what end\n    Their shallow shows and prologue vilely penn'd,\n    And their rough carriage so ridiculous,\n    Should be presented at our tent to us.\n  BOYET. Ladies, withdraw; the gallants are at hand.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Whip to our tents, as roes run o'er land.\n                 Exeunt PRINCESS, ROSALINE, KATHARINE, and MARIA\n\n         Re-enter the KING, BEROWNE, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN,\n                        in their proper habits\n\n  KING. Fair sir, God save you! Where's the Princess?\n  BOYET. Gone to her tent. Please it your Majesty\n    Command me any service to her thither?\n  KING. That she vouchsafe me audience for one word.\n  BOYET. I will; and so will she, I know, my lord.          Exit\n  BEROWNE. This fellow pecks up wit as pigeons pease,\n    And utters it again when God doth please.\n    He is wit's pedlar, and retails his wares\n    At wakes, and wassails, meetings, markets, fairs;\n    And we that sell by gross, the Lord doth know,\n    Have not the grace to grace it with such show.\n    This gallant pins the wenches on his sleeve;\n    Had he been Adam, he had tempted Eve.\n    'A can carve too, and lisp; why this is he\n    That kiss'd his hand away in courtesy;\n    This is the ape of form, Monsieur the Nice,\n    That, when he plays at tables, chides the dice\n    In honourable terms; nay, he can sing\n    A mean most meanly; and in ushering,\n    Mend him who can. The ladies call him sweet;\n    The stairs, as he treads on them, kiss his feet.\n    This is the flow'r that smiles on every one,\n    To show his teeth as white as whales-bone;\n    And consciences that will not die in debt\n    Pay him the due of 'honey-tongued Boyet.'\n  KING. A blister on his sweet tongue, with my heart,\n    That put Armado's page out of his part!\n\n        Re-enter the PRINCESS, ushered by BOYET; ROSALINE,\n                      MARIA, and KATHARINE\n\n  BEROWNE. See where it comes! Behaviour, what wert thou\n    Till this man show'd thee? And what art thou now?\n  KING. All hail, sweet madam, and fair time of day!\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. 'Fair' in 'all hail' is foul, as I conceive.\n  KING. Construe my speeches better, if you may.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Then wish me better; I will give you leave.\n  KING. We came to visit you, and purpose now\n    To lead you to our court; vouchsafe it then.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. This field shall hold me, and so hold your vow:\n    Nor God, nor I, delights in perjur'd men.\n  KING. Rebuke me not for that which you provoke.\n    The virtue of your eye must break my oath.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. You nickname virtue: vice you should have\n      spoke;\n    For virtue's office never breaks men's troth.\n    Now by my maiden honour, yet as pure\n    As the unsullied lily, I protest,\n    A world of torments though I should endure,\n    I would not yield to be your house's guest;\n    So much I hate a breaking cause to be\n    Of heavenly oaths, vowed with integrity.\n  KING. O, you have liv'd in desolation here,\n    Unseen, unvisited, much to our shame.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Not so, my lord; it is not so, I swear;\n    We have had pastimes here, and pleasant game;\n    A mess of Russians left us but of late.\n  KING. How, madam! Russians!\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Ay, in truth, my lord;\n    Trim gallants, full of courtship and of state.\n  ROSALINE. Madam, speak true. It is not so, my lord.\n    My lady, to the manner of the days,\n    In courtesy gives undeserving praise.\n    We four indeed confronted were with four\n    In Russian habit; here they stayed an hour\n    And talk'd apace; and in that hour, my lord,\n    They did not bless us with one happy word.\n    I dare not call them fools; but this I think,\n    When they are thirsty, fools would fain have drink.\n  BEROWNE. This jest is dry to me. Fair gentle sweet,\n    Your wit makes wise things foolish; when we greet,\n    With eyes best seeing, heaven's fiery eye,\n    By light we lose light; your capacity\n    Is of that nature that to your huge store\n    Wise things seem foolish and rich things but poor.\n  ROSALINE. This proves you wise and rich, for in my eye-\n  BEROWNE. I am a fool, and full of poverty.\n  ROSALINE. But that you take what doth to you belong,\n    It were a fault to snatch words from my tongue.\n  BEROWNE. O, I am yours, and all that I possess.\n  ROSALINE. All the fool mine?\n  BEROWNE. I cannot give you less.\n  ROSALINE. Which of the vizards was it that you wore?\n  BEROWNE. Where? when? what vizard? Why demand you this?\n  ROSALINE. There, then, that vizard; that superfluous case\n    That hid the worse and show'd the better face.\n  KING. We were descried; they'll mock us now downright.\n  DUMAIN. Let us confess, and turn it to a jest.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Amaz'd, my lord? Why looks your Highness sad?\n  ROSALINE. Help, hold his brows! he'll swoon! Why look you pale?\n    Sea-sick, I think, coming from Muscovy.\n  BEROWNE. Thus pour the stars down plagues for perjury.\n    Can any face of brass hold longer out?\n    Here stand I, lady- dart thy skill at me,\n    Bruise me with scorn, confound me with a flout,\n    Thrust thy sharp wit quite through my ignorance,\n    Cut me to pieces with thy keen conceit;\n    And I will wish thee never more to dance,\n    Nor never more in Russian habit wait.\n    O, never will I trust to speeches penn'd,\n    Nor to the motion of a school-boy's tongue,\n    Nor never come in vizard to my friend,\n    Nor woo in rhyme, like a blind harper's song.\n    Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise,\n    Three-pil'd hyperboles, spruce affectation,\n    Figures pedantical- these summer-flies\n    Have blown me full of maggot ostentation.\n    I do forswear them; and I here protest,\n    By this white glove- how white the hand, God knows!-\n    Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express'd\n    In russet yeas, and honest kersey noes.\n    And, to begin, wench- so God help me, law!-\n    My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw.\n  ROSALINE. Sans 'sans,' I pray you.\n  BEROWNE. Yet I have a trick\n    Of the old rage; bear with me, I am sick;\n    I'll leave it by degrees. Soft, let us see-\n    Write 'Lord have mercy on us' on those three;\n    They are infected; in their hearts it lies;\n    They have the plague, and caught it of your eyes.\n    These lords are visited; you are not free,\n    For the Lord's tokens on you do I see.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. No, they are free that gave these tokens to us.\n  BEROWNE. Our states are forfeit; seek not to undo us.\n  ROSALINE. It is not so; for how can this be true,\n    That you stand forfeit, being those that sue?\n  BEROWNE. Peace; for I will not have to do with you.\n  ROSALINE. Nor shall not, if I do as I intend.\n  BEROWNE. Speak for yourselves; my wit is at an end.\n  KING. Teach us, sweet madam, for our rude transgression\n    Some fair excuse.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. The fairest is confession.\n    Were not you here but even now, disguis'd?\n  KING. Madam, I was.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. And were you well advis'd?\n  KING. I was, fair madam.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. When you then were here,\n    What did you whisper in your lady's ear?\n  KING. That more than all the world I did respect her.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. When she shall challenge this, you will reject\n    her.\n  KING. Upon mine honour, no.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Peace, peace, forbear;\n    Your oath once broke, you force not to forswear.\n  KING. Despise me when I break this oath of mine.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. I will; and therefore keep it. Rosaline,\n    What did the Russian whisper in your ear?\n  ROSALINE. Madam, he swore that he did hold me dear\n    As precious eyesight, and did value me\n    Above this world; adding thereto, moreover,\n    That he would wed me, or else die my lover.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. God give thee joy of him! The noble lord\n     Most honourably doth uphold his word.\n  KING. What mean you, madam? By my life, my troth,\n    I never swore this lady such an oath.\n  ROSALINE. By heaven, you did; and, to confirm it plain,\n    You gave me this; but take it, sir, again.\n  KING. My faith and this the Princess I did give;\n    I knew her by this jewel on her sleeve.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Pardon me, sir, this jewel did she wear;\n    And Lord Berowne, I thank him, is my dear.\n    What, will you have me, or your pearl again?\n BEROWNE. Neither of either; I remit both twain.\n    I see the trick on't: here was a consent,\n    Knowing aforehand of our merriment,\n    To dash it like a Christmas comedy.\n    Some carry-tale, some please-man, some slight zany,\n    Some mumble-news, some trencher-knight, some Dick,\n    That smiles his cheek in years and knows the trick\n    To make my lady laugh when she's dispos'd,\n    Told our intents before; which once disclos'd,\n    The ladies did change favours; and then we,\n    Following the signs, woo'd but the sign of she.\n    Now, to our perjury to add more terror,\n    We are again forsworn in will and error.\n    Much upon this it is; [To BOYET] and might not you\n    Forestall our sport, to make us thus untrue?\n    Do not you know my lady's foot by th' squier,\n    And laugh upon the apple of her eye?\n    And stand between her back, sir, and the fire,\n    Holding a trencher, jesting merrily?\n    You put our page out. Go, you are allow'd;\n    Die when you will, a smock shall be your shroud.\n    You leer upon me, do you? There's an eye\n    Wounds like a leaden sword.\n  BOYET. Full merrily\n    Hath this brave manage, this career, been run.\n  BEROWNE. Lo, he is tilting straight! Peace; I have done.\n\n                          Enter COSTARD\n\n    Welcome, pure wit! Thou part'st a fair fray.\n  COSTARD. O Lord, sir, they would know\n     Whether the three Worthies shall come in or no?\n  BEROWNE. What, are there but three?\n  COSTARD. No, sir; but it is vara fine,\n    For every one pursents three.\n  BEROWNE. And three times thrice is nine.\n  COSTARD. Not so, sir; under correction, sir,\n    I hope it is not so.\n    You cannot beg us, sir, I can assure you, sir; we know what we\n      know;\n    I hope, sir, three times thrice, sir-\n  BEROWNE. Is not nine.\n  COSTARD. Under correction, sir, we know whereuntil it doth amount.\n  BEROWNE. By Jove, I always took three threes for nine.\n  COSTARD. O Lord, sir, it were pity you should get your living by\n    reck'ning, sir.\n  BEROWNE. How much is it?\n  COSTARD. O Lord, sir, the parties themselves, the actors, sir, will\n    show whereuntil it doth amount. For mine own part, I am, as they\n    say, but to parfect one man in one poor man, Pompion the Great,\n    sir.\n  BEROWNE. Art thou one of the Worthies?\n  COSTARD. It pleased them to think me worthy of Pompey the Great;\n    for mine own part, I know not the degree of the Worthy; but I am\n    to stand for him.\n  BEROWNE. Go, bid them prepare.\n  COSTARD. We will turn it finely off, sir; we will take some care.\n                                                    Exit COSTARD\n  KING. Berowne, they will shame us; let them not approach.\n  BEROWNE. We are shame-proof, my lord, and 'tis some policy\n    To have one show worse than the King's and his company.\n  KING. I say they shall not come.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Nay, my good lord, let me o'errule you now.\n    That sport best pleases that doth least know how;\n    Where zeal strives to content, and the contents\n    Dies in the zeal of that which it presents.\n    Their form confounded makes most form in mirth,\n    When great things labouring perish in their birth.\n  BEROWNE. A right description of our sport, my lord.\n\n                        Enter ARMADO\n\n  ARMADO. Anointed, I implore so much expense of thy royal sweet\n    breath as will utter a brace of words.\n           [Converses apart with the KING, and delivers a paper]\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Doth this man serve God?\n  BEROWNE. Why ask you?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. 'A speaks not like a man of God his making.\n  ARMADO. That is all one, my fair, sweet, honey monarch; for, I\n    protest, the schoolmaster is exceeding fantastical; too too vain,\n    too too vain; but we will put it, as they say, to fortuna de la\n    guerra. I wish you the peace of mind, most royal couplement!\n                                                     Exit ARMADO\n  KING. Here is like to be a good presence of Worthies. He presents\n    Hector of Troy; the swain, Pompey the Great; the parish curate,\n    Alexander; Arinado's page, Hercules; the pedant, Judas\n    Maccabaeus.\n    And if these four Worthies in their first show thrive,\n    These four will change habits and present the other five.\n  BEROWNE. There is five in the first show.\n  KING. You are deceived, 'tis not so.\n  BEROWNE. The pedant, the braggart, the hedge-priest, the fool, and\n    the boy:\n    Abate throw at novum, and the whole world again\n    Cannot pick out five such, take each one in his vein.\n  KING. The ship is under sail, and here she comes amain.\n\n                   Enter COSTARD, armed for POMPEY\n\n  COSTARD. I Pompey am-\n  BEROWNE. You lie, you are not he.\n  COSTARD. I Pompey am-\n  BOYET. With libbard's head on knee.\n  BEROWNE. Well said, old mocker; I must needs be friends with thee.\n  COSTARD. I Pompey am, Pompey surnam'd the Big-\n   DUMAIN. The Great.\n  COSTARD. It is Great, sir.\n    Pompey surnam'd the Great,\n    That oft in field, with targe and shield, did make my foe to\n      sweat;\n    And travelling along this coast, I bere am come by chance,\n    And lay my arms before the legs of this sweet lass of France.\n\n    If your ladyship would say 'Thanks, Pompey,' I had done.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Great thanks, great Pompey.\n  COSTARD. 'Tis not so much worth; but I hope I was perfect.\n    I made a little fault in Great.\n  BEROWNE. My hat to a halfpenny, Pompey proves the best Worthy.\n\n                 Enter SIR NATHANIEL, for ALEXANDER\n\n  NATHANIEL. When in the world I liv'd, I was the world's commander;\n    By east, west, north, and south, I spread my conquering might.\n    My scutcheon plain declares that I am Alisander-\n  BOYET. Your nose says, no, you are not; for it stands to right.\n  BEROWNE. Your nose smells 'no' in this, most tender-smelling\n    knight.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. The conqueror is dismay'd. Proceed, good\n    Alexander.\n  NATHANIEL. When in the world I liv'd, I was the world's commander-\n  BOYET. Most true, 'tis right, you were so, Alisander.\n  BEROWNE. Pompey the Great!\n  COSTARD. Your servant, and Costard.\n  BEROWNE. Take away the conqueror, take away Alisander.\n  COSTARD. [To Sir Nathaniel] O, Sir, you have overthrown Alisander\n    the conqueror! You will be scrap'd out of the painted cloth for\n    this. Your lion, that holds his poleaxe sitting on a close-stool,\n    will be given to Ajax. He will be the ninth Worthy. A conqueror\n    and afeard to speak! Run away for shame, Alisander.\n    [Sir Nathaniel retires] There, an't shall please you, a foolish\n    mild man; an honest man, look you, and soon dash'd. He is a\n    marvellous good neighbour, faith, and a very good bowler; but for\n    Alisander- alas! you see how 'tis- a little o'erparted. But there\n    are Worthies a-coming will speak their mind in some other sort.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Stand aside, good Pompey.\n\n         Enter HOLOFERNES, for JUDAS; and MOTH, for HERCULES\n\n  HOLOFERNES. Great Hercules is presented by this imp,\n    Whose club kill'd Cerberus, that three-headed canus;\n    And when be was a babe, a child, a shrimp,\n    Thus did he strangle serpents in his manus.\n    Quoniam he seemeth in minority,\n    Ergo I come with this apology.\n    Keep some state in thy exit, and vanish.      [MOTH retires]\n    Judas I am-\n  DUMAIN. A Judas!\n  HOLOFERNES. Not Iscariot, sir.\n    Judas I am, ycliped Maccabaeus.\n  DUMAIN. Judas Maccabaeus clipt is plain Judas.\n  BEROWNE. A kissing traitor. How art thou prov'd Judas?\n  HOLOFERNES. Judas I am-\n  DUMAIN. The more shame for you, Judas!\n  HOLOFERNES. What mean you, sir?\n  BOYET. To make Judas hang himself.\n  HOLOFERNES. Begin, sir; you are my elder.\n  BEROWNE. Well followed: Judas was hanged on an elder.\n  HOLOFERNES. I will not be put out of countenance.\n  BEROWNE. Because thou hast no face.\n  HOLOFERNES. What is this?\n  BOYET. A cittern-head.\n  DUMAIN. The head of a bodkin.\n  BEROWNE. A death's face in a ring.\n  LONGAVILLE. The face of an old Roman coin, scarce seen.\n  BOYET. The pommel of Coesar's falchion.\n  DUMAIN. The carv'd-bone face on a flask.\n  BEROWNE. Saint George's half-cheek in a brooch.\n  DUMAIN. Ay, and in a brooch of lead.\n  BEROWNE. Ay, and worn in the cap of a tooth-drawer. And now,\n    forward; for we have put thee in countenance.\n  HOLOFERNES. You have put me out of countenance.\n  BEROWNE. False: we have given thee faces.\n  HOLOFERNES. But you have outfac'd them all.\n  BEROWNE. An thou wert a lion we would do so.\n  BOYET. Therefore, as he is an ass, let him go.\n    And so adieu, sweet Jude! Nay, why dost thou stay?\n  DUMAIN. For the latter end of his name.\n  BEROWNE. For the ass to the Jude; give it him- Jud-as, away.\n  HOLOFERNES. This is not generous, not gentle, not humble.\n  BOYET. A light for Monsieur Judas! It grows dark, he may stumble.\n                                            [HOLOFERNES retires]\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Alas, poor Maccabaeus, how hath he been baited!\n\n                   Enter ARMADO, for HECTOR\n\n  BEROWNE. Hide thy head, Achilles; here comes Hector in arms.\n  DUMAIN. Though my mocks come home by me, I will now be merry.\n  KING. Hector was but a Troyan in respect of this.\n  BOYET. But is this Hector?\n  DUMAIN. I think Hector was not so clean-timber'd.\n  LONGAVILLE. His leg is too big for Hector's.\n  DUMAIN. More calf, certain.\n  BOYET. No; he is best indued in the small.\n  BEROWNE. This cannot be Hector.\n  DUMAIN. He's a god or a painter, for he makes faces.\n  ARMADO. The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty,\n    Gave Hector a gift-\n  DUMAIN. A gilt nutmeg.\n  BEROWNE. A lemon.\n  LONGAVILLE. Stuck with cloves.\n  DUMAIN. No, cloven.\n  ARMADO. Peace!\n    The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty,\n    Gave Hector a gift, the heir of Ilion;\n    A man so breathed that certain he would fight ye,\n    From morn till night out of his pavilion.\n    I am that flower-\n  DUMAIN. That mint.\n  LONGAVILLE. That columbine.\n  ARMADO. Sweet Lord Longaville, rein thy tongue.\n  LONGAVILLE. I must rather give it the rein, for it runs against\n    Hector.\n  DUMAIN. Ay, and Hector's a greyhound.\n  ARMADO. The sweet war-man is dead and rotten; sweet chucks, beat\n    not the bones of the buried; when he breathed, he was a man. But\n    I will forward with my device. [To the PRINCESS] Sweet royalty,\n    bestow on me the sense of hearing.\n\n          [BEROWNE steps forth, and speaks to COSTARD]\n\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Speak, brave Hector; we are much delighted.\n  ARMADO. I do adore thy sweet Grace's slipper.\n  BOYET. [Aside to DUMAIN] Loves her by the foot.\n  DUMAIN. [Aside to BOYET] He may not by the yard.\n  ARMADO. This Hector far surmounted Hannibal-\n  COSTARD. The party is gone, fellow Hector, she is gone; she is two\n    months on her way.\n  ARMADO. What meanest thou?\n  COSTARD. Faith, unless you play the honest Troyan, the poor wench\n    is cast away. She's quick; the child brags in her belly already;\n    'tis yours.\n  ARMADO. Dost thou infamonize me among potentates? Thou shalt die.\n  COSTARD. Then shall Hector be whipt for Jaquenetta that is quick by\n    him, and hang'd for Pompey that is dead by him.\n  DUMAIN. Most rare Pompey!\n  BOYET. Renowned Pompey!\n  BEROWNE. Greater than Great! Great, great, great Pompey! Pompey the\n    Huge!\n  DUMAIN. Hector trembles.\n  BEROWNE. Pompey is moved. More Ates, more Ates! Stir them on! stir\n    them on!\n  DUMAIN. Hector will challenge him.\n  BEROWNE. Ay, if 'a have no more man's blood in his belly than will\n    sup a flea.\n  ARMADO. By the North Pole, I do challenge thee.\n  COSTARD. I will not fight with a pole, like a Northern man; I'll\n    slash; I'll do it by the sword. I bepray you, let me borrow my\n    arms again.\n  DUMAIN. Room for the incensed Worthies!\n  COSTARD. I'll do it in my shirt.\n  DUMAIN. Most resolute Pompey!\n  MOTH. Master, let me take you a buttonhole lower. Do you not see\n    Pompey is uncasing for the combat? What mean you? You will lose\n    your reputation.\n  ARMADO. Gentlemen and soldiers, pardon me; I will not combat in my\n    shirt.\n  DUMAIN. You may not deny it: Pompey hath made the challenge.\n  ARMADO. Sweet bloods, I both may and will.\n  BEROWNE. What reason have you for 't?\n  ARMADO. The naked truth of it is: I have no shirt; I go woolward\n    for penance.\n  BOYET. True, and it was enjoined him in Rome for want of linen;\n    since when, I'll be sworn, he wore none but a dishclout of\n    Jaquenetta's, and that 'a wears next his heart for a favour.\n\n                 Enter as messenger, MONSIEUR MARCADE\n\n  MARCADE. God save you, madam!\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Welcome, Marcade;\n    But that thou interruptest our merriment.\n  MARCADE. I am sorry, madam; for the news I bring\n    Is heavy in my tongue. The King your father-\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Dead, for my life!\n  MARCADE. Even so; my tale is told.\n  BEROWNE. WOrthies away; the scene begins to cloud.\n  ARMADO. For mine own part, I breathe free breath. I have seen the\n    day of wrong through the little hole of discretion, and I will\n    right myself like a soldier.                 Exeunt WORTHIES\n  KING. How fares your Majesty?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Boyet, prepare; I will away to-night.\n  KING. Madam, not so; I do beseech you stay.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Prepare, I say. I thank you, gracious lords,\n    For all your fair endeavours, and entreat,\n    Out of a new-sad soul, that you vouchsafe\n    In your rich wisdom to excuse or hide\n    The liberal opposition of our spirits,\n    If over-boldly we have borne ourselves\n    In the converse of breath- your gentleness\n    Was guilty of it. Farewell, worthy lord.\n    A heavy heart bears not a nimble tongue.\n    Excuse me so, coming too short of thanks\n    For my great suit so easily obtain'd.\n  KING. The extreme parts of time extremely forms\n    All causes to the purpose of his speed;\n    And often at his very loose decides\n    That which long process could not arbitrate.\n    And though the mourning brow of progeny\n    Forbid the smiling courtesy of love\n    The holy suit which fain it would convince,\n    Yet, since love's argument was first on foot,\n    Let not the cloud of sorrow justle it\n    From what it purpos'd; since to wail friends lost\n    Is not by much so wholesome-profitable\n    As to rejoice at friends but newly found.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. I understand you not; my griefs are double.\n  BEROWNE. Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief;\n    And by these badges understand the King.\n    For your fair sakes have we neglected time,\n    Play'd foul play with our oaths; your beauty, ladies,\n    Hath much deformed us, fashioning our humours\n    Even to the opposed end of our intents;\n    And what in us hath seem'd ridiculous,\n    As love is full of unbefitting strains,\n    All wanton as a child, skipping and vain;\n    Form'd by the eye and therefore, like the eye,\n    Full of strange shapes, of habits, and of forms,\n    Varying in subjects as the eye doth roll\n    To every varied object in his glance;\n    Which parti-coated presence of loose love\n    Put on by us, if in your heavenly eyes\n    Have misbecom'd our oaths and gravities,\n    Those heavenly eyes that look into these faults\n    Suggested us to make. Therefore, ladies,\n    Our love being yours, the error that love makes\n    Is likewise yours. We to ourselves prove false,\n    By being once false for ever to be true\n    To those that make us both- fair ladies, you;\n    And even that falsehood, in itself a sin,\n    Thus purifies itself and turns to grace.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. We have receiv'd your letters, full of love;\n    Your favours, the ambassadors of love;\n    And, in our maiden council, rated them\n    At courtship, pleasant jest, and courtesy,\n    As bombast and as lining to the time;\n    But more devout than this in our respects\n    Have we not been; and therefore met your loves\n    In their own fashion, like a merriment.\n  DUMAIN. Our letters, madam, show'd much more than jest.\n  LONGAVILLE. So did our looks.\n  ROSALINE. We did not quote them so.\n  KING. Now, at the latest minute of the hour,\n    Grant us your loves.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. A time, methinks, too short\n    To make a world-without-end bargain in.\n    No, no, my lord, your Grace is perjur'd much,\n    Full of dear guiltiness; and therefore this,\n    If for my love, as there is no such cause,\n    You will do aught- this shall you do for me:\n    Your oath I will not trust; but go with speed\n    To some forlorn and naked hermitage,\n    Remote from all the pleasures of the world;\n    There stay until the twelve celestial signs\n    Have brought about the annual reckoning.\n    If this austere insociable life\n    Change not your offer made in heat of blood,\n    If frosts and fasts, hard lodging and thin weeds,\n    Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love,\n    But that it bear this trial, and last love,\n    Then, at the expiration of the year,\n    Come, challenge me, challenge me by these deserts;\n    And, by this virgin palm now kissing thine,\n    I will be thine; and, till that instant, shut\n    My woeful self up in a mournful house,\n    Raining the tears of lamentation\n    For the remembrance of my father's death.\n    If this thou do deny, let our hands part,\n    Neither intitled in the other's heart.\n  KING. If this, or more than this, I would deny,\n    To flatter up these powers of mine with rest,\n    The sudden hand of death close up mine eye!\n    Hence hermit then, my heart is in thy breast.\n  BEROWNE. And what to me, my love? and what to me?\n  ROSALINE. You must he purged too, your sins are rack'd;\n    You are attaint with faults and perjury;\n    Therefore, if you my favour mean to get,\n    A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest,\n    But seek the weary beds of people sick.\n  DUMAIN. But what to me, my love? but what to me?\n    A wife?\n  KATHARINE. A beard, fair health, and honesty;\n    With threefold love I wish you all these three.\n  DUMAIN. O, shall I say I thank you, gentle wife?\n  KATHARINE. No so, my lord; a twelvemonth and a day\n    I'll mark no words that smooth-fac'd wooers say.\n    Come when the King doth to my lady come;\n    Then, if I have much love, I'll give you some.\n  DUMAIN. I'll serve thee true and faithfully till then.\n  KATHARINE. Yet swear not, lest ye be forsworn again.\n  LONGAVILLE. What says Maria?\n  MARIA. At the twelvemonth's end\n    I'll change my black gown for a faithful friend.\n  LONGAVILLE. I'll stay with patience; but the time is long.\n  MARIA. The liker you; few taller are so young.\n  BEROWNE. Studies my lady? Mistress, look on me;\n    Behold the window of my heart, mine eye,\n    What humble suit attends thy answer there.\n    Impose some service on me for thy love.\n  ROSALINE. Oft have I heard of you, my Lord Berowne,\n    Before I saw you; and the world's large tongue\n    Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks,\n    Full of comparisons and wounding flouts,\n    Which you on all estates will execute\n    That lie within the mercy of your wit.\n    To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain,\n    And therewithal to win me, if you please,\n    Without the which I am not to be won,\n    You shall this twelvemonth term from day to day\n    Visit the speechless sick, and still converse\n    With groaning wretches; and your task shall be,\n    With all the fierce endeavour of your wit,\n    To enforce the pained impotent to smile.\n  BEROWNE. To move wild laughter in the throat of death?\n    It cannot be; it is impossible;\n    Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.\n  ROSALINE. Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit,\n    Whose influence is begot of that loose grace\n    Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools.\n    A jest's prosperity lies in the ear\n    Of him that hears it, never in the tongue\n    Of him that makes it; then, if sickly ears,\n    Deaf'd with the clamours of their own dear groans,\n    Will hear your idle scorns, continue then,\n    And I will have you and that fault withal.\n    But if they will not, throw away that spirit,\n    And I shall find you empty of that fault,\n    Right joyful of your reformation.\n  BEROWNE. A twelvemonth? Well, befall what will befall,\n    I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. [ To the King] Ay, sweet my lord, and so I take\n    my leave.\n  KING. No, madam; we will bring you on your way.\n  BEROWNE. Our wooing doth not end like an old play:\n    Jack hath not Jill. These ladies' courtesy\n    Might well have made our sport a comedy.\n  KING. Come, sir, it wants a twelvemonth an' a day,\n    And then 'twill end.\n  BEROWNE. That's too long for a play.\n\n                          Re-enter ARMADO\n\n  ARMADO. Sweet Majesty, vouchsafe me-\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Was not that not Hector?\n  DUMAIN. The worthy knight of Troy.\n  ARMADO. I will kiss thy royal finger, and take leave. I am a\n    votary: I have vow'd to Jaquenetta to hold the plough for her\n    sweet love three year. But, most esteemed greatness, will you\n    hear the dialogue that the two learned men have compiled in\n    praise of the Owl and the Cuckoo? It should have followed in the\n    end of our show.\n  KING. Call them forth quickly; we will do so.\n  ARMADO. Holla! approach.\n\n                            Enter All\n\n    This side is Hiems, Winter; this Ver, the Spring- the one\n    maintained by the Owl, th' other by the Cuckoo. Ver, begin.\n\n                      SPRING\n         When daisies pied and violets blue\n         And lady-smocks all silver-white\n         And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue\n         Do paint the meadows with delight,\n         The cuckoo then on every tree\n         Mocks married men, for thus sings he:\n              'Cuckoo;\n         Cuckoo, cuckoo'- O word of fear,\n         Unpleasing to a married ear!\n\n         When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,\n         And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks;\n         When turtles tread, and rooks and daws,\n         And maidens bleach their summer smocks;\n         The cuckoo then on every tree\n         Mocks married men, for thus sings he:\n              'Cuckoo;\n         Cuckoo, cuckoo'- O word of fear,\n         Unpleasing to a married ear!\n\n\n                    WINTER\n\n         When icicles hang by the wall,\n         And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,\n         And Tom bears logs into the hall,\n         And milk comes frozen home in pail,\n         When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,\n         Then nightly sings the staring owl:\n              'Tu-who;\n         Tu-whit, Tu-who'- A merry note,\n         While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.\n\n         When all aloud the wind doth blow,\n         And coughing drowns the parson's saw,\n         And birds sit brooding in the snow,\n         And Marian's nose looks red and raw,\n         When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,\n         Then nightly sings the staring owl:\n              'Tu-who;\n         Tu-whit, To-who'- A merry note,\n         While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.\n\n  ARMADO. The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo.\n    You that way: we this way.                            Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1606\n\nTHE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH\n\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  DUNCAN, King of Scotland\n  MACBETH, Thane of Glamis and Cawdor, a general in the King's army\n  LADY MACBETH, his wife\n  MACDUFF, Thane of Fife, a nobleman of Scotland\n  LADY MACDUFF, his wife\n  MALCOLM, elder son of Duncan\n  DONALBAIN, younger son of Duncan\n  BANQUO, Thane of Lochaber, a general in the King's army\n  FLEANCE, his son\n  LENNOX, nobleman of Scotland\n  ROSS, nobleman of Scotland\n  MENTEITH nobleman of Scotland\n  ANGUS, nobleman of Scotland\n  CAITHNESS, nobleman of Scotland\n  SIWARD, Earl of Northumberland, general of the English forces\n  YOUNG SIWARD, his son\n  SEYTON, attendant to Macbeth\n  HECATE, Queen of the Witches\n  The Three Witches\n  Boy, Son of Macduff\n  Gentlewoman attending on Lady Macbeth\n  An English Doctor\n  A Scottish Doctor\n  A Sergeant\n  A Porter\n  An Old Man\n  The Ghost of Banquo and other Apparitions\n  Lords, Gentlemen, Officers, Soldiers, Murtherers, Attendants,\n     and Messengers\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE: Scotland and England\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nA desert place. Thunder and lightning.\n\nEnter three Witches.\n\n  FIRST WITCH. When shall we three meet again?\n    In thunder, lightning, or in rain?\n  SECOND WITCH. When the hurlyburly's done,\n    When the battle's lost and won.\n  THIRD WITCH. That will be ere the set of sun.\n  FIRST WITCH. Where the place?\n  SECOND WITCH. Upon the heath.\n  THIRD WITCH. There to meet with Macbeth.\n  FIRST WITCH. I come, Graymalkin.\n  ALL. Paddock calls. Anon!\n    Fair is foul, and foul is fair.\n    Hover through the fog and filthy air.                Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA camp near Forres. Alarum within.\n\nEnter Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, Lennox, with Attendants,\nmeeting a bleeding Sergeant.\n\n  DUNCAN. What bloody man is that? He can report,\n    As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt\n    The newest state.\n  MALCOLM. This is the sergeant\n    Who like a good and hardy soldier fought\n    'Gainst my captivity. Hail, brave friend!\n    Say to the King the knowledge of the broil\n    As thou didst leave it.\n  SERGEANT. Doubtful it stood,\n    As two spent swimmers that do cling together\n    And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald-\n    Worthy to be a rebel, for to that\n    The multiplying villainies of nature\n    Do swarm upon him -from the Western Isles\n    Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied;\n    And Fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling,\n    Show'd like a rebel's whore. But all's too weak;\n    For brave Macbeth -well he deserves that name-\n    Disdaining Fortune, with his brandish'd steel,\n    Which smoked with bloody execution,\n    Like Valor's minion carved out his passage\n    Till he faced the slave,\n    Which ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,\n    Till he unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps,\n    And fix'd his head upon our battlements.\n  DUNCAN. O valiant cousin! Worthy gentleman!\n  SERGEANT. As whence the sun 'gins his reflection\n    Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders break,\n    So from that spring whence comfort seem'd to come\n    Discomfort swells. Mark, King of Scotland, mark.\n    No sooner justice had, with valor arm'd,\n    Compell'd these skipping kerns to trust their heels,\n    But the Norweyan lord, surveying vantage,\n    With furbish'd arms and new supplies of men,\n    Began a fresh assault.\n  DUNCAN. Dismay'd not this\n    Our captains, Macbeth and Banquo.?\n  SERGEANT. Yes,\n    As sparrows eagles, or the hare the lion.\n    If I say sooth, I must report they were\n    As cannons overcharged with double cracks,\n    So they\n    Doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe.\n    Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds,\n    Or memorize another Golgotha,\n    I cannot tell-\n    But I am faint; my gashes cry for help.\n  DUNCAN. So well thy words become thee as thy wounds;\n    They smack of honor both. Go get him surgeons.\n                                        Exit Sergeant, attended.\n    Who comes here?\n\n                       Enter Ross.\n\n  MALCOLM The worthy Thane of Ross.\n  LENNOX. What a haste looks through his eyes! So should he look\n    That seems to speak things strange.\n  ROSS. God save the King!\n  DUNCAN. Whence camest thou, worthy Thane?\n  ROSS. From Fife, great King,\n    Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky\n    And fan our people cold.\n    Norway himself, with terrible numbers,\n    Assisted by that most disloyal traitor\n    The Thane of Cawdor, began a dismal conflict,\n    Till that Bellona's bridegroom, lapp'd in proof,\n    Confronted him with self-comparisons,\n    Point against point rebellious, arm 'gainst arm,\n    Curbing his lavish spirit; and, to conclude,\n    The victory fell on us.\n  DUNCAN. Great happiness!\n  ROSS. That now\n    Sweno, the Norways' king, craves composition;\n    Nor would we deign him burial of his men\n    Till he disbursed, at Saint Colme's Inch,\n    Ten thousand dollars to our general use.\n  DUNCAN. No more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceive\n    Our bosom interest. Go pronounce his present death,\n    And with his former title greet Macbeth.\n  ROSS. I'll see it done.\n  DUNCAN. What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nA heath. Thunder.\n\nEnter the three Witches.\n\n  FIRST WITCH. Where hast thou been, sister?\n  SECOND WITCH. Killing swine.\n  THIRD WITCH. Sister, where thou?\n  FIRST WITCH. A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap,\n    And mounch'd, and mounch'd, and mounch'd. \"Give me,\" quoth I.\n    \"Aroint thee, witch!\" the rump-fed ronyon cries.\n    Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master the Tiger;\n    But in a sieve I'll thither sail,\n    And, like a rat without a tail,\n    I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do.\n  SECOND WITCH. I'll give thee a wind.\n  FIRST WITCH. Thou'rt kind.\n  THIRD WITCH. And I another.\n  FIRST WITCH. I myself have all the other,\n    And the very ports they blow,\n    All the quarters that they know\n    I' the shipman's card.\n    I will drain him dry as hay:\n    Sleep shall neither night nor day\n    Hang upon his penthouse lid;\n    He shall live a man forbid.\n    Weary se'nnights nine times nine\n    Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine;\n    Though his bark cannot be lost,\n    Yet it shall be tempest-toss'd.\n    Look what I have.\n  SECOND WITCH. Show me, show me.\n  FIRST WITCH. Here I have a pilot's thumb,\n    Wreck'd as homeward he did come.                Drum within.\n  THIRD WITCH. A drum, a drum!\n    Macbeth doth come.\n  ALL. The weird sisters, hand in hand,\n    Posters of the sea and land,\n    Thus do go about, about,\n    Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,\n    And thrice again, to make up nine.\n    Peace! The charm's wound up.\n\n                 Enter Macbeth and Banquo.\n\n  MACBETH. So foul and fair a day I have not seen.\n  BANQUO. How far is't call'd to Forres? What are these\n    So wither'd and so wild in their attire,\n    That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth,\n    And yet are on't? Live you? or are you aught\n    That man may question? You seem to understand me,\n    By each at once her choppy finger laying\n    Upon her skinny lips. You should be women,\n    And yet your beards forbid me to interpret\n    That you are so.\n  MACBETH. Speak, if you can. What are you?\n  FIRST WITCH. All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!\n  SECOND WITCH. All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!\n  THIRD WITCH. All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be King hereafter!\n  BANQUO. Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear\n    Things that do sound so fair? I' the name of truth,\n    Are ye fantastical or that indeed\n    Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner\n    You greet with present grace and great prediction\n    Of noble having and of royal hope,\n    That he seems rapt withal. To me you speak not.\n    If you can look into the seeds of time,\n    And say which grain will grow and which will not,\n    Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear\n    Your favors nor your hate.\n  FIRST WITCH. Hail!\n  SECOND WITCH. Hail!\n  THIRD WITCH. Hail!\n  FIRST WITCH. Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.\n  SECOND WITCH. Not so happy, yet much happier.\n  THIRD WITCH. Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none.\n    So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!\n  FIRST WITCH. Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!\n  MACBETH. Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more.\n    By Sinel's death I know I am Thane of Glamis;\n    But how of Cawdor? The Thane of Cawdor lives,\n    A prosperous gentleman; and to be King\n    Stands not within the prospect of belief,\n    No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence\n    You owe this strange intelligence, or why\n    Upon this blasted heath you stop our way\n    With such prophetic greeting? Speak, I charge you.\n                                                 Witches vanish.\n  BANQUO. The earth hath bubbles as the water has,\n    And these are of them. Whither are they vanish'd?\n  MACBETH. Into the air, and what seem'd corporal melted\n    As breath into the wind. Would they had stay'd!\n  BANQUO. Were such things here as we do speak about?\n    Or have we eaten on the insane root\n    That takes the reason prisoner?\n  MACBETH. Your children shall be kings.\n  BANQUO. You shall be King.\n  MACBETH. And Thane of Cawdor too. Went it not so?\n  BANQUO. To the selfsame tune and words. Who's here?\n\n                Enter Ross and Angus.\n\n  ROSS. The King hath happily received, Macbeth,\n    The news of thy success; and when he reads\n    Thy personal venture in the rebels' fight,\n    His wonders and his praises do contend\n    Which should be thine or his. Silenced with that,\n    In viewing o'er the rest o' the selfsame day,\n    He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks,\n    Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make,\n    Strange images of death. As thick as hail\n    Came post with post, and every one did bear\n    Thy praises in his kingdom's great defense,\n    And pour'd them down before him.\n  ANGUS. We are sent\n    To give thee, from our royal master, thanks;\n    Only to herald thee into his sight,\n    Not pay thee.\n  ROSS. And for an earnest of a greater honor,\n    He bade me, from him, call thee Thane of Cawdor.\n    In which addition, hail, most worthy Thane,\n    For it is thine.\n  BANQUO. What, can the devil speak true?\n  MACBETH. The Thane of Cawdor lives. Why do you dress me\n    In borrow'd robes?\n  ANGUS. Who was the Thane lives yet,\n    But under heavy judgement bears that life\n    Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was combined\n    With those of Norway, or did line the rebel\n    With hidden help and vantage, or that with both\n    He labor'd in his country's wreck, I know not;\n    But treasons capital, confess'd and proved,\n    Have overthrown him.\n  MACBETH. [Aside.] Glamis, and Thane of Cawdor!\n    The greatest is behind. [To Ross and Angus] Thanks for your\n      pains.\n    [Aside to Banquo] Do you not hope your children shall be kings,\n    When those that gave the Thane of Cawdor to me\n    Promised no less to them?\n  BANQUO. [Aside to Macbeth.] That, trusted home,\n    Might yet enkindle you unto the crown,\n    Besides the Thane of Cawdor. But 'tis strange;\n    And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,\n    The instruments of darkness tell us truths,\n    Win us with honest trifles, to betray's\n    In deepest consequence-\n    Cousins, a word, I pray you.\n  MACBETH. [Aside.] Two truths are told,\n    As happy prologues to the swelling act\n    Of the imperial theme-I thank you, gentlemen.\n    [Aside.] This supernatural soliciting\n    Cannot be ill, cannot be good. If ill,\n    Why hath it given me earnest of success,\n    Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor.\n    If good, why do I yield to that suggestion\n    Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair\n    And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,\n    Against the use of nature? Present fears\n    Are less than horrible imaginings:\n    My thought, whose murther yet is but fantastical,\n    Shakes so my single state of man that function\n    Is smother'd in surmise, and nothing is\n    But what is not.\n  BANQUO. Look, how our partner's rapt.\n  MACBETH. [Aside.] If chance will have me King, why, chance may\n      crown me\n    Without my stir.\n  BANQUO. New honors come upon him,\n    Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould\n    But with the aid of use.\n  MACBETH. [Aside.] Come what come may,\n    Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.\n  BANQUO. Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure.\n  MACBETH. Give me your favor; my dull brain was wrought\n    With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains\n    Are register'd where every day I turn\n    The leaf to read them. Let us toward the King.\n    Think upon what hath chanced, and at more time,\n    The interim having weigh'd it, let us speak\n    Our free hearts each to other.\n  BANQUO. Very gladly.\n  MACBETH. Till then, enough. Come, friends.             Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nForres. The palace.\n\nFlourish. Enter Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, Lennox, and Attendants.\n\n  DUNCAN. Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not\n    Those in commission yet return'd?\n  MALCOLM. My liege,\n    They are not yet come back. But I have spoke\n    With one that saw him die, who did report\n    That very frankly he confess'd his treasons,\n    Implored your Highness' pardon, and set forth\n    A deep repentance. Nothing in his life\n    Became him like the leaving it; he died\n    As one that had been studied in his death,\n    To throw away the dearest thing he owed\n    As 'twere a careless trifle.\n  DUNCAN. There's no art\n    To find the mind's construction in the face:\n    He was a gentleman on whom I built\n    An absolute trust.\n\n             Enter Macbeth, Banquo, Ross, and Angus.\n\n    O worthiest cousin!\n    The sin of my ingratitude even now\n    Was heavy on me. Thou art so far before,\n    That swiftest wing of recompense is slow\n    To overtake thee. Would thou hadst less deserved,\n    That the proportion both of thanks and payment\n    Might have been mine! Only I have left to say,\n    More is thy due than more than all can pay.\n  MACBETH. The service and the loyalty lowe,\n    In doing it, pays itself. Your Highness' part\n    Is to receive our duties, and our duties\n    Are to your throne and state, children and servants,\n    Which do but what they should, by doing everything\n    Safe toward your love and honor.\n  DUNCAN. Welcome hither.\n    I have begun to plant thee, and will labor\n    To make thee full of growing. Noble Banquo,\n    That hast no less deserved, nor must be known\n    No less to have done so; let me infold thee\n    And hold thee to my heart.\n  BANQUO. There if I grow,\n    The harvest is your own.\n  DUNCAN. My plenteous joys,\n    Wanton in fullness, seek to hide themselves\n    In drops of sorrow. Sons, kinsmen, thanes,\n    And you whose places are the nearest, know\n    We will establish our estate upon\n    Our eldest, Malcolm, whom we name hereafter\n    The Prince of Cumberland; which honor must\n    Not unaccompanied invest him only,\n    But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine\n    On all deservers. From hence to Inverness,\n    And bind us further to you.\n  MACBETH. The rest is labor, which is not used for you.\n    I'll be myself the harbinger, and make joyful\n    The hearing of my wife with your approach;\n    So humbly take my leave.\n  DUNCAN. My worthy Cawdor!\n  MACBETH. [Aside.] The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step\n    On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap,\n    For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires;\n    Let not light see my black and deep desires.\n    The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be\n    Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.          Exit.\n  DUNCAN. True, worthy Banquo! He is full so valiant,\n    And in his commendations I am fed;\n    It is a banquet to me. Let's after him,\n    Whose care is gone before to bid us welcome.\n    It is a peerless kinsman.                  Flourish. Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nInverness. Macbeth's castle.\n\nEnter Lady Macbeth, reading a letter.\n\n  LADY MACBETH. \"They met me in the day of success, and I have\n    learned by the perfectest report they have more in them than\n    mortal knowledge. When I burned in desire to question them\n    further, they made themselves air, into which they vanished.\n    Whiles I stood rapt in the wonder of it, came missives from the\n    King, who all-hailed me 'Thane of Cawdor'; by which title,\n    before, these weird sisters saluted me and referred me to the\n    coming on of time with 'Hail, King that shalt be!' This have I\n    thought good to deliver thee, my dearest partner of greatness,\n    that thou mightst not lose the dues of rejoicing, by being\n    ignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay it to thy heart,\n    and farewell.\"\n\n    Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be\n    What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature.\n    It is too full o' the milk of human kindness\n    To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great;\n    Art not without ambition, but without\n    The illness should attend it. What thou wouldst highly,\n    That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,\n    And yet wouldst wrongly win. Thou'ldst have, great Glamis,\n    That which cries, \"Thus thou must do, if thou have it;\n    And that which rather thou dost fear to do\n    Than wishest should be undone.\" Hie thee hither,\n    That I may pour my spirits in thine ear,\n    And chastise with the valor of my tongue\n    All that impedes thee from the golden round,\n    Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem\n    To have thee crown'd withal.\n\n                     Enter a Messenger.\n\n    What is your tidings?\n  MESSENGER. The King comes here tonight.\n  LADY MACBETH. Thou'rt mad to say it!\n    Is not thy master with him? who, were't so,\n    Would have inform'd for preparation.\n  MESSENGER. So please you, it is true; our Thane is coming.\n    One of my fellows had the speed of him,\n    Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more\n    Than would make up his message.\n  LADY MACBETH. Give him tending;\n    He brings great news.                        Exit Messenger.\n    The raven himself is hoarse\n    That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan\n    Under my battlements. Come, you spirits\n    That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here\n    And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full\n    Of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood,\n    Stop up the access and passage to remorse,\n    That no compunctious visitings of nature\n    Shake my fell purpose nor keep peace between\n    The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,\n    And take my milk for gall, your murthering ministers,\n    Wherever in your sightless substances\n    You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,\n    And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell\n    That my keen knife see not the wound it makes\n    Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark\n    To cry, \"Hold, hold!\"\n\n                    Enter Macbeth.\n\n    Great Glamis! Worthy Cawdor!\n    Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter!\n    Thy letters have transported me beyond\n    This ignorant present, and I feel now\n    The future in the instant.\n  MACBETH. My dearest love,\n    Duncan comes here tonight.\n  LADY MACBETH. And when goes hence?\n  MACBETH. Tomorrow, as he purposes.\n  LADY MACBETH. O, never\n    Shall sun that morrow see!\n    Your face, my Thane, is as a book where men\n    May read strange matters. To beguile the time,\n    Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,\n    Your hand, your tongue; look like the innocent flower,\n    But be the serpent under it. He that's coming\n    Must be provided for; and you shall put\n    This night's great business into my dispatch,\n    Which shall to all our nights and days to come\n    Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.\n  MACBETH. We will speak further.\n  LADY MACBETH. Only look up clear;\n    To alter favor ever is to fear.\n    Leave all the rest to me.                            Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nBefore Macbeth's castle.  Hautboys and torches.\n\nEnter Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, Banquo, Lennox, Macduff, Ross, Angus,\nand Attendants.\n\n  DUNCAN. This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air\n    Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself\n    Unto our gentle senses.\n  BANQUO. This guest of summer,\n    The temple-haunting martlet, does approve\n    By his loved mansionry that the heaven's breath\n    Smells wooingly here. No jutty, frieze,\n    Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird\n    Hath made his pendant bed and procreant cradle;\n    Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed\n    The air is delicate.\n\n                     Enter Lady Macbeth.\n\n  DUNCAN. See, see, our honor'd hostess!\n    The love that follows us sometime is our trouble,\n    Which still we thank as love. Herein I teach you\n    How you shall bid God 'ield us for your pains,\n    And thank us for your trouble.\n  LADY MACBETH. All our service\n    In every point twice done, and then done double,\n    Were poor and single business to contend\n    Against those honors deep and broad wherewith\n    Your Majesty loads our house. For those of old,\n    And the late dignities heap'd up to them,\n    We rest your hermits.\n  DUNCAN. Where's the Thane of Cawdor?\n    We coursed him at the heels and had a purpose\n    To be his purveyor; but he rides well,\n    And his great love, sharp as his spur, hath holp him\n    To his home before us. Fair and noble hostess,\n    We are your guest tonight.\n  LADY MACBETH. Your servants ever\n    Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs, in compt,\n    To make their audit at your Highness' pleasure,\n    Still to return your own.\n  DUNCAN. Give me your hand;\n    Conduct me to mine host. We love him highly,\n    And shall continue our graces towards him.\n    By your leave, hostess.                              Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII\nMacbeth's castle.  Hautboys and torches.\n\nEnter a Sewer and divers Servants with dishes and service, who pass over\nthe stage.  Then enter Macbeth.\n\n  MACBETH. If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well\n    It were done quickly. If the assassination\n    Could trammel up the consequence, and catch,\n    With his surcease, success; that but this blow\n    Might be the be-all and the end-all -here,\n    But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,\n    We'ld jump the life to come. But in these cases\n    We still have judgement here, that we but teach\n    Bloody instructions, which being taught return\n    To plague the inventor. This even-handed justice\n    Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice\n    To our own lips. He's here in double trust:\n    First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,\n    Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,\n    Who should against his murtherer shut the door,\n    Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan\n    Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been\n    So clear in his great office, that his virtues\n    Will plead like angels trumpet-tongued against\n    The deep damnation of his taking-off,\n    And pity, like a naked new-born babe\n    Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubin horsed\n    Upon the sightless couriers of the air,\n    Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,\n    That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur\n    To prick the sides of my intent, but only\n    Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself\n    And falls on the other.\n\n                 Enter Lady Macbeth.\n\n    How now, what news?\n  LADY MACBETH. He has almost supp'd. Why have you left the chamber?\n  MACBETH. Hath he ask'd for me?\n  LADY MACBETH. Know you not he has?\n  MACBETH. We will proceed no further in this business:\n    He hath honor'd me of late, and I have bought\n    Golden opinions from all sorts of people,\n    Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,\n    Not cast aside so soon.\n  LADY MACBETH. Was the hope drunk\n    Wherein you dress'd yourself? Hath it slept since?\n    And wakes it now, to look so green and pale\n    At what it did so freely? From this time\n    Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard\n    To be the same in thine own act and valor\n    As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that\n    Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life\n    And live a coward in thine own esteem,\n    Letting \"I dare not\" wait upon \"I would\"\n    Like the poor cat i' the adage?\n  MACBETH. Prithee, peace!\n    I dare do all that may become a man;\n    Who dares do more is none.\n  LADY MACBETH. What beast wast then\n    That made you break this enterprise to me?\n    When you durst do it, then you were a man,\n    And, to be more than what you were, you would\n    Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place\n    Did then adhere, and yet you would make both.\n    They have made themselves, and that their fitness now\n    Does unmake you. I have given suck and know\n    How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me-\n    I would, while it was smiling in my face,\n    Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums\n    And dash'd the brains out had I so sworn as you\n    Have done to this.\n  MACBETH. If we should fail?\n  LADY MACBETH. We fail?\n    But screw your courage to the sticking-place\n    And we'll not fail. When Duncan is asleep-\n    Whereto the rather shall his day's hard journey\n    Soundly invite him- his two chamberlains\n    Will I with wine and wassail so convince\n    That memory, the warder of the brain,\n    Shall be a fume and the receipt of reason\n    A limbeck only. When in swinish sleep\n    Their drenched natures lie as in a death,\n    What cannot you and I perform upon\n    The unguarded Duncan? What not put upon\n    His spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt\n    Of our great quell?\n  MACBETH. Bring forth men-children only,\n    For thy undaunted mettle should compose\n    Nothing but males. Will it not be received,\n    When we have mark'd with blood those sleepy two\n    Of his own chamber and used their very daggers,\n    That they have done't?\n  LADY MACBETH. Who dares receive it other,\n    As we shall make our griefs and clamor roar\n    Upon his death?\n  MACBETH. I am settled and bend up\n    Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.\n    Away, and mock the time with fairest show:\n    False face must hide what the false heart doth know.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nInverness. Court of Macbeth's castle.\n\nEnter Banquo and Fleance, bearing a torch before him.\n\n  BANQUO. How goes the night, boy?\n  FLEANCE. The moon is down; I have not heard the clock.\n  BANQUO. And she goes down at twelve.\n  FLEANCE. I take't 'tis later, sir.\n  BANQUO. Hold, take my sword. There's husbandry in heaven,\n    Their candles are all out. Take thee that too.\n    A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,\n    And yet I would not sleep. Merciful powers,\n    Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature\n    Gives way to in repose!\n\n           Enter Macbeth and a Servant with a torch.\n\n    Give me my sword.\n    Who's there?\n  MACBETH. A friend.\n  BANQUO. What, sir, not yet at rest? The King's abed.\n    He hath been in unusual pleasure and\n    Sent forth great largess to your offices.\n    This diamond he greets your wife withal,\n    By the name of most kind hostess, and shut up\n    In measureless content.\n  MACBETH. Being unprepared,\n    Our will became the servant to defect,\n    Which else should free have wrought.\n  BANQUO. All's well.\n    I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters:\n    To you they have show'd some truth.\n  MACBETH. I think not of them;\n    Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve,\n    We would spend it in some words upon that business,\n    If you would grant the time.\n  BANQUO. At your kind'st leisure.\n  MACBETH. If you shall cleave to my consent, when 'tis,\n    It shall make honor for you.\n  BANQUO. So I lose none\n    In seeking to augment it, but still keep\n    My bosom franchised and allegiance clear,\n    I shall be counsel'd.\n  MACBETH. Good repose the while.\n  BANQUO. Thanks, sir, the like to you.\n                                     Exeunt Banquo. and Fleance.\n  MACBETH. Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,\n    She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.     Exit Servant.\n    Is this a dagger which I see before me,\n    The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.\n    I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.\n    Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible\n    To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but\n    A dagger of the mind, a false creation,\n    Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?\n    I see thee yet, in form as palpable\n    As this which now I draw.\n    Thou marshal'st me the way that I was going,\n    And such an instrument I was to use.\n    Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,\n    Or else worth all the rest. I see thee still,\n    And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,\n    Which was not so before. There's no such thing:\n    It is the bloody business which informs\n    Thus to mine eyes. Now o'er the one half-world\n    Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse\n    The curtain'd sleep; witchcraft celebrates\n    Pale Hecate's offerings; and wither'd Murther,\n    Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,\n    Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,\n    With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design\n    Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,\n    Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear\n    Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,\n    And take the present horror from the time,\n    Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives;\n    Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.\n                                                   A bell rings.\n    I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.\n    Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell\n    That summons thee to heaven, or to hell.               Exit.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe same.\n\nEnter Lady Macbeth.\n\n  LADY MACBETH. That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold;\n    What hath quench'd them hath given me fire. Hark! Peace!\n    It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman,\n    Which gives the stern'st good night. He is about it:\n    The doors are open, and the surfeited grooms\n    Do mock their charge with snores. I have drugg'd their possets\n    That death and nature do contend about them,\n    Whether they live or die.\n  MACBETH. [Within.] Who's there' what, ho!\n  LADY MACBETH. Alack, I am afraid they have awaked\n    And 'tis not done. The attempt and not the deed\n    Confounds us. Hark! I laid their daggers ready;\n    He could not miss 'em. Had he not resembled\n    My father as he slept, I had done't.\n\n                      Enter Macbeth,\n\n    My husband!\n  MACBETH. I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?\n  LADY MACBETH. I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.\n    Did not you speak?\n  MACBETH. When?\n  LADY MACBETH. Now.\n  MACBETH. As I descended?\n  LADY MACBETH. Ay.\n  MACBETH. Hark!\n    Who lies i' the second chamber?\n  LADY MACBETH. Donalbain.\n  MACBETH. This is a sorry sight.           [Looks on his hands.\n  LADY MACBETH. A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.\n  MACBETH. There's one did laugh in 's sleep, and one cried,\n      \"Murther!\"\n    That they did wake each other. I stood and heard them,\n    But they did say their prayers and address'd them\n    Again to sleep.\n  LADY MACBETH. There are two lodged together.\n  MACBETH. One cried, \"God bless us!\" and \"Amen\" the other,\n    As they had seen me with these hangman's hands.\n    Listening their fear, I could not say \"Amen,\"\n    When they did say, \"God bless us!\"\n  LADY MACBETH. Consider it not so deeply.\n  MACBETH. But wherefore could not I pronounce \"Amen\"?\n    I had most need of blessing, and \"Amen\"\n    Stuck in my throat.\n  LADY MACBETH. These deeds must not be thought\n    After these ways; so, it will make us mad.\n  MACBETH. I heard a voice cry, \"Sleep no more!\n    Macbeth does murther sleep\" -the innocent sleep,\n    Sleep that knits up the ravel'd sleave of care,\n    The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,\n    Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,\n    Chief nourisher in life's feast-\n  LADY MACBETH. What do you mean?\n  MACBETH. Still it cried, \"Sleep no more!\" to all the house;\n    \"Glamis hath murther'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor\n    Shall sleep no more. Macbeth shall sleep no more.\"\n  LADY MACBETH. Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy Thane,\n    You do unbend your noble strength, to think\n    So brainsickly of things. Go, get some water\n    And wash this filthy witness from your hand.\n    Why did you bring these daggers from the place?\n    They must lie there. Go carry them, and smear\n    The sleepy grooms with blood.\n  MACBETH. I'll go no more.\n    I am afraid to think what I have done;\n    Look on't again I dare not.\n  LADY MACBETH. Infirm of purpose!\n    Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead\n    Are but as pictures; 'tis the eye of childhood\n    That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,\n    I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal,\n    For it must seem their guilt.         Exit. Knocking within.\n  MACBETH. Whence is that knocking?\n    How is't with me, when every noise appals me?\n    What hands are here? Ha, they pluck out mine eyes!\n    Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood\n    Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather\n    The multitudinous seas incarnadine,\n    Making the green one red.\n\n                   Re-enter Lady Macbeth.\n\n  LADY MACBETH. My hands are of your color, but I shame\n    To wear a heart so white. [Knocking within.] I hear knocking\n    At the south entry. Retire we to our chamber.\n    A little water clears us of this deed.\n    How easy is it then! Your constancy\n    Hath left you unattended. [Knocking within.] Hark, more knocking.\n    Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us\n    And show us to be watchers. Be not lost\n    So poorly in your thoughts.\n  MACBETH. To know my deed, 'twere best not know myself.\n                                                Knocking within.\n    Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe same.\n\nEnter a Porter. Knocking within.\n\n  PORTER. Here's a knocking indeed! If a man were porter of Hell\n    Gate, he should have old turning the key. [Knocking within.]\n    Knock, knock, knock! Who's there, i' the name of Belzebub? Here's\n    a farmer that hanged himself on th' expectation of plenty. Come\n    in time! Have napkins enow about you; here you'll sweat fort.\n    [Knocking within.] Knock, knock! Who's there, in th' other\n    devil's name? Faith, here's an equivocator that could swear in\n    both the scales against either scale, who committed treason\n    enough for God's sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven. O,\n    come in, equivocator. [Knocking within.] Knock, knock, knock!\n    Who's there? Faith, here's an English tailor come hither, for\n    stealing out of a French hose. Come in, tailor; here you may\n    roast your goose. [Knocking within.] Knock, knock! Never at\n    quiet! What are you? But this place is too cold for hell. I'll\n    devil-porter it no further. I had thought to have let in some of\n    all professions, that go the primrose way to the everlasting\n    bonfire. [Knocking within.] Anon, anon! I pray you, remember the\n    porter.\n                                                 Opens the gate.\n\n                       Enter Macduff and Lennox.\n\n  MACDUFF. Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed,\n    That you do lie so late?\n  PORTER. Faith, sir, we were carousing till the second cock; and\n    drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things.\n  MACDUFF. What three things does drink especially provoke?\n  PORTER. Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir,\n    it provokes and unprovokes: it provokes the desire, but it takes\n    away the performance. Therefore much drink may be said to be an\n    equivocator with lechery: it makes him, and it mars him; it sets\n    him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him and disheartens\n    him; makes him stand to and not stand to; in conclusion,\n    equivocates him in a sleep, and giving him the lie, leaves him.\n  MACDUFF. I believe drink gave thee the lie last night.\n  PORTER. That it did, sir, i' the very throat on me; but requited\n    him for his lie, and, I think, being too strong for him, though\n    he took up my legs sometime, yet I made shift to cast him.\n  MACDUFF. Is thy master stirring?\n\n                             Enter Macbeth.\n\n    Our knocking has awaked him; here he comes.\n  LENNOX. Good morrow, noble sir.\n  MACBETH. morrow, both.\n  MACDUFF. Is the King stirring, worthy Thane?\n  MACBETH. Not yet.\n  MACDUFF. He did command me to call timely on him;\n    I have almost slipp'd the hour.\n  MACBETH. I'll bring you to him.\n  MACDUFF. I know this is a joyful trouble to you,\n    But yet 'tis one.\n  MACBETH. The labor we delight in physics pain.\n    This is the door.\n  MACDUFF I'll make so bold to call,\n    For 'tis my limited service.                           Exit.\n  LENNOX. Goes the King hence today?\n  MACBETH. He does; he did appoint so.\n  LENNOX. The night has been unruly. Where we lay,\n    Our chimneys were blown down, and, as they say,\n    Lamentings heard i' the air, strange screams of death,\n    And prophesying with accents terrible\n    Of dire combustion and confused events\n    New hatch'd to the woeful time. The obscure bird\n    Clamor'd the livelong night. Some say the earth\n    Was feverous and did shake.\n  MACBETH. 'Twas a rough fight.\n  LENNOX. My young remembrance cannot parallel\n    A fellow to it.\n\n                      Re-enter Macduff.\n\n  MACDUFF. O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart\n    Cannot conceive nor name thee.\n  MACBETH. LENNOX. What's the matter?\n  MACDUFF. Confusion now hath made his masterpiece.\n    Most sacrilegious murther hath broke ope\n    The Lord's anointed temple and stole thence\n    The life o' the building.\n  MACBETH. What is't you say? the life?\n  LENNOX. Mean you his Majesty?\n  MACDUFF. Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight\n    With a new Gorgon. Do not bid me speak;\n    See, and then speak yourselves.\n                                      Exeunt Macbeth and Lennox.\n    Awake, awake!\n    Ring the alarum bell. Murther and treason!\n    Banquo and Donalbain! Malcolm, awake!\n    Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit,\n    And look on death itself! Up, up, and see\n    The great doom's image! Malcolm! Banquo!\n    As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites\n    To countenance this horror! Ring the bell.       Bell rings.\n\n                     Enter Lady Macbeth.\n\n  LADY MACBETH. What's the business,\n    That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley\n    The sleepers of the house? Speak, speak!\n  MACDUFF. O gentle lady,\n    'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak:\n    The repetition in a woman's ear\n    Would murther as it fell.\n\n                     Enter Banquo.\n\n    O Banquo, Banquo!\n    Our royal master's murther'd.\n  LADY MACBETH. Woe, alas!\n    What, in our house?\n  BANQUO. Too cruel anywhere.\n    Dear Duff, I prithee, contradict thyself,\n    And say it is not so.\n\n          Re-enter Macbeth and Lennox, with Ross.\n\n  MACBETH. Had I but died an hour before this chance,\n    I had lived a blessed time, for from this instant\n    There's nothing serious in mortality.\n    All is but toys; renown and grace is dead,\n    The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees\n    Is left this vault to brag of.\n\n                Enter Malcolm and Donalbain.\n\n  DONALBAIN. What is amiss?\n  MACBETH. You are, and do not know't.\n    The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood\n    Is stopped, the very source of it is stopp'd.\n  MACDUFF. Your royal father's murther'd.\n   MALCOLM. O, by whom?\n  LENNOX. Those of his chamber, as it seem'd, had done't.\n    Their hands and faces were all badged with blood;\n    So were their daggers, which unwiped we found\n    Upon their pillows.\n    They stared, and were distracted; no man's life\n    Was to be trusted with them.\n  MACBETH. O, yet I do repent me of my fury,\n    That I did kill them.\n  MACDUFF. Wherefore did you so?\n  MACBETH. Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious,\n    Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man.\n    The expedition of my violent love\n    Outrun the pauser reason. Here lay Duncan,\n    His silver skin laced with his golden blood,\n    And his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in nature\n    For ruin's wasteful entrance; there, the murtherers,\n    Steep'd in the colors of their trade, their daggers\n    Unmannerly breech'd with gore. Who could refrain,\n    That had a heart to love, and in that heart\n    Courage to make 's love known?\n  LADY MACBETH. Help me hence, ho!\n  MACDUFF. Look to the lady.\n  MALCOLM. [Aside to Donalbain.] Why do we hold our tongues,\n    That most may claim this argument for ours?\n  DONALBAIN. [Aside to Malcolm.] What should be spoken here, where\n      our fate,\n    Hid in an auger hole, may rush and seize us?\n    Let's away,\n    Our tears are not yet brew'd.\n  MALCOLM. [Aside to Donalbain.] Nor our strong sorrow\n    Upon the foot of motion.\n  BANQUO. Look to the lady.\n                                    Lady Macbeth is carried out.\n    And when we have our naked frailties hid,\n    That suffer in exposure, let us meet\n    And question this most bloody piece of work\n    To know it further. Fears and scruples shake us.\n    In the great hand of God I stand, and thence\n    Against the undivulged pretense I fight\n    Of treasonous malice.\n  MACDUFF. And so do I.\n  ALL. So all.\n  MACBETH. Let's briefly put on manly readiness\n    And meet i' the hall together.\n  ALL. Well contented.\n                           Exeunt all but Malcolm and Donalbain.\n  MALCOLM. What will you do? Let's not consort with them.\n    To show an unfelt sorrow is an office\n    Which the false man does easy. I'll to England.\n  DONALBAIN. To Ireland, I; our separated fortune\n    Shall keep us both the safer. Where we are\n    There's daggers in men's smiles; the near in blood,\n    The nearer bloody.\n  MALCOLM. This murtherous shaft that's shot\n    Hath not yet lighted, and our safest way\n    Is to avoid the aim. Therefore to horse;\n    And let us not be dainty of leave-taking,\n    But shift away. There's warrant in that theft\n    Which steals itself when there's no mercy left.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nOutside Macbeth's castle.\n\nEnter Ross with an Old Man.\n\n  OLD MAN. Threescore and ten I can remember well,\n    Within the volume of which time I have seen\n    Hours dreadful and things strange, but this sore night\n    Hath trifled former knowings.\n  ROSS. Ah, good father,\n    Thou seest the heavens, as troubled with man's act,\n    Threaten his bloody stage. By the clock 'tis day,\n    And yet dark night strangles the traveling lamp.\n    Is't night's predominance, or the day's shame,\n    That darkness does the face of earth entomb,\n    When living light should kiss it?\n  OLD MAN. 'Tis unnatural,\n    Even like the deed that's done. On Tuesday last\n    A falcon towering in her pride of place\n    Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd.\n  ROSS. And Duncan's horses-a thing most strange and certain-\n    Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race,\n    Turn'd wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out,\n    Contending 'gainst obedience, as they would make\n    War with mankind.\n  OLD MAN. 'Tis said they eat each other.\n  ROSS. They did so, to the amazement of mine eyes\n    That look'd upon't.\n\n                     Enter Macduff.\n\n    Here comes the good Macduff.\n    How goes the world, sir, now?\n  MACDUFF. Why, see you not?\n  ROSS. Is't known who did this more than bloody deed?\n  MACDUFF. Those that Macbeth hath slain.\n  ROSS. Alas, the day!\n    What good could they pretend?\n  MACDUFF. They were suborn'd:\n    Malcolm and Donalbain, the King's two sons,\n    Are stol'n away and fled, which puts upon them\n    Suspicion of the deed.\n  ROSS. 'Gainst nature still!\n    Thriftless ambition, that wilt ravin up\n    Thine own life's means! Then 'tis most like\n    The sovereignty will fall upon Macbeth.\n  MACDUFF. He is already named, and gone to Scone\n    To be invested.\n  ROSS. Where is Duncan's body?\n  MACDUFF. Carried to Colmekill,\n    The sacred storehouse of his predecessors\n    And guardian of their bones.\n  ROSS. Will you to Scone?\n  MACDUFF. No, cousin, I'll to Fife.\n  ROSS. Well, I will thither.\n  MACDUFF. Well, may you see things well done there.\n    Adieu,\n    Lest our old robes sit easier than our new!\n  ROSS. Farewell, father.\n  OLD MAN. God's benison go with you and with those\n    That would make good of bad and friends of foes!\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nForres. The palace.\n\nEnter Banquo.\n\n  BANQUO. Thou hast it now: King, Cawdor, Glamis, all,\n    As the weird women promised, and I fear\n    Thou play'dst most foully for't; yet it was said\n    It should not stand in thy posterity,\n    But that myself should be the root and father\n    Of many kings. If there come truth from them\n    (As upon thee, Macbeth, their speeches shine)\n    Why, by the verities on thee made good,\n    May they not be my oracles as well\n    And set me up in hope? But hush, no more.\n\n      Sennet sounds. Enter Macbeth as King, Lady Macbeth\n    as Queen, Lennox, Ross, Lords, Ladies, and Attendants.\n\n  MACBETH. Here's our chief guest.\n  LADY MACBETH. If he had been forgotten,\n    It had been as a gap in our great feast\n    And all thing unbecoming.\n  MACBETH. Tonight we hold a solemn supper, sir,\n    And I'll request your presence.\n  BANQUO. Let your Highness\n    Command upon me, to the which my duties\n    Are with a most indissoluble tie\n    Forever knit.\n  MACBETH. Ride you this afternoon?\n  BANQUO. Ay, my good lord.\n  MACBETH. We should have else desired your good advice,\n    Which still hath been both grave and prosperous\n    In this day's council; but we'll take tomorrow.\n    Is't far you ride'!\n  BANQUO. As far, my lord, as will fill up the time\n    'Twixt this and supper. Go not my horse the better,\n    I must become a borrower of the night\n    For a dark hour or twain.\n  MACBETH. Fail not our feast.\n  BANQUO. My lord, I will not.\n  MACBETH. We hear our bloody cousins are bestow'd\n    In England and in Ireland, not confessing\n    Their cruel parricide, filling their hearers\n    With strange invention. But of that tomorrow,\n    When therewithal we shall have cause of state\n    Craving us jointly. Hie you to horse; adieu,\n    Till you return at night. Goes Fleance with you?\n  BANQUO. Ay, my good lord. Our time does call upon 's.\n  MACBETH. I wish your horses swift and sure of foot,\n    And so I do commend you to their backs.\n    Farewell.                                       Exit Banquo.\n    Let every man be master of his time\n    Till seven at night; to make society\n    The sweeter welcome, we will keep ourself\n    Till supper time alone. While then, God be with you!\n                        Exeunt all but Macbeth and an Attendant.\n    Sirrah, a word with you. Attend those men\n    Our pleasure?\n  ATTENDANT. They are, my lord, without the palace gate.\n  MACBETH. Bring them before us.                 Exit Attendant.\n    To be thus is nothing,\n    But to be safely thus. Our fears in Banquo.\n    Stick deep, and in his royalty of nature\n    Reigns that which would be fear'd. 'Tis much he dares,\n    And, to that dauntless temper of his mind,\n    He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valor\n    To act in safety. There is none but he\n    Whose being I do fear; and under him\n    My genius is rebuked, as it is said\n    Mark Antony's was by Caesar. He chid the sisters\n    When first they put the name of King upon me\n    And bade them speak to him; then prophet-like\n    They hail'd him father to a line of kings.\n    Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown\n    And put a barren sceptre in my gripe,\n    Thence to be wrench'd with an unlineal hand,\n    No son of mine succeeding. If't be so,\n    For Banquo's issue have I filed my mind,\n    For them the gracious Duncan have I murther'd,\n    Put rancors in the vessel of my peace\n    Only for them, and mine eternal jewel\n    Given to the common enemy of man,\n    To make them kings -the seed of Banquo kings!\n    Rather than so, come, Fate, into the list,\n    And champion me to the utterance! Who's there?\n\n        Re-enter Attendant, with two Murtherers.\n\n    Now go to the door, and stay there till we call.\n                                                 Exit Attendant.\n    Was it not yesterday we spoke together?\n  FIRST MURTHERER. It was, so please your Highness.\n  MACBETH. Well then, now\n    Have you consider'd of my speeches? Know\n    That it was he in the times past which held you\n    So under fortune, which you thought had been\n    Our innocent self? This I made good to you\n    In our last conference, pass'd in probation with you:\n    How you were borne in hand, how cross'd, the instruments,\n    Who wrought with them, and all things else that might\n    To half a soul and to a notion crazed\n    Say, \"Thus did Banquo.\"\n  FIRST MURTHERER. You made it known to us.\n  MACBETH. I did so, and went further, which is now\n    Our point of second meeting. Do you find\n    Your patience so predominant in your nature,\n    That you can let this go? Are you so gospel'd,\n    To pray for this good man and for his issue,\n    Whose heavy hand hath bow'd you to the grave\n    And beggar'd yours forever?\n  FIRST MURTHERER. We are men, my liege.\n  MACBETH. Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men,\n    As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs,\n    Shoughs, waterrugs, and demi-wolves are clept\n    All by the name of dogs. The valued file\n    Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle,\n    The housekeeper, the hunter, every one\n    According to the gift which bounteous nature\n    Hath in him closed, whereby he does receive\n    Particular addition, from the bill\n    That writes them all alike; and so of men.\n    Now if you have a station in the file,\n    Not i' the worst rank of manhood, say it,\n    And I will put that business in your bosoms\n    Whose execution takes your enemy off,\n    Grapples you to the heart and love of us,\n    Who wear our health but sickly in his life,\n    Which in his death were perfect.\n  SECOND MURTHERER. I am one, my liege,\n    Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world\n    Have so incensed that I am reckless what\n    I do to spite the world.\n  FIRST MURTHERER. And I another\n    So weary with disasters, tugg'd with fortune,\n    That I would set my life on any chance,\n    To mend it or be rid on't.\n  MACBETH. Both of you\n    Know Banquo was your enemy.\n  BOTH MURTHERERS. True, my lord.\n  MACBETH. So is he mine, and in such bloody distance\n    That every minute of his being thrusts\n    Against my near'st of life; and though I could\n    With barefaced power sweep him from my sight\n    And bid my will avouch it, yet I must not,\n    For certain friends that are both his and mine,\n    Whose loves I may not drop, but wail his fall\n    Who I myself struck down. And thence it is\n    That I to your assistance do make love,\n    Masking the business from the common eye\n    For sundry weighty reasons.\n  SECOND MURTHERER. We shall, my lord,\n    Perform what you command us.\n  FIRST MURTHERER. Though our lives-\n  MACBETH. Your spirits shine through you. Within this hour at most\n    I will advise you where to plant yourselves,\n    Acquaint you with the perfect spy o' the time,\n    The moment on't; fort must be done tonight\n    And something from the palace (always thought\n    That I require a clearness); and with him-\n    To leave no rubs nor botches in the work-\n    Fleance his son, that keeps him company,\n    Whose absence is no less material to me\n    Than is his father's, must embrace the fate\n    Of that dark hour. Resolve yourselves apart;\n    I'll come to you anon.\n  BOTH MURTHERERS. We are resolved, my lord.\n  MACBETH. I'll call upon you straight. Abide within.\n                                              Exeunt Murtherers.\n    It is concluded: Banquo, thy soul's flight,\n    If it find heaven, must find it out tonight.           Exit.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe palace.\n\nEnter Lady Macbeth and a Servant.\n\n  LADY MACBETH. Is Banquo gone from court?\n  SERVANT. Ay, madam, but returns again tonight.\n  LADY MACBETH. Say to the King I would attend his leisure\n    For a few words.\n  SERVANT. Madam, I will.                                  Exit.\n  LADY MACBETH. Nought's had, all's spent,\n    Where our desire is got without content.\n    'Tis safer to be that which we destroy\n    Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.\n\n                    Enter Macbeth.\n\n    How now, my lord? Why do you keep alone,\n    Of sorriest fancies your companions making,\n    Using those thoughts which should indeed have died\n    With them they think on? Things without all remedy\n    Should be without regard. What's done is done.\n  MACBETH. We have scotch'd the snake, not kill'd it.\n    She'll close and be herself, whilst our poor malice\n    Remains in danger of her former tooth.\n    But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer,\n    Ere we will eat our meal in fear and sleep\n    In the affliction of these terrible dreams\n    That shake us nightly. Better be with the dead,\n    Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,\n    Than on the torture of the mind to lie\n    In restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave;\n    After life's fitful fever he sleeps well.\n    Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison,\n    Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,\n    Can touch him further.\n  LADY MACBETH. Come on,\n    Gentle my lord, sleek o'er your rugged looks;\n    Be bright and jovial among your guests tonight.\n  MACBETH. So shall I, love, and so, I pray, be you.\n    Let your remembrance apply to Banquo;\n    Present him eminence, both with eye and tongue:\n    Unsafe the while, that we\n    Must lave our honors in these flattering streams,\n    And make our faces vizards to our hearts,\n    Disguising what they are.\n  LADY MACBETH. You must leave this.\n  MACBETH. O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!\n    Thou know'st that Banquo and his Fleance lives.\n  LADY MACBETH. But in them nature's copy's not eterne.\n  MACBETH. There's comfort yet; they are assailable.\n    Then be thou jocund. Ere the bat hath flown\n    His cloister'd flight, ere to black Hecate's summons\n    The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums\n    Hath rung night's yawning peal, there shall be done\n    A deed of dreadful note.\n  LADY MACBETH. What's to be done?\n  MACBETH. Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,\n    Till thou applaud the deed. Come, seeling night,\n    Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day,\n    And with thy bloody and invisible hand\n    Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond\n    Which keeps me pale! Light thickens, and the crow\n    Makes wing to the rooky wood;\n    Good things of day begin to droop and drowse,\n    Whiles night's black agents to their preys do rouse.\n    Thou marvel'st at my words, but hold thee still:\n    Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.\n    So, prithee, go with me.                             Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nA park near the palace.\n\nEnter three Murtherers.\n\n  FIRST MURTHERER. But who did bid thee join with us?\n  THIRD MURTHERER. Macbeth.\n  SECOND MURTHERER. He needs not our mistrust, since he delivers\n    Our offices and what we have to do\n    To the direction just.\n  FIRST MURTHERER. Then stand with us.\n    The west yet glimmers with some streaks of day;\n    Now spurs the lated traveler apace\n    To gain the timely inn, and near approaches\n    The subject of our watch.\n  THIRD MURTHERER. Hark! I hear horses.\n  BANQUO. [Within.] Give us a light there, ho!\n  SECOND MURTHERER. Then 'tis he; the rest\n    That are within the note of expectation\n    Already are i' the court.\n  FIRST MURTHERER. His horses go about.\n  THIRD MURTHERER. Almost a mile, but he does usually-\n    So all men do -from hence to the palace gate\n    Make it their walk.\n  SECOND MURTHERER. A light, a light!\n\n              Enter Banquo, and Fleance with a torch.\n\n  THIRD MURTHERER. 'Tis he.\n  FIRST MURTHERER. Stand to't.\n  BANQUO. It will be rain tonight.\n  FIRST MURTHERER. Let it come down.\n                                           They set upon Banquo.\n  BANQUO. O, treachery! Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly!\n    Thou mayst revenge. O slave!          Dies. Fleance escapes.\n  THIRD MURTHERER. Who did strike out the light?\n  FIRST MURTHERER. Wast not the way?\n  THIRD MURTHERER. There's but one down; the son is fled.\n  SECOND MURTHERER. We have lost\n    Best half of our affair.\n  FIRST MURTHERER. Well, let's away and say how much is done.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nA Hall in the palace. A banquet prepared.\n\nEnter Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Ross, Lennox, Lords, and Attendants.\n\n  MACBETH. You know your own degrees; sit down. At first\n    And last the hearty welcome.\n  LORDS. Thanks to your Majesty.\n  MACBETH. Ourself will mingle with society\n    And play the humble host.\n    Our hostess keeps her state, but in best time\n    We will require her welcome.\n  LADY MACBETH. Pronounce it for me, sir, to all our friends,\n    For my heart speaks they are welcome.\n\n                Enter first Murtherer to the door.\n\n  MACBETH. See, they encounter thee with their hearts' thanks.\n    Both sides are even; here I'll sit i' the midst.\n    Be large in mirth; anon we'll drink a measure\n    The table round. [Approaches the door.] There's blood upon thy\n      face.\n  MURTHERER. 'Tis Banquo's then.\n  MACBETH. 'Tis better thee without than he within.\n    Is he dispatch'd?\n  MURTHERER. My lord, his throat is cut; that I did for him.\n  MACBETH. Thou art the best o' the cut-throats! Yet he's good\n    That did the like for Fleance. If thou didst it,\n    Thou art the nonpareil.\n  MURTHERER. Most royal sir,\n    Fleance is 'scaped.\n  MACBETH. [Aside.] Then comes my fit again. I had else been perfect,\n    Whole as the marble, founded as the rock,\n    As broad and general as the casing air;\n    But now I am cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd, bound in\n    To saucy doubts and fears -But Banquo's safe?\n  MURTHERER. Ay, my good lord. Safe in a ditch he bides,\n    With twenty trenched gashes on his head,\n    The least a death to nature.\n  MACBETH. Thanks for that.\n    There the grown serpent lies; the worm that's fled\n    Hath nature that in time will venom breed,\n    No teeth for the present. Get thee gone. Tomorrow\n    We'll hear ourselves again.\n                                                 Exit Murtherer.\n  LADY MACBETH. My royal lord,\n    You do not give the cheer. The feast is sold\n    That is not often vouch'd, while 'tis amaking,\n    'Tis given with welcome. To feed were best at home;\n    From thence the sauce to meat is ceremony;\n    Meeting were bare without it.\n  MACBETH. Sweet remembrancer!\n    Now good digestion wait on appetite,\n    And health on both!\n  LENNOX. May't please your Highness sit.\n\n      The Ghost of Banquo enters and sits in Macbeth's place.\n\n  MACBETH. Here had we now our country's honor roof'd,\n    Were the graced person of our Banquo present,\n    Who may I rather challenge for unkindness\n    Than pity for mischance!\n  ROSS. His absence, sir,\n    Lays blame upon his promise. Please't your Highness\n    To grace us with your royal company?\n  MACBETH. The table's full.\n  LENNOX. Here is a place reserved, sir.\n  MACBETH. Where?\n  LENNOX. Here, my good lord. What is't that moves your Highness?\n  MACBETH. Which of you have done this?\n  LORDS. What, my good lord?\n  MACBETH. Thou canst not say I did it; never shake\n    Thy gory locks at me.\n  ROSS. Gentlemen, rise; his Highness is well.\n  LADY MACBETH. Sit, worthy friends; my lord is often thus,\n    And hath been from his youth. Pray you, keep seat.\n    The fit is momentary; upon a thought\n    He will again be well. If much you note him,\n    You shall offend him and extend his passion.\n    Feed, and regard him not-Are you a man?\n  MACBETH. Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that\n    Which might appal the devil.\n  LADY MACBETH. O proper stuff!\n    This is the very painting of your fear;\n    This is the air-drawn dagger which you said\n    Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws and starts,\n    Impostors to true fear, would well become\n    A woman's story at a winter's fire,\n    Authorized by her grandam. Shame itself!\n    Why do you make such faces? When all's done,\n    You look but on a stool.\n  MACBETH. Prithee, see there! Behold! Look! Lo! How say you?\n    Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too.\n    If charnel houses and our graves must send\n    Those that we bury back, our monuments\n    Shall be the maws of kites.                      Exit Ghost.\n  LADY MACBETH. What, quite unmann'd in folly?\n  MACBETH. If I stand here, I saw him.\n  LADY MACBETH. Fie, for shame!\n  MACBETH. Blood hath been shed ere now, i' the olden time,\n    Ere humane statute purged the gentle weal;\n    Ay, and since too, murthers have been perform'd\n    Too terrible for the ear. The time has been,\n    That, when the brains were out, the man would die,\n    And there an end; but now they rise again,\n    With twenty mortal murthers on their crowns,\n    And push us from our stools. This is more strange\n    Than such a murther is.\n  LADY MACBETH. My worthy lord,\n    Your noble friends do lack you.\n  MACBETH. I do forget.\n    Do not muse at me, my most worthy friends.\n    I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing\n    To those that know me. Come, love and health to all;\n    Then I'll sit down. Give me some wine, fill full.\n    I drink to the general joy o' the whole table,\n    And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss.\n    Would he were here! To all and him we thirst,\n    And all to all.\n  LORDS. Our duties and the pledge.\n\n                     Re-enter Ghost.\n\n  MACBETH. Avaunt, and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee!\n    Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;\n    Thou hast no speculation in those eyes\n    Which thou dost glare with.\n  LADY MACBETH. Think of this, good peers,\n    But as a thing of custom. 'Tis no other,\n    Only it spoils the pleasure of the time.\n  MACBETH. What man dare, I dare.\n    Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,\n    The arm'd rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger;\n    Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves\n    Shall never tremble. Or be alive again,\n    And dare me to the desert with thy sword.\n    If trembling I inhabit then, protest me\n    The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow!\n    Unreal mockery, hence!                           Exit Ghost.\n    Why, so, being gone,\n    I am a man again. Pray you sit still.\n  LADY MACBETH. You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting,\n    With most admired disorder.\n  MACBETH. Can such things be,\n    And overcome us like a summer's cloud,\n    Without our special wonder? You make me strange\n    Even to the disposition that I owe\n    When now I think you can behold such sights\n    And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks\n    When mine is blanch'd with fear.\n  ROSS. What sights, my lord?\n  LADY MACBETH. I pray you, speak not; he grows worse and worse;\n    Question enrages him. At once, good night.\n    Stand not upon the order of your going,\n    But go at once.\n  LENNOX. Good night, and better health\n    Attend his Majesty!\n  LADY MACBETH. A kind good night to all!\n                        Exeunt all but Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.\n  MACBETH. will have blood; they say blood will have blood.\n    Stones have been known to move and trees to speak;\n    Augures and understood relations have\n    By maggot pies and choughs and rooks brought forth\n    The secret'st man of blood. What is the night?\n  LADY MACBETH. Almost at odds with morning, which is which.\n  MACBETH. How say'st thou, that Macduff denies his person\n    At our great bidding?\n  LADY MACBETH. Did you send to him, sir?\n  MACBETH. I hear it by the way, but I will send.\n    There's not a one of them but in his house\n    I keep a servant feed. I will tomorrow,\n    And betimes I will, to the weird sisters.\n    More shall they speak; for now I am bent to know,\n    By the worst means, the worst. For mine own good\n    All causes shall give way. I am in blood\n    Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more,\n    Returning were as tedious as go o'er.\n    Strange things I have in head that will to hand,\n    Which must be acted ere they may be scann'd.\n  LADY MACBETH. You lack the season of all natures, sleep.\n  MACBETH. Come, we'll to sleep. My strange and self-abuse\n    Is the initiate fear that wants hard use.\n    We are yet but young in deed.                       Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nA heath. Thunder.\n\nEnter the three Witches, meeting Hecate.\n\n  FIRST WITCH. Why, how now, Hecate? You look angerly.\n  HECATE. Have I not reason, beldams as you are,\n    Saucy and overbold? How did you dare\n    To trade and traffic with Macbeth\n    In riddles and affairs of death,\n    And I, the mistress of your charms,\n    The close contriver of all harms,\n    Was never call'd to bear my part,\n    Or show the glory of our art?\n    And, which is worse, all you have done\n    Hath been but for a wayward son,\n    Spiteful and wrathful, who, as others do,\n    Loves for his own ends, not for you.\n    But make amends now. Get you gone,\n    And at the pit of Acheron\n    Meet me i' the morning. Thither he\n    Will come to know his destiny.\n    Your vessels and your spells provide,\n    Your charms and everything beside.\n    I am for the air; this night I'll spend\n    Unto a dismal and a fatal end.\n    Great business must be wrought ere noon:\n    Upon the corner of the moon\n    There hangs a vaporous drop profound;\n    I'll catch it ere it come to ground.\n    And that distill'd by magic sleights\n    Shall raise such artificial sprites\n    As by the strength of their illusion\n    Shall draw him on to his confusion.\n    He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear\n    His hopes 'bove wisdom, grace, and fear.\n    And you all know security\n    Is mortals' chiefest enemy.\n                                        Music and a song within,\n                                         \"Come away, come away.\"\n    Hark! I am call'd; my little spirit, see,\n    Sits in a foggy cloud and stays for me.                Exit.\n  FIRST WITCH. Come, let's make haste; she'll soon be back again.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nForres. The palace.\n\nEnter Lennox and another Lord.\n\n  LENNOX. My former speeches have but hit your thoughts,\n    Which can interpret farther; only I say\n    Thing's have been strangely borne. The gracious Duncan\n    Was pitied of Macbeth; marry, he was dead.\n    And the right valiant Banquo walk'd too late,\n    Whom, you may say, if't please you, Fleance kill'd,\n    For Fleance fled. Men must not walk too late.\n    Who cannot want the thought, how monstrous\n    It was for Malcolm and for Donalbain\n    To kill their gracious father? Damned fact!\n    How it did grieve Macbeth! Did he not straight,\n    In pious rage, the two delinquents tear\n    That were the slaves of drink and thralls of sleep?\n    Was not that nobly done? Ay, and wisely too,\n    For 'twould have anger'd any heart alive\n    To hear the men deny't. So that, I say,\n    He has borne all things well; and I do think\n    That, had he Duncan's sons under his key-\n    As, an't please heaven, he shall not -they should find\n    What 'twere to kill a father; so should Fleance.\n    But, peace! For from broad words, and 'cause he fail'd\n    His presence at the tyrant's feast, I hear,\n    Macduff lives in disgrace. Sir, can you tell\n    Where he bestows himself?\n  LORD. The son of Duncan,\n    From whom this tyrant holds the due of birth,\n    Lives in the English court and is received\n    Of the most pious Edward with such grace\n    That the malevolence of fortune nothing\n    Takes from his high respect. Thither Macduff\n    Is gone to pray the holy King, upon his aid\n    To wake Northumberland and warlike Siward;\n    That by the help of these, with Him above\n    To ratify the work, we may again\n    Give to our tables meat, sleep to our nights,\n    Free from our feasts and banquets bloody knives,\n    Do faithful homage, and receive free honors-\n    All which we pine for now. And this report\n    Hath so exasperate the King that he\n    Prepares for some attempt of war.\n  LENNOX. Sent he to Macduff?\n  LORD. He did, and with an absolute \"Sir, not I,\"\n    The cloudy messenger turns me his back,\n    And hums, as who should say, \"You'll rue the time\n    That clogs me with this answer.\"\n  LENNOX. And that well might\n    Advise him to a caution, to hold what distance\n    His wisdom can provide. Some holy angel\n    Fly to the court of England and unfold\n    His message ere he come, that a swift blessing\n    May soon return to this our suffering country\n    Under a hand accursed!\n  LORD. I'll send my prayers with him.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nA cavern. In the middle, a boiling cauldron. Thunder.\n\nEnter the three Witches.\n  FIRST WITCH. Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.\n  SECOND WITCH. Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.\n  THIRD WITCH. Harpier cries, \"'Tis time, 'tis time.\"\n  FIRST WITCH. Round about the cauldron go;\n    In the poison'd entrails throw.\n    Toad, that under cold stone\n    Days and nights has thirty-one\n    Swelter'd venom sleeping got,\n    Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.\n  ALL. Double, double, toil and trouble;\n    Fire burn and cauldron bubble.\n  SECOND WITCH. Fillet of a fenny snake,\n    In the cauldron boil and bake;\n    Eye of newt and toe of frog,\n    Wool of bat and tongue of dog,\n    Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,\n    Lizard's leg and howlet's wing,\n    For a charm of powerful trouble,\n    Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.\n  ALL. Double, double, toil and trouble;\n    Fire burn and cauldron bubble.\n  THIRD WITCH. Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,\n    Witch's mummy, maw and gulf\n    Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,\n    Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark,\n    Liver of blaspheming Jew,\n    Gall of goat and slips of yew\n    Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse,\n    Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips,\n    Finger of birth-strangled babe\n    Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,\n    Make the gruel thick and slab.\n    Add thereto a tiger's chawdron,\n    For the ingredients of our cawdron.\n  ALL. Double, double, toil and trouble;\n    Fire burn and cauldron bubble.\n  SECOND WITCH. Cool it with a baboon's blood,\n    Then the charm is firm and good.\n\n            Enter Hecate to the other three Witches.\n\n  HECATE. O, well done! I commend your pains,\n    And everyone shall share i' the gains.\n    And now about the cauldron sing,\n    Like elves and fairies in a ring,\n    Enchanting all that you put in.\n                              Music and a song, \"Black spirits.\"\n                                                 Hecate retires.\n  SECOND WITCH. By the pricking of my thumbs,\n    Something wicked this way comes.\n    Open, locks,\n    Whoever knocks!\n\n                      Enter Macbeth.\n\n  MACBETH. How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags?\n    What is't you do?\n  ALL. A deed without a name.\n  MACBETH. I conjure you, by that which you profess\n    (Howeer you come to know it) answer me:\n    Though you untie the winds and let them fight\n    Against the churches, though the yesty waves\n    Confound and swallow navigation up,\n    Though bladed corn be lodged and trees blown down,\n    Though castles topple on their warders' heads,\n    Though palaces and pyramids do slope\n    Their heads to their foundations, though the treasure\n    Of nature's germaines tumble all together\n    Even till destruction sicken, answer me\n    To what I ask you.\n  FIRST WITCH. Speak.\n  SECOND WITCH. Demand.\n  THIRD WITCH. We'll answer.\n  FIRST WITCH. Say, if thou'dst rather hear it from our mouths,\n    Or from our masters'?\n  MACBETH. Call 'em, let me see 'em.\n  FIRST WITCH. Pour in sow's blood that hath eaten\n    Her nine farrow; grease that's sweaten\n    From the murtherer's gibbet throw\n    Into the flame.\n  ALL. Come, high or low;\n    Thyself and office deftly show!\n\n            Thunder. First Apparition: an armed Head.\n\n  MACBETH. Tell me, thou unknown power-\n  FIRST WITCH. He knows thy thought:\n    Hear his speech, but say thou nought.\n  FIRST APPARITION. Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! Beware Macduff,\n    Beware the Thane of Fife. Dismiss me. Enough.\n                                                       Descends.\n  MACBETH. Whate'er thou art, for thy good caution, thanks;\n    Thou hast harp'd my fear aright. But one word more-\n  FIRST WITCH. He will not be commanded. Here's another,\n    More potent than the first.\n\n          Thunder. Second Apparition: a bloody Child.\n\n  SECOND APPARITION. Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth!\n  MACBETH. Had I three ears, I'd hear thee.\n  SECOND APPARITION. Be bloody, bold, and resolute: laugh to scorn\n    The power of man, for none of woman born\n    Shall harm Macbeth.                                Descends.\n  MACBETH. Then live, Macduff. What need I fear of thee?\n    But yet I'll make assurance double sure,\n    And take a bond of fate: thou shalt not live,\n    That I may tell pale-hearted fear it lies,\n    And sleep in spite of thunder.\n\n       Thunder. Third Apparition: a Child crowned,\n               with a tree in his hand.\n\n    What is this,\n    That rises like the issue of a king,\n    And wears upon his baby brow the round\n    And top of sovereignty?\n  ALL. Listen, but speak not to't.\n  THIRD APPARITION. Be lion-mettled, proud, and take no care\n    Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are.\n    Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until\n    Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill\n    Shall come against him.                            Descends.\n  MACBETH. That will never be.\n    Who can impress the forest, bid the tree\n    Unfix his earth-bound root? Sweet bodements, good!\n    Rebellion's head, rise never till the Wood\n    Of Birnam rise, and our high-placed Macbeth\n    Shall live the lease of nature, pay his breath\n    To time and mortal custom. Yet my heart\n    Throbs to know one thing: tell me, if your art\n    Can tell so much, shall Banquo's issue ever\n    Reign in this kingdom?\n  ALL. Seek to know no more.\n  MACBETH. I will be satisfied! Deny me this,\n    And an eternal curse fall on you! Let me know.\n    Why sinks that cauldron, and what noise is this?\n                                                       Hautboys.\n  FIRST WITCH. Show!\n  SECOND WITCH. Show!\n  THIRD. WITCH. Show!\n  ALL. Show his eyes, and grieve his heart;\n    Come like shadows, so depart!\n\n    A show of eight Kings, the last with a glass in his hand;\n                   Banquo's Ghost following.\n\n  MACBETH. Thou are too like the spirit of Banquo Down!\n    Thy crown does sear mine eyeballs. And thy hair,\n    Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first.\n    A third is like the former. Filthy hags!\n    Why do you show me this? A fourth! Start, eyes!\n    What, will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?\n    Another yet! A seventh! I'll see no more!\n    And yet the eighth appears, who bears a glass\n    Which shows me many more; and some I see\n    That twofold balls and treble sceptres carry.\n    Horrible sight! Now I see 'tis true;\n    For the blood-bolter'd Banquo smiles upon me,\n    And points at them for his. What, is this so?\n  FIRST WITCH. Ay, sir, all this is so. But why\n    Stands Macbeth thus amazedly?\n    Come,sisters, cheer we up his sprites,\n    And show the best of our delights.\n    I'll charm the air to give a sound,\n    While you perform your antic round,\n    That this great King may kindly say\n    Our duties did his welcome pay.\n                                    Music. The Witches dance and\n                                        then vanish with Hecate.\n  MACBETH. are they? Gone? Let this pernicious hour\n    Stand ay accursed in the calendar!\n    Come in, without there!\n\n                    Enter Lennox.\n\n  LENNOX. What's your Grace's will?\n  MACBETH. Saw you the weird sisters?\n  LENNOX. No, my lord.\n  MACBETH. Came they not by you?\n  LENNOX. No indeed, my lord.\n  MACBETH. Infected be the 'air whereon they ride,\n    And damn'd all those that trust them! I did hear\n    The galloping of horse. Who wast came by?\n  LENNOX. 'Tis two or three, my lord, that bring you word\n    Macduff is fled to England.\n  MACBETH. Fled to England?\n  LENNOX. Ay, my good lord.\n  MACBETH. [Aside.] Time, thou anticipatest my dread exploits.\n    The flighty purpose never is o'ertook\n    Unless the deed go with it. From this moment\n    The very firstlings of my heart shall be\n    The firstlings of my hand. And even now,\n    To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done:\n    The castle of Macduff I will surprise,\n    Seize upon Fife, give to the edge o' the sword\n    His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls\n    That trace him in his line. No boasting like a fool;\n    This deed I'll do before this purpose cool.\n    But no more sights! -Where are these gentlemen?\n    Come, bring me where they are.                       Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nFife. Macduff's castle.\n\nEnter Lady Macduff, her Son, and Ross.\n\n  LADY MACDUFF. What had he done, to make him fly the land?\n  ROSS. You must have patience, madam.\n  LADY MACDUFF. He had none;\n    His flight was madness. When our actions do not,\n    Our fears do make us traitors.\n  ROSS. You know not\n    Whether it was his wisdom or his fear.\n  LADY MACDUFF. Wisdom? To leave his wife, to leave his babes,\n    His mansion, and his titles, in a place\n    From whence himself does fly? He loves us not;\n    He wants the natural touch; for the poor wren,\n    The most diminutive of birds, will fight,\n    Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.\n    All is the fear and nothing is the love;\n    As little is the wisdom, where the flight\n    So runs against all reason.\n  ROSS. My dearest coz,\n    I pray you, school yourself. But for your husband,\n    He is noble, wise, Judicious, and best knows\n    The fits o' the season. I dare not speak much further;\n    But cruel are the times when we are traitors\n    And do not know ourselves; when we hold rumor\n    From what we fear, yet know not what we fear,\n    But float upon a wild and violent sea\n    Each way and move. I take my leave of you;\n    Shall not be long but I'll be here again.\n    Things at the worst will cease or else climb upward\n    To what they were before. My pretty cousin,\n    Blessing upon you!\n  LADY MACDUFF. Father'd he is, and yet he's fatherless.\n  ROSS. I am so much a fool, should I stay longer,\n    It would be my disgrace and your discomfort.\n    I take my leave at once.                               Exit.\n  LADY MACDUFF. Sirrah, your father's dead.\n    And what will you do now? How will you live?\n  SON. As birds do, Mother.\n  LADY MACDUFF. What, with worms and flies?\n  SON. With what I get, I mean; and so do they.\n  LADY MACDUFF. Poor bird! Thou'ldst never fear the net nor lime,\n    The pitfall nor the gin.\n  SON. Why should I, Mother? Poor birds they are not set for.\n    My father is not dead, for all your saying.\n  LADY MACDUFF. Yes, he is dead. How wilt thou do for father?\n  SON. Nay, how will you do for a husband?\n  LADY MACDUFF. Why, I can buy me twenty at any market.\n  SON. Then you'll buy 'em to sell again.\n  LADY MACDUFF. Thou speak'st with all thy wit, and yet, i' faith,\n    With wit enough for thee.\n  SON. Was my father a traitor, Mother?\n  LADY MACDUFF. Ay, that he was.\n  SON. What is a traitor?\n  LADY MACDUFF. Why one that swears and lies.\n  SON. And be all traitors that do so?\n  LADY MACDUFF. Everyone that does so is a traitor and must be\n     hanged.\n  SON. And must they all be hanged that swear and lie?\n  LADY MACDUFF. Everyone.\n  SON. Who must hang them?\n  LADY MACDUFF. Why, the honest men.\n  SON. Then the liars and swearers are fools, for there are liars and\n    swearers enow to beat the honest men and hang up them.\n  LADY MACDUFF. Now, God help thee, poor monkey! But how wilt thou do\n    for a father?\n  SON. If he were dead, you'ld weep for him; if you would not, it\n    were a good sign that I should quickly have a new father.\n  LADY MACDUFF. Poor prattler, how thou talk'st!\n\n                    Enter a Messenger.\n\n  MESSENGER. Bless you, fair dame! I am not to you known,\n    Though in your state of honor I am perfect.\n    I doubt some danger does approach you nearly.\n    If you will take a homely man's advice,\n    Be not found here; hence, with your little ones.\n    To fright you thus, methinks I am too savage;\n    To do worse to you were fell cruelty,\n    Which is too nigh your person. Heaven preserve you!\n    I dare abide no longer.                                Exit.\n  LADY MACDUFF. Whither should I fly?\n    I have done no harm. But I remember now\n    I am in this earthly world, where to do harm\n    Is often laudable, to do good sometime\n    Accounted dangerous folly. Why then, alas,\n    Do I put up that womanly defense,\n    To say I have done no harm -What are these faces?\n\n                      Enter Murtherers.\n\n  FIRST MURTHERER. Where is your husband?\n  LADY MACDUFF. I hope, in no place so unsanctified\n    Where such as thou mayst find him.\n  FIRST MURTHERER. He's a traitor.\n  SON. Thou liest, thou shag-ear'd villain!\n  FIRST MURTHERER. What, you egg!\n                                                      Stabs him.\n    Young fry of treachery!\n  SON. He has kill'd me, Mother.\n    Run away, I pray you!                                  Dies.\n                            Exit Lady Macduff, crying \"Murther!\"\n                               Exeunt Murtherers, following her.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nEngland. Before the King's palace.\n\nEnter Malcolm and Macduff.\n\n  MALCOLM. Let us seek out some desolate shade and there\n    Weep our sad bosoms empty.\n  MACDUFF. Let us rather\n    Hold fast the mortal sword, and like good men\n    Bestride our downfall'n birthdom. Each new morn\n    New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows\n    Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds\n    As if it felt with Scotland and yell'd out\n    Like syllable of dolor.\n  MALCOLM. What I believe, I'll wall;\n    What know, believe; and what I can redress,\n    As I shall find the time to friend, I will.\n    What you have spoke, it may be so perchance.\n    This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues,\n    Was once thought honest. You have loved him well;\n    He hath not touch'd you yet. I am young, but something\n    You may deserve of him through me, and wisdom\n    To offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb\n    To appease an angry god.\n  MACDUFF. I am not treacherous.\n  MALCOLM. But Macbeth is.\n    A good and virtuous nature may recoil\n    In an imperial charge. But I shall crave your pardon;\n    That which you are, my thoughts cannot transpose.\n    Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell.\n    Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace,\n    Yet grace must still look so.\n  MACDUFF. I have lost my hopes.\n  MALCOLM. Perchance even there where I did find my doubts.\n    Why in that rawness left you wife and child,\n    Those precious motives, those strong knots of love,\n    Without leave-taking? I pray you,\n    Let not my jealousies be your dishonors,\n    But mine own safeties. You may be rightly just,\n    Whatever I shall think.\n  MACDUFF. Bleed, bleed, poor country!\n    Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure,\n    For goodness dare not check thee. Wear thou thy wrongs;\n    The title is affeer'd. Fare thee well, lord.\n    I would not be the villain that thou think'st\n    For the whole space that's in the tyrant's grasp\n    And the rich East to boot.\n  MALCOLM. Be not offended;\n    I speak not as in absolute fear of you.\n    I think our country sinks beneath the yoke;\n    It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash\n    Is added to her wounds. I think withal\n    There would be hands uplifted in my right;\n    And here from gracious England have I offer\n    Of goodly thousands. But for all this,\n    When I shall tread upon the tyrant's head,\n    Or wear it on my sword, yet my poor country\n    Shall have more vices than it had before,\n    More suffer and more sundry ways than ever,\n    By him that shall succeed.\n  MACDUFF. What should he be?\n  MALCOLM. It is myself I mean, in whom I know\n    All the particulars of vice so grafted\n    That, when they shall be open'd, black Macbeth\n    Will seem as pure as snow, and the poor state\n    Esteem him as a lamb, being compared\n    With my confineless harms.\n  MACDUFF. Not in the legions\n    Of horrid hell can come a devil more damn'd\n    In evils to top Macbeth.\n  MALCOLM. I grant him bloody,\n    Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful,\n    Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin\n    That has a name. But there's no bottom, none,\n    In my voluptuousness. Your wives, your daughters,\n    Your matrons, and your maids could not fill up\n    The cestern of my lust, and my desire\n    All continent impediments would o'erbear\n    That did oppose my will. Better Macbeth\n    Than such an one to reign.\n  MACDUFF. Boundless intemperance\n    In nature is a tyranny; it hath been\n    The untimely emptying of the happy throne,\n    And fall of many kings. But fear not yet\n    To take upon you what is yours. You may\n    Convey your pleasures in a spacious plenty\n    And yet seem cold, the time you may so hoodwink.\n    We have willing dames enough; there cannot be\n    That vulture in you to devour so many\n    As will to greatness dedicate themselves,\n    Finding it so inclined.\n  MALCOLM. With this there grows\n    In my most ill-composed affection such\n    A stanchless avarice that, were I King,\n    I should cut off the nobles for their lands,\n    Desire his jewels and this other's house,\n    And my more-having would be as a sauce\n    To make me hunger more, that I should forge\n    Quarrels unjust against the good and loyal,\n    Destroying them for wealth.\n  MACDUFF. This avarice\n    Sticks deeper, grows with more pernicious root\n    Than summer-seeming lust, and it hath been\n    The sword of our slain kings. Yet do not fear;\n    Scotland hath foisons to fill up your will\n    Of your mere own. All these are portable,\n    With other graces weigh'd.\n  MALCOLM. But I have none. The king-becoming graces,\n    As justice, verity, temperance, stableness,\n    Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness,\n    Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude,\n    I have no relish of them, but abound\n    In the division of each several crime,\n    Acting it many ways. Nay, had I power, I should\n    Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell,\n    Uproar the universal peace, confound\n    All unity on earth.\n  MACDUFF. O Scotland, Scotland!\n  MALCOLM. If such a one be fit to govern, speak.\n    I am as I have spoken.\n  MACDUFF. Fit to govern?\n    No, not to live. O nation miserable!\n    With an untitled tyrant bloody-scepter'd,\n    When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again,\n    Since that the truest issue of thy throne\n    By his own interdiction stands accursed\n    And does blaspheme his breed? Thy royal father\n    Was a most sainted king; the queen that bore thee,\n    Oftener upon her knees than on her feet,\n    Died every day she lived. Fare thee well!\n    These evils thou repeat'st upon thyself\n    Have banish'd me from Scotland. O my breast,\n    Thy hope ends here!\n  MALCOLM. Macduff, this noble passion,\n    Child of integrity, hath from my soul\n    Wiped the black scruples, reconciled my thoughts\n    To thy good truth and honor. Devilish Macbeth\n    By many of these trains hath sought to win me\n    Into his power, and modest wisdom plucks me\n    From over-credulous haste. But God above\n    Deal between thee and me! For even now\n    I put myself to thy direction and\n    Unspeak mine own detraction; here abjure\n    The taints and blames I laid upon myself,\n    For strangers to my nature. I am yet\n    Unknown to woman, never was forsworn,\n    Scarcely have coveted what was mine own,\n    At no time broke my faith, would not betray\n    The devil to his fellow, and delight\n    No less in truth than life. My first false speaking\n    Was this upon myself. What I am truly\n    Is thine and my poor country's to command.\n    Whither indeed, before thy here-approach,\n    Old Siward, with ten thousand warlike men\n    Already at a point, was setting forth.\n    Now we'll together, and the chance of goodness\n    Be like our warranted quarrel! Why are you silent?\n  MACDUFF. Such welcome and unwelcome things at once\n    'Tis hard to reconcile.\n\n                     Enter a Doctor.\n\n  MALCOLM. Well, more anon. Comes the King forth, I pray you?\n  DOCTOR. Ay, sir, there are a crew of wretched souls\n    That stay his cure. Their malady convinces\n    The great assay of art, but at his touch,\n    Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand,\n    They presently amend.\n  MALCOLM. I thank you, Doctor.                     Exit Doctor.\n  MACDUFF. What's the disease he means?\n  MALCOLM. 'Tis call'd the evil:\n    A most miraculous work in this good King,\n    Which often, since my here-remain in England,\n    I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven,\n    Himself best knows; but strangely-visited people,\n    All swol'n and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,\n    The mere despair of surgery, he cures,\n    Hanging a golden stamp about their necks\n    Put on with holy prayers; and 'tis spoken,\n    To the succeeding royalty he leaves\n    The healing benediction. With this strange virtue\n    He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy,\n    And sundry blessings hang about his throne\n    That speak him full of grace.\n\n                    Enter Ross.\n\n  MACDUFF. See, who comes here?\n  MALCOLM. My countryman, but yet I know him not.\n  MACDUFF. My ever gentle cousin, welcome hither.\n  MALCOLM. I know him now. Good God, betimes remove\n    The means that makes us strangers!\n  ROSS. Sir, amen.\n  MACDUFF. Stands Scotland where it did?\n  ROSS. Alas, poor country,\n    Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot\n    Be call'd our mother, but our grave. Where nothing,\n    But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile;\n    Where sighs and groans and shrieks that rend the air,\n    Are made, not mark'd; where violent sorrow seems\n    A modern ecstasy. The dead man's knell\n    Is there scarce ask'd for who, and good men's lives\n    Expire before the flowers in their caps,\n    Dying or ere they sicken.\n  MACDUFF. O, relation\n    Too nice, and yet too true!\n  MALCOLM. What's the newest grief?\n  ROSS. That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker;\n    Each minute teems a new one.\n  MACDUFF. How does my wife?\n  ROSS. Why, well.\n  MACDUFF. And all my children?\n  ROSS. Well too.\n  MACDUFF. The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace?\n  ROSS. No, they were well at peace when I did leave 'em.\n  MACDUFF. Be not a niggard of your speech. How goest?\n  ROSS. When I came hither to transport the tidings,\n    Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumor\n    Of many worthy fellows that were out,\n    Which was to my belief witness'd the rather,\n    For that I saw the tyrant's power afoot.\n    Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland\n    Would create soldiers, make our women fight,\n    To doff their dire distresses.\n  MALCOLM. Be't their comfort\n    We are coming thither. Gracious England hath\n    Lent us good Siward and ten thousand men;\n    An older and a better soldier none\n    That Christendom gives out.\n  ROSS. Would I could answer\n    This comfort with the like! But I have words\n    That would be howl'd out in the desert air,\n    Where hearing should not latch them.\n  MACDUFF. What concern they?\n    The general cause? Or is it a fee-grief\n    Due to some single breast?\n  ROSS. No mind that's honest\n    But in it shares some woe, though the main part\n    Pertains to you alone.\n  MACDUFF. If it be mine,\n    Keep it not from me, quickly let me have it.\n  ROSS. Let not your ears despise my tongue forever,\n    Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound\n    That ever yet they heard.\n  MACDUFF. Humh! I guess at it.\n  ROSS. Your castle is surprised; your wife and babes\n    Savagely slaughter'd. To relate the manner\n    Were, on the quarry of these murther'd deer,\n    To add the death of you.\n  MALCOLM. Merciful heaven!\n    What, man! Neer pull your hat upon your brows;\n    Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak\n    Whispers the o'erfraught heart, and bids it break.\n  MACDUFF. My children too?\n  ROSS. Wife, children, servants, all\n    That could be found.\n  MACDUFF. And I must be from thence!\n    My wife kill'd too?\n  ROSS. I have said.\n  MALCOLM. Be comforted.\n    Let's make us medicines of our great revenge,\n    To cure this deadly grief.\n  MACDUFF. He has no children. All my pretty ones?\n    Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?\n    What, all my pretty chickens and their dam\n    At one fell swoop?\n  MALCOLM. Dispute it like a man.\n  MACDUFF. I shall do so,\n    But I must also feel it as a man.\n    I cannot but remember such things were\n    That were most precious to me. Did heaven look on,\n    And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,\n    They were all struck for thee! Naught that I am,\n    Not for their own demerits, but for mine,\n    Fell slaughter on their souls. Heaven rest them now!\n  MALCOLM. Be this the whetstone of your sword. Let grief\n    Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.\n  MACDUFF. O, I could play the woman with mine eyes\n    And braggart with my tongue! But, gentle heavens,\n    Cut short all intermission; front to front\n    Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself;\n    Within my sword's length set him; if he 'scape,\n    Heaven forgive him too!\n  MALCOLM. This tune goes manly.\n    Come, go we to the King; our power is ready,\n    Our lack is nothing but our leave. Macbeth\n    Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above\n    Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may,\n    The night is long that never finds the day.          Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nDunsinane. Anteroom in the castle.\n\nEnter a Doctor of Physic and a Waiting Gentlewoman.\n\n  DOCTOR. I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive no\n    truth in your report. When was it she last walked?\n  GENTLEWOMAN. Since his Majesty went into the field, have seen her\n    rise from her bed, throw her nightgown upon her, unlock her\n    closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon't, read it,\n    afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this while\n    in a most fast sleep.\n  DOCTOR. A great perturbation in nature, to receive at once the\n    benefit of sleep and do the effects of watching! In this slumbery\n    agitation, besides her walking and other actual performances,\n    what, at any time, have you heard her say?\n  GENTLEWOMAN. That, sir, which I will not report after her.\n  DOCTOR. You may to me, and 'tis most meet you should.\n  GENTLEWOMAN. Neither to you nor anyone, having no witness to\n    confirm my speech.\n\n                Enter Lady Macbeth with a taper.\n\n    Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise, and, upon my\n    life, fast asleep. Observe her; stand close.\n  DOCTOR. How came she by that light?\n  GENTLEWOMAN. Why, it stood by her. She has light by her\n     continually; 'tis her command.\n  DOCTOR. You see, her eyes are open.\n  GENTLEWOMAN. Ay, but their sense is shut.\n  DOCTOR. What is it she does now? Look how she rubs her hands.\n  GENTLEWOMAN. It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus\n    washing her hands. I have known her continue in this a quarter of\n    an hour.\n  LADY MACBETH. Yet here's a spot.\n  DOCTOR. Hark, she speaks! I will set down what comes from her, to\n    satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.\n  LADY MACBETH. Out, damned spot! Out, I say! One- two -why then 'tis\n    time to do't. Hell is murky. Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and\n    afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our\n    power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have\n    had so much blood in him?\n  DOCTOR. Do you mark that?\n  LADY MACBETH. The Thane of Fife had a wife; where is she now? What,\n    will these hands neer be clean? No more o' that, my lord, no more\n    o' that. You mar all with this starting.\n  DOCTOR. Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.\n  GENTLEWOMAN. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that.\n    Heaven knows what she has known.\n  LADY MACBETH. Here's the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes\n    of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!\n  DOCTOR. What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.\n  GENTLEWOMAN. I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the\n    dignity of the whole body.\n  DOCTOR. Well, well, well-\n  GENTLEWOMAN. Pray God it be, sir.\n  DOCTOR. This disease is beyond my practice. Yet I have known those\n    which have walked in their sleep who have died holily in their\n    beds.\n  LADY MACBETH. Wash your hands, put on your nightgown, look not so\n    pale. I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he cannot come out\n    on's grave.\n  DOCTOR. Even so?\n  LADY MACBETH. To bed, to bed; there's knocking at the gate. Come,\n    come, come, come, give me your hand.What's done cannot be undone.\n    To bed, to bed, to bed.\nExit.\n  DOCTOR. Will she go now to bed?\n  GENTLEWOMAN. Directly.\n  DOCTOR. Foul whisperings are abroad. Unnatural deeds\n    Do breed unnatural troubles; infected minds\n    To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.\n    More needs she the divine than the physician.\n    God, God, forgive us all! Look after her;\n    Remove from her the means of all annoyance,\n    And still keep eyes upon her. So good night.\n    My mind she has mated and amazed my sight.\n    I think, but dare not speak.\n  GENTLEWOMAN. Good night, good doctor.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe country near Dunsinane. Drum and colors.\n\nEnter Menteith, Caithness, Angus, Lennox, and Soldiers.\n\n  MENTEITH. The English power is near, led on by Malcolm,\n    His uncle Siward, and the good Macduff.\n    Revenges burn in them, for their dear causes\n    Would to the bleeding and the grim alarm\n    Excite the mortified man.\n  ANGUS. Near Birnam Wood\n    Shall we well meet them; that way are they coming.\n  CAITHNESS. Who knows if Donalbain be with his brother?\n  LENNOX. For certain, sir, he is not; I have a file\n    Of all the gentry. There is Seward's son\n    And many unrough youths that even now\n    Protest their first of manhood.\n  MENTEITH. What does the tyrant?\n  CAITHNESS. Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies.\n    Some say he's mad; others, that lesser hate him,\n    Do call it valiant fury; but, for certain,\n    He cannot buckle his distemper'd cause\n    Within the belt of rule.\n  ANGUS. Now does he feel\n    His secret murthers sticking on his hands,\n    Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach;\n    Those he commands move only in command,\n    Nothing in love. Now does he feel his title\n    Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe\n    Upon a dwarfish thief.\n  MENTEITH. Who then shall blame\n    His pester'd senses to recoil and start,\n    When all that is within him does condemn\n    Itself for being there?\n  CAITHNESS. Well, march we on\n    To give obedience where 'tis truly owed.\n    Meet we the medicine of the sickly weal,\n    And with him pour we, in our country's purge,\n    Each drop of us.\n  LENNOX. Or so much as it needs\n    To dew the sovereign flower and drown the weeds.\n    Make we our march towards Birnam.           Exeunt marching.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nDunsinane. A room in the castle.\n\nEnter Macbeth, Doctor, and Attendants.\n\n  MACBETH. Bring me no more reports; let them fly all!\n    Till Birnam Wood remove to Dunsinane\n    I cannot taint with fear. What's the boy Malcolm?\n    Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know\n    All mortal consequences have pronounced me thus:\n    \"Fear not, Macbeth; no man that's born of woman\n    Shall e'er have power upon thee.\" Then fly, false Thanes,\n    And mingle with the English epicures!\n    The mind I sway by and the heart I bear\n    Shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear.\n\n                       Enter a Servant.\n\n    The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon!\n    Where got'st thou that goose look?\n  SERVANT. There is ten thousand-\n  MACBETH. Geese, villain?\n  SERVANT. Soldiers, sir.\n  MACBETH. Go prick thy face and over-red thy fear,\n    Thou lily-liver'd boy. What soldiers, patch?\n    Death of thy soul! Those linen cheeks of thine\n    Are counselors to fear. What soldiers, whey-face?\n  SERVANT. The English force, so please you.\n  MACBETH. Take thy face hence.                    Exit Servant.\n    Seyton-I am sick at heart,\n    When I behold- Seyton, I say!- This push\n    Will cheer me ever or disseat me now.\n    I have lived long enough. My way of life\n    Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf,\n    And that which should accompany old age,\n    As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,\n    I must not look to have; but in their stead,\n    Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honor, breath,\n    Which the poor heart would fain deny and dare not.\n    Seyton!\n\n                       Enter Seyton.\n\n  SEYTON. What's your gracious pleasure?\n  MACBETH. What news more?\n  SEYTON. All is confirm'd, my lord, which was reported.\n  MACBETH. I'll fight, 'til from my bones my flesh be hack'd.\n    Give me my armor.\n  SEYTON. 'Tis not needed yet.\n  MACBETH. I'll put it on.\n    Send out more horses, skirr the country round,\n    Hang those that talk of fear. Give me mine armor.\n    How does your patient, doctor?\n  DOCTOR. Not so sick, my lord,\n    As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies,\n    That keep her from her rest.\n  MACBETH. Cure her of that.\n    Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,\n    Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,\n    Raze out the written troubles of the brain,\n    And with some sweet oblivious antidote\n    Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff\n    Which weighs upon the heart?\n  DOCTOR. Therein the patient\n    Must minister to himself.\n  MACBETH. Throw physic to the dogs, I'll none of it.\n    Come, put mine armor on; give me my staff.\n    Seyton, send out. Doctor, the Thanes fly from me.\n    Come, sir, dispatch. If thou couldst, doctor, cast\n    The water of my land, find her disease\n    And purge it to a sound and pristine health,\n    I would applaud thee to the very echo,\n    That should applaud again. Pull't off, I say.\n    What rhubarb, cyme, or what purgative drug\n    Would scour these English hence? Hearst thou of them?\n  DOCTOR. Ay, my good lord, your royal preparation\n    Makes us hear something.\n  MACBETH. Bring it after me.\n    I will not be afraid of death and bane\n    Till Birnam Forest come to Dunsinane.\n  DOCTOR. [Aside.] Were I from Dunsinane away and clear,\n    Profit again should hardly draw me here.             Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nCountry near Birnam Wood. Drum and colors.\n\nEnter Malcolm, old Seward and his Son, Macduff, Menteith, Caithness,\nAngus, Lennox, Ross, and Soldiers, marching.\n\n  MALCOLM. Cousins, I hope the days are near at hand\n    That chambers will be safe.\n  MENTEITH. We doubt it nothing.\n  SIWARD. What wood is this before us?\n  MENTEITH. The Wood of Birnam.\n  MALCOLM. Let every soldier hew him down a bough,\n    And bear't before him; thereby shall we shadow\n    The numbers of our host, and make discovery\n    Err in report of us.\n  SOLDIERS. It shall be done.\n  SIWARD. We learn no other but the confident tyrant\n    Keeps still in Dunsinane and will endure\n    Our setting down before't.\n  MALCOLM. 'Tis his main hope;\n    For where there is advantage to be given,\n    Both more and less have given him the revolt,\n    And none serve with him but constrained things\n    Whose hearts are absent too.\n  MACDUFF. Let our just censures\n    Attend the true event, and put we on\n    Industrious soldiership.\n  SIWARD. The time approaches\n    That will with due decision make us know\n    What we shall say we have and what we owe.\n    Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate,\n    But certain issue strokes must arbitrate.\n    Towards which advance the war.\n                                                Exeunt Marching.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nDunsinane. Within the castle.\n\nEnter Macbeth, Seyton, and Soldiers, with drum and colors.\n\n  MACBETH. Hang out our banners on the outward walls;\n    The cry is still, \"They come!\" Our castle's strength\n    Will laugh a siege to scorn. Here let them lie\n    Till famine and the ague eat them up.\n    Were they not forced with those that should be ours,\n    We might have met them dareful, beard to beard,\n    And beat them backward home.\n                                          A cry of women within.\n    What is that noise?\n  SEYTON. It is the cry of women, my good lord.            Exit.\n  MACBETH. I have almost forgot the taste of fears:\n    The time has been, my senses would have cool'd\n    To hear a night-shriek, and my fell of hair\n    Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir\n    As life were in't. I have supp'd full with horrors;\n    Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts,\n    Cannot once start me.\n\n                  Re-enter Seyton.\n     Wherefore was that cry?\n  SEYTON. The Queen, my lord, is dead.\n  MACBETH. She should have died hereafter;\n    There would have been a time for such a word.\n    Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow\n    Creeps in this petty pace from day to day\n    To the last syllable of recorded time;\n    And all our yesterdays have lighted fools\n    The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!\n    Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player\n    That struts and frets his hour upon the stage\n    And then is heard no more. It is a tale\n    Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,\n    Signifying nothing.\n\n                 Enter a Messenger.\n\n    Thou comest to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.\n  MESSENGER. Gracious my lord,\n    I should report that which I say I saw,\n    But know not how to do it.\n  MACBETH. Well, say, sir.\n  MESSENGER. As I did stand my watch upon the hill,\n    I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought,\n    The Wood began to move.\n  MACBETH. Liar and slave!\n  MESSENGER. Let me endure your wrath, if't be not so.\n    Within this three mile may you see it coming;\n    I say, a moving grove.\n  MACBETH. If thou speak'st false,\n    Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,\n    Till famine cling thee; if thy speech be sooth,\n    I care not if thou dost for me as much.\n    I pull in resolution and begin\n    To doubt the equivocation of the fiend\n    That lies like truth. \"Fear not, till Birnam Wood\n    Do come to Dunsinane,\" and now a wood\n    Comes toward Dunsinane. Arm, arm, and out!\n    If this which he avouches does appear,\n    There is nor flying hence nor tarrying here.\n    I 'gin to be aweary of the sun\n    And wish the estate o' the world were now undone.\n    Ring the alarum bell! Blow, wind! Come, wrack!\n    At least we'll die with harness on our back.         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nDunsinane.  Before the castle.\n\nEnter Malcolm, old Siward, Macduff, and their Army, with boughs.\nDrum and colors.\n\n  MALCOLM. Now near enough; your leavy screens throw down,\n    And show like those you are. You, worthy uncle,\n    Shall with my cousin, your right noble son,\n    Lead our first battle. Worthy Macduff and we\n    Shall take upon 's what else remains to do,\n    According to our order.\n  SIWARD. Fare you well.\n    Do we but find the tyrant's power tonight,\n    Let us be beaten if we cannot fight.\n  MACDUFF. Make all our trumpets speak, give them all breath,\n    Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nDunsinane.  Before the castle.  Alarums.\n\nEnter Macbeth.\n\n  MACBETH. They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly,\n    But bear-like I must fight the course. What's he\n    That was not born of woman? Such a one\n    Am I to fear, or none.\n\n                     Enter young Siward.\n\n  YOUNG SIWARD. What is thy name?\n  MACBETH. Thou'lt be afraid to hear it.\n  YOUNG SIWARD. No, though thou call'st thyself a hotter name\n    Than any is in hell.\n  MACBETH. My name's Macbeth.\n  YOUNG SIWARD. The devil himself could not pronounce a title\n    More hateful to mine ear.\n  MACBETH. No, nor more fearful.\n  YOUNG SIWARD O Thou liest, abhorred tyrant; with my sword\n    I'll prove the lie thou speak'st.\n                          They fight, and young Seward is slain.\n  MACBETH. Thou wast born of woman.\n    But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn,\n    Brandish'd by man that's of a woman born.              Exit.\n\n                Alarums. Enter Macduff.\n\n  MACDUFF. That way the noise is. Tyrant, show thy face!\n    If thou best slain and with no stroke of mine,\n    My wife and children's ghosts will haunt me still.\n    I cannot strike at wretched kerns, whose arms\n    Are hired to bear their staves. Either thou, Macbeth,\n    Or else my sword, with an unbatter'd edge,\n    I sheathe again undeeded. There thou shouldst be;\n    By this great clatter, one of greatest note\n    Seems bruited. Let me find him, Fortune!\n    And more I beg not.                           Exit. Alarums.\n\n                Enter Malcolm and old Siward.\n\n  SIWARD. This way, my lord; the castle's gently render'd.\n    The tyrant's people on both sides do fight,\n    The noble Thanes do bravely in the war,\n    The day almost itself professes yours,\n    And little is to do.\n  MALCOLM. We have met with foes\n    That strike beside us.\n  SIWARD. Enter, sir, the castle.\n                                                 Exeunt. Alarum.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VIII.\nAnother part of the field.\n\nEnter Macbeth.\n\n  MACBETH. Why should I play the Roman fool and die\n    On mine own sword? Whiles I see lives, the gashes\n    Do better upon them.\n\n                      Enter Macduff.\n\n  MACDUFF. Turn, hell hound, turn!\n  MACBETH. Of all men else I have avoided thee.\n    But get thee back, my soul is too much charged\n    With blood of thine already.\n  MACDUFF. I have no words.\n    My voice is in my sword, thou bloodier villain\n    Than terms can give thee out!                    They fight.\n  MACBETH. Thou losest labor.\n    As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air\n    With thy keen sword impress as make me bleed.\n    Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests;\n    I bear a charmed life, which must not yield\n    To one of woman born.\n  MACDUFF. Despair thy charm,\n    And let the angel whom thou still hast served\n    Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb\n    Untimely ripp'd.\n  MACBETH. Accursed be that tongue that tells me so,\n    For it hath cow'd my better part of man!\n    And be these juggling fiends no more believed\n    That patter with us in a double sense,\n    That keep the word of promise to our ear\n    And break it to our hope. I'll not fight with thee.\n  MACDUFF. Then yield thee, coward,\n    And live to be the show and gaze o' the time.\n    We'll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,\n    Painted upon a pole, and underwrit,\n    \"Here may you see the tyrant.\"\n  MACBETH. I will not yield,\n    To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet,\n    And to be baited with the rabble's curse.\n    Though Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane,\n    And thou opposed, being of no woman born,\n    Yet I will try the last. Before my body\n    I throw my warlike shield! Lay on, Macduff,\n    And damn'd be him that first cries, \"Hold, enough!\"\n                                       Exeunt fighting. Alarums.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IX.\n\nRetreat. Flourish. Enter, with drum and colors, Malcolm, old Siward, Ross,\nthe other Thanes, and Soldiers.\n\n  MALCOLM. I would the friends we miss were safe arrived.\n  SIWARD. Some must go off, and yet, by these I see,\n    So great a day as this is cheaply bought.\n  MALCOLM. Macduff is missing, and your noble son.\n  ROSS. Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's debt.\n    He only lived but till he was a man,\n    The which no sooner had his prowess confirm'd\n    In the unshrinking station where he fought,\n    But like a man he died.\n  SIWARD. Then he is dead?\n  ROSS. Ay, and brought off the field. Your cause of sorrow\n    Must not be measured by his worth, for then\n    It hath no end.\n  SIWARD. Had he his hurts before?\n  ROSS. Ay, on the front.\n  SIWARD. Why then, God's soldier be he!\n    Had I as many sons as I have hairs,\n    I would not wish them to a fairer death.\n    And so his knell is knoll'd.\n  MALCOLM. He's worth more sorrow,\n    And that I'll spend for him.\n  SIWARD. He's worth no more:\n    They say he parted well and paid his score,\n    And so God be with him! Here comes newer comfort.\n\n             Re-enter Macduff, with Macbeth's head.\n\n  MACDUFF. Hail, King, for so thou art. Behold where stands\n    The usurper's cursed head. The time is free.\n    I see thee compass'd with thy kingdom's pearl\n    That speak my salutation in their minds,\n    Whose voices I desire aloud with mine-\n    Hail, King of Scotland!\n  ALL. Hail, King of Scotland!                         Flourish.\n  MALCOLM. We shall not spend a large expense of time\n    Before we reckon with your several loves\n    And make us even with you. My Thanes and kinsmen,\n    Henceforth be Earls, the first that ever Scotland\n    In such an honor named. What's more to do,\n    Which would be planted newly with the time,\n    As calling home our exiled friends abroad\n    That fled the snares of watchful tyranny,\n    Producing forth the cruel ministers\n    Of this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen,\n    Who, as 'tis thought, by self and violent hands\n    Took off her life; this, and what needful else\n    That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace\n    We will perform in measure, time, and place.\n    So thanks to all at once and to each one,\n    Whom we invite to see us crown'd at Scone.\n                                               Flourish. Exeunt.\n                 -THE END-\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1605\n\n\nMEASURE FOR MEASURE\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  VINCENTIO, the Duke\n  ANGELO, the Deputy\n  ESCALUS, an ancient Lord\n  CLAUDIO, a young gentleman\n  LUCIO, a fantastic\n  Two other like Gentlemen\n  VARRIUS, a gentleman, servant to the Duke\n  PROVOST\n  THOMAS, friar\n  PETER, friar\n  A JUSTICE\n  ELBOW, a simple constable\n  FROTH, a foolish gentleman\n  POMPEY, a clown and servant to Mistress Overdone\n  ABHORSON, an executioner\n  BARNARDINE, a dissolute prisoner\n\n  ISABELLA, sister to Claudio\n  MARIANA, betrothed to Angelo\n  JULIET, beloved of Claudio\n  FRANCISCA, a nun\n  MISTRESS OVERDONE, a bawd\n\n  Lords, Officers, Citizens, Boy, and Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nVienna\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nThe DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter DUKE, ESCALUS, LORDS, and ATTENDANTS\n\n  DUKE. Escalus!\n  ESCALUS. My lord.\n  DUKE. Of government the properties to unfold\n    Would seem in me t' affect speech and discourse,\n    Since I am put to know that your own science\n    Exceeds, in that, the lists of all advice\n    My strength can give you; then no more remains\n    But that to your sufficiency- as your worth is able-\n    And let them work. The nature of our people,\n    Our city's institutions, and the terms\n    For common justice, y'are as pregnant in\n    As art and practice hath enriched any\n    That we remember. There is our commission,\n    From which we would not have you warp. Call hither,\n    I say, bid come before us, Angelo.         Exit an ATTENDANT\n    What figure of us think you he will bear?\n    For you must know we have with special soul\n    Elected him our absence to supply;\n    Lent him our terror, dress'd him with our love,\n    And given his deputation all the organs\n    Of our own power. What think you of it?\n  ESCALUS. If any in Vienna be of worth\n    To undergo such ample grace and honour,\n    It is Lord Angelo.\n\n                          Enter ANGELO\n\n  DUKE. Look where he comes.\n  ANGELO. Always obedient to your Grace's will,\n    I come to know your pleasure.\n  DUKE. Angelo,\n    There is a kind of character in thy life\n    That to th' observer doth thy history\n    Fully unfold. Thyself and thy belongings\n    Are not thine own so proper as to waste\n    Thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee.\n    Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,\n    Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues\n    Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike\n    As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch'd\n    But to fine issues; nor Nature never lends\n    The smallest scruple of her excellence\n    But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines\n    Herself the glory of a creditor,\n    Both thanks and use. But I do bend my speech\n    To one that can my part in him advertise.\n    Hold, therefore, Angelo-\n    In our remove be thou at full ourself;\n    Mortality and mercy in Vienna\n    Live in thy tongue and heart. Old Escalus,\n    Though first in question, is thy secondary.\n    Take thy commission.\n  ANGELO. Now, good my lord,\n    Let there be some more test made of my metal,\n    Before so noble and so great a figure\n    Be stamp'd upon it.\n  DUKE. No more evasion!\n    We have with a leaven'd and prepared choice\n    Proceeded to you; therefore take your honours.\n    Our haste from hence is of so quick condition\n    That it prefers itself, and leaves unquestion'd\n    Matters of needful value. We shall write to you,\n    As time and our concernings shall importune,\n    How it goes with us, and do look to know\n    What doth befall you here. So, fare you well.\n    To th' hopeful execution do I leave you\n    Of your commissions.\n  ANGELO. Yet give leave, my lord,\n    That we may bring you something on the way.\n  DUKE. My haste may not admit it;\n    Nor need you, on mine honour, have to do\n    With any scruple: your scope is as mine own,\n    So to enforce or qualify the laws\n    As to your soul seems good. Give me your hand;\n    I'll privily away. I love the people,\n    But do not like to stage me to their eyes;\n    Though it do well, I do not relish well\n    Their loud applause and Aves vehement;\n    Nor do I think the man of safe discretion\n    That does affect it. Once more, fare you well.\n  ANGELO. The heavens give safety to your purposes!\n  ESCALUS. Lead forth and bring you back in happiness!\n  DUKE. I thank you. Fare you well.                         Exit\n  ESCALUS. I shall desire you, sir, to give me leave\n    To have free speech with you; and it concerns me\n    To look into the bottom of my place:\n    A pow'r I have, but of what strength and nature\n    I am not yet instructed.\n  ANGELO. 'Tis so with me. Let us withdraw together,\n    And we may soon our satisfaction have\n    Touching that point.\n  ESCALUS. I'll wait upon your honour.                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA street\n\nEnter Lucio and two other GENTLEMEN\n\n  LUCIO. If the Duke, with the other dukes, come not to composition\n    with the King of Hungary, why then all the dukes fall upon the\n    King.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Heaven grant us its peace, but not the King of\n    Hungary's!\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Amen.\n  LUCIO. Thou conclud'st like the sanctimonious pirate that went to\n    sea with the Ten Commandments, but scrap'd one out of the table.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. 'Thou shalt not steal'?\n  LUCIO. Ay, that he raz'd.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Why, 'twas a commandment to command the captain\n    and all the rest from their functions: they put forth to steal.\n    There's not a soldier of us all that, in the thanksgiving before\n    meat, do relish the petition well that prays for peace.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I never heard any soldier dislike it.\n  LUCIO. I believe thee; for I think thou never wast where grace was\n    said.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. No? A dozen times at least.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. What, in metre?\n  LUCIO. In any proportion or in any language.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I think, or in any religion.\n  LUCIO. Ay, why not? Grace is grace, despite of all controversy; as,\n    for example, thou thyself art a wicked villain, despite of all\n    grace.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Well, there went but a pair of shears between us.\n  LUCIO. I grant; as there may between the lists and the velvet.\n    Thou art the list.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. And thou the velvet; thou art good velvet; thou'rt\n    a three-pil'd piece, I warrant thee. I had as lief be a list of\n    an English kersey as be pil'd, as thou art pil'd, for a French\n    velvet. Do I speak feelingly now?\n  LUCIO. I think thou dost; and, indeed, with most painful feeling of\n    thy speech. I will, out of thine own confession, learn to begin\n    thy health; but, whilst I live, forget to drink after thee.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I think I have done myself wrong, have I not?\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Yes, that thou hast, whether thou art tainted or\n    free.\n\n                        Enter MISTRESS OVERDONE\n\n  LUCIO. Behold, behold, where Madam Mitigation comes! I have\n    purchas'd as many diseases under her roof as come to-\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. To what, I pray?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Judge.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. To three thousand dolours a year.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Ay, and more.\n  LUCIO. A French crown more.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Thou art always figuring diseases in me, but thou\n    art full of error; I am sound.\n  LUCIO. Nay, not, as one would say, healthy; but so sound as things\n    that are hollow: thy bones are hollow; impiety has made a feast\n    of thee.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. How now! which of your hips has the most profound\n    sciatica?\n  MRS. OVERDONE. Well, well! there's one yonder arrested and carried\n    to prison was worth five thousand of you all.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Who's that, I pray thee?\n  MRS. OVERDONE. Marry, sir, that's Claudio, Signior Claudio.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Claudio to prison? 'Tis not so.\n  MRS. OVERDONE. Nay, but I know 'tis so: I saw him arrested; saw him\n    carried away; and, which is more, within these three days his\n    head to be chopp'd off.\n  LUCIO. But, after all this fooling, I would not have it so. Art\n    thou sure of this?\n  MRS. OVERDONE. I am too sure of it; and it is for getting Madam\n    Julietta with child.\n  LUCIO. Believe me, this may be; he promis'd to meet me two hours\n    since, and he was ever precise in promise-keeping.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Besides, you know, it draws something near to the\n    speech we had to such a purpose.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. But most of all agreeing with the proclamation.\n  LUCIO. Away; let's go learn the truth of it.\n                                      Exeunt Lucio and GENTLEMEN\n  MRS. OVERDONE. Thus, what with the war, what with the sweat, what\n    with the gallows, and what with poverty, I am custom-shrunk.\n\n                               Enter POMPEY\n\n    How now! what's the news with you?\n  POMPEY. Yonder man is carried to prison.\n  MRS. OVERDONE. Well, what has he done?\n  POMPEY. A woman.\n  MRS. OVERDONE. But what's his offence?\n  POMPEY. Groping for trouts in a peculiar river.\n  MRS. OVERDONE. What! is there a maid with child by him?\n  POMPEY. No; but there's a woman with maid by him. You have not\n   heard of the proclamation, have you?\n  MRS. OVERDONE. What proclamation, man?\n  POMPEY. All houses in the suburbs of Vienna must be pluck'd down.\n  MRS. OVERDONE. And what shall become of those in the city?\n  POMPEY. They shall stand for seed; they had gone down too, but that\n    a wise burgher put in for them.\n  MRS. OVERDONE. But shall all our houses of resort in the suburbs be\n    pull'd down?\n  POMPEY. To the ground, mistress.\n  MRS. OVERDONE. Why, here's a change indeed in the commonwealth!\n    What shall become of me?\n  POMPEY. Come, fear not you: good counsellors lack no clients.\n    Though you change your place you need not change your trade; I'll\n    be your tapster still. Courage, there will be pity taken on you;\n    you that have worn your eyes almost out in the service, you will\n    be considered.\n  MRS. OVERDONE. What's to do here, Thomas Tapster? Let's withdraw.\n  POMPEY. Here comes Signior Claudio, led by the provost to prison;\n    and there's Madam Juliet.                             Exeunt\n\n            Enter PROVOST, CLAUDIO, JULIET, and OFFICERS;\n                            LUCIO following\n\n  CLAUDIO. Fellow, why dost thou show me thus to th' world?\n    Bear me to prison, where I am committed.\n  PROVOST. I do it not in evil disposition,\n    But from Lord Angelo by special charge.\n  CLAUDIO. Thus can the demigod Authority\n    Make us pay down for our offence by weight\n    The words of heaven: on whom it will, it will;\n    On whom it will not, so; yet still 'tis just.\n  LUCIO. Why, how now, Claudio, whence comes this restraint?\n  CLAUDIO. From too much liberty, my Lucio, liberty;\n    As surfeit is the father of much fast,\n    So every scope by the immoderate use\n    Turns to restraint. Our natures do pursue,\n    Like rats that ravin down their proper bane,\n    A thirsty evil; and when we drink we die.\n  LUCIO. If I could speak so wisely under an arrest, I would send for\n    certain of my creditors; and yet, to say the truth, I had as lief\n    have the foppery of freedom as the morality of imprisonment.\n    What's thy offence, Claudio?\n  CLAUDIO. What but to speak of would offend again.\n  LUCIO. What, is't murder?\n  CLAUDIO. No.\n  LUCIO. Lechery?\n  CLAUDIO. Call it so.\n  PROVOST. Away, sir; you must go.\n  CLAUDIO. One word, good friend. Lucio, a word with you.\n  LUCIO. A hundred, if they'll do you any good. Is lechery so look'd\n    after?\n  CLAUDIO. Thus stands it with me: upon a true contract\n    I got possession of Julietta's bed.\n    You know the lady; she is fast my wife,\n    Save that we do the denunciation lack\n    Of outward order; this we came not to,\n    Only for propagation of a dow'r\n    Remaining in the coffer of her friends.\n    From whom we thought it meet to hide our love\n    Till time had made them for us. But it chances\n    The stealth of our most mutual entertainment,\n    With character too gross, is writ on Juliet.\n  LUCIO. With child, perhaps?\n  CLAUDIO. Unhappily, even so.\n    And the new deputy now for the Duke-\n    Whether it be the fault and glimpse of newness,\n    Or whether that the body public be\n    A horse whereon the governor doth ride,\n    Who, newly in the seat, that it may know\n    He can command, lets it straight feel the spur;\n    Whether the tyranny be in his place,\n    Or in his eminence that fills it up,\n    I stagger in. But this new governor\n    Awakes me all the enrolled penalties\n    Which have, like unscour'd armour, hung by th' wall\n    So long that nineteen zodiacs have gone round\n    And none of them been worn; and, for a name,\n    Now puts the drowsy and neglected act\n    Freshly on me. 'Tis surely for a name.\n  LUCIO. I warrant it is; and thy head stands so tickle on thy\n    shoulders that a milkmaid, if she be in love, may sigh it off.\n    Send after the Duke, and appeal to him.\n  CLAUDIO. I have done so, but he's not to be found.\n    I prithee, Lucio, do me this kind service:\n    This day my sister should the cloister enter,\n    And there receive her approbation;\n    Acquaint her with the danger of my state;\n    Implore her, in my voice, that she make friends\n    To the strict deputy; bid herself assay him.\n    I have great hope in that; for in her youth\n    There is a prone and speechless dialect\n    Such as move men; beside, she hath prosperous art\n    When she will play with reason and discourse,\n    And well she can persuade.\n  LUCIO. I pray she may; as well for the encouragement of the like,\n    which else would stand under grievous imposition, as for the\n    enjoying of thy life, who I would be sorry should be thus\n    foolishly lost at a game of tick-tack. I'll to her.\n  CLAUDIO. I thank you, good friend Lucio.\n  LUCIO. Within two hours.\n  CLAUDIO. Come, officer, away.                           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nA monastery\n\nEnter DUKE and FRIAR THOMAS\n\n  DUKE. No, holy father; throw away that thought;\n    Believe not that the dribbling dart of love\n    Can pierce a complete bosom. Why I desire thee\n    To give me secret harbour hath a purpose\n    More grave and wrinkled than the aims and ends\n    Of burning youth.\n  FRIAR. May your Grace speak of it?\n  DUKE. My holy sir, none better knows than you\n    How I have ever lov'd the life removed,\n    And held in idle price to haunt assemblies\n    Where youth, and cost, a witless bravery keeps.\n    I have deliver'd to Lord Angelo,\n    A man of stricture and firm abstinence,\n    My absolute power and place here in Vienna,\n    And he supposes me travell'd to Poland;\n    For so I have strew'd it in the common ear,\n    And so it is received. Now, pious sir,\n    You will demand of me why I do this.\n  FRIAR. Gladly, my lord.\n  DUKE. We have strict statutes and most biting laws,\n    The needful bits and curbs to headstrong steeds,\n    Which for this fourteen years we have let slip;\n    Even like an o'ergrown lion in a cave,\n    That goes not out to prey. Now, as fond fathers,\n    Having bound up the threat'ning twigs of birch,\n    Only to stick it in their children's sight\n    For terror, not to use, in time the rod\n    Becomes more mock'd than fear'd; so our decrees,\n    Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead;\n    And liberty plucks justice by the nose;\n    The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart\n    Goes all decorum.\n  FRIAR. It rested in your Grace\n    To unloose this tied-up justice when you pleas'd;\n    And it in you more dreadful would have seem'd\n    Than in Lord Angelo.\n  DUKE. I do fear, too dreadful.\n    Sith 'twas my fault to give the people scope,\n    'Twould be my tyranny to strike and gall them\n    For what I bid them do; for we bid this be done,\n    When evil deeds have their permissive pass\n    And not the punishment. Therefore, indeed, my father,\n    I have on Angelo impos'd the office;\n    Who may, in th' ambush of my name, strike home,\n    And yet my nature never in the fight\n    To do in slander. And to behold his sway,\n    I will, as 'twere a brother of your order,\n    Visit both prince and people. Therefore, I prithee,\n    Supply me with the habit, and instruct me\n    How I may formally in person bear me\n    Like a true friar. Moe reasons for this action\n    At our more leisure shall I render you.\n    Only, this one: Lord Angelo is precise;\n    Stands at a guard with envy; scarce confesses\n    That his blood flows, or that his appetite\n    Is more to bread than stone. Hence shall we see,\n    If power change purpose, what our seemers be.         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nA nunnery\n\nEnter ISABELLA and FRANCISCA\n\n  ISABELLA. And have you nuns no farther privileges?\n  FRANCISCA. Are not these large enough?\n  ISABELLA. Yes, truly; I speak not as desiring more,\n    But rather wishing a more strict restraint\n    Upon the sisterhood, the votarists of Saint Clare.\n  LUCIO. [ Within] Ho! Peace be in this place!\n  ISABELLA. Who's that which calls?\n  FRANCISCA. It is a man's voice. Gentle Isabella,\n    Turn you the key, and know his business of him:\n    You may, I may not; you are yet unsworn;\n    When you have vow'd, you must not speak with men\n    But in the presence of the prioress;\n    Then, if you speak, you must not show your face,\n    Or, if you show your face, you must not speak.\n    He calls again; I pray you answer him.        Exit FRANCISCA\n  ISABELLA. Peace and prosperity! Who is't that calls?\n\n                           Enter LUCIO\n\n  LUCIO. Hail, virgin, if you be, as those cheek-roses\n    Proclaim you are no less. Can you so stead me\n    As bring me to the sight of Isabella,\n    A novice of this place, and the fair sister\n    To her unhappy brother Claudio?\n  ISABELLA. Why her 'unhappy brother'? Let me ask\n    The rather, for I now must make you know\n    I am that Isabella, and his sister.\n  LUCIO. Gentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you.\n    Not to be weary with you, he's in prison.\n  ISABELLA. Woe me! For what?\n  LUCIO. For that which, if myself might be his judge,\n    He should receive his punishment in thanks:\n    He hath got his friend with child.\n  ISABELLA. Sir, make me not your story.\n  LUCIO. It is true.\n    I would not- though 'tis my familiar sin\n    With maids to seem the lapwing, and to jest,\n    Tongue far from heart- play with all virgins so:\n    I hold you as a thing enskied and sainted,\n    By your renouncement an immortal spirit,\n    And to be talk'd with in sincerity,\n    As with a saint.\n  ISABELLA. You do blaspheme the good in mocking me.\n  LUCIO. Do not believe it. Fewness and truth, 'tis thus:\n    Your brother and his lover have embrac'd.\n    As those that feed grow full, as blossoming time\n    That from the seedness the bare fallow brings\n    To teeming foison, even so her plenteous womb\n    Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry.\n  ISABELLA. Some one with child by him? My cousin Juliet?\n  LUCIO. Is she your cousin?\n  ISABELLA. Adoptedly, as school-maids change their names\n    By vain though apt affection.\n  LUCIO. She it is.\n  ISABELLA. O, let him marry her!\n  LUCIO. This is the point.\n    The Duke is very strangely gone from hence;\n    Bore many gentlemen, myself being one,\n    In hand, and hope of action; but we do learn,\n    By those that know the very nerves of state,\n    His givings-out were of an infinite distance\n    From his true-meant design. Upon his place,\n    And with full line of his authority,\n    Governs Lord Angelo, a man whose blood\n    Is very snow-broth, one who never feels\n    The wanton stings and motions of the sense,\n    But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge\n    With profits of the mind, study and fast.\n    He- to give fear to use and liberty,\n    Which have for long run by the hideous law,\n    As mice by lions- hath pick'd out an act\n    Under whose heavy sense your brother's life\n    Falls into forfeit; he arrests him on it,\n    And follows close the rigour of the statute\n    To make him an example. All hope is gone,\n    Unless you have the grace by your fair prayer\n    To soften Angelo. And that's my pith of business\n    'Twixt you and your poor brother.\n  ISABELLA. Doth he so seek his life?\n  LUCIO. Has censur'd him\n    Already, and, as I hear, the Provost hath\n    A warrant for his execution.\n  ISABELLA. Alas! what poor ability's in me\n    To do him good?\n  LUCIO. Assay the pow'r you have.\n  ISABELLA. My power, alas, I doubt!\n  LUCIO. Our doubts are traitors,\n    And make us lose the good we oft might win\n    By fearing to attempt. Go to Lord Angelo,\n    And let him learn to know, when maidens sue,\n    Men give like gods; but when they weep and kneel,\n    All their petitions are as freely theirs\n    As they themselves would owe them.\n  ISABELLA. I'll see what I can do.\n  LUCIO. But speedily.\n  ISABELLA. I will about it straight;\n    No longer staying but to give the Mother\n    Notice of my affair. I humbly thank you.\n    Commend me to my brother; soon at night\n    I'll send him certain word of my success.\n  LUCIO. I take my leave of you.\n  ISABELLA. Good sir, adieu.                              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. Scene I.\nA hall in ANGELO'S house\n\nEnter ANGELO, ESCALUS, a JUSTICE, PROVOST, OFFICERS, and other ATTENDANTS\n\n  ANGELO. We must not make a scarecrow of the law,\n    Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,\n    And let it keep one shape till custom make it\n    Their perch, and not their terror.\n  ESCALUS. Ay, but yet\n    Let us be keen, and rather cut a little\n    Than fall and bruise to death. Alas! this gentleman,\n    Whom I would save, had a most noble father.\n    Let but your honour know,\n    Whom I believe to be most strait in virtue,\n    That, in the working of your own affections,\n    Had time coher'd with place, or place with wishing,\n    Or that the resolute acting of our blood\n    Could have attain'd th' effect of your own purpose\n    Whether you had not sometime in your life\n    Err'd in this point which now you censure him,\n    And pull'd the law upon you.\n  ANGELO. 'Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,\n    Another thing to fall. I not deny\n    The jury, passing on the prisoner's life,\n    May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two\n    Guiltier than him they try. What's open made to justice,\n    That justice seizes. What knows the laws\n    That thieves do pass on thieves? 'Tis very pregnant,\n    The jewel that we find, we stoop and take't,\n    Because we see it; but what we do not see\n    We tread upon, and never think of it.\n    You may not so extenuate his offence\n    For I have had such faults; but rather tell me,\n    When I, that censure him, do so offend,\n    Let mine own judgment pattern out my death,\n    And nothing come in partial. Sir, he must die.\n  ESCALUS. Be it as your wisdom will.\n  ANGELO. Where is the Provost?\n  PROVOST. Here, if it like your honour.\n  ANGELO. See that Claudio\n    Be executed by nine to-morrow morning;\n    Bring him his confessor; let him be prepar'd;\n    For that's the utmost of his pilgrimage.        Exit PROVOST\n  ESCALUS. [Aside] Well, heaven forgive him! and forgive us all!\n    Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall;\n    Some run from breaks of ice, and answer none,\n    And some condemned for a fault alone.\n\n         Enter ELBOW and OFFICERS with FROTH and POMPEY\n\n  ELBOW. Come, bring them away; if these be good people in a\n    commonweal that do nothing but use their abuses in common houses,\n    I know no law; bring them away.\n  ANGELO. How now, sir! What's your name, and what's the matter?\n  ELBOW. If it please your honour, I am the poor Duke's constable,\n    and my name is Elbow; I do lean upon justice, sir, and do bring\n    in here before your good honour two notorious benefactors.\n  ANGELO. Benefactors! Well- what benefactors are they? Are they not\n    malefactors?\n  ELBOW. If it please your honour, I know not well what they are; but\n    precise villains they are, that I am sure of, and void of all\n    profanation in the world that good Christians ought to have.\n  ESCALUS. This comes off well; here's a wise officer.\n  ANGELO. Go to; what quality are they of? Elbow is your name? Why\n    dost thou not speak, Elbow?\n  POMPEY. He cannot, sir; he's out at elbow.\n  ANGELO. What are you, sir?\n  ELBOW. He, sir? A tapster, sir; parcel-bawd; one that serves a bad\n    woman; whose house, sir, was, as they say, pluck'd down in the\n    suburbs; and now she professes a hot-house, which, I think, is a\n    very ill house too.\n  ESCALUS. How know you that?\n  ELBOW. My Wife, sir, whom I detest before heaven and your honour-\n  ESCALUS. How! thy wife!\n  ELBOW. Ay, sir; whom I thank heaven, is an honest woman-\n  ESCALUS. Dost thou detest her therefore?\n  ELBOW. I say, sir, I will detest myself also, as well as she, that\n    this house, if it be not a bawd's house, it is pity of her life,\n    for it is a naughty house.\n  ESCALUS. How dost thou know that, constable?\n  ELBOW. Marry, sir, by my wife; who, if she had been a woman\n    cardinally given, might have been accus'd in fornication,\n    adultery, and all uncleanliness there.\n  ESCALUS. By the woman's means?\n  ELBOW. Ay, sir, by Mistress Overdone's means; but as she spit in\n    his face, so she defied him.\n  POMPEY. Sir, if it please your honour, this is not so.\n  ELBOW. Prove it before these varlets here, thou honourable man,\n    prove it.\n  ESCALUS. Do you hear how he misplaces?\n  POMPEY. Sir, she came in great with child; and longing, saving your\n    honour's reverence, for stew'd prunes. Sir, we had but two in the\n    house, which at that very distant time stood, as it were, in a\n    fruit dish, a dish of some three pence; your honours have seen\n    such dishes; they are not China dishes, but very good dishes.\n  ESCALUS. Go to, go to; no matter for the dish, sir.\n  POMPEY. No, indeed, sir, not of a pin; you are therein in the\n    right; but to the point. As I say, this Mistress Elbow, being, as\n    I say, with child, and being great-bellied, and longing, as I\n    said, for prunes; and having but two in the dish, as I said,\n    Master Froth here, this very man, having eaten the rest, as I\n    said, and, as I say, paying for them very honestly; for, as you\n    know, Master Froth, I could not give you three pence again-\n  FROTH. No, indeed.\n  POMPEY. Very well; you being then, if you be rememb'red, cracking\n    the stones of the foresaid prunes-\n  FROTH. Ay, so I did indeed.\n  POMPEY. Why, very well; I telling you then, if you be rememb'red,\n    that such a one and such a one were past cure of the thing you\n    wot of, unless they kept very good diet, as I told you-\n  FROTH. All this is true.\n  POMPEY. Why, very well then-\n  ESCALUS. Come, you are a tedious fool. To the purpose: what was\n    done to Elbow's wife that he hath cause to complain of? Come me\n    to what was done to her.\n  POMPEY. Sir, your honour cannot come to that yet.\n  ESCALUS. No, sir, nor I mean it not.\n  POMPEY. Sir, but you shall come to it, by your honour's leave. And,\n    I beseech you, look into Master Froth here, sir, a man of\n    fourscore pound a year; whose father died at Hallowmas- was't not\n    at Hallowmas, Master Froth?\n  FROTH. All-hallond eve.\n  POMPEY. Why, very well; I hope here be truths. He, sir, sitting, as\n    I say, in a lower chair, sir; 'twas in the Bunch of Grapes,\n    where, indeed, you have a delight to sit, have you not?\n  FROTH. I have so; because it is an open room, and good for winter.\n  POMPEY. Why, very well then; I hope here be truths.\n  ANGELO. This will last out a night in Russia,\n    When nights are longest there; I'll take my leave,\n    And leave you to the hearing of the cause,\n    Hoping you'll find good cause to whip them all.\n  ESCALUS. I think no less. Good morrow to your lordship.\n    [Exit ANGELO] Now, sir, come on; what was done to Elbow's wife,\n    once more?\n  POMPEY. Once?- sir. There was nothing done to her once.\n  ELBOW. I beseech you, sir, ask him what this man did to my wife.\n  POMPEY. I beseech your honour, ask me.\n  ESCALUS. Well, sir, what did this gentleman to her?\n  POMPEY. I beseech you, sir, look in this gentleman's face. Good\n    Master Froth, look upon his honour; 'tis for a good purpose. Doth\n    your honour mark his face?\n  ESCALUS. Ay, sir, very well.\n  POMPEY. Nay, I beseech you, mark it well.\n  ESCALUS. Well, I do so.\n  POMPEY. Doth your honour see any harm in his face?\n  ESCALUS. Why, no.\n  POMPEY. I'll be suppos'd upon a book his face is the worst thing\n    about him. Good then; if his face be the worst thing about him,\n    how could Master Froth do the constable's wife any harm? I would\n    know that of your honour.\n  ESCALUS. He's in the right, constable; what say you to it?\n  ELBOW. First, an it like you, the house is a respected house; next,\n    this is a respected fellow; and his mistress is a respected\n    woman.\n  POMPEY. By this hand, sir, his wife is a more respected person than\n    any of us all.\n  ELBOW. Varlet, thou liest; thou liest, wicket varlet; the time is\n    yet to come that she was ever respected with man, woman, or\n    child.\n  POMPEY. Sir, she was respected with him before he married with her.\n  ESCALUS. Which is the wiser here, Justice or Iniquity? Is this\n    true?\n  ELBOW. O thou caitiff! O thou varlet! O thou wicked Hannibal! I\n    respected with her before I was married to her! If ever I was\n    respected with her, or she with me, let not your worship think me\n    the poor Duke's officer. Prove this, thou wicked Hannibal, or\n    I'll have mine action of batt'ry on thee.\n  ESCALUS. If he took you a box o' th' ear, you might have your\n    action of slander too.\n  ELBOW. Marry, I thank your good worship for it. What is't your\n    worship's pleasure I shall do with this wicked caitiff?\n  ESCALUS. Truly, officer, because he hath some offences in him that\n    thou wouldst discover if thou couldst, let him continue in his\n    courses till thou know'st what they are.\n  ELBOW. Marry, I thank your worship for it. Thou seest, thou wicked\n    varlet, now, what's come upon thee: thou art to continue now,\n    thou varlet; thou art to continue.\n  ESCALUS. Where were you born, friend?\n  FROTH. Here in Vienna, sir.\n  ESCALUS. Are you of fourscore pounds a year?\n  FROTH. Yes, an't please you, sir.\n  ESCALUS. So. What trade are you of, sir?\n  POMPEY. A tapster, a poor widow's tapster.\n  ESCALUS. Your mistress' name?\n  POMPEY. Mistress Overdone.\n  ESCALUS. Hath she had any more than one husband?\n  POMPEY. Nine, sir; Overdone by the last.\n  ESCALUS. Nine! Come hither to me, Master Froth. Master Froth, I\n    would not have you acquainted with tapsters: they will draw you,\n    Master Froth, and you will hang them. Get you gone, and let me\n    hear no more of you.\n  FROTH. I thank your worship. For mine own part, I never come into\n    any room in a taphouse but I am drawn in.\n  ESCALUS. Well, no more of it, Master Froth; farewell. [Exit FROTH]\n    Come you hither to me, Master Tapster; what's your name, Master\n    Tapster?\n  POMPEY. Pompey.\n  ESCALUS. What else?\n  POMPEY. Bum, sir.\n  ESCALUS. Troth, and your bum is the greatest thing about you; so\n    that, in the beastliest sense, you are Pompey the Great. Pompey,\n    you are partly a bawd, Pompey, howsoever you colour it in being a\n    tapster. Are you not? Come, tell me true; it shall be the better\n    for you.\n  POMPEY. Truly, sir, I am a poor fellow that would live.\n  ESCALUS. How would you live, Pompey- by being a bawd? What do you\n    think of the trade, Pompey? Is it a lawful trade?\n  POMPEY. If the law would allow it, sir.\n  ESCALUS. But the law will not allow it, Pompey; nor it shall not be\n    allowed in Vienna.\n  POMPEY. Does your worship mean to geld and splay all the youth of\n    the city?\n  ESCALUS. No, Pompey.\n  POMPEY. Truly, sir, in my poor opinion, they will to't then. If\n    your worship will take order for the drabs and the knaves, you\n    need not to fear the bawds.\n  ESCALUS. There is pretty orders beginning, I can tell you: but it\n    is but heading and hanging.\n  POMPEY. If you head and hang all that offend that way but for ten\n    year together, you'll be glad to give out a commission for more\n    heads; if this law hold in Vienna ten year, I'll rent the fairest\n    house in it, after threepence a bay. If you live to see this come\n    to pass, say Pompey told you so.\n  ESCALUS. Thank you, good Pompey; and, in requital of your prophecy,\n    hark you: I advise you, let me not find you before me again upon\n    any complaint whatsoever- no, not for dwelling where you do; if I\n    do, Pompey, I shall beat you to your tent, and prove a shrewd\n    Caesar to you; in plain dealing, Pompey, I shall have you whipt.\n    So for this time, Pompey, fare you well.\n  POMPEY. I thank your worship for your good counsel; [Aside] but I\n    shall follow it as the flesh and fortune shall better determine.\n    Whip me? No, no; let carman whip his jade;\n    The valiant heart's not whipt out of his trade.         Exit\n  ESCALUS. Come hither to me, Master Elbow; come hither, Master\n    Constable. How long have you been in this place of constable?\n  ELBOW. Seven year and a half, sir.\n  ESCALUS. I thought, by the readiness in the office, you had\n    continued in it some time. You say seven years together?\n  ELBOW. And a half, sir.\n  ESCALUS. Alas, it hath been great pains to you! They do you wrong\n    to put you so oft upon't. Are there not men in your ward\n    sufficient to serve it?\n  ELBOW. Faith, sir, few of any wit in such matters; as they are\n    chosen, they are glad to choose me for them; I do it for some\n    piece of money, and go through with all.\n  ESCALUS. Look you, bring me in the names of some six or seven, the\n    most sufficient of your parish.\n  ELBOW. To your worship's house, sir?\n  ESCALUS. To my house. Fare you well.              [Exit ELBOW]\n    What's o'clock, think you?\n  JUSTICE. Eleven, sir.\n  ESCALUS. I pray you home to dinner with me.\n  JUSTICE. I humbly thank you.\n  ESCALUS. It grieves me for the death of Claudio;\n    But there's no remedy.\n  JUSTICE. Lord Angelo is severe.\n  ESCALUS. It is but needful:\n    Mercy is not itself that oft looks so;\n    Pardon is still the nurse of second woe.\n    But yet, poor Claudio! There is no remedy.\n    Come, sir.                                            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nAnother room in ANGELO'S house\n\nEnter PROVOST and a SERVANT\n\n  SERVANT. He's hearing of a cause; he will come straight.\n    I'll tell him of you.\n  PROVOST. Pray you do. [Exit SERVANT] I'll know\n    His pleasure; may be he will relent. Alas,\n    He hath but as offended in a dream!\n    All sects, all ages, smack of this vice; and he\n    To die for 't!\n\n                            Enter ANGELO\n\n  ANGELO. Now, what's the matter, Provost?\n  PROVOST. Is it your will Claudio shall die to-morrow?\n  ANGELO. Did not I tell thee yea? Hadst thou not order?\n    Why dost thou ask again?\n  PROVOST. Lest I might be too rash;\n    Under your good correction, I have seen\n    When, after execution, judgment hath\n    Repented o'er his doom.\n  ANGELO. Go to; let that be mine.\n    Do you your office, or give up your place,\n    And you shall well be spar'd.\n  PROVOST. I crave your honour's pardon.\n    What shall be done, sir, with the groaning Juliet?\n    She's very near her hour.\n  ANGELO. Dispose of her\n    To some more fitter place, and that with speed.\n\n                           Re-enter SERVANT\n\n  SERVANT. Here is the sister of the man condemn'd\n    Desires access to you.\n  ANGELO. Hath he a sister?\n  PROVOST. Ay, my good lord; a very virtuous maid,\n    And to be shortly of a sisterhood,\n    If not already.\n  ANGELO. Well, let her be admitted.                Exit SERVANT\n    See you the fornicatress be remov'd;\n    Let her have needful but not lavish means;\n    There shall be order for't.\n\n                         Enter Lucio and ISABELLA\n\n  PROVOST. [Going] Save your honour!\n  ANGELO. Stay a little while. [To ISABELLA] Y'are welcome; what's\n    your will?\n  ISABELLA. I am a woeful suitor to your honour,\n    Please but your honour hear me.\n  ANGELO. Well; what's your suit?\n  ISABELLA. There is a vice that most I do abhor,\n    And most desire should meet the blow of justice;\n    For which I would not plead, but that I must;\n    For which I must not plead, but that I am\n    At war 'twixt will and will not.\n  ANGELO. Well; the matter?\n  ISABELLA. I have a brother is condemn'd to die;\n    I do beseech you, let it be his fault,\n    And not my brother.\n  PROVOST. [Aside] Heaven give thee moving graces.\n  ANGELO. Condemn the fault and not the actor of it!\n    Why, every fault's condemn'd ere it be done;\n    Mine were the very cipher of a function,\n    To fine the faults whose fine stands in record,\n    And let go by the actor.\n  ISABELLA. O just but severe law!\n    I had a brother, then. Heaven keep your honour!\n  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] Give't not o'er so; to him again, entreat him,\n    Kneel down before him, hang upon his gown;\n    You are too cold: if you should need a pin,\n    You could not with more tame a tongue desire it.\n    To him, I say.\n  ISABELLA. Must he needs die?\n  ANGELO. Maiden, no remedy.\n  ISABELLA. Yes; I do think that you might pardon him.\n    And neither heaven nor man grieve at the mercy.\n  ANGELO. I will not do't.\n  ISABELLA. But can you, if you would?\n  ANGELO. Look, what I will not, that I cannot do.\n  ISABELLA. But might you do't, and do the world no wrong,\n    If so your heart were touch'd with that remorse\n    As mine is to him?\n  ANGELO. He's sentenc'd; 'tis too late.\n  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] You are too cold.\n  ISABELLA. Too late? Why, no; I, that do speak a word,\n    May call it back again. Well, believe this:\n    No ceremony that to great ones longs,\n    Not the king's crown nor the deputed sword,\n    The marshal's truncheon nor the judge's robe,\n    Become them with one half so good a grace\n    As mercy does.\n    If he had been as you, and you as he,\n    You would have slipp'd like him; but he, like you,\n    Would not have been so stern.\n  ANGELO. Pray you be gone.\n  ISABELLA. I would to heaven I had your potency,\n    And you were Isabel! Should it then be thus?\n    No; I would tell what 'twere to be a judge\n    And what a prisoner.\n  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] Ay, touch him; there's the vein.\n  ANGELO. Your brother is a forfeit of the law,\n    And you but waste your words.\n  ISABELLA. Alas! Alas!\n    Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once;\n    And He that might the vantage best have took\n    Found out the remedy. How would you be\n    If He, which is the top of judgment, should\n    But judge you as you are? O, think on that;\n    And mercy then will breathe within your lips,\n    Like man new made.\n  ANGELO. Be you content, fair maid.\n    It is the law, not I condemn your brother.\n    Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son,\n    It should be thus with him. He must die to-morrow.\n  ISABELLA. To-morrow! O, that's sudden! Spare him, spare him.\n    He's not prepar'd for death. Even for our kitchens\n    We kill the fowl of season; shall we serve heaven\n    With less respect than we do minister\n    To our gross selves? Good, good my lord, bethink you.\n    Who is it that hath died for this offence?\n    There's many have committed it.\n  LUCIO. [Aside] Ay, well said.\n  ANGELO. The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept.\n    Those many had not dar'd to do that evil\n    If the first that did th' edict infringe\n    Had answer'd for his deed. Now 'tis awake,\n    Takes note of what is done, and, like a prophet,\n    Looks in a glass that shows what future evils-\n    Either now or by remissness new conceiv'd,\n    And so in progress to be hatch'd and born-\n    Are now to have no successive degrees,\n    But here they live to end.\n  ISABELLA. Yet show some pity.\n  ANGELO. I show it most of all when I show justice;\n    For then I pity those I do not know,\n    Which a dismiss'd offence would after gall,\n    And do him right that, answering one foul wrong,\n    Lives not to act another. Be satisfied;\n    Your brother dies to-morrow; be content.\n  ISABELLA. So you must be the first that gives this sentence,\n    And he that suffers. O, it is excellent\n    To have a giant's strength! But it is tyrannous\n    To use it like a giant.\n  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] That's well said.\n  ISABELLA. Could great men thunder\n    As Jove himself does, Jove would never be quiet,\n    For every pelting petty officer\n    Would use his heaven for thunder,\n    Nothing but thunder. Merciful Heaven,\n    Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt,\n    Splits the unwedgeable and gnarled oak\n    Than the soft myrtle. But man, proud man,\n    Dress'd in a little brief authority,\n    Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd,\n    His glassy essence, like an angry ape,\n    Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven\n    As makes the angels weep; who, with our speens,\n    Would all themselves laugh mortal.\n  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] O, to him, to him, wench! He will relent;\n    He's coming; I perceive 't.\n  PROVOST. [Aside] Pray heaven she win him.\n  ISABELLA. We cannot weigh our brother with ourself.\n    Great men may jest with saints: 'tis wit in them;\n    But in the less foul profanation.\n  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] Thou'rt i' th' right, girl; more o' that.\n  ISABELLA. That in the captain's but a choleric word\n    Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.\n  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] Art avis'd o' that? More on't.\n  ANGELO. Why do you put these sayings upon me?\n  ISABELLA. Because authority, though it err like others,\n    Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself\n    That skins the vice o' th' top. Go to your bosom,\n    Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know\n    That's like my brother's fault. If it confess\n    A natural guiltiness such as is his,\n    Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue\n    Against my brother's life.\n  ANGELO. [Aside] She speaks, and 'tis\n    Such sense that my sense breeds with it.- Fare you well.\n  ISABELLA. Gentle my lord, turn back.\n  ANGELO. I will bethink me. Come again to-morrow.\n  ISABELLA. Hark how I'll bribe you; good my lord, turn back.\n  ANGELO. How, bribe me?\n  ISABELLA. Ay, with such gifts that heaven shall share with you.\n  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA) You had marr'd all else.\n  ISABELLA. Not with fond sicles of the tested gold,\n    Or stones, whose rate are either rich or poor\n    As fancy values them; but with true prayers\n    That shall be up at heaven and enter there\n    Ere sun-rise, prayers from preserved souls,\n    From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate\n    To nothing temporal.\n  ANGELO. Well; come to me to-morrow.\n  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] Go to; 'tis well; away.\n  ISABELLA. Heaven keep your honour safe!\n  ANGELO. [Aside] Amen; for I\n    Am that way going to temptation\n    Where prayers cross.\n  ISABELLA. At what hour to-morrow\n    Shall I attend your lordship?\n  ANGELO. At any time 'fore noon.\n  ISABELLA. Save your honour!              Exeunt all but ANGELO\n  ANGELO. From thee; even from thy virtue!\n    What's this, what's this? Is this her fault or mine?\n    The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?\n    Ha!\n    Not she; nor doth she tempt; but it is I\n    That, lying by the violet in the sun,\n    Do as the carrion does, not as the flow'r,\n    Corrupt with virtuous season. Can it be\n    That modesty may more betray our sense\n    Than woman's lightness? Having waste ground enough,\n    Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary,\n    And pitch our evils there? O, fie, fie, fie!\n    What dost thou, or what art thou, Angelo?\n    Dost thou desire her foully for those things\n    That make her good? O, let her brother live!\n    Thieves for their robbery have authority\n    When judges steal themselves. What, do I love her,\n    That I desire to hear her speak again,\n    And feast upon her eyes? What is't I dream on?\n    O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint,\n    With saints dost bait thy hook! Most dangerous\n    Is that temptation that doth goad us on\n    To sin in loving virtue. Never could the strumpet,\n    With all her double vigour, art and nature,\n    Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid\n    Subdues me quite. Ever till now,\n    When men were fond, I smil'd and wond'red how.          Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nA prison\n\nEnter, severally, DUKE, disguised as a FRIAR, and PROVOST\n\n  DUKE. Hail to you, Provost! so I think you are.\n  PROVOST. I am the Provost. What's your will, good friar?\n  DUKE. Bound by my charity and my blest order,\n    I come to visit the afflicted spirits\n    Here in the prison. Do me the common right\n    To let me see them, and to make me know\n    The nature of their crimes, that I may minister\n    To them accordingly.\n  PROVOST. I would do more than that, if more were needful.\n\n                          Enter JULIET\n\n    Look, here comes one; a gentlewoman of mine,\n    Who, falling in the flaws of her own youth,\n    Hath blister'd her report. She is with child;\n    And he that got it, sentenc'd- a young man\n    More fit to do another such offence\n    Than die for this.\n  DUKE. When must he die?\n  PROVOST. As I do think, to-morrow.\n    [To JULIET] I have provided for you; stay awhile\n    And you shall be conducted.\n  DUKE. Repent you, fair one, of the sin you carry?\n  JULIET. I do; and bear the shame most patiently.\n  DUKE. I'll teach you how you shall arraign your conscience,\n    And try your penitence, if it be sound\n    Or hollowly put on.\n  JULIET. I'll gladly learn.\n  DUKE. Love you the man that wrong'd you?\n  JULIET. Yes, as I love the woman that wrong'd him.\n  DUKE. So then, it seems, your most offenceful act\n    Was mutually committed.\n  JULIET. Mutually.\n  DUKE. Then was your sin of heavier kind than his.\n  JULIET. I do confess it, and repent it, father.\n  DUKE. 'Tis meet so, daughter; but lest you do repent\n    As that the sin hath brought you to this shame,\n    Which sorrow is always toward ourselves, not heaven,\n    Showing we would not spare heaven as we love it,\n    But as we stand in fear-\n  JULIET. I do repent me as it is an evil,\n    And take the shame with joy.\n  DUKE. There rest.\n    Your partner, as I hear, must die to-morrow,\n    And I am going with instruction to him.\n    Grace go with you! Benedicite!                          Exit\n  JULIET. Must die to-morrow! O, injurious law,\n    That respites me a life whose very comfort\n    Is still a dying horror!\n  PROVOST. 'Tis pity of him.                              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nANGELO'S house\n\nEnter ANGELO\n\n  ANGELO. When I would pray and think, I think and pray\n    To several subjects. Heaven hath my empty words,\n    Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,\n    Anchors on Isabel. Heaven in my mouth,\n    As if I did but only chew his name,\n    And in my heart the strong and swelling evil\n    Of my conception. The state whereon I studied\n    Is, like a good thing being often read,\n    Grown sere and tedious; yea, my gravity,\n    Wherein- let no man hear me- I take pride,\n    Could I with boot change for an idle plume\n    Which the air beats for vain. O place, O form,\n    How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,\n    Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls\n    To thy false seeming! Blood, thou art blood.\n    Let's write 'good angel' on the devil's horn;\n    'Tis not the devil's crest.\n\n                           Enter SERVANT\n\n    How now, who's there?\n  SERVANT. One Isabel, a sister, desires access to you.\n  ANGELO. Teach her the way. [Exit SERVANT] O heavens!\n    Why does my blood thus muster to my heart,\n    Making both it unable for itself\n    And dispossessing all my other parts\n    Of necessary fitness?\n    So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons;\n    Come all to help him, and so stop the air\n    By which he should revive; and even so\n    The general subject to a well-wish'd king\n    Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness\n    Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love\n    Must needs appear offence.\n\n                            Enter ISABELLA\n\n    How now, fair maid?\n  ISABELLA. I am come to know your pleasure.\n  ANGELO. That you might know it would much better please me\n    Than to demand what 'tis. Your brother cannot live.\n  ISABELLA. Even so! Heaven keep your honour!\n  ANGELO. Yet may he live awhile, and, it may be,\n    As long as you or I; yet he must die.\n  ISABELLA. Under your sentence?\n  ANGELO. Yea.\n  ISABELLA. When? I beseech you; that in his reprieve,\n    Longer or shorter, he may be so fitted\n    That his soul sicken not.\n  ANGELO. Ha! Fie, these filthy vices! It were as good\n    To pardon him that hath from nature stol'n\n    A man already made, as to remit\n    Their saucy sweetness that do coin heaven's image\n    In stamps that are forbid; 'tis all as easy\n    Falsely to take away a life true made\n    As to put metal in restrained means\n    To make a false one.\n  ISABELLA. 'Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth.\n  ANGELO. Say you so? Then I shall pose you quickly.\n    Which had you rather- that the most just law\n    Now took your brother's life; or, to redeem him,\n    Give up your body to such sweet uncleanness\n    As she that he hath stain'd?\n  ISABELLA. Sir, believe this:\n    I had rather give my body than my soul.\n  ANGELO. I talk not of your soul; our compell'd sins\n    Stand more for number than for accompt.\n  ISABELLA. How say you?\n  ANGELO. Nay, I'll not warrant that; for I can speak\n    Against the thing I say. Answer to this:\n    I, now the voice of the recorded law,\n    Pronounce a sentence on your brother's life;\n    Might there not be a charity in sin\n    To save this brother's life?\n  ISABELLA. Please you to do't,\n    I'll take it as a peril to my soul\n    It is no sin at all, but charity.\n  ANGELO. Pleas'd you to do't at peril of your soul,\n    Were equal poise of sin and charity.\n  ISABELLA. That I do beg his life, if it be sin,\n    Heaven let me bear it! You granting of my suit,\n    If that be sin, I'll make it my morn prayer\n    To have it added to the faults of mine,\n    And nothing of your answer.\n  ANGELO. Nay, but hear me;\n    Your sense pursues not mine; either you are ignorant\n    Or seem so, craftily; and that's not good.\n  ISABELLA. Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good\n    But graciously to know I am no better.\n  ANGELO. Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright\n    When it doth tax itself; as these black masks\n    Proclaim an enshielded beauty ten times louder\n    Than beauty could, display'd. But mark me:\n    To be received plain, I'll speak more gross-\n    Your brother is to die.\n  ISABELLA. So.\n  ANGELO. And his offence is so, as it appears,\n    Accountant to the law upon that pain.\n  ISABELLA. True.\n  ANGELO. Admit no other way to save his life,\n    As I subscribe not that, nor any other,\n    But, in the loss of question, that you, his sister,\n    Finding yourself desir'd of such a person\n    Whose credit with the judge, or own great place,\n    Could fetch your brother from the manacles\n    Of the all-binding law; and that there were\n    No earthly mean to save him but that either\n    You must lay down the treasures of your body\n    To this supposed, or else to let him suffer-\n    What would you do?\n  ISABELLA. As much for my poor brother as myself;\n    That is, were I under the terms of death,\n    Th' impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies,\n    And strip myself to death as to a bed\n    That longing have been sick for, ere I'd yield\n    My body up to shame.\n  ANGELO. Then must your brother die.\n  ISABELLA. And 'twere the cheaper way:\n    Better it were a brother died at once\n    Than that a sister, by redeeming him,\n    Should die for ever.\n  ANGELO. Were not you, then, as cruel as the sentence\n    That you have slander'd so?\n  ISABELLA. Ignominy in ransom and free pardon\n    Are of two houses: lawful mercy\n    Is nothing kin to foul redemption.\n  ANGELO. You seem'd of late to make the law a tyrant;\n    And rather prov'd the sliding of your brother\n    A merriment than a vice.\n  ISABELLA. O, pardon me, my lord! It oft falls out,\n    To have what we would have, we speak not what we mean:\n    I something do excuse the thing I hate\n    For his advantage that I dearly love.\n  ANGELO. We are all frail.\n  ISABELLA. Else let my brother die,\n    If not a fedary but only he\n    Owe and succeed thy weakness.\n  ANGELO. Nay, women are frail too.\n  ISABELLA. Ay, as the glasses where they view themselves,\n    Which are as easy broke as they make forms.\n    Women, help heaven! Men their creation mar\n    In profiting by them. Nay, call us ten times frail;\n    For we are soft as our complexions are,\n    And credulous to false prints.\n  ANGELO. I think it well;\n    And from this testimony of your own sex,\n    Since I suppose we are made to be no stronger\n    Than faults may shake our frames, let me be bold.\n    I do arrest your words. Be that you are,\n    That is, a woman; if you be more, you're none;\n    If you be one, as you are well express'd\n    By all external warrants, show it now\n    By putting on the destin'd livery.\n  ISABELLA. I have no tongue but one; gentle, my lord,\n    Let me intreat you speak the former language.\n  ANGELO. Plainly conceive, I love you.\n  ISABELLA. My brother did love Juliet,\n    And you tell me that he shall die for't.\n  ANGELO. He shall not, Isabel, if you give me love.\n  ISABELLA. I know your virtue hath a license in't,\n    Which seems a little fouler than it is,\n    To pluck on others.\n  ANGELO. Believe me, on mine honour,\n    My words express my purpose.\n  ISABELLA. Ha! little honour to be much believ'd,\n    And most pernicious purpose! Seeming, seeming!\n    I will proclaim thee, Angelo, look for't.\n    Sign me a present pardon for my brother\n    Or, with an outstretch'd throat, I'll tell the world aloud\n    What man thou art.\n  ANGELO. Who will believe thee, Isabel?\n    My unsoil'd name, th' austereness of my life,\n    My vouch against you, and my place i' th' state,\n    Will so your accusation overweigh\n    That you shall stifle in your own report,\n    And smell of calumny. I have begun,\n    And now I give my sensual race the rein:\n    Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite;\n    Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes\n    That banish what they sue for; redeem thy brother\n    By yielding up thy body to my will;\n    Or else he must not only die the death,\n    But thy unkindness shall his death draw out\n    To ling'ring sufferance. Answer me to-morrow,\n    Or, by the affection that now guides me most,\n    I'll prove a tyrant to him. As for you,\n    Say what you can: my false o'erweighs your true.        Exit\n  ISABELLA. To whom should I complain? Did I tell this,\n    Who would believe me? O perilous mouths\n    That bear in them one and the self-same tongue\n    Either of condemnation or approof,\n    Bidding the law make curtsy to their will;\n    Hooking both right and wrong to th' appetite,\n    To follow as it draws! I'll to my brother.\n    Though he hath fall'n by prompture of the blood,\n    Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour\n    That, had he twenty heads to tender down\n    On twenty bloody blocks, he'd yield them up\n    Before his sister should her body stoop\n    To such abhorr'd pollution.\n    Then, Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die:\n    More than our brother is our chastity.\n    I'll tell him yet of Angelo's request,\n    And fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest.         Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nThe prison\n\nEnter DUKE, disguised as before, CLAUDIO, and PROVOST\n\n  DUKE. So, then you hope of pardon from Lord Angelo?\n  CLAUDIO. The miserable have no other medicine\n    But only hope:\n    I have hope to Eve, and am prepar'd to die.\n  DUKE. Be absolute for death; either death or life\n    Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life.\n    If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing\n    That none but fools would keep. A breath thou art,\n    Servile to all the skyey influences,\n    That dost this habitation where thou keep'st\n    Hourly afflict. Merely, thou art Death's fool;\n    For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun\n    And yet run'st toward him still. Thou art not noble;\n    For all th' accommodations that thou bear'st\n    Are nurs'd by baseness. Thou 'rt by no means valiant;\n    For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork\n    Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep,\n    And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st\n    Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself;\n    For thou exists on many a thousand grains\n    That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not;\n    For what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get,\n    And what thou hast, forget'st. Thou art not certain;\n    For thy complexion shifts to strange effects,\n    After the moon. If thou art rich, thou'rt poor;\n    For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows,\n    Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey,\n    And Death unloads thee. Friend hast thou none;\n    For thine own bowels which do call thee sire,\n    The mere effusion of thy proper loins,\n    Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum,\n    For ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor youth nor age,\n    But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep,\n    Dreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth\n    Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms\n    Of palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich,\n    Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,\n    To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this\n    That bears the name of life? Yet in this life\n    Lie hid moe thousand deaths; yet death we fear,\n    That makes these odds all even.\n  CLAUDIO. I humbly thank you.\n    To sue to live, I find I seek to die;\n    And, seeking death, find life. Let it come on.\n  ISABELLA. [Within] What, ho! Peace here; grace and good company!\n  PROVOST. Who's there? Come in; the wish deserves a welcome.\n  DUKE. Dear sir, ere long I'll visit you again.\n  CLAUDIO. Most holy sir, I thank you.\n\n                        Enter ISABELLA\n\n  ISABELLA. My business is a word or two with Claudio.\n  PROVOST. And very welcome. Look, signior, here's your sister.\n  DUKE. Provost, a word with you.\n  PROVOST. As many as you please.\n  DUKE. Bring me to hear them speak, where I may be conceal'd.\n                                         Exeunt DUKE and PROVOST\n  CLAUDIO. Now, sister, what's the comfort?\n  ISABELLA. Why,\n    As all comforts are; most good, most good, indeed.\n    Lord Angelo, having affairs to heaven,\n    Intends you for his swift ambassador,\n    Where you shall be an everlasting leiger.\n    Therefore, your best appointment make with speed;\n    To-morrow you set on.\n  CLAUDIO. Is there no remedy?\n  ISABELLA. None, but such remedy as, to save a head,\n    To cleave a heart in twain.\n  CLAUDIO. But is there any?\n  ISABELLA. Yes, brother, you may live:\n    There is a devilish mercy in the judge,\n    If you'll implore it, that will free your life,\n    But fetter you till death.\n  CLAUDIO. Perpetual durance?\n  ISABELLA. Ay, just; perpetual durance, a restraint,\n    Though all the world's vastidity you had,\n    To a determin'd scope.\n  CLAUDIO. But in what nature?\n  ISABELLA. In such a one as, you consenting to't,\n    Would bark your honour from that trunk you bear,\n    And leave you naked.\n  CLAUDIO. Let me know the point.\n  ISABELLA. O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake,\n    Lest thou a feverous life shouldst entertain,\n    And six or seven winters more respect\n    Than a perpetual honour. Dar'st thou die?\n    The sense of death is most in apprehension;\n    And the poor beetle that we tread upon\n    In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great\n    As when a giant dies.\n  CLAUDIO. Why give you me this shame?\n    Think you I can a resolution fetch\n    From flow'ry tenderness? If I must die,\n    I will encounter darkness as a bride\n    And hug it in mine arms.\n  ISABELLA. There spake my brother; there my father's grave\n    Did utter forth a voice. Yes, thou must die:\n    Thou art too noble to conserve a life\n    In base appliances. This outward-sainted deputy,\n    Whose settled visage and deliberate word\n    Nips youth i' th' head, and follies doth enew\n    As falcon doth the fowl, is yet a devil;\n    His filth within being cast, he would appear\n    A pond as deep as hell.\n  CLAUDIO. The precise Angelo!\n  ISABELLA. O, 'tis the cunning livery of hell\n    The damned'st body to invest and cover\n    In precise guards! Dost thou think, Claudio,\n    If I would yield him my virginity\n    Thou mightst be freed?\n  CLAUDIO. O heavens! it cannot be.\n  ISABELLA. Yes, he would give't thee, from this rank offence,\n    So to offend him still. This night's the time\n    That I should do what I abhor to name,\n    Or else thou diest to-morrow.\n  CLAUDIO. Thou shalt not do't.\n  ISABELLA. O, were it but my life!\n    I'd throw it down for your deliverance\n    As frankly as a pin.\n  CLAUDIO. Thanks, dear Isabel.\n  ISABELLA. Be ready, Claudio, for your death to-morrow.\n  CLAUDIO. Yes. Has he affections in him\n    That thus can make him bite the law by th' nose\n    When he would force it? Sure it is no sin;\n    Or of the deadly seven it is the least.\n  ISABELLA. Which is the least?\n  CLAUDIO. If it were damnable, he being so wise,\n    Why would he for the momentary trick\n    Be perdurably fin'd?- O Isabel!\n  ISABELLA. What says my brother?\n  CLAUDIO. Death is a fearful thing.\n  ISABELLA. And shamed life a hateful.\n  CLAUDIO. Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;\n    To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;\n    This sensible warm motion to become\n    A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit\n    To bathe in fiery floods or to reside\n    In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;\n    To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,\n    And blown with restless violence round about\n    The pendent world; or to be worse than worst\n    Of those that lawless and incertain thought\n    Imagine howling- 'tis too horrible.\n    The weariest and most loathed worldly life\n    That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment,\n    Can lay on nature is a paradise\n    To what we fear of death.\n  ISABELLA. Alas, alas!\n  CLAUDIO. Sweet sister, let me live.\n    What sin you do to save a brother's life,\n    Nature dispenses with the deed so far\n    That it becomes a virtue.\n  ISABELLA. O you beast!\n    O faithless coward! O dishonest wretch!\n    Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice?\n    Is't not a kind of incest to take life\n    From thine own sister's shame? What should I think?\n    Heaven shield my mother play'd my father fair!\n    For such a warped slip of wilderness\n    Ne'er issu'd from his blood. Take my defiance;\n    Die; perish. Might but my bending down\n    Reprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed.\n    I'll pray a thousand prayers for thy death,\n    No word to save thee.\n  CLAUDIO. Nay, hear me, Isabel.\n  ISABELLA. O fie, fie, fie!\n    Thy sin's not accidental, but a trade.\n    Mercy to thee would prove itself a bawd;\n    'Tis best that thou diest quickly.\n  CLAUDIO. O, hear me, Isabella.\n\n                            Re-enter DUKE\n\n  DUKE. Vouchsafe a word, young sister, but one word.\n  ISABELLA. What is your will?\n  DUKE. Might you dispense with your leisure, I would by and by have\n    some speech with you; the satisfaction I would require is\n    likewise your own benefit.\n  ISABELLA. I have no superfluous leisure; my stay must be stolen out\n    of other affairs; but I will attend you awhile.\n                                                   [Walks apart]\n  DUKE. Son, I have overheard what hath pass'd between you and your\n    sister. Angelo had never the purpose to corrupt her; only he hath\n    made an assay of her virtue to practise his judgment with the\n    disposition of natures. She, having the truth of honour in her,\n    hath made him that gracious denial which he is most glad to\n    receive. I am confessor to Angelo, and I know this to be true;\n    therefore prepare yourself to death. Do not satisfy your\n    resolution with hopes that are fallible; to-morrow you must die;\n    go to your knees and make ready.\n  CLAUDIO. Let me ask my sister pardon. I am so out of love with life\n    that I will sue to be rid of it.\n  DUKE. Hold you there. Farewell. [Exit CLAUDIO] Provost, a word with\n    you.\n\n                          Re-enter PROVOST\n\n  PROVOST. What's your will, father?\n  DUKE. That, now you are come, you will be gone. Leave me a while\n    with the maid; my mind promises with my habit no loss shall touch\n    her by my company.\n  PROVOST. In good time.                            Exit PROVOST\n  DUKE. The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good; the\n    goodness that is cheap in beauty makes beauty brief in goodness;\n    but grace, being the soul of your complexion, shall keep the body\n    of it ever fair. The assault that Angelo hath made to you,\n    fortune hath convey'd to my understanding; and, but that frailty\n    hath examples for his falling, I should wonder at Angelo. How\n    will you do to content this substitute, and to save your brother?\n  ISABELLA. I am now going to resolve him; I had rather my brother\n    die by the law than my son should be unlawfully born. But, O, how\n    much is the good Duke deceiv'd in Angelo! If ever he return, and\n    I can speak to him, I will open my lips in vain, or discover his\n    government.\n  DUKE. That shall not be much amiss; yet, as the matter now stands,\n    he will avoid your accusation: he made trial of you only.\n    Therefore fasten your ear on my advisings; to the love I have in\n    doing good a remedy presents itself. I do make myself believe\n    that you may most uprighteously do a poor wronged lady a merited\n    benefit; redeem your brother from the angry law; do no stain to\n    your own gracious person; and much please the absent Duke, if\n    peradventure he shall ever return to have hearing of this\n    business.\n  ISABELLA. Let me hear you speak farther; I have spirit to do\n    anything that appears not foul in the truth of my spirit.\n  DUKE. Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. Have you not\n    heard speak of Mariana, the sister of Frederick, the great\n    soldier who miscarried at sea?\n  ISABELLA. I have heard of the lady, and good words went with her\n    name.\n  DUKE. She should this Angelo have married; was affianced to her by\n    oath, and the nuptial appointed; between which time of the\n    contract and limit of the solemnity her brother Frederick was\n    wreck'd at sea, having in that perished vessel the dowry of his\n    sister. But mark how heavily this befell to the poor gentlewoman:\n    there she lost a noble and renowned brother, in his love toward\n    her ever most kind and natural; with him the portion and sinew of\n    her fortune, her marriage-dowry; with both, her combinate\n    husband, this well-seeming Angelo.\n  ISABELLA. Can this be so? Did Angelo so leave her?\n  DUKE. Left her in her tears, and dried not one of them with his\n    comfort; swallowed his vows whole, pretending in her discoveries\n    of dishonour; in few, bestow'd her on her own lamentation, which\n    she yet wears for his sake; and he, a marble to her tears, is\n    washed with them, but relents not.\n  ISABELLA. What a merit were it in death to take this poor maid from\n    the world! What corruption in this life that it will let this man\n    live! But how out of this can she avail?\n  DUKE. It is a rupture that you may easily heal; and the cure of it\n    not only saves your brother, but keeps you from dishonour in\n    doing it.\n  ISABELLA. Show me how, good father.\n  DUKE. This forenamed maid hath yet in her the continuance of her\n    first affection; his unjust unkindness, that in all reason should\n    have quenched her love, hath, like an impediment in the current,\n    made it more violent and unruly. Go you to Angelo; answer his\n    requiring with a plausible obedience; agree with his demands to\n    the point; only refer yourself to this advantage: first, that\n    your stay with him may not be long; that the time may have all\n    shadow and silence in it; and the place answer to convenience.\n    This being granted in course- and now follows all: we shall\n    advise this wronged maid to stead up your appointment, go in your\n    place. If the encounter acknowledge itself hereafter, it may\n    compel him to her recompense; and here, by this, is your brother\n    saved, your honour untainted, the poor Mariana advantaged, and\n    the corrupt deputy scaled. The maid will I frame and make fit for\n    his attempt. If you think well to carry this as you may, the\n    doubleness of the benefit defends the deceit from reproof. What\n    think you of it?\n  ISABELLA. The image of it gives me content already; and I trust it\n    will grow to a most prosperous perfection.\n  DUKE. It lies much in your holding up. Haste you speedily to\n    Angelo; if for this night he entreat you to his bed, give him\n    promise of satisfaction. I will presently to Saint Luke's; there,\n    at the moated grange, resides this dejected Mariana. At that\n    place call upon me; and dispatch with Angelo, that it may be\n    quickly.\n  ISABELLA. I thank you for this comfort. Fare you well, good father.\n                                                Exeunt severally\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nThe street before the prison\n\nEnter, on one side, DUKE disguised as before; on the other, ELBOW,\nand OFFICERS with POMPEY\n\n  ELBOW. Nay, if there be no remedy for it, but that you will needs\n    buy and sell men and women like beasts, we shall have all the\n    world drink brown and white bastard.\n  DUKE. O heavens! what stuff is here?\n  POMPEY. 'Twas never merry world since, of two usuries, the merriest\n    was put down, and the worser allow'd by order of law a furr'd\n    gown to keep him warm; and furr'd with fox on lamb-skins too, to\n    signify that craft, being richer than innocency, stands for the\n    facing.\n  ELBOW. Come your way, sir. Bless you, good father friar.\n  DUKE. And you, good brother father. What offence hath this man made\n    you, sir?\n  ELBOW. Marry, sir, he hath offended the law; and, sir, we take him\n    to be a thief too, sir, for we have found upon him, sir, a\n    strange picklock, which we have sent to the deputy.\n  DUKE. Fie, sirrah, a bawd, a wicked bawd!\n    The evil that thou causest to be done,\n    That is thy means to live. Do thou but think\n    What 'tis to cram a maw or clothe a back\n    From such a filthy vice; say to thyself\n    'From their abominable and beastly touches\n    I drink, I eat, array myself, and live.'\n    Canst thou believe thy living is a life,\n    So stinkingly depending? Go mend, go mend.\n  POMPEY. Indeed, it does stink in some sort, sir; but yet, sir,\n    I would prove-\n  DUKE. Nay, if the devil have given thee proofs for sin,\n    Thou wilt prove his. Take him to prison, officer;\n    Correction and instruction must both work\n    Ere this rude beast will profit.\n  ELBOW. He must before the deputy, sir; he has given him warning.\n    The deputy cannot abide a whoremaster; if he be a whoremonger,\n    and comes before him, he were as good go a mile on his errand.\n  DUKE. That we were all, as some would seem to be,\n    From our faults, as his faults from seeming, free.\n  ELBOW. His neck will come to your waist- a cord, sir.\n\n                          Enter LUCIO\n\n  POMPEY. I spy comfort; I cry bail. Here's a gentleman, and a friend\n    of mine.\n  LUCIO. How now, noble Pompey! What, at the wheels of Caesar? Art\n    thou led in triumph? What, is there none of Pygmalion's images,\n    newly made woman, to be had now for putting the hand in the\n    pocket and extracting it clutch'd? What reply, ha? What say'st\n    thou to this tune, matter, and method? Is't not drown'd i' th'\n    last rain, ha? What say'st thou, trot? Is the world as it was,\n    man? Which is the way? Is it sad, and few words? or how? The\n    trick of it?\n  DUKE. Still thus, and thus; still worse!\n  LUCIO. How doth my dear morsel, thy mistress? Procures she still,\n    ha?\n  POMPEY. Troth, sir, she hath eaten up all her beef, and she is\n    herself in the tub.\n  LUCIO. Why, 'tis good; it is the right of it; it must be so; ever\n    your fresh whore and your powder'd bawd- an unshunn'd\n    consequence; it must be so. Art going to prison, Pompey?\n  POMPEY. Yes, faith, sir.\n  LUCIO. Why, 'tis not amiss, Pompey. Farewell; go, say I sent thee\n    thither. For debt, Pompey- or how?\n  ELBOW. For being a bawd, for being a bawd.\n  LUCIO. Well, then, imprison him. If imprisonment be the due of a\n    bawd, why, 'tis his right. Bawd is he doubtless, and of\n    antiquity, too; bawd-born. Farewell, good Pompey. Commend me to\n    the prison, Pompey. You will turn good husband now, Pompey; you\n    will keep the house.\n  POMPEY. I hope, sir, your good worship will be my bail.\n  LUCIO. No, indeed, will I not, Pompey; it is not the wear. I will\n    pray, Pompey, to increase your bondage. If you take it not\n    patiently, why, your mettle is the more. Adieu trusty Pompey.\n    Bless you, friar.\n  DUKE. And you.\n  LUCIO. Does Bridget paint still, Pompey, ha?\n  ELBOW. Come your ways, sir; come.\n  POMPEY. You will not bail me then, sir?\n  LUCIO. Then, Pompey, nor now. What news abroad, friar? what news?\n  ELBOW. Come your ways, sir; come.\n  LUCIO. Go to kennel, Pompey, go.\n\n                               Exeunt ELBOW, POMPEY and OFFICERS\n\n    What news, friar, of the Duke?\n  DUKE. I know none. Can you tell me of any?\n  LUCIO. Some say he is with the Emperor of Russia; other some, he is\n    in Rome; but where is he, think you?\n  DUKE. I know not where; but wheresoever, I wish him well.\n  LUCIO. It was a mad fantastical trick of him to steal from the\n    state and usurp the beggary he was never born to. Lord Angelo\n    dukes it well in his absence; he puts transgression to't.\n  DUKE. He does well in't.\n  LUCIO. A little more lenity to lechery would do no harm in him;\n    something too crabbed that way, friar.\n  DUKE. It is too general a vice, and severity must cure it.\n  LUCIO. Yes, in good sooth, the vice is of a great kindred; it is\n    well allied; but it is impossible to extirp it quite, friar, till\n    eating and drinking be put down. They say this Angelo was not\n    made by man and woman after this downright way of creation. Is it\n    true, think you?\n  DUKE. How should he be made, then?\n  LUCIO. Some report a sea-maid spawn'd him; some, that he was begot\n    between two stock-fishes. But it is certain that when he makes\n    water his urine is congeal'd ice; that I know to be true. And he\n    is a motion generative; that's infallible.\n  DUKE. You are pleasant, sir, and speak apace.\n  LUCIO. Why, what a ruthless thing is this in him, for the rebellion\n    of a codpiece to take away the life of a man! Would the Duke that\n    is absent have done this? Ere he would have hang'd a man for the\n    getting a hundred bastards, he would have paid for the nursing a\n    thousand. He had some feeling of the sport; he knew the service,\n    and that instructed him to mercy.\n  DUKE. I never heard the absent Duke much detected for women; he was\n    not inclin'd that way.\n  LUCIO. O, sir, you are deceiv'd.\n  DUKE. 'Tis not possible.\n  LUCIO. Who- not the Duke? Yes, your beggar of fifty; and his use\n    was to put a ducat in her clack-dish. The Duke had crotchets in\n    him. He would be drunk too; that let me inform you.\n  DUKE. You do him wrong, surely.\n  LUCIO. Sir, I was an inward of his. A shy fellow was the Duke; and\n    I believe I know the cause of his withdrawing.\n  DUKE. What, I prithee, might be the cause?\n  LUCIO. No, pardon; 'tis a secret must be lock'd within the teeth\n    and the lips; but this I can let you understand: the greater file\n    of the subject held the Duke to be wise.\n  DUKE. Wise? Why, no question but he was.\n  LUCIO. A very superficial, ignorant, unweighing fellow.\n  DUKE. Either this is envy in you, folly, or mistaking; the very\n    stream of his life, and the business he hath helmed, must, upon a\n    warranted need, give him a better proclamation. Let him be but\n    testimonied in his own bringings-forth, and he shall appear to\n    the envious a scholar, a statesman, and a soldier. Therefore you\n    speak unskilfully; or, if your knowledge be more, it is much\n    dark'ned in your malice.\n  LUCIO. Sir, I know him, and I love him.\n  DUKE. Love talks with better knowledge, and knowledge with dearer\n    love.\n  LUCIO. Come, sir, I know what I know.\n  DUKE. I can hardly believe that, since you know not what you speak.\n    But, if ever the Duke return, as our prayers are he may, let me\n    desire you to make your answer before him. If it be honest you\n    have spoke, you have courage to maintain it; I am bound to call\n    upon you; and I pray you your name?\n  LUCIO. Sir, my name is Lucio, well known to the Duke.\n  DUKE. He shall know you better, sir, if I may live to report you.\n  LUCIO. I fear you not.\n  DUKE. O, you hope the Duke will return no more; or you imagine me\n    too unhurtful an opposite. But, indeed, I can do you little harm:\n    you'll forswear this again.\n  LUCIO. I'll be hang'd first. Thou art deceiv'd in me, friar. But no\n    more of this. Canst thou tell if Claudio die to-morrow or no?\n  DUKE. Why should he die, sir?\n  LUCIO. Why? For filling a bottle with a tun-dish. I would the Duke\n    we talk of were return'd again. This ungenitur'd agent will\n    unpeople the province with continency; sparrows must not build in\n    his house-eaves because they are lecherous. The Duke yet would\n    have dark deeds darkly answered; he would never bring them to\n    light. Would he were return'd! Marry, this Claudio is condemned\n    for untrussing. Farewell, good friar; I prithee pray for me. The\n    Duke, I say to thee again, would eat mutton on Fridays. He's not\n    past it yet; and, I say to thee, he would mouth with a beggar\n    though she smelt brown bread and garlic. Say that I said so.\n    Farewell.                                               Exit\n  DUKE. No might nor greatness in mortality\n    Can censure scape; back-wounding calumny\n    The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong\n    Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?\n    But who comes here?\n\n             Enter ESCALUS, PROVOST, and OFFICERS with\n                           MISTRESS OVERDONE\n\n  ESCALUS. Go, away with her to prison.\n  MRS. OVERDONE. Good my lord, be good to me; your honour is\n    accounted a merciful man; good my lord.\n  ESCALUS. Double and treble admonition, and still forfeit in the\n    same kind! This would make mercy swear and play the tyrant.\n  PROVOST. A bawd of eleven years' continuance, may it please your\n    honour.\n  MRS. OVERDONE. My lord, this is one Lucio's information against me.\n    Mistress Kate Keepdown was with child by him in the Duke's time;\n    he promis'd her marriage. His child is a year and a quarter old\n    come Philip and Jacob; I have kept it myself; and see how he goes\n    about to abuse me.\n  ESCALUS. That fellow is a fellow of much license. Let him be call'd\n    before us. Away with her to prison. Go to; no more words. [Exeunt\n    OFFICERS with MISTRESS OVERDONE]  Provost, my brother Angelo will\n    not be alter'd: Claudio must die to-morrow. Let him be furnish'd\n    with divines, and have all charitable preparation. If my brother\n    wrought by my pity, it should not be so with him.\n  PROVOST. So please you, this friar hath been with him, and advis'd\n    him for th' entertainment of death.\n  ESCALUS. Good even, good father.\n  DUKE. Bliss and goodness on you!\n  ESCALUS. Of whence are you?\n  DUKE. Not of this country, though my chance is now\n    To use it for my time. I am a brother\n    Of gracious order, late come from the See\n    In special business from his Holiness.\n  ESCALUS. What news abroad i' th' world?\n  DUKE. None, but that there is so great a fever on goodness that the\n    dissolution of it must cure it. Novelty is only in request; and,\n    as it is, as dangerous to be aged in any kind of course as it is\n    virtuous to be constant in any undertakeing. There is scarce\n    truth enough alive to make societies secure; but security enough\n    to make fellowships accurst. Much upon this riddle runs the\n    wisdom of the world. This news is old enough, yet it is every\n    day's news. I pray you, sir, of what disposition was the Duke?\n  ESCALUS. One that, above all other strifes, contended especially to\n    know himself.\n  DUKE. What pleasure was he given to?\n  ESCALUS. Rather rejoicing to see another merry than merry at\n    anything which profess'd to make him rejoice; a gentleman of all\n    temperance. But leave we him to his events, with a prayer they\n    may prove prosperous; and let me desire to know how you find\n    Claudio prepar'd. I am made to understand that you have lent him\n    visitation.\n  DUKE. He professes to have received no sinister measure from his\n    judge, but most willingly humbles himself to the determination of\n    justice. Yet had he framed to himself, by the instruction of his\n    frailty, many deceiving promises of life; which I, by my good\n    leisure, have discredited to him, and now he is resolv'd to die.\n  ESCALUS. You have paid the heavens your function, and the prisoner\n    the very debt of your calling. I have labour'd for the poor\n    gentleman to the extremest shore of my modesty; but my brother\n    justice have I found so severe that he hath forc'd me to tell him\n    he is indeed Justice.\n  DUKE. If his own life answer the straitness of his proceeding, it\n    shall become him well; wherein if he chance to fail, he hath\n    sentenc'd himself.\n  ESCALUS. I am going to visit the prisoner. Fare you well.\n  DUKE. Peace be with you!            Exeunt ESCALUS and PROVOST\n\n         He who the sword of heaven will bear\n         Should be as holy as severe;\n         Pattern in himself to know,\n         Grace to stand, and virtue go;\n         More nor less to others paying\n         Than by self-offences weighing.\n         Shame to him whose cruel striking\n         Kills for faults of his own liking!\n         Twice treble shame on Angelo,\n         To weed my vice and let his grow!\n         O, what may man within him hide,\n         Though angel on the outward side!\n         How may likeness, made in crimes,\n         Make a practice on the times,\n         To draw with idle spiders' strings\n         Most ponderous and substantial things!\n         Craft against vice I must apply.\n         With Angelo to-night shall lie\n         His old betrothed but despised;\n         So disguise shall, by th' disguised,\n         Pay with falsehood false exacting,\n         And perform an old contracting.                    Exit\n\n\n\n\nAct IV. Scene I.\nThe moated grange at Saint Duke's\n\nEnter MARIANA; and BOY singing\n\n                             SONG\n\n           Take, O, take those lips away,\n             That so sweetly were forsworn;\n           And those eyes, the break of day,\n             Lights that do mislead the morn;\n           But my kisses bring again, bring again;\n           Seals of love, but seal'd in vain, seal'd in vain.\n\n                  Enter DUKE, disguised as before\n\n  MARIANA. Break off thy song, and haste thee quick away;\n    Here comes a man of comfort, whose advice\n    Hath often still'd my brawling discontent.          Exit BOY\n    I cry you mercy, sir, and well could wish\n    You had not found me here so musical.\n    Let me excuse me, and believe me so,\n    My mirth it much displeas'd, but pleas'd my woe.\n  DUKE. 'Tis good; though music oft hath such a charm\n    To make bad good and good provoke to harm.\n    I pray you tell me hath anybody inquir'd for me here to-day. Much\n    upon this time have I promis'd here to meet.\n  MARIANA. You have not been inquir'd after; I have sat here all day.\n\n                         Enter ISABELLA\n\n  DUKE. I do constantly believe you. The time is come even now. I\n    shall crave your forbearance a little. May be I will call upon\n    you anon, for some advantage to yourself.\n  MARIANA. I am always bound to you.                        Exit\n  DUKE. Very well met, and well come.\n    What is the news from this good deputy?\n  ISABELLA. He hath a garden circummur'd with brick,\n    Whose western side is with a vineyard back'd;\n    And to that vineyard is a planched gate\n    That makes his opening with this bigger key;\n    This other doth command a little door\n    Which from the vineyard to the garden leads.\n    There have I made my promise\n    Upon the heavy middle of the night\n    To call upon him.\n  DUKE. But shall you on your knowledge find this way?\n  ISABELLA. I have ta'en a due and wary note upon't;\n    With whispering and most guilty diligence,\n    In action all of precept, he did show me\n    The way twice o'er.\n  DUKE. Are there no other tokens\n    Between you 'greed concerning her observance?\n  ISABELLA. No, none, but only a repair i' th' dark;\n    And that I have possess'd him my most stay\n    Can be but brief; for I have made him know\n    I have a servant comes with me along,\n    That stays upon me; whose persuasion is\n    I come about my brother.\n  DUKE. 'Tis well borne up.\n    I have not yet made known to Mariana\n    A word of this. What ho, within! come forth.\n\n                       Re-enter MARIANA\n\n    I pray you be acquainted with this maid;\n    She comes to do you good.\n  ISABELLA. I do desire the like.\n  DUKE. Do you persuade yourself that I respect you?\n  MARIANA. Good friar, I know you do, and have found it.\n  DUKE. Take, then, this your companion by the hand,\n    Who hath a story ready for your ear.\n    I shall attend your leisure; but make haste;\n    The vaporous night approaches.\n  MARIANA. Will't please you walk aside?\n                                     Exeunt MARIANA and ISABELLA\n  DUKE. O place and greatness! Millions of false eyes\n    Are stuck upon thee. Volumes of report\n    Run with these false, and most contrarious quest\n    Upon thy doings. Thousand escapes of wit\n    Make thee the father of their idle dream,\n    And rack thee in their fancies.\n\n                 Re-enter MARIANA and ISABELLA\n\n    Welcome, how agreed?\n  ISABELLA. She'll take the enterprise upon her, father,\n    If you advise it.\n  DUKE. It is not my consent,\n    But my entreaty too.\n  ISABELLA. Little have you to say,\n    When you depart from him, but, soft and low,\n    'Remember now my brother.'\n  MARIANA. Fear me not.\n  DUKE. Nor, gentle daughter, fear you not at all.\n    He is your husband on a pre-contract.\n    To bring you thus together 'tis no sin,\n    Sith that the justice of your title to him\n    Doth flourish the deceit. Come, let us go;\n    Our corn's to reap, for yet our tithe's to sow.       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe prison\n\nEnter PROVOST and POMPEY\n\n  PROVOST. Come hither, sirrah. Can you cut off a man's head?\n  POMPEY. If the man be a bachelor, sir, I can; but if he be a\n    married man, he's his wife's head, and I can never cut of a\n    woman's head.\n  PROVOST. Come, sir, leave me your snatches and yield me a direct\n    answer. To-morrow morning are to die Claudio and Barnardine. Here\n    is in our prison a common executioner, who in his office lacks a\n    helper; if you will take it on you to assist him, it shall redeem\n    you from your gyves; if not, you shall have your full time of\n    imprisonment, and your deliverance with an unpitied whipping, for\n    you have been a notorious bawd.\n  POMPEY. Sir, I have been an unlawful bawd time out of mind; but yet\n    I will be content to be a lawful hangman. I would be glad to\n    receive some instructions from my fellow partner.\n  PROVOST. What ho, Abhorson! Where's Abhorson there?\n\n                          Enter ABHORSON\n\n  ABHORSON. Do you call, sir?\n  PROVOST. Sirrah, here's a fellow will help you to-morrow in your\n    execution. If you think it meet, compound with him by the year,\n    and let him abide here with you; if not, use him for the present,\n    and dismiss him. He cannot plead his estimation with you; he hath\n    been a bawd.\n  ABHORSON. A bawd, sir? Fie upon him! He will discredit our mystery.\n  PROVOST. Go to, sir; you weigh equally; a feather will turn the\n    scale.                                                  Exit\n  POMPEY. Pray, sir, by your good favour- for surely, sir, a good\n    favour you have but that you have a hanging look- do you call,\n    sir, your occupation a mystery?\n  ABHORSON. Ay, sir; a mystery.\n  POMPEY. Painting, sir, I have heard say, is a mystery; and your\n    whores, sir, being members of my occupation, using painting, do\n    prove my occupation a mystery; but what mystery there should be\n    in hanging, if I should be hang'd, I cannot imagine.\n  ABHORSON. Sir, it is a mystery.\n  POMPEY. Proof?\n  ABHORSON. Every true man's apparel fits your thief: if it be too\n    little for your thief, your true man thinks it big enough; if it\n    be too big for your thief, your thief thinks it little enough; so\n    every true man's apparel fits your thief.\n\n                          Re-enter PROVOST\n\n  PROVOST. Are you agreed?\n  POMPEY. Sir, I will serve him; for I do find your hangman is a more\n    penitent trade than your bawd; he doth oftener ask forgiveness.\n  PROVOST. You, sirrah, provide your block and your axe to-morrow\n    four o'clock.\n  ABHORSON. Come on, bawd; I will instruct thee in my trade; follow.\n  POMPEY. I do desire to learn, sir; and I hope, if you have occasion\n    to use me for your own turn, you shall find me yare; for truly,\n    sir, for your kindness I owe you a good turn.\n  PROVOST. Call hither Barnardine and Claudio.\n                                      Exeunt ABHORSON and POMPEY\n    Th' one has my pity; not a jot the other,\n    Being a murderer, though he were my brother.\n\n                           Enter CLAUDIO\n\n    Look, here's the warrant, Claudio, for thy death;\n    'Tis now dead midnight, and by eight to-morrow\n    Thou must be made immortal. Where's Barnardine?\n  CLAUDIO. As fast lock'd up in sleep as guiltless labour\n    When it lies starkly in the traveller's bones.\n    He will not wake.\n  PROVOST. Who can do good on him?\n    Well, go, prepare yourself. [Knocking within] But hark, what\n      noise?\n    Heaven give your spirits comfort!               Exit CLAUDIO\n    [Knocking continues] By and by.\n    I hope it is some pardon or reprieve\n    For the most gentle Claudio.\n\n                 Enter DUKE, disguised as before\n\n    Welcome, father.\n  DUKE. The best and wholesom'st spirits of the night\n    Envelop you, good Provost! Who call'd here of late?\n  PROVOST. None, since the curfew rung.\n  DUKE. Not Isabel?\n  PROVOST. No.\n  DUKE. They will then, ere't be long.\n  PROVOST. What comfort is for Claudio?\n  DUKE. There's some in hope.\n  PROVOST. It is a bitter deputy.\n  DUKE. Not so, not so; his life is parallel'd\n    Even with the stroke and line of his great justice;\n    He doth with holy abstinence subdue\n    That in himself which he spurs on his pow'r\n    To qualify in others. Were he meal'd with that\n    Which he corrects, then were he tyrannous;\n    But this being so, he's just. [Knocking within] Now are they\n      come.                                         Exit PROVOST\n    This is a gentle provost; seldom when\n    The steeled gaoler is the friend of men. [Knocking within]\n    How now, what noise! That spirit's possess'd with haste\n    That wounds th' unsisting postern with these strokes.\n\n                        Re-enter PROVOST\n\n  PROVOST. There he must stay until the officer\n    Arise to let him in; he is call'd up.\n  DUKE. Have you no countermand for Claudio yet\n    But he must die to-morrow?\n  PROVOST. None, sir, none.\n  DUKE. As near the dawning, Provost, as it is,\n    You shall hear more ere morning.\n  PROVOST. Happily\n    You something know; yet I believe there comes\n    No countermand; no such example have we.\n    Besides, upon the very siege of justice,\n    Lord Angelo hath to the public ear\n    Profess'd the contrary.\n\n                         Enter a MESSENGER\n    This is his lordship's man.\n  DUKE. And here comes Claudio's pardon.\n  MESSENGER. My lord hath sent you this note; and by me this further\n    charge, that you swerve not from the smallest article of it,\n    neither in time, matter, or other circumstance. Good morrow; for\n    as I take it, it is almost day.\n  PROVOST. I shall obey him.                      Exit MESSENGER\n  DUKE. [Aside] This is his pardon, purchas'd by such sin\n    For which the pardoner himself is in;\n    Hence hath offence his quick celerity,\n    When it is borne in high authority.\n    When vice makes mercy, mercy's so extended\n    That for the fault's love is th' offender friended.\n    Now, sir, what news?\n  PROVOST. I told you: Lord Angelo, belike thinking me remiss in mine\n    office, awakens me with this unwonted putting-on; methinks\n    strangely, for he hath not us'd it before.\n  DUKE. Pray you, let's hear.\n  PROVOST. [Reads] 'Whatsoever you may hear to the contrary, let\n    Claudio be executed by four of the clock, and, in the afternoon,\n    Barnardine. For my better satisfaction, let me have Claudio's\n    head sent me by five. Let this be duly performed, with a thought\n    that more depends on it than we must yet deliver. Thus fail not\n    to do your office, as you will answer it at your peril.'\n    What say you to this, sir?\n  DUKE. What is that Barnardine who is to be executed in th'\n    afternoon?\n  PROVOST. A Bohemian born; but here nurs'd up and bred.\n    One that is a prisoner nine years old.\n  DUKE. How came it that the absent Duke had not either deliver'd him\n    to his liberty or executed him? I have heard it was ever his\n    manner to do so.\n  PROVOST. His friends still wrought reprieves for him; and, indeed,\n    his fact, till now in the government of Lord Angelo, came not to\n    an undoubted proof.\n  DUKE. It is now apparent?\n  PROVOST. Most manifest, and not denied by himself.\n  DUKE. Hath he borne himself penitently in prison? How seems he to\n    be touch'd?\n  PROVOST. A man that apprehends death no more dreadfully but as a\n    drunken sleep; careless, reckless, and fearless, of what's past,\n    present, or to come; insensible of mortality and desperately\n    mortal.\n  DUKE. He wants advice.\n  PROVOST. He will hear none. He hath evermore had the liberty of the\n    prison; give him leave to escape hence, he would not; drunk many\n    times a day, if not many days entirely drunk. We have very oft\n    awak'd him, as if to carry him to execution, and show'd him a\n    seeming warrant for it; it hath not moved him at all.\n  DUKE. More of him anon. There is written in your brow, Provost,\n    honesty and constancy. If I read it not truly, my ancient skill\n    beguiles me; but in the boldness of my cunning I will lay myself\n    in hazard. Claudio, whom here you have warrant to execute, is no\n    greater forfeit to the law than Angelo who hath sentenc'd him. To\n    make you understand this in a manifested effect, I crave but four\n    days' respite; for the which you are to do me both a present and\n    a dangerous courtesy.\n  PROVOST. Pray, sir, in what?\n  DUKE. In the delaying death.\n  PROVOST. Alack! How may I do it, having the hour limited, and an\n    express command, under penalty, to deliver his head in the view\n    of Angelo? I may make my case as Claudio's, to cross this in the\n    smallest.\n  DUKE. By the vow of mine order, I warrant you, if my instructions\n    may be your guide. Let this Barnardine be this morning executed,\n    and his head borne to Angelo.\n  PROVOST. Angelo hath seen them both, and will discover the favour.\n  DUKE. O, death's a great disguiser; and you may add to it. Shave\n    the head and tie the beard; and say it was the desire of the\n    penitent to be so bar'd before his death. You know the course is\n    common. If anything fall to you upon this more than thanks and\n    good fortune, by the saint whom I profess, I will plead against\n    it with my life.\n  PROVOST. Pardon me, good father; it is against my oath.\n  DUKE. Were you sworn to the Duke, or to the deputy?\n  PROVOST. To him and to his substitutes.\n  DUKE. You will think you have made no offence if the Duke avouch\n    the justice of your dealing?\n  PROVOST. But what likelihood is in that?\n  DUKE. Not a resemblance, but a certainty. Yet since I see you\n    fearful, that neither my coat, integrity, nor persuasion, can\n    with ease attempt you, I will go further than I meant, to pluck\n    all fears out of you. Look you, sir, here is the hand and seal of\n    the Duke. You know the character, I doubt not; and the signet is\n    not strange to you.\n  PROVOST. I know them both.\n  DUKE. The contents of this is the return of the Duke; you shall\n    anon over-read it at your pleasure, where you shall find within\n    these two days he will be here. This is a thing that Angelo knows\n    not; for he this very day receives letters of strange tenour,\n    perchance of the Duke's death, perchance entering into some\n    monastery; but, by chance, nothing of what is writ. Look, th'\n    unfolding star calls up the shepherd. Put not yourself into\n    amazement how these things should be: all difficulties are but\n    easy when they are known. Call your executioner, and off with\n    Barnardine's head. I will give him a present shrift, and advise\n    him for a better place. Yet you are amaz'd, but this shall\n    absolutely resolve you. Come away; it is almost clear dawn.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe prison\n\nEnter POMPEY\n\n  POMPEY. I am as well acquainted here as I was in our house of\n    profession; one would think it were Mistress Overdone's own\n    house, for here be many of her old customers. First, here's young\n    Master Rash; he's in for a commodity of brown paper and old\n    ginger, nine score and seventeen pounds, of which he made five\n    marks ready money. Marry, then ginger was not much in request,\n    for the old women were all dead. Then is there here one Master\n    Caper, at the suit of Master Threepile the mercer, for some four\n    suits of peach-colour'd satin, which now peaches him a beggar.\n    Then have we here young Dizy, and young Master Deepvow, and\n    Master Copperspur, and Master Starvelackey, the rapier and dagger\n    man, and young Dropheir that kill'd lusty Pudding, and Master\n    Forthlight the tilter, and brave Master Shootie the great\n    traveller, and wild Halfcan that stabb'd Pots, and, I think,\n    forty more- all great doers in our trade, and are now 'for the\n    Lord's sake.'\n\n                            Enter ABHORSON\n\n  ABHORSON. Sirrah, bring Barnardine hither.\n  POMPEY. Master Barnardine! You must rise and be hang'd, Master\n    Barnardine!\n  ABHORSON. What ho, Barnardine!\n  BARNARDINE. [Within] A pox o' your throats! Who makes that noise\n    there? What are you?\n  POMPEY. Your friends, sir; the hangman. You must be so good, sir,\n    to rise and be put to death.\n  BARNARDINE. [ Within ] Away, you rogue, away; I am sleepy.\n  ABHORSON. Tell him he must awake, and that quickly too.\n  POMPEY. Pray, Master Barnardine, awake till you are executed, and\n    sleep afterwards.\n  ABHORSON. Go in to him, and fetch him out.\n  POMPEY. He is coming, sir, he is coming; I hear his straw rustle.\n\n                             Enter BARNARDINE\n\n  ABHORSON. Is the axe upon the block, sirrah?\n  POMPEY. Very ready, sir.\n  BARNARDINE. How now, Abhorson, what's the news with you?\n  ABHORSON. Truly, sir, I would desire you to clap into your prayers;\n    for, look you, the warrant's come.\n  BARNARDINE. You rogue, I have been drinking all night; I am not\n    fitted for't.\n  POMPEY. O, the better, sir! For he that drinks all night and is\n    hanged betimes in the morning may sleep the sounder all the next\n    day.\n\n                  Enter DUKE, disguised as before\n\n  ABHORSON. Look you, sir, here comes your ghostly father.\n    Do we jest now, think you?\n  DUKE. Sir, induced by my charity, and hearing how hastily you are\n    to depart, I am come to advise you, comfort you, and pray with\n    you.\n  BARNARDINE. Friar, not I; I have been drinking hard all night, and\n    I will have more time to prepare me, or they shall beat out my\n    brains with billets. I will not consent to die this day, that's\n    certain.\n  DUKE. O, Sir, you must; and therefore I beseech you\n    Look forward on the journey you shall go.\n  BARNARDINE. I swear I will not die to-day for any man's persuasion.\n  DUKE. But hear you-\n  BARNARDINE. Not a word; if you have anything to say to me, come to\n    my ward; for thence will not I to-day.                  Exit\n  DUKE. Unfit to live or die. O gravel heart!\n    After him, fellows; bring him to the block.\n                                      Exeunt ABHORSON and POMPEY\n\n                            Enter PROVOST\n\n  PROVOST. Now, sir, how do you find the prisoner?\n  DUKE. A creature unprepar'd, unmeet for death;\n    And to transport him in the mind he is\n    Were damnable.\n  PROVOST. Here in the prison, father,\n    There died this morning of a cruel fever\n    One Ragozine, a most notorious pirate,\n    A man of Claudio's years; his beard and head\n    Just of his colour. What if we do omit\n    This reprobate till he were well inclin'd,\n    And satisfy the deputy with the visage\n    Of Ragozine, more like to Claudio?\n  DUKE. O, 'tis an accident that heaven provides!\n    Dispatch it presently; the hour draws on\n    Prefix'd by Angelo. See this be done,\n    And sent according to command; whiles I\n    Persuade this rude wretch willingly to die.\n  PROVOST. This shall be done, good father, presently.\n    But Barnardine must die this afternoon;\n    And how shall we continue Claudio,\n    To save me from the danger that might come\n    If he were known alive?\n  DUKE. Let this be done:\n    Put them in secret holds, both Barnardine and Claudio.\n    Ere twice the sun hath made his journal greeting\n    To the under generation, you shall find\n    Your safety manifested.\n  PROVOST. I am your free dependant.\n  DUKE. Quick, dispatch, and send the head to Angelo.\n                                                    Exit PROVOST\n    Now will I write letters to Angelo-\n    The Provost, he shall bear them- whose contents\n    Shall witness to him I am near at home,\n    And that, by great injunctions, I am bound\n    To enter publicly. Him I'll desire\n    To meet me at the consecrated fount,\n    A league below the city; and from thence,\n    By cold gradation and well-balanc'd form.\n    We shall proceed with Angelo.\n\n                         Re-enter PROVOST\n\n  PROVOST. Here is the head; I'll carry it myself.\n  DUKE. Convenient is it. Make a swift return;\n    For I would commune with you of such things\n    That want no ear but yours.\n  PROVOST. I'll make all speed.                             Exit\n  ISABELLA. [ Within ] Peace, ho, be here!\n  DUKE. The tongue of Isabel. She's come to know\n    If yet her brother's pardon be come hither;\n    But I will keep her ignorant of her good,\n    To make her heavenly comforts of despair\n    When it is least expected.\n\n                           Enter ISABELLA\n\n  ISABELLA. Ho, by your leave!\n  DUKE. Good morning to you, fair and gracious daughter.\n  ISABELLA. The better, given me by so holy a man.\n    Hath yet the deputy sent my brother's pardon?\n  DUKE. He hath releas'd him, Isabel, from the world.\n    His head is off and sent to Angelo.\n  ISABELLA. Nay, but it is not so.\n  DUKE. It is no other.\n    Show your wisdom, daughter, in your close patience,\n  ISABELLA. O, I will to him and pluck out his eyes!\n  DUKE. You shall not be admitted to his sight.\n  ISABELLA. Unhappy Claudio! Wretched Isabel!\n    Injurious world! Most damned Angelo!\n  DUKE. This nor hurts him nor profits you a jot;\n    Forbear it, therefore; give your cause to heaven.\n    Mark what I say, which you shall find\n    By every syllable a faithful verity.\n    The Duke comes home to-morrow. Nay, dry your eyes.\n    One of our covent, and his confessor,\n    Gives me this instance. Already he hath carried\n    Notice to Escalus and Angelo,\n    Who do prepare to meet him at the gates,\n    There to give up their pow'r. If you can, pace your wisdom\n    In that good path that I would wish it go,\n    And you shall have your bosom on this wretch,\n    Grace of the Duke, revenges to your heart,\n    And general honour.\n  ISABELLA. I am directed by you.\n  DUKE. This letter, then, to Friar Peter give;\n    'Tis that he sent me of the Duke's return.\n    Say, by this token, I desire his company\n    At Mariana's house to-night. Her cause and yours\n    I'll perfect him withal; and he shall bring you\n    Before the Duke; and to the head of Angelo\n    Accuse him home and home. For my poor self,\n    I am combined by a sacred vow,\n    And shall be absent. Wend you with this letter.\n    Command these fretting waters from your eyes\n    With a light heart; trust not my holy order,\n    If I pervert your course. Who's here?\n\n                           Enter LUCIO\n\n  LUCIO. Good even. Friar, where's the Provost?\n  DUKE. Not within, sir.\n  LUCIO. O pretty Isabella, I am pale at mine heart to see thine eyes\n    so red. Thou must be patient. I am fain to dine and sup with\n    water and bran; I dare not for my head fill my belly; one\n    fruitful meal would set me to't. But they say the Duke will be\n    here to-morrow. By my troth, Isabel, I lov'd thy brother. If the\n    old fantastical Duke of dark corners had been at home, he had\n    lived.                                         Exit ISABELLA\n  DUKE. Sir, the Duke is marvellous little beholding to your reports;\n    but the best is, he lives not in them.\n  LUCIO. Friar, thou knowest not the Duke so well as I do; he's a\n    better woodman than thou tak'st him for.\n  DUKE. Well, you'll answer this one day. Fare ye well.\n  LUCIO. Nay, tarry; I'll go along with thee; I can tell thee pretty\n    tales of the Duke.\n  DUKE. You have told me too many of him already, sir, if they be\n    true; if not true, none were enough.\n  LUCIO. I was once before him for getting a wench with child.\n  DUKE. Did you such a thing?\n  LUCIO. Yes, marry, did I; but I was fain to forswear it: they would\n    else have married me to the rotten medlar.\n  DUKE. Sir, your company is fairer than honest. Rest you well.\n  LUCIO. By my troth, I'll go with thee to the lane's end. If bawdy\n    talk offend you, we'll have very little of it. Nay, friar, I am a\n    kind of burr; I shall stick.                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nANGELO'S house\n\nEnter ANGELO and ESCALUS\n\n  ESCALUS. Every letter he hath writ hath disvouch'd other.\n  ANGELO. In most uneven and distracted manner. His actions show much\n    like to madness; pray heaven his wisdom be not tainted! And why\n    meet him at the gates, and redeliver our authorities there?\n  ESCALUS. I guess not.\n  ANGELO. And why should we proclaim it in an hour before his\n    ent'ring that, if any crave redress of injustice, they should\n    exhibit their petitions in the street?\n  ESCALUS. He shows his reason for that: to have a dispatch of\n     complaints; and to deliver us from devices hereafter, which\n    shall then have no power to stand against us.\n  ANGELO. Well, I beseech you, let it be proclaim'd;\n    Betimes i' th' morn I'll call you at your house;\n    Give notice to such men of sort and suit\n    As are to meet him.\n  ESCALUS. I shall, sir; fare you well.\n  ANGELO. Good night.                               Exit ESCALUS\n    This deed unshapes me quite, makes me unpregnant\n    And dull to all proceedings. A deflow'red maid!\n    And by an eminent body that enforc'd\n    The law against it! But that her tender shame\n    Will not proclaim against her maiden loss,\n    How might she tongue me! Yet reason dares her no;\n    For my authority bears a so credent bulk\n    That no particular scandal once can touch\n    But it confounds the breather. He should have liv'd,\n    Save that his riotous youth, with dangerous sense,\n    Might in the times to come have ta'en revenge,\n    By so receiving a dishonour'd life\n    With ransom of such shame. Would yet he had liv'd!\n    Alack, when once our grace we have forgot,\n    Nothing goes right; we would, and we would not.         Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nFields without the town\n\nEnter DUKE in his own habit, and Friar PETER\n\n  DUKE. These letters at fit time deliver me.   [Giving letters]\n    The Provost knows our purpose and our plot.\n    The matter being afoot, keep your instruction\n    And hold you ever to our special drift;\n    Though sometimes you do blench from this to that\n    As cause doth minister. Go, call at Flavius' house,\n    And tell him where I stay; give the like notice\n    To Valentinus, Rowland, and to Crassus,\n    And bid them bring the trumpets to the gate;\n    But send me Flavius first.\n    PETER. It shall be speeded well.                  Exit FRIAR\n\n                             Enter VARRIUS\n\n  DUKE. I thank thee, Varrius; thou hast made good haste.\n    Come, we will walk. There's other of our friends\n    Will greet us here anon. My gentle Varrius!           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nA street near the city gate\n\nEnter ISABELLA and MARIANA\n\n  ISABELLA. To speak so indirectly I am loath;\n    I would say the truth; but to accuse him so,\n    That is your part. Yet I am advis'd to do it;\n    He says, to veil full purpose.\n  MARIANA. Be rul'd by him.\n  ISABELLA. Besides, he tells me that, if peradventure\n    He speak against me on the adverse side,\n    I should not think it strange; for 'tis a physic\n    That's bitter to sweet end.\n  MARIANA. I would Friar Peter-\n\n                         Enter FRIAR PETER\n\n  ISABELLA. O, peace! the friar is come.\n  PETER. Come, I have found you out a stand most fit,\n    Where you may have such vantage on the Duke\n    He shall not pass you. Twice have the trumpets sounded;\n    The generous and gravest citizens\n    Have hent the gates, and very near upon\n    The Duke is ent'ring; therefore, hence, away.         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nThe city gate\n\nEnter at several doors DUKE, VARRIUS, LORDS; ANGELO, ESCALUS, Lucio,\nPROVOST, OFFICERS, and CITIZENS\n\n  DUKE. My very worthy cousin, fairly met!\n    Our old and faithful friend, we are glad to see you.\n  ANGELO, ESCALUS. Happy return be to your royal Grace!\n  DUKE. Many and hearty thankings to you both.\n    We have made inquiry of you, and we hear\n    Such goodness of your justice that our soul\n    Cannot but yield you forth to public thanks,\n    Forerunning more requital.\n  ANGELO. You make my bonds still greater.\n  DUKE. O, your desert speaks loud; and I should wrong it\n    To lock it in the wards of covert bosom,\n    When it deserves, with characters of brass,\n    A forted residence 'gainst the tooth of time\n    And razure of oblivion. Give me your hand.\n    And let the subject see, to make them know\n    That outward courtesies would fain proclaim\n    Favours that keep within. Come, Escalus,\n    You must walk by us on our other hand,\n    And good supporters are you.\n\n                 Enter FRIAR PETER and ISABELLA\n\n  PETER. Now is your time; speak loud, and kneel before him.\n  ISABELLA. Justice, O royal Duke! Vail your regard\n    Upon a wrong'd- I would fain have said a maid!\n    O worthy Prince, dishonour not your eye\n    By throwing it on any other object\n    Till you have heard me in my true complaint,\n    And given me justice, justice, justice, justice.\n  DUKE. Relate your wrongs. In what? By whom? Be brief.\n    Here is Lord Angelo shall give you justice;\n    Reveal yourself to him.\n  ISABELLA. O worthy Duke,\n    You bid me seek redemption of the devil!\n    Hear me yourself; for that which I must speak\n    Must either punish me, not being believ'd,\n    Or wring redress from you. Hear me, O, hear me, here!\n  ANGELO. My lord, her wits, I fear me, are not firm;\n    She hath been a suitor to me for her brother,\n    Cut off by course of justice-\n  ISABELLA. By course of justice!\n  ANGELO. And she will speak most bitterly and strange.\n  ISABELLA. Most strange, but yet most truly, will I speak.\n    That Angelo's forsworn, is it not strange?\n    That Angelo's a murderer, is't not strange?\n    That Angelo is an adulterous thief,\n    An hypocrite, a virgin-violator,\n    Is it not strange and strange?\n  DUKE. Nay, it is ten times strange.\n  ISABELLA. It is not truer he is Angelo\n    Than this is all as true as it is strange;\n    Nay, it is ten times true; for truth is truth\n    To th' end of reck'ning.\n  DUKE. Away with her. Poor soul,\n    She speaks this in th' infirmity of sense.\n  ISABELLA. O Prince! I conjure thee, as thou believ'st\n    There is another comfort than this world,\n    That thou neglect me not with that opinion\n    That I am touch'd with madness. Make not impossible\n    That which but seems unlike: 'tis not impossible\n    But one, the wicked'st caitiff on the ground,\n    May seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute,\n    As Angelo; even so may Angelo,\n    In all his dressings, characts, titles, forms,\n    Be an arch-villain. Believe it, royal Prince,\n    If he be less, he's nothing; but he's more,\n    Had I more name for badness.\n  DUKE. By mine honesty,\n    If she be mad, as I believe no other,\n    Her madness hath the oddest frame of sense,\n    Such a dependency of thing on thing,\n    As e'er I heard in madness.\n  ISABELLA. O gracious Duke,\n    Harp not on that; nor do not banish reason\n    For inequality; but let your reason serve\n    To make the truth appear where it seems hid,\n    And hide the false seems true.\n  DUKE. Many that are not mad\n    Have, sure, more lack of reason. What would you say?\n  ISABELLA. I am the sister of one Claudio,\n    Condemn'd upon the act of fornication\n    To lose his head; condemn'd by Angelo.\n    I, in probation of a sisterhood,\n    Was sent to by my brother; one Lucio\n    As then the messenger-\n  LUCIO. That's I, an't like your Grace.\n    I came to her from Claudio, and desir'd her\n    To try her gracious fortune with Lord Angelo\n    For her poor brother's pardon.\n  ISABELLA. That's he, indeed.\n  DUKE. You were not bid to speak.\n  LUCIO. No, my good lord;\n    Nor wish'd to hold my peace.\n  DUKE. I wish you now, then;\n    Pray you take note of it; and when you have\n    A business for yourself, pray heaven you then\n    Be perfect.\n  LUCIO. I warrant your honour.\n  DUKE. The warrant's for yourself; take heed to't.\n  ISABELLA. This gentleman told somewhat of my tale.\n  LUCIO. Right.\n  DUKE. It may be right; but you are i' the wrong\n    To speak before your time. Proceed.\n  ISABELLA. I went\n    To this pernicious caitiff deputy.\n  DUKE. That's somewhat madly spoken.\n  ISABELLA. Pardon it;\n    The phrase is to the matter.\n  DUKE. Mended again. The matter- proceed.\n  ISABELLA. In brief- to set the needless process by,\n    How I persuaded, how I pray'd, and kneel'd,\n    How he refell'd me, and how I replied,\n    For this was of much length- the vile conclusion\n    I now begin with grief and shame to utter:\n    He would not, but by gift of my chaste body\n    To his concupiscible intemperate lust,\n    Release my brother; and, after much debatement,\n    My sisterly remorse confutes mine honour,\n    And I did yield to him. But the next morn betimes,\n    His purpose surfeiting, he sends a warrant\n    For my poor brother's head.\n  DUKE. This is most likely!\n  ISABELLA. O that it were as like as it is true!\n  DUKE. By heaven, fond wretch, thou know'st not what thou speak'st,\n    Or else thou art suborn'd against his honour\n    In hateful practice. First, his integrity\n    Stands without blemish; next, it imports no reason\n    That with such vehemency he should pursue\n    Faults proper to himself. If he had so offended,\n    He would have weigh'd thy brother by himself,\n    And not have cut him off. Some one hath set you on;\n    Confess the truth, and say by whose advice\n    Thou cam'st here to complain.\n  ISABELLA. And is this all?\n    Then, O you blessed ministers above,\n    Keep me in patience; and, with ripened time,\n    Unfold the evil which is here wrapt up\n    In countenance! Heaven shield your Grace from woe,\n    As I, thus wrong'd, hence unbelieved go!\n  DUKE. I know you'd fain be gone. An officer!\n    To prison with her! Shall we thus permit\n    A blasting and a scandalous breath to fall\n    On him so near us? This needs must be a practice.\n    Who knew of your intent and coming hither?\n  ISABELLA. One that I would were here, Friar Lodowick.\n  DUKE. A ghostly father, belike. Who knows that Lodowick?\n  LUCIO. My lord, I know him; 'tis a meddling friar.\n    I do not like the man; had he been lay, my lord,\n    For certain words he spake against your Grace\n    In your retirement, I had swing'd him soundly.\n  DUKE. Words against me? This's a good friar, belike!\n    And to set on this wretched woman here\n    Against our substitute! Let this friar be found.\n  LUCIO. But yesternight, my lord, she and that friar,\n    I saw them at the prison; a saucy friar,\n    A very scurvy fellow.\n  PETER. Blessed be your royal Grace!\n    I have stood by, my lord, and I have heard\n    Your royal ear abus'd. First, hath this woman\n    Most wrongfully accus'd your substitute;\n    Who is as free from touch or soil with her\n    As she from one ungot.\n  DUKE. We did believe no less.\n    Know you that Friar Lodowick that she speaks of?\n  PETER. I know him for a man divine and holy;\n    Not scurvy, nor a temporary meddler,\n    As he's reported by this gentleman;\n    And, on my trust, a man that never yet\n    Did, as he vouches, misreport your Grace.\n  LUCIO. My lord, most villainously; believe it.\n  PETER. Well, he in time may come to clear himself;\n    But at this instant he is sick, my lord,\n    Of a strange fever. Upon his mere request-\n    Being come to knowledge that there was complaint\n    Intended 'gainst Lord Angelo- came I hither\n    To speak, as from his mouth, what he doth know\n    Is true and false; and what he, with his oath\n    And all probation, will make up full clear,\n    Whensoever he's convented. First, for this woman-\n    To justify this worthy nobleman,\n    So vulgarly and personally accus'd-\n    Her shall you hear disproved to her eyes,\n    Till she herself confess it.\n  DUKE. Good friar, let's hear it.         Exit ISABELLA guarded\n    Do you not smile at this, Lord Angelo?\n    O heaven, the vanity of wretched fools!\n    Give us some seats. Come, cousin Angelo;\n    In this I'll be impartial; be you judge\n    Of your own cause.\n\n                     Enter MARIANA veiled\n\n    Is this the witness, friar?\n  FIRST let her show her face, and after speak.\n  MARIANA. Pardon, my lord; I will not show my face\n    Until my husband bid me.\n  DUKE. What, are you married?\n  MARIANA. No, my lord.\n  DUKE. Are you a maid?\n  MARIANA. No, my lord.\n  DUKE. A widow, then?\n  MARIANA. Neither, my lord.\n  DUKE. Why, you are nothing then; neither maid, widow, nor wife.\n  LUCIO. My lord, she may be a punk; for many of them are neither\n    maid, widow, nor wife.\n  DUKE. Silence that fellow. I would he had some cause\n    To prattle for himself.\n  LUCIO. Well, my lord.\n  MARIANA. My lord, I do confess I ne'er was married,\n    And I confess, besides, I am no maid.\n    I have known my husband; yet my husband\n    Knows not that ever he knew me.\n  LUCIO. He was drunk, then, my lord; it can be no better.\n  DUKE. For the benefit of silence, would thou wert so too!\n  LUCIO. Well, my lord.\n  DUKE. This is no witness for Lord Angelo.\n  MARIANA. Now I come to't, my lord:\n    She that accuses him of fornication,\n    In self-same manner doth accuse my husband;\n    And charges him, my lord, with such a time\n    When I'll depose I had him in mine arms,\n    With all th' effect of love.\n  ANGELO. Charges she moe than me?\n  MARIANA. Not that I know.\n  DUKE. No? You say your husband.\n  MARIANA. Why, just, my lord, and that is Angelo,\n    Who thinks he knows that he ne'er knew my body,\n    But knows he thinks that he knows Isabel's.\n  ANGELO. This is a strange abuse. Let's see thy face.\n  MARIANA. My husband bids me; now I will unmask.\n                                                     [Unveiling]\n    This is that face, thou cruel Angelo,\n    Which once thou swor'st was worth the looking on;\n    This is the hand which, with a vow'd contract,\n    Was fast belock'd in thine; this is the body\n    That took away the match from Isabel,\n    And did supply thee at thy garden-house\n    In her imagin'd person.\n  DUKE. Know you this woman?\n  LUCIO. Carnally, she says.\n  DUKE. Sirrah, no more.\n  LUCIO. Enough, my lord.\n  ANGELO. My lord, I must confess I know this woman;\n    And five years since there was some speech of marriage\n    Betwixt myself and her; which was broke off,\n    Partly for that her promised proportions\n    Came short of composition; but in chief\n    For that her reputation was disvalued\n    In levity. Since which time of five years\n    I never spake with her, saw her, nor heard from her,\n    Upon my faith and honour.\n  MARIANA. Noble Prince,\n    As there comes light from heaven and words from breath,\n    As there is sense in truth and truth in virtue,\n    I am affianc'd this man's wife as strongly\n    As words could make up vows. And, my good lord,\n    But Tuesday night last gone, in's garden-house,\n    He knew me as a wife. As this is true,\n    Let me in safety raise me from my knees,\n    Or else for ever be confixed here,\n    A marble monument!\n  ANGELO. I did but smile till now.\n    Now, good my lord, give me the scope of justice;\n    My patience here is touch'd. I do perceive\n    These poor informal women are no more\n    But instruments of some more mightier member\n    That sets them on. Let me have way, my lord,\n    To find this practice out.\n  DUKE. Ay, with my heart;\n    And punish them to your height of pleasure.\n    Thou foolish friar, and thou pernicious woman,\n    Compact with her that's gone, think'st thou thy oaths,\n    Though they would swear down each particular saint,\n    Were testimonies against his worth and credit,\n    That's seal'd in approbation? You, Lord Escalus,\n    Sit with my cousin; lend him your kind pains\n    To find out this abuse, whence 'tis deriv'd.\n    There is another friar that set them on;\n    Let him be sent for.\n  PETER. Would lie were here, my lord! For he indeed\n    Hath set the women on to this complaint.\n    Your provost knows the place where he abides,\n    And he may fetch him.\n  DUKE. Go, do it instantly.                        Exit PROVOST\n    And you, my noble and well-warranted cousin,\n    Whom it concerns to hear this matter forth,\n    Do with your injuries as seems you best\n    In any chastisement. I for a while will leave you;\n    But stir not you till you have well determin'd\n    Upon these slanderers.\n  ESCALUS. My lord, we'll do it throughly.             Exit DUKE\n    Signior Lucio, did not you say you knew that Friar Lodowick to be\n    a dishonest person?\n  LUCIO. 'Cucullus non facit monachum': honest in nothing but in his\n    clothes; and one that hath spoke most villainous speeches of the\n    Duke.\n  ESCALUS. We shall entreat you to abide here till he come and\n    enforce them against him. We shall find this friar a notable\n    fellow.\n  LUCIO. As any in Vienna, on my word.\n  ESCALUS. Call that same Isabel here once again; I would speak with\n    her. [Exit an ATTENDANT] Pray you, my lord, give me leave to\n    question; you shall see how I'll handle her.\n  LUCIO. Not better than he, by her own report.\n  ESCALUS. Say you?\n  LUCIO. Marry, sir, I think, if you handled her privately, she would\n    sooner confess; perchance, publicly, she'll be asham'd.\n\n       Re-enter OFFICERS with ISABELLA; and PROVOST with the\n                    DUKE in his friar's habit\n\n  ESCALUS. I will go darkly to work with her.\n  LUCIO. That's the way; for women are light at midnight.\n  ESCALUS. Come on, mistress; here's a gentlewoman denies all that\n    you have said.\n  LUCIO. My lord, here comes the rascal I spoke of, here with the\n    Provost.\n  ESCALUS. In very good time. Speak not you to him till we call upon\n    you.\n  LUCIO. Mum.\n  ESCALUS. Come, sir; did you set these women on to slander Lord\n    Angelo? They have confess'd you did.\n  DUKE. 'Tis false.\n  ESCALUS. How! Know you where you are?\n  DUKE. Respect to your great place! and let the devil\n    Be sometime honour'd for his burning throne!\n    Where is the Duke? 'Tis he should hear me speak.\n  ESCALUS. The Duke's in us; and we will hear you speak;\n    Look you speak justly.\n  DUKE. Boldly, at least. But, O, poor souls,\n    Come you to seek the lamb here of the fox,\n    Good night to your redress! Is the Duke gone?\n    Then is your cause gone too. The Duke's unjust\n    Thus to retort your manifest appeal,\n    And put your trial in the villain's mouth\n    Which here you come to accuse.\n  LUCIO. This is the rascal; this is he I spoke of.\n  ESCALUS. Why, thou unreverend and unhallowed friar,\n    Is't not enough thou hast suborn'd these women\n    To accuse this worthy man, but, in foul mouth,\n    And in the witness of his proper ear,\n    To call him villain; and then to glance from him\n    To th' Duke himself, to tax him with injustice?\n    Take him hence; to th' rack with him! We'll touze you\n    Joint by joint, but we will know his purpose.\n    What, 'unjust'!\n  DUKE. Be not so hot; the Duke\n    Dare no more stretch this finger of mine than he\n    Dare rack his own; his subject am I not,\n    Nor here provincial. My business in this state\n    Made me a looker-on here in Vienna,\n    Where I have seen corruption boil and bubble\n    Till it o'errun the stew: laws for all faults,\n    But faults so countenanc'd that the strong statutes\n    Stand like the forfeits in a barber's shop,\n    As much in mock as mark.\n  ESCALUS. Slander to th' state! Away with him to prison!\n  ANGELO. What can you vouch against him, Signior Lucio?\n    Is this the man that you did tell us of?\n  LUCIO. 'Tis he, my lord. Come hither, good-man bald-pate.\n    Do you know me?\n  DUKE. I remember you, sir, by the sound of your voice. I met you at\n    the prison, in the absence of the Duke.\n  LUCIO. O did you so? And do you remember what you said of the Duke?\n  DUKE. Most notedly, sir.\n  LUCIO. Do you so, sir? And was the Duke a fleshmonger, a fool, and\n    a coward, as you then reported him to be?\n  DUKE. You must, sir, change persons with me ere you make that my\n    report; you, indeed, spoke so of him; and much more, much worse.\n  LUCIO. O thou damnable fellow! Did not I pluck thee by the nose for\n    thy speeches?\n  DUKE. I protest I love the Duke as I love myself.\n  ANGELO. Hark how the villain would close now, after his treasonable\n    abuses!\n  ESCALUS. Such a fellow is not to be talk'd withal. Away with him to\n    prison! Where is the Provost? Away with him to prison! Lay bolts\n    enough upon him; let him speak no more. Away with those giglets\n    too, and with the other confederate companion!\n                            [The PROVOST lays bands on the DUKE]\n  DUKE. Stay, sir; stay awhile.\n  ANGELO. What, resists he? Help him, Lucio.\n  LUCIO. Come, sir; come, sir; come, sir; foh, sir! Why, you\n    bald-pated lying rascal, you must be hooded, must you? Show your\n    knave's visage, with a pox to you! Show your sheep-biting face,\n    and be hang'd an hour! Will't not off?\n             [Pulls off the FRIAR'S bood and discovers the DUKE]\n  DUKE. Thou art the first knave that e'er mad'st a duke.\n    First, Provost, let me bail these gentle three.\n    [To Lucio] Sneak not away, sir, for the friar and you\n    Must have a word anon. Lay hold on him.\n  LUCIO. This may prove worse than hanging.\n  DUKE. [To ESCALUS] What you have spoke I pardon; sit you down.\n    We'll borrow place of him. [To ANGELO] Sir, by your leave.\n    Hast thou or word, or wit, or impudence,\n    That yet can do thee office? If thou hast,\n    Rely upon it till my tale be heard,\n    And hold no longer out.\n  ANGELO. O my dread lord,\n    I should be guiltier than my guiltiness,\n    To think I can be undiscernible,\n    When I perceive your Grace, like pow'r divine,\n    Hath look'd upon my passes. Then, good Prince,\n    No longer session hold upon my shame,\n    But let my trial be mine own confession;\n    Immediate sentence then, and sequent death,\n    Is all the grace I beg.\n  DUKE. Come hither, Mariana.\n    Say, wast thou e'er contracted to this woman?\n  ANGELO. I was, my lord.\n  DUKE. Go, take her hence and marry her instantly.\n    Do you the office, friar; which consummate,\n    Return him here again. Go with him, Provost.\n                Exeunt ANGELO, MARIANA, FRIAR PETER, and PROVOST\n  ESCALUS. My lord, I am more amaz'd at his dishonour\n    Than at the strangeness of it.\n  DUKE. Come hither, Isabel.\n    Your friar is now your prince. As I was then\n    Advertising and holy to your business,\n    Not changing heart with habit, I am still\n    Attorney'd at your service.\n  ISABELLA. O, give me pardon,\n    That I, your vassal have employ'd and pain'd\n    Your unknown sovereignty.\n  DUKE. You are pardon'd, Isabel.\n    And now, dear maid, be you as free to us.\n    Your brother's death, I know, sits at your heart;\n    And you may marvel why I obscur'd myself,\n    Labouring to save his life, and would not rather\n    Make rash remonstrance of my hidden pow'r\n    Than let him so be lost. O most kind maid,\n    It was the swift celerity of his death,\n    Which I did think with slower foot came on,\n    That brain'd my purpose. But peace be with him!\n    That life is better life, past fearing death,\n    Than that which lives to fear. Make it your comfort,\n    So happy is your brother.\n  ISABELLA. I do, my lord.\n\n       Re-enter ANGELO, MARIANA, FRIAR PETER, and PROVOST\n\n  DUKE. For this new-married man approaching here,\n    Whose salt imagination yet hath wrong'd\n    Your well-defended honour, you must pardon\n    For Mariana's sake; but as he adjudg'd your brother-\n    Being criminal in double violation\n    Of sacred chastity and of promise-breach,\n    Thereon dependent, for your brother's life-\n    The very mercy of the law cries out\n    Most audible, even from his proper tongue,\n    'An Angelo for Claudio, death for death!'\n    Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure;\n    Like doth quit like, and Measure still for Measure.\n    Then, Angelo, thy fault's thus manifested,\n    Which, though thou wouldst deny, denies thee vantage.\n    We do condemn thee to the very block\n    Where Claudio stoop'd to death, and with like haste.\n    Away with him!\n  MARIANA. O my most gracious lord,\n    I hope you will not mock me with a husband.\n  DUKE. It is your husband mock'd you with a husband.\n    Consenting to the safeguard of your honour,\n    I thought your marriage fit; else imputation,\n    For that he knew you, might reproach your life,\n    And choke your good to come. For his possessions,\n    Although by confiscation they are ours,\n    We do instate and widow you withal\n    To buy you a better husband.\n  MARIANA. O my dear lord,\n    I crave no other, nor no better man.\n  DUKE. Never crave him; we are definitive.\n  MARIANA. Gentle my liege-                           [Kneeling]\n  DUKE. You do but lose your labour.\n    Away with him to death! [To LUCIO] Now, sir, to you.\n  MARIANA. O my good lord! Sweet Isabel, take my part;\n    Lend me your knees, and all my life to come\n    I'll lend you all my life to do you service.\n  DUKE. Against all sense you do importune her.\n    Should she kneel down in mercy of this fact,\n    Her brother's ghost his paved bed would break,\n    And take her hence in horror.\n  MARIANA. Isabel,\n    Sweet Isabel, do yet but kneel by me;\n    Hold up your hands, say nothing; I'll speak all.\n    They say best men moulded out of faults;\n    And, for the most, become much more the better\n    For being a little bad; so may my husband.\n    O Isabel, will you not lend a knee?\n  DUKE. He dies for Claudio's death.\n  ISABELLA. [Kneeling] Most bounteous sir,\n    Look, if it please you, on this man condemn'd,\n    As if my brother liv'd. I partly think\n    A due sincerity govern'd his deeds\n    Till he did look on me; since it is so,\n    Let him not die. My brother had but justice,\n    In that he did the thing for which he died;\n    For Angelo,\n    His act did not o'ertake his bad intent,\n    And must be buried but as an intent\n    That perish'd by the way. Thoughts are no subjects;\n    Intents but merely thoughts.\n  MARIANA. Merely, my lord.\n  DUKE. Your suit's unprofitable; stand up, I say.\n    I have bethought me of another fault.\n    Provost, how came it Claudio was beheaded\n    At an unusual hour?\n  PROVOST. It was commanded so.\n  DUKE. Had you a special warrant for the deed?\n  PROVOST. No, my good lord; it was by private message.\n  DUKE. For which I do discharge you of your office;\n    Give up your keys.\n  PROVOST. Pardon me, noble lord;\n    I thought it was a fault, but knew it not;\n    Yet did repent me, after more advice;\n    For testimony whereof, one in the prison,\n    That should by private order else have died,\n    I have reserv'd alive.\n  DUKE. What's he?\n  PROVOST. His name is Barnardine.\n  DUKE. I would thou hadst done so by Claudio.\n    Go fetch him hither; let me look upon him.      Exit PROVOST\n  ESCALUS. I am sorry one so learned and so wise\n    As you, Lord Angelo, have still appear'd,\n    Should slip so grossly, both in the heat of blood\n    And lack of temper'd judgment afterward.\n  ANGELO. I am sorry that such sorrow I procure;\n    And so deep sticks it in my penitent heart\n    That I crave death more willingly than mercy;\n    'Tis my deserving, and I do entreat it.\n\n       Re-enter PROVOST, with BARNARDINE, CLAUDIO (muffled)\n                            and JULIET\n\n  DUKE. Which is that Barnardine?\n  PROVOST. This, my lord.\n  DUKE. There was a friar told me of this man.\n    Sirrah, thou art said to have a stubborn soul,\n    That apprehends no further than this world,\n    And squar'st thy life according. Thou'rt condemn'd;\n    But, for those earthly faults, I quit them all,\n    And pray thee take this mercy to provide\n    For better times to come. Friar, advise him;\n    I leave him to your hand. What muffl'd fellow's that?\n  PROVOST. This is another prisoner that I sav'd,\n    Who should have died when Claudio lost his head;\n    As like almost to Claudio as himself.    [Unmuffles CLAUDIO]\n  DUKE. [To ISABELLA] If he be like your brother, for his sake\n    Is he pardon'd; and for your lovely sake,\n    Give me your hand and say you will be mine,\n    He is my brother too. But fitter time for that.\n    By this Lord Angelo perceives he's safe;\n    Methinks I see a quick'ning in his eye.\n    Well, Angelo, your evil quits you well.\n    Look that you love your wife; her worth worth yours.\n    I find an apt remission in myself;\n    And yet here's one in place I cannot pardon.\n    To Lucio] You, sirrah, that knew me for a fool, a coward,\n    One all of luxury, an ass, a madman!\n    Wherein have I so deserv'd of you\n    That you extol me thus?\n  LUCIO. Faith, my lord, I spoke it but according to the trick.\n    If you will hang me for it, you may; but I had rather it would\n    please you I might be whipt.\n  DUKE. Whipt first, sir, and hang'd after.\n    Proclaim it, Provost, round about the city,\n    If any woman wrong'd by this lewd fellow-\n    As I have heard him swear himself there's one\n    Whom he begot with child, let her appear,\n    And he shall marry her. The nuptial finish'd,\n    Let him be whipt and hang'd.\n  LUCIO. I beseech your Highness, do not marry me to a whore. Your\n    Highness said even now I made you a duke; good my lord, do not\n    recompense me in making me a cuckold.\n  DUKE. Upon mine honour, thou shalt marry her.\n    Thy slanders I forgive; and therewithal\n    Remit thy other forfeits. Take him to prison;\n    And see our pleasure herein executed.\n  LUCIO. Marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death, whipping,\n    and hanging.\n  DUKE. Slandering a prince deserves it.\n                                      Exeunt OFFICERS with LUCIO\n    She, Claudio, that you wrong'd, look you restore.\n    Joy to you, Mariana! Love her, Angelo;\n    I have confess'd her, and I know her virtue.\n    Thanks, good friend Escalus, for thy much goodness;\n    There's more behind that is more gratulate.\n    Thanks, Provost, for thy care and secrecy;\n    We shall employ thee in a worthier place.\n    Forgive him, Angelo, that brought you home\n    The head of Ragozine for Claudio's:\n    Th' offence pardons itself. Dear Isabel,\n    I have a motion much imports your good;\n    Whereto if you'll a willing ear incline,\n    What's mine is yours, and what is yours is mine.\n    So, bring us to our palace, where we'll show\n    What's yet behind that's meet you all should know.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1597\n\nTHE MERCHANT OF VENICE\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  THE DUKE OF VENICE\n  THE PRINCE OF MOROCCO, suitor to Portia\n  THE PRINCE OF ARRAGON,    \"    \"    \"\n  ANTONIO, a merchant of Venice\n  BASSANIO, his friend, suitor to Portia\n  SOLANIO,   friend to Antonio and Bassanio\n  SALERIO,      \"    \"    \"     \"     \"\n  GRATIANO,     \"    \"    \"     \"     \"\n  LORENZO, in love with Jessica\n  SHYLOCK, a rich Jew\n  TUBAL, a Jew, his friend\n  LAUNCELOT GOBBO, a clown, servant to Shylock\n  OLD GOBBO, father to Launcelot\n  LEONARDO, servant to Bassanio\n  BALTHASAR, servant to Portia\n  STEPHANO,     \"     \"    \"\n\n  PORTIA, a rich heiress\n  NERISSA, her waiting-maid\n  JESSICA, daughter to Shylock\n\n  Magnificoes of Venice, Officers of the Court of Justice,\n    Gaoler, Servants, and other Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nVenice, and PORTIA'S house at Belmont\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nVenice. A street\n\nEnter ANTONIO, SALERIO, and SOLANIO\n\n  ANTONIO. In sooth, I know not why I am so sad.\n    It wearies me; you say it wearies you;\n    But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,\n    What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,\n    I am to learn;\n    And such a want-wit sadness makes of me\n    That I have much ado to know myself.\n  SALERIO. Your mind is tossing on the ocean;\n    There where your argosies, with portly sail-\n    Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood,\n    Or as it were the pageants of the sea-\n    Do overpeer the petty traffickers,\n    That curtsy to them, do them reverence,\n    As they fly by them with their woven wings.\n  SOLANIO. Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth,\n    The better part of my affections would\n    Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still\n    Plucking the grass to know where sits the wind,\n    Peering in maps for ports, and piers, and roads;\n    And every object that might make me fear\n    Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt,\n    Would make me sad.\n  SALERIO. My wind, cooling my broth,\n    Would blow me to an ague when I thought\n    What harm a wind too great might do at sea.\n    I should not see the sandy hour-glass run\n    But I should think of shallows and of flats,\n    And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand,\n    Vailing her high top lower than her ribs\n    To kiss her burial. Should I go to church\n    And see the holy edifice of stone,\n    And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks,\n    Which, touching but my gentle vessel's side,\n    Would scatter all her spices on the stream,\n    Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks,\n    And, in a word, but even now worth this,\n    And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought\n    To think on this, and shall I lack the thought\n    That such a thing bechanc'd would make me sad?\n    But tell not me; I know Antonio\n    Is sad to think upon his merchandise.\n  ANTONIO. Believe me, no; I thank my fortune for it,\n    My ventures are not in one bottom trusted,\n    Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate\n    Upon the fortune of this present year;\n    Therefore my merchandise makes me not sad.\n  SOLANIO. Why then you are in love.\n  ANTONIO. Fie, fie!\n  SOLANIO. Not in love neither? Then let us say you are sad\n    Because you are not merry; and 'twere as easy\n    For you to laugh and leap and say you are merry,\n    Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed Janus,\n    Nature hath fram'd strange fellows in her time:\n    Some that will evermore peep through their eyes,\n    And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper;\n    And other of such vinegar aspect\n    That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile\n    Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.\n\n               Enter BASSANIO, LORENZO, and GRATIANO\n\n    Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman,\n    Gratiano and Lorenzo. Fare ye well;\n    We leave you now with better company.\n  SALERIO. I would have stay'd till I had made you merry,\n    If worthier friends had not prevented me.\n  ANTONIO. Your worth is very dear in my regard.\n    I take it your own business calls on you,\n    And you embrace th' occasion to depart.\n  SALERIO. Good morrow, my good lords.\n  BASSANIO. Good signiors both, when shall we laugh? Say when.\n    You grow exceeding strange; must it be so?\n  SALERIO. We'll make our leisures to attend on yours.\n                                      Exeunt SALERIO and SOLANIO\n  LORENZO. My Lord Bassanio, since you have found Antonio,\n    We two will leave you; but at dinner-time,\n    I pray you, have in mind where we must meet.\n  BASSANIO. I will not fail you.\n  GRATIANO. You look not well, Signior Antonio;\n    You have too much respect upon the world;\n    They lose it that do buy it with much care.\n    Believe me, you are marvellously chang'd.\n  ANTONIO. I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano-\n    A stage, where every man must play a part,\n    And mine a sad one.\n  GRATIANO. Let me play the fool.\n    With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come;\n    And let my liver rather heat with wine\n    Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.\n    Why should a man whose blood is warm within\n    Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster,\n    Sleep when he wakes, and creep into the jaundice\n    By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio-\n    I love thee, and 'tis my love that speaks-\n    There are a sort of men whose visages\n    Do cream and mantle like a standing pond,\n    And do a wilful stillness entertain,\n    With purpose to be dress'd in an opinion\n    Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit;\n    As who should say 'I am Sir Oracle,\n    And when I ope my lips let no dog bark.'\n    O my Antonio, I do know of these\n    That therefore only are reputed wise\n    For saying nothing; when, I am very sure,\n    If they should speak, would almost damn those ears\n    Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools.\n    I'll tell thee more of this another time.\n    But fish not with this melancholy bait\n    For this fool gudgeon, this opinion.\n    Come, good Lorenzo. Fare ye well awhile;\n    I'll end my exhortation after dinner.\n  LORENZO. Well, we will leave you then till dinner-time.\n    I must be one of these same dumb wise men,\n    For Gratiano never lets me speak.\n  GRATIANO. Well, keep me company but two years moe,\n    Thou shalt not know the sound of thine own tongue.\n  ANTONIO. Fare you well; I'll grow a talker for this gear.\n  GRATIANO. Thanks, i' faith, for silence is only commendable\n    In a neat's tongue dried, and a maid not vendible.\n                                     Exeunt GRATIANO and LORENZO\n  ANTONIO. Is that anything now?\n  BASSANIO. Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than\n    any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid\n    in, two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find\n    them, and when you have them they are not worth the search.\n  ANTONIO. Well; tell me now what lady is the same\n    To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage,\n    That you to-day promis'd to tell me of?\n  BASSANIO. 'Tis not unknown to you, Antonio,\n    How much I have disabled mine estate\n    By something showing a more swelling port\n    Than my faint means would grant continuance;\n    Nor do I now make moan to be abridg'd\n    From such a noble rate; but my chief care\n    Is to come fairly off from the great debts\n    Wherein my time, something too prodigal,\n    Hath left me gag'd. To you, Antonio,\n    I owe the most, in money and in love;\n    And from your love I have a warranty\n    To unburden all my plots and purposes\n    How to get clear of all the debts I owe.\n  ANTONIO. I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it;\n    And if it stand, as you yourself still do,\n    Within the eye of honour, be assur'd\n    My purse, my person, my extremest means,\n    Lie all unlock'd to your occasions.\n  BASSANIO. In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft,\n    I shot his fellow of the self-same flight\n    The self-same way, with more advised watch,\n    To find the other forth; and by adventuring both\n    I oft found both. I urge this childhood proof,\n    Because what follows is pure innocence.\n    I owe you much; and, like a wilful youth,\n    That which I owe is lost; but if you please\n    To shoot another arrow that self way\n    Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt,\n    As I will watch the aim, or to find both,\n    Or bring your latter hazard back again\n    And thankfully rest debtor for the first.\n  ANTONIO. You know me well, and herein spend but time\n    To wind about my love with circumstance;\n    And out of doubt you do me now more wrong\n    In making question of my uttermost\n    Than if you had made waste of all I have.\n    Then do but say to me what I should do\n    That in your knowledge may by me be done,\n    And I am prest unto it; therefore, speak.\n  BASSANIO. In Belmont is a lady richly left,\n    And she is fair and, fairer than that word,\n    Of wondrous virtues. Sometimes from her eyes\n    I did receive fair speechless messages.\n    Her name is Portia- nothing undervalu'd\n    To Cato's daughter, Brutus' Portia.\n    Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth;\n    For the four winds blow in from every coast\n    Renowned suitors, and her sunny locks\n    Hang on her temples like a golden fleece,\n    Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos' strond,\n    And many Jasons come in quest of her.\n    O my Antonio, had I but the means\n    To hold a rival place with one of them,\n    I have a mind presages me such thrift\n    That I should questionless be fortunate.\n  ANTONIO. Thou know'st that all my fortunes are at sea;\n    Neither have I money nor commodity\n    To raise a present sum; therefore go forth,\n    Try what my credit can in Venice do;\n    That shall be rack'd, even to the uttermost,\n    To furnish thee to Belmont to fair Portia.\n    Go presently inquire, and so will I,\n    Where money is; and I no question make\n    To have it of my trust or for my sake.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBelmont. PORTIA'S house\n\nEnter PORTIA with her waiting-woman, NERISSA\n\n  PORTIA. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this\n    great world.\n  NERISSA. You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in the\n    same abundance as your good fortunes are; and yet, for aught I\n    see, they are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that\n    starve with nothing. It is no mean happiness, therefore, to be\n    seated in the mean: superfluity come sooner by white hairs, but\n    competency lives longer.\n  PORTIA. Good sentences, and well pronounc'd.\n  NERISSA. They would be better, if well followed.\n  PORTIA. If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do,\n    chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes'\n    palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions; I\n    can easier teach twenty what were good to be done than to be one\n    of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may devise\n    laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold decree;\n    such a hare is madness the youth, to skip o'er the meshes of good\n    counsel the cripple. But this reasoning is not in the fashion to\n    choose me a husband. O me, the word 'choose'! I may neither\n    choose who I would nor refuse who I dislike; so is the will of a\n    living daughter curb'd by the will of a dead father. Is it not\n    hard, Nerissa, that I cannot choose one, nor refuse none?\n  NERISSA. Your father was ever virtuous, and holy men at their death\n    have good inspirations; therefore the lott'ry that he hath\n    devised in these three chests, of gold, silver, and lead- whereof\n    who chooses his meaning chooses you- will no doubt never be\n    chosen by any rightly but one who you shall rightly love. But\n    what warmth is there in your affection towards any of these\n    princely suitors that are already come?\n  PORTIA. I pray thee over-name them; and as thou namest them, I will\n    describe them; and according to my description, level at my\n    affection.\n  NERISSA. First, there is the Neapolitan prince.\n  PORTIA. Ay, that's a colt indeed, for he doth nothing but talk of\n    his horse; and he makes it a great appropriation to his own good\n    parts that he can shoe him himself; I am much afear'd my lady his\n    mother play'd false with a smith.\n  NERISSA. Then is there the County Palatine.\n  PORTIA. He doth nothing but frown, as who should say 'An you will\n    not have me, choose.' He hears merry tales and smiles not. I fear\n    he will prove the weeping philosopher when he grows old, being so\n    full of unmannerly sadness in his youth. I had rather be married\n    to a death's-head with a bone in his mouth than to either of\n    these. God defend me from these two!\n  NERISSA. How say you by the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon?\n  PORTIA. God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man. In\n    truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker, but he- why, he hath a\n    horse better than the Neapolitan's, a better bad habit of\n    frowning than the Count Palatine; he is every man in no man. If a\n    throstle sing he falls straight a-cap'ring; he will fence with\n    his own shadow; if I should marry him, I should marry twenty\n    husbands. If he would despise me, I would forgive him; for if he\n    love me to madness, I shall never requite him.\n  NERISSA. What say you then to Falconbridge, the young baron of\n    England?\n  PORTIA. You know I say nothing to him, for he understands not me,\n    nor I him: he hath neither Latin, French, nor Italian, and you\n    will come into the court and swear that I have a poor pennyworth\n    in the English. He is a proper man's picture; but alas, who can\n    converse with a dumb-show? How oddly he is suited! I think he\n    bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet\n    in Germany, and his behaviour everywhere.\n  NERISSA. What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbour?\n  PORTIA. That he hath a neighbourly charity in him, for he borrowed\n    a box of the ear of the Englishman, and swore he would pay him\n    again when he was able; I think the Frenchman became his surety,\n    and seal'd under for another.\n  NERISSA. How like you the young German, the Duke of Saxony's\n    nephew?\n  PORTIA. Very vilely in the morning when he is sober; and most\n    vilely in the afternoon when he is drunk. When he is best, he is\n    a little worse than a man, and when he is worst, he is little\n    better than a beast. An the worst fall that ever fell, I hope I\n    shall make shift to go without him.\n  NERISSA. If he should offer to choose, and choose the right casket,\n    you should refuse to perform your father's will, if you should\n    refuse to accept him.\n  PORTIA. Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray thee set a deep\n    glass of Rhenish wine on the contrary casket; for if the devil be\n    within and that temptation without, I know he will choose it. I\n    will do anything, Nerissa, ere I will be married to a sponge.\n  NERISSA. You need not fear, lady, the having any of these lords;\n    they have acquainted me with their determinations, which is\n    indeed to return to their home, and to trouble you with no more\n    suit, unless you may be won by some other sort than your father's\n    imposition, depending on the caskets.\n  PORTIA. If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die as chaste as\n    Diana, unless I be obtained by the manner of my father's will. I\n    am glad this parcel of wooers are so reasonable; for there is not\n    one among them but I dote on his very absence, and I pray God\n    grant them a fair departure.\n  NERISSA. Do you not remember, lady, in your father's time, a\n    Venetian, a scholar and a soldier, that came hither in company of\n    the Marquis of Montferrat?\n  PORTIA. Yes, yes, it was Bassanio; as I think, so was he call'd.\n  NERISSA. True, madam; he, of all the men that ever my foolish eyes\n    look'd upon, was the best deserving a fair lady.\n  PORTIA. I remember him well, and I remember him worthy of thy\n    praise.\n\n                         Enter a SERVINGMAN\n\n    How now! what news?\n  SERVINGMAN. The four strangers seek for you, madam, to take their\n    leave; and there is a forerunner come from a fifth, the Prince of\n    Morocco, who brings word the Prince his master will be here\n    to-night.\n  PORTIA. If I could bid the fifth welcome with so good heart as I\n    can bid the other four farewell, I should be glad of his\n    approach; if he have the condition of a saint and the complexion\n    of a devil, I had rather he should shrive me than wive me.\n    Come, Nerissa. Sirrah, go before.\n    Whiles we shut the gate upon one wooer, another knocks at the\n      door.                                               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nVenice. A public place\n\nEnter BASSANIO With SHYLOCK the Jew\n\n  SHYLOCK. Three thousand ducats- well.\n  BASSANIO. Ay, sir, for three months.\n  SHYLOCK. For three months- well.\n  BASSANIO. For the which, as I told you, Antonio shall be bound.\n  SHYLOCK. Antonio shall become bound- well.\n  BASSANIO. May you stead me? Will you pleasure me? Shall I know your\n    answer?\n  SHYLOCK. Three thousand ducats for three months, and Antonio bound.\n  BASSANIO. Your answer to that.\n  SHYLOCK. Antonio is a good man.\n  BASSANIO. Have you heard any imputation to the contrary?\n  SHYLOCK. Ho, no, no, no, no; my meaning in saying he is a good man\n    is to have you understand me that he is sufficient; yet his means\n    are in supposition: he hath an argosy bound to Tripolis, another\n    to the Indies; I understand, moreover, upon the Rialto, he hath a\n    third at Mexico, a fourth for England- and other ventures he\n    hath, squand'red abroad. But ships are but boards, sailors but\n    men; there be land-rats and water-rats, water-thieves and\n    land-thieves- I mean pirates; and then there is the peril of\n    waters, winds, and rocks. The man is, notwithstanding,\n    sufficient. Three thousand ducats- I think I may take his bond.\n  BASSANIO. Be assur'd you may.\n  SHYLOCK. I will be assur'd I may; and, that I may be assured, I\n    will bethink me. May I speak with Antonio?\n  BASSANIO. If it please you to dine with us.\n  SHYLOCK. Yes, to smell pork, to eat of the habitation which your\n    prophet, the Nazarite, conjured the devil into! I will buy with\n    you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so\n    following; but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray\n    with you. What news on the Rialto? Who is he comes here?\n\n                            Enter ANTONIO\n\n  BASSANIO. This is Signior Antonio.\n  SHYLOCK.  [Aside]  How like a fawning publican he looks!\n    I hate him for he is a Christian;\n    But more for that in low simplicity\n    He lends out money gratis, and brings down\n    The rate of usance here with us in Venice.\n    If I can catch him once upon the hip,\n    I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him.\n    He hates our sacred nation; and he rails,\n    Even there where merchants most do congregate,\n    On me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift,\n    Which he calls interest. Cursed be my tribe\n    If I forgive him!\n  BASSANIO. Shylock, do you hear?\n  SHYLOCK. I am debating of my present store,\n    And, by the near guess of my memory,\n    I cannot instantly raise up the gross\n    Of full three thousand ducats. What of that?\n    Tubal, a wealthy Hebrew of my tribe,\n    Will furnish me. But soft! how many months\n    Do you desire?  [To ANTONIO]  Rest you fair, good signior;\n    Your worship was the last man in our mouths.\n  ANTONIO. Shylock, albeit I neither lend nor borrow\n    By taking nor by giving of excess,\n    Yet, to supply the ripe wants of my friend,\n    I'll break a custom.  [To BASSANIO]  Is he yet possess'd\n    How much ye would?\n  SHYLOCK. Ay, ay, three thousand ducats.\n  ANTONIO. And for three months.\n  SHYLOCK. I had forgot- three months; you told me so.\n    Well then, your bond; and, let me see- but hear you,\n    Methoughts you said you neither lend nor borrow\n    Upon advantage.\n  ANTONIO. I do never use it.\n  SHYLOCK. When Jacob graz'd his uncle Laban's sheep-\n    This Jacob from our holy Abram was,\n    As his wise mother wrought in his behalf,\n    The third possessor; ay, he was the third-\n  ANTONIO. And what of him? Did he take interest?\n  SHYLOCK. No, not take interest; not, as you would say,\n    Directly int'rest; mark what Jacob did:\n    When Laban and himself were compromis'd\n    That all the eanlings which were streak'd and pied\n    Should fall as Jacob's hire, the ewes, being rank,\n    In end of autumn turned to the rams;\n    And when the work of generation was\n    Between these woolly breeders in the act,\n    The skilful shepherd pill'd me certain wands,\n    And, in the doing of the deed of kind,\n    He stuck them up before the fulsome ewes,\n    Who, then conceiving, did in eaning time\n    Fall parti-colour'd lambs, and those were Jacob's.\n    This was a way to thrive, and he was blest;\n    And thrift is blessing, if men steal it not.\n  ANTONIO. This was a venture, sir, that Jacob serv'd for;\n    A thing not in his power to bring to pass,\n    But sway'd and fashion'd by the hand of heaven.\n    Was this inserted to make interest good?\n    Or is your gold and silver ewes and rams?\n  SHYLOCK. I cannot tell; I make it breed as fast.\n    But note me, signior.\n  ANTONIO.  [Aside]  Mark you this, Bassanio,\n    The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.\n    An evil soul producing holy witness\n    Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,\n    A goodly apple rotten at the heart.\n    O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!\n  SHYLOCK. Three thousand ducats- 'tis a good round sum.\n    Three months from twelve; then let me see, the rate-\n  ANTONIO. Well, Shylock, shall we be beholding to you?\n  SHYLOCK. Signior Antonio, many a time and oft\n    In the Rialto you have rated me\n    About my moneys and my usances;\n    Still have I borne it with a patient shrug,\n    For suff'rance is the badge of all our tribe;\n    You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,\n    And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine,\n    And all for use of that which is mine own.\n    Well then, it now appears you need my help;\n    Go to, then; you come to me, and you say\n    'Shylock, we would have moneys.' You say so-\n    You that did void your rheum upon my beard\n    And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur\n    Over your threshold; moneys is your suit.\n    What should I say to you? Should I not say\n    'Hath a dog money? Is it possible\n    A cur can lend three thousand ducats?' Or\n    Shall I bend low and, in a bondman's key,\n    With bated breath and whisp'ring humbleness,\n    Say this:\n    'Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last,\n    You spurn'd me such a day; another time\n    You call'd me dog; and for these courtesies\n    I'll lend you thus much moneys'?\n  ANTONIO. I am as like to call thee so again,\n    To spit on thee again, to spurn thee too.\n    If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not\n    As to thy friends- for when did friendship take\n    A breed for barren metal of his friend?-\n    But lend it rather to thine enemy,\n    Who if he break thou mayst with better face\n    Exact the penalty.\n  SHYLOCK. Why, look you, how you storm!\n    I would be friends with you, and have your love,\n    Forget the shames that you have stain'd me with,\n    Supply your present wants, and take no doit\n    Of usance for my moneys, and you'll not hear me.\n    This is kind I offer.\n  BASSANIO. This were kindness.\n  SHYLOCK. This kindness will I show.\n    Go with me to a notary, seal me there\n    Your single bond, and, in a merry sport,\n    If you repay me not on such a day,\n    In such a place, such sum or sums as are\n    Express'd in the condition, let the forfeit\n    Be nominated for an equal pound\n    Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken\n    In what part of your body pleaseth me.\n  ANTONIO. Content, in faith; I'll seal to such a bond,\n    And say there is much kindness in the Jew.\n  BASSANIO. You shall not seal to such a bond for me;\n    I'll rather dwell in my necessity.\n  ANTONIO. Why, fear not, man; I will not forfeit it;\n    Within these two months- that's a month before\n    This bond expires- I do expect return\n    Of thrice three times the value of this bond.\n  SHYLOCK. O father Abram, what these Christians are,\n    Whose own hard dealings teaches them suspect\n    The thoughts of others! Pray you, tell me this:\n    If he should break his day, what should I gain\n    By the exaction of the forfeiture?\n    A pound of man's flesh taken from a man\n    Is not so estimable, profitable neither,\n    As flesh of muttons, beefs, or goats. I say,\n    To buy his favour, I extend this friendship;\n    If he will take it, so; if not, adieu;\n    And, for my love, I pray you wrong me not.\n  ANTONIO. Yes, Shylock, I will seal unto this bond.\n  SHYLOCK. Then meet me forthwith at the notary's;\n    Give him direction for this merry bond,\n    And I will go and purse the ducats straight,\n    See to my house, left in the fearful guard\n    Of an unthrifty knave, and presently\n    I'll be with you.\n  ANTONIO. Hie thee, gentle Jew.                    Exit SHYLOCK\n    The Hebrew will turn Christian: he grows kind.\n  BASSANIO. I like not fair terms and a villain's mind.\n  ANTONIO. Come on; in this there can be no dismay;\n    My ships come home a month before the day.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nBelmont. PORTIA'S house\n\nFlourish of cornets. Enter the PRINCE of MOROCCO, a tawny Moor all in white,\nand three or four FOLLOWERS accordingly, with PORTIA, NERISSA, and train\n\n  PRINCE OF Morocco. Mislike me not for my complexion,\n    The shadowed livery of the burnish'd sun,\n    To whom I am a neighbour, and near bred.\n    Bring me the fairest creature northward born,\n    Where Phoebus' fire scarce thaws the icicles,\n    And let us make incision for your love\n    To prove whose blood is reddest, his or mine.\n    I tell thee, lady, this aspect of mine\n    Hath fear'd the valiant; by my love, I swear\n    The best-regarded virgins of our clime\n    Have lov'd it too. I would not change this hue,\n    Except to steal your thoughts, my gentle queen.\n  PORTIA. In terms of choice I am not solely led\n    By nice direction of a maiden's eyes;\n    Besides, the lott'ry of my destiny\n    Bars me the right of voluntary choosing.\n    But, if my father had not scanted me,\n    And hedg'd me by his wit to yield myself\n    His wife who wins me by that means I told you,\n    Yourself, renowned Prince, then stood as fair\n    As any comer I have look'd on yet\n    For my affection.\n  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. Even for that I thank you.\n    Therefore, I pray you, lead me to the caskets\n    To try my fortune. By this scimitar,\n    That slew the Sophy and a Persian prince,\n    That won three fields of Sultan Solyman,\n    I would o'erstare the sternest eyes that look,\n    Outbrave the heart most daring on the earth,\n    Pluck the young sucking cubs from the she-bear,\n    Yea, mock the lion when 'a roars for prey,\n    To win thee, lady. But, alas the while!\n    If Hercules and Lichas play at dice\n    Which is the better man, the greater throw\n    May turn by fortune from the weaker band.\n    So is Alcides beaten by his page;\n    And so may I, blind Fortune leading me,\n    Miss that which one unworthier may attain,\n    And die with grieving.\n  PORTIA. You must take your chance,\n    And either not attempt to choose at all,\n    Or swear before you choose, if you choose wrong,\n    Never to speak to lady afterward\n    In way of marriage; therefore be advis'd.\n  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. Nor will not; come, bring me unto my chance.\n  PORTIA. First, forward to the temple. After dinner\n    Your hazard shall be made.\n  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. Good fortune then,\n    To make me blest or cursed'st among men!\n                                           [Cornets, and exeunt]\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nVenice. A street\n\nEnter LAUNCELOT GOBBO\n\n  LAUNCELOT. Certainly my conscience will serve me to run from this\n    Jew my master. The fiend is at mine elbow and tempts me, saying\n    to me 'Gobbo, Launcelot Gobbo, good Launcelot' or 'good Gobbo' or\n    'good Launcelot Gobbo, use your legs, take the start, run away.'\n    My conscience says 'No; take heed, honest Launcelot, take heed,\n    honest Gobbo' or, as aforesaid, 'honest Launcelot Gobbo, do not\n    run; scorn running with thy heels.' Well, the most courageous\n    fiend bids me pack. 'Via!' says the fiend; 'away!' says the\n    fiend. 'For the heavens, rouse up a brave mind' says the fiend\n    'and run.' Well, my conscience, hanging about the neck of my\n    heart, says very wisely to me 'My honest friend Launcelot, being\n    an honest man's son' or rather 'an honest woman's son'; for\n    indeed my father did something smack, something grow to, he had a\n    kind of taste- well, my conscience says 'Launcelot, budge not.'\n    'Budge,' says the fiend. 'Budge not,' says my conscience.\n    'Conscience,' say I, (you counsel well.' 'Fiend,' say I, 'you\n    counsel well.' To be rul'd by my conscience, I should stay with\n    the Jew my master, who- God bless the mark!- is a kind of devil;\n    and, to run away from the Jew, I should be ruled by the fiend,\n    who- saving your reverence!- is the devil himself. Certainly the\n    Jew is the very devil incarnation; and, in my conscience, my\n    conscience is but a kind of hard conscience to offer to counsel\n    me to stay with the Jew. The fiend gives the more friendly\n    counsel. I will run, fiend; my heels are at your commandment; I\n    will run.\n\n                     Enter OLD GOBBO, with a basket\n\n  GOBBO. Master young man, you, I pray you, which is the way to\n    master Jew's?\n  LAUNCELOT.  [Aside]  O heavens! This is my true-begotten father,\n    who, being more than sand-blind, high-gravel blind, knows me not.\n    I will try confusions with him.\n  GOBBO. Master young gentleman, I pray you, which is the way to\n    master Jew's?\n  LAUNCELOT. Turn up on your right hand at the next turning, but, at\n    the next turning of all, on your left; marry, at the very next\n    turning, turn of no hand, but turn down indirectly to the Jew's\n    house.\n  GOBBO. Be God's sonties, 'twill be a hard way to hit! Can you tell\n    me whether one Launcelot, that dwells with him, dwell with him or\n    no?\n  LAUNCELOT. Talk you of young Master Launcelot?  [Aside]  Mark me\n    now; now will I raise the waters.- Talk you of young Master\n    Launcelot?\n  GOBBO. No master, sir, but a poor man's son; his father, though I\n    say't, is an honest exceeding poor man, and, God be thanked, well\n    to live.\n  LAUNCELOT. Well, let his father be what 'a will, we talk of young\n    Master Launcelot.\n  GOBBO. Your worship's friend, and Launcelot, sir.\n  LAUNCELOT. But I pray you, ergo, old man, ergo, I beseech you, talk\n    you of young Master Launcelot?\n  GOBBO. Of Launcelot, an't please your mastership.\n  LAUNCELOT. Ergo, Master Launcelot. Talk not of Master Launcelot,\n    father; for the young gentleman, according to Fates and Destinies\n    and such odd sayings, the Sisters Three and such branches of\n    learning, is indeed deceased; or, as you would say in plain\n    terms, gone to heaven.\n  GOBBO. Marry, God forbid! The boy was the very staff of my age, my\n    very prop.\n  LAUNCELOT. Do I look like a cudgel or a hovel-post, a staff or a\n    prop? Do you know me, father?\n  GOBBO. Alack the day, I know you not, young gentleman; but I pray\n    you tell me, is my boy- God rest his soul!- alive or dead?\n  LAUNCELOT. Do you not know me, father?\n  GOBBO. Alack, sir, I am sand-blind; I know you not.\n  LAUNCELOT. Nay, indeed, if you had your eyes, you might fail of the\n    knowing me: it is a wise father that knows his own child. Well,\n    old man, I will tell you news of your son. Give me your blessing;\n    truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long; a man's son\n    may, but in the end truth will out.\n  GOBBO. Pray you, sir, stand up; I am sure you are not Launcelot my\n    boy.\n  LAUNCELOT. Pray you, let's have no more fooling about it, but give\n    me your blessing; I am Launcelot, your boy that was, your son\n    that is, your child that shall be.\n  GOBBO. I cannot think you are my son.\n  LAUNCELOT. I know not what I shall think of that; but I am\n    Launcelot, the Jew's man, and I am sure Margery your wife is my\n    mother.\n  GOBBO. Her name is Margery, indeed. I'll be sworn, if thou be\n    Launcelot, thou art mine own flesh and blood. Lord worshipp'd\n    might he be, what a beard hast thou got! Thou hast got more hair\n    on thy chin than Dobbin my fill-horse has on his tail.\n  LAUNCELOT. It should seem, then, that Dobbin's tail grows backward;\n    I am sure he had more hair of his tail than I have of my face\n    when I last saw him.\n  GOBBO. Lord, how art thou chang'd! How dost thou and thy master\n    agree? I have brought him a present. How 'gree you now?\n  LAUNCELOT. Well, well; but, for mine own part, as I have set up my\n    rest to run away, so I will not rest till I have run some ground.\n    My master's a very Jew. Give him a present! Give him a halter. I\n    am famish'd in his service; you may tell every finger I have with\n    my ribs. Father, I am glad you are come; give me your present to\n    one Master Bassanio, who indeed gives rare new liveries; if I\n    serve not him, I will run as far as God has any ground. O rare\n    fortune! Here comes the man. To him, father, for I am a Jew, if I\n    serve the Jew any longer.\n\n         Enter BASSANIO, with LEONARDO, with a FOLLOWER or two\n\n  BASSANIO. You may do so; but let it be so hasted that supper be\n    ready at the farthest by five of the clock. See these letters\n    delivered, put the liveries to making, and desire Gratiano to\n    come anon to my lodging.                      Exit a SERVANT\n  LAUNCELOT. To him, father.\n  GOBBO. God bless your worship!\n  BASSANIO. Gramercy; wouldst thou aught with me?\n  GOBBO. Here's my son, sir, a poor boy-\n  LAUNCELOT. Not a poor boy, sir, but the rich Jew's man, that would,\n    sir, as my father shall specify-\n  GOBBO. He hath a great infection, sir, as one would say, to serve-\n  LAUNCELOT. Indeed the short and the long is, I serve the Jew, and\n    have a desire, as my father shall specify-\n  GOBBO. His master and he, saving your worship's reverence, are\n    scarce cater-cousins-\n  LAUNCELOT. To be brief, the very truth is that the Jew, having done\n    me wrong, doth cause me, as my father, being I hope an old man,\n    shall frutify unto you-\n  GOBBO. I have here a dish of doves that I would bestow upon your\n    worship; and my suit is-\n  LAUNCELOT. In very brief, the suit is impertinent to myself, as\n    your worship shall know by this honest old man; and, though I say\n    it, though old man, yet poor man, my father.\n  BASSANIO. One speak for both. What would you?\n  LAUNCELOT. Serve you, sir.\n  GOBBO. That is the very defect of the matter, sir.\n  BASSANIO. I know thee well; thou hast obtain'd thy suit.\n    Shylock thy master spoke with me this day,\n    And hath preferr'd thee, if it be preferment\n    To leave a rich Jew's service to become\n    The follower of so poor a gentleman.\n  LAUNCELOT. The old proverb is very well parted between my master\n    Shylock and you, sir: you have the grace of God, sir, and he hath\n    enough.\n  BASSANIO. Thou speak'st it well. Go, father, with thy son.\n    Take leave of thy old master, and inquire\n    My lodging out.  [To a SERVANT]  Give him a livery\n    More guarded than his fellows'; see it done.\n  LAUNCELOT. Father, in. I cannot get a service, no! I have ne'er a\n    tongue in my head!  [Looking on his palm]  Well; if any man in\n    Italy have a fairer table which doth offer to swear upon a book- I\n    shall have good fortune. Go to, here's a simple line of life;\n    here's a small trifle of wives; alas, fifteen wives is nothing;\n    a'leven widows and nine maids is a simple coming-in for one man.\n    And then to scape drowning thrice, and to be in peril of my life\n    with the edge of a feather-bed-here are simple scapes. Well, if\n    Fortune be a woman, she's a good wench for this gear. Father,\n    come; I'll take my leave of the Jew in the twinkling.\n                                  Exeunt LAUNCELOT and OLD GOBBO\n  BASSANIO. I pray thee, good Leonardo, think on this.\n    These things being bought and orderly bestowed,\n    Return in haste, for I do feast to-night\n    My best esteem'd acquaintance; hie thee, go.\n  LEONARDO. My best endeavours shall be done herein.\n\n                          Enter GRATIANO\n\n  GRATIANO. Where's your master?\n  LEONARDO. Yonder, sir, he walks.                          Exit\n  GRATIANO. Signior Bassanio!\n  BASSANIO. Gratiano!\n  GRATIANO. I have suit to you.\n  BASSANIO. You have obtain'd it.\n  GRATIANO. You must not deny me: I must go with you to Belmont.\n  BASSANIO. Why, then you must. But hear thee, Gratiano:\n    Thou art too wild, too rude, and bold of voice-\n    Parts that become thee happily enough,\n    And in such eyes as ours appear not faults;\n    But where thou art not known, why there they show\n    Something too liberal. Pray thee, take pain\n    To allay with some cold drops of modesty\n    Thy skipping spirit; lest through thy wild behaviour\n    I be misconst'red in the place I go to\n    And lose my hopes.\n  GRATIANO. Signior Bassanio, hear me:\n    If I do not put on a sober habit,\n    Talk with respect, and swear but now and then,\n    Wear prayer-books in my pocket, look demurely,\n    Nay more, while grace is saying hood mine eyes\n    Thus with my hat, and sigh, and say amen,\n    Use all the observance of civility\n    Like one well studied in a sad ostent\n    To please his grandam, never trust me more.\n  BASSANIO. Well, we shall see your bearing.\n  GRATIANO. Nay, but I bar to-night; you shall not gauge me\n    By what we do to-night.\n  BASSANIO. No, that were pity;\n    I would entreat you rather to put on\n    Your boldest suit of mirth, for we have friends\n    That purpose merriment. But fare you well;\n    I have some business.\n  GRATIANO. And I must to Lorenzo and the rest;\n    But we will visit you at supper-time.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nVenice. SHYLOCK'S house\n\nEnter JESSICA and LAUNCELOT\n\n  JESSICA. I am sorry thou wilt leave my father so.\n    Our house is hell; and thou, a merry devil,\n    Didst rob it of some taste of tediousness.\n    But fare thee well; there is a ducat for thee;\n    And, Launcelot, soon at supper shalt thou see\n    Lorenzo, who is thy new master's guest.\n    Give him this letter; do it secretly.\n    And so farewell. I would not have my father\n    See me in talk with thee.\n  LAUNCELOT. Adieu! tears exhibit my tongue. Most beautiful pagan,\n    most sweet Jew! If a Christian do not play the knave and get\n    thee, I am much deceived. But, adieu! these foolish drops do\n    something drown my manly spirit; adieu!\n  JESSICA. Farewell, good Launcelot.              Exit LAUNCELOT\n    Alack, what heinous sin is it in me\n    To be asham'd to be my father's child!\n    But though I am a daughter to his blood,\n    I am not to his manners. O Lorenzo,\n    If thou keep promise, I shall end this strife,\n    Become a Christian and thy loving wife.                 Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nVenice. A street\n\nEnter GRATIANO, LORENZO, SALERIO, and SOLANIO\n\n  LORENZO. Nay, we will slink away in suppertime,\n    Disguise us at my lodging, and return\n    All in an hour.\n  GRATIANO. We have not made good preparation.\n  SALERIO. We have not spoke us yet of torch-bearers.\n  SOLANIO. 'Tis vile, unless it may be quaintly ordered;\n    And better in my mind not undertook.\n  LORENZO. 'Tis now but four o'clock; we have two hours\n    To furnish us.\n\n                 Enter LAUNCELOT, With a letter\n\n    Friend Launcelot, what's the news?\n  LAUNCELOT. An it shall please you to break up this, it shall seem\n    to signify.\n  LORENZO. I know the hand; in faith, 'tis a fair hand,\n    And whiter than the paper it writ on\n    Is the fair hand that writ.\n  GRATIANO. Love-news, in faith!\n  LAUNCELOT. By your leave, sir.\n  LORENZO. Whither goest thou?\n  LAUNCELOT. Marry, sir, to bid my old master, the Jew, to sup\n    to-night with my new master, the Christian.\n  LORENZO. Hold, here, take this. Tell gentle Jessica\n    I will not fail her; speak it privately.\n    Go, gentlemen,                                Exit LAUNCELOT\n    Will you prepare you for this masque to-night?\n    I am provided of a torch-bearer.\n  SALERIO. Ay, marry, I'll be gone about it straight.\n  SOLANIO. And so will I.\n  LORENZO. Meet me and Gratiano\n    At Gratiano's lodging some hour hence.\n  SALERIO. 'Tis good we do so.        Exeunt SALERIO and SOLANIO\n  GRATIANO. Was not that letter from fair Jessica?\n  LORENZO. I must needs tell thee all. She hath directed\n    How I shall take her from her father's house;\n    What gold and jewels she is furnish'd with;\n    What page's suit she hath in readiness.\n    If e'er the Jew her father come to heaven,\n    It will be for his gentle daughter's sake;\n    And never dare misfortune cross her foot,\n    Unless she do it under this excuse,\n    That she is issue to a faithless Jew.\n    Come, go with me, peruse this as thou goest;\n    Fair Jessica shall be my torch-bearer.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nVenice. Before SHYLOCK'S house\n\nEnter SHYLOCK and LAUNCELOT\n\n  SHYLOCK. Well, thou shalt see; thy eyes shall be thy judge,\n    The difference of old Shylock and Bassanio.-\n    What, Jessica!- Thou shalt not gormandize\n    As thou hast done with me- What, Jessica!-\n    And sleep and snore, and rend apparel out-\n    Why, Jessica, I say!\n  LAUNCELOT. Why, Jessica!\n  SHYLOCK. Who bids thee call? I do not bid thee call.\n  LAUNCELOT. Your worship was wont to tell me I could do nothing\n    without bidding.\n\n                          Enter JESSICA\n\n  JESSICA. Call you? What is your will?\n  SHYLOCK. I am bid forth to supper, Jessica;\n    There are my keys. But wherefore should I go?\n    I am not bid for love; they flatter me;\n    But yet I'll go in hate, to feed upon\n    The prodigal Christian. Jessica, my girl,\n    Look to my house. I am right loath to go;\n    There is some ill a-brewing towards my rest,\n    For I did dream of money-bags to-night.\n  LAUNCELOT. I beseech you, sir, go; my young master doth expect your\n    reproach.\n  SHYLOCK. So do I his.\n  LAUNCELOT. And they have conspired together; I will not say you\n    shall see a masque, but if you do, then it was not for nothing\n    that my nose fell a-bleeding on Black Monday last at six o'clock\n    i' th' morning, falling out that year on Ash Wednesday was four\n    year, in th' afternoon.\n  SHYLOCK. What, are there masques? Hear you me, Jessica:\n    Lock up my doors, and when you hear the drum,\n    And the vile squealing of the wry-neck'd fife,\n    Clamber not you up to the casements then,\n    Nor thrust your head into the public street\n    To gaze on Christian fools with varnish'd faces;\n    But stop my house's ears- I mean my casements;\n    Let not the sound of shallow fopp'ry enter\n    My sober house. By Jacob's staff, I swear\n    I have no mind of feasting forth to-night;\n    But I will go. Go you before me, sirrah;\n    Say I will come.\n  LAUNCELOT. I will go before, sir. Mistress, look out at window for\n    all this.\n        There will come a Christian by\n        Will be worth a Jewess' eye.                        Exit\n  SHYLOCK. What says that fool of Hagar's offspring, ha?\n  JESSICA. His words were 'Farewell, mistress'; nothing else.\n  SHYLOCK. The patch is kind enough, but a huge feeder,\n    Snail-slow in profit, and he sleeps by day\n    More than the wild-cat; drones hive not with me,\n    Therefore I part with him; and part with him\n    To one that I would have him help to waste\n    His borrowed purse. Well, Jessica, go in;\n    Perhaps I will return immediately.\n    Do as I bid you, shut doors after you.\n    Fast bind, fast find-\n    A proverb never stale in thrifty mind.                  Exit\n  JESSICA. Farewell; and if my fortune be not crost,\n    I have a father, you a daughter, lost.                  Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nVenice. Before SHYLOCK'S house\n\nEnter the maskers, GRATIANO and SALERIO\n\n  GRATIANO. This is the pent-house under which Lorenzo\n    Desired us to make stand.\n  SALERIO. His hour is almost past.\n  GRATIANO. And it is marvel he out-dwells his hour,\n    For lovers ever run before the clock.\n  SALERIO. O, ten times faster Venus' pigeons fly\n    To seal love's bonds new made than they are wont\n    To keep obliged faith unforfeited!\n  GRATIANO. That ever holds: who riseth from a feast\n    With that keen appetite that he sits down?\n    Where is the horse that doth untread again\n    His tedious measures with the unbated fire\n    That he did pace them first? All things that are\n    Are with more spirit chased than enjoyed.\n    How like a younker or a prodigal\n    The scarfed bark puts from her native bay,\n    Hugg'd and embraced by the strumpet wind;\n    How like the prodigal doth she return,\n    With over-weather'd ribs and ragged sails,\n    Lean, rent, and beggar'd by the strumpet wind!\n\n                       Enter LORENZO\n\n  SALERIO. Here comes Lorenzo; more of this hereafter.\n  LORENZO. Sweet friends, your patience for my long abode!\n    Not I, but my affairs, have made you wait.\n    When you shall please to play the thieves for wives,\n    I'll watch as long for you then. Approach;\n    Here dwells my father Jew. Ho! who's within?\n\n           Enter JESSICA, above, in boy's clothes\n\n  JESSICA. Who are you? Tell me, for more certainty,\n    Albeit I'll swear that I do know your tongue.\n  LORENZO. Lorenzo, and thy love.\n  JESSICA. Lorenzo, certain; and my love indeed;\n    For who love I so much? And now who knows\n    But you, Lorenzo, whether I am yours?\n  LORENZO. Heaven and thy thoughts are witness that thou art.\n  JESSICA. Here, catch this casket; it is worth the pains.\n    I am glad 'tis night, you do not look on me,\n    For I am much asham'd of my exchange;\n    But love is blind, and lovers cannot see\n    The pretty follies that themselves commit,\n    For, if they could, Cupid himself would blush\n    To see me thus transformed to a boy.\n  LORENZO. Descend, for you must be my torch-bearer.\n  JESSICA. What! must I hold a candle to my shames?\n    They in themselves, good sooth, are too too light.\n    Why, 'tis an office of discovery, love,\n    And I should be obscur'd.\n  LORENZO. So are you, sweet,\n    Even in the lovely garnish of a boy.\n    But come at once,\n    For the close night doth play the runaway,\n    And we are stay'd for at Bassanio's feast.\n  JESSICA. I will make fast the doors, and gild myself\n    With some moe ducats, and be with you straight.\n                                                      Exit above\n\n  GRATIANO. Now, by my hood, a gentle, and no Jew.\n  LORENZO. Beshrew me, but I love her heartily,\n    For she is wise, if I can judge of her,\n    And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true,\n    And true she is, as she hath prov'd herself;\n    And therefore, like herself, wise, fair, and true,\n    Shall she be placed in my constant soul.\n\n                     Enter JESSICA, below\n\n    What, art thou come? On, gentlemen, away;\n    Our masquing mates by this time for us stay.\n                                   Exit with JESSICA and SALERIO\n\n                        Enter ANTONIO\n\n  ANTONIO. Who's there?\n  GRATIANO. Signior Antonio?\n  ANTONIO. Fie, fie, Gratiano, where are all the rest?\n    'Tis nine o'clock; our friends all stay for you;\n    No masque to-night; the wind is come about;\n    Bassanio presently will go aboard;\n    I have sent twenty out to seek for you.\n  GRATIANO. I am glad on't; I desire no more delight\n    Than to be under sail and gone to-night.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nBelmont. PORTIA's house\n\nFlourish of cornets. Enter PORTIA, with the PRINCE OF MOROCCO,\nand their trains\n\n  PORTIA. Go draw aside the curtains and discover\n    The several caskets to this noble Prince.\n    Now make your choice.\n  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. The first, of gold, who this inscription bears:\n    'Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.'\n    The second, silver, which this promise carries:\n    'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.'\n    This third, dull lead, with warning all as blunt:\n    'Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.'\n    How shall I know if I do choose the right?\n  PORTIA. The one of them contains my picture, Prince;\n    If you choose that, then I am yours withal.\n  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. Some god direct my judgment! Let me see;\n    I will survey th' inscriptions back again.\n    What says this leaden casket?\n    'Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.'\n    Must give- for what? For lead? Hazard for lead!\n    This casket threatens; men that hazard all\n    Do it in hope of fair advantages.\n    A golden mind stoops not to shows of dross;\n    I'll then nor give nor hazard aught for lead.\n    What says the silver with her virgin hue?\n    'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.'\n    As much as he deserves! Pause there, Morocco,\n    And weigh thy value with an even hand.\n    If thou beest rated by thy estimation,\n    Thou dost deserve enough, and yet enough\n    May not extend so far as to the lady;\n    And yet to be afeard of my deserving\n    Were but a weak disabling of myself.\n    As much as I deserve? Why, that's the lady!\n    I do in birth deserve her, and in fortunes,\n    In graces, and in qualities of breeding;\n    But more than these, in love I do deserve.\n    What if I stray'd no farther, but chose here?\n    Let's see once more this saying grav'd in gold:\n    'Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.'\n    Why, that's the lady! All the world desires her;\n    From the four corners of the earth they come\n    To kiss this shrine, this mortal-breathing saint.\n    The Hyrcanian deserts and the vasty wilds\n    Of wide Arabia are as throughfares now\n    For princes to come view fair Portia.\n    The watery kingdom, whose ambitious head\n    Spits in the face of heaven, is no bar\n    To stop the foreign spirits, but they come\n    As o'er a brook to see fair Portia.\n    One of these three contains her heavenly picture.\n    Is't like that lead contains her? 'Twere damnation\n    To think so base a thought; it were too gross\n    To rib her cerecloth in the obscure grave.\n    Or shall I think in silver she's immur'd,\n    Being ten times undervalued to tried gold?\n    O sinful thought! Never so rich a gem\n    Was set in worse than gold. They have in England\n    A coin that bears the figure of an angel\n    Stamp'd in gold; but that's insculp'd upon.\n    But here an angel in a golden bed\n    Lies all within. Deliver me the key;\n    Here do I choose, and thrive I as I may!\n  PORTIA. There, take it, Prince, and if my form lie there,\n    Then I am yours.                [He opens the golden casket]\n  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. O hell! what have we here?\n    A carrion Death, within whose empty eye\n    There is a written scroll! I'll read the writing.\n         'All that glisters is not gold,\n         Often have you heard that told;\n         Many a man his life hath sold\n         But my outside to behold.\n         Gilded tombs do worms infold.\n         Had you been as wise as bold,\n         Young in limbs, in judgment old,\n         Your answer had not been inscroll'd.\n         Fare you well, your suit is cold.'\n      Cold indeed, and labour lost,\n      Then farewell, heat, and welcome, frost.\n    Portia, adieu! I have too griev'd a heart\n    To take a tedious leave; thus losers part.\n                        Exit with his train. Flourish of cornets\n  PORTIA. A gentle riddance. Draw the curtains, go.\n    Let all of his complexion choose me so.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VIII.\nVenice. A street\n\nEnter SALERIO and SOLANIO\n\n  SALERIO. Why, man, I saw Bassanio under sail;\n    With him is Gratiano gone along;\n    And in their ship I am sure Lorenzo is not.\n  SOLANIO. The villain Jew with outcries rais'd the Duke,\n    Who went with him to search Bassanio's ship.\n  SALERIO. He came too late, the ship was under sail;\n    But there the Duke was given to understand\n    That in a gondola were seen together\n    Lorenzo and his amorous Jessica;\n    Besides, Antonio certified the Duke\n    They were not with Bassanio in his ship.\n  SOLANIO. I never heard a passion so confus'd,\n    So strange, outrageous, and so variable,\n    As the dog Jew did utter in the streets.\n    'My daughter! O my ducats! O my daughter!\n    Fled with a Christian! O my Christian ducats!\n    Justice! the law! My ducats and my daughter!\n    A sealed bag, two sealed bags of ducats,\n    Of double ducats, stol'n from me by my daughter!\n    And jewels- two stones, two rich and precious stones,\n    Stol'n by my daughter! Justice! Find the girl;\n    She hath the stones upon her and the ducats.'\n  SALERIO. Why, all the boys in Venice follow him,\n    Crying, his stones, his daughter, and his ducats.\n  SOLANIO. Let good Antonio look he keep his day,\n    Or he shall pay for this.\n  SALERIO. Marry, well rememb'red;\n    I reason'd with a Frenchman yesterday,\n    Who told me, in the narrow seas that part\n    The French and English, there miscarried\n    A vessel of our country richly fraught.\n    I thought upon Antonio when he told me,\n    And wish'd in silence that it were not his.\n  SOLANIO. You were best to tell Antonio what you hear;\n    Yet do not suddenly, for it may grieve him.\n  SALERIO. A kinder gentleman treads not the earth.\n    I saw Bassanio and Antonio part.\n    Bassanio told him he would make some speed\n    Of his return. He answered 'Do not so;\n    Slubber not business for my sake, Bassanio,\n    But stay the very riping of the time;\n    And for the Jew's bond which he hath of me,\n    Let it not enter in your mind of love;\n    Be merry, and employ your chiefest thoughts\n    To courtship, and such fair ostents of love\n    As shall conveniently become you there.'\n    And even there, his eye being big with tears,\n    Turning his face, he put his hand behind him,\n    And with affection wondrous sensible\n    He wrung Bassanio's hand; and so they parted.\n  SOLANIO. I think he only loves the world for him.\n    I pray thee, let us go and find him out,\n    And quicken his embraced heaviness\n    With some delight or other.\n  SALERIO. Do we so.                                      Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IX.\nBelmont. PORTIA'S house\n\nEnter NERISSA, and a SERVITOR\n\n  NERISSA. Quick, quick, I pray thee, draw the curtain straight;\n    The Prince of Arragon hath ta'en his oath,\n    And comes to his election presently.\n\n       Flourish of cornets. Enter the PRINCE OF ARRAGON,\n                    PORTIA, and their trains\n\n  PORTIA. Behold, there stand the caskets, noble Prince.\n    If you choose that wherein I am contain'd,\n    Straight shall our nuptial rites be solemniz'd;\n    But if you fail, without more speech, my lord,\n    You must be gone from hence immediately.\n  ARRAGON. I am enjoin'd by oath to observe three things:\n    First, never to unfold to any one\n    Which casket 'twas I chose; next, if I fail\n    Of the right casket, never in my life\n    To woo a maid in way of marriage;\n    Lastly,\n    If I do fail in fortune of my choice,\n    Immediately to leave you and be gone.\n  PORTIA. To these injunctions every one doth swear\n    That comes to hazard for my worthless self.\n  ARRAGON. And so have I address'd me. Fortune now\n    To my heart's hope! Gold, silver, and base lead.\n    'Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.'\n    You shall look fairer ere I give or hazard.\n    What says the golden chest? Ha! let me see:\n    'Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.'\n    What many men desire- that 'many' may be meant\n    By the fool multitude, that choose by show,\n    Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach;\n    Which pries not to th' interior, but, like the martlet,\n    Builds in the weather on the outward wall,\n    Even in the force and road of casualty.\n    I will not choose what many men desire,\n    Because I will not jump with common spirits\n    And rank me with the barbarous multitudes.\n    Why, then to thee, thou silver treasure-house!\n    Tell me once more what title thou dost bear.\n    'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.'\n    And well said too; for who shall go about\n    To cozen fortune, and be honourable\n    Without the stamp of merit? Let none presume\n    To wear an undeserved dignity.\n    O that estates, degrees, and offices,\n    Were not deriv'd corruptly, and that clear honour\n    Were purchas'd by the merit of the wearer!\n    How many then should cover that stand bare!\n    How many be commanded that command!\n    How much low peasantry would then be gleaned\n    From the true seed of honour! and how much honour\n    Pick'd from the chaff and ruin of the times,\n    To be new varnish'd! Well, but to my choice.\n    'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.'\n    I will assume desert. Give me a key for this,\n    And instantly unlock my fortunes here.\n                                    [He opens the silver casket]\n  PORTIA.  [Aside]  Too long a pause for that which you find there.\n  ARRAGON. What's here? The portrait of a blinking idiot\n    Presenting me a schedule! I will read it.\n    How much unlike art thou to Portia!\n    How much unlike my hopes and my deservings!\n    'Who chooseth me shall have as much as he deserves.'\n    Did I deserve no more than a fool's head?\n    Is that my prize? Are my deserts no better?\n  PORTIA. To offend and judge are distinct offices\n    And of opposed natures.\n  ARRAGON. What is here?  [Reads]\n\n         'The fire seven times tried this;\n         Seven times tried that judgment is\n         That did never choose amiss.\n         Some there be that shadows kiss,\n         Such have but a shadow's bliss.\n         There be fools alive iwis\n         Silver'd o'er, and so was this.\n         Take what wife you will to bed,\n         I will ever be your head.\n         So be gone; you are sped.'\n\n         Still more fool I shall appear\n         By the time I linger here.\n         With one fool's head I came to woo,\n         But I go away with two.\n         Sweet, adieu! I'll keep my oath,\n         Patiently to bear my wroth.         Exit with his train\n\n  PORTIA. Thus hath the candle sing'd the moth.\n    O, these deliberate fools! When they do choose,\n    They have the wisdom by their wit to lose.\n  NERISSA. The ancient saying is no heresy:\n    Hanging and wiving goes by destiny.\n  PORTIA. Come, draw the curtain, Nerissa.\n\n                       Enter a SERVANT\n\n  SERVANT. Where is my lady?\n  PORTIA. Here; what would my lord?\n  SERVANT. Madam, there is alighted at your gate\n    A young Venetian, one that comes before\n    To signify th' approaching of his lord,\n    From whom he bringeth sensible regreets;\n    To wit, besides commends and courteous breath,\n    Gifts of rich value. Yet I have not seen\n    So likely an ambassador of love.\n    A day in April never came so sweet\n    To show how costly summer was at hand\n    As this fore-spurrer comes before his lord.\n  PORTIA. No more, I pray thee; I am half afeard\n    Thou wilt say anon he is some kin to thee,\n    Thou spend'st such high-day wit in praising him.\n    Come, come, Nerissa, for I long to see\n    Quick Cupid's post that comes so mannerly.\n  NERISSA. Bassanio, Lord Love, if thy will it be!        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nVenice. A street\n\nEnter SOLANIO and SALERIO\n\n  SOLANIO. Now, what news on the Rialto?\n  SALERIO. Why, yet it lives there uncheck'd that Antonio hath a ship\n    of rich lading wreck'd on the narrow seas; the Goodwins I think\n    they call the place, a very dangerous flat and fatal, where the\n    carcases of many a tall ship lie buried, as they say, if my\n    gossip Report be an honest woman of her word.\n  SOLANIO. I would she were as lying a gossip in that as ever knapp'd\n    ginger or made her neighbours believe she wept for the death of a\n    third husband. But it is true, without any slips of prolixity or\n    crossing the plain highway of talk, that the good Antonio, the\n    honest Antonio- O that I had a title good enough to keep his name\n    company!-\n  SALERIO. Come, the full stop.\n  SOLANIO. Ha! What sayest thou? Why, the end is, he hath lost a\n    ship.\n  SALERIO. I would it might prove the end of his losses.\n  SOLANIO. Let me say amen betimes, lest the devil cross my prayer,\n    for here he comes in the likeness of a Jew.\n\n                             Enter SHYLOCK\n\n    How now, Shylock? What news among the merchants?\n  SHYLOCK. You knew, none so well, none so well as you, of my\n    daughter's flight.\n  SALERIO. That's certain; I, for my part, knew the tailor that made\n    the wings she flew withal.\n  SOLANIO. And Shylock, for his own part, knew the bird was flidge;\n    and then it is the complexion of them all to leave the dam.\n  SHYLOCK. She is damn'd for it.\n  SALERIO. That's certain, if the devil may be her judge.\n  SHYLOCK. My own flesh and blood to rebel!\n  SOLANIO. Out upon it, old carrion! Rebels it at these years?\n  SHYLOCK. I say my daughter is my flesh and my blood.\n  SALERIO. There is more difference between thy flesh and hers than\n    between jet and ivory; more between your bloods than there is\n    between red wine and Rhenish. But tell us, do you hear whether\n    Antonio have had any loss at sea or no?\n  SHYLOCK. There I have another bad match: a bankrupt, a prodigal,\n    who dare scarce show his head on the Rialto; a beggar, that was\n    us'd to come so smug upon the mart. Let him look to his bond. He\n    was wont to call me usurer; let him look to his bond. He was wont\n    to lend money for a Christian courtesy; let him look to his bond.\n  SALERIO. Why, I am sure, if he forfeit, thou wilt not take his\n    flesh. What's that good for?\n  SHYLOCK. To bait fish withal. If it will feed nothing else, it will\n    feed my revenge. He hath disgrac'd me and hind'red me half a\n    million; laugh'd at my losses, mock'd at my gains, scorned my\n    nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine\n    enemies. And what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes?\n    Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections,\n    passions, fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons,\n    subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed\n    and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If\n    you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh?\n    If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we\n    not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you\n    in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility?\n    Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance\n    be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me\n    I will execute; and itshall go hard but I will better the\n    instruction.\n\n                    Enter a MAN from ANTONIO\n\n  MAN. Gentlemen, my master Antonio is at his house, and desires to\n    speak with you both.\n  SALERIO. We have been up and down to seek him.\n\n                          Enter TUBAL\n\n  SOLANIO. Here comes another of the tribe; a third cannot be\n    match'd, unless the devil himself turn Jew.\n                                Exeunt SOLANIO, SALERIO, and MAN\n  SHYLOCK. How now, Tubal, what news from Genoa? Hast thou found my\n    daughter?\n  TUBAL. I often came where I did hear of her, but cannot find her.\n  SHYLOCK. Why there, there, there, there! A diamond gone, cost me\n    two thousand ducats in Frankfort! The curse never fell upon our\n    nation till now; I never felt it till now. Two thousand ducats in\n    that, and other precious, precious jewels. I would my daughter\n    were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear; would she were\n    hears'd at my foot, and the ducats in her coffin! No news of\n    them? Why, so- and I know not what's spent in the search. Why,\n    thou- loss upon loss! The thief gone with so much, and so much to\n    find the thief; and no satisfaction, no revenge; nor no ill luck\n    stirring but what lights o' my shoulders; no sighs but o' my\n    breathing; no tears but o' my shedding!\n  TUBAL. Yes, other men have ill luck too: Antonio, as I heard in\n    Genoa-\n  SHYLOCK. What, what, what? Ill luck, ill luck?\n  TUBAL. Hath an argosy cast away coming from Tripolis.\n  SHYLOCK. I thank God, I thank God. Is it true, is it true?\n  TUBAL. I spoke with some of the sailors that escaped the wreck.\n  SHYLOCK. I thank thee, good Tubal. Good news, good news- ha, ha!-\n    heard in Genoa.\n  TUBAL. Your daughter spent in Genoa, as I heard, one night,\n    fourscore ducats.\n  SHYLOCK. Thou stick'st a dagger in me- I shall never see my gold\n    again. Fourscore ducats at a sitting! Fourscore ducats!\n  TUBAL. There came divers of Antonio's creditors in my company to\n    Venice that swear he cannot choose but break.\n  SHYLOCK. I am very glad of it; I'll plague him, I'll torture him; I\n    am glad of it.\n  TUBAL. One of them showed me a ring that he had of your daughter\n    for a monkey.\n  SHYLOCK. Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal. It was my\n    turquoise; I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor; I would not\n    have given it for a wilderness of monkeys.\n  TUBAL. But Antonio is certainly undone.\n  SHYLOCK. Nay, that's true; that's very true. Go, Tubal, fee me an\n    officer; bespeak him a fortnight before. I will have the heart of\n    him, if he forfeit; for, were he out of Venice, I can make what\n    merchandise I will. Go, Tubal, and meet me at our synagogue; go,\n    good Tubal; at our synagogue, Tubal.                  Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBelmont. PORTIA'S house\n\nEnter BASSANIO, PORTIA, GRATIANO, NERISSA, and all their trains\n\n  PORTIA. I pray you tarry; pause a day or two\n    Before you hazard; for, in choosing wrong,\n    I lose your company; therefore forbear a while.\n    There's something tells me- but it is not love-\n    I would not lose you; and you know yourself\n    Hate counsels not in such a quality.\n    But lest you should not understand me well-\n    And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought-\n    I would detain you here some month or two\n    Before you venture for me. I could teach you\n    How to choose right, but then I am forsworn;\n    So will I never be; so may you miss me;\n    But if you do, you'll make me wish a sin,\n    That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes!\n    They have o'erlook'd me and divided me;\n    One half of me is yours, the other half yours-\n    Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours,\n    And so all yours. O! these naughty times\n    Puts bars between the owners and their rights;\n    And so, though yours, not yours. Prove it so,\n    Let fortune go to hell for it, not I.\n    I speak too long, but 'tis to peize the time,\n    To eke it, and to draw it out in length,\n    To stay you from election.\n  BASSANIO. Let me choose;\n    For as I am, I live upon the rack.\n  PORTIA. Upon the rack, Bassanio? Then confess\n    What treason there is mingled with your love.\n  BASSANIO. None but that ugly treason of mistrust\n    Which makes me fear th' enjoying of my love;\n    There may as well be amity and life\n    'Tween snow and fire as treason and my love.\n  PORTIA. Ay, but I fear you speak upon the rack,\n    Where men enforced do speak anything.\n  BASSANIO. Promise me life, and I'll confess the truth.\n  PORTIA. Well then, confess and live.\n  BASSANIO. 'Confess' and 'love'\n    Had been the very sum of my confession.\n    O happy torment, when my torturer\n    Doth teach me answers for deliverance!\n    But let me to my fortune and the caskets.\n  PORTIA. Away, then; I am lock'd in one of them.\n    If you do love me, you will find me out.\n    Nerissa and the rest, stand all aloof;\n    Let music sound while he doth make his choice;\n    Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end,\n    Fading in music. That the comparison\n    May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream\n    And wat'ry death-bed for him. He may win;\n    And what is music then? Then music is\n    Even as the flourish when true subjects bow\n    To a new-crowned monarch; such it is\n    As are those dulcet sounds in break of day\n    That creep into the dreaming bridegroom's ear\n    And summon him to marriage. Now he goes,\n    With no less presence, but with much more love,\n    Than young Alcides when he did redeem\n    The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy\n    To the sea-monster. I stand for sacrifice;\n    The rest aloof are the Dardanian wives,\n    With bleared visages come forth to view\n    The issue of th' exploit. Go, Hercules!\n    Live thou, I live. With much much more dismay\n    I view the fight than thou that mak'st the fray.\n\n                            A SONG\n\n      the whilst BASSANIO comments on the caskets to himself\n\n                 Tell me where is fancy bred,\n                 Or in the heart or in the head,\n                 How begot, how nourished?\n                   Reply, reply.\n                 It is engend'red in the eyes,\n                 With gazing fed; and fancy dies\n                 In the cradle where it lies.\n                   Let us all ring fancy's knell:\n                   I'll begin it- Ding, dong, bell.\n  ALL.           Ding, dong, bell.\n\n  BASSANIO. So may the outward shows be least themselves;\n    The world is still deceiv'd with ornament.\n    In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt\n    But, being season'd with a gracious voice,\n    Obscures the show of evil? In religion,\n    What damned error but some sober brow\n    Will bless it, and approve it with a text,\n    Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?\n    There is no vice so simple but assumes\n    Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.\n    How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false\n    As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins\n    The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars;\n    Who, inward search'd, have livers white as milk!\n    And these assume but valour's excrement\n    To render them redoubted. Look on beauty\n    And you shall see 'tis purchas'd by the weight,\n    Which therein works a miracle in nature,\n    Making them lightest that wear most of it;\n    So are those crisped snaky golden locks\n    Which make such wanton gambols with the wind\n    Upon supposed fairness often known\n    To be the dowry of a second head-\n    The skull that bred them in the sepulchre.\n    Thus ornament is but the guiled shore\n    To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf\n    Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word,\n    The seeming truth which cunning times put on\n    To entrap the wisest. Therefore, thou gaudy gold,\n    Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee;\n    Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge\n    'Tween man and man; but thou, thou meagre lead,\n    Which rather threaten'st than dost promise aught,\n    Thy plainness moves me more than eloquence,\n    And here choose I. Joy be the consequence!\n  PORTIA.  [Aside]  How all the other passions fleet to air,\n    As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embrac'd despair,\n    And shudd'ring fear, and green-ey'd jealousy!\n    O love, be moderate, allay thy ecstasy,\n    In measure rain thy joy, scant this excess!\n    I feel too much thy blessing. Make it less,\n    For fear I surfeit.\n  BASSANIO.  [Opening the leaden casket]  What find I here?\n    Fair Portia's counterfeit! What demi-god\n    Hath come so near creation? Move these eyes?\n    Or whether riding on the balls of mine\n    Seem they in motion? Here are sever'd lips,\n    Parted with sugar breath; so sweet a bar\n    Should sunder such sweet friends. Here in her hairs\n    The painter plays the spider, and hath woven\n    A golden mesh t' entrap the hearts of men\n    Faster than gnats in cobwebs. But her eyes-\n    How could he see to do them? Having made one,\n    Methinks it should have power to steal both his,\n    And leave itself unfurnish'd. Yet look how far\n    The substance of my praise doth wrong this shadow\n    In underprizing it, so far this shadow\n    Doth limp behind the substance. Here's the scroll,\n    The continent and summary of my fortune.\n         'You that choose not by the view,\n         Chance as fair and choose as true!\n         Since this fortune falls to you,\n         Be content and seek no new.\n         If you be well pleas'd with this,\n         And hold your fortune for your bliss,\n         Turn to where your lady is\n         And claim her with a loving kiss.'\n    A gentle scroll. Fair lady, by your leave;\n    I come by note, to give and to receive.\n    Like one of two contending in a prize,\n    That thinks he hath done well in people's eyes,\n    Hearing applause and universal shout,\n    Giddy in spirit, still gazing in a doubt\n    Whether those peals of praise be his or no;\n    So, thrice-fair lady, stand I even so,\n    As doubtful whether what I see be true,\n    Until confirm'd, sign'd, ratified by you.\n  PORTIA. You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand,\n    Such as I am. Though for myself alone\n    I would not be ambitious in my wish\n    To wish myself much better, yet for you\n    I would be trebled twenty times myself,\n    A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich,\n    That only to stand high in your account\n    I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends,\n    Exceed account. But the full sum of me\n    Is sum of something which, to term in gross,\n    Is an unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractis'd;\n    Happy in this, she is not yet so old\n    But she may learn; happier than this,\n    She is not bred so dull but she can learn;\n    Happiest of all is that her gentle spirit\n    Commits itself to yours to be directed,\n    As from her lord, her governor, her king.\n    Myself and what is mine to you and yours\n    Is now converted. But now I was the lord\n    Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,\n    Queen o'er myself; and even now, but now,\n    This house, these servants, and this same myself,\n    Are yours- my lord's. I give them with this ring,\n    Which when you part from, lose, or give away,\n    Let it presage the ruin of your love,\n    And be my vantage to exclaim on you.\n  BASSANIO. Madam, you have bereft me of all words;\n    Only my blood speaks to you in my veins;\n    And there is such confusion in my powers\n    As, after some oration fairly spoke\n    By a beloved prince, there doth appear\n    Among the buzzing pleased multitude,\n    Where every something, being blent together,\n    Turns to a wild of nothing, save of joy\n    Express'd and not express'd. But when this ring\n    Parts from this finger, then parts life from hence;\n    O, then be bold to say Bassanio's dead!\n  NERISSA. My lord and lady, it is now our time\n    That have stood by and seen our wishes prosper\n    To cry 'Good joy.' Good joy, my lord and lady!\n  GRATIANO. My Lord Bassanio, and my gentle lady,\n    I wish you all the joy that you can wish,\n    For I am sure you can wish none from me;\n    And, when your honours mean to solemnize\n    The bargain of your faith, I do beseech you\n    Even at that time I may be married too.\n  BASSANIO. With all my heart, so thou canst get a wife.\n  GRATIANO. I thank your lordship, you have got me one.\n    My eyes, my lord, can look as swift as yours:\n    You saw the mistress, I beheld the maid;\n    You lov'd, I lov'd; for intermission\n    No more pertains to me, my lord, than you.\n    Your fortune stood upon the caskets there,\n    And so did mine too, as the matter falls;\n    For wooing here until I sweat again,\n    And swearing till my very roof was dry\n    With oaths of love, at last- if promise last-\n    I got a promise of this fair one here\n    To have her love, provided that your fortune\n    Achiev'd her mistress.\n  PORTIA. Is this true, Nerissa?\n  NERISSA. Madam, it is, so you stand pleas'd withal.\n  BASSANIO. And do you, Gratiano, mean good faith?\n  GRATIANO. Yes, faith, my lord.\n  BASSANIO. Our feast shall be much honoured in your marriage.\n  GRATIANO. We'll play with them: the first boy for a thousand\n    ducats.\n  NERISSA. What, and stake down?\n  GRATIANO. No; we shall ne'er win at that sport, and stake down-\n    But who comes here? Lorenzo and his infidel?\n    What, and my old Venetian friend, Salerio!\n\n          Enter LORENZO, JESSICA, and SALERIO, a messenger\n                           from Venice\n\n  BASSANIO. Lorenzo and Salerio, welcome hither,\n    If that the youth of my new int'rest here\n    Have power to bid you welcome. By your leave,\n    I bid my very friends and countrymen,\n    Sweet Portia, welcome.\n  PORTIA. So do I, my lord;\n    They are entirely welcome.\n  LORENZO. I thank your honour. For my part, my lord,\n    My purpose was not to have seen you here;\n    But meeting with Salerio by the way,\n    He did entreat me, past all saying nay,\n    To come with him along.\n  SALERIO. I did, my lord,\n    And I have reason for it. Signior Antonio\n    Commends him to you.               [Gives BASSANIO a letter]\n  BASSANIO. Ere I ope his letter,\n    I pray you tell me how my good friend doth.\n  SALERIO. Not sick, my lord, unless it be in mind;\n    Nor well, unless in mind; his letter there\n    Will show you his estate.        [BASSANIO opens the letter]\n  GRATIANO. Nerissa, cheer yond stranger; bid her welcome.\n    Your hand, Salerio. What's the news from Venice?\n    How doth that royal merchant, good Antonio?\n    I know he will be glad of our success:\n    We are the Jasons, we have won the fleece.\n  SALERIO. I would you had won the fleece that he hath lost.\n  PORTIA. There are some shrewd contents in yond same paper\n    That steals the colour from Bassanio's cheek:\n    Some dear friend dead, else nothing in the world\n    Could turn so much the constitution\n    Of any constant man. What, worse and worse!\n    With leave, Bassanio: I am half yourself,\n    And I must freely have the half of anything\n    That this same paper brings you.\n  BASSANIO. O sweet Portia,\n    Here are a few of the unpleasant'st words\n    That ever blotted paper! Gentle lady,\n    When I did first impart my love to you,\n    I freely told you all the wealth I had\n    Ran in my veins- I was a gentleman;\n    And then I told you true. And yet, dear lady,\n    Rating myself at nothing, you shall see\n    How much I was a braggart. When I told you\n    My state was nothing, I should then have told you\n    That I was worse than nothing; for indeed\n    I have engag'd myself to a dear friend,\n    Engag'd my friend to his mere enemy,\n    To feed my means. Here is a letter, lady,\n    The paper as the body of my friend,\n    And every word in it a gaping wound\n    Issuing life-blood. But is it true, Salerio?\n    Hath all his ventures fail'd? What, not one hit?\n    From Tripolis, from Mexico, and England,\n    From Lisbon, Barbary, and India,\n    And not one vessel scape the dreadful touch\n    Of merchant-marring rocks?\n  SALERIO. Not one, my lord.\n    Besides, it should appear that, if he had\n    The present money to discharge the Jew,\n    He would not take it. Never did I know\n    A creature that did bear the shape of man\n    So keen and greedy to confound a man.\n    He plies the Duke at morning and at night,\n    And doth impeach the freedom of the state,\n    If they deny him justice. Twenty merchants,\n    The Duke himself, and the magnificoes\n    Of greatest port, have all persuaded with him;\n    But none can drive him from the envious plea\n    Of forfeiture, of justice, and his bond.\n  JESSICA. When I was with him, I have heard him swear\n    To Tubal and to Chus, his countrymen,\n    That he would rather have Antonio's flesh\n    Than twenty times the value of the sum\n    That he did owe him; and I know, my lord,\n    If law, authority, and power, deny not,\n    It will go hard with poor Antonio.\n  PORTIA. Is it your dear friend that is thus in trouble?\n  BASSANIO. The dearest friend to me, the kindest man,\n    The best condition'd and unwearied spirit\n    In doing courtesies; and one in whom\n    The ancient Roman honour more appears\n    Than any that draws breath in Italy.\n  PORTIA. What sum owes he the Jew?\n  BASSANIO. For me, three thousand ducats.\n  PORTIA. What! no more?\n    Pay him six thousand, and deface the bond;\n    Double six thousand, and then treble that,\n    Before a friend of this description\n    Shall lose a hair through Bassanio's fault.\n    First go with me to church and call me wife,\n    And then away to Venice to your friend;\n    For never shall you lie by Portia's side\n    With an unquiet soul. You shall have gold\n    To pay the petty debt twenty times over.\n    When it is paid, bring your true friend along.\n    My maid Nerissa and myself meantime\n    Will live as maids and widows. Come, away;\n    For you shall hence upon your wedding day.\n    Bid your friends welcome, show a merry cheer;\n    Since you are dear bought, I will love you dear.\n    But let me hear the letter of your friend.\n  BASSANIO.  [Reads]  'Sweet Bassanio, my ships have all miscarried,\n    my creditors grow cruel, my estate is very low, my bond to the\n    Jew is forfeit; and since, in paying it, it is impossible I\n    should live, all debts are clear'd between you and I, if I might\n    but see you at my death. Notwithstanding, use your pleasure; if\n    your love do not persuade you to come, let not my letter.'\n  PORTIA. O love, dispatch all business and be gone!\n  BASSANIO. Since I have your good leave to go away,\n    I will make haste; but, till I come again,\n    No bed shall e'er be guilty of my stay,\n    Nor rest be interposer 'twixt us twain.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nVenice. A street\n\nEnter SHYLOCK, SOLANIO, ANTONIO, and GAOLER\n\n  SHYLOCK. Gaoler, look to him. Tell not me of mercy-\n    This is the fool that lent out money gratis.\n    Gaoler, look to him.\n  ANTONIO. Hear me yet, good Shylock.\n  SHYLOCK. I'll have my bond; speak not against my bond.\n    I have sworn an oath that I will have my bond.\n    Thou call'dst me dog before thou hadst a cause,\n    But, since I am a dog, beware my fangs;\n    The Duke shall grant me justice. I do wonder,\n    Thou naughty gaoler, that thou art so fond\n    To come abroad with him at his request.\n  ANTONIO. I pray thee hear me speak.\n  SHYLOCK. I'll have my bond. I will not hear thee speak;\n    I'll have my bond; and therefore speak no more.\n    I'll not be made a soft and dull-ey'd fool,\n    To shake the head, relent, and sigh, and yield,\n    To Christian intercessors. Follow not;\n    I'll have no speaking; I will have my bond.             Exit\n  SOLANIO. It is the most impenetrable cur\n    That ever kept with men.\n  ANTONIO. Let him alone;\n    I'll follow him no more with bootless prayers.\n    He seeks my life; his reason well I know:\n    I oft deliver'd from his forfeitures\n    Many that have at times made moan to me;\n    Therefore he hates me.\n  SOLANIO. I am sure the Duke\n    Will never grant this forfeiture to hold.\n  ANTONIO. The Duke cannot deny the course of law;\n    For the commodity that strangers have\n    With us in Venice, if it be denied,\n    Will much impeach the justice of the state,\n    Since that the trade and profit of the city\n    Consisteth of all nations. Therefore, go;\n    These griefs and losses have so bated me\n    That I shall hardly spare a pound of flesh\n    To-morrow to my bloody creditor.\n    Well, gaoler, on; pray God Bassanio come\n    To see me pay his debt, and then I care not.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nBelmont. PORTIA'S house\n\nEnter PORTIA, NERISSA, LORENZO, JESSICA, and BALTHASAR\n\n  LORENZO. Madam, although I speak it in your presence,\n    You have a noble and a true conceit\n    Of godlike amity, which appears most strongly\n    In bearing thus the absence of your lord.\n    But if you knew to whom you show this honour,\n    How true a gentleman you send relief,\n    How dear a lover of my lord your husband,\n    I know you would be prouder of the work\n    Than customary bounty can enforce you.\n  PORTIA. I never did repent for doing good,\n    Nor shall not now; for in companions\n    That do converse and waste the time together,\n    Whose souls do bear an equal yoke of love,\n    There must be needs a like proportion\n    Of lineaments, of manners, and of spirit,\n    Which makes me think that this Antonio,\n    Being the bosom lover of my lord,\n    Must needs be like my lord. If it be so,\n    How little is the cost I have bestowed\n    In purchasing the semblance of my soul\n    From out the state of hellish cruelty!\n    This comes too near the praising of myself;\n    Therefore, no more of it; hear other things.\n    Lorenzo, I commit into your hands\n    The husbandry and manage of my house\n    Until my lord's return; for mine own part,\n    I have toward heaven breath'd a secret vow\n    To live in prayer and contemplation,\n    Only attended by Nerissa here,\n    Until her husband and my lord's return.\n    There is a monastery two miles off,\n    And there we will abide. I do desire you\n    Not to deny this imposition,\n    The which my love and some necessity\n    Now lays upon you.\n  LORENZO. Madam, with all my heart\n    I shall obey you in an fair commands.\n  PORTIA. My people do already know my mind,\n    And will acknowledge you and Jessica\n    In place of Lord Bassanio and myself.\n    So fare you well till we shall meet again.\n  LORENZO. Fair thoughts and happy hours attend on you!\n  JESSICA. I wish your ladyship all heart's content.\n  PORTIA. I thank you for your wish, and am well pleas'd\n    To wish it back on you. Fare you well, Jessica.\n                                      Exeunt JESSICA and LORENZO\n    Now, Balthasar,\n    As I have ever found thee honest-true,\n    So let me find thee still. Take this same letter,\n    And use thou all th' endeavour of a man\n    In speed to Padua; see thou render this\n    Into my cousin's hands, Doctor Bellario;\n    And look what notes and garments he doth give thee,\n    Bring them, I pray thee, with imagin'd speed\n    Unto the traject, to the common ferry\n    Which trades to Venice. Waste no time in words,\n    But get thee gone; I shall be there before thee.\n  BALTHASAR. Madam, I go with all convenient speed.         Exit\n  PORTIA. Come on, Nerissa, I have work in hand\n    That you yet know not of; we'll see our husbands\n    Before they think of us.\n  NERISSA. Shall they see us?\n  PORTIA. They shall, Nerissa; but in such a habit\n    That they shall think we are accomplished\n    With that we lack. I'll hold thee any wager,\n    When we are both accoutred like young men,\n    I'll prove the prettier fellow of the two,\n    And wear my dagger with the braver grace,\n    And speak between the change of man and boy\n    With a reed voice; and turn two mincing steps\n    Into a manly stride; and speak of frays\n    Like a fine bragging youth; and tell quaint lies,\n    How honourable ladies sought my love,\n    Which I denying, they fell sick and died-\n    I could not do withal. Then I'll repent,\n    And wish for all that, that I had not kill'd them.\n    And twenty of these puny lies I'll tell,\n    That men shall swear I have discontinued school\n    About a twelvemonth. I have within my mind\n    A thousand raw tricks of these bragging Jacks,\n    Which I will practise.\n  NERISSA. Why, shall we turn to men?\n  PORTIA. Fie, what a question's that,\n    If thou wert near a lewd interpreter!\n    But come, I'll tell thee all my whole device\n    When I am in my coach, which stays for us\n    At the park gate; and therefore haste away,\n    For we must measure twenty miles to-day.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nBelmont. The garden\n\nEnter LAUNCELOT and JESSICA\n\n  LAUNCELOT. Yes, truly; for, look you, the sins of the father are to\n    be laid upon the children; therefore, I promise you, I fear you.\n    I was always plain with you, and so now I speak my agitation of\n    the matter; therefore be o' good cheer, for truly I think you are\n    damn'd. There is but one hope in it that can do you any good, and\n    that is but a kind of bastard hope, neither.\n  JESSICA. And what hope is that, I pray thee?\n  LAUNCELOT. Marry, you may partly hope that your father got you not-\n   that you are not the Jew's daughter.\n  JESSICA. That were a kind of bastard hope indeed; so the sins of my\n    mother should be visited upon me.\n  LAUNCELOT. Truly then I fear you are damn'd both by father and\n    mother; thus when I shun Scylla, your father, I fall into\n    Charybdis, your mother; well, you are gone both ways.\n  JESSICA. I shall be sav'd by my husband; he hath made me a\n    Christian.\n  LAUNCELOT. Truly, the more to blame he; we were Christians enow\n    before, e'en as many as could well live one by another. This\n    making of Christians will raise the price of hogs; if we grow all\n    to be pork-eaters, we shall not shortly have a rasher on the\n    coals for money.\n\n                             Enter LORENZO\n\n  JESSICA. I'll tell my husband, Launcelot, what you say; here he\n    comes.\n  LORENZO. I shall grow jealous of you shortly, Launcelot, if you\n    thus get my wife into corners.\n  JESSICA. Nay, you need nor fear us, Lorenzo; Launcelot and I are\n    out; he tells me flatly there's no mercy for me in heaven,\n    because I am a Jew's daughter; and he says you are no good member\n    of the commonwealth, for in converting Jews to Christians you\n    raise the price of pork.\n  LORENZO. I shall answer that better to the commonwealth than you\n    can the getting up of the negro's belly; the Moor is with child\n    by you, Launcelot.\n  LAUNCELOT. It is much that the Moor should be more than reason; but\n    if she be less than an honest woman, she is indeed more than I\n    took her for.\n  LORENZO. How every fool can play upon the word! I think the best\n    grace of wit will shortly turn into silence, and discourse grow\n    commendable in none only but parrots. Go in, sirrah; bid them\n    prepare for dinner.\n  LAUNCELOT. That is done, sir; they have all stomachs.\n  LORENZO. Goodly Lord, what a wit-snapper are you! Then bid them\n    prepare dinner.\n  LAUNCELOT. That is done too, sir, only 'cover' is the word.\n  LORENZO. Will you cover, then, sir?\n  LAUNCELOT. Not so, sir, neither; I know my duty.\n  LORENZO. Yet more quarrelling with occasion! Wilt thou show the\n    whole wealth of thy wit in an instant? I pray thee understand a\n    plain man in his plain meaning: go to thy fellows, bid them cover\n    the table, serve in the meat, and we will come in to dinner.\n  LAUNCELOT. For the table, sir, it shall be serv'd in; for the meat,\n    sir, it shall be cover'd; for your coming in to dinner, sir, why,\n    let it be as humours and conceits shall govern.\n Exit\n  LORENZO. O dear discretion, how his words are suited!\n    The fool hath planted in his memory\n    An army of good words; and I do know\n    A many fools that stand in better place,\n    Garnish'd like him, that for a tricksy word\n    Defy the matter. How cheer'st thou, Jessica?\n    And now, good sweet, say thy opinion,\n    How dost thou like the Lord Bassanio's wife?\n  JESSICA. Past all expressing. It is very meet\n    The Lord Bassanio live an upright life,\n    For, having such a blessing in his lady,\n    He finds the joys of heaven here on earth;\n    And if on earth he do not merit it,\n    In reason he should never come to heaven.\n    Why, if two gods should play some heavenly match,\n    And on the wager lay two earthly women,\n    And Portia one, there must be something else\n    Pawn'd with the other; for the poor rude world\n    Hath not her fellow.\n  LORENZO. Even such a husband\n    Hast thou of me as she is for a wife.\n  JESSICA. Nay, but ask my opinion too of that.\n  LORENZO. I will anon; first let us go to dinner.\n  JESSICA. Nay, let me praise you while I have a stomach.\n  LORENZO. No, pray thee, let it serve for table-talk;\n    Then howsome'er thou speak'st, 'mong other things\n    I shall digest it.\n  JESSICA. Well, I'll set you forth.                      Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nVenice. The court of justice\n\nEnter the DUKE, the MAGNIFICOES, ANTONIO, BASSANIO, GRATIANO, SALERIO,\nand OTHERS\n\n  DUKE OF VENICE. What, is Antonio here?\n  ANTONIO. Ready, so please your Grace.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. I am sorry for thee; thou art come to answer\n    A stony adversary, an inhuman wretch,\n    Uncapable of pity, void and empty\n    From any dram of mercy.\n  ANTONIO. I have heard\n    Your Grace hath ta'en great pains to qualify\n    His rigorous course; but since he stands obdurate,\n    And that no lawful means can carry me\n    Out of his envy's reach, I do oppose\n    My patience to his fury, and am arm'd\n    To suffer with a quietness of spirit\n    The very tyranny and rage of his.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. Go one, and call the Jew into the court.\n  SALERIO. He is ready at the door; he comes, my lord.\n\n                          Enter SHYLOCK\n\n  DUKE OF VENICE. Make room, and let him stand before our face.\n    Shylock, the world thinks, and I think so too,\n    That thou but leadest this fashion of thy malice\n    To the last hour of act; and then, 'tis thought,\n    Thou'lt show thy mercy and remorse, more strange\n    Than is thy strange apparent cruelty;\n    And where thou now exacts the penalty,\n    Which is a pound of this poor merchant's flesh,\n    Thou wilt not only loose the forfeiture,\n    But, touch'd with human gentleness and love,\n    Forgive a moiety of the principal,\n    Glancing an eye of pity on his losses,\n    That have of late so huddled on his back-\n    Enow to press a royal merchant down,\n    And pluck commiseration of his state\n    From brassy bosoms and rough hearts of flint,\n    From stubborn Turks and Tartars, never train'd\n    To offices of tender courtesy.\n    We all expect a gentle answer, Jew.\n  SHYLOCK. I have possess'd your Grace of what I purpose,\n    And by our holy Sabbath have I sworn\n    To have the due and forfeit of my bond.\n    If you deny it, let the danger light\n    Upon your charter and your city's freedom.\n    You'll ask me why I rather choose to have\n    A weight of carrion flesh than to receive\n    Three thousand ducats. I'll not answer that,\n    But say it is my humour- is it answer'd?\n    What if my house be troubled with a rat,\n    And I be pleas'd to give ten thousand ducats\n    To have it ban'd? What, are you answer'd yet?\n    Some men there are love not a gaping pig;\n    Some that are mad if they behold a cat;\n    And others, when the bagpipe sings i' th' nose,\n    Cannot contain their urine; for affection,\n    Mistress of passion, sways it to the mood\n    Of what it likes or loathes. Now, for your answer:\n    As there is no firm reason to be rend'red\n    Why he cannot abide a gaping pig;\n    Why he, a harmless necessary cat;\n    Why he, a woollen bagpipe, but of force\n    Must yield to such inevitable shame\n    As to offend, himself being offended;\n    So can I give no reason, nor I will not,\n    More than a lodg'd hate and a certain loathing\n    I bear Antonio, that I follow thus\n    A losing suit against him. Are you answered?\n  BASSANIO. This is no answer, thou unfeeling man,\n    To excuse the current of thy cruelty.\n  SHYLOCK. I am not bound to please thee with my answers.\n  BASSANIO. Do all men kill the things they do not love?\n  SHYLOCK. Hates any man the thing he would not kill?\n  BASSANIO. Every offence is not a hate at first.\n  SHYLOCK. What, wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice?\n  ANTONIO. I pray you, think you question with the Jew.\n    You may as well go stand upon the beach\n    And bid the main flood bate his usual height;\n    You may as well use question with the wolf,\n    Why he hath made the ewe bleat for the lamb;\n    You may as well forbid the mountain pines\n    To wag their high tops and to make no noise\n    When they are fretten with the gusts of heaven;\n    You may as well do anything most hard\n    As seek to soften that- than which what's harder?-\n    His jewish heart. Therefore, I do beseech you,\n    Make no moe offers, use no farther means,\n    But with all brief and plain conveniency\n    Let me have judgment, and the Jew his will.\n  BASSANIO. For thy three thousand ducats here is six.\n  SHYLOCK. If every ducat in six thousand ducats\n    Were in six parts, and every part a ducat,\n    I would not draw them; I would have my bond.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. How shalt thou hope for mercy, rend'ring none?\n  SHYLOCK. What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong?\n    You have among you many a purchas'd slave,\n    Which, fike your asses and your dogs and mules,\n    You use in abject and in slavish parts,\n    Because you bought them; shall I say to you\n    'Let them be free, marry them to your heirs-\n    Why sweat they under burdens?- let their beds\n    Be made as soft as yours, and let their palates\n    Be season'd with such viands'? You will answer\n    'The slaves are ours.' So do I answer you:\n    The pound of flesh which I demand of him\n    Is dearly bought, 'tis mine, and I will have it.\n    If you deny me, fie upon your law!\n    There is no force in the decrees of Venice.\n    I stand for judgment; answer; shall I have it?\n  DUKE OF VENICE. Upon my power I may dismiss this court,\n    Unless Bellario, a learned doctor,\n    Whom I have sent for to determine this,\n    Come here to-day.\n  SALERIO. My lord, here stays without\n    A messenger with letters from the doctor,\n    New come from Padua.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. Bring us the letters; call the messenger.\n  BASSANIO. Good cheer, Antonio! What, man, courage yet!\n    The Jew shall have my flesh, blood, bones, and all,\n    Ere thou shalt lose for me one drop of blood.\n  ANTONIO. I am a tainted wether of the flock,\n    Meetest for death; the weakest kind of fruit\n    Drops earliest to the ground, and so let me.\n    You cannot better be employ'd, Bassanio,\n    Than to live still, and write mine epitaph.\n\n           Enter NERISSA dressed like a lawyer's clerk\n\n  DUKE OF VENICE. Came you from Padua, from Bellario?\n  NERISSA. From both, my lord. Bellario greets your Grace.\n                                             [Presents a letter]\n  BASSANIO. Why dost thou whet thy knife so earnestly?\n  SHYLOCK. To cut the forfeiture from that bankrupt there.\n  GRATIANO. Not on thy sole, but on thy soul, harsh Jew,\n    Thou mak'st thy knife keen; but no metal can,\n    No, not the hangman's axe, bear half the keenness\n    Of thy sharp envy. Can no prayers pierce thee?\n  SHYLOCK. No, none that thou hast wit enough to make.\n  GRATIANO. O, be thou damn'd, inexecrable dog!\n    And for thy life let justice be accus'd.\n    Thou almost mak'st me waver in my faith,\n    To hold opinion with Pythagoras\n    That souls of animals infuse themselves\n    Into the trunks of men. Thy currish spirit\n    Govern'd a wolf who, hang'd for human slaughter,\n    Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet,\n    And, whilst thou layest in thy unhallowed dam,\n    Infus'd itself in thee; for thy desires\n    Are wolfish, bloody, starv'd and ravenous.\n  SHYLOCK. Till thou canst rail the seal from off my bond,\n    Thou but offend'st thy lungs to speak so loud;\n    Repair thy wit, good youth, or it will fall\n    To cureless ruin. I stand here for law.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. This letter from Bellario doth commend\n    A young and learned doctor to our court.\n    Where is he?\n  NERISSA. He attendeth here hard by\n    To know your answer, whether you'll admit him.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. With all my heart. Some three or four of you\n    Go give him courteous conduct to this place.\n    Meantime, the court shall hear Bellario's letter.\n  CLERK.  [Reads]  'Your Grace shall understand that at the receipt\n    of your letter I am very sick; but in the instant that your\n    messenger came, in loving visitation was with me a young doctor\n    of Rome- his name is Balthazar. I acquainted him with the cause\n    in controversy between the Jew and Antonio the merchant; we\n    turn'd o'er many books together; he is furnished with my opinion\n    which, bettered with his own learning-the greatness whereof I\n    cannot enough commend- comes with him at my importunity to fill\n    up your Grace's request in my stead. I beseech you let his lack\n    of years be no impediment to let him lack a reverend estimation,\n    for I never knew so young a body with so old a head. I leave him\n    to your gracious acceptance, whose trial shall better publish his\n    commendation.'\n\n      Enter PORTIA for BALTHAZAR, dressed like a Doctor of Laws\n\n  DUKE OF VENICE. YOU hear the learn'd Bellario, what he writes;\n    And here, I take it, is the doctor come.\n    Give me your hand; come you from old Bellario?\n  PORTIA. I did, my lord.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. You are welcome; take your place.\n    Are you acquainted with the difference\n    That holds this present question in the court?\n  PORTIA. I am informed throughly of the cause.\n    Which is the merchant here, and which the Jew?\n  DUKE OF VENICE. Antonio and old Shylock, both stand forth.\n  PORTIA. Is your name Shylock?\n  SHYLOCK. Shylock is my name.\n  PORTIA. Of a strange nature is the suit you follow;\n    Yet in such rule that the Venetian law\n    Cannot impugn you as you do proceed.\n    You stand within his danger, do you not?\n  ANTONIO. Ay, so he says.\n  PORTIA. Do you confess the bond?\n  ANTONIO. I do.\n  PORTIA. Then must the Jew be merciful.\n  SHYLOCK. On what compulsion must I? Tell me that.\n  PORTIA. The quality of mercy is not strain'd;\n    It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven\n    Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:\n    It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.\n    'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes\n    The throned monarch better than his crown;\n    His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,\n    The attribute to awe and majesty,\n    Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;\n    But mercy is above this sceptred sway,\n    It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,\n    It is an attribute to God himself;\n    And earthly power doth then show likest God's\n    When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,\n    Though justice be thy plea, consider this-\n    That in the course of justice none of us\n    Should see salvation; we do pray for mercy,\n    And that same prayer doth teach us all to render\n    The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much\n    To mitigate the justice of thy plea,\n    Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice\n    Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there.\n  SHYLOCK. My deeds upon my head! I crave the law,\n    The penalty and forfeit of my bond.\n  BASSANIO. Yes; here I tender it for him in the court;\n    Yea, twice the sum; if that will not suffice,\n    I will be bound to pay it ten times o'er\n    On forfeit of my hands, my head, my heart;\n    If this will not suffice, it must appear\n    That malice bears down truth. And, I beseech you,\n    Wrest once the law to your authority;\n    To do a great right do a little wrong,\n    And curb this cruel devil of his will.\n  PORTIA. It must not be; there is no power in Venice\n    Can alter a decree established;\n    'Twill be recorded for a precedent,\n    And many an error, by the same example,\n    Will rush into the state; it cannot be.\n  SHYLOCK. A Daniel come to judgment! Yea, a Daniel!\n    O wise young judge, how I do honour thee!\n  PORTIA. I pray you, let me look upon the bond.\n  SHYLOCK. Here 'tis, most reverend Doctor; here it is.\n  PORTIA. Shylock, there's thrice thy money off'red thee.\n  SHYLOCK. An oath, an oath! I have an oath in heaven.\n    Shall I lay perjury upon my soul?\n    No, not for Venice.\n  PORTIA. Why, this bond is forfeit;\n    And lawfully by this the Jew may claim\n    A pound of flesh, to be by him cut off\n    Nearest the merchant's heart. Be merciful.\n    Take thrice thy money; bid me tear the bond.\n  SHYLOCK. When it is paid according to the tenour.\n    It doth appear you are a worthy judge;\n    You know the law; your exposition\n    Hath been most sound; I charge you by the law,\n    Whereof you are a well-deserving pillar,\n    Proceed to judgment. By my soul I swear\n    There is no power in the tongue of man\n    To alter me. I stay here on my bond.\n  ANTONIO. Most heartily I do beseech the court\n    To give the judgment.\n  PORTIA. Why then, thus it is:\n    You must prepare your bosom for his knife.\n  SHYLOCK. O noble judge! O excellent young man!\n  PORTIA. For the intent and purpose of the law\n    Hath full relation to the penalty,\n    Which here appeareth due upon the bond.\n  SHYLOCK. 'Tis very true. O wise and upright judge,\n    How much more elder art thou than thy looks!\n  PORTIA. Therefore, lay bare your bosom.\n  SHYLOCK. Ay, his breast-\n    So says the bond; doth it not, noble judge?\n    'Nearest his heart,' those are the very words.\n  PORTIA. It is so. Are there balance here to weigh\n    The flesh?\n  SHYLOCK. I have them ready.\n  PORTIA. Have by some surgeon, Shylock, on your charge,\n    To stop his wounds, lest he do bleed to death.\n  SHYLOCK. Is it so nominated in the bond?\n  PORTIA. It is not so express'd, but what of that?\n    'Twere good you do so much for charity.\n  SHYLOCK. I cannot find it; 'tis not in the bond.\n  PORTIA. You, merchant, have you anything to say?\n  ANTONIO. But little: I am arm'd and well prepar'd.\n    Give me your hand, Bassanio; fare you well.\n    Grieve not that I am fall'n to this for you,\n    For herein Fortune shows herself more kind\n    Than is her custom. It is still her use\n    To let the wretched man outlive his wealth,\n    To view with hollow eye and wrinkled brow\n    An age of poverty; from which ling'ring penance\n    Of such misery doth she cut me off.\n    Commend me to your honourable wife;\n    Tell her the process of Antonio's end;\n    Say how I lov'd you; speak me fair in death;\n    And, when the tale is told, bid her be judge\n    Whether Bassanio had not once a love.\n    Repent but you that you shall lose your friend,\n    And he repents not that he pays your debt;\n    For if the Jew do cut but deep enough,\n    I'll pay it instantly with all my heart.\n  BASSANIO. Antonio, I am married to a wife\n    Which is as dear to me as life itself;\n    But life itself, my wife, and all the world,\n    Are not with me esteem'd above thy life;\n    I would lose all, ay, sacrifice them all\n    Here to this devil, to deliver you.\n  PORTIA. Your wife would give you little thanks for that,\n    If she were by to hear you make the offer.\n  GRATIANO. I have a wife who I protest I love;\n    I would she were in heaven, so she could\n    Entreat some power to change this currish Jew.\n  NERISSA. 'Tis well you offer it behind her back;\n    The wish would make else an unquiet house.\n  SHYLOCK.  [Aside]  These be the Christian husbands! I have a\n    daughter-\n    Would any of the stock of Barrabas\n    Had been her husband, rather than a Christian!-\n    We trifle time; I pray thee pursue sentence.\n  PORTIA. A pound of that same merchant's flesh is thine.\n    The court awards it and the law doth give it.\n  SHYLOCK. Most rightful judge!\n  PORTIA. And you must cut this flesh from off his breast.\n    The law allows it and the court awards it.\n  SHYLOCK. Most learned judge! A sentence! Come, prepare.\n  PORTIA. Tarry a little; there is something else.\n    This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood:\n    The words expressly are 'a pound of flesh.'\n    Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh;\n    But, in the cutting it, if thou dost shed\n    One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods\n    Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate\n    Unto the state of Venice.\n  GRATIANO. O upright judge! Mark, Jew. O learned judge!\n  SHYLOCK. Is that the law?\n  PORTIA. Thyself shalt see the act;\n    For, as thou urgest justice, be assur'd\n    Thou shalt have justice, more than thou desir'st.\n  GRATIANO. O learned judge! Mark, Jew. A learned judge!\n  SHYLOCK. I take this offer then: pay the bond thrice,\n    And let the Christian go.\n  BASSANIO. Here is the money.\n  PORTIA. Soft!\n    The Jew shall have all justice. Soft! No haste.\n    He shall have nothing but the penalty.\n  GRATIANO. O Jew! an upright judge, a learned judge!\n  PORTIA. Therefore, prepare thee to cut off the flesh.\n    Shed thou no blood, nor cut thou less nor more\n    But just a pound of flesh; if thou tak'st more\n    Or less than a just pound- be it but so much\n    As makes it light or heavy in the substance,\n    Or the division of the twentieth part\n    Of one poor scruple; nay, if the scale do turn\n    But in the estimation of a hair-\n    Thou diest, and all thy goods are confiscate.\n  GRATIANO. A second Daniel, a Daniel, Jew!\n    Now, infidel, I have you on the hip.\n  PORTIA. Why doth the Jew pause? Take thy forfeiture.\n  SHYLOCK. Give me my principal, and let me go.\n  BASSANIO. I have it ready for thee; here it is.\n  PORTIA. He hath refus'd it in the open court;\n    He shall have merely justice, and his bond.\n  GRATIANO. A Daniel still say I, a second Daniel!\n    I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word.\n  SHYLOCK. Shall I not have barely my principal?\n  PORTIA. Thou shalt have nothing but the forfeiture\n    To be so taken at thy peril, Jew.\n  SHYLOCK. Why, then the devil give him good of it!\n    I'll stay no longer question.\n  PORTIA. Tarry, Jew.\n    The law hath yet another hold on you.\n    It is enacted in the laws of Venice,\n    If it be proved against an alien\n    That by direct or indirect attempts\n    He seek the life of any citizen,\n    The party 'gainst the which he doth contrive\n    Shall seize one half his goods; the other half\n    Comes to the privy coffer of the state;\n    And the offender's life lies in the mercy\n    Of the Duke only, 'gainst all other voice.\n    In which predicament, I say, thou stand'st;\n    For it appears by manifest proceeding\n    That indirectly, and directly too,\n    Thou hast contrived against the very life\n    Of the defendant; and thou hast incurr'd\n    The danger formerly by me rehears'd.\n    Down, therefore, and beg mercy of the Duke.\n  GRATIANO. Beg that thou mayst have leave to hang thyself;\n    And yet, thy wealth being forfeit to the state,\n    Thou hast not left the value of a cord;\n    Therefore thou must be hang'd at the state's charge.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. That thou shalt see the difference of our spirit,\n    I pardon thee thy life before thou ask it.\n    For half thy wealth, it is Antonio's;\n    The other half comes to the general state,\n    Which humbleness may drive unto a fine.\n  PORTIA. Ay, for the state; not for Antonio.\n  SHYLOCK. Nay, take my life and all, pardon not that.\n    You take my house when you do take the prop\n    That doth sustain my house; you take my life\n    When you do take the means whereby I live.\n  PORTIA. What mercy can you render him, Antonio?\n  GRATIANO. A halter gratis; nothing else, for God's sake!\n  ANTONIO. So please my lord the Duke and all the court\n    To quit the fine for one half of his goods;\n    I am content, so he will let me have\n    The other half in use, to render it\n    Upon his death unto the gentleman\n    That lately stole his daughter-\n    Two things provided more; that, for this favour,\n    He presently become a Christian;\n    The other, that he do record a gift,\n    Here in the court, of all he dies possess'd\n    Unto his son Lorenzo and his daughter.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. He shall do this, or else I do recant\n    The pardon that I late pronounced here.\n  PORTIA. Art thou contented, Jew? What dost thou say?\n  SHYLOCK. I am content.\n  PORTIA. Clerk, draw a deed of gift.\n  SHYLOCK. I pray you, give me leave to go from hence;\n    I am not well; send the deed after me\n    And I will sign it.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. Get thee gone, but do it.\n  GRATIANO. In christ'ning shalt thou have two god-fathers;\n    Had I been judge, thou shouldst have had ten more,\n    To bring thee to the gallows, not to the font.\n                                                    Exit SHYLOCK\n  DUKE OF VENICE. Sir, I entreat you home with me to dinner.\n  PORTIA. I humbly do desire your Grace of pardon;\n    I must away this night toward Padua,\n    And it is meet I presently set forth.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. I am sorry that your leisure serves you not.\n    Antonio, gratify this gentleman,\n    For in my mind you are much bound to him.\n                             Exeunt DUKE, MAGNIFICOES, and train\n  BASSANIO. Most worthy gentleman, I and my friend\n    Have by your wisdom been this day acquitted\n    Of grievous penalties; in lieu whereof\n    Three thousand ducats, due unto the Jew,\n    We freely cope your courteous pains withal.\n  ANTONIO. And stand indebted, over and above,\n    In love and service to you evermore.\n  PORTIA. He is well paid that is well satisfied,\n    And I, delivering you, am satisfied,\n    And therein do account myself well paid.\n    My mind was never yet more mercenary.\n    I pray you, know me when we meet again;\n    I wish you well, and so I take my leave.\n  BASSANIO. Dear sir, of force I must attempt you further;\n    Take some remembrance of us, as a tribute,\n    Not as fee. Grant me two things, I pray you,\n    Not to deny me, and to pardon me.\n  PORTIA. You press me far, and therefore I will yield.\n    [To ANTONIO]  Give me your gloves, I'll wear them for your sake.\n    [To BASSANIO]  And, for your love, I'll take this ring from you.\n    Do not draw back your hand; I'll take no more,\n    And you in love shall not deny me this.\n  BASSANIO. This ring, good sir- alas, it is a trifle;\n    I will not shame myself to give you this.\n  PORTIA. I will have nothing else but only this;\n    And now, methinks, I have a mind to it.\n  BASSANIO.. There's more depends on this than on the value.\n    The dearest ring in Venice will I give you,\n    And find it out by proclamation;\n    Only for this, I pray you, pardon me.\n  PORTIA. I see, sir, you are liberal in offers;\n    You taught me first to beg, and now, methinks,\n    You teach me how a beggar should be answer'd.\n  BASSANIO. Good sir, this ring was given me by my wife;\n    And, when she put it on, she made me vow\n    That I should neither sell, nor give, nor lose it.\n  PORTIA. That 'scuse serves many men to save their gifts.\n    And if your wife be not a mad woman,\n    And know how well I have deserv'd this ring,\n    She would not hold out enemy for ever\n    For giving it to me. Well, peace be with you!\n                                       Exeunt PORTIA and NERISSA\n  ANTONIO. My Lord Bassanio, let him have the ring.\n    Let his deservings, and my love withal,\n    Be valued 'gainst your wife's commandment.\n  BASSANIO. Go, Gratiano, run and overtake him;\n    Give him the ring, and bring him, if thou canst,\n    Unto Antonio's house. Away, make haste.        Exit GRATIANO\n    Come, you and I will thither presently;\n    And in the morning early will we both\n    Fly toward Belmont. Come, Antonio.                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nVenice. A street\n\nEnter PORTIA and NERISSA\n\n  PORTIA. Inquire the Jew's house out, give him this deed,\n    And let him sign it; we'll away tonight,\n    And be a day before our husbands home.\n    This deed will be well welcome to Lorenzo.\n\n                          Enter GRATIANO\n\n  GRATIANO. Fair sir, you are well o'erta'en.\n    My Lord Bassanio, upon more advice,\n    Hath sent you here this ring, and doth entreat\n    Your company at dinner.\n  PORTIA. That cannot be.\n    His ring I do accept most thankfully,\n    And so, I pray you, tell him. Furthermore,\n    I pray you show my youth old Shylock's house.\n  GRATIANO. That will I do.\n  NERISSA. Sir, I would speak with you.\n    [Aside to PORTIA]  I'll See if I can get my husband's ring,\n    Which I did make him swear to keep for ever.\n  PORTIA.  [To NERISSA]  Thou Mayst, I warrant. We shall have old\n      swearing\n    That they did give the rings away to men;\n    But we'll outface them, and outswear them too.\n    [Aloud]  Away, make haste, thou know'st where I will tarry.\n  NERISSA. Come, good sir, will you show me to this house?\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nBelmont. The garden before PORTIA'S house\n\nEnter LORENZO and JESSICA\n\n  LORENZO. The moon shines bright. In such a night as this,\n    When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees,\n    And they did make no noise- in such a night,\n    Troilus methinks mounted the Troyan walls,\n    And sigh'd his soul toward the Grecian tents,\n    Where Cressid lay that night.\n  JESSICA. In such a night\n    Did Thisby fearfully o'ertrip the dew,\n    And saw the lion's shadow ere himself,\n    And ran dismayed away.\n  LORENZO. In such a night\n    Stood Dido with a willow in her hand\n    Upon the wild sea-banks, and waft her love\n    To come again to Carthage.\n  JESSICA. In such a night\n    Medea gathered the enchanted herbs\n    That did renew old AEson.\n LORENZO. In such a night\n    Did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew,\n    And with an unthrift love did run from Venice\n    As far as Belmont.\n  JESSICA. In such a night\n    Did young Lorenzo swear he lov'd her well,\n    Stealing her soul with many vows of faith,\n    And ne'er a true one.\n  LORENZO. In such a night\n    Did pretty Jessica, like a little shrew,\n    Slander her love, and he forgave it her.\n  JESSICA. I would out-night you, did no body come;\n    But, hark, I hear the footing of a man.\n\n                       Enter STEPHANO\n\n  LORENZO. Who comes so fast in silence of the night?\n  STEPHANO. A friend.\n  LORENZO. A friend! What friend? Your name, I pray you, friend?\n  STEPHANO. Stephano is my name, and I bring word\n    My mistress will before the break of day\n    Be here at Belmont; she doth stray about\n    By holy crosses, where she kneels and prays\n    For happy wedlock hours.\n  LORENZO. Who comes with her?\n  STEPHANO. None but a holy hermit and her maid.\n    I pray you, is my master yet return'd?\n  LORENZO. He is not, nor we have not heard from him.\n    But go we in, I pray thee, Jessica,\n    And ceremoniously let us prepare\n    Some welcome for the mistress of the house.\n\n                         Enter LAUNCELOT\n\n  LAUNCELOT. Sola, sola! wo ha, ho! sola, sola!\n  LORENZO. Who calls?\n  LAUNCELOT. Sola! Did you see Master Lorenzo? Master Lorenzo! Sola,\n    sola!\n  LORENZO. Leave holloaing, man. Here!\n  LAUNCELOT. Sola! Where, where?\n  LORENZO. Here!\n  LAUNCELOT. Tell him there's a post come from my master with his\n    horn full of good news; my master will be here ere morning.\n Exit\n  LORENZO. Sweet soul, let's in, and there expect their coming.\n    And yet no matter- why should we go in?\n    My friend Stephano, signify, I pray you,\n    Within the house, your mistress is at hand;\n    And bring your music forth into the air.       Exit STEPHANO\n    How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!\n    Here will we sit and let the sounds of music\n    Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night\n    Become the touches of sweet harmony.\n    Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven\n    Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold;\n    There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st\n    But in his motion like an angel sings,\n    Still quiring to the young-ey'd cherubins;\n    Such harmony is in immortal souls,\n    But whilst this muddy vesture of decay\n    Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.\n\n                          Enter MUSICIANS\n\n    Come, ho, and wake Diana with a hymn;\n    With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear.\n    And draw her home with music.                        [Music]\n  JESSICA. I am never merry when I hear sweet music.\n  LORENZO. The reason is your spirits are attentive;\n    For do but note a wild and wanton herd,\n    Or race of youthful and unhandled colts,\n    Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud,\n    Which is the hot condition of their blood-\n    If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,\n    Or any air of music touch their ears,\n    You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,\n    Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze\n    By the sweet power of music. Therefore the poet\n    Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods;\n    Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage,\n    But music for the time doth change his nature.\n    The man that hath no music in himself,\n    Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,\n    Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;\n    The motions of his spirit are dull:as night,\n    And his affections dark as Erebus.\n    Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.\n\n                    Enter PORTIA and NERISSA\n\n  PORTIA. That light we see is burning in my hall.\n    How far that little candle throws his beams!\n    So shines a good deed in a naughty world.\n  NERISSA. When the moon shone, we did not see the candle.\n  PORTIA. So doth the greater glory dim the less:\n    A substitute shines brightly as a king\n    Until a king be by, and then his state\n    Empties itself, as doth an inland brook\n    Into the main of waters. Music! hark!\n  NERISSA. It is your music, madam, of the house.\n  PORTIA. Nothing is good, I see, without respect;\n    Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.\n  NERISSA. Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam.\n  PORTIA. The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark\n    When neither is attended; and I think\n    ne nightingale, if she should sing by day,\n    When every goose is cackling, would be thought\n    No better a musician than the wren.\n    How many things by season season'd are\n    To their right praise and true perfection!\n    Peace, ho! The moon sleeps with Endymion,\n    And would not be awak'd.                      [Music ceases]\n  LORENZO. That is the voice,\n    Or I am much deceiv'd, of Portia.\n  PORTIA. He knows me as the blind man knows the cuckoo,\n    By the bad voice.\n  LORENZO. Dear lady, welcome home.\n  PORTIA. We have been praying for our husbands' welfare,\n    Which speed, we hope, the better for our words.\n    Are they return'd?\n  LORENZO. Madam, they are not yet;\n    But there is come a messenger before,\n    To signify their coming.\n  PORTIA.. Go in, Nerissa;\n    Give order to my servants that they take\n    No note at all of our being absent hence;\n    Nor you, Lorenzo; Jessica, nor you.        [A tucket sounds]\n  LORENZO. Your husband is at hand; I hear his trumpet.\n    We are no tell-tales, madam, fear you not.\n  PORTIA. This night methinks is but the daylight sick;\n    It looks a little paler; 'tis a day\n    Such as the day is when the sun is hid.\n\n       Enter BASSANIO, ANTONIO, GRATIANO, and their followers\n\n  BASSANIO. We should hold day with the Antipodes,\n    If you would walk in absence of the sun.\n  PORTIA. Let me give light, but let me not be light,\n    For a light wife doth make a heavy husband,\n    And never be Bassanio so for me;\n    But God sort all! You are welcome home, my lord.\n  BASSANIO. I thank you, madam; give welcome to my friend.\n    This is the man, this is Antonio,\n    To whom I am so infinitely bound.\n  PORTIA. You should in all sense be much bound to him,\n    For, as I hear, he was much bound for you.\n  ANTONIO. No more than I am well acquitted of.\n  PORTIA. Sir, you are very welcome to our house.\n    It must appear in other ways than words,\n    Therefore I scant this breathing courtesy.\n  GRATIANO.  [To NERISSA]  By yonder moon I swear you do me wrong;\n    In faith, I gave it to the judge's clerk.\n    Would he were gelt that had it, for my part,\n    Since you do take it, love, so much at heart.\n  PORTIA. A quarrel, ho, already! What's the matter?\n  GRATIANO. About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring\n    That she did give me, whose posy was\n    For all the world like cutler's poetry\n    Upon a knife, 'Love me, and leave me not.'\n  NERISSA. What talk you of the posy or the value?\n    You swore to me, when I did give it you,\n    That you would wear it till your hour of death,\n    And that it should lie with you in your grave;\n    Though not for me, yet for your vehement oaths,\n    You should have been respective and have kept it.\n    Gave it a judge's clerk! No, God's my judge,\n    The clerk will ne'er wear hair on's face that had it.\n  GRATIANO. He will, an if he live to be a man.\n  NERISSA. Ay, if a woman live to be a man.\n  GRATIANO. Now by this hand I gave it to a youth,\n    A kind of boy, a little scrubbed boy\n    No higher than thyself, the judge's clerk;\n    A prating boy that begg'd it as a fee;\n    I could not for my heart deny it him.\n  PORTIA. You were to blame, I must be plain with you,\n    To part so slightly with your wife's first gift,\n    A thing stuck on with oaths upon your finger\n    And so riveted with faith unto your flesh.\n    I gave my love a ring, and made him swear\n    Never to part with it, and here he stands;\n    I dare be sworn for him he would not leave it\n    Nor pluck it from his finger for the wealth\n    That the world masters. Now, in faith, Gratiano,\n    You give your wife too unkind a cause of grief;\n    An 'twere to me, I should be mad at it.\n  BASSANIO.  [Aside]  Why, I were best to cut my left hand off,\n    And swear I lost the ring defending it.\n  GRATIANO. My Lord Bassanio gave his ring away\n    Unto the judge that begg'd it, and indeed\n    Deserv'd it too; and then the boy, his clerk,\n    That took some pains in writing, he begg'd mine;\n    And neither man nor master would take aught\n    But the two rings.\n  PORTIA. What ring gave you, my lord?\n    Not that, I hope, which you receiv'd of me.\n  BASSANIO. If I could add a lie unto a fault,\n    I would deny it; but you see my finger\n    Hath not the ring upon it; it is gone.\n  PORTIA. Even so void is your false heart of truth;\n    By heaven, I will ne'er come in your bed\n    Until I see the ring.\n  NERISSA. Nor I in yours\n    Till I again see mine.\n  BASSANIO. Sweet Portia,\n    If you did know to whom I gave the ring,\n    If you did know for whom I gave the ring,\n    And would conceive for what I gave the ring,\n    And how unwillingly I left the ring,\n    When nought would be accepted but the ring,\n    You would abate the strength of your displeasure.\n  PORTIA. If you had known the virtue of the ring,\n    Or half her worthiness that gave the ring,\n    Or your own honour to contain the ring,\n    You would not then have parted with the ring.\n    What man is there so much unreasonable,\n    If you had pleas'd to have defended it\n    With any terms of zeal, wanted the modesty\n    To urge the thing held as a ceremony?\n    Nerissa teaches me what to believe:\n    I'll die for't but some woman had the ring.\n  BASSANIO. No, by my honour, madam, by my soul,\n    No woman had it, but a civil doctor,\n    Which did refuse three thousand ducats of me,\n    And begg'd the ring; the which I did deny him,\n    And suffer'd him to go displeas'd away-\n    Even he that had held up the very life\n    Of my dear friend. What should I say, sweet lady?\n    I was enforc'd to send it after him;\n    I was beset with shame and courtesy;\n    My honour would not let ingratitude\n    So much besmear it. Pardon me, good lady;\n    For by these blessed candles of the night,\n    Had you been there, I think you would have begg'd\n    The ring of me to give the worthy doctor.\n  PORTIA. Let not that doctor e'er come near my house;\n    Since he hath got the jewel that I loved,\n    And that which you did swear to keep for me,\n    I will become as liberal as you;\n    I'll not deny him anything I have,\n    No, not my body, nor my husband's bed.\n    Know him I shall, I am well sure of it.\n    Lie not a night from home; watch me like Argus;\n    If you do not, if I be left alone,\n    Now, by mine honour which is yet mine own,\n    I'll have that doctor for mine bedfellow.\n  NERISSA. And I his clerk; therefore be well advis'd\n    How you do leave me to mine own protection.\n  GRATIANO. Well, do you so, let not me take him then;\n    For, if I do, I'll mar the young clerk's pen.\n  ANTONIO. I am th' unhappy subject of these quarrels.\n  PORTIA. Sir, grieve not you; you are welcome not withstanding.\n  BASSANIO. Portia, forgive me this enforced wrong;\n    And in the hearing of these many friends\n    I swear to thee, even by thine own fair eyes,\n    Wherein I see myself-\n  PORTIA. Mark you but that!\n    In both my eyes he doubly sees himself,\n    In each eye one; swear by your double self,\n    And there's an oath of credit.\n  BASSANIO. Nay, but hear me.\n    Pardon this fault, and by my soul I swear\n    I never more will break an oath with thee.\n  ANTONIO. I once did lend my body for his wealth,\n    Which, but for him that had your husband's ring,\n    Had quite miscarried; I dare be bound again,\n    My soul upon the forfeit, that your lord\n    Will never more break faith advisedly.\n  PORTIA. Then you shall be his surety. Give him this,\n    And bid him keep it better than the other.\n  ANTONIO. Here, Lord Bassanio, swear to keep this ring.\n  BASSANIO. By heaven, it is the same I gave the doctor!\n  PORTIA. I had it of him. Pardon me, Bassanio,\n    For, by this ring, the doctor lay with me.\n  NERISSA. And pardon me, my gentle Gratiano,\n    For that same scrubbed boy, the doctor's clerk,\n    In lieu of this, last night did lie with me.\n  GRATIANO. Why, this is like the mending of highways\n    In summer, where the ways are fair enough.\n    What, are we cuckolds ere we have deserv'd it?\n  PORTIA. Speak not so grossly. You are all amaz'd.\n    Here is a letter; read it at your leisure;\n    It comes from Padua, from Bellario;\n    There you shall find that Portia was the doctor,\n    Nerissa there her clerk. Lorenzo here\n    Shall witness I set forth as soon as you,\n    And even but now return'd; I have not yet\n    Enter'd my house. Antonio, you are welcome;\n    And I have better news in store for you\n    Than you expect. Unseal this letter soon;\n    There you shall find three of your argosies\n    Are richly come to harbour suddenly.\n    You shall not know by what strange accident\n    I chanced on this letter.\n  ANTONIO. I am dumb.\n  BASSANIO. Were you the doctor, and I knew you not?\n  GRATIANO. Were you the clerk that is to make me cuckold?\n  NERISSA. Ay, but the clerk that never means to do it,\n    Unless he live until he be a man.\n  BASSANIO. Sweet doctor, you shall be my bedfellow;\n    When I am absent, then lie with my wife.\n  ANTONIO. Sweet lady, you have given me life and living;\n    For here I read for certain that my ships\n    Are safely come to road.\n  PORTIA. How now, Lorenzo!\n    My clerk hath some good comforts too for you.\n  NERISSA. Ay, and I'll give them him without a fee.\n    There do I give to you and Jessica,\n    From the rich Jew, a special deed of gift,\n    After his death, of all he dies possess'd of.\n  LORENZO. Fair ladies, you drop manna in the way\n    Of starved people.\n  PORTIA. It is almost morning,\n    And yet I am sure you are not satisfied\n    Of these events at full. Let us go in,\n    And charge us there upon inter'gatories,\n    And we will answer all things faithfully.\n  GRATIANO. Let it be so. The first inter'gatory\n    That my Nerissa shall be sworn on is,\n    Whether till the next night she had rather stay,\n    Or go to bed now, being two hours to day.\n    But were the day come, I should wish it dark,\n    Till I were couching with the doctor's clerk.\n    Well, while I live, I'll fear no other thing\n    So sore as keeping safe Nerissa's ring.               Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1601\n\nTHE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  SIR JOHN FALSTAFF\n  FENTON, a young gentleman\n  SHALLOW, a country justice\n  SLENDER, cousin to Shallow\n\n    Gentlemen of Windsor\n  FORD\n  PAGE\n  WILLIAM PAGE, a boy, son to Page\n  SIR HUGH EVANS, a Welsh parson\n  DOCTOR CAIUS, a French physician\n  HOST of the Garter Inn\n\n    Followers of Falstaff\n  BARDOLPH\n  PISTOL\n  NYM\n  ROBIN, page to Falstaff\n  SIMPLE, servant to Slender\n  RUGBY, servant to Doctor Caius\n\n  MISTRESS FORD\n  MISTRESS PAGE\n  MISTRESS ANNE PAGE, her daughter\n  MISTRESS QUICKLY, servant to Doctor Caius\n  SERVANTS to Page, Ford, etc.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nWindsor, and the neighbourhood\n\n\nThe Merry Wives of Windsor\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 1.\n\nWindsor. Before PAGE'S house\n\nEnter JUSTICE SHALLOW, SLENDER, and SIR HUGH EVANS\n\n  SHALLOW. Sir Hugh, persuade me not; I will make a Star\n    Chamber matter of it; if he were twenty Sir John Falstaffs,\n    he shall not abuse Robert Shallow, esquire.\n  SLENDER. In the county of Gloucester, Justice of Peace, and\n    Coram.\n  SHALLOW. Ay, cousin Slender, and Custalorum.\n  SLENDER. Ay, and Ratolorum too; and a gentleman born,\n    Master Parson, who writes himself 'Armigero' in any bill,\n    warrant, quittance, or obligation-'Armigero.'\n  SHALLOW. Ay, that I do; and have done any time these three\n    hundred years.\n  SLENDER. All his successors, gone before him, hath done't;\n    and all his ancestors, that come after him, may: they may\n    give the dozen white luces in their coat.\n  SHALLOW. It is an old coat.\n  EVANS. The dozen white louses do become an old coat well;\n    it agrees well, passant; it is a familiar beast to man, and\n    signifies love.\n  SHALLOW. The luce is the fresh fish; the salt fish is an old\n    coat.\n  SLENDER. I may quarter, coz.\n  SHALLOW. You may, by marrying.\n  EVANS. It is marring indeed, if he quarter it.\n  SHALLOW. Not a whit.\n  EVANS. Yes, py'r lady! If he has a quarter of your coat, there\n    is but three skirts for yourself, in my simple conjectures;\n    but that is all one. If Sir John Falstaff have committed\n    disparagements unto you, I am of the church, and will be\n    glad to do my benevolence, to make atonements and\n    compremises between you.\n  SHALLOW. The Council shall hear it; it is a riot.\n  EVANS. It is not meet the Council hear a riot; there is no\n    fear of Got in a riot; the Council, look you, shall desire\n    to hear the fear of Got, and not to hear a riot; take your\n    vizaments in that.\n  SHALLOW. Ha! o' my life, if I were young again, the sword\n    should end it.\n  EVANS. It is petter that friends is the sword and end it;\n    and there is also another device in my prain, which\n    peradventure prings goot discretions with it. There is Anne\n    Page, which is daughter to Master George Page, which is\n    pretty virginity.\n  SLENDER. Mistress Anne Page? She has brown hair, and\n    speaks small like a woman.\n  EVANS. It is that fery person for all the orld, as just as you\n    will desire; and seven hundred pounds of moneys, and\n    gold, and silver, is her grandsire upon his death's-bed-Got\n    deliver to a joyful resurrections!-give, when she is able to\n    overtake seventeen years old. It were a goot motion if we\n    leave our pribbles and prabbles, and desire a marriage\n    between Master Abraham and Mistress Anne Page.\n  SHALLOW. Did her grandsire leave her seven hundred pound?\n  EVANS. Ay, and her father is make her a petter penny.\n  SHALLOW. I know the young gentlewoman; she has good\n    gifts.\n  EVANS. Seven hundred pounds, and possibilities, is goot gifts.\n  SHALLOW. Well, let us see honest Master Page. Is Falstaff\n    there?\n  EVANS. Shall I tell you a lie? I do despise a liar as I do\n    despise one that is false; or as I despise one that is not\n    true. The knight Sir John is there; and, I beseech you, be\n    ruled by your well-willers. I will peat the door for Master\n    Page.\n    [Knocks]  What, hoa! Got pless your house here!\n  PAGE.  [Within]  Who's there?\n\n                            Enter PAGE\n\n  EVANS. Here is Got's plessing, and your friend, and Justice\n  Shallow; and here young Master Slender, that peradventures\n    shall tell you another tale, if matters grow to your\n    likings.\n  PAGE. I am glad to see your worships well. I thank you for\n    my venison, Master Shallow.\n  SHALLOW. Master Page, I am glad to see you; much good do\n    it your good heart! I wish'd your venison better; it was ill\n    kill'd. How doth good Mistress Page?-and I thank you\n    always with my heart, la! with my heart.\n  PAGE. Sir, I thank you.\n  SHALLOW. Sir, I thank you; by yea and no, I do.\n  PAGE. I am glad to see you, good Master Slender.\n  SLENDER. How does your fallow greyhound, sir? I heard say\n    he was outrun on Cotsall.\n  PAGE. It could not be judg'd, sir.\n  SLENDER. You'll not confess, you'll not confess.\n  SHALLOW. That he will not. 'Tis your fault; 'tis your fault;\n    'tis a good dog.\n  PAGE. A cur, sir.\n  SHALLOW. Sir, he's a good dog, and a fair dog. Can there be\n    more said? He is good, and fair. Is Sir John Falstaff here?\n  PAGE. Sir, he is within; and I would I could do a good office\n    between you.\n  EVANS. It is spoke as a Christians ought to speak.\n  SHALLOW. He hath wrong'd me, Master Page.\n  PAGE. Sir, he doth in some sort confess it.\n  SHALLOW. If it be confessed, it is not redressed; is not that\n    so, Master Page? He hath wrong'd me; indeed he hath; at a\n    word, he hath, believe me; Robert Shallow, esquire, saith\n    he is wronged.\n  PAGE. Here comes Sir John.\n\n      Enter SIR JOHN FALSTAFF, BARDOLPH, NYM, and PISTOL\n\n  FALSTAFF. Now, Master Shallow, you'll complain of me to\n    the King?\n  SHALLOW. Knight, you have beaten my men, kill'd my deer,\n    and broke open my lodge.\n  FALSTAFF. But not kiss'd your keeper's daughter.\n  SHALLOW. Tut, a pin! this shall be answer'd.\n  FALSTAFF. I will answer it straight: I have done all this.\n    That is now answer'd.\n  SHALLOW. The Council shall know this.\n  FALSTAFF. 'Twere better for you if it were known in counsel:\n    you'll be laugh'd at.\n  EVANS. Pauca verba, Sir John; goot worts.\n  FALSTAFF. Good worts! good cabbage! Slender, I broke your\n    head; what matter have you against me?\n  SLENDER. Marry, sir, I have matter in my head against you;\n    and against your cony-catching rascals, Bardolph, Nym,\n    and Pistol. They carried me to the tavern, and made me\n    drunk, and afterwards pick'd my pocket.\n  BARDOLPH. You Banbury cheese!\n  SLENDER. Ay, it is no matter.\n  PISTOL. How now, Mephostophilus!\n  SLENDER. Ay, it is no matter.\n  NYM. Slice, I say! pauca, pauca; slice! That's my humour.\n  SLENDER. Where's Simple, my man? Can you tell, cousin?\n  EVANS. Peace, I pray you. Now let us understand. There is\n    three umpires in this matter, as I understand: that is,\n    Master Page, fidelicet Master Page; and there is myself,\n    fidelicet myself; and the three party is, lastly and\n    finally, mine host of the Garter.\n  PAGE. We three to hear it and end it between them.\n  EVANS. Fery goot. I will make a prief of it in my note-book;\n    and we will afterwards ork upon the cause with as great\n    discreetly as we can.\n  FALSTAFF. Pistol!\n  PISTOL. He hears with ears.\n  EVANS. The tevil and his tam! What phrase is this, 'He hears\n    with ear'? Why, it is affectations.\n  FALSTAFF. Pistol, did you pick Master Slender's purse?\n  SLENDER. Ay, by these gloves, did he-or I would I might\n    never come in mine own great chamber again else!-of\n    seven groats in mill-sixpences, and two Edward\n    shovel-boards that cost me two shilling and two pence apiece\n    of Yead Miller, by these gloves.\n  FALSTAFF. Is this true, Pistol?\n  EVANS. No, it is false, if it is a pick-purse.\n  PISTOL. Ha, thou mountain-foreigner! Sir John and master\n    mine,\n    I combat challenge of this latten bilbo.\n    Word of denial in thy labras here!\n    Word of denial! Froth and scum, thou liest.\n  SLENDER. By these gloves, then, 'twas he.\n  NYM. Be avis'd, sir, and pass good humours; I will say\n    'marry trap' with you, if you run the nuthook's humour on\n    me; that is the very note of it.\n  SLENDER. By this hat, then, he in the red face had it; for\n    though I cannot remember what I did when you made me\n    drunk, yet I am not altogether an ass.\n  FALSTAFF. What say you, Scarlet and John?\n  BARDOLPH. Why, sir, for my part, I say the gentleman had\n    drunk himself out of his five sentences.\n  EVANS. It is his five senses; fie, what the ignorance is!\n  BARDOLPH. And being fap, sir, was, as they say, cashier'd;\n    and so conclusions pass'd the careers.\n  SLENDER. Ay, you spake in Latin then too; but 'tis no matter;\n    I'll ne'er be drunk whilst I live again, but in honest,\n    civil, godly company, for this trick. If I be drunk, I'll be\n    drunk with those that have the fear of God, and not with\n    drunken knaves.\n  EVANS. So Got udge me, that is a virtuous mind.\n  FALSTAFF. You hear all these matters deni'd, gentlemen; you\n    hear it.\n\n          Enter MISTRESS ANNE PAGE with wine; MISTRESS\n               FORD and MISTRESS PAGE, following\n\n  PAGE. Nay, daughter, carry the wine in; we'll drink within.\n                                                  Exit ANNE PAGE\n  SLENDER. O heaven! this is Mistress Anne Page.\n  PAGE. How now, Mistress Ford!\n  FALSTAFF. Mistress Ford, by my troth, you are very well\n    met; by your leave, good mistress.              [Kisses her]\n  PAGE. Wife, bid these gentlemen welcome. Come, we have a\n    hot venison pasty to dinner; come, gentlemen, I hope we\n    shall drink down all unkindness.\n                      Exeunt all but SHALLOW, SLENDER, and EVANS\n  SLENDER. I had rather than forty shillings I had my Book of\n    Songs and Sonnets here.\n\n                          Enter SIMPLE\n\n    How, Simple! Where have you been? I must wait on\n    myself, must I? You have not the Book of Riddles about you,\n    have you?\n  SIMPLE. Book of Riddles! Why, did you not lend it to Alice\n    Shortcake upon Allhallowmas last, a fortnight afore\n    Michaelmas?\n  SHALLOW. Come, coz; come, coz; we stay for you. A word\n    with you, coz; marry, this, coz: there is, as 'twere, a\n    tender, a kind of tender, made afar off by Sir Hugh here. Do\n    you understand me?\n  SLENDER. Ay, sir, you shall find me reasonable; if it be so, I\n    shall do that that is reason.\n  SHALLOW. Nay, but understand me.\n  SLENDER. So I do, sir.\n  EVANS. Give ear to his motions: Master Slender, I will\n    description the matter to you, if you be capacity of it.\n  SLENDER. Nay, I will do as my cousin Shallow says; I pray\n    you pardon me; he's a justice of peace in his country,\n    simple though I stand here.\n  EVANS. But that is not the question. The question is\n    concerning your marriage.\n  SHALLOW. Ay, there's the point, sir.\n  EVANS. Marry is it; the very point of it; to Mistress Anne\n    Page.\n  SLENDER. Why, if it be so, I will marry her upon any\n    reasonable demands.\n  EVANS. But can you affection the oman? Let us command to\n    know that of your mouth or of your lips; for divers philosophers\n    hold that the lips is parcel of the mouth. Therefore,\n    precisely, can you carry your good will to the maid?\n  SHALLOW. Cousin Abraham Slender, can you love her?\n  SLENDER. I hope, sir, I will do as it shall become one that\n    would do reason.\n  EVANS. Nay, Got's lords and his ladies! you must speak possitable,\n    if you can carry her your desires towards her.\n  SHALLOW. That you must. Will you, upon good dowry,\n    marry her?\n  SLENDER. I will do a greater thing than that upon your request,\n    cousin, in any reason.\n  SHALLOW. Nay, conceive me, conceive me, sweet coz; what\n    I do is to pleasure you, coz. Can you love the maid?\n  SLENDER. I will marry her, sir, at your request; but if there\n    be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease\n    it upon better acquaintance, when we are married and\n    have more occasion to know one another. I hope upon\n    familiarity will grow more contempt. But if you say\n    'marry her,' I will marry her; that I am freely dissolved,\n    and dissolutely.\n  EVANS. It is a fery discretion answer, save the fall is in the\n    ord 'dissolutely': the ort is, according to our meaning,\n    'resolutely'; his meaning is good.\n  SHALLOW. Ay, I think my cousin meant well.\n  SLENDER. Ay, or else I would I might be hang'd, la!\n\n                       Re-enter ANNE PAGE\n\n  SHALLOW. Here comes fair Mistress Anne. Would I were\n    young for your sake, Mistress Anne!\n  ANNE. The dinner is on the table; my father desires your\n    worships' company.\n  SHALLOW. I will wait on him, fair Mistress Anne!\n  EVANS. Od's plessed will! I will not be absence at the grace.\n                                        Exeunt SHALLOW and EVANS\n  ANNE. Will't please your worship to come in, sir?\n  SLENDER. No, I thank you, forsooth, heartily; I am very\n    well.\n  ANNE. The dinner attends you, sir.\n  SLENDER. I am not a-hungry, I thank you, forsooth. Go,\n    sirrah, for all you are my man, go wait upon my cousin\n  Shallow.  [Exit SIMPLE]  A justice of peace sometime may\n    be beholding to his friend for a man. I keep but three men\n    and a boy yet, till my mother be dead. But what though?\n    Yet I live like a poor gentleman born.\n  ANNE. I may not go in without your worship; they will not\n    sit till you come.\n  SLENDER. I' faith, I'll eat nothing; I thank you as much as\n    though I did.\n  ANNE. I pray you, sir, walk in.\n  SLENDER. I had rather walk here, I thank you. I bruis'd my\n    shin th' other day with playing at sword and dagger with\n    a master of fence-three veneys for a dish of stew'd prunes\n    -and, I with my ward defending my head, he hot my shin,\n    and, by my troth, I cannot abide the smell of hot meat\n    since. Why do your dogs bark so? Be there bears i' th'\n    town?\n  ANNE. I think there are, sir; I heard them talk'd of.\n  SLENDER. I love the sport well; but I shall as soon quarrel at\n    it as any man in England. You are afraid, if you see the\n    bear loose, are you not?\n  ANNE. Ay, indeed, sir.\n  SLENDER. That's meat and drink to me now. I have seen\n    Sackerson loose twenty times, and have taken him by the\n    chain; but I warrant you, the women have so cried and\n    shriek'd at it that it pass'd; but women, indeed, cannot\n    abide 'em; they are very ill-favour'd rough things.\n\n                         Re-enter PAGE\n\n  PAGE. Come, gentle Master Slender, come; we stay for you.\n  SLENDER. I'll eat nothing, I thank you, sir.\n  PAGE. By cock and pie, you shall not choose, sir! Come,\n    come.\n  SLENDER. Nay, pray you lead the way.\n  PAGE. Come on, sir.\n  SLENDER. Mistress Anne, yourself shall go first.\n  ANNE. Not I, sir; pray you keep on.\n  SLENDER. Truly, I will not go first; truly, la! I will not do\n    you that wrong.\n  ANNE. I pray you, sir.\n  SLENDER. I'll rather be unmannerly than troublesome. You\n    do yourself wrong indeed, la!                         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nBefore PAGE'S house\n\nEnter SIR HUGH EVANS and SIMPLE\n\n  EVANS. Go your ways, and ask of Doctor Caius' house which\n    is the way; and there dwells one Mistress Quickly, which\n    is in the manner of his nurse, or his dry nurse, or his cook,\n    or his laundry, his washer, and his wringer.\n  SIMPLE. Well, sir.\n  EVANS. Nay, it is petter yet. Give her this letter; for it is a\n    oman that altogether's acquaintance with Mistress Anne\n    Page; and the letter is to desire and require her to solicit\n    your master's desires to Mistress Anne Page. I pray you\n    be gone. I will make an end of my dinner; there's pippins\n    and cheese to come.                                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nThe Garter Inn\n\nEnter FALSTAFF, HOST, BARDOLPH, NYM, PISTOL, and ROBIN\n\n  FALSTAFF. Mine host of the Garter!\n  HOST. What says my bully rook? Speak scholarly and\n    wisely.\n  FALSTAFF. Truly, mine host, I must turn away some of my\n    followers.\n  HOST. Discard, bully Hercules; cashier; let them wag; trot,\n    trot.\n  FALSTAFF. I sit at ten pounds a week.\n  HOST. Thou'rt an emperor-Caesar, Keiser, and Pheazar. I\n    will entertain Bardolph; he shall draw, he shall tap; said I\n    well, bully Hector?\n  FALSTAFF. Do so, good mine host.\n  HOST. I have spoke; let him follow.  [To BARDOLPH]  Let me\n    see thee froth and lime. I am at a word; follow.   Exit HOST\n  FALSTAFF. Bardolph, follow him. A tapster is a good trade;\n    an old cloak makes a new jerkin; a wither'd serving-man a\n    fresh tapster. Go; adieu.\n  BARDOLPH. It is a life that I have desir'd; I will thrive.\n  PISTOL. O base Hungarian wight! Wilt thou the spigot\n    wield?                                         Exit BARDOLPH\n  NYM. He was gotten in drink. Is not the humour conceited?\n  FALSTAFF. I am glad I am so acquit of this tinder-box: his\n    thefts were too open; his filching was like an unskilful\n    singer-he kept not time.\n  NYM. The good humour is to steal at a minute's rest.\n  PISTOL. 'Convey' the wise it call. 'Steal' foh! A fico for the\n    phrase!\n  FALSTAFF. Well, sirs, I am almost out at heels.\n  PISTOL. Why, then, let kibes ensue.\n  FALSTAFF. There is no remedy; I must cony-catch; I must\n    shift.\n  PISTOL. Young ravens must have food.\n  FALSTAFF. Which of you know Ford of this town?\n  PISTOL. I ken the wight; he is of substance good.\n  FALSTAFF. My honest lads, I will tell you what I am about.\n  PISTOL. Two yards, and more.\n  FALSTAFF. No quips now, Pistol. Indeed, I am in the waist\n    two yards about; but I am now about no waste; I am about\n    thrift. Briefly, I do mean to make love to Ford's wife; I\n    spy entertainment in her; she discourses, she carves, she\n    gives the leer of invitation; I can construe the action of her\n    familiar style; and the hardest voice of her behaviour, to be\n    English'd rightly, is 'I am Sir John Falstaff's.'\n    PISTOL. He hath studied her well, and translated her will out\n    of honesty into English.\n  NYM. The anchor is deep; will that humour pass?\n  FALSTAFF. Now, the report goes she has all the rule of her\n    husband's purse; he hath a legion of angels.\n  PISTOL. As many devils entertain; and 'To her, boy,' say I.\n  NYM. The humour rises; it is good; humour me the angels.\n  FALSTAFF. I have writ me here a letter to her; and here\n    another to Page's wife, who even now gave me good eyes\n    too, examin'd my parts with most judicious oeillades;\n    sometimes the beam of her view gilded my foot, sometimes my\n    portly belly.\n  PISTOL. Then did the sun on dunghill shine.\n  NYM. I thank thee for that humour.\n  FALSTAFF. O, she did so course o'er my exteriors with such\n    a greedy intention that the appetite of her eye did seem to\n    scorch me up like a burning-glass! Here's another letter to\n    her. She bears the purse too; she is a region in Guiana, all\n    gold and bounty. I will be cheaters to them both, and they\n    shall be exchequers to me; they shall be my East and West\n    Indies, and I will trade to them both. Go, bear thou this\n    letter to Mistress Page; and thou this to Mistress Ford. We\n    will thrive, lads, we will thrive.\n  PISTOL. Shall I Sir Pandarus of Troy become,\n    And by my side wear steel? Then Lucifer take all!\n  NYM. I will run no base humour. Here, take the\n    humour-letter; I will keep the haviour of reputation.\n  FALSTAFF.  [To ROBIN]  Hold, sirrah; bear you these letters\n    tightly;\n    Sail like my pinnace to these golden shores.\n    Rogues, hence, avaunt! vanish like hailstones, go;\n    Trudge, plod away i' th' hoof; seek shelter, pack!\n    Falstaff will learn the humour of the age;\n    French thrift, you rogues; myself, and skirted page.\n                                       Exeunt FALSTAFF and ROBIN\n  PISTOL. Let vultures gripe thy guts! for gourd and fullam\n    holds,\n    And high and low beguiles the rich and poor;\n    Tester I'll have in pouch when thou shalt lack,\n    Base Phrygian Turk!\n  NYM. I have operations in my head which be humours of\n    revenge.\n  PISTOL. Wilt thou revenge?\n  NYM. By welkin and her star!\n  PISTOL. With wit or steel?\n  NYM. With both the humours, I.\n    I will discuss the humour of this love to Page.\n  PISTOL. And I to Ford shall eke unfold\n    How Falstaff, varlet vile,\n    His dove will prove, his gold will hold,\n    And his soft couch defile.\n  NYM. My humour shall not cool; I will incense Page to deal\n    with poison; I will possess him with yellowness; for the\n    revolt of mine is dangerous. That is my true humour.\n  PISTOL. Thou art the Mars of malcontents; I second thee;\n    troop on.                                             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\n\nDOCTOR CAIUS'S house\n\nEnter MISTRESS QUICKLY, SIMPLE, and RUGBY\n\n  QUICKLY. What, John Rugby! I pray thee go to the casement\n    and see if you can see my master, Master Doctor\n    Caius, coming. If he do, i' faith, and find anybody in the\n    house, here will be an old abusing of God's patience and\n    the King's English.\n  RUGBY. I'll go watch.\n  QUICKLY. Go; and we'll have a posset for't soon at night, in\n    faith, at the latter end of a sea-coal fire.  [Exit RUGBY]  An\n    honest, willing, kind fellow, as ever servant shall come in\n    house withal; and, I warrant you, no tell-tale nor no\n    breed-bate; his worst fault is that he is given to prayer; he is\n    something peevish that way; but nobody but has his fault;\n    but let that pass. Peter Simple you say your name is?\n  SIMPLE. Ay, for fault of a better.\n  QUICKLY. And Master Slender's your master?\n  SIMPLE. Ay, forsooth.\n  QUICKLY. Does he not wear a great round beard, like a\n    glover's paring-knife?\n  SIMPLE. No, forsooth; he hath but a little whey face, with a\n    little yellow beard, a Cain-colour'd beard.\n  QUICKLY. A softly-sprighted man, is he not?\n  SIMPLE. Ay, forsooth; but he is as tall a man of his hands as\n    any is between this and his head; he hath fought with a\n    warrener.\n  QUICKLY. How say you? O, I should remember him. Does\n    he not hold up his head, as it were, and strut in his gait?\n  SIMPLE. Yes, indeed, does he.\n  QUICKLY. Well, heaven send Anne Page no worse fortune!\n    Tell Master Parson Evans I will do what I can for your\n    master. Anne is a good girl, and I wish-\n\n                         Re-enter RUGBY\n\n  RUGBY. Out, alas! here comes my master.\n  QUICKLY. We shall all be shent. Run in here, good young\n    man; go into this closet.  [Shuts SIMPLE in the closet]  He\n    will not stay long. What, John Rugby! John! what, John,\n    I say! Go, John, go inquire for my master; I doubt he be\n    not well that he comes not home.  [Singing]\n    And down, down, adown-a, etc.\n\n                       Enter DOCTOR CAIUS\n\n  CAIUS. Vat is you sing? I do not like des toys. Pray you, go\n    and vetch me in my closet un boitier vert-a box, a green-a\n    box. Do intend vat I speak? A green-a box.\n  QUICKLY. Ay, forsooth, I'll fetch it you.  [Aside]  I am glad\n    he went not in himself; if he had found the young man,\n    he would have been horn-mad.\n  CAIUS. Fe, fe, fe fe! ma foi, il fait fort chaud. Je m'en vais a\n    la cour-la grande affaire.\n  QUICKLY. Is it this, sir?\n  CAIUS. Oui; mette le au mon pocket: depeche, quickly. Vere\n    is dat knave, Rugby?\n  QUICKLY. What, John Rugby? John!\n  RUGBY. Here, sir.\n  CAIUS. You are John Rugby, and you are Jack Rugby.\n    Come, take-a your rapier, and come after my heel to the\n    court.\n  RUGBY. 'Tis ready, sir, here in the porch.\n    CAIUS. By my trot, I tarry too long. Od's me! Qu'ai j'oublie?\n    Dere is some simples in my closet dat I vill not for the\n    varld I shall leave behind.\n  QUICKLY. Ay me, he'll find the young man there, and be\n    mad!\n  CAIUS. O diable, diable! vat is in my closet? Villainy! larron!\n    [Pulling SIMPLE out]  Rugby, my rapier!\n  QUICKLY. Good master, be content.\n  CAIUS. Wherefore shall I be content-a?\n  QUICKLY. The young man is an honest man.\n  CAIUS. What shall de honest man do in my closet? Dere is\n    no honest man dat shall come in my closet.\n  QUICKLY. I beseech you, be not so phlegmatic; hear the\n    truth of it. He came of an errand to me from Parson Hugh.\n  CAIUS. Vell?\n  SIMPLE. Ay, forsooth, to desire her to-\n  QUICKLY. Peace, I pray you.\n  CAIUS. Peace-a your tongue. Speak-a your tale.\n  SIMPLE. To desire this honest gentlewoman, your maid, to\n    speak a good word to Mistress Anne Page for my master,\n    in the way of marriage.\n  QUICKLY. This is all, indeed, la! but I'll ne'er put my finger\n    in the fire, and need not.\n  CAIUS. Sir Hugh send-a you? Rugby, baillez me some paper.\n    Tarry you a little-a-while.                        [Writes]\n  QUICKLY.  [Aside to SIMPLE]  I am glad he is so quiet; if he\n    had been throughly moved, you should have heard him\n    so loud and so melancholy. But notwithstanding, man, I'll\n    do you your master what good I can; and the very yea and\n    the no is, the French doctor, my master-I may call him\n    my master, look you, for I keep his house; and I wash,\n    wring, brew, bake, scour, dress meat and drink, make the\n    beds, and do all myself-\n  SIMPLE.  [Aside to QUICKLY]  'Tis a great charge to come\n    under one body's hand.\n  QUICKLY.  [Aside to SIMPLE]  Are you avis'd o' that? You\n    shall find it a great charge; and to be up early and down\n    late; but notwithstanding-to tell you in your ear, I would\n    have no words of it-my master himself is in love with\n    Mistress Anne Page; but notwithstanding that, I know\n    Anne's mind-that's neither here nor there.\n  CAIUS. You jack'nape; give-a this letter to Sir Hugh; by gar,\n    it is a shallenge; I will cut his troat in de park; and I will\n    teach a scurvy jack-a-nape priest to meddle or make. You\n    may be gone; it is not good you tarry here. By gar, I will\n    cut all his two stones; by gar, he shall not have a stone\n    to throw at his dog.                             Exit SIMPLE\n  QUICKLY. Alas, he speaks but for his friend.\n  CAIUS. It is no matter-a ver dat. Do not you tell-a me dat I\n    shall have Anne Page for myself? By gar, I vill kill de Jack\n    priest; and I have appointed mine host of de Jarteer to\n    measure our weapon. By gar, I will myself have Anne\n    Page.\n  QUICKLY. Sir, the maid loves you, and all shall be well. We\n    must give folks leave to prate. What the good-year!\n  CAIUS. Rugby, come to the court with me. By gar, if I have\n    not Anne Page, I shall turn your head out of my door.\n    Follow my heels, Rugby.               Exeunt CAIUS and RUGBY\n  QUICKLY. You shall have-An fool's-head of your own. No,\n    I know Anne's mind for that; never a woman in Windsor\n    knows more of Anne's mind than I do; nor can do more\n    than I do with her, I thank heaven.\n  FENTON.  [Within]  Who's within there? ho!\n  QUICKLY. Who's there, I trow? Come near the house, I pray\n    you.\n\n                          Enter FENTON\n\n  FENTON. How now, good woman, how dost thou?\n  QUICKLY. The better that it pleases your good worship to\n    ask.\n  FENTON. What news? How does pretty Mistress Anne?\n  QUICKLY. In truth, sir, and she is pretty, and honest, and\n    gentle; and one that is your friend, I can tell you that by\n    the way; I praise heaven for it.\n  FENTON. Shall I do any good, think'st thou? Shall I not lose\n    my suit?\n  QUICKLY. Troth, sir, all is in His hands above; but\n    notwithstanding, Master Fenton, I'll be sworn on a book\n    she loves you. Have not your worship a wart above your eye?\n  FENTON. Yes, marry, have I; what of that?\n  QUICKLY. Well, thereby hangs a tale; good faith, it is such\n    another Nan; but, I detest, an honest maid as ever broke\n    bread. We had an hour's talk of that wart; I shall never\n    laugh but in that maid's company! But, indeed, she is\n    given too much to allicholy and musing; but for you-well,\n    go to.\n  FENTON. Well, I shall see her to-day. Hold, there's money\n    for thee; let me have thy voice in my behalf. If thou seest\n    her before me, commend me.\n  QUICKLY. Will I? I' faith, that we will; and I will tell your\n    worship more of the wart the next time we have confidence;\n    and of other wooers.\n  FENTON. Well, farewell; I am in great haste now.\n  QUICKLY. Farewell to your worship.  [Exit FENTON]  Truly,\n    an honest gentleman; but Anne loves him not; for I know\n    Anne's mind as well as another does. Out upon 't, what\n    have I forgot?                                          Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 1.\n\nBefore PAGE'S house\n\nEnter MISTRESS PAGE, with a letter\n\n  MRS. PAGE. What! have I scap'd love-letters in the holiday-time\n    of my beauty, and am I now a subject for them? Let\n    me see.                                              [Reads]\n    'Ask me no reason why I love you; for though Love use\n    Reason for his precisian, he admits him not for his counsellor.\n    You are not young, no more am I; go to, then, there's\n    sympathy. You are merry, so am I; ha! ha! then there's\n    more sympathy. You love sack, and so do I; would you\n    desire better sympathy? Let it suffice thee, Mistress Page\n    at the least, if the love of soldier can suffice-that I love\n    thee. I will not say, Pity me: 'tis not a soldier-like phrase;\n    but I say, Love me. By me,\n    Thine own true knight,\n    By day or night,\n    Or any kind of light,\n    With all his might,\n    For thee to fight,\n    JOHN FALSTAFF.'\n    What a Herod of Jewry is this! O wicked, wicked world!\n    One that is well-nigh worn to pieces with age to show\n    himself a young gallant! What an unweighed behaviour\n    hath this Flemish drunkard pick'd-with the devil's name!\n    -out of my conversation, that he dares in this manner\n    assay me? Why, he hath not been thrice in my company!\n    What should I say to him? I was then frugal of my mirth.\n    Heaven forgive me! Why, I'll exhibit a bill in the parliament\n    for the putting down of men. How shall I be\n    reveng'd on him? for reveng'd I will be, as sure as his guts\n    are made of puddings.\n\n                       Enter MISTRESS FORD\n\n  MRS. FORD. Mistress Page! trust me, I was going to your\n    house.\n  MRS. PAGE. And, trust me, I was coming to you. You look\n    very ill.\n  MRS. FORD. Nay, I'll ne'er believe that; I have to show to\n    the contrary.\n  MRS. PAGE. Faith, but you do, in my mind.\n  MRS. FORD. Well, I do, then; yet, I say, I could show you to\n    the contrary. O Mistress Page, give me some counsel.\n  MRS. PAGE. What's the matter, woman?\n  MRS. FORD. O woman, if it were not for one trifling respect,\n    I could come to such honour!\n  MRS. PAGE. Hang the trifle, woman; take the honour. What\n    is it? Dispense with trifles; what is it?\n  MRS. FORD. If I would but go to hell for an eternal moment\n    or so, I could be knighted.\n  MRS. PAGE. What? Thou liest. Sir Alice Ford! These knights\n    will hack; and so thou shouldst not alter the article of thy\n    gentry.\n  MRS. FORD. We burn daylight. Here, read, read; perceive\n    how I might be knighted. I shall think the worse of fat\n    men as long as I have an eye to make difference of men's\n    liking. And yet he would not swear; prais'd women's\n    modesty, and gave such orderly and well-behaved reproof\n    to all uncomeliness that I would have sworn his disposition\n    would have gone to the truth of his words; but they do no\n    more adhere and keep place together than the Hundredth\n    Psalm to the tune of 'Greensleeves.' What tempest, I trow,\n    threw this whale, with so many tuns of oil in his belly,\n    ashore at Windsor? How shall I be revenged on him? I\n    think the best way were to entertain him with hope, till\n    the wicked fire of lust have melted him in his own grease.\n    Did you ever hear the like?\n  MRS. PAGE. Letter for letter, but that the name of Page and\n    Ford differs. To thy great comfort in this mystery of ill\n    opinions, here's the twin-brother of thy letter; but let thine\n    inherit first, for, I protest, mine never shall. I warrant he\n    hath a thousand of these letters, writ with blank space for\n    different names-sure, more!-and these are of the second\n    edition. He will print them, out of doubt; for he cares not\n    what he puts into the press when he would put us two. I\n    had rather be a giantess and lie under Mount Pelion. Well,\n    I will find you twenty lascivious turtles ere one chaste\n    man.\n  MRS. FORD. Why, this is the very same; the very hand, the\n    very words. What doth he think of us?\n  MRS. PAGE. Nay, I know not; it makes me almost ready to\n    wrangle with mine own honesty. I'll entertain myself like\n    one that I am not acquainted withal; for, sure, unless he\n    know some strain in me that I know not myself, he would\n    never have boarded me in this fury.\n  MRS. FORD. 'Boarding' call you it? I'll be sure to keep him\n    above deck.\n  MRS. PAGE. So will I; if he come under my hatches, I'll never\n    to sea again. Let's be reveng'd on him; let's appoint him a\n    meeting, give him a show of comfort in his suit, and lead\n    him on with a fine-baited delay, till he hath pawn'd his\n    horses to mine host of the Garter.\n  MRS. FORD. Nay, I will consent to act any villainy against\n    him that may not sully the chariness of our honesty. O\n    that my husband saw this letter! It would give eternal food\n    to his jealousy.\n  MRS. PAGE. Why, look where he comes; and my good man\n    too; he's as far from jealousy as I am from giving him\n    cause; and that, I hope, is an unmeasurable distance.\n  MRS. FORD. You are the happier woman.\n  MRS. PAGE. Let's consult together against this greasy knight.\n    Come hither.                                   [They retire]\n\n           Enter FORD with PISTOL, and PAGE with Nym\n\n  FORD. Well, I hope it be not so.\n  PISTOL. Hope is a curtal dog in some affairs.\n    Sir John affects thy wife.\n  FORD. Why, sir, my wife is not young.\n  PISTOL. He woos both high and low, both rich and poor,\n    Both young and old, one with another, Ford;\n    He loves the gallimaufry. Ford, perpend.\n  FORD. Love my wife!\n  PISTOL. With liver burning hot. Prevent, or go thou,\n    Like Sir Actaeon he, with Ringwood at thy heels.\n    O, odious is the name!\n  FORD. What name, sir?\n  PISTOL. The horn, I say. Farewell.\n    Take heed, have open eye, for thieves do foot by night;\n    Take heed, ere summer comes, or cuckoo birds do sing.\n    Away, Sir Corporal Nym.\n    Believe it, Page; he speaks sense.               Exit PISTOL\n  FORD.  [Aside]  I will be patient; I will find out this.\n  NYM.  [To PAGE]  And this is true; I like not the humour of\n    lying. He hath wronged me in some humours; I should\n    have borne the humour'd letter to her; but I have a sword,\n    and it shall bite upon my necessity. He loves your wife;\n    there's the short and the long.\n    My name is Corporal Nym; I speak, and I avouch;\n    'Tis true. My name is Nym, and Falstaff loves your wife.\n    Adieu! I love not the humour of bread and cheese; and\n    there's the humour of it. Adieu.                    Exit Nym\n  PAGE. 'The humour of it,' quoth 'a! Here's a fellow frights\n    English out of his wits.\n  FORD. I will seek out Falstaff.\n  PAGE. I never heard such a drawling, affecting rogue.\n  FORD. If I do find it-well.\n  PAGE. I will not believe such a Cataian though the priest o'\n    th' town commended him for a true man.\n  FORD. 'Twas a good sensible fellow. Well.\n\n             MISTRESS PAGE and MISTRESS FORD come forward\n\n  PAGE. How now, Meg!\n  MRS. PAGE. Whither go you, George? Hark you.\n  MRS. FORD. How now, sweet Frank, why art thou melancholy?\n  FORD. I melancholy! I am not melancholy. Get you home;\n    go.\n  MRS. FORD. Faith, thou hast some crotchets in thy head now.\n    Will you go, Mistress Page?\n\n                     Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY\n\n  MRS. PAGE. Have with you. You'll come to dinner, George?\n    [Aside to MRS. FORD]  Look who comes yonder; she shall\n    be our messenger to this paltry knight.\n  MRS. FORD.  [Aside to MRS. PAGE]  Trust me, I thought on\n    her; she'll fit it.\n  MRS. PAGE. You are come to see my daughter Anne?\n  QUICKLY. Ay, forsooth; and, I pray, how does good Mistress Anne?\n  MRS. PAGE. Go in with us and see; we have an hour's talk\n    with you.           Exeunt MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and\n                                                MISTRESS QUICKLY\n  PAGE. How now, Master Ford!\n  FORD. You heard what this knave told me, did you not?\n  PAGE. Yes; and you heard what the other told me?\n  FORD. Do you think there is truth in them?\n  PAGE. Hang 'em, slaves! I do not think the knight would offer it;\n    but these that accuse him in his intent towards our\n    wives are a yoke of his discarded men; very rogues, now\n    they be out of service.\n  FORD. Were they his men?\n  PAGE. Marry, were they.\n  FORD. I like it never the better for that. Does he lie at the\n    Garter?\n  PAGE. Ay, marry, does he. If he should intend this voyage\n    toward my wife, I would turn her loose to him; and what\n    he gets more of her than sharp words, let it lie on my head.\n  FORD. I do not misdoubt my wife; but I would be loath to\n    turn them together. A man may be too confident. I would\n    have nothing lie on my head. I cannot be thus satisfied.\n\n                           Enter HOST\n\n  PAGE. Look where my ranting host of the Garter comes.\n    There is either liquor in his pate or money in his purse\n    when he looks so merrily. How now, mine host!\n  HOST. How now, bully rook! Thou'rt a gentleman.  [To\n    SHALLOW following]  Cavaleiro Justice, I say.\n\n                         Enter SHALLOW\n\n  SHALLOW. I follow, mine host, I follow. Good even and\n    twenty, good Master Page! Master Page, will you go with\n    us? We have sport in hand.\n  HOST. Tell him, Cavaleiro Justice; tell him, bully rook.\n  SHALLOW. Sir, there is a fray to be fought between Sir Hugh\n    the Welsh priest and Caius the French doctor.\n  FORD. Good mine host o' th' Garter, a word with you.\n  HOST. What say'st thou, my bully rook?         [They go aside]\n  SHALLOW.  [To PAGE] Will you go with us to behold it? My\n    merry host hath had the measuring of their weapons; and,\n    I think, hath appointed them contrary places; for, believe\n    me, I hear the parson is no jester. Hark, I will tell you\n    what our sport shall be.               [They converse apart]\n  HOST. Hast thou no suit against my knight, my guest-cavaleiro.\n  FORD. None, I protest; but I'll give you a pottle of burnt\n    sack to give me recourse to him, and tell him my name is\n    Brook-only for a jest.\n  HOST. My hand, bully; thou shalt have egress and regress-\n    said I well?-and thy name shall be Brook. It is a merry\n    knight. Will you go, Mynheers?\n  SHALLOW. Have with you, mine host.\n  PAGE. I have heard the Frenchman hath good skill in his\n    rapier.\n  SHALLOW. Tut, sir, I could have told you more. In these\n    times you stand on distance, your passes, stoccadoes, and\n    I know not what. 'Tis the heart, Master Page; 'tis here,\n    'tis here. I have seen the time with my long sword I would\n    have made you four tall fellows skip like rats.\n  HOST. Here, boys, here, here! Shall we wag?\n  PAGE. Have with you. I had rather hear them scold than\n    fight.                                   Exeunt all but FORD\n  FORD. Though Page be a secure fool, and stands so firmly on\n    his wife's frailty, yet I cannot put off my opinion so\n    easily. She was in his company at Page's house, and what\n    they made there I know not. Well, I will look further into\n    't, and I have a disguise to sound Falstaff. If I find her\n    honest, I lose not my labour; if she be otherwise, 'tis labour\n    well bestowed.                                          Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nA room in the Garter Inn\n\nEnter FALSTAFF and PISTOL\n\n  FALSTAFF. I will not lend thee a penny.\n  PISTOL. I will retort the sum in equipage.\n  FALSTAFF. Not a penny.\n  PISTOL. Why, then the world's mine oyster. Which I with\n    sword will open.\n  FALSTAFF. Not a penny. I have been content, sir, you should\n    lay my countenance to pawn. I have grated upon my good\n    friends for three reprieves for you and your coach-fellow,\n    Nym; or else you had look'd through the grate, like a\n    geminy of baboons. I am damn'd in hell for swearing to\n    gentlemen my friends you were good soldiers and tall fellows;\n    and when Mistress Bridget lost the handle of her fan,\n    I took 't upon mine honour thou hadst it not.\n  PISTOL. Didst not thou share? Hadst thou not fifteen pence?\n  FALSTAFF. Reason, you rogue, reason. Think'st thou I'll\n    endanger my soul gratis? At a word, hang no more about me,\n    I am no gibbet for you. Go-a short knife and a throng!-\n    to your manor of Pickt-hatch; go. You'll not bear a letter\n    for me, you rogue! You stand upon your honour! Why,\n    thou unconfinable baseness, it is as much as I can do to\n    keep the terms of my honour precise. I, I, I myself\n    sometimes, leaving the fear of God on the left hand, and hiding\n    mine honour in my necessity, am fain to shuffle, to hedge,\n    and to lurch; and yet you, rogue, will ensconce your rags,\n    your cat-a-mountain looks, your red-lattice phrases, and\n    your bold-beating oaths, under the shelter of your honour!\n    You will not do it, you!\n  PISTOL. I do relent; what would thou more of man?\n\n                          Enter ROBIN\n\n  ROBIN. Sir, here's a woman would speak with you.\n  FALSTAFF. Let her approach.\n\n                     Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY\n\n  QUICKLY. Give your worship good morrow.\n  FALSTAFF. Good morrow, good wife.\n  QUICKLY. Not so, an't please your worship.\n  FALSTAFF. Good maid, then.\n  QUICKLY. I'll be sworn;\n    As my mother was, the first hour I was born.\n  FALSTAFF. I do believe the swearer. What with me?\n  QUICKLY. Shall I vouchsafe your worship a word or two?\n  FALSTAFF. Two thousand, fair woman; and I'll vouchsafe\n    thee the hearing.\n  QUICKLY. There is one Mistress Ford, sir-I pray, come a little\n    nearer this ways. I myself dwell with Master Doctor\n    Caius.\n  FALSTAFF. Well, on: Mistress Ford, you say-\n  QUICKLY. Your worship says very true. I pray your worship\n    come a little nearer this ways.\n  FALSTAFF. I warrant thee nobody hears-mine own people,\n    mine own people.\n  QUICKLY. Are they so? God bless them, and make them his\n    servants!\n  FALSTAFF. Well; Mistress Ford, what of her?\n  QUICKLY. Why, sir, she's a good creature. Lord, Lord, your\n    worship's a wanton! Well, heaven forgive you, and all of\n    us, I pray.\n  FALSTAFF. Mistress Ford; come, Mistress Ford-\n  QUICKLY. Marry, this is the short and the long of it: you\n    have brought her into such a canaries as 'tis wonderful.\n    The best courtier of them all, when the court lay at Windsor,\n    could never have brought her to such a canary. Yet\n    there has been knights, and lords, and gentlemen, with\n    their coaches; I warrant you, coach after coach, letter after\n    letter, gift after gift; smelling so sweetly, all musk, and so\n    rushling, I warrant you, in silk and gold; and in such alligant\n    terms; and in such wine and sugar of the best and the\n    fairest, that would have won any woman's heart; and I\n    warrant you, they could never get an eye-wink of her.\n    I had myself twenty angels given me this morning; but I\n    defy all angels, in any such sort, as they say, but in the\n    way of honesty; and, I warrant you, they could never get\n    her so much as sip on a cup with the proudest of them all;\n    and yet there has been earls, nay, which is more,\n    pensioners; but, I warrant you, all is one with her.\n  FALSTAFF. But what says she to me? Be brief, my good she-\n    Mercury.\n  QUICKLY. Marry, she hath receiv'd your letter; for the\n    which she thanks you a thousand times; and she gives you\n    to notify that her husband will be absence from his house\n    between ten and eleven.\n  FALSTAFF. Ten and eleven?\n  QUICKLY. Ay, forsooth; and then you may come and see\n    the picture, she says, that you wot of. Master Ford, her\n    husband, will be from home. Alas, the sweet woman leads\n    an ill life with him! He's a very jealousy man; she leads a\n    very frampold life with him, good heart.\n  FALSTAFF. Ten and eleven. Woman, commend me to her; I\n    will not fail her.\n  QUICKLY. Why, you say well. But I have another messenger\n    to your worship. Mistress Page hath her hearty commendations\n    to you too; and let me tell you in your ear, she's as\n    fartuous a civil modest wife, and one, I tell you, that will\n    not miss you morning nor evening prayer, as any is in\n    Windsor, whoe'er be the other; and she bade me tell your\n    worship that her husband is seldom from home, but she\n    hopes there will come a time. I never knew a woman so\n    dote upon a man: surely I think you have charms, la! Yes,\n    in truth.\n  FALSTAFF. Not I, I assure thee; setting the attraction of my\n    good parts aside, I have no other charms.\n  QUICKLY. Blessing on your heart for 't!\n  FALSTAFF. But, I pray thee, tell me this: has Ford's wife and\n    Page's wife acquainted each other how they love me?\n  QUICKLY. That were a jest indeed! They have not so little\n    grace, I hope-that were a trick indeed! But Mistress Page\n    would desire you to send her your little page of all loves.\n    Her husband has a marvellous infection to the little page;\n    and truly Master Page is an honest man. Never a wife in\n    Windsor leads a better life than she does; do what she will,\n    say what she will, take all, pay all, go to bed when she\n    list, rise when she list, all is as she will; and truly she\n    deserves it; for if there be a kind woman in Windsor, she\n    is one. You must send her your page; no remedy.\n  FALSTAFF. Why, I will.\n  QUICKLY. Nay, but do so then; and, look you, he may come\n    and go between you both; and in any case have a\n    nay-word, that you may know one another's mind, and the boy\n    never need to understand any thing; for 'tis not good that\n    children should know any wickedness. Old folks, you\n    know, have discretion, as they say, and know the world.\n  FALSTAFF. Fare thee well; commend me to them both.\n    There's my purse; I am yet thy debtor. Boy, go along with\n    this woman.  [Exeunt QUICKLY and ROBIN]  This news\n    distracts me.\n  PISTOL.  [Aside]  This punk is one of Cupid's carriers;\n    Clap on more sails; pursue; up with your fights;\n    Give fire; she is my prize, or ocean whelm them all!    Exit\n  FALSTAFF. Say'st thou so, old Jack; go thy ways; I'll make\n    more of thy old body than I have done. Will they yet look\n    after thee? Wilt thou, after the expense of so much money,\n    be now a gainer? Good body, I thank thee. Let them say\n    'tis grossly done; so it be fairly done, no matter.\n\n                         Enter BARDOLPH\n\n  BARDOLPH. Sir John, there's one Master Brook below would\n    fain speak with you, and be acquainted with you; and hath\n    sent your worship a moming's draught of sack.\n  FALSTAFF. Brook is his name?\n  BARDOLPH. Ay, sir.\n  FALSTAFF. Call him in.  [Exit BARDOLPH]  Such Brooks are\n    welcome to me, that o'erflows such liquor. Ah, ha! Mistress\n    Ford and Mistress Page, have I encompass'd you? Go to;\n    via!\n\n              Re-enter BARDOLPH, with FORD disguised\n\n  FORD. Bless you, sir!\n  FALSTAFF. And you, sir! Would you speak with me?\n  FORD. I make bold to press with so little preparation upon\n    you.\n  FALSTAFF. You're welcome. What's your will? Give us leave,\n    drawer.                                        Exit BARDOLPH\n  FORD. Sir, I am a gentleman that have spent much; my name\n    is Brook.\n  FALSTAFF. Good Master Brook, I desire more acquaintance\n    of you.\n  FORD. Good Sir John, I sue for yours-not to charge you; for I\n    must let you understand I think myself in better plight for\n    a lender than you are; the which hath something\n    embold'ned me to this unseason'd intrusion; for they say, if\n    money go before, all ways do lie open.\n  FALSTAFF. Money is a good soldier, sir, and will on.\n  FORD. Troth, and I have a bag of money here troubles me; if\n    you will help to bear it, Sir John, take all, or half, for easing\n    me of the carriage.\n  FALSTAFF. Sir, I know not how I may deserve to be your\n    porter.\n  FORD. I will tell you, sir, if you will give me the hearing.\n  FALSTAFF. Speak, good Master Brook; I shall be glad to be\n    your servant.\n  FORD. Sir, I hear you are a scholar-I will be brief with you\n    -and you have been a man long known to me, though I\n    had never so good means as desire to make myself acquainted\n    with you. I shall discover a thing to you, wherein\n    I must very much lay open mine own imperfection; but,\n    good Sir John, as you have one eye upon my follies, as you\n    hear them unfolded, turn another into the register of your\n    own, that I may pass with a reproof the easier, sith you\n    yourself know how easy is it to be such an offender.\n  FALSTAFF. Very well, sir; proceed.\n  FORD. There is a gentlewoman in this town, her husband's\n    name is Ford.\n  FALSTAFF. Well, sir.\n  FORD. I have long lov'd her, and, I protest to you, bestowed\n    much on her; followed her with a doting observance;\n    engross'd opportunities to meet her; fee'd every slight occasion\n    that could but niggardly give me sight of her; not\n    only bought many presents to give her, but have given\n    largely to many to know what she would have given;\n    briefly, I have pursu'd her as love hath pursued me; which\n    hath been on the wing of all occasions. But whatsoever I\n    have merited, either in my mind or in my means, meed, I\n    am sure, I have received none, unless experience be a jewel;\n    that I have purchased at an infinite rate, and that hath\n    taught me to say this:\n    'Love like a shadow flies when substance love pursues;\n    Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues.'\n  FALSTAFF. Have you receiv'd no promise of satisfaction at\n    her hands?\n  FORD. Never.\n  FALSTAFF. Have you importun'd her to such a purpose?\n  FORD. Never.\n    FALSTAFF. Of what quality was your love, then?\n  FORD. Like a fair house built on another man's ground; so\n    that I have lost my edifice by mistaking the place where\n    erected it.\n  FALSTAFF. To what purpose have you unfolded this to me?\n  FORD. When I have told you that, I have told you all. Some\n    say that though she appear honest to me, yet in other\n    places she enlargeth her mirth so far that there is shrewd\n    construction made of her. Now, Sir John, here is the heart\n    of my purpose: you are a gentleman of excellent\n    breeding, admirable discourse, of great admittance, authentic in\n    your place and person, generally allow'd for your many\n    war-like, courtlike, and learned preparations.\n  FALSTAFF. O, sir!\n  FORD. Believe it, for you know it. There is money; spend it,\n    spend it; spend more; spend all I have; only give me so\n    much of your time in exchange of it as to lay an amiable\n    siege to the honesty of this Ford's wife; use your art of\n    wooing, win her to consent to you; if any man may, you\n    may as soon as any.\n    FALSTAFF. Would it apply well to the vehemency of your\n    affection, that I should win what you would enjoy?\n    Methinks you prescribe to yourself very preposterously.\n  FORD. O, understand my drift. She dwells so securely on the\n    excellency of her honour that the folly of my soul dares\n    not present itself; she is too bright to be look'd against.\n    Now, could I come to her with any detection in my hand,\n    my desires had instance and argument to commend themselves;\n    I could drive her then from the ward of her purity,\n    her reputation, her marriage vow, and a thousand other her\n    defences, which now are too too strongly embattl'd against\n    me. What say you to't, Sir John?\n  FALSTAFF. Master Brook, I will first make bold with your\n    money; next, give me your hand; and last, as I am a gentleman,\n    you shall, if you will, enjoy Ford's wife.\n  FORD. O good sir!\n  FALSTAFF. I say you shall.\n  FORD. Want no money, Sir John; you shall want none.\n  FALSTAFF. Want no Mistress Ford, Master Brook; you shall\n    want none. I shall be with her, I may tell you, by her own\n    appointment; even as you came in to me her assistant, or\n    go-between, parted from me; I say I shall be with her between\n    ten and eleven; for at that time the jealous rascally\n    knave, her husband, will be forth. Come you to me at\n    night; you shall know how I speed.\n  FORD. I am blest in your acquaintance. Do you know Ford,\n    Sir?\n  FALSTAFF. Hang him, poor cuckoldly knave! I know him\n    not; yet I wrong him to call him poor; they say the\n    jealous wittolly knave hath masses of money; for the which\n    his wife seems to me well-favour'd. I will use her as the\n    key of the cuckoldly rogue's coffer; and there's my harvest-home.\n  FORD. I would you knew Ford, sir, that you might avoid him\n    if you saw him.\n  FALSTAFF. Hang him, mechanical salt-butter rogue! I will\n    stare him out of his wits; I will awe him with my cudgel;\n    it shall hang like a meteor o'er the cuckold's horns. Master\n    Brook, thou shalt know I will predominate over the\n    peasant, and thou shalt lie with his wife. Come to me soon at\n    night. Ford's a knave, and I will aggravate his style; thou,\n    Master Brook, shalt know him for knave and cuckold.\n    Come to me soon at night.                               Exit\n  FORD. What a damn'd Epicurean rascal is this! My heart is\n    ready to crack with impatience. Who says this is improvident\n    jealousy? My wife hath sent to him; the hour is fix'd;\n    the match is made. Would any man have thought this? See\n    the hell of having a false woman! My bed shall be abus'd,\n    my coffers ransack'd, my reputation gnawn at; and I shall\n    not only receive this villainous wrong, but stand under the\n    adoption of abominable terms, and by him that does me\n    this wrong. Terms! names! Amaimon sounds well; Lucifer,\n    well; Barbason, well; yet they are devils' additions, the names\n    of fiends. But cuckold! Wittol! Cuckold! the devil himself\n    hath not such a name. Page is an ass, a secure ass; he will trust\n    his wife; he will not be jealous; I will rather trust a Fleming\n    with my butter, Parson Hugh the Welshman with my\n    cheese, an Irishman with my aqua-vitae bottle, or a thief to\n    walk my ambling gelding, than my wife with herself. Then\n    she plots, then she ruminates, then she devises; and what\n    they think in their hearts they may effect, they will break\n    their hearts but they will effect. God be prais'd for my\n    jealousy! Eleven o'clock the hour. I will prevent this, detect\n    my wife, be reveng'd on Falstaff, and laugh at Page.\n    I will about it; better three hours too soon than a minute\n    too late. Fie, fie, fie! cuckold! cuckold! cuckold!     Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nA field near Windsor\n\nEnter CAIUS and RUGBY\n\n  CAIUS. Jack Rugby!\n  RUGBY. Sir?\n  CAIUS. Vat is de clock, Jack?\n  RUGBY. 'Tis past the hour, sir, that Sir Hugh promis'd to\n    meet.\n  CAIUS. By gar, he has save his soul dat he is no come; he has\n    pray his Pible well dat he is no come; by gar, Jack Rugby,\n    he is dead already, if he be come.\n  RUGBY. He is wise, sir; he knew your worship would kill\n    him if he came.\n  CAIUS. By gar, de herring is no dead so as I vill kill him. Take\n    your rapier, Jack; I vill tell you how I vill kill him.\n  RUGBY. Alas, sir, I cannot fence!\n  CAIUS. Villainy, take your rapier.\n  RUGBY. Forbear; here's company.\n\n            Enter HOST, SHALLOW, SLENDER, and PAGE\n\n  HOST. Bless thee, bully doctor!\n  SHALLOW. Save you, Master Doctor Caius!\n  PAGE. Now, good Master Doctor!\n  SLENDER. Give you good morrow, sir.\n  CAIUS. Vat be all you, one, two, tree, four, come for?\n  HOST. To see thee fight, to see thee foin, to see thee traverse;\n    to see thee here, to see thee there; to see thee pass thy\n    punto, thy stock, thy reverse, thy distance, thy montant.\n    Is he dead, my Ethiopian? Is he dead, my Francisco? Ha,\n    bully! What says my Aesculapius? my Galen? my heart\n    of elder? Ha! is he dead, bully stale? Is he dead?\n  CAIUS. By gar, he is de coward Jack priest of de world; he is\n    not show his face.\n  HOST. Thou art a Castalion-King-Urinal. Hector of Greece,\n    my boy!\n  CAIUS. I pray you, bear witness that me have stay six or\n    seven, two tree hours for him, and he is no come.\n  SHALLOW. He is the wiser man, Master Doctor: he is a curer\n    of souls, and you a curer of bodies; if you should fight,\n    you go against the hair of your professions. Is it not true,\n    Master Page?\n  PAGE. Master Shallow, you have yourself been a great fighter,\n    though now a man of peace.\n  SHALLOW. Bodykins, Master Page, though I now be old, and\n    of the peace, if I see a sword out, my finger itches to make\n    one. Though we are justices, and doctors, and churchmen,\n    Master Page, we have some salt of our youth in us; we are\n    the sons of women, Master Page.\n  PAGE. 'Tis true, Master Shallow.\n  SHALLOW. It will be found so, Master Page. Master Doctor\n  CAIUS, I come to fetch you home. I am sworn of the peace;\n    you have show'd yourself a wise physician, and Sir Hugh\n    hath shown himself a wise and patient churchman. You\n    must go with me, Master Doctor.\n  HOST. Pardon, Guest Justice. A word, Mounseur Mockwater.\n  CAIUS. Mock-vater! Vat is dat?\n  HOST. Mockwater, in our English tongue, is valour, bully.\n  CAIUS. By gar, then I have as much mockvater as de Englishman.\n    Scurvy jack-dog priest! By gar, me vill cut his ears.\n  HOST. He will clapper-claw thee tightly, bully.\n  CAIUS. Clapper-de-claw! Vat is dat?\n  HOST. That is, he will make thee amends.\n  CAIUS. By gar, me do look he shall clapper-de-claw me; for,\n    by gar, me vill have it.\n  HOST. And I will provoke him to't, or let him wag.\n  CAIUS. Me tank you for dat.\n  HOST. And, moreover, bully-but first:  [Aside to the others]\n    Master Guest, and Master Page, and eke Cavaleiro Slender,\n    go you through the town to Frogmore.\n  PAGE.  [Aside]  Sir Hugh is there, is he?\n  HOST.  [Aside]  He is there. See what humour he is in; and\n    I will bring the doctor about by the fields. Will it do well?\n  SHALLOW.  [Aside]  We will do it.\n  PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER. Adieu, good Master Doctor.\n                               Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER\n  CAIUS. By gar, me vill kill de priest; for he speak for a jack-\n    an-ape to Anne Page.\n  HOST. Let him die. Sheathe thy impatience; throw cold water\n    on thy choler; go about the fields with me through Frogmore;\n    I will bring thee where Mistress Anne Page is, at a a\n    farm-house, a-feasting; and thou shalt woo her. Cried\n    game! Said I well?\n  CAIUS. By gar, me dank you vor dat; by gar, I love you; and\n    I shall procure-a you de good guest, de earl, de knight, de\n    lords, de gentlemen, my patients.\n  HOST. For the which I will be thy adversary toward Anne\n    Page. Said I well?\n  CAIUS. By gar, 'tis good; vell said.\n  HOST. Let us wag, then.\n  CAIUS. Come at my heels, Jack Rugby.                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III SCENE 1.\n\nA field near Frogmore\n\nEnter SIR HUGH EVANS and SIMPLE\n\n  EVANS. I pray you now, good Master Slender's serving-man,\n    and friend Simple by your name, which way have you\n    look'd for Master Caius, that calls himself Doctor of\n    Physic?\n  SIMPLE. Marry, sir, the pittie-ward, the park-ward; every\n    way; old Windsor way, and every way but the town way.\n  EVANS. I most fehemently desire you you will also look that\n    way.\n  SIMPLE. I will, Sir.                                      Exit\n  EVANS. Pless my soul, how full of chollors I am, and trempling\n    of mind! I shall be glad if he have deceived me. How\n    melancholies I am! I will knog his urinals about his knave's\n    costard when I have goot opportunities for the ork. Pless\n    my soul!                                             [Sings]\n    To shallow rivers, to whose falls\n    Melodious birds sings madrigals;\n    There will we make our peds of roses,\n    And a thousand fragrant posies.\n    To shallow-\n    Mercy on me! I have a great dispositions to cry.     [Sings]\n    Melodious birds sing madrigals-\n    Whenas I sat in Pabylon-\n    And a thousand vagram posies.\n    To shallow, etc.\n\n                       Re-enter SIMPLE\n\n  SIMPLE. Yonder he is, coming this way, Sir Hugh.\n  EVANS. He's welcome.                                   [Sings]\n    To shallow rivers, to whose falls-\n    Heaven prosper the right! What weapons is he?\n  SIMPLE. No weapons, sir. There comes my master, Master\n    Shallow, and another gentleman, from Frogmore, over the\n    stile, this way.\n  EVANS. Pray you give me my gown; or else keep it in your\n    arms.                                     [Takes out a book]\n\n               Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER\n\n  SHALLOW. How now, Master Parson! Good morrow, good\n    Sir Hugh. Keep a gamester from the dice, and a good student\n     from his book, and it is wonderful.\n  SLENDER.  [Aside]  Ah, sweet Anne Page!\n  PAGE. Save you, good Sir Hugh!\n  EVANS. Pless you from his mercy sake, all of you!\n  SHALLOW. What, the sword and the word! Do you study\n    them both, Master Parson?\n  PAGE. And youthful still, in your doublet and hose, this raw\n    rheumatic day!\n  EVANS. There is reasons and causes for it.\n  PAGE. We are come to you to do a good office, Master\n    Parson.\n  EVANS. Fery well; what is it?\n  PAGE. Yonder is a most reverend gentleman, who, belike having\n    received wrong by some person, is at most odds with\n    his own gravity and patience that ever you saw.\n  SHALLOW. I have lived fourscore years and upward; I never\n    heard a man of his place, gravity, and learning, so wide of\n    his own respect.\n  EVANS. What is he?\n  PAGE. I think you know him: Master Doctor Caius, the\n    renowned French physician.\n  EVANS. Got's will and his passion of my heart! I had as lief\n    you would tell me of a mess of porridge.\n  PAGE. Why?\n  EVANS. He has no more knowledge in Hibocrates and\n    Galen, and he is a knave besides-a cowardly knave as you\n    would desires to be acquainted withal.\n  PAGE. I warrant you, he's the man should fight with him.\n  SLENDER.  [Aside]  O sweet Anne Page!\n  SHALLOW. It appears so, by his weapons. Keep them asunder;\n    here comes Doctor Caius.\n\n                 Enter HOST, CAIUS, and RUGBY\n\n  PAGE. Nay, good Master Parson, keep in your weapon.\n  SHALLOW. So do you, good Master Doctor.\n  HOST. Disarm them, and let them question; let them keep\n    their limbs whole and hack our English.\n  CAIUS. I pray you, let-a me speak a word with your ear.\n    Verefore will you not meet-a me?\n  EVANS.  [Aside to CAIUS]  Pray you use your patience; in\n    good time.\n  CAIUS. By gar, you are de coward, de Jack dog, John ape.\n  EVANS.  [Aside to CAIUS]  Pray you, let us not be\n    laughing-stocks to other men's humours; I desire you in\n    friendship, and I will one way or other make you amends.\n    [Aloud]  I will knog your urinals about your knave's cogscomb\n    for missing your meetings and appointments.\n  CAIUS. Diable! Jack Rugby-mine Host de Jarteer-have I\n    not stay for him to kill him? Have I not, at de place I did\n    appoint?\n  EVANS. As I am a Christians soul, now, look you, this is the\n    place appointed. I'll be judgment by mine host of the\n    Garter.\n  HOST. Peace, I say, Gallia and Gaul, French and Welsh,\n    soul-curer and body-curer.\n  CAIUS. Ay, dat is very good! excellent!\n  HOST. Peace, I say. Hear mine host of the Garter. Am I\n    politic? am I subtle? am I a Machiavel? Shall I lose my\n    doctor? No; he gives me the potions and the motions. Shall I\n    lose my parson, my priest, my Sir Hugh? No; he gives me\n    the proverbs and the noverbs. Give me thy hand, terrestrial;\n    so. Give me thy hand, celestial; so. Boys of art, I have\n    deceiv'd you both; I have directed you to wrong places;\n    your hearts are mighty, your skins are whole, and let burnt\n    sack be the issue. Come, lay their swords to pawn. Follow\n    me, lads of peace; follow, follow, follow.\n  SHALLOW. Trust me, a mad host. Follow, gentlemen, follow.\n  SLENDER.  [Aside]  O sweet Anne Page!\n                                  Exeunt all but CAIUS and EVANS\n  CAIUS. Ha, do I perceive dat? Have you make-a de sot of us,\n    ha, ha?\n  EVANS. This is well; he has made us his vlouting-stog. I\n    desire you that we may be friends; and let us knog our prains\n    together to be revenge on this same scall, scurvy, cogging\n    companion, the host of the Garter.\n  CAIUS. By gar, with all my heart. He promise to bring me\n    where is Anne Page; by gar, he deceive me too.\n  EVANS. Well, I will smite his noddles. Pray you follow.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nThe street in Windsor\n\nEnter MISTRESS PAGE and ROBIN\n\n  MRS. PAGE. Nay, keep your way, little gallant; you were\n    wont to be a follower, but now you are a leader. Whether\n    had you rather lead mine eyes, or eye your master's heels?\n  ROBIN. I had rather, forsooth, go before you like a man than\n    follow him like a dwarf.\n  MRS. PAGE. O, you are a flattering boy; now I see you'll be a\n    courtier.\n\n                          Enter FORD\n\n  FORD. Well met, Mistress Page. Whither go you?\n  MRS. PAGE. Truly, sir, to see your wife. Is she at home?\n  FORD. Ay; and as idle as she may hang together, for want of\n    company. I think, if your husbands were dead, you two\n    would marry.\n  MRS. PAGE. Be sure of that-two other husbands.\n  FORD. Where had you this pretty weathercock?\n  MRS. PAGE. I cannot tell what the dickens his name is my\n    husband had him of. What do you call your knight's\n    name, sirrah?\n  ROBIN. Sir John Falstaff.\n  FORD. Sir John Falstaff!\n  MRS. PAGE. He, he; I can never hit on's name. There is such\n    a league between my good man and he! Is your wife at\n    home indeed?\n  FORD. Indeed she is.\n  MRS. PAGE. By your leave, sir. I am sick till I see her.\n                                      Exeunt MRS. PAGE and ROBIN\n  FORD. Has Page any brains? Hath he any eyes? Hath he any\n    thinking? Sure, they sleep; he hath no use of them. Why,\n    this boy will carry a letter twenty mile as easy as a cannon\n    will shoot pointblank twelve score. He pieces out his wife's\n    inclination; he gives her folly motion and advantage; and\n    now she's going to my wife, and Falstaff's boy with her. A\n    man may hear this show'r sing in the wind. And Falstaff's\n    boy with her! Good plots! They are laid; and our revolted\n    wives share damnation together. Well; I will take him,\n    then torture my wife, pluck the borrowed veil of modesty\n    from the so seeming Mistress Page, divulge Page himself\n    for a secure and wilful Actaeon; and to these violent proceedings\n    all my neighbours shall cry aim.  [Clock strikes]\n    The clock gives me my cue, and my assurance bids me\n    search; there I shall find Falstaff. I shall be rather prais'd\n    for this than mock'd; for it is as positive as the earth is firm\n    that Falstaff is there. I will go.\n\n     Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, SLENDER, HOST, SIR HUGH EVANS,\n                              CAIUS, and RUGBY\n\n  SHALLOW, PAGE, &C. Well met, Master Ford.\n  FORD. Trust me, a good knot; I have good cheer at home,\n    and I pray you all go with me.\n  SHALLOW. I must excuse myself, Master Ford.\n  SLENDER. And so must I, sir; we have appointed to dine with\n    Mistress Anne, and I would not break with her for more\n    money than I'll speak of.\n  SHALLOW. We have linger'd about a match between Anne\n    Page and my cousin Slender, and this day we shall have\n    our answer.\n  SLENDER. I hope I have your good will, father Page.\n  PAGE. You have, Master Slender; I stand wholly for you. But\n    my wife, Master Doctor, is for you altogether.\n  CAIUS. Ay, be-gar; and de maid is love-a me; my nursh-a\n    Quickly tell me so mush.\n  HOST. What say you to young Master Fenton? He capers,\n    he dances, he has eyes of youth, he writes verses, he speaks\n    holiday, he smells April and May; he will carry 't, he will\n    carry 't; 'tis in his buttons; he will carry 't.\n  PAGE. Not by my consent, I promise you. The gentleman is\n    of no having: he kept company with the wild Prince and\n    Poins; he is of too high a region, he knows too much. No,\n    he shall not knit a knot in his fortunes with the finger of\n    my substance; if he take her, let him take her simply; the\n    wealth I have waits on my consent, and my consent goes\n    not that way.\n  FORD. I beseech you, heartily, some of you go home with me\n    to dinner: besides your cheer, you shall have sport; I will\n    show you a monster. Master Doctor, you shall go; so shall\n    you, Master Page; and you, Sir Hugh.\n  SHALLOW. Well, fare you well; we shall have the freer\n    wooing at Master Page's.          Exeunt SHALLOW and SLENDER\n  CAIUS. Go home, John Rugby; I come anon.            Exit RUGBY\n  HOST. Farewell, my hearts; I will to my honest knight\n    Falstaff, and drink canary with him.               Exit HOST\n  FORD.  [Aside]  I think I shall drink in pipe-wine first with\n    him. I'll make him dance. Will you go, gentles?\n  ALL. Have with you to see this monster.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nFORD'S house\n\nEnter MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE\n\n  MRS. FORD. What, John! what, Robert!\n  MRS. PAGE. Quickly, quickly! Is the buck-basket-\n  MRS. FORD. I warrant. What, Robin, I say!\n\n                 Enter SERVANTS with a basket\n\n  MRS. PAGE. Come, come, come.\n  MRS. FORD. Here, set it down.\n  MRS. PAGE. Give your men the charge; we must be brief.\n  MRS. FORD. Marry, as I told you before, John and Robert, be\n    ready here hard by in the brew-house; and when I suddenly\n    call you, come forth, and, without any pause or\n    staggering, take this basket on your shoulders. That done,\n    trudge with it in all haste, and carry it among the whitsters\n    in Datchet Mead, and there empty it in the muddy ditch\n    close by the Thames side.\n  Mrs. PAGE. You will do it?\n  MRS. FORD. I ha' told them over and over; they lack no\n    direction. Be gone, and come when you are call'd.\n                                               Exeunt SERVANTS\n  MRS. PAGE. Here comes little Robin.\n\n                         Enter ROBIN\n\n  MRS. FORD. How now, my eyas-musket, what news with\n    you?\n  ROBIN. My Master Sir John is come in at your back-door,\n    Mistress Ford, and requests your company.\n  MRS. PAGE. You little Jack-a-Lent, have you been true to us?\n  ROBIN. Ay, I'll be sworn. My master knows not of your\n    being here, and hath threat'ned to put me into everlasting\n    liberty, if I tell you of it; for he swears he'll turn me away.\n  MRS. PAGE. Thou 'rt a good boy; this secrecy of thine shall\n    be a tailor to thee, and shall make thee a new doublet and\n    hose. I'll go hide me.\n  MRS. FORD. Do so. Go tell thy master I am alone.  [Exit\n  ROBIN]  Mistress Page, remember you your cue.\n  MRS. PAGE. I warrant thee; if I do not act it, hiss me.\n                                                Exit MRS. PAGE\n  MRS. FORD. Go to, then; we'll use this unwholesome\n    humidity, this gross wat'ry pumpion; we'll teach him to\n    know turtles from jays.\n\n                      Enter FALSTAFF\n\n  FALSTAFF. Have I caught thee, my heavenly jewel?\n    Why, now let me die, for I have liv'd long enough; this is\n    the period of my ambition. O this blessed hour!\n  MRS. FORD. O sweet Sir John!\n  FALSTAFF. Mistress Ford, I cannot cog, I cannot prate,\n    Mistress Ford. Now shall I sin in my wish; I would thy\n    husband were dead; I'll speak it before the best lord, I\n    would make thee my lady.\n  MRS. FORD. I your lady, Sir John? Alas, I should be a pitiful\n    lady.\n  FALSTAFF. Let the court of France show me such another. I\n    see how thine eye would emulate the diamond; thou hast\n    the right arched beauty of the brow that becomes the\n    ship-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian admittance.\n  MRS. FORD. A plain kerchief, Sir John; my brows become\n    nothing else, nor that well neither.\n  FALSTAFF. By the Lord, thou art a tyrant to say so; thou\n    wouldst make an absolute courtier, and the firm fixture of\n    thy foot would give an excellent motion to thy gait in a\n    semi-circled farthingale. I see what thou wert, if Fortune\n    thy foe were, not Nature, thy friend. Come, thou canst not\n    hide it.\n  MRS. FORD. Believe me, there's no such thing in me.\n  FALSTAFF. What made me love thee? Let that persuade thee\n    there's something extra-ordinary in thee. Come, I cannot\n    cog, and say thou art this and that, like a many of these\n    lisping hawthorn-buds that come like women in men's\n    apparel, and smell like Bucklersbury in simple time; I\n    cannot; but I love thee, none but thee; and thou deserv'st it.\n  MRS. FORD. Do not betray me, sir; I fear you love Mistress\n    Page.\n  FALSTAFF. Thou mightst as well say I love to walk by the\n    Counter-gate, which is as hateful to me as the reek of a\n    lime-kiln.\n  MRS. FORD. Well, heaven knows how I love you; and you\n    shall one day find it.\n  FALSTAFF. Keep in that mind; I'll deserve it.\n  MRS. FORD. Nay, I must tell you, so you do; or else I could\n    not be in that mind.\n  ROBIN.  [Within]  Mistress Ford, Mistress Ford! here's\n    Mistress Page at the door, sweating and blowing and looking\n    wildly, and would needs speak with you presently.\n  FALSTAFF. She shall not see me; I will ensconce me behind\n    the arras.\n  MRS. FORD. Pray you, do so; she's a very tattling woman.\n                                      [FALSTAFF hides himself]\n\n               Re-enter MISTRESS PAGE and ROBIN\n\n    What's the matter? How now!\n  MRS. PAGE. O Mistress Ford, what have you done? You're\n    sham'd, y'are overthrown, y'are undone for ever.\n  MRS. FORD. What's the matter, good Mistress Page?\n  MRS. PAGE. O well-a-day, Mistress Ford, having an honest\n    man to your husband, to give him such cause of suspicion!\n  MRS. FORD. What cause of suspicion?\n  MRS. PAGE. What cause of suspicion? Out upon you, how\n    am I mistook in you!\n  MRS. FORD. Why, alas, what's the matter?\n  MRS. PAGE. Your husband's coming hither, woman, with all\n    the officers in Windsor, to search for a gentleman that he\n    says is here now in the house, by your consent, to take an\n    ill advantage of his absence. You are undone.\n  MRS. FORD. 'Tis not so, I hope.\n  MRS. PAGE. Pray heaven it be not so that you have such a\n    man here; but 'tis most certain your husband's coming,\n    with half Windsor at his heels, to search for such a one. I\n    come before to tell you. If you know yourself clear, why,\n    I am glad of it; but if you have a friend here, convey,\n    convey him out. Be not amaz'd; call all your senses to you;\n    defend your reputation, or bid farewell to your good life\n    for ever.\n  MRS. FORD. What shall I do? There is a gentleman, my dear\n    friend; and I fear not mine own shame as much as his peril.\n    I had rather than a thousand pound he were out of the\n    house.\n  MRS. PAGE. For shame, never stand 'you had rather' and 'you\n    had rather'! Your husband's here at hand; bethink you of\n    some conveyance; in the house you cannot hide him. O,\n    how have you deceiv'd me! Look, here is a basket; if he be\n    of any reasonable stature, he may creep in here; and throw\n    foul linen upon him, as if it were going to bucking, or-it is\n    whiting-time-send him by your two men to Datchet\n    Mead.\n  MRS. FORD. He's too big to go in there. What shall I do?\n  FALSTAFF.  [Coming forward]  Let me see 't, let me see 't. O,\n    let me see 't! I'll in, I'll in; follow your friend's counsel;\n    I'll in.\n  MRS. PAGE. What, Sir John Falstaff!      [Aside to FALSTAFF]\n    Are these your letters, knight?\n  FALSTAFF.  [Aside to MRS. PAGE]  I love thee and none but\n    thee; help me away.-Let me creep in here; I'll never-\n    [Gets into the basket; they cover him with foul linen]\n  MRS. PAGE. Help to cover your master, boy. Call your men,\n    Mistress Ford. You dissembling knight!\n  MRS. FORD. What, John! Robert! John!                Exit ROBIN\n\n                 Re-enter SERVANTS\n\n    Go, take up these clothes here, quickly; where's the\n    cowl-staff? Look how you drumble. Carry them to the laundress\n    in Datchet Mead; quickly, come.\n\n         Enter FORD, PAGE, CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS\n\n  FORD. Pray you come near. If I suspect without cause, why\n    then make sport at me, then let me be your jest; I deserve\n    it. How now, whither bear you this?\n  SERVANT. To the laundress, forsooth.\n  MRS. FORD. Why, what have you to do whither they bear it?\n    You were best meddle with buck-washing.\n  FORD. Buck? I would I could wash myself of the buck!\n    Buck, buck, buck! ay, buck! I warrant you, buck; and of\n    the season too, it shall appear.  [Exeunt SERVANTS with\n    basket]  Gentlemen, I have dream'd to-night; I'll tell you my\n    dream. Here, here, here be my keys; ascend my chambers,\n    search, seek, find out. I'll warrant we'll unkennel the fox.\n    Let me stop this way first.  [Locking the door]  So, now\n    uncape.\n  PAGE. Good Master Ford, be contented; you wrong yourself\n    too much.\n  FORD. True, Master Page. Up, gentlemen, you shall see sport\n    anon; follow me, gentlemen.                             Exit\n  EVANS. This is fery fantastical humours and jealousies.\n  CAIUS. By gar, 'tis no the fashion of France; it is not jealous\n    in France.\n  PAGE. Nay, follow him, gentlemen; see the issue of his\n    search.                        Exeunt EVANS, PAGE, and CAIUS\n  MRS. PAGE. Is there not a double excellency in this?\n  MRS. FORD. I know not which pleases me better, that my\n    husband is deceived, or Sir John.\n  MRS. PAGE. What a taking was he in when your husband\n    ask'd who was in the basket!\n  MRS. FORD. I am half afraid he will have need of washing; so\n    throwing him into the water will do him a benefit.\n  MRS. PAGE. Hang him, dishonest rascal! I would all of the\n    same strain were in the same distress.\n  MRS. FORD. I think my husband hath some special suspicion\n    of Falstaff's being here, for I never saw him so gross in his\n    jealousy till now.\n  MRS. PAGE. I Will lay a plot to try that, and we will yet have\n    more tricks with Falstaff. His dissolute disease will scarce\n    obey this medicine.\n  MRS. FORD. Shall we send that foolish carrion, Mistress\n    Quickly, to him, and excuse his throwing into the water,\n    and give him another hope, to betray him to another\n    punishment?\n  MRS. PAGE. We will do it; let him be sent for to-morrow\n    eight o'clock, to have amends.\n\n       Re-enter FORD, PAGE, CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS\n\n  FORD. I cannot find him; may be the knave bragg'd of that\n    he could not compass.\n  MRS. PAGE.  [Aside to MRS. FORD]  Heard you that?\n  MRS. FORD. You use me well, Master Ford, do you?\n  FORD. Ay, I do so.\n  MRS. FORD. Heaven make you better than your thoughts!\n  FORD. Amen.\n  MRS. PAGE. You do yourself mighty wrong, Master Ford.\n  FORD. Ay, ay; I must bear it.\n  EVANS. If there be any pody in the house, and in the\n    chambers, and in the coffers, and in the presses, heaven forgive\n    my sins at the day of judgment!\n  CAIUS. Be gar, nor I too; there is no bodies.\n  PAGE. Fie, fie, Master Ford, are you not asham'd? What\n    spirit, what devil suggests this imagination? I would not ha'\n    your distemper in this kind for the wealth of Windsor\n    Castle.\n  FORD. 'Tis my fault, Master Page; I suffer for it.\n  EVANS. You suffer for a pad conscience. Your wife is as\n    honest a omans as I will desires among five thousand, and five\n    hundred too.\n  CAIUS. By gar, I see 'tis an honest woman.\n  FORD. Well, I promis'd you a dinner. Come, come, walk in\n    the Park. I pray you pardon me; I will hereafter make\n    known to you why I have done this. Come, wife, come,\n    Mistress Page; I pray you pardon me; pray heartly,\n    pardon me.\n  PAGE. Let's go in, gentlemen; but, trust me, we'll mock him.\n    I do invite you to-morrow morning to my house to breakfast;\n    after, we'll a-birding together; I have a fine hawk for\n    the bush. Shall it be so?\n  FORD. Any thing.\n  EVANS. If there is one, I shall make two in the company.\n  CAIUS. If there be one or two, I shall make-a the turd.\n  FORD. Pray you go, Master Page.\n  EVANS. I pray you now, remembrance to-morrow on the\n    lousy knave, mine host.\n  CAIUS. Dat is good; by gar, with all my heart.\n  EVANS. A lousy knave, to have his gibes and his mockeries!\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\n\nBefore PAGE'S house\n\nEnter FENTON and ANNE PAGE\n\n  FENTON. I see I cannot get thy father's love;\n    Therefore no more turn me to him, sweet Nan.\n  ANNE. Alas, how then?\n  FENTON. Why, thou must be thyself.\n    He doth object I am too great of birth;\n    And that, my state being gall'd with my expense,\n    I seek to heal it only by his wealth.\n    Besides these, other bars he lays before me,\n    My riots past, my wild societies;\n    And tells me 'tis a thing impossible\n    I should love thee but as a property.\n  ANNE.. May be he tells you true.\n  FENTON. No, heaven so speed me in my time to come!\n    Albeit I will confess thy father's wealth\n    Was the first motive that I woo'd thee, Anne;\n    Yet, wooing thee, I found thee of more value\n    Than stamps in gold, or sums in sealed bags;\n    And 'tis the very riches of thyself\n    That now I aim at.\n  ANNE. Gentle Master Fenton,\n    Yet seek my father's love; still seek it, sir.\n    If opportunity and humblest suit\n    Cannot attain it, why then-hark you hither.\n                                           [They converse apart]\n\n        Enter SHALLOW, SLENDER, and MISTRESS QUICKLY\n\n  SHALLOW. Break their talk, Mistress Quickly; my kinsman\n    shall speak for himself.\n  SLENDER. I'll make a shaft or a bolt on 't; 'slid, 'tis but\n    venturing.\n  SHALLOW. Be not dismay'd.\n  SLENDER. No, she shall not dismay me. I care not for that,\n    but that I am afeard.\n  QUICKLY. Hark ye, Master Slender would speak a word\n    with you.\n  ANNE. I come to him.  [Aside]  This is my father's choice.\n    O, what a world of vile ill-favour'd faults\n    Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year!\n  QUICKLY. And how does good Master Fenton? Pray you, a\n    word with you.\n  SHALLOW. She's coming; to her, coz. O boy, thou hadst a\n    father!\n  SLENDER. I had a father, Mistress Anne; my uncle can tell\n    you good jests of him. Pray you, uncle, tell Mistress Anne\n    the jest how my father stole two geese out of a pen, good\n    uncle.\n  SHALLOW. Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you.\n  SLENDER. Ay, that I do; as well as I love any woman in\n    Gloucestershire.\n  SHALLOW. He will maintain you like a gentlewoman.\n  SLENDER. Ay, that I will come cut and longtail, under the\n    degree of a squire.\n  SHALLOW. He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds\n    jointure.\n  ANNE. Good Master Shallow, let him woo for himself.\n  SHALLOW. Marry, I thank you for it; I thank you for that\n    good comfort. She calls you, coz; I'll leave you.\n  ANNE. Now, Master Slender-\n  SLENDER. Now, good Mistress Anne-\n  ANNE. What is your will?\n  SLENDER. My Will! 'Od's heartlings, that's a pretty jest\n    indeed! I ne'er made my will yet, I thank heaven; I am not\n    such a sickly creature, I give heaven praise.\n  ANNE. I mean, Master Slender, what would you with me?\n  SLENDER. Truly, for mine own part I would little or nothing\n    with you. Your father and my uncle hath made motions;\n    if it be my luck, so; if not, happy man be his dole! They\n    can tell you how things go better than I can. You may ask\n    your father; here he comes.\n\n            Enter PAGE and MISTRESS PAGE\n\n  PAGE. Now, Master Slender! Love him, daughter Anne-\n    Why, how now, what does Master Fenton here?\n    You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house.\n    I told you, sir, my daughter is dispos'd of.\n  FENTON. Nay, Master Page, be not impatient.\n  MRS. PAGE. Good Master Fenton, come not to my child.\n  PAGE. She is no match for you.\n  FENTON. Sir, will you hear me?\n  PAGE. No, good Master Fenton.\n    Come, Master Shallow; come, son Slender; in.\n    Knowing my mind, you wrong me, Master Fenton.\n                               Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER\n  QUICKLY. Speak to Mistress Page.\n  FENTON. Good Mistress Page, for that I love your daughter\n    In such a righteous fashion as I do,\n    Perforce, against all checks, rebukes, and manners,\n    I must advance the colours of my love,\n    And not retire. Let me have your good will.\n  ANNE. Good mother, do not marry me to yond fool.\n  MRS. PAGE. I mean it not; I seek you a better husband.\n  QUICKLY. That's my master, Master Doctor.\n  ANNE. Alas, I had rather be set quick i' th' earth.\n    And bowl'd to death with turnips.\n  MRS. PAGE. Come, trouble not yourself. Good Master\n    Fenton,\n    I will not be your friend, nor enemy;\n    My daughter will I question how she loves you,\n    And as I find her, so am I affected;\n    Till then, farewell, sir; she must needs go in;\n    Her father will be angry.\n  FENTON. Farewell, gentle mistress; farewell, Nan.\n                                       Exeunt MRS. PAGE and ANNE\n  QUICKLY. This is my doing now: 'Nay,' said I 'will you cast\n    away your child on a fool, and a physician? Look on\n    Master Fenton.' This is my doing.\n  FENTON. I thank thee; and I pray thee, once to-night\n    Give my sweet Nan this ring. There's for thy pains.\n  QUICKLY. Now Heaven send thee good fortune!  [Exit\n    FENTON]  A kind heart he hath; a woman would run through\n    fire and water for such a kind heart. But yet I would my\n    master had Mistress Anne; or I would Master Slender had\n    her; or, in sooth, I would Master Fenton had her; I will\n    do what I can for them all three, for so I have promis'd,\n    and I'll be as good as my word; but speciously for Master\n    Fenton. Well, I must of another errand to Sir John Falstaff\n    from my two mistresses. What a beast am I to slack it!\n Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 5.\n\nThe Garter Inn\n\nEnter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH\n\n  FALSTAFF. Bardolph, I say!\n  BARDOLPH. Here, sir.\n  FALSTAFF. Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in 't.\n                                                   Exit BARDOLPH\n    Have I liv'd to be carried in a basket, like a barrow of\n    butcher's offal, and to be thrown in the Thames? Well, if\n    I be serv'd such another trick, I'll have my brains ta'en out\n    and butter'd, and give them to a dog for a new-year's gift.\n    The rogues slighted me into the river with as little remorse\n    as they would have drown'd a blind bitch's puppies, fifteen\n    i' th' litter; and you may know by my size that I have\n    a kind of alacrity in sinking; if the bottom were as deep as\n    hell I should down. I had been drown'd but that the shore\n    was shelvy and shallow-a death that I abhor; for the water\n    swells a man; and what a thing should I have been when\n    had been swell'd! I should have been a mountain of\n    mummy.\n\n                  Re-enter BARDOLPH, with sack\n\n  BARDOLPH. Here's Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you\n  FALSTAFF. Come, let me pour in some sack to the Thames\n    water; for my belly's as cold as if I had swallow'd\n    snowballs for pills to cool the reins. Call her in.\n  BARDOLPH. Come in, woman.\n\n                     Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY\n\n  QUICKLY. By your leave; I cry you mercy. Give your\n    worship good morrow.\n  FALSTAFF. Take away these chalices. Go, brew me a pottle\n    of sack finely.\n  BARDOLPH. With eggs, sir?\n  FALSTAFF. Simple of itself; I'll no pullet-sperm in my\n    brewage.  [Exit BARDOLPH]  How now!\n  QUICKLY. Marry, sir, I come to your worship from Mistress\n    Ford.\n  FALSTAFF. Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough; I was\n    thrown into the ford; I have my belly full of ford.\n  QUICKLY. Alas the day, good heart, that was not her fault!\n    She does so take on with her men; they mistook their\n    erection.\n  FALSTAFF. So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman's\n    promise.\n  QUICKLY. Well, she laments, sir, for it, that it would yearn\n    your heart to see it. Her husband goes this morning\n    a-birding; she desires you once more to come to her between\n    eight and nine; I must carry her word quickly. She'll make\n    you amends, I warrant you.\n  FALSTAFF. Well, I Will visit her. Tell her so; and bid her\n    think what a man is. Let her consider his frailty, and then\n    judge of my merit.\n  QUICKLY. I will tell her.\n  FALSTAFF. Do so. Between nine and ten, say'st thou?\n  QUICKLY. Eight and nine, sir.\n  FALSTAFF. Well, be gone; I will not miss her.\n  QUICKLY. Peace be with you, sir.                          Exit\n  FALSTAFF. I marvel I hear not of Master Brook; he sent me\n    word to stay within. I like his money well. O, here he\n    comes.\n\n                       Enter FORD disguised\n\n  FORD. Bless you, sir!\n  FALSTAFF. Now, Master Brook, you come to know what\n    hath pass'd between me and Ford's wife?\n  FORD. That, indeed, Sir John, is my business.\n  FALSTAFF. Master Brook, I will not lie to you; I was at her\n    house the hour she appointed me.\n  FORD. And sped you, sir?\n  FALSTAFF. Very ill-favouredly, Master Brook.\n  FORD. How so, sir; did she change her determination?\n  FALSTAFF. No. Master Brook; but the peaking cornuto her\n    husband, Master Brook, dwelling in a continual 'larum of\n    jealousy, comes me in the instant of our, encounter, after\n    we had embrac'd, kiss'd, protested, and, as it were, spoke\n    the prologue of our comedy; and at his heels a rabble of his\n    companions, thither provoked and instigated by his\n    distemper, and, forsooth, to search his house for his wife's\n    love.\n  FORD. What, while you were there?\n  FALSTAFF. While I was there.\n  FORD. And did he search for you, and could not find you?\n  FALSTAFF. You shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes\n    in one Mistress Page, gives intelligence of Ford's approach;\n    and, in her invention and Ford's wife's distraction, they\n    convey'd me into a buck-basket.\n  FORD. A buck-basket!\n  FALSTAFF. By the Lord, a buck-basket! Ramm'd me in with\n    foul shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, greasy\n    napkins, that, Master Brook, there was the rankest compound\n    of villainous smell that ever offended nostril.\n  FORD. And how long lay you there?\n  FALSTAFF. Nay, you shall hear, Master Brook, what I have\n    suffer'd to bring this woman to evil for your good. Being\n    thus cramm'd in the basket, a couple of Ford's knaves, his\n    hinds, were call'd forth by their mistress to carry me in\n    the name of foul clothes to Datchet Lane; they took me on\n    their shoulders; met the jealous knave their master in the\n    door; who ask'd them once or twice what they had in their\n    basket. I quak'd for fear lest the lunatic knave would have\n    search'd it; but Fate, ordaining he should be a cuckold,\n    held his hand. Well, on went he for a search, and away\n    went I for foul clothes. But mark the sequel, Master\n    Brook-I suffered the pangs of three several deaths: first,\n    an intolerable fright to be detected with a jealous rotten\n    bell-wether; next, to be compass'd like a good bilbo in the\n    circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head; and\n    then, to be stopp'd in, like a strong distillation, with\n    stinking clothes that fretted in their own grease. Think of that\n    -a man of my kidney. Think of that-that am as subject to\n    heat as butter; a man of continual dissolution and thaw. It\n    was a miracle to scape suffocation. And in the height of\n    this bath, when I was more than half-stew'd in grease, like\n    a Dutch dish, to be thrown into the Thames, and cool'd,\n    glowing hot, in that surge, like a horse-shoe; think of that\n    -hissing hot. Think of that, Master Brook.\n  FORD. In good sadness, sir, I am sorry that for my sake you\n    have suffer'd all this. My suit, then, is desperate;\n    you'll undertake her no more.\n  FALSTAFF. Master Brook, I will be thrown into Etna, as I\n    have been into Thames, ere I will leave her thus. Her\n    husband is this morning gone a-birding; I have received from\n    her another embassy of meeting; 'twixt eight and nine is\n    the hour, Master Brook.\n  FORD. 'Tis past eight already, sir.\n  FALSTAFF. Is it? I Will then address me to my appointment.\n    Come to me at your convenient leisure, and you shall\n    know how I speed; and the conclusion shall be crowned\n    with your enjoying her. Adieu. You shall have her, Master\n    Brook; Master Brook, you shall cuckold Ford.            Exit\n  FORD. Hum! ha! Is this a vision? Is this a dream? Do I sleep?\n    Master Ford, awake; awake, Master Ford. There's a hole\n    made in your best coat, Master Ford. This 'tis to be\n    married; this 'tis to have linen and buck-baskets! Well, I will\n    proclaim myself what I am; I will now take the lecher; he\n    is at my house. He cannot scape me; 'tis impossible he\n    should; he cannot creep into a halfpenny purse nor into\n    a pepper box. But, lest the devil that guides him should aid\n    him, I will search impossible places. Though what I am I\n    cannot avoid, yet to be what I would not shall not make\n    me tame. If I have horns to make one mad, let the proverb\n    go with me-I'll be horn mad.                            Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\n\nWindsor. A street\n\nEnter MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS QUICKLY, and WILLIAM\n\n  MRS. PAGE. Is he at Master Ford's already, think'st thou?\n  QUICKLY. Sure he is by this; or will be presently; but truly\n    he is very courageous mad about his throwing into the\n    water. Mistress Ford desires you to come suddenly.\n  MRS. PAGE. I'll be with her by and by; I'll but bring my\n    young man here to school. Look where his master comes;\n    'tis a playing day, I see.\n\n                     Enter SIR HUGH EVANS\n\n    How now, Sir Hugh, no school to-day?\n  EVANS. No; Master Slender is let the boys leave to play.\n  QUICKLY. Blessing of his heart!\n  MRS. PAGE. Sir Hugh, my husband says my son profits\n    nothing in the world at his book; I pray you ask him some\n    questions in his accidence.\n  EVANS. Come hither, William; hold up your head; come.\n  MRS. PAGE. Come on, sirrah; hold up your head; answer your\n    master; be not afraid.\n  EVANS. William, how many numbers is in nouns?\n  WILLIAM. Two.\n  QUICKLY. Truly, I thought there had been one number\n    more, because they say 'Od's nouns.'\n  EVANS. Peace your tattlings. What is 'fair,' William?\n  WILLIAM. Pulcher.\n  QUICKLY. Polecats! There are fairer things than polecats,\n    sure.\n  EVANS. You are a very simplicity oman; I pray you, peace.\n    What is 'lapis,' William?\n  WILLIAM. A stone.\n  EVANS. And what is 'a stone,' William?\n  WILLIAM. A pebble.\n  EVANS. No, it is 'lapis'; I pray you remember in your prain.\n  WILLIAM. Lapis.\n  EVANS. That is a good William. What is he, William, that\n    does lend articles?\n  WILLIAM. Articles are borrowed of the pronoun, and be\n    thus declined: Singulariter, nominativo; hic, haec, hoc.\n  EVANS. Nominativo, hig, hag, hog; pray you, mark: genitivo,\n    hujus. Well, what is your accusative case?\n  WILLIAM. Accusativo, hinc.\n  EVANS. I pray you, have your remembrance, child.\n    Accusativo, hung, hang, hog.\n  QUICKLY. 'Hang-hog' is Latin for bacon, I warrant you.\n  EVANS. Leave your prabbles, oman. What is the focative\n    case, William?\n  WILLIAM. O-vocativo, O.\n  EVANS. Remember, William: focative is caret.\n  QUICKLY. And that's a good root.\n  EVANS. Oman, forbear.\n  MRS. PAGE. Peace.\n  EVANS. What is your genitive case plural, William?\n  WILLIAM. Genitive case?\n  EVANS. Ay.\n  WILLIAM. Genitive: horum, harum, horum.\n  QUICKLY. Vengeance of Jenny's case; fie on her! Never\n    name her, child, if she be a whore.\n  EVANS. For shame, oman.\n  QUICKLY. YOU do ill to teach the child such words. He\n    teaches him to hick and to hack, which they'll do fast\n    enough of themselves; and to call 'horum'; fie upon you!\n  EVANS. Oman, art thou lunatics? Hast thou no understandings\n    for thy cases, and the numbers of the genders? Thou\n    art as foolish Christian creatures as I would desires.\n  MRS. PAGE. Prithee hold thy peace.\n  EVANS. Show me now, William, some declensions of your\n    pronouns.\n  WILLIAM. Forsooth, I have forgot.\n  EVANS. It is qui, quae, quod; if you forget your qui's, your\n    quae's, and your quod's, you must be preeches. Go your\n    ways and play; go.\n  MRS. PAGE. He is a better scholar than I thought he was.\n  EVANS. He is a good sprag memory. Farewell, Mistress Page.\n  MRS. PAGE. Adieu, good Sir Hugh.                 Exit SIR HUGH\n    Get you home, boy. Come, we stay too long.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nFORD'S house\n\nEnter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS FORD\n\n  FALSTAFF. Mistress Ford, your sorrow hath eaten up my\n    sufferance. I see you are obsequious in your love, and I\n    profess requital to a hair's breadth; not only, Mistress Ford, in\n    the simple office of love, but in all the accoutrement,\n    complement, and ceremony of it. But are you sure of your\n    husband now?\n  MRS. FORD. He's a-birding, sweet Sir John.\n  MRS. PAGE.  [Within]  What hoa, gossip Ford, what hoa!\n  MRS. FORD. Step into th' chamber, Sir John.      Exit FALSTAFF\n\n                      Enter MISTRESS PAGE\n\n  MRS. PAGE. How now, sweetheart, who's at home besides\n    yourself?\n  MRS. FORD. Why, none but mine own people.\n  MRS. PAGE. Indeed?\n  MRS. FORD. No, certainly.  [Aside to her]  Speak louder.\n  MRS. PAGE. Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here.\n  MRS. FORD. Why?\n  MRS. PAGE. Why, woman, your husband is in his old lunes\n    again. He so takes on yonder with my husband; so rails\n    against all married mankind; so curses an Eve's daughters,\n    of what complexion soever; and so buffets himself on the\n    forehead, crying 'Peer-out, peer-out!' that any madness I\n    ever yet beheld seem'd but tameness, civility, and patience,\n    to this his distemper he is in now. I am glad the fat knight\n    is not here.\n  MRS. FORD. Why, does he talk of him?\n  MRS. PAGE. Of none but him; and swears he was carried out,\n    the last time he search'd for him, in a basket; protests to\n    my husband he is now here; and hath drawn him and the\n    rest of their company from their sport, to make another\n    experiment of his suspicion. But I am glad the knight is not\n    here; now he shall see his own foolery.\n  MRS. FORD. How near is he, Mistress Page?\n  MRS. PAGE. Hard by, at street end; he will be here anon.\n  MRS. FORD. I am undone: the knight is here.\n  MRS. PAGE. Why, then, you are utterly sham'd, and he's but\n    a dead man. What a woman are you! Away with him,\n    away with him; better shame than murder.\n  MRS. FORD. Which way should he go? How should I bestow\n    him? Shall I put him into the basket again?\n\n                  Re-enter FALSTAFF\n\n  FALSTAFF. No, I'll come no more i' th' basket. May I not go\n    out ere he come?\n  MRS. PAGE. Alas, three of Master Ford's brothers watch the\n    door with pistols, that none shall issue out; otherwise you\n    might slip away ere he came. But what make you here?\n  FALSTAFF. What shall I do? I'll creep up into the chimney.\n  MRS. FORD. There they always use to discharge their\n    birding-pieces.\n  MRS. PAGE. Creep into the kiln-hole.\n  FALSTAFF. Where is it?\n  MRS. FORD. He will seek there, on my word. Neither press,\n    coffer, chest, trunk, well, vault, but he hath an abstract for\n    the remembrance of such places, and goes to them by his\n    note. There is no hiding you in the house.\n  FALSTAFF. I'll go out then.\n  MRS. PAGE. If you go out in your own semblance, you die,\n    Sir John. Unless you go out disguis'd.\n  MRS. FORD. How might we disguise him?\n  MRS. PAGE. Alas the day, I know not! There is no woman's\n    gown big enough for him; otherwise he might put on a\n    hat, a muffler, and a kerchief, and so escape.\n  FALSTAFF. Good hearts, devise something; any extremity\n    rather than a mischief.\n  MRS. FORD. My Maid's aunt, the fat woman of Brainford, has\n    a gown above.\n  MRS. PAGE. On my word, it will serve him; she's as big as he\n    is; and there's her thrumm'd hat, and her muffler too. Run\n    up, Sir John.\n  MRS. FORD. Go, go, sweet Sir John. Mistress Page and I will\n    look some linen for your head.\n  MRS. PAGE. Quick, quick; we'll come dress you straight. Put\n    on the gown the while.                         Exit FALSTAFF\n  MRS. FORD. I would my husband would meet him in this\n    shape; he cannot abide the old woman of Brainford; he\n    swears she's a witch, forbade her my house, and hath\n    threat'ned to beat her.\n  MRS. PAGE. Heaven guide him to thy husband's cudgel; and\n    the devil guide his cudgel afterwards!\n  MRS. FORD. But is my husband coming?\n  MRS. PAGE. Ay, in good sadness is he; and talks of the basket\n    too, howsoever he hath had intelligence.\n  MRS. FORD. We'll try that; for I'll appoint my men to carry\n    the basket again, to meet him at the door with it as they\n    did last time.\n  MRS. PAGE. Nay, but he'll be here presently; let's go dress\n    him like the witch of Brainford.\n  MRS. FORD. I'll first direct my men what they shall do with\n    the basket. Go up; I'll bring linen for him straight.   Exit\n  MRS. PAGE. Hang him, dishonest varlet! we cannot misuse\n    him enough.\n    We'll leave a proof, by that which we will do,\n    Wives may be merry and yet honest too.\n    We do not act that often jest and laugh;\n    'Tis old but true: Still swine eats all the draff.      Exit\n\n            Re-enter MISTRESS FORD, with two SERVANTS\n\n  MRS. FORD. Go, sirs, take the basket again on your shoulders;\n    your master is hard at door; if he bid you set it down, obey\n    him; quickly, dispatch.                                 Exit\n  FIRST SERVANT. Come, come, take it up.\n  SECOND SERVANT. Pray heaven it be not full of knight again.\n  FIRST SERVANT. I hope not; I had lief as bear so much lead.\n\n    Enter FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS\n\n  FORD. Ay, but if it prove true, Master Page, have you any\n    way then to unfool me again? Set down the basket, villain!\n    Somebody call my wife. Youth in a basket! O you panderly\n    rascals, there's a knot, a ging, a pack, a conspiracy\n    against me. Now shall the devil be sham'd. What, wife, I\n    say! Come, come forth; behold what honest clothes you\n    send forth to bleaching.\n  PAGE. Why, this passes, Master Ford; you are not to go loose\n    any longer; you must be pinion'd.\n  EVANS. Why, this is lunatics. This is mad as a mad dog.\n  SHALLOW. Indeed, Master Ford, this is not well, indeed.\n  FORD. So say I too, sir.\n\n                     Re-enter MISTRESS FORD\n\n    Come hither, Mistress Ford; Mistress Ford, the honest\n    woman, the modest wife, the virtuous creature, that hath\n    the jealous fool to her husband! I suspect without cause,\n    Mistress, do I?\n  MRS. FORD. Heaven be my witness, you do, if you suspect\n    me in any dishonesty.\n  FORD. Well said, brazen-face; hold it out. Come forth, sirrah.\n                           [Pulling clothes out of the basket]\n  PAGE. This passes!\n  MRS. FORD. Are you not asham'd? Let the clothes alone.\n  FORD. I shall find you anon.\n  EVANS. 'Tis unreasonable. Will you take up your wife's\n    clothes? Come away.\n  FORD. Empty the basket, I say.\n  MRS. FORD. Why, man, why?\n  FORD. Master Page, as I am a man, there was one convey'd\n    out of my house yesterday in this basket. Why may not\n    he be there again? In my house I am sure he is; my\n    intelligence is true; my jealousy is reasonable.\n    Pluck me out all the linen.\n  MRS. FORD. If you find a man there, he shall die a flea's\n    death.\n  PAGE. Here's no man.\n  SHALLOW. By my fidelity, this is not well, Master Ford; this\n    wrongs you.\n  EVANS. Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow the\n    imaginations of your own heart; this is jealousies.\n  FORD. Well, he's not here I seek for.\n  PAGE. No, nor nowhere else but in your brain.\n  FORD. Help to search my house this one time. If I find not\n    what I seek, show no colour for my extremity; let me for\n    ever be your table sport; let them say of me 'As jealous as\n    Ford, that search'd a hollow walnut for his wife's leman.'\n    Satisfy me once more; once more search with me.\n  MRS. FORD. What, hoa, Mistress Page! Come you and the old\n    woman down; my husband will come into the chamber.\n  FORD. Old woman? what old woman's that?\n  MRS. FORD. Why, it is my maid's aunt of Brainford.\n  FORD. A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean! Have I not\n    forbid her my house? She comes of errands, does she? We\n    are simple men; we do not know what's brought to pass\n    under the profession of fortune-telling. She works by\n    charms, by spells, by th' figure, and such daub'ry as this\n    is, beyond our element. We know nothing. Come down, you\n    witch, you hag you; come down, I say.\n  MRS. FORD. Nay, good sweet husband! Good gentlemen, let\n    him not strike the old woman.\n\n   Re-enter FALSTAFF in woman's clothes, and MISTRESS PAGE\n\n  MRS. PAGE. Come, Mother Prat; come. give me your hand.\n  FORD. I'll prat her.  [Beating him]  Out of my door, you\n    witch, you hag, you. baggage, you polecat, you ronyon!\n    Out, out! I'll conjure you, I'll fortune-tell you.\n                                                   Exit FALSTAFF\n  MRS. PAGE. Are you not asham'd? I think you have kill'd the\n    poor woman.\n  MRS. FORD. Nay, he will do it. 'Tis a goodly credit for you.\n  FORD. Hang her, witch!\n  EVANS. By yea and no, I think the oman is a witch indeed; I\n    like not when a oman has a great peard; I spy a great peard\n    under his muffler.\n  FORD. Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you follow;\n    see but the issue of my jealousy; if I cry out thus upon no\n    trail, never trust me when I open again.\n  PAGE. Let's obey his humour a little further. Come,\n    gentlemen.            Exeunt all but MRS. FORD and MRS. PAGE\n  MRS. PAGE. Trust me, he beat him most pitifully.\n  MRS. FORD. Nay, by th' mass, that he did not; he beat him\n    most unpitifully methought.\n  MRS. PAGE. I'll have the cudgel hallow'd and hung o'er the\n    altar; it hath done meritorious service.\n  MRS. FORD. What think you? May we, with the warrant of\n    womanhood and the witness of a good conscience, pursue\n    him with any further revenge?\n  MRS. PAGE. The spirit of wantonness is sure scar'd out of\n    him; if the devil have him not in fee-simple, with fine and\n    recovery, he will never, I think, in the way of waste,\n    attempt us again.\n  MRS. FORD. Shall we tell our husbands how we have serv'd\n    him?\n  MRS. PAGE. Yes, by all means; if it be but to scrape the\n    figures out of your husband's brains. If they can find in their\n    hearts the poor unvirtuous fat knight shall be any further\n    afflicted, we two will still be the ministers.\n  MRS. FORD. I'll warrant they'll have him publicly sham'd;\n    and methinks there would be no period to the jest, should\n    he not be publicly sham'd.\n  MRS. PAGE. Come, to the forge with it then; shape it. I\n    would not have things cool.                           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nThe Garter Inn\n\nEnter HOST and BARDOLPH\n\n  BARDOLPH. Sir, the Germans desire to have three of your\n    horses; the Duke himself will be to-morrow at court, and\n    they are going to meet him.\n  HOST. What duke should that be comes so secretly? I hear\n    not of him in the court. Let me speak with the gentlemen;\n    they speak English?\n  BARDOLPH. Ay, sir; I'll call them to you.\n  HOST. They shall have my horses, but I'll make them pay;\n    I'll sauce them; they have had my house a week at\n    command; I have turn'd away my other guests. They must\n    come off; I'll sauce them. Come.                      Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4\n\nFORD'S house\n\nEnter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and SIR HUGH EVANS\n\n  EVANS. 'Tis one of the best discretions of a oman as ever\n    did look upon.\n  PAGE. And did he send you both these letters at an instant?\n  MRS. PAGE. Within a quarter of an hour.\n  FORD. Pardon me, wife. Henceforth, do what thou wilt;\n    I rather will suspect the sun with cold\n    Than thee with wantonness. Now doth thy honour stand,\n    In him that was of late an heretic,\n    As firm as faith.\n  PAGE. 'Tis well, 'tis well; no more.\n    Be not as extreme in submission as in offence;\n    But let our plot go forward. Let our wives\n    Yet once again, to make us public sport,\n    Appoint a meeting with this old fat fellow,\n    Where we may take him and disgrace him for it.\n  FORD. There is no better way than that they spoke of.\n  PAGE. How? To send him word they'll meet him in the Park\n    at midnight? Fie, fie! he'll never come!\n  EVANS. You say he has been thrown in the rivers; and has\n    been grievously peaten as an old oman; methinks there\n    should be terrors in him, that he should not come;\n    methinks his flesh is punish'd; he shall have no desires.\n  PAGE. So think I too.\n  MRS. FORD. Devise but how you'll use him when he comes,\n    And let us two devise to bring him thither.\n  MRS. PAGE. There is an old tale goes that Heme the Hunter,\n    Sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest,\n    Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight,\n    Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns;\n    And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle,\n    And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain\n    In a most hideous and dreadful manner.\n    You have heard of such a spirit, and well you know\n    The superstitious idle-headed eld\n    Receiv'd, and did deliver to our age,\n    This tale of Heme the Hunter for a truth.\n  PAGE. Why yet there want not many that do fear\n    In deep of night to walk by this Herne's oak.\n    But what of this?\n  MRS. FORD. Marry, this is our device-\n    That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us,\n    Disguis'd, like Heme, with huge horns on his head.\n  PAGE. Well, let it not be doubted but he'll come,\n    And in this shape. When you have brought him thither,\n    What shall be done with him? What is your plot?\n  MRS. PAGE. That likewise have we thought upon, and\n    thus:\n    Nan Page my daughter, and my little son,\n    And three or four more of their growth, we'll dress\n    Like urchins, ouphes, and fairies, green and white,\n    With rounds of waxen tapers on their heads,\n    And rattles in their hands; upon a sudden,\n    As Falstaff, she, and I, are newly met,\n    Let them from forth a sawpit rush at once\n    With some diffused song; upon their sight\n    We two in great amazedness will fly.\n    Then let them all encircle him about,\n    And fairy-like, to pinch the unclean knight;\n    And ask him why, that hour of fairy revel,\n    In their so sacred paths he dares to tread\n    In shape profane.\n  MRS. FORD. And till he tell the truth,\n    Let the supposed fairies pinch him sound,\n    And burn him with their tapers.\n  MRS. PAGE. The truth being known,\n    We'll all present ourselves; dis-horn the spirit,\n    And mock him home to Windsor.\n  FORD. The children must\n    Be practis'd well to this or they'll nev'r do 't.\n  EVANS. I will teach the children their behaviours; and I will\n    be like a jack-an-apes also, to burn the knight with my\n    taber.\n  FORD. That will be excellent. I'll go buy them vizards.\n  MRS. PAGE. My Nan shall be the Queen of all the Fairies,\n    Finely attired in a robe of white.\n  PAGE. That silk will I go buy.  [Aside]  And in that time\n    Shall Master Slender steal my Nan away,\n    And marry her at Eton.-Go, send to Falstaff straight.\n  FORD. Nay, I'll to him again, in name of Brook;\n    He'll tell me all his purpose. Sure, he'll come.\n  MRS. PAGE. Fear not you that. Go get us properties\n    And tricking for our fairies.\n  EVANS. Let us about it. It is admirable pleasures, and fery\n    honest knaveries.               Exeunt PAGE, FORD, and EVANS\n  MRS. PAGE. Go, Mistress Ford.\n    Send Quickly to Sir John to know his mind.\n                                                  Exit MRS. FORD\n    I'll to the Doctor; he hath my good will,\n    And none but he, to marry with Nan Page.\n    That Slender, though well landed, is an idiot;\n    And he my husband best of all affects.\n    The Doctor is well money'd, and his friends\n    Potent at court; he, none but he, shall have her,\n    Though twenty thousand worthier come to crave her.      Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 5.\n\nThe Garter Inn\n\nEnter HOST and SIMPLE\n\n  HOST. What wouldst thou have, boor? What, thick-skin?\n    Speak, breathe, discuss; brief, short, quick, snap.\n  SIMPLE. Marry, sir, I come to speak with Sir John Falstaff\n    from Master Slender.\n  HOST. There's his chamber, his house, his castle, his\n    standing-bed and truckle-bed; 'tis painted about with the\n    story of the Prodigal, fresh and new. Go, knock and can; he'll\n    speak like an Anthropophaginian unto thee. Knock, I say.\n  SIMPLE. There's an old woman, a fat woman, gone up into\n    his chamber; I'll be so bold as stay, sir, till she come down;\n    I come to speak with her, indeed.\n  HOST. Ha! a fat woman? The knight may be robb'd. I'll call.\n    Bully knight! Bully Sir John! Speak from thy lungs\n    military. Art thou there? It is thine host, thine Ephesian, calls.\n  FALSTAFF.  [Above]  How now, mine host?\n  HOST. Here's a Bohemian-Tartar tarries the coming down of\n    thy fat woman. Let her descend, bully, let her descend;\n    my chambers are honourible. Fie, privacy, fie!\n\n                    Enter FALSTAFF\n\n  FALSTAFF. There was, mine host, an old fat woman even\n    now with, me; but she's gone.\n  SIMPLE. Pray you, sir, was't not the wise woman of\n    Brainford?\n  FALSTAFF. Ay, marry was it, mussel-shell. What would you\n    with her?\n  SIMPLE. My master, sir, my Master Slender, sent to her,\n    seeing her go thorough the streets, to know, sir, whether one\n    Nym, sir, that beguil'd him of a chain, had the chain or no.\n  FALSTAFF. I spake with the old woman about it.\n  SIMPLE. And what says she, I pray, sir?\n  FALSTAFF Marry, she says that the very same man that\n    beguil'd Master Slender of his chain cozen'd him of it.\n  SIMPLE. I would I could have spoken with the woman\n    herself; I had other things to have spoken with her too,\n    from him.\n  FALSTAFF. What are they? Let us know.\n  HOST. Ay, come; quick.\n  SIMPLE. I may not conceal them, sir.\n  FALSTAFF. Conceal them, or thou diest.\n    SIMPLE.. Why, sir, they were nothing but about Mistress\n    Anne Page: to know if it were my master's fortune to\n    have her or no.\n  FALSTAFF. 'Tis, 'tis his fortune.\n  SIMPLE. What sir?\n  FALSTAFF. To have her, or no. Go; say the woman told me\n    so.\n  SIMPLE. May I be bold to say so, sir?\n  FALSTAFF. Ay, sir, like who more bold?\n  SIMPLE., I thank your worship; I shall make my master glad\n    with these tidings.                              Exit SIMPLE\n  HOST. Thou art clerkly, thou art clerkly, Sir John. Was\n    there a wise woman with thee?\n  FALSTAFF. Ay, that there was, mine host; one that hath\n    taught me more wit than ever I learn'd before in my life;\n    and I paid nothing for it neither, but was paid for my\n    learning.\n\n                    Enter BARDOLPH\n\n  BARDOLPH. Out, alas, sir, cozenage, mere cozenage!\n  HOST. Where be my horses? Speak well of them, varletto.\n  BARDOLPH. Run away with the cozeners; for so soon as I\n    came beyond Eton, they threw me off from behind one of\n    them, in a slough of mire; and set spurs and away, like\n    three German devils, three Doctor Faustuses.\n  HOST. They are gone but to meet the Duke, villain; do not\n    say they be fled. Germans are honest men.\n\n                 Enter SIR HUGH EVANS\n\n  EVANS. Where is mine host?\n  HOST. What is the matter, sir?\n  EVANS. Have a care of your entertainments. There is a friend\n    of mine come to town tells me there is three\n    cozen-germans that has cozen'd all the hosts of Readins,\n    of Maidenhead, of Colebrook, of horses and money. I tell you for\n    good will, look you; you are wise, and full of gibes and\n    vlouting-stogs, and 'tis not convenient you should be\n    cozened. Fare you well.                                 Exit\n\n                  Enter DOCTOR CAIUS\n\n  CAIUS. Vere is mine host de Jarteer?\n  HOST. Here, Master Doctor, in perplexity and doubtful\n    dilemma.\n  CAIUS. I cannot tell vat is dat; but it is tell-a me dat you\n    make grand preparation for a Duke de Jamany. By my\n    trot, dere is no duke that the court is know to come; I\n    tell you for good will. Adieu.                          Exit\n  HOST. Hue and cry, villain, go! Assist me, knight; I am\n    undone. Fly, run, hue and cry, villain; I am undone.\n                                        Exeunt HOST and BARDOLPH\n  FALSTAFF. I would all the world might be cozen'd, for I have\n    been cozen'd and beaten too. If it should come to the car\n    of the court how I have been transformed, and how my\n    transformation hath been wash'd and cudgell'd, they\n    would melt me out of my fat, drop by drop, and liquor\n    fishermen's boots with me; I warrant they would whip me\n    with their fine wits till I were as crestfall'n as a dried pear.\n    I never prosper'd since I forswore myself at primero. Well,\n    if my wind were but long enough to say my prayers,\n    would repent.\n\n                Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY\n\n    Now! whence come you?\n  QUICKLY. From the two parties, forsooth.\n  FALSTAFF. The devil take one party and his dam the other!\n    And so they shall be both bestowed. I have suffer'd more\n    for their sakes, more than the villainous inconstancy of\n    man's disposition is able to bear.\n  QUICKLY. And have not they suffer'd? Yes, I warrant;\n    speciously one of them; Mistress Ford, good heart, is beaten\n    black and blue, that you cannot see a white spot about her.\n  FALSTAFF. What tell'st thou me of black and blue? I was\n    beaten myself into all the colours of the rainbow; and\n    was like to be apprehended for the witch of Brainford. But\n    that my admirable dexterity of wit, my counterfeiting the\n    action of an old woman, deliver'd me, the knave constable\n    had set me i' th' stocks, i' th' common stocks, for a witch.\n  QUICKLY. Sir, let me speak with you in your chamber; you\n    shall hear how things go, and, I warrant, to your content.\n    Here is a letter will say somewhat. Good hearts, what ado\n    here is to bring you together! Sure, one of you does not\n    serve heaven well, that you are so cross'd.\n  FALSTAFF. Come up into my chamber.                      Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 6.\n\nThe Garter Inn\n\nEnter FENTON and HOST\n\n  HOST. Master Fenton, talk not to me; my mind is heavy; I\n    will give over all.\n  FENTON. Yet hear me speak. Assist me in my purpose,\n    And, as I am a gentleman, I'll give the\n    A hundred pound in gold more than your loss.\n  HOST. I will hear you, Master Fenton; and I will, at the least,\n    keep your counsel.\n  FENTON. From time to time I have acquainted you\n    With the dear love I bear to fair Anne Page;\n    Who, mutually, hath answer'd my affection,\n    So far forth as herself might be her chooser,\n    Even to my wish. I have a letter from her\n    Of such contents as you will wonder at;\n    The mirth whereof so larded with my matter\n    That neither, singly, can be manifested\n    Without the show of both. Fat Falstaff\n    Hath a great scene. The image of the jest\n    I'll show you here at large. Hark, good mine host:\n    To-night at Heme's oak, just 'twixt twelve and one,\n    Must my sweet Nan present the Fairy Queen-\n    The purpose why is here-in which disguise,\n    While other jests are something rank on foot,\n    Her father hath commanded her to slip\n    Away with Slender, and with him at Eton\n    Immediately to marry; she hath consented.\n    Now, sir,\n    Her mother, even strong against that match\n    And firm for Doctor Caius, hath appointed\n    That he shall likewise shuffle her away\n    While other sports are tasking of their minds,\n    And at the dean'ry, where a priest attends,\n    Straight marry her. To this her mother's plot\n    She seemingly obedient likewise hath\n    Made promise to the doctor. Now thus it rests:\n    Her father means she shall be all in white;\n    And in that habit, when Slender sees his time\n    To take her by the hand and bid her go,\n    She shall go with him; her mother hath intended\n    The better to denote her to the doctor-\n    For they must all be mask'd and vizarded-\n    That quaint in green she shall be loose enrob'd,\n    With ribands pendent, flaring 'bout her head;\n    And when the doctor spies his vantage ripe,\n    To pinch her by the hand, and, on that token,\n    The maid hath given consent to go with him.\n  HOST. Which means she to deceive, father or mother?\n  FENTON. Both, my good host, to go along with me.\n    And here it rests-that you'll procure the vicar\n    To stay for me at church, 'twixt twelve and one,\n    And in the lawful name of marrying,\n    To give our hearts united ceremony.\n  HOST. Well, husband your device; I'll to the vicar.\n    Bring you the maid, you shall not lack a priest.\n  FENTON. So shall I evermore be bound to thee;\n    Besides, I'll make a present recompense.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 1.\n\nThe Garter Inn\n\nEnter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS QUICKLY\n\n  FALSTAFF. Prithee, no more prattling; go. I'll, hold. This is\n    the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd numbers.\n    Away, go; they say there is divinity in odd numbers, either\n    in nativity, chance, or death. Away.\n  QUICKLY. I'll provide you a chain, and I'll do what I can to\n    get you a pair of horns.\n  FALSTAFF. Away, I say; time wears; hold up your head, and\n    mince.                                     Exit MRS. QUICKLY\n\n                 Enter FORD disguised\n\n    How now, Master Brook. Master Brook, the matter will\n    be known tonight or never. Be you in the Park about\n    midnight, at Herne's oak, and you shall see wonders.\n  FORD. Went you not to her yesterday, sir, as you told me\n    you had appointed?\n  FALSTAFF. I went to her, Master Brook, as you see, like a\n    poor old man; but I came from her, Master Brook, like a\n    poor old woman. That same knave Ford, her husband, hath\n    the finest mad devil of jealousy in him, Master Brook, that\n    ever govern'd frenzy. I will tell you-he beat me grievously\n    in the shape of a woman; for in the shape of man, Master\n    Brook, I fear not Goliath with a weaver's beam; because\n    I know also life is a shuttle. I am in haste; go along with\n    me; I'll. tell you all, Master Brook. Since I pluck'd geese,\n    play'd truant, and whipp'd top, I knew not what 'twas to\n    be beaten till lately. Follow me. I'll tell you strange things\n    of this knave-Ford, on whom to-night I will be revenged,\n    and I will deliver his wife into your hand. Follow. Strange\n    things in hand, Master Brook! Follow.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nWindsor Park\n\nEnter PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER\n\n  PAGE. Come, come; we'll couch i' th' Castle ditch till we\n    see the light of our fairies. Remember, son Slender, my daughter.\n  SLENDER. Ay, forsooth; I have spoke with her, and we have\n    a nay-word how to know one another. I come to her in\n    white and cry 'mum'; she cries 'budget,' and by that we\n    know one another.\n  SHALLOW. That's good too; but what needs either your mum\n    or her budget? The white will decipher her well enough.\n    It hath struck ten o'clock.\n  PAGE. The night is dark; light and spirits will become it well.\n    Heaven prosper our sport! No man means evil but the\n    devil, and we shall know him by his horns. Let's away;\n    follow me.                                            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nA street leading to the Park\n\nEnter MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and DOCTOR CAIUS\n\n  MRS. PAGE. Master Doctor, my daughter is in green; when\n    you see your time, take her by the hand, away with her to\n    the deanery, and dispatch it quickly. Go before into the\n    Park; we two must go together.\n  CAIUS. I know vat I have to do; adieu.\n  MRS. PAGE. Fare you well, sir.  [Exit CAIUS]  My husband\n    will not rejoice so much at the abuse of Falstaff as he will\n    chafe at the doctor's marrying my daughter; but 'tis no\n    matter; better a little chiding than a great deal of\n    heartbreak.\n  MRS. FORD. Where is Nan now, and her troop of fairies, and\n    the Welsh devil, Hugh?\n  MRS. PAGE. They are all couch'd in a pit hard by Heme's\n    oak, with obscur'd lights; which, at the very instant of\n    Falstaff's and our meeting, they will at once display to the\n    night.\n  MRS. FORD. That cannot choose but amaze him.\n  MRS. PAGE. If he be not amaz'd, he will be mock'd; if he be\n    amaz'd, he will every way be mock'd.\n  MRS. FORD. We'll betray him finely.\n  MRS. PAGE. Against such lewdsters and their lechery,\n    Those that betray them do no treachery.\n  MRS. FORD. The hour draws on. To the oak, to the oak!\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\n\nWindsor Park\n\nEnter SIR HUGH EVANS like a satyr, with OTHERS as fairies\n\n  EVANS. Trib, trib, fairies; come; and remember your parts.\n    Be pold, I pray you; follow me into the pit; and when I\n    give the watch-ords, do as I pid you. Come, come; trib,\n    trib.                                                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 5.\n\nAnother part of the Park\n\nEnter FALSTAFF disguised as HERNE\n\n  FALSTAFF. The Windsor bell hath struck twelve; the minute\n    draws on. Now the hot-blooded gods assist me!\n    Remember, Jove, thou wast a bull for thy Europa; love set on thy\n    horns. O powerful love! that in some respects makes a\n    beast a man; in some other a man a beast. You were also,\n    Jupiter, a swan, for the love of Leda. O omnipotent love!\n    how near the god drew to the complexion of a goose! A\n    fault done first in the form of a beast-O Jove, a beastly\n    fault!-and then another fault in the semblance of a fowl-\n    think on't, Jove, a foul fault! When gods have hot backs\n    what shall poor men do? For me, I am here a Windsor\n    stag; and the fattest, I think, i' th' forest. Send me a cool\n    rut-time, Jove, or who can blame me to piss my tallow?\n    Who comes here? my doe?\n\n        Enter MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE\n\n  MRS. FORD. Sir John! Art thou there, my deer, my male deer.\n  FALSTAFF. My doe with the black scut! Let the sky rain\n    potatoes; let it thunder to the tune of Greensleeves, hail\n    kissing-comfits, and snow eringoes; let there come a tempest\n    of provocation, I will shelter me here.      [Embracing her]\n  MRS. FORD. Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart.\n  FALSTAFF. Divide me like a brib'd buck, each a haunch; I\n    will keep my sides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow\n    of this walk, and my horns I bequeath your husbands. Am\n    I a woodman, ha? Speak I like Heme the Hunter? Why,\n    now is Cupid a child of conscience; he makes restitution.\n    As I am a true spirit, welcome!           [A noise of horns]\n  MRS. PAGE. Alas, what noise?\n  MRS. FORD. Heaven forgive our sins!\n  FALSTAFF. What should this be?\n  MRS. FORD. } Away, away.\n  MRS. PAGE. } Away, away.                        [They run off]\n  FALSTAFF. I think the devil will not have me damn'd, lest the\n    oil that's in me should set hell on fire; he would never else\n    cross me thus.\n\n        Enter SIR HUGH EVANS like a satyr, ANNE PAGE as\n      a fairy, and OTHERS as the Fairy Queen, fairies, and\n               Hobgoblin; all with tapers\n\n  FAIRY QUEEN. Fairies, black, grey, green, and white,\n    You moonshine revellers, and shades of night,\n    You orphan heirs of fixed destiny,\n    Attend your office and your quality.\n    Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy oyes.\n  PUCK. Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys.\n    Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap;\n    Where fires thou find'st unrak'd, and hearths unswept,\n    There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry;\n    Our radiant Queen hates sluts and sluttery.\n  FALSTAFF. They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die.\n    I'll wink and couch; no man their works must eye.\n                                       [Lies down upon his face]\n  EVANS. Where's Pede? Go you, and where you find a maid\n    That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said,\n    Raise up the organs of her fantasy\n    Sleep she as sound as careless infancy;\n    But those as sleep and think not on their sins,\n    Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides, and shins.\n  FAIRY QUEEN. About, about;\n    Search Windsor castle, elves, within and out;\n    Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room,\n    That it may stand till the perpetual doom\n    In state as wholesome as in state 'tis fit,\n    Worthy the owner and the owner it.\n    The several chairs of order look you scour\n    With juice of balm and every precious flower;\n    Each fair instalment, coat, and sev'ral crest,\n    With loyal blazon, evermore be blest!\n    And nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing,\n    Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring;\n    Th' expressure that it bears, green let it be,\n    More fertile-fresh than all the field to see;\n    And 'Honi soit qui mal y pense' write\n    In em'rald tufts, flow'rs purple, blue and white;\n    Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery,\n    Buckled below fair knighthood's bending knee.\n    Fairies use flow'rs for their charactery.\n    Away, disperse; but till 'tis one o'clock,\n    Our dance of custom round about the oak\n    Of Herne the Hunter let us not forget.\n  EVANS. Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set;\n    And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be,\n    To guide our measure round about the tree.\n    But, stay. I smell a man of middle earth.\n  FALSTAFF. Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest he\n    transform me to a piece of cheese!\n  PUCK. Vile worm, thou wast o'erlook'd even in thy birth.\n  FAIRY QUEEN. With trial-fire touch me his finger-end;\n    If he be chaste, the flame will back descend,\n    And turn him to no pain; but if he start,\n    It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.\n  PUCK. A trial, come.\n  EVANS. Come, will this wood take fire?\n             [They put the tapers to his fingers, and he starts]\n  FALSTAFF. Oh, oh, oh!\n  FAIRY QUEEN. Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire!\n    About him, fairies; sing a scornful rhyme;\n    And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time.\n  THE SONG.\n    Fie on sinful fantasy!\n    Fie on lust and luxury!\n    Lust is but a bloody fire,\n    Kindled with unchaste desire,\n    Fed in heart, whose flames aspire,\n    As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher.\n    Pinch him, fairies, mutually;\n    Pinch him for his villainy;\n    Pinch him and burn him and turn him about,\n    Till candles and star-light and moonshine be out.\n\n        During this song they pinch FALSTAFF. DOCTOR\n        CAIUS comes one way, and steals away a fairy in\n        green; SLENDER another way, and takes off a fairy in\n        white; and FENTON steals away ANNE PAGE. A noise\n        of hunting is heard within. All the fairies run away.\n        FALSTAFF pulls off his buck's head, and rises\n\n       Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and\n                        SIR HUGH EVANS\n\n  PAGE. Nay, do not fly; I think we have watch'd you now.\n    Will none but Heme the Hunter serve your turn?\n  MRS. PAGE. I pray you, come, hold up the jest no higher.\n    Now, good Sir John, how like you Windsor wives?\n    See you these, husband? Do not these fair yokes\n    Become the forest better than the town?\n  FORD. Now, sir, who's a cuckold now? Master Brook,\n    Falstaff's a knave, a cuckoldly knave; here are his horns,\n    Master Brook; and, Master Brook, he hath enjoyed nothing of\n    Ford's but his buck-basket, his cudgel, and twenty pounds\n    of money, which must be paid to Master Brook; his horses\n    are arrested for it, Master Brook.\n  MRS. FORD. Sir John, we have had ill luck; we could never\n    meet. I will never take you for my love again; but I will\n    always count you my deer.\n  FALSTAFF. I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass.\n  FORD. Ay, and an ox too; both the proofs are extant.\n  FALSTAFF. And these are not fairies? I was three or four\n    times in the thought they were not fairies; and yet the\n    guiltiness of my mind, the sudden surprise of my powers,\n    drove the grossness of the foppery into a receiv'd belief,\n    in despite of the teeth of all rhyme and reason, that they\n    were fairies. See now how wit may be made a Jack-a-Lent\n    when 'tis upon ill employment.\n  EVANS. Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your desires,\n    and fairies will not pinse you.\n  FORD. Well said, fairy Hugh.\n  EVANS. And leave you your jealousies too, I pray you.\n  FORD. I will never mistrust my wife again, till thou art able\n    to woo her in good English.\n  FALSTAFF. Have I laid my brain in the sun, and dried it, that\n    it wants matter to prevent so gross, o'er-reaching as this?\n    Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? Shall I have a cox-comb\n    of frieze? 'Tis time I were chok'd with a piece of\n    toasted cheese.\n  EVANS. Seese is not good to give putter; your belly is all\n    putter.\n  FALSTAFF. 'Seese' and 'putter'! Have I liv'd to stand at the\n    taunt of one that makes fritters of English? This is enough\n    to be the decay of lust and late-walking through the realm.\n  MRS. PAGE. Why, Sir John, do you think, though we would\n    have thrust virtue out of our hearts by the head and\n    shoulders, and have given ourselves without scruple to hell,\n    that ever the devil could have made you our delight?\n  FORD. What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of flax?\n  MRS. PAGE. A puff'd man?\n  PAGE. Old, cold, wither'd, and of intolerable entrails?\n  FORD. And one that is as slanderous as Satan?\n  PAGE. And as poor as Job?\n  FORD. And as wicked as his wife?\n  EVANS. And given to fornications, and to taverns, and sack,\n    and wine, and metheglins, and to drinkings, and swearings,\n    and starings, pribbles and prabbles?\n  FALSTAFF. Well, I am your theme; you have the start of me;\n    I am dejected; I am not able to answer the Welsh flannel;\n    ignorance itself is a plummet o'er me; use me as you will.\n  FORD. Marry, sir, we'll bring you to Windsor, to one Master\n    Brook, that you have cozen'd of money, to whom you\n    should have been a pander. Over and above that you have\n    suffer'd, I think to repay that money will be a biting\n    affliction.\n  PAGE. Yet be cheerful, knight; thou shalt eat a posset\n    tonight at my house, where I will desire thee to laugh at my\n    wife, that now laughs at thee. Tell her Master Slender hath\n    married her daughter.\n  MRS. PAGE.  [Aside]  Doctors doubt that; if Anne Page be\n    my daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius' wife.\n\n                        Enter SLENDER\n\n  SLENDER. Whoa, ho, ho, father Page!\n  PAGE. Son, how now! how now, son! Have you dispatch'd'?\n  SLENDER. Dispatch'd! I'll make the best in Gloucestershire\n    know on't; would I were hang'd, la, else!\n  PAGE. Of what, son?\n  SLENDER. I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne\n    Page, and she's a great lubberly boy. If it had not been i'\n    th' church, I would have swing'd him, or he should have\n    swing'd me. If I did not think it had been Anne Page,\n    would I might never stir!-and 'tis a postmaster's boy.\n  PAGE. Upon my life, then, you took the wrong.\n  SLENDER. What need you tell me that? I think so, when I\n    took a boy for a girl. If I had been married to him, for all\n    he was in woman's apparel, I would not have had him.\n  PAGE. Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how\n    you should know my daughter by her garments?\n  SLENDER. I went to her in white and cried 'mum' and she\n    cried 'budget' as Anne and I had appointed; and yet it was\n    not Anne, but a postmaster's boy.\n  MRS. PAGE. Good George, be not angry. I knew of your\n    purpose; turn'd my daughter into green; and, indeed, she\n    is now with the Doctor at the dean'ry, and there married.\n\n                         Enter CAIUS\n\n  CAIUS. Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened; I ha'\n    married un garcon, a boy; un paysan, by gar, a boy; it is\n    not Anne Page; by gar, I am cozened.\n  MRS. PAGE. Why, did you take her in green?\n  CAIUS. Ay, be gar, and 'tis a boy; be gar, I'll raise all\n    Windsor.                                          Exit CAIUS\n  FORD. This is strange. Who hath got the right Anne?\n  PAGE. My heart misgives me; here comes Master Fenton.\n\n                  Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE\n\n    How now, Master Fenton!\n  ANNE. Pardon, good father. Good my mother, pardon.\n  PAGE. Now, Mistress, how chance you went not with Master\n    Slender?\n  MRS. PAGE. Why went you not with Master Doctor, maid?\n  FENTON. You do amaze her. Hear the truth of it.\n    You would have married her most shamefully,\n    Where there was no proportion held in love.\n    The truth is, she and I, long since contracted,\n    Are now so sure that nothing can dissolve us.\n    Th' offence is holy that she hath committed;\n    And this deceit loses the name of craft,\n    Of disobedience, or unduteous title,\n    Since therein she doth evitate and shun\n    A thousand irreligious cursed hours,\n    Which forced marriage would have brought upon her.\n  FORD. Stand not amaz'd; here is no remedy.\n    In love, the heavens themselves do guide the state;\n    Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.\n  FALSTAFF. I am glad, though you have ta'en a special stand\n    to strike at me, that your arrow hath glanc'd.\n  PAGE. Well, what remedy? Fenton, heaven give thee joy!\n    What cannot be eschew'd must be embrac'd.\n  FALSTAFF. When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chas'd.\n  MRS. PAGE. Well, I will muse no further. Master Fenton,\n    Heaven give you many, many merry days!\n    Good husband, let us every one go home,\n    And laugh this sport o'er by a country fire;\n    Sir John and all.\n  FORD. Let it be so. Sir John,\n    To Master Brook you yet shall hold your word;\n    For he, to-night, shall lie with Mistress Ford.       Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1596\n\nA MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  THESEUS, Duke of Athens\n  EGEUS, father to Hermia\n  LYSANDER, in love with Hermia\n  DEMETRIUS, in love with Hermia\n  PHILOSTRATE, Master of the Revels to Theseus\n  QUINCE, a carpenter\n  SNUG, a joiner\n  BOTTOM, a weaver\n  FLUTE, a bellows-mender\n  SNOUT, a tinker\n  STARVELING, a tailor\n\n  HIPPOLYTA, Queen of the Amazons, bethrothed to Theseus\n  HERMIA, daughter to Egeus, in love with Lysander\n  HELENA, in love with Demetrius\n\n  OBERON, King of the Fairies\n  TITANIA, Queen of the Fairies\n  PUCK, or ROBIN GOODFELLOW\n  PEASEBLOSSOM, fairy\n  COBWEB, fairy\n  MOTH, fairy\n  MUSTARDSEED, fairy\n\n  PROLOGUE, PYRAMUS, THISBY, WALL, MOONSHINE, LION are presented by:\n    QUINCE, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, STARVELING, AND SNUG\n\n  Other Fairies attending their King and Queen\n  Attendants on Theseus and Hippolyta\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nAthens and a wood near it\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nAthens. The palace of THESEUS\n\nEnter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, and ATTENDANTS\n\n  THESEUS. Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour\n    Draws on apace; four happy days bring in\n    Another moon; but, O, methinks, how slow\n    This old moon wanes! She lingers my desires,\n    Like to a step-dame or a dowager,\n    Long withering out a young man's revenue.\n  HIPPOLYTA. Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;\n    Four nights will quickly dream away the time;\n    And then the moon, like to a silver bow\n    New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night\n    Of our solemnities.\n  THESEUS. Go, Philostrate,\n    Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;\n    Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth;\n    Turn melancholy forth to funerals;\n    The pale companion is not for our pomp.     Exit PHILOSTRATE\n    Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword,\n    And won thy love doing thee injuries;\n    But I will wed thee in another key,\n    With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling.\n\n          Enter EGEUS, and his daughter HERMIA, LYSANDER,\n                           and DEMETRIUS\n\n  EGEUS. Happy be Theseus, our renowned Duke!\n  THESEUS. Thanks, good Egeus; what's the news with thee?\n  EGEUS. Full of vexation come I, with complaint\n    Against my child, my daughter Hermia.\n    Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord,\n    This man hath my consent to marry her.\n    Stand forth, Lysander. And, my gracious Duke,\n    This man hath bewitch'd the bosom of my child.\n    Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,\n    And interchang'd love-tokens with my child;\n    Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung,\n    With feigning voice, verses of feigning love,\n    And stol'n the impression of her fantasy\n    With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits,\n    Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats- messengers\n    Of strong prevailment in unhardened youth;\n    With cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's heart;\n    Turn'd her obedience, which is due to me,\n    To stubborn harshness. And, my gracious Duke,\n    Be it so she will not here before your Grace\n    Consent to marry with Demetrius,\n    I beg the ancient privilege of Athens:\n    As she is mine I may dispose of her;\n    Which shall be either to this gentleman\n    Or to her death, according to our law\n    Immediately provided in that case.\n  THESEUS. What say you, Hermia? Be advis'd, fair maid.\n    To you your father should be as a god;\n    One that compos'd your beauties; yea, and one\n    To whom you are but as a form in wax,\n    By him imprinted, and within his power\n    To leave the figure, or disfigure it.\n    Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.\n  HERMIA. So is Lysander.\n  THESEUS. In himself he is;\n    But, in this kind, wanting your father's voice,\n    The other must be held the worthier.\n  HERMIA. I would my father look'd but with my eyes.\n  THESEUS. Rather your eyes must with his judgment look.\n  HERMIA. I do entreat your Grace to pardon me.\n    I know not by what power I am made bold,\n    Nor how it may concern my modesty\n    In such a presence here to plead my thoughts;\n    But I beseech your Grace that I may know\n    The worst that may befall me in this case,\n    If I refuse to wed Demetrius.\n  THESEUS. Either to die the death, or to abjure\n    For ever the society of men.\n    Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires,\n    Know of your youth, examine well your blood,\n    Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice,\n    You can endure the livery of a nun,\n    For aye to be shady cloister mew'd,\n    To live a barren sister all your life,\n    Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.\n    Thrice-blessed they that master so their blood\n    To undergo such maiden pilgrimage;\n    But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd\n    Than that which withering on the virgin thorn\n    Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness.\n  HERMIA. So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,\n    Ere I will yield my virgin patent up\n    Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke\n    My soul consents not to give sovereignty.\n  THESEUS. Take time to pause; and by the next new moon-\n    The sealing-day betwixt my love and me\n    For everlasting bond of fellowship-\n    Upon that day either prepare to die\n    For disobedience to your father's will,\n    Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would,\n    Or on Diana's altar to protest\n    For aye austerity and single life.\n  DEMETRIUS. Relent, sweet Hermia; and, Lysander, yield\n    Thy crazed title to my certain right.\n  LYSANDER. You have her father's love, Demetrius;\n    Let me have Hermia's; do you marry him.\n  EGEUS. Scornful Lysander, true, he hath my love;\n    And what is mine my love shall render him;\n    And she is mine; and all my right of her\n    I do estate unto Demetrius.\n  LYSANDER. I am, my lord, as well deriv'd as he,\n    As well possess'd; my love is more than his;\n    My fortunes every way as fairly rank'd,\n    If not with vantage, as Demetrius';\n    And, which is more than all these boasts can be,\n    I am belov'd of beauteous Hermia.\n    Why should not I then prosecute my right?\n    Demetrius, I'll avouch it to his head,\n    Made love to Nedar's daughter, Helena,\n    And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes,\n    Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,\n    Upon this spotted and inconstant man.\n  THESEUS. I must confess that I have heard so much,\n    And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof;\n    But, being over-full of self-affairs,\n    My mind did lose it. But, Demetrius, come;\n    And come, Egeus; you shall go with me;\n    I have some private schooling for you both.\n    For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself\n    To fit your fancies to your father's will,\n    Or else the law of Athens yields you up-\n    Which by no means we may extenuate-\n    To death, or to a vow of single life.\n    Come, my Hippolyta; what cheer, my love?\n    Demetrius, and Egeus, go along;\n    I must employ you in some business\n    Against our nuptial, and confer with you\n    Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.\n  EGEUS. With duty and desire we follow you.\n                              Exeunt all but LYSANDER and HERMIA\n  LYSANDER. How now, my love! Why is your cheek so pale?\n    How chance the roses there do fade so fast?\n  HERMIA. Belike for want of rain, which I could well\n    Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.\n  LYSANDER. Ay me! for aught that I could ever read,\n    Could ever hear by tale or history,\n    The course of true love never did run smooth;\n    But either it was different in blood-\n  HERMIA. O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low.\n  LYSANDER. Or else misgraffed in respect of years-\n  HERMIA. O spite! too old to be engag'd to young.\n  LYSANDER. Or else it stood upon the choice of friends-\n  HERMIA. O hell! to choose love by another's eyes.\n  LYSANDER. Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,\n    War, death, or sickness, did lay siege to it,\n    Making it momentary as a sound,\n    Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,\n    Brief as the lightning in the collied night\n    That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,\n    And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!'\n    The jaws of darkness do devour it up;\n    So quick bright things come to confusion.\n  HERMIA. If then true lovers have ever cross'd,\n    It stands as an edict in destiny.\n    Then let us teach our trial patience,\n    Because it is a customary cross,\n    As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs,\n    Wishes and tears, poor Fancy's followers.\n  LYSANDER. A good persuasion; therefore, hear me, Hermia.\n    I have a widow aunt, a dowager\n    Of great revenue, and she hath no child-\n    From Athens is her house remote seven leagues-\n    And she respects me as her only son.\n    There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee;\n    And to that place the sharp Athenian law\n    Cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me then,\n    Steal forth thy father's house to-morrow night;\n    And in the wood, a league without the town,\n    Where I did meet thee once with Helena\n    To do observance to a morn of May,\n    There will I stay for thee.\n  HERMIA. My good Lysander!\n    I swear to thee by Cupid's strongest bow,\n    By his best arrow, with the golden head,\n    By the simplicity of Venus' doves,\n    By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,\n    And by that fire which burn'd the Carthage Queen,\n    When the false Troyan under sail was seen,\n    By all the vows that ever men have broke,\n    In number more than ever women spoke,\n    In that same place thou hast appointed me,\n    To-morrow truly will I meet with thee.\n  LYSANDER. Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena.\n\n                         Enter HELENA\n\n  HERMIA. God speed fair Helena! Whither away?\n  HELENA. Call you me fair? That fair again unsay.\n    Demetrius loves your fair. O happy fair!\n    Your eyes are lode-stars and your tongue's sweet air\n    More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear,\n    When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.\n    Sickness is catching; O, were favour so,\n    Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go!\n    My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,\n    My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody.\n    Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,\n    The rest I'd give to be to you translated.\n    O, teach me how you look, and with what art\n    You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart!\n  HERMIA. I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.\n  HELENA. O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!\n  HERMIA. I give him curses, yet he gives me love.\n  HELENA. O that my prayers could such affection move!\n  HERMIA. The more I hate, the more he follows me.\n  HELENA. The more I love, the more he hateth me.\n  HERMIA. His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.\n  HELENA. None, but your beauty; would that fault were mine!\n  HERMIA. Take comfort: he no more shall see my face;\n    Lysander and myself will fly this place.\n    Before the time I did Lysander see,\n    Seem'd Athens as a paradise to me.\n    O, then, what graces in my love do dwell,\n    That he hath turn'd a heaven unto a hell!\n  LYSANDER. Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:\n    To-morrow night, when Phoebe doth behold\n    Her silver visage in the wat'ry glass,\n    Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass,\n    A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal,\n    Through Athens' gates have we devis'd to steal.\n  HERMIA. And in the wood where often you and I\n    Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie,\n    Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet,\n    There my Lysander and myself shall meet;\n    And thence from Athens turn away our eyes,\n    To seek new friends and stranger companies.\n    Farewell, sweet playfellow; pray thou for us,\n    And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius!\n    Keep word, Lysander; we must starve our sight\n    From lovers' food till morrow deep midnight.\n  LYSANDER. I will, my Hermia. [Exit HERMIA] Helena, adieu;\n    As you on him, Demetrius dote on you.                   Exit\n  HELENA. How happy some o'er other some can be!\n    Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.\n    But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;\n    He will not know what all but he do know.\n    And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes,\n    So I, admiring of his qualities.\n    Things base and vile, holding no quantity,\n    Love can transpose to form and dignity.\n    Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;\n    And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.\n    Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste;\n    Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste;\n    And therefore is Love said to be a child,\n    Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd.\n    As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,\n    So the boy Love is perjur'd everywhere;\n    For ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne,\n    He hail'd down oaths that he was only mine;\n    And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,\n    So he dissolv'd, and show'rs of oaths did melt.\n    I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight;\n    Then to the wood will he to-morrow night\n    Pursue her; and for this intelligence\n    If I have thanks, it is a dear expense.\n    But herein mean I to enrich my pain,\n    To have his sight thither and back again.               Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nAthens. QUINCE'S house\n\nEnter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING\n\n  QUINCE. Is all our company here?\n  BOTTOM. You were best to call them generally, man by man, according\n    to the scrip.\n  QUINCE. Here is the scroll of every man's name which is thought\n    fit, through all Athens, to play in our interlude before the Duke\n    and the Duchess on his wedding-day at night.\n  BOTTOM. First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on; then\n    read the names of the actors; and so grow to a point.\n  QUINCE. Marry, our play is 'The most Lamentable Comedy and most\n    Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisby.'\n  BOTTOM. A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry. Now,\n    good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll. Masters,\n    spread yourselves.\n  QUINCE. Answer, as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver.\n  BOTTOM. Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed.\n  QUINCE. You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus.\n  BOTTOM. What is Pyramus? A lover, or a tyrant?\n  QUINCE. A lover, that kills himself most gallant for love.\n  BOTTOM. That will ask some tears in the true performing of it. If I\n    do it, let the audience look to their eyes; I will move storms; I\n    will condole in some measure. To the rest- yet my chief humour is\n    for a tyrant. I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat\n    in, to make all split.\n\n                 'The raging rocks\n                 And shivering shocks\n                 Shall break the locks\n                   Of prison gates;\n\n                 And Phibbus' car\n                 Shall shine from far,\n                 And make and mar\n                   The foolish Fates.'\n\n    This was lofty. Now name the rest of the players. This is\n    Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein: a lover is more condoling.\n  QUINCE. Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.\n  FLUTE. Here, Peter Quince.\n  QUINCE. Flute, you must take Thisby on you.\n  FLUTE. What is Thisby? A wand'ring knight?\n  QUINCE. It is the lady that Pyramus must love.\n  FLUTE. Nay, faith, let not me play a woman; I have a beard coming.\n  QUINCE. That's all one; you shall play it in a mask, and you may\n    speak as small as you will.\n  BOTTOM. An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too.\n    I'll speak in a monstrous little voice: 'Thisne, Thisne!'\n    [Then speaking small] 'Ah Pyramus, my lover dear! Thy\n    Thisby dear, and lady dear!'\n  QUINCE. No, no, you must play Pyramus; and, Flute, you Thisby.\n  BOTTOM. Well, proceed.\n  QUINCE. Robin Starveling, the tailor.\n  STARVELING. Here, Peter Quince.\n  QUINCE. Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's mother.\n    Tom Snout, the tinker.\n  SNOUT. Here, Peter Quince.\n  QUINCE. You, Pyramus' father; myself, Thisby's father; Snug, the\n    joiner, you, the lion's part. And, I hope, here is a play fitted.\n  SNUG. Have you the lion's part written? Pray you, if it be, give it\n    me, for I am slow of study.\n  QUINCE. You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.\n  BOTTOM. Let me play the lion too. I will roar that I will do any\n    man's heart good to hear me; I will roar that I will make the\n    Duke say 'Let him roar again, let him roar again.'\n  QUINCE. An you should do it too terribly, you would fright the\n    Duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek; and that were\n    enough to hang us all.\n  ALL. That would hang us, every mother's son.\n  BOTTOM. I grant you, friends, if you should fright the ladies out\n    of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang us;\n    but I will aggravate my voice so, that I will roar you as gently\n    as any sucking dove; I will roar you an 'twere any nightingale.\n  QUINCE. You can play no part but Pyramus; for Pyramus is a\n    sweet-fac'd man; a proper man, as one shall see in a summer's\n    day; a most lovely gentleman-like man; therefore you must needs\n    play Pyramus.\n  BOTTOM. Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to play\n    it in?\n  QUINCE. Why, what you will.\n  BOTTOM. I will discharge it in either your straw-colour beard, your\n    orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your\n    French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow.\n  QUINCE. Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and then\n    you will play bare-fac'd. But, masters, here are your parts; and\n    I am to entreat you, request you, and desire you, to con them by\n    to-morrow night; and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without\n    the town, by moonlight; there will we rehearse; for if we meet in\n    the city, we shall be dogg'd with company, and our devices known.\n    In the meantime I will draw a bill of properties, such as our\n    play wants. I pray you, fail me not.\n  BOTTOM. We will meet; and there we may rehearse most obscenely and\n    courageously. Take pains; be perfect; adieu.\n  QUINCE. At the Duke's oak we meet.\n  BOTTOM. Enough; hold, or cut bow-strings.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nA wood near Athens\n\nEnter a FAIRY at One door, and PUCK at another\n\n  PUCK. How now, spirit! whither wander you?\n  FAIRY.      Over hill, over dale,\n                Thorough bush, thorough brier,\n              Over park, over pale,\n                Thorough flood, thorough fire,\n              I do wander every where,\n              Swifter than the moon's sphere;\n              And I serve the Fairy Queen,\n              To dew her orbs upon the green.\n              The cowslips tall her pensioners be;\n              In their gold coats spots you see;\n              Those be rubies, fairy favours,\n              In those freckles live their savours.\n\n    I must go seek some dewdrops here,\n    And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.\n    Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I'll be gone.\n    Our Queen and all her elves come here anon.\n  PUCK. The King doth keep his revels here to-night;\n    Take heed the Queen come not within his sight;\n    For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,\n    Because that she as her attendant hath\n    A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king.\n    She never had so sweet a changeling;\n    And jealous Oberon would have the child\n    Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild;\n    But she perforce withholds the loved boy,\n    Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy.\n    And now they never meet in grove or green,\n    By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,\n    But they do square, that all their elves for fear\n    Creep into acorn cups and hide them there.\n  FAIRY. Either I mistake your shape and making quite,\n    Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite\n    Call'd Robin Goodfellow. Are not you he\n    That frights the maidens of the villagery,\n    Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern,\n    And bootless make the breathless housewife churn,\n    And sometime make the drink to bear no barm,\n    Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?\n    Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,\n    You do their work, and they shall have good luck.\n    Are not you he?\n  PUCK. Thou speakest aright:\n    I am that merry wanderer of the night.\n    I jest to Oberon, and make him smile\n    When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,\n    Neighing in likeness of a filly foal;\n    And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl\n    In very likeness of a roasted crab,\n    And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob,\n    And on her withered dewlap pour the ale.\n    The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,\n    Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;\n    Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,\n    And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough;\n    And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,\n    And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear\n    A merrier hour was never wasted there.\n    But room, fairy, here comes Oberon.\n  FAIRY. And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!\n\n       Enter OBERON at one door, with his TRAIN, and TITANIA,\n                        at another, with hers\n\n  OBERON. Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.\n  TITANIA. What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence;\n    I have forsworn his bed and company.\n  OBERON. Tarry, rash wanton; am not I thy lord?\n  TITANIA. Then I must be thy lady; but I know\n    When thou hast stolen away from fairy land,\n    And in the shape of Corin sat all day,\n    Playing on pipes of corn, and versing love\n    To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,\n    Come from the farthest steep of India,\n    But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,\n    Your buskin'd mistress and your warrior love,\n    To Theseus must be wedded, and you come\n    To give their bed joy and prosperity?\n  OBERON. How canst thou thus, for shame, Titania,\n    Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,\n    Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?\n    Didst not thou lead him through the glimmering night\n    From Perigouna, whom he ravished?\n    And make him with fair Aegles break his faith,\n    With Ariadne and Antiopa?\n  TITANIA. These are the forgeries of jealousy;\n    And never, since the middle summer's spring,\n    Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead,\n    By paved fountain, or by rushy brook,\n    Or in the beached margent of the sea,\n    To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,\n    But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.\n    Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,\n    As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea\n    Contagious fogs; which, falling in the land,\n    Hath every pelting river made so proud\n    That they have overborne their continents.\n    The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,\n    The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn\n    Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard;\n    The fold stands empty in the drowned field,\n    And crows are fatted with the murrion flock;\n    The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud,\n    And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,\n    For lack of tread, are undistinguishable.\n    The human mortals want their winter here;\n    No night is now with hymn or carol blest;\n    Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,\n    Pale in her anger, washes all the air,\n    That rheumatic diseases do abound.\n    And thorough this distemperature we see\n    The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts\n    Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose;\n    And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown\n    An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds\n    Is, as in mockery, set. The spring, the summer,\n    The childing autumn, angry winter, change\n    Their wonted liveries; and the mazed world,\n    By their increase, now knows not which is which.\n    And this same progeny of evils comes\n    From our debate, from our dissension;\n    We are their parents and original.\n  OBERON. Do you amend it, then; it lies in you.\n    Why should Titania cross her Oberon?\n    I do but beg a little changeling boy\n    To be my henchman.\n  TITANIA. Set your heart at rest;\n    The fairy land buys not the child of me.\n    His mother was a vot'ress of my order;\n    And, in the spiced Indian air, by night,\n    Full often hath she gossip'd by my side;\n    And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,\n    Marking th' embarked traders on the flood;\n    When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive,\n    And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind;\n    Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait\n    Following- her womb then rich with my young squire-\n    Would imitate, and sail upon the land,\n    To fetch me trifles, and return again,\n    As from a voyage, rich with merchandise.\n    But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;\n    And for her sake do I rear up her boy;\n    And for her sake I will not part with him.\n  OBERON. How long within this wood intend you stay?\n  TITANIA. Perchance till after Theseus' wedding-day.\n    If you will patiently dance in our round,\n    And see our moonlight revels, go with us;\n    If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.\n  OBERON. Give me that boy and I will go with thee.\n  TITANIA. Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away.\n    We shall chide downright if I longer stay.\n                                     Exit TITANIA with her train\n  OBERON. Well, go thy way; thou shalt not from this grove\n    Till I torment thee for this injury.\n    My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememb'rest\n    Since once I sat upon a promontory,\n    And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back\n    Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath\n    That the rude sea grew civil at her song,\n    And certain stars shot madly from their spheres\n    To hear the sea-maid's music.\n  PUCK. I remember.\n  OBERON. That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,\n    Flying between the cold moon and the earth\n    Cupid, all arm'd; a certain aim he took\n    At a fair vestal, throned by the west,\n    And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow,\n    As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;\n    But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft\n    Quench'd in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon;\n    And the imperial vot'ress passed on,\n    In maiden meditation, fancy-free.\n    Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell.\n    It fell upon a little western flower,\n    Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,\n    And maidens call it Love-in-idleness.\n    Fetch me that flow'r, the herb I showed thee once.\n    The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid\n    Will make or man or woman madly dote\n    Upon the next live creature that it sees.\n    Fetch me this herb, and be thou here again\n    Ere the leviathan can swim a league.\n  PUCK. I'll put a girdle round about the earth\n    In forty minutes.                                  Exit PUCK\n  OBERON. Having once this juice,\n    I'll watch Titania when she is asleep,\n    And drop the liquor of it in her eyes;\n    The next thing then she waking looks upon,\n    Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,\n    On meddling monkey, or on busy ape,\n    She shall pursue it with the soul of love.\n    And ere I take this charm from off her sight,\n    As I can take it with another herb,\n    I'll make her render up her page to me.\n    But who comes here? I am invisible;\n    And I will overhear their conference.\n\n               Enter DEMETRIUS, HELENA following him\n\n  DEMETRIUS. I love thee not, therefore pursue me not.\n    Where is Lysander and fair Hermia?\n    The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me.\n    Thou told'st me they were stol'n unto this wood,\n    And here am I, and wood within this wood,\n    Because I cannot meet my Hermia.\n    Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.\n  HELENA. You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant;\n    But yet you draw not iron, for my heart\n    Is true as steel. Leave you your power to draw,\n    And I shall have no power to follow you.\n  DEMETRIUS. Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair?\n    Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth\n    Tell you I do not nor I cannot love you?\n  HELENA. And even for that do I love you the more.\n    I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius,\n    The more you beat me, I will fawn on you.\n    Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me,\n    Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave,\n    Unworthy as I am, to follow you.\n    What worser place can I beg in your love,\n    And yet a place of high respect with me,\n    Than to be used as you use your dog?\n  DEMETRIUS. Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit;\n    For I am sick when I do look on thee.\n  HELENA. And I am sick when I look not on you.\n  DEMETRIUS. You do impeach your modesty too much\n    To leave the city and commit yourself\n    Into the hands of one that loves you not;\n    To trust the opportunity of night,\n    And the ill counsel of a desert place,\n    With the rich worth of your virginity.\n  HELENA. Your virtue is my privilege for that:\n    It is not night when I do see your face,\n    Therefore I think I am not in the night;\n    Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company,\n    For you, in my respect, are all the world.\n    Then how can it be said I am alone\n    When all the world is here to look on me?\n  DEMETRIUS. I'll run from thee and hide me in the brakes,\n    And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.\n  HELENA. The wildest hath not such a heart as you.\n    Run when you will; the story shall be chang'd:\n    Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase;\n    The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind\n    Makes speed to catch the tiger- bootless speed,\n    When cowardice pursues and valour flies.\n  DEMETRIUS. I will not stay thy questions; let me go;\n    Or, if thou follow me, do not believe\n    But I shall do thee mischief in the wood.\n  HELENA. Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field,\n    You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius!\n    Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex.\n    We cannot fight for love as men may do;\n    We should be woo'd, and were not made to woo.\n                                                  Exit DEMETRIUS\n    I'll follow thee, and make a heaven of hell,\n    To die upon the hand I love so well.             Exit HELENA\n  OBERON. Fare thee well, nymph; ere he do leave this grove,\n    Thou shalt fly him, and he shall seek thy love.\n\n                            Re-enter PUCK\n\n    Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer.\n  PUCK. Ay, there it is.\n  OBERON. I pray thee give it me.\n    I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,\n    Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,\n    Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,\n    With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine;\n    There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,\n    Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight;\n    And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin,\n    Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in;\n    And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes,\n    And make her full of hateful fantasies.\n    Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove:\n    A sweet Athenian lady is in love\n    With a disdainful youth; anoint his eyes;\n    But do it when the next thing he espies\n    May be the lady. Thou shalt know the man\n    By the Athenian garments he hath on.\n    Effect it with some care, that he may prove\n    More fond on her than she upon her love.\n    And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.\n  PUCK. Fear not, my lord; your servant shall do so.      Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nAnother part of the wood\n\nEnter TITANIA, with her train\n\n  TITANIA. Come now, a roundel and a fairy song;\n    Then, for the third part of a minute, hence:\n    Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds;\n    Some war with rere-mice for their leathern wings,\n    To make my small elves coats; and some keep back\n    The clamorous owl that nightly hoots and wonders\n    At our quaint spirits. Sing me now asleep;\n    Then to your offices, and let me rest.\n\n                          The FAIRIES Sing\n\n  FIRST FAIRY. You spotted snakes with double tongue,\n               Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;\n               Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong,\n               Come not near our fairy Queen.\n  CHORUS.      Philomel with melody\n               Sing in our sweet lullaby.\n               Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby.\n               Never harm\n               Nor spell nor charm\n               Come our lovely lady nigh.\n               So good night, with lullaby.\n  SECOND FAIRY.  Weaving spiders, come not here;\n                 Hence, you long-legg'd spinners, hence.\n                 Beetles black, approach not near;\n                 Worm nor snail do no offence.\n  CHORUS.      Philomel with melody, etc.       [TITANIA Sleeps]\n  FIRST FAIRY. Hence away; now all is well.\n               One aloof stand sentinel.          Exeunt FAIRIES\n\n      Enter OBERON and squeezes the flower on TITANIA'S eyelids\n\n  OBERON. What thou seest when thou dost wake,\n    Do it for thy true-love take;\n    Love and languish for his sake.\n    Be it ounce, or cat, or bear,\n    Pard, or boar with bristled hair,\n    In thy eye that shall appear\n    When thou wak'st, it is thy dear.\n    Wake when some vile thing is near.                      Exit\n\n                     Enter LYSANDER and HERMIA\n\n  LYSANDER. Fair love, you faint with wand'ring in the wood;\n    And, to speak troth, I have forgot our way;\n    We'll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good,\n    And tarry for the comfort of the day.\n  HERMIA. Be it so, Lysander: find you out a bed,\n    For I upon this bank will rest my head.\n  LYSANDER. One turf shall serve as pillow for us both;\n    One heart, one bed, two bosoms, and one troth.\n  HERMIA. Nay, good Lysander; for my sake, my dear,\n    Lie further off yet; do not lie so near.\n  LYSANDER. O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence!\n    Love takes the meaning in love's conference.\n    I mean that my heart unto yours is knit,\n    So that but one heart we can make of it;\n    Two bosoms interchained with an oath,\n    So then two bosoms and a single troth.\n    Then by your side no bed-room me deny,\n    For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.\n  HERMIA. Lysander riddles very prettily.\n    Now much beshrew my manners and my pride,\n    If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied!\n    But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy\n    Lie further off, in human modesty;\n    Such separation as may well be said\n    Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid,\n    So far be distant; and good night, sweet friend.\n    Thy love ne'er alter till thy sweet life end!\n  LYSANDER. Amen, amen, to that fair prayer say I;\n    And then end life when I end loyalty!\n    Here is my bed; sleep give thee all his rest!\n  HERMIA. With half that wish the wisher's eyes be press'd!\n                                                    [They sleep]\n\n                          Enter PUCK\n\n  PUCK.      Through the forest have I gone,\n             But Athenian found I none\n             On whose eyes I might approve\n             This flower's force in stirring love.\n             Night and silence- Who is here?\n             Weeds of Athens he doth wear:\n             This is he, my master said,\n             Despised the Athenian maid;\n             And here the maiden, sleeping sound,\n             On the dank and dirty ground.\n             Pretty soul! she durst not lie\n             Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.\n             Churl, upon thy eyes I throw\n             All the power this charm doth owe:\n             When thou wak'st let love forbid\n             Sleep his seat on thy eyelid.\n             So awake when I am gone;\n             For I must now to Oberon.                      Exit\n\n               Enter DEMETRIUS and HELENA, running\n\n  HELENA. Stay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius.\n  DEMETRIUS. I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus.\n  HELENA. O, wilt thou darkling leave me? Do not so.\n  DEMETRIUS. Stay on thy peril; I alone will go.            Exit\n  HELENA. O, I am out of breath in this fond chase!\n    The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.\n    Happy is Hermia, wheresoe'er she lies,\n    For she hath blessed and attractive eyes.\n    How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears;\n    If so, my eyes are oft'ner wash'd than hers.\n    No, no, I am as ugly as a bear,\n    For beasts that meet me run away for fear;\n    Therefore no marvel though Demetrius\n    Do, as a monster, fly my presence thus.\n    What wicked and dissembling glass of mine\n    Made me compare with Hermia's sphery eyne?\n    But who is here? Lysander! on the ground!\n    Dead, or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.\n    Lysander, if you live, good sir, awake.\n  LYSANDER. [Waking] And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake.\n    Transparent Helena! Nature shows art,\n    That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart.\n    Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word\n    Is that vile name to perish on my sword!\n  HELENA. Do not say so, Lysander; say not so.\n    What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though?\n    Yet Hermia still loves you; then be content.\n  LYSANDER. Content with Hermia! No: I do repent\n    The tedious minutes I with her have spent.\n    Not Hermia but Helena I love:\n    Who will not change a raven for a dove?\n    The will of man is by his reason sway'd,\n    And reason says you are the worthier maid.\n    Things growing are not ripe until their season;\n    So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason;\n    And touching now the point of human skill,\n    Reason becomes the marshal to my will,\n    And leads me to your eyes, where I o'erlook\n    Love's stories, written in Love's richest book.\n  HELENA. Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born?\n    When at your hands did I deserve this scorn?\n    Is't not enough, is't not enough, young man,\n    That I did never, no, nor never can,\n    Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius' eye,\n    But you must flout my insufficiency?\n    Good troth, you do me wrong, good sooth, you do,\n    In such disdainful manner me to woo.\n    But fare you well; perforce I must confess\n    I thought you lord of more true gentleness.\n    O, that a lady of one man refus'd\n    Should of another therefore be abus'd!                  Exit\n  LYSANDER. She sees not Hermia. Hermia, sleep thou there;\n    And never mayst thou come Lysander near!\n    For, as a surfeit of the sweetest things\n    The deepest loathing to the stomach brings,\n    Or as the heresies that men do leave\n    Are hated most of those they did deceive,\n    So thou, my surfeit and my heresy,\n    Of all be hated, but the most of me!\n    And, all my powers, address your love and might\n    To honour Helen, and to be her knight!                  Exit\n  HERMIA. [Starting] Help me, Lysander, help me; do thy best\n    To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast.\n    Ay me, for pity! What a dream was here!\n    Lysander, look how I do quake with fear.\n    Methought a serpent eat my heart away,\n    And you sat smiling at his cruel prey.\n    Lysander! What, remov'd? Lysander! lord!\n    What, out of hearing gone? No sound, no word?\n    Alack, where are you? Speak, an if you hear;\n    Speak, of all loves! I swoon almost with fear.\n    No? Then I well perceive you are not nigh.\n    Either death or you I'll find immediately.              Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nThe wood. TITANIA lying asleep\n\nEnter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING\n\n  BOTTOM. Are we all met?\n  QUINCE. Pat, pat; and here's a marvellous convenient place for our\n    rehearsal. This green plot shall be our stage, this hawthorn\n    brake our tiring-house; and we will do it in action, as we will\n    do it before the Duke.\n  BOTTOM. Peter Quince!\n  QUINCE. What sayest thou, bully Bottom?\n  BOTTOM. There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisby that\n    will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill\n    himself; which the ladies cannot abide. How answer you that?\n  SNOUT. By'r lakin, a parlous fear.\n  STARVELING. I believe we must leave the killing out, when all is\n    done.\n  BOTTOM. Not a whit; I have a device to make all well. Write me a\n    prologue; and let the prologue seem to say we will do no harm\n    with our swords, and that Pyramus is not kill'd indeed; and for\n    the more better assurance, tell them that I Pyramus am not\n    Pyramus but Bottom the weaver. This will put them out of fear.\n  QUINCE. Well, we will have such a prologue; and it shall be written\n    in eight and six.\n  BOTTOM. No, make it two more; let it be written in eight and eight.\n  SNOUT. Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?\n  STARVELING. I fear it, I promise you.\n  BOTTOM. Masters, you ought to consider with yourself to bring in-\n    God shield us!- a lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing; for\n    there is not a more fearful wild-fowl than your lion living; and\n    we ought to look to't.\n  SNOUT. Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion.\n  BOTTOM. Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must be seen\n    through the lion's neck; and he himself must speak through,\n    saying thus, or to the same defect: 'Ladies,' or 'Fair ladies, I\n    would wish you' or 'I would request you' or 'I would entreat you\n    not to fear, not to tremble. My life for yours! If you think I\n    come hither as a lion, it were pity of my life. No, I am no such\n    thing; I am a man as other men are.' And there, indeed, let him\n    name his name, and tell them plainly he is Snug the joiner.\n  QUINCE. Well, it shall be so. But there is two hard things- that\n    is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber; for, you know, Pyramus\n    and Thisby meet by moonlight.\n  SNOUT. Doth the moon shine that night we play our play?\n  BOTTOM. A calendar, a calendar! Look in the almanack; find out\n    moonshine, find out moonshine.\n  QUINCE. Yes, it doth shine that night.\n  BOTTOM. Why, then may you leave a casement of the great chamber\n    window, where we play, open; and the moon may shine in at the\n    casement.\n  QUINCE. Ay; or else one must come in with a bush of thorns and a\n    lantern, and say he comes to disfigure or to present the person\n    of Moonshine. Then there is another thing: we must have a wall in\n    the great chamber; for Pyramus and Thisby, says the story, did\n    talk through the chink of a wall.\n  SNOUT. You can never bring in a wall. What say you, Bottom?\n  BOTTOM. Some man or other must present Wall; and let him have some\n    plaster, or some loam, or some rough-cast about him, to signify\n    wall; and let him hold his fingers thus, and through that cranny\n    shall Pyramus and Thisby whisper.\n  QUINCE. If that may be, then all is well. Come, sit down, every\n    mother's son, and rehearse your parts. Pyramus, you begin; when\n    you have spoken your speech, enter into that brake; and so every\n    one according to his cue.\n\n                          Enter PUCK behind\n\n  PUCK. What hempen homespuns have we swagg'ring here,\n    So near the cradle of the Fairy Queen?\n    What, a play toward! I'll be an auditor;\n    An actor too perhaps, if I see cause.\n  QUINCE. Speak, Pyramus. Thisby, stand forth.\n  BOTTOM. Thisby, the flowers of odious savours sweet-\n  QUINCE. 'Odious'- odorous!\n  BOTTOM. -odours savours sweet;\n    So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisby dear.\n    But hark, a voice! Stay thou but here awhile,\n    And by and by I will to thee appear.                    Exit\n  PUCK. A stranger Pyramus than e'er played here!           Exit\n  FLUTE. Must I speak now?\n  QUINCE. Ay, marry, must you; for you must understand he goes but to\n    see a noise that he heard, and is to come again.\n  FLUTE. Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,\n    Of colour like the red rose on triumphant brier,\n    Most brisky juvenal, and eke most lovely Jew,\n    As true as truest horse, that would never tire,\n    I'll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny's tomb.\n  QUINCE. 'Ninus' tomb,' man! Why, you must not speak that yet; that\n    you answer to Pyramus. You speak all your part at once, cues, and\n    all. Pyramus enter: your cue is past; it is 'never tire.'\n  FLUTE. O- As true as truest horse, that y et would never tire.\n\n            Re-enter PUCK, and BOTTOM with an ass's head\n\n  BOTTOM. If I were fair, Thisby, I were only thine.\n  QUINCE. O monstrous! O strange! We are haunted. Pray, masters! fly,\n    masters! Help!\n                                  Exeunt all but BOTTOM and PUCK\n  PUCK. I'll follow you; I'll lead you about a round,\n    Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier;\n    Sometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound,\n    A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire;\n    And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn,\n    Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn.\nExit\n  BOTTOM. Why do they run away? This is a knavery of them to make me\n    afeard.\n\n                          Re-enter SNOUT\n\n  SNOUT. O Bottom, thou art chang'd! What do I see on thee?\n  BOTTOM. What do you see? You see an ass-head of your own, do you?\n                                                      Exit SNOUT\n\n                          Re-enter QUINCE\n\n  QUINCE. Bless thee, Bottom, bless thee! Thou art translated.\n Exit\n  BOTTOM. I see their knavery: this is to make an ass of me; to\n    fright me, if they could. But I will not stir from this place, do\n    what they can; I will walk up and down here, and will sing, that\n    they shall hear I am not afraid.                     [Sings]\n\n          The ousel cock, so black of hue,\n            With orange-tawny bill,\n          The throstle with his note so true,\n            The wren with little quill.\n\n  TITANIA. What angel wakes me from my flow'ry bed?\n  BOTTOM. [Sings]\n          The finch, the sparrow, and the lark,\n            The plain-song cuckoo grey,\n          Whose note full many a man doth mark,\n            And dares not answer nay-\n    for, indeed, who would set his wit to so foolish a bird?\n    Who would give a bird the he, though he cry 'cuckoo' never so?\n  TITANIA. I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again.\n    Mine ear is much enamoured of thy note;\n    So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape;\n    And thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me,\n    On the first view, to say, to swear, I love thee.\n  BOTTOM. Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason for that.\n    And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company\n    together now-a-days. The more the pity that some honest\n    neighbours will not make them friends. Nay, I can gleek upon\n    occasion.\n  TITANIA. Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful.\n  BOTTOM. Not so, neither; but if I had wit enough to get out of this\n    wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn.\n  TITANIA. Out of this wood do not desire to go;\n    Thou shalt remain here whether thou wilt or no.\n    I am a spirit of no common rate;\n    The summer still doth tend upon my state;\n    And I do love thee; therefore, go with me.\n    I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee;\n    And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep,\n    And sing, while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep;\n    And I will purge thy mortal grossness so\n    That thou shalt like an airy spirit go.\n    Peaseblossom! Cobweb! Moth! and Mustardseed!\n\n       Enter PEASEBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH, and MUSTARDSEED\n\n  PEASEBLOSSOM. Ready.\n  COBWEB. And I.\n  MOTH. And I.\n  MUSTARDSEED. And I.\n  ALL. Where shall we go?\n  TITANIA. Be kind and courteous to this gentleman;\n    Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes;\n    Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,\n    With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;\n    The honey bags steal from the humble-bees,\n    And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs,\n    And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes,\n    To have my love to bed and to arise;\n    And pluck the wings from painted butterflies,\n    To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes.\n    Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.\n  PEASEBLOSSOM. Hail, mortal!\n  COBWEB. Hail!\n  MOTH. Hail!\n  MUSTARDSEED. Hail!\n  BOTTOM. I cry your worships mercy, heartily; I beseech your\n    worship's name.\n  COBWEB. Cobweb.\n  BOTTOM. I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good Master\n    Cobweb. If I cut my finger, I shall make bold with you. Your\n    name, honest gentleman?\n  PEASEBLOSSOM. Peaseblossom.\n  BOTTOM. I pray you, commend me to Mistress Squash, your mother, and\n    to Master Peascod, your father. Good Master Peaseblossom, I shall\n    desire you of more acquaintance too. Your name, I beseech you,\n    sir?\n  MUSTARDSEED. Mustardseed.\n  BOTTOM. Good Master Mustardseed, I know your patience well. That\n    same cowardly giant-like ox-beef hath devour'd many a gentleman\n    of your house. I promise you your kindred hath made my eyes water\n    ere now. I desire you of more acquaintance, good Master\n    Mustardseed.\n  TITANIA. Come, wait upon him; lead him to my bower.\n    The moon, methinks, looks with a wat'ry eye;\n    And when she weeps, weeps every little flower;\n    Lamenting some enforced chastity.\n    Tie up my love's tongue, bring him silently.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nAnother part of the wood\n\nEnter OBERON\n\n  OBERON. I wonder if Titania be awak'd;\n    Then, what it was that next came in her eye,\n    Which she must dote on in extremity.\n\n                          Enter PUCK\n\n    Here comes my messenger. How now, mad spirit!\n    What night-rule now about this haunted grove?\n  PUCK. My mistress with a monster is in love.\n    Near to her close and consecrated bower,\n    While she was in her dull and sleeping hour,\n    A crew of patches, rude mechanicals,\n    That work for bread upon Athenian stalls,\n    Were met together to rehearse a play\n    Intended for great Theseus' nuptial day.\n    The shallowest thickskin of that barren sort,\n    Who Pyramus presented, in their sport\n    Forsook his scene and ent'red in a brake;\n    When I did him at this advantage take,\n    An ass's nole I fixed on his head.\n    Anon his Thisby must be answered,\n    And forth my mimic comes. When they him spy,\n    As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,\n    Or russet-pated choughs, many in sort,\n    Rising and cawing at the gun's report,\n    Sever themselves and madly sweep the sky,\n    So at his sight away his fellows fly;\n    And at our stamp here, o'er and o'er one falls;\n    He murder cries, and help from Athens calls.\n    Their sense thus weak, lost with their fears thus strong,\n    Made senseless things begin to do them wrong,\n    For briers and thorns at their apparel snatch;\n    Some sleeves, some hats, from yielders all things catch.\n    I led them on in this distracted fear,\n    And left sweet Pyramus translated there;\n    When in that moment, so it came to pass,\n    Titania wak'd, and straightway lov'd an ass.\n  OBERON. This falls out better than I could devise.\n    But hast thou yet latch'd the Athenian's eyes\n    With the love-juice, as I did bid thee do?\n  PUCK. I took him sleeping- that is finish'd too-\n    And the Athenian woman by his side;\n    That, when he wak'd, of force she must be ey'd.\n\n                 Enter DEMETRIUS and HERMIA\n\n  OBERON. Stand close; this is the same Athenian.\n  PUCK. This is the woman, but not this the man.\n  DEMETRIUS. O, why rebuke you him that loves you so?\n    Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe.\n  HERMIA. Now I but chide, but I should use thee worse,\n    For thou, I fear, hast given me cause to curse.\n    If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep,\n    Being o'er shoes in blood, plunge in the deep,\n    And kill me too.\n    The sun was not so true unto the day\n    As he to me. Would he have stolen away\n    From sleeping Hermia? I'll believe as soon\n    This whole earth may be bor'd, and that the moon\n    May through the centre creep and so displease\n    Her brother's noontide with th' Antipodes.\n    It cannot be but thou hast murd'red him;\n    So should a murderer look- so dead, so grim.\n  DEMETRIUS. So should the murdered look; and so should I,\n    Pierc'd through the heart with your stern cruelty;\n    Yet you, the murderer, look as bright, as clear,\n    As yonder Venus in her glimmering sphere.\n  HERMIA. What's this to my Lysander? Where is he?\n    Ah, good Demetrius, wilt thou give him me?\n  DEMETRIUS. I had rather give his carcass to my hounds.\n  HERMIA. Out, dog! out, cur! Thou driv'st me past the bounds\n    Of maiden's patience. Hast thou slain him, then?\n    Henceforth be never numb'red among men!\n    O, once tell true; tell true, even for my sake!\n    Durst thou have look'd upon him being awake,\n    And hast thou kill'd him sleeping? O brave touch!\n    Could not a worm, an adder, do so much?\n    An adder did it; for with doubler tongue\n    Than thine, thou serpent, never adder stung.\n  DEMETRIUS. You spend your passion on a mispris'd mood:\n    I am not guilty of Lysander's blood;\n    Nor is he dead, for aught that I can tell.\n  HERMIA. I pray thee, tell me then that he is well.\n  DEMETRIUS. An if I could, what should I get therefore?\n  HERMIA. A privilege never to see me more.\n    And from thy hated presence part I so;\n    See me no more whether he be dead or no.                Exit\n  DEMETRIUS. There is no following her in this fierce vein;\n    Here, therefore, for a while I will remain.\n    So sorrow's heaviness doth heavier grow\n    For debt that bankrupt sleep doth sorrow owe;\n    Which now in some slight measure it will pay,\n    If for his tender here I make some stay.         [Lies down]\n  OBERON. What hast thou done? Thou hast mistaken quite,\n    And laid the love-juice on some true-love's sight.\n    Of thy misprision must perforce ensue\n    Some true love turn'd, and not a false turn'd true.\n  PUCK. Then fate o'er-rules, that, one man holding troth,\n    A million fail, confounding oath on oath.\n  OBERON. About the wood go swifter than the wind,\n    And Helena of Athens look thou find;\n    All fancy-sick she is and pale of cheer,\n    With sighs of love that costs the fresh blood dear.\n    By some illusion see thou bring her here;\n    I'll charm his eyes against she do appear.\n  PUCK. I go, I go; look how I go,\n    Swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow.               Exit\n  OBERON.       Flower of this purple dye,\n                Hit with Cupid's archery,\n                Sink in apple of his eye.\n                When his love he doth espy,\n                Let her shine as gloriously\n                As the Venus of the sky.\n                When thou wak'st, if she be by,\n                Beg of her for remedy.\n\n                       Re-enter PUCK\n\n  PUCK.         Captain of our fairy band,\n                Helena is here at hand,\n                And the youth mistook by me\n                Pleading for a lover's fee;\n                Shall we their fond pageant see?\n                Lord, what fools these mortals be!\n  OBERON.       Stand aside. The noise they make\n                Will cause Demetrius to awake.\n  PUCK.         Then will two at once woo one.\n                That must needs be sport alone;\n                And those things do best please me\n                That befall prepost'rously.\n\n                   Enter LYSANDER and HELENA\n\n  LYSANDER. Why should you think that I should woo in scorn?\n    Scorn and derision never come in tears.\n    Look when I vow, I weep; and vows so born,\n    In their nativity all truth appears.\n    How can these things in me seem scorn to you,\n    Bearing the badge of faith, to prove them true?\n  HELENA. You do advance your cunning more and more.\n    When truth kills truth, O devilish-holy fray!\n    These vows are Hermia's. Will you give her o'er?\n    Weigh oath with oath, and you will nothing weigh:\n    Your vows to her and me, put in two scales,\n    Will even weigh; and both as light as tales.\n  LYSANDER. I hod no judgment when to her I swore.\n  HELENA. Nor none, in my mind, now you give her o'er.\n  LYSANDER. Demetrius loves her, and he loves not you.\n  DEMETRIUS. [Awaking] O Helen, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine!\n    To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne?\n    Crystal is muddy. O, how ripe in show\n    Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow!\n    That pure congealed white, high Taurus' snow,\n    Fann'd with the eastern wind, turns to a crow\n    When thou hold'st up thy hand. O, let me kiss\n    This princess of pure white, this seal of bliss!\n  HELENA. O spite! O hell! I see you all are bent\n    To set against me for your merriment.\n    If you were civil and knew courtesy,\n    You would not do me thus much injury.\n    Can you not hate me, as I know you do,\n    But you must join in souls to mock me too?\n    If you were men, as men you are in show,\n    You would not use a gentle lady so:\n    To vow, and swear, and superpraise my parts,\n    When I am sure you hate me with your hearts.\n    You both are rivals, and love Hermia;\n    And now both rivals, to mock Helena.\n    A trim exploit, a manly enterprise,\n    To conjure tears up in a poor maid's eyes\n    With your derision! None of noble sort\n    Would so offend a virgin, and extort\n    A poor soul's patience, all to make you sport.\n  LYSANDER. You are unkind, Demetrius; be not so;\n    For you love Hermia. This you know I know;\n    And here, with all good will, with all my heart,\n    In Hermia's love I yield you up my part;\n    And yours of Helena to me bequeath,\n    Whom I do love and will do till my death.\n  HELENA. Never did mockers waste more idle breath.\n  DEMETRIUS. Lysander, keep thy Hermia; I will none.\n    If e'er I lov'd her, all that love is gone.\n    My heart to her but as guest-wise sojourn'd,\n    And now to Helen is it home return'd,\n    There to remain.\n  LYSANDER. Helen, it is not so.\n  DEMETRIUS. Disparage not the faith thou dost not know,\n    Lest, to thy peril, thou aby it dear.\n    Look where thy love comes; yonder is thy dear.\n\n                       Enter HERMIA\n\n  HERMIA. Dark night, that from the eye his function takes,\n    The ear more quick of apprehension makes;\n    Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense,\n    It pays the hearing double recompense.\n    Thou art not by mine eye, Lysander, found;\n    Mine ear, I thank it, brought me to thy sound.\n    But why unkindly didst thou leave me so?\n  LYSANDER. Why should he stay whom love doth press to go?\n  HERMIA. What love could press Lysander from my side?\n  LYSANDER. Lysander's love, that would not let him bide-\n    Fair Helena, who more engilds the night\n    Than all yon fiery oes and eyes of light.\n    Why seek'st thou me? Could not this make thee know\n    The hate I bare thee made me leave thee so?\n  HERMIA. You speak not as you think; it cannot be.\n  HELENA. Lo, she is one of this confederacy!\n    Now I perceive they have conjoin'd all three\n    To fashion this false sport in spite of me.\n    Injurious Hermia! most ungrateful maid!\n    Have you conspir'd, have you with these contriv'd,\n    To bait me with this foul derision?\n    Is all the counsel that we two have shar'd,\n    The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent,\n    When we have chid the hasty-footed time\n    For parting us- O, is all forgot?\n    All school-days' friendship, childhood innocence?\n    We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,\n    Have with our needles created both one flower,\n    Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,\n    Both warbling of one song, both in one key;\n    As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds,\n    Had been incorporate. So we grew together,\n    Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,\n    But yet an union in partition,\n    Two lovely berries moulded on one stern;\n    So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart;\n    Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,\n    Due but to one, and crowned with one crest.\n    And will you rent our ancient love asunder,\n    To join with men in scorning your poor friend?\n    It is not friendly, 'tis not maidenly;\n    Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it,\n    Though I alone do feel the injury.\n  HERMIA. I am amazed at your passionate words;\n    I scorn you not; it seems that you scorn me.\n  HELENA. Have you not set Lysander, as in scorn,\n    To follow me and praise my eyes and face?\n    And made your other love, Demetrius,\n    Who even but now did spurn me with his foot,\n    To call me goddess, nymph, divine, and rare,\n    Precious, celestial? Wherefore speaks he this\n    To her he hates? And wherefore doth Lysander\n    Deny your love, so rich within his soul,\n    And tender me, forsooth, affection,\n    But by your setting on, by your consent?\n    What though I be not so in grace as you,\n    So hung upon with love, so fortunate,\n    But miserable most, to love unlov'd?\n    This you should pity rather than despise.\n  HERMIA. I understand not what you mean by this.\n  HELENA. Ay, do- persever, counterfeit sad looks,\n    Make mouths upon me when I turn my back,\n    Wink each at other; hold the sweet jest up;\n    This sport, well carried, shall be chronicled.\n    If you have any pity, grace, or manners,\n    You would not make me such an argument.\n    But fare ye well; 'tis partly my own fault,\n    Which death, or absence, soon shall remedy.\n  LYSANDER. Stay, gentle Helena; hear my excuse;\n    My love, my life, my soul, fair Helena!\n  HELENA. O excellent!\n  HERMIA. Sweet, do not scorn her so.\n  DEMETRIUS. If she cannot entreat, I can compel.\n  LYSANDER. Thou canst compel no more than she entreat;\n    Thy threats have no more strength than her weak prayers\n    Helen, I love thee, by my life I do;\n    I swear by that which I will lose for thee\n    To prove him false that says I love thee not.\n  DEMETRIUS. I say I love thee more than he can do.\n  LYSANDER. If thou say so, withdraw, and prove it too.\n  DEMETRIUS. Quick, come.\n  HERMIA. Lysander, whereto tends all this?\n  LYSANDER. Away, you Ethiope!\n  DEMETRIUS. No, no, he will\n    Seem to break loose- take on as you would follow,\n    But yet come not. You are a tame man; go!\n  LYSANDER. Hang off, thou cat, thou burr; vile thing, let loose,\n    Or I will shake thee from me like a serpent.\n  HERMIA. Why are you grown so rude? What change is this,\n    Sweet love?\n  LYSANDER. Thy love! Out, tawny Tartar, out!\n    Out, loathed med'cine! O hated potion, hence!\n  HERMIA. Do you not jest?\n  HELENA. Yes, sooth; and so do you.\n  LYSANDER. Demetrius, I will keep my word with thee.\n  DEMETRIUS. I would I had your bond; for I perceive\n    A weak bond holds you; I'll not trust your word.\n  LYSANDER. What, should I hurt her, strike her, kill her dead?\n    Although I hate her, I'll not harm her so.\n  HERMIA. What! Can you do me greater harm than hate?\n    Hate me! wherefore? O me! what news, my love?\n    Am not I Hermia? Are not you Lysander?\n    I am as fair now as I was erewhile.\n    Since night you lov'd me; yet since night you left me.\n    Why then, you left me- O, the gods forbid!-\n    In earnest, shall I say?\n  LYSANDER. Ay, by my life!\n    And never did desire to see thee more.\n    Therefore be out of hope, of question, of doubt;\n    Be certain, nothing truer; 'tis no jest\n    That I do hate thee and love Helena.\n  HERMIA. O me! you juggler! you cankerblossom!\n    You thief of love! What! Have you come by night,\n    And stol'n my love's heart from him?\n  HELENA. Fine, i' faith!\n    Have you no modesty, no maiden shame,\n    No touch of bashfulness? What! Will you tear\n    Impatient answers from my gentle tongue?\n    Fie, fie! you counterfeit, you puppet you!\n  HERMIA. 'Puppet!' why so? Ay, that way goes the game.\n    Now I perceive that she hath made compare\n    Between our statures; she hath urg'd her height;\n    And with her personage, her tall personage,\n    Her height, forsooth, she hath prevail'd with him.\n    And are you grown so high in his esteem\n    Because I am so dwarfish and so low?\n    How low am I, thou painted maypole? Speak.\n    How low am I? I am not yet so low\n    But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.\n  HELENA. I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen,\n    Let her not hurt me. I was never curst;\n    I have no gift at all in shrewishness;\n    I am a right maid for my cowardice;\n    Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think,\n    Because she is something lower than myself,\n    That I can match her.\n  HERMIA. 'Lower' hark, again.\n  HELENA. Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me.\n    I evermore did love you, Hermia,\n    Did ever keep your counsels, never wrong'd you;\n    Save that, in love unto Demetrius,\n    I told him of your stealth unto this wood.\n    He followed you; for love I followed him;\n    But he hath chid me hence, and threat'ned me\n    To strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too;\n    And now, so you will let me quiet go,\n    To Athens will I bear my folly back,\n    And follow you no further. Let me go.\n    You see how simple and how fond I am.\n  HERMIA. Why, get you gone! Who is't that hinders you?\n  HELENA. A foolish heart that I leave here behind.\n  HERMIA. What! with Lysander?\n  HELENA. With Demetrius.\n  LYSANDER. Be not afraid; she shall not harm thee, Helena.\n  DEMETRIUS. No, sir, she shall not, though you take her part.\n  HELENA. O, when she is angry, she is keen and shrewd;\n    She was a vixen when she went to school;\n    And, though she be but little, she is fierce.\n  HERMIA. 'Little' again! Nothing but 'low' and 'little'!\n    Why will you suffer her to flout me thus?\n    Let me come to her.\n  LYSANDER. Get you gone, you dwarf;\n    You minimus, of hind'ring knot-grass made;\n    You bead, you acorn.\n  DEMETRIUS. You are too officious\n    In her behalf that scorns your services.\n    Let her alone; speak not of Helena;\n    Take not her part; for if thou dost intend\n    Never so little show of love to her,\n    Thou shalt aby it.\n  LYSANDER. Now she holds me not.\n    Now follow, if thou dar'st, to try whose right,\n    Of thine or mine, is most in Helena.\n  DEMETRIUS. Follow! Nay, I'll go with thee, cheek by jowl.\n                                   Exeunt LYSANDER and DEMETRIUS\n  HERMIA. You, mistress, all this coil is long of you.\n    Nay, go not back.\n  HELENA. I will not trust you, I;\n    Nor longer stay in your curst company.\n    Your hands than mine are quicker for a fray;\n    My legs are longer though, to run away.                 Exit\n  HERMIA. I am amaz'd, and know not what to say.            Exit\n  OBERON. This is thy negligence. Still thou mistak'st,\n    Or else committ'st thy knaveries wilfully.\n  PUCK. Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook.\n    Did not you tell me I should know the man\n    By the Athenian garments he had on?\n    And so far blameless proves my enterprise\n    That I have 'nointed an Athenian's eyes;\n    And so far am I glad it so did sort,\n    As this their jangling I esteem a sport.\n  OBERON. Thou seest these lovers seek a place to fight.\n    Hie therefore, Robin, overcast the night;\n    The starry welkin cover thou anon\n    With drooping fog as black as Acheron,\n    And lead these testy rivals so astray\n    As one come not within another's way.\n    Like to Lysander sometime frame thy tongue,\n    Then stir Demetrius up with bitter wrong;\n    And sometime rail thou like Demetrius;\n    And from each other look thou lead them thus,\n    Till o'er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep\n    With leaden legs and batty wings doth creep.\n    Then crush this herb into Lysander's eye;\n    Whose liquor hath this virtuous property,\n    To take from thence all error with his might\n    And make his eyeballs roll with wonted sight.\n    When they next wake, all this derision\n    Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision;\n    And back to Athens shall the lovers wend\n    With league whose date till death shall never end.\n    Whiles I in this affair do thee employ,\n    I'll to my queen, and beg her Indian boy;\n    And then I will her charmed eye release\n    From monster's view, and all things shall be peace.\n  PUCK. My fairy lord, this must be done with haste,\n    For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast;\n    And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger,\n    At whose approach ghosts, wand'ring here and there,\n    Troop home to churchyards. Damned spirits all\n    That in cross-ways and floods have burial,\n    Already to their wormy beds are gone,\n    For fear lest day should look their shames upon;\n    They wilfully themselves exil'd from light,\n    And must for aye consort with black-brow'd night.\n  OBERON. But we are spirits of another sort:\n    I with the Morning's love have oft made sport;\n    And, like a forester, the groves may tread\n    Even till the eastern gate, all fiery red,\n    Opening on Neptune with fair blessed beams,\n    Turns into yellow gold his salt green streams.\n    But, notwithstanding, haste, make no delay;\n    We may effect this business yet ere day.         Exit OBERON\n  PUCK.      Up and down, up and down,\n             I will lead them up and down.\n             I am fear'd in field and town.\n             Goblin, lead them up and down.\n    Here comes one.\n\n                      Enter LYSANDER\n\n  LYSANDER. Where art thou, proud Demetrius? Speak thou now.\n  PUCK. Here, villain, drawn and ready. Where art thou?\n  LYSANDER. I will be with thee straight.\n  PUCK. Follow me, then,\n    To plainer ground.      Exit LYSANDER as following the voice\n\n                      Enter DEMETRIUS\n\n  DEMETRIUS. Lysander, speak again.\n    Thou runaway, thou coward, art thou fled?\n    Speak! In some bush? Where dost thou hide thy head?\n  PUCK. Thou coward, art thou bragging to the stars,\n    Telling the bushes that thou look'st for wars,\n    And wilt not come? Come, recreant, come, thou child;\n    I'll whip thee with a rod. He is defil'd\n    That draws a sword on thee.\n  DEMETRIUS. Yea, art thou there?\n  PUCK. Follow my voice; we'll try no manhood here.       Exeunt\n\n                      Re-enter LYSANDER\n\n  LYSANDER. He goes before me, and still dares me on;\n    When I come where he calls, then he is gone.\n    The villain is much lighter heel'd than I.\n    I followed fast, but faster he did fly,\n    That fallen am I in dark uneven way,\n    And here will rest me. [Lies down] Come, thou gentle day.\n    For if but once thou show me thy grey light,\n    I'll find Demetrius, and revenge this spite.        [Sleeps]\n\n                 Re-enter PUCK and DEMETRIUS\n\n  PUCK. Ho, ho, ho! Coward, why com'st thou not?\n  DEMETRIUS. Abide me, if thou dar'st; for well I wot\n    Thou run'st before me, shifting every place,\n    And dar'st not stand, nor look me in the face.\n    Where art thou now?\n  PUCK. Come hither; I am here.\n  DEMETRIUS. Nay, then, thou mock'st me. Thou shalt buy this dear,\n    If ever I thy face by daylight see;\n    Now, go thy way. Faintness constraineth me\n    To measure out my length on this cold bed.\n    By day's approach look to be visited.\n                                          [Lies down and sleeps]\n\n                       Enter HELENA\n\n  HELENA. O weary night, O long and tedious night,\n    Abate thy hours! Shine comforts from the east,\n    That I may back to Athens by daylight,\n    From these that my poor company detest.\n    And sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow's eye,\n    Steal me awhile from mine own company.              [Sleeps]\n  PUCK.       Yet but three? Come one more;\n              Two of both kinds makes up four.\n              Here she comes, curst and sad.\n              Cupid is a knavish lad,\n              Thus to make poor females mad.\n\n                     Enter HERMIA\n\n  HERMIA. Never so weary, never so in woe,\n    Bedabbled with the dew, and torn with briers,\n    I can no further crawl, no further go;\n    My legs can keep no pace with my desires.\n    Here will I rest me till the break of day.\n    Heavens shield Lysander, if they mean a fray!\n                                          [Lies down and sleeps]\n  PUCK.          On the ground\n                 Sleep sound;\n                 I'll apply\n                 To your eye,\n          Gentle lover, remedy.\n                        [Squeezing the juice on LYSANDER'S eyes]\n                 When thou wak'st,\n                 Thou tak'st\n                 True delight\n                 In the sight\n          Of thy former lady's eye;\n          And the country proverb known,\n          That every man should take his own,\n          In your waking shall be shown:\n                 Jack shall have Jill;\n                 Nought shall go ill;\n    The man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well.\n Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nThe wood. LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HELENA, and HERMIA, lying asleep\n\nEnter TITANIA and Bottom; PEASEBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH, MUSTARDSEED,\nand other FAIRIES attending;\n                      OBERON behind, unseen\n\n  TITANIA. Come, sit thee down upon this flow'ry bed,\n    While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,\n    And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,\n    And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.\n  BOTTOM. Where's Peaseblossom?\n  PEASEBLOSSOM. Ready.\n  BOTTOM. Scratch my head, Peaseblossom.\n    Where's Mounsieur Cobweb?\n  COBWEB. Ready.\n  BOTTOM. Mounsieur Cobweb; good mounsieur, get you your weapons in\n    your hand and kill me a red-hipp'd humble-bee on the top of a\n    thistle; and, good mounsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret\n    yourself too much in the action, mounsieur; and, good mounsieur,\n    have a care the honey-bag break not; I would be loath to have you\n    overflown with a honey-bag, signior. Where's Mounsieur\n    Mustardseed?\n  MUSTARDSEED. Ready.\n  BOTTOM. Give me your neaf, Mounsieur Mustardseed. Pray you, leave\n    your curtsy, good mounsieur.\n  MUSTARDSEED. What's your will?\n  BOTTOM. Nothing, good mounsieur, but to help Cavalery Cobweb to\n    scratch. I must to the barber's, mounsieur; for methinks I am\n    marvellous hairy about the face; and I am such a tender ass, if\n    my hair do but tickle me I must scratch.\n  TITANIA. What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love?\n  BOTTOM. I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let's have the tongs\n    and the bones.\n  TITANIA. Or say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat.\n  BOTTOM. Truly, a peck of provender; I could munch your good dry\n    oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle of hay. Good\n    hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.\n  TITANIA. I have a venturous fairy that shall seek\n    The squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.\n  BOTTOM. I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas. But, I\n    pray you, let none of your people stir me; I have an exposition\n    of sleep come upon me.\n  TITANIA. Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.\n    Fairies, be gone, and be all ways away.       Exeunt FAIRIES\n    So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle\n    Gently entwist; the female ivy so\n    Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.\n    O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee!         [They sleep]\n\n                         Enter PUCK\n\n  OBERON. [Advancing] Welcome, good Robin. Seest thou this sweet\n      sight?\n    Her dotage now I do begin to pity;\n    For, meeting her of late behind the wood,\n    Seeking sweet favours for this hateful fool,\n    I did upbraid her and fall out with her.\n    For she his hairy temples then had rounded\n    With coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers;\n    And that same dew which sometime on the buds\n    Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls\n    Stood now within the pretty flowerets' eyes,\n    Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail.\n    When I had at my pleasure taunted her,\n    And she in mild terms begg'd my patience,\n    I then did ask of her her changeling child;\n    Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sent\n    To bear him to my bower in fairy land.\n    And now I have the boy, I will undo\n    This hateful imperfection of her eyes.\n    And, gentle Puck, take this transformed scalp\n    From off the head of this Athenian swain,\n    That he awaking when the other do\n    May all to Athens back again repair,\n    And think no more of this night's accidents\n    But as the fierce vexation of a dream.\n    But first I will release the Fairy Queen.\n                                             [Touching her eyes]\n           Be as thou wast wont to be;\n           See as thou was wont to see.\n           Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower\n           Hath such force and blessed power.\n    Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet queen.\n  TITANIA. My Oberon! What visions have I seen!\n    Methought I was enamour'd of an ass.\n  OBERON. There lies your love.\n  TITANIA. How came these things to pass?\n    O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!\n  OBERON. Silence awhile. Robin, take off this head.\n    Titania, music call; and strike more dead\n    Than common sleep of all these five the sense.\n  TITANIA. Music, ho, music, such as charmeth sleep!\n  PUCK. Now when thou wak'st with thine own fool's eyes peep.\n  OBERON. Sound, music. Come, my Queen, take hands with me,\n                                                         [Music]\n    And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.\n    Now thou and I are new in amity,\n    And will to-morrow midnight solemnly\n    Dance in Duke Theseus' house triumphantly,\n    And bless it to all fair prosperity.\n    There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be\n    Wedded, with Theseus, an in jollity.\n  PUCK.       Fairy King, attend and mark;\n              I do hear the morning lark.\n  OBERON.     Then, my Queen, in silence sad,\n              Trip we after night's shade.\n              We the globe can compass soon,\n              Swifter than the wand'ring moon.\n  TITANIA.    Come, my lord; and in our flight,\n              Tell me how it came this night\n              That I sleeping here was found\n              With these mortals on the ground.           Exeunt\n\n        To the winding of horns, enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA,\n                      EGEUS, and train\n\n  THESEUS. Go, one of you, find out the forester;\n    For now our observation is perform'd,\n    And since we have the vaward of the day,\n    My love shall hear the music of my hounds.\n    Uncouple in the western valley; let them go.\n    Dispatch, I say, and find the forester.    Exit an ATTENDANT\n    We will, fair Queen, up to the mountain's top,\n    And mark the musical confusion\n    Of hounds and echo in conjunction.\n  HIPPOLYTA. I was with Hercules and Cadmus once\n    When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear\n    With hounds of Sparta; never did I hear\n    Such gallant chiding, for, besides the groves,\n    The skies, the fountains, every region near\n    Seem'd all one mutual cry. I never heard\n    So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.\n  THESEUS. My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,\n    So flew'd, so sanded; and their heads are hung\n    With ears that sweep away the morning dew;\n    Crook-knee'd and dew-lapp'd like Thessalian bulls;\n    Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells,\n    Each under each. A cry more tuneable\n    Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn,\n    In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly.\n    Judge when you hear. But, soft, what nymphs are these?\n  EGEUS. My lord, this is my daughter here asleep,\n    And this Lysander, this Demetrius is,\n    This Helena, old Nedar's Helena.\n    I wonder of their being here together.\n  THESEUS. No doubt they rose up early to observe\n    The rite of May; and, hearing our intent,\n    Came here in grace of our solemnity.\n    But speak, Egeus; is not this the day\n    That Hermia should give answer of her choice?\n  EGEUS. It is, my lord.\n  THESEUS. Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.\n                           [Horns and shout within. The sleepers\n                                     awake and kneel to THESEUS]\n    Good-morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past;\n    Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?\n  LYSANDER. Pardon, my lord.\n  THESEUS. I pray you all, stand up.\n    I know you two are rival enemies;\n    How comes this gentle concord in the world\n    That hatred is so far from jealousy\n    To sleep by hate, and fear no enmity?\n  LYSANDER. My lord, I shall reply amazedly,\n    Half sleep, half waking; but as yet, I swear,\n    I cannot truly say how I came here,\n    But, as I think- for truly would I speak,\n    And now I do bethink me, so it is-\n    I came with Hermia hither. Our intent\n    Was to be gone from Athens, where we might,\n    Without the peril of the Athenian law-\n  EGEUS. Enough, enough, my Lord; you have enough;\n    I beg the law, the law upon his head.\n    They would have stol'n away, they would, Demetrius,\n    Thereby to have defeated you and me:\n    You of your wife, and me of my consent,\n    Of my consent that she should be your wife.\n  DEMETRIUS. My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,\n    Of this their purpose hither to this wood;\n    And I in fury hither followed them,\n    Fair Helena in fancy following me.\n    But, my good lord, I wot not by what power-\n    But by some power it is- my love to Hermia,\n    Melted as the snow, seems to me now\n    As the remembrance of an idle gaud\n    Which in my childhood I did dote upon;\n    And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,\n    The object and the pleasure of mine eye,\n    Is only Helena. To her, my lord,\n    Was I betroth'd ere I saw Hermia.\n    But, like a sickness, did I loathe this food;\n    But, as in health, come to my natural taste,\n    Now I do wish it, love it, long for it,\n    And will for evermore be true to it.\n  THESEUS. Fair lovers, you are fortunately met;\n    Of this discourse we more will hear anon.\n    Egeus, I will overbear your will;\n    For in the temple, by and by, with us\n    These couples shall eternally be knit.\n    And, for the morning now is something worn,\n    Our purpos'd hunting shall be set aside.\n    Away with us to Athens, three and three;\n    We'll hold a feast in great solemnity.\n    Come, Hippolyta.\n                     Exeunt THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and train\n  DEMETRIUS. These things seem small and undistinguishable,\n    Like far-off mountains turned into clouds.\n  HERMIA. Methinks I see these things with parted eye,\n    When every thing seems double.\n  HELENA. So methinks;\n    And I have found Demetrius like a jewel,\n    Mine own, and not mine own.\n  DEMETRIUS. Are you sure\n    That we are awake? It seems to me\n    That yet we sleep, we dream. Do not you think\n    The Duke was here, and bid us follow him?\n  HERMIA. Yea, and my father.\n  HELENA. And Hippolyta.\n  LYSANDER. And he did bid us follow to the temple.\n  DEMETRIUS. Why, then, we are awake; let's follow him;\n    And by the way let us recount our dreams.             Exeunt\n  BOTTOM. [Awaking] When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer. My\n    next is 'Most fair Pyramus.' Heigh-ho! Peter Quince! Flute, the\n    bellows-mender! Snout, the tinker! Starveling! God's my life,\n    stol'n hence, and left me asleep! I have had a most rare vision.\n    I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was.\n    Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream. Methought\n    I was- there is no man can tell what. Methought I was, and\n    methought I had, but man is but a patch'd fool, if he will offer\n    to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard, the\n    ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his\n    tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was. I\n    will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream. It shall\n    be call'd 'Bottom's Dream,' because it hath no bottom; and I will\n    sing it in the latter end of a play, before the Duke.\n    Peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall sing it at\n    her death.                                              Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nAthens. QUINCE'S house\n\nEnter QUINCE, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING\n\n  QUINCE. Have you sent to Bottom's house? Is he come home yet?\n  STARVELING. He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt he is transported.\n  FLUTE. If he come not, then the play is marr'd; it goes not\n    forward, doth it?\n  QUINCE. It is not possible. You have not a man in all Athens able\n    to discharge Pyramus but he.\n  FLUTE. No; he hath simply the best wit of any handicraft man in\n    Athens.\n  QUINCE. Yea, and the best person too; and he is a very paramour for\n    a sweet voice.\n  FLUTE. You must say 'paragon.' A paramour is- God bless us!- A\n    thing of naught.\n\n                           Enter SNUG\n\n  SNUG. Masters, the Duke is coming from the temple; and there is two\n    or three lords and ladies more married. If our sport had gone\n    forward, we had all been made men.\n  FLUTE. O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a day\n    during his life; he could not have scaped sixpence a day. An the\n    Duke had not given him sixpence a day for playing Pyramus, I'll\n    be hanged. He would have deserved it: sixpence a day in Pyramus,\n    or nothing.\n\n                           Enter BOTTOM\n\n  BOTTOM. Where are these lads? Where are these hearts?\n  QUINCE. Bottom! O most courageous day! O most happy hour!\n  BOTTOM. Masters, I am to discourse wonders; but ask me not what;\n    for if I tell you, I am not true Athenian. I will tell you\n    everything, right as it fell out.\n  QUINCE. Let us hear, sweet Bottom.\n  BOTTOM. Not a word of me. All that I will tell you is, that the\n    Duke hath dined. Get your apparel together; good strings to your\n    beards, new ribbons to your pumps; meet presently at the palace;\n    every man look o'er his part; for the short and the long is, our\n    play is preferr'd. In any case, let Thisby have clean linen; and\n    let not him that plays the lion pare his nails, for they shall\n    hang out for the lion's claws. And, most dear actors, eat no\n    onions nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath; and I do not\n    doubt but to hear them say it is a sweet comedy. No more words.\n    Away, go, away!                                       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nAthens. The palace of THESEUS\n\nEnter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, LORDS, and ATTENDANTS\n\n  HIPPOLYTA. 'Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of.\n  THESEUS. More strange than true. I never may believe\n    These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.\n    Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,\n    Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend\n    More than cool reason ever comprehends.\n    The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,\n    Are of imagination all compact.\n    One sees more devils than vast hell can hold;\n    That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic,\n    Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt.\n    The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,\n    Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;\n    And as imagination bodies forth\n    The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen\n    Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing\n    A local habitation and a name.\n    Such tricks hath strong imagination\n    That, if it would but apprehend some joy,\n    It comprehends some bringer of that joy;\n    Or in the night, imagining some fear,\n    How easy is a bush suppos'd a bear?\n  HIPPOLYTA. But all the story of the night told over,\n    And all their minds transfigur'd so together,\n    More witnesseth than fancy's images,\n    And grows to something of great constancy,\n    But howsoever strange and admirable.\n\n          Enter LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HERMIA, and HELENA\n\n  THESEUS. Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.\n    Joy, gentle friends, joy and fresh days of love\n    Accompany your hearts!\n  LYSANDER. More than to us\n    Wait in your royal walks, your board, your bed!\n  THESEUS. Come now; what masques, what dances shall we have,\n    To wear away this long age of three hours\n    Between our after-supper and bed-time?\n    Where is our usual manager of mirth?\n    What revels are in hand? Is there no play\n    To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?\n    Call Philostrate.\n  PHILOSTRATE. Here, mighty Theseus.\n  THESEUS. Say, what abridgment have you for this evening?\n    What masque? what music? How shall we beguile\n    The lazy time, if not with some delight?\n  PHILOSTRATE. There is a brief how many sports are ripe;\n    Make choice of which your Highness will see first.\n                                                [Giving a paper]\n  THESEUS. 'The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung\n    By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.'\n    We'll none of that: that have I told my love,\n    In glory of my kinsman Hercules.\n    'The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,\n    Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.'\n    That is an old device, and it was play'd\n    When I from Thebes came last a conqueror.\n    'The thrice three Muses mourning for the death\n    Of Learning, late deceas'd in beggary.'\n    That is some satire, keen and critical,\n    Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony.\n    'A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus\n    And his love Thisby; very tragical mirth.'\n    Merry and tragical! tedious and brief!\n    That is hot ice and wondrous strange snow.\n    How shall we find the concord of this discord?\n  PHILOSTRATE. A play there is, my lord, some ten words long,\n    Which is as brief as I have known a play;\n    But by ten words, my lord, it is too long,\n    Which makes it tedious; for in all the play\n    There is not one word apt, one player fitted.\n    And tragical, my noble lord, it is;\n    For Pyramus therein doth kill himself.\n    Which when I saw rehears'd, I must confess,\n    Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears\n    The passion of loud laughter never shed.\n  THESEUS. What are they that do play it?\n  PHILOSTRATE. Hard-handed men that work in Athens here,\n    Which never labour'd in their minds till now;\n    And now have toil'd their unbreathed memories\n    With this same play against your nuptial.\n  THESEUS. And we will hear it.\n  PHILOSTRATE. No, my noble lord,\n    It is not for you. I have heard it over,\n    And it is nothing, nothing in the world;\n    Unless you can find sport in their intents,\n    Extremely stretch'd and conn'd with cruel pain,\n    To do you service.\n  THESEUS. I will hear that play;\n    For never anything can be amiss\n    When simpleness and duty tender it.\n    Go, bring them in; and take your places, ladies.\n                                                Exit PHILOSTRATE\n  HIPPOLYTA. I love not to see wretchedness o'er-charged,\n    And duty in his service perishing.\n  THESEUS. Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing.\n  HIPPOLYTA. He says they can do nothing in this kind.\n  THESEUS. The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing.\n    Our sport shall be to take what they mistake;\n    And what poor duty cannot do, noble respect\n    Takes it in might, not merit.\n    Where I have come, great clerks have purposed\n    To greet me with premeditated welcomes;\n    Where I have seen them shiver and look pale,\n    Make periods in the midst of sentences,\n    Throttle their practis'd accent in their fears,\n    And, in conclusion, dumbly have broke off,\n    Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, sweet,\n    Out of this silence yet I pick'd a welcome;\n    And in the modesty of fearful duty\n    I read as much as from the rattling tongue\n    Of saucy and audacious eloquence.\n    Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity\n    In least speak most to my capacity.\n\n                       Re-enter PHILOSTRATE\n\n  PHILOSTRATE. SO please your Grace, the Prologue is address'd.\n  THESEUS. Let him approach.              [Flourish of trumpets]\n\n                 Enter QUINCE as the PROLOGUE\n\n  PROLOGUE. If we offend, it is with our good will.\n    That you should think, we come not to offend,\n    But with good will. To show our simple skill,\n    That is the true beginning of our end.\n    Consider then, we come but in despite.\n    We do not come, as minding to content you,\n    Our true intent is. All for your delight\n    We are not here. That you should here repent you,\n    The actors are at band; and, by their show,\n    You shall know all, that you are like to know,\n  THESEUS. This fellow doth not stand upon points.\n  LYSANDER. He hath rid his prologue like a rough colt; he knows not\n    the stop. A good moral, my lord: it is not enough to speak, but\n    to speak true.\n  HIPPOLYTA. Indeed he hath play'd on this prologue like a child on a\n    recorder- a sound, but not in government.\n  THESEUS. His speech was like a tangled chain; nothing im paired,\n    but all disordered. Who is next?\n\n          Enter, with a trumpet before them, as in dumb show,\n            PYRAMUS and THISBY, WALL, MOONSHINE, and LION\n\n  PROLOGUE. Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show;\n    But wonder on, till truth make all things plain.\n    This man is Pyramus, if you would know;\n    This beauteous lady Thisby is certain.\n    This man, with lime and rough-cast, doth present\n    Wall, that vile Wall which did these lovers sunder;\n    And through Walls chink, poor souls, they are content\n    To whisper. At the which let no man wonder.\n    This man, with lanthorn, dog, and bush of thorn,\n    Presenteth Moonshine; for, if you will know,\n    By moonshine did these lovers think no scorn\n    To meet at Ninus' tomb, there, there to woo.\n    This grisly beast, which Lion hight by name,\n    The trusty Thisby, coming first by night,\n    Did scare away, or rather did affright;\n    And as she fled, her mantle she did fall;\n    Which Lion vile with bloody mouth did stain.\n    Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth and tall,\n    And finds his trusty Thisby's mantle slain;\n    Whereat with blade, with bloody blameful blade,\n    He bravely broach'd his boiling bloody breast;\n    And Thisby, tarrying in mulberry shade,\n    His dagger drew, and died. For all the rest,\n    Let Lion, Moonshine, Wall, and lovers twain,\n    At large discourse while here they do remain.\n                               Exeunt PROLOGUE, PYRAMUS, THISBY,\n                                             LION, and MOONSHINE\n  THESEUS. I wonder if the lion be to speak.\n  DEMETRIUS. No wonder, my lord: one lion may, when many asses do.\n  WALL. In this same interlude it doth befall\n    That I, one Snout by name, present a wall;\n    And such a wall as I would have you think\n    That had in it a crannied hole or chink,\n    Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisby,\n    Did whisper often very secretly.\n    This loam, this rough-cast, and this stone, doth show\n    That I am that same wall; the truth is so;\n    And this the cranny is, right and sinister,\n    Through which the fearful lovers are to whisper.\n  THESEUS. Would you desire lime and hair to speak better?\n  DEMETRIUS. It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard\n    discourse, my lord.\n\n                       Enter PYRAMUS\n\n  THESEUS. Pyramus draws near the wall; silence.\n  PYRAMUS. O grim-look'd night! O night with hue so black!\n    O night, which ever art when day is not!\n    O night, O night, alack, alack, alack,\n    I fear my Thisby's promise is forgot!\n    And thou, O wall, O sweet, O lovely wall,\n    That stand'st between her father's ground and mine;\n    Thou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall,\n    Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne.\n                                     [WALL holds up his fingers]\n    Thanks, courteous wall. Jove shield thee well for this!\n    But what see what see I? No Thisby do I see.\n    O wicked wall, through whom I see no bliss,\n    Curs'd he thy stones for thus deceiving me!\n  THESEUS. The wall, methinks, being sensible, should curse again.\n  PYRAMUS. No, in truth, sir, he should not. Deceiving me is Thisby's\n    cue. She is to enter now, and I am to spy her through the wall.\n    You shall see it will fall pat as I told you; yonder she comes.\n\n                          Enter THISBY\n\n  THISBY. O wall, full often hast thou beard my moans,\n    For parting my fair Pyramus and me!\n    My cherry lips have often kiss'd thy stones,\n    Thy stones with lime and hair knit up in thee.\n  PYRAMUS. I see a voice; now will I to the chink,\n    To spy an I can hear my Thisby's face.\n    Thisby!\n  THISBY. My love! thou art my love, I think.\n  PYRAMUS. Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover's grace;\n    And like Limander am I trusty still.\n  THISBY. And I like Helen, till the Fates me kill.\n  PYRAMUS. Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true.\n  THISBY. As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you.\n  PYRAMUS. O, kiss me through the hole of this vile wall.\n  THISBY. I kiss the wall's hole, not your lips at all.\n  PYRAMUS. Wilt thou at Ninny's tomb meet me straightway?\n  THISBY. Tide life, tide death, I come without delay.\n                                       Exeunt PYRAMUS and THISBY\n  WALL. Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so;\n    And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.           Exit WALL\n  THESEUS. Now is the moon used between the two neighbours.\n  DEMETRIUS. No remedy, my lord, when walls are so wilful to hear\n    without warning.\n  HIPPOLYTA. This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.\n  THESEUS. The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst are\n    no worse, if imagination amend them.\n  HIPPOLYTA. It must be your imagination then, and not theirs.\n  THESEUS. If we imagine no worse of them than they of themselves,\n    they may pass for excellent men. Here come two noble beasts in, a\n    man and a lion.\n\n                   Enter LION and MOONSHINE\n\n  LION. You, ladies, you, whose gentle hearts do fear\n    The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor,\n    May now, perchance, both quake and tremble here,\n    When lion rough in wildest rage doth roar.\n    Then know that I as Snug the joiner am\n    A lion fell, nor else no lion's dam;\n    For, if I should as lion come in strife\n    Into this place, 'twere pity on my life.\n  THESEUS. A very gentle beast, and of a good conscience.\n  DEMETRIUS. The very best at a beast, my lord, that e'er I saw.\n  LYSANDER. This lion is a very fox for his valour.\n  THESEUS. True; and a goose for his discretion.\n  DEMETRIUS. Not so, my lord; for his valour cannot carry his\n    discretion, and the fox carries the goose.\n  THESEUS. His discretion, I am sure, cannot carry his valour; for\n    the goose carries not the fox. It is well. Leave it to his\n    discretion, and let us listen to the Moon.\n  MOONSHINE. This lanthorn doth the horned moon present-\n  DEMETRIUS. He should have worn the horns on his head.\n  THESEUS. He is no crescent, and his horns are invisible within the\n    circumference.\n  MOONSHINE. This lanthorn doth the horned moon present;\n    Myself the Man i' th' Moon do seem to be.\n  THESEUS. This is the greatest error of all the rest; the man should\n    be put into the lantern. How is it else the man i' th' moon?\n  DEMETRIUS. He dares not come there for the candle; for, you see, it\n    is already in snuff.\n  HIPPOLYTA. I am aweary of this moon. Would he would change!\n  THESEUS. It appears, by his small light of discretion, that he is\n    in the wane; but yet, in courtesy, in all reason, we must stay\n    the time.\n  LYSANDER. Proceed, Moon.\n  MOON. All that I have to say is to tell you that the lanthorn is\n    the moon; I, the Man i' th' Moon; this thorn-bush, my thorn-bush;\n    and this dog, my dog.\n  DEMETRIUS. Why, all these should be in the lantern; for all these\n    are in the moon. But silence; here comes Thisby.\n\n                        Re-enter THISBY\n\n  THISBY. This is old Ninny's tomb. Where is my love?\n  LION. [Roaring] O-                           [THISBY runs off]\n  DEMETRIUS. Well roar'd, Lion.\n  THESEUS. Well run, Thisby.\n  HIPPOLYTA. Well shone, Moon. Truly, the moon shines with a good\n    grace.            [The LION tears THISBY'S Mantle, and exit]\n  THESEUS. Well mous'd, Lion.\n\n                        Re-enter PYRAMUS\n\n  DEMETRIUS. And then came Pyramus.\n  LYSANDER. And so the lion vanish'd.\n  PYRAMUS. Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams;\n    I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright;\n    For, by thy gracious golden, glittering gleams,\n    I trust to take of truest Thisby sight.\n             But stay, O spite!\n             But mark, poor knight,\n           What dreadful dole is here!\n             Eyes, do you see?\n             How can it he?\n           O dainty duck! O dear!\n             Thy mantle good,\n             What! stain'd with blood?\n           Approach, ye Furies fell.\n             O Fates! come, come;\n             Cut thread and thrum;\n           Quail, crush, conclude, and quell.\n  THESEUS. This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would go\n    near to make a man look sad.\n  HIPPOLYTA. Beshrew my heart, but I pity the man.\n  PYRAMUS. O wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions frame?\n    Since lion vile hath here deflower'd my dear;\n    Which is- no, no- which was the fairest dame\n    That liv'd, that lov'd, that lik'd, that look'd with cheer.\n             Come, tears, confound;\n             Out, sword, and wound\n           The pap of Pyramus;\n             Ay, that left pap,\n             Where heart doth hop.               [Stabs himself]\n           Thus die I, thus, thus, thus.\n             Now am I dead,\n             Now am I fled;\n           My soul is in the sky.\n             Tongue, lose thy light;\n             Moon, take thy flight.             [Exit MOONSHINE]\n           Now die, die, die, die, die.                   [Dies]\n  DEMETRIUS. No die, but an ace, for him; for he is but one.\n  LYSANDER. Less than an ace, man; for he is dead; he is nothing.\n  THESEUS. With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover and yet\n    prove an ass.\n  HIPPOLYTA. How chance Moonshine is gone before Thisby comes back\n    and finds her lover?\n\n                       Re-enter THISBY\n\n  THESEUS. She will find him by starlight. Here she comes; and her\n    passion ends the play.\n  HIPPOLYTA. Methinks she should not use a long one for such a\n    Pyramus; I hope she will be brief.\n  DEMETRIUS. A mote will turn the balance, which Pyramus, which\n    Thisby, is the better- he for a man, God warrant us: She for a\n    woman, God bless us!\n  LYSANDER. She hath spied him already with those sweet eyes.\n  DEMETRIUS. And thus she moans, videlicet:-\n  THISBY.      Asleep, my love?\n               What, dead, my dove?\n             O Pyramus, arise,\n               Speak, speak. Quite dumb?\n               Dead, dead? A tomb\n             Must cover thy sweet eyes.\n               These lily lips,\n               This cherry nose,\n             These yellow cowslip cheeks,\n               Are gone, are gone;\n               Lovers, make moan;\n             His eyes were green as leeks.\n               O Sisters Three,\n               Come, come to me,\n             With hands as pale as milk;\n               Lay them in gore,\n               Since you have shore\n             With shears his thread of silk.\n               Tongue, not a word.\n               Come, trusty sword;\n             Come, blade, my breast imbrue.      [Stabs herself]\n               And farewell, friends;\n               Thus Thisby ends;\n             Adieu, adieu, adieu.                         [Dies]\n  THESEUS. Moonshine and Lion are left to bury the dead.\n  DEMETRIUS. Ay, and Wall too.\n  BOTTOM. [Starting up] No, I assure you; the wall is down that\n    parted their fathers. Will it please you to see the Epilogue, or\n    to hear a Bergomask dance between two of our company?\n  THESEUS. No epilogue, I pray you; for your play needs no excuse.\n    Never excuse; for when the players are all dead there need none\n    to be blamed. Marry, if he that writ it had played Pyramus, and\n    hang'd himself in Thisby's garter, it would have been a fine\n    tragedy. And so it is, truly; and very notably discharg'd. But\n    come, your Bergomask; let your epilogue alone.     [A dance]\n    The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve.\n    Lovers, to bed; 'tis almost fairy time.\n    I fear we shall out-sleep the coming morn,\n    As much as we this night have overwatch'd.\n    This palpable-gross play hath well beguil'd\n    The heavy gait of night. Sweet friends, to bed.\n    A fortnight hold we this solemnity,\n    In nightly revels and new jollity.                    Exeunt\n\n                     Enter PUCK with a broom\n\n  PUCK.      Now the hungry lion roars,\n             And the wolf behowls the moon;\n             Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,\n             All with weary task fordone.\n             Now the wasted brands do glow,\n             Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud,\n             Puts the wretch that lies in woe\n             In remembrance of a shroud.\n             Now it is the time of night\n             That the graves, all gaping wide,\n             Every one lets forth his sprite,\n             In the church-way paths to glide.\n             And we fairies, that do run\n             By the triple Hecate's team\n             From the presence of the sun,\n             Following darkness like a dream,\n             Now are frolic. Not a mouse\n             Shall disturb this hallowed house.\n             I am sent with broom before,\n             To sweep the dust behind the door.\n\n         Enter OBERON and TITANIA, with all their train\n\n  OBERON.    Through the house give glimmering light,\n             By the dead and drowsy fire;\n             Every elf and fairy sprite\n             Hop as light as bird from brier;\n             And this ditty, after me,\n             Sing and dance it trippingly.\n  TITANIA.      First, rehearse your song by rote,\n                To each word a warbling note;\n                Hand in hand, with fairy grace,\n                Will we sing, and bless this place.\n\n           [OBERON leading, the FAIRIES sing and dance]\n\n  OBERON.    Now, until the break of day,\n             Through this house each fairy stray.\n             To the best bride-bed will we,\n             Which by us shall blessed be;\n             And the issue there create\n             Ever shall be fortunate.\n             So shall all the couples three\n             Ever true in loving be;\n             And the blots of Nature's hand\n             Shall not in their issue stand;\n             Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar,\n             Nor mark prodigious, such as are\n             Despised in nativity,\n             Shall upon their children be.\n             With this field-dew consecrate,\n             Every fairy take his gait,\n             And each several chamber bless,\n             Through this palace, with sweet peace;\n             And the owner of it blest\n             Ever shall in safety rest.\n             Trip away; make no stay;\n             Meet me all by break of day.    Exeunt all but PUCK\n  PUCK.      If we shadows have offended,\n             Think but this, and all is mended,\n             That you have but slumb'red here\n             While these visions did appear.\n             And this weak and idle theme,\n             No more yielding but a dream,\n             Gentles, do not reprehend.\n             If you pardon, we will mend.\n             And, as I am an honest Puck,\n             If we have unearned luck\n             Now to scape the serpent's tongue,\n             We will make amends ere long;\n             Else the Puck a liar call.\n             So, good night unto you all.\n             Give me your hands, if we be friends,\n             And Robin shall restore amends.                Exit\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1599\n\n\nMUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING\n\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  Don Pedro, Prince of Arragon.\n  Don John, his bastard brother.\n  Claudio, a young lord of Florence.\n  Benedick, a Young lord of Padua.\n  Leonato, Governor of Messina.\n  Antonio, an old man, his brother.\n  Balthasar, attendant on Don Pedro.\n  Borachio, follower of Don John.\n  Conrade, follower of Don John.\n  Friar Francis.\n  Dogberry, a Constable.\n  Verges, a Headborough.\n  A Sexton.\n  A Boy.\n\n  Hero, daughter to Leonato.\n  Beatrice, niece to Leonato.\n  Margaret, waiting gentlewoman attending on Hero.\n  Ursula, waiting gentlewoman attending on Hero.\n\n  Messengers, Watch, Attendants, etc.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE.--Messina.\n\n\nACT I. Scene I.\nAn orchard before Leonato's house.\n\nEnter Leonato (Governor of Messina), Hero (his Daughter),\nand Beatrice (his Niece), with a Messenger.\n\n  Leon. I learn in this letter that Don Pedro of Arragon comes this\n    night to Messina.\n  Mess. He is very near by this. He was not three leagues off when I\n    left him.\n  Leon. How many gentlemen have you lost in this action?\n  Mess. But few of any sort, and none of name.\n  Leon. A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home full\n    numbers. I find here that Don Pedro hath bestowed much honour on\n    a young Florentine called Claudio.\n  Mess. Much deserv'd on his part, and equally rememb'red by Don\n    Pedro. He hath borne himself beyond the promise of his age, doing\n    in the figure of a lamb the feats of a lion. He hath indeed\n    better bett'red expectation than you must expect of me to tell\n    you how.\n  Leon. He hath an uncle here in Messina will be very much glad of it.\n  Mess. I have already delivered him letters, and there appears much\n    joy in him; even so much that joy could not show itself modest\n    enough without a badge of bitterness.\n  Leon. Did he break out into tears?\n  Mess. In great measure.\n  Leon. A kind overflow of kindness. There are no faces truer than\n    those that are so wash'd. How much better is it to weep at joy\n    than to joy at weeping!\n  Beat. I pray you, is Signior Mountanto return'd from the wars or no?\n  Mess. I know none of that name, lady. There was none such in the\n    army of any sort.\n  Leon. What is he that you ask for, niece?\n  Hero. My cousin means Signior Benedick of Padua.\n  Mess. O, he's return'd, and as pleasant as ever he was.\n  Beat. He set up his bills here in Messina and challeng'd Cupid at\n    the flight, and my uncle's fool, reading the challenge,\n    subscrib'd for Cupid and challeng'd him at the burbolt. I pray\n    you, how many hath he kill'd and eaten in these wars? But how\n    many hath he kill'd? For indeed I promised to eat all of his\n    killing.\n  Leon. Faith, niece, you tax Signior Benedick too much; but he'll\n    be meet with you, I doubt it not.\n  Mess. He hath done good service, lady, in these wars.\n  Beat. You had musty victual, and he hath holp to eat it. He is a\n    very valiant trencherman; he hath an excellent stomach.\n  Mess. And a good soldier too, lady.\n  Beat. And a good soldier to a lady; but what is he to a lord?\n  Mess. A lord to a lord, a man to a man; stuff'd with all honourable\n    virtues.\n  Beat. It is so indeed. He is no less than a stuff'd man; but for\n    the stuffing--well, we are all mortal.\n  Leon. You must not, sir, mistake my niece. There is a kind of merry\n    war betwixt Signior Benedick and her. They never meet but there's\n    a skirmish of wit between them.\n  Beat. Alas, he gets nothing by that! In our last conflict four of\n    his five wits went halting off, and now is the whole man govern'd\n    with one; so that if he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let\n    him bear it for a difference between himself and his horse; for\n    it is all the wealth that he hath left to be known a reasonable\n    creature. Who is his companion now? He hath every month a new\n    sworn brother.\n  Mess. Is't possible?\n  Beat. Very easily possible. He wears his faith but as the fashion\n    of his hat; it ever changes with the next block.\n  Mess. I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books.\n  Beat. No. An he were, I would burn my study. But I pray you, who is\n    his companion? Is there no young squarer now that will make a\n    voyage with him to the devil?\n  Mess. He is most in the company of the right noble Claudio.\n  Beat. O Lord, he will hang upon him like a disease! He is sooner\n    caught than the pestilence, and the taker runs presently mad. God\n    help the noble Claudio! If he have caught the Benedick, it will\n    cost him a thousand pound ere 'a be cured.\n  Mess. I will hold friends with you, lady.\n  Beat. Do, good friend.\n  Leon. You will never run mad, niece.\n  Beat. No, not till a hot January.\n  Mess. Don Pedro is approach'd.\n\n  Enter Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedick, Balthasar, and John the Bastard.\n\n  Pedro. Good Signior Leonato, are you come to meet your trouble? The\n    fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it.\n  Leon. Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your Grace;\n    for trouble being gone, comfort should remain; but when you depart\n    from me, sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave.\n  Pedro. You embrace your charge too willingly. I think this is your\n    daughter.\n  Leon. Her mother hath many times told me so.\n  Bene. Were you in doubt, sir, that you ask'd her?\n  Leon. Signior Benedick, no; for then were you a child.\n  Pedro. You have it full, Benedick. We may guess by this what you\n    are, being a man. Truly the lady fathers herself. Be happy, lady;\n    for you are like an honourable father.\n  Bene. If Signior Leonato be her father, she would not have his head\n    on her shoulders for all Messina, as like him as she is.\n  Beat. I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick.\n    Nobody marks you.\n  Bene. What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?\n  Beat. Is it possible Disdain should die while she hath such meet\n    food to feed it as Signior Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert\n    to disdain if you come in her presence.\n  Bene. Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of\n    all ladies, only you excepted; and I would I could find in my\n    heart that I had not a hard heart, for truly I love none.\n  Beat. A dear happiness to women! They would else have been troubled\n    with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of\n    your humour for that. I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow\n    than a man swear he loves me.\n  Bene. God keep your ladyship still in that mind! So some gentleman\n    or other shall scape a predestinate scratch'd face.\n  Beat. Scratching could not make it worse an 'twere such a face as\n    yours were.\n  Bene. Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.\n  Beat. A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.\n  Bene. I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a\n    continuer. But keep your way, a God's name! I have done.\n  Beat. You always end with a jade's trick. I know you of old.\n  Pedro. That is the sum of all, Leonato. Signior Claudio and Signior\n    Benedick, my dear friend Leonato hath invited you all. I tell him\n    we shall stay here at the least a month, and he heartly prays\n    some occasion may detain us longer. I dare swear he is no\n    hypocrite, but prays from his heart.\n  Leon. If you swear, my lord, you shall not be forsworn. [To Don\n    John] Let me bid you welcome, my lord. Being reconciled to the\n    Prince your brother, I owe you all duty.\n  John. I thank you. I am not of many words, but I thank you.\n  Leon. Please it your Grace lead on?\n  Pedro. Your hand, Leonato. We will go together.\n                            Exeunt. Manent Benedick and Claudio.\n  Claud. Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior Leonato?\n  Bene. I noted her not, but I look'd on her.\n  Claud. Is she not a modest young lady?\n  Bene. Do you question me, as an honest man should do, for my simple\n    true judgment? or would you have me speak after my custom, as\n    being a professed tyrant to their sex?\n  Claud. No. I pray thee speak in sober judgment.\n  Bene. Why, i' faith, methinks she's too low for a high praise,\n    too brown for a fair praise, and too little for a great praise.\n    Only this commendation I can afford her, that were she other\n    than she is, she were unhandsome, and being no other but as she\n    is, I do not like her.\n  Claud. Thou thinkest I am in sport. I pray thee tell me truly how\n    thou lik'st her.\n  Bene. Would you buy her, that you enquire after her?\n  Claud. Can the world buy such a jewel?\n  Bene. Yea, and a case to put it into. But speak you this with a sad\n    brow? or do you play the flouting Jack, to tell us Cupid is a\n    good hare-finder and Vulcan a rare carpenter? Come, in what key\n    shall a man take you to go in the song?\n  Claud. In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I look'd on.\n  Bene. I can see yet without spectacles, and I see no such matter.\n    There's her cousin, an she were not possess'd with a fury,exceeds\n    her as much in beauty as the first of May doth the last of\n    December. But I hope you have no intent to turn husband, have\n    you?\n  Claud. I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn the\n    contrary, if Hero would be my wife.\n  Bene. Is't come to this? In faith, hath not the world one man but\n    he will wear his cap with suspicion? Shall I never see a\n    bachelor of threescore again? Go to, i' faith! An thou wilt needs\n    thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it and sigh away\n    Sundays.\n\n                       Enter Don Pedro.\n\n    Look! Don Pedro is returned to seek you.\n  Pedro. What secret hath held you here, that you followed not to\n    Leonato's?\n  Bene. I would your Grace would constrain me to tell.\n  Pedro. I charge thee on thy allegiance.\n  Bene. You hear, Count Claudio. I can be secret as a dumb man, I\n    would have you think so; but, on my allegiance--mark you this-on\n    my allegiance! he is in love. With who? Now that is your Grace's\n    part. Mark how short his answer is: With Hero, Leonato's short\n    daughter.\n  Claud. If this were so, so were it utt'red.\n  Bene. Like the old tale, my lord: 'It is not so, nor 'twas not so;\n    but indeed, God forbid it should be so!'\n  Claud. If my passion change not shortly, God forbid it should be\n    otherwise.\n  Pedro. Amen, if you love her; for the lady is very well worthy.\n  Claud. You speak this to fetch me in, my lord.\n  Pedro. By my troth, I speak my thought.\n  Claud. And, in faith, my lord, I spoke mine.\n  Bene. And, by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine.\n  Claud. That I love her, I feel.\n  Pedro. That she is worthy, I know.\n  Bene. That I neither feel how she should be loved, nor know how she\n    should be worthy, is the opinion that fire cannot melt out of me.\n    I will die in it at the stake.\n  Pedro. Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the despite of\n    beauty.\n  Claud. And never could maintain his part but in the force of his\n    will.\n  Bene. That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me\n    up, I likewise give her most humble thanks; but that I will have\n    a rechate winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible\n    baldrick, all women shall pardon me. Because I will not do them\n    the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust\n    none; and the fine is (for the which I may go the finer), I will\n    live a bachelor.\n  Pedro. I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love.\n  Bene. With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord; not with\n    love. Prove that ever I lose more blood with love than I will get\n    again with drinking, pick out mine eyes with a ballad-maker's pen\n    and hang me up at the door of a brothel house for the sign of\n    blind Cupid.\n  Pedro. Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt\n    prove a notable argument.\n  Bene. If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot at me; and\n    he that hits me, let him be clapp'd on the shoulder and call'd\n    Adam.\n  Pedro. Well, as time shall try.\n    'In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.'\n  Bene. The savage bull may; but if ever the sensible Benedick bear\n    it, pluck off the bull's horns and set them in my forehead, and\n    let me be vilely painted, and in such great letters as they write\n    'Here is good horse to hire,' let them signify under my sign\n    'Here you may see Benedick the married man.'\n  Claud. If this should ever happen, thou wouldst be horn-mad.\n  Pedro. Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice, thou\n    wilt quake for this shortly.\n  Bene. I look for an earthquake too then.\n  Pedro. Well, you will temporize with the hours. In the meantime,\n    good Signior Benedick, repair to Leonato's, commend me to him and\n    tell him I will not fail him at supper; for indeed he hath made\n    great preparation.\n  Bene. I have almost matter enough in me for such an embassage; and\n    so I commit you--\n  Claud. To the tuition of God. From my house--if I had it--\n  Pedro. The sixth of July. Your loving friend, Benedick.\n  Bene. Nay, mock not, mock not. The body of your discourse is\n    sometime guarded with fragments, and the guards are but slightly\n    basted on neither. Ere you flout old ends any further, examine\n    your conscience. And so I leave you.                   Exit.\n  Claud. My liege, your Highness now may do me good.\n  Pedro. My love is thine to teach. Teach it but how,\n    And thou shalt see how apt it is to learn\n    Any hard lesson that may do thee good.\n  Claud. Hath Leonato any son, my lord?\n  Pedro. No child but Hero; she's his only heir.\n    Dost thou affect her, Claudio?\n  Claud.O my lord,\n    When you went onward on this ended action,\n    I look'd upon her with a soldier's eye,\n    That lik'd, but had a rougher task in hand\n    Than to drive liking to the name of love;\n    But now I am return'd and that war-thoughts\n    Have left their places vacant, in their rooms\n    Come thronging soft and delicate desires,\n    All prompting me how fair young Hero is,\n    Saying I lik'd her ere I went to wars.\n  Pedro. Thou wilt be like a lover presently\n    And tire the hearer with a book of words.\n    If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it,\n    And I will break with her and with her father,\n    And thou shalt have her. Wast not to this end\n    That thou began'st to twist so fine a story?\n  Claud. How sweetly you do minister to love,\n    That know love's grief by his complexion!\n    But lest my liking might too sudden seem,\n    I would have salv'd it with a longer treatise.\n  Pedro. What need the bridge much broader than the flood?\n    The fairest grant is the necessity.\n    Look, what will serve is fit. 'Tis once, thou lovest,\n    And I will fit thee with the remedy.\n    I know we shall have revelling to-night.\n    I will assume thy part in some disguise\n    And tell fair Hero I am Claudio,\n    And in her bosom I'll unclasp my heart\n    And take her hearing prisoner with the force\n    And strong encounter of my amorous tale.\n    Then after to her father will I break,\n    And the conclusion is, she shall be thine.\n    In practice let us put it presently.                 Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nA room in Leonato's house.\n\nEnter [at one door] Leonato and [at another door, Antonio] an old man,\nbrother to Leonato.\n\n  Leon. How now, brother? Where is my cousin your son? Hath he\n    provided this music?\n  Ant. He is very busy about it. But, brother, I can tell you strange\n    news that you yet dreamt not of.\n  Leon. Are they good?\n  Ant. As the event stamps them; but they have a good cover, they\n    show well outward. The Prince and Count Claudio, walking in a\n    thick-pleached alley in mine orchard, were thus much overheard by\n    a man of mine: the Prince discovered to Claudio that he loved my\n    niece your daughter and meant to acknowledge it this night in a\n    dance, and if he found her accordant, he meant to take the\n    present time by the top and instantly break with you of it.\n  Leon. Hath the fellow any wit that told you this?\n  Ant. A good sharp fellow. I will send for him, and question him\n    yourself.\n  Leon. No, no. We will hold it as a dream till it appear itself; but\n    I will acquaint my daughter withal, that she may be the better\n    prepared for an answer, if peradventure this be true. Go you and\n    tell her of it.                              [Exit Antonio.]\n\n         [Enter Antonio's Son with a Musician, and others.]\n\n    [To the Son] Cousin, you know what you have to do.\n    --[To the Musician] O, I cry you mercy, friend. Go you with me,\n    and I will use your skill.--Good cousin, have a care this busy\n    time.                                                Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nAnother room in Leonato's house.]\n\nEnter Sir John the Bastard and Conrade, his companion.\n\n  Con. What the goodyear, my lord! Why are you thus out of measure\n    sad?\n  John. There is no measure in the occasion that breeds; therefore\n    the sadness is without limit.\n  Con. You should hear reason.\n  John. And when I have heard it, what blessings brings it?\n  Con. If not a present remedy, at least a patient sufferance.\n  John. I wonder that thou (being, as thou say'st thou art, born\n    under Saturn) goest about to apply a moral medicine to a\n    mortifying mischief. I cannot hide what I am: I must be sad when\n    I have cause, and smile at no man's jests; eat when I have\n    stomach, and wait for no man's leisure; sleep when I am drowsy,\n    and tend on no man's business; laugh when I am merry, and claw no\n    man in his humour.\n  Con. Yea, but you must not make the full show of this till you may\n    do it without controlment. You have of late stood out against\n    your brother, and he hath ta'en you newly into his grace, where\n    it is impossible you should take true root but by the fair\n    weather that you make yourself. It is needful that you frame the\n    season for your own harvest.\n  John. I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace,\n    and it better fits my blood to be disdain'd of all than to\n    fashion a carriage to rob love from any. In this, though I cannot\n    be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but\n    I am a plain-dealing villain. I am trusted with a muzzle and\n    enfranchis'd with a clog; therefore I have decreed not to sing in\n    my cage. If I had my mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I\n    would do my liking. In the meantime let me be that I am, and seek\n    not to alter me.\n  Con. Can you make no use of your discontent?\n  John. I make all use of it, for I use it only.\n\n                       Enter Borachio.\n\n    Who comes here? What news, Borachio?\n  Bora. I came yonder from a great supper. The Prince your brother is\n    royally entertain'd by Leonato, and I can give you intelligence\n    of an intended marriage.\n  John. Will it serve for any model to build mischief on?\n    What is he for a fool that betroths himself to unquietness?\n  Bora. Marry, it is your brother's right hand.\n  John. Who? the most exquisite Claudio?\n  Bora. Even he.\n  John. A proper squire! And who? and who? which way looks he?\n  Bora. Marry, on Hero, the daughter and heir of Leonato.\n  John. A very forward March-chick! How came you to this?\n  Bora. Being entertain'd for a perfumer, as I was smoking a musty\n    room, comes me the Prince and Claudio, hand in hand in sad\n    conference. I whipt me behind the arras and there heard it agreed\n    upon that the Prince should woo Hero for himself, and having\n    obtain'd her, give her to Count Claudio.\n  John. Come, come, let us thither. This may prove food to my\n    displeasure. That young start-up hath all the glory of my\n    overthrow. If I can cross him any way, I bless myself every way.\n    You are both sure, and will assist me?\n  Con. To the death, my lord.\n  John. Let us to the great supper. Their cheer is the greater that\n    I am subdued. Would the cook were o' my mind! Shall we go prove\n    what's to be done?\n  Bora. We'll wait upon your lordship.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. Scene I.\nA hall in Leonato's house.\n\nEnter Leonato, [Antonio] his Brother, Hero his Daughter,\nand Beatrice his Niece, and a Kinsman; [also Margaret and Ursula].\n\n  Leon. Was not Count John here at supper?\n  Ant. I saw him not.\n  Beat. How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him but I am\n    heart-burn'd an hour after.\n  Hero. He is of a very melancholy disposition.\n  Beat. He were an excellent man that were made just in the midway\n    between him and Benedick. The one is too like an image and says\n    nothing, and the other too like my lady's eldest son, evermore\n    tattling.\n  Leon. Then half Signior Benedick's tongue in Count John's mouth,\n    and half Count John's melancholy in Signior Benedick's face--\n  Beat. With a good leg and a good foot, uncle, and money enough in\n    his purse, such a man would win any woman in the world--if 'a\n    could get her good will.\n  Leon. By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband if\n    thou be so shrewd of thy tongue.\n  Ant. In faith, she's too curst.\n  Beat. Too curst is more than curst. I shall lessen God's sending\n    that way, for it is said, 'God sends a curst cow short horns,'\n    but to a cow too curst he sends none.\n  Leon. So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns.\n  Beat. Just, if he send me no husband; for the which blessing I am\n    at him upon my knees every morning and evening. Lord, I could not\n    endure a husband with a beard on his face. I had rather lie in\n    the woollen!\n  Leon. You may light on a husband that hath no beard.\n  Beat. What should I do with him? dress him in my apparel and make\n    him my waiting gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a\n    youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man; and he that\n    is more than a youth is not for me; and he that is less than a\n    man, I am not for him. Therefore I will even take sixpence in\n    earnest of the berrord and lead his apes into hell.\n  Leon. Well then, go you into hell?\n  Beat. No; but to the gate, and there will the devil meet me like an\n    old cuckold with horns on his head, and say 'Get you to heaven,\n    Beatrice, get you to heaven. Here's no place for you maids.' So\n    deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter--for the heavens.\n    He shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry\n    as the day is long.\n  Ant. [to Hero] Well, niece, I trust you will be rul'd by your\n    father.\n  Beat. Yes faith. It is my cousin's duty to make cursy and say,\n    'Father, as it please you.' But yet for all that, cousin, let him\n    be a handsome fellow, or else make another cursy, and say,\n    'Father, as it please me.'\n  Leon. Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.\n  Beat. Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would\n    it not grieve a woman to be overmaster'd with a piece of valiant\n    dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl?\n    No, uncle, I'll none. Adam's sons are my brethren, and truly I\n    hold it a sin to match in my kinred.\n  Leon. Daughter, remember what I told you. If the Prince do solicit\n    you in that kind, you know your answer.\n  Beat. The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be not wooed\n    in good time. If the Prince be too important, tell him there is\n    measure in everything, and so dance out the answer. For, hear me,\n    Hero: wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a\n    measure, and a cinque-pace: the first suit is hot and hasty like\n    a Scotch jig--and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly\n    modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes\n    Repentance and with his bad legs falls into the cinque-pace\n    faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.\n  Leon. Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly.\n  Beat. I have a good eye, uncle; I can see a church by daylight.\n  Leon. The revellers are ent'ring, brother. Make good room.\n                                                 [Exit Antonio.]\n\n    Enter, [masked,] Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedick, and Balthasar.\n       [With them enter Antonio, also masked. After them enter]\n       Don John [and Borachio (without masks), who stand aside\n                 and look on during the dance].\n\n  Pedro. Lady, will you walk a bout with your friend?\n  Hero. So you walk softly and look sweetly and say nothing,\n    I am yours for the walk; and especially when I walk away.\n  Pedro. With me in your company?\n  Hero. I may say so when I please.\n  Pedro. And when please you to say so?\n  Hero. When I like your favour, for God defend the lute should be\n    like the case!\n  Pedro. My visor is Philemon's roof; within the house is Jove.\n  Hero. Why then, your visor should be thatch'd.\n  Pedro. Speak low if you speak love.         [Takes her aside.]\n  Balth. Well, I would you did like me.\n  Marg. So would not I for your own sake, for I have many ill\n    qualities.\n  Balth. Which is one?\n  Marg. I say my prayers aloud.\n  Balth. I love you the better. The hearers may cry Amen.\n  Marg. God match me with a good dancer!\n  Balth. Amen.\n  Marg. And God keep him out of my sight when the dance is done!\n    Answer, clerk.\n  Balth. No more words. The clerk is answered.\n                                              [Takes her aside.]\n  Urs. I know you well enough. You are Signior Antonio.\n  Ant. At a word, I am not.\n  Urs. I know you by the waggling of your head.\n  Ant. To tell you true, I counterfeit him.\n  Urs. You could never do him so ill-well unless you were the very\n    man. Here's his dry hand up and down. You are he, you are he!\n  Ant. At a word, I am not.\n  Urs. Come, come, do you think I do not know you by your excellent\n    wit? Can virtue hide itself? Go to, mum you are he. Graces will\n    appear, and there's an end.              [ They step aside.]\n  Beat. Will you not tell me who told you so?\n  Bene. No, you shall pardon me.\n  Beat. Nor will you not tell me who you are?\n  Bene. Not now.\n  Beat. That I was disdainful, and that I had my good wit out of the\n    'Hundred Merry Tales.' Well, this was Signior Benedick that said\n    so.\n  Bene. What's he?\n  Beat. I am sure you know him well enough.\n  Bene. Not I, believe me.\n  Beat. Did he never make you laugh?\n  Bene. I pray you, what is he?\n  Beat. Why, he is the Prince's jester, a very dull fool. Only his\n    gift is in devising impossible slanders. None but libertines\n    delight in him; and the commendation is not in his wit, but in\n    his villany; for he both pleases men and angers them, and then\n    they laugh at him and beat him. I am sure he is in the fleet.\n    I would he had boarded me.\n  Bene. When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say.\n  Beat. Do, do. He'll but break a comparison or two on me; which\n    peradventure, not marked or not laugh'd at, strikes him into\n    melancholy; and then there's a partridge wing saved, for the fool\n    will eat no supper that night.\n                                                        [Music.]\n    We must follow the leaders.\n  Bene. In every good thing.\n  Beat. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next\n    turning.\n        Dance. Exeunt (all but Don John, Borachio, and Claudio].\n  John. Sure my brother is amorous on Hero and hath withdrawn her\n    father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her and but\n    one visor remains.\n  Bora. And that is Claudio. I know him by his bearing.\n  John. Are you not Signior Benedick?\n  Claud. You know me well. I am he.\n  John. Signior, you are very near my brother in his love. He is\n    enamour'd on Hero. I pray you dissuade him from her; she is no\n    equal for his birth. You may do the part of an honest man in it.\n  Claud. How know you he loves her?\n  John. I heard him swear his affection.\n  Bora. So did I too, and he swore he would marry her tonight.\n  John. Come, let us to the banquet.\n                                          Exeunt. Manet Claudio.\n  Claud. Thus answer I in name of Benedick\n    But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.\n                                                      [Unmasks.]\n    'Tis certain so. The Prince wooes for himself.\n    Friendship is constant in all other things\n    Save in the office and affairs of love.\n    Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues;\n    Let every eye negotiate for itself\n    And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch\n    Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.\n    This is an accident of hourly proof,\n    Which I mistrusted not. Farewell therefore Hero!\n\n                  Enter Benedick [unmasked].\n\n  Bene. Count Claudio?\n  Claud. Yea, the same.\n  Bene. Come, will you go with me?\n  Claud. Whither?\n  Bene. Even to the next willow, about your own business, County. What\n    fashion will you wear the garland of? about your neck, like an\n    usurer's chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You\n    must wear it one way, for the Prince hath got your Hero.\n  Claud. I wish him joy of her.\n  Bene. Why, that's spoken like an honest drovier. So they sell\n    bullocks. But did you think the Prince would have served you\n    thus?\n  Claud. I pray you leave me.\n  Bene. Ho! now you strike like the blind man! 'Twas the boy that\n    stole your meat, and you'll beat the post.\n  Claud. If it will not be, I'll leave you.                Exit.\n  Bene. Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into sedges. But,\n    that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The\n    Prince's fool! Ha! it may be I go under that title because I am\n    merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong. I am not so\n    reputed. It is the base (though bitter) disposition of Beatrice\n    that puts the world into her person and so gives me out. Well,\n    I'll be revenged as I may.\n\n                         Enter Don Pedro.\n\n  Pedro. Now, signior, where's the Count? Did you see him?\n  Bene. Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame, I found\n    him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told him, and I\n    think I told him true, that your Grace had got the good will of\n    this young lady, and I off'red him my company to a willow tree,\n    either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him\n    up a rod, as being worthy to be whipt.\n  Pedro. To be whipt? What's his fault?\n  Bene. The flat transgression of a schoolboy who, being overjoyed\n    with finding a bird's nest, shows it his companion, and he steals\n    it.\n  Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is\n    in the stealer.\n  Bene. Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the\n    garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the\n    rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stol'n\n    his bird's nest.\n  Pedro. I will but teach them to sing and restore them to the owner.\n  Bene. If their singing answer your saying, by my faith you say\n    honestly.\n  Pedro. The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you. The gentleman that\n    danc'd with her told her she is much wrong'd by you.\n  Bene. O, she misus'd me past the endurance of a block! An oak but\n    with one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor\n    began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not\n    thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince's jester, that\n    I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such\n    impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man at a mark,\n    with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every\n    word stabs. If her breath were as terrible as her terminations,\n    there were no living near her; she would infect to the North\n    Star. I would not marry her though she were endowed with all that\n    Adam had left him before he transgress'd. She would have made\n    Hercules have turn'd spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make\n    the fire too. Come, talk not of her. You shall find her the\n    infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would\n    conjure her, for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as\n    quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose,\n    because they would go thither; so indeed all disquiet, horror,\n    and perturbation follows her.\n\n           Enter Claudio and Beatrice, Leonato, Hero.\n\n  Pedro. Look, here she comes.\n  Bene. Will your Grace command me any service to the world's end? I\n    will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can\n    devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the\n    furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's\n    foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard; do you any\n    embassage to the Pygmies--rather than hold three words'\n    conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me?\n  Pedro. None, but to desire your good company.\n  Bene. O God, sir, here's a dish I love not! I cannot endure my Lady\n    Tongue.                                              [Exit.]\n  Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior\n    Benedick.\n  Beat. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile, and I gave him use for\n    it--a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won\n    it of me with false dice; therefore your Grace may well say I\n    have lost it.\n  Pedro. You have put him down, lady; you have put him down.\n  Beat. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove\n    the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent\n    me to seek.\n  Pedro. Why, how now, Count? Wherefore are you sad?\n  Claud. Not sad, my lord.\n  Pedro. How then? sick?\n  Claud. Neither, my lord.\n  Beat. The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but\n    civil count--civil as an orange, and something of that jealous\n    complexion.\n  Pedro. I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though I'll\n    be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I\n    have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won. I have broke with\n    her father, and his good will obtained. Name the day of marriage,\n    and God give thee joy!\n  Leon. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes. His\n    Grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it!\n  Beat. Speak, Count, 'tis your cue.\n  Claud. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little\n    happy if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours.\n    I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange.\n  Beat. Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss\n    and let not him speak neither.\n  Pedro. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart.\n  Beat. Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy\n    side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her\n    heart.\n  Claud. And so she doth, cousin.\n  Beat. Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but\n    I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry 'Heigh-ho for\n    a husband!'\n  Pedro. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one.\n  Beat. I would rather have one of your father's getting. Hath your\n    Grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent\n    husbands, if a maid could come by them.\n  Pedro. Will you have me, lady?\n  Beat. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days:\n    your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But I beseech your\n    Grace pardon me. I was born to speak all mirth and no matter.\n  Pedro. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes\n    you, for out o' question you were born in a merry hour.\n  Beat. No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star\n    danc'd, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy!\n  Leon. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of?\n  Beat. I cry you mercy, uncle, By your Grace's pardon.    Exit.\n  Pedro. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady.\n  Leon. There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord. She\n    is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then; for I\n    have heard my daughter say she hath often dreamt of unhappiness\n    and wak'd herself with laughing.\n  Pedro. She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband.\n  Leon. O, by no means! She mocks all her wooers out of suit.\n  Pedro. She were an excellent wife for Benedick.\n  Leon. O Lord, my lord! if they were but a week married, they would\n    talk themselves mad.\n  Pedro. County Claudio, when mean you to go to church?\n  Claud. To-morrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all\n    his rites.\n  Leon. Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just\n    sevennight; and a time too brief too, to have all things answer\n    my mind.\n  Pedro. Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing;\n    but I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us.\n    I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules' labours, which\n    is, to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a\n    mountain of affection th' one with th' other. I would fain have\n    it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it if you three will\n    but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction.\n  Leon. My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights'\n    watchings.\n  Claud. And I, my lord.\n  Pedro. And you too, gentle Hero?\n  Hero. I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a\n    good husband.\n  Pedro. And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know.\n    Thus far can I praise him: he is of a noble strain, of approved\n    valour, and confirm'd honesty. I will teach you how to humour\n    your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick; and I,\n    [to Leonato and Claudio] with your two helps, will so practise on\n    Benedick that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy\n    stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this,\n    Cupid is no longer an archer; his glory shall be ours, for we are\n    the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nA hall in Leonato's house.\n\nEnter [Don] John and Borachio.\n\n  John. It is so. The Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of\n    Leonato.\n  Bora. Yea, my lord; but I can cross it.\n  John. Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be med'cinable to me.\n    I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his\n    affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this\n    marriage?\n  Bora. Not honestly, my lord, but so covertly that no dishonesty\n    shall appear in me.\n  John. Show me briefly how.\n  Bora. I think I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in\n    the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero.\n  John. I remember.\n  Bora. I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her\n    to look out at her lady's chamber window.\n  John. What life is in that to be the death of this marriage?\n  Bora. The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the\n    Prince your brother; spare not to tell him that he hath wronged\n    his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio (whose estimation do\n    you mightily hold up) to a contaminated stale, such a one as\n    Hero.\n  John. What proof shall I make of that?\n  Bora. Proof enough to misuse the Prince, to vex Claudio, to undo\n    Hero, and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue?\n  John. Only to despite them I will endeavour anything.\n  Bora. Go then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count\n    Claudio alone; tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend\n    a kind of zeal both to the Prince and Claudio, as--in love of\n    your brother's honour, who hath made this match, and his friend's\n    reputation, who is thus like to be cozen'd with the semblance of\n    a maid--that you have discover'd thus. They will scarcely believe\n    this without trial. Offer them instances; which shall bear no\n    less likelihood than to see me at her chamber window, hear me\n    call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them\n    to see this the very night before the intended wedding (for in\n    the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be\n    absent) and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero's\n    disloyalty that jealousy shall be call'd assurance and all the\n    preparation overthrown.\n  John. Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in\n    practice. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a\n    thousand ducats.\n  Bora. Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not\n    shame me.\n  John. I will presently go learn their day of marriage.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nLeonato's orchard.\n\nEnter Benedick alone.\n\n  Bene. Boy!\n\n                    [Enter Boy.]\n\n  Boy. Signior?\n  Bene. In my chamber window lies a book. Bring it hither to me in\n    the orchard.\n  Boy. I am here already, sir.\n  Bene. I know that, but I would have thee hence and here again.\n    (Exit Boy.) I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much\n    another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love,\n    will, after he hath laugh'd at such shallow follies in others,\n    become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love; and such\n    a man is Claudio. I have known when there was no music with him\n    but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor\n    and the pipe. I have known when he would have walk'd ten mile\n    afoot to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake\n    carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain\n    and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is\n    he turn'd orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet--\n    just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with\n    these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not. I will not be sworn but\n    love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it,\n    till he have made an oyster of me he shall never make me such a\n    fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am\n    well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in\n    one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall\n    be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never\n    cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not\n    near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an\n    excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it\n    please God. Ha, the Prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in\n    the arbour.                                         [Hides.]\n\n              Enter Don Pedro, Leonato, Claudio.\n                      Music [within].\n\n  Pedro. Come, shall we hear this music?\n  Claud. Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is,\n    As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony!\n  Pedro. See you where Benedick hath hid himself?\n  Claud. O, very well, my lord. The music ended,\n    We'll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth.\n\n                   Enter Balthasar with Music.\n\n  Pedro. Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again.\n  Balth. O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice\n    To slander music any more than once.\n  Pedro. It is the witness still of excellency\n    To put a strange face on his own perfection.\n    I pray thee sing, and let me woo no more.\n  Balth. Because you talk of wooing, I will sing,\n    Since many a wooer doth commence his suit\n    To her he thinks not worthy, yet he wooes,\n    Yet will he swear he loves.\n  Pedro. Nay, pray thee come;\n    Or if thou wilt hold longer argument,\n    Do it in notes.\n  Balth. Note this before my notes:\n    There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting.\n  Pedro. Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks!\n    Note notes, forsooth, and nothing!                  [Music.]\n  Bene. [aside] Now divine air! Now is his soul ravish'd! Is it not\n    strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies?\n    Well, a horn for my money, when all's done.\n                                              [Balthasar sings.]\n                      The Song.\n\n        Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more!\n          Men were deceivers ever,\n        One foot in sea, and one on shore;\n          To one thing constant never.\n            Then sigh not so,\n            But let them go,\n          And be you blithe and bonny,\n        Converting all your sounds of woe\n          Into Hey nonny, nonny.\n\n        Sing no more ditties, sing no moe,\n          Of dumps so dull and heavy!\n        The fraud of men was ever so,\n          Since summer first was leavy.\n            Then sigh not so, &c.\n\n  Pedro. By my troth, a good song.\n  Balth. And an ill singer, my lord.\n  Pedro. Ha, no, no, faith! Thou sing'st well enough for a shift.\n  Bene. [aside] An he had been a dog that should have howl'd thus,\n    they would have hang'd him; and I pray God his bad voice bode no\n    mischief. I had as live have heard the night raven, come what\n    plague could have come after it.\n  Pedro. Yea, marry. Dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee get us\n    some excellent music; for to-morrow night we would have it at the\n    Lady Hero's chamber window.\n  Balth. The best I can, my lord.\n  Pedro. Do so. Farewell.\n                                Exit Balthasar [with Musicians].\n    Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of to-day? that\n    your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick?\n  Claud. O, ay!-[Aside to Pedro] Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits.\n    --I did never think that lady would have loved any man.\n  Leon. No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote\n    on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours\n    seem'd ever to abhor.\n  Bene. [aside] Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner?\n  Leon. By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it, but\n    that she loves him with an enraged affection. It is past the\n    infinite of thought.\n  Pedro. May be she doth but counterfeit.\n  Claud. Faith, like enough.\n  Leon. O God, counterfeit? There was never counterfeit of passion\n    came so near the life of passion as she discovers it.\n  Pedro. Why, what effects of passion shows she?\n  Claud. [aside] Bait the hook well! This fish will bite.\n  Leon. What effects, my lord? She will sit you--you heard my\n    daughter tell you how.\n  Claud. She did indeed.\n  Pedro. How, how, I pray you? You amaze me. I would have thought her\n    spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection.\n  Leon. I would have sworn it had, my lord--especially against\n    Benedick.\n  Bene. [aside] I should think this a gull but that the white-bearded\n    fellow speaks it. Knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such\n    reverence.\n  Claud. [aside] He hath ta'en th' infection. Hold it up.\n  Pedro. Hath she made her affection known to Benedick?\n  Leon. No, and swears she never will. That's her torment.\n  Claud. 'Tis true indeed. So your daughter says. 'Shall I,' says\n    she, 'that have so oft encount'red him with scorn, write to him\n    that I love him?'\"\n  Leon. This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for\n    she'll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her\n    smock till she have writ a sheet of paper. My daughter tells us\n    all.\n  Claud. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest\n    your daughter told us of.\n  Leon. O, when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found\n    'Benedick' and 'Beatrice' between the sheet?\n  Claud. That.\n  Leon. O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence, rail'd at\n    herself that she should be so immodest to write to one that she\n    knew would flout her. 'I measure him,' says she, 'by my own\n    spirit; for I should flout him if he writ to me. Yea, though I\n    love him, I should.'\n  Claud. Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her\n    heart, tears her hair, prays, curses--'O sweet Benedick! God give\n    me patience!'\n  Leon. She doth indeed; my daughter says so. And the ecstasy hath so\n    much overborne her that my daughter is sometime afeard she will\n    do a desperate outrage to herself. It is very true.\n  Pedro. It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she\n    will not discover it.\n  Claud. To what end? He would make but a sport of it and torment the\n    poor lady worse.\n  Pedro. An he should, it were an alms to hang him! She's an\n    excellent sweet lady, and (out of all suspicion) she is virtuous.\n  Claud. And she is exceeding wise.\n  Pedro. In everything but in loving Benedick.\n  Leon. O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body,\n    we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry\n    for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian.\n  Pedro. I would she had bestowed this dotage on me. I would have\n    daff'd all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you\n    tell Benedick of it and hear what 'a will say.\n  Leon. Were it good, think you?\n  Claud. Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die\n    if he love her not, and she will die ere she make her love known,\n    and she will die, if he woo her, rather than she will bate one\n    breath of her accustomed crossness.\n  Pedro. She doth well. If she should make tender of her love, 'tis\n    very possible he'll scorn it; for the man (as you know all) hath\n    a contemptible spirit.\n  Claud. He is a very proper man.\n  Pedro. He hath indeed a good outward happiness.\n  Claud. Before God! and in my mind, very wise.\n  Pedro. He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit.\n  Claud. And I take him to be valiant.\n  Pedro. As Hector, I assure you; and in the managing of quarrels you\n    may say he is wise, for either he avoids them with great\n    discretion, or undertakes them with a most Christianlike fear.\n  Leon. If he do fear God, 'a must necessarily keep peace. If he\n    break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and\n    trembling.\n  Pedro. And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it\n    seems not in him by some large jests he will make. Well, I am\n    sorry for your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick and tell him of\n    her love?\n  Claud. Never tell him, my lord. Let her wear it out with good\n    counsel.\n  Leon. Nay, that's impossible; she may wear her heart out first.\n  Pedro. Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter. Let it\n    cool the while. I love Benedick well, and I could wish he would\n    modestly examine himself to see how much he is unworthy so good a\n    lady.\n  Leon. My lord, will you .walk? Dinner is ready.\n                                               [They walk away.]\n  Claud. If he dote on her upon this, I will never trust my\n    expectation.\n  Pedro. Let there be the same net spread for her, and that must your\n    daughter and her gentlewomen carry. The sport will be, when they\n    hold one an opinion of another's dotage, and no such matter.\n    That's the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb\n    show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner.\n                       Exeunt [Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato].\n\n                [Benedick advances from the arbour.]\n\n  Bene. This can be no trick. The conference was sadly borne; they\n    have the truth of this from Hero; they seem to pity the lady.\n    It seems her affections have their full bent. Love me? Why, it\n    must be requited. I hear how I am censur'd. They say I will bear\n    myself proudly if I perceive the love come from her. They say too\n    that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did\n    never think to marry. I must not seem proud. Happy are they that\n    hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the\n    lady is fair--'tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous\n    --'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me--by\n    my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of\n    her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance\n    have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me because I\n    have railed so long against marriage. But doth not the appetite\n    alters? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure\n    in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of\n    the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world\n    must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not\n    think I should live till I were married.\n\n                 Enter Beatrice.\n\n    Here comes Beatrice. By this day, she's a fair lady! I do spy\n    some marks of love in her.\n  Beat. Against my will I am sent to bid You come in to dinner.\n  Bene. Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains.\n  Beat. I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to\n    thank me. If it had been painful, I would not have come.\n  Bene. You take pleasure then in the message?\n  Beat. Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knives point, and\n    choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior. Fare you well.\nExit.\n  Bene. Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.'\n    There's a double meaning in that. 'I took no more pains for those\n    thanks than you took pains to thank me.' That's as much as to\n    say, 'Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks.' If I\n    do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I\n    am a Jew. I will go get her picture.                   Exit.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. Scene I.\nLeonato's orchard.\n\nEnter Hero and two Gentlewomen, Margaret and Ursula.\n\n  Hero. Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour.\n    There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice\n    Proposing with the Prince and Claudio.\n    Whisper her ear and tell her, I and Ursley\n    Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse\n    Is all of her. Say that thou overheard'st us;\n    And bid her steal into the pleached bower,\n    Where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun,\n    Forbid the sun to enter--like favourites,\n    Made proud by princes, that advance their pride\n    Against that power that bred it. There will she hide her\n    To listen our propose. This is thy office.\n    Bear thee well in it and leave us alone.\n  Marg. I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently.    [Exit.]\n  Hero. Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come,\n    As we do trace this alley up and down,\n    Our talk must only be of Benedick.\n    When I do name him, let it be thy part\n    To praise him more than ever man did merit.\n    My talk to thee must be how Benedick\n    Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter\n    Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made,\n    That only wounds by hearsay.\n\n                   [Enter Beatrice.]\n\n    Now begin;\n    For look where Beatrice like a lapwing runs\n    Close by the ground, to hear our conference.\n\n               [Beatrice hides in the arbour].\n\n  Urs. The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish\n    Cut with her golden oars the silver stream\n    And greedily devour the treacherous bait.\n    So angle we for Beatrice, who even now\n    Is couched in the woodbine coverture.\n    Fear you not my part of the dialogue.\n  Hero. Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing\n    Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it.\n                                     [They approach the arbour.]\n    No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful.\n    I know her spirits are as coy and wild\n    As haggards of the rock.\n  Urs. But are you sure\n    That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely?\n  Hero. So says the Prince, and my new-trothed lord.\n  Urs. And did they bid you tell her of it, madam?\n  Hero. They did entreat me to acquaint her of it;\n    But I persuaded them, if they lov'd Benedick,\n    To wish him wrestle with affection\n    And never to let Beatrice know of it.\n  Urs. Why did you so? Doth not the gentleman\n    Deserve as full, as fortunate a bed\n    As ever Beatrice shall couch upon?\n  Hero. O god of love! I know he doth deserve\n    As much as may be yielded to a man:\n    But Nature never fram'd a woman's heart\n    Of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice.\n    Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes,\n    Misprizing what they look on; and her wit\n    Values itself so highly that to her\n    All matter else seems weak. She cannot love,\n    Nor take no shape nor project of affection,\n    She is so self-endeared.\n  Urs. Sure I think so;\n    And therefore certainly it were not good\n    She knew his love, lest she'll make sport at it.\n  Hero. Why, you speak truth. I never yet saw man,\n    How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featur'd,\n    But she would spell him backward. If fair-fac'd,\n    She would swear the gentleman should be her sister;\n    If black, why, Nature, drawing of an antic,\n    Made a foul blot; if tall, a lance ill-headed;\n    If low, an agate very vilely cut;\n    If speaking, why, a vane blown with all winds;\n    If silent, why, a block moved with none.\n    So turns she every man the wrong side out\n    And never gives to truth and virtue that\n    Which simpleness and merit purchaseth.\n  Urs. Sure, sure, such carping is not commendable.\n  Hero. No, not to be so odd, and from all fashions,\n    As Beatrice is, cannot be commendable.\n    But who dare tell her so? If I should speak,\n    She would mock me into air; O, she would laugh me\n    Out of myself, press me to death with wit!\n    Therefore let Benedick, like cover'd fire,\n    Consume away in sighs, waste inwardly.\n    It were a better death than die with mocks,\n    Which is as bad as die with tickling.\n  Urs. Yet tell her of it. Hear what she will say.\n  Hero. No; rather I will go to Benedick\n    And counsel him to fight against his passion.\n    And truly, I'll devise some honest slanders\n    To stain my cousin with. One doth not know\n    How much an ill word may empoison liking.\n  Urs. O, do not do your cousin such a wrong!\n    She cannot be so much without true judgment\n    (Having so swift and excellent a wit\n    As she is priz'd to have) as to refuse\n    So rare a gentleman as Signior Benedick.\n  Hero. He is the only man of Italy,\n    Always excepted my dear Claudio.\n  Urs. I pray you be not angry with me, madam,\n    Speaking my fancy: Signior Benedick,\n    For shape, for bearing, argument, and valour,\n    Goes foremost in report through Italy.\n  Hero. Indeed he hath an excellent good name.\n  Urs. His excellence did earn it ere he had it.\n    When are you married, madam?\n  Hero. Why, every day to-morrow! Come, go in.\n    I'll show thee some attires, and have thy counsel\n    Which is the best to furnish me to-morrow.\n                                               [They walk away.]\n  Urs. She's lim'd, I warrant you! We have caught her, madam.\n  Hero. If it prove so, then loving goes by haps;\n    Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.\n                                       Exeunt [Hero and Ursula].\n\n    [Beatrice advances from the arbour.]\n\n  Beat. What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true?\n    Stand I condemn'd for pride and scorn so much?\n    Contempt, farewell! and maiden pride, adieu!\n    No glory lives behind the back of such.\n    And, Benedick, love on; I will requite thee,\n    Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand.\n    If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee\n    To bind our loves up in a holy band;\n    For others say thou dost deserve, and I\n    Believe it better than reportingly.                    Exit.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nA room in Leonato's house.\n\nEnter Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedick, and Leonato.\n\n  Pedro. I do but stay till your marriage be consummate, and then go\n    I toward Arragon.\n  Claud. I'll bring you thither, my lord, if you'll vouchsafe me.\n  Pedro. Nay, that would be as great a soil in the new gloss of your\n    marriage as to show a child his new coat and forbid him to wear\n    it. I will only be bold with Benedick for his company; for, from\n    the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, he is all mirth.\n    He hath twice or thrice cut Cupid's bowstring, and the little\n    hangman dare not shoot at him. He hath a heart as sound as a\n    bell; and his tongue is the clapper, for what his heart thinks,\n    his tongue speaks.\n  Bene. Gallants, I am not as I have been.\n  Leon. So say I. Methinks you are sadder.\n  Claud. I hope he be in love.\n  Pedro. Hang him, truant! There's no true drop of blood in him to be\n    truly touch'd with love. If he be sad, he wants money.\n  Bene. I have the toothache.\n  Pedro. Draw it.\n  Bene. Hang it!\n  Claud. You must hang it first and draw it afterwards.\n  Pedro. What? sigh for the toothache?\n  Leon. Where is but a humour or a worm.\n  Bene. Well, every one can master a grief but he that has it.\n  Claud. Yet say I he is in love.\n  Pedro. There is no appearance of fancy in him, unless it be a fancy\n    that he hath to strange disguises; as to be a Dutchman to-day, a\n    Frenchman to-morrow; or in the shape of two countries at once, as\n    a German from the waist downward, all slops, and a Spaniard from\n    the hip upward, no doublet. Unless he have a fancy to this\n    foolery, as it appears he hath, he is no fool for fancy, as you\n    would have it appear he is.\n  Claud. If he be not in love with some woman, there is no believing\n    old signs. 'A brushes his hat o' mornings. What should that bode?\n  Pedro. Hath any man seen him at the barber's?\n  Claud. No, but the barber's man hath been seen with him, and the\n     old ornament of his cheek hath already stuff'd tennis balls.\n  Leon. Indeed he looks younger than he did, by the loss of a beard.\n  Pedro. Nay, 'a rubs himself with civet. Can you smell him out by\n    that?\n  Claud. That's as much as to say, the sweet youth's in love.\n  Pedro. The greatest note of it is his melancholy.\n  Claud. And when was he wont to wash his face?\n  Pedro. Yea, or to paint himself? for the which I hear what they say\n    of him.\n  Claud. Nay, but his jesting spirit, which is new-crept into a\n    lutestring, and now govern'd by stops.\n  Pedro. Indeed that tells a heavy tale for him. Conclude, conclude,\n    he is in love.\n  Claud. Nay, but I know who loves him.\n  Pedro. That would I know too. I warrant, one that knows him not.\n  Claud. Yes, and his ill conditions; and in despite of all, dies for\n    him.\n  Pedro. She shall be buried with her face upwards.\n  Bene. Yet is this no charm for the toothache. Old signior, walk\n    aside with me. I have studied eight or nine wise words to speak\n    to you, which these hobby-horses must not hear.\n                                  [Exeunt Benedick and Leonato.]\n  Pedro. For my life, to break with him about Beatrice!\n  Claud. 'Tis even so. Hero and Margaret have by this played their\n    parts with Beatrice, and then the two bears will not bite one\n    another when they meet.\n\n                 Enter John the Bastard.\n\n  John. My lord and brother, God save you.\n  Pedro. Good den, brother.\n  John. If your leisure serv'd, I would speak with you.\n  Pedro. In private?\n  John. If it please you. Yet Count Claudio may hear, for what I\n    would speak of concerns him.\n  Pedro. What's the matter?\n  John. [to Claudio] Means your lordship to be married tomorrow?\n  Pedro. You know he does.\n  John. I know not that, when he knows what I know.\n  Claud. If there be any impediment, I pray you discover it.\n  John. You may think I love you not. Let that appear hereafter, and\n    aim better at me by that I now will manifest. For my brother, I\n    think he holds you well and in dearness of heart hath holp to\n    effect your ensuing marriage--surely suit ill spent and labour\n    ill bestowed!\n  Pedro. Why, what's the matter?\n  John. I came hither to tell you, and, circumstances short'ned (for\n    she has been too long a-talking of), the lady is disloyal.\n  Claud. Who? Hero?\n  John. Even she--Leonato's Hero, your Hero, every man's Hero.\n  Claud. Disloyal?\n  John. The word is too good to paint out her wickedness. I could say\n    she were worse; think you of a worse title, and I will fit her to\n    it. Wonder not till further warrant. Go but with me to-night, you\n    shall see her chamber window ent'red, even the night before her\n    wedding day. If you love her then, to-morrow wed her. But it\n    would better fit your honour to change your mind.\n  Claud. May this be so?\n  Pedro. I will not think it.\n  John. If you dare not trust that you see, confess not that you\n    know. If you will follow me, I will show you enough; and when you\n    have seen more and heard more, proceed accordingly.\n  Claud. If I see anything to-night why I should not marry her\n    to-morrow, in the congregation where I should wed, there will I\n    shame her.\n  Pedro. And, as I wooed for thee to obtain her, I will join with\n    thee to disgrace her.\n  John. I will disparage her no farther till you are my witnesses.\n    Bear it coldly but till midnight, and let the issue show itself.\n  Pedro. O day untowardly turned!\n  Claud. O mischief strangely thwarting!\n  John. O plague right well prevented!\n    So will you say when you have seen the Sequel.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nA street.\n\nEnter Dogberry and his compartner [Verges], with the Watch.\n\n  Dog. Are you good men and true?\n  Verg. Yea, or else it were pity but they should suffer salvation,\n    body and soul.\n  Dog. Nay, that were a punishment too good for them if they should\n    have any allegiance in them, being chosen for the Prince's watch.\n  Verg. Well, give them their charge, neighbour Dogberry.\n  Dog. First, who think you the most desartless man to be constable?\n  1. Watch. Hugh Oatcake, sir, or George Seacoal; for they can write\n    and read.\n  Dog. Come hither, neighbour Seacoal. God hath bless'd you with a\n    good name. To be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune, but\n    to write and read comes by nature.\n  2. Watch. Both which, Master Constable--\n  Dog. You have. I knew it would be your answer. Well, for your\n    favour, sir, why, give God thanks and make no boast of it; and\n    for your writing and reading, let that appear when there is no\n    need of such vanity. You are thought here to be the most\n    senseless and fit man for the constable of the watch. Therefore\n    bear you the lanthorn. This is your charge: you shall comprehend\n    all vagrom men; you are to bid any man stand, in the Prince's\n    name.\n  2. Watch. How if 'a will not stand?\n  Dog. Why then, take no note of him, but let him go, and presently\n    call the rest of the watch together and thank God you are rid of\n    a knave.\n  Verg. If he will not stand when he is bidden, he is none of the\n    Prince's subjects.\n  Dog. True, and they are to meddle with none but the Prince's\n    subjects. You shall also make no noise in the streets; for for\n    the watch to babble and to talk is most tolerable, and not to be\n    endured.\n  2. Watch. We will rather sleep than talk. We know what belongs to\n    a watch.\n  Dog. Why, you speak like an ancient and most quiet watchman, for I\n    cannot see how sleeping should offend. Only have a care that your\n    bills be not stol'n. Well, you are to call at all the alehouses\n    and bid those that are drunk get them to bed.\n  2. Watch. How if they will not?\n  Dog. Why then, let them alone till they are sober. If they make you\n    not then the better answer, You may say they are not the men you\n    took them for.\n  2. Watch. Well, sir.\n  Dog. If you meet a thief, you may suspect him, by virtue of your\n    office, to be no true man; and for such kind of men, the less you\n    meddle or make with them, why, the more your honesty.\n  2. Watch. If we know him to be a thief, shall we not lay hands on\n    him?\n  Dog. Truly, by your office you may; but I think they that touch\n    pitch will be defil'd. The most peaceable way for you, if you do\n    take a thief, is to let him show himself what he is, and steal\n    out of your company.\n  Verg. You have been always called a merciful man, partner.\n  Dog. Truly, I would not hang a dog by my will, much more a man who\n    hath any honesty in him.\n  Verg. If you hear a child cry in the night, you must call to the\n    nurse and bid her still it.\n  2. Watch. How if the nurse be asleep and will not hear us?\n  Dog. Why then, depart in peace and let the child wake her with\n    crying; for the ewe that will not hear her lamb when it baes will\n    never answer a calf when he bleats.\n  Verg. 'Tis very true.\n  Dog. This is the end of the charge: you, constable, are to present\n    the Prince's own person. If you meet the Prince in the night,\n    you may stay him.\n  Verg. Nay, by'r lady, that I think 'a cannot.\n  Dog. Five shillings to one on't with any man that knows the\n    statutes, he may stay him! Marry, not without the Prince be\n    willing; for indeed the watch ought to offend no man, and it is\n    an offence to stay a man against his will.\n  Verg. By'r lady, I think it be so.\n  Dog. Ha, ah, ha! Well, masters, good night. An there be any matter\n    of weight chances, call up me. Keep your fellows' counsels and\n    your own, and good night. Come, neighbour.\n  2. Watch. Well, masters, we hear our charge. Let us go sit here\n    upon the church bench till two, and then all to bed.\n  Dog. One word more, honest neighbours. I pray you watch about\n    Signior Leonato's door; for the wedding being there tomorrow,\n    there is a great coil to-night. Adieu. Be vigitant, I beseech\n    you.                           Exeunt [Dogberry and Verges].\n\n                     Enter Borachio and Conrade.\n\n  Bora. What, Conrade!\n  2. Watch. [aside] Peace! stir not!\n  Bora. Conrade, I say!\n  Con. Here, man. I am at thy elbow.\n  Bora. Mass, and my elbow itch'd! I thought there would a scab\n    follow.\n  Con. I will owe thee an answer for that; and now forward with thy\n    tale.\n  Bora. Stand thee close then under this penthouse, for it drizzles\n    rain, and I will, like a true drunkard, utter all to thee.\n  2. Watch. [aside] Some treason, masters. Yet stand close.\n  Bora. Therefore know I have earned of Don John a thousand ducats.\n  Con. Is it possible that any villany should be so dear?\n  Bora. Thou shouldst rather ask if it were possible any villany\n    should be so rich; for when rich villains have need of poor ones,\n    poor ones may make what price they will.\n  Con. I wonder at it.\n  Bora. That shows thou art unconfirm'd. Thou knowest that the\n    fashion of a doublet, or a hat, or a cloak, is nothing to a man.\n  Con. Yes, it is apparel.\n  Bora. I mean the fashion.\n  Con. Yes, the fashion is the fashion.\n  Bora. Tush! I may as well say the fool's the fool. But seest thou\n    not what a deformed thief this fashion is?\n  2. Watch. [aside] I know that Deformed. 'A bas been a vile thief\n    this seven year; 'a goes up and down like a gentleman. I remember\n    his name.\n  Bora. Didst thou not hear somebody?\n  Con. No; 'twas the vane on the house.\n  Bora. Seest thou not, I say, what a deformed thief this fashion is?\n    how giddily 'a turns about all the hot-bloods between fourteen\n    and five-and-thirty? sometimes fashioning them like Pharaoh's\n    soldiers in the reechy painting, sometime like god Bel's priests\n    in the old church window, sometime like the shaven Hercules in\n    the smirch'd worm-eaten tapestry, where his codpiece seems as\n    massy as his club?\n  Con. All this I see; and I see that the fashion wears out more\n    apparel than the man. But art not thou thyself giddy with the\n    fashion too, that thou hast shifted out of thy tale into telling\n    me of the fashion?\n  Bora. Not so neither. But know that I have to-night wooed Margaret,\n    the Lady Hero's gentlewoman, by the name of Hero. She leans me\n    out at her mistress' chamber window, bids me a thousand times\n    good night--I tell this tale vilely; I should first tell thee how\n    the Prince, Claudio and my master, planted and placed and\n    possessed by my master Don John, saw afar off in the orchard this\n    amiable encounter.\n  Con. And thought they Margaret was Hero?\n  Bora. Two of them did, the Prince and Claudio; but the devil my\n    master knew she was Margaret; and partly by his oaths, which\n    first possess'd them, partly by the dark night, which did deceive\n    them, but chiefly by my villany, which did confirm any slander\n    that Don John had made, away went Claudio enrag'd; swore he would\n    meet her, as he was appointed, next morning at the temple, and\n    there, before the whole congregation, shame her with what he saw\n    o'ernight and send her home again without a husband.\n  2. Watch. We charge you in the Prince's name stand!\n  1. Watch. Call up the right Master Constable. We have here\n    recover'd the most dangerous piece of lechery that ever was known\n    in the commonwealth.\n  2. Watch. And one Deformed is one of them. I know him; 'a wears a\n    lock.\n  Con. Masters, masters--\n  1. Watch. You'll be made bring Deformed forth, I warrant you.\n  Con. Masters--\n  2. Watch. Never speak, we charge you. Let us obey you to go with\n    us.\n  Bora. We are like to prove a goodly commodity, being taken up of\n    these men's bills.\n  Con. A commodity in question, I warrant you. Come, we'll obey you.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nA Room in Leonato's house.\n\nEnter Hero, and Margaret and Ursula.\n\n  Hero. Good Ursula, wake my cousin Beatrice and desire her to rise.\n  Urs. I will, lady.\n  Hero. And bid her come hither.\n  Urs. Well.                                             [Exit.]\n  Marg. Troth, I think your other rebato were better.\n  Hero. No, pray thee, good Meg, I'll wear this.\n  Marg. By my troth, 's not so good, and I warrant your cousin will\n    say so.\n  Hero. My cousin's a fool, and thou art another. I'll wear none but\n    this.\n  Marg. I like the new tire within excellently, if the hair were a\n    thought browner; and your gown's a most rare fashion, i' faith.\n    I saw the Duchess of Milan's gown that they praise so.\n  Hero. O, that exceeds, they say.\n  Marg. By my troth, 's but a nightgown in respect of yours--\n    cloth-o'-gold and cuts, and lac'd with silver, set with pearls\n    down sleeves, side-sleeves, and skirts, round underborne with\n    a blush tinsel. But for a fine, quaint, graceful, and excellent\n    fashion, yours is worth ten on't.\n  Hero. God give me joy to wear it! for my heart is exceeding heavy.\n  Marg. 'Twill be heavier soon by the weight of a man.\n  Hero. Fie upon thee! art not ashamed?\n  Marg. Of what, lady? of speaking honourably? Is not marriage\n    honourable in a beggar? Is not your lord honourable without\n    marriage? I think you would have me say, 'saving your reverence,\n    a husband.' An bad thinking do not wrest true speaking, I'll\n    offend nobody. Is there any harm in 'the heavier for a husband'?\n    None, I think, an it be the right husband and the right wife.\n    Otherwise 'tis light, and not heavy. Ask my Lady Beatrice else.\n    Here she comes.\n\n                               Enter Beatrice.\n\n  Hero. Good morrow, coz.\n  Beat. Good morrow, sweet Hero.\n  Hero. Why, how now? Do you speak in the sick tune?\n  Beat. I am out of all other tune, methinks.\n  Marg. Clap's into 'Light o' love.' That goes without a burden. Do\n    you sing it, and I'll dance it.\n  Beat. Yea, 'Light o' love' with your heels! then, if your husband\n    have stables enough, you'll see he shall lack no barnes.\n  Marg. O illegitimate construction! I scorn that with my heels.\n  Beat. 'Tis almost five o'clock, cousin; 'tis time you were ready.\n    By my troth, I am exceeding ill. Hey-ho!\n  Marg. For a hawk, a horse, or a husband?\n  Beat. For the letter that begins them all, H.\n  Marg. Well, an you be not turn'd Turk, there's no more sailing by\n    the star.\n  Beat. What means the fool, trow?\n  Marg. Nothing I; but God send every one their heart's desire!\n  Hero. These gloves the Count sent me, they are an excellent\n    perfume.\n  Beat. I am stuff'd, cousin; I cannot smell.\n  Marg. A maid, and stuff'd! There's goodly catching of cold.\n  Beat. O, God help me! God help me! How long have you profess'd\n    apprehension?\n  Marg. Ever since you left it. Doth not my wit become me rarely?\n  Beat. It is not seen enough. You should wear it in your cap. By my\n    troth, I am sick.\n  Marg. Get you some of this distill'd carduus benedictus and lay it\n    to your heart. It is the only thing for a qualm.\n  Hero. There thou prick'st her with a thistle.\n  Beat. Benedictus? why benedictus? You have some moral in this\n    'benedictus.'\n  Marg. Moral? No, by my troth, I have no moral meaning; I meant\n    plain holy thistle. You may think perchance that I think you are\n    in love. Nay, by'r lady, I am not such a fool to think what I\n    list; nor I list not to think what I can; nor indeed I cannot\n    think, if I would think my heart out of thinking, that you are in\n    love, or that you will be in love, or that you can be in love.\n    Yet Benedick was such another, and now is he become a man. He\n    swore he would never marry; and yet now in despite of his heart\n    he eats his meat without grudging; and how you may be converted I\n    know not, but methinks you look with your eyes as other women do.\n  Beat. What pace is this that thy tongue keeps?\n  Marg. Not a false gallop.\n\n                         Enter Ursula.\n\n  Urs. Madam, withdraw. The Prince, the Count, Signior Benedick, Don\n    John, and all the gallants of the town are come to fetch you to\n    church.\n  Hero. Help to dress me, good coz, good Meg, good Ursula.\n                                                       [Exeunt.]\n\n\n\n\nScene V.\nThe hall in Leonato's house.\n\nEnter Leonato and the Constable [Dogberry] and the Headborough [verges].\n\n  Leon. What would you with me, honest neighbour?\n  Dog. Marry, sir, I would have some confidence with you that decerns\n    you nearly.\n  Leon. Brief, I pray you; for you see it is a busy time with me.\n  Dog. Marry, this it is, sir.\n  Verg. Yes, in truth it is, sir.\n  Leon. What is it, my good friends?\n  Dog. Goodman Verges, sir, speaks a little off the matter--an old\n    man, sir, and his wits are not so blunt as, God help, I would\n    desire they were; but, in faith, honest as the skin between his\n    brows.\n  Verg. Yes, I thank God I am as honest as any man living that is an\n    old man and no honester than I.\n  Dog. Comparisons are odorous. Palabras, neighbour Verges.\n  Leon. Neighbours, you are tedious.\n  Dog. It pleases your worship to say so, but we are the poor Duke's\n    officers; but truly, for mine own part, if I were as tedious as a\n    king, I could find in my heart to bestow it all of your worship.\n  Leon. All thy tediousness on me, ah?\n  Dog. Yea, in 'twere a thousand pound more than 'tis; for I hear as\n    good exclamation on your worship as of any man in the city; and\n    though I be but a poor man, I am glad to hear it.\n  Verg. And so am I.\n  Leon. I would fain know what you have to say.\n  Verg. Marry, sir, our watch to-night, excepting your worship's\n    presence, ha' ta'en a couple of as arrant knaves as any in\n    Messina.\n  Dog. A good old man, sir; he will be talking. As they say, 'When\n    the age is in, the wit is out.' God help us! it is a world to\n    see! Well said, i' faith, neighbour Verges. Well, God's a good\n    man. An two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind. An honest\n    soul, i' faith, sir, by my troth he is, as ever broke bread; but\n    God is to be worshipp'd; all men are not alike, alas, good\n    neighbour!\n  Leon. Indeed, neighbour, he comes too short of you.\n  Dog. Gifts that God gives.\n  Leon. I must leave you.\n  Dog. One word, sir. Our watch, sir, have indeed comprehended two\n    aspicious persons, and we would have them this morning examined\n    before your worship.\n  Leon. Take their examination yourself and bring it me. I am now in\n    great haste, as it may appear unto you.\n  Dog. It shall be suffigance.\n  Leon. Drink some wine ere you go. Fare you well.\n\n                       [Enter a Messenger.]\n\n  Mess. My lord, they stay for you to give your daughter to her\n    husband.\n  Leon. I'll wait upon them. I am ready.\n                                 [Exeunt Leonato and Messenger.]\n  Dog. Go, good partner, go get you to Francis Seacoal; bid him bring\n    his pen and inkhorn to the jail. We are now to examination these\n    men.\n  Verg. And we must do it wisely.\n  Dog. We will spare for no wit, I warrant you. Here's that shall\n    drive some of them to a non-come. Only get the learned writer to\n    set down our excommunication, and meet me at the jail.\n                                                       [Exeunt.]\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. Scene I.\nA church.\n\nEnter Don Pedro, [John the] Bastard, Leonato, Friar [Francis], Claudio,\nBenedick, Hero, Beatrice, [and Attendants].\n\n  Leon. Come, Friar Francis, be brief. Only to the plain form of\n    marriage, and you shall recount their particular duties\n    afterwards.\n  Friar. You come hither, my lord, to marry this lady?\n  Claud. No.\n  Leon. To be married to her. Friar, you come to marry her.\n  Friar. Lady, you come hither to be married to this count?\n  Hero. I do.\n  Friar. If either of you know any inward impediment why you should\n    not be conjoined, I charge you on your souls to utter it.\n  Claud. Know you any, Hero?\n  Hero. None, my lord.\n  Friar. Know you any, Count?\n  Leon. I dare make his answer--none.\n  Claud. O, what men dare do! what men may do! what men daily do, not\n    knowing what they do!\n  Bene. How now? interjections? Why then, some be of laughing, as,\n    ah, ha, he!\n  Claud. Stand thee by, friar. Father, by your leave:\n    Will you with free and unconstrained soul\n    Give me this maid your daughter?\n  Leon. As freely, son, as God did give her me.\n  Claud. And what have I to give you back whose worth\n    May counterpoise this rich and precious gift?\n  Pedro. Nothing, unless you render her again.\n  Claud. Sweet Prince, you learn me noble thankfulness.\n    There, Leonato, take her back again.\n    Give not this rotten orange to your friend.\n    She's but the sign and semblance of her honour.\n    Behold how like a maid she blushes here!\n    O, what authority and show of truth\n    Can cunning sin cover itself withal!\n    Comes not that blood as modest evidence\n    To witness simple virtue, Would you not swear,\n    All you that see her, that she were a maid\n    By these exterior shows? But she is none:\n    She knows the heat of a luxurious bed;\n    Her blush is guiltiness, not modesty.\n  Leon. What do you mean, my lord?\n  Claud. Not to be married,\n    Not to knit my soul to an approved wanton.\n  Leon. Dear my lord, if you, in your own proof,\n    Have vanquish'd the resistance of her youth\n    And made defeat of her virginity--\n  Claud. I know what you would say. If I have known her,\n    You will say she did embrace me as a husband,\n    And so extenuate the forehand sin.\n    No, Leonato,\n    I never tempted her with word too large,\n    But, as a brother to his sister, show'd\n    Bashful sincerity and comely love.\n  Hero. And seem'd I ever otherwise to you?\n  Claud. Out on the seeming! I will write against it.\n    You seem to me as Dian in her orb,\n    As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown;\n    But you are more intemperate in your blood\n    Than Venus, or those pamp'red animals\n    That rage in savage sensuality.\n  Hero. Is my lord well that he doth speak so wide?\n  Leon. Sweet Prince, why speak not you?\n  Pedro. What should I speak?\n    I stand dishonour'd that have gone about\n    To link my dear friend to a common stale.\n  Leon. Are these things spoken, or do I but dream?\n  John. Sir, they are spoken, and these things are true.\n  Bene. This looks not like a nuptial.\n  Hero. 'True!' O God!\n  Claud. Leonato, stand I here?\n    Is this the Prince, Is this the Prince's brother?\n    Is this face Hero's? Are our eyes our own?\n  Leon. All this is so; but what of this, my lord?\n  Claud. Let me but move one question to your daughter,\n    And by that fatherly and kindly power\n    That you have in her, bid her answer truly.\n  Leon. I charge thee do so, as thou art my child.\n  Hero. O, God defend me! How am I beset!\n    What kind of catechising call you this?\n  Claud. To make you answer truly to your name.\n  Hero. Is it not Hero? Who can blot that name\n    With any just reproach?\n  Claud. Marry, that can Hero!\n    Hero itself can blot out Hero's virtue.\n    What man was he talk'd with you yesternight,\n    Out at your window betwixt twelve and one?\n    Now, if you are a maid, answer to this.\n  Hero. I talk'd with no man at that hour, my lord.\n  Pedro. Why, then are you no maiden. Leonato,\n    I am sorry you must hear. Upon my honour,\n    Myself, my brother, and this grieved Count\n    Did see her, hear her, at that hour last night\n    Talk with a ruffian at her chamber window,\n    Who hath indeed, most like a liberal villain,\n    Confess'd the vile encounters they have had\n    A thousand times in secret.\n  John. Fie, fie! they are not to be nam'd, my lord--\n    Not to be spoke of;\n    There is not chastity, enough in language\n    Without offence to utter them. Thus, pretty lady,\n    I am sorry for thy much misgovernment.\n  Claud. O Hero! what a Hero hadst thou been\n    If half thy outward graces had been plac'd\n    About thy thoughts and counsels of thy heart!\n    But fare thee well, most foul, most fair! Farewell,\n    Thou pure impiety and impious purity!\n    For thee I'll lock up all the gates of love,\n    And on my eyelids shall conjecture hang,\n    To turn all beauty into thoughts of harm,\n    And never shall it more be gracious.\n  Leon. Hath no man's dagger here a point for me?\n                                                  [Hero swoons.]\n  Beat. Why, how now, cousin? Wherefore sink you down?\n  John. Come let us go. These things, come thus to light,\n    Smother her spirits up.\n                      [Exeunt Don Pedro, Don Juan, and Claudio.]\n  Bene. How doth the lady?\n  Beat. Dead, I think. Help, uncle!\n    Hero! why, Hero! Uncle! Signior Benedick! Friar!\n  Leon. O Fate, take not away thy heavy hand!\n    Death is the fairest cover for her shame\n    That may be wish'd for.\n  Beat. How now, cousin Hero?\n  Friar. Have comfort, lady.\n  Leon. Dost thou look up?\n  Friar. Yea, wherefore should she not?\n  Leon. Wherefore? Why, doth not every earthly thing\n    Cry shame upon her? Could she here deny\n    The story that is printed in her blood?\n    Do not live, Hero; do not ope thine eyes;\n    For, did I think thou wouldst not quickly die,\n    Thought I thy spirits were stronger than thy shames,\n    Myself would on the rearward of reproaches\n    Strike at thy life. Griev'd I, I had but one?\n    Child I for that at frugal nature's frame?\n    O, one too much by thee! Why had I one?\n    Why ever wast thou lovely in my eyes?\n    Why had I not with charitable hand\n    Took up a beggar's issue at my gates,\n    Who smirched thus and mir'd with infamy,\n    I might have said, 'No part of it is mine;\n    This shame derives itself from unknown loins'?\n    But mine, and mine I lov'd, and mine I prais'd,\n    And mine that I was proud on--mine so much\n    That I myself was to myself not mine,\n    Valuing of her--why, she, O, she is fall'n\n    Into a pit of ink, that the wide sea\n    Hath drops too few to wash her clean again,\n    And salt too little which may season give\n    To her foul tainted flesh!\n  Bene. Sir, sir, be patient.\n    For my part, I am so attir'd in wonder,\n    I know not what to say.\n  Beat. O, on my soul, my cousin is belied!\n  Bene. Lady, were you her bedfellow last night?\n  Beat. No, truly, not; although, until last night,\n    I have this twelvemonth been her bedfellow\n  Leon. Confirm'd, confirm'd! O, that is stronger made\n    Which was before barr'd up with ribs of iron!\n    Would the two princes lie? and Claudio lie,\n    Who lov'd her so that, speaking of her foulness,\n    Wash'd it with tears? Hence from her! let her die.\n  Friar. Hear me a little;\n    For I have only been silent so long,\n    And given way unto this course of fortune,\n    By noting of the lady. I have mark'd\n    A thousand blushing apparitions\n    To start into her face, a thousand innocent shames\n    In angel whiteness beat away those blushes,\n    And in her eye there hath appear'd a fire\n    To burn the errors that these princes hold\n    Against her maiden truth. Call me a fool;\n    Trust not my reading nor my observation,\n    Which with experimental seal doth warrant\n    The tenure of my book; trust not my age,\n    My reverence, calling, nor divinity,\n    If this sweet lady lie not guiltless here\n    Under some biting error.\n  Leon. Friar, it cannot be.\n    Thou seest that all the grace that she hath left\n    Is that she will not add to her damnation\n    A sin of perjury: she not denies it.\n    Why seek'st thou then to cover with excuse\n    That which appears in proper nakedness?\n  Friar. Lady, what man is he you are accus'd of?\n  Hero. They know that do accuse me; I know none.\n    If I know more of any man alive\n    Than that which maiden modesty doth warrant,\n    Let all my sins lack mercy! O my father,\n    Prove you that any man with me convers'd\n    At hours unmeet, or that I yesternight\n    Maintain'd the change of words with any creature,\n    Refuse me, hate me, torture me to death!\n  Friar. There is some strange misprision in the princes.\n  Bene. Two of them have the very bent of honour;\n    And if their wisdoms be misled in this,\n    The practice of it lives in John the bastard,\n    Whose spirits toil in frame of villanies.\n  Leon. I know not. If they speak but truth of her,\n    These hands shall tear her. If they wrong her honour,\n    The proudest of them shall well hear of it.\n    Time hath not yet so dried this blood of mine,\n    Nor age so eat up my invention,\n    Nor fortune made such havoc of my means,\n    Nor my bad life reft me so much of friends,\n    But they shall find awak'd in such a kind\n    Both strength of limb and policy of mind,\n    Ability in means, and choice of friends,\n    To quit me of them throughly.\n  Friar. Pause awhile\n    And let my counsel sway you in this case.\n    Your daughter here the princes left for dead,\n    Let her awhile be secretly kept in,\n    And publish it that she is dead indeed;\n    Maintain a mourning ostentation,\n    And on your family's old monument\n    Hang mournful epitaphs, and do all rites\n    That appertain unto a burial.\n  Leon. What shall become of this? What will this do?\n  Friar. Marry, this well carried shall on her behalf\n    Change slander to remorse. That is some good.\n    But not for that dream I on this strange course,\n    But on this travail look for greater birth.\n    She dying, as it must be so maintain'd,\n    Upon the instant that she was accus'd,\n    Shall be lamented, pitied, and excus'd\n    Of every hearer; for it so falls out\n    That what we have we prize not to the worth\n    Whiles we enjoy it, but being lack'd and lost,\n    Why, then we rack the value, then we find\n    The virtue that possession would not show us\n    Whiles it was ours. So will it fare with Claudio.\n    When he shall hear she died upon his words,\n    Th' idea of her life shall sweetly creep\n    Into his study of imagination,\n    And every lovely organ of her life\n    Shall come apparell'd in more precious habit,\n    More moving, delicate, and full of life,\n    Into the eye and prospect of his soul\n    Than when she liv'd indeed. Then shall he mourn\n    (If ever love had interest in his liver)\n    And wish he had not so accused her--\n    No, though be thought his accusation true.\n    Let this be so, and doubt not but success\n    Will fashion the event in better shape\n    Than I can lay it down in likelihood.\n    But if all aim but this be levell'd false,\n    The supposition of the lady's death\n    Will quench the wonder of her infamy.\n    And if it sort not well, you may conceal her,\n    As best befits her wounded reputation,\n    In some reclusive and religious life,\n    Out of all eyes, tongues, minds, and injuries.\n  Bene. Signior Leonato, let the friar advise you;\n    And though you know my inwardness and love\n    Is very much unto the Prince and Claudio,\n    Yet, by mine honour, I will deal in this\n    As secretly and justly as your soul\n    Should with your body.\n  Leon. Being that I flow in grief,\n    The smallest twine may lead me.\n  Friar. 'Tis well consented. Presently away;\n    For to strange sores strangely they strain the cure.\n    Come, lady, die to live. This wedding day\n    Perhaps is but prolong'd. Have patience and endure.\n                         Exeunt [all but Benedick and Beatrice].\n  Bene. Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while?\n  Beat. Yea, and I will weep a while longer.\n  Bene. I will not desire that.\n  Beat. You have no reason. I do it freely.\n  Bene. Surely I do believe your fair cousin is wronged.\n  Beat. Ah, how much might the man deserve of me that would right\n     her!\n  Bene. Is there any way to show such friendship?\n  Beat. A very even way, but no such friend.\n  Bene. May a man do it?\n  Beat. It is a man's office, but not yours.\n  Bene. I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is not that\n    strange?\n  Beat. As strange as the thing I know not. It were as possible for\n    me to say I loved nothing so well as you. But believe me not; and\n    yet I lie not. I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing. I am sorry\n    for my cousin.\n  Bene. By my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me.\n  Beat. Do not swear, and eat it.\n  Bene. I will swear by it that you love me, and I will make him eat\n    it that says I love not you.\n  Beat. Will you not eat your word?\n  Bene. With no sauce that can be devised to it. I protest I love\n    thee.\n  Beat. Why then, God forgive me!\n  Bene. What offence, sweet Beatrice?\n  Beat. You have stayed me in a happy hour. I was about to protest I\n    loved you.\n  Bene. And do it with all thy heart.\n  Beat. I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to\n    protest.\n  Bene. Come, bid me do anything for thee.\n  Beat. Kill Claudio.\n  Bene. Ha! not for the wide world!\n  Beat. You kill me to deny it. Farewell.\n  Bene. Tarry, sweet Beatrice.\n  Beat. I am gone, though I am here. There is no love in you. Nay, I\n    pray you let me go.\n  Bene. Beatrice--\n  Beat. In faith, I will go.\n  Bene. We'll be friends first.\n  Beat. You dare easier be friends with me than fight with mine\n    enemy.\n  Bene. Is Claudio thine enemy?\n  Beat. Is 'a not approved in the height a villain, that hath\n    slandered, scorned, dishonoured my kinswoman? O that I were a\n    man! What? bear her in hand until they come to take hands, and\n    then with public accusation, uncover'd slander, unmitigated\n    rancour--O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the\n    market place.\n  Bene. Hear me, Beatrice!\n  Beat. Talk with a man out at a window!-a proper saying!\n  Bene. Nay but Beatrice--\n  Beat. Sweet Hero! she is wrong'd, she is sland'red, she is undone.\n  Bene. Beat--\n  Beat. Princes and Counties! Surely a princely testimony, a goodly\n    count, Count Comfect, a sweet gallant surely! O that I were a man\n    for his sake! or that I had any friend would be a man for my\n    sake! But manhood is melted into cursies, valour into compliment,\n    and men are only turn'd into tongue, and trim ones too. He is now\n    as valiant as Hercules that only tells a lie,and swears it. I\n    cannot be a man with wishing; therefore I will die a woman with\n    grieving.\n  Bene. Tarry, good Beatrice. By this hand, I love thee.\n  Beat. Use it for my love some other way than swearing by it.\n  Bene. Think you in your soul the Count Claudio hath wrong'd Hero?\n  Beat. Yea, as sure is I have a thought or a soul.\n  Bene. Enough, I am engag'd, I will challenge him. I will kiss your\n    hand, and so I leave you. By this hand, Claudio shall render me a\n    dear account. As you hear of me, so think of me. Go comfort your\n    cousin. I must say she is dead-and so farewell.\n                                                       [Exeunt.]\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nA prison.\n\nEnter the Constables [Dogberry and Verges] and the Sexton, in gowns,\n[and the Watch, with Conrade and] Borachio.\n\n  Dog. Is our whole dissembly appear'd?\n  Verg. O, a stool and a cushion for the sexton.\n  Sex. Which be the malefactors?\n  Dog. Marry, that am I and my partner.\n  Verg. Nay, that's certain. We have the exhibition to examine.\n  Sex. But which are the offenders that are to be examined? let them\n    come before Master Constable.\n  Dog. Yea, marry, let them come before me. What is your name,\n    friend?\n  Bor. Borachio.\n  Dog. Pray write down Borachio. Yours, sirrah?\n  Con. I am a gentleman, sir, and my name is Conrade.\n  Dog. Write down Master Gentleman Conrade. Masters, do you serve\n    God?\n  Both. Yea, sir, we hope.\n  Dog. Write down that they hope they serve God; and write God first,\n    for God defend but God should go before such villains! Masters,\n    it is proved already that you are little better than false\n    knaves, and it will go near to be thought so shortly. How answer\n    you for yourselves?\n  Con. Marry, sir, we say we are none.\n  Dog. A marvellous witty fellow, I assure you; but I will go about\n    with him. Come you hither, sirrah. A word in your ear. Sir, I say\n    to you, it is thought you are false knaves.\n  Bora. Sir, I say to you we are none.\n  Dog. Well, stand aside. Fore God, they are both in a tale.\n    Have you writ down that they are none?\n  Sex. Master Constable, you go not the way to examine. You must call\n    forth the watch that are their accusers.\n  Dog. Yea, marry, that's the eftest way. Let the watch come forth.\n    Masters, I charge you in the Prince's name accuse these men.\n  1. Watch. This man said, sir, that Don John the Prince's brother\n    was a villain.\n  Dog. Write down Prince John a villain. Why, this is flat perjury,\n    to call a prince's brother villain.\n  Bora. Master Constable--\n  Dog. Pray thee, fellow, peace. I do not like thy look, I promise\n    thee.\n  Sex. What heard you him say else?\n  2. Watch. Marry, that he had received a thousand ducats of Don John\n    for accusing the Lady Hero wrongfully.\n  Dog. Flat burglary as ever was committed.\n  Verg. Yea, by th' mass, that it is.\n  Sex. What else, fellow?\n  1. Watch. And that Count Claudio did mean, upon his words, to\n    disgrace Hero before the whole assembly, and not marry her.\n  Dog. O villain! thou wilt be condemn'd into everlasting redemption\n    for this.\n  Sex. What else?\n  Watchmen. This is all.\n  Sex. And this is more, masters, than you can deny. Prince John is\n    this morning secretly stol'n away. Hero was in this manner\n    accus'd, in this manner refus'd, and upon the grief of this\n    suddenly died. Master Constable, let these men be bound and\n    brought to Leonato's. I will go before and show him their\n    examination.                                         [Exit.]\n  Dog. Come, let them be opinion'd.\n  Verg. Let them be in the hands--\n  Con. Off, coxcomb!\n  Dog. God's my life, where's the sexton? Let him write down the\n    Prince's officer coxcomb. Come, bind them.--Thou naughty varlet!\n  Con. Away! you are an ass, you are an ass.\n  Dog. Dost thou not suspect my place? Dost thou not suspect my\n    years? O that he were here to write me down an ass! But, masters,\n    remember that I am an ass. Though it be not written down, yet\n    forget not that I am an ass. No, thou villain, thou art full of\n    piety, as shall be prov'd upon thee by good witness. I am a wise\n    fellow; and which is more, an officer; and which is more, a\n    householder; and which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any\n    is in Messina, and one that knows the law, go to! and a rich\n    fellow enough, go to! and a fellow that hath had losses; and one\n    that hath two gowns and everything handsome about him. Bring him\n    away. O that I had been writ down an ass!\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. Scene I.\nThe street, near Leonato's house.\n\nEnter Leonato and his brother [ Antonio].\n\n  Ant. If you go on thus, you will kill yourself,\n    And 'tis not wisdom thus to second grief\n    Against yourself.\n  Leon. I pray thee cease thy counsel,\n    Which falls into mine ears as profitless\n    As water in a sieve. Give not me counsel,\n    Nor let no comforter delight mine ear\n    But such a one whose wrongs do suit with mine.\n    Bring me a father that so lov'd his child,\n    Whose joy of her is overwhelm'd like mine,\n    And bid him speak to me of patience.\n    Measure his woe the length and breadth of mine,\n    And let it answer every strain for strain,\n    As thus for thus, and such a grief for such,\n    In every lineament, branch, shape, and form.\n    If such a one will smile and stroke his beard,\n    Bid sorrow wag, cry 'hem' when he should groan,\n    Patch grief with proverbs, make misfortune drunk\n    With candle-wasters--bring him yet to me,\n    And I of him will gather patience.\n    But there is no such man; for, brother, men\n    Can counsel and speak comfort to that grief\n    Which they themselves not feel; but, tasting it,\n    Their counsel turns to passion, which before\n    Would give preceptial medicine to rage,\n    Fetter strong madness in a silken thread,\n    Charm ache with air and agony with words.\n    No, no! 'Tis all men's office to speak patience\n    To those that wring under the load of sorrow,\n    But no man's virtue nor sufficiency\n    To be so moral when he shall endure\n    The like himself. Therefore give me no counsel.\n    My griefs cry louder than advertisement.\n  Ant. Therein do men from children nothing differ.\n  Leon. I pray thee peace. I will be flesh and blood;\n    For there was never yet philosopher\n    That could endure the toothache patiently,\n    However they have writ the style of gods\n    And made a push at chance and sufferance.\n  Ant. Yet bend not all the harm upon yourself.\n    Make those that do offend you suffer too.\n  Leon. There thou speak'st reason. Nay, I will do so.\n    My soul doth tell me Hero is belied;\n    And that shall Claudio know; so shall the Prince,\n    And all of them that thus dishonour her.\n\n              Enter Don Pedro and Claudio.\n\n  Ant. Here comes the Prince and Claudio hastily.\n  Pedro. Good den, Good den.\n  Claud. Good day to both of you.\n  Leon. Hear you, my lords!\n  Pedro. We have some haste, Leonato.\n  Leon. Some haste, my lord! well, fare you well, my lord.\n    Are you so hasty now? Well, all is one.\n  Pedro. Nay, do not quarrel with us, good old man.\n  Ant. If he could right himself with quarrelling,\n    Some of us would lie low.\n  Claud. Who wrongs him?\n  Leon. Marry, thou dost wrong me, thou dissembler, thou!\n    Nay, never lay thy hand upon thy sword;\n    I fear thee not.\n  Claud. Mary, beshrew my hand\n    If it should give your age such cause of fear.\n    In faith, my hand meant nothing to my sword.\n  Leon. Tush, tush, man! never fleer and jest at me\n    I speak not like a dotard nor a fool,\n    As under privilege of age to brag\n    What I have done being young, or what would do,\n    Were I not old. Know, Claudio, to thy head,\n    Thou hast so wrong'd mine innocent child and me\n    That I am forc'd to lay my reverence by\n    And, with grey hairs and bruise of many days,\n    Do challenge thee to trial of a man.\n    I say thou hast belied mine innocent child;\n    Thy slander hath gone through and through her heart,\n    And she lied buried with her ancestors-\n    O, in a tomb where never scandal slept,\n    Save this of hers, fram'd by thy villany!\n  Claud. My villany?\n  Leon. Thine, Claudio; thine I say.\n  Pedro. You say not right, old man\n  Leon. My lord, my lord,\n    I'll prove it on his body if he dare,\n    Despite his nice fence and his active practice,\n    His May of youth and bloom of lustihood.\n  Claud. Away! I will not have to do with you.\n  Leon. Canst thou so daff me? Thou hast kill'd my child.\n    If thou kill'st me, boy, thou shalt kill a man.\n    And. He shall kill two of us, and men indeed\n    But that's no matter; let him kill one first.\n    Win me and wear me! Let him answer me.\n    Come, follow me, boy,. Come, sir boy, come follow me.\n    Sir boy, I'll whip you from your foining fence!\n    Nay, as I am a gentleman, I will.\n  Leon. Brother--\n  Ant. Content yourself. God knows I lov'd my niece,\n    And she is dead, slander'd to death by villains,\n    That dare as well answer a man indeed\n    As I dare take a serpent by the tongue.\n    Boys, apes, braggarts, jacks, milksops!\n  Leon. Brother Anthony--\n  Ant. Hold you content. What, man! I know them, yea,\n    And what they weigh, even to the utmost scruple,\n    Scambling, outfacing, fashion-monging boys,\n    That lie and cog and flout, deprave and slander,\n    Go anticly, show outward hideousness,\n    And speak off half a dozen dang'rous words,\n    How they might hurt their enemies, if they durst;\n    And this is all.\n  Leon. But, brother Anthony--\n  Ant. Come, 'tis no matter.\n    Do not you meddle; let me deal in this.\n  Pedro. Gentlemen both, we will not wake your patience.\n    My heart is sorry for your daughter's death;\n    But, on my honour, she was charg'd with nothing\n    But what was true, and very full of proof.\n  Leon. My lord, my lord--\n  Pedro. I will not hear you.\n  Leon. No? Come, brother, away!--I will be heard.\n  Ant. And shall, or some of us will smart for it.\n                                                    Exeunt ambo.\n\n                  Enter Benedick.\n\n  Pedro. See, see! Here comes the man we went to seek.\n  Claud. Now, signior, what news?\n  Bene. Good day, my lord.\n  Pedro. Welcome, signior. You are almost come to part almost a fray.\n  Claud. We had lik'd to have had our two noses snapp'd off with two\n    old men without teeth.\n  Pedro. Leonato and his brother. What think'st thou? Had we fought,\n    I doubt we should have been too young for them.\n  Bene. In a false quarrel there is no true valour. I came to seek\n    you both.\n  Claud. We have been up and down to seek thee; for we are high-proof\n    melancholy, and would fain have it beaten away. Wilt thou use thy\n    wit?\n  Bene. It is in my scabbard. Shall I draw it?\n  Pedro. Dost thou wear thy wit by thy side?\n  Claud. Never any did so, though very many have been beside their\n    wit. I will bid thee draw, as we do the minstrel--draw to\n    pleasure us.\n  Pedro. As I am an honest man, he looks pale. Art thou sick or\n    angry?\n  Claud. What, courage, man! What though care kill'd a cat, thou hast\n    mettle enough in thee to kill care.\n  Bene. Sir, I shall meet your wit in the career an you charge it\n    against me. I pray you choose another subject.\n  Claud. Nay then, give him another staff; this last was broke cross.\n  Pedro. By this light, he changes more and more. I think he be angry\n    indeed.\n  Claud. If he be, he knows how to turn his girdle.\n  Bene. Shall I speak a word in your ear?\n  Claud. God bless me from a challenge!\n  Bene. [aside to Claudio] You are a villain. I jest not; I will make\n    it good how you dare, with what you dare, and when you dare. Do\n    me right, or I will protest your cowardice. You have kill'd a\n    sweet lady, and her death shall fall heavy on you. Let me hear\n    from you.\n  Claud. Well, I will meet you, so I may have good cheer.\n  Pedro. What, a feast, a feast?\n  Claud. I' faith, I thank him, he hath bid me to a calve's head and\n    a capon, the which if I do not carve most curiously, say my\n    knife's naught. Shall I not find a woodcock too?\n  Bene. Sir, your wit ambles well; it goes easily.\n  Pedro. I'll tell thee how Beatrice prais'd thy wit the other day. I\n    said thou hadst a fine wit: 'True,' said she, 'a fine little\n    one.' 'No,' said I, 'a great wit.' 'Right,' says she, 'a great\n    gross one.' 'Nay,' said I, 'a good wit.' 'Just,' said she, 'it\n    hurts nobody.' 'Nay,' said I, 'the gentleman is wise.' 'Certain,'\n    said she, a wise gentleman.' 'Nay,' said I, 'he hath the\n    tongues.' 'That I believe' said she, 'for he swore a thing to me\n    on Monday night which he forswore on Tuesday morning. There's a\n    double tongue; there's two tongues.' Thus did she an hour\n    together transshape thy particular virtues. Yet at last she\n    concluded with a sigh, thou wast the proper'st man in Italy.\n  Claud. For the which she wept heartily and said she cared not.\n  Pedro. Yea, that she did; but yet, for all that, an if she did not\n    hate him deadly, she would love him dearly. The old man's\n    daughter told us all.\n  Claud. All, all! and moreover, God saw him when he was hid in the\n    garden.\n  Pedro. But when shall we set the savage bull's horns on the\n    sensible Benedick's head?\n  Claud. Yea, and text underneath, 'Here dwells Benedick, the married\n    man'?\n  Bene. Fare you well, boy; you know my mind. I will leave you now to\n    your gossiplike humour. You break jests as braggards do their\n    blades, which God be thanked hurt not. My lord, for your many\n    courtesies I thank you. I must discontinue your company. Your\n    brother the bastard is fled from Messina. You have among you\n    kill'd a sweet and innocent lady. For my Lord Lackbeard there, he\n    and I shall meet; and till then peace be with him.\n                                                         [Exit.]\n  Pedro. He is in earnest.\n  Claud. In most profound earnest; and, I'll warrant you, for the\n    love of Beatrice.\n  Pedro. And hath challeng'd thee.\n  Claud. Most sincerely.\n  Pedro. What a pretty thing man is when he goes in his doublet and\n    hose and leaves off his wit!\n\n  Enter Constables [Dogberry and Verges, with the Watch, leading]\n                      Conrade and Borachio.\n\n  Claud. He is then a giant to an ape; but then is an ape a doctor to\n    such a man.\n  Pedro. But, soft you, let me be! Pluck up, my heart, and be sad!\n    Did he not say my brother was fled?\n  Dog. Come you, sir. If justice cannot tame you, she shall ne'er\n    weigh more reasons in her balance. Nay, an you be a cursing\n    hypocrite once, you must be look'd to.\n  Pedro. How now? two of my brother's men bound? Borachio one.\n  Claud. Hearken after their offence, my lord.\n  Pedro. Officers, what offence have these men done?\n  Dog. Marry, sir, they have committed false report; moreover, they\n    have spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixth and\n    lastly, they have belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified\n    unjust things; and to conclude, they are lying knaves.\n  Pedro. First, I ask thee what they have done; thirdly, I ask thee\n    what's their offence; sixth and lastly, why they are committed;\n    and to conclude, what you lay to their charge.\n  Claud. Rightly reasoned, and in his own division; and by my troth\n    there's one meaning well suited.\n  Pedro. Who have you offended, masters, that you are thus bound to\n    your answer? This learned constable is too cunning to be\n    understood. What's your offence?\n  Bora. Sweet Prince, let me go no farther to mine answer. Do you\n    hear me, and let this Count kill me. I have deceived even your\n    very eyes. What your wisdoms could not discover, these shallow\n    fools have brought to light, who in the night overheard me\n    confessing to this man, how Don John your brother incensed me to\n    slander the Lady Hero; how you were brought into the orchard and\n    saw me court Margaret in Hero's garments; how you disgrac'd her\n    when you should marry her. My villany they have upon record,\n    which I had rather seal with my death than repeat over to my\n    shame. The lady is dead upon mine and my master's false\n    accusation; and briefly, I desire nothing but the reward of a\n    villain.\n  Pedro. Runs not this speech like iron through your blood?\n  Claud. I have drunk poison whiles he utter'd it.\n  Pedro. But did my brother set thee on to this?\n  Bora. Yea, and paid me richly for the practice of it.\n  Pedro. He is compos'd and fram'd of treachery,\n    And fled he is upon this villany.\n  Claud. Sweet Hero, now thy image doth appear\n    In the rare semblance that I lov'd it first.\n  Dog. Come, bring away the plaintiffs. By this time our sexton hath\n    reformed Signior Leonato of the matter. And, masters, do not\n    forget to specify, when time and place shall serve, that I am an\n    ass.\n  Verg. Here, here comes Master Signior Leonato, and the sexton too.\n\n          Enter Leonato, his brother [Antonio], and the Sexton.\n\n  Leon. Which is the villain? Let me see his eyes,\n    That, when I note another man like him,\n    I may avoid him. Which of these is he?\n  Bora. If you would know your wronger, look on me.\n  Leon. Art thou the slave that with thy breath hast kill'd\n    Mine innocent child?\n  Bora. Yea, even I alone.\n  Leon. No, not so, villain! thou beliest thyself.\n    Here stand a pair of honourable men--\n    A third is fled--that had a hand in it.\n    I thank you princes for my daughter's death.\n    Record it with your high and worthy deeds.\n    'Twas bravely done, if you bethink you of it.\n  Claud. I know not how to pray your patience;\n    Yet I must speak. Choose your revenge yourself;\n    Impose me to what penance your invention\n    Can lay upon my sin. Yet sinn'd I not\n    But in mistaking.\n  Pedro. By my soul, nor I!\n    And yet, to satisfy this good old man,\n    I would bend under any heavy weight\n    That he'll enjoin me to.\n  Leon. I cannot bid you bid my daughter live-\n    That were impossible; but I pray you both,\n    Possess the people in Messina here\n    How innocent she died; and if your love\n    Can labour aught in sad invention,\n    Hang her an epitaph upon her tomb,\n    And sing it to her bones--sing it to-night.\n    To-morrow morning come you to my house,\n    And since you could not be my son-in-law,\n    Be yet my nephew. My brother hath a daughter,\n    Almost the copy of my child that's dead,\n    And she alone is heir to both of us.\n    Give her the right you should have giv'n her cousin,\n    And so dies my revenge.\n  Claud. O noble sir!\n    Your over-kindness doth wring tears from me.\n    I do embrace your offer; and dispose\n    For henceforth of poor Claudio.\n  Leon. To-morrow then I will expect your coming;\n    To-night I take my leave. This naughty man\n    Shall fact to face be brought to Margaret,\n    Who I believe was pack'd in all this wrong,\n    Hir'd to it by your brother.\n  Bora. No, by my soul, she was not;\n    Nor knew not what she did when she spoke to me;\n    But always hath been just and virtuous\n    In anything that I do know by her.\n  Dog. Moreover, sir, which indeed is not under white and black, this\n    plaintiff here, the offender, did call me ass. I beseech you let\n    it be rememb'red in his punishment. And also the watch heard them\n    talk of one Deformed. They say he wears a key in his ear, and a\n    lock hanging by it, and borrows money in God's name, the which he\n    hath us'd so long and never paid that now men grow hard-hearted\n    and will lend nothing for God's sake. Pray you examine him upon\n    that point.\n  Leon. I thank thee for thy care and honest pains.\n  Dog. Your worship speaks like a most thankful and reverent youth,\n    and I praise God for you.\n  Leon. There's for thy pains. [Gives money.]\n  Dog. God save the foundation!\n  Leon. Go, I discharge thee of thy prisoner, and I thank thee.\n  Dog. I leave an arrant knave with your worship, which I beseech\n    your worship to correct yourself, for the example of others.\n    God keep your worship! I wish your worship well. God restore you\n    to health! I humbly give you leave to depart; and if a merry\n    meeting may be wish'd, God prohibit it! Come, neighbour.\n                                   Exeunt [Dogberry and Verges].\n  Leon. Until to-morrow morning, lords, farewell.\n  Ant. Farewell, my lords. We look for you to-morrow.\n  Pedro. We will not fall.\n  Claud. To-night I'll mourn with Hero.\n                                 [Exeunt Don Pedro and Claudio.]\n  Leon. [to the Watch] Bring you these fellows on.--We'll talk with\n      Margaret,\n    How her acquaintance grew with this lewd fellow.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nLeonato's orchard.\n\nEnter Benedick and Margaret [meeting].\n\n  Bene. Pray thee, sweet Mistress Margaret, deserve well at my hands\n    by helping me to the speech of Beatrice.\n  Marg. Will you then write me a sonnet in praise of my beauty?\n  Bene. In so high a style, Margaret, that no man living shall come\n    over it; for in most comely truth thou deservest it.\n  Marg. To have no man come over me? Why, shall I always keep below\n    stairs?\n  Bene. Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound's mouth--it catches.\n  Marg. And yours as blunt as the fencer's foils, which hit but hurt\n    not.\n  Bene. A most manly wit, Margaret: it will not hurt a woman.\n    And so I pray thee call Beatrice. I give thee the bucklers.\n  Marg. Give us the swords; we have bucklers of our own.\n  Bene. If you use them, Margaret, you must put in the pikes with a\n    vice, and they are dangerous weapons for maids.\n  Marg. Well, I will call Beatrice to you, who I think hath legs.\n  Bene. And therefore will come.\n                                                  Exit Margaret.\n       [Sings] The god of love,\n               That sits above\n           And knows me, and knows me,\n             How pitiful I deserve--\n\n    I mean in singing; but in loving Leander the good swimmer,\n    Troilus the first employer of panders, and a whole book full of\n    these quondam carpet-mongers, whose names yet run smoothly in the\n    even road of a blank verse--why, they were never so truly turn'd\n    over and over as my poor self in love. Marry, I cannot show it in\n    rhyme. I have tried. I can find out no rhyme to 'lady' but 'baby'\n    --an innocent rhyme; for 'scorn,' 'horn'--a hard rhyme; for\n    'school', 'fool'--a babbling rhyme: very ominous endings! No, I\n    was not born under a rhyming planet, nor cannot woo in festival\n    terms.\n\n                    Enter Beatrice.\n\n    Sweet Beatrice, wouldst thou come when I call'd thee?\n  Beat. Yea, signior, and depart when you bid me.\n  Bene. O, stay but till then!\n  Beat. 'Then' is spoken. Fare you well now. And yet, ere I go, let\n    me go with that I came for, which is, with knowing what hath\n    pass'd between you and Claudio.\n  Bene. Only foul words; and thereupon I will kiss thee.\n  Beat. Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul\n    breath, and foul breath is noisome. Therefore I will depart\n    unkiss'd.\n  Bene. Thou hast frighted the word out of his right sense, so\n    forcible is thy wit. But I must tell thee plainly, Claudio\n    undergoes my challenge; and either I must shortly hear from him\n    or I will subscribe him a coward. And I pray thee now tell me,\n    for which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?\n  Beat. For them all together, which maintain'd so politic a state of\n    evil that they will not admit any good part to intermingle with\n    them. But for which of my good parts did you first suffer love\n    for me?\n  Bene. Suffer love!--a good epithet. I do suffer love indeed, for I\n    love thee against my will.\n  Beat. In spite of your heart, I think. Alas, poor heart! If you\n    spite it for my sake, I will spite it for yours, for I will never\n    love that which my friend hates.\n  Bene. Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.\n  Beat. It appears not in this confession. There's not one wise man\n    among twenty, that will praise himself.\n  Bene. An old, an old instance, Beatrice, that liv'd in the time of\n    good neighbours. If a man do not erect in this age his own tomb\n    ere he dies, he shall live no longer in monument than the bell\n    rings and the widow weeps.\n  Beat. And how long is that, think you?\n  Bene. Question: why, an hour in clamour and a quarter in rheum.\n    Therefore is it most expedient for the wise, if Don Worm (his\n    conscience) find no impediment to the contrary, to be the trumpet\n    of his own virtues, as I am to myself. So much for praising\n    myself, who, I myself will bear witness, is praiseworthy. And now\n    tell me, how doth your cousin?\n  Beat. Very ill.\n  Bene. And how do you?\n  Beat. Very ill too.\n  Bene. Serve God, love me, and mend. There will I leave you too, for\n    here comes one in haste.\n\n                         Enter Ursula.\n\n  Urs. Madam, you must come to your uncle. Yonder's old coil at home.\n    It is proved my Lady Hero hath been falsely accus'd, the Prince\n    and Claudio mightily abus'd, and Don John is the author of all,\n    who is fled and gone. Will you come presently?\n  Beat. Will you go hear this news, signior?\n  Bene. I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried thy\n    eyes; and moreover, I will go with thee to thy uncle's.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nA churchyard.\n\nEnter Claudio, Don Pedro, and three or four with tapers,\n[followed by Musicians].\n\n  Claud. Is this the monument of Leonato?\n  Lord. It is, my lord.\n  Claud. [reads from a scroll]\n\n                      Epitaph.\n\n        Done to death by slanderous tongues\n          Was the Hero that here lies.\n        Death, in guerdon of her wrongs,\n          Gives her fame which never dies.\n        So the life that died with shame\n        Lives in death with glorious fame.\n\n    Hang thou there upon the tomb,\n                                          [Hangs up the scroll.]\n    Praising her when I am dumb.\n    Now, music, sound, and sing your solemn hymn.\n\n                     Song.\n\n        Pardon, goddess of the night,\n        Those that slew thy virgin knight;\n        For the which, with songs of woe,\n        Round about her tomb they go.\n        Midnight, assist our moan,\n        Help us to sigh and groan\n          Heavily, heavily,\n        Graves, yawn and yield your dead,\n        Till death be uttered\n          Heavily, heavily.\n\n  Claud. Now unto thy bones good night!\n    Yearly will I do this rite.\n  Pedro. Good morrow, masters. Put your torches out.\n    The wolves have prey'd, and look, the gentle day,\n    Before the wheels of Phoebus, round about\n    Dapples the drowsy east with spots of grey.\n    Thanks to you all, and leave us. Fare you well.\n  Claud. Good morrow, masters. Each his several way.\n  Pedro. Come, let us hence and put on other weeds,\n    And then to Leonato's we will go.\n  Claud. And Hymen now with luckier issue speeds\n    Than this for whom we rend'red up this woe.          Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV\nThe hall in Leonato's house.\n\nEnter Leonato, Benedick, [Beatrice,] Margaret, Ursula, Antonio,\nFriar [Francis], Hero.\n\n  Friar. Did I not tell you she was innocent?\n  Leon. So are the Prince and Claudio, who accus'd her\n    Upon the error that you heard debated.\n    But Margaret was in some fault for this,\n    Although against her will, as it appears\n    In the true course of all the question.\n  Ant. Well, I am glad that all things sort so well.\n  Bene. And so am I, being else by faith enforc'd\n    To call young Claudio to a reckoning for it.\n  Leon. Well, daughter, and you gentlewomen all,\n    Withdraw into a chamber by yourselves,\n    And when I send for you, come hither mask'd.\n                                                  Exeunt Ladies.\n    The Prince and Claudio promis'd by this hour\n    To visit me. You know your office, brother:\n    You must be father to your brother's daughter,\n    And give her to young Claudio.\n  Ant. Which I will do with confirm'd countenance.\n  Bene. Friar, I must entreat your pains, I think.\n  Friar. To do what, signior?\n  Bene. To bind me, or undo me--one of them.\n    Signior Leonato, truth it is, good signior,\n    Your niece regards me with an eye of favour.\n  Leon. That eye my daughter lent her. 'Tis most true.\n  Bene. And I do with an eye of love requite her.\n  Leon. The sight whereof I think you had from me,\n    From Claudio, and the Prince; but what's your will?\n  Bene. Your answer, sir, is enigmatical;\n    But, for my will, my will is, your good will\n    May stand with ours, this day to be conjoin'd\n    In the state of honourable marriage;\n    In which, good friar, I shall desire your help.\n  Leon. My heart is with your liking.\n  Friar. And my help.\n\n       Enter Don Pedro and Claudio and two or three other.\n\n    Here comes the Prince and Claudio.\n  Pedro. Good morrow to this fair assembly.\n  Leon. Good morrow, Prince; good morrow, Claudio.\n    We here attend you. Are you yet determin'd\n    To-day to marry with my brother's daughter?\n  Claud. I'll hold my mind, were she an Ethiope.\n  Leon. Call her forth, brother. Here's the friar ready.\n                                                 [Exit Antonio.]\n  Pedro. Good morrow, Benedick. Why, what's the matter\n    That you have such a February face,\n    So full of frost, of storm, and cloudiness?\n  Claud. I think he thinks upon the savage bull.\n    Tush, fear not, man! We'll tip thy horns with gold,\n    And all Europa shall rejoice at thee,\n    As once Europa did at lusty Jove\n    When he would play the noble beast in love.\n  Bene. Bull Jove, sir, had an amiable low,\n    And some such strange bull leap'd your father's cow\n    And got a calf in that same noble feat\n    Much like to you, for you have just his bleat.\n\n       Enter [Leonato's] brother [Antonio], Hero, Beatrice,\n            Margaret, Ursula, [the ladies wearing masks].\n\n  Claud. For this I owe you. Here comes other reckonings.\n    Which is the lady I must seize upon?\n  Ant. This same is she, and I do give you her.\n  Claud. Why then, she's mine. Sweet, let me see your face.\n  Leon. No, that you shall not till you take her hand\n    Before this friar and swear to marry her.\n  Claud. Give me your hand before this holy friar.\n    I am your husband if you like of me.\n  Hero. And when I liv'd I was your other wife;       [Unmasks.]\n    And when you lov'd you were my other husband.\n  Claud. Another Hero!\n  Hero. Nothing certainer.\n    One Hero died defil'd; but I do live,\n    And surely as I live, I am a maid.\n  Pedro. The former Hero! Hero that is dead!\n  Leon. She died, my lord, but whiles her slander liv'd.\n  Friar. All this amazement can I qualify,\n    When, after that the holy rites are ended,\n    I'll tell you largely of fair Hero's death.\n    Meantime let wonder seem familiar,\n    And to the chapel let us presently.\n  Bene. Soft and fair, friar. Which is Beatrice?\n  Beat. [unmasks] I answer to that name. What is your will?\n  Bene. Do not you love me?\n  Beat. Why, no; no more than reason.\n  Bene. Why, then your uncle, and the Prince, and Claudio\n    Have been deceived; for they swore you did.\n  Beat. Do not you love me?\n  Bene. Troth, no; no more than reason.\n  Beat. Why, then my cousin, Margaret, and Ursula\n    Are much deceiv'd; for they did swear you did.\n  Bene. They swore that you were almost sick for me.\n  Beat. They swore that you were well-nigh dead for me.\n  Bene. 'Tis no such matter. Then you do not love me?\n  Beat. No, truly, but in friendly recompense.\n  Leon. Come, cousin, I am sure you love the gentleman.\n  Claud. And I'll be sworn upon't that he loves her;\n    For here's a paper written in his hand,\n    A halting sonnet of his own pure brain,\n    Fashion'd to Beatrice.\n  Hero. And here's another,\n    Writ in my cousin's hand, stol'n from her pocket,\n    Containing her affection unto Benedick.\n  Bene. A miracle! Here's our own hands against our hearts.\n    Come, I will have thee; but, by this light, I take thee for pity.\n  Beat. I would not deny you; but, by this good day, I yield upon\n    great persuasion, and partly to save your life, for I was told\n    you were in a consumption.\n  Bene. Peace! I will stop your mouth.             [Kisses her.]\n  Beat. I'll tell thee what, Prince: a college of wit-crackers cannot\n    flout me out of my humour. Dost thou think I care for a satire or\n    an epigram? No. If a man will be beaten with brains, 'a shall\n    wear nothing handsome about him. In brief, since I do purpose to\n    marry, I will think nothing to any purpose that the world can say\n    against it; and therefore never flout at me for what I have said\n    against it; for man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion.\n    For thy part, Claudio, I did think to have beaten thee; but in\n    that thou art like to be my kinsman, live unbruis'd, and love my\n    cousin.\n  Claud. I had well hop'd thou wouldst have denied Beatrice, that I\n    might have cudgell'd thee out of thy single life, to make thee a\n    double-dealer, which out of question thou wilt be if my cousin do\n    not look exceeding narrowly to thee.\n  Bene. Come, come, we are friends. Let's have a dance ere we are\n    married, that we may lighten our own hearts and our wives' heels.\n  Leon. We'll have dancing afterward.\n  Bene. First, of my word! Therefore play, music. Prince, thou art\n    sad. Get thee a wife, get thee a wife! There is no staff more\n    reverent than one tipp'd with horn.\n\n                       Enter Messenger.\n\n  Mess. My lord, your brother John is ta'en in flight,\n    And brought with armed men back to Messina.\n  Bene. Think not on him till to-morrow. I'll devise thee brave\n    punishments for him. Strike up, pipers!\n                                                Dance. [Exeunt.]\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1605\n\n\nTHE TRAGEDY OF OTHELLO, MOOR OF VENICE\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  OTHELLO, the Moor, general of the Venetian forces\n  DESDEMONA, his wife\n  IAGO, ensign to Othello\n  EMILIA, his wife, lady-in-waiting to Desdemona\n  CASSIO, lieutenant to Othello\n  THE DUKE OF VENICE\n  BRABANTIO, Venetian Senator, father of Desdemona\n  GRATIANO, nobleman of Venice, brother of Brabantio\n  LODOVICO, nobleman of Venice, kinsman of Brabantio\n  RODERIGO, rejected suitor of Desdemona\n  BIANCA, mistress of Cassio\n  MONTANO, a Cypriot official\n  A Clown in service to Othello\n  Senators, Sailors, Messengers, Officers, Gentlemen, Musicians, and\n    Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE: Venice and Cyprus\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nVenice. A street.\n\nEnter Roderigo and Iago.\n\n  RODERIGO. Tush, never tell me! I take it much unkindly\n    That thou, Iago, who hast had my purse\n    As if the strings were thine, shouldst know of this.\n  IAGO. 'Sblood, but you will not hear me.\n    If ever I did dream of such a matter,\n    Abhor me.\n  RODERIGO. Thou told'st me thou didst hold him in thy hate.\n  IAGO. Despise me, if I do not. Three great ones of the city,\n    In personal suit to make me his lieutenant,\n    Off-capp'd to him; and, by the faith of man,\n    I know my price, I am worth no worse a place.\n    But he, as loving his own pride and purposes,\n    Evades them, with a bumbast circumstance\n    Horribly stuff'd with epithets of war,\n    And, in conclusion,\n    Nonsuits my mediators; for, \"Certes,\" says he,\n    \"I have already chose my officer.\"\n    And what was he?\n    Forsooth, a great arithmetician,\n    One Michael Cassio, a Florentine\n    (A fellow almost damn'd in a fair wife)\n    That never set a squadron in the field,\n    Nor the division of a battle knows\n    More than a spinster; unless the bookish theoric,\n    Wherein the toged consuls can propose\n    As masterly as he. Mere prattle without practice\n    Is all his soldiership. But he, sir, had the election;\n    And I, of whom his eyes had seen the proof\n    At Rhodes, at Cyprus, and on other grounds\n    Christian and heathen, must be belee'd and calm'd\n    By debitor and creditor. This counter-caster,\n    He, in good time, must his lieutenant be,\n    And I- God bless the mark!- his Moorship's ancient.\n  RODERIGO. By heaven, I rather would have been his hangman.\n  IAGO. Why, there's no remedy. 'Tis the curse of service,\n    Preferment goes by letter and affection,\n    And not by old gradation, where each second\n    Stood heir to the first. Now, sir, be judge yourself\n    Whether I in any just term am affined\n    To love the Moor.\n  RODERIGO.           I would not follow him then.\n  IAGO. O, sir, content you.\n    I follow him to serve my turn upon him:\n    We cannot all be masters, nor all masters\n    Cannot be truly follow'd. You shall mark\n    Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave,\n    That doting on his own obsequious bondage\n    Wears out his time, much like his master's ass,\n    For nought but provender, and when he's old, cashier'd.\n    Whip me such honest knaves. Others there are\n    Who, trimm'd in forms and visages of duty,\n    Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves,\n    And throwing but shows of service on their lords\n    Do well thrive by them; and when they have lined their coats\n    Do themselves homage. These fellows have some soul,\n    And such a one do I profess myself.\n    For, sir,\n    It is as sure as you are Roderigo,\n    Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago.\n    In following him, I follow but myself;\n    Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,\n    But seeming so, for my peculiar end.\n    For when my outward action doth demonstrate\n    The native act and figure of my heart\n    In complement extern, 'tis not long after\n    But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve\n    For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.\n  RODERIGO. What a full fortune does the thick-lips owe,\n    If he can carry't thus!\n  IAGO.                     Call up her father,\n    Rouse him, make after him, poison his delight,\n    Proclaim him in the streets, incense her kinsmen,\n    And, though he in a fertile climate dwell,\n    Plague him with flies. Though that his joy be joy,\n    Yet throw such changes of vexation on't\n    As it may lose some color.\n  RODERIGO. Here is her father's house; I'll call aloud.\n  IAGO. Do, with like timorous accent and dire yell\n    As when, by night and negligence, the fire\n    Is spied in populous cities.\n  RODERIGO. What, ho, Brabantio! Signior Brabantio, ho!\n  IAGO. Awake! What, ho, Brabantio! Thieves! Thieves! Thieves!\n    Look to your house, your daughter, and your bags!\n    Thieves! Thieves!\n\n                Brabantio appears above, at a window.\n\n  BRABANTIO. What is the reason of this terrible summons?\n    What is the matter there?\n  RODERIGO. Signior, is all your family within?\n  IAGO. Are your doors lock'd?\n  BRABANTIO.                   Why? Wherefore ask you this?\n  IAGO. 'Zounds, sir, you're robb'd! For shame, put on your gown;\n    Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul;\n    Even now, now, very now, an old black ram\n    Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise!\n    Awake the snorting citizens with the bell,\n    Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you.\n    Arise, I say!\n  BRABANTIO. What, have you lost your wits?\n  RODERIGO. Most reverend signior, do you know my voice?\n  BRABANTIO. Not I. What are you?\n  RODERIGO. My name is Roderigo.\n  BRABANTIO.                     The worser welcome.\n    I have charged thee not to haunt about my doors.\n    In honest plainness thou hast heard me say\n    My daughter is not for thee; and now, in madness,\n    Being full of supper and distempering draughts,\n    Upon malicious bravery, dost thou come\n    To start my quiet.\n  RODERIGO. Sir, sir, sir-\n  BRABANTIO.               But thou must needs be sure\n    My spirit and my place have in them power\n    To make this bitter to thee.\n  RODERIGO.                      Patience, good sir.\n  BRABANTIO. What tell'st thou me of robbing? This is Venice;\n    My house is not a grange.\n  RODERIGO.                   Most grave Brabantio,\n    In simple and pure soul I come to you.\n  IAGO. 'Zounds, sir, you are one of those that will not serve God,\n    if the devil bid you. Because we come to do you service and you\n    think we are ruffians, you'll have your daughter covered with a\n    Barbary horse; you'll have your nephews neigh to you; you'll have\n    coursers for cousins, and gennets for germans.\n  BRABANTIO. What profane wretch art thou?\n  IAGO. I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter and the\n    Moor are now making the beast with two backs.\n  BRABANTIO. Thou are a villain.\n  IAGO.                          You are- a senator.\n  BRABANTIO. This thou shalt answer; I know thee, Roderigo.\n  RODERIGO. Sir, I will answer anything. But, I beseech you,\n    If't be your pleasure and most wise consent,\n    As partly I find it is, that your fair daughter,\n    At this odd-even and dull watch o' the night,\n    Transported with no worse nor better guard\n    But with a knave of common hire, a gondolier,\n    To the gross clasps of a lascivious Moor-\n    If this be known to you, and your allowance,\n    We then have done you bold and saucy wrongs;\n    But if you know not this, my manners tell me\n    We have your wrong rebuke. Do not believe\n    That, from the sense of all civility,\n    I thus would play and trifle with your reverence.\n    Your daughter, if you have not given her leave,\n    I say again, hath made a gross revolt,\n    Tying her duty, beauty, wit, and fortunes\n    In an extravagant and wheeling stranger\n    Of here and everywhere. Straight satisfy yourself:\n    If she be in her chamber or your house,\n    Let loose on me the justice of the state\n    For thus deluding you.\n  BRABANTIO.               Strike on the tinder, ho!\n    Give me a taper! Call up all my people!\n    This accident is not unlike my dream;\n    Belief of it oppresses me already.\n    Light, I say, light!                                  Exit above.\n  IAGO.                  Farewell, for I must leave you.\n    It seems not meet, nor wholesome to my place,\n    To be produced- as, if I stay, I shall-\n    Against the Moor; for I do know, the state,\n    However this may gall him with some check,\n    Cannot with safety cast him, for he's embark'd\n    With such loud reason to the Cyprus wars,\n    Which even now stands in act, that, for their souls,\n    Another of his fathom they have none\n    To lead their business; in which regard,\n    Though I do hate him as I do hell pains,\n    Yet for necessity of present life,\n    I must show out a flag and sign of love,\n    Which is indeed but sign. That you shall surely find him,\n    Lead to the Sagittary the raised search,\n    And there will I be with him. So farewell.                  Exit.\n\n            Enter, below, Brabantio, in his nightgown, and\n                        Servants with torches.\n\n  BRABANTIO. It is too true an evil: gone she is,\n    And what's to come of my despised time\n    Is nought but bitterness. Now, Roderigo,\n    Where didst thou see her? O unhappy girl!\n    With the Moor, say'st thou? Who would be a father!\n    How didst thou know 'twas she? O, she deceives me\n    Past thought! What said she to you? Get more tapers.\n    Raise all my kindred. Are they married, think you?\n  RODERIGO. Truly, I think they are.\n  BRABANTIO. O heaven! How got she out? O treason of the blood!\n    Fathers, from hence trust not your daughters' minds\n    By what you see them act. Is there not charms\n    By which the property of youth and maidhood\n    May be abused? Have you not read, Roderigo,\n    Of some such thing?\n  RODERIGO.             Yes, sir, I have indeed.\n  BRABANTIO. Call up my brother. O, would you had had her!\n    Some one way, some another. Do you know\n    Where we may apprehend her and the Moor?\n  RODERIGO. I think I can discover him, if you please\n    To get good guard and go along with me.\n  BRABANTIO. Pray you, lead on. At every house I'll call;\n    I may command at most. Get weapons, ho!\n    And raise some special officers of night.\n    On, good Roderigo, I'll deserve your pains.               Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nAnother street.\n\nEnter Othello, Iago, and Attendants with torches.\n\n  IAGO. Though in the trade of war I have slain men,\n    Yet do I hold it very stuff o' the conscience\n    To do no contrived murther. I lack iniquity\n    Sometimes to do me service. Nine or ten times\n    I had thought to have yerk'd him here under the ribs.\n  OTHELLO. 'Tis better as it is.\n  IAGO.                          Nay, but he prated\n    And spoke such scurvy and provoking terms\n    Against your honor\n    That, with the little godliness I have,\n    I did full hard forbear him. But I pray you, sir,\n    Are you fast married? Be assured of this,\n    That the magnifico is much beloved,\n    And hath in his effect a voice potential\n    As double as the Duke's. He will divorce you,\n    Or put upon you what restraint and grievance\n    The law, with all his might to enforce it on,\n    Will give him cable.\n  OTHELLO.               Let him do his spite.\n    My services, which I have done the signiory,\n    Shall out-tongue his complaints. 'Tis yet to know-\n    Which, when I know that boasting is an honor,\n    I shall promulgate- I fetch my life and being\n    From men of royal siege, and my demerits\n    May speak unbonneted to as proud a fortune\n    As this that I have reach'd. For know, Iago,\n    But that I love the gentle Desdemona,\n    I would not my unhoused free condition\n    Put into circumscription and confine\n    For the sea's worth. But, look! What lights come yond?\n  IAGO. Those are the raised father and his friends.\n    You were best go in.\n  OTHELLO.               Not I; I must be found.\n    My parts, my title, and my perfect soul\n    Shall manifest me rightly. Is it they?\n  IAGO. By Janus, I think no.\n\n           Enter Cassio and certain Officers with torches.\n\n  OTHELLO. The servants of the Duke? And my lieutenant?\n    The goodness of the night upon you, friends!\n    What is the news?\n  CASSIO.             The Duke does greet you, general,\n    And he requires your haste-post-haste appearance,\n    Even on the instant.\n  OTHELLO.               What is the matter, think you?\n  CASSIO. Something from Cyprus, as I may divine;\n    It is a business of some heat. The galleys\n    Have sent a dozen sequent messengers\n    This very night at one another's heels;\n    And many of the consuls, raised and met,\n    Are at the Duke's already. You have been hotly call'd for,\n    When, being not at your lodging to be found,\n    The Senate hath sent about three several quests\n    To search you out.\n  OTHELLO.             'Tis well I am found by you.\n    I will but spend a word here in the house\n    And go with you.                                            Exit.\n  CASSIO.            Ancient, what makes he here?\n  IAGO. Faith, he tonight hath boarded a land carack;\n    If it prove lawful prize, he's made forever.\n  CASSIO. I do not understand.\n  IAGO.                        He's married.\n  CASSIO.                                    To who?\n\n                          Re-enter Othello.\n\n  IAGO. Marry, to- Come, captain, will you go?\n  OTHELLO.                                     Have with you.\n  CASSIO. Here comes another troop to seek for you.\n  IAGO. It is Brabantio. General, be advised,\n    He comes to bad intent.\n\n         Enter Brabantio, Roderigo, and Officers with torches\n                             and weapons.\n\n  OTHELLO.                  Holla! Stand there!\n  RODERIGO. Signior, it is the Moor.\n  BRABANTIO.                         Down with him, thief!\n                                             They draw on both sides.\n  IAGO. You, Roderigo! Come, sir, I am for you.\n  OTHELLO. Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them.\n    Good signior, you shall more command with years\n    Than with your weapons.\n  BRABANTIO. O thou foul thief, where hast thou stow'd my daughter?\n    Damn'd as thou art, thou hast enchanted her,\n    For I'll refer me to all things of sense,\n    If she in chains of magic were not bound,\n    Whether a maid so tender, fair, and happy,\n    So opposite to marriage that she shunn'd\n    The wealthy, curled darlings of our nation,\n    Would ever have, to incur a general mock,\n    Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom\n    Of such a thing as thou- to fear, not to delight.\n    Judge me the world, if 'tis not gross in sense\n    That thou hast practiced on her with foul charms,\n    Abused her delicate youth with drugs or minerals\n    That weaken motion. I'll have't disputed on;\n    'Tis probable, and palpable to thinking.\n    I therefore apprehend and do attach thee\n    For an abuser of the world, a practicer\n    Of arts inhibited and out of warrant.\n    Lay hold upon him. If he do resist,\n    Subdue him at his peril.\n  OTHELLO.                   Hold your hands,\n    Both you of my inclining and the rest.\n    Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it\n    Without a prompter. Where will you that I go\n    To answer this your charge?\n  BRABANTIO.                    To prison, till fit time\n    Of law and course of direct session\n    Call thee to answer.\n  OTHELLO.               What if I do obey?\n    How may the Duke be therewith satisfied,\n    Whose messengers are here about my side,\n    Upon some present business of the state\n    To bring me to him?\n  FIRST OFFICER.        'Tis true, most worthy signior;\n    The Duke's in council, and your noble self,\n    I am sure, is sent for.\n  BRABANTIO.                How? The Duke in council?\n    In this time of the night? Bring him away;\n    Mine's not an idle cause. The Duke himself,\n    Or any of my brothers of the state,\n    Cannot but feel this wrong as 'twere their own;\n    For if such actions may have passage free,\n    Bond slaves and pagans shall our statesmen be.            Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nA council chamber. The Duke and Senators sitting at a table;\nOfficers attending.\n\n  DUKE. There is no composition in these news\n    That gives them credit.\n  FIRST SENATOR.            Indeed they are disproportion'd;\n    My letters say a hundred and seven galleys.\n  DUKE. And mine, a hundred and forty.\n  SECOND SENATOR.                      And mine, two hundred.\n    But though they jump not on a just account-\n    As in these cases, where the aim reports,\n    'Tis oft with difference- yet do they all confirm\n    A Turkish fleet, and bearing up to Cyprus.\n  DUKE. Nay, it is possible enough to judgement.\n    I do not so secure me in the error,\n    But the main article I do approve\n    In fearful sense.\n  SAILOR. [Within.] What, ho! What, ho! What, ho!\n  FIRST OFFICER. A messenger from the galleys.\n\n                            Enter Sailor.\n\n  DUKE.                                Now, what's the business?\n  SAILOR. The Turkish preparation makes for Rhodes,\n    So was I bid report here to the state\n    By Signior Angelo.\n  DUKE. How say you by this change?\n  FIRST SENATOR.                    This cannot be,\n    By no assay of reason; 'tis a pageant\n    To keep us in false gaze. When we consider\n    The importancy of Cyprus to the Turk,\n    And let ourselves again but understand\n    That as it more concerns the Turk than Rhodes,\n    So may he with more facile question bear it,\n    For that it stands not in such warlike brace,\n    But altogether lacks the abilities\n    That Rhodes is dress'd in. If we make thought of this,\n    We must not think the Turk is so unskillful\n    To leave that latest which concerns him first,\n    Neglecting an attempt of ease and gain,\n    To wake and wage a danger profitless.\n  DUKE. Nay, in all confidence, he's not for Rhodes.\n  FIRST OFFICER. Here is more news.\n\n                          Enter a Messenger.\n\n  MESSENGER. The Ottomites, reverend and gracious,\n    Steering with due course toward the isle of Rhodes,\n    Have there injointed them with an after fleet.\n  FIRST SENATOR. Ay, so I thought. How many, as you guess?\n  MESSENGER. Of thirty sail; and now they do re-stem\n    Their backward course, bearing with frank appearance\n    Their purposes toward Cyprus. Signior Montano,\n    Your trusty and most valiant servitor,\n    With his free duty recommends you thus,\n    And prays you to believe him.\n  DUKE. 'Tis certain then for Cyprus.\n    Marcus Luccicos, is not he in town?\n  FIRST SENATOR. He's now in Florence.\n  DUKE. Write from us to him, post-post-haste dispatch.\n  FIRST SENATOR. Here comes Brabantio and the valiant Moor.\n\n       Enter Brabantio, Othello, Iago, Roderigo, and Officers.\n\n  DUKE. Valiant Othello, we must straight employ you\n    Against the general enemy Ottoman.\n    [To Brabantio.] I did not see you; welcome, gentle signior;\n    We lack'd your counsel and your help tonight.\n  BRABANTIO. So did I yours. Good your Grace, pardon me:\n    Neither my place nor aught I heard of business\n    Hath raised me from my bed, nor doth the general care\n    Take hold on me; for my particular grief\n    Is of so flood-gate and o'erbearing nature\n    That it engluts and swallows other sorrows,\n    And it is still itself.\n  DUKE.                     Why, what's the matter?\n  BRABANTIO. My daughter! O, my daughter!\n  ALL.                                    Dead?\n  BRABANTIO.                                    Ay, to me.\n    She is abused, stol'n from me and corrupted\n    By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks;\n    For nature so preposterously to err,\n    Being not deficient, blind, or lame of sense,\n    Sans witchcraft could not.\n  DUKE. Whoe'er he be that in this foul proceeding\n    Hath thus beguiled your daughter of herself\n    And you of her, the bloody book of law\n    You shall yourself read in the bitter letter\n    After your own sense, yea, though our proper son\n    Stood in your action.\n  BRABANTIO.              Humbly I thank your Grace.\n    Here is the man, this Moor, whom now, it seems,\n    Your special mandate for the state affairs\n    Hath hither brought.\n  ALL.                   We are very sorry for't.\n  DUKE. [To Othello.] What in your own part can you say to this?\n  BRABANTIO. Nothing, but this is so.\n  OTHELLO. Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors,\n    My very noble and approved good masters,\n    That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter,\n    It is most true; true, I have married her;\n    The very head and front of my offending\n    Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech,\n    And little blest with the soft phrase of peace;\n    For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith,\n    Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used\n    Their dearest action in the tented field,\n    And little of this great world can I speak,\n    More than pertains to feats of broil and battle;\n    And therefore little shall I grace my cause\n    In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience,\n    I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver\n    Of my whole course of love: what drugs, what charms,\n    What conjuration, and what mighty magic-\n    For such proceeding I am charged withal-\n    I won his daughter.\n  BRABANTIO.            A maiden never bold,\n    Of spirit so still and quiet that her motion\n    Blush'd at herself; and she- in spite of nature,\n    Of years, of country, credit, everything-\n    To fall in love with what she fear'd to look on!\n    It is judgement maim'd and most imperfect,\n    That will confess perfection so could err\n    Against all rules of nature, and must be driven\n    To find out practices of cunning hell\n    Why this should be. I therefore vouch again\n    That with some mixtures powerful o'er the blood,\n    Or with some dram conjured to this effect,\n    He wrought upon her.\n  DUKE.                  To vouch this is no proof,\n    Without more certain and more overt test\n    Than these thin habits and poor likelihoods\n    Of modern seeming do prefer against him.\n  FIRST SENATOR. But, Othello, speak.\n    Did you by indirect and forced courses\n    Subdue and poison this young maid's affections?\n    Or came it by request, and such fair question\n    As soul to soul affordeth?\n  OTHELLO.                     I do beseech you,\n    Send for the lady to the Sagittary,\n    And let her speak of me before her father.\n    If you do find me foul in her report,\n    The trust, the office I do hold of you,\n    Not only take away, but let your sentence\n    Even fall upon my life.\n  DUKE.                     Fetch Desdemona hither.\n  OTHELLO. Ancient, conduct them; you best know the place.\n                                          Exeunt Iago and Attendants.\n    And till she come, as truly as to heaven\n    I do confess the vices of my blood,\n    So justly to your grave ears I'll present\n    How I did thrive in this fair lady's love\n    And she in mine.\n  DUKE. Say it, Othello.\n  OTHELLO. Her father loved me, oft invited me,\n    Still question'd me the story of my life\n    From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,\n    That I have pass'd.\n    I ran it through, even from my boyish days\n    To the very moment that he bade me tell it:\n    Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,\n    Of moving accidents by flood and field,\n    Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach,\n    Of being taken by the insolent foe\n    And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence\n    And portance in my travels' history;\n    Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,\n    Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven,\n    It was my hint to speak- such was the process-\n    And of the Cannibals that each other eat,\n    The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads\n    Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear\n    Would Desdemona seriously incline;\n    But still the house affairs would draw her thence,\n    Which ever as she could with haste dispatch,\n    She'ld come again, and with a greedy ear\n    Devour up my discourse; which I observing,\n    Took once a pliant hour, and found good means\n    To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart\n    That I would all my pilgrimage dilate,\n    Whereof by parcels she had something heard,\n    But not intentively. I did consent,\n    And often did beguile her of her tears\n    When I did speak of some distressful stroke\n    That my youth suffer'd. My story being done,\n    She gave me for my pains a world of sighs;\n    She swore, in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange;\n    'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful.\n    She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd\n    That heaven had made her such a man; she thank'd me,\n    And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,\n    I should but teach him how to tell my story,\n    And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake:\n    She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd,\n    And I loved her that she did pity them.\n    This only is the witchcraft I have used.\n    Here comes the lady; let her witness it.\n\n                Enter Desdemona, Iago, and Attendants.\n\n  DUKE. I think this tale would win my daughter too.\n    Good Brabantio,\n    Take up this mangled matter at the best:\n    Men do their broken weapons rather use\n    Than their bare hands.\n  BRABANTIO.               I pray you, hear her speak.\n    If she confess that she was half the wooer,\n    Destruction on my head, if my bad blame\n    Light on the man! Come hither, gentle mistress.\n    Do you perceive in all this noble company\n    Where most you owe obedience?\n  DESDEMONA.                      My noble father,\n    I do perceive here a divided duty.\n    To you I am bound for life and education;\n    My life and education both do learn me\n    How to respect you; you are the lord of duty,\n    I am hitherto your daughter. But here's my husband,\n    And so much duty as my mother show'd\n    To you, preferring you before her father,\n    So much I challenge that I may profess\n    Due to the Moor, my lord.\n  BRABANTIO.                  God be with you! I have done.\n    Please it your Grace, on to the state affairs;\n    I had rather to adopt a child than get it.\n    Come hither, Moor.\n    I here do give thee that with all my heart\n    Which, but thou hast already, with all my heart\n    I would keep from thee. For your sake, jewel,\n    I am glad at soul I have no other child;\n    For thy escape would teach me tyranny,\n    To hang clogs on them. I have done, my lord.\n  DUKE. Let me speak like yourself, and lay a sentence\n    Which, as a grise or step, may help these lovers\n    Into your favor.\n    When remedies are past, the griefs are ended\n    By seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended.\n    To mourn a mischief that is past and gone\n    Is the next way to draw new mischief on.\n    What cannot be preserved when Fortune takes,\n    Patience her injury a mockery makes.\n    The robb'd that smiles steals something from the thief;\n    He robs himself that spends a bootless grief.\n  BRABANTIO. So let the Turk of Cyprus us beguile;\n    We lose it not so long as we can smile.\n    He bears the sentence well, that nothing bears\n    But the free comfort which from thence he hears;\n    But he bears both the sentence and the sorrow\n    That, to pay grief, must of poor patience borrow.\n    These sentences, to sugar or to gall,\n    Being strong on both sides, are equivocal.\n    But words are words; I never yet did hear\n    That the bruised heart was pierced through the ear.\n    I humbly beseech you, proceed to the affairs of state.\n  DUKE. The Turk with a most mighty preparation makes for Cyprus.\n    Othello, the fortitude of the place is best known to you; and\n    though we have there a substitute of most allowed sufficiency,\n    yet opinion, a sovereign mistress of effects, throws a more safer\n    voice on you. You must therefore be content to slubber the gloss\n    of your new fortunes with this more stubborn and boisterous\n    expedition.\n  OTHELLO. The tyrant custom, most grave senators,\n    Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war\n    My thrice-driven bed of down. I do agnize\n    A natural and prompt alacrity\n    I find in hardness and do undertake\n    These present wars against the Ottomites.\n    Most humbly therefore bending to your state,\n    I crave fit disposition for my wife,\n    Due reference of place and exhibition,\n    With such accommodation and besort\n    As levels with her breeding.\n  DUKE.                          If you please,\n    Be't at her father's.\n  BRABANTIO.              I'll not have it so.\n  OTHELLO. Nor I.\n  DESDEMONA.      Nor I. I would not there reside\n    To put my father in impatient thoughts\n    By being in his eye. Most gracious Duke,\n    To my unfolding lend your prosperous ear,\n    And let me find a charter in your voice\n    To assist my simpleness.\n  DUKE. What would you, Desdemona?\n  DESDEMONA. That I did love the Moor to live with him,\n    My downright violence and storm of fortunes\n    May trumpet to the world. My heart's subdued\n    Even to the very quality of my lord.\n    I saw Othello's visage in his mind,\n    And to his honors and his valiant parts\n    Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate.\n    So that, dear lords, if I be left behind,\n    A moth of peace, and he go to the war,\n    The rites for which I love him are bereft me,\n    And I a heavy interim shall support\n    By his dear absence. Let me go with him.\n  OTHELLO. Let her have your voices.\n    Vouch with me, heaven, I therefore beg it not\n    To please the palate of my appetite,\n    Nor to comply with heat- the young affects\n    In me defunct- and proper satisfaction;\n    But to be free and bounteous to her mind.\n    And heaven defend your good souls, that you think\n    I will your serious and great business scant\n    For she is with me. No, when light-wing'd toys\n    Of feather'd Cupid seel with wanton dullness\n    My speculative and officed instruments,\n    That my disports corrupt and taint my business,\n    Let housewives make a skillet of my helm,\n    And all indign and base adversities\n    Make head against my estimation!\n  DUKE. Be it as you shall privately determine,\n    Either for her stay or going. The affair cries haste,\n    And speed must answer't: you must hence tonight.\n  DESDEMONA. Tonight, my lord?\n  DUKE.                        This night.\n  OTHELLO.                                 With all my heart.\n  DUKE. At nine i' the morning here we'll meet again.\n    Othello, leave some officer behind,\n    And he shall our commission bring to you,\n    With such things else of quality and respect\n    As doth import you.\n  OTHELLO.              So please your Grace, my ancient;\n    A man he is of honesty and trust.\n    To his conveyance I assign my wife,\n    With what else needful your good Grace shall think\n    To be sent after me.\n  DUKE.                  Let it be so.\n    Good night to everyone. [To Brabantio.] And, noble signior,\n    If virtue no delighted beauty lack,\n    Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.\n  FIRST SENATOR. Adieu, brave Moor, use Desdemona well.\n  BRABANTIO. Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see;\n    She has deceived her father, and may thee.\n                                 Exeunt Duke, Senators, and Officers.\n  OTHELLO. My life upon her faith! Honest Iago,\n    My Desdemona must I leave to thee.\n    I prithee, let thy wife attend on her,\n    And bring them after in the best advantage.\n    Come, Desdemona, I have but an hour\n    Of love, of worldly matters and direction,\n    To spend with thee. We must obey the time.\n                                        Exeunt Othello and Desdemona.\n  RODERIGO. Iago!\n  IAGO. What say'st thou, noble heart?\n  RODERIGO. What will I do, thinkest thou?\n  IAGO. Why, go to bed and sleep.\n  RODERIGO. I will incontinently drown myself.\n  IAGO. If thou dost, I shall never love thee after.\n    Why, thou silly gentleman!\n  RODERIGO. It is silliness to live when to live is torment, and then\n    have we a prescription to die when death is our physician.\n  IAGO. O villainous! I have looked upon the world for four times\n    seven years, and since I could distinguish betwixt a benefit and\n    an injury, I never found man that knew how to love himself. Ere I\n    would say I would drown myself for the love of a guinea hen, I\n    would change my humanity with a baboon.\n  RODERIGO. What should I do? I confess it is my shame to be so fond,\n    but it is not in my virtue to amend it.\n  IAGO. Virtue? a fig! 'Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus.\n    Our bodies are gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners; so\n    that if we will plant nettles or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed\n    up thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs or distract it with\n    many, either to have it sterile with idleness or manured with\n    industry, why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in\n    our wills. If the balance of our lives had not one scale of\n    reason to poise another of sensuality, the blood and baseness of\n    our natures would conduct us to most preposterous conclusions.\n    But we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings,\n    our unbitted lusts; whereof I take this, that you call love, to\n    be a sect or scion.\n  RODERIGO. It cannot be.\n  IAGO. It is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of the\n    will. Come, be a man! Drown thyself? Drown cats and blind\n    puppies. I have professed me thy friend, and I confess me knit to\n    thy deserving with cables of perdurable toughness; I could never\n    better stead thee than now. Put money in thy purse; follow thou\n    the wars; defeat thy favor with an usurped beard. I say, put\n    money in thy purse. It cannot be that Desdemona should long\n    continue her love to the Moor- put money in thy purse- nor he his\n    to her. It was a violent commencement, and thou shalt see an\n    answerable sequestration- put but money in thy purse. These Moors\n    are changeable in their wills- fill thy purse with money. The\n    food that to him now is as luscious as locusts, shall be to him\n    shortly as acerb as the coloquintida. She must change for youth;\n    when she is sated with his body, she will find the error of her\n    choice. She must have change, she must; therefore put money in\n    thy purse. If thou wilt needs damn thyself, do it a more delicate\n    way than drowning. Make all the money thou canst. If sanctimony\n    and a frail vow betwixt an erring barbarian and a supersubtle\n    Venetian be not too hard for my wits and all the tribe of hell,\n    thou shalt enjoy her- therefore make money. A pox of drowning\n    thyself! It is clean out of the way. Seek thou rather to be\n    hanged in compassing thy joy than to be drowned and go without\n    her.\n  RODERIGO. Wilt thou be fast to my hopes, if I depend on the issue?\n  IAGO. Thou art sure of me- go, make money. I have told thee often,\n    and I retell thee again and again, I hate the Moor. My cause is\n    hearted; thine hath no less reason. Let us be conjunctive in our\n    revenge against him. If thou canst cuckold him, thou dost thyself\n    a pleasure, me a sport. There are many events in the womb of time\n    which will be delivered. Traverse, go, provide thy money. We will\n    have more of this tomorrow. Adieu.\n  RODERIGO. Where shall we meet i' the morning?\n  IAGO. At my lodging.\n  RODERIGO. I'll be with thee betimes.\n  IAGO. Go to, farewell. Do you hear, Roderigo?\n  RODERIGO. What say you?\n  IAGO. No more of drowning, do you hear?\n  RODERIGO. I am changed; I'll go sell all my land.             Exit.\n  IAGO. Thus do I ever make my fool my purse;\n    For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane\n    If I would time expend with such a snipe\n    But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor,\n    And it is thought abroad that 'twixt my sheets\n    He has done my office. I know not if't be true,\n    But I for mere suspicion in that kind\n    Will do as if for surety. He holds me well,\n    The better shall my purpose work on him.\n    Cassio's a proper man. Let me see now-\n    To get his place, and to plume up my will\n    In double knavery- How, how?- Let's see-\n    After some time, to abuse Othello's ear\n    That he is too familiar with his wife.\n    He hath a person and a smooth dispose\n    To be suspected- framed to make women false.\n    The Moor is of a free and open nature,\n    That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,\n    And will as tenderly be led by the nose\n    As asses are.\n    I have't. It is engender'd. Hell and night\n    Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.\n     Exit.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nA seaport in Cyprus. An open place near the quay.\n\nEnter Montano and two Gentlemen.\n\n  MONTANO. What from the cape can you discern at sea?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Nothing at all. It is a high-wrought flood;\n    I cannot, 'twixt the heaven and the main,\n    Descry a sail.\n  MONTANO. Methinks the wind hath spoke aloud at land;\n    A fuller blast ne'er shook our battlements.\n    If it hath ruffian'd so upon the sea,\n    What ribs of oak, when mountains melt on them,\n    Can hold the mortise? What shall we hear of this?\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. A segregation of the Turkish fleet.\n    For do but stand upon the foaming shore,\n    The chidden billow seems to pelt the clouds;\n    The wind-shaked surge, with high and monstrous mane,\n    Seems to cast water on the burning bear,\n    And quench the guards of the ever-fixed pole.\n    I never did like molestation view\n    On the enchafed flood.\n  MONTANO.                 If that the Turkish fleet\n    Be not enshelter'd and embay'd, they are drown'd;\n    It is impossible to bear it out.\n\n                       Enter a third Gentleman.\n\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. News, lads! Our wars are done.\n    The desperate tempest hath so bang'd the Turks,\n    That their designment halts. A noble ship of Venice\n    Hath seen a grievous wreck and sufferance\n    On most part of their fleet.\n  MONTANO. How? Is this true?\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN.            The ship is here put in,\n    A Veronesa. Michael Cassio,\n    Lieutenant to the warlike Moor, Othello,\n    Is come on shore; the Moor himself at sea,\n    And is in full commission here for Cyprus.\n  MONTANO. I am glad on't; 'tis a worthy governor.\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. But this same Cassio, though he speak of comfort\n    Touching the Turkish loss, yet he looks sadly\n    And prays the Moor be safe; for they were parted\n    With foul and violent tempest.\n  MONTANO.                         Pray heavens he be,\n    For I have served him, and the man commands\n    Like a full soldier. Let's to the seaside, ho!\n    As well to see the vessel that's come in\n    As to throw out our eyes for brave Othello,\n    Even till we make the main and the aerial blue\n    An indistinct regard.\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Come, let's do so,\n    For every minute is expectancy\n    Of more arrivance.\n\n                            Enter Cassio.\n\n  CASSIO. Thanks, you the valiant of this warlike isle,\n    That so approve the Moor! O, let the heavens\n    Give him defense against the elements,\n    For I have lost him on a dangerous sea.\n  MONTANO. I she well shipp'd?\n  CASSIO. His bark is stoutly timber'd, and his pilot\n    Of very expert and approved allowance;\n    Therefore my hopes, not surfeited to death,\n    Stand in bold cure.\n                              A cry within, \"A sail, a sail, a sail!\"\n\n                      Enter a fourth Gentleman.\n\n                        What noise?\n  FOURTH GENTLEMAN. The town is empty; on the brow o' the sea\n    Stand ranks of people, and they cry, \"A sail!\"\n  CASSIO. My hopes do shape him for the governor.\n                                                          Guns heard.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. They do discharge their shot of courtesy-\n    Our friends at least.\n  CASSIO.                 I pray you, sir, go forth,\n    And give us truth who 'tis that is arrived.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I shall.                                    Exit.\n  MONTANO. But, good lieutenant, is your general wived?\n  CASSIO. Most fortunately: he hath achieved a maid\n    That paragons description and wild fame,\n    One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens,\n    And in the essential vesture of creation\n    Does tire the ingener.\n\n                      Re-enter second Gentleman.\n\n                           How now! who has put in?\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. 'Tis one Iago, ancient to the general.\n  CASSIO. He has had most favorable and happy speed:\n    Tempests themselves, high seas, and howling winds,\n    The gutter'd rocks, and congregated sands,\n    Traitors ensteep'd to clog the guiltless keel,\n    As having sense of beauty, do omit\n    Their mortal natures, letting go safely by\n    The divine Desdemona.\n  MONTANO.                What is she?\n  CASSIO. She that I spake of, our great captain's captain,\n    Left in the conduct of the bold Iago,\n    Whose footing here anticipates our thoughts\n    A se'nnight's speed. Great Jove, Othello guard,\n    And swell his sail with thine own powerful breath,\n    That he may bless this bay with his tall ship,\n    Make love's quick pants in Desdemona's arms,\n    Give renew'd fire to our extincted spirits,\n    And bring all Cyprus comfort.\n\n       Enter Desdemona, Emilia Iago, Roderigo, and Attendants.\n\n                                  O, behold,\n    The riches of the ship is come on shore!\n    Ye men of Cyprus, let her have your knees.\n    Hall to thee, lady! And the grace of heaven,\n    Before, behind thee, and on every hand,\n    Enwheel thee round!\n  DESDEMONA.            I thank you, valiant Cassio.\n    What tidings can you tell me of my lord?\n  CASSIO. He is not yet arrived, nor know I aught\n    But that he's well and will be shortly here.\n  DESDEMONA. O, but I fear- How lost you company?\n  CASSIO. The great contention of the sea and skies\n    Parted our fellowship- But, hark! a sail.\n                          A cry within, \"A sail, a sail!\" Guns heard.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. They give their greeting to the citadel;\n    This likewise is a friend.\n  CASSIO.                      See for the news.\n                                                      Exit Gentleman.\n    Good ancient, you are welcome. [To Emilia.] Welcome, mistress.\n    Let it not gall your patience, good Iago,\n    That I extend my manners; 'tis my breeding\n    That gives me this bold show of courtesy.             Kisses her.\n  IAGO. Sir, would she give you so much of her lips\n    As of her tongue she oft bestows on me,\n    You'ld have enough.\n  DESDEMONA.            Alas, she has no speech.\n  IAGO. In faith, too much;\n    I find it still when I have list to sleep.\n    Marry, before your ladyship I grant,\n    She puts her tongue a little in her heart\n    And chides with thinking.\n  EMILIA. You have little cause to say so.\n  IAGO. Come on, come on. You are pictures out of doors,\n    Bells in your parlors, wildcats in your kitchens,\n    Saints in your injuries, devils being offended,\n    Players in your housewifery, and housewives in your beds.\n  DESDEMONA. O, fie upon thee, slanderer!\n  IAGO. Nay, it is true, or else I am a Turk:\n    You rise to play, and go to bed to work.\n  EMILIA. You shall not write my praise.\n  IAGO.                                  No, let me not.\n  DESDEMONA. What wouldst thou write of me, if thou shouldst\n    praise me?\n  IAGO. O gentle lady, do not put me to't,\n    For I am nothing if not critical.\n  DESDEMONA. Come on, assay- There's one gone to the harbor?\n  IAGO. Ay, madam.\n  DESDEMONA. I am not merry, but I do beguile\n    The thing I am by seeming otherwise.\n    Come, how wouldst thou praise me?\n  IAGO. I am about it, but indeed my invention\n    Comes from my pate as birdlime does from frieze;\n    It plucks out brains and all. But my Muse labors,\n    And thus she is deliver'd.\n    If she be fair and wise, fairness and wit,\n    The one's for use, the other useth it.\n  DESDEMONA. Well praised! How if she be black and witty?\n  IAGO. If she be black, and thereto have a wit,\n    She'll find a white that shall her blackness fit.\n  DESDEMONA. Worse and worse.\n  EMILIA. How if fair and foolish?\n  IAGO. She never yet was foolish that was fair,\n    For even her folly help'd her to an heir.\n  DESDEMONA. These are old fond paradoxes to make fools laugh i' the\n    alehouse. What miserable praise hast thou for her that's foul and\n    foolish?\n  IAGO. There's none so foul and foolish thereunto,\n    But does foul pranks which fair and wise ones do.\n  DESDEMONA. O heavy ignorance! Thou praisest the worst best. But what\n    praise couldst thou bestow on a deserving woman indeed, one that\n    in the authority of her merit did justly put on the vouch of very\n    malice itself?\n  IAGO. She that was ever fair and never proud,\n    Had tongue at will and yet was never loud,\n    Never lack'd gold and yet went never gay,\n    Fled from her wish and yet said, \"Now I may\";\n    She that, being anger'd, her revenge being nigh,\n    Bade her wrong stay and her displeasure fly;\n    She that in wisdom never was so frail\n    To change the cod's head for the salmon's tail;\n    She that could think and ne'er disclose her mind,\n    See suitors following and not look behind;\n    She was a wight, if ever such wight were-\n  DESDEMONA. To do what?\n  IAGO. To suckle fools and chronicle small beer.\n  DESDEMONA. O most lame and impotent conclusion! Do not learn of him,\n    Emilia, though he be thy husband. How say you, Cassio? Is he not\n    a most profane and liberal counselor?\n  CASSIO. He speaks home, madam. You may relish him more in the\n    soldier than in the scholar.\n  IAGO. [Aside.] He takes her by the palm; ay, well said, whisper.\n    With as little a web as this will I ensnare as great a fly as\n    Cassio. Ay, smile upon her, do; I will gyve thee in thine own\n    courtship. You say true; 'tis so, indeed. If such tricks as these\n    strip you out of your lieutenantry, it had been better you had\n    not kissed your three fingers so oft, which now again you are\n    most apt to play the sir in. Very good. Well kissed! an excellent\n    courtesy! 'tis so, indeed. Yet again your fingers to your lips?\n    Would they were clyster-pipes for your sake! [Trumpet within.]\n    The Moor! I know his trumpet.\n  CASSIO. 'Tis truly so.\n  DESDEMONA. Let's meet him and receive him.\n  CASSIO. Lo, where he comes!\n\n                    Enter Othello and Attendants.\n\n  OTHELLO. O my fair warrior!\n  DESDEMONA.                  My dear Othello!\n  OTHELLO. It gives me wonder great as my content\n    To see you here before me. O my soul's joy!\n    If after every tempest come such calms,\n    May the winds blow till they have waken'd death!\n    And let the laboring bark climb hills of seas\n    Olympus-high, and duck again as low\n    As hell's from heaven! If it were now to die,\n    'Twere now to be most happy; for I fear\n    My soul hath her content so absolute\n    That not another comfort like to this\n    Succeeds in unknown fate.\n  DESDEMONA.                  The heavens forbid\n    But that our loves and comforts should increase,\n    Even as our days do grow!\n  OTHELLO.                    Amen to that, sweet powers!\n    I cannot speak enough of this content;\n    It stops me here; it is too much of joy.\n    And this, and this, the greatest discords be          Kisses her.\n    That e'er our hearts shall make!\n  IAGO.                     [Aside.] O, you are well tuned now!\n    But I'll set down the pegs that make this music,\n    As honest as I am.\n  OTHELLO.             Come, let us to the castle.\n    News, friends: our wars are done, the Turks are drown'd.\n    How does my old acquaintance of this isle?\n    Honey, you shall be well desired in Cyprus;\n    I have found great love amongst them. O my sweet,\n    I prattle out of fashion, and I dote\n    In mine own comforts. I prithee, good Iago,\n    Go to the bay and disembark my coffers.\n    Bring thou the master to the citadel;\n    He is a good one, and his worthiness\n    Does challenge much respect. Come, Desdemona,\n    Once more well met at Cyprus.\n                                    Exeunt all but Iago and Roderigo.\n  IAGO. Do thou meet me presently at the harbor. Come hither. If thou\n    be'st valiant- as they say base men being in love have then a\n    nobility in their natures more than is native to them- list me.\n    The lieutenant tonight watches on the court of guard. First, I\n    must tell thee this: Desdemona is directly in love with him.\n  RODERIGO. With him? Why, 'tis not possible.\n  IAGO. Lay thy finger thus, and let thy soul be instructed. Mark me\n    with what violence she first loved the Moor, but for bragging and\n    telling her fantastical lies. And will she love him still for\n    prating? Let not thy discreet heart think it. Her eye must be\n    fed; and what delight shall she have to look on the devil? When\n    the blood is made dull with the act of sport, there should be,\n    again to inflame it and to give satiety a fresh appetite,\n    loveliness in favor, sympathy in years, manners, and beauties-\n    all which the Moor is defective in. Now, for want of these\n    required conveniences, her delicate tenderness will find itself\n    abused, begin to heave the gorge, disrelish and abhor the Moor;\n    very nature will instruct her in it and compel her to some second\n    choice. Now sir, this granted- as it is a most pregnant and\n    unforced position- who stands so eminently in the degree of this\n    fortune as Cassio does? A knave very voluble; no further\n    conscionable than in putting on the mere form of civil and humane\n    seeming, for the better compass of his salt and most hidden loose\n    affection? Why, none, why, none- a slipper and subtle knave, a\n    finder out of occasions, that has an eye can stamp and\n    counterfeit advantages, though true advantage never present\n    itself- a devilish knave! Besides, the knave is handsome, young,\n    and hath all those requisites in him that folly and green minds\n    look after- a pestilent complete knave, and the woman hath found\n    him already.\n  RODERIGO. I cannot believe that in her; she's full of most blest\n    condition.\n  IAGO. Blest fig's-end! The wine she drinks is made of grapes. If\n    she had been blest, she would never have loved the Moor. Blest\n    pudding! Didst thou not see her paddle with the palm of his hand?\n    Didst not mark that?\n  RODERIGO. Yes, that I did; but that was but courtesy.\n  IAGO. Lechery, by this hand; an index and obscure prologue to the\n    history of lust and foul thoughts. They met so near with their\n    lips that their breaths embraced together. Villainous thoughts,\n    Roderigo! When these mutualities so marshal the way, hard at hand\n    comes the master and main exercise, the incorporate conclusion.\n    Pish! But, sir, be you ruled by me. I have brought you from\n    Venice. Watch you tonight; for the command, I'll lay't upon you.\n    Cassio knows you not. I'll not be far from you. Do you find some\n    occasion to anger Cassio, either by speaking too loud, or\n    tainting his discipline, or from what other course you please,\n    which the time shall more favorably minister.\n  RODERIGO. Well.\n  IAGO. Sir, he is rash and very sudden in choler, and haply may\n    strike at you. Provoke him, that he may; for even out of that\n    will I cause these of Cyprus to mutiny, whose qualification shall\n    come into no true taste again but by the displanting of Cassio.\n    So shall you have a shorter journey to your desires by the means\n    I shall then have to prefer them, and the impediment most\n    profitably removed, without the which there were no expectation\n    of our prosperity.\n  RODERIGO. I will do this, if I can bring it to any opportunity.\n  IAGO. I warrant thee. Meet me by and by at the citadel. I must\n    fetch his necessaries ashore. Farewell.\n  RODERIGO. Adieu.                                              Exit.\n  IAGO. That Cassio loves her, I do well believe it;\n    That she loves him, 'tis apt and of great credit.\n    The Moor, howbeit that I endure him not,\n    Is of a constant, loving, noble nature,\n    And I dare think he'll prove to Desdemona\n    A most dear husband. Now, I do love her too,\n    Not out of absolute lust, though peradventure\n    I stand accountant for as great a sin,\n    But partly led to diet my revenge,\n    For that I do suspect the lusty Moor\n    Hath leap'd into my seat; the thought whereof\n    Doth like a poisonous mineral gnaw my inwards,\n    And nothing can or shall content my soul\n    Till I am even'd with him, wife for wife.\n    Or failing so, yet that I put the Moor\n    At least into a jealousy so strong\n    That judgement cannot cure. Which thing to do,\n    If this poor trash of Venice, whom I trace\n    For his quick hunting, stand the putting on,\n    I'll have our Michael Cassio on the hip,\n    Abuse him to the Moor in the rank garb\n    (For I fear Cassio with my nightcap too),\n    Make the Moor thank me, love me, and reward me\n    For making him egregiously an ass\n    And practicing upon his peace and quiet\n    Even to madness. 'Tis here, but yet confused:\n    Knavery's plain face is never seen till used.               Exit.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA street.\n\nEnter a Herald with a proclamation; people following.\n\n  HERALD. It is Othello's pleasure, our noble and valiant general,\n    that upon certain tidings now arrived, importing the mere\n    perdition of the Turkish fleet, every man put himself into\n    triumph; some to dance, some to make bonfires, each man to what\n    sport and revels his addiction leads him; for besides these\n    beneficial news, it is the celebration of his nuptial. So much\n    was his pleasure should be proclaimed. All offices are open, and\n    there is full liberty of feasting from this present hour of five\n    till the bell have told eleven. Heaven bless the isle of Cyprus\n    and our noble general Othello!                            Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nA hall in the castle.\n\nEnter Othello, Desdemona, Cassio, and Attendants.\n\n  OTHELLO. Good Michael, look you to the guard tonight.\n    Let's teach ourselves that honorable stop,\n    Not to outsport discretion.\n  CASSIO. Iago hath direction what to do;\n    But notwithstanding with my personal eye\n    Will I look to't.\n  OTHELLO.            Iago is most honest.\n    Michael, good night. Tomorrow with your earliest\n    Let me have speech with you. Come, my dear love,\n    The purchase made, the fruits are to ensue;\n    That profit's yet to come 'tween me and you.\n    Good night.\n                           Exeunt Othello, Desdemona, and Attendants.\n\n                             Enter Iago.\n\n  CASSIO. Welcome, Iago; we must to the watch.\n  IAGO. Not this hour, lieutenant; 'tis not yet ten o' the clock. Our\n    general cast us thus early for the love of his Desdemona; who let\n    us not therefore blame. He hath not yet made wanton the night\n    with her, and she is sport for Jove.\n  CASSIO. She's a most exquisite lady.\n  IAGO. And, I'll warrant her, full of game.\n  CASSIO. Indeed she's a most fresh and delicate creature.\n  IAGO. What an eye she has! Methinks it sounds a parley to\n    provocation.\n  CASSIO. An inviting eye; and yet methinks right modest.\n  IAGO. And when she speaks, is it not an alarum to love?\n  CASSIO. She is indeed perfection.\n  IAGO. Well, happiness to their sheets! Come, lieutenant, I have a\n    stope of wine, and here without are a brace of Cyprus gallants\n    that would fain have a measure to the health of black Othello.\n  CASSIO. Not tonight, good Iago. I have very poor and unhappy brains\n    for drinking. I could well wish courtesy would invent some other\n    custom of entertainment.\n  IAGO. O, they are our friends! But one cup; I'll drink for you.\n  CASSIO. I have drunk but one cup tonight, and that was craftily\n    qualified too, and behold what innovation it makes here. I am\n    unfortunate in the infirmity, and dare not task my weakness with\n    any more.\n  IAGO. What, man! 'Tis a night of revels, the gallants desire it.\n  CASSIO. Where are they?\n  IAGO. Here at the door; I pray you, call them in.\n  CASSIO. I'll do't, but it dislikes me.                        Exit.\n  IAGO. If I can fasten but one cup upon him,\n    With that which he hath drunk tonight already,\n    He'll be as full of quarrel and offense\n    As my young mistress' dog. Now my sick fool Roderigo,\n    Whom love hath turn'd almost the wrong side out,\n    To Desdemona hath tonight caroused\n    Potations pottle-deep; and he's to watch.\n    Three lads of Cyprus, noble swelling spirits,\n    That hold their honors in a wary distance,\n    The very elements of this warlike isle,\n    Have I tonight fluster'd with flowing cups,\n    And they watch too. Now, 'mongst this flock of drunkards,\n    Am I to put our Cassio in some action\n    That may offend the isle. But here they come.\n    If consequence do but approve my dream,\n    My boat sails freely, both with wind and stream.\n\n           Re-enter Cassio; with him Montano and Gentlemen;\n                    Servants following with wine.\n\n  CASSIO. 'Fore God, they have given me a rouse already.\n  MONTANO. Good faith, a little one; not past a pint, as I am a\n    soldier.\n  IAGO. Some wine, ho!\n\n    [Sings.]   \"And let me the canakin clink, clink;\n               And let me the canakin clink.\n                 A soldier's a man;\n                 O, man's life's but a span;\n               Why then let a soldier drink.\"\n\n    Some wine, boys!\n  CASSIO. 'Fore God, an excellent song.\n  IAGO. I learned it in England, where indeed they are most potent in\n    potting. Your Dane, your German, and your swag-bellied Hollander-\n    Drink, ho!- are nothing to your English.\n  CASSIO. Is your Englishman so expert in his drinking?\n  IAGO. Why, he drinks you with facility your Dane dead drunk; he\n    sweats not to overthrow your Almain; he gives your Hollander a\n    vomit ere the next pottle can be filled.\n  CASSIO. To the health of our general!\n  MONTANO. I am for it, lieutenant, and I'll do you justice.\n  IAGO. O sweet England!\n\n    [Sings.]   \"King Stephen was and-a worthy peer,\n                 His breeches cost him but a crown;\n               He held them sixpence all too dear,\n                 With that he call'd the tailor lown.\n\n               \"He was a wight of high renown,\n                 And thou art but of low degree.\n               'Tis pride that pulls the country down;\n                 Then take thine auld cloak about thee.\"\n\n    Some wine, ho!\n  CASSIO. Why, this is a more exquisite song than the other.\n  IAGO. Will you hear't again?\n  CASSIO. No, for I hold him to be unworthy of his place that does\n    those things. Well, God's above all, and there be souls must be\n    saved, and there be souls must not be saved.\n  IAGO. It's true, good lieutenant.\n  CASSIO. For mine own part- no offense to the general, nor any man\n    of quality- I hope to be saved.\n  IAGO. And so do I too, lieutenant.\n  CASSIO. Ay, but, by your leave, not before me; the lieutenant is to\n    be saved before the ancient. Let's have no more of this; let's to\n    our affairs. God forgive us our sins! Gentlemen, let's look to\n    our business. Do not think, gentlemen, I am drunk: this is my\n    ancient, this is my right hand, and this is my left. I am not\n    drunk now; I can stand well enough, and I speak well enough.\n  ALL. Excellent well.\n  CASSIO. Why, very well then; you must not think then that I am\n    drunk.                                                      Exit.\n  MONTANO. To the platform, masters; come, let's set the watch.\n  IAGO. You see this fellow that is gone before;\n    He is a soldier fit to stand by Caesar\n    And give direction. And do but see his vice;\n    'Tis to his virtue a just equinox,\n    The one as long as the other. 'Tis pity of him.\n    I fear the trust Othello puts him in\n    On some odd time of his infirmity\n    Will shake this island.\n  MONTANO.                  But is he often thus?\n  IAGO. 'Tis evermore the prologue to his sleep.\n    He'll watch the horologe a double set,\n    If drink rock not his cradle.\n  MONTANO.                        It were well\n    The general were put in mind of it.\n    Perhaps he sees it not, or his good nature\n    Prizes the virtue that appears in Cassio\n    And looks not on his evils. Is not this true?\n\n                           Enter Roderigo.\n\n  IAGO. [Aside to him.] How now, Roderigo!\n    I pray you, after the lieutenant; go.              Exit Roderigo.\n  MONTANO. And 'tis great pity that the noble Moor\n    Should hazard such a place as his own second\n    With one of an ingraft infirmity.\n    It were an honest action to say\n    So to the Moor.\n  IAGO.             Not I, for this fair island.\n    I do love Cassio well, and would do much\n    To cure him of this evil- But, hark! What noise?\n                                          A cry within, \"Help, help!\"\n\n                Re-enter Cassio, driving in Roderigo.\n\n  CASSIO. 'Zounds! You rogue! You rascal!\n  MONTANO. What's the matter, lieutenant?\n  CASSIO. A knave teach me my duty! But I'll beat the knave into a\n    twiggen bottle.\n  RODERIGO. Beat me!\n  CASSIO. Dost thou prate, rogue?                   Strikes Roderigo.\n  MONTANO. Nay, good lieutenant; I pray you, sir, hold your hand.\n  CASSIO. Let me go, sir, or I'll knock you o'er the mazzard.\n  MONTANO. Come, come, you're drunk.\n  CASSIO. Drunk?                                          They fight.\n  IAGO. [Aside to Roderigo.] Away, I say; go out and cry a mutiny.\n                                                       Exit Roderigo.\n    Nay, good lieutenant! God's will, gentlemen!\n    Help, ho!- Lieutenant- sir- Montano- sir-\n    Help, masters!- Here's a goodly watch indeed!\n                                                        A bell rings.\n    Who's that that rings the bell?- Diablo, ho!\n    The town will rise. God's will, lieutenant, hold!\n    You will be shamed forever.\n\n                   Re-enter Othello and Attendants.\n\n  OTHELLO.                      What is the matter here?\n  MONTANO. 'Zounds, I bleed still; I am hurt to the death.\n   Faints.\n  OTHELLO. Hold, for your lives!\n  IAGO. Hold, ho! Lieutenant- sir- Montano- gentlemen-\n    Have you forgot all place of sense and duty?\n    Hold! the general speaks to you! Hold, hold, for shame!\n  OTHELLO. Why, how now, ho! from whence ariseth this?\n    Are we turn'd Turks, and to ourselves do that\n    Which heaven hath forbid the Ottomites?\n    For Christian shame, put by this barbarous brawl.\n    He that stirs next to carve for his own rage\n    Holds his soul light; he dies upon his motion.\n    Silence that dreadful bell; it frights the isle\n    From her propriety. What is the matter, masters?\n    Honest Iago, that look'st dead with grieving,\n    Speak: who began this? On thy love, I charge thee.\n  IAGO. I do not know. Friends all but now, even now,\n    In quarter, and in terms like bride and groom\n    Devesting them for bed; and then, but now\n    (As if some planet had unwitted men),\n    Swords out, and tilting one at other's breast,\n    In opposition bloody. I cannot speak\n    Any beginning to this peevish odds;\n    And would in action glorious I had lost\n    Those legs that brought me to a part of it!\n  OTHELLO. How comes it, Michael, you are thus forgot?\n  CASSIO. I pray you, pardon me; I cannot speak.\n  OTHELLO. Worthy Montano, you were wont be civil;\n    The gravity and stillness of your youth\n    The world hath noted, and your name is great\n    In mouths of wisest censure. What's the matter,\n    That you unlace your reputation thus,\n    And spend your rich opinion for the name\n    Of a night-brawler? Give me answer to it.\n  MONTANO. Worthy Othello, I am hurt to danger.\n    Your officer, Iago, can inform you-\n    While I spare speech, which something now offends me-\n    Of all that I do know. Nor know I aught\n    By me that's said or done amiss this night,\n    Unless self-charity be sometimes a vice,\n    And to defend ourselves it be a sin\n    When violence assails us.\n  OTHELLO.                    Now, by heaven,\n    My blood begins my safer guides to rule,\n    And passion, having my best judgement collied,\n    Assays to lead the way. If I once stir,\n    Or do but lift this arm, the best of you\n    Shall sink in my rebuke. Give me to know\n    How this foul rout began, who set it on,\n    And he that is approved in this offense,\n    Though he had twinn'd with me, both at a birth,\n    Shall lose me. What! in a town of war,\n    Yet wild, the people's hearts brimful of fear,\n    To manage private and domestic quarrel,\n    In night, and on the court and guard of safety!\n    'Tis monstrous. Iago, who began't?\n  MONTANO. If partially affined, or leagued in office,\n    Thou dost deliver more or less than truth,\n    Thou art no soldier.\n  IAGO.                  Touch me not so near:\n    I had rather have this tongue cut from my mouth\n    Than it should do offense to Michael Cassio;\n    Yet, I persuade myself, to speak the truth\n    Shall nothing wrong him. Thus it is, general.\n    Montano and myself being in speech,\n    There comes a fellow crying out for help,\n    And Cassio following him with determined sword,\n    To execute upon him. Sir, this gentleman\n    Steps in to Cassio and entreats his pause.\n    Myself the crying fellow did pursue,\n    Lest by his clamor- as it so fell out-\n    The town might fall in fright. He, swift of foot,\n    Outran my purpose; and I return'd the rather\n    For that I heard the clink and fall of swords,\n    And Cassio high in oath, which till tonight\n    I ne'er might say before. When I came back-\n    For this was brief- I found them close together,\n    At blow and thrust, even as again they were\n    When you yourself did part them.\n    More of this matter cannot I report.\n    But men are men; the best sometimes forget.\n    Though Cassio did some little wrong to him,\n    As men in rage strike those that wish them best,\n    Yet surely Cassio, I believe, received\n    From him that fled some strange indignity,\n    Which patience could not pass.\n  OTHELLO.                         I know, Iago,\n    Thy honesty and love doth mince this matter,\n    Making it light to Cassio. Cassio, I love thee,\n    But never more be officer of mine.\n\n                    Re-enter Desdemona, attended.\n\n    Look, if my gentle love be not raised up!\n    I'll make thee an example.\n  DESDEMONA.                   What's the matter?\n  OTHELLO. All's well now, sweeting; come away to bed.\n    Sir, for your hurts, myself will be your surgeon.\n    Lead him off.                             Exit Montano, attended.\n    Iago, look with care about the town,\n    And silence those whom this vile brawl distracted.\n    Come, Desdemona, 'tis the soldiers' life.\n    To have their balmy slumbers waked with strife.\n                                      Exeunt all but Iago and Cassio.\n  IAGO. What, are you hurt, lieutenant?\n  CASSIO. Ay, past all surgery.\n  IAGO. Marry, heaven forbid!\n  CASSIO. Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my\n    reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what\n    remains is bestial. My reputation, Iago, my reputation!\n  IAGO. As I am an honest man, I thought you had received some bodily\n    wound; there is more sense in that than in reputation. Reputation\n    is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit and\n    lost without deserving. You have lost no reputation at all,\n    unless you repute yourself such a loser. What, man! there are\n    ways to recover the general again. You are but now cast in his\n    mood, a punishment more in policy than in malice; even so as one\n    would beat his offenseless dog to affright an imperious lion. Sue\n    to him again, and he's yours.\n  CASSIO. I will rather sue to be despised than to deceive so good a\n    commander with so slight, so drunken, and so indiscreet an\n    officer. Drunk? and speak parrot? and squabble? swagger? swear?\n    and discourse fustian with one's own shadow? O thou invisible\n    spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call\n    thee devil!\n  IAGO. What was he that you followed with your sword?\n    What had he done to you?\n  CASSIO. I know not.\n  IAGO. Is't possible?\n  CASSIO. I remember a mass of things, but nothing distinctly; a\n    quarrel, but nothing wherefore. O God, that men should put an\n    enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! that we should,\n    with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause, transform ourselves\n    into beasts!\n  IAGO. Why, but you are now well enough. How came you thus\n     recovered?\n  CASSIO. It hath pleased the devil drunkenness to give place to the\n    devil wrath: one unperfectness shows me another, to make me\n    frankly despise myself.\n  IAGO. Come, you are too severe a moraler. As the time, the place,\n    and the condition of this country stands, I could heartily wish\n    this had not befallen; but since it is as it is, mend it for your\n    own good.\n  CASSIO. I will ask him for my place again; he shall tell me I am a\n    drunkard! Had I as many mouths as Hydra, such an answer would\n    stop them all. To be now a sensible man, by and by a fool, and\n    presently a beast! O strange! Every inordinate cup is unblest,\n    and the ingredient is a devil.\n  IAGO. Come, come, good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be\n    well used. Exclaim no more against it. And, good lieutenant, I\n    think you think I love you.\n  CASSIO. I have well approved it, sir. I drunk!\n  IAGO. You or any man living may be drunk at some time, man. I'll\n    tell you what you shall do. Our general's wife is now the\n    general. I may say so in this respect, for that he hath devoted\n    and given up himself to the contemplation, mark, and denotement\n    of her parts and graces. Confess yourself freely to her;\n    importune her help to put you in your place again. She is of so\n    free, so kind, so apt, so blessed a disposition, she holds it a\n    vice in her goodness not to do more than she is requested. This\n    broken joint between you and her husband entreat her to splinter;\n    and, my fortunes against any lay worth naming, this crack of your\n    love shall grow stronger than it was before.\n  CASSIO. You advise me well.\n  IAGO. I protest, in the sincerity of love and honest kindness.\n  CASSIO. I think it freely; and betimes in the morning I will beseech\n    the virtuous Desdemona to undertake for me. I am desperate of my\n    fortunes if they check me here.\n  IAGO. You are in the right. Good night, lieutenant, I must to the\n    watch.\n  CASSIO. Good night, honest Iago.                              Exit.\n  IAGO. And what's he then that says I play the villain?\n    When this advice is free I give and honest,\n    Probal to thinking, and indeed the course\n    To win the Moor again? For 'tis most easy\n    The inclining Desdemona to subdue\n    In any honest suit. She's framed as fruitful\n    As the free elements. And then for her\n    To win the Moor, were't to renounce his baptism,\n    All seals and symbols of redeemed sin,\n    His soul is so enfetter'd to her love,\n    That she may make, unmake, do what she list,\n    Even as her appetite shall play the god\n    With his weak function. How am I then a villain\n    To counsel Cassio to this parallel course,\n    Directly to his good? Divinity of hell!\n    When devils will the blackest sins put on,\n    They do suggest at first with heavenly shows,\n    As I do now. For whiles this honest fool\n    Plies Desdemona to repair his fortune,\n    And she for him pleads strongly to the Moor,\n    I'll pour this pestilence into his ear,\n    That she repeals him for her body's lust;\n    And by how much she strives to do him good,\n    She shall undo her credit with the Moor.\n    So will I turn her virtue into pitch,\n    And out of her own goodness make the net\n    That shall enmesh them all.\n\n                           Enter Roderigo.\n\n                                How now, Roderigo!\n  RODERIGO. I do follow here in the chase, not like a hound that\n    hunts, but one that fills up the cry. My money is almost spent; I\n    have been tonight exceedingly well cudgeled; and I think the\n    issue will be, I shall have so much experience for my pains; and\n    so, with no money at all and a little more wit, return again to\n    Venice.\n  IAGO. How poor are they that have not patience!\n    What wound did ever heal but by degrees?\n    Thou know'st we work by wit and not by witchcraft,\n    And wit depends on dilatory time.\n    Does't not go well? Cassio hath beaten thee,\n    And thou by that small hurt hast cashier'd Cassio.\n    Though other things grow fair against the sun,\n    Yet fruits that blossom first will first be ripe.\n    Content thyself awhile. By the mass, 'tis morning;\n    Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.\n    Retire thee; go where thou art billeted.\n    Away, I say. Thou shalt know more hereafter.\n    Nay, get thee gone. [Exit Roderigo.] Two things are to be done:\n    My wife must move for Cassio to her mistress-\n    I'll set her on;\n    Myself the while to draw the Moor apart,\n    And bring him jump when he may Cassio find\n    Soliciting his wife. Ay, that's the way;\n    Dull not device by coldness and delay.                      Exit.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nBefore the castle.\n\nEnter Cassio and some Musicians.\n\n  CASSIO. Masters, play here, I will content your pains; Something\n    that's brief; and bid \"Good morrow, general.\"\n    Music.\n\n                             Enter Clown.\n\n  CLOWN. Why, masters, have your instruments been in Naples, that\n    they speak i' the nose thus?\n  FIRST MUSICIAN. How, sir, how?\n  CLOWN. Are these, I pray you, wind instruments?\n  FIRST MUSICIAN. Ay, marry, are they, sir.\n  CLOWN. O, thereby hangs a tail.\n  FIRST MUSICIAN. Whereby hangs a tale, sir?\n  CLOWN. Marry, sir, by many a wind instrument that I know. But,\n    masters, here's money for you; and the general so likes your\n    music, that he desires you, for love's sake, to make no more\n    noise with it.\n  FIRST MUSICIAN. Well, sir, we will not.\n  CLOWN. If you have any music that may not be heard, to't again;\n    but, as they say, to hear music the general does not greatly\n    care.\n  FIRST MUSICIAN. We have none such, sir.\n  CLOWN. Then put up your pipes in your bag, for I'll away.\n    Go, vanish into air, away!                      Exeunt Musicians.\n  CASSIO. Dost thou hear, my honest friend?\n  CLOWN. No, I hear not your honest friend; I hear you.\n  CASSIO. Prithee, keep up thy quillets. There's a poor piece of gold\n    for thee. If the gentlewoman that attends the general's wife be\n    stirring, tell her there's one Cassio entreats her a little favor\n    of speech. Wilt thou do this?\n  CLOWN. She is stirring, sir. If she will stir hither, I shall seem\n    to notify unto her.\n  CASSIO. Do, good my friend.                             Exit Clown.\n\n                             Enter Iago.\n\n                              In happy time, Iago.\n  IAGO. You have not been abed, then?\n  CASSIO. Why, no; the day had broke\n    Before we parted. I have made bold, Iago,\n    To send in to your wife. My suit to her\n    Is that she will to virtuous Desdemona\n    Procure me some access.\n  IAGO.                     I'll send her to you presently;\n    And I'll devise a mean to draw the Moor\n    Out of the way, that your converse and business\n    May be more free.\n  CASSIO. I humbly thank you for't. [Exit Iago.] I never knew\n    A Florentine more kind and honest.\n\n                            Enter Emilia.\n\n  EMILIA. Good morrow, good lieutenant. I am sorry\n    For your displeasure, but all will sure be well.\n    The general and his wife are talking of it,\n    And she speaks for you stoutly. The Moor replies\n    That he you hurt is of great fame in Cyprus\n    And great affinity and that in wholesome wisdom\n    He might not but refuse you; but he protests he loves you\n    And needs no other suitor but his likings\n    To take the safest occasion by the front\n    To bring you in again.\n  CASSIO.                  Yet, I beseech you,\n    If you think fit, or that it may be done,\n    Give me advantage of some brief discourse\n    With Desdemona alone.\n  EMILIA.                 Pray you, come in.\n    I will bestow you where you shall have time\n    To speak your bosom freely.\n  CASSIO.                       I am much bound to you.\n   Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA room in the castle.\n\nEnter Othello, Iago, and Gentlemen.\n\n  OTHELLO. These letters give, Iago, to the pilot,\n    And by him do my duties to the Senate.\n    That done, I will be walking on the works;\n    Repair there to me.\n  IAGO.                 Well, my good lord, I'll do't.\n  OTHELLO. This fortification, gentlemen, shall we see't?\n  GENTLEMEN. We'll wait upon your lordship.                   Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe garden of the castle.\n\nEnter Desdemona, Cassio, and Emilia.\n\n  DESDEMONA. Be thou assured, good Cassio, I will do\n    All my abilities in thy behalf.\n  EMILIA. Good madam, do. I warrant it grieves my husband\n    As if the cause were his.\n  DESDEMONA. O, that's an honest fellow. Do not doubt, Cassio,\n    But I will have my lord and you again\n    As friendly as you were.\n  CASSIO.                    Bounteous madam,\n    Whatever shall become of Michael Cassio,\n    He's never anything but your true servant.\n  DESDEMONA. I know't: I thank you. You do love my lord:\n    You have known him long; and be you well assured\n    He shall in strangeness stand no farther off\n    Than in a politic distance.\n  CASSIO.                       Ay, but, lady,\n    That policy may either last so long,\n    Or feed upon such nice and waterish diet,\n    Or breed itself so out of circumstances,\n    That I being absent and my place supplied,\n    My general will forget my love and service.\n  DESDEMONA. Do not doubt that. Before Emilia here\n    I give thee warrant of thy place, assure thee,\n    If I do vow a friendship, I'll perform it\n    To the last article. My lord shall never rest;\n    I'll watch him tame and talk him out of patience;\n    His bed shall seem a school, his board a shrift;\n    I'll intermingle everything he does\n    With Cassio's suit. Therefore be merry, Cassio,\n    For thy solicitor shall rather die\n    Than give thy cause away.\n\n                Enter Othello and Iago, at a distance.\n\n  EMILIA. Madam, here comes my lord.\n  CASSIO. Madam, I'll take my leave.\n  DESDEMONA. Nay, stay and hear me speak.\n  CASSIO. Madam, not now. I am very ill at ease,\n    Unfit for mine own purposes.\n  DESDEMONA. Well, do your discretion.                   Exit Cassio.\n  IAGO. Ha! I like not that.\n  OTHELLO. What dost thou say?\n  IAGO. Nothing, my lord; or if- I know not what.\n  OTHELLO. Was not that Cassio parted from my wife?\n  IAGO. Cassio, my lord! No, sure, I cannot think it,\n    That he would steal away so guilty-like,\n    Seeing you coming.\n  OTHELLO.             I do believe 'twas he.\n  DESDEMONA. How now, my lord!\n    I have been talking with a suitor here,\n    A man that languishes in your displeasure.\n  OTHELLO. Who is't you mean?\n  DESDEMONA. Why, your lieutenant, Cassio. Good my lord,\n    If I have any grace or power to move you,\n    His present reconciliation take;\n    For if he be not one that truly loves you,\n    That errs in ignorance and not in cunning,\n    I have no judgement in an honest face.\n    I prithee, call him back.\n  OTHELLO.                    Went he hence now?\n  DESDEMONA. Ay, sooth; so humbled\n    That he hath left part of his grief with me\n    To suffer with him. Good love, call him back.\n  OTHELLO. Not now, sweet Desdemona; some other time.\n  DESDEMONA. But shall't be shortly?\n  OTHELLO.                           The sooner, sweet, for you.\n  DESDEMONA. Shall't be tonight at supper?\n  OTHELLO.                                 No, not tonight.\n  DESDEMONA. Tomorrow dinner then?\n  OTHELLO.                         I shall not dine at home;\n    I meet the captains at the citadel.\n  DESDEMONA. Why then tomorrow night, or Tuesday morn,\n    On Tuesday noon, or night, on Wednesday morn.\n    I prithee, name the time, but let it not\n    Exceed three days. In faith, he's penitent;\n    And yet his trespass, in our common reason-\n    Save that, they say, the wars must make example\n    Out of their best- is not almost a fault\n    To incur a private check. When shall he come?\n    Tell me, Othello. I wonder in my soul,\n    What you would ask me, that I should deny,\n    Or stand so mammering on. What? Michael Cassio,\n    That came awooing with you, and so many a time\n    When I have spoke of you dispraisingly\n    Hath ta'en your part- to have so much to do\n    To bring him in! Trust me, I could do much-\n  OTHELLO. Prithee, no more. Let him come when he will;\n    I will deny thee nothing.\n  DESDEMONA.                  Why, this is not a boon;\n    'Tis as I should entreat you wear your gloves,\n    Or feed on nourishing dishes, or keep you warm,\n    Or sue to you to do a peculiar profit\n    To your own person. Nay, when I have a suit\n    Wherein I mean to touch your love indeed,\n    It shall be full of poise and difficult weight,\n    And fearful to be granted.\n  OTHELLO.                     I will deny thee nothing,\n    Whereon, I do beseech thee, grant me this,\n    To leave me but a little to myself.\n  DESDEMONA. Shall I deny you? No. Farewell, my lord.\n  OTHELLO. Farewell, my Desdemona; I'll come to thee straight.\n  DESDEMONA. Emilia, come. Be as your fancies teach you;\n    Whate'er you be, I am obedient.\n                                         Exeunt Desdemona and Emilia.\n  OTHELLO. Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul,\n    But I do love thee! and when I love thee not,\n    Chaos is come again.\n  IAGO. My noble lord-\n  OTHELLO.             What dost thou say, Iago?\n  IAGO. Did Michael Cassio, when you woo'd my lady,\n    Know of your love?\n  OTHELLO. He did, from first to last. Why dost thou ask?\n  IAGO. But for a satisfaction of my thought;\n    No further harm.\n  OTHELLO.           Why of thy thought, Iago?\n  IAGO. I did not think he had been acquainted with her.\n  OTHELLO. O, yes, and went between us very oft.\n  IAGO. Indeed!\n  OTHELLO. Indeed? ay, indeed. Discern'st thou aught in that?\n    Is he not honest?\n  IAGO. Honest, my lord?\n  OTHELLO. Honest? Ay, honest.\n  IAGO. My lord, for aught I know.\n  OTHELLO. What dost thou think?\n  IAGO. Think, my lord?\n  OTHELLO. Think, my lord? By heaven, he echoes me,\n    As if there were some monster in his thought\n    Too hideous to be shown. Thou dost mean something.\n    I heard thee say even now, thou like'st not that,\n    When Cassio left my wife. What didst not like?\n    And when I told thee he was of my counsel\n    In my whole course of wooing, thou criedst, \"Indeed!\"\n    And didst contract and purse thy brow together,\n    As if thou then hadst shut up in thy brain\n    Some horrible conceit. If thou dost love me,\n    Show me thy thought.\n  IAGO. My lord, you know I love you.\n  OTHELLO.                            I think thou dost;\n    And for I know thou'rt full of love and honesty\n    And weigh'st thy words before thou givest them breath,\n    Therefore these stops of thine fright me the more;\n    For such things in a false disloyal knave\n    Are tricks of custom; but in a man that's just\n    They're close dilations, working from the heart,\n    That passion cannot rule.\n  IAGO.                       For Michael Cassio,\n    I dare be sworn I think that he is honest.\n  OTHELLO. I think so too.\n  IAGO.                    Men should be what they seem;\n    Or those that be not, would they might seem none!\n  OTHELLO. Certain, men should be what they seem.\n  IAGO. Why then I think Cassio's an honest man.\n  OTHELLO. Nay, yet there's more in this.\n    I prithee, speak to me as to thy thinkings,\n    As thou dost ruminate, and give thy worst of thoughts\n    The worst of words.\n  IAGO.                 Good my lord, pardon me;\n    Though I am bound to every act of duty,\n    I am not bound to that all slaves are free to.\n    Utter my thoughts? Why, say they are vile and false;\n    As where's that palace whereinto foul things\n    Sometimes intrude not? Who has a breast so pure,\n    But some uncleanly apprehensions\n    Keep leets and law-days, and in session sit\n    With meditations lawful?\n  OTHELLO. Thou dost conspire against thy friend, Iago,\n    If thou but think'st him wrong'd and makest his ear\n    A stranger to thy thoughts.\n  IAGO.                         I do beseech you-\n    Though I perchance am vicious in my guess,\n    As, I confess, it is my nature's plague\n    To spy into abuses, and oft my jealousy\n    Shapes faults that are not- that your wisdom yet,\n    From one that so imperfectly conceits,\n    Would take no notice, nor build yourself a trouble\n    Out of his scattering and unsure observance.\n    It were not for your quiet nor your good,\n    Nor for my manhood, honesty, or wisdom,\n    To let you know my thoughts.\n  OTHELLO.                       What dost thou mean?\n  IAGO. Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,\n    Is the immediate jewel of their souls.\n    Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;\n    'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;\n    But he that filches from me my good name\n    Robs me of that which not enriches him\n    And makes me poor indeed.\n  OTHELLO. By heaven, I'll know thy thoughts.\n  IAGO. You cannot, if my heart were in your hand;\n    Nor shall not, whilst 'tis in my custody.\n  OTHELLO. Ha!\n  IAGO.        O, beware, my lord, of jealousy!\n    It is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock\n    The meat it feeds on. That cuckold lives in bliss\n    Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger;\n    But O, what damned minutes tells he o'er\n    Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves!\n  OTHELLO. O misery!\n  IAGO. Poor and content is rich, and rich enough;\n    But riches fineless is as poor as winter\n    To him that ever fears he shall be poor.\n    Good heaven, the souls of all my tribe defend\n    From jealousy!\n  OTHELLO.         Why, why is this?\n    Think'st thou I'ld make a life of jealousy,\n    To follow still the changes of the moon\n    With fresh suspicions? No! To be once in doubt\n    Is once to be resolved. Exchange me for a goat\n    When I shall turn the business of my soul\n    To such exsufflicate and blown surmises,\n    Matching thy inference. 'Tis not to make me jealous\n    To say my wife is fair, feeds well, loves company,\n    Is free of speech, sings, plays, and dances well;\n    Where virtue is, these are more virtuous.\n    Nor from mine own weak merits will I draw\n    The smallest fear or doubt of her revolt;\n    For she had eyes and chose me. No, Iago,\n    I'll see before I doubt; when I doubt, prove;\n    And on the proof, there is no more but this-\n    Away at once with love or jealousy!\n  IAGO. I am glad of it, for now I shall have reason\n    To show the love and duty that I bear you\n    With franker spirit. Therefore, as I am bound,\n    Receive it from me. I speak not yet of proof.\n    Look to your wife; observe her well with Cassio;\n    Wear your eye thus, not jealous nor secure.\n    I would not have your free and noble nature\n    Out of self-bounty be abused. Look to't.\n    I know our country disposition well;\n    In Venice they do let heaven see the pranks\n    They dare not show their husbands; their best conscience\n    Is not to leave't undone, but keep't unknown.\n  OTHELLO. Dost thou say so?\n  IAGO. She did deceive her father, marrying you;\n    And when she seem'd to shake and fear your looks,\n    She loved them most.\n  OTHELLO.               And so she did.\n  IAGO.                                  Why, go to then.\n    She that so young could give out such a seeming,\n    To seel her father's eyes up close as oak-\n    He thought 'twas witchcraft- but I am much to blame;\n    I humbly do beseech you of your pardon\n    For too much loving you.\n  OTHELLO.                   I am bound to thee forever.\n  IAGO. I see this hath a little dash'd your spirits.\n  OTHELLO. Not a jot, not a jot.\n  IAGO.                          I'faith, I fear it has.\n    I hope you will consider what is spoke\n    Comes from my love. But I do see you're moved;\n    I am to pray you not to strain my speech\n    To grosser issues nor to larger reach\n    Than to suspicion.\n  OTHELLO. I will not.\n  IAGO.                Should you do so, my lord,\n    My speech should fall into such vile success\n    Which my thoughts aim not at. Cassio's my worthy friend-\n    My lord, I see you're moved.\n  OTHELLO.                       No, not much moved.\n    I do not think but Desdemona's honest.\n  IAGO. Long live she so! and long live you to think so!\n  OTHELLO. And yet, how nature erring from itself-\n  IAGO. Ay, there's the point, as- to be bold with you-\n    Not to affect many proposed matches\n    Of her own clime, complexion, and degree,\n    Whereto we see in all things nature tends-\n    Foh, one may smell in such a will most rank,\n    Foul disproportion, thoughts unnatural.\n    But pardon me. I do not in position\n    Distinctly speak of her; though I may fear,\n    Her will, recoiling to her better judgement,\n    May fall to match you with her country forms,\n    And happily repent.\n  OTHELLO.              Farewell, farewell.\n    If more thou dost perceive, let me know more;\n    Set on thy wife to observe. Leave me, Iago.\n  IAGO. [Going.] My lord, I take my leave.\n  OTHELLO. Why did I marry? This honest creature doubtless\n    Sees and knows more, much more, than he unfolds.\n  IAGO. [Returning.] My lord, I would I might entreat your honor\n    To scan this thing no further; leave it to time.\n    Though it be fit that Cassio have his place,\n    For sure he fills it up with great ability,\n    Yet, if you please to hold him off awhile,\n    You shall by that perceive him and his means.\n    Note if your lady strain his entertainment\n    With any strong or vehement importunity;\n    Much will be seen in that. In the meantime,\n    Let me be thought too busy in my fears-\n    As worthy cause I have to fear I am-\n    And hold her free, I do beseech your honor.\n  OTHELLO. Fear not my government.\n  IAGO. I once more take my leave.                              Exit.\n  OTHELLO. This fellow's of exceeding honesty,\n    And knows all qualities, with a learned spirit,\n    Of human dealings. If I do prove her haggard,\n    Though that her jesses were my dear heartstrings,\n    I'ld whistle her off and let her down the wind\n    To prey at fortune. Haply, for I am black\n    And have not those soft parts of conversation\n    That chamberers have, or for I am declined\n    Into the vale of years- yet that's not much-\n    She's gone. I am abused, and my relief\n    Must be to loathe her. O curse of marriage,\n    That we can call these delicate creatures ours,\n    And not their appetites! I had rather be a toad,\n    And live upon the vapor of a dungeon,\n    Than keep a corner in the thing I love\n    For others' uses. Yet, 'tis the plague of great ones:\n    Prerogatived are they less than the base;\n    'Tis destiny unshunnable, like death.\n    Even then this forked plague is fated to us\n    When we do quicken. Desdemona comes:\n\n                    Re-enter Desdemona and Emilia.\n\n    If she be false, O, then heaven mocks itself!\n    I'll not believe't.\n  DESDEMONA.            How now, my dear Othello!\n    Your dinner, and the generous islanders\n    By you invited, do attend your presence.\n  OTHELLO. I am to blame.\n  DESDEMONA.              Why do you speak so faintly?\n    Are you not well?\n  OTHELLO. I have a pain upon my forehead here.\n  DESDEMONA. Faith, that's with watching; 'twill away again.\n    Let me but bind it hard, within this hour\n    It will be well.\n  OTHELLO.           Your napkin is too little;\n            He puts the handkerchief from him, and she drops it.\n    Let it alone. Come, I'll go in with you.\n  DESDEMONA. I am very sorry that you are not well.\n                                        Exeunt Othello and Desdemona.\n  EMILIA. I am glad I have found this napkin;\n    This was her first remembrance from the Moor.\n    My wayward husband hath a hundred times\n    Woo'd me to steal it; but she so loves the token,\n    For he conjured her she should ever keep it,\n    That she reserves it evermore about her\n    To kiss and talk to. I'll have the work ta'en out,\n    And give't Iago. What he will do with it\n    Heaven knows, not I;\n    I nothing but to please his fantasy.\n\n                            Re-enter Iago.\n\n  IAGO. How now, what do you here alone?\n  EMILIA. Do not you chide; I have a thing for you.\n  IAGO. A thing for me? It is a common thing-\n  EMILIA. Ha!\n  IAGO. To have a foolish wife.\n  EMILIA. O, is that all? What will you give me now\n    For that same handkerchief?\n  IAGO.                         What handkerchief?\n  EMILIA. What handkerchief?\n    Why, that the Moor first gave to Desdemona,\n    That which so often you did bid me steal.\n  IAGO. Hast stol'n it from her?\n  EMILIA. No, faith; she let it drop by negligence,\n    And, to the advantage, I being here took't up.\n    Look, here it is.\n  IAGO.               A good wench; give it me.\n  EMILIA. What will you do with't, that you have been so earnest\n    To have me filch it?\n  IAGO. [Snatching it.] Why, what is that to you?\n  EMILIA. If't be not for some purpose of import,\n    Give't me again. Poor lady, she'll run mad\n    When she shall lack it.\n  IAGO. Be not acknown on't; I have use for it.\n    Go, leave me.                                        Exit Emilia.\n    I will in Cassio's lodging lose this napkin,\n    And let him find it. Trifles light as air\n    Are to the jealous confirmations strong\n    As proofs of holy writ; this may do something.\n    The Moor already changes with my poison:\n    Dangerous conceits are in their natures poisons,\n    Which at the first are scarce found to distaste,\n    But with a little act upon the blood\n    Burn like the mines of sulphur. I did say so.\n    Look, where he comes!\n\n                          Re-enter Othello.\n\n                          Not poppy, nor mandragora,\n    Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,\n    Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep\n    Which thou owedst yesterday.\n  OTHELLO.                       Ha, ha, false to me?\n  IAGO. Why, how now, general! No more of that.\n  OTHELLO. Avaunt! be gone! Thou hast set me on the rack.\n    I swear 'tis better to be much abused\n    Than but to know't a little.\n  IAGO.                          How now, my lord?\n  OTHELLO. What sense had I of her stol'n hours of lust?\n    I saw't not, thought it not, it harm'd not me;\n    I slept the next night well, was free and merry;\n    I found not Cassio's kisses on her lips.\n    He that is robb'd, not wanting what is stol'n,\n    Let him not know't and he's not robb'd at all.\n  IAGO. I am sorry to hear this.\n  OTHELLO. I had been happy if the general camp,\n    Pioners and all, had tasted her sweet body,\n    So I had nothing known. O, now forever\n    Farewell the tranquil mind! Farewell content!\n    Farewell the plumed troop and the big wars\n    That make ambition virtue! O, farewell,\n    Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump,\n    The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,\n    The royal banner, and all quality,\n    Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!\n    And O you mortal engines, whose rude throats\n    The immortal Jove's dread clamors counterfeit,\n    Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone!\n  IAGO. Is't possible, my lord?\n  OTHELLO. Villain, be sure thou prove my love a whore;\n    Be sure of it. Give me the ocular proof;\n    Or, by the worth of man's eternal soul,\n    Thou hadst been better have been born a dog\n    Than answer my waked wrath!\n  IAGO.                         Is't come to this?\n  OTHELLO. Make me to see't; or at the least so prove it,\n    That the probation bear no hinge nor loop\n    To hang a doubt on; or woe upon thy life!\n  IAGO. My noble lord-\n  OTHELLO. If thou dost slander her and torture me,\n    Never pray more; abandon all remorse;\n    On horror's head horrors accumulate;\n    Do deeds to make heaven weep, all earth amazed;\n    For nothing canst thou to damnation add\n    Greater than that.\n  IAGO.                O grace! O heaven defend me!\n    Are you a man? have you a soul or sense?\n    God be wi' you; take mine office. O wretched fool,\n    That livest to make thine honesty a vice!\n    O monstrous world! Take note, take note, O world,\n    To be direct and honest is not safe.\n    I thank you for this profit, and from hence\n    I'll love no friend sith love breeds such offense.\n  OTHELLO. Nay, stay; thou shouldst be honest.\n  IAGO. I should be wise; for honesty's a fool,\n    And loses that it works for.\n  OTHELLO.                       By the world,\n    I think my wife be honest, and think she is not;\n    I think that thou art just, and think thou art not.\n    I'll have some proof. Her name, that was as fresh\n    As Dian's visage, is now begrimed and black\n    As mine own face. If there be cords or knives,\n    Poison or fire, or suffocating streams,\n    I'll not endure it. Would I were satisfied!\n  IAGO. I see, sir, you are eaten up with passion;\n    I do repent me that I put it to you.\n    You would be satisfied?\n  OTHELLO.                  Would? Nay, I will.\n  IAGO. And may. But, how? how satisfied, my lord?\n    Would you, the supervisor, grossly gape on?\n    Behold her topp'd?\n  OTHELLO.             Death and damnation! O!\n  IAGO. It were a tedious difficulty, I think,\n    To bring them to that prospect. Damn them then,\n    If ever mortal eyes do see them bolster\n    More than their own! What then? how then?\n    What shall I say? Where's satisfaction?\n    It is impossible you should see this\n    Were they as prime as goats, as hot as monkeys,\n    As salt as wolves in pride, and fools as gross\n    As ignorance made drunk. But yet, I say,\n    If imputation and strong circumstances,\n    Which lead directly to the door of truth,\n    Will give you satisfaction, you may have't.\n  OTHELLO. Give me a living reason she's disloyal.\n  IAGO. I do not like the office;\n    But sith I am enter'd in this cause so far,\n    Prick'd to't by foolish honesty and love,\n    I will go on. I lay with Cassio lately\n    And, being troubled with a raging tooth,\n    I could not sleep.\n    There are a kind of men so loose of soul,\n    That in their sleeps will mutter their affairs;\n    One of this kind is Cassio.\n    In sleep I heard him say, \"Sweet Desdemona,\n    Let us be wary, let us hide our loves\";\n    And then, sir, would he gripe and wring my hand,\n    Cry, \"O sweet creature!\" and then kiss me hard,\n    As if he pluck'd up kisses by the roots,\n    That grew upon my lips; then laid his leg\n    Over my thigh, and sigh'd and kiss'd; and then\n    Cried, \"Cursed fate that gave thee to the Moor!\"\n  OTHELLO. O monstrous! monstrous!\n  IAGO.                            Nay, this was but his dream.\n  OTHELLO. But this denoted a foregone conclusion.\n    'Tis a shrewd doubt, though it be but a dream.\n  IAGO. And this may help to thicken other proofs\n    That do demonstrate thinly.\n  OTHELLO.                      I'll tear her all to pieces.\n  IAGO. Nay, but be wise; yet we see nothing done;\n    She may be honest yet. Tell me but this;\n    Have you not sometimes seen a handkerchief\n    Spotted with strawberries in your wife's hand?\n  OTHELLO. I gave her such a one; 'twas my first gift.\n  IAGO. I know not that; but such a handkerchief-\n    I am sure it was your wife's- did I today\n    See Cassio wipe his beard with.\n  OTHELLO.                          If it be that-\n  IAGO. If it be that, or any that was hers,\n    It speaks against her with the other proofs.\n  OTHELLO. O, that the slave had forty thousand lives!\n    One is too poor, too weak for my revenge.\n    Now do I see 'tis true. Look here, Iago,\n    All my fond love thus do I blow to heaven.\n    'Tis gone.\n    Arise, black vengeance, from thy hollow hell!\n    Yield up, O love, thy crown and hearted throne\n    To tyrannous hate! Swell, bosom, with thy fraught,\n    For 'tis of aspics' tongues!\n  IAGO.                          Yet be content.\n  OTHELLO. O, blood, blood, blood!\n  IAGO. Patience, I say; your mind perhaps may change.\n  OTHELLO. Never, Iago. Like to the Pontic Sea,\n    Whose icy current and compulsive course\n    Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on\n    To the Propontic and the Hellespont,\n    Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace,\n    Shall ne'er look back, ne'er ebb to humble love,\n    Till that a capable and wide revenge\n    Swallow them up. Now, by yond marble heaven,\n    In the due reverence of a sacred vow                      Kneels.\n    I here engage my words.\n  IAGO.                     Do not rise yet.                  Kneels.\n    Witness, you ever-burning lights above,\n    You elements that clip us round about,\n    Witness that here Iago doth give up\n    The execution of his wit, hands, heart,\n    To wrong'd Othello's service! Let him command,\n    And to obey shall be in me remorse,\n    What bloody business ever.                             They rise.\n  OTHELLO.                     I greet thy love,\n    Not with vain thanks, but with acceptance bounteous,\n    And will upon the instant put thee to't:\n    Within these three days let me hear thee say\n    That Cassio's not alive.\n  IAGO. My friend is dead, 'tis done at your request;\n    But let her live.\n  OTHELLO.            Damn her, lewd minx! O, damn her!\n    Come, go with me apart; I will withdraw,\n    To furnish me with some swift means of death\n    For the fair devil. Now art thou my lieutenant.\n  IAGO. I am your own forever.                                Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nBefore the castle.\n\nEnter Desdemona, Emilia, and Clown.\n\n  DESDEMONA. Do you know, sirrah, where Lieutenant Cassio lies?\n  CLOWN. I dare not say he lies anywhere.\n  DESDEMONA. Why, man?\n  CLOWN. He's a soldier; and for one to say a soldier lies, is\n    stabbing.\n  DESDEMONA. Go to! Where lodges he?\n  CLOWN. To tell you where he lodges, is to tell you where I lie.\n  DESDEMONA. Can anything be made of this?\n  CLOWN. I know not where he lodges, and for me to devise a lodging,\n    and say he lies here or he lies there, were to lie in mine own\n    throat.\n  DESDEMONA. Can you inquire him out and be edified by report?\n  CLOWN. I will catechize the world for him; that is, make questions\n    and by them answer.\n  DESDEMONA. Seek him, bid him come hither. Tell him I have moved my\n    lord on his behalf and hope all will be well.\n  CLOWN. To do this is within the compass of man's wit, and therefore\n    I will attempt the doing it.                                Exit.\n  DESDEMONA. Where should I lose that handkerchief, Emilia?\n  EMILIA. I know not, madam.\n  DESDEMONA. Believe me, I had rather have lost my purse\n    Full of crusadoes; and, but my noble Moor\n    Is true of mind and made of no such baseness\n    As jealous creatures are, it were enough\n    To put him to ill thinking.\n  EMILIA.                       Is he not jealous?\n  DESDEMONA. Who, he? I think the sun where he was born\n    Drew all such humors from him.\n  EMILIA.                          Look, where he comes.\n  DESDEMONA. I will not leave him now till Cassio\n    Be call'd to him.\n\n                            Enter Othello.\n\n                      How is't with you, my lord?\n  OTHELLO. Well, my good lady. [Aside.] O, hardness to dissemble!\n    How do you, Desdemona?\n  DESDEMONA.               Well, my good lord.\n  OTHELLO. Give me your hand. This hand is moist, my lady.\n  DESDEMONA. It yet has felt no age nor known no sorrow.\n  OTHELLO. This argues fruitfulness and liberal heart;\n    Hot, hot, and moist. This hand of yours requires\n    A sequester from liberty, fasting, and prayer,\n    Much castigation, exercise devout,\n    For here's a young and sweating devil here\n    That commonly rebels. 'Tis a good hand,\n    A frank one.\n  DESDEMONA. You may, indeed, say so;\n    For 'twas that hand that gave away my heart.\n  OTHELLO. A liberal hand. The hearts of old gave hands;\n    But our new heraldry is hands, not hearts.\n  DESDEMONA. I cannot speak of this. Come now, your promise.\n  OTHELLO. What promise, chuck?\n  DESDEMONA. I have sent to bid Cassio come speak with you.\n  OTHELLO. I have a salt and sorry rheum offends me;\n    Lend me thy handkerchief.\n  DESDEMONA. Here, my lord.\n  OTHELLO. That which I gave you.\n  DESDEMONA. I have it not about me.\n  OTHELLO. Not?\n  DESDEMONA. No, faith, my lord.\n  OTHELLO. That's a fault. That handkerchief\n    Did an Egyptian to my mother give;\n    She was a charmer, and could almost read\n    The thoughts of people. She told her, while she kept it,\n    'Twould make her amiable and subdue my father\n    Entirely to her love, but if she lost it\n    Or made a gift of it, my father's eye\n    Should hold her loathed and his spirits should hunt\n    After new fancies. She dying gave it me,\n    And bid me, when my fate would have me wive,\n    To give it her. I did so, and take heed on't;\n    Make it a darling like your precious eye;\n    To lose't or give't away were such perdition\n    As nothing else could match.\n  DESDEMONA.                     Is't possible?\n  OTHELLO. 'Tis true; there's magic in the web of it.\n    A sibyl, that had number'd in the world\n    The sun to course two hundred compasses,\n    In her prophetic fury sew'd the work;\n    The worms were hallow'd that did breed the silk,\n    And it was dyed in mummy which the skillful\n    Conserved of maiden's hearts.\n  DESDEMONA.                      Indeed! is't true?\n  OTHELLO. Most veritable; therefore look to't well.\n  DESDEMONA. Then would to God that I had never seen't!\n  OTHELLO. Ha! wherefore?\n  DESDEMONA. Why do you speak so startingly and rash?\n  OTHELLO. Is't lost? is't gone? speak, is it out o' the way?\n  DESDEMONA. Heaven bless us!\n  OTHELLO. Say you?\n  DESDEMONA. It is not lost; but what an if it were?\n  OTHELLO. How?\n  DESDEMONA. I say, it is not lost.\n  OTHELLO. Fetch't, let me see it.\n  DESDEMONA. Why, so I can, sir, but I will not now.\n    This is a trick to put me from my suit.\n    Pray you, let Cassio be received again.\n  OTHELLO. Fetch me the handkerchief, my mind misgives.\n  DESDEMONA. Come, come,\n    You'll never meet a more sufficient man.\n  OTHELLO. The handkerchief!\n  DESDEMONA.                 I pray, talk me of Cassio.\n  OTHELLO. The handkerchief!\n  DESDEMONA.                 A man that all his time\n    Hath founded his good fortunes on your love,\n    Shared dangers with you-\n  OTHELLO. The handkerchief!\n  DESDEMONA. In sooth, you are to blame.\n  OTHELLO. Away!                                                Exit.\n  EMILIA. Is not this man jealous?\n  DESDEMONA. I ne'er saw this before.\n    Sure there's some wonder in this handkerchief;\n    I am most unhappy in the loss of it.\n  EMILIA. 'Tis not a year or two shows us a man.\n    They are all but stomachs and we all but food;\n    They eat us hungerly, and when they are full\n    They belch us. Look you! Cassio and my husband.\n\n                        Enter Cassio and Iago.\n\n  IAGO. There is no other way; 'tis she must do't.\n    And, lo, the happiness! Go and importune her.\n  DESDEMONA. How now, good Cassio! What's the news with you?\n  CASSIO. Madam, my former suit: I do beseech you\n    That by your virtuous means I may again\n    Exist and be a member of his love\n    Whom I with all the office of my heart\n    Entirely honor. I would not be delay'd.\n    If my offense be of such mortal kind\n    That nor my service past nor present sorrows\n    Nor purposed merit in futurity\n    Can ransom me into his love again,\n    But to know so must be my benefit;\n    So shall I clothe me in a forced content\n    And shut myself up in some other course\n    To Fortune's alms.\n  DESDEMONA.           Alas, thrice-gentle Cassio!\n    My advocation is not now in tune;\n    My lord is not my lord, nor should I know him\n    Were he in favor as in humor alter'd.\n    So help me every spirit sanctified,\n    As I have spoken for you all my best\n    And stood within the blank of his displeasure\n    For my free speech! You must awhile be patient.\n    What I can do I will; and more I will\n    Than for myself I dare. Let that suffice you.\n  IAGO. Is my lord angry?\n  EMILIA.                 He went hence but now,\n    And certainly in strange unquietness.\n  IAGO. Can he be angry? I have seen the cannon,\n    When it hath blown his ranks into the air\n    And, like the devil, from his very arm\n    Puff'd his own brother. And can he be angry?\n    Something of moment then. I will go meet him.\n    There's matter in't indeed if he be angry.\n  DESDEMONA. I prithee, do so.                             Exit Iago.\n                               Something sure of state,\n    Either from Venice or some unhatch'd practice\n    Made demonstrable here in Cyprus to him,\n    Hath puddled his clear spirit; and in such cases\n    Men's natures wrangle with inferior things,\n    Though great ones are their object. 'Tis even so;\n    For let our finger ache, and it indues\n    Our other healthful members even to that sense\n    Of pain. Nay, we must think men are not gods,\n    Nor of them look for such observancy\n    As fits the bridal. Beshrew me much, Emilia,\n    I was, unhandsome warrior as I am,\n    Arraigning his unkindness with my soul;\n    But now I find I had suborn'd the witness,\n    And he's indicted falsely.\n  EMILIA. Pray heaven it be state matters, as you think,\n    And no conception nor no jealous toy\n    Concerning you.\n  DESDEMONA. Alas the day, I never gave him cause!\n  EMILIA. But jealous souls will not be answer'd so;\n    They are not ever jealous for the cause,\n    But jealous for they are jealous. 'Tis a monster\n    Begot upon itself, born on itself.\n  DESDEMONA. Heaven keep that monster from Othello's mind!\n  EMILIA. Lady, amen.\n  DESDEMONA. I will go seek him. Cassio, walk hereabout.\n    If I do find him fit, I'll move your suit,\n    And seek to effect it to my uttermost.\n  CASSIO. I humbly thank your ladyship.\n                                         Exeunt Desdemona and Emilia.\n\n                            Enter Bianca.\n\n  BIANCA. Save you, friend Cassio!\n  CASSIO.                          What make you from home?\n    How is it with you, my most fair Bianca?\n    I'faith, sweet love, I was coming to your house.\n  BIANCA. And I was going to your lodging, Cassio.\n    What, keep a week away? seven days and nights?\n    Eight score eight hours? and lovers' absent hours,\n    More tedious than the dial eight score times?\n    O weary reckoning!\n  CASSIO.              Pardon me, Bianca.\n    I have this while with leaden thoughts been press'd;\n    But I shall in a more continuate time\n    Strike off this score of absence. Sweet Bianca,\n                                  Gives her Desdemona's handkerchief.\n    Take me this work out.\n  BIANCA.                  O Cassio, whence came this?\n    This is some token from a newer friend.\n    To the felt absence now I feel a cause.\n    Is't come to this? Well, well.\n  CASSIO.                          Go to, woman!\n    Throw your vile guesses in the devil's teeth,\n    From whence you have them. You are jealous now\n    That this is from some mistress, some remembrance.\n    No, by my faith, Bianca.\n  BIANCA.                    Why, whose is it?\n  CASSIO. I know not, sweet. I found it in my chamber.\n    I like the work well. Ere it be demanded-\n    As like enough it will- I'ld have it copied.\n    Take it, and do't; and leave me for this time.\n  BIANCA. Leave you! wherefore?\n  CASSIO. I do attend here on the general;\n    And think it no addition, nor my wish,\n    To have him see me woman'd.\n  BIANCA.                       Why, I pray you?\n  CASSIO. Not that I love you not.\n  BIANCA.                          But that you do not love me.\n    I pray you, bring me on the way a little,\n    And say if I shall see you soon at night.\n  CASSIO. 'Tis but a little way that I can bring you,\n    For I attend here, but I'll see you soon.\n  BIANCA. 'Tis very good; I must be circumstanced.            Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nCyprus. Before the castle.\n\nEnter Othello and Iago.\n\n  IAGO. Will you think so?\n  OTHELLO.                 Think so, Iago?\n  IAGO.                                    What,\n    To kiss in private?\n  OTHELLO.              An unauthorized kiss.\n  IAGO. Or to be naked with her friend in bed\n    An hour or more, not meaning any harm?\n  OTHELLO. Naked in bed, Iago, and not mean harm!\n    It is hypocrisy against the devil.\n    They that mean virtuously and yet do so,\n    The devil their virtue tempts and they tempt heaven.\n  IAGO. So they do nothing, 'tis a venial slip.\n    But if I give my wife a handkerchief-\n  OTHELLO. What then?\n  IAGO. Why, then, 'tis hers, my lord, and being hers,\n    She may, I think, bestow't on any man.\n  OTHELLO. She is protectress of her honor too.\n    May she give that?\n  IAGO. Her honor is an essence that's not seen;\n    They have it very oft that have it not.\n    But for the handkerchief-\n  OTHELLO. By heaven, I would most gladly have forgot it.\n    Thou said'st- O, it comes o'er my memory,\n    As doth the raven o'er the infected house,\n    Boding to all- he had my handkerchief.\n  IAGO. Ay, what of that?\n  OTHELLO.                That's not so good now.\n  IAGO.                                           What,\n    If I had said I had seen him do you wrong?\n    Or heard him say- as knaves be such abroad,\n    Who having, by their own importunate suit,\n    Or voluntary dotage of some mistress,\n    Convinced or supplied them, cannot choose\n    But they must blab-\n  OTHELLO.              Hath he said anything?\n  IAGO. He hath, my lord; but be you well assured,\n    No more than he'll unswear.\n  OTHELLO.                      What hath he said?\n  IAGO. Faith, that he did- I know not what he did.\n  OTHELLO. What? what?\n  IAGO. Lie-\n  OTHELLO. With her?\n  IAGO.              With her, on her, what you will.\n  OTHELLO. Lie with her! lie on her! We say lie on her, when they\n    belie her. Lie with her! 'Zounds, that's fulsome! Handkerchief-\n    confessions- handkerchief! To confess and be hanged for his labor-\n    first, to be hanged, and then to confess. I tremble at it.\n    Nature would not invest herself in such shadowing passion without\n    some instruction. It is not words that shakes me thus. Pish!\n    Noses, ears, and lips. Is't possible? Confess? Handkerchief? O\n    devil!\n                                                   Falls in a trance.\n  IAGO. Work on,\n    My medicine, work! Thus credulous fools are caught,\n    And many worthy and chaste dames even thus,\n    All guiltless, meet reproach. What, ho! My lord!\n    My lord, I say! Othello!\n\n                            Enter Cassio.\n\n                             How now, Cassio!\n  CASSIO. What's the matter?\n  IAGO. My lord is fall'n into an epilepsy.\n    This is his second fit; he had one yesterday.\n  CASSIO. Rub him about the temples.\n  IAGO.                              No, forbear;\n    The lethargy must have his quiet course.\n    If not, he foams at mouth, and by and by\n    Breaks out to savage madness. Look, he stirs.\n    Do you withdraw yourself a little while,\n    He will recover straight. When he is gone,\n    I would on great occasion speak with you.            Exit Cassio.\n    How is it, general? Have you not hurt your head?\n  OTHELLO. Dost thou mock me?\n  IAGO.                       I mock you? No, by heaven.\n    Would you would bear your fortune like a man!\n  OTHELLO. A horned man's a monster and a beast.\n  IAGO. There's many a beast then in a populous city,\n    And many a civil monster.\n  OTHELLO. Did he confess it?\n  IAGO.                       Good sir, be a man;\n    Think every bearded fellow that's but yoked\n    May draw with you. There's millions now alive\n    That nightly lie in those unproper beds\n    Which they dare swear peculiar. Your case is better.\n    O, 'tis the spite of hell, the fiend's arch-mock,\n    To lip a wanton in a secure couch,\n    And to suppose her chaste! No, let me know,\n    And knowing what I am, I know what she shall be.\n  OTHELLO. O, thou art wise; 'tis certain.\n  IAGO.                                    Stand you awhile apart,\n    Confine yourself but in a patient list.\n    Whilst you were here o'erwhelmed with your grief-\n    A passion most unsuiting such a man-\n    Cassio came hither. I shifted him away,\n    And laid good 'scuse upon your ecstasy;\n    Bade him anon return and here speak with me\n    The which he promised. Do but encave yourself\n    And mark the fleers, the gibes, and notable scorns,\n    That dwell in every region of his face;\n    For I will make him tell the tale anew,\n    Where, how, how oft, how long ago, and when\n    He hath and is again to cope your wife.\n    I say, but mark his gesture. Marry, patience,\n    Or I shall say you are all in all in spleen,\n    And nothing of a man.\n  OTHELLO.                Dost thou hear, Iago?\n    I will be found most cunning in my patience;\n    But (dost thou hear?) most bloody.\n  IAGO.                                That's not amiss;\n    But yet keep time in all. Will you withdraw?\n                                                     Othello retires.\n    Now will I question Cassio of Bianca,\n    A housewife that by selling her desires\n    Buys herself bread and clothes. It is a creature\n    That dotes on Cassio, as 'tis the strumpet's plague\n    To beguile many and be beguiled by one.\n    He, when he hears of her, cannot refrain\n    From the excess of laughter. Here he comes.\n\n                           Re-enter Cassio.\n\n    As he shall smile, Othello shall go mad;\n    And his unbookish jealousy must construe\n    Poor Cassio's smiles, gestures, and light behavior\n    Quite in the wrong. How do you now, lieutenant?\n  CASSIO. The worser that you give me the addition\n    Whose want even kills me.\n  IAGO. Ply Desdemona well, and you are sure on't.\n    Now, if this suit lay in Bianco's power,\n    How quickly should you speed!\n  CASSIO.                         Alas, poor caitiff!\n  OTHELLO. Look, how he laughs already!\n  IAGO. I never knew a woman love man so.\n  CASSIO. Alas, poor rogue! I think, i'faith, she loves me.\n  OTHELLO. Now he denies it faintly and laughs it out.\n  IAGO. Do you hear, Cassio?\n  OTHELLO.                   Now he importunes him\n    To tell it o'er. Go to; well said, well said.\n  IAGO. She gives it out that you shall marry her.\n    Do you intend it?\n  CASSIO. Ha, ha, ha!\n  OTHELLO. Do you triumph, Roman? Do you triumph?\n  CASSIO. I marry her! What? A customer! I prithee, bear some charity\n    to my wit; do not think it so unwholesome. Ha, ha, ha!\n  OTHELLO. So, so, so, so. They laugh that win.\n  IAGO. Faith, the cry goes that you shall marry her.\n  CASSIO. Prithee, say true.\n  IAGO. I am a very villain else.\n  OTHELLO. Have you scored me? Well.\n  CASSIO. This is the monkey's own giving out. She is persuaded I\n    will marry her, out of her own love and flattery, not out of my\n    promise.\n  OTHELLO. Iago beckons me; now he begins the story.\n  CASSIO. She was here even now; she haunts me in every place. I was\n    the other day talking on the sea bank with certain Venetians, and\n    thither comes the bauble, and, by this hand, she falls me thus\n    about my neck-\n  OTHELLO. Crying, \"O dear Cassio!\" as it were; his gesture imports\n    it.\n  CASSIO. So hangs and lolls and weeps upon me; so hales and pulls\n    me. Ha, ha, ha!\n  OTHELLO. Now he tells how she plucked him to my chamber. O, I see\n    that nose of yours, but not that dog I shall throw it to.\n  CASSIO. Well, I must leave her company.\n  IAGO. Before me! look where she comes.\n  CASSIO. 'Tis such another fitchew! marry, a perfumed one.\n\n                            Enter Bianca.\n\n    What do you mean by this haunting of me?\n  BIANCA. Let the devil and his dam haunt you! What did you mean by\n    that same handkerchief you gave me even now? I was a fine fool to\n    take it. I must take out the work? A likely piece of work that\n    you should find it in your chamber and not know who left it\n    there! This is some minx's token, and I must take out the work?\n    There, give it your hobbyhorse. Wheresoever you had it, I'll take\n    out no work on't.\n  CASSIO. How now, my sweet Bianca! how now! how now!\n  OTHELLO. By heaven, that should be my handkerchief!\n  BIANCA. An you'll come to supper tonight, you may; an you will not,\n    come when you are next prepared for.                        Exit.\n  IAGO. After her, after her.\n  CASSIO. Faith, I must; she'll rail i' the street else.\n  IAGO. Will you sup there?\n  CASSIO. Faith, I intend so.\n  IAGO. Well, I may chance to see you, for I would very fain speak\n    with you.\n  CASSIO. Prithee, come; will you?\n  IAGO. Go to; say no more.                              Exit Cassio.\n  OTHELLO. [Advancing.] How shall I murther him, Iago?\n  IAGO. Did you perceive how he laughed at his vice?\n  OTHELLO. O Iago!\n  IAGO. And did you see the handkerchief?\n  OTHELLO. Was that mine?\n  IAGO. Yours, by this hand. And to see how he prizes the foolish\n    woman your wife! She gave it him, and he hath given it his whore.\n  OTHELLO. I would have him nine years akilling. A fine woman! a fair\n    woman! a sweet woman!\n  IAGO. Nay, you must forget that.\n  OTHELLO. Ay, let her rot, and perish, and be damned tonight, for\n    she shall not live. No, my heart is turned to stone; I strike it,\n    and it hurts my hand. O, the world hath not a sweeter creature.\n    She might lie by an emperor's side, and command him tasks.\n  IAGO. Nay, that's not your way.\n  OTHELLO. Hang her! I do but say what she is. So delicate with her\n    needle, an admirable musician. O, she will sing the savageness\n    out of a bear. Of so high and plenteous wit and invention-\n  IAGO. She's the worse for all this.\n  OTHELLO. O, a thousand, a thousand times. And then, of so gentle a\n    condition!\n  IAGO. Ay, too gentle.\n  OTHELLO. Nay, that's certain. But yet the pity of it, Iago!\n    O Iago, the pity of it, Iago!\n  IAGO. If you are so fond over her iniquity, give her patent to\n    offend, for, if it touch not you, it comes near nobody.\n  OTHELLO. I will chop her into messes. Cuckold me!\n  IAGO. O, 'tis foul in her.\n  OTHELLO. With mine officer!\n  IAGO. That's fouler.\n  OTHELLO. Get me some poison, Iago, this night. I'll not expostulate\n    with her, lest her body and beauty unprovide my mind again. This\n    night, Iago.\n  IAGO. Do it not with poison, strangle her in her bed, even the bed\n    she hath contaminated.\n  OTHELLO. Good, good, the justice of it pleases, very good.\n  IAGO. And for Cassio, let me be his undertaker. You shall hear more\n    by midnight.\n  OTHELLO. Excellent good. [A trumpet within.] What trumpet is that\n    same?\n  IAGO. Something from Venice, sure. 'Tis Lodovico\n    Come from the Duke. And, see your wife is with him.\n\n              Enter Lodovico, Desdemona, and Attendants.\n\n  LODOVICO. God save the worthy general!\n  OTHELLO.                               With all my heart, sir.\n  LODOVICO. The Duke and Senators of Venice greet you.\n                                                  Gives him a letter.\n  OTHELLO. I kiss the instrument of their pleasures.\n                                         Opens the letter, and reads.\n  DESDEMONA. And what's the news, good cousin Lodovico?\n  IAGO. I am very glad to see you, signior;\n    Welcome to Cyprus.\n  LODOVICO. I thank you. How does Lieutenant Cassio?\n  IAGO. Lives, sir.\n  DESDEMONA. Cousin, there's fall'n between him and my lord\n    An unkind breech; but you shall make all well.\n  OTHELLO. Are you sure of that?\n  DESDEMONA. My lord?\n  OTHELLO. [Reads.] \"This fail you not to do, as you will-\"\n  LODOVICO. He did not call; he's busy in the paper.\n    Is there division 'twixt my lord and Cassio?\n  DESDEMONA. A most unhappy one. I would do much\n    To atone them, for the love I bear to Cassio.\n  OTHELLO. Fire and brimstone!\n  DESDEMONA. My lord?\n  OTHELLO. Are you wise?\n  DESDEMONA. What, is he angry?\n  LODOVICO.                     May be the letter moved him;\n    For, as I think, they do command him home,\n    Deputing Cassio in his government.\n  DESDEMONA. By my troth, I am glad on't.\n  OTHELLO.                                Indeed!\n  DESDEMONA.                                      My lord?\n  OTHELLO. I am glad to see you mad.\n  DESDEMONA.                         Why, sweet Othello?\n  OTHELLO. Devil!                                        Strikes her.\n  DESDEMONA. I have not deserved this.\n  LODOVICO. My lord, this would not be believed in Venice,\n    Though I should swear I saw't. 'Tis very much.\n    Make her amends; she weeps.\n  OTHELLO.                      O devil, devil!\n    If that the earth could teem with woman's tears,\n    Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.\n    Out of my sight!\n  DESDEMONA. [Going.] I will not stay to offend you.\n  LODOVICO. Truly, an obedient lady.\n    I do beseech your lordship, call her back.\n  OTHELLO. Mistress!\n  DESDEMONA. My lord?\n  OTHELLO. What would you with her, sir?\n  LODOVICO.                              Who, I, my lord?\n  OTHELLO. Ay, you did wish that I would make her turn.\n    Sir, she can turn and turn, and yet go on,\n    And turn again; and she can weep, sir, weep;\n    And she's obedient, as you say, obedient,\n    Very obedient. Proceed you in your tears.\n    Concerning this, sir- O well-painted passion!-\n    I am commanded home. Get you away;\n    I'll send for you anon. Sir, I obey the mandate,\n    And will return to Venice. Hence, avaunt!\n                                                      Exit Desdemona.\n    Cassio shall have my place. And, sir, tonight,\n    I do entreat that we may sup together.\n    You are welcome, sir, to Cyprus. Goats and monkeys!\n     Exit.\n  LODOVICO. Is this the noble Moor whom our full Senate\n    Call all in all sufficient? This the nature\n    Whom passion could not shake? whose solid virtue\n    The shot of accident nor dart of chance\n    Could neither graze nor pierce?\n  IAGO.                             He is much changed.\n  LODOVICO. Are his wits safe? Is he not light of brain?\n  IAGO. He's that he is. I may not breathe my censure\n    What he might be: if what he might he is not,\n    I would to heaven he were!\n  LODOVICO.                    What, strike his wife!\n  IAGO. Faith, that was not so well; yet would I knew\n    That stroke would prove the worst!\n  LODOVICO.                            Is it his use?\n    Or did the letters work upon his blood,\n    And new create this fault?\n  IAGO.                        Alas, alas!\n    It is not honesty in me to speak\n    What I have seen and known. You shall observe him,\n    And his own courses will denote him so\n    That I may save my speech. Do but go after,\n    And mark how he continues.\n  LODOVICO. I am sorry that I am deceived in him.             Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA room in the castle.\n\nEnter Othello and Emilia.\n\n  OTHELLO. You have seen nothing, then?\n  EMILIA. Nor ever heard, nor ever did suspect.\n  OTHELLO. Yes, you have seen Cassio and she together.\n  EMILIA. But then I saw no harm, and then I heard\n    Each syllable that breath made up between them.\n  OTHELLO. What, did they never whisper?\n  EMILIA.                                Never, my lord.\n  OTHELLO. Nor send you out o' the way?\n  EMILIA. Never.\n  OTHELLO. To fetch her fan, her gloves, her mask, nor nothing?\n  EMILIA. Never, my lord.\n  OTHELLO. That's strange.\n  EMILIA. I durst, my lord, to wager she is honest,\n    Lay down my soul at stake. If you think other,\n    Remove your thought; it doth abuse your bosom.\n    If any wretch have put this in your head,\n    Let heaven requite it with the serpent's curse!\n    For if she be not honest, chaste, and true,\n    There's no man happy; the purest of their wives\n    Is foul as slander.\n  OTHELLO.              Bid her come hither; go.         Exit Emilia.\n    She says enough; yet she's a simple bawd\n    That cannot say as much. This is a subtle whore,\n    A closet lock and key of villainous secrets.\n    And yet she'll kneel and pray; I have seen her do't.\n\n                     Enter Desdemona with Emilia.\n\n  DESDEMONA. My lord, what is your will?\n  OTHELLO.                               Pray, chuck, come hither.\n  DESDEMONA. What is your pleasure?\n  OTHELLO.                          Let me see your eyes;\n    Look in my face.\n  DESDEMONA.         What horrible fancy's this?\n  OTHELLO. [To Emilia.] Some of your function, mistress,\n    Leave procreants alone and shut the door;\n    Cough, or cry \"hem,\" if anybody come.\n    Your mystery, your mystery; nay, dispatch.           Exit Emilia.\n  DESDEMONA. Upon my knees, what doth your speech import?\n    I understand a fury in your words,\n    But not the words.\n  OTHELLO. Why, what art thou?\n  DESDEMONA. Your wife, my lord, your true and loyal wife.\n  OTHELLO. Come, swear it, damn thyself;\n    Lest, being like one of heaven, the devils themselves\n    Should fear to seize thee. Therefore be double-damn'd;\n    Swear thou art honest.\n  DESDEMONA.               Heaven doth truly know it.\n  OTHELLO. Heaven truly knows that thou art false as hell.\n  DESDEMONA. To whom, my lord? with whom? how am I false?\n  OTHELLO. O Desdemona! Away! away! away!\n  DESDEMONA. Alas the heavy day! Why do you weep?\n    Am I the motive of these tears, my lord?\n    If haply you my father do suspect\n    An instrument of this your calling back,\n    Lay not your blame on me. If you have lost him,\n    Why, I have lost him too.\n  OTHELLO.                    Had it pleased heaven\n    To try me with affliction, had they rain'd\n    All kinds of sores and shames on my bare head,\n    Steep'd me in poverty to the very lips,\n    Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes,\n    I should have found in some place of my soul\n    A drop of patience; but, alas, to make me\n    A fixed figure for the time of scorn\n    To point his slow unmoving finger at!\n    Yet could I bear that too, well, very well;\n    But there, where I have garner'd up my heart,\n    Where either I must live or bear no life;\n    The fountain from the which my current runs,\n    Or else dries up; to be discarded thence!\n    Or keep it as a cistern for foul toads\n    To knot and gender in! Turn thy complexion there,\n    Patience, thou young and rose-lipp'd cherubin,\n    Ay, there, look grim as hell!\n  DESDEMONA. I hope my noble lord esteems me honest.\n  OTHELLO. O, ay, as summer flies are in the shambles,\n    That quicken even with blowing. O thou weed,\n    Who art so lovely fair and smell'st so sweet\n    That the sense aches at thee, would thou hadst ne'er been born!\n  DESDEMONA. Alas, what ignorant sin have I committed?\n  OTHELLO. Was this fair paper, this most goodly book,\n    Made to write \"whore\" upon? What committed?\n    Committed? O thou public commoner!\n    I should make very forges of my cheeks,\n    That would to cinders burn up modesty,\n    Did I but speak thy deeds. What committed!\n    Heaven stops the nose at it, and the moon winks;\n    The bawdy wind, that kisses all it meets,\n    Is hush'd within the hollow mine of earth,\n    And will not hear it. What committed?\n    Impudent strumpet!\n  DESDEMONA.           By heaven, you do me wrong.\n  OTHELLO. Are not you a strumpet?\n  DESDEMONA.                       No, as I am a Christian.\n    If to preserve this vessel for my lord\n    From any other foul unlawful touch\n    Be not to be a strumpet, I am none.\n  OTHELLO. What, not a whore?\n  DESDEMONA.                  No, as I shall be saved.\n  OTHELLO. Is't possible?\n  DESDEMONA. O, heaven forgive us!\n  OTHELLO.                         I cry you mercy then;\n    I took you for that cunning whore of Venice\n    That married with Othello. [Raises his voice.] You, mistress,\n    That have the office opposite to Saint Peter,\n    And keep the gate of hell!\n\n                           Re-enter Emilia.\n\n                               You, you, ay, you!\n    We have done our course; there's money for your pains.\n    I pray you, turn the key, and keep our counsel.             Exit.\n  EMILIA. Alas, what does this gentleman conceive?\n    How do you, madam? How do you, my good lady?\n  DESDEMONA. Faith, half asleep.\n  EMILIA. Good madam, what's the matter with my lord?\n  DESDEMONA. With who?\n  EMILIA. Why, with my lord, madam.\n  DESDEMONA. Who is thy lord?\n  EMILIA.                     He that is yours, sweet lady.\n  DESDEMONA. I have none. Do not talk to me, Emilia;\n    I cannot weep, nor answer have I none\n    But what should go by water. Prithee, tonight\n    Lay on my bed my wedding sheets. Remember,\n    And call thy husband hither.\n  EMILIA.                        Here's a change indeed!\n     Exit.\n  DESDEMONA. 'Tis meet I should be used so, very meet.\n    How have I been behaved, that he might stick\n    The small'st opinion on my least misuse?\n\n                      Re-enter Emilia with Iago.\n\n  IAGO. What is your pleasure, madam? How is't with you?\n  DESDEMONA. I cannot tell. Those that do teach young babes\n    Do it with gentle means and easy tasks.\n    He might have chid me so, for in good faith,\n    I am a child to chiding.\n  IAGO.                      What's the matter, lady?\n  EMILIA. Alas, Iago, my lord hath so bewhored her,\n    Thrown such despite and heavy terms upon her,\n    As true hearts cannot bear.\n  DESDEMONA. Am I that name, Iago?\n  IAGO.                            What name, fair lady?\n  DESDEMONA. Such as she says my lord did say I was.\n  EMILIA. He call'd her whore; a beggar in his drink\n    Could not have laid such terms upon his callet.\n  IAGO. Why did he so?\n  DESDEMONA. I do not know; I am sure I am none such.\n  IAGO. Do not weep, do not weep. Alas the day!\n  EMILIA. Hath she forsook so many noble matches,\n    Her father and her country and her friends,\n    To be call'd whore? Would it not make one weep?\n  DESDEMONA. It is my wretched fortune.\n  IAGO.                                 Beshrew him for't!\n    How comes this trick upon him?\n  DESDEMONA.                       Nay, heaven doth know.\n  EMILIA. I will be hang'd, if some eternal villain,\n    Some busy and insinuating rogue,\n    Some cogging, cozening slave, to get some office,\n    Have not devised this slander; I'll be hang'd else.\n  IAGO. Fie, there is no such man; it is impossible.\n  DESDEMONA. If any such there be, heaven pardon him!\n  EMILIA. A halter pardon him! And hell gnaw his bones!\n    Why should he call her whore? Who keeps her company?\n    What place? What time? What form? What likelihood?\n    The Moor's abused by some most villainous knave,\n    Some base notorious knave, some scurvy fellow.\n    O heaven, that such companions thou'ldst unfold,\n    And put in every honest hand a whip\n    To lash the rascals naked through the world\n    Even from the east to the west!\n  IAGO.                             Speak within door.\n  EMILIA. O, fie upon them! Some such squire he was\n    That turn'd your wit the seamy side without,\n    And made you to suspect me with the Moor.\n  IAGO. You are a fool; go to.\n  DESDEMONA.                   O good Iago,\n    What shall I do to win my lord again?\n    Good friend, go to him, for by this light of heaven,\n    I know not how I lost him. Here I kneel:\n    If e'er my will did trespass 'gainst his love\n    Either in discourse of thought or actual deed,\n    Or that mine eyes, mine ears, or any sense,\n    Delighted them in any other form,\n    Or that I do not yet, and ever did,\n    And ever will, though he do shake me off\n    To beggarly divorcement, love him dearly,\n    Comfort forswear me! Unkindness may do much,\n    And his unkindness may defeat my life,\n    But never taint my love. I cannot say \"whore.\"\n    It doth abhor me now I speak the word;\n    To do the act that might the addition earn\n    Not the world's mass of vanity could make me.\n  IAGO. I pray you, be content; 'tis but his humor:\n    The business of the state does him offense,\n    And he does chide with you.\n  DESDEMONA. If 'twere no other-\n  IAGO. 'Tis but so, I warrant.                      Trumpets within.\n    Hark, how these instruments summon to supper!\n    The messengers of Venice stay the meat.\n    Go in, and weep not; all things shall be well.\n                                         Exeunt Desdemona and Emilia.\n\n                           Enter Roderigo.\n\n    How now, Roderigo!\n  RODERIGO. I do not find that thou dealest justly with me.\n  IAGO. What in the contrary?\n  RODERIGO. Every day thou daffest me with some device, Iago; and\n    rather, as it seems to me now, keepest from me all conveniency\n    than suppliest me with the least advantage of hope. I will indeed\n    no longer endure it; nor am I yet persuaded to put up in peace\n    what already I have foolishly suffered.\n  IAGO. Will you hear me, Roderigo?\n  RODERIGO. Faith, I have heard too much, for your words and\n    performances are no kin together.\n  IAGO. You charge me most unjustly.\n  RODERIGO. With nought but truth. I have wasted myself out of my\n    means. The jewels you have had from me to deliver to Desdemona\n    would half have corrupted a votarist. You have told me she hath\n    received them and returned me expectations and comforts of sudden\n    respect and acquaintance; but I find none.\n  IAGO. Well, go to, very well.\n  RODERIGO. Very well! go to! I cannot go to, man; nor 'tis not very\n    well. By this hand, I say 'tis very scurvy, and begin to find\n    myself fopped in it.\n  IAGO. Very well.\n  RODERIGO. I tell you 'tis not very well. I will make myself known\n    to Desdemona. If she will return me my jewels, I will give over\n    my suit and repent my unlawful solicitation; if not, assure\n    yourself I will seek satisfaction of you.\n  IAGO. You have said now.\n  RODERIGO. Ay, and said nothing but what I protest intendment of\n    doing.\n  IAGO. Why, now I see there's mettle in thee; and even from this\n    instant do build on thee a better opinion than ever before. Give\n    me thy hand, Roderigo. Thou hast taken against me a most just\n    exception; but yet, I protest, have dealt most directly in thy\n    affair.\n  RODERIGO. It hath not appeared.\n  IAGO. I grant indeed it hath not appeared, and your suspicion is\n    not without wit and judgement. But, Roderigo, if thou hast that\n    in thee indeed, which I have greater reason to believe now than\n    ever, I mean purpose, courage, and valor, this night show it; if\n    thou the next night following enjoy not Desdemona, take me from\n    this world with treachery and devise engines for my life.\n  RODERIGO. Well, what is it? Is it within reason and compass?\n  IAGO. Sir, there is especial commission come from Venice to depute\n    Cassio in Othello's place.\n  RODERIGO. Is that true? Why then Othello and Desdemona return again\n    to Venice.\n  IAGO. O, no; he goes into Mauritania, and takes away with him the\n    fair Desdemona, unless his abode be lingered here by some\n    accident; wherein none can be so determinate as the removing of\n    Cassio.\n  RODERIGO. How do you mean, removing of him?\n  IAGO. Why, by making him uncapable of Othello's place; knocking out\n    his brains.\n  RODERIGO. And that you would have me to do?\n  IAGO. Ay, if you dare do yourself a profit and a right. He sups\n    tonight with a harlotry, and thither will I go to him. He knows\n    not yet of his honorable fortune. If you will watch his going\n    thence, which his will fashion to fall out between twelve and\n    one, you may take him at your pleasure; I will be near to second\n    your attempt, and he shall fall between us. Come, stand not\n    amazed at it, but go along with me; I will show you such a\n    necessity in his death that you shall think yourself bound to put\n    it on him. It is now high supper-time, and the night grows to\n    waste. About it.\n  RODERIGO. I will hear further reason for this.\n  IAGO. And you shall be satisfied.                           Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nAnother room in the castle.\n\nEnter Othello, Lodovico, Desdemona, Emilia, and Attendants.\n\n  LODOVICO. I do beseech you, sir, trouble yourself no further.\n  OTHELLO. O, pardon me; 'twill do me good to walk.\n  LODOVICO. Madam, good night; I humbly thank your ladyship.\n  DESDEMONA. Your honor is most welcome.\n  OTHELLO.                               Will you walk, sir?\n    O- Desdemona-\n  DESDEMONA. My lord?\n  OTHELLO. Get you to bed on the instant; I will be returned\n    forthwith. Dismiss your attendant there; look it be done.\n  DESDEMONA. I will, my lord.\n                            Exeunt Othello, Lodovico, and Attendants.\n  EMILIA. How goes it now? He looks gentler than he did.\n  DESDEMONA. He says he will return incontinent.\n    He hath commanded me to go to bed,\n    And bade me to dismiss you.\n  EMILIA.                       Dismiss me?\n  DESDEMONA. It was his bidding; therefore, good Emilia,\n    Give me my nightly wearing, and adieu.\n    We must not now displease him.\n  EMILIA. I would you had never seen him!\n  DESDEMONA. So would not I. My love doth so approve him,\n    That even his stubbornness, his checks, his frowns-\n    Prithee, unpin me- have grace and favor in them.\n  EMILIA. I have laid those sheets you bade me on the bed.\n  DESDEMONA. All's one. Good faith, how foolish are our minds!\n    If I do die before thee, prithee shroud me\n    In one of those same sheets.\n  EMILIA.                        Come, come, you talk.\n  DESDEMONA. My mother had a maid call'd Barbary;\n    She was in love, and he she loved proved mad\n    And did forsake her. She had a song of \"willow\";\n    An old thing 'twas, but it express'd her fortune,\n    And she died singing it. That song tonight\n    Will not go from my mind; I have much to do\n    But to go hang my head all at one side\n    And sing it like poor Barbary. Prithee, dispatch.\n  EMILIA. Shall I go fetch your nightgown?\n  DESDEMONA.                               No, unpin me here.\n    This Lodovico is a proper man.\n  EMILIA. A very handsome man.\n  DESDEMONA. He speaks well.\n  EMILIA. I know a lady in Venice would have walked barefoot to\n    Palestine for a touch of his nether lip.\n  DESDEMONA. [Sings.]\n\n        \"The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree,\n          Sing all a green willow;\n        Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,\n          Sing willow, willow, willow.\n        The fresh streams ran by her, and murmur'd her moans,\n          Sing willow, willow, willow;\n        Her salt tears fell from her, and soften'd the stones-\"\n\n    Lay be these-\n\n    [Sings.]   \"Sing willow, willow, willow-\"\n\n    Prithee, hie thee; he'll come anon-\n    [Sings.]   \"Sing all a green willow must be my garland.\n               Let nobody blame him; his scorn I approve-\"\n\n    Nay, that's not next. Hark, who is't that knocks?\n  EMILIA. It's the wind.\n  DESDEMONA. [Sings.]\n\n        \"I call'd my love false love; but what said he then?\n          Sing willow, willow, willow.\n        If I court moe women, you'll couch with moe men-\"\n\n    So get thee gone; good night. Mine eyes do itch;\n    Doth that bode weeping?\n  EMILIA.                   'Tis neither here nor there.\n  DESDEMONA. I have heard it said so. O, these men, these men!\n    Dost thou in conscience think- tell me, Emilia-\n    That there be women do abuse their husbands\n    In such gross kind?\n  EMILIA.               There be some such, no question.\n  DESDEMONA. Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?\n  EMILIA. Why, would not you?\n  DESDEMONA.                  No, by this heavenly light!\n  EMILIA. Nor I neither by this heavenly light; I might do't as well\n    i' the dark.\n  DESDEMONA. Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?\n  EMILIA. The world's a huge thing; it is a great price\n    For a small vice.\n  DESDEMONA.          In troth, I think thou wouldst not.\n  EMILIA. In troth, I think I should, and undo't when I had done.\n    Marry, I would not do such a thing for a joint-ring, nor for\n    measures of lawn, nor for gowns, petticoats, nor caps, nor any\n    petty exhibition; but, for the whole world- why, who would not\n    make her husband a cuckold to make him a monarch? I should\n    venture purgatory for't.\n  DESDEMONA. Beshrew me, if I would do such a wrong\n    For the whole world.\n  EMILIA. Why, the wrong is but a wrong i' the world; and having the\n    world for your labor, 'tis a wrong in your own world, and you\n    might quickly make it right.\n  DESDEMONA. I do not think there is any such woman.\n  EMILIA. Yes, a dozen, and as many to the vantage as would store the\n      world they played for.\n    But I do think it is their husbands' faults\n    If wives do fall; say that they slack their duties\n    And pour our treasures into foreign laps,\n    Or else break out in peevish jealousies,\n    Throwing restraint upon us, or say they strike us,\n    Or scant our former having in despite,\n    Why, we have galls, and though we have some grace,\n    Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know\n    Their wives have sense like them; they see and smell\n    And have their palates both for sweet and sour,\n    As husbands have. What is it that they do\n    When they change us for others? Is it sport?\n    I think it is. And doth affection breed it?\n    I think it doth. Is't frailty that thus errs?\n    It is so too. And have not we affections,\n    Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?\n    Then let them use us well; else let them know,\n    The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.\n  DESDEMONA. Good night, good night. Heaven me such uses send,\n    Not to pick bad from bad, but by bad mend!                Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nCyprus. A street.\n\nEnter Iago and Roderigo:\n\n  IAGO. Here, stand behind this bulk; straight will he come.\n    Wear thy good rapier bare, and put it home.\n    Quick, quick; fear nothing; I'll be at thy elbow.\n    It makes us, or it mars us; think on that,\n    And fix most firm thy resolution.\n  RODERIGO. Be near at hand; I may miscarry in't.\n  IAGO. Here, at thy hand, be bold, and take thy stand.\n  Retires.\n  RODERIGO. I have no great devotion to the deed;\n    And yet he hath given me satisfying reasons.\n    'Tis but a man gone. Forth, my sword; he dies.\n  IAGO. I have rubb'd this young quat almost to the sense,\n    And he grows angry. Now, whether he kill Cassio,\n    Or Cassio him, or each do kill the other,\n    Every way makes my gain. Live Roderigo,\n    He calls me to a restitution large\n    Of gold and jewels that I bobb'd from him,\n    As gifts to Desdemona;\n    It must not be. If Cassio do remain,\n    He hath a daily beauty in his life\n    That makes me ugly; and besides, the Moor\n    May unfold me to him; there stand I in much peril.\n    No, he must die. Be't so. I hear him coming.\n\n                            Enter Cassio.\n\n  RODERIGO. I know his gait; 'tis he. Villain, thou diest!\n                                              Makes a pass at Cassio.\n  CASSIO. That thrust had been mine enemy indeed,\n    But that my coat is better than thou know'st;\n    I will make proof of thine.           Draws, and wounds Roderigo.\n  RODERIGO.                     O, I am slain!\n            Iago from behind wounds Cassio in the leg, and exit.\n  CASSIO. I am maim'd forever. Help, ho! Murther! Murther!\n    Falls.\n\n                            Enter Othello.\n\n  OTHELLO. The voice of Cassio; Iago keeps his word.\n  RODERIGO. O, villain that I am!\n  OTHELLO.                        It is even so.\n  CASSIO. O, help, ho! Light! A surgeon!\n  OTHELLO. 'Tis he. O brave Iago, honest and just,\n    That hast such noble sense of thy friend's wrong!\n    Thou teachest me. Minion, your dear lies dead,\n    And your unblest fate hies. Strumpet, I come!\n    Forth of my heart those charms, thine eyes, are blotted;\n    Thy bed lust-stain'd shall with lust's blood be spotted.\n     Exit.\n\n                     Enter Lodovico and Gratiano.\n\n  CASSIO. What, ho! No watch? No passage? Murther! Murther!\n  GRATIANO. 'Tis some mischance; the cry is very direful.\n  CASSIO. O, help!\n  LODOVICO. Hark!\n  RODERIGO. O wretched villain!\n  LODOVICO. Two or three groan; it is a heavy night.\n    These may be counterfeits; let's think't unsafe\n    To come in to the cry without more help.\n  RODERIGO. Nobody come? Then shall I bleed to death.\n  LODOVICO. Hark!\n\n                     Re-enter Iago, with a light.\n\n  GRATIANO. Here's one comes in his shirt, with light and weapons.\n  IAGO. Who's there? Whose noise is this that cries on murther?\n  LODOVICO. We do not know.\n  IAGO.                     Did not you hear a cry?\n  CASSIO. Here, here! for heaven's sake, help me!\n  IAGO.                                       What's the matter?\n  GRATIANO. This is Othello's ancient, as I take it.\n  LODOVICO. The same indeed; a very valiant fellow.\n  IAGO. What are you here that cry so grievously?\n  CASSIO. Iago? O, I am spoil'd, undone by villains!\n    Give me some help.\n  IAGO. O me, lieutenant! What villains have done this?\n  CASSIO. I think that one of them is hereabout,\n    And cannot make away.\n  IAGO.                   O treacherous villains!\n    [To Lodovico and Gratiano.] What are you there?\n    Come in and give some help.\n  RODERIGO. O, help me here!\n  CASSIO. That's one of them.\n  IAGO.                       O murtherous slave! O villain!\n                                                      Stabs Roderigo.\n  RODERIGO. O damn'd Iago! O inhuman dog!\n  IAGO. Kill men i' the dark! Where be these bloody thieves?\n    How silent is this town! Ho! Murther! Murther!\n    What may you be? Are you of good or evil?\n  LODOVICO. As you shall prove us, praise us.\n  IAGO. Signior Lodovico?\n  LODOVICO. He, sir.\n  IAGO. I cry you mercy. Here's Cassio hurt by villains.\n  GRATIANO. Cassio?\n  IAGO. How is't, brother?\n  CASSIO. My leg is cut in two.\n  IAGO.                         Marry, heaven forbid!\n    Light, gentlemen; I'll bind it with my shirt.\n\n                            Enter Bianca.\n\n  BIANCA. What is the matter, ho? Who is't that cried?\n  IAGO. Who is't that cried?\n  BIANCA. O my dear Cassio, my sweet Cassio! O Cassio, Cassio,\n     Cassio!\n  IAGO. O notable strumpet! Cassio, may you suspect\n    Who they should be that have thus mangled you?\n  CASSIO. No.\n  GRATIANO. I am sorry to find you thus; I have been to seek you.\n  IAGO. Lend me a garter. So. O, for a chair,\n    To bear him easily hence!\n  BIANCA. Alas, he faints! O Cassio, Cassio, Cassio!\n  IAGO. Gentlemen all, I do suspect this trash\n    To be a party in this injury.\n    Patience awhile, good Cassio. Come, come;\n    Lend me a light. Know we this face or no?\n    Alas, my friend and my dear countryman\n    Roderigo? No- yes, sure. O heaven! Roderigo.\n  GRATIANO. What, of Venice?\n  IAGO. Even he, sir. Did you know him?\n  GRATIANO.                             Know him! ay.\n  IAGO. Signior Gratiano? I cry you gentle pardon;\n    These bloody accidents must excuse my manners,\n    That so neglected you.\n  GRATIANO.                I am glad to see you.\n  IAGO. How do you, Cassio? O, a chair, a chair!\n  GRATIANO. Roderigo!\n  IAGO. He, he, 'tis he. [A chair brought in.] O, that's well said:\n      the chair.\n    Some good man bear him carefully from hence;\n    I'll fetch the general's surgeon. [To Bianca.] For you, mistress,\n    Save you your labor. He that lies slain here, Cassio,\n    Was my dear friend; what malice was between you?\n  CASSIO. None in the world; nor do I know the man.\n  IAGO. [To Bianca.] What, look you pale? O, bear him out o' the air.\n                                   Cassio and Roderigo are borne off.\n    Stay you, good gentlemen. Look you pale, mistress?\n    Do you perceive the gastness of her eye?\n    Nay, if you stare, we shall hear more anon.\n    Behold her well; I pray you, look upon her.\n    Do you see, gentlemen? Nay, guiltiness will speak,\n    Though tongues were out of use.\n\n                            Enter Emilia.\n\n  EMILIA. 'Las, what's the matter? What's the matter, husband?\n  IAGO. Cassio hath here been set on in the dark\n    By Roderigo, and fellows that are 'scaped;\n    He's almost slain, and Roderigo dead.\n  EMILIA. Alas, good gentleman! alas, good Cassio!\n  IAGO. This is the fruit of whoring. Prithee, Emilia,\n    Go know of Cassio where he supp'd tonight.\n    What, do you shake at that?\n  BIANCA. He supp'd at my house; but I therefore shake not.\n  IAGO. O, did he so? I charge you, go with me.\n  EMILIA. Fie, fie upon thee, strumpet!\n  BIANCA. I am no strumpet, but of life as honest\n    As you that thus abuse me.\n  EMILIA.                      As I! foh! fie upon thee!\n  IAGO. Kind gentlemen, let's go see poor Cassio dress'd.\n    Come, mistress, you must tell's another tale.\n    Emilia, run you to the citadel,\n    And tell my lord and lady what hath happ'd!\n    Will you go on? [Aside.] This is the night\n    That either makes me or fordoes me quite.                 Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA bedchamber in the castle. Desdemona in bed asleep; a light burning.\n\nEnter Othello.\n\n  OTHELLO. It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul.\n    Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!\n    It is the cause. Yet I'll not shed her blood,\n    Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow\n    And smooth as monumental alabaster.\n    Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men.\n    Put out the light, and then put out the light.\n    If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,\n    I can again thy former light restore,\n    Should I repent me; but once put out thy light,\n    Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature,\n    I know not where is that Promethean heat\n    That can thy light relume. When I have pluck'd the rose,\n    I cannot give it vital growth again,\n    It must needs wither; I'll smell it on the tree.      Kisses her.\n    O, balmy breath, that dost almost persuade\n    Justice to break her sword! One more, one more;\n    Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee,\n    And love thee after. One more, and this the last;\n    So sweet was ne'er so fatal. I must weep,\n    But they are cruel tears; this sorrow's heavenly,\n    It strikes where it doth love. She wakes.\n  DESDEMONA. Who's there? Othello?\n  OTHELLO.                         Ay, Desdemona.\n  DESDEMONA. Will you come to bed, my lord?\n  OTHELLO. Have you pray'd tonight, Desdemona?\n  DESDEMONA. Ay, my lord.\n  OTHELLO. If you bethink yourself of any crime\n    Unreconciled as yet to heaven and grace,\n    Solicit for it straight.\n  DESDEMONA. Alas, my lord, what may you mean by that?\n  OTHELLO. Well, do it, and be brief; I will walk by.\n    I would not kill thy unprepared spirit.\n    No, heaven forfend! I would not kill thy soul.\n  DESDEMONA. Talk you of killing?\n  OTHELLO. Ay, I do.\n  DESDEMONA. Then heaven have mercy on me!\n  OTHELLO. Amen, with all my heart!\n  DESDEMONA. If you say so, I hope you will not kill me.\n  OTHELLO. Hum!\n  DESDEMONA. And yet I fear you, for you are fatal then\n    When your eyes roll so. Why I should fear I know not,\n    Since guiltiness I know not; but yet I feel I fear.\n  OTHELLO. Think on thy sins.\n  DESDEMONA.                  They are loves I bear to you.\n  OTHELLO. Ay, and for that thou diest.\n  DESDEMONA. That death's unnatural that kills for loving.\n    Alas, why gnaw you so your nether lip?\n    Some bloody passion shakes your very frame.\n    These are portents; but yet I hope, I hope,\n    They do not point on me.\n  OTHELLO.                   Peace, and be still!\n  DESDEMONA. I will so. What's the matter?\n  OTHELLO. That handkerchief which I so loved and gave thee\n    Thou gavest to Cassio.\n  DESDEMONA.               No, by my life and soul!\n    Send for the man, and ask him.\n  OTHELLO.                         Sweet soul, take heed,\n    Take heed of perjury; thou are on thy deathbed.\n  DESDEMONA. Ay, but not yet to die.\n  OTHELLO.                           Yes, presently:\n    Therefore confess thee freely of thy sin,\n    For to deny each article with oath\n    Cannot remove nor choke the strong conception\n    That I do groan withal. Thou art to die.\n  DESDEMONA. Then Lord have mercy on me!\n  OTHELLO.                               I say, amen.\n  DESDEMONA. And have you mercy too! I never did\n    Offend you in my life; never loved Cassio\n    But with such general warranty of heaven\n    As I might love. I never gave him token.\n  OTHELLO. By heaven, I saw my handkerchief in 's hand.\n    O perjured woman! Thou dost stone my heart,\n    And makest me call what I intend to do\n    A murther, which I thought a sacrifice.\n    I saw the handkerchief.\n  DESDEMONA.                He found it then;\n    I never gave it him. Send for him hither;\n    Let him confess a truth.\n  OTHELLO.                   He hath confess'd.\n  DESDEMONA. What, my lord?\n  OTHELLO. That he hath used thee.\n  DESDEMONA.                       How? unlawfully?\n  OTHELLO. Ay.\n  DESDEMONA. He will not say so.\n  OTHELLO.                       No, his mouth is stopp'd;\n    Honest Iago hath ta'en order for't.\n  DESDEMONA. O, my fear interprets! What, is he dead?\n  OTHELLO. Had all his hairs been lives, my great revenge\n    Had stomach for them all.\n  DESDEMONA. Alas, he is betray'd, and I undone!\n  OTHELLO. Out, strumpet! Weep'st thou for him to my face?\n  DESDEMONA. O, banish me, my lord, but kill me not!\n  OTHELLO. Down, strumpet!\n  DESDEMONA. Kill me tomorrow; let me live tonight!\n  OTHELLO. Nay, if you strive-\n  DESDEMONA. But half an hour!\n  OTHELLO.                     Being done, there is no pause.\n  DESDEMONA. But while I say one prayer!\n  OTHELLO.                        It is too late.     He stifles her.\n  EMILIA. [Within.] My lord, my lord! What, ho! my lord, my lord!\n  OTHELLO. What noise is this? Not dead? not yet quite dead?\n    I that am cruel am yet merciful;\n    I would not have thee linger in thy pain.\n    So, so.\n  EMILIA. [Within.] What, ho! my lord, my lord!\n  OTHELLO.                                      Who's there?\n  EMILIA. [Within.] O, good my lord, I would speak a word with you!\n  OTHELLO. Yes, 'tis Emilia. By and by. She's dead.\n    'Tis like she comes to speak of Cassio's death.\n    The noise was here. Ha! no more moving?\n    Still as the grave. Shall she come in? were't good?\n    I think she stirs again. No. What's best to do?\n    If she come in, she'll sure speak to my wife.\n    My wife! My wife! What wife? I have no wife.\n    O, insupportable! O heavy hour!\n    Methinks it should be now a huge eclipse\n    Of sun and moon, and that the affrighted globe\n    Should yawn at alteration.\n  EMILIA. [Within.] I do beseech you\n    That I may speak with you, O, good my lord!\n  OTHELLO. I had forgot thee. O, come in, Emilia.\n    Soft, by and by. Let me the curtains draw.\n    Where art thou?                                 Unlocks the door.\n\n                            Enter Emilia.\n\n                    What's the matter with thee now?\n  EMILIA. O, my good lord, yonder's foul murthers done!\n  OTHELLO. What, now?\n  EMILIA. But now, my lord.\n  OTHELLO. It is the very error of the moon;\n    She comes more nearer earth than she was wont\n    And makes men mad.\n  EMILIA. Cassio, my lord, hath kill'd a young Venetian\n    Call'd Roderigo.\n  OTHELLO.           Roderigo kill'd?\n    And Cassio kill'd?\n  EMILIA.              No, Cassio is not kill'd.\n  OTHELLO. Not Cassio kill'd! Then murther's out of tune,\n    And sweet revenge grows harsh.\n  DESDEMONA. O, falsely, falsely murther'd!\n  EMILIA.                                   Alas, what cry is that?\n  OTHELLO. That? what?\n  EMILIA. Out, and alas! That was my lady's voice.\n    Help! help, ho! help! O lady, speak again!\n    Sweet Desdemona! O sweet mistress, speak!\n  DESDEMONA. A guiltless death I die.\n  EMILIA. O, who hath done this deed?\n  DESDEMONA. Nobody; I myself. Farewell;\n    Commend me to my kind lord. O, farewell!                    Dies.\n  OTHELLO. Why, how should she be murther'd?\n  EMILIA.                                    Alas, who knows?\n  OTHELLO. You heard her say herself, it was not I.\n  EMILIA. She said so; I must needs report the truth.\n  OTHELLO. She's like a liar gone to burning hell;\n    'Twas I that kill'd her.\n  EMILIA.                    O, the more angel she,\n    And you the blacker devil!\n  OTHELLO. She turn'd to folly, and she was a whore.\n  EMILIA. Thou dost belie her, and thou art a devil.\n  OTHELLO. She was false as water.\n  EMILIA.                          Thou art rash as fire, to say\n    That she was false. O, she was heavenly true!\n  OTHELLO. Cassio did top her; ask thy husband else.\n    O, I were damn'd beneath all depth in hell,\n    But that I did proceed upon just grounds\n    To this extremity. Thy husband knew it all.\n  EMILIA. My husband?\n  OTHELLO. Thy husband.\n  EMILIA. That she was false to wedlock?\n  OTHELLO. Ay, with Cassio. Nay, had she been true,\n    If heaven would make me such another world\n    Of one entire and perfect chrysolite,\n    I'ld not have sold her for it.\n  EMILIA.                          My husband?\n  OTHELLO. Ay, 'twas he that told me first.\n    An honest man he is, and hates the slime\n    That sticks on filthy deeds.\n  EMILIA.                        My husband?\n  OTHELLO. What needs this iteration, woman? I say thy husband.\n  EMILIA. O mistress, villainy hath made mocks with love!\n    My husband say that she was false!\n  OTHELLO.                             He, woman;\n    I say thy husband. Dost understand the word?\n    My friend, thy husband, honest, honest Iago.\n  EMILIA. If he say so, may his pernicious soul\n    Rot half a grain a day! He lies to the heart.\n    She was too fond of her most filthy bargain.\n  OTHELLO. Ha!\n  EMILIA. Do thy worst;\n    This deed of thine is no more worthy heaven\n    Than thou wast worthy her.\n  OTHELLO.                     Peace, you were best.\n  EMILIA. Thou hast not half that power to do me harm\n    As I have to be hurt. O gull! O dolt!\n    As ignorant as dirt! Thou hast done a deed-\n    I care not for thy sword; I'll make thee known,\n    Though I lost twenty lives. Help! help, ho! help!\n    The Moor hath kill'd my mistress! Murther, murther!\n\n              Enter Montano, Gratiano, Iago, and others.\n\n  MONTANO. What is the matter? How now, general?\n  EMILIA. O, are you come, Iago? You have done well,\n    That men must lay their murthers on your neck.\n  GRATIANO. What is the matter?\n  EMILIA. Disprove this villain, if thou be'st a man.\n    He says thou told'st him that his wife was false;\n    I know thou didst not, thou'rt not such a villain.\n    Speak, for my heart is full.\n  IAGO. I told him what I thought, and told no more\n    Than what he found himself was apt and true.\n  EMILIA. But did you ever tell him she was false?\n  IAGO. I did.\n  EMILIA. You told a lie, an odious, damned lie;\n    Upon my soul, a lie, a wicked lie!\n    She false with Cassio? Did you say with Cassio?\n  IAGO. With Cassio, mistress. Go to, charm your tongue.\n  EMILIA. I will not charm my tongue; I am bound to speak.\n    My mistress here lies murther'd in her bed-\n  ALL. O heavens forfend!\n  EMILIA. And your reports have set the murther on.\n  OTHELLO. Nay, stare not, masters; it is true indeed.\n  GRATIANO. 'Tis a strange truth.\n  MONTANO. O monstrous act!\n  EMILIA.                   Villainy, villainy, villainy!\n    I think upon't, I think, I smell't, O villainy!\n    I thought so then. I'll kill myself for grief.\n    O villainy, villainy!\n  IAGO. What, are you mad? I charge you, get you home.\n  EMILIA. Good gentlemen, let me have leave to speak;\n    'Tis proper I obey him, but not now.\n    Perchance, Iago, I will ne'er go home.\n  OTHELLO. O! O! O!                                 Falls on the bed.\n  EMILIA.           Nay, lay thee down and roar;\n    For thou hast kill'd the sweetest innocent\n    That e'er did lift up eye.\n  OTHELLO.            [Rises.] O, she was foul!\n    I scarce did know you, uncle; there lies your niece,\n    Whose breath indeed these hands have newly stopp'd.\n    I know this act shows horrible and grim.\n  GRATIANO. Poor Desdemon! I am glad thy father's dead.\n    Thy match was mortal to him, and pure grief\n    Shore his old thread in twain; did he live now,\n    This sight would make him do a desperate turn,\n    Yea, curse his better angel from his side,\n    And fall to reprobation.\n  OTHELLO. 'Tis pitiful, but yet Iago knows\n    That she with Cassio hath the act of shame\n    A thousand times committed. Cassio confess'd it,\n    And she did gratify his amorous works\n    With that recognizance and pledge of love\n    Which I first gave her. I saw it in his hand,\n    It was a handkerchief, an antique token\n    My father gave my mother.\n  EMILIA. O heaven! O heavenly powers!\n  IAGO. 'Zounds! Hold your peace.\n  EMILIA.                         'Twill out, 'twill. I peace?\n    No, I will speak as liberal as the north;\n    Let heaven and men and devils, let them all,\n    All, all, cry shame against me, yet I'll speak.\n  IAGO. Be wise, and get you home.\n  EMILIA.                          I will not.\n                                          Iago offers to stab Emilia.\n  GRATIANO.                                    Fie!\n    Your sword upon a woman?\n  EMILIA. O thou dull Moor! That handkerchief thou speak'st of\n    I found by fortune and did give my husband,\n    For often with a solemn earnestness,\n    More than indeed belong'd to such a trifle,\n    He begg'd of me to steal it.\n  IAGO.                          Villainous whore!\n  EMILIA. She give it Cassio? No, alas, I found it,\n    And I did give't my husband.\n  IAGO.                          Filth, thou liest!\n  EMILIA. By heaven, I do not, I do not, gentlemen.\n    O murtherous coxcomb! What should such a fool\n    Do with so good a wife?\n  OTHELLO.                  Are there not stones in heaven\n    But what serve for thunder? Precious villain!\n                                         He runs at Iago, but Montano\n                                      disarms him. Iago stabs Emilia.\n  GRATIANO. The woman falls; sure, he hath kill'd his wife.\n  EMILIA. Ay, ay! O, lay me by my mistress' side.          Exit Iago.\n  GRATIANO. He's gone, but his wife's kill'd.\n  MONTANO. 'Tis a notorious villain. Take you this weapon,\n    Which I have here recover'd from the Moor.\n    Come, guard the door without; let him not pass,\n    But kill him rather. I'll after that same villain,\n    For 'tis a damned slave.       Exeunt all but Othello and Emilia.\n  OTHELLO.                   I am not valiant neither,\n    But every puny whipster gets my sword.\n    But why should honor outlive honesty?\n    Let it go all.\n  EMILIA.          What did thy song bode, lady?\n    Hark, canst thou hear me? I will play the swan,\n    And die in music. [Sings.] \"Willow, willow, willow.\"\n    Moor, she was chaste; she loved thee, cruel Moor;\n    So come my soul to bliss, as I speak true;\n    So speaking as I think, I die, I die.                       Dies.\n  OTHELLO. I have another weapon in this chamber;\n    It is a sword of Spain, the ice-brook's temper-\n    O, here it is. Uncle, I must come forth.\n  GRATIANO. [Within.] If thou attempt it, it will cost thee dear.\n    Thou hast no weapon, and perforce must suffer.\n  OTHELLO. Look in upon me then, and speak with me,\n    Or, naked as I am, I will assault thee.\n\n                          Re-enter Gratiano.\n\n  GRATIANO. What is the matter?\n  OTHELLO.                      Behold, I have a weapon;\n    A better never did itself sustain\n    Upon a soldier's thigh. I have seen the day\n    That with this little arm and this good sword\n    I have made my way through more impediments\n    Than twenty times your stop. But, O vain boast!\n    Who can control his fate? 'Tis not so now.\n    Be not afraid, though you do see me weapon'd;\n    Here is my journey's end, here is my butt\n    And very sea-mark of my utmost sail.\n    Do you go back dismay'd? 'Tis a lost fear.\n    Man but a rush against Othello's breast,\n    And he retires. Where should Othello go?\n    Now, how dost thou look now? O ill-starr'd wench!\n    Pale as thy smock! When we shall meet at compt,\n    This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven,\n    And fiends will snatch at it. Cold, cold, my girl?\n    Even like thy chastity. O cursed, cursed slave!\n    Whip me, ye devils,\n    From the possession of this heavenly sight!\n    Blow me about in winds! Roast me in sulphur!\n    Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire!\n    O Desdemon! dead, Desdemon! dead!\n    O! O! O!\n\n         Enter Lodovico, Montano, Cassio carried in a chair,\n                  and Officers with Iago, prisoner.\n\n  LODOVICO. Where is this rash and most unfortunate man?\n  OTHELLO. That's he that was Othello. Here I am.\n  LODOVICO. Where is that viper? Bring the villain forth.\n  OTHELLO. I look down towards his feet; but that's a fable.\n    If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee.      Wounds Iago.\n  LODOVICO. Wrench his sword from him.\n  IAGO.                                I bleed, sir, but not kill'd.\n  OTHELLO. I am not sorry neither. I'ld have thee live,\n    For, in my sense, 'tis happiness to die.\n  LODOVICO. O thou Othello, that wert once so good,\n    Fall'n in the practice of a damned slave,\n    What shall be said to thee?\n  OTHELLO.                      Why, anything;\n    An honorable murtherer, if you will,\n    For nought did I in hate, but all in honor.\n  LODOVICO. This wretch hath part confess'd his villainy.\n    Did you and he consent in Cassio's death?\n  OTHELLO. Ay.\n  CASSIO. Dear general, I never gave you cause.\n  OTHELLO. I do believe it, and I ask your pardon.\n    Will you, I pray, demand that demi-devil\n    Why he hath thus ensnared my soul and body?\n  IAGO. Demand me nothing; what you know, you know.\n    From this time forth I never will speak word.\n  LODOVICO. What, not to pray?\n  GRATIANO.                    Torments will ope your lips.\n  OTHELLO. Well, thou dost best.\n  LODOVICO. Sir, you shall understand what hath befall'n,\n    Which, as I think, you know not. Here is a letter\n    Found in the pocket of the slain Roderigo,\n    And here another. The one of them imports\n    The death of Cassio to be undertook\n    By Roderigo.\n  OTHELLO. O villain!\n  CASSIO.             Most heathenish and most gross!\n  LODOVICO. Now here's another discontented paper,\n    Found in his pocket too; and this, it seems,\n    Roderigo meant to have sent this damned villain;\n    But that, belike, Iago in the interim\n    Came in and satisfied him.\n  OTHELLO.                     O the pernicious caitiff!\n    How came you, Cassio, by that handkerchief\n    That was my wife's?\n  CASSIO.               I found it in my chamber;\n    And he himself confess'd but even now\n    That there he dropp'd it for a special purpose\n    Which wrought to his desire.\n  OTHELLO.                       O fool! fool! fool!\n  CASSIO. There is besides in Roderigo's letter,\n    How he upbraids Iago, that he made him\n    Brave me upon the watch, whereon it came\n    That I was cast. And even but now he spake\n    After long seeming dead, Iago hurt him,\n    Iago set him on.\n  LODOVICO. You must forsake this room, and go with us.\n    Your power and your command is taken off,\n    And Cassio rules in Cyprus. For this slave,\n    If there be any cunning cruelty\n    That can torment him much and hold him long,\n    It shall be his. You shall close prisoner rest,\n    Till that the nature of your fault be known\n    To the Venetian state. Come, bring away.\n  OTHELLO. Soft you; a word or two before you go.\n    I have done the state some service, and they know't.\n    No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,\n    When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,\n    Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,\n    Nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak\n    Of one that loved not wisely but too well;\n    Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought,\n    Perplex'd in the extreme; of one whose hand,\n    Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away\n    Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes,\n    Albeit unused to the melting mood,\n    Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees\n    Their medicinal gum. Set you down this;\n    And say besides, that in Aleppo once,\n    Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk\n    Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,\n    I took by the throat the circumcised dog\n    And smote him, thus.                               Stabs himself.\n  LODOVICO. O bloody period!\n  GRATIANO.                  All that's spoke is marr'd.\n  OTHELLO. I kiss'd thee ere I kill'd thee. No way but this,\n    Killing myself, to die upon a kiss.\n                                          Falls on the bed, and dies.\n  CASSIO. This did I fear, but thought he had no weapon;\n    For he was great of heart.\n  LODOVICO.         [To Iago.] O Spartan dog,\n    More fell than anguish, hunger, or the sea!\n    Look on the tragic loading of this bed;\n    This is thy work. The object poisons sight;\n    Let it be hid. Gratiano, keep the house,\n    And seize upon the fortunes of the Moor,\n    For they succeed on you. To you, Lord Governor,\n    Remains the censure of this hellish villain,\n    The time, the place, the torture. O, enforce it!\n    Myself will straight aboard, and to the state\n    This heavy act with heavy heart relate.                   Exeunt.\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1596\n\n\nKING RICHARD THE SECOND\n\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  KING RICHARD THE SECOND\n  JOHN OF GAUNT, Duke of Lancaster - uncle to the King\n  EDMUND LANGLEY, Duke of York - uncle to the King\n  HENRY, surnamed BOLINGBROKE, Duke of Hereford, son of\n    John of Gaunt, afterwards King Henry IV\n  DUKE OF AUMERLE, son of the Duke of York\n  THOMAS MOWBRAY, Duke of Norfolk\n  DUKE OF SURREY\n  EARL OF SALISBURY\n  EARL BERKELEY\n  BUSHY - favourites of King Richard\n  BAGOT -     \"      \"   \"     \"\n  GREEN -     \"      \"   \"     \"\n  EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND\n  HENRY PERCY, surnamed HOTSPUR, his son\n  LORD Ross                             LORD WILLOUGHBY\n  LORD FITZWATER                        BISHOP OF CARLISLE\n  ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER                  LORD MARSHAL\n  SIR STEPHEN SCROOP                    SIR PIERCE OF EXTON\n  CAPTAIN of a band of Welshmen         TWO GARDENERS\n\n  QUEEN to King Richard\n  DUCHESS OF YORK\n  DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER, widow of Thomas of Woodstock,\n    Duke of Gloucester\n  LADY attending on the Queen\n\n  Lords, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Keeper, Messenger,\n    Groom, and other Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nEngland and Wales\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter RICHARD, JOHN OF GAUNT, with other NOBLES and attendants\n\n  KING RICHARD. Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster,\n    Hast thou, according to thy oath and band,\n    Brought hither Henry Hereford, thy bold son,\n    Here to make good the boist'rous late appeal,\n    Which then our leisure would not let us hear,\n    Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?\n  GAUNT. I have, my liege.\n  KING RICHARD. Tell me, moreover, hast thou sounded him\n    If he appeal the Duke on ancient malice,\n    Or worthily, as a good subject should,\n    On some known ground of treachery in him?\n  GAUNT. As near as I could sift him on that argument,\n    On some apparent danger seen in him\n    Aim'd at your Highness-no inveterate malice.\n  KING RICHARD. Then call them to our presence: face to face\n    And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear\n    The accuser and the accused freely speak.\n    High-stomach'd are they both and full of ire,\n    In rage, deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.\n\n         Enter BOLINGBROKE and MOWBRAY\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. Many years of happy days befall\n    My gracious sovereign, my most loving liege!\n  MOWBRAY. Each day still better other's happiness\n    Until the heavens, envying earth's good hap,\n    Add an immortal title to your crown!\n  KING RICHARD. We thank you both; yet one but flatters us,\n    As well appeareth by the cause you come;\n    Namely, to appeal each other of high treason.\n    Cousin of Hereford, what dost thou object\n    Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?\n  BOLINGBROKE. First-heaven be the record to my speech!\n    In the devotion of a subject's love,\n    Tend'ring the precious safety of my prince,\n    And free from other misbegotten hate,\n    Come I appellant to this princely presence.\n    Now, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee,\n    And mark my greeting well; for what I speak\n    My body shall make good upon this earth,\n    Or my divine soul answer it in heaven-\n    Thou art a traitor and a miscreant,\n    Too good to be so, and too bad to live,\n    Since the more fair and crystal is the sky,\n    The uglier seem the clouds that in it fly.\n    Once more, the more to aggravate the note,\n    With a foul traitor's name stuff I thy throat;\n    And wish-so please my sovereign-ere I move,\n    What my tongue speaks, my right drawn sword may prove.\n  MOWBRAY. Let not my cold words here accuse my zeal.\n    'Tis not the trial of a woman's war,\n    The bitter clamour of two eager tongues,\n    Can arbitrate this cause betwixt us twain;\n    The blood is hot that must be cool'd for this.\n    Yet can I not of such tame patience boast\n    As to be hush'd and nought at an to say.\n    First, the fair reverence of your Highness curbs me\n    From giving reins and spurs to my free speech;\n    Which else would post until it had return'd\n    These terms of treason doubled down his throat.\n    Setting aside his high blood's royalty,\n    And let him be no kinsman to my liege,\n    I do defy him, and I spit at him,\n    Call him a slanderous coward and a villain;\n    Which to maintain, I would allow him odds\n    And meet him, were I tied to run afoot\n    Even to the frozen ridges of the Alps,\n    Or any other ground inhabitable\n    Where ever Englishman durst set his foot.\n    Meantime let this defend my loyalty-\n    By all my hopes, most falsely doth he lie\n  BOLINGBROKE. Pale trembling coward, there I throw my gage,\n    Disclaiming here the kindred of the King;\n    And lay aside my high blood's royalty,\n    Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to except.\n    If guilty dread have left thee so much strength\n    As to take up mine honour's pawn, then stoop.\n    By that and all the rites of knighthood else\n    Will I make good against thee, arm to arm,\n    What I have spoke or thou canst worst devise.\n  MOWBRAY. I take it up; and by that sword I swear\n    Which gently laid my knighthood on my shoulder\n    I'll answer thee in any fair degree\n    Or chivalrous design of knightly trial;\n    And when I mount, alive may I not light\n    If I be traitor or unjustly fight!\n  KING RICHARD. What doth our cousin lay to Mowbray's charge?\n    It must be great that can inherit us\n    So much as of a thought of ill in him.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Look what I speak, my life shall prove it true-\n    That Mowbray hath receiv'd eight thousand nobles\n    In name of lendings for your Highness' soldiers,\n    The which he hath detain'd for lewd employments\n    Like a false traitor and injurious villain.\n    Besides, I say and will in battle prove-\n    Or here, or elsewhere to the furthest verge\n    That ever was survey'd by English eye-\n    That all the treasons for these eighteen years\n    Complotted and contrived in this land\n    Fetch from false Mowbray their first head and spring.\n    Further I say, and further will maintain\n    Upon his bad life to make all this good,\n    That he did plot the Duke of Gloucester's death,\n    Suggest his soon-believing adversaries,\n    And consequently, like a traitor coward,\n    Sluic'd out his innocent soul through streams of blood;\n    Which blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries,\n    Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth,\n    To me for justice and rough chastisement;\n    And, by the glorious worth of my descent,\n    This arm shall do it, or this life be spent.\n  KING RICHARD. How high a pitch his resolution soars!\n    Thomas of Norfolk, what say'st thou to this?\n  MOWBRAY. O, let my sovereign turn away his face\n    And bid his ears a little while be deaf,\n    Till I have told this slander of his blood\n    How God and good men hate so foul a liar.\n  KING RICHARD. Mowbray, impartial are our eyes and cars.\n    Were he my brother, nay, my kingdom's heir,\n    As he is but my father's brother's son,\n    Now by my sceptre's awe I make a vow,\n    Such neighbour nearness to our sacred blood\n    Should nothing privilege him nor partialize\n    The unstooping firmness of my upright soul.\n    He is our subject, Mowbray; so art thou:\n    Free speech and fearless I to thee allow.\n  MOWBRAY. Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart,\n    Through the false passage of thy throat, thou liest.\n    Three parts of that receipt I had for Calais\n    Disburs'd I duly to his Highness' soldiers;\n    The other part reserv'd I by consent,\n    For that my sovereign liege was in my debt\n    Upon remainder of a dear account\n    Since last I went to France to fetch his queen:\n    Now swallow down that lie. For Gloucester's death-\n    I slew him not, but to my own disgrace\n    Neglected my sworn duty in that case.\n    For you, my noble Lord of Lancaster,\n    The honourable father to my foe,\n    Once did I lay an ambush for your life,\n    A trespass that doth vex my grieved soul;\n    But ere I last receiv'd the sacrament\n    I did confess it, and exactly begg'd\n    Your Grace's pardon; and I hope I had it.\n    This is my fault. As for the rest appeal'd,\n    It issues from the rancour of a villain,\n    A recreant and most degenerate traitor;\n    Which in myself I boldly will defend,\n    And interchangeably hurl down my gage\n    Upon this overweening traitor's foot\n    To prove myself a loyal gentleman\n    Even in the best blood chamber'd in his bosom.\n    In haste whereof, most heartily I pray\n    Your Highness to assign our trial day.\n  KING RICHARD. Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be rul'd by me;\n    Let's purge this choler without letting blood-\n    This we prescribe, though no physician;\n    Deep malice makes too deep incision.\n    Forget, forgive; conclude and be agreed:\n    Our doctors say this is no month to bleed.\n    Good uncle, let this end where it begun;\n    We'll calm the Duke of Norfolk, you your son.\n  GAUNT. To be a make-peace shall become my age.\n    Throw down, my son, the Duke of Norfolk's gage.\n  KING RICHARD. And, Norfolk, throw down his.\n  GAUNT. When, Harry, when?\n    Obedience bids I should not bid again.\n  KING RICHARD. Norfolk, throw down; we bid.\n    There is no boot.\n  MOWBRAY. Myself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy foot;\n    My life thou shalt command, but not my shame:\n    The one my duty owes; but my fair name,\n    Despite of death, that lives upon my grave\n    To dark dishonour's use thou shalt not have.\n    I am disgrac'd, impeach'd, and baffl'd here;\n    Pierc'd to the soul with slander's venom'd spear,\n    The which no balm can cure but his heart-blood\n    Which breath'd this poison.\n  KING RICHARD. Rage must be withstood:\n    Give me his gage-lions make leopards tame.\n  MOWBRAY. Yea, but not change his spots. Take but my shame,\n    And I resign my gage. My dear dear lord,\n    The purest treasure mortal times afford\n    Is spotless reputation; that away,\n    Men are but gilded loam or painted clay.\n    A jewel in a ten-times barr'd-up chest\n    Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast.\n    Mine honour is my life; both grow in one;\n    Take honour from me, and my life is done:\n    Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me try;\n    In that I live, and for that will I die.\n  KING RICHARD. Cousin, throw up your gage; do you begin.\n  BOLINGBROKE. O, God defend my soul from such deep sin!\n    Shall I seem crest-fallen in my father's sight?\n    Or with pale beggar-fear impeach my height\n    Before this outdar'd dastard? Ere my tongue\n    Shall wound my honour with such feeble wrong\n    Or sound so base a parle, my teeth shall tear\n    The slavish motive of recanting fear,\n    And spit it bleeding in his high disgrace,\n    Where shame doth harbour, even in Mowbray's face.\n                                                      Exit GAUNT\n  KING RICHARD. We were not born to sue, but to command;\n    Which since we cannot do to make you friends,\n    Be ready, as your lives shall answer it,\n    At Coventry, upon Saint Lambert's day.\n    There shall your swords and lances arbitrate\n    The swelling difference of your settled hate;\n    Since we can not atone you, we shall see\n    Justice design the victor's chivalry.\n    Lord Marshal, command our officers-at-arms\n    Be ready to direct these home alarms.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\nLondon. The DUKE OF LANCASTER'S palace\n\nEnter JOHN OF GAUNT with the DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER\n\n  GAUNT. Alas, the part I had in Woodstock's blood\n    Doth more solicit me than your exclaims\n    To stir against the butchers of his life!\n    But since correction lieth in those hands\n    Which made the fault that we cannot correct,\n    Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven;\n    Who, when they see the hours ripe on earth,\n    Will rain hot vengeance on offenders' heads.\n  DUCHESS. Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur?\n    Hath love in thy old blood no living fire?\n    Edward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one,\n    Were as seven vials of his sacred blood,\n    Or seven fair branches springing from one root.\n    Some of those seven are dried by nature's course,\n    Some of those branches by the Destinies cut;\n    But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloucester,\n    One vial full of Edward's sacred blood,\n    One flourishing branch of his most royal root,\n    Is crack'd, and all the precious liquor spilt;\n    Is hack'd down, and his summer leaves all faded,\n    By envy's hand and murder's bloody axe.\n    Ah, Gaunt, his blood was thine! That bed, that womb,\n    That mettle, that self mould, that fashion'd thee,\n    Made him a man; and though thou livest and breathest,\n    Yet art thou slain in him. Thou dost consent\n    In some large measure to thy father's death\n    In that thou seest thy wretched brother die,\n    Who was the model of thy father's life.\n    Call it not patience, Gaunt-it is despair;\n    In suff'ring thus thy brother to be slaught'red,\n    Thou showest the naked pathway to thy life,\n    Teaching stern murder how to butcher thee.\n    That which in mean men we entitle patience\n    Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.\n    What shall I say? To safeguard thine own life\n    The best way is to venge my Gloucester's death.\n  GAUNT. God's is the quarrel; for God's substitute,\n    His deputy anointed in His sight,\n    Hath caus'd his death; the which if wrongfully,\n    Let heaven revenge; for I may never lift\n    An angry arm against His minister.\n  DUCHESS. Where then, alas, may I complain myself?\n  GAUNT. To God, the widow's champion and defence.\n  DUCHESS. Why then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt.\n    Thou goest to Coventry, there to behold\n    Our cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight.\n    O, sit my husband's wrongs on Hereford's spear,\n    That it may enter butcher Mowbray's breast!\n    Or, if misfortune miss the first career,\n    Be Mowbray's sins so heavy in his bosom\n    That they may break his foaming courser's back\n    And throw the rider headlong in the lists,\n    A caitiff recreant to my cousin Hereford!\n    Farewell, old Gaunt; thy sometimes brother's wife,\n    With her companion, Grief, must end her life.\n  GAUNT. Sister, farewell; I must to Coventry.\n    As much good stay with thee as go with me!\n  DUCHESS. Yet one word more- grief boundeth where it falls,\n    Not with the empty hollowness, but weight.\n    I take my leave before I have begun,\n    For sorrow ends not when it seemeth done.\n    Commend me to thy brother, Edmund York.\n    Lo, this is all- nay, yet depart not so;\n    Though this be all, do not so quickly go;\n    I shall remember more. Bid him- ah, what?-\n    With all good speed at Plashy visit me.\n    Alack, and what shall good old York there see\n    But empty lodgings and unfurnish'd walls,\n    Unpeopled offices, untrodden stones?\n    And what hear there for welcome but my groans?\n    Therefore commend me; let him not come there\n    To seek out sorrow that dwells every where.\n    Desolate, desolate, will I hence and die;\n    The last leave of thee takes my weeping eye.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\nThe lists at Coventry\n\nEnter the LORD MARSHAL and the DUKE OF AUMERLE\n\n  MARSHAL. My Lord Aumerle, is Harry Hereford arm'd?\n  AUMERLE. Yea, at all points; and longs to enter in.\n  MARSHAL. The Duke of Norfolk, spightfully and bold,\n    Stays but the summons of the appelant's trumpet.\n  AUMERLE. Why then, the champions are prepar'd, and stay\n    For nothing but his Majesty's approach.\n\n     The trumpets sound, and the KING enters with his nobles,\n     GAUNT, BUSHY, BAGOT, GREEN, and others. When they are set,\n     enter MOWBRAY, Duke of Nor folk, in arms, defendant, and\n     a HERALD\n\n  KING RICHARD. Marshal, demand of yonder champion\n    The cause of his arrival here in arms;\n    Ask him his name; and orderly proceed\n    To swear him in the justice of his cause.\n  MARSHAL. In God's name and the King's, say who thou art,\n    And why thou comest thus knightly clad in arms;\n    Against what man thou com'st, and what thy quarrel.\n    Speak truly on thy knighthood and thy oath;\n    As so defend thee heaven and thy valour!\n  MOWBRAY. My name is Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk;\n    Who hither come engaged by my oath-\n    Which God defend a knight should violate!-\n    Both to defend my loyalty and truth\n    To God, my King, and my succeeding issue,\n    Against the Duke of Hereford that appeals me;\n    And, by the grace of God and this mine arm,\n    To prove him, in defending of myself,\n    A traitor to my God, my King, and me.\n    And as I truly fight, defend me heaven!\n\n   The trumpets sound. Enter BOLINGBROKE, Duke of Hereford,\n            appellant, in armour, and a HERALD\n\n  KING RICHARD. Marshal, ask yonder knight in arms,\n    Both who he is and why he cometh hither\n    Thus plated in habiliments of war;\n    And formally, according to our law,\n    Depose him in the justice of his cause.\n  MARSHAL. What is thy name? and wherefore com'st thou hither\n    Before King Richard in his royal lists?\n    Against whom comest thou? and what's thy quarrel?\n    Speak like a true knight, so defend thee heaven!\n  BOLINGBROKE. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,\n    Am I; who ready here do stand in arms\n    To prove, by God's grace and my body's valour,\n    In lists on Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,\n    That he is a traitor, foul and dangerous,\n    To God of heaven, King Richard, and to me.\n    And as I truly fight, defend me heaven!\n  MARSHAL. On pain of death, no person be so bold\n    Or daring-hardy as to touch the lists,\n    Except the Marshal and such officers\n    Appointed to direct these fair designs.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Lord Marshal, let me kiss my sovereign's hand,\n    And bow my knee before his Majesty;\n    For Mowbray and myself are like two men\n    That vow a long and weary pilgrimage.\n    Then let us take a ceremonious leave\n    And loving farewell of our several friends.\n  MARSHAL. The appellant in all duty greets your Highness,\n    And craves to kiss your hand and take his leave.\n  KING RICHARD. We will descend and fold him in our arms.\n    Cousin of Hereford, as thy cause is right,\n    So be thy fortune in this royal fight!\n    Farewell, my blood; which if to-day thou shed,\n    Lament we may, but not revenge thee dead.\n  BOLINGBROKE. O, let no noble eye profane a tear\n    For me, if I be gor'd with Mowbray's spear.\n    As confident as is the falcon's flight\n    Against a bird, do I with Mowbray fight.\n    My loving lord, I take my leave of you;\n    Of you, my noble cousin, Lord Aumerle;\n    Not sick, although I have to do with death,\n    But lusty, young, and cheerly drawing breath.\n    Lo, as at English feasts, so I regreet\n    The daintiest last, to make the end most sweet.\n    O thou, the earthly author of my blood,\n    Whose youthful spirit, in me regenerate,\n    Doth with a twofold vigour lift me up\n    To reach at victory above my head,\n    Add proof unto mine armour with thy prayers,\n    And with thy blessings steel my lance's point,\n    That it may enter Mowbray's waxen coat\n    And furbish new the name of John o' Gaunt,\n    Even in the lusty haviour of his son.\n  GAUNT. God in thy good cause make thee prosperous!\n    Be swift like lightning in the execution,\n    And let thy blows, doubly redoubled,\n    Fall like amazing thunder on the casque\n    Of thy adverse pernicious enemy.\n    Rouse up thy youthful blood, be valiant, and live.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Mine innocence and Saint George to thrive!\n  MOWBRAY. However God or fortune cast my lot,\n    There lives or dies, true to King Richard's throne,\n    A loyal, just, and upright gentleman.\n    Never did captive with a freer heart\n    Cast off his chains of bondage, and embrace\n    His golden uncontroll'd enfranchisement,\n    More than my dancing soul doth celebrate\n    This feast of battle with mine adversary.\n    Most mighty liege, and my companion peers,\n    Take from my mouth the wish of happy years.\n    As gentle and as jocund as to jest\n    Go I to fight: truth hath a quiet breast.\n  KING RICHARD. Farewell, my lord, securely I espy\n    Virtue with valour couched in thine eye.\n    Order the trial, Marshal, and begin.\n  MARSHAL. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,\n    Receive thy lance; and God defend the right!\n  BOLINGBROKE. Strong as a tower in hope, I cry amen.\n  MARSHAL. [To an officer] Go bear this lance to Thomas,\n      Duke of Norfolk.\n  FIRST HERALD. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,\n    Stands here for God, his sovereign, and himself,\n    On pain to be found false and recreant,\n    To prove the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray,\n    A traitor to his God, his King, and him;\n    And dares him to set forward to the fight.\n  SECOND HERALD. Here standeth Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,\n    On pain to be found false and recreant,\n    Both to defend himself, and to approve\n    Henry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,\n    To God, his sovereign, and to him disloyal,\n    Courageously and with a free desire\n    Attending but the signal to begin.\n  MARSHAL. Sound trumpets; and set forward, combatants.\n                                           [A charge sounded]\n    Stay, the King hath thrown his warder down.\n  KING RICHARD. Let them lay by their helmets and their spears,\n    And both return back to their chairs again.\n    Withdraw with us; and let the trumpets sound\n    While we return these dukes what we decree.\n\n    A long flourish, while the KING consults his Council\n\n    Draw near,\n    And list what with our council we have done.\n    For that our kingdom's earth should not be soil'd\n    With that dear blood which it hath fostered;\n    And for our eyes do hate the dire aspect\n    Of civil wounds plough'd up with neighbours' sword;\n    And for we think the eagle-winged pride\n    Of sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts,\n    With rival-hating envy, set on you\n    To wake our peace, which in our country's cradle\n    Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep;\n    Which so rous'd up with boist'rous untun'd drums,\n    With harsh-resounding trumpets' dreadful bray,\n    And grating shock of wrathful iron arms,\n    Might from our quiet confines fright fair peace\n    And make us wade even in our kindred's blood-\n    Therefore we banish you our territories.\n    You, cousin Hereford, upon pain of life,\n    Till twice five summers have enrich'd our fields\n    Shall not regreet our fair dominions,\n    But tread the stranger paths of banishment.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Your will be done. This must my comfort be-\n    That sun that warms you here shall shine on me,\n    And those his golden beams to you here lent\n    Shall point on me and gild my banishment.\n  KING RICHARD. Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom,\n    Which I with some unwillingness pronounce:\n    The sly slow hours shall not determinate\n    The dateless limit of thy dear exile;\n    The hopeless word of 'never to return'\n    Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life.\n  MOWBRAY. A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,\n    And all unlook'd for from your Highness' mouth.\n    A dearer merit, not so deep a maim\n    As to be cast forth in the common air,\n    Have I deserved at your Highness' hands.\n    The language I have learnt these forty years,\n    My native English, now I must forgo;\n    And now my tongue's use is to me no more\n    Than an unstringed viol or a harp;\n    Or like a cunning instrument cas'd up\n    Or, being open, put into his hands\n    That knows no touch to tune the harmony.\n    Within my mouth you have engaol'd my tongue,\n    Doubly portcullis'd with my teeth and lips;\n    And dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance\n    Is made my gaoler to attend on me.\n    I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,\n    Too far in years to be a pupil now.\n    What is thy sentence, then, but speechless death,\n    Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?\n  KING RICHARD. It boots thee not to be compassionate;\n    After our sentence plaining comes too late.\n  MOWBRAY. Then thus I turn me from my countrv's light,\n    To dwell in solemn shades of endless night.\n  KING RICHARD. Return again, and take an oath with thee.\n    Lay on our royal sword your banish'd hands;\n    Swear by the duty that you owe to God,\n    Our part therein we banish with yourselves,\n    To keep the oath that we administer:\n    You never shall, so help you truth and God,\n    Embrace each other's love in banishment;\n    Nor never look upon each other's face;\n    Nor never write, regreet, nor reconcile\n    This louring tempest of your home-bred hate;\n    Nor never by advised purpose meet\n    To plot, contrive, or complot any ill,\n    'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land.\n  BOLINGBROKE. I swear.\n  MOWBRAY. And I, to keep all this.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Norfolk, so far as to mine enemy.\n    By this time, had the King permitted us,\n    One of our souls had wand'red in the air,\n    Banish'd this frail sepulchre of our flesh,\n    As now our flesh is banish'd from this land-\n    Confess thy treasons ere thou fly the realm;\n    Since thou hast far to go, bear not along\n    The clogging burden of a guilty soul.\n  MOWBRAY. No, Bolingbroke; if ever I were traitor,\n    My name be blotted from the book of life,\n    And I from heaven banish'd as from hence!\n    But what thou art, God, thou, and I, do know;\n    And all too soon, I fear, the King shall rue.\n    Farewell, my liege. Now no way can I stray:\n    Save back to England, an the world's my way.            Exit\n  KING RICHARD. Uncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes\n    I see thy grieved heart. Thy sad aspect\n    Hath from the number of his banish'd years\n    Pluck'd four away. [To BOLINGBROKE] Six frozen winters spent,\n    Return with welcome home from banishment.\n  BOLINGBROKE. How long a time lies in one little word!\n    Four lagging winters and four wanton springs\n    End in a word: such is the breath of Kings.\n  GAUNT. I thank my liege that in regard of me\n    He shortens four years of my son's exile;\n    But little vantage shall I reap thereby,\n    For ere the six years that he hath to spend\n    Can change their moons and bring their times about,\n    My oil-dried lamp and time-bewasted light\n    Shall be extinct with age and endless night;\n    My inch of taper will be burnt and done,\n    And blindfold death not let me see my son.\n  KING RICHARD. Why, uncle, thou hast many years to live.\n  GAUNT. But not a minute, King, that thou canst give:\n    Shorten my days thou canst with sullen sorrow\n    And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow;\n    Thou can'st help time to furrow me with age,\n    But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage;\n    Thy word is current with him for my death,\n    But dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.\n  KING RICHARD. Thy son is banish'd upon good advice,\n    Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave.\n    Why at our justice seem'st thou then to lour?\n  GAUNT. Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.\n    You urg'd me as a judge; but I had rather\n    You would have bid me argue like a father.\n    O, had it been a stranger, not my child,\n    To smooth his fault I should have been more mild.\n    A partial slander sought I to avoid,\n    And in the sentence my own life destroy'd.\n    Alas, I look'd when some of you should say\n    I was too strict to make mine own away;\n    But you gave leave to my unwilling tongue\n    Against my will to do myself this wrong.\n  KING RICHARD. Cousin, farewell; and, uncle, bid him so.\n    Six years we banish him, and he shall go.\n                                  Flourish. Exit KING with train\n  AUMERLE. Cousin, farewell; what presence must not know,\n    From where you do remain let paper show.\n  MARSHAL. My lord, no leave take I, for I will ride\n    As far as land will let me by your side.\n  GAUNT. O, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words,\n    That thou returnest no greeting to thy friends?\n  BOLINGBROKE. I have too few to take my leave of you,\n    When the tongue's office should be prodigal\n    To breathe the abundant dolour of the heart.\n  GAUNT. Thy grief is but thy absence for a time.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Joy absent, grief is present for that time.\n  GAUNT. What is six winters? They are quickly gone.\n  BOLINGBROKE. To men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten.\n  GAUNT. Call it a travel that thou tak'st for pleasure.\n  BOLINGBROKE. My heart will sigh when I miscall it so,\n    Which finds it an enforced pilgrimage.\n  GAUNT. The sullen passage of thy weary steps\n    Esteem as foil wherein thou art to set\n    The precious jewel of thy home return.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Nay, rather, every tedious stride I make\n    Will but remember me what a deal of world\n    I wander from the jewels that I love.\n    Must I not serve a long apprenticehood\n    To foreign passages; and in the end,\n    Having my freedom, boast of nothing else\n    But that I was a journeyman to grief?\n  GAUNT. All places that the eye of heaven visits\n    Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.\n    Teach thy necessity to reason thus:\n    There is no virtue like necessity.\n    Think not the King did banish thee,\n    But thou the King. Woe doth the heavier sit\n    Where it perceives it is but faintly home.\n    Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour,\n    And not the King exil'd thee; or suppose\n    Devouring pestilence hangs in our air\n    And thou art flying to a fresher clime.\n    Look what thy soul holds dear, imagine it\n    To lie that way thou goest, not whence thou com'st.\n    Suppose the singing birds musicians,\n    The grass whereon thou tread'st the presence strew'd,\n    The flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more\n    Than a delightful measure or a dance;\n    For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite\n    The man that mocks at it and sets it light.\n  BOLINGBROKE. O, who can hold a fire in his hand\n    By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?\n    Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite\n    By bare imagination of a feast?\n    Or wallow naked in December snow\n    By thinking on fantastic summer's heat?\n    O, no! the apprehension of the good\n    Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.\n    Fell sorrow's tooth doth never rankle more\n    Than when he bites, but lanceth not the sore.\n  GAUNT. Come, come, my son, I'll bring thee on thy way.\n    Had I thy youtli and cause, I would not stay.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Then, England's ground, farewell; sweet soil, adieu;\n    My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet!\n    Where'er I wander, boast of this I can:\n    Though banish'd, yet a trueborn English man.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\nLondon. The court\n\nEnter the KING, with BAGOT and GREEN, at one door;\nand the DUKE OF AUMERLE at another\n\n  KING RICHARD. We did observe. Cousin Aumerle,\n    How far brought you high Hereford on his way?\n  AUMERLE. I brought high Hereford, if you call him so,\n    But to the next high way, and there I left him.\n  KING RICHARD. And say, what store of parting tears were shed?\n  AUMERLE. Faith, none for me; except the north-east wind,\n    Which then blew bitterly against our faces,\n    Awak'd the sleeping rheum, and so by chance\n    Did grace our hollow parting with a tear.\n  KING RICHARD. What said our cousin when you parted with him?\n  AUMERLE. 'Farewell.'\n    And, for my heart disdained that my tongue\n    Should so profane the word, that taught me craft\n    To counterfeit oppression of such grief\n    That words seem'd buried in my sorrow's grave.\n    Marry, would the word 'farewell' have length'ned hours\n    And added years to his short banishment,\n    He should have had a volume of farewells;\n    But since it would not, he had none of me.\n  KING RICHARD. He is our cousin, cousin; but 'tis doubt,\n    When time shall call him home from banishment,\n    Whether our kinsman come to see his friends.\n    Ourself, and Bushy, Bagot here, and Green,\n    Observ'd his courtship to the common people;\n    How he did seem to dive into their hearts\n    With humble and familiar courtesy;\n    What reverence he did throw away on slaves,\n    Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles\n    And patient underbearing of his fortune,\n    As 'twere to banish their affects with him.\n    Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench;\n    A brace of draymen bid God speed him well\n    And had the tribute of his supple knee,\n    With 'Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends';\n    As were our England in reversion his,\n    And he our subjects' next degree in hope.\n  GREEN. Well, he is gone; and with him go these thoughts!\n    Now for the rebels which stand out in Ireland,\n    Expedient manage must be made, my liege,\n    Ere further leisure yicld them further means\n    For their advantage and your Highness' loss.\n  KING RICHARD. We will ourself in person to this war;\n    And, for our coffers, with too great a court\n    And liberal largess, are grown somewhat light,\n    We are enforc'd to farm our royal realm;\n    The revenue whereof shall furnish us\n    For our affairs in hand. If that come short,\n    Our substitutes at home shall have blank charters;\n    Whereto, when they shall know what men are rich,\n    They shall subscribe them for large sums of gold,\n    And send them after to supply our wants;\n    For we will make for Ireland presently.\n\n                     Enter BUSHY\n\n    Bushy, what news?\n  BUSHY. Old John of Gaunt is grievous sick, my lord,\n    Suddenly taken; and hath sent poste-haste\n    To entreat your Majesty to visit him.\n  KING RICHARD. Where lies he?\n  BUSHY. At Ely House.\n  KING RICHARD. Now put it, God, in the physician's mind\n    To help him to his grave immediately!\n    The lining of his coffers shall make coats\n    To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars.\n    Come, gentlemen, let's all go visit him.\n    Pray God we may make haste, and come too late!\n  ALL. Amen.                                              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nLondon. Ely House\n\nEnter JOHN OF GAUNT, sick, with the DUKE OF YORK, etc.\n\n  GAUNT. Will the King come, that I may breathe my last\n    In wholesome counsel to his unstaid youth?\n  YORK. Vex not yourself, nor strive not with your breath;\n    For all in vain comes counsel to his ear.\n  GAUNT. O, but they say the tongues of dying men\n    Enforce attention like deep harmony.\n    Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain;\n    For they breathe truth that breathe their words -in pain.\n    He that no more must say is listen'd more\n    Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose;\n    More are men's ends mark'd than their lives before.\n    The setting sun, and music at the close,\n    As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,\n    Writ in remembrance more than things long past.\n    Though Richard my life's counsel would not hear,\n    My death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.\n  YORK. No; it is stopp'd with other flattering sounds,\n    As praises, of whose taste the wise are fond,\n    Lascivious metres, to whose venom sound\n    The open ear of youth doth always listen;\n    Report of fashions in proud Italy,\n    Whose manners still our tardy apish nation\n    Limps after in base imitation.\n    Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity-\n    So it be new, there's no respect how vile-\n    That is not quickly buzz'd into his ears?\n    Then all too late comes counsel to be heard\n    Where will doth mutiny with wit's regard.\n    Direct not him whose way himself will choose.\n    'Tis breath thou lack'st, and that breath wilt thou lose.\n  GAUNT. Methinks I am a prophet new inspir'd,\n    And thus expiring do foretell of him:\n    His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last,\n    For violent fires soon burn out themselves;\n    Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short;\n    He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes;\n    With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder;\n    Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,\n    Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.\n    This royal throne of kings, this scept'red isle,\n    This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,\n    This other Eden, demi-paradise,\n    This fortress built by Nature for herself\n    Against infection and the hand of war,\n    This happy breed of men, this little world,\n    This precious stone set in the silver sea,\n    Which serves it in the office of a wall,\n    Or as a moat defensive to a house,\n    Against the envy of less happier lands;\n    This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,\n    This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,\n    Fear'd by their breed, and famous by their birth,\n    Renowned for their deeds as far from home,\n    For Christian service and true chivalry,\n    As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry\n    Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son;\n    This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,\n    Dear for her reputation through the world,\n    Is now leas'd out-I die pronouncing it-\n    Like to a tenement or pelting farm.\n    England, bound in with the triumphant sea,\n    Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege\n    Of wat'ry Neptune, is now bound in with shame,\n    With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds;\n    That England, that was wont to conquer others,\n    Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.\n    Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life,\n    How happy then were my ensuing death!\n\n    Enter KING and QUEEN, AUMERLE, BUSHY, GREEN, BAGOT,\n                Ross, and WILLOUGHBY\n\n  YORK. The King is come; deal mildly with his youth,\n    For young hot colts being rag'd do rage the more.\n  QUEEN. How fares our noble uncle Lancaster?\n  KING RICHARD. What comfort, man? How is't with aged Gaunt?\n  GAUNT. O, how that name befits my composition!\n    Old Gaunt, indeed; and gaunt in being old.\n    Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast;\n    And who abstains from meat that is not gaunt?\n    For sleeping England long time have I watch'd;\n    Watching breeds leanness, leanness is an gaunt.\n    The pleasure that some fathers feed upon\n    Is my strict fast-I mean my children's looks;\n    And therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt.\n    Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave,\n    Whose hollow womb inherits nought but bones.\n  KING RICHARD. Can sick men play so nicely with their names?\n  GAUNT. No, misery makes sport to mock itself:\n    Since thou dost seek to kill my name in me,\n    I mock my name, great king, to flatter thee.\n  KING RICHARD. Should dying men flatter with those that live?\n  GAUNT. No, no; men living flatter those that die.\n  KING RICHARD. Thou, now a-dying, sayest thou flatterest me.\n  GAUNT. O, no! thou diest, though I the sicker be.\n  KING RICHARD. I am in health, I breathe, and see thee ill.\n  GAUNT. Now He that made me knows I see thee ill;\n    Ill in myself to see, and in thee seeing ill.\n    Thy death-bed is no lesser than thy land\n    Wherein thou liest in reputation sick;\n    And thou, too careless patient as thou art,\n    Commit'st thy anointed body to the cure\n    Of those physicians that first wounded thee:\n    A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown,\n    Whose compass is no bigger than thy head;\n    And yet, incaged in so small a verge,\n    The waste is no whit lesser than thy land.\n    O, had thy grandsire with a prophet's eye\n    Seen how his son's son should destroy his sons,\n    From forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame,\n    Deposing thee before thou wert possess'd,\n    Which art possess'd now to depose thyself.\n    Why, cousin, wert thou regent of the world,\n    It were a shame to let this land by lease;\n    But for thy world enjoying but this land,\n    Is it not more than shame to shame it so?\n    Landlord of England art thou now, not King.\n    Thy state of law is bondslave to the law;\n    And thou-\n  KING RICHARD. A lunatic lean-witted fool,\n    Presuming on an ague's privilege,\n    Darest with thy frozen admonition\n    Make pale our cheek, chasing the royal blood\n    With fury from his native residence.\n    Now by my seat's right royal majesty,\n    Wert thou not brother to great Edward's son,\n    This tongue that runs so roundly in thy head\n    Should run thy head from thy unreverent shoulders.\n  GAUNT. O, Spare me not, my brother Edward's son,\n    For that I was his father Edward's son;\n    That blood already, like the pelican,\n    Hast thou tapp'd out, and drunkenly carous'd.\n    My brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul-\n    Whom fair befall in heaven 'mongst happy souls!-\n    May be a precedent and witness good\n    That thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood.\n    Join with the present sickness that I have;\n    And thy unkindness be like crooked age,\n    To crop at once a too long withered flower.\n    Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee!\n    These words hereafter thy tormentors be!\n    Convey me to my bed, then to my grave.\n    Love they to live that love and honour have.\n                               Exit, borne out by his attendants\n  KING RICHARD. And let them die that age and sullens have;\n    For both hast thou, and both become the grave.\n  YORK. I do beseech your Majesty impute his words\n    To wayward sickliness and age in him.\n    He loves you, on my life, and holds you dear\n    As Harry Duke of Hereford, were he here.\n  KING RICHARD. Right, you say true: as Hereford's love, so his;\n    As theirs, so mine; and all be as it is.\n\n                Enter NORTHUMBERLAND\n\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your Majesty.\n  KING RICHARD. What says he?\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Nay, nothing; all is said.\n    His tongue is now a stringless instrument;\n    Words, life, and all, old Lancaster hath spent.\n  YORK. Be York the next that must be bankrupt so!\n    Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.\n  KING RICHARD. The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he;\n    His time is spent, our pilgrimage must be.\n    So much for that. Now for our Irish wars.\n    We must supplant those rough rug-headed kerns,\n    Which live like venom where no venom else\n    But only they have privilege to live.\n    And for these great affairs do ask some charge,\n    Towards our assistance we do seize to us\n    The plate, coin, revenues, and moveables,\n    Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possess'd.\n  YORK. How long shall I be patient? Ah, how long\n    Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong?\n    Not Gloucester's death, nor Hereford's banishment,\n    Nor Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private wrongs,\n    Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke\n    About his marriage, nor my own disgrace,\n    Have ever made me sour my patient cheek\n    Or bend one wrinkle on my sovereign's face.\n    I am the last of noble Edward's sons,\n    Of whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first.\n    In war was never lion rag'd more fierce,\n    In peace was never gentle lamb more mild,\n    Than was that young and princely gentleman.\n    His face thou hast, for even so look'd he,\n    Accomplish'd with the number of thy hours;\n    But when he frown'd, it was against the French\n    And not against his friends. His noble hand\n    Did win what he did spend, and spent not that\n    Which his triumphant father's hand had won.\n    His hands were guilty of no kindred blood,\n    But bloody with the enemies of his kin.\n    O Richard! York is too far gone with grief,\n    Or else he never would compare between-\n  KING RICHARD. Why, uncle, what's the matter?\n  YORK. O my liege,\n    Pardon me, if you please; if not, I, pleas'd\n    Not to be pardoned, am content withal.\n    Seek you to seize and gripe into your hands\n    The royalties and rights of banish'd Hereford?\n    Is not Gaunt dead? and doth not Hereford live?\n    Was not Gaunt just? and is not Harry true?\n    Did not the one deserve to have an heir?\n    Is not his heir a well-deserving son?\n    Take Hereford's rights away, and take from Time\n    His charters and his customary rights;\n    Let not to-morrow then ensue to-day;\n    Be not thyself-for how art thou a king\n    But by fair sequence and succession?\n    Now, afore God-God forbid I say true!-\n    If you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights,\n    Call in the letters patents that he hath\n    By his attorneys-general to sue\n    His livery, and deny his off'red homage,\n    You pluck a thousand dangers on your head,\n    You lose a thousand well-disposed hearts,\n    And prick my tender patience to those thoughts\n    Which honour and allegiance cannot think.\n  KING RICHARD. Think what you will, we seize into our hands\n    His plate, his goods, his money, and his lands.\n  YORK. I'll not be by the while. My liege, farewell.\n    What will ensue hereof there's none can tell;\n    But by bad courses may be understood\n    That their events can never fall out good.              Exit\n  KING RICHARD. Go, Bushy, to the Earl of Wiltshire straight;\n    Bid him repair to us to Ely House\n    To see this business. To-morrow next\n    We will for Ireland; and 'tis time, I trow.\n    And we create, in absence of ourself,\n    Our Uncle York Lord Governor of England;\n    For he is just, and always lov'd us well.\n    Come on, our queen; to-morrow must we part;\n    Be merry, for our time of stay is short.\n                   Flourish. Exeunt KING, QUEEN, BUSHY, AUMERLE,\n                                                GREEN, and BAGOT\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Well, lords, the Duke of Lancaster is dead.\n    Ross. And living too; for now his son is Duke.\n  WILLOUGHBY. Barely in title, not in revenues.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Richly in both, if justice had her right.\n  ROSS. My heart is great; but it must break with silence,\n    Ere't be disburdened with a liberal tongue.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Nay, speak thy mind; and let him ne'er speak more\n    That speaks thy words again to do thee harm!\n  WILLOUGHBY. Tends that thou wouldst speak to the Duke of Hereford?\n    If it be so, out with it boldly, man;\n    Quick is mine ear to hear of good towards him.\n  ROSS. No good at all that I can do for him;\n    Unless you call it good to pity him,\n    Bereft and gelded of his patrimony.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Now, afore God, 'tis shame such wrongs are borne\n    In him, a royal prince, and many moe\n    Of noble blood in this declining land.\n    The King is not himself, but basely led\n    By flatterers; and what they will inform,\n    Merely in hate, 'gainst any of us an,\n    That will the King severely prosecute\n    'Gainst us, our lives, our children, and our heirs.\n  ROSS. The commons hath he pill'd with grievous taxes;\n    And quite lost their hearts; the nobles hath he find\n    For ancient quarrels and quite lost their hearts.\n  WILLOUGHBY. And daily new exactions are devis'd,\n    As blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what;\n    But what, a God's name, doth become of this?\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Wars hath not wasted it, for warr'd he hath not,\n    But basely yielded upon compromise\n    That which his noble ancestors achiev'd with blows.\n    More hath he spent in peace than they in wars.\n  ROSS. The Earl of Wiltshire hath the realm in farm.\n  WILLOUGHBY. The King's grown bankrupt like a broken man.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Reproach and dissolution hangeth over him.\n  ROSS. He hath not money for these Irish wars,\n    His burdenous taxations notwithstanding,\n    But by the robbing of the banish'd Duke.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. His noble kinsman-most degenerate king!\n    But, lords, we hear this fearful tempest sing,\n    Yet seek no shelter to avoid the storm;\n    We see the wind sit sore upon our sails,\n    And yet we strike not, but securely perish.\n  ROSS. We see the very wreck that we must suffer;\n    And unavoided is the danger now\n    For suffering so the causes of our wreck.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Not so; even through the hollow eyes of death\n    I spy life peering; but I dare not say\n    How near the tidings of our comfort is.\n  WILLOUGHBY. Nay, let us share thy thoughts as thou dost ours.\n  ROSS. Be confident to speak, Northumberland.\n    We three are but thyself, and, speaking so,\n    Thy words are but as thoughts; therefore be bold.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Then thus: I have from Le Port Blanc, a bay\n    In Brittany, receiv'd intelligence\n    That Harry Duke of Hereford, Rainold Lord Cobham,\n    That late broke from the Duke of Exeter,\n    His brother, Archbishop late of Canterbury,\n    Sir Thomas Erpingham, Sir John Ramston,\n    Sir John Norbery, Sir Robert Waterton, and Francis Quoint-\n    All these, well furnish'd by the Duke of Britaine,\n    With eight tall ships, three thousand men of war,\n    Are making hither with all due expedience,\n    And shortly mean to touch our northern shore.\n    Perhaps they had ere this, but that they stay\n    The first departing of the King for Ireland.\n    If then we shall shake off our slavish yoke,\n    Imp out our drooping country's broken wing,\n    Redeem from broking pawn the blemish'd crown,\n    Wipe off the dust that hides our sceptre's gilt,\n    And make high majesty look like itself,\n    Away with me in post to Ravenspurgh;\n    But if you faint, as fearing to do so,\n    Stay and be secret, and myself will go.\n  ROSS. To horse, to horse! Urge doubts to them that fear.\n  WILLOUGHBY. Hold out my horse, and I will first be there.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\nWindsor Castle\n\nEnter QUEEN, BUSHY, and BAGOT\n\n  BUSHY. Madam, your Majesty is too much sad.\n    You promis'd, when you parted with the King,\n    To lay aside life-harming heaviness\n    And entertain a cheerful disposition.\n  QUEEN. To please the King, I did; to please myself\n    I cannot do it; yet I know no cause\n    Why I should welcome such a guest as grief,\n    Save bidding farewell to so sweet a guest\n    As my sweet Richard. Yet again methinks\n    Some unborn sorrow, ripe in fortune's womb,\n    Is coming towards me, and my inward soul\n    With nothing trembles. At some thing it grieves\n    More than with parting from my lord the King.\n  BUSHY. Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows,\n    Which shows like grief itself, but is not so;\n    For sorrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears,\n    Divides one thing entire to many objects,\n    Like perspectives which, rightly gaz'd upon,\n    Show nothing but confusion-ey'd awry,\n    Distinguish form. So your sweet Majesty,\n    Looking awry upon your lord's departure,\n    Find shapes of grief more than himself to wail;\n    Which, look'd on as it is, is nought but shadows\n    Of what it is not. Then, thrice-gracious Queen,\n    More than your lord's departure weep not-more is not seen;\n    Or if it be, 'tis with false sorrow's eye,\n    Which for things true weeps things imaginary.\n  QUEEN. It may be so; but yet my inward soul\n    Persuades me it is otherwise. Howe'er it be,\n    I cannot but be sad; so heavy sad\n    As-though, on thinking, on no thought I think-\n    Makes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink.\n  BUSHY. 'Tis nothing but conceit, my gracious lady.\n  QUEEN. 'Tis nothing less: conceit is still deriv'd\n    From some forefather grief; mine is not so,\n    For nothing hath begot my something grief,\n    Or something hath the nothing that I grieve;\n    'Tis in reversion that I do possess-\n    But what it is that is not yet known what,\n    I cannot name; 'tis nameless woe, I wot.\n\n                   Enter GREEN\n\n  GREEN. God save your Majesty! and well met, gentlemen.\n    I hope the King is not yet shipp'd for Ireland.\n  QUEEN. Why hopest thou so? 'Tis better hope he is;\n    For his designs crave haste, his haste good hope.\n    Then wherefore dost thou hope he is not shipp'd?\n  GREEN. That he, our hope, might have retir'd his power\n    And driven into despair an enemy's hope\n    Who strongly hath set footing in this land.\n    The banish'd Bolingbroke repeals himself,\n    And with uplifted arms is safe arriv'd\n    At Ravenspurgh.\n  QUEEN. Now God in heaven forbid!\n  GREEN. Ah, madam, 'tis too true; and that is worse,\n    The Lord Northumberland, his son young Henry Percy,\n    The Lords of Ross, Beaumond, and Willoughby,\n    With all their powerful friends, are fled to him.\n  BUSHY. Why have you not proclaim'd Northumberland\n    And all the rest revolted faction traitors?\n  GREEN. We have; whereupon the Earl of Worcester\n    Hath broken his staff, resign'd his stewardship,\n    And all the household servants fled with him\n    To Bolingbroke.\n  QUEEN. So, Green, thou art the midwife to my woe,\n    And Bolingbroke my sorrow's dismal heir.\n    Now hath my soul brought forth her prodigy;\n    And I, a gasping new-deliver'd mother,\n    Have woe to woe, sorrow to sorrow join'd.\n  BUSHY. Despair not, madam.\n  QUEEN. Who shall hinder me?\n    I will despair, and be at enmity\n    With cozening hope-he is a flatterer,\n    A parasite, a keeper-back of death,\n    Who gently would dissolve the bands of life,\n    Which false hope lingers in extremity.\n\n                    Enter YORK\n\n  GREEN. Here comes the Duke of York.\n  QUEEN. With signs of war about his aged neck.\n    O, full of careful business are his looks!\n    Uncle, for God's sake, speak comfortable words.\n  YORK. Should I do so, I should belie my thoughts.\n    Comfort's in heaven; and we are on the earth,\n    Where nothing lives but crosses, cares, and grief.\n    Your husband, he is gone to save far off,\n    Whilst others come to make him lose at home.\n    Here am I left to underprop his land,\n    Who, weak with age, cannot support myself.\n    Now comes the sick hour that his surfeit made;\n    Now shall he try his friends that flatter'd him.\n\n                   Enter a SERVINGMAN\n\n  SERVINGMAN. My lord, your son was gone before I came.\n  YORK. He was-why so go all which way it will!\n    The nobles they are fled, the commons they are cold\n    And will, I fear, revolt on Hereford's side.\n    Sirrah, get thee to Plashy, to my sister Gloucester;\n    Bid her send me presently a thousand pound.\n    Hold, take my ring.\n  SERVINGMAN. My lord, I had forgot to tell your lordship,\n    To-day, as I came by, I called there-\n    But I shall grieve you to report the rest.\n  YORK. What is't, knave?\n  SERVINGMAN. An hour before I came, the Duchess died.\n  YORK. God for his mercy! what a tide of woes\n    Comes rushing on this woeful land at once!\n    I know not what to do. I would to God,\n    So my untruth had not provok'd him to it,\n    The King had cut off my head with my brother's.\n    What, are there no posts dispatch'd for Ireland?\n    How shall we do for money for these wars?\n    Come, sister-cousin, I would say-pray, pardon me.\n    Go, fellow, get thee home, provide some carts,\n    And bring away the armour that is there.\n                                                 Exit SERVINGMAN\n    Gentlemen, will you go muster men?\n    If I know how or which way to order these affairs\n    Thus disorderly thrust into my hands,\n    Never believe me. Both are my kinsmen.\n    T'one is my sovereign, whom both my oath\n    And duty bids defend; t'other again\n    Is my kinsman, whom the King hath wrong'd,\n    Whom conscience and my kindred bids to right.\n    Well, somewhat we must do.-Come, cousin,\n    I'll dispose of you. Gentlemen, go muster up your men\n    And meet me presently at Berkeley.\n    I should to Plashy too,\n    But time will not permit. All is uneven,\n    And everything is left at six and seven.\n                                           Exeunt YORK and QUEEN\n  BUSHY. The wind sits fair for news to go to Ireland.\n    But none returns. For us to levy power\n    Proportionable to the enemy\n    Is all unpossible.\n  GREEN. Besides, our nearness to the King in love\n    Is near the hate of those love not the King.\n  BAGOT. And that is the wavering commons; for their love\n    Lies in their purses; and whoso empties them,\n    By so much fills their hearts with deadly hate.\n  BUSHY. Wherein the King stands generally condemn'd.\n  BAGOT. If judgment lie in them, then so do we,\n    Because we ever have been near the King.\n  GREEN. Well, I will for refuge straight to Bristow Castle.\n    The Earl of Wiltshire is already there.\n  BUSHY. Thither will I with you; for little office\n    Will the hateful commons perform for us,\n    Except Eke curs to tear us all to pieces.\n    Will you go along with us?\n  BAGOT. No; I will to Ireland to his Majesty.\n    Farewell. If heart's presages be not vain,\n    We three here part that ne'er shall meet again.\n  BUSHY. That's as York thrives to beat back Bolingbroke.\n  GREEN. Alas, poor Duke! the task he undertakes\n    Is numb'ring sands and drinking oceans dry.\n    Where one on his side fights, thousands will fly.\n    Farewell at once-for once, for all, and ever.\n  BUSHY. Well, we may meet again.\n  BAGOT. I fear me, never.                                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\nGloucestershire\n\nEnter BOLINGBROKE and NORTHUMBERLAND, forces\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. How far is it, my lord, to Berkeley now?\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Believe me, noble lord,\n    I am a stranger here in Gloucestershire.\n    These high wild hills and rough uneven ways\n    Draws out our miles, and makes them wearisome;\n    And yet your fair discourse hath been as sugar,\n    Making the hard way sweet and delectable.\n    But I bethink me what a weary way\n    From Ravenspurgh to Cotswold will be found\n    In Ross and Willoughby, wanting your company,\n    Which, I protest, hath very much beguil'd\n    The tediousness and process of my travel.\n    But theirs is sweet'ned with the hope to have\n    The present benefit which I possess;\n    And hope to joy is little less in joy\n    Than hope enjoy'd. By this the weary lords\n    Shall make their way seem short, as mine hath done\n    By sight of what I have, your noble company.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Of much less value is my company\n    Than your good words. But who comes here?\n\n                 Enter HARRY PERCY\n\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. It is my son, young Harry Percy,\n    Sent from my brother Worcester, whencesoever.\n    Harry, how fares your uncle?\n  PERCY. I had thought, my lord, to have learn'd his health of you.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Why, is he not with the Queen?\n  PERCY. No, my good lord; he hath forsook the court,\n    Broken his staff of office, and dispers'd\n    The household of the King.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. What was his reason?\n    He was not so resolv'd when last we spake together.\n  PERCY. Because your lordship was proclaimed traitor.\n    But he, my lord, is gone to Ravenspurgh,\n    To offer service to the Duke of Hereford;\n    And sent me over by Berkeley, to discover\n    What power the Duke of York had levied there;\n    Then with directions to repair to Ravenspurgh.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Have you forgot the Duke of Hereford, boy?\n  PERCY. No, my good lord; for that is not forgot\n    Which ne'er I did remember; to my knowledge,\n    I never in my life did look on him.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Then learn to know him now; this is the Duke.\n  PERCY. My gracious lord, I tender you my service,\n    Such as it is, being tender, raw, and young;\n    Which elder days shall ripen, and confirm\n    To more approved service and desert.\n  BOLINGBROKE. I thank thee, gentle Percy; and be sure\n    I count myself in nothing else so happy\n    As in a soul rememb'ring my good friends;\n    And as my fortune ripens with thy love,\n    It shall be still thy true love's recompense.\n    My heart this covenant makes, my hand thus seals it.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. How far is it to Berkeley? And what stir\n    Keeps good old York there with his men of war?\n  PERCY. There stands the castle, by yon tuft of trees,\n    Mann'd with three hundred men, as I have heard;\n    And in it are the Lords of York, Berkeley, and Seymour-\n    None else of name and noble estimate.\n\n                  Enter Ross and WILLOUGHBY\n\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Here come the Lords of Ross and Willoughby,\n    Bloody with spurring, fiery-red with haste.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Welcome, my lords. I wot your love pursues\n    A banish'd traitor. All my treasury\n    Is yet but unfelt thanks, which, more enrich'd,\n    Shall be your love and labour's recompense.\n  ROSS. Your presence makes us rich, most noble lord.\n  WILLOUGHBY. And far surmounts our labour to attain it.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Evermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor;\n    Which, till my infant fortune comes to years,\n    Stands for my bounty. But who comes here?\n\n                     Enter BERKELEY\n\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. It is my Lord of Berkeley, as I guess.\n  BERKELEY. My Lord of Hereford, my message is to you.\n  BOLINGBROKE. My lord, my answer is-'to Lancaster';\n    And I am come to seek that name in England;\n    And I must find that title in your tongue\n    Before I make reply to aught you say.\n  BERKELEY. Mistake me not, my lord; 'tis not my meaning\n    To raze one title of your honour out.\n    To you, my lord, I come-what lord you will-\n    From the most gracious regent of this land,\n    The Duke of York, to know what pricks you on\n    To take advantage of the absent time,\n    And fright our native peace with self-borne arms.\n\n                 Enter YORK, attended\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. I shall not need transport my words by you;\n    Here comes his Grace in person. My noble uncle!\n                                                     [Kneels]\n  YORK. Show me thy humble heart, and not thy knee,\n    Whose duty is deceivable and false.\n  BOLINGBROKE. My gracious uncle!-\n  YORK. Tut, tut!\n    Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle.\n    I am no traitor's uncle; and that word 'grace'\n    In an ungracious mouth is but profane.\n    Why have those banish'd and forbidden legs\n    Dar'd once to touch a dust of England's ground?\n    But then more 'why?'-why have they dar'd to march\n    So many miles upon her peaceful bosom,\n    Frighting her pale-fac'd villages with war\n    And ostentation of despised arms?\n    Com'st thou because the anointed King is hence?\n    Why, foolish boy, the King is left behind,\n    And in my loyal bosom lies his power.\n    Were I but now lord of such hot youth\n    As when brave Gaunt, thy father, and myself\n    Rescued the Black Prince, that young Mars of men,\n    From forth the ranks of many thousand French,\n    O, then how quickly should this arm of mine,\n    Now prisoner to the palsy, chastise the\n    And minister correction to thy fault!\n  BOLINGBROKE My gracious uncle, let me know my fault;\n    On what condition stands it and wherein?\n  YORK. Even in condition of the worst degree-\n    In gross rebellion and detested treason.\n    Thou art a banish'd man, and here art come\n    Before the expiration of thy time,\n    In braving arms against thy sovereign.\n  BOLINGBROKE. As I was banish'd, I was banish'd Hereford;\n    But as I come, I come for Lancaster.\n    And, noble uncle, I beseech your Grace\n    Look on my wrongs with an indifferent eye.\n    You are my father, for methinks in you\n    I see old Gaunt alive. O, then, my father,\n    Will you permit that I shall stand condemn'd\n    A wandering vagabond; my rights and royalties\n    Pluck'd from my arms perforce, and given away\n    To upstart unthrifts? Wherefore was I born?\n    If that my cousin king be King in England,\n    It must be granted I am Duke of Lancaster.\n    You have a son, Aumerle, my noble cousin;\n    Had you first died, and he been thus trod down,\n    He should have found his uncle Gaunt a father\n    To rouse his wrongs and chase them to the bay.\n    I am denied to sue my livery here,\n    And yet my letters patents give me leave.\n    My father's goods are all distrain'd and sold;\n    And these and all are all amiss employ'd.\n    What would you have me do? I am a subject,\n    And I challenge law-attorneys are denied me;\n    And therefore personally I lay my claim\n    To my inheritance of free descent.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. The noble Duke hath been too much abused.\n  ROSS. It stands your Grace upon to do him right.\n  WILLOUGHBY. Base men by his endowments are made great.\n  YORK. My lords of England, let me tell you this:\n    I have had feeling of my cousin's wrongs,\n    And labour'd all I could to do him right;\n    But in this kind to come, in braving arms,\n    Be his own carver and cut out his way,\n    To find out right with wrong-it may not be;\n    And you that do abet him in this kind\n    Cherish rebellion, and are rebels all.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. The noble Duke hath sworn his coming is\n    But for his own; and for the right of that\n    We all have strongly sworn to give him aid;\n    And let him never see joy that breaks that oath!\n  YORK. Well, well, I see the issue of these arms.\n    I cannot mend it, I must needs confess,\n    Because my power is weak and all ill left;\n    But if I could, by Him that gave me life,\n    I would attach you all and make you stoop\n    Unto the sovereign mercy of the King;\n    But since I cannot, be it known unto you\n    I do remain as neuter. So, fare you well;\n    Unless you please to enter in the castle,\n    And there repose you for this night.\n  BOLINGBROKE. An offer, uncle, that we will accept.\n    But we must win your Grace to go with us\n    To Bristow Castle, which they say is held\n    By Bushy, Bagot, and their complices,\n    The caterpillars of the commonwealth,\n    Which I have sworn to weed and pluck away.\n  YORK. It may be I will go with you; but yet I'll pause,\n    For I am loath to break our country's laws.\n    Nor friends nor foes, to me welcome you are.\n    Things past redress are now with me past care.        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\nA camp in Wales\n\nEnter EARL OF SALISBURY and a WELSH CAPTAIN\n\n  CAPTAIN. My Lord of Salisbury, we have stay'd ten days\n    And hardly kept our countrymen together,\n    And yet we hear no tidings from the King;\n    Therefore we will disperse ourselves. Farewell.\n  SALISBURY. Stay yet another day, thou trusty Welshman;\n    The King reposeth all his confidence in thee.\n  CAPTAIN. 'Tis thought the King is dead; we will not stay.\n    The bay trees in our country are all wither'd,\n    And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven;\n    The pale-fac'd moon looks bloody on the earth,\n    And lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change;\n    Rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap-\n    The one in fear to lose what they enjoy,\n    The other to enjoy by rage and war.\n    These signs forerun the death or fall of kings.\n    Farewell. Our countrymen are gone and fled,\n    As well assur'd Richard their King is dead.             Exit\n  SALISBURY. Ah, Richard, with the eyes of heavy mind,\n    I see thy glory like a shooting star\n    Fall to the base earth from the firmament!\n    The sun sets weeping in the lowly west,\n    Witnessing storms to come, woe, and unrest;\n    Thy friends are fled, to wait upon thy foes;\n    And crossly to thy good all fortune goes.               Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nBOLINGBROKE'S camp at Bristol\n\nEnter BOLINGBROKE, YORK, NORTHUMBERLAND, PERCY, ROSS, WILLOUGHBY,\nBUSHY and GREEN, prisoners\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. Bring forth these men.\n    Bushy and Green, I will not vex your souls-\n    Since presently your souls must part your bodies-\n    With too much urging your pernicious lives,\n    For 'twere no charity; yet, to wash your blood\n    From off my hands, here in the view of men\n    I will unfold some causes of your deaths:\n    You have misled a prince, a royal king,\n    A happy gentleman in blood and lineaments,\n    By you unhappied and disfigured clean;\n    You have in manner with your sinful hours\n    Made a divorce betwixt his queen and him;\n    Broke the possession of a royal bed,\n    And stain'd the beauty of a fair queen's cheeks\n    With tears drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs;\n    Myself-a prince by fortune of my birth,\n    Near to the King in blood, and near in love\n    Till you did make him misinterpret me-\n    Have stoop'd my neck under your injuries\n    And sigh'd my English breath in foreign clouds,\n    Eating the bitter bread of banishment,\n    Whilst you have fed upon my signories,\n    Dispark'd my parks and fell'd my forest woods,\n    From my own windows torn my household coat,\n    Raz'd out my imprese, leaving me no sign\n    Save men's opinions and my living blood\n    To show the world I am a gentleman.\n    This and much more, much more than twice all this,\n    Condemns you to the death. See them delivered over\n    To execution and the hand of death.\n  BUSHY. More welcome is the stroke of death to me\n    Than Bolingbroke to England. Lords, farewell.\n  GREEN. My comfort is that heaven will take our souls,\n    And plague injustice with the pains of hell.\n  BOLINGBROKE. My Lord Northumberland, see them dispatch'd.\n           Exeunt NORTHUMBERLAND, and others, with the prisoners\n    Uncle, you say the Queen is at your house;\n    For God's sake, fairly let her be entreated.\n    Tell her I send to her my kind commends;\n    Take special care my greetings be delivered.\n  YORK. A gentleman of mine I have dispatch'd\n    With letters of your love to her at large.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Thanks, gentle uncle. Come, lords, away,\n    To fight with Glendower and his complices.\n    Awhile to work, and after holiday.                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\nThe coast of Wales. A castle in view\n\nDrums. Flourish and colours. Enter the KING, the BISHOP OF CARLISLE,\nAUMERLE, and soldiers\n\n  KING RICHARD. Barkloughly Castle can they this at hand?\n  AUMERLE. Yea, my lord. How brooks your Grace the air\n    After your late tossing on the breaking seas?\n  KING RICHARD. Needs must I like it well. I weep for joy\n    To stand upon my kingdom once again.\n    Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand,\n    Though rebels wound thee with their horses' hoofs.\n    As a long-parted mother with her child\n    Plays fondly with her tears and smiles in meeting,\n    So weeping-smiling greet I thee, my earth,\n    And do thee favours with my royal hands.\n    Feed not thy sovereign's foe, my gentle earth,\n    Nor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense;\n    But let thy spiders, that suck up thy venom,\n    And heavy-gaited toads, lie in their way,\n    Doing annoyance to the treacherous feet\n    Which with usurping steps do trample thee;\n    Yield stinging nettles to mine enemies;\n    And when they from thy bosom pluck a flower,\n    Guard it, I pray thee, with a lurking adder,\n    Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch\n    Throw death upon thy sovereign's enemies.\n    Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords.\n    This earth shall have a feeling, and these stones\n    Prove armed soldiers, ere her native king\n    Shall falter under foul rebellion's arms.\n  CARLISLE. Fear not, my lord; that Power that made you king\n    Hath power to keep you king in spite of all.\n    The means that heaven yields must be embrac'd\n    And not neglected; else, if heaven would,\n    And we will not, heaven's offer we refuse,\n    The proffered means of succour and redress.\n  AUMERLE. He means, my lord, that we are too remiss;\n    Whilst Bolingbroke, through our security,\n    Grows strong and great in substance and in power.\n  KING RICHARD. Discomfortable cousin! know'st thou not\n    That when the searching eye of heaven is hid,\n    Behind the globe, that lights the lower world,\n    Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen\n    In murders and in outrage boldly here;\n    But when from under this terrestrial ball\n    He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines\n    And darts his light through every guilty hole,\n    Then murders, treasons, and detested sins,\n    The cloak of night being pluck'd from off their backs,\n    Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves?\n    So when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke,\n    Who all this while hath revell'd in the night,\n    Whilst we were wand'ring with the Antipodes,\n    Shall see us rising in our throne, the east,\n    His treasons will sit blushing in his face,\n    Not able to endure the sight of day,\n    But self-affrighted tremble at his sin.\n    Not all the water in the rough rude sea\n    Can wash the balm off from an anointed king;\n    The breath of worldly men cannot depose\n    The deputy elected by the Lord.\n    For every man that Bolingbroke hath press'd\n    To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,\n    God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay\n    A glorious angel. Then, if angels fight,\n    Weak men must fall; for heaven still guards the right.\n\n                 Enter SALISBURY\n\n    Welcome, my lord. How far off lies your power?\n  SALISBURY. Nor near nor farther off, my gracious lord,\n    Than this weak arm. Discomfort guides my tongue,\n    And bids me speak of nothing but despair.\n    One day too late, I fear me, noble lord,\n    Hath clouded all thy happy days on earth.\n    O, call back yesterday, bid time return,\n    And thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men!\n    To-day, to-day, unhappy day, too late,\n    O'erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune, and thy state;\n    For all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead,\n    Are gone to Bolingbroke, dispers'd, and fled.\n  AUMERLE. Comfort, my liege, why looks your Grace so pale?\n  KING RICHARD. But now the blood of twenty thousand men\n    Did triumph in my face, and they are fled;\n    And, till so much blood thither come again,\n    Have I not reason to look pale and dead?\n    All souls that will be safe, fly from my side;\n    For time hath set a blot upon my pride.\n  AUMERLE. Comfort, my liege; remember who you are.\n  KING RICHARD. I had forgot myself; am I not King?\n    Awake, thou coward majesty! thou sleepest.\n    Is not the King's name twenty thousand names?\n    Arm, arm, my name! a puny subject strikes\n    At thy great glory. Look not to the ground,\n    Ye favourites of a king; are we not high?\n    High be our thoughts. I know my uncle York\n    Hath power enough to serve our turn. But who comes here?\n\n                   Enter SCROOP\n\n  SCROOP. More health and happiness betide my liege\n    Than can my care-tun'd tongue deliver him.\n  KING RICHARD. Mine ear is open and my heart prepar'd.\n    The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold.\n    Say, is my kingdom lost? Why, 'twas my care,\n    And what loss is it to be rid of care?\n    Strives Bolingbroke to be as great as we?\n    Greater he shall not be; if he serve God,\n    We'll serve him too, and be his fellow so.\n    Revolt our subjects? That we cannot mend;\n    They break their faith to God as well as us.\n    Cry woe, destruction, ruin, and decay-\n    The worst is death, and death will have his day.\n  SCROOP. Glad am I that your Highness is so arm'd\n    To bear the tidings of calamity.\n    Like an unseasonable stormy day\n    Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores,\n    As if the world were all dissolv'd to tears,\n    So high above his limits swells the rage\n    Of Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land\n    With hard bright steel and hearts harder than steel.\n    White-beards have arm'd their thin and hairless scalps\n    Against thy majesty; boys, with women's voices,\n    Strive to speak big, and clap their female joints\n    In stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown;\n    Thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bows\n    Of double-fatal yew against thy state;\n    Yea, distaff-women manage rusty bills\n    Against thy seat: both young and old rebel,\n    And all goes worse than I have power to tell.\n  KING RICHARD. Too well, too well thou tell'st a tale so in.\n    Where is the Earl of Wiltshire? Where is Bagot?\n    What is become of Bushy? Where is Green?\n    That they have let the dangerous enemy\n    Measure our confines with such peaceful steps?\n    If we prevail, their heads shall pay for it.\n    I warrant they have made peace with Bolingbroke.\n  SCROOP. Peace have they made with him indeed, my lord.\n  KING RICHARD. O villains, vipers, damn'd without redemption!\n    Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man!\n    Snakes, in my heart-blood warm'd, that sting my heart!\n    Three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas!\n    Would they make peace? Terrible hell make war\n    Upon their spotted souls for this offence!\n  SCROOP. Sweet love, I see, changing his property,\n    Turns to the sourest and most deadly hate.\n    Again uncurse their souls; their peace is made\n    With heads, and not with hands; those whom you curse\n    Have felt the worst of death's destroying wound\n    And lie full low, grav'd in the hollow ground.\n  AUMERLE. Is Bushy, Green, and the Earl of Wiltshire dead?\n  SCROOP. Ay, all of them at Bristow lost their heads.\n  AUMERLE. Where is the Duke my father with his power?\n  KING RICHARD. No matter where-of comfort no man speak.\n    Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;\n    Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes\n    Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.\n    Let's choose executors and talk of wills;\n    And yet not so-for what can we bequeath\n    Save our deposed bodies to the ground?\n    Our lands, our lives, and an, are Bolingbroke's.\n    And nothing can we can our own but death\n    And that small model of the barren earth\n    Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.\n    For God's sake let us sit upon the ground\n    And tell sad stories of the death of kings:\n    How some have been depos'd, some slain in war,\n    Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos'd,\n    Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kill'd,\n    All murder'd-for within the hollow crown\n    That rounds the mortal temples of a king\n    Keeps Death his court; and there the antic sits,\n    Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp;\n    Allowing him a breath, a little scene,\n    To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks;\n    Infusing him with self and vain conceit,\n    As if this flesh which walls about our life\n    Were brass impregnable; and, humour'd thus,\n    Comes at the last, and with a little pin\n    Bores through his castle wall, and farewell, king!\n    Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood\n    With solemn reverence; throw away respect,\n    Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty;\n    For you have but mistook me all this while.\n    I live with bread like you, feel want,\n    Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,\n    How can you say to me I am a king?\n  CARLISLE. My lord, wise men ne'er sit and wail their woes,\n    But presently prevent the ways to wail.\n    To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength,\n    Gives, in your weakness, strength unto your foe,\n    And so your follies fight against yourself.\n    Fear and be slain-no worse can come to fight;\n    And fight and die is death destroying death,\n    Where fearing dying pays death servile breath.\n  AUMERLE. My father hath a power; inquire of him,\n    And learn to make a body of a limb.\n  KING RICHARD. Thou chid'st me well. Proud Bolingbroke, I come\n    To change blows with thee for our day of doom.\n    This ague fit of fear is over-blown;\n    An easy task it is to win our own.\n    Say, Scroop, where lies our uncle with his power?\n    Speak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour.\n  SCROOP. Men judge by the complexion of the sky\n    The state in inclination of the day;\n    So may you by my dull and heavy eye,\n    My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say.\n    I play the torturer, by small and small\n    To lengthen out the worst that must be spoken:\n    Your uncle York is join'd with Bolingbroke;\n    And all your northern castles yielded up,\n    And all your southern gentlemen in arms\n    Upon his party.\n  KING RICHARD. Thou hast said enough.\n      [To AUMERLE] Beshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me forth\n    Of that sweet way I was in to despair!\n    What say you now? What comfort have we now?\n    By heaven, I'll hate him everlastingly\n    That bids me be of comfort any more.\n    Go to Flint Castle; there I'll pine away;\n    A king, woe's slave, shall kingly woe obey.\n    That power I have, discharge; and let them go\n    To ear the land that hath some hope to grow,\n    For I have none. Let no man speak again\n    To alter this, for counsel is but vain.\n  AUMERLE. My liege, one word.\n  KING RICHARD. He does me double wrong\n    That wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue.\n    Discharge my followers; let them hence away,\n    From Richard's night to Bolingbroke's fair day.       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\nWales. Before Flint Castle\n\nEnter, with drum and colours, BOLINGBROKE, YORK, NORTHUMBERLAND,\nand forces\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. So that by this intelligence we learn\n    The Welshmen are dispers'd; and Salisbury\n    Is gone to meet the King, who lately landed\n    With some few private friends upon this coast.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. The news is very fair and good, my lord.\n    Richard not far from hence hath hid his head.\n  YORK. It would beseem the Lord Northumberland\n    To say 'King Richard.' Alack the heavy day\n    When such a sacred king should hide his head!\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Your Grace mistakes; only to be brief,\n    Left I his title out.\n  YORK. The time hath been,\n    Would you have been so brief with him, he would\n    Have been so brief with you to shorten you,\n    For taking so the head, your whole head's length.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Mistake not, uncle, further than you should.\n  YORK. Take not, good cousin, further than you should,\n    Lest you mistake. The heavens are over our heads.\n  BOLINGBROKE. I know it, uncle; and oppose not myself\n    Against their will. But who comes here?\n\n                    Enter PERCY\n\n    Welcome, Harry. What, will not this castle yield?\n  PIERCY. The castle royally is mann'd, my lord,\n    Against thy entrance.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Royally!\n    Why, it contains no king?\n  PERCY. Yes, my good lord,\n    It doth contain a king; King Richard lies\n    Within the limits of yon lime and stone;\n    And with him are the Lord Aumerle, Lord Salisbury,\n    Sir Stephen Scroop, besides a clergyman\n    Of holy reverence; who, I cannot learn.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. O, belike it is the Bishop of Carlisle.\n  BOLINGBROKE. [To NORTHUMBERLAND] Noble lord,\n    Go to the rude ribs of that ancient castle;\n    Through brazen trumpet send the breath of parley\n    Into his ruin'd ears, and thus deliver:\n    Henry Bolingbroke\n    On both his knees doth kiss King Richard's hand,\n    And sends allegiance and true faith of heart\n    To his most royal person; hither come\n    Even at his feet to lay my arms and power,\n    Provided that my banishment repeal'd\n    And lands restor'd again be freely granted;\n    If not, I'll use the advantage of my power\n    And lay the summer's dust with showers of blood\n    Rain'd from the wounds of slaughtered Englishmen;\n    The which how far off from the mind of Bolingbroke\n    It is such crimson tempest should bedrench\n    The fresh green lap of fair King Richard's land,\n    My stooping duty tenderly shall show.\n    Go, signify as much, while here we march\n    Upon the grassy carpet of this plain.\n           [NORTHUMBERLAND advances to the Castle, with a trumpet]\n    Let's march without the noise of threat'ning drum,\n    That from this castle's tottered battlements\n    Our fair appointments may be well perus'd.\n    Methinks King Richard and myself should meet\n    With no less terror than the elements\n    Of fire and water, when their thund'ring shock\n    At meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven.\n    Be he the fire, I'll be the yielding water;\n    The rage be his, whilst on the earth I rain\n    My waters-on the earth, and not on him.\n    March on, and mark King Richard how he looks.\n\n      Parle without, and answer within; then a flourish.\n      Enter on the walls, the KING, the BISHOP OF CARLISLE,\n      AUMERLE, SCROOP, and SALISBURY\n\n    See, see, King Richard doth himself appear,\n    As doth the blushing discontented sun\n    From out the fiery portal of the east,\n    When he perceives the envious clouds are bent\n    To dim his glory and to stain the track\n    Of his bright passage to the occident.\n  YORK. Yet he looks like a king. Behold, his eye,\n    As bright as is the eagle's, lightens forth\n    Controlling majesty. Alack, alack, for woe,\n    That any harm should stain so fair a show!\n  KING RICHARD. [To NORTHUMBERLAND] We are amaz'd; and thus long\n      have we stood\n    To watch the fearful bending of thy knee,\n    Because we thought ourself thy lawful King;\n    And if we be, how dare thy joints forget\n    To pay their awful duty to our presence?\n    If we be not, show us the hand of God\n    That hath dismiss'd us from our stewardship;\n    For well we know no hand of blood and bone\n    Can gripe the sacred handle of our sceptre,\n    Unless he do profane, steal, or usurp.\n    And though you think that all, as you have done,\n    Have torn their souls by turning them from us,\n    And we are barren and bereft of friends,\n    Yet know-my master, God omnipotent,\n    Is mustering in his clouds on our behalf\n    Armies of pestilence; and they shall strike\n    Your children yet unborn and unbegot,\n    That lift your vassal hands against my head\n    And threat the glory of my precious crown.\n    Tell Bolingbroke, for yon methinks he stands,\n    That every stride he makes upon my land\n    Is dangerous treason; he is come to open\n    The purple testament of bleeding war;\n    But ere the crown he looks for live in peace,\n    Ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers' sons\n    Shall ill become the flower of England's face,\n    Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace\n    To scarlet indignation, and bedew\n    Her pastures' grass with faithful English blood.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. The King of Heaven forbid our lord the King\n    Should so with civil and uncivil arms\n    Be rush'd upon! Thy thrice noble cousin,\n    Harry Bolingbroke, doth humbly kiss thy hand;\n    And by the honourable tomb he swears\n    That stands upon your royal grandsire's bones,\n    And by the royalties of both your bloods,\n    Currents that spring from one most gracious head,\n    And by the buried hand of warlike Gaunt,\n    And by the worth and honour of himself,\n    Comprising all that may be sworn or said,\n    His coming hither hath no further scope\n    Than for his lineal royalties, and to beg\n    Enfranchisement immediate on his knees;\n    Which on thy royal party granted once,\n    His glittering arms he will commend to rust,\n    His barbed steeds to stables, and his heart\n    To faithful service of your Majesty.\n    This swears he, as he is a prince, is just;\n    And as I am a gentleman I credit him.\n  KING RICHARD. Northumberland, say thus the King returns:\n    His noble cousin is right welcome hither;\n    And all the number of his fair demands\n    Shall be accomplish'd without contradiction.\n    With all the gracious utterance thou hast\n    Speak to his gentle hearing kind commends.\n    [To AUMERLE] We do debase ourselves, cousin, do we not,\n    To look so poorly and to speak so fair?\n    Shall we call back Northumberland, and send\n    Defiance to the traitor, and so die?\n  AUMERLE. No, good my lord; let's fight with gentle words\n    Till time lend friends, and friends their helpful swords.\n  KING RICHARD. O God, O God! that e'er this tongue of mine\n    That laid the sentence of dread banishment\n    On yon proud man should take it off again\n    With words of sooth! O that I were as great\n    As is my grief, or lesser than my name!\n    Or that I could forget what I have been!\n    Or not remember what I must be now!\n    Swell'st thou, proud heart? I'll give thee scope to beat,\n    Since foes have scope to beat both thee and me.\n  AUMERLE. Northumberland comes back from Bolingbroke.\n  KING RICHARD. What must the King do now? Must he submit?\n    The King shall do it. Must he be depos'd?\n    The King shall be contented. Must he lose\n    The name of king? A God's name, let it go.\n    I'll give my jewels for a set of beads,\n    My gorgeous palace for a hermitage,\n    My gay apparel for an almsman's gown,\n    My figur'd goblets for a dish of wood,\n    My sceptre for a palmer's walking staff,\n    My subjects for a pair of carved saints,\n    And my large kingdom for a little grave,\n    A little little grave, an obscure grave-\n    Or I'll be buried in the king's high way,\n    Some way of common trade, where subjects' feet\n    May hourly trample on their sovereign's head;\n    For on my heart they tread now whilst I live,\n    And buried once, why not upon my head?\n    Aumerle, thou weep'st, my tender-hearted cousin!\n    We'll make foul weather with despised tears;\n    Our sighs and they shall lodge the summer corn\n    And make a dearth in this revolting land.\n    Or shall we play the wantons with our woes\n    And make some pretty match with shedding tears?\n    As thus: to drop them still upon one place\n    Till they have fretted us a pair of graves\n    Within the earth; and, therein laid-there lies\n    Two kinsmen digg'd their graves with weeping eyes.\n    Would not this ill do well? Well, well, I see\n    I talk but idly, and you laugh at me.\n    Most mighty prince, my Lord Northumberland,\n    What says King Bolingbroke? Will his Majesty\n    Give Richard leave to live till Richard die?\n    You make a leg, and Bolingbroke says ay.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord, in the base court he doth attend\n    To speak with you; may it please you to come down?\n  KING RICHARD. Down, down I come, like glist'ring Phaethon,\n    Wanting the manage of unruly jades.\n    In the base court? Base court, where kings grow base,\n    To come at traitors' calls, and do them grace.\n    In the base court? Come down? Down, court! down, king!\n    For night-owls shriek where mounting larks should sing.\n                                               Exeunt from above\n  BOLINGBROKE. What says his Majesty?\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Sorrow and grief of heart\n    Makes him speak fondly, like a frantic man;\n    Yet he is come.\n\n          Enter the KING, and his attendants, below\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. Stand all apart,\n    And show fair duty to his Majesty.   [He kneels down]\n    My gracious lord-\n  KING RICHARD. Fair cousin, you debase your princely knee\n    To make the base earth proud with kissing it.\n    Me rather had my heart might feel your love\n    Than my unpleas'd eye see your courtesy.\n    Up, cousin, up; your heart is up, I know,\n    [Touching his own head] Thus high at least, although your\n      knee be low.\n  BOLINGBROKE. My gracious lord, I come but for mine own.\n  KING RICHARD. Your own is yours, and I am yours, and all.\n  BOLINGBROKE. So far be mine, my most redoubted lord,\n    As my true service shall deserve your love.\n  KING RICHARD. Well you deserve. They well deserve to have\n    That know the strong'st and surest way to get.\n    Uncle, give me your hands; nay, dry your eyes:\n    Tears show their love, but want their remedies.\n    Cousin, I am too young to be your father,\n    Though you are old enough to be my heir.\n    What you will have, I'll give, and willing too;\n    For do we must what force will have us do.\n    Set on towards London. Cousin, is it so?\n  BOLINGBROKE. Yea, my good lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Then I must not say no.         Flourish. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\nThe DUKE OF YORK's garden\n\nEnter the QUEEN and two LADIES\n\n  QUEEN. What sport shall we devise here in this garden\n    To drive away the heavy thought of care?\n  LADY. Madam, we'll play at bowls.\n  QUEEN. 'Twill make me think the world is full of rubs\n    And that my fortune runs against the bias.\n  LADY. Madam, we'll dance.\n  QUEEN. My legs can keep no measure in delight,\n    When my poor heart no measure keeps in grief;\n    Therefore no dancing, girl; some other sport.\n  LADY. Madam, we'll tell tales.\n  QUEEN. Of sorrow or of joy?\n  LADY. Of either, madam.\n  QUEEN. Of neither, girl;\n    For if of joy, being altogether wanting,\n    It doth remember me the more of sorrow;\n    Or if of grief, being altogether had,\n    It adds more sorrow to my want of joy;\n    For what I have I need not to repeat,\n    And what I want it boots not to complain.\n  LADY. Madam, I'll sing.\n  QUEEN. 'Tis well' that thou hast cause;\n    But thou shouldst please me better wouldst thou weep.\n  LADY. I could weep, madam, would it do you good.\n  QUEEN. And I could sing, would weeping do me good,\n    And never borrow any tear of thee.\n\n           Enter a GARDENER and two SERVANTS\n\n    But stay, here come the gardeners.\n    Let's step into the shadow of these trees.\n    My wretchedness unto a row of pins,\n    They will talk of state, for every one doth so\n    Against a change: woe is forerun with woe.\n                                       [QUEEN and LADIES retire]\n  GARDENER. Go, bind thou up yon dangling apricocks,\n    Which, like unruly children, make their sire\n    Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight;\n    Give some supportance to the bending twigs.\n    Go thou, and Eke an executioner\n    Cut off the heads of too fast growing sprays\n    That look too lofty in our commonwealth:\n    All must be even in our government.\n    You thus employ'd, I will go root away\n    The noisome weeds which without profit suck\n    The soil's fertility from wholesome flowers.\n  SERVANT. Why should we, in the compass of a pale,\n    Keep law and form and due proportion,\n    Showing, as in a model, our firm estate,\n    When our sea-walled garden, the whole land,\n    Is full of weeds; her fairest flowers chok'd up,\n    Her fruit trees all unprun'd, her hedges ruin'd,\n    Her knots disordered, and her wholesome herbs\n    Swarming with caterpillars?\n  GARDENER. Hold thy peace.\n    He that hath suffer'd this disorder'd spring\n    Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf;\n    The weeds which his broad-spreading leaves did shelter,\n    That seem'd in eating him to hold him up,\n    Are pluck'd up root and all by Bolingbroke-\n    I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.\n  SERVANT. What, are they dead?\n  GARDENER. They are; and Bolingbroke\n    Hath seiz'd the wasteful King. O, what pity is it\n    That he had not so trimm'd and dress'd his land\n    As we this garden! We at time of year\n    Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit trees,\n    Lest, being over-proud in sap and blood,\n    With too much riches it confound itself;\n    Had he done so to great and growing men,\n    They might have Ev'd to bear, and he to taste\n    Their fruits of duty. Superfluous branches\n    We lop away, that bearing boughs may live;\n    Had he done so, himself had home the crown,\n    Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down.\n  SERVANT. What, think you the King shall be deposed?\n  GARDENER. Depress'd he is already, and depos'd\n    'Tis doubt he will be. Letters came last night\n    To a dear friend of the good Duke of York's\n    That tell black tidings.\n  QUEEN. O, I am press'd to death through want of speaking!\n                                                [Coming forward]\n    Thou, old Adam's likeness, set to dress this garden,\n    How dares thy harsh rude tongue sound this unpleasing news?\n    What Eve, what serpent, hath suggested the\n    To make a second fall of cursed man?\n    Why dost thou say King Richard is depos'd?\n    Dar'st thou, thou little better thing than earth,\n    Divine his downfall? Say, where, when, and how,\n    Cam'st thou by this ill tidings? Speak, thou wretch.\n  GARDENER. Pardon me, madam; little joy have\n    To breathe this news; yet what I say is true.\n    King Richard, he is in the mighty hold\n    Of Bolingbroke. Their fortunes both are weigh'd.\n    In your lord's scale is nothing but himself,\n    And some few vanities that make him light;\n    But in the balance of great Bolingbroke,\n    Besides himself, are all the English peers,\n    And with that odds he weighs King Richard down.\n    Post you to London, and you will find it so;\n    I speak no more than every one doth know.\n  QUEEN. Nimble mischance, that art so light of foot,\n    Doth not thy embassage belong to me,\n    And am I last that knows it? O, thou thinkest\n    To serve me last, that I may longest keep\n    Thy sorrow in my breast. Come, ladies, go\n    To meet at London London's King in woe.\n    What, was I born to this, that my sad look\n    Should grace the triumph of great Bolingbroke?\n    Gard'ner, for telling me these news of woe,\n    Pray God the plants thou graft'st may never grow!\n                                         Exeunt QUEEN and LADIES\n  GARDENER. Poor Queen, so that thy state might be no worse,\n    I would my skill were subject to thy curse.\n    Here did she fall a tear; here in this place\n    I'll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace.\n    Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen,\n    In the remembrance of a weeping queen.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 1.\nWestminster Hall\n\nEnter, as to the Parliament, BOLINGBROKE, AUMERLE, NORTHUMBERLAND, PERCY,\nFITZWATER, SURREY, the BISHOP OF CARLISLE, the ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER,\nand others; HERALD, OFFICERS, and BAGOT\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. Call forth Bagot.\n    Now, Bagot, freely speak thy mind-\n    What thou dost know of noble Gloucester's death;\n    Who wrought it with the King, and who perform'd\n    The bloody office of his timeless end.\n  BAGOT. Then set before my face the Lord Aumerle.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Cousin, stand forth, and look upon that man.\n  BAGOT. My Lord Aumerle, I know your daring tongue\n    Scorns to unsay what once it hath deliver'd.\n    In that dead time when Gloucester's death was plotted\n    I heard you say 'Is not my arm of length,\n    That reacheth from the restful English Court\n    As far as Calais, to mine uncle's head?'\n    Amongst much other talk that very time\n    I heard you say that you had rather refuse\n    The offer of an hundred thousand crowns\n    Than Bolingbroke's return to England;\n    Adding withal, how blest this land would be\n    In this your cousin's death.\n  AUMERLE. Princes, and noble lords,\n    What answer shall I make to this base man?\n    Shall I so much dishonour my fair stars\n    On equal terms to give him chastisement?\n    Either I must, or have mine honour soil'd\n    With the attainder of his slanderous lips.\n    There is my gage, the manual seal of death\n    That marks thee out for hell. I say thou liest,\n    And will maintain what thou hast said is false\n    In thy heart-blood, through being all too base\n    To stain the temper of my knightly sword.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Bagot, forbear; thou shalt not take it up.\n  AUMERLE. Excepting one, I would he were the best\n    In all this presence that hath mov'd me so.\n  FITZWATER. If that thy valour stand on sympathy,\n    There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine.\n    By that fair sun which shows me where thou stand'st,\n    I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spak'st it,\n    That thou wert cause of noble Gloucester's death.\n    If thou deniest it twenty times, thou liest;\n    And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart,\n    Where it was forged, with my rapier's point.\n  AUMERLE. Thou dar'st not, coward, live to see that day.\n  FITZWATER. Now, by my soul, I would it were this hour.\n  AUMERLE. Fitzwater, thou art damn'd to hell for this.\n  PERCY. Aumerle, thou liest; his honour is as true\n    In this appeal as thou art an unjust;\n    And that thou art so, there I throw my gage,\n    To prove it on thee to the extremest point\n    Of mortal breathing. Seize it, if thou dar'st.\n  AUMERLE. An if I do not, may my hands rot of\n    And never brandish more revengeful steel\n    Over the glittering helmet of my foe!\n  ANOTHER LORD. I task the earth to the like, forsworn Aumerle;\n    And spur thee on with fun as many lies\n    As may be halloa'd in thy treacherous ear\n    From sun to sun. There is my honour's pawn;\n    Engage it to the trial, if thou darest.\n  AUMERLE. Who sets me else? By heaven, I'll throw at all!\n    I have a thousand spirits in one breast\n    To answer twenty thousand such as you.\n  SURREY. My Lord Fitzwater, I do remember well\n    The very time Aumerle and you did talk.\n  FITZWATER. 'Tis very true; you were in presence then,\n    And you can witness with me this is true.\n  SURREY. As false, by heaven, as heaven itself is true.\n  FITZWATER. Surrey, thou liest.\n  SURREY. Dishonourable boy!\n    That lie shall lie so heavy on my sword\n    That it shall render vengeance and revenge\n    Till thou the lie-giver and that lie do he\n    In earth as quiet as thy father's skull.\n    In proof whereof, there is my honour's pawn;\n    Engage it to the trial, if thou dar'st.\n  FITZWATER. How fondly dost thou spur a forward horse!\n    If I dare eat, or drink, or breathe, or live,\n    I dare meet Surrey in a wilderness,\n    And spit upon him whilst I say he lies,\n    And lies, and lies. There is my bond of faith,\n    To tie thee to my strong correction.\n    As I intend to thrive in this new world,\n    Aumerle is guilty of my true appeal.\n    Besides, I heard the banish'd Norfolk say\n    That thou, Aumerle, didst send two of thy men\n    To execute the noble Duke at Calais.\n  AUMERLE. Some honest Christian trust me with a gage\n    That Norfolk lies. Here do I throw down this,\n    If he may be repeal'd to try his honour.\n  BOLINGBROKE. These differences shall all rest under gage\n    Till Norfolk be repeal'd-repeal'd he shall be\n    And, though mine enemy, restor'd again\n    To all his lands and signories. When he is return'd,\n    Against Aumerle we will enforce his trial.\n  CARLISLE. That honourable day shall never be seen.\n    Many a time hath banish'd Norfolk fought\n    For Jesu Christ in glorious Christian field,\n    Streaming the ensign of the Christian cross\n    Against black pagans, Turks, and Saracens;\n    And, toil'd with works of war, retir'd himself\n    To Italy; and there, at Venice, gave\n    His body to that pleasant country's earth,\n    And his pure soul unto his captain, Christ,\n    Under whose colours he had fought so long.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Why, Bishop, is Norfolk dead?\n  CARLISLE. As surely as I live, my lord.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Sweet peace conduct his sweet soul to the bosom\n    Of good old Abraham! Lords appellants,\n    Your differences shall all rest under gage\n    Till we assign you to your days of trial\n\n                 Enter YORK, attended\n\n  YORK. Great Duke of Lancaster, I come to the\n    From plume-pluck'd Richard, who with willing soul\n    Adopts thee heir, and his high sceptre yields\n    To the possession of thy royal hand.\n    Ascend his throne, descending now from him-\n    And long live Henry, fourth of that name!\n  BOLINGBROKE. In God's name, I'll ascend the regal throne.\n  CARLISLE. Marry, God forbid!\n    Worst in this royal presence may I speak,\n    Yet best beseeming me to speak the truth.\n    Would God that any in this noble presence\n    Were enough noble to be upright judge\n    Of noble Richard! Then true noblesse would\n    Learn him forbearance from so foul a wrong.\n    What subject can give sentence on his king?\n    And who sits here that is not Richard's subject?\n    Thieves are not judg'd but they are by to hear,\n    Although apparent guilt be seen in them;\n    And shall the figure of God's majesty,\n    His captain, steward, deputy elect,\n    Anointed, crowned, planted many years,\n    Be judg'd by subject and inferior breath,\n    And he himself not present? O, forfend it, God,\n    That in a Christian climate souls refin'd\n    Should show so heinous, black, obscene a deed!\n    I speak to subjects, and a subject speaks,\n    Stirr'd up by God, thus boldly for his king.\n    My Lord of Hereford here, whom you call king,\n    Is a foul traitor to proud Hereford's king;\n    And if you crown him, let me prophesy-\n    The blood of English shall manure the ground,\n    And future ages groan for this foul act;\n    Peace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels,\n    And in this seat of peace tumultuous wars\n    Shall kin with kin and kind with kind confound;\n    Disorder, horror, fear, and mutiny,\n    Shall here inhabit, and this land be call'd\n    The field of Golgotha and dead men's skulls.\n    O, if you raise this house against this house,\n    It will the woefullest division prove\n    That ever fell upon this cursed earth.\n    Prevent it, resist it, let it not be so,\n    Lest child, child's children, cry against you woe.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Well have you argued, sir; and, for your pains,\n    Of capital treason we arrest you here.\n    My Lord of Westminster, be it your charge\n    To keep him safely till his day of trial.\n    May it please you, lords, to grant the commons' suit?\n  BOLINGBROKE. Fetch hither Richard, that in common view\n    He may surrender; so we shall proceed\n    Without suspicion.\n  YORK. I will be his conduct.                              Exit\n  BOLINGBROKE. Lords, you that here are under our arrest,\n    Procure your sureties for your days of answer.\n    Little are we beholding to your love,\n    And little look'd for at your helping hands.\n\n      Re-enter YORK, with KING RICHARD, and OFFICERS\n                bearing the regalia\n\n  KING RICHARD. Alack, why am I sent for to a king,\n    Before I have shook off the regal thoughts\n    Wherewith I reign'd? I hardly yet have learn'd\n    To insinuate, flatter, bow, and bend my knee.\n    Give sorrow leave awhile to tutor me\n    To this submission. Yet I well remember\n    The favours of these men. Were they not mine?\n    Did they not sometime cry 'All hail!' to me?\n    So Judas did to Christ; but he, in twelve,\n    Found truth in all but one; I, in twelve thousand, none.\n    God save the King! Will no man say amen?\n    Am I both priest and clerk? Well then, amen.\n    God save the King! although I be not he;\n    And yet, amen, if heaven do think him me.\n    To do what service am I sent for hither?\n  YORK. To do that office of thine own good will\n    Which tired majesty did make thee offer-\n    The resignation of thy state and crown\n    To Henry Bolingbroke.\n  KING RICHARD. Give me the crown. Here, cousin, seize the crown.\n    Here, cousin,\n    On this side my hand, and on that side thine.\n    Now is this golden crown like a deep well\n    That owes two buckets, filling one another;\n    The emptier ever dancing in the air,\n    The other down, unseen, and full of water.\n    That bucket down and fun of tears am I,\n    Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.\n  BOLINGBROKE. I thought you had been willing to resign.\n  KING RICHARD. My crown I am; but still my griefs are mine.\n    You may my glories and my state depose,\n    But not my griefs; still am I king of those.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Part of your cares you give me with your crown.\n  KING RICHARD. Your cares set up do not pluck my cares down.\n    My care is loss of care, by old care done;\n    Your care is gain of care, by new care won.\n    The cares I give I have, though given away;\n    They tend the crown, yet still with me they stay.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Are you contented to resign the crown?\n  KING RICHARD. Ay, no; no, ay; for I must nothing be;\n    Therefore no no, for I resign to thee.\n    Now mark me how I will undo myself:\n    I give this heavy weight from off my head,\n    And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand,\n    The pride of kingly sway from out my heart;\n    With mine own tears I wash away my balm,\n    With mine own hands I give away my crown,\n    With mine own tongue deny my sacred state,\n    With mine own breath release all duteous oaths;\n    All pomp and majesty I do forswear;\n    My manors, rents, revenues, I forgo;\n    My acts, decrees, and statutes, I deny.\n    God pardon all oaths that are broke to me!\n    God keep all vows unbroke are made to thee!\n    Make me, that nothing have, with nothing griev'd,\n    And thou with all pleas'd, that hast an achiev'd.\n    Long mayst thou live in Richard's seat to sit,\n    And soon lie Richard in an earthly pit.\n    God save King Henry, unking'd Richard says,\n    And send him many years of sunshine days!\n    What more remains?\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. No more; but that you read\n    These accusations, and these grievous crimes\n    Committed by your person and your followers\n    Against the state and profit of this land;\n    That, by confessing them, the souls of men\n    May deem that you are worthily depos'd.\n  KING RICHARD. Must I do so? And must I ravel out\n    My weav'd-up follies? Gentle Northumberland,\n    If thy offences were upon record,\n    Would it not shame thee in so fair a troop\n    To read a lecture of them? If thou wouldst,\n    There shouldst thou find one heinous article,\n    Containing the deposing of a king\n    And cracking the strong warrant of an oath,\n    Mark'd with a blot, damn'd in the book of heaven.\n    Nay, all of you that stand and look upon me\n    Whilst that my wretchedness doth bait myself,\n    Though some of you, with Pilate, wash your hands,\n    Showing an outward pity-yet you Pilates\n    Have here deliver'd me to my sour cross,\n    And water cannot wash away your sin.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord, dispatch; read o'er these\n    articles.\n  KING RICHARD. Mine eyes are full of tears; I cannot see.\n    And yet salt water blinds them not so much\n    But they can see a sort of traitors here.\n    Nay, if I turn mine eyes upon myself,\n    I find myself a traitor with the rest;\n    For I have given here my soul's consent\n    T'undeck the pompous body of a king;\n    Made glory base, and sovereignty a slave,\n    Proud majesty a subject, state a peasant.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord-\n  KING RICHARD. No lord of thine, thou haught insulting man,\n    Nor no man's lord; I have no name, no tide-\n    No, not that name was given me at the font-\n    But 'tis usurp'd. Alack the heavy day,\n    That I have worn so many winters out,\n    And know not now what name to call myself!\n    O that I were a mockery king of snow,\n    Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke\n    To melt myself away in water drops!\n    Good king, great king, and yet not greatly good,\n    An if my word be sterling yet in England,\n    Let it command a mirror hither straight,\n    That it may show me what a face I have\n    Since it is bankrupt of his majesty.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Go some of you and fetch a looking-glass.\n                                               Exit an attendant\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Read o'er this paper while the glass doth come.\n  KING RICHARD. Fiend, thou torments me ere I come to hell.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Urge it no more, my Lord Northumberland.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. The Commons will not, then, be satisfied.\n  KING RICHARD. They shall be satisfied. I'll read enough,\n    When I do see the very book indeed\n    Where all my sins are writ, and that's myself.\n\n                Re-enter attendant with glass\n\n    Give me that glass, and therein will I read.\n    No deeper wrinkles yet? Hath sorrow struck\n    So many blows upon this face of mine\n    And made no deeper wounds? O flatt'ring glass,\n    Like to my followers in prosperity,\n    Thou dost beguile me! Was this face the face\n    That every day under his household roof\n    Did keep ten thousand men? Was this the face\n    That like the sun did make beholders wink?\n    Is this the face which fac'd so many follies\n    That was at last out-fac'd by Bolingbroke?\n    A brittle glory shineth in this face;\n    As brittle as the glory is the face;\n                        [Dashes the glass against the ground]\n    For there it is, crack'd in a hundred shivers.\n    Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport-\n    How soon my sorrow hath destroy'd my face.\n  BOLINGBROKE. The shadow of your sorrow hath destroy'd\n    The shadow of your face.\n  KING RICHARD. Say that again.\n    The shadow of my sorrow? Ha! let's see.\n    'Tis very true: my grief lies all within;\n    And these external manner of laments\n    Are merely shadows to the unseen grief\n    That swells with silence in the tortur'd soul.\n    There lies the substance; and I thank thee, king,\n    For thy great bounty, that not only giv'st\n    Me cause to wail, but teachest me the way\n    How to lament the cause. I'll beg one boon,\n    And then be gone and trouble you no more.\n    Shall I obtain it?\n  BOLINGBROKE. Name it, fair cousin.\n  KING RICHARD. Fair cousin! I am greater than a king;\n    For when I was a king, my flatterers\n    Were then but subjects; being now a subject,\n    I have a king here to my flatterer.\n    Being so great, I have no need to beg.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Yet ask.\n  KING RICHARD. And shall I have?\n  BOLINGBROKE. You shall.\n  KING RICHARD. Then give me leave to go.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Whither?\n  KING RICHARD. Whither you will, so I were from your sights.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Go, some of you convey him to the Tower.\n  KING RICHARD. O, good! Convey! Conveyers are you all,\n    That rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall.\n                     Exeunt KING RICHARD, some Lords and a Guard\n  BOLINGBROKE. On Wednesday next we solemnly set down\n    Our coronation. Lords, prepare yourselves.\n                    Exeunt all but the ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER, the\n                                 BISHOP OF CARLISLE, and AUMERLE\n  ABBOT. A woeful pageant have we here beheld.\n  CARLISLE. The woe's to come; the children yet unborn\n    Shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn.\n  AUMERLE. You holy clergymen, is there no plot\n    To rid the realm of this pernicious blot?\n  ABBOT. My lord,\n    Before I freely speak my mind herein,\n    You shall not only take the sacrament\n    To bury mine intents, but also to effect\n    Whatever I shall happen to devise.\n    I see your brows are full of discontent,\n    Your hearts of sorrow, and your eyes of tears.\n    Come home with me to supper; I will lay\n    A plot shall show us all a merry day.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 1.\nLondon. A street leading to the Tower\n\nEnter the QUEEN, with her attendants\n\n  QUEEN. This way the King will come; this is the way\n    To Julius Caesar's ill-erected tower,\n    To whose flint bosom my condemned lord\n    Is doom'd a prisoner by proud Bolingbroke.\n    Here let us rest, if this rebellious earth\n    Have any resting for her true King's queen.\n\n            Enter KING RICHARD and Guard\n\n    But soft, but see, or rather do not see,\n    My fair rose wither. Yet look up, behold,\n    That you in pity may dissolve to dew,\n    And wash him fresh again with true-love tears.\n    Ah, thou, the model where old Troy did stand;\n    Thou map of honour, thou King Richard's tomb,\n    And not King Richard; thou most beauteous inn,\n    Why should hard-favour'd grief be lodg'd in thee,\n    When triumph is become an alehouse guest?\n  KING RICHARD. Join not with grief, fair woman, do not so,\n    To make my end too sudden. Learn, good soul,\n    To think our former state a happy dream;\n    From which awak'd, the truth of what we are\n    Shows us but this: I am sworn brother, sweet,\n    To grim Necessity; and he and\n    Will keep a league till death. Hie thee to France,\n    And cloister thee in some religious house.\n    Our holy lives must win a new world's crown,\n    Which our profane hours here have thrown down.\n  QUEEN. What, is my Richard both in shape and mind\n    Transform'd and weak'ned? Hath Bolingbroke depos'd\n    Thine intellect? Hath he been in thy heart?\n    The lion dying thrusteth forth his paw\n    And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage\n    To be o'erpow'r'd; and wilt thou, pupil-like,\n    Take the correction mildly, kiss the rod,\n    And fawn on rage with base humility,\n    Which art a lion and the king of beasts?\n  KING RICHARD. A king of beasts, indeed! If aught but beasts,\n    I had been still a happy king of men.\n    Good sometimes queen, prepare thee hence for France.\n    Think I am dead, and that even here thou takest,\n    As from my death-bed, thy last living leave.\n    In winter's tedious nights sit by the fire\n    With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales\n    Of woeful ages long ago betid;\n    And ere thou bid good night, to quit their griefs\n    Tell thou the lamentable tale of me,\n    And send the hearers weeping to their beds;\n    For why, the senseless brands will sympathize\n    The heavy accent of thy moving tongue,\n    And in compassion weep the fire out;\n    And some will mourn in ashes, some coal-black,\n    For the deposing of a rightful king.\n\n             Enter NORTHUMBERLAND attended\n\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is chang'd;\n    You must to Pomfret, not unto the Tower.\n    And, madam, there is order ta'en for you:\n    With all swift speed you must away to France.\n  KING RICHARD. Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal\n    The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne,\n    The time shall not be many hours of age\n    More than it is, ere foul sin gathering head\n    Shall break into corruption. Thou shalt think\n    Though he divide the realm and give thee half\n    It is too little, helping him to all;\n    And he shall think that thou, which knowest the way\n    To plant unrightful kings, wilt know again,\n    Being ne'er so little urg'd, another way\n    To pluck him headlong from the usurped throne.\n    The love of wicked men converts to fear;\n    That fear to hate; and hate turns one or both\n    To worthy danger and deserved death.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. My guilt be on my head, and there an end.\n    Take leave, and part; for you must part forthwith.\n  KING RICHARD. Doubly divorc'd! Bad men, you violate\n    A twofold marriage-'twixt my crown and me,\n    And then betwixt me and my married wife.\n    Let me unkiss the oath 'twixt thee and me;\n    And yet not so, for with a kiss 'twas made.\n    Part us, Northumberland; I towards the north,\n    Where shivering cold and sickness pines the clime;\n    My wife to France, from whence set forth in pomp,\n    She came adorned hither like sweet May,\n    Sent back like Hallowmas or short'st of day.\n  QUEEN. And must we be divided? Must we part?\n  KING RICHARD. Ay, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart.\n  QUEEN. Banish us both, and send the King with me.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. That were some love, but little policy.\n  QUEEN. Then whither he goes thither let me go.\n  KING RICHARD. So two, together weeping, make one woe.\n    Weep thou for me in France, I for thee here;\n    Better far off than near, be ne'er the near.\n    Go, count thy way with sighs; I mine with groans.\n  QUEEN. So longest way shall have the longest moans.\n  KING RICHARD. Twice for one step I'll groan, the way being short,\n    And piece the way out with a heavy heart.\n    Come, come, in wooing sorrow let's be brief,\n    Since, wedding it, there is such length in grief.\n    One kiss shall stop our mouths, and dumbly part;\n    Thus give I mine, and thus take I thy heart.\n  QUEEN. Give me mine own again; 'twere no good part\n    To take on me to keep and kill thy heart.\n    So, now I have mine own again, be gone.\n    That I may strive to kill it with a groan.\n  KING RICHARD. We make woe wanton with this fond delay.\n    Once more, adieu; the rest let sorrow say.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\nThe DUKE OF YORK's palace\n\nEnter the DUKE OF YORK and the DUCHESS\n\n  DUCHESS. My Lord, you told me you would tell the rest,\n    When weeping made you break the story off,\n    Of our two cousins' coming into London.\n  YORK. Where did I leave?\n  DUCHESS. At that sad stop, my lord,\n    Where rude misgoverned hands from windows' tops\n    Threw dust and rubbish on King Richard's head.\n  YORK. Then, as I said, the Duke, great Bolingbroke,\n    Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed\n    Which his aspiring rider seem'd to know,\n    With slow but stately pace kept on his course,\n    Whilst all tongues cried 'God save thee, Bolingbroke!'\n    You would have thought the very windows spake,\n    So many greedy looks of young and old\n    Through casements darted their desiring eyes\n    Upon his visage; and that all the walls\n    With painted imagery had said at once\n    'Jesu preserve thee! Welcome, Bolingbroke!'\n    Whilst he, from the one side to the other turning,\n    Bareheaded, lower than his proud steed's neck,\n    Bespake them thus, 'I thank you, countrymen.'\n    And thus still doing, thus he pass'd along.\n  DUCHESS. Alack, poor Richard! where rode he the whilst?\n  YORK. As in a theatre the eyes of men\n    After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage\n    Are idly bent on him that enters next,\n    Thinking his prattle to be tedious;\n    Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes\n    Did scowl on gentle Richard; no man cried 'God save him!'\n    No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home;\n    But dust was thrown upon his sacred head;\n    Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off,\n    His face still combating with tears and smiles,\n    The badges of his grief and patience,\n    That had not God, for some strong purpose, steel'd\n    The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted,\n    And barbarism itself have pitied him.\n    But heaven hath a hand in these events,\n    To whose high will we bound our calm contents.\n    To Bolingbroke are we sworn subjects now,\n    Whose state and honour I for aye allow.\n  DUCHESS. Here comes my son Aumerle.\n  YORK. Aumerle that was\n    But that is lost for being Richard's friend,\n    And madam, you must call him Rudand now.\n    I am in Parliament pledge for his truth\n    And lasting fealty to the new-made king.\n\n                  Enter AUMERLE\n\n  DUCHESS. Welcome, my son. Who are the violets now\n    That strew the green lap of the new come spring?\n  AUMERLE. Madam, I know not, nor I greatly care not.\n    God knows I had as lief be none as one.\n  YORK. Well, bear you well in this new spring of time,\n    Lest you be cropp'd before you come to prime.\n    What news from Oxford? Do these justs and triumphs hold?\n  AUMERLE. For aught I know, my lord, they do.\n  YORK. You will be there, I know.\n  AUMERLE. If God prevent not, I purpose so.\n  YORK. What seal is that that without thy bosom?\n    Yea, look'st thou pale? Let me see the writing.\n  AUMERLE. My lord, 'tis nothing.\n  YORK. No matter, then, who see it.\n    I will be satisfied; let me see the writing.\n  AUMERLE. I do beseech your Grace to pardon me;\n    It is a matter of small consequence\n    Which for some reasons I would not have seen.\n  YORK. Which for some reasons, sir, I mean to see.\n    I fear, I fear-\n  DUCHESS. What should you fear?\n    'Tis nothing but some bond that he is ent'red into\n    For gay apparel 'gainst the triumph-day.\n  YORK. Bound to himself! What doth he with a bond\n    That he is bound to? Wife, thou art a fool.\n    Boy, let me see the writing.\n  AUMERLE. I do beseech you, pardon me; I may not show it.\n  YORK. I will be satisfied; let me see it, I say.\n                [He plucks it out of his bosom, and reads it]\n    Treason, foul treason! Villain! traitor! slave!\n  DUCHESS. What is the matter, my lord?\n  YORK. Ho! who is within there?\n\n                    Enter a servant\n\n    Saddle my horse.\n    God for his mercy, what treachery is here!\n  DUCHESS. Why, York, what is it, my lord?\n  YORK. Give me my boots, I say; saddle my horse.\n                                                    Exit servant\n    Now, by mine honour, by my life, my troth,\n    I will appeach the villain.\n  DUCHESS. What is the matter?\n  YORK. Peace, foolish woman.\n  DUCHESS. I will not peace. What is the matter, Aumerle?\n  AUMERLE. Good mother, be content; it is no more\n    Than my poor life must answer.\n  DUCHESS. Thy life answer!\n  YORK. Bring me my boots. I will unto the King.\n\n              His man enters with his boots\n\n  DUCHESS. Strike him, Aumerle. Poor boy, thou art amaz'd.\n    Hence, villain! never more come in my sight.\n  YORK. Give me my boots, I say.\n  DUCHESS. Why, York, what wilt thou do?\n    Wilt thou not hide the trespass of thine own?\n    Have we more sons? or are we like to have?\n    Is not my teeming date drunk up with time?\n    And wilt thou pluck my fair son from mine age\n    And rob me of a happy mother's name?\n    Is he not like thee? Is he not thine own?\n  YORK. Thou fond mad woman,\n    Wilt thou conceal this dark conspiracy?\n    A dozen of them here have ta'en the sacrament,\n    And interchangeably set down their hands\n    To kill the King at Oxford.\n  DUCHESS. He shall be none;\n    We'll keep him here. Then what is that to him?\n  YORK. Away, fond woman! were he twenty times my son\n    I would appeach him.\n  DUCHESS. Hadst thou groan'd for him\n    As I have done, thou wouldst be more pitiful.\n    But now I know thy mind: thou dost suspect\n    That I have been disloyal to thy bed\n    And that he is a bastard, not thy son.\n    Sweet York, sweet husband, be not of that mind.\n    He is as like thee as a man may be\n    Not like to me, or any of my kin,\n    And yet I love him.\n  YORK. Make way, unruly woman!                             Exit\n  DUCHESS. After, Aumerle! Mount thee upon his horse;\n    Spur post, and get before him to the King,\n    And beg thy pardon ere he do accuse thee.\n    I'll not be long behind; though I be old,\n    I doubt not but to ride as fast as York;\n    And never will I rise up from the ground\n    Till Bolingbroke have pardon'd thee. Away, be gone.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\nWindsor Castle\n\nEnter BOLINGBROKE as King, PERCY, and other LORDS\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. Can no man tell me of my unthrifty son?\n    'Tis full three months since I did see him last.\n    If any plague hang over us, 'tis he.\n    I would to God, my lords, he might be found.\n    Inquire at London, 'mongst the taverns there,\n    For there, they say, he daily doth frequent\n    With unrestrained loose companions,\n    Even such, they say, as stand in narrow lanes\n    And beat our watch and rob our passengers,\n    Which he, young wanton and effeminate boy,\n    Takes on the point of honour to support\n    So dissolute a crew.\n  PERCY. My lord, some two days since I saw the Prince,\n    And told him of those triumphs held at Oxford.\n  BOLINGBROKE. And what said the gallant?\n  PERCY. His answer was, he would unto the stews,\n    And from the common'st creature pluck a glove\n    And wear it as a favour; and with that\n    He would unhorse the lustiest challenger.\n  BOLINGBROKE. As dissolute as desperate; yet through both\n    I see some sparks of better hope, which elder years\n    May happily bring forth. But who comes here?\n\n                Enter AUMERLE amazed\n\n  AUMERLE. Where is the King?\n  BOLINGBROKE. What means our cousin that he stares and looks\n    So wildly?\n  AUMERLE. God save your Grace! I do beseech your Majesty,\n    To have some conference with your Grace alone.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Withdraw yourselves, and leave us here alone.\n                                          Exeunt PERCY and LORDS\n    What is the matter with our cousin now?\n  AUMERLE. For ever may my knees grow to the earth,\n                                                    [Kneels]\n    My tongue cleave to my roof within my mouth,\n    Unless a pardon ere I rise or speak.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Intended or committed was this fault?\n    If on the first, how heinous e'er it be,\n    To win thy after-love I pardon thee.\n  AUMERLE. Then give me leave that I may turn the key,\n    That no man enter till my tale be done.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Have thy desire.\n            [The DUKE OF YORK knocks at the door and crieth]\n  YORK. [Within] My liege, beware; look to thyself;\n    Thou hast a traitor in thy presence there.\n  BOLINGBROKE. [Drawing] Villain, I'll make thee safe.\n  AUMERLE. Stay thy revengeful hand; thou hast no cause to fear.\n  YORK. [Within] Open the door, secure, foolhardy King.\n    Shall I, for love, speak treason to thy face?\n    Open the door, or I will break it open.\n\n                    Enter YORK\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. What is the matter, uncle? Speak;\n    Recover breath; tell us how near is danger,\n    That we may arm us to encounter it.\n  YORK. Peruse this writing here, and thou shalt know\n    The treason that my haste forbids me show.\n  AUMERLE. Remember, as thou read'st, thy promise pass'd.\n    I do repent me; read not my name there;\n    My heart is not confederate with my hand.\n  YORK. It was, villain, ere thy hand did set it down.\n    I tore it from the traitor's bosom, King;\n    Fear, and not love, begets his penitence.\n    Forget to pity him, lest thy pity prove\n    A serpent that will sting thee to the heart.\n  BOLINGBROKE. O heinous, strong, and bold conspiracy!\n    O loyal father of a treacherous son!\n    Thou sheer, immaculate, and silver fountain,\n    From whence this stream through muddy passages\n    Hath held his current and defil'd himself!\n    Thy overflow of good converts to bad;\n    And thy abundant goodness shall excuse\n    This deadly blot in thy digressing son.\n  YORK. So shall my virtue be his vice's bawd;\n    And he shall spend mine honour with his shame,\n    As thriftless sons their scraping fathers' gold.\n    Mine honour lives when his dishonour dies,\n    Or my sham'd life in his dishonour lies.\n    Thou kill'st me in his life; giving him breath,\n    The traitor lives, the true man's put to death.\n  DUCHESS. [Within] I What ho, my liege, for God's sake, let me in.\n  BOLINGBROKE. What shrill-voic'd suppliant makes this eager cry?\n  DUCHESS. [Within] A woman, and thine aunt, great King; 'tis I.\n    Speak with me, pity me, open the door.\n    A beggar begs that never begg'd before.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Our scene is alt'red from a serious thing,\n    And now chang'd to 'The Beggar and the King.'\n    My dangerous cousin, let your mother in.\n    I know she is come to pray for your foul sin.\n  YORK. If thou do pardon whosoever pray,\n    More sins for this forgiveness prosper may.\n    This fest'red joint cut off, the rest rest sound;\n    This let alone will all the rest confound.\n\n                 Enter DUCHESS\n\n  DUCHESS. O King, believe not this hard-hearted man!\n    Love loving not itself, none other can.\n  YORK. Thou frantic woman, what dost thou make here?\n    Shall thy old dugs once more a traitor rear?\n  DUCHESS. Sweet York, be patient. Hear me, gentle liege.\n                                                     [Kneels]\n  BOLINGBROKE. Rise up, good aunt.\n  DUCHESS. Not yet, I thee beseech.\n    For ever will I walk upon my knees,\n    And never see day that the happy sees\n    Till thou give joy; until thou bid me joy\n    By pardoning Rutland, my transgressing boy.\n  AUMERLE. Unto my mother's prayers I bend my knee.\n                                                     [Kneels]\n  YORK. Against them both, my true joints bended be.\n                                                     [Kneels]\n    Ill mayst thou thrive, if thou grant any grace!\n  DUCHESS. Pleads he in earnest? Look upon his face;\n    His eyes do drop no tears, his prayers are in jest;\n    His words come from his mouth, ours from our breast.\n    He prays but faintly and would be denied;\n    We pray with heart and soul, and all beside.\n    His weary joints would gladly rise, I know;\n    Our knees still kneel till to the ground they grow.\n    His prayers are full of false hypocrisy;\n    Ours of true zeal and deep integrity.\n    Our prayers do out-pray his; then let them have\n    That mercy which true prayer ought to have.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Good aunt, stand up.\n  DUCHESS. do not say 'stand up';\n    Say 'pardon' first, and afterwards 'stand up.'\n    An if I were thy nurse, thy tongue to teach,\n    'Pardon' should be the first word of thy speech.\n    I never long'd to hear a word till now;\n    Say 'pardon,' King; let pity teach thee how.\n    The word is short, but not so short as sweet;\n    No word like 'pardon' for kings' mouths so meet.\n  YORK. Speak it in French, King, say 'pardonne moy.'\n  DUCHESS. Dost thou teach pardon pardon to destroy?\n    Ah, my sour husband, my hard-hearted lord,\n    That sets the word itself against the word!\n    Speak 'pardon' as 'tis current in our land;\n    The chopping French we do not understand.\n    Thine eye begins to speak, set thy tongue there;\n    Or in thy piteous heart plant thou thine ear,\n    That hearing how our plaints and prayers do pierce,\n    Pity may move thee 'pardon' to rehearse.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Good aunt, stand up.\n  DUCHESS. I do not sue to stand;\n    Pardon is all the suit I have in hand.\n  BOLINGBROKE. I pardon him, as God shall pardon me.\n  DUCHESS. O happy vantage of a kneeling knee!\n    Yet am I sick for fear. Speak it again.\n    Twice saying 'pardon' doth not pardon twain,\n    But makes one pardon strong.\n  BOLINGBROKE. With all my heart\n    I pardon him.\n  DUCHESS. A god on earth thou art.\n  BOLINGBROKE. But for our trusty brother-in-law and the Abbot,\n    With all the rest of that consorted crew,\n    Destruction straight shall dog them at the heels.\n    Good uncle, help to order several powers\n    To Oxford, or where'er these traitors are.\n    They shall not live within this world, I swear,\n    But I will have them, if I once know where.\n    Uncle, farewell; and, cousin, adieu;\n    Your mother well hath pray'd, and prove you true.\n  DUCHESS. Come, my old son; I pray God make thee new.      Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\nWindsor Castle\n\nEnter SIR PIERCE OF EXTON and a servant\n\n  EXTON. Didst thou not mark the King, what words he spake?\n    'Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?'\n    Was it not so?\n  SERVANT. These were his very words.\n  EXTON. 'Have I no friend?' quoth he. He spake it twice\n    And urg'd it twice together, did he not?\n  SERVANT. He did.\n  EXTON. And, speaking it, he wishtly look'd on me,\n    As who should say 'I would thou wert the man\n    That would divorce this terror from my heart';\n    Meaning the King at Pomfret. Come, let's go.\n    I am the King's friend, and will rid his foe.         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 5.\nPomfret Castle. The dungeon of the Castle\n\nEnter KING RICHARD\n\n  KING RICHARD. I have been studying how I may compare\n    This prison where I live unto the world\n    And, for because the world is populous\n    And here is not a creature but myself,\n    I cannot do it. Yet I'll hammer it out.\n    My brain I'll prove the female to my soul,\n    My soul the father; and these two beget\n    A generation of still-breeding thoughts,\n    And these same thoughts people this little world,\n    In humours like the people of this world,\n    For no thought is contented. The better sort,\n    As thoughts of things divine, are intermix'd\n    With scruples, and do set the word itself\n    Against the word,\n    As thus: 'Come, little ones'; and then again,\n    'It is as hard to come as for a camel\n    To thread the postern of a small needle's eye.'\n    Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot\n    Unlikely wonders: how these vain weak nails\n    May tear a passage through the flinty ribs\n    Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls;\n    And, for they cannot, die in their own pride.\n    Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves\n    That they are not the first of fortune's slaves,\n    Nor shall not be the last; like silly beggars\n    Who, sitting in the stocks, refuge their shame,\n    That many have and others must sit there;\n    And in this thought they find a kind of ease,\n    Bearing their own misfortunes on the back\n    Of such as have before endur'd the like.\n    Thus play I in one person many people,\n    And none contented. Sometimes am I king;\n    Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar,\n    And so I am. Then crushing penury\n    Persuades me I was better when a king;\n    Then am I king'd again; and by and by\n    Think that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke,\n    And straight am nothing. But whate'er I be,\n    Nor I, nor any man that but man is,\n    With nothing shall be pleas'd till he be eas'd\n    With being nothing.                    [The music plays]\n    Music do I hear?\n    Ha, ha! keep time. How sour sweet music is\n    When time is broke and no proportion kept!\n    So is it in the music of men's lives.\n    And here have I the daintiness of ear\n    To check time broke in a disorder'd string;\n    But, for the concord of my state and time,\n    Had not an ear to hear my true time broke.\n    I wasted time, and now doth time waste me;\n    For now hath time made me his numb'ring clock:\n    My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar\n    Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch,\n    Whereto my finger, like a dial's point,\n    Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.\n    Now sir, the sound that tells what hour it is\n    Are clamorous groans which strike upon my heart,\n    Which is the bell. So sighs, and tears, and groans,\n    Show minutes, times, and hours; but my time\n    Runs posting on in Bolingbroke's proud joy,\n    While I stand fooling here, his Jack of the clock.\n    This music mads me. Let it sound no more;\n    For though it have holp madmen to their wits,\n    In me it seems it will make wise men mad.\n    Yet blessing on his heart that gives it me!\n    For 'tis a sign of love; and love to Richard\n    Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world.\n\n              Enter a GROOM of the stable\n\n  GROOM. Hail, royal Prince!\n  KING RICHARD. Thanks, noble peer!\n    The cheapest of us is ten groats too dear.\n    What art thou? and how comest thou hither,\n    Where no man never comes but that sad dog\n    That brings me food to make misfortune live?\n  GROOM. I was a poor groom of thy stable, King,\n    When thou wert king; who, travelling towards York,\n    With much ado at length have gotten leave\n    To look upon my sometimes royal master's face.\n    O, how it ern'd my heart, when I beheld,\n    In London streets, that coronation-day,\n    When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary-\n    That horse that thou so often hast bestrid,\n    That horse that I so carefully have dress'd!\n  KING RICHARD. Rode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend,\n    How went he under him?\n  GROOM. So proudly as if he disdain'd the ground.\n  KING RICHARD. So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back!\n    That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand;\n    This hand hath made him proud with clapping him.\n    Would he not stumble? would he not fall down,\n    Since pride must have a fall, and break the neck\n    Of that proud man that did usurp his back?\n    Forgiveness, horse! Why do I rail on thee,\n    Since thou, created to be aw'd by man,\n    Wast born to bear? I was not made a horse;\n    And yet I bear a burden like an ass,\n    Spurr'd, gall'd, and tir'd, by jauncing Bolingbroke.\n\n              Enter KEEPER with meat\n\n  KEEPER. Fellow, give place; here is no longer stay.\n  KING RICHARD. If thou love me, 'tis time thou wert away.\n  GROOM. my tongue dares not, that my heart shall say.\n Exit\n  KEEPER. My lord, will't please you to fall to?\n  KING RICHARD. Taste of it first as thou art wont to do.\n  KEEPER. My lord, I dare not. Sir Pierce of Exton,\n    Who lately came from the King, commands the contrary.\n  KING RICHARD. The devil take Henry of Lancaster and thee!\n    Patience is stale, and I am weary of it.\n                                           [Beats the KEEPER]\n  KEEPER. Help, help, help!\n    The murderers, EXTON and servants, rush in, armed\n  KING RICHARD. How now! What means death in this rude assault?\n    Villain, thy own hand yields thy death's instrument.\n                         [Snatching a weapon and killing one]\n    Go thou and fill another room in hell.\n              [He kills another, then EXTON strikes him down]\n    That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire\n    That staggers thus my person. Exton, thy fierce hand\n    Hath with the King's blood stain'd the King's own land.\n    Mount, mount, my soul! thy seat is up on high;\n    Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die.\n                                                       [Dies]\n  EXTON. As full of valour as of royal blood.\n    Both have I spill'd. O, would the deed were good!\n    For now the devil, that told me I did well,\n    Says that this deed is chronicled in hell.\n    This dead King to the living King I'll bear.\n    Take hence the rest, and give them burial here.       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 6.\nWindsor Castle\n\nFlourish. Enter BOLINGBROKE, the DUKE OF YORK, With other LORDS\nand attendants\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. Kind uncle York, the latest news we hear\n    Is that the rebels have consum'd with fire\n    Our town of Ciceter in Gloucestershire;\n    But whether they be ta'en or slain we hear not.\n\n              Enter NORTHUMBERLAND\n\n    Welcome, my lord. What is the news?\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. First, to thy sacred state wish I all happiness.\n    The next news is, I have to London sent\n    The heads of Salisbury, Spencer, Blunt, and Kent.\n    The manner of their taking may appear\n    At large discoursed in this paper here.\n  BOLINGBROKE. We thank thee, gentle Percy, for thy pains;\n    And to thy worth will add right worthy gains.\n\n                  Enter FITZWATER\n\n  FITZWATER. My lord, I have from Oxford sent to London\n    The heads of Brocas and Sir Bennet Seely;\n    Two of the dangerous consorted traitors\n    That sought at Oxford thy dire overthrow.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Thy pains, Fitzwater, shall not be forgot;\n    Right noble is thy merit, well I wot.\n\n         Enter PERCY, With the BISHOP OF CARLISLE\n\n  PERCY. The grand conspirator, Abbot of Westminster,\n    With clog of conscience and sour melancholy,\n    Hath yielded up his body to the grave;\n    But here is Carlisle living, to abide\n    Thy kingly doom, and sentence of his pride.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Carlisle, this is your doom:\n    Choose out some secret place, some reverend room,\n    More than thou hast, and with it joy thy life;\n    So as thou liv'st in peace, die free from strife;\n    For though mine enemy thou hast ever been,\n    High sparks of honour in thee have I seen.\n\n      Enter EXTON, with attendants, hearing a coffin\n\n  EXTON. Great King, within this coffin I present\n    Thy buried fear. Herein all breathless lies\n    The mightiest of thy greatest enemies,\n    Richard of Bordeaux, by me hither brought.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Exton, I thank thee not; for thou hast wrought\n    A deed of slander with thy fatal hand\n    Upon my head and all this famous land.\n  EXTON. From your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed.\n  BOLINGBROKE. They love not poison that do poison need,\n    Nor do I thee. Though I did wish him dead,\n    I hate the murderer, love him murdered.\n    The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour,\n    But neither my good word nor princely favour;\n    With Cain go wander thorough shades of night,\n    And never show thy head by day nor light.\n    Lords, I protest my soul is full of woe\n    That blood should sprinkle me to make me grow.\n    Come, mourn with me for what I do lament,\n    And put on sullen black incontinent.\n    I'll make a voyage to the Holy Land,\n    To wash this blood off from my guilty hand.\n    March sadly after; grace my mournings here\n    In weeping after this untimely bier.                  Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1593\n\nKING RICHARD III\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  EDWARD THE FOURTH\n\n    Sons to the King\n  EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALES afterwards KING EDWARD V\n  RICHARD, DUKE OF YORK,\n\n    Brothers to the King\n  GEORGE, DUKE OF CLARENCE,\n  RICHARD, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, afterwards KING RICHARD III\n\n  A YOUNG SON OF CLARENCE (Edward, Earl of Warwick)\n  HENRY, EARL OF RICHMOND, afterwards KING HENRY VII\n  CARDINAL BOURCHIER, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY\n  THOMAS ROTHERHAM, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK\n  JOHN MORTON, BISHOP OF ELY\n  DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM\n  DUKE OF NORFOLK\n  EARL OF SURREY, his son\n  EARL RIVERS, brother to King Edward's Queen\n  MARQUIS OF DORSET and LORD GREY, her sons\n  EARL OF OXFORD\n  LORD HASTINGS\n  LORD LOVEL\n  LORD STANLEY, called also EARL OF DERBY\n  SIR THOMAS VAUGHAN\n  SIR RICHARD RATCLIFF\n  SIR WILLIAM CATESBY\n  SIR JAMES TYRREL\n  SIR JAMES BLOUNT\n  SIR WALTER HERBERT\n  SIR WILLIAM BRANDON\n  SIR ROBERT BRAKENBURY, Lieutenant of the Tower\n  CHRISTOPHER URSWICK, a priest\n  LORD MAYOR OF LONDON\n  SHERIFF OF WILTSHIRE\n  HASTINGS, a pursuivant\n  TRESSEL and BERKELEY, gentlemen attending on Lady Anne\n  ELIZABETH, Queen to King Edward IV\n  MARGARET, widow of King Henry VI\n  DUCHESS OF YORK, mother to King Edward IV\n  LADY ANNE, widow of Edward, Prince of Wales, son to King\n    Henry VI; afterwards married to the Duke of Gloucester\n  A YOUNG DAUGHTER OF CLARENCE (Margaret Plantagenet,\n    Countess of Salisbury)\n  Ghosts, of Richard's victims\n  Lords, Gentlemen, and Attendants; Priest, Scrivener, Page, Bishops,\n    Aldermen, Citizens, Soldiers, Messengers, Murderers, Keeper\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE: England\n\nKing Richard the Third\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 1.\n\nLondon. A street\n\nEnter RICHARD, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, solus\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Now is the winter of our discontent\n    Made glorious summer by this sun of York;\n    And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house\n    In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.\n    Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;\n    Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;\n    Our stern alarums chang'd to merry meetings,\n    Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.\n    Grim-visag'd war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front,\n    And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds\n    To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,\n    He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber\n    To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.\n    But I-that am not shap'd for sportive tricks,\n    Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass-\n    I-that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty\n    To strut before a wanton ambling nymph-\n    I-that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,\n    Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,\n    Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time\n    Into this breathing world scarce half made up,\n    And that so lamely and unfashionable\n    That dogs bark at me as I halt by them-\n    Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,\n    Have no delight to pass away the time,\n    Unless to spy my shadow in the sun\n    And descant on mine own deformity.\n    And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover\n    To entertain these fair well-spoken days,\n    I am determined to prove a villain\n    And hate the idle pleasures of these days.\n    Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,\n    By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams,\n    To set my brother Clarence and the King\n    In deadly hate the one against the other;\n    And if King Edward be as true and just\n    As I am subtle, false, and treacherous,\n    This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up-\n    About a prophecy which says that G\n    Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.\n    Dive, thoughts, down to my soul. Here Clarence comes.\n\n             Enter CLARENCE, guarded, and BRAKENBURY\n\n    Brother, good day. What means this armed guard\n    That waits upon your Grace?\n  CLARENCE. His Majesty,\n    Tend'ring my person's safety, hath appointed\n    This conduct to convey me to th' Tower.\n  GLOUCESTER. Upon what cause?\n  CLARENCE. Because my name is George.\n  GLOUCESTER. Alack, my lord, that fault is none of yours:\n    He should, for that, commit your godfathers.\n    O, belike his Majesty hath some intent\n    That you should be new-christ'ned in the Tower.\n    But what's the matter, Clarence? May I know?\n  CLARENCE. Yea, Richard, when I know; for I protest\n    As yet I do not; but, as I can learn,\n    He hearkens after prophecies and dreams,\n    And from the cross-row plucks the letter G,\n    And says a wizard told him that by G\n    His issue disinherited should be;\n    And, for my name of George begins with G,\n    It follows in his thought that I am he.\n    These, as I learn, and such like toys as these\n    Hath mov'd his Highness to commit me now.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, this it is when men are rul'd by women:\n    'Tis not the King that sends you to the Tower;\n    My Lady Grey his wife, Clarence, 'tis she\n    That tempers him to this extremity.\n    Was it not she and that good man of worship,\n    Antony Woodville, her brother there,\n    That made him send Lord Hastings to the Tower,\n    From whence this present day he is delivered?\n    We are not safe, Clarence; we are not safe.\n  CLARENCE. By heaven, I think there is no man is secure\n    But the Queen's kindred, and night-walking heralds\n    That trudge betwixt the King and Mistress Shore.\n    Heard you not what an humble suppliant\n    Lord Hastings was, for her delivery?\n  GLOUCESTER. Humbly complaining to her deity\n    Got my Lord Chamberlain his liberty.\n    I'll tell you what-I think it is our way,\n    If we will keep in favour with the King,\n    To be her men and wear her livery:\n    The jealous o'er-worn widow, and herself,\n    Since that our brother dubb'd them gentlewomen,\n    Are mighty gossips in our monarchy.\n  BRAKENBURY. I beseech your Graces both to pardon me:\n    His Majesty hath straitly given in charge\n    That no man shall have private conference,\n    Of what degree soever, with your brother.\n  GLOUCESTER. Even so; an't please your worship, Brakenbury,\n    You may partake of any thing we say:\n    We speak no treason, man; we say the King\n    Is wise and virtuous, and his noble queen\n    Well struck in years, fair, and not jealous;\n    We say that Shore's wife hath a pretty foot,\n    A cherry lip, a bonny eye, a passing pleasing tongue;\n    And that the Queen's kindred are made gentlefolks.\n    How say you, sir? Can you deny all this?\n  BRAKENBURY. With this, my lord, myself have naught to do.\n  GLOUCESTER. Naught to do with Mistress Shore! I tell thee,\n    fellow,\n    He that doth naught with her, excepting one,\n    Were best to do it secretly alone.\n  BRAKENBURY. What one, my lord?\n  GLOUCESTER. Her husband, knave! Wouldst thou betray me?\n  BRAKENBURY. I do beseech your Grace to pardon me, and\n    withal\n    Forbear your conference with the noble Duke.\n  CLARENCE. We know thy charge, Brakenbury, and will\n    obey.\n  GLOUCESTER. We are the Queen's abjects and must obey.\n    Brother, farewell; I will unto the King;\n    And whatsoe'er you will employ me in-\n    Were it to call King Edward's widow sister-\n    I will perform it to enfranchise you.\n    Meantime, this deep disgrace in brotherhood\n    Touches me deeper than you can imagine.\n  CLARENCE. I know it pleaseth neither of us well.\n  GLOUCESTER. Well, your imprisonment shall not be long;\n    I will deliver or else lie for you.\n    Meantime, have patience.\n  CLARENCE. I must perforce. Farewell.\n                          Exeunt CLARENCE, BRAKENBURY, and guard\n  GLOUCESTER. Go tread the path that thou shalt ne'er return.\n    Simple, plain Clarence, I do love thee so\n    That I will shortly send thy soul to heaven,\n    If heaven will take the present at our hands.\n    But who comes here? The new-delivered Hastings?\n\n                       Enter LORD HASTINGS\n\n  HASTINGS. Good time of day unto my gracious lord!\n  GLOUCESTER. As much unto my good Lord Chamberlain!\n    Well are you welcome to the open air.\n    How hath your lordship brook'd imprisonment?\n  HASTINGS. With patience, noble lord, as prisoners must;\n    But I shall live, my lord, to give them thanks\n    That were the cause of my imprisonment.\n  GLOUCESTER. No doubt, no doubt; and so shall Clarence too;\n    For they that were your enemies are his,\n    And have prevail'd as much on him as you.\n  HASTINGS. More pity that the eagles should be mew'd\n    Whiles kites and buzzards prey at liberty.\n  GLOUCESTER. What news abroad?\n  HASTINGS. No news so bad abroad as this at home:\n    The King is sickly, weak, and melancholy,\n    And his physicians fear him mightily.\n  GLOUCESTER. Now, by Saint John, that news is bad indeed.\n    O, he hath kept an evil diet long\n    And overmuch consum'd his royal person!\n    'Tis very grievous to be thought upon.\n    Where is he? In his bed?\n  HASTINGS. He is.\n  GLOUCESTER. Go you before, and I will follow you.\n                                                   Exit HASTINGS\n    He cannot live, I hope, and must not die\n    Till George be pack'd with posthorse up to heaven.\n    I'll in to urge his hatred more to Clarence\n    With lies well steel'd with weighty arguments;\n    And, if I fail not in my deep intent,\n    Clarence hath not another day to live;\n    Which done, God take King Edward to his mercy,\n    And leave the world for me to bustle in!\n    For then I'll marry Warwick's youngest daughter.\n    What though I kill'd her husband and her father?\n    The readiest way to make the wench amends\n    Is to become her husband and her father;\n    The which will I-not all so much for love\n    As for another secret close intent\n    By marrying her which I must reach unto.\n    But yet I run before my horse to market.\n    Clarence still breathes; Edward still lives and reigns;\n    When they are gone, then must I count my gains.         Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nLondon. Another street\n\nEnter corpse of KING HENRY THE SIXTH, with halberds to guard it;\nLADY ANNE being the mourner, attended by TRESSEL and BERKELEY\n\n  ANNE. Set down, set down your honourable load-\n    If honour may be shrouded in a hearse;\n    Whilst I awhile obsequiously lament\n    Th' untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.\n    Poor key-cold figure of a holy king!\n    Pale ashes of the house of Lancaster!\n    Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood!\n    Be it lawful that I invocate thy ghost\n    To hear the lamentations of poor Anne,\n    Wife to thy Edward, to thy slaughtered son,\n    Stabb'd by the self-same hand that made these wounds.\n    Lo, in these windows that let forth thy life\n    I pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes.\n    O, cursed be the hand that made these holes!\n    Cursed the heart that had the heart to do it!\n    Cursed the blood that let this blood from hence!\n    More direful hap betide that hated wretch\n    That makes us wretched by the death of thee\n    Than I can wish to adders, spiders, toads,\n    Or any creeping venom'd thing that lives!\n    If ever he have child, abortive be it,\n    Prodigious, and untimely brought to light,\n    Whose ugly and unnatural aspect\n    May fright the hopeful mother at the view,\n    And that be heir to his unhappiness!\n    If ever he have wife, let her be made\n    More miserable by the death of him\n    Than I am made by my young lord and thee!\n    Come, now towards Chertsey with your holy load,\n    Taken from Paul's to be interred there;\n    And still as you are weary of this weight\n    Rest you, whiles I lament King Henry's corse.\n                                [The bearers take up the coffin]\n\n                      Enter GLOUCESTER\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Stay, you that bear the corse, and set it down.\n  ANNE. What black magician conjures up this fiend\n    To stop devoted charitable deeds?\n  GLOUCESTER. Villains, set down the corse; or, by Saint Paul,\n    I'll make a corse of him that disobeys!\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. My lord, stand back, and let the coffin\n    pass.\n  GLOUCESTER. Unmannerd dog! Stand thou, when I command.\n    Advance thy halberd higher than my breast,\n    Or, by Saint Paul, I'll strike thee to my foot\n    And spurn upon thee, beggar, for thy boldness.\n                               [The bearers set down the coffin]\n  ANNE. What, do you tremble? Are you all afraid?\n    Alas, I blame you not, for you are mortal,\n    And mortal eyes cannot endure the devil.\n    Avaunt, thou dreadful minister of hell!\n    Thou hadst but power over his mortal body,\n    His soul thou canst not have; therefore, be gone.\n  GLOUCESTER. Sweet saint, for charity, be not so curst.\n  ANNE. Foul devil, for God's sake, hence and trouble us not;\n    For thou hast made the happy earth thy hell\n    Fill'd it with cursing cries and deep exclaims.\n    If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,\n    Behold this pattern of thy butcheries.\n    O, gentlemen, see, see! Dead Henry's wounds\n    Open their congeal'd mouths and bleed afresh.\n    Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity,\n    For 'tis thy presence that exhales this blood\n    From cold and empty veins where no blood dwells;\n    Thy deeds inhuman and unnatural\n    Provokes this deluge most unnatural.\n    O God, which this blood mad'st, revenge his death!\n    O earth, which this blood drink'st, revenge his death!\n    Either, heav'n, with lightning strike the murd'rer dead;\n    Or, earth, gape open wide and eat him quick,\n    As thou dost swallow up this good king's blood,\n    Which his hell-govern'd arm hath butchered.\n  GLOUCESTER. Lady, you know no rules of charity,\n    Which renders good for bad, blessings for curses.\n  ANNE. Villain, thou knowest nor law of God nor man:\n    No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.\n  GLOUCESTER. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.\n  ANNE. O wonderful, when devils tell the truth!\n  GLOUCESTER. More wonderful when angels are so angry.\n    Vouchsafe, divine perfection of a woman,\n    Of these supposed crimes to give me leave\n    By circumstance but to acquit myself.\n  ANNE. Vouchsafe, diffus'd infection of a man,\n    Of these known evils but to give me leave\n    By circumstance to accuse thy cursed self.\n  GLOUCESTER. Fairer than tongue can name thee, let me have\n    Some patient leisure to excuse myself.\n  ANNE. Fouler than heart can think thee, thou canst make\n    No excuse current but to hang thyself.\n  GLOUCESTER. By such despair I should accuse myself.\n  ANNE. And by despairing shalt thou stand excused\n    For doing worthy vengeance on thyself\n    That didst unworthy slaughter upon others.\n  GLOUCESTER. Say that I slew them not?\n  ANNE. Then say they were not slain.\n    But dead they are, and, devilish slave, by thee.\n  GLOUCESTER. I did not kill your husband.\n  ANNE. Why, then he is alive.\n  GLOUCESTER. Nay, he is dead, and slain by Edward's hands.\n  ANNE. In thy foul throat thou liest: Queen Margaret saw\n    Thy murd'rous falchion smoking in his blood;\n    The which thou once didst bend against her breast,\n    But that thy brothers beat aside the point.\n  GLOUCESTER. I was provoked by her sland'rous tongue\n    That laid their guilt upon my guiltless shoulders.\n  ANNE. Thou wast provoked by thy bloody mind,\n    That never dream'st on aught but butcheries.\n    Didst thou not kill this king?\n  GLOUCESTER. I grant ye.\n  ANNE. Dost grant me, hedgehog? Then, God grant me to\n    Thou mayst be damned for that wicked deed!\n    O, he was gentle, mild, and virtuous!\n  GLOUCESTER. The better for the King of Heaven, that hath\n    him.\n  ANNE. He is in heaven, where thou shalt never come.\n  GLOUCESTER. Let him thank me that holp to send him\n    thither,\n    For he was fitter for that place than earth.\n  ANNE. And thou unfit for any place but hell.\n  GLOUCESTER. Yes, one place else, if you will hear me name it.\n  ANNE. Some dungeon.\n  GLOUCESTER. Your bed-chamber.\n  ANNE. Ill rest betide the chamber where thou liest!\n  GLOUCESTER. So will it, madam, till I lie with you.\n  ANNE. I hope so.\n  GLOUCESTER. I know so. But, gentle Lady Anne,\n    To leave this keen encounter of our wits,\n    And fall something into a slower method-\n    Is not the causer of the timeless deaths\n    Of these Plantagenets, Henry and Edward,\n    As blameful as the executioner?\n  ANNE. Thou wast the cause and most accurs'd effect.\n  GLOUCESTER. Your beauty was the cause of that effect-\n    Your beauty that did haunt me in my sleep\n    To undertake the death of all the world\n    So I might live one hour in your sweet bosom.\n  ANNE. If I thought that, I tell thee, homicide,\n    These nails should rend that beauty from my cheeks.\n  GLOUCESTER. These eyes could not endure that beauty's\n    wreck;\n    You should not blemish it if I stood by.\n    As all the world is cheered by the sun,\n    So I by that; it is my day, my life.\n  ANNE. Black night o'ershade thy day, and death thy life!\n  GLOUCESTER. Curse not thyself, fair creature; thou art both.\n  ANNE. I would I were, to be reveng'd on thee.\n  GLOUCESTER. It is a quarrel most unnatural,\n    To be reveng'd on him that loveth thee.\n  ANNE. It is a quarrel just and reasonable,\n    To be reveng'd on him that kill'd my husband.\n  GLOUCESTER. He that bereft thee, lady, of thy husband\n    Did it to help thee to a better husband.\n  ANNE. His better doth not breathe upon the earth.\n  GLOUCESTER. He lives that loves thee better than he could.\n  ANNE. Name him.\n  GLOUCESTER. Plantagenet.\n  ANNE. Why, that was he.\n  GLOUCESTER. The self-same name, but one of better nature.\n  ANNE. Where is he?\n  GLOUCESTER. Here.  [She spits at him]  Why dost thou spit\n    at me?\n  ANNE. Would it were mortal poison, for thy sake!\n  GLOUCESTER. Never came poison from so sweet a place.\n  ANNE. Never hung poison on a fouler toad.\n    Out of my sight! Thou dost infect mine eyes.\n  GLOUCESTER. Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine.\n  ANNE. Would they were basilisks to strike thee dead!\n  GLOUCESTER. I would they were, that I might die at once;\n    For now they kill me with a living death.\n    Those eyes of thine from mine have drawn salt tears,\n    Sham'd their aspects with store of childish drops-\n    These eyes, which never shed remorseful tear,\n    No, when my father York and Edward wept\n    To hear the piteous moan that Rutland made\n    When black-fac'd Clifford shook his sword at him;\n    Nor when thy warlike father, like a child,\n    Told the sad story of my father's death,\n    And twenty times made pause to sob and weep\n    That all the standers-by had wet their cheeks\n    Like trees bedash'd with rain-in that sad time\n    My manly eyes did scorn an humble tear;\n    And what these sorrows could not thence exhale\n    Thy beauty hath, and made them blind with weeping.\n    I never sued to friend nor enemy;\n    My tongue could never learn sweet smoothing word;\n    But, now thy beauty is propos'd my fee,\n    My proud heart sues, and prompts my tongue to speak.\n                                   [She looks scornfully at him]\n    Teach not thy lip such scorn; for it was made\n    For kissing, lady, not for such contempt.\n    If thy revengeful heart cannot forgive,\n    Lo here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword;\n    Which if thou please to hide in this true breast\n    And let the soul forth that adoreth thee,\n    I lay it naked to the deadly stroke,\n    And humbly beg the death upon my knee.\n      [He lays his breast open; she offers at it with his sword]\n    Nay, do not pause; for I did kill King Henry-\n    But 'twas thy beauty that provoked me.\n    Nay, now dispatch; 'twas I that stabb'd young Edward-\n    But 'twas thy heavenly face that set me on.\n                                           [She falls the sword]\n    Take up the sword again, or take up me.\n  ANNE. Arise, dissembler; though I wish thy death,\n    I will not be thy executioner.\n  GLOUCESTER. Then bid me kill myself, and I will do it;\n  ANNE. I have already.\n  GLOUCESTER. That was in thy rage.\n    Speak it again, and even with the word\n    This hand, which for thy love did kill thy love,\n    Shall for thy love kill a far truer love;\n    To both their deaths shalt thou be accessary.\n  ANNE. I would I knew thy heart.\n  GLOUCESTER. 'Tis figur'd in my tongue.\n  ANNE. I fear me both are false.\n  GLOUCESTER. Then never was man true.\n  ANNE. well put up your sword.\n  GLOUCESTER. Say, then, my peace is made.\n  ANNE. That shalt thou know hereafter.\n  GLOUCESTER. But shall I live in hope?\n  ANNE. All men, I hope, live so.\n  GLOUCESTER. Vouchsafe to wear this ring.\n  ANNE. To take is not to give.               [Puts on the ring]\n  GLOUCESTER. Look how my ring encompasseth thy finger,\n    Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart;\n    Wear both of them, for both of them are thine.\n    And if thy poor devoted servant may\n    But beg one favour at thy gracious hand,\n    Thou dost confirm his happiness for ever.\n  ANNE. What is it?\n  GLOUCESTER. That it may please you leave these sad designs\n    To him that hath most cause to be a mourner,\n    And presently repair to Crosby House;\n    Where-after I have solemnly interr'd\n    At Chertsey monast'ry this noble king,\n    And wet his grave with my repentant tears-\n    I will with all expedient duty see you.\n    For divers unknown reasons, I beseech you,\n    Grant me this boon.\n  ANNE. With all my heart; and much it joys me too\n    To see you are become so penitent.\n    Tressel and Berkeley, go along with me.\n  GLOUCESTER. Bid me farewell.\n  ANNE. 'Tis more than you deserve;\n    But since you teach me how to flatter you,\n    Imagine I have said farewell already.\n                             Exeunt two GENTLEMEN With LADY ANNE\n  GLOUCESTER. Sirs, take up the corse.\n  GENTLEMEN. Towards Chertsey, noble lord?\n  GLOUCESTER. No, to White Friars; there attend my coming.\n                                       Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER\n    Was ever woman in this humour woo'd?\n    Was ever woman in this humour won?\n    I'll have her; but I will not keep her long.\n    What! I that kill'd her husband and his father-\n    To take her in her heart's extremest hate,\n    With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,\n    The bleeding witness of my hatred by;\n    Having God, her conscience, and these bars against me,\n    And I no friends to back my suit at all\n    But the plain devil and dissembling looks,\n    And yet to win her, all the world to nothing!\n    Ha!\n    Hath she forgot already that brave prince,\n    Edward, her lord, whom I, some three months since,\n    Stabb'd in my angry mood at Tewksbury?\n    A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman-\n    Fram'd in the prodigality of nature,\n    Young, valiant, wise, and no doubt right royal-\n    The spacious world cannot again afford;\n    And will she yet abase her eyes on me,\n    That cropp'd the golden prime of this sweet prince\n    And made her widow to a woeful bed?\n    On me, whose all not equals Edward's moiety?\n    On me, that halts and am misshapen thus?\n    My dukedom to a beggarly denier,\n    I do mistake my person all this while.\n    Upon my life, she finds, although I cannot,\n    Myself to be a marv'llous proper man.\n    I'll be at charges for a looking-glass,\n    And entertain a score or two of tailors\n    To study fashions to adorn my body.\n    Since I am crept in favour with myself,\n    I will maintain it with some little cost.\n    But first I'll turn yon fellow in his grave,\n    And then return lamenting to my love.\n    Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,\n    That I may see my shadow as I pass.                     Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter QUEEN ELIZABETH, LORD RIVERS, and LORD GREY\n\n  RIVERS. Have patience, madam; there's no doubt his Majesty\n    Will soon recover his accustom'd health.\n  GREY. In that you brook it ill, it makes him worse;\n    Therefore, for God's sake, entertain good comfort,\n    And cheer his Grace with quick and merry eyes.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. If he were dead, what would betide on\n    me?\n  GREY. No other harm but loss of such a lord.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. The loss of such a lord includes all\n    harms.\n  GREY. The heavens have bless'd you with a goodly son\n    To be your comforter when he is gone.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ah, he is young; and his minority\n    Is put unto the trust of Richard Gloucester,\n    A man that loves not me, nor none of you.\n  RIVER. Is it concluded he shall be Protector?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. It is determin'd, not concluded yet;\n    But so it must be, if the King miscarry.\n\n                     Enter BUCKINGHAM and DERBY\n\n  GREY. Here come the Lords of Buckingham and Derby.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Good time of day unto your royal Grace!\n  DERBY. God make your Majesty joyful as you have been.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. The Countess Richmond, good my Lord\n    of Derby,\n    To your good prayer will scarcely say amen.\n    Yet, Derby, notwithstanding she's your wife\n    And loves not me, be you, good lord, assur'd\n    I hate not you for her proud arrogance.\n  DERBY. I do beseech you, either not believe\n    The envious slanders of her false accusers;\n    Or, if she be accus'd on true report,\n    Bear with her weakness, which I think proceeds\n    From wayward sickness and no grounded malice.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Saw you the King to-day, my Lord of\n    Derby?\n  DERBY. But now the Duke of Buckingham and I\n    Are come from visiting his Majesty.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. What likelihood of his amendment,\n    Lords?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Madam, good hope; his Grace speaks\n    cheerfully.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. God grant him health! Did you confer\n    with him?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Ay, madam; he desires to make atonement\n    Between the Duke of Gloucester and your brothers,\n    And between them and my Lord Chamberlain;\n    And sent to warn them to his royal presence.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Would all were well! But that will\n    never be.\n    I fear our happiness is at the height.\n\n              Enter GLOUCESTER, HASTINGS, and DORSET\n\n  GLOUCESTER. They do me wrong, and I will not endure it.\n    Who is it that complains unto the King\n    That I, forsooth, am stern and love them not?\n    By holy Paul, they love his Grace but lightly\n    That fill his ears with such dissentious rumours.\n    Because I cannot flatter and look fair,\n    Smile in men's faces, smooth, deceive, and cog,\n    Duck with French nods and apish courtesy,\n    I must be held a rancorous enemy.\n    Cannot a plain man live and think no harm\n    But thus his simple truth must be abus'd\n    With silken, sly, insinuating Jacks?\n  GREY. To who in all this presence speaks your Grace?\n  GLOUCESTER. To thee, that hast nor honesty nor grace.\n    When have I injur'd thee? when done thee wrong,\n    Or thee, or thee, or any of your faction?\n    A plague upon you all! His royal Grace-\n    Whom God preserve better than you would wish!-\n    Cannot be quiet searce a breathing while\n    But you must trouble him with lewd complaints.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Brother of Gloucester, you mistake the\n    matter.\n    The King, on his own royal disposition\n    And not provok'd by any suitor else-\n    Aiming, belike, at your interior hatred\n    That in your outward action shows itself\n    Against my children, brothers, and myself-\n    Makes him to send that he may learn the ground.\n  GLOUCESTER. I cannot tell; the world is grown so bad\n    That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.\n    Since every Jack became a gentleman,\n    There's many a gentle person made a Jack.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Come, come, we know your meaning,\n    brother Gloucester:\n    You envy my advancement and my friends';\n    God grant we never may have need of you!\n  GLOUCESTER. Meantime, God grants that I have need of you.\n    Our brother is imprison'd by your means,\n    Myself disgrac'd, and the nobility\n    Held in contempt; while great promotions\n    Are daily given to ennoble those\n    That scarce some two days since were worth a noble.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. By Him that rais'd me to this careful\n    height\n    From that contented hap which I enjoy'd,\n    I never did incense his Majesty\n    Against the Duke of Clarence, but have been\n    An earnest advocate to plead for him.\n    My lord, you do me shameful injury\n    Falsely to draw me in these vile suspects.\n  GLOUCESTER. You may deny that you were not the mean\n    Of my Lord Hastings' late imprisonment.\n  RIVERS. She may, my lord; for-\n  GLOUCESTER. She may, Lord Rivers? Why, who knows\n    not so?\n    She may do more, sir, than denying that:\n    She may help you to many fair preferments\n    And then deny her aiding hand therein,\n    And lay those honours on your high desert.\n    What may she not? She may-ay, marry, may she-\n  RIVERS. What, marry, may she?\n  GLOUCESTER. What, marry, may she? Marry with a king,\n    A bachelor, and a handsome stripling too.\n    Iwis your grandam had a worser match.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. My Lord of Gloucester, I have too long\n    borne\n    Your blunt upbraidings and your bitter scoffs.\n    By heaven, I will acquaint his Majesty\n    Of those gross taunts that oft I have endur'd.\n    I had rather be a country servant-maid\n    Than a great queen with this condition-\n    To be so baited, scorn'd, and stormed at.\n\n                Enter old QUEEN MARGARET, behind\n\n    Small joy have I in being England's Queen.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. And less'ned be that small, God, I\n    beseech Him!\n    Thy honour, state, and seat, is due to me.\n  GLOUCESTER. What! Threat you me with telling of the\n    King?\n    Tell him and spare not. Look what I have said\n    I will avouch't in presence of the King.\n    I dare adventure to be sent to th' Tow'r.\n    'Tis time to speak-my pains are quite forgot.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Out, devil! I do remember them to\n    well:\n    Thou kill'dst my husband Henry in the Tower,\n    And Edward, my poor son, at Tewksbury.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ere you were queen, ay, or your husband\n    King,\n    I was a pack-horse in his great affairs,\n    A weeder-out of his proud adversaries,\n    A liberal rewarder of his friends;\n    To royalize his blood I spent mine own.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, and much better blood than his or\n    thine.\n  GLOUCESTER. In all which time you and your husband Grey\n    Were factious for the house of Lancaster;\n    And, Rivers, so were you. Was not your husband\n    In Margaret's battle at Saint Albans slain?\n    Let me put in your minds, if you forget,\n    What you have been ere this, and what you are;\n    Withal, what I have been, and what I am.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. A murd'rous villain, and so still thou art.\n  GLOUCESTER. Poor Clarence did forsake his father, Warwick,\n    Ay, and forswore himself-which Jesu pardon!-\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Which God revenge!\n  GLOUCESTER. To fight on Edward's party for the crown;\n    And for his meed, poor lord, he is mewed up.\n    I would to God my heart were flint like Edward's,\n    Or Edward's soft and pitiful like mine.\n    I am too childish-foolish for this world.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Hie thee to hell for shame and leave this\n    world,\n    Thou cacodemon; there thy kingdom is.\n  RIVERS. My Lord of Gloucester, in those busy days\n    Which here you urge to prove us enemies,\n    We follow'd then our lord, our sovereign king.\n    So should we you, if you should be our king.\n  GLOUCESTER. If I should be! I had rather be a pedlar.\n    Far be it from my heart, the thought thereof!\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. As little joy, my lord, as you suppose\n    You should enjoy were you this country's king,\n    As little joy you may suppose in me\n    That I enjoy, being the Queen thereof.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. As little joy enjoys the Queen thereof;\n    For I am she, and altogether joyless.\n    I can no longer hold me patient.                 [Advancing]\n    Hear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out\n    In sharing that which you have pill'd from me.\n    Which of you trembles not that looks on me?\n    If not that, I am Queen, you bow like subjects,\n    Yet that, by you depos'd, you quake like rebels?\n    Ah, gentle villain, do not turn away!\n  GLOUCESTER. Foul wrinkled witch, what mak'st thou in my\n    sight?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. But repetition of what thou hast marr'd,\n    That will I make before I let thee go.\n  GLOUCESTER. Wert thou not banished on pain of death?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. I was; but I do find more pain in\n    banishment\n    Than death can yield me here by my abode.\n    A husband and a son thou ow'st to me;\n    And thou a kingdom; all of you allegiance.\n    This sorrow that I have by right is yours;\n    And all the pleasures you usurp are mine.\n  GLOUCESTER. The curse my noble father laid on thee,\n    When thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper\n    And with thy scorns drew'st rivers from his eyes,\n    And then to dry them gav'st the Duke a clout\n    Steep'd in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland-\n    His curses then from bitterness of soul\n    Denounc'd against thee are all fall'n upon thee;\n    And God, not we, hath plagu'd thy bloody deed.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. So just is God to right the innocent.\n  HASTINGS. O, 'twas the foulest deed to slay that babe,\n    And the most merciless that e'er was heard of!\n  RIVERS. Tyrants themselves wept when it was reported.\n  DORSET. No man but prophesied revenge for it.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Northumberland, then present, wept to see it.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. What, were you snarling all before I came,\n    Ready to catch each other by the throat,\n    And turn you all your hatred now on me?\n    Did York's dread curse prevail so much with heaven\n    That Henry's death, my lovely Edward's death,\n    Their kingdom's loss, my woeful banishment,\n    Should all but answer for that peevish brat?\n    Can curses pierce the clouds and enter heaven?\n    Why then, give way, dull clouds, to my quick curses!\n    Though not by war, by surfeit die your king,\n    As ours by murder, to make him a king!\n    Edward thy son, that now is Prince of Wales,\n    For Edward our son, that was Prince of Wales,\n    Die in his youth by like untimely violence!\n    Thyself a queen, for me that was a queen,\n    Outlive thy glory, like my wretched self!\n    Long mayest thou live to wail thy children's death,\n    And see another, as I see thee now,\n    Deck'd in thy rights, as thou art stall'd in mine!\n    Long die thy happy days before thy death;\n    And, after many length'ned hours of grief,\n    Die neither mother, wife, nor England's Queen!\n    Rivers and Dorset, you were standers by,\n    And so wast thou, Lord Hastings, when my son\n    Was stabb'd with bloody daggers. God, I pray him,\n    That none of you may live his natural age,\n    But by some unlook'd accident cut off!\n  GLOUCESTER. Have done thy charm, thou hateful wither'd\n    hag.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. And leave out thee? Stay, dog, for thou\n    shalt hear me.\n    If heaven have any grievous plague in store\n    Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee,\n    O, let them keep it till thy sins be ripe,\n    And then hurl down their indignation\n    On thee, the troubler of the poor world's peace!\n    The worm of conscience still be-gnaw thy soul!\n    Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou liv'st,\n    And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends!\n    No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine,\n    Unless it be while some tormenting dream\n    Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils!\n    Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog,\n    Thou that wast seal'd in thy nativity\n    The slave of nature and the son of hell,\n    Thou slander of thy heavy mother's womb,\n    Thou loathed issue of thy father's loins,\n    Thou rag of honour, thou detested-\n  GLOUCESTER. Margaret!\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Richard!\n  GLOUCESTER. Ha?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. I call thee not.\n  GLOUCESTER. I cry thee mercy then, for I did think\n    That thou hadst call'd me all these bitter names.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Why, so I did, but look'd for no reply.\n    O, let me make the period to my curse!\n  GLOUCESTER. 'Tis done by me, and ends in-Margaret.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Thus have you breath'd your curse\n    against yourself.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Poor painted queen, vain flourish of my\n    fortune!\n    Why strew'st thou sugar on that bottled spider\n    Whose deadly web ensnareth thee about?\n    Fool, fool! thou whet'st a knife to kill thyself.\n    The day will come that thou shalt wish for me\n    To help thee curse this poisonous bunch-back'd toad.\n  HASTINGS. False-boding woman, end thy frantic curse,\n    Lest to thy harm thou move our patience.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Foul shame upon you! you have all\n    mov'd mine.\n  RIVERS. Were you well serv'd, you would be taught your\n      duty.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. To serve me well you all should do me\n    duty,\n    Teach me to be your queen and you my subjects.\n    O, serve me well, and teach yourselves that duty!\n  DORSET. Dispute not with her; she is lunatic.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Peace, Master Marquis, you are malapert;\n    Your fire-new stamp of honour is scarce current.\n    O, that your young nobility could judge\n    What 'twere to lose it and be miserable!\n    They that stand high have many blasts to shake them,\n    And if they fall they dash themselves to pieces.\n  GLOUCESTER. Good counsel, marry; learn it, learn it, Marquis.\n  DORSET. It touches you, my lord, as much as me.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ay, and much more; but I was born so high,\n    Our aery buildeth in the cedar's top,\n    And dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. And turns the sun to shade-alas! alas!\n    Witness my son, now in the shade of death,\n    Whose bright out-shining beams thy cloudy wrath\n    Hath in eternal darkness folded up.\n    Your aery buildeth in our aery's nest.\n    O God that seest it, do not suffer it;\n    As it is won with blood, lost be it so!\n  BUCKINGHAM. Peace, peace, for shame, if not for charity!\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Urge neither charity nor shame to me.\n    Uncharitably with me have you dealt,\n    And shamefully my hopes by you are butcher'd.\n    My charity is outrage, life my shame;\n    And in that shame still live my sorrow's rage!\n  BUCKINGHAM. Have done, have done.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. O princely Buckingham, I'll kiss thy\n    hand\n    In sign of league and amity with thee.\n    Now fair befall thee and thy noble house!\n    Thy garments are not spotted with our blood,\n    Nor thou within the compass of my curse.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Nor no one here; for curses never pass\n    The lips of those that breathe them in the air.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. I will not think but they ascend the sky\n    And there awake God's gentle-sleeping peace.\n    O Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog!\n    Look when he fawns, he bites; and when he bites,\n    His venom tooth will rankle to the death:\n    Have not to do with him, beware of him;\n    Sin, death, and hell, have set their marks on him,\n    And all their ministers attend on him.\n  GLOUCESTER. What doth she say, my Lord of Buckingham?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Nothing that I respect, my gracious lord.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. What, dost thou scorn me for my gentle\n    counsel,\n    And soothe the devil that I warn thee from?\n    O, but remember this another day,\n    When he shall split thy very heart with sorrow,\n    And say poor Margaret was a prophetess!\n    Live each of you the subjects to his hate,\n    And he to yours, and all of you to God's!               Exit\n  BUCKINGHAM. My hair doth stand an end to hear her curses.\n  RIVERS. And so doth mine. I muse why she's at liberty.\n  GLOUCESTER. I cannot blame her; by God's holy Mother,\n    She hath had too much wrong; and I repent\n    My part thereof that I have done to her.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. I never did her any to my knowledge.\n  GLOUCESTER. Yet you have all the vantage of her wrong.\n    I was too hot to do somebody good\n    That is too cold in thinking of it now.\n    Marry, as for Clarence, he is well repaid;\n    He is frank'd up to fatting for his pains;\n    God pardon them that are the cause thereof!\n  RIVERS. A virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion,\n    To pray for them that have done scathe to us!\n  GLOUCESTER. So do I ever-  [Aside]  being well advis'd;\n    For had I curs'd now, I had curs'd myself.\n\n                         Enter CATESBY\n\n  CATESBY. Madam, his Majesty doth can for you,\n    And for your Grace, and you, my gracious lords.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Catesby, I come. Lords, will you go\n    with me?\n  RIVERS. We wait upon your Grace.\n                                       Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER\n  GLOUCESTER. I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl.\n    The secret mischiefs that I set abroach\n    I lay unto the grievous charge of others.\n    Clarence, who I indeed have cast in darkness,\n    I do beweep to many simple gulls;\n    Namely, to Derby, Hastings, Buckingham;\n    And tell them 'tis the Queen and her allies\n    That stir the King against the Duke my brother.\n    Now they believe it, and withal whet me\n    To be reveng'd on Rivers, Dorset, Grey;\n    But then I sigh and, with a piece of Scripture,\n    Tell them that God bids us do good for evil.\n    And thus I clothe my naked villainy\n    With odd old ends stol'n forth of holy writ,\n    And seem a saint when most I play the devil.\n\n                       Enter two MURDERERS\n\n    But, soft, here come my executioners.\n    How now, my hardy stout resolved mates!\n    Are you now going to dispatch this thing?\n  FIRST MURDERER. We are, my lord, and come to have the\n    warrant,\n    That we may be admitted where he is.\n  GLOUCESTER. Well thought upon; I have it here about me.\n                                             [Gives the warrant]\n    When you have done, repair to Crosby Place.\n    But, sirs, be sudden in the execution,\n    Withal obdurate, do not hear him plead;\n    For Clarence is well-spoken, and perhaps\n    May move your hearts to pity, if you mark him.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Tut, tut, my lord, we will not stand to\n    prate;\n    Talkers are no good doers. Be assur'd\n    We go to use our hands and not our tongues.\n  GLOUCESTER. Your eyes drop millstones when fools' eyes fall\n    tears.\n    I like you, lads; about your business straight;\n    Go, go, dispatch.\n  FIRST MURDERER. We will, my noble lord.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\n\nLondon. The Tower\n\nEnter CLARENCE and KEEPER\n\n  KEEPER. Why looks your Grace so heavily to-day?\n  CLARENCE. O, I have pass'd a miserable night,\n    So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,\n    That, as I am a Christian faithful man,\n    I would not spend another such a night\n    Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days-\n    So full of dismal terror was the time!\n  KEEPER. What was your dream, my lord? I pray you\n    tell me.\n  CLARENCE. Methoughts that I had broken from the Tower\n    And was embark'd to cross to Burgundy;\n    And in my company my brother Gloucester,\n    Who from my cabin tempted me to walk\n    Upon the hatches. Thence we look'd toward England,\n    And cited up a thousand heavy times,\n    During the wars of York and Lancaster,\n    That had befall'n us. As we pac'd along\n    Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,\n    Methought that Gloucester stumbled, and in falling\n    Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard\n    Into the tumbling billows of the main.\n    O Lord, methought what pain it was to drown,\n    What dreadful noise of waters in my ears,\n    What sights of ugly death within my eyes!\n    Methoughts I saw a thousand fearful wrecks,\n    A thousand men that fishes gnaw'd upon,\n    Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,\n    Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,\n    All scatt'red in the bottom of the sea;\n    Some lay in dead men's skulls, and in the holes\n    Where eyes did once inhabit there were crept,\n    As 'twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,\n    That woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep\n    And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatt'red by.\n  KEEPER. Had you such leisure in the time of death\n    To gaze upon these secrets of the deep?\n  CLARENCE. Methought I had; and often did I strive\n    To yield the ghost, but still the envious flood\n    Stopp'd in my soul and would not let it forth\n    To find the empty, vast, and wand'ring air;\n    But smother'd it within my panting bulk,\n    Who almost burst to belch it in the sea.\n  KEEPER. Awak'd you not in this sore agony?\n  CLARENCE. No, no, my dream was lengthen'd after life.\n    O, then began the tempest to my soul!\n    I pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood\n    With that sour ferryman which poets write of,\n    Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.\n    The first that there did greet my stranger soul\n    Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick,\n    Who spake aloud 'What scourge for perjury\n    Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?'\n    And so he vanish'd. Then came wand'ring by\n    A shadow like an angel, with bright hair\n    Dabbled in blood, and he shriek'd out aloud\n    'Clarence is come-false, fleeting, perjur'd Clarence,\n    That stabb'd me in the field by Tewksbury.\n    Seize on him, Furies, take him unto torment!'\n    With that, methoughts, a legion of foul fiends\n    Environ'd me, and howled in mine ears\n    Such hideous cries that, with the very noise,\n    I trembling wak'd, and for a season after\n    Could not believe but that I was in hell,\n    Such terrible impression made my dream.\n  KEEPER. No marvel, lord, though it affrighted you;\n    I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it.\n  CLARENCE. Ah, Keeper, Keeper, I have done these things\n    That now give evidence against my soul\n    For Edward's sake, and see how he requites me!\n    O God! If my deep prayers cannot appease Thee,\n    But Thou wilt be aveng'd on my misdeeds,\n    Yet execute Thy wrath in me alone;\n    O, spare my guiltless wife and my poor children!\n  KEEPER, I prithee sit by me awhile;\n    My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.\n  KEEPER. I will, my lord. God give your Grace good rest.\n                                               [CLARENCE sleeps]\n\n                  Enter BRAKENBURY the Lieutenant\n\n  BRAKENBURY. Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours,\n    Makes the night morning and the noontide night.\n    Princes have but their titles for their glories,\n    An outward honour for an inward toil;\n    And for unfelt imaginations\n    They often feel a world of restless cares,\n    So that between their tides and low name\n    There's nothing differs but the outward fame.\n\n                      Enter the two MURDERERS\n\n  FIRST MURDERER. Ho! who's here?\n  BRAKENBURY. What wouldst thou, fellow, and how cam'st\n    thou hither?\n  FIRST MURDERER. I would speak with Clarence, and I came\n    hither on my legs.\n  BRAKENBURY. What, so brief?\n  SECOND MURDERER. 'Tis better, sir, than to be tedious. Let\n    him see our commission and talk no more.\n                                           [BRAKENBURY reads it]\n  BRAKENBURY. I am, in this, commanded to deliver\n    The noble Duke of Clarence to your hands.\n    I will not reason what is meant hereby,\n    Because I will be guiltless from the meaning.\n    There lies the Duke asleep; and there the keys.\n    I'll to the King and signify to him\n    That thus I have resign'd to you my charge.\n  FIRST MURDERER. You may, sir; 'tis a point of wisdom. Fare\n    you well.                       Exeunt BRAKENBURY and KEEPER\n  SECOND MURDERER. What, shall I stab him as he sleeps?\n  FIRST MURDERER. No; he'll say 'twas done cowardly, when\n    he wakes.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Why, he shall never wake until the great\n    judgment-day.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Why, then he'll say we stabb'd him\n    sleeping.\n  SECOND MURDERER. The urging of that word judgment hath\n    bred a kind of remorse in me.\n  FIRST MURDERER. What, art thou afraid?\n  SECOND MURDERER. Not to kill him, having a warrant; but to\n    be damn'd for killing him, from the which no warrant can\n    defend me.\n  FIRST MURDERER. I thought thou hadst been resolute.\n  SECOND MURDERER. So I am, to let him live.\n  FIRST MURDERER. I'll back to the Duke of Gloucester and\n    tell him so.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Nay, I prithee, stay a little. I hope this\n    passionate humour of mine will change; it was wont to\n    hold me but while one tells twenty.\n  FIRST MURDERER. How dost thou feel thyself now?\n    SECOND MURDERER. Faith, some certain dregs of conscience\n    are yet within me.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Remember our reward, when the deed's\n    done.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Zounds, he dies; I had forgot the reward.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Where's thy conscience now?\n  SECOND MURDERER. O, in the Duke of Gloucester's purse!\n  FIRST MURDERER. When he opens his purse to give us our\n    reward, thy conscience flies out.\n  SECOND MURDERER. 'Tis no matter; let it go; there's few or\n    none will entertain it.\n  FIRST MURDERER. What if it come to thee again?\n  SECOND MURDERER. I'll not meddle with it-it makes a man\n    coward: a man cannot steal, but it accuseth him; a man\n    cannot swear, but it checks him; a man cannot lie with his\n    neighbour's wife, but it detects him. 'Tis a blushing shame-\n    fac'd spirit that mutinies in a man's bosom; it fills a man\n    full of obstacles: it made me once restore a purse of gold\n    that-by chance I found. It beggars any man that keeps it.\n    It is turn'd out of towns and cities for a dangerous thing;\n    and every man that means to live well endeavours to trust\n    to himself and live without it.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Zounds, 'tis even now at my elbow,\n    persuading me not to kill the Duke.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Take the devil in thy mind and believe\n    him not; he would insinuate with thee but to make the\n    sigh.\n  FIRST MURDERER. I am strong-fram'd; he cannot prevail with\n    me.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Spoke like a tall man that respects thy\n    reputation. Come, shall we fall to work?\n  FIRST MURDERER. Take him on the costard with the hilts of\n    thy sword, and then chop him in the malmsey-butt in the\n    next room.\n  SECOND MURDERER. O excellent device! and make a sop of\n    him.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Soft! he wakes.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Strike!\n  FIRST MURDERER. No, we'll reason with him.\n  CLARENCE. Where art thou, Keeper? Give me a cup of wine.\n  SECOND MURDERER. You shall have wine enough, my lord,\n    anon.\n  CLARENCE. In God's name, what art thou?\n  FIRST MURDERER. A man, as you are.\n  CLARENCE. But not as I am, royal.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Nor you as we are, loyal.\n  CLARENCE. Thy voice is thunder, but thy looks are humble.\n  FIRST MURDERER. My voice is now the King's, my looks\n    mine own.\n  CLARENCE. How darkly and how deadly dost thou speak!\n    Your eyes do menace me. Why look you pale?\n    Who sent you hither? Wherefore do you come?\n  SECOND MURDERER. To, to, to-\n  CLARENCE. To murder me?\n  BOTH MURDERERS. Ay, ay.\n  CLARENCE. You scarcely have the hearts to tell me so,\n    And therefore cannot have the hearts to do it.\n    Wherein, my friends, have I offended you?\n  FIRST MURDERER. Offended us you have not, but the King.\n  CLARENCE. I shall be reconcil'd to him again.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Never, my lord; therefore prepare to die.\n  CLARENCE. Are you drawn forth among a world of men\n    To slay the innocent? What is my offence?\n    Where is the evidence that doth accuse me?\n    What lawful quest have given their verdict up\n    Unto the frowning judge, or who pronounc'd\n    The bitter sentence of poor Clarence' death?\n    Before I be convict by course of law,\n    To threaten me with death is most unlawful.\n    I charge you, as you hope to have redemption\n    By Christ's dear blood shed for our grievous sins,\n    That you depart and lay no hands on me.\n    The deed you undertake is damnable.\n  FIRST MURDERER. What we will do, we do upon command.\n  SECOND MURDERER. And he that hath commanded is our\n    King.\n  CLARENCE. Erroneous vassals! the great King of kings\n    Hath in the tables of his law commanded\n    That thou shalt do no murder. Will you then\n    Spurn at his edict and fulfil a man's?\n    Take heed; for he holds vengeance in his hand\n    To hurl upon their heads that break his law.\n  SECOND MURDERER. And that same vengeance doth he hurl\n    on thee\n    For false forswearing, and for murder too;\n    Thou didst receive the sacrament to fight\n    In quarrel of the house of Lancaster.\n  FIRST MURDERER. And like a traitor to the name of God\n    Didst break that vow; and with thy treacherous blade\n    Unripp'dst the bowels of thy sov'reign's son.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Whom thou wast sworn to cherish and\n    defend.\n  FIRST MURDERER. How canst thou urge God's dreadful law\n    to us,\n    When thou hast broke it in such dear degree?\n  CLARENCE. Alas! for whose sake did I that ill deed?\n    For Edward, for my brother, for his sake.\n    He sends you not to murder me for this,\n    For in that sin he is as deep as I.\n    If God will be avenged for the deed,\n    O, know you yet He doth it publicly.\n    Take not the quarrel from His pow'rful arm;\n    He needs no indirect or lawless course\n    To cut off those that have offended Him.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Who made thee then a bloody minister\n    When gallant-springing brave Plantagenet,\n    That princely novice, was struck dead by thee?\n  CLARENCE. My brother's love, the devil, and my rage.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Thy brother's love, our duty, and thy\n    faults,\n    Provoke us hither now to slaughter thee.\n  CLARENCE. If you do love my brother, hate not me;\n    I am his brother, and I love him well.\n    If you are hir'd for meed, go back again,\n    And I will send you to my brother Gloucester,\n    Who shall reward you better for my life\n    Than Edward will for tidings of my death.\n  SECOND MURDERER. You are deceiv'd: your brother Gloucester\n    hates you.\n  CLARENCE. O, no, he loves me, and he holds me dear.\n    Go you to him from me.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Ay, so we will.\n  CLARENCE. Tell him when that our princely father York\n    Bless'd his three sons with his victorious arm\n    And charg'd us from his soul to love each other,\n    He little thought of this divided friendship.\n    Bid Gloucester think of this, and he will weep.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Ay, millstones; as he lesson'd us to weep.\n  CLARENCE. O, do not slander him, for he is kind.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Right, as snow in harvest. Come, you\n    deceive yourself:\n    'Tis he that sends us to destroy you here.\n    CLARENCE. It cannot be; for he bewept my fortune\n    And hugg'd me in his arms, and swore with sobs\n    That he would labour my delivery.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Why, so he doth, when he delivers you\n    From this earth's thraldom to the joys of heaven.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Make peace with God, for you must die,\n    my lord.\n  CLARENCE. Have you that holy feeling in your souls\n    To counsel me to make my peace with God,\n    And are you yet to your own souls so blind\n    That you will war with God by murd'ring me?\n    O, sirs, consider: they that set you on\n    To do this deed will hate you for the deed.\n  SECOND MURDERER. What shall we do?\n  CLARENCE. Relent, and save your souls.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Relent! No, 'tis cowardly and womanish.\n  CLARENCE. Not to relent is beastly, savage, devilish.\n    Which of you, if you were a prince's son,\n    Being pent from liberty as I am now,\n    If two such murderers as yourselves came to you,\n    Would not entreat for life?\n    My friend, I spy some pity in thy looks;\n    O, if thine eye be not a flatterer,\n    Come thou on my side and entreat for me-\n    As you would beg were you in my distress.\n    A begging prince what beggar pities not?\n  SECOND MURDERER. Look behind you, my lord.\n  FIRST MURDERER.  [Stabbing him]  Take that, and that. If all\n    this will not do,\n    I'll drown you in the malmsey-butt within.\n                                              Exit with the body\n  SECOND MURDERER. A bloody deed, and desperately\n    dispatch'd!\n    How fain, like Pilate, would I wash my hands\n    Of this most grievous murder!\n\n                       Re-enter FIRST MURDERER\n\n  FIRST MURDERER-How now, what mean'st thou that thou\n    help'st me not?\n    By heavens, the Duke shall know how slack you have\n    been!\n  SECOND MURDERER. I would he knew that I had sav'd his\n    brother!\n    Take thou the fee, and tell him what I say;\n    For I repent me that the Duke is slain.                 Exit\n  FIRST MURDERER. So do not I. Go, coward as thou art.\n    Well, I'll go hide the body in some hole,\n    Till that the Duke give order for his burial;\n    And when I have my meed, I will away;\n    For this will out, and then I must not stay.            Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 1.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nFlourish. Enter KING EDWARD sick, QUEEN ELIZABETH, DORSET, RIVERS,\nHASTINGS, BUCKINGHAM, GREY, and others\n\n  KING EDWARD. Why, so. Now have I done a good day's\n    work.\n    You peers, continue this united league.\n    I every day expect an embassage\n    From my Redeemer to redeem me hence;\n    And more at peace my soul shall part to heaven,\n    Since I have made my friends at peace on earth.\n    Hastings and Rivers, take each other's hand;\n    Dissemble not your hatred, swear your love.\n  RIVERS. By heaven, my soul is purg'd from grudging hate;\n    And with my hand I seal my true heart's love.\n  HASTINGS. So thrive I, as I truly swear the like!\n  KING EDWARD. Take heed you dally not before your king;\n    Lest He that is the supreme King of kings\n    Confound your hidden falsehood and award\n    Either of you to be the other's end.\n  HASTINGS. So prosper I, as I swear perfect love!\n  RIVERS. And I, as I love Hastings with my heart!\n  KING EDWARD. Madam, yourself is not exempt from this;\n    Nor you, son Dorset; Buckingham, nor you:\n    You have been factious one against the other.\n    Wife, love Lord Hastings, let him kiss your hand;\n    And what you do, do it unfeignedly.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. There, Hastings; I will never more\n    remember\n    Our former hatred, so thrive I and mine!\n  KING EDWARD. Dorset, embrace him; Hastings, love Lord\n    Marquis.\n  DORSET. This interchange of love, I here protest,\n    Upon my part shall be inviolable.\n  HASTINGS. And so swear I.                       [They embrace]\n  KING EDWARD. Now, princely Buckingham, seal thou this\n    league\n    With thy embracements to my wife's allies,\n    And make me happy in your unity.\n  BUCKINGHAM.  [To the QUEEN]  Whenever Buckingham\n    doth turn his hate\n    Upon your Grace, but with all duteous love\n    Doth cherish you and yours, God punish me\n    With hate in those where I expect most love!\n    When I have most need to employ a friend\n    And most assured that he is a friend,\n    Deep, hollow, treacherous, and full of guile,\n    Be he unto me! This do I beg of God\n    When I am cold in love to you or yours.\n                                                  [They embrace]\n  KING EDWARD. A pleasing cordial, princely Buckingham,\n    Is this thy vow unto my sickly heart.\n    There wanteth now our brother Gloucester here\n    To make the blessed period of this peace.\n  BUCKINGHAM. And, in good time,\n    Here comes Sir Richard Ratcliff and the Duke.\n\n                      Enter GLOUCESTER, and RATCLIFF\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Good morrow to my sovereign king and\n    Queen;\n    And, princely peers, a happy time of day!\n  KING EDWARD. Happy, indeed, as we have spent the day.\n    Gloucester, we have done deeds of charity,\n    Made peace of enmity, fair love of hate,\n    Between these swelling wrong-incensed peers.\n  GLOUCESTER. A blessed labour, my most sovereign lord.\n    Among this princely heap, if any here,\n    By false intelligence or wrong surmise,\n    Hold me a foe-\n    If I unwittingly, or in my rage,\n    Have aught committed that is hardly borne\n    To any in this presence, I desire\n    To reconcile me to his friendly peace:\n    'Tis death to me to be at enmity;\n    I hate it, and desire all good men's love.\n    First, madam, I entreat true peace of you,\n    Which I will purchase with my duteous service;\n    Of you, my noble cousin Buckingham,\n    If ever any grudge were lodg'd between us;\n    Of you, and you, Lord Rivers, and of Dorset,\n    That all without desert have frown'd on me;\n    Of you, Lord Woodville, and, Lord Scales, of you;\n    Dukes, earls, lords, gentlemen-indeed, of all.\n    I do not know that Englishman alive\n    With whom my soul is any jot at odds\n    More than the infant that is born to-night.\n    I thank my God for my humility.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. A holy day shall this be kept hereafter.\n    I would to God all strifes were well compounded.\n    My sovereign lord, I do beseech your Highness\n    To take our brother Clarence to your grace.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, madam, have I off'red love for this,\n    To be so flouted in this royal presence?\n    Who knows not that the gentle Duke is dead?\n                                                [They all start]\n    You do him injury to scorn his corse.\n  KING EDWARD. Who knows not he is dead! Who knows\n    he is?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. All-seeing heaven, what a world is this!\n  BUCKINGHAM. Look I so pale, Lord Dorset, as the rest?\n  DORSET. Ay, my good lord; and no man in the presence\n    But his red colour hath forsook his cheeks.\n  KING EDWARD. Is Clarence dead? The order was revers'd.\n  GLOUCESTER. But he, poor man, by your first order died,\n    And that a winged Mercury did bear;\n    Some tardy cripple bare the countermand\n    That came too lag to see him buried.\n    God grant that some, less noble and less loyal,\n    Nearer in bloody thoughts, an not in blood,\n    Deserve not worse than wretched Clarence did,\n    And yet go current from suspicion!\n\n                           Enter DERBY\n\n  DERBY. A boon, my sovereign, for my service done!\n  KING EDWARD. I prithee, peace; my soul is full of sorrow.\n  DERBY. I Will not rise unless your Highness hear me.\n  KING EDWARD. Then say at once what is it thou requests.\n  DERBY. The forfeit, sovereign, of my servant's life;\n    Who slew to-day a riotous gentleman\n    Lately attendant on the Duke of Norfolk.\n  KING EDWARD. Have I a tongue to doom my brother's death,\n    And shall that tongue give pardon to a slave?\n    My brother killed no man-his fault was thought,\n    And yet his punishment was bitter death.\n    Who sued to me for him? Who, in my wrath,\n    Kneel'd at my feet, and bid me be advis'd?\n    Who spoke of brotherhood? Who spoke of love?\n    Who told me how the poor soul did forsake\n    The mighty Warwick and did fight for me?\n    Who told me, in the field at Tewksbury\n    When Oxford had me down, he rescued me\n    And said 'Dear Brother, live, and be a king'?\n    Who told me, when we both lay in the field\n    Frozen almost to death, how he did lap me\n    Even in his garments, and did give himself,\n    All thin and naked, to the numb cold night?\n    All this from my remembrance brutish wrath\n    Sinfully pluck'd, and not a man of you\n    Had so much race to put it in my mind.\n    But when your carters or your waiting-vassals\n    Have done a drunken slaughter and defac'd\n    The precious image of our dear Redeemer,\n    You straight are on your knees for pardon, pardon;\n    And I, unjustly too, must grant it you.        [DERBY rises]\n    But for my brother not a man would speak;\n    Nor I, ungracious, speak unto myself\n    For him, poor soul. The proudest of you all\n    Have been beholding to him in his life;\n    Yet none of you would once beg for his life.\n    O God, I fear thy justice will take hold\n    On me, and you, and mine, and yours, for this!\n    Come, Hastings, help me to my closet. Ah, poor Clarence!\n                                 Exeunt some with KING and QUEEN\n  GLOUCESTER. This is the fruits of rashness. Mark'd you not\n    How that the guilty kindred of the Queen\n    Look'd pale when they did hear of Clarence' death?\n    O, they did urge it still unto the King!\n    God will revenge it. Come, lords, will you go\n    To comfort Edward with our company?\n  BUCKINGHAM. We wait upon your Grace.                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter the old DUCHESS OF YORK, with the SON and DAUGHTER of CLARENCE\n\n  SON. Good grandam, tell us, is our father dead?\n  DUCHESS. No, boy.\n  DAUGHTER. Why do you weep so oft, and beat your breast,\n    And cry 'O Clarence, my unhappy son!'?\n  SON. Why do you look on us, and shake your head,\n    And call us orphans, wretches, castaways,\n    If that our noble father were alive?\n  DUCHESS. My pretty cousins, you mistake me both;\n    I do lament the sickness of the King,\n    As loath to lose him, not your father's death;\n    It were lost sorrow to wail one that's lost.\n  SON. Then you conclude, my grandam, he is dead.\n    The King mine uncle is to blame for it.\n    God will revenge it; whom I will importune\n    With earnest prayers all to that effect.\n  DAUGHTER. And so will I.\n  DUCHESS. Peace, children, peace! The King doth love you\n    well.\n    Incapable and shallow innocents,\n    You cannot guess who caus'd your father's death.\n  SON. Grandam, we can; for my good uncle Gloucester\n    Told me the King, provok'd to it by the Queen,\n    Devis'd impeachments to imprison him.\n    And when my uncle told me so, he wept,\n    And pitied me, and kindly kiss'd my cheek;\n    Bade me rely on him as on my father,\n    And he would love me dearly as a child.\n  DUCHESS. Ah, that deceit should steal such gentle shape,\n    And with a virtuous vizor hide deep vice!\n    He is my son; ay, and therein my shame;\n    Yet from my dugs he drew not this deceit.\n  SON. Think you my uncle did dissemble, grandam?\n  DUCHESS. Ay, boy.\n  SON. I cannot think it. Hark! what noise is this?\n\n            Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH, with her hair about her\n                ears; RIVERS and DORSET after her\n\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ah, who shall hinder me to wail and\n    weep,\n    To chide my fortune, and torment myself?\n    I'll join with black despair against my soul\n    And to myself become an enemy.\n  DUCHESS. What means this scene of rude impatience?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. To make an act of tragic violence.\n  EDWARD, my lord, thy son, our king, is dead.\n    Why grow the branches when the root is gone?\n    Why wither not the leaves that want their sap?\n    If you will live, lament; if die, be brief,\n    That our swift-winged souls may catch the King's,\n    Or like obedient subjects follow him\n    To his new kingdom of ne'er-changing night.\n  DUCHESS. Ah, so much interest have I in thy sorrow\n    As I had title in thy noble husband!\n    I have bewept a worthy husband's death,\n    And liv'd with looking on his images;\n    But now two mirrors of his princely semblance\n    Are crack'd in pieces by malignant death,\n    And I for comfort have but one false glass,\n    That grieves me when I see my shame in him.\n    Thou art a widow, yet thou art a mother\n    And hast the comfort of thy children left;\n    But death hath snatch'd my husband from mine arms\n    And pluck'd two crutches from my feeble hands-\n    Clarence and Edward. O, what cause have I-\n    Thine being but a moiety of my moan-\n    To overgo thy woes and drown thy cries?\n  SON. Ah, aunt, you wept not for our father's death!\n    How can we aid you with our kindred tears?\n  DAUGHTER. Our fatherless distress was left unmoan'd;\n    Your widow-dolour likewise be unwept!\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Give me no help in lamentation;\n    I am not barren to bring forth complaints.\n    All springs reduce their currents to mine eyes\n    That I, being govern'd by the watery moon,\n    May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world!\n    Ah for my husband, for my dear Lord Edward!\n  CHILDREN. Ah for our father, for our dear Lord Clarence!\n  DUCHESS. Alas for both, both mine, Edward and Clarence!\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. What stay had I but Edward? and he's\n    gone.\n  CHILDREN. What stay had we but Clarence? and he's gone.\n  DUCHESS. What stays had I but they? and they are gone.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Was never widow had so dear a loss.\n  CHILDREN. Were never orphans had so dear a loss.\n  DUCHESS. Was never mother had so dear a loss.\n    Alas, I am the mother of these griefs!\n    Their woes are parcell'd, mine is general.\n    She for an Edward weeps, and so do I:\n    I for a Clarence weep, so doth not she.\n    These babes for Clarence weep, and so do I:\n    I for an Edward weep, so do not they.\n    Alas, you three on me, threefold distress'd,\n    Pour all your tears! I am your sorrow's nurse,\n    And I will pamper it with lamentation.\n  DORSET. Comfort, dear mother. God is much displeas'd\n    That you take with unthankfulness his doing.\n    In common worldly things 'tis called ungrateful\n    With dull unwillingness to repay a debt\n    Which with a bounteous hand was kindly lent;\n    Much more to be thus opposite with heaven,\n    For it requires the royal debt it lent you.\n  RIVERS. Madam, bethink you, like a careful mother,\n    Of the young prince your son. Send straight for him;\n    Let him be crown'd; in him your comfort lives.\n    Drown desperate sorrow in dead Edward's grave,\n    And plant your joys in living Edward's throne.\n\n               Enter GLOUCESTER, BUCKINGHAM, DERBY,\n                      HASTINGS, and RATCLIFF\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Sister, have comfort. All of us have cause\n    To wail the dimming of our shining star;\n    But none can help our harms by wailing them.\n    Madam, my mother, I do cry you mercy;\n    I did not see your Grace. Humbly on my knee\n    I crave your blessing.\n  DUCHESS. God bless thee; and put meekness in thy breast,\n    Love, charity, obedience, and true duty!\n  GLOUCESTER. Amen!  [Aside]  And make me die a good old\n    man!\n    That is the butt end of a mother's blessing;\n    I marvel that her Grace did leave it out.\n  BUCKINGHAM. You cloudy princes and heart-sorrowing\n    peers,\n    That bear this heavy mutual load of moan,\n    Now cheer each other in each other's love.\n    Though we have spent our harvest of this king,\n    We are to reap the harvest of his son.\n    The broken rancour of your high-swol'n hearts,\n    But lately splinter'd, knit, and join'd together,\n    Must gently be preserv'd, cherish'd, and kept.\n    Me seemeth good that, with some little train,\n    Forthwith from Ludlow the young prince be fet\n    Hither to London, to be crown'd our King.\n\n RIVERS. Why with some little train, my Lord of\n    Buckingham?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Marry, my lord, lest by a multitude\n    The new-heal'd wound of malice should break out,\n    Which would be so much the more dangerous\n    By how much the estate is green and yet ungovern'd;\n    Where every horse bears his commanding rein\n    And may direct his course as please himself,\n    As well the fear of harm as harm apparent,\n    In my opinion, ought to be prevented.\n  GLOUCESTER. I hope the King made peace with all of us;\n    And the compact is firm and true in me.\n  RIVERS. And so in me; and so, I think, in an.\n    Yet, since it is but green, it should be put\n    To no apparent likelihood of breach,\n    Which haply by much company might be urg'd;\n    Therefore I say with noble Buckingham\n    That it is meet so few should fetch the Prince.\n  HASTINGS. And so say I.\n  GLOUCESTER. Then be it so; and go we to determine\n    Who they shall be that straight shall post to Ludlow.\n    Madam, and you, my sister, will you go\n    To give your censures in this business?\n                        Exeunt all but BUCKINGHAM and GLOUCESTER\n  BUCKINGHAM. My lord, whoever journeys to the Prince,\n    For God sake, let not us two stay at home;\n    For by the way I'll sort occasion,\n    As index to the story we late talk'd of,\n    To part the Queen's proud kindred from the Prince.\n  GLOUCESTER. My other self, my counsel's consistory,\n    My oracle, my prophet, my dear cousin,\n    I, as a child, will go by thy direction.\n    Toward Ludlow then, for we'll not stay behind.        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nLondon. A street\n\nEnter one CITIZEN at one door, and another at the other\n\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Good morrow, neighbour. Whither away so\n    fast?\n  SECOND CITIZEN. I promise you, I scarcely know myself.\n    Hear you the news abroad?\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Yes, that the King is dead.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Ill news, by'r lady; seldom comes the\n    better.\n    I fear, I fear 'twill prove a giddy world.\n\n                        Enter another CITIZEN\n\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Neighbours, God speed!\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Give you good morrow, sir.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Doth the news hold of good King Edward's\n    death?\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Ay, sir, it is too true; God help the while!\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Then, masters, look to see a troublous\n    world.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. No, no; by God's good grace, his son shall\n    reign.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Woe to that land that's govern'd by a child.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. In him there is a hope of government,\n    Which, in his nonage, council under him,\n    And, in his full and ripened years, himself,\n    No doubt, shall then, and till then, govern well.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. So stood the state when Henry the Sixth\n    Was crown'd in Paris but at nine months old.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Stood the state so? No, no, good friends,\n    God wot;\n    For then this land was famously enrich'd\n    With politic grave counsel; then the King\n    Had virtuous uncles to protect his Grace.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Why, so hath this, both by his father and\n    mother.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Better it were they all came by his father,\n    Or by his father there were none at all;\n    For emulation who shall now be nearest\n    Will touch us all too near, if God prevent not.\n    O, full of danger is the Duke of Gloucester!\n    And the Queen's sons and brothers haught and proud;\n    And were they to be rul'd, and not to rule,\n    This sickly land might solace as before.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Come, come, we fear the worst; all will be\n    well.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. When clouds are seen, wise men put on\n    their cloaks;\n    When great leaves fall, then winter is at hand;\n    When the sun sets, who doth not look for night?\n    Untimely storms make men expect a dearth.\n    All may be well; but, if God sort it so,\n    'Tis more than we deserve or I expect.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Truly, the hearts of men are fun of fear.\n    You cannot reason almost with a man\n    That looks not heavily and fun of dread.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Before the days of change, still is it so;\n    By a divine instinct men's minds mistrust\n    Ensuing danger; as by proof we see\n    The water swell before a boist'rous storm.\n    But leave it all to God. Whither away?\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Marry, we were sent for to the justices.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. And so was I; I'll bear you company.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, the young DUKE OF YORK, QUEEN ELIZABETH,\nand the DUCHESS OF YORK\n\n  ARCHBISHOP. Last night, I hear, they lay at Stony Stratford,\n    And at Northampton they do rest to-night;\n    To-morrow or next day they will be here.\n  DUCHESS. I long with all my heart to see the Prince.\n    I hope he is much grown since last I saw him.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. But I hear no; they say my son of York\n    Has almost overta'en him in his growth.\n  YORK. Ay, mother; but I would not have it so.\n  DUCHESS. Why, my good cousin, it is good to grow.\n  YORK. Grandam, one night as we did sit at supper,\n    My uncle Rivers talk'd how I did grow\n    More than my brother. 'Ay,' quoth my uncle Gloucester\n    'Small herbs have grace: great weeds do grow apace.'\n    And since, methinks, I would not grow so fast,\n    Because sweet flow'rs are slow and weeds make haste.\n  DUCHESS. Good faith, good faith, the saying did not hold\n    In him that did object the same to thee.\n    He was the wretched'st thing when he was young,\n    So long a-growing and so leisurely\n    That, if his rule were true, he should be gracious.\n  ARCHBISHOP. And so no doubt he is, my gracious madam.\n  DUCHESS. I hope he is; but yet let mothers doubt.\n  YORK. Now, by my troth, if I had been rememb'red,\n    I could have given my uncle's Grace a flout\n    To touch his growth nearer than he touch'd mine.\n  DUCHESS. How, my young York? I prithee let me hear it.\n  YORK. Marry, they say my uncle grew so fast\n    That he could gnaw a crust at two hours old.\n    'Twas full two years ere I could get a tooth.\n    Grandam, this would have been a biting jest.\n  DUCHESS. I prithee, pretty York, who told thee this?\n  YORK. Grandam, his nurse.\n  DUCHESS. His nurse! Why she was dead ere thou wast\n    born.\n  YORK. If 'twere not she, I cannot tell who told me.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. A parlous boy! Go to, you are too\n    shrewd.\n  ARCHBISHOP. Good madam, be not angry with the child.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Pitchers have ears.\n\n                        Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  ARCHBISHOP. Here comes a messenger. What news?\n  MESSENGER. Such news, my lord, as grieves me to report.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. How doth the Prince?\n  MESSENGER. Well, madam, and in health.\n  DUCHESS. What is thy news?\n  MESSENGER. Lord Rivers and Lord Grey\n    Are sent to Pomfret, and with them\n    Sir Thomas Vaughan, prisoners.\n  DUCHESS. Who hath committed them?\n  MESSENGER. The mighty Dukes, Gloucester and Buckingham.\n  ARCHBISHOP. For what offence?\n  MESSENGER. The sum of all I can, I have disclos'd.\n    Why or for what the nobles were committed\n    Is all unknown to me, my gracious lord.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ay me, I see the ruin of my house!\n    The tiger now hath seiz'd the gentle hind;\n    Insulting tyranny begins to jet\n    Upon the innocent and aweless throne.\n    Welcome, destruction, blood, and massacre!\n    I see, as in a map, the end of all.\n  DUCHESS. Accursed and unquiet wrangling days,\n    How many of you have mine eyes beheld!\n    My husband lost his life to get the crown;\n    And often up and down my sons were toss'd\n    For me to joy and weep their gain and loss;\n    And being seated, and domestic broils\n    Clean over-blown, themselves the conquerors\n    Make war upon themselves-brother to brother,\n    Blood to blood, self against self. O, preposterous\n    And frantic outrage, end thy damned spleen,\n    Or let me die, to look on death no more!\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Come, come, my boy; we will to\n    sanctuary.\n    Madam, farewell.\n  DUCHESS. Stay, I will go with you.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. You have no cause.\n  ARCHBISHOP.  [To the QUEEN]  My gracious lady, go.\n    And thither bear your treasure and your goods.\n    For my part, I'll resign unto your Grace\n    The seal I keep; and so betide to me\n    As well I tender you and all of yours!\n    Go, I'll conduct you to the sanctuary.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 1.\n\nLondon. A street\n\nThe trumpets sound. Enter the PRINCE OF WALES, GLOUCESTER, BUCKINGHAM,\nCATESBY, CARDINAL BOURCHIER, and others\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. Welcome, sweet Prince, to London, to your\n    chamber.\n  GLOUCESTER. Welcome, dear cousin, my thoughts' sovereign.\n    The weary way hath made you melancholy.\n  PRINCE. No, uncle; but our crosses on the way\n    Have made it tedious, wearisome, and heavy.\n    I want more uncles here to welcome me.\n  GLOUCESTER. Sweet Prince, the untainted virtue of your\n    years\n    Hath not yet div'd into the world's deceit;\n    Nor more can you distinguish of a man\n    Than of his outward show; which, God He knows,\n    Seldom or never jumpeth with the heart.\n    Those uncles which you want were dangerous;\n    Your Grace attended to their sug'red words\n    But look'd not on the poison of their hearts.\n    God keep you from them and from such false friends!\n  PRINCE. God keep me from false friends! but they were\n    none.\n  GLOUCESTER. My lord, the Mayor of London comes to greet\n    you.\n\n                Enter the LORD MAYOR and his train\n\n  MAYOR. God bless your Grace with health and happy days!\n  PRINCE. I thank you, good my lord, and thank you all.\n    I thought my mother and my brother York\n    Would long ere this have met us on the way.\n    Fie, what a slug is Hastings, that he comes not\n    To tell us whether they will come or no!\n\n                        Enter LORD HASTINGS\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. And, in good time, here comes the sweating\n    Lord.\n  PRINCE. Welcome, my lord. What, will our mother come?\n  HASTINGS. On what occasion, God He knows, not I,\n    The Queen your mother and your brother York\n    Have taken sanctuary. The tender Prince\n    Would fain have come with me to meet your Grace,\n    But by his mother was perforce withheld.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Fie, what an indirect and peevish course\n    Is this of hers? Lord Cardinal, will your Grace\n    Persuade the Queen to send the Duke of York\n    Unto his princely brother presently?\n    If she deny, Lord Hastings, go with him\n    And from her jealous arms pluck him perforce.\n  CARDINAL. My Lord of Buckingham, if my weak oratory\n    Can from his mother win the Duke of York,\n    Anon expect him here; but if she be obdurate\n    To mild entreaties, God in heaven forbid\n    We should infringe the holy privilege\n    Of blessed sanctuary! Not for all this land\n    Would I be guilty of so deep a sin.\n  BUCKINGHAM. You are too senseless-obstinate, my lord,\n    Too ceremonious and traditional.\n    Weigh it but with the grossness of this age,\n    You break not sanctuary in seizing him.\n    The benefit thereof is always granted\n    To those whose dealings have deserv'd the place\n    And those who have the wit to claim the place.\n    This Prince hath neither claim'd it nor deserv'd it,\n    And therefore, in mine opinion, cannot have it.\n    Then, taking him from thence that is not there,\n    You break no privilege nor charter there.\n    Oft have I heard of sanctuary men;\n    But sanctuary children never till now.\n  CARDINAL. My lord, you shall o'errule my mind for once.\n    Come on, Lord Hastings, will you go with me?\n  HASTINGS. I go, my lord.\n  PRINCE. Good lords, make all the speedy haste you may.\n                                    Exeunt CARDINAL and HASTINGS\n    Say, uncle Gloucester, if our brother come,\n    Where shall we sojourn till our coronation?\n  GLOUCESTER. Where it seems best unto your royal self.\n    If I may counsel you, some day or two\n    Your Highness shall repose you at the Tower,\n    Then where you please and shall be thought most fit\n    For your best health and recreation.\n  PRINCE. I do not like the Tower, of any place.\n    Did Julius Caesar build that place, my lord?\n  BUCKINGHAM. He did, my gracious lord, begin that place,\n    Which, since, succeeding ages have re-edified.\n  PRINCE. Is it upon record, or else reported\n    Successively from age to age, he built it?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Upon record, my gracious lord.\n  PRINCE. But say, my lord, it were not regist'red,\n    Methinks the truth should Eve from age to age,\n    As 'twere retail'd to all posterity,\n    Even to the general all-ending day.\n  GLOUCESTER.  [Aside]  So wise so young, they say, do never\n    live long.\n  PRINCE. What say you, uncle?\n  GLOUCESTER. I say, without characters, fame lives long.\n    [Aside]  Thus, like the formal vice, Iniquity,\n    I moralize two meanings in one word.\n  PRINCE. That Julius Caesar was a famous man;\n    With what his valour did enrich his wit,\n    His wit set down to make his valour live.\n    Death makes no conquest of this conqueror;\n    For now he lives in fame, though not in life.\n    I'll tell you what, my cousin Buckingham-\n  BUCKINGHAM. What, my gracious lord?\n  PRINCE. An if I live until I be a man,\n    I'll win our ancient right in France again,\n    Or die a soldier as I liv'd a king.\n  GLOUCESTER.  [Aside]  Short summers lightly have a forward\n    spring.\n\n              Enter HASTINGS, young YORK, and the CARDINAL\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. Now, in good time, here comes the Duke of\n    York.\n  PRINCE. Richard of York, how fares our loving brother?\n  YORK. Well, my dread lord; so must I can you now.\n  PRINCE. Ay brother, to our grief, as it is yours.\n    Too late he died that might have kept that title,\n    Which by his death hath lost much majesty.\n  GLOUCESTER. How fares our cousin, noble Lord of York?\n  YORK. I thank you, gentle uncle. O, my lord,\n    You said that idle weeds are fast in growth.\n    The Prince my brother hath outgrown me far.\n  GLOUCESTER. He hath, my lord.\n  YORK. And therefore is he idle?\n  GLOUCESTER. O, my fair cousin, I must not say so.\n  YORK. Then he is more beholding to you than I.\n  GLOUCESTER. He may command me as my sovereign;\n    But you have power in me as in a kinsman.\n  YORK. I pray you, uncle, give me this dagger.\n  GLOUCESTER. My dagger, little cousin? With all my heart!\n  PRINCE. A beggar, brother?\n  YORK. Of my kind uncle, that I know will give,\n    And being but a toy, which is no grief to give.\n  GLOUCESTER. A greater gift than that I'll give my cousin.\n  YORK. A greater gift! O, that's the sword to it!\n  GLOUCESTER. Ay, gentle cousin, were it light enough.\n  YORK. O, then, I see you will part but with light gifts:\n    In weightier things you'll say a beggar nay.\n  GLOUCESTER. It is too heavy for your Grace to wear.\n  YORK. I weigh it lightly, were it heavier.\n  GLOUCESTER. What, would you have my weapon, little\n    Lord?\n  YORK. I would, that I might thank you as you call me.\n  GLOUCESTER. How?\n  YORK. Little.\n  PRINCE. My Lord of York will still be cross in talk.\n    Uncle, your Grace knows how to bear with him.\n  YORK. You mean, to bear me, not to bear with me.\n    Uncle, my brother mocks both you and me;\n    Because that I am little, like an ape,\n    He thinks that you should bear me on your shoulders.\n  BUCKINGHAM. With what a sharp-provided wit he reasons!\n    To mitigate the scorn he gives his uncle\n    He prettily and aptly taunts himself.\n    So cunning and so young is wonderful.\n  GLOUCESTER. My lord, will't please you pass along?\n    Myself and my good cousin Buckingham\n    Will to your mother, to entreat of her\n    To meet you at the Tower and welcome you.\n  YORK. What, will you go unto the Tower, my lord?\n  PRINCE. My Lord Protector needs will have it so.\n  YORK. I shall not sleep in quiet at the Tower.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, what should you fear?\n  YORK. Marry, my uncle Clarence' angry ghost.\n    My grandam told me he was murder'd there.\n  PRINCE. I fear no uncles dead.\n  GLOUCESTER. Nor none that live, I hope.\n  PRINCE. An if they live, I hope I need not fear.\n    But come, my lord; and with a heavy heart,\n    Thinking on them, go I unto the Tower.\n    A sennet.\n              Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER, BUCKINGHAM, and CATESBY\n  BUCKINGHAM. Think you, my lord, this little prating York\n    Was not incensed by his subtle mother\n    To taunt and scorn you thus opprobriously?\n  GLOUCESTER. No doubt, no doubt. O, 'tis a perilous boy;\n    Bold, quick, ingenious, forward, capable.\n    He is all the mother's, from the top to toe.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Well, let them rest. Come hither, Catesby.\n    Thou art sworn as deeply to effect what we intend\n    As closely to conceal what we impart.\n    Thou know'st our reasons urg'd upon the way.\n    What think'st thou? Is it not an easy matter\n    To make William Lord Hastings of our mind,\n    For the instalment of this noble Duke\n    In the seat royal of this famous isle?\n  CATESBY. He for his father's sake so loves the Prince\n    That he will not be won to aught against him.\n  BUCKINGHAM. What think'st thou then of Stanley? Will\n    not he?\n  CATESBY. He will do all in all as Hastings doth.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Well then, no more but this: go, gentle\n    Catesby,\n    And, as it were far off, sound thou Lord Hastings\n    How he doth stand affected to our purpose;\n    And summon him to-morrow to the Tower,\n    To sit about the coronation.\n    If thou dost find him tractable to us,\n    Encourage him, and tell him all our reasons;\n    If he be leaden, icy, cold, unwilling,\n    Be thou so too, and so break off the talk,\n    And give us notice of his inclination;\n    For we to-morrow hold divided councils,\n    Wherein thyself shalt highly be employ'd.\n  GLOUCESTER. Commend me to Lord William. Tell him,\n    Catesby,\n    His ancient knot of dangerous adversaries\n    To-morrow are let blood at Pomfret Castle;\n    And bid my lord, for joy of this good news,\n    Give Mistress Shore one gentle kiss the more.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Good Catesby, go effect this business soundly.\n  CATESBY. My good lords both, with all the heed I can.\n  GLOUCESTER. Shall we hear from you, Catesby, ere we sleep?\n  CATESBY. You shall, my lord.\n  GLOUCESTER. At Crosby House, there shall you find us both.\n                                                    Exit CATESBY\n  BUCKINGHAM. Now, my lord, what shall we do if we\n    perceive\n    Lord Hastings will not yield to our complots?\n  GLOUCESTER. Chop off his head-something we will\n    determine.\n    And, look when I am King, claim thou of me\n    The earldom of Hereford and all the movables\n    Whereof the King my brother was possess'd.\n  BUCKINGHAM. I'll claim that promise at your Grace's hand.\n  GLOUCESTER. And look to have it yielded with all kindness.\n    Come, let us sup betimes, that afterwards\n    We may digest our complots in some form.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nBefore LORD HASTING'S house\n\nEnter a MESSENGER to the door of HASTINGS\n\n  MESSENGER. My lord, my lord!                        [Knocking]\n  HASTINGS.  [Within]  Who knocks?\n  MESSENGER. One from the Lord Stanley.\n  HASTINGS.  [Within]  What is't o'clock?\n  MESSENGER. Upon the stroke of four.\n\n                        Enter LORD HASTINGS\n\n  HASTINGS. Cannot my Lord Stanley sleep these tedious\n    nights?\n  MESSENGER. So it appears by that I have to say.\n    First, he commends him to your noble self.\n  HASTINGS. What then?\n  MESSENGER. Then certifies your lordship that this night\n    He dreamt the boar had razed off his helm.\n    Besides, he says there are two councils kept,\n    And that may be determin'd at the one\n    Which may make you and him to rue at th' other.\n    Therefore he sends to know your lordship's pleasure-\n    If you will presently take horse with him\n    And with all speed post with him toward the north\n    To shun the danger that his soul divines.\n  HASTINGS. Go, fellow, go, return unto thy lord;\n    Bid him not fear the separated council:\n    His honour and myself are at the one,\n    And at the other is my good friend Catesby;\n    Where nothing can proceed that toucheth us\n    Whereof I shall not have intelligence.\n    Tell him his fears are shallow, without instance;\n    And for his dreams, I wonder he's so simple\n    To trust the mock'ry of unquiet slumbers.\n    To fly the boar before the boar pursues\n    Were to incense the boar to follow us\n    And make pursuit where he did mean no chase.\n    Go, bid thy master rise and come to me;\n    And we will both together to the Tower,\n    Where, he shall see, the boar will use us kindly.\n  MESSENGER. I'll go, my lord, and tell him what you say.\n Exit\n\n                         Enter CATESBY\n\n  CATESBY. Many good morrows to my noble lord!\n  HASTINGS. Good morrow, Catesby; you are early stirring.\n    What news, what news, in this our tott'ring state?\n  CATESBY. It is a reeling world indeed, my lord;\n    And I believe will never stand upright\n    Till Richard wear the garland of the realm.\n  HASTINGS. How, wear the garland! Dost thou mean the\n    crown?\n  CATESBY. Ay, my good lord.\n  HASTINGS. I'll have this crown of mine cut from my\n    shoulders\n    Before I'll see the crown so foul misplac'd.\n    But canst thou guess that he doth aim at it?\n  CATESBY. Ay, on my life; and hopes to find you forward\n    Upon his party for the gain thereof;\n    And thereupon he sends you this good news,\n    That this same very day your enemies,\n    The kindred of the Queen, must die at Pomfret.\n  HASTINGS. Indeed, I am no mourner for that news,\n    Because they have been still my adversaries;\n    But that I'll give my voice on Richard's side\n    To bar my master's heirs in true descent,\n    God knows I will not do it to the death.\n  CATESBY. God keep your lordship in that gracious mind!\n  HASTINGS. But I shall laugh at this a twelve month hence,\n    That they which brought me in my master's hate,\n    I live to look upon their tragedy.\n    Well, Catesby, ere a fortnight make me older,\n    I'll send some packing that yet think not on't.\n  CATESBY. 'Tis a vile thing to die, my gracious lord,\n    When men are unprepar'd and look not for it.\n  HASTINGS. O monstrous, monstrous! And so falls it out\n    With Rivers, Vaughan, Grey; and so 'twill do\n    With some men else that think themselves as safe\n    As thou and I, who, as thou knowest, are dear\n    To princely Richard and to Buckingham.\n  CATESBY. The Princes both make high account of you-\n    [Aside]  For they account his head upon the bridge.\n  HASTINGS. I know they do, and I have well deserv'd it.\n\n                      Enter LORD STANLEY\n\n    Come on, come on; where is your boar-spear, man?\n    Fear you the boar, and go so unprovided?\n  STANLEY. My lord, good morrow; good morrow, Catesby.\n    You may jest on, but, by the holy rood,\n    I do not like these several councils, I.\n  HASTINGS. My lord, I hold my life as dear as yours,\n    And never in my days, I do protest,\n    Was it so precious to me as 'tis now.\n    Think you, but that I know our state secure,\n    I would be so triumphant as I am?\n  STANLEY. The lords at Pomfret, when they rode from\n    London,\n    Were jocund and suppos'd their states were sure,\n    And they indeed had no cause to mistrust;\n    But yet you see how soon the day o'ercast.\n    This sudden stab of rancour I misdoubt;\n    Pray God, I say, I prove a needless coward.\n    What, shall we toward the Tower? The day is spent.\n  HASTINGS. Come, come, have with you. Wot you what, my\n    Lord?\n    To-day the lords you talk'd of are beheaded.\n  STANLEY. They, for their truth, might better wear their\n    heads\n    Than some that have accus'd them wear their hats.\n    But come, my lord, let's away.\n\n                 Enter HASTINGS, a pursuivant\n\n  HASTINGS. Go on before; I'll talk with this good fellow.\n                                      Exeunt STANLEY and CATESBY\n    How now, Hastings! How goes the world with thee?\n  PURSUIVANT. The better that your lordship please to ask.\n  HASTINGS. I tell thee, man, 'tis better with me now\n    Than when thou met'st me last where now we meet:\n    Then was I going prisoner to the Tower\n    By the suggestion of the Queen's allies;\n    But now, I tell thee-keep it to thyself-\n    This day those enernies are put to death,\n    And I in better state than e'er I was.\n  PURSUIVANT. God hold it, to your honour's good content!\n  HASTINGS. Gramercy, Hastings; there, drink that for me.\n                                          [Throws him his purse]\n  PURSUIVANT. I thank your honour.                          Exit\n\n                            Enter a PRIEST\n\n  PRIEST. Well met, my lord; I am glad to see your honour.\n  HASTINGS. I thank thee, good Sir John, with all my heart.\n    I am in your debt for your last exercise;\n    Come the next Sabbath, and I will content you.\n                                        [He whispers in his ear]\n  PRIEST. I'll wait upon your lordship.\n\n                            Enter BUCKINGHAM\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. What, talking with a priest, Lord\n    Chamberlain!\n    Your friends at Pomfret, they do need the priest:\n    Your honour hath no shriving work in hand.\n  HASTINGS. Good faith, and when I met this holy man,\n    The men you talk of came into my mind.\n    What, go you toward the Tower?\n  BUCKINGHAM. I do, my lord, but long I cannot stay there;\n    I shall return before your lordship thence.\n  HASTINGS. Nay, like enough, for I stay dinner there.\n  BUCKINGHAM.  [Aside]  And supper too, although thou\n    knowest it not.-\n    Come, will you go?\n  HASTINGS. I'll wait upon your lordship.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nPomfret Castle\n\nEnter SIR RICHARD RATCLIFF, with halberds, carrying the Nobles,\nRIVERS, GREY, and VAUGHAN, to death\n\n  RIVERS. Sir Richard Ratcliff, let me tell thee this:\n    To-day shalt thou behold a subject die\n    For truth, for duty, and for loyalty.\n  GREY. God bless the Prince from all the pack of you!\n    A knot you are of damned blood-suckers.\n  VAUGHAN. You live that shall cry woe for this hereafter.\n  RATCLIFF. Dispatch; the limit of your lives is out.\n  RIVERS. O Pomfret, Pomfret! O thou bloody prison,\n    Fatal and ominous to noble peers!\n    Within the guilty closure of thy walls\n  RICHARD the Second here was hack'd to death;\n    And for more slander to thy dismal seat,\n    We give to thee our guiltless blood to drink.\n  GREY. Now Margaret's curse is fall'n upon our heads,\n    When she exclaim'd on Hastings, you, and I,\n    For standing by when Richard stabb'd her son.\n  RIVERS. Then curs'd she Richard, then curs'd she\n    Buckingham,\n    Then curs'd she Hastings. O, remember, God,\n    To hear her prayer for them, as now for us!\n    And for my sister, and her princely sons,\n    Be satisfied, dear God, with our true blood,\n    Which, as thou know'st, unjustly must be spilt.\n  RATCLIFF. Make haste; the hour of death is expiate.\n  RIVERS. Come, Grey; come, Vaughan; let us here embrace.\n    Farewell, until we meet again in heaven.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4\n\nLondon. The Tower\n\nEnter BUCKINGHAM, DERBY, HASTINGS, the BISHOP of ELY, RATCLIFF, LOVEL,\nwith others and seat themselves at a table\n\n  HASTINGS. Now, noble peers, the cause why we are met\n    Is to determine of the coronation.\n    In God's name speak-when is the royal day?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Is all things ready for the royal time?\n  DERBY. It is, and wants but nomination.\n  BISHOP OF ELY. To-morrow then I judge a happy day.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Who knows the Lord Protector's mind\n    herein?\n    Who is most inward with the noble Duke?\n  BISHOP OF ELY. Your Grace, we think, should soonest know\n    his mind.\n  BUCKINGHAM. We know each other's faces; for our hearts,\n    He knows no more of mine than I of yours;\n    Or I of his, my lord, than you of mine.\n    Lord Hastings, you and he are near in love.\n  HASTINGS. I thank his Grace, I know he loves me well;\n    But for his purpose in the coronation\n    I have not sounded him, nor he deliver'd\n    His gracious pleasure any way therein.\n    But you, my honourable lords, may name the time;\n    And in the Duke's behalf I'll give my voice,\n    Which, I presume, he'll take in gentle part.\n\n                       Enter GLOUCESTER\n\n  BISHOP OF ELY. In happy time, here comes the Duke himself.\n  GLOUCESTER. My noble lords and cousins an, good morrow.\n    I have been long a sleeper, but I trust\n    My absence doth neglect no great design\n    Which by my presence might have been concluded.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Had you not come upon your cue, my lord,\n  WILLIAM Lord Hastings had pronounc'd your part-\n    I mean, your voice for crowning of the King.\n  GLOUCESTER. Than my Lord Hastings no man might be\n    bolder;\n    His lordship knows me well and loves me well.\n    My lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn\n    I saw good strawberries in your garden there.\n    I do beseech you send for some of them.\n  BISHOP of ELY. Marry and will, my lord, with all my heart.\n Exit\n  GLOUCESTER. Cousin of Buckingham, a word with you.\n                                               [Takes him aside]\n    Catesby hath sounded Hastings in our business,\n    And finds the testy gentleman so hot\n    That he will lose his head ere give consent\n    His master's child, as worshipfully he terms it,\n    Shall lose the royalty of England's throne.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Withdraw yourself awhile; I'll go with you.\n                                Exeunt GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM\n  DERBY. We have not yet set down this day of triumph.\n    To-morrow, in my judgment, is too sudden;\n    For I myself am not so well provided\n    As else I would be, were the day prolong'd.\n\n                    Re-enter the BISHOP OF ELY\n\n  BISHOP OF ELY. Where is my lord the Duke of Gloucester?\n    I have sent for these strawberries.\n  HASTINGS. His Grace looks cheerfully and smooth this\n    morning;\n    There's some conceit or other likes him well\n    When that he bids good morrow with such spirit.\n    I think there's never a man in Christendom\n    Can lesser hide his love or hate than he;\n    For by his face straight shall you know his heart.\n  DERBY. What of his heart perceive you in his face\n    By any livelihood he show'd to-day?\n  HASTINGS. Marry, that with no man here he is offended;\n    For, were he, he had shown it in his looks.\n\n               Re-enter GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM\n\n  GLOUCESTER. I pray you all, tell me what they deserve\n    That do conspire my death with devilish plots\n    Of damned witchcraft, and that have prevail'd\n    Upon my body with their hellish charms?\n  HASTINGS. The tender love I bear your Grace, my lord,\n    Makes me most forward in this princely presence\n    To doom th' offenders, whosoe'er they be.\n    I say, my lord, they have deserved death.\n  GLOUCESTER. Then be your eyes the witness of their evil.\n    Look how I am bewitch'd; behold, mine arm\n    Is like a blasted sapling wither'd up.\n    And this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch,\n    Consorted with that harlot strumpet Shore,\n    That by their witchcraft thus have marked me.\n  HASTINGS. If they have done this deed, my noble lord-\n  GLOUCESTER. If?-thou protector of this damned strumpet,\n    Talk'st thou to me of ifs? Thou art a traitor.\n    Off with his head! Now by Saint Paul I swear\n    I will not dine until I see the same.\n    Lovel and Ratcliff, look that it be done.\n    The rest that love me, rise and follow me.\n                    Exeunt all but HASTINGS, LOVEL, and RATCLIFF\n  HASTINGS. Woe, woe, for England! not a whit for me;\n    For I, too fond, might have prevented this.\n  STANLEY did dream the boar did raze our helms,\n    And I did scorn it and disdain to fly.\n    Three times to-day my foot-cloth horse did stumble,\n    And started when he look'd upon the Tower,\n    As loath to bear me to the slaughter-house.\n    O, now I need the priest that spake to me!\n    I now repent I told the pursuivant,\n    As too triumphing, how mine enemies\n    To-day at Pomfret bloodily were butcher'd,\n    And I myself secure in grace and favour.\n    O Margaret, Margaret, now thy heavy curse\n    Is lighted on poor Hastings' wretched head!\n  RATCLIFF. Come, come, dispatch; the Duke would be at\n    dinner.\n    Make a short shrift; he longs to see your head.\n  HASTINGS. O momentary grace of mortal men,\n    Which we more hunt for than the grace of God!\n    Who builds his hope in air of your good looks\n    Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast,\n    Ready with every nod to tumble down\n    Into the fatal bowels of the deep.\n  LOVEL. Come, come, dispatch; 'tis bootless to exclaim.\n  HASTINGS. O bloody Richard! Miserable England!\n    I prophesy the fearfull'st time to thee\n    That ever wretched age hath look'd upon.\n    Come, lead me to the block; bear him my head.\n    They smile at me who shortly shall be dead.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 5.\n\nLondon. The Tower-walls\n\nEnter GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM in rotten armour, marvellous ill-favoured\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Come, cousin, canst thou quake and change\n    thy colour,\n    Murder thy breath in middle of a word,\n    And then again begin, and stop again,\n    As if thou were distraught and mad with terror?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Tut, I can counterfeit the deep tragedian;\n    Speak and look back, and pry on every side,\n    Tremble and start at wagging of a straw,\n    Intending deep suspicion. Ghastly looks\n    Are at my service, like enforced smiles;\n    And both are ready in their offices\n    At any time to grace my stratagems.\n    But what, is Catesby gone?\n  GLOUCESTER. He is; and, see, he brings the mayor along.\n\n                 Enter the LORD MAYOR and CATESBY\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. Lord Mayor-\n  GLOUCESTER. Look to the drawbridge there!\n  BUCKINGHAM. Hark! a drum.\n  GLOUCESTER. Catesby, o'erlook the walls.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Lord Mayor, the reason we have sent-\n  GLOUCESTER. Look back, defend thee; here are enemies.\n  BUCKINGHAM. God and our innocence defend and guard us!\n\n           Enter LOVEL and RATCLIFF, with HASTINGS' head\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Be patient; they are friends-Ratcliff and Lovel.\n  LOVEL. Here is the head of that ignoble traitor,\n    The dangerous and unsuspected Hastings.\n  GLOUCESTER. So dear I lov'd the man that I must weep.\n    I took him for the plainest harmless creature\n    That breath'd upon the earth a Christian;\n    Made him my book, wherein my soul recorded\n    The history of all her secret thoughts.\n    So smooth he daub'd his vice with show of virtue\n    That, his apparent open guilt omitted,\n    I mean his conversation with Shore's wife-\n    He liv'd from all attainder of suspects.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Well, well, he was the covert'st shelt'red\n    traitor\n    That ever liv'd.\n    Would you imagine, or almost believe-\n    Were't not that by great preservation\n    We live to tell it-that the subtle traitor\n    This day had plotted, in the council-house,\n    To murder me and my good Lord of Gloucester.\n  MAYOR. Had he done so?\n  GLOUCESTER. What! think you we are Turks or Infidels?\n    Or that we would, against the form of law,\n    Proceed thus rashly in the villain's death\n    But that the extreme peril of the case,\n    The peace of England and our persons' safety,\n    Enforc'd us to this execution?\n  MAYOR. Now, fair befall you! He deserv'd his death;\n    And your good Graces both have well proceeded\n    To warn false traitors from the like attempts.\n    I never look'd for better at his hands\n    After he once fell in with Mistress Shore.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Yet had we not determin'd he should die\n    Until your lordship came to see his end-\n    Which now the loving haste of these our friends,\n    Something against our meanings, have prevented-\n    Because, my lord, I would have had you heard\n    The traitor speak, and timorously confess\n    The manner and the purpose of his treasons:\n    That you might well have signified the same\n    Unto the citizens, who haply may\n    Misconster us in him and wail his death.\n  MAYOR. But, my good lord, your Grace's words shall serve\n    As well as I had seen and heard him speak;\n    And do not doubt, right noble Princes both,\n    But I'll acquaint our duteous citizens\n    With all your just proceedings in this cause.\n  GLOUCESTER. And to that end we wish'd your lordship here,\n    T' avoid the the the censures of the carping world.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Which since you come too late of our intent,\n    Yet witness what you hear we did intend.\n    And so, my good Lord Mayor, we bid farewell.\n                                                 Exit LORD MAYOR\n  GLOUCESTER. Go, after, after, cousin Buckingham.\n    The Mayor towards Guildhall hies him in an post.\n    There, at your meet'st advantage of the time,\n    Infer the bastardy of Edward's children.\n    Tell them how Edward put to death a citizen\n    Only for saying he would make his son\n    Heir to the crown-meaning indeed his house,\n    Which by the sign thereof was termed so.\n    Moreover, urge his hateful luxury\n    And bestial appetite in change of lust,\n    Which stretch'd unto their servants, daughters, wives,\n    Even where his raging eye or savage heart\n    Without control lusted to make a prey.\n    Nay, for a need, thus far come near my person:\n    Tell them, when that my mother went with child\n    Of that insatiate Edward, noble York\n    My princely father then had wars in France\n    And, by true computation of the time,\n    Found that the issue was not his begot;\n    Which well appeared in his lineaments,\n    Being nothing like the noble Duke my father.\n    Yet touch this sparingly, as 'twere far off;\n    Because, my lord, you know my mother lives.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Doubt not, my lord, I'll play the orator\n    As if the golden fee for which I plead\n    Were for myself; and so, my lord, adieu.\n  GLOUCESTER. If you thrive well, bring them to Baynard's\n    Castle;\n    Where you shall find me well accompanied\n    With reverend fathers and well learned bishops.\n  BUCKINGHAM. I go; and towards three or four o'clock\n    Look for the news that the Guildhall affords.           Exit\n  GLOUCESTER. Go, Lovel, with all speed to Doctor Shaw.\n    [To CATESBY]  Go thou to Friar Penker. Bid them both\n    Meet me within this hour at Baynard's Castle.\n                                       Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER\n    Now will I go to take some privy order\n    To draw the brats of Clarence out of sight,\n    And to give order that no manner person\n    Have any time recourse unto the Princes.                Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 6.\n\nLondon. A street\n\nEnter a SCRIVENER\n\n  SCRIVENER. Here is the indictment of the good Lord Hastings;\n    Which in a set hand fairly is engross'd\n    That it may be to-day read o'er in Paul's.\n    And mark how well the sequel hangs together:\n    Eleven hours I have spent to write it over,\n    For yesternight by Catesby was it sent me;\n    The precedent was full as long a-doing;\n    And yet within these five hours Hastings liv'd,\n    Untainted, unexamin'd, free, at liberty.\n    Here's a good world the while! Who is so gros\n    That cannot see this palpable device?\n    Yet who's so bold but says he sees it not?\n    Bad is the world; and all will come to nought,\n    When such ill dealing must be seen in thought.          Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 7.\n\nLondon. Baynard's Castle\n\nEnter GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM, at several doors\n\n  GLOUCESTER. How now, how now! What say the citizens?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Now, by the holy Mother of our Lord,\n    The citizens are mum, say not a word.\n  GLOUCESTER. Touch'd you the bastardy of Edward's\n    children?\n  BUCKINGHAM. I did; with his contract with Lady Lucy,\n    And his contract by deputy in France;\n    Th' insatiate greediness of his desire,\n    And his enforcement of the city wives;\n    His tyranny for trifles; his own bastardy,\n    As being got, your father then in France,\n    And his resemblance, being not like the Duke.\n    Withal I did infer your lineaments,\n    Being the right idea of your father,\n    Both in your form and nobleness of mind;\n    Laid open all your victories in Scotland,\n    Your discipline in war, wisdom in peace,\n    Your bounty, virtue, fair humility;\n    Indeed, left nothing fitting for your purpose\n    Untouch'd or slightly handled in discourse.\n    And when mine oratory drew toward end\n    I bid them that did love their country's good\n    Cry 'God save Richard, England's royal King!'\n  GLOUCESTER. And did they so?\n  BUCKINGHAM. No, so God help me, they spake not a word;\n    But, like dumb statues or breathing stones,\n    Star'd each on other, and look'd deadly pale.\n    Which when I saw, I reprehended them,\n    And ask'd the Mayor what meant this wilfull silence.\n    His answer was, the people were not used\n    To be spoke to but by the Recorder.\n    Then he was urg'd to tell my tale again.\n    'Thus saith the Duke, thus hath the Duke inferr'd'-\n    But nothing spoke in warrant from himself.\n    When he had done, some followers of mine own\n    At lower end of the hall hurl'd up their caps,\n    And some ten voices cried 'God save King Richard!'\n    And thus I took the vantage of those few-\n    'Thanks, gentle citizens and friends,' quoth I\n    'This general applause and cheerful shout\n    Argues your wisdoms and your love to Richard.'\n    And even here brake off and came away.\n  GLOUCESTER. What, tongueless blocks were they? Would\n    they not speak?\n    Will not the Mayor then and his brethren come?\n  BUCKINGHAM. The Mayor is here at hand. Intend some fear;\n    Be not you spoke with but by mighty suit;\n    And look you get a prayer-book in your hand,\n    And stand between two churchmen, good my lord;\n    For on that ground I'll make a holy descant;\n    And be not easily won to our requests.\n    Play the maid's part: still answer nay, and take it.\n  GLOUCESTER. I go; and if you plead as well for them\n    As I can say nay to thee for myself,\n    No doubt we bring it to a happy issue.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Go, go, up to the leads; the Lord Mayor\n    knocks.                                      Exit GLOUCESTER\n\n           Enter the LORD MAYOR, ALDERMEN, and citizens\n\n    Welcome, my lord. I dance attendance here;\n    I think the Duke will not be spoke withal.\n\n                         Enter CATESBY\n\n    Now, Catesby, what says your lord to my request?\n  CATESBY. He doth entreat your Grace, my noble lord,\n    To visit him to-morrow or next day.\n    He is within, with two right reverend fathers,\n    Divinely bent to meditation;\n    And in no worldly suits would he be mov'd,\n    To draw him from his holy exercise.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Return, good Catesby, to the gracious Duke;\n    Tell him, myself, the Mayor and Aldermen,\n    In deep designs, in matter of great moment,\n    No less importing than our general good,\n    Are come to have some conference with his Grace.\n  CATESBY. I'll signify so much unto him straight.          Exit\n  BUCKINGHAM. Ah ha, my lord, this prince is not an Edward!\n    He is not lolling on a lewd love-bed,\n    But on his knees at meditation;\n    Not dallying with a brace of courtezans,\n    But meditating with two deep divines;\n    Not sleeping, to engross his idle body,\n    But praying, to enrich his watchful soul.\n    Happy were England would this virtuous prince\n    Take on his Grace the sovereignty thereof;\n    But, sure, I fear we shall not win him to it.\n  MAYOR. Marry, God defend his Grace should say us nay!\n  BUCKINGHAM. I fear he will. Here Catesby comes again.\n\n                          Re-enter CATESBY\n\n    Now, Catesby, what says his Grace?\n  CATESBY. My lord,\n    He wonders to what end you have assembled\n    Such troops of citizens to come to him.\n    His Grace not being warn'd thereof before,\n    He fears, my lord, you mean no good to him.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Sorry I am my noble cousin should\n    Suspect me that I mean no good to him.\n    By heaven, we come to him in perfect love;\n    And so once more return and tell his Grace.\n                                                    Exit CATESBY\n    When holy and devout religious men\n    Are at their beads, 'tis much to draw them thence,\n    So sweet is zealous contemplation.\n\n           Enter GLOUCESTER aloft, between two BISHOPS.\n                      CATESBY returns\n\n  MAYOR. See where his Grace stands 'tween two clergymen!\n  BUCKINGHAM. Two props of virtue for a Christian prince,\n    To stay him from the fall of vanity;\n    And, see, a book of prayer in his hand,\n    True ornaments to know a holy man.\n    Famous Plantagenet, most gracious Prince,\n    Lend favourable ear to our requests,\n    And pardon us the interruption\n    Of thy devotion and right Christian zeal.\n  GLOUCESTER. My lord, there needs no such apology:\n    I do beseech your Grace to pardon me,\n    Who, earnest in the service of my God,\n    Deferr'd the visitation of my friends.\n    But, leaving this, what is your Grace's pleasure?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Even that, I hope, which pleaseth God above,\n    And all good men of this ungovern'd isle.\n  GLOUCESTER. I do suspect I have done some offence\n    That seems disgracious in the city's eye,\n    And that you come to reprehend my ignorance.\n  BUCKINGHAM. You have, my lord. Would it might please\n    your Grace,\n    On our entreaties, to amend your fault!\n  GLOUCESTER. Else wherefore breathe I in a Christian land?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Know then, it is your fault that you resign\n    The supreme seat, the throne majestical,\n    The scept'red office of your ancestors,\n    Your state of fortune and your due of birth,\n    The lineal glory of your royal house,\n    To the corruption of a blemish'd stock;\n    Whiles in the mildness of your sleepy thoughts,\n    Which here we waken to our country's good,\n    The noble isle doth want her proper limbs;\n    Her face defac'd with scars of infamy,\n    Her royal stock graft with ignoble plants,\n    And almost should'red in the swallowing gulf\n    Of dark forgetfulness and deep oblivion.\n    Which to recure, we heartily solicit\n    Your gracious self to take on you the charge\n    And kingly government of this your land-\n    Not as protector, steward, substitute,\n    Or lowly factor for another's gain;\n    But as successively, from blood to blood,\n    Your right of birth, your empery, your own.\n    For this, consorted with the citizens,\n    Your very worshipful and loving friends,\n    And by their vehement instigation,\n    In this just cause come I to move your Grace.\n  GLOUCESTER. I cannot tell if to depart in silence\n    Or bitterly to speak in your reproof\n    Best fitteth my degree or your condition.\n    If not to answer, you might haply think\n    Tongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded\n    To bear the golden yoke of sovereignty,\n    Which fondly you would here impose on me;\n    If to reprove you for this suit of yours,\n    So season'd with your faithful love to me,\n    Then, on the other side, I check'd my friends.\n    Therefore-to speak, and to avoid the first,\n    And then, in speaking, not to incur the last-\n    Definitively thus I answer you:\n    Your love deserves my thanks, but my desert\n    Unmeritable shuns your high request.\n    First, if all obstacles were cut away,\n    And that my path were even to the crown,\n    As the ripe revenue and due of birth,\n    Yet so much is my poverty of spirit,\n    So mighty and so many my defects,\n    That I would rather hide me from my greatness-\n    Being a bark to brook no mighty sea-\n    Than in my greatness covet to be hid,\n    And in the vapour of my glory smother'd.\n    But, God be thank'd, there is no need of me-\n    And much I need to help you, were there need.\n    The royal tree hath left us royal fruit\n    Which, mellow'd by the stealing hours of time,\n    Will well become the seat of majesty\n    And make, no doubt, us happy by his reign.\n    On him I lay that you would lay on me-\n    The right and fortune of his happy stars,\n    Which God defend that I should wring from him.\n  BUCKINGHAM. My lord, this argues conscience in your\n    Grace;\n    But the respects thereof are nice and trivial,\n    All circumstances well considered.\n    You say that Edward is your brother's son.\n    So say we too, but not by Edward's wife;\n    For first was he contract to Lady Lucy-\n    Your mother lives a witness to his vow-\n    And afterward by substitute betroth'd\n    To Bona, sister to the King of France.\n    These both put off, a poor petitioner,\n    A care-craz'd mother to a many sons,\n    A beauty-waning and distressed widow,\n    Even in the afternoon of her best days,\n    Made prize and purchase of his wanton eye,\n    Seduc'd the pitch and height of his degree\n    To base declension and loath'd bigamy.\n    By her, in his unlawful bed, he got\n    This Edward, whom our manners call the Prince.\n    More bitterly could I expostulate,\n    Save that, for reverence to some alive,\n    I give a sparing limit to my tongue.\n    Then, good my lord, take to your royal self\n    This proffer'd benefit of dignity;\n    If not to bless us and the land withal,\n    Yet to draw forth your noble ancestry\n    From the corruption of abusing times\n    Unto a lineal true-derived course.\n  MAYOR. Do, good my lord; your citizens entreat you.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Refuse not, mighty lord, this proffer'd love.\n  CATESBY. O, make them joyful, grant their lawful suit!\n  GLOUCESTER. Alas, why would you heap this care on me?\n    I am unfit for state and majesty.\n    I do beseech you, take it not amiss:\n    I cannot nor I will not yield to you.\n  BUCKINGHAM. If you refuse it-as, in love and zeal,\n    Loath to depose the child, your brother's son;\n    As well we know your tenderness of heart\n    And gentle, kind, effeminate remorse,\n    Which we have noted in you to your kindred\n    And egally indeed to all estates-\n    Yet know, whe'er you accept our suit or no,\n    Your brother's son shall never reign our king;\n    But we will plant some other in the throne\n    To the disgrace and downfall of your house;\n    And in this resolution here we leave you.\n    Come, citizens. Zounds, I'll entreat no more.\n  GLOUCESTER. O, do not swear, my lord of Buckingham.\n                          Exeunt BUCKINGHAM, MAYOR, and citizens\n  CATESBY. Call him again, sweet Prince, accept their suit.\n    If you deny them, all the land will rue it.\n  GLOUCESTER. Will you enforce me to a world of cares?\n    Call them again. I am not made of stones,\n    But penetrable to your kind entreaties,\n    Albeit against my conscience and my soul.\n\n                  Re-enter BUCKINGHAM and the rest\n\n    Cousin of Buckingham, and sage grave men,\n    Since you will buckle fortune on my back,\n    To bear her burden, whe'er I will or no,\n    I must have patience to endure the load;\n    But if black scandal or foul-fac'd reproach\n    Attend the sequel of your imposition,\n    Your mere enforcement shall acquittance me\n    From all the impure blots and stains thereof;\n    For God doth know, and you may partly see,\n    How far I am from the desire of this.\n  MAYOR. God bless your Grace! We see it, and will say it.\n  GLOUCESTER. In saying so, you shall but say the truth.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Then I salute you with this royal title-\n    Long live King Richard, England's worthy King!\n  ALL. Amen.\n  BUCKINGHAM. To-morrow may it please you to be crown'd?\n  GLOUCESTER. Even when you please, for you will have it so.\n  BUCKINGHAM. To-morrow, then, we will attend your Grace;\n    And so, most joyfully, we take our leave.\n  GLOUCESTER.  [To the BISHOPS]  Come, let us to our holy\n    work again.\n    Farewell, my cousin; farewell, gentle friends.        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 1.\n\nLondon. Before the Tower\n\nEnter QUEEN ELIZABETH, DUCHESS of YORK, and MARQUIS of DORSET, at one door;\nANNE, DUCHESS of GLOUCESTER, leading LADY MARGARET PLANTAGENET,\nCLARENCE's young daughter, at another door\n\n  DUCHESS. Who meets us here? My niece Plantagenet,\n    Led in the hand of her kind aunt of Gloucester?\n    Now, for my life, she's wand'ring to the Tower,\n    On pure heart's love, to greet the tender Princes.\n    Daughter, well met.\n  ANNE. God give your Graces both\n    A happy and a joyful time of day!\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. As much to you, good sister! Whither\n    away?\n  ANNE. No farther than the Tower; and, as I guess,\n    Upon the like devotion as yourselves,\n    To gratulate the gentle Princes there.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Kind sister, thanks; we'll enter\n    all together.\n\n                       Enter BRAKENBURY\n\n    And in good time, here the lieutenant comes.\n    Master Lieutenant, pray you, by your leave,\n    How doth the Prince, and my young son of York?\n  BRAKENBURY. Right well, dear madam. By your patience,\n    I may not suffer you to visit them.\n    The King hath strictly charg'd the contrary.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. The King! Who's that?\n  BRAKENBURY. I mean the Lord Protector.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. The Lord protect him from that kingly\n    title!\n    Hath he set bounds between their love and me?\n    I am their mother; who shall bar me from them?\n  DUCHESS. I am their father's mother; I will see them.\n  ANNE. Their aunt I am in law, in love their mother.\n    Then bring me to their sights; I'll bear thy blame,\n    And take thy office from thee on my peril.\n  BRAKENBURY. No, madam, no. I may not leave it so;\n    I am bound by oath, and therefore pardon me.            Exit\n\n                         Enter STANLEY\n\n  STANLEY. Let me but meet you, ladies, one hour hence,\n    And I'll salute your Grace of York as mother\n    And reverend looker-on of two fair queens.\n    [To ANNE]  Come, madam, you must straight to\n    Westminster,\n    There to be crowned Richard's royal queen.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ah, cut my lace asunder\n    That my pent heart may have some scope to beat,\n    Or else I swoon with this dead-killing news!\n  ANNE. Despiteful tidings! O unpleasing news!\n  DORSET. Be of good cheer; mother, how fares your Grace?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. O Dorset, speak not to me, get thee\n    gone!\n    Death and destruction dogs thee at thy heels;\n    Thy mother's name is ominous to children.\n    If thou wilt outstrip death, go cross the seas,\n    And live with Richmond, from the reach of hell.\n    Go, hie thee, hie thee from this slaughter-house,\n    Lest thou increase the number of the dead,\n    And make me die the thrall of Margaret's curse,\n    Nor mother, wife, nor England's counted queen.\n  STANLEY. Full of wise care is this your counsel, madam.\n    Take all the swift advantage of the hours;\n    You shall have letters from me to my son\n    In your behalf, to meet you on the way.\n    Be not ta'en tardy by unwise delay.\n  DUCHESS. O ill-dispersing wind of misery!\n    O my accursed womb, the bed of death!\n    A cockatrice hast thou hatch'd to the world,\n    Whose unavoided eye is murderous.\n  STANLEY. Come, madam, come; I in all haste was sent.\n  ANNE. And I with all unwillingness will go.\n    O, would to God that the inclusive verge\n    Of golden metal that must round my brow\n    Were red-hot steel, to sear me to the brains!\n    Anointed let me be with deadly venom,\n    And die ere men can say 'God save the Queen!'\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Go, go, poor soul; I envy not thy glory.\n    To feed my humour, wish thyself no harm.\n  ANNE. No, why? When he that is my husband now\n    Came to me, as I follow'd Henry's corse;\n    When scarce the blood was well wash'd from his hands\n    Which issued from my other angel husband,\n    And that dear saint which then I weeping follow'd-\n    O, when, I say, I look'd on Richard's face,\n    This was my wish: 'Be thou' quoth I 'accurs'd\n    For making me, so young, so old a widow;\n    And when thou wed'st, let sorrow haunt thy bed;\n    And be thy wife, if any be so mad,\n    More miserable by the life of thee\n    Than thou hast made me by my dear lord's death.'\n    Lo, ere I can repeat this curse again,\n    Within so small a time, my woman's heart\n    Grossly grew captive to his honey words\n    And prov'd the subject of mine own soul's curse,\n    Which hitherto hath held my eyes from rest;\n    For never yet one hour in his bed\n    Did I enjoy the golden dew of sleep,\n    But with his timorous dreams was still awak'd.\n    Besides, he hates me for my father Warwick;\n    And will, no doubt, shortly be rid of me.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Poor heart, adieu! I pity thy complaining.\n  ANNE. No more than with my soul I mourn for yours.\n  DORSET. Farewell, thou woeful welcomer of glory!\n  ANNE. Adieu, poor soul, that tak'st thy leave of it!\n  DUCHESS.  [To DORSET]  Go thou to Richmond, and good\n    fortune guide thee!\n    [To ANNE]  Go thou to Richard, and good angels tend\n    thee!  [To QUEEN ELIZABETH]  Go thou to sanctuary, and good\n    thoughts possess thee!\n    I to my grave, where peace and rest lie with me!\n    Eighty odd years of sorrow have I seen,\n    And each hour's joy wreck'd with a week of teen.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Stay, yet look back with me unto the\n    Tower.\n    Pity, you ancient stones, those tender babes\n    Whom envy hath immur'd within your walls,\n    Rough cradle for such little pretty ones.\n    Rude ragged nurse, old sullen playfellow\n    For tender princes, use my babies well.\n    So foolish sorrows bids your stones farewell.         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nSound a sennet. Enter RICHARD, in pomp, as KING; BUCKINGHAM, CATESBY,\nRATCLIFF, LOVEL, a PAGE, and others\n\n  KING RICHARD. Stand all apart. Cousin of Buckingham!\n  BUCKINGHAM. My gracious sovereign?\n  KING RICHARD. Give me thy hand.\n                           [Here he ascendeth the throne. Sound]\n    Thus high, by thy advice\n    And thy assistance, is King Richard seated.\n    But shall we wear these glories for a day;\n    Or shall they last, and we rejoice in them?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Still live they, and for ever let them last!\n  KING RICHARD. Ah, Buckingham, now do I play the touch,\n    To try if thou be current gold indeed.\n    Young Edward lives-think now what I would speak.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Say on, my loving lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Why, Buckingham, I say I would be King.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Why, so you are, my thrice-renowned lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Ha! am I King? 'Tis so; but Edward lives.\n  BUCKINGHAM. True, noble Prince.\n  KING RICHARD. O bitter consequence:\n    That Edward still should live-true noble Prince!\n    Cousin, thou wast not wont to be so dull.\n    Shall I be plain? I wish the bastards dead.\n    And I would have it suddenly perform'd.\n    What say'st thou now? Speak suddenly, be brief.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Your Grace may do your pleasure.\n  KING RICHARD. Tut, tut, thou art all ice; thy kindness freezes.\n    Say, have I thy consent that they shall die?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Give me some little breath, some pause,\n    dear Lord,\n    Before I positively speak in this.\n    I will resolve you herein presently.                    Exit\n  CATESBY.  [Aside to another]  The King is angry; see, he\n    gnaws his lip.\n  KING RICHARD. I will converse with iron-witted fools\n                                      [Descends from the throne]\n    And unrespective boys; none are for me\n    That look into me with considerate eyes.\n    High-reaching Buckingham grows circumspect.\n    Boy!\n  PAGE. My lord?\n  KING RICHARD. Know'st thou not any whom corrupting\n    gold\n    Will tempt unto a close exploit of death?\n  PAGE. I know a discontented gentleman\n    Whose humble means match not his haughty spirit.\n    Gold were as good as twenty orators,\n    And will, no doubt, tempt him to anything.\n  KING RICHARD. What is his name?\n  PAGE. His name, my lord, is Tyrrel.\n  KING RICHARD. I partly know the man. Go, call him hither,\n    boy.                                               Exit PAGE\n    The deep-revolving witty Buckingham\n    No more shall be the neighbour to my counsels.\n    Hath he so long held out with me, untir'd,\n    And stops he now for breath? Well, be it so.\n\n                            Enter STANLEY\n\n    How now, Lord Stanley! What's the news?\n  STANLEY. Know, my loving lord,\n    The Marquis Dorset, as I hear, is fled\n    To Richmond, in the parts where he abides.    [Stands apart]\n  KING RICHARD. Come hither, Catesby. Rumour it abroad\n    That Anne, my wife, is very grievous sick;\n    I will take order for her keeping close.\n    Inquire me out some mean poor gentleman,\n    Whom I will marry straight to Clarence' daughter-\n    The boy is foolish, and I fear not him.\n    Look how thou dream'st! I say again, give out\n    That Anne, my queen, is sick and like to die.\n    About it; for it stands me much upon\n    To stop all hopes whose growth may damage me.\n                                                    Exit CATESBY\n    I must be married to my brother's daughter,\n    Or else my kingdom stands on brittle glass.\n    Murder her brothers, and then marry her!\n    Uncertain way of gain! But I am in\n    So far in blood that sin will pluck on sin.\n    Tear-falling pity dwells not in this eye.\n\n                     Re-enter PAGE, with TYRREL\n\n    Is thy name Tyrrel?\n  TYRREL. James Tyrrel, and your most obedient subject.\n  KING RICHARD. Art thou, indeed?\n  TYRREL. Prove me, my gracious lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Dar'st'thou resolve to kill a friend of mine?\n  TYRREL. Please you;\n    But I had rather kill two enemies.\n  KING RICHARD. Why, then thou hast it. Two deep enemies,\n    Foes to my rest, and my sweet sleep's disturbers,\n    Are they that I would have thee deal upon.\n  TYRREL, I mean those bastards in the Tower.\n  TYRREL. Let me have open means to come to them,\n    And soon I'll rid you from the fear of them.\n  KING RICHARD. Thou sing'st sweet music. Hark, come\n    hither, Tyrrel.\n    Go, by this token. Rise, and lend thine ear.      [Whispers]\n    There is no more but so: say it is done,\n    And I will love thee and prefer thee for it.\n  TYRREL. I will dispatch it straight.                      Exit\n\n                    Re-enter BUCKINGHAM\n\n    BUCKINGHAM. My lord, I have consider'd in my mind\n    The late request that you did sound me in.\n  KING RICHARD. Well, let that rest. Dorset is fled to\n    Richmond.\n  BUCKINGHAM. I hear the news, my lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Stanley, he is your wife's son: well, look\n    unto it.\n  BUCKINGHAM. My lord, I claim the gift, my due by promise,\n    For which your honour and your faith is pawn'd:\n    Th' earldom of Hereford and the movables\n    Which you have promised I shall possess.\n  KING RICHARD. Stanley, look to your wife; if she convey\n    Letters to Richmond, you shall answer it.\n  BUCKINGHAM. What says your Highness to my just request?\n  KING RICHARD. I do remember me: Henry the Sixth\n    Did prophesy that Richmond should be King,\n    When Richmond was a little peevish boy.\n    A king!-perhaps-\n  BUCKINGHAM. My lord-\n  KING RICHARD. How chance the prophet could not at that\n    time\n    Have told me, I being by, that I should kill him?\n  BUCKINGHAM. My lord, your promise for the earldom-\n  KING RICHARD. Richmond! When last I was at Exeter,\n    The mayor in courtesy show'd me the castle\n    And call'd it Rugemount, at which name I started,\n    Because a bard of Ireland told me once\n    I should not live long after I saw Richmond.\n  BUCKINGHAM. My lord-\n  KING RICHARD. Ay, what's o'clock?\n  BUCKINGHAM. I am thus bold to put your Grace in mind\n    Of what you promis'd me.\n  KING RICHARD. Well, but o'clock?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Upon the stroke of ten.\n  KING RICHARD. Well, let it strike.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Why let it strike?\n  KING RICHARD. Because that like a Jack thou keep'st the\n    stroke\n    Betwixt thy begging and my meditation.\n    I am not in the giving vein to-day.\n  BUCKINGHAM. May it please you to resolve me in my suit.\n  KING RICHARD. Thou troublest me; I am not in the vein.\n                                       Exeunt all but Buckingham\n  BUCKINGHAM. And is it thus? Repays he my deep service\n    With such contempt? Made I him King for this?\n    O, let me think on Hastings, and be gone\n    To Brecknock while my fearful head is on!               Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter TYRREL\n\n  TYRREL. The tyrannous and bloody act is done,\n    The most arch deed of piteous massacre\n    That ever yet this land was guilty of.\n    Dighton and Forrest, who I did suborn\n    To do this piece of ruthless butchery,\n    Albeit they were flesh'd villains, bloody dogs,\n    Melted with tenderness and mild compassion,\n    Wept like two children in their deaths' sad story.\n    'O, thus' quoth Dighton 'lay the gentle babes'-\n    'Thus, thus,' quoth Forrest 'girdling one another\n    Within their alabaster innocent arms.\n    Their lips were four red roses on a stalk,\n    And in their summer beauty kiss'd each other.\n    A book of prayers on their pillow lay;\n    Which once,' quoth Forrest 'almost chang'd my mind;\n    But, O, the devil'-there the villain stopp'd;\n    When Dighton thus told on: 'We smothered\n    The most replenished sweet work of nature\n    That from the prime creation e'er she framed.'\n    Hence both are gone with conscience and remorse\n    They could not speak; and so I left them both,\n    To bear this tidings to the bloody King.\n\n                        Enter KING RICHARD\n\n    And here he comes. All health, my sovereign lord!\n  KING RICHARD. Kind Tyrrel, am I happy in thy news?\n  TYRREL. If to have done the thing you gave in charge\n    Beget your happiness, be happy then,\n    For it is done.\n  KING RICHARD. But didst thou see them dead?\n  TYRREL. I did, my lord.\n  KING RICHARD. And buried, gentle Tyrrel?\n  TYRREL. The chaplain of the Tower hath buried them;\n    But where, to say the truth, I do not know.\n  KING RICHARD. Come to me, Tyrrel, soon at after supper,\n    When thou shalt tell the process of their death.\n    Meantime, but think how I may do thee good\n    And be inheritor of thy desire.\n    Farewell till then.\n  TYRREL. I humbly take my leave.                           Exit\n  KING RICHARD. The son of Clarence have I pent up close;\n    His daughter meanly have I match'd in marriage;\n    The sons of Edward sleep in Abraham's bosom,\n    And Anne my wife hath bid this world good night.\n    Now, for I know the Britaine Richmond aims\n    At young Elizabeth, my brother's daughter,\n    And by that knot looks proudly on the crown,\n    To her go I, a jolly thriving wooer.\n\n                           Enter RATCLIFF\n\n  RATCLIFF. My lord!\n  KING RICHARD. Good or bad news, that thou com'st in so\n    bluntly?\n  RATCLIFF. Bad news, my lord: Morton is fled to Richmond;\n    And Buckingham, back'd with the hardy Welshmen,\n    Is in the field, and still his power increaseth.\n  KING RICHARD. Ely with Richmond troubles me more near\n    Than Buckingham and his rash-levied strength.\n    Come, I have learn'd that fearful commenting\n    Is leaden servitor to dull delay;\n    Delay leads impotent and snail-pac'd beggary.\n    Then fiery expedition be my wing,\n    Jove's Mercury, and herald for a king!\n    Go, muster men. My counsel is my shield.\n    We must be brief when traitors brave the field.       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\n\nLondon. Before the palace\n\nEnter old QUEEN MARGARET\n\n  QUEEN MARGARET. So now prosperity begins to mellow\n    And drop into the rotten mouth of death.\n    Here in these confines slily have I lurk'd\n    To watch the waning of mine enemies.\n    A dire induction am I witness to,\n    And will to France, hoping the consequence\n    Will prove as bitter, black, and tragical.\n    Withdraw thee, wretched Margaret. Who comes here?\n                                                       [Retires]\n\n           Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH and the DUCHESS OF YORK\n\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ah, my poor princes! ah, my tender\n    babes!\n    My unblown flowers, new-appearing sweets!\n    If yet your gentle souls fly in the air\n    And be not fix'd in doom perpetual,\n    Hover about me with your airy wings\n    And hear your mother's lamentation.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Hover about her; say that right for right\n    Hath dimm'd your infant morn to aged night.\n  DUCHESS. So many miseries have craz'd my voice\n    That my woe-wearied tongue is still and mute.\n    Edward Plantagenet, why art thou dead?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Plantagenet doth quit Plantagenet,\n    Edward for Edward pays a dying debt.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Wilt thou, O God, fly from such gentle\n    lambs\n    And throw them in the entrails of the wolf?\n    When didst thou sleep when such a deed was done?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. When holy Harry died, and my sweet\n    son.\n  DUCHESS. Dead life, blind sight, poor mortal living ghost,\n    Woe's scene, world's shame, grave's due by life usurp'd,\n    Brief abstract and record of tedious days,\n    Rest thy unrest on England's lawful earth,    [Sitting down]\n    Unlawfully made drunk with innocent blood.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ah, that thou wouldst as soon afford a\n    grave\n    As thou canst yield a melancholy seat!\n    Then would I hide my bones, not rest them here.\n    Ah, who hath any cause to mourn but we?\n                                           [Sitting down by her]\n  QUEEN MARGARET.  [Coming forward]  If ancient sorrow be\n    most reverend,\n    Give mine the benefit of seniory,\n    And let my griefs frown on the upper hand.\n    If sorrow can admit society,        [Sitting down with them]\n    Tell o'er your woes again by viewing mine.\n    I had an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him;\n    I had a husband, till a Richard kill'd him:\n    Thou hadst an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him;\n    Thou hadst a Richard, till a Richard kill'd him.\n  DUCHESS. I had a Richard too, and thou didst kill him;\n    I had a Rutland too, thou holp'st to kill him.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Thou hadst a Clarence too, and Richard\n    kill'd him.\n    From forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept\n    A hell-hound that doth hunt us all to death.\n    That dog, that had his teeth before his eyes\n    To worry lambs and lap their gentle blood,\n    That foul defacer of God's handiwork,\n    That excellent grand tyrant of the earth\n    That reigns in galled eyes of weeping souls,\n    Thy womb let loose to chase us to our graves.\n    O upright, just, and true-disposing God,\n    How do I thank thee that this carnal cur\n    Preys on the issue of his mother's body\n    And makes her pew-fellow with others' moan!\n  DUCHESS. O Harry's wife, triumph not in my woes!\n    God witness with me, I have wept for thine.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Bear with me; I am hungry for revenge,\n    And now I cloy me with beholding it.\n    Thy Edward he is dead, that kill'd my Edward;\n    The other Edward dead, to quit my Edward;\n    Young York he is but boot, because both they\n    Match'd not the high perfection of my loss.\n    Thy Clarence he is dead that stabb'd my Edward;\n    And the beholders of this frantic play,\n    Th' adulterate Hastings, Rivers, Vaughan, Grey,\n    Untimely smother'd in their dusky graves.\n    Richard yet lives, hell's black intelligencer;\n    Only reserv'd their factor to buy souls\n    And send them thither. But at hand, at hand,\n    Ensues his piteous and unpitied end.\n    Earth gapes, hell burns, fiends roar, saints pray,\n    To have him suddenly convey'd from hence.\n    Cancel his bond of life, dear God, I pray,\n    That I may live and say 'The dog is dead.'\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. O, thou didst prophesy the time would\n      come\n    That I should wish for thee to help me curse\n    That bottled spider, that foul bunch-back'd toad!\n  QUEEN MARGARET. I Call'd thee then vain flourish of my\n      fortune;\n    I call'd thee then poor shadow, painted queen,\n    The presentation of but what I was,\n    The flattering index of a direful pageant,\n    One heav'd a-high to be hurl'd down below,\n    A mother only mock'd with two fair babes,\n    A dream of what thou wast, a garish flag\n    To be the aim of every dangerous shot,\n    A sign of dignity, a breath, a bubble,\n    A queen in jest, only to fill the scene.\n    Where is thy husband now? Where be thy brothers?\n    Where be thy two sons? Wherein dost thou joy?\n    Who sues, and kneels, and says 'God save the Queen'?\n    Where be the bending peers that flattered thee?\n    Where be the thronging troops that followed thee?\n    Decline an this, and see what now thou art:\n    For happy wife, a most distressed widow;\n    For joyful mother, one that wails the name;\n    For one being su'd to, one that humbly sues;\n    For Queen, a very caitiff crown'd with care;\n    For she that scorn'd at me, now scorn'd of me;\n    For she being fear'd of all, now fearing one;\n    For she commanding all, obey'd of none.\n    Thus hath the course of justice whirl'd about\n    And left thee but a very prey to time,\n    Having no more but thought of what thou wast\n    To torture thee the more, being what thou art.\n    Thou didst usurp my place, and dost thou not\n    Usurp the just proportion of my sorrow?\n    Now thy proud neck bears half my burden'd yoke,\n    From which even here I slip my weary head\n    And leave the burden of it all on thee.\n    Farewell, York's wife, and queen of sad mischance;\n    These English woes shall make me smile in France.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. O thou well skill'd in curses, stay awhile\n    And teach me how to curse mine enemies!\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Forbear to sleep the nights, and fast the\n      days;\n    Compare dead happiness with living woe;\n    Think that thy babes were sweeter than they were,\n    And he that slew them fouler than he is.\n    Bett'ring thy loss makes the bad-causer worse;\n    Revolving this will teach thee how to curse.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. My words are dull; O, quicken them\n    with thine!\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Thy woes will make them sharp and\n    pierce like mine.                                       Exit\n  DUCHESS. Why should calamity be fun of words?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Windy attorneys to their client woes,\n    Airy succeeders of intestate joys,\n    Poor breathing orators of miseries,\n    Let them have scope; though what they will impart\n    Help nothing else, yet do they case the heart.\n  DUCHESS. If so, then be not tongue-tied. Go with me,\n    And in the breath of bitter words let's smother\n    My damned son that thy two sweet sons smother'd.\n    The trumpet sounds; be copious in exclaims.\n\n         Enter KING RICHARD and his train, marching with\n                     drums and trumpets\n\n  KING RICHARD. Who intercepts me in my expedition?\n  DUCHESS. O, she that might have intercepted thee,\n    By strangling thee in her accursed womb,\n    From all the slaughters, wretch, that thou hast done!\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Hidest thou that forehead with a golden\n    crown\n    Where't should be branded, if that right were right,\n    The slaughter of the Prince that ow'd that crown,\n    And the dire death of my poor sons and brothers?\n    Tell me, thou villain slave, where are my children?\n  DUCHESS. Thou toad, thou toad, where is thy brother\n    Clarence?\n    And little Ned Plantagenet, his son?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Where is the gentle Rivers, Vaughan,\n    Grey?\n  DUCHESS. Where is kind Hastings?\n  KING RICHARD. A flourish, trumpets! Strike alarum, drums!\n    Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women\n    Rail on the Lord's anointed. Strike, I say!\n                                             [Flourish. Alarums]\n    Either be patient and entreat me fair,\n    Or with the clamorous report of war\n    Thus will I drown your exclamations.\n  DUCHESS. Art thou my son?\n  KING RICHARD. Ay, I thank God, my father, and yourself.\n  DUCHESS. Then patiently hear my impatience.\n  KING RICHARD. Madam, I have a touch of your condition\n    That cannot brook the accent of reproof.\n  DUCHESS. O, let me speak!\n  KING RICHARD. Do, then; but I'll not hear.\n  DUCHESS. I will be mild and gentle in my words.\n  KING RICHARD. And brief, good mother; for I am in haste.\n  DUCHESS. Art thou so hasty? I have stay'd for thee,\n    God knows, in torment and in agony.\n  KING RICHARD. And came I not at last to comfort you?\n  DUCHESS. No, by the holy rood, thou know'st it well\n    Thou cam'st on earth to make the earth my hell.\n    A grievous burden was thy birth to me;\n    Tetchy and wayward was thy infancy;\n    Thy school-days frightful, desp'rate, wild, and furious;\n    Thy prime of manhood daring, bold, and venturous;\n    Thy age confirm'd, proud, subtle, sly, and bloody,\n    More mild, but yet more harmful-kind in hatred.\n    What comfortable hour canst thou name\n    That ever grac'd me with thy company?\n  KING RICHARD. Faith, none but Humphrey Hour, that call'd\n    your Grace\n    To breakfast once forth of my company.\n    If I be so disgracious in your eye,\n    Let me march on and not offend you, madam.\n    Strike up the drum.\n  DUCHESS. I prithee hear me speak.\n  KING RICHARD. You speak too bitterly.\n  DUCHESS. Hear me a word;\n    For I shall never speak to thee again.\n  KING RICHARD. So.\n  DUCHESS. Either thou wilt die by God's just ordinance\n    Ere from this war thou turn a conqueror;\n    Or I with grief and extreme age shall perish\n    And never more behold thy face again.\n    Therefore take with thee my most grievous curse,\n    Which in the day of battle tire thee more\n    Than all the complete armour that thou wear'st!\n    My prayers on the adverse party fight;\n    And there the little souls of Edward's children\n    Whisper the spirits of thine enemies\n    And promise them success and victory.\n    Bloody thou art; bloody will be thy end.\n    Shame serves thy life and doth thy death attend.        Exit\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Though far more cause, yet much less\n      spirit to curse\n    Abides in me; I say amen to her.\n  KING RICHARD. Stay, madam, I must talk a word with you.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. I have no moe sons of the royal blood\n    For thee to slaughter. For my daughters, Richard,\n    They shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens;\n    And therefore level not to hit their lives.\n  KING RICHARD. You have a daughter call'd Elizabeth.\n    Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. And must she die for this? O, let her\n      live,\n    And I'll corrupt her manners, stain her beauty,\n    Slander myself as false to Edward's bed,\n    Throw over her the veil of infamy;\n    So she may live unscarr'd of bleeding slaughter,\n    I will confess she was not Edward's daughter.\n  KING RICHARD. Wrong not her birth; she is a royal\n    Princess.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. To save her life I'll say she is not so.\n  KING RICHARD. Her life is safest only in her birth.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. And only in that safety died her\n      brothers.\n  KING RICHARD. Lo, at their birth good stars were opposite.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. No, to their lives ill friends were\n      contrary.\n  KING RICHARD. All unavoided is the doom of destiny.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. True, when avoided grace makes destiny.\n    My babes were destin'd to a fairer death,\n    If grace had bless'd thee with a fairer life.\n  KING RICHARD. You speak as if that I had slain my cousins.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Cousins, indeed; and by their uncle\n      cozen'd\n    Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life.\n    Whose hand soever lanc'd their tender hearts,\n    Thy head, an indirectly, gave direction.\n    No doubt the murd'rous knife was dull and blunt\n    Till it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart\n    To revel in the entrails of my lambs.\n    But that stiff use of grief makes wild grief tame,\n    My tongue should to thy ears not name my boys\n    Till that my nails were anchor'd in thine eyes;\n    And I, in such a desp'rate bay of death,\n    Like a poor bark, of sails and tackling reft,\n    Rush all to pieces on thy rocky bosom.\n  KING RICHARD. Madam, so thrive I in my enterprise\n    And dangerous success of bloody wars,\n    As I intend more good to you and yours\n    Than ever you or yours by me were harm'd!\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. What good is cover'd with the face of\n      heaven,\n    To be discover'd, that can do me good?\n  KING RICHARD. advancement of your children, gentle\n    lady.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Up to some scaffold, there to lose their\n    heads?\n  KING RICHARD. Unto the dignity and height of Fortune,\n    The high imperial type of this earth's glory.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Flatter my sorrow with report of it;\n    Tell me what state, what dignity, what honour,\n    Canst thou demise to any child of mine?\n  KING RICHARD. Even all I have-ay, and myself and all\n    Will I withal endow a child of thine;\n    So in the Lethe of thy angry soul\n    Thou drown the sad remembrance of those wrongs\n    Which thou supposest I have done to thee.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Be brief, lest that the process of thy\n      kindness\n    Last longer telling than thy kindness' date.\n  KING RICHARD. Then know, that from my soul I love thy\n    daughter.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. My daughter's mother thinks it with her\n    soul.\n  KING RICHARD. What do you think?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. That thou dost love my daughter from\n      thy soul.\n    So from thy soul's love didst thou love her brothers,\n    And from my heart's love I do thank thee for it.\n  KING RICHARD. Be not so hasty to confound my meaning.\n    I mean that with my soul I love thy daughter\n    And do intend to make her Queen of England.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Well, then, who dost thou mean shall be\n    her king?\n  KING RICHARD. Even he that makes her Queen. Who else\n    should be?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. What, thou?\n  KING RICHARD. Even so. How think you of it?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. How canst thou woo her?\n  KING RICHARD. That would I learn of you,\n    As one being best acquainted with her humour.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. And wilt thou learn of me?\n  KING RICHARD. Madam, with all my heart.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Send to her, by the man that slew her\n    brothers,\n    A pair of bleeding hearts; thereon engrave\n    'Edward' and 'York.' Then haply will she weep;\n    Therefore present to her-as sometimes Margaret\n    Did to thy father, steep'd in Rutland's blood-\n    A handkerchief; which, say to her, did drain\n    The purple sap from her sweet brother's body,\n    And bid her wipe her weeping eyes withal.\n    If this inducement move her not to love,\n    Send her a letter of thy noble deeds;\n    Tell her thou mad'st away her uncle Clarence,\n    Her uncle Rivers; ay, and for her sake\n    Mad'st quick conveyance with her good aunt Anne.\n  KING RICHARD. You mock me, madam; this is not the way\n    To win your daughter.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. There is no other way;\n    Unless thou couldst put on some other shape\n    And not be Richard that hath done all this.\n  KING RICHARD. Say that I did all this for love of her.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Nay, then indeed she cannot choose but\n      hate thee,\n    Having bought love with such a bloody spoil.\n  KING RICHARD. Look what is done cannot be now amended.\n    Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes,\n    Which after-hours gives leisure to repent.\n    If I did take the kingdom from your sons,\n    To make amends I'll give it to your daughter.\n    If I have kill'd the issue of your womb,\n    To quicken your increase I will beget\n    Mine issue of your blood upon your daughter.\n    A grandam's name is little less in love\n    Than is the doating title of a mother;\n    They are as children but one step below,\n    Even of your metal, of your very blood;\n    Of all one pain, save for a night of groans\n    Endur'd of her, for whom you bid like sorrow.\n    Your children were vexation to your youth;\n    But mine shall be a comfort to your age.\n    The loss you have is but a son being King,\n    And by that loss your daughter is made Queen.\n    I cannot make you what amends I would,\n    Therefore accept such kindness as I can.\n    Dorset your son, that with a fearful soul\n    Leads discontented steps in foreign soil,\n    This fair alliance quickly shall can home\n    To high promotions and great dignity.\n    The King, that calls your beauteous daughter wife,\n    Familiarly shall call thy Dorset brother;\n    Again shall you be mother to a king,\n    And all the ruins of distressful times\n    Repair'd with double riches of content.\n    What! we have many goodly days to see.\n    The liquid drops of tears that you have shed\n    Shall come again, transform'd to orient pearl,\n    Advantaging their loan with interest\n    Of ten times double gain of happiness.\n    Go, then, my mother, to thy daughter go;\n    Make bold her bashful years with your experience;\n    Prepare her ears to hear a wooer's tale;\n    Put in her tender heart th' aspiring flame\n    Of golden sovereignty; acquaint the Princes\n    With the sweet silent hours of marriage joys.\n    And when this arm of mine hath chastised\n    The petty rebel, dull-brain'd Buckingham,\n    Bound with triumphant garlands will I come,\n    And lead thy daughter to a conqueror's bed;\n    To whom I will retail my conquest won,\n    And she shall be sole victoress, Caesar's Caesar.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. What were I best to say? Her father's\n      brother\n    Would be her lord? Or shall I say her uncle?\n    Or he that slew her brothers and her uncles?\n    Under what title shall I woo for thee\n    That God, the law, my honour, and her love\n    Can make seem pleasing to her tender years?\n  KING RICHARD. Infer fair England's peace by this alliance.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Which she shall purchase with\n    still-lasting war.\n  KING RICHARD. Tell her the King, that may command,\n    entreats.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. That at her hands which the King's\n    King forbids.\n  KING RICHARD. Say she shall be a high and mighty queen.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. To wail the title, as her mother doth.\n  KING RICHARD. Say I will love her everlastingly.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. But how long shall that title 'ever' last?\n  KING RICHARD. Sweetly in force unto her fair life's end.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. But how long fairly shall her sweet life\n    last?\n  KING RICHARD. As long as heaven and nature lengthens it.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. As long as hell and Richard likes of it.\n  KING RICHARD. Say I, her sovereign, am her subject low.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. But she, your subject, loathes such\n    sovereignty.\n  KING RICHARD. Be eloquent in my behalf to her.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. An honest tale speeds best being plainly\n    told.\n  KING RICHARD. Then plainly to her tell my loving tale.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Plain and not honest is too harsh a style.\n  KING RICHARD. Your reasons are too shallow and too quick.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. O, no, my reasons are too deep and\n      dead-\n    Too deep and dead, poor infants, in their graves.\n  KING RICHARD. Harp not on that string, madam; that is past.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Harp on it still shall I till heartstrings\n    break.\n  KING RICHARD. Now, by my George, my garter, and my\n    crown-\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Profan'd, dishonour'd, and the third\n    usurp'd.\n  KING RICHARD. I swear-\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. By nothing; for this is no oath:\n    Thy George, profan'd, hath lost his lordly honour;\n    Thy garter, blemish'd, pawn'd his knightly virtue;\n    Thy crown, usurp'd, disgrac'd his kingly glory.\n    If something thou wouldst swear to be believ'd,\n    Swear then by something that thou hast not wrong'd.\n  KING RICHARD. Then, by my self-\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Thy self is self-misus'd.\n  KING RICHARD. Now, by the world-\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. 'Tis full of thy foul wrongs.\n  KING RICHARD. My father's death-\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Thy life hath it dishonour'd.\n  KING RICHARD. Why, then, by God-\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. God's wrong is most of all.\n    If thou didst fear to break an oath with Him,\n    The unity the King my husband made\n    Thou hadst not broken, nor my brothers died.\n    If thou hadst fear'd to break an oath by Him,\n    Th' imperial metal, circling now thy head,\n    Had grac'd the tender temples of my child;\n    And both the Princes had been breathing here,\n    Which now, two tender bedfellows for dust,\n    Thy broken faith hath made the prey for worms.\n    What canst thou swear by now?\n  KING RICHARD. The time to come.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. That thou hast wronged in the time\n    o'erpast;\n    For I myself have many tears to wash\n    Hereafter time, for time past wrong'd by thee.\n    The children live whose fathers thou hast slaughter'd,\n    Ungovern'd youth, to wail it in their age;\n    The parents live whose children thou hast butcheed,\n    Old barren plants, to wail it with their age.\n    Swear not by time to come; for that thou hast\n    Misus'd ere us'd, by times ill-us'd o'erpast.\n  KING RICHARD. As I intend to prosper and repent,\n    So thrive I in my dangerous affairs\n    Of hostile arms! Myself myself confound!\n    Heaven and fortune bar me happy hours!\n    Day, yield me not thy light; nor, night, thy rest!\n    Be opposite all planets of good luck\n    To my proceeding!-if, with dear heart's love,\n    Immaculate devotion, holy thoughts,\n    I tender not thy beauteous princely daughter.\n    In her consists my happiness and thine;\n    Without her, follows to myself and thee,\n    Herself, the land, and many a Christian soul,\n    Death, desolation, ruin, and decay.\n    It cannot be avoided but by this;\n    It will not be avoided but by this.\n    Therefore, dear mother-I must call you so-\n    Be the attorney of my love to her;\n    Plead what I will be, not what I have been;\n    Not my deserts, but what I will deserve.\n    Urge the necessity and state of times,\n    And be not peevish-fond in great designs.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Shall I be tempted of the devil thus?\n  KING RICHARD. Ay, if the devil tempt you to do good.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Shall I forget myself to be myself?\n  KING RICHARD. Ay, if your self's remembrance wrong\n    yourself.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Yet thou didst kill my children.\n  KING RICHARD. But in your daughter's womb I bury them;\n    Where, in that nest of spicery, they will breed\n    Selves of themselves, to your recomforture.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Shall I go win my daughter to thy will?\n  KING RICHARD. And be a happy mother by the deed.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. I go. Write to me very shortly,\n    And you shall understand from me her mind.\n  KING RICHARD. Bear her my true love's kiss; and so, farewell.\n                               Kissing her. Exit QUEEN ELIZABETH\n    Relenting fool, and shallow, changing woman!\n\n                 Enter RATCLIFF; CATESBY following\n\n    How now! what news?\n  RATCLIFF. Most mighty sovereign, on the western coast\n    Rideth a puissant navy; to our shores\n    Throng many doubtful hollow-hearted friends,\n    Unarm'd, and unresolv'd to beat them back.\n    'Tis thought that Richmond is their admiral;\n    And there they hull, expecting but the aid\n    Of Buckingham to welcome them ashore.\n  KING RICHARD. Some light-foot friend post to the Duke of\n    Norfolk.\n    Ratcliff, thyself-or Catesby; where is he?\n  CATESBY. Here, my good lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Catesby, fly to the Duke.\n  CATESBY. I will my lord, with all convenient haste.\n  KING RICHARD. Ratcliff, come hither. Post to Salisbury;\n    When thou com'st thither-  [To CATESBY]  Dull,\n    unmindfull villain,\n    Why stay'st thou here, and go'st not to the Duke?\n  CATESBY. First, mighty liege, tell me your Highness' pleasure,\n    What from your Grace I shall deliver to him.\n  KING RICHARD. O, true, good Catesby. Bid him levy straight\n    The greatest strength and power that he can make\n    And meet me suddenly at Salisbury.\n  CATESBY. I go.                                            Exit\n  RATCLIFF. What, may it please you, shall I do at Salisbury?\n  KING RICHARD. Why, what wouldst thou do there before I\n    go?\n  RATCLIFF. Your Highness told me I should post before.\n  KING RICHARD. My mind is chang'd.\n\n                           Enter LORD STANLEY\n\n  STANLEY, what news with you?\n  STANLEY. None good, my liege, to please you with\n    the hearing;\n    Nor none so bad but well may be reported.\n  KING RICHARD. Hoyday, a riddle! neither good nor bad!\n    What need'st thou run so many miles about,\n    When thou mayest tell thy tale the nearest way?\n    Once more, what news?\n  STANLEY. Richmond is on the seas.\n  KING RICHARD. There let him sink, and be the seas on him!\n    White-liver'd runagate, what doth he there?\n  STANLEY. I know not, mighty sovereign, but by guess.\n  KING RICHARD. Well, as you guess?\n  STANLEY. Stirr'd up by Dorset, Buckingham, and Morton,\n    He makes for England here to claim the crown.\n  KING RICHARD. Is the chair empty? Is the sword unsway'd?\n    Is the King dead, the empire unpossess'd?\n    What heir of York is there alive but we?\n    And who is England's King but great York's heir?\n    Then tell me what makes he upon the seas.\n  STANLEY. Unless for that, my liege, I cannot guess.\n  KING RICHARD. Unless for that he comes to be your liege,\n    You cannot guess wherefore the Welshman comes.\n    Thou wilt revolt and fly to him, I fear.\n  STANLEY. No, my good lord; therefore mistrust me not.\n  KING RICHARD. Where is thy power then, to beat him back?\n    Where be thy tenants and thy followers?\n    Are they not now upon the western shore,\n    Safe-conducting the rebels from their ships?\n  STANLEY. No, my good lord, my friends are in the north.\n  KING RICHARD. Cold friends to me. What do they in the\n    north,\n    When they should serve their sovereign in the west?\n  STANLEY. They have not been commanded, mighty King.\n    Pleaseth your Majesty to give me leave,\n    I'll muster up my friends and meet your Grace\n    Where and what time your Majesty shall please.\n  KING RICHARD. Ay, ay, thou wouldst be gone to join with\n    Richmond;\n    But I'll not trust thee.\n  STANLEY. Most mighty sovereign,\n    You have no cause to hold my friendship doubtful.\n    I never was nor never will be false.\n  KING RICHARD. Go, then, and muster men. But leave behind\n    Your son, George Stanley. Look your heart be firm,\n    Or else his head's assurance is but frail.\n  STANLEY. So deal with him as I prove true to you.         Exit\n\n                          Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. My gracious sovereign, now in Devonshire,\n    As I by friends am well advertised,\n    Sir Edward Courtney and the haughty prelate,\n    Bishop of Exeter, his elder brother,\n    With many moe confederates, are in arms.\n\n                         Enter another MESSENGER\n\n  SECOND MESSENGER. In Kent, my liege, the Guilfords are in\n    arms;\n    And every hour more competitors\n    Flock to the rebels, and their power grows strong.\n\n                         Enter another MESSENGER\n\n  THIRD MESSENGER. My lord, the army of great Buckingham-\n  KING RICHARD. Out on you, owls! Nothing but songs of\n    death?                                      [He strikes him]\n    There, take thou that till thou bring better news.\n  THIRD MESSENGER. The news I have to tell your Majesty\n    Is that by sudden floods and fall of waters\n    Buckingham's army is dispers'd and scatter'd;\n    And he himself wand'red away alone,\n    No man knows whither.\n  KING RICHARD. I cry thee mercy.\n    There is my purse to cure that blow of thine.\n    Hath any well-advised friend proclaim'd\n    Reward to him that brings the traitor in?\n  THIRD MESSENGER. Such proclamation hath been made,\n    my Lord.\n\n                      Enter another MESSENGER\n\n  FOURTH MESSENGER. Sir Thomas Lovel and Lord Marquis\n    Dorset,\n    'Tis said, my liege, in Yorkshire are in arms.\n    But this good comfort bring I to your Highness-\n    The Britaine navy is dispers'd by tempest.\n    Richmond in Dorsetshire sent out a boat\n    Unto the shore, to ask those on the banks\n    If they were his assistants, yea or no;\n    Who answer'd him they came from Buckingham\n    Upon his party. He, mistrusting them,\n    Hois'd sail, and made his course again for Britaine.\n  KING RICHARD. March on, march on, since we are up in\n    arms;\n    If not to fight with foreign enemies,\n    Yet to beat down these rebels here at home.\n\n                          Re-enter CATESBY\n\n  CATESBY. My liege, the Duke of Buckingham is taken-\n    That is the best news. That the Earl of Richmond\n    Is with a mighty power landed at Milford\n    Is colder tidings, yet they must be told.\n  KING RICHARD. Away towards Salisbury! While we reason\n    here\n    A royal battle might be won and lost.\n    Some one take order Buckingham be brought\n    To Salisbury; the rest march on with me.\n    Flourish.                                             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 5.\n\nLORD DERBY'S house\n\nEnter STANLEY and SIR CHRISTOPHER URSWICK\n\n  STANLEY. Sir Christopher, tell Richmond this from me:\n    That in the sty of the most deadly boar\n    My son George Stanley is frank'd up in hold;\n    If I revolt, off goes young George's head;\n    The fear of that holds off my present aid.\n    So, get thee gone; commend me to thy lord.\n    Withal say that the Queen hath heartily consented\n    He should espouse Elizabeth her daughter.\n    But tell me, where is princely Richmond now?\n  CHRISTOPHER. At Pembroke, or at Ha'rford west in Wales.\n  STANLEY. What men of name resort to him?\n  CHRISTOPHER. Sir Walter Herbert, a renowned soldier;\n  SIR Gilbert Talbot, Sir William Stanley,\n  OXFORD, redoubted Pembroke, Sir James Blunt,\n    And Rice ap Thomas, with a valiant crew;\n    And many other of great name and worth;\n    And towards London do they bend their power,\n    If by the way they be not fought withal.\n  STANLEY. Well, hie thee to thy lord; I kiss his hand;\n    My letter will resolve him of my mind.\n    Farewell.                                             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 1.\n\nSalisbury. An open place\n\nEnter the SHERIFF and guard, with BUCKINGHAM, led to execution\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. Will not King Richard let me speak with\n    him?\n  SHERIFF. No, my good lord; therefore be patient.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Hastings, and Edward's children, Grey, and\n    Rivers,\n    Holy King Henry, and thy fair son Edward,\n    Vaughan, and all that have miscarried\n    By underhand corrupted foul injustice,\n    If that your moody discontented souls\n    Do through the clouds behold this present hour,\n    Even for revenge mock my destruction!\n    This is All-Souls' day, fellow, is it not?\n  SHERIFF. It is, my lord.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Why, then All-Souls' day is my body's\n    doomsday.\n    This is the day which in King Edward's time\n    I wish'd might fall on me when I was found\n    False to his children and his wife's allies;\n    This is the day wherein I wish'd to fall\n    By the false faith of him whom most I trusted;\n    This, this All-Souls' day to my fearful soul\n    Is the determin'd respite of my wrongs;\n    That high All-Seer which I dallied with\n    Hath turn'd my feigned prayer on my head\n    And given in earnest what I begg'd in jest.\n    Thus doth He force the swords of wicked men\n    To turn their own points in their masters' bosoms.\n    Thus Margaret's curse falls heavy on my neck.\n    'When he' quoth she 'shall split thy heart with sorrow,\n    Remember Margaret was a prophetess.'\n    Come lead me, officers, to the block of shame;\n    Wrong hath but wrong, and blame the due of blame.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nCamp near Tamworth\n\nEnter RICHMOND, OXFORD, SIR JAMES BLUNT, SIR WALTER HERBERT, and others,\nwith drum and colours\n\n  RICHMOND. Fellows in arms, and my most loving friends,\n    Bruis'd underneath the yoke of tyranny,\n    Thus far into the bowels of the land\n    Have we march'd on without impediment;\n    And here receive we from our father Stanley\n    Lines of fair comfort and encouragement.\n    The wretched, bloody, and usurping boar,\n    That spoil'd your summer fields and fruitful vines,\n    Swills your warm blood like wash, and makes his trough\n    In your embowell'd bosoms-this foul swine\n    Is now even in the centre of this isle,\n    Near to the town of Leicester, as we learn.\n    From Tamworth thither is but one day's march.\n    In God's name cheerly on, courageous friends,\n    To reap the harvest of perpetual peace\n    By this one bloody trial of sharp war.\n  OXFORD. Every man's conscience is a thousand men,\n    To fight against this guilty homicide.\n  HERBERT. I doubt not but his friends will turn to us.\n  BLUNT. He hath no friends but what are friends for fear,\n    Which in his dearest need will fly from him.\n  RICHMOND. All for our vantage. Then in God's name march.\n    True hope is swift and flies with swallow's wings;\n    Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.      Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nBosworth Field\n\nEnter KING RICHARD in arms, with NORFOLK, RATCLIFF,\nthe EARL of SURREYS and others\n\n  KING RICHARD. Here pitch our tent, even here in Bosworth\n    field.\n    My Lord of Surrey, why look you so sad?\n  SURREY. My heart is ten times lighter than my looks.\n  KING RICHARD. My Lord of Norfolk!\n  NORFOLK. Here, most gracious liege.\n  KING RICHARD. Norfolk, we must have knocks; ha! must we\n    not?\n  NORFOLK. We must both give and take, my loving lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Up With my tent! Here will I lie to-night;\n                      [Soldiers begin to set up the KING'S tent]\n    But where to-morrow? Well, all's one for that.\n    Who hath descried the number of the traitors?\n  NORFOLK. Six or seven thousand is their utmost power.\n  KING RICHARD. Why, our battalia trebles that account;\n    Besides, the King's name is a tower of strength,\n    Which they upon the adverse faction want.\n    Up with the tent! Come, noble gentlemen,\n    Let us survey the vantage of the ground.\n    Call for some men of sound direction.\n    Let's lack no discipline, make no delay;\n    For, lords, to-morrow is a busy day.                  Exeunt\n\n             Enter, on the other side of the field,\n          RICHMOND, SIR WILLIAM BRANDON, OXFORD, DORSET,\n              and others. Some pitch RICHMOND'S tent\n\n  RICHMOND. The weary sun hath made a golden set,\n    And by the bright tract of his fiery car\n    Gives token of a goodly day to-morrow.\n    Sir William Brandon, you shall bear my standard.\n    Give me some ink and paper in my tent.\n    I'll draw the form and model of our battle,\n    Limit each leader to his several charge,\n    And part in just proportion our small power.\n    My Lord of Oxford-you, Sir William Brandon-\n    And you, Sir Walter Herbert-stay with me.\n    The Earl of Pembroke keeps his regiment;\n    Good Captain Blunt, bear my good night to him,\n    And by the second hour in the morning\n    Desire the Earl to see me in my tent.\n    Yet one thing more, good Captain, do for me-\n    Where is Lord Stanley quarter'd, do you know?\n  BLUNT. Unless I have mista'en his colours much-\n    Which well I am assur'd I have not done-\n    His regiment lies half a mile at least\n    South from the mighty power of the King.\n  RICHMOND. If without peril it be possible,\n    Sweet Blunt, make some good means to speak with him\n    And give him from me this most needful note.\n  BLUNT. Upon my life, my lord, I'll undertake it;\n    And so, God give you quiet rest to-night!\n  RICHMOND. Good night, good Captain Blunt. Come,\n    gentlemen,\n    Let us consult upon to-morrow's business.\n    In to my tent; the dew is raw and cold.\n                                   [They withdraw into the tent]\n\n            Enter, to his-tent, KING RICHARD, NORFOLK,\n                       RATCLIFF, and CATESBY\n\n  KING RICHARD. What is't o'clock?\n  CATESBY. It's supper-time, my lord;\n    It's nine o'clock.\n  KING RICHARD. I will not sup to-night.\n    Give me some ink and paper.\n    What, is my beaver easier than it was?\n    And all my armour laid into my tent?\n  CATESBY. It is, my liege; and all things are in readiness.\n  KING RICHARD. Good Norfolk, hie thee to thy charge;\n    Use careful watch, choose trusty sentinels.\n  NORFOLK. I go, my lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Stir with the lark to-morrow, gentle Norfolk.\n  NORFOLK. I warrant you, my lord.                          Exit\n  KING RICHARD. Catesby!\n  CATESBY. My lord?\n  KING RICHARD. Send out a pursuivant-at-arms\n    To Stanley's regiment; bid him bring his power\n    Before sunrising, lest his son George fall\n    Into the blind cave of eternal night.           Exit CATESBY\n    Fill me a bowl of wine. Give me a watch.\n    Saddle white Surrey for the field to-morrow.\n    Look that my staves be sound, and not too heavy.\n    Ratcliff!\n  RATCLIFF. My lord?\n  KING RICHARD. Saw'st thou the melancholy Lord\n    Northumberland?\n  RATCLIFF. Thomas the Earl of Surrey and himself,\n    Much about cock-shut time, from troop to troop\n    Went through the army, cheering up the soldiers.\n  KING RICHARD. So, I am satisfied. Give me a bowl of wine.\n    I have not that alacrity of spirit\n    Nor cheer of mind that I was wont to have.\n    Set it down. Is ink and paper ready?\n  RATCLIFF. It is, my lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Bid my guard watch; leave me.\n  RATCLIFF, about the mid of night come to my tent\n    And help to arm me. Leave me, I say.\n                                   Exit RATCLIFF. RICHARD sleeps\n\n               Enter DERBY to RICHMOND in his tent;\n                        LORDS attending\n\n  DERBY. Fortune and victory sit on thy helm!\n  RICHMOND. All comfort that the dark night can afford\n    Be to thy person, noble father-in-law!\n    Tell me, how fares our loving mother?\n  DERBY. I, by attorney, bless thee from thy mother,\n    Who prays continually for Richmond's good.\n    So much for that. The silent hours steal on,\n    And flaky darkness breaks within the east.\n    In brief, for so the season bids us be,\n    Prepare thy battle early in the morning,\n    And put thy fortune to the arbitrement\n    Of bloody strokes and mortal-staring war.\n    I, as I may-that which I would I cannot-\n    With best advantage will deceive the time\n    And aid thee in this doubtful shock of arms;\n    But on thy side I may not be too forward,\n    Lest, being seen, thy brother, tender George,\n    Be executed in his father's sight.\n    Farewell; the leisure and the fearful time\n    Cuts off the ceremonious vows of love\n    And ample interchange of sweet discourse\n    Which so-long-sund'red friends should dwell upon.\n    God give us leisure for these rites of love!\n    Once more, adieu; be valiant, and speed well!\n  RICHMOND. Good lords, conduct him to his regiment.\n    I'll strive with troubled thoughts to take a nap,\n    Lest leaden slumber peise me down to-morrow\n    When I should mount with wings of victory.\n    Once more, good night, kind lords and gentlemen.\n                                         Exeunt all but RICHMOND\n    O Thou, whose captain I account myself,\n    Look on my forces with a gracious eye;\n    Put in their hands Thy bruising irons of wrath,\n    That they may crush down with a heavy fall\n    The usurping helmets of our adversaries!\n    Make us Thy ministers of chastisement,\n    That we may praise Thee in the victory!\n    To Thee I do commend my watchful soul\n    Ere I let fall the windows of mine eyes.\n    Sleeping and waking, O, defend me still!            [Sleeps]\n\n            Enter the GHOST Of YOUNG PRINCE EDWARD,\n                    son to HENRY THE SIXTH\n\n  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  Let me sit heavy on thy soul\n    to-morrow!\n    Think how thou stabb'dst me in my prime of youth\n    At Tewksbury; despair, therefore, and die!\n    [To RICHMOND]  Be cheerful, Richmond; for the wronged\n    souls\n    Of butcher'd princes fight in thy behalf.\n    King Henry's issue, Richmond, comforts thee.\n\n              Enter the GHOST of HENRY THE SIXTH\n\n  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  When I was mortal, my anointed\n    body\n    By thee was punched full of deadly holes.\n    Think on the Tower and me. Despair, and die.\n    Harry the Sixth bids thee despair and die.\n    [To RICHMOND]  Virtuous and holy, be thou conqueror!\n    Harry, that prophesied thou shouldst be King,\n    Doth comfort thee in thy sleep. Live and flourish!\n\n                   Enter the GHOST of CLARENCE\n\n  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  Let me sit heavy in thy soul\n    to-morrow! I that was wash'd to death with fulsome wine,\n    Poor Clarence, by thy guile betray'd to death!\n    To-morrow in the battle think on me,\n    And fall thy edgeless sword. Despair and die!\n    [To RICHMOND]  Thou offspring of the house of Lancaster,\n    The wronged heirs of York do pray for thee.\n    Good angels guard thy battle! Live and flourish!\n\n           Enter the GHOSTS of RIVERS, GREY, and VAUGHAN\n\n  GHOST OF RIVERS.  [To RICHARD]  Let me sit heavy in thy\n    soul to-morrow,\n    Rivers that died at Pomfret! Despair and die!\n  GHOST OF GREY.  [To RICHARD]  Think upon Grey, and let\n    thy soul despair!\n  GHOST OF VAUGHAN.  [To RICHARD]  Think upon Vaughan,\n    and with guilty fear\n    Let fall thy lance. Despair and die!\n  ALL.  [To RICHMOND]  Awake, and think our wrongs in\n    Richard's bosom\n    Will conquer him. Awake and win the day.\n\n                Enter the GHOST of HASTINGS\n\n  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  Bloody and guilty, guiltily awake,\n    And in a bloody battle end thy days!\n    Think on Lord Hastings. Despair and die.\n    [To RICHMOND]   Quiet untroubled soul, awake, awake!\n    Arm, fight, and conquer, for fair England's sake!\n\n         Enter the GHOSTS of the two young PRINCES\n\n  GHOSTS.  [To RICHARD]  Dream on thy cousins smothered in\n    the Tower.\n    Let us be lead within thy bosom, Richard,\n    And weigh thee down to ruin, shame, and death!\n    Thy nephews' souls bid thee despair and die.\n    [To RICHMOND]  Sleep, Richmond, sleep in peace, and\n    wake in joy;\n    Good angels guard thee from the boar's annoy!\n    Live, and beget a happy race of kings!\n    Edward's unhappy sons do bid thee flourish.\n\n          Enter the GHOST of LADY ANNE, his wife\n\n  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  Richard, thy wife, that wretched\n    Anne thy wife\n    That never slept a quiet hour with thee\n    Now fills thy sleep with perturbations.\n    To-morrow in the battle think on me,\n    And fall thy edgeless sword. Despair and die.\n    [To RICHMOND]  Thou quiet soul, sleep thou a quiet sleep;\n    Dream of success and happy victory.\n    Thy adversary's wife doth pray for thee.\n\n                   Enter the GHOST of BUCKINGHAM\n\n  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  The first was I that help'd thee\n    to the crown;\n    The last was I that felt thy tyranny.\n    O, in the battle think on Buckingham,\n    And die in terror of thy guiltiness!\n    Dream on, dream on of bloody deeds and death;\n    Fainting, despair; despairing, yield thy breath!\n    [To RICHMOND]  I died for hope ere I could lend thee aid;\n    But cheer thy heart and be thou not dismay'd:\n    God and good angels fight on Richmond's side;\n    And Richard falls in height of all his pride.\n            [The GHOSTS vanish. RICHARD starts out of his dream]\n  KING RICHARD. Give me another horse. Bind up my wounds.\n    Have mercy, Jesu! Soft! I did but dream.\n    O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!\n    The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight.\n    Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.\n    What do I fear? Myself? There's none else by.\n    Richard loves Richard; that is, I am I.\n    Is there a murderer here? No-yes, I am.\n    Then fly. What, from myself? Great reason why-\n    Lest I revenge. What, myself upon myself!\n    Alack, I love myself. Wherefore? For any good\n    That I myself have done unto myself?\n    O, no! Alas, I rather hate myself\n    For hateful deeds committed by myself!\n    I am a villain; yet I lie, I am not.\n    Fool, of thyself speak well. Fool, do not flatter.\n    My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,\n    And every tongue brings in a several tale,\n    And every tale condemns me for a villain.\n    Perjury, perjury, in the high'st degree;\n    Murder, stern murder, in the dir'st degree;\n    All several sins, all us'd in each degree,\n    Throng to the bar, crying all 'Guilty! guilty!'\n    I shall despair. There is no creature loves me;\n    And if I die no soul will pity me:\n    And wherefore should they, since that I myself\n    Find in myself no pity to myself?\n    Methought the souls of all that I had murder'd\n    Came to my tent, and every one did threat\n    To-morrow's vengeance on the head of Richard.\n\n                            Enter RATCLIFF\n\n  RATCLIFF. My lord!\n  KING RICHARD. Zounds, who is there?\n  RATCLIFF. Ratcliff, my lord; 'tis I. The early village-cock\n    Hath twice done salutation to the morn;\n    Your friends are up and buckle on their armour.\n  KING RICHARD. O Ratcliff, I have dream'd a fearful dream!\n    What think'st thou-will our friends prove all true?\n  RATCLIFF. No doubt, my lord.\n  KING RICHARD. O Ratcliff, I fear, I fear.\n  RATCLIFF. Nay, good my lord, be not afraid of shadows.\n  KING RICHARD By the apostle Paul, shadows to-night\n    Have stuck more terror to the soul of Richard\n    Than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers\n    Armed in proof and led by shallow Richmond.\n    'Tis not yet near day. Come, go with me;\n    Under our tents I'll play the eaves-dropper,\n    To see if any mean to shrink from me.                 Exeunt\n\n          Enter the LORDS to RICHMOND sitting in his tent\n\n  LORDS. Good morrow, Richmond!\n  RICHMOND. Cry mercy, lords and watchful gentlemen,\n    That you have ta'en a tardy sluggard here.\n  LORDS. How have you slept, my lord?\n  RICHMOND. The sweetest sleep and fairest-boding dreams\n    That ever ent'red in a drowsy head\n    Have I since your departure had, my lords.\n    Methought their souls whose bodies Richard murder'd\n    Came to my tent and cried on victory.\n    I promise you my soul is very jocund\n    In the remembrance of so fair a dream.\n    How far into the morning is it, lords?\n  LORDS. Upon the stroke of four.\n  RICHMOND. Why, then 'tis time to arm and give direction.\n\n                 His ORATION to his SOLDIERS\n\n    More than I have said, loving countrymen,\n    The leisure and enforcement of the time\n    Forbids to dwell upon; yet remember this:\n    God and our good cause fight upon our side;\n    The prayers of holy saints and wronged souls,\n    Like high-rear'd bulwarks, stand before our faces;\n    Richard except, those whom we fight against\n    Had rather have us win than him they follow.\n    For what is he they follow? Truly, gentlemen,\n    A bloody tyrant and a homicide;\n    One rais'd in blood, and one in blood establish'd;\n    One that made means to come by what he hath,\n    And slaughtered those that were the means to help him;\n    A base foul stone, made precious by the foil\n    Of England's chair, where he is falsely set;\n    One that hath ever been God's enemy.\n    Then if you fight against God's enemy,\n    God will in justice ward you as his soldiers;\n    If you do sweat to put a tyrant down,\n    You sleep in peace, the tyrant being slain;\n    If you do fight against your country's foes,\n    Your country's foes shall pay your pains the hire;\n    If you do fight in safeguard of your wives,\n    Your wives shall welcome home the conquerors;\n    If you do free your children from the sword,\n    Your children's children quits it in your age.\n    Then, in the name of God and all these rights,\n    Advance your standards, draw your willing swords.\n    For me, the ransom of my bold attempt\n    Shall be this cold corpse on the earth's cold face;\n    But if I thrive, the gain of my attempt\n    The least of you shall share his part thereof.\n    Sound drums and trumpets boldly and cheerfully;\n    God and Saint George! Richmond and victory!           Exeunt\n\n           Re-enter KING RICHARD, RATCLIFF, attendants,\n                         and forces\n\n  KING RICHARD. What said Northumberland as touching\n    Richmond?\n  RATCLIFF. That he was never trained up in arms.\n  KING RICHARD. He said the truth; and what said Surrey\n    then?\n  RATCLIFF. He smil'd, and said 'The better for our purpose.'\n  KING He was in the right; and so indeed it is.\n                                                 [Clock strikes]\n    Tell the clock there. Give me a calendar.\n    Who saw the sun to-day?\n  RATCLIFF. Not I, my lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Then he disdains to shine; for by the book\n    He should have brav'd the east an hour ago.\n    A black day will it be to somebody.\n    Ratcliff!\n  RATCLIFF. My lord?\n  KING RICHARD. The sun will not be seen to-day;\n    The sky doth frown and lour upon our army.\n    I would these dewy tears were from the ground.\n    Not shine to-day! Why, what is that to me\n    More than to Richmond? For the selfsame heaven\n    That frowns on me looks sadly upon him.\n\n                       Enter NORFOLK\n\n  NORFOLK. Arm, arm, my lord; the foe vaunts in the field.\n  KING RICHARD. Come, bustle, bustle; caparison my horse;\n    Call up Lord Stanley, bid him bring his power.\n    I will lead forth my soldiers to the plain,\n    And thus my battle shall be ordered:\n    My foreward shall be drawn out all in length,\n    Consisting equally of horse and foot;\n    Our archers shall be placed in the midst.\n    John Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Earl of Surrey,\n    Shall have the leading of this foot and horse.\n    They thus directed, we will follow\n    In the main battle, whose puissance on either side\n    Shall be well winged with our chiefest horse.\n    This, and Saint George to boot! What think'st thou,\n    Norfolk?\n  NORFOLK. A good direction, warlike sovereign.\n    This found I on my tent this morning.\n                                        [He sheweth him a paper]\n  KING RICHARD.                                          [Reads]\n    'Jockey of Norfolk, be not so bold,\n    For Dickon thy master is bought and sold.'\n    A thing devised by the enemy.\n    Go, gentlemen, every man unto his charge.\n    Let not our babbling dreams affright our souls;\n    Conscience is but a word that cowards use,\n    Devis'd at first to keep the strong in awe.\n    Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law.\n    March on, join bravely, let us to it pell-mell;\n    If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell.\n\n                      His ORATION to his ARMY\n\n    What shall I say more than I have inferr'd?\n    Remember whom you are to cope withal-\n    A sort of vagabonds, rascals, and runaways,\n    A scum of Britaines, and base lackey peasants,\n    Whom their o'er-cloyed country vomits forth\n    To desperate adventures and assur'd destruction.\n    You sleeping safe, they bring to you unrest;\n    You having lands, and bless'd with beauteous wives,\n    They would restrain the one, distain the other.\n    And who doth lead them but a paltry fellow,\n    Long kept in Britaine at our mother's cost?\n    A milk-sop, one that never in his life\n    Felt so much cold as over shoes in snow?\n    Let's whip these stragglers o'er the seas again;\n    Lash hence these over-weening rags of France,\n    These famish'd beggars, weary of their lives;\n    Who, but for dreaming on this fond exploit,\n    For want of means, poor rats, had hang'd themselves.\n    If we be conquered, let men conquer us,\n    And not these bastard Britaines, whom our fathers\n    Have in their own land beaten, bobb'd, and thump'd,\n    And, in record, left them the heirs of shame.\n    Shall these enjoy our lands? lie with our wives,\n    Ravish our daughters?  [Drum afar off]  Hark! I hear their\n    drum.\n    Fight, gentlemen of England! Fight, bold yeomen!\n    Draw, archers, draw your arrows to the head!\n    Spur your proud horses hard, and ride in blood;\n    Amaze the welkin with your broken staves!\n\n                        Enter a MESSENGER\n\n    What says Lord Stanley? Will he bring his power?\n  MESSENGER. My lord, he doth deny to come.\n  KING RICHARD. Off with his son George's head!\n  NORFOLK. My lord, the enemy is pass'd the marsh.\n    After the battle let George Stanley die.\n  KING RICHARD. A thousand hearts are great within my\n    bosom.\n    Advance our standards, set upon our foes;\n    Our ancient word of courage, fair Saint George,\n    Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons!\n    Upon them! Victory sits on our helms.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\n\nAnother part of the field\n\nAlarum; excursions. Enter NORFOLK and forces; to him CATESBY\n\n  CATESBY. Rescue, my Lord of Norfolk, rescue, rescue!\n    The King enacts more wonders than a man,\n    Daring an opposite to every danger.\n    His horse is slain, and all on foot he fights,\n    Seeking for Richmond in the throat of death.\n    Rescue, fair lord, or else the day is lost.\n\n                     Alarums. Enter KING RICHARD\n\n  KING RICHARD. A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!\n  CATESBY. Withdraw, my lord! I'll help you to a horse.\n  KING RICHARD. Slave, I have set my life upon a cast\n    And I Will stand the hazard of the die.\n    I think there be six Richmonds in the field;\n    Five have I slain to-day instead of him.\n    A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 5.\n\nAnother part of the field\n\nAlarum. Enter RICHARD and RICHMOND; they fight; RICHARD is slain.\nRetreat and flourish. Enter RICHMOND, DERBY bearing the crown,\nwith other LORDS\n\n  RICHMOND. God and your arms be prais'd, victorious friends;\n    The day is ours, the bloody dog is dead.\n  DERBY. Courageous Richmond, well hast thou acquit thee!\n    Lo, here, this long-usurped royalty\n    From the dead temples of this bloody wretch\n    Have I pluck'd off, to grace thy brows withal.\n    Wear it, enjoy it, and make much of it.\n  RICHMOND. Great God of heaven, say Amen to all!\n    But, teLL me is young George Stanley living.\n  DERBY. He is, my lord, and safe in Leicester town,\n    Whither, if it please you, we may now withdraw us.\n  RICHMOND. What men of name are slain on either side?\n  DERBY. John Duke of Norfolk, Walter Lord Ferrers,\n    Sir Robert Brakenbury, and Sir William Brandon.\n  RICHMOND. Inter their bodies as becomes their births.\n    Proclaim a pardon to the soldiers fled\n    That in submission will return to us.\n    And then, as we have ta'en the sacrament,\n    We will unite the white rose and the red.\n    Smile heaven upon this fair conjunction,\n    That long have frown'd upon their emnity!\n    What traitor hears me, and says not Amen?\n    England hath long been mad, and scarr'd herself;\n    The brother blindly shed the brother's blood,\n    The father rashly slaughter'd his own son,\n    The son, compell'd, been butcher to the sire;\n    All this divided York and Lancaster,\n    Divided in their dire division,\n    O, now let Richmond and Elizabeth,\n    The true succeeders of each royal house,\n    By God's fair ordinance conjoin together!\n    And let their heirs, God, if thy will be so,\n    Enrich the time to come with smooth-fac'd peace,\n    With smiling plenty, and fair prosperous days!\n    Abate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord,\n    That would reduce these bloody days again\n    And make poor England weep in streams of blood!\n    Let them not live to taste this land's increase\n    That would with treason wound this fair land's peace!\n    Now civil wounds are stopp'd, peace lives again-\n    That she may long live here, God say Amen!            Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1595\n\n\nTHE TRAGEDY OF ROMEO AND JULIET\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  Chorus.\n\n  Escalus, Prince of Verona.\n  Paris, a young Count, kinsman to the Prince.\n  Montague, heads of two houses at variance with each other.\n  Capulet, heads of two houses at variance with each other.\n  An old Man, of the Capulet family.\n  Romeo, son to Montague.\n  Tybalt, nephew to Lady Capulet.\n  Mercutio, kinsman to the Prince and friend to Romeo.\n  Benvolio, nephew to Montague, and friend to Romeo\n  Tybalt, nephew to Lady Capulet.\n  Friar Laurence, Franciscan.\n  Friar John, Franciscan.\n  Balthasar, servant to Romeo.\n  Abram, servant to Montague.\n  Sampson, servant to Capulet.\n  Gregory, servant to Capulet.\n  Peter, servant to Juliet's nurse.\n  An Apothecary.\n  Three Musicians.\n  An Officer.\n\n  Lady Montague, wife to Montague.\n  Lady Capulet, wife to Capulet.\n  Juliet, daughter to Capulet.\n  Nurse to Juliet.\n\n  Citizens of Verona; Gentlemen and Gentlewomen of both houses;\n    Maskers, Torchbearers, Pages, Guards, Watchmen, Servants, and\n    Attendants.\n\n                            SCENE.--Verona; Mantua.\n\n\n\n                        THE PROLOGUE\n\n                        Enter Chorus.\n\n  Chor. Two households, both alike in dignity,\n    In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,\n    From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,\n    Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.\n    From forth the fatal loins of these two foes\n    A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;\n    Whose misadventur'd piteous overthrows\n    Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.\n    The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,\n    And the continuance of their parents' rage,\n    Which, but their children's end, naught could remove,\n    Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;\n    The which if you with patient ears attend,\n    What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.\n                                                         [Exit.]\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT I. Scene I.\nVerona. A public place.\n\nEnter Sampson and Gregory (with swords and bucklers) of the house of Capulet.\n\n  Samp. Gregory, on my word, we'll not carry coals.\n  Greg. No, for then we should be colliers.\n  Samp. I mean, an we be in choler, we'll draw.\n  Greg. Ay, while you live, draw your neck out of collar.\n  Samp. I strike quickly, being moved.\n  Greg. But thou art not quickly moved to strike.\n  Samp. A dog of the house of Montague moves me.\n  Greg. To move is to stir, and to be valiant is to stand.\n    Therefore, if thou art moved, thou runn'st away.\n  Samp. A dog of that house shall move me to stand. I will take the\n    wall of any man or maid of Montague's.\n  Greg. That shows thee a weak slave; for the weakest goes to the\n    wall.\n  Samp. 'Tis true; and therefore women, being the weaker vessels, are\n    ever thrust to the wall. Therefore I will push Montague's men\n    from the wall and thrust his maids to the wall.\n  Greg. The quarrel is between our masters and us their men.\n  Samp. 'Tis all one. I will show myself a tyrant. When I have fought\n    with the men, I will be cruel with the maids- I will cut off\n    their heads.\n  Greg. The heads of the maids?\n  Samp. Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads.\n    Take it in what sense thou wilt.\n  Greg. They must take it in sense that feel it.\n  Samp. Me they shall feel while I am able to stand; and 'tis known I\n    am a pretty piece of flesh.\n  Greg. 'Tis well thou art not fish; if thou hadst, thou hadst been\n    poor-John. Draw thy tool! Here comes two of the house of\n    Montagues.\n\n           Enter two other Servingmen [Abram and Balthasar].\n\n  Samp. My naked weapon is out. Quarrel! I will back thee.\n  Greg. How? turn thy back and run?\n  Samp. Fear me not.\n  Greg. No, marry. I fear thee!\n  Samp. Let us take the law of our sides; let them begin.\n  Greg. I will frown as I pass by, and let them take it as they list.\n  Samp. Nay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb at them; which is\n    disgrace to them, if they bear it.\n  Abr. Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?\n  Samp. I do bite my thumb, sir.\n  Abr. Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?\n  Samp. [aside to Gregory] Is the law of our side if I say ay?\n  Greg. [aside to Sampson] No.\n  Samp. No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir; but I bite my\n    thumb, sir.\n  Greg. Do you quarrel, sir?\n  Abr. Quarrel, sir? No, sir.\n  Samp. But if you do, sir, am for you. I serve as good a man as you.\n  Abr. No better.\n  Samp. Well, sir.\n\n                        Enter Benvolio.\n\n  Greg. [aside to Sampson] Say 'better.' Here comes one of my\n    master's kinsmen.\n  Samp. Yes, better, sir.\n  Abr. You lie.\n  Samp. Draw, if you be men. Gregory, remember thy swashing blow.\n                                                     They fight.\n  Ben. Part, fools! [Beats down their swords.]\n    Put up your swords. You know not what you do.\n\n                          Enter Tybalt.\n\n  Tyb. What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds?\n    Turn thee Benvolio! look upon thy death.\n  Ben. I do but keep the peace. Put up thy sword,\n    Or manage it to part these men with me.\n  Tyb. What, drawn, and talk of peace? I hate the word\n    As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee.\n    Have at thee, coward!                            They fight.\n\n     Enter an officer, and three or four Citizens with clubs or\n                          partisans.\n\n  Officer. Clubs, bills, and partisans! Strike! beat them down!\n  Citizens. Down with the Capulets! Down with the Montagues!\n\n           Enter Old Capulet in his gown, and his Wife.\n\n  Cap. What noise is this? Give me my long sword, ho!\n  Wife. A crutch, a crutch! Why call you for a sword?\n  Cap. My sword, I say! Old Montague is come\n    And flourishes his blade in spite of me.\n\n                 Enter Old Montague and his Wife.\n\n  Mon. Thou villain Capulet!- Hold me not, let me go.\n  M. Wife. Thou shalt not stir one foot to seek a foe.\n\n                Enter Prince Escalus, with his Train.\n\n  Prince. Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,\n    Profaners of this neighbour-stained steel-\n    Will they not hear? What, ho! you men, you beasts,\n    That quench the fire of your pernicious rage\n    With purple fountains issuing from your veins!\n    On pain of torture, from those bloody hands\n    Throw your mistempered weapons to the ground\n    And hear the sentence of your moved prince.\n    Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word\n    By thee, old Capulet, and Montague,\n    Have thrice disturb'd the quiet of our streets\n    And made Verona's ancient citizens\n    Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments\n    To wield old partisans, in hands as old,\n    Cank'red with peace, to part your cank'red hate.\n    If ever you disturb our streets again,\n    Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.\n    For this time all the rest depart away.\n    You, Capulet, shall go along with me;\n    And, Montague, come you this afternoon,\n    To know our farther pleasure in this case,\n    To old Freetown, our common judgment place.\n    Once more, on pain of death, all men depart.\n              Exeunt [all but Montague, his Wife, and Benvolio].\n  Mon. Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach?\n    Speak, nephew, were you by when it began?\n  Ben. Here were the servants of your adversary\n    And yours, close fighting ere I did approach.\n    I drew to part them. In the instant came\n    The fiery Tybalt, with his sword prepar'd;\n    Which, as he breath'd defiance to my ears,\n    He swung about his head and cut the winds,\n    Who, nothing hurt withal, hiss'd him in scorn.\n    While we were interchanging thrusts and blows,\n    Came more and more, and fought on part and part,\n    Till the Prince came, who parted either part.\n  M. Wife. O, where is Romeo? Saw you him to-day?\n    Right glad I am he was not at this fray.\n  Ben. Madam, an hour before the worshipp'd sun\n    Peer'd forth the golden window of the East,\n    A troubled mind drave me to walk abroad;\n    Where, underneath the grove of sycamore\n    That westward rooteth from the city's side,\n    So early walking did I see your son.\n    Towards him I made; but he was ware of me\n    And stole into the covert of the wood.\n    I- measuring his affections by my own,\n    Which then most sought where most might not be found,\n    Being one too many by my weary self-\n    Pursu'd my humour, not Pursuing his,\n    And gladly shunn'd who gladly fled from me.\n  Mon. Many a morning hath he there been seen,\n    With tears augmenting the fresh morning's dew,\n    Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs;\n    But all so soon as the all-cheering sun\n    Should in the farthest East bean to draw\n    The shady curtains from Aurora's bed,\n    Away from light steals home my heavy son\n    And private in his chamber pens himself,\n    Shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight\n    And makes himself an artificial night.\n    Black and portentous must this humour prove\n    Unless good counsel may the cause remove.\n  Ben. My noble uncle, do you know the cause?\n  Mon. I neither know it nor can learn of him\n  Ben. Have you importun'd him by any means?\n  Mon. Both by myself and many other friend;\n    But he, his own affections' counsellor,\n    Is to himself- I will not say how true-\n    But to himself so secret and so close,\n    So far from sounding and discovery,\n    As is the bud bit with an envious worm\n    Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air\n    Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.\n    Could we but learn from whence his sorrows grow,\n    We would as willingly give cure as know.\n\n                       Enter Romeo.\n\n  Ben. See, where he comes. So please you step aside,\n    I'll know his grievance, or be much denied.\n  Mon. I would thou wert so happy by thy stay\n    To hear true shrift. Come, madam, let's away,\n                                     Exeunt [Montague and Wife].\n  Ben. Good morrow, cousin.\n  Rom. Is the day so young?\n  Ben. But new struck nine.\n  Rom. Ay me! sad hours seem long.\n    Was that my father that went hence so fast?\n  Ben. It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo's hours?\n  Rom. Not having that which having makes them short.\n  Ben. In love?\n  Rom. Out-\n  Ben. Of love?\n  Rom. Out of her favour where I am in love.\n  Ben. Alas that love, so gentle in his view,\n    Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!\n  Rom. Alas that love, whose view is muffled still,\n    Should without eyes see pathways to his will!\n    Where shall we dine? O me! What fray was here?\n    Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.\n    Here's much to do with hate, but more with love.\n    Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate!\n    O anything, of nothing first create!\n    O heavy lightness! serious vanity!\n    Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!\n    Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!\n    Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is\n    This love feel I, that feel no love in this.\n    Dost thou not laugh?\n  Ben. No, coz, I rather weep.\n  Rom. Good heart, at what?\n  Ben. At thy good heart's oppression.\n  Rom. Why, such is love's transgression.\n    Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,\n    Which thou wilt propagate, to have it prest\n    With more of thine. This love that thou hast shown\n    Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.\n    Love is a smoke rais'd with the fume of sighs;\n    Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;\n    Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears.\n    What is it else? A madness most discreet,\n    A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.\n    Farewell, my coz.\n  Ben. Soft! I will go along.\n    An if you leave me so, you do me wrong.\n  Rom. Tut! I have lost myself; I am not here:\n    This is not Romeo, he's some other where.\n  Ben. Tell me in sadness, who is that you love?\n  Rom. What, shall I groan and tell thee?\n  Ben. Groan? Why, no;\n    But sadly tell me who.\n  Rom. Bid a sick man in sadness make his will.\n    Ah, word ill urg'd to one that is so ill!\n    In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.\n  Ben. I aim'd so near when I suppos'd you lov'd.\n  Rom. A right good markman! And she's fair I love.\n  Ben. A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.\n  Rom. Well, in that hit you miss. She'll not be hit\n    With Cupid's arrow. She hath Dian's wit,\n    And, in strong proof of chastity well arm'd,\n    From Love's weak childish bow she lives unharm'd.\n    She will not stay the siege of loving terms,\n    Nor bide th' encounter of assailing eyes,\n    Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold.\n    O, she's rich in beauty; only poor\n    That, when she dies, with beauty dies her store.\n  Ben. Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?\n  Rom. She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste;\n    For beauty, starv'd with her severity,\n    Cuts beauty off from all posterity.\n    She is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair,\n    To merit bliss by making me despair.\n    She hath forsworn to love, and in that vow\n    Do I live dead that live to tell it now.\n  Ben. Be rul'd by me: forget to think of her.\n  Rom. O, teach me how I should forget to think!\n  Ben. By giving liberty unto thine eyes.\n    Examine other beauties.\n  Rom. 'Tis the way\n    To call hers (exquisite) in question more.\n    These happy masks that kiss fair ladies' brows,\n    Being black puts us in mind they hide the fair.\n    He that is strucken blind cannot forget\n    The precious treasure of his eyesight lost.\n    Show me a mistress that is passing fair,\n    What doth her beauty serve but as a note\n    Where I may read who pass'd that passing fair?\n    Farewell. Thou canst not teach me to forget.\n  Ben. I'll pay that doctrine, or else die in debt.      Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nA Street.\n\nEnter Capulet, County Paris, and [Servant] -the Clown.\n\n  Cap. But Montague is bound as well as I,\n    In penalty alike; and 'tis not hard, I think,\n    For men so old as we to keep the peace.\n  Par. Of honourable reckoning are you both,\n    And pity 'tis you liv'd at odds so long.\n    But now, my lord, what say you to my suit?\n  Cap. But saying o'er what I have said before:\n    My child is yet a stranger in the world,\n    She hath not seen the change of fourteen years;\n    Let two more summers wither in their pride\n    Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.\n  Par. Younger than she are happy mothers made.\n  Cap. And too soon marr'd are those so early made.\n    The earth hath swallowed all my hopes but she;\n    She is the hopeful lady of my earth.\n    But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart;\n    My will to her consent is but a part.\n    An she agree, within her scope of choice\n    Lies my consent and fair according voice.\n    This night I hold an old accustom'd feast,\n    Whereto I have invited many a guest,\n    Such as I love; and you among the store,\n    One more, most welcome, makes my number more.\n    At my poor house look to behold this night\n    Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light.\n    Such comfort as do lusty young men feel\n    When well apparell'd April on the heel\n    Of limping Winter treads, even such delight\n    Among fresh female buds shall you this night\n    Inherit at my house. Hear all, all see,\n    And like her most whose merit most shall be;\n    Which, on more view of many, mine, being one,\n    May stand in number, though in reck'ning none.\n    Come, go with me. [To Servant, giving him a paper] Go, sirrah,\n      trudge about\n    Through fair Verona; find those persons out\n    Whose names are written there, and to them say,\n    My house and welcome on their pleasure stay-\n                                     Exeunt [Capulet and Paris].\n  Serv. Find them out whose names are written here? It is written\n    that the shoemaker should meddle with his yard and the tailor\n    with his last, the fisher with his pencil and the painter with\n    his nets; but I am sent to find those persons whose names are\n    here writ, and can never find what names the writing person hath\n    here writ. I must to the learned. In good time!\n\n                   Enter Benvolio and Romeo.\n\n  Ben. Tut, man, one fire burns out another's burning;\n    One pain is lessoned by another's anguish;\n    Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning;\n    One desperate grief cures with another's languish.\n    Take thou some new infection to thy eye,\n    And the rank poison of the old will die.\n  Rom. Your plantain leaf is excellent for that.\n  Ben. For what, I pray thee?\n  Rom. For your broken shin.\n  Ben. Why, Romeo, art thou mad?\n  Rom. Not mad, but bound more than a madman is;\n    Shut up in Prison, kept without my food,\n    Whipp'd and tormented and- God-den, good fellow.\n  Serv. God gi' go-den. I pray, sir, can you read?\n  Rom. Ay, mine own fortune in my misery.\n  Serv. Perhaps you have learned it without book. But I pray, can you\n    read anything you see?\n  Rom. Ay, If I know the letters and the language.\n  Serv. Ye say honestly. Rest you merry!\n  Rom. Stay, fellow; I can read.                       He reads.\n\n      'Signior Martino and his wife and daughters;\n      County Anselmo and his beauteous sisters;\n      The lady widow of Vitruvio;\n      Signior Placentio and His lovely nieces;\n      Mercutio and his brother Valentine;\n      Mine uncle Capulet, his wife, and daughters;\n      My fair niece Rosaline and Livia;\n      Signior Valentio and His cousin Tybalt;\n      Lucio and the lively Helena.'\n\n    [Gives back the paper.] A fair assembly. Whither should they come?\n  Serv. Up.\n  Rom. Whither?\n  Serv. To supper, to our house.\n  Rom. Whose house?\n  Serv. My master's.\n  Rom. Indeed I should have ask'd you that before.\n  Serv. Now I'll tell you without asking. My master is the great rich\n    Capulet; and if you be not of the house of Montagues, I pray come\n    and crush a cup of wine. Rest you merry!               Exit.\n  Ben. At this same ancient feast of Capulet's\n    Sups the fair Rosaline whom thou so lov'st;\n    With all the admired beauties of Verona.\n    Go thither, and with unattainted eye\n    Compare her face with some that I shall show,\n    And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.\n  Rom. When the devout religion of mine eye\n    Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires;\n    And these, who, often drown'd, could never die,\n    Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars!\n    One fairer than my love? The all-seeing sun\n    Ne'er saw her match since first the world begun.\n  Ben. Tut! you saw her fair, none else being by,\n    Herself pois'd with herself in either eye;\n    But in that crystal scales let there be weigh'd\n    Your lady's love against some other maid\n    That I will show you shining at this feast,\n    And she shall scant show well that now seems best.\n  Rom. I'll go along, no such sight to be shown,\n    But to rejoice in splendour of my own.              [Exeunt.]\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nCapulet's house.\n\nEnter Capulet's Wife, and Nurse.\n\n  Wife. Nurse, where's my daughter? Call her forth to me.\n  Nurse. Now, by my maidenhead at twelve year old,\n    I bade her come. What, lamb! what ladybird!\n    God forbid! Where's this girl? What, Juliet!\n\n                         Enter Juliet.\n\n  Jul. How now? Who calls?\n  Nurse. Your mother.\n  Jul. Madam, I am here.\n    What is your will?\n  Wife. This is the matter- Nurse, give leave awhile,\n    We must talk in secret. Nurse, come back again;\n    I have rememb'red me, thou's hear our counsel.\n    Thou knowest my daughter's of a pretty age.\n  Nurse. Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.\n  Wife. She's not fourteen.\n  Nurse. I'll lay fourteen of my teeth-\n    And yet, to my teen be it spoken, I have but four-\n    She is not fourteen. How long is it now\n    To Lammastide?\n  Wife. A fortnight and odd days.\n  Nurse. Even or odd, of all days in the year,\n    Come Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen.\n    Susan and she (God rest all Christian souls!)\n    Were of an age. Well, Susan is with God;\n    She was too good for me. But, as I said,\n    On Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen;\n    That shall she, marry; I remember it well.\n    'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;\n    And she was wean'd (I never shall forget it),\n    Of all the days of the year, upon that day;\n    For I had then laid wormwood to my dug,\n    Sitting in the sun under the dovehouse wall.\n    My lord and you were then at Mantua.\n    Nay, I do bear a brain. But, as I said,\n    When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple\n    Of my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool,\n    To see it tetchy and fall out with the dug!\n    Shake, quoth the dovehouse! 'Twas no need, I trow,\n    To bid me trudge.\n    And since that time it is eleven years,\n    For then she could stand high-lone; nay, by th' rood,\n    She could have run and waddled all about;\n    For even the day before, she broke her brow;\n    And then my husband (God be with his soul!\n    'A was a merry man) took up the child.\n    'Yea,' quoth he, 'dost thou fall upon thy face?\n    Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit;\n    Wilt thou not, Jule?' and, by my holidam,\n    The pretty wretch left crying, and said 'Ay.'\n    To see now how a jest shall come about!\n    I warrant, an I should live a thousand yeas,\n    I never should forget it. 'Wilt thou not, Jule?' quoth he,\n    And, pretty fool, it stinted, and said 'Ay.'\n  Wife. Enough of this. I pray thee hold thy peace.\n  Nurse. Yes, madam. Yet I cannot choose but laugh\n    To think it should leave crying and say 'Ay.'\n    And yet, I warrant, it bad upon it brow\n    A bump as big as a young cock'rel's stone;\n    A perilous knock; and it cried bitterly.\n    'Yea,' quoth my husband, 'fall'st upon thy face?\n    Thou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age;\n    Wilt thou not, Jule?' It stinted, and said 'Ay.'\n  Jul. And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I.\n  Nurse. Peace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace!\n    Thou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nurs'd.\n    An I might live to see thee married once, I have my wish.\n  Wife. Marry, that 'marry' is the very theme\n    I came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet,\n    How stands your disposition to be married?\n  Jul. It is an honour that I dream not of.\n  Nurse. An honour? Were not I thine only nurse,\n    I would say thou hadst suck'd wisdom from thy teat.\n  Wife. Well, think of marriage now. Younger than you,\n    Here in Verona, ladies of esteem,\n    Are made already mothers. By my count,\n    I was your mother much upon these years\n    That you are now a maid. Thus then in brief:\n    The valiant Paris seeks you for his love.\n  Nurse. A man, young lady! lady, such a man\n    As all the world- why he's a man of wax.\n  Wife. Verona's summer hath not such a flower.\n  Nurse. Nay, he's a flower, in faith- a very flower.\n  Wife. What say you? Can you love the gentleman?\n    This night you shall behold him at our feast.\n    Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face,\n    And find delight writ there with beauty's pen;\n    Examine every married lineament,\n    And see how one another lends content;\n    And what obscur'd in this fair volume lies\n    Find written in the margent of his eyes,\n    This precious book of love, this unbound lover,\n    To beautify him only lacks a cover.\n    The fish lives in the sea, and 'tis much pride\n    For fair without the fair within to hide.\n    That book in many's eyes doth share the glory,\n    That in gold clasps locks in the golden story;\n    So shall you share all that he doth possess,\n    By having him making yourself no less.\n  Nurse. No less? Nay, bigger! Women grow by men\n  Wife. Speak briefly, can you like of Paris' love?\n  Jul. I'll look to like, if looking liking move;\n    But no more deep will I endart mine eye\n    Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.\n\n                        Enter Servingman.\n\n  Serv. Madam, the guests are come, supper serv'd up, you call'd, my\n    young lady ask'd for, the nurse curs'd in the pantry, and\n    everything in extremity. I must hence to wait. I beseech you\n    follow straight.\n  Wife. We follow thee.                       Exit [Servingman].\n    Juliet, the County stays.\n  Nurse. Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nA street.\n\nEnter Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio, with five or six other Maskers; Torchbearers.\n\n  Rom. What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse?\n    Or shall we on without apology?\n  Ben. The date is out of such prolixity.\n    We'll have no Cupid hoodwink'd with a scarf,\n    Bearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath,\n    Scaring the ladies like a crowkeeper;\n    Nor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke\n    After the prompter, for our entrance;\n    But, let them measure us by what they will,\n    We'll measure them a measure, and be gone.\n  Rom. Give me a torch. I am not for this ambling.\n    Being but heavy, I will bear the light.\n  Mer. Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.\n  Rom. Not I, believe me. You have dancing shoes\n    With nimble soles; I have a soul of lead\n    So stakes me to the ground I cannot move.\n  Mer. You are a lover. Borrow Cupid's wings\n    And soar with them above a common bound.\n  Rom. I am too sore enpierced with his shaft\n    To soar with his light feathers; and so bound\n    I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe.\n    Under love's heavy burthen do I sink.\n  Mer. And, to sink in it, should you burthen love-\n    Too great oppression for a tender thing.\n  Rom. Is love a tender thing? It is too rough,\n    Too rude, too boist'rous, and it pricks like thorn.\n  Mer. If love be rough with you, be rough with love.\n    Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.\n    Give me a case to put my visage in.\n    A visor for a visor! What care I\n    What curious eye doth quote deformities?\n    Here are the beetle brows shall blush for me.\n  Ben. Come, knock and enter; and no sooner in\n    But every man betake him to his legs.\n  Rom. A torch for me! Let wantons light of heart\n    Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels;\n    For I am proverb'd with a grandsire phrase,\n    I'll be a candle-holder and look on;\n    The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done.\n  Mer. Tut! dun's the mouse, the constable's own word!\n    If thou art Dun, we'll draw thee from the mire\n    Of this sir-reverence love, wherein thou stick'st\n    Up to the ears. Come, we burn daylight, ho!\n  Rom. Nay, that's not so.\n  Mer. I mean, sir, in delay\n    We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day.\n    Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits\n    Five times in that ere once in our five wits.\n  Rom. And we mean well, in going to this masque;\n    But 'tis no wit to go.\n  Mer. Why, may one ask?\n  Rom. I dreamt a dream to-night.\n  Mer. And so did I.\n  Rom. Well, what was yours?\n  Mer. That dreamers often lie.\n  Rom. In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.\n  Mer. O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you.\n    She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes\n    In shape no bigger than an agate stone\n    On the forefinger of an alderman,\n    Drawn with a team of little atomies\n    Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;\n    Her wagon spokes made of long spinners' legs,\n    The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;\n    Her traces, of the smallest spider's web;\n    Her collars, of the moonshine's wat'ry beams;\n    Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film;\n    Her wagoner, a small grey-coated gnat,\n    Not half so big as a round little worm\n    Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;\n    Her chariot is an empty hazelnut,\n    Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,\n    Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.\n    And in this state she 'gallops night by night\n    Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;\n    O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on cursies straight;\n    O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees;\n    O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream,\n    Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,\n    Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are.\n    Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,\n    And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;\n    And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail\n    Tickling a parson's nose as 'a lies asleep,\n    Then dreams he of another benefice.\n    Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,\n    And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,\n    Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,\n    Of healths five fadom deep; and then anon\n    Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,\n    And being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two\n    And sleeps again. This is that very Mab\n    That plats the manes of horses in the night\n    And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish, hairs,\n    Which once untangled much misfortune bodes\n    This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,\n    That presses them and learns them first to bear,\n    Making them women of good carriage.\n    This is she-\n  Rom. Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace!\n    Thou talk'st of nothing.\n  Mer. True, I talk of dreams;\n    Which are the children of an idle brain,\n    Begot of nothing but vain fantasy;\n    Which is as thin of substance as the air,\n    And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes\n    Even now the frozen bosom of the North\n    And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,\n    Turning his face to the dew-dropping South.\n  Ben. This wind you talk of blows us from ourselves.\n    Supper is done, and we shall come too late.\n  Rom. I fear, too early; for my mind misgives\n    Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars,\n    Shall bitterly begin his fearful date\n    With this night's revels and expire the term\n    Of a despised life, clos'd in my breast,\n    By some vile forfeit of untimely death.\n    But he that hath the steerage of my course\n    Direct my sail! On, lusty gentlemen!\n  Ben. Strike, drum.\n                           They march about the stage. [Exeunt.]\n\n\n\n\nScene V.\nCapulet's house.\n\nServingmen come forth with napkins.\n\n  1. Serv. Where's Potpan, that he helps not to take away?\n    He shift a trencher! he scrape a trencher!\n  2. Serv. When good manners shall lie all in one or two men's hands,\n    and they unwash'd too, 'tis a foul thing.\n  1. Serv. Away with the join-stools, remove the court-cubbert, look\n    to the plate. Good thou, save me a piece of marchpane and, as\n    thou loves me, let the porter let in Susan Grindstone and Nell.\n    Anthony, and Potpan!\n  2. Serv. Ay, boy, ready.\n  1. Serv. You are look'd for and call'd for, ask'd for and sought\n    for, in the great chamber.\n  3. Serv. We cannot be here and there too. Cheerly, boys!\n    Be brisk awhile, and the longer liver take all.      Exeunt.\n\n    Enter the Maskers, Enter, [with Servants,] Capulet, his Wife,\n              Juliet, Tybalt, and all the Guests\n               and Gentlewomen to the Maskers.\n\n  Cap. Welcome, gentlemen! Ladies that have their toes\n    Unplagu'd with corns will have a bout with you.\n    Ah ha, my mistresses! which of you all\n    Will now deny to dance? She that makes dainty,\n    She I'll swear hath corns. Am I come near ye now?\n    Welcome, gentlemen! I have seen the day\n    That I have worn a visor and could tell\n    A whispering tale in a fair lady's ear,\n    Such as would please. 'Tis gone, 'tis gone, 'tis gone!\n    You are welcome, gentlemen! Come, musicians, play.\n    A hall, a hall! give room! and foot it, girls.\n                                    Music plays, and they dance.\n    More light, you knaves! and turn the tables up,\n    And quench the fire, the room is grown too hot.\n    Ah, sirrah, this unlook'd-for sport comes well.\n    Nay, sit, nay, sit, good cousin Capulet,\n    For you and I are past our dancing days.\n    How long is't now since last yourself and I\n    Were in a mask?\n  2. Cap. By'r Lady, thirty years.\n  Cap. What, man? 'Tis not so much, 'tis not so much!\n    'Tis since the nuptial of Lucentio,\n    Come Pentecost as quickly as it will,\n    Some five-and-twenty years, and then we mask'd.\n  2. Cap. 'Tis more, 'tis more! His son is elder, sir;\n    His son is thirty.\n  Cap. Will you tell me that?\n    His son was but a ward two years ago.\n  Rom. [to a Servingman] What lady's that, which doth enrich the hand\n    Of yonder knight?\n  Serv. I know not, sir.\n  Rom. O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!\n    It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night\n    Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear-\n    Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!\n    So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows\n    As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.\n    The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand\n    And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.\n    Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!\n    For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.\n  Tyb. This, by his voice, should be a Montague.\n    Fetch me my rapier, boy. What, dares the slave\n    Come hither, cover'd with an antic face,\n    To fleer and scorn at our solemnity?\n    Now, by the stock and honour of my kin,\n    To strike him dead I hold it not a sin.\n  Cap. Why, how now, kinsman? Wherefore storm you so?\n  Tyb. Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe;\n    A villain, that is hither come in spite\n    To scorn at our solemnity this night.\n  Cap. Young Romeo is it?\n  Tyb. 'Tis he, that villain Romeo.\n  Cap. Content thee, gentle coz, let him alone.\n    'A bears him like a portly gentleman,\n    And, to say truth, Verona brags of him\n    To be a virtuous and well-govern'd youth.\n    I would not for the wealth of all this town\n    Here in my house do him disparagement.\n    Therefore be patient, take no note of him.\n    It is my will; the which if thou respect,\n    Show a fair presence and put off these frowns,\n    An ill-beseeming semblance for a feast.\n  Tyb. It fits when such a villain is a guest.\n    I'll not endure him.\n  Cap. He shall be endur'd.\n    What, goodman boy? I say he shall. Go to!\n    Am I the master here, or you? Go to!\n    You'll not endure him? God shall mend my soul!\n    You'll make a mutiny among my guests!\n    You will set cock-a-hoop! you'll be the man!\n  Tyb. Why, uncle, 'tis a shame.\n  Cap. Go to, go to!\n    You are a saucy boy. Is't so, indeed?\n    This trick may chance to scathe you. I know what.\n    You must contrary me! Marry, 'tis time.-\n    Well said, my hearts!- You are a princox- go!\n    Be quiet, or- More light, more light!- For shame!\n    I'll make you quiet; what!- Cheerly, my hearts!\n  Tyb. Patience perforce with wilful choler meeting\n    Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting.\n    I will withdraw; but this intrusion shall,\n    Now seeming sweet, convert to bitt'rest gall.          Exit.\n  Rom. If I profane with my unworthiest hand\n    This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:\n    My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand\n    To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.\n  Jul. Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,\n    Which mannerly devotion shows in this;\n    For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,\n    And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.\n  Rom. Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?\n  Jul. Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in pray'r.\n  Rom. O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do!\n    They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.\n  Jul. Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.\n  Rom. Then move not while my prayer's effect I take.\n    Thus from my lips, by thine my sin is purg'd.  [Kisses her.]\n  Jul. Then have my lips the sin that they have took.\n  Rom. Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urg'd!\n    Give me my sin again.                          [Kisses her.]\n  Jul. You kiss by th' book.\n  Nurse. Madam, your mother craves a word with you.\n  Rom. What is her mother?\n  Nurse. Marry, bachelor,\n    Her mother is the lady of the house.\n    And a good lady, and a wise and virtuous.\n    I nurs'd her daughter that you talk'd withal.\n    I tell you, he that can lay hold of her\n    Shall have the chinks.\n  Rom. Is she a Capulet?\n    O dear account! my life is my foe's debt.\n  Ben. Away, be gone; the sport is at the best.\n  Rom. Ay, so I fear; the more is my unrest.\n  Cap. Nay, gentlemen, prepare not to be gone;\n    We have a trifling foolish banquet towards.\n    Is it e'en so? Why then, I thank you all.\n    I thank you, honest gentlemen. Good night.\n    More torches here! [Exeunt Maskers.] Come on then, let's to bed.\n    Ah, sirrah, by my fay, it waxes late;\n    I'll to my rest.\n                              Exeunt [all but Juliet and Nurse].\n  Jul. Come hither, nurse. What is yond gentleman?\n  Nurse. The son and heir of old Tiberio.\n  Jul. What's he that now is going out of door?\n  Nurse. Marry, that, I think, be young Petruchio.\n  Jul. What's he that follows there, that would not dance?\n  Nurse. I know not.\n  Jul. Go ask his name.- If he be married,\n    My grave is like to be my wedding bed.\n  Nurse. His name is Romeo, and a Montague,\n    The only son of your great enemy.\n  Jul. My only love, sprung from my only hate!\n    Too early seen unknown, and known too late!\n    Prodigious birth of love it is to me\n    That I must love a loathed enemy.\n  Nurse. What's this? what's this?\n  Jul. A rhyme I learnt even now\n    Of one I danc'd withal.\n                                     One calls within, 'Juliet.'\n  Nurse. Anon, anon!\n    Come, let's away; the strangers all are gone.        Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPROLOGUE\n\nEnter Chorus.\n\n  Chor. Now old desire doth in his deathbed lie,\n    And young affection gapes to be his heir;\n    That fair for which love groan'd for and would die,\n    With tender Juliet match'd, is now not fair.\n    Now Romeo is belov'd, and loves again,\n    Alike bewitched by the charm of looks;\n    But to his foe suppos'd he must complain,\n    And she steal love's sweet bait from fearful hooks.\n    Being held a foe, he may not have access\n    To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear,\n    And she as much in love, her means much less\n    To meet her new beloved anywhere;\n    But passion lends them power, time means, to meet,\n    Temp'ring extremities with extreme sweet.\nExit.\n\n\n\n\nACT II. Scene I.\nA lane by the wall of Capulet's orchard.\n\nEnter Romeo alone.\n\n  Rom. Can I go forward when my heart is here?\n    Turn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out.\n                     [Climbs the wall and leaps down within it.]\n\n                   Enter Benvolio with Mercutio.\n\n  Ben. Romeo! my cousin Romeo! Romeo!\n  Mer. He is wise,\n    And, on my life, hath stol'n him home to bed.\n  Ben. He ran this way, and leapt this orchard wall.\n    Call, good Mercutio.\n  Mer. Nay, I'll conjure too.\n    Romeo! humours! madman! passion! lover!\n    Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh;\n    Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied!\n    Cry but 'Ay me!' pronounce but 'love' and 'dove';\n    Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word,\n    One nickname for her purblind son and heir,\n    Young Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim\n    When King Cophetua lov'd the beggar maid!\n    He heareth not, he stirreth not, be moveth not;\n    The ape is dead, and I must conjure him.\n    I conjure thee by Rosaline's bright eyes.\n    By her high forehead and her scarlet lip,\n    By her fine foot, straight leg, and quivering thigh,\n    And the demesnes that there adjacent lie,\n    That in thy likeness thou appear to us!\n  Ben. An if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him.\n  Mer. This cannot anger him. 'Twould anger him\n    To raise a spirit in his mistress' circle\n    Of some strange nature, letting it there stand\n    Till she had laid it and conjur'd it down.\n    That were some spite; my invocation\n    Is fair and honest: in his mistress' name,\n    I conjure only but to raise up him.\n  Ben. Come, he hath hid himself among these trees\n    To be consorted with the humorous night.\n    Blind is his love and best befits the dark.\n  Mer. If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.\n    Now will he sit under a medlar tree\n    And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit\n    As maids call medlars when they laugh alone.\n    O, Romeo, that she were, O that she were\n    An open et cetera, thou a pop'rin pear!\n    Romeo, good night. I'll to my truckle-bed;\n    This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep.\n    Come, shall we go?\n  Ben. Go then, for 'tis in vain\n    'To seek him here that means not to be found.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nCapulet's orchard.\n\nEnter Romeo.\n\n  Rom. He jests at scars that never felt a wound.\n\n                     Enter Juliet above at a window.\n\n    But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?\n    It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!\n    Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,\n    Who is already sick and pale with grief\n    That thou her maid art far more fair than she.\n    Be not her maid, since she is envious.\n    Her vestal livery is but sick and green,\n    And none but fools do wear it. Cast it off.\n    It is my lady; O, it is my love!\n    O that she knew she were!\n    She speaks, yet she says nothing. What of that?\n    Her eye discourses; I will answer it.\n    I am too bold; 'tis not to me she speaks.\n    Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,\n    Having some business, do entreat her eyes\n    To twinkle in their spheres till they return.\n    What if her eyes were there, they in her head?\n    The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars\n    As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven\n    Would through the airy region stream so bright\n    That birds would sing and think it were not night.\n    See how she leans her cheek upon her hand!\n    O that I were a glove upon that hand,\n    That I might touch that cheek!\n  Jul. Ay me!\n  Rom. She speaks.\n    O, speak again, bright angel! for thou art\n    As glorious to this night, being o'er my head,\n    As is a winged messenger of heaven\n    Unto the white-upturned wond'ring eyes\n    Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him\n    When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds\n    And sails upon the bosom of the air.\n  Jul. O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?\n    Deny thy father and refuse thy name!\n    Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,\n    And I'll no longer be a Capulet.\n  Rom. [aside] Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?\n  Jul. 'Tis but thy name that is my enemy.\n    Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.\n    What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,\n    Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part\n    Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!\n    What's in a name? That which we call a rose\n    By any other name would smell as sweet.\n    So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,\n    Retain that dear perfection which he owes\n    Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name;\n    And for that name, which is no part of thee,\n    Take all myself.\n  Rom. I take thee at thy word.\n    Call me but love, and I'll be new baptiz'd;\n    Henceforth I never will be Romeo.\n  Jul. What man art thou that, thus bescreen'd in night,\n    So stumblest on my counsel?\n  Rom. By a name\n    I know not how to tell thee who I am.\n    My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,\n    Because it is an enemy to thee.\n    Had I it written, I would tear the word.\n  Jul. My ears have yet not drunk a hundred words\n    Of that tongue's utterance, yet I know the sound.\n    Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague?\n  Rom. Neither, fair saint, if either thee dislike.\n  Jul. How cam'st thou hither, tell me, and wherefore?\n    The orchard walls are high and hard to climb,\n    And the place death, considering who thou art,\n    If any of my kinsmen find thee here.\n  Rom. With love's light wings did I o'erperch these walls;\n    For stony limits cannot hold love out,\n    And what love can do, that dares love attempt.\n    Therefore thy kinsmen are no let to me.\n  Jul. If they do see thee, they will murther thee.\n  Rom. Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye\n    Than twenty of their swords! Look thou but sweet,\n    And I am proof against their enmity.\n  Jul. I would not for the world they saw thee here.\n  Rom. I have night's cloak to hide me from their sight;\n    And but thou love me, let them find me here.\n    My life were better ended by their hate\n    Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.\n  Jul. By whose direction found'st thou out this place?\n  Rom. By love, that first did prompt me to enquire.\n    He lent me counsel, and I lent him eyes.\n    I am no pilot; yet, wert thou as far\n    As that vast shore wash'd with the farthest sea,\n    I would adventure for such merchandise.\n  Jul. Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face;\n    Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek\n    For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night.\n    Fain would I dwell on form- fain, fain deny\n    What I have spoke; but farewell compliment!\n    Dost thou love me, I know thou wilt say 'Ay';\n    And I will take thy word. Yet, if thou swear'st,\n    Thou mayst prove false. At lovers' perjuries,\n    They say Jove laughs. O gentle Romeo,\n    If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully.\n    Or if thou thinkest I am too quickly won,\n    I'll frown, and be perverse, and say thee nay,\n    So thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world.\n    In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond,\n    And therefore thou mayst think my haviour light;\n    But trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true\n    Than those that have more cunning to be strange.\n    I should have been more strange, I must confess,\n    But that thou overheard'st, ere I was ware,\n    My true-love passion. Therefore pardon me,\n    And not impute this yielding to light love,\n    Which the dark night hath so discovered.\n  Rom. Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear,\n    That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops-\n  Jul. O, swear not by the moon, th' inconstant moon,\n    That monthly changes in her circled orb,\n    Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.\n  Rom. What shall I swear by?\n  Jul. Do not swear at all;\n    Or if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self,\n    Which is the god of my idolatry,\n    And I'll believe thee.\n  Rom. If my heart's dear love-\n  Jul. Well, do not swear. Although I joy in thee,\n    I have no joy of this contract to-night.\n    It is too rash, too unadvis'd, too sudden;\n    Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be\n    Ere one can say 'It lightens.' Sweet, good night!\n    This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath,\n    May prove a beauteous flow'r when next we meet.\n    Good night, good night! As sweet repose and rest\n    Come to thy heart as that within my breast!\n  Rom. O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?\n  Jul. What satisfaction canst thou have to-night?\n  Rom. Th' exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine.\n  Jul. I gave thee mine before thou didst request it;\n    And yet I would it were to give again.\n  Rom. Would'st thou withdraw it? For what purpose, love?\n  Jul. But to be frank and give it thee again.\n    And yet I wish but for the thing I have.\n    My bounty is as boundless as the sea,\n    My love as deep; the more I give to thee,\n    The more I have, for both are infinite.\n    I hear some noise within. Dear love, adieu!\n                                           [Nurse] calls within.\n    Anon, good nurse! Sweet Montague, be true.\n    Stay but a little, I will come again.                [Exit.]\n  Rom. O blessed, blessed night! I am afeard,\n    Being in night, all this is but a dream,\n    Too flattering-sweet to be substantial.\n\n                       Enter Juliet above.\n\n  Jul. Three words, dear Romeo, and good night indeed.\n    If that thy bent of love be honourable,\n    Thy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow,\n    By one that I'll procure to come to thee,\n    Where and what time thou wilt perform the rite;\n    And all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay\n    And follow thee my lord throughout the world.\n  Nurse. (within) Madam!\n  Jul. I come, anon.- But if thou meanest not well,\n    I do beseech thee-\n  Nurse. (within) Madam!\n  Jul. By-and-by I come.-\n    To cease thy suit and leave me to my grief.\n    To-morrow will I send.\n  Rom. So thrive my soul-\n  Jul. A thousand times good night!                        Exit.\n  Rom. A thousand times the worse, to want thy light!\n    Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books;\n    But love from love, towards school with heavy looks.\n\n                     Enter Juliet again, [above].\n\n  Jul. Hist! Romeo, hist! O for a falconer's voice\n    To lure this tassel-gentle back again!\n    Bondage is hoarse and may not speak aloud;\n    Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies,\n    And make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine\n    With repetition of my Romeo's name.\n    Romeo!\n  Rom. It is my soul that calls upon my name.\n    How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night,\n    Like softest music to attending ears!\n  Jul. Romeo!\n  Rom. My dear?\n  Jul. At what o'clock to-morrow\n    Shall I send to thee?\n  Rom. By the hour of nine.\n  Jul. I will not fail. 'Tis twenty years till then.\n    I have forgot why I did call thee back.\n  Rom. Let me stand here till thou remember it.\n  Jul. I shall forget, to have thee still stand there,\n    Rememb'ring how I love thy company.\n  Rom. And I'll still stay, to have thee still forget,\n    Forgetting any other home but this.\n  Jul. 'Tis almost morning. I would have thee gone-\n    And yet no farther than a wanton's bird,\n    That lets it hop a little from her hand,\n    Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,\n    And with a silk thread plucks it back again,\n    So loving-jealous of his liberty.\n  Rom. I would I were thy bird.\n  Jul. Sweet, so would I.\n    Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing.\n    Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow,\n    That I shall say good night till it be morrow.\n                                                         [Exit.]\n  Rom. Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast!\n    Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest!\n    Hence will I to my ghostly father's cell,\n    His help to crave and my dear hap to tell.\n Exit\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nFriar Laurence's cell.\n\nEnter Friar, [Laurence] alone, with a basket.\n\n  Friar. The grey-ey'd morn smiles on the frowning night,\n    Check'ring the Eastern clouds with streaks of light;\n    And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels\n    From forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels.\n    Non, ere the sun advance his burning eye\n    The day to cheer and night's dank dew to dry,\n    I must up-fill this osier cage of ours\n    With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers.\n    The earth that's nature's mother is her tomb.\n    What is her burying gave, that is her womb;\n    And from her womb children of divers kind\n    We sucking on her natural bosom find;\n    Many for many virtues excellent,\n    None but for some, and yet all different.\n    O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies\n    In plants, herbs, stones, and their true qualities;\n    For naught so vile that on the earth doth live\n    But to the earth some special good doth give;\n    Nor aught so good but, strain'd from that fair use,\n    Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse.\n    Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied,\n    And vice sometime's by action dignified.\n    Within the infant rind of this small flower\n    Poison hath residence, and medicine power;\n    For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;\n    Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.\n    Two such opposed kings encamp them still\n    In man as well as herbs- grace and rude will;\n    And where the worser is predominant,\n    Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.\n\n                        Enter Romeo.\n\n  Rom. Good morrow, father.\n  Friar. Benedicite!\n    What early tongue so sweet saluteth me?\n    Young son, it argues a distempered head\n    So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed.\n    Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye,\n    And where care lodges sleep will never lie;\n    But where unbruised youth with unstuff'd brain\n    Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign.\n    Therefore thy earliness doth me assure\n    Thou art uprous'd with some distemp'rature;\n    Or if not so, then here I hit it right-\n    Our Romeo hath not been in bed to-night.\n  Rom. That last is true-the sweeter rest was mine.\n  Friar. God pardon sin! Wast thou with Rosaline?\n  Rom. With Rosaline, my ghostly father? No.\n    I have forgot that name, and that name's woe.\n  Friar. That's my good son! But where hast thou been then?\n  Rom. I'll tell thee ere thou ask it me again.\n    I have been feasting with mine enemy,\n    Where on a sudden one hath wounded me\n    That's by me wounded. Both our remedies\n    Within thy help and holy physic lies.\n    I bear no hatred, blessed man, for, lo,\n    My intercession likewise steads my foe.\n  Friar. Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift\n    Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.\n  Rom. Then plainly know my heart's dear love is set\n    On the fair daughter of rich Capulet;\n    As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine,\n    And all combin'd, save what thou must combine\n    By holy marriage. When, and where, and how\n    We met, we woo'd, and made exchange of vow,\n    I'll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray,\n    That thou consent to marry us to-day.\n  Friar. Holy Saint Francis! What a change is here!\n    Is Rosaline, that thou didst love so dear,\n    So soon forsaken? Young men's love then lies\n    Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.\n    Jesu Maria! What a deal of brine\n    Hath wash'd thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline!\n    How much salt water thrown away in waste,\n    To season love, that of it doth not taste!\n    The sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears,\n    Thy old groans ring yet in mine ancient ears.\n    Lo, here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit\n    Of an old tear that is not wash'd off yet.\n    If e'er thou wast thyself, and these woes thine,\n    Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline.\n    And art thou chang'd? Pronounce this sentence then:\n    Women may fall when there's no strength in men.\n  Rom. Thou chid'st me oft for loving Rosaline.\n  Friar. For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.\n  Rom. And bad'st me bury love.\n  Friar. Not in a grave\n    To lay one in, another out to have.\n  Rom. I pray thee chide not. She whom I love now\n    Doth grace for grace and love for love allow.\n    The other did not so.\n  Friar. O, she knew well\n    Thy love did read by rote, that could not spell.\n    But come, young waverer, come go with me.\n    In one respect I'll thy assistant be;\n    For this alliance may so happy prove\n    To turn your households' rancour to pure love.\n  Rom. O, let us hence! I stand on sudden haste.\n  Friar. Wisely, and slow. They stumble that run fast.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nA street.\n\nEnter Benvolio and Mercutio.\n\n  Mer. Where the devil should this Romeo be?\n    Came he not home to-night?\n  Ben. Not to his father's. I spoke with his man.\n  Mer. Why, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline,\n    Torments him so that he will sure run mad.\n  Ben. Tybalt, the kinsman to old Capulet,\n    Hath sent a letter to his father's house.\n  Mer. A challenge, on my life.\n  Ben. Romeo will answer it.\n  Mer. Any man that can write may answer a letter.\n  Ben. Nay, he will answer the letter's master, how he dares, being\n    dared.\n  Mer. Alas, poor Romeo, he is already dead! stabb'd with a white\n    wench's black eye; shot through the ear with a love song; the\n    very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy's butt-shaft;\n    and is he a man to encounter Tybalt?\n  Ben. Why, what is Tybalt?\n  Mer. More than Prince of Cats, I can tell you. O, he's the\n    courageous captain of compliments. He fights as you sing\n    pricksong-keeps time, distance, and proportion; rests me his\n    minim rest, one, two, and the third in your bosom! the very\n    butcher of a silk button, a duellist, a duellist! a gentleman of\n    the very first house, of the first and second cause. Ah, the\n    immortal passado! the punto reverse! the hay.\n  Ben. The what?\n  Mer. The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting fantasticoes- these\n    new tuners of accent! 'By Jesu, a very good blade! a very tall\n    man! a very good whore!' Why, is not this a lamentable thing,\n    grandsir, that we should be thus afflicted with these strange\n    flies, these fashion-mongers, these pardona-mi's, who stand so\n    much on the new form that they cannot sit at ease on the old\n    bench? O, their bones, their bones!\n\n                               Enter Romeo.\n\n  Ben. Here comes Romeo! here comes Romeo!\n  Mer. Without his roe, like a dried herring. O flesh, flesh, how art\n    thou fishified! Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flowed\n    in. Laura, to his lady, was but a kitchen wench (marry, she had a\n    better love to berhyme her), Dido a dowdy, Cleopatra a gypsy,\n    Helen and Hero hildings and harlots, This be a gray eye or so,\n    but not to the purpose. Signior Romeo, bon jour! There's a French\n    salutation to your French slop. You gave us the counterfeit\n    fairly last night.\n  Rom. Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you?\n  Mer. The slip, sir, the slip. Can you not conceive?\n  Rom. Pardon, good Mercutio. My business was great, and in such a\n    case as mine a man may strain courtesy.\n  Mer. That's as much as to say, such a case as yours constrains a\n    man to bow in the hams.\n  Rom. Meaning, to cursy.\n  Mer. Thou hast most kindly hit it.\n  Rom. A most courteous exposition.\n  Mer. Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy.\n  Rom. Pink for flower.\n  Mer. Right.\n  Rom. Why, then is my pump well-flower'd.\n  Mer. Well said! Follow me this jest now till thou hast worn out thy\n    pump, that, when the single sole of it is worn, the jest may\n    remain, after the wearing, solely singular.\n  Rom. O single-sold jest, solely singular for the singleness!\n  Mer. Come between us, good Benvolio! My wits faint.\n  Rom. Swits and spurs, swits and spurs! or I'll cry a match.\n  Mer. Nay, if our wits run the wild-goose chase, I am done; for thou\n    hast more of the wild goose in one of thy wits than, I am sure, I\n    have in my whole five. Was I with you there for the goose?\n  Rom. Thou wast never with me for anything when thou wast not there\n    for the goose.\n  Mer. I will bite thee by the ear for that jest.\n  Rom. Nay, good goose, bite not!\n  Mer. Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a most sharp sauce.\n  Rom. And is it not, then, well serv'd in to a sweet goose?\n  Mer. O, here's a wit of cheveril, that stretches from an inch\n    narrow to an ell broad!\n  Rom. I stretch it out for that word 'broad,' which, added to the\n    goose, proves thee far and wide a broad goose.\n  Mer. Why, is not this better now than groaning for love? Now art\n    thou sociable, now art thou Romeo; now art thou what thou art, by\n    art as well as by nature. For this drivelling love is like a\n    great natural that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in\n    a hole.\n  Ben. Stop there, stop there!\n  Mer. Thou desirest me to stop in my tale against the hair.\n  Ben. Thou wouldst else have made thy tale large.\n  Mer. O, thou art deceiv'd! I would have made it short; for I was\n    come to the whole depth of my tale, and meant indeed to occupy\n    the argument no longer.\n  Rom. Here's goodly gear!\n\n                      Enter Nurse and her Man [Peter].\n\n  Mer. A sail, a sail!\n  Ben. Two, two! a shirt and a smock.\n  Nurse. Peter!\n  Peter. Anon.\n  Nurse. My fan, Peter.\n  Mer. Good Peter, to hide her face; for her fan's the fairer face of\n    the two.\n  Nurse. God ye good morrow, gentlemen.\n  Mer. God ye good-den, fair gentlewoman.\n  Nurse. Is it good-den?\n  Mer. 'Tis no less, I tell ye; for the bawdy hand of the dial is now\n    upon the prick of noon.\n  Nurse. Out upon you! What a man are you!\n  Rom. One, gentlewoman, that God hath made for himself to mar.\n  Nurse. By my troth, it is well said. 'For himself to mar,' quoth\n    'a? Gentlemen, can any of you tell me where I may find the young\n    Romeo?\n  Rom. I can tell you; but young Romeo will be older when you have\n    found him than he was when you sought him. I am the youngest of\n    that name, for fault of a worse.\n  Nurse. You say well.\n  Mer. Yea, is the worst well? Very well took, i' faith! wisely,\n    wisely.\n  Nurse. If you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with you.\n  Ben. She will endite him to some supper.\n  Mer. A bawd, a bawd, a bawd! So ho!\n  Rom. What hast thou found?\n  Mer. No hare, sir; unless a hare, sir, in a lenten pie, that is\n    something stale and hoar ere it be spent\n                                     He walks by them and sings.\n\n                   An old hare hoar,\n                   And an old hare hoar,\n                Is very good meat in Lent;\n                   But a hare that is hoar\n                   Is too much for a score\n                When it hoars ere it be spent.\n\n    Romeo, will you come to your father's? We'll to dinner thither.\n  Rom. I will follow you.\n  Mer. Farewell, ancient lady. Farewell,\n    [sings] lady, lady, lady.\n                                      Exeunt Mercutio, Benvolio.\n  Nurse. Marry, farewell! I Pray you, Sir, what saucy merchant was\n    this that was so full of his ropery?\n  Rom. A gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself talk and will\n    speak more in a minute than he will stand to in a month.\n  Nurse. An 'a speak anything against me, I'll take him down, an 'a\n    were lustier than he is, and twenty such jacks; and if I cannot,\n    I'll find those that shall. Scurvy knave! I am none of his\n    flirt-gills; I am none of his skains-mates. And thou must stand\n    by too, and suffer every knave to use me at his pleasure!\n  Peter. I saw no man use you at his pleasure. If I had, my weapon\n    should quickly have been out, I warrant you. I dare draw as soon\n    as another man, if I see occasion in a good quarrel, and the law\n    on my side.\n  Nurse. Now, afore God, I am so vexed that every part about me\n    quivers. Scurvy knave! Pray you, sir, a word; and, as I told you,\n    my young lady bid me enquire you out. What she bid me say, I will\n    keep to myself; but first let me tell ye, if ye should lead her\n    into a fool's paradise, as they say, it were a very gross kind of\n    behaviour, as they say; for the gentlewoman is young; and\n    therefore, if you should deal double with her, truly it were an\n    ill thing to be off'red to any gentlewoman, and very weak dealing.\n  Rom. Nurse, commend me to thy lady and mistress. I protest unto\n    thee-\n  Nurse. Good heart, and I faith I will tell her as much. Lord,\n    Lord! she will be a joyful woman.\n  Rom. What wilt thou tell her, nurse? Thou dost not mark me.\n  Nurse. I will tell her, sir, that you do protest, which, as I take\n    it, is a gentlemanlike offer.\n  Rom. Bid her devise\n    Some means to come to shrift this afternoon;\n    And there she shall at Friar Laurence' cell\n    Be shriv'd and married. Here is for thy pains.\n  Nurse. No, truly, sir; not a penny.\n  Rom. Go to! I say you shall.\n  Nurse. This afternoon, sir? Well, she shall be there.\n  Rom. And stay, good nurse, behind the abbey wall.\n    Within this hour my man shall be with thee\n    And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair,\n    Which to the high topgallant of my joy\n    Must be my convoy in the secret night.\n    Farewell. Be trusty, and I'll quit thy pains.\n    Farewell. Commend me to thy mistress.\n  Nurse. Now God in heaven bless thee! Hark you, sir.\n  Rom. What say'st thou, my dear nurse?\n  Nurse. Is your man secret? Did you ne'er hear say,\n    Two may keep counsel, putting one away?\n  Rom. I warrant thee my man's as true as steel.\n  Nurse. Well, sir, my mistress is the sweetest lady. Lord, Lord!\n    when 'twas a little prating thing- O, there is a nobleman in\n    town, one Paris, that would fain lay knife aboard; but she, good\n    soul, had as lieve see a toad, a very toad, as see him. I anger\n    her sometimes, and tell her that Paris is the properer man; but\n    I'll warrant you, when I say so, she looks as pale as any clout\n    in the versal world. Doth not rosemary and Romeo begin both with\n    a letter?\n  Rom. Ay, nurse; what of that? Both with an R.\n  Nurse. Ah, mocker! that's the dog's name. R is for the- No; I know\n    it begins with some other letter; and she hath the prettiest\n    sententious of it, of you and rosemary, that it would do you good\n    to hear it.\n  Rom. Commend me to thy lady.\n  Nurse. Ay, a thousand times. [Exit Romeo.] Peter!\n  Peter. Anon.\n  Nurse. Peter, take my fan, and go before, and apace.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene V.\nCapulet's orchard.\n\nEnter Juliet.\n\n  Jul. The clock struck nine when I did send the nurse;\n    In half an hour she 'promis'd to return.\n    Perchance she cannot meet him. That's not so.\n    O, she is lame! Love's heralds should be thoughts,\n    Which ten times faster glide than the sun's beams\n    Driving back shadows over low'ring hills.\n    Therefore do nimble-pinion'd doves draw Love,\n    And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings.\n    Now is the sun upon the highmost hill\n    Of this day's journey, and from nine till twelve\n    Is three long hours; yet she is not come.\n    Had she affections and warm youthful blood,\n    She would be as swift in motion as a ball;\n    My words would bandy her to my sweet love,\n    And his to me,\n    But old folks, many feign as they were dead-\n    Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead.\n\n                      Enter Nurse [and Peter].\n\n    O God, she comes! O honey nurse, what news?\n    Hast thou met with him? Send thy man away.\n  Nurse. Peter, stay at the gate.\n                                                   [Exit Peter.]\n  Jul. Now, good sweet nurse- O Lord, why look'st thou sad?\n    Though news be sad, yet tell them merrily;\n    If good, thou shamest the music of sweet news\n    By playing it to me with so sour a face.\n  Nurse. I am aweary, give me leave awhile.\n    Fie, how my bones ache! What a jaunce have I had!\n  Jul. I would thou hadst my bones, and I thy news.\n    Nay, come, I pray thee speak. Good, good nurse, speak.\n  Nurse. Jesu, what haste! Can you not stay awhile?\n    Do you not see that I am out of breath?\n  Jul. How art thou out of breath when thou hast breath\n    To say to me that thou art out of breath?\n    The excuse that thou dost make in this delay\n    Is longer than the tale thou dost excuse.\n    Is thy news good or bad? Answer to that.\n    Say either, and I'll stay the circumstance.\n    Let me be satisfied, is't good or bad?\n  Nurse. Well, you have made a simple choice; you know not how to\n    choose a man. Romeo? No, not he. Though his face be better than\n    any man's, yet his leg excels all men's; and for a hand and a\n    foot, and a body, though they be not to be talk'd on, yet they\n    are past compare. He is not the flower of courtesy, but, I'll\n    warrant him, as gentle as a lamb. Go thy ways, wench; serve God.\n    What, have you din'd at home?\n  Jul. No, no. But all this did I know before.\n    What says he of our marriage? What of that?\n  Nurse. Lord, how my head aches! What a head have I!\n    It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces.\n    My back o' t' other side,- ah, my back, my back!\n    Beshrew your heart for sending me about\n    To catch my death with jauncing up and down!\n  Jul. I' faith, I am sorry that thou art not well.\n    Sweet, sweet, Sweet nurse, tell me, what says my love?\n  Nurse. Your love says, like an honest gentleman, and a courteous,\n    and a kind, and a handsome; and, I warrant, a virtuous- Where is\n    your mother?\n  Jul. Where is my mother? Why, she is within.\n    Where should she be? How oddly thou repliest!\n    'Your love says, like an honest gentleman,\n    \"Where is your mother?\"'\n  Nurse. O God's Lady dear!\n    Are you so hot? Marry come up, I trow.\n    Is this the poultice for my aching bones?\n    Henceforward do your messages yourself.\n  Jul. Here's such a coil! Come, what says Romeo?\n  Nurse. Have you got leave to go to shrift to-day?\n  Jul. I have.\n  Nurse. Then hie you hence to Friar Laurence' cell;\n    There stays a husband to make you a wife.\n    Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks:\n    They'll be in scarlet straight at any news.\n    Hie you to church; I must another way,\n    To fetch a ladder, by the which your love\n    Must climb a bird's nest soon when it is dark.\n    I am the drudge, and toil in your delight;\n    But you shall bear the burthen soon at night.\n    Go; I'll to dinner; hie you to the cell.\n  Jul. Hie to high fortune! Honest nurse, farewell.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene VI.\nFriar Laurence's cell.\n\nEnter Friar [Laurence] and Romeo.\n\n  Friar. So smile the heavens upon this holy act\n    That after-hours with sorrow chide us not!\n  Rom. Amen, amen! But come what sorrow can,\n    It cannot countervail the exchange of joy\n    That one short minute gives me in her sight.\n    Do thou but close our hands with holy words,\n    Then love-devouring death do what he dare-\n    It is enough I may but call her mine.\n  Friar. These violent delights have violent ends\n    And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,\n    Which, as they kiss, consume. The sweetest honey\n    Is loathsome in his own deliciousness\n    And in the taste confounds the appetite.\n    Therefore love moderately: long love doth so;\n    Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.\n\n                     Enter Juliet.\n\n    Here comes the lady. O, so light a foot\n    Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint.\n    A lover may bestride the gossamer\n    That idles in the wanton summer air,\n    And yet not fall; so light is vanity.\n  Jul. Good even to my ghostly confessor.\n  Friar. Romeo shall thank thee, daughter, for us both.\n  Jul. As much to him, else is his thanks too much.\n  Rom. Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy\n    Be heap'd like mine, and that thy skill be more\n    To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath\n    This neighbour air, and let rich music's tongue\n    Unfold the imagin'd happiness that both\n    Receive in either by this dear encounter.\n  Jul. Conceit, more rich in matter than in words,\n    Brags of his substance, not of ornament.\n    They are but beggars that can count their worth;\n    But my true love is grown to such excess\n    cannot sum up sum of half my wealth.\n  Friar. Come, come with me, and we will make short work;\n    For, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone\n    Till Holy Church incorporate two in one.\n                                                       [Exeunt.]\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. Scene I.\nA public place.\n\nEnter Mercutio, Benvolio, and Men.\n\n  Ben. I pray thee, good Mercutio, let's retire.\n    The day is hot, the Capulets abroad.\n    And if we meet, we shall not scape a brawl,\n    For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.\n  Mer. Thou art like one of these fellows that, when he enters the\n    confines of a tavern, claps me his sword upon the table and says\n    'God send me no need of thee!' and by the operation of the second\n    cup draws him on the drawer, when indeed there is no need.\n  Ben. Am I like such a fellow?\n  Mer. Come, come, thou art as hot a jack in thy mood as any in\n    Italy; and as soon moved to be moody, and as soon moody to be\n    moved.\n  Ben. And what to?\n  Mer. Nay, an there were two such, we should have none shortly, for\n    one would kill the other. Thou! why, thou wilt quarrel with a man\n    that hath a hair more or a hair less in his beard than thou hast.\n    Thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no other\n    reason but because thou hast hazel eyes. What eye but such an eye\n    would spy out such a quarrel? Thy head is as full of quarrels as\n    an egg is full of meat; and yet thy head hath been beaten as\n    addle as an egg for quarrelling. Thou hast quarrell'd with a man\n    for coughing in the street, because he hath wakened thy dog that\n    hath lain asleep in the sun. Didst thou not fall out with a\n    tailor for wearing his new doublet before Easter, with another\n    for tying his new shoes with an old riband? And yet thou wilt\n    tutor me from quarrelling!\n  Ben. An I were so apt to quarrel as thou art, any man should buy\n    the fee simple of my life for an hour and a quarter.\n  Mer. The fee simple? O simple!\n\n                       Enter Tybalt and others.\n\n  Ben. By my head, here come the Capulets.\n  Mer. By my heel, I care not.\n  Tyb. Follow me close, for I will speak to them.\n    Gentlemen, good den. A word with one of you.\n  Mer. And but one word with one of us?\n    Couple it with something; make it a word and a blow.\n  Tyb. You shall find me apt enough to that, sir, an you will give me\n    occasion.\n  Mer. Could you not take some occasion without giving\n  Tyb. Mercutio, thou consortest with Romeo.\n  Mer. Consort? What, dost thou make us minstrels? An thou make\n    minstrels of us, look to hear nothing but discords. Here's my\n    fiddlestick; here's that shall make you dance. Zounds, consort!\n  Ben. We talk here in the public haunt of men.\n    Either withdraw unto some private place\n    And reason coldly of your grievances,\n    Or else depart. Here all eyes gaze on us.\n  Mer. Men's eyes were made to look, and let them gaze.\n    I will not budge for no man's pleasure,\n\n                        Enter Romeo.\n\n  Tyb. Well, peace be with you, sir. Here comes my man.\n  Mer. But I'll be hang'd, sir, if he wear your livery.\n    Marry, go before to field, he'll be your follower!\n    Your worship in that sense may call him man.\n  Tyb. Romeo, the love I bear thee can afford\n    No better term than this: thou art a villain.\n  Rom. Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee\n    Doth much excuse the appertaining rage\n    To such a greeting. Villain am I none.\n    Therefore farewell. I see thou knowest me not.\n  Tyb. Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries\n    That thou hast done me; therefore turn and draw.\n  Rom. I do protest I never injur'd thee,\n    But love thee better than thou canst devise\n    Till thou shalt know the reason of my love;\n    And so good Capulet, which name I tender\n    As dearly as mine own, be satisfied.\n  Mer. O calm, dishonourable, vile submission!\n    Alla stoccata carries it away.                      [Draws.]\n    Tybalt, you ratcatcher, will you walk?\n  Tyb. What wouldst thou have with me?\n  Mer. Good King of Cats, nothing but one of your nine lives. That I\n    mean to make bold withal, and, as you shall use me hereafter,\n    dry-beat the rest of the eight. Will you pluck your sword out of\n    his pitcher by the ears? Make haste, lest mine be about your ears\n    ere it be out.\n  Tyb. I am for you.                                    [Draws.]\n  Rom. Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up.\n  Mer. Come, sir, your passado!\n                                                   [They fight.]\n  Rom. Draw, Benvolio; beat down their weapons.\n    Gentlemen, for shame! forbear this outrage!\n    Tybalt, Mercutio, the Prince expressly hath\n    Forbid this bandying in Verona streets.\n    Hold, Tybalt! Good Mercutio!\n         Tybalt under Romeo's arm thrusts Mercutio in, and flies\n                                           [with his Followers].\n  Mer. I am hurt.\n    A plague o' both your houses! I am sped.\n    Is he gone and hath nothing?\n  Ben. What, art thou hurt?\n  Mer. Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch. Marry, 'tis enough.\n    Where is my page? Go, villain, fetch a surgeon.\n                                                    [Exit Page.]\n  Rom. Courage, man. The hurt cannot be much.\n  Mer. No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door;\n    but 'tis enough, 'twill serve. Ask for me to-morrow, and you\n    shall find me a grave man. I am peppered, I warrant, for this\n    world. A plague o' both your houses! Zounds, a dog, a rat, a\n    mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to death! a braggart, a rogue, a\n    villain, that fights by the book of arithmetic! Why the devil\n    came you between us? I was hurt under your arm.\n  Rom. I thought all for the best.\n  Mer. Help me into some house, Benvolio,\n    Or I shall faint. A plague o' both your houses!\n    They have made worms' meat of me. I have it,\n    And soundly too. Your houses!\n                                 [Exit. [supported by Benvolio].\n  Rom. This gentleman, the Prince's near ally,\n    My very friend, hath got this mortal hurt\n    In my behalf- my reputation stain'd\n    With Tybalt's slander- Tybalt, that an hour\n    Hath been my kinsman. O sweet Juliet,\n    Thy beauty hath made me effeminate\n    And in my temper soft'ned valour's steel\n\n                      Enter Benvolio.\n\n  Ben. O Romeo, Romeo, brave Mercutio's dead!\n    That gallant spirit hath aspir'd the clouds,\n    Which too untimely here did scorn the earth.\n  Rom. This day's black fate on moe days doth depend;\n    This but begins the woe others must end.\n\n                       Enter Tybalt.\n\n  Ben. Here comes the furious Tybalt back again.\n  Rom. Alive in triumph, and Mercutio slain?\n    Away to heaven respective lenity,\n    And fire-ey'd fury be my conduct now!\n    Now, Tybalt, take the 'villain' back again\n    That late thou gavest me; for Mercutio's soul\n    Is but a little way above our heads,\n    Staying for thine to keep him company.\n    Either thou or I, or both, must go with him.\n  Tyb. Thou, wretched boy, that didst consort him here,\n    Shalt with him hence.\n  Rom. This shall determine that.\n                                       They fight. Tybalt falls.\n  Ben. Romeo, away, be gone!\n    The citizens are up, and Tybalt slain.\n    Stand not amaz'd. The Prince will doom thee death\n    If thou art taken. Hence, be gone, away!\n  Rom. O, I am fortune's fool!\n  Ben. Why dost thou stay?\n                                                     Exit Romeo.\n                      Enter Citizens.\n\n  Citizen. Which way ran he that kill'd Mercutio?\n    Tybalt, that murtherer, which way ran he?\n  Ben. There lies that Tybalt.\n  Citizen. Up, sir, go with me.\n    I charge thee in the Prince's name obey.\n\n  Enter Prince [attended], Old Montague, Capulet, their Wives,\n                     and [others].\n\n  Prince. Where are the vile beginners of this fray?\n  Ben. O noble Prince. I can discover all\n    The unlucky manage of this fatal brawl.\n    There lies the man, slain by young Romeo,\n    That slew thy kinsman, brave Mercutio.\n  Cap. Wife. Tybalt, my cousin! O my brother's child!\n    O Prince! O husband! O, the blood is spill'd\n    Of my dear kinsman! Prince, as thou art true,\n    For blood of ours shed blood of Montague.\n    O cousin, cousin!\n  Prince. Benvolio, who began this bloody fray?\n  Ben. Tybalt, here slain, whom Romeo's hand did stay.\n    Romeo, that spoke him fair, bid him bethink\n    How nice the quarrel was, and urg'd withal\n    Your high displeasure. All this- uttered\n    With gentle breath, calm look, knees humbly bow'd-\n    Could not take truce with the unruly spleen\n    Of Tybalt deaf to peace, but that he tilts\n    With piercing steel at bold Mercutio's breast;\n    Who, all as hot, turns deadly point to point,\n    And, with a martial scorn, with one hand beats\n    Cold death aside and with the other sends\n    It back to Tybalt, whose dexterity\n    Retorts it. Romeo he cries aloud,\n    'Hold, friends! friends, part!' and swifter than his tongue,\n    His agile arm beats down their fatal points,\n    And 'twixt them rushes; underneath whose arm\n    An envious thrust from Tybalt hit the life\n    Of stout Mercutio, and then Tybalt fled;\n    But by-and-by comes back to Romeo,\n    Who had but newly entertain'd revenge,\n    And to't they go like lightning; for, ere I\n    Could draw to part them, was stout Tybalt slain;\n    And, as he fell, did Romeo turn and fly.\n    This is the truth, or let Benvolio die.\n  Cap. Wife. He is a kinsman to the Montague;\n    Affection makes him false, he speaks not true.\n    Some twenty of them fought in this black strife,\n    And all those twenty could but kill one life.\n    I beg for justice, which thou, Prince, must give.\n    Romeo slew Tybalt; Romeo must not live.\n  Prince. Romeo slew him; he slew Mercutio.\n    Who now the price of his dear blood doth owe?\n  Mon. Not Romeo, Prince; he was Mercutio's friend;\n    His fault concludes but what the law should end,\n    The life of Tybalt.\n  Prince. And for that offence\n    Immediately we do exile him hence.\n    I have an interest in your hate's proceeding,\n    My blood for your rude brawls doth lie a-bleeding;\n    But I'll amerce you with so strong a fine\n    That you shall all repent the loss of mine.\n    I will be deaf to pleading and excuses;\n    Nor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses.\n    Therefore use none. Let Romeo hence in haste,\n    Else, when he is found, that hour is his last.\n    Bear hence this body, and attend our will.\n    Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nCapulet's orchard.\n\nEnter Juliet alone.\n\n  Jul. Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,\n    Towards Phoebus' lodging! Such a wagoner\n    As Phaeton would whip you to the West\n    And bring in cloudy night immediately.\n    Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,\n    That runaway eyes may wink, and Romeo\n    Leap to these arms untalk'd of and unseen.\n    Lovers can see to do their amorous rites\n    By their own beauties; or, if love be blind,\n    It best agrees with night. Come, civil night,\n    Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,\n    And learn me how to lose a winning match,\n    Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods.\n    Hood my unmann'd blood, bating in my cheeks,\n    With thy black mantle till strange love, grown bold,\n    Think true love acted simple modesty.\n    Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night;\n    For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night\n    Whiter than new snow upon a raven's back.\n    Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-brow'd night;\n    Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,\n    Take him and cut him out in little stars,\n    And he will make the face of heaven so fine\n    That all the world will be in love with night\n    And pay no worship to the garish sun.\n    O, I have bought the mansion of a love,\n    But not possess'd it; and though I am sold,\n    Not yet enjoy'd. So tedious is this day\n    As is the night before some festival\n    To an impatient child that hath new robes\n    And may not wear them. O, here comes my nurse,\n\n                Enter Nurse, with cords.\n\n    And she brings news; and every tongue that speaks\n    But Romeo's name speaks heavenly eloquence.\n    Now, nurse, what news? What hast thou there? the cords\n    That Romeo bid thee fetch?\n  Nurse. Ay, ay, the cords.\n                                             [Throws them down.]\n  Jul. Ay me! what news? Why dost thou wring thy hands\n  Nurse. Ah, weraday! he's dead, he's dead, he's dead!\n    We are undone, lady, we are undone!\n    Alack the day! he's gone, he's kill'd, he's dead!\n  Jul. Can heaven be so envious?\n  Nurse. Romeo can,\n    Though heaven cannot. O Romeo, Romeo!\n    Who ever would have thought it? Romeo!\n  Jul. What devil art thou that dost torment me thus?\n    This torture should be roar'd in dismal hell.\n    Hath Romeo slain himself? Say thou but 'I,'\n    And that bare vowel 'I' shall poison more\n    Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice.\n    I am not I, if there be such an 'I';\n    Or those eyes shut that make thee answer 'I.'\n    If be be slain, say 'I'; or if not, 'no.'\n    Brief sounds determine of my weal or woe.\n  Nurse. I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes,\n    (God save the mark!) here on his manly breast.\n    A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse;\n    Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaub'd in blood,\n    All in gore-blood. I swounded at the sight.\n  Jul. O, break, my heart! poor bankrout, break at once!\n    To prison, eyes; ne'er look on liberty!\n    Vile earth, to earth resign; end motion here,\n    And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier!\n  Nurse. O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had!\n    O courteous Tybalt! honest gentleman\n    That ever I should live to see thee dead!\n  Jul. What storm is this that blows so contrary?\n    Is Romeo slaught'red, and is Tybalt dead?\n    My dear-lov'd cousin, and my dearer lord?\n    Then, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom!\n    For who is living, if those two are gone?\n  Nurse. Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished;\n    Romeo that kill'd him, he is banished.\n  Jul. O God! Did Romeo's hand shed Tybalt's blood?\n  Nurse. It did, it did! alas the day, it did!\n  Jul. O serpent heart, hid with a flow'ring face!\n    Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?\n    Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!\n    Dove-feather'd raven! wolvish-ravening lamb!\n    Despised substance of divinest show!\n    Just opposite to what thou justly seem'st-\n    A damned saint, an honourable villain!\n    O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell\n    When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend\n    In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh?\n    Was ever book containing such vile matter\n    So fairly bound? O, that deceit should dwell\n    In such a gorgeous palace!\n  Nurse. There's no trust,\n    No faith, no honesty in men; all perjur'd,\n    All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.\n    Ah, where's my man? Give me some aqua vitae.\n    These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.\n    Shame come to Romeo!\n  Jul. Blister'd be thy tongue\n    For such a wish! He was not born to shame.\n    Upon his brow shame is asham'd to sit;\n    For 'tis a throne where honour may be crown'd\n    Sole monarch of the universal earth.\n    O, what a beast was I to chide at him!\n  Nurse. Will you speak well of him that kill'd your cousin?\n  Jul. Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?\n    Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name\n    When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it?\n    But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?\n    That villain cousin would have kill'd my husband.\n    Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring!\n    Your tributary drops belong to woe,\n    Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy.\n    My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain;\n    And Tybalt's dead, that would have slain my husband.\n    All this is comfort; wherefore weep I then?\n    Some word there was, worser than Tybalt's death,\n    That murd'red me. I would forget it fain;\n    But O, it presses to my memory\n    Like damned guilty deeds to sinners' minds!\n    'Tybalt is dead, and Romeo- banished.'\n    That 'banished,' that one word 'banished,'\n    Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt's death\n    Was woe enough, if it had ended there;\n    Or, if sour woe delights in fellowship\n    And needly will be rank'd with other griefs,\n    Why followed not, when she said 'Tybalt's dead,'\n    Thy father, or thy mother, nay, or both,\n    Which modern lamentation might have mov'd?\n    But with a rearward following Tybalt's death,\n    'Romeo is banished'- to speak that word\n    Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,\n    All slain, all dead. 'Romeo is banished'-\n    There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,\n    In that word's death; no words can that woe sound.\n    Where is my father and my mother, nurse?\n  Nurse. Weeping and wailing over Tybalt's corse.\n    Will you go to them? I will bring you thither.\n  Jul. Wash they his wounds with tears? Mine shall be spent,\n    When theirs are dry, for Romeo's banishment.\n    Take up those cords. Poor ropes, you are beguil'd,\n    Both you and I, for Romeo is exil'd.\n    He made you for a highway to my bed;\n    But I, a maid, die maiden-widowed.\n    Come, cords; come, nurse. I'll to my wedding bed;\n    And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!\n  Nurse. Hie to your chamber. I'll find Romeo\n    To comfort you. I wot well where he is.\n    Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at night.\n    I'll to him; he is hid at Laurence' cell.\n  Jul. O, find him! give this ring to my true knight\n    And bid him come to take his last farewell.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nFriar Laurence's cell.\n\nEnter Friar [Laurence].\n\n  Friar. Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful man.\n    Affliction is enanmour'd of thy parts,\n    And thou art wedded to calamity.\n\n                         Enter Romeo.\n\n  Rom. Father, what news? What is the Prince's doom\n    What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand\n    That I yet know not?\n  Friar. Too familiar\n    Is my dear son with such sour company.\n    I bring thee tidings of the Prince's doom.\n  Rom. What less than doomsday is the Prince's doom?\n  Friar. A gentler judgment vanish'd from his lips-\n    Not body's death, but body's banishment.\n  Rom. Ha, banishment? Be merciful, say 'death';\n    For exile hath more terror in his look,\n    Much more than death. Do not say 'banishment.'\n  Friar. Hence from Verona art thou banished.\n    Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.\n  Rom. There is no world without Verona walls,\n    But purgatory, torture, hell itself.\n    Hence banished is banish'd from the world,\n    And world's exile is death. Then 'banishment'\n    Is death misterm'd. Calling death 'banishment,'\n    Thou cut'st my head off with a golden axe\n    And smilest upon the stroke that murders me.\n  Friar. O deadly sin! O rude unthankfulness!\n    Thy fault our law calls death; but the kind Prince,\n    Taking thy part, hath rush'd aside the law,\n    And turn'd that black word death to banishment.\n    This is dear mercy, and thou seest it not.\n  Rom. 'Tis torture, and not mercy. Heaven is here,\n    Where Juliet lives; and every cat and dog\n    And little mouse, every unworthy thing,\n    Live here in heaven and may look on her;\n    But Romeo may not. More validity,\n    More honourable state, more courtship lives\n    In carrion flies than Romeo. They may seize\n    On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand\n    And steal immortal blessing from her lips,\n    Who, even in pure and vestal modesty,\n    Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin;\n    But Romeo may not- he is banished.\n    This may flies do, when I from this must fly;\n    They are free men, but I am banished.\n    And sayest thou yet that exile is not death?\n    Hadst thou no poison mix'd, no sharp-ground knife,\n    No sudden mean of death, though ne'er so mean,\n    But 'banished' to kill me- 'banished'?\n    O friar, the damned use that word in hell;\n    Howling attends it! How hast thou the heart,\n    Being a divine, a ghostly confessor,\n    A sin-absolver, and my friend profess'd,\n    To mangle me with that word 'banished'?\n  Friar. Thou fond mad man, hear me a little speak.\n  Rom. O, thou wilt speak again of banishment.\n  Friar. I'll give thee armour to keep off that word;\n    Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy,\n    To comfort thee, though thou art banished.\n  Rom. Yet 'banished'? Hang up philosophy!\n    Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,\n    Displant a town, reverse a prince's doom,\n    It helps not, it prevails not. Talk no more.\n  Friar. O, then I see that madmen have no ears.\n  Rom. How should they, when that wise men have no eyes?\n  Friar. Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.\n  Rom. Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel.\n    Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,\n    An hour but married, Tybalt murdered,\n    Doting like me, and like me banished,\n    Then mightst thou speak, then mightst thou tear thy hair,\n    And fall upon the ground, as I do now,\n    Taking the measure of an unmade grave.\n                                                 Knock [within].\n  Friar. Arise; one knocks. Good Romeo, hide thyself.\n  Rom. Not I; unless the breath of heartsick groans,\n    Mist-like infold me from the search of eyes.          Knock.\n  Friar. Hark, how they knock! Who's there? Romeo, arise;\n    Thou wilt be taken.- Stay awhile!- Stand up;          Knock.\n    Run to my study.- By-and-by!- God's will,\n    What simpleness is this.- I come, I come!             Knock.\n    Who knocks so hard? Whence come you? What's your will\n  Nurse. [within] Let me come in, and you shall know my errand.\n    I come from Lady Juliet.\n  Friar. Welcome then.\n\n                       Enter Nurse.\n\n  Nurse. O holy friar, O, tell me, holy friar\n    Where is my lady's lord, where's Romeo?\n  Friar. There on the ground, with his own tears made drunk.\n  Nurse. O, he is even in my mistress' case,\n    Just in her case!\n  Friar. O woeful sympathy!\n    Piteous predicament!\n  Nurse. Even so lies she,\n    Blubb'ring and weeping, weeping and blubbering.\n    Stand up, stand up! Stand, an you be a man.\n    For Juliet's sake, for her sake, rise and stand!\n    Why should you fall into so deep an O?\n  Rom. (rises) Nurse-\n  Nurse. Ah sir! ah sir! Well, death's the end of all.\n  Rom. Spakest thou of Juliet? How is it with her?\n    Doth not she think me an old murtherer,\n    Now I have stain'd the childhood of our joy\n    With blood remov'd but little from her own?\n    Where is she? and how doth she! and what says\n    My conceal'd lady to our cancell'd love?\n  Nurse. O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps;\n    And now falls on her bed, and then starts up,\n    And Tybalt calls; and then on Romeo cries,\n    And then down falls again.\n  Rom. As if that name,\n    Shot from the deadly level of a gun,\n    Did murther her; as that name's cursed hand\n    Murder'd her kinsman. O, tell me, friar, tell me,\n    In what vile part of this anatomy\n    Doth my name lodge? Tell me, that I may sack\n    The hateful mansion.                     [Draws his dagger.]\n  Friar. Hold thy desperate hand.\n    Art thou a man? Thy form cries out thou art;\n    Thy tears are womanish, thy wild acts denote\n    The unreasonable fury of a beast.\n    Unseemly woman in a seeming man!\n    Or ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!\n    Thou hast amaz'd me. By my holy order,\n    I thought thy disposition better temper'd.\n    Hast thou slain Tybalt? Wilt thou slay thyself?\n    And slay thy lady that in thy life lives,\n    By doing damned hate upon thyself?\n    Why railest thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth?\n    Since birth and heaven and earth, all three do meet\n    In thee at once; which thou at once wouldst lose.\n    Fie, fie, thou shamest thy shape, thy love, thy wit,\n    Which, like a usurer, abound'st in all,\n    And usest none in that true use indeed\n    Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit.\n    Thy noble shape is but a form of wax\n    Digressing from the valour of a man;\n    Thy dear love sworn but hollow perjury,\n    Killing that love which thou hast vow'd to cherish;\n    Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,\n    Misshapen in the conduct of them both,\n    Like powder in a skilless soldier's flask,\n    is get afire by thine own ignorance,\n    And thou dismemb'red with thine own defence.\n    What, rouse thee, man! Thy Juliet is alive,\n    For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead.\n    There art thou happy. Tybalt would kill thee,\n    But thou slewest Tybalt. There art thou happy too.\n    The law, that threat'ned death, becomes thy friend\n    And turns it to exile. There art thou happy.\n    A pack of blessings light upon thy back;\n    Happiness courts thee in her best array;\n    But, like a misbhav'd and sullen wench,\n    Thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love.\n    Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.\n    Go get thee to thy love, as was decreed,\n    Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her.\n    But look thou stay not till the watch be set,\n    For then thou canst not pass to Mantua,\n    Where thou shalt live till we can find a time\n    To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,\n    Beg pardon of the Prince, and call thee back\n    With twenty hundred thousand times more joy\n    Than thou went'st forth in lamentation.\n    Go before, nurse. Commend me to thy lady,\n    And bid her hasten all the house to bed,\n    Which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto.\n    Romeo is coming.\n  Nurse. O Lord, I could have stay'd here all the night\n    To hear good counsel. O, what learning is!\n    My lord, I'll tell my lady you will come.\n  Rom. Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide.\n  Nurse. Here is a ring she bid me give you, sir.\n    Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late.           Exit.\n  Rom. How well my comfort is reviv'd by this!\n  Friar. Go hence; good night; and here stands all your state:\n    Either be gone before the watch be set,\n    Or by the break of day disguis'd from hence.\n    Sojourn in Mantua. I'll find out your man,\n    And he shall signify from time to time\n    Every good hap to you that chances here.\n    Give me thy hand. 'Tis late. Farewell; good night.\n  Rom. But that a joy past joy calls out on me,\n    It were a grief so brief to part with thee.\n    Farewell.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nCapulet's house\n\nEnter Old Capulet, his Wife, and Paris.\n\n  Cap. Things have fall'n out, sir, so unluckily\n    That we have had no time to move our daughter.\n    Look you, she lov'd her kinsman Tybalt dearly,\n    And so did I. Well, we were born to die.\n    'Tis very late; she'll not come down to-night.\n    I promise you, but for your company,\n    I would have been abed an hour ago.\n  Par. These times of woe afford no tune to woo.\n    Madam, good night. Commend me to your daughter.\n  Lady. I will, and know her mind early to-morrow;\n    To-night she's mew'd up to her heaviness.\n  Cap. Sir Paris, I will make a desperate tender\n    Of my child's love. I think she will be rul'd\n    In all respects by me; nay more, I doubt it not.\n    Wife, go you to her ere you go to bed;\n    Acquaint her here of my son Paris' love\n    And bid her (mark you me?) on Wednesday next-\n    But, soft! what day is this?\n  Par. Monday, my lord.\n  Cap. Monday! ha, ha! Well, Wednesday is too soon.\n    Thursday let it be- a Thursday, tell her\n    She shall be married to this noble earl.\n    Will you be ready? Do you like this haste?\n    We'll keep no great ado- a friend or two;\n    For hark you, Tybalt being slain so late,\n    It may be thought we held him carelessly,\n    Being our kinsman, if we revel much.\n    Therefore we'll have some half a dozen friends,\n    And there an end. But what say you to Thursday?\n  Par. My lord, I would that Thursday were to-morrow.\n  Cap. Well, get you gone. A Thursday be it then.\n    Go you to Juliet ere you go to bed;\n    Prepare her, wife, against this wedding day.\n    Farewell, My lord.- Light to my chamber, ho!\n    Afore me, It is so very very late\n    That we may call it early by-and-by.\n    Good night.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nScene V.\nCapulet's orchard.\n\nEnter Romeo and Juliet aloft, at the Window.\n\n  Jul. Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day.\n    It was the nightingale, and not the lark,\n    That pierc'd the fearful hollow of thine ear.\n    Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate tree.\n    Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.\n  Rom. It was the lark, the herald of the morn;\n    No nightingale. Look, love, what envious streaks\n    Do lace the severing clouds in yonder East.\n    Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day\n    Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.\n    I must be gone and live, or stay and die.\n  Jul. Yond light is not daylight; I know it, I.\n    It is some meteor that the sun exhales\n    To be to thee this night a torchbearer\n    And light thee on the way to Mantua.\n    Therefore stay yet; thou need'st not to be gone.\n  Rom. Let me be ta'en, let me be put to death.\n    I am content, so thou wilt have it so.\n    I'll say yon grey is not the morning's eye,\n    'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow;\n    Nor that is not the lark whose notes do beat\n    The vaulty heaven so high above our heads.\n    I have more care to stay than will to go.\n    Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so.\n    How is't, my soul? Let's talk; it is not day.\n  Jul. It is, it is! Hie hence, be gone, away!\n    It is the lark that sings so out of tune,\n    Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.\n    Some say the lark makes sweet division;\n    This doth not so, for she divideth us.\n    Some say the lark and loathed toad chang'd eyes;\n    O, now I would they had chang'd voices too,\n    Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,\n    Hunting thee hence with hunt's-up to the day!\n    O, now be gone! More light and light it grows.\n  Rom. More light and light- more dark and dark our woes!\n\n                          Enter Nurse.\n\n  Nurse. Madam!\n  Jul. Nurse?\n  Nurse. Your lady mother is coming to your chamber.\n    The day is broke; be wary, look about.\n  Jul. Then, window, let day in, and let life out.\n                                                         [Exit.]\n  Rom. Farewell, farewell! One kiss, and I'll descend.\n                                                  He goeth down.\n  Jul. Art thou gone so, my lord, my love, my friend?\n    I must hear from thee every day in the hour,\n    For in a minute there are many days.\n    O, by this count I shall be much in years\n    Ere I again behold my Romeo!\n  Rom. Farewell!\n    I will omit no opportunity\n    That may convey my greetings, love, to thee.\n  Jul. O, think'st thou we shall ever meet again?\n  Rom. I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve\n    For sweet discourses in our time to come.\n  Jul. O God, I have an ill-divining soul!\n    Methinks I see thee, now thou art below,\n    As one dead in the bottom of a tomb.\n    Either my eyesight fails, or thou look'st pale.\n  Rom. And trust me, love, in my eye so do you.\n    Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu!\nExit.\n  Jul. O Fortune, Fortune! all men call thee fickle.\n    If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him\n    That is renown'd for faith? Be fickle, Fortune,\n    For then I hope thou wilt not keep him long\n    But send him back.\n  Lady. [within] Ho, daughter! are you up?\n  Jul. Who is't that calls? It is my lady mother.\n    Is she not down so late, or up so early?\n    What unaccustom'd cause procures her hither?\n\n                       Enter Mother.\n\n  Lady. Why, how now, Juliet?\n  Jul. Madam, I am not well.\n  Lady. Evermore weeping for your cousin's death?\n    What, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears?\n    An if thou couldst, thou couldst not make him live.\n    Therefore have done. Some grief shows much of love;\n    But much of grief shows still some want of wit.\n  Jul. Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss.\n  Lady. So shall you feel the loss, but not the friend\n    Which you weep for.\n  Jul. Feeling so the loss,\n    I cannot choose but ever weep the friend.\n  Lady. Well, girl, thou weep'st not so much for his death\n    As that the villain lives which slaughter'd him.\n  Jul. What villain, madam?\n  Lady. That same villain Romeo.\n  Jul. [aside] Villain and he be many miles asunder.-\n    God pardon him! I do, with all my heart;\n    And yet no man like he doth grieve my heart.\n  Lady. That is because the traitor murderer lives.\n  Jul. Ay, madam, from the reach of these my hands.\n    Would none but I might venge my cousin's death!\n  Lady. We will have vengeance for it, fear thou not.\n    Then weep no more. I'll send to one in Mantua,\n    Where that same banish'd runagate doth live,\n    Shall give him such an unaccustom'd dram\n    That he shall soon keep Tybalt company;\n    And then I hope thou wilt be satisfied.\n  Jul. Indeed I never shall be satisfied\n    With Romeo till I behold him- dead-\n    Is my poor heart so for a kinsman vex'd.\n    Madam, if you could find out but a man\n    To bear a poison, I would temper it;\n    That Romeo should, upon receipt thereof,\n    Soon sleep in quiet. O, how my heart abhors\n    To hear him nam'd and cannot come to him,\n    To wreak the love I bore my cousin Tybalt\n    Upon his body that hath slaughter'd him!\n  Lady. Find thou the means, and I'll find such a man.\n    But now I'll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.\n  Jul. And joy comes well in such a needy time.\n    What are they, I beseech your ladyship?\n  Lady. Well, well, thou hast a careful father, child;\n    One who, to put thee from thy heaviness,\n    Hath sorted out a sudden day of joy\n    That thou expects not nor I look'd not for.\n  Jul. Madam, in happy time! What day is that?\n  Lady. Marry, my child, early next Thursday morn\n    The gallant, young, and noble gentleman,\n    The County Paris, at Saint Peter's Church,\n    Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride.\n  Jul. Now by Saint Peter's Church, and Peter too,\n    He shall not make me there a joyful bride!\n    I wonder at this haste, that I must wed\n    Ere he that should be husband comes to woo.\n    I pray you tell my lord and father, madam,\n    I will not marry yet; and when I do, I swear\n    It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate,\n    Rather than Paris. These are news indeed!\n  Lady. Here comes your father. Tell him so yourself,\n    And see how be will take it at your hands.\n\n                   Enter Capulet and Nurse.\n\n  Cap. When the sun sets the air doth drizzle dew,\n    But for the sunset of my brother's son\n    It rains downright.\n    How now? a conduit, girl? What, still in tears?\n    Evermore show'ring? In one little body\n    Thou counterfeit'st a bark, a sea, a wind:\n    For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea,\n    Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is\n    Sailing in this salt flood; the winds, thy sighs,\n    Who, raging with thy tears and they with them,\n    Without a sudden calm will overset\n    Thy tempest-tossed body. How now, wife?\n    Have you delivered to her our decree?\n  Lady. Ay, sir; but she will none, she gives you thanks.\n    I would the fool were married to her grave!\n  Cap. Soft! take me with you, take me with you, wife.\n    How? Will she none? Doth she not give us thanks?\n    Is she not proud? Doth she not count her blest,\n    Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought\n    So worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom?\n  Jul. Not proud you have, but thankful that you have.\n    Proud can I never be of what I hate,\n    But thankful even for hate that is meant love.\n  Cap. How, how, how, how, choplogic? What is this?\n    'Proud'- and 'I thank you'- and 'I thank you not'-\n    And yet 'not proud'? Mistress minion you,\n    Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds,\n    But fettle your fine joints 'gainst Thursday next\n    To go with Paris to Saint Peter's Church,\n    Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.\n    Out, you green-sickness carrion I out, you baggage!\n    You tallow-face!\n  Lady. Fie, fie! what, are you mad?\n  Jul. Good father, I beseech you on my knees,\n    Hear me with patience but to speak a word.\n  Cap. Hang thee, young baggage! disobedient wretch!\n    I tell thee what- get thee to church a Thursday\n    Or never after look me in the face.\n    Speak not, reply not, do not answer me!\n    My fingers itch. Wife, we scarce thought us blest\n    That God had lent us but this only child;\n    But now I see this one is one too much,\n    And that we have a curse in having her.\n    Out on her, hilding!\n  Nurse. God in heaven bless her!\n    You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.\n  Cap. And why, my Lady Wisdom? Hold your tongue,\n    Good Prudence. Smatter with your gossips, go!\n  Nurse. I speak no treason.\n  Cap. O, God-i-god-en!\n  Nurse. May not one speak?\n  Cap. Peace, you mumbling fool!\n    Utter your gravity o'er a gossip's bowl,\n    For here we need it not.\n  Lady. You are too hot.\n  Cap. God's bread I it makes me mad. Day, night, late, early,\n    At home, abroad, alone, in company,\n    Waking or sleeping, still my care hath been\n    To have her match'd; and having now provided\n    A gentleman of princely parentage,\n    Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly train'd,\n    Stuff'd, as they say, with honourable parts,\n    Proportion'd as one's thought would wish a man-\n    And then to have a wretched puling fool,\n    A whining mammet, in her fortune's tender,\n    To answer 'I'll not wed, I cannot love;\n    I am too young, I pray you pardon me'!\n    But, an you will not wed, I'll pardon you.\n    Graze where you will, you shall not house with me.\n    Look to't, think on't; I do not use to jest.\n    Thursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise:\n    An you be mine, I'll give you to my friend;\n    An you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets,\n    For, by my soul, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee,\n    Nor what is mine shall never do thee good.\n    Trust to't. Bethink you. I'll not be forsworn.         Exit.\n  Jul. Is there no pity sitting in the clouds\n    That sees into the bottom of my grief?\n    O sweet my mother, cast me not away!\n    Delay this marriage for a month, a week;\n    Or if you do not, make the bridal bed\n    In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.\n  Lady. Talk not to me, for I'll not speak a word.\n    Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.            Exit.\n  Jul. O God!- O nurse, how shall this be prevented?\n    My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven.\n    How shall that faith return again to earth\n    Unless that husband send it me from heaven\n    By leaving earth? Comfort me, counsel me.\n    Alack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems\n    Upon so soft a subject as myself!\n    What say'st thou? Hast thou not a word of joy?\n    Some comfort, nurse.\n  Nurse. Faith, here it is.\n    Romeo is banish'd; and all the world to nothing\n    That he dares ne'er come back to challenge you;\n    Or if he do, it needs must be by stealth.\n    Then, since the case so stands as now it doth,\n    I think it best you married with the County.\n    O, he's a lovely gentleman!\n    Romeo's a dishclout to him. An eagle, madam,\n    Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye\n    As Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart,\n    I think you are happy in this second match,\n    For it excels your first; or if it did not,\n    Your first is dead- or 'twere as good he were\n    As living here and you no use of him.\n  Jul. Speak'st thou this from thy heart?\n  Nurse. And from my soul too; else beshrew them both.\n  Jul. Amen!\n  Nurse. What?\n  Jul. Well, thou hast comforted me marvellous much.\n    Go in; and tell my lady I am gone,\n    Having displeas'd my father, to Laurence' cell,\n    To make confession and to be absolv'd.\n  Nurse. Marry, I will; and this is wisely done.           Exit.\n  Jul. Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend!\n    Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn,\n    Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue\n    Which she hath prais'd him with above compare\n    So many thousand times? Go, counsellor!\n    Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.\n    I'll to the friar to know his remedy.\n    If all else fail, myself have power to die.            Exit.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. Scene I.\nFriar Laurence's cell.\n\nEnter Friar, [Laurence] and County Paris.\n\n  Friar. On Thursday, sir? The time is very short.\n  Par. My father Capulet will have it so,\n    And I am nothing slow to slack his haste.\n  Friar. You say you do not know the lady's mind.\n    Uneven is the course; I like it not.\n  Par. Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt's death,\n    And therefore have I little talk'd of love;\n    For Venus smiles not in a house of tears.\n    Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous\n    That she do give her sorrow so much sway,\n    And in his wisdom hastes our marriage\n    To stop the inundation of her tears,\n    Which, too much minded by herself alone,\n    May be put from her by society.\n    Now do you know the reason of this haste.\n  Friar. [aside] I would I knew not why it should be slow'd.-\n    Look, sir, here comes the lady toward my cell.\n\n                    Enter Juliet.\n\n  Par. Happily met, my lady and my wife!\n  Jul. That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.\n  Par. That may be must be, love, on Thursday next.\n  Jul. What must be shall be.\n  Friar. That's a certain text.\n  Par. Come you to make confession to this father?\n  Jul. To answer that, I should confess to you.\n  Par. Do not deny to him that you love me.\n  Jul. I will confess to you that I love him.\n  Par. So will ye, I am sure, that you love me.\n  Jul. If I do so, it will be of more price,\n    Being spoke behind your back, than to your face.\n  Par. Poor soul, thy face is much abus'd with tears.\n  Jul. The tears have got small victory by that,\n    For it was bad enough before their spite.\n  Par. Thou wrong'st it more than tears with that report.\n  Jul. That is no slander, sir, which is a truth;\n    And what I spake, I spake it to my face.\n  Par. Thy face is mine, and thou hast sland'red it.\n  Jul. It may be so, for it is not mine own.\n    Are you at leisure, holy father, now,\n    Or shall I come to you at evening mass\n  Friar. My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now.\n    My lord, we must entreat the time alone.\n  Par. God shield I should disturb devotion!\n    Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye.\n    Till then, adieu, and keep this holy kiss.             Exit.\n  Jul. O, shut the door! and when thou hast done so,\n    Come weep with me- past hope, past cure, past help!\n  Friar. Ah, Juliet, I already know thy grief;\n    It strains me past the compass of my wits.\n    I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it,\n    On Thursday next be married to this County.\n  Jul. Tell me not, friar, that thou hear'st of this,\n    Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it.\n    If in thy wisdom thou canst give no help,\n    Do thou but call my resolution wise\n    And with this knife I'll help it presently.\n    God join'd my heart and Romeo's, thou our hands;\n    And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo's seal'd,\n    Shall be the label to another deed,\n    Or my true heart with treacherous revolt\n    Turn to another, this shall slay them both.\n    Therefore, out of thy long-experienc'd time,\n    Give me some present counsel; or, behold,\n    'Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife\n    Shall play the empire, arbitrating that\n    Which the commission of thy years and art\n    Could to no issue of true honour bring.\n    Be not so long to speak. I long to die\n    If what thou speak'st speak not of remedy.\n  Friar. Hold, daughter. I do spy a kind of hope,\n    Which craves as desperate an execution\n    As that is desperate which we would prevent.\n    If, rather than to marry County Paris\n    Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,\n    Then is it likely thou wilt undertake\n    A thing like death to chide away this shame,\n    That cop'st with death himself to scape from it;\n    And, if thou dar'st, I'll give thee remedy.\n  Jul. O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,\n    From off the battlements of yonder tower,\n    Or walk in thievish ways, or bid me lurk\n    Where serpents are; chain me with roaring bears,\n    Or shut me nightly in a charnel house,\n    O'ercover'd quite with dead men's rattling bones,\n    With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls;\n    Or bid me go into a new-made grave\n    And hide me with a dead man in his shroud-\n    Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble-\n    And I will do it without fear or doubt,\n    To live an unstain'd wife to my sweet love.\n  Friar. Hold, then. Go home, be merry, give consent\n    To marry Paris. Wednesday is to-morrow.\n    To-morrow night look that thou lie alone;\n    Let not the nurse lie with thee in thy chamber.\n    Take thou this vial, being then in bed,\n    And this distilled liquor drink thou off;\n    When presently through all thy veins shall run\n    A cold and drowsy humour; for no pulse\n    Shall keep his native progress, but surcease;\n    No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou livest;\n    The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade\n    To paly ashes, thy eyes' windows fall\n    Like death when he shuts up the day of life;\n    Each part, depriv'd of supple government,\n    Shall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death;\n    And in this borrowed likeness of shrunk death\n    Thou shalt continue two-and-forty hours,\n    And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.\n    Now, when the bridegroom in the morning comes\n    To rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead.\n    Then, as the manner of our country is,\n    In thy best robes uncovered on the bier\n    Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault\n    Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie.\n    In the mean time, against thou shalt awake,\n    Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift;\n    And hither shall he come; and he and I\n    Will watch thy waking, and that very night\n    Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.\n    And this shall free thee from this present shame,\n    If no inconstant toy nor womanish fear\n    Abate thy valour in the acting it.\n  Jul. Give me, give me! O, tell not me of fear!\n  Friar. Hold! Get you gone, be strong and prosperous\n    In this resolve. I'll send a friar with speed\n    To Mantua, with my letters to thy lord.\n  Jul. Love give me strength! and strength shall help afford.\n    Farewell, dear father.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nCapulet's house.\n\nEnter Father Capulet, Mother, Nurse, and Servingmen,\n                        two or three.\n\n  Cap. So many guests invite as here are writ.\n                                            [Exit a Servingman.]\n    Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks.\n  Serv. You shall have none ill, sir; for I'll try if they can lick\n    their fingers.\n  Cap. How canst thou try them so?\n  Serv. Marry, sir, 'tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own\n    fingers. Therefore he that cannot lick his fingers goes not with\n    me.\n  Cap. Go, begone.\n                                                Exit Servingman.\n    We shall be much unfurnish'd for this time.\n    What, is my daughter gone to Friar Laurence?\n  Nurse. Ay, forsooth.\n  Cap. Well, be may chance to do some good on her.\n    A peevish self-will'd harlotry it is.\n\n                        Enter Juliet.\n\n  Nurse. See where she comes from shrift with merry look.\n  Cap. How now, my headstrong? Where have you been gadding?\n  Jul. Where I have learnt me to repent the sin\n    Of disobedient opposition\n    To you and your behests, and am enjoin'd\n    By holy Laurence to fall prostrate here\n    To beg your pardon. Pardon, I beseech you!\n    Henceforward I am ever rul'd by you.\n  Cap. Send for the County. Go tell him of this.\n    I'll have this knot knit up to-morrow morning.\n  Jul. I met the youthful lord at Laurence' cell\n    And gave him what becomed love I might,\n    Not stepping o'er the bounds of modesty.\n  Cap. Why, I am glad on't. This is well. Stand up.\n    This is as't should be. Let me see the County.\n    Ay, marry, go, I say, and fetch him hither.\n    Now, afore God, this reverend holy friar,\n    All our whole city is much bound to him.\n  Jul. Nurse, will you go with me into my closet\n    To help me sort such needful ornaments\n    As you think fit to furnish me to-morrow?\n  Mother. No, not till Thursday. There is time enough.\n  Cap. Go, nurse, go with her. We'll to church to-morrow.\n                                        Exeunt Juliet and Nurse.\n  Mother. We shall be short in our provision.\n    'Tis now near night.\n  Cap. Tush, I will stir about,\n    And all things shall be well, I warrant thee, wife.\n    Go thou to Juliet, help to deck up her.\n    I'll not to bed to-night; let me alone.\n    I'll play the housewife for this once. What, ho!\n    They are all forth; well, I will walk myself\n    To County Paris, to prepare him up\n    Against to-morrow. My heart is wondrous light,\n    Since this same wayward girl is so reclaim'd.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nJuliet's chamber.\n\nEnter Juliet and Nurse.\n\n  Jul. Ay, those attires are best; but, gentle nurse,\n    I pray thee leave me to myself to-night;\n    For I have need of many orisons\n    To move the heavens to smile upon my state,\n    Which, well thou knowest, is cross and full of sin.\n\n                          Enter Mother.\n\n  Mother. What, are you busy, ho? Need you my help?\n  Jul. No, madam; we have cull'd such necessaries\n    As are behooffull for our state to-morrow.\n    So please you, let me now be left alone,\n    And let the nurse this night sit up with you;\n    For I am sure you have your hands full all\n    In this so sudden business.\n  Mother. Good night.\n    Get thee to bed, and rest; for thou hast need.\n                                      Exeunt [Mother and Nurse.]\n  Jul. Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again.\n    I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins\n    That almost freezes up the heat of life.\n    I'll call them back again to comfort me.\n    Nurse!- What should she do here?\n    My dismal scene I needs must act alone.\n    Come, vial.\n    What if this mixture do not work at all?\n    Shall I be married then to-morrow morning?\n    No, No! This shall forbid it. Lie thou there.\n                                             Lays down a dagger.\n    What if it be a poison which the friar\n    Subtilly hath minist'red to have me dead,\n    Lest in this marriage he should be dishonour'd\n    Because he married me before to Romeo?\n    I fear it is; and yet methinks it should not,\n    For he hath still been tried a holy man.\n    I will not entertain so bad a thought.\n    How if, when I am laid into the tomb,\n    I wake before the time that Romeo\n    Come to redeem me? There's a fearful point!\n    Shall I not then be stifled in the vault,\n    To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,\n    And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?\n    Or, if I live, is it not very like\n    The horrible conceit of death and night,\n    Together with the terror of the place-\n    As in a vault, an ancient receptacle\n    Where for this many hundred years the bones\n    Of all my buried ancestors are pack'd;\n    Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,\n    Lies fest'ring in his shroud; where, as they say,\n    At some hours in the night spirits resort-\n    Alack, alack, is it not like that I,\n    So early waking- what with loathsome smells,\n    And shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth,\n    That living mortals, hearing them, run mad-\n    O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught,\n    Environed with all these hideous fears,\n    And madly play with my forefathers' joints,\n    And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud.,\n    And, in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone\n    As with a club dash out my desp'rate brains?\n    O, look! methinks I see my cousin's ghost\n    Seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body\n    Upon a rapier's point. Stay, Tybalt, stay!\n    Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee.\n\n        She [drinks and] falls upon her bed within the curtains.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nCapulet's house.\n\nEnter Lady of the House and Nurse.\n\n  Lady. Hold, take these keys and fetch more spices, nurse.\n  Nurse. They call for dates and quinces in the pastry.\n\n                       Enter Old Capulet.\n\n  Cap. Come, stir, stir, stir! The second cock hath crow'd,\n    The curfew bell hath rung, 'tis three o'clock.\n    Look to the bak'd meats, good Angelica;\n    Spare not for cost.\n  Nurse. Go, you cot-quean, go,\n    Get you to bed! Faith, you'll be sick to-morrow\n    For this night's watching.\n  Cap. No, not a whit. What, I have watch'd ere now\n    All night for lesser cause, and ne'er been sick.\n  Lady. Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt in your time;\n    But I will watch you from such watching now.\n                                          Exeunt Lady and Nurse.\n  Cap. A jealous hood, a jealous hood!\n\n  Enter three or four [Fellows, with spits and logs and baskets.\n\n    What is there? Now, fellow,\n  Fellow. Things for the cook, sir; but I know not what.\n  Cap. Make haste, make haste. [Exit Fellow.] Sirrah, fetch drier\n      logs.\n    Call Peter; he will show thee where they are.\n  Fellow. I have a head, sir, that will find out logs\n    And never trouble Peter for the matter.\n  Cap. Mass, and well said; a merry whoreson, ha!\n    Thou shalt be loggerhead. [Exit Fellow.] Good faith, 'tis day.\n    The County will be here with music straight,\n    For so he said he would.                         Play music.\n    I hear him near.\n    Nurse! Wife! What, ho! What, nurse, I say!\n\n                              Enter Nurse.\n    Go waken Juliet; go and trim her up.\n    I'll go and chat with Paris. Hie, make haste,\n    Make haste! The bridegroom he is come already:\n    Make haste, I say.\n                                                       [Exeunt.]\n\n\n\n\nScene V.\nJuliet's chamber.\n\n[Enter Nurse.]\n\n  Nurse. Mistress! what, mistress! Juliet! Fast, I warrant her, she.\n    Why, lamb! why, lady! Fie, you slug-abed!\n    Why, love, I say! madam! sweetheart! Why, bride!\n    What, not a word? You take your pennyworths now!\n    Sleep for a week; for the next night, I warrant,\n    The County Paris hath set up his rest\n    That you shall rest but little. God forgive me!\n    Marry, and amen. How sound is she asleep!\n    I needs must wake her. Madam, madam, madam!\n    Ay, let the County take you in your bed!\n    He'll fright you up, i' faith. Will it not be?\n                                     [Draws aside the curtains.]\n    What, dress'd, and in your clothes, and down again?\n    I must needs wake you. Lady! lady! lady!\n    Alas, alas! Help, help! My lady's dead!\n    O weraday that ever I was born!\n    Some aqua-vitae, ho! My lord! my lady!\n\n                           Enter Mother.\n\n  Mother. What noise is here?\n  Nurse. O lamentable day!\n  Mother. What is the matter?\n  Nurse. Look, look! O heavy day!\n  Mother. O me, O me! My child, my only life!\n    Revive, look up, or I will die with thee!\n    Help, help! Call help.\n\n                            Enter Father.\n\n  Father. For shame, bring Juliet forth; her lord is come.\n  Nurse. She's dead, deceas'd; she's dead! Alack the day!\n  Mother. Alack the day, she's dead, she's dead, she's dead!\n  Cap. Ha! let me see her. Out alas! she's cold,\n    Her blood is settled, and her joints are stiff;\n    Life and these lips have long been separated.\n    Death lies on her like an untimely frost\n    Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.\n  Nurse. O lamentable day!\n  Mother. O woful time!\n  Cap. Death, that hath ta'en her hence to make me wail,\n    Ties up my tongue and will not let me speak.\n\n  Enter Friar [Laurence] and the County [Paris], with Musicians.\n\n  Friar. Come, is the bride ready to go to church?\n  Cap. Ready to go, but never to return.\n    O son, the night before thy wedding day\n    Hath Death lain with thy wife. See, there she lies,\n    Flower as she was, deflowered by him.\n    Death is my son-in-law, Death is my heir;\n    My daughter he hath wedded. I will die\n    And leave him all. Life, living, all is Death's.\n  Par. Have I thought long to see this morning's face,\n    And doth it give me such a sight as this?\n  Mother. Accurs'd, unhappy, wretched, hateful day!\n    Most miserable hour that e'er time saw\n    In lasting labour of his pilgrimage!\n    But one, poor one, one poor and loving child,\n    But one thing to rejoice and solace in,\n    And cruel Death hath catch'd it from my sight!\n  Nurse. O woe? O woful, woful, woful day!\n    Most lamentable day, most woful day\n    That ever ever I did yet behold!\n    O day! O day! O day! O hateful day!\n    Never was seen so black a day as this.\n    O woful day! O woful day!\n  Par. Beguil'd, divorced, wronged, spited, slain!\n    Most detestable Death, by thee beguil'd,\n    By cruel cruel thee quite overthrown!\n    O love! O life! not life, but love in death\n  Cap. Despis'd, distressed, hated, martyr'd, kill'd!\n    Uncomfortable time, why cam'st thou now\n    To murther, murther our solemnity?\n    O child! O child! my soul, and not my child!\n    Dead art thou, dead! alack, my child is dead,\n    And with my child my joys are buried!\n  Friar. Peace, ho, for shame! Confusion's cure lives not\n    In these confusions. Heaven and yourself\n    Had part in this fair maid! now heaven hath all,\n    And all the better is it for the maid.\n    Your part in her you could not keep from death,\n    But heaven keeps his part in eternal life.\n    The most you sought was her promotion,\n    For 'twas your heaven she should be advanc'd;\n    And weep ye now, seeing she is advanc'd\n    Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself?\n    O, in this love, you love your child so ill\n    That you run mad, seeing that she is well.\n    She's not well married that lives married long,\n    But she's best married that dies married young.\n    Dry up your tears and stick your rosemary\n    On this fair corse, and, as the custom is,\n    In all her best array bear her to church;\n    For though fond nature bids us all lament,\n    Yet nature's tears are reason's merriment.\n  Cap. All things that we ordained festival\n    Turn from their office to black funeral-\n    Our instruments to melancholy bells,\n    Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast;\n    Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change;\n    Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse;\n    And all things change them to the contrary.\n  Friar. Sir, go you in; and, madam, go with him;\n    And go, Sir Paris. Every one prepare\n    To follow this fair corse unto her grave.\n    The heavens do low'r upon you for some ill;\n    Move them no more by crossing their high will.\n                           Exeunt. Manent Musicians [and Nurse].\n  1. Mus. Faith, we may put up our pipes and be gone.\n  Nurse. Honest good fellows, ah, put up, put up!\n    For well you know this is a pitiful case.            [Exit.]\n  1. Mus. Ay, by my troth, the case may be amended.\n\n                         Enter Peter.\n\n  Pet. Musicians, O, musicians, 'Heart's ease,' 'Heart's ease'!\n    O, an you will have me live, play 'Heart's ease.'\n  1. Mus. Why 'Heart's ease'',\n  Pet. O, musicians, because my heart itself plays 'My heart is full\n    of woe.' O, play me some merry dump to comfort me.\n  1. Mus. Not a dump we! 'Tis no time to play now.\n  Pet. You will not then?\n  1. Mus. No.\n  Pet. I will then give it you soundly.\n  1. Mus. What will you give us?\n  Pet. No money, on my faith, but the gleek. I will give you the\n     minstrel.\n  1. Mus. Then will I give you the serving-creature.\n  Pet. Then will I lay the serving-creature's dagger on your pate.\n    I will carry no crotchets. I'll re you, I'll fa you. Do you note\n    me?\n  1. Mus. An you re us and fa us, you note us.\n  2. Mus. Pray you put up your dagger, and put out your wit.\n  Pet. Then have at you with my wit! I will dry-beat you with an iron\n    wit, and put up my iron dagger. Answer me like men.\n\n           'When griping grief the heart doth wound,\n             And doleful dumps the mind oppress,\n           Then music with her silver sound'-\n\n    Why 'silver sound'? Why 'music with her silver sound'?\n    What say you, Simon Catling?\n  1. Mus. Marry, sir, because silver hath a sweet sound.\n  Pet. Pretty! What say You, Hugh Rebeck?\n  2. Mus. I say 'silver sound' because musicians sound for silver.\n  Pet. Pretty too! What say you, James Soundpost?\n  3. Mus. Faith, I know not what to say.\n  Pet. O, I cry you mercy! you are the singer. I will say for you. It\n    is 'music with her silver sound' because musicians have no gold\n    for sounding.\n\n           'Then music with her silver sound\n             With speedy help doth lend redress.'         [Exit.\n\n  1. Mus. What a pestilent knave is this same?\n  2. Mus. Hang him, Jack! Come, we'll in here, tarry for the\n    mourners, and stay dinner.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. Scene I.\nMantua. A street.\n\nEnter Romeo.\n\n  Rom. If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep\n    My dreams presage some joyful news at hand.\n    My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne,\n    And all this day an unaccustom'd spirit\n    Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.\n    I dreamt my lady came and found me dead\n    (Strange dream that gives a dead man leave to think!)\n    And breath'd such life with kisses in my lips\n    That I reviv'd and was an emperor.\n    Ah me! how sweet is love itself possess'd,\n    When but love's shadows are so rich in joy!\n\n                Enter Romeo's Man Balthasar, booted.\n\n    News from Verona! How now, Balthasar?\n    Dost thou not bring me letters from the friar?\n    How doth my lady? Is my father well?\n    How fares my Juliet? That I ask again,\n    For nothing can be ill if she be well.\n  Man. Then she is well, and nothing can be ill.\n    Her body sleeps in Capel's monument,\n    And her immortal part with angels lives.\n    I saw her laid low in her kindred's vault\n    And presently took post to tell it you.\n    O, pardon me for bringing these ill news,\n    Since you did leave it for my office, sir.\n  Rom. Is it e'en so? Then I defy you, stars!\n    Thou knowest my lodging. Get me ink and paper\n    And hire posthorses. I will hence to-night.\n  Man. I do beseech you, sir, have patience.\n    Your looks are pale and wild and do import\n    Some misadventure.\n  Rom. Tush, thou art deceiv'd.\n    Leave me and do the thing I bid thee do.\n    Hast thou no letters to me from the friar?\n  Man. No, my good lord.\n  Rom. No matter. Get thee gone\n    And hire those horses. I'll be with thee straight.\n                                               Exit [Balthasar].\n    Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night.\n    Let's see for means. O mischief, thou art swift\n    To enter in the thoughts of desperate men!\n    I do remember an apothecary,\n    And hereabouts 'a dwells, which late I noted\n    In tatt'red weeds, with overwhelming brows,\n    Culling of simples. Meagre were his looks,\n    Sharp misery had worn him to the bones;\n    And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,\n    An alligator stuff'd, and other skins\n    Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves\n    A beggarly account of empty boxes,\n    Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds,\n    Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses\n    Were thinly scattered, to make up a show.\n    Noting this penury, to myself I said,\n    'An if a man did need a poison now\n    Whose sale is present death in Mantua,\n    Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.'\n    O, this same thought did but forerun my need,\n    And this same needy man must sell it me.\n    As I remember, this should be the house.\n    Being holiday, the beggar's shop is shut. What, ho! apothecary!\n\n                        Enter Apothecary.\n\n  Apoth. Who calls so loud?\n  Rom. Come hither, man. I see that thou art poor.\n    Hold, there is forty ducats. Let me have\n    A dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear\n    As will disperse itself through all the veins\n    That the life-weary taker mall fall dead,\n    And that the trunk may be discharg'd of breath\n    As violently as hasty powder fir'd\n    Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb.\n  Apoth. Such mortal drugs I have; but Mantua's law\n    Is death to any he that utters them.\n  Rom. Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness\n    And fearest to die? Famine is in thy cheeks,\n    Need and oppression starveth in thine eyes,\n    Contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back:\n    The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law;\n    The world affords no law to make thee rich;\n    Then be not poor, but break it and take this.\n  Apoth. My poverty but not my will consents.\n  Rom. I pay thy poverty and not thy will.\n  Apoth. Put this in any liquid thing you will\n    And drink it off, and if you had the strength\n    Of twenty men, it would dispatch you straight.\n  Rom. There is thy gold- worse poison to men's souls,\n    Doing more murther in this loathsome world,\n    Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell.\n    I sell thee poison; thou hast sold me none.\n    Farewell. Buy food and get thyself in flesh.\n    Come, cordial and not poison, go with me\n    To Juliet's grave; for there must I use thee.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nVerona. Friar Laurence's cell.\n\nEnter Friar John to Friar Laurence.\n\n  John. Holy Franciscan friar, brother, ho!\n\n                      Enter Friar Laurence.\n\n  Laur. This same should be the voice of Friar John.\n    Welcome from Mantua. What says Romeo?\n    Or, if his mind be writ, give me his letter.\n  John. Going to find a barefoot brother out,\n    One of our order, to associate me\n    Here in this city visiting the sick,\n    And finding him, the searchers of the town,\n    Suspecting that we both were in a house\n    Where the infectious pestilence did reign,\n    Seal'd up the doors, and would not let us forth,\n    So that my speed to Mantua there was stay'd.\n  Laur. Who bare my letter, then, to Romeo?\n  John. I could not send it- here it is again-\n    Nor get a messenger to bring it thee,\n    So fearful were they of infection.\n  Laur. Unhappy fortune! By my brotherhood,\n    The letter was not nice, but full of charge,\n    Of dear import; and the neglecting it\n    May do much danger. Friar John, go hence,\n    Get me an iron crow and bring it straight\n    Unto my cell.\n  John. Brother, I'll go and bring it thee.                 Exit.\n  Laur. Now, must I to the monument alone.\n    Within this three hours will fair Juliet wake.\n    She will beshrew me much that Romeo\n    Hath had no notice of these accidents;\n    But I will write again to Mantua,\n    And keep her at my cell till Romeo come-\n    Poor living corse, clos'd in a dead man's tomb!        Exit.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nVerona. A churchyard; in it the monument of the Capulets.\n\nEnter Paris and his Page with flowers and [a torch].\n\n  Par. Give me thy torch, boy. Hence, and stand aloof.\n    Yet put it out, for I would not be seen.\n    Under yond yew tree lay thee all along,\n    Holding thine ear close to the hollow ground.\n    So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread\n    (Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves)\n    But thou shalt hear it. Whistle then to me,\n    As signal that thou hear'st something approach.\n    Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee, go.\n  Page. [aside] I am almost afraid to stand alone\n    Here in the churchyard; yet I will adventure.     [Retires.]\n  Par. Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew\n    (O woe! thy canopy is dust and stones)\n    Which with sweet water nightly I will dew;\n    Or, wanting that, with tears distill'd by moans.\n    The obsequies that I for thee will keep\n    Nightly shall be to strew, thy grave and weep.\n                                                    Whistle Boy.\n    The boy gives warning something doth approach.\n    What cursed foot wanders this way to-night\n    To cross my obsequies and true love's rite?\n    What, with a torch? Muffle me, night, awhile.     [Retires.]\n\n       Enter Romeo, and Balthasar with a torch, a mattock,\n                    and a crow of iron.\n\n  Rom. Give me that mattock and the wrenching iron.\n    Hold, take this letter. Early in the morning\n    See thou deliver it to my lord and father.\n    Give me the light. Upon thy life I charge thee,\n    Whate'er thou hearest or seest, stand all aloof\n    And do not interrupt me in my course.\n    Why I descend into this bed of death\n    Is partly to behold my lady's face,\n    But chiefly to take thence from her dead finger\n    A precious ring- a ring that I must use\n    In dear employment. Therefore hence, be gone.\n    But if thou, jealous, dost return to pry\n    In what I farther shall intend to do,\n    By heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint\n    And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs.\n    The time and my intents are savage-wild,\n    More fierce and more inexorable far\n    Than empty tigers or the roaring sea.\n  Bal. I will be gone, sir, and not trouble you.\n  Rom. So shalt thou show me friendship. Take thou that.\n    Live, and be prosperous; and farewell, good fellow.\n  Bal. [aside] For all this same, I'll hide me hereabout.\n    His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt.        [Retires.]\n  Rom. Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,\n    Gorg'd with the dearest morsel of the earth,\n    Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,\n    And in despite I'll cram thee with more food.\n                                           Romeo opens the tomb.\n  Par. This is that banish'd haughty Montague\n    That murd'red my love's cousin- with which grief\n    It is supposed the fair creature died-\n    And here is come to do some villanous shame\n    To the dead bodies. I will apprehend him.\n    Stop thy unhallowed toil, vile Montague!\n    Can vengeance be pursu'd further than death?\n    Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee.\n    Obey, and go with me; for thou must die.\n  Rom. I must indeed; and therefore came I hither.\n    Good gentle youth, tempt not a desp'rate man.\n    Fly hence and leave me. Think upon these gone;\n    Let them affright thee. I beseech thee, youth,\n    But not another sin upon my head\n    By urging me to fury. O, be gone!\n    By heaven, I love thee better than myself,\n    For I come hither arm'd against myself.\n    Stay not, be gone. Live, and hereafter say\n    A madman's mercy bid thee run away.\n  Par. I do defy thy, conjuration\n    And apprehend thee for a felon here.\n  Rom. Wilt thou provoke me? Then have at thee, boy!\n                                                     They fight.\n  Page. O Lord, they fight! I will go call the watch.\n                                            [Exit. Paris falls.]\n  Par. O, I am slain! If thou be merciful,\n    Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.                   [Dies.]\n  Rom. In faith, I will. Let me peruse this face.\n    Mercutio's kinsman, noble County Paris!\n    What said my man when my betossed soul\n    Did not attend him as we rode? I think\n    He told me Paris should have married Juliet.\n    Said he not so? or did I dream it so?\n    Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet\n    To think it was so? O, give me thy hand,\n    One writ with me in sour misfortune's book!\n    I'll bury thee in a triumphant grave.\n    A grave? O, no, a lanthorn, slaught'red youth,\n    For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes\n    This vault a feasting presence full of light.\n    Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interr'd.\n                                         [Lays him in the tomb.]\n    How oft when men are at the point of death\n    Have they been merry! which their keepers call\n    A lightning before death. O, how may I\n    Call this a lightning? O my love! my wife!\n    Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,\n    Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.\n    Thou art not conquer'd. Beauty's ensign yet\n    Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,\n    And death's pale flag is not advanced there.\n    Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?\n    O, what more favour can I do to thee\n    Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain\n    To sunder his that was thine enemy?\n    Forgive me, cousin.' Ah, dear Juliet,\n    Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe\n    That unsubstantial Death is amorous,\n    And that the lean abhorred monster keeps\n    Thee here in dark to be his paramour?\n    For fear of that I still will stay with thee\n    And never from this palace of dim night\n    Depart again. Here, here will I remain\n    With worms that are thy chambermaids. O, here\n    Will I set up my everlasting rest\n    And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars\n    From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!\n    Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you\n    The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss\n    A dateless bargain to engrossing death!\n    Come, bitter conduct; come, unsavoury guide!\n    Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on\n    The dashing rocks thy seasick weary bark!\n    Here's to my love! [Drinks.] O true apothecary!\n    Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.          Falls.\n\n    Enter Friar [Laurence], with lanthorn, crow, and spade.\n\n  Friar. Saint Francis be my speed! how oft to-night\n    Have my old feet stumbled at graves! Who's there?\n  Bal. Here's one, a friend, and one that knows you well.\n  Friar. Bliss be upon you! Tell me, good my friend,\n    What torch is yond that vainly lends his light\n    To grubs and eyeless skulls? As I discern,\n    It burneth in the Capels' monument.\n  Bal. It doth so, holy sir; and there's my master,\n    One that you love.\n  Friar. Who is it?\n  Bal. Romeo.\n  Friar. How long hath he been there?\n  Bal. Full half an hour.\n  Friar. Go with me to the vault.\n  Bal. I dare not, sir.\n    My master knows not but I am gone hence,\n    And fearfully did menace me with death\n    If I did stay to look on his intents.\n  Friar. Stay then; I'll go alone. Fear comes upon me.\n    O, much I fear some ill unthrifty thing.\n  Bal. As I did sleep under this yew tree here,\n    I dreamt my master and another fought,\n    And that my master slew him.\n  Friar. Romeo!\n    Alack, alack, what blood is this which stains\n    The stony entrance of this sepulchre?\n    What mean these masterless and gory swords\n    To lie discolour'd by this place of peace? [Enters the tomb.]\n    Romeo! O, pale! Who else? What, Paris too?\n    And steep'd in blood? Ah, what an unkind hour\n    Is guilty of this lamentable chance! The lady stirs.\n                                                   Juliet rises.\n  Jul. O comfortable friar! where is my lord?\n    I do remember well where I should be,\n    And there I am. Where is my Romeo?\n  Friar. I hear some noise. Lady, come from that nest\n    Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep.\n    A greater power than we can contradict\n    Hath thwarted our intents. Come, come away.\n    Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead;\n    And Paris too. Come, I'll dispose of thee\n    Among a sisterhood of holy nuns.\n    Stay not to question, for the watch is coming.\n    Come, go, good Juliet. I dare no longer stay.\n  Jul. Go, get thee hence, for I will not away.\n                                                   Exit [Friar].\n    What's here? A cup, clos'd in my true love's hand?\n    Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end.\n    O churl! drunk all, and left no friendly drop\n    To help me after? I will kiss thy lips.\n    Haply some poison yet doth hang on them\n    To make me die with a restorative.             [Kisses him.]\n    Thy lips are warm!\n  Chief Watch. [within] Lead, boy. Which way?\n    Yea, noise? Then I'll be brief. O happy dagger!\n                                      [Snatches Romeo's dagger.]\n    This is thy sheath; there rest, and let me die.\n                  She stabs herself and falls [on Romeo's body].\n\n                Enter [Paris's] Boy and Watch.\n\n  Boy. This is the place. There, where the torch doth burn.\n  Chief Watch. 'the ground is bloody. Search about the churchyard.\n    Go, some of you; whoe'er you find attach.\n                                     [Exeunt some of the Watch.]\n    Pitiful sight! here lies the County slain;\n    And Juliet bleeding, warm, and newly dead,\n    Who here hath lain this two days buried.\n    Go, tell the Prince; run to the Capulets;\n    Raise up the Montagues; some others search.\n                                   [Exeunt others of the Watch.]\n    We see the ground whereon these woes do lie,\n    But the true ground of all these piteous woes\n    We cannot without circumstance descry.\n\n     Enter [some of the Watch,] with Romeo's Man [Balthasar].\n\n  2. Watch. Here's Romeo's man. We found him in the churchyard.\n  Chief Watch. Hold him in safety till the Prince come hither.\n\n          Enter Friar [Laurence] and another Watchman.\n\n  3. Watch. Here is a friar that trembles, sighs, and weeps.\n    We took this mattock and this spade from him\n    As he was coming from this churchyard side.\n  Chief Watch. A great suspicion! Stay the friar too.\n\n              Enter the Prince [and Attendants].\n\n  Prince. What misadventure is so early up,\n    That calls our person from our morning rest?\n\n            Enter Capulet and his Wife [with others].\n\n  Cap. What should it be, that they so shriek abroad?\n  Wife. The people in the street cry 'Romeo,'\n    Some 'Juliet,' and some 'Paris'; and all run,\n    With open outcry, toward our monument.\n  Prince. What fear is this which startles in our ears?\n  Chief Watch. Sovereign, here lies the County Paris slain;\n    And Romeo dead; and Juliet, dead before,\n    Warm and new kill'd.\n  Prince. Search, seek, and know how this foul murder comes.\n  Chief Watch. Here is a friar, and slaughter'd Romeo's man,\n    With instruments upon them fit to open\n    These dead men's tombs.\n  Cap. O heavens! O wife, look how our daughter bleeds!\n    This dagger hath mista'en, for, lo, his house\n    Is empty on the back of Montague,\n    And it missheathed in my daughter's bosom!\n  Wife. O me! this sight of death is as a bell\n    That warns my old age to a sepulchre.\n\n               Enter Montague [and others].\n\n  Prince. Come, Montague; for thou art early up\n    To see thy son and heir more early down.\n  Mon. Alas, my liege, my wife is dead to-night!\n    Grief of my son's exile hath stopp'd her breath.\n    What further woe conspires against mine age?\n  Prince. Look, and thou shalt see.\n  Mon. O thou untaught! what manners is in this,\n    To press before thy father to a grave?\n  Prince. Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while,\n    Till we can clear these ambiguities\n    And know their spring, their head, their true descent;\n    And then will I be general of your woes\n    And lead you even to death. Meantime forbear,\n    And let mischance be slave to patience.\n    Bring forth the parties of suspicion.\n  Friar. I am the greatest, able to do least,\n    Yet most suspected, as the time and place\n    Doth make against me, of this direful murther;\n    And here I stand, both to impeach and purge\n    Myself condemned and myself excus'd.\n  Prince. Then say it once what thou dost know in this.\n  Friar. I will be brief, for my short date of breath\n    Is not so long as is a tedious tale.\n    Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet;\n    And she, there dead, that Romeo's faithful wife.\n    I married them; and their stol'n marriage day\n    Was Tybalt's doomsday, whose untimely death\n    Banish'd the new-made bridegroom from this city;\n    For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pin'd.\n    You, to remove that siege of grief from her,\n    Betroth'd and would have married her perforce\n    To County Paris. Then comes she to me\n    And with wild looks bid me devise some mean\n    To rid her from this second marriage,\n    Or in my cell there would she kill herself.\n    Then gave I her (so tutored by my art)\n    A sleeping potion; which so took effect\n    As I intended, for it wrought on her\n    The form of death. Meantime I writ to Romeo\n    That he should hither come as this dire night\n    To help to take her from her borrowed grave,\n    Being the time the potion's force should cease.\n    But he which bore my letter, Friar John,\n    Was stay'd by accident, and yesternight\n    Return'd my letter back. Then all alone\n    At the prefixed hour of her waking\n    Came I to take her from her kindred's vault;\n    Meaning to keep her closely at my cell\n    Till I conveniently could send to Romeo.\n    But when I came, some minute ere the time\n    Of her awaking, here untimely lay\n    The noble Paris and true Romeo dead.\n    She wakes; and I entreated her come forth\n    And bear this work of heaven with patience;\n    But then a noise did scare me from the tomb,\n    And she, too desperate, would not go with me,\n    But, as it seems, did violence on herself.\n    All this I know, and to the marriage\n    Her nurse is privy; and if aught in this\n    Miscarried by my fault, let my old life\n    Be sacrific'd, some hour before his time,\n    Unto the rigour of severest law.\n  Prince. We still have known thee for a holy man.\n    Where's Romeo's man? What can he say in this?\n  Bal. I brought my master news of Juliet's death;\n    And then in post he came from Mantua\n    To this same place, to this same monument.\n    This letter he early bid me give his father,\n    And threat'ned me with death, going in the vault,\n    If I departed not and left him there.\n  Prince. Give me the letter. I will look on it.\n    Where is the County's page that rais'd the watch?\n    Sirrah, what made your master in this place?\n  Boy. He came with flowers to strew his lady's grave;\n    And bid me stand aloof, and so I did.\n    Anon comes one with light to ope the tomb;\n    And by-and-by my master drew on him;\n    And then I ran away to call the watch.\n  Prince. This letter doth make good the friar's words,\n    Their course of love, the tidings of her death;\n    And here he writes that he did buy a poison\n    Of a poor pothecary, and therewithal\n    Came to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet.\n    Where be these enemies? Capulet, Montage,\n    See what a scourge is laid upon your hate,\n    That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love!\n    And I, for winking at you, discords too,\n    Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punish'd.\n  Cap. O brother Montague, give me thy hand.\n    This is my daughter's jointure, for no more\n    Can I demand.\n  Mon. But I can give thee more;\n    For I will raise her Statue in pure gold,\n    That whiles Verona by that name is known,\n    There shall no figure at such rate be set\n    As that of true and faithful Juliet.\n  Cap. As rich shall Romeo's by his lady's lie-\n    Poor sacrifices of our enmity!\n  Prince. A glooming peace this morning with it brings.\n    The sun for sorrow will not show his head.\n    Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;\n    Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished;\n    For never was a story of more woe\n    Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.\n                                                   Exeunt omnes.\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n1594\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE TAMING OF THE SHREW\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n    Persons in the Induction\n  A LORD\n  CHRISTOPHER SLY, a tinker\n  HOSTESS\n  PAGE\n  PLAYERS\n  HUNTSMEN\n  SERVANTS\n\n  BAPTISTA MINOLA, a gentleman of Padua\n  VINCENTIO, a Merchant of Pisa\n  LUCENTIO, son to Vincentio, in love with Bianca\n  PETRUCHIO, a gentleman of Verona, a suitor to Katherina\n\n    Suitors to Bianca\n  GREMIO\n  HORTENSIO\n\n    Servants to Lucentio\n  TRANIO\n  BIONDELLO\n\n    Servants to Petruchio\n  GRUMIO\n  CURTIS\n\n  A PEDANT\n\n    Daughters to Baptista\n  KATHERINA, the shrew\n  BIANCA\n\n  A WIDOW\n\n  Tailor, Haberdasher, and Servants attending on Baptista and\n    Petruchio\n\n                             SCENE:\n            Padua, and PETRUCHIO'S house in the country\n\nSC_1\n                      INDUCTION. SCENE I.\n                  Before an alehouse on a heath\n\n                      Enter HOSTESS and SLY\n\n  SLY. I'll pheeze you, in faith.\n  HOSTESS. A pair of stocks, you rogue!\n  SLY. Y'are a baggage; the Slys are no rogues. Look in the\n    chronicles: we came in with Richard Conqueror. Therefore, paucas\n    pallabris; let the world slide. Sessa!\n  HOSTESS. You will not pay for the glasses you have burst?\n  SLY. No, not a denier. Go by, Saint Jeronimy, go to thy cold bed\n    and warm thee.\n  HOSTESS. I know my remedy; I must go fetch the third-borough.\n Exit\n  SLY. Third, or fourth, or fifth borough, I'll answer him by law.\n    I'll not budge an inch, boy; let him come, and kindly.\n                                                  [Falls asleep]\n\n       Wind horns. Enter a LORD from hunting, with his train\n\n  LORD. Huntsman, I charge thee, tender well my hounds;\n    Brach Merriman, the poor cur, is emboss'd;\n    And couple Clowder with the deep-mouth'd brach.\n    Saw'st thou not, boy, how Silver made it good\n    At the hedge corner, in the coldest fault?\n    I would not lose the dog for twenty pound.\n  FIRST HUNTSMAN. Why, Belman is as good as he, my lord;\n    He cried upon it at the merest loss,\n    And twice to-day pick'd out the dullest scent;\n    Trust me, I take him for the better dog.\n  LORD. Thou art a fool; if Echo were as fleet,\n    I would esteem him worth a dozen such.\n    But sup them well, and look unto them all;\n    To-morrow I intend to hunt again.\n  FIRST HUNTSMAN. I will, my lord.\n  LORD. What's here? One dead, or drunk?\n    See, doth he breathe?\n  SECOND HUNTSMAN. He breathes, my lord. Were he not warm'd with ale,\n    This were a bed but cold to sleep so soundly.\n  LORD. O monstrous beast, how like a swine he lies!\n    Grim death, how foul and loathsome is thine image!\n    Sirs, I will practise on this drunken man.\n    What think you, if he were convey'd to bed,\n    Wrapp'd in sweet clothes, rings put upon his fingers,\n    A most delicious banquet by his bed,\n    And brave attendants near him when he wakes,\n    Would not the beggar then forget himself?\n  FIRST HUNTSMAN. Believe me, lord, I think he cannot choose.\n  SECOND HUNTSMAN. It would seem strange unto him when he wak'd.\n  LORD. Even as a flatt'ring dream or worthless fancy.\n    Then take him up, and manage well the jest:\n    Carry him gently to my fairest chamber,\n    And hang it round with all my wanton pictures;\n    Balm his foul head in warm distilled waters,\n    And burn sweet wood to make the lodging sweet;\n    Procure me music ready when he wakes,\n    To make a dulcet and a heavenly sound;\n    And if he chance to speak, be ready straight,\n    And with a low submissive reverence\n    Say 'What is it your honour will command?'\n    Let one attend him with a silver basin\n    Full of rose-water and bestrew'd with flowers;\n    Another bear the ewer, the third a diaper,\n    And say 'Will't please your lordship cool your hands?'\n    Some one be ready with a costly suit,\n    And ask him what apparel he will wear;\n    Another tell him of his hounds and horse,\n    And that his lady mourns at his disease;\n    Persuade him that he hath been lunatic,\n    And, when he says he is, say that he dreams,\n    For he is nothing but a mighty lord.\n    This do, and do it kindly, gentle sirs;\n    It will be pastime passing excellent,\n    If it be husbanded with modesty.\n  FIRST HUNTSMAN. My lord, I warrant you we will play our part\n    As he shall think by our true diligence\n    He is no less than what we say he is.\n  LORD. Take him up gently, and to bed with him;\n    And each one to his office when he wakes.\n                          [SLY is carried out. A trumpet sounds]\n    Sirrah, go see what trumpet 'tis that sounds-\n                                                    Exit SERVANT\n    Belike some noble gentleman that means,\n    Travelling some journey, to repose him here.\n\n                         Re-enter a SERVINGMAN\n\n    How now! who is it?\n  SERVANT. An't please your honour, players\n    That offer service to your lordship.\n  LORD. Bid them come near.\n\n                             Enter PLAYERS\n\n    Now, fellows, you are welcome.\n  PLAYERS. We thank your honour.\n  LORD. Do you intend to stay with me to-night?\n  PLAYER. So please your lordship to accept our duty.\n  LORD. With all my heart. This fellow I remember\n    Since once he play'd a farmer's eldest son;\n    'Twas where you woo'd the gentlewoman so well.\n    I have forgot your name; but, sure, that part\n    Was aptly fitted and naturally perform'd.\n  PLAYER. I think 'twas Soto that your honour means.\n  LORD. 'Tis very true; thou didst it excellent.\n    Well, you are come to me in happy time,\n    The rather for I have some sport in hand\n    Wherein your cunning can assist me much.\n    There is a lord will hear you play to-night;\n    But I am doubtful of your modesties,\n    Lest, over-eying of his odd behaviour,\n    For yet his honour never heard a play,\n    You break into some merry passion\n    And so offend him; for I tell you, sirs,\n    If you should smile, he grows impatient.\n  PLAYER. Fear not, my lord; we can contain ourselves,\n    Were he the veriest antic in the world.\n  LORD. Go, sirrah, take them to the buttery,\n    And give them friendly welcome every one;\n    Let them want nothing that my house affords.\n                                       Exit one with the PLAYERS\n    Sirrah, go you to Bartholomew my page,\n    And see him dress'd in all suits like a lady;\n    That done, conduct him to the drunkard's chamber,\n    And call him 'madam,' do him obeisance.\n    Tell him from me- as he will win my love-\n    He bear himself with honourable action,\n    Such as he hath observ'd in noble ladies\n    Unto their lords, by them accomplished;\n    Such duty to the drunkard let him do,\n    With soft low tongue and lowly courtesy,\n    And say 'What is't your honour will command,\n    Wherein your lady and your humble wife\n    May show her duty and make known her love?'\n    And then with kind embracements, tempting kisses,\n    And with declining head into his bosom,\n    Bid him shed tears, as being overjoyed\n    To see her noble lord restor'd to health,\n    Who for this seven years hath esteemed him\n    No better than a poor and loathsome beggar.\n    And if the boy have not a woman's gift\n    To rain a shower of commanded tears,\n    An onion will do well for such a shift,\n    Which, in a napkin being close convey'd,\n    Shall in despite enforce a watery eye.\n    See this dispatch'd with all the haste thou canst;\n    Anon I'll give thee more instructions.     Exit a SERVINGMAN\n    I know the boy will well usurp the grace,\n    Voice, gait, and action, of a gentlewoman;\n    I long to hear him call the drunkard 'husband';\n    And how my men will stay themselves from laughter\n    When they do homage to this simple peasant.\n    I'll in to counsel them; haply my presence\n    May well abate the over-merry spleen,\n    Which otherwise would grow into extremes.             Exeunt\n\nSC_2\n                            SCENE II.\n               A bedchamber in the LORD'S house\n\n    Enter aloft SLY, with ATTENDANTS; some with apparel, basin\n             and ewer, and other appurtenances; and LORD\n\n  SLY. For God's sake, a pot of small ale.\n  FIRST SERVANT. Will't please your lordship drink a cup of sack?\n  SECOND SERVANT. Will't please your honour taste of these conserves?\n  THIRD SERVANT. What raiment will your honour wear to-day?\n  SLY. I am Christophero Sly; call not me 'honour' nor 'lordship.' I\n    ne'er drank sack in my life; and if you give me any conserves,\n    give me conserves of beef. Ne'er ask me what raiment I'll wear,\n    for I have no more doublets than backs, no more stockings than\n    legs, nor no more shoes than feet- nay, sometime more feet than\n    shoes, or such shoes as my toes look through the overleather.\n  LORD. Heaven cease this idle humour in your honour!\n    O, that a mighty man of such descent,\n    Of such possessions, and so high esteem,\n    Should be infused with so foul a spirit!\n  SLY. What, would you make me mad? Am not I Christopher Sly, old\n    Sly's son of Burton Heath; by birth a pedlar, by education a\n    cardmaker, by transmutation a bear-herd, and now by present\n    profession a tinker? Ask Marian Hacket, the fat ale-wife of\n    Wincot, if she know me not; if she say I am not fourteen pence on\n    the score for sheer ale, score me up for the lying'st knave in\n    Christendom. What! I am not bestraught.  [Taking a pot of ale]\n    Here's-\n  THIRD SERVANT. O, this it is that makes your lady mourn!\n  SECOND SERVANT. O, this is it that makes your servants droop!\n  LORD. Hence comes it that your kindred shuns your house,\n    As beaten hence by your strange lunacy.\n    O noble lord, bethink thee of thy birth!\n    Call home thy ancient thoughts from banishment,\n    And banish hence these abject lowly dreams.\n    Look how thy servants do attend on thee,\n    Each in his office ready at thy beck.\n    Wilt thou have music? Hark! Apollo plays,            [Music]\n    And twenty caged nightingales do sing.\n    Or wilt thou sleep? We'll have thee to a couch\n    Softer and sweeter than the lustful bed\n    On purpose trimm'd up for Semiramis.\n    Say thou wilt walk: we will bestrew the ground.\n    Or wilt thou ride? Thy horses shall be trapp'd,\n    Their harness studded all with gold and pearl.\n    Dost thou love hawking? Thou hast hawks will soar\n    Above the morning lark. Or wilt thou hunt?\n    Thy hounds shall make the welkin answer them\n    And fetch shall echoes from the hollow earth.\n  FIRST SERVANT. Say thou wilt course; thy greyhounds are as swift\n    As breathed stags; ay, fleeter than the roe.\n  SECOND SERVANT. Dost thou love pictures? We will fetch thee\n      straight\n    Adonis painted by a running brook,\n    And Cytherea all in sedges hid,\n    Which seem to move and wanton with her breath\n    Even as the waving sedges play wi' th' wind.\n  LORD. We'll show thee lo as she was a maid\n    And how she was beguiled and surpris'd,\n    As lively painted as the deed was done.\n  THIRD SERVANT. Or Daphne roaming through a thorny wood,\n    Scratching her legs, that one shall swear she bleeds\n    And at that sight shall sad Apollo weep,\n    So workmanly the blood and tears are drawn.\n  LORD. Thou art a lord, and nothing but a lord.\n    Thou hast a lady far more beautiful\n    Than any woman in this waning age.\n  FIRST SERVANT. And, till the tears that she hath shed for thee\n    Like envious floods o'er-run her lovely face,\n    She was the fairest creature in the world;\n    And yet she is inferior to none.\n  SLY. Am I a lord and have I such a lady?\n    Or do I dream? Or have I dream'd till now?\n    I do not sleep: I see, I hear, I speak;\n    I smell sweet savours, and I feel soft things.\n    Upon my life, I am a lord indeed,\n    And not a tinker, nor Christopher Sly.\n    Well, bring our lady hither to our sight;\n    And once again, a pot o' th' smallest ale.\n  SECOND SERVANT. Will't please your Mightiness to wash your hands?\n    O, how we joy to see your wit restor'd!\n    O, that once more you knew but what you are!\n    These fifteen years you have been in a dream;\n    Or, when you wak'd, so wak'd as if you slept.\n  SLY. These fifteen years! by my fay, a goodly nap.\n    But did I never speak of all that time?\n  FIRST SERVANT. O, yes, my lord, but very idle words;\n    For though you lay here in this goodly chamber,\n    Yet would you say ye were beaten out of door;\n    And rail upon the hostess of the house,\n    And say you would present her at the leet,\n    Because she brought stone jugs and no seal'd quarts.\n    Sometimes you would call out for Cicely Hacket.\n  SLY. Ay, the woman's maid of the house.\n  THIRD SERVANT. Why, sir, you know no house nor no such maid,\n    Nor no such men as you have reckon'd up,\n    As Stephen Sly, and old John Naps of Greece,\n    And Peter Turph, and Henry Pimpernell;\n    And twenty more such names and men as these,\n    Which never were, nor no man ever saw.\n  SLY. Now, Lord be thanked for my good amends!\n  ALL. Amen.\n\n           Enter the PAGE as a lady, with ATTENDANTS\n\n  SLY. I thank thee; thou shalt not lose by it.\n  PAGE. How fares my noble lord?\n  SLY. Marry, I fare well; for here is cheer enough.\n    Where is my wife?\n  PAGE. Here, noble lord; what is thy will with her?\n  SLY. Are you my wife, and will not call me husband?\n    My men should call me 'lord'; I am your goodman.\n  PAGE. My husband and my lord, my lord and husband;\n    I am your wife in all obedience.\n  SLY. I know it well. What must I call her?\n  LORD. Madam.\n  SLY. Al'ce madam, or Joan madam?\n  LORD. Madam, and nothing else; so lords call ladies.\n  SLY. Madam wife, they say that I have dream'd\n    And slept above some fifteen year or more.\n  PAGE. Ay, and the time seems thirty unto me,\n    Being all this time abandon'd from your bed.\n  SLY. 'Tis much. Servants, leave me and her alone.\n                                                 Exeunt SERVANTS\n    Madam, undress you, and come now to bed.\n  PAGE. Thrice noble lord, let me entreat of you\n    To pardon me yet for a night or two;\n    Or, if not so, until the sun be set.\n    For your physicians have expressly charg'd,\n    In peril to incur your former malady,\n    That I should yet absent me from your bed.\n    I hope this reason stands for my excuse.\n  SLY. Ay, it stands so that I may hardly tarry so long. But I would\n    be loath to fall into my dreams again. I will therefore tarry in\n    despite of the flesh and the blood.\n\n                       Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. Your honour's players, hearing your amendment,\n    Are come to play a pleasant comedy;\n    For so your doctors hold it very meet,\n    Seeing too much sadness hath congeal'd your blood,\n    And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy.\n    Therefore they thought it good you hear a play\n    And frame your mind to mirth and merriment,\n    Which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life.\n  SLY. Marry, I will; let them play it. Is not a comonty a\n    Christmas gambold or a tumbling-trick?\n  PAGE. No, my good lord, it is more pleasing stuff.\n  SLY. What, household stuff?\n  PAGE. It is a kind of history.\n  SLY. Well, we'll see't. Come, madam wife, sit by my side and let\n    the world slip;-we shall ne'er be younger.\n                                                 [They sit down]\n\n          A flourish of trumpets announces the play\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nPadua. A public place\n\nEnter LUCENTIO and his man TRANIO\n\n  LUCENTIO. Tranio, since for the great desire I had\n    To see fair Padua, nursery of arts,\n    I am arriv'd for fruitful Lombardy,\n    The pleasant garden of great Italy,\n    And by my father's love and leave am arm'd\n    With his good will and thy good company,\n    My trusty servant well approv'd in all,\n    Here let us breathe, and haply institute\n    A course of learning and ingenious studies.\n    Pisa, renowned for grave citizens,\n    Gave me my being and my father first,\n    A merchant of great traffic through the world,\n    Vincentio, come of the Bentivolii;\n    Vincentio's son, brought up in Florence,\n    It shall become to serve all hopes conceiv'd,\n    To deck his fortune with his virtuous deeds.\n    And therefore, Tranio, for the time I study,\n    Virtue and that part of philosophy\n    Will I apply that treats of happiness\n    By virtue specially to be achiev'd.\n    Tell me thy mind; for I have Pisa left\n    And am to Padua come as he that leaves\n    A shallow plash to plunge him in the deep,\n    And with satiety seeks to quench his thirst.\n  TRANIO. Mi perdonato, gentle master mine;\n    I am in all affected as yourself;\n    Glad that you thus continue your resolve\n    To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy.\n    Only, good master, while we do admire\n    This virtue and this moral discipline,\n    Let's be no Stoics nor no stocks, I pray,\n    Or so devote to Aristotle's checks\n    As Ovid be an outcast quite abjur'd.\n    Balk logic with acquaintance that you have,\n    And practise rhetoric in your common talk;\n    Music and poesy use to quicken you;\n    The mathematics and the metaphysics,\n    Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you.\n    No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en;\n    In brief, sir, study what you most affect.\n  LUCENTIO. Gramercies, Tranio, well dost thou advise.\n    If, Biondello, thou wert come ashore,\n    We could at once put us in readiness,\n    And take a lodging fit to entertain\n    Such friends as time in Padua shall beget.\n\n      Enter BAPTISTA with his two daughters, KATHERINA\n        and BIANCA; GREMIO, a pantaloon; HORTENSIO,\n        suitor to BIANCA. LUCENTIO and TRANIO stand by\n\n    But stay awhile; what company is this?\n  TRANIO. Master, some show to welcome us to town.\n  BAPTISTA. Gentlemen, importune me no farther,\n    For how I firmly am resolv'd you know;\n    That is, not to bestow my youngest daughter\n    Before I have a husband for the elder.\n    If either of you both love Katherina,\n    Because I know you well and love you well,\n    Leave shall you have to court her at your pleasure.\n  GREMIO. To cart her rather. She's too rough for me.\n    There, there, Hortensio, will you any wife?\n  KATHERINA.  [To BAPTISTA]  I pray you, sir, is it your will\n    To make a stale of me amongst these mates?\n  HORTENSIO. Mates, maid! How mean you that? No mates for you,\n    Unless you were of gentler, milder mould.\n  KATHERINA. I' faith, sir, you shall never need to fear;\n    Iwis it is not halfway to her heart;\n    But if it were, doubt not her care should be\n    To comb your noddle with a three-legg'd stool,\n    And paint your face, and use you like a fool.\n  HORTENSIO. From all such devils, good Lord deliver us!\n  GREMIO. And me, too, good Lord!\n  TRANIO. Husht, master! Here's some good pastime toward;\n    That wench is stark mad or wonderful froward.\n  LUCENTIO. But in the other's silence do I see\n    Maid's mild behaviour and sobriety.\n    Peace, Tranio!\n  TRANIO. Well said, master; mum! and gaze your fill.\n  BAPTISTA. Gentlemen, that I may soon make good\n    What I have said- Bianca, get you in;\n    And let it not displease thee, good Bianca,\n    For I will love thee ne'er the less, my girl.\n  KATHERINA. A pretty peat! it is best\n    Put finger in the eye, an she knew why.\n  BIANCA. Sister, content you in my discontent.\n    Sir, to your pleasure humbly I subscribe;\n    My books and instruments shall be my company,\n    On them to look, and practise by myself.\n  LUCENTIO. Hark, Tranio, thou mayst hear Minerva speak!\n  HORTENSIO. Signior Baptista, will you be so strange?\n    Sorry am I that our good will effects\n    Bianca's grief.\n  GREMIO. Why will you mew her up,\n    Signior Baptista, for this fiend of hell,\n    And make her bear the penance of her tongue?\n  BAPTISTA. Gentlemen, content ye; I am resolv'd.\n    Go in, Bianca.                                   Exit BIANCA\n    And for I know she taketh most delight\n    In music, instruments, and poetry,\n    Schoolmasters will I keep within my house\n    Fit to instruct her youth. If you, Hortensio,\n    Or, Signior Gremio, you, know any such,\n    Prefer them hither; for to cunning men\n    I will be very kind, and liberal\n    To mine own children in good bringing-up;\n    And so, farewell. Katherina, you may stay;\n    For I have more to commune with Bianca.                 Exit\n  KATHERINA. Why, and I trust I may go too, may I not?\n    What! shall I be appointed hours, as though, belike,\n    I knew not what to take and what to leave? Ha!          Exit\n  GREMIO. You may go to the devil's dam; your gifts are so good\n    here's none will hold you. There! Love is not so great,\n    Hortensio, but we may blow our nails together, and fast it fairly\n    out; our cake's dough on both sides. Farewell; yet, for the love\n    I bear my sweet Bianca, if I can by any means light on a fit man\n    to teach her that wherein she delights, I will wish him to her\n    father.\n  HORTENSIO. SO Will I, Signior Gremio; but a word, I pray. Though\n    the nature of our quarrel yet never brook'd parle, know now, upon\n    advice, it toucheth us both- that we may yet again have access to\n    our fair mistress, and be happy rivals in Bianca's love- to\n    labour and effect one thing specially.\n  GREMIO. What's that, I pray?\n  HORTENSIO. Marry, sir, to get a husband for her sister.\n  GREMIO. A husband? a devil.\n  HORTENSIO. I say a husband.\n  GREMIO. I say a devil. Think'st thou, Hortensio, though her father\n    be very rich, any man is so very a fool to be married to hell?\n  HORTENSIO. Tush, Gremio! Though it pass your patience and mine to\n    endure her loud alarums, why, man, there be good fellows in the\n    world, an a man could light on them, would take her with all\n    faults, and money enough.\n  GREMIO. I cannot tell; but I had as lief take her dowry with this\n    condition: to be whipp'd at the high cross every morning.\n  HORTENSIO. Faith, as you say, there's small choice in rotten\n    apples. But, come; since this bar in law makes us friends, it\n    shall be so far forth friendly maintain'd till by helping\n    Baptista's eldest daughter to a husband we set his youngest free\n    for a husband, and then have to't afresh. Sweet Bianca! Happy man\n    be his dole! He that runs fastest gets the ring. How say you,\n    Signior Gremio?\n  GREMIO. I am agreed; and would I had given him the best horse in\n    Padua to begin his wooing that would thoroughly woo her, wed her,\n    and bed her, and rid the house of her! Come on.\n                                     Exeunt GREMIO and HORTENSIO\n  TRANIO. I pray, sir, tell me, is it possible\n    That love should of a sudden take such hold?\n  LUCENTIO. O Tranio, till I found it to be true,\n    I never thought it possible or likely.\n    But see! while idly I stood looking on,\n    I found the effect of love in idleness;\n    And now in plainness do confess to thee,\n    That art to me as secret and as dear\n    As Anna to the Queen of Carthage was-\n    Tranio, I burn, I pine, I perish, Tranio,\n    If I achieve not this young modest girl.\n    Counsel me, Tranio, for I know thou canst;\n    Assist me, Tranio, for I know thou wilt.\n  TRANIO. Master, it is no time to chide you now;\n    Affection is not rated from the heart;\n    If love have touch'd you, nought remains but so:\n    'Redime te captum quam queas minimo.'\n  LUCENTIO. Gramercies, lad. Go forward; this contents;\n    The rest will comfort, for thy counsel's sound.\n  TRANIO. Master, you look'd so longly on the maid.\n    Perhaps you mark'd not what's the pith of all.\n  LUCENTIO. O, yes, I saw sweet beauty in her face,\n    Such as the daughter of Agenor had,\n    That made great Jove to humble him to her hand,\n    When with his knees he kiss'd the Cretan strand.\n  TRANIO. Saw you no more? Mark'd you not how her sister\n    Began to scold and raise up such a storm\n    That mortal ears might hardly endure the din?\n  LUCENTIO. Tranio, I saw her coral lips to move,\n    And with her breath she did perfume the air;\n    Sacred and sweet was all I saw in her.\n  TRANIO. Nay, then 'tis time to stir him from his trance.\n    I pray, awake, sir. If you love the maid,\n    Bend thoughts and wits to achieve her. Thus it stands:\n    Her elder sister is so curst and shrewd\n    That, till the father rid his hands of her,\n    Master, your love must live a maid at home;\n    And therefore has he closely mew'd her up,\n    Because she will not be annoy'd with suitors.\n  LUCENTIO. Ah, Tranio, what a cruel father's he!\n    But art thou not advis'd he took some care\n    To get her cunning schoolmasters to instruct her?\n  TRANIO. Ay, marry, am I, sir, and now 'tis plotted.\n  LUCENTIO. I have it, Tranio.\n  TRANIO. Master, for my hand,\n    Both our inventions meet and jump in one.\n  LUCENTIO. Tell me thine first.\n  TRANIO. You will be schoolmaster,\n    And undertake the teaching of the maid-\n    That's your device.\n  LUCENTIO. It is. May it be done?\n  TRANIO. Not possible; for who shall bear your part\n    And be in Padua here Vincentio's son;\n    Keep house and ply his book, welcome his friends,\n    Visit his countrymen, and banquet them?\n  LUCENTIO. Basta, content thee, for I have it full.\n    We have not yet been seen in any house,\n    Nor can we be distinguish'd by our faces\n    For man or master. Then it follows thus:\n    Thou shalt be master, Tranio, in my stead,\n    Keep house and port and servants, as I should;\n    I will some other be- some Florentine,\n    Some Neapolitan, or meaner man of Pisa.\n    'Tis hatch'd, and shall be so. Tranio, at once\n    Uncase thee; take my colour'd hat and cloak.\n    When Biondello comes, he waits on thee;\n    But I will charm him first to keep his tongue.\n  TRANIO. So had you need.                [They exchange habits]\n    In brief, sir, sith it your pleasure is,\n    And I am tied to be obedient-\n    For so your father charg'd me at our parting:\n    'Be serviceable to my son' quoth he,\n    Although I think 'twas in another sense-\n    I am content to be Lucentio,\n    Because so well I love Lucentio.\n  LUCENTIO. Tranio, be so because Lucentio loves;\n    And let me be a slave t' achieve that maid\n    Whose sudden sight hath thrall'd my wounded eye.\n\n                       Enter BIONDELLO.\n\n    Here comes the rogue. Sirrah, where have you been?\n  BIONDELLO. Where have I been! Nay, how now! where are you?\n    Master, has my fellow Tranio stol'n your clothes?\n    Or you stol'n his? or both? Pray, what's the news?\n  LUCENTIO. Sirrah, come hither; 'tis no time to jest,\n    And therefore frame your manners to the time.\n    Your fellow Tranio here, to save my life,\n    Puts my apparel and my count'nance on,\n    And I for my escape have put on his;\n    For in a quarrel since I came ashore\n    I kill'd a man, and fear I was descried.\n    Wait you on him, I charge you, as becomes,\n    While I make way from hence to save my life.\n    You understand me?\n  BIONDELLO. I, sir? Ne'er a whit.\n  LUCENTIO. And not a jot of Tranio in your mouth:\n    Tranio is chang'd into Lucentio.\n  BIONDELLO. The better for him; would I were so too!\n  TRANIO. So could I, faith, boy, to have the next wish after,\n    That Lucentio indeed had Baptista's youngest daughter.\n    But, sirrah, not for my sake but your master's, I advise\n    You use your manners discreetly in all kind of companies.\n    When I am alone, why, then I am Tranio;\n    But in all places else your master Lucentio.\n  LUCENTIO. Tranio, let's go.\n    One thing more rests, that thyself execute-\n    To make one among these wooers. If thou ask me why-\n    Sufficeth, my reasons are both good and weighty.      Exeunt\n\n                 The Presenters above speak\n\n  FIRST SERVANT. My lord, you nod; you do not mind the play.\n  SLY. Yes, by Saint Anne do I. A good matter, surely; comes there\n    any more of it?\n  PAGE. My lord, 'tis but begun.\n  SLY. 'Tis a very excellent piece of work, madam lady\n    Would 'twere done!                        [They sit and mark]\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nPadua. Before HORTENSIO'S house\n\nEnter PETRUCHIO and his man GRUMIO\n\n  PETRUCHIO. Verona, for a while I take my leave,\n    To see my friends in Padua; but of all\n    My best beloved and approved friend,\n    Hortensio; and I trow this is his house.\n    Here, sirrah Grumio, knock, I say.\n GRUMIO. Knock, sir! Whom should I knock?\n    Is there any man has rebus'd your worship?\n  PETRUCHIO. Villain, I say, knock me here soundly.\n  GRUMIO. Knock you here, sir? Why, sir, what am I, sir, that I\n    should knock you here, sir?\n  PETRUCHIO. Villain, I say, knock me at this gate,\n    And rap me well, or I'll knock your knave's pate.\n  GRUMIO. My master is grown quarrelsome. I should knock you first,\n    And then I know after who comes by the worst.\n  PETRUCHIO. Will it not be?\n    Faith, sirrah, an you'll not knock I'll ring it;\n    I'll try how you can sol-fa, and sing it.\n                                     [He wrings him by the ears]\n  GRUMIO. Help, masters, help! My master is mad.\n  PETRUCHIO. Now knock when I bid you, sirrah villain!\n\n                        Enter HORTENSIO\n\n  HORTENSIO. How now! what's the matter? My old friend Grumio and my\n    good friend Petruchio! How do you all at Verona?\n  PETRUCHIO. Signior Hortensio, come you to part the fray?\n    'Con tutto il cuore ben trovato' may I say.\n  HORTENSIO. Alla nostra casa ben venuto,\n    Molto honorato signor mio Petruchio.\n    Rise, Grumio, rise; we will compound this quarrel.\n  GRUMIO. Nay, 'tis no matter, sir, what he 'leges in Latin. If this\n    be not a lawful cause for me to leave his service- look you, sir:\n    he bid me knock him and rap him soundly, sir. Well, was it fit\n    for a servant to use his master so; being, perhaps, for aught I\n    see, two and thirty, a pip out?\n    Whom would to God I had well knock'd at first,\n    Then had not Grumio come by the worst.\n  PETRUCHIO. A senseless villain! Good Hortensio,\n    I bade the rascal knock upon your gate,\n    And could not get him for my heart to do it.\n  GRUMIO. Knock at the gate? O heavens! Spake you not these words\n    plain: 'Sirrah knock me here, rap me here, knock me well, and\n    knock me soundly'? And come you now with 'knocking at the gate'?\n  PETRUCHIO. Sirrah, be gone, or talk not, I advise you.\n  HORTENSIO. Petruchio, patience; I am Grumio's pledge;\n    Why, this's a heavy chance 'twixt him and you,\n    Your ancient, trusty, pleasant servant Grumio.\n    And tell me now, sweet friend, what happy gale\n    Blows you to Padua here from old Verona?\n  PETRUCHIO. Such wind as scatters young men through the world\n    To seek their fortunes farther than at home,\n    Where small experience grows. But in a few,\n    Signior Hortensio, thus it stands with me:\n    Antonio, my father, is deceas'd,\n    And I have thrust myself into this maze,\n    Haply to wive and thrive as best I may;\n    Crowns in my purse I have, and goods at home,\n    And so am come abroad to see the world.\n  HORTENSIO. Petruchio, shall I then come roundly to thee\n    And wish thee to a shrewd ill-favour'd wife?\n    Thou'dst thank me but a little for my counsel,\n    And yet I'll promise thee she shall be rich,\n    And very rich; but th'art too much my friend,\n    And I'll not wish thee to her.\n  PETRUCHIO. Signior Hortensio, 'twixt such friends as we\n    Few words suffice; and therefore, if thou know\n    One rich enough to be Petruchio's wife,\n    As wealth is burden of my wooing dance,\n    Be she as foul as was Florentius' love,\n    As old as Sibyl, and as curst and shrewd\n    As Socrates' Xanthippe or a worse-\n    She moves me not, or not removes, at least,\n    Affection's edge in me, were she as rough\n    As are the swelling Adriatic seas.\n    I come to wive it wealthily in Padua;\n    If wealthily, then happily in Padua.\n  GRUMIO. Nay, look you, sir, he tells you flatly what his mind is.\n    Why, give him gold enough and marry him to a puppet or an\n    aglet-baby, or an old trot with ne'er a tooth in her head, though\n    she has as many diseases as two and fifty horses. Why, nothing\n    comes amiss, so money comes withal.\n  HORTENSIO. Petruchio, since we are stepp'd thus far in,\n    I will continue that I broach'd in jest.\n    I can, Petruchio, help thee to a wife\n    With wealth enough, and young and beauteous;\n    Brought up as best becomes a gentlewoman;\n    Her only fault, and that is faults enough,\n    Is- that she is intolerable curst,\n    And shrewd and froward so beyond all measure\n    That, were my state far worser than it is,\n    I would not wed her for a mine of gold.\n  PETRUCHIO. Hortensio, peace! thou know'st not gold's effect.\n    Tell me her father's name, and 'tis enough;\n    For I will board her though she chide as loud\n    As thunder when the clouds in autumn crack.\n  HORTENSIO. Her father is Baptista Minola,\n    An affable and courteous gentleman;\n    Her name is Katherina Minola,\n    Renown'd in Padua for her scolding tongue.\n  PETRUCHIO. I know her father, though I know not her;\n    And he knew my deceased father well.\n    I will not sleep, Hortensio, till I see her;\n    And therefore let me be thus bold with you\n    To give you over at this first encounter,\n    Unless you will accompany me thither.\n  GRUMIO. I pray you, sir, let him go while the humour lasts. O' my\n    word, and she knew him as well as I do, she would think scolding\n    would do little good upon him. She may perhaps call him half a\n    score knaves or so. Why, that's nothing; and he begin once, he'll\n    rail in his rope-tricks. I'll tell you what, sir: an she stand\n    him but a little, he will throw a figure in her face, and so\n    disfigure her with it that she shall have no more eyes to see\n    withal than a cat. You know him not, sir.\n  HORTENSIO. Tarry, Petruchio, I must go with thee,\n    For in Baptista's keep my treasure is.\n    He hath the jewel of my life in hold,\n    His youngest daughter, beautiful Bianca;\n    And her withholds from me, and other more,\n    Suitors to her and rivals in my love;\n    Supposing it a thing impossible-\n    For those defects I have before rehears'd-\n    That ever Katherina will be woo'd.\n    Therefore this order hath Baptista ta'en,\n    That none shall have access unto Bianca\n    Till Katherine the curst have got a husband.\n  GRUMIO. Katherine the curst!\n    A title for a maid of all titles the worst.\n  HORTENSIO. Now shall my friend Petruchio do me grace,\n    And offer me disguis'd in sober robes\n    To old Baptista as a schoolmaster\n    Well seen in music, to instruct Bianca;\n    That so I may by this device at least\n    Have leave and leisure to make love to her,\n    And unsuspected court her by herself.\n\n        Enter GREMIO with LUCENTIO disguised as CAMBIO\n\n  GRUMIO. Here's no knavery! See, to beguile the old folks, how the\n    young folks lay their heads together! Master, master, look about\n    you. Who goes there, ha?\n  HORTENSIO. Peace, Grumio! It is the rival of my love. Petruchio,\n    stand by awhile.\n  GRUMIO. A proper stripling, and an amorous!\n                                              [They stand aside]\n  GREMIO. O, very well; I have perus'd the note.\n    Hark you, sir; I'll have them very fairly bound-\n    All books of love, see that at any hand;\n    And see you read no other lectures to her.\n    You understand me- over and beside\n    Signior Baptista's liberality,\n    I'll mend it with a largess. Take your paper too,\n    And let me have them very well perfum'd;\n    For she is sweeter than perfume itself\n    To whom they go to. What will you read to her?\n  LUCENTIO. Whate'er I read to her, I'll plead for you\n    As for my patron, stand you so assur'd,\n    As firmly as yourself were still in place;\n    Yea, and perhaps with more successful words\n    Than you, unless you were a scholar, sir.\n  GREMIO. O this learning, what a thing it is!\n  GRUMIO. O this woodcock, what an ass it is!\n  PETRUCHIO. Peace, sirrah!\n  HORTENSIO. Grumio, mum!                       [Coming forward]\n    God save you, Signior Gremio!\n  GREMIO. And you are well met, Signior Hortensio.\n    Trow you whither I am going? To Baptista Minola.\n    I promis'd to enquire carefully\n    About a schoolmaster for the fair Bianca;\n    And by good fortune I have lighted well\n    On this young man; for learning and behaviour\n    Fit for her turn, well read in poetry\n    And other books- good ones, I warrant ye.\n  HORTENSIO. 'Tis well; and I have met a gentleman\n    Hath promis'd me to help me to another,\n    A fine musician to instruct our mistress;\n    So shall I no whit be behind in duty\n    To fair Bianca, so beloved of me.\n  GREMIO. Beloved of me- and that my deeds shall prove.\n  GRUMIO. And that his bags shall prove.\n  HORTENSIO. Gremio, 'tis now no time to vent our love.\n    Listen to me, and if you speak me fair\n    I'll tell you news indifferent good for either.\n    Here is a gentleman whom by chance I met,\n    Upon agreement from us to his liking,\n    Will undertake to woo curst Katherine;\n    Yea, and to marry her, if her dowry please.\n  GREMIO. So said, so done, is well.\n    Hortensio, have you told him all her faults?\n  PETRUCHIO. I know she is an irksome brawling scold;\n    If that be all, masters, I hear no harm.\n  GREMIO. No, say'st me so, friend? What countryman?\n  PETRUCHIO. Born in Verona, old Antonio's son.\n    My father dead, my fortune lives for me;\n    And I do hope good days and long to see.\n  GREMIO. O Sir, such a life with such a wife were strange!\n    But if you have a stomach, to't a God's name;\n    You shall have me assisting you in all.\n    But will you woo this wild-cat?\n  PETRUCHIO. Will I live?\n  GRUMIO. Will he woo her? Ay, or I'll hang her.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why came I hither but to that intent?\n    Think you a little din can daunt mine ears?\n    Have I not in my time heard lions roar?\n    Have I not heard the sea, puff'd up with winds,\n    Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?\n    Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,\n    And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?\n    Have I not in a pitched battle heard\n    Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets' clang?\n    And do you tell me of a woman's tongue,\n    That gives not half so great a blow to hear\n    As will a chestnut in a fariner's fire?\n    Tush! tush! fear boys with bugs.\n  GRUMIO. For he fears none.\n  GREMIO. Hortensio, hark:\n    This gentleman is happily arriv'd,\n    My mind presumes, for his own good and ours.\n  HORTENSIO. I promis'd we would be contributors\n    And bear his charge of wooing, whatsoe'er.\n  GREMIO. And so we will- provided that he win her.\n  GRUMIO. I would I were as sure of a good dinner.\n\n    Enter TRANIO, bravely apparelled as LUCENTIO, and BIONDELLO\n\n  TRANIO. Gentlemen, God save you! If I may be bold,\n    Tell me, I beseech you, which is the readiest way\n    To the house of Signior Baptista Minola?\n  BIONDELLO. He that has the two fair daughters; is't he you mean?\n  TRANIO. Even he, Biondello.\n  GREMIO. Hark you, sir, you mean not her to-\n  TRANIO. Perhaps him and her, sir; what have you to do?\n  PETRUCHIO. Not her that chides, sir, at any hand, I pray.\n  TRANIO. I love no chiders, sir. Biondello, let's away.\n  LUCENTIO.  [Aside]  Well begun, Tranio.\n  HORTENSIO. Sir, a word ere you go.\n    Are you a suitor to the maid you talk of, yea or no?\n  TRANIO. And if I be, sir, is it any offence?\n  GREMIO. No; if without more words you will get you hence.\n  TRANIO. Why, sir, I pray, are not the streets as free\n    For me as for you?\n  GREMIO. But so is not she.\n\n  TRANIO. For what reason, I beseech you?\n  GREMIO. For this reason, if you'll know,\n    That she's the choice love of Signior Gremio.\n  HORTENSIO. That she's the chosen of Signior Hortensio.\n  TRANIO. Softly, my masters! If you be gentlemen,\n    Do me this right- hear me with patience.\n    Baptista is a noble gentleman,\n    To whom my father is not all unknown,\n    And, were his daughter fairer than she is,\n    She may more suitors have, and me for one.\n    Fair Leda's daughter had a thousand wooers;\n    Then well one more may fair Bianca have;\n    And so she shall: Lucentio shall make one,\n    Though Paris came in hope to speed alone.\n  GREMIO. What, this gentleman will out-talk us all!\n  LUCENTIO. Sir, give him head; I know he'll prove a jade.\n  PETRUCHIO. Hortensio, to what end are all these words?\n  HORTENSIO. Sir, let me be so bold as ask you,\n    Did you yet ever see Baptista's daughter?\n  TRANIO. No, sir, but hear I do that he hath two:\n    The one as famous for a scolding tongue\n    As is the other for beauteous modesty.\n  PETRUCHIO. Sir, sir, the first's for me; let her go by.\n  GREMIO. Yea, leave that labour to great Hercules,\n    And let it be more than Alcides' twelve.\n  PETRUCHIO. Sir, understand you this of me, in sooth:\n    The youngest daughter, whom you hearken for,\n    Her father keeps from all access of suitors,\n    And will not promise her to any man\n    Until the elder sister first be wed.\n    The younger then is free, and not before.\n  TRANIO. If it be so, sir, that you are the man\n    Must stead us all, and me amongst the rest;\n    And if you break the ice, and do this feat,\n    Achieve the elder, set the younger free\n    For our access- whose hap shall be to have her\n    Will not so graceless be to be ingrate.\n  HORTENSIO. Sir, you say well, and well you do conceive;\n    And since you do profess to be a suitor,\n    You must, as we do, gratify this gentleman,\n    To whom we all rest generally beholding.\n  TRANIO. Sir, I shall not be slack; in sign whereof,\n    Please ye we may contrive this afternoon,\n    And quaff carouses to our mistress' health;\n    And do as adversaries do in law-\n    Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.\n  GRUMIO, BIONDELLO. O excellent motion! Fellows, let's be gone.\n  HORTENSIO. The motion's good indeed, and be it so.\n    Petruchio, I shall be your ben venuto.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT Il. SCENE I.\nPadua. BAPTISTA'S house\n\nEnter KATHERINA and BIANCA\n\n  BIANCA. Good sister, wrong me not, nor wrong yourself,\n    To make a bondmaid and a slave of me-\n    That I disdain; but for these other gawds,\n    Unbind my hands, I'll pull them off myself,\n    Yea, all my raiment, to my petticoat;\n    Or what you will command me will I do,\n    So well I know my duty to my elders.\n  KATHERINA. Of all thy suitors here I charge thee tell\n    Whom thou lov'st best. See thou dissemble not.\n  BIANCA. Believe me, sister, of all the men alive\n    I never yet beheld that special face\n    Which I could fancy more than any other.\n  KATHERINA. Minion, thou liest. Is't not Hortensio?\n  BIANCA. If you affect him, sister, here I swear\n    I'll plead for you myself but you shall have him.\n  KATHERINA. O then, belike, you fancy riches more:\n    You will have Gremio to keep you fair.\n  BIANCA. Is it for him you do envy me so?\n    Nay, then you jest; and now I well perceive\n    You have but jested with me all this while.\n    I prithee, sister Kate, untie my hands.\n  KATHERINA. [Strikes her]  If that be jest, then an the rest was so.\n\n                            Enter BAPTISTA\n\n  BAPTISTA. Why, how now, dame! Whence grows this insolence?\n    Bianca, stand aside- poor girl! she weeps.\n                                                [He unbinds her]\n    Go ply thy needle; meddle not with her.\n    For shame, thou hilding of a devilish spirit,\n    Why dost thou wrong her that did ne'er wrong thee?\n    When did she cross thee with a bitter word?\n  KATHERINA. Her silence flouts me, and I'll be reveng'd.\n                                            [Flies after BIANCA]\n  BAPTISTA. What, in my sight? Bianca, get thee in.\n                                                     Exit BIANCA\n  KATHERINA. What, will you not suffer me? Nay, now I see\n    She is your treasure, she must have a husband;\n    I must dance bare-foot on her wedding-day,\n    And for your love to her lead apes in hell.\n    Talk not to me; I will go sit and weep,\n    Till I can find occasion of revenge.          Exit KATHERINA\n  BAPTISTA. Was ever gentleman thus griev'd as I?\n    But who comes here?\n\n        Enter GREMIO, with LUCENTIO in the habit of a mean man;\n         PETRUCHIO, with HORTENSIO as a musician; and TRANIO,\n    as LUCENTIO, with his boy, BIONDELLO, bearing a lute and books\n\n  GREMIO. Good morrow, neighbour Baptista.\n  BAPTISTA. Good morrow, neighbour Gremio.\n    God save you, gentlemen!\n  PETRUCHIO. And you, good sir! Pray, have you not a daughter\n    Call'd Katherina, fair and virtuous?\n  BAPTISTA. I have a daughter, sir, call'd Katherina.\n  GREMIO. You are too blunt; go to it orderly.\n  PETRUCHIO. You wrong me, Signior Gremio; give me leave.\n    I am a gentleman of Verona, sir,\n    That, hearing of her beauty and her wit,\n    Her affability and bashful modesty,\n    Her wondrous qualities and mild behaviour,\n    Am bold to show myself a forward guest\n    Within your house, to make mine eye the witness\n    Of that report which I so oft have heard.\n    And, for an entrance to my entertainment,\n    I do present you with a man of mine,\n                                          [Presenting HORTENSIO]\n    Cunning in music and the mathematics,\n    To instruct her fully in those sciences,\n    Whereof I know she is not ignorant.\n    Accept of him, or else you do me wrong-\n    His name is Licio, born in Mantua.\n  BAPTISTA. Y'are welcome, sir, and he for your good sake;\n    But for my daughter Katherine, this I know,\n    She is not for your turn, the more my grief.\n  PETRUCHIO. I see you do not mean to part with her;\n    Or else you like not of my company.\n  BAPTISTA. Mistake me not; I speak but as I find.\n    Whence are you, sir? What may I call your name?\n  PETRUCHIO. Petruchio is my name, Antonio's son,\n    A man well known throughout all Italy.\n  BAPTISTA. I know him well; you are welcome for his sake.\n  GREMIO. Saving your tale, Petruchio, I pray,\n    Let us that are poor petitioners speak too.\n    Bacare! you are marvellous forward.\n  PETRUCHIO. O, pardon me, Signior Gremio! I would fain be doing.\n  GREMIO. I doubt it not, sir; but you will curse your wooing.\n    Neighbour, this is a gift very grateful, I am sure of it. To\n    express the like kindness, myself, that have been more kindly\n    beholding to you than any, freely give unto you this young\n    scholar  [Presenting LUCENTIO]  that hath been long studying at\n    Rheims; as cunning in Greek, Latin, and other languages, as the\n    other in music and mathematics. His name is Cambio. Pray accept\n    his service.\n  BAPTISTA. A thousand thanks, Signior Gremio. Welcome, good Cambio.\n    [To TRANIO]  But, gentle sir, methinks you walk like a stranger.\n    May I be so bold to know the cause of your coming?\n  TRANIO. Pardon me, sir, the boldness is mine own\n    That, being a stranger in this city here,\n    Do make myself a suitor to your daughter,\n    Unto Bianca, fair and virtuous.\n    Nor is your firm resolve unknown to me\n    In the preferment of the eldest sister.\n    This liberty is all that I request-\n    That, upon knowledge of my parentage,\n    I may have welcome 'mongst the rest that woo,\n    And free access and favour as the rest.\n    And toward the education of your daughters\n    I here bestow a simple instrument,\n    And this small packet of Greek and Latin books.\n    If you accept them, then their worth is great.\n  BAPTISTA. Lucentio is your name? Of whence, I pray?\n  TRANIO. Of Pisa, sir; son to Vincentio.\n  BAPTISTA. A mighty man of Pisa. By report\n    I know him well. You are very welcome, sir.\n    Take you the lute, and you the set of books;\n    You shall go see your pupils presently.\n    Holla, within!\n\n                         Enter a SERVANT\n\n    Sirrah, lead these gentlemen\n    To my daughters; and tell them both\n    These are their tutors. Bid them use them well.\n\n                Exit SERVANT leading HORTENSIO carrying the lute\n                                     and LUCENTIO with the books\n\n    We will go walk a little in the orchard,\n    And then to dinner. You are passing welcome,\n    And so I pray you all to think yourselves.\n  PETRUCHIO. Signior Baptista, my business asketh haste,\n    And every day I cannot come to woo.\n    You knew my father well, and in him me,\n    Left solely heir to all his lands and goods,\n    Which I have bettered rather than decreas'd.\n    Then tell me, if I get your daughter's love,\n    What dowry shall I have with her to wife?\n  BAPTISTA. After my death, the one half of my lands\n    And, in possession, twenty thousand crowns.\n  PETRUCHIO. And for that dowry, I'll assure her of\n    Her widowhood, be it that she survive me,\n    In all my lands and leases whatsoever.\n    Let specialities be therefore drawn between us,\n    That covenants may be kept on either hand.\n  BAPTISTA. Ay, when the special thing is well obtain'd,\n    That is, her love; for that is all in all.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, that is nothing; for I tell you, father,\n    I am as peremptory as she proud-minded;\n    And where two raging fires meet together,\n    They do consume the thing that feeds their fury.\n    Though little fire grows great with little wind,\n    Yet extreme gusts will blow out fire and all.\n    So I to her, and so she yields to me;\n    For I am rough, and woo not like a babe.\n  BAPTISTA. Well mayst thou woo, and happy be thy speed\n    But be thou arm'd for some unhappy words.\n  PETRUCHIO. Ay, to the proof, as mountains are for winds,\n    That shake not though they blow perpetually.\n\n             Re-enter HORTENSIO, with his head broke\n\n  BAPTISTA. How now, my friend! Why dost thou look so pale?\n  HORTENSIO. For fear, I promise you, if I look pale.\n  BAPTISTA. What, will my daughter prove a good musician?\n  HORTENSIO. I think she'll sooner prove a soldier:\n    Iron may hold with her, but never lutes.\n  BAPTISTA. Why, then thou canst not break her to the lute?\n  HORTENSIO. Why, no; for she hath broke the lute to me.\n    I did but tell her she mistook her frets,\n    And bow'd her hand to teach her fingering,\n    When, with a most impatient devilish spirit,\n    'Frets, call you these?' quoth she 'I'll fume with them.'\n    And with that word she struck me on the head,\n    And through the instrument my pate made way;\n    And there I stood amazed for a while,\n    As on a pillory, looking through the lute,\n    While she did call me rascal fiddler\n    And twangling Jack, with twenty such vile terms,\n    As she had studied to misuse me so.\n  PETRUCHIO. Now, by the world, it is a lusty wench;\n    I love her ten times more than e'er I did.\n    O, how I long to have some chat with her!\n  BAPTISTA. Well, go with me, and be not so discomfited;\n    Proceed in practice with my younger daughter;\n    She's apt to learn, and thankful for good turns.\n    Signior Petruchio, will you go with us,\n    Or shall I send my daughter Kate to you?\n  PETRUCHIO. I pray you do.             Exeunt all but PETRUCHIO\n    I'll attend her here,\n    And woo her with some spirit when she comes.\n    Say that she rail; why, then I'll tell her plain\n    She sings as sweetly as a nightingale.\n    Say that she frown; I'll say she looks as clear\n    As morning roses newly wash'd with dew.\n    Say she be mute, and will not speak a word;\n    Then I'll commend her volubility,\n    And say she uttereth piercing eloquence.\n    If she do bid me pack, I'll give her thanks,\n    As though she bid me stay by her a week;\n    If she deny to wed, I'll crave the day\n    When I shall ask the banns, and when be married.\n    But here she comes; :Lnd.now, Petruchio, speak.\n\n                        Enter KATHERINA\n\n    Good morrow, Kate- for that's your name, I hear.\n  KATHERINA. Well have you heard, but something hard of hearing:\n    They call me Katherine that do talk of me.\n  PETRUCHIO. You lie, in faith, for you are call'd plain Kate,\n    And bonny Kate, and sometimes Kate the curst;\n    But, Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom,\n    Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate,\n    For dainties are all Kates, and therefore, Kate,\n    Take this of me, Kate of my consolation-\n    Hearing thy mildness prais'd in every town,\n    Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded,\n    Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs,\n    Myself am mov'd to woo thee for my wife.\n  KATHERINA. Mov'd! in good time! Let him that mov'd you hither\n    Remove you hence. I knew you at the first\n    You were a moveable.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, what's a moveable?\n  KATHERINA. A join'd-stool.\n  PETRUCHIO. Thou hast hit it. Come, sit on me.\n  KATHERINA. Asses are made to bear, and so are you.\n  PETRUCHIO. Women are made to bear, and so are you.\n  KATHERINA. No such jade as you, if me you mean.\n  PETRUCHIO. Alas, good Kate, I will not burden thee!\n    For, knowing thee to be but young and light-\n  KATHERINA. Too light for such a swain as you to catch;\n    And yet as heavy as my weight should be.\n  PETRUCHIO. Should be! should- buzz!\n  KATHERINA. Well ta'en, and like a buzzard.\n  PETRUCHIO. O, slow-wing'd turtle, shall a buzzard take thee?\n  KATHERINA. Ay, for a turtle, as he takes a buzzard.\n  PETRUCHIO. Come, come, you wasp; i' faith, you are too angry.\n  KATHERINA. If I be waspish, best beware my sting.\n  PETRUCHIO. My remedy is then to pluck it out.\n  KATHERINA. Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies.\n  PETRUCHIO. Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting?\n    In his tail.\n  KATHERINA. In his tongue.\n  PETRUCHIO. Whose tongue?\n  KATHERINA. Yours, if you talk of tales; and so farewell.\n  PETRUCHIO. What, with my tongue in your tail? Nay, come again,\n    Good Kate; I am a gentleman.\n  KATHERINA. That I'll try.                    [She strikes him]\n  PETRUCHIO. I swear I'll cuff you, if you strike again.\n  KATHERINA. So may you lose your arms.\n    If you strike me, you are no gentleman;\n    And if no gentleman, why then no arms.\n  PETRUCHIO. A herald, Kate? O, put me in thy books!\n  KATHERINA. What is your crest- a coxcomb?\n  PETRUCHIO. A combless cock, so Kate will be my hen.\n  KATHERINA. No cock of mine: you crow too like a craven.\n  PETRUCHIO. Nay, come, Kate, come; you must not look so sour.\n  KATHERINA. It is my fashion, when I see a crab.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, here's no crab; and therefore look not sour.\n  KATHERINA. There is, there is.\n  PETRUCHIO. Then show it me.\n  KATHERINA. Had I a glass I would.\n  PETRUCHIO. What, you mean my face?\n  KATHERINA. Well aim'd of such a young one.\n  PETRUCHIO. Now, by Saint George, I am too young for you.\n  KATHERINA. Yet you are wither'd.\n  PETRUCHIO. 'Tis with cares.\n  KATHERINA. I care not.\n  PETRUCHIO. Nay, hear you, Kate- in sooth, you scape not so.\n  KATHERINA. I chafe you, if I tarry; let me go.\n  PETRUCHIO. No, not a whit; I find you passing gentle.\n    'Twas told me you were rough, and coy, and sullen,\n    And now I find report a very liar;\n    For thou art pleasant, gamesome, passing courteous,\n    But slow in speech, yet sweet as springtime flowers.\n    Thou canst not frown, thou canst not look askance,\n    Nor bite the lip, as angry wenches will,\n    Nor hast thou pleasure to be cross in talk;\n    But thou with mildness entertain'st thy wooers;\n    With gentle conference, soft and affable.\n    Why does the world report that Kate doth limp?\n    O sland'rous world! Kate like the hazel-twig\n    Is straight and slender, and as brown in hue\n    As hazel-nuts, and sweeter than the kernels.\n    O, let me see thee walk. Thou dost not halt.\n  KATHERINA. Go, fool, and whom thou keep'st command.\n  PETRUCHIO. Did ever Dian so become a grove\n    As Kate this chamber with her princely gait?\n    O, be thou Dian, and let her be Kate;\n    And then let Kate be chaste, and Dian sportful!\n  KATHERINA. Where did you study all this goodly speech?\n  PETRUCHIO. It is extempore, from my mother wit.\n  KATHERINA. A witty mother! witless else her son.\n  PETRUCHIO. Am I not wise?\n  KATHERINA. Yes, keep you warm.\n  PETRUCHIO. Marry, so I mean, sweet Katherine, in thy bed.\n    And therefore, setting all this chat aside,\n    Thus in plain terms: your father hath consented\n    That you shall be my wife your dowry greed on;\n    And will you, nill you, I will marry you.\n    Now, Kate, I am a husband for your turn;\n    For, by this light, whereby I see thy beauty,\n    Thy beauty that doth make me like thee well,\n    Thou must be married to no man but me;\n    For I am he am born to tame you, Kate,\n    And bring you from a wild Kate to a Kate\n    Conformable as other household Kates.\n\n               Re-enter BAPTISTA, GREMIO, and TRANIO\n\n    Here comes your father. Never make denial;\n    I must and will have Katherine to my wife.\n  BAPTISTA. Now, Signior Petruchio, how speed you with my daughter?\n  PETRUCHIO. How but well, sir? how but well?\n    It were impossible I should speed amiss.\n  BAPTISTA. Why, how now, daughter Katherine, in your dumps?\n  KATHERINA. Call you me daughter? Now I promise you\n    You have show'd a tender fatherly regard\n    To wish me wed to one half lunatic,\n    A mad-cap ruffian and a swearing Jack,\n    That thinks with oaths to face the matter out.\n  PETRUCHIO. Father, 'tis thus: yourself and all the world\n    That talk'd of her have talk'd amiss of her.\n    If she be curst, it is for policy,\n    For,she's not froward, but modest as the dove;\n    She is not hot, but temperate as the morn;\n    For patience she will prove a second Grissel,\n    And Roman Lucrece for her chastity.\n    And, to conclude, we have 'greed so well together\n    That upon Sunday is the wedding-day.\n  KATHERINA. I'll see thee hang'd on Sunday first.\n  GREMIO. Hark, Petruchio; she says she'll see thee hang'd first.\n  TRANIO. Is this your speeding? Nay, then good-night our part!\n  PETRUCHIO. Be patient, gentlemen. I choose her for myself;\n    If she and I be pleas'd, what's that to you?\n    'Tis bargain'd 'twixt us twain, being alone,\n    That she shall still be curst in company.\n    I tell you 'tis incredible to believe.\n    How much she loves me- O, the kindest Kate!\n    She hung about my neck, and kiss on kiss\n    She vied so fast, protesting oath on oath,\n    That in a twink she won me to her love.\n    O, you are novices! 'Tis a world to see,\n    How tame, when men and women are alone,\n    A meacock wretch can make the curstest shrew.\n    Give me thy hand, Kate; I will unto Venice,\n    To buy apparel 'gainst the wedding-day.\n    Provide the feast, father, and bid the guests;\n    I will be sure my Katherine shall be fine.\n  BAPTISTA. I know not what to say; but give me your hands.\n    God send you joy, Petruchio! 'Tis a match.\n  GREMIO, TRANIO. Amen, say we; we will be witnesses.\n  PETRUCHIO. Father, and wife, and gentlemen, adieu.\n    I will to Venice; Sunday comes apace;\n    We will have rings and things, and fine array;\n    And kiss me, Kate; we will be married a Sunday.\n                        Exeunt PETRUCHIO and KATHERINA severally\n  GREMIO. Was ever match clapp'd up so suddenly?\n  BAPTISTA. Faith, gentlemen, now I play a merchant's part,\n    And venture madly on a desperate mart.\n  TRANIO. 'Twas a commodity lay fretting by you;\n    'Twill bring you gain, or perish on the seas.\n  BAPTISTA. The gain I seek is quiet in the match.\n  GREMIO. No doubt but he hath got a quiet catch.\n    But now, Baptista, to your younger daughter:\n    Now is the day we long have looked for;\n    I am your neighbour, and was suitor first.\n  TRANIO. And I am one that love Bianca more\n    Than words can witness or your thoughts can guess.\n  GREMIO. Youngling, thou canst not love so dear as I.\n  TRANIO. Greybeard, thy love doth freeze.\n  GREMIO. But thine doth fry.\n    Skipper, stand back; 'tis age that nourisheth.\n  TRANIO. But youth in ladies' eyes that flourisheth.\n  BAPTISTA. Content you, gentlemen; I will compound this strife.\n    'Tis deeds must win the prize, and he of both\n    That can assure my daughter greatest dower\n    Shall have my Bianca's love.\n    Say, Signior Gremio, what can you assure her?\n  GREMIO. First, as you know, my house within the city\n    Is richly furnished with plate and gold,\n    Basins and ewers to lave her dainty hands;\n    My hangings all of Tyrian tapestry;\n    In ivory coffers I have stuff'd my crowns;\n    In cypress chests my arras counterpoints,\n    Costly apparel, tents, and canopies,\n    Fine linen, Turkey cushions boss'd with pearl,\n    Valance of Venice gold in needle-work;\n    Pewter and brass, and all things that belongs\n    To house or housekeeping. Then at my farm\n    I have a hundred milch-kine to the pail,\n    Six score fat oxen standing in my stalls,\n    And all things answerable to this portion.\n    Myself am struck in years, I must confess;\n    And if I die to-morrow this is hers,\n    If whilst I live she will be only mine.\n  TRANIO. That 'only' came well in. Sir, list to me:\n    I am my father's heir and only son;\n    If I may have your daughter to my wife,\n    I'll leave her houses three or four as good\n    Within rich Pisa's walls as any one\n    Old Signior Gremio has in Padua;\n    Besides two thousand ducats by the year\n    Of fruitful land, all which shall be her jointure.\n    What, have I pinch'd you, Signior Gremio?\n  GREMIO. Two thousand ducats by the year of land!\n    [Aside]  My land amounts not to so much in all.-\n    That she shall have, besides an argosy\n    That now is lying in Marseilles road.\n    What, have I chok'd you with an argosy?\n  TRANIO. Gremio, 'tis known my father hath no less\n    Than three great argosies, besides two galliasses,\n    And twelve tight galleys. These I will assure her,\n    And twice as much whate'er thou off'rest next.\n  GREMIO. Nay, I have off'red all; I have no more;\n    And she can have no more than all I have;\n    If you like me, she shall have me and mine.\n  TRANIO. Why, then the maid is mine from all the world\n    By your firm promise; Gremio is out-vied.\n  BAPTISTA. I must confess your offer is the best;\n    And let your father make her the assurance,\n    She is your own. Else, you must pardon me;\n    If you should die before him, where's her dower?\n  TRANIO. That's but a cavil; he is old, I young.\n  GREMIO. And may not young men die as well as old?\n  BAPTISTA. Well, gentlemen,\n    I am thus resolv'd: on Sunday next you know\n    My daughter Katherine is to be married;\n    Now, on the Sunday following shall Bianca\n    Be bride to you, if you make this assurance;\n    If not, to Signior Gremio.\n    And so I take my leave, and thank you both.\n  GREMIO. Adieu, good neighbour.                   Exit BAPTISTA\n    Now, I fear thee not.\n    Sirrah young gamester, your father were a fool\n    To give thee all, and in his waning age\n    Set foot under thy table. Tut, a toy!\n    An old Italian fox is not so kind, my boy.              Exit\n  TRANIO. A vengeance on your crafty withered hide!\n    Yet I have fac'd it with a card of ten.\n    'Tis in my head to do my master good:\n    I see no reason but suppos'd Lucentio\n    Must get a father, call'd suppos'd Vincentio;\n    And that's a wonder- fathers commonly\n    Do get their children; but in this case of wooing\n    A child shall get a sire, if I fail not of my cunning.\n Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nPadua. BAPTISTA'S house\n\nEnter LUCENTIO as CAMBIO, HORTENSIO as LICIO, and BIANCA\n\n  LUCENTIO. Fiddler, forbear; you grow too forward, sir.\n    Have you so soon forgot the entertainment\n    Her sister Katherine welcome'd you withal?\n  HORTENSIO. But, wrangling pedant, this is\n    The patroness of heavenly harmony.\n    Then give me leave to have prerogative;\n    And when in music we have spent an hour,\n    Your lecture shall have leisure for as much.\n  LUCENTIO. Preposterous ass, that never read so far\n    To know the cause why music was ordain'd!\n    Was it not to refresh the mind of man\n    After his studies or his usual pain?\n    Then give me leave to read philosophy,\n    And while I pause serve in your harmony.\n  HORTENSIO. Sirrah, I will not bear these braves of thine.\n  BIANCA. Why, gentlemen, you do me double wrong\n    To strive for that which resteth in my choice.\n    I arn no breeching scholar in the schools,\n    I'll not be tied to hours nor 'pointed times,\n    But learn my lessons as I please myself.\n    And to cut off all strife: here sit we down;\n    Take you your instrument, play you the whiles!\n    His lecture will be done ere you have tun'd.\n  HORTENSIO. You'll leave his lecture when I am in tune?\n  LUCENTIO. That will be never- tune your instrument.\n  BIANCA. Where left we last?\n  LUCENTIO. Here, madam:\n    'Hic ibat Simois, hic est Sigeia tellus,\n    Hic steterat Priami regia celsa senis.'\n  BIANCA. Construe them.\n  LUCENTIO. 'Hic ibat' as I told you before- 'Simois' I am Lucentio-\n    'hic est' son unto Vincentio of Pisa- 'Sigeia tellus' disguised\n    thus to get your love- 'Hic steterat' and that Lucentio that\n    comes a-wooing- 'Priami' is my man Tranio- 'regia' bearing my\n    port- 'celsa senis' that we might beguile the old pantaloon.\n  HORTENSIO. Madam, my instrument's in tune.\n  BIANCA. Let's hear. O fie! the treble jars.\n  LUCENTIO. Spit in the hole, man, and tune again.\n  BIANCA. Now let me see if I can construe it: 'Hic ibat Simois' I\n    know you not- 'hic est Sigeia tellus' I trust you not- 'Hic\n    steterat Priami' take heed he hear us not- 'regia' presume not-\n   'celsa senis' despair not.\n  HORTENSIO. Madam, 'tis now in tune.\n  LUCENTIO. All but the bass.\n  HORTENSIO. The bass is right; 'tis the base knave that jars.\n    [Aside]  How fiery and forward our pedant is!\n    Now, for my life, the knave doth court my love.\n    Pedascule, I'll watch you better yet.\n  BIANCA. In time I may believe, yet I mistrust.\n  LUCENTIO. Mistrust it not- for sure, AEacides\n    Was Ajax, call'd so from his grandfather.\n  BIANCA. I must believe my master; else, I promise you,\n    I should be arguing still upon that doubt;\n    But let it rest. Now, Licio, to you.\n    Good master, take it not unkindly, pray,\n    That I have been thus pleasant with you both.\n  HORTENSIO.  [To LUCENTIO]  You may go walk and give me leave\n      awhile;\n    My lessons make no music in three Parts.\n  LUCENTIO. Are you so formal, sir? Well, I must wait,\n    [Aside]  And watch withal; for, but I be deceiv'd,\n    Our fine musician groweth amorous.\n  HORTENSIO. Madam, before you touch the instrument\n    To learn the order of my fingering,\n    I must begin with rudiments of art,\n    To teach you gamut in a briefer sort,\n    More pleasant, pithy, and effectual,\n    Than hath been taught by any of my trade;\n    And there it is in writing fairly drawn.\n  BIANCA. Why, I am past my gamut long ago.\n  HORTENSIO. Yet read the gamut of Hortensio.\n  BIANCA.  [Reads]\n         '\"Gamut\" I am, the ground of all accord-\n         \"A re\" to plead Hortensio's passion-\n         \"B mi\" Bianca, take him for thy lord-\n         \"C fa ut\" that loves with all affection-\n         \"D sol re\" one clef, two notes have I-\n         \"E la mi\" show pity or I die.'\n    Call you this gamut? Tut, I like it not!\n    Old fashions please me best; I am not so nice\n    To change true rules for odd inventions.\n\n                       Enter a SERVANT\n\n  SERVANT. Mistress, your father prays you leave your books\n    And help to dress your sister's chamber up.\n    You know to-morrow is the wedding-day.\n  BIANCA. Farewell, sweet masters, both; I must be gone.\n                                       Exeunt BIANCA and SERVANT\n  LUCENTIO. Faith, mistress, then I have no cause to stay.\n Exit\n  HORTENSIO. But I have cause to pry into this pedant;\n    Methinks he looks as though he were in love.\n    Yet if thy thoughts, Bianca, be so humble\n    To cast thy wand'ring eyes on every stale-\n    Seize thee that list. If once I find thee ranging,\n  HORTENSIO will be quit with thee by changing.             Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nPadua. Before BAPTISTA'So house\n\nEnter BAPTISTA, GREMIO, TRANIO as LUCENTIO, KATHERINA, BIANCA,\nLUCENTIO as CAMBIO, and ATTENDANTS\n\n  BAPTISTA.  [To TRANIO]  Signior Lucentio, this is the 'pointed day\n    That Katherine and Petruchio should be married,\n    And yet we hear not of our son-in-law.\n    What will be said? What mockery will it be\n    To want the bridegroom when the priest attends\n    To speak the ceremonial rites of marriage!\n    What says Lucentio to this shame of ours?\n  KATHERINA. No shame but mine; I must, forsooth, be forc'd\n    To give my hand, oppos'd against my heart,\n    Unto a mad-brain rudesby, full of spleen,\n    Who woo'd in haste and means to wed at leisure.\n    I told you, I, he was a frantic fool,\n    Hiding his bitter jests in blunt behaviour;\n    And, to be noted for a merry man,\n    He'll woo a thousand, 'point the day of marriage,\n    Make friends invited, and proclaim the banns;\n    Yet never means to wed where he hath woo'd.\n    Now must the world point at poor Katherine,\n    And say 'Lo, there is mad Petruchio's wife,\n    If it would please him come and marry her!'\n  TRANIO. Patience, good Katherine, and Baptista too.\n    Upon my life, Petruchio means but well,\n    Whatever fortune stays him from his word.\n    Though he be blunt, I know him passing wise;\n    Though he be merry, yet withal he's honest.\n  KATHERINA. Would Katherine had never seen him though!\n                    Exit, weeping, followed by BIANCA and others\n  BAPTISTA. Go, girl, I cannot blame thee now to weep,\n    For such an injury would vex a very saint;\n    Much more a shrew of thy impatient humour.\n\n                           Enter BIONDELLO\n\n    Master, master! News, and such old news as you never heard of!\n  BAPTISTA. Is it new and old too? How may that be?\n  BIONDELLO. Why, is it not news to hear of Petruchio's coming?\n  BAPTISTA. Is he come?\n  BIONDELLO. Why, no, sir.\n  BAPTISTA. What then?\n  BIONDELLO. He is coming.\n  BAPTISTA. When will he be here?\n  BIONDELLO. When he stands where I am and sees you there.\n  TRANIO. But, say, what to thine old news?\n  BIONDELLO. Why, Petruchio is coming- in a new hat and an old\n    jerkin; a pair of old breeches thrice turn'd; a pair of boots\n    that have been candle-cases, one buckled, another lac'd; an old\n    rusty sword ta'en out of the town armoury, with a broken hilt,\n    and chapeless; with two broken points; his horse hipp'd, with an\n    old motley saddle and stirrups of no kindred; besides, possess'd\n    with the glanders and like to mose in the chine, troubled with\n    the lampass, infected with the fashions, full of windgalls, sped\n    with spavins, rayed with the yellows, past cure of the fives,\n    stark spoil'd with the staggers, begnawn with the bots, sway'd in\n    the back and shoulder-shotten, near-legg'd before, and with a\n    half-cheek'd bit, and a head-stall of sheep's leather which,\n    being restrained to keep him from stumbling, hath been often\n    burst, and now repaired with knots; one girth six times piec'd,\n    and a woman's crupper of velure, which hath two letters for her\n    name fairly set down in studs, and here and there piec'd with\n    pack-thread.\n  BAPTISTA. Who comes with him?\n  BIONDELLO. O, sir, his lackey, for all the world caparison'd like\n    the horse- with a linen stock on one leg and a kersey boot-hose\n    on the other, gart'red with a red and blue list; an old hat, and\n    the humour of forty fancies prick'd in't for a feather; a\n    monster, a very monster in apparel, and not like a Christian\n    footboy or a gentleman's lackey.\n  TRANIO. 'Tis some odd humour pricks him to this fashion;\n    Yet oftentimes lie goes but mean-apparell'd.\n  BAPTISTA. I am glad he's come, howsoe'er he comes.\n  BIONDELLO. Why, sir, he comes not.\n  BAPTISTA. Didst thou not say he comes?\n  BIONDELLO. Who? that Petruchio came?\n  BAPTISTA. Ay, that Petruchio came.\n  BIONDELLO. No, sir; I say his horse comes with him on his back.\n  BAPTISTA. Why, that's all one.\n  BIONDELLO. Nay, by Saint Jamy,\n             I hold you a penny,\n             A horse and a man\n             Is more than one,\n             And yet not many.\n\n                  Enter PETRUCHIO and GRUMIO\n\n  PETRUCHIO. Come, where be these gallants? Who's at home?\n  BAPTISTA. You are welcome, sir.\n  PETRUCHIO. And yet I come not well.\n  BAPTISTA. And yet you halt not.\n  TRANIO. Not so well apparell'd\n    As I wish you were.\n  PETRUCHIO. Were it better, I should rush in thus.\n    But where is Kate? Where is my lovely bride?\n    How does my father? Gentles, methinks you frown;\n    And wherefore gaze this goodly company\n    As if they saw some wondrous monument,\n    Some comet or unusual prodigy?\n  BAPTISTA. Why, sir, you know this is your wedding-day.\n    First were we sad, fearing you would not come;\n    Now sadder, that you come so unprovided.\n    Fie, doff this habit, shame to your estate,\n    An eye-sore to our solemn festival!\n  TRANIO. And tell us what occasion of import\n    Hath all so long detain'd you from your wife,\n    And sent you hither so unlike yourself?\n  PETRUCHIO. Tedious it were to tell, and harsh to hear;\n    Sufficeth I am come to keep my word,\n    Though in some part enforced to digress,\n    Which at more leisure I will so excuse\n    As you shall well be satisfied withal.\n    But where is Kate? I stay too long from her;\n    The morning wears, 'tis time we were at church.\n  TRANIO. See not your bride in these unreverent robes;\n    Go to my chamber, put on clothes of mine.\n  PETRUCHIO. Not I, believe me; thus I'll visit her.\n  BAPTISTA. But thus, I trust, you will not marry her.\n  PETRUCHIO. Good sooth, even thus; therefore ha' done with words;\n    To me she's married, not unto my clothes.\n    Could I repair what she will wear in me\n    As I can change these poor accoutrements,\n    'Twere well for Kate and better for myself.\n    But what a fool am I to chat with you,\n    When I should bid good-morrow to my bride\n    And seal the title with a lovely kiss!\n                                  Exeunt PETRUCHIO and PETRUCHIO\n  TRANIO. He hath some meaning in his mad attire.\n    We will persuade him, be it possible,\n    To put on better ere he go to church.\n  BAPTISTA. I'll after him and see the event of this.\n              Exeunt BAPTISTA, GREMIO, BIONDELLO, and ATTENDENTS\n  TRANIO. But to her love concerneth us to ad\n    Her father's liking; which to bring to pass,\n    As I before imparted to your worship,\n    I am to get a man- whate'er he be\n    It skills not much; we'll fit him to our turn-\n    And he shall be Vincentio of Pisa,\n    And make assurance here in Padua\n    Of greater sums than I have promised.\n    So shall you quietly enjoy your hope\n    And marry sweet Bianca with consent.\n  LUCENTIO. Were it not that my fellow schoolmaster\n    Doth watch Bianca's steps so narrowly,\n    'Twere good, methinks, to steal our marriage;\n    Which once perform'd, let all the world say no,\n    I'll keep mine own despite of all the world.\n  TRANIO. That by degrees we mean to look into\n    And watch our vantage in this business;\n    We'll over-reach the greybeard, Gremio,\n    The narrow-prying father, Minola,\n    The quaint musician, amorous Licio-\n    All for my master's sake, Lucentio.\n\n                           Re-enter GREMIO\n\n    Signior Gremio, came you from the church?\n  GREMIO. As willingly as e'er I came from school.\n  TRANIO. And is the bride and bridegroom coming home?\n  GREMIO. A bridegroom, say you? 'Tis a groom indeed,\n    A grumbling groom, and that the girl shall find.\n  TRANIO. Curster than she? Why, 'tis impossible.\n  GREMIO. Why, he's a devil, a devil, a very fiend.\n  TRANIO. Why, she's a devil, a devil, the devil's dam.\n  GREMIO. Tut, she's a lamb, a dove, a fool, to him!\n    I'll tell you, Sir Lucentio: when the priest\n    Should ask if Katherine should be his wife,\n    'Ay, by gogs-wouns' quoth he, and swore so loud\n    That, all amaz'd, the priest let fall the book;\n    And as he stoop'd again to take it up,\n    This mad-brain'd bridegroom took him such a cuff\n    That down fell priest and book, and book and priest.\n    'Now take them up,' quoth he 'if any list.'\n  TRANIO. What said the wench, when he rose again?\n  GREMIO. Trembled and shook, for why he stamp'd and swore\n    As if the vicar meant to cozen him.\n    But after many ceremonies done\n    He calls for wine: 'A health!' quoth he, as if\n    He had been abroad, carousing to his mates\n    After a storm; quaff'd off the muscadel,\n    And threw the sops all in the sexton's face,\n    Having no other reason\n    But that his beard grew thin and hungerly\n    And seem'd to ask him sops as he was drinking.\n    This done, he took the bride about the neck,\n    And kiss'd her lips with such a clamorous smack\n    That at the parting all the church did echo.\n    And I, seeing this, came thence for very shame;\n    And after me, I know, the rout is coming.\n    Such a mad marriage never was before.\n    Hark, hark! I hear the minstrels play.         [Music plays]\n\n       Enter PETRUCHIO, KATHERINA, BIANCA, BAPTISTA, HORTENSIO,\n                         GRUMIO, and train\n\n  PETRUCHIO. Gentlemen and friends, I thank you for your pains.\n    I know you think to dine with me to-day,\n    And have prepar'd great store of wedding cheer\n    But so it is- my haste doth call me hence,\n    And therefore here I mean to take my leave.\n  BAPTISTA. Is't possible you will away to-night?\n  PETRUCHIO. I must away to-day before night come.\n    Make it no wonder; if you knew my business,\n    You would entreat me rather go than stay.\n    And, honest company, I thank you all\n    That have beheld me give away myself\n    To this most patient, sweet, and virtuous wife.\n    Dine with my father, drink a health to me.\n    For I must hence; and farewell to you all.\n  TRANIO. Let us entreat you stay till after dinner.\n  PETRUCHIO. It may not be.\n  GREMIO. Let me entreat you.\n  PETRUCHIO. It cannot be.\n  KATHERINA. Let me entreat you.\n  PETRUCHIO. I am content.\n  KATHERINA. Are you content to stay?\n  PETRUCHIO. I am content you shall entreat me stay;\n    But yet not stay, entreat me how you can.\n  KATHERINA. Now, if you love me, stay.\n  PETRUCHIO. Grumio, my horse.\n  GRUMIO. Ay, sir, they be ready; the oats have eaten the horses.\n  KATHERINA. Nay, then,\n    Do what thou canst, I will not go to-day;\n    No, nor to-morrow, not till I please myself.\n    The door is open, sir; there lies your way;\n    You may be jogging whiles your boots are green;\n    For me, I'll not be gone till I please myself.\n    'Tis like you'll prove a jolly surly groom\n    That take it on you at the first so roundly.\n  PETRUCHIO. O Kate, content thee; prithee be not angry.\n  KATHERINA. I will be angry; what hast thou to do?\n    Father, be quiet; he shall stay my leisure.\n  GREMIO. Ay, marry, sir, now it begins to work.\n  KATHERINA. Gentlemen, forward to the bridal dinner.\n    I see a woman may be made a fool\n    If she had not a spirit to resist.\n  PETRUCHIO. They shall go forward, Kate, at thy command.\n    Obey the bride, you that attend on her;\n    Go to the feast, revel and domineer,\n    Carouse full measure to her maidenhead;\n    Be mad and merry, or go hang yourselves.\n    But for my bonny Kate, she must with me.\n    Nay, look not big, nor stamp, nor stare, nor fret;\n    I will be master of what is mine own-\n    She is my goods, my chattels, she is my house,\n    My household stuff, my field, my barn,\n    My horse, my ox, my ass, my any thing,\n    And here she stands; touch her whoever dare;\n    I'll bring mine action on the proudest he\n    That stops my way in Padua. Grumio,\n    Draw forth thy weapon; we are beset with thieves;\n    Rescue thy mistress, if thou be a man.\n    Fear not, sweet wench; they shall not touch thee, Kate;\n    I'll buckler thee against a million.\n                         Exeunt PETRUCHIO, KATHERINA, and GRUMIO\n  BAPTISTA. Nay, let them go, a couple of quiet ones.\n  GREMIO. Went they not quickly, I should die with laughing.\n  TRANIO. Of all mad matches, never was the like.\n  LUCENTIO. Mistress, what's your opinion of your sister?\n  BIANCA. That, being mad herself, she's madly mated.\n  GREMIO. I warrant him, Petruchio is Kated.\n  BAPTISTA. Neighbours and friends, though bride and bridegroom wants\n    For to supply the places at the table,\n    You know there wants no junkets at the feast.\n    Lucentio, you shall supply the bridegroom's place;\n    And let Bianca take her sister's room.\n  TRANIO. Shall sweet Bianca practise how to bride it?\n  BAPTISTA. She shall, Lucentio. Come, gentlemen, let's go.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nPETRUCHIO'S country house\n\nEnter GRUMIO\n\n  GRUMIO. Fie, fie on all tired jades, on all mad masters, and all\n    foul ways! Was ever man so beaten? Was ever man so ray'd? Was\n    ever man so weary? I am sent before to make a fire, and they are\n    coming after to warm them. Now were not I a little pot and soon\n    hot, my very lips might freeze to my teeth, my tongue to the roof\n    of my mouth, my heart in my belly, ere I should come by a fire to\n    thaw me. But I with blowing the fire shall warm myself; for,\n    considering the weather, a taller man than I will take cold.\n    Holla, ho! Curtis!\n\n                            Enter CURTIS\n\n  CURTIS. Who is that calls so coldly?\n  GRUMIO. A piece of ice. If thou doubt it, thou mayst slide from my\n    shoulder to my heel with no greater a run but my head and my\n    neck. A fire, good Curtis.\n  CURTIS. Is my master and his wife coming, Grumio?\n  GRUMIO. O, ay, Curtis, ay; and therefore fire, fire; cast on no\n    water.\n  CURTIS. Is she so hot a shrew as she's reported?\n  GRUMIO. She was, good Curtis, before this frost; but thou know'st\n    winter tames man, woman, and beast; for it hath tam'd my old\n    master, and my new mistress, and myself, fellow Curtis.\n  CURTIS. Away, you three-inch fool! I am no beast.\n  GRUMIO. Am I but three inches? Why, thy horn is a foot, and so long\n    am I at the least. But wilt thou make a fire, or shall I complain\n    on thee to our mistress, whose hand- she being now at hand- thou\n    shalt soon feel, to thy cold comfort, for being slow in thy hot\n    office?\n  CURTIS. I prithee, good Grumio, tell me how goes the world?\n  GRUMIO. A cold world, Curtis, in every office but thine; and\n    therefore fire. Do thy duty, and have thy duty, for my master and\n    mistress are almost frozen to death.\n  CURTIS. There's fire ready; and therefore, good Grumio, the news?\n  GRUMIO. Why, 'Jack boy! ho, boy!' and as much news as thou wilt.\n  CURTIS. Come, you are so full of cony-catching!\n  GRUMIO. Why, therefore, fire; for I have caught extreme cold.\n    Where's the cook? Is supper ready, the house trimm'd, rushes\n    strew'd, cobwebs swept, the serving-men in their new fustian,\n    their white stockings, and every officer his wedding-garment on?\n    Be the jacks fair within, the jills fair without, the carpets\n    laid, and everything in order?\n  CURTIS. All ready; and therefore, I pray thee, news.\n  GRUMIO. First know my horse is tired; my master and mistress fall'n\n    out.\n  CURTIS. How?\n  GRUMIO. Out of their saddles into the dirt; and thereby hangs a\n    tale.\n  CURTIS. Let's ha't, good Grumio.\n  GRUMIO. Lend thine ear.\n  CURTIS. Here.\n  GRUMIO. There.                                  [Striking him]\n  CURTIS. This 'tis to feel a tale, not to hear a tale.\n  GRUMIO. And therefore 'tis call'd a sensible tale; and this cuff\n    was but to knock at your car and beseech list'ning. Now I begin:\n    Imprimis, we came down a foul hill, my master riding behind my\n    mistress-\n  CURTIS. Both of one horse?\n  GRUMIO. What's that to thee?\n  CURTIS. Why, a horse.\n  GRUMIO. Tell thou the tale. But hadst thou not cross'd me, thou\n    shouldst have heard how her horse fell and she under her horse;\n    thou shouldst have heard in how miry a place, how she was\n    bemoil'd, how he left her with the horse upon her, how he beat me\n    because her horse stumbled, how she waded through the dirt to\n    pluck him off me, how he swore, how she pray'd that never pray'd\n    before, how I cried, how the horses ran away, how her bridle was\n    burst, how I lost my crupper- with many things of worthy memory,\n    which now shall die in oblivion, and thou return unexperienc'd to\n    thy grave.\n  CURTIS. By this reck'ning he is more shrew than she.\n  GRUMIO. Ay, and that thou and the proudest of you all shall find\n    when he comes home. But what talk I of this? Call forth\n    Nathaniel, Joseph, Nicholas, Philip, Walter, Sugarsop, and the\n    rest; let their heads be sleekly comb'd, their blue coats brush'd\n    and their garters of an indifferent knit; let them curtsy with\n    their left legs, and not presume to touch a hair of my mastcr's\n    horse-tail till they kiss their hands. Are they all ready?\n  CURTIS. They are.\n  GRUMIO. Call them forth.\n  CURTIS. Do you hear, ho? You must meet my master, to countenance my\n    mistress.\n  GRUMIO. Why, she hath a face of her own.\n  CURTIS. Who knows not that?\n  GRUMIO. Thou, it seems, that calls for company to countenance her.\n  CURTIS. I call them forth to credit her.\n  GRUMIO. Why, she comes to borrow nothing of them.\n\n                     Enter four or five SERVINGMEN\n\n  NATHANIEL. Welcome home, Grumio!\n  PHILIP. How now, Grumio!\n  JOSEPH. What, Grumio!\n  NICHOLAS. Fellow Grumio!\n  NATHANIEL. How now, old lad!\n  GRUMIO. Welcome, you!- how now, you!- what, you!- fellow, you!- and\n    thus much for greeting. Now, my spruce companions, is all ready,\n    and all things neat?\n  NATHANIEL. All things is ready. How near is our master?\n  GRUMIO. E'en at hand, alighted by this; and therefore be not-\n   Cock's passion, silence! I hear my master.\n\n                     Enter PETRUCHIO and KATHERINA\n\n  PETRUCHIO. Where be these knaves? What, no man at door\n    To hold my stirrup nor to take my horse!\n    Where is Nathaniel, Gregory, Philip?\n  ALL SERVANTS. Here, here, sir; here, sir.\n  PETRUCHIO. Here, sir! here, sir! here, sir! here, sir!\n    You logger-headed and unpolish'd grooms!\n    What, no attendance? no regard? no duty?\n    Where is the foolish knave I sent before?\n  GRUMIO. Here, sir; as foolish as I was before.\n  PETRUCHIO. YOU peasant swain! you whoreson malt-horse drudge!\n    Did I not bid thee meet me in the park\n    And bring along these rascal knaves with thee?\n  GRUMIO. Nathaniel's coat, sir, was not fully made,\n    And Gabriel's pumps were all unpink'd i' th' heel;\n    There was no link to colour Peter's hat,\n    And Walter's dagger was not come from sheathing;\n    There were none fine but Adam, Ralph, and Gregory;\n    The rest were ragged, old, and beggarly;\n    Yet, as they are, here are they come to meet you.\n  PETRUCHIO. Go, rascals, go and fetch my supper in.\n                                   Exeunt some of the SERVINGMEN\n\n    [Sings]  Where is the life that late I led?\n             Where are those-\n\n    Sit down, Kate, and welcome. Soud, soud, soud, soud!\n\n                 Re-enter SERVANTS with supper\n\n    Why, when, I say? Nay, good sweet Kate, be merry.\n    Off with my boots, you rogues! you villains, when?\n\n    [Sings]  It was the friar of orders grey,\n             As he forth walked on his way-\n\n    Out, you rogue! you pluck my foot awry;\n    Take that, and mend the plucking off the other.\n                                                   [Strikes him]\n    Be merry, Kate. Some water, here, what, ho!\n\n                      Enter one with water\n\n    Where's my spaniel Troilus? Sirrah, get you hence,\n    And bid my cousin Ferdinand come hither:\n                                                 Exit SERVINGMAN\n    One, Kate, that you must kiss and be acquainted with.\n    Where are my slippers? Shall I have some water?\n    Come, Kate, and wash, and welcome heartily.\n    You whoreson villain! will you let it fall?    [Strikes him]\n  KATHERINA. Patience, I pray you; 'twas a fault unwilling.\n  PETRUCHIO. A whoreson, beetle-headed, flap-ear'd knave!\n    Come, Kate, sit down; I know you have a stomach.\n    Will you give thanks, sweet Kate, or else shall I?\n    What's this? Mutton?\n  FIRST SERVANT. Ay.\n  PETRUCHIO. Who brought it?\n  PETER. I.\n  PETRUCHIO. 'Tis burnt; and so is all the meat.\n    What dogs are these? Where is the rascal cook?\n    How durst you villains bring it from the dresser\n    And serve it thus to me that love it not?\n    There, take it to you, trenchers, cups, and all;\n                                [Throws the meat, etc., at them]\n    You heedless joltheads and unmanner'd slaves!\n    What, do you grumble? I'll be with you straight.\n                                                 Exeunt SERVANTS\n  KATHERINA. I pray you, husband, be not so disquiet;\n    The meat was well, if you were so contented.\n  PETRUCHIO. I tell thee, Kate, 'twas burnt and dried away,\n    And I expressly am forbid to touch it;\n    For it engenders choler, planteth anger;\n    And better 'twere that both of us did fast,\n    Since, of ourselves, ourselves are choleric,\n    Than feed it with such over-roasted flesh.\n    Be patient; to-morrow 't shall be mended.\n    And for this night we'll fast for company.\n    Come, I will bring thee to thy bridal chamber.        Exeunt\n\n                     Re-enter SERVANTS severally\n\n  NATHANIEL. Peter, didst ever see the like?\n  PETER. He kills her in her own humour.\n\n                            Re-enter CURTIS\n\n  GRUMIO. Where is he?\n  CURTIS. In her chamber. Making a sermon of continency to her,\n    And rails, and swears, and rates, that she, poor soul,\n    Knows not which way to stand, to look, to speak.\n    And sits as one new risen from a dream.\n    Away, away! for he is coming hither.                  Exeunt\n\n                       Re-enter PETRUCHIO\n\n  PETRUCHIO. Thus have I politicly begun my reign,\n    And 'tis my hope to end successfully.\n    My falcon now is sharp and passing empty.\n    And till she stoop she must not be full-gorg'd,\n    For then she never looks upon her lure.\n    Another way I have to man my haggard,\n    To make her come, and know her keeper's call,\n    That is, to watch her, as we watch these kites\n    That bate and beat, and will not be obedient.\n    She eat no meat to-day, nor none shall eat;\n    Last night she slept not, nor to-night she shall not;\n    As with the meat, some undeserved fault\n    I'll find about the making of the bed;\n    And here I'll fling the pillow, there the bolster,\n    This way the coverlet, another way the sheets;\n    Ay, and amid this hurly I intend\n    That all is done in reverend care of her-\n    And, in conclusion, she shall watch all night;\n    And if she chance to nod I'll rail and brawl\n    And with the clamour keep her still awake.\n    This is a way to kill a wife with kindness,\n    And thus I'll curb her mad and headstrong humour.\n    He that knows better how to tame a shrew,\n    Now let him speak; 'tis charity to show.                Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nPadua. Before BAPTISTA'S house\n\nEnter TRANIO as LUCENTIO, and HORTENSIO as LICIO\n\n  TRANIO. Is 't possible, friend Licio, that Mistress Bianca\n    Doth fancy any other but Lucentio?\n    I tell you, sir, she bears me fair in hand.\n  HORTENSIO. Sir, to satisfy you in what I have said,\n    Stand by and mark the manner of his teaching.\n                                              [They stand aside]\n\n               Enter BIANCA, and LUCENTIO as CAMBIO\n\n  LUCENTIO. Now, mistress, profit you in what you read?\n  BIANCA. What, master, read you, First resolve me that.\n  LUCENTIO. I read that I profess, 'The Art to Love.'\n  BIANCA. And may you prove, sir, master of your art!\n  LUCENTIO. While you, sweet dear, prove mistress of my heart.\n                                                   [They retire]\n  HORTENSIO. Quick proceeders, marry! Now tell me, I pray,\n    You that durst swear that your Mistress Blanca\n    Lov'd none in the world so well as Lucentio.\n  TRANIO. O despiteful love! unconstant womankind!\n    I tell thee, Licio, this is wonderful.\n  HORTENSIO. Mistake no more; I am not Licio.\n    Nor a musician as I seem to be;\n    But one that scorn to live in this disguise\n    For such a one as leaves a gentleman\n    And makes a god of such a cullion.\n    Know, sir, that I am call'd Hortensio.\n  TRANIO. Signior Hortensio, I have often heard\n    Of your entire affection to Bianca;\n    And since mine eyes are witness of her lightness,\n    I will with you, if you be so contented,\n    Forswear Bianca and her love for ever.\n  HORTENSIO. See, how they kiss and court! Signior Lucentio,\n    Here is my hand, and here I firmly vow\n    Never to woo her more, but do forswear her,\n    As one unworthy all the former favours\n    That I have fondly flatter'd her withal.\n  TRANIO. And here I take the like unfeigned oath,\n    Never to marry with her though she would entreat;\n    Fie on her! See how beastly she doth court him!\n  HORTENSIO. Would all the world but he had quite forsworn!\n    For me, that I may surely keep mine oath,\n    I will be married to a wealtlly widow\n    Ere three days pass, which hath as long lov'd me\n    As I have lov'd this proud disdainful haggard.\n    And so farewell, Signior Lucentio.\n    Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks,\n    Shall win my love; and so I take my leave,\n    In resolution as I swore before.                        Exit\n  TRANIO. Mistress Bianca, bless you with such grace\n    As 'longeth to a lover's blessed case!\n    Nay, I have ta'en you napping, gentle love,\n    And have forsworn you with Hortensio.\n  BIANCA. Tranio, you jest; but have you both forsworn me?\n  TRANIO. Mistress, we have.\n  LUCENTIO. Then we are rid of Licio.\n  TRANIO. I' faith, he'll have a lusty widow now,\n    That shall be woo'd and wedded in a day.\n  BIANCA. God give him joy!\n  TRANIO. Ay, and he'll tame her.\n  BIANCA. He says so, Tranio.\n  TRANIO. Faith, he is gone unto the taming-school.\n  BIANCA. The taming-school! What, is there such a place?\n  TRANIO. Ay, mistress; and Petruchio is the master,\n    That teacheth tricks eleven and twenty long,\n    To tame a shrew and charm her chattering tongue.\n\n                       Enter BIONDELLO\n\n  BIONDELLO. O master, master, have watch'd so long\n    That I am dog-weary; but at last I spied\n    An ancient angel coming down the hill\n    Will serve the turn.\n  TRANIO. What is he, Biondello?\n  BIONDELLO. Master, a mercatante or a pedant,\n    I know not what; but formal in apparel,\n    In gait and countenance surely like a father.\n  LUCENTIO. And what of him, Tranio?\n  TRANIO. If he be credulous and trust my tale,\n    I'll make him glad to seem Vincentio,\n    And give assurance to Baptista Minola\n    As if he were the right Vincentio.\n    Take in your love, and then let me alone.\n                                      Exeunt LUCENTIO and BIANCA\n\n                         Enter a PEDANT\n\n  PEDANT. God save you, sir!\n  TRANIO. And you, sir; you are welcome.\n    Travel you far on, or are you at the farthest?\n  PEDANT. Sir, at the farthest for a week or two;\n    But then up farther, and as far as Rome;\n    And so to Tripoli, if God lend me life.\n  TRANIO. What countryman, I pray?\n  PEDANT. Of Mantua.\n  TRANIO. Of Mantua, sir? Marry, God forbid,\n    And come to Padua, careless of your life!\n  PEDANT. My life, sir! How, I pray? For that goes hard.\n  TRANIO. 'Tis death for any one in Mantua\n    To come to Padua. Know you not the cause?\n    Your ships are stay'd at Venice; and the Duke,\n    For private quarrel 'twixt your Duke and him,\n    Hath publish'd and proclaim'd it openly.\n    'Tis marvel- but that you are but newly come,\n    You might have heard it else proclaim'd about.\n  PEDANT. Alas, sir, it is worse for me than so!\n    For I have bills for money by exchange\n    From Florence, and must here deliver them.\n  TRANIO. Well, sir, to do you courtesy,\n    This will I do, and this I will advise you-\n    First, tell me, have you ever been at Pisa?\n  PEDANT. Ay, sir, in Pisa have I often been,\n    Pisa renowned for grave citizens.\n  TRANIO. Among them know you one Vincentio?\n  PEDANT. I know him not, but I have heard of him,\n    A merchant of incomparable wealth.\n  TRANIO. He is my father, sir; and, sooth to say,\n    In count'nance somewhat doth resemble you.\n  BIONDELLO.  [Aside]  As much as an apple doth an oyster, and all\n    one.\n  TRANIO. To save your life in this extremity,\n    This favour will I do you for his sake;\n    And think it not the worst of all your fortunes\n    That you are like to Sir Vincentio.\n    His name and credit shall you undertake,\n    And in my house you shall be friendly lodg'd;\n    Look that you take upon you as you should.\n    You understand me, sir. So shall you stay\n    Till you have done your business in the city.\n    If this be court'sy, sir, accept of it.\n  PEDANT. O, sir, I do; and will repute you ever\n    The patron of my life and liberty.\n  TRANIO. Then go with me to make the matter good.\n    This, by the way, I let you understand:\n    My father is here look'd for every day\n    To pass assurance of a dow'r in marriage\n    'Twixt me and one Baptista's daughter here.\n    In all these circumstances I'll instruct you.\n    Go with me to clothe you as becomes you.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nPETRUCHIO'S house\n\nEnter KATHERINA and GRUMIO\n\n  GRUMIO. No, no, forsooth; I dare not for my life.\n  KATHERINA. The more my wrong, the more his spite appears.\n    What, did he marry me to famish me?\n    Beggars that come unto my father's door\n    Upon entreaty have a present alms;\n    If not, elsewhere they meet with charity;\n    But I, who never knew how to entreat,\n    Nor never needed that I should entreat,\n    Am starv'd for meat, giddy for lack of sleep;\n    With oaths kept waking, and with brawling fed;\n    And that which spites me more than all these wants-\n    He does it under name of perfect love;\n    As who should say, if I should sleep or eat,\n    'Twere deadly sickness or else present death.\n    I prithee go and get me some repast;\n    I care not what, so it be wholesome food.\n  GRUMIO. What say you to a neat's foot?\n  KATHERINA. 'Tis passing good; I prithee let me have it.\n  GRUMIO. I fear it is too choleric a meat.\n    How say you to a fat tripe finely broil'd?\n  KATHERINA. I like it well; good Grumio, fetch it me.\n  GRUMIO. I cannot tell; I fear 'tis choleric.\n    What say you to a piece of beef and mustard?\n  KATHERINA. A dish that I do love to feed upon.\n  GRUMIO. Ay, but the mustard is too hot a little.\n  KATHERINA. Why then the beef, and let the mustard rest.\n  GRUMIO. Nay, then I will not; you shall have the mustard,\n    Or else you get no beef of Grumio.\n  KATHERINA. Then both, or one, or anything thou wilt.\n  GRUMIO. Why then the mustard without the beef.\n  KATHERINA. Go, get thee gone, thou false deluding slave,\n                                                     [Beats him]\n    That feed'st me with the very name of meat.\n    Sorrow on thee and all the pack of you\n    That triumph thus upon my misery!\n    Go, get thee gone, I say.\n\n               Enter PETRUCHIO, and HORTENSIO with meat\n\n  PETRUCHIO. How fares my Kate? What, sweeting, all amort?\n  HORTENSIO. Mistress, what cheer?\n  KATHERINA. Faith, as cold as can be.\n  PETRUCHIO. Pluck up thy spirits, look cheerfully upon me.\n    Here, love, thou seest how diligent I am,\n    To dress thy meat myself, and bring it thee.\n    I am sure, sweet Kate, this kindness merits thanks.\n    What, not a word? Nay, then thou lov'st it not,\n    And all my pains is sorted to no proof.\n    Here, take away this dish.\n  KATHERINA. I pray you, let it stand.\n  PETRUCHIO. The poorest service is repaid with thanks;\n    And so shall mine, before you touch the meat.\n  KATHERINA. I thank you, sir.\n  HORTENSIO. Signior Petruchio, fie! you are to blame.\n    Come, Mistress Kate, I'll bear you company.\n  PETRUCHIO.  [Aside]  Eat it up all, Hortensio, if thou lovest me.-\n    Much good do it unto thy gentle heart!\n    Kate, eat apace. And now, my honey love,\n    Will we return unto thy father's house\n    And revel it as bravely as the best,\n    With silken coats and caps, and golden rings,\n    With ruffs and cuffs and farthingales and things,\n    With scarfs and fans and double change of brav'ry.\n    With amber bracelets, beads, and all this knav'ry.\n    What, hast thou din'd? The tailor stays thy leisure,\n    To deck thy body with his ruffling treasure.\n\n                          Enter TAILOR\n\n    Come, tailor, let us see these ornaments;\n    Lay forth the gown.\n\n                        Enter HABERDASHER\n\n    What news with you, sir?\n  HABERDASHER. Here is the cap your worship did bespeak.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, this was moulded on a porringer;\n    A velvet dish. Fie, fie! 'tis lewd and filthy;\n    Why, 'tis a cockle or a walnut-shell,\n    A knack, a toy, a trick, a baby's cap.\n    Away with it. Come, let me have a bigger.\n  KATHERINA. I'll have no bigger; this doth fit the time,\n    And gentlewomen wear such caps as these.\n  PETRUCHIO. When you are gentle, you shall have one too,\n    And not till then.\n  HORTENSIO.  [Aside]  That will not be in haste.\n  KATHERINA. Why, sir, I trust I may have leave to speak;\n    And speak I will. I am no child, no babe.\n    Your betters have endur'd me say my mind,\n    And if you cannot, best you stop your ears.\n    My tongue will tell the anger of my heart,\n    Or else my heart, concealing it, will break;\n    And rather than it shall, I will be free\n    Even to the uttermost, as I please, in words.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, thou say'st true; it is a paltry cap,\n    A custard-coffin, a bauble, a silken pie;\n    I love thee well in that thou lik'st it not.\n  KATHERINA. Love me or love me not, I like the cap;\n    And it I will have, or I will have none.    Exit HABERDASHER\n  PETRUCHIO. Thy gown? Why, ay. Come, tailor, let us see't.\n    O mercy, God! what masquing stuff is here?\n    What's this? A sleeve? 'Tis like a demi-cannon.\n    What, up and down, carv'd like an appletart?\n    Here's snip and nip and cut and slish and slash,\n    Like to a censer in a barber's shop.\n    Why, what a devil's name, tailor, call'st thou this?\n  HORTENSIO.  [Aside]  I see she's like to have neither cap nor gown.\n  TAILOR. You bid me make it orderly and well,\n    According to the fashion and the time.\n  PETRUCHIO. Marry, and did; but if you be rememb'red,\n    I did not bid you mar it to the time.\n    Go, hop me over every kennel home,\n    For you shall hop without my custom, sir.\n    I'll none of it; hence! make your best of it.\n  KATHERINA. I never saw a better fashion'd gown,\n    More quaint, more pleasing, nor more commendable;\n    Belike you mean to make a puppet of me.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, true; he means to make a puppet of thee.\n  TAILOR. She says your worship means to make a puppet of her.\n  PETRUCHIO. O monstrous arrogance! Thou liest, thou thread, thou\n      thimble,\n    Thou yard, three-quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail,\n    Thou flea, thou nit, thou winter-cricket thou-\n    Brav'd in mine own house with a skein of thread!\n    Away, thou rag, thou quantity, thou remnant;\n    Or I shall so bemete thee with thy yard\n    As thou shalt think on prating whilst thou liv'st!\n    I tell thee, I, that thou hast marr'd her gown.\n  TAILOR. Your worship is deceiv'd; the gown is made\n    Just as my master had direction.\n    Grumio gave order how it should be done.\n  GRUMIO. I gave him no order; I gave him the stuff.\n  TAILOR. But how did you desire it should be made?\n  GRUMIO. Marry, sir, with needle and thread.\n  TAILOR. But did you not request to have it cut?\n  GRUMIO. Thou hast fac'd many things.\n  TAILOR. I have.\n  GRUMIO. Face not me. Thou hast brav'd many men; brave not me. I\n    will neither be fac'd nor brav'd. I say unto thee, I bid thy\n    master cut out the gown; but I did not bid him cut it to pieces.\n    Ergo, thou liest.\n  TAILOR. Why, here is the note of the fashion to testify.\n  PETRUCHIO. Read it.\n  GRUMIO. The note lies in's throat, if he say I said so.\n  TAILOR.  [Reads]  'Imprimis, a loose-bodied gown'-\n  GRUMIO. Master, if ever I said loose-bodied gown, sew me in the\n    skirts of it and beat me to death with a bottom of brown bread; I\n    said a gown.\n  PETRUCHIO. Proceed.\n  TAILOR.  [Reads]  'With a small compass'd cape'-\n  GRUMIO. I confess the cape.\n  TAILOR.  [Reads]  'With a trunk sleeve'-\n  GRUMIO. I confess two sleeves.\n  TAILOR.  [Reads]  'The sleeves curiously cut.'\n  PETRUCHIO. Ay, there's the villainy.\n  GRUMIO. Error i' th' bill, sir; error i' th' bill! I commanded the\n    sleeves should be cut out, and sew'd up again; and that I'll\n    prove upon thee, though thy little finger be armed in a thimble.\n  TAILOR. This is true that I say; an I had thee in place where, thou\n    shouldst know it.\n  GRUMIO. I am for thee straight; take thou the bill, give me thy\n    meteyard, and spare not me.\n  HORTENSIO. God-a-mercy, Grumio! Then he shall have no odds.\n  PETRUCHIO. Well, sir, in brief, the gown is not for me.\n  GRUMIO. You are i' th' right, sir; 'tis for my mistress.\n  PETRUCHIO. Go, take it up unto thy master's use.\n  GRUMIO. Villain, not for thy life! Take up my mistress' gown for\n    thy master's use!\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, sir, what's your conceit in that?\n  GRUMIO. O, sir, the conceit is deeper than you think for.\n    Take up my mistress' gown to his master's use!\n    O fie, fie, fie!\n  PETRUCHIO.  [Aside]  Hortensio, say thou wilt see the tailor paid.-\n    Go take it hence; be gone, and say no more.\n  HORTENSIO. Tailor, I'll pay thee for thy gown to-morrow;\n    Take no unkindness of his hasty words.\n    Away, I say; commend me to thy master.           Exit TAILOR\n  PETRUCHIO. Well, come, my Kate; we will unto your father's\n    Even in these honest mean habiliments;\n    Our purses shall be proud, our garments poor;\n    For 'tis the mind that makes the body rich;\n    And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds,\n    So honour peereth in the meanest habit.\n    What, is the jay more precious than the lark\n    Because his feathers are more beautiful?\n    Or is the adder better than the eel\n    Because his painted skin contents the eye?\n    O no, good Kate; neither art thou the worse\n    For this poor furniture and mean array.\n    If thou account'st it shame, lay it on me;\n    And therefore frolic; we will hence forthwith\n    To feast and sport us at thy father's house.\n    Go call my men, and let us straight to him;\n    And bring our horses unto Long-lane end;\n    There will we mount, and thither walk on foot.\n    Let's see; I think 'tis now some seven o'clock,\n    And well we may come there by dinner-time.\n  KATHERINA. I dare assure you, sir, 'tis almost two,\n    And 'twill be supper-time ere you come there.\n  PETRUCHIO. It shall be seven ere I go to horse.\n    Look what I speak, or do, or think to do,\n    You are still crossing it. Sirs, let 't alone;\n    I will not go to-day; and ere I do,\n    It shall be what o'clock I say it is.\n  HORTENSIO. Why, so this gallant will command the sun.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nPadua. Before BAPTISTA'S house\n\nEnter TRANIO as LUCENTIO, and the PEDANT dressed like VINCENTIO\n\n  TRANIO. Sir, this is the house; please it you that I call?\n  PEDANT. Ay, what else? And, but I be deceived,\n    Signior Baptista may remember me\n    Near twenty years ago in Genoa,\n    Where we were lodgers at the Pegasus.\n  TRANIO. 'Tis well; and hold your own, in any case,\n    With such austerity as longeth to a father.\n\n                       Enter BIONDELLO\n\n  PEDANT. I warrant you. But, sir, here comes your boy;\n    'Twere good he were school'd.\n  TRANIO. Fear you not him. Sirrah Biondello,\n    Now do your duty throughly, I advise you.\n    Imagine 'twere the right Vincentio.\n  BIONDELLO. Tut, fear not me.\n  TRANIO. But hast thou done thy errand to Baptista?\n  BIONDELLO. I told him that your father was at Venice,\n    And that you look'd for him this day in Padua.\n  TRANIO. Th'art a tall fellow; hold thee that to drink.\n    Here comes Baptista. Set your countenance, sir.\n\n                 Enter BAPTISTA, and LUCENTIO as CAMBIO\n\n    Signior Baptista, you are happily met.\n    [To To the PEDANT] Sir, this is the gentleman I told you of;\n    I pray you stand good father to me now;\n    Give me Bianca for my patrimony.\n  PEDANT. Soft, son!\n    Sir, by your leave: having come to Padua\n    To gather in some debts, my son Lucentio\n    Made me acquainted with a weighty cause\n    Of love between your daughter and himself;\n    And- for the good report I hear of you,\n    And for the love he beareth to your daughter,\n    And she to him- to stay him not too long,\n    I am content, in a good father's care,\n    To have him match'd; and, if you please to like\n    No worse than I, upon some agreement\n    Me shall you find ready and willing\n    With one consent to have her so bestow'd;\n    For curious I cannot be with you,\n    Signior Baptista, of whom I hear so well.\n  BAPTISTA. Sir, pardon me in what I have to say.\n    Your plainness and your shortness please me well.\n    Right true it is your son Lucentio here\n    Doth love my daughter, and she loveth him,\n    Or both dissemble deeply their affections;\n    And therefore, if you say no more than this,\n    That like a father you will deal with him,\n    And pass my daughter a sufficient dower,\n    The match is made, and all is done-\n    Your son shall have my daughter with consent.\n  TRANIO. I thank you, sir. Where then do you know best\n    We be affied, and such assurance ta'en\n    As shall with either part's agreement stand?\n  BAPTISTA. Not in my house, Lucentio, for you know\n    Pitchers have ears, and I have many servants;\n    Besides, old Gremio is heark'ning still,\n    And happily we might be interrupted.\n  TRANIO. Then at my lodging, an it like you.\n    There doth my father lie; and there this night\n    We'll pass the business privately and well.\n    Send for your daughter by your servant here;\n    My boy shall fetch the scrivener presently.\n    The worst is this, that at so slender warning\n    You are like to have a thin and slender pittance.\n  BAPTISTA. It likes me well. Cambio, hie you home,\n    And bid Bianca make her ready straight;\n    And, if you will, tell what hath happened-\n    Lucentio's father is arriv'd in Padua,\n    And how she's like to be Lucentio's wife.      Exit LUCENTIO\n  BIONDELLO. I pray the gods she may, with all my heart.\n  TRANIO. Dally not with the gods, but get thee gone.\n                                                  Exit BIONDELLO\n    Signior Baptista, shall I lead the way?\n    Welcome! One mess is like to be your cheer;\n    Come, sir; we will better it in Pisa.\n  BAPTISTA. I follow you.                                 Exeunt\n\n            Re-enter LUCENTIO as CAMBIO, and BIONDELLO\n\n  BIONDELLO. Cambio.\n  LUCENTIO. What say'st thou, Biondello?\n  BIONDELLO. You saw my master wink and laugh upon you?\n  LUCENTIO. Biondello, what of that?\n  BIONDELLO. Faith, nothing; but has left me here behind to expound\n    the meaning or moral of his signs and tokens.\n  LUCENTIO. I pray thee moralize them.\n  BIONDELLO. Then thus: Baptista is safe, talking with the deceiving\n    father of a deceitful son.\n  LUCENTIO. And what of him?\n  BIONDELLO. His daughter is to be brought by you to the supper.\n  LUCENTIO. And then?\n  BIONDELLO. The old priest at Saint Luke's church is at your command\n    at all hours.\n  LUCENTIO. And what of all this?\n  BIONDELLO. I cannot tell, except they are busied about a\n    counterfeit assurance. Take your assurance of her, cum privilegio\n    ad imprimendum solum; to th' church take the priest, clerk, and\n    some sufficient honest witnesses.\n    If this be not that you look for, I have more to say,\n    But bid Bianca farewell for ever and a day.\n  LUCENTIO. Hear'st thou, Biondello?\n  BIONDELLO. I cannot tarry. I knew a wench married in an afternoon\n    as she went to the garden for parsley to stuff a rabbit; and so\n    may you, sir; and so adieu, sir. My master hath appointed me to\n    go to Saint Luke's to bid the priest be ready to come against you\n    come with your appendix.\n Exit\n  LUCENTIO. I may and will, if she be so contented.\n    She will be pleas'd; then wherefore should I doubt?\n    Hap what hap may, I'll roundly go about her;\n    It shall go hard if Cambio go without her.              Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nA public road\n\nEnter PETRUCHIO, KATHERINA, HORTENSIO, and SERVANTS\n\n  PETRUCHIO. Come on, a God's name; once more toward our father's.\n    Good Lord, how bright and goodly shines the moon!\n  KATHERINA. The moon? The sun! It is not moonlight now.\n  PETRUCHIO. I say it is the moon that shines so bright.\n  KATHERINA. I know it is the sun that shines so bright.\n  PETRUCHIO. Now by my mother's son, and that's myself,\n    It shall be moon, or star, or what I list,\n    Or ere I journey to your father's house.\n    Go on and fetch our horses back again.\n    Evermore cross'd and cross'd; nothing but cross'd!\n  HORTENSIO. Say as he says, or we shall never go.\n  KATHERINA. Forward, I pray, since we have come so far,\n    And be it moon, or sun, or what you please;\n    And if you please to call it a rush-candle,\n    Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me.\n  PETRUCHIO. I say it is the moon.\n  KATHERINA. I know it is the moon.\n  PETRUCHIO. Nay, then you lie; it is the blessed sun.\n  KATHERINA. Then, God be bless'd, it is the blessed sun;\n    But sun it is not, when you say it is not;\n    And the moon changes even as your mind.\n    What you will have it nam'd, even that it is,\n    And so it shall be so for Katherine.\n  HORTENSIO. Petruchio, go thy ways, the field is won.\n  PETRUCHIO. Well, forward, forward! thus the bowl should run,\n    And not unluckily against the bias.\n    But, soft! Company is coming here.\n\n                            Enter VINCENTIO\n\n    [To VINCENTIO]  Good-morrow, gentle mistress; where away?-\n    Tell me, sweet Kate, and tell me truly too,\n    Hast thou beheld a fresher gentlewoman?\n    Such war of white and red within her cheeks!\n    What stars do spangle heaven with such beauty\n    As those two eyes become that heavenly face?\n    Fair lovely maid, once more good day to thee.\n    Sweet Kate, embrace her for her beauty's sake.\n  HORTENSIO. 'A will make the man mad, to make a woman of him.\n  KATHERINA. Young budding virgin, fair and fresh and sweet,\n    Whither away, or where is thy abode?\n    Happy the parents of so fair a child;\n    Happier the man whom favourable stars\n    Allots thee for his lovely bed-fellow.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, how now, Kate, I hope thou art not mad!\n    This is a man, old, wrinkled, faded, withered,\n    And not a maiden, as thou sayst he is.\n  KATHERINA. Pardon, old father, my mistaking eyes,\n    That have been so bedazzled with the sun\n    That everything I look on seemeth green;\n    Now I perceive thou art a reverend father.\n    Pardon, I pray thee, for my mad mistaking.\n  PETRUCHIO. Do, good old grandsire, and withal make known\n    Which way thou travellest- if along with us,\n    We shall be joyful of thy company.\n  VINCENTIO. Fair sir, and you my merry mistress,\n    That with your strange encounter much amaz'd me,\n    My name is call'd Vincentio, my dwelling Pisa,\n    And bound I am to Padua, there to visit\n    A son of mine, which long I have not seen.\n  PETRUCHIO. What is his name?\n  VINCENTIO. Lucentio, gentle sir.\n  PETRUCHIO. Happily met; the happier for thy son.\n    And now by law, as well as reverend age,\n    I may entitle thee my loving father:\n    The sister to my wife, this gentlewoman,\n    Thy son by this hath married. Wonder not,\n    Nor be not grieved- she is of good esteem,\n    Her dowry wealthy, and of worthy birth;\n    Beside, so qualified as may beseem\n    The spouse of any noble gentleman.\n    Let me embrace with old Vincentio;\n    And wander we to see thy honest son,\n    Who will of thy arrival be full joyous.\n  VINCENTIO. But is this true; or is it else your pleasure,\n    Like pleasant travellers, to break a jest\n    Upon the company you overtake?\n  HORTENSIO. I do assure thee, father, so it is.\n  PETRUCHIO. Come, go along, and see the truth hereof;\n    For our first merriment hath made thee jealous.\n                                        Exeunt all but HORTENSIO\n  HORTENSIO. Well, Petruchio, this has put me in heart.\n    Have to my widow; and if she be froward,\n    Then hast thou taught Hortensio to be untoward.         Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nPadua. Before LUCENTIO'S house\n\nEnter BIONDELLO, LUCENTIO, and BIANCA; GREMIO is out before\n\n  BIONDELLO. Softly and swiftly, sir, for the priest is ready.\n  LUCENTIO. I fly, Biondello; but they may chance to need the at\n    home, therefore leave us.\n  BIONDELLO. Nay, faith, I'll see the church a your back, and then\n    come back to my master's as soon as I can.\n                          Exeunt LUCENTIO, BIANCA, and BIONDELLO\n  GREMIO. I marvel Cambio comes not all this while.\n\n           Enter PETRUCHIO, KATHERINA, VINCENTIO, GRUMIO,\n                          and ATTENDANTS\n\n  PETRUCHIO. Sir, here's the door; this is Lucentio's house;\n    My father's bears more toward the market-place;\n    Thither must I, and here I leave you, sir.\n  VINCENTIO. You shall not choose but drink before you go;\n    I think I shall command your welcome here,\n    And by all likelihood some cheer is toward.         [Knocks]\n  GREMIO. They're busy within; you were best knock louder.\n                                [PEDANT looks out of the window]\n  PEDANT. What's he that knocks as he would beat down the gate?\n  VINCENTIO. Is Signior Lucentio within, sir?\n  PEDANT. He's within, sir, but not to be spoken withal.\n  VINCENTIO. What if a man bring him a hundred pound or two to make\n    merry withal?\n  PEDANT. Keep your hundred pounds to yourself; he shall need none so\n    long as I live.\n  PETRUCHIO. Nay, I told you your son was well beloved in Padua. Do\n    you hear, sir? To leave frivolous circumstances, I pray you tell\n    Signior Lucentio that his father is come from Pisa, and is here\n    at the door to speak with him.\n  PEDANT. Thou liest: his father is come from Padua, and here looking\n    out at the window.\n  VINCENTIO. Art thou his father?\n  PEDANT. Ay, sir; so his mother says, if I may believe her.\n  PETRUCHIO.  [To VINCENTIO]  Why, how now, gentleman!\n    Why, this is flat knavery to take upon you another man's name.\n  PEDANT. Lay hands on the villain; I believe 'a means to cozen\n    somebody in this city under my countenance.\n\n                       Re-enter BIONDELLO\n\n  BIONDELLO. I have seen them in the church together. God send 'em\n    good shipping! But who is here? Mine old master, Vicentio! Now we\n    are undone and brought to nothing.\n  VINCENTIO.  [Seeing BIONDELLO]  Come hither, crack-hemp.\n  BIONDELLO. I hope I may choose, sir.\n  VINCENTIO. Come hither, you rogue. What, have you forgot me?\n  BIONDELLO. Forgot you! No, sir. I could not forget you, for I never\n    saw you before in all my life.\n  VINCENTIO. What, you notorious villain, didst thou never see thy\n    master's father, Vincentio?\n  BIONDELLO. What, my old worshipful old master? Yes, marry, sir; see\n    where he looks out of the window.\n  VINCENTIO. Is't so, indeed?               [He beats BIONDELLO]\n  BIONDELLO. Help, help, help! Here's a madman will murder me.\n Exit\n  PEDANT. Help, son! help, Signior Baptista!     Exit from above\n  PETRUCHIO. Prithee, Kate, let's stand aside and see the end of this\n    controversy.                              [They stand aside]\n\n       Re-enter PEDANT below; BAPTISTA, TRANIO, and SERVANTS\n\n  TRANIO. Sir, what are you that offer to beat my servant?\n  VINCENTIO. What am I, sir? Nay, what are you, sir? O immortal gods!\n    O fine villain! A silken doublet, a velvet hose, a scarlet cloak,\n    and a copatain hat! O, I am undone! I am undone! While I play the\n    good husband at home, my son and my servant spend all at the\n    university.\n  TRANIO. How now! what's the matter?\n  BAPTISTA. What, is the man lunatic?\n  TRANIO. Sir, you seem a sober ancient gentleman by your habit, but\n    your words show you a madman. Why, sir, what 'cerns it you if I\n    wear pearl and gold? I thank my good father, I am able to\n    maintain it.\n  VINCENTIO. Thy father! O villain! he is a sailmaker in Bergamo.\n  BAPTISTA. You mistake, sir; you mistake, sir. Pray, what do you\n    think is his name?\n  VINCENTIO. His name! As if I knew not his name! I have brought him\n    up ever since he was three years old, and his name is Tranio.\n  PEDANT. Away, away, mad ass! His name is Lucentio; and he is mine\n    only son, and heir to the lands of me, Signior Vicentio.\n  VINCENTIO. Lucentio! O, he hath murd'red his master! Lay hold on\n    him, I charge you, in the Duke's name. O, my son, my son! Tell\n    me, thou villain, where is my son, Lucentio?\n  TRANIO. Call forth an officer.\n\n                      Enter one with an OFFICER\n\n    Carry this mad knave to the gaol. Father Baptista, I charge you\n    see that he be forthcoming.\n  VINCENTIO. Carry me to the gaol!\n  GREMIO. Stay, Officer; he shall not go to prison.\n  BAPTISTA. Talk not, Signior Gremio; I say he shall go to prison.\n  GREMIO. Take heed, Signior Baptista, lest you be cony-catch'd in\n    this business; I dare swear this is the right Vincentio.\n  PEDANT. Swear if thou dar'st.\n  GREMIO. Nay, I dare not swear it.\n  TRANIO. Then thou wert best say that I am not Lucentio.\n  GREMIO. Yes, I know thee to be Signior Lucentio.\n  BAPTISTA. Away with the dotard; to the gaol with him!\n  VINCENTIO. Thus strangers may be hal'd and abus'd. O monstrous\n    villain!\n\n          Re-enter BIONDELLO, with LUCENTIO and BIANCA\n\n  BIONDELLO. O, we are spoil'd; and yonder he is! Deny him, forswear\n    him, or else we are all undone.\n         Exeunt BIONDELLO, TRANIO, and PEDANT, as fast as may be\n  LUCENTIO.  [Kneeling]  Pardon, sweet father.\n  VINCENTIO. Lives my sweet son?\n  BIANCA. Pardon, dear father.\n  BAPTISTA. How hast thou offended?\n    Where is Lucentio?\n  LUCENTIO. Here's Lucentio,\n    Right son to the right Vincentio,\n    That have by marriage made thy daughter mine,\n    While counterfeit supposes blear'd thine eyne.\n  GREMIO. Here's packing, with a witness, to deceive us all!\n  VINCENTIO. Where is that damned villain, Tranio,\n    That fac'd and brav'd me in this matter so?\n  BAPTISTA. Why, tell me, is not this my Cambio?\n  BIANCA. Cambio is chang'd into Lucentio.\n  LUCENTIO. Love wrought these miracles. Bianca's love\n    Made me exchange my state with Tranio,\n    While he did bear my countenance in the town;\n    And happily I have arrived at the last\n    Unto the wished haven of my bliss.\n    What Tranio did, myself enforc'd him to;\n    Then pardon him, sweet father, for my sake.\n  VINCENTIO. I'll slit the villain's nose that would have sent me to\n    the gaol.\n  BAPTISTA.  [To LUCENTIO]  But do you hear, sir? Have you married my\n    daughter without asking my good will?\n  VINCENTIO. Fear not, Baptista; we will content you, go to; but I\n    will in to be revenged for this villainy.               Exit\n  BAPTISTA. And I to sound the depth of this knavery.       Exit\n  LUCENTIO. Look not pale, Bianca; thy father will not frown.\n                                      Exeunt LUCENTIO and BIANCA\n  GREMIO. My cake is dough, but I'll in among the rest;\n    Out of hope of all but my share of the feast.           Exit\n  KATHERINA. Husband, let's follow to see the end of this ado.\n  PETRUCHIO. First kiss me, Kate, and we will.\n  KATHERINA. What, in the midst of the street?\n  PETRUCHIO. What, art thou asham'd of me?\n  KATHERINA. No, sir; God forbid; but asham'd to kiss.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, then, let's home again. Come, sirrah, let's away.\n  KATHERINA. Nay, I will give thee a kiss; now pray thee, love, stay.\n  PETRUCHIO. Is not this well? Come, my sweet Kate:\n    Better once than never, for never too late.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nLUCENTIO'S house\n\nEnter BAPTISTA, VINCENTIO, GREMIO, the PEDANT, LUCENTIO, BIANCA,\nPETRUCHIO, KATHERINA, HORTENSIO, and WIDOW. The SERVINGMEN with TRANIO,\nBIONDELLO, and GRUMIO, bringing in a banquet\n\n  LUCENTIO. At last, though long, our jarring notes agree;\n    And time it is when raging war is done\n    To smile at scapes and perils overblown.\n    My fair Bianca, bid my father welcome,\n    While I with self-same kindness welcome thine.\n    Brother Petruchio, sister Katherina,\n    And thou, Hortensio, with thy loving widow,\n    Feast with the best, and welcome to my house.\n    My banquet is to close our stomachs up\n    After our great good cheer. Pray you, sit down;\n    For now we sit to chat as well as eat.            [They sit]\n  PETRUCHIO. Nothing but sit and sit, and eat and eat!\n  BAPTISTA. Padua affords this kindness, son Petruchio.\n  PETRUCHIO. Padua affords nothing but what is kind.\n  HORTENSIO. For both our sakes I would that word were true.\n  PETRUCHIO. Now, for my life, Hortensio fears his widow.\n  WIDOW. Then never trust me if I be afeard.\n  PETRUCHIO. YOU are very sensible, and yet you miss my sense:\n    I mean Hortensio is afeard of you.\n  WIDOW. He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.\n  PETRUCHIO. Roundly replied.\n  KATHERINA. Mistress, how mean you that?\n  WIDOW. Thus I conceive by him.\n  PETRUCHIO. Conceives by me! How likes Hortensio that?\n  HORTENSIO. My widow says thus she conceives her tale.\n  PETRUCHIO. Very well mended. Kiss him for that, good widow.\n  KATHERINA. 'He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.'\n    I pray you tell me what you meant by that.\n  WIDOW. Your husband, being troubled with a shrew,\n    Measures my husband's sorrow by his woe;\n    And now you know my meaning.\n  KATHERINA. A very mean meaning.\n  WIDOW. Right, I mean you.\n  KATHERINA. And I am mean, indeed, respecting you.\n  PETRUCHIO. To her, Kate!\n  HORTENSIO. To her, widow!\n  PETRUCHIO. A hundred marks, my Kate does put her down.\n  HORTENSIO. That's my office.\n  PETRUCHIO. Spoke like an officer- ha' to thee, lad.\n                                           [Drinks to HORTENSIO]\n  BAPTISTA. How likes Gremio these quick-witted folks?\n  GREMIO. Believe me, sir, they butt together well.\n  BIANCA. Head and butt! An hasty-witted body\n    Would say your head and butt were head and horn.\n  VINCENTIO. Ay, mistress bride, hath that awakened you?\n  BIANCA. Ay, but not frighted me; therefore I'll sleep again.\n  PETRUCHIO. Nay, that you shall not; since you have begun,\n    Have at you for a bitter jest or two.\n  BIANCA. Am I your bird? I mean to shift my bush,\n    And then pursue me as you draw your bow.\n    You are welcome all.\n                             Exeunt BIANCA, KATHERINA, and WIDOW\n  PETRUCHIO. She hath prevented me. Here, Signior Tranio,\n    This bird you aim'd at, though you hit her not;\n    Therefore a health to all that shot and miss'd.\n  TRANIO. O, sir, Lucentio slipp'd me like his greyhound,\n    Which runs himself, and catches for his master.\n  PETRUCHIO. A good swift simile, but something currish.\n  TRANIO. 'Tis well, sir, that you hunted for yourself;\n    'Tis thought your deer does hold you at a bay.\n  BAPTISTA. O, O, Petruchio! Tranio hits you now.\n  LUCENTIO. I thank thee for that gird, good Tranio.\n  HORTENSIO. Confess, confess; hath he not hit you here?\n  PETRUCHIO. 'A has a little gall'd me, I confess;\n    And, as the jest did glance away from me,\n    'Tis ten to one it maim'd you two outright.\n  BAPTISTA. Now, in good sadness, son Petruchio,\n    I think thou hast the veriest shrew of all.\n  PETRUCHIO. Well, I say no; and therefore, for assurance,\n    Let's each one send unto his wife,\n    And he whose wife is most obedient,\n    To come at first when he doth send for her,\n    Shall win the wager which we will propose.\n  HORTENSIO. Content. What's the wager?\n  LUCENTIO. Twenty crowns.\n  PETRUCHIO. Twenty crowns?\n    I'll venture so much of my hawk or hound,\n    But twenty times so much upon my wife.\n  LUCENTIO. A hundred then.\n  HORTENSIO. Content.\n  PETRUCHIO. A match! 'tis done.\n  HORTENSIO. Who shall begin?\n  LUCENTIO. That will I.\n    Go, Biondello, bid your mistress come to me.\n  BIONDELLO. I go.                                          Exit\n  BAPTISTA. Son, I'll be your half Bianca comes.\n  LUCENTIO. I'll have no halves; I'll bear it all myself.\n\n                          Re-enter BIONDELLO\n\n    How now! what news?\n  BIONDELLO. Sir, my mistress sends you word\n    That she is busy and she cannot come.\n  PETRUCHIO. How! She's busy, and she cannot come!\n    Is that an answer?\n  GREMIO. Ay, and a kind one too.\n    Pray God, sir, your wife send you not a worse.\n  PETRUCHIO. I hope better.\n  HORTENSIO. Sirrah Biondello, go and entreat my wife\n    To come to me forthwith.                      Exit BIONDELLO\n  PETRUCHIO. O, ho! entreat her!\n    Nay, then she must needs come.\n  HORTENSIO. I am afraid, sir,\n    Do what you can, yours will not be entreated.\n\n                            Re-enter BIONDELLO\n\n    Now, where's my wife?\n  BIONDELLO. She says you have some goodly jest in hand:\n    She will not come; she bids you come to her.\n  PETRUCHIO. Worse and worse; she will not come! O vile,\n    Intolerable, not to be endur'd!\n    Sirrah Grumio, go to your mistress;\n    Say I command her come to me.                    Exit GRUMIO\n  HORTENSIO. I know her answer.\n  PETRUCHIO. What?\n  HORTENSIO. She will not.\n  PETRUCHIO. The fouler fortune mine, and there an end.\n\n                             Re-enter KATHERINA\n\n  BAPTISTA. Now, by my holidame, here comes Katherina!\n  KATHERINA. What is your sir, that you send for me?\n  PETRUCHIO. Where is your sister, and Hortensio's wife?\n  KATHERINA. They sit conferring by the parlour fire.\n  PETRUCHIO. Go, fetch them hither; if they deny to come.\n    Swinge me them soundly forth unto their husbands.\n    Away, I say, and bring them hither straight.\n                                                  Exit KATHERINA\n  LUCENTIO. Here is a wonder, if you talk of a wonder.\n  HORTENSIO. And so it is. I wonder what it bodes.\n  PETRUCHIO. Marry, peace it bodes, and love, and quiet life,\n    An awful rule, and right supremacy;\n    And, to be short, what not that's sweet and happy.\n  BAPTISTA. Now fair befall thee, good Petruchio!\n    The wager thou hast won; and I will ad\n    Unto their losses twenty thousand crowns;\n    Another dowry to another daughter,\n    For she is chang'd, as she had never been.\n  PETRUCHIO. Nay, I will win my wager better yet,\n    And show more sign of her obedience,\n    Her new-built virtue and obedience.\n\n                 Re-enter KATHERINA with BIANCA and WIDOW\n\n    See where she comes, and brings your froward wives\n    As prisoners to her womanly persuasion.\n    Katherine, that cap of yours becomes you not:\n    Off with that bauble, throw it underfoot.\n                                            [KATHERINA complies]\n  WIDOW. Lord, let me never have a cause to sigh\n    Till I be brought to such a silly pass!\n  BIANCA. Fie! what a foolish duty call you this?\n  LUCENTIO. I would your duty were as foolish too;\n    The wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca,\n    Hath cost me a hundred crowns since supper-time!\n  BIANCA. The more fool you for laying on my duty.\n  PETRUCHIO. Katherine, I charge thee, tell these headstrong women\n    What duty they do owe their lords and husbands.\n  WIDOW. Come, come, you're mocking; we will have no telling.\n  PETRUCHIO. Come on, I say; and first begin with her.\n  WIDOW. She shall not.\n  PETRUCHIO. I say she shall. And first begin with her.\n  KATHERINA. Fie, fie! unknit that threatening unkind brow,\n    And dart not scornful glances from those eyes\n    To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor.\n    It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads,\n    Confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds,\n    And in no sense is meet or amiable.\n    A woman mov'd is like a fountain troubled-\n    Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;\n    And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty\n    Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.\n    Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,\n    Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,\n    And for thy maintenance commits his body\n    To painful labour both by sea and land,\n    To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,\n    Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;\n    And craves no other tribute at thy hands\n    But love, fair looks, and true obedience-\n    Too little payment for so great a debt.\n    Such duty as the subject owes the prince,\n    Even such a woman oweth to her husband;\n    And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,\n    And not obedient to his honest will,\n    What is she but a foul contending rebel\n    And graceless traitor to her loving lord?\n    I am asham'd that women are so simple\n    To offer war where they should kneel for peace;\n    Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway,\n    When they are bound to serve, love, and obey.\n    Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,\n    Unapt to toll and trouble in the world,\n    But that our soft conditions and our hearts\n    Should well agree with our external parts?\n    Come, come, you froward and unable worms!\n    My mind hath been as big as one of yours,\n    My heart as great, my reason haply more,\n    To bandy word for word and frown for frown;\n    But now I see our lances are but straws,\n    Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,\n    That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.\n    Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,\n    And place your hands below your husband's foot;\n    In token of which duty, if he please,\n    My hand is ready, may it do him ease.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, there's a wench! Come on, and kiss me, Kate.\n  LUCENTIO. Well, go thy ways, old lad, for thou shalt ha't.\n  VINCENTIO. 'Tis a good hearing when children are toward.\n  LUCENTIO. But a harsh hearing when women are froward.\n  PETRUCHIO. Come, Kate, we'll to bed.\n    We three are married, but you two are sped.\n    [To LUCENTIO]  'Twas I won the wager, though you hit the white;\n    And being a winner, God give you good night!\n                                  Exeunt PETRUCHIO and KATHERINA\n  HORTENSIO. Now go thy ways; thou hast tam'd a curst shrow.\n  LUCENTIO. 'Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tam'd so.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1612\n\nTHE TEMPEST\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  ALONSO, King of Naples\n  SEBASTIAN, his brother\n  PROSPERO, the right Duke of Milan\n  ANTONIO, his brother, the usurping Duke of Milan\n  FERDINAND, son to the King of Naples\n  GONZALO, an honest old counsellor\n\n    Lords\n  ADRIAN\n  FRANCISCO\n  CALIBAN, a savage and deformed slave\n  TRINCULO, a jester\n  STEPHANO, a drunken butler\n  MASTER OF A SHIP\n  BOATSWAIN\n  MARINERS\n\n  MIRANDA, daughter to Prospero\n\n  ARIEL, an airy spirit\n\n    Spirits\n  IRIS\n  CERES\n  JUNO\n  NYMPHS\n  REAPERS\n  Other Spirits attending on Prospero\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nA ship at sea; afterwards an uninhabited island\n\n\n\nTHE TEMPEST\nACT I. SCENE 1\n\nOn a ship at sea; a tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning heard\n\nEnter a SHIPMASTER and a BOATSWAIN\n\n  MASTER. Boatswain!\n  BOATSWAIN. Here, master; what cheer?\n  MASTER. Good! Speak to th' mariners; fall to't yarely, or\n    we run ourselves aground; bestir, bestir.               Exit\n\n                       Enter MARINERS\n\n  BOATSWAIN. Heigh, my hearts! cheerly, cheerly, my hearts!\n    yare, yare! Take in the topsail. Tend to th' master's\n    whistle. Blow till thou burst thy wind, if room enough.\n\n          Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, FERDINAND\n                     GONZALO, and OTHERS\n\n  ALONSO. Good boatswain, have care. Where's the master?\n    Play the men.\n  BOATSWAIN. I pray now, keep below.\n  ANTONIO. Where is the master, boson?\n  BOATSWAIN. Do you not hear him? You mar our labour;\n    keep your cabins; you do assist the storm.\n  GONZALO. Nay, good, be patient.\n  BOATSWAIN. When the sea is. Hence! What cares these\n    roarers for the name of king? To cabin! silence! Trouble\n    us not.\n  GONZALO. Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboard.\n  BOATSWAIN. None that I more love than myself. You are\n    counsellor; if you can command these elements to\n    silence, and work the peace of the present, we will not\n    hand a rope more. Use your authority; if you cannot, give\n    thanks you have liv'd so long, and make yourself ready\n    in your cabin for the mischance of the hour, if it so\n    hap.-Cheerly, good hearts!-Out of our way, I say.\n Exit\n  GONZALO. I have great comfort from this fellow. Methinks\n    he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is\n    perfect gallows. Stand fast, good Fate, to his hanging;\n    make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth\n    little advantage. If he be not born to be hang'd, our\n    case is miserable.                                    Exeunt\n\n                     Re-enter BOATSWAIN\n\n  BOATSWAIN. Down with the topmast. Yare, lower, lower!\n    Bring her to try wi' th' maincourse.  [A cry within]  A\n    plague upon this howling! They are louder than the\n    weather or our office.\n\n           Re-enter SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, and GONZALO\n\n    Yet again! What do you here? Shall we give o'er, and\n    drown? Have you a mind to sink?\n  SEBASTIAN. A pox o' your throat, you bawling, blasphemous,\n    incharitable dog!\n  BOATSWAIN. Work you, then.\n  ANTONIO. Hang, cur; hang, you whoreson, insolent noisemaker;\n    we are less afraid to be drown'd than thou art.\n  GONZALO. I'll warrant him for drowning, though the ship were\n    no stronger than a nutshell, and as leaky as an unstanched\n    wench.\n  BOATSWAIN. Lay her a-hold, a-hold; set her two courses; off\n    to sea again; lay her off.\n\n                    Enter MARINERS, Wet\n  MARINERS. All lost! to prayers, to prayers! all lost!\n                                                          Exeunt\n  BOATSWAIN. What, must our mouths be cold?\n  GONZALO. The King and Prince at prayers!\n    Let's assist them,\n    For our case is as theirs.\n  SEBASTIAN. I am out of patience.\n  ANTONIO. We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards.\n    This wide-chopp'd rascal-would thou mightst lie drowning\n    The washing of ten tides!\n  GONZALO. He'll be hang'd yet,\n    Though every drop of water swear against it,\n    And gape at wid'st to glut him.\n    [A confused noise within: Mercy on us!\n    We split, we split! Farewell, my wife and children!\n    Farewell, brother! We split, we split, we split!]\n  ANTONIO. Let's all sink wi' th' King.\n  SEBASTIAN. Let's take leave of him.\n                                    Exeunt ANTONIO and SEBASTIAN\n  GONZALO. Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for\n    an acre of barren ground-long heath, brown furze, any\n    thing. The wills above be done, but I would fain die\n    dry death.                                            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2\n\nThe Island. Before PROSPERO'S cell\n\nEnter PROSPERO and MIRANDA\n\n  MIRANDA. If by your art, my dearest father, you have\n    Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.\n    The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,\n    But that the sea, mounting to th' welkin's cheek,\n    Dashes the fire out. O, I have suffered\n    With those that I saw suffer! A brave vessel,\n    Who had no doubt some noble creature in her,\n    Dash'd all to pieces! O, the cry did knock\n    Against my very heart! Poor souls, they perish'd.\n    Had I been any god of power, I would\n    Have sunk the sea within the earth or ere\n    It should the good ship so have swallow'd and\n    The fraughting souls within her.\n  PROSPERO. Be conected;\n    No more amazement; tell your piteous heart\n    There's no harm done.\n  MIRANDA. O, woe the day!\n  PROSPERO. No harm.\n    I have done nothing but in care of thee,\n    Of thee, my dear one, thee, my daughter, who\n    Art ignorant of what thou art, nought knowing\n    Of whence I am, nor that I am more better\n    Than Prospero, master of a full poor cell,\n    And thy no greater father.\n  MIRANDA. More to know\n    Did never meddle with my thoughts.\n  PROSPERO. 'Tis time\n    I should inform thee farther. Lend thy hand,\n    And pluck my magic garment from me. So,\n                                          [Lays down his mantle]\n    Lie there my art. Wipe thou thine eyes; have comfort.\n    The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch'd\n    The very virtue of compassion in thee,\n    I have with such provision in mine art\n    So safely ordered that there is no soul-\n    No, not so much perdition as an hair\n    Betid to any creature in the vessel\n    Which thou heard'st cry, which thou saw'st sink.\n    Sit down, for thou must now know farther.\n  MIRANDA. You have often\n    Begun to tell me what I am; but stopp'd,\n    And left me to a bootless inquisition,\n    Concluding 'Stay; not yet.'\n  PROSPERO. The hour's now come;\n    The very minute bids thee ope thine ear.\n    Obey, and be attentive. Canst thou remember\n    A time before we came unto this cell?\n    I do not think thou canst; for then thou wast not\n    Out three years old.\n  MIRANDA. Certainly, sir, I can.\n  PROSPERO. By what? By any other house, or person?\n    Of any thing the image, tell me, that\n    Hath kept with thy remembrance?\n  MIRANDA. 'Tis far off,\n    And rather like a dream than an assurance\n    That my remembrance warrants. Had I not\n    Four, or five, women once, that tended me?\n  PROSPERO. Thou hadst, and more, Miranda. But how is it\n    That this lives in thy mind? What seest thou else\n    In the dark backward and abysm of time?\n    If thou rememb'rest aught, ere thou cam'st here,\n    How thou cam'st here thou mayst.\n  MIRANDA. But that I do not.\n  PROSPERO. Twelve year since, Miranda, twelve year since,\n    Thy father was the Duke of Milan, and\n    A prince of power.\n  MIRANDA. Sir, are not you my father?\n  PROSPERO. Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and\n    She said thou wast my daughter; and thy father\n    Was Duke of Milan, and his only heir\n    And princess no worse issued.\n  MIRANDA. O, the heavens!\n    What foul play had we that we came from thence?\n    Or blessed was't we did?\n  PROSPERO. Both, both, my girl.\n    By foul play, as thou say'st, were we heav'd thence;\n    But blessedly holp hither.\n  MIRANDA. O, my heart bleeds\n    To think o' th' teen that I have turn'd you to,\n    Which is from my remembrance. Please you, farther.\n  PROSPERO. My brother and thy uncle, call'd Antonio-\n    I pray thee, mark me that a brother should\n    Be so perfidious. He, whom next thyself\n    Of all the world I lov'd, and to him put\n    The manage of my state; as at that time\n    Through all the signories it was the first,\n    And Prospero the prime duke, being so reputed\n    In dignity, and for the liberal arts\n    Without a parallel, those being all my study-\n    The government I cast upon my brother\n    And to my state grew stranger, being transported\n    And rapt in secret studies. Thy false uncle-\n    Dost thou attend me?\n  MIRANDA. Sir, most heedfully.\n  PROSPERO. Being once perfected how to grant suits,\n    How to deny them, who t' advance, and who\n    To trash for over-topping, new created\n    The creatures that were mine, I say, or chang'd 'em,\n    Or else new form'd 'em; having both the key\n    Of officer and office, set all hearts i' th' state\n    To what tune pleas'd his ear; that now he was\n    The ivy which had hid my princely trunk\n    And suck'd my verdure out on't. Thou attend'st not.\n  MIRANDA. O, good sir, I do!\n  PROSPERO. I pray thee, mark me.\n    I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated\n    To closeness and the bettering of my mind\n    With that which, but by being so retir'd,\n    O'er-priz'd all popular rate, in my false brother\n    Awak'd an evil nature; and my trust,\n    Like a good parent, did beget of him\n    A falsehood, in its contrary as great\n    As my trust was; which had indeed no limit,\n    A confidence sans bound. He being thus lorded,\n    Not only with what my revenue yielded,\n    But what my power might else exact, like one\n    Who having into truth, by telling of it,\n    Made such a sinner of his memory,\n    To credit his own lie-he did believe\n    He was indeed the Duke; out o' th' substitution,\n    And executing th' outward face of royalty\n    With all prerogative. Hence his ambition growing-\n    Dost thou hear?\n  MIRANDA. Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.\n  PROSPERO. To have no screen between this part he play'd\n    And him he play'd it for, he needs will be\n    Absolute Milan. Me, poor man-my library\n    Was dukedom large enough-of temporal royalties\n    He thinks me now incapable; confederates,\n    So dry he was for sway, wi' th' King of Naples,\n    To give him annual tribute, do him homage,\n    Subject his coronet to his crown, and bend\n    The dukedom, yet unbow'd-alas, poor Milan!-\n    To most ignoble stooping.\n  MIRANDA. O the heavens!\n  PROSPERO. Mark his condition, and th' event, then tell me\n    If this might be a brother.\n  MIRANDA. I should sin\n    To think but nobly of my grandmother:\n    Good wombs have borne bad sons.\n  PROSPERO. Now the condition:\n    This King of Naples, being an enemy\n    To me inveterate, hearkens my brother's suit;\n    Which was, that he, in lieu o' th' premises,\n    Of homage, and I know not how much tribute,\n    Should presently extirpate me and mine\n    Out of the dukedom, and confer fair Milan\n    With all the honours on my brother. Whereon,\n    A treacherous army levied, one midnight\n    Fated to th' purpose, did Antonio open\n    The gates of Milan; and, i' th' dead of darkness,\n    The ministers for th' purpose hurried thence\n    Me and thy crying self.\n  MIRANDA. Alack, for pity!\n    I, not rememb'ring how I cried out then,\n    Will cry it o'er again; it is a hint\n    That wrings mine eyes to't.\n  PROSPERO. Hear a little further,\n    And then I'll bring thee to the present busines\n    Which now's upon 's; without the which this story\n    Were most impertinent.\n  MIRANDA. Wherefore did they not\n    That hour destroy us?\n  PROSPERO. Well demanded, wench!\n    My tale provokes that question. Dear, they durst not,\n    So dear the love my people bore me; nor set\n    A mark so bloody on the business; but\n    With colours fairer painted their foul ends.\n    In few, they hurried us aboard a bark;\n    Bore us some leagues to sea, where they prepared\n    A rotten carcass of a butt, not rigg'd,\n    Nor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats\n    Instinctively have quit it. There they hoist us,\n    To cry to th' sea, that roar'd to us; to sigh\n    To th' winds, whose pity, sighing back again,\n    Did us but loving wrong.\n  MIRANDA. Alack, what trouble\n    Was I then to you!\n  PROSPERO. O, a cherubin\n    Thou wast that did preserve me! Thou didst smile,\n    Infused with a fortitude from heaven,\n    When I have deck'd the sea with drops full salt,\n    Under my burden groan'd; which rais'd in me\n    An undergoing stomach, to bear up\n    Against what should ensue.\n  MIRANDA. How came we ashore?\n  PROSPERO. By Providence divine.\n    Some food we had and some fresh water that\n    A noble Neapolitan, Gonzalo,\n    Out of his charity, who being then appointed\n    Master of this design, did give us, with\n    Rich garments, linens, stuffs, and necessaries,\n    Which since have steaded much; so, of his gentleness,\n    Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me\n    From mine own library with volumes that\n    I prize above my dukedom.\n  MIRANDA. Would I might\n    But ever see that man!\n  PROSPERO. Now I arise.                    [Puts on his mantle]\n    Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow.\n    Here in this island we arriv'd; and here\n    Have I, thy schoolmaster, made thee more profit\n    Than other princess' can, that have more time\n    For vainer hours, and tutors not so careful.\n  MIRANDA. Heavens thank you for't! And now, I pray you,\n      sir,\n    For still 'tis beating in my mind, your reason\n    For raising this sea-storm?\n  PROSPERO. Know thus far forth:\n    By accident most strange, bountiful Fortune,\n    Now my dear lady, hath mine enemies\n    Brought to this shore; and by my prescience\n    I find my zenith doth depend upon\n    A most auspicious star, whose influence\n    If now I court not, but omit, my fortunes\n    Will ever after droop. Here cease more questions;\n    Thou art inclin'd to sleep; 'tis a good dullness,\n    And give it way. I know thou canst not choose.\n                                                [MIRANDA sleeps]\n    Come away, servant; come; I am ready now.\n    Approach, my Ariel. Come.\n\n                        Enter ARIEL\n\n  ARIEL. All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come\n    To answer thy best pleasure; be't to fly,\n    To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride\n    On the curl'd clouds. To thy strong bidding task\n    Ariel and all his quality.\n  PROSPERO. Hast thou, spirit,\n    Perform'd to point the tempest that I bade thee?\n  ARIEL. To every article.\n    I boarded the King's ship; now on the beak,\n    Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,\n    I flam'd amazement. Sometime I'd divide,\n    And burn in many places; on the topmast,\n    The yards, and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly,\n    Then meet and join Jove's lightning, the precursors\n    O' th' dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary\n    And sight-outrunning were not; the fire and cracks\n    Of sulphurous roaring the most mighty Neptune\n    Seem to besiege, and make his bold waves tremble,\n    Yea, his dread trident shake.\n  PROSPERO. My brave spirit!\n    Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil\n    Would not infect his reason?\n  ARIEL. Not a soul\n    But felt a fever of the mad, and play'd\n    Some tricks of desperation. All but mariners\n    Plung'd in the foaming brine, and quit the vessel,\n    Then all afire with me; the King's son, Ferdinand,\n    With hair up-staring-then like reeds, not hair-\n    Was the first man that leapt; cried 'Hell is empty,\n    And all the devils are here.'\n  PROSPERO. Why, that's my spirit!\n    But was not this nigh shore?\n  ARIEL. Close by, my master.\n  PROSPERO. But are they, Ariel, safe?\n  ARIEL. Not a hair perish'd;\n    On their sustaining garments not a blemish,\n    But fresher than before; and, as thou bad'st me,\n    In troops I have dispers'd them 'bout the isle.\n    The King's son have I landed by himself,\n    Whom I left cooling of the air with sighs\n    In an odd angle of the isle, and sitting,\n    His arms in this sad knot.\n  PROSPERO. Of the King's ship,\n    The mariners, say how thou hast dispos'd,\n    And all the rest o' th' fleet?\n  ARIEL. Safely in harbour\n    Is the King's ship; in the deep nook, where once\n    Thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew\n    From the still-vex'd Bermoothes, there she's hid;\n    The mariners all under hatches stowed,\n    Who, with a charm join'd to their suff'red labour,\n    I have left asleep; and for the rest o' th' fleet,\n    Which I dispers'd, they all have met again,\n    And are upon the Mediterranean flote\n    Bound sadly home for Naples,\n    Supposing that they saw the King's ship wreck'd,\n    And his great person perish.\n  PROSPERO. Ariel, thy charge\n    Exactly is perform'd; but there's more work.\n    What is the time o' th' day?\n  ARIEL. Past the mid season.\n  PROSPERO. At least two glasses. The time 'twixt six and now\n    Must by us both be spent most preciously.\n  ARIEL. Is there more toil? Since thou dost give me pains,\n    Let me remember thee what thou hast promis'd,\n    Which is not yet perform'd me.\n  PROSPERO. How now, moody?\n    What is't thou canst demand?\n  ARIEL. My liberty.\n  PROSPERO. Before the time be out? No more!\n  ARIEL. I prithee,\n    Remember I have done thee worthy service,\n    Told thee no lies, made thee no mistakings, serv'd\n    Without or grudge or grumblings. Thou didst promise\n    To bate me a full year.\n  PROSPERO. Dost thou forget\n    From what a torment I did free thee?\n  ARIEL. No.\n  PROSPERO. Thou dost; and think'st it much to tread the ooze\n    Of the salt deep,\n    To run upon the sharp wind of the north,\n    To do me business in the veins o' th' earth\n    When it is bak'd with frost.\n  ARIEL. I do not, sir.\n  PROSPERO. Thou liest, malignant thing. Hast thou forgot\n    The foul witch Sycorax, who with age and envy\n    Was grown into a hoop? Hast thou forgot her?\n  ARIEL. No, sir.\n  PROSPERO. Thou hast. Where was she born?\n    Speak; tell me.\n  ARIEL. Sir, in Argier.\n  PROSPERO. O, was she so? I must\n    Once in a month recount what thou hast been,\n    Which thou forget'st. This damn'd witch Sycorax,\n    For mischiefs manifold, and sorceries terrible\n    To enter human hearing, from Argier\n    Thou know'st was banish'd; for one thing she did\n    They would not take her life. Is not this true?\n  ARIEL. Ay, sir.\n  PROSPERO. This blue-ey'd hag was hither brought with child,\n    And here was left by th'sailors. Thou, my slave,\n    As thou report'st thyself, wast then her servant;\n    And, for thou wast a spirit too delicate\n    To act her earthy and abhorr'd commands,\n    Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee,\n    By help of her more potent ministers,\n    And in her most unmitigable rage,\n    Into a cloven pine; within which rift\n    Imprison'd thou didst painfully remain\n    A dozen years; within which space she died,\n    And left thee there, where thou didst vent thy groans\n    As fast as mill-wheels strike. Then was this island-\n    Save for the son that she did litter here,\n    A freckl'd whelp, hag-born-not honour'd with\n    A human shape.\n  ARIEL. Yes, Caliban her son.\n  PROSPERO. Dull thing, I say so; he, that Caliban\n    Whom now I keep in service. Thou best know'st\n    What torment I did find thee in; thy groans\n    Did make wolves howl, and penetrate the breasts\n    Of ever-angry bears; it was a torment\n    To lay upon the damn'd, which Sycorax\n    Could not again undo. It was mine art,\n    When I arriv'd and heard thee, that made gape\n    The pine, and let thee out.\n  ARIEL. I thank thee, master.\n  PROSPERO. If thou more murmur'st, I will rend an oak\n    And peg thee in his knotty entrails, till\n    Thou hast howl'd away twelve winters.\n  ARIEL. Pardon, master;\n    I will be correspondent to command,\n    And do my spriting gently.\n  PROSPERO. Do so; and after two days\n    I will discharge thee.\n  ARIEL. That's my noble master!\n    What shall I do? Say what. What shall I do?\n  PROSPERO. Go make thyself like a nymph o' th' sea; be subject\n    To no sight but thine and mine, invisible\n    To every eyeball else. Go take this shape,\n    And hither come in 't. Go, hence with diligence!\n                                                      Exit ARIEL\n    Awake, dear heart, awake; thou hast slept well;\n    Awake.\n  MIRANDA. The strangeness of your story put\n    Heaviness in me.\n  PROSPERO. Shake it off. Come on,\n    We'll visit Caliban, my slave, who never\n    Yields us kind answer.\n  MIRANDA. 'Tis a villain, sir,\n    I do not love to look on.\n  PROSPERO. But as 'tis,\n    We cannot miss him: he does make our fire,\n    Fetch in our wood, and serves in offices\n    That profit us. What ho! slave! Caliban!\n    Thou earth, thou! Speak.\n  CALIBAN.   [ Within]  There's wood enough within.\n  PROSPERO. Come forth, I say; there's other business for thee.\n    Come, thou tortoise! when?\n\n             Re-enter ARIEL like a water-nymph\n\n    Fine apparition! My quaint Ariel,\n    Hark in thine ear.\n  ARIEL. My lord, it shall be done.                         Exit\n  PROSPERO. Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself\n    Upon thy wicked dam, come forth!\n\n                       Enter CALIBAN\n\n  CALIBAN. As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd\n    With raven's feather from unwholesome fen\n    Drop on you both! A south-west blow on ye\n    And blister you all o'er!\n  PROSPERO. For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps,\n    Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up; urchins\n    Shall, for that vast of night that they may work,\n    All exercise on thee; thou shalt be pinch'd\n    As thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging\n    Than bees that made 'em.\n  CALIBAN. I must eat my dinner.\n    This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother,\n    Which thou tak'st from me. When thou cam'st first,\n    Thou strok'st me and made much of me, wouldst give me\n    Water with berries in't, and teach me how\n    To name the bigger light, and how the less,\n    That burn by day and night; and then I lov'd thee,\n    And show'd thee all the qualities o' th' isle,\n    The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile.\n    Curs'd be I that did so! All the charms\n    Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you!\n    For I am all the subjects that you have,\n    Which first was mine own king; and here you sty me\n    In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me\n    The rest o' th' island.\n  PROSPERO. Thou most lying slave,\n    Whom stripes may move, not kindness! I have us'd thee,\n    Filth as thou art, with human care, and lodg'd thee\n    In mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate\n    The honour of my child.\n  CALIBAN. O ho, O ho! Would't had been done.\n    Thou didst prevent me; I had peopl'd else\n    This isle with Calibans.\n  MIRANDA. Abhorred slave,\n    Which any print of goodness wilt not take,\n    Being capable of all ill! I pitied thee,\n    Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour\n    One thing or other. When thou didst not, savage,\n    Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like\n    A thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes\n    With words that made them known. But thy vile race,\n    Though thou didst learn, had that in't which good natures\n    Could not abide to be with; therefore wast thou\n    Deservedly confin'd into this rock, who hadst\n    Deserv'd more than a prison.\n  CALIBAN. You taught me language, and my profit on't\n    Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you\n    For learning me your language!\n  PROSPERO. Hag-seed, hence!\n    Fetch us in fuel. And be quick, thou 'rt best,\n    To answer other business. Shrug'st thou, malice?\n    If thou neglect'st, or dost unwillingly\n    What I command, I'll rack thee with old cramps,\n    Fill all thy bones with aches, make thee roar,\n    That beasts shall tremble at thy din.\n  CALIBAN. No, pray thee.\n    [Aside]  I must obey. His art is of such pow'r,\n    It would control my dam's god, Setebos,\n    And make a vassal of him.\n  PROSPERO. So, slave; hence!                       Exit CALIBAN\n\n         Re-enter ARIEL invisible, playing ad singing;\n                     FERDINAND following\n\n                          ARIEL'S SONG.\n            Come unto these yellow sands,\n              And then take hands;\n            Curtsied when you have and kiss'd,\n              The wild waves whist,\n            Foot it featly here and there,\n            And, sweet sprites, the burden bear.\n              Hark, hark!\n            [Burden dispersedly: Bow-wow.]\n              The watch dogs bark.\n            [Burden dispersedly: Bow-wow.]\n              Hark, hark! I hear\n            The strain of strutting chanticleer\n              Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow.\n  FERDINAND. Where should this music be? I' th' air or th'\n    earth?\n    It sounds no more; and sure it waits upon\n    Some god o' th' island. Sitting on a bank,\n    Weeping again the King my father's wreck,\n    This music crept by me upon the waters,\n    Allaying both their fury and my passion\n    With its sweet air; thence I have follow'd it,\n    Or it hath drawn me rather. But 'tis gone.\n    No, it begins again.\n\n                   ARIEL'S SONG\n         Full fathom five thy father lies;\n           Of his bones are coral made;\n         Those are pearls that were his eyes;\n           Nothing of him that doth fade\n         But doth suffer a sea-change\n         Into something rich and strange.\n         Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:\n           [Burden: Ding-dong.]\n         Hark! now I hear them-Ding-dong bell.\n\n  FERDINAND. The ditty does remember my drown'd father.\n    This is no mortal business, nor no sound\n    That the earth owes. I hear it now above me.\n  PROSPERO. The fringed curtains of thine eye advance,\n    And say what thou seest yond.\n  MIRANDA. What is't? a spirit?\n    Lord, how it looks about! Believe me, sir,\n    It carries a brave form. But 'tis a spirit.\n  PROSPERO. No, wench; it eats and sleeps and hath such senses\n    As we have, such. This gallant which thou seest\n    Was in the wreck; and but he's something stain'd\n    With grief, that's beauty's canker, thou mightst call him\n    A goodly person. He hath lost his fellows,\n    And strays about to find 'em.\n  MIRANDA. I might call him\n    A thing divine; for nothing natural\n    I ever saw so noble.\n  PROSPERO.  [Aside]  It goes on, I see,\n    As my soul prompts it. Spirit, fine spirit! I'll free thee\n    Within two days for this.\n  FERDINAND. Most sure, the goddess\n    On whom these airs attend! Vouchsafe my pray'r\n    May know if you remain upon this island;\n    And that you will some good instruction give\n    How I may bear me here. My prime request,\n    Which I do last pronounce, is, O you wonder!\n    If you be maid or no?\n  MIRANDA. No wonder, sir;\n    But certainly a maid.\n  FERDINAND. My language? Heavens!\n    I am the best of them that speak this speech,\n    Were I but where 'tis spoken.\n  PROSPERO. How? the best?\n    What wert thou, if the King of Naples heard thee?\n  FERDINAND. A single thing, as I am now, that wonders\n    To hear thee speak of Naples. He does hear me;\n    And that he does I weep. Myself am Naples,\n    Who with mine eyes, never since at ebb, beheld\n    The King my father wreck'd.\n  MIRANDA. Alack, for mercy!\n  FERDINAND. Yes, faith, and all his lords, the Duke of Milan\n    And his brave son being twain.\n  PROSPERO.  [Aside]  The Duke of Milan\n    And his more braver daughter could control thee,\n    If now 'twere fit to do't. At the first sight\n    They have chang'd eyes. Delicate Ariel,\n    I'll set thee free for this.  [To FERDINAND]  A word, good\n    sir;\n    I fear you have done yourself some wrong; a word.\n  MIRANDA. Why speaks my father so ungently? This\n    Is the third man that e'er I saw; the first\n    That e'er I sigh'd for. Pity move my father\n    To be inclin'd my way!\n  FERDINAND. O, if a virgin,\n    And your affection not gone forth, I'll make you\n    The Queen of Naples.\n  PROSPERO. Soft, Sir! one word more.\n    [Aside]  They are both in either's pow'rs; but this swift\n    busines\n    I must uneasy make, lest too light winning\n    Make the prize light.  [To FERDINAND]  One word more; I\n    charge thee\n    That thou attend me; thou dost here usurp\n    The name thou ow'st not; and hast put thyself\n    Upon this island as a spy, to win it\n    From me, the lord on't.\n  FERDINAND. No, as I am a man.\n  MIRANDA. There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple.\n    If the ill spirit have so fair a house,\n    Good things will strive to dwell with't.\n  PROSPERO. Follow me.\n    Speak not you for him; he's a traitor. Come;\n    I'll manacle thy neck and feet together.\n    Sea-water shalt thou drink; thy food shall be\n    The fresh-brook mussels, wither'd roots, and husks\n    Wherein the acorn cradled. Follow.\n  FERDINAND. No;\n    I will resist such entertainment till\n    Mine enemy has more power.\n                          [He draws, and is charmed from moving]\n  MIRANDA. O dear father,\n    Make not too rash a trial of him, for\n    He's gentle, and not fearful.\n  PROSPERO. What, I say,\n    My foot my tutor? Put thy sword up, traitor;\n    Who mak'st a show but dar'st not strike, thy conscience\n    Is so possess'd with guilt. Come from thy ward;\n    For I can here disarm thee with this stick\n    And make thy weapon drop.\n  MIRANDA. Beseech you, father!\n  PROSPERO. Hence! Hang not on my garments.\n  MIRANDA. Sir, have pity;\n    I'll be his surety.\n  PROSPERO. Silence! One word more\n    Shall make me chide thee, if not hate thee. What!\n    An advocate for an impostor! hush!\n    Thou think'st there is no more such shapes as he,\n    Having seen but him and Caliban. Foolish wench!\n    To th' most of men this is a Caliban,\n    And they to him are angels.\n  MIRANDA. My affections\n    Are then most humble; I have no ambition\n    To see a goodlier man.\n  PROSPERO. Come on; obey.\n    Thy nerves are in their infancy again,\n    And have no vigour in them.\n  FERDINAND. So they are;\n    My spirits, as in a dream, are all bound up.\n    My father's loss, the weakness which I feel,\n    The wreck of all my friends, nor this man's threats\n    To whom I am subdu'd, are but light to me,\n    Might I but through my prison once a day\n    Behold this maid. All corners else o' th' earth\n    Let liberty make use of; space enough\n    Have I in such a prison.\n  PROSPERO.  [Aside]  It works.  [To FERDINAND]  Come on.-\n    Thou hast done well, fine Ariel!  [To FERDINAND]  Follow\n    me.\n    [To ARIEL]  Hark what thou else shalt do me.\n  MIRANDA. Be of comfort;\n    My father's of a better nature, sir,\n    Than he appears by speech; this is unwonted\n    Which now came from him.\n  PROSPERO.  [To ARIEL]  Thou shalt be as free\n    As mountain winds; but then exactly do\n    All points of my command.\n  ARIEL. To th' syllable.\n  PROSPERO.  [To FERDINAND]  Come, follow.  [To MIRANDA]\n    Speak not for him.                                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 1\n\nAnother part of the island\n\nEnter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, GONZALO, ADRIAN, FRANCISCO, and OTHERS\n\n  GONZALO. Beseech you, sir, be merry; you have cause,\n    So have we all, of joy; for our escape\n    Is much beyond our loss. Our hint of woe\n    Is common; every day, some sailor's wife,\n    The masters of some merchant, and the merchant,\n    Have just our theme of woe; but for the miracle,\n    I mean our preservation, few in millions\n    Can speak like us. Then wisely, good sir, weigh\n    Our sorrow with our comfort.\n  ALONSO. Prithee, peace.\n  SEBASTIAN. He receives comfort like cold porridge.\n  ANTONIO. The visitor will not give him o'er so.\n  SEBASTIAN. Look, he's winding up the watch of his wit; by\n    and by it will strike.\n  GONZALO. Sir-\n  SEBASTIAN. One-Tell.\n  GONZALO. When every grief is entertain'd that's offer'd,\n    Comes to th' entertainer-\n  SEBASTIAN. A dollar.\n  GONZALO. Dolour comes to him, indeed; you have spoken\n    truer than you purpos'd.\n  SEBASTIAN. You have taken it wiselier than I meant you\n    should.\n  GONZALO. Therefore, my lord-\n  ANTONIO. Fie, what a spendthrift is he of his tongue!\n  ALONSO. I prithee, spare.\n  GONZALO. Well, I have done; but yet-\n  SEBASTIAN. He will be talking.\n  ANTONIO. Which, of he or Adrian, for a good wager, first\n    begins to crow?\n  SEBASTIAN. The old cock.\n  ANTONIO. The cock'rel.\n  SEBASTIAN. Done. The wager?\n  ANTONIO. A laughter.\n  SEBASTIAN. A match!\n  ADRIAN. Though this island seem to be desert-\n  ANTONIO. Ha, ha, ha!\n  SEBASTIAN. So, you're paid.\n  ADRIAN. Uninhabitable, and almost inaccessible-\n  SEBASTIAN. Yet-\n  ADRIAN. Yet-\n  ANTONIO. He could not miss't.\n  ADRIAN. It must needs be of subtle, tender, and delicate\n    temperance.\n  ANTONIO. Temperance was a delicate wench.\n  SEBASTIAN. Ay, and a subtle; as he most learnedly\n    deliver'd.\n  ADRIAN. The air breathes upon us here most sweetly.\n  SEBASTIAN. As if it had lungs, and rotten ones.\n  ANTONIO. Or, as 'twere perfum'd by a fen.\n  GONZALO. Here is everything advantageous to life.\n  ANTONIO. True; save means to live.\n  SEBASTIAN. Of that there's none, or little.\n  GONZALO. How lush and lusty the grass looks! how green!\n  ANTONIO. The ground indeed is tawny.\n  SEBASTIAN. With an eye of green in't.\n  ANTONIO. He misses not much.\n  SEBASTIAN. No; he doth but mistake the truth totally.\n  GONZALO. But the rarity of it is, which is indeed almost\n    beyond credit-\n  SEBASTIAN. As many vouch'd rarities are.\n  GONZALO. That our garments, being, as they were, drench'd\n    in the sea, hold, notwithstanding, their freshness and\n    glosses, being rather new-dy'd, than stain'd with salt\n    water.\n  ANTONIO. If but one of his pockets could speak, would it\n    not say he lies?\n  SEBASTIAN. Ay, or very falsely pocket up his report.\n  GONZALO. Methinks our garments are now as fresh as when\n    we put them on first in Afric, at the marriage of the\n    King's fair daughter Claribel to the King of Tunis.\n  SEBASTIAN. 'Twas a sweet marriage, and we prosper well in\n    our return.\n  ADRIAN. Tunis was never grac'd before with such a paragon\n    to their queen.\n  GONZALO. Not since widow Dido's time.\n  ANTONIO. Widow! a pox o' that! How came that 'widow'\n    in? Widow Dido!\n  SEBASTIAN. What if he had said 'widower Aeneas' too?\n    Good Lord, how you take it!\n  ADRIAN. 'Widow Dido' said you? You make me study of\n    that. She was of Carthage, not of Tunis.\n  GONZALO. This Tunis, sir, was Carthage.\n  ADRIAN. Carthage?\n  GONZALO. I assure you, Carthage.\n  ANTONIO. His word is more than the miraculous harp.\n  SEBASTIAN. He hath rais'd the wall, and houses too.\n  ANTONIO. What impossible matter will he make easy next?\n  SEBASTIAN. I think he will carry this island home in his\n    pocket, and give it his son for an apple.\n  ANTONIO. And, sowing the kernels of it in the sea, bring\n    forth more islands.\n  GONZALO. Ay.\n  ANTONIO. Why, in good time.\n  GONZALO. Sir, we were talking that our garments seem now\n    as fresh as when we were at Tunis at the marriage of\n    your daughter, who is now Queen.\n  ANTONIO. And the rarest that e'er came there.\n  SEBASTIAN. Bate, I beseech you, widow Dido.\n  ANTONIO. O, widow Dido! Ay, widow Dido.\n  GONZALO. Is not, sir, my doublet as fresh as the first day I\n    wore it? I mean, in a sort.\n  ANTONIO. That 'sort' was well fish'd for.\n  GONZALO. When I wore it at your daughter's marriage?\n  ALONSO. You cram these words into mine ears against\n    The stomach of my sense. Would I had never\n    Married my daughter there; for, coming thence,\n    My son is lost; and, in my rate, she too,\n    Who is so far from Italy removed\n    I ne'er again shall see her. O thou mine heir\n    Of Naples and of Milan, what strange fish\n    Hath made his meal on thee?\n  FRANCISCO. Sir, he may live;\n    I saw him beat the surges under him,\n    And ride upon their backs; he trod the water,\n    Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted\n    The surge most swoln that met him; his bold head\n    'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oared\n    Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke\n    To th' shore, that o'er his wave-worn basis bowed,\n    As stooping to relieve him. I not doubt\n    He came alive to land.\n  ALONSO. No, no, he's gone.\n  SEBASTIAN. Sir, you may thank yourself for this great loss,\n    That would not bless our Europe with your daughter,\n    But rather lose her to an African;\n    Where she, at least, is banish'd from your eye,\n    Who hath cause to wet the grief on't.\n  ALONSO. Prithee, peace.\n  SEBASTIAN. You were kneel'd to, and importun'd otherwise\n    By all of us; and the fair soul herself\n    Weigh'd between loathness and obedience at\n    Which end o' th' beam should bow. We have lost your son,\n    I fear, for ever. Milan and Naples have\n    Moe widows in them of this business' making,\n    Than we bring men to comfort them;\n    The fault's your own.\n  ALONSO. So is the dear'st o' th' loss.\n  GONZALO. My lord Sebastian,\n    The truth you speak doth lack some gentleness,\n    And time to speak it in; you rub the sore,\n    When you should bring the plaster.\n  SEBASTIAN. Very well.\n  ANTONIO. And most chirurgeonly.\n  GONZALO. It is foul weather in us all, good sir,\n    When you are cloudy.\n  SEBASTIAN. Foul weather?\n  ANTONIO. Very foul.\n  GONZALO. Had I plantation of this isle, my lord-\n  ANTONIO. He'd sow 't with nettle-seed.\n  SEBASTIAN. Or docks, or mallows.\n  GONZALO. And were the king on't, what would I do?\n  SEBASTIAN. Scape being drunk for want of wine.\n  GONZALO. I' th' commonwealth I would by contraries\n    Execute all things; for no kind of traffic\n    Would I admit; no name of magistrate;\n    Letters should not be known; riches, poverty,\n    And use of service, none; contract, succession,\n    Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none;\n    No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;\n    No occupation; all men idle, all;\n    And women too, but innocent and pure;\n    No sovereignty-\n  SEBASTIAN. Yet he would be king on't.\n  ANTONIO. The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the\n    beginning.\n  GONZALO. All things in common nature should produce\n    Without sweat or endeavour. Treason, felony,\n    Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine,\n    Would I not have; but nature should bring forth,\n    Of it own kind, all foison, all abundance,\n    To feed my innocent people.\n  SEBASTIAN. No marrying 'mong his subjects?\n  ANTONIO. None, man; all idle; whores and knaves.\n  GONZALO. I would with such perfection govern, sir,\n    T' excel the golden age.\n  SEBASTIAN. Save his Majesty!\n  ANTONIO. Long live Gonzalo!\n  GONZALO. And-do you mark me, sir?\n  ALONSO. Prithee, no more; thou dost talk nothing to me.\n  GONZALO. I do well believe your Highness; and did it to\n    minister occasion to these gentlemen, who are of such\n    sensible and nimble lungs that they always use to laugh\n    at nothing.\n  ANTONIO. 'Twas you we laugh'd at.\n  GONZALO. Who in this kind of merry fooling am nothing to\n    you; so you may continue, and laugh at nothing still.\n  ANTONIO. What a blow was there given!\n  SEBASTIAN. An it had not fall'n flat-long.\n  GONZALO. You are gentlemen of brave mettle; you would\n    lift the moon out of her sphere, if she would continue\n    in it five weeks without changing.\n\n          Enter ARIEL, invisible, playing solemn music\n\n  SEBASTIAN. We would so, and then go a-bat-fowling.\n  ANTONIO. Nay, good my lord, be not angry.\n  GONZALO. No, I warrant you; I will not adventure my\n    discretion so weakly. Will you laugh me asleep, for I am\n    very heavy?\n  ANTONIO. Go sleep, and hear us.\n                   [All sleep but ALONSO, SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO]\n  ALONSO. What, all so soon asleep! I wish mine eyes\n    Would, with themselves, shut up my thoughts; I find\n    They are inclin'd to do so.\n  SEBASTIAN. Please you, sir,\n    Do not omit the heavy offer of it:\n    It seldom visits sorrow; when it doth,\n    It is a comforter.\n  ANTONIO. We two, my lord,\n    Will guard your person while you take your rest,\n    And watch your safety.\n  ALONSO. Thank you-wondrous heavy!\n                                     [ALONSO sleeps. Exit ARIEL]\n  SEBASTIAN. What a strange drowsiness possesses them!\n  ANTONIO. It is the quality o' th' climate.\n  SEBASTIAN. Why\n    Doth it not then our eyelids sink? I find not\n    Myself dispos'd to sleep.\n  ANTONIO. Nor I; my spirits are nimble.\n    They fell together all, as by consent;\n    They dropp'd, as by a thunder-stroke. What might,\n    Worthy Sebastian? O, what might! No more!\n    And yet methinks I see it in thy face,\n    What thou shouldst be; th' occasion speaks thee; and\n    My strong imagination sees a crown\n    Dropping upon thy head.\n  SEBASTIAN. What, art thou waking?\n  ANTONIO. Do you not hear me speak?\n  SEBASTIAN. I do; and surely\n    It is a sleepy language, and thou speak'st\n    Out of thy sleep. What is it thou didst say?\n    This is a strange repose, to be asleep\n    With eyes wide open; standing, speaking, moving,\n    And yet so fast asleep.\n  ANTONIO. Noble Sebastian,\n    Thou let'st thy fortune sleep-die rather; wink'st\n    Whiles thou art waking.\n  SEBASTIAN. Thou dost snore distinctly;\n    There's meaning in thy snores.\n  ANTONIO. I am more serious than my custom; you\n    Must be so too, if heed me; which to do\n    Trebles thee o'er.\n  SEBASTIAN. Well, I am standing water.\n  ANTONIO. I'll teach you how to flow.\n  SEBASTIAN. Do so: to ebb,\n    Hereditary sloth instructs me.\n  ANTONIO. O,\n    If you but knew how you the purpose cherish,\n    Whiles thus you mock it! how, in stripping it,\n    You more invest it! Ebbing men indeed,\n    Most often, do so near the bottom run\n    By their own fear or sloth.\n  SEBASTIAN. Prithee say on.\n    The setting of thine eye and cheek proclaim\n    A matter from thee; and a birth, indeed,\n    Which throes thee much to yield.\n  ANTONIO. Thus, sir:\n    Although this lord of weak remembrance, this\n    Who shall be of as little memory\n    When he is earth'd, hath here almost persuaded-\n    For he's a spirit of persuasion, only\n    Professes to persuade-the King his son's alive,\n    'Tis as impossible that he's undrown'd\n    As he that sleeps here swims.\n  SEBASTIAN. I have no hope\n    That he's undrown'd.\n  ANTONIO. O, out of that 'no hope'\n    What great hope have you! No hope that way is\n    Another way so high a hope, that even\n    Ambition cannot pierce a wink beyond,\n    But doubt discovery there. Will you grant with me\n    That Ferdinand is drown'd?\n  SEBASTIAN. He's gone.\n  ANTONIO. Then tell me,\n    Who's the next heir of Naples?\n  SEBASTIAN. Claribel.\n  ANTONIO. She that is Queen of Tunis; she that dwells\n    Ten leagues beyond man's life; she that from Naples\n    Can have no note, unless the sun were post,\n    The Man i' th' Moon's too slow, till newborn chins\n    Be rough and razorable; she that from whom\n    We all were sea-swallow'd, though some cast again,\n    And by that destiny, to perform an act\n    Whereof what's past is prologue, what to come\n    In yours and my discharge.\n  SEBASTIAN. What stuff is this! How say you?\n    'Tis true, my brother's daughter's Queen of Tunis;\n    So is she heir of Naples; 'twixt which regions\n    There is some space.\n  ANTONIO. A space whose ev'ry cubit\n    Seems to cry out 'How shall that Claribel\n    Measure us back to Naples? Keep in Tunis,\n    And let Sebastian wake.' Say this were death\n    That now hath seiz'd them; why, they were no worse\n    Than now they are. There be that can rule Naples\n    As well as he that sleeps; lords that can prate\n    As amply and unnecessarily\n    As this Gonzalo; I myself could make\n    A chough of as deep chat. O, that you bore\n    The mind that I do! What a sleep were this\n    For your advancement! Do you understand me?\n  SEBASTIAN. Methinks I do.\n  ANTONIO. And how does your content\n    Tender your own good fortune?\n  SEBASTIAN. I remember\n    You did supplant your brother Prospero.\n  ANTONIO. True.\n    And look how well my garments sit upon me,\n    Much feater than before. My brother's servants\n    Were then my fellows; now they are my men.\n  SEBASTIAN. But, for your conscience-\n  ANTONIO. Ay, sir; where lies that? If 'twere a kibe,\n    'Twould put me to my slipper; but I feel not\n    This deity in my bosom; twenty consciences\n    That stand 'twixt me and Milan, candied be they\n    And melt, ere they molest! Here lies your brother,\n    No better than the earth he lies upon,\n    If he were that which now he's like-that's dead;\n    Whom I with this obedient steel, three inches of it,\n    Can lay to bed for ever; whiles you, doing thus,\n    To the perpetual wink for aye might put\n    This ancient morsel, this Sir Prudence, who\n    Should not upbraid our course. For all the rest,\n    They'll take suggestion as a cat laps milk;\n    They'll tell the clock to any business that\n    We say befits the hour.\n  SEBASTIAN. Thy case, dear friend,\n    Shall be my precedent; as thou got'st Milan,\n    I'll come by Naples. Draw thy sword. One stroke\n    Shall free thee from the tribute which thou payest;\n    And I the King shall love thee.\n  ANTONIO. Draw together;\n    And when I rear my hand, do you the like,\n    To fall it on Gonzalo.\n  SEBASTIAN. O, but one word.                  [They talk apart]\n\n          Re-enter ARIEL, invisible, with music and song\n\n  ARIEL. My master through his art foresees the danger\n    That you, his friend, are in; and sends me forth-\n    For else his project dies-to keep them living.\n                                        [Sings in GONZALO'S ear]\n    While you here do snoring lie,\n    Open-ey'd conspiracy\n    His time doth take.\n    If of life you keep a care,\n    Shake off slumber, and beware.\n    Awake, awake!\n\n  ANTONIO. Then let us both be sudden.\n  GONZALO. Now, good angels\n    Preserve the King!                               [They wake]\n  ALONSO. Why, how now?-Ho, awake!-Why are you drawn?\n    Wherefore this ghastly looking?\n  GONZALO. What's the matter?\n  SEBASTIAN. Whiles we stood here securing your repose,\n    Even now, we heard a hollow burst of bellowing\n    Like bulls, or rather lions; did't not wake you?\n    It struck mine ear most terribly.\n  ALONSO. I heard nothing.\n  ANTONIO. O, 'twas a din to fright a monster's ear,\n    To make an earthquake! Sure it was the roar\n    Of a whole herd of lions.\n  ALONSO. Heard you this, Gonzalo?\n  GONZALO. Upon mine honour, sir, I heard a humming,\n    And that a strange one too, which did awake me;\n    I shak'd you, sir, and cried; as mine eyes open'd,\n    I saw their weapons drawn-there was a noise,\n    That's verily. 'Tis best we stand upon our guard,\n    Or that we quit this place. Let's draw our weapons.\n  ALONSO. Lead off this ground; and let's make further\n    search\n    For my poor son.\n  GONZALO. Heavens keep him from these beasts!\n    For he is, sure, i' th' island.\n  ALONSO. Lead away.\n  ARIEL. Prospero my lord shall know what I have done;\n    So, King, go safely on to seek thy son.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2\n\nAnother part of the island\n\nEnter CALIBAN, with a burden of wood. A noise of thunder heard\n\n  CALIBAN. All the infections that the sun sucks up\n    From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall, and make him\n    By inch-meal a disease! His spirits hear me,\n    And yet I needs must curse. But they'll nor pinch,\n    Fright me with urchin-shows, pitch me i' th' mire,\n    Nor lead me, like a firebrand, in the dark\n    Out of my way, unless he bid 'em; but\n    For every trifle are they set upon me;\n    Sometime like apes that mow and chatter at me,\n    And after bite me; then like hedgehogs which\n    Lie tumbling in my barefoot way, and mount\n    Their pricks at my footfall; sometime am I\n    All wound with adders, who with cloven tongues\n    Do hiss me into madness.\n\n                         Enter TRINCULO\n\n    Lo, now, lo!\n    Here comes a spirit of his, and to torment me\n    For bringing wood in slowly. I'll fall flat;\n    Perchance he will not mind me.\n  TRINCULO. Here's neither bush nor shrub to bear off any\n    weather at all, and another storm brewing; I hear it\n    sing i' th' wind. Yond same black cloud, yond huge one,\n    looks like a foul bombard that would shed his liquor. If\n    it should thunder as it did before, I know not where to\n    hide my head. Yond same cloud cannot choose but fall by\n    pailfuls. What have we here? a man or a fish? dead or\n    alive? A fish: he smells like a fish; a very ancient and\n    fish-like smell; kind of not-of-the-newest Poor-John. A\n    strange fish! Were I in England now, as once I was, and\n    had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but\n    would give a piece of silver. There would this monster\n    make a man; any strange beast there makes a man; when\n    they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they\n    will lay out ten to see a dead Indian. Legg'd like a\n    man, and his fins like arms! Warm, o' my troth! I do now\n    let loose my opinion; hold it no longer: this is no\n    fish, but an islander, that hath lately suffered by\n    thunderbolt.  [Thunder]  Alas, the storm is come again! My\n    best way is to creep under his gaberdine; there is no\n    other shelter hereabout. Misery acquaints a man with\n    strange bed-fellows. I will here shroud till the dregs\n    of the storm be past.\n\n            Enter STEPHANO singing; a bottle in his hand\n\n  STEPHANO. I shall no more to sea, to sea,\n    Here shall I die ashore-\n    This is a very scurvy tune to sing at a man's funeral;\n    well, here's my comfort.                            [Drinks]\n\n    The master, the swabber, the boatswain, and I,\n    The gunner, and his mate,\n    Lov'd Mall, Meg, and Marian, and Margery,\n    But none of us car'd for Kate;\n    For she had a tongue with a tang,\n    Would cry to a sailor 'Go hang!'\n    She lov'd not the savour of tar nor of pitch,\n    Yet a tailor might scratch her where'er she did itch.\n    Then to sea, boys, and let her go hang!\n\n    This is a scurvy tune too; but here's my comfort.\n                                                        [Drinks]\n  CALIBAN. Do not torment me. O!\n  STEPHANO. What's the matter? Have we devils here? Do you\n    put tricks upon 's with savages and men of Ind? Ha! I\n    have not scap'd drowning to be afeard now of your four\n    legs; for it hath been said: As proper a man as ever\n    went on four legs cannot make him give ground; and it\n    shall be said so again, while Stephano breathes at\n    nostrils.\n  CALIBAN. The spirit torments me. O!\n  STEPHANO. This is some monster of the isle with four legs,\n    who hath got, as I take it, an ague. Where the devil\n    should he learn our language? I will give him some\n    relief, if it be but for that. If I can recover him, and\n    keep him tame, and get to Naples with him, he's a\n    present for any emperor that ever trod on neat's\n    leather.\n  CALIBAN. Do not torment me, prithee; I'll bring my wood\n    home faster.\n  STEPHANO. He's in his fit now, and does not talk after the\n    wisest. He shall taste of my bottle; if he have never\n    drunk wine afore, it will go near to remove his fit. If\n    I can recover him, and keep him tame, I will not take\n    too much for him; he shall pay for him that hath him,\n    and that soundly.\n  CALIBAN. Thou dost me yet but little hurt; thou wilt anon,\n    I know it by thy trembling; now Prosper works upon thee.\n  STEPHANO. Come on your ways; open your mouth; here is\n    that which will give language to you, cat. Open your\n    mouth; this will shake your shaking, I can tell you, and\n    that soundly; you cannot tell who's your friend. Open\n    your chaps again.\n  TRINCULO. I should know that voice; it should be-but he is\n    drown'd; and these are devils. O, defend me!\n  STEPHANO. Four legs and two voices; a most delicate monster!\n    His forward voice, now, is to speak well of his\n    friend; his backward voice is to utter foul speeches and\n    to detract. If all the wine in my bottle will recover\n    him, I will help his ague. Come-Amen! I will pour some\n    in thy other mouth.\n  TRINCULO. Stephano!\n  STEPHANO. Doth thy other mouth call me? Mercy, mercy!\n    This is a devil, and no monster; I will leave him; I\n    have no long spoon.\n  TRINCULO. Stephano! If thou beest Stephano, touch me, and\n    speak to me; for I am Trinculo-be not afeard-thy good\n    friend Trinculo.\n  STEPHANO. If thou beest Trinculo, come forth; I'll pull\n    the by the lesser legs; if any be Trinculo's legs, these\n    are they. Thou art very Trinculo indeed! How cam'st thou\n    to be the siege of this moon-calf? Can he vent\n    Trinculos?\n  TRINCULO. I took him to be kill'd with a thunderstroke.\n    But art thou not drown'd, Stephano? I hope now thou are\n    not drown'd. Is the storm overblown? I hid me under the\n    dead moon-calf's gaberdine for fear of the storm. And\n    art thou living, Stephano? O Stephano, two Neapolitans\n    scap'd!\n  STEPHANO. Prithee, do not turn me about; my stomach is not\n    constant.\n  CALIBAN.  [Aside]  These be fine things, an if they be not\n    sprites.\n    That's a brave god, and bears celestial liquor.\n    I will kneel to him.\n  STEPHANO. How didst thou scape? How cam'st thou hither?\n    Swear by this bottle how thou cam'st hither-I escap'd\n    upon a butt of sack, which the sailors heaved o'erboard-\n    by this bottle, which I made of the bark of a tree, with\n    mine own hands, since I was cast ashore.\n  CALIBAN. I'll swear upon that bottle to be thy true\n    subject, for the liquor is not earthly.\n  STEPHANO. Here; swear then how thou escap'dst.\n  TRINCULO. Swum ashore, man, like a duck; I can swim like\n    a duck, I'll be sworn.\n  STEPHANO.  [Passing the bottle]  Here, kiss the book. Though\n    thou canst swim like a duck, thou art made like a\n    goose.\n  TRINCULO. O Stephano, hast any more of this?\n  STEPHANO. The whole butt, man; my cellar is in a rock by\n    th' seaside, where my wine is hid. How now, moon-calf!\n    How does thine ague?\n  CALIBAN. Hast thou not dropp'd from heaven?\n  STEPHANO. Out o' th' moon, I do assure thee; I was the Man\n    i' th' Moon, when time was.\n  CALIBAN. I have seen thee in her, and I do adore thee. My\n    mistress show'd me thee, and thy dog and thy bush.\n  STEPHANO. Come, swear to that; kiss the book. I will\n    furnish it anon with new contents. Swear.\n                                                [CALIBAN drinks]\n  TRINCULO. By this good light, this is a very shallow\n    monster!\n    I afeard of him! A very weak monster! The Man i' th'\n    Moon! A most poor credulous monster! Well drawn,\n    monster, in good sooth!\n  CALIBAN. I'll show thee every fertile inch o' th' island;\n    and will kiss thy foot. I prithee be my god.\n  TRINCULO. By this light, a most perfidious and drunken\n    monster! When's god's asleep he'll rob his bottle.\n  CALIBAN. I'll kiss thy foot; I'll swear myself thy\n    subject.\n  STEPHANO. Come on, then; down, and swear.\n  TRINCULO. I shall laugh myself to death at this puppy-\n    headed monster. A most scurvy monster! I could find in\n    my heart to beat him-\n  STEPHANO. Come, kiss.\n  TRINCULO. But that the poor monster's in drink. An\n    abominable monster!\n  CALIBAN. I'll show thee the best springs; I'll pluck thee\n    berries;\n    I'll fish for thee, and get thee wood enough.\n    A plague upon the tyrant that I serve!\n    I'll bear him no more sticks, but follow thee,\n    Thou wondrous man.\n  TRINCULO. A most ridiculous monster, to make a wonder of\n    a poor drunkard!\n  CALIBAN. I prithee let me bring thee where crabs grow;\n    And I with my long nails will dig thee pig-nuts;\n    Show thee a jay's nest, and instruct thee how\n    To snare the nimble marmoset; I'll bring thee\n    To clust'ring filberts, and sometimes I'll get thee\n    Young scamels from the rock. Wilt thou go with me?\n  STEPHANO. I prithee now, lead the way without any more\n    talking. Trinculo, the King and all our company else\n    being drown'd, we will inherit here. Here, bear my bottle.\n    Fellow Trinculo, we'll fill him by and by again.\n  CALIBAN.  [Sings drunkenly]  Farewell, master; farewell,\n    farewell!\n  TRINCULO. A howling monster; a drunken monster!\n  CALIBAN. No more dams I'll make for fish;\n    Nor fetch in firing\n    At requiring,\n    Nor scrape trenchering, nor wash dish.\n    'Ban 'Ban, Ca-Caliban,\n    Has a new master-Get a new man.\n    Freedom, high-day! high-day, freedom! freedom, high-\n    day, freedom!\n  STEPHANO. O brave monster! Lead the way.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 1\n\nBefore PROSPERO'S cell\n\nEnter FERDINAND, hearing a log\n\n  FERDINAND. There be some sports are painful, and their\n    labour\n    Delight in them sets off; some kinds of baseness\n    Are nobly undergone, and most poor matters\n    Point to rich ends. This my mean task\n    Would be as heavy to me as odious, but\n    The mistress which I serve quickens what's dead,\n    And makes my labours pleasures. O, she is\n    Ten times more gentle than her father's crabbed;\n    And he's compos'd of harshness. I must remove\n    Some thousands of these logs, and pile them up,\n    Upon a sore injunction; my sweet mistress\n    Weeps when she sees me work, and says such baseness\n    Had never like executor. I forget;\n    But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labours,\n    Most busy, least when I do it.\n\n        Enter MIRANDA; and PROSPERO at a distance, unseen\n\n  MIRANDA. Alas, now; pray you,\n    Work not so hard; I would the lightning had\n    Burnt up those logs that you are enjoin'd to pile.\n    Pray, set it down and rest you; when this burns,\n    'Twill weep for having wearied you. My father\n    Is hard at study; pray, now, rest yourself;\n    He's safe for these three hours.\n  FERDINAND. O most dear mistress,\n    The sun will set before I shall discharge\n    What I must strive to do.\n  MIRANDA. If you'll sit down,\n    I'll bear your logs the while; pray give me that;\n    I'll carry it to the pile.\n  FERDINAND. No, precious creature;\n    I had rather crack my sinews, break my back,\n    Than you should such dishonour undergo,\n    While I sit lazy by.\n  MIRANDA. It would become me\n    As well as it does you; and I should do it\n    With much more ease; for my good will is to it,\n    And yours it is against.\n  PROSPERO.  [Aside]  Poor worm, thou art infected!\n    This visitation shows it.\n  MIRANDA. You look wearily.\n  FERDINAND. No, noble mistress; 'tis fresh morning with me\n    When you are by at night. I do beseech you,\n    Chiefly that I might set it in my prayers,\n    What is your name?\n  MIRANDA. Miranda-O my father,\n    I have broke your hest to say so!\n  FERDINAND. Admir'd Miranda!\n    What's dearest to the world! Full many a lady\n    I have ey'd with best regard; and many a time\n    Th' harmony of their tongues hath into bondage\n    Brought my too diligent ear; for several virtues\n    Have I lik'd several women, never any\n    With so full soul, but some defect in her\n    Did quarrel with the noblest grace she ow'd,\n    And put it to the foil; but you, O you,\n    So perfect and so peerless, are created\n    Of every creature's best!\n  MIRANDA. I do not know\n    One of my sex; no woman's face remember,\n    Save, from my glass, mine own; nor have I seen\n    More that I may call men than you, good friend,\n    And my dear father. How features are abroad,\n    I am skilless of; but, by my modesty,\n    The jewel in my dower, I would not wish\n    Any companion in the world but you;\n    Nor can imagination form a shape,\n    Besides yourself, to like of. But I prattle\n    Something too wildly, and my father's precepts\n    I therein do forget.\n  FERDINAND. I am, in my condition,\n    A prince, Miranda; I do think, a king-\n    I would not so!-and would no more endure\n    This wooden slavery than to suffer\n    The flesh-fly blow my mouth. Hear my soul speak:\n    The very instant that I saw you, did\n    My heart fly to your service; there resides\n    To make me slave to it; and for your sake\n    Am I this patient log-man.\n  MIRANDA. Do you love me?\n  FERDINAND. O heaven, O earth, bear witness to this sound,\n    And crown what I profess with kind event,\n    If I speak true! If hollowly, invert\n    What best is boded me to mischief! I,\n    Beyond all limit of what else i' th' world,\n    Do love, prize, honour you.\n  MIRANDA. I am a fool\n    To weep at what I am glad of.\n  PROSPERO.  [Aside]  Fair encounter\n    Of two most rare affections! Heavens rain grace\n    On that which breeds between 'em!\n  FERDINAND. Wherefore weep you?\n  MIRANDA. At mine unworthiness, that dare not offer\n    What I desire to give, and much less take\n    What I shall die to want. But this is trifling;\n    And all the more it seeks to hide itself,\n    The bigger bulk it shows. Hence, bashful cunning!\n    And prompt me, plain and holy innocence!\n    I am your wife, if you will marry me;\n    If not, I'll die your maid. To be your fellow\n    You may deny me; but I'll be your servant,\n    Whether you will or no.\n  FERDINAND. My mistress, dearest;\n    And I thus humble ever.\n  MIRANDA. My husband, then?\n  FERDINAND. Ay, with a heart as willing\n    As bondage e'er of freedom. Here's my hand.\n  MIRANDA. And mine, with my heart in't. And now farewell\n    Till half an hour hence.\n  FERDINAND. A thousand thousand!\n                          Exeunt FERDINAND and MIRANDA severally\n  PROSPERO. So glad of this as they I cannot be,\n    Who are surpris'd withal; but my rejoicing\n    At nothing can be more. I'll to my book;\n    For yet ere supper time must I perform\n    Much business appertaining.                             Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2\n\nAnother part of the island\n\nEnter CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO\n\n  STEPHANO. Tell not me-when the butt is out we will drink\n    water, not a drop before; therefore bear up, and board\n    'em. Servant-monster, drink to me.\n  TRINCULO. Servant-monster! The folly of this island! They\n    say there's but five upon this isle: we are three of\n    them; if th' other two be brain'd like us, the state\n    totters.\n  STEPHANO. Drink, servant-monster, when I bid thee; thy\n    eyes are almost set in thy head.\n  TRINCULO. Where should they be set else? He were a brave\n    monster indeed, if they were set in his tail.\n  STEPHANO. My man-monster hath drown'd his tongue in\n    sack. For my part, the sea cannot drown me; I swam, ere\n    I could recover the shore, five and thirty leagues, off\n    and on. By this light, thou shalt be my lieutenant,\n    monster, or my standard.\n  TRINCULO. Your lieutenant, if you list; he's no standard.\n  STEPHANO. We'll not run, Monsieur Monster.\n  TRINCULO. Nor go neither; but you'll lie like dogs, and\n    yet say nothing neither.\n  STEPHANO. Moon-calf, speak once in thy life, if thou beest\n    a good moon-calf.\n  CALIBAN. How does thy honour? Let me lick thy shoe.\n    I'll not serve him; he is not valiant.\n  TRINCULO. Thou liest, most ignorant monster: I am in case\n    to justle a constable. Why, thou debosh'd fish, thou,\n    was there ever man a coward that hath drunk so much sack\n    as I to-day? Wilt thou tell a monstrous lie, being but\n    half fish and half a monster?\n  CALIBAN. Lo, how he mocks me! Wilt thou let him, my\n    lord?\n  TRINCULO. 'Lord' quoth he! That a monster should be such\n    a natural!\n  CALIBAN. Lo, lo again! Bite him to death, I prithee.\n  STEPHANO. Trinculo, keep a good tongue in your head; if\n    you prove a mutineer-the next tree! The poor monster's\n    my subject, and he shall not suffer indignity.\n  CALIBAN. I thank my noble lord. Wilt thou be pleas'd to\n    hearken once again to the suit I made to thee?\n  STEPHANO. Marry will I; kneel and repeat it; I will stand,\n    and so shall Trinculo.\n\n                     Enter ARIEL, invisible\n\n  CALIBAN. As I told thee before, I am subject to a tyrant,\n    sorcerer, that by his cunning hath cheated me of the\n    island.\n  ARIEL. Thou liest.\n  CALIBAN. Thou liest, thou jesting monkey, thou;\n    I would my valiant master would destroy thee.\n    I do not lie.\n  STEPHANO. Trinculo, if you trouble him any more in's tale,\n    by this hand, I will supplant some of your teeth.\n  TRINCULO. Why, I said nothing.\n  STEPHANO. Mum, then, and no more. Proceed.\n  CALIBAN. I say, by sorcery he got this isle;\n    From me he got it. If thy greatness will\n    Revenge it on him-for I know thou dar'st,\n    But this thing dare not-\n  STEPHANO. That's most certain.\n  CALIBAN. Thou shalt be lord of it, and I'll serve thee.\n  STEPHANO. How now shall this be compass'd? Canst thou\n    bring me to the party?\n  CALIBAN. Yea, yea, my lord; I'll yield him thee asleep,\n    Where thou mayst knock a nail into his head.\n  ARIEL. Thou liest; thou canst not.\n  CALIBAN. What a pied ninny's this! Thou scurvy patch!\n    I do beseech thy greatness, give him blows,\n    And take his bottle from him. When that's gone\n    He shall drink nought but brine; for I'll not show him\n    Where the quick freshes are.\n  STEPHANO. Trinculo, run into no further danger; interrupt\n    the monster one word further and, by this hand, I'll turn\n    my mercy out o' doors, and make a stock-fish of thee.\n  TRINCULO. Why, what did I? I did nothing. I'll go farther\n    off.\n  STEPHANO. Didst thou not say he lied?\n  ARIEL. Thou liest.\n  STEPHANO. Do I so? Take thou that.  [Beats him]  As you like\n    this, give me the lie another time.\n  TRINCULO. I did not give the lie. Out o' your wits and\n    hearing too? A pox o' your bottle! This can sack and\n    drinking do. A murrain on your monster, and the devil\n    take your fingers!\n  CALIBAN. Ha, ha, ha!\n  STEPHANO. Now, forward with your tale.-Prithee stand\n    further off.\n  CALIBAN. Beat him enough; after a little time, I'll beat\n    him too.\n  STEPHANO. Stand farther. Come, proceed.\n  CALIBAN. Why, as I told thee, 'tis a custom with him\n    I' th' afternoon to sleep; there thou mayst brain him,\n    Having first seiz'd his books; or with a log\n    Batter his skull, or paunch him with a stake,\n    Or cut his wezand with thy knife. Remember\n    First to possess his books; for without them\n    He's but a sot, as I am, nor hath not\n    One spirit to command; they all do hate him\n    As rootedly as I. Burn but his books.\n    He has brave utensils-for so he calls them-\n    Which, when he has a house, he'll deck withal.\n    And that most deeply to consider is\n    The beauty of his daughter; he himself\n    Calls her a nonpareil. I never saw a woman\n    But only Sycorax my dam and she;\n    But she as far surpasseth Sycorax\n    As great'st does least.\n  STEPHANO. Is it so brave a lass?\n  CALIBAN. Ay, lord; she will become thy bed, I warrant,\n    And bring thee forth brave brood.\n  STEPHANO. Monster, I will kill this man; his daughter and I\n    will be King and Queen-save our Graces!-and Trinculo\n    and thyself shall be viceroys. Dost thou like the plot,\n    Trinculo?\n  TRINCULO. Excellent.\n  STEPHANO. Give me thy hand; I am sorry I beat thee; but\n    while thou liv'st, keep a good tongue in thy head.\n  CALIBAN. Within this half hour will he be asleep.\n    Wilt thou destroy him then?\n  STEPHANO. Ay, on mine honour.\n  ARIEL. This will I tell my master.\n  CALIBAN. Thou mak'st me merry; I am full of pleasure.\n    Let us be jocund; will you troll the catch\n    You taught me but while-ere?\n  STEPHANO. At thy request, monster, I will do reason, any\n    reason. Come on, Trinculo, let us sing.              [Sings]\n\n    Flout 'em and scout 'em,\n    And scout 'em and flout 'em;\n    Thought is free.\n\n  CALIBAN. That's not the tune.\n                      [ARIEL plays the tune on a tabor and pipe]\n  STEPHANO. What is this same?\n  TRINCULO. This is the tune of our catch, play'd by the\n    picture of Nobody.\n  STEPHANO. If thou beest a man, show thyself in thy\n    likeness; if thou beest a devil, take't as thou list.\n  TRINCULO. O, forgive me my sins!\n  STEPHANO. He that dies pays all debts. I defy thee. Mercy\n    upon us!\n  CALIBAN. Art thou afeard?\n  STEPHANO. No, monster, not I.\n  CALIBAN. Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,\n    Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.\n    Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments\n    Will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices,\n    That, if I then had wak'd after long sleep,\n    Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming,\n    The clouds methought would open and show riches\n    Ready to drop upon me, that, when I wak'd,\n    I cried to dream again.\n  STEPHANO. This will prove a brave kingdom to me, where I\n    shall have my music for nothing.\n  CALIBAN. When Prospero is destroy'd.\n  STEPHANO. That shall be by and by; I remember the story.\n  TRINCULO. The sound is going away; let's follow it, and\n    after do our work.\n  STEPHANO. Lead, monster; we'll follow. I would I could see\n    this taborer; he lays it on.\n  TRINCULO. Wilt come? I'll follow, Stephano.             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3\n\nAnother part of the island\n\nEnter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, GONZALO, ADRIAN, FRANCISCO, and OTHERS\n\n  GONZALO. By'r lakin, I can go no further, sir;\n    My old bones ache. Here's a maze trod, indeed,\n    Through forth-rights and meanders! By your patience,\n    I needs must rest me.\n  ALONSO. Old lord, I cannot blame thee,\n    Who am myself attach'd with weariness\n    To th' dulling of my spirits; sit down and rest.\n    Even here I will put off my hope, and keep it\n    No longer for my flatterer; he is drown'd\n    Whom thus we stray to find, and the sea mocks\n    Our frustrate search on land. Well, let him go.\n  ANTONIO.  [Aside to SEBASTIAN]  I am right glad that he's\n    so out of hope.\n    Do not, for one repulse, forgo the purpose\n    That you resolv'd t' effect.\n  SEBASTIAN.  [Aside to ANTONIO]  The next advantage\n    Will we take throughly.\n  ANTONIO.  [Aside to SEBASTIAN]  Let it be to-night;\n    For, now they are oppress'd with travel, they\n    Will not, nor cannot, use such vigilance\n    As when they are fresh.\n  SEBASTIAN.  [Aside to ANTONIO]  I say, to-night; no more.\n\n           Solemn and strange music; and PROSPERO on the\n           top, invisible. Enter several strange SHAPES,\n           bringing in a banquet; and dance about it with\n           gentle actions of salutations; and inviting the\n           KING, etc., to eat, they depart\n\n  ALONSO. What harmony is this? My good friends, hark!\n  GONZALO. Marvellous sweet music!\n  ALONSO. Give us kind keepers, heavens! What were these?\n  SEBASTIAN. A living drollery. Now I will believe\n    That there are unicorns; that in Arabia\n    There is one tree, the phoenix' throne, one phoenix\n    At this hour reigning-there.\n  ANTONIO. I'll believe both;\n    And what does else want credit, come to me,\n    And I'll be sworn 'tis true; travellers ne'er did lie,\n    Though fools at home condemn 'em.\n  GONZALO. If in Naples\n    I should report this now, would they believe me?\n    If I should say, I saw such islanders,\n    For certes these are people of the island,\n    Who though they are of monstrous shape yet, note,\n    Their manners are more gentle-kind than of\n    Our human generation you shall find\n    Many, nay, almost any.\n  PROSPERO.  [Aside]  Honest lord,\n    Thou hast said well; for some of you there present\n    Are worse than devils.\n  ALONSO. I cannot too much muse\n    Such shapes, such gesture, and such sound, expressing,\n    Although they want the use of tongue, a kind\n    Of excellent dumb discourse.\n  PROSPERO.  [Aside]  Praise in departing.\n  FRANCISCO. They vanish'd strangely.\n  SEBASTIAN. No matter, since\n    They have left their viands behind; for we have stomachs.\n    Will't please you taste of what is here?\n  ALONSO. Not I.\n  GONZALO. Faith, sir, you need not fear. When we were boys,\n    Who would believe that there were mountaineers,\n    Dewlapp'd like bulls, whose throats had hanging at 'em\n    Wallets of flesh? or that there were such men\n    Whose heads stood in their breasts? which now we find\n    Each putter-out of five for one will bring us\n    Good warrant of.\n  ALONSO. I will stand to, and feed,\n    Although my last; no matter, since I feel\n    The best is past. Brother, my lord the Duke,\n    Stand to, and do as we.\n\n       Thunder and lightning. Enter ARIEL, like a harpy;\n       claps his wings upon the table; and, with a quaint\n                device, the banquet vanishes\n\n  ARIEL. You are three men of sin, whom Destiny,\n    That hath to instrument this lower world\n    And what is in't, the never-surfeited sea\n    Hath caus'd to belch up you; and on this island\n    Where man doth not inhabit-you 'mongst men\n    Being most unfit to live. I have made you mad;\n    And even with such-like valour men hang and drown\n    Their proper selves.\n                     [ALONSO, SEBASTIAN etc., draw their swords]\n    You fools! I and my fellows\n    Are ministers of Fate; the elements\n    Of whom your swords are temper'd may as well\n    Wound the loud winds, or with bemock'd-at stabs\n    Kill the still-closing waters, as diminish\n    One dowle that's in my plume; my fellow-ministers\n    Are like invulnerable. If you could hurt,\n    Your swords are now too massy for your strengths\n    And will not be uplifted. But remember-\n    For that's my business to you-that you three\n    From Milan did supplant good Prospero;\n    Expos'd unto the sea, which hath requit it,\n    Him, and his innocent child; for which foul deed\n    The pow'rs, delaying, not forgetting, have\n    Incens'd the seas and shores, yea, all the creatures,\n    Against your peace. Thee of thy son, Alonso,\n    They have bereft; and do pronounce by me\n    Ling'ring perdition, worse than any death\n    Can be at once, shall step by step attend\n    You and your ways; whose wraths to guard you from-\n    Which here, in this most desolate isle, else falls\n    Upon your heads-is nothing but heart's sorrow,\n    And a clear life ensuing.\n\n        He vanishes in thunder; then, to soft music, enter\n        the SHAPES again, and dance, with mocks and mows,\n                and carrying out the table\n\n  PROSPERO. Bravely the figure of this harpy hast thou\n    Perform'd, my Ariel; a grace it had, devouring.\n    Of my instruction hast thou nothing bated\n    In what thou hadst to say; so, with good life\n    And observation strange, my meaner ministers\n    Their several kinds have done. My high charms work,\n    And these mine enemies are all knit up\n    In their distractions. They now are in my pow'r;\n    And in these fits I leave them, while I visit\n    Young Ferdinand, whom they suppose is drown'd,\n    And his and mine lov'd darling.                   Exit above\n  GONZALO. I' th' name of something holy, sir, why stand you\n    In this strange stare?\n  ALONSO. O, it is monstrous, monstrous!\n    Methought the billows spoke, and told me of it;\n    The winds did sing it to me; and the thunder,\n    That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounc'd\n    The name of Prosper; it did bass my trespass.\n    Therefore my son i' th' ooze is bedded; and\n    I'll seek him deeper than e'er plummet sounded,\n    And with him there lie mudded.                          Exit\n  SEBASTIAN. But one fiend at a time,\n    I'll fight their legions o'er.\n  ANTONIO. I'll be thy second.      Exeunt SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO\n  GONZALO. All three of them are desperate; their great guilt,\n    Like poison given to work a great time after,\n    Now gins to bite the spirits. I do beseech you,\n    That are of suppler joints, follow them swiftly,\n    And hinder them from what this ecstasy\n    May now provoke them to.\n  ADRIAN. Follow, I pray you.                             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 1\n\nBefore PROSPERO'S cell\n\nEnter PROSPERO, FERDINAND, and MIRANDA\n\n  PROSPERO. If I have too austerely punish'd you,\n    Your compensation makes amends; for\n    Have given you here a third of mine own life,\n    Or that for which I live; who once again\n    I tender to thy hand. All thy vexations\n    Were but my trials of thy love, and thou\n    Hast strangely stood the test; here, afore heaven,\n    I ratify this my rich gift. O Ferdinand!\n    Do not smile at me that I boast her off,\n    For thou shalt find she will outstrip all praise,\n    And make it halt behind her.\n  FERDINAND. I do believe it\n    Against an oracle.\n  PROSPERO. Then, as my gift, and thine own acquisition\n    Wort'hily purchas'd, take my daughter. But\n    If thou dost break her virgin-knot before\n    All sanctimonious ceremonies may\n    With full and holy rite be minist'red,\n    No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall\n    To make this contract grow; but barren hate,\n    Sour-ey'd disdain, and discord, shall bestrew\n    The union of your bed with weeds so loathly\n    That you shall hate it both. Therefore take heed,\n    As Hymen's lamps shall light you.\n  FERDINAND. As I hope\n    For quiet days, fair issue, and long life,\n    With such love as 'tis now, the murkiest den,\n    The most opportune place, the strong'st suggestion\n    Our worser genius can, shall never melt\n    Mine honour into lust, to take away\n    The edge of that day's celebration,\n    When I shall think or Phoebus' steeds are founder'd\n    Or Night kept chain'd below.\n  PROSPERO. Fairly spoke.\n    Sit, then, and talk with her; she is thine own.\n    What, Ariel! my industrious servant, Ariel!\n\n                           Enter ARIEL\n\n  ARIEL. What would my potent master? Here I am.\n  PROSPERO. Thou and thy meaner fellows your last service\n    Did worthily perform; and I must use you\n    In such another trick. Go bring the rabble,\n    O'er whom I give thee pow'r, here to this place.\n    Incite them to quick motion; for I must\n    Bestow upon the eyes of this young couple\n    Some vanity of mine art; it is my promise,\n    And they expect it from me.\n  ARIEL. Presently?\n  PROSPERO. Ay, with a twink.\n  ARIEL. Before you can say 'come' and 'go,'\n    And breathe twice, and cry 'so, so,'\n    Each one, tripping on his toe,\n    Will be here with mop and mow.\n    Do you love me, master? No?\n  PROSPERO. Dearly, my delicate Ariel. Do not approach\n    Till thou dost hear me call.\n  ARIEL. Well! I conceive.                                  Exit\n  PROSPERO. Look thou be true; do not give dalliance\n    Too much the rein; the strongest oaths are straw\n    To th' fire i' th' blood. Be more abstemious,\n    Or else good night your vow!\n  FERDINAND. I warrant you, sir,\n    The white cold virgin snow upon my heart\n    Abates the ardour of my liver.\n  PROSPERO. Well!\n    Now come, my Ariel, bring a corollary,\n    Rather than want a spirit; appear, and pertly.\n    No tongue! All eyes! Be silent.                 [Soft music]\n\n                         Enter IRIS\n\n  IRIS. Ceres, most bounteous lady, thy rich leas\n    Of wheat, rye, barley, vetches, oats, and pease;\n    Thy turfy mountains, where live nibbling sheep,\n    And flat meads thatch'd with stover, them to keep;\n    Thy banks with pioned and twilled brims,\n    Which spongy April at thy hest betrims,\n    To make cold nymphs chaste crowns; and thy broom groves,\n    Whose shadow the dismissed bachelor loves,\n    Being lass-lorn; thy pole-clipt vineyard;\n    And thy sea-marge, sterile and rocky hard,\n    Where thou thyself dost air-the Queen o' th' sky,\n    Whose wat'ry arch and messenger am I,\n    Bids thee leave these; and with her sovereign grace,\n    Here on this grass-plot, in this very place,\n    To come and sport. Her peacocks fly amain.\n                                      [JUNO descends in her car]\n    Approach, rich Ceres, her to entertain.\n\n                        Enter CERES\n\n  CERES. Hail, many-coloured messenger, that ne'er\n    Dost disobey the wife of Jupiter;\n    Who, with thy saffron wings, upon my flow'rs\n    Diffusest honey drops, refreshing show'rs;\n    And with each end of thy blue bow dost crown\n    My bosky acres and my unshrubb'd down,\n    Rich scarf to my proud earth-why hath thy Queen\n    Summon'd me hither to this short-grass'd green?\n  IRIS. A contract of true love to celebrate,\n    And some donation freely to estate\n    On the blest lovers.\n  CERES. Tell me, heavenly bow,\n    If Venus or her son, as thou dost know,\n    Do now attend the Queen? Since they did plot\n    The means that dusky Dis my daughter got,\n    Her and her blind boy's scandal'd company\n    I have forsworn.\n  IRIS. Of her society\n    Be not afraid. I met her Deity\n    Cutting the clouds towards Paphos, and her son\n    Dove-drawn with her. Here thought they to have done\n    Some wanton charm upon this man and maid,\n    Whose vows are that no bed-rite shall be paid\n    Till Hymen's torch be lighted; but in vain.\n    Mars's hot minion is return'd again;\n    Her waspish-headed son has broke his arrows,\n    Swears he will shoot no more, but play with sparrows,\n    And be a boy right out.                       [JUNO alights]\n  CERES. Highest Queen of State,\n    Great Juno, comes; I know her by her gait.\n  JUNO. How does my bounteous sister? Go with me\n    To bless this twain, that they may prosperous be,\n    And honour'd in their issue.                     [They sing]\n  JUNO. Honour, riches, marriage-blessing,\n    Long continuance, and increasing,\n    Hourly joys be still upon you!\n    Juno sings her blessings on you.\n  CERES. Earth's increase, foison plenty,\n    Barns and gamers never empty;\n    Vines with clust'ring bunches growing,\n    Plants with goodly burden bowing;\n    Spring come to you at the farthest,\n    In the very end of harvest!\n    Scarcity and want shall shun you,\n    Ceres' blessing so is on you.\n  FERDINAND. This is a most majestic vision, and\n    Harmonious charmingly. May I be bold\n    To think these spirits?\n  PROSPERO. Spirits, which by mine art\n    I have from their confines call'd to enact\n    My present fancies.\n  FERDINAND. Let me live here ever;\n    So rare a wond'red father and a wise\n    Makes this place Paradise.\n           [JUNO and CERES whisper, and send IRIS on employment]\n  PROSPERO. Sweet now, silence;\n    Juno and Ceres whisper seriously.\n    There's something else to do; hush, and be mute,\n    Or else our spell is marr'd.\n  IRIS. You nymphs, call'd Naiads, of the wind'ring brooks,\n    With your sedg'd crowns and ever harmless looks,\n    Leave your crisp channels, and on this green land\n    Answer your summons; Juno does command.\n    Come, temperate nymphs, and help to celebrate\n    A contract of true love; be not too late.\n\n                      Enter certain NYMPHS\n\n    You sun-burnt sicklemen, of August weary,\n    Come hither from the furrow, and be merry;\n    Make holiday; your rye-straw hats put on,\n    And these fresh nymphs encounter every one\n    In country footing.\n\n        Enter certain REAPERS, properly habited; they join\n         with the NYMPHS in a graceful dance; towards the\n         end whereof PROSPERO starts suddenly, and speaks,\n          after which, to a strange, hollow, and confused\n                  noise, they heavily vanish\n\n  PROSPERO.  [Aside]  I had forgot that foul conspiracy\n    Of the beast Caliban and his confederates\n    Against my life; the minute of their plot\n    Is almost come.  [To the SPIRITS]  Well done; avoid; no\n    more!\n  FERDINAND. This is strange; your father's in some passion\n    That works him strongly.\n  MIRANDA. Never till this day\n    Saw I him touch'd with anger so distemper'd.\n  PROSPERO. You do look, my son, in a mov'd sort,\n    As if you were dismay'd; be cheerful, sir.\n    Our revels now are ended. These our actors,\n    As I foretold you, were all spirits, and\n    Are melted into air, into thin air;\n    And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,\n    The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,\n    The solemn temples, the great globe itself,\n    Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,\n    And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,\n    Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff\n    As dreams are made on; and our little life\n    Is rounded with a sleep. Sir, I am vex'd;\n    Bear with my weakness; my old brain is troubled;\n    Be not disturb'd with my infirmity.\n    If you be pleas'd, retire into my cell\n    And there repose; a turn or two I'll walk\n    To still my beating mind.\n  FERDINAND, MIRANDA. We wish your peace.                 Exeunt\n  PROSPERO. Come, with a thought. I thank thee, Ariel; come.\n\n                       Enter ARIEL\n\n  ARIEL. Thy thoughts I cleave to. What's thy pleasure?\n  PROSPERO. Spirit,\n    We must prepare to meet with Caliban.\n  ARIEL. Ay, my commander. When I presented 'Ceres.'\n    I thought to have told thee of it; but I fear'd\n    Lest I might anger thee.\n  PROSPERO. Say again, where didst thou leave these varlets?\n  ARIEL. I told you, sir, they were red-hot with drinking;\n    So full of valour that they smote the air\n    For breathing in their faces; beat the ground\n    For kissing of their feet; yet always bending\n    Towards their project. Then I beat my tabor,\n    At which like unback'd colts they prick'd their ears,\n    Advanc'd their eyelids, lifted up their noses\n    As they smelt music; so I charm'd their cars,\n    That calf-like they my lowing follow'd through\n    Tooth'd briers, sharp furzes, pricking goss, and thorns,\n    Which ent'red their frail shins. At last I left them\n    I' th' filthy mantled pool beyond your cell,\n    There dancing up to th' chins, that the foul lake\n    O'erstunk their feet.\n  PROSPERO. This was well done, my bird.\n    Thy shape invisible retain thou still.\n    The trumpery in my house, go bring it hither\n    For stale to catch these thieves.\n  ARIEL. I go, I go.                                        Exit\n  PROSPERO. A devil, a born devil, on whose nature\n    Nurture can never stick; on whom my pains,\n    Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost;\n    And as with age his body uglier grows,\n    So his mind cankers. I will plague them all,\n    Even to roaring.\n\n       Re-enter ARIEL, loaden with glistering apparel, &c.\n\n    Come, hang them on this line.\n                          [PROSPERO and ARIEL remain, invisible]\n\n         Enter CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO, all wet\n\n  CALIBAN. Pray you, tread softly, that the blind mole may not\n    Hear a foot fall; we now are near his cell.\n  STEPHANO. Monster, your fairy, which you say is a harmless\n    fairy, has done little better than play'd the Jack with us.\n  TRINCULO. Monster, I do smell all horse-piss at which my\n    nose is in great indignation.\n  STEPHANO. So is mine. Do you hear, monster? If I should\n    take a displeasure against you, look you-\n  TRINCULO. Thou wert but a lost monster.\n  CALIBAN. Good my lord, give me thy favour still.\n    Be patient, for the prize I'll bring thee to\n    Shall hoodwink this mischance; therefore speak softly.\n    All's hush'd as midnight yet.\n  TRINCULO. Ay, but to lose our bottles in the pool!\n  STEPHANO. There is not only disgrace and dishonour in\n    that, monster, but an infinite loss.\n  TRINCULO. That's more to me than my wetting; yet this is\n    your harmless fairy, monster.\n  STEPHANO. I will fetch off my bottle, though I be o'er\n    ears for my labour.\n  CALIBAN. Prithee, my king, be quiet. Seest thou here,\n    This is the mouth o' th' cell; no noise, and enter.\n    Do that good mischief which may make this island\n    Thine own for ever, and I, thy Caliban,\n    For aye thy foot-licker.\n  STEPHANO. Give me thy hand. I do begin to have bloody\n    thoughts.\n  TRINCULO. O King Stephano! O peer! O worthy Stephano!\n    Look what a wardrobe here is for thee!\n  CALIBAN. Let it alone, thou fool; it is but trash.\n  TRINCULO. O, ho, monster; we know what belongs to a\n    frippery. O King Stephano!\n  STEPHANO. Put off that gown, Trinculo; by this hand, I'll\n    have that gown.\n  TRINCULO. Thy Grace shall have it.\n  CALIBAN. The dropsy drown this fool! What do you mean\n    To dote thus on such luggage? Let 't alone,\n    And do the murder first. If he awake,\n    From toe to crown he'll fill our skins with pinches;\n    Make us strange stuff.\n  STEPHANO. Be you quiet, monster. Mistress line, is not\n    this my jerkin? Now is the jerkin under the line; now,\n    jerkin, you are like to lose your hair, and prove a bald\n    jerkin.\n  TRINCULO. Do, do. We steal by line and level, an't like\n    your Grace.\n  STEPHANO. I thank thee for that jest; here's a garment\n    for't. Wit shall not go unrewarded while I am king of\n    this country. 'Steal by line and level' is an excellent\n    pass of pate; there's another garmet for't.\n  TRINCULO. Monster, come, put some lime upon your fingers,\n    and away with the rest.\n  CALIBAN. I will have none on't. We shall lose our time,\n    And all be turn'd to barnacles, or to apes\n    With foreheads villainous low.\n  STEPHANO. Monster, lay-to your fingers; help to bear this\n    away where my hogshead of wine is, or I'll turn you out\n    of my kingdom. Go to, carry this.\n  TRINCULO. And this.\n  STEPHANO. Ay, and this.\n\n          A noise of hunters beard. Enter divers SPIRITS, in\n             shape of dogs and hounds, bunting them about;\n                   PROSPERO and ARIEL setting them on\n\n  PROSPERO. Hey, Mountain, hey!\n  ARIEL. Silver! there it goes, Silver!\n  PROSPERO. Fury, Fury! There, Tyrant, there! Hark, hark!\n                [CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO are driven out]\n    Go charge my goblins that they grind their joints\n    With dry convulsions, shorten up their sinews\n    With aged cramps, and more pinch-spotted make them\n    Than pard or cat o' mountain.\n  ARIEL. Hark, they roar.\n  PROSPERO. Let them be hunted soundly. At this hour\n    Lies at my mercy all mine enemies.\n    Shortly shall all my labours end, and thou\n    Shalt have the air at freedom; for a little\n    Follow, and do me service.                            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 1\n\nBefore PROSPERO'S cell\n\nEnter PROSPERO in his magic robes, and ARIEL\n\n  PROSPERO. Now does my project gather to a head;\n    My charms crack not, my spirits obey; and time\n    Goes upright with his carriage. How's the day?\n  ARIEL. On the sixth hour; at which time, my lord,\n    You said our work should cease.\n  PROSPERO. I did say so,\n    When first I rais'd the tempest. Say, my spirit,\n    How fares the King and 's followers?\n  ARIEL. Confin'd together\n    In the same fashion as you gave in charge;\n    Just as you left them; all prisoners, sir,\n    In the line-grove which weather-fends your cell;\n    They cannot budge till your release. The King,\n    His brother, and yours, abide all three distracted,\n    And the remainder mourning over them,\n    Brim full of sorrow and dismay; but chiefly\n    Him you term'd, sir, 'the good old lord, Gonzalo';\n    His tears run down his beard, like winter's drops\n    From eaves of reeds. Your charm so strongly works 'em\n    That if you now beheld them your affections\n    Would become tender.\n  PROSPERO. Dost thou think so, spirit?\n  ARIEL. Mine would, sir, were I human.\n  PROSPERO. And mine shall.\n    Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling\n    Of their afflictions, and shall not myself,\n    One of their kind, that relish all as sharply,\n    Passion as they, be kindlier mov'd than thou art?\n    Though with their high wrongs I am struck to th' quick,\n    Yet with my nobler reason 'gainst my fury\n    Do I take part; the rarer action is\n    In virtue than in vengeance; they being penitent,\n    The sole drift of my purpose doth extend\n    Not a frown further. Go release them, Ariel;\n    My charms I'll break, their senses I'll restore,\n    And they shall be themselves.\n  ARIEL. I'll fetch them, sir.                              Exit\n  PROSPERO. Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and\n    groves;\n    And ye that on the sands with printless foot\n    Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him\n    When he comes back; you demi-puppets that\n    By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,\n    Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime\n    Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice\n    To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid-\n    Weak masters though ye be-I have be-dimm'd\n    The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,\n    And 'twixt the green sea and the azur'd vault\n    Set roaring war. To the dread rattling thunder\n    Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak\n    With his own bolt; the strong-bas'd promontory\n    Have I made shake, and by the spurs pluck'd up\n    The pine and cedar. Graves at my command\n    Have wak'd their sleepers, op'd, and let 'em forth,\n    By my so potent art. But this rough magic\n    I here abjure; and, when I have requir'd\n    Some heavenly music-which even now I do-\n    To work mine end upon their senses that\n    This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,\n    Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,\n    And deeper than did ever plummet sound\n    I'll drown my book.                            [Solem music]\n\n            Here enters ARIEL before; then ALONSO, with\n          frantic gesture, attended by GONZALO; SEBASTIAN\n           and ANTONIO in like manner, attended by ADRIAN\n           and FRANCISCO. They all enter the circle which\n          PROSPERO had made, and there stand charm'd; which\n                    PROSPERO observing, speaks\n\n    A solemn air, and the best comforter\n    To an unsettled fancy, cure thy brains,\n    Now useless, boil'd within thy skull! There stand,\n    For you are spell-stopp'd.\n    Holy Gonzalo, honourable man,\n    Mine eyes, ev'n sociable to the show of thine,\n    Fall fellowly drops. The charm dissolves apace,\n    And as the morning steals upon the night,\n    Melting the darkness, so their rising senses\n    Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle\n    Their clearer reason. O good Gonzalo,\n    My true preserver, and a loyal sir\n    To him thou follow'st! I will pay thy graces\n    Home both in word and deed. Most cruelly\n    Didst thou, Alonso, use me and my daughter;\n    Thy brother was a furtherer in the act.\n    Thou art pinch'd for't now, Sebastian. Flesh and blood,\n    You, brother mine, that entertain'd ambition,\n    Expell'd remorse and nature, who, with Sebastian-\n    Whose inward pinches therefore are most strong-\n    Would here have kill'd your king, I do forgive thee,\n    Unnatural though thou art. Their understanding\n    Begins to swell, and the approaching tide\n    Will shortly fill the reasonable shore\n    That now lies foul and muddy. Not one of them\n    That yet looks on me, or would know me. Ariel,\n    Fetch me the hat and rapier in my cell;           Exit ARIEL\n    I will discase me, and myself present\n    As I was sometime Milan. Quickly, spirit\n    Thou shalt ere long be free.\n\n        ARIEL, on returning, sings and helps to attire him\n\n    Where the bee sucks, there suck I;\n    In a cowslip's bell I lie;\n    There I couch when owls do cry.\n    On the bat's back I do fly\n    After summer merrily.\n    Merrily, merrily shall I live now\n    Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.\n\n  PROSPERO. Why, that's my dainty Ariel! I shall miss thee;\n    But yet thou shalt have freedom. So, so, so.\n    To the King's ship, invisible as thou art;\n    There shalt thou find the mariners asleep\n    Under the hatches; the master and the boatswain\n    Being awake, enforce them to this place;\n    And presently, I prithee.\n  ARIEL. I drink the air before me, and return\n    Or ere your pulse twice beat.                           Exit\n  GONZALO. All torment, trouble, wonder and amazement,\n    Inhabits here. Some heavenly power guide us\n    Out of this fearful country!\n  PROSPERO. Behold, Sir King,\n    The wronged Duke of Milan, Prospero.\n    For more assurance that a living prince\n    Does now speak to thee, I embrace thy body;\n    And to thee and thy company I bid\n    A hearty welcome.\n  ALONSO. Whe'er thou be'st he or no,\n    Or some enchanted trifle to abuse me,\n    As late I have been, I not know. Thy pulse\n    Beats, as of flesh and blood; and, since I saw thee,\n    Th' affliction of my mind amends, with which,\n    I fear, a madness held me. This must crave-\n    An if this be at all-a most strange story.\n    Thy dukedom I resign, and do entreat\n    Thou pardon me my wrongs. But how should Prospero\n    Be living and be here?\n  PROSPERO. First, noble friend,\n    Let me embrace thine age, whose honour cannot\n    Be measur'd or confin'd.\n  GONZALO. Whether this be\n    Or be not, I'll not swear.\n  PROSPERO. You do yet taste\n    Some subtleties o' th' isle, that will not let you\n    Believe things certain. Welcome, my friends all!\n    [Aside to SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO]  But you, my brace of\n      lords, were I so minded,\n    I here could pluck his Highness' frown upon you,\n    And justify you traitors; at this time\n    I will tell no tales.\n  SEBASTIAN.  [Aside]  The devil speaks in him.\n  PROSPERO. No.\n    For you, most wicked sir, whom to call brother\n    Would even infect my mouth, I do forgive\n    Thy rankest fault-all of them; and require\n    My dukedom of thee, which perforce I know\n    Thou must restore.\n  ALONSO. If thou beest Prospero,\n    Give us particulars of thy preservation;\n    How thou hast met us here, whom three hours since\n    Were wreck'd upon this shore; where I have lost-\n    How sharp the point of this remembrance is!-\n    My dear son Ferdinand.\n  PROSPERO. I am woe for't, sir.\n  ALONSO. Irreparable is the loss; and patience\n    Says it is past her cure.\n  PROSPERO. I rather think\n    You have not sought her help, of whose soft grace\n    For the like loss I have her sovereign aid,\n    And rest myself content.\n  ALONSO. You the like loss!\n  PROSPERO. As great to me as late; and, supportable\n    To make the dear loss, have I means much weaker\n    Than you may call to comfort you, for I\n    Have lost my daughter.\n  ALONSO. A daughter!\n    O heavens, that they were living both in Naples,\n    The King and Queen there! That they were, I wish\n    Myself were mudded in that oozy bed\n    Where my son lies. When did you lose your daughter?\n  PROSPERO. In this last tempest. I perceive these lords\n    At this encounter do so much admire\n    That they devour their reason, and scarce think\n    Their eyes do offices of truth, their words\n    Are natural breath; but, howsoe'er you have\n    Been justled from your senses, know for certain\n    That I am Prospero, and that very duke\n    Which was thrust forth of Milan; who most strangely\n    Upon this shore, where you were wrecked, was landed\n    To be the lord on't. No more yet of this;\n    For 'tis a chronicle of day by day,\n    Not a relation for a breakfast, nor\n    Befitting this first meeting. Welcome, sir;\n    This cell's my court; here have I few attendants,\n    And subjects none abroad; pray you, look in.\n    My dukedom since you have given me again,\n    I will requite you with as good a thing;\n    At least bring forth a wonder, to content ye\n    As much as me my dukedom.\n\n          Here PROSPERO discovers FERDINAND and MIRANDA,\n                      playing at chess\n\n  MIRANDA. Sweet lord, you play me false.\n  FERDINAND. No, my dearest love,\n    I would not for the world.\n  MIRANDA. Yes, for a score of kingdoms you should wrangle\n    And I would call it fair play.\n  ALONSO. If this prove\n    A vision of the island, one dear son\n    Shall I twice lose.\n  SEBASTIAN. A most high miracle!\n  FERDINAND. Though the seas threaten, they are merciful;\n    I have curs'd them without cause.                   [Kneels]\n  ALONSO. Now all the blessings\n    Of a glad father compass thee about!\n    Arise, and say how thou cam'st here.\n  MIRANDA. O, wonder!\n    How many goodly creatures are there here!\n    How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world\n    That has such people in't!\n  PROSPERO. 'Tis new to thee.\n  ALONSO. What is this maid with whom thou wast at play?\n    Your eld'st acquaintance cannot be three hours;\n    Is she the goddess that hath sever'd us,\n    And brought us thus together?\n  FERDINAND. Sir, she is mortal;\n    But by immortal Providence she's mine.\n    I chose her when I could not ask my father\n    For his advice, nor thought I had one. She\n    Is daughter to this famous Duke of Milan,\n    Of whom so often I have heard renown\n    But never saw before; of whom I have\n    Receiv'd a second life; and second father\n    This lady makes him to me.\n  ALONSO. I am hers.\n    But, O, how oddly will it sound that I\n    Must ask my child forgiveness!\n  PROSPERO. There, sir, stop;\n    Let us not burden our remembrances with\n    A heaviness that's gone.\n  GONZALO. I have inly wept,\n    Or should have spoke ere this. Look down, you gods,\n    And on this couple drop a blessed crown;\n    For it is you that have chalk'd forth the way\n    Which brought us hither.\n  ALONSO. I say, Amen, Gonzalo!\n  GONZALO. Was Milan thrust from Milan, that his issue\n    Should become Kings of Naples? O, rejoice\n    Beyond a common joy, and set it down\n    With gold on lasting pillars: in one voyage\n    Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis;\n    And Ferdinand, her brother, found a wife\n    Where he himself was lost; Prospero his dukedom\n    In a poor isle; and all of us ourselves\n    When no man was his own.\n  ALONSO.  [To FERDINAND and MIRANDA]  Give me your\n    hands.\n    Let grief and sorrow still embrace his heart\n    That doth not wish you joy.\n  GONZALO. Be it so. Amen!\n\n           Re-enter ARIEL, with the MASTER and BOATSWAIN\n                     amazedly following\n\n    O look, sir; look, sir! Here is more of us!\n    I prophesied, if a gallows were on land,\n    This fellow could not drown. Now, blasphemy,\n    That swear'st grace o'erboard, not an oath on shore?\n    Hast thou no mouth by land? What is the news?\n  BOATSWAIN. The best news is that we have safely found\n    Our King and company; the next, our ship-\n    Which but three glasses since we gave out split-\n    Is tight and yare, and bravely rigg'd, as when\n    We first put out to sea.\n  ARIEL.  [Aside to PROSPERO]  Sir, all this service\n    Have I done since I went.\n  PROSPERO.  [Aside to ARIEL]  My tricksy spirit!\n  ALONSO. These are not natural events; they strengthen\n    From strange to stranger. Say, how came you hither?\n  BOATSWAIN. If I did think, sir, I were well awake,\n    I'd strive to tell you. We were dead of sleep,\n    And-how, we know not-all clapp'd under hatches;\n    Where, but even now, with strange and several noises\n    Of roaring, shrieking, howling, jingling chains,\n    And moe diversity of sounds, all horrible,\n    We were awak'd; straightway at liberty;\n    Where we, in all her trim, freshly beheld\n    Our royal, good, and gallant ship; our master\n    Cap'ring to eye her. On a trice, so please you,\n    Even in a dream, were we divided from them,\n    And were brought moping hither.\n  ARIEL.  [Aside to PROSPERO]  Was't well done?\n  PROSPERO.  [Aside to ARIEL]  Bravely, my diligence. Thou\n    shalt be free.\n  ALONSO. This is as strange a maze as e'er men trod;\n    And there is in this business more than nature\n    Was ever conduct of. Some oracle\n    Must rectify our knowledge.\n  PROSPERO. Sir, my liege,\n    Do not infest your mind with beating on\n    The strangeness of this business; at pick'd leisure,\n    Which shall be shortly, single I'll resolve you,\n    Which to you shall seem probable, of every\n    These happen'd accidents; till when, be cheerful\n    And think of each thing well.  [Aside to ARIEL]  Come\n    hither, spirit;\n    Set Caliban and his companions free;\n    Untie the spell.  [Exit ARIEL]  How fares my gracious sir?\n    There are yet missing of your company\n    Some few odd lads that you remember not.\n\n         Re-enter ARIEL, driving in CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and\n\n  TRINCULO, in their stolen apparel\n  STEPHANO. Every man shift for all the rest, and let no man\n    take care for himself; for all is but fortune. Coragio,\n    bully-monster, coragio!\n  TRINCULO. If these be true spies which I wear in my head,\n    here's a goodly sight.\n  CALIBAN. O Setebos, these be brave spirits indeed!\n    How fine my master is! I am afraid\n    He will chastise me.\n  SEBASTIAN. Ha, ha!\n    What things are these, my lord Antonio?\n    Will money buy'em?\n  ANTONIO. Very like; one of them\n    Is a plain fish, and no doubt marketable.\n  PROSPERO. Mark but the badges of these men, my lords,\n    Then say if they be true. This mis-shapen knave-\n    His mother was a witch, and one so strong\n    That could control the moon, make flows and ebbs,\n    And deal in her command without her power.\n    These three have robb'd me; and this demi-devil-\n    For he's a bastard one-had plotted with them\n    To take my life. Two of these fellows you\n    Must know and own; this thing of darkness I\n    Acknowledge mine.\n  CALIBAN. I shall be pinch'd to death.\n  ALONSO. Is not this Stephano, my drunken butler?\n  SEBASTIAN. He is drunk now; where had he wine?\n  ALONSO. And Trinculo is reeling ripe; where should they\n    Find this grand liquor that hath gilded 'em?\n    How cam'st thou in this pickle?\n  TRINCULO. I have been in such a pickle since I saw you\n    last that, I fear me, will never out of my bones. I\n    shall not fear fly-blowing.\n  SEBASTIAN. Why, how now, Stephano!\n  STEPHANO. O, touch me not; I am not Stephano, but a\n    cramp.\n  PROSPERO. You'd be king o' the isle, sirrah?\n  STEPHANO. I should have been a sore one, then.\n  ALONSO.  [Pointing to CALIBAN]  This is as strange a thing\n    as e'er I look'd on.\n  PROSPERO. He is as disproportioned in his manners\n    As in his shape. Go, sirrah, to my cell;\n    Take with you your companions; as you look\n    To have my pardon, trim it handsomely.\n  CALIBAN. Ay, that I will; and I'll be wise hereafter,\n    And seek for grace. What a thrice-double ass\n    Was I to take this drunkard for a god,\n    And worship this dull fool!\n  PROSPERO. Go to; away!\n  ALONSO. Hence, and bestow your luggage where you found it.\n  SEBASTIAN. Or stole it, rather.\n                          Exeunt CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO\n  PROSPERO. Sir, I invite your Highness and your train\n    To my poor cell, where you shall take your rest\n    For this one night; which, part of it, I'll waste\n    With such discourse as, I not doubt, shall make it\n    Go quick away-the story of my life,\n    And the particular accidents gone by\n    Since I came to this isle. And in the morn\n    I'll bring you to your ship, and so to Naples,\n    Where I have hope to see the nuptial\n    Of these our dear-belov'd solemnized,\n    And thence retire me to my Milan, where\n    Every third thought shall be my grave.\n  ALONSO. I long\n    To hear the story of your life, which must\n    Take the ear strangely.\n  PROSPERO. I'll deliver all;\n    And promise you calm seas, auspicious gales,\n    And sail so expeditious that shall catch\n    Your royal fleet far off.  [Aside to ARIEL]  My Ariel,\n      chick,\n    That is thy charge. Then to the elements\n    Be free, and fare thou well!-Please you, draw near.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\nEPILOGUE\n                             EPILOGUE\n                        Spoken by PROSPERO\n\n          Now my charms are all o'erthrown,\n          And what strength I have's mine own,\n          Which is most faint. Now 'tis true,\n          I must be here confin'd by you,\n          Or sent to Naples. Let me not,\n          Since I have my dukedom got,\n          And pardon'd the deceiver, dwell\n          In this bare island by your spell;\n          But release me from my bands\n          With the help of your good hands.\n          Gentle breath of yours my sails\n          Must fill, or else my project fails,\n          Which was to please. Now I want\n          Spirits to enforce, art to enchant;\n          And my ending is despair\n          Unless I be reliev'd by prayer,\n          Which pierces so that it assaults\n          Mercy itself, and frees all faults.\n          As you from crimes would pardon'd be,\n          Let your indulgence set me free.\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1608\n\nTHE LIFE OF TIMON OF ATHENS\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n    TIMON of Athens\n\n    LUCIUS\n    LUCULLUS\n    SEMPRONIUS\n       flattering lords\n\n    VENTIDIUS, one of Timon's false friends\n    ALCIBIADES, an Athenian captain\n    APEMANTUS, a churlish philosopher\n    FLAVIUS, steward to Timon\n\n    FLAMINIUS\n    LUCILIUS\n    SERVILIUS\n       Timon's servants\n\n    CAPHIS\n    PHILOTUS\n    TITUS\n    HORTENSIUS\n       servants to Timon's creditors\n\n    POET\n    PAINTER\n    JEWELLER\n    MERCHANT\n    MERCER\n    AN OLD ATHENIAN\n    THREE STRANGERS\n    A PAGE\n    A FOOL\n\n    PHRYNIA\n    TIMANDRA\n       mistresses to Alcibiades\n\n    CUPID\n    AMAZONS\n      in the Masque\n\n    Lords, Senators, Officers, Soldiers, Servants, Thieves, and\n      Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nAthens and the neighbouring woods\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nAthens. TIMON'S house\n\nEnter POET, PAINTER, JEWELLER, MERCHANT, and MERCER, at several doors\n\n  POET. Good day, sir.\n  PAINTER. I am glad y'are well.\n  POET. I have not seen you long; how goes the world?\n  PAINTER. It wears, sir, as it grows.\n  POET. Ay, that's well known.\n    But what particular rarity? What strange,\n    Which manifold record not matches? See,\n    Magic of bounty, all these spirits thy power\n    Hath conjur'd to attend! I know the merchant.\n  PAINTER. I know them both; th' other's a jeweller.\n  MERCHANT. O, 'tis a worthy lord!\n  JEWELLER. Nay, that's most fix'd.\n  MERCHANT. A most incomparable man; breath'd, as it were,\n    To an untirable and continuate goodness.\n    He passes.\n  JEWELLER. I have a jewel here-\n  MERCHANT. O, pray let's see't. For the Lord Timon, sir?\n  JEWELLER. If he will touch the estimate. But for that-\n  POET. When we for recompense have prais'd the vile,\n    It stains the glory in that happy verse\n    Which aptly sings the good.\n  MERCHANT. [Looking at the jewel] 'Tis a good form.\n  JEWELLER. And rich. Here is a water, look ye.\n  PAINTER. You are rapt, sir, in some work, some dedication\n    To the great lord.\n  POET. A thing slipp'd idly from me.\n    Our poesy is as a gum, which oozes\n    From whence 'tis nourish'd. The fire i' th' flint\n    Shows not till it be struck: our gentle flame\n    Provokes itself, and like the current flies\n    Each bound it chafes. What have you there?\n  PAINTER. A picture, sir. When comes your book forth?\n  POET. Upon the heels of my presentment, sir.\n    Let's see your piece.\n  PAINTER. 'Tis a good piece.\n  POET. So 'tis; this comes off well and excellent.\n  PAINTER. Indifferent.\n  POET. Admirable. How this grace\n    Speaks his own standing! What a mental power\n    This eye shoots forth! How big imagination\n    Moves in this lip! To th' dumbness of the gesture\n    One might interpret.\n  PAINTER. It is a pretty mocking of the life.\n    Here is a touch; is't good?\n  POET. I will say of it\n    It tutors nature. Artificial strife\n    Lives in these touches, livelier than life.\n\n              Enter certain SENATORS, and pass over\n\n  PAINTER. How this lord is followed!\n  POET. The senators of Athens- happy man!\n  PAINTER. Look, moe!\n  POET. You see this confluence, this great flood of visitors.\n    I have in this rough work shap'd out a man\n    Whom this beneath world doth embrace and hug\n    With amplest entertainment. My free drift\n    Halts not particularly, but moves itself\n    In a wide sea of tax. No levell'd malice\n    Infects one comma in the course I hold,\n    But flies an eagle flight, bold and forth on,\n    Leaving no tract behind.\n  PAINTER. How shall I understand you?\n  POET. I will unbolt to you.\n    You see how all conditions, how all minds-\n    As well of glib and slipp'ry creatures as\n    Of grave and austere quality, tender down\n    Their services to Lord Timon. His large fortune,\n    Upon his good and gracious nature hanging,\n    Subdues and properties to his love and tendance\n    All sorts of hearts; yea, from the glass-fac'd flatterer\n    To Apemantus, that few things loves better\n    Than to abhor himself; even he drops down\n    The knee before him, and returns in peace\n    Most rich in Timon's nod.\n  PAINTER. I saw them speak together.\n  POET. Sir, I have upon a high and pleasant hill\n    Feign'd Fortune to be thron'd. The base o' th' mount\n    Is rank'd with all deserts, all kind of natures\n    That labour on the bosom of this sphere\n    To propagate their states. Amongst them all\n    Whose eyes are on this sovereign lady fix'd\n    One do I personate of Lord Timon's frame,\n    Whom Fortune with her ivory hand wafts to her;\n    Whose present grace to present slaves and servants\n    Translates his rivals.\n  PAINTER. 'Tis conceiv'd to scope.\n    This throne, this Fortune, and this hill, methinks,\n    With one man beckon'd from the rest below,\n    Bowing his head against the steepy mount\n    To climb his happiness, would be well express'd\n    In our condition.\n  POET. Nay, sir, but hear me on.\n    All those which were his fellows but of late-\n    Some better than his value- on the moment\n    Follow his strides, his lobbies fill with tendance,\n    Rain sacrificial whisperings in his ear,\n    Make sacred even his stirrup, and through him\n    Drink the free air.\n  PAINTER. Ay, marry, what of these?\n  POET. When Fortune in her shift and change of mood\n    Spurns down her late beloved, all his dependants,\n    Which labour'd after him to the mountain's top\n    Even on their knees and hands, let him slip down,\n    Not one accompanying his declining foot.\n  PAINTER. 'Tis common.\n    A thousand moral paintings I can show\n    That shall demonstrate these quick blows of Fortune's\n    More pregnantly than words. Yet you do well\n    To show Lord Timon that mean eyes have seen\n    The foot above the head.\n\n         Trumpets sound. Enter TIMON, addressing himself\n          courteously to every suitor, a MESSENGER from\n         VENTIDIUS talking with him; LUCILIUS and other\n                       servants following\n\n  TIMON. Imprison'd is he, say you?\n  MESSENGER. Ay, my good lord. Five talents is his debt;\n    His means most short, his creditors most strait.\n    Your honourable letter he desires\n    To those have shut him up; which failing,\n    Periods his comfort.\n  TIMON. Noble Ventidius! Well.\n    I am not of that feather to shake of\n    My friend when he must need me. I do know him\n    A gentleman that well deserves a help,\n    Which he shall have. I'll pay the debt, and free him.\n  MESSENGER. Your lordship ever binds him.\n  TIMON. Commend me to him; I will send his ransom;\n    And being enfranchis'd, bid him come to me.\n    'Tis not enough to help the feeble up,\n    But to support him after. Fare you well.\n  MESSENGER. All happiness to your honour!                  Exit\n\n                      Enter an OLD ATHENIAN\n\n  OLD ATHENIAN. Lord Timon, hear me speak.\n  TIMON. Freely, good father.\n  OLD ATHENIAN. Thou hast a servant nam'd Lucilius.\n  TIMON. I have so; what of him?\n  OLD ATHENIAN. Most noble Timon, call the man before thee.\n  TIMON. Attends he here, or no? Lucilius!\n  LUCILIUS. Here, at your lordship's service.\n  OLD ATHENIAN. This fellow here, Lord Timon, this thy creature,\n    By night frequents my house. I am a man\n    That from my first have been inclin'd to thrift,\n    And my estate deserves an heir more rais'd\n    Than one which holds a trencher.\n  TIMON. Well; what further?\n  OLD ATHENIAN. One only daughter have I, no kin else,\n    On whom I may confer what I have got.\n    The maid is fair, o' th' youngest for a bride,\n    And I have bred her at my dearest cost\n    In qualities of the best. This man of thine\n    Attempts her love; I prithee, noble lord,\n    Join with me to forbid him her resort;\n    Myself have spoke in vain.\n  TIMON. The man is honest.\n  OLD ATHENIAN. Therefore he will be, Timon.\n    His honesty rewards him in itself;\n    It must not bear my daughter.\n  TIMON. Does she love him?\n  OLD ATHENIAN. She is young and apt:\n    Our own precedent passions do instruct us\n    What levity's in youth.\n  TIMON. Love you the maid?\n  LUCILIUS. Ay, my good lord, and she accepts of it.\n  OLD ATHENIAN. If in her marriage my consent be missing,\n    I call the gods to witness I will choose\n    Mine heir from forth the beggars of the world,\n    And dispossess her all.\n  TIMON. How shall she be endow'd,\n    If she be mated with an equal husband?\n  OLD ATHENIAN. Three talents on the present; in future, all.\n  TIMON. This gentleman of mine hath serv'd me long;.\n    To build his fortune I will strain a little,\n    For 'tis a bond in men. Give him thy daughter:\n    What you bestow, in him I'll counterpoise,\n    And make him weigh with her.\n  OLD ATHENIAN. Most noble lord,\n    Pawn me to this your honour, she is his.\n  TIMON. My hand to thee; mine honour on my promise.\n  LUCILIUS. Humbly I thank your lordship. Never may\n    That state or fortune fall into my keeping\n    Which is not owed to you!\n                                Exeunt LUCILIUS and OLD ATHENIAN\n  POET. [Presenting his poem] Vouchsafe my labour, and long live your\n    lordship!\n  TIMON. I thank you; you shall hear from me anon;\n    Go not away. What have you there, my friend?\n  PAINTER. A piece of painting, which I do beseech\n    Your lordship to accept.\n  TIMON. Painting is welcome.\n    The painting is almost the natural man;\n    For since dishonour traffics with man's nature,\n    He is but outside; these pencill'd figures are\n    Even such as they give out. I like your work,\n    And you shall find I like it; wait attendance\n    Till you hear further from me.\n  PAINTER. The gods preserve ye!\n  TIMON. Well fare you, gentleman. Give me your hand;\n    We must needs dine together. Sir, your jewel\n    Hath suffered under praise.\n  JEWELLER. What, my lord! Dispraise?\n  TIMON. A mere satiety of commendations;\n    If I should pay you for't as 'tis extoll'd,\n    It would unclew me quite.\n  JEWELLER. My lord, 'tis rated\n    As those which sell would give; but you well know\n    Things of like value, differing in the owners,\n    Are prized by their masters. Believe't, dear lord,\n    You mend the jewel by the wearing it.\n  TIMON. Well mock'd.\n\n                      Enter APEMANTUS\n\n  MERCHANT. No, my good lord; he speaks the common tongue,\n    Which all men speak with him.\n  TIMON. Look who comes here; will you be chid?\n  JEWELLER. We'll bear, with your lordship.\n  MERCHANT. He'll spare none.\n  TIMON. Good morrow to thee, gentle Apemantus!\n  APEMANTUS. Till I be gentle, stay thou for thy good morrow;\n    When thou art Timon's dog, and these knaves honest.\n  TIMON. Why dost thou call them knaves? Thou know'st them not.\n  APEMANTUS. Are they not Athenians?\n  TIMON. Yes.\n  APEMANTUS. Then I repent not.\n  JEWELLER. You know me, Apemantus?\n  APEMANTUS. Thou know'st I do; I call'd thee by thy name.\n  TIMON. Thou art proud, Apemantus.\n  APEMANTUS. Of nothing so much as that I am not like Timon.\n  TIMON. Whither art going?\n  APEMANTUS. To knock out an honest Athenian's brains.\n  TIMON. That's a deed thou't die for.\n  APEMANTUS. Right, if doing nothing be death by th' law.\n  TIMON. How lik'st thou this picture, Apemantus?\n  APEMANTUS. The best, for the innocence.\n  TIMON. Wrought he not well that painted it?\n  APEMANTUS. He wrought better that made the painter; and yet he's\n    but a filthy piece of work.\n  PAINTER. Y'are a dog.\n  APEMANTUS. Thy mother's of my generation; what's she, if I be a dog?\n  TIMON. Wilt dine with me, Apemantus?\n  APEMANTUS. No; I eat not lords.\n  TIMON. An thou shouldst, thou'dst anger ladies.\n  APEMANTUS. O, they eat lords; so they come by great bellies.\n  TIMON. That's a lascivious apprehension.\n  APEMANTUS. So thou apprehend'st it take it for thy labour.\n  TIMON. How dost thou like this jewel, Apemantus?\n  APEMANTUS. Not so well as plain dealing, which will not cost a man\n    a doit.\n  TIMON. What dost thou think 'tis worth?\n  APEMANTUS. Not worth my thinking. How now, poet!\n  POET. How now, philosopher!\n  APEMANTUS. Thou liest.\n  POET. Art not one?\n  APEMANTUS. Yes.\n  POET. Then I lie not.\n  APEMANTUS. Art not a poet?\n  POET. Yes.\n  APEMANTUS. Then thou liest. Look in thy last work, where thou hast\n    feign'd him a worthy fellow.\n  POET. That's not feign'd- he is so.\n  APEMANTUS. Yes, he is worthy of thee, and to pay thee for thy\n    labour. He that loves to be flattered is worthy o' th' flatterer.\n    Heavens, that I were a lord!\n  TIMON. What wouldst do then, Apemantus?\n  APEMANTUS. E'en as Apemantus does now: hate a lord with my heart.\n  TIMON. What, thyself?\n  APEMANTUS. Ay.\n  TIMON. Wherefore?\n  APEMANTUS. That I had no angry wit to be a lord.- Art not thou a\n    merchant?\n  MERCHANT. Ay, Apemantus.\n  APEMANTUS. Traffic confound thee, if the gods will not!\n  MERCHANT. If traffic do it, the gods do it.\n  APEMANTUS. Traffic's thy god, and thy god confound thee!\n\n                Trumpet sounds. Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  TIMON. What trumpet's that?\n  MESSENGER. 'Tis Alcibiades, and some twenty horse,\n    All of companionship.\n  TIMON. Pray entertain them; give them guide to us.\n                                          Exeunt some attendants\n    You must needs dine with me. Go not you hence\n    Till I have thank'd you. When dinner's done\n    Show me this piece. I am joyful of your sights.\n\n                Enter ALCIBIADES, with the rest\n\n    Most welcome, sir!                             [They salute]\n  APEMANTUS. So, so, there!\n    Aches contract and starve your supple joints!\n    That there should be small love amongst these sweet knaves,\n    And all this courtesy! The strain of man's bred out\n    Into baboon and monkey.\n  ALCIBIADES. Sir, you have sav'd my longing, and I feed\n    Most hungerly on your sight.\n  TIMON. Right welcome, sir!\n    Ere we depart we'll share a bounteous time\n    In different pleasures. Pray you, let us in.\n                                        Exeunt all but APEMANTUS\n\n                        Enter two LORDS\n\n  FIRST LORD. What time o' day is't, Apemantus?\n  APEMANTUS. Time to be honest.\n  FIRST LORD. That time serves still.\n  APEMANTUS. The more accursed thou that still omit'st it.\n  SECOND LORD. Thou art going to Lord Timon's feast.\n  APEMANTUS. Ay; to see meat fill knaves and wine heat fools.\n  SECOND LORD. Fare thee well, fare thee well.\n  APEMANTUS. Thou art a fool to bid me farewell twice.\n  SECOND LORD. Why, Apemantus?\n  APEMANTUS. Shouldst have kept one to thyself, for I mean to give\n    thee none.\n  FIRST LORD. Hang thyself.\n  APEMANTUS. No, I will do nothing at thy bidding; make thy requests\n    to thy friend.\n  SECOND LORD. Away, unpeaceable dog, or I'll spurn thee hence.\n  APEMANTUS. I will fly, like a dog, the heels o' th' ass.  Exit\n  FIRST LORD. He's opposite to humanity. Come, shall we in\n    And taste Lord Timon's bounty? He outgoes\n    The very heart of kindness.\n  SECOND LORD. He pours it out: Plutus, the god of gold,\n    Is but his steward; no meed but he repays\n    Sevenfold above itself; no gift to him\n    But breeds the giver a return exceeding\n    All use of quittance.\n  FIRST LORD. The noblest mind he carries\n    That ever govern'd man.\n  SECOND LORD. Long may he live in fortunes! shall we in?\n  FIRST LORD. I'll keep you company.                      Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA room of state in TIMON'S house\n\nHautboys playing loud music. A great banquet serv'd in;\nFLAVIUS and others attending; and then enter LORD TIMON, the states,\nthe ATHENIAN LORDS, VENTIDIUS, which TIMON redeem'd from prison.\nThen comes, dropping after all, APEMANTUS, discontentedly, like himself\n\n  VENTIDIUS. Most honoured Timon,\n    It hath pleas'd the gods to remember my father's age,\n    And call him to long peace.\n    He is gone happy, and has left me rich.\n    Then, as in grateful virtue I am bound\n    To your free heart, I do return those talents,\n    Doubled with thanks and service, from whose help\n    I deriv'd liberty.\n  TIMON. O, by no means,\n    Honest Ventidius! You mistake my love;\n    I gave it freely ever; and there's none\n    Can truly say he gives, if he receives.\n    If our betters play at that game, we must not dare\n    To imitate them: faults that are rich are fair.\n  VENTIDIUS. A noble spirit!\n  TIMON. Nay, my lords, ceremony was but devis'd at first\n    To set a gloss on faint deeds, hollow welcomes,\n    Recanting goodness, sorry ere 'tis shown;\n    But where there is true friendship there needs none.\n    Pray, sit; more welcome are ye to my fortunes\n    Than my fortunes to me.                           [They sit]\n  FIRST LORD. My lord, we always have confess'd it.\n  APEMANTUS. Ho, ho, confess'd it! Hang'd it, have you not?\n  TIMON. O, Apemantus, you are welcome.\n  APEMANTUS. No;\n    You shall not make me welcome.\n    I come to have thee thrust me out of doors.\n  TIMON. Fie, th'art a churl; ye have got a humour there\n    Does not become a man; 'tis much to blame.\n    They say, my lords, Ira furor brevis est; but yond man is ever\n    angry. Go, let him have a table by himself; for he does neither\n    affect company nor is he fit for't indeed.\n  APEMANTUS. Let me stay at thine apperil, Timon.\n    I come to observe; I give thee warning on't.\n  TIMON. I take no heed of thee. Th'art an Athenian, therefore\n    welcome. I myself would have no power; prithee let my meat make\n    thee silent.\n  APEMANTUS. I scorn thy meat; 't'would choke me, for I should ne'er\n    flatter thee. O you gods, what a number of men eats Timon, and he\n    sees 'em not! It grieves me to see so many dip their meat in one\n    man's blood; and all the madness is, he cheers them up too.\n    I wonder men dare trust themselves with men.\n    Methinks they should invite them without knives:\n    Good for their meat and safer for their lives.\n    There's much example for't; the fellow that sits next him now,\n    parts bread with him, pledges the breath of him in a divided\n    draught, is the readiest man to kill him. 'T has been proved. If\n    I were a huge man I should fear to drink at meals.\n    Lest they should spy my windpipe's dangerous notes:\n    Great men should drink with harness on their throats.\n  TIMON. My lord, in heart! and let the health go round.\n  SECOND LORD. Let it flow this way, my good lord.\n  APEMANTUS. Flow this way! A brave fellow! He keeps his tides well.\n    Those healths will make thee and thy state look ill, Timon.\n    Here's that which is too weak to be a sinner, honest water, which\n    ne'er left man i' th' mire.\n    This and my food are equals; there's no odds.'\n    Feasts are too proud to give thanks to the gods.\n\n                  APEMANTUS' Grace\n\n           Immortal gods, I crave no pelf;\n           I pray for no man but myself.\n           Grant I may never prove so fond\n           To trust man on his oath or bond,\n           Or a harlot for her weeping,\n           Or a dog that seems a-sleeping,\n           Or a keeper with my freedom,\n           Or my friends, if I should need 'em.\n           Amen. So fall to't.\n           Rich men sin, and I eat root.       [Eats and drinks]\n\n    Much good dich thy good heart, Apemantus!\n  TIMON. Captain Alcibiades, your heart's in the field now.\n  ALCIBIADES. My heart is ever at your service, my lord.\n  TIMON. You had rather be at a breakfast of enemies than dinner of\n    friends.\n  ALCIBIADES. So they were bleeding new, my lord, there's no meat\n    like 'em; I could wish my best friend at such a feast.\n  APEMANTUS. Would all those flatterers were thine enemies then, that\n    then thou mightst kill 'em, and bid me to 'em.\n  FIRST LORD. Might we but have that happiness, my lord, that you\n    would once use our hearts, whereby we might express some part of\n    our zeals, we should think ourselves for ever perfect.\n  TIMON. O, no doubt, my good friends, but the gods themselves have\n    provided that I shall have much help from you. How had you been\n    my friends else? Why have you that charitable title from\n    thousands, did not you chiefly belong to my heart? I have told\n    more of you to myself than you can with modesty speak in your own\n    behalf; and thus far I confirm you. O you gods, think I, what\n    need we have any friends if we should ne'er have need of 'em?\n    They were the most needless creatures living, should we ne'er\n    have use for 'em; and would most resemble sweet instruments hung\n    up in cases, that keep their sounds to themselves. Why, I have\n    often wish'd myself poorer, that I might come nearer to you. We\n    are born to do benefits; and what better or properer can we call\n    our own than the riches of our friends? O, what a precious\n    comfort 'tis to have so many like brothers commanding one\n    another's fortunes! O, joy's e'en made away ere't can be born!\n    Mine eyes cannot hold out water, methinks. To forget their\n    faults, I drink to you.\n  APEMANTUS. Thou weep'st to make them drink, Timon.\n  SECOND LORD. Joy had the like conception in our eyes,\n    And at that instant like a babe sprung up.\n  APEMANTUS. Ho, ho! I laugh to think that babe a bastard.\n  THIRD LORD. I promise you, my lord, you mov'd me much.\n  APEMANTUS. Much!                                [Sound tucket]\n  TIMON. What means that trump?\n\n                        Enter a SERVANT\n\n    How now?\n  SERVANT. Please you, my lord, there are certain ladies most\n    desirous of admittance.\n  TIMON. Ladies! What are their wills?\n  SERVANT. There comes with them a forerunner, my lord, which bears\n    that office to signify their pleasures.\n  TIMON. I pray let them be admitted.\n\n                          Enter CUPID\n  CUPID. Hail to thee, worthy Timon, and to all\n    That of his bounties taste! The five best Senses\n    Acknowledge thee their patron, and come freely\n    To gratulate thy plenteous bosom. Th' Ear,\n    Taste, Touch, Smell, pleas'd from thy table rise;\n    They only now come but to feast thine eyes.\n  TIMON. They're welcome all; let 'em have kind admittance.\n    Music, make their welcome.                        Exit CUPID\n  FIRST LORD. You see, my lord, how ample y'are belov'd.\n\n      Music. Re-enter CUPID, witb a Masque of LADIES as Amazons,\n          with lutes in their hands, dancing and playing\n\n  APEMANTUS. Hoy-day, what a sweep of vanity comes this way!\n    They dance? They are mad women.\n    Like madness is the glory of this life,\n    As this pomp shows to a little oil and root.\n    We make ourselves fools to disport ourselves,\n    And spend our flatteries to drink those men\n    Upon whose age we void it up again\n    With poisonous spite and envy.\n    Who lives that's not depraved or depraves?\n    Who dies that bears not one spurn to their graves\n    Of their friends' gift?\n    I should fear those that dance before me now\n    Would one day stamp upon me. 'T has been done:\n    Men shut their doors against a setting sun.\n\n         The LORDS rise from table, with much adoring of\n        TIMON; and to show their loves, each single out an\n          Amazon, and all dance, men witb women, a lofty\n            strain or two to the hautboys, and cease\n\n  TIMON. You have done our pleasures much grace, fair ladies,\n    Set a fair fashion on our entertainment,\n    Which was not half so beautiful and kind;\n    You have added worth unto't and lustre,\n    And entertain'd me with mine own device;\n    I am to thank you for't.\n  FIRST LADY. My lord, you take us even at the best.\n  APEMANTUS. Faith, for the worst is filthy, and would not hold\n    taking, I doubt me.\n  TIMON. Ladies, there is an idle banquet attends you;\n    Please you to dispose yourselves.\n  ALL LADIES. Most thankfully, my lord.\n                                         Exeunt CUPID and LADIES\n  TIMON. Flavius!\n  FLAVIUS. My lord?\n  TIMON. The little casket bring me hither.\n  FLAVIUS. Yes, my lord. [Aside] More jewels yet!\n    There is no crossing him in's humour,\n    Else I should tell him- well i' faith, I should-\n    When all's spent, he'd be cross'd then, an he could.\n    'Tis pity bounty had not eyes behind,\n    That man might ne'er be wretched for his mind.          Exit\n  FIRST LORD. Where be our men?\n  SERVANT. Here, my lord, in readiness.\n  SECOND LORD. Our horses!\n\n               Re-enter FLAVIUS, with the casket\n\n  TIMON. O my friends,\n    I have one word to say to you. Look you, my good lord,\n    I must entreat you honour me so much\n    As to advance this jewel; accept it and wear it,\n    Kind my lord.\n  FIRST LORD. I am so far already in your gifts-\n  ALL. So are we all.\n\n                       Enter a SERVANT\n\n  SERVANT. My lord, there are certain nobles of the Senate newly\n    alighted and come to visit you.\n  TIMON. They are fairly welcome.                   Exit SERVANT\n  FLAVIUS. I beseech your honour, vouchsafe me a word; it does\n    concern you near.\n  TIMON. Near! Why then, another time I'll hear thee. I prithee let's\n    be provided to show them entertainment.\n  FLAVIUS. [Aside] I scarce know how.\n\n                     Enter another SERVANT\n\n  SECOND SERVANT. May it please vour honour, Lord Lucius, out of his\n    free love, hath presented to you four milk-white horses, trapp'd\n    in silver.\n  TIMON. I shall accept them fairly. Let the presents\n    Be worthily entertain'd.                        Exit SERVANT\n\n                      Enter a third SERVANT\n\n    How now! What news?\n  THIRD SERVANT. Please you, my lord, that honourable gentleman, Lord\n    Lucullus, entreats your company to-morrow to hunt with him and\n    has sent your honour two brace of greyhounds.\n  TIMON. I'll hunt with him; and let them be receiv'd,\n    Not without fair reward.                        Exit SERVANT\n  FLAVIUS. [Aside] What will this come to?\n    He commands us to provide and give great gifts,\n    And all out of an empty coffer;\n    Nor will he know his purse, or yield me this,\n    To show him what a beggar his heart is,\n    Being of no power to make his wishes good.\n    His promises fly so beyond his state\n    That what he speaks is all in debt; he owes\n    For ev'ry word. He is so kind that he now\n    Pays interest for't; his land's put to their books.\n    Well, would I were gently put out of office\n    Before I were forc'd out!\n    Happier is he that has no friend to feed\n    Than such that do e'en enemies exceed.\n    I bleed inwardly for my lord.                           Exit\n  TIMON. You do yourselves much wrong;\n    You bate too much of your own merits.\n    Here, my lord, a trifle of our love.\n  SECOND LORD. With more than common thanks I will receive it.\n  THIRD LORD. O, he's the very soul of bounty!\n  TIMON. And now I remember, my lord, you gave good words the other\n    day of a bay courser I rode on. 'Tis yours because you lik'd it.\n  THIRD LORD. O, I beseech you pardon me, my lord, in that.\n  TIMON. You may take my word, my lord: I know no man\n    Can justly praise but what he does affect.\n    I weigh my friend's affection with mine own.\n    I'll tell you true; I'll call to you.\n  ALL LORDS. O, none so welcome!\n  TIMON. I take all and your several visitations\n    So kind to heart 'tis not enough to give;\n    Methinks I could deal kingdoms to my friends\n    And ne'er be weary. Alcibiades,\n    Thou art a soldier, therefore seldom rich.\n    It comes in charity to thee; for all thy living\n    Is 'mongst the dead, and all the lands thou hast\n    Lie in a pitch'd field.\n  ALCIBIADES. Ay, defil'd land, my lord.\n  FIRST LORD. We are so virtuously bound-\n  TIMON. And so am I to you.\n  SECOND LORD. So infinitely endear'd-\n  TIMON. All to you. Lights, more lights!\n  FIRST LORD. The best of happiness, honour, and fortunes, keep with\n    you, Lord Timon!\n  TIMON. Ready for his friends.\n                              Exeunt all but APEMANTUS and TIMON\n  APEMANTUS. What a coil's here!\n    Serving of becks and jutting-out of bums!\n    I doubt whether their legs be worth the sums\n    That are given for 'em. Friendship's full of dregs:\n    Methinks false hearts should never have sound legs.\n    Thus honest fools lay out their wealth on curtsies.\n  TIMON. Now, Apemantus, if thou wert not sullen\n    I would be good to thee.\n  APEMANTUS. No, I'll nothing; for if I should be brib'd too, there\n    would be none left to rail upon thee, and then thou wouldst sin\n    the faster. Thou giv'st so long, Timon, I fear me thou wilt give\n    away thyself in paper shortly. What needs these feasts, pomps,\n    and vain-glories?\n  TIMON. Nay, an you begin to rail on society once, I am sworn not to\n    give regard to you. Farewell; and come with better music.\n Exit\n  APEMANTUS. So. Thou wilt not hear me now: thou shalt not then. I'll\n    lock thy heaven from thee.\n    O that men's ears should be\n    To counsel deaf, but not to flattery!                   Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nA SENATOR'S house\n\nEnter A SENATOR, with papers in his hand\n\n  SENATOR. And late, five thousand. To Varro and to Isidore\n    He owes nine thousand; besides my former sum,\n    Which makes it five and twenty. Still in motion\n    Of raging waste? It cannot hold; it will not.\n    If I want gold, steal but a beggar's dog\n    And give it Timon, why, the dog coins gold.\n    If I would sell my horse and buy twenty moe\n    Better than he, why, give my horse to Timon,\n    Ask nothing, give it him, it foals me straight,\n    And able horses. No porter at his gate,\n    But rather one that smiles and still invites\n    All that pass by. It cannot hold; no reason\n    Can sound his state in safety. Caphis, ho!\n    Caphis, I say!\n\n                         Enter CAPHIS\n\n  CAPHIS. Here, sir; what is your pleasure?\n  SENATOR. Get on your cloak and haste you to Lord Timon;\n    Importune him for my moneys; be not ceas'd\n    With slight denial, nor then silenc'd when\n    'Commend me to your master' and the cap\n    Plays in the right hand, thus; but tell him\n    My uses cry to me, I must serve my turn\n    Out of mine own; his days and times are past,\n    And my reliances on his fracted dates\n    Have smit my credit. I love and honour him,\n    But must not break my back to heal his finger.\n    Immediate are my needs, and my relief\n    Must not be toss'd and turn'd to me in words,\n    But find supply immediate. Get you gone;\n    Put on a most importunate aspect,\n    A visage of demand; for I do fear,\n    When every feather sticks in his own wing,\n    Lord Timon will be left a naked gull,\n    Which flashes now a phoenix. Get you gone.\n  CAPHIS. I go, sir.\n  SENATOR. Take the bonds along with you,\n    And have the dates in compt.\n  CAPHIS. I will, sir.\n  SENATOR. Go.                                            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBefore TIMON'S house\n\nEnter FLAVIUS, TIMON'S Steward, with many bills in his hand\n\n  FLAVIUS. No care, no stop! So senseless of expense\n    That he will neither know how to maintain it\n    Nor cease his flow of riot; takes no account\n    How things go from him, nor resumes no care\n    Of what is to continue. Never mind\n    Was to be so unwise to be so kind.\n    What shall be done? He will not hear till feel.\n    I must be round with him. Now he comes from hunting.\n    Fie, fie, fie, fie!\n\n       Enter CAPHIS, and the SERVANTS Of ISIDORE and VARRO\n\n  CAPHIS. Good even, Varro. What, you come for money?\n  VARRO'S SERVANT. Is't not your business too?\n  CAPHIS. It is. And yours too, Isidore?\n  ISIDORE'S SERVANT. It is so.\n  CAPHIS. Would we were all discharg'd!\n  VARRO'S SERVANT. I fear it.\n  CAPHIS. Here comes the lord.\n\n            Enter TIMON and his train, with ALCIBIADES\n\n  TIMON. So soon as dinner's done we'll forth again,\n    My Alcibiades.- With me? What is your will?\n  CAPHIS. My lord, here is a note of certain dues.\n  TIMON. Dues! Whence are you?\n  CAPHIS. Of Athens here, my lord.\n  TIMON. Go to my steward.\n  CAPHIS. Please it your lordship, he hath put me off\n    To the succession of new days this month.\n    My master is awak'd by great occasion\n    To call upon his own, and humbly prays you\n    That with your other noble parts you'll suit\n    In giving him his right.\n  TIMON. Mine honest friend,\n    I prithee but repair to me next morning.\n  CAPHIS. Nay, good my lord-\n  TIMON. Contain thyself, good friend.\n  VARRO'S SERVANT. One Varro's servant, my good lord-\n  ISIDORE'S SERVANT. From Isidore: he humbly prays your speedy\n    payment-\n  CAPHIS. If you did know, my lord, my master's wants-\n  VARRO'S SERVANT. 'Twas due on forfeiture, my lord, six weeks and\n    past.\n  ISIDORE'S SERVANT. Your steward puts me off, my lord; and\n    I am sent expressly to your lordship.\n  TIMON. Give me breath.\n    I do beseech you, good my lords, keep on;\n    I'll wait upon you instantly.\n                                     Exeunt ALCIBIADES and LORDS\n    [To FLAVIUS] Come hither. Pray you,\n    How goes the world that I am thus encount'red\n    With clamorous demands of date-broke bonds\n    And the detention of long-since-due debts,\n    Against my honour?\n  FLAVIUS. Please you, gentlemen,\n    The time is unagreeable to this business.\n    Your importunacy cease till after dinner,\n    That I may make his lordship understand\n    Wherefore you are not paid.\n  TIMON. Do so, my friends.\n    See them well entertain'd.                              Exit\n  FLAVIUS. Pray draw near.                                  Exit\n\n                      Enter APEMANTUS and FOOL\n\n  CAPHIS. Stay, stay, here comes the fool with Apemantus.\n    Let's ha' some sport with 'em.\n  VARRO'S SERVANT. Hang him, he'll abuse us!\n  ISIDORE'S SERVANT. A plague upon him, dog!\n  VARRO'S SERVANT. How dost, fool?\n  APEMANTUS. Dost dialogue with thy shadow?\n  VARRO'S SERVANT. I speak not to thee.\n  APEMANTUS. No, 'tis to thyself. [To the FOOL] Come away.\n  ISIDORE'S SERVANT. [To VARRO'S SERVANT] There's the fool hangs on\n    your back already.\n  APEMANTUS. No, thou stand'st single; th'art not on him yet.\n  CAPHIS. Where's the fool now?\n  APEMANTUS. He last ask'd the question. Poor rogues and usurers'\n    men! Bawds between gold and want!\n  ALL SERVANTS. What are we, Apemantus?\n  APEMANTUS. Asses.\n  ALL SERVANTS. Why?\n  APEMANTUS. That you ask me what you are, and do not know\n    yourselves. Speak to 'em, fool.\n  FOOL. How do you, gentlemen?\n  ALL SERVANTS. Gramercies, good fool. How does your mistress?\n  FOOL. She's e'en setting on water to scald such chickens as you\n    are. Would we could see you at Corinth!\n  APEMANTUS. Good! gramercy.\n\n                           Enter PAGE\n\n  FOOL. Look you, here comes my mistress' page.\n  PAGE. [To the FOOL] Why, how now, Captain? What do you in this wise\n    company? How dost thou, Apemantus?\n  APEMANTUS. Would I had a rod in my mouth, that I might answer thee\n    profitably!\n  PAGE. Prithee, Apemantus, read me the superscription of these\n    letters; I know not which is which.\n  APEMANTUS. Canst not read?\n  PAGE. No.\n  APEMANTUS. There will little learning die, then, that day thou art\n    hang'd. This is to Lord Timon; this to Alcibiades. Go; thou wast\n    born a bastard, and thou't die a bawd.\n  PAGE. Thou wast whelp'd a dog, and thou shalt famish dog's death.\n    Answer not: I am gone.                             Exit PAGE\n  APEMANTUS. E'en so thou outrun'st grace.\n    Fool, I will go with you to Lord Timon's.\n  FOOL. Will you leave me there?\n  APEMANTUS. If Timon stay at home. You three serve three usurers?\n  ALL SERVANTS. Ay; would they serv'd us!\n  APEMANTUS. So would I- as good a trick as ever hangman serv'd\n    thief.\n  FOOL. Are you three usurers' men?\n  ALL SERVANTS. Ay, fool.\n  FOOL. I think no usurer but has a fool to his servant. My mistress\n    is one, and I am her fool. When men come to borrow of your\n    masters, they approach sadly and go away merry; but they enter my\n    mistress' house merrily and go away sadly. The reason of this?\n  VARRO'S SERVANT. I could render one.\n  APEMANTUS. Do it then, that we may account thee a whoremaster and a\n    knave; which notwithstanding, thou shalt be no less esteemed.\n  VARRO'S SERVANT. What is a whoremaster, fool?\n  FOOL. A fool in good clothes, and something like thee. 'Tis a\n    spirit. Sometime 't appears like a lord; sometime like a lawyer;\n    sometime like a philosopher, with two stones moe than's\n    artificial one. He is very often like a knight; and, generally,\n    in all shapes that man goes up and down in from fourscore to\n    thirteen, this spirit walks in.\n  VARRO'S SERVANT. Thou art not altogether a fool.\n  FOOL. Nor thou altogether a wise man.\n    As much foolery as I have, so much wit thou lack'st.\n  APEMANTUS. That answer might have become Apemantus.\n  VARRO'S SERVANT. Aside, aside; here comes Lord Timon.\n\n                    Re-enter TIMON and FLAVIUS\n\n  APEMANTUS. Come with me, fool, come.\n  FOOL. I do not always follow lover, elder brother, and woman;\n    sometime the philosopher.\n                                       Exeunt APEMANTUS and FOOL\n  FLAVIUS. Pray you walk near; I'll speak with you anon.\n                                                 Exeunt SERVANTS\n  TIMON. You make me marvel wherefore ere this time\n    Had you not fully laid my state before me,\n    That I might so have rated my expense\n    As I had leave of means.\n  FLAVIUS. You would not hear me\n    At many leisures I propos'd.\n  TIMON. Go to;\n    Perchance some single vantages you took\n    When my indisposition put you back,\n    And that unaptness made your minister\n    Thus to excuse yourself.\n  FLAVIUS. O my good lord,\n    At many times I brought in my accounts,\n    Laid them before you; you would throw them off\n    And say you found them in mine honesty.\n    When, for some trifling present, you have bid me\n    Return so much, I have shook my head and wept;\n    Yea, 'gainst th' authority of manners, pray'd you\n    To hold your hand more close. I did endure\n    Not seldom, nor no slight checks, when I have\n    Prompted you in the ebb of your estate\n    And your great flow of debts. My lov'd lord,\n    Though you hear now- too late!- yet now's a time:\n    The greatest of your having lacks a half\n    To pay your present debts.\n  TIMON. Let all my land be sold.\n  FLAVIUS. 'Tis all engag'd, some forfeited and gone;\n    And what remains will hardly stop the mouth\n    Of present dues. The future comes apace;\n    What shall defend the interim? And at length\n    How goes our reck'ning?\n  TIMON. To Lacedaemon did my land extend.\n  FLAVIUS. O my good lord, the world is but a word;\n    Were it all yours to give it in a breath,\n    How quickly were it gone!\n  TIMON. You tell me true.\n  FLAVIUS. If you suspect my husbandry or falsehood,\n    Call me before th' exactest auditors\n    And set me on the proof. So the gods bless me,\n    When all our offices have been oppress'd\n    With riotous feeders, when our vaults have wept\n    With drunken spilth of wine, when every room\n    Hath blaz'd with lights and bray'd with minstrelsy,\n    I have retir'd me to a wasteful cock\n    And set mine eyes at flow.\n  TIMON. Prithee no more.\n  FLAVIUS. 'Heavens,' have I said 'the bounty of this lord!\n    How many prodigal bits have slaves and peasants\n    This night englutted! Who is not Lord Timon's?\n    What heart, head, sword, force, means, but is Lord Timon's?\n    Great Timon, noble, worthy, royal Timon!'\n    Ah! when the means are gone that buy this praise,\n    The breath is gone whereof this praise is made.\n    Feast-won, fast-lost; one cloud of winter show'rs,\n    These flies are couch'd.\n  TIMON. Come, sermon me no further.\n    No villainous bounty yet hath pass'd my heart;\n    Unwisely, not ignobly, have I given.\n    Why dost thou weep? Canst thou the conscience lack\n    To think I shall lack friends? Secure thy heart:\n    If I would broach the vessels of my love,\n    And try the argument of hearts by borrowing,\n    Men and men's fortunes could I frankly use\n    As I can bid thee speak.\n  FLAVIUS. Assurance bless your thoughts!\n  TIMON. And, in some sort, these wants of mine are crown'd\n    That I account them blessings; for by these\n    Shall I try friends. You shall perceive how you\n    Mistake my fortunes; I am wealthy in my friends.\n    Within there! Flaminius! Servilius!\n\n           Enter FLAMINIUS, SERVILIUS, and another SERVANT\n\n  SERVANTS. My lord! my lord!\n  TIMON. I will dispatch you severally- you to Lord Lucius; to Lord\n    Lucullus you; I hunted with his honour to-day. You to Sempronius.\n    Commend me to their loves; and I am proud, say, that my occasions\n    have found time to use 'em toward a supply of money. Let the\n    request be fifty talents.\n  FLAMINIUS. As you have said, my lord.          Exeunt SERVANTS\n  FLAVIUS. [Aside] Lord Lucius and Lucullus? Humh!\n  TIMON. Go you, sir, to the senators,\n    Of whom, even to the state's best health, I have\n    Deserv'd this hearing. Bid 'em send o' th' instant\n    A thousand talents to me.\n  FLAVIUS. I have been bold,\n    For that I knew it the most general way,\n    To them to use your signet and your name;\n    But they do shake their heads, and I am here\n    No richer in return.\n  TIMON. Is't true? Can't be?\n  FLAVIUS. They answer, in a joint and corporate voice,\n    That now they are at fall, want treasure, cannot\n    Do what they would, are sorry- you are honourable-\n    But yet they could have wish'd- they know not-\n    Something hath been amiss- a noble nature\n    May catch a wrench- would all were well!- 'tis pity-\n    And so, intending other serious matters,\n    After distasteful looks, and these hard fractions,\n    With certain half-caps and cold-moving nods,\n    They froze me into silence.\n  TIMON. You gods, reward them!\n    Prithee, man, look cheerly. These old fellows\n    Have their ingratitude in them hereditary.\n    Their blood is cak'd, 'tis cold, it seldom flows;\n    'Tis lack of kindly warmth they are not kind;\n    And nature, as it grows again toward earth,\n    Is fashion'd for the journey dull and heavy.\n    Go to Ventidius. Prithee be not sad,\n    Thou art true and honest; ingeniously I speak,\n    No blame belongs to thee. Ventidius lately\n    Buried his father, by whose death he's stepp'd\n    Into a great estate. When he was poor,\n    Imprison'd, and in scarcity of friends,\n    I clear'd him with five talents. Greet him from me,\n    Bid him suppose some good necessity\n    Touches his friend, which craves to be rememb'red\n    With those five talents. That had, give't these fellows\n    To whom 'tis instant due. Nev'r speak or think\n    That Timon's fortunes 'mong his friends can sink.\n  FLAVIUS. I would I could not think it.\n    That thought is bounty's foe;\n    Being free itself, it thinks all others so.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nLUCULLUS' house\n\nFLAMINIUS waiting to speak with LUCULLUS. Enter SERVANT to him\n\n  SERVANT. I have told my lord of you; he is coming down to you.\n  FLAMINIUS. I thank you, sir.\n\n                           Enter LUCULLUS\n\n  SERVANT. Here's my lord.\n  LUCULLUS. [Aside] One of Lord Timon's men? A gift, I warrant. Why,\n    this hits right; I dreamt of a silver basin and ewer to-night-\n    Flaminius, honest Flaminius, you are very respectively welcome,\n    sir. Fill me some wine. [Exit SERVANT] And how does that\n    honourable, complete, freehearted gentleman of Athens, thy very\n    bountiful good lord and master?\n  FLAMINIUS. His health is well, sir.\n  LUCULLUS. I am right glad that his health is well, sir. And what\n    hast thou there under thy cloak, pretty Flaminius?\n  FLAMINIUS. Faith, nothing but an empty box, sir, which in my lord's\n    behalf I come to entreat your honour to supply;  who, having\n    great and instant occasion to use fifty talents, hath sent to\n    your lordship to furnish him, nothing doubting your present\n    assistance therein.\n  LUCULLIUS. La, la, la, la! 'Nothing doubting' says he? Alas, good\n    lord! a noble gentleman 'tis, if he would not keep so good a\n    house. Many a time and often I ha' din'd with him and told him\n    on't; and come again to supper to him of purpose to have him\n    spend less; and yet he would embrace no counsel, take no warning\n    by my coming. Every man has his fault, and honesty is his. I ha'\n    told him on't, but I could ne'er get him from't.\n\n                    Re-enter SERVANT, with wine\n\n  SERVANT. Please your lordship, here is the wine.\n  LUCULLUS. Flaminius, I have noted thee always wise. Here's to thee.\n  FLAMINIUS. Your lordship speaks your pleasure.\n  LUCULLUS. I have observed thee always for a towardly prompt spirit,\n    give thee thy due, and one that knows what belongs to reason, and\n    canst use the time well, if the time use thee well. Good parts in\n    thee. [To SERVANT] Get you gone, sirrah. [Exit SERVANT] Draw\n    nearer, honest Flaminius. Thy lord's a bountiful gentleman; but\n    thou art wise, and thou know'st well enough, although thou com'st\n    to me, that this is no time to lend money, especially upon bare\n    friendship without security. Here's three solidares for thee.\n    Good boy, wink at me, and say thou saw'st me not. Fare thee well.\n  FLAMINIUS. Is't possible the world should so much differ,\n    And we alive that liv'd? Fly, damned baseness,\n    To him that worships thee.         [Throwing the money back]\n  LUCULLUS. Ha! Now I see thou art a fool, and fit for thy master.\n Exit\n  FLAMINIUS. May these add to the number that may scald thee!\n    Let molten coin be thy damnation,\n    Thou disease of a friend and not himself!\n    Has friendship such a faint and milky heart\n    It turns in less than two nights? O you gods,\n    I feel my master's passion! This slave\n    Unto his honour has my lord's meat in him;\n    Why should it thrive and turn to nutriment\n    When he is turn'd to poison?\n    O, may diseases only work upon't!\n    And when he's sick to death, let not that part of nature\n    Which my lord paid for be of any power\n    To expel sickness, but prolong his hour!                Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA public place\n\nEnter Lucius, with three STRANGERS\n\n  LUCIUS. Who, the Lord Timon? He is my very good friend, and an\n    honourable gentleman.\n  FIRST STRANGER. We know him for no less, though we are but\n    strangers to him. But I can tell you one thing, my lord, and\n    which I hear from common rumours: now Lord Timon's happy hours\n    are done and past, and his estate shrinks from him.\n  LUCIUS. Fie, no: do not believe it; he cannot want for money.\n  SECOND STRANGER. But believe you this, my lord, that not long ago\n     one of his men was with the Lord Lucullus to borrow so many\n    talents; nay, urg'd extremely for't, and showed what necessity\n    belong'd to't, and yet was denied.\n  LUCIUS. How?\n  SECOND STRANGER. I tell you, denied, my lord.\n  LUCIUS. What a strange case was that! Now, before the gods, I am\n    asham'd on't. Denied that honourable man! There was very little\n    honour show'd in't. For my own part, I must needs confess I have\n    received some small kindnesses from him, as money, plate, jewels,\n    and such-like trifles, nothing comparing to his; yet, had he\n    mistook him and sent to me, I should ne'er have denied his\n    occasion so many talents.\n\n                             Enter SERVILIUS\n\n  SERVILIUS. See, by good hap, yonder's my lord; I have sweat to see\n    his honour.- My honour'd lord!\n  LUCIUS. Servilius? You are kindly met, sir. Fare thee well; commend\n    me to thy honourable virtuous lord, my very exquisite friend.\n  SERVILIUS. May it please your honour, my lord hath sent-\n  LUCIUS. Ha! What has he sent? I am so much endeared to that lord:\n    he's ever sending. How shall I thank him, think'st thou? And what\n    has he sent now?\n  SERVILIUS. Has only sent his present occasion now, my lord,\n    requesting your lordship to supply his instant use with so many\n    talents.\n  LUCIUS. I know his lordship is but merry with me;\n    He cannot want fifty-five hundred talents.\n  SERVILIUS. But in the mean time he wants less, my lord.\n    If his occasion were not virtuous\n    I should not urge it half so faithfully.\n  LUCIUS. Dost thou speak seriously, Servilius?\n  SERVILIUS. Upon my soul, 'tis true, sir.\n  LUCIUS. What a wicked beast was I to disfurnish myself against such\n    a good time, when I might ha' shown myself honourable! How\n    unluckily it happ'ned that I should purchase the day before for a\n    little part and undo a great deal of honour! Servilius, now\n    before the gods, I am not able to do- the more beast, I say! I\n    was sending to use Lord Timon myself, these gentlemen can\n    witness; but I would not for the wealth of Athens I had done't\n    now. Commend me bountifully to his good lordship, and I hope his\n    honour will conceive the fairest of me, because I have no power\n    to be kind. And tell him this from me: I count it one of my\n    greatest afflictions, say, that I cannot pleasure such an\n    honourable gentleman. Good Servilius, will you befriend me so far\n    as to use mine own words to him?\n  SERVILIUS. Yes, sir, I shall.\n  LUCIUS. I'll look you out a good turn, Servilius.\n                                                  Exit SERVILIUS\n    True, as you said, Timon is shrunk indeed;\n    And he that's once denied will hardly speed.            Exit\n  FIRST STRANGER. Do you observe this, Hostilius?\n  SECOND STRANGER. Ay, too well.\n  FIRST STRANGER. Why, this is the world's soul; and just of the same\n      piece\n    Is every flatterer's spirit. Who can call him his friend\n    That dips in the same dish? For, in my knowing,\n    Timon has been this lord's father,\n    And kept his credit with his purse;\n    Supported his estate; nay, Timon's money\n    Has paid his men their wages. He ne'er drinks\n    But Timon's silver treads upon his lip;\n    And yet- O, see the monstrousness of man\n    When he looks out in an ungrateful shape!-\n    He does deny him, in respect of his,\n    What charitable men afford to beggars.\n  THIRD STRANGER. Religion groans at it.\n  FIRST STRANGER. For mine own part,\n    I never tasted Timon in my life,\n    Nor came any of his bounties over me\n    To mark me for his friend; yet I protest,\n    For his right noble mind, illustrious virtue,\n    And honourable carriage,\n    Had his necessity made use of me,\n    I would have put my wealth into donation,\n    And the best half should have return'd to him,\n    So much I love his heart. But I perceive\n    Men must learn now with pity to dispense;\n    For policy sits above conscience.                     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nSEMPRONIUS' house\n\nEnter SEMPRONIUS and a SERVANT of TIMON'S\n\n  SEMPRONIUS. Must he needs trouble me in't? Hum! 'Bove all others?\n    He might have tried Lord Lucius or Lucullus;\n    And now Ventidius is wealthy too,\n    Whom he redeem'd from prison. All these\n    Owe their estates unto him.\n  SERVANT. My lord,\n    They have all been touch'd and found base metal, for\n    They have all denied him.\n  SEMPRONIUS. How! Have they denied him?\n    Has Ventidius and Lucullus denied him?\n    And does he send to me? Three? Humh!\n    It shows but little love or judgment in him.\n    Must I be his last refuge? His friends, like physicians,\n    Thrice give him over. Must I take th' cure upon me?\n    Has much disgrac'd me in't; I'm angry at him,\n    That might have known my place. I see no sense for't,\n    But his occasions might have woo'd me first;\n    For, in my conscience, I was the first man\n    That e'er received gift from him.\n    And does he think so backwardly of me now\n    That I'll requite it last? No;\n    So it may prove an argument of laughter\n    To th' rest, and I 'mongst lords be thought a fool.\n    I'd rather than the worth of thrice the sum\n    Had sent to me first, but for my mind's sake;\n    I'd such a courage to do him good. But now return,\n    And with their faint reply this answer join:\n    Who bates mine honour shall not know my coin.           Exit\n  SERVANT. Excellent! Your lordship's a goodly villain. The devil\n    knew not what he did when he made man politic- he cross'd himself\n    by't; and I cannot think but, in the end, the villainies of man\n    will set him clear. How fairly this lord strives to appear foul!\n    Takes virtuous copies to be wicked, like those that under hot\n    ardent zeal would set whole realms on fire.\n    Of such a nature is his politic love.\n    This was my lord's best hope; now all are fled,\n    Save only the gods. Now his friends are dead,\n    Doors that were ne'er acquainted with their wards\n    Many a bounteous year must be employ'd\n    Now to guard sure their master.\n    And this is all a liberal course allows:\n    Who cannot keep his wealth must keep his house.         Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nA hall in TIMON'S house\n\nEnter two Of VARRO'S MEN, meeting LUCIUS' SERVANT, and others,\nall being servants of TIMON's creditors, to wait for his coming out.\nThen enter TITUS and HORTENSIUS\n\n  FIRST VARRO'S SERVANT. Well met; good morrow, Titus and Hortensius.\n  TITUS. The like to you, kind Varro.\n  HORTENSIUS. Lucius! What, do we meet together?\n  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Ay, and I think one business does command us all;\n    for mine is money.\n  TITUS. So is theirs and ours.\n\n                          Enter PHILOTUS\n\n  LUCIUS' SERVANT. And Sir Philotus too!\n  PHILOTUS. Good day at once.\n  LUCIUS' SERVANT. welcome, good brother, what do you think the hour?\n  PHILOTUS. Labouring for nine.\n  LUCIUS' SERVANT. So much?\n  PHILOTUS. Is not my lord seen yet?\n  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Not yet.\n  PHILOTUS. I wonder on't; he was wont to shine at seven.\n  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Ay, but the days are wax'd shorter with him;\n    You must consider that a prodigal course\n    Is like the sun's, but not like his recoverable.\n    I fear\n    'Tis deepest winter in Lord Timon's purse;\n    That is, one may reach deep enough and yet\n    Find little.\n  PHILOTUS. I am of your fear for that.\n  TITUS. I'll show you how t' observe a strange event.\n    Your lord sends now for money.\n  HORTENSIUS. Most true, he does.\n  TITUS. And he wears jewels now of Timon's gift,\n    For which I wait for money.\n  HORTENSIUS. It is against my heart.\n  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Mark how strange it shows\n    Timon in this should pay more than he owes;\n    And e'en as if your lord should wear rich jewels\n    And send for money for 'em.\n  HORTENSIUS. I'm weary of this charge, the gods can witness;\n    I know my lord hath spent of Timon's wealth,\n    And now ingratitude makes it worse than stealth.\n  FIRST VARRO'S SERVANT. Yes, mine's three thousand crowns; what's\n    yours?\n  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Five thousand mine.\n  FIRST VARRO'S SERVANT. 'Tis much deep; and it should seem by th'\n      sum\n    Your master's confidence was above mine,\n    Else surely his had equall'd.\n\n                           Enter FLAMINIUS\n\n  TITUS. One of Lord Timon's men.\n  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Flaminius! Sir, a word. Pray, is my lord ready to\n    come forth?\n  FLAMINIUS. No, indeed, he is not.\n  TITUS. We attend his lordship; pray signify so much.\n  FLAMINIUS. I need not tell him that; he knows you are to diligent.\n Exit\n\n                 Enter FLAVIUS, in a cloak, muffled\n\n  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Ha! Is not that his steward muffled so?\n    He goes away in a cloud. Call him, call him.\n  TITUS. Do you hear, sir?\n  SECOND VARRO'S SERVANT. By your leave, sir.\n  FLAVIUS. What do ye ask of me, my friend?\n  TITUS. We wait for certain money here, sir.\n  FLAVIUS. Ay,\n    If money were as certain as your waiting,\n    'Twere sure enough.\n    Why then preferr'd you not your sums and bills\n    When your false masters eat of my lord's meat?\n    Then they could smile, and fawn upon his debts,\n    And take down th' int'rest into their glutt'nous maws.\n    You do yourselves but wrong to stir me up;\n    Let me pass quietly.\n    Believe't, my lord and I have made an end:\n    I have no more to reckon, he to spend.\n  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Ay, but this answer will not serve.\n  FLAVIUS. If 'twill not serve, 'tis not so base as you,\n    For you serve knaves.                                   Exit\n  FIRST VARRO'S SERVANT. How! What does his cashier'd worship mutter?\n  SECOND VARRO'S SERVANT. No matter what; he's poor, and that's\n    revenge enough. Who can speak broader than he that has no house\n    to put his head in? Such may rail against great buildings.\n\n                          Enter SERVILIUS\n\n  TITUS. O, here's Servilius; now we shall know some answer.\n  SERVILIUS. If I might beseech you, gentlemen, to repair some other\n    hour, I should derive much from't; for take't of my soul, my lord\n    leans wondrously to discontent. His comfortable temper has\n    forsook him; he's much out of health and keeps his chamber.\n  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Many do keep their chambers are not sick;\n    And if it be so far beyond his health,\n    Methinks he should the sooner pay his debts,\n    And make a clear way to the gods.\n  SERVILIUS. Good gods!\n  TITUS. We cannot take this for answer, sir.\n  FLAMINIUS. [Within] Servilius, help! My lord! my lord!\n\n           Enter TIMON, in a rage, FLAMINIUS following\n\n  TIMON. What, are my doors oppos'd against my passage?\n    Have I been ever free, and must my house\n    Be my retentive enemy, my gaol?\n    The place which I have feasted, does it now,\n    Like all mankind, show me an iron heart?\n  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Put in now, Titus.\n  TITUS. My lord, here is my bill.\n  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Here's mine.\n  HORTENSIUS. And mine, my lord.\n  BOTH VARRO'S SERVANTS. And ours, my lord.\n  PHILOTUS. All our bills.\n  TIMON. Knock me down with 'em; cleave me to the girdle.\n  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Alas, my lord-\n  TIMON. Cut my heart in sums.\n  TITUS. Mine, fifty talents.\n  TIMON. Tell out my blood.\n  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Five thousand crowns, my lord.\n  TIMON. Five thousand drops pays that. What yours? and yours?\n  FIRST VARRO'S SERVANT. My lord-\n  SECOND VARRO'S SERVANT. My lord-\n  TIMON. Tear me, take me, and the gods fall upon you!      Exit\n  HORTENSIUS. Faith, I perceive our masters may throw their caps at\n    their money. These debts may well be call'd desperate ones, for a\n    madman owes 'em.                                      Exeunt\n\n                    Re-enter TIMON and FLAVIUS\n\n  TIMON. They have e'en put my breath from me, the slaves.\n    Creditors? Devils!\n  FLAVIUS. My dear lord-\n  TIMON. What if it should be so?\n  FLAMINIUS. My lord-\n  TIMON. I'll have it so. My steward!\n  FLAVIUS. Here, my lord.\n  TIMON. So fitly? Go, bid all my friends again:\n    Lucius, Lucullus, and Sempronius- all.\n    I'll once more feast the rascals.\n  FLAVIUS. O my lord,\n    You only speak from your distracted soul;\n    There is not so much left to furnish out\n    A moderate table.\n  TIMON. Be it not in thy care.\n    Go, I charge thee, invite them all; let in the tide\n    Of knaves once more; my cook and I'll provide.        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nThe Senate House\n\nEnter three SENATORS at one door, ALCIBIADES meeting them, with attendants\n\n  FIRST SENATOR. My lord, you have my voice to't: the fault's bloody.\n    'Tis necessary he should die:\n    Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.\n  SECOND SENATOR. Most true; the law shall bruise him.\n  ALCIBIADES. Honour, health, and compassion, to the Senate!\n  FIRST SENATOR. Now, Captain?\n  ALCIBIADES. I am an humble suitor to your virtues;\n    For pity is the virtue of the law,\n    And none but tyrants use it cruelly.\n    It pleases time and fortune to lie heavy\n    Upon a friend of mine, who in hot blood\n    Hath stepp'd into the law, which is past depth\n    To those that without heed do plunge into't.\n    He is a man, setting his fate aside,\n    Of comely virtues;\n    Nor did he soil the fact with cowardice-\n    An honour in him which buys out his fault-\n    But with a noble fury and fair spirit,\n    Seeing his reputation touch'd to death,\n    He did oppose his foe;\n    And with such sober and unnoted passion\n    He did behove his anger ere 'twas spent,\n    As if he had but prov'd an argument.\n  FIRST SENATOR. You undergo too strict a paradox,\n    Striving to make an ugly deed look fair;\n    Your words have took such pains as if they labour'd\n    To bring manslaughter into form and set\n    Quarrelling upon the head of valour; which, indeed,\n    Is valour misbegot, and came into the world\n    When sects and factions were newly born.\n    He's truly valiant that can wisely suffer\n    The worst that man can breathe,\n    And make his wrongs his outsides,\n    To wear them like his raiment, carelessly,\n    And ne'er prefer his injuries to his heart,\n    To bring it into danger.\n    If wrongs be evils, and enforce us kill,\n    What folly 'tis to hazard life for ill!\n  ALCIBIADES. My lord-\n  FIRST SENATOR. You cannot make gross sins look clear:\n    To revenge is no valour, but to bear.\n  ALCIBIADES. My lords, then, under favour, pardon me\n    If I speak like a captain:\n    Why do fond men expose themselves to battle,\n    And not endure all threats? Sleep upon't,\n    And let the foes quietly cut their throats,\n    Without repugnancy? If there be\n    Such valour in the bearing, what make we\n    Abroad? Why, then, women are more valiant,\n    That stay at home, if bearing carry it;\n    And the ass more captain than the lion; the fellow\n    Loaden with irons wiser than the judge,\n    If wisdom be in suffering. O my lords,\n    As you are great, be pitifully good.\n    Who cannot condemn rashness in cold blood?\n    To kill, I grant, is sin's extremest gust;\n    But, in defence, by mercy, 'tis most just.\n    To be in anger is impiety;\n    But who is man that is not angry?\n    Weigh but the crime with this.\n  SECOND SENATOR. You breathe in vain.\n  ALCIBIADES. In vain! His service done\n    At Lacedaemon and Byzantium\n    Were a sufficient briber for his life.\n  FIRST SENATOR. What's that?\n  ALCIBIADES. Why, I say, my lords, has done fair service,\n    And slain in fight many of your enemies;\n    How full of valour did he bear himself\n    In the last conflict, and made plenteous wounds!\n  SECOND SENATOR. He has made too much plenty with 'em.\n    He's a sworn rioter; he has a sin that often\n    Drowns him and takes his valour prisoner.\n    If there were no foes, that were enough\n    To overcome him. In that beastly fury\n    He has been known to commit outrages\n    And cherish factions. 'Tis inferr'd to us\n    His days are foul and his drink dangerous.\n  FIRST SENATOR. He dies.\n  ALCIBIADES. Hard fate! He might have died in war.\n    My lords, if not for any parts in him-\n    Though his right arm might purchase his own time,\n    And be in debt to none- yet, more to move you,\n    Take my deserts to his, and join 'em both;\n    And, for I know your reverend ages love\n    Security, I'll pawn my victories, all\n    My honours to you, upon his good returns.\n    If by this crime he owes the law his life,\n    Why, let the war receive't in valiant gore;\n    For law is strict, and war is nothing more.\n  FIRST SENATOR. We are for law: he dies. Urge it no more\n    On height of our displeasure. Friend or brother,\n    He forfeits his own blood that spills another.\n  ALCIBIADES. Must it be so? It must not be. My lords,\n    I do beseech you, know me.\n  SECOND SENATOR. How!\n  ALCIBIADES. Call me to your remembrances.\n  THIRD SENATOR. What!\n  ALCIBIADES. I cannot think but your age has forgot me;\n    It could not else be I should prove so base\n    To sue, and be denied such common grace.\n    My wounds ache at you.\n  FIRST SENATOR. Do you dare our anger?\n    'Tis in few words, but spacious in effect:\n    We banish thee for ever.\n  ALCIBIADES. Banish me!\n    Banish your dotage! Banish usury\n    That makes the Senate ugly.\n  FIRST SENATOR. If after two days' shine Athens contain thee,\n    Attend our weightier judgment. And, not to swell our spirit,\n    He shall be executed presently.              Exeunt SENATORS\n  ALCIBIADES. Now the gods keep you old enough that you may live\n    Only in bone, that none may look on you!\n    I'm worse than mad; I have kept back their foes,\n    While they have told their money and let out\n    Their coin upon large interest, I myself\n    Rich only in large hurts. All those for this?\n    Is this the balsam that the usuring Senate\n    Pours into captains' wounds? Banishment!\n    It comes not ill; I hate not to be banish'd;\n    It is a cause worthy my spleen and fury,\n    That I may strike at Athens. I'll cheer up\n    My discontented troops, and lay for hearts.\n    'Tis honour with most lands to be at odds;\n    Soldiers should brook as little wrongs as gods.         Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nA banqueting hall in TIMON'S house\n\nMusic. Tables set out; servants attending. Enter divers LORDS,\nfriends of TIMON, at several doors\n\n  FIRST LORD. The good time of day to you, sir.\n  SECOND LORD. I also wish it to you. I think this honourable lord\n    did but try us this other day.\n  FIRST LORD. Upon that were my thoughts tiring when we encount'red.\n    I hope it is not so low with him as he made it seem in the trial\n    of his several friends.\n  SECOND LORD. It should not be, by the persuasion of his new\n    feasting.\n  FIRST LORD. I should think so. He hath sent me an earnest inviting,\n    which many my near occasions did urge me to put off; but he hath\n    conjur'd me beyond them, and I must needs appear.\n  SECOND LORD. In like manner was I in debt to my importunate\n    business, but he would not hear my excuse. I am sorry, when he\n    sent to borrow of me, that my provision was out.\n  FIRST LORD. I am sick of that grief too, as I understand how all\n    things go.\n  SECOND LORD. Every man here's so. What would he have borrowed of\n    you?\n  FIRST LORD. A thousand pieces.\n  SECOND LORD. A thousand pieces!\n  FIRST LORD. What of you?\n  SECOND LORD. He sent to me, sir- here he comes.\n\n                   Enter TIMON and attendants\n\n  TIMON. With all my heart, gentlemen both! And how fare you?\n  FIRST LORD. Ever at the best, hearing well of your lordship.\n  SECOND LORD. The swallow follows not summer more willing than we\n    your lordship.\n  TIMON. [Aside] Nor more willingly leaves winter; such summer-birds\n    are men- Gentlemen, our dinner will not recompense this long\n    stay; feast your ears with the music awhile, if they will fare so\n    harshly o' th' trumpet's sound; we shall to't presently.\n  FIRST LORD. I hope it remains not unkindly with your lordship that\n    I return'd you an empty messenger.\n  TIMON. O sir, let it not trouble you.\n  SECOND LORD. My noble lord-\n  TIMON. Ah, my good friend, what cheer?\n  SECOND LORD. My most honourable lord, I am e'en sick of shame that,\n    when your lordship this other day sent to me, I was so\n    unfortunate a beggar.\n  TIMON. Think not on't, sir.\n  SECOND LORD. If you had sent but two hours before-\n  TIMON. Let it not cumber your better remembrance. [The banquet\n    brought in] Come, bring in all together.\n  SECOND LORD. All cover'd dishes!\n  FIRST LORD. Royal cheer, I warrant you.\n  THIRD LORD. Doubt not that, if money and the season can yield it.\n  FIRST LORD. How do you? What's the news?\n  THIRD LORD. Alcibiades is banish'd. Hear you of it?\n  FIRST AND SECOND LORDS. Alcibiades banish'd!\n  THIRD LORD. 'Tis so, be sure of it.\n  FIRST LORD. How? how?\n  SECOND LORD. I pray you, upon what?\n  TIMON. My worthy friends, will you draw near?\n  THIRD LORD. I'll tell you more anon. Here's a noble feast toward.\n  SECOND LORD. This is the old man still.\n  THIRD LORD. Will't hold? Will't hold?\n  SECOND LORD. It does; but time will- and so-\n  THIRD LORD. I do conceive.\n  TIMON. Each man to his stool with that spur as he would to the lip\n    of his mistress; your diet shall be in all places alike. Make not\n    a city feast of it, to let the meat cool ere we can agree upon\n    the first place. Sit, sit. The gods require our thanks:\n\n    You great benefactors, sprinkle our society with thankfulness.\n    For your own gifts make yourselves prais'd; but reserve still to\n    give, lest your deities be despised. Lend to each man enough,\n    that one need not lend to another; for were your god-heads to\n    borrow of men, men would forsake the gods. Make the meat be\n    beloved more than the man that gives it. Let no assembly of\n    twenty be without a score of villains. If there sit twelve women\n    at the table, let a dozen of them be- as they are. The rest of\n    your foes, O gods, the senators of Athens, together with the\n    common lag of people, what is amiss in them, you gods, make\n    suitable for destruction. For these my present friends, as they\n    are to me nothing, so in nothing bless them, and to nothing are\n    they welcome.\n\n    Uncover, dogs, and lap.        [The dishes are uncovered and\n                                  seen to he full of warm water]\n  SOME SPEAK. What does his lordship mean?\n  SOME OTHER. I know not.\n  TIMON. May you a better feast never behold,\n    You knot of mouth-friends! Smoke and lukewarm water\n    Is your perfection. This is Timon's last;\n    Who, stuck and spangled with your flatteries,\n    Washes it off, and sprinkles in your faces\n                             [Throwing the water in their faces]\n    Your reeking villainy. Live loath'd and long,\n    Most smiling, smooth, detested parasites,\n    Courteous destroyers, affable wolves, meek bears,\n    You fools of fortune, trencher friends, time's flies,\n    Cap and knee slaves, vapours, and minute-lacks!\n    Of man and beast the infinite malady\n    Crust you quite o'er! What, dost thou go?\n    Soft, take thy physic first; thou too, and thou.\n    Stay, I will lend thee money, borrow none.       [Throws the\n                            dishes at them, and drives them out]\n    What, all in motion? Henceforth be no feast\n    Whereat a villain's not a welcome guest.\n    Burn house! Sink Athens! Henceforth hated be\n    Of Timon man and all humanity!                          Exit\n\n                           Re-enter the LORDS\n\n  FIRST LORD. How now, my lords!\n  SECOND LORD. Know you the quality of Lord Timon's fury?\n  THIRD LORD. Push! Did you see my cap?\n  FOURTH LORD. I have lost my gown.\n  FIRST LORD. He's but a mad lord, and nought but humours sways him.\n    He gave me a jewel th' other day, and now he has beat it out of\n    my hat. Did you see my jewel?\n  THIRD LORD. Did you see my cap?\n  SECOND LORD. Here 'tis.\n  FOURTH LORD. Here lies my gown.\n  FIRST LORD. Let's make no stay.\n  SECOND LORD. Lord Timon's mad.\n  THIRD LORD. I feel't upon my bones.\n  FOURTH LORD. One day he gives us diamonds, next day stones.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nWithout the walls of Athens\n\nEnter TIMON\n\n  TIMON. Let me look back upon thee. O thou wall\n    That girdles in those wolves, dive in the earth\n    And fence not Athens! Matrons, turn incontinent.\n    Obedience, fail in children! Slaves and fools,\n    Pluck the grave wrinkled Senate from the bench\n    And minister in their steads. To general filths\n    Convert, o' th' instant, green virginity.\n    Do't in your parents' eyes. Bankrupts, hold fast;\n    Rather than render back, out with your knives\n    And cut your trusters' throats. Bound servants, steal:\n    Large-handed robbers your grave masters are,\n    And pill by law. Maid, to thy master's bed:\n    Thy mistress is o' th' brothel. Son of sixteen,\n    Pluck the lin'd crutch from thy old limping sire,\n    With it beat out his brains. Piety and fear,\n    Religion to the gods, peace, justice, truth,\n    Domestic awe, night-rest, and neighbourhood,\n    Instruction, manners, mysteries, and trades,\n    Degrees, observances, customs and laws,\n    Decline to your confounding contraries\n    And let confusion live. Plagues incident to men,\n    Your potent and infectious fevers heap\n    On Athens, ripe for stroke. Thou cold sciatica,\n    Cripple our senators, that their limbs may halt\n    As lamely as their manners. Lust and liberty,\n    Creep in the minds and marrows of our youth,\n    That 'gainst the stream of virtue they may strive\n    And drown themselves in riot. Itches, blains,\n    Sow all th' Athenian bosoms, and their crop\n    Be general leprosy! Breath infect breath,\n    That their society, as their friendship, may\n    Be merely poison! Nothing I'll bear from thee\n    But nakedness, thou detestable town!\n    Take thou that too, with multiplying bans.\n    Timon will to the woods, where he shall find\n    Th' unkindest beast more kinder than mankind.\n    The gods confound- hear me, you good gods all-\n    The Athenians both within and out that wall!\n    And grant, as Timon grows, his hate may grow\n    To the whole race of mankind, high and low!\n    Amen.                                                   Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nAthens. TIMON's house\n\nEnter FLAVIUS, with two or three SERVANTS\n\n  FIRST SERVANT. Hear you, Master Steward, where's our master?\n    Are we undone, cast off, nothing remaining?\n  FLAVIUS. Alack, my fellows, what should I say to you?\n    Let me be recorded by the righteous gods,\n    I am as poor as you.\n  FIRST SERVANT. Such a house broke!\n    So noble a master fall'n! All gone, and not\n    One friend to take his fortune by the arm\n    And go along with him?\n  SECOND SERVANT. As we do turn our backs\n    From our companion, thrown into his grave,\n    So his familiars to his buried fortunes\n    Slink all away; leave their false vows with him,\n    Like empty purses pick'd; and his poor self,\n    A dedicated beggar to the air,\n    With his disease of all-shunn'd poverty,\n    Walks, like contempt, alone. More of our fellows.\n\n                     Enter other SERVANTS\n\n  FLAVIUS. All broken implements of a ruin'd house.\n  THIRD SERVANT. Yet do our hearts wear Timon's livery;\n    That see I by our faces. We are fellows still,\n    Serving alike in sorrow. Leak'd is our bark;\n    And we, poor mates, stand on the dying deck,\n    Hearing the surges threat. We must all part\n    Into this sea of air.\n  FLAVIUS. Good fellows all,\n    The latest of my wealth I'll share amongst you.\n    Wherever we shall meet, for Timon's sake,\n    Let's yet be fellows; let's shake our heads and say,\n    As 'twere a knell unto our master's fortune,\n    'We have seen better days.' Let each take some.\n                                             [Giving them money]\n    Nay, put out all your hands. Not one word more!\n    Thus part we rich in sorrow, parting poor.\n                                [Embrace, and part several ways]\n    O the fierce wretchedness that glory brings us!\n    Who would not wish to be from wealth exempt,\n    Since riches point to misery and contempt?\n    Who would be so mock'd with glory, or to live\n    But in a dream of friendship,\n    To have his pomp, and all what state compounds,\n    But only painted, like his varnish'd friends?\n    Poor honest lord, brought low by his own heart,\n    Undone by goodness! Strange, unusual blood,\n    When man's worst sin is he does too much good!\n    Who then dares to be half so kind again?\n    For bounty, that makes gods, does still mar men.\n    My dearest lord- blest to be most accurst,\n    Rich only to be wretched- thy great fortunes\n    Are made thy chief afflictions. Alas, kind lord!\n    He's flung in rage from this ingrateful seat\n    Of monstrous friends; nor has he with him to\n    Supply his life, or that which can command it.\n    I'll follow and enquire him out.\n    I'll ever serve his mind with my best will;\n    Whilst I have gold, I'll be his steward still.          Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe woods near the sea-shore. Before TIMON'S cave\n\nEnter TIMON in the woods\n\n  TIMON. O blessed breeding sun, draw from the earth\n    Rotten humidity; below thy sister's orb\n    Infect the air! Twinn'd brothers of one womb-\n    Whose procreation, residence, and birth,\n    Scarce is dividant- touch them with several fortunes:\n    The greater scorns the lesser. Not nature,\n    To whom all sores lay siege, can bear great fortune\n    But by contempt of nature.\n    Raise me this beggar and deny't that lord:\n    The senator shall bear contempt hereditary,\n    The beggar native honour.\n    It is the pasture lards the rother's sides,\n    The want that makes him lean. Who dares, who dares,\n    In purity of manhood stand upright,\n    And say 'This man's a flatterer'? If one be,\n    So are they all; for every grise of fortune\n    Is smooth'd by that below. The learned pate\n    Ducks to the golden fool. All's oblique;\n    There's nothing level in our cursed natures\n    But direct villainy. Therefore be abhorr'd\n    All feasts, societies, and throngs of men!\n    His semblable, yea, himself, Timon disdains.\n    Destruction fang mankind! Earth, yield me roots.\n                                                       [Digging]\n    Who seeks for better of thee, sauce his palate\n    With thy most operant poison. What is here?\n    Gold? Yellow, glittering, precious gold? No, gods,\n    I am no idle votarist. Roots, you clear heavens!\n    Thus much of this will make black white, foul fair,\n    Wrong right, base noble, old young, coward valiant.\n    Ha, you gods! why this? What, this, you gods? Why, this\n    Will lug your priests and servants from your sides,\n    Pluck stout men's pillows from below their heads-\n    This yellow slave\n    Will knit and break religions, bless th' accurs'd,\n    Make the hoar leprosy ador'd, place thieves\n    And give them title, knee, and approbation,\n    With senators on the bench. This is it\n    That makes the wappen'd widow wed again-\n    She whom the spital-house and ulcerous sores\n    Would cast the gorge at this embalms and spices\n    To th 'April day again. Come, damn'd earth,\n    Thou common whore of mankind, that puts odds\n    Among the rout of nations, I will make thee\n    Do thy right nature.                        [March afar off]\n    Ha! a drum? Th'art quick,\n    But yet I'll bury thee. Thou't go, strong thief,\n    When gouty keepers of thee cannot stand.\n    Nay, stay thou out for earnest.          [Keeping some gold]\n\n          Enter ALCIBIADES, with drum and fife, in warlike\n                  manner; and PHRYNIA and TIMANDRA\n\n  ALCIBIADES. What art thou there? Speak.\n  TIMON. A beast, as thou art. The canker gnaw thy heart\n    For showing me again the eyes of man!\n  ALCIBIADES. What is thy name? Is man so hateful to thee\n    That art thyself a man?\n  TIMON. I am Misanthropos, and hate mankind.\n    For thy part, I do wish thou wert a dog,\n    That I might love thee something.\n  ALCIBIADES. I know thee well;\n    But in thy fortunes am unlearn'd and strange.\n  TIMON. I know thee too; and more than that I know thee\n    I not desire to know. Follow thy drum;\n    With man's blood paint the ground, gules, gules.\n    Religious canons, civil laws, are cruel;\n    Then what should war be? This fell whore of thine\n    Hath in her more destruction than thy sword\n    For all her cherubin look.\n  PHRYNIA. Thy lips rot off!\n  TIMON. I will not kiss thee; then the rot returns\n    To thine own lips again.\n  ALCIBIADES. How came the noble Timon to this change?\n  TIMON. As the moon does, by wanting light to give.\n    But then renew I could not, like the moon;\n    There were no suns to borrow of.\n  ALCIBIADES. Noble Timon,\n    What friendship may I do thee?\n  TIMON. None, but to\n    Maintain my opinion.\n  ALCIBIADES. What is it, Timon?\n  TIMON. Promise me friendship, but perform none. If thou wilt not\n    promise, the gods plague thee, for thou art man! If thou dost\n    perform, confound thee, for thou art a man!\n  ALCIBIADES. I have heard in some sort of thy miseries.\n  TIMON. Thou saw'st them when I had prosperity.\n  ALCIBIADES. I see them now; then was a blessed time.\n  TIMON. As thine is now, held with a brace of harlots.\n  TIMANDRA. Is this th' Athenian minion whom the world\n    Voic'd so regardfully?\n  TIMON. Art thou Timandra?\n  TIMANDRA. Yes.\n  TIMON. Be a whore still; they love thee not that use thee.\n    Give them diseases, leaving with thee their lust.\n    Make use of thy salt hours. Season the slaves\n    For tubs and baths; bring down rose-cheek'd youth\n    To the tub-fast and the diet.\n  TIMANDRA. Hang thee, monster!\n  ALCIBIADES. Pardon him, sweet Timandra, for his wits\n    Are drown'd and lost in his calamities.\n    I have but little gold of late, brave Timon,\n    The want whereof doth daily make revolt\n    In my penurious band. I have heard, and griev'd,\n    How cursed Athens, mindless of thy worth,\n    Forgetting thy great deeds, when neighbour states,\n    But for thy sword and fortune, trod upon them-\n  TIMON. I prithee beat thy drum and get thee gone.\n  ALCIBIADES. I am thy friend, and pity thee, dear Timon.\n  TIMON. How dost thou pity him whom thou dost trouble?\n    I had rather be alone.\n  ALCIBIADES. Why, fare thee well;\n    Here is some gold for thee.\n  TIMON. Keep it: I cannot eat it.\n  ALCIBIADES. When I have laid proud Athens on a heap-\n  TIMON. War'st thou 'gainst Athens?\n  ALCIBIADES. Ay, Timon, and have cause.\n  TIMON. The gods confound them all in thy conquest;\n    And thee after, when thou hast conquer'd!\n  ALCIBIADES. Why me, Timon?\n  TIMON. That by killing of villains\n    Thou wast born to conquer my country.\n    Put up thy gold. Go on. Here's gold. Go on.\n    Be as a planetary plague, when Jove\n    Will o'er some high-vic'd city hang his poison\n    In the sick air; let not thy sword skip one.\n    Pity not honour'd age for his white beard:\n    He is an usurer. Strike me the counterfeit matron:\n    It is her habit only that is honest,\n    Herself's a bawd. Let not the virgin's cheek\n    Make soft thy trenchant sword; for those milk paps\n    That through the window bars bore at men's eyes\n    Are not within the leaf of pity writ,\n    But set them down horrible traitors. Spare not the babe\n    Whose dimpled smiles from fools exhaust their mercy;\n    Think it a bastard whom the oracle\n    Hath doubtfully pronounc'd thy throat shall cut,\n    And mince it sans remorse. Swear against abjects;\n    Put armour on thine ears and on thine eyes,\n    Whose proof nor yells of mothers, maids, nor babes,\n    Nor sight of priests in holy vestments bleeding,\n    Shall pierce a jot. There's gold to pay thy soldiers.\n    Make large confusion; and, thy fury spent,\n    Confounded be thyself! Speak not, be gone.\n  ALCIBIADES. Hast thou gold yet? I'll take the gold thou givest me,\n    Not all thy counsel.\n  TIMON. Dost thou, or dost thou not, heaven's curse upon thee!\n  PHRYNIA AND TIMANDRA. Give us some gold, good Timon.\n    Hast thou more?\n  TIMON. Enough to make a whore forswear her trade,\n    And to make whores a bawd. Hold up, you sluts,\n    Your aprons mountant; you are not oathable,\n    Although I know you'll swear, terribly swear,\n    Into strong shudders and to heavenly agues,\n    Th' immortal gods that hear you. Spare your oaths;\n    I'll trust to your conditions. Be whores still;\n    And he whose pious breath seeks to convert you-\n    Be strong in whore, allure him, burn him up;\n    Let your close fire predominate his smoke,\n    And be no turncoats. Yet may your pains six months\n    Be quite contrary! And thatch your poor thin roofs\n    With burdens of the dead- some that were hang'd,\n    No matter. Wear them, betray with them. Whore still;\n    Paint till a horse may mire upon your face.\n    A pox of wrinkles!\n  PHRYNIA AND TIMANDRA. Well, more gold. What then?\n    Believe't that we'll do anything for gold.\n  TIMON. Consumptions sow\n    In hollow bones of man; strike their sharp shins,\n    And mar men's spurring. Crack the lawyer's voice,\n    That he may never more false title plead,\n    Nor sound his quillets shrilly. Hoar the flamen,\n    That scolds against the quality of flesh\n    And not believes himself. Down with the nose,\n    Down with it flat, take the bridge quite away\n    Of him that, his particular to foresee,\n    Smells from the general weal. Make curl'd-pate ruffians bald,\n    And let the unscarr'd braggarts of the war\n    Derive some pain from you. Plague all,\n    That your activity may defeat and quell\n    The source of all erection. There's more gold.\n    Do you damn others, and let this damn you,\n    And ditches grave you all!\n  PHRYNIA AND TIMANDRA. More counsel with more money, bounteous\n    Timon.\n  TIMON. More whore, more mischief first; I have given you earnest.\n  ALCIBIADES. Strike up the drum towards Athens. Farewell, Timon;\n    If I thrive well, I'll visit thee again.\n  TIMON. If I hope well, I'll never see thee more.\n  ALCIBIADES. I never did thee harm.\n  TIMON. Yes, thou spok'st well of me.\n  ALCIBIADES. Call'st thou that harm?\n  TIMON. Men daily find it. Get thee away, and take\n    Thy beagles with thee.\n  ALCIBIADES. We but offend him. Strike.\n                                Drum beats. Exeunt all but TIMON\n  TIMON. That nature, being sick of man's unkindness,\n    Should yet be hungry! Common mother, thou,         [Digging]\n    Whose womb unmeasurable and infinite breast\n    Teems and feeds all; whose self-same mettle,\n    Whereof thy proud child, arrogant man, is puff'd,\n    Engenders the black toad and adder blue,\n    The gilded newt and eyeless venom'd worm,\n    With all th' abhorred births below crisp heaven\n    Whereon Hyperion's quick'ning fire doth shine-\n    Yield him, who all thy human sons doth hate,\n    From forth thy plenteous bosom, one poor root!\n    Ensear thy fertile and conceptious womb,\n    Let it no more bring out ingrateful man!\n    Go great with tigers, dragons, wolves, and bears;\n    Teem with new monsters whom thy upward face\n    Hath to the marbled mansion all above\n    Never presented!- O, a root! Dear thanks!-\n    Dry up thy marrows, vines, and plough-torn leas,\n    Whereof ingrateful man, with liquorish draughts\n    And morsels unctuous, greases his pure mind,\n    That from it all consideration slips-\n\n                        Enter APEMANTUS\n\n    More man? Plague, plague!\n  APEMANTUS. I was directed hither. Men report\n    Thou dost affect my manners and dost use them.\n  TIMON. 'Tis, then, because thou dost not keep a dog,\n    Whom I would imitate. Consumption catch thee!\n  APEMANTUS. This is in thee a nature but infected,\n    A poor unmanly melancholy sprung\n    From change of fortune. Why this spade, this place?\n    This slave-like habit and these looks of care?\n    Thy flatterers yet wear silk, drink wine, lie soft,\n    Hug their diseas'd perfumes, and have forgot\n    That ever Timon was. Shame not these woods\n    By putting on the cunning of a carper.\n    Be thou a flatterer now, and seek to thrive\n    By that which has undone thee: hinge thy knee,\n    And let his very breath whom thou'lt observe\n    Blow off thy cap; praise his most vicious strain,\n    And call it excellent. Thou wast told thus;\n    Thou gav'st thine ears, like tapsters that bade welcome,\n    To knaves and all approachers. 'Tis most just\n    That thou turn rascal; hadst thou wealth again\n    Rascals should have't. Do not assume my likeness.\n  TIMON. Were I like thee, I'd throw away myself.\n  APEMANTUS. Thou hast cast away thyself, being like thyself;\n    A madman so long, now a fool. What, think'st\n    That the bleak air, thy boisterous chamberlain,\n    Will put thy shirt on warm? Will these moist trees,\n    That have outliv'd the eagle, page thy heels\n    And skip when thou point'st out? Will the cold brook,\n    Candied with ice, caudle thy morning taste\n    To cure thy o'ernight's surfeit? Call the creatures\n    Whose naked natures live in all the spite\n    Of wreakful heaven, whose bare unhoused trunks,\n    To the conflicting elements expos'd,\n    Answer mere nature- bid them flatter thee.\n    O, thou shalt find-\n  TIMON. A fool of thee. Depart.\n  APEMANTUS. I love thee better now than e'er I did.\n  TIMON. I hate thee worse.\n  APEMANTUS. Why?\n  TIMON. Thou flatter'st misery.\n  APEMANTUS. I flatter not, but say thou art a caitiff.\n  TIMON. Why dost thou seek me out?\n  APEMANTUS. To vex thee.\n  TIMON. Always a villain's office or a fool's.\n    Dost please thyself in't?\n  APEMANTUS. Ay.\n  TIMON. What, a knave too?\n  APEMANTUS. If thou didst put this sour-cold habit on\n    To castigate thy pride, 'twere well; but thou\n    Dost it enforcedly. Thou'dst courtier be again\n    Wert thou not beggar. Willing misery\n    Outlives incertain pomp, is crown'd before.\n    The one is filling still, never complete;\n    The other, at high wish. Best state, contentless,\n    Hath a distracted and most wretched being,\n    Worse than the worst, content.\n    Thou should'st desire to die, being miserable.\n  TIMON. Not by his breath that is more miserable.\n    Thou art a slave whom Fortune's tender arm\n    With favour never clasp'd, but bred a dog.\n    Hadst thou, like us from our first swath, proceeded\n    The sweet degrees that this brief world affords\n    To such as may the passive drugs of it\n    Freely command, thou wouldst have plung'd thyself\n    In general riot, melted down thy youth\n    In different beds of lust, and never learn'd\n    The icy precepts of respect, but followed\n    The sug'red game before thee. But myself,\n    Who had the world as my confectionary;\n    The mouths, the tongues, the eyes, and hearts of men\n    At duty, more than I could frame employment;\n    That numberless upon me stuck, as leaves\n    Do on the oak, have with one winter's brush\n    Fell from their boughs, and left me open, bare\n    For every storm that blows- I to bear this,\n    That never knew but better, is some burden.\n    Thy nature did commence in sufferance; time\n    Hath made thee hard in't. Why shouldst thou hate men?\n    They never flatter'd thee. What hast thou given?\n    If thou wilt curse, thy father, that poor rag,\n    Must be thy subject; who, in spite, put stuff\n    To some she-beggar and compounded thee\n    Poor rogue hereditary. Hence, be gone.\n    If thou hadst not been born the worst of men,\n    Thou hadst been a knave and flatterer.\n  APEMANTUS. Art thou proud yet?\n  TIMON. Ay, that I am not thee.\n  APEMANTUS. I, that I was\n    No prodigal.\n  TIMON. I, that I am one now.\n    Were all the wealth I have shut up in thee,\n    I'd give thee leave to hang it. Get thee gone.\n    That the whole life of Athens were in this!\n    Thus would I eat it.                         [Eating a root]\n  APEMANTUS. Here! I will mend thy feast.\n                                             [Offering him food]\n  TIMON. First mend my company: take away thyself.\n  APEMANTUS. So I shall mend mine own by th' lack of thine.\n  TIMON. 'Tis not well mended so; it is but botch'd.\n    If not, I would it were.\n  APEMANTUS. What wouldst thou have to Athens?\n  TIMON. Thee thither in a whirlwind. If thou wilt,\n    Tell them there I have gold; look, so I have.\n  APEMANTUS. Here is no use for gold.\n  TIMON. The best and truest;\n    For here it sleeps and does no hired harm.\n  APEMANTUS. Where liest a nights, Timon?\n  TIMON. Under that's above me.\n    Where feed'st thou a days, Apemantus?\n  APEMANTUS. Where my stomach. finds meat; or rather, where I eat it.\n  TIMON. Would poison were obedient, and knew my mind!\n  APEMANTUS. Where wouldst thou send it?\n  TIMON. To sauce thy dishes.\n  APEMANTUS. The middle of humanity thou never knewest, but the\n    extremity of both ends. When thou wast in thy gilt and thy\n    perfume, they mock'd thee for too much curiosity; in thy rags\n    thou know'st none, but art despis'd for the contrary. There's a\n    medlar for thee; eat it.\n  TIMON. On what I hate I feed not.\n  APEMANTUS. Dost hate a medlar?\n  TIMON. Ay, though it look like thee.\n  APEMANTUS. An th' hadst hated medlars sooner, thou shouldst have\n    loved thyself better now. What man didst thou ever know unthrift\n    that was beloved after his means?\n  TIMON. Who, without those means thou talk'st of, didst thou ever\n    know belov'd?\n  APEMANTUS. Myself.\n  TIMON. I understand thee: thou hadst some means to keep a dog.\n  APEMANTUS. What things in the world canst thou nearest compare to\n    thy flatterers?\n  TIMON. Women nearest; but men, men are the things themselves. What\n    wouldst thou do with the world, Apemantus, if it lay in thy\n    power?\n  APEMANTUS. Give it the beasts, to be rid of the men.\n  TIMON. Wouldst thou have thyself fall in the confusion of men, and\n    remain a beast with the beasts?\n  APEMANTUS. Ay, Timon.\n  TIMON. A beastly ambition, which the gods grant thee t' attain to!\n    If thou wert the lion, the fox would beguile thee; if thou wert\n    the lamb, the fox would eat thee; if thou wert the fox, the lion\n    would suspect thee, when, peradventure, thou wert accus'd by the\n    ass. If thou wert the ass, thy dulness would torment thee; and\n    still thou liv'dst but as a breakfast to the wolf. If thou wert\n    the wolf, thy greediness would afflict thee, and oft thou\n    shouldst hazard thy life for thy dinner. Wert thou the unicorn,\n    pride and wrath would confound thee, and make thine own self the\n    conquest of thy fury. Wert thou bear, thou wouldst be kill'd by\n    the horse; wert thou a horse, thou wouldst be seiz'd by the\n    leopard; wert thou a leopard, thou wert german to the lion, and\n    the spots of thy kindred were jurors on thy life. All thy safety\n    were remotion, and thy defence absence. What beast couldst thou\n    be that were not subject to a beast? And what beast art thou\n    already, that seest not thy loss in transformation!\n  APEMANTUS. If thou couldst please me with speaking to me, thou\n    mightst have hit upon it here. The commonwealth of Athens is\n    become a forest of beasts.\n  TIMON. How has the ass broke the wall, that thou art out of the\n    city?\n  APEMANTUS. Yonder comes a poet and a painter. The plague of company\n    light upon thee! I will fear to catch it, and give way. When I\n    know not what else to do, I'll see thee again.\n  TIMON. When there is nothing living but thee, thou shalt be\n    welcome. I had rather be a beggar's dog than Apemantus.\n  APEMANTUS. Thou art the cap of all the fools alive.\n  TIMON. Would thou wert clean enough to spit upon!\n  APEMANTUS. A plague on thee! thou art too bad to curse.\n  TIMON. All villains that do stand by thee are pure.\n  APEMANTUS. There is no leprosy but what thou speak'st.\n  TIMON. If I name thee.\n    I'll beat thee- but I should infect my hands.\n  APEMANTUS. I would my tongue could rot them off!\n  TIMON. Away, thou issue of a mangy dog!\n    Choler does kill me that thou art alive;\n    I swoon to see thee.\n  APEMANTUS. Would thou wouldst burst!\n  TIMON. Away,\n    Thou tedious rogue! I am sorry I shall lose\n    A stone by thee.                     [Throws a stone at him]\n  APEMANTUS. Beast!\n  TIMON. Slave!\n  APEMANTUS. Toad!\n  TIMON. Rogue, rogue, rogue!\n    I am sick of this false world, and will love nought\n    But even the mere necessities upon't.\n    Then, Timon, presently prepare thy grave;\n    Lie where the light foam of the sea may beat\n    Thy gravestone daily; make thine epitaph,\n    That death in me at others' lives may laugh.\n    [Looks at the gold] O thou sweet king-killer, and dear divorce\n    'Twixt natural son and sire! thou bright defiler\n    Of Hymen's purest bed! thou valiant Mars!\n    Thou ever young, fresh, lov'd, and delicate wooer,\n    Whose blush doth thaw the consecrated snow\n    That lies on Dian's lap! thou visible god,\n    That sold'rest close impossibilities,\n    And mak'st them kiss! that speak'st with every tongue\n    To every purpose! O thou touch of hearts!\n    Think thy slave man rebels, and by thy virtue\n    Set them into confounding odds, that beasts\n    May have the world in empire!\n  APEMANTUS. Would 'twere so!\n    But not till I am dead. I'll say th' hast gold.\n    Thou wilt be throng'd to shortly.\n  TIMON. Throng'd to?\n  APEMANTUS. Ay.\n  TIMON. Thy back, I prithee.\n  APEMANTUS. Live, and love thy misery!\n  TIMON. Long live so, and so die! [Exit APEMANTUS] I am quit. More\n    things like men? Eat, Timon, and abhor them.\n\n                       Enter the BANDITTI\n\n  FIRST BANDIT. Where should he have this gold? It is some poor\n    fragment, some slender ort of his remainder. The mere want of\n    gold and the falling-from of his friends drove him into this\n    melancholy.\n  SECOND BANDIT. It is nois'd he hath a mass of treasure.\n  THIRD BANDIT. Let us make the assay upon him; if he care not for't,\n    he will supply us easily; if he covetously reserve it, how\n    shall's get it?\n  SECOND BANDIT. True; for he bears it not about him. 'Tis hid.\n  FIRST BANDIT. Is not this he?\n  BANDITTI. Where?\n  SECOND BANDIT. 'Tis his description.\n  THIRD BANDIT. He; I know him.\n  BANDITTI. Save thee, Timon!\n  TIMON. Now, thieves?\n  BANDITTI. Soldiers, not thieves.\n  TIMON. Both too, and women's sons.\n  BANDITTI. We are not thieves, but men that much do want.\n  TIMON. Your greatest want is, you want much of meat.\n    Why should you want? Behold, the earth hath roots;\n    Within this mile break forth a hundred springs;\n    The oaks bear mast, the briars scarlet hips;\n    The bounteous housewife Nature on each bush\n    Lays her full mess before you. Want! Why want?\n  FIRST BANDIT. We cannot live on grass, on berries, water,\n    As beasts and birds and fishes.\n  TIMON. Nor on the beasts themselves, the birds, and fishes;\n    You must eat men. Yet thanks I must you con\n    That you are thieves profess'd, that you work not\n    In holier shapes; for there is boundless theft\n    In limited professions. Rascal thieves,\n    Here's gold. Go, suck the subtle blood o' th' grape\n    Till the high fever seethe your blood to froth,\n    And so scape hanging. Trust not the physician;\n    His antidotes are poison, and he slays\n    Moe than you rob. Take wealth and lives together;\n    Do villainy, do, since you protest to do't,\n    Like workmen. I'll example you with thievery:\n    The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction\n    Robs the vast sea; the moon's an arrant thief,\n    And her pale fire she snatches from the sun;\n    The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves\n    The moon into salt tears; the earth's a thief,\n    That feeds and breeds by a composture stol'n\n    From gen'ral excrement- each thing's a thief.\n    The laws, your curb and whip, in their rough power\n    Has uncheck'd theft. Love not yourselves; away,\n    Rob one another. There's more gold. Cut throats;\n    All that you meet are thieves. To Athens go,\n    Break open shops; nothing can you steal\n    But thieves do lose it. Steal not less for this\n    I give you; and gold confound you howsoe'er!\n    Amen.\n  THIRD BANDIT. Has almost charm'd me from my profession by\n    persuading me to it.\n  FIRST BANDIT. 'Tis in the malice of mankind that he thus advises\n    us; not to have us thrive in our mystery.\n  SECOND BANDIT. I'll believe him as an enemy, and give over my\n    trade.\n  FIRST BANDIT. Let us first see peace in Athens. There is no time so\n    miserable but a man may be true.              Exeunt THIEVES\n\n                         Enter FLAVIUS, to TIMON\n\n  FLAVIUS. O you gods!\n    Is yond despis'd and ruinous man my lord?\n    Full of decay and failing? O monument\n    And wonder of good deeds evilly bestow'd!\n    What an alteration of honour\n    Has desp'rate want made!\n    What viler thing upon the earth than friends,\n    Who can bring noblest minds to basest ends!\n    How rarely does it meet with this time's guise,\n    When man was wish'd to love his enemies!\n    Grant I may ever love, and rather woo\n    Those that would mischief me than those that do!\n    Has caught me in his eye; I will present\n    My honest grief unto him, and as my lord\n    Still serve him with my life. My dearest master!\n  TIMON. Away! What art thou?\n  FLAVIUS. Have you forgot me, sir?\n  TIMON. Why dost ask that? I have forgot all men;\n    Then, if thou grant'st th'art a man, I have forgot thee.\n  FLAVIUS. An honest poor servant of yours.\n  TIMON. Then I know thee not.\n    I never had honest man about me, I.\n    All I kept were knaves, to serve in meat to villains.\n  FLAVIUS. The gods are witness,\n    Nev'r did poor steward wear a truer grief\n    For his undone lord than mine eyes for you.\n  TIMON. What, dost thou weep? Come nearer. Then I love thee\n    Because thou art a woman and disclaim'st\n    Flinty mankind, whose eyes do never give\n    But thorough lust and laughter. Pity's sleeping.\n    Strange times, that weep with laughing, not with weeping!\n  FLAVIUS. I beg of you to know me, good my lord,\n    T' accept my grief, and whilst this poor wealth lasts\n    To entertain me as your steward still.\n  TIMON. Had I a steward\n    So true, so just, and now so comfortable?\n    It almost turns my dangerous nature mild.\n    Let me behold thy face. Surely, this man\n    Was born of woman.\n    Forgive my general and exceptless rashness,\n    You perpetual-sober gods! I do proclaim\n    One honest man- mistake me not, but one;\n    No more, I pray- and he's a steward.\n    How fain would I have hated all mankind!\n    And thou redeem'st thyself. But all, save thee,\n    I fell with curses.\n    Methinks thou art more honest now than wise;\n    For by oppressing and betraying me\n    Thou mightst have sooner got another service;\n    For many so arrive at second masters\n    Upon their first lord's neck. But tell me true,\n    For I must ever doubt though ne'er so sure,\n    Is not thy kindness subtle, covetous,\n    If not a usuring kindness, and as rich men deal gifts,\n    Expecting in return twenty for one?\n  FLAVIUS. No, my most worthy master, in whose breast\n    Doubt and suspect, alas, are plac'd too late!\n    You should have fear'd false times when you did feast:\n    Suspect still comes where an estate is least.\n    That which I show, heaven knows, is merely love,\n    Duty, and zeal, to your unmatched mind,\n    Care of your food and living; and believe it,\n    My most honour'd lord,\n    For any benefit that points to me,\n    Either in hope or present, I'd exchange\n    For this one wish, that you had power and wealth\n    To requite me by making rich yourself.\n  TIMON. Look thee, 'tis so! Thou singly honest man,\n    Here, take. The gods, out of my misery,\n    Have sent thee treasure. Go, live rich and happy,\n    But thus condition'd; thou shalt build from men;\n    Hate all, curse all, show charity to none,\n    But let the famish'd flesh slide from the bone\n    Ere thou relieve the beggar. Give to dogs\n    What thou deniest to men; let prisons swallow 'em,\n    Debts wither 'em to nothing. Be men like blasted woods,\n    And may diseases lick up their false bloods!\n    And so, farewell and thrive.\n  FLAVIUS. O, let me stay\n    And comfort you, my master.\n  TIMON. If thou hat'st curses,\n    Stay not; fly whilst thou art blest and free.\n    Ne'er see thou man, and let me ne'er see thee.\n                                                Exeunt severally\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nThe woods. Before TIMON's cave\n\nEnter POET and PAINTER\n\n  PAINTER. As I took note of the place, it cannot be far where he\n    abides.\n  POET. to be thought of him? Does the rumour hold for true that he's\n    so full of gold?\n  PAINTER. Certain. Alcibiades reports it; Phrynia and Timandra had\n    gold of him. He likewise enrich'd poor straggling soldiers with\n    great quantity. 'Tis said he gave unto his steward a mighty sum.\n  POET. Then this breaking of his has been but a try for his friends?\n  PAINTER. Nothing else. You shall see him a palm in Athens again,\n    and flourish with the highest. Therefore 'tis not amiss we tender\n    our loves to him in this suppos'd distress of his; it will show\n    honestly in us, and is very likely to load our purposes with what\n    they travail for, if it be just and true report that goes of his\n    having.\n  POET. What have you now to present unto him?\n  PAINTER. Nothing at this time but my visitation; only I will\n    promise him an excellent piece.\n  POET. I must serve him so too, tell him of an intent that's coming\n    toward him.\n  PAINTER. Good as the best. Promising is the very air o' th' time;\n    it opens the eyes of expectation. Performance is ever the duller\n    for his act, and but in the plainer and simpler kind of people\n    the deed of saying is quite out of use. To promise is most\n    courtly and fashionable; performance is a kind of will or\n    testament which argues a great sickness in his judgment that\n    makes it.\n\n                    Enter TIMON from his cave\n\n  TIMON. [Aside] Excellent workman! Thou canst not paint a man so bad\n    as is thyself.\n  POET. I am thinking what I shall say I have provided for him. It\n    must be a personating of himself; a satire against the softness\n    of prosperity, with a discovery of the infinite flatteries that\n    follow youth and opulency.\n  TIMON. [Aside] Must thou needs stand for a villain in thine own\n    work? Wilt thou whip thine own faults in other men? Do so, I have\n    gold for thee.\n  POET. Nay, let's seek him;\n    Then do we sin against our own estate\n    When we may profit meet and come too late.\n  PAINTER. True;\n    When the day serves, before black-corner'd night,\n    Find what thou want'st by free and offer'd light.\n    Come.\n  TIMON. [Aside] I'll meet you at the turn. What a god's gold,\n    That he is worshipp'd in a baser temple\n    Than where swine feed!\n    'Tis thou that rig'st the bark and plough'st the foam,\n    Settlest admired reverence in a slave.\n    To thee be worship! and thy saints for aye\n    Be crown'd with plagues, that thee alone obey!\n    Fit I meet them.                   [Advancing from his cave]\n  POET. Hail, worthy Timon!\n  PAINTER. Our late noble master!\n  TIMON. Have I once liv'd to see two honest men?\n  POET. Sir,\n    Having often of your open bounty tasted,\n    Hearing you were retir'd, your friends fall'n off,\n    Whose thankless natures- O abhorred spirits!-\n    Not all the whips of heaven are large enough-\n    What! to you,\n    Whose star-like nobleness gave life and influence\n    To their whole being! I am rapt, and cannot cover\n    The monstrous bulk of this ingratitude\n    With any size of words.\n  TIMON. Let it go naked: men may see't the better.\n    You that are honest, by being what you are,\n    Make them best seen and known.\n  PAINTER. He and myself\n    Have travail'd in the great show'r of your gifts,\n    And sweetly felt it.\n  TIMON. Ay, you are honest men.\n  PAINTER. We are hither come to offer you our service.\n  TIMON. Most honest men! Why, how shall I requite you?\n    Can you eat roots, and drink cold water- No?\n  BOTH. What we can do, we'll do, to do you service.\n  TIMON. Y'are honest men. Y'have heard that I have gold;\n    I am sure you have. Speak truth; y'are honest men.\n  PAINTER. So it is said, my noble lord; but therefore\n    Came not my friend nor I.\n  TIMON. Good honest men! Thou draw'st a counterfeit\n    Best in all Athens. Th'art indeed the best;\n    Thou counterfeit'st most lively.\n  PAINTER. So, so, my lord.\n  TIMON. E'en so, sir, as I say. [To To POET] And for thy fiction,\n    Why, thy verse swells with stuff so fine and smooth\n    That thou art even natural in thine art.\n    But for all this, my honest-natur'd friends,\n    I must needs say you have a little fault.\n    Marry, 'tis not monstrous in you; neither wish I\n    You take much pains to mend.\n  BOTH. Beseech your honour\n    To make it known to us.\n  TIMON. You'll take it ill.\n  BOTH. Most thankfully, my lord.\n  TIMON. Will you indeed?\n  BOTH. Doubt it not, worthy lord.\n  TIMON. There's never a one of you but trusts a knave\n    That mightily deceives you.\n  BOTH. Do we, my lord?\n  TIMON. Ay, and you hear him cog, see him dissemble,\n    Know his gross patchery, love him, feed him,\n    Keep in your bosom; yet remain assur'd\n    That he's a made-up villain.\n  PAINTER. I know not such, my lord.\n  POET. Nor I.\n  TIMON. Look you, I love you well; I'll give you gold,\n    Rid me these villains from your companies.\n    Hang them or stab them, drown them in a draught,\n    Confound them by some course, and come to me,\n    I'll give you gold enough.\n  BOTH. Name them, my lord; let's know them.\n  TIMON. You that way, and you this- but two in company;\n    Each man apart, all single and alone,\n    Yet an arch-villain keeps him company.\n    [To the PAINTER] If, where thou art, two villians shall not be,\n    Come not near him. [To the POET] If thou wouldst not reside\n    But where one villain is, then him abandon.-\n    Hence, pack! there's gold; you came for gold, ye slaves.\n    [To the PAINTER] You have work for me; there's payment; hence!\n    [To the POET] You are an alchemist; make gold of that.-\n    Out, rascal dogs!                [Beats and drives them out]\n\n                    Enter FLAVIUS and two SENATORS\n\n  FLAVIUS. It is vain that you would speak with Timon;\n    For he is set so only to himself\n    That nothing but himself which looks like man\n    Is friendly with him.\n  FIRST SENATOR. Bring us to his cave.\n    It is our part and promise to th' Athenians\n    To speak with Timon.\n  SECOND SENATOR. At all times alike\n    Men are not still the same; 'twas time and griefs\n    That fram'd him thus. Time, with his fairer hand,\n    Offering the fortunes of his former days,\n    The former man may make him. Bring us to him,\n    And chance it as it may.\n  FLAVIUS. Here is his cave.\n    Peace and content be here! Lord Timon! Timon!\n    Look out, and speak to friends. Th' Athenians\n    By two of their most reverend Senate greet thee.\n    Speak to them, noble Timon.\n\n                   Enter TIMON out of his cave\n\n  TIMON. Thou sun that comforts, burn. Speak and be hang'd!\n    For each true word a blister, and each false\n    Be as a cauterizing to the root o' th' tongue,\n    Consuming it with speaking!\n  FIRST SENATOR. Worthy Timon-\n  TIMON. Of none but such as you, and you of Timon.\n  FIRST SENATOR. The senators of Athens greet thee, Timon.\n  TIMON. I thank them; and would send them back the plague,\n    Could I but catch it for them.\n  FIRST SENATOR. O, forget\n    What we are sorry for ourselves in thee.\n    The senators with one consent of love\n    Entreat thee back to Athens, who have thought\n    On special dignities, which vacant lie\n    For thy best use and wearing.\n  SECOND SENATOR. They confess\n    Toward thee forgetfulness too general, gross;\n    Which now the public body, which doth seldom\n    Play the recanter, feeling in itself\n    A lack of Timon's aid, hath sense withal\n    Of it own fail, restraining aid to Timon,\n    And send forth us to make their sorrowed render,\n    Together with a recompense more fruitful\n    Than their offence can weigh down by the dram;\n    Ay, even such heaps and sums of love and wealth\n    As shall to thee blot out what wrongs were theirs\n    And write in thee the figures of their love,\n    Ever to read them thine.\n  TIMON. You witch me in it;\n    Surprise me to the very brink of tears.\n    Lend me a fool's heart and a woman's eyes,\n    And I'll beweep these comforts, worthy senators.\n  FIRST SENATOR. Therefore so please thee to return with us,\n    And of our Athens, thine and ours, to take\n    The captainship, thou shalt be met with thanks,\n    Allow'd with absolute power, and thy good name\n    Live with authority. So soon we shall drive back\n    Of Alcibiades th' approaches wild,\n    Who, like a boar too savage, doth root up\n    His country's peace.\n  SECOND SENATOR. And shakes his threat'ning sword\n    Against the walls of Athens.\n  FIRST SENATOR. Therefore, Timon-\n  TIMON. Well, sir, I will. Therefore I will, sir, thus:\n    If Alcibiades kill my countrymen,\n    Let Alcibiades know this of Timon,\n    That Timon cares not. But if he sack fair Athens,\n    And take our goodly aged men by th' beards,\n    Giving our holy virgins to the stain\n    Of contumelious, beastly, mad-brain'd war,\n    Then let him know- and tell him Timon speaks it\n    In pity of our aged and our youth-\n    I cannot choose but tell him that I care not,\n    And let him take't at worst; for their knives care not,\n    While you have throats to answer. For myself,\n    There's not a whittle in th' unruly camp\n    But I do prize it at my love before\n    The reverend'st throat in Athens. So I leave you\n    To the protection of the prosperous gods,\n    As thieves to keepers.\n  FLAVIUS. Stay not, all's in vain.\n  TIMON. Why, I was writing of my epitaph;\n    It will be seen to-morrow. My long sickness\n    Of health and living now begins to mend,\n    And nothing brings me all things. Go, live still;\n    Be Alcibiades your plague, you his,\n    And last so long enough!\n  FIRST SENATOR. We speak in vain.\n  TIMON. But yet I love my country, and am not\n    One that rejoices in the common wreck,\n    As common bruit doth put it.\n  FIRST SENATOR. That's well spoke.\n  TIMON. Commend me to my loving countrymen-\n  FIRST SENATOR. These words become your lips as they pass through\n    them.\n  SECOND SENATOR. And enter in our ears like great triumphers\n    In their applauding gates.\n  TIMON. Commend me to them,\n    And tell them that, to ease them of their griefs,\n    Their fears of hostile strokes, their aches, losses,\n    Their pangs of love, with other incident throes\n    That nature's fragile vessel doth sustain\n    In life's uncertain voyage, I will some kindness do them-\n    I'll teach them to prevent wild Alcibiades' wrath.\n  FIRST SENATOR. I like this well; he will return again.\n  TIMON. I have a tree, which grows here in my close,\n    That mine own use invites me to cut down,\n    And shortly must I fell it. Tell my friends,\n    Tell Athens, in the sequence of degree\n    From high to low throughout, that whoso please\n    To stop affliction, let him take his haste,\n    Come hither, ere my tree hath felt the axe,\n    And hang himself. I pray you do my greeting.\n  FLAVIUS. Trouble him no further; thus you still shall find him.\n  TIMON. Come not to me again; but say to Athens\n    Timon hath made his everlasting mansion\n    Upon the beached verge of the salt flood,\n    Who once a day with his embossed froth\n    The turbulent surge shall cover. Thither come,\n    And let my gravestone be your oracle.\n    Lips, let sour words go by and language end:\n    What is amiss, plague and infection mend!\n    Graves only be men's works and death their gain!\n    Sun, hide thy beams. Timon hath done his reign.\n                                        Exit TIMON into his cave\n  FIRST SENATOR. His discontents are unremovably\n    Coupled to nature.\n  SECOND SENATOR. Our hope in him is dead. Let us return\n    And strain what other means is left unto us\n    In our dear peril.\n  FIRST SENATOR. It requires swift foot.                  Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBefore the walls of Athens\n\nEnter two other SENATORS with a MESSENGER\n\n  FIRST SENATOR. Thou hast painfully discover'd; are his files\n    As full as thy report?\n  MESSENGER. I have spoke the least.\n    Besides, his expedition promises\n    Present approach.\n  SECOND SENATOR. We stand much hazard if they bring not Timon.\n  MESSENGER. I met a courier, one mine ancient friend,\n    Whom, though in general part we were oppos'd,\n    Yet our old love had a particular force,\n    And made us speak like friends. This man was riding\n    From Alcibiades to Timon's cave\n    With letters of entreaty, which imported\n    His fellowship i' th' cause against your city,\n    In part for his sake mov'd.\n\n               Enter the other SENATORS, from TIMON\n\n  FIRST SENATOR. Here come our brothers.\n  THIRD SENATOR. No talk of Timon, nothing of him expect.\n    The enemies' drum is heard, and fearful scouring\n    Doth choke the air with dust. In, and prepare.\n    Ours is the fall, I fear; our foes the snare.         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe TIMON's cave, and a rude tomb seen\n\nEnter a SOLDIER in the woods, seeking TIMON\n\n  SOLDIER. By all description this should be the place.\n    Who's here? Speak, ho! No answer? What is this?\n    Timon is dead, who hath outstretch'd his span.\n    Some beast rear'd this; here does not live a man.\n    Dead, sure; and this his grave. What's on this tomb\n    I cannot read; the character I'll take with wax.\n    Our captain hath in every figure skill,\n    An ag'd interpreter, though young in days;\n    Before proud Athens he's set down by this,\n    Whose fall the mark of his ambition is.                 Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nBefore the walls of Athens\n\nTrumpets sound. Enter ALCIBIADES with his powers before Athens\n\n  ALCIBIADES. Sound to this coward and lascivious town\n    Our terrible approach.\n\n       Sound a parley. The SENATORS appear upon the walls\n\n    Till now you have gone on and fill'd the time\n    With all licentious measure, making your wills\n    The scope of justice; till now, myself, and such\n    As slept within the shadow of your power,\n    Have wander'd with our travers'd arms, and breath'd\n    Our sufferance vainly. Now the time is flush,\n    When crouching marrow, in the bearer strong,\n    Cries of itself 'No more!' Now breathless wrong\n    Shall sit and pant in your great chairs of ease,\n    And pursy insolence shall break his wind\n    With fear and horrid flight.\n  FIRST SENATOR. Noble and young,\n    When thy first griefs were but a mere conceit,\n    Ere thou hadst power or we had cause of fear,\n    We sent to thee, to give thy rages balm,\n    To wipe out our ingratitude with loves\n    Above their quantity.\n  SECOND SENATOR. So did we woo\n    Transformed Timon to our city's love\n    By humble message and by promis'd means.\n    We were not all unkind, nor all deserve\n    The common stroke of war.\n  FIRST SENATOR. These walls of ours\n    Were not erected by their hands from whom\n    You have receiv'd your griefs; nor are they such\n    That these great tow'rs, trophies, and schools, should fall\n    For private faults in them.\n  SECOND SENATOR. Nor are they living\n    Who were the motives that you first went out;\n    Shame, that they wanted cunning, in excess\n    Hath broke their hearts. March, noble lord,\n    Into our city with thy banners spread.\n    By decimation and a tithed death-\n    If thy revenges hunger for that food\n    Which nature loathes- take thou the destin'd tenth,\n    And by the hazard of the spotted die\n    Let die the spotted.\n  FIRST SENATOR. All have not offended;\n    For those that were, it is not square to take,\n    On those that are, revenge: crimes, like lands,\n    Are not inherited. Then, dear countryman,\n    Bring in thy ranks, but leave without thy rage;\n    Spare thy Athenian cradle, and those kin\n    Which, in the bluster of thy wrath, must fall\n    With those that have offended. Like a shepherd\n    Approach the fold and cull th' infected forth,\n    But kill not all together.\n  SECOND SENATOR. What thou wilt,\n    Thou rather shalt enforce it with thy smile\n    Than hew to't with thy sword.\n  FIRST SENATOR. Set but thy foot\n    Against our rampir'd gates and they shall ope,\n    So thou wilt send thy gentle heart before\n    To say thou't enter friendly.\n  SECOND SENATOR. Throw thy glove,\n    Or any token of thine honour else,\n    That thou wilt use the wars as thy redress\n    And not as our confusion, all thy powers\n    Shall make their harbour in our town till we\n    Have seal'd thy full desire.\n  ALCIBIADES. Then there's my glove;\n    Descend, and open your uncharged ports.\n    Those enemies of Timon's and mine own,\n    Whom you yourselves shall set out for reproof,\n    Fall, and no more. And, to atone your fears\n    With my more noble meaning, not a man\n    Shall pass his quarter or offend the stream\n    Of regular justice in your city's bounds,\n    But shall be render'd to your public laws\n    At heaviest answer.\n  BOTH. 'Tis most nobly spoken.\n  ALCIBIADES. Descend, and keep your words.\n                       [The SENATORS descend and open the gates]\n\n                 Enter a SOLDIER as a Messenger\n\n  SOLDIER. My noble General, Timon is dead;\n    Entomb'd upon the very hem o' th' sea;\n    And on his grave-stone this insculpture, which\n    With wax I brought away, whose soft impression\n    Interprets for my poor ignorance.\n\n                  ALCIBIADES reads the Epitaph\n\n    'Here lies a wretched corse, of wretched soul bereft;\n    Seek not my name. A plague consume you wicked caitiffs left!\n    Here lie I, Timon, who alive all living men did hate.\n    Pass by, and curse thy fill; but pass, and stay not here thy\n      gait.'\n    These well express in thee thy latter spirits.\n    Though thou abhorr'dst in us our human griefs,\n    Scorn'dst our brain's flow, and those our droplets which\n    From niggard nature fall, yet rich conceit\n    Taught thee to make vast Neptune weep for aye\n    On thy low grave, on faults forgiven. Dead\n    Is noble Timon, of whose memory\n    Hereafter more. Bring me into your city,\n    And I will use the olive, with my sword;\n    Make war breed peace, make peace stint war, make each\n    Prescribe to other, as each other's leech.\n    Let our drums strike.                                 Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1594\n\nTHE TRAGEDY OF TITUS ANDRONICUS\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  SATURNINUS, son to the late Emperor of Rome, afterwards Emperor\n  BASSIANUS, brother to Saturninus\n  TITUS ANDRONICUS, a noble Roman\n  MARCUS ANDRONICUS, Tribune of the People, and brother to Titus\n\n    Sons to Titus Andronicus:\n  LUCIUS\n  QUINTUS\n  MARTIUS\n  MUTIUS\n\n  YOUNG LUCIUS, a boy, son to Lucius\n  PUBLIUS, son to Marcus Andronicus\n\n    Kinsmen to Titus:\n  SEMPRONIUS\n  CAIUS\n  VALENTINE\n\n  AEMILIUS, a noble Roman\n\n    Sons to Tamora:\n  ALARBUS\n  DEMETRIUS\n  CHIRON\n\n  AARON, a Moor, beloved by Tamora\n  A CAPTAIN\n  A MESSENGER\n  A CLOWN\n\n  TAMORA, Queen of the Goths\n  LAVINIA, daughter to Titus Andronicus\n  A NURSE, and a black CHILD\n\n  Romans and Goths, Senators, Tribunes, Officers, Soldiers, and\n    Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                          SCENE:\n               Rome and the neighbourhood\n\n\nACT 1. SCENE I.\nRome. Before the Capitol\n\nFlourish. Enter the TRIBUNES and SENATORS aloft; and then enter below\nSATURNINUS and his followers at one door, and BASSIANUS and his followers\nat the other, with drums and trumpets\n\n  SATURNINUS. Noble patricians, patrons of my right,\n    Defend the justice of my cause with arms;\n    And, countrymen, my loving followers,\n    Plead my successive title with your swords.\n    I am his first born son that was the last\n    That ware the imperial diadem of Rome;\n    Then let my father's honours live in me,\n    Nor wrong mine age with this indignity.\n  BASSIANUS. Romans, friends, followers, favourers of my right,\n    If ever Bassianus, Caesar's son,\n    Were gracious in the eyes of royal Rome,\n    Keep then this passage to the Capitol;\n    And suffer not dishonour to approach\n    The imperial seat, to virtue consecrate,\n    To justice, continence, and nobility;\n    But let desert in pure election shine;\n    And, Romans, fight for freedom in your choice.\n\n        Enter MARCUS ANDRONICUS aloft, with the crown\n\n  MARCUS. Princes, that strive by factions and by friends\n    Ambitiously for rule and empery,\n    Know that the people of Rome, for whom we stand\n    A special party, have by common voice\n    In election for the Roman empery\n    Chosen Andronicus, surnamed Pius\n    For many good and great deserts to Rome.\n    A nobler man, a braver warrior,\n    Lives not this day within the city walls.\n    He by the Senate is accited home,\n    From weary wars against the barbarous Goths,\n    That with his sons, a terror to our foes,\n    Hath yok'd a nation strong, train'd up in arms.\n    Ten years are spent since first he undertook\n    This cause of Rome, and chastised with arms\n    Our enemies' pride; five times he hath return'd\n    Bleeding to Rome, bearing his valiant sons\n    In coffins from the field; and at this day\n    To the monument of that Andronici\n    Done sacrifice of expiation,\n    And slain the noblest prisoner of the Goths.\n    And now at last, laden with honour's spoils,\n    Returns the good Andronicus to Rome,\n    Renowned Titus, flourishing in arms.\n    Let us entreat, by honour of his name\n    Whom worthily you would have now succeed,\n    And in the Capitol and Senate's right,\n    Whom you pretend to honour and adore,\n    That you withdraw you and abate your strength,\n    Dismiss your followers, and, as suitors should,\n    Plead your deserts in peace and humbleness.\n  SATURNINUS. How fair the Tribune speaks to calm my thoughts.\n  BASSIANUS. Marcus Andronicus, so I do affy\n    In thy uprightness and integrity,\n    And so I love and honour thee and thine,\n    Thy noble brother Titus and his sons,\n    And her to whom my thoughts are humbled all,\n    Gracious Lavinia, Rome's rich ornament,\n    That I will here dismiss my loving friends,\n    And to my fortunes and the people's favour\n    Commit my cause in balance to be weigh'd.\n                                Exeunt the soldiers of BASSIANUS\n  SATURNINUS. Friends, that have been thus forward in my right,\n    I thank you all and here dismiss you all,\n    And to the love and favour of my country\n    Commit myself, my person, and the cause.\n                               Exeunt the soldiers of SATURNINUS\n    Rome, be as just and gracious unto me\n    As I am confident and kind to thee.\n    Open the gates and let me in.\n  BASSIANUS. Tribunes, and me, a poor competitor.\n                    [Flourish. They go up into the Senate House]\n\n                      Enter a CAPTAIN\n\n  CAPTAIN. Romans, make way. The good Andronicus,\n    Patron of virtue, Rome's best champion,\n    Successful in the battles that he fights,\n    With honour and with fortune is return'd\n    From where he circumscribed with his sword\n    And brought to yoke the enemies of Rome.\n\n        Sound drums and trumpets, and then enter MARTIUS\n        and MUTIUS, two of TITUS' sons; and then two men\n        bearing a coffin covered with black; then LUCIUS\n        and QUINTUS, two other sons; then TITUS ANDRONICUS;\n        and then TAMORA the Queen of Goths, with her three\n        sons, ALARBUS, DEMETRIUS, and CHIRON, with AARON the\n        Moor, and others,  as many as can be. Then set down\n        the coffin and TITUS speaks\n\n  TITUS. Hail, Rome, victorious in thy mourning weeds!\n    Lo, as the bark that hath discharg'd her fraught\n    Returns with precious lading to the bay\n    From whence at first she weigh'd her anchorage,\n    Cometh Andronicus, bound with laurel boughs,\n    To re-salute his country with his tears,\n    Tears of true joy for his return to Rome.\n    Thou great defender of this Capitol,\n    Stand gracious to the rites that we intend!\n    Romans, of five and twenty valiant sons,\n    Half of the number that King Priam had,\n    Behold the poor remains, alive and dead!\n    These that survive let Rome reward with love;\n    These that I bring unto their latest home,\n    With burial amongst their ancestors.\n    Here Goths have given me leave to sheathe my sword.\n    Titus, unkind, and careless of thine own,\n    Why suffer'st thou thy sons, unburied yet,\n    To hover on the dreadful shore of Styx?\n    Make way to lay them by their brethren.\n                                            [They open the tomb]\n    There greet in silence, as the dead are wont,\n    And sleep in peace, slain in your country's wars.\n    O sacred receptacle of my joys,\n    Sweet cell of virtue and nobility,\n    How many sons hast thou of mine in store\n    That thou wilt never render to me more!\n  LUCIUS. Give us the proudest prisoner of the Goths,\n    That we may hew his limbs, and on a pile\n    Ad manes fratrum sacrifice his flesh\n    Before this earthy prison of their bones,\n    That so the shadows be not unappeas'd,\n    Nor we disturb'd with prodigies on earth.\n  TITUS. I give him you- the noblest that survives,\n    The eldest son of this distressed queen.\n  TAMORA. Stay, Roman brethen! Gracious conqueror,\n    Victorious Titus, rue the tears I shed,\n    A mother's tears in passion for her son;\n    And if thy sons were ever dear to thee,\n    O, think my son to be as dear to me!\n    Sufficeth not that we are brought to Rome\n    To beautify thy triumphs, and return\n    Captive to thee and to thy Roman yoke;\n    But must my sons be slaughtered in the streets\n    For valiant doings in their country's cause?\n    O, if to fight for king and commonweal\n    Were piety in thine, it is in these.\n    Andronicus, stain not thy tomb with blood.\n    Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods?\n    Draw near them then in being merciful.\n    Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.\n    Thrice-noble Titus, spare my first-born son.\n  TITUS. Patient yourself, madam, and pardon me.\n    These are their brethren, whom your Goths beheld\n    Alive and dead; and for their brethren slain\n    Religiously they ask a sacrifice.\n    To this your son is mark'd, and die he must\n    T' appease their groaning shadows that are gone.\n  LUCIUS. Away with him, and make a fire straight;\n    And with our swords, upon a pile of wood,\n    Let's hew his limbs till they be clean consum'd.\n                                Exeunt TITUS' SONS, with ALARBUS\n  TAMORA. O cruel, irreligious piety!\n  CHIRON. Was never Scythia half so barbarous!\n  DEMETRIUS. Oppose not Scythia to ambitious Rome.\n    Alarbus goes to rest, and we survive\n    To tremble under Titus' threat'ning look.\n    Then, madam, stand resolv'd, but hope withal\n    The self-same gods that arm'd the Queen of Troy\n    With opportunity of sharp revenge\n    Upon the Thracian tyrant in his tent\n    May favour Tamora, the Queen of Goths-\n    When Goths were Goths and Tamora was queen-\n    To quit the bloody wrongs upon her foes.\n\n            Re-enter LUCIUS, QUINTUS, MARTIUS, and\n   MUTIUS, the sons of ANDRONICUS, with their swords bloody\n\n  LUCIUS. See, lord and father, how we have perform'd\n    Our Roman rites: Alarbus' limbs are lopp'd,\n    And entrails feed the sacrificing fire,\n    Whose smoke like incense doth perfume the sky.\n    Remaineth nought but to inter our brethren,\n    And with loud 'larums welcome them to Rome.\n  TITUS. Let it be so, and let Andronicus\n    Make this his latest farewell to their souls.\n                 [Sound trumpets and lay the coffin in the tomb]\n    In peace and honour rest you here, my sons;\n    Rome's readiest champions, repose you here in rest,\n    Secure from worldly chances and mishaps!\n    Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells,\n    Here grow no damned drugs, here are no storms,\n    No noise, but silence and eternal sleep.\n    In peace and honour rest you here, my sons!\n\n                       Enter LAVINIA\n\n  LAVINIA. In peace and honour live Lord Titus long;\n    My noble lord and father, live in fame!\n    Lo, at this tomb my tributary tears\n    I render for my brethren's obsequies;\n    And at thy feet I kneel, with tears of joy\n    Shed on this earth for thy return to Rome.\n    O, bless me here with thy victorious hand,\n    Whose fortunes Rome's best citizens applaud!\n  TITUS. Kind Rome, that hast thus lovingly reserv'd\n    The cordial of mine age to glad my heart!\n    Lavinia, live; outlive thy father's days,\n    And fame's eternal date, for virtue's praise!\n\n          Enter, above, MARCUS ANDRONICUS and TRIBUNES;\n          re-enter SATURNINUS, BASSIANUS, and attendants\n\n  MARCUS. Long live Lord Titus, my beloved brother,\n    Gracious triumpher in the eyes of Rome!\n  TITUS. Thanks, gentle Tribune, noble brother Marcus.\n  MARCUS. And welcome, nephews, from successful wars,\n    You that survive and you that sleep in fame.\n    Fair lords, your fortunes are alike in all\n    That in your country's service drew your swords;\n    But safer triumph is this funeral pomp\n    That hath aspir'd to Solon's happiness\n    And triumphs over chance in honour's bed.\n    Titus Andronicus, the people of Rome,\n    Whose friend in justice thou hast ever been,\n    Send thee by me, their Tribune and their trust,\n    This par]iament of white and spotless hue;\n    And name thee in election for the empire\n    With these our late-deceased Emperor's sons:\n    Be candidatus then, and put it on,\n    And help to set a head on headless Rome.\n  TITUS. A better head her glorious body fits\n    Than his that shakes for age and feebleness.\n    What should I don this robe and trouble you?\n    Be chosen with proclamations to-day,\n    To-morrow yield up rule, resign my life,\n    And set abroad new business for you all?\n    Rome, I have been thy soldier forty years,\n    And led my country's strength successfully,\n    And buried one and twenty valiant sons,\n    Knighted in field, slain manfully in arms,\n    In right and service of their noble country.\n    Give me a staff of honour for mine age,\n    But not a sceptre to control the world.\n    Upright he held it, lords, that held it last.\n  MARCUS. Titus, thou shalt obtain and ask the empery.\n  SATURNINUS. Proud and ambitious Tribune, canst thou tell?\n  TITUS. Patience, Prince Saturninus.\n  SATURNINUS. Romans, do me right.\n    Patricians, draw your swords, and sheathe them not\n    Till Saturninus be Rome's Emperor.\n    Andronicus, would thou were shipp'd to hell\n    Rather than rob me of the people's hearts!\n  LUCIUS. Proud Saturnine, interrupter of the good\n    That noble-minded Titus means to thee!\n  TITUS. Content thee, Prince; I will restore to thee\n    The people's hearts, and wean them from themselves.\n  BASSIANUS. Andronicus, I do not flatter thee,\n    But honour thee, and will do till I die.\n    My faction if thou strengthen with thy friends,\n    I will most thankful be; and thanks to men\n    Of noble minds is honourable meed.\n  TITUS. People of Rome, and people's Tribunes here,\n    I ask your voices and your suffrages:\n    Will ye bestow them friendly on Andronicus?\n  TRIBUNES. To gratify the good Andronicus,\n    And gratulate his safe return to Rome,\n    The people will accept whom he admits.\n  TITUS. Tribunes, I thank you; and this suit I make,\n    That you create our Emperor's eldest son,\n    Lord Saturnine; whose virtues will, I hope,\n    Reflect on Rome as Titan's rays on earth,\n    And ripen justice in this commonweal.\n    Then, if you will elect by my advice,\n    Crown him, and say 'Long live our Emperor!'\n  MARCUS. With voices and applause of every sort,\n    Patricians and plebeians, we create\n    Lord Saturninus Rome's great Emperor;\n    And say 'Long live our Emperor Saturnine!'\n                           [A long flourish till they come down]\n  SATURNINUS. Titus Andronicus, for thy favours done\n    To us in our election this day\n    I give thee thanks in part of thy deserts,\n    And will with deeds requite thy gentleness;\n    And for an onset, Titus, to advance\n    Thy name and honourable family,\n    Lavinia will I make my emperess,\n    Rome's royal mistress, mistress of my heart,\n    And in the sacred Pantheon her espouse.\n    Tell me, Andronicus, doth this motion please thee?\n  TITUS. It doth, my worthy lord, and in this match\n    I hold me highly honoured of your Grace,\n    And here in sight of Rome, to Saturnine,\n    King and commander of our commonweal,\n    The wide world's Emperor, do I consecrate\n    My sword, my chariot, and my prisoners,\n    Presents well worthy Rome's imperious lord;\n    Receive them then, the tribute that I owe,\n    Mine honour's ensigns humbled at thy feet.\n  SATURNINUS. Thanks, noble Titus, father of my life.\n    How proud I am of thee and of thy gifts\n    Rome shall record; and when I do forget\n    The least of these unspeakable deserts,\n    Romans, forget your fealty to me.\n  TITUS.  [To TAMORA]  Now, madam, are you prisoner to an emperor;\n    To him that for your honour and your state\n    Will use you nobly and your followers.\n  SATURNINUS.  [Aside]  A goodly lady, trust me; of the hue\n    That I would choose, were I to choose anew.-\n    Clear up, fair Queen, that cloudy countenance;\n    Though chance of war hath wrought this change of cheer,\n    Thou com'st not to be made a scorn in Rome-\n    Princely shall be thy usage every way.\n    Rest on my word, and let not discontent\n    Daunt all your hopes. Madam, he comforts you\n    Can make you greater than the Queen of Goths.\n    Lavinia, you are not displeas'd with this?\n  LAVINIA. Not I, my lord, sith true nobility\n    Warrants these words in princely courtesy.\n  SATURNINUS. Thanks, sweet Lavinia. Romans, let us go.\n    Ransomless here we set our prisoners free.\n    Proclaim our honours, lords, with trump and drum.\n                                                      [Flourish]\n  BASSIANUS. Lord Titus, by your leave, this maid is mine.\n                                               [Seizing LAVINIA]\n  TITUS. How, sir! Are you in earnest then, my lord?\n  BASSIANUS. Ay, noble Titus, and resolv'd withal\n    To do myself this reason and this right.\n  MARCUS. Suum cuique is our Roman justice:\n    This prince in justice seizeth but his own.\n  LUCIUS. And that he will and shall, if Lucius live.\n  TITUS. Traitors, avaunt! Where is the Emperor's guard?\n    Treason, my lord- Lavinia is surpris'd!\n  SATURNINUS. Surpris'd! By whom?\n  BASSIANUS. By him that justly may\n    Bear his betroth'd from all the world away.\n                        Exeunt BASSIANUS and MARCUS with LAVINIA\n  MUTIUS. Brothers, help to convey her hence away,\n    And with my sword I'll keep this door safe.\n                             Exeunt LUCIUS, QUINTUS, and MARTIUS\n  TITUS. Follow, my lord, and I'll soon bring her back.\n  MUTIUS. My lord, you pass not here.\n  TITUS. What, villain boy!\n    Bar'st me my way in Rome?\n  MUTIUS. Help, Lucius, help!\n            TITUS kills him. During the fray, exeunt SATURNINUS,\n                            TAMORA, DEMETRIUS, CHIRON, and AARON\n\n                      Re-enter Lucius\n\n  LUCIUS. My lord, you are unjust, and more than so:\n    In wrongful quarrel you have slain your son.\n  TITUS. Nor thou nor he are any sons of mine;\n    My sons would never so dishonour me.\n\n                 Re-enter aloft the EMPEROR\n      with TAMORA and her two Sons, and AARON the Moor\n\n    Traitor, restore Lavinia to the Emperor.\n  LUCIUS. Dead, if you will; but not to be his wife,\n    That is another's lawful promis'd love.                 Exit\n  SATURNINUS. No, Titus, no; the Emperor needs her not,\n    Nor her, nor thee, nor any of thy stock.\n    I'll trust by leisure him that mocks me once;\n    Thee never, nor thy traitorous haughty sons,\n    Confederates all thus to dishonour me.\n    Was there none else in Rome to make a stale\n    But Saturnine? Full well, Andronicus,\n    Agree these deeds with that proud brag of thine\n    That saidst I begg'd the empire at thy hands.\n  TITUS. O monstrous! What reproachful words are these?\n  SATURNINUS. But go thy ways; go, give that changing piece\n    To him that flourish'd for her with his sword.\n    A valiant son-in-law thou shalt enjoy;\n    One fit to bandy with thy lawless sons,\n    To ruffle in the commonwealth of Rome.\n  TITUS. These words are razors to my wounded heart.\n  SATURNINUS. And therefore, lovely Tamora, Queen of Goths,\n    That, like the stately Phoebe 'mongst her nymphs,\n    Dost overshine the gallant'st dames of Rome,\n    If thou be pleas'd with this my sudden choice,\n    Behold, I choose thee, Tamora, for my bride\n    And will create thee Emperess of Rome.\n    Speak, Queen of Goths, dost thou applaud my choice?\n    And here I swear by all the Roman gods-\n    Sith priest and holy water are so near,\n    And tapers burn so bright, and everything\n    In readiness for Hymenaeus stand-\n    I will not re-salute the streets of Rome,\n    Or climb my palace, till from forth this place\n    I lead espous'd my bride along with me.\n  TAMORA. And here in sight of heaven to Rome I swear,\n    If Saturnine advance the Queen of Goths,\n    She will a handmaid be to his desires,\n    A loving nurse, a mother to his youth.\n  SATURNINUS. Ascend, fair Queen, Pantheon. Lords, accompany\n    Your noble Emperor and his lovely bride,\n    Sent by the heavens for Prince Saturnine,\n    Whose wisdom hath her fortune conquered;\n    There shall we consummate our spousal rites.\n                                            Exeunt all but TITUS\n  TITUS. I am not bid to wait upon this bride.\n  TITUS, when wert thou wont to walk alone,\n    Dishonoured thus, and challenged of wrongs?\n\n                      Re-enter MARCUS,\n        and TITUS' SONS, LUCIUS, QUINTUS, and MARTIUS\n\n  MARCUS. O Titus, see, O, see what thou hast done!\n    In a bad quarrel slain a virtuous son.\n  TITUS. No, foolish Tribune, no; no son of mine-\n    Nor thou, nor these, confederates in the deed\n    That hath dishonoured all our family;\n    Unworthy brother and unworthy sons!\n  LUCIUS. But let us give him burial, as becomes;\n    Give Mutius burial with our bretheren.\n  TITUS. Traitors, away! He rests not in this tomb.\n    This monument five hundred years hath stood,\n    Which I have sumptuously re-edified;\n    Here none but soldiers and Rome's servitors\n    Repose in fame; none basely slain in brawls.\n    Bury him where you can, he comes not here.\n  MARCUS. My lord, this is impiety in you.\n    My nephew Mutius' deeds do plead for him;\n    He must be buried with his bretheren.\n  QUINTUS & MARTIUS. And shall, or him we will accompany.\n  TITUS. 'And shall!' What villain was it spake that word?\n  QUINTUS. He that would vouch it in any place but here.\n  TITUS. What, would you bury him in my despite?\n  MARCUS. No, noble Titus, but entreat of thee\n    To pardon Mutius and to bury him.\n  TITUS. Marcus, even thou hast struck upon my crest,\n    And with these boys mine honour thou hast wounded.\n    My foes I do repute you every one;\n    So trouble me no more, but get you gone.\n  MARTIUS. He is not with himself; let us withdraw.\n  QUINTUS. Not I, till Mutius' bones be buried.\n                                [The BROTHER and the SONS kneel]\n  MARCUS. Brother, for in that name doth nature plead-\n  QUINTUS. Father, and in that name doth nature speak-\n  TITUS. Speak thou no more, if all the rest will speed.\n  MARCUS. Renowned Titus, more than half my soul-\n  LUCIUS. Dear father, soul and substance of us all-\n  MARCUS. Suffer thy brother Marcus to inter\n    His noble nephew here in virtue's nest,\n    That died in honour and Lavinia's cause.\n    Thou art a Roman- be not barbarous.\n    The Greeks upon advice did bury Ajax,\n    That slew himself; and wise Laertes' son\n    Did graciously plead for his funerals.\n    Let not young Mutius, then, that was thy joy,\n    Be barr'd his entrance here.\n  TITUS. Rise, Marcus, rise;\n    The dismal'st day is this that e'er I saw,\n    To be dishonoured by my sons in Rome!\n    Well, bury him, and bury me the next.\n                                   [They put MUTIUS in the tomb]\n  LUCIUS. There lie thy bones, sweet Mutius, with thy friends,\n    Till we with trophies do adorn thy tomb.\n  ALL.  [Kneeling]  No man shed tears for noble Mutius;\n    He lives in fame that died in virtue's cause.\n  MARCUS. My lord- to step out of these dreary dumps-\n    How comes it that the subtle Queen of Goths\n    Is of a sudden thus advanc'd in Rome?\n  TITUS. I know not, Marcus, but I know it is-\n    Whether by device or no, the heavens can tell.\n    Is she not, then, beholding to the man\n    That brought her for this high good turn so far?\n  MARCUS. Yes, and will nobly him remunerate.\n\n           Flourish. Re-enter the EMPEROR, TAMORA\n        and her two SONS, with the MOOR, at one door;\n    at the other door, BASSIANUS and LAVINIA, with others\n\n  SATURNINUS. So, Bassianus, you have play'd your prize:\n    God give you joy, sir, of your gallant bride!\n  BASSIANUS. And you of yours, my lord! I say no more,\n    Nor wish no less; and so I take my leave.\n  SATURNINUS. Traitor, if Rome have law or we have power,\n    Thou and thy faction shall repent this rape.\n  BASSIANUS. Rape, call you it, my lord, to seize my own,\n    My true betrothed love, and now my wife?\n    But let the laws of Rome determine all;\n    Meanwhile am I possess'd of that is mine.\n  SATURNINUS. 'Tis good, sir. You are very short with us;\n    But if we live we'll be as sharp with you.\n  BASSIANUS. My lord, what I have done, as best I may,\n    Answer I must, and shall do with my life.\n    Only thus much I give your Grace to know:\n    By all the duties that I owe to Rome,\n    This noble gentleman, Lord Titus here,\n    Is in opinion and in honour wrong'd,\n    That, in the rescue of Lavinia,\n    With his own hand did slay his youngest son,\n    In zeal to you, and highly mov'd to wrath\n    To be controll'd in that he frankly gave.\n    Receive him then to favour, Saturnine,\n    That hath express'd himself in all his deeds\n    A father and a friend to thee and Rome.\n  TITUS. Prince Bassianus, leave to plead my deeds.\n    'Tis thou and those that have dishonoured me.\n    Rome and the righteous heavens be my judge\n    How I have lov'd and honoured Saturnine!\n  TAMORA. My worthy lord, if ever Tamora\n    Were gracious in those princely eyes of thine,\n    Then hear me speak indifferently for all;\n    And at my suit, sweet, pardon what is past.\n  SATURNINUS. What, madam! be dishonoured openly,\n    And basely put it up without revenge?\n  TAMORA. Not so, my lord; the gods of Rome forfend\n    I should be author to dishonour you!\n    But on mine honour dare I undertake\n    For good Lord Titus' innocence in all,\n    Whose fury not dissembled speaks his griefs.\n    Then at my suit look graciously on him;\n    Lose not so noble a friend on vain suppose,\n    Nor with sour looks afflict his gentle heart.\n    [Aside to SATURNINUS]  My lord, be rul'd by me,\n      be won at last;\n    Dissemble all your griefs and discontents.\n    You are but newly planted in your throne;\n    Lest, then, the people, and patricians too,\n    Upon a just survey take Titus' part,\n    And so supplant you for ingratitude,\n    Which Rome reputes to be a heinous sin,\n    Yield at entreats, and then let me alone:\n    I'll find a day to massacre them all,\n    And raze their faction and their family,\n    The cruel father and his traitorous sons,\n    To whom I sued for my dear son's life;\n    And make them know what 'tis to let a queen\n    Kneel in the streets and beg for grace in vain.-\n    Come, come, sweet Emperor; come, Andronicus.\n    Take up this good old man, and cheer the heart\n    That dies in tempest of thy angry frown.\n  SATURNINUS. Rise, Titus, rise; my Empress hath prevail'd.\n  TITUS. I thank your Majesty and her, my lord;\n    These words, these looks, infuse new life in me.\n  TAMORA. Titus, I am incorporate in Rome,\n    A Roman now adopted happily,\n    And must advise the Emperor for his good.\n    This day all quarrels die, Andronicus;\n    And let it be mine honour, good my lord,\n    That I have reconcil'd your friends and you.\n    For you, Prince Bassianus, I have pass'd\n    My word and promise to the Emperor\n    That you will be more mild and tractable.\n    And fear not, lords- and you, Lavinia.\n    By my advice, all humbled on your knees,\n    You shall ask pardon of his Majesty.\n  LUCIUS. We do, and vow to heaven and to his Highness\n    That what we did was mildly as we might,\n    Tend'ring our sister's honour and our own.\n  MARCUS. That on mine honour here do I protest.\n  SATURNINUS. Away, and talk not; trouble us no more.\n  TAMORA. Nay, nay, sweet Emperor, we must all be friends.\n    The Tribune and his nephews kneel for grace.\n    I will not be denied. Sweet heart, look back.\n  SATURNINUS. Marcus, for thy sake, and thy brother's here,\n    And at my lovely Tamora's entreats,\n    I do remit these young men's heinous faults.\n    Stand up.\n    Lavinia, though you left me like a churl,\n    I found a friend; and sure as death I swore\n    I would not part a bachelor from the priest.\n    Come, if the Emperor's court can feast two brides,\n    You are my guest, Lavinia, and your friends.\n    This day shall be a love-day, Tamora.\n  TITUS. To-morrow, and it please your Majesty\n    To hunt the panther and the hart with me,\n    With horn and hound we'll give your Grace bonjour.\n  SATURNINUS. Be it so, Titus, and gramercy too.\n                                          Exeunt. Sound trumpets\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nRome. Before the palace\n\nEnter AARON\n\n  AARON. Now climbeth Tamora Olympus' top,\n    Safe out of Fortune's shot, and sits aloft,\n    Secure of thunder's crack or lightning flash,\n    Advanc'd above pale envy's threat'ning reach.\n    As when the golden sun salutes the morn,\n    And, having gilt the ocean with his beams,\n    Gallops the zodiac in his glistening coach\n    And overlooks the highest-peering hills,\n    So Tamora.\n    Upon her wit doth earthly honour wait,\n    And virtue stoops and trembles at her frown.\n    Then, Aaron, arm thy heart and fit thy thoughts\n    To mount aloft with thy imperial mistress,\n    And mount her pitch whom thou in triumph long.\n    Hast prisoner held, fett'red in amorous chains,\n    And faster bound to Aaron's charming eyes\n    Than is Prometheus tied to Caucasus.\n    Away with slavish weeds and servile thoughts!\n    I will be bright and shine in pearl and gold,\n    To wait upon this new-made emperess.\n    To wait, said I? To wanton with this queen,\n    This goddess, this Semiramis, this nymph,\n    This siren that will charm Rome's Saturnine,\n    And see his shipwreck and his commonweal's.\n    Hullo! what storm is this?\n\n            Enter CHIRON and DEMETRIUS, braving\n\n  DEMETRIUS. Chiron, thy years wants wit, thy wits wants edge\n    And manners, to intrude where I am grac'd,\n    And may, for aught thou knowest, affected be.\n  CHIRON. Demetrius, thou dost over-ween in all;\n    And so in this, to bear me down with braves.\n    'Tis not the difference of a year or two\n    Makes me less gracious or thee more fortunate:\n    I am as able and as fit as thou\n    To serve and to deserve my mistress' grace;\n    And that my sword upon thee shall approve,\n    And plead my passions for Lavinia's love.\n  AARON.  [Aside]  Clubs, clubs! These lovers will not keep the\n    peace.\n  DEMETRIUS. Why, boy, although our mother, unadvis'd,\n    Gave you a dancing rapier by your side,\n    Are you so desperate grown to threat your friends?\n    Go to; have your lath glued within your sheath\n    Till you know better how to handle it.\n  CHIRON. Meanwhile, sir, with the little skill I have,\n    Full well shalt thou perceive how much I dare.\n  DEMETRIUS. Ay, boy, grow ye so brave?              [They draw]\n  AARON.  [Coming forward]  Why, how now, lords!\n    So near the Emperor's palace dare ye draw\n    And maintain such a quarrel openly?\n    Full well I wot the ground of all this grudge:\n    I would not for a million of gold\n    The cause were known to them it most concerns;\n    Nor would your noble mother for much more\n    Be so dishonoured in the court of Rome.\n    For shame, put up.\n  DEMETRIUS. Not I, till I have sheath'd\n    My rapier in his bosom, and withal\n    Thrust those reproachful speeches down his throat\n    That he hath breath'd in my dishonour here.\n  CHIRON. For that I am prepar'd and full resolv'd,\n    Foul-spoken coward, that thund'rest with thy tongue,\n    And with thy weapon nothing dar'st perform.\n  AARON. Away, I say!\n    Now, by the gods that warlike Goths adore,\n    This pretty brabble will undo us all.\n    Why, lords, and think you not how dangerous\n    It is to jet upon a prince's right?\n    What, is Lavinia then become so loose,\n    Or Bassianus so degenerate,\n    That for her love such quarrels may be broach'd\n    Without controlment, justice, or revenge?\n    Young lords, beware; an should the Empress know\n    This discord's ground, the music would not please.\n  CHIRON. I care not, I, knew she and all the world:\n    I love Lavinia more than all the world.\n  DEMETRIUS. Youngling, learn thou to make some meaner choice:\n    Lavina is thine elder brother's hope.\n  AARON. Why, are ye mad, or know ye not in Rome\n    How furious and impatient they be,\n    And cannot brook competitors in love?\n    I tell you, lords, you do but plot your deaths\n    By this device.\n  CHIRON. Aaron, a thousand deaths\n    Would I propose to achieve her whom I love.\n  AARON. To achieve her- how?\n  DEMETRIUS. Why mak'st thou it so strange?\n    She is a woman, therefore may be woo'd;\n    She is a woman, therefore may be won;\n    She is Lavinia, therefore must be lov'd.\n    What, man! more water glideth by the mill\n    Than wots the miller of; and easy it is\n    Of a cut loaf to steal a shive, we know.\n    Though Bassianus be the Emperor's brother,\n    Better than he have worn Vulcan's badge.\n  AARON.  [Aside]  Ay, and as good as Saturninus may.\n  DEMETRIUS. Then why should he despair that knows to court it\n    With words, fair looks, and liberality?\n    What, hast not thou full often struck a doe,\n    And borne her cleanly by the keeper's nose?\n  AARON. Why, then, it seems some certain snatch or so\n    Would serve your turns.\n  CHIRON. Ay, so the turn were served.\n  DEMETRIUS. Aaron, thou hast hit it.\n  AARON. Would you had hit it too!\n    Then should not we be tir'd with this ado.\n    Why, hark ye, hark ye! and are you such fools\n    To square for this? Would it offend you, then,\n    That both should speed?\n  CHIRON. Faith, not me.\n  DEMETRIUS. Nor me, so I were one.\n  AARON. For shame, be friends, and join for that you jar.\n    'Tis policy and stratagem must do\n    That you affect; and so must you resolve\n    That what you cannot as you would achieve,\n    You must perforce accomplish as you may.\n    Take this of me: Lucrece was not more chaste\n    Than this Lavinia, Bassianus' love.\n    A speedier course than ling'ring languishment\n    Must we pursue, and I have found the path.\n    My lords, a solemn hunting is in hand;\n    There will the lovely Roman ladies troop;\n    The forest walks are wide and spacious,\n    And many unfrequented plots there are\n    Fitted by kind for rape and villainy.\n    Single you thither then this dainty doe,\n    And strike her home by force if not by words.\n    This way, or not at all, stand you in hope.\n    Come, come, our Empress, with her sacred wit\n    To villainy and vengeance consecrate,\n    Will we acquaint with all what we intend;\n    And she shall file our engines with advice\n    That will not suffer you to square yourselves,\n    But to your wishes' height advance you both.\n    The Emperor's court is like the house of Fame,\n    The palace full of tongues, of eyes, and ears;\n    The woods are ruthless, dreadful, deaf, and dull.\n    There speak and strike, brave boys, and take your turns;\n    There serve your lust, shadowed from heaven's eye,\n    And revel in Lavinia's treasury.\n  CHIRON. Thy counsel, lad, smells of no cowardice.\n  DEMETRIUS. Sit fas aut nefas, till I find the stream\n    To cool this heat, a charm to calm these fits,\n    Per Styga, per manes vehor.                           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA forest near Rome\n\nEnter TITUS ANDRONICUS, and his three sons, LUCIUS, QUINTUS, MARTIUS,\nmaking a noise with hounds and horns; and MARCUS\n\n  TITUS. The hunt is up, the morn is bright and grey,\n    The fields are fragrant, and the woods are green.\n    Uncouple here, and let us make a bay,\n    And wake the Emperor and his lovely bride,\n    And rouse the Prince, and ring a hunter's peal,\n    That all the court may echo with the noise.\n    Sons, let it be your charge, as it is ours,\n    To attend the Emperor's person carefully.\n    I have been troubled in my sleep this night,\n    But dawning day new comfort hath inspir'd.\n\n         Here a cry of hounds, and wind horns in a peal.\n       Then enter SATURNINUS, TAMORA, BASSIANUS LAVINIA,\n            CHIRON, DEMETRIUS, and their attendants\n    Many good morrows to your Majesty!\n    Madam, to you as many and as good!\n    I promised your Grace a hunter's peal.\n  SATURNINUS. And you have rung it lustily, my lords-\n    Somewhat too early for new-married ladies.\n  BASSIANUS. Lavinia, how say you?\n  LAVINIA. I say no;\n    I have been broad awake two hours and more.\n  SATURNINUS. Come on then, horse and chariots let us have,\n    And to our sport.  [To TAMORA]  Madam, now shall ye see\n    Our Roman hunting.\n  MARCUS. I have dogs, my lord,\n    Will rouse the proudest panther in the chase,\n    And climb the highest promontory top.\n  TITUS. And I have horse will follow where the game\n    Makes way, and run like swallows o'er the plain.\n  DEMETRIUS. Chiron, we hunt not, we, with horse nor hound,\n    But hope to pluck a dainty doe to ground.             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nA lonely part of the forest\n\nEnter AARON alone, with a bag of gold\n\n  AARON. He that had wit would think that I had none,\n    To bury so much gold under a tree\n    And never after to inherit it.\n    Let him that thinks of me so abjectly\n    Know that this gold must coin a stratagem,\n    Which, cunningly effected, will beget\n    A very excellent piece of villainy.\n    And so repose, sweet gold, for their unrest\n                                                [Hides the gold]\n    That have their alms out of the Empress' chest.\n\n               Enter TAMORA alone, to the Moor\n\n  TAMORA. My lovely Aaron, wherefore look'st thou sad\n    When everything does make a gleeful boast?\n    The birds chant melody on every bush;\n    The snakes lie rolled in the cheerful sun;\n    The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind\n    And make a chequer'd shadow on the ground;\n    Under their sweet shade, Aaron, let us sit,\n    And while the babbling echo mocks the hounds,\n    Replying shrilly to the well-tun'd horns,\n    As if a double hunt were heard at once,\n    Let us sit down and mark their yellowing noise;\n    And- after conflict such as was suppos'd\n    The wand'ring prince and Dido once enjoyed,\n    When with a happy storm they were surpris'd,\n    And curtain'd with a counsel-keeping cave-\n    We may, each wreathed in the other's arms,\n    Our pastimes done, possess a golden slumber,\n    Whiles hounds and horns and sweet melodious birds\n    Be unto us as is a nurse's song\n    Of lullaby to bring her babe asleep.\n  AARON. Madam, though Venus govern your desires,\n    Saturn is dominator over mine.\n    What signifies my deadly-standing eye,\n    My silence and my cloudy melancholy,\n    My fleece of woolly hair that now uncurls\n    Even as an adder when she doth unroll\n    To do some fatal execution?\n    No, madam, these are no venereal signs.\n    Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand,\n    Blood and revenge are hammering in my head.\n    Hark, Tamora, the empress of my soul,\n    Which never hopes more heaven than rests in thee-\n    This is the day of doom for Bassianus;\n    His Philomel must lose her tongue to-day,\n    Thy sons make pillage of her chastity,\n    And wash their hands in Bassianus' blood.\n    Seest thou this letter? Take it up, I pray thee,\n    And give the King this fatal-plotted scroll.\n    Now question me no more; we are espied.\n    Here comes a parcel of our hopeful booty,\n    Which dreads not yet their lives' destruction.\n\n                Enter BASSIANUS and LAVINIA\n\n  TAMORA. Ah, my sweet Moor, sweeter to me than life!\n  AARON. No more, great Empress: Bassianus comes.\n    Be cross with him; and I'll go fetch thy sons\n    To back thy quarrels, whatsoe'er they be.               Exit\n  BASSIANUS. Who have we here? Rome's royal Emperess,\n    Unfurnish'd of her well-beseeming troop?\n    Or is it Dian, habited like her,\n    Who hath abandoned her holy groves\n    To see the general hunting in this forest?\n  TAMORA. Saucy controller of my private steps!\n    Had I the pow'r that some say Dian had,\n    Thy temples should be planted presently\n    With horns, as was Actaeon's; and the hounds\n    Should drive upon thy new-transformed limbs,\n    Unmannerly intruder as thou art!\n  LAVINIA. Under your patience, gentle Emperess,\n    'Tis thought you have a goodly gift in horning,\n    And to be doubted that your Moor and you\n    Are singled forth to try thy experiments.\n    Jove shield your husband from his hounds to-day!\n    'Tis pity they should take him for a stag.\n  BASSIANUS. Believe me, Queen, your swarth Cimmerian\n    Doth make your honour of his body's hue,\n    Spotted, detested, and abominable.\n    Why are you sequest'red from all your train,\n    Dismounted from your snow-white goodly steed,\n    And wand'red hither to an obscure plot,\n    Accompanied but with a barbarous Moor,\n    If foul desire had not conducted you?\n  LAVINIA. And, being intercepted in your sport,\n    Great reason that my noble lord be rated\n    For sauciness. I pray you let us hence,\n    And let her joy her raven-coloured love;\n    This valley fits the purpose passing well.\n  BASSIANUS. The King my brother shall have notice of this.\n  LAVINIA. Ay, for these slips have made him noted long.\n    Good king, to be so mightily abused!\n  TAMORA. Why, I have patience to endure all this.\n\n                  Enter CHIRON and DEMETRIUS\n\n  DEMETRIUS. How now, dear sovereign, and our gracious mother!\n    Why doth your Highness look so pale and wan?\n  TAMORA. Have I not reason, think you, to look pale?\n    These two have 'ticed me hither to this place.\n    A barren detested vale you see it is:\n    The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean,\n    Overcome with moss and baleful mistletoe;\n    Here never shines the sun; here nothing breeds,\n    Unless the nightly owl or fatal raven.\n    And when they show'd me this abhorred pit,\n    They told me, here, at dead time of the night,\n    A thousand fiends, a thousand hissing snakes,\n    Ten thousand swelling toads, as many urchins,\n    Would make such fearful and confused cries\n    As any mortal body hearing it\n    Should straight fall mad or else die suddenly.\n    No sooner had they told this hellish tale\n    But straight they told me they would bind me here\n    Unto the body of a dismal yew,\n    And leave me to this miserable death.\n    And then they call'd me foul adulteress,\n    Lascivious Goth, and all the bitterest terms\n    That ever ear did hear to such effect;\n    And had you not by wondrous fortune come,\n    This vengeance on me had they executed.\n    Revenge it, as you love your mother's life,\n    Or be ye not henceforth call'd my children.\n  DEMETRIUS. This is a witness that I am thy son.\n                                               [Stabs BASSIANUS]\n  CHIRON. And this for me, struck home to show my strength.\n                                                    [Also stabs]\n  LAVINIA. Ay, come, Semiramis- nay, barbarous Tamora,\n    For no name fits thy nature but thy own!\n  TAMORA. Give me the poniard; you shall know, my boys,\n    Your mother's hand shall right your mother's wrong.\n  DEMETRIUS. Stay, madam, here is more belongs to her;\n    First thrash the corn, then after burn the straw.\n    This minion stood upon her chastity,\n    Upon her nuptial vow, her loyalty,\n    And with that painted hope braves your mightiness;\n    And shall she carry this unto her grave?\n  CHIRON. An if she do, I would I were an eunuch.\n    Drag hence her husband to some secret hole,\n    And make his dead trunk pillow to our lust.\n  TAMORA. But when ye have the honey we desire,\n    Let not this wasp outlive, us both to sting.\n  CHIRON. I warrant you, madam, we will make that sure.\n    Come, mistress, now perforce we will enjoy\n    That nice-preserved honesty of yours.\n  LAVINIA. O Tamora! thou bearest a woman's face-\n  TAMORA. I will not hear her speak; away with her!\n  LAVINIA. Sweet lords, entreat her hear me but a word.\n  DEMETRIUS. Listen, fair madam: let it be your glory\n    To see her tears; but be your heart to them\n    As unrelenting flint to drops of rain.\n  LAVINIA. When did the tiger's young ones teach the dam?\n    O, do not learn her wrath- she taught it thee;\n    The milk thou suck'dst from her did turn to marble,\n    Even at thy teat thou hadst thy tyranny.\n    Yet every mother breeds not sons alike:\n    [To CHIRON]  Do thou entreat her show a woman's pity.\n  CHIRON. What, wouldst thou have me prove myself a bastard?\n  LAVINIA. 'Tis true, the raven doth not hatch a lark.\n    Yet have I heard- O, could I find it now!-\n    The lion, mov'd with pity, did endure\n    To have his princely paws par'd all away.\n    Some say that ravens foster forlorn children,\n    The whilst their own birds famish in their nests;\n    O, be to me, though thy hard heart say no,\n    Nothing so kind, but something pitiful!\n  TAMORA. I know not what it means; away with her!\n  LAVINIA. O, let me teach thee! For my father's sake,\n    That gave thee life when well he might have slain thee,\n    Be not obdurate, open thy deaf ears.\n  TAMORA. Hadst thou in person ne'er offended me,\n    Even for his sake am I pitiless.\n    Remember, boys, I pour'd forth tears in vain\n    To save your brother from the sacrifice;\n    But fierce Andronicus would not relent.\n    Therefore away with her, and use her as you will;\n    The worse to her the better lov'd of me.\n  LAVINIA. O Tamora, be call'd a gentle queen,\n    And with thine own hands kill me in this place!\n    For 'tis not life that I have begg'd so long;\n    Poor I was slain when Bassianus died.\n  TAMORA. What beg'st thou, then? Fond woman, let me go.\n  LAVINIA. 'Tis present death I beg; and one thing more,\n    That womanhood denies my tongue to tell:\n    O, keep me from their worse than killing lust,\n    And tumble me into some loathsome pit,\n    Where never man's eye may behold my body;\n    Do this, and be a charitable murderer.\n  TAMORA. So should I rob my sweet sons of their fee;\n    No, let them satisfy their lust on thee.\n  DEMETRIUS. Away! for thou hast stay'd us here too long.\n  LAVINIA. No grace? no womanhood? Ah, beastly creature,\n    The blot and enemy to our general name!\n    Confusion fall-\n  CHIRON. Nay, then I'll stop your mouth. Bring thou her husband.\n    This is the hole where Aaron bid us hide him.\n\n                 DEMETRIUS throws the body\n           of BASSIANUS into the pit; then exeunt\n         DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, dragging off LAVINIA\n\n  TAMORA. Farewell, my sons; see that you make her sure.\n    Ne'er let my heart know merry cheer indeed\n    Till all the Andronici be made away.\n    Now will I hence to seek my lovely Moor,\n    And let my spleenful sons this trull deflower.          Exit\n\n                  Re-enter AARON, with two\n             of TITUS' sons, QUINTUS and MARTIUS\n\n  AARON. Come on, my lords, the better foot before;\n    Straight will I bring you to the loathsome pit\n    Where I espied the panther fast asleep.\n  QUINTUS. My sight is very dull, whate'er it bodes.\n  MARTIUS. And mine, I promise you; were it not for shame,\n    Well could I leave our sport to sleep awhile.\n                                            [Falls into the pit]\n  QUINTUS. What, art thou fallen? What subtle hole is this,\n    Whose mouth is covered with rude-growing briers,\n    Upon whose leaves are drops of new-shed blood\n    As fresh as morning dew distill'd on flowers?\n    A very fatal place it seems to me.\n    Speak, brother, hast thou hurt thee with the fall?\n  MARTIUS. O brother, with the dismal'st object hurt\n    That ever eye with sight made heart lament!\n  AARON.  [Aside]  Now will I fetch the King to find them here,\n    That he thereby may have a likely guess\n    How these were they that made away his brother.         Exit\n  MARTIUS. Why dost not comfort me, and help me out\n    From this unhallow'd and blood-stained hole?\n  QUINTUS. I am surprised with an uncouth fear;\n    A chilling sweat o'er-runs my trembling joints;\n    My heart suspects more than mine eye can see.\n  MARTIUS. To prove thou hast a true divining heart,\n    Aaron and thou look down into this den,\n    And see a fearful sight of blood and death.\n  QUINTUS. Aaron is gone, and my compassionate heart\n    Will not permit mine eyes once to behold\n    The thing whereat it trembles by surmise;\n    O, tell me who it is, for ne'er till now\n    Was I a child to fear I know not what.\n  MARTIUS. Lord Bassianus lies beray'd in blood,\n    All on a heap, like to a slaughtered lamb,\n    In this detested, dark, blood-drinking pit.\n  QUINTUS. If it be dark, how dost thou know 'tis he?\n  MARTIUS. Upon his bloody finger he doth wear\n    A precious ring that lightens all this hole,\n    Which, like a taper in some monument,\n    Doth shine upon the dead man's earthy cheeks,\n    And shows the ragged entrails of this pit;\n    So pale did shine the moon on Pyramus\n    When he by night lay bath'd in maiden blood.\n    O brother, help me with thy fainting hand-\n    If fear hath made thee faint, as me it hath-\n    Out of this fell devouring receptacle,\n    As hateful as Cocytus' misty mouth.\n  QUINTUS. Reach me thy hand, that I may help thee out,\n    Or, wanting strength to do thee so much good,\n    I may be pluck'd into the swallowing womb\n    Of this deep pit, poor Bassianus' grave.\n    I have no strength to pluck thee to the brink.\n  MARTIUS. Nor I no strength to climb without thy help.\n  QUINTUS. Thy hand once more; I will not loose again,\n    Till thou art here aloft, or I below.\n    Thou canst not come to me- I come to thee.        [Falls in]\n\n            Enter the EMPEROR and AARON the Moor\n\n  SATURNINUS. Along with me! I'll see what hole is here,\n    And what he is that now is leapt into it.\n    Say, who art thou that lately didst descend\n    Into this gaping hollow of the earth?\n  MARTIUS. The unhappy sons of old Andronicus,\n    Brought hither in a most unlucky hour,\n    To find thy brother Bassianus dead.\n  SATURNINUS. My brother dead! I know thou dost but jest:\n    He and his lady both are at the lodge\n    Upon the north side of this pleasant chase;\n    'Tis not an hour since I left them there.\n  MARTIUS. We know not where you left them all alive;\n    But, out alas! here have we found him dead.\n\n                   Re-enter TAMORA, with\n         attendants; TITUS ANDRONICUS and Lucius\n\n  TAMORA. Where is my lord the King?\n  SATURNINUS. Here, Tamora; though griev'd with killing grief.\n  TAMORA. Where is thy brother Bassianus?\n  SATURNINUS. Now to the bottom dost thou search my wound;\n    Poor Bassianus here lies murdered.\n  TAMORA. Then all too late I bring this fatal writ,\n    The complot of this timeless tragedy;\n    And wonder greatly that man's face can fold\n    In pleasing smiles such murderous tyranny.\n                                 [She giveth SATURNINE a letter]\n    SATURNINUS.  [Reads]  'An if we miss to meet him handsomely,\n    Sweet huntsman- Bassianus 'tis we mean-\n    Do thou so much as dig the grave for him.\n    Thou know'st our meaning. Look for thy reward\n    Among the nettles at the elder-tree\n    Which overshades the mouth of that same pit\n    Where we decreed to bury Bassianus.\n    Do this, and purchase us thy lasting friends.'\n    O Tamora! was ever heard the like?\n    This is the pit and this the elder-tree.\n    Look, sirs, if you can find the huntsman out\n    That should have murdered Bassianus here.\n  AARON. My gracious lord, here is the bag of gold.\n  SATURNINUS.  [To TITUS]  Two of thy whelps, fell curs of bloody\n      kind,\n    Have here bereft my brother of his life.\n    Sirs, drag them from the pit unto the prison;\n    There let them bide until we have devis'd\n    Some never-heard-of torturing pain for them.\n  TAMORA. What, are they in this pit? O wondrous thing!\n    How easily murder is discovered!\n  TITUS. High Emperor, upon my feeble knee\n    I beg this boon, with tears not lightly shed,\n    That this fell fault of my accursed sons-\n    Accursed if the fault be prov'd in them-\n  SATURNINUS. If it be prov'd! You see it is apparent.\n    Who found this letter? Tamora, was it you?\n  TAMORA. Andronicus himself did take it up.\n  TITUS. I did, my lord, yet let me be their bail;\n    For, by my fathers' reverend tomb, I vow\n    They shall be ready at your Highness' will\n    To answer their suspicion with their lives.\n  SATURNINUS. Thou shalt not bail them; see thou follow me.\n    Some bring the murdered body, some the murderers;\n    Let them not speak a word- the guilt is plain;\n    For, by my soul, were there worse end than death,\n    That end upon them should be executed.\n  TAMORA. Andronicus, I will entreat the King.\n    Fear not thy sons; they shall do well enough.\n  TITUS. Come, Lucius, come; stay not to talk with them.     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nAnother part of the forest\n\nEnter the Empress' sons, DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, with LAVINIA,\nher hands cut off, and her tongue cut out, and ravish'd\n\n  DEMETRIUS. So, now go tell, an if thy tongue can speak,\n    Who 'twas that cut thy tongue and ravish'd thee.\n  CHIRON. Write down thy mind, bewray thy meaning so,\n    An if thy stumps will let thee play the scribe.\n  DEMETRIUS. See how with signs and tokens she can scrowl.\n  CHIRON. Go home, call for sweet water, wash thy hands.\n  DEMETRIUS. She hath no tongue to call, nor hands to wash;\n    And so let's leave her to her silent walks.\n  CHIRON. An 'twere my cause, I should go hang myself.\n  DEMETRIUS. If thou hadst hands to help thee knit the cord.\n                                     Exeunt DEMETRIUS and CHIRON\n\n           Wind horns. Enter MARCUS, from hunting\n\n  MARCUS. Who is this?- my niece, that flies away so fast?\n    Cousin, a word: where is your husband?\n    If I do dream, would all my wealth would wake me!\n    If I do wake, some planet strike me down,\n    That I may slumber an eternal sleep!\n    Speak, gentle niece. What stern ungentle hands\n    Hath lopp'd, and hew'd, and made thy body bare\n    Of her two branches- those sweet ornaments\n    Whose circling shadows kings have sought to sleep in,\n    And might not gain so great a happiness\n    As half thy love? Why dost not speak to me?\n    Alas, a crimson river of warm blood,\n    Like to a bubbling fountain stirr'd with wind,\n    Doth rise and fall between thy rosed lips,\n    Coming and going with thy honey breath.\n    But sure some Tereus hath deflowered thee,\n    And, lest thou shouldst detect him, cut thy tongue.\n    Ah, now thou turn'st away thy face for shame!\n    And notwithstanding all this loss of blood-\n    As from a conduit with three issuing spouts-\n    Yet do thy cheeks look red as Titan's face\n    Blushing to be encount'red with a cloud.\n    Shall I speak for thee? Shall I say 'tis so?\n    O, that I knew thy heart, and knew the beast,\n    That I might rail at him to ease my mind!\n    Sorrow concealed, like an oven stopp'd,\n    Doth burn the heart to cinders where it is.\n    Fair Philomel, why she but lost her tongue,\n    And in a tedious sampler sew'd her mind;\n    But, lovely niece, that mean is cut from thee.\n    A craftier Tereus, cousin, hast thou met,\n    And he hath cut those pretty fingers off\n    That could have better sew'd than Philomel.\n    O, had the monster seen those lily hands\n    Tremble like aspen leaves upon a lute\n    And make the silken strings delight to kiss them,\n    He would not then have touch'd them for his life!\n    Or had he heard the heavenly harmony\n    Which that sweet tongue hath made,\n    He would have dropp'd his knife, and fell asleep,\n    As Cerberus at the Thracian poet's feet.\n    Come, let us go, and make thy father blind,\n    For such a sight will blind a father's eye;\n    One hour's storm will drown the fragrant meads,\n    What will whole months of tears thy father's eyes?\n    Do not draw back, for we will mourn with thee;\n    O, could our mourning case thy misery!                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nRome. A street\n\nEnter the JUDGES, TRIBUNES, and SENATORS, with TITUS' two sons\nMARTIUS and QUINTUS bound, passing on the stage to the place of execution,\nand TITUS going before, pleading\n\n  TITUS. Hear me, grave fathers; noble Tribunes, stay!\n    For pity of mine age, whose youth was spent\n    In dangerous wars whilst you securely slept;\n    For all my blood in Rome's great quarrel shed,\n    For all the frosty nights that I have watch'd,\n    And for these bitter tears, which now you see\n    Filling the aged wrinkles in my cheeks,\n    Be pitiful to my condemned sons,\n    Whose souls are not corrupted as 'tis thought.\n    For two and twenty sons I never wept,\n    Because they died in honour's lofty bed.\n                          [ANDRONICUS lieth down, and the judges\n                     pass by him with the prisoners, and exeunt]\n    For these, Tribunes, in the dust I write\n    My heart's deep languor and my soul's sad tears.\n    Let my tears stanch the earth's dry appetite;\n    My sons' sweet blood will make it shame and blush.\n    O earth, I will befriend thee more with rain\n    That shall distil from these two ancient urns,\n    Than youthful April shall with all his show'rs.\n    In summer's drought I'll drop upon thee still;\n    In winter with warm tears I'll melt the snow\n    And keep eternal spring-time on thy face,\n    So thou refuse to drink my dear sons' blood.\n\n             Enter Lucius with his weapon drawn\n\n    O reverend Tribunes! O gentle aged men!\n    Unbind my sons, reverse the doom of death,\n    And let me say, that never wept before,\n    My tears are now prevailing orators.\n  LUCIUS. O noble father, you lament in vain;\n    The Tribunes hear you not, no man is by,\n    And you recount your sorrows to a stone.\n  TITUS. Ah, Lucius, for thy brothers let me plead!\n    Grave Tribunes, once more I entreat of you.\n  LUCIUS. My gracious lord, no tribune hears you speak.\n  TITUS. Why, 'tis no matter, man: if they did hear,\n    They would not mark me; if they did mark,\n    They would not pity me; yet plead I must,\n    And bootless unto them.\n    Therefore I tell my sorrows to the stones;\n    Who though they cannot answer my distress,\n    Yet in some sort they are better than the Tribunes,\n    For that they will not intercept my tale.\n    When I do weep, they humbly at my feet\n    Receive my tears, and seem to weep with me;\n    And were they but attired in grave weeds,\n    Rome could afford no tribunes like to these.\n    A stone is soft as wax: tribunes more hard than stones.\n    A stone is silent and offendeth not,\n    And tribunes with their tongues doom men to death.\n                                                         [Rises]\n    But wherefore stand'st thou with thy weapon drawn?\n  LUCIUS. To rescue my two brothers from their death;\n    For which attempt the judges have pronounc'd\n    My everlasting doom of banishment.\n  TITUS. O happy man! they have befriended thee.\n    Why, foolish Lucius, dost thou not perceive\n    That Rome is but a wilderness of tigers?\n    Tigers must prey, and Rome affords no prey\n    But me and mine; how happy art thou then\n    From these devourers to be banished!\n    But who comes with our brother Marcus here?\n\n                 Enter MARCUS with LAVINIA\n\n  MARCUS. Titus, prepare thy aged eyes to weep,\n    Or if not so, thy noble heart to break.\n    I bring consuming sorrow to thine age.\n  TITUS. Will it consume me? Let me see it then.\n  MARCUS. This was thy daughter.\n  TITUS. Why, Marcus, so she is.\n  LUCIUS. Ay me! this object kills me.\n  TITUS. Faint-hearted boy, arise, and look upon her.\n    Speak, Lavinia, what accursed hand\n    Hath made thee handless in thy father's sight?\n    What fool hath added water to the sea,\n    Or brought a fagot to bright-burning Troy?\n    My grief was at the height before thou cam'st,\n    And now like Nilus it disdaineth bounds.\n    Give me a sword, I'll chop off my hands too,\n    For they have fought for Rome, and all in vain;\n    And they have nurs'd this woe in feeding life;\n    In bootless prayer have they been held up,\n    And they have serv'd me to effectless use.\n    Now all the service I require of them\n    Is that the one will help to cut the other.\n    'Tis well, Lavinia, that thou hast no hands;\n    For hands to do Rome service is but vain.\n  LUCIUS. Speak, gentle sister, who hath martyr'd thee?\n  MARCUS. O, that delightful engine of her thoughts\n    That blabb'd them with such pleasing eloquence\n    Is torn from forth that pretty hollow cage,\n    Where like a sweet melodious bird it sung\n    Sweet varied notes, enchanting every ear!\n  LUCIUS. O, say thou for her, who hath done this deed?\n  MARCUS. O, thus I found her straying in the park,\n    Seeking to hide herself as doth the deer\n    That hath receiv'd some unrecuring wound.\n  TITUS. It was my dear, and he that wounded her\n    Hath hurt me more than had he kill'd me dead;\n    For now I stand as one upon a rock,\n    Environ'd with a wilderness of sea,\n    Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave,\n    Expecting ever when some envious surge\n    Will in his brinish bowels swallow him.\n    This way to death my wretched sons are gone;\n    Here stands my other son, a banish'd man,\n    And here my brother, weeping at my woes.\n    But that which gives my soul the greatest spurn\n    Is dear Lavinia, dearer than my soul.\n    Had I but seen thy picture in this plight,\n    It would have madded me; what shall I do\n    Now I behold thy lively body so?\n    Thou hast no hands to wipe away thy tears,\n    Nor tongue to tell me who hath martyr'd thee;\n    Thy husband he is dead, and for his death\n    Thy brothers are condemn'd, and dead by this.\n    Look, Marcus! Ah, son Lucius, look on her!\n    When I did name her brothers, then fresh tears\n    Stood on her cheeks, as doth the honey dew\n    Upon a gath'red lily almost withered.\n  MARCUS. Perchance she weeps because they kill'd her husband;\n    Perchance because she knows them innocent.\n  TITUS. If they did kill thy husband, then be joyful,\n    Because the law hath ta'en revenge on them.\n    No, no, they would not do so foul a deed;\n    Witness the sorrow that their sister makes.\n    Gentle Lavinia, let me kiss thy lips,\n    Or make some sign how I may do thee ease.\n    Shall thy good uncle and thy brother Lucius\n    And thou and I sit round about some fountain,\n    Looking all downwards to behold our cheeks\n    How they are stain'd, like meadows yet not dry\n    With miry slime left on them by a flood?\n    And in the fountain shall we gaze so long,\n    Till the fresh taste be taken from that clearness,\n    And made a brine-pit with our bitter tears?\n    Or shall we cut away our hands like thine?\n    Or shall we bite our tongues, and in dumb shows\n    Pass the remainder of our hateful days?\n    What shall we do? Let us that have our tongues\n    Plot some device of further misery\n    To make us wonder'd at in time to come.\n  LUCIUS. Sweet father, cease your tears; for at your grief\n    See how my wretched sister sobs and weeps.\n  MARCUS. Patience, dear niece. Good Titus, dry thine eyes.\n  TITUS. Ah, Marcus, Marcus! Brother, well I wot\n    Thy napkin cannot drink a tear of mine,\n    For thou, poor man, hast drown'd it with thine own.\n  LUCIUS. Ah, my Lavinia, I will wipe thy cheeks.\n  TITUS. Mark, Marcus, mark! I understand her signs.\n    Had she a tongue to speak, now would she say\n    That to her brother which I said to thee:\n    His napkin, with his true tears all bewet,\n    Can do no service on her sorrowful cheeks.\n    O, what a sympathy of woe is this\n    As far from help as Limbo is from bliss!\n\n                   Enter AARON the Moor\n\n  AARON. Titus Andronicus, my lord the Emperor\n    Sends thee this word, that, if thou love thy sons,\n    Let Marcus, Lucius, or thyself, old Titus,\n    Or any one of you, chop off your hand\n    And send it to the King: he for the same\n    Will send thee hither both thy sons alive,\n    And that shall be the ransom for their fault.\n  TITUS. O gracious Emperor! O gentle Aaron!\n    Did ever raven sing so like a lark\n    That gives sweet tidings of the sun's uprise?\n    With all my heart I'll send the Emperor my hand.\n    Good Aaron, wilt thou help to chop it off?\n  LUCIUS. Stay, father! for that noble hand of thine,\n    That hath thrown down so many enemies,\n    Shall not be sent. My hand will serve the turn,\n    My youth can better spare my blood than you,\n    And therefore mine shall save my brothers' lives.\n  MARCUS. Which of your hands hath not defended Rome\n    And rear'd aloft the bloody battle-axe,\n    Writing destruction on the enemy's castle?\n    O, none of both but are of high desert!\n    My hand hath been but idle; let it serve\n    To ransom my two nephews from their death;\n    Then have I kept it to a worthy end.\n  AARON. Nay, come, agree whose hand shall go along,\n    For fear they die before their pardon come.\n  MARCUS. My hand shall go.\n  LUCIUS. By heaven, it shall not go!\n  TITUS. Sirs, strive no more; such with'red herbs as these\n    Are meet for plucking up, and therefore mine.\n  LUCIUS. Sweet father, if I shall be thought thy son,\n    Let me redeem my brothers both from death.\n  MARCUS. And for our father's sake and mother's care,\n    Now let me show a brother's love to thee.\n  TITUS. Agree between you; I will spare my hand.\n  LUCIUS. Then I'll go fetch an axe.\n  MARCUS. But I will use the axe.\n                                        Exeunt LUCIUS and MARCUS\n  TITUS. Come hither, Aaron, I'll deceive them both;\n    Lend me thy hand, and I will give thee mine.\n  AARON.  [Aside]  If that be call'd deceit, I will be honest,\n    And never whilst I live deceive men so;\n    But I'll deceive you in another sort,\n    And that you'll say ere half an hour pass.\n                                       [He cuts off TITUS' hand]\n\n                 Re-enter LUCIUS and MARCUS\n\n TITUS. Now stay your strife. What shall be is dispatch'd.\n    Good Aaron, give his Majesty my hand;\n    Tell him it was a hand that warded him\n    From thousand dangers; bid him bury it.\n    More hath it merited- that let it have.\n    As for my sons, say I account of them\n    As jewels purchas'd at an easy price;\n    And yet dear too, because I bought mine own.\n  AARON. I go, Andronicus; and for thy hand\n    Look by and by to have thy sons with thee.\n    [Aside]  Their heads I mean. O, how this villainy\n    Doth fat me with the very thoughts of it!\n    Let fools do good, and fair men call for grace:\n    Aaron will have his soul black like his face.           Exit\n  TITUS. O, here I lift this one hand up to heaven,\n    And bow this feeble ruin to the earth;\n    If any power pities wretched tears,\n    To that I call!  [To LAVINIA]  What, would'st thou kneel with me?\n    Do, then, dear heart; for heaven shall hear our prayers,\n    Or with our sighs we'll breathe the welkin dim\n    And stain the sun with fog, as sometime clouds\n    When they do hug him in their melting bosoms.\n  MARCUS. O brother, speak with possibility,\n    And do not break into these deep extremes.\n  TITUS. Is not my sorrow deep, having no bottom?\n    Then be my passions bottomless with them.\n  MARCUS. But yet let reason govern thy lament.\n  TITUS. If there were reason for these miseries,\n    Then into limits could I bind my woes.\n    When heaven doth weep, doth not the earth o'erflow?\n    If the winds rage, doth not the sea wax mad,\n    Threat'ning the welkin with his big-swol'n face?\n    And wilt thou have a reason for this coil?\n    I am the sea; hark how her sighs do blow.\n    She is the weeping welkin, I the earth;\n    Then must my sea be moved with her sighs;\n    Then must my earth with her continual tears\n    Become a deluge, overflow'd and drown'd;\n    For why my bowels cannot hide her woes,\n    But like a drunkard must I vomit them.\n    Then give me leave; for losers will have leave\n    To ease their stomachs with their bitter tongues.\n\n        Enter a MESSENGER, with two heads and a hand\n\n  MESSENGER. Worthy Andronicus, ill art thou repaid\n    For that good hand thou sent'st the Emperor.\n    Here are the heads of thy two noble sons;\n    And here's thy hand, in scorn to thee sent back-\n    Thy grief their sports, thy resolution mock'd,\n    That woe is me to think upon thy woes,\n    More than remembrance of my father's death.             Exit\n  MARCUS. Now let hot Aetna cool in Sicily,\n    And be my heart an ever-burning hell!\n    These miseries are more than may be borne.\n    To weep with them that weep doth ease some deal,\n    But sorrow flouted at is double death.\n  LUCIUS. Ah, that this sight should make so deep a wound,\n    And yet detested life not shrink thereat!\n    That ever death should let life bear his name,\n    Where life hath no more interest but to breathe!\n                                          [LAVINIA kisses TITUS]\n  MARCUS. Alas, poor heart, that kiss is comfortless\n    As frozen water to a starved snake.\n  TITUS. When will this fearful slumber have an end?\n  MARCUS. Now farewell, flatt'ry; die, Andronicus.\n    Thou dost not slumber: see thy two sons' heads,\n    Thy warlike hand, thy mangled daughter here;\n    Thy other banish'd son with this dear sight\n    Struck pale and bloodless; and thy brother, I,\n    Even like a stony image, cold and numb.\n    Ah! now no more will I control thy griefs.\n    Rent off thy silver hair, thy other hand\n    Gnawing with thy teeth; and be this dismal sight\n    The closing up of our most wretched eyes.\n    Now is a time to storm; why art thou still?\n  TITUS. Ha, ha, ha!\n  MARCUS. Why dost thou laugh? It fits not with this hour.\n  TITUS. Why, I have not another tear to shed;\n    Besides, this sorrow is an enemy,\n    And would usurp upon my wat'ry eyes\n    And make them blind with tributary tears.\n    Then which way shall I find Revenge's cave?\n    For these two heads do seem to speak to me,\n    And threat me I shall never come to bliss\n    Till all these mischiefs be return'd again\n    Even in their throats that have committed them.\n    Come, let me see what task I have to do.\n    You heavy people, circle me about,\n    That I may turn me to each one of you\n    And swear unto my soul to right your wrongs.\n    The vow is made. Come, brother, take a head,\n    And in this hand the other will I bear.\n    And, Lavinia, thou shalt be employ'd in this;\n    Bear thou my hand, sweet wench, between thy teeth.\n    As for thee, boy, go, get thee from my sight;\n    Thou art an exile, and thou must not stay.\n    Hie to the Goths and raise an army there;\n    And if ye love me, as I think you do,\n    Let's kiss and part, for we have much to do.\n                                           Exeunt all but Lucius\n  LUCIUS. Farewell, Andronicus, my noble father,\n    The woefull'st man that ever liv'd in Rome.\n    Farewell, proud Rome; till Lucius come again,\n    He leaves his pledges dearer than his life.\n    Farewell, Lavinia, my noble sister;\n    O, would thou wert as thou tofore hast been!\n    But now nor Lucius nor Lavinia lives\n    But in oblivion and hateful griefs.\n    If Lucius live, he will requite your wrongs\n    And make proud Saturnine and his emperess\n    Beg at the gates like Tarquin and his queen.\n    Now will I to the Goths, and raise a pow'r\n    To be reveng'd on Rome and Saturnine.                   Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nRome. TITUS' house\n\nA banquet.\n\nEnter TITUS, MARCUS, LAVINIA, and the boy YOUNG LUCIUS\n\n  TITUS. So so, now sit; and look you eat no more\n    Than will preserve just so much strength in us\n    As will revenge these bitter woes of ours.\n    Marcus, unknit that sorrow-wreathen knot;\n    Thy niece and I, poor creatures, want our hands,\n    And cannot passionate our tenfold grief\n    With folded arms. This poor right hand of mine\n    Is left to tyrannize upon my breast;\n    Who, when my heart, all mad with misery,\n    Beats in this hollow prison of my flesh,\n    Then thus I thump it down.\n    [To LAVINIA]  Thou map of woe, that thus dost talk in signs!\n    When thy poor heart beats with outrageous beating,\n    Thou canst not strike it thus to make it still.\n    Wound it with sighing, girl, kill it with groans;\n    Or get some little knife between thy teeth\n    And just against thy heart make thou a hole,\n    That all the tears that thy poor eyes let fall\n    May run into that sink and, soaking in,\n    Drown the lamenting fool in sea-salt tears.\n  MARCUS. Fie, brother, fie! Teach her not thus to lay\n    Such violent hands upon her tender life.\n  TITUS. How now! Has sorrow made thee dote already?\n    Why, Marcus, no man should be mad but I.\n    What violent hands can she lay on her life?\n    Ah, wherefore dost thou urge the name of hands?\n    To bid Aeneas tell the tale twice o'er\n    How Troy was burnt and he made miserable?\n    O, handle not the theme, to talk of hands,\n    Lest we remember still that we have none.\n    Fie, fie, how franticly I square my talk,\n    As if we should forget we had no hands,\n    If Marcus did not name the word of hands!\n    Come, let's fall to; and, gentle girl, eat this:\n    Here is no drink. Hark, Marcus, what she says-\n    I can interpret all her martyr'd signs;\n    She says she drinks no other drink but tears,\n    Brew'd with her sorrow, mesh'd upon her cheeks.\n    Speechless complainer, I will learn thy thought;\n    In thy dumb action will I be as perfect\n    As begging hermits in their holy prayers.\n    Thou shalt not sigh, nor hold thy stumps to heaven,\n    Nor wink, nor nod, nor kneel, nor make a sign,\n    But I of these will wrest an alphabet,\n    And by still practice learn to know thy meaning.\n  BOY. Good grandsire, leave these bitter deep laments;\n    Make my aunt merry with some pleasing tale.\n  MARCUS. Alas, the tender boy, in passion mov'd,\n    Doth weep to see his grandsire's heaviness.\n  TITUS. Peace, tender sapling; thou art made of tears,\n    And tears will quickly melt thy life away.\n                          [MARCUS strikes the dish with a knife]\n    What dost thou strike at, Marcus, with thy knife?\n  MARCUS. At that that I have kill'd, my lord- a fly.\n  TITUS. Out on thee, murderer, thou kill'st my heart!\n    Mine eyes are cloy'd with view of tyranny;\n    A deed of death done on the innocent\n    Becomes not Titus' brother. Get thee gone;\n    I see thou art not for my company.\n  MARCUS. Alas, my lord, I have but kill'd a fly.\n  TITUS. 'But!' How if that fly had a father and mother?\n    How would he hang his slender gilded wings\n    And buzz lamenting doings in the air!\n    Poor harmless fly,\n    That with his pretty buzzing melody\n    Came here to make us merry! And thou hast kill'd him.\n  MARCUS. Pardon me, sir; it was a black ill-favour'd fly,\n    Like to the Empress' Moor; therefore I kill'd him.\n  TITUS. O, O, O!\n    Then pardon me for reprehending thee,\n    For thou hast done a charitable deed.\n    Give me thy knife, I will insult on him,\n    Flattering myself as if it were the Moor\n    Come hither purposely to poison me.\n    There's for thyself, and that's for Tamora.\n    Ah, sirrah!\n    Yet, I think, we are not brought so low\n    But that between us we can kill a fly\n    That comes in likeness of a coal-black Moor.\n  MARCUS. Alas, poor man! grief has so wrought on him,\n    He takes false shadows for true substances.\n  TITUS. Come, take away. Lavinia, go with me;\n    I'll to thy closet, and go read with thee\n    Sad stories chanced in the times of old.\n    Come, boy, and go with me; thy sight is young,\n    And thou shalt read when mine begin to dazzle.        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nRome. TITUS' garden\n\nEnter YOUNG LUCIUS and LAVINIA running after him,\nand the boy flies from her with his books under his arm.\n\nEnter TITUS and MARCUS\n\n  BOY. Help, grandsire, help! my aunt Lavinia\n    Follows me everywhere, I know not why.\n    Good uncle Marcus, see how swift she comes!\n    Alas, sweet aunt, I know not what you mean.\n  MARCUS. Stand by me, Lucius; do not fear thine aunt.\n  TITUS. She loves thee, boy, too well to do thee harm.\n  BOY. Ay, when my father was in Rome she did.\n  MARCUS. What means my niece Lavinia by these signs?\n  TITUS. Fear her not, Lucius; somewhat doth she mean.\n    See, Lucius, see how much she makes of thee.\n    Somewhither would she have thee go with her.\n    Ah, boy, Cornelia never with more care\n    Read to her sons than she hath read to thee\n    Sweet poetry and Tully's Orator.\n  MARCUS. Canst thou not guess wherefore she plies thee thus?\n  BOY. My lord, I know not, I, nor can I guess,\n    Unless some fit or frenzy do possess her;\n    For I have heard my grandsire say full oft\n    Extremity of griefs would make men mad;\n    And I have read that Hecuba of Troy\n    Ran mad for sorrow. That made me to fear;\n    Although, my lord, I know my noble aunt\n    Loves me as dear as e'er my mother did,\n    And would not, but in fury, fright my youth;\n    Which made me down to throw my books, and fly-\n    Causeless, perhaps. But pardon me, sweet aunt;\n    And, madam, if my uncle Marcus go,\n    I will most willingly attend your ladyship.\n  MARCUS. Lucius, I will.           [LAVINIA turns over with her\n                     stumps the books which Lucius has let fall]\n  TITUS. How now, Lavinia! Marcus, what means this?\n    Some book there is that she desires to see.\n    Which is it, girl, of these?- Open them, boy.-\n    But thou art deeper read and better skill'd;\n    Come and take choice of all my library,\n    And so beguile thy sorrow, till the heavens\n    Reveal the damn'd contriver of this deed.\n    Why lifts she up her arms in sequence thus?\n  MARCUS. I think she means that there were more than one\n    Confederate in the fact; ay, more there was,\n    Or else to heaven she heaves them for revenge.\n  TITUS. Lucius, what book is that she tosseth so?\n  BOY. Grandsire, 'tis Ovid's Metamorphoses;\n    My mother gave it me.\n  MARCUS. For love of her that's gone,\n    Perhaps she cull'd it from among the rest.\n  TITUS. Soft! So busily she turns the leaves! Help her.\n    What would she find? Lavinia, shall I read?\n    This is the tragic tale of Philomel\n    And treats of Tereus' treason and his rape;\n    And rape, I fear, was root of thy annoy.\n  MARCUS. See, brother, see! Note how she quotes the leaves.\n  TITUS. Lavinia, wert thou thus surpris'd, sweet girl,\n    Ravish'd and wrong'd as Philomela was,\n    Forc'd in the ruthless, vast, and gloomy woods?\n    See, see!\n    Ay, such a place there is where we did hunt-\n    O, had we never, never hunted there!-\n    Pattern'd by that the poet here describes,\n    By nature made for murders and for rapes.\n  MARCUS. O, why should nature build so foul a den,\n    Unless the gods delight in tragedies?\n  TITUS. Give signs, sweet girl, for here are none but friends,\n    What Roman lord it was durst do the deed.\n    Or slunk not Saturnine, as Tarquin erst,\n    That left the camp to sin in Lucrece' bed?\n  MARCUS. Sit down, sweet niece; brother, sit down by me.\n    Apollo, Pallas, Jove, or Mercury,\n    Inspire me, that I may this treason find!\n    My lord, look here! Look here, Lavinia!\n                                    [He writes his name with his\n                       staff, and guides it with feet and mouth]\n    This sandy plot is plain; guide, if thou canst,\n    This after me. I have writ my name\n    Without the help of any hand at all.\n    Curs'd be that heart that forc'd us to this shift!\n    Write thou, good niece, and here display at last\n    What God will have discovered for revenge.\n    Heaven guide thy pen to print thy sorrows plain,\n    That we may know the traitors and the truth!\n                               [She takes the staff in her mouth\n                          and guides it with stumps, and writes]\n    O, do ye read, my lord, what she hath writ?\n  TITUS. 'Stuprum- Chiron- Demetrius.'\n  MARCUS. What, what! the lustful sons of Tamora\n    Performers of this heinous bloody deed?\n  TITUS. Magni Dominator poli,\n    Tam lentus audis scelera? tam lentus vides?\n  MARCUS. O, calm thee, gentle lord! although I know\n    There is enough written upon this earth\n    To stir a mutiny in the mildest thoughts,\n    And arm the minds of infants to exclaims.\n    My lord, kneel down with me; Lavinia, kneel;\n    And kneel, sweet boy, the Roman Hector's hope;\n    And swear with me- as, with the woeful fere\n    And father of that chaste dishonoured dame,\n    Lord Junius Brutus sware for Lucrece' rape-\n    That we will prosecute, by good advice,\n    Mortal revenge upon these traitorous Goths,\n    And see their blood or die with this reproach.\n  TITUS. 'Tis sure enough, an you knew how;\n    But if you hunt these bear-whelps, then beware:\n    The dam will wake; and if she wind ye once,\n    She's with the lion deeply still in league,\n    And lulls him whilst she playeth on her back,\n    And when he sleeps will she do what she list.\n    You are a young huntsman, Marcus; let alone;\n    And come, I will go get a leaf of brass,\n    And with a gad of steel will write these words,\n    And lay it by. The angry northern wind\n    Will blow these sands like Sibyl's leaves abroad,\n    And where's our lesson, then? Boy, what say you?\n  BOY. I say, my lord, that if I were a man\n    Their mother's bedchamber should not be safe\n    For these base bondmen to the yoke of Rome.\n  MARCUS. Ay, that's my boy! Thy father hath full oft\n    For his ungrateful country done the like.\n  BOY. And, uncle, so will I, an if I live.\n  TITUS. Come, go with me into mine armoury.\n    Lucius, I'll fit thee; and withal my boy\n    Shall carry from me to the Empress' sons\n    Presents that I intend to send them both.\n    Come, come; thou'lt do my message, wilt thou not?\n  BOY. Ay, with my dagger in their bosoms, grandsire.\n  TITUS. No, boy, not so; I'll teach thee another course.\n    Lavinia, come. Marcus, look to my house.\n    Lucius and I'll go brave it at the court;\n    Ay, marry, will we, sir! and we'll be waited on.\n                         Exeunt TITUS, LAVINIA, and YOUNG LUCIUS\n  MARCUS. O heavens, can you hear a good man groan\n    And not relent, or not compassion him?\n    Marcus, attend him in his ecstasy,\n    That hath more scars of sorrow in his heart\n    Than foemen's marks upon his batt'red shield,\n    But yet so just that he will not revenge.\n    Revenge the heavens for old Andronicus!                 Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nRome. The palace\n\nEnter AARON, DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, at one door; and at the other door,\nYOUNG LUCIUS and another with a bundle of weapons, and verses writ upon them\n\n  CHIRON. Demetrius, here's the son of Lucius;\n    He hath some message to deliver us.\n  AARON. Ay, some mad message from his mad grandfather.\n  BOY. My lords, with all the humbleness I may,\n    I greet your honours from Andronicus-\n    [Aside]  And pray the Roman gods confound you both!\n  DEMETRIUS. Gramercy, lovely Lucius. What's the news?\n  BOY.  [Aside]  That you are both decipher'd, that's the news,\n    For villains mark'd with rape.- May it please you,\n    My grandsire, well advis'd, hath sent by me\n    The goodliest weapons of his armoury\n    To gratify your honourable youth,\n    The hope of Rome; for so he bid me say;\n    And so I do, and with his gifts present\n    Your lordships, that, whenever you have need,\n    You may be armed and appointed well.\n    And so I leave you both-  [Aside]  like bloody villains.\n                               Exeunt YOUNG LUCIUS and attendant\n  DEMETRIUS. What's here? A scroll, and written round about.\n    Let's see:\n    [Reads]  'Integer vitae, scelerisque purus,\n    Non eget Mauri iaculis, nec arcu.'\n  CHIRON. O, 'tis a verse in Horace, I know it well;\n    I read it in the grammar long ago.\n  AARON. Ay, just- a verse in Horace. Right, you have it.\n    [Aside]  Now, what a thing it is to be an ass!\n    Here's no sound jest! The old man hath found their guilt,\n    And sends them weapons wrapp'd about with lines\n    That wound, beyond their feeling, to the quick.\n    But were our witty Empress well afoot,\n    She would applaud Andronicus' conceit.\n    But let her rest in her unrest awhile-\n    And now, young lords, was't not a happy star\n    Led us to Rome, strangers, and more than so,\n    Captives, to be advanced to this height?\n    It did me good before the palace gate\n    To brave the Tribune in his brother's hearing.\n  DEMETRIUS. But me more good to see so great a lord\n    Basely insinuate and send us gifts.\n  AARON. Had he not reason, Lord Demetrius?\n    Did you not use his daughter very friendly?\n  DEMETRIUS. I would we had a thousand Roman dames\n    At such a bay, by turn to serve our lust.\n  CHIRON. A charitable wish and full of love.\n  AARON. Here lacks but your mother for to say amen.\n  CHIRON. And that would she for twenty thousand more.\n  DEMETRIUS. Come, let us go and pray to all the gods\n    For our beloved mother in her pains.\n  AARON.  [Aside]  Pray to the devils; the gods have given us over.\n                                                [Trumpets sound]\n  DEMETRIUS. Why do the Emperor's trumpets flourish thus?\n  CHIRON. Belike, for joy the Emperor hath a son.\n  DEMETRIUS. Soft! who comes here?\n\n            Enter NURSE, with a blackamoor CHILD\n\n  NURSE. Good morrow, lords.\n    O, tell me, did you see Aaron the Moor?\n  AARON. Well, more or less, or ne'er a whit at all,\n    Here Aaron is; and what with Aaron now?\n  NURSE. O gentle Aaron, we are all undone!\n    Now help, or woe betide thee evermore!\n  AARON. Why, what a caterwauling dost thou keep!\n    What dost thou wrap and fumble in thy arms?\n  NURSE. O, that which I would hide from heaven's eye:\n    Our Empress' shame and stately Rome's disgrace!\n    She is delivered, lord; she is delivered.\n  AARON. To whom?\n  NURSE. I mean she is brought a-bed.\n  AARON. Well, God give her good rest! What hath he sent her?\n  NURSE. A devil.\n  AARON. Why, then she is the devil's dam;\n    A joyful issue.\n  NURSE. A joyless, dismal, black, and sorrowful issue!\n    Here is the babe, as loathsome as a toad\n    Amongst the fair-fac'd breeders of our clime;\n    The Empress sends it thee, thy stamp, thy seal,\n    And bids thee christen it with thy dagger's point.\n  AARON. Zounds, ye whore! Is black so base a hue?\n    Sweet blowse, you are a beauteous blossom sure.\n  DEMETRIUS. Villain, what hast thou done?\n  AARON. That which thou canst not undo.\n  CHIRON. Thou hast undone our mother.\n  AARON. Villain, I have done thy mother.\n  DEMETRIUS. And therein, hellish dog, thou hast undone her.\n    Woe to her chance, and damn'd her loathed choice!\n    Accurs'd the offspring of so foul a fiend!\n  CHIRON. It shall not live.\n  AARON. It shall not die.\n  NURSE. Aaron, it must; the mother wills it so.\n  AARON. What, must it, nurse? Then let no man but I\n    Do execution on my flesh and blood.\n  DEMETRIUS. I'll broach the tadpole on my rapier's point.\n    Nurse, give it me; my sword shall soon dispatch it.\n  AARON. Sooner this sword shall plough thy bowels up.\n                     [Takes the CHILD from the NURSE, and draws]\n    Stay, murderous villains, will you kill your brother!\n    Now, by the burning tapers of the sky\n    That shone so brightly when this boy was got,\n    He dies upon my scimitar's sharp point\n    That touches this my first-born son and heir.\n    I tell you, younglings, not Enceladus,\n    With all his threat'ning band of Typhon's brood,\n    Nor great Alcides, nor the god of war,\n    Shall seize this prey out of his father's hands.\n    What, what, ye sanguine, shallow-hearted boys!\n    Ye white-lim'd walls! ye alehouse painted signs!\n    Coal-black is better than another hue\n    In that it scorns to bear another hue;\n    For all the water in the ocean\n    Can never turn the swan's black legs to white,\n    Although she lave them hourly in the flood.\n    Tell the Empress from me I am of age\n    To keep mine own- excuse it how she can.\n  DEMETRIUS. Wilt thou betray thy noble mistress thus?\n  AARON. My mistress is my mistress: this my self,\n    The vigour and the picture of my youth.\n    This before all the world do I prefer;\n    This maugre all the world will I keep safe,\n    Or some of you shall smoke for it in Rome.\n  DEMETRIUS. By this our mother is for ever sham'd.\n  CHIRON. Rome will despise her for this foul escape.\n  NURSE. The Emperor in his rage will doom her death.\n  CHIRON. I blush to think upon this ignomy.\n  AARON. Why, there's the privilege your beauty bears:\n    Fie, treacherous hue, that will betray with blushing\n    The close enacts and counsels of thy heart!\n    Here's a young lad fram'd of another leer.\n    Look how the black slave smiles upon the father,\n    As who should say 'Old lad, I am thine own.'\n    He is your brother, lords, sensibly fed\n    Of that self-blood that first gave life to you;\n    And from your womb where you imprisoned were\n    He is enfranchised and come to light.\n    Nay, he is your brother by the surer side,\n    Although my seal be stamped in his face.\n  NURSE. Aaron, what shall I say unto the Empress?\n  DEMETRIUS. Advise thee, Aaron, what is to be done,\n    And we will all subscribe to thy advice.\n    Save thou the child, so we may all be safe.\n  AARON. Then sit we down and let us all consult.\n    My son and I will have the wind of you:\n    Keep there; now talk at pleasure of your safety.\n                                                      [They sit]\n  DEMETRIUS. How many women saw this child of his?\n  AARON. Why, so, brave lords! When we join in league\n    I am a lamb; but if you brave the Moor,\n    The chafed boar, the mountain lioness,\n    The ocean swells not so as Aaron storms.\n    But say, again, how many saw the child?\n  NURSE. Cornelia the midwife and myself;\n    And no one else but the delivered Empress.\n  AARON. The Emperess, the midwife, and yourself.\n    Two may keep counsel when the third's away:\n    Go to the Empress, tell her this I said.      [He kills her]\n    Weeke weeke!\n    So cries a pig prepared to the spit.\n  DEMETRIUS. What mean'st thou, Aaron? Wherefore didst thou this?\n  AARON. O Lord, sir, 'tis a deed of policy.\n    Shall she live to betray this guilt of ours-\n    A long-tongu'd babbling gossip? No, lords, no.\n    And now be it known to you my full intent:\n    Not far, one Muliteus, my countryman-\n    His wife but yesternight was brought to bed;\n    His child is like to her, fair as you are.\n    Go pack with him, and give the mother gold,\n    And tell them both the circumstance of all,\n    And how by this their child shall be advanc'd,\n    And be received for the Emperor's heir\n    And substituted in the place of mine,\n    To calm this tempest whirling in the court;\n    And let the Emperor dandle him for his own.\n    Hark ye, lords. You see I have given her physic,\n                                         [Pointing to the NURSE]\n    And you must needs bestow her funeral;\n    The fields are near, and you are gallant grooms.\n    This done, see that you take no longer days,\n    But send the midwife presently to me.\n    The midwife and the nurse well made away,\n    Then let the ladies tattle what they please.\n  CHIRON. Aaron, I see thou wilt not trust the air\n    With secrets.\n  DEMETRIUS. For this care of Tamora,\n    Herself and hers are highly bound to thee.\n\n         Exeunt DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, bearing off the dead NURSE\n\n  AARON. Now to the Goths, as swift as swallow flies,\n    There to dispose this treasure in mine arms,\n    And secretly to greet the Empress' friends.\n    Come on, you thick-lipp'd slave, I'll bear you hence;\n    For it is you that puts us to our shifts.\n    I'll make you feed on berries and on roots,\n    And feed on curds and whey, and suck the goat,\n    And cabin in a cave, and bring you up\n    To be a warrior and command a camp.\n                                             Exit with the CHILD\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nRome. A public place\n\nEnter TITUS, bearing arrows with letters on the ends of them;\nwith him MARCUS, YOUNG LUCIUS, and other gentlemen,\nPUBLIUS, SEMPRONIUS, and CAIUS, with bows\n\n  TITUS. Come, Marcus, come; kinsmen, this is the way.\n    Sir boy, let me see your archery;\n    Look ye draw home enough, and 'tis there straight.\n    Terras Astrea reliquit,\n    Be you rememb'red, Marcus; she's gone, she's fled.\n    Sirs, take you to your tools. You, cousins, shall\n    Go sound the ocean and cast your nets;\n    Happily you may catch her in the sea;\n    Yet there's as little justice as at land.\n    No; Publius and Sempronius, you must do it;\n    'Tis you must dig with mattock and with spade,\n    And pierce the inmost centre of the earth;\n    Then, when you come to Pluto's region,\n    I pray you deliver him this petition.\n    Tell him it is for justice and for aid,\n    And that it comes from old Andronicus,\n    Shaken with sorrows in ungrateful Rome.\n    Ah, Rome! Well, well, I made thee miserable\n    What time I threw the people's suffrages\n    On him that thus doth tyrannize o'er me.\n    Go get you gone; and pray be careful all,\n    And leave you not a man-of-war unsearch'd.\n    This wicked Emperor may have shipp'd her hence;\n    And, kinsmen, then we may go pipe for justice.\n  MARCUS. O Publius, is not this a heavy case,\n    To see thy noble uncle thus distract?\n  PUBLIUS. Therefore, my lords, it highly us concerns\n    By day and night t' attend him carefully,\n    And feed his humour kindly as we may\n    Till time beget some careful remedy.\n  MARCUS. Kinsmen, his sorrows are past remedy.\n    Join with the Goths, and with revengeful war\n    Take wreak on Rome for this ingratitude,\n    And vengeance on the traitor Saturnine.\n  TITUS. Publius, how now? How now, my masters?\n    What, have you met with her?\n  PUBLIUS. No, my good lord; but Pluto sends you word,\n    If you will have Revenge from hell, you shall.\n    Marry, for Justice, she is so employ'd,\n    He thinks, with Jove in heaven, or somewhere else,\n    So that perforce you must needs stay a time.\n  TITUS. He doth me wrong to feed me with delays.\n    I'll dive into the burning lake below\n    And pull her out of Acheron by the heels.\n    Marcus, we are but shrubs, no cedars we,\n    No big-bon'd men fram'd of the Cyclops' size;\n    But metal, Marcus, steel to the very back,\n    Yet wrung with wrongs more than our backs can bear;\n    And, sith there's no justice in earth nor hell,\n    We will solicit heaven, and move the gods\n    To send down justice for to wreak our wrongs.\n    Come, to this gear. You are a good archer, Marcus.\n                                      [He gives them the arrows]\n    'Ad Jovem' that's for you; here 'Ad Apollinem.'\n    'Ad Martem' that's for myself.\n    Here, boy, 'To Pallas'; here 'To Mercury.'\n    'To Saturn,' Caius- not to Saturnine:\n    You were as good to shoot against the wind.\n    To it, boy. Marcus, loose when I bid.\n    Of my word, I have written to effect;\n    There's not a god left unsolicited.\n  MARCUS. Kinsmen, shoot all your shafts into the court;\n    We will afflict the Emperor in his pride.\n  TITUS. Now, masters, draw.  [They shoot]  O, well said, Lucius!\n    Good boy, in Virgo's lap! Give it Pallas.\n  MARCUS. My lord, I aim a mile beyond the moon;\n    Your letter is with Jupiter by this.\n  TITUS. Ha! ha!\n    Publius, Publius, hast thou done?\n    See, see, thou hast shot off one of Taurus' horns.\n  MARCUS. This was the sport, my lord: when Publius shot,\n    The Bull, being gall'd, gave Aries such a knock\n    That down fell both the Ram's horns in the court;\n    And who should find them but the Empress' villain?\n    She laugh'd, and told the Moor he should not choose\n    But give them to his master for a present.\n  TITUS. Why, there it goes! God give his lordship joy!\n\n    Enter the CLOWN, with a basket and two pigeons in it\n\n    News, news from heaven! Marcus, the post is come.\n    Sirrah, what tidings? Have you any letters?\n    Shall I have justice? What says Jupiter?\n  CLOWN. Ho, the gibbet-maker? He says that he hath taken them down\n    again, for the man must not be hang'd till the next week.\n  TITUS. But what says Jupiter, I ask thee?\n  CLOWN. Alas, sir, I know not Jupiter; I never drank with him in all\n    my life.\n  TITUS. Why, villain, art not thou the carrier?\n  CLOWN. Ay, of my pigeons, sir; nothing else.\n  TITUS. Why, didst thou not come from heaven?\n  CLOWN. From heaven! Alas, sir, I never came there. God forbid I\n    should be so bold to press to heaven in my young days. Why, I am\n    going with my pigeons to the Tribunal Plebs, to take up a matter\n    of brawl betwixt my uncle and one of the Emperal's men.\n  MARCUS. Why, sir, that is as fit as can be to serve for your\n    oration; and let him deliver the pigeons to the Emperor from you.\n  TITUS. Tell me, can you deliver an oration to the Emperor with a\n    grace?\n  CLOWN. Nay, truly, sir, I could never say grace in all my life.\n  TITUS. Sirrah, come hither. Make no more ado,\n    But give your pigeons to the Emperor;\n    By me thou shalt have justice at his hands.\n    Hold, hold! Meanwhile here's money for thy charges.\n    Give me pen and ink. Sirrah, can you with a grace deliver up a\n    supplication?\n  CLOWN. Ay, sir.\n  TITUS. Then here is a supplication for you. And when you come to\n    him, at the first approach you must kneel; then kiss his foot;\n    then deliver up your pigeons; and then look for your reward. I'll\n    be at hand, sir; see you do it bravely.\n  CLOWN. I warrant you, sir; let me alone.\n  TITUS. Sirrah, hast thou a knife? Come let me see it.\n    Here, Marcus, fold it in the oration;\n    For thou hast made it like a humble suppliant.\n    And when thou hast given it to the Emperor,\n    Knock at my door, and tell me what he says.\n  CLOWN. God be with you, sir; I will.\n  TITUS. Come, Marcus, let us go. Publius, follow me.     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nRome. Before the palace\n\nEnter the EMPEROR, and the EMPRESS and her two sons, DEMETRIUS and CHIRON;\nLORDS and others. The EMPEROR brings the arrows in his hand that TITUS\nshot at him\n\n  SATURNINUS. Why, lords, what wrongs are these! Was ever seen\n    An emperor in Rome thus overborne,\n    Troubled, confronted thus; and, for the extent\n    Of egal justice, us'd in such contempt?\n    My lords, you know, as know the mightful gods,\n    However these disturbers of our peace\n    Buzz in the people's ears, there nought hath pass'd\n    But even with law against the wilful sons\n    Of old Andronicus. And what an if\n    His sorrows have so overwhelm'd his wits,\n    Shall we be thus afflicted in his wreaks,\n    His fits, his frenzy, and his bitterness?\n    And now he writes to heaven for his redress.\n    See, here's 'To Jove' and this 'To Mercury';\n    This 'To Apollo'; this 'To the God of War'-\n    Sweet scrolls to fly about the streets of Rome!\n    What's this but libelling against the Senate,\n    And blazoning our unjustice every where?\n    A goodly humour, is it not, my lords?\n    As who would say in Rome no justice were.\n    But if I live, his feigned ecstasies\n    Shall be no shelter to these outrages;\n    But he and his shall know that justice lives\n    In Saturninus' health; whom, if she sleep,\n    He'll so awake as he in fury shall\n    Cut off the proud'st conspirator that lives.\n  TAMORA. My gracious lord, my lovely Saturnine,\n    Lord of my life, commander of my thoughts,\n    Calm thee, and bear the faults of Titus' age,\n    Th' effects of sorrow for his valiant sons\n    Whose loss hath pierc'd him deep and scarr'd his heart;\n    And rather comfort his distressed plight\n    Than prosecute the meanest or the best\n    For these contempts.  [Aside]  Why, thus it shall become\n    High-witted Tamora to gloze with all.\n    But, Titus, I have touch'd thee to the quick,\n    Thy life-blood out; if Aaron now be wise,\n    Then is all safe, the anchor in the port.\n\n                       Enter CLOWN\n\n    How now, good fellow! Wouldst thou speak with us?\n  CLOWN. Yes, forsooth, an your mistriship be Emperial.\n  TAMORA. Empress I am, but yonder sits the Emperor.\n  CLOWN. 'Tis he.- God and Saint Stephen give you godden. I have\n    brought you a letter and a couple of pigeons here.\n                                   [SATURNINUS reads the letter]\n  SATURNINUS. Go take him away, and hang him presently.\n  CLOWN. How much money must I have?\n  TAMORA. Come, sirrah, you must be hang'd.\n  CLOWN. Hang'd! by'r lady, then I have brought up a neck to a fair\n    end.                                          [Exit guarded]\n  SATURNINUS. Despiteful and intolerable wrongs!\n    Shall I endure this monstrous villainy?\n    I know from whence this same device proceeds.\n    May this be borne- as if his traitorous sons\n    That died by law for murder of our brother\n    Have by my means been butchered wrongfully?\n    Go drag the villain hither by the hair;\n    Nor age nor honour shall shape privilege.\n    For this proud mock I'll be thy slaughterman,\n    Sly frantic wretch, that holp'st to make me great,\n    In hope thyself should govern Rome and me.\n\n                   Enter NUNTIUS AEMILIUS\n\n    What news with thee, Aemilius?\n  AEMILIUS. Arm, my lords! Rome never had more cause.\n    The Goths have gathered head; and with a power\n    Of high resolved men, bent to the spoil,\n    They hither march amain, under conduct\n    Of Lucius, son to old Andronicus;\n    Who threats in course of this revenge to do\n    As much as ever Coriolanus did.\n  SATURNINUS. Is warlike Lucius general of the Goths?\n    These tidings nip me, and I hang the head\n    As flowers with frost, or grass beat down with storms.\n    Ay, now begins our sorrows to approach.\n    'Tis he the common people love so much;\n    Myself hath often heard them say-\n    When I have walked like a private man-\n    That Lucius' banishment was wrongfully,\n    And they have wish'd that Lucius were their emperor.\n  TAMORA. Why should you fear? Is not your city strong?\n  SATURNINUS. Ay, but the citizens favour Lucius,\n    And will revolt from me to succour him.\n  TAMORA. King, be thy thoughts imperious like thy name!\n    Is the sun dimm'd, that gnats do fly in it?\n    The eagle suffers little birds to sing,\n    And is not careful what they mean thereby,\n    Knowing that with the shadow of his wings\n    He can at pleasure stint their melody;\n    Even so mayest thou the giddy men of Rome.\n    Then cheer thy spirit; for know thou, Emperor,\n    I will enchant the old Andronicus\n    With words more sweet, and yet more dangerous,\n    Than baits to fish or honey-stalks to sheep,\n    When as the one is wounded with the bait,\n    The other rotted with delicious feed.\n  SATURNINUS. But he will not entreat his son for us.\n  TAMORA. If Tamora entreat him, then he will;\n    For I can smooth and fill his aged ears\n    With golden promises, that, were his heart\n    Almost impregnable, his old ears deaf,\n    Yet should both ear and heart obey my tongue.\n    [To AEMILIUS]  Go thou before to be our ambassador;\n    Say that the Emperor requests a parley\n    Of warlike Lucius, and appoint the meeting\n    Even at his father's house, the old Andronicus.\n  SATURNINUS. Aemilius, do this message honourably;\n    And if he stand on hostage for his safety,\n    Bid him demand what pledge will please him best.\n  AEMILIUS. Your bidding shall I do effectually.            Exit\n  TAMORA. Now will I to that old Andronicus,\n    And temper him with all the art I have,\n    To pluck proud Lucius from the warlike Goths.\n    And now, sweet Emperor, be blithe again,\n    And bury all thy fear in my devices.\n  SATURNINUS. Then go successantly, and plead to him.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nPlains near Rome\n\nEnter LUCIUS with an army of GOTHS with drums and colours\n\n  LUCIUS. Approved warriors and my faithful friends,\n    I have received letters from great Rome\n    Which signifies what hate they bear their Emperor\n    And how desirous of our sight they are.\n    Therefore, great lords, be, as your titles witness,\n    Imperious and impatient of your wrongs;\n    And wherein Rome hath done you any scath,\n    Let him make treble satisfaction.\n  FIRST GOTH. Brave slip, sprung from the great Andronicus,\n    Whose name was once our terror, now our comfort,\n    Whose high exploits and honourable deeds\n    Ingrateful Rome requites with foul contempt,\n    Be bold in us: we'll follow where thou lead'st,\n    Like stinging bees in hottest summer's day,\n    Led by their master to the flow'red fields,\n    And be aveng'd on cursed Tamora.\n  ALL THE GOTHS. And as he saith, so say we all with him.\n  LUCIUS. I humbly thank him, and I thank you all.\n    But who comes here, led by a lusty Goth?\n\n     Enter a GOTH, leading AARON with his CHILD in his arms\n\n  SECOND GOTH. Renowned Lucius, from our troops I stray'd\n    To gaze upon a ruinous monastery;\n    And as I earnestly did fix mine eye\n    Upon the wasted building, suddenly\n    I heard a child cry underneath a wall.\n    I made unto the noise, when soon I heard\n    The crying babe controll'd with this discourse:\n    'Peace, tawny slave, half me and half thy dam!\n    Did not thy hue bewray whose brat thou art,\n    Had nature lent thee but thy mother's look,\n    Villain, thou mightst have been an emperor;\n    But where the bull and cow are both milk-white,\n    They never do beget a coal-black calf.\n    Peace, villain, peace!'- even thus he rates the babe-\n    'For I must bear thee to a trusty Goth,\n    Who, when he knows thou art the Empress' babe,\n    Will hold thee dearly for thy mother's sake.'\n    With this, my weapon drawn, I rush'd upon him,\n    Surpris'd him suddenly, and brought him hither\n    To use as you think needful of the man.\n  LUCIUS. O worthy Goth, this is the incarnate devil\n    That robb'd Andronicus of his good hand;\n    This is the pearl that pleas'd your Empress' eye;\n    And here's the base fruit of her burning lust.\n    Say, wall-ey'd slave, whither wouldst thou convey\n    This growing image of thy fiend-like face?\n    Why dost not speak? What, deaf? Not a word?\n    A halter, soldiers! Hang him on this tree,\n    And by his side his fruit of bastardy.\n  AARON. Touch not the boy, he is of royal blood.\n  LUCIUS. Too like the sire for ever being good.\n    First hang the child, that he may see it sprawl-\n    A sight to vex the father's soul withal.\n    Get me a ladder.\n                [A ladder brought, which AARON is made to climb]\n  AARON. Lucius, save the child,\n    And bear it from me to the Emperess.\n    If thou do this, I'll show thee wondrous things\n    That highly may advantage thee to hear;\n    If thou wilt not, befall what may befall,\n    I'll speak no more but 'Vengeance rot you all!'\n  LUCIUS. Say on; an if it please me which thou speak'st,\n    Thy child shall live, and I will see it nourish'd.\n  AARON. An if it please thee! Why, assure thee, Lucius,\n    'Twill vex thy soul to hear what I shall speak;\n    For I must talk of murders, rapes, and massacres,\n    Acts of black night, abominable deeds,\n    Complots of mischief, treason, villainies,\n    Ruthful to hear, yet piteously perform'd;\n    And this shall all be buried in my death,\n    Unless thou swear to me my child shall live.\n  LUCIUS. Tell on thy mind; I say thy child shall live.\n  AARON. Swear that he shall, and then I will begin.\n  LUCIUS. Who should I swear by? Thou believest no god;\n    That granted, how canst thou believe an oath?\n  AARON. What if I do not? as indeed I do not;\n    Yet, for I know thou art religious\n    And hast a thing within thee called conscience,\n    With twenty popish tricks and ceremonies\n    Which I have seen thee careful to observe,\n    Therefore I urge thy oath. For that I know\n    An idiot holds his bauble for a god,\n    And keeps the oath which by that god he swears,\n    To that I'll urge him. Therefore thou shalt vow\n    By that same god- what god soe'er it be\n    That thou adorest and hast in reverence-\n    To save my boy, to nourish and bring him up;\n    Or else I will discover nought to thee.\n  LUCIUS. Even by my god I swear to thee I will.\n  AARON. First know thou, I begot him on the Empress.\n  LUCIUS. O most insatiate and luxurious woman!\n  AARON. Tut, Lucius, this was but a deed of charity\n    To that which thou shalt hear of me anon.\n    'Twas her two sons that murdered Bassianus;\n    They cut thy sister's tongue, and ravish'd her,\n    And cut her hands, and trimm'd her as thou sawest.\n  LUCIUS. O detestable villain! Call'st thou that trimming?\n  AARON. Why, she was wash'd, and cut, and trimm'd, and 'twas\n    Trim sport for them which had the doing of it.\n  LUCIUS. O barbarous beastly villains like thyself!\n  AARON. Indeed, I was their tutor to instruct them.\n    That codding spirit had they from their mother,\n    As sure a card as ever won the set;\n    That bloody mind, I think, they learn'd of me,\n    As true a dog as ever fought at head.\n    Well, let my deeds be witness of my worth.\n    I train'd thy brethren to that guileful hole\n    Where the dead corpse of Bassianus lay;\n    I wrote the letter that thy father found,\n    And hid the gold within that letter mention'd,\n    Confederate with the Queen and her two sons;\n    And what not done, that thou hast cause to rue,\n    Wherein I had no stroke of mischief in it?\n    I play'd the cheater for thy father's hand,\n    And, when I had it, drew myself apart\n    And almost broke my heart with extreme laughter.\n    I pried me through the crevice of a wall,\n    When, for his hand, he had his two sons' heads;\n    Beheld his tears, and laugh'd so heartily\n    That both mine eyes were rainy like to his;\n    And when I told the Empress of this sport,\n    She swooned almost at my pleasing tale,\n    And for my tidings gave me twenty kisses.\n  GOTH. What, canst thou say all this and never blush?\n  AARON. Ay, like a black dog, as the saying is.\n  LUCIUS. Art thou not sorry for these heinous deeds?\n  AARON. Ay, that I had not done a thousand more.\n    Even now I curse the day- and yet, I think,\n    Few come within the compass of my curse-\n    Wherein I did not some notorious ill;\n    As kill a man, or else devise his death;\n    Ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it;\n    Accuse some innocent, and forswear myself;\n    Set deadly enmity between two friends;\n    Make poor men's cattle break their necks;\n    Set fire on barns and hay-stacks in the night,\n    And bid the owners quench them with their tears.\n    Oft have I digg'd up dead men from their graves,\n    And set them upright at their dear friends' door\n    Even when their sorrows almost was forgot,\n    And on their skins, as on the bark of trees,\n    Have with my knife carved in Roman letters\n    'Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead.'\n    Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful things\n    As willingly as one would kill a fly;\n    And nothing grieves me heartily indeed\n    But that I cannot do ten thousand more.\n  LUCIUS. Bring down the devil, for he must not die\n    So sweet a death as hanging presently.\n  AARON. If there be devils, would I were a devil,\n    To live and burn in everlasting fire,\n    So I might have your company in hell\n    But to torment you with my bitter tongue!\n  LUCIUS. Sirs, stop his mouth, and let him speak no more.\n\n                       Enter AEMILIUS\n\n  GOTH. My lord, there is a messenger from Rome\n    Desires to be admitted to your presence.\n  LUCIUS. Let him come near.\n    Welcome, Aemilius. What's the news from Rome?\n  AEMILIUS. Lord Lucius, and you Princes of the Goths,\n    The Roman Emperor greets you all by me;\n    And, for he understands you are in arms,\n    He craves a parley at your father's house,\n    Willing you to demand your hostages,\n    And they shall be immediately deliver'd.\n  FIRST GOTH. What says our general?\n  LUCIUS. Aemilius, let the Emperor give his pledges\n    Unto my father and my uncle Marcus.\n    And we will come. March away.                         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nRome. Before TITUS' house\n\nEnter TAMORA, and her two sons, DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, disguised\n\n  TAMORA. Thus, in this strange and sad habiliment,\n    I will encounter with Andronicus,\n    And say I am Revenge, sent from below\n    To join with him and right his heinous wrongs.\n    Knock at his study, where they say he keeps\n    To ruminate strange plots of dire revenge;\n    Tell him Revenge is come to join with him,\n    And work confusion on his enemies.\n\n         They knock and TITUS opens his study door, above\n\n  TITUS. Who doth molest my contemplation?\n    Is it your trick to make me ope the door,\n    That so my sad decrees may fly away\n    And all my study be to no effect?\n    You are deceiv'd; for what I mean to do\n    See here in bloody lines I have set down;\n    And what is written shall be executed.\n  TAMORA. Titus, I am come to talk with thee.\n  TITUS. No, not a word. How can I grace my talk,\n    Wanting a hand to give it that accord?\n    Thou hast the odds of me; therefore no more.\n  TAMORA. If thou didst know me, thou wouldst talk with me.\n  TITUS. I am not mad, I know thee well enough:\n    Witness this wretched stump, witness these crimson lines;\n    Witness these trenches made by grief and care;\n    Witness the tiring day and heavy night;\n    Witness all sorrow that I know thee well\n    For our proud Empress, mighty Tamora.\n    Is not thy coming for my other hand?\n  TAMORA. Know thou, sad man, I am not Tamora:\n    She is thy enemy and I thy friend.\n    I am Revenge, sent from th' infernal kingdom\n    To ease the gnawing vulture of thy mind\n    By working wreakful vengeance on thy foes.\n    Come down and welcome me to this world's light;\n    Confer with me of murder and of death;\n    There's not a hollow cave or lurking-place,\n    No vast obscurity or misty vale,\n    Where bloody murder or detested rape\n    Can couch for fear but I will find them out;\n    And in their ears tell them my dreadful name-\n    Revenge, which makes the foul offender quake.\n  TITUS. Art thou Revenge? and art thou sent to me\n    To be a torment to mine enemies?\n  TAMORA. I am; therefore come down and welcome me.\n  TITUS. Do me some service ere I come to thee.\n    Lo, by thy side where Rape and Murder stands;\n    Now give some surance that thou art Revenge-\n    Stab them, or tear them on thy chariot wheels;\n    And then I'll come and be thy waggoner\n    And whirl along with thee about the globes.\n    Provide thee two proper palfreys, black as jet,\n    To hale thy vengeful waggon swift away,\n    And find out murderers in their guilty caves;\n    And when thy car is loaden with their heads,\n    I will dismount, and by thy waggon wheel\n    Trot, like a servile footman, all day long,\n    Even from Hyperion's rising in the east\n    Until his very downfall in the sea.\n    And day by day I'll do this heavy task,\n    So thou destroy Rapine and Murder there.\n  TAMORA. These are my ministers, and come with me.\n  TITUS. Are they thy ministers? What are they call'd?\n  TAMORA. Rape and Murder; therefore called so\n    'Cause they take vengeance of such kind of men.\n  TITUS. Good Lord, how like the Empress' sons they are!\n    And you the Empress! But we worldly men\n    Have miserable, mad, mistaking eyes.\n    O sweet Revenge, now do I come to thee;\n    And, if one arm's embracement will content thee,\n    I will embrace thee in it by and by.\n  TAMORA. This closing with him fits his lunacy.\n    Whate'er I forge to feed his brain-sick humours,\n    Do you uphold and maintain in your speeches,\n    For now he firmly takes me for Revenge;\n    And, being credulous in this mad thought,\n    I'll make him send for Lucius his son,\n    And whilst I at a banquet hold him sure,\n    I'll find some cunning practice out of hand\n    To scatter and disperse the giddy Goths,\n    Or, at the least, make them his enemies.\n    See, here he comes, and I must ply my theme.\n\n                 Enter TITUS, below\n\n  TITUS. Long have I been forlorn, and all for thee.\n    Welcome, dread Fury, to my woeful house.\n    Rapine and Murder, you are welcome too.\n    How like the Empress and her sons you are!\n    Well are you fitted, had you but a Moor.\n    Could not all hell afford you such a devil?\n    For well I wot the Empress never wags\n    But in her company there is a Moor;\n    And, would you represent our queen aright,\n    It were convenient you had such a devil.\n    But welcome as you are. What shall we do?\n  TAMORA. What wouldst thou have us do, Andronicus?\n  DEMETRIUS. Show me a murderer, I'll deal with him.\n  CHIRON. Show me a villain that hath done a rape,\n    And I am sent to be reveng'd on him.\n  TAMORA. Show me a thousand that hath done thee wrong,\n    And I will be revenged on them all.\n  TITUS. Look round about the wicked streets of Rome,\n    And when thou find'st a man that's like thyself,\n    Good Murder, stab him; he's a murderer.\n    Go thou with him, and when it is thy hap\n    To find another that is like to thee,\n    Good Rapine, stab him; he is a ravisher.\n    Go thou with them; and in the Emperor's court\n    There is a queen, attended by a Moor;\n    Well shalt thou know her by thine own proportion,\n    For up and down she doth resemble thee.\n    I pray thee, do on them some violent death;\n    They have been violent to me and mine.\n  TAMORA. Well hast thou lesson'd us; this shall we do.\n    But would it please thee, good Andronicus,\n    To send for Lucius, thy thrice-valiant son,\n    Who leads towards Rome a band of warlike Goths,\n    And bid him come and banquet at thy house;\n    When he is here, even at thy solemn feast,\n    I will bring in the Empress and her sons,\n    The Emperor himself, and all thy foes;\n    And at thy mercy shall they stoop and kneel,\n    And on them shalt thou ease thy angry heart.\n    What says Andronicus to this device?\n  TITUS. Marcus, my brother! 'Tis sad Titus calls.\n\n                  Enter MARCUS\n\n    Go, gentle Marcus, to thy nephew Lucius;\n    Thou shalt inquire him out among the Goths.\n    Bid him repair to me, and bring with him\n    Some of the chiefest princes of the Goths;\n    Bid him encamp his soldiers where they are.\n    Tell him the Emperor and the Empress too\n    Feast at my house, and he shall feast with them.\n    This do thou for my love; and so let him,\n    As he regards his aged father's life.\n  MARCUS. This will I do, and soon return again.            Exit\n  TAMORA. Now will I hence about thy business,\n    And take my ministers along with me.\n  TITUS. Nay, nay, let Rape and Murder stay with me,\n    Or else I'll call my brother back again,\n    And cleave to no revenge but Lucius.\n  TAMORA.  [Aside to her sons]  What say you, boys? Will you abide\n      with him,\n    Whiles I go tell my lord the Emperor\n    How I have govern'd our determin'd jest?\n    Yield to his humour, smooth and speak him fair,\n    And tarry with him till I turn again.\n  TITUS.  [Aside]  I knew them all, though they suppos'd me mad,\n    And will o'er reach them in their own devices,\n    A pair of cursed hell-hounds and their dam.\n  DEMETRIUS. Madam, depart at pleasure; leave us here.\n  TAMORA. Farewell, Andronicus, Revenge now goes\n    To lay a complot to betray thy foes.\n  TITUS. I know thou dost; and, sweet Revenge, farewell.\n                                                     Exit TAMORA\n  CHIRON. Tell us, old man, how shall we be employ'd?\n  TITUS. Tut, I have work enough for you to do.\n    Publius, come hither, Caius, and Valentine.\n\n          Enter PUBLIUS, CAIUS, and VALENTINE\n\n  PUBLIUS. What is your will?\n  TITUS. Know you these two?\n  PUBLIUS. The Empress' sons, I take them: Chiron, Demetrius.\n  TITUS. Fie, Publius, fie! thou art too much deceiv'd.\n    The one is Murder, and Rape is the other's name;\n    And therefore bind them, gentle Publius-\n    Caius and Valentine, lay hands on them.\n    Oft have you heard me wish for such an hour,\n    And now I find it; therefore bind them sure,\n    And stop their mouths if they begin to cry.             Exit\n                         [They lay hold on CHIRON and DEMETRIUS]\n  CHIRON. Villains, forbear! we are the Empress' sons.\n  PUBLIUS. And therefore do we what we are commanded.\n    Stop close their mouths, let them not speak a word.\n    Is he sure bound? Look that you bind them fast.\n\n               Re-enter TITUS ANDRONICUS\n        with a knife, and LAVINIA, with a basin\n\n  TITUS. Come, come, Lavinia; look, thy foes are bound.\n    Sirs, stop their mouths, let them not speak to me;\n    But let them hear what fearful words I utter.\n    O villains, Chiron and Demetrius!\n    Here stands the spring whom you have stain'd with mud;\n    This goodly summer with your winter mix'd.\n    You kill'd her husband; and for that vile fault\n    Two of her brothers were condemn'd to death,\n    My hand cut off and made a merry jest;\n    Both her sweet hands, her tongue, and that more dear\n    Than hands or tongue, her spotless chastity,\n    Inhuman traitors, you constrain'd and forc'd.\n    What would you say, if I should let you speak?\n    Villains, for shame you could not beg for grace.\n    Hark, wretches! how I mean to martyr you.\n    This one hand yet is left to cut your throats,\n    Whiles that Lavinia 'tween her stumps doth hold\n    The basin that receives your guilty blood.\n    You know your mother means to feast with me,\n    And calls herself Revenge, and thinks me mad.\n    Hark, villains! I will grind your bones to dust,\n    And with your blood and it I'll make a paste;\n    And of the paste a coffin I will rear,\n    And make two pasties of your shameful heads;\n    And bid that strumpet, your unhallowed dam,\n    Like to the earth, swallow her own increase.\n    This is the feast that I have bid her to,\n    And this the banquet she shall surfeit on;\n    For worse than Philomel you us'd my daughter,\n    And worse than Progne I will be reveng'd.\n    And now prepare your throats. Lavinia, come,\n    Receive the blood; and when that they are dead,\n    Let me go grind their bones to powder small,\n    And with this hateful liquor temper it;\n    And in that paste let their vile heads be bak'd.\n    Come, come, be every one officious\n    To make this banquet, which I wish may prove\n    More stern and bloody than the Centaurs' feast.\n                                         [He cuts their throats]\n    So.\n    Now bring them in, for I will play the cook,\n    And see them ready against their mother comes.\n                                 Exeunt, bearing the dead bodies\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe court of TITUS' house\n\nEnter Lucius, MARCUS, and the GOTHS, with AARON prisoner,\nand his CHILD in the arms of an attendant\n\n  LUCIUS. Uncle Marcus, since 'tis my father's mind\n    That I repair to Rome, I am content.\n    FIRST GOTH. And ours with thine, befall what fortune will.\n  LUCIUS. Good uncle, take you in this barbarous Moor,\n    This ravenous tiger, this accursed devil;\n    Let him receive no sust'nance, fetter him,\n    Till he be brought unto the Empress' face\n    For testimony of her foul proceedings.\n    And see the ambush of our friends be strong;\n    I fear the Emperor means no good to us.\n  AARON. Some devil whisper curses in my ear,\n    And prompt me that my tongue may utter forth\n    The venomous malice of my swelling heart!\n  LUCIUS. Away, inhuman dog, unhallowed slave!\n    Sirs, help our uncle to convey him in.\n                        Exeunt GOTHS with AARON. Flourish within\n    The trumpets show the Emperor is at hand.\n\n            Sound trumpets. Enter SATURNINUS and\n    TAMORA, with AEMILIUS, TRIBUNES, SENATORS, and others\n\n  SATURNINUS. What, hath the firmament more suns than one?\n  LUCIUS. What boots it thee to can thyself a sun?\n  MARCUS. Rome's Emperor, and nephew, break the parle;\n    These quarrels must be quietly debated.\n    The feast is ready which the careful Titus\n    Hath ordain'd to an honourable end,\n    For peace, for love, for league, and good to Rome.\n    Please you, therefore, draw nigh and take your places.\n  SATURNINUS. Marcus, we will.\n                      [A table brought in. The company sit down]\n\n               Trumpets sounding, enter TITUS\n         like a cook, placing the dishes, and LAVINIA\n   with a veil over her face; also YOUNG LUCIUS, and others\n\n  TITUS. Welcome, my lord; welcome, dread Queen;\n    Welcome, ye warlike Goths; welcome, Lucius;\n    And welcome all. Although the cheer be poor,\n    'Twill fill your stomachs; please you eat of it.\n  SATURNINUS. Why art thou thus attir'd, Andronicus?\n  TITUS. Because I would be sure to have all well\n    To entertain your Highness and your Empress.\n  TAMORA. We are beholding to you, good Andronicus.\n  TITUS. An if your Highness knew my heart, you were.\n    My lord the Emperor, resolve me this:\n    Was it well done of rash Virginius\n    To slay his daughter with his own right hand,\n    Because she was enforc'd, stain'd, and deflower'd?\n  SATURNINUS. It was, Andronicus.\n  TITUS. Your reason, mighty lord.\n  SATURNINUS. Because the girl should not survive her shame,\n    And by her presence still renew his sorrows.\n  TITUS. A reason mighty, strong, and effectual;\n    A pattern, precedent, and lively warrant\n    For me, most wretched, to perform the like.\n    Die, die, Lavinia, and thy shame with thee;   [He kills her]\n    And with thy shame thy father's sorrow die!\n  SATURNINUS. What hast thou done, unnatural and unkind?\n  TITUS. Kill'd her for whom my tears have made me blind.\n    I am as woeful as Virginius was,\n    And have a thousand times more cause than he\n    To do this outrage; and it now is done.\n  SATURNINUS. What, was she ravish'd? Tell who did the deed.\n  TITUS. Will't please you eat?  Will't please your Highness feed?\n  TAMORA. Why hast thou slain thine only daughter thus?\n  TITUS. Not I; 'twas Chiron and Demetrius.\n    They ravish'd her, and cut away her tongue;\n    And they, 'twas they, that did her all this wrong.\n  SATURNINUS. Go, fetch them hither to us presently.\n  TITUS. Why, there they are, both baked in this pie,\n    Whereof their mother daintily hath fed,\n    Eating the flesh that she herself hath bred.\n    'Tis true, 'tis true: witness my knife's sharp point.\n                                          [He stabs the EMPRESS]\n  SATURNINUS. Die, frantic wretch, for this accursed deed!\n                                                [He stabs TITUS]\n  LUCIUS. Can the son's eye behold his father bleed?\n    There's meed for meed, death for a deadly deed.\n                   [He stabs SATURNINUS. A great tumult. LUCIUS,\n               MARCUS, and their friends go up into the balcony]\n  MARCUS. You sad-fac'd men, people and sons of Rome,\n    By uproars sever'd, as a flight of fowl\n    Scatter'd by winds and high tempestuous gusts?\n    O, let me teach you how to knit again\n    This scattered corn into one mutual sheaf,\n    These broken limbs again into one body;\n    Lest Rome herself be bane unto herself,\n    And she whom mighty kingdoms curtsy to,\n    Like a forlorn and desperate castaway,\n    Do shameful execution on herself.\n    But if my frosty signs and chaps of age,\n    Grave witnesses of true experience,\n    Cannot induce you to attend my words,\n    [To Lucius]  Speak, Rome's dear friend, as erst our ancestor,\n    When with his solemn tongue he did discourse\n    To love-sick Dido's sad attending ear\n    The story of that baleful burning night,\n    When subtle Greeks surpris'd King Priam's Troy.\n    Tell us what Sinon hath bewitch'd our ears,\n    Or who hath brought the fatal engine in\n    That gives our Troy, our Rome, the civil wound.\n    My heart is not compact of flint nor steel;\n    Nor can I utter all our bitter grief,\n    But floods of tears will drown my oratory\n    And break my utt'rance, even in the time\n    When it should move ye to attend me most,\n    And force you to commiseration.\n    Here's Rome's young Captain, let him tell the tale;\n    While I stand by and weep to hear him speak.\n  LUCIUS. Then, gracious auditory, be it known to you\n    That Chiron and the damn'd Demetrius\n    Were they that murd'red our Emperor's brother;\n    And they it were that ravished our sister.\n    For their fell faults our brothers were beheaded,\n    Our father's tears despis'd, and basely cozen'd\n    Of that true hand that fought Rome's quarrel out\n    And sent her enemies unto the grave.\n    Lastly, myself unkindly banished,\n    The gates shut on me, and turn'd weeping out,\n    To beg relief among Rome's enemies;\n    Who drown'd their enmity in my true tears,\n    And op'd their arms to embrace me as a friend.\n    I am the turned forth, be it known to you,\n    That have preserv'd her welfare in my blood\n    And from her bosom took the enemy's point,\n    Sheathing the steel in my advent'rous body.\n    Alas! you know I am no vaunter, I;\n    My scars can witness, dumb although they are,\n    That my report is just and full of truth.\n    But, soft! methinks I do digress too much,\n    Citing my worthless praise. O, pardon me!\n    For when no friends are by, men praise themselves.\n  MARCUS. Now is my turn to speak. Behold the child.\n                  [Pointing to the CHILD in an attendant's arms]\n    Of this was Tamora delivered,\n    The issue of an irreligious Moor,\n    Chief architect and plotter of these woes.\n    The villain is alive in Titus' house,\n    Damn'd as he is, to witness this is true.\n    Now judge what cause had Titus to revenge\n    These wrongs unspeakable, past patience,\n    Or more than any living man could bear.\n    Now have you heard the truth: what say you, Romans?\n    Have we done aught amiss, show us wherein,\n    And, from the place where you behold us pleading,\n    The poor remainder of Andronici\n    Will, hand in hand, all headlong hurl ourselves,\n    And on the ragged stones beat forth our souls,\n    And make a mutual closure of our house.\n    Speak, Romans, speak; and if you say we shall,\n    Lo, hand in hand, Lucius and I will fall.\n  AEMILIUS. Come, come, thou reverend man of Rome,\n    And bring our Emperor gently in thy hand,\n    Lucius our Emperor; for well I know\n    The common voice do cry it shall be so.\n  ALL. Lucius, all hail, Rome's royal Emperor!\n  MARCUS. Go, go into old Titus' sorrowful house,\n    And hither hale that misbelieving Moor\n    To be adjudg'd some direful slaught'ring death,\n    As punishment for his most wicked life.          Exeunt some\n              attendants. LUCIUS, MARCUS, and the others descend\n  ALL. Lucius, all hail, Rome's gracious governor!\n  LUCIUS. Thanks, gentle Romans! May I govern so\n    To heal Rome's harms and wipe away her woe!\n    But, gentle people, give me aim awhile,\n    For nature puts me to a heavy task.\n    Stand all aloof; but, uncle, draw you near\n    To shed obsequious tears upon this trunk.\n    O, take this warm kiss on thy pale cold lips.  [Kisses TITUS]\n    These sorrowful drops upon thy blood-stain'd face,\n    The last true duties of thy noble son!\n  MARCUS. Tear for tear and loving kiss for kiss\n    Thy brother Marcus tenders on thy lips.\n    O, were the sum of these that I should pay\n    Countless and infinite, yet would I pay them!\n  LUCIUS. Come hither, boy; come, come, come, and learn of us\n    To melt in showers. Thy grandsire lov'd thee well;\n    Many a time he danc'd thee on his knee,\n    Sung thee asleep, his loving breast thy pillow;\n    Many a story hath he told to thee,\n    And bid thee bear his pretty tales in mind\n    And talk of them when he was dead and gone.\n  MARCUS. How many thousand times hath these poor lips,\n    When they were living, warm'd themselves on thine!\n    O, now, sweet boy, give them their latest kiss!\n    Bid him farewell; commit him to the grave;\n    Do them that kindness, and take leave of them.\n  BOY. O grandsire, grandsire! ev'n with all my heart\n    Would I were dead, so you did live again!\n    O Lord, I cannot speak to him for weeping;\n    My tears will choke me, if I ope my mouth.\n\n            Re-enter attendants with AARON\n\n  A ROMAN. You sad Andronici, have done with woes;\n    Give sentence on the execrable wretch\n    That hath been breeder of these dire events.\n  LUCIUS. Set him breast-deep in earth, and famish him;\n    There let him stand and rave and cry for food.\n    If any one relieves or pities him,\n    For the offence he dies. This is our doom.\n    Some stay to see him fast'ned in the earth.\n  AARON. Ah, why should wrath be mute and fury dumb?\n    I am no baby, I, that with base prayers\n    I should repent the evils I have done;\n    Ten thousand worse than ever yet I did\n    Would I perform, if I might have my will.\n    If one good deed in all my life I did,\n    I do repent it from my very soul.\n  LUCIUS. Some loving friends convey the Emperor hence,\n    And give him burial in his father's grave.\n    My father and Lavinia shall forthwith\n    Be closed in our household's monument.\n    As for that ravenous tiger, Tamora,\n    No funeral rite, nor man in mourning weed,\n    No mournful bell shall ring her burial;\n    But throw her forth to beasts and birds to prey.\n    Her life was beastly and devoid of pity,\n    And being dead, let birds on her take pity.           Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1602\n\nTHE HISTORY OF TROILUS AND CRESSIDA\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  PRIAM, King of Troy\n\n    His sons:\n  HECTOR\n  TROILUS\n  PARIS\n  DEIPHOBUS\n  HELENUS\n\n  MARGARELON, a bastard son of Priam\n\n     Trojan commanders:\n  AENEAS\n  ANTENOR\n\n  CALCHAS, a Trojan priest, taking part with the Greeks\n  PANDARUS, uncle to Cressida\n  AGAMEMNON, the Greek general\n  MENELAUS, his brother\n\n    Greek commanders:\n  ACHILLES\n  AJAX\n  ULYSSES\n  NESTOR\n  DIOMEDES\n  PATROCLUS\n\n  THERSITES, a deformed and scurrilous Greek\n  ALEXANDER, servant to Cressida\n  SERVANT to Troilus\n  SERVANT to Paris\n  SERVANT to Diomedes\n\n  HELEN, wife to Menelaus\n  ANDROMACHE, wife to Hector\n  CASSANDRA, daughter to Priam, a prophetess\n  CRESSIDA, daughter to Calchas\n\n  Trojan and Greek Soldiers, and Attendants\n\n                          SCENE:\n             Troy and the Greek camp before it\n\nPROLOGUE\n                  TROILUS AND CRESSIDA\n                        PROLOGUE\n\n    In Troy, there lies the scene. From isles of Greece\n    The princes orgillous, their high blood chaf'd,\n    Have to the port of Athens sent their ships\n    Fraught with the ministers and instruments\n    Of cruel war. Sixty and nine that wore\n    Their crownets regal from th' Athenian bay\n    Put forth toward Phrygia; and their vow is made\n    To ransack Troy, within whose strong immures\n    The ravish'd Helen, Menelaus' queen,\n    With wanton Paris sleeps-and that's the quarrel.\n    To Tenedos they come,\n    And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge\n    Their war-like fraughtage. Now on Dardan plains\n    The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch\n    Their brave pavilions: Priam's six-gated city,\n    Dardan, and Tymbria, Helias, Chetas, Troien,\n    And Antenorides, with massy staples\n    And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts,\n    Sperr up the sons of Troy.\n    Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits\n    On one and other side, Troyan and Greek,\n    Sets all on hazard-and hither am I come\n    A Prologue arm'd, but not in confidence\n    Of author's pen or actor's voice, but suited\n    In like conditions as our argument,\n    To tell you, fair beholders, that our play\n    Leaps o'er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils,\n    Beginning in the middle; starting thence away,\n    To what may be digested in a play.\n    Like or find fault; do as your pleasures are;\n    Now good or bad, 'tis but the chance of war.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 1.\nTroy. Before PRIAM'S palace\n\nEnter TROILUS armed, and PANDARUS\n\n  TROILUS. Call here my varlet; I'll unarm again.\n    Why should I war without the walls of Troy\n    That find such cruel battle here within?\n    Each Troyan that is master of his heart,\n    Let him to field; Troilus, alas, hath none!\n  PANDARUS. Will this gear ne'er be mended?\n  TROILUS. The Greeks are strong, and skilful to their strength,\n    Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant;\n    But I am weaker than a woman's tear,\n    Tamer than sleep, fonder than ignorance,\n    Less valiant than the virgin in the night,\n    And skilless as unpractis'd infancy.\n  PANDARUS. Well, I have told you enough of this; for my part,\n    I'll not meddle nor make no farther. He that will have a cake\n    out of the wheat must needs tarry the grinding.\n  TROILUS. Have I not tarried?\n  PANDARUS. Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry the bolting.\n  TROILUS. Have I not tarried?\n  PANDARUS. Ay, the bolting; but you must tarry the leavening.\n  TROILUS. Still have I tarried.\n  PANDARUS. Ay, to the leavening; but here's yet in the word\n    'hereafter' the kneading, the making of the cake, the heating\n    of the oven, and the baking; nay, you must stay the cooling too,\n    or you may chance to burn your lips.\n  TROILUS. Patience herself, what goddess e'er she be,\n    Doth lesser blench at suff'rance than I do.\n    At Priam's royal table do I sit;\n    And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts-\n    So, traitor, then she comes when she is thence.\n  PANDARUS. Well, she look'd yesternight fairer than ever I saw her\n    look, or any woman else.\n  TROILUS. I was about to tell thee: when my heart,\n    As wedged with a sigh, would rive in twain,\n    Lest Hector or my father should perceive me,\n    I have, as when the sun doth light a storm,\n    Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile.\n    But sorrow that is couch'd in seeming gladness\n    Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness.\n  PANDARUS. An her hair were not somewhat darker than Helen's- well,\n    go to- there were no more comparison between the women. But, for\n    my part, she is my kinswoman; I would not, as they term it,\n    praise her, but I would somebody had heard her talk yesterday, as\n    I did. I  will not dispraise your sister Cassandra's wit; but-\n  TROILUS. O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus-\n    When I do tell thee there my hopes lie drown'd,\n    Reply not in how many fathoms deep\n    They lie indrench'd. I tell thee I am mad\n    In Cressid's love. Thou answer'st 'She is fair'-\n    Pourest in the open ulcer of my heart-\n    Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice,\n    Handlest in thy discourse. O, that her hand,\n    In whose comparison all whites are ink\n    Writing their own reproach; to whose soft seizure\n    The cygnet's down is harsh, and spirit of sense\n    Hard as the palm of ploughman! This thou tell'st me,\n    As true thou tell'st me, when I say I love her;\n    But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm,\n    Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me\n    The knife that made it.\n  PANDARUS. I speak no more than truth.\n  TROILUS. Thou dost not speak so much.\n  PANDARUS. Faith, I'll not meddle in it. Let her be as she is: if\n    she be fair, 'tis the better for her; an she be not, she has the\n    mends in her own hands.\n  TROILUS. Good Pandarus! How now, Pandarus!\n  PANDARUS. I have had my labour for my travail, ill thought on of\n    her and ill thought on of you; gone between and between, but\n    small thanks for my labour.\n  TROILUS. What, art thou angry, Pandarus? What, with me?\n  PANDARUS. Because she's kin to me, therefore she's not so fair as\n    Helen. An she were not kin to me, she would be as fair a Friday\n    as Helen is on Sunday. But what care I? I care not an she were a\n    blackamoor; 'tis all one to me.\n  TROILUS. Say I she is not fair?\n  PANDARUS. I do not care whether you do or no. She's a fool to stay\n    behind her father. Let her to the Greeks; and so I'll tell her\n    the next time I see her. For my part, I'll meddle nor make no\n    more i' th' matter.\n  TROILUS. Pandarus!\n  PANDARUS. Not I.\n  TROILUS. Sweet Pandarus!\n  PANDARUS. Pray you, speak no more to me: I will leave all\n    as I found it, and there an end.               Exit. Sound alarum\n  TROILUS. Peace, you ungracious clamours! Peace, rude sounds!\n    Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair,\n    When with your blood you daily paint her thus.\n    I cannot fight upon this argument;\n    It is too starv'd a subject for my sword.\n    But Pandarus-O gods, how do you plague me!\n    I cannot come to Cressid but by Pandar;\n    And he's as tetchy to be woo'd to woo\n    As she is stubborn-chaste against all suit.\n    Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne's love,\n    What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we?\n    Her bed is India; there she lies, a pearl;\n    Between our Ilium and where she resides\n    Let it be call'd the wild and wand'ring flood;\n    Ourself the merchant, and this sailing Pandar\n    Our doubtful hope, our convoy, and our bark.\n\n                Alarum. Enter AENEAS\n\n  AENEAS. How now, Prince Troilus! Wherefore not afield?\n  TROILUS. Because not there. This woman's answer sorts,\n    For womanish it is to be from thence.\n    What news, Aeneas, from the field to-day?\n  AENEAS. That Paris is returned home, and hurt.\n  TROILUS. By whom, Aeneas?\n  AENEAS. Troilus, by Menelaus.\n  TROILUS. Let Paris bleed: 'tis but a scar to scorn;\n    Paris is gor'd with Menelaus' horn.                      [Alarum]\n  AENEAS. Hark what good sport is out of town to-day!\n  TROILUS. Better at home, if 'would I might' were 'may.'\n    But to the sport abroad. Are you bound thither?\n  AENEAS. In all swift haste.\n  TROILUS. Come, go we then together.                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 2.\nTroy. A street\n\nEnter CRESSIDA and her man ALEXANDER\n\n  CRESSIDA. Who were those went by?\n  ALEXANDER. Queen Hecuba and Helen.\n  CRESSIDA. And whither go they?\n  ALEXANDER. Up to the eastern tower,\n    Whose height commands as subject all the vale,\n    To see the battle. Hector, whose patience\n    Is as a virtue fix'd, to-day was mov'd.\n    He chid Andromache, and struck his armourer;\n    And, like as there were husbandry in war,\n    Before the sun rose he was harness'd light,\n    And to the field goes he; where every flower\n    Did as a prophet weep what it foresaw\n    In Hector's wrath.\n  CRESSIDA. What was his cause of anger?\n  ALEXANDER. The noise goes, this: there is among the Greeks\n    A lord of Troyan blood, nephew to Hector;\n    They call him Ajax.\n  CRESSIDA. Good; and what of him?\n  ALEXANDER. They say he is a very man per se,\n    And stands alone.\n  CRESSIDA. So do all men, unless they are drunk, sick, or have no\n    legs.\n  ALEXANDER. This man, lady, hath robb'd many beasts of their\n    particular additions: he is as valiant as a lion, churlish as the\n    bear, slow as the elephant-a man into whom nature hath so crowded\n    humours that his valour is crush'd into folly, his folly sauced\n    with discretion. There is no man hath a virtue that he hath not a\n    glimpse of, nor any man an attaint but he carries some stain of\n    it; he is melancholy without cause and merry against the hair; he\n    hath the joints of every thing; but everything so out of joint\n    that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use, or purblind\n    Argus, all eyes and no sight.\n  CRESSIDA. But how should this man, that makes me smile, make Hector\n      angry?\n  ALEXANDER. They say he yesterday cop'd Hector in the battle and\n    struck him down, the disdain and shame whereof hath ever since\n    kept Hector fasting and waking.\n\n                          Enter PANDARUS\n\n  CRESSIDA. Who comes here?\n  ALEXANDER. Madam, your uncle Pandarus.\n  CRESSIDA. Hector's a gallant man.\n  ALEXANDER. As may be in the world, lady.\n  PANDARUS. What's that? What's that?\n  CRESSIDA. Good morrow, uncle Pandarus.\n  PANDARUS. Good morrow, cousin Cressid. What do you talk of?- Good\n    morrow, Alexander.-How do you, cousin? When were you at Ilium?\n  CRESSIDA. This morning, uncle.\n  PANDARUS. What were you talking of when I came? Was Hector arm'd\n    and gone ere you came to Ilium? Helen was not up, was she?\n  CRESSIDA. Hector was gone; but Helen was not up.\n  PANDARUS. E'en so. Hector was stirring early.\n  CRESSIDA. That were we talking of, and of his anger.\n  PANDARUS. Was he angry?\n  CRESSIDA. So he says here.\n  PANDARUS. True, he was so; I know the cause too; he'll lay about\n    him today, I can tell them that. And there's Troilus will not\n    come far behind him; let them take heed of Troilus, I can tell\n    them that too.\n  CRESSIDA. What, is he angry too?\n  PANDARUS. Who, Troilus? Troilus is the better man of the two.\n  CRESSIDA. O Jupiter! there's no comparison.\n  PANDARUS. What, not between Troilus and Hector? Do you know a man\n    if you see him?\n  CRESSIDA. Ay, if I ever saw him before and knew him.\n  PANDARUS. Well, I say Troilus is Troilus.\n  CRESSIDA. Then you say as I say, for I am sure he is not Hector.\n  PANDARUS. No, nor Hector is not Troilus in some degrees.\n  CRESSIDA. 'Tis just to each of them: he is himself.\n  PANDARUS. Himself! Alas, poor Troilus! I would he were!\n  CRESSIDA. So he is.\n  PANDARUS. Condition I had gone barefoot to India.\n  CRESSIDA. He is not Hector.\n  PANDARUS. Himself! no, he's not himself. Would 'a were himself!\n    Well, the gods are above; time must friend or end. Well, Troilus,\n    well! I would my heart were in her body! No, Hector is not a\n    better man than Troilus.\n  CRESSIDA. Excuse me.\n  PANDARUS. He is elder.\n  CRESSIDA. Pardon me, pardon me.\n  PANDARUS. Th' other's not come to't; you shall tell me another tale\n    when th' other's come to't. Hector shall not have his wit this\n    year.\n  CRESSIDA. He shall not need it if he have his own.\n  PANDARUS. Nor his qualities.\n  CRESSIDA. No matter.\n  PANDARUS. Nor his beauty.\n  CRESSIDA. 'Twould not become him: his own's better.\n  PANDARUS. YOU have no judgment, niece. Helen herself swore th'\n    other day that Troilus, for a brown favour, for so 'tis, I must\n    confess- not brown neither-\n  CRESSIDA. No, but brown.\n  PANDARUS. Faith, to say truth, brown and not brown.\n  CRESSIDA. To say the truth, true and not true.\n  PANDARUS. She prais'd his complexion above Paris.\n  CRESSIDA. Why, Paris hath colour enough.\n  PANDARUS. So he has.\n  CRESSIDA. Then Troilus should have too much. If she prais'd him\n    above, his complexion is higher than his; he having colour\n    enough, and the other higher, is too flaming praise for a good\n    complexion. I had as lief Helen's golden tongue had commended\n    Troilus for a copper nose.\n  PANDARUS. I swear to you I think Helen loves him better than Paris.\n  CRESSIDA. Then she's a merry Greek indeed.\n  PANDARUS. Nay, I am sure she does. She came to him th' other day\n    into the compass'd window-and you know he has not past three or\n    four hairs on his chin-\n  CRESSIDA. Indeed a tapster's arithmetic may soon bring his\n    particulars therein to a total.\n  PANDARUS. Why, he is very young, and yet will he within three pound\n    lift as much as his brother Hector.\n  CRESSIDA. Is he so young a man and so old a lifter?\n  PANDARUS. But to prove to you that Helen loves him: she came and\n    puts me her white hand to his cloven chin-\n  CRESSIDA. Juno have mercy! How came it cloven?\n  PANDARUS. Why, you know, 'tis dimpled. I think his smiling becomes\n    him better than any man in all Phrygia.\n  CRESSIDA. O, he smiles valiantly!\n  PANDARUS. Does he not?\n  CRESSIDA. O yes, an 'twere a cloud in autumn!\n  PANDARUS. Why, go to, then! But to prove to you that Helen loves\n    Troilus-\n  CRESSIDA. Troilus will stand to the proof, if you'll prove it so.\n  PANDARUS. Troilus! Why, he esteems her no more than I esteem an\n    addle egg.\n  CRESSIDA. If you love an addle egg as well as you love an idle\n    head, you would eat chickens i' th' shell.\n  PANDARUS. I cannot choose but laugh to think how she tickled his\n    chin. Indeed, she has a marvell's white hand, I must needs\n    confess.\n  CRESSIDA. Without the rack.\n  PANDARUS. And she takes upon her to spy a white hair on his chin.\n  CRESSIDA. Alas, poor chin! Many a wart is richer.\n  PANDARUS. But there was such laughing! Queen Hecuba laugh'd that\n    her eyes ran o'er.\n  CRESSIDA. With millstones.\n  PANDARUS. And Cassandra laugh'd.\n  CRESSIDA. But there was a more temperate fire under the pot of her\n    eyes. Did her eyes run o'er too?\n  PANDARUS. And Hector laugh'd.\n  CRESSIDA. At what was all this laughing?\n  PANDARUS. Marry, at the white hair that Helen spied on Troilus'\n    chin.\n  CRESSIDA. An't had been a green hair I should have laugh'd too.\n  PANDARUS. They laugh'd not so much at the hair as at his pretty\n    answer.\n  CRESSIDA. What was his answer?\n  PANDARUS. Quoth she 'Here's but two and fifty hairs on your chin,\n    and one of them is white.'\n  CRESSIDA. This is her question.\n  PANDARUS. That's true; make no question of that. 'Two and fifty\n    hairs,' quoth he 'and one white. That white hair is my father,\n    and all the rest are his sons.' 'Jupiter!' quoth she 'which of\n    these hairs is Paris my husband?' 'The forked one,' quoth he,\n    'pluck't out and give it him.' But there was such laughing! and\n    Helen so blush'd, and Paris so chaf'd; and all the rest so\n    laugh'd that it pass'd.\n  CRESSIDA. So let it now; for it has been a great while going by.\n  PANDARUS. Well, cousin, I told you a thing yesterday; think on't.\n  CRESSIDA. So I do.\n  PANDARUS. I'll be sworn 'tis true; he will weep you, and 'twere a\n    man born in April.\n  CRESSIDA. And I'll spring up in his tears, an 'twere a nettle\n    against May.                                    [Sound a retreat]\n  PANDARUS. Hark! they are coming from the field. Shall we stand up\n    here and see them as they pass toward Ilium? Good niece, do,\n    sweet niece Cressida.\n  CRESSIDA. At your pleasure.\n  PANDARUS. Here, here, here's an excellent place; here we may see\n    most bravely. I'll tell you them all by their names as they pass\n    by; but mark Troilus above the rest.\n\n                       AENEAS passes\n\n  CRESSIDA. Speak not so loud.\n  PANDARUS. That's Aeneas. Is not that a brave man? He's one of the\n    flowers of Troy, I can tell you. But mark Troilus; you shall see\n    anon.\n\n                       ANTENOR passes\n\n  CRESSIDA. Who's that?\n  PANDARUS. That's Antenor. He has a shrewd wit, I can tell you; and\n    he's a man good enough; he's one o' th' soundest judgments in\n    Troy, whosoever, and a proper man of person. When comes Troilus?\n    I'll show you Troilus anon. If he see me, you shall see him nod\n    at me.\n  CRESSIDA. Will he give you the nod?\n  PANDARUS. You shall see.\n  CRESSIDA. If he do, the rich shall have more.\n\n                     HECTOR passes\n\n  PANDARUS. That's Hector, that, that, look you, that; there's a\n    fellow! Go thy way, Hector! There's a brave man, niece. O brave\n    Hector! Look how he looks. There's a countenance! Is't not a\n    brave man?\n  CRESSIDA. O, a brave man!\n  PANDARUS. Is 'a not? It does a man's heart good. Look you what\n    hacks are on his helmet! Look you yonder, do you see? Look you\n    there. There's no jesting; there's laying on; take't off who\n    will, as they say. There be hacks.\n  CRESSIDA. Be those with swords?\n  PANDARUS. Swords! anything, he cares not; an the devil come to him,\n    it's all one. By God's lid, it does one's heart good. Yonder\n    comes Paris, yonder comes Paris.\n\n                       PARIS passes\n\n    Look ye yonder, niece; is't not a gallant man too, is't not? Why,\n    this is brave now. Who said he came hurt home to-day? He's not\n    hurt. Why, this will do Helen's heart good now, ha! Would I could\n    see Troilus now! You shall see Troilus anon.\n\n                      HELENUS passes\n\n  CRESSIDA. Who's that?\n  PANDARUS. That's Helenus. I marvel where Troilus is. That's\n    Helenus. I think he went not forth to-day. That's Helenus.\n  CRESSIDA. Can Helenus fight, uncle?\n  PANDARUS. Helenus! no. Yes, he'll fight indifferent well. I marvel\n    where Troilus is. Hark! do you not hear the people cry 'Troilus'?\n    Helenus is a priest.\n  CRESSIDA. What sneaking fellow comes yonder?\n\n                    TROILUS passes\n\n  PANDARUS. Where? yonder? That's Deiphobus. 'Tis Troilus. There's a\n    man, niece. Hem! Brave Troilus, the prince of chivalry!\n  CRESSIDA. Peace, for shame, peace!\n  PANDARUS. Mark him; note him. O brave Troilus! Look well upon him,\n    niece; look you how his sword is bloodied, and his helm more\n    hack'd than Hector's; and how he looks, and how he goes! O\n    admirable youth! he never saw three and twenty. Go thy way,\n    Troilus, go thy way. Had I a sister were a grace or a daughter a\n    goddess, he should take his choice. O admirable man! Paris? Paris\n    is dirt to him; and, I warrant, Helen, to change, would give an\n    eye to boot.\n  CRESSIDA. Here comes more.\n\n                 Common soldiers pass\n\n  PANDARUS. Asses, fools, dolts! chaff and bran, chaff and bran!\n    porridge after meat! I could live and die in the eyes of Troilus.\n    Ne'er look, ne'er look; the eagles are gone. Crows and daws,\n    crows and daws! I had rather be such a man as Troilus than\n    Agamemnon and all Greece.\n  CRESSIDA. There is amongst the Greeks Achilles, a better man than\n    Troilus.\n  PANDARUS. Achilles? A drayman, a porter, a very camel!\n  CRESSIDA. Well, well.\n  PANDARUS. Well, well! Why, have you any discretion? Have you any\n    eyes? Do you know what a man is? Is not birth, beauty, good\n    shape, discourse, manhood, learning, gentleness, virtue, youth,\n    liberality, and such like, the spice and salt that season a man?\n  CRESSIDA. Ay, a minc'd man; and then to be bak'd with no date in\n    the pie, for then the man's date is out.\n  PANDARUS. You are such a woman! A man knows not at what ward you\n    lie.\n  CRESSIDA. Upon my back, to defend my belly; upon my wit, to defend\n    my wiles; upon my secrecy, to defend mine honesty; my mask, to\n    defend my beauty; and you, to defend all these; and at all these\n    wards I lie at, at a thousand watches.\n  PANDARUS. Say one of your watches.\n  CRESSIDA. Nay, I'll watch you for that; and that's one of the\n    chiefest of them too. If I cannot ward what I would not have hit,\n    I can watch you for telling how I took the blow; unless it swell\n    past hiding, and then it's past watching\n  PANDARUS. You are such another!\n\n                   Enter TROILUS' BOY\n\n  BOY. Sir, my lord would instantly speak with you.\n  PANDARUS. Where?\n  BOY. At your own house; there he unarms him.\n  PANDARUS. Good boy, tell him I come.                       Exit Boy\n    I doubt he be hurt. Fare ye well, good niece.\n  CRESSIDA. Adieu, uncle.\n  PANDARUS. I will be with you, niece, by and by.\n  CRESSIDA. To bring, uncle.\n  PANDARUS. Ay, a token from Troilus.\n  CRESSIDA. By the same token, you are a bawd.\n                                                        Exit PANDARUS\n    Words, vows, gifts, tears, and love's full sacrifice,\n    He offers in another's enterprise;\n    But more in Troilus thousand-fold I see\n    Than in the glass of Pandar's praise may be,\n    Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing:\n    Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing.\n    That she belov'd knows nought that knows not this:\n    Men prize the thing ungain'd more than it is.\n    That she was never yet that ever knew\n    Love got so sweet as when desire did sue;\n    Therefore this maxim out of love I teach:\n    Achievement is command; ungain'd, beseech.\n    Then though my heart's content firm love doth bear,\n    Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear.                 Exit\n\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 3.\nThe Grecian camp. Before AGAMEMNON'S tent\n\nSennet. Enter AGAMEMNON, NESTOR, ULYSSES, DIOMEDES, MENELAUS, and others\n\n  AGAMEMNON. Princes,\n    What grief hath set these jaundies o'er your cheeks?\n    The ample proposition that hope makes\n    In all designs begun on earth below\n    Fails in the promis'd largeness; checks and disasters\n    Grow in the veins of actions highest rear'd,\n    As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap,\n    Infects the sound pine, and diverts his grain\n    Tortive and errant from his course of growth.\n    Nor, princes, is it matter new to us\n    That we come short of our suppose so far\n    That after seven years' siege yet Troy walls stand;\n    Sith every action that hath gone before,\n    Whereof we have record, trial did draw\n    Bias and thwart, not answering the aim,\n    And that unbodied figure of the thought\n    That gave't surmised shape. Why then, you princes,\n    Do you with cheeks abash'd behold our works\n    And call them shames, which are, indeed, nought else\n    But the protractive trials of great Jove\n    To find persistive constancy in men;\n    The fineness of which metal is not found\n    In fortune's love? For then the bold and coward,\n    The wise and fool, the artist and unread,\n    The hard and soft, seem all affin'd and kin.\n    But in the wind and tempest of her frown\n    Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan,\n    Puffing at all, winnows the light away;\n    And what hath mass or matter by itself\n    Lies rich in virtue and unmingled.\n  NESTOR. With due observance of thy godlike seat,\n    Great Agamemnon, Nestor shall apply\n    Thy latest words. In the reproof of chance\n    Lies the true proof of men. The sea being smooth,\n    How many shallow bauble boats dare sail\n    Upon her patient breast, making their way\n    With those of nobler bulk!\n    But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage\n    The gentle Thetis, and anon behold\n    The strong-ribb'd bark through liquid mountains cut,\n    Bounding between the two moist elements\n    Like Perseus' horse. Where's then the saucy boat,\n    Whose weak untimber'd sides but even now\n    Co-rivall'd greatness? Either to harbour fled\n    Or made a toast for Neptune. Even so\n    Doth valour's show and valour's worth divide\n    In storms of fortune; for in her ray and brightness\n    The herd hath more annoyance by the breeze\n    Than by the tiger; but when the splitting wind\n    Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks,\n    And flies fled under shade-why, then the thing of courage\n    As rous'd with rage, with rage doth sympathise,\n    And with an accent tun'd in self-same key\n    Retorts to chiding fortune.\n  ULYSSES. Agamemnon,\n    Thou great commander, nerve and bone of Greece,\n    Heart of our numbers, soul and only spirit\n    In whom the tempers and the minds of all\n    Should be shut up-hear what Ulysses speaks.\n    Besides the applause and approbation\n    The which, [To AGAMEMNON] most mighty, for thy place and sway,\n    [To NESTOR] And, thou most reverend, for thy stretch'd-out life,\n    I give to both your speeches- which were such\n    As Agamemnon and the hand of Greece\n    Should hold up high in brass; and such again\n    As venerable Nestor, hatch'd in silver,\n    Should with a bond of air, strong as the axle-tree\n    On which heaven rides, knit all the Greekish ears\n    To his experienc'd tongue-yet let it please both,\n    Thou great, and wise, to hear Ulysses speak.\n  AGAMEMNON. Speak, Prince of Ithaca; and be't of less expect\n    That matter needless, of importless burden,\n    Divide thy lips than we are confident,\n    When rank Thersites opes his mastic jaws,\n    We shall hear music, wit, and oracle.\n  ULYSSES. Troy, yet upon his basis, had been down,\n    And the great Hector's sword had lack'd a master,\n    But for these instances:\n    The specialty of rule hath been neglected;\n    And look how many Grecian tents do stand\n    Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions.\n    When that the general is not like the hive,\n    To whom the foragers shall all repair,\n    What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded,\n    Th' unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask.\n    The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre,\n    Observe degree, priority, and place,\n    Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,\n    Office, and custom, in all line of order;\n    And therefore is the glorious planet Sol\n    In noble eminence enthron'd and spher'd\n    Amidst the other, whose med'cinable eye\n    Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil,\n    And posts, like the commandment of a king,\n    Sans check, to good and bad. But when the planets\n    In evil mixture to disorder wander,\n    What plagues and what portents, what mutiny,\n    What raging of the sea, shaking of earth,\n    Commotion in the winds! Frights, changes, horrors,\n    Divert and crack, rend and deracinate,\n    The unity and married calm of states\n    Quite from their fixture! O, when degree is shak'd,\n    Which is the ladder of all high designs,\n    The enterprise is sick! How could communities,\n    Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities,\n    Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,\n    The primogenity and due of birth,\n    Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,\n    But by degree, stand in authentic place?\n    Take but degree away, untune that string,\n    And hark what discord follows! Each thing melts\n    In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters\n    Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores,\n    And make a sop of all this solid globe;\n    Strength should be lord of imbecility,\n    And the rude son should strike his father dead;\n    Force should be right; or, rather, right and wrong-\n    Between whose endless jar justice resides-\n    Should lose their names, and so should justice too.\n    Then everything includes itself in power,\n    Power into will, will into appetite;\n    And appetite, an universal wolf,\n    So doubly seconded with will and power,\n    Must make perforce an universal prey,\n    And last eat up himself. Great Agamemnon,\n    This chaos, when degree is suffocate,\n    Follows the choking.\n    And this neglection of degree it is\n    That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose\n    It hath to climb. The general's disdain'd\n    By him one step below, he by the next,\n    That next by him beneath; so ever step,\n    Exampl'd by the first pace that is sick\n    Of his superior, grows to an envious fever\n    Of pale and bloodless emulation.\n    And 'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot,\n    Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length,\n    Troy in our weakness stands, not in her strength.\n  NESTOR. Most wisely hath Ulysses here discover'd\n    The fever whereof all our power is sick.\n  AGAMEMNON. The nature of the sickness found, Ulysses,\n    What is the remedy?\n  ULYSSES. The great Achilles, whom opinion crowns\n    The sinew and the forehand of our host,\n    Having his ear full of his airy fame,\n    Grows dainty of his worth, and in his tent\n    Lies mocking our designs; with him Patroclus\n    Upon a lazy bed the livelong day\n    Breaks scurril jests;\n    And with ridiculous and awkward action-\n    Which, slanderer, he imitation calls-\n    He pageants us. Sometime, great Agamemnon,\n    Thy topless deputation he puts on;\n    And like a strutting player whose conceit\n    Lies in his hamstring, and doth think it rich\n    To hear the wooden dialogue and sound\n    'Twixt his stretch'd footing and the scaffoldage-\n    Such to-be-pitied and o'er-wrested seeming\n    He acts thy greatness in; and when he speaks\n    'Tis like a chime a-mending; with terms unsquar'd,\n    Which, from the tongue of roaring Typhon dropp'd,\n    Would seem hyperboles. At this fusty stuff\n    The large Achilles, on his press'd bed lolling,\n    From his deep chest laughs out a loud applause;\n    Cries 'Excellent! 'tis Agamemnon just.\n    Now play me Nestor; hem, and stroke thy beard,\n    As he being drest to some oration.'\n    That's done-as near as the extremest ends\n    Of parallels, as like Vulcan and his wife;\n    Yet god Achilles still cries 'Excellent!\n    'Tis Nestor right. Now play him me, Patroclus,\n    Arming to answer in a night alarm.'\n    And then, forsooth, the faint defects of age\n    Must be the scene of mirth: to cough and spit\n    And, with a palsy-fumbling on his gorget,\n    Shake in and out the rivet. And at this sport\n    Sir Valour dies; cries 'O, enough, Patroclus;\n    Or give me ribs of steel! I shall split all\n    In pleasure of my spleen.' And in this fashion\n    All our abilities, gifts, natures, shapes,\n    Severals and generals of grace exact,\n    Achievements, plots, orders, preventions,\n    Excitements to the field or speech for truce,\n    Success or loss, what is or is not, serves\n    As stuff for these two to make paradoxes.\n  NESTOR. And in the imitation of these twain-\n    Who, as Ulysses says, opinion crowns\n    With an imperial voice-many are infect.\n    Ajax is grown self-will'd and bears his head\n    In such a rein, in full as proud a place\n    As broad Achilles; keeps his tent like him;\n    Makes factious feasts; rails on our state of war\n    Bold as an oracle, and sets Thersites,\n    A slave whose gall coins slanders like a mint,\n    To match us in comparisons with dirt,\n    To weaken and discredit our exposure,\n    How rank soever rounded in with danger.\n  ULYSSES. They tax our policy and call it cowardice,\n    Count wisdom as no member of the war,\n    Forestall prescience, and esteem no act\n    But that of hand. The still and mental parts\n    That do contrive how many hands shall strike\n    When fitness calls them on, and know, by measure\n    Of their observant toil, the enemies' weight-\n    Why, this hath not a finger's dignity:\n    They call this bed-work, mapp'ry, closet-war;\n    So that the ram that batters down the wall,\n    For the great swinge and rudeness of his poise,\n    They place before his hand that made the engine,\n    Or those that with the fineness of their souls\n    By reason guide his execution.\n  NESTOR. Let this be granted, and Achilles' horse\n    Makes many Thetis' sons.                                 [Tucket]\n  AGAMEMNON. What trumpet? Look, Menelaus.\n  MENELAUS. From Troy.\n\n                      Enter AENEAS\n\n  AGAMEMNON. What would you fore our tent?\n  AENEAS. Is this great Agamemnon's tent, I pray you?\n  AGAMEMNON. Even this.\n  AENEAS. May one that is a herald and a prince\n    Do a fair message to his kingly eyes?\n  AGAMEMNON. With surety stronger than Achilles' an\n    Fore all the Greekish heads, which with one voice\n    Call Agamemnon head and general.\n  AENEAS. Fair leave and large security. How may\n    A stranger to those most imperial looks\n    Know them from eyes of other mortals?\n  AGAMEMNON. How?\n  AENEAS. Ay;\n    I ask, that I might waken reverence,\n    And bid the cheek be ready with a blush\n    Modest as Morning when she coldly eyes\n    The youthful Phoebus.\n    Which is that god in office, guiding men?\n    Which is the high and mighty Agamemnon?\n  AGAMEMNON. This Troyan scorns us, or the men of Troy\n    Are ceremonious courtiers.\n  AENEAS. Courtiers as free, as debonair, unarm'd,\n    As bending angels; that's their fame in peace.\n    But when they would seem soldiers, they have galls,\n    Good arms, strong joints, true swords; and, Jove's accord,\n    Nothing so full of heart. But peace, Aeneas,\n    Peace, Troyan; lay thy finger on thy lips.\n    The worthiness of praise distains his worth,\n    If that the prais'd himself bring the praise forth;\n    But what the repining enemy commends,\n    That breath fame blows; that praise, sole pure, transcends.\n  AGAMEMNON. Sir, you of Troy, call you yourself Aeneas?\n  AENEAS. Ay, Greek, that is my name.\n  AGAMEMNON. What's your affair, I pray you?\n  AENEAS. Sir, pardon; 'tis for Agamemnon's ears.\n  AGAMEMNON. He hears nought privately that comes from Troy.\n  AENEAS. Nor I from Troy come not to whisper with him;\n    I bring a trumpet to awake his ear,\n    To set his sense on the attentive bent,\n    And then to speak.\n  AGAMEMNON. Speak frankly as the wind;\n    It is not Agamemnon's sleeping hour.\n    That thou shalt know, Troyan, he is awake,\n    He tells thee so himself.\n  AENEAS. Trumpet, blow loud,\n    Send thy brass voice through all these lazy tents;\n    And every Greek of mettle, let him know\n    What Troy means fairly shall be spoke aloud.\n                                                      [Sound trumpet]\n    We have, great Agamemnon, here in Troy\n    A prince called Hector-Priam is his father-\n    Who in this dull and long-continued truce\n    Is resty grown; he bade me take a trumpet\n    And to this purpose speak: Kings, princes, lords!\n    If there be one among the fair'st of Greece\n    That holds his honour higher than his ease,\n    That seeks his praise more than he fears his peril,\n    That knows his valour and knows not his fear,\n    That loves his mistress more than in confession\n    With truant vows to her own lips he loves,\n    And dare avow her beauty and her worth\n    In other arms than hers-to him this challenge.\n    Hector, in view of Troyans and of Greeks,\n    Shall make it good or do his best to do it:\n    He hath a lady wiser, fairer, truer,\n    Than ever Greek did couple in his arms;\n    And will to-morrow with his trumpet call\n    Mid-way between your tents and walls of Troy\n    To rouse a Grecian that is true in love.\n    If any come, Hector shall honour him;\n    If none, he'll say in Troy, when he retires,\n    The Grecian dames are sunburnt and not worth\n    The splinter of a lance. Even so much.\n  AGAMEMNON. This shall be told our lovers, Lord Aeneas.\n    If none of them have soul in such a kind,\n    We left them all at home. But we are soldiers;\n    And may that soldier a mere recreant prove\n    That means not, hath not, or is not in love.\n    If then one is, or hath, or means to be,\n    That one meets Hector; if none else, I am he.\n  NESTOR. Tell him of Nestor, one that was a man\n    When Hector's grandsire suck'd. He is old now;\n    But if there be not in our Grecian mould\n    One noble man that hath one spark of fire\n    To answer for his love, tell him from me\n    I'll hide my silver beard in a gold beaver,\n    And in my vantbrace put this wither'd brawn,\n    And, meeting him, will tell him that my lady\n    Was fairer than his grandame, and as chaste\n    As may be in the world. His youth in flood,\n    I'll prove this truth with my three drops of blood.\n  AENEAS. Now heavens forfend such scarcity of youth!\n  ULYSSES. Amen.\n  AGAMEMNON. Fair Lord Aeneas, let me touch your hand;\n    To our pavilion shall I lead you, first.\n    Achilles shall have word of this intent;\n    So shall each lord of Greece, from tent to tent.\n    Yourself shall feast with us before you go,\n    And find the welcome of a noble foe.\n                                    Exeunt all but ULYSSES and NESTOR\n  ULYSSES. Nestor!\n  NESTOR. What says Ulysses?\n  ULYSSES. I have a young conception in my brain;\n    Be you my time to bring it to some shape.\n  NESTOR. What is't?\n  ULYSSES. This 'tis:\n    Blunt wedges rive hard knots. The seeded pride\n    That hath to this maturity blown up\n    In rank Achilles must or now be cropp'd\n    Or, shedding, breed a nursery of like evil\n    To overbulk us all.\n  NESTOR. Well, and how?\n  ULYSSES. This challenge that the gallant Hector sends,\n    However it is spread in general name,\n    Relates in purpose only to Achilles.\n  NESTOR. True. The purpose is perspicuous even as substance\n    Whose grossness little characters sum up;\n    And, in the publication, make no strain\n    But that Achilles, were his brain as barren\n    As banks of Libya-though, Apollo knows,\n    'Tis dry enough-will with great speed of judgment,\n    Ay, with celerity, find Hector's purpose\n    Pointing on him.\n  ULYSSES. And wake him to the answer, think you?\n  NESTOR. Why, 'tis most meet. Who may you else oppose\n    That can from Hector bring those honours off,\n    If not Achilles? Though 't be a sportful combat,\n    Yet in this trial much opinion dwells;\n    For here the Troyans taste our dear'st repute\n    With their fin'st palate; and trust to me, Ulysses,\n    Our imputation shall be oddly pois'd\n    In this vile action; for the success,\n    Although particular, shall give a scantling\n    Of good or bad unto the general;\n    And in such indexes, although small pricks\n    To their subsequent volumes, there is seen\n    The baby figure of the giant mas\n    Of things to come at large. It is suppos'd\n    He that meets Hector issues from our choice;\n    And choice, being mutual act of all our souls,\n    Makes merit her election, and doth boil,\n    As 'twere from forth us all, a man distill'd\n    Out of our virtues; who miscarrying,\n    What heart receives from hence a conquering part,\n    To steel a strong opinion to themselves?\n    Which entertain'd, limbs are his instruments,\n    In no less working than are swords and bows\n    Directive by the limbs.\n  ULYSSES. Give pardon to my speech.\n    Therefore 'tis meet Achilles meet not Hector.\n    Let us, like merchants, show our foulest wares\n    And think perchance they'll sell; if not, the lustre\n    Of the better yet to show shall show the better,\n    By showing the worst first. Do not consent\n    That ever Hector and Achilles meet;\n    For both our honour and our shame in this\n    Are dogg'd with two strange followers.\n  NESTOR. I see them not with my old eyes. What are they?\n  ULYSSES. What glory our Achilles shares from Hector,\n    Were he not proud, we all should wear with him;\n    But he already is too insolent;\n    And it were better parch in Afric sun\n    Than in the pride and salt scorn of his eyes,\n    Should he scape Hector fair. If he were foil'd,\n    Why, then we do our main opinion crush\n    In taint of our best man. No, make a lott'ry;\n    And, by device, let blockish Ajax draw\n    The sort to fight with Hector. Among ourselves\n    Give him allowance for the better man;\n    For that will physic the great Myrmidon,\n    Who broils in loud applause, and make him fall\n    His crest, that prouder than blue Iris bends.\n    If the dull brainless Ajax come safe off,\n    We'll dress him up in voices; if he fail,\n    Yet go we under our opinion still\n    That we have better men. But, hit or miss,\n    Our project's life this shape of sense assumes-\n    Ajax employ'd plucks down Achilles' plumes.\n  NESTOR. Now, Ulysses, I begin to relish thy advice;\n    And I will give a taste thereof forthwith\n    To Agamemnon. Go we to him straight.\n    Two curs shall tame each other: pride alone\n    Must tarre the mastiffs on, as 'twere their bone.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 1.\nThe Grecian camp\n\nEnter Ajax and THERSITES\n\n  AJAX. Thersites!\n  THERSITES. Agamemnon-how if he had boils full, an over, generally?\n  AJAX. Thersites!\n  THERSITES. And those boils did run-say so. Did not the general run\n    then? Were not that a botchy core?\n  AJAX. Dog!\n  THERSITES. Then there would come some matter from him;\n    I see none now.\n  AJAX. Thou bitch-wolf's son, canst thou not hear? Feel, then.\n                                                        [Strikes him]\n  THERSITES. The plague of Greece upon thee, thou mongrel beef-witted\n    lord!\n  AJAX. Speak, then, thou whinid'st leaven, speak. I will beat thee\n    into handsomeness.\n  THERSITES. I shall sooner rail thee into wit and holiness; but I\n    think thy horse will sooner con an oration than thou learn a\n    prayer without book. Thou canst strike, canst thou? A red murrain\n    o' thy jade's tricks!\n  AJAX. Toadstool, learn me the proclamation.\n  THERSITES. Dost thou think I have no sense, thou strikest me thus?\n  AJAX. The proclamation!\n  THERSITES. Thou art proclaim'd, a fool, I think.\n  AJAX. Do not, porpentine, do not; my fingers itch.\n  THERSITES. I would thou didst itch from head to foot and I had the\n    scratching of thee; I would make thee the loathsomest scab in\n    Greece. When thou art forth in the incursions, thou strikest as\n    slow as another.\n  AJAX. I say, the proclamation.\n  THERSITES. Thou grumblest and railest every hour on Achilles; and\n    thou art as full of envy at his greatness as Cerberus is at\n    Proserpina's beauty-ay, that thou bark'st at him.\n  AJAX. Mistress Thersites!\n  THERSITES. Thou shouldst strike him.\n  AJAX. Cobloaf!\n  THERSITES. He would pun thee into shivers with his fist, as a\n    sailor breaks a biscuit.\n  AJAX. You whoreson cur!                               [Strikes him]\n  THERSITES. Do, do.\n  AJAX. Thou stool for a witch!\n  THERSITES. Ay, do, do; thou sodden-witted lord! Thou hast no more\n    brain than I have in mine elbows; an assinico may tutor thee. You\n    scurvy valiant ass! Thou art here but to thrash Troyans, and thou\n    art bought and sold among those of any wit like a barbarian\n    slave. If thou use to beat me, I will begin at thy heel and tell\n    what thou art by inches, thou thing of no bowels, thou!\n  AJAX. You dog!\n  THERSITES. You scurvy lord!\n  AJAX. You cur!                                        [Strikes him]\n  THERSITES. Mars his idiot! Do, rudeness; do, camel; do, do.\n\n                 Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS\n\n  ACHILLES. Why, how now, Ajax! Wherefore do you thus?\n    How now, Thersites! What's the matter, man?\n  THERSITES. You see him there, do you?\n  ACHILLES. Ay; what's the matter?\n  THERSITES. Nay, look upon him.\n  ACHILLES. So I do. What's the matter?\n  THERSITES. Nay, but regard him well.\n  ACHILLES. Well! why, so I do.\n  THERSITES. But yet you look not well upon him; for who some ever\n    you take him to be, he is Ajax.\n  ACHILLES. I know that, fool.\n  THERSITES. Ay, but that fool knows not himself.\n  AJAX. Therefore I beat thee.\n  THERSITES. Lo, lo, lo, lo, what modicums of wit he utters! His\n    evasions have ears thus long. I have bobb'd his brain more than\n    he has beat my bones. I will buy nine sparrows for a penny, and\n    his pia mater is not worth the ninth part of a sparrow. This\n    lord, Achilles, Ajax-who wears his wit in his belly and his guts\n    in his head-I'll tell you what I say of him.\n  ACHILLES. What?\n  THERSITES. I say this Ajax-             [AJAX offers to strike him]\n  ACHILLES. Nay, good Ajax.\n  THERSITES. Has not so much wit-\n  ACHILLES. Nay, I must hold you.\n  THERSITES. As will stop the eye of Helen's needle, for whom he\n    comes to fight.\n  ACHILLES. Peace, fool.\n  THERSITES. I would have peace and quietness, but the fool will not-\n    he there; that he; look you there.\n  AJAX. O thou damned cur! I shall-\n  ACHILLES. Will you set your wit to a fool's?\n  THERSITES. No, I warrant you, the fool's will shame it.\n  PATROCLUS. Good words, Thersites.\n  ACHILLES. What's the quarrel?\n  AJAX. I bade the vile owl go learn me the tenour of the\n    proclamation, and he rails upon me.\n  THERSITES. I serve thee not.\n  AJAX. Well, go to, go to.\n  THERSITES. I serve here voluntary.\n  ACHILLES. Your last service was suff'rance; 'twas not voluntary. No\n    man is beaten voluntary. Ajax was here the voluntary, and you as\n    under an impress.\n  THERSITES. E'en so; a great deal of your wit too lies in your\n    sinews, or else there be liars. Hector shall have a great catch\n    an he knock out either of your brains: 'a were as good crack a\n    fusty nut with no kernel.\n  ACHILLES. What, with me too, Thersites?\n  THERSITES. There's Ulysses and old Nestor-whose wit was mouldy ere\n    your grandsires had nails on their toes-yoke you like draught\n    oxen, and make you plough up the wars.\n  ACHILLES. What, what?\n  THERSITES. Yes, good sooth. To Achilles, to Ajax, to-\n  AJAX. I shall cut out your tongue.\n  THERSITES. 'Tis no matter; I shall speak as much as thou\n    afterwards.\n  PATROCLUS. No more words, Thersites; peace!\n  THERSITES. I will hold my peace when Achilles' brach bids me, shall\n    I?\n  ACHILLES. There's for you, Patroclus.\n  THERSITES. I will see you hang'd like clotpoles ere I come any more\n    to your tents. I will keep where there is wit stirring, and leave\n    the faction of fools.                                        Exit\n  PATROCLUS. A good riddance.\n  ACHILLES. Marry, this, sir, is proclaim'd through all our host,\n    That Hector, by the fifth hour of the sun,\n    Will with a trumpet 'twixt our tents and Troy,\n    To-morrow morning, call some knight to arms\n    That hath a stomach; and such a one that dare\n    Maintain I know not what; 'tis trash. Farewell.\n  AJAX. Farewell. Who shall answer him?\n  ACHILLES. I know not; 'tis put to lott'ry. Otherwise. He knew his\n    man.\n  AJAX. O, meaning you! I will go learn more of it.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 2.\nTroy. PRIAM'S palace\n\nEnter PRIAM, HECTOR, TROILUS, PARIS, and HELENUS\n\n  PRIAM. After so many hours, lives, speeches, spent,\n    Thus once again says Nestor from the Greeks:\n    'Deliver Helen, and all damage else-\n    As honour, loss of time, travail, expense,\n    Wounds, friends, and what else dear that is consum'd\n    In hot digestion of this cormorant war-\n    Shall be struck off.' Hector, what say you to't?\n  HECTOR. Though no man lesser fears the Greeks than I,\n    As far as toucheth my particular,\n    Yet, dread Priam,\n    There is no lady of more softer bowels,\n    More spongy to suck in the sense of fear,\n    More ready to cry out 'Who knows what follows?'\n    Than Hector is. The wound of peace is surety,\n    Surety secure; but modest doubt is call'd\n    The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches\n    To th' bottom of the worst. Let Helen go.\n    Since the first sword was drawn about this question,\n    Every tithe soul 'mongst many thousand dismes\n    Hath been as dear as Helen-I mean, of ours.\n    If we have lost so many tenths of ours\n    To guard a thing not ours, nor worth to us,\n    Had it our name, the value of one ten,\n    What merit's in that reason which denies\n    The yielding of her up?\n  TROILUS. Fie, fie, my brother!\n    Weigh you the worth and honour of a king,\n    So great as our dread father's, in a scale\n    Of common ounces? Will you with counters sum\n    The past-proportion of his infinite,\n    And buckle in a waist most fathomless\n    With spans and inches so diminutive\n    As fears and reasons? Fie, for godly shame!\n  HELENUS. No marvel though you bite so sharp at reasons,\n    You are so empty of them. Should not our father\n    Bear the great sway of his affairs with reasons,\n    Because your speech hath none that tells him so?\n  TROILUS. You are for dreams and slumbers, brother priest;\n    You fur your gloves with reason. Here are your reasons:\n    You know an enemy intends you harm;\n    You know a sword employ'd is perilous,\n    And reason flies the object of all harm.\n    Who marvels, then, when Helenus beholds\n    A Grecian and his sword, if he do set\n    The very wings of reason to his heels\n    And fly like chidden Mercury from Jove,\n    Or like a star disorb'd? Nay, if we talk of reason,\n    Let's shut our gates and sleep. Manhood and honour\n    Should have hare hearts, would they but fat their thoughts\n    With this cramm'd reason. Reason and respect\n    Make livers pale and lustihood deject.\n  HECTOR. Brother, she is not worth what she doth, cost\n    The keeping.\n  TROILUS. What's aught but as 'tis valued?\n  HECTOR. But value dwells not in particular will:\n    It holds his estimate and dignity\n    As well wherein 'tis precious of itself\n    As in the prizer. 'Tis mad idolatry\n    To make the service greater than the god-I\n    And the will dotes that is attributive\n    To what infectiously itself affects,\n    Without some image of th' affected merit.\n  TROILUS. I take to-day a wife, and my election\n    Is led on in the conduct of my will;\n    My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears,\n    Two traded pilots 'twixt the dangerous shores\n    Of will and judgment: how may I avoid,\n    Although my will distaste what it elected,\n    The wife I chose? There can be no evasion\n    To blench from this and to stand firm by honour.\n    We turn not back the silks upon the merchant\n    When we have soil'd them; nor the remainder viands\n    We do not throw in unrespective sieve,\n    Because we now are full. It was thought meet\n    Paris should do some vengeance on the Greeks;\n    Your breath with full consent benied his sails;\n    The seas and winds, old wranglers, took a truce,\n    And did him service. He touch'd the ports desir'd;\n    And for an old aunt whom the Greeks held captive\n    He brought a Grecian queen, whose youth and freshness\n    Wrinkles Apollo's, and makes stale the morning.\n    Why keep we her? The Grecians keep our aunt.\n    Is she worth keeping? Why, she is a pearl\n    Whose price hath launch'd above a thousand ships,\n    And turn'd crown'd kings to merchants.\n    If you'll avouch 'twas wisdom Paris went-\n    As you must needs, for you all cried 'Go, go'-\n    If you'll confess he brought home worthy prize-\n    As you must needs, for you all clapp'd your hands,\n    And cried 'Inestimable!' -why do you now\n    The issue of your proper wisdoms rate,\n    And do a deed that never fortune did-\n    Beggar the estimation which you priz'd\n    Richer than sea and land? O theft most base,\n    That we have stol'n what we do fear to keep!\n    But thieves unworthy of a thing so stol'n\n    That in their country did them that disgrace\n    We fear to warrant in our native place!\n  CASSANDRA. [Within] Cry, Troyans, cry.\n  PRIAM. What noise, what shriek is this?\n  TROILUS. 'Tis our mad sister; I do know her voice.\n  CASSANDRA. [Within] Cry, Troyans.\n  HECTOR. It is Cassandra.\n\n                  Enter CASSANDRA, raving\n\n  CASSANDRA. Cry, Troyans, cry. Lend me ten thousand eyes,\n    And I will fill them with prophetic tears.\n  HECTOR. Peace, sister, peace.\n  CASSANDRA. Virgins and boys, mid-age and wrinkled eld,\n    Soft infancy, that nothing canst but cry,\n    Add to my clamours. Let us pay betimes\n    A moiety of that mass of moan to come.\n    Cry, Troyans, cry. Practise your eyes with tears.\n    Troy must not be, nor goodly Ilion stand;\n    Our firebrand brother, Paris, burns us all.\n    Cry, Troyans, cry, A Helen and a woe!\n    Cry, cry. Troy burns, or else let Helen go.                  Exit\n  HECTOR. Now, youthful Troilus, do not these high strains\n    Of divination in our sister work\n    Some touches of remorse, or is your blood\n    So madly hot that no discourse of reason,\n    Nor fear of bad success in a bad cause,\n    Can qualify the same?\n  TROILUS. Why, brother Hector,\n    We may not think the justness of each act\n    Such and no other than event doth form it;\n    Nor once deject the courage of our minds\n    Because Cassandra's mad. Her brain-sick raptures\n    Cannot distaste the goodness of a quarrel\n    Which hath our several honours all engag'd\n    To make it gracious. For my private part,\n    I am no more touch'd than all Priam's sons;\n    And Jove forbid there should be done amongst us\n    Such things as might offend the weakest spleen\n    To fight for and maintain.\n  PARIS. Else might the world convince of levity\n    As well my undertakings as your counsels;\n    But I attest the gods, your full consent\n    Gave wings to my propension, and cut of\n    All fears attending on so dire a project.\n    For what, alas, can these my single arms?\n    What propugnation is in one man's valour\n    To stand the push and enmity of those\n    This quarrel would excite? Yet, I protest,\n    Were I alone to pass the difficulties,\n    And had as ample power as I have will,\n    Paris should ne'er retract what he hath done\n    Nor faint in the pursuit.\n  PRIAM. Paris, you speak\n    Like one besotted on your sweet delights.\n    You have the honey still, but these the gall;\n    So to be valiant is no praise at all.\n  PARIS. Sir, I propose not merely to myself\n    The pleasures such a beauty brings with it;\n    But I would have the soil of her fair rape\n    Wip'd off in honourable keeping her.\n    What treason were it to the ransack'd queen,\n    Disgrace to your great worths, and shame to me,\n    Now to deliver her possession up\n    On terms of base compulsion! Can it be\n    That so degenerate a strain as this\n    Should once set footing in your generous bosoms?\n    There's not the meanest spirit on our party\n    Without a heart to dare or sword to draw\n    When Helen is defended; nor none so noble\n    Whose life were ill bestow'd or death unfam'd\n    Where Helen is the subject. Then, I say,\n    Well may we fight for her whom we know well\n    The world's large spaces cannot parallel.\n  HECTOR. Paris and Troilus, you have both said well;\n    And on the cause and question now in hand\n    Have gloz'd, but superficially; not much\n    Unlike young men, whom Aristode thought\n    Unfit to hear moral philosophy.\n    The reasons you allege do more conduce\n    To the hot passion of distemp'red blood\n    Than to make up a free determination\n    'Twixt right and wrong; for pleasure and revenge\n    Have ears more deaf than adders to the voice\n    Of any true decision. Nature craves\n    All dues be rend'red to their owners. Now,\n    What nearer debt in all humanity\n    Than wife is to the husband? If this law\n    Of nature be corrupted through affection;\n    And that great minds, of partial indulgence\n    To their benumbed wills, resist the same;\n    There is a law in each well-order'd nation\n    To curb those raging appetites that are\n    Most disobedient and refractory.\n    If Helen, then, be wife to Sparta's king-\n    As it is known she is-these moral laws\n    Of nature and of nations speak aloud\n    To have her back return'd. Thus to persist\n    In doing wrong extenuates not wrong,\n    But makes it much more heavy. Hector's opinion\n    Is this, in way of truth. Yet, ne'er the less,\n    My spritely brethren, I propend to you\n    In resolution to keep Helen still;\n    For 'tis a cause that hath no mean dependence\n    Upon our joint and several dignities.\n  TROILUS. Why, there you touch'd the life of our design.\n    Were it not glory that we more affected\n    Than the performance of our heaving spleens,\n    I would not wish a drop of Troyan blood\n    Spent more in her defence. But, worthy Hector,\n    She is a theme of honour and renown,\n    A spur to valiant and magnanimous deeds,\n    Whose present courage may beat down our foes,\n    And fame in time to come canonize us;\n    For I presume brave Hector would not lose\n    So rich advantage of a promis'd glory\n    As smiles upon the forehead of this action\n    For the wide world's revenue.\n  HECTOR. I am yours,\n    You valiant offspring of great Priamus.\n    I have a roisting challenge sent amongst\n    The dull and factious nobles of the Greeks\n    Will strike amazement to their drowsy spirits.\n    I was advertis'd their great general slept,\n    Whilst emulation in the army crept.\n    This, I presume, will wake him.                            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 3.\nThe Grecian camp. Before the tent of ACHILLES\n\nEnter THERSITES, solus\n\n  THERSITES. How now, Thersites! What, lost in the labyrinth of thy\n    fury? Shall the elephant Ajax carry it thus? He beats me, and I\n    rail at him. O worthy satisfaction! Would it were otherwise: that\n    I could beat him, whilst he rail'd at me! 'Sfoot, I'll learn to\n    conjure and raise devils, but I'll see some issue of my spiteful\n    execrations. Then there's Achilles, a rare engineer! If Troy be\n    not taken till these two undermine it, the walls will stand till\n    they fall of themselves. O thou great thunder-darter of Olympus,\n    forget that thou art Jove, the king of gods, and, Mercury, lose\n    all the serpentine craft of thy caduceus, if ye take not that\n    little little less-than-little wit from them that they have!\n    which short-arm'd ignorance itself knows is so abundant scarce,\n    it will not in circumvention deliver a fly from a spider without\n    drawing their massy irons and cutting the web. After this, the\n    vengeance on the whole camp! or, rather, the Neapolitan\n    bone-ache! for that, methinks, is the curse depending on those\n    that war for a placket. I have said my prayers; and devil Envy\n    say 'Amen.' What ho! my Lord Achilles!\n\n                      Enter PATROCLUS\n\n  PATROCLUS. Who's there? Thersites! Good Thersites, come in and\n    rail.\n  THERSITES. If I could 'a rememb'red a gilt counterfeit, thou\n    wouldst not have slipp'd out of my contemplation; but it is no\n    matter; thyself upon thyself! The common curse of mankind, folly\n    and ignorance, be thine in great revenue! Heaven bless thee from\n    a tutor, and discipline come not near thee! Let thy blood be thy\n    direction till thy death. Then if she that lays thee out says\n    thou art a fair corse, I'll be sworn and sworn upon't she never\n    shrouded any but lazars. Amen. Where's Achilles?\n  PATROCLUS. What, art thou devout? Wast thou in prayer?\n  THERSITES. Ay, the heavens hear me!\n  PATROCLUS. Amen.\n\n                      Enter ACHILLES\n\n  ACHILLES. Who's there?\n  PATROCLUS. Thersites, my lord.\n  ACHILLES. Where, where? O, where? Art thou come? Why, my cheese, my\n    digestion, why hast thou not served thyself in to my table so\n    many meals? Come, what's Agamemnon?\n  THERSITES. Thy commander, Achilles. Then tell me, Patroclus, what's\n    Achilles?\n  PATROCLUS. Thy lord, Thersites. Then tell me, I pray thee, what's\n    Thersites?\n  THERSITES. Thy knower, Patroclus. Then tell me, Patroclus, what art\n    thou?\n  PATROCLUS. Thou must tell that knowest.\n  ACHILLES. O, tell, tell,\n  THERSITES. I'll decline the whole question. Agamemnon commands\n    Achilles; Achilles is my lord; I am Patroclus' knower; and\n    Patroclus is a fool.\n  PATROCLUS. You rascal!\n  THERSITES. Peace, fool! I have not done.\n  ACHILLES. He is a privileg'd man. Proceed, Thersites.\n  THERSITES. Agamemnon is a fool; Achilles is a fool; Thersites is a\n    fool; and, as aforesaid, Patroclus is a fool.\n  ACHILLES. Derive this; come.\n  THERSITES. Agamemnon is a fool to offer to command Achilles;\n    Achilles is a fool to be commanded of Agamemnon; Thersites is a\n    fool to serve such a fool; and this Patroclus is a fool positive.\n  PATROCLUS. Why am I a fool?\n  THERSITES. Make that demand of the Creator. It suffices me thou\n    art. Look you, who comes here?\n  ACHILLES. Come, Patroclus, I'll speak with nobody. Come in with me,\n    Thersites.                                                   Exit\n  THERSITES. Here is such patchery, such juggling, and such knavery.\n    All the argument is a whore and a cuckold-a good quarrel to draw\n    emulous factions and bleed to death upon. Now the dry serpigo on\n    the subject, and war and lechery confound all!               Exit\n\n         Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, NESTOR, DIOMEDES,\n                   AJAX, and CALCHAS\n\n  AGAMEMNON. Where is Achilles?\n  PATROCLUS. Within his tent; but ill-dispos'd, my lord.\n  AGAMEMNON. Let it be known to him that we are here.\n    He shent our messengers; and we lay by\n    Our appertainings, visiting of him.\n    Let him be told so; lest, perchance, he think\n    We dare not move the question of our place\n    Or know not what we are.\n  PATROCLUS. I shall say so to him.                              Exit\n  ULYSSES. We saw him at the opening of his tent.\n    He is not sick.\n  AJAX. Yes, lion-sick, sick of proud heart. You may call it\n    melancholy, if you will favour the man; but, by my head, 'tis\n    pride. But why, why? Let him show us a cause. A word, my lord.\n                                              [Takes AGAMEMNON aside]\n  NESTOR. What moves Ajax thus to bay at him?\n  ULYSSES. Achilles hath inveigled his fool from him.\n  NESTOR.Who, Thersites?\n  ULYSSES. He.\n  NESTOR. Then will Ajax lack matter, if he have lost his argument\n  ULYSSES. No; you see he is his argument that has his argument-\n    Achilles.\n  NESTOR. All the better; their fraction is more our wish than their\n    faction. But it was a strong composure a fool could disunite!\n  ULYSSES. The amity that wisdom knits not, folly may easily untie.\n\n                    Re-enter PATROCLUS\n\n    Here comes Patroclus.\n  NESTOR. No Achilles with him.\n  ULYSSES. The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy; his legs\n    are legs for necessity, not for flexure.\n  PATROCLUS. Achilles bids me say he is much sorry\n    If any thing more than your sport and pleasure\n    Did move your greatness and this noble state\n    To call upon him; he hopes it is no other\n    But for your health and your digestion sake,\n    An after-dinner's breath.\n  AGAMEMNON. Hear you, Patroclus.\n    We are too well acquainted with these answers;\n    But his evasion, wing'd thus swift with scorn,\n    Cannot outfly our apprehensions.\n    Much attribute he hath, and much the reason\n    Why we ascribe it to him. Yet all his virtues,\n    Not virtuously on his own part beheld,\n    Do in our eyes begin to lose their gloss;\n    Yea, like fair fruit in an unwholesome dish,\n    Are like to rot untasted. Go and tell him\n    We come to speak with him; and you shall not sin\n    If you do say we think him over-proud\n    And under-honest, in self-assumption greater\n    Than in the note of judgment; and worthier than himself\n    Here tend the savage strangeness he puts on,\n    Disguise the holy strength of their command,\n    And underwrite in an observing kind\n    His humorous predominance; yea, watch\n    His pettish lunes, his ebbs, his flows, as if\n    The passage and whole carriage of this action\n    Rode on his tide. Go tell him this, and ad\n    That if he overhold his price so much\n    We'll none of him, but let him, like an engine\n    Not portable, lie under this report:\n    Bring action hither; this cannot go to war.\n    A stirring dwarf we do allowance give\n    Before a sleeping giant. Tell him so.\n  PATROCLUS. I shall, and bring his answer presently.            Exit\n  AGAMEMNON. In second voice we'll not be satisfied;\n    We come to speak with him. Ulysses, enter you.\n                                                         Exit ULYSSES\n  AJAX. What is he more than another?\n  AGAMEMNON. No more than what he thinks he is.\n  AJAX. Is he so much? Do you not think he thinks himself a better\n    man than I am?\n  AGAMEMNON. No question.\n  AJAX. Will you subscribe his thought and say he is?\n  AGAMEMNON. No, noble Ajax; you are as strong, as valiant, as wise,\n    no less noble, much more gentle, and altogether more tractable.\n  AJAX. Why should a man be proud? How doth pride grow? I know not\n    what pride is.\n  AGAMEMNON. Your mind is the clearer, Ajax, and your virtues the\n    fairer. He that is proud eats up himself. Pride is his own glass,\n    his own trumpet, his own chronicle; and whatever praises itself\n    but in the deed devours the deed in the praise.\n\n                      Re-enter ULYSSES\n\n  AJAX. I do hate a proud man as I do hate the engend'ring of toads.\n  NESTOR. [Aside] And yet he loves himself: is't not strange?\n  ULYSSES. Achilles will not to the field to-morrow.\n  AGAMEMNON. What's his excuse?\n  ULYSSES. He doth rely on none;\n    But carries on the stream of his dispose,\n    Without observance or respect of any,\n    In will peculiar and in self-admission.\n  AGAMEMNON. Why will he not, upon our fair request,\n    Untent his person and share the air with us?\n  ULYSSES. Things small as nothing, for request's sake only,\n    He makes important; possess'd he is with greatness,\n    And speaks not to himself but with a pride\n    That quarrels at self-breath. Imagin'd worth\n    Holds in his blood such swol'n and hot discourse\n    That 'twixt his mental and his active parts\n    Kingdom'd Achilles in commotion rages,\n    And batters down himself. What should I say?\n    He is so plaguy proud that the death tokens of it\n    Cry 'No recovery.'\n  AGAMEMNON. Let Ajax go to him.\n    Dear lord, go you and greet him in his tent.\n    'Tis said he holds you well; and will be led\n    At your request a little from himself.\n  ULYSSES. O Agamemnon, let it not be so!\n    We'll consecrate the steps that Ajax makes\n    When they go from Achilles. Shall the proud lord\n    That bastes his arrogance with his own seam\n    And never suffers matter of the world\n    Enter his thoughts, save such as doth revolve\n    And ruminate himself-shall he be worshipp'd\n    Of that we hold an idol more than he?\n    No, this thrice-worthy and right valiant lord\n    Shall not so stale his palm, nobly acquir'd,\n    Nor, by my will, assubjugate his merit,\n    As amply titled as Achilles is,\n    By going to Achilles.\n    That were to enlard his fat-already pride,\n    And add more coals to Cancer when he burns\n    With entertaining great Hyperion.\n    This lord go to him! Jupiter forbid,\n    And say in thunder 'Achilles go to him.'\n  NESTOR. [Aside] O, this is well! He rubs the vein of him.\n  DIOMEDES. [Aside] And how his silence drinks up this applause!\n  AJAX. If I go to him, with my armed fist I'll pash him o'er the\n    face.\n  AGAMEMNON. O, no, you shall not go.\n  AJAX. An 'a be proud with me I'll pheeze his pride.\n    Let me go to him.\n  ULYSSES. Not for the worth that hangs upon our quarrel.\n  AJAX. A paltry, insolent fellow!\n  NESTOR. [Aside] How he describes himself!\n  AJAX. Can he not be sociable?\n  ULYSSES. [Aside] The raven chides blackness.\n  AJAX. I'll let his humours blood.\n  AGAMEMNON. [Aside] He will be the physician that should be the\n    patient.\n  AJAX. An all men were a my mind-\n  ULYSSES. [Aside] Wit would be out of fashion.\n  AJAX. 'A should not bear it so, 'a should eat's words first.\n    Shall pride carry it?\n  NESTOR. [Aside] An 'twould, you'd carry half.\n  ULYSSES. [Aside] 'A would have ten shares.\n  AJAX. I will knead him, I'll make him supple.\n  NESTOR. [Aside] He's not yet through warm. Force him with praises;\n    pour in, pour in; his ambition is dry.\n  ULYSSES. [To AGAMEMNON] My lord, you feed too much on this dislike.\n  NESTOR. Our noble general, do not do so.\n  DIOMEDES. You must prepare to fight without Achilles.\n  ULYSSES. Why 'tis this naming of him does him harm.\n    Here is a man-but 'tis before his face;\n    I will be silent.\n  NESTOR. Wherefore should you so?\n    He is not emulous, as Achilles is.\n  ULYSSES. Know the whole world, he is as valiant.\n  AJAX. A whoreson dog, that shall palter with us thus!\n    Would he were a Troyan!\n  NESTOR. What a vice were it in Ajax now-\n  ULYSSES. If he were proud.\n  DIOMEDES. Or covetous of praise.\n  ULYSSES. Ay, or surly borne.\n  DIOMEDES. Or strange, or self-affected.\n  ULYSSES. Thank the heavens, lord, thou art of sweet composure\n    Praise him that gat thee, she that gave thee suck;\n    Fam'd be thy tutor, and thy parts of nature\n    Thrice-fam'd beyond, beyond all erudition;\n    But he that disciplin'd thine arms to fight-\n    Let Mars divide eternity in twain\n    And give him half; and, for thy vigour,\n    Bull-bearing Milo his addition yield\n    To sinewy Ajax. I will not praise thy wisdom,\n    Which, like a bourn, a pale, a shore, confines\n    Thy spacious and dilated parts. Here's Nestor,\n    Instructed by the antiquary times-\n    He must, he is, he cannot but be wise;\n    But pardon, father Nestor, were your days\n    As green as Ajax' and your brain so temper'd,\n    You should not have the eminence of him,\n    But be as Ajax.\n  AJAX. Shall I call you father?\n  NESTOR. Ay, my good son.\n  DIOMEDES. Be rul'd by him, Lord Ajax.\n  ULYSSES. There is no tarrying here; the hart Achilles\n    Keeps thicket. Please it our great general\n    To call together all his state of war;\n    Fresh kings are come to Troy. To-morrow\n    We must with all our main of power stand fast;\n    And here's a lord-come knights from east to west\n    And cull their flower, Ajax shall cope the best.\n  AGAMEMNON. Go we to council. Let Achilles sleep.\n    Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep.\n    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 1.\nTroy. PRIAM'S palace\n\nMusic sounds within. Enter PANDARUS and a SERVANT\n\n  PANDARUS. Friend, you-pray you, a word. Do you not follow the young\n    Lord Paris?\n  SERVANT. Ay, sir, when he goes before me.\n  PANDARUS. You depend upon him, I mean?\n  SERVANT. Sir, I do depend upon the lord.\n  PANDARUS. You depend upon a notable gentleman; I must needs praise\n    him.\n  SERVANT. The lord be praised!\n  PANDARUS. You know me, do you not?\n  SERVANT. Faith, sir, superficially.\n  PANDARUS. Friend, know me better: I am the Lord Pandarus.\n  SERVANT. I hope I shall know your honour better.\n  PANDARUS. I do desire it.\n  SERVANT. You are in the state of grace.\n  PANDARUS. Grace! Not so, friend; honour and lordship are my titles.\n    What music is this?\n  SERVANT. I do but partly know, sir; it is music in parts.\n  PANDARUS. Know you the musicians?\n  SERVANT. Wholly, sir.\n  PANDARUS. Who play they to?\n  SERVANT. To the hearers, sir.\n  PANDARUS. At whose pleasure, friend?\n  SERVANT. At mine, sir, and theirs that love music.\n  PANDARUS. Command, I mean, friend.\n  SERVANT. Who shall I command, sir?\n  PANDARUS. Friend, we understand not one another: I am to courtly,\n    and thou art too cunning. At whose request do these men play?\n  SERVANT. That's to't, indeed, sir. Marry, sir, at the request of\n    Paris my lord, who is there in person; with him the mortal Venus,\n    the heart-blood of beauty, love's invisible soul-\n  PANDARUS. Who, my cousin, Cressida?\n  SERVANT. No, sir, Helen. Could not you find out that by her\n    attributes?\n  PANDARUS. It should seem, fellow, that thou hast not seen the Lady\n    Cressida. I come to speak with Paris from the Prince Troilus; I\n    will make a complimental assault upon him, for my business\n    seethes.\n  SERVANT. Sodden business! There's a stew'd phrase indeed!\n\n              Enter PARIS and HELEN, attended\n\n  PANDARUS. Fair be to you, my lord, and to all this fair company!\n    Fair desires, in all fair measure, fairly guide them- especially\n    to you, fair queen! Fair thoughts be your fair pillow.\n  HELEN. Dear lord, you are full of fair words.\n  PANDARUS. You speak your fair pleasure, sweet queen. Fair prince,\n    here is good broken music.\n  PARIS. You have broke it, cousin; and by my life, you shall make it\n    whole again; you shall piece it out with a piece of your\n    performance.\n  HELEN. He is full of harmony.\n  PANDARUS. Truly, lady, no.\n  HELEN. O, sir-\n  PANDARUS. Rude, in sooth; in good sooth, very rude.\n  PARIS. Well said, my lord. Well, you say so in fits.\n  PANDARUS. I have business to my lord, dear queen. My lord, will you\n    vouchsafe me a word?\n  HELEN. Nay, this shall not hedge us out. We'll hear you sing,\n    certainly-\n  PANDARUS. Well sweet queen, you are pleasant with me. But, marry,\n    thus, my lord: my dear lord and most esteemed friend, your\n    brother Troilus-\n  HELEN. My Lord Pandarus, honey-sweet lord-\n  PANDARUS. Go to, sweet queen, go to-commends himself most\n    affectionately to you-\n  HELEN. You shall not bob us out of our melody. If you do, our\n    melancholy upon your head!\n  PANDARUS. Sweet queen, sweet queen; that's a sweet queen, i' faith.\n  HELEN. And to make a sweet lady sad is a sour offence.\n  PANDARUS. Nay, that shall not serve your turn; that shall it not,\n    in truth, la. Nay, I care not for such words; no, no. -And, my\n    lord, he desires you that, if the King call for him at supper,\n    you will make his excuse.\n  HELEN. My Lord Pandarus!\n  PANDARUS. What says my sweet queen, my very very sweet queen?\n  PARIS. What exploit's in hand? Where sups he to-night?\n  HELEN. Nay, but, my lord-\n  PANDARUS. What says my sweet queen?-My cousin will fall out with\n    you.\n  HELEN. You must not know where he sups.\n  PARIS. I'll lay my life, with my disposer Cressida.\n  PANDARUS. No, no, no such matter; you are wide. Come, your disposer\n    is sick.\n  PARIS. Well, I'll make's excuse.\n  PANDARUS. Ay, good my lord. Why should you say Cressida?\n    No, your poor disposer's sick.\n  PARIS. I spy.\n  PANDARUS. You spy! What do you spy?-Come, give me an instrument.\n    Now, sweet queen.\n  HELEN. Why, this is kindly done.\n  PANDARUS. My niece is horribly in love with a thing you have, sweet\n    queen.\n  HELEN. She shall have it, my lord, if it be not my Lord Paris.\n  PANDARUS. He! No, she'll none of him; they two are twain.\n  HELEN. Falling in, after falling out, may make them three.\n  PANDARUS. Come, come. I'll hear no more of this; I'll sing you a\n    song now.\n  HELEN. Ay, ay, prithee now. By my troth, sweet lord, thou hast a\n    fine forehead.\n  PANDARUS. Ay, you may, you may.\n  HELEN. Let thy song be love. This love will undo us all. O Cupid,\n    Cupid, Cupid!\n  PANDARUS. Love! Ay, that it shall, i' faith.\n  PARIS. Ay, good now, love, love, nothing but love.\n  PANDARUS. In good troth, it begins so.                      [Sings]\n\n    Love, love, nothing but love, still love, still more!\n           For, oh, love's bow\n           Shoots buck and doe;\n           The shaft confounds\n           Not that it wounds,\n    But tickles still the sore.\n    These lovers cry, O ho, they die!\n       Yet that which seems the wound to kill\n    Doth turn O ho! to ha! ha! he!\n       So dying love lives still.\n    O ho! a while, but ha! ha! ha!\n    O ho! groans out for ha! ha! ha!-hey ho!\n\n  HELEN. In love, i' faith, to the very tip of the nose.\n  PARIS. He eats nothing but doves, love; and that breeds hot blood,\n    and hot blood begets hot thoughts, and hot thoughts beget hot\n    deeds, and hot deeds is love.\n  PANDARUS. Is this the generation of love: hot blood, hot thoughts,\n    and hot deeds? Why, they are vipers. Is love a generation of\n    vipers? Sweet lord, who's a-field today?\n  PARIS. Hector, Deiphobus, Helenus, Antenor, and all the gallantry\n    of Troy. I would fain have arm'd to-day, but my Nell would not\n    have it so. How chance my brother Troilus went not?\n  HELEN. He hangs the lip at something. You know all, Lord Pandarus.\n  PANDARUS. Not I, honey-sweet queen. I long to hear how they spend\n    to-day. You'll remember your brother's excuse?\n  PARIS. To a hair.\n  PANDARUS. Farewell, sweet queen.\n  HELEN. Commend me to your niece.\n  PANDARUS. I will, sweet queen.                Exit. Sound a retreat\n  PARIS. They're come from the field. Let us to Priam's hall\n    To greet the warriors. Sweet Helen, I must woo you\n    To help unarm our Hector. His stubborn buckles,\n    With these your white enchanting fingers touch'd,\n    Shall more obey than to the edge of steel\n    Or force of Greekish sinews; you shall do more\n    Than all the island kings-disarm great Hector.\n  HELEN. 'Twill make us proud to be his servant, Paris;\n    Yea, what he shall receive of us in duty\n    Gives us more palm in beauty than we have,\n    Yea, overshines ourself.\n  PARIS. Sweet, above thought I love thee.                     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 2.\nTroy. PANDARUS' orchard\n\nEnter PANDARUS and TROILUS' BOY, meeting\n\n  PANDARUS. How now! Where's thy master? At my cousin Cressida's?\n  BOY. No, sir; he stays for you to conduct him thither.\n\n                      Enter TROILUS\n\n  PANDARUS. O, here he comes. How now, how now!\n  TROILUS. Sirrah, walk off.                                 Exit Boy\n  PANDARUS. Have you seen my cousin?\n  TROILUS. No, Pandarus. I stalk about her door\n    Like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks\n    Staying for waftage. O, be thou my Charon,\n    And give me swift transportance to these fields\n    Where I may wallow in the lily beds\n    Propos'd for the deserver! O gentle Pandar,\n    From Cupid's shoulder pluck his painted wings,\n    And fly with me to Cressid!\n  PANDARUS. Walk here i' th' orchard, I'll bring her straight.\n      Exit\n  TROILUS. I am giddy; expectation whirls me round.\n    Th' imaginary relish is so sweet\n    That it enchants my sense; what will it be\n    When that the wat'ry palate tastes indeed\n    Love's thrice-repured nectar? Death, I fear me;\n    Swooning destruction; or some joy too fine,\n    Too subtle-potent, tun'd too sharp in sweetness,\n    For the capacity of my ruder powers.\n    I fear it much; and I do fear besides\n    That I shall lose distinction in my joys;\n    As doth a battle, when they charge on heaps\n    The enemy flying.\n\n                     Re-enter PANDARUS\n\n  PANDARUS. She's making her ready, she'll come straight; you must be\n    witty now. She does so blush, and fetches her wind so short, as\n    if she were fray'd with a sprite. I'll fetch her. It is the\n    prettiest villain; she fetches her breath as short as a new-ta'en\n    sparrow.                                                     Exit\n  TROILUS. Even such a passion doth embrace my bosom.\n    My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse,\n    And all my powers do their bestowing lose,\n    Like vassalage at unawares encount'ring\n    The eye of majesty.\n\n              Re-enter PANDARUS With CRESSIDA\n\n  PANDARUS. Come, come, what need you blush? Shame's a baby.-Here she\n    is now; swear the oaths now to her that you have sworn to me.-\n    What, are you gone again? You must be watch'd ere you be made\n    tame, must you? Come your ways, come your ways; an you draw\n    backward, we'll put you i' th' fills.-Why do you not speak to\n    her?-Come, draw this curtain and let's see your picture.\n    Alas the day, how loath you are to offend daylight! An 'twere\n    dark, you'd close sooner. So, so; rub on, and kiss the mistress\n    How now, a kiss in fee-farm! Build there, carpenter; the air is\n    sweet. Nay, you shall fight your hearts out ere I part you. The\n    falcon as the tercel, for all the ducks i' th' river. Go to, go\n    to.\n  TROILUS. You have bereft me of all words, lady.\n  PANDARUS. Words pay no debts, give her deeds; but she'll bereave\n    you o' th' deeds too, if she call your activity in question.\n    What, billing again? Here's 'In witness whereof the parties\n    interchangeably.' Come in, come in; I'll go get a fire.\n      Exit\n  CRESSIDA. Will you walk in, my lord?\n  TROILUS. O Cressid, how often have I wish'd me thus!\n  CRESSIDA. Wish'd, my lord! The gods grant-O my lord!\n  TROILUS. What should they grant? What makes this pretty abruption?\n    What too curious dreg espies my sweet lady in the fountain of our\n    love?\n  CRESSIDA. More dregs than water, if my fears have eyes.\n  TROILUS. Fears make devils of cherubims; they never see truly.\n  CRESSIDA. Blind fear, that seeing reason leads, finds safer footing\n    than blind reason stumbling without fear. To fear the worst oft\n    cures the worse.\n  TROILUS. O, let my lady apprehend no fear! In all Cupid's pageant\n    there is presented no monster.\n  CRESSIDA. Nor nothing monstrous neither?\n  TROILUS. Nothing, but our undertakings when we vow to weep seas,\n    live in fire, cat rocks, tame tigers; thinking it harder for our\n    mistress to devise imposition enough than for us to undergo any\n    difficulty imposed. This is the monstruosity in love, lady, that\n    the will is infinite, and the execution confin'd; that the desire\n    is boundless, and the act a slave to limit.\n  CRESSIDA. They say all lovers swear more performance than they are\n    able, and yet reserve an ability that they never perform; vowing\n    more than the perfection of ten, and discharging less than the\n    tenth part of one. They that have the voice of lions and the act\n    of hares, are they not monsters?\n  TROILUS. Are there such? Such are not we. Praise us as we are\n    tasted, allow us as we prove; our head shall go bare till merit\n    crown it. No perfection in reversion shall have a praise in\n    present. We will not name desert before his birth; and, being\n    born, his addition shall be humble. Few words to fair faith:\n    Troilus shall be such to Cressid as what envy can say worst shall\n    be a mock for his truth; and what truth can speak truest not\n    truer than Troilus.\n  CRESSIDA. Will you walk in, my lord?\n\n                    Re-enter PANDARUS\n\n  PANDARUS. What, blushing still? Have you not done talking yet?\n  CRESSIDA. Well, uncle, what folly I commit, I dedicate to you.\n  PANDARUS. I thank you for that; if my lord get a boy of you, you'll\n    give him me. Be true to my lord; if he flinch, chide me for it.\n  TROILUS. You know now your hostages: your uncle's word and my firm\n    faith.\n  PANDARUS. Nay, I'll give my word for her too: our kindred, though\n    they be long ere they are wooed, they are constant being won;\n    they are burs, I can tell you; they'll stick where they are\n    thrown.\n  CRESSIDA. Boldness comes to me now and brings me heart.\n    Prince Troilus, I have lov'd you night and day\n    For many weary months.\n  TROILUS. Why was my Cressid then so hard to win?\n  CRESSIDA. Hard to seem won; but I was won, my lord,\n    With the first glance that ever-pardon me.\n    If I confess much, you will play the tyrant.\n    I love you now; but till now not so much\n    But I might master it. In faith, I lie;\n    My thoughts were like unbridled children, grown\n    Too headstrong for their mother. See, we fools!\n    Why have I blabb'd? Who shall be true to us,\n    When we are so unsecret to ourselves?\n    But, though I lov'd you well, I woo'd you not;\n    And yet, good faith, I wish'd myself a man,\n    Or that we women had men's privilege\n    Of speaking first. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue,\n    For in this rapture I shall surely speak\n    The thing I shall repent. See, see, your silence,\n    Cunning in dumbness, from my weakness draws\n    My very soul of counsel. Stop my mouth.\n  TROILUS. And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence.\n  PANDARUS. Pretty, i' faith.\n  CRESSIDA. My lord, I do beseech you, pardon me;\n    'Twas not my purpose thus to beg a kiss.\n    I am asham'd. O heavens! what have I done?\n    For this time will I take my leave, my lord.\n  TROILUS. Your leave, sweet Cressid!\n  PANDARUS. Leave! An you take leave till to-morrow morning-\n  CRESSIDA. Pray you, content you.\n  TROILUS. What offends you, lady?\n  CRESSIDA. Sir, mine own company.\n  TROILUS. You cannot shun yourself.\n  CRESSIDA. Let me go and try.\n    I have a kind of self resides with you;\n    But an unkind self, that itself will leave\n    To be another's fool. I would be gone.\n    Where is my wit? I know not what I speak.\n  TROILUS. Well know they what they speak that speak so wisely.\n  CRESSIDA. Perchance, my lord, I show more craft than love;\n    And fell so roundly to a large confession\n    To angle for your thoughts; but you are wise-\n    Or else you love not; for to be wise and love\n    Exceeds man's might; that dwells with gods above.\n  TROILUS. O that I thought it could be in a woman-\n    As, if it can, I will presume in you-\n    To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love;\n    To keep her constancy in plight and youth,\n    Outliving beauty's outward, with a mind\n    That doth renew swifter than blood decays!\n    Or that persuasion could but thus convince me\n    That my integrity and truth to you\n    Might be affronted with the match and weight\n    Of such a winnowed purity in love.\n    How were I then uplifted! but, alas,\n    I am as true as truth's simplicity,\n    And simpler than the infancy of truth.\n  CRESSIDA. In that I'll war with you.\n  TROILUS. O virtuous fight,\n    When right with right wars who shall be most right!\n    True swains in love shall in the world to come\n    Approve their truth by Troilus, when their rhymes,\n    Full of protest, of oath, and big compare,\n    Want similes, truth tir'd with iteration-\n    As true as steel, as plantage to the moon,\n    As sun to day, as turtle to her mate,\n    As iron to adamant, as earth to th' centre-\n    Yet, after all comparisons of truth,\n    As truth's authentic author to be cited,\n    'As true as Troilus' shall crown up the verse\n    And sanctify the numbers.\n  CRESSIDA. Prophet may you be!\n    If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth,\n    When time is old and hath forgot itself,\n    When waterdrops have worn the stones of Troy,\n    And blind oblivion swallow'd cities up,\n    And mighty states characterless are grated\n    To dusty nothing-yet let memory\n    From false to false, among false maids in love,\n    Upbraid my falsehood when th' have said 'As false\n    As air, as water, wind, or sandy earth,\n    As fox to lamb, or wolf to heifer's calf,\n    Pard to the hind, or stepdame to her son'-\n    Yea, let them say, to stick the heart of falsehood,\n    'As false as Cressid.'\n  PANDARUS. Go to, a bargain made; seal it, seal it; I'll be the\n    witness. Here I hold your hand; here my cousin's. If ever you\n    prove false one to another, since I have taken such pains to\n    bring you together, let all pitiful goers- between be call'd to\n    the world's end after my name-call them all Pandars; let all\n    constant men be Troiluses, all false women Cressids, and all\n    brokers between Pandars. Say 'Amen.'\n  TROILUS. Amen.\n  CRESSIDA. Amen.\n  PANDARUS. Amen. Whereupon I will show you a chamber\n    and a bed; which bed, because it shall not speak of your\n    pretty encounters, press it to death. Away!\n    And Cupid grant all tongue-tied maidens here,\n    Bed, chamber, pander, to provide this gear!                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 3.\nThe Greek camp\n\nFlourish. Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, DIOMEDES, NESTOR, AJAX, MENELAUS,\nand CALCHAS\n\n  CALCHAS. Now, Princes, for the service I have done,\n    Th' advantage of the time prompts me aloud\n    To call for recompense. Appear it to your mind\n    That, through the sight I bear in things to come,\n    I have abandon'd Troy, left my possession,\n    Incurr'd a traitor's name, expos'd myself\n    From certain and possess'd conveniences\n    To doubtful fortunes, sequest'ring from me all\n    That time, acquaintance, custom, and condition,\n    Made tame and most familiar to my nature;\n    And here, to do you service, am become\n    As new into the world, strange, unacquainted-\n    I do beseech you, as in way of taste,\n    To give me now a little benefit\n    Out of those many regist'red in promise,\n    Which you say live to come in my behalf.\n  AGAMEMNON. What wouldst thou of us, Troyan? Make demand.\n  CALCHAS. You have a Troyan prisoner call'd Antenor,\n    Yesterday took; Troy holds him very dear.\n    Oft have you-often have you thanks therefore-\n    Desir'd my Cressid in right great exchange,\n    Whom Troy hath still denied; but this Antenor,\n    I know, is such a wrest in their affairs\n    That their negotiations all must slack\n    Wanting his manage; and they will almost\n    Give us a prince of blood, a son of Priam,\n    In change of him. Let him be sent, great Princes,\n    And he shall buy my daughter; and her presence\n    Shall quite strike off all service I have done\n    In most accepted pain.\n  AGAMEMNON. Let Diomedes bear him,\n    And bring us Cressid hither. Calchas shall have\n    What he requests of us. Good Diomed,\n    Furnish you fairly for this interchange;\n    Withal, bring word if Hector will to-morrow\n    Be answer'd in his challenge. Ajax is ready.\n  DIOMEDES. This shall I undertake; and 'tis a burden\n    Which I am proud to bear.\n                                          Exeunt DIOMEDES and CALCHAS\n\n           ACHILLES and PATROCLUS stand in their tent\n\n  ULYSSES. Achilles stands i' th' entrance of his tent.\n    Please it our general pass strangely by him,\n    As if he were forgot; and, Princes all,\n    Lay negligent and loose regard upon him.\n    I will come last. 'Tis like he'll question me\n    Why such unplausive eyes are bent, why turn'd on him?\n    If so, I have derision med'cinable\n    To use between your strangeness and his pride,\n    Which his own will shall have desire to drink.\n    It may do good. Pride hath no other glass\n    To show itself but pride; for supple knees\n    Feed arrogance and are the proud man's fees.\n  AGAMEMNON. We'll execute your purpose, and put on\n    A form of strangeness as we pass along.\n    So do each lord; and either greet him not,\n    Or else disdainfully, which shall shake him more\n    Than if not look'd on. I will lead the way.\n  ACHILLES. What comes the general to speak with me?\n    You know my mind. I'll fight no more 'gainst Troy.\n  AGAMEMNON. What says Achilles? Would he aught with us?\n  NESTOR. Would you, my lord, aught with the general?\n  ACHILLES. No.\n  NESTOR. Nothing, my lord.\n  AGAMEMNON. The better.\n                                          Exeunt AGAMEMNON and NESTOR\n  ACHILLES. Good day, good day.\n  MENELAUS. How do you? How do you?                              Exit\n  ACHILLES. What, does the cuckold scorn me?\n  AJAX. How now, Patroclus?\n  ACHILLES. Good morrow, Ajax.\n  AJAX. Ha?\n  ACHILLES. Good morrow.\n  AJAX. Ay, and good next day too.                               Exit\n  ACHILLES. What mean these fellows? Know they not Achilles?\n  PATROCLUS. They pass by strangely. They were us'd to bend,\n    To send their smiles before them to Achilles,\n    To come as humbly as they us'd to creep\n    To holy altars.\n  ACHILLES. What, am I poor of late?\n    'Tis certain, greatness, once fall'n out with fortune,\n    Must fall out with men too. What the declin'd is,\n    He shall as soon read in the eyes of others\n    As feel in his own fall; for men, like butterflies,\n    Show not their mealy wings but to the summer;\n    And not a man for being simply man\n    Hath any honour, but honour for those honours\n    That are without him, as place, riches, and favour,\n    Prizes of accident, as oft as merit;\n    Which when they fall, as being slippery standers,\n    The love that lean'd on them as slippery too,\n    Doth one pluck down another, and together\n    Die in the fall. But 'tis not so with me:\n    Fortune and I are friends; I do enjoy\n    At ample point all that I did possess\n    Save these men's looks; who do, methinks, find out\n    Something not worth in me such rich beholding\n    As they have often given. Here is Ulysses.\n    I'll interrupt his reading.\n    How now, Ulysses!\n  ULYSSES. Now, great Thetis' son!\n  ACHILLES. What are you reading?\n  ULYSSES. A strange fellow here\n    Writes me that man-how dearly ever parted,\n    How much in having, or without or in-\n    Cannot make boast to have that which he hath,\n    Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection;\n    As when his virtues shining upon others\n    Heat them, and they retort that heat again\n    To the first giver.\n  ACHILLES. This is not strange, Ulysses.\n    The beauty that is borne here in the face\n    The bearer knows not, but commends itself\n    To others' eyes; nor doth the eye itself-\n    That most pure spirit of sense-behold itself,\n    Not going from itself; but eye to eye opposed\n    Salutes each other with each other's form;\n    For speculation turns not to itself\n    Till it hath travell'd, and is mirror'd there\n    Where it may see itself. This is not strange at all.\n  ULYSSES. I do not strain at the position-\n    It is familiar-but at the author's drift;\n    Who, in his circumstance, expressly proves\n    That no man is the lord of anything,\n    Though in and of him there be much consisting,\n    Till he communicate his parts to others;\n    Nor doth he of himself know them for aught\n    Till he behold them formed in th' applause\n    Where th' are extended; who, like an arch, reverb'rate\n    The voice again; or, like a gate of steel\n    Fronting the sun, receives and renders back\n    His figure and his heat. I was much rapt in this;\n    And apprehended here immediately\n    Th' unknown Ajax. Heavens, what a man is there!\n    A very horse that has he knows not what!\n    Nature, what things there are\n    Most abject in regard and dear in use!\n    What things again most dear in the esteem\n    And poor in worth! Now shall we see to-morrow-\n    An act that very chance doth throw upon him-\n    Ajax renown'd. O heavens, what some men do,\n    While some men leave to do!\n    How some men creep in skittish Fortune's-hall,\n    Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes!\n    How one man eats into another's pride,\n    While pride is fasting in his wantonness!\n    To see these Grecian lords!-why, even already\n    They clap the lubber Ajax on the shoulder,\n    As if his foot were on brave Hector's breast,\n    And great Troy shrinking.\n  ACHILLES. I do believe it; for they pass'd by me\n    As misers do by beggars-neither gave to me\n    Good word nor look. What, are my deeds forgot?\n  ULYSSES. Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,\n    Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,\n    A great-siz'd monster of ingratitudes.\n    Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devour'd\n    As fast as they are made, forgot as soon\n    As done. Perseverance, dear my lord,\n    Keeps honour bright. To have done is to hang\n    Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail\n    In monumental mock'ry. Take the instant way;\n    For honour travels in a strait so narrow -\n    Where one but goes abreast. Keep then the path,\n    For emulation hath a thousand sons\n    That one by one pursue; if you give way,\n    Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,\n    Like to an ent'red tide they all rush by\n    And leave you hindmost;\n    Or, like a gallant horse fall'n in first rank,\n    Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,\n    O'er-run and trampled on. Then what they do in present,\n    Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours;\n    For Time is like a fashionable host,\n    That slightly shakes his parting guest by th' hand;\n    And with his arms out-stretch'd, as he would fly,\n    Grasps in the corner. The welcome ever smiles,\n    And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek\n    Remuneration for the thing it was;\n    For beauty, wit,\n    High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,\n    Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all\n    To envious and calumniating Time.\n    One touch of nature makes the whole world kin-\n    That all with one consent praise new-born gawds,\n    Though they are made and moulded of things past,\n    And give to dust that is a little gilt\n    More laud than gilt o'er-dusted.\n    The present eye praises the present object.\n    Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,\n    That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax,\n    Since things in motion sooner catch the eye\n    Than what stirs not. The cry went once on thee,\n    And still it might, and yet it may again,\n    If thou wouldst not entomb thyself alive\n    And case thy reputation in thy tent,\n    Whose glorious deeds but in these fields of late\n    Made emulous missions 'mongst the gods themselves,\n    And drave great Mars to faction.\n  ACHILLES. Of this my privacy\n    I have strong reasons.\n  ULYSSES. But 'gainst your privacy\n    The reasons are more potent and heroical.\n    'Tis known, Achilles, that you are in love\n    With one of Priam's daughters.\n  ACHILLES. Ha! known!\n  ULYSSES. Is that a wonder?\n    The providence that's in a watchful state\n    Knows almost every grain of Plutus' gold;\n    Finds bottom in th' uncomprehensive deeps;\n    Keeps place with thought, and almost, like the gods,\n    Do thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles.\n    There is a mystery-with whom relation\n    Durst never meddle-in the soul of state,\n    Which hath an operation more divine\n    Than breath or pen can give expressure to.\n    All the commerce that you have had with Troy\n    As perfectly is ours as yours, my lord;\n    And better would it fit Achilles much\n    To throw down Hector than Polyxena.\n    But it must grieve young Pyrrhus now at home,\n    When fame shall in our island sound her trump,\n    And all the Greekish girls shall tripping sing\n    'Great Hector's sister did Achilles win;\n    But our great Ajax bravely beat down him.'\n    Farewell, my lord. I as your lover speak.\n    The fool slides o'er the ice that you should break.          Exit\n  PATROCLUS. To this effect, Achilles, have I mov'd you.\n    A woman impudent and mannish grown\n    Is not more loath'd than an effeminate man\n    In time of action. I stand condemn'd for this;\n    They think my little stomach to the war\n    And your great love to me restrains you thus.\n    Sweet, rouse yourself; and the weak wanton Cupid\n    Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold,\n    And, like a dew-drop from the lion's mane,\n    Be shook to airy air.\n  ACHILLES. Shall Ajax fight with Hector?\n  PATROCLUS. Ay, and perhaps receive much honour by him.\n  ACHILLES. I see my reputation is at stake;\n    My fame is shrewdly gor'd.\n  PATROCLUS. O, then, beware:\n    Those wounds heal ill that men do give themselves;\n    Omission to do what is necessary\n    Seals a commission to a blank of danger;\n    And danger, like an ague, subtly taints\n    Even then when they sit idly in the sun.\n  ACHILLES. Go call Thersites hither, sweet Patroclus.\n    I'll send the fool to Ajax, and desire him\n    T' invite the Troyan lords, after the combat,\n    To see us here unarm'd. I have a woman's longing,\n    An appetite that I am sick withal,\n    To see great Hector in his weeds of peace;\n    To talk with him, and to behold his visage,\n    Even to my full of view.\n\n                     Enter THERSITES\n\n    A labour sav'd!\n  THERSITES. A wonder!\n  ACHILLES. What?\n  THERSITES. Ajax goes up and down the field asking for himself.\n  ACHILLES. How so?\n  THERSITES. He must fight singly to-morrow with Hector, and is so\n    prophetically proud of an heroical cudgelling that he raves in\n    saying nothing.\n  ACHILLES. How can that be?\n  THERSITES. Why, 'a stalks up and down like a peacock-a stride and a\n    stand; ruminaies like an hostess that hath no arithmetic but her\n    brain to set down her reckoning, bites his lip with a politic\n    regard, as who should say 'There were wit in this head, an\n    'twould out'; and so there is; but it lies as coldly in him as\n    fire in a flint, which will not show without knocking. The man's\n    undone for ever; for if Hector break not his neck i' th' combat,\n    he'll break't himself in vainglory. He knows not me. I said 'Good\n    morrow, Ajax'; and he replies 'Thanks, Agamemnon.' What think you\n    of this man that takes me for the general? He's grown a very land\n    fish, languageless, a monster. A plague of opinion! A man may\n    wear it on both sides, like leather jerkin.\n  ACHILLES. Thou must be my ambassador to him, Thersites.\n  THERSITES. Who, I? Why, he'll answer nobody; he professes not\n    answering. Speaking is for beggars: he wears his tongue in's\n    arms. I will put on his presence. Let Patroclus make his demands\n    to me, you shall see the pageant of Ajax.\n  ACHILLES. To him, Patroclus. Tell him I humbly desire the valiant\n    Ajax to invite the most valorous Hector to come unarm'd to my\n    tent; and to procure safe conduct for his person of the\n    magnanimous and most illustrious six-or-seven-times-honour'd\n    Captain General of the Grecian army, et cetera, Agamemnon. Do\n    this.\n  PATROCLUS. Jove bless great Ajax!\n  THERSITES. Hum!\n  PATROCLUS. I come from the worthy Achilles-\n  THERSITES. Ha!\n  PATROCLUS. Who most humbly desires you to invite Hector to his\n    tent-\n  THERSITES. Hum!\n  PATROCLUS. And to procure safe conduct from Agamemnon.\n  THERSITES. Agamemnon!\n  PATROCLUS. Ay, my lord.\n  THERSITES. Ha!\n  PATROCLUS. What you say to't?\n  THERSITES. God buy you, with all my heart.\n  PATROCLUS. Your answer, sir.\n  THERSITES. If to-morrow be a fair day, by eleven of the clock it\n    will go one way or other. Howsoever, he shall pay for me ere he\n    has me.\n  PATROCLUS. Your answer, sir.\n  THERSITES. Fare ye well, with all my heart.\n  ACHILLES. Why, but he is not in this tune, is he?\n  THERSITES. No, but he's out a tune thus. What music will be in him\n    when Hector has knock'd out his brains I know not; but, I am sure,\n    none; unless the fiddler Apollo get his sinews to make catlings\n    on.\n  ACHILLES. Come, thou shalt bear a letter to him straight.\n  THERSITES. Let me carry another to his horse; for that's the more\n    capable creature.\n  ACHILLES. My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirr'd;\n    And I myself see not the bottom of it.\n                                        Exeunt ACHILLES and PATROCLUS\n  THERSITES. Would the fountain of your mind were clear again, that I\n    might water an ass at it. I had rather be a tick in a sheep than\n    such a valiant ignorance.                                    Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 1.\nTroy. A street\n\nEnter, at one side, AENEAS, and servant with a torch; at another,\nPARIS, DEIPHOBUS, ANTENOR, DIOMEDES the Grecian, and others, with torches\n\n  PARIS. See, ho! Who is that there?\n  DEIPHOBUS. It is the Lord Aeneas.\n  AENEAS. Is the Prince there in person?\n    Had I so good occasion to lie long\n    As you, Prince Paris, nothing but heavenly business\n    Should rob my bed-mate of my company.\n  DIOMEDES. That's my mind too. Good morrow, Lord Aeneas.\n  PARIS. A valiant Greek, Aeneas -take his hand:\n    Witness the process of your speech, wherein\n    You told how Diomed, a whole week by days,\n    Did haunt you in the field.\n  AENEAS. Health to you, valiant sir,\n    During all question of the gentle truce;\n    But when I meet you arm'd, as black defiance\n    As heart can think or courage execute.\n  DIOMEDES. The one and other Diomed embraces.\n    Our bloods are now in calm; and so long health!\n    But when contention and occasion meet,\n    By Jove, I'll play the hunter for thy life\n    With all my force, pursuit, and policy.\n  AENEAS. And thou shalt hunt a lion, that will fly\n    With his face backward. In humane gentleness,\n    Welcome to Troy! now, by Anchises' life,\n    Welcome indeed! By Venus' hand I swear\n    No man alive can love in such a sort\n    The thing he means to kill, more excellently.\n  DIOMEDES. We sympathise. Jove let Aeneas live,\n    If to my sword his fate be not the glory,\n    A thousand complete courses of the sun!\n    But in mine emulous honour let him die\n    With every joint a wound, and that to-morrow!\n  AENEAS. We know each other well.\n  DIOMEDES.We do; and long to know each other worse.\n  PARIS. This is the most despiteful'st gentle greeting\n    The noblest hateful love, that e'er I heard of.\n    What business, lord, so early?\n  AENEAS. I was sent for to the King; but why, I know not.\n  PARIS. His purpose meets you: 'twas to bring this Greek\n    To Calchas' house, and there to render him,\n    For the enfreed Antenor, the fair Cressid.\n    Let's have your company; or, if you please,\n    Haste there before us. I constantly believe-\n    Or rather call my thought a certain knowledge-\n    My brother Troilus lodges there to-night.\n    Rouse him and give him note of our approach,\n    With the whole quality wherefore; I fear\n    We shall be much unwelcome.\n  AENEAS. That I assure you:\n    Troilus had rather Troy were borne to Greece\n    Than Cressid borne from Troy.\n  PARIS. There is no help;\n    The bitter disposition of the time\n    Will have it so. On, lord; we'll follow you.\n  AENEAS. Good morrow, all.                         Exit with servant\n  PARIS. And tell me, noble Diomed-faith, tell me true,\n    Even in the soul of sound good-fellowship-\n    Who in your thoughts deserves fair Helen best,\n    Myself or Menelaus?\n  DIOMEDES. Both alike:\n    He merits well to have her that doth seek her,\n    Not making any scruple of her soilure,\n    With such a hell of pain and world of charge;\n    And you as well to keep her that defend her,\n    Not palating the taste of her dishonour,\n    With such a costly loss of wealth and friends.\n    He like a puling cuckold would drink up\n    The lees and dregs of a flat tamed piece;\n    You, like a lecher, out of whorish loins\n    Are pleas'd to breed out your inheritors.\n    Both merits pois'd, each weighs nor less nor more;\n    But he as he, the heavier for a whore.\n  PARIS. You are too bitter to your country-woman.\n  DIOMEDES. She's bitter to her country. Hear me, Paris:\n    For every false drop in her bawdy veins\n    A Grecian's life hath sunk; for every scruple\n    Of her contaminated carrion weight\n    A Troyan hath been slain; since she could speak,\n    She hath not given so many good words breath\n    As for her Greeks and Troyans suff'red death.\n  PARIS. Fair Diomed, you do as chapmen do,\n    Dispraise the thing that you desire to buy;\n    But we in silence hold this virtue well:\n    We'll not commend what we intend to sell.\n    Here lies our way.                                         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 2.\nTroy. The court of PANDARUS' house\n\nEnter TROILUS and CRESSIDA\n\n  TROILUS. Dear, trouble not yourself; the morn is cold.\n  CRESSIDA. Then, sweet my lord, I'll call mine uncle down;\n    He shall unbolt the gates.\n  TROILUS. Trouble him not;\n    To bed, to bed! Sleep kill those pretty eyes,\n    And give as soft attachment to thy senses\n    As infants' empty of all thought!\n  CRESSIDA. Good morrow, then.\n  TROILUS. I prithee now, to bed.\n  CRESSIDA. Are you aweary of me?\n  TROILUS. O Cressida! but that the busy day,\n    Wak'd by the lark, hath rous'd the ribald crows,\n    And dreaming night will hide our joys no longer,\n    I would not from thee.\n  CRESSIDA. Night hath been too brief.\n  TROILUS. Beshrew the witch! with venomous wights she stays\n    As tediously as hell, but flies the grasps of love\n    With wings more momentary-swift than thought.\n    You will catch cold, and curse me.\n  CRESSIDA. Prithee tarry.\n    You men will never tarry.\n    O foolish Cressid! I might have still held off,\n    And then you would have tarried. Hark! there's one up.\n  PANDARUS. [Within] What's all the doors open here?\n  TROILUS. It is your uncle.\n\n                     Enter PANDARUS\n\n  CRESSIDA. A pestilence on him! Now will he be mocking.\n    I shall have such a life!\n  PANDARUS. How now, how now! How go maidenheads?\n    Here, you maid! Where's my cousin Cressid?\n  CRESSIDA. Go hang yourself, you naughty mocking uncle.\n    You bring me to do, and then you flout me too.\n  PANDARUS. To do what? to do what? Let her say what.\n    What have I brought you to do?\n  CRESSIDA. Come, come, beshrew your heart! You'll ne'er be good,\n    Nor suffer others.\n  PANDARUS. Ha, ha! Alas, poor wretch! a poor capocchia! hast not\n    slept to-night? Would he not, a naughty man, let it sleep? A\n    bugbear take him!\n  CRESSIDA. Did not I tell you? Would he were knock'd i' th' head!\n                                                         [One knocks]\n    Who's that at door? Good uncle, go and see.\n    My lord, come you again into my chamber.\n    You smile and mock me, as if I meant naughtily.\n  TROILUS. Ha! ha!\n  CRESSIDA. Come, you are deceiv'd, I think of no such thing.\n   [Knock]\n    How earnestly they knock! Pray you come in:\n    I would not for half Troy have you seen here.\n                                          Exeunt TROILUS and CRESSIDA\n  PANDARUS. Who's there? What's the matter? Will you beat down the\n    door? How now? What's the matter?\n\n                          Enter AENEAS\n  AENEAS. Good morrow, lord, good morrow.\n  PANDARUS. Who's there? My lord Aeneas? By my troth,\n    I knew you not. What news with you so early?\n  AENEAS. Is not Prince Troilus here?\n  PANDARUS. Here! What should he do here?\n  AENEAS. Come, he is here, my lord; do not deny him.\n    It doth import him much to speak with me.\n  PANDARUS. Is he here, say you? It's more than I know, I'll be\n    sworn. For my own part, I came in late. What should he do here?\n  AENEAS. Who!-nay, then. Come, come, you'll do him wrong ere you are\n    ware; you'll be so true to him to be false to him. Do not you\n    know of him, but yet go fetch him hither; go.\n\n                       Re-enter TROILUS\n\n  TROILUS. How now! What's the matter?\n  AENEAS. My lord, I scarce have leisure to salute you,\n    My matter is so rash. There is at hand\n    Paris your brother, and Deiphobus,\n    The Grecian Diomed, and our Antenor\n    Deliver'd to us; and for him forthwith,\n    Ere the first sacrifice, within this hour,\n    We must give up to Diomedes' hand\n    The Lady Cressida.\n  TROILUS. Is it so concluded?\n  AENEAS. By Priam, and the general state of Troy.\n    They are at hand and ready to effect it.\n  TROILUS. How my achievements mock me!\n    I will go meet them; and, my lord Aeneas,\n    We met by chance; you did not find me here.\n  AENEAS. Good, good, my lord, the secrets of neighbour Pandar\n    Have not more gift in taciturnity.\n                                            Exeunt TROILUS and AENEAS\n  PANDARUS. Is't possible? No sooner got but lost? The devil take\n    Antenor! The young prince will go mad. A plague upon Antenor! I\n    would they had broke's neck.\n\n                     Re-enter CRESSIDA\n\n  CRESSIDA. How now! What's the matter? Who was here?\n  PANDARUS. Ah, ah!\n  CRESSIDA. Why sigh you so profoundly? Where's my lord? Gone? Tell\n    me, sweet uncle, what's the matter?\n  PANDARUS. Would I were as deep under the earth as I am above!\n  CRESSIDA. O the gods! What's the matter?\n  PANDARUS. Pray thee, get thee in. Would thou hadst ne'er been born!\n    I knew thou wouldst be his death! O, poor gentleman! A plague\n    upon Antenor!\n  CRESSIDA. Good uncle, I beseech you, on my knees I beseech you,\n    what's the matter?\n  PANDARUS. Thou must be gone, wench, thou must be gone; thou art\n    chang'd for Antenor; thou must to thy father, and be gone from\n    Troilus. 'Twill be his death; 'twill be his bane; he cannot bear\n    it.\n  CRESSIDA. O you immortal gods! I will not go.\n  PANDARUS. Thou must.\n  CRESSIDA. I will not, uncle. I have forgot my father;\n    I know no touch of consanguinity,\n    No kin, no love, no blood, no soul so near me\n    As the sweet Troilus. O you gods divine,\n    Make Cressid's name the very crown of falsehood,\n    If ever she leave Troilus! Time, force, and death,\n    Do to this body what extremes you can,\n    But the strong base and building of my love\n    Is as the very centre of the earth,\n    Drawing all things to it. I'll go in and weep-\n  PANDARUS. Do, do.\n  CRESSIDA. Tear my bright hair, and scratch my praised cheeks,\n    Crack my clear voice with sobs and break my heart,\n    With sounding 'Troilus.' I will not go from Troy.\n    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 3.\nTroy. A street before PANDARUS' house\n\nEnter PARIS, TROILUS, AENEAS, DEIPHOBUS, ANTENOR, and DIOMEDES\n\n  PARIS. It is great morning; and the hour prefix'd\n    For her delivery to this valiant Greek\n    Comes fast upon. Good my brother Troilus,\n    Tell you the lady what she is to do\n    And haste her to the purpose.\n  TROILUS. Walk into her house.\n    I'll bring her to the Grecian presently;\n    And to his hand when I deliver her,\n    Think it an altar, and thy brother Troilus\n    A priest, there off'ring to it his own heart.                Exit\n  PARIS. I know what 'tis to love,\n    And would, as I shall pity, I could help!\n    Please you walk in, my lords.                              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 4.\nTroy. PANDARUS' house\n\nEnter PANDARUS and CRESSIDA\n\n  PANDARUS. Be moderate, be moderate.\n  CRESSIDA. Why tell you me of moderation?\n    The grief is fine, full, perfect, that I taste,\n    And violenteth in a sense as strong\n    As that which causeth it. How can I moderate it?\n    If I could temporize with my affections\n    Or brew it to a weak and colder palate,\n    The like allayment could I give my grief.\n    My love admits no qualifying dross;\n    No more my grief, in such a precious loss.\n\n                    Enter TROILUS\n\n  PANDARUS. Here, here, here he comes. Ah, sweet ducks!\n  CRESSIDA. O Troilus! Troilus! [Embracing him]\n  PANDARUS. What a pair of spectacles is here! Let me embrace too. 'O\n    heart,' as the goodly saying is,\n          O heart, heavy heart,\n       Why sigh'st thou without breaking?\n    where he answers again\n       Because thou canst not ease thy smart\n       By friendship nor by speaking.\n    There was never a truer rhyme. Let us cast away nothing, for we\n    may live to have need of such a verse. We see it, we see it. How\n    now, lambs!\n  TROILUS. Cressid, I love thee in so strain'd a purity\n    That the bless'd gods, as angry with my fancy,\n    More bright in zeal than the devotion which\n    Cold lips blow to their deities, take thee from me.\n  CRESSIDA. Have the gods envy?\n  PANDARUS. Ay, ay, ay; 'tis too plain a case.\n  CRESSIDA. And is it true that I must go from Troy?\n  TROILUS. A hateful truth.\n  CRESSIDA. What, and from Troilus too?\n  TROILUS. From Troy and Troilus.\n  CRESSIDA. Is't possible?\n  TROILUS. And suddenly; where injury of chance\n    Puts back leave-taking, justles roughly by\n    All time of pause, rudely beguiles our lips\n    Of all rejoindure, forcibly prevents\n    Our lock'd embrasures, strangles our dear vows\n    Even in the birth of our own labouring breath.\n    We two, that with so many thousand sighs\n    Did buy each other, must poorly sell ourselves\n    With the rude brevity and discharge of one.\n    Injurious time now with a robber's haste\n    Crams his rich thievery up, he knows not how.\n    As many farewells as be stars in heaven,\n    With distinct breath and consign'd kisses to them,\n    He fumbles up into a loose adieu,\n    And scants us with a single famish'd kiss,\n    Distasted with the salt of broken tears.\n  AENEAS. [Within] My lord, is the lady ready?\n  TROILUS. Hark! you are call'd. Some say the Genius so\n    Cries 'Come' to him that instantly must die.\n    Bid them have patience; she shall come anon.\n  PANDARUS. Where are my tears? Rain, to lay this wind, or my heart\n    will be blown up by th' root?                                Exit\n  CRESSIDA. I must then to the Grecians?\n  TROILUS. No remedy.\n  CRESSIDA. A woeful Cressid 'mongst the merry Greeks!\n    When shall we see again?\n  TROILUS. Hear me, my love. Be thou but true of heart-\n  CRESSIDA. I true! how now! What wicked deem is this?\n  TROILUS. Nay, we must use expostulation kindly,\n    For it is parting from us.\n    I speak not 'Be thou true' as fearing thee,\n    For I will throw my glove to Death himself\n    That there's no maculation in thy heart;\n    But 'Be thou true' say I to fashion in\n    My sequent protestation: be thou true,\n    And I will see thee.\n  CRESSIDA. O, you shall be expos'd, my lord, to dangers\n    As infinite as imminent! But I'll be true.\n  TROILUS. And I'll grow friend with danger. Wear this sleeve.\n  CRESSIDA. And you this glove. When shall I see you?\n  TROILUS. I will corrupt the Grecian sentinels\n    To give thee nightly visitation.\n    But yet be true.\n  CRESSIDA. O heavens! 'Be true' again!\n  TROILUS. Hear why I speak it, love.\n    The Grecian youths are full of quality;\n    They're loving, well compos'd with gifts of nature,\n    And flowing o'er with arts and exercise.\n    How novelties may move, and parts with person,\n    Alas, a kind of godly jealousy,\n    Which I beseech you call a virtuous sin,\n    Makes me afeard.\n  CRESSIDA. O heavens! you love me not.\n  TROILUS. Die I a villain, then!\n    In this I do not call your faith in question\n    So mainly as my merit. I cannot sing,\n    Nor heel the high lavolt, nor sweeten talk,\n    Nor play at subtle games-fair virtues all,\n    To which the Grecians are most prompt and pregnant;\n    But I can tell that in each grace of these\n    There lurks a still and dumb-discoursive devil\n    That tempts most cunningly. But be not tempted.\n  CRESSIDA. Do you think I will?\n  TROILUS. No.\n    But something may be done that we will not;\n    And sometimes we are devils to ourselves,\n    When we will tempt the frailty of our powers,\n    Presuming on their changeful potency.\n  AENEAS. [Within] Nay, good my lord!\n  TROILUS. Come, kiss; and let us part.\n  PARIS. [Within] Brother Troilus!\n  TROILUS. Good brother, come you hither;\n    And bring Aeneas and the Grecian with you.\n  CRESSIDA. My lord, will you be true?\n  TROILUS. Who, I? Alas, it is my vice, my fault!\n    Whiles others fish with craft for great opinion,\n    I with great truth catch mere simplicity;\n    Whilst some with cunning gild their copper crowns,\n    With truth and plainness I do wear mine bare.\n\n      Enter AENEAS, PARIS, ANTENOR, DEIPHOBUS, and DIOMEDES\n\n    Fear not my truth: the moral of my wit\n    Is 'plain and true'; there's all the reach of it.\n    Welcome, Sir Diomed! Here is the lady\n    Which for Antenor we deliver you;\n    At the port, lord, I'll give her to thy hand,\n    And by the way possess thee what she is.\n    Entreat her fair; and, by my soul, fair Greek,\n    If e'er thou stand at mercy of my sword,\n    Name Cressid, and thy life shall be as safe\n    As Priam is in Ilion.\n  DIOMEDES. Fair Lady Cressid,\n    So please you, save the thanks this prince expects.\n    The lustre in your eye, heaven in your cheek,\n    Pleads your fair usage; and to Diomed\n    You shall be mistress, and command him wholly.\n  TROILUS. Grecian, thou dost not use me courteously\n    To shame the zeal of my petition to the\n    In praising her. I tell thee, lord of Greece,\n    She is as far high-soaring o'er thy praises\n    As thou unworthy to be call'd her servant.\n    I charge thee use her well, even for my charge;\n    For, by the dreadful Pluto, if thou dost not,\n    Though the great bulk Achilles be thy guard,\n    I'll cut thy throat.\n  DIOMEDES. O, be not mov'd, Prince Troilus.\n    Let me be privileg'd by my place and message\n    To be a speaker free: when I am hence\n    I'll answer to my lust. And know you, lord,\n    I'll nothing do on charge: to her own worth\n    She shall be priz'd. But that you say 'Be't so,'\n    I speak it in my spirit and honour, 'No.'\n  TROILUS. Come, to the port. I'll tell thee, Diomed,\n    This brave shall oft make thee to hide thy head.\n    Lady, give me your hand; and, as we walk,\n    To our own selves bend we our needful talk.\n                               Exeunt TROILUS, CRESSIDA, and DIOMEDES\n                                                      [Sound trumpet]\n  PARIS. Hark! Hector's trumpet.\n  AENEAS. How have we spent this morning!\n    The Prince must think me tardy and remiss,\n    That swore to ride before him to the field.\n  PARIS. 'Tis Troilus' fault. Come, come to field with him.\n  DEIPHOBUS. Let us make ready straight.\n  AENEAS. Yea, with a bridegroom's fresh alacrity\n    Let us address to tend on Hector's heels.\n    The glory of our Troy doth this day lie\n    On his fair worth and single chivalry.                     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 5.\nThe Grecian camp. Lists set out\n\nEnter AJAX, armed; AGAMEMNON, ACHILLES, PATROCLUS, MENELAUS, ULYSSES,\nNESTOR, and others\n\n  AGAMEMNON. Here art thou in appointment fresh and fair,\n    Anticipating time with starting courage.\n    Give with thy trumpet a loud note to Troy,\n    Thou dreadful Ajax, that the appalled air\n    May pierce the head of the great combatant,\n    And hale him hither.\n  AJAX. Thou, trumpet, there's my purse.\n    Now crack thy lungs and split thy brazen pipe;\n    Blow, villain, till thy sphered bias cheek\n    Out-swell the colic of puff Aquilon'd.\n    Come, stretch thy chest, and let thy eyes spout blood:\n    Thou blowest for Hector.                         [Trumpet sounds]\n  ULYSSES. No trumpet answers.\n  ACHILLES. 'Tis but early days.\n\n                Enter DIOMEDES, with CRESSIDA\n\n  AGAMEMNON. Is not yond Diomed, with Calchas' daughter?\n  ULYSSES. 'Tis he, I ken the manner of his gait:\n    He rises on the toe. That spirit of his\n    In aspiration lifts him from the earth.\n  AGAMEMNON. Is this the lady Cressid?\n  DIOMEDES. Even she.\n  AGAMEMNON. Most dearly welcome to the Greeks, sweet lady.\n  NESTOR. Our general doth salute you with a kiss.\n  ULYSSES. Yet is the kindness but particular;\n    'Twere better she were kiss'd in general.\n  NESTOR. And very courtly counsel: I'll begin.\n    So much for Nestor.\n  ACHILLES. I'll take that winter from your lips, fair lady.\n    Achilles bids you welcome.\n  MENELAUS. I had good argument for kissing once.\n  PATROCLUS. But that's no argument for kissing now;\n    For thus popp'd Paris in his hardiment,\n    And parted thus you and your argument.\n  ULYSSES. O deadly gall, and theme of all our scorns!\n    For which we lose our heads to gild his horns.\n  PATROCLUS. The first was Menelaus' kiss; this, mine-\n                                                   [Kisses her again]\n    Patroclus kisses you.\n  MENELAUS. O, this is trim!\n  PATROCLUS. Paris and I kiss evermore for him.\n  MENELAUS. I'll have my kiss, sir. Lady, by your leave.\n  CRESSIDA. In kissing, do you render or receive?\n  PATROCLUS. Both take and give.\n  CRESSIDA. I'll make my match to live,\n    The kiss you take is better than you give;\n    Therefore no kiss.\n  MENELAUS. I'll give you boot; I'll give you three for one.\n  CRESSIDA. You are an odd man; give even or give none.\n  MENELAUS. An odd man, lady? Every man is odd.\n  CRESSIDA. No, Paris is not; for you know 'tis true\n    That you are odd, and he is even with you.\n  MENELAUS. You fillip me o' th' head.\n  CRESSIDA. No, I'll be sworn.\n  ULYSSES. It were no match, your nail against his horn.\n    May I, sweet lady, beg a kiss of you?\n  CRESSIDA. You may.\n  ULYSSES. I do desire it.\n  CRESSIDA. Why, beg then.\n  ULYSSES. Why then, for Venus' sake give me a kiss\n    When Helen is a maid again, and his.\n  CRESSIDA. I am your debtor; claim it when 'tis due.\n  ULYSSES. Never's my day, and then a kiss of you.\n  DIOMEDES. Lady, a word. I'll bring you to your father.\n                                                   Exit with CRESSIDA\n  NESTOR. A woman of quick sense.\n  ULYSSES. Fie, fie upon her!\n    There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip,\n    Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out\n    At every joint and motive of her body.\n    O these encounters so glib of tongue\n    That give a coasting welcome ere it comes,\n    And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts\n    To every ticklish reader! Set them down\n    For sluttish spoils of opportunity,\n    And daughters of the game.                       [Trumpet within]\n  ALL. The Troyans' trumpet.\n\n        Enter HECTOR, armed; AENEAS, TROILUS, PARIS, HELENUS,\n                 and other Trojans, with attendants\n\n  AGAMEMNON. Yonder comes the troop.\n  AENEAS. Hail, all the state of Greece! What shall be done\n    To him that victory commands? Or do you purpose\n    A victor shall be known? Will you the knights\n    Shall to the edge of all extremity\n    Pursue each other, or shall they be divided\n    By any voice or order of the field?\n    Hector bade ask.\n  AGAMEMNON. Which way would Hector have it?\n  AENEAS. He cares not; he'll obey conditions.\n  ACHILLES. 'Tis done like Hector; but securely done,\n    A little proudly, and great deal misprizing\n    The knight oppos'd.\n  AENEAS. If not Achilles, sir,\n    What is your name?\n  ACHILLES. If not Achilles, nothing.\n  AENEAS. Therefore Achilles. But whate'er, know this:\n    In the extremity of great and little\n    Valour and pride excel themselves in Hector;\n    The one almost as infinite as all,\n    The other blank as nothing. Weigh him well,\n    And that which looks like pride is courtesy.\n    This Ajax is half made of Hector's blood;\n    In love whereof half Hector stays at home;\n    Half heart, half hand, half Hector comes to seek\n    This blended knight, half Troyan and half Greek.\n  ACHILLES. A maiden battle then? O, I perceive you!\n\n                   Re-enter DIOMEDES\n\n  AGAMEMNON. Here is Sir Diomed. Go, gentle knight,\n    Stand by our Ajax. As you and Lord ]Eneas\n    Consent upon the order of their fight,\n    So be it; either to the uttermost,\n    Or else a breath. The combatants being kin\n    Half stints their strife before their strokes begin.\n                                    [AJAX and HECTOR enter the lists]\n  ULYSSES. They are oppos'd already.\n  AGAMEMNON. What Troyan is that same that looks so heavy?\n  ULYSSES. The youngest son of Priam, a true knight;\n    Not yet mature, yet matchless; firm of word;\n    Speaking in deeds and deedless in his tongue;\n    Not soon provok'd, nor being provok'd soon calm'd;\n    His heart and hand both open and both free;\n    For what he has he gives, what thinks he shows,\n    Yet gives he not till judgment guide his bounty,\n    Nor dignifies an impair thought with breath;\n    Manly as Hector, but more dangerous;\n    For Hector in his blaze of wrath subscribes\n    To tender objects, but he in heat of action\n    Is more vindicative than jealous love.\n    They call him Troilus, and on him erect\n    A second hope as fairly built as Hector.\n    Thus says Aeneas, one that knows the youth\n    Even to his inches, and, with private soul,\n    Did in great Ilion thus translate him to me.\n                                      [Alarum. HECTOR and AJAX fight]\n  AGAMEMNON. They are in action.\n  NESTOR. Now, Ajax, hold thine own!\n  TROILUS. Hector, thou sleep'st;\n    Awake thee.\n  AGAMEMNON. His blows are well dispos'd. There, Ajax!\n                                                     [Trumpets cease]\n  DIOMEDES. You must no more.\n  AENEAS. Princes, enough, so please you.\n  AJAX. I am not warm yet; let us fight again.\n  DIOMEDES. As Hector pleases.\n  HECTOR. Why, then will I no more.\n    Thou art, great lord, my father's sister's son,\n    A cousin-german to great Priam's seed;\n    The obligation of our blood forbids\n    A gory emulation 'twixt us twain:\n    Were thy commixtion Greek and Troyan so\n    That thou could'st say 'This hand is Grecian all,\n    And this is Troyan; the sinews of this leg\n    All Greek, and this all Troy; my mother's blood\n    Runs on the dexter cheek, and this sinister\n    Bounds in my father's'; by Jove multipotent,\n    Thou shouldst not bear from me a Greekish member\n    Wherein my sword had not impressure made\n    Of our rank feud; but the just gods gainsay\n    That any drop thou borrow'dst from thy mother,\n    My sacred aunt, should by my mortal sword\n    Be drained! Let me embrace thee, Ajax.\n    By him that thunders, thou hast lusty arms;\n    Hector would have them fall upon him thus.\n    Cousin, all honour to thee!\n  AJAX. I thank thee, Hector.\n    Thou art too gentle and too free a man.\n    I came to kill thee, cousin, and bear hence\n    A great addition earned in thy death.\n  HECTOR. Not Neoptolemus so mirable,\n    On whose bright crest Fame with her loud'st Oyes\n    Cries 'This is he' could promise to himself\n    A thought of added honour torn from Hector.\n  AENEAS. There is expectance here from both the sides\n    What further you will do.\n  HECTOR. We'll answer it:\n    The issue is embracement. Ajax, farewell.\n  AJAX. If I might in entreaties find success,\n    As seld I have the chance, I would desire\n    My famous cousin to our Grecian tents.\n  DIOMEDES. 'Tis Agamemnon's wish; and great Achilles\n    Doth long to see unarm'd the valiant Hector.\n  HECTOR. Aeneas, call my brother Troilus to me,\n    And signify this loving interview\n    To the expecters of our Troyan part;\n    Desire them home. Give me thy hand, my cousin;\n    I will go eat with thee, and see your knights.\n\n        AGAMEMNON and the rest of the Greeks come forward\n\n  AJAX. Great Agamemnon comes to meet us here.\n  HECTOR. The worthiest of them tell me name by name;\n    But for Achilles, my own searching eyes\n    Shall find him by his large and portly size.\n  AGAMEMNON.Worthy all arms! as welcome as to one\n    That would be rid of such an enemy.\n    But that's no welcome. Understand more clear,\n    What's past and what's to come is strew'd with husks\n    And formless ruin of oblivion;\n    But in this extant moment, faith and troth,\n    Strain'd purely from all hollow bias-drawing,\n    Bids thee with most divine integrity,\n    From heart of very heart, great Hector, welcome.\n  HECTOR. I thank thee, most imperious Agamemnon.\n  AGAMEMNON. [To Troilus] My well-fam'd lord of Troy, no less to you.\n  MENELAUS. Let me confirm my princely brother's greeting.\n    You brace of warlike brothers, welcome hither.\n  HECTOR. Who must we answer?\n  AENEAS. The noble Menelaus.\n  HECTOR. O you, my lord? By Mars his gauntlet, thanks!\n    Mock not that I affect the untraded oath;\n    Your quondam wife swears still by Venus' glove.\n    She's well, but bade me not commend her to you.\n  MENELAUS. Name her not now, sir; she's a deadly theme.\n  HECTOR. O, pardon; I offend.\n  NESTOR. I have, thou gallant Troyan, seen thee oft,\n    Labouring for destiny, make cruel way\n    Through ranks of Greekish youth; and I have seen thee,\n    As hot as Perseus, spur thy Phrygian steed,\n    Despising many forfeits and subduements,\n    When thou hast hung thy advanced sword i' th' air,\n    Not letting it decline on the declined;\n    That I have said to some my standers-by\n    'Lo, Jupiter is yonder, dealing life!'\n    And I have seen thee pause and take thy breath,\n    When that a ring of Greeks have hemm'd thee in,\n    Like an Olympian wrestling. This have I seen;\n    But this thy countenance, still lock'd in steel,\n    I never saw till now. I knew thy grandsire,\n    And once fought with him. He was a soldier good,\n    But, by great Mars, the captain of us all,\n    Never like thee. O, let an old man embrace thee;\n    And, worthy warrior, welcome to our tents.\n  AENEAS. 'Tis the old Nestor.\n  HECTOR. Let me embrace thee, good old chronicle,\n    That hast so long walk'd hand in hand with time.\n    Most reverend Nestor, I am glad to clasp thee.\n  NESTOR. I would my arms could match thee in contention\n    As they contend with thee in courtesy.\n  HECTOR. I would they could.\n  NESTOR. Ha!\n    By this white beard, I'd fight with thee to-morrow.\n    Well, welcome, welcome! I have seen the time.\n  ULYSSES. I wonder now how yonder city stands,\n    When we have here her base and pillar by us.\n  HECTOR. I know your favour, Lord Ulysses, well.\n    Ah, sir, there's many a Greek and Troyan dead,\n    Since first I saw yourself and Diomed\n    In Ilion on your Greekish embassy.\n  ULYSSES. Sir, I foretold you then what would ensue.\n    My prophecy is but half his journey yet;\n    For yonder walls, that pertly front your town,\n    Yond towers, whose wanton tops do buss the clouds,\n    Must kiss their own feet.\n  HECTOR. I must not believe you.\n    There they stand yet; and modestly I think\n    The fall of every Phrygian stone will cost\n    A drop of Grecian blood. The end crowns all;\n    And that old common arbitrator, Time,\n    Will one day end it.\n  ULYSSES. So to him we leave it.\n    Most gentle and most valiant Hector, welcome.\n    After the General, I beseech you next\n    To feast with me and see me at my tent.\n  ACHILLES. I shall forestall thee, Lord Ulysses, thou!\n    Now, Hector, I have fed mine eyes on thee;\n    I have with exact view perus'd thee, Hector,\n    And quoted joint by joint.\n  HECTOR. Is this Achilles?\n  ACHILLES. I am Achilles.\n  HECTOR. Stand fair, I pray thee; let me look on thee.\n  ACHILLES. Behold thy fill.\n  HECTOR. Nay, I have done already.\n  ACHILLES. Thou art too brief. I will the second time,\n    As I would buy thee, view thee limb by limb.\n  HECTOR. O, like a book of sport thou'lt read me o'er;\n    But there's more in me than thou understand'st.\n    Why dost thou so oppress me with thine eye?\n  ACHILLES. Tell me, you heavens, in which part of his body\n    Shall I destroy him? Whether there, or there, or there?\n    That I may give the local wound a name,\n    And make distinct the very breach whereout\n    Hector's great spirit flew. Answer me, heavens.\n  HECTOR. It would discredit the blest gods, proud man,\n    To answer such a question. Stand again.\n    Think'st thou to catch my life so pleasantly\n    As to prenominate in nice conjecture\n    Where thou wilt hit me dead?\n  ACHILLES. I tell thee yea.\n  HECTOR. Wert thou an oracle to tell me so,\n    I'd not believe thee. Henceforth guard thee well;\n    For I'll not kill thee there, nor there, nor there;\n    But, by the forge that stithied Mars his helm,\n    I'll kill thee everywhere, yea, o'er and o'er.\n    You wisest Grecians, pardon me this brag.\n    His insolence draws folly from my lips;\n    But I'll endeavour deeds to match these words,\n    Or may I never-\n  AJAX. Do not chafe thee, cousin;\n    And you, Achilles, let these threats alone\n    Till accident or purpose bring you to't.\n    You may have every day enough of Hector,\n    If you have stomach. The general state, I fear,\n    Can scarce entreat you to be odd with him.\n  HECTOR. I pray you let us see you in the field;\n    We have had pelting wars since you refus'd\n    The Grecians' cause.\n  ACHILLES. Dost thou entreat me, Hector?\n    To-morrow do I meet thee, fell as death;\n    To-night all friends.\n  HECTOR. Thy hand upon that match.\n  AGAMEMNON. First, all you peers of Greece, go to my tent;\n    There in the full convive we; afterwards,\n    As Hector's leisure and your bounties shall\n    Concur together, severally entreat him.\n    Beat loud the tambourines, let the trumpets blow,\n    That this great soldier may his welcome know.\n                                   Exeunt all but TROILUS and ULYSSES\n  TROILUS. My Lord Ulysses, tell me, I beseech you,\n    In what place of the field doth Calchas keep?\n  ULYSSES. At Menelaus' tent, most princely Troilus.\n    There Diomed doth feast with him to-night,\n    Who neither looks upon the heaven nor earth,\n    But gives all gaze and bent of amorous view\n    On the fair Cressid.\n  TROILUS. Shall I, sweet lord, be bound to you so much,\n    After we part from Agamemnon's tent,\n    To bring me thither?\n  ULYSSES. You shall command me, sir.\n    As gentle tell me of what honour was\n    This Cressida in Troy? Had she no lover there\n    That wails her absence?\n  TROILUS. O, sir, to such as boasting show their scars\n    A mock is due. Will you walk on, my lord?\n    She was belov'd, she lov'd; she is, and doth;\n    But still sweet love is food for fortune's tooth.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 1.\nThe Grecian camp. Before the tent of ACHILLES\n\nEnter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS\n\n  ACHILLES. I'll heat his blood with Greekish wine to-night,\n    Which with my scimitar I'll cool to-morrow.\n    Patroclus, let us feast him to the height.\n  PATROCLUS. Here comes Thersites.\n\n                   Enter THERSITES\n\n  ACHILLES. How now, thou core of envy!\n    Thou crusty batch of nature, what's the news?\n  THERSITES. Why, thou picture of what thou seemest, and idol of\n    idiot worshippers, here's a letter for thee.\n  ACHILLES. From whence, fragment?\n  THERSITES. Why, thou full dish of fool, from Troy.\n  PATROCLUS. Who keeps the tent now?\n  THERSITES. The surgeon's box or the patient's wound.\n  PATROCLUS. Well said, Adversity! and what needs these tricks?\n  THERSITES. Prithee, be silent, boy; I profit not by thy talk; thou\n    art said to be Achilles' male varlet.\n  PATROCLUS. Male varlet, you rogue! What's that?\n  THERSITES. Why, his masculine whore. Now, the rotten diseases of\n    the south, the guts-griping ruptures, catarrhs, loads o' gravel\n    in the back, lethargies, cold palsies, raw eyes, dirt-rotten\n    livers, wheezing lungs, bladders full of imposthume, sciaticas,\n    limekilns i' th' palm, incurable bone-ache, and the rivelled fee-\n    simple of the tetter, take and take again such preposterous\n    discoveries!\n  PATROCLUS. Why, thou damnable box of envy, thou, what meanest thou\n    to curse thus?\n  THERSITES. Do I curse thee?\n  PATROCLUS. Why, no, you ruinous butt; you whoreson\n    indistinguishable cur, no.\n  THERSITES. No! Why art thou, then, exasperate, thou idle immaterial\n    skein of sleid silk, thou green sarcenet flap for a sore eye,\n    thou tassel of a prodigal's purse, thou? Ah, how the poor world is\n    pest'red with such water-flies-diminutives of nature!\n  PATROCLUS. Out, gall!\n  THERSITES. Finch egg!\n  ACHILLES. My sweet Patroclus, I am thwarted quite\n    From my great purpose in to-morrow's battle.\n    Here is a letter from Queen Hecuba,\n    A token from her daughter, my fair love,\n    Both taxing me and gaging me to keep\n    An oath that I have sworn. I will not break it.\n    Fall Greeks; fail fame; honour or go or stay;\n    My major vow lies here, this I'll obey.\n    Come, come, Thersites, help to trim my tent;\n    This night in banqueting must all be spent.\n    Away, Patroclus!                              Exit with PATROCLUS\n  THERSITES. With too much blood and too little brain these two may\n    run mad; but, if with too much brain and to little blood they do,\n    I'll be a curer of madmen. Here's Agamemnon, an honest fellow\n    enough, and one that loves quails, but he has not so much brain\n    as ear-wax; and the goodly transformation of Jupiter there, his\n    brother, the bull, the primitive statue and oblique memorial of\n    cuckolds, a thrifty shoeing-horn in a chain, hanging at his\n    brother's leg-to what form but that he is, should wit larded with\n    malice, and malice forced with wit, turn him to? To an ass, were\n    nothing: he is both ass and ox. To an ox, were nothing: he is both\n    ox and ass. To be a dog, a mule, a cat, a fitchew, a toad, a\n    lizard, an owl, a put-tock, or a herring without a roe, I would\n    not care; but to be Menelaus, I would conspire against destiny.\n    Ask me not what I would be, if I were not Thersites; for I care\n    not to be the louse of a lazar, so I were not Menelaus. Hey-day!\n    sprites and fires!\n\n         Enter HECTOR, TROILUS, AJAX, AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES,\n            NESTOR, MENELAUS, and DIOMEDES, with lights\n\n  AGAMEMNON. We go wrong, we go wrong.\n  AJAX. No, yonder 'tis;\n    There, where we see the lights.\n  HECTOR. I trouble you.\n  AJAX. No, not a whit.\n\n                    Re-enter ACHILLES\n\n  ULYSSES. Here comes himself to guide you.\n  ACHILLES. Welcome, brave Hector; welcome, Princes all.\n  AGAMEMNON. So now, fair Prince of Troy, I bid good night;\n    Ajax commands the guard to tend on you.\n  HECTOR. Thanks, and good night to the Greeks' general.\n  MENELAUS. Good night, my lord.\n  HECTOR. Good night, sweet Lord Menelaus.\n  THERSITES. Sweet draught! 'Sweet' quoth 'a?\n    Sweet sink, sweet sewer!\n  ACHILLES. Good night and welcome, both at once, to those\n    That go or tarry.\n  AGAMEMNON. Good night.\n                                        Exeunt AGAMEMNON and MENELAUS\n  ACHILLES. Old Nestor tarries; and you too, Diomed,\n    Keep Hector company an hour or two.\n  DIOMEDES. I cannot, lord; I have important business,\n    The tide whereof is now. Good night, great Hector.\n  HECTOR. Give me your hand.\n  ULYSSES. [Aside to TROILUS] Follow his torch; he goes to\n    Calchas' tent; I'll keep you company.\n  TROILUS. Sweet sir, you honour me.\n  HECTOR. And so, good night.\n                         Exit DIOMEDES; ULYSSES and TROILUS following\n  ACHILLES. Come, come, enter my tent.\n                                             Exeunt all but THERSITES\n  THERSITES. That same Diomed's a false-hearted rogue, a most unjust\n    knave; I will no more trust him when he leers than I will a\n    serpent when he hisses. He will spend his mouth and promise, like\n    Brabbler the hound; but when he performs, astronomers foretell\n    it: it is prodigious, there will come some change; the sun\n    borrows of the moon when Diomed keeps his word. I will rather\n    leave to see Hector than not to dog him. They say he keeps a\n    Troyan drab, and uses the traitor Calchas' tent. I'll after.\n    Nothing but lechery! All incontinent varlets!                Exit\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 2.\nThe Grecian camp. Before CALCHAS' tent\n\nEnter DIOMEDES\n\n  DIOMEDES. What, are you up here, ho? Speak.\n  CALCHAS. [Within] Who calls?\n  DIOMEDES. Diomed. Calchas, I think. Where's your daughter?\n  CALCHAS. [Within] She comes to you.\n\n      Enter TROILUS and ULYSSES, at a distance; after them\n                        THERSITES\n\n  ULYSSES. Stand where the torch may not discover us.\n\n                     Enter CRESSIDA\n\n  TROILUS. Cressid comes forth to him.\n  DIOMEDES. How now, my charge!\n  CRESSIDA. Now, my sweet guardian! Hark, a word with you.\n[Whispers]\n  TROILUS. Yea, so familiar!\n  ULYSSES. She will sing any man at first sight.\n  THERSITES. And any man may sing her, if he can take her cliff;\n    she's noted.\n  DIOMEDES. Will you remember?\n  CRESSIDA. Remember? Yes.\n  DIOMEDES. Nay, but do, then;\n    And let your mind be coupled with your words.\n  TROILUS. What shall she remember?\n  ULYSSES. List!\n  CRESSIDA. Sweet honey Greek, tempt me no more to folly.\n  THERSITES. Roguery!\n  DIOMEDES. Nay, then-\n  CRESSIDA. I'll tell you what-\n  DIOMEDES. Fo, fo! come, tell a pin; you are a forsworn-\n  CRESSIDA. In faith, I cannot. What would you have me do?\n  THERSITES. A juggling trick, to be secretly open.\n  DIOMEDES. What did you swear you would bestow on me?\n  CRESSIDA. I prithee, do not hold me to mine oath;\n    Bid me do anything but that, sweet Greek.\n  DIOMEDES. Good night.\n  TROILUS. Hold, patience!\n  ULYSSES. How now, Troyan!\n  CRESSIDA. Diomed!\n  DIOMEDES. No, no, good night; I'll be your fool no more.\n  TROILUS. Thy better must.\n  CRESSIDA. Hark! a word in your ear.\n  TROILUS. O plague and madness!\n  ULYSSES. You are moved, Prince; let us depart, I pray,\n    Lest your displeasure should enlarge itself\n    To wrathful terms. This place is dangerous;\n    The time right deadly; I beseech you, go.\n  TROILUS. Behold, I pray you.\n  ULYSSES. Nay, good my lord, go off;\n    You flow to great distraction; come, my lord.\n  TROILUS. I prithee stay.\n  ULYSSES. You have not patience; come.\n  TROILUS. I pray you, stay; by hell and all hell's torments,\n    I will not speak a word.\n  DIOMEDES. And so, good night.\n  CRESSIDA. Nay, but you part in anger.\n  TROILUS. Doth that grieve thee? O withered truth!\n  ULYSSES. How now, my lord?\n  TROILUS. By Jove, I will be patient.\n  CRESSIDA. Guardian! Why, Greek!\n  DIOMEDES. Fo, fo! adieu! you palter.\n  CRESSIDA. In faith, I do not. Come hither once again.\n  ULYSSES. You shake, my lord, at something; will you go?\n    You will break out.\n  TROILUS. She strokes his cheek.\n  ULYSSES. Come, come.\n  TROILUS. Nay, stay; by Jove, I will not speak a word:\n    There is between my will and all offences\n    A guard of patience. Stay a little while.\n  THERSITES. How the devil luxury, with his fat rump and potato\n    finger, tickles these together! Fry, lechery, fry!\n  DIOMEDES. But will you, then?\n  CRESSIDA. In faith, I will, lo; never trust me else.\n  DIOMEDES. Give me some token for the surety of it.\n  CRESSIDA. I'll fetch you one.                                  Exit\n  ULYSSES. You have sworn patience.\n  TROILUS. Fear me not, my lord;\n    I will not be myself, nor have cognition\n    Of what I feel. I am all patience.\n\n                    Re-enter CRESSIDA\n\n  THERSITES. Now the pledge; now, now, now!\n  CRESSIDA. Here, Diomed, keep this sleeve.\n  TROILUS. O beauty! where is thy faith?\n  ULYSSES. My lord!\n  TROILUS. I will be patient; outwardly I will.\n  CRESSIDA. You look upon that sleeve; behold it well.\n    He lov'd me-O false wench!-Give't me again.\n  DIOMEDES. Whose was't?\n  CRESSIDA. It is no matter, now I ha't again.\n    I will not meet with you to-morrow night.\n    I prithee, Diomed, visit me no more.\n  THERSITES. Now she sharpens. Well said, whetstone.\n  DIOMEDES. I shall have it.\n  CRESSIDA. What, this?\n  DIOMEDES. Ay, that.\n  CRESSIDA. O all you gods! O pretty, pretty pledge!\n    Thy master now lies thinking on his bed\n    Of thee and me, and sighs, and takes my glove,\n    And gives memorial dainty kisses to it,\n    As I kiss thee. Nay, do not snatch it from me;\n    He that takes that doth take my heart withal.\n  DIOMEDES. I had your heart before; this follows it.\n  TROILUS. I did swear patience.\n  CRESSIDA. You shall not have it, Diomed; faith, you shall not;\n    I'll give you something else.\n  DIOMEDES. I will have this. Whose was it?\n  CRESSIDA. It is no matter.\n  DIOMEDES. Come, tell me whose it was.\n  CRESSIDA. 'Twas one's that lov'd me better than you will.\n    But, now you have it, take it.\n  DIOMEDES. Whose was it?\n  CRESSIDA. By all Diana's waiting women yond,\n    And by herself, I will not tell you whose.\n  DIOMEDES. To-morrow will I wear it on my helm,\n    And grieve his spirit that dares not challenge it.\n  TROILUS. Wert thou the devil and wor'st it on thy horn,\n    It should be challeng'd.\n  CRESSIDA. Well, well, 'tis done, 'tis past; and yet it is not;\n    I will not keep my word.\n  DIOMEDES. Why, then farewell;\n    Thou never shalt mock Diomed again.\n  CRESSIDA. You shall not go. One cannot speak a word\n    But it straight starts you.\n  DIOMEDES. I do not like this fooling.\n  THERSITES. Nor I, by Pluto; but that that likes not you\n    Pleases me best.\n  DIOMEDES. What, shall I come? The hour-\n  CRESSIDA. Ay, come-O Jove! Do come. I shall be plagu'd.\n  DIOMEDES. Farewell till then.\n  CRESSIDA. Good night. I prithee come.                 Exit DIOMEDES\n    Troilus, farewell! One eye yet looks on thee;\n    But with my heart the other eye doth see.\n    Ah, poor our sex! this fault in us I find,\n    The error of our eye directs our mind.\n    What error leads must err; O, then conclude,\n    Minds sway'd by eyes are full of turpitude.                  Exit\n  THERSITES. A proof of strength she could not publish more,\n    Unless she said 'My mind is now turn'd whore.'\n  ULYSSES. All's done, my lord.\n  TROILUS. It is.\n  ULYSSES. Why stay we, then?\n  TROILUS. To make a recordation to my soul\n    Of every syllable that here was spoke.\n    But if I tell how these two did coact,\n    Shall I not lie in publishing a truth?\n    Sith yet there is a credence in my heart,\n    An esperance so obstinately strong,\n    That doth invert th' attest of eyes and ears;\n    As if those organs had deceptious functions\n    Created only to calumniate.\n    Was Cressid here?\n  ULYSSES. I cannot conjure, Troyan.\n  TROILUS. She was not, sure.\n  ULYSSES. Most sure she was.\n  TROILUS. Why, my negation hath no taste of madness.\n  ULYSSES. Nor mine, my lord. Cressid was here but now.\n  TROILUS. Let it not be believ'd for womanhood.\n    Think, we had mothers; do not give advantage\n    To stubborn critics, apt, without a theme,\n    For depravation, to square the general sex\n    By Cressid's rule. Rather think this not Cressid.\n  ULYSSES. What hath she done, Prince, that can soil our mothers?\n  TROILUS. Nothing at all, unless that this were she.\n  THERSITES. Will 'a swagger himself out on's own eyes?\n  TROILUS. This she? No; this is Diomed's Cressida.\n    If beauty have a soul, this is not she;\n    If souls guide vows, if vows be sanctimonies,\n    If sanctimony be the god's delight,\n    If there be rule in unity itself,\n    This was not she. O madness of discourse,\n    That cause sets up with and against itself!\n    Bifold authority! where reason can revolt\n    Without perdition, and loss assume all reason\n    Without revolt: this is, and is not, Cressid.\n    Within my soul there doth conduce a fight\n    Of this strange nature, that a thing inseparate\n    Divides more wider than the sky and earth;\n    And yet the spacious breadth of this division\n    Admits no orifex for a point as subtle\n    As Ariachne's broken woof to enter.\n    Instance, O instance! strong as Pluto's gates:\n    Cressid is mine, tied with the bonds of heaven.\n    Instance, O instance! strong as heaven itself:\n    The bonds of heaven are slipp'd, dissolv'd, and loos'd;\n    And with another knot, five-finger-tied,\n    The fractions of her faith, orts of her love,\n    The fragments, scraps, the bits, and greasy relics\n    Of her o'er-eaten faith, are bound to Diomed.\n  ULYSSES. May worthy Troilus be half-attach'd\n    With that which here his passion doth express?\n  TROILUS. Ay, Greek; and that shall be divulged well\n    In characters as red as Mars his heart\n    Inflam'd with Venus. Never did young man fancy\n    With so eternal and so fix'd a soul.\n    Hark, Greek: as much as I do Cressid love,\n    So much by weight hate I her Diomed.\n    That sleeve is mine that he'll bear on his helm;\n    Were it a casque compos'd by Vulcan's skill\n    My sword should bite it. Not the dreadful spout\n    Which shipmen do the hurricano call,\n    Constring'd in mass by the almighty sun,\n    Shall dizzy with more clamour Neptune's ear\n    In his descent than shall my prompted sword\n    Falling on Diomed.\n  THERSITES. He'll tickle it for his concupy.\n  TROILUS. O Cressid! O false Cressid! false, false, false!\n    Let all untruths stand by thy stained name,\n    And they'll seem glorious.\n  ULYSSES. O, contain yourself;\n    Your passion draws ears hither.\n\n                       Enter AENEAS\n\n  AENEAS. I have been seeking you this hour, my lord.\n    Hector, by this, is arming him in Troy;\n    Ajax, your guard, stays to conduct you home.\n  TROILUS. Have with you, Prince. My courteous lord, adieu.\n    Fairwell, revolted fair!-and, Diomed,\n    Stand fast and wear a castle on thy head.\n  ULYSSES. I'll bring you to the gates.\n  TROILUS. Accept distracted thanks.\n\n            Exeunt TROILUS, AENEAS. and ULYSSES\n\n  THERSITES. Would I could meet that rogue Diomed! I would croak like\n    a raven; I would bode, I would bode. Patroclus will give me\n    anything for the intelligence of this whore; the parrot will not\n    do more for an almond than he for a commodious drab. Lechery,\n    lechery! Still wars and lechery! Nothing else holds fashion. A\n    burning devil take them!                                     Exit\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 3.\nTroy. Before PRIAM'S palace\n\nEnter HECTOR and ANDROMACHE\n\n  ANDROMACHE. When was my lord so much ungently temper'd\n    To stop his ears against admonishment?\n    Unarm, unarm, and do not fight to-day.\n  HECTOR. You train me to offend you; get you in.\n    By all the everlasting gods, I'll go.\n  ANDROMACHE. My dreams will, sure, prove ominous to the day.\n  HECTOR. No more, I say.\n\n                    Enter CASSANDRA\n\n  CASSANDRA. Where is my brother Hector?\n  ANDROMACHE. Here, sister, arm'd, and bloody in intent.\n    Consort with me in loud and dear petition,\n    Pursue we him on knees; for I have dreamt\n    Of bloody turbulence, and this whole night\n    Hath nothing been but shapes and forms of slaughter.\n  CASSANDRA. O, 'tis true!\n  HECTOR. Ho! bid my trumpet sound.\n  CASSANDRA. No notes of sally, for the heavens, sweet brother!\n  HECTOR. Be gone, I say. The gods have heard me swear.\n  CASSANDRA. The gods are deaf to hot and peevish vows;\n    They are polluted off'rings, more abhorr'd\n    Than spotted livers in the sacrifice.\n  ANDROMACHE. O, be persuaded! Do not count it holy\n    To hurt by being just. It is as lawful,\n    For we would give much, to use violent thefts\n    And rob in the behalf of charity.\n  CASSANDRA. It is the purpose that makes strong the vow;\n    But vows to every purpose must not hold.\n    Unarm, sweet Hector.\n  HECTOR. Hold you still, I say.\n    Mine honour keeps the weather of my fate.\n    Life every man holds dear; but the dear man\n    Holds honour far more precious dear than life.\n\n                      Enter TROILUS\n\n    How now, young man! Mean'st thou to fight to-day?\n  ANDROMACHE. Cassandra, call my father to persuade.\n                                                       Exit CASSANDRA\n  HECTOR. No, faith, young Troilus; doff thy harness, youth;\n    I am to-day i' th' vein of chivalry.\n    Let grow thy sinews till their knots be strong,\n    And tempt not yet the brushes of the war.\n    Unarm thee, go; and doubt thou not, brave boy,\n    I'll stand to-day for thee and me and Troy.\n  TROILUS. Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you\n    Which better fits a lion than a man.\n  HECTOR. What vice is that, good Troilus?\n    Chide me for it.\n  TROILUS. When many times the captive Grecian falls,\n    Even in the fan and wind of your fair sword,\n    You bid them rise and live.\n  HECTOR. O, 'tis fair play!\n  TROILUS. Fool's play, by heaven, Hector.\n  HECTOR. How now! how now!\n  TROILUS. For th' love of all the gods,\n    Let's leave the hermit Pity with our mother;\n    And when we have our armours buckled on,\n    The venom'd vengeance ride upon our swords,\n    Spur them to ruthful work, rein them from ruth!\n  HECTOR. Fie, savage, fie!\n  TROILUS. Hector, then 'tis wars.\n  HECTOR. Troilus, I would not have you fight to-day.\n  TROILUS. Who should withhold me?\n    Not fate, obedience, nor the hand of Mars\n    Beck'ning with fiery truncheon my retire;\n    Not Priamus and Hecuba on knees,\n    Their eyes o'ergalled with recourse of tears;\n    Nor you, my brother, with your true sword drawn,\n    Oppos'd to hinder me, should stop my way,\n    But by my ruin.\n\n              Re-enter CASSANDRA, with PRIAM\n\n  CASSANDRA. Lay hold upon him, Priam, hold him fast;\n    He is thy crutch; now if thou lose thy stay,\n    Thou on him leaning, and all Troy on thee,\n    Fall all together.\n  PRIAM. Come, Hector, come, go back.\n    Thy wife hath dreamt; thy mother hath had visions;\n    Cassandra doth foresee; and I myself\n    Am like a prophet suddenly enrapt\n    To tell thee that this day is ominous.\n    Therefore, come back.\n  HECTOR. Aeneas is a-field;\n    And I do stand engag'd to many Greeks,\n    Even in the faith of valour, to appear\n    This morning to them.\n  PRIAM. Ay, but thou shalt not go.\n  HECTOR. I must not break my faith.\n    You know me dutiful; therefore, dear sir,\n    Let me not shame respect; but give me leave\n    To take that course by your consent and voice\n    Which you do here forbid me, royal Priam.\n  CASSANDRA. O Priam, yield not to him!\n  ANDROMACHE. Do not, dear father.\n  HECTOR. Andromache, I am offended with you.\n    Upon the love you bear me, get you in.\n                                                      Exit ANDROMACHE\n  TROILUS. This foolish, dreaming, superstitious girl\n    Makes all these bodements.\n  CASSANDRA. O, farewell, dear Hector!\n    Look how thou diest. Look how thy eye turns pale.\n    Look how thy wounds do bleed at many vents.\n    Hark how Troy roars; how Hecuba cries out;\n    How poor Andromache shrills her dolours forth;\n    Behold distraction, frenzy, and amazement,\n    Like witless antics, one another meet,\n    And all cry, Hector! Hector's dead! O Hector!\n  TROILUS. Away, away!\n  CASSANDRA. Farewell!-yet, soft! Hector, I take my leave.\n    Thou dost thyself and all our Troy deceive.                  Exit\n  HECTOR. You are amaz'd, my liege, at her exclaim.\n    Go in, and cheer the town; we'll forth, and fight,\n    Do deeds worth praise and tell you them at night.\n  PRIAM. Farewell. The gods with safety stand about thee!\n                           Exeunt severally PRIAM and HECTOR. Alarums\n  TROILUS. They are at it, hark! Proud Diomed, believe,\n    I come to lose my arm or win my sleeve.\n\n                     Enter PANDARUS\n\n  PANDARUS. Do you hear, my lord? Do you hear?\n  TROILUS. What now?\n  PANDARUS. Here's a letter come from yond poor girl.\n  TROILUS. Let me read.\n  PANDARUS. A whoreson tisick, a whoreson rascally tisick so troubles\n    me, and the foolish fortune of this girl, and what one thing,\n    what another, that I shall leave you one o' th's days; and I have\n    a rheum in mine eyes too, and such an ache in my bones that\n    unless a man were curs'd I cannot tell what to think on't. What\n    says she there?\n  TROILUS. Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart;\n    Th' effect doth operate another way.\n                                                 [Tearing the letter]\n    Go, wind, to wind, there turn and change together.\n    My love with words and errors still she feeds,\n    But edifies another with her deeds.              Exeunt severally\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 4.\nThe plain between Troy and the Grecian camp\n\nEnter THERSITES. Excursions\n\n  THERSITES. Now they are clapper-clawing one another; I'll go look\n    on. That dissembling abominable varlet, Diomed, has got that same\n    scurvy doting foolish young knave's sleeve of Troy there in his\n    helm. I would fain see them meet, that that same young Troyan ass\n    that loves the whore there might send that Greekish whoremasterly\n    villain with the sleeve back to the dissembling luxurious drab of\n    a sleeve-less errand. A th' t'other side, the policy of those\n    crafty swearing rascals-that stale old mouse-eaten dry cheese,\n    Nestor, and that same dog-fox, Ulysses -is not prov'd worth a\n    blackberry. They set me up, in policy, that mongrel cur, Ajax,\n    against that dog of as bad a kind, Achilles; and now is the cur,\n    Ajax prouder than the cur Achilles, and will not arm to-day;\n    whereupon the Grecians begin to proclaim barbarism, and policy\n    grows into an ill opinion.\n\n             Enter DIOMEDES, TROILUS following\n\n    Soft! here comes sleeve, and t'other.\n  TROILUS. Fly not; for shouldst thou take the river Styx\n    I would swim after.\n  DIOMEDES. Thou dost miscall retire.\n    I do not fly; but advantageous care\n    Withdrew me from the odds of multitude.\n    Have at thee.\n  THERSITES. Hold thy whore, Grecian; now for thy whore,\n    Troyan-now the sleeve, now the sleeve!\n                                 Exeunt TROILUS and DIOMEDES fighting\n\n                        Enter HECTOR\n\n  HECTOR. What art thou, Greek? Art thou for Hector's match?\n    Art thou of blood and honour?\n  THERSITES. No, no-I am a rascal; a scurvy railing knave; a very\n    filthy rogue.\n  HECTOR. I do believe thee. Live.                               Exit\n  THERSITES. God-a-mercy, that thou wilt believe me; but a plague\n    break thy neck for frighting me! What's become of the wenching\n    rogues? I think they have swallowed one another. I would laugh at\n    that miracle. Yet, in a sort, lechery eats itself. I'll seek\n    them.                                                        Exit\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 5.\nAnother part of the plain\n\nEnter DIOMEDES and A SERVANT\n\n  DIOMEDES. Go, go, my servant, take thou Troilus' horse;\n    Present the fair steed to my lady Cressid.\n    Fellow, commend my service to her beauty;\n    Tell her I have chastis'd the amorous Troyan,\n    And am her knight by proof.\n  SERVANT. I go, my lord.                                        Exit\n\n                       Enter AGAMEMNON\n\n  AGAMEMNON. Renew, renew! The fierce Polydamus\n    Hath beat down enon; bastard Margarelon\n    Hath Doreus prisoner,\n    And stands colossus-wise, waving his beam,\n    Upon the pashed corses of the kings\n    Epistrophus and Cedius. Polixenes is slain;\n    Amphimacus and Thoas deadly hurt;\n    Patroclus ta'en, or slain; and Palamedes\n    Sore hurt and bruis'd. The dreadful Sagittary\n    Appals our numbers. Haste we, Diomed,\n    To reinforcement, or we perish all.\n\n                        Enter NESTOR\n\n  NESTOR. Go, bear Patroclus' body to Achilles,\n    And bid the snail-pac'd Ajax arm for shame.\n    There is a thousand Hectors in the field;\n    Now here he fights on Galathe his horse,\n    And there lacks work; anon he's there afoot,\n    And there they fly or die, like scaled sculls\n    Before the belching whale; then is he yonder,\n    And there the strawy Greeks, ripe for his edge,\n    Fall down before him like the mower's swath.\n    Here, there, and everywhere, he leaves and takes;\n    Dexterity so obeying appetite\n    That what he will he does, and does so much\n    That proof is call'd impossibility.\n\n                       Enter ULYSSES\n\n  ULYSSES. O, courage, courage, courage, Princes! Great\n    Achilles Is arming, weeping, cursing, vowing vengeance.\n    Patroclus' wounds have rous'd his drowsy blood,\n    Together with his mangled Myrmidons,\n    That noseless, handless, hack'd and chipp'd, come to\n    him, Crying on Hector. Ajax hath lost a friend\n    And foams at mouth, and he is arm'd and at it,\n    Roaring for Troilus; who hath done to-day\n    Mad and fantastic execution,\n    Engaging and redeeming of himself\n    With such a careless force and forceless care\n    As if that luck, in very spite of cunning,\n    Bade him win all.\n\n                        Enter AJAX\n\n  AJAX. Troilus! thou coward Troilus!                            Exit\n  DIOMEDES. Ay, there, there.\n  NESTOR. So, so, we draw together.                              Exit\n                      Enter ACHILLES\n\n  ACHILLES. Where is this Hector?\n    Come, come, thou boy-queller, show thy face;\n    Know what it is to meet Achilles angry.\n    Hector! where's Hector? I will none but Hector.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 6.\nAnother part of the plain\n\nEnter AJAX\n\n  AJAX. Troilus, thou coward Troilus, show thy head.\n\n                     Enter DIOMEDES\n\n  DIOMEDES. Troilus, I say! Where's Troilus?\n  AJAX. What wouldst thou?\n  DIOMEDES. I would correct him.\n  AJAX. Were I the general, thou shouldst have my office\n    Ere that correction. Troilus, I say! What, Troilus!\n\n                      Enter TROILUS\n\n  TROILUS. O traitor Diomed! Turn thy false face, thou traitor,\n    And pay thy life thou owest me for my horse.\n  DIOMEDES. Ha! art thou there?\n  AJAX. I'll fight with him alone. Stand, Diomed.\n  DIOMEDES. He is my prize. I will not look upon.\n  TROILUS. Come, both, you cogging Greeks; have at you\n                                                      Exeunt fighting\n\n                      Enter HECTOR\n\n  HECTOR. Yea, Troilus? O, well fought, my youngest brother!\n\n                     Enter ACHILLES\n\n  ACHILLES. Now do I see thee, ha! Have at thee, Hector!\n  HECTOR. Pause, if thou wilt.\n  ACHILLES. I do disdain thy courtesy, proud Troyan.\n    Be happy that my arms are out of use;\n    My rest and negligence befriends thee now,\n    But thou anon shalt hear of me again;\n    Till when, go seek thy fortune.                              Exit\n  HECTOR. Fare thee well.\n    I would have been much more a fresher man,\n    Had I expected thee.\n\n                     Re-enter TROILUS\n\n    How now, my brother!\n  TROILUS. Ajax hath ta'en Aeneas. Shall it be?\n    No, by the flame of yonder glorious heaven,\n    He shall not carry him; I'll be ta'en too,\n    Or bring him off. Fate, hear me what I say:\n    I reck not though thou end my life to-day.                   Exit\n\n                    Enter one in armour\n\n  HECTOR. Stand, stand, thou Greek; thou art a goodly mark.\n    No? wilt thou not? I like thy armour well;\n    I'll frush it and unlock the rivets all\n    But I'll be master of it. Wilt thou not, beast, abide?\n    Why then, fly on; I'll hunt thee for thy hide.             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 7.\nAnother part of the plain\n\nEnter ACHILLES, with Myrmidons\n\n  ACHILLES. Come here about me, you my Myrmidons;\n    Mark what I say. Attend me where I wheel;\n    Strike not a stroke, but keep yourselves in breath;\n    And when I have the bloody Hector found,\n    Empale him with your weapons round about;\n    In fellest manner execute your arms.\n    Follow me, sirs, and my proceedings eye.\n    It is decreed Hector the great must die.                   Exeunt\n\n      Enter MENELAUS and PARIS, fighting; then THERSITES\n\n  THERSITES. The cuckold and the cuckold-maker are at it. Now, bull!\n    now, dog! 'Loo, Paris, 'loo! now my double-horn'd Spartan! 'loo,\n    Paris, 'loo! The bull has the game. Ware horns, ho!\n                                            Exeunt PARIS and MENELAUS\n\n                      Enter MARGARELON\n\n  MARGARELON. Turn, slave, and fight.\n  THERSITES. What art thou?\n  MARGARELON. A bastard son of Priam's.\n  THERSITES. I am a bastard too; I love bastards. I am a bastard\n    begot, bastard instructed, bastard in mind, bastard in valour, in\n    everything illegitimate. One bear will not bite another, and\n    wherefore should one bastard? Take heed, the quarrel's most\n    ominous to us: if the son of a whore fight for a whore, he tempts\n    judgment. Farewell, bastard.\n      Exit\n  MARGARELON. The devil take thee, coward!                       Exit\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 8.\nAnother part of the plain\n\nEnter HECTOR\n\n  HECTOR. Most putrified core so fair without,\n    Thy goodly armour thus hath cost thy life.\n    Now is my day's work done; I'll take good breath:\n    Rest, sword; thou hast thy fill of blood and death!\n [Disarms]\n\n              Enter ACHILLES and his Myrmidons\n\n  ACHILLES. Look, Hector, how the sun begins to set;\n    How ugly night comes breathing at his heels;\n    Even with the vail and dark'ning of the sun,\n    To close the day up, Hector's life is done.\n  HECTOR. I am unarm'd; forego this vantage, Greek.\n  ACHILLES. Strike, fellows, strike; this is the man I seek.\n                                                       [HECTOR falls]\n    So, Ilion, fall thou next! Come, Troy, sink down;\n    Here lies thy heart, thy sinews, and thy bone.\n    On, Myrmidons, and cry you an amain\n    'Achilles hath the mighty Hector slain.'\n                                                  [A retreat sounded]\n    Hark! a retire upon our Grecian part.\n  MYRMIDON. The Troyan trumpets sound the like, my lord.\n  ACHILLES. The dragon wing of night o'erspreads the earth\n    And, stickler-like, the armies separates.\n    My half-supp'd sword, that frankly would have fed,\n    Pleas'd with this dainty bait, thus goes to bed.\n                                                 [Sheathes his sword]\n    Come, tie his body to my horse's tail;\n    Along the field I will the Troyan trail.                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 9.\nAnother part of the plain\n\nSound retreat. Shout. Enter AGAMEMNON, AJAX, MENELAUS, NESTOR, DIOMEDES,\nand the rest, marching\n\n  AGAMEMNON. Hark! hark! what shout is this?\n  NESTOR. Peace, drums!\n  SOLDIERS. [Within] Achilles! Achilles! Hector's slain. Achilles!\n  DIOMEDES. The bruit is Hector's slain, and by Achilles.\n  AJAX. If it be so, yet bragless let it be;\n    Great Hector was as good a man as he.\n  AGAMEMNON. March patiently along. Let one be sent\n    To pray Achilles see us at our tent.\n    If in his death the gods have us befriended;\n    Great Troy is ours, and our sharp wars are ended.\n    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 10.\nAnother part of the plain\n\nEnter AENEAS, PARIS, ANTENOR, and DEIPHOBUS\n\n  AENEAS. Stand, ho! yet are we masters of the field.\n    Never go home; here starve we out the night.\n\n                         Enter TROILUS\n\n  TROILUS. Hector is slain.\n  ALL. Hector! The gods forbid!\n  TROILUS. He's dead, and at the murderer's horse's tail,\n    In beastly sort, dragg'd through the shameful field.\n    Frown on, you heavens, effect your rage with speed.\n    Sit, gods, upon your thrones, and smile at Troy.\n    I say at once let your brief plagues be mercy,\n    And linger not our sure destructions on.\n  AENEAS. My lord, you do discomfort all the host.\n  TROILUS. You understand me not that tell me so.\n    I do not speak of flight, of fear of death,\n    But dare all imminence that gods and men\n    Address their dangers in. Hector is gone.\n    Who shall tell Priam so, or Hecuba?\n    Let him that will a screech-owl aye be call'd\n    Go in to Troy, and say there 'Hector's dead.'\n    There is a word will Priam turn to stone;\n    Make wells and Niobes of the maids and wives,\n    Cold statues of the youth; and, in a word,\n    Scare Troy out of itself. But, march away;\n    Hector is dead; there is no more to say.\n    Stay yet. You vile abominable tents,\n    Thus proudly pight upon our Phrygian plains,\n    Let Titan rise as early as he dare,\n    I'll through and through you. And, thou great-siz'd coward,\n    No space of earth shall sunder our two hates;\n    I'll haunt thee like a wicked conscience still,\n    That mouldeth goblins swift as frenzy's thoughts.\n    Strike a free march to Troy. With comfort go;\n    Hope of revenge shall hide our inward woe.\n\n                        Enter PANDARUS\n\n  PANDARUS. But hear you, hear you!\n  TROILUS. Hence, broker-lackey. Ignominy and shame\n    Pursue thy life and live aye with thy name!\n                                              Exeunt all but PANDARUS\n  PANDARUS. A goodly medicine for my aching bones! world! world! thus\n    is the poor agent despis'd! traitors and bawds, how earnestly are\n    you set a work, and how ill requited! Why should our endeavour be\n    so lov'd, and the performance so loathed? What verse for it? What\n    instance for it? Let me see-\n\n          Full merrily the humble-bee doth sing\n          Till he hath lost his honey and his sting;\n          And being once subdu'd in armed trail,\n          Sweet honey and sweet notes together fail.\n\n    Good traders in the flesh, set this in your painted\n    cloths. As many as be here of pander's hall,\n    Your eyes, half out, weep out at Pandar's fall;\n    Or, if you cannot weep, yet give some groans,\n    Though not for me, yet for your aching bones.\n    Brethren and sisters of the hold-door trade,\n    Some two months hence my will shall here be made.\n    It should be now, but that my fear is this,\n    Some galled goose of Winchester would hiss.\n    Till then I'll sweat and seek about for eases,\n    And at that time bequeath you my diseases.                   Exit\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1602\n\n\nTWELFTH NIGHT; OR, WHAT YOU WILL\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  ORSINO, Duke of Illyria\n  SEBASTIAN, brother of Viola\n  ANTONIO, a sea captain, friend of Sebastian\n  A SEA CAPTAIN, friend of Viola\n  VALENTINE, gentleman attending on the Duke\n  CURIO, gentleman attending on the Duke\n  SIR TOBY BELCH, uncle of Olivia\n  SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK\n  MALVOLIO, steward to Olivia\n  FABIAN, servant to Olivia\n  FESTE, a clown, servant to Olivia\n\n  OLIVIA, a rich countess\n  VIOLA, sister of Sebastian\n  MARIA, Olivia's waiting woman\n\n  Lords, Priests, Sailors, Officers, Musicians, and Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nA city in Illyria; and the sea-coast near it\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nThe DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter ORSINO, Duke of Illyria, CURIO, and other LORDS; MUSICIANS attending\n\n  DUKE. If music be the food of love, play on,\n    Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,\n    The appetite may sicken and so die.\n    That strain again! It had a dying fall;\n    O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound\n    That breathes upon a bank of violets,\n    Stealing and giving odour! Enough, no more;\n    'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.\n    O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou!\n    That, notwithstanding thy capacity\n    Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,\n    Of what validity and pitch soe'er,\n    But falls into abatement and low price\n    Even in a minute. So full of shapes is fancy,\n    That it alone is high fantastical.\n  CURIO. Will you go hunt, my lord?\n  DUKE. What, Curio?\n  CURIO. The hart.\n  DUKE. Why, so I do, the noblest that I have.\n    O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first,\n    Methought she purg'd the air of pestilence!\n    That instant was I turn'd into a hart,\n    And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,\n    E'er since pursue me.\n\n                     Enter VALENTINE\n\n    How now! what news from her?\n  VALENTINE. So please my lord, I might not be admitted,\n    But from her handmaid do return this answer:\n    The element itself, till seven years' heat,\n    Shall not behold her face at ample view;\n    But like a cloistress she will veiled walk,\n    And water once a day her chamber round\n    With eye-offending brine; all this to season\n    A brother's dead love, which she would keep fresh\n    And lasting in her sad remembrance.\n  DUKE. O, she that hath a heart of that fine frame\n    To pay this debt of love but to a brother,\n    How will she love when the rich golden shaft\n    Hath kill'd the flock of all affections else\n    That live in her; when liver, brain, and heart,\n    These sovereign thrones, are all supplied and fill'd,\n    Her sweet perfections, with one self king!\n    Away before me to sweet beds of flow'rs:\n    Love-thoughts lie rich when canopied with bow'rs.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe sea-coast\n\nEnter VIOLA, a CAPTAIN, and SAILORS\n\n  VIOLA. What country, friends, is this?\n  CAPTAIN. This is Illyria, lady.\n  VIOLA. And what should I do in Illyria?\n    My brother he is in Elysium.\n    Perchance he is not drown'd- what think you, sailors?\n  CAPTAIN. It is perchance that you yourself were saved.\n  VIOLA. O my poor brother! and so perchance may he be.\n  CAPTAIN. True, madam, and, to comfort you with chance,\n    Assure yourself, after our ship did split,\n    When you, and those poor number saved with you,\n    Hung on our driving boat, I saw your brother,\n    Most provident in peril, bind himself-\n    Courage and hope both teaching him the practice-\n    To a strong mast that liv'd upon the sea;\n    Where, like Arion on the dolphin's back,\n    I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves\n    So long as I could see.\n  VIOLA. For saying so, there's gold.\n    Mine own escape unfoldeth to my hope,\n    Whereto thy speech serves for authority,\n    The like of him. Know'st thou this country?\n  CAPTAIN. Ay, madam, well; for I was bred and born\n    Not three hours' travel from this very place.\n  VIOLA. Who governs here?\n  CAPTAIN. A noble duke, in nature as in name.\n  VIOLA. What is his name?\n  CAPTAIN. Orsino.\n  VIOLA. Orsino! I have heard my father name him.\n    He was a bachelor then.\n  CAPTAIN. And so is now, or was so very late;\n    For but a month ago I went from hence,\n    And then 'twas fresh in murmur- as, you know,\n    What great ones do the less will prattle of-\n    That he did seek the love of fair Olivia.\n  VIOLA. What's she?\n  CAPTAIN. A virtuous maid, the daughter of a count\n    That died some twelvemonth since, then leaving her\n    In the protection of his son, her brother,\n    Who shortly also died; for whose dear love,\n    They say, she hath abjur'd the company\n    And sight of men.\n  VIOLA. O that I serv'd that lady,\n    And might not be delivered to the world,\n    Till I had made mine own occasion mellow,\n    What my estate is!\n  CAPTAIN. That were hard to compass,\n    Because she will admit no kind of suit-\n    No, not the Duke's.\n  VIOLA. There is a fair behaviour in thee, Captain;\n    And though that nature with a beauteous wall\n    Doth oft close in pollution, yet of thee\n    I will believe thou hast a mind that suits\n    With this thy fair and outward character.\n    I prithee, and I'll pay thee bounteously,\n    Conceal me what I am, and be my aid\n    For such disguise as haply shall become\n    The form of my intent. I'll serve this duke:\n    Thou shalt present me as an eunuch to him;\n    It may be worth thy pains, for I can sing\n    And speak to him in many sorts of music,\n    That will allow me very worth his service.\n    What else may hap to time I will commit;\n    Only shape thou silence to my wit.\n  CAPTAIN. Be you his eunuch and your mute I'll be;\n    When my tongue blabs, then let mine eyes not see.\n  VIOLA. I thank thee. Lead me on.                        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nOLIVIA'S house\n\nEnter SIR TOBY BELCH and MARIA\n\n  SIR TOBY. What a plague means my niece to take the death of her\n    brother thus? I am sure care's an enemy to life.\n  MARIA. By my troth, Sir Toby, you must come in earlier o' nights;\n    your cousin, my lady, takes great exceptions to your ill hours.\n  SIR TOBY. Why, let her except before excepted.\n  MARIA. Ay, but you must confine yourself within the modest limits\n    of order.\n  SIR TOBY. Confine! I'll confine myself no finer than I am. These\n    clothes are good enough to drink in, and so be these boots too;\n    an they be not, let them hang themselves in their own straps.\n  MARIA. That quaffing and drinking will undo you; I heard my lady\n    talk of it yesterday, and of a foolish knight that you brought in\n    one night here to be her wooer.\n  SIR TOBY. Who? Sir Andrew Aguecheek?\n  MARIA. Ay, he.\n  SIR TOBY. He's as tall a man as any's in Illyria.\n  MARIA. What's that to th' purpose?\n  SIR TOBY. Why, he has three thousand ducats a year.\n  MARIA. Ay, but he'll have but a year in all these ducats; he's a\n    very fool and a prodigal.\n  SIR TOBY. Fie that you'll say so! He plays o' th' viol-de-gamboys,\n    and speaks three or four languages word for word without book,\n    and hath all the good gifts of nature.\n  MARIA. He hath indeed, almost natural; for, besides that he's a\n    fool, he's a great quarreller; and but that he hath the gift of a\n    coward to allay the gust he hath in quarrelling, 'tis thought\n    among the prudent he would quickly have the gift of a grave.\n  SIR TOBY. By this hand, they are scoundrels and subtractors that\n    say so of him. Who are they?\n  MARIA. They that add, moreover, he's drunk nightly in your company.\n  SIR TOBY. With drinking healths to my niece; I'll drink to her as\n    long as there is a passage in my throat and drink in Illyria.\n    He's a coward and a coystrill that will not drink to my niece\n    till his brains turn o' th' toe like a parish-top. What, wench!\n    Castiliano vulgo! for here comes Sir Andrew Agueface.\n\n                    Enter SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK\n\n  AGUECHEEK. Sir Toby Belch! How now, Sir Toby Belch!\n  SIR TOBY. Sweet Sir Andrew!\n  AGUECHEEK. Bless you, fair shrew.\n  MARIA. And you too, sir.\n  SIR TOBY. Accost, Sir Andrew, accost.\n  AGUECHEEK. What's that?\n  SIR TOBY. My niece's chambermaid.\n  AGUECHEEK. Good Mistress Accost, I desire better acquaintance.\n  MARIA. My name is Mary, sir.\n  AGUECHEEK. Good Mistress Mary Accost-\n  SIR Toby. You mistake, knight. 'Accost' is front her, board her,\n    woo her, assail her.\n  AGUECHEEK. By my troth, I would not undertake her in this company.\n    Is that the meaning of 'accost'?\n  MARIA. Fare you well, gentlemen.\n  SIR TOBY. An thou let part so, Sir Andrew, would thou mightst never\n    draw sword again!\n  AGUECHEEK. An you part so, mistress, I would I might never draw\n    sword again. Fair lady, do you think you have fools in hand?\n  MARIA. Sir, I have not you by th' hand.\n  AGUECHEEK. Marry, but you shall have; and here's my hand.\n  MARIA. Now, sir, thought is free. I pray you, bring your hand to\n    th' buttry-bar and let it drink.\n  AGUECHEEK. Wherefore, sweetheart? What's your metaphor?\n  MARIA. It's dry, sir.\n  AGUECHEEK. Why, I think so; I am not such an ass but I can keep my\n    hand dry. But what's your jest?\n  MARIA. A dry jest, sir.\n  AGUECHEEK. Are you full of them?\n  MARIA. Ay, sir, I have them at my fingers' ends; marry, now I let\n    go your hand, I am barren.                        Exit MARIA\n  SIR TOBY. O knight, thou lack'st a cup of canary! When did I see\n    thee so put down?\n  AGUECHEEK. Never in your life, I think; unless you see canary put\n    me down. Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian\n    or an ordinary man has; but I am great eater of beef, and I\n    believe that does harm to my wit.\n  SIR TOBY. No question.\n  AGUECHEEK. An I thought that, I'd forswear it. I'll ride home\n    to-morrow, Sir Toby.\n  SIR TOBY. Pourquoi, my dear knight?\n  AGUECHEEK. What is 'pourquoi'- do or not do? I would I had bestowed\n    that time in the tongues that I have in fencing, dancing, and\n    bear-baiting. Oh, had I but followed the arts!\n  SIR TOBY. Then hadst thou had an excellent head of hair.\n  AGUECHEEK. Why, would that have mended my hair?\n  SIR TOBY. Past question; for thou seest it will not curl by nature.\n  AGUECHEEK. But it becomes me well enough, does't not?\n  SIR TOBY. Excellent; it hangs like flax on a distaff, and I hope to\n    see a huswife take thee between her legs and spin it off.\n  AGUECHEEK. Faith, I'll home to-morrow, Sir Toby. Your niece will\n    not be seen, or if she be, it's four to one she'll none of me;\n    the Count himself here hard by woos her.\n  SIR TOBY. She'll none o' th' Count; she'll not match above her\n    degree, neither in estate, years, nor wit; I have heard her\n    swear't. Tut, there's life in't, man.\n  AGUECHEEK. I'll stay a month longer. I am a fellow o' th' strangest\n    mind i' th' world; I delight in masques and revels sometimes\n    altogether.\n  SIR TOBY. Art thou good at these kickshawses, knight?\n  AGUECHEEK. As any man in Illyria, whatsoever he be, under the\n    degree of my betters; and yet I will not compare with an old man.\n  SIR TOBY. What is thy excellence in a galliard, knight?\n  AGUECHEEK. Faith, I can cut a caper.\n  SIR TOBY. And I can cut the mutton to't.\n  AGUECHEEK. And I think I have the back-trick simply as strong as\n    any man in Illyria.\n  SIR TOBY. Wherefore are these things hid? Wherefore have these\n    gifts a curtain before 'em? Are they like to take dust, like\n    Mistress Mall's picture? Why dost thou not go to church in a\n    galliard and come home in a coranto? My very walk should be a\n    jig; I would not so much as make water but in a sink-a-pace. What\n    dost thou mean? Is it a world to hide virtues in? I did think, by\n    the excellent constitution of thy leg, it was form'd under the\n    star of a galliard.\n  AGUECHEEK. Ay, 'tis strong, and it does indifferent well in\n    flame-colour'd stock. Shall we set about some revels?\n  SIR TOBY. What shall we do else? Were we not born under Taurus?\n  AGUECHEEK. Taurus? That's sides and heart.\n  SIR TOBY. No, sir; it is legs and thighs. Let me see the caper. Ha,\n    higher! Ha, ha, excellent!                            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nThe DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter VALENTINE, and VIOLA in man's attire\n\n  VALENTINE. If the Duke continue these favours towards you, Cesario,\n    you are like to be much advanc'd; he hath known you but three\n    days, and already you are no stranger.\n  VIOLA. You either fear his humour or my negligence, that you call\n    in question the continuance of his love. Is he inconstant, sir,\n    in his favours?\n  VALENTINE. No, believe me.\n\n                  Enter DUKE, CURIO, and ATTENDANTS\n\n  VIOLA. I thank you. Here comes the Count.\n  DUKE. Who saw Cesario, ho?\n  VIOLA. On your attendance, my lord, here.\n  DUKE. Stand you awhile aloof. Cesario,\n    Thou know'st no less but all; I have unclasp'd\n    To thee the book even of my secret soul.\n    Therefore, good youth, address thy gait unto her;\n    Be not denied access, stand at her doors,\n    And tell them there thy fixed foot shall grow\n    Till thou have audience.\n  VIOLA. Sure, my noble lord,\n    If she be so abandon'd to her sorrow\n    As it is spoke, she never will admit me.\n  DUKE. Be clamorous and leap all civil bounds,\n    Rather than make unprofited return.\n  VIOLA. Say I do speak with her, my lord, what then?\n  DUKE. O, then unfold the passion of my love,\n    Surprise her with discourse of my dear faith!\n    It shall become thee well to act my woes:\n    She will attend it better in thy youth\n    Than in a nuncio's of more grave aspect.\n  VIOLA. I think not so, my lord.\n  DUKE. Dear lad, believe it,\n    For they shall yet belie thy happy years\n    That say thou art a man: Diana's lip\n    Is not more smooth and rubious; thy small pipe\n    Is as the maiden's organ, shrill and sound,\n    And all is semblative a woman's part.\n    I know thy constellation is right apt\n    For this affair. Some four or five attend him-\n    All, if you will, for I myself am best\n    When least in company. Prosper well in this,\n    And thou shalt live as freely as thy lord\n    To call his fortunes thine.\n  VIOLA. I'll do my best\n    To woo your lady. [Aside] Yet, a barful strife!\n    Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nOLIVIA'S house\n\nEnter MARIA and CLOWN\n\n  MARIA. Nay, either tell me where thou hast been, or I will not open\n    my lips so wide as a bristle may enter in way of thy excuse; my\n    lady will hang thee for thy absence.\n  CLOWN. Let her hang me. He that is well hang'd in this world needs\n    to fear no colours.\n  MARIA. Make that good.\n  CLOWN. He shall see none to fear.\n  MARIA. A good lenten answer. I can tell thee where that saying was\n    born, of 'I fear no colours.'\n  CLOWN. Where, good Mistress Mary?\n  MARIA. In the wars; and that may you be bold to say in your\n    foolery.\n  CLOWN. Well, God give them wisdom that have it; and those that are\n    fools, let them use their talents.\n  MARIA. Yet you will be hang'd for being so long absent; or to be\n    turn'd away- is not that as good as a hanging to you?\n  CLOWN. Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage; and for turning\n    away, let summer bear it out.\n  MARIA. You are resolute, then?\n  CLOWN. Not so, neither; but I am resolv'd on two points.\n  MARIA. That if one break, the other will hold; or if both break,\n    your gaskins fall.\n  CLOWN. Apt, in good faith, very apt! Well, go thy way; if Sir Toby\n    would leave drinking, thou wert as witty a piece of Eve's flesh\n    as any in Illyria.\n  MARIA. Peace, you rogue, no more o' that. Here comes my lady. Make\n    your excuse wisely, you were best.                      Exit\n\n                     Enter OLIVIA and MALVOLIO\n\n  CLOWN. Wit, an't be thy will, put me into good fooling! Those wits\n    that think they have thee do very oft prove fools; and I that am\n    sure I lack thee may pass for a wise man. For what says\n    Quinapalus? 'Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.' God bless\n    thee, lady!\n  OLIVIA. Take the fool away.\n  CLOWN. Do you not hear, fellows? Take away the lady.\n  OLIVIA. Go to, y'are a dry fool; I'll no more of you. Besides, you\n    grow dishonest.\n  CLOWN. Two faults, madonna, that drink and good counsel will amend;\n    for give the dry fool drink, then is the fool not dry. Bid the\n    dishonest man mend himself: if he mend, he is no longer\n    dishonest; if he cannot, let the botcher mend him. Anything\n    that's mended is but patch'd; virtue that transgresses is but\n    patch'd with sin, and sin that amends is but patch'd with virtue.\n    If that this simple syllogism will serve, so; if it will not,\n    what remedy? As there is no true cuckold but calamity, so\n    beauty's a flower. The lady bade take away the fool; therefore, I\n    say again, take her away.\n  OLIVIA. Sir, I bade them take away you.\n  CLOWN. Misprision in the highest degree! Lady, 'Cucullus non facit\n    monachum'; that's as much to say as I wear not motley in my\n    brain. Good madonna, give me leave to prove you a fool.\n  OLIVIA. Can you do it?\n  CLOWN. Dexteriously, good madonna.\n  OLIVIA. Make your proof.\n  CLOWN. I must catechize you for it, madonna.\n    Good my mouse of virtue, answer me.\n  OLIVIA. Well, sir, for want of other idleness, I'll bide your\n    proof.\n  CLOWN. Good madonna, why mourn'st thou?\n  OLIVIA. Good fool, for my brother's death.\n  CLOWN. I think his soul is in hell, madonna.\n  OLIVIA. I know his soul is in heaven, fool.\n  CLOWN. The more fool, madonna, to mourn for your brother's soul\n    being in heaven. Take away the fool, gentlemen.\n  OLIVIA. What think you of this fool, Malvolio? Doth he not mend?\n  MALVOLIO. Yes, and shall do, till the pangs of death shake him.\n    Infirmity, that decays the wise, doth ever make the better fool.\n  CLOWN. God send you, sir, a speedy infirmity, for the better\n    increasing your folly! Sir Toby will be sworn that I am no fox;\n    but he will not pass his word for twopence that you are no fool.\n  OLIVIA. How say you to that, Malvolio?\n  MALVOLIO. I marvel your ladyship takes delight in such a barren\n    rascal; I saw him put down the other day with an ordinary fool\n    that has no more brain than a stone. Look you now, he's out of\n    his guard already; unless you laugh and minister occasion to him,\n    he is gagg'd. I protest I take these wise men that crow so at\n    these set kind of fools no better than the fools' zanies.\n  OLIVIA. O, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, and taste with a\n    distemper'd appetite. To be generous, guiltless, and of free\n    disposition, is to take those things for bird-bolts that you deem\n    cannon bullets. There is no slander in an allow'd fool, though he\n    do nothing but rail; nor no railing in known discreet man, though\n    he do nothing but reprove.\n  CLOWN. Now Mercury endue thee with leasing, for thou speak'st well\n    of fools!\n\n                             Re-enter MARIA\n\n  MARIA. Madam, there is at the gate a young gentleman much desires\n    to speak with you.\n  OLIVIA. From the Count Orsino, is it?\n  MARIA. I know not, madam; 'tis a fair young man, and well attended.\n  OLIVIA. Who of my people hold him in delay?\n  MARIA. Sir Toby, madam, your kinsman.\n  OLIVIA. Fetch him off, I pray you; he speaks nothing but madman.\n    Fie on him! [Exit MARIA] Go you, Malvolio: if it be a suit from\n    the Count, I am sick, or not at home- what you will to dismiss\n    it. [Exit MALVOLIO] Now you see, sir, how your fooling grows old,\n    and people dislike it.\n  CLOWN. Thou hast spoke for us, madonna, as if thy eldest son should\n    be a fool; whose skull Jove cram with brains! For- here he comes-\n    one of thy kin has a most weak pia mater.\n\n                         Enter SIR TOBY\n\n  OLIVIA. By mine honour, half drunk! What is he at the gate, cousin?\n  SIR TOBY. A gentleman.\n  OLIVIA. A gentleman! What gentleman?\n  SIR TOBY. 'Tis a gentleman here. [Hiccups] A plague o' these\n    pickle-herring! How now, sot!\n  CLOWN. Good Sir Toby!\n  OLIVIA. Cousin, cousin, how have you come so early by this\n    lethargy?\n  SIR TOBY. Lechery! I defy lechery. There's one at the gate.\n  OLIVIA. Ay, marry; what is he?\n  SIR TOBY. Let him be the devil an he will, I care not; give me\n    faith, say I. Well, it's all one.                       Exit\n  OLIVIA. What's a drunken man like, fool?\n  CLOWN. Like a drown'd man, a fool, and a madman: one draught above\n    heat makes him a fool; the second mads him; and a third drowns\n    him.\n  OLIVIA. Go thou and seek the crowner, and let him sit o' my coz;\n    for he's in the third degree of drink, he's drown'd; go look\n    after him.\n  CLOWN. He is but mad yet, madonna, and the fool shall look to the\n    madman.                                                 Exit\n\n                           Re-enter MALVOLIO\n\n  MALVOLIO. Madam, yond young fellow swears he will speak with you. I\n    told him you were sick; he takes on him to understand so much,\n     and therefore comes to speak with you. I told him you were\n    asleep; he seems to have a foreknowledge of that too, and\n    therefore comes to speak with you. What is to be said to him,\n    lady? He's fortified against any denial.\n  OLIVIA. Tell him he shall not speak with me.\n  MALVOLIO. Has been told so; and he says he'll stand at your door\n    like a sheriff's post, and be the supporter to a bench, but he'll\n    speak with you.\n  OLIVIA. What kind o' man is he?\n  MALVOLIO. Why, of mankind.\n  OLIVIA. What manner of man?\n  MALVOLIO. Of very ill manner; he'll speak with you, will you or no.\n  OLIVIA. Of what personage and years is he?\n  MALVOLIO. Not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy;\n    as a squash is before 'tis a peascod, or a codling when 'tis\n    almost an apple; 'tis with him in standing water, between boy and\n    man. He is very well-favour'd, and he speaks very shrewishly; one\n    would think his mother's milk were scarce out of him.\n  OLIVIA. Let him approach. Call in my gentlewoman.\n  MALVOLIO. Gentlewoman, my lady calls.                     Exit\n\n                          Re-enter MARIA\n\n  OLIVIA. Give me my veil; come, throw it o'er my face;\n    We'll once more hear Orsino's embassy.\n\n                             Enter VIOLA\n\n  VIOLA. The honourable lady of the house, which is she?\n  OLIVIA. Speak to me; I shall answer for her. Your will?\n  VIOLA. Most radiant, exquisite, and unmatchable beauty- I pray you\n    tell me if this be the lady of the house, for I never saw her. I\n    would be loath to cast away my speech; for, besides that it is\n    excellently well penn'd, I have taken great pains to con it. Good\n    beauties, let me sustain no scorn; I am very comptible, even to\n    the least sinister usage.\n  OLIVIA. Whence came you, sir?\n  VIOLA. I can say little more than I have studied, and that\n    question's out of my part. Good gentle one, give me modest\n    assurance if you be the lady of the house, that I may proceed in\n    my speech.\n  OLIVIA. Are you a comedian?\n  VIOLA. No, my profound heart; and yet, by the very fangs of malice\n    I swear, I am not that I play. Are you the lady of the house?\n  OLIVIA. If I do not usurp myself, I am.\n  VIOLA. Most certain, if you are she, you do usurp yourself; for\n    what is yours to bestow is not yours to reserve. But this is from\n    my commission. I will on with my speech in your praise, and then\n    show you the heart of my message.\n  OLIVIA. Come to what is important in't. I forgive you the praise.\n  VIOLA. Alas, I took great pains to study it, and 'tis poetical.\n  OLIVIA. It is the more like to be feigned; I pray you keep it in. I\n    heard you were saucy at my gates, and allow'd your approach\n    rather to wonder at you than to hear you. If you be not mad, be\n    gone; if you have reason, be brief; 'tis not that time of moon\n    with me to make one in so skipping dialogue.\n  MARIA. Will you hoist sail, sir? Here lies your way.\n  VIOLA. No, good swabber, I am to hull here a little longer.\n    Some mollification for your giant, sweet lady.\n  OLIVIA. Tell me your mind.\n  VIOLA. I am a messenger.\n  OLIVIA. Sure, you have some hideous matter to deliver, when the\n    courtesy of it is so fearful. Speak your office.\n  VIOLA. It alone concerns your ear. I bring no overture of war, no\n    taxation of homage: I hold the olive in my hand; my words are as\n    full of peace as matter.\n  OLIVIA. Yet you began rudely. What are you? What would you?\n  VIOLA. The rudeness that hath appear'd in me have I learn'd from my\n    entertainment. What I am and what I would are as secret as\n    maidenhead- to your cars, divinity; to any other's, profanation.\n  OLIVIA. Give us the place alone; we will hear this divinity.\n    [Exeunt MARIA and ATTENDANTS] Now, sir, what is your text?\n  VIOLA. Most sweet lady-\n  OLIVIA. A comfortable doctrine, and much may be said of it.\n    Where lies your text?\n  VIOLA. In Orsino's bosom.\n  OLIVIA. In his bosom! In what chapter of his bosom?\n  VIOLA. To answer by the method: in the first of his heart.\n  OLIVIA. O, I have read it; it is heresy. Have you no more to say?\n  VIOLA. Good madam, let me see your face.\n  OLIVIA. Have you any commission from your lord to negotiate with my\n    face? You are now out of your text; but we will draw the curtain\n    and show you the picture. [Unveiling] Look you, sir, such a one I\n    was this present. Is't not well done?\n  VIOLA. Excellently done, if God did all.\n  OLIVIA. 'Tis in grain, sir; 'twill endure wind and weather.\n  VIOLA. 'Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white\n    Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on.\n    Lady, you are the cruell'st she alive,\n    If you will lead these graces to the grave,\n    And leave the world no copy.\n  OLIVIA. O, sir, I will not be so hard-hearted; I will give out\n    divers schedules of my beauty. It shall be inventoried, and every\n    particle and utensil labell'd to my will: as- item, two lips\n    indifferent red; item, two grey eyes with lids to them; item, one\n    neck, one chin, and so forth. Were you sent hither to praise me?\n  VIOLA. I see you what you are: you are too proud;\n    But, if you were the devil, you are fair.\n    My lord and master loves you- O, such love\n    Could be but recompens'd though you were crown'd\n    The nonpareil of beauty!\n  OLIVIA. How does he love me?\n  VIOLA. With adorations, fertile tears,\n    With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire.\n  OLIVIA. Your lord does know my mind; I cannot love him.\n    Yet I suppose him virtuous, know him noble,\n    Of great estate, of fresh and stainless youth;\n    In voices well divulg'd, free, learn'd, and valiant,\n    And in dimension and the shape of nature\n    A gracious person; but yet I cannot love him.\n    He might have took his answer long ago.\n  VIOLA. If I did love you in my master's flame,\n    With such a suff'ring, such a deadly life,\n    In your denial I would find no sense;\n    I would not understand it.\n  OLIVIA. Why, what would you?\n  VIOLA. Make me a willow cabin at your gate,\n    And call upon my soul within the house;\n    Write loyal cantons of contemned love\n    And sing them loud even in the dead of night;\n    Halloo your name to the reverberate hals,\n    And make the babbling gossip of the air\n    Cry out 'Olivia!' O, you should not rest\n    Between the elements of air and earth\n    But you should pity me!\n  OLIVIA. You might do much.\n    What is your parentage?\n  VIOLA. Above my fortunes, yet my state is well:\n    I am a gentleman.\n  OLIVIA. Get you to your lord.\n    I cannot love him; let him send no more-\n    Unless perchance you come to me again\n    To tell me how he takes it. Fare you well.\n    I thank you for your pains; spend this for me.\n  VIOLA. I am no fee'd post, lady; keep your purse;\n    My master, not myself, lacks recompense.\n    Love make his heart of flint that you shall love;\n    And let your fervour, like my master's, be\n    Plac'd in contempt! Farewell, fair cruelty.             Exit\n  OLIVIA. 'What is your parentage?'\n    'Above my fortunes, yet my state is well:\n    I am a gentleman.' I'll be sworn thou art;\n    Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions, and spirit,\n    Do give thee five-fold blazon. Not too fast! Soft, soft!\n    Unless the master were the man. How now!\n    Even so quickly may one catch the plague?\n    Methinks I feel this youth's perfections\n    With an invisible and subtle stealth\n    To creep in at mine eyes. Well, let it be.\n    What ho, Malvolio!\n\n                        Re-enter MALVOLIO\n\n  MALVOLIO. Here, madam, at your service.\n  OLIVIA. Run after that same peevish messenger,\n    The County's man. He left this ring behind him,\n    Would I or not. Tell him I'll none of it.\n    Desire him not to flatter with his lord,\n    Nor hold him up with hopes; I am not for him.\n    If that the youth will come this way to-morrow,\n    I'll give him reasons for't. Hie thee, Malvolio.\n  MALVOLIO. Madam, I will.                                  Exit\n  OLIVIA. I do I know not what, and fear to find\n    Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind.\n    Fate, show thy force: ourselves we do not owe;\n    What is decreed must be; and be this so!                Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nThe sea-coast\n\nEnter ANTONIO and SEBASTIAN\n\n  ANTONIO. Will you stay no longer; nor will you not that I go with\n    you?\n  SEBASTIAN. By your patience, no. My stars shine darkly over me; the\n    malignancy of my fate might perhaps distemper yours; therefore I\n    shall crave of you your leave that I may bear my evils alone. It\n    were a bad recompense for your love to lay any of them on you.\n  ANTONIO. Let me know of you whither you are bound.\n  SEBASTIAN. No, sooth, sir; my determinate voyage is mere\n    extravagancy. But I perceive in you so excellent a touch of\n    modesty that you will not extort from me what I am willing to\n    keep in; therefore it charges me in manners the rather to express\n    myself. You must know of me then, Antonio, my name is Sebastian,\n    which I call'd Roderigo; my father was that Sebastian of\n    Messaline whom I know you have heard of. He left behind him\n    myself and a sister, both born in an hour; if the heavens had\n    been pleas'd, would we had so ended! But you, sir, alter'd that;\n    for some hour before you took me from the breach of the sea was\n    my sister drown'd.\n  ANTONIO. Alas the day!\n  SEBASTIAN. A lady, sir, though it was said she much resembled me,\n    was yet of many accounted beautiful; but though I could not with\n    such estimable wonder overfar believe that, yet thus far I will\n    boldly publish her: she bore mind that envy could not but call\n    fair. She is drown'd already, sir, with salt water, though I seem\n    to drown her remembrance again with more.\n  ANTONIO. Pardon me, sir, your bad entertainment.\n  SEBASTIAN. O good Antonio, forgive me your trouble.\n  ANTONIO. If you will not murder me for my love, let me be your\n    servant.\n  SEBASTIAN. If you will not undo what you have done- that is, kill\n    him whom you have recover'd-desire it not. Fare ye well at once;\n    my bosom is full of kindness, and I am yet so near the manners of\n    my mother that, upon the least occasion more, mine eyes will tell\n    tales of me. I am bound to the Count Orsino's court. Farewell.\n Exit\n  ANTONIO. The gentleness of all the gods go with thee!\n    I have many cnemies in Orsino's court,\n    Else would I very shortly see thee there.\n    But come what may, I do adore thee so\n    That danger shall seem sport, and I will go.            Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA street\n\nEnter VIOLA and MALVOLIO at several doors\n\n  MALVOLIO. Were you not ev'n now with the Countess Olivia?\n  VIOLA. Even now, sir; on a moderate pace I have since arriv'd but\n    hither.\n  MALVOLIO. She returns this ring to you, sir; you might have saved\n    me my pains, to have taken it away yourself. She adds, moreover,\n    that you should put your lord into a desperate assurance she will\n    none of him. And one thing more: that you be never so hardy to\n    come again in his affairs, unless it be to report your lord's\n    taking of this. Receive it so.\n  VIOLA. She took the ring of me; I'll none of it.\n  MALVOLIO. Come, sir, you peevishly threw it to her; and her will is\n    it should be so return'd. If it be worth stooping for, there it\n    lies in your eye; if not, be it his that finds it.\n Exit\n  VIOLA. I left no ring with her; what means this lady?\n    Fortune forbid my outside have not charm'd her!\n    She made good view of me; indeed, so much\n    That methought her eyes had lost her tongue,\n    For she did speak in starts distractedly.\n    She loves me, sure: the cunning of her passion\n    Invites me in this churlish messenger.\n    None of my lord's ring! Why, he sent her none.\n    I am the man. If it be so- as 'tis-\n    Poor lady, she were better love a dream.\n    Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness\n    Wherein the pregnant enemy does much.\n    How easy is it for the proper-false\n    In women's waxen hearts to set their forms!\n    Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we!\n    For such as we are made of, such we be.\n    How will this fadge? My master loves her dearly,\n    And I, poor monster, fond as much on him;\n    And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me.\n    What will become of this? As I am man,\n    My state is desperate for my master's love;\n    As I am woman- now alas the day!-\n    What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe!\n    O Time, thou must untangle this, not I;\n    It is too hard a knot for me t' untie!                  Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nOLIVIA'S house\n\nEnter SIR TOBY and SIR ANDREW\n\n  SIR TOBY. Approach, Sir Andrew. Not to be abed after midnight is to\n    be up betimes; and 'diluculo surgere' thou know'st-\n  AGUECHEEK. Nay, by my troth, I know not; but I know to be up late\n    is to be up late.\n  SIR TOBY. A false conclusion! I hate it as an unfill'd can. To be\n    up after midnight and to go to bed then is early; so that to go\n    to bed after midnight is to go to bed betimes. Does not our lives\n    consist of the four elements?\n  AGUECHEEK. Faith, so they say; but I think it rather consists of\n    eating and drinking.\n  SIR TOBY. Th'art a scholar; let us therefore eat and drink.\n    Marian, I say! a stoup of wine.\n\n                          Enter CLOWN\n\n  AGUECHEEK. Here comes the fool, i' faith.\n  CLOWN. How now, my hearts! Did you never see the picture of 'we\n    three'?\n  SIR TOBY. Welcome, ass. Now let's have a catch.\n  AGUECHEEK. By my troth, the fool has an excellent breast. I had\n    rather than forty shillings I had such a leg, and so sweet a\n    breath to sing, as the fool has. In sooth, thou wast in very\n    gracious fooling last night, when thou spok'st of Pigrogromitus,\n    of the Vapians passing the equinoctial of Queubus; 'twas very\n    good, i' faith. I sent thee sixpence for thy leman; hadst it?\n  CLOWN. I did impeticos thy gratillity; for Malvolio's nose is no\n    whipstock. My lady has a white hand, and the Myrmidons are no\n    bottle-ale houses.\n  AGUECHEEK. Excellent! Why, this is the best fooling, when all is\n    done. Now, a song.\n  SIR TOBY. Come on, there is sixpence for you. Let's have a song.\n  AGUECHEEK. There's a testril of me too; if one knight give a-\nCLOWN. Would you have a love-song, or a song of good life?\n  SIR TOBY. A love-song, a love-song.\n  AGUECHEEK. Ay, ay; I care not for good life.\n\n                         CLOWN sings\n\n         O mistress mine, where are you roaming?\n         O, stay and hear; your true love's coming,\n           That can sing both high and low.\n           Trip no further, pretty sweeting;\n           Journeys end in lovers meeting,\n           Every wise man's son doth know.\n\n  AGUECHEEK. Excellent good, i' faith!\n  SIR TOBY. Good, good!\n\n                         CLOWN sings\n\n           What is love? 'Tis not hereafter;\n           Present mirth hath present laughter;\n             What's to come is still unsure.\n           In delay there lies no plenty,\n           Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty;\n             Youth's a stuff will not endure.\n\n  AGUECHEEK. A mellifluous voice, as I am true knight.\n  SIR TOBY. A contagious breath.\n  AGUECHEEK. Very sweet and contagious, i' faith.\n  SIR TOBY. To hear by the nose, it is dulcet in contagion. But shall\n    we make the welkin dance indeed? Shall we rouse the night-owl in\n    a catch that will draw three souls out of one weaver? Shall we do\n    that?\n  AGUECHEEK. An you love me, let's do't. I am dog at a catch.\n  CLOWN. By'r lady, sir, and some dogs will catch well.\n  AGUECHEEK. Most certain. Let our catch be 'Thou knave.'\n  CLOWN. 'Hold thy peace, thou knave' knight? I shall be constrain'd\n    in't to call thee knave, knight.\n  AGUECHEEK. 'Tis not the first time I have constrained one to call\n    me knave. Begin, fool: it begins 'Hold thy peace.'\n  CLOWN. I shall never begin if I hold my peace.\n  AGUECHEEK. Good, i' faith! Come, begin.           [Catch sung]\n\n                         Enter MARIA\n\n  MARIA. What a caterwauling do you keep here! If my lady have not\n    call'd up her steward Malvolio, and bid him turn you out of\n    doors, never trust me.\n  SIR TOBY. My lady's a Cataian, we are politicians, Malvolio's a\n    Peg-a-Ramsey, and                                    [Sings]\n                  Three merry men be we.\n    Am not I consanguineous? Am I not of her blood? Tilly-vally,\n    lady.                                                [Sings]\n              There dwelt a man in Babylon,\n              Lady, lady.\n  CLOWN. Beshrew me, the knight's in admirable fooling.\n  AGUECHEEK. Ay, he does well enough if he be dispos'd, and so do I\n    too; he does it with a better grace, but I do it more natural.\n  SIR TOBY. [Sings] O' the twelfth day of December-\n  MARIA. For the love o' God, peace!\n\n                       Enter MALVOLIO\n\n  MALVOLIO. My masters, are you mad? Or what are you? Have you no\n    wit, manners, nor honesty, but to gabble like tinkers at this\n    time of night? Do ye make an ale-house of my lady's house, that\n    ye squeak out your coziers' catches without any mitigation or\n    remorse of voice? Is there no respect of place, persons, nor\n    time, in you?\n  SIR TOBY. We did keep time, sir, in our catches. Sneck up!\n  MALVOLIO. Sir Toby, I must be round with you. My lady bade me tell\n    you that, though she harbours you as her kins-man, she's nothing\n    allied to your disorders. If you can separate yourself and your\n    misdemeanours, you are welcome to the house; if not, and it would\n    please you to take leave of her, she is very willing to bid you\n    farewell.\n  SIR TOBY. [Sings] Farewell, dear heart, since I must needs be gone.\n  MARIA. Nay, good Sir Toby.\n  CLOWN. [Sings] His eyes do show his days are almost done.\n  MALVOLIO. Is't even so?\n  SIR TOBY. [Sings] But I will never die.           [Falls down]\n  CLOWN. [Sings] Sir Toby, there you lie.\n  MALVOLIO. This is much credit to you.\n  SIR TOBY. [Sings] Shall I bid him go?\n  CLOWN. [Sings] What an if you do?\n  SIR TOBY. [Sings] Shall I bid him go, and spare not?\n  CLOWN. [Sings] O, no, no, no, no, you dare not.\n  SIR TOBY. [Rising] Out o' tune, sir! Ye lie. Art any more than a\n    steward? Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall\n    be no more cakes and ale?\n  CLOWN. Yes, by Saint Anne; and ginger shall be hot i' th' mouth\n    too.\n SIR TOBY. Th' art i' th' right. Go, sir, rub your chain with crumbs.\n    A stoup of wine, Maria!\n  MALVOLIO. Mistress Mary, if you priz'd my lady's favour at anything\n    more than contempt, you would not give means for this uncivil\n    rule; she shall know of it, by this hand.\n Exit\n  MARIA. Go shake your ears.\n  AGUECHEEK. 'Twere as good a deed as to drink when a man's ahungry,\n    to challenge him the field, and then to break promise with him\n    and make a fool of him.\n  SIR TOBY. Do't, knight. I'll write thee a challenge; or I'll\n    deliver thy indignation to him by word of mouth.\n  MARIA. Sweet Sir Toby, be patient for to-night; since the youth of\n    the Count's was to-day with my lady, she is much out of quiet.\n    For Monsieur Malvolio, let me alone with him; if I do not gull\n    him into a nayword, and make him a common recreation, do not\n    think I have wit enough to lie straight in my bed. I know I can\n    do it.\n  SIR TOBY. Possess us, possess us; tell us something of him.\n  MARIA. Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of Puritan.\n  AGUECHEEK. O, if I thought that, I'd beat him like a dog.\n  SIR TOBY. What, for being a Puritan? Thy exquisite reason, dear\n    knight?\n  AGUECHEEK. I have no exquisite reason for't, but I have reason good\n    enough.\n  MARIA. The devil a Puritan that he is, or anything constantly but a\n    time-pleaser; an affection'd ass that cons state without book and\n     utters it by great swarths; the best persuaded of himself, so\n    cramm'd, as he thinks, with excellencies that it is his grounds\n    of faith that all that look on him love him; and on that vice in\n    him will my revenge find notable cause to work.\n  SIR TOBY. What wilt thou do?\n  MARIA. I will drop in his way some obscure epistles of love;\n    wherein, by the colour of his beard, the shape of his leg, the\n    manner of his gait, the expressure of his eye, forehead, and\n    complexion, he shall find himself most feelingly personated. I\n    can write very like my lady, your niece; on forgotten matter we\n    can hardly make distinction of our hands.\n  SIR TOBY. Excellent! I smell a device.\n  AGUECHEEK. I have't in my nose too.\n  SIR TOBY. He shall think, by the letters that thou wilt drop, that\n    they come from my niece, and that she's in love with him.\n  MARIA. My purpose is, indeed, a horse of that colour.\n  AGUECHEEK. And your horse now would make him an ass.\n  MARIA. Ass, I doubt not.\n  AGUECHEEK. O, 'twill be admirable!\n  MARIA. Sport royal, I warrant you. I know my physic will work with\n    him. I will plant you two, and let the fool make a third, where\n    he shall find the letter; observe his construction of it. For\n    this night, to bed, and dream on the event. Farewell.\n Exit\n  SIR TOBY. Good night, Penthesilea.\n  AGUECHEEK. Before me, she's a good wench.\n  SIR TOBY. She's a beagle true-bred, and one that adores me.\n    What o' that?\n  AGUECHEEK. I was ador'd once too.\n  SIR TOBY. Let's to bed, knight. Thou hadst need send for more\n    money.\n  AGUECHEEK. If I cannot recover your niece, I am a foul way out.\n  SIR TOBY. Send for money, knight; if thou hast her not i' th' end,\n    call me Cut.\n  AGUECHEEK. If I do not, never trust me; take it how you will.\n  SIR TOBY. Come, come, I'll go burn some sack; 'tis too late to go\n    to bed now. Come, knight; come, knight.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nThe DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter DUKE, VIOLA, CURIO, and OTHERS\n\n  DUKE. Give me some music. Now, good morrow, friends.\n    Now, good Cesario, but that piece of song,\n    That old and antique song we heard last night;\n    Methought it did relieve my passion much,\n    More than light airs and recollected terms\n    Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times.\n    Come, but one verse.\n  CURIO. He is not here, so please your lordship, that should sing\n    it.\n  DUKE. Who was it?\n  CURIO. Feste, the jester, my lord; a fool that the Lady Olivia's\n    father took much delight in. He is about the house.\n  DUKE. Seek him out, and play the tune the while.\n                                       Exit CURIO. [Music plays]\n    Come hither, boy. If ever thou shalt love,\n    In the sweet pangs of it remember me;\n    For such as I am all true lovers are,\n    Unstaid and skittish in all motions else\n    Save in the constant image of the creature\n    That is belov'd. How dost thou like this tune?\n  VIOLA. It gives a very echo to the seat\n    Where Love is thron'd.\n  DUKE. Thou dost speak masterly.\n    My life upon't, young though thou art, thine eye\n    Hath stay'd upon some favour that it loves;\n    Hath it not, boy?\n  VIOLA. A little, by your favour.\n  DUKE. What kind of woman is't?\n  VIOLA. Of your complexion.\n  DUKE. She is not worth thee, then. What years, i' faith?\n  VIOLA. About your years, my lord.\n  DUKE. Too old, by heaven! Let still the woman take\n    An elder than herself; so wears she to him,\n    So sways she level in her husband's heart.\n    For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,\n    Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm,\n    More longing, wavering, sooner lost and won,\n    Than women's are.\n  VIOLA. I think it well, my lord.\n  DUKE. Then let thy love be younger than thyself,\n    Or thy affection cannot hold the bent;\n    For women are as roses, whose fair flow'r\n    Being once display'd doth fall that very hour.\n  VIOLA. And so they are; alas, that they are so!\n    To die, even when they to perfection grow!\n\n                  Re-enter CURIO and CLOWN\n\n  DUKE. O, fellow, come, the song we had last night.\n    Mark it, Cesario; it is old and plain;\n    The spinsters and the knitters in the sun,\n    And the free maids that weave their thread with bones,\n    Do use to chant it; it is silly sooth,\n    And dallies with the innocence of love,\n    Like the old age.\n  CLOWN. Are you ready, sir?\n  DUKE. Ay; prithee, sing.                               [Music]\n\n                     FESTE'S SONG\n\n            Come away, come away, death;\n          And in sad cypress let me be laid;\n            Fly away, fly away, breath,\n          I am slain by a fair cruel maid.\n          My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,\n                 O, prepare it!\n          My part of death no one so true\n                 Did share it.\n\n            Not a flower, not a flower sweet,\n          On my black coffin let there be strown;\n            Not a friend, not a friend greet\n          My poor corpse where my bones shall be thrown;\n          A thousand thousand to save,\n                 Lay me, O, where\n          Sad true lover never find my grave,\n                 To weep there!\n\n  DUKE. There's for thy pains.\n  CLOWN. No pains, sir; I take pleasure in singing, sir.\n  DUKE. I'll pay thy pleasure, then.\n  CLOWN. Truly, sir, and pleasure will be paid one time or another.\n  DUKE. Give me now leave to leave thee.\n  CLOWN. Now the melancholy god protect thee; and the tailor make thy\n    doublet of changeable taffeta, for thy mind is a very opal. I\n    would have men of such constancy put to sea, that their business\n    might be everything, and their intent everywhere: for that's it\n    that always makes a good voyage of nothing. Farewell.\n                                                      Exit CLOWN\n  DUKE. Let all the rest give place.\n                                     Exeunt CURIO and ATTENDANTS\n    Once more, Cesario,\n    Get thee to yond same sovereign cruelty.\n    Tell her my love, more noble than the world,\n    Prizes not quantity of dirty lands;\n    The parts that fortune hath bestow'd upon her,\n    Tell her I hold as giddily as Fortune;\n    But 'tis that miracle and queen of gems\n    That Nature pranks her in attracts my soul.\n  VIOLA. But if she cannot love you, sir?\n  DUKE. I cannot be so answer'd.\n  VIOLA. Sooth, but you must.\n    Say that some lady, as perhaps there is,\n    Hath for your love as great a pang of heart\n    As you have for Olivia. You cannot love her;\n    You tell her so. Must she not then be answer'd?\n  DUKE. There is no woman's sides\n    Can bide the beating of so strong a passion\n    As love doth give my heart; no woman's heart\n    So big to hold so much; they lack retention.\n    Alas, their love may be call'd appetite-\n    No motion of the liver, but the palate-\n    That suffer surfeit, cloyment, and revolt;\n    But mine is all as hungry as the sea,\n    And can digest as much. Make no compare\n    Between that love a woman can bear me\n    And that I owe Olivia.\n  VIOLA. Ay, but I know-\n  DUKE. What dost thou know?\n  VIOLA. Too well what love women to men may owe.\n    In faith, they are as true of heart as we.\n    My father had a daughter lov'd a man,\n    As it might be perhaps, were I a woman,\n    I should your lordship.\n  DUKE. And what's her history?\n  VIOLA. A blank, my lord. She never told her love,\n    But let concealment, like a worm i' th' bud,\n    Feed on her damask cheek. She pin'd in thought;\n    And with a green and yellow melancholy\n    She sat like Patience on a monument,\n    Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?\n    We men may say more, swear more, but indeed\n    Our shows are more than will; for still we prove\n    Much in our vows, but little in our love.\n  DUKE. But died thy sister of her love, my boy?\n  VIOLA. I am all the daughters of my father's house,\n    And all the brothers too- and yet I know not.\n    Sir, shall I to this lady?\n  DUKE. Ay, that's the theme.\n    To her in haste. Give her this jewel; say\n    My love can give no place, bide no denay.             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nOLIVIA'S garden\n\nEnter SIR TOBY, SIR ANDREW, and FABIAN\n\n  SIR TOBY. Come thy ways, Signior Fabian.\n  FABIAN. Nay, I'll come; if I lose a scruple of this sport let me be\n    boil'd to death with melancholy.\n  SIR TOBY. Wouldst thou not be glad to have the niggardly rascally\n    sheep-biter come by some notable shame?\n  FABIAN. I would exult, man; you know he brought me out o' favour\n    with my lady about a bear-baiting here.\n  SIR TOBY. To anger him we'll have the bear again; and we will fool\n    him black and blue- shall we not, Sir Andrew?\n  AGUECHEEK. And we do not, it is pity of our lives.\n\n                       Enter MARIA\n\n  SIR TOBY. Here comes the little villain.\n    How now, my metal of India!\n  MARIA. Get ye all three into the box-tree. Malvolio's coming down\n    this walk. He has been yonder i' the sun practising behaviour to\n    his own shadow this half hour. Observe him, for the love of\n    mockery, for I know this letter will make a contemplative idiot\n    of him. Close, in the name of jesting! [As the men hide she drops\n    a letter] Lie thou there; for here comes the trout that must be\n    caught with tickling.\n Exit\n\n                      Enter MALVOLIO\n\n  MALVOLIO. 'Tis but fortune; all is fortune. Maria once told me she\n    did affect me; and I have heard herself come thus near, that,\n    should she fancy, it should be one of my complexion. Besides, she\n    uses me with a more exalted respect than any one else that\n    follows her. What should I think on't?\n  SIR TOBY. Here's an overweening rogue!\n  FABIAN. O, peace! Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him;\n    how he jets under his advanc'd plumes!\n  AGUECHEEK. 'Slight, I could so beat the rogue-\n  SIR TOBY. Peace, I say.\n  MALVOLIO. To be Count Malvolio!\n  SIR TOBY. Ah, rogue!\n  AGUECHEEK. Pistol him, pistol him.\n  SIR TOBY. Peace, peace!\n  MALVOLIO. There is example for't: the Lady of the Strachy married\n    the yeoman of the wardrobe.\n  AGUECHEEK. Fie on him, Jezebel!\n  FABIAN. O, peace! Now he's deeply in; look how imagination blows\n    him.\n  MALVOLIO. Having been three months married to her, sitting in my\n    state-\n  SIR TOBY. O, for a stone-bow to hit him in the eye!\n  MALVOLIO. Calling my officers about me, in my branch'd velvet gown,\n    having come from a day-bed- where I have left Olivia sleeping-\n  SIR TOBY. Fire and brimstone!\n  FABIAN. O, peace, peace!\n  MALVOLIO. And then to have the humour of state; and after a demure\n    travel of regard, telling them I know my place as I would they\n    should do theirs, to ask for my kinsman Toby-\n  SIR TOBY. Bolts and shackles!\n  FABIAN. O, peace, peace, peace! Now, now.\n  MALVOLIO. Seven of my people, with an obedient start, make out for\n    him. I frown the while, and perchance wind up my watch, or play\n    with my- some rich jewel. Toby approaches; curtsies there to me-\n  SIR TOBY. Shall this fellow live?\n  FABIAN. Though our silence be drawn from us with cars, yet peace.\n  MALVOLIO. I extend my hand to him thus, quenching my familiar smile\n   with an austere regard of control-\n  SIR TOBY. And does not Toby take you a blow o' the lips then?\n  MALVOLIO. Saying 'Cousin Toby, my fortunes having cast me on your\n    niece give me this prerogative of speech'-\n  SIR TOBY. What, what?\n  MALVOLIO. 'You must amend your drunkenness'-\n  SIR TOBY. Out, scab!\n  FABIAN. Nay, patience, or we break the sinews of our plot.\n  MALVOLIO. 'Besides, you waste the treasure of your time with a\n    foolish knight'-\n  AGUECHEEK. That's me, I warrant you.\n  MALVOLIO. 'One Sir Andrew.'\n  AGUECHEEK. I knew 'twas I; for many do call me fool.\n  MALVOLIO. What employment have we here?\n                                          [Taking up the letter]\n  FABIAN. Now is the woodcock near the gin.\n  SIR TOBY. O, peace! And the spirit of humours intimate reading\n    aloud to him!\n  MALVOLIO. By my life, this is my lady's hand: these be her very\n    C's, her U's, and her T's; and thus makes she her great P's. It\n    is, in contempt of question, her hand.\n  AGUECHEEK. Her C's, her U's, and her T's. Why that?\n  MALVOLIO. [Reads] 'To the unknown belov'd, this, and my good\n    wishes.' Her very phrases! By your leave, wax. Soft! And the\n    impressure her Lucrece with which she uses to seal; 'tis my lady.\n    To whom should this be?\n  FABIAN. This wins him, liver and all.\n  MALVOLIO. [Reads]\n\n                    Jove knows I love,\n                      But who?\n                    Lips, do not move;\n                    No man must know.'\n\n    'No man must know.' What follows? The numbers alter'd!\n    'No man must know.' If this should be thee, Malvolio?\n  SIR TOBY. Marry, hang thee, brock!\n  MALVOLIO. [Reads]\n\n             'I may command where I adore;\n               But silence, like a Lucrece knife,\n             With bloodless stroke my heart doth gore;\n               M. O. A. I. doth sway my life.'\n\n  FABIAN. A fustian riddle!\n  SIR TOBY. Excellent wench, say I.\n  MALVOLIO. 'M. O. A. I. doth sway my life.'\n    Nay, but first let me see, let me see, let me see.\n  FABIAN. What dish o' poison has she dress'd him!\n  SIR TOBY. And with what wing the staniel checks at it!\n  MALVOLIO. 'I may command where I adore.' Why, she may command me: I\n    serve her; she is my lady. Why, this is evident to any formal\n    capacity; there is no obstruction in this. And the end- what\n    should that alphabetical position portend? If I could make that\n    resemble something in me. Softly! M. O. A. I.-\n  SIR TOBY. O, ay, make up that! He is now at a cold scent.\n  FABIAN. Sowter will cry upon't for all this, though it be as rank\n    as a fox.\n  MALVOLIO. M- Malvolio; M- why, that begins my name.\n  FABIAN. Did not I say he would work it out?\n    The cur is excellent at faults.\n  MALVOLIO. M- But then there is no consonancy in the sequel; that\n    suffers under probation: A should follow, but O does.\n  FABIAN. And O shall end, I hope.\n  SIR TOBY. Ay, or I'll cudgel him, and make him cry 'O!'\n  MALVOLIO. And then I comes behind.\n  FABIAN. Ay, an you had any eye behind you, you might see more\n    detraction at your heels than fortunes before you.\n  MALVOLIO. M. O. A. I. This simulation is not as the former; and\n    yet, to crush this a little, it would bow to me, for every one of\n    these letters are in my name. Soft! here follows prose.\n                                                         [Reads]\n      'If this fall into thy hand, revolve. In my stars I am above\n    thee; but be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some\n    achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em. Thy\n    Fates open their hands; let thy blood and spirit embrace them;\n    and, to inure thyself to what thou art like to be, cast thy\n    humble slough and appear fresh. Be opposite with a kinsman, surly\n    with servants; let thy tongue tang arguments of state; put\n    thyself into the trick of singularity. She thus advises thee that\n    sighs for thee. Remember who commended thy yellow stockings, and\n    wish'd to see thee ever cross-garter'd. I say, remember, Go to,\n    thou art made, if thou desir'st to be so; if not, let me see thee\n    a steward still, the fellow of servants, and not worthy to touch\n    Fortune's fingers. Farewell. She that would alter services with\n    thee,\n                                         THE FORTUNATE-UNHAPPY.'\n\n    Daylight and champain discovers not more. This is open. I will be\n    proud, I will read politic authors, I will baffle Sir Toby, I\n    will wash off gross acquaintance, I will be point-devise the very\n    man. I do not now fool myself to let imagination jade me; for\n    every reason excites to this, that my lady loves me. She did\n    commend my yellow stockings of late, she did praise my leg being\n    cross-garter'd; and in this she manifests herself to my love, and\n    with a kind of injunction drives me to these habits of her\n    liking. I thank my stars I am happy. I will be strange, stout, in\n    yellow stockings, and cross-garter'd, even with the swiftness of\n    putting on. Jove and my stars be praised! Here is yet a\n    postscript.\n\n    [Reads] 'Thou canst not choose but know who I am. If thou\n    entertain'st my love, let it appear in thy smiling; thy smiles\n    become thee well. Therefore in my presence still smile, dear my\n    sweet, I prithee.'\n\n    Jove, I thank thee. I will smile; I will do everything that thou\n    wilt have me.                                           Exit\n  FABIAN. I will not give my part of this sport for a pension of\n    thousands to be paid from the Sophy.\n  SIR TOBY. I could marry this wench for this device.\n  AGUECHEEK. So could I too.\n  SIR TOBY. And ask no other dowry with her but such another jest.\n\n                          Enter MARIA\n\n  AGUECHEEK. Nor I neither.\n  FABIAN. Here comes my noble gull-catcher.\n  SIR TOBY. Wilt thou set thy foot o' my neck?\n  AGUECHEEK. Or o' mine either?\n  SIR TOBY. Shall I play my freedom at tray-trip, and become thy\n    bond-slave?\n  AGUECHEEK. I' faith, or I either?\n  SIR TOBY. Why, thou hast put him in such a dream that when the\n    image of it leaves him he must run mad.\n  MARIA. Nay, but say true; does it work upon him?\n  SIR TOBY. Like aqua-vita! with a midwife.\n  AIARIA. If you will then see the fruits of the sport, mark his\n    first approach before my lady. He will come to her in yellow\n    stockings, and 'tis a colour she abhors, and cross-garter'd, a\n    fashion she detests; and he will smile upon her, which will now\n    be so unsuitable to her disposition, being addicted to a\n    melancholy as she is, that it cannot but turn him into a notable\n    contempt. If you will see it, follow me.\n  SIR TOBY. To the gates of Tartar, thou most excellent devil of wit!\n  AGUECHEEK. I'll make one too.                           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nOLIVIA'S garden\n\nEnter VIOLA, and CLOWN with a tabor\n\n  VIOLA. Save thee, friend, and thy music!\n    Dost thou live by thy tabor?\n  CLOWN. No, sir, I live by the church.\n  VIOLA. Art thou a churchman?\n  CLOWN. No such matter, sir: I do live by the church; for I do live\n    at my house, and my house doth stand by the church.\n  VIOLA. So thou mayst say the king lies by a beggar, if a beggar\n    dwell near him; or the church stands by thy tabor, if thy tabor\n    stand by the church.\n  CLOWN. You have said, sir. To see this age! A sentence is but a\n    chev'ril glove to a good wit. How quickly the wrong side may be\n    turn'd outward!\n  VIOLA. Nay, that's certain; they that dally nicely with words may\n    quickly make them wanton.\n  CLOWN. I would, therefore, my sister had had name, sir.\n  VIOLA. Why, man?\n  CLOWN. Why, sir, her name's a word; and to dally with that word\n    might make my sister wanton. But indeed words are very rascals\n    since bonds disgrac'd them.\n  VIOLA. Thy reason, man?\n  CLOWN. Troth, sir, I can yield you none without words, and words\n    are grown so false I am loath to prove reason with them.\n  VIOLA. I warrant thou art a merry fellow and car'st for nothing.\n  CLOWN. Not so, sir; I do care for something; but in my conscience,\n    sir, I do not care for you. If that be to care for nothing, sir,\n    I would it would make you invisible.\n  VIOLA. Art not thou the Lady Olivia's fool?\n  CLOWN. No, indeed, sir; the Lady Olivia has no folly; she will keep\n    no fool, sir, till she be married; and fools are as like husbands\n    as pilchers are to herrings- the husband's the bigger. I am\n    indeed not her fool, but her corrupter of words.\n  VIOLA. I saw thee late at the Count Orsino's.\n  CLOWN. Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun- it\n    shines everywhere. I would be sorry, sir, but the fool should be\n    as oft with your master as with my mistress: think I saw your\n    wisdom there.\n  VIOLA. Nay, an thou pass upon me, I'll no more with thee.\n    Hold, there's expenses for thee.             [Giving a coin]\n  CLOWN. Now Jove, in his next commodity of hair, send the a beard!\n  VIOLA. By my troth, I'll tell thee, I am almost sick for one;\n    [Aside] though I would not have it grow on my chin.- Is thy lady\n    within?\n  CLOWN. Would not a pair of these have bred, sir?\n  VIOLA. Yes, being kept together and put to use.\n  CLOWN. I would play Lord Pandarus of Phrygia, sir, to bring a\n    Cressida to this Troilus.\n  VIOLA. I understand you, sir; 'tis well begg'd.\n                                           [Giving another coin]\n  CLOWN. The matter, I hope, is not great, sir, begging but a beggar:\n    Cressida was a beggar. My lady is within, sir. I will construe to\n    them whence you come; who you are and what you would are out of\n    my welkin- I might say 'element' but the word is overworn.\n                                                      Exit CLOWN\n  VIOLA. This fellow is wise enough to play the fool;\n    And to do that well craves a kind of wit.\n    He must observe their mood on whom he jests,\n    The quality of persons, and the time;\n    And, like the haggard, check at every feather\n    That comes before his eye. This is a practice\n    As full of labour as a wise man's art;\n    For folly that he wisely shows is fit;\n    But wise men, folly-fall'n, quite taint their wit.\n\n                Enter SIR TOBY and SIR ANDREW\n\n  SIR TOBY. Save you, gentleman!\n  VIOLA. And you, sir.\n  AGUECHEEK. Dieu vous garde, monsieur.\n  VIOLA. Et vous aussi; votre serviteur.\n  AGUECHEEK. I hope, sir, you are; and I am yours.\n  SIR TOBY. Will you encounter the house? My niece is desirous you\n    should enter, if your trade be to her.\n  VIOLA. I am bound to your niece, sir; I mean, she is the list of my\n    voyage.\n  SIR TOBY. Taste your legs, sir; put them to motion.\n  VIOLA. My legs do better understand me, sir, than I understand what\n    you mean by bidding me taste my legs.\n  SIR TOBY. I mean, to go, sir, to enter.\n  VIOLA. I will answer you with gait and entrance. But we are\n    prevented.\n\n                  Enter OLIVIA and MARIA\n\n    Most excellent accomplish'd lady, the heavens rain odours on you!\n  AGUECHEEK. That youth's a rare courtier- 'Rain odours' well!\n  VIOLA. My matter hath no voice, lady, but to your own most pregnant\n    and vouchsafed car.\n  AGUECHEEK. 'Odours,' 'pregnant,' and 'vouchsafed'- I'll get 'em all\n    three all ready.\n  OLIVIA. Let the garden door be shut, and leave me to my hearing.\n    [Exeunt all but OLIVIA and VIOLA] Give me your hand, sir.\n  VIOLA. My duty, madam, and most humble service.\n  OLIVIA. What is your name?\n  VIOLA. Cesario is your servant's name, fair Princess.\n  OLIVIA. My servant, sir! 'Twas never merry world\n    Since lowly feigning was call'd compliment.\n    Y'are servant to the Count Orsino, youth.\n  VIOLA. And he is yours, and his must needs be yours:\n    Your servant's servant is your servant, madam.\n  OLIVIA. For him, I think not on him; for his thoughts,\n    Would they were blanks rather than fill'd with me!\n  VIOLA. Madam, I come to whet your gentle thoughts\n    On his behalf.\n  OLIVIA. O, by your leave, I pray you:\n    I bade you never speak again of him;\n    But, would you undertake another suit,\n    I had rather hear you to solicit that\n    Than music from the spheres.\n  VIOLA. Dear lady-\n  OLIVIA. Give me leave, beseech you. I did send,\n    After the last enchantment you did here,\n    A ring in chase of you; so did I abuse\n    Myself, my servant, and, I fear me, you.\n    Under your hard construction must I sit,\n    To force that on you in a shameful cunning\n    Which you knew none of yours. What might you think?\n    Have you not set mine honour at the stake,\n    And baited it with all th' unmuzzled thoughts\n    That tyrannous heart can think? To one of your receiving\n    Enough is shown: a cypress, not a bosom,\n    Hides my heart. So, let me hear you speak.\n  VIOLA. I Pity YOU.\n  OLIVIA. That's a degree to love.\n  VIOLA. No, not a grize; for 'tis a vulgar proof\n    That very oft we pity enemies.\n  OLIVIA. Why, then, methinks 'tis time to smile again.\n    O world, how apt the poor are to be proud!\n    If one should be a prey, how much the better\n    To fall before the lion than the wolf!       [Clock strikes]\n    The clock upbraids me with the waste of time.\n    Be not afraid, good youth; I will not have you;\n    And yet, when wit and youth is come to harvest,\n    Your wife is like to reap a proper man.\n    There lies your way, due west.\n  VIOLA. Then westward-ho!\n    Grace and good disposition attend your ladyship!\n    You'll nothing, madam, to my lord by me?\n  OLIVIA. Stay.\n    I prithee tell me what thou think'st of me.\n  VIOLA. That you do think you are not what you are.\n  OLIVIA. If I think so, I think the same of you.\n  VIOLA. Then think you right: I am not what I am.\n  OLIVIA. I would you were as I would have you be!\n  VIOLA. Would it be better, madam, than I am?\n    I wish it might, for now I am your fool.\n  OLIVIA. O, what a deal of scorn looks beautiful\n    In the contempt and anger of his lip!\n    A murd'rous guilt shows not itself more soon\n    Than love that would seem hid: love's night is noon.\n    Cesario, by the roses of the spring,\n    By maidhood, honour, truth, and every thing,\n    I love thee so that, maugre all thy pride,\n    Nor wit nor reason can my passion hide.\n    Do not extort thy reasons from this clause,\n    For that I woo, thou therefore hast no cause;\n    But rather reason thus with reason fetter:\n    Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.\n  VIOLA. By innocence I swear, and by my youth,\n    I have one heart, one bosom, and one truth,\n    And that no woman has; nor never none\n    Shall mistress be of it, save I alone.\n    And so adieu, good madam; never more\n    Will I my master's tears to you deplore.\n  OLIVIA. Yet come again; for thou perhaps mayst move\n    That heart which now abhors to like his love.         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nOLIVIA'S house\n\nEnter SIR TOBY, SIR ANDREW and FABIAN\n\n  AGUECHEEK. No, faith, I'll not stay a jot longer.\n  SIR TOBY. Thy reason, dear venom, give thy reason.\n  FABIAN. You must needs yield your reason, Sir Andrew.\n  AGUECHEEK. Marry, I saw your niece do more favours to the Count's\n    servingman than ever she bestow'd upon me; I saw't i' th'\n    orchard.\n  SIR TOBY. Did she see thee the while, old boy? Tell me that.\n  AGUECHEEK. As plain as I see you now.\n  FABIAN. This was a great argument of love in her toward you.\n  AGUECHEEK. 'Slight! will you make an ass o' me?\n  FABIAN. I will prove it legitimate, sir, upon the oaths of judgment\n    and reason.\n  SIR TOBY. And they have been grand-jurymen since before Noah was a\n    sailor.\n  FABIAN. She did show favour to the youth in your sight only to\n    exasperate you, to awake your dormouse valour, to put fire in\n    your heart and brimstone in your liver. You should then have\n    accosted her; and with some excellent jests, fire-new from the\n    mint, you should have bang'd the youth into dumbness. This was\n    look'd for at your hand, and this was baulk'd. The double gilt of\n    this opportunity you let time wash off, and you are now sail'd\n    into the north of my lady's opinion; where you will hang like an\n    icicle on Dutchman's beard, unless you do redeem it by some\n    laudable attempt either of valour or policy.\n  AGUECHEEK. An't be any way, it must be with valour, for policy I\n    hate; I had as lief be a Brownist as a politician.\n  SIR TOBY. Why, then, build me thy fortunes upon the basis of\n    valour. Challenge me the Count's youth to fight with him; hurt\n    him in eleven places. My niece shall take note of it; and assure\n    thyself there is no love-broker in the world can more prevail in\n    man's commendation with woman than report of valour.\n  FABIAN. There is no way but this, Sir Andrew.\n  AGUECHEEK. Will either of you bear me a challenge to him?\n  SIR TOBY. Go, write it in a martial hand; be curst and brief; it is\n    no matter how witty, so it be eloquent and full of invention.\n    Taunt him with the license of ink; if thou thou'st him some\n    thrice, it shall not be amiss; and as many lies as will lie in\n    thy sheet of paper, although the sheet were big enough for the\n    bed of Ware in England, set 'em down; go about it. Let there be\n    gall enough in thy ink, though thou write with a goose-pen, no\n    matter. About it.\n  AGUECHEEK. Where shall I find you?\n  SIR TOBY. We'll call thee at the cubiculo. Go.\n                                                 Exit SIR ANDREW\n  FABIAN. This is a dear manakin to you, Sir Toby.\n  SIR TOBY. I have been dear to him, lad- some two thousand strong,\n    or so.\n  FABIAN. We shall have a rare letter from him; but you'll not\n    deliver't?\n  SIR TOBY. Never trust me then; and by all means stir on the youth\n    to an answer. I think oxen and wainropes cannot hale them\n    together. For Andrew, if he were open'd and you find so much\n    blood in his liver as will clog the foot of a flea, I'll eat the\n    rest of th' anatomy.\n  FABIAN. And his opposite, the youth, bears in his visage no great\n    presage of cruelty.\n\n                         Enter MARIA\n\n  SIR TOBY. Look where the youngest wren of nine comes.\n  MARIA. If you desire the spleen, and will laugh yourselves into\n    stitches, follow me. Yond gull Malvolio is turned heathen, a very\n    renegado; for there is no Christian that means to be saved by\n    believing rightly can ever believe such impossible passages of\n    grossness. He's in yellow stockings.\n  SIR TOBY. And cross-garter'd?\n  MARIA. Most villainously; like a pedant that keeps a school i' th'\n    church. I have dogg'd him like his murderer. He does obey every\n    point of the letter that I dropp'd to betray him. He does smile\n    his face into more lines than is in the new map with the\n    augmentation of the Indies. You have not seen such a thing as\n    'tis; I  can hardly forbear hurling things at him. I know my lady\n    will strike him; if she do, he'll smile and take't for a great\n    favour.\n  SIR TOBY. Come, bring us, bring us where he is.         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nA street\n\nEnter SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO\n\n  SEBASTIAN. I would not by my will have troubled you;\n    But since you make your pleasure of your pains,\n    I will no further chide you.\n  ANTONIO. I could not stay behind you: my desire,\n    More sharp than filed steel, did spur me forth;\n    And not all love to see you- though so much\n    As might have drawn one to a longer voyage-\n    But jealousy what might befall your travel,\n    Being skilless in these parts; which to a stranger,\n    Unguided and unfriended, often prove\n    Rough and unhospitable. My willing love,\n    The rather by these arguments of fear,\n    Set forth in your pursuit.\n  SEBASTIAN. My kind Antonio,\n    I can no other answer make but thanks,\n    And thanks, and ever thanks; and oft good turns\n    Are shuffl'd off with such uncurrent pay;\n    But were my worth as is my conscience firm,\n    You should find better dealing. What's to do?\n    Shall we go see the reliques of this town?\n  ANTONIO. To-morrow, sir; best first go see your lodging.\n  SEBASTIAN. I am not weary, and 'tis long to night;\n    I pray you, let us satisfy our eyes\n    With the memorials and the things of fame\n    That do renown this city.\n  ANTONIO. Would you'd pardon me.\n    I do not without danger walk these streets:\n    Once in a sea-fight 'gainst the Count his galleys\n    I did some service; of such note, indeed,\n    That, were I ta'en here, it would scarce be answer'd.\n  SEBASTIAN. Belike you slew great number of his people.\n  ANTONIO.Th' offence is not of such a bloody nature;\n    Albeit the quality of the time and quarrel\n    Might well have given us bloody argument.\n    It might have since been answer'd in repaying\n    What we took from them; which, for traffic's sake,\n    Most of our city did. Only myself stood out;\n    For which, if I be lapsed in this place,\n    I shall pay dear.\n  SEBASTIAN. Do not then walk too open.\n  ANTONIO. It doth not fit me. Hold, sir, here's my purse;\n    In the south suburbs, at the Elephant,\n    Is best to lodge. I will bespeak our diet,\n    Whiles you beguile the time and feed your knowledge\n    With viewing of the town; there shall you have me.\n  SEBASTIAN. Why I your purse?\n  ANTONIO. Haply your eye shall light upon some toy\n    You have desire to purchase; and your store,\n    I think, is not for idle markets, sir.\n  SEBASTIAN. I'll be your purse-bearer, and leave you for\n    An hour.\n  ANTONIO. To th' Elephant.\n  SEBASTIAN. I do remember.                               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nOLIVIA'S garden\n\nEnter OLIVIA and MARIA\n\n  OLIVIA. I have sent after him; he says he'll come.\n    How shall I feast him? What bestow of him?\n    For youth is bought more oft than begg'd or borrow'd.\n    I speak too loud.\n    Where's Malvolio? He is sad and civil,\n    And suits well for a servant with my fortunes.\n    Where is Malvolio?\n  MARIA. He's coming, madam; but in very strange manner.\n    He is sure possess'd, madam.\n  OLIVIA. Why, what's the matter? Does he rave?\n  MARIA. No, madam, he does nothing but smile. Your ladyship were\n    best to have some guard about you if he come; for sure the man is\n    tainted in's wits.\n  OLIVIA. Go call him hither.                         Exit MARIA\n    I am as mad as he,\n    If sad and merry madness equal be.\n\n               Re-enter MARIA with MALVOLIO\n\n    How now, Malvolio!\n  MALVOLIO. Sweet lady, ho, ho.\n  OLIVIA. Smil'st thou?\n    I sent for thee upon a sad occasion.\n  MALVOLIO. Sad, lady? I could be sad. This does make some\n    obstruction in the blood, this cross-gartering; but what of that?\n    If it please the eye of one, it is with me as the very true\n    sonnet is: 'Please one and please all.'\n  OLIVIA. Why, how dost thou, man? What is the matter with thee?\n  MALVOLIO. Not black in my mind, though yellow in my legs.\n    It did come to his hands, and commands shall be executed.\n    I think we do know the sweet Roman hand.\n  OLIVIA. Wilt thou go to bed, Malvolio?\n  MALVOLIO. To bed? Ay, sweetheart, and I'll come to thee.\n  OLIVIA. God comfort thee! Why dost thou smile so, and kiss thy hand\n    so oft?\n  MARIA. How do you, Malvolio?\n  MALVOLIO. At your request? Yes, nightingales answer daws!\n  MARIA. Why appear you with this ridiculous boldness before my lady?\n  MALVOLIO. 'Be not afraid of greatness.' 'Twas well writ.\n  OLIVIA. What mean'st thou by that, Malvolio?\n  AIALVOLIO. 'Some are born great,'-\n  OLIVIA. Ha?\n  MALVOLIO. 'Some achieve greatness,'-\n  OLIVIA. What say'st thou?\n  MALVOLIO. 'And some have greatness thrust upon them.'\n  OLIVIA. Heaven restore thee!\n  MALVOLIO. 'Remember who commended thy yellow stockings,'-\n  OLIVIA. 'Thy yellow stockings?'\n  MALVOLIO. 'And wish'd to see thee cross-garterd.'\n  OLIVIA. 'Cross-garter'd?'\n  MALVOLIO. 'Go to, thou an made, if thou desir'st to be so';-\n  OLIVIA. Am I made?\n  MALVOLIO. 'If not, let me see thee a servant still.'\n  OLIVIA. Why, this is very midsummer madness.\n\n                     Enter SERVANT\n\n  SERVANT. Madam, the young gentleman of the Count Orsino's is\n    return'd; I could hardly entreat him back; he attends your\n    ladyship's pleasure.\n  OLIVIA. I'll come to him. [Exit SERVANT] Good Maria, let this\n    fellow be look'd to. Where's my cousin Toby? Let some of my\n    people have a special care of him; I would not have him miscarry\n    for the half of my dowry.\n                                         Exeunt OLIVIA and MARIA\n  MALVOLIO. O, ho! do you come near me now? No worse man than Sir\n    Toby to look to me! This concurs directly with the letter: she\n    sends him on purpose, that I may appear stubborn to him; for she\n    incites me to that in the letter. 'Cast thy humble slough,' says\n    she. 'Be opposite with kinsman, surly with servants; let thy\n    tongue tang with arguments of state; put thyself into the trick\n    of singularity' and consequently sets down the manner how, as: a\n    sad face, a reverend carriage, a slow tongue, in the habit of\n    some sir of note, and so forth. I have lim'd her; but it is\n    Jove's doing, and Jove make me thankful! And when she went away\n    now- 'Let this fellow be look'd to.' 'Fellow,' not 'Malvolio' nor\n    after my degree, but 'fellow.' Why, everything adheres together,\n    that no dram of a scruple, no scruple of a scruple, no obstacle,\n    no incredulous or unsafe circumstance- What can be said? Nothing\n    that can be can come between me and the full prospect of my\n    hopes. Well, Jove, not I, is the doer of this, and he is to be\n    thanked.\n\n             Re-enter MARIA, with SIR TOBY and FABIAN\n\n  SIR TOBY. Which way is he, in the name of sanctity? If all the\n    devils of hell be drawn in little, and Legion himself possess'd\n    him, yet I'll speak to him.\n  FABIAN. Here he is, here he is. How is't with you, sir?\n  SIR TOBY. How is't with you, man?\n  MALVOLIO. Go off; I discard you. Let me enjoy my private; go off.\n  MARIA. Lo, how hollow the fiend speaks within him! Did not I tell\n    you? Sir Toby, my lady prays you to have a care of him.\n  MALVOLIO. Ah, ha! does she so?\n  SIR TOBY. Go to, go to; peace, peace; we must deal gently with him.\n    Let me alone. How do you, Malvolio? How is't with you? What, man,\n    defy the devil; consider, he's an enemy to mankind.\n  MALVOLIO. Do you know what you say?\n  MARIA. La you, an you speak ill of the devil, how he takes it at\n    heart! Pray God he be not bewitched.\n  FABIAN. Carry his water to th' wise woman.\n  MARIA. Marry, and it shall be done to-morrow morning, if I live. My\n    lady would not lose him for more than I'll say.\n  MALVOLIO. How now, mistress!\n  MARIA. O Lord!\n  SIR TOBY. Prithee hold thy peace; this is not the way. Do you not\n    see you move him? Let me alone with him.\n  FABIAN. No way but gentleness- gently, gently. The fiend is rough,\n    and will not be roughly us'd.\n  SIR TOBY. Why, how now, my bawcock!\n    How dost thou, chuck?\n  MALVOLIO. Sir!\n  SIR TOBY. Ay, Biddy, come with me. What, man, 'tis not for gravity\n    to play at cherrypit with Satan. Hang him, foul collier!\n  MARIA. Get him to say his prayers, good Sir Toby, get him to pray.\n  MALVOLIO. My prayers, minx!\n  MARIA. No, I warrant you, he will not hear of godliness.\n  MALVOLIO. Go, hang yourselves all! You are idle shallow things; I\n    am not of your element; you shall know more hereafter.\n Exit\n  SIR TOBY. Is't possible?\n  FABIAN. If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as\n    an improbable fiction.\n  SIR TOBY. His very genius hath taken the infection of the device,\n    man.\n  MARIA. Nay, pursue him now, lest the device take air and taint.\n  FABIAN. Why, we shall make him mad indeed.\n  MARIA. The house will be the quieter.\n  SIR TOBY. Come, we'll have him in a dark room and bound. My niece\n    is already in the belief that he's mad. We may carry it thus, for\n    our pleasure and his penance, till our very pastime, tired out of\n    breath, prompt us to have mercy on him; at which time we will\n    bring the device to the bar and crown thee for a finder of\n    madmen. But see, but see.\n\n                     Enter SIR ANDREW\n\n  FABIAN. More matter for a May morning.\n  AGUECHEEK. Here's the challenge; read it. I warrant there's vinegar\n    and pepper in't.\n  FABIAN. Is't so saucy?\n  AGUECHEEK. Ay, is't, I warrant him; do but read.\n  SIR TOBY. Give me. [Reads] 'Youth, whatsoever thou art, thou art\n    but a scurvy fellow.'\n  FABIAN. Good and valiant.\n  SIR TOBY. [Reads] 'Wonder not, nor admire not in thy mind, why I do\n    call thee so, for I will show thee no reason for't.'\n  FABIAN. A good note; that keeps you from the blow of the law.\n  SIR TOBY. [Reads] 'Thou com'st to the Lady Olivia, and in my sight\n    she uses thee kindly; but thou liest in thy throat; that is not\n    the matter I challenge thee for.'\n  FABIAN. Very brief, and to exceeding good sense- less.\n  SIR TOBY. [Reads] 'I will waylay thee going home; where if it be\n    thy chance to kill me'-\n  FABIAN. Good.\n  SIR TOBY. 'Thou kill'st me like a rogue and a villain.'\n  FABIAN. Still you keep o' th' windy side of the law. Good!\n  SIR TOBY. [Reads] 'Fare thee well; and God have mercy upon one of\n    our souls! He may have mercy upon mine; but my hope is better,\n    and so look to thyself. Thy friend, as thou usest him, and thy\n    sworn enemy,\n                                              ANDREW AGUECHEEK.'\n\n    If this letter move him not, his legs cannot. I'll give't him.\n  MARIA. You may have very fit occasion for't; he is now in some\n    commerce with my lady, and will by and by depart.\n  SIR TOBY. Go, Sir Andrew; scout me for him at the corner of the\n    orchard, like a bum-baily; so soon as ever thou seest him, draw;\n    and as thou draw'st, swear horrible; for it comes to pass oft\n    that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharply twang'd\n    off, gives manhood more approbation than ever proof itself would\n    have earn'd him. Away.\n  AGUECHEEK. Nay, let me alone for swearing.                Exit\n  SIR TOBY. Now will not I deliver his letter; for the behaviour of\n    the young gentleman gives him out to be of good capacity and\n    breeding; his employment between his lord and my niece confirms\n    no less. Therefore this letter, being so excellently ignorant,\n    will breed no terror in the youth: he will find it comes from a\n    clodpole. But, sir, I will deliver his challenge by word of\n    mouth, set upon Aguecheek notable report of valour, and drive the\n    gentleman- as know his youth will aptly receive it- into a most\n    hideous opinion of his rage, skill, fury, and impetuosity. This\n    will so fright them both that they will kill one another by the\n    look, like cockatrices.\n\n                Re-enter OLIVIA. With VIOLA\n\n  FABIAN. Here he comes with your niece; give them way till he take\n    leave, and presently after him.\n  SIR TOBY. I will meditate the while upon some horrid message for a\n    challenge.\n                              Exeunt SIR TOBY, FABIAN, and MARIA\n  OLIVIA. I have said too much unto a heart of stone,\n    And laid mine honour too unchary out;\n    There's something in me that reproves my fault;\n    But such a headstrong potent fault it is\n    That it but mocks reproof.\n  VIOLA. With the same haviour that your passion bears\n    Goes on my master's griefs.\n  OLIVIA. Here, wear this jewel for me; 'tis my picture.\n    Refuse it not; it hath no tongue to vex you.\n    And I beseech you come again to-morrow.\n    What shall you ask of me that I'll deny,\n    That honour sav'd may upon asking give?\n  VIOLA. Nothing but this- your true love for my master.\n  OLIVIA. How with mine honour may I give him that\n    Which I have given to you?\n  VIOLA. I will acquit you.\n  OLIVIA. Well, come again to-morrow. Fare thee well;\n    A fiend like thee might bear my soul to hell.           Exit\n\n              Re-enter SIR TOBY and SIR FABIAN\n\n  SIR TOBY. Gentleman, God save thee.\n  VIOLA. And you, sir.\n  SIR TOBY. That defence thou hast, betake thee tot. Of what nature\n    the wrongs are thou hast done him, I know not; but thy\n    intercepter, full of despite, bloody as the hunter, attends\n    thee at the orchard end. Dismount thy tuck, be yare in thy\n    preparation, for thy assailant is quick, skilful, and deadly.\n  VIOLA. You mistake, sir; I am sure no man hath any quarrel to me;\n    my remembrance is very free and clear from any image of offence\n    done to any man.\n  SIR TOBY. You'll find it otherwise, I assure you; therefore, if you\n    hold your life at any price, betake you to your guard; for your\n    opposite hath in him what youth, strength, skill, and wrath, can\n    furnish man withal.\n  VIOLA. I pray you, sir, what is he?\n  SIR TOBY. He is knight, dubb'd with unhatch'd rapier and on carpet\n    consideration; but he is a devil in private brawl. Souls and\n    bodies hath he divorc'd three; and his incensement at this moment\n    is so implacable that satisfaction can be none but by pangs of\n    death and sepulchre. Hob-nob is his word- give't or take't.\n  VIOLA. I will return again into the house and desire some conduct\n    of the lady. I am no fighter. I have heard of some kind of men\n    that put quarrels purposely on others to taste their valour;\n    belike this is a man of that quirk.\n  SIR TOBY. Sir, no; his indignation derives itself out of a very\n    competent injury; therefore, get you on and give him his desire.\n    Back you shall not to the house, unless you undertake that with\n    me which with as much safety you might answer him; therefore on,\n    or strip your sword stark naked; for meddle you must, that's\n    certain, or forswear to wear iron about you.\n  VIOLA. This is as uncivil as strange. I beseech you do me this\n    courteous office as to know of the knight what my offence to him\n    is: it is something of my negligence, nothing of my purpose.\n  SIR TOBY. I Will do so. Signior Fabian, stay you by this gentleman\n    till my return.                                Exit SIR TOBY\n  VIOLA. Pray you, sir, do you know of this matter?\n  FABIAN. I know the knight is incens'd against you, even to a mortal\n    arbitrement; but nothing of the circumstance more.\n  VIOLA. I beseech you, what manner of man is he?\n  FABIAN. Nothing of that wonderful promise, to read him by his form,\n    as you are like to find him in the proof of his valour. He is\n    indeed, sir, the most skilful, bloody, and fatal opposite that\n    you could possibly have found in any part of Illyria. Will you\n    walk towards him? I will make your peace with him if I can.\n  VIOLA. I shall be much bound to you for't. I am one that would\n    rather go with sir priest than sir knight. I care not who knows\n    so much of my mettle.                                 Exeunt\n\n                Re-enter SIR TOBY With SIR ANDREW\n\n  SIR TOBY. Why, man, he's a very devil; I have not seen such a\n    firago. I had a pass with him, rapier, scabbard, and all, and he\n    gives me the stuck in with such a mortal motion that it is\n    inevitable; and on the answer, he pays you as surely as your feet\n    hit the ground they step on. They say he has been fencer to the\n    Sophy.\n  AGUECHEEK. Pox on't, I'll not meddle with him.\n  SIR TOBY. Ay, but he will not now be pacified; Fabian can scarce\n    hold him yonder.\n  AGUECHEEK. Plague on't; an I thought he had been valiant, and so\n    cunning in fence, I'd have seen him damn'd ere I'd have\n    challeng'd him. Let him let the matter slip, and I'll give him\n    my horse, grey Capilet.\n  SIR TOBY. I'll make the motion. Stand here, make a good show on't;\n    this shall end without the perdition of souls. [Aside] Marry,\n    I'll ride your horse as well as I ride you.\n\n              Re-enter FABIAN and VIOLA\n\n    [To FABIAN] I have his horse to take up the quarrel; I have\n    persuaded him the youth's a devil.\n  FABIAN. [To SIR TOBY] He is as horribly conceited of him; and pants\n   and looks pale, as if a bear were at his heels.\n  SIR TOBY. [To VIOLA] There's no remedy, sir: he will fight with you\n    for's oath sake. Marry, he hath better bethought him of his\n    quarrel, and he finds that now scarce to be worth talking of.\n    Therefore draw for the supportance of his vow; he protests he\n    will not hurt you.\n  VIOLA. [Aside] Pray God defend me! A little thing would make me\n    tell them how much I lack of a man.\n  FABIAN. Give ground if you see him furious.\n  SIR TOBY. Come, Sir Andrew, there's no remedy; the gentleman will,\n    for his honour's sake, have one bout with you; he cannot by the\n    duello avoid it; but he has promis'd me, as he is a gentleman and\n    a soldier, he will not hurt you. Come on; to't.\n  AGUECHEEK. Pray God he keep his oath!                [They draw]\n\n                      Enter ANTONIO\n\n  VIOLA. I do assure you 'tis against my will.\n  ANTONIO. Put up your sword. If this young gentleman\n    Have done offence, I take the fault on me:\n    If you offend him, I for him defy you.\n  SIR TOBY. You, sir! Why, what are you?\n  ANTONIO. One, sir, that for his love dares yet do more\n    Than you have heard him brag to you he will.\n  SIR TOBY. Nay, if you be an undertaker, I am for you.\n                                                     [They draw]\n\n                         Enter OFFICERS\n\n  FABIAN. O good Sir Toby, hold! Here come the officers.\n  SIR TOBY. [To ANTONIO] I'll be with you anon.\n  VIOLA. Pray, sir, put your sword up, if you please.\n  AGUECHEEK. Marry, will I, sir; and for that I promis'd you, I'll be\n    as good as my word. He will bear you easily and reins well.\n  FIRST OFFICER. This is the man; do thy office.\n  SECOND OFFICER. Antonio, I arrest thee at the suit\n    Of Count Orsino.\n  ANTONIO. You do mistake me, sir.\n  FIRST OFFICER. No, sir, no jot; I know your favour well,\n    Though now you have no sea-cap on your head.\n    Take him away; he knows I know him well.\n  ANTONIO. I Must obey. [To VIOLA] This comes with seeking you;\n    But there's no remedy; I shall answer it.\n    What will you do, now my necessity\n    Makes me to ask you for my purse? It grieves me\n    Much more for what I cannot do for you\n    Than what befalls myself. You stand amaz'd;\n    But be of comfort.\n  SECOND OFFICER. Come, sir, away.\n  ANTONIO. I must entreat of you some of that money.\n  VIOLA. What money, sir?\n    For the fair kindness you have show'd me here,\n    And part being prompted by your present trouble,\n    Out of my lean and low ability\n    I'll lend you something. My having is not much;\n    I'll make division of my present with you;\n    Hold, there's half my coffer.\n  ANTONIO. Will you deny me now?\n    Is't possible that my deserts to you\n    Can lack persuasion? Do not tempt my misery,\n    Lest that it make me so unsound a man\n    As to upbraid you with those kindnesses\n    That I have done for you.\n  VIOLA. I know of none,\n    Nor know I you by voice or any feature.\n    I hate ingratitude more in a man\n    Than lying, vainness, babbling drunkenness,\n    Or any taint of vice whose strong corruption\n    Inhabits our frail blood.\n  ANTONIO. O heavens themselves!\n  SECOND OFFICER. Come, sir, I pray you go.\n  ANTONIO. Let me speak a little. This youth that you see here\n    I snatch'd one half out of the jaws of death,\n    Reliev'd him with such sanctity of love,\n    And to his image, which methought did promise\n    Most venerable worth, did I devotion.\n  FIRST OFFICER. What's that to us? The time goes by; away.\n  ANTONIO. But, O, how vile an idol proves this god!\n    Thou hast, Sebastian, done good feature shame.\n    In nature there's no blemish but the mind:\n    None can be call'd deform'd but the unkind.\n    Virtue is beauty; but the beauteous evil\n    Are empty trunks, o'erflourish'd by the devil.\n  FIRST OFFICER. The man grows mad. Away with him.\n    Come, come, sir.\n  ANTONIO. Lead me on.                        Exit with OFFICERS\n  VIOLA. Methinks his words do from such passion fly\n    That he believes himself; so do not I.\n    Prove true, imagination, O, prove true,\n    That I, dear brother, be now ta'en for you!\n  SIR TOBY. Come hither, knight; come hither, Fabian; we'll whisper\n    o'er a couplet or two of most sage saws.\n  VIOLA. He nam'd Sebastian. I my brother know\n    Yet living in my glass; even such and so\n    In favour was my brother; and he went\n    Still in this fashion, colour, ornament,\n    For him I imitate. O, if it prove,\n    Tempests are kind, and salt waves fresh in love!        Exit\n  SIR TOBY. A very dishonest paltry boy, and more a coward than a\n    hare. His dishonesty appears in leaving his friend here in\n    necessity and denying him; and for his cowardship, ask Fabian.\n  FABIAN. A coward, a most devout coward, religious in it.\n  AGUECHEEK. 'Slid, I'll after him again and beat him.\n  SIR TOBY. Do; cuff him soundly, but never draw thy sword.\n  AGUECHEEK. And I do not-                                  Exit\n  FABIAN. Come, let's see the event.\n  SIR TOBY. I dare lay any money 'twill be nothing yet.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nBefore OLIVIA'S house\n\nEnter SEBASTIAN and CLOWN\n\n  CLOWN. Will you make me believe that I am not sent for you?\n  SEBASTIAN. Go to, go to, thou art a foolish fellow; let me be clear\n    of thee.\n  CLOWN. Well held out, i' faith! No, I do not know you; nor I am not\n    sent to you by my lady, to bid you come speak with her; nor your\n    name is not Master Cesario; nor this is not my nose neither.\n    Nothing that is so is so.\n  SEBASTIAN. I prithee vent thy folly somewhere else.\n    Thou know'st not me.\n  CLOWN. Vent my folly! He has heard that word of some great man, and\n    now applies it to a fool. Vent my folly! I am afraid this great\n    lubber, the world, will prove a cockney. I prithee now, ungird\n    thy strangeness, and tell me what I shall vent to my lady. Shall\n    I vent to her that thou art coming?\n  SEBASTIAN. I prithee, foolish Greek, depart from me;\n    There's money for thee; if you tarry longer\n    I shall give worse payment.\n  CLOWN. By my troth, thou hast an open hand. These wise men that\n    give fools money get themselves a good report after fourteen\n    years' purchase.\n\n             Enter SIR ANDREW, SIR TOBY, and FABIAN\n\n  AGUECHEEK. Now, sir, have I met you again?\n    [Striking SEBASTIAN] There's for you.\n  SEBASTIAN. Why, there's for thee, and there, and there.\n    Are all the people mad?\n  SIR TOBY. Hold, sir, or I'll throw your dagger o'er the house.\n                                             [Holding SEBASTIAN]\n  CLOWN. This will I tell my lady straight. I would not be in some of\n    your coats for two-pence.                               Exit\n  SIR TOBY. Come on, sir; hold.\n  AGUECHEEK. Nay, let him alone. I'll go another way to work with\n    him; I'll have an action of battery against him, if there be any\n    law in Illyria; though I struck him first, yet it's no matter for\n    that.\n  SEBASTIAN. Let go thy hand.\n  SIR TOBY. Come, sir, I will not let you go. Come, my young soldier,\n    put up your iron; you are well flesh'd. Come on.\n  SEBASTIAN. I will be free from thee. What wouldst thou now?\n    If thou dar'st tempt me further, draw thy sword.     [Draws]\n  SIR TOBY. What, what? Nay, then I must have an ounce or two of this\n    malapert blood from you. [Draws]\n\n                        Enter OLIVIA\n\n  OLIVIA. Hold, Toby; on thy life, I charge thee hold.\n  SIR TOBY. Madam!\n  OLIVIA. Will it be ever thus? Ungracious wretch,\n    Fit for the mountains and the barbarous caves,\n    Where manners ne'er were preach'd! Out of my sight!\n    Be not offended, dear Cesario-\n    Rudesby, be gone!\n                         Exeunt SIR TOBY, SIR ANDREW, and FABIAN\n    I prithee, gentle friend,\n    Let thy fair wisdom, not thy passion, sway\n    In this uncivil and unjust extent\n    Against thy peace. Go with me to my house,\n    And hear thou there how many fruitless pranks\n    This ruffian hath botch'd up, that thou thereby\n    Mayst smile at this. Thou shalt not choose but go;\n    Do not deny. Beshrew his soul for me!\n    He started one poor heart of mine in thee.\n  SEBASTIAN. What relish is in this? How runs the stream?\n    Or I am mad, or else this is a dream.\n    Let fancy still my sense in Lethe steep;\n    If it be thus to dream, still let me sleep!\n  OLIVIA. Nay, come, I prithee. Would thou'dst be rul'd by me!\n  SEBASTIAN. Madam, I will.\n  OLIVIA. O, say so, and so be!                           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nOLIVIA'S house\n\nEnter MARIA and CLOWN\n\n  MARIA. Nay, I prithee, put on this gown and this beard; make him\n    believe thou art Sir Topas the curate; do it quickly. I'll call\n    Sir Toby the whilst.                                    Exit\n  CLOWN. Well, I'll put it on, and I will dissemble myself in't; and\n    I would I were the first that ever dissembled in such a gown. I\n    am not tall enough to become the function well nor lean enough to\n    be thought a good student; but to be said an honest man and a\n    good housekeeper goes as fairly as to say a careful man and a\n    great scholar. The competitors enter.\n\n                 Enter SIR TOBY and MARIA\n\n  SIR TOBY. Jove bless thee, Master Parson.\n  CLOWN. Bonos dies, Sir Toby; for as the old hermit of Prague, that\n    never saw pen and ink, very wittily said to niece of King\n    Gorboduc 'That that is is'; so I, being Master Parson, am Master\n    Parson; for what is 'that' but that, and 'is' but is?\n  SIR TOBY. To him, Sir Topas.\n  CLOWN. What ho, I say! Peace in this prison!\n  SIR TOBY. The knave counterfeits well; a good knave.\n  MALVOLIO. [Within] Who calls there?\n  CLOWN. Sir Topas the curate, who comes to visit Malvolio the\n    lunatic.\n  MALVOLIO. Sir Topas, Sir Topas, good Sir Topas, go to my lady.\n  CLOWN. Out, hyperbolical fiend! How vexest thou this man!\n    Talkest thou nothing but of ladies?\n  SIR TOBY. Well said, Master Parson.\n  MALVOLIO. Sir Topas, never was man thus wronged. Good Sir Topas, do\n    not think I am mad; they have laid me here in hideous darkness.\n  CLOWN. Fie, thou dishonest Satan! I call thee by the most modest\n    terms, for I am one of those gentle ones that will use the devil\n    himself with courtesy. Say'st thou that house is dark?\n  MALVOLIO. As hell, Sir Topas.\n  CLOWN. Why, it hath bay windows transparent as barricadoes, and the\n    clerestories toward the south north are as lustrous as ebony; and\n    yet complainest thou of obstruction?\n  MALVOLIO. I am not mad, Sir Topas. I say to you this house is dark.\n  CLOWN. Madman, thou errest. I say there is no darkness but\n    ignorance; in which thou art more puzzled than the Egyptians in\n    their fog.\n  MALVOLIO. I say this house is as dark as ignorance, though\n    ignorance were as dark as hell; and I say there was never man\n    thus abus'd. I am no more mad than you are; make the trial of it\n    in any constant question.\n  CLOWN. What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild fowl?\n  MALVOLIO. That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird.\n  CLOWN. What think'st thou of his opinion?\n  MALVOLIO. I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve his\n    opinion.\n  CLOWN. Fare thee well. Remain thou still in darkness: thou shalt\n   hold th' opinion of Pythagoras ere I will allow of thy wits; and\n    fear to kill a woodcock, lest thou dispossess the soul of thy\n    grandam. Fare thee well.\n  MALVOLIO. Sir Topas, Sir Topas!\n  SIR TOBY. My most exquisite Sir Topas!\n  CLOWN. Nay, I am for all waters.\n  MARIA. Thou mightst have done this without thy beard and gown: he\n    sees thee not.\n  SIR TOBY. To him in thine own voice, and bring me word how thou\n    find'st him. I would we were well rid of this knavery. If he may\n    be conveniently deliver'd, I would he were; for I am now so far\n    in offence with my niece that I cannot pursue with any safety\n    this sport to the upshot. Come by and by to my chamber.\n                                                 Exit with MARIA\n  CLOWN. [Sings] Hey, Robin, jolly Robin,\n    Tell me how thy lady does.\n  MALVOLIO. Fool!\n  CLOWN. [Sings] My lady is unkind, perdy.\n  MALVOLIO. Fool!\n  CLOWN. [Sings] Alas, why is she so?\n  MALVOLIO. Fool I say!\n  CLOWN. [Sings] She loves another- Who calls, ha?\n  MALVOLIO. Good fool, as ever thou wilt deserve well at my hand,\n    help me to a candle, and pen, ink, and paper; as I am a\n    gentleman, I will live to be thankful to thee for't.\n  CLOWN. Master Malvolio?\n  MALVOLIO. Ay, good fool.\n  CLOWN. Alas, sir, how fell you besides your five wits?\n  MALVOLIO. Fool, there was never man so notoriously abus'd;\n    I am as well in my wits, fool, as thou art.\n  CLOWN. But as well? Then you are mad indeed, if you be no better in\n    your wits than a fool.\n  MALVOLIO. They have here propertied me; keep me in darkness, send\n    ministers to me, asses, and do all they can to face me out of my\n    wits.\n  CLOWN. Advise you what. you say: the minister is here.\n    [Speaking as SIR TOPAS] Malvolio, thy wits the heavens restore!\n    Endeavour thyself to sleep, and leave thy vain bibble-babble.\n  MALVOLIO. Sir Topas!\n  CLOWN. Maintain no words with him, good fellow.- Who, I, sir? Not\n    I, sir. God buy you, good Sir Topas.- Marry, amen.- I will sir, I\n    will.\n  MALVOLIO. Fool, fool, fool, I say!\n  CLOWN. Alas, sir, be patient. What say you, sir? I am shent for\n    speaking to you.\n  MALVOLIO. Good fool, help me to some light and some paper.\n    I tell thee I am as well in my wits as any man in Illyria.\n  CLOWN. Well-a-day that you were, sir!\n  MALVOLIO. By this hand, I am. Good fool, some ink, paper, and\n    light; and convey what I will set down to my lady. It shall\n    advantage thee more than ever the bearing of letter did.\n  CLOWN. I will help you to't. But tell me true, are you not mad\n    indeed, or do you but counterfeit?\n  MALVOLIO. Believe me, I am not; I tell thee true.\n  CLOWN. Nay, I'll ne'er believe a madman till I see his brains.\n    I will fetch you light and paper and ink.\n  MALVOLIO. Fool, I'll requite it in the highest degree; I prithe be\n    gone.\n  CLOWN. [Singing]\n                   I am gone, sir,\n                   And anon, sir,\n                 I'll be with you again,\n                   In a trice,\n                   Like to the old Vice,\n                 Your need to sustain;\n\n                 Who with dagger of lath,\n                 In his rage and his wrath,\n                   Cries, Ah, ha! to the devil,\n                 Like a mad lad,\n                 Pare thy nails, dad.\n                   Adieu, goodman devil.                    Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nOLIVIA'S garden\n\nEnter SEBASTIAN\n\n  SEBASTIAN. This is the air; that is the glorious sun;\n    This pearl she gave me, I do feel't and see't;\n    And though 'tis wonder that enwraps me thus,\n    Yet 'tis not madness. Where's Antonio, then?\n    I could not find him at the Elephant;\n    Yet there he was; and there I found this credit,\n    That he did range the town to seek me out.\n    His counsel now might do me golden service;\n    For though my soul disputes well with my sense\n    That this may be some error, but no madness,\n    Yet doth this accident and flood of fortune\n    So far exceed all instance, all discourse,\n    That I am ready to distrust mine eyes\n    And wrangle with my reason, that persuades me\n    To any other trust but that I am mad,\n    Or else the lady's mad; yet if 'twere so,\n    She could not sway her house, command her followers,\n    Take and give back affairs and their dispatch\n    With such a smooth, discreet, and stable bearing,\n    As I perceive she does. There's something in't\n    That is deceivable. But here the lady comes.\n\n                Enter OLIVIA and PRIEST\n\n  OLIVIA. Blame not this haste of mine. If you mean well,\n    Now go with me and with this holy man\n    Into the chantry by; there, before him\n    And underneath that consecrated roof,\n    Plight me the fun assurance of your faith,\n    That my most jealous and too doubtful soul\n    May live at peace. He shall conceal it\n    Whiles you are willing it shall come to note,\n    What time we will our celebration keep\n    According to my birth. What do you say?\n  SEBASTIAN. I'll follow this good man, and go with you;\n    And, having sworn truth, ever will be true.\n  OLIVIA. Then lead the way, good father; and heavens so shine\n    That they may fairly note this act of mine!           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nBefore OLIVIA's house\n\nEnter CLOWN and FABIAN\n\n  FABIAN. Now, as thou lov'st me, let me see his letter.\n  CLOWN. Good Master Fabian, grant me another request.\n  FABIAN. Anything.\n  CLOWN. Do not desire to see this letter.\n  FABIAN. This is to give a dog, and in recompense desire my dog\n    again.\n\n             Enter DUKE, VIOLA, CURIO, and LORDS\n\n  DUKE. Belong you to the Lady Olivia, friends?\n  CLOWN. Ay, sir, we are some of her trappings.\n  DUKE. I know thee well. How dost thou, my good fellow?\n  CLOWN. Truly, sir, the better for my foes and the worse for my\n    friends.\n  DUKE. Just the contrary: the better for thy friends.\n  CLOWN. No, sir, the worse.\n  DUKE. How can that be?\n  CLOWN. Marry, sir, they praise me and make an ass of me. Now my\n    foes tell me plainly I am an ass; so that by my foes, sir, I\n    profit in the knowledge of myself, and by my friends I am abused;\n    so that, conclusions to be as kisses, if your four negatives make\n    your two affirmatives, why then, the worse for my friends, and\n    the better for my foes.\n  DUKE. Why, this is excellent.\n  CLOWN. By my troth, sir, no; though it please you to be one of my\n    friends.\n  DUKE. Thou shalt not be the worse for me. There's gold.\n  CLOWN. But that it would be double-dealing, sir, I would you could\n    make it another.\n  DUKE. O, you give me ill counsel.\n  CLOWN. Put your grace in your pocket, sir, for this once, and let\n    your flesh and blood obey it.\n  DUKE. Well, I will be so much a sinner to be a double-dealer.\n    There's another.\n  CLOWN. Primo, secundo, tertio, is a good play; and the old saying\n    is 'The third pays for all.' The triplex, sir, is a good tripping\n    measure; or the bells of Saint Bennet, sir, may put you in mind-\n    one, two, three.\n  DUKE. You can fool no more money out of me at this throw; if you\n    will let your lady know I am here to speak with her, and bring\n    her along with you, it may awake my bounty further.\n  CLOWN. Marry, sir, lullaby to your bounty till I come again. I go,\n    sir; but I would not have you to think that my desire of having\n    is the sin of covetousness. But, as you say, sir, let your bounty\n    take a nap; I will awake it anon.                       Exit\n\n                 Enter ANTONIO and OFFICERS\n\n  VIOLA. Here comes the man, sir, that did rescue me.\n  DUKE. That face of his I do remember well;\n    Yet when I saw it last it was besmear'd\n    As black as Vulcan in the smoke of war.\n    A baubling vessel was he captain of,\n    For shallow draught and bulk unprizable,\n    With which such scathful grapple did he make\n    With the most noble bottom of our fleet\n    That very envy and the tongue of los\n    Cried fame and honour on him. What's the matter?\n  FIRST OFFICER. Orsino, this is that Antonio\n    That took the Phoenix and her fraught from Candy;\n    And this is he that did the Tiger board\n    When your young nephew Titus lost his leg.\n    Here in the streets, desperate of shame and state,\n    In private brabble did we apprehend him.\n  VIOLA. He did me kindness, sir; drew on my side;\n    But in conclusion put strange speech upon me.\n    I know not what 'twas but distraction.\n  DUKE. Notable pirate, thou salt-water thief!\n    What foolish boldness brought thee to their mercies\n    Whom thou, in terms so bloody and so dear,\n    Hast made thine enemies?\n  ANTONIO. Orsino, noble sir,\n    Be pleas'd that I shake off these names you give me:\n    Antonio never yet was thief or pirate,\n    Though I confess, on base and ground enough,\n    Orsino's enemy. A witchcraft drew me hither:\n    That most ingrateful boy there by your side\n    From the rude sea's enrag'd and foamy mouth\n    Did I redeem; a wreck past hope he was.\n    His life I gave him, and did thereto ad\n    My love without retention or restraint,\n    All his in dedication; for his sake,\n    Did I expose myself, pure for his love,\n    Into the danger of this adverse town;\n    Drew to defend him when he was beset;\n    Where being apprehended, his false cunning,\n    Not meaning to partake with me in danger,\n    Taught him to face me out of his acquaintance,\n    And grew a twenty years removed thing\n    While one would wink; denied me mine own purse,\n    Which I had recommended to his use\n    Not half an hour before.\n  VIOLA. How can this be?\n  DUKE. When came he to this town?\n  ANTONIO. To-day, my lord; and for three months before,\n    No int'rim, not a minute's vacancy,\n    Both day and night did we keep company.\n\n              Enter OLIVIA and ATTENDANTS\n\n  DUKE. Here comes the Countess; now heaven walks on earth.\n    But for thee, fellow- fellow, thy words are madness.\n    Three months this youth hath tended upon me-\n    But more of that anon. Take him aside.\n  OLIVIA. What would my lord, but that he may not have,\n    Wherein Olivia may seem serviceable?\n    Cesario, you do not keep promise with me.\n  VIOLA. Madam?\n  DUKE. Gracious Olivia-\n  OLIVIA. What do you say, Cesario? Good my lord-\n  VIOLA. My lord would speak; my duty hushes me.\n  OLIVIA. If it be aught to the old tune, my lord,\n    It is as fat and fulsome to mine ear\n    As howling after music.\n  DUKE. Still so cruel?\n  OLIVIA. Still so constant, lord.\n  DUKE. What, to perverseness? You uncivil lady,\n    To whose ingrate and unauspicious altars\n    My soul the faithfull'st off'rings hath breath'd out\n    That e'er devotion tender'd! What shall I do?\n  OLIVIA. Even what it please my lord, that shall become him.\n  DUKE. Why should I not, had I the heart to do it,\n    Like to the Egyptian thief at point of death,\n    Kill what I love?- a savage jealousy\n    That sometime savours nobly. But hear me this:\n    Since you to non-regardance cast my faith,\n    And that I partly know the instrument\n    That screws me from my true place in your favour,\n    Live you the marble-breasted tyrant still;\n    But this your minion, whom I know you love,\n    And whom, by heaven I swear, I tender dearly,\n    Him will I tear out of that cruel eye\n    Where he sits crowned in his master's spite.\n    Come, boy, with me; my thoughts are ripe in mischief:\n    I'll sacrifice the lamb that I do love\n    To spite a raven's heart within a dove.\n  VIOLA. And I, most jocund, apt, and willingly,\n    To do you rest, a thousand deaths would die.\n  OLIVIA. Where goes Cesario?\n  VIOLA. After him I love\n    More than I love these eyes, more than my life,\n    More, by all mores, than e'er I shall love wife.\n    If I do feign, you witnesses above\n    Punish my life for tainting of my love!\n  OLIVIA. Ay me, detested! How am I beguil'd!\n  VIOLA. Who does beguile you? Who does do you wrong?\n  OLIVIA. Hast thou forgot thyself? Is it so long?\n    Call forth the holy father.                Exit an ATTENDANT\n  DUKE. Come, away!\n  OLIVIA. Whither, my lord? Cesario, husband, stay.\n  DUKE. Husband?\n  OLIVIA. Ay, husband; can he that deny?\n  DUKE. Her husband, sirrah?\n  VIOLA. No, my lord, not I.\n  OLIVIA. Alas, it is the baseness of thy fear\n    That makes thee strangle thy propriety.\n    Fear not, Cesario, take thy fortunes up;\n    Be that thou know'st thou art, and then thou art\n    As great as that thou fear'st.\n\n                   Enter PRIEST\n\n    O, welcome, father!\n    Father, I charge thee, by thy reverence,\n    Here to unfold- though lately we intended\n    To keep in darkness what occasion now\n    Reveals before 'tis ripe- what thou dost know\n    Hath newly pass'd between this youth and me.\n  PRIEST. A contract of eternal bond of love,\n    Confirm'd by mutual joinder of your hands,\n    Attested by the holy close of lips,\n    Strength'ned by interchangement of your rings;\n    And all the ceremony of this compact\n    Seal'd in my function, by my testimony;\n    Since when, my watch hath told me, toward my grave,\n    I have travell'd but two hours.\n  DUKE. O thou dissembling cub! What wilt thou be,\n    When time hath sow'd a grizzle on thy case?\n    Or will not else thy craft so quickly grow\n    That thine own trip shall be thine overthrow?\n    Farewell, and take her; but direct thy feet\n    Where thou and I henceforth may never meet.\n  VIOLA. My lord, I do protest-\n  OLIVIA. O, do not swear!\n    Hold little faith, though thou has too much fear.\n\n                  Enter SIR ANDREW\n\n  AGUECHEEK. For the love of God, a surgeon!\n    Send one presently to Sir Toby.\n  OLIVIA. What's the matter?\n  AGUECHEEK. Has broke my head across, and has given Sir Toby a\n    bloody coxcomb too. For the love of God, your help! I had rather\n    than forty pound I were at home.\n  OLIVIA. Who has done this, Sir Andrew?\n  AGUECHEEK. The Count's gentleman, one Cesario. We took him for a\n    coward, but he's the very devil incardinate.\n  DUKE. My gentleman, Cesario?\n  AGUECHEEK. Od's lifelings, here he is! You broke my head for\n    nothing; and that that did, I was set on to do't by Sir Toby.\n  VIOLA. Why do you speak to me? I never hurt you.\n    You drew your sword upon me without cause;\n    But I bespake you fair and hurt you not.\n\n                Enter SIR TOBY and CLOWN\n\n  AGUECHEEK. If a bloody coxcomb be a hurt, you have hurt me; I think\n    you set nothing by a bloody coxcomb. Here comes Sir Toby halting;\n    you shall hear more; but if he had not been in drink, he would\n    have tickl'd you othergates than he did.\n  DUKE. How now, gentleman? How is't with you?\n  SIR TOBY. That's all one; has hurt me, and there's th' end on't.\n    Sot, didst see Dick Surgeon, sot?\n  CLOWN. O, he's drunk, Sir Toby, an hour agone; his eyes were set at\n    eight i' th' morning.\n  SIR TOBY. Then he's a rogue and a passy measures pavin. I hate a\n    drunken rogue.\n  OLIVIA. Away with him. Who hath made this havoc with them?\n  AGUECHEEK. I'll help you, Sir Toby, because we'll be dress'd\n    together.\n  SIR TOBY. Will you help- an ass-head and a coxcomb and a knave, a\n    thin fac'd knave, a gull?\n  OLIVIA. Get him to bed, and let his hurt be look'd to.\n                  Exeunt CLOWN, FABIAN, SIR TOBY, and SIR ANDREW\n\n                      Enter SEBASTIAN\n\n  SEBASTIAN. I am sorry, madam, I have hurt your kinsman;\n    But, had it been the brother of my blood,\n    I must have done no less with wit and safety.\n    You throw a strange regard upon me, and by that\n    I do perceive it hath offended you.\n    Pardon me, sweet one, even for the vows\n    We made each other but so late ago.\n  DUKE. One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons!\n    A natural perspective, that is and is not.\n  SEBASTIAN. Antonio, O my dear Antonio!\n    How have the hours rack'd and tortur'd me\n    Since I have lost thee!\n  ANTONIO. Sebastian are you?\n  SEBASTIAN. Fear'st thou that, Antonio?\n  ANTONIO. How have you made division of yourself?\n    An apple cleft in two is not more twin\n    Than these two creatures. Which is Sebastian?\n  OLIVIA. Most wonderful!\n  SEBASTIAN. Do I stand there? I never had a brother;\n    Nor can there be that deity in my nature\n    Of here and everywhere. I had a sister\n    Whom the blind waves and surges have devour'd.\n    Of charity, what kin are you to me?\n    What countryman, what name, what parentage?\n  VIOLA. Of Messaline; Sebastian was my father.\n    Such a Sebastian was my brother too;\n    So went he suited to his watery tomb;\n    If spirits can assume both form and suit,\n    You come to fright us.\n  SEBASTIAN. A spirit I am indeed,\n    But am in that dimension grossly clad\n    Which from the womb I did participate.\n    Were you a woman, as the rest goes even,\n    I should my tears let fall upon your cheek,\n    And say 'Thrice welcome, drowned Viola!'\n  VIOLA. My father had a mole upon his brow.\n  SEBASTIAN. And so had mine.\n  VIOLA. And died that day when Viola from her birth\n    Had numb'red thirteen years.\n  SEBASTIAN. O, that record is lively in my soul!\n    He finished indeed his mortal act\n    That day that made my sister thirteen years.\n  VIOLA. If nothing lets to make us happy both\n    But this my masculine usurp'd attire,\n    Do not embrace me till each circumstance\n    Of place, time, fortune, do cohere and jump\n    That I am Viola; which to confirm,\n    I'll bring you to a captain in this town,\n    Where lie my maiden weeds; by whose gentle help\n    I was preserv'd to serve this noble Count.\n    All the occurrence of my fortune since\n    Hath been between this lady and this lord.\n  SEBASTIAN. [To OLIVIA] So Comes it, lady, you have been mistook;\n    But nature to her bias drew in that.\n    You would have been contracted to a maid;\n    Nor are you therein, by my life, deceiv'd;\n    You are betroth'd both to a maid and man.\n  DUKE. Be not amaz'd; right noble is his blood.\n    If this be so, as yet the glass seems true,\n    I shall have share in this most happy wreck.\n    [To VIOLA] Boy, thou hast said to me a thousand times\n    Thou never shouldst love woman like to me.\n  VIOLA. And all those sayings will I overswear;\n    And all those swearings keep as true in soul\n    As doth that orbed continent the fire\n    That severs day from night.\n  DUKE. Give me thy hand;\n    And let me see thee in thy woman's weeds.\n  VIOLA. The captain that did bring me first on shore\n    Hath my maid's garments. He, upon some action,\n    Is now in durance, at Malvolio's suit,\n    A gentleman and follower of my lady's.\n  OLIVIA. He shall enlarge him. Fetch Malvolio hither;\n    And yet, alas, now I remember me,\n    They say, poor gentleman, he's much distract.\n\n        Re-enter CLOWN, with a letter, and FABIAN\n\n    A most extracting frenzy of mine own\n    From my remembrance clearly banish'd his.\n    How does he, sirrah?\n  CLOWN. Truly, madam, he holds Belzebub at the stave's end as well\n    as a man in his case may do. Has here writ a letter to you; I\n    should have given 't you to-day morning, but as a madman's\n    epistles are no gospels, so it skills not much when they are\n    deliver'd.\n  OLIVIA. Open't, and read it.\n  CLOWN. Look then to be well edified when the fool delivers the\n    madman. [Reads madly ] 'By the Lord, madam-'\n  OLIVIA. How now! Art thou mad?\n  CLOWN. No, madam, I do but read madness. An your ladyship will have\n    it as it ought to be, you must allow vox.\n  OLIVIA. Prithee read i' thy right wits.\n  CLOWN. So I do, madonna; but to read his right wits is to read\n    thus; therefore perpend, my Princess, and give ear.\n  OLIVIA. [To FABIAN] Read it you, sirrah.\n  FABIAN. [Reads] 'By the Lord, madam, you wrong me, and the world\n    shall know it. Though you have put me into darkness and given\n    your drunken cousin rule over me, yet have I the benefit of my\n    senses as well as your ladyship. I have your own letter that\n    induced me to the semblance I put on, with the which I doubt not\n    but to do myself much right or you much shame. Think of me as you\n    please. I leave my duty a little unthought of, and speak out of\n    my injury.\n                                        THE MADLY-US'D MALVOLIO'\n\n  OLIVIA. Did he write this?\n  CLOWN. Ay, Madam.\n  DUKE. This savours not much of distraction.\n  OLIVIA. See him deliver'd, Fabian; bring him hither.\n                                                     Exit FABIAN\n    My lord, so please you, these things further thought on,\n    To think me as well a sister as a wife,\n    One day shall crown th' alliance on't, so please you,\n    Here at my house, and at my proper cost.\n  DUKE. Madam, I am most apt t' embrace your offer.\n    [To VIOLA] Your master quits you; and, for your service done\n      him,\n    So much against the mettle of your sex,\n    So far beneath your soft and tender breeding,\n    And since you call'd me master for so long,\n    Here is my hand; you shall from this time be\n    You master's mistress.\n  OLIVIA. A sister! You are she.\n\n                Re-enter FABIAN, with MALVOLIO\n\n  DUKE. Is this the madman?\n  OLIVIA. Ay, my lord, this same.\n    How now, Malvolio!\n  MALVOLIO. Madam, you have done me wrong,\n    Notorious wrong.\n  OLIVIA. Have I, Malvolio? No.\n  MALVOLIO. Lady, you have. Pray you peruse that letter.\n    You must not now deny it is your hand;\n    Write from it if you can, in hand or phrase;\n    Or say 'tis not your seal, not your invention;\n    You can say none of this. Well, grant it then,\n    And tell me, in the modesty of honour,\n    Why you have given me such clear lights of favour,\n    Bade me come smiling and cross-garter'd to you,\n    To put on yellow stockings, and to frown\n    Upon Sir Toby and the lighter people;\n    And, acting this in an obedient hope,\n    Why have you suffer'd me to be imprison'd,\n    Kept in a dark house, visited by the priest,\n    And made the most notorious geck and gul\n    That e'er invention play'd on? Tell me why.\n  OLIVIA. Alas, Malvolio, this is not my writing,\n    Though, I confess, much like the character;\n    But out of question 'tis Maria's hand.\n    And now I do bethink me, it was she\n    First told me thou wast mad; then cam'st in smiling,\n    And in such forms which here were presuppos'd\n    Upon thee in the letter. Prithee, be content;\n    This practice hath most shrewdly pass'd upon thee,\n    But, when we know the grounds and authors of it,\n    Thou shalt be both the plaintiff and the judge\n    Of thine own cause.\n  FABIAN. Good madam, hear me speak,\n    And let no quarrel nor no brawl to come\n    Taint the condition of this present hour,\n    Which I have wond'red at. In hope it shall not,\n    Most freely I confess myself and Toby\n    Set this device against Malvolio here,\n    Upon some stubborn and uncourteous parts\n    We had conceiv'd against him. Maria writ\n    The letter, at Sir Toby's great importance,\n    In recompense whereof he hath married her.\n    How with a sportful malice it was follow'd\n    May rather pluck on laughter than revenge,\n    If that the injuries be justly weigh'd\n    That have on both sides pass'd.\n  OLIVIA. Alas, poor fool, how have they baffl'd thee!\n  CLOWN. Why, 'Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some\n    have greatness thrown upon them.' I was one, sir, in this\n    interlude- one Sir Topas, sir; but that's all one. 'By the Lord,\n    fool, I am not mad!' But do you remember- 'Madam, why laugh you\n    at such a barren rascal? An you smile not, he's gagg'd'? And thus\n    the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.\n  MALVOLIO. I'll be reveng'd on the whole pack of you.\n Exit\n  OLIVIA. He hath been most notoriously abus'd.\n  DUKE. Pursue him, and entreat him to a peace;\n    He hath not told us of the captain yet.\n    When that is known, and golden time convents,\n    A solemn combination shall be made\n    Of our dear souls. Meantime, sweet sister,\n    We will not part from hence. Cesario, come;\n    For so you shall be while you are a man;\n    But when in other habits you are seen,\n    Orsino's mistress, and his fancy's queen.\n                                        Exeunt all but the CLOWN\n\n                        CLOWN sings\n\n           When that I was and a little tiny boy,\n             With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,\n           A foolish thing was but a toy,\n             For the rain it raineth every day.\n\n           But when I came to man's estate,\n             With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,\n           'Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate,\n             For the rain it raineth every day.\n\n           But when I came, alas! to wive,\n             With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,\n           By swaggering could I never thrive,\n             For the rain it raineth every day.\n\n           But when I came unto my beds,\n             With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,\n           With toss-pots still had drunken heads,\n             For the rain it raineth every day.\n\n           A great while ago the world begun,\n             With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,\n           But that's all one, our play is done,\n           And we'll strive to please you every day.\n Exit\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1595\n\nTHE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  DUKE OF MILAN, father to Silvia\n  VALENTINE, one of the two gentlemen\n  PROTEUS,    \"  \"   \"   \"     \"\n  ANTONIO, father to Proteus\n  THURIO, a foolish rival to Valentine\n  EGLAMOUR, agent for Silvia in her escape\n  SPEED, a clownish servant to Valentine\n  LAUNCE, the like to Proteus\n  PANTHINO, servant to Antonio\n  HOST, where Julia lodges in Milan\n  OUTLAWS, with Valentine\n\n  JULIA, a lady of Verona, beloved of Proteus\n  SILVIA, the Duke's daughter, beloved of Valentine\n  LUCETTA, waiting-woman to Julia\n\n  SERVANTS\n  MUSICIANS\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nVerona; Milan; the frontiers of Mantua\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nVerona. An open place\n\nEnter VALENTINE and PROTEUS\n\n  VALENTINE. Cease to persuade, my loving Proteus:\n    Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.\n    Were't not affection chains thy tender days\n    To the sweet glances of thy honour'd love,\n    I rather would entreat thy company\n    To see the wonders of the world abroad,\n    Than, living dully sluggardiz'd at home,\n    Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness.\n    But since thou lov'st, love still, and thrive therein,\n    Even as I would, when I to love begin.\n  PROTEUS. Wilt thou be gone? Sweet Valentine, adieu!\n    Think on thy Proteus, when thou haply seest\n    Some rare noteworthy object in thy travel.\n    Wish me partaker in thy happiness\n    When thou dost meet good hap; and in thy danger,\n    If ever danger do environ thee,\n    Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers,\n    For I will be thy headsman, Valentine.\n  VALENTINE. And on a love-book pray for my success?\n  PROTEUS. Upon some book I love I'll pray for thee.\n  VALENTINE. That's on some shallow story of deep love:\n    How young Leander cross'd the Hellespont.\n  PROTEUS. That's a deep story of a deeper love;\n    For he was more than over shoes in love.\n  VALENTINE. 'Tis true; for you are over boots in love,\n    And yet you never swum the Hellespont.\n  PROTEUS. Over the boots! Nay, give me not the boots.\n  VALENTINE. No, I will not, for it boots thee not.\n  PROTEUS. What?\n  VALENTINE. To be in love- where scorn is bought with groans,\n    Coy looks with heart-sore sighs, one fading moment's mirth\n    With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights;\n    If haply won, perhaps a hapless gain;\n    If lost, why then a grievous labour won;\n    However, but a folly bought with wit,\n    Or else a wit by folly vanquished.\n  PROTEUS. So, by your circumstance, you call me fool.\n  VALENTINE. So, by your circumstance, I fear you'll prove.\n  PROTEUS. 'Tis love you cavil at; I am not Love.\n  VALENTINE. Love is your master, for he masters you;\n    And he that is so yoked by a fool,\n    Methinks, should not be chronicled for wise.\n  PROTEUS. Yet writers say, as in the sweetest bud\n    The eating canker dwells, so eating love\n    Inhabits in the finest wits of all.\n  VALENTINE. And writers say, as the most forward bud\n    Is eaten by the canker ere it blow,\n    Even so by love the young and tender wit\n    Is turn'd to folly, blasting in the bud,\n    Losing his verdure even in the prime,\n    And all the fair effects of future hopes.\n    But wherefore waste I time to counsel the\n    That art a votary to fond desire?\n    Once more adieu. My father at the road\n    Expects my coming, there to see me shipp'd.\n  PROTEUS. And thither will I bring thee, Valentine.\n  VALENTINE. Sweet Proteus, no; now let us take our leave.\n    To Milan let me hear from thee by letters\n    Of thy success in love, and what news else\n    Betideth here in absence of thy friend;\n    And I likewise will visit thee with mine.\n  PROTEUS. All happiness bechance to thee in Milan!\n  VALENTINE. As much to you at home; and so farewell!\n                                                  Exit VALENTINE\n  PROTEUS. He after honour hunts, I after love;\n    He leaves his friends to dignify them more:\n    I leave myself, my friends, and all for love.\n    Thou, Julia, thou hast metamorphis'd me,\n    Made me neglect my studies, lose my time,\n    War with good counsel, set the world at nought;\n    Made wit with musing weak, heart sick with thought.\n\n                         Enter SPEED\n\n  SPEED. Sir Proteus, save you! Saw you my master?\n  PROTEUS. But now he parted hence to embark for Milan.\n  SPEED. Twenty to one then he is shipp'd already,\n    And I have play'd the sheep in losing him.\n  PROTEUS. Indeed a sheep doth very often stray,\n    An if the shepherd be awhile away.\n  SPEED. You conclude that my master is a shepherd then, and\n    I a sheep?\n  PROTEUS. I do.\n  SPEED. Why then, my horns are his horns, whether I wake or sleep.\n  PROTEUS. A silly answer, and fitting well a sheep.\n  SPEED. This proves me still a sheep.\n  PROTEUS. True; and thy master a shepherd.\n  SPEED. Nay, that I can deny by a circumstance.\n  PROTEUS. It shall go hard but I'll prove it by another.\n  SPEED. The shepherd seeks the sheep, and not the sheep the\n    shepherd; but I seek my master, and my master seeks not me;\n    therefore, I am no sheep.\n  PROTEUS. The sheep for fodder follow the shepherd; the shepherd for\n    food follows not the sheep: thou for wages followest thy master;\n    thy master for wages follows not thee. Therefore, thou art a\n    sheep.\n  SPEED. Such another proof will make me cry 'baa.'\n  PROTEUS. But dost thou hear? Gav'st thou my letter to Julia?\n  SPEED. Ay, sir; I, a lost mutton, gave your letter to her, a lac'd\n    mutton; and she, a lac'd mutton, gave me, a lost mutton, nothing\n    for my labour.\n  PROTEUS. Here's too small a pasture for such store of muttons.\n  SPEED. If the ground be overcharg'd, you were best stick her.\n  PROTEUS. Nay, in that you are astray: 'twere best pound you.\n  SPEED. Nay, sir, less than a pound shall serve me for carrying your\n    letter.\n  PROTEUS. You mistake; I mean the pound- a pinfold.\n  SPEED. From a pound to a pin? Fold it over and over,\n    'Tis threefold too little for carrying a letter to your lover.\n  PROTEUS. But what said she?\n  SPEED.  [Nodding]  Ay.\n  PROTEUS. Nod- ay. Why, that's 'noddy.'\n  SPEED. You mistook, sir; I say she did nod; and you ask me if she\n    did nod; and I say 'Ay.'\n  PROTEUS. And that set together is 'noddy.'\n  SPEED. Now you have taken the pains to set it together, take it for\n    your pains.\n  PROTEUS. No, no; you shall have it for bearing the letter.\n  SPEED. Well, I perceive I must be fain to bear with you.\n  PROTEUS. Why, sir, how do you bear with me?\n  SPEED. Marry, sir, the letter, very orderly; having nothing but the\n    word 'noddy' for my pains.\n  PROTEUS. Beshrew me, but you have a quick wit.\n  SPEED. And yet it cannot overtake your slow purse.\n  PROTEUS. Come, come, open the matter; in brief, what said she?\n  SPEED. Open your purse, that the money and the matter may be both\n    at once delivered.\n  PROTEUS. Well, sir, here is for your pains. What said she?\n  SPEED. Truly, sir, I think you'll hardly win her.\n  PROTEUS. Why, couldst thou perceive so much from her?\n  SPEED. Sir, I could perceive nothing at all from her; no, not so\n    much as a ducat for delivering your letter; and being so hard to\n    me that brought your mind, I fear she'll prove as hard to you in\n    telling your mind. Give her no token but stones, for she's as\n    hard as steel.\n  PROTEUS. What said she? Nothing?\n  SPEED. No, not so much as 'Take this for thy pains.' To testify\n    your bounty, I thank you, you have testern'd me; in requital\n    whereof, henceforth carry your letters yourself; and so, sir,\n    I'll commend you to my master.\n  PROTEUS. Go, go, be gone, to save your ship from wreck,\n    Which cannot perish, having thee aboard,\n    Being destin'd to a drier death on shore.         Exit SPEED\n    I must go send some better messenger.\n    I fear my Julia would not deign my lines,\n    Receiving them from such a worthless post.              Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nVerona. The garden Of JULIA'S house\n\nEnter JULIA and LUCETTA\n\n  JULIA. But say, Lucetta, now we are alone,\n    Wouldst thou then counsel me to fall in love?\n  LUCETTA. Ay, madam; so you stumble not unheedfully.\n  JULIA. Of all the fair resort of gentlemen\n    That every day with parle encounter me,\n    In thy opinion which is worthiest love?\n  LUCETTA. Please you, repeat their names; I'll show my mind\n    According to my shallow simple skill.\n  JULIA. What think'st thou of the fair Sir Eglamour?\n  LUCETTA. As of a knight well-spoken, neat, and fine;\n    But, were I you, he never should be mine.\n  JULIA. What think'st thou of the rich Mercatio?\n  LUCETTA. Well of his wealth; but of himself, so so.\n  JULIA. What think'st thou of the gentle Proteus?\n  LUCETTA. Lord, Lord! to see what folly reigns in us!\n  JULIA. How now! what means this passion at his name?\n  LUCETTA. Pardon, dear madam; 'tis a passing shame\n    That I, unworthy body as I am,\n    Should censure thus on lovely gentlemen.\n  JULIA. Why not on Proteus, as of all the rest?\n  LUCETTA. Then thus: of many good I think him best.\n  JULIA. Your reason?\n  LUCETTA. I have no other but a woman's reason:\n    I think him so, because I think him so.\n  JULIA. And wouldst thou have me cast my love on him?\n  LUCETTA. Ay, if you thought your love not cast away.\n  JULIA. Why, he, of all the rest, hath never mov'd me.\n  LUCETTA. Yet he, of all the rest, I think, best loves ye.\n  JULIA. His little speaking shows his love but small.\n  LUCETTA. Fire that's closest kept burns most of all.\n  JULIA. They do not love that do not show their love.\n  LUCETTA. O, they love least that let men know their love.\n  JULIA. I would I knew his mind.\n  LUCETTA. Peruse this paper, madam.\n  JULIA. 'To Julia'- Say, from whom?\n  LUCETTA. That the contents will show.\n  JULIA. Say, say, who gave it thee?\n  LUCETTA. Sir Valentine's page; and sent, I think, from Proteus.\n    He would have given it you; but I, being in the way,\n    Did in your name receive it; pardon the fault, I pray.\n  JULIA. Now, by my modesty, a goodly broker!\n    Dare you presume to harbour wanton lines?\n    To whisper and conspire against my youth?\n    Now, trust me, 'tis an office of great worth,\n    And you an officer fit for the place.\n    There, take the paper; see it be return'd;\n    Or else return no more into my sight.\n  LUCETTA. To plead for love deserves more fee than hate.\n  JULIA. Will ye be gone?\n  LUCETTA. That you may ruminate.                           Exit\n  JULIA. And yet, I would I had o'erlook'd the letter.\n    It were a shame to call her back again,\n    And pray her to a fault for which I chid her.\n    What fool is she, that knows I am a maid\n    And would not force the letter to my view!\n    Since maids, in modesty, say 'No' to that\n    Which they would have the profferer construe 'Ay.'\n    Fie, fie, how wayward is this foolish love,\n    That like a testy babe will scratch the nurse,\n    And presently, all humbled, kiss the rod!\n    How churlishly I chid Lucetta hence,\n    When willingly I would have had her here!\n    How angerly I taught my brow to frown,\n    When inward joy enforc'd my heart to smile!\n    My penance is to call Lucetta back\n    And ask remission for my folly past.\n    What ho! Lucetta!\n\n                     Re-enter LUCETTA\n\n  LUCETTA. What would your ladyship?\n  JULIA. Is't near dinner time?\n  LUCETTA. I would it were,\n    That you might kill your stomach on your meat\n    And not upon your maid.\n  JULIA. What is't that you took up so gingerly?\n  LUCETTA. Nothing.\n  JULIA. Why didst thou stoop then?\n  LUCETTA. To take a paper up that I let fall.\n  JULIA. And is that paper nothing?\n  LUCETTA. Nothing concerning me.\n  JULIA. Then let it lie for those that it concerns.\n  LUCETTA. Madam, it will not lie where it concerns,\n    Unless it have a false interpreter.\n  JULIA. Some love of yours hath writ to you in rhyme.\n  LUCETTA. That I might sing it, madam, to a tune.\n    Give me a note; your ladyship can set.\n  JULIA. As little by such toys as may be possible.\n    Best sing it to the tune of 'Light o' Love.'\n  LUCETTA. It is too heavy for so light a tune.\n  JULIA. Heavy! belike it hath some burden then.\n  LUCETTA. Ay; and melodious were it, would you sing it.\n  JULIA. And why not you?\n  LUCETTA. I cannot reach so high.\n  JULIA. Let's see your song.     [LUCETTA withholds the letter]\n    How now, minion!\n  LUCETTA. Keep tune there still, so you will sing it out.\n    And yet methinks I do not like this tune.\n  JULIA. You do not!\n  LUCETTA. No, madam; 'tis too sharp.\n  JULIA. You, minion, are too saucy.\n  LUCETTA. Nay, now you are too flat\n    And mar the concord with too harsh a descant;\n    There wanteth but a mean to fill your song.\n  JULIA. The mean is drown'd with your unruly bass.\n  LUCETTA. Indeed, I bid the base for Proteus.\n  JULIA. This babble shall not henceforth trouble me.\n    Here is a coil with protestation!         [Tears the letter]\n    Go, get you gone; and let the papers lie.\n    You would be fing'ring them, to anger me.\n  LUCETTA. She makes it strange; but she would be best pleas'd\n    To be so ang'red with another letter.                   Exit\n  JULIA. Nay, would I were so ang'red with the same!\n    O hateful hands, to tear such loving words!\n    Injurious wasps, to feed on such sweet honey\n    And kill the bees that yield it with your stings!\n    I'll kiss each several paper for amends.\n    Look, here is writ 'kind Julia.' Unkind Julia,\n    As in revenge of thy ingratitude,\n    I throw thy name against the bruising stones,\n    Trampling contemptuously on thy disdain.\n    And here is writ 'love-wounded Proteus.'\n    Poor wounded name! my bosom,,as a bed,\n    Shall lodge thee till thy wound be throughly heal'd;\n    And thus I search it with a sovereign kiss.\n    But twice or thrice was 'Proteus' written down.\n    Be calm, good wind, blow not a word away\n    Till I have found each letter in the letter-\n    Except mine own name; that some whirlwind bear\n    Unto a ragged, fearful, hanging rock,\n    And throw it thence into the raging sea.\n    Lo, here in one line is his name twice writ:\n    'Poor forlorn Proteus, passionate Proteus,\n    To the sweet Julia.' That I'll tear away;\n    And yet I will not, sith so prettily\n    He couples it to his complaining names.\n    Thus will I fold them one upon another;\n    Now kiss, embrace, contend, do what you will.\n\n                        Re-enter LUCETTA\n\n  LUCETTA. Madam,\n    Dinner is ready, and your father stays.\n  JULIA. Well, let us go.\n  LUCETTA. What, shall these papers lie like tell-tales here?\n  JULIA. If you respect them, best to take them up.\n  LUCETTA. Nay, I was taken up for laying them down;\n    Yet here they shall not lie for catching cold.\n  JULIA. I see you have a month's mind to them.\n  LUCETTA. Ay, madam, you may say what sights you see;\n    I see things too, although you judge I wink.\n  JULIA. Come, come; will't please you go?                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nVerona. ANTONIO'S house\n\nEnter ANTONIO and PANTHINO\n\n  ANTONIO. Tell me, Panthino, what sad talk was that\n    Wherewith my brother held you in the cloister?\n  PANTHINO. 'Twas of his nephew Proteus, your son.\n  ANTONIO. Why, what of him?\n  PANTHINO. He wond'red that your lordship\n    Would suffer him to spend his youth at home,\n    While other men, of slender reputation,\n    Put forth their sons to seek preferment out:\n    Some to the wars, to try their fortune there;\n    Some to discover islands far away;\n    Some to the studious universities.\n    For any, or for all these exercises,\n    He said that Proteus, your son, was meet;\n    And did request me to importune you\n    To let him spend his time no more at home,\n    Which would be great impeachment to his age,\n    In having known no travel in his youth.\n  ANTONIO. Nor need'st thou much importune me to that\n    Whereon this month I have been hammering.\n    I have consider'd well his loss of time,\n    And how he cannot be a perfect man,\n    Not being tried and tutor'd in the world:\n    Experience is by industry achiev'd,\n    And perfected by the swift course of time.\n    Then tell me whither were I best to send him.\n  PANTHINO. I think your lordship is not ignorant\n    How his companion, youthful Valentine,\n    Attends the Emperor in his royal court.\n  ANTONIO. I know it well.\n  PANTHINO. 'Twere good, I think, your lordship sent him thither:\n    There shall he practise tilts and tournaments,\n    Hear sweet discourse, converse with noblemen,\n    And be in eye of every exercise\n    Worthy his youth and nobleness of birth.\n  ANTONIO. I like thy counsel; well hast thou advis'd;\n    And that thou mayst perceive how well I like it,\n    The execution of it shall make known:\n    Even with the speediest expedition\n    I will dispatch him to the Emperor's court.\n  PANTHINO. To-morrow, may it please you, Don Alphonso\n    With other gentlemen of good esteem\n    Are journeying to salute the Emperor,\n    And to commend their service to his will.\n  ANTONIO. Good company; with them shall Proteus go.\n\n                        Enter PROTEUS\n\n    And- in good time!- now will we break with him.\n  PROTEUS. Sweet love! sweet lines! sweet life!\n    Here is her hand, the agent of her heart;\n    Here is her oath for love, her honour's pawn.\n    O that our fathers would applaud our loves,\n    To seal our happiness with their consents!\n    O heavenly Julia!\n  ANTONIO. How now! What letter are you reading there?\n  PROTEUS. May't please your lordship, 'tis a word or two\n    Of commendations sent from Valentine,\n    Deliver'd by a friend that came from him.\n  ANTONIO. Lend me the letter; let me see what news.\n  PROTEUS. There is no news, my lord; but that he writes\n    How happily he lives, how well-belov'd\n    And daily graced by the Emperor;\n    Wishing me with him, partner of his fortune.\n  ANTONIO. And how stand you affected to his wish?\n  PROTEUS. As one relying on your lordship's will,\n    And not depending on his friendly wish.\n  ANTONIO. My will is something sorted with his wish.\n    Muse not that I thus suddenly proceed;\n    For what I will, I will, and there an end.\n    I am resolv'd that thou shalt spend some time\n    With Valentinus in the Emperor's court;\n    What maintenance he from his friends receives,\n    Like exhibition thou shalt have from me.\n    To-morrow be in readiness to go-\n    Excuse it not, for I am peremptory.\n  PROTEUS. My lord, I cannot be so soon provided;\n    Please you, deliberate a day or two.\n  ANTONIO. Look what thou want'st shall be sent after thee.\n    No more of stay; to-morrow thou must go.\n    Come on, Panthino; you shall be employ'd\n    To hasten on his expedition.\n                                     Exeunt ANTONIO and PANTHINO\n  PROTEUS. Thus have I shunn'd the fire for fear of burning,\n    And drench'd me in the sea, where I am drown'd.\n    I fear'd to show my father Julia's letter,\n    Lest he should take exceptions to my love;\n    And with the vantage of mine own excuse\n    Hath he excepted most against my love.\n    O, how this spring of love resembleth\n    The uncertain glory of an April day,\n    Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,\n    And by an by a cloud takes all away!\n\n                       Re-enter PANTHINO\n\n  PANTHINO. Sir Proteus, your father calls for you;\n    He is in haste; therefore, I pray you, go.\n  PROTEUS. Why, this it is: my heart accords thereto;\n    And yet a thousand times it answers 'No.'             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nMilan. The DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter VALENTINE and SPEED\n\n  SPEED. Sir, your glove.\n  VALENTINE. Not mine: my gloves are on.\n  SPEED. Why, then, this may be yours; for this is but one.\n  VALENTINE. Ha! let me see; ay, give it me, it's mine;\n    Sweet ornament that decks a thing divine!\n    Ah, Silvia! Silvia!\n  SPEED.  [Calling]  Madam Silvia! Madam Silvia!\n  VALENTINE. How now, sirrah?\n  SPEED. She is not within hearing, sir.\n  VALENTINE. Why, sir, who bade you call her?\n  SPEED. Your worship, sir; or else I mistook.\n  VALENTINE. Well, you'll still be too forward.\n  SPEED. And yet I was last chidden for being too slow.\n  VALENTINE. Go to, sir; tell me, do you know Madam Silvia?\n  SPEED. She that your worship loves?\n  VALENTINE. Why, how know you that I am in love?\n  SPEED. Marry, by these special marks: first, you have learn'd, like\n    Sir Proteus, to wreath your arms like a malcontent; to relish a\n    love-song, like a robin redbreast; to walk alone, like one that\n    had the pestilence; to sigh, like a school-boy that had lost his\n    A B C; to weep, like a young wench that had buried her grandam;\n    to fast, like one that takes diet; to watch, like one that fears\n    robbing; to speak puling, like a beggar at Hallowmas. You were\n    wont, when you laughed, to crow like a cock; when you walk'd, to\n    walk like one of the lions; when you fasted, it was presently\n    after dinner; when you look'd sadly, it was for want of money.\n    And now you are metamorphis'd with a mistress, that, when I look\n    on you, I can hardly think you my master.\n  VALENTINE. Are all these things perceiv'd in me?\n  SPEED. They are all perceiv'd without ye.\n  VALENTINE. Without me? They cannot.\n  SPEED. Without you! Nay, that's certain; for, without you were so\n    simple, none else would; but you are so without these follies\n    that these follies are within you, and shine through you like the\n    water in an urinal, that not an eye that sees you but is a\n    physician to comment on your malady.\n  VALENTINE. But tell me, dost thou know my lady Silvia?\n  SPEED. She that you gaze on so, as she sits at supper?\n  VALENTINE. Hast thou observ'd that? Even she, I mean.\n  SPEED. Why, sir, I know her not.\n  VALENTINE. Dost thou know her by my gazing on her, and yet know'st\n    her not?\n  SPEED. Is she not hard-favour'd, sir?\n  VALENTINE. Not so fair, boy, as well-favour'd.\n  SPEED. Sir, I know that well enough.\n  VALENTINE. What dost thou know?\n  SPEED. That she is not so fair as, of you, well-favour'd.\n  VALENTINE. I mean that her beauty is exquisite, but her favour\n    infinite.\n  SPEED. That's because the one is painted, and the other out of all\n    count.\n  VALENTINE. How painted? and how out of count?\n  SPEED. Marry, sir, so painted, to make her fair, that no man counts\n    of her beauty.\n  VALENTINE. How esteem'st thou me? I account of her beauty.\n  SPEED. You never saw her since she was deform'd.\n  VALENTINE. How long hath she been deform'd?\n  SPEED. Ever since you lov'd her.\n  VALENTINE. I have lov'd her ever since I saw her, and still\n    I see her beautiful.\n  SPEED. If you love her, you cannot see her.\n  VALENTINE. Why?\n  SPEED. Because Love is blind. O that you had mine eyes; or your own\n    eyes had the lights they were wont to have when you chid at Sir\n    Proteus for going ungarter'd!\n  VALENTINE. What should I see then?\n  SPEED. Your own present folly and her passing deformity; for he,\n    being in love, could not see to garter his hose; and you, being\n    in love, cannot see to put on your hose.\n  VALENTINE. Belike, boy, then you are in love; for last morning you\n    could not see to wipe my shoes.\n  SPEED. True, sir; I was in love with my bed. I thank you, you\n    swing'd me for my love, which makes me the bolder to chide you\n    for yours.\n  VALENTINE. In conclusion, I stand affected to her.\n  SPEED. I would you were set, so your affection would cease.\n  VALENTINE. Last night she enjoin'd me to write some lines to one\n    she loves.\n  SPEED. And have you?\n  VALENTINE. I have.\n  SPEED. Are they not lamely writ?\n  VALENTINE. No, boy, but as well as I can do them.\n\n                           Enter SILVIA\n\n    Peace! here she comes.\n  SPEED.  [Aside]  O excellent motion! O exceeding puppet!\n    Now will he interpret to her.\n  VALENTINE. Madam and mistress, a thousand good morrows.\n  SPEED.  [Aside]  O, give ye good ev'n!\n    Here's a million of manners.\n  SILVIA. Sir Valentine and servant, to you two thousand.\n  SPEED.  [Aside]  He should give her interest, and she gives it him.\n  VALENTINE. As you enjoin'd me, I have writ your letter\n    Unto the secret nameless friend of yours;\n    Which I was much unwilling to proceed in,\n    But for my duty to your ladyship.\n  SILVIA. I thank you, gentle servant. 'Tis very clerkly done.\n  VALENTINE. Now trust me, madam, it came hardly off;\n    For, being ignorant to whom it goes,\n    I writ at random, very doubtfully.\n  SILVIA. Perchance you think too much of so much pains?\n  VALENTINE. No, madam; so it stead you, I will write,\n    Please you command, a thousand times as much;\n    And yet-\n  SILVIA. A pretty period! Well, I guess the sequel;\n    And yet I will not name it- and yet I care not.\n    And yet take this again- and yet I thank you-\n    Meaning henceforth to trouble you no more.\n  SPEED.  [Aside]  And yet you will; and yet another' yet.'\n  VALENTINE. What means your ladyship? Do you not like it?\n  SILVIA. Yes, yes; the lines are very quaintly writ;\n    But, since unwillingly, take them again.\n    Nay, take them.                      [Gives hack the letter]\n  VALENTINE. Madam, they are for you.\n  SILVIA. Ay, ay, you writ them, sir, at my request;\n    But I will none of them; they are for you:\n    I would have had them writ more movingly.\n  VALENTINE. Please you, I'll write your ladyship another.\n  SILVIA. And when it's writ, for my sake read it over;\n    And if it please you, so; if not, why, so.\n  VALENTINE. If it please me, madam, what then?\n  SILVIA. Why, if it please you, take it for your labour.\n    And so good morrow, servant.                     Exit SILVIA\n  SPEED. O jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible,\n    As a nose on a man's face, or a weathercock on a steeple!\n    My master sues to her; and she hath taught her suitor,\n    He being her pupil, to become her tutor.\n    O excellent device! Was there ever heard a better,\n    That my master, being scribe, to himself should write the letter?\n  VALENTINE. How now, sir! What are you reasoning with yourself?\n  SPEED. Nay, I was rhyming: 'tis you that have the reason.\n  VALENTINE. To do what?\n  SPEED. To be a spokesman from Madam Silvia?\n  VALENTINE. To whom?\n  SPEED. To yourself; why, she woos you by a figure.\n  VALENTINE. What figure?\n  SPEED. By a letter, I should say.\n  VALENTINE. Why, she hath not writ to me.\n  SPEED. What need she, when she hath made you write to yourself?\n    Why, do you not perceive the jest?\n  VALENTINE. No, believe me.\n  SPEED. No believing you indeed, sir. But did you perceive her\n    earnest?\n  VALENTINE. She gave me none except an angry word.\n  SPEED. Why, she hath given you a letter.\n  VALENTINE. That's the letter I writ to her friend.\n  SPEED. And that letter hath she deliver'd, and there an end.\n  VALENTINE. I would it were no worse.\n  SPEED. I'll warrant you 'tis as well.\n    'For often have you writ to her; and she, in modesty,\n    Or else for want of idle time, could not again reply;\n    Or fearing else some messenger that might her mind discover,\n    Herself hath taught her love himself to write unto her lover.'\n    All this I speak in print, for in print I found it. Why muse you,\n    sir? 'Tis dinner time.\n  VALENTINE. I have din'd.\n  SPEED. Ay, but hearken, sir; though the chameleon Love can feed on\n    the air, I am one that am nourish'd by my victuals, and would\n    fain have meat. O, be not like your mistress! Be moved, be moved.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nVerona. JULIA'S house\n\nEnter PROTEUS and JULIA\n\n  PROTEUS. Have patience, gentle Julia.\n  JULIA. I must, where is no remedy.\n  PROTEUS. When possibly I can, I will return.\n  JULIA. If you turn not, you will return the sooner.\n    Keep this remembrance for thy Julia's sake.\n                                                 [Giving a ring]\n  PROTEUS. Why, then, we'll make exchange. Here, take you this.\n  JULIA. And seal the bargain with a holy kiss.\n  PROTEUS. Here is my hand for my true constancy;\n    And when that hour o'erslips me in the day\n    Wherein I sigh not, Julia, for thy sake,\n    The next ensuing hour some foul mischance\n    Torment me for my love's forgetfulness!\n    My father stays my coming; answer not;\n    The tide is now- nay, not thy tide of tears:\n    That tide will stay me longer than I should.\n    Julia, farewell!                                  Exit JULIA\n    What, gone without a word?\n    Ay, so true love should do: it cannot speak;\n    For truth hath better deeds than words to grace it.\n\n                          Enter PANTHINO\n\n  PANTHINO. Sir Proteus, you are stay'd for.\n  PROTEUS. Go; I come, I come.\n    Alas! this parting strikes poor lovers dumb.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nVerona. A street\n\nEnter LAUNCE, leading a dog\n\n  LAUNCE. Nay, 'twill be this hour ere I have done weeping; all the\n    kind of the Launces have this very fault. I have receiv'd my\n    proportion, like the Prodigious Son, and am going with Sir\n    Proteus to the Imperial's court. I think Crab my dog be the\n    sourest-natured dog that lives: my mother weeping, my father\n    wailing, my sister crying, our maid howling, our cat wringing her\n    hands, and all our house in a great perplexity; yet did not this\n    cruel-hearted cur shed one tear. He is a stone, a very pebble\n    stone, and has no more pity in him than a dog. A Jew would have\n    wept to have seen our parting; why, my grandam having no eyes,\n    look you, wept herself blind at my parting. Nay, I'll show you\n    the manner of it. This shoe is my father; no, this left shoe is\n    my father; no, no, left shoe is my mother; nay, that cannot be so\n    neither; yes, it is so, it is so, it hath the worser sole. This\n    shoe with the hole in it is my mother, and this my father. A\n    vengeance on 't! There 'tis. Now, sir, this staff is my sister,\n    for, look you, she is as white as a lily and as small as a wand;\n    this hat is Nan our maid; I am the dog; no, the dog is himself,\n    and I am the dog- O, the dog is me, and I am myself; ay, so, so.\n    Now come I to my father: 'Father, your blessing.' Now should not\n    the shoe speak a word for weeping; now should I kiss my father;\n    well, he weeps on. Now come I to my mother. O that she could\n    speak now like a wood woman! Well, I kiss her- why there 'tis;\n    here's my mother's breath up and down. Now come I to my sister;\n    mark the moan she makes. Now the dog all this while sheds not a\n    tear, nor speaks a word; but see how I lay the dust with my\n    tears.\n\n                            Enter PANTHINO\n\n  PANTHINO. Launce, away, away, aboard! Thy master is shipp'd, and\n    thou art to post after with oars. What's the matter? Why weep'st\n    thou, man? Away, ass! You'll lose the tide if you tarry any\n    longer.\n  LAUNCE. It is no matter if the tied were lost; for it is the\n    unkindest tied that ever any man tied.\n  PANTHINO. What's the unkindest tide?\n  LAUNCE. Why, he that's tied here, Crab, my dog.\n  PANTHINO. Tut, man, I mean thou'lt lose the flood, and, in losing\n    the flood, lose thy voyage, and, in losing thy voyage, lose thy\n    master, and, in losing thy master, lose thy service, and, in\n    losing thy service- Why dost thou stop my mouth?\n  LAUNCE. For fear thou shouldst lose thy tongue.\n  PANTHINO. Where should I lose my tongue?\n  LAUNCE. In thy tale.\n  PANTHINO. In thy tail!\n  LAUNCE. Lose the tide, and the voyage, and the master, and the\n    service, and the tied! Why, man, if the river were dry, I am able\n    to fill it with my tears; if the wind were down, I could drive\n    the boat with my sighs.\n  PANTHINO. Come, come away, man; I was sent to call thee.\n  LAUNCE. Sir, call me what thou dar'st.\n  PANTHINO. Will thou go?\n  LAUNCE. Well, I will go.                                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nMilan. The DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter SILVIA, VALENTINE, THURIO, and SPEED\n\n  SILVIA. Servant!\n  VALENTINE. Mistress?\n  SPEED. Master, Sir Thurio frowns on you.\n  VALENTINE. Ay, boy, it's for love.\n  SPEED. Not of you.\n  VALENTINE. Of my mistress, then.\n  SPEED. 'Twere good you knock'd him.                       Exit\n  SILVIA. Servant, you are sad.\n  VALENTINE. Indeed, madam, I seem so.\n  THURIO. Seem you that you are not?\n  VALENTINE. Haply I do.\n  THURIO. So do counterfeits.\n  VALENTINE. So do you.\n  THURIO. What seem I that I am not?\n  VALENTINE. Wise.\n  THURIO. What instance of the contrary?\n  VALENTINE. Your folly.\n  THURIO. And how quote you my folly?\n  VALENTINE. I quote it in your jerkin.\n  THURIO. My jerkin is a doublet.\n  VALENTINE. Well, then, I'll double your folly.\n  THURIO. How?\n  SILVIA. What, angry, Sir Thurio! Do you change colour?\n  VALENTINE. Give him leave, madam; he is a kind of chameleon.\n  THURIO. That hath more mind to feed on your blood than live in your\n    air.\n  VALENTINE. You have said, sir.\n  THURIO. Ay, sir, and done too, for this time.\n  VALENTINE. I know it well, sir; you always end ere you begin.\n  SILVIA. A fine volley of words, gentlemen, and quickly shot off.\n  VALENTINE. 'Tis indeed, madam; we thank the giver.\n  SILVIA. Who is that, servant?\n  VALENTINE. Yourself, sweet lady; for you gave the fire. Sir Thurio\n    borrows his wit from your ladyship's looks, and spends what he\n    borrows kindly in your company.\n  THURIO. Sir, if you spend word for word with me, I shall make your\n    wit bankrupt.\n  VALENTINE. I know it well, sir; you have an exchequer of words,\n    and, I think, no other treasure to give your followers; for it\n    appears by their bare liveries that they live by your bare words.\n\n                             Enter DUKE\n\n  SILVIA. No more, gentlemen, no more. Here comes my father.\n  DUKE. Now, daughter Silvia, you are hard beset.\n    Sir Valentine, your father is in good health.\n    What say you to a letter from your friends\n    Of much good news?\n  VALENTINE. My lord, I will be thankful\n    To any happy messenger from thence.\n  DUKE. Know ye Don Antonio, your countryman?\n  VALENTINE. Ay, my good lord, I know the gentleman\n    To be of worth and worthy estimation,\n    And not without desert so well reputed.\n  DUKE. Hath he not a son?\n  VALENTINE. Ay, my good lord; a son that well deserves\n    The honour and regard of such a father.\n  DUKE. You know him well?\n  VALENTINE. I knew him as myself; for from our infancy\n    We have convers'd and spent our hours together;\n    And though myself have been an idle truant,\n    Omitting the sweet benefit of time\n    To clothe mine age with angel-like perfection,\n    Yet hath Sir Proteus, for that's his name,\n    Made use and fair advantage of his days:\n    His years but young, but his experience old;\n    His head unmellowed, but his judgment ripe;\n    And, in a word, for far behind his worth\n    Comes all the praises that I now bestow,\n    He is complete in feature and in mind,\n    With all good grace to grace a gentleman.\n  DUKE. Beshrew me, sir, but if he make this good,\n    He is as worthy for an empress' love\n    As meet to be an emperor's counsellor.\n    Well, sir, this gentleman is come to me\n    With commendation from great potentates,\n    And here he means to spend his time awhile.\n    I think 'tis no unwelcome news to you.\n  VALENTINE. Should I have wish'd a thing, it had been he.\n  DUKE. Welcome him, then, according to his worth-\n    Silvia, I speak to you, and you, Sir Thurio;\n    For Valentine, I need not cite him to it.\n    I will send him hither to you presently.           Exit DUKE\n  VALENTINE. This is the gentleman I told your ladyship\n    Had come along with me but that his mistresss\n    Did hold his eyes lock'd in her crystal looks.\n  SILVIA. Belike that now she hath enfranchis'd them\n    Upon some other pawn for fealty.\n  VALENTINE. Nay, sure, I think she holds them prisoners still.\n  SILVIA. Nay, then, he should be blind; and, being blind,\n    How could he see his way to seek out you?\n  VALENTINE. Why, lady, Love hath twenty pair of eyes.\n  THURIO. They say that Love hath not an eye at all.\n  VALENTINE. To see such lovers, Thurio, as yourself;\n    Upon a homely object Love can wink.              Exit THURIO\n\n                         Enter PROTEUS\n\n  SILVIA. Have done, have done; here comes the gentleman.\n  VALENTINE. Welcome, dear Proteus! Mistress, I beseech you\n    Confirm his welcome with some special favour.\n  SILVIA. His worth is warrant for his welcome hither,\n    If this be he you oft have wish'd to hear from.\n  VALENTINE. Mistress, it is; sweet lady, entertain him\n    To be my fellow-servant to your ladyship.\n  SILVIA. Too low a mistress for so high a servant.\n  PROTEUS. Not so, sweet lady; but too mean a servant\n    To have a look of such a worthy mistress.\n  VALENTINE. Leave off discourse of disability;\n    Sweet lady, entertain him for your servant.\n  PROTEUS. My duty will I boast of, nothing else.\n  SILVIA. And duty never yet did want his meed.\n    Servant, you are welcome to a worthless mistress.\n  PROTEUS. I'll die on him that says so but yourself.\n  SILVIA. That you are welcome?\n  PROTEUS. That you are worthless.\n\n                          Re-enter THURIO\n\n  THURIO. Madam, my lord your father would speak with you.\n  SILVIA. I wait upon his pleasure. Come, Sir Thurio,\n    Go with me. Once more, new servant, welcome.\n    I'll leave you to confer of home affairs;\n    When you have done we look to hear from you.\n  PROTEUS. We'll both attend upon your ladyship.\n                                        Exeunt SILVIA and THURIO\n  VALENTINE. Now, tell me, how do all from whence you came?\n  PROTEUS. Your friends are well, and have them much commended.\n  VALENTINE. And how do yours?\n  PROTEUS. I left them all in health.\n  VALENTINE. How does your lady, and how thrives your love?\n  PROTEUS. My tales of love were wont to weary you;\n    I know you joy not in a love-discourse.\n  VALENTINE. Ay, Proteus, but that life is alter'd now;\n    I have done penance for contemning Love,\n    Whose high imperious thoughts have punish'd me\n    With bitter fasts, with penitential groans,\n    With nightly tears, and daily heart-sore sighs;\n    For, in revenge of my contempt of love,\n    Love hath chas'd sleep from my enthralled eyes\n    And made them watchers of mine own heart's sorrow.\n    O gentle Proteus, Love's a mighty lord,\n    And hath so humbled me as I confess\n    There is no woe to his correction,\n    Nor to his service no such joy on earth.\n    Now no discourse, except it be of love;\n    Now can I break my fast, dine, sup, and sleep,\n    Upon the very naked name of love.\n  PROTEUS. Enough; I read your fortune in your eye.\n    Was this the idol that you worship so?\n  VALENTINE. Even she; and is she not a heavenly saint?\n  PROTEUS. No; but she is an earthly paragon.\n  VALENTINE. Call her divine.\n  PROTEUS. I will not flatter her.\n  VALENTINE. O, flatter me; for love delights in praises!\n  PROTEUS. When I was sick you gave me bitter pills,\n    And I must minister the like to you.\n  VALENTINE. Then speak the truth by her; if not divine,\n    Yet let her be a principality,\n    Sovereign to all the creatures on the earth.\n  PROTEUS. Except my mistress.\n  VALENTINE. Sweet, except not any;\n    Except thou wilt except against my love.\n  PROTEUS. Have I not reason to prefer mine own?\n  VALENTINE. And I will help thee to prefer her too:\n    She shall be dignified with this high honour-\n    To bear my lady's train, lest the base earth\n    Should from her vesture chance to steal a kiss\n    And, of so great a favour growing proud,\n    Disdain to root the summer-swelling flow'r\n    And make rough winter everlastingly.\n  PROTEUS. Why, Valentine, what braggardism is this?\n  VALENTINE. Pardon me, Proteus; all I can is nothing\n    To her, whose worth makes other worthies nothing;\n    She is alone.\n  PROTEUS. Then let her alone.\n  VALENTINE. Not for the world! Why, man, she is mine own;\n    And I as rich in having such a jewel\n    As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,\n    The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.\n    Forgive me that I do not dream on thee,\n    Because thou seest me dote upon my love.\n    My foolish rival, that her father likes\n    Only for his possessions are so huge,\n    Is gone with her along; and I must after,\n    For love, thou know'st, is full of jealousy.\n  PROTEUS. But she loves you?\n  VALENTINE. Ay, and we are betroth'd; nay more, our marriage-hour,\n    With all the cunning manner of our flight,\n    Determin'd of- how I must climb her window,\n    The ladder made of cords, and all the means\n    Plotted and 'greed on for my happiness.\n    Good Proteus, go with me to my chamber,\n    In these affairs to aid me with thy counsel.\n  PROTEUS. Go on before; I shall enquire you forth;\n    I must unto the road to disembark\n    Some necessaries that I needs must use;\n    And then I'll presently attend you.\n  VALENTINE. Will you make haste?\n  PROTEUS. I will.                                Exit VALENTINE\n    Even as one heat another heat expels\n    Or as one nail by strength drives out another,\n    So the remembrance of my former love\n    Is by a newer object quite forgotten.\n    Is it my mind, or Valentinus' praise,\n    Her true perfection, or my false transgression,\n    That makes me reasonless to reason thus?\n    She is fair; and so is Julia that I love-\n    That I did love, for now my love is thaw'd;\n    Which like a waxen image 'gainst a fire\n    Bears no impression of the thing it was.\n    Methinks my zeal to Valentine is cold,\n    And that I love him not as I was wont.\n    O! but I love his lady too too much,\n    And that's the reason I love him so little.\n    How shall I dote on her with more advice\n    That thus without advice begin to love her!\n    'Tis but her picture I have yet beheld,\n    And that hath dazzled my reason's light;\n    But when I look on her perfections,\n    There is no reason but I shall be blind.\n    If I can check my erring love, I will;\n    If not, to compass her I'll use my skill.               Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nMilan. A street\n\nEnter SPEED and LAUNCE severally\n\n  SPEED. Launce! by mine honesty, welcome to Padua.\n  LAUNCE. Forswear not thyself, sweet youth, for I am not welcome. I\n    reckon this always, that a man is never undone till he be hang'd,\n    nor never welcome to a place till some certain shot be paid, and\n    the hostess say 'Welcome!'\n  SPEED. Come on, you madcap; I'll to the alehouse with you\n    presently; where, for one shot of five pence, thou shalt have\n    five thousand welcomes. But, sirrah, how did thy master part with\n    Madam Julia?\n  LAUNCE. Marry, after they clos'd in earnest, they parted very\n    fairly in jest.\n  SPEED. But shall she marry him?\n  LAUNCE. No.\n  SPEED. How then? Shall he marry her?\n  LAUNCE. No, neither.\n  SPEED. What, are they broken?\n  LAUNCE. No, they are both as whole as a fish.\n  SPEED. Why then, how stands the matter with them?\n  LAUNCE. Marry, thus: when it stands well with him, it stands well\n    with her.\n  SPEED. What an ass art thou! I understand thee not.\n  LAUNCE. What a block art thou that thou canst not! My staff\n    understands me.\n  SPEED. What thou say'st?\n  LAUNCE. Ay, and what I do too; look thee, I'll but lean, and my\n    staff understands me.\n  SPEED. It stands under thee, indeed.\n  LAUNCE. Why, stand-under and under-stand is all one.\n  SPEED. But tell me true, will't be a match?\n  LAUNCE. Ask my dog. If he say ay, it will; if he say no, it will;\n    if he shake his tail and say nothing, it will.\n  SPEED. The conclusion is, then, that it will.\n  LAUNCE. Thou shalt never get such a secret from me but by a\n    parable.\n  SPEED. 'Tis well that I get it so. But, Launce, how say'st thou\n    that my master is become a notable lover?\n  LAUNCE. I never knew him otherwise.\n  SPEED. Than how?\n  LAUNCE. A notable lubber, as thou reportest him to be.\n  SPEED. Why, thou whoreson ass, thou mistak'st me.\n  LAUNCE. Why, fool, I meant not thee, I meant thy master.\n  SPEED. I tell thee my master is become a hot lover.\n  LAUNCE. Why, I tell thee I care not though he burn himself in love.\n    If thou wilt, go with me to the alehouse; if not, thou art an\n    Hebrew, a Jew, and not worth the name of a Christian.\n  SPEED. Why?\n  LAUNCE. Because thou hast not so much charity in thee as to go to\n    the ale with a Christian. Wilt thou go?\n  SPEED. At thy service.                                  Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nMilan. The DUKE's palace\n\nEnter PROTEUS\n\n  PROTEUS. To leave my Julia, shall I be forsworn;\n    To love fair Silvia, shall I be forsworn;\n    To wrong my friend, I shall be much forsworn;\n    And ev'n that pow'r which gave me first my oath\n    Provokes me to this threefold perjury:\n    Love bade me swear, and Love bids me forswear.\n    O sweet-suggesting Love, if thou hast sinn'd,\n    Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it!\n    At first I did adore a twinkling star,\n    But now I worship a celestial sun.\n    Unheedful vows may heedfully be broken;\n    And he wants wit that wants resolved will\n    To learn his wit t' exchange the bad for better.\n    Fie, fie, unreverend tongue, to call her bad\n    Whose sovereignty so oft thou hast preferr'd\n    With twenty thousand soul-confirming oaths!\n    I cannot leave to love, and yet I do;\n    But there I leave to love where I should love.\n    Julia I lose, and Valentine I lose;\n    If I keep them, I needs must lose myself;\n    If I lose them, thus find I by their loss:\n    For Valentine, myself; for Julia, Silvia.\n    I to myself am dearer than a friend;\n    For love is still most precious in itself;\n    And Silvia- witness heaven, that made her fair!-\n    Shows Julia but a swarthy Ethiope.\n    I will forget that Julia is alive,\n    Rememb'ring that my love to her is dead;\n    And Valentine I'll hold an enemy,\n    Aiming at Silvia as a sweeter friend.\n    I cannot now prove constant to myself\n    Without some treachery us'd to Valentine.\n    This night he meaneth with a corded ladder\n    To climb celestial Silvia's chamber window,\n    Myself in counsel, his competitor.\n    Now presently I'll give her father notice\n    Of their disguising and pretended flight,\n    Who, all enrag'd, will banish Valentine,\n    For Thurio, he intends, shall wed his daughter;\n    But, Valentine being gone, I'll quickly cross\n    By some sly trick blunt Thurio's dull proceeding.\n    Love, lend me wings to make my purpose swift,\n    As thou hast lent me wit to plot this drift.            Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nVerona. JULIA'S house\n\nEnter JULIA and LUCETTA\n\n  JULIA. Counsel, Lucetta; gentle girl, assist me;\n    And, ev'n in kind love, I do conjure thee,\n    Who art the table wherein all my thoughts\n    Are visibly character'd and engrav'd,\n    To lesson me and tell me some good mean\n    How, with my honour, I may undertake\n    A journey to my loving Proteus.\n  LUCETTA. Alas, the way is wearisome and long!\n  JULIA. A true-devoted pilgrim is not weary\n    To measure kingdoms with his feeble steps;\n    Much less shall she that hath Love's wings to fly,\n    And when the flight is made to one so dear,\n    Of such divine perfection, as Sir Proteus.\n  LUCETTA. Better forbear till Proteus make return.\n  JULIA. O, know'st thou not his looks are my soul's food?\n    Pity the dearth that I have pined in\n    By longing for that food so long a time.\n    Didst thou but know the inly touch of love.\n    Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow\n    As seek to quench the fire of love with words.\n  LUCETTA. I do not seek to quench your love's hot fire,\n    But qualify the fire's extreme rage,\n    Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason.\n  JULIA. The more thou dam'st it up, the more it burns.\n    The current that with gentle murmur glides,\n    Thou know'st, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage;\n    But when his fair course is not hindered,\n    He makes sweet music with th' enamell'd stones,\n    Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge\n    He overtaketh in his pilgrimage;\n    And so by many winding nooks he strays,\n    With willing sport, to the wild ocean.\n    Then let me go, and hinder not my course.\n    I'll be as patient as a gentle stream,\n    And make a pastime of each weary step,\n    Till the last step have brought me to my love;\n    And there I'll rest as, after much turmoil,\n    A blessed soul doth in Elysium.\n  LUCETTA. But in what habit will you go along?\n  JULIA. Not like a woman, for I would prevent\n    The loose encounters of lascivious men;\n    Gentle Lucetta, fit me with such weeds\n    As may beseem some well-reputed page.\n  LUCETTA. Why then, your ladyship must cut your hair.\n  JULIA. No, girl; I'll knit it up in silken strings\n    With twenty odd-conceited true-love knots-\n    To be fantastic may become a youth\n    Of greater time than I shall show to be.\n  LUCETTA. What fashion, madam, shall I make your breeches?\n  JULIA. That fits as well as 'Tell me, good my lord,\n    What compass will you wear your farthingale.'\n    Why ev'n what fashion thou best likes, Lucetta.\n  LUCETTA. You must needs have them with a codpiece, madam.\n  JULIA. Out, out, Lucetta, that will be ill-favour'd.\n  LUCETTA. A round hose, madam, now's not worth a pin,\n    Unless you have a codpiece to stick pins on.\n  JULIA. Lucetta, as thou lov'st me, let me have\n    What thou think'st meet, and is most mannerly.\n    But tell me, wench, how will the world repute me\n    For undertaking so unstaid a journey?\n    I fear me it will make me scandaliz'd.\n  LUCETTA. If you think so, then stay at home and go not.\n  JULIA. Nay, that I will not.\n  LUCETTA. Then never dream on infamy, but go.\n    If Proteus like your journey when you come,\n    No matter who's displeas'd when you are gone.\n    I fear me he will scarce be pleas'd withal.\n  JULIA. That is the least, Lucetta, of my fear:\n    A thousand oaths, an ocean of his tears,\n    And instances of infinite of love,\n    Warrant me welcome to my Proteus.\n  LUCETTA. All these are servants to deceitful men.\n  JULIA. Base men that use them to so base effect!\n    But truer stars did govern Proteus' birth;\n    His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles,\n    His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate,\n    His tears pure messengers sent from his heart,\n    His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth.\n  LUCETTA. Pray heav'n he prove so when you come to him.\n  JULIA. Now, as thou lov'st me, do him not that wrong\n    To bear a hard opinion of his truth;\n    Only deserve my love by loving him.\n    And presently go with me to my chamber,\n    To take a note of what I stand in need of\n    To furnish me upon my longing journey.\n    All that is mine I leave at thy dispose,\n    My goods, my lands, my reputation;\n    Only, in lieu thereof, dispatch me hence.\n    Come, answer not, but to it presently;\n    I am impatient of my tarriance.                       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nMilan. The DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter DUKE, THURIO, and PROTEUS\n\n  DUKE. Sir Thurio, give us leave, I pray, awhile;\n    We have some secrets to confer about.            Exit THURIO\n    Now tell me, Proteus, what's your will with me?\n  PROTEUS. My gracious lord, that which I would discover\n    The law of friendship bids me to conceal;\n    But, when I call to mind your gracious favours\n    Done to me, undeserving as I am,\n    My duty pricks me on to utter that\n    Which else no worldly good should draw from me.\n    Know, worthy prince, Sir Valentine, my friend,\n    This night intends to steal away your daughter;\n    Myself am one made privy to the plot.\n    I know you have determin'd to bestow her\n    On Thurio, whom your gentle daughter hates;\n    And should she thus be stol'n away from you,\n    It would be much vexation to your age.\n    Thus, for my duty's sake, I rather chose\n    To cross my friend in his intended drift\n    Than, by concealing it, heap on your head\n    A pack of sorrows which would press you down,\n    Being unprevented, to your timeless grave.\n  DUKE. Proteus, I thank thee for thine honest care,\n    Which to requite, command me while I live.\n    This love of theirs myself have often seen,\n    Haply when they have judg'd me fast asleep,\n    And oftentimes have purpos'd to forbid\n    Sir Valentine her company and my court;\n    But, fearing lest my jealous aim might err\n    And so, unworthily, disgrace the man,\n    A rashness that I ever yet have shunn'd,\n    I gave him gentle looks, thereby to find\n    That which thyself hast now disclos'd to me.\n    And, that thou mayst perceive my fear of this,\n    Knowing that tender youth is soon suggested,\n    I nightly lodge her in an upper tow'r,\n    The key whereof myself have ever kept;\n    And thence she cannot be convey'd away.\n  PROTEUS. Know, noble lord, they have devis'd a mean\n    How he her chamber window will ascend\n    And with a corded ladder fetch her down;\n    For which the youthful lover now is gone,\n    And this way comes he with it presently;\n    Where, if it please you, you may intercept him.\n    But, good my lord, do it so cunningly\n    That my discovery be not aimed at;\n    For love of you, not hate unto my friend,\n    Hath made me publisher of this pretence.\n  DUKE. Upon mine honour, he shall never know\n    That I had any light from thee of this.\n  PROTEUS. Adieu, my lord; Sir Valentine is coming.         Exit\n\n                        Enter VALENTINE\n\n  DUKE. Sir Valentine, whither away so fast?\n  VALENTINE. Please it your Grace, there is a messenger\n    That stays to bear my letters to my friends,\n    And I am going to deliver them.\n  DUKE. Be they of much import?\n  VALENTINE. The tenour of them doth but signify\n    My health and happy being at your court.\n  DUKE. Nay then, no matter; stay with me awhile;\n    I am to break with thee of some affairs\n    That touch me near, wherein thou must be secret.\n    'Tis not unknown to thee that I have sought\n    To match my friend Sir Thurio to my daughter.\n  VALENTINE. I know it well, my lord; and, sure, the match\n    Were rich and honourable; besides, the gentleman\n    Is full of virtue, bounty, worth, and qualities\n    Beseeming such a wife as your fair daughter.\n    Cannot your grace win her to fancy him?\n  DUKE. No, trust me; she is peevish, sullen, froward,\n    Proud, disobedient, stubborn, lacking duty;\n    Neither regarding that she is my child\n    Nor fearing me as if I were her father;\n    And, may I say to thee, this pride of hers,\n    Upon advice, hath drawn my love from her;\n    And, where I thought the remnant of mine age\n    Should have been cherish'd by her childlike duty,\n    I now am full resolv'd to take a wife\n    And turn her out to who will take her in.\n    Then let her beauty be her wedding-dow'r;\n    For me and my possessions she esteems not.\n  VALENTINE. What would your Grace have me to do in this?\n  DUKE. There is a lady, in Verona here,\n    Whom I affect; but she is nice, and coy,\n    And nought esteems my aged eloquence.\n    Now, therefore, would I have thee to my tutor-\n    For long agone I have forgot to court;\n    Besides, the fashion of the time is chang'd-\n    How and which way I may bestow myself\n    To be regarded in her sun-bright eye.\n  VALENTINE. Win her with gifts, if she respect not words:\n    Dumb jewels often in their silent kind\n    More than quick words do move a woman's mind.\n  DUKE. But she did scorn a present that I sent her.\n  VALENTINE. A woman sometime scorns what best contents her.\n    Send her another; never give her o'er,\n    For scorn at first makes after-love the more.\n    If she do frown, 'tis not in hate of you,\n    But rather to beget more love in you;\n    If she do chide, 'tis not to have you gone,\n    For why, the fools are mad if left alone.\n    Take no repulse, whatever she doth say;\n    For 'Get you gone' she doth not mean 'Away!'\n    Flatter and praise, commend, extol their graces;\n    Though ne'er so black, say they have angels' faces.\n    That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man,\n    If with his tongue he cannot win a woman.\n  DUKE. But she I mean is promis'd by her friends\n    Unto a youthful gentleman of worth;\n    And kept severely from resort of men,\n    That no man hath access by day to her.\n  VALENTINE. Why then I would resort to her by night.\n  DUKE. Ay, but the doors be lock'd and keys kept safe,\n    That no man hath recourse to her by night.\n  VALENTINE. What lets but one may enter at her window?\n  DUKE. Her chamber is aloft, far from the ground,\n    And built so shelving that one cannot climb it\n    Without apparent hazard of his life.\n  VALENTINE. Why then a ladder, quaintly made of cords,\n    To cast up with a pair of anchoring hooks,\n    Would serve to scale another Hero's tow'r,\n    So bold Leander would adventure it.\n  DUKE. Now, as thou art a gentleman of blood,\n    Advise me where I may have such a ladder.\n  VALENTINE. When would you use it? Pray, sir, tell me that.\n  DUKE. This very night; for Love is like a child,\n    That longs for everything that he can come by.\n  VALENTINE. By seven o'clock I'll get you such a ladder.\n  DUKE. But, hark thee; I will go to her alone;\n    How shall I best convey the ladder thither?\n  VALENTINE. It will be light, my lord, that you may bear it\n    Under a cloak that is of any length.\n  DUKE. A cloak as long as thine will serve the turn?\n  VALENTINE. Ay, my good lord.\n  DUKE. Then let me see thy cloak.\n    I'll get me one of such another length.\n  VALENTINE. Why, any cloak will serve the turn, my lord.\n  DUKE. How shall I fashion me to wear a cloak?\n    I pray thee, let me feel thy cloak upon me.\n    What letter is this same? What's here? 'To Silvia'!\n    And here an engine fit for my proceeding!\n    I'll be so bold to break the seal for once.          [Reads]\n      'My thoughts do harbour with my Silvia nightly,\n        And slaves they are to me, that send them flying.\n      O, could their master come and go as lightly,\n        Himself would lodge where, senseless, they are lying!\n      My herald thoughts in thy pure bosom rest them,\n        While I, their king, that thither them importune,\n      Do curse the grace that with such grace hath blest them,\n        Because myself do want my servants' fortune.\n      I curse myself, for they are sent by me,\n        That they should harbour where their lord should be.'\n    What's here?\n      'Silvia, this night I will enfranchise thee.'\n    'Tis so; and here's the ladder for the purpose.\n    Why, Phaethon- for thou art Merops' son-\n    Wilt thou aspire to guide the heavenly car,\n    And with thy daring folly burn the world?\n    Wilt thou reach stars because they shine on thee?\n    Go, base intruder, over-weening slave,\n    Bestow thy fawning smiles on equal mates;\n    And think my patience, more than thy desert,\n    Is privilege for thy departure hence.\n    Thank me for this more than for all the favours\n    Which, all too much, I have bestow'd on thee.\n    But if thou linger in my territories\n    Longer than swiftest expedition\n    Will give thee time to leave our royal court,\n    By heaven! my wrath shall far exceed the love\n    I ever bore my daughter or thyself.\n    Be gone; I will not hear thy vain excuse,\n    But, as thou lov'st thy life, make speed from hence.    Exit\n  VALENTINE. And why not death rather than living torment?\n    To die is to be banish'd from myself,\n    And Silvia is myself; banish'd from her\n    Is self from self, a deadly banishment.\n    What light is light, if Silvia be not seen?\n    What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?\n    Unless it be to think that she is by,\n    And feed upon the shadow of perfection.\n    Except I be by Silvia in the night,\n    There is no music in the nightingale;\n    Unless I look on Silvia in the day,\n    There is no day for me to look upon.\n    She is my essence, and I leave to be\n    If I be not by her fair influence\n    Foster'd, illumin'd, cherish'd, kept alive.\n    I fly not death, to fly his deadly doom:\n    Tarry I here, I but attend on death;\n    But fly I hence, I fly away from life.\n\n                      Enter PROTEUS and LAUNCE\n\n  PROTEUS. Run, boy, run, run, seek him out.\n  LAUNCE. So-ho, so-ho!\n  PROTEUS. What seest thou?\n  LAUNCE. Him we go to find: there's not a hair on 's head but 'tis a\n    Valentine.\n  PROTEUS. Valentine?\n  VALENTINE. No.\n  PROTEUS. Who then? his spirit?\n  VALENTINE. Neither.\n  PROTEUS. What then?\n  VALENTINE. Nothing.\n  LAUNCE. Can nothing speak? Master, shall I strike?\n  PROTEUS. Who wouldst thou strike?\n  LAUNCE. Nothing.\n  PROTEUS. Villain, forbear.\n  LAUNCE. Why, sir, I'll strike nothing. I pray you-\n  PROTEUS. Sirrah, I say, forbear. Friend Valentine, a word.\n  VALENTINE. My ears are stopp'd and cannot hear good news,\n    So much of bad already hath possess'd them.\n  PROTEUS. Then in dumb silence will I bury mine,\n    For they are harsh, untuneable, and bad.\n  VALENTINE. Is Silvia dead?\n  PROTEUS. No, Valentine.\n  VALENTINE. No Valentine, indeed, for sacred Silvia.\n    Hath she forsworn me?\n  PROTEUS. No, Valentine.\n  VALENTINE. No Valentine, if Silvia have forsworn me.\n    What is your news?\n  LAUNCE. Sir, there is a proclamation that you are vanished.\n  PROTEUS. That thou art banished- O, that's the news!-\n    From hence, from Silvia, and from me thy friend.\n  VALENTINE. O, I have fed upon this woe already,\n    And now excess of it will make me surfeit.\n    Doth Silvia know that I am banished?\n  PROTEUS. Ay, ay; and she hath offered to the doom-\n    Which, unrevers'd, stands in effectual force-\n    A sea of melting pearl, which some call tears;\n    Those at her father's churlish feet she tender'd;\n    With them, upon her knees, her humble self,\n    Wringing her hands, whose whiteness so became them\n    As if but now they waxed pale for woe.\n    But neither bended knees, pure hands held up,\n    Sad sighs, deep groans, nor silver-shedding tears,\n    Could penetrate her uncompassionate sire-\n    But Valentine, if he be ta'en, must die.\n    Besides, her intercession chaf'd him so,\n    When she for thy repeal was suppliant,\n    That to close prison he commanded her,\n    With many bitter threats of biding there.\n  VALENTINE. No more; unless the next word that thou speak'st\n    Have some malignant power upon my life:\n    If so, I pray thee breathe it in mine ear,\n    As ending anthem of my endless dolour.\n  PROTEUS. Cease to lament for that thou canst not help,\n    And study help for that which thou lament'st.\n    Time is the nurse and breeder of all good.\n    Here if thou stay thou canst not see thy love;\n    Besides, thy staying will abridge thy life.\n    Hope is a lover's staff; walk hence with that,\n    And manage it against despairing thoughts.\n    Thy letters may be here, though thou art hence,\n    Which, being writ to me, shall be deliver'd\n    Even in the milk-white bosom of thy love.\n    The time now serves not to expostulate.\n    Come, I'll convey thee through the city gate;\n    And, ere I part with thee, confer at large\n    Of all that may concern thy love affairs.\n    As thou lov'st Silvia, though not for thyself,\n    Regard thy danger, and along with me.\n  VALENTINE. I pray thee, Launce, an if thou seest my boy,\n    Bid him make haste and meet me at the Northgate.\n  PROTEUS. Go, sirrah, find him out. Come, Valentine.\n  VALENTINE. O my dear Silvia! Hapless Valentine!\n                                    Exeunt VALENTINE and PROTEUS\n  LAUNCE. I am but a fool, look you, and yet I have the wit to think\n    my master is a kind of a knave; but that's all one if he be but\n    one knave. He lives not now that knows me to be in love; yet I am\n    in love; but a team of horse shall not pluck that from me; nor\n    who 'tis I love; and yet 'tis a woman; but what woman I will not\n    tell myself; and yet 'tis a milkmaid; yet 'tis not a maid, for\n    she hath had gossips; yet 'tis a maid, for she is her master's\n    maid and serves for wages. She hath more qualities than a\n    water-spaniel- which is much in a bare Christian. Here is the\n    cate-log  [Pulling out a paper]  of her condition. 'Inprimis: She\n    can fetch and carry.' Why, a horse can do no more; nay, a horse\n    cannot fetch, but only carry; therefore is she better than a\n    jade. 'Item: She can milk.' Look you, a sweet virtue in a maid\n    with clean hands.\n\n                             Enter SPEED\n\n  SPEED. How now, Signior Launce! What news with your mastership?\n  LAUNCE. With my master's ship? Why, it is at sea.\n  SPEED. Well, your old vice still: mistake the word. What news,\n    then, in your paper?\n  LAUNCE. The black'st news that ever thou heard'st.\n  SPEED. Why, man? how black?\n  LAUNCE. Why, as black as ink.\n  SPEED. Let me read them.\n  LAUNCE. Fie on thee, jolt-head; thou canst not read.\n  SPEED. Thou liest; I can.\n  LAUNCE. I will try thee. Tell me this: Who begot thee?\n  SPEED. Marry, the son of my grandfather.\n  LAUNCE. O illiterate loiterer. It was the son of thy grandmother.\n    This proves that thou canst not read.\n  SPEED. Come, fool, come; try me in thy paper.\n  LAUNCE.  [Handing over the paper]  There; and Saint Nicholas be thy\n    speed.\n  SPEED.  [Reads]  'Inprimis: She can milk.'\n  LAUNCE. Ay, that she can.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She brews good ale.'\n  LAUNCE. And thereof comes the proverb: Blessing of your heart, you\n    brew good ale.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She can sew.'\n  LAUNCE. That's as much as to say 'Can she so?'\n  SPEED. 'Item: She can knit.'\n  LAUNCE. What need a man care for a stock with a wench, when she can\n    knit him a stock.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She can wash and scour.'\n  LAUNCE. A special virtue; for then she need not be wash'd and\n    scour'd.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She can spin.'\n  LAUNCE. Then may I set the world on wheels, when she can spin for\n    her living.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She hath many nameless virtues.'\n  LAUNCE. That's as much as to say 'bastard virtues'; that indeed\n    know not their fathers, and therefore have no names.\n  SPEED. 'Here follow her vices.'\n  LAUNCE. Close at the heels of her virtues.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She is not to be kiss'd fasting, in respect of her\n    breath.'\n  LAUNCE. Well, that fault may be mended with a breakfast.\n    Read on.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She hath a sweet mouth.'\n  LAUNCE. That makes amends for her sour breath.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She doth talk in her sleep.'\n  LAUNCE. It's no matter for that, so she sleep not in her talk.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She is slow in words.'\n  LAUNCE. O villain, that set this down among her vices! To be slow\n    in words is a woman's only virtue. I pray thee, out with't; and\n    place it for her chief virtue.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She is proud.'\n  LAUNCE. Out with that too; it was Eve's legacy, and cannot be ta'en\n    from her.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She hath no teeth.'\n  LAUNCE. I care not for that neither, because I love crusts.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She is curst.'\n  LAUNCE. Well, the best is, she hath no teeth to bite.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She will often praise her liquor.'\n  LAUNCE. If her liquor be good, she shall; if she will not, I will;\n    for good things should be praised.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She is too liberal.'\n  LAUNCE. Of her tongue she cannot, for that's writ down she is slow\n    of; of her purse she shall not, for that I'll keep shut. Now of\n    another thing she may, and that cannot I help. Well, proceed.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She hath more hair than wit, and more faults\n    than hairs, and more wealth than faults.'\n  LAUNCE. Stop there; I'll have her; she was mine, and not mine,\n    twice or thrice in that last article. Rehearse that once more.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She hath more hair than wit'-\n  LAUNCE. More hair than wit. It may be; I'll prove it: the cover of\n    the salt hides the salt, and therefore it is more than the salt;\n    the hair that covers the wit is more than the wit, for the\n    greater hides the less. What's next?\n  SPEED. 'And more faults than hairs'-\n  LAUNCE. That's monstrous. O that that were out!\n  SPEED. 'And more wealth than faults.'\n  LAUNCE. Why, that word makes the faults gracious. Well, I'll have\n    her; an if it be a match, as nothing is impossible-\n  SPEED. What then?\n  LAUNCE. Why, then will I tell thee- that thy master stays for thee\n    at the Northgate.\n  SPEED. For me?\n  LAUNCE. For thee! ay, who art thou? He hath stay'd for a better man\n    than thee.\n  SPEED. And must I go to him?\n  LAUNCE. Thou must run to him, for thou hast stay'd so long that\n    going will scarce serve the turn.\n  SPEED. Why didst not tell me sooner? Pox of your love letters!\n Exit\n  LAUNCE. Now will he be swing'd for reading my letter. An unmannerly\n    slave that will thrust himself into secrets! I'll after, to\n    rejoice in the boy's correction.                        Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nMilan. The DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter DUKE and THURIO\n\n  DUKE. Sir Thurio, fear not but that she will love you\n    Now Valentine is banish'd from her sight.\n  THURIO. Since his exile she hath despis'd me most,\n    Forsworn my company and rail'd at me,\n    That I am desperate of obtaining her.\n  DUKE. This weak impress of love is as a figure\n    Trenched in ice, which with an hour's heat\n    Dissolves to water and doth lose his form.\n    A little time will melt her frozen thoughts,\n    And worthless Valentine shall be forgot.\n\n                          Enter PROTEUS\n\n    How now, Sir Proteus! Is your countryman,\n    According to our proclamation, gone?\n  PROTEUS. Gone, my good lord.\n  DUKE. My daughter takes his going grievously.\n  PROTEUS. A little time, my lord, will kill that grief.\n  DUKE. So I believe; but Thurio thinks not so.\n    Proteus, the good conceit I hold of thee-\n    For thou hast shown some sign of good desert-\n    Makes me the better to confer with thee.\n  PROTEUS. Longer than I prove loyal to your Grace\n    Let me not live to look upon your Grace.\n  DUKE. Thou know'st how willingly I would effect\n    The match between Sir Thurio and my daughter.\n  PROTEUS. I do, my lord.\n  DUKE. And also, I think, thou art not ignorant\n    How she opposes her against my will.\n  PROTEUS. She did, my lord, when Valentine was here.\n  DUKE. Ay, and perversely she persevers so.\n    What might we do to make the girl forget\n    The love of Valentine, and love Sir Thurio?\n  PROTEUS. The best way is to slander Valentine\n    With falsehood, cowardice, and poor descent-\n    Three things that women highly hold in hate.\n  DUKE. Ay, but she'll think that it is spoke in hate.\n  PROTEUS. Ay, if his enemy deliver it;\n    Therefore it must with circumstance be spoken\n    By one whom she esteemeth as his friend.\n  DUKE. Then you must undertake to slander him.\n  PROTEUS. And that, my lord, I shall be loath to do:\n    'Tis an ill office for a gentleman,\n    Especially against his very friend.\n  DUKE. Where your good word cannot advantage him,\n    Your slander never can endamage him;\n    Therefore the office is indifferent,\n    Being entreated to it by your friend.\n  PROTEUS. You have prevail'd, my lord; if I can do it\n    By aught that I can speak in his dispraise,\n    She shall not long continue love to him.\n    But say this weed her love from Valentine,\n    It follows not that she will love Sir Thurio.\n  THURIO. Therefore, as you unwind her love from him,\n    Lest it should ravel and be good to none,\n    You must provide to bottom it on me;\n    Which must be done by praising me as much\n    As you in worth dispraise Sir Valentine.\n  DUKE. And, Proteus, we dare trust you in this kind,\n    Because we know, on Valentine's report,\n    You are already Love's firm votary\n    And cannot soon revolt and change your mind.\n    Upon this warrant shall you have access\n    Where you with Silvia may confer at large-\n    For she is lumpish, heavy, melancholy,\n    And, for your friend's sake, will be glad of you-\n    Where you may temper her by your persuasion\n    To hate young Valentine and love my friend.\n  PROTEUS. As much as I can do I will effect.\n    But you, Sir Thurio, are not sharp enough;\n    You must lay lime to tangle her desires\n    By wailful sonnets, whose composed rhymes\n    Should be full-fraught with serviceable vows.\n  DUKE. Ay,\n    Much is the force of heaven-bred poesy.\n  PROTEUS. Say that upon the altar of her beauty\n    You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart;\n    Write till your ink be dry, and with your tears\n    Moist it again, and frame some feeling line\n    That may discover such integrity;\n    For Orpheus' lute was strung with poets' sinews,\n    Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones,\n    Make tigers tame, and huge leviathans\n    Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.\n    After your dire-lamenting elegies,\n    Visit by night your lady's chamber window\n    With some sweet consort; to their instruments\n    Tune a deploring dump- the night's dead silence\n    Will well become such sweet-complaining grievance.\n    This, or else nothing, will inherit her.\n  DUKE. This discipline shows thou hast been in love.\n  THURIO. And thy advice this night I'll put in practice;\n    Therefore, sweet Proteus, my direction-giver,\n    Let us into the city presently\n    To sort some gentlemen well skill'd in music.\n    I have a sonnet that will serve the turn\n    To give the onset to thy good advice.\n  DUKE. About it, gentlemen!\n  PROTEUS. We'll wait upon your Grace till after supper,\n    And afterward determine our proceedings.\n  DUKE. Even now about it! I will pardon you.             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT_4|SC_1\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nThe frontiers of Mantua. A forest\n\nEnter certain OUTLAWS\n\n  FIRST OUTLAW. Fellows, stand fast; I see a passenger.\n  SECOND OUTLAW. If there be ten, shrink not, but down with 'em.\n\n                  Enter VALENTINE and SPEED\n\n  THIRD OUTLAW. Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about ye;\n    If not, we'll make you sit, and rifle you.\n  SPEED. Sir, we are undone; these are the villains\n    That all the travellers do fear so much.\n  VALENTINE. My friends-\n  FIRST OUTLAW. That's not so, sir; we are your enemies.\n  SECOND OUTLAW. Peace! we'll hear him.\n  THIRD OUTLAW. Ay, by my beard, will we; for he is a proper man.\n  VALENTINE. Then know that I have little wealth to lose;\n    A man I am cross'd with adversity;\n    My riches are these poor habiliments,\n    Of which if you should here disfurnish me,\n    You take the sum and substance that I have.\n  SECOND OUTLAW. Whither travel you?\n  VALENTINE. To Verona.\n  FIRST OUTLAW. Whence came you?\n  VALENTINE. From Milan.\n  THIRD OUTLAW. Have you long sojourn'd there?\n  VALENTINE. Some sixteen months, and longer might have stay'd,\n    If crooked fortune had not thwarted me.\n  FIRST OUTLAW. What, were you banish'd thence?\n  VALENTINE. I was.\n  SECOND OUTLAW. For what offence?\n  VALENTINE. For that which now torments me to rehearse:\n    I kill'd a man, whose death I much repent;\n    But yet I slew him manfully in fight,\n    Without false vantage or base treachery.\n  FIRST OUTLAW. Why, ne'er repent it, if it were done so.\n    But were you banish'd for so small a fault?\n  VALENTINE. I was, and held me glad of such a doom.\n  SECOND OUTLAW. Have you the tongues?\n  VALENTINE. My youthful travel therein made me happy,\n    Or else I often had been miserable.\n  THIRD OUTLAW. By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar,\n    This fellow were a king for our wild faction!\n  FIRST OUTLAW. We'll have him. Sirs, a word.\n  SPEED. Master, be one of them; it's an honourable kind of thievery.\n  VALENTINE. Peace, villain!\n  SECOND OUTLAW. Tell us this: have you anything to take to?\n  VALENTINE. Nothing but my fortune.\n  THIRD OUTLAW. Know, then, that some of us are gentlemen,\n    Such as the fury of ungovern'd youth\n    Thrust from the company of awful men;\n    Myself was from Verona banished\n    For practising to steal away a lady,\n    An heir, and near allied unto the Duke.\n  SECOND OUTLAW. And I from Mantua, for a gentleman\n    Who, in my mood, I stabb'd unto the heart.\n  FIRST OUTLAW. And I for such-like petty crimes as these.\n    But to the purpose- for we cite our faults\n    That they may hold excus'd our lawless lives;\n    And, partly, seeing you are beautified\n    With goodly shape, and by your own report\n    A linguist, and a man of such perfection\n    As we do in our quality much want-\n  SECOND OUTLAW. Indeed, because you are a banish'd man,\n    Therefore, above the rest, we parley to you.\n    Are you content to be our general-\n    To make a virtue of necessity,\n    And live as we do in this wilderness?\n  THIRD OUTLAW. What say'st thou? Wilt thou be of our consort?\n    Say 'ay' and be the captain of us all.\n    We'll do thee homage, and be rul'd by thee,\n    Love thee as our commander and our king.\n  FIRST OUTLAW. But if thou scorn our courtesy thou diest.\n  SECOND OUTLAW. Thou shalt not live to brag what we have offer'd.\n  VALENTINE. I take your offer, and will live with you,\n    Provided that you do no outrages\n    On silly women or poor passengers.\n  THIRD OUTLAW. No, we detest such vile base practices.\n    Come, go with us; we'll bring thee to our crews,\n    And show thee all the treasure we have got;\n    Which, with ourselves, all rest at thy dispose.       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nMilan. Outside the DUKE'S palace, under SILVIA'S window\n\nEnter PROTEUS\n\n  PROTEUS. Already have I been false to Valentine,\n    And now I must be as unjust to Thurio.\n    Under the colour of commending him\n    I have access my own love to prefer;\n    But Silvia is too fair, too true, too holy,\n    To be corrupted with my worthless gifts.\n    When I protest true loyalty to her,\n    She twits me with my falsehood to my friend;\n    When to her beauty I commend my vows,\n    She bids me think how I have been forsworn\n    In breaking faith with Julia whom I lov'd;\n    And notwithstanding all her sudden quips,\n    The least whereof would quell a lover's hope,\n    Yet, spaniel-like, the more she spurns my love\n    The more it grows and fawneth on her still.\n\n                 Enter THURIO and MUSICIANS\n\n    But here comes Thurio. Now must we to her window,\n    And give some evening music to her ear.\n  THURIO. How now, Sir Proteus, are you crept before us?\n  PROTEUS. Ay, gentle Thurio; for you know that love\n    Will creep in service where it cannot go.\n  THURIO. Ay, but I hope, sir, that you love not here.\n  PROTEUS. Sir, but I do; or else I would be hence.\n  THURIO. Who? Silvia?\n  PROTEUS. Ay, Silvia- for your sake.\n  THURIO. I thank you for your own. Now, gentlemen,\n    Let's tune, and to it lustily awhile.\n\n    Enter at a distance, HOST, and JULIA in boy's clothes\n\n  HOST. Now, my young guest, methinks you're allycholly; I pray you,\n    why is it?\n  JULIA. Marry, mine host, because I cannot be merry.\n  HOST. Come, we'll have you merry; I'll bring you where you shall\n    hear music, and see the gentleman that you ask'd for.\n  JULIA. But shall I hear him speak?\n  HOST. Ay, that you shall.                        [Music plays]\n  JULIA. That will be music.\n  HOST. Hark, hark!\n  JULIA. Is he among these?\n  HOST. Ay; but peace! let's hear 'em.\n\n                   SONG\n         Who is Silvia? What is she,\n           That all our swains commend her?\n         Holy, fair, and wise is she;\n           The heaven such grace did lend her,\n         That she might admired be.\n\n         Is she kind as she is fair?\n           For beauty lives with kindness.\n         Love doth to her eyes repair,\n           To help him of his blindness;\n         And, being help'd, inhabits there.\n\n         Then to Silvia let us sing\n           That Silvia is excelling;\n         She excels each mortal thing\n           Upon the dull earth dwelling.\n         'To her let us garlands bring.\n\n  HOST. How now, are you sadder than you were before?\n    How do you, man? The music likes you not.\n  JULIA. You mistake; the musician likes me not.\n  HOST. Why, my pretty youth?\n  JULIA. He plays false, father.\n  HOST. How, out of tune on the strings?\n  JULIA. Not so; but yet so false that he grieves my very\n    heart-strings.\n  HOST. You have a quick ear.\n  JULIA. Ay, I would I were deaf; it makes me have a slow heart.\n  HOST. I perceive you delight not in music.\n  JULIA. Not a whit, when it jars so.\n  HOST. Hark, what fine change is in the music!\n  JULIA. Ay, that change is the spite.\n  HOST. You would have them always play but one thing?\n  JULIA. I would always have one play but one thing.\n    But, Host, doth this Sir Proteus, that we talk on,\n    Often resort unto this gentlewoman?\n  HOST. I tell you what Launce, his man, told me: he lov'd her out of\n    all nick.\n  JULIA. Where is Launce?\n  HOST. Gone to seek his dog, which to-morrow, by his master's\n    command, he must carry for a present to his lady.\n  JULIA. Peace, stand aside; the company parts.\n  PROTEUS. Sir Thurio, fear not you; I will so plead\n    That you shall say my cunning drift excels.\n  THURIO. Where meet we?\n  PROTEUS. At Saint Gregory's well.\n  THURIO. Farewell.                  Exeunt THURIO and MUSICIANS\n\n                  Enter SILVIA above, at her window\n\n  PROTEUS. Madam, good ev'n to your ladyship.\n  SILVIA. I thank you for your music, gentlemen.\n    Who is that that spake?\n  PROTEUS. One, lady, if you knew his pure heart's truth,\n    You would quickly learn to know him by his voice.\n  SILVIA. Sir Proteus, as I take it.\n  PROTEUS. Sir Proteus, gentle lady, and your servant.\n  SILVIA. What's your will?\n  PROTEUS. That I may compass yours.\n  SILVIA. You have your wish; my will is even this,\n    That presently you hie you home to bed.\n    Thou subtle, perjur'd, false, disloyal man,\n    Think'st thou I am so shallow, so conceitless,\n    To be seduced by thy flattery\n    That hast deceiv'd so many with thy vows?\n    Return, return, and make thy love amends.\n    For me, by this pale queen of night I swear,\n    I am so far from granting thy request\n    That I despise thee for thy wrongful suit,\n    And by and by intend to chide myself\n    Even for this time I spend in talking to thee.\n  PROTEUS. I grant, sweet love, that I did love a lady;\n    But she is dead.\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  'Twere false, if I should speak it;\n    For I am sure she is not buried.\n  SILVIA. Say that she be; yet Valentine, thy friend,\n    Survives, to whom, thyself art witness,\n    I am betroth'd; and art thou not asham'd\n    To wrong him with thy importunacy?\n  PROTEUS. I likewise hear that Valentine is dead.\n  SILVIA. And so suppose am I; for in his grave\n    Assure thyself my love is buried.\n  PROTEUS. Sweet lady, let me rake it from the earth.\n  SILVIA. Go to thy lady's grave, and call hers thence;\n    Or, at the least, in hers sepulchre thine.\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  He heard not that.\n  PROTEUS. Madam, if your heart be so obdurate,\n    Vouchsafe me yet your picture for my love,\n    The picture that is hanging in your chamber;\n    To that I'll speak, to that I'll sigh and weep;\n    For, since the substance of your perfect self\n    Is else devoted, I am but a shadow;\n    And to your shadow will I make true love.\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  If 'twere a substance, you would, sure, deceive it\n    And make it but a shadow, as I am.\n  SILVIA. I am very loath to be your idol, sir;\n    But since your falsehood shall become you well\n    To worship shadows and adore false shapes,\n    Send to me in the morning, and I'll send it;\n    And so, good rest.\n  PROTEUS. As wretches have o'ernight\n    That wait for execution in the morn.\n                                       Exeunt PROTEUS and SILVIA\n  JULIA. Host, will you go?\n  HOST. By my halidom, I was fast asleep.\n  JULIA. Pray you, where lies Sir Proteus?\n  HOST. Marry, at my house. Trust me, I think 'tis almost day.\n  JULIA. Not so; but it hath been the longest night\n    That e'er I watch'd, and the most heaviest.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nUnder SILVIA'S window\n\nEnter EGLAMOUR\n\n  EGLAMOUR. This is the hour that Madam Silvia\n    Entreated me to call and know her mind;\n    There's some great matter she'd employ me in.\n    Madam, madam!\n\n             Enter SILVIA above, at her window\n\n  SILVIA. Who calls?\n  EGLAMOUR. Your servant and your friend;\n    One that attends your ladyship's command.\n  SILVIA. Sir Eglamour, a thousand times good morrow!\n  EGLAMOUR. As many, worthy lady, to yourself!\n    According to your ladyship's impose,\n    I am thus early come to know what service\n    It is your pleasure to command me in.\n  SILVIA. O Eglamour, thou art a gentleman-\n    Think not I flatter, for I swear I do not-\n    Valiant, wise, remorseful, well accomplish'd.\n    Thou art not ignorant what dear good will\n    I bear unto the banish'd Valentine;\n    Nor how my father would enforce me marry\n    Vain Thurio, whom my very soul abhors.\n    Thyself hast lov'd; and I have heard thee say\n    No grief did ever come so near thy heart\n    As when thy lady and thy true love died,\n    Upon whose grave thou vow'dst pure chastity.\n    Sir Eglamour, I would to Valentine,\n    To Mantua, where I hear he makes abode;\n    And, for the ways are dangerous to pass,\n    I do desire thy worthy company,\n    Upon whose faith and honour I repose.\n    Urge not my father's anger, Eglamour,\n    But think upon my grief, a lady's grief,\n    And on the justice of my flying hence\n    To keep me from a most unholy match,\n    Which heaven and fortune still rewards with plagues.\n    I do desire thee, even from a heart\n    As full of sorrows as the sea of sands,\n    To bear me company and go with me;\n    If not, to hide what I have said to thee,\n    That I may venture to depart alone.\n  EGLAMOUR. Madam, I pity much your grievances;\n    Which since I know they virtuously are plac'd,\n    I give consent to go along with you,\n    Recking as little what betideth me\n    As much I wish all good befortune you.\n    When will you go?\n  SILVIA. This evening coming.\n  EGLAMOUR. Where shall I meet you?\n  SILVIA. At Friar Patrick's cell,\n    Where I intend holy confession.\n  EGLAMOUR. I will not fail your ladyship. Good morrow, gentle lady.\n  SILVIA. Good morrow, kind Sir Eglamour.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nUnder SILVIA'S Window\n\nEnter LAUNCE with his dog\n\n  LAUNCE. When a man's servant shall play the cur with him, look you,\n    it goes hard- one that I brought up of a puppy; one that I sav'd\n    from drowning, when three or four of his blind brothers and\n    sisters went to it. I have taught him, even as one would say\n    precisely 'Thus I would teach a dog.' I was sent to deliver him\n    as a present to Mistress Silvia from my master; and I came no\n    sooner into the dining-chamber, but he steps me to her trencher\n    and steals her capon's leg. O, 'tis a foul thing when a cur\n    cannot keep himself in all companies! I would have, as one should\n    say, one that takes upon him to be a dog indeed, to be, as it\n    were, a dog at all things. If I had not had more wit than he, to\n    take a fault upon me that he did, I think verily he had been\n    hang'd for't; sure as I live, he had suffer'd for't. You shall\n    judge. He thrusts me himself into the company of three or four\n    gentleman-like dogs under the Duke's table; he had not been\n    there, bless the mark, a pissing while but all the chamber smelt\n    him. 'Out with the dog' says one; 'What cur is that?' says\n    another; 'Whip him out' says the third; 'Hang him up' says the\n    Duke. I, having been acquainted with the smell before, knew it\n    was Crab, and goes me to the fellow that whips the dogs.\n    'Friend,' quoth I 'you mean to whip the dog.' 'Ay, marry do I'\n    quoth he. 'You do him the more wrong,' quoth I; \"twas I did the\n    thing you wot of.' He makes me no more ado, but whips me out of\n    the chamber. How many masters would do this for his servant? Nay,\n    I'll be sworn, I have sat in the stock for puddings he hath\n    stol'n, otherwise he had been executed; I have stood on the\n    pillory for geese he hath kill'd, otherwise he had suffer'd\n    for't. Thou think'st not of this now. Nay, I remember the trick\n    you serv'd me when I took my leave of Madam Silvia. Did not I bid\n    thee still mark me and do as I do? When didst thou see me heave\n    up my leg and make water against a gentlewoman's farthingale?\n    Didst thou ever see me do such a trick?\n\n               Enter PROTEUS, and JULIA in boy's clothes\n\n  PROTEUS. Sebastian is thy name? I like thee well,\n    And will employ thee in some service presently.\n  JULIA. In what you please; I'll do what I can.\n  PROTEUS..I hope thou wilt.  [To LAUNCE]  How now, you whoreson\n      peasant!\n    Where have you been these two days loitering?\n  LAUNCE. Marry, sir, I carried Mistress Silvia the dog you bade me.\n  PROTEUS. And what says she to my little jewel?\n  LAUNCE. Marry, she says your dog was a cur, and tells you currish\n    thanks is good enough for such a present.\n  PROTEUS. But she receiv'd my dog?\n  LAUNCE. No, indeed, did she not; here have I brought him back\n    again.\n  PROTEUS. What, didst thou offer her this from me?\n  LAUNCE. Ay, sir; the other squirrel was stol'n from me by the\n    hangman's boys in the market-place; and then I offer'd her mine\n    own, who is a dog as big as ten of yours, and therefore the gift\n    the greater.\n  PROTEUS. Go, get thee hence and find my dog again,\n    Or ne'er return again into my sight.\n    Away, I say. Stayest thou to vex me here?        Exit LAUNCE\n    A slave that still an end turns me to shame!\n    Sebastian, I have entertained thee\n    Partly that I have need of such a youth\n    That can with some discretion do my business,\n    For 'tis no trusting to yond foolish lout,\n    But chiefly for thy face and thy behaviour,\n    Which, if my augury deceive me not,\n    Witness good bringing up, fortune, and truth;\n    Therefore, know thou, for this I entertain thee.\n    Go presently, and take this ring with thee,\n    Deliver it to Madam Silvia-\n    She lov'd me well deliver'd it to me.\n  JULIA. It seems you lov'd not her, to leave her token.\n    She is dead, belike?\n  PROTEUS. Not so; I think she lives.\n  JULIA. Alas!\n  PROTEUS. Why dost thou cry 'Alas'?\n  JULIA. I cannot choose\n    But pity her.\n  PROTEUS. Wherefore shouldst thou pity her?\n  JULIA. Because methinks that she lov'd you as well\n    As you do love your lady Silvia.\n    She dreams on him that has forgot her love:\n    You dote on her that cares not for your love.\n    'Tis pity love should be so contrary;\n    And thinking on it makes me cry 'Alas!'\n  PROTEUS. Well, give her that ring, and therewithal\n    This letter. That's her chamber. Tell my lady\n    I claim the promise for her heavenly picture.\n    Your message done, hie home unto my chamber,\n    Where thou shalt find me sad and solitary.      Exit PROTEUS\n  JULIA. How many women would do such a message?\n    Alas, poor Proteus, thou hast entertain'd\n    A fox to be the shepherd of thy lambs.\n    Alas, poor fool, why do I pity him\n    That with his very heart despiseth me?\n    Because he loves her, he despiseth me;\n    Because I love him, I must pity him.\n    This ring I gave him, when he parted from me,\n    To bind him to remember my good will;\n    And now am I, unhappy messenger,\n    To plead for that which I would not obtain,\n    To carry that which I would have refus'd,\n    To praise his faith, which I would have disprais'd.\n    I am my master's true confirmed love,\n    But cannot be true servant to my master\n    Unless I prove false traitor to myself.\n    Yet will I woo for him, but yet so coldly\n    As, heaven it knows, I would not have him speed.\n\n                     Enter SILVIA, attended\n\n    Gentlewoman, good day! I pray you be my mean\n    To bring me where to speak with Madam Silvia.\n  SILVIA. What would you with her, if that I be she?\n  JULIA. If you be she, I do entreat your patience\n    To hear me speak the message I am sent on.\n  SILVIA. From whom?\n  JULIA. From my master, Sir Proteus, madam.\n  SILVIA. O, he sends you for a picture?\n  JULIA. Ay, madam.\n  SILVIA. Ursula, bring my picture there.\n    Go, give your master this. Tell him from me,\n    One Julia, that his changing thoughts forget,\n    Would better fit his chamber than this shadow.\n  JULIA. Madam, please you peruse this letter.\n    Pardon me, madam; I have unadvis'd\n    Deliver'd you a paper that I should not.\n    This is the letter to your ladyship.\n  SILVIA. I pray thee let me look on that again.\n  JULIA. It may not be; good madam, pardon me.\n  SILVIA. There, hold!\n    I will not look upon your master's lines.\n    I know they are stuff'd with protestations,\n    And full of new-found oaths, which he wul break\n    As easily as I do tear his paper.\n  JULIA. Madam, he sends your ladyship this ring.\n  SILVIA. The more shame for him that he sends it me;\n    For I have heard him say a thousand times\n    His Julia gave it him at his departure.\n    Though his false finger have profan'd the ring,\n    Mine shall not do his Julia so much wrong.\n  JULIA. She thanks you.\n  SILVIA. What say'st thou?\n  JULIA. I thank you, madam, that you tender her.\n    Poor gentlewoman, my master wrongs her much.\n  SILVIA. Dost thou know her?\n  JULIA. Almost as well as I do know myself.\n    To think upon her woes, I do protest\n    That I have wept a hundred several times.\n  SILVIA. Belike she thinks that Proteus hath forsook her.\n  JULIA. I think she doth, and that's her cause of sorrow.\n  SILVIA. Is she not passing fair?\n  JULIA. She hath been fairer, madam, than she is.\n    When she did think my master lov'd her well,\n    She, in my judgment, was as fair as you;\n    But since she did neglect her looking-glass\n    And threw her sun-expelling mask away,\n    The air hath starv'd the roses in her cheeks\n    And pinch'd the lily-tincture of her face,\n    That now she is become as black as I.\n  SILVIA. How tall was she?\n  JULIA. About my stature; for at Pentecost,\n    When all our pageants of delight were play'd,\n    Our youth got me to play the woman's part,\n    And I was trimm'd in Madam Julia's gown;\n    Which served me as fit, by all men's judgments,\n    As if the garment had been made for me;\n    Therefore I know she is about my height.\n    And at that time I made her weep a good,\n    For I did play a lamentable part.\n    Madam, 'twas Ariadne passioning\n    For Theseus' perjury and unjust flight;\n    Which I so lively acted with my tears\n    That my poor mistress, moved therewithal,\n    Wept bitterly; and would I might be dead\n    If I in thought felt not her very sorrow.\n  SILVIA. She is beholding to thee, gentle youth.\n    Alas, poor lady, desolate and left!\n    I weep myself, to think upon thy words.\n    Here, youth, there is my purse; I give thee this\n    For thy sweet mistress' sake, because thou lov'st her.\n    Farewell.                        Exit SILVIA with ATTENDANTS\n  JULIA. And she shall thank you for't, if e'er you know her.\n    A virtuous gentlewoman, mild and beautiful!\n    I hope my master's suit will be but cold,\n    Since she respects my mistress' love so much.\n    Alas, how love can trifle with itself!\n    Here is her picture; let me see. I think,\n    If I had such a tire, this face of mine\n    Were full as lovely as is this of hers;\n    And yet the painter flatter'd her a little,\n    Unless I flatter with myself too much.\n    Her hair is auburn, mine is perfect yellow;\n    If that be all the difference in his love,\n    I'll get me such a colour'd periwig.\n    Her eyes are grey as glass, and so are mine;\n    Ay, but her forehead's low, and mine's as high.\n    What should it be that he respects in her\n    But I can make respective in myself,\n    If this fond Love were not a blinded god?\n    Come, shadow, come, and take this shadow up,\n    For 'tis thy rival. O thou senseless form,\n    Thou shalt be worshipp'd, kiss'd, lov'd, and ador'd!\n    And were there sense in his idolatry\n    My substance should be statue in thy stead.\n    I'll use thee kindly for thy mistress' sake,\n    That us'd me so; or else, by Jove I vow,\n    I should have scratch'd out your unseeing eyes,\n    To make my master out of love with thee.                Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nMilan. An abbey\n\nEnter EGLAMOUR\n\n  EGLAMOUR. The sun begins to gild the western sky,\n    And now it is about the very hour\n    That Silvia at Friar Patrick's cell should meet me.\n    She will not fail, for lovers break not hours\n    Unless it be to come before their time,\n    So much they spur their expedition.\n\n                         Enter SILVIA\n\n    See where she comes. Lady, a happy evening!\n  SILVIA. Amen, amen! Go on, good Eglamour,\n    Out at the postern by the abbey wall;\n    I fear I am attended by some spies.\n  EGLAMOUR. Fear not. The forest is not three leagues off;\n    If we recover that, we are sure enough.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nMilan. The DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter THURIO, PROTEUS, and JULIA as SEBASTIAN\n\n  THURIO. Sir Proteus, what says Silvia to my suit?\n  PROTEUS. O, sir, I find her milder than she was;\n    And yet she takes exceptions at your person.\n  THURIO. What, that my leg is too long?\n  PROTEUS. No; that it is too little.\n  THURIO. I'll wear a boot to make it somewhat rounder.\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  But love will not be spurr'd to what it loathes.\n  THURIO. What says she to my face?\n  PROTEUS. She says it is a fair one.\n  THURIO. Nay, then, the wanton lies; my face is black.\n  PROTEUS. But pearls are fair; and the old saying is:\n    Black men are pearls in beauteous ladies' eyes.\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  'Tis true, such pearls as put out ladies' eyes;\n    For I had rather wink than look on them.\n  THURIO. How likes she my discourse?\n  PROTEUS. Ill, when you talk of war.\n  THURIO. But well when I discourse of love and peace?\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  But better, indeed, when you hold your peace.\n  THURIO. What says she to my valour?\n  PROTEUS. O, sir, she makes no doubt of that.\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  She needs not, when she knows it cowardice.\n  THURIO. What says she to my birth?\n  PROTEUS. That you are well deriv'd.\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  True; from a gentleman to a fool.\n  THURIO. Considers she my possessions?\n  PROTEUS. O, ay; and pities them.\n  THURIO. Wherefore?\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  That such an ass should owe them.\n  PROTEUS. That they are out by lease.\n  JULIA. Here comes the Duke.\n\n                          Enter DUKE\n\n  DUKE. How now, Sir Proteus! how now, Thurio!\n    Which of you saw Sir Eglamour of late?\n  THURIO. Not I.\n  PROTEUS. Nor I.\n  DUKE. Saw you my daughter?\n  PROTEUS. Neither.\n  DUKE. Why then,\n    She's fled unto that peasant Valentine;\n    And Eglamour is in her company.\n    'Tis true; for Friar Lawrence met them both\n    As he in penance wander'd through the forest;\n    Him he knew well, and guess'd that it was she,\n    But, being mask'd, he was not sure of it;\n    Besides, she did intend confession\n    At Patrick's cell this even; and there she was not.\n    These likelihoods confirm her flight from hence;\n    Therefore, I pray you, stand not to discourse,\n    But mount you presently, and meet with me\n    Upon the rising of the mountain foot\n    That leads toward Mantua, whither they are fled.\n    Dispatch, sweet gentlemen, and follow me.               Exit\n  THURIO. Why, this it is to be a peevish girl\n    That flies her fortune when it follows her.\n    I'll after, more to be reveng'd on Eglamour\n    Than for the love of reckless Silvia.                   Exit\n  PROTEUS. And I will follow, more for Silvia's love\n    Than hate of Eglamour, that goes with her.              Exit\n  JULIA. And I will follow, more to cross that love\n    Than hate for Silvia, that is gone for love.            Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe frontiers of Mantua. The forest\n\nEnter OUTLAWS with SILVA\n\n  FIRST OUTLAW. Come, come.\n    Be patient; we must bring you to our captain.\n  SILVIA. A thousand more mischances than this one\n    Have learn'd me how to brook this patiently.\n  SECOND OUTLAW. Come, bring her away.\n  FIRST OUTLAW. Where is the gentleman that was with her?\n  SECOND OUTLAW. Being nimble-footed, he hath outrun us,\n    But Moyses and Valerius follow him.\n    Go thou with her to the west end of the wood;\n    There is our captain; we'll follow him that's fled.\n    The thicket is beset; he cannot 'scape.\n  FIRST OUTLAW. Come, I must bring you to our captain's cave;\n    Fear not; he bears an honourable mind,\n    And will not use a woman lawlessly.\n  SILVIA. O Valentine, this I endure for thee!            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nAnother part of the forest\n\nEnter VALENTINE\n\n  VALENTINE. How use doth breed a habit in a man!\n    This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods,\n    I better brook than flourishing peopled towns.\n    Here can I sit alone, unseen of any,\n    And to the nightingale's complaining notes\n    Tune my distresses and record my woes.\n    O thou that dost inhabit in my breast,\n    Leave not the mansion so long tenantless,\n    Lest, growing ruinous, the building fall\n    And leave no memory of what it was!\n    Repair me with thy presence, Silvia:\n    Thou gentle nymph, cherish thy forlorn swain.\n    What halloing and what stir is this to-day?\n    These are my mates, that make their wills their law,\n    Have some unhappy passenger in chase.\n    They love me well; yet I have much to do\n    To keep them from uncivil outrages.\n    Withdraw thee, Valentine. Who's this comes here?\n                                                   [Steps aside]\n\n          Enter PROTEUS, SILVIA, and JULIA as Sebastian\n\n  PROTEUS. Madam, this service I have done for you,\n    Though you respect not aught your servant doth,\n    To hazard life, and rescue you from him\n    That would have forc'd your honour and your love.\n    Vouchsafe me, for my meed, but one fair look;\n    A smaller boon than this I cannot beg,\n    And less than this, I am sure, you cannot give.\n  VALENTINE.  [Aside]  How like a dream is this I see and hear!\n    Love, lend me patience to forbear awhile.\n  SILVIA. O miserable, unhappy that I am!\n  PROTEUS. Unhappy were you, madam, ere I came;\n    But by my coming I have made you happy.\n  SILVIA. By thy approach thou mak'st me most unhappy.\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  And me, when he approacheth to your presence.\n  SILVIA. Had I been seized by a hungry lion,\n    I would have been a breakfast to the beast\n    Rather than have false Proteus rescue me.\n    O, heaven be judge how I love Valentine,\n    Whose life's as tender to me as my soul!\n    And full as much, for more there cannot be,\n    I do detest false, perjur'd Proteus.\n    Therefore be gone; solicit me no more.\n  PROTEUS. What dangerous action, stood it next to death,\n    Would I not undergo for one calm look?\n    O, 'tis the curse in love, and still approv'd,\n    When women cannot love where they're belov'd!\n  SILVIA. When Proteus cannot love where he's belov'd!\n    Read over Julia's heart, thy first best love,\n    For whose dear sake thou didst then rend thy faith\n    Into a thousand oaths; and all those oaths\n    Descended into perjury, to love me.\n    Thou hast no faith left now, unless thou'dst two,\n    And that's far worse than none; better have none\n    Than plural faith, which is too much by one.\n    Thou counterfeit to thy true friend!\n  PROTEUS. In love,\n    Who respects friend?\n  SILVIA. All men but Proteus.\n  PROTEUS. Nay, if the gentle spirit of moving words\n    Can no way change you to a milder form,\n    I'll woo you like a soldier, at arms' end,\n    And love you 'gainst the nature of love- force ye.\n  SILVIA. O heaven!\n  PROTEUS. I'll force thee yield to my desire.\n  VALENTINE. Ruffian! let go that rude uncivil touch;\n    Thou friend of an ill fashion!\n  PROTEUS. Valentine!\n  VALENTINE. Thou common friend, that's without faith or love-\n    For such is a friend now; treacherous man,\n    Thou hast beguil'd my hopes; nought but mine eye\n    Could have persuaded me. Now I dare not say\n    I have one friend alive: thou wouldst disprove me.\n    Who should be trusted, when one's own right hand\n    Is perjured to the bosom? Proteus,\n    I am sorry I must never trust thee more,\n    But count the world a stranger for thy sake.\n    The private wound is deepest. O time most accurst!\n    'Mongst all foes that a friend should be the worst!\n  PROTEUS. My shame and guilt confounds me.\n    Forgive me, Valentine; if hearty sorrow\n    Be a sufficient ransom for offence,\n    I tender 't here; I do as truly suffer\n    As e'er I did commit.\n  VALENTINE. Then I am paid;\n    And once again I do receive thee honest.\n    Who by repentance is not satisfied\n    Is nor of heaven nor earth, for these are pleas'd;\n    By penitence th' Eternal's wrath's appeas'd.\n    And, that my love may appear plain and free,\n    All that was mine in Silvia I give thee.\n  JULIA. O me unhappy!                                  [Swoons]\n  PROTEUS. Look to the boy.\n  VALENTINE. Why, boy! why, wag! how now!\n    What's the matter? Look up; speak.\n  JULIA. O good sir, my master charg'd me to deliver a ring to Madam\n    Silvia, which, out of my neglect, was never done.\n  PROTEUS. Where is that ring, boy?\n  JULIA. Here 'tis; this is it.\n  PROTEUS. How! let me see. Why, this is the ring I gave to Julia.\n  JULIA. O, cry you mercy, sir, I have mistook;\n    This is the ring you sent to Silvia.\n  PROTEUS. But how cam'st thou by this ring?\n    At my depart I gave this unto Julia.\n  JULIA. And Julia herself did give it me;\n    And Julia herself have brought it hither.\n  PROTEUS. How! Julia!\n  JULIA. Behold her that gave aim to all thy oaths,\n    And entertain'd 'em deeply in her heart.\n    How oft hast thou with perjury cleft the root!\n    O Proteus, let this habit make thee blush!\n    Be thou asham'd that I have took upon me\n    Such an immodest raiment- if shame live\n    In a disguise of love.\n    It is the lesser blot, modesty finds,\n    Women to change their shapes than men their minds.\n  PROTEUS. Than men their minds! 'tis true. O heaven, were man\n    But constant, he were perfect! That one error\n    Fills him with faults; makes him run through all th' sins:\n    Inconstancy falls off ere it begins.\n    What is in Silvia's face but I may spy\n    More fresh in Julia's with a constant eye?\n  VALENTINE. Come, come, a hand from either.\n    Let me be blest to make this happy close;\n    'Twere pity two such friends should be long foes.\n  PROTEUS. Bear witness, heaven, I have my wish for ever.\n  JULIA. And I mine.\n\n                Enter OUTLAWS, with DUKE and THURIO\n\n  OUTLAW. A prize, a prize, a prize!\n  VALENTINE. Forbear, forbear, I say; it is my lord the Duke.\n    Your Grace is welcome to a man disgrac'd,\n    Banished Valentine.\n  DUKE. Sir Valentine!\n  THURIO. Yonder is Silvia; and Silvia's mine.\n  VALENTINE. Thurio, give back, or else embrace thy death;\n    Come not within the measure of my wrath;\n    Do not name Silvia thine; if once again,\n    Verona shall not hold thee. Here she stands\n    Take but possession of her with a touch-\n    I dare thee but to breathe upon my love.\n  THURIO. Sir Valentine, I care not for her, I;\n    I hold him but a fool that will endanger\n    His body for a girl that loves him not.\n    I claim her not, and therefore she is thine.\n  DUKE. The more degenerate and base art thou\n    To make such means for her as thou hast done\n    And leave her on such slight conditions.\n    Now, by the honour of my ancestry,\n    I do applaud thy spirit, Valentine,\n    And think thee worthy of an empress' love.\n    Know then, I here forget all former griefs,\n    Cancel all grudge, repeal thee home again,\n    Plead a new state in thy unrivall'd merit,\n    To which I thus subscribe: Sir Valentine,\n    Thou art a gentleman, and well deriv'd;\n    Take thou thy Silvia, for thou hast deserv'd her.\n  VALENTINE. I thank your Grace; the gift hath made me happy.\n    I now beseech you, for your daughter's sake,\n    To grant one boon that I shall ask of you.\n  DUKE. I grant it for thine own, whate'er it be.\n  VALENTINE. These banish'd men, that I have kept withal,\n    Are men endu'd with worthy qualities;\n    Forgive them what they have committed here,\n    And let them be recall'd from their exile:\n    They are reformed, civil, full of good,\n    And fit for great employment, worthy lord.\n  DUKE. Thou hast prevail'd; I pardon them, and thee;\n    Dispose of them as thou know'st their deserts.\n    Come, let us go; we will include all jars\n    With triumphs, mirth, and rare solemnity.\n  VALENTINE. And, as we walk along, I dare be bold\n    With our discourse to make your Grace to smile.\n    What think you of this page, my lord?\n  DUKE. I think the boy hath grace in him; he blushes.\n  VALENTINE. I warrant you, my lord- more grace than boy.\n  DUKE. What mean you by that saying?\n  VALENTINE. Please you, I'll tell you as we pass along,\n    That you will wonder what hath fortuned.\n    Come, Proteus, 'tis your penance but to hear\n    The story of your loves discovered.\n    That done, our day of marriage shall be yours;\n    One feast, one house, one mutual happiness!     Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1611\n\nTHE WINTER'S TALE\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  LEONTES, King of Sicilia\n  MAMILLIUS, his son, the young Prince of Sicilia\n  CAMILLO,    lord of Sicilia\n  ANTIGONUS,    \"   \"     \"\n  CLEOMENES,    \"   \"     \"\n  DION,         \"   \"     \"\n  POLIXENES, King of Bohemia\n  FLORIZEL, his son, Prince of Bohemia\n  ARCHIDAMUS, a lord of Bohemia\n  OLD SHEPHERD, reputed father of Perdita\n  CLOWN, his son\n  AUTOLYCUS, a rogue\n  A MARINER\n  A GAOLER\n  TIME, as Chorus\n\n  HERMIONE, Queen to Leontes\n  PERDITA, daughter to Leontes and Hermione\n  PAULINA, wife to Antigonus\n  EMILIA, a lady attending on the Queen\n  MOPSA,   shepherdess\n  DORCAS,        \"\n\n  Other Lords, Gentlemen, Ladies, Officers, Servants, Shepherds,\n    Shepherdesses\n\n                              SCENE:\n                       Sicilia and Bohemia\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nSicilia. The palace of LEONTES\n\nEnter CAMILLO and ARCHIDAMUS\n\n  ARCHIDAMUS. If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia, on the\n    like occasion whereon my services are now on foot, you shall see,\n    as I have said, great difference betwixt our Bohemia and your\n    Sicilia.\n  CAMILLO. I think this coming summer the King of Sicilia means to\n    pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him.\n  ARCHIDAMUS. Wherein our entertainment shall shame us we will be\n    justified in our loves; for indeed-\n  CAMILLO. Beseech you-\n  ARCHIDAMUS. Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge: we\n    cannot with such magnificence, in so rare- I know not what to\n    say. We will give you sleepy drinks, that your senses,\n    unintelligent of our insufficience, may, though they cannot\n    praise us, as little accuse us.\n  CAMILLO. You pay a great deal too dear for what's given freely.\n  ARCHIDAMUS. Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me\n    and as mine honesty puts it to utterance.\n  CAMILLO. Sicilia cannot show himself overkind to Bohemia. They were\n    train'd together in their childhoods; and there rooted betwixt\n    them then such an affection which cannot choose but branch now.\n    Since their more mature dignities and royal necessities made\n    separation of their society, their encounters, though not\n    personal, have been royally attorneyed with interchange of gifts,\n    letters, loving embassies; that they have seem'd to be together,\n    though absent; shook hands, as over a vast; and embrac'd as it\n    were from the ends of opposed winds. The heavens continue their\n    loves!\n  ARCHIDAMUS. I think there is not in the world either malice or\n    matter to alter it. You have an unspeakable comfort of your young\n    Prince Mamillius; it is a gentleman of the greatest promise that\n    ever came into my note.\n  CAMILLO. I very well agree with you in the hopes of him. It is a\n    gallant child; one that indeed physics the subject, makes old\n    hearts fresh; they that went on crutches ere he was born desire\n    yet their life to see him a man.\n  ARCHIDAMUS. Would they else be content to die?\n  CAMILLO. Yes; if there were no other excuse why they should desire\n    to live.\n  ARCHIDAMUS. If the King had no son, they would desire to live on\n    crutches till he had one.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nSicilia. The palace of LEONTES\n\nEnter LEONTES, POLIXENES, HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, CAMILLO, and ATTENDANTS\n\n  POLIXENES. Nine changes of the wat'ry star hath been\n    The shepherd's note since we have left our throne\n    Without a burden. Time as long again\n    Would be fill'd up, my brother, with our thanks;\n    And yet we should for perpetuity\n    Go hence in debt. And therefore, like a cipher,\n    Yet standing in rich place, I multiply\n    With one 'We thank you' many thousands moe\n    That go before it.\n  LEONTES. Stay your thanks a while,\n    And pay them when you part.\n  POLIXENES. Sir, that's to-morrow.\n    I am question'd by my fears of what may chance\n    Or breed upon our absence, that may blow\n    No sneaping winds at home, to make us say\n    'This is put forth too truly.' Besides, I have stay'd\n    To tire your royalty.\n  LEONTES. We are tougher, brother,\n    Than you can put us to't.\n  POLIXENES. No longer stay.\n  LEONTES. One sev'night longer.\n  POLIXENES. Very sooth, to-morrow.\n  LEONTES. We'll part the time between's then; and in that\n    I'll no gainsaying.\n  POLIXENES. Press me not, beseech you, so.\n    There is no tongue that moves, none, none i' th' world,\n    So soon as yours could win me. So it should now,\n    Were there necessity in your request, although\n    'Twere needful I denied it. My affairs\n    Do even drag me homeward; which to hinder\n    Were in your love a whip to me; my stay\n    To you a charge and trouble. To save both,\n    Farewell, our brother.\n  LEONTES. Tongue-tied, our Queen? Speak you.\n  HERMIONE. I had thought, sir, to have held my peace until\n    You had drawn oaths from him not to stay. You, sir,\n    Charge him too coldly. Tell him you are sure\n    All in Bohemia's well- this satisfaction\n    The by-gone day proclaim'd. Say this to him,\n    He's beat from his best ward.\n  LEONTES. Well said, Hermione.\n  HERMIONE. To tell he longs to see his son were strong;\n    But let him say so then, and let him go;\n    But let him swear so, and he shall not stay;\n    We'll thwack him hence with distaffs.\n    [To POLIXENES]  Yet of your royal presence I'll\n    adventure the borrow of a week. When at Bohemia\n    You take my lord, I'll give him my commission\n    To let him there a month behind the gest\n    Prefix'd for's parting.- Yet, good deed, Leontes,\n    I love thee not a jar o' th' clock behind\n    What lady she her lord.- You'll stay?\n  POLIXENES. No, madam.\n  HERMIONE. Nay, but you will?\n  POLIXENES. I may not, verily.\n  HERMIONE. Verily!\n    You put me off with limber vows; but I,\n    Though you would seek t' unsphere the stars with oaths,\n    Should yet say 'Sir, no going.' Verily,\n    You shall not go; a lady's 'verily' is\n    As potent as a lord's. Will go yet?\n    Force me to keep you as a prisoner,\n    Not like a guest; so you shall pay your fees\n    When you depart, and save your thanks. How say you?\n    My prisoner or my guest? By your dread 'verily,'\n    One of them you shall be.\n  POLIXENES. Your guest, then, madam:\n    To be your prisoner should import offending;\n    Which is for me less easy to commit\n    Than you to punish.\n  HERMIONE. Not your gaoler then,\n    But your kind. hostess. Come, I'll question you\n    Of my lord's tricks and yours when you were boys.\n    You were pretty lordings then!\n  POLIXENES. We were, fair Queen,\n    Two lads that thought there was no more behind\n    But such a day to-morrow as to-day,\n    And to be boy eternal.\n  HERMIONE. Was not my lord\n    The verier wag o' th' two?\n  POLIXENES. We were as twinn'd lambs that did frisk i' th' sun\n    And bleat the one at th' other. What we chang'd\n    Was innocence for innocence; we knew not\n    The doctrine of ill-doing, nor dream'd\n    That any did. Had we pursu'd that life,\n    And our weak spirits ne'er been higher rear'd\n    With stronger blood, we should have answer'd heaven\n    Boldly 'Not guilty,' the imposition clear'd\n    Hereditary ours.\n  HERMIONE. By this we gather\n    You have tripp'd since.\n  POLIXENES. O my most sacred lady,\n    Temptations have since then been born to 's, for\n    In those unfledg'd days was my wife a girl;\n    Your precious self had then not cross'd the eyes\n    Of my young playfellow.\n  HERMIONE. Grace to boot!\n    Of this make no conclusion, lest you say\n    Your queen and I are devils. Yet, go on;\n    Th' offences we have made you do we'll answer,\n    If you first sinn'd with us, and that with us\n    You did continue fault, and that you slipp'd not\n    With any but with us.\n  LEONTES. Is he won yet?\n  HERMIONE. He'll stay, my lord.\n  LEONTES. At my request he would not.\n    Hermione, my dearest, thou never spok'st\n    To better purpose.\n  HERMIONE. Never?\n  LEONTES. Never but once.\n  HERMIONE. What! Have I twice said well? When was't before?\n    I prithee tell me; cram's with praise, and make's\n    As fat as tame things. One good deed dying tongueless\n    Slaughters a thousand waiting upon that.\n    Our praises are our wages; you may ride's\n    With one soft kiss a thousand furlongs ere\n    With spur we heat an acre. But to th' goal:\n    My last good deed was to entreat his stay;\n    What was my first? It has an elder sister,\n    Or I mistake you. O, would her name were Grace!\n    But once before I spoke to th' purpose- When?\n    Nay, let me have't; I long.\n  LEONTES. Why, that was when\n    Three crabbed months had sour'd themselves to death,\n    Ere I could make thee open thy white hand\n    And clap thyself my love; then didst thou utter\n    'I am yours for ever.'\n  HERMIONE. 'Tis Grace indeed.\n    Why, lo you now, I have spoke to th' purpose twice:\n    The one for ever earn'd a royal husband;\n    Th' other for some while a friend.\n                                  [Giving her hand to POLIXENES]\n  LEONTES.  [Aside]  Too hot, too hot!\n    To mingle friendship far is mingling bloods.\n    I have tremor cordis on me; my heart dances,\n    But not for joy, not joy. This entertainment\n    May a free face put on; derive a liberty\n    From heartiness, from bounty, fertile bosom,\n    And well become the agent. 'T may, I grant;\n    But to be paddling palms and pinching fingers,\n    As now they are, and making practis'd smiles\n    As in a looking-glass; and then to sigh, as 'twere\n    The mort o' th' deer. O, that is entertainment\n    My bosom likes not, nor my brows! Mamillius,\n    Art thou my boy?\n  MAMILLIUS. Ay, my good lord.\n  LEONTES. I' fecks!\n    Why, that's my bawcock. What! hast smutch'd thy nose?\n    They say it is a copy out of mine. Come, Captain,\n    We must be neat- not neat, but cleanly, Captain.\n    And yet the steer, the heifer, and the calf,\n    Are all call'd neat.- Still virginalling\n    Upon his palm?- How now, you wanton calf,\n    Art thou my calf?\n  MAMILLIUS. Yes, if you will, my lord.\n  LEONTES. Thou want'st a rough pash and the shoots that I have,\n    To be full like me; yet they say we are\n    Almost as like as eggs. Women say so,\n    That will say anything. But were they false\n    As o'er-dy'd blacks, as wind, as waters- false\n    As dice are to be wish'd by one that fixes\n    No bourn 'twixt his and mine; yet were it true\n    To say this boy were like me. Come, sir page,\n    Look on me with your welkin eye. Sweet villain!\n    Most dear'st! my collop! Can thy dam?- may't be?\n    Affection! thy intention stabs the centre.\n    Thou dost make possible things not so held,\n    Communicat'st with dreams- how can this be?-\n    With what's unreal thou coactive art,\n    And fellow'st nothing. Then 'tis very credent\n    Thou mayst co-join with something; and thou dost-\n    And that beyond commission; and I find it,\n    And that to the infection of my brains\n    And hard'ning of my brows.\n  POLIXENES. What means Sicilia?\n  HERMIONE. He something seems unsettled.\n  POLIXENES. How, my lord!\n    What cheer? How is't with you, best brother?\n  HERMIONE. You look\n    As if you held a brow of much distraction.\n    Are you mov'd, my lord?\n  LEONTES. No, in good earnest.\n    How sometimes nature will betray its folly,\n    Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime\n    To harder bosoms! Looking on the lines\n    Of my boy's face, methoughts I did recoil\n    Twenty-three years; and saw myself unbreech'd,\n    In my green velvet coat; my dagger muzzl'd,\n    Lest it should bite its master and so prove,\n    As ornaments oft do, too dangerous.\n    How like, methought, I then was to this kernel,\n    This squash, this gentleman. Mine honest friend,\n    Will you take eggs for money?\n  MAMILLIUS. No, my lord, I'll fight.\n  LEONTES. You will? Why, happy man be's dole! My brother,\n    Are you so fond of your young prince as we\n    Do seem to be of ours?\n  POLIXENES. If at home, sir,\n    He's all my exercise, my mirth, my matter;\n    Now my sworn friend, and then mine enemy;\n    My parasite, my soldier, statesman, all.\n    He makes a July's day short as December,\n    And with his varying childness cures in me\n    Thoughts that would thick my blood.\n  LEONTES. So stands this squire\n    Offic'd with me. We two will walk, my lord,\n    And leave you to your graver steps. Hermione,\n    How thou lov'st us show in our brother's welcome;\n    Let what is dear in Sicily be cheap;\n    Next to thyself and my young rover, he's\n    Apparent to my heart.\n  HERMIONE. If you would seek us,\n    We are yours i' th' garden. Shall's attend you there?\n  LEONTES. To your own bents dispose you; you'll be found,\n    Be you beneath the sky.  [Aside]  I am angling now,\n    Though you perceive me not how I give line.\n    Go to, go to!\n    How she holds up the neb, the bill to him!\n    And arms her with the boldness of a wife\n    To her allowing husband!\n\n                      Exeunt POLIXENES, HERMIONE, and ATTENDANTS\n\n    Gone already!\n    Inch-thick, knee-deep, o'er head and ears a fork'd one!\n    Go, play, boy, play; thy mother plays, and I\n    Play too; but so disgrac'd a part, whose issue\n    Will hiss me to my grave. Contempt and clamour\n    Will be my knell. Go, play, boy, play. There have been,\n    Or I am much deceiv'd, cuckolds ere now;\n    And many a man there is, even at this present,\n    Now while I speak this, holds his wife by th' arm\n    That little thinks she has been sluic'd in's absence,\n    And his pond fish'd by his next neighbour, by\n    Sir Smile, his neighbour. Nay, there's comfort in't,\n    Whiles other men have gates and those gates open'd,\n    As mine, against their will. Should all despair\n    That hath revolted wives, the tenth of mankind\n    Would hang themselves. Physic for't there's none;\n    It is a bawdy planet, that will strike\n    Where 'tis predominant; and 'tis pow'rfull, think it,\n    From east, west, north, and south. Be it concluded,\n    No barricado for a belly. Know't,\n    It will let in and out the enemy\n    With bag and baggage. Many thousand on's\n    Have the disease, and feel't not. How now, boy!\n  MAMILLIUS. I am like you, they say.\n  LEONTES. Why, that's some comfort.\n    What! Camillo there?\n  CAMILLO. Ay, my good lord.\n  LEONTES. Go play, Mamillius; thou'rt an honest man.\n                                                  Exit MAMILLIUS\n    Camillo, this great sir will yet stay longer.\n  CAMILLO. You had much ado to make his anchor hold;\n    When you cast out, it still came home.\n  LEONTES. Didst note it?\n  CAMILLO. He would not stay at your petitions; made\n    His business more material.\n  LEONTES. Didst perceive it?\n    [Aside]  They're here with me already; whisp'ring, rounding,\n    'Sicilia is a so-forth.' 'Tis far gone\n    When I shall gust it last.- How came't, Camillo,\n    That he did stay?\n  CAMILLO. At the good Queen's entreaty.\n  LEONTES. 'At the Queen's' be't. 'Good' should be pertinent;\n    But so it is, it is not. Was this taken\n    By any understanding pate but thine?\n    For thy conceit is soaking, will draw in\n    More than the common blocks. Not noted, is't,\n    But of the finer natures, by some severals\n    Of head-piece extraordinary? Lower messes\n    Perchance are to this business purblind? Say.\n  CAMILLO. Business, my lord? I think most understand\n    Bohemia stays here longer.\n  LEONTES. Ha?\n  CAMILLO. Stays here longer.\n  LEONTES. Ay, but why?\n  CAMILLO. To satisfy your Highness, and the entreaties\n    Of our most gracious mistress.\n  LEONTES. Satisfy\n    Th' entreaties of your mistress! Satisfy!\n    Let that suffice. I have trusted thee, Camillo,\n    With all the nearest things to my heart, as well\n    My chamber-councils, wherein, priest-like, thou\n    Hast cleans'd my bosom- I from thee departed\n    Thy penitent reform'd; but we have been\n    Deceiv'd in thy integrity, deceiv'd\n    In that which seems so.\n  CAMILLO. Be it forbid, my lord!\n  LEONTES. To bide upon't: thou art not honest; or,\n    If thou inclin'st that way, thou art a coward,\n    Which hoxes honesty behind, restraining\n    From course requir'd; or else thou must be counted\n    A servant grafted in my serious trust,\n    And therein negligent; or else a fool\n    That seest a game play'd home, the rich stake drawn,\n    And tak'st it all for jest.\n  CAMILLO. My gracious lord,\n    I may be negligent, foolish, and fearful:\n    In every one of these no man is free\n    But that his negligence, his folly, fear,\n    Among the infinite doings of the world,\n    Sometime puts forth. In your affairs, my lord,\n    If ever I were wilfull-negligent,\n    It was my folly; if industriously\n    I play'd the fool, it was my negligence,\n    Not weighing well the end; if ever fearful\n    To do a thing where I the issue doubted,\n    Whereof the execution did cry out\n    Against the non-performance, 'twas a fear\n    Which oft infects the wisest. These, my lord,\n    Are such allow'd infirmities that honesty\n    Is never free of. But, beseech your Grace,\n    Be plainer with me; let me know my trespass\n    By its own visage; if I then deny it,\n    'Tis none of mine.\n  LEONTES. Ha' not you seen, Camillo-\n    But that's past doubt; you have, or your eye-glass\n    Is thicker than a cuckold's horn- or heard-\n    For to a vision so apparent rumour\n    Cannot be mute- or thought- for cogitation\n    Resides not in that man that does not think-\n    My wife is slippery? If thou wilt confess-\n    Or else be impudently negative,\n    To have nor eyes nor ears nor thought- then say\n    My wife's a hobby-horse, deserves a name\n    As rank as any flax-wench that puts to\n    Before her troth-plight. Say't and justify't.\n  CAMILLO. I would not be a stander-by to hear\n    My sovereign mistress clouded so, without\n    My present vengeance taken. Shrew my heart!\n    You never spoke what did become you less\n    Than this; which to reiterate were sin\n    As deep as that, though true.\n  LEONTES. Is whispering nothing?\n    Is leaning cheek to cheek? Is meeting noses?\n    Kissing with inside lip? Stopping the career\n    Of laughter with a sigh?- a note infallible\n    Of breaking honesty. Horsing foot on foot?\n    Skulking in corners? Wishing clocks more swift;\n    Hours, minutes; noon, midnight? And all eyes\n    Blind with the pin and web but theirs, theirs only,\n    That would unseen be wicked- is this nothing?\n    Why, then the world and all that's in't is nothing;\n    The covering sky is nothing; Bohemia nothing;\n    My is nothing; nor nothing have these nothings,\n    If this be nothing.\n  CAMILLO. Good my lord, be cur'd\n    Of this diseas'd opinion, and betimes;\n    For 'tis most dangerous.\n  LEONTES. Say it be, 'tis true.\n  CAMILLO. No, no, my lord.\n  LEONTES. It is; you lie, you lie.\n    I say thou liest, Camillo, and I hate thee;\n    Pronounce thee a gross lout, a mindless slave,\n    Or else a hovering temporizer that\n    Canst with thine eyes at once see good and evil,\n    Inclining to them both. Were my wife's liver\n    Infected as her life, she would not live\n    The running of one glass.\n  CAMILLO. Who does her?\n  LEONTES. Why, he that wears her like her medal, hanging\n    About his neck, Bohemia; who- if I\n    Had servants true about me that bare eyes\n    To see alike mine honour as their profits,\n    Their own particular thrifts, they would do that\n    Which should undo more doing. Ay, and thou,\n    His cupbearer- whom I from meaner form\n    Have bench'd and rear'd to worship; who mayst see,\n    Plainly as heaven sees earth and earth sees heaven,\n    How I am gall'd- mightst bespice a cup\n    To give mine enemy a lasting wink;\n    Which draught to me were cordial.\n  CAMILLO. Sir, my lord,\n    I could do this; and that with no rash potion,\n    But with a ling'ring dram that should not work\n    Maliciously like poison. But I cannot\n    Believe this crack to be in my dread mistress,\n    So sovereignly being honourable.\n    I have lov'd thee-\n  LEONTES. Make that thy question, and go rot!\n    Dost think I am so muddy, so unsettled,\n    To appoint myself in this vexation; sully\n    The purity and whiteness of my sheets-\n    Which to preserve is sleep, which being spotted\n    Is goads, thorns, nettles, tails of wasps;\n    Give scandal to the blood o' th' Prince, my son-\n    Who I do think is mine, and love as mine-\n    Without ripe moving to 't? Would I do this?\n    Could man so blench?\n  CAMILLO. I must believe you, sir.\n    I do; and will fetch off Bohemia for't;\n    Provided that, when he's remov'd, your Highness\n    Will take again your queen as yours at first,\n    Even for your son's sake; and thereby for sealing\n    The injury of tongues in courts and kingdoms\n    Known and allied to yours.\n  LEONTES. Thou dost advise me\n    Even so as I mine own course have set down.\n    I'll give no blemish to her honour, none.\n  CAMILLO. My lord,\n    Go then; and with a countenance as clear\n    As friendship wears at feasts, keep with Bohemia\n    And with your queen. I am his cupbearer;\n    If from me he have wholesome beverage,\n    Account me not your servant.\n  LEONTES. This is all:\n    Do't, and thou hast the one half of my heart;\n    Do't not, thou split'st thine own.\n  CAMILLO. I'll do't, my lord.\n  LEONTES. I will seem friendly, as thou hast advis'd me.   Exit\n  CAMILLO. O miserable lady! But, for me,\n    What case stand I in? I must be the poisoner\n    Of good Polixenes; and my ground to do't\n    Is the obedience to a master; one\n    Who, in rebellion with himself, will have\n    All that are his so too. To do this deed,\n    Promotion follows. If I could find example\n    Of thousands that had struck anointed kings\n    And flourish'd after, I'd not do't; but since\n    Nor brass, nor stone, nor parchment, bears not one,\n    Let villainy itself forswear't. I must\n    Forsake the court. To do't, or no, is certain\n    To me a break-neck. Happy star reign now!\n    Here comes Bohemia.\n\n                     Enter POLIXENES\n\n  POLIXENES. This is strange. Methinks\n    My favour here begins to warp. Not speak?\n    Good day, Camillo.\n  CAMILLO. Hail, most royal sir!\n  POLIXENES. What is the news i' th' court?\n  CAMILLO. None rare, my lord.\n  POLIXENES. The King hath on him such a countenance\n    As he had lost some province, and a region\n    Lov'd as he loves himself; even now I met him\n    With customary compliment, when he,\n    Wafting his eyes to th' contrary and falling\n    A lip of much contempt, speeds from me;\n    So leaves me to consider what is breeding\n    That changes thus his manners.\n  CAMILLO. I dare not know, my lord.\n  POLIXENES. How, dare not! Do not. Do you know, and dare not\n    Be intelligent to me? 'Tis thereabouts;\n    For, to yourself, what you do know, you must,\n    And cannot say you dare not. Good Camillo,\n    Your chang'd complexions are to me a mirror\n    Which shows me mine chang'd too; for I must be\n    A party in this alteration, finding\n    Myself thus alter'd with't.\n  CAMILLO. There is a sickness\n    Which puts some of us in distemper; but\n    I cannot name the disease; and it is caught\n    Of you that yet are well.\n  POLIXENES. How! caught of me?\n    Make me not sighted like the basilisk;\n    I have look'd on thousands who have sped the better\n    By my regard, but kill'd none so. Camillo-\n    As you are certainly a gentleman; thereto\n    Clerk-like experienc'd, which no less adorns\n    Our gentry than our parents' noble names,\n    In whose success we are gentle- I beseech you,\n    If you know aught which does behove my knowledge\n    Thereof to be inform'd, imprison't not\n    In ignorant concealment.\n  CAMILLO. I may not answer.\n  POLIXENES. A sickness caught of me, and yet I well?\n    I must be answer'd. Dost thou hear, Camillo?\n    I conjure thee, by all the parts of man\n    Which honour does acknowledge, whereof the least\n    Is not this suit of mine, that thou declare\n    What incidency thou dost guess of harm\n    Is creeping toward me; how far off, how near;\n    Which way to be prevented, if to be;\n    If not, how best to bear it.\n  CAMILLO. Sir, I will tell you;\n    Since I am charg'd in honour, and by him\n    That I think honourable. Therefore mark my counsel,\n    Which must be ev'n as swiftly followed as\n    I mean to utter it, or both yourself and me\n    Cry lost, and so goodnight.\n  POLIXENES. On, good Camillo.\n  CAMILLO. I am appointed him to murder you.\n  POLIXENES. By whom, Camillo?\n  CAMILLO. By the King.\n  POLIXENES. For what?\n  CAMILLO. He thinks, nay, with all confidence he swears,\n    As he had seen 't or been an instrument\n    To vice you to't, that you have touch'd his queen\n    Forbiddenly.\n  POLIXENES. O, then my best blood turn\n    To an infected jelly, and my name\n    Be yok'd with his that did betray the Best!\n    Turn then my freshest reputation to\n    A savour that may strike the dullest nostril\n    Where I arrive, and my approach be shunn'd,\n    Nay, hated too, worse than the great'st infection\n    That e'er was heard or read!\n  CAMILLO. Swear his thought over\n    By each particular star in heaven and\n    By all their influences, you may as well\n    Forbid the sea for to obey the moon\n    As or by oath remove or counsel shake\n    The fabric of his folly, whose foundation\n    Is pil'd upon his faith and will continue\n    The standing of his body.\n  POLIXENES. How should this grow?\n  CAMILLO. I know not; but I am sure 'tis safer to\n    Avoid what's grown than question how 'tis born.\n    If therefore you dare trust my honesty,\n    That lies enclosed in this trunk which you\n    Shall bear along impawn'd, away to-night.\n    Your followers I will whisper to the business;\n    And will, by twos and threes, at several posterns,\n    Clear them o' th' city. For myself, I'll put\n    My fortunes to your service, which are here\n    By this discovery lost. Be not uncertain,\n    For, by the honour of my parents, I\n    Have utt'red truth; which if you seek to prove,\n    I dare not stand by; nor shall you be safer\n    Than one condemn'd by the King's own mouth, thereon\n    His execution sworn.\n  POLIXENES. I do believe thee:\n    I saw his heart in's face. Give me thy hand;\n    Be pilot to me, and thy places shall\n    Still neighbour mine. My ships are ready, and\n    My people did expect my hence departure\n    Two days ago. This jealousy\n    Is for a precious creature; as she's rare,\n    Must it be great; and, as his person's mighty,\n    Must it be violent; and as he does conceive\n    He is dishonour'd by a man which ever\n    Profess'd to him, why, his revenges must\n    In that be made more bitter. Fear o'ershades me.\n    Good expedition be my friend, and comfort\n    The gracious Queen, part of this theme, but nothing\n    Of his ill-ta'en suspicion! Come, Camillo;\n    I will respect thee as a father, if\n    Thou bear'st my life off hence. Let us avoid.\n  CAMILLO. It is in mine authority to command\n    The keys of all the posterns. Please your Highness\n    To take the urgent hour. Come, sir, away.             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nSicilia. The palace of LEONTES\n\nEnter HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, and LADIES\n\n  HERMIONE. Take the boy to you; he so troubles me,\n    'Tis past enduring.\n  FIRST LADY. Come, my gracious lord,\n    Shall I be your playfellow?\n  MAMILLIUS. No, I'll none of you.\n  FIRST LADY. Why, my sweet lord?\n  MAMILLIUS. You'll kiss me hard, and speak to me as if\n    I were a baby still. I love you better.\n  SECOND LADY. And why so, my lord?\n  MAMILLIUS. Not for because\n    Your brows are blacker; yet black brows, they say,\n    Become some women best; so that there be not\n    Too much hair there, but in a semicircle\n    Or a half-moon made with a pen.\n  SECOND LADY. Who taught't this?\n  MAMILLIUS. I learn'd it out of women's faces. Pray now,\n    What colour are your eyebrows?\n  FIRST LADY. Blue, my lord.\n  MAMILLIUS. Nay, that's a mock. I have seen a lady's nose\n    That has been blue, but not her eyebrows.\n  FIRST LADY. Hark ye:\n    The Queen your mother rounds apace. We shall\n    Present our services to a fine new prince\n    One of these days; and then you'd wanton with us,\n    If we would have you.\n  SECOND LADY. She is spread of late\n    Into a goodly bulk. Good time encounter her!\n  HERMIONE. What wisdom stirs amongst you? Come, sir, now\n    I am for you again. Pray you sit by us,\n    And tell's a tale.\n  MAMILLIUS. Merry or sad shall't be?\n  HERMIONE. As merry as you will.\n  MAMILLIUS. A sad tale's best for winter. I have one\n    Of sprites and goblins.\n  HERMIONE. Let's have that, good sir.\n    Come on, sit down; come on, and do your best\n    To fright me with your sprites; you're pow'rfull at it.\n  MAMILLIUS. There was a man-\n  HERMIONE. Nay, come, sit down; then on.\n  MAMILLIUS. Dwelt by a churchyard- I will tell it softly;\n    Yond crickets shall not hear it.\n  HERMIONE. Come on then,\n    And give't me in mine ear.\n\n             Enter LEONTES, ANTIGONUS, LORDS, and OTHERS\n\n  LEONTES. he met there? his train? Camillo with him?\n  FIRST LORD. Behind the tuft of pines I met them; never\n    Saw I men scour so on their way. I ey'd them\n    Even to their ships.\n  LEONTES. How blest am I\n    In my just censure, in my true opinion!\n    Alack, for lesser knowledge! How accurs'd\n    In being so blest! There may be in the cup\n    A spider steep'd, and one may drink, depart,\n    And yet partake no venom, for his knowledge\n    Is not infected; but if one present\n    Th' abhorr'd ingredient to his eye, make known\n    How he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides,\n    With violent hefts. I have drunk, and seen the spider.\n    Camillo was his help in this, his pander.\n    There is a plot against my life, my crown;\n    All's true that is mistrusted. That false villain\n    Whom I employ'd was pre-employ'd by him;\n    He has discover'd my design, and I\n    Remain a pinch'd thing; yea, a very trick\n    For them to play at will. How came the posterns\n    So easily open?\n  FIRST LORD. By his great authority;\n    Which often hath no less prevail'd than so\n    On your command.\n  LEONTES. I know't too well.\n    Give me the boy. I am glad you did not nurse him;\n    Though he does bear some signs of me, yet you\n    Have too much blood in him.\n  HERMIONE. What is this? Sport?\n  LEONTES. Bear the boy hence; he shall not come about her;\n    Away with him; and let her sport herself\n                                          [MAMILLIUS is led out]\n    With that she's big with- for 'tis Polixenes\n    Has made thee swell thus.\n  HERMIONE. But I'd say he had not,\n    And I'll be sworn you would believe my saying,\n    Howe'er you lean to th' nayward.\n  LEONTES. You, my lords,\n    Look on her, mark her well; be but about\n    To say 'She is a goodly lady' and\n    The justice of your hearts will thereto ad\n    'Tis pity she's not honest- honourable.'\n    Praise her but for this her without-door form,\n    Which on my faith deserves high speech, and straight\n    The shrug, the hum or ha, these petty brands\n    That calumny doth use- O, I am out!-\n    That mercy does, for calumny will sear\n    Virtue itself- these shrugs, these hum's and ha's,\n    When you have said she's goodly, come between,\n    Ere you can say she's honest. But be't known,\n    From him that has most cause to grieve it should be,\n    She's an adultress.\n  HERMIONE. Should a villain say so,\n    The most replenish'd villain in the world,\n    He were as much more villain: you, my lord,\n    Do but mistake.\n  LEONTES. You have mistook, my lady,\n    Polixenes for Leontes. O thou thing!\n    Which I'll not call a creature of thy place,\n    Lest barbarism, making me the precedent,\n    Should a like language use to all degrees\n    And mannerly distinguishment leave out\n    Betwixt the prince and beggar. I have said\n    She's an adultress; I have said with whom.\n    More, she's a traitor; and Camillo is\n    A federary with her, and one that knows\n    What she should shame to know herself\n    But with her most vile principal- that she's\n    A bed-swerver, even as bad as those\n    That vulgars give bold'st titles; ay, and privy\n    To this their late escape.\n  HERMIONE. No, by my life,\n    Privy to none of this. How will this grieve you,\n    When you shall come to clearer knowledge, that\n    You thus have publish'd me! Gentle my lord,\n    You scarce can right me throughly then to say\n    You did mistake.\n  LEONTES. No; if I mistake\n    In those foundations which I build upon,\n    The centre is not big enough to bear\n    A school-boy's top. Away with her to prison.\n    He who shall speak for her is afar off guilty\n    But that he speaks.\n  HERMIONE. There's some ill planet reigns.\n    I must be patient till the heavens look\n    With an aspect more favourable. Good my lords,\n    I am not prone to weeping, as our sex\n    Commonly are- the want of which vain dew\n    Perchance shall dry your pities- but I have\n    That honourable grief lodg'd here which burns\n    Worse than tears drown. Beseech you all, my lords,\n    With thoughts so qualified as your charities\n    Shall best instruct you, measure me; and so\n    The King's will be perform'd!\n  LEONTES.  [To the GUARD]  Shall I be heard?\n  HERMIONE. Who is't that goes with me? Beseech your highness\n    My women may be with me, for you see\n    My plight requires it. Do not weep, good fools;\n    There is no cause; when you shall know your mistress\n    Has deserv'd prison, then abound in tears\n    As I come out: this action I now go on\n    Is for my better grace. Adieu, my lord.\n    I never wish'd to see you sorry; now\n    I trust I shall. My women, come; you have leave.\n  LEONTES. Go, do our bidding; hence!\n                            Exeunt HERMIONE, guarded, and LADIES\n  FIRST LORD. Beseech your Highness, call the Queen again.\n  ANTIGONUS. Be certain what you do, sir, lest your justice\n    Prove violence, in the which three great ones suffer,\n    Yourself, your queen, your son.\n  FIRST LORD. For her, my lord,\n    I dare my life lay down- and will do't, sir,\n    Please you t' accept it- that the Queen is spotless\n    I' th' eyes of heaven and to you- I mean\n    In this which you accuse her.\n  ANTIGONUS. If it prove\n    She's otherwise, I'll keep my stables where\n    I lodge my wife; I'll go in couples with her;\n    Than when I feel and see her no farther trust her;\n    For every inch of woman in the world,\n    Ay, every dram of woman's flesh is false,\n    If she be.\n  LEONTES. Hold your peaces.\n  FIRST LORD. Good my lord-\n  ANTIGONUS. It is for you we speak, not for ourselves.\n    You are abus'd, and by some putter-on\n    That will be damn'd for't. Would I knew the villain!\n    I would land-damn him. Be she honour-flaw'd-\n    I have three daughters: the eldest is eleven;\n    The second and the third, nine and some five;\n    If this prove true, they'll pay for 't. By mine honour,\n    I'll geld 'em all; fourteen they shall not see\n    To bring false generations. They are co-heirs;\n    And I had rather glib myself than they\n    Should not produce fair issue.\n  LEONTES. Cease; no more.\n    You smell this business with a sense as cold\n    As is a dead man's nose; but I do see't and feel't\n    As you feel doing thus; and see withal\n    The instruments that feel.\n  ANTIGONUS. If it be so,\n    We need no grave to bury honesty;\n    There's not a grain of it the face to sweeten\n    Of the whole dungy earth.\n  LEONTES. What! Lack I credit?\n  FIRST LORD. I had rather you did lack than I, my lord,\n    Upon this ground; and more it would content me\n    To have her honour true than your suspicion,\n    Be blam'd for't how you might.\n  LEONTES. Why, what need we\n    Commune with you of this, but rather follow\n    Our forceful instigation? Our prerogative\n    Calls not your counsels; but our natural goodness\n    Imparts this; which, if you- or stupified\n    Or seeming so in skill- cannot or will not\n    Relish a truth like us, inform yourselves\n    We need no more of your advice. The matter,\n    The loss, the gain, the ord'ring on't, is all\n    Properly ours.\n  ANTIGONUS. And I wish, my liege,\n    You had only in your silent judgment tried it,\n    Without more overture.\n  LEONTES. How could that be?\n    Either thou art most ignorant by age,\n    Or thou wert born a fool. Camillo's flight,\n    Added to their familiarity-\n    Which was as gross as ever touch'd conjecture,\n    That lack'd sight only, nought for approbation\n    But only seeing, all other circumstances\n    Made up to th' deed- doth push on this proceeding.\n    Yet, for a greater confirmation-\n    For, in an act of this importance, 'twere\n    Most piteous to be wild- I have dispatch'd in post\n    To sacred Delphos, to Apollo's temple,\n    Cleomenes and Dion, whom you know\n    Of stuff'd sufficiency. Now, from the oracle\n    They will bring all, whose spiritual counsel had,\n    Shall stop or spur me. Have I done well?\n  FIRST LORD. Well done, my lord.\n  LEONTES. Though I am satisfied, and need no more\n    Than what I know, yet shall the oracle\n    Give rest to th' minds of others such as he\n    Whose ignorant credulity will not\n    Come up to th' truth. So have we thought it good\n    From our free person she should be confin'd,\n    Lest that the treachery of the two fled hence\n    Be left her to perform. Come, follow us;\n    We are to speak in public; for this business\n    Will raise us all.\n  ANTIGONUS.  [Aside]  To laughter, as I take it,\n    If the good truth were known.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nSicilia. A prison\n\nEnter PAULINA, a GENTLEMAN, and ATTENDANTS\n\n  PAULINA. The keeper of the prison- call to him;\n    Let him have knowledge who I am.              Exit GENTLEMAN\n    Good lady!\n    No court in Europe is too good for thee;\n    What dost thou then in prison?\n\n                 Re-enter GENTLEMAN with the GAOLER\n\n    Now, good sir,\n    You know me, do you not?\n  GAOLER. For a worthy lady,\n    And one who much I honour.\n  PAULINA. Pray you, then,\n    Conduct me to the Queen.\n  GAOLER. I may not, madam;\n    To the contrary I have express commandment.\n  PAULINA. Here's ado, to lock up honesty and honour from\n    Th' access of gentle visitors! Is't lawful, pray you,\n    To see her women- any of them? Emilia?\n  GAOLER. So please you, madam,\n    To put apart these your attendants,\n    Shall bring Emilia forth.\n  PAULINA. I pray now, call her.\n    Withdraw yourselves.                       Exeunt ATTENDANTS\n  GAOLER. And, madam,\n    I must be present at your conference.\n  PAULINA. Well, be't so, prithee.                   Exit GAOLER\n    Here's such ado to make no stain a stain\n    As passes colouring.\n\n                 Re-enter GAOLER, with EMILIA\n\n    Dear gentlewoman,\n    How fares our gracious lady?\n  EMILIA. As well as one so great and so forlorn\n    May hold together. On her frights and griefs,\n    Which never tender lady hath borne greater,\n    She is, something before her time, deliver'd.\n  PAULINA. A boy?\n  EMILIA. A daughter, and a goodly babe,\n    Lusty, and like to live. The Queen receives\n    Much comfort in't; says 'My poor prisoner,\n    I am as innocent as you.'\n  PAULINA. I dare be sworn.\n    These dangerous unsafe lunes i' th' King, beshrew them!\n    He must be told on't, and he shall. The office\n    Becomes a woman best; I'll take't upon me;\n    If I prove honey-mouth'd, let my tongue blister,\n    And never to my red-look'd anger be\n    The trumpet any more. Pray you, Emilia,\n    Commend my best obedience to the Queen;\n    If she dares trust me with her little babe,\n    I'll show't the King, and undertake to be\n    Her advocate to th' loud'st. We do not know\n    How he may soften at the sight o' th' child:\n    The silence often of pure innocence\n    Persuades when speaking fails.\n  EMILIA. Most worthy madam,\n    Your honour and your goodness is so evident\n    That your free undertaking cannot miss\n    A thriving issue; there is no lady living\n    So meet for this great errand. Please your ladyship\n    To visit the next room, I'll presently\n    Acquaint the Queen of your most noble offer\n    Who but to-day hammer'd of this design,\n    But durst not tempt a minister of honour,\n    Lest she should be denied.\n  PAULINA. Tell her, Emilia,\n    I'll use that tongue I have; if wit flow from't\n    As boldness from my bosom, let't not be doubted\n    I shall do good.\n  EMILIA. Now be you blest for it!\n    I'll to the Queen. Please you come something nearer.\n  GAOLER. Madam, if't please the Queen to send the babe,\n    I know not what I shall incur to pass it,\n    Having no warrant.\n  PAULINA. You need not fear it, sir.\n    This child was prisoner to the womb, and is\n    By law and process of great Nature thence\n    Freed and enfranchis'd- not a party to\n    The anger of the King, nor guilty of,\n    If any be, the trespass of the Queen.\n  GAOLER. I do believe it.\n  PAULINA. Do not you fear. Upon mine honour, I\n    Will stand betwixt you and danger.                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nSicilia. The palace of LEONTES\n\nEnter LEONTES, ANTIGONUS, LORDS, and SERVANTS\n\n  LEONTES. Nor night nor day no rest! It is but weakness\n    To bear the matter thus- mere weakness. If\n    The cause were not in being- part o' th' cause,\n    She, th' adultress; for the harlot king\n    Is quite beyond mine arm, out of the blank\n    And level of my brain, plot-proof; but she\n    I can hook to me- say that she were gone,\n    Given to the fire, a moiety of my rest\n    Might come to me again. Who's there?\n  FIRST SERVANT. My lord?\n  LEONTES. How does the boy?\n  FIRST SERVANT. He took good rest to-night;\n    'Tis hop'd his sickness is discharg'd.\n  LEONTES. To see his nobleness!\n    Conceiving the dishonour of his mother,\n    He straight declin'd, droop'd, took it deeply,\n    Fasten'd and fix'd the shame on't in himself,\n    Threw off his spirit, his appetite, his sleep,\n    And downright languish'd. Leave me solely. Go,\n    See how he fares.  [Exit SERVANT]  Fie, fie! no thought of him!\n    The very thought of my revenges that way\n    Recoil upon me- in himself too mighty,\n    And in his parties, his alliance. Let him be,\n    Until a time may serve; for present vengeance,\n    Take it on her. Camillo and Polixenes\n    Laugh at me, make their pastime at my sorrow.\n    They should not laugh if I could reach them; nor\n    Shall she, within my pow'r.\n\n                 Enter PAULINA, with a CHILD\n\n  FIRST LORD. You must not enter.\n  PAULINA. Nay, rather, good my lords, be second to me.\n    Fear you his tyrannous passion more, alas,\n    Than the Queen's life? A gracious innocent soul,\n    More free than he is jealous.\n  ANTIGONUS. That's enough.\n  SECOND SERVANT. Madam, he hath not slept to-night; commanded\n    None should come at him.\n  PAULINA. Not so hot, good sir;\n    I come to bring him sleep. 'Tis such as you,\n    That creep like shadows by him, and do sigh\n    At each his needless heavings- such as you\n    Nourish the cause of his awaking: I\n    Do come with words as medicinal as true,\n    Honest as either, to purge him of that humour\n    That presses him from sleep.\n  LEONTES. What noise there, ho?\n  PAULINA. No noise, my lord; but needful conference\n    About some gossips for your Highness.\n  LEONTES. How!\n    Away with that audacious lady! Antigonus,\n    I charg'd thee that she should not come about me;\n    I knew she would.\n  ANTIGONUS. I told her so, my lord,\n    On your displeasure's peril, and on mine,\n    She should not visit you.\n  LEONTES. What, canst not rule her?\n  PAULINA. From all dishonesty he can: in this,\n    Unless he take the course that you have done-\n    Commit me for committing honour- trust it,\n    He shall not rule me.\n  ANTIGONUS. La you now, you hear!\n    When she will take the rein, I let her run;\n    But she'll not stumble.\n  PAULINA. Good my liege, I come-\n    And I beseech you hear me, who professes\n    Myself your loyal servant, your physician,\n    Your most obedient counsellor; yet that dares\n    Less appear so, in comforting your evils,\n    Than such as most seem yours- I say I come\n    From your good Queen.\n  LEONTES. Good Queen!\n  PAULINA. Good Queen, my lord, good Queen- I say good Queen;\n    And would by combat make her good, so were I\n    A man, the worst about you.\n  LEONTES. Force her hence.\n  PAULINA. Let him that makes but trifles of his eyes\n    First hand me. On mine own accord I'll off;\n    But first I'll do my errand. The good Queen,\n    For she is good, hath brought you forth a daughter;\n    Here 'tis; commends it to your blessing.\n                                         [Laying down the child]\n  LEONTES. Out!\n    A mankind witch! Hence with her, out o' door!\n    A most intelligencing bawd!\n  PAULINA. Not so.\n    I am as ignorant in that as you\n    In so entitling me; and no less honest\n    Than you are mad; which is enough, I'll warrant,\n    As this world goes, to pass for honest.\n  LEONTES. Traitors!\n    Will you not push her out? Give her the bastard.\n    [To ANTIGONUS]  Thou dotard, thou art woman-tir'd, unroosted\n    By thy Dame Partlet here. Take up the bastard;\n    Take't up, I say; give't to thy crone.\n  PAULINA. For ever\n    Unvenerable be thy hands, if thou\n    Tak'st up the Princess by that forced baseness\n    Which he has put upon't!\n  LEONTES. He dreads his wife.\n  PAULINA. So I would you did; then 'twere past all doubt\n    You'd call your children yours.\n  LEONTES. A nest of traitors!\n  ANTIGONUS. I am none, by this good light.\n  PAULINA. Nor I; nor any\n    But one that's here; and that's himself; for he\n    The sacred honour of himself, his Queen's,\n    His hopeful son's, his babe's, betrays to slander,\n    Whose sting is sharper than the sword's; and will not-\n    For, as the case now stands, it is a curse\n    He cannot be compell'd to 't- once remove\n    The root of his opinion, which is rotten\n    As ever oak or stone was sound.\n  LEONTES. A callat\n    Of boundless tongue, who late hath beat her husband,\n    And now baits me! This brat is none of mine;\n    It is the issue of Polixenes.\n    Hence with it, and together with the dam\n    Commit them to the fire.\n  PAULINA. It is yours.\n    And, might we lay th' old proverb to your charge,\n    So like you 'tis the worse. Behold, my lords,\n    Although the print be little, the whole matter\n    And copy of the father- eye, nose, lip,\n    The trick of's frown, his forehead; nay, the valley,\n    The pretty dimples of his chin and cheek; his smiles;\n    The very mould and frame of hand, nail, finger.\n    And thou, good goddess Nature, which hast made it\n    So like to him that got it, if thou hast\n    The ordering of the mind too, 'mongst all colours\n    No yellow in't, lest she suspect, as he does,\n    Her children not her husband's!\n  LEONTES. A gross hag!\n    And, lozel, thou art worthy to be hang'd\n    That wilt not stay her tongue.\n  ANTIGONUS. Hang all the husbands\n    That cannot do that feat, you'll leave yourself\n    Hardly one subject.\n  LEONTES. Once more, take her hence.\n  PAULINA. A most unworthy and unnatural lord\n    Can do no more.\n  LEONTES. I'll ha' thee burnt.\n  PAULINA. I care not.\n    It is an heretic that makes the fire,\n    Not she which burns in't. I'll not call you tyrant\n    But this most cruel usage of your Queen-\n    Not able to produce more accusation\n    Than your own weak-hing'd fancy- something savours\n    Of tyranny, and will ignoble make you,\n    Yea, scandalous to the world.\n  LEONTES. On your allegiance,\n    Out of the chamber with her! Were I a tyrant,\n    Where were her life? She durst not call me so,\n    If she did know me one. Away with her!\n  PAULINA. I pray you, do not push me; I'll be gone.\n    Look to your babe, my lord; 'tis yours. Jove send her\n    A better guiding spirit! What needs these hands?\n    You that are thus so tender o'er his follies\n    Will never do him good, not one of you.\n    So, so. Farewell; we are gone.                          Exit\n  LEONTES. Thou, traitor, hast set on thy wife to this.\n    My child! Away with't. Even thou, that hast\n    A heart so tender o'er it, take it hence,\n    And see it instantly consum'd with fire;\n    Even thou, and none but thou. Take it up straight.\n    Within this hour bring me word 'tis done,\n    And by good testimony, or I'll seize thy life,\n    With that thou else call'st thine. If thou refuse,\n    And wilt encounter with my wrath, say so;\n    The bastard brains with these my proper hands\n    Shall I dash out. Go, take it to the fire;\n    For thou set'st on thy wife.\n  ANTIGONUS. I did not, sir.\n    These lords, my noble fellows, if they please,\n    Can clear me in't.\n  LORDS. We can. My royal liege,\n    He is not guilty of her coming hither.\n  LEONTES. You're liars all.\n  FIRST LORD. Beseech your Highness, give us better credit.\n    We have always truly serv'd you; and beseech\n    So to esteem of us; and on our knees we beg,\n    As recompense of our dear services\n    Past and to come, that you do change this purpose,\n    Which being so horrible, so bloody, must\n    Lead on to some foul issue. We all kneel.\n  LEONTES. I am a feather for each wind that blows.\n    Shall I live on to see this bastard kneel\n    And call me father? Better burn it now\n    Than curse it then. But be it; let it live.\n    It shall not neither.  [To ANTIGONUS]  You, Sir, come you hither.\n    You that have been so tenderly officious\n    With Lady Margery, your midwife there,\n    To save this bastard's life- for 'tis a bastard,\n    So sure as this beard's grey- what will you adventure\n    To save this brat's life?\n  ANTIGONUS. Anything, my lord,\n    That my ability may undergo,\n    And nobleness impose. At least, thus much:\n    I'll pawn the little blood which I have left\n    To save the innocent- anything possible.\n  LEONTES. It shall be possible. Swear by this sword\n    Thou wilt perform my bidding.\n  ANTIGONUS. I will, my lord.\n  LEONTES. Mark, and perform it- seest thou? For the fail\n    Of any point in't shall not only be\n    Death to thyself, but to thy lewd-tongu'd wife,\n    Whom for this time we pardon. We enjoin thee,\n    As thou art liegeman to us, that thou carry\n    This female bastard hence; and that thou bear it\n    To some remote and desert place, quite out\n    Of our dominions; and that there thou leave it,\n    Without more mercy, to it own protection\n    And favour of the climate. As by strange fortune\n    It came to us, I do in justice charge thee,\n    On thy soul's peril and thy body's torture,\n    That thou commend it strangely to some place\n    Where chance may nurse or end it. Take it up.\n  ANTIGONUS. I swear to do this, though a present death\n    Had been more merciful. Come on, poor babe.\n    Some powerful spirit instruct the kites and ravens\n    To be thy nurses! Wolves and bears, they say,\n    Casting their savageness aside, have done\n    Like offices of pity. Sir, be prosperous\n    In more than this deed does require! And blessing\n    Against this cruelty fight on thy side,\n    Poor thing, condemn'd to loss!           Exit with the child\n  LEONTES. No, I'll not rear\n    Another's issue.\n\n                         Enter a SERVANT\n\n  SERVANT. Please your Highness, posts\n    From those you sent to th' oracle are come\n    An hour since. Cleomenes and Dion,\n    Being well arriv'd from Delphos, are both landed,\n    Hasting to th' court.\n  FIRST LORD. So please you, sir, their speed\n    Hath been beyond account.\n  LEONTES. Twenty-three days\n    They have been absent; 'tis good speed; foretells\n    The great Apollo suddenly will have\n    The truth of this appear. Prepare you, lords;\n    Summon a session, that we may arraign\n    Our most disloyal lady; for, as she hath\n    Been publicly accus'd, so shall she have\n    A just and open trial. While she lives,\n    My heart will be a burden to me. Leave me;\n    And think upon my bidding.                            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nSicilia. On the road to the Capital\n\nEnter CLEOMENES and DION\n\n  CLEOMENES. The climate's delicate, the air most sweet,\n    Fertile the isle, the temple much surpassing\n    The common praise it bears.\n  DION. I shall report,\n    For most it caught me, the celestial habits-\n    Methinks I so should term them- and the reverence\n    Of the grave wearers. O, the sacrifice!\n    How ceremonious, solemn, and unearthly,\n    It was i' th' off'ring!\n  CLEOMENES. But of all, the burst\n    And the ear-deaf'ning voice o' th' oracle,\n    Kin to Jove's thunder, so surpris'd my sense\n    That I was nothing.\n  DION. If th' event o' th' journey\n    Prove as successful to the Queen- O, be't so!-\n    As it hath been to us rare, pleasant, speedy,\n    The time is worth the use on't.\n  CLEOMENES. Great Apollo\n    Turn all to th' best! These proclamations,\n    So forcing faults upon Hermione,\n    I little like.\n  DION. The violent carriage of it\n    Will clear or end the business. When the oracle-\n    Thus by Apollo's great divine seal'd up-\n    Shall the contents discover, something rare\n    Even then will rush to knowledge. Go; fresh horses.\n    And gracious be the issue!                            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nSicilia. A court of justice\n\nEnter LEONTES, LORDS, and OFFICERS\n\n  LEONTES. This sessions, to our great grief we pronounce,\n    Even pushes 'gainst our heart- the party tried,\n    The daughter of a king, our wife, and one\n    Of us too much belov'd. Let us be clear'd\n    Of being tyrannous, since we so openly\n    Proceed in justice, which shall have due course,\n    Even to the guilt or the purgation.\n    Produce the prisoner.\n  OFFICER. It is his Highness' pleasure that the Queen\n    Appear in person here in court.\n\n         Enter HERMIONE, as to her trial, PAULINA, and LADIES\n\n    Silence!\n  LEONTES. Read the indictment.\n  OFFICER.  [Reads]  'Hermione, Queen to the worthy Leontes, King of\n    Sicilia, thou art here accused and arraigned of high treason, in\n    committing adultery with Polixenes, King of Bohemia; and\n    conspiring with Camillo to take away the life of our sovereign\n    lord the King, thy royal husband: the pretence whereof being by\n    circumstances partly laid open, thou, Hermione, contrary to the\n    faith and allegiance of true subject, didst counsel and aid them,\n    for their better safety, to fly away by night.'\n  HERMIONE. Since what I am to say must be but that\n    Which contradicts my accusation, and\n    The testimony on my part no other\n    But what comes from myself, it shall scarce boot me\n    To say 'Not guilty.' Mine integrity\n    Being counted falsehood shall, as I express it,\n    Be so receiv'd. But thus- if pow'rs divine\n    Behold our human actions, as they do,\n    I doubt not then but innocence shall make\n    False accusation blush, and tyranny\n    Tremble at patience. You, my lord, best know-\n    Who least will seem to do so- my past life\n    Hath been as continent, as chaste, as true,\n    As I am now unhappy; which is more\n    Than history can pattern, though devis'd\n    And play'd to take spectators; for behold me-\n    A fellow of the royal bed, which owe\n    A moiety of the throne, a great king's daughter,\n    The mother to a hopeful prince- here standing\n    To prate and talk for life and honour fore\n    Who please to come and hear. For life, I prize it\n    As I weigh grief, which I would spare; for honour,\n    'Tis a derivative from me to mine,\n    And only that I stand for. I appeal\n    To your own conscience, sir, before Polixenes\n    Came to your court, how I was in your grace,\n    How merited to be so; since he came,\n    With what encounter so uncurrent I\n    Have strain'd t' appear thus; if one jot beyond\n    The bound of honour, or in act or will\n    That way inclining, hard'ned be the hearts\n    Of all that hear me, and my near'st of kin\n    Cry fie upon my grave!\n  LEONTES. I ne'er heard yet\n    That any of these bolder vices wanted\n    Less impudence to gainsay what they did\n    Than to perform it first.\n  HERMIONE. That's true enough;\n    Though 'tis a saying, sir, not due to me.\n  LEONTES. You will not own it.\n  HERMIONE. More than mistress of\n    Which comes to me in name of fault, I must not\n    At all acknowledge. For Polixenes,\n    With whom I am accus'd, I do confess\n    I lov'd him as in honour he requir'd;\n    With such a kind of love as might become\n    A lady like me; with a love even such,\n    So and no other, as yourself commanded;\n    Which not to have done, I think had been in me\n    Both disobedience and ingratitude\n    To you and toward your friend; whose love had spoke,\n    Ever since it could speak, from an infant, freely,\n    That it was yours. Now for conspiracy:\n    I know not how it tastes, though it be dish'd\n    For me to try how; all I know of it\n    Is that Camillo was an honest man;\n    And why he left your court, the gods themselves,\n    Wotting no more than I, are ignorant.\n  LEONTES. You knew of his departure, as you know\n    What you have underta'en to do in's absence.\n  HERMIONE. Sir,\n    You speak a language that I understand not.\n    My life stands in the level of your dreams,\n    Which I'll lay down.\n  LEONTES. Your actions are my dreams.\n    You had a bastard by Polixenes,\n    And I but dream'd it. As you were past all shame-\n    Those of your fact are so- so past all truth;\n    Which to deny concerns more than avails; for as\n    Thy brat hath been cast out, like to itself,\n    No father owning it- which is indeed\n    More criminal in thee than it- so thou\n    Shalt feel our justice; in whose easiest passage\n    Look for no less than death.\n  HERMIONE. Sir, spare your threats.\n    The bug which you would fright me with I seek.\n    To me can life be no commodity.\n    The crown and comfort of my life, your favour,\n    I do give lost, for I do feel it gone,\n    But know not how it went; my second joy\n    And first fruits of my body, from his presence\n    I am barr'd, like one infectious; my third comfort,\n    Starr'd most unluckily, is from my breast-\n    The innocent milk in it most innocent mouth-\n    Hal'd out to murder; myself on every post\n    Proclaim'd a strumpet; with immodest hatred\n    The child-bed privilege denied, which 'longs\n    To women of all fashion; lastly, hurried\n    Here to this place, i' th' open air, before\n    I have got strength of limit. Now, my liege,\n    Tell me what blessings I have here alive\n    That I should fear to die. Therefore proceed.\n    But yet hear this- mistake me not: no life,\n    I prize it not a straw, but for mine honour\n    Which I would free- if I shall be condemn'd\n    Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else\n    But what your jealousies awake, I tell you\n    'Tis rigour, and not law. Your honours all,\n    I do refer me to the oracle:\n    Apollo be my judge!\n  FIRST LORD. This your request\n    Is altogether just. Therefore, bring forth,\n    And in Apollo's name, his oracle.\n                                         Exeunt certain OFFICERS\n  HERMIONE. The Emperor of Russia was my father;\n    O that he were alive, and here beholding\n    His daughter's trial! that he did but see\n    The flatness of my misery; yet with eyes\n    Of pity, not revenge!\n\n           Re-enter OFFICERS, with CLEOMENES and DION\n\n  OFFICER. You here shall swear upon this sword of justice\n    That you, Cleomenes and Dion, have\n    Been both at Delphos, and from thence have brought\n    This seal'd-up oracle, by the hand deliver'd\n    Of great Apollo's priest; and that since then\n    You have not dar'd to break the holy seal\n    Nor read the secrets in't.\n  CLEOMENES, DION. All this we swear.\n  LEONTES. Break up the seals and read.\n  OFFICER.  [Reads]  'Hermione is chaste; Polixenes blameless;\n    Camillo a true subject; Leontes a jealous tyrant; his innocent\n    babe truly begotten; and the King shall live without an heir, if\n    that which is lost be not found.'\n  LORDS. Now blessed be the great Apollo!\n  HERMIONE. Praised!\n  LEONTES. Hast thou read truth?\n  OFFICER. Ay, my lord; even so\n    As it is here set down.\n  LEONTES. There is no truth at all i' th' oracle.\n    The sessions shall proceed. This is mere falsehood.\n\n                        Enter a SERVANT\n\n  SERVANT. My lord the King, the King!\n  LEONTES. What is the business?\n  SERVANT. O sir, I shall be hated to report it:\n    The Prince your son, with mere conceit and fear\n    Of the Queen's speed, is gone.\n  LEONTES. How! Gone?\n  SERVANT. Is dead.\n  LEONTES. Apollo's angry; and the heavens themselves\n    Do strike at my injustice.                 [HERMIONE swoons]\n    How now, there!\n  PAULINA. This news is mortal to the Queen. Look down\n    And see what death is doing.\n  LEONTES. Take her hence.\n    Her heart is but o'ercharg'd; she will recover.\n    I have too much believ'd mine own suspicion.\n    Beseech you tenderly apply to her\n    Some remedies for life.\n                         Exeunt PAULINA and LADIES with HERMIONE\n    Apollo, pardon\n    My great profaneness 'gainst thine oracle.\n    I'll reconcile me to Polixenes,\n    New woo my queen, recall the good Camillo-\n    Whom I proclaim a man of truth, of mercy.\n    For, being transported by my jealousies\n    To bloody thoughts and to revenge, I chose\n    Camillo for the minister to poison\n    My friend Polixenes; which had been done\n    But that the good mind of Camillo tardied\n    My swift command, though I with death and with\n    Reward did threaten and encourage him,\n    Not doing it and being done. He, most humane\n    And fill'd with honour, to my kingly guest\n    Unclasp'd my practice, quit his fortunes here,\n    Which you knew great, and to the certain hazard\n    Of all incertainties himself commended,\n    No richer than his honour. How he glisters\n    Thorough my rust! And how his piety\n    Does my deeds make the blacker!\n\n                      Re-enter PAULINA\n\n  PAULINA. Woe the while!\n    O, cut my lace, lest my heart, cracking it,\n    Break too!\n  FIRST LORD. What fit is this, good lady?\n  PAULINA. What studied torments, tyrant, hast for me?\n    What wheels, racks, fires? what flaying, boiling\n    In leads or oils? What old or newer torture\n    Must I receive, whose every word deserves\n    To taste of thy most worst? Thy tyranny\n    Together working with thy jealousies,\n    Fancies too weak for boys, too green and idle\n    For girls of nine- O, think what they have done,\n    And then run mad indeed, stark mad; for all\n    Thy by-gone fooleries were but spices of it.\n    That thou betray'dst Polixenes, 'twas nothing;\n    That did but show thee, of a fool, inconstant,\n    And damnable ingrateful. Nor was't much\n    Thou wouldst have poison'd good Camillo's honour,\n    To have him kill a king- poor trespasses,\n    More monstrous standing by; whereof I reckon\n    The casting forth to crows thy baby daughter\n    To be or none or little, though a devil\n    Would have shed water out of fire ere done't;\n    Nor is't directly laid to thee, the death\n    Of the young Prince, whose honourable thoughts-\n    Thoughts high for one so tender- cleft the heart\n    That could conceive a gross and foolish sire\n    Blemish'd his gracious dam. This is not, no,\n    Laid to thy answer; but the last- O lords,\n    When I have said, cry 'Woe!'- the Queen, the Queen,\n    The sweet'st, dear'st creature's dead; and vengeance\n    For't not dropp'd down yet.\n  FIRST LORD. The higher pow'rs forbid!\n  PAULINA. I say she's dead; I'll swear't. If word nor oath\n    Prevail not, go and see. If you can bring\n    Tincture or lustre in her lip, her eye,\n    Heat outwardly or breath within, I'll serve you\n    As I would do the gods. But, O thou tyrant!\n    Do not repent these things, for they are heavier\n    Than all thy woes can stir; therefore betake thee\n    To nothing but despair. A thousand knees\n    Ten thousand years together, naked, fasting,\n    Upon a barren mountain, and still winter\n    In storm perpetual, could not move the gods\n    To look that way thou wert.\n  LEONTES. Go on, go on.\n    Thou canst not speak too much; I have deserv'd\n    All tongues to talk their bitt'rest.\n  FIRST LORD. Say no more;\n    Howe'er the business goes, you have made fault\n    I' th' boldness of your speech.\n  PAULINA. I am sorry for't.\n    All faults I make, when I shall come to know them.\n    I do repent. Alas, I have show'd too much\n    The rashness of a woman! He is touch'd\n    To th' noble heart. What's gone and what's past help\n    Should be past grief. Do not receive affliction\n    At my petition; I beseech you, rather\n    Let me be punish'd that have minded you\n    Of what you should forget. Now, good my liege,\n    Sir, royal sir, forgive a foolish woman.\n    The love I bore your queen- lo, fool again!\n    I'll speak of her no more, nor of your children;\n    I'll not remember you of my own lord,\n    Who is lost too. Take your patience to you,\n    And I'll say nothing.\n  LEONTES. Thou didst speak but well\n    When most the truth; which I receive much better\n    Than to be pitied of thee. Prithee, bring me\n    To the dead bodies of my queen and son.\n    One grave shall be for both. Upon them shall\n    The causes of their death appear, unto\n    Our shame perpetual. Once a day I'll visit\n    The chapel where they lie; and tears shed there\n    Shall be my recreation. So long as nature\n    Will bear up with this exercise, so long\n    I daily vow to use it. Come, and lead me\n    To these sorrows.                                     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nBohemia. The sea-coast\n\nEnter ANTIGONUS with the CHILD, and a MARINER\n\n  ANTIGONUS. Thou art perfect then our ship hath touch'd upon\n    The deserts of Bohemia?\n  MARINER. Ay, my lord, and fear\n    We have landed in ill time; the skies look grimly\n    And threaten present blusters. In my conscience,\n    The heavens with that we have in hand are angry\n    And frown upon 's.\n  ANTIGONUS. Their sacred wills be done! Go, get aboard;\n    Look to thy bark. I'll not be long before\n    I call upon thee.\n  MARINER. Make your best haste; and go not\n    Too far i' th' land; 'tis like to be loud weather;\n    Besides, this place is famous for the creatures\n    Of prey that keep upon't.\n  ANTIGONUS. Go thou away;\n    I'll follow instantly.\n  MARINER. I am glad at heart\n    To be so rid o' th' business.                           Exit\n  ANTIGONUS. Come, poor babe.\n    I have heard, but not believ'd, the spirits o' th' dead\n    May walk again. If such thing be, thy mother\n    Appear'd to me last night; for ne'er was dream\n    So like a waking. To me comes a creature,\n    Sometimes her head on one side some another-\n    I never saw a vessel of like sorrow,\n    So fill'd and so becoming; in pure white robes,\n    Like very sanctity, she did approach\n    My cabin where I lay; thrice bow'd before me;\n    And, gasping to begin some speech, her eyes\n    Became two spouts; the fury spent, anon\n    Did this break from her: 'Good Antigonus,\n    Since fate, against thy better disposition,\n    Hath made thy person for the thrower-out\n    Of my poor babe, according to thine oath,\n    Places remote enough are in Bohemia,\n    There weep, and leave it crying; and, for the babe\n    Is counted lost for ever, Perdita\n    I prithee call't. For this ungentle business,\n    Put on thee by my lord, thou ne'er shalt see\n    Thy wife Paulina more.' so, with shrieks,\n    She melted into air. Affrighted much,\n    I did in time collect myself, and thought\n    This was so and no slumber. Dreams are toys;\n    Yet, for this once, yea, superstitiously,\n    I will be squar'd by this. I do believe\n    Hermione hath suffer'd death, and that\n    Apollo would, this being indeed the issue\n    Of King Polixenes, it should here be laid,\n    Either for life or death, upon the earth\n    Of its right father. Blossom, speed thee well!\n                                         [Laying down the child]\n    There lie, and there thy character; there these\n                                          [Laying down a bundle]\n    Which may, if fortune please, both breed thee, pretty,\n    And still rest thine. The storm begins. Poor wretch,\n    That for thy mother's fault art thus expos'd\n    To loss and what may follow! Weep I cannot,\n    But my heart bleeds; and most accurs'd am I\n    To be by oath enjoin'd to this. Farewell!\n    The day frowns more and more. Thou'rt like to have\n    A lullaby too rough; I never saw\n    The heavens so dim by day.  [Noise of hunt within]  A savage\n      clamour!\n    Well may I get aboard! This is the chase;\n    I am gone for ever.                  Exit, pursued by a bear\n\n                      Enter an old SHEPHERD\n\n  SHEPHERD. I would there were no age between ten and three and\n    twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is\n    nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging\n    the ancientry, stealing, fighting-  [Horns]  Hark you now! Would\n    any but these boil'd brains of nineteen and two and twenty hunt\n    this weather? They have scar'd away two of my best sheep, which I\n    fear the wolf will sooner find than the master. If any where I\n    have them, 'tis by the sea-side, browsing of ivy. Good luck, an't\n    be thy will! What have we here?  [Taking up the child]  Mercy\n    on's, a barne! A very pretty barne. A boy or a child, I wonder? A\n    pretty one; a very pretty one- sure, some scape. Though I am not\n    bookish, yet I can read waiting-gentlewoman in the scape. This\n    has been some stair-work, some trunk-work, some behind-door-work;\n    they were warmer that got this than the poor thing is here. I'll\n    take it up for pity; yet I'll tarry till my son come; he halloo'd\n    but even now. Whoa-ho-hoa!\n\n                          Enter CLOWN\n\n  CLOWN. Hilloa, loa!\n  SHEPHERD. What, art so near? If thou'lt see a thing to talk on when\n    thou art dead and rotten, come hither. What ail'st thou, man?\n  CLOWN. I have seen two such sights, by sea and by land! But I am\n    not to say it is a sea, for it is now the sky; betwixt the\n    firmament and it you cannot thrust a bodkin's point.\n  SHEPHERD. Why, boy, how is it?\n  CLOWN. I would you did but see how it chafes, how it rages, how it\n    takes up the shore! But that's not to the point. O, the most\n    piteous cry of the poor souls! Sometimes to see 'em, and not to\n    see 'em; now the ship boring the moon with her mainmast, and anon\n    swallowed with yeast and froth, as you'd thrust a cork into a\n    hogshead. And then for the land service- to see how the bear tore\n    out his shoulder-bone; how he cried to me for help, and said his\n    name was Antigonus, a nobleman! But to make an end of the ship-\n    to see how the sea flap-dragon'd it; but first, how the poor\n    souls roared, and the sea mock'd them; and how the poor gentleman\n    roared, and the bear mock'd him, both roaring louder than the sea\n    or weather.\n  SHEPHERD. Name of mercy, when was this, boy?\n  CLOWN. Now, now; I have not wink'd since I saw these sights; the\n    men are not yet cold under water, nor the bear half din'd on the\n    gentleman; he's at it now.\n  SHEPHERD. Would I had been by to have help'd the old man!\n  CLOWN. I would you had been by the ship-side, to have help'd her;\n    there your charity would have lack'd footing.\n  SHEPHERD. Heavy matters, heavy matters! But look thee here, boy.\n    Now bless thyself; thou met'st with things dying, I with things\n    new-born. Here's a sight for thee; look thee, a bearing-cloth for\n    a squire's child! Look thee here; take up, take up, boy; open't.\n    So, let's see- it was told me I should be rich by the fairies.\n    This is some changeling. Open't. What's within, boy?\n  CLOWN. You're a made old man; if the sins of your youth are\n    forgiven you, you're well to live. Gold! all gold!\n  SHEPHERD. This is fairy gold, boy, and 'twill prove so. Up with't,\n    keep it close. Home, home, the next way! We are lucky, boy; and\n    to be so still requires nothing but secrecy. Let my sheep go.\n    Come, good boy, the next way home.\n  CLOWN. Go you the next way with your findings. I'll go see if the\n    bear be gone from the gentleman, and how much he hath eaten. They\n    are never curst but when they are hungry. If there be any of him\n    left, I'll bury it.\n  SHEPHERD. That's a good deed. If thou mayest discern by that which\n    is left of him what he is, fetch me to th' sight of him.\n  CLOWN. Marry, will I; and you shall help to put him i' th' ground.\n  SHEPHERD. 'Tis a lucky day, boy; and we'll do good deeds on't.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\n\nEnter TIME, the CHORUS\n\n  TIME. I, that please some, try all, both joy and terror\n    Of good and bad, that makes and unfolds error,\n    Now take upon me, in the name of Time,\n    To use my wings. Impute it not a crime\n    To me or my swift passage that I slide\n    O'er sixteen years, and leave the growth untried\n    Of that wide gap, since it is in my pow'r\n    To o'erthrow law, and in one self-born hour\n    To plant and o'erwhelm custom. Let me pass\n    The same I am, ere ancient'st order was\n    Or what is now receiv'd. I witness to\n    The times that brought them in; so shall I do\n    To th' freshest things now reigning, and make stale\n    The glistering of this present, as my tale\n    Now seems to it. Your patience this allowing,\n    I turn my glass, and give my scene such growing\n    As you had slept between. Leontes leaving-\n    Th' effects of his fond jealousies so grieving\n    That he shuts up himself- imagine me,\n    Gentle spectators, that I now may be\n    In fair Bohemia; and remember well\n    I mention'd a son o' th' King's, which Florizel\n    I now name to you; and with speed so pace\n    To speak of Perdita, now grown in grace\n    Equal with wond'ring. What of her ensues\n    I list not prophesy; but let Time's news\n    Be known when 'tis brought forth. A shepherd's daughter,\n    And what to her adheres, which follows after,\n    Is th' argument of Time. Of this allow,\n    If ever you have spent time worse ere now;\n    If never, yet that Time himself doth say\n    He wishes earnestly you never may.                      Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBohemia. The palace of POLIXENES\n\nEnter POLIXENES and CAMILLO\n\n  POLIXENES. I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate: 'tis\n    a sickness denying thee anything; a death to grant this.\n  CAMILLO. It is fifteen years since I saw my country; though I have\n    for the most part been aired abroad, I desire to lay my bones\n    there. Besides, the penitent King, my master, hath sent for me;\n    to whose feeling sorrows I might be some allay, or I o'erween to\n    think so, which is another spur to my departure.\n  POLIXENES. As thou lov'st me, Camillo, wipe not out the rest of thy\n    services by leaving me now. The need I have of thee thine own\n    goodness hath made. Better not to have had thee than thus to want\n    thee; thou, having made me businesses which none without thee can\n    sufficiently manage, must either stay to execute them thyself, or\n    take away with thee the very services thou hast done; which if I\n    have not enough considered- as too much I cannot- to be more\n    thankful to thee shall be my study; and my profit therein the\n    heaping friendships. Of that fatal country Sicilia, prithee,\n    speak no more; whose very naming punishes me with the remembrance\n    of that penitent, as thou call'st him, and reconciled king, my\n    brother; whose loss of his most precious queen and children are\n    even now to be afresh lamented. Say to me, when saw'st thou the\n    Prince Florizel, my son? Kings are no less unhappy, their issue\n    not being gracious, than they are in losing them when they have\n    approved their virtues.\n  CAMILLO. Sir, it is three days since I saw the Prince. What his\n    happier affairs may be are to me unknown; but I have missingly\n    noted he is of late much retired from court, and is less frequent\n    to his princely exercises than formerly he hath appeared.\n  POLIXENES. I have considered so much, Camillo, and with some care,\n    so far that I have eyes under my service which look upon his\n    removedness; from whom I have this intelligence, that he is\n    seldom from the house of a most homely shepherd- a man, they say,\n    that from very nothing, and beyond the imagination of his\n    neighbours, is grown into an unspeakable estate.\n  CAMILLO. I have heard, sir, of such a man, who hath a daughter of\n    most rare note. The report of her is extended more than can be\n    thought to begin from such a cottage.\n  POLIXENES. That's likewise part of my intelligence; but, I fear, the\n    angle that plucks our son thither. Thou shalt accompany us to the\n    place; where we will, not appearing what we are, have some\n    question with the shepherd; from whose simplicity I think it not\n    uneasy to get the cause of my son's resort thither. Prithee be my\n    present partner in this business, and lay aside the thoughts of\n    Sicilia.\n  CAMILLO. I willingly obey your command.\n  POLIXENES. My best Camillo! We must disguise ourselves.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nBohemia. A road near the SHEPHERD'S cottage\n\nEnter AUTOLYCUS, singing\n\n      When daffodils begin to peer,\n        With heigh! the doxy over the dale,\n      Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year,\n        For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.\n\n      The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,\n        With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing!\n      Doth set my pugging tooth on edge,\n        For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.\n\n      The lark, that tirra-lirra chants,\n        With heigh! with heigh! the thrush and the jay,\n      Are summer songs for me and my aunts,\n        While we lie tumbling in the hay.\n\n    I have serv'd Prince Florizel, and in my time wore three-pile;\n    but now I am out of service.\n\n      But shall I go mourn for that, my dear?\n        The pale moon shines by night;\n      And when I wander here and there,\n        I then do most go right.\n\n      If tinkers may have leave to live,\n        And bear the sow-skin budget,\n      Then my account I well may give\n        And in the stocks avouch it.\n\n    My traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to lesser linen.\n    My father nam'd me Autolycus; who, being, I as am, litter'd under\n    Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. With\n    die and drab I purchas'd this caparison; and my revenue is the\n    silly-cheat. Gallows and knock are too powerful on the highway;\n    beating and hanging are terrors to me; for the life to come, I\n    sleep out the thought of it. A prize! a prize!\n\n                            Enter CLOWN\n\n  CLOWN. Let me see: every 'leven wether tods; every tod yields pound\n    and odd shilling; fifteen hundred shorn, what comes the wool to?\n  AUTOLYCUS.  [Aside]  If the springe hold, the cock's mine.\n  CLOWN. I cannot do 't without counters. Let me see: what am I to\n    buy for our sheep-shearing feast? Three pound of sugar, five\n    pound of currants, rice- what will this sister of mine do with\n    rice? But my father hath made her mistress of the feast, and she\n    lays it on. She hath made me four and twenty nosegays for the\n    shearers- three-man song-men all, and very good ones; but they\n    are most of them means and bases; but one Puritan amongst them,\n    and he sings psalms to hornpipes. I must have saffron to colour\n    the warden pies; mace; dates- none, that's out of my note;\n    nutmegs, seven; race or two of ginger, but that I may beg; four\n    pound of prunes, and as many of raisins o' th' sun.\n  AUTOLYCUS.  [Grovelling on the ground]  O that ever I was born!\n  CLOWN. I' th' name of me!\n  AUTOLYCUS. O, help me, help me! Pluck but off these rags; and then,\n    death, death!\n  CLOWN. Alack, poor soul! thou hast need of more rags to lay on\n    thee, rather than have these off.\n  AUTOLYCUS. O sir, the loathsomeness of them offend me more than the\n    stripes I have received, which are mighty ones and millions.\n  CLOWN. Alas, poor man! a million of beating may come to a great\n    matter.\n  AUTOLYCUS. I am robb'd, sir, and beaten; my money and apparel ta'en\n    from me, and these detestable things put upon me.\n  CLOWN. What, by a horseman or a footman?\n  AUTOLYCUS. A footman, sweet sir, a footman.\n  CLOWN. Indeed, he should be a footman, by the garments he has left\n    with thee; if this be a horseman's coat, it hath seen very hot\n    service. Lend me thy hand, I'll help thee. Come, lend me thy\n    hand.                                       [Helping him up]\n  AUTOLYCUS. O, good sir, tenderly, O!\n  CLOWN. Alas, poor soul!\n  AUTOLYCUS. O, good sir, softly, good sir; I fear, sir, my shoulder\n    blade is out.\n  CLOWN. How now! Canst stand?\n  AUTOLYCUS. Softly, dear sir  [Picks his pocket];  good sir, softly.\n    You ha' done me a charitable office.\n  CLOWN. Dost lack any money? I have a little money for thee.\n  AUTOLYCUS. No, good sweet sir; no, I beseech you, sir. I have a\n    kinsman not past three quarters of a mile hence, unto whom I was\n    going; I shall there have money or anything I want. Offer me no\n    money, I pray you; that kills my heart.\n  CLOWN. What manner of fellow was he that robb'd you?\n  AUTOLYCUS. A fellow, sir, that I have known to go about with\n    troll-my-dames; I knew him once a servant of the Prince. I cannot\n    tell, good sir, for which of his virtues it was, but he was\n    certainly whipt out of the court.\n  CLOWN. His vices, you would say; there's no virtue whipt out of the\n    court. They cherish it to make it stay there; and yet it will no\n    more but abide.\n  AUTOLYCUS. Vices, I would say, sir. I know this man well; he hath\n    been since an ape-bearer; then a process-server, a bailiff; then\n    he compass'd a motion of the Prodigal Son, and married a tinker's\n    wife within a mile where my land and living lies; and, having\n    flown over many knavish professions, he settled only in rogue.\n    Some call him Autolycus.\n  CLOWN. Out upon him! prig, for my life, prig! He haunts wakes,\n    fairs, and bear-baitings.\n  AUTOLYCUS. Very true, sir; he, sir, he; that's the rogue that put\n    me into this apparel.\n  CLOWN. Not a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia; if you had but\n    look'd big and spit at him, he'd have run.\n  AUTOLYCUS. I must confess to you, sir, I am no fighter; I am false\n    of heart that way, and that he knew, I warrant him.\n  CLOWN. How do you now?\n  AUTOLYCUS. Sweet sir, much better than I was; I can stand and walk.\n    I will even take my leave of you and pace softly towards my\n    kinsman's.\n  CLOWN. Shall I bring thee on the way?\n  AUTOLYCUS. No, good-fac'd sir; no, sweet sir.\n  CLOWN. Then fare thee well. I must go buy spices for our\n    sheep-shearing.\n  AUTOLYCUS. Prosper you, sweet sir!                  Exit CLOWN\n    Your purse is not hot enough to purchase your spice. I'll be with\n    you at your sheep-shearing too. If I make not this cheat bring\n    out another, and the shearers prove sheep, let me be unroll'd,\n    and my name put in the book of virtue!\n                                                         [Sings]\n            Jog on, jog on, the footpath way,\n              And merrily hent the stile-a;\n            A merry heart goes all the day,\n              Your sad tires in a mile-a.                   Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nBohemia. The SHEPHERD'S cottage\n\nEnter FLORIZEL and PERDITA\n\n  FLORIZEL. These your unusual weeds to each part of you\n    Do give a life- no shepherdess, but Flora\n    Peering in April's front. This your sheep-shearing\n    Is as a meeting of the petty gods,\n    And you the Queen on't.\n  PERDITA. Sir, my gracious lord,\n    To chide at your extremes it not becomes me-\n    O, pardon that I name them! Your high self,\n    The gracious mark o' th' land, you have obscur'd\n    With a swain's wearing; and me, poor lowly maid,\n    Most goddess-like prank'd up. But that our feasts\n    In every mess have folly, and the feeders\n    Digest it with a custom, I should blush\n    To see you so attir'd; swoon, I think,\n    To show myself a glass.\n  FLORIZEL. I bless the time\n    When my good falcon made her flight across\n    Thy father's ground.\n  PERDITA. Now Jove afford you cause!\n    To me the difference forges dread; your greatness\n    Hath not been us'd to fear. Even now I tremble\n    To think your father, by some accident,\n    Should pass this way, as you did. O, the Fates!\n    How would he look to see his work, so noble,\n    Vilely bound up? What would he say? Or how\n    Should I, in these my borrowed flaunts, behold\n    The sternness of his presence?\n  FLORIZEL. Apprehend\n    Nothing but jollity. The gods themselves,\n    Humbling their deities to love, have taken\n    The shapes of beasts upon them: Jupiter\n    Became a bull and bellow'd; the green Neptune\n    A ram and bleated; and the fire-rob'd god,\n    Golden Apollo, a poor humble swain,\n    As I seem now. Their transformations\n    Were never for a piece of beauty rarer,\n    Nor in a way so chaste, since my desires\n    Run not before mine honour, nor my lusts\n    Burn hotter than my faith.\n  PERDITA. O, but, sir,\n    Your resolution cannot hold when 'tis\n    Oppos'd, as it must be, by th' pow'r of the King.\n    One of these two must be necessities,\n    Which then will speak, that you must change this purpose,\n    Or I my life.\n  FLORIZEL. Thou dearest Perdita,\n    With these forc'd thoughts, I prithee, darken not\n    The mirth o' th' feast. Or I'll be thine, my fair,\n    Or not my father's; for I cannot be\n    Mine own, nor anything to any, if\n    I be not thine. To this I am most constant,\n    Though destiny say no. Be merry, gentle;\n    Strangle such thoughts as these with any thing\n    That you behold the while. Your guests are coming.\n    Lift up your countenance, as it were the day\n    Of celebration of that nuptial which\n    We two have sworn shall come.\n  PERDITA. O Lady Fortune,\n    Stand you auspicious!\n  FLORIZEL. See, your guests approach.\n    Address yourself to entertain them sprightly,\n    And let's be red with mirth.\n\n        Enter SHEPHERD, with POLIXENES and CAMILLO, disguised;\n                 CLOWN, MOPSA, DORCAS, with OTHERS\n\n  SHEPHERD. Fie, daughter! When my old wife liv'd, upon\n    This day she was both pantler, butler, cook;\n    Both dame and servant; welcom'd all; serv'd all;\n    Would sing her song and dance her turn; now here\n    At upper end o' th' table, now i' th' middle;\n    On his shoulder, and his; her face o' fire\n    With labour, and the thing she took to quench it\n    She would to each one sip. You are retired,\n    As if you were a feasted one, and not\n    The hostess of the meeting. Pray you bid\n    These unknown friends to's welcome, for it is\n    A way to make us better friends, more known.\n    Come, quench your blushes, and present yourself\n    That which you are, Mistress o' th' Feast. Come on,\n    And bid us welcome to your sheep-shearing,\n    As your good flock shall prosper.\n  PERDITA.  [To POLIXENES]  Sir, welcome.\n    It is my father's will I should take on me\n    The hostess-ship o' th' day.  [To CAMILLO]\n    You're welcome, sir.\n    Give me those flow'rs there, Dorcas. Reverend sirs,\n    For you there's rosemary and rue; these keep\n    Seeming and savour all the winter long.\n    Grace and remembrance be to you both!\n    And welcome to our shearing.\n  POLIXENES. Shepherdess-\n    A fair one are you- well you fit our ages\n    With flow'rs of winter.\n  PERDITA. Sir, the year growing ancient,\n    Not yet on summer's death nor on the birth\n    Of trembling winter, the fairest flow'rs o' th' season\n    Are our carnations and streak'd gillyvors,\n    Which some call nature's bastards. Of that kind\n    Our rustic garden's barren; and I care not\n    To get slips of them.\n  POLIXENES. Wherefore, gentle maiden,\n    Do you neglect them?\n  PERDITA. For I have heard it said\n    There is an art which in their piedness shares\n    With great creating nature.\n  POLIXENES. Say there be;\n    Yet nature is made better by no mean\n    But nature makes that mean; so over that art\n    Which you say adds to nature, is an art\n    That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry\n    A gentler scion to the wildest stock,\n    And make conceive a bark of baser kind\n    By bud of nobler race. This is an art\n    Which does mend nature- change it rather; but\n    The art itself is nature.\n  PERDITA. So it is.\n  POLIXENES. Then make your garden rich in gillyvors,\n    And do not call them bastards.\n  PERDITA. I'll not put\n    The dibble in earth to set one slip of them;\n    No more than were I painted I would wish\n    This youth should say 'twere well, and only therefore\n    Desire to breed by me. Here's flow'rs for you:\n    Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram;\n    The marigold, that goes to bed wi' th' sun,\n    And with him rises weeping; these are flow'rs\n    Of middle summer, and I think they are given\n    To men of middle age. Y'are very welcome.\n  CAMILLO. I should leave grazing, were I of your flock,\n    And only live by gazing.\n  PERDITA. Out, alas!\n    You'd be so lean that blasts of January\n    Would blow you through and through. Now, my fair'st friend,\n    I would I had some flow'rs o' th' spring that might\n    Become your time of day- and yours, and yours,\n    That wear upon your virgin branches yet\n    Your maidenheads growing. O Proserpina,\n    From the flowers now that, frighted, thou let'st fall\n    From Dis's waggon!- daffodils,\n    That come before the swallow dares, and take\n    The winds of March with beauty; violets, dim\n    But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes\n    Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses,\n    That die unmarried ere they can behold\n    Bright Phoebus in his strength- a malady\n    Most incident to maids; bold oxlips, and\n    The crown-imperial; lilies of all kinds,\n    The flow'r-de-luce being one. O, these I lack\n    To make you garlands of, and my sweet friend\n    To strew him o'er and o'er!\n  FLORIZEL. What, like a corse?\n  PERDITA. No; like a bank for love to lie and play on;\n    Not like a corse; or if- not to be buried,\n    But quick, and in mine arms. Come, take your flow'rs.\n    Methinks I play as I have seen them do\n    In Whitsun pastorals. Sure, this robe of mine\n    Does change my disposition.\n  FLORIZEL. What you do\n    Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet,\n    I'd have you do it ever. When you sing,\n    I'd have you buy and sell so; so give alms;\n    Pray so; and, for the ord'ring your affairs,\n    To sing them too. When you do dance, I wish you\n    A wave o' th' sea, that you might ever do\n    Nothing but that; move still, still so,\n    And own no other function. Each your doing,\n    So singular in each particular,\n    Crowns what you are doing in the present deeds,\n    That all your acts are queens.\n  PERDITA. O Doricles,\n    Your praises are too large. But that your youth,\n    And the true blood which peeps fairly through't,\n    Do plainly give you out an unstain'd shepherd,\n    With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles,\n    You woo'd me the false way.\n  FLORIZEL. I think you have\n    As little skill to fear as I have purpose\n    To put you to't. But, come; our dance, I pray.\n    Your hand, my Perdita; so turtles pair\n    That never mean to part.\n  PERDITA. I'll swear for 'em.\n  POLIXENES. This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever\n    Ran on the green-sward; nothing she does or seems\n    But smacks of something greater than herself,\n    Too noble for this place.\n  CAMILLO. He tells her something\n    That makes her blood look out. Good sooth, she is\n    The queen of curds and cream.\n  CLOWN. Come on, strike up.\n  DORCAS. Mopsa must be your mistress; marry, garlic,\n    To mend her kissing with!\n  MOPSA. Now, in good time!\n  CLOWN. Not a word, a word; we stand upon our manners.\n    Come, strike up.                                     [Music]\n\n          Here a dance Of SHEPHERDS and SHEPHERDESSES\n\n  POLIXENES. Pray, good shepherd, what fair swain is this\n    Which dances with your daughter?\n  SHEPHERD. They call him Doricles, and boasts himself\n    To have a worthy feeding; but I have it\n    Upon his own report, and I believe it:\n    He looks like sooth. He says he loves my daughter;\n    I think so too; for never gaz'd the moon\n    Upon the water as he'll stand and read,\n    As 'twere my daughter's eyes; and, to be plain,\n    I think there is not half a kiss to choose\n    Who loves another best.\n  POLIXENES. She dances featly.\n  SHEPHERD. So she does any thing; though I report it\n    That should be silent. If young Doricles\n    Do light upon her, she shall bring him that\n    Which he not dreams of.\n\n                      Enter a SERVANT\n\n  SERVANT. O master, if you did but hear the pedlar at the door, you\n    would never dance again after a tabor and pipe; no, the bagpipe\n    could not move you. He sings several tunes faster than you'll\n    tell money; he utters them as he had eaten ballads, and all men's\n    ears grew to his tunes.\n  CLOWN. He could never come better; he shall come in. I love a\n    ballad but even too well, if it be doleful matter merrily set\n    down, or a very pleasant thing indeed and sung lamentably.\n  SERVANT. He hath songs for man or woman of all sizes; no milliner\n    can so fit his customers with gloves. He has the prettiest\n    love-songs for maids; so without bawdry, which is strange; with\n    such delicate burdens of dildos and fadings, 'jump her and thump\n    her'; and where some stretch-mouth'd rascal would, as it were,\n    mean mischief, and break a foul gap into the matter, he makes the\n    maid to answer 'Whoop, do me no harm, good man'- puts him off,\n    slights him, with 'Whoop, do me no harm, good man.'\n  POLIXENES. This is a brave fellow.\n  CLOWN. Believe me, thou talkest of an admirable conceited fellow.\n    Has he any unbraided wares?\n  SERVANT. He hath ribbons of all the colours i' th' rainbow; points,\n    more than all the lawyers in Bohemia can learnedly handle, though\n    they come to him by th' gross; inkles, caddisses, cambrics,\n    lawns. Why he sings 'em over as they were gods or goddesses; you\n    would think a smock were she-angel, he so chants to the\n    sleeve-hand and the work about the square on't.\n  CLOWN. Prithee bring him in; and let him approach singing.\n  PERDITA. Forewarn him that he use no scurrilous words in's tunes.\n                                                    Exit SERVANT\n  CLOWN. You have of these pedlars that have more in them than you'd\n    think, sister.\n  PERDITA. Ay, good brother, or go about to think.\n\n                   Enter AUTOLYCUS, Singing\n\n           Lawn as white as driven snow;\n           Cypress black as e'er was crow;\n           Gloves as sweet as damask roses;\n           Masks for faces and for noses;\n           Bugle bracelet, necklace amber,\n           Perfume for a lady's chamber;\n           Golden quoifs and stomachers,\n           For my lads to give their dears;\n           Pins and poking-sticks of steel-\n           What maids lack from head to heel.\n           Come, buy of me, come; come buy, come buy;\n           Buy, lads, or else your lasses cry.\n           Come, buy.\n\n  CLOWN. If I were not in love with Mopsa, thou shouldst take no\n    money of me; but being enthrall'd as I am, it will also be the\n    bondage of certain ribbons and gloves.\n  MOPSA. I was promis'd them against the feast; but they come not too\n    late now.\n  DORCAS. He hath promis'd you more than that, or there be liars.\n  MOPSA. He hath paid you all he promis'd you. May be he has paid you\n    more, which will shame you to give him again.\n  CLOWN. Is there no manners left among maids? Will they wear their\n    plackets where they should bear their faces? Is there not\n    milking-time, when you are going to bed, or kiln-hole, to whistle\n    off these secrets, but you must be tittle-tattling before all our\n    guests? 'Tis well they are whisp'ring. Clammer your tongues, and\n    not a word more.\n  MOPSA. I have done. Come, you promis'd me a tawdry-lace, and a pair\n    of sweet gloves.\n  CLOWN. Have I not told thee how I was cozen'd by the way, and lost\n    all my money?\n  AUTOLYCUS. And indeed, sir, there are cozeners abroad; therefore it\n    behoves men to be wary.\n  CLOWN. Fear not thou, man; thou shalt lose nothing here.\n  AUTOLYCUS. I hope so, sir; for I have about me many parcels of\n    charge.\n  CLOWN. What hast here? Ballads?\n  MOPSA. Pray now, buy some. I love a ballad in print a-life, for\n    then we are sure they are true.\n  AUTOLYCUS. Here's one to a very doleful tune: how a usurer's wife\n    was brought to bed of twenty money-bags at a burden, and how she\n    long'd to eat adders' heads and toads carbonado'd.\n  MOPSA. Is it true, think you?\n  AUTOLYCUS. Very true, and but a month old.\n  DORCAS. Bless me from marrying a usurer!\n  AUTOLYCUS. Here's the midwife's name to't, one Mistress Taleporter,\n    and five or six honest wives that were present. Why should I\n    carry lies abroad?\n  MOPSA. Pray you now, buy it.\n  CLOWN. Come on, lay it by; and let's first see moe ballads; we'll\n    buy the other things anon.\n  AUTOLYCUS. Here's another ballad, of a fish that appeared upon the\n    coast on Wednesday the fourscore of April, forty thousand fathom\n    above water, and sung this ballad against the hard hearts of\n    maids. It was thought she was a woman, and was turn'd into a cold\n    fish for she would not exchange flesh with one that lov'd her.\n    The ballad is very pitiful, and as true.\n  DORCAS. Is it true too, think you?\n  AUTOLYCUS. Five justices' hands at it; and witnesses more than my\n    pack will hold.\n  CLOWN. Lay it by too. Another.\n  AUTOLYCUS. This is a merry ballad, but a very pretty one.\n  MOPSA. Let's have some merry ones.\n  AUTOLYCUS. Why, this is a passing merry one, and goes to the tune\n    of 'Two maids wooing a man.' There's scarce a maid westward but\n    she sings it; 'tis in request, I can tell you.\n  MOPSA. can both sing it. If thou'lt bear a part, thou shalt hear;\n    'tis in three parts.\n  DORCAS. We had the tune on't a month ago.\n  AUTOLYCUS. I can bear my part; you must know 'tis my occupation.\n    Have at it with you.\n\n                        SONG\n\n  AUTOLYCUS. Get you hence, for I must go\n             Where it fits not you to know.\n  DORCAS.    Whither?\n  MOPSA.       O, whither?\n  DORCAS.        Whither?\n  MOPSA.     It becomes thy oath full well\n             Thou to me thy secrets tell.\n  DORCAS.    Me too! Let me go thither\n  MOPSA.     Or thou goest to th' grange or mill.\n  DORCAS.    If to either, thou dost ill.\n  AUTOLYCUS. Neither.\n  DORCAS.    What, neither?\n  AUTOLYCUS. Neither.\n  DORCAS.    Thou hast sworn my love to be.\n  MOPSA.     Thou hast sworn it more to me.\n             Then whither goest? Say, whither?\n\n  CLOWN. We'll have this song out anon by ourselves; my father and\n    the gentlemen are in sad talk, and we'll not trouble them. Come,\n    bring away thy pack after me. Wenches, I'll buy for you both.\n    Pedlar, let's have the first choice. Follow me, girls.\n                                      Exit with DORCAS and MOPSA\n  AUTOLYCUS. And you shall pay well for 'em.\n                                         Exit AUTOLYCUS, Singing\n\n             Will you buy any tape,\n             Or lace for your cape,\n           My dainty duck, my dear-a?\n             Any silk, any thread,\n             Any toys for your head,\n           Of the new'st and fin'st, fin'st wear-a?\n             Come to the pedlar;\n             Money's a meddler\n           That doth utter all men's ware-a.\n\n                   Re-enter SERVANT\n\n  SERVANT. Master, there is three carters, three shepherds, three\n    neat-herds, three swineherds, that have made themselves all men\n    of hair; they call themselves Saltiers, and they have dance which\n    the wenches say is a gallimaufry of gambols, because they are not\n    in't; but they themselves are o' th' mind, if it be not too rough\n    for some that know little but bowling, it will please\n    plentifully.\n  SHEPHERD. Away! We'll none on't; here has been too much homely\n    foolery already. I know, sir, we weary you.\n  POLIXENES. You weary those that refresh us. Pray, let's see these\n    four threes of herdsmen.\n  SERVANT. One three of them, by their own report, sir, hath danc'd\n    before the King; and not the worst of the three but jumps twelve\n    foot and a half by th' squier.\n  SHEPHERD. Leave your prating; since these good men are pleas'd, let\n    them come in; but quickly now.\n  SERVANT. Why, they stay at door, sir.                     Exit\n\n                    Here a dance of twelve SATYRS\n\n  POLIXENES.  [To SHEPHERD]  O, father, you'll know more of that\n      hereafter.\n    [To CAMILLO]  Is it not too far gone? 'Tis time to part them.\n    He's simple and tells much.  [To FLORIZEL]  How now, fair\n      shepherd!\n    Your heart is full of something that does take\n    Your mind from feasting. Sooth, when I was young\n    And handed love as you do, I was wont\n    To load my she with knacks; I would have ransack'd\n    The pedlar's silken treasury and have pour'd it\n    To her acceptance: you have let him go\n    And nothing marted with him. If your lass\n    Interpretation should abuse and call this\n    Your lack of love or bounty, you were straited\n    For a reply, at least if you make a care\n    Of happy holding her.\n  FLORIZEL. Old sir, I know\n    She prizes not such trifles as these are.\n    The gifts she looks from me are pack'd and lock'd\n    Up in my heart, which I have given already,\n    But not deliver'd. O, hear me breathe my life\n    Before this ancient sir, whom, it should seem,\n    Hath sometime lov'd. I take thy hand- this hand,\n    As soft as dove's down and as white as it,\n    Or Ethiopian's tooth, or the fann'd snow that's bolted\n    By th' northern blasts twice o'er.\n  POLIXENES. What follows this?\n    How prettily the young swain seems to wash\n    The hand was fair before! I have put you out.\n    But to your protestation; let me hear\n    What you profess.\n  FLORIZEL. Do, and be witness to't.\n  POLIXENES. And this my neighbour too?\n  FLORIZEL. And he, and more\n    Than he, and men- the earth, the heavens, and all:\n    That, were I crown'd the most imperial monarch,\n    Thereof most worthy, were I the fairest youth\n    That ever made eye swerve, had force and knowledge\n    More than was ever man's, I would not prize them\n    Without her love; for her employ them all;\n    Commend them and condemn them to her service\n    Or to their own perdition.\n  POLIXENES. Fairly offer'd.\n  CAMILLO. This shows a sound affection.\n  SHEPHERD. But, my daughter,\n    Say you the like to him?\n  PERDITA. I cannot speak\n    So well, nothing so well; no, nor mean better.\n    By th' pattern of mine own thoughts I cut out\n    The purity of his.\n  SHEPHERD. Take hands, a bargain!\n    And, friends unknown, you shall bear witness to't:\n    I give my daughter to him, and will make\n    Her portion equal his.\n  FLORIZEL. O, that must be\n    I' th' virtue of your daughter. One being dead,\n    I shall have more than you can dream of yet;\n    Enough then for your wonder. But come on,\n    Contract us fore these witnesses.\n  SHEPHERD. Come, your hand;\n    And, daughter, yours.\n  POLIXENES. Soft, swain, awhile, beseech you;\n    Have you a father?\n  FLORIZEL. I have, but what of him?\n  POLIXENES. Knows he of this?\n  FLORIZEL. He neither does nor shall.\n  POLIXENES. Methinks a father\n    Is at the nuptial of his son a guest\n    That best becomes the table. Pray you, once more,\n    Is not your father grown incapable\n    Of reasonable affairs? Is he not stupid\n    With age and alt'ring rheums? Can he speak, hear,\n    Know man from man, dispute his own estate?\n    Lies he not bed-rid, and again does nothing\n    But what he did being childish?\n  FLORIZEL. No, good sir;\n    He has his health, and ampler strength indeed\n    Than most have of his age.\n  POLIXENES. By my white beard,\n    You offer him, if this be so, a wrong\n    Something unfilial. Reason my son\n    Should choose himself a wife; but as good reason\n    The father- all whose joy is nothing else\n    But fair posterity- should hold some counsel\n    In such a business.\n  FLORIZEL. I yield all this;\n    But, for some other reasons, my grave sir,\n    Which 'tis not fit you know, I not acquaint\n    My father of this business.\n  POLIXENES. Let him know't.\n  FLORIZEL. He shall not.\n  POLIXENES. Prithee let him.\n  FLORIZEL. No, he must not.\n  SHEPHERD. Let him, my son; he shall not need to grieve\n    At knowing of thy choice.\n  FLORIZEL. Come, come, he must not.\n    Mark our contract.\n  POLIXENES.  [Discovering himself]  Mark your divorce, young sir,\n    Whom son I dare not call; thou art too base\n    To be acknowledg'd- thou a sceptre's heir,\n    That thus affects a sheep-hook! Thou, old traitor,\n    I am sorry that by hanging thee I can but\n    Shorten thy life one week. And thou, fresh piece\n    Of excellent witchcraft, who of force must know\n    The royal fool thou cop'st with-\n  SHEPHERD. O, my heart!\n  POLIXENES. I'll have thy beauty scratch'd with briers and made\n    More homely than thy state. For thee, fond boy,\n    If I may ever know thou dost but sigh\n    That thou no more shalt see this knack- as never\n    I mean thou shalt- we'll bar thee from succession;\n    Not hold thee of our blood, no, not our kin,\n    Farre than Deucalion off. Mark thou my words.\n    Follow us to the court. Thou churl, for this time,\n    Though full of our displeasure, yet we free thee\n    From the dead blow of it. And you, enchantment,\n    Worthy enough a herdsman- yea, him too\n    That makes himself, but for our honour therein,\n    Unworthy thee- if ever henceforth thou\n    These rural latches to his entrance open,\n    Or hoop his body more with thy embraces,\n    I will devise a death as cruel for thee\n    As thou art tender to't.                                Exit\n  PERDITA. Even here undone!\n    I was not much afeard; for once or twice\n    I was about to speak and tell him plainly\n    The self-same sun that shines upon his court\n    Hides not his visage from our cottage, but\n    Looks on alike.  [To FLORIZEL]  Will't please you, sir, be gone?\n    I told you what would come of this. Beseech you,\n    Of your own state take care. This dream of mine-\n    Being now awake, I'll queen it no inch farther,\n    But milk my ewes and weep.\n  CAMILLO. Why, how now, father!\n    Speak ere thou diest.\n  SHEPHERD. I cannot speak nor think,\n    Nor dare to know that which I know.  [To FLORIZEL]  O sir,\n    You have undone a man of fourscore-three\n    That thought to fill his grave in quiet, yea,\n    To die upon the bed my father died,\n    To lie close by his honest bones; but now\n    Some hangman must put on my shroud and lay me\n    Where no priest shovels in dust. [To PERDITA] O cursed wretch,\n    That knew'st this was the Prince, and wouldst adventure\n    To mingle faith with him!- Undone, undone!\n    If I might die within this hour, I have liv'd\n    To die when I desire.                                   Exit\n  FLORIZEL. Why look you so upon me?\n    I am but sorry, not afeard; delay'd,\n    But nothing alt'red. What I was, I am:\n    More straining on for plucking back; not following\n    My leash unwillingly.\n  CAMILLO. Gracious, my lord,\n    You know your father's temper. At this time\n    He will allow no speech- which I do guess\n    You do not purpose to him- and as hardly\n    Will he endure your sight as yet, I fear;\n    Then, till the fury of his Highness settle,\n    Come not before him.\n  FLORIZEL. I not purpose it.\n    I think Camillo?\n  CAMILLO. Even he, my lord.\n  PERDITA. How often have I told you 'twould be thus!\n    How often said my dignity would last\n    But till 'twere known!\n  FLORIZEL. It cannot fail but by\n    The violation of my faith; and then\n    Let nature crush the sides o' th' earth together\n    And mar the seeds within! Lift up thy looks.\n    From my succession wipe me, father; I\n    Am heir to my affection.\n  CAMILLO. Be advis'd.\n  FLORIZEL. I am- and by my fancy; if my reason\n    Will thereto be obedient, I have reason;\n    If not, my senses, better pleas'd with madness,\n    Do bid it welcome.\n  CAMILLO. This is desperate, sir.\n  FLORIZEL. So call it; but it does fulfil my vow:\n    I needs must think it honesty. Camillo,\n    Not for Bohemia, nor the pomp that may\n    Be thereat glean'd, for all the sun sees or\n    The close earth wombs, or the profound seas hides\n    In unknown fathoms, will I break my oath\n    To this my fair belov'd. Therefore, I pray you,\n    As you have ever been my father's honour'd friend,\n    When he shall miss me- as, in faith, I mean not\n    To see him any more- cast your good counsels\n    Upon his passion. Let myself and Fortune\n    Tug for the time to come. This you may know,\n    And so deliver: I am put to sea\n    With her who here I cannot hold on shore.\n    And most opportune to her need I have\n    A vessel rides fast by, but not prepar'd\n    For this design. What course I mean to hold\n    Shall nothing benefit your knowledge, nor\n    Concern me the reporting.\n  CAMILLO. O my lord,\n    I would your spirit were easier for advice.\n    Or stronger for your need.\n  FLORIZEL. Hark, Perdita.                     [Takes her aside]\n    [To CAMILLO]  I'll hear you by and by.\n  CAMILLO. He's irremovable,\n    Resolv'd for flight. Now were I happy if\n    His going I could frame to serve my turn,\n    Save him from danger, do him love and honour,\n    Purchase the sight again of dear Sicilia\n    And that unhappy king, my master, whom\n    I so much thirst to see.\n  FLORIZEL. Now, good Camillo,\n    I am so fraught with curious business that\n    I leave out ceremony.\n  CAMILLO. Sir, I think\n    You have heard of my poor services i' th' love\n    That I have borne your father?\n  FLORIZEL. Very nobly\n    Have you deserv'd. It is my father's music\n    To speak your deeds; not little of his care\n    To have them recompens'd as thought on.\n  CAMILLO. Well, my lord,\n    If you may please to think I love the King,\n    And through him what's nearest to him, which is\n    Your gracious self, embrace but my direction.\n    If your more ponderous and settled project\n    May suffer alteration, on mine honour,\n    I'll point you where you shall have such receiving\n    As shall become your Highness; where you may\n    Enjoy your mistress, from the whom, I see,\n    There's no disjunction to be made but by,\n    As heavens forfend! your ruin- marry her;\n    And with my best endeavours in your absence\n    Your discontenting father strive to qualify,\n    And bring him up to liking.\n  FLORIZEL. How, Camillo,\n    May this, almost a miracle, be done?\n    That I may call thee something more than man,\n    And after that trust to thee.\n  CAMILLO. Have you thought on\n    A place whereto you'll go?\n  FLORIZEL. Not any yet;\n    But as th' unthought-on accident is guilty\n    To what we wildly do, so we profess\n    Ourselves to be the slaves of chance and flies\n    Of every wind that blows.\n  CAMILLO. Then list to me.\n    This follows, if you will not change your purpose\n    But undergo this flight: make for Sicilia,\n    And there present yourself and your fair princess-\n    For so, I see, she must be- fore Leontes.\n    She shall be habited as it becomes\n    The partner of your bed. Methinks I see\n    Leontes opening his free arms and weeping\n    His welcomes forth; asks thee there 'Son, forgiveness!'\n    As 'twere i' th' father's person; kisses the hands\n    Of your fresh princess; o'er and o'er divides him\n    'Twixt his unkindness and his kindness- th' one\n    He chides to hell, and bids the other grow\n    Faster than thought or time.\n  FLORIZEL. Worthy Camillo,\n    What colour for my visitation shall I\n    Hold up before him?\n  CAMILLO. Sent by the King your father\n    To greet him and to give him comforts. Sir,\n    The manner of your bearing towards him, with\n    What you as from your father shall deliver,\n    Things known betwixt us three, I'll write you down;\n    The which shall point you forth at every sitting\n    What you must say, that he shall not perceive\n    But that you have your father's bosom there\n    And speak his very heart.\n  FLORIZEL. I am bound to you.\n    There is some sap in this.\n  CAMILLO. A course more promising\n    Than a wild dedication of yourselves\n    To unpath'd waters, undream'd shores, most certain\n    To miseries enough; no hope to help you,\n    But as you shake off one to take another;\n    Nothing so certain as your anchors, who\n    Do their best office if they can but stay you\n    Where you'll be loath to be. Besides, you know\n    Prosperity's the very bond of love,\n    Whose fresh complexion and whose heart together\n    Affliction alters.\n  PERDITA. One of these is true:\n    I think affliction may subdue the cheek,\n    But not take in the mind.\n  CAMILLO. Yea, say you so?\n    There shall not at your father's house these seven years\n    Be born another such.\n  FLORIZEL. My good Camillo,\n    She is as forward of her breeding as\n    She is i' th' rear o' our birth.\n  CAMILLO. I cannot say 'tis pity\n    She lacks instructions, for she seems a mistress\n    To most that teach.\n  PERDITA. Your pardon, sir; for this\n    I'll blush you thanks.\n  FLORIZEL. My prettiest Perdita!\n    But, O, the thorns we stand upon! Camillo-\n    Preserver of my father, now of me;\n    The medicine of our house- how shall we do?\n    We are not furnish'd like Bohemia's son;\n    Nor shall appear in Sicilia.\n  CAMILLO. My lord,\n    Fear none of this. I think you know my fortunes\n    Do all lie there. It shall be so my care\n    To have you royally appointed as if\n    The scene you play were mine. For instance, sir,\n    That you may know you shall not want- one word.\n                                               [They talk aside]\n\n                     Re-enter AUTOLYCUS\n\n  AUTOLYCUS. Ha, ha! what a fool Honesty is! and Trust, his sworn\n    brother, a very simple gentleman! I have sold all my trumpery;\n    not a counterfeit stone, not a ribbon, glass, pomander, brooch,\n    table-book, ballad, knife, tape, glove, shoe-tie, bracelet,\n    horn-ring, to keep my pack from fasting. They throng who should\n    buy first, as if my trinkets had been hallowed and brought a\n    benediction to the buyer; by which means I saw whose purse was\n    best in picture; and what I saw, to my good use I rememb'red. My\n    clown, who wants but something to be a reasonable man, grew so in\n    love with the wenches' song that he would not stir his pettitoes\n    till he had both tune and words, which so drew the rest of the\n    herd to me that all their other senses stuck in ears. You might\n    have pinch'd a placket, it was senseless; 'twas nothing to geld a\n    codpiece of a purse; I would have fil'd keys off that hung in\n    chains. No hearing, no feeling, but my sir's song, and admiring\n    the nothing of it. So that in this time of lethargy I pick'd and\n    cut most of their festival purses; and had not the old man come\n    in with whoobub against his daughter and the King's son and\n    scar'd my choughs from the chaff, I had not left a purse alive in\n    the whole army.\n\n              CAMILLO, FLORIZEL, and PERDITA come forward\n\n  CAMILLO. Nay, but my letters, by this means being there\n    So soon as you arrive, shall clear that doubt.\n  FLORIZEL. And those that you'll procure from King Leontes?\n  CAMILLO. Shall satisfy your father.\n  PERDITA. Happy be you!\n    All that you speak shows fair.\n  CAMILLO.  [seeing AUTOLYCUS]  Who have we here?\n    We'll make an instrument of this; omit\n    Nothing may give us aid.\n  AUTOLYCUS.  [Aside]  If they have overheard me now- why, hanging.\n  CAMILLO. How now, good fellow! Why shak'st thou so?\n    Fear not, man; here's no harm intended to thee.\n  AUTOLYCUS. I am a poor fellow, sir.\n  CAMILLO. Why, be so still; here's nobody will steal that from thee.\n    Yet for the outside of thy poverty we must make an exchange;\n    therefore discase thee instantly- thou must think there's a\n    necessity in't- and change garments with this gentleman. Though\n    the pennyworth on his side be the worst, yet hold thee, there's\n    some boot.  [Giving money]\n  AUTOLYCUS. I am a poor fellow, sir.  [Aside]  I know ye well\n    enough.\n  CAMILLO. Nay, prithee dispatch. The gentleman is half flay'd\n    already.\n  AUTOLYCUS. Are you in camest, sir?  [Aside]  I smell the trick\n    on't.\n  FLORIZEL. Dispatch, I prithee.\n  AUTOLYCUS. Indeed, I have had earnest; but I cannot with conscience\n    take it.\n  CAMILLO. Unbuckle, unbuckle.\n\n             FLORIZEL and AUTOLYCUS exchange garments\n\n    Fortunate mistress- let my prophecy\n    Come home to ye!- you must retire yourself\n    Into some covert; take your sweetheart's hat\n    And pluck it o'er your brows, muffle your face,\n    Dismantle you, and, as you can, disliken\n    The truth of your own seeming, that you may-\n    For I do fear eyes over- to shipboard\n    Get undescried.\n  PERDITA. I see the play so lies\n    That I must bear a part.\n  CAMILLO. No remedy.\n    Have you done there?\n  FLORIZEL. Should I now meet my father,\n    He would not call me son.\n  CAMILLO. Nay, you shall have no hat.\n                                          [Giving it to PERDITA]\n    Come, lady, come. Farewell, my friend.\n  AUTOLYCUS. Adieu, sir.\n  FLORIZEL. O Perdita, what have we twain forgot!\n    Pray you a word.                       [They converse apart]\n  CAMILLO.  [Aside]  What I do next shall be to tell the King\n    Of this escape, and whither they are bound;\n    Wherein my hope is I shall so prevail\n    To force him after; in whose company\n    I shall re-view Sicilia, for whose sight\n    I have a woman's longing.\n  FLORIZEL. Fortune speed us!\n    Thus we set on, Camillo, to th' sea-side.\n  CAMILLO. The swifter speed the better.\n                           Exeunt FLORIZEL, PERDITA, and CAMILLO\n  AUTOLYCUS. I understand the business, I hear it. To have an open\n    ear, a quick eye, and a nimble hand, is necessary for a\n    cut-purse; a good nose is requisite also, to smell out work for\n    th' other senses. I see this is the time that the unjust man doth\n    thrive. What an exchange had this been without boot! What a boot\n    is here with this exchange! Sure, the gods do this year connive\n    at us, and we may do anything extempore. The Prince himself is\n    about a piece of iniquity- stealing away from his father with his\n    clog at his heels. If I thought it were a piece of honesty to\n    acquaint the King withal, I would not do't. I hold it the more\n    knavery to conceal it; and therein am I constant to my\n    profession.\n\n                   Re-enter CLOWN and SHEPHERD\n\n    Aside, aside- here is more matter for a hot brain. Every lane's\n    end, every shop, church, session, hanging, yields a careful man\n    work.\n  CLOWN. See, see; what a man you are now! There is no other way but\n    to tell the King she's a changeling and none of your flesh and\n    blood.\n  SHEPHERD. Nay, but hear me.\n  CLOWN. Nay- but hear me.\n  SHEPHERD. Go to, then.\n  CLOWN. She being none of your flesh and blood, your flesh and blood\n    has not offended the King; and so your flesh and blood is not to\n    be punish'd by him. Show those things you found about her, those\n    secret things- all but what she has with her. This being done,\n    let the law go whistle; I warrant you.\n  SHEPHERD. I will tell the King all, every word- yea, and his son's\n    pranks too; who, I may say, is no honest man, neither to his\n    father nor to me, to go about to make me the King's\n    brother-in-law.\n  CLOWN. Indeed, brother-in-law was the farthest off you could have\n    been to him; and then your blood had been the dearer by I know\n    how much an ounce.\n  AUTOLYCUS.  [Aside]  Very wisely, puppies!\n  SHEPHERD. Well, let us to the King. There is that in this fardel\n    will make him scratch his beard.\n  AUTOLYCUS.  [Aside]  I know not what impediment this complaint may\n    be to the flight of my master.\n  CLOWN. Pray heartily he be at palace.\n  AUTOLYCUS.  [Aside]  Though I am not naturally honest, I am so\n    sometimes by chance. Let me pocket up my pedlar's excrement.\n    [Takes off his false beard]  How now, rustics! Whither are you\n    bound?\n  SHEPHERD. To th' palace, an it like your worship.\n  AUTOLYCUS. Your affairs there, what, with whom, the condition of\n    that fardel, the place of your dwelling, your names, your ages,\n    of what having, breeding, and anything that is fitting to be\n    known- discover.\n  CLOWN. We are but plain fellows, sir.\n  AUTOLYCUS. A lie: you are rough and hairy. Let me have no lying; it\n    becomes none but tradesmen, and they often give us soldiers the\n    lie; but we pay them for it with stamped coin, not stabbing\n    steel; therefore they do not give us the lie.\n  CLOWN. Your worship had like to have given us one, if you had not\n    taken yourself with the manner.\n  SHEPHERD. Are you a courtier, an't like you, sir?\n  AUTOLYCUS. Whether it like me or no, I am a courtier. Seest thou\n    not the air of the court in these enfoldings? Hath not my gait in\n    it the measure of the court? Receives not thy nose court-odour\n    from me? Reflect I not on thy baseness court-contempt? Think'st\n    thou, for that I insinuate, that toaze from thee thy business, I\n    am therefore no courtier? I am courtier cap-a-pe, and one that\n    will either push on or pluck back thy business there; whereupon I\n    command the to open thy affair.\n  SHEPHERD. My business, sir, is to the King.\n  AUTOLYCUS. What advocate hast thou to him?\n  SHEPHERD. I know not, an't like you.\n  CLOWN. Advocate's the court-word for a pheasant; say you have none.\n  SHEPHERD. None, sir; I have no pheasant, cock nor hen.\n  AUTOLYCUS. How blessed are we that are not simple men!\n    Yet nature might have made me as these are,\n    Therefore I will not disdain.\n  CLOWN. This cannot be but a great courtier.\n  SHEPHERD. His garments are rich, but he wears them not handsomely.\n  CLOWN. He seems to be the more noble in being fantastical.\n    A great man, I'll warrant; I know by the picking on's teeth.\n  AUTOLYCUS. The fardel there? What's i' th' fardel? Wherefore that\n    box?\n  SHEPHERD. Sir, there lies such secrets in this fardel and box which\n    none must know but the King; and which he shall know within this\n    hour, if I may come to th' speech of him.\n  AUTOLYCUS. Age, thou hast lost thy labour.\n  SHEPHERD. Why, Sir?\n  AUTOLYCUS. The King is not at the palace; he is gone aboard a new\n    ship to purge melancholy and air himself; for, if thou be'st\n    capable of things serious, thou must know the King is full of\n    grief.\n  SHEPHERD. So 'tis said, sir- about his son, that should have\n    married a shepherd's daughter.\n  AUTOLYCUS. If that shepherd be not in hand-fast, let him fly; the\n    curses he shall have, the tortures he shall feel, will break the\n    back of man, the heart of monster.\n  CLOWN. Think you so, sir?\n  AUTOLYCUS. Not he alone shall suffer what wit can make heavy and\n    vengeance bitter; but those that are germane to him, though\n    remov'd fifty times, shall all come under the hangman- which,\n    though it be great pity, yet it is necessary. An old\n    sheep-whistling rogue, a ram-tender, to offer to have his\n    daughter come into grace! Some say he shall be ston'd; but that\n    death is too soft for him, say I. Draw our throne into a\n    sheep-cote!- all deaths are too few, the sharpest too easy.\n  CLOWN. Has the old man e'er a son, sir, do you hear, an't like you,\n    sir?\n  AUTOLYCUS. He has a son- who shall be flay'd alive; then 'nointed\n    over with honey, set on the head of a wasp's nest; then stand\n    till he be three quarters and a dram dead; then recover'd again\n    with aqua-vitae or some other hot infusion; then, raw as he is,\n    and in the hottest day prognostication proclaims, shall he be set\n    against a brick wall, the sun looking with a southward eye upon\n    him, where he is to behold him with flies blown to death. But\n    what talk we of these traitorly rascals, whose miseries are to be\n    smil'd at, their offences being so capital? Tell me, for you seem\n    to be honest plain men, what you have to the King. Being\n    something gently consider'd, I'll bring you where he is aboard,\n    tender your persons to his presence, whisper him in your behalfs;\n    and if it be in man besides the King to effect your suits, here\n    is man shall do it.\n  CLOWN. He seems to be of great authority. Close with him, give him\n    gold; and though authority be a stubborn bear, yet he is oft led\n    by the nose with gold. Show the inside of your purse to the\n    outside of his hand, and no more ado. Remember- ston'd and flay'd\n    alive.\n  SHEPHERD. An't please you, sir, to undertake the business for us,\n    here is that gold I have. I'll make it as much more, and leave\n    this young man in pawn till I bring it you.\n  AUTOLYCUS. After I have done what I promised?\n  SHEPHERD. Ay, sir.\n  AUTOLYCUS. Well, give me the moiety. Are you a party in this\n    business?\n  CLOWN. In some sort, sir; but though my case be a pitiful one, I\n    hope I shall not be flay'd out of it.\n  AUTOLYCUS. O, that's the case of the shepherd's son! Hang him,\n    he'll be made an example.\n  CLOWN. Comfort, good comfort! We must to the King and show our\n    strange sights. He must know 'tis none of your daughter nor my\n    sister; we are gone else. Sir, I will give you as much as this\n    old man does, when the business is performed; and remain, as he\n    says, your pawn till it be brought you.\n  AUTOLYCUS. I will trust you. Walk before toward the sea-side; go on\n    the right-hand; I will but look upon the hedge, and follow you.\n  CLOWN. We are blest in this man, as I may say, even blest.\n  SHEPHERD. Let's before, as he bids us. He was provided to do us\n    good.                              Exeunt SHEPHERD and CLOWN\n  AUTOLYCUS. If I had a mind to be honest, I see Fortune would not\n    suffer me: she drops booties in my mouth. I am courted now with a\n    double occasion- gold, and a means to do the Prince my master\n    good; which who knows how that may turn back to my advancement? I\n    will bring these two moles, these blind ones, aboard him. If he\n    think it fit to shore them again, and that the complaint they\n    have to the King concerns him nothing, let him call me rogue for\n    being so far officious; for I am proof against that title, and\n    what shame else belongs to't. To him will I present them. There\n    may be matter in it.                                    Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nSicilia. The palace of LEONTES\n\nEnter LEONTES, CLEOMENES, DION, PAULINA, and OTHERS\n\n  CLEOMENES. Sir, you have done enough, and have perform'd\n    A saint-like sorrow. No fault could you make\n    Which you have not redeem'd; indeed, paid down\n    More penitence than done trespass. At the last,\n    Do as the heavens have done: forget your evil;\n    With them forgive yourself.\n  LEONTES. Whilst I remember\n    Her and her virtues, I cannot forget\n    My blemishes in them, and so still think of\n    The wrong I did myself; which was so much\n    That heirless it hath made my kingdom, and\n    Destroy'd the sweet'st companion that e'er man\n    Bred his hopes out of.\n  PAULINA. True, too true, my lord.\n    If, one by one, you wedded all the world,\n    Or from the all that are took something good\n    To make a perfect woman, she you kill'd\n    Would be unparallel'd.\n  LEONTES. I think so. Kill'd!\n    She I kill'd! I did so; but thou strik'st me\n    Sorely, to say I did. It is as bitter\n    Upon thy tongue as in my thought. Now, good now,\n    Say so but seldom.\n  CLEOMENES. Not at all, good lady.\n    You might have spoken a thousand things that would\n    Have done the time more benefit, and grac'd\n    Your kindness better.\n  PAULINA. You are one of those\n    Would have him wed again.\n  DION. If you would not so,\n    You pity not the state, nor the remembrance\n    Of his most sovereign name; consider little\n    What dangers, by his Highness' fail of issue,\n    May drop upon his kingdom and devour\n    Incertain lookers-on. What were more holy\n    Than to rejoice the former queen is well?\n    What holier than, for royalty's repair,\n    For present comfort, and for future good,\n    To bless the bed of majesty again\n    With a sweet fellow to't?\n  PAULINA. There is none worthy,\n    Respecting her that's gone. Besides, the gods\n    Will have fulfill'd their secret purposes;\n    For has not the divine Apollo said,\n    Is't not the tenour of his oracle,\n    That King Leontes shall not have an heir\n    Till his lost child be found? Which that it shall,\n    Is all as monstrous to our human reason\n    As my Antigonus to break his grave\n    And come again to me; who, on my life,\n    Did perish with the infant. 'Tis your counsel\n    My lord should to the heavens be contrary,\n    Oppose against their wills.  [To LEONTES]  Care not for issue;\n    The crown will find an heir. Great Alexander\n    Left his to th' worthiest; so his successor\n    Was like to be the best.\n  LEONTES. Good Paulina,\n    Who hast the memory of Hermione,\n    I know, in honour, O that ever I\n    Had squar'd me to thy counsel! Then, even now,\n    I might have look'd upon my queen's full eyes,\n    Have taken treasure from her lips-\n  PAULINA. And left them\n    More rich for what they yielded.\n  LEONTES. Thou speak'st truth.\n    No more such wives; therefore, no wife. One worse,\n    And better us'd, would make her sainted spirit\n    Again possess her corpse, and on this stage,\n    Where we offend her now, appear soul-vex'd,\n    And begin 'Why to me'-\n  PAULINA. Had she such power,\n    She had just cause.\n  LEONTES. She had; and would incense me\n    To murder her I married.\n  PAULINA. I should so.\n    Were I the ghost that walk'd, I'd bid you mark\n    Her eye, and tell me for what dull part in't\n    You chose her; then I'd shriek, that even your ears\n    Should rift to hear me; and the words that follow'd\n    Should be 'Remember mine.'\n  LEONTES. Stars, stars,\n    And all eyes else dead coals! Fear thou no wife;\n    I'll have no wife, Paulina.\n  PAULINA. Will you swear\n    Never to marry but by my free leave?\n  LEONTES. Never, Paulina; so be blest my spirit!\n  PAULINA. Then, good my lords, bear witness to his oath.\n  CLEOMENES. You tempt him over-much.\n  PAULINA. Unless another,\n    As like Hermione as is her picture,\n    Affront his eye.\n  CLEOMENES. Good madam-\n  PAULINA. I have done.\n    Yet, if my lord will marry- if you will, sir,\n    No remedy but you will- give me the office\n    To choose you a queen. She shall not be so young\n    As was your former; but she shall be such\n    As, walk'd your first queen's ghost, it should take joy\n    To see her in your arms.\n  LEONTES. My true Paulina,\n    We shall not marry till thou bid'st us.\n  PAULINA. That\n    Shall be when your first queen's again in breath;\n    Never till then.\n\n                       Enter a GENTLEMAN\n\n  GENTLEMAN. One that gives out himself Prince Florizel,\n    Son of Polixenes, with his princess- she\n    The fairest I have yet beheld- desires access\n    To your high presence.\n  LEONTES. What with him? He comes not\n    Like to his father's greatness. His approach,\n    So out of circumstance and sudden, tells us\n    'Tis not a visitation fram'd, but forc'd\n    By need and accident. What train?\n  GENTLEMAN. But few,\n    And those but mean.\n  LEONTES. His princess, say you, with him?\n  GENTLEMAN. Ay; the most peerless piece of earth, I think,\n    That e'er the sun shone bright on.\n  PAULINA. O Hermione,\n    As every present time doth boast itself\n    Above a better gone, so must thy grave\n    Give way to what's seen now! Sir, you yourself\n    Have said and writ so, but your writing now\n    Is colder than that theme: 'She had not been,\n    Nor was not to be equall'd.' Thus your verse\n    Flow'd with her beauty once; 'tis shrewdly ebb'd,\n    To say you have seen a better.\n  GENTLEMAN. Pardon, madam.\n    The one I have almost forgot- your pardon;\n    The other, when she has obtain'd your eye,\n    Will have your tongue too. This is a creature,\n    Would she begin a sect, might quench the zeal\n    Of all professors else, make proselytes\n    Of who she but bid follow.\n  PAULINA. How! not women?\n  GENTLEMAN. Women will love her that she is a woman\n    More worth than any man; men, that she is\n    The rarest of all women.\n  LEONTES. Go, Cleomenes;\n    Yourself, assisted with your honour'd friends,\n    Bring them to our embracement.                        Exeunt\n    Still, 'tis strange\n    He thus should steal upon us.\n  PAULINA. Had our prince,\n    Jewel of children, seen this hour, he had pair'd\n    Well with this lord; there was not full a month\n    Between their births.\n  LEONTES. Prithee no more; cease. Thou know'st\n    He dies to me again when talk'd of. Sure,\n    When I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches\n    Will bring me to consider that which may\n    Unfurnish me of reason.\n\n         Re-enter CLEOMENES, with FLORIZEL, PERDITA, and\n                            ATTENDANTS\n\n    They are come.\n    Your mother was most true to wedlock, Prince;\n    For she did print your royal father off,\n    Conceiving you. Were I but twenty-one,\n    Your father's image is so hit in you\n    His very air, that I should call you brother,\n    As I did him, and speak of something wildly\n    By us perform'd before. Most dearly welcome!\n    And your fair princess- goddess! O, alas!\n    I lost a couple that 'twixt heaven and earth\n    Might thus have stood begetting wonder as\n    You, gracious couple, do. And then I lost-\n    All mine own folly- the society,\n    Amity too, of your brave father, whom,\n    Though bearing misery, I desire my life\n    Once more to look on him.\n  FLORIZEL. By his command\n    Have I here touch'd Sicilia, and from him\n    Give you all greetings that a king, at friend,\n    Can send his brother; and, but infirmity,\n    Which waits upon worn times, hath something seiz'd\n    His wish'd ability, he had himself\n    The lands and waters 'twixt your throne and his\n    Measur'd, to look upon you; whom he loves,\n    He bade me say so, more than all the sceptres\n    And those that bear them living.\n  LEONTES. O my brother-\n    Good gentleman!- the wrongs I have done thee stir\n    Afresh within me; and these thy offices,\n    So rarely kind, are as interpreters\n    Of my behind-hand slackness! Welcome hither,\n    As is the spring to th' earth. And hath he too\n    Expos'd this paragon to th' fearful usage,\n    At least ungentle, of the dreadful Neptune,\n    To greet a man not worth her pains, much less\n    Th' adventure of her person?\n  FLORIZEL. Good, my lord,\n    She came from Libya.\n  LEONTES. Where the warlike Smalus,\n    That noble honour'd lord, is fear'd and lov'd?\n  FLORIZEL. Most royal sir, from thence; from him whose daughter\n    His tears proclaim'd his, parting with her; thence,\n    A prosperous south-wind friendly, we have cross'd,\n    To execute the charge my father gave me\n    For visiting your Highness. My best train\n    I have from your Sicilian shores dismiss'd;\n    Who for Bohemia bend, to signify\n    Not only my success in Libya, sir,\n    But my arrival and my wife's in safety\n    Here where we are.\n  LEONTES. The blessed gods\n    Purge all infection from our air whilst you\n    Do climate here! You have a holy father,\n    A graceful gentleman, against whose person,\n    So sacred as it is, I have done sin,\n    For which the heavens, taking angry note,\n    Have left me issueless; and your father's blest,\n    As he from heaven merits it, with you,\n    Worthy his goodness. What might I have been,\n    Might I a son and daughter now have look'd on,\n    Such goodly things as you!\n\n                      Enter a LORD\n\n  LORD. Most noble sir,\n    That which I shall report will bear no credit,\n    Were not the proof so nigh. Please you, great sir,\n    Bohemia greets you from himself by me;\n    Desires you to attach his son, who has-\n    His dignity and duty both cast off-\n    Fled from his father, from his hopes, and with\n    A shepherd's daughter.\n  LEONTES. Where's Bohemia? Speak.\n  LORD. Here in your city; I now came from him.\n    I speak amazedly; and it becomes\n    My marvel and my message. To your court\n    Whiles he was hast'ning- in the chase, it seems,\n    Of this fair couple- meets he on the way\n    The father of this seeming lady and\n    Her brother, having both their country quitted\n    With this young prince.\n  FLORIZEL. Camillo has betray'd me;\n    Whose honour and whose honesty till now\n    Endur'd all weathers.\n  LORD. Lay't so to his charge;\n    He's with the King your father.\n  LEONTES. Who? Camillo?\n  LORD. Camillo, sir; I spake with him; who now\n    Has these poor men in question. Never saw I\n    Wretches so quake. They kneel, they kiss the earth;\n    Forswear themselves as often as they speak.\n    Bohemia stops his ears, and threatens them\n    With divers deaths in death.\n  PERDITA. O my poor father!\n    The heaven sets spies upon us, will not have\n    Our contract celebrated.\n  LEONTES. You are married?\n  FLORIZEL. We are not, sir, nor are we like to be;\n    The stars, I see, will kiss the valleys first.\n    The odds for high and low's alike.\n  LEONTES. My lord,\n    Is this the daughter of a king?\n  FLORIZEL. She is,\n    When once she is my wife.\n  LEONTES. That 'once,' I see by your good father's speed,\n    Will come on very slowly. I am sorry,\n    Most sorry, you have broken from his liking\n    Where you were tied in duty; and as sorry\n    Your choice is not so rich in worth as beauty,\n    That you might well enjoy her.\n  FLORIZEL. Dear, look up.\n    Though Fortune, visible an enemy,\n    Should chase us with my father, pow'r no jot\n    Hath she to change our loves. Beseech you, sir,\n    Remember since you ow'd no more to time\n    Than I do now. With thought of such affections,\n    Step forth mine advocate; at your request\n    My father will grant precious things as trifles.\n  LEONTES. Would he do so, I'd beg your precious mistress,\n    Which he counts but a trifle.\n  PAULINA. Sir, my liege,\n    Your eye hath too much youth in't. Not a month\n    Fore your queen died, she was more worth such gazes\n    Than what you look on now.\n  LEONTES. I thought of her\n    Even in these looks I made.  [To FLORIZEL]  But your petition\n    Is yet unanswer'd. I will to your father.\n    Your honour not o'erthrown by your desires,\n    I am friend to them and you. Upon which errand\n    I now go toward him; therefore, follow me,\n    And mark what way I make. Come, good my lord.         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nSicilia. Before the palace of LEONTES\n\nEnter AUTOLYCUS and a GENTLEMAN\n\n  AUTOLYCUS. Beseech you, sir, were you present at this relation?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I was by at the opening of the fardel, heard the\n    old shepherd deliver the manner how he found it; whereupon, after\n    a little amazedness, we were all commanded out of the chamber;\n    only this, methought I heard the shepherd say he found the child.\n  AUTOLYCUS. I would most gladly know the issue of it.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I make a broken delivery of the business; but the\n    changes I perceived in the King and Camillo were very notes of\n    admiration. They seem'd almost, with staring on one another, to\n    tear the cases of their eyes; there was speech in their dumbness,\n    language in their very gesture; they look'd as they had heard of\n    a world ransom'd, or one destroyed. A notable passion of wonder\n    appeared in them; but the wisest beholder that knew no more but\n    seeing could not say if th' importance were joy or sorrow- but in\n    the extremity of the one it must needs be.\n\n                    Enter another GENTLEMAN\n\n    Here comes a gentleman that happily knows more. The news, Rogero?\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Nothing but bonfires. The oracle is fulfill'd:\n    the King's daughter is found. Such a deal of wonder is broken out\n    within this hour that ballad-makers cannot be able to express it.\n\n                    Enter another GENTLEMAN\n\n    Here comes the Lady Paulina's steward; he can deliver you more.\n    How goes it now, sir? This news, which is call'd true, is so like\n    an old tale that the verity of it is in strong suspicion. Has the\n    King found his heir?\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Most true, if ever truth were pregnant by\n    circumstance. That which you hear you'll swear you see, there is\n    such unity in the proofs. The mantle of Queen Hermione's; her\n    jewel about the neck of it; the letters of Antigonus found with\n    it, which they know to be his character; the majesty of the\n    creature in resemblance of the mother; the affection of nobleness\n    which nature shows above her breeding; and many other evidences-\n    proclaim her with all certainty to be the King's daughter. Did\n    you see the meeting of the two kings?\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. No.\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Then you have lost a sight which was to be seen,\n    cannot be spoken of. There might you have beheld one joy crown\n    another, so and in such manner that it seem'd sorrow wept to take\n    leave of them; for their joy waded in tears. There was casting up\n    of eyes, holding up of hands, with countenance of such\n    distraction that they were to be known by garment, not by favour.\n    Our king, being ready to leap out of himself for joy of his found\n    daughter, as if that joy were now become a loss, cries 'O, thy\n    mother, thy mother!' then asks Bohemia forgiveness; then embraces\n    his son-in-law; then again worries he his daughter with clipping\n    her. Now he thanks the old shepherd, which stands by like a\n    weather-bitten conduit of many kings' reigns. I never heard of\n    such another encounter, which lames report to follow it and\n    undoes description to do it.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. What, pray you, became of Antigonus, that carried\n    hence the child?\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Like an old tale still, which will have matter to\n    rehearse, though credit be asleep and not an ear open: he was\n    torn to pieces with a bear. This avouches the shepherd's son, who\n    has not only his innocence, which seems much, to justify him, but\n    a handkerchief and rings of his that Paulina knows.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. What became of his bark and his followers?\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Wreck'd the same instant of their master's death,\n    and in the view of the shepherd; so that all the instruments\n    which aided to expose the child were even then lost when it was\n    found. But, O, the noble combat that 'twixt joy and sorrow was\n    fought in Paulina! She had one eye declin'd for the loss of her\n    husband, another elevated that the oracle was fulfill'd. She\n    lifted the Princess from the earth, and so locks her in embracing\n    as if she would pin her to her heart, that she might no more be\n    in danger of losing.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. The dignity of this act was worth the audience of\n    kings and princes; for by such was it acted.\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. One of the prettiest touches of all, and that\n    which angl'd for mine eyes- caught the water, though not the\n    fish- was, when at the relation of the Queen's death, with the\n    manner how she came to't bravely confess'd and lamented by the\n    King, how attentivenes wounded his daughter; till, from one sign\n    of dolour to another, she did with an 'Alas!'- I would fain say-\n    bleed tears; for I am sure my heart wept blood. Who was most\n    marble there changed colour; some swooned, all sorrowed. If all\n    the world could have seen't, the woe had been universal.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Are they returned to the court?\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. No. The Princess hearing of her mother's statue,\n    which is in the keeping of Paulina- a piece many years in doing\n    and now newly perform'd by that rare Italian master, Julio\n    Romano, who, had he himself eternity and could put breath into\n    his work, would beguile nature of her custom, so perfectly he is\n    her ape. He so near to Hermione hath done Hermione that they say\n    one would speak to her and stand in hope of answer- thither with\n    all greediness of affection are they gone, and there they intend\n    to sup.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I thought she had some great matter there in\n    hand; for she hath privately twice or thrice a day, ever since\n    the death of Hermione, visited that removed house. Shall we\n    thither, and with our company piece the rejoicing?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Who would be thence that has the benefit of\n    access? Every wink of an eye some new grace will be born. Our\n    absence makes us unthrifty to our knowledge. Let's along.\n                                                Exeunt GENTLEMEN\n  AUTOLYCUS. Now, had I not the dash of my former life in me, would\n    preferment drop on my head. I brought the old man and his son\n    aboard the Prince; told him I heard them talk of a fardel and I\n    know not what; but he at that time over-fond of the shepherd's\n    daughter- so he then took her to be- who began to be much\n    sea-sick, and himself little better, extremity of weather\n    continuing, this mystery remained undiscover'd. But 'tis all one\n    to me; for had I been the finder-out of this secret, it would not\n    have relish'd among my other discredits.\n\n                    Enter SHEPHERD and CLOWN\n\n    Here come those I have done good to against my will, and already\n    appearing in the blossoms of their fortune.\n  SHEPHERD. Come, boy; I am past moe children, but thy sons and\n    daughters will be all gentlemen born.\n  CLOWN. You are well met, sir. You denied to fight with me this\n    other day, because I was no gentleman born. See you these\n    clothes? Say you see them not and think me still no gentleman\n    born. You were best say these robes are not gentlemen born. Give\n    me the lie, do; and try whether I am not now a gentleman born.\n  AUTOLYCUS. I know you are now, sir, a gentleman born.\n  CLOWN. Ay, and have been so any time these four hours.\n  SHEPHERD. And so have I, boy.\n  CLOWN. So you have; but I was a gentleman born before my father;\n    for the King's son took me by the hand and call'd me brother; and\n    then the two kings call'd my father brother; and then the Prince,\n    my brother, and the Princess, my sister, call'd my father father.\n    And so we wept; and there was the first gentleman-like tears that\n    ever we shed.\n  SHEPHERD. We may live, son, to shed many more.\n  CLOWN. Ay; or else 'twere hard luck, being in so preposterous\n    estate as we are.\n  AUTOLYCUS. I humbly beseech you, sir, to pardon me all the faults I\n    have committed to your worship, and to give me your good report\n    to the Prince my master.\n  SHEPHERD. Prithee, son, do; for we must be gentle, now we are\n    gentlemen.\n  CLOWN. Thou wilt amend thy life?\n  AUTOLYCUS. Ay, an it like your good worship.\n  CLOWN. Give me thy hand. I will swear to the Prince thou art as\n    honest a true fellow as any is in Bohemia.\n  SHEPHERD. You may say it, but not swear it.\n  CLOWN. Not swear it, now I am a gentleman? Let boors and franklins\n    say it: I'll swear it.\n  SHEPHERD. How if it be false, son?\n  CLOWN. If it be ne'er so false, a true gentleman may swear it in\n    the behalf of his friend. And I'll swear to the Prince thou art a\n    tall fellow of thy hands and that thou wilt not be drunk; but I\n    know thou art no tall fellow of thy hands and that thou wilt be\n    drunk. But I'll swear it; and I would thou wouldst be a tall\n    fellow of thy hands.\n  AUTOLYCUS. I will prove so, sir, to my power.\n  CLOWN. Ay, by any means, prove a tall fellow. If I do not wonder\n    how thou dar'st venture to be drunk not being a tall fellow,\n    trust me not. Hark! the kings and the princes, our kindred, are\n    going to see the Queen's picture. Come, follow us; we'll be thy\n    good masters.                                         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nSicilia. A chapel in PAULINA's house\n\nEnter LEONTES, POLIXENES, FLORIZEL, PERDITA, CAMILLO, PAULINA,\nLORDS and ATTENDANTS\n\n  LEONTES. O grave and good Paulina, the great comfort\n    That I have had of thee!\n  PAULINA. What, sovereign sir,\n    I did not well, I meant well. All my services\n    You have paid home; but that you have vouchsaf'd,\n    With your crown'd brother and these your contracted\n    Heirs of your kingdoms, my poor house to visit,\n    It is a surplus of your grace, which never\n    My life may last to answer.\n  LEONTES. O Paulina,\n    We honour you with trouble; but we came\n    To see the statue of our queen. Your gallery\n    Have we pass'd through, not without much content\n    In many singularities; but we saw not\n    That which my daughter came to look upon,\n    The statue of her mother.\n  PAULINA. As she liv'd peerless,\n    So her dead likeness, I do well believe,\n    Excels whatever yet you look'd upon\n    Or hand of man hath done; therefore I keep it\n    Lonely, apart. But here it is. Prepare\n    To see the life as lively mock'd as ever\n    Still sleep mock'd death. Behold; and say 'tis well.\n                [PAULINA draws a curtain, and discovers HERMIONE\n                                         standing like a statue]\n    I like your silence; it the more shows off\n    Your wonder; but yet speak. First, you, my liege.\n    Comes it not something near?\n  LEONTES. Her natural posture!\n    Chide me, dear stone, that I may say indeed\n    Thou art Hermione; or rather, thou art she\n    In thy not chiding; for she was as tender\n    As infancy and grace. But yet, Paulina,\n    Hermione was not so much wrinkled, nothing\n    So aged as this seems.\n  POLIXENES. O, not by much!\n  PAULINA. So much the more our carver's excellence,\n    Which lets go by some sixteen years and makes her\n    As she liv'd now.\n  LEONTES. As now she might have done,\n    So much to my good comfort as it is\n    Now piercing to my soul. O, thus she stood,\n    Even with such life of majesty- warm life,\n    As now it coldly stands- when first I woo'd her!\n    I am asham'd. Does not the stone rebuke me\n    For being more stone than it? O royal piece,\n    There's magic in thy majesty, which has\n    My evils conjur'd to remembrance, and\n    From thy admiring daughter took the spirits,\n    Standing like stone with thee!\n  PERDITA. And give me leave,\n    And do not say 'tis superstition that\n    I kneel, and then implore her blessing. Lady,\n    Dear queen, that ended when I but began,\n    Give me that hand of yours to kiss.\n  PAULINA. O, patience!\n    The statue is but newly fix'd, the colour's\n    Not dry.\n  CAMILLO. My lord, your sorrow was too sore laid on,\n    Which sixteen winters cannot blow away,\n    So many summers dry. Scarce any joy\n    Did ever so long live; no sorrow\n    But kill'd itself much sooner.\n  POLIXENES. Dear my brother,\n    Let him that was the cause of this have pow'r\n    To take off so much grief from you as he\n    Will piece up in himself.\n  PAULINA. Indeed, my lord,\n    If I had thought the sight of my poor image\n    Would thus have wrought you- for the stone is mine-\n    I'd not have show'd it.\n  LEONTES. Do not draw the curtain.\n  PAULINA. No longer shall you gaze on't, lest your fancy\n    May think anon it moves.\n  LEONTES. Let be, let be.\n    Would I were dead, but that methinks already-\n    What was he that did make it? See, my lord,\n    Would you not deem it breath'd, and that those veins\n    Did verily bear blood?\n  POLIXENES. Masterly done!\n    The very life seems warm upon her lip.\n  LEONTES. The fixture of her eye has motion in't,\n    As we are mock'd with art.\n  PAULINA. I'll draw the curtain.\n    My lord's almost so far transported that\n    He'll think anon it lives.\n  LEONTES. O sweet Paulina,\n    Make me to think so twenty years together!\n    No settled senses of the world can match\n    The pleasure of that madness. Let 't alone.\n  PAULINA. I am sorry, sir, I have thus far stirr'd you; but\n    I could afflict you farther.\n  LEONTES. Do, Paulina;\n    For this affliction has a taste as sweet\n    As any cordial comfort. Still, methinks,\n    There is an air comes from her. What fine chisel\n    Could ever yet cut breath? Let no man mock me,\n    For I will kiss her.\n  PAULINA. Good my lord, forbear.\n    The ruddiness upon her lip is wet;\n    You'll mar it if you kiss it; stain your own\n    With oily painting. Shall I draw the curtain?\n  LEONTES. No, not these twenty years.\n  PERDITA. So long could I\n    Stand by, a looker-on.\n  PAULINA. Either forbear,\n    Quit presently the chapel, or resolve you\n    For more amazement. If you can behold it,\n    I'll make the statue move indeed, descend,\n    And take you by the hand, but then you'll think-\n    Which I protest against- I am assisted\n    By wicked powers.\n  LEONTES. What you can make her do\n    I am content to look on; what to speak\n    I am content to hear; for 'tis as easy\n    To make her speak as move.\n  PAULINA. It is requir'd\n    You do awake your faith. Then all stand still;\n    Or those that think it is unlawful business\n    I am about, let them depart.\n  LEONTES. Proceed.\n    No foot shall stir.\n  PAULINA. Music, awake her: strike.                     [Music]\n    'Tis time; descend; be stone no more; approach;\n    Strike all that look upon with marvel. Come;\n    I'll fill your grave up. Stir; nay, come away.\n    Bequeath to death your numbness, for from him\n    Dear life redeems you. You perceive she stirs.\n                         [HERMIONE comes down from the pedestal]\n    Start not; her actions shall be holy as\n    You hear my spell is lawful. Do not shun her\n    Until you see her die again; for then\n    You kill her double. Nay, present your hand.\n    When she was young you woo'd her; now in age\n    Is she become the suitor?\n  LEONTES. O, she's warm!\n    If this be magic, let it be an art\n    Lawful as eating.\n  POLIXENES. She embraces him.\n  CAMILLO. She hangs about his neck.\n    If she pertain to life, let her speak too.\n  POLIXENES. Ay, and make it manifest where she has liv'd,\n    Or how stol'n from the dead.\n  PAULINA. That she is living,\n    Were it but told you, should be hooted at\n    Like an old tale; but it appears she lives\n    Though yet she speak not. Mark a little while.\n    Please you to interpose, fair madam. Kneel,\n    And pray your mother's blessing. Turn, good lady;\n    Our Perdita is found.\n  HERMIONE. You gods, look down,\n    And from your sacred vials pour your graces\n    Upon my daughter's head! Tell me, mine own,\n    Where hast thou been preserv'd? Where liv'd? How found\n    Thy father's court? For thou shalt hear that I,\n    Knowing by Paulina that the oracle\n    Gave hope thou wast in being, have preserv'd\n    Myself to see the issue.\n  PAULINA. There's time enough for that,\n    Lest they desire upon this push to trouble\n    Your joys with like relation. Go together,\n    You precious winners all; your exultation\n    Partake to every one. I, an old turtle,\n    Will wing me to some wither'd bough, and there\n    My mate, that's never to be found again,\n    Lament till I am lost.\n  LEONTES. O peace, Paulina!\n    Thou shouldst a husband take by my consent,\n    As I by thine a wife. This is a match,\n    And made between's by vows. Thou hast found mine;\n    But how, is to be question'd; for I saw her,\n    As I thought, dead; and have, in vain, said many\n    A prayer upon her grave. I'll not seek far-\n    For him, I partly know his mind- to find thee\n    An honourable husband. Come, Camillo,\n    And take her by the hand whose worth and honesty\n    Is richly noted, and here justified\n    By us, a pair of kings. Let's from this place.\n    What! look upon my brother. Both your pardons,\n    That e'er I put between your holy looks\n    My ill suspicion. This your son-in-law,\n    And son unto the King, whom heavens directing,\n    Is troth-plight to your daughter. Good Paulina,\n    Lead us from hence where we may leisurely\n    Each one demand and answer to his part\n    Perform'd in this wide gap of time since first\n    We were dissever'd. Hastily lead away.                Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1609\n\nA LOVER'S COMPLAINT\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\n  From off a hill whose concave womb reworded\n  A plaintful story from a sist'ring vale,\n  My spirits t'attend this double voice accorded,\n  And down I laid to list the sad-tuned tale,\n  Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale,\n  Tearing of papers, breaking rings atwain,\n  Storming her world with sorrow's wind and rain.\n\n  Upon her head a platted hive of straw,\n  Which fortified her visage from the sun,\n  Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw\n  The carcase of a beauty spent and done.\n  Time had not scythed all that youth begun,\n  Nor youth all quit, but spite of heaven's fell rage\n  Some beauty peeped through lattice of seared age.\n\n  Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne,\n  Which on it had conceited characters,\n  Laund'ring the silken figures in the brine\n  That seasoned woe had pelleted in tears,\n  And often reading what contents it bears;\n  As often shrieking undistinguished woe,\n  In clamours of all size, both high and low.\n\n  Sometimes her levelled eyes their carriage ride,\n  As they did batt'ry to the spheres intend;\n  Sometime diverted their poor balls are tied\n  To th' orbed earth; sometimes they do extend\n  Their view right on; anon their gazes lend\n  To every place at once, and nowhere fixed,\n  The mind and sight distractedly commixed.\n\n  Her hair, nor loose nor tied in formal plat,\n  Proclaimed in her a careless hand of pride;\n  For some, untucked, descended her sheaved hat,\n  Hanging her pale and pined cheek beside;\n  Some in her threaden fillet still did bide,\n  And, true to bondage, would not break from thence,\n  Though slackly braided in loose negligence.\n\n  A thousand favours from a maund she drew\n  Of amber, crystal, and of beaded jet,\n  Which one by one she in a river threw,\n  Upon whose weeping margent she was set;\n  Like usury applying wet to wet,\n  Or monarchs' hands that lets not bounty fall\n  Where want cries some, but where excess begs all.\n\n  Of folded schedules had she many a one,\n  Which she perused, sighed, tore, and gave the flood;\n  Cracked many a ring of posied gold and bone,\n  Bidding them find their sepulchres in mud;\n  Found yet moe letters sadly penned in blood,\n  With sleided silk feat and affectedly\n  Enswathed and sealed to curious secrecy.\n\n  These often bathed she in her fluxive eyes,\n  And often kissed, and often 'gan to tear;\n  Cried, 'O false blood, thou register of lies,\n  What unapproved witness dost thou bear!\n  Ink would have seemed more black and damned here!\n  This said, in top of rage the lines she rents,\n  Big discontents so breaking their contents.\n\n  A reverend man that grazed his cattle nigh,\n  Sometime a blusterer that the ruffle knew\n  Of court, of city, and had let go by\n  The swiftest hours observed as they flew,\n  Towards this afflicted fancy fastly drew;\n  And, privileged by age, desires to know\n  In brief the grounds and motives of her woe.\n\n  So slides he down upon his grained bat,\n  And comely distant sits he by her side;\n  When he again desires her, being sat,\n  Her grievance with his hearing to divide.\n  If that from him there may be aught applied\n  Which may her suffering ecstasy assuage,\n  'Tis promised in the charity of age.\n\n  'Father,' she says, 'though in me you behold\n  The injury of many a blasting hour,\n  Let it not tell your judgement I am old:\n  Not age, but sorrow, over me hath power.\n  I might as yet have been a spreading flower,\n  Fresh to myself, if I had self-applied\n  Love to myself, and to no love beside.\n\n  'But woe is me! too early I attended\n  A youthful suit- it was to gain my grace-\n  O, one by nature's outwards so commended\n  That maidens' eyes stuck over all his face.\n  Love lacked a dwelling and made him her place;\n  And when in his fair parts she did abide,\n  She was new lodged and newly deified.\n\n  'His browny locks did hang in crooked curls;\n  And every light occasion of the wind\n  Upon his lips their silken parcels hurls.\n  What's sweet to do, to do will aptly find:\n  Each eye that saw him did enchant the mind;\n  For on his visage was in little drawn\n  What largeness thinks in Paradise was sawn.\n\n  'Small show of man was yet upon his chin;\n  His phoenix down began but to appear,\n  Like unshorn velvet, on that termless skin,\n  Whose bare out-bragged the web it seemed to wear:\n  Yet showed his visage by that cost more dear;\n  And nice affections wavering stood in doubt\n  If best were as it was, or best without.\n\n  'His qualities were beauteous as his form,\n  For maiden-tongued he was, and thereof free;\n  Yet if men moved him, was he such a storm\n  As oft 'twixt May and April is to see,\n  When winds breathe sweet, unruly though they be.\n  His rudeness so with his authorized youth\n  Did livery falseness in a pride of truth.\n\n  'Well could he ride, and often men would say,\n  \"That horse his mettle from his rider takes:\n  Proud of subjection, noble by the sway,\n  What rounds, what bounds, what course, what stop he makes!\"\n  And controversy hence a question takes\n  Whether the horse by him became his deed,\n  Or he his manage by th' well-doing steed.\n\n  'But quickly on this side the verdict went:\n  His real habitude gave life and grace\n  To appertainings and to ornament,\n  Accomplished in himself, not in his case,\n  All aids, themselves made fairer by their place,\n  Came for additions; yet their purposed trim\n  Pierced not his grace, but were all graced by him.\n\n  'So on the tip of his subduing tongue\n  All kind of arguments and question deep,\n  All replication prompt, and reason strong,\n  For his advantage still did wake and sleep.\n  To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep,\n  He had the dialect and different skill,\n  Catching all passions in his craft of will,\n\n  'That he did in the general bosom reign\n  Of young, of old, and sexes both enchanted,\n  To dwell with him in thoughts, or to remain\n  In personal duty, following where he haunted.\n  Consents bewitched, ere he desire, have granted,\n  And dialogued for him what he would say,\n  Asked their own wills, and made their wills obey.\n\n  'Many there were that did his picture get,\n  To serve their eyes, and in it put their mind;\n  Like fools that in th' imagination set\n  The goodly objects which abroad they find\n  Of lands and mansions, theirs in thought assigned;\n  And labouring in moe pleasures to bestow them\n  Than the true gouty landlord which doth owe them.\n\n  'So many have, that never touched his hand,\n  Sweetly supposed them mistress of his heart.\n  My woeful self, that did in freedom stand,\n  And was my own fee-simple, not in part,\n  What with his art in youth, and youth in art,\n  Threw my affections in his charmed power\n  Reserved the stalk and gave him all my flower.\n\n  'Yet did I not, as some my equals did,\n  Demand of him, nor being desired yielded;\n  Finding myself in honour so forbid,\n  With safest distance I mine honour shielded.\n  Experience for me many bulwarks builded\n  Of proofs new-bleeding, which remained the foil\n  Of this false jewel, and his amorous spoil.\n\n  'But ah, who ever shunned by precedent\n  The destined ill she must herself assay?\n  Or forced examples, 'gainst her own content,\n  To put the by-past perils in her way?\n  Counsel may stop awhile what will not stay;\n  For when we rage, advice is often seen\n  By blunting us to make our wills more keen.\n\n  'Nor gives it satisfaction to our blood\n  That we must curb it upon others' proof,\n  To be forbod the sweets that seems so good\n  For fear of harms that preach in our behoof.\n  O appetite, from judgement stand aloof!\n  The one a palate hath that needs will taste,\n  Though Reason weep, and cry it is thy last.\n\n  'For further I could say this man's untrue,\n  And knew the patterns of his foul beguiling;\n  Heard where his plants in others' orchards grew;\n  Saw how deceits were gilded in his smiling;\n  Knew vows were ever brokers to defiling;\n  Thought characters and words merely but art,\n  And bastards of his foul adulterate heart.\n\n  'And long upon these terms I held my city,\n  Till thus he 'gan besiege me: \"Gentle maid,\n  Have of my suffering youth some feeling pity,\n  And be not of my holy vows afraid.\n  That's to ye sworn to none was ever said;\n  For feasts of love I have been called unto,\n  Till now did ne'er invite nor never woo.\n\n  '\"All my offences that abroad you see\n  Are errors of the blood, none of the mind;\n  Love made them not; with acture they may be,\n  Where neither party is nor true nor kind.\n  They sought their shame that so their shame did find;\n  And so much less of shame in me remains\n  By how much of me their reproach contains.\n\n  '\"Among the many that mine eyes have seen,\n  Not one whose flame my heart so much as warmed,\n  Or my affection put to th' smallest teen,\n  Or any of my leisures ever charmed.\n  Harm have I done to them, but ne'er was harmed;\n  Kept hearts in liveries, but mine own was free,\n  And reigned commanding in his monarchy.\n\n  '\"Look here what tributes wounded fancies sent me,\n  Of paled pearls and rubies red as blood;\n  Figuring that they their passions likewise lent me\n  Of grief and blushes, aptly understood\n  In bloodless white and the encrimsoned mood-\n  Effects of terror and dear modesty,\n  Encamped in hearts, but fighting outwardly.\n\n  '\"And, lo, behold these talents of their hair,\n  With twisted metal amorously empleached,\n  I have receiv'd from many a several fair,\n  Their kind acceptance weepingly beseeched,\n  With the annexions of fair gems enriched,\n  And deep-brained sonnets that did amplify\n  Each stone's dear nature, worth, and quality.\n\n  '\"The diamond? why, 'twas beautiful and hard,\n  Whereto his invised properties did tend;\n  The deep-green em'rald, in whose fresh regard\n  Weak sights their sickly radiance do amend;\n  The heaven-hued sapphire and the opal blend\n  With objects manifold; each several stone,\n  With wit well blazoned, smiled, or made some moan.\n\n  '\"Lo, all these trophies of affections hot,\n  Of pensived and subdued desires the tender,\n  Nature hath charged me that I hoard them not,\n  But yield them up where I myself must render-\n  That is, to you, my origin and ender;\n  For these, of force, must your oblations be,\n  Since I their altar, you enpatron me.\n\n  '\"O then advance of yours that phraseless hand\n  Whose white weighs down the airy scale of praise;\n  Take all these similes to your own command,\n  Hallowed with sighs that burning lungs did raise;\n  What me your minister for you obeys\n  Works under you; and to your audit comes\n  Their distract parcels in combined sums.\n\n  '\"Lo, this device was sent me from a nun,\n  Or sister sanctified, of holiest note,\n  Which late her noble suit in court did shun,\n  Whose rarest havings made the blossoms dote;\n  For she was sought by spirits of richest coat,\n  But kept cold distance, and did thence remove\n  To spend her living in eternal love.\n\n  '\"But, O my sweet, what labour is't to leave\n  The thing we have not, mast'ring what not strives,\n  Playing the place which did no form receive,\n  Playing patient sports in unconstrained gyves!\n  She that her fame so to herself contrives,\n  The scars of battle scapeth by the flight,\n  And makes her absence valiant, not her might.\n\n  '\"O pardon me in that my boast is true!\n  The accident which brought me to her eye\n  Upon the moment did her force subdue,\n  And now she would the caged cloister fly.\n  Religious love put out religion's eye.\n  Not to be tempted, would she be immured,\n  And now to tempt all liberty procured.\n\n  '\"How mighty then you are, O hear me tell!\n  The broken bosoms that to me belong\n  Have emptied all their fountains in my well,\n  And mine I pour your ocean all among.\n  I strong o'er them, and you o'er me being strong,\n  Must for your victory us all congest,\n  As compound love to physic your cold breast.\n\n  '\"My parts had pow'r to charm a sacred nun,\n  Who, disciplined, ay, dieted in grace,\n  Believed her eyes when they t'assail begun,\n  All vows and consecrations giving place,\n  O most potential love, vow, bond, nor space,\n  In thee hath neither sting, knot, nor confine,\n  For thou art all, and all things else are thine.\n\n  '\"When thou impressest, what are precepts worth\n  Of stale example? When thou wilt inflame,\n  How coldly those impediments stand forth,\n  Of wealth, of filial fear, law, kindred, fame!\n  Love's arms are peace, 'gainst rule, 'gainst sense, 'gainst shame.\n  And sweetens, in the suff'ring pangs it bears,\n  The aloes of all forces, shocks and fears.\n\n  '\"Now all these hearts that do on mine depend,\n  Feeling it break, with bleeding groans they pine,\n  And supplicant their sighs to your extend,\n  To leave the batt'ry that you make 'gainst mine,\n  Lending soft audience to my sweet design,\n  And credent soul to that strong-bonded oath,\n  That shall prefer and undertake my troth.\"\n\n  'This said, his wat'ry eyes he did dismount,\n  Whose sights till then were levelled on my face;\n  Each cheek a river running from a fount\n  With brinish current downward flowed apace.\n  O, how the channel to the stream gave grace!\n  Who glazed with crystal gate the glowing roses\n  That flame through water which their hue encloses.\n\n  'O father, what a hell of witchcraft lies\n  In the small orb of one particular tear!\n  But with the inundation of the eyes\n  What rocky heart to water will not wear?\n  What breast so cold that is not warmed here?\n  O cleft effect! cold modesty, hot wrath,\n  Both fire from hence and chill extincture hath.\n\n  'For lo, his passion, but an art of craft,\n  Even there resolved my reason into tears;\n  There my white stole of chastity I daffed,\n  Shook off my sober guards and civil fears;\n  Appear to him as he to me appears,\n  All melting; though our drops this diff'rence bore:\n  His poisoned me, and mine did him restore.\n\n  'In him a plenitude of subtle matter,\n  Applied to cautels, all strange forms receives,\n  Of burning blushes or of weeping water,\n  Or swooning paleness; and he takes and leaves,\n  In either's aptness, as it best deceives,\n  To blush at speeches rank, to weep at woes,\n  Or to turn white and swoon at tragic shows;\n\n  'That not a heart which in his level came\n  Could scape the hail of his all-hurting aim,\n  Showing fair nature is both kind and tame;\n  And, veiled in them, did win whom he would maim.\n  Against the thing he sought he would exclaim;\n  When he most burned in heart-wished luxury,\n  He preached pure maid and praised cold chastity.\n\n  'Thus merely with the garment of a Grace\n  The naked and concealed fiend he covered,\n  That th' unexperient gave the tempter place,\n  Which, like a cherubin, above them hovered.\n  Who, young and simple, would not be so lovered?\n  Ay me, I fell, and yet do question make\n  What I should do again for such a sake.\n\n  'O, that infected moisture of his eye,\n  O, that false fire which in his cheek so glowed,\n  O, that forced thunder from his heart did fly,\n  O, that sad breath his spongy lungs bestowed,\n  O, all that borrowed motion, seeming owed,\n  Would yet again betray the fore-betrayed,\n  And new pervert a reconciled maid.'\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"1041":"University Library. HTML version by Al Haines.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE SONNETS\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\n\n  I\n\n  From fairest creatures we desire increase,\n  That thereby beauty's rose might never die,\n  But as the riper should by time decease,\n  His tender heir might bear his memory:\n  But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,\n  Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,\n  Making a famine where abundance lies,\n  Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:\n  Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,\n  And only herald to the gaudy spring,\n  Within thine own bud buriest thy content,\n  And tender churl mak'st waste in niggarding:\n    Pity the world, or else this glutton be,\n    To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.\n\n  II\n\n  When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,\n  And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,\n  Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now,\n  Will be a tatter'd weed of small worth held:\n  Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,\n  Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;\n  To say, within thine own deep sunken eyes,\n  Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.\n  How much more praise deserv'd thy beauty's use,\n  If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine\n  Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,'\n  Proving his beauty by succession thine!\n    This were to be new made when thou art old,\n    And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.\n\n  III\n\n  Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest\n  Now is the time that face should form another;\n  Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,\n  Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.\n  For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb\n  Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?\n  Or who is he so fond will be the tomb,\n  Of his self-love to stop posterity?\n  Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee\n  Calls back the lovely April of her prime;\n  So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,\n  Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.\n    But if thou live, remember'd not to be,\n    Die single and thine image dies with thee.\n\n  IV\n\n  Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend\n  Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy?\n  Nature's bequest gives nothing, but doth lend,\n  And being frank she lends to those are free:\n  Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse\n  The bounteous largess given thee to give?\n  Profitless usurer, why dost thou use\n  So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?\n  For having traffic with thy self alone,\n  Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive:\n  Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,\n  What acceptable audit canst thou leave?\n    Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,\n    Which, used, lives th' executor to be.\n\n  V\n\n  Those hours, that with gentle work did frame\n  The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,\n  Will play the tyrants to the very same\n  And that unfair which fairly doth excel;\n  For never-resting time leads summer on\n  To hideous winter, and confounds him there;\n  Sap checked with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone,\n  Beauty o'er-snowed and bareness every where:\n  Then were not summer's distillation left,\n  A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,\n  Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,\n  Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was:\n    But flowers distill'd, though they with winter meet,\n    Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.\n\n\n  VI\n\n  Then let not winter's ragged hand deface,\n  In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd:\n  Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place\n  With beauty's treasure ere it be self-kill'd.\n  That use is not forbidden usury,\n  Which happies those that pay the willing loan;\n  That's for thy self to breed another thee,\n  Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;\n  Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,\n  If ten of thine ten times refigur'd thee:\n  Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,\n  Leaving thee living in posterity?\n    Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair\n    To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.\n\n  VII\n\n  Lo! in the orient when the gracious light\n  Lifts up his burning head, each under eye\n  Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,\n  Serving with looks his sacred majesty;\n  And having climb'd the steep-up heavenly hill,\n  Resembling strong youth in his middle age,\n  Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,\n  Attending on his golden pilgrimage:\n  But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,\n  Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,\n  The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted are\n  From his low tract, and look another way:\n    So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon:\n    Unlook'd, on diest unless thou get a son.\n\n  VIII\n\n  Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?\n  Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:\n  Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,\n  Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?\n  If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,\n  By unions married, do offend thine ear,\n  They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds\n  In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.\n  Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,\n  Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;\n  Resembling sire and child and happy mother,\n  Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing:\n    Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,\n    Sings this to thee: 'Thou single wilt prove none.'\n\n  IX\n\n  Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye,\n  That thou consum'st thy self in single life?\n  Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die,\n  The world will wail thee like a makeless wife;\n  The world will be thy widow and still weep\n  That thou no form of thee hast left behind,\n  When every private widow well may keep\n  By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind:\n  Look! what an unthrift in the world doth spend\n  Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;\n  But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,\n  And kept unused the user so destroys it.\n    No love toward others in that bosom sits\n    That on himself such murd'rous shame commits.\n\n  X\n\n  For shame! deny that thou bear'st love to any,\n  Who for thy self art so unprovident.\n  Grant, if thou wilt, thou art belov'd of many,\n  But that thou none lov'st is most evident:\n  For thou art so possess'd with murderous hate,\n  That 'gainst thy self thou stick'st not to conspire,\n  Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate\n  Which to repair should be thy chief desire.\n  O! change thy thought, that I may change my mind:\n  Shall hate be fairer lodg'd than gentle love?\n  Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,\n  Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove:\n    Make thee another self for love of me,\n    That beauty still may live in thine or thee.\n\n  XI\n\n  As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow'st,\n  In one of thine, from that which thou departest;\n  And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow'st,\n  Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth convertest,\n  Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase;\n  Without this folly, age, and cold decay:\n  If all were minded so, the times should cease\n  And threescore year would make the world away.\n  Let those whom nature hath not made for store,\n  Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish:\n  Look, whom she best endow'd, she gave thee more;\n  Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish:\n    She carv'd thee for her seal, and meant thereby,\n    Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.\n\n  XII\n\n  When I do count the clock that tells the time,\n  And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;\n  When I behold the violet past prime,\n  And sable curls, all silvered o'er with white;\n  When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,\n  Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,\n  And summer's green all girded up in sheaves,\n  Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,\n  Then of thy beauty do I question make,\n  That thou among the wastes of time must go,\n  Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake\n  And die as fast as they see others grow;\n    And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence\n    Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.\n\n  XIII\n\n  O! that you were your self; but, love you are\n  No longer yours, than you your self here live:\n  Against this coming end you should prepare,\n  And your sweet semblance to some other give:\n  So should that beauty which you hold in lease\n  Find no determination; then you were\n  Yourself again, after yourself's decease,\n  When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.\n  Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,\n  Which husbandry in honour might uphold,\n  Against the stormy gusts of winter's day\n  And barren rage of death's eternal cold?\n    O! none but unthrifts. Dear my love, you know,\n    You had a father: let your son say so.\n\n  XIV\n\n  Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck;\n  And yet methinks I have astronomy,\n  But not to tell of good or evil luck,\n  Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality;\n  Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,\n  Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,\n  Or say with princes if it shall go well\n  By oft predict that I in heaven find:\n  But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,\n  And constant stars in them I read such art\n  As 'Truth and beauty shall together thrive,\n  If from thyself, to store thou wouldst convert';\n    Or else of thee this I prognosticate:\n    'Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.'\n\n  XV\n\n  When I consider every thing that grows\n  Holds in perfection but a little moment,\n  That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows\n  Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;\n  When I perceive that men as plants increase,\n  Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky,\n  Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,\n  And wear their brave state out of memory;\n  Then the conceit of this inconstant stay\n  Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,\n  Where wasteful Time debateth with decay\n  To change your day of youth to sullied night,\n    And all in war with Time for love of you,\n    As he takes from you, I engraft you new.\n\n  XVI\n\n  But wherefore do not you a mightier way\n  Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time?\n  And fortify your self in your decay\n  With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?\n  Now stand you on the top of happy hours,\n  And many maiden gardens, yet unset,\n  With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers,\n  Much liker than your painted counterfeit:\n  So should the lines of life that life repair,\n  Which this, Time's pencil, or my pupil pen,\n  Neither in inward worth nor outward fair,\n  Can make you live your self in eyes of men.\n    To give away yourself, keeps yourself still,\n    And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill.\n\n  XVII\n\n  Who will believe my verse in time to come,\n  If it were fill'd with your most high deserts?\n  Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb\n  Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts.\n  If I could write the beauty of your eyes,\n  And in fresh numbers number all your graces,\n  The age to come would say 'This poet lies;\n  Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'\n  So should my papers, yellow'd with their age,\n  Be scorn'd, like old men of less truth than tongue,\n  And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage\n  And stretched metre of an antique song:\n    But were some child of yours alive that time,\n    You should live twice,--in it, and in my rhyme.\n\n  XVIII\n\n  Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?\n  Thou art more lovely and more temperate:\n  Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,\n  And summer's lease hath all too short a date:\n  Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,\n  And often is his gold complexion dimm'd,\n  And every fair from fair sometime declines,\n  By chance, or nature's changing course untrimm'd:\n  But thy eternal summer shall not fade,\n  Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,\n  Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,\n  When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,\n    So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,\n    So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.\n\n  XIX\n\n  Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,\n  And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;\n  Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,\n  And burn the long-liv'd phoenix, in her blood;\n  Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,\n  And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,\n  To the wide world and all her fading sweets;\n  But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:\n  O! carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,\n  Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;\n  Him in thy course untainted do allow\n  For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.\n    Yet, do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong,\n    My love shall in my verse ever live young.\n\n  XX\n\n  A woman's face with nature's own hand painted,\n  Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion;\n  A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted\n  With shifting change, as is false women's fashion:\n  An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,\n  Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;\n  A man in hue all 'hues' in his controlling,\n  Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.\n  And for a woman wert thou first created;\n  Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,\n  And by addition me of thee defeated,\n  By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.\n    But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure,\n    Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.\n\n  XXI\n\n  So is it not with me as with that Muse,\n  Stirr'd by a painted beauty to his verse,\n  Who heaven itself for ornament doth use\n  And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,\n  Making a couplement of proud compare.\n  With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems,\n  With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare,\n  That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.\n  O! let me, true in love, but truly write,\n  And then believe me, my love is as fair\n  As any mother's child, though not so bright\n  As those gold candles fix'd in heaven's air:\n    Let them say more that like of hearsay well;\n    I will not praise that purpose not to sell.\n\n  XXII\n\n  My glass shall not persuade me I am old,\n  So long as youth and thou are of one date;\n  But when in thee time's furrows I behold,\n  Then look I death my days should expiate.\n  For all that beauty that doth cover thee,\n  Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,\n  Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me:\n  How can I then be elder than thou art?\n  O! therefore love, be of thyself so wary\n  As I, not for myself, but for thee will;\n  Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary\n  As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.\n    Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain,\n    Thou gav'st me thine not to give back again.\n\n  XXIII\n\n  As an unperfect actor on the stage,\n  Who with his fear is put beside his part,\n  Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,\n  Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart;\n  So I, for fear of trust, forget to say\n  The perfect ceremony of love's rite,\n  And in mine own love's strength seem to decay,\n  O'ercharg'd with burthen of mine own love's might.\n  O! let my looks be then the eloquence\n  And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,\n  Who plead for love, and look for recompense,\n  More than that tongue that more hath more express'd.\n    O! learn to read what silent love hath writ:\n    To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.\n\n  XXIV\n\n  Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd,\n  Thy beauty's form in table of my heart;\n  My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,\n  And perspective it is best painter's art.\n  For through the painter must you see his skill,\n  To find where your true image pictur'd lies,\n  Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,\n  That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.\n  Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done:\n  Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me\n  Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun\n  Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;\n    Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art,\n    They draw but what they see, know not the heart.\n\n  XXV\n\n  Let those who are in favour with their stars\n  Of public honour and proud titles boast,\n  Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars\n  Unlook'd for joy in that I honour most.\n  Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread\n  But as the marigold at the sun's eye,\n  And in themselves their pride lies buried,\n  For at a frown they in their glory die.\n  The painful warrior famoused for fight,\n  After a thousand victories once foil'd,\n  Is from the book of honour razed quite,\n  And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd:\n    Then happy I, that love and am belov'd,\n    Where I may not remove nor be remov'd.\n\n  XXVI\n\n  Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage\n  Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,\n  To thee I send this written embassage,\n  To witness duty, not to show my wit:\n  Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine\n  May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it,\n  But that I hope some good conceit of thine\n  In thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it:\n  Till whatsoever star that guides my moving,\n  Points on me graciously with fair aspect,\n  And puts apparel on my tatter'd loving,\n  To show me worthy of thy sweet respect:\n    Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee;\n    Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me.\n\n  XXVII\n\n  Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,\n  The dear respose for limbs with travel tir'd;\n  But then begins a journey in my head\n  To work my mind, when body's work's expired:\n  For then my thoughts--from far where I abide--\n  Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,\n  And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,\n  Looking on darkness which the blind do see:\n  Save that my soul's imaginary sight\n  Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,\n  Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,\n  Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.\n    Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,\n    For thee, and for myself, no quiet find.\n\n  XXVIII\n\n  How can I then return in happy plight,\n  That am debarre'd the benefit of rest?\n  When day's oppression is not eas'd by night,\n  But day by night and night by day oppress'd,\n  And each, though enemies to either's reign,\n  Do in consent shake hands to torture me,\n  The one by toil, the other to complain\n  How far I toil, still farther off from thee.\n  I tell the day, to please him thou art bright,\n  And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:\n  So flatter I the swart-complexion'd night,\n  When sparkling stars twire not thou gild'st the even.\n    But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,\n    And night doth nightly make grief's length seem stronger.\n\n  XXIX\n\n  When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes\n  I all alone beweep my outcast state,\n  And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,\n  And look upon myself, and curse my fate,\n  Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,\n  Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,\n  Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,\n  With what I most enjoy contented least;\n  Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,\n  Haply I think on thee,-- and then my state,\n  Like to the lark at break of day arising\n  From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;\n    For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings\n    That then I scorn to change my state with kings.\n\n  XXX\n\n  When to the sessions of sweet silent thought\n  I summon up remembrance of things past,\n  I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,\n  And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:\n  Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,\n  For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,\n  And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,\n  And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:\n  Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,\n  And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er\n  The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,\n  Which I new pay as if not paid before.\n    But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,\n    All losses are restor'd and sorrows end.\n\n  XXXI\n\n  Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,\n  Which I by lacking have supposed dead;\n  And there reigns Love, and all Love's loving parts,\n  And all those friends which I thought buried.\n  How many a holy and obsequious tear\n  Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye,\n  As interest of the dead, which now appear\n  But things remov'd that hidden in thee lie!\n  Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,\n  Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,\n  Who all their parts of me to thee did give,\n  That due of many now is thine alone:\n    Their images I lov'd, I view in thee,\n    And thou--all they--hast all the all of me.\n\n  XXXII\n\n  If thou survive my well-contented day,\n  When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover\n  And shalt by fortune once more re-survey\n  These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,\n  Compare them with the bett'ring of the time,\n  And though they be outstripp'd by every pen,\n  Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,\n  Exceeded by the height of happier men.\n  O! then vouchsafe me but this loving thought:\n  'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age,\n  A dearer birth than this his love had brought,\n  To march in ranks of better equipage:\n    But since he died and poets better prove,\n    Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love'.\n\n  XXXIII\n\n  Full many a glorious morning have I seen\n  Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,\n  Kissing with golden face the meadows green,\n  Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;\n  Anon permit the basest clouds to ride\n  With ugly rack on his celestial face,\n  And from the forlorn world his visage hide,\n  Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:\n  Even so my sun one early morn did shine,\n  With all triumphant splendour on my brow;\n  But out! alack! he was but one hour mine,\n  The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now.\n    Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;\n    Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.\n\n  XXXIV\n\n  Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,\n  And make me travel forth without my cloak,\n  To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,\n  Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?\n  'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,\n  To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,\n  For no man well of such a salve can speak,\n  That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:\n  Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;\n  Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:\n  The offender's sorrow lends but weak relief\n  To him that bears the strong offence's cross.\n    Ah! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,\n    And they are rich and ransom all ill deeds.\n\n  XXXV\n\n  No more be griev'd at that which thou hast done:\n  Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud:\n  Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,\n  And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.\n  All men make faults, and even I in this,\n  Authorizing thy trespass with compare,\n  Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,\n  Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;\n  For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,--\n  Thy adverse party is thy advocate,--\n  And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence:\n  Such civil war is in my love and hate,\n    That I an accessary needs must be,\n    To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.\n\n  XXXVI\n\n  Let me confess that we two must be twain,\n  Although our undivided loves are one:\n  So shall those blots that do with me remain,\n  Without thy help, by me be borne alone.\n  In our two loves there is but one respect,\n  Though in our lives a separable spite,\n  Which though it alter not love's sole effect,\n  Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.\n  I may not evermore acknowledge thee,\n  Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,\n  Nor thou with public kindness honour me,\n  Unless thou take that honour from thy name:\n    But do not so, I love thee in such sort,\n    As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.\n\n  XXXVII\n\n  As a decrepit father takes delight\n  To see his active child do deeds of youth,\n  So I, made lame by Fortune's dearest spite,\n  Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth;\n  For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,\n  Or any of these all, or all, or more,\n  Entitled in thy parts, do crowned sit,\n  I make my love engrafted, to this store:\n  So then I am not lame, poor, nor despis'd,\n  Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give\n  That I in thy abundance am suffic'd,\n  And by a part of all thy glory live.\n    Look what is best, that best I wish in thee:\n    This wish I have; then ten times happy me!\n\n  XXXVIII\n\n  How can my muse want subject to invent,\n  While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse\n  Thine own sweet argument, too excellent\n  For every vulgar paper to rehearse?\n  O! give thy self the thanks, if aught in me\n  Worthy perusal stand against thy sight;\n  For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,\n  When thou thy self dost give invention light?\n  Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth\n  Than those old nine which rhymers invocate;\n  And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth\n  Eternal numbers to outlive long date.\n    If my slight muse do please these curious days,\n    The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.\n\n  XXXIX\n\n  O! how thy worth with manners may I sing,\n  When thou art all the better part of me?\n  What can mine own praise to mine own self bring?\n  And what is't but mine own when I praise thee?\n  Even for this, let us divided live,\n  And our dear love lose name of single one,\n  That by this separation I may give\n  That due to thee which thou deserv'st alone.\n  O absence! what a torment wouldst thou prove,\n  Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave,\n  To entertain the time with thoughts of love,\n  Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive,\n    And that thou teachest how to make one twain,\n    By praising him here who doth hence remain.\n\n  XL\n\n  Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all;\n  What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?\n  No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;\n  All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more.\n  Then, if for my love, thou my love receivest,\n  I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest;\n  But yet be blam'd, if thou thy self deceivest\n  By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.\n  I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,\n  Although thou steal thee all my poverty:\n  And yet, love knows it is a greater grief\n  To bear love's wrong, than hate's known injury.\n    Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,\n    Kill me with spites yet we must not be foes.\n\n  XLI\n\n  Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits,\n  When I am sometime absent from thy heart,\n  Thy beauty, and thy years full well befits,\n  For still temptation follows where thou art.\n  Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,\n  Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assail'd;\n  And when a woman woos, what woman's son\n  Will sourly leave her till he have prevail'd?\n  Ay me! but yet thou mightst my seat forbear,\n  And chide thy beauty and thy straying youth,\n  Who lead thee in their riot even there\n  Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth:--\n    Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,\n    Thine by thy beauty being false to me.\n\n  XLII\n\n  That thou hast her it is not all my grief,\n  And yet it may be said I loved her dearly;\n  That she hath thee is of my wailing chief,\n  A loss in love that touches me more nearly.\n  Loving offenders thus I will excuse ye:\n  Thou dost love her, because thou know'st I love her;\n  And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,\n  Suffering my friend for my sake to approve her.\n  If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain,\n  And losing her, my friend hath found that loss;\n  Both find each other, and I lose both twain,\n  And both for my sake lay on me this cross:\n    But here's the joy; my friend and I are one;\n    Sweet flattery! then she loves but me alone.\n\n  XLIII\n\n  When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,\n  For all the day they view things unrespected;\n  But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,\n  And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.\n  Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,\n  How would thy shadow's form form happy show\n  To the clear day with thy much clearer light,\n  When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!\n  How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made\n  By looking on thee in the living day,\n  When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade\n  Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!\n    All days are nights to see till I see thee,\n    And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.\n\n  XLIV\n\n  If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,\n  Injurious distance should not stop my way;\n  For then despite of space I would be brought,\n  From limits far remote, where thou dost stay.\n  No matter then although my foot did stand\n  Upon the farthest earth remov'd from thee;\n  For nimble thought can jump both sea and land,\n  As soon as think the place where he would be.\n  But, ah! thought kills me that I am not thought,\n  To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,\n  But that so much of earth and water wrought,\n  I must attend time's leisure with my moan;\n    Receiving nought by elements so slow\n    But heavy tears, badges of either's woe.\n\n  XLV\n\n  The other two, slight air, and purging fire\n  Are both with thee, wherever I abide;\n  The first my thought, the other my desire,\n  These present-absent with swift motion slide.\n  For when these quicker elements are gone\n  In tender embassy of love to thee,\n  My life, being made of four, with two alone\n  Sinks down to death, oppress'd with melancholy;\n  Until life's composition be recur'd\n  By those swift messengers return'd from thee,\n  Who even but now come back again, assur'd,\n  Of thy fair health, recounting it to me:\n    This told, I joy; but then no longer glad,\n    I send them back again, and straight grow sad.\n\n  XLVI\n\n  Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,\n  How to divide the conquest of thy sight;\n  Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would bar,\n  My heart mine eye the freedom of that right.\n  My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,--\n  A closet never pierc'd with crystal eyes--\n  But the defendant doth that plea deny,\n  And says in him thy fair appearance lies.\n  To side this title is impannelled\n  A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart;\n  And by their verdict is determined\n  The clear eye's moiety, and the dear heart's part:\n    As thus; mine eye's due is thy outward part,\n    And my heart's right, thy inward love of heart.\n\n  XLVII\n\n  Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,\n  And each doth good turns now unto the other:\n  When that mine eye is famish'd for a look,\n  Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother,\n  With my love's picture then my eye doth feast,\n  And to the painted banquet bids my heart;\n  Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,\n  And in his thoughts of love doth share a part:\n  So, either by thy picture or my love,\n  Thy self away, art present still with me;\n  For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,\n  And I am still with them, and they with thee;\n    Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight\n    Awakes my heart, to heart's and eye's delight.\n\n  XLVIII\n\n  How careful was I when I took my way,\n  Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,\n  That to my use it might unused stay\n  From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!\n  But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are,\n  Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief,\n  Thou best of dearest, and mine only care,\n  Art left the prey of every vulgar thief.\n  Thee have I not lock'd up in any chest,\n  Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art,\n  Within the gentle closure of my breast,\n  From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part;\n    And even thence thou wilt be stol'n I fear,\n    For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.\n\n  XLIX\n\n  Against that time, if ever that time come,\n  When I shall see thee frown on my defects,\n  When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,\n  Call'd to that audit by advis'd respects;\n  Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass,\n  And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye,\n  When love, converted from the thing it was,\n  Shall reasons find of settled gravity;\n  Against that time do I ensconce me here,\n  Within the knowledge of mine own desert,\n  And this my hand, against my self uprear,\n  To guard the lawful reasons on thy part:\n    To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws,\n    Since why to love I can allege no cause.\n\n  L\n\n  How heavy do I journey on the way,\n  When what I seek, my weary travel's end,\n  Doth teach that ease and that repose to say,\n  'Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend!'\n  The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,\n  Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,\n  As if by some instinct the wretch did know\n  His rider lov'd not speed, being made from thee:\n  The bloody spur cannot provoke him on,\n  That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,\n  Which heavily he answers with a groan,\n  More sharp to me than spurring to his side;\n    For that same groan doth put this in my mind,\n    My grief lies onward, and my joy behind.\n\n  LI\n\n  Thus can my love excuse the slow offence\n  Of my dull bearer when from thee I speed:\n  From where thou art why should I haste me thence?\n  Till I return, of posting is no need.\n  O! what excuse will my poor beast then find,\n  When swift extremity can seem but slow?\n  Then should I spur, though mounted on the wind,\n  In winged speed no motion shall I know,\n  Then can no horse with my desire keep pace;\n  Therefore desire, of perfect'st love being made,\n  Shall neigh--no dull flesh--in his fiery race;\n  But love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade,--\n    'Since from thee going, he went wilful-slow,\n    Towards thee I'll run, and give him leave to go.'\n\n  LII\n\n  So am I as the rich, whose blessed key,\n  Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,\n  The which he will not every hour survey,\n  For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.\n  Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,\n  Since, seldom coming in that long year set,\n  Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,\n  Or captain jewels in the carcanet.\n  So is the time that keeps you as my chest,\n  Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,\n  To make some special instant special-blest,\n  By new unfolding his imprison'd pride.\n    Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,\n    Being had, to triumph; being lacked, to hope.\n\n  LIII\n\n  What is your substance, whereof are you made,\n  That millions of strange shadows on you tend?\n  Since every one, hath every one, one shade,\n  And you but one, can every shadow lend.\n  Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit\n  Is poorly imitated after you;\n  On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set,\n  And you in Grecian tires are painted new:\n  Speak of the spring, and foison of the year,\n  The one doth shadow of your beauty show,\n  The other as your bounty doth appear;\n  And you in every blessed shape we know.\n    In all external grace you have some part,\n    But you like none, none you, for constant heart.\n\n  LIV\n\n  O! how much more doth beauty beauteous seem\n  By that sweet ornament which truth doth give.\n  The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem\n  For that sweet odour, which doth in it live.\n  The canker blooms have full as deep a dye\n  As the perfumed tincture of the roses.\n  Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly\n  When summer's breath their masked buds discloses:\n  But, for their virtue only is their show,\n  They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade;\n  Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;\n  Of their sweet deaths, are sweetest odours made:\n    And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,\n    When that shall vade, by verse distills your truth.\n\n  LV\n\n  Not marble, nor the gilded monuments\n  Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;\n  But you shall shine more bright in these contents\n  Than unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time.\n  When wasteful war shall statues overturn,\n  And broils root out the work of masonry,\n  Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn\n  The living record of your memory.\n  'Gainst death, and all-oblivious enmity\n  Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room\n  Even in the eyes of all posterity\n  That wear this world out to the ending doom.\n    So, till the judgment that yourself arise,\n    You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.\n\n  LVI\n\n  Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said\n  Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,\n  Which but to-day by feeding is allay'd,\n  To-morrow sharpened in his former might:\n  So, love, be thou, although to-day thou fill\n  Thy hungry eyes, even till they wink with fulness,\n  To-morrow see again, and do not kill\n  The spirit of love, with a perpetual dulness.\n  Let this sad interim like the ocean be\n  Which parts the shore, where two contracted new\n  Come daily to the banks, that when they see\n  Return of love, more blest may be the view;\n    Or call it winter, which being full of care,\n    Makes summer's welcome, thrice more wished, more rare.\n\n  LVII\n\n  Being your slave what should I do but tend,\n  Upon the hours, and times of your desire?\n  I have no precious time at all to spend;\n  Nor services to do, till you require.\n  Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour,\n  Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,\n  Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,\n  When you have bid your servant once adieu;\n  Nor dare I question with my jealous thought\n  Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,\n  But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought\n  Save, where you are, how happy you make those.\n    So true a fool is love, that in your will,\n    Though you do anything, he thinks no ill.\n\n  LVIII\n\n  That god forbid, that made me first your slave,\n  I should in thought control your times of pleasure,\n  Or at your hand the account of hours to crave,\n  Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure!\n  O! let me suffer, being at your beck,\n  The imprison'd absence of your liberty;\n  And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check,\n  Without accusing you of injury.\n  Be where you list, your charter is so strong\n  That you yourself may privilage your time\n  To what you will; to you it doth belong\n  Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime.\n    I am to wait, though waiting so be hell,\n    Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well.\n\n  LIX\n\n  If there be nothing new, but that which is\n  Hath been before, how are our brains beguil'd,\n  Which labouring for invention bear amiss\n  The second burthen of a former child!\n  O! that record could with a backward look,\n  Even of five hundred courses of the sun,\n  Show me your image in some antique book,\n  Since mind at first in character was done!\n  That I might see what the old world could say\n  To this composed wonder of your frame;\n  Wh'r we are mended, or wh'r better they,\n  Or whether revolution be the same.\n    O! sure I am the wits of former days,\n    To subjects worse have given admiring praise.\n\n  LX\n\n  Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,\n  So do our minutes hasten to their end;\n  Each changing place with that which goes before,\n  In sequent toil all forwards do contend.\n  Nativity, once in the main of light,\n  Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,\n  Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,\n  And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.\n  Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth\n  And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,\n  Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,\n  And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:\n    And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand.\n    Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.\n\n  LXI\n\n  Is it thy will, thy image should keep open\n  My heavy eyelids to the weary night?\n  Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,\n  While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?\n  Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee\n  So far from home into my deeds to pry,\n  To find out shames and idle hours in me,\n  The scope and tenure of thy jealousy?\n  O, no! thy love, though much, is not so great:\n  It is my love that keeps mine eye awake:\n  Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,\n  To play the watchman ever for thy sake:\n    For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,\n    From me far off, with others all too near.\n\n  LXII\n\n  Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye\n  And all my soul, and all my every part;\n  And for this sin there is no remedy,\n  It is so grounded inward in my heart.\n  Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,\n  No shape so true, no truth of such account;\n  And for myself mine own worth do define,\n  As I all other in all worths surmount.\n  But when my glass shows me myself indeed\n  Beated and chopp'd with tanned antiquity,\n  Mine own self-love quite contrary I read;\n  Self so self-loving were iniquity.\n    'Tis thee,--myself,--that for myself I praise,\n    Painting my age with beauty of thy days.\n\n  LXIII\n\n  Against my love shall be as I am now,\n  With Time's injurious hand crush'd and o'erworn;\n  When hours have drain'd his blood and fill'd his brow\n  With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn\n  Hath travell'd on to age's steepy night;\n  And all those beauties whereof now he's king\n  Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,\n  Stealing away the treasure of his spring;\n  For such a time do I now fortify\n  Against confounding age's cruel knife,\n  That he shall never cut from memory\n  My sweet love's beauty, though my lover's life:\n    His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,\n    And they shall live, and he in them still green.\n\n  LXIV\n\n  When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'd\n  The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age;\n  When sometime lofty towers I see down-raz'd,\n  And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;\n  When I have seen the hungry ocean gain\n  Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,\n  And the firm soil win of the watery main,\n  Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;\n  When I have seen such interchange of state,\n  Or state itself confounded, to decay;\n  Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate--\n  That Time will come and take my love away.\n    This thought is as a death which cannot choose\n    But weep to have, that which it fears to lose.\n\n  LXV\n\n  Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,\n  But sad mortality o'ersways their power,\n  How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,\n  Whose action is no stronger than a flower?\n  O! how shall summer's honey breath hold out,\n  Against the wrackful siege of battering days,\n  When rocks impregnable are not so stout,\n  Nor gates of steel so strong but Time decays?\n  O fearful meditation! where, alack,\n  Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?\n  Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?\n  Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?\n    O! none, unless this miracle have might,\n    That in black ink my love may still shine bright.\n\n  LXVI\n\n  Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,\n  As to behold desert a beggar born,\n  And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,\n  And purest faith unhappily forsworn,\n  And gilded honour shamefully misplac'd,\n  And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,\n  And right perfection wrongfully disgrac'd,\n  And strength by limping sway disabled\n  And art made tongue-tied by authority,\n  And folly--doctor-like--controlling skill,\n  And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,\n  And captive good attending captain ill:\n    Tir'd with all these, from these would I be gone,\n    Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.\n\n  LXVII\n\n  Ah! wherefore with infection should he live,\n  And with his presence grace impiety,\n  That sin by him advantage should achieve,\n  And lace itself with his society?\n  Why should false painting imitate his cheek,\n  And steel dead seeming of his living hue?\n  Why should poor beauty indirectly seek\n  Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?\n  Why should he live, now Nature bankrupt is,\n  Beggar'd of blood to blush through lively veins?\n  For she hath no exchequer now but his,\n  And proud of many, lives upon his gains.\n    O! him she stores, to show what wealth she had\n    In days long since, before these last so bad.\n\n  LXVIII\n\n  Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,\n  When beauty lived and died as flowers do now,\n  Before these bastard signs of fair were born,\n  Or durst inhabit on a living brow;\n  Before the golden tresses of the dead,\n  The right of sepulchres, were shorn away,\n  To live a second life on second head;\n  Ere beauty's dead fleece made another gay:\n  In him those holy antique hours are seen,\n  Without all ornament, itself and true,\n  Making no summer of another's green,\n  Robbing no old to dress his beauty new;\n    And him as for a map doth Nature store,\n    To show false Art what beauty was of yore.\n\n  LXIX\n\n  Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view\n  Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend;\n  All tongues--the voice of souls--give thee that due,\n  Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.\n  Thy outward thus with outward praise is crown'd;\n  But those same tongues, that give thee so thine own,\n  In other accents do this praise confound\n  By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.\n  They look into the beauty of thy mind,\n  And that in guess they measure by thy deeds;\n  Then--churls--their thoughts, although their eyes were kind,\n  To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds:\n    But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,\n    The soil is this, that thou dost common grow.\n\n  LXX\n\n  That thou art blam'd shall not be thy defect,\n  For slander's mark was ever yet the fair;\n  The ornament of beauty is suspect,\n  A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.\n  So thou be good, slander doth but approve\n  Thy worth the greater being woo'd of time;\n  For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,\n  And thou present'st a pure unstained prime.\n  Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days\n  Either not assail'd, or victor being charg'd;\n  Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,\n  To tie up envy, evermore enlarg'd,\n    If some suspect of ill mask'd not thy show,\n    Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.\n\n  LXXI\n\n  No longer mourn for me when I am dead\n  Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell\n  Give warning to the world that I am fled\n  From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell:\n  Nay, if you read this line, remember not\n  The hand that writ it, for I love you so,\n  That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,\n  If thinking on me then should make you woe.\n  O! if,--I say you look upon this verse,\n  When I perhaps compounded am with clay,\n  Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;\n  But let your love even with my life decay;\n    Lest the wise world should look into your moan,\n    And mock you with me after I am gone.\n\n  LXXII\n\n  O! lest the world should task you to recite\n  What merit lived in me, that you should love\n  After my death,--dear love, forget me quite,\n  For you in me can nothing worthy prove;\n  Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,\n  To do more for me than mine own desert,\n  And hang more praise upon deceased I\n  Than niggard truth would willingly impart:\n  O! lest your true love may seem false in this\n  That you for love speak well of me untrue,\n  My name be buried where my body is,\n  And live no more to shame nor me nor you.\n    For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,\n    And so should you, to love things nothing worth.\n\n  LXXIII\n\n  That time of year thou mayst in me behold\n  When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang\n  Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,\n  Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.\n  In me thou see'st the twilight of such day\n  As after sunset fadeth in the west;\n  Which by and by black night doth take away,\n  Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.\n  In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,\n  That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,\n  As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,\n  Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.\n    This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,\n    To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.\n\n  LXXIV\n\n  But be contented: when that fell arrest\n  Without all bail shall carry me away,\n  My life hath in this line some interest,\n  Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.\n  When thou reviewest this, thou dost review\n  The very part was consecrate to thee:\n  The earth can have but earth, which is his due;\n  My spirit is thine, the better part of me:\n  So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,\n  The prey of worms, my body being dead;\n  The coward conquest of a wretch's knife,\n  Too base of thee to be remembered.\n    The worth of that is that which it contains,\n    And that is this, and this with thee remains.\n\n  LXXV\n\n  So are you to my thoughts as food to life,\n  Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground;\n  And for the peace of you I hold such strife\n  As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found.\n  Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon\n  Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure;\n  Now counting best to be with you alone,\n  Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure:\n  Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,\n  And by and by clean starved for a look;\n  Possessing or pursuing no delight,\n  Save what is had, or must from you be took.\n    Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,\n    Or gluttoning on all, or all away.\n\n  LXXVI\n\n  Why is my verse so barren of new pride,\n  So far from variation or quick change?\n  Why with the time do I not glance aside\n  To new-found methods, and to compounds strange?\n  Why write I still all one, ever the same,\n  And keep invention in a noted weed,\n  That every word doth almost tell my name,\n  Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?\n  O! know sweet love I always write of you,\n  And you and love are still my argument;\n  So all my best is dressing old words new,\n  Spending again what is already spent:\n    For as the sun is daily new and old,\n    So is my love still telling what is told.\n\n  LXXVII\n\n  Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,\n  Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;\n  These vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,\n  And of this book, this learning mayst thou taste.\n  The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show\n  Of mouthed graves will give thee memory;\n  Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know\n  Time's thievish progress to eternity.\n  Look! what thy memory cannot contain,\n  Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find\n  Those children nursed, deliver'd from thy brain,\n  To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.\n    These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,\n    Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book.\n\n  LXXVIII\n\n  So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse,\n  And found such fair assistance in my verse\n  As every alien pen hath got my use\n  And under thee their poesy disperse.\n  Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing\n  And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,\n  Have added feathers to the learned's wing\n  And given grace a double majesty.\n  Yet be most proud of that which I compile,\n  Whose influence is thine, and born of thee:\n  In others' works thou dost but mend the style,\n  And arts with thy sweet graces graced be;\n    But thou art all my art, and dost advance\n    As high as learning, my rude ignorance.\n\n  LXXIX\n\n  Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,\n  My verse alone had all thy gentle grace;\n  But now my gracious numbers are decay'd,\n  And my sick Muse doth give an other place.\n  I grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument\n  Deserves the travail of a worthier pen;\n  Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent\n  He robs thee of, and pays it thee again.\n  He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word\n  From thy behaviour; beauty doth he give,\n  And found it in thy cheek: he can afford\n  No praise to thee, but what in thee doth live.\n    Then thank him not for that which he doth say,\n    Since what he owes thee, thou thyself dost pay.\n\n  LXXX\n\n  O! how I faint when I of you do write,\n  Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,\n  And in the praise thereof spends all his might,\n  To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame!\n  But since your worth--wide as the ocean is,--\n  The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,\n  My saucy bark, inferior far to his,\n  On your broad main doth wilfully appear.\n  Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,\n  Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride;\n  Or, being wrack'd, I am a worthless boat,\n  He of tall building, and of goodly pride:\n    Then if he thrive and I be cast away,\n    The worst was this,--my love was my decay.\n\n  LXXXI\n\n  Or I shall live your epitaph to make,\n  Or you survive when I in earth am rotten;\n  From hence your memory death cannot take,\n  Although in me each part will be forgotten.\n  Your name from hence immortal life shall have,\n  Though I, once gone, to all the world must die:\n  The earth can yield me but a common grave,\n  When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie.\n  Your monument shall be my gentle verse,\n  Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read;\n  And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse,\n  When all the breathers of this world are dead;\n    You still shall live,--such virtue hath my pen,--\n    Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.\n\n  LXXXII\n\n  I grant thou wert not married to my Muse,\n  And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook\n  The dedicated words which writers use\n  Of their fair subject, blessing every book.\n  Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,\n  Finding thy worth a limit past my praise;\n  And therefore art enforced to seek anew\n  Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days.\n  And do so, love; yet when they have devis'd,\n  What strained touches rhetoric can lend,\n  Thou truly fair, wert truly sympathiz'd\n  In true plain words, by thy true-telling friend;\n    And their gross painting might be better us'd\n    Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is abus'd.\n\n  LXXXIII\n\n  I never saw that you did painting need,\n  And therefore to your fair no painting set;\n  I found, or thought I found, you did exceed\n  That barren tender of a poet's debt:\n  And therefore have I slept in your report,\n  That you yourself, being extant, well might show\n  How far a modern quill doth come too short,\n  Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow.\n  This silence for my sin you did impute,\n  Which shall be most my glory being dumb;\n  For I impair not beauty being mute,\n  When others would give life, and bring a tomb.\n    There lives more life in one of your fair eyes\n    Than both your poets can in praise devise.\n\n  LXXXIV\n\n  Who is it that says most, which can say more,\n  Than this rich praise,--that you alone, are you?\n  In whose confine immured is the store\n  Which should example where your equal grew.\n  Lean penury within that pen doth dwell\n  That to his subject lends not some small glory;\n  But he that writes of you, if he can tell\n  That you are you, so dignifies his story,\n  Let him but copy what in you is writ,\n  Not making worse what nature made so clear,\n  And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,\n  Making his style admired every where.\n    You to your beauteous blessings add a curse,\n    Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.\n\n  LXXXV\n\n  My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still,\n  While comments of your praise richly compil'd,\n  Reserve their character with golden quill,\n  And precious phrase by all the Muses fil'd.\n  I think good thoughts, whilst others write good words,\n  And like unlettered clerk still cry 'Amen'\n  To every hymn that able spirit affords,\n  In polish'd form of well-refined pen.\n  Hearing you praised, I say ''tis so, 'tis true,'\n  And to the most of praise add something more;\n  But that is in my thought, whose love to you,\n  Though words come hindmost, holds his rank before.\n    Then others, for the breath of words respect,\n    Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.\n\n  LXXXVI\n\n  Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,\n  Bound for the prize of all too precious you,\n  That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,\n  Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?\n  Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write,\n  Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?\n  No, neither he, nor his compeers by night\n  Giving him aid, my verse astonished.\n  He, nor that affable familiar ghost\n  Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,\n  As victors of my silence cannot boast;\n  I was not sick of any fear from thence:\n    But when your countenance fill'd up his line,\n    Then lacked I matter; that enfeebled mine.\n\n  LXXXVII\n\n  Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,\n  And like enough thou know'st thy estimate,\n  The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;\n  My bonds in thee are all determinate.\n  For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?\n  And for that riches where is my deserving?\n  The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,\n  And so my patent back again is swerving.\n  Thy self thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing,\n  Or me to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking;\n  So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,\n  Comes home again, on better judgement making.\n    Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter,\n    In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.\n\n  LXXXVIII\n\n  When thou shalt be dispos'd to set me light,\n  And place my merit in the eye of scorn,\n  Upon thy side, against myself I'll fight,\n  And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn.\n  With mine own weakness, being best acquainted,\n  Upon thy part I can set down a story\n  Of faults conceal'd, wherein I am attainted;\n  That thou in losing me shalt win much glory:\n  And I by this will be a gainer too;\n  For bending all my loving thoughts on thee,\n  The injuries that to myself I do,\n  Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me.\n    Such is my love, to thee I so belong,\n    That for thy right, myself will bear all wrong.\n\n  LXXXIX\n\n  Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault,\n  And I will comment upon that offence:\n  Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt,\n  Against thy reasons making no defence.\n  Thou canst not love disgrace me half so ill,\n  To set a form upon desired change,\n  As I'll myself disgrace; knowing thy will,\n  I will acquaintance strangle, and look strange;\n  Be absent from thy walks; and in my tongue\n  Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell,\n  Lest I, too much profane, should do it wrong,\n  And haply of our old acquaintance tell.\n    For thee, against my self I'll vow debate,\n    For I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate.\n\n  XC\n\n  Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now;\n  Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross,\n  Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,\n  And do not drop in for an after-loss:\n  Ah! do not, when my heart hath 'scap'd this sorrow,\n  Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe;\n  Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,\n  To linger out a purpos'd overthrow.\n  If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,\n  When other petty griefs have done their spite,\n  But in the onset come: so shall I taste\n  At first the very worst of fortune's might;\n    And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,\n    Compar'd with loss of thee, will not seem so.\n\n  XCI\n\n  Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,\n  Some in their wealth, some in their body's force,\n  Some in their garments though new-fangled ill;\n  Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse;\n  And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure,\n  Wherein it finds a joy above the rest:\n  But these particulars are not my measure,\n  All these I better in one general best.\n  Thy love is better than high birth to me,\n  Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' costs,\n  Of more delight than hawks and horses be;\n  And having thee, of all men's pride I boast:\n    Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take\n    All this away, and me most wretchcd make.\n\n  XCII\n\n  But do thy worst to steal thyself away,\n  For term of life thou art assured mine;\n  And life no longer than thy love will stay,\n  For it depends upon that love of thine.\n  Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs,\n  When in the least of them my life hath end.\n  I see a better state to me belongs\n  Than that which on thy humour doth depend:\n  Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind,\n  Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie.\n  O! what a happy title do I find,\n  Happy to have thy love, happy to die!\n    But what's so blessed-fair that fears no blot?\n    Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not.\n\n  XCIII\n\n  So shall I live, supposing thou art true,\n  Like a deceived husband; so love's face\n  May still seem love to me, though alter'd new;\n  Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place:\n  For there can live no hatred in thine eye,\n  Therefore in that I cannot know thy change.\n  In many's looks, the false heart's history\n  Is writ in moods, and frowns, and wrinkles strange.\n  But heaven in thy creation did decree\n  That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell;\n  Whate'er thy thoughts, or thy heart's workings be,\n  Thy looks should nothing thence, but sweetness tell.\n    How like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow,\n    If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show!\n\n  XCIV\n\n  They that have power to hurt, and will do none,\n  That do not do the thing they most do show,\n  Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,\n  Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow;\n  They rightly do inherit heaven's graces,\n  And husband nature's riches from expense;\n  They are the lords and owners of their faces,\n  Others, but stewards of their excellence.\n  The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,\n  Though to itself, it only live and die,\n  But if that flower with base infection meet,\n  The basest weed outbraves his dignity:\n    For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;\n    Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.\n\n  XCV\n\n  How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame\n  Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose,\n  Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!\n  O! in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose.\n  That tongue that tells the story of thy days,\n  Making lascivious comments on thy sport,\n  Cannot dispraise, but in a kind of praise;\n  Naming thy name, blesses an ill report.\n  O! what a mansion have those vices got\n  Which for their habitation chose out thee,\n  Where beauty's veil doth cover every blot\n  And all things turns to fair that eyes can see!\n    Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege;\n    The hardest knife ill-us'd doth lose his edge.\n\n  XCVI\n\n  Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness;\n  Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport;\n  Both grace and faults are lov'd of more and less:\n  Thou mak'st faults graces that to thee resort.\n  As on the finger of a throned queen\n  The basest jewel will be well esteem'd,\n  So are those errors that in thee are seen\n  To truths translated, and for true things deem'd.\n  How many lambs might the stern wolf betray,\n  If like a lamb he could his looks translate!\n  How many gazers mightst thou lead away,\n  if thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state!\n    But do not so; I love thee in such sort,\n    As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report.\n\n  XCVII\n\n  How like a winter hath my absence been\n  From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!\n  What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!\n  What old December's bareness everywhere!\n  And yet this time removed was summer's time;\n  The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,\n  Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,\n  Like widow'd wombs after their lords' decease:\n  Yet this abundant issue seem'd to me\n  But hope of orphans, and unfather'd fruit;\n  For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,\n  And, thou away, the very birds are mute:\n    Or, if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer,\n    That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.\n\n  XCVIII\n\n  From you have I been absent in the spring,\n  When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim,\n  Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,\n  That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him.\n  Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell\n  Of different flowers in odour and in hue,\n  Could make me any summer's story tell,\n  Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:\n  Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,\n  Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;\n  They were but sweet, but figures of delight,\n  Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.\n    Yet seem'd it winter still, and you away,\n    As with your shadow I with these did play.\n\n  XCIX\n\n  The forward violet thus did I chide:\n  Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,\n  If not from my love's breath? The purple pride\n  Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells\n  In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dy'd.\n  The lily I condemned for thy hand,\n  And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair;\n  The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,\n  One blushing shame, another white despair;\n  A third, nor red nor white, had stol'n of both,\n  And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath;\n  But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth\n  A vengeful canker eat him up to death.\n    More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,\n    But sweet, or colour it had stol'n from thee.\n\n  C\n\n  Where art thou Muse that thou forget'st so long,\n  To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?\n  Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,\n  Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?\n  Return forgetful Muse, and straight redeem,\n  In gentle numbers time so idly spent;\n  Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem\n  And gives thy pen both skill and argument.\n  Rise, resty Muse, my love's sweet face survey,\n  If Time have any wrinkle graven there;\n  If any, be a satire to decay,\n  And make time's spoils despised every where.\n    Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life,\n    So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife.\n\n  CI\n\n  O truant Muse what shall be thy amends\n  For thy neglect of truth in beauty dy'd?\n  Both truth and beauty on my love depends;\n  So dost thou too, and therein dignified.\n  Make answer Muse: wilt thou not haply say,\n  'Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix'd;\n  Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay;\n  But best is best, if never intermix'd'?\n  Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?\n  Excuse not silence so, for't lies in thee\n  To make him much outlive a gilded tomb\n  And to be prais'd of ages yet to be.\n    Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how\n    To make him seem long hence as he shows now.\n\n  CII\n\n  My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming;\n  I love not less, though less the show appear;\n  That love is merchandiz'd, whose rich esteeming,\n  The owner's tongue doth publish every where.\n  Our love was new, and then but in the spring,\n  When I was wont to greet it with my lays;\n  As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,\n  And stops her pipe in growth of riper days:\n  Not that the summer is less pleasant now\n  Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,\n  But that wild music burthens every bough,\n  And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.\n    Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue:\n    Because I would not dull you with my song.\n\n  CIII\n\n  Alack! what poverty my Muse brings forth,\n  That having such a scope to show her pride,\n  The argument, all bare, is of more worth\n  Than when it hath my added praise beside!\n  O! blame me not, if I no more can write!\n  Look in your glass, and there appears a face\n  That over-goes my blunt invention quite,\n  Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.\n  Were it not sinful then, striving to mend,\n  To mar the subject that before was well?\n  For to no other pass my verses tend\n  Than of your graces and your gifts to tell;\n    And more, much more, than in my verse can sit,\n    Your own glass shows you when you look in it.\n\n  CIV\n\n  To me, fair friend, you never can be old,\n  For as you were when first your eye I ey'd,\n  Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold,\n  Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,\n  Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd,\n  In process of the seasons have I seen,\n  Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd,\n  Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.\n  Ah! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand,\n  Steal from his figure, and no pace perceiv'd;\n  So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,\n  Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv'd:\n    For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred:\n    Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.\n\n  CV\n\n  Let not my love be call'd idolatry,\n  Nor my beloved as an idol show,\n  Since all alike my songs and praises be\n  To one, of one, still such, and ever so.\n  Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,\n  Still constant in a wondrous excellence;\n  Therefore my verse to constancy confin'd,\n  One thing expressing, leaves out difference.\n  'Fair, kind, and true,' is all my argument,\n  'Fair, kind, and true,' varying to other words;\n  And in this change is my invention spent,\n  Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.\n    Fair, kind, and true, have often liv'd alone,\n    Which three till now, never kept seat in one.\n\n  CVI\n\n  When in the chronicle of wasted time\n  I see descriptions of the fairest wights,\n  And beauty making beautiful old rime,\n  In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,\n  Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,\n  Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,\n  I see their antique pen would have express'd\n  Even such a beauty as you master now.\n  So all their praises are but prophecies\n  Of this our time, all you prefiguring;\n  And for they looked but with divining eyes,\n  They had not skill enough your worth to sing:\n    For we, which now behold these present days,\n    Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.\n\n  CVII\n\n  Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul\n  Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,\n  Can yet the lease of my true love control,\n  Supposed as forfeit to a confin'd doom.\n  The mortal moon hath her eclipse endur'd,\n  And the sad augurs mock their own presage;\n  Incertainties now crown themselves assur'd,\n  And peace proclaims olives of endless age.\n  Now with the drops of this most balmy time,\n  My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes,\n  Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rime,\n  While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes:\n    And thou in this shalt find thy monument,\n    When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.\n\n  CVIII\n\n  What's in the brain, that ink may character,\n  Which hath not figur'd to thee my true spirit?\n  What's new to speak, what now to register,\n  That may express my love, or thy dear merit?\n  Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine,\n  I must each day say o'er the very same;\n  Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,\n  Even as when first I hallow'd thy fair name.\n  So that eternal love in love's fresh case,\n  Weighs not the dust and injury of age,\n  Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,\n  But makes antiquity for aye his page;\n    Finding the first conceit of love there bred,\n    Where time and outward form would show it dead.\n\n  CIX\n\n  O! never say that I was false of heart,\n  Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify,\n  As easy might I from my self depart\n  As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie:\n  That is my home of love: if I have rang'd,\n  Like him that travels, I return again;\n  Just to the time, not with the time exchang'd,\n  So that myself bring water for my stain.\n  Never believe though in my nature reign'd,\n  All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,\n  That it could so preposterously be stain'd,\n  To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;\n    For nothing this wide universe I call,\n    Save thou, my rose, in it thou art my all.\n\n  CX\n\n  Alas! 'tis true, I have gone here and there,\n  And made my self a motley to the view,\n  Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,\n  Made old offences of affections new;\n  Most true it is, that I have look'd on truth\n  Askance and strangely; but, by all above,\n  These blenches gave my heart another youth,\n  And worse essays prov'd thee my best of love.\n  Now all is done, save what shall have no end:\n  Mine appetite I never more will grind\n  On newer proof, to try an older friend,\n  A god in love, to whom I am confin'd.\n    Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,\n    Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.\n\n  CXI\n\n  O! for my sake do you with Fortune chide,\n  The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,\n  That did not better for my life provide\n  Than public means which public manners breeds.\n  Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,\n  And almost thence my nature is subdu'd\n  To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:\n  Pity me, then, and wish I were renew'd;\n  Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink,\n  Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection;\n  No bitterness that I will bitter think,\n  Nor double penance, to correct correction.\n    Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye,\n    Even that your pity is enough to cure me.\n\n  CXII\n\n  Your love and pity doth the impression fill,\n  Which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow;\n  For what care I who calls me well or ill,\n  So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow?\n  You are my all-the-world, and I must strive\n  To know my shames and praises from your tongue;\n  None else to me, nor I to none alive,\n  That my steel'd sense or changes right or wrong.\n  In so profound abysm I throw all care\n  Of others' voices, that my adder's sense\n  To critic and to flatterer stopped are.\n  Mark how with my neglect I do dispense:\n    You are so strongly in my purpose bred,\n    That all the world besides methinks are dead.\n\n  CXIII\n\n  Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind;\n  And that which governs me to go about\n  Doth part his function and is partly blind,\n  Seems seeing, but effectually is out;\n  For it no form delivers to the heart\n  Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch:\n  Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,\n  Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch;\n  For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight,\n  The most sweet favour or deformed'st creature,\n  The mountain or the sea, the day or night:\n  The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.\n    Incapable of more, replete with you,\n    My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.\n\n  CXIV\n\n  Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you,\n  Drink up the monarch's plague, this flattery?\n  Or whether shall I say, mine eye saith true,\n  And that your love taught it this alchemy,\n  To make of monsters and things indigest\n  Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,\n  Creating every bad a perfect best,\n  As fast as objects to his beams assemble?\n  O! 'tis the first, 'tis flattery in my seeing,\n  And my great mind most kingly drinks it up:\n  Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing,\n  And to his palate doth prepare the cup:\n    If it be poison'd, 'tis the lesser sin\n    That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.\n\n  CXV\n\n  Those lines that I before have writ do lie,\n  Even those that said I could not love you dearer:\n  Yet then my judgment knew no reason why\n  My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer.\n  But reckoning Time, whose million'd accidents\n  Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,\n  Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents,\n  Divert strong minds to the course of altering things;\n  Alas! why fearing of Time's tyranny,\n  Might I not then say, 'Now I love you best,'\n  When I was certain o'er incertainty,\n  Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?\n    Love is a babe, then might I not say so,\n    To give full growth to that which still doth grow?\n\n  CXVI\n\n  Let me not to the marriage of true minds\n  Admit impediments. Love is not love\n  Which alters when it alteration finds,\n  Or bends with the remover to remove:\n  O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,\n  That looks on tempests and is never shaken;\n  It is the star to every wandering bark,\n  Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.\n  Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks\n  Within his bending sickle's compass come;\n  Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,\n  But bears it out even to the edge of doom.\n    If this be error and upon me prov'd,\n    I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.\n\n  CXVII\n\n  Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all,\n  Wherein I should your great deserts repay,\n  Forgot upon your dearest love to call,\n  Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day;\n  That I have frequent been with unknown minds,\n  And given to time your own dear-purchas'd right;\n  That I have hoisted sail to all the winds\n  Which should transport me farthest from your sight.\n  Book both my wilfulness and errors down,\n  And on just proof surmise, accumulate;\n  Bring me within the level of your frown,\n  But shoot not at me in your waken'd hate;\n    Since my appeal says I did strive to prove\n    The constancy and virtue of your love.\n\n  CXVIII\n\n  Like as, to make our appetite more keen,\n  With eager compounds we our palate urge;\n  As, to prevent our maladies unseen,\n  We sicken to shun sickness when we purge;\n  Even so, being full of your ne'er-cloying sweetness,\n  To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding;\n  And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness\n  To be diseas'd, ere that there was true needing.\n  Thus policy in love, to anticipate\n  The ills that were not, grew to faults assur'd,\n  And brought to medicine a healthful state\n  Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cur'd;\n    But thence I learn and find the lesson true,\n    Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you.\n\n  CXIX\n\n  What potions have I drunk of Siren tears,\n  Distill'd from limbecks foul as hell within,\n  Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,\n  Still losing when I saw myself to win!\n  What wretched errors hath my heart committed,\n  Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never!\n  How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted,\n  In the distraction of this madding fever!\n  O benefit of ill! now I find true\n  That better is, by evil still made better;\n  And ruin'd love, when it is built anew,\n  Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.\n    So I return rebuk'd to my content,\n    And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent.\n\n  CXX\n\n  That you were once unkind befriends me now,\n  And for that sorrow, which I then did feel,\n  Needs must I under my transgression bow,\n  Unless my nerves were brass or hammer'd steel.\n  For if you were by my unkindness shaken,\n  As I by yours, you've pass'd a hell of time;\n  And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken\n  To weigh how once I suffer'd in your crime.\n  O! that our night of woe might have remember'd\n  My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,\n  And soon to you, as you to me, then tender'd\n  The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits!\n    But that your trespass now becomes a fee;\n    Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.\n\n  CXXI\n\n  'Tis better to be vile than vile esteem'd,\n  When not to be receives reproach of being;\n  And the just pleasure lost, which is so deem'd\n  Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing:\n  For why should others' false adulterate eyes\n  Give salutation to my sportive blood?\n  Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,\n  Which in their wills count bad what I think good?\n  No, I am that I am, and they that level\n  At my abuses reckon up their own:\n  I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;\n  By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown;\n    Unless this general evil they maintain,\n    All men are bad and in their badness reign.\n\n  CXXII\n\n  Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain\n  Full character'd with lasting memory,\n  Which shall above that idle rank remain,\n  Beyond all date; even to eternity:\n  Or, at the least, so long as brain and heart\n  Have faculty by nature to subsist;\n  Till each to raz'd oblivion yield his part\n  Of thee, thy record never can be miss'd.\n  That poor retention could not so much hold,\n  Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score;\n  Therefore to give them from me was I bold,\n  To trust those tables that receive thee more:\n    To keep an adjunct to remember thee\n    Were to import forgetfulness in me.\n\n  CXXIII\n\n  No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change:\n  Thy pyramids built up with newer might\n  To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;\n  They are but dressings of a former sight.\n  Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire\n  What thou dost foist upon us that is old;\n  And rather make them born to our desire\n  Than think that we before have heard them told.\n  Thy registers and thee I both defy,\n  Not wondering at the present nor the past,\n  For thy records and what we see doth lie,\n  Made more or less by thy continual haste.\n    This I do vow and this shall ever be;\n    I will be true despite thy scythe and thee.\n\n  CXXIV\n\n  If my dear love were but the child of state,\n  It might for Fortune's bastard be unfather'd,\n  As subject to Time's love or to Time's hate,\n  Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gather'd.\n  No, it was builded far from accident;\n  It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls\n  Under the blow of thralled discontent,\n  Whereto th' inviting time our fashion calls:\n  It fears not policy, that heretic,\n  Which works on leases of short-number'd hours,\n  But all alone stands hugely politic,\n  That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.\n    To this I witness call the fools of time,\n    Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.\n\n  CXXV\n\n  Were't aught to me I bore the canopy,\n  With my extern the outward honouring,\n  Or laid great bases for eternity,\n  Which proves more short than waste or ruining?\n  Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour\n  Lose all and more by paying too much rent\n  For compound sweet; forgoing simple savour,\n  Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent?\n  No; let me be obsequious in thy heart,\n  And take thou my oblation, poor but free,\n  Which is not mix'd with seconds, knows no art,\n  But mutual render, only me for thee.\n    Hence, thou suborned informer! a true soul\n    When most impeach'd, stands least in thy control.\n\n  CXXVI\n\n  O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power\n  Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his fickle hour;\n  Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st\n  Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st.\n  If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,\n  As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back,\n  She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill\n  May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill.\n  Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure!\n  She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure:\n    Her audit (though delayed) answered must be,\n    And her quietus is to render thee.\n\n  CXXVII\n\n  In the old age black was not counted fair,\n  Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name;\n  But now is black beauty's successive heir,\n  And beauty slander'd with a bastard shame:\n  For since each hand hath put on Nature's power,\n  Fairing the foul with Art's false borrowed face,\n  Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,\n  But is profan'd, if not lives in disgrace.\n  Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black,\n  Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem\n  At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack,\n  Sland'ring creation with a false esteem:\n    Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe,\n    That every tongue says beauty should look so.\n\n  CXXVIII\n\n  How oft when thou, my music, music play'st,\n  Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds\n  With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway'st\n  The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,\n  Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap,\n  To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,\n  Whilst my poor lips which should that harvest reap,\n  At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand!\n  To be so tickled, they would change their state\n  And situation with those dancing chips,\n  O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,\n  Making dead wood more bless'd than living lips.\n    Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,\n    Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.\n\n  CXXIX\n\n  The expense of spirit in a waste of shame\n  Is lust in action: and till action, lust\n  Is perjur'd, murderous, bloody, full of blame,\n  Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;\n  Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight;\n  Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,\n  Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait,\n  On purpose laid to make the taker mad:\n  Mad in pursuit and in possession so;\n  Had, having, and in quest, to have extreme;\n  A bliss in proof,-- and prov'd, a very woe;\n  Before, a joy propos'd; behind a dream.\n    All this the world well knows; yet none knows well\n    To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.\n\n  CXXX\n\n  My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;\n  Coral is far more red, than her lips red:\n  If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;\n  If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.\n  I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,\n  But no such roses see I in her cheeks;\n  And in some perfumes is there more delight\n  Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.\n  I love to hear her speak, yet well I know\n  That music hath a far more pleasing sound:\n  I grant I never saw a goddess go,--\n  My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:\n    And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,\n    As any she belied with false compare.\n\n  CXXXI\n\n  Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,\n  As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;\n  For well thou know'st to my dear doting heart\n  Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.\n  Yet, in good faith, some say that thee behold,\n  Thy face hath not the power to make love groan;\n  To say they err I dare not be so bold,\n  Although I swear it to myself alone.\n  And to be sure that is not false I swear,\n  A thousand groans, but thinking on thy face,\n  One on another's neck, do witness bear\n  Thy black is fairest in my judgment's place.\n    In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,\n    And thence this slander, as I think, proceeds.\n\n  CXXXII\n\n  Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,\n  Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain,\n  Have put on black and loving mourners be,\n  Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.\n  And truly not the morning sun of heaven\n  Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,\n  Nor that full star that ushers in the even,\n  Doth half that glory to the sober west,\n  As those two mourning eyes become thy face:\n  O! let it then as well beseem thy heart\n  To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace,\n  And suit thy pity like in every part.\n    Then will I swear beauty herself is black,\n    And all they foul that thy complexion lack.\n\n  CXXXIII\n\n  Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan\n  For that deep wound it gives my friend and me!\n  Is't not enough to torture me alone,\n  But slave to slavery my sweet'st friend must be?\n  Me from myself thy cruel eye hath taken,\n  And my next self thou harder hast engross'd:\n  Of him, myself, and thee I am forsaken;\n  A torment thrice three-fold thus to be cross'd:\n  Prison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward,\n  But then my friend's heart let my poor heart bail;\n  Whoe'er keeps me, let my heart be his guard;\n  Thou canst not then use rigour in my jail:\n    And yet thou wilt; for I, being pent in thee,\n    Perforce am thine, and all that is in me.\n\n  CXXXIV\n\n  So, now I have confess'd that he is thine,\n  And I my self am mortgag'd to thy will,\n  Myself I'll forfeit, so that other mine\n  Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still:\n  But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,\n  For thou art covetous, and he is kind;\n  He learn'd but surety-like to write for me,\n  Under that bond that him as fast doth bind.\n  The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,\n  Thou usurer, that putt'st forth all to use,\n  And sue a friend came debtor for my sake;\n  So him I lose through my unkind abuse.\n    Him have I lost; thou hast both him and me:\n    He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.\n\n  CXXXV\n\n  Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy 'Will,'\n  And 'Will' to boot, and 'Will' in over-plus;\n  More than enough am I that vex'd thee still,\n  To thy sweet will making addition thus.\n  Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious,\n  Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?\n  Shall will in others seem right gracious,\n  And in my will no fair acceptance shine?\n  The sea, all water, yet receives rain still,\n  And in abundance addeth to his store;\n  So thou, being rich in 'Will,' add to thy 'Will'\n  One will of mine, to make thy large will more.\n    Let no unkind 'No' fair beseechers kill;\n    Think all but one, and me in that one 'Will.'\n\n  CXXXVI\n\n  If thy soul check thee that I come so near,\n  Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy 'Will',\n  And will, thy soul knows, is admitted there;\n  Thus far for love, my love-suit, sweet, fulfil.\n  'Will', will fulfil the treasure of thy love,\n  Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one.\n  In things of great receipt with ease we prove\n  Among a number one is reckon'd none:\n  Then in the number let me pass untold,\n  Though in thy store's account I one must be;\n  For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold\n  That nothing me, a something sweet to thee:\n    Make but my name thy love, and love that still,\n    And then thou lov'st me for my name is 'Will.'\n\n  CXXXVII\n\n  Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,\n  That they behold, and see not what they see?\n  They know what beauty is, see where it lies,\n  Yet what the best is take the worst to be.\n  If eyes, corrupt by over-partial looks,\n  Be anchor'd in the bay where all men ride,\n  Why of eyes' falsehood hast thou forged hooks,\n  Whereto the judgment of my heart is tied?\n  Why should my heart think that a several plot,\n  Which my heart knows the wide world's common place?\n  Or mine eyes, seeing this, say this is not,\n  To put fair truth upon so foul a face?\n    In things right true my heart and eyes have err'd,\n    And to this false plague are they now transferr'd.\n\n  CXXXVIII\n\n  When my love swears that she is made of truth,\n  I do believe her though I know she lies,\n  That she might think me some untutor'd youth,\n  Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.\n  Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,\n  Although she knows my days are past the best,\n  Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue:\n  On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed:\n  But wherefore says she not she is unjust?\n  And wherefore say not I that I am old?\n  O! love's best habit is in seeming trust,\n  And age in love, loves not to have years told:\n    Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,\n    And in our faults by lies we flatter'd be.\n\n  CXXXIX\n\n  O! call not me to justify the wrong\n  That thy unkindness lays upon my heart;\n  Wound me not with thine eye, but with thy tongue:\n  Use power with power, and slay me not by art,\n  Tell me thou lov'st elsewhere; but in my sight,\n  Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside:\n  What need'st thou wound with cunning, when thy might\n  Is more than my o'erpress'd defence can bide?\n  Let me excuse thee: ah! my love well knows\n  Her pretty looks have been mine enemies;\n  And therefore from my face she turns my foes,\n  That they elsewhere might dart their injuries:\n    Yet do not so; but since I am near slain,\n    Kill me outright with looks, and rid my pain.\n\n\n  CXL\n\n  Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press\n  My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;\n  Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express\n  The manner of my pity-wanting pain.\n  If I might teach thee wit, better it were,\n  Though not to love, yet, love to tell me so;--\n  As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,\n  No news but health from their physicians know;--\n  For, if I should despair, I should grow mad,\n  And in my madness might speak ill of thee;\n  Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,\n  Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.\n    That I may not be so, nor thou belied,\n    Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.\n\n  CXLI\n\n  In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes,\n  For they in thee a thousand errors note;\n  But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,\n  Who, in despite of view, is pleased to dote.\n  Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted;\n  Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone,\n  Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited\n  To any sensual feast with thee alone:\n  But my five wits nor my five senses can\n  Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,\n  Who leaves unsway'd the likeness of a man,\n  Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be:\n    Only my plague thus far I count my gain,\n    That she that makes me sin awards me pain.\n\n  CXLII\n\n  Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,\n  Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving:\n  O! but with mine compare thou thine own state,\n  And thou shalt find it merits not reproving;\n  Or, if it do, not from those lips of thine,\n  That have profan'd their scarlet ornaments\n  And seal'd false bonds of love as oft as mine,\n  Robb'd others' beds' revenues of their rents.\n  Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lov'st those\n  Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee:\n  Root pity in thy heart, that, when it grows,\n  Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.\n    If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,\n    By self-example mayst thou be denied!\n\n  CXLIII\n\n  Lo, as a careful housewife runs to catch\n  One of her feather'd creatures broke away,\n  Sets down her babe, and makes all swift dispatch\n  In pursuit of the thing she would have stay;\n  Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,\n  Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent\n  To follow that which flies before her face,\n  Not prizing her poor infant's discontent;\n  So runn'st thou after that which flies from thee,\n  Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind;\n  But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me,\n  And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind;\n    So will I pray that thou mayst have thy 'Will,'\n    If thou turn back and my loud crying still.\n\n  CXLIV\n\n  Two loves I have of comfort and despair,\n  Which like two spirits do suggest me still:\n  The better angel is a man right fair,\n  The worser spirit a woman colour'd ill.\n  To win me soon to hell, my female evil,\n  Tempteth my better angel from my side,\n  And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,\n  Wooing his purity with her foul pride.\n  And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend,\n  Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;\n  But being both from me, both to each friend,\n  I guess one angel in another's hell:\n    Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt,\n    Till my bad angel fire my good one out.\n\n  CXLV\n\n  Those lips that Love's own hand did make,\n  Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate',\n  To me that languish'd for her sake:\n  But when she saw my woeful state,\n  Straight in her heart did mercy come,\n  Chiding that tongue that ever sweet\n  Was us'd in giving gentle doom;\n  And taught it thus anew to greet;\n  'I hate' she alter'd with an end,\n  That followed it as gentle day,\n  Doth follow night, who like a fiend\n  From heaven to hell is flown away.\n    'I hate', from hate away she threw,\n    And sav'd my life, saying 'not you'.\n\n  CXLVI\n\n  Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,\n  My sinful earth these rebel powers array,\n  Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,\n  Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?\n  Why so large cost, having so short a lease,\n  Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?\n  Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,\n  Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end?\n  Then soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,\n  And let that pine to aggravate thy store;\n  Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;\n  Within be fed, without be rich no more:\n    So shall thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,\n    And Death once dead, there's no more dying then.\n\n  CXLVII\n\n  My love is as a fever longing still,\n  For that which longer nurseth the disease;\n  Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,\n  The uncertain sickly appetite to please.\n  My reason, the physician to my love,\n  Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,\n  Hath left me, and I desperate now approve\n  Desire is death, which physic did except.\n  Past cure I am, now Reason is past care,\n  And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;\n  My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,\n  At random from the truth vainly express'd;\n    For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,\n    Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.\n\n  CXLVIII\n\n  O me! what eyes hath Love put in my head,\n  Which have no correspondence with true sight;\n  Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled,\n  That censures falsely what they see aright?\n  If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,\n  What means the world to say it is not so?\n  If it be not, then love doth well denote\n  Love's eye is not so true as all men's: no,\n  How can it? O! how can Love's eye be true,\n  That is so vexed with watching and with tears?\n  No marvel then, though I mistake my view;\n  The sun itself sees not, till heaven clears.\n    O cunning Love! with tears thou keep'st me blind,\n    Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.\n\n  CXLIX\n\n  Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not,\n  When I against myself with thee partake?\n  Do I not think on thee, when I forgot\n  Am of my self, all tyrant, for thy sake?\n  Who hateth thee that I do call my friend,\n  On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon,\n  Nay, if thou lour'st on me, do I not spend\n  Revenge upon myself with present moan?\n  What merit do I in my self respect,\n  That is so proud thy service to despise,\n  When all my best doth worship thy defect,\n  Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?\n    But, love, hate on, for now I know thy mind;\n    Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind.\n\n  CL\n\n  O! from what power hast thou this powerful might,\n  With insufficiency my heart to sway?\n  To make me give the lie to my true sight,\n  And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?\n  Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,\n  That in the very refuse of thy deeds\n  There is such strength and warrantise of skill,\n  That, in my mind, thy worst all best exceeds?\n  Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,\n  The more I hear and see just cause of hate?\n  O! though I love what others do abhor,\n  With others thou shouldst not abhor my state:\n    If thy unworthiness rais'd love in me,\n    More worthy I to be belov'd of thee.\n\n  CLI\n\n  Love is too young to know what conscience is,\n  Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?\n  Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,\n  Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove:\n  For, thou betraying me, I do betray\n  My nobler part to my gross body's treason;\n  My soul doth tell my body that he may\n  Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason,\n  But rising at thy name doth point out thee,\n  As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride,\n  He is contented thy poor drudge to be,\n  To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.\n    No want of conscience hold it that I call\n    Her 'love,' for whose dear love I rise and fall.\n\n  CLII\n\n  In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn,\n  But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing;\n  In act thy bed-vow broke, and new faith torn,\n  In vowing new hate after new love bearing:\n  But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee,\n  When I break twenty? I am perjur'd most;\n  For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee,\n  And all my honest faith in thee is lost:\n  For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness,\n  Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy;\n  And, to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness,\n  Or made them swear against the thing they see;\n    For I have sworn thee fair; more perjur'd I,\n    To swear against the truth so foul a lie!\n\n  CLIII\n\n  Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep:\n  A maid of Dian's this advantage found,\n  And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep\n  In a cold valley-fountain of that ground;\n  Which borrow'd from this holy fire of Love,\n  A dateless lively heat, still to endure,\n  And grew a seeting bath, which yet men prove\n  Against strange maladies a sovereign cure.\n  But at my mistress' eye Love's brand new-fired,\n  The boy for trial needs would touch my breast;\n  I, sick withal, the help of bath desired,\n  And thither hied, a sad distemper'd guest,\n    But found no cure, the bath for my help lies\n    Where Cupid got new fire; my mistress' eyes.\n\n  CLIV\n\n  The little Love-god lying once asleep,\n  Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,\n  Whilst many nymphs that vow'd chaste life to keep\n  Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand\n  The fairest votary took up that fire\n  Which many legions of true hearts had warm'd;\n  And so the general of hot desire\n  Was, sleeping, by a virgin hand disarm'd.\n  This brand she quenched in a cool well by,\n  Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual,\n  Growing a bath and healthful remedy,\n  For men diseas'd; but I, my mistress' thrall,\n    Came there for cure and this by that I prove,\n    Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"1045":"\n\n\n\n\nVENUS AND ADONIS\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n     'Villa miretur vulgus; mihi flavus Apollo\n     Pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua.'\n\nTO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLEY,\n\nEARL OF SOUHAMPTON, AND BARON OF TICHFIELD.\n\nRIGHT HONOURABLE,\n\nI know not how I shall offend in dedicating my unpolished lines to your\nlordship, nor how the world will censure me for choosing so strong a\nprop to support so weak a burthen: only, if your honour seem but\npleased, I account myself highly praised, and vow to take advantage of\nall idle hours, till I have honoured you with some graver labour. But if\nthe first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had\nso noble a godfather, and never after ear so barren a land, for fear it\nyield me still so bad a harvest. I leave it to your honourable survey,\nand your honour to your heart's content; which I wish may always answer\nyour own wish and the world's hopeful expectation.\n\nYour honour's in all duty,\n\nWILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.\n\n\n\n\n\nVENUS AND ADONIS\n\n\n     EVEN as the sun with purple-colour'd face\n     Had ta'en his last leave of the weeping morn,\n     Rose-cheek'd Adonis tried him to the chase;\n     Hunting he lov'd, but love he laugh'd to scorn;        4\n       Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him,\n       And like a bold-fac'd suitor 'gins to woo him.\n\n     'Thrice fairer than myself,' thus she began,\n     'The field's chief flower, sweet above compare,        8\n     Stain to all nymphs, more lovely than a man,\n     More white and red than doves or roses are;\n       Nature that made thee, with herself at strife,\n       Saith that the world hath ending with thy life.     12\n\n     'Vouchsafe, thou wonder, to alight thy steed,\n     And rein his proud head to the saddle-bow;\n     If thou wilt deign this favour, for thy meed\n     A thousand honey secrets shalt thou know:             16\n     Here come and sit, where never serpent hisses;\n     And being set, I'll smother thee with kisses:\n\n     'And yet not cloy thy lips with loath'd satiety,\n     But rather famish them amid their plenty,             20\n     Making them red and pale with fresh variety;\n     Ten kisses short as one, one long as twenty:\n       A summer's day will seem an hour but short,\n       Being wasted in such time-beguiling sport.'         24\n\n     With this she seizeth on his sweating palm,\n     The precedent of pith and livelihood,\n     And, trembling in her passion, calls it balm,\n     Earth's sovereign salve to do a goddess good:         28\n       Being so enrag'd, desire doth lend her force\n       Courageously to pluck him from his horse.\n\n     Over one arm the lusty courser's rein\n     Under her other was the tender boy,                   32\n     Who blush'd and pouted in a dull disdain,\n     With leaden appetite, unapt to toy;\n       She red and hot as coals of glowing fire\n       He red for shame, but frosty in desire.             36\n\n     The studded bridle on a ragged bough\n     Nimbly she fastens;--O! how quick is love:--\n     The steed is stalled up, and even now\n     To tie the rider she begins to prove:                 40\n       Backward she push'd him, as she would be thrust,\n       And govern'd him in strength, though not in lust.\n\n     So soon was she along, as he was down,\n     Each leaning on their elbows and their hips:          44\n     Now doth she stroke his cheek, now doth he frown,\n     And 'gins to chide, but soon she stops his lips;\n     And kissing speaks, with lustful language broken,\n     'If thou wilt chide, thy lips shall never open.'      48\n\n     He burns with bashful shame; she with her tears\n     Doth quench the maiden burning of his cheeks;\n     Then with her windy sighs and golden hairs\n     To fan and blow them dry again she seeks:             52\n       He saith she is immodest, blames her miss;\n       What follows more she murders with a kiss.\n\n     Even as an empty eagle, sharp by fast,\n     Tires with her beak on feathers, flesh and bone,      56\n     Shaking her wings, devouring all in haste,\n     Till either gorge be stuff'd or prey be gone;\n     Even so she kiss'd his brow, his cheek, his chin,\n     And where she ends she doth anew begin.               60\n\n     Forc'd to content, but never to obey,\n     Panting he lies, and breatheth in her face;\n     She feedeth on the steam, as on a prey,\n     And calls it heavenly moisture, air of grace;         64\n       Wishing her cheeks were gardens full of flowers\n       So they were dewd with such distilling showers.\n\n     Look! how a bird lies tangled in a net,\n     So fasten'd in her arms Adonis lies;                  68\n     Pure shame and aw'd resistance made him fret,\n     Which bred more beauty in his angry eyes:\n       Rain added to a river that is rank\n       Perforce will force it overflow the bank.           72\n\n\n     Still she entreats, and prettily entreats,\n     For to a pretty ear she tunes her tale;\n     Still is he sullen, still he lours and frets,\n     'Twixt crimson shame and anger ashy-pale;             76\n       Being red she loves him best; and being white,\n       Her best is better'd with a more delight.\n\n     Look how he can, she cannot choose but love;\n     And by her fair immortal hand she swears,             80\n     From his soft bosom never to remove,\n     Till he take truce with her contending tears,\n       Which long have rain'd, making her cheeks all wet;\n       And one sweet kiss shall pay this countless debt.\n\n     Upon this promise did he raise his chin               85\n     Like a dive-dapper peering through a wave,\n     Who, being look'd on, ducks as quickly in;\n     So offers he to give what she did crave;              88\n       But when her lips were ready for his pay,\n       He winks, and turns his lips another way.\n\n     Never did passenger in summer's heat\n     More thirst for drink than she for this good turn.    92\n     Her help she sees, but help she cannot get;\n     She bathes in water, yet her fire must burn:\n       'O! pity,' 'gan she cry, 'flint-hearted boy:\n       'Tis but a kiss I beg; why art thou coy?            96\n\n     'I have been woo'd, as I entreat thee now,\n     Even by the stern and direful god of war,\n     Whose sinewy neck in battle ne'er did bow,\n     Who conquers where he comes in every jar;             100\n       Yet hath he been my captive and my slave,\n       And begg'd for that which thou unask'd shalt have.\n\n     'Over my altars hath he hung his lance,\n     His batter'd shield, his uncontrolled crest,         104\n     And for my sake hath learn'd to sport and dance\n     To toy, to wanton, dally, smile, and jest;\n       Scorning his churlish drum and ensign red\n       Making my arms his field, his tent my bed.         108\n\n     'Thus he that overrul'd I oversway'd,\n     Leading him prisoner in a red-rose chain:\n     Strong-temper'd steel his stronger strength obey'd,\n     Yet was he servile to my coy disdain.                112\n       O! be not proud, nor brag not of thy might,\n       For mastering her that foil'd the god of fight.\n\n     Touch but my lips with those falr lips of thine,--\n     Though mine be not so fair, yet are they red,--      116\n     The kiss shall be thine own as well as mine:\n     What seest thou in the ground? hold up thy head:\n       Look in mine eyeballs, there thy beauty lies;\n       Then why not lips on lips, since eyes in eyes?     120\n\n     'Art thou asham'd to kiss? then wink again,\n     And I will wink; so shall the day seem night;\n     Love keeps his revels where there are but twain;\n     Be bold to play, our sport is not in sight:          124\n       These blue-vein'd violets whereon we lean\n       Never can blab, nor know not what we mean.\n\n     'The tender spring upon thy tempting lip             127\n     Shows thee unripe, yet mayst thou well be tasted:\n     Make use of time, let not advantage slip;\n     Beauty within itself should not be wasted:\n       Fair flowers that are not gather'd in their prime\n       Rot and consume themselves in little time.         132\n\n     'Were I hard-favour'd, foul, or wrinkled-old,\n     Ill-nurtur'd, crooked, churlish, harsh in voice,\n     O'erworn, despised, rheumatic, and cold,\n     Thick-sighted, barren, lean, and lacking juice,      136\n       Then mightst thou pause, for then I were not for thee;\n       But having no defects, why dost abhor me?\n\n     'Thou canst not see one winkle in my brow;           139\n     Mine eyes are grey and bright, and quick in turning;\n     My beauty as the spring doth yearly grow;\n     My flesh is soft and plump, my marrow burning;\n       My smooth moist hand, were it with thy hand felt.\n       Would in thy palm dissolve, or seem to melt.       144\n\n     'Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear,\n     Or like a fairy, trip upon the green,\n     Or, like a nymph, with long dishevell'd hair,\n     Dance on the sands, and yet no footing seen:         148\n       Love is a spirit all compact of fire,\n       Not gross to sink, but light, and will aspire.\n\n     'Witness this primrose bank whereon I lie;           151\n     These forceless flowers like sturdy trees support me;\n     Two strengthless doves will draw me through the sky,\n     From morn till night, even where I list to sport me:\n       Is love so light, sweet boy, and may it be\n       That thou shouldst think it heavy unto thee?       156\n\n     'Is thine own heart to shine own face affected?\n     Can thy right hand seize love upon thy left?\n     Then woo thyself, be of thyself rejected,\n     Steal thine own freedom, and complain on theft.      160\n       Narcissus so himself himself forsook,\n       And died to kiss his shadow in the brook.\n\n     'Torches are made to light, jewels to wear,\n     Dainties to taste, fresh beauty for the use,         164\n     Herbs for their smell, and sappy plants to bear;\n     Things growing to themselves are growth's abuse:\n       Seeds spring from seeds, and beauty breedeth beauty;\n       Thou wast begot; to get it is thy duty.            168\n\n     'Upon the earth's increase why shouldst thou feed,\n     Unless the earth with thy increase be fed?\n     By law of nature thou art bound to breed,\n     That thine may live when thou thyself art dead;      172\n       And so in spite of death thou dost survive,\n       In that thy likeness still is left alive.'\n\n     By this the love-sick queen began to sweat,\n     For where they lay the shadow had forsook them,      176\n     And Titan, tired in the mid-day heat\n     With burning eye did hotly overlook them,\n       Wishing Adonis had his team to guide,\n       So he were like him and by Venus' side.            180\n\n     And now Adonis with a lazy spright,\n     And with a heavy, dark, disliking eye,\n     His louring brows o'erwhelming his fair sight,\n     Like misty vapours when they blot the sky,           184\n       Souring his cheeks, cries, 'Fie! no more of love:\n       The sun doth burn my face; I must remove.'\n\n     'Ay me,' quoth Venus, 'young, and so unkind!\n     What bare excuses mak'st thou to be gone!            188\n     I'll sigh celestial breath, whose gentle wind\n     Shall cool the heat of this descending sun:\n       I'll make a shadow for thee of my hairs;           191\n       If they burn too, I'll quench them with my tears.\n\n     'The sun that shines from heaven shines but warm,\n     And lo! I lie between that sun and thee:\n     The heat I have from thence doth little harm,\n     Thine eye darts forth the fire that burneth me;      196\n       And were I not immortal, life were done\n       Between this heavenly and earthly sun.\n\n     'Art thou obdurate, flinty, hard as steel?\n     Nay, more than flint, for stone at rain relenteth:   200\n     Art thou a woman's son, and canst not feel\n     What 'tis to love? how want of love tormenteth?\n       O! had thy mother borne so hard a mind,            203\n       She had not brought forth thee, but died unkind.\n\n\n     'What am I that thou shouldst contemn me this?\n     Or what great danger dwells upon my suit?\n     What were thy lips the worse for one poor kiss?\n       Speak, fair; but speak fair words, or else be mute:\n       Give me one kiss, I'll give it thee again,         209\n     And one for interest if thou wilt have twain.\n\n     'Fie! lifeless picture, cold and senseless stone,\n     Well-painted idol, image dull and dead,              212\n     Statue contenting but the eye alone,\n     Thing like a man, but of no woman bred:\n       Thou art no man, though of a man's complexion,\n       For men will kiss even by their own direction.'    216\n\n     This said, impatience chokes her pleading tongue,\n     And swelling passion doth provoke a pause;\n     Red cheeks and fiery eyes blaze forth her wrong;\n     Being judge in love, she cannot right her cause:     220\n       And now she weeps, and now she fain would speak,\n       And now her sobs do her intendments break.\n\n     Sometimes she shakes her head, and then his hand;\n     Now gazeth she on him, now on the ground;            224\n     Sometimes her arms infold him like a band:\n     She would, he will not in her arms be bound;\n       And when from thence he struggles to be gone,\n       She locks her lily fingers one in one.             228\n\n     'Fondling,' she saith, 'since I have hemm'd thee here\n     Within the circuit of this ivory pale,\n     I'll be a park, and thou shalt be my deer;\n     Feed where thou wilt, on mountain or in dale:        232\n       Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry,\n       Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie.\n\n     'Within this limit is relief enough,\n     Sweet bottom-grass and high delightful plain,        236\n     Round rising hillocks, brakes obscure and rough,\n     To shelter thee from tempest and from rain:\n       Then be my deer, since I am such a park;           239\n       No dog shall rouse thee, though a thousand bark.'\n\n     At this Adonis smiles as in disdain,\n     That in each cheek appears a pretty dimple:\n     Love made those hollows, if himself were slain,\n     He might be buried in a tomb so simple;              244\n       Foreknowing well, if there he came to lie,\n       Why, there Love liv'd, and there he could not die.\n\n     These lovely caves, these round enchanting pits,\n     Open'd their mouths to swallow Venus' liking.        248\n     Being mad before, how doth she now for wits?\n     Struck dead at first, what needs a second striking?\n       Poor queen of love, in thine own law forlorn,\n       To love a cheek that smiles at thee in scorn!      252\n\n     Now which way shall she turn? what shall she say?\n     Her words are done, her woes the more increasing;\n     The time is spent, her object will away,\n     And from her twining arms doth urge releasing:       256\n       'Pity,' she cries; 'some favour, some remorse!'\n       Away he springs, and hasteth to his horse.\n\n     But lo! from forth a copse that neighbours by,\n     A breeding jennet, lusty, young, and proud,          260\n     Adonis' tramping courier doth espy,\n     And forth she rushes, snorts and neighs aloud:\n       The strong-neck'd steed, being tied unto a tree,\n       Breaketh his rein, and to her straight goes he.    264\n\n     Imperiously he leaps, he neighs, he bounds,\n     And now his woven girths he breaks asunder;\n     The bearing earth with his hard hoof he wounds,\n     Whose hollow womb resounds like heaven's thunder;\n       The iron bit he crusheth 'tween his teeth,         269\n       Controlling what he was controlled with.\n\n     His ears up-prick'd; his braided hanging mane\n     Upon his compass'd crest now stand on end;           272\n     His nostrils drink the air, and forth again,\n     As from a furnace, vapours doth he send:\n       His eye, which scornfully glisters like fire,\n       Shows his hot courage and his high desire.         276\n\n     Sometime he trots, as if he told the steps,\n     With gentle majesty and modest pride;\n     Anon he rears upright, curvets and leaps,\n     As who should say, 'Lo! thus my strength is tried;\n       And this I do to captivate the eye                 281\n       Of the fair breeder that is standing by.'\n\n     What recketh he his rider's angry stir,\n     His flattering 'Holla', or his 'Stand, I say'?       284\n     What cares he now for curb or pricking spur?\n     For rich caparisons or trapping gay?\n       He sees his love, and nothing else he sees,\n       Nor nothing else with his proud sight agrees.      288\n\n     Look, when a painter would surpass the life,\n     In limning out a well-proportion'd steed,\n     His art with nature's workmanship at strife,\n     As if the dead the living should exceed;             292\n       So did this horse excel a common one,\n       In shape, in courage, colour, pace and bone.\n\n     Round-hoof'd, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long,\n     Broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostril wide,\n     High crest, short ears, straight legs and passing strong,\n     Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide:\n       Look, what a horse should have he did not lack,\n       Save a proud rider on so proud a back.             300\n\n     Sometimes he scuds far off, and there he stares;\n     Anon he starts at stirring of a feather;\n     To bid the wind a base he now prepares,\n     And whe'r he run or fly they know not whether;       304\n       For through his mane and tail the high wind sings,\n       Fanning the hairs, who wave like feather'd wings.\n\n     He looks upon his love, and neighs unto her;\n     She answers him as if she knew his mind;             308\n     Being proud, as females are, to see him woo her,\n     She puts on outward strangeness, seems unkind,\n       Spurns at his love and scorns the heat he feels,\n       Beating his kind embracements with her heels.      312\n\n     Then, like a melancholy malcontent,\n     He vails his tail, that, like a falling plume,\n     Cool shadow to his melting buttock lent:\n     He stamps, and bites the poor flies in his fume.     316\n       His love, perceiving how he is enrag'd,\n       Grew kinder, and his fury was assuag'd.\n\n     His testy master goeth about to take him;\n     When lo! the unback'd breeder, full of fear,         320\n     Jealous of catching, swiftly doth forsake him,\n     With her the horse, and left Adonis there:\n       As they were mad, unto the wood they hie them,\n       Outstripping crows that strive to overfly them.    324\n\n     All swoln with chafing, down Adonis sits,\n     Banning his boisterous and unruly beast:\n     And now the happy season once more fits,\n     That love-sick Love by pleading may be blest;        328\n       For lovers say, the heart hath treble wrong\n       When it is barr'd the aidance of the tongue.\n\n     An oven that is stopp'd, or river stay'd,\n     Burneth more hotly, swelleth with more rage:         332\n     So of concealed sorrow may be said;\n     Free vent of words love's fire doth assuage;\n       But when the heart's attorney once is mute\n       The client breaks, as desperate in his suit.       336\n\n     He sees her coming, and begins to glow,--\n     Even as a dying coal revives with wind,--\n     And with his bonnet hides his angry brow;\n     Looks on the dull earth with disturbed mind,         340\n       Taking no notice that she is so nigh,\n       For all askance he holds her in his eye.\n\n     O! what a sight it was, wistly to view\n     How she came stealing to the wayward boy;            344\n     To note the fighting conflict of her hue,\n     How white and red each other did destroy:\n       But now her cheek was pale, and by and by\n       It flash'd forth fire, as lightning from the sky.  348\n\n     Now was she just before him as he sat,\n     And like a lowly lover down she kneels;\n     With one fair hand she heaveth up his hat,\n     Her other tender hand his fair cheek feels:          352\n       His tenderer cheek receives her soft hand's print,\n       As apt as new-fall'n snow takes any dint.\n\n     O! what a war of looks was then between them;\n     Her eyes petitioners to his eyes suing;              356\n     His eyes saw her eyes as they had not seen them;\n     Her eyes woo'd still, his eyes disdain'd the wooing:\n       And all this dumb play had his acts made plain\n       With tears, which, chorus-like, her eyes did rain.\n\n     Full gently now she takes him by the hand,           361\n     A lily prison'd in a gaol of snow,\n     Or ivory in an alabaster band;\n     So white a friend engirts so white a foe:            364\n       This beauteous combat, wilful and unwilling,\n       Show'd like two silver doves that sit a-billing.\n\n     Once more the engine of her thoughts began:\n     'O fairest mover on this mortal round,               368\n     Would thou wert as I am, and I a man,\n     My heart all whole as thine, thy heart my wound;\n       For one sweet look thy help I would assure thee,\n       Though nothing but my body's bane would cure thee.'\n\n     'Give me my hand,' saith he, 'why dost thou feel it?'\n     'Give me my heart,' saith she, 'and thou shalt have it;\n     O! give it me, lest thy hard heart do steel it,\n     And being steel'd, soft sighs can never grave it:    376\n       Then love's deep groans I never shall regard,\n       Because Adonis' heart hath made mine hard.'\n\n     'For shame,' he cries, 'let go, and let me go;\n     My day's delight is past, my horse is gone,          380\n     And 'tis your fault I am bereft him so:\n     I pray you hence, and leave me here alone:\n       For all my mind, my thought, my busy care,\n       Is how to get my palfrey from the mare.'           384\n\n     Thus she replies: 'Thy palfrey, as he should,\n     Welcomes the warm approach of sweet desire:\n     Affection is a coal that must be cool'd;\n     Else, suffer'd, it will set the heart on fire:       388\n       The sea hath bounds, but deep desire hath none;\n       Therefore no marvel though thy horse be gone.\n\n     'How like a Jade he stood, tied to the tree,\n     Servilely master'd with a leathern rein!             392\n     But when he saw his love, his youth's fair fee,\n     He held such petty bondage in disdain;\n       Throwing the base thong from his bending crest,\n       Enfranchising his mouth, his back, his breast.     396\n\n     'Who sees his true-love in her naked bed,\n     Teaching the sheets a whiter hue than white,\n     But, when his glutton eye so full hath fed,\n     His other agents aim at like delight?                400\n       Who is so faint, that dare not be so bold\n       To touch the fire, the weather being cold?\n\n     'Let me excuse thy courser, gentle boy;\n     And learn of him, I heartily beseech thee,           404\n     To take advantage on presented joy\n     Though I were dumb, yet his proceedings teach thee.\n       O learn to love, the lesson is but plain,\n       And once made perfect, never lost again.           408\n\n     'I know not love,' quoth he, 'nor will not know it,\n     Unless it be a boar, and then I chase it;\n     'Tis much to borrow, and I will not owe it;\n     My love to love is love but to disgrace it;          412\n       For I have heard it is a life in death,\n       That laughs and weeps, and all but with a breath.\n\n     'Who wears a garment shapeless and unfinish'd?\n     Who plucks the bud before one leaf put forth?        416\n     If springing things be any jot diminish'd,\n     They wither in their prime, prove nothing worth;\n       The colt that's back'd and burden'd being young\n       Loseth his pride, and never waxeth strong.         420\n\n     'You hurt my hand with wringing. Let us part,\n     And leave this idle theme, this bootless chat:\n     Remove your siege from my unyielding heart;\n     To love's alarms it will not ope the gate:           424\n       Dismiss your vows, your feigned tears, your flattery;\n       For where a heart is hard they make no battery.'\n\n     'What! canst thou talk?' quoth she, 'hast thou a tongue?\n     O! would thou hadst not, or I had no hearing;        428\n     Thy mermaid's voice hath done me double wrong;\n     I had my load before, now press'd with bearing:\n       Melodious discord, heavenly tune, harsh-sounding,\n       Ear's deep-sweet music, and heart's deep-sore wounding.\n\n     'Had I no eyes but ears, my ears would love          433\n     That inward beauty and invisible;\n     Or were I deaf, thy outward parts would move\n     Each part in me that were but sensible:              436\n       Though neither eyes nor ears, to hear nor see,\n       Yet should I be in love by touching thee.\n\n     'Say, that the sense of feeling were bereft me,\n     And that I could not see, nor hear, nor touch,       440\n     And nothing but the very smell were left me,\n     Yet would my love to thee be still as much;\n       For from the stillitory of thy face excelling\n       Comes breath perfum'd that breedeth love by smelling.\n\n     'But O! what banquet wert thou to the taste,         445\n     Being nurse and feeder of the other four;\n     Would they not wish the feast might ever last,\n     And bid Suspicion double-lock the door,\n       Lest Jealousy, that sour unwelcome guest,\n       Should, by his stealing in, disturb the feast?'    448\n\n     Once more the ruby-colour'd portal open'd,\n     Which to his speech did honey passage yield,         452\n     Like a red morn, that ever yet betoken'd\n     Wrack to the seaman, tempest to the field,\n       Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds,\n       Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds.      456\n\n     This ill presage advisedly she marketh:\n     Even as the wind is hush'd before it raineth,\n     Or as the wolf doth grin before he barketh,\n     Or as the berry breaks before it staineth,           460\n       Or like the deadly bullet of a gun,\n       His meaning struck her ere his words begun.\n\n     And at his look she flatly falleth down\n     For looks kill love, and love by looks reviveth;     464\n     A smile recures the wounding of a frown;\n     But blessed bankrupt, that by love so thriveth!\n       The silly boy, believing she is dead\n       Claps her pale cheek, till clapping makes it red;  468\n\n     And all amaz'd brake off his late intent,\n     For sharply he did think to reprehend her,\n     Which cunning love did wittily prevent:\n     Fair fall the wit that can so well defend her!       472\n       For on the grass she lies as she were slain\n       Till his breath breatheth life in her again.\n\n     He wrings her nose, he strikes her on the cheeks,\n     He bends her fingers, holds her pulses hard,         476\n     He chafes her lips; a thousand ways he seeks\n     To mend the hurt that his unkindness marr'd:\n       He kisses her; and she, by her good will,\n       Will never rise, so he will kiss her still.        480\n\n     The night of sorrow now is turn'd to day:\n     Her two blue windows faintly she up-heaveth,\n     Like the fair sun, when in his fresh array\n     He cheers the morn, and all the world relieveth:     484\n       And as the bright sun glorifies the sky,\n       So is her face illumin'd with her eye;\n\n     Whose beams upon his hairless face are fix'd,\n     As if from thence they borrow'd all their shine.     488\n     Were never four such lamps together mix'd,\n     Had not his clouded with his brow's repine;\n       But hers, which through the crystal tears gave light\n       Shone like the moon in water seen by night.        492\n\n     'O! where am I?' quoth she, 'in earth or heaven,\n     Or in the ocean drench'd, or in the fire?\n     What hour is this? or morn or weary even?\n     Do I delight to die, or life desire?                 496\n       But now I liv'd, and life was death's annoy;\n       But now I died, and death was lively joy.\n\n     'O! thou didst kill me; kill me once again:\n     Thy eyes' shrewd tutor, that hard heart of thine,    500\n     Hath taught them scornful tricks, and such disdain,\n     That they have murder'd this poor heart of mine;\n       And these mine eyes, true leaders to their queen,\n       But for thy piteous lips no more had seen.         504\n\n     'Long may they kiss each other for this cure!\n     O! never let their crimson liveries wear;\n     And as they last, their verdure still endure,\n     To drive infection from the dangerous year:          508\n       That the star-gazers, having writ on death,\n       May say, the plague is banish'd by thy breath.\n\n     'Pure lips, sweet seals in my soft lips imprinted,\n     What bargains may I make, still to be sealing?       512\n     To sell myself I can be well contented,\n     So thou wilt buy and pay and use good dealing;\n       Which purchase if thou make, for fear of slips\n       Set thy seal-manual on my wax-red lips.            516\n\n     'A thousand kisses buys my heart from me;\n     And pay them at thy leisure, one by one.\n     What is ten hundred touches unto thee?\n     Are they not quickly told and quickly gone?          520\n       Say, for non-payment that the debt should double,\n       Is twenty hundred kisses such a trouble?'\n\n     'Fair queen,' quoth he, 'if any love you owe me,\n     Measure my strangeness with my unripe years:         524\n     Before I know myself, seek not to know me;\n     No fisher but the ungrown fry forbears:\n       The mellow plum doth fall, the green sticks fast,\n       Or being early pluck'd is sour to taste.           528\n\n     'Look! the world's comforter, with weary gait\n     His day's hot task hath ended in the west;\n     The owl, night's herald, shrieks, 'tis very late;\n     The sheep are gone to fold, birds to their nest,     532\n       And coal-black clouds that shadow heaven's light\n       Do summon us to part, and bid good night.\n\n     'Now let me say good night, and so say you;\n     If you will say so, you shall have a kiss.'          536\n     'Good night,' quoth she; and ere he says adieu,\n     The honey fee of parting tender'd is:\n       Her arms do lend his neck a sweet embrace;\n       Incorporate then they seem, face grows to face.    540\n\n     Till, breathless, he disjoin'd, and backward drew\n     The heavenly moisture, that sweet coral mouth,\n     Whose precious taste her thirsty lips well knew,\n     Whereon they surfeit, yet complain on drouth:        544\n       He with her plenty press'd, she faint with dearth,\n       Their lips together glu'd, fall to the earth.\n\n     Now quick desire hath caught the yielding prey,\n     And glutton-like she feeds, yet never filleth;       548\n     Her lips are conquerors, his lips obey,\n     Paying what ransom the insulter willeth;\n       Whose vulture thought doth pitch the price so high,\n       That she will draw his lips' rich treasure dry.    552\n\n     And having felt the sweetness of the spoil,\n     With blindfold fury she begins to forage;\n     Her face doth reek and smoke, her blood doth boil,\n     And careless lust stirs up a desperate courage;      556\n       Planting oblivion, beating reason back,\n       Forgetting shame's pure blush and honour's wrack.\n\n     Hot, faint, and weary, with her hard embracing,\n     Like a wild bird being tam'd with too much handling,\n     Or as the fleet-foot roe that's tir'd with chasing,  561\n     Or like the froward infant still'd with dandling,\n       He now obeys, and now no more resisteth,\n       While she takes all she can, not all she listeth.  564\n\n     What wax so frozen but dissolves with tempering,\n     And yields at last to every light impression?\n     Things out of hope are compass'd oft with venturing,\n     Chiefly in love, whose leave exceeds commission:     568\n       Affection faints not like a pale-fac'd coward,\n       But then woos best when most his choice is froward.\n\n     When he did frown, O! had she then gave over,\n     Such nectar from his lips she had not suck'd.        572\n     Foul words and frowns must not repel a lover;\n     What though the rose have prickles, yet 'tis pluck'd:\n       Were beauty under twenty locks kept fast,\n       Yet love breaks through and picks them all at last.\n\n     For pity now she can no more detain him;             577\n     The poor fool prays her that he may depart:\n     She is resolv'd no longer to restrain him,\n     Bids him farewell, and look well to her heart,       580\n       The which, by Cupid's bow she doth protest,\n       He carries thence incaged in his breast.\n\n     'Sweet boy,' she says, 'this night I'll waste in sorrow,\n     For my sick heart commands mine eyes to watch.       584\n     Tell me, Love's master, shall we meet to-morrow\n     Say, shall we? shall we? wilt thou make the match?'\n       He tells her, no; to-morrow he intends\n       To hunt the boar with certain of his friends.      588\n\n     'The boar!' quoth she; whereat a sudden pale,\n     Like lawn being spread upon the blushing rose,\n     Usurps her cheeks, she trembles at his tale,\n     And on his neck her yoking arms she throws:          592\n       She sinketh down, still hanging by his neck,\n       He on her belly falls, she on her back.\n\n     Now is she in the very lists of love,\n     Her champion mounted for the hot encounter:          596\n     All is imaginary she doth prove,\n     He will not manage her, although he mount her;\n       That worse than Tantalus' is her annoy,\n       To clip Elysium and to lack her joy.               600\n\n     Even as poor birds, deceiv'd with painted grapes,\n     Do surfeit by the eye and pine the maw,\n     Even so she languisheth in her mishaps,\n     As those poor birds that helpless berries saw.       604\n       The warm effects which she in him finds missing,\n       She seeks to kindle with continual kissing.\n\n     But all in vain, good queen, it will not be:\n     She hath assay'd as much as may be prov'd;           608\n     Her pleading hath deserv'd a greater fee;\n     She's Love, she loves, and yet she is not lov'd.\n       'Fie, fie!' he says, 'you crush me; let me go;\n       You have no reason to withhold me so.'             612\n\n     'Thou hadst been gone,' quoth she, 'sweet boy, ere this,\n     But that thou told'st me thou wouldst hunt the boar.\n     O! be advis'd; thou know'st not what it is\n     With javelin's point a churlish swine to gore,       616\n       Whose tushes never sheath'd he whetteth still,\n       Like to a mortal butcher, bent to kill.\n\n     'On his bow-back he hath a battle set\n     Of bristly pikes, that ever threat his foes;         620\n     His eyes like glow-worms shine when he doth fret;\n     His snout digs sepulchres where'er he goes;\n       Being mov'd, he strikes whate'er is in his way,\n       And whom he strikes his crooked tushes slay.       624\n\n     'His brawny sides, with hairy bristles arm'd,\n     Are better proof than thy spear's point can enter;\n     His short thick neck cannot be easily harm'd;\n     Being ireful, on the lion he will venture:           628\n       The thorny brambles and embracing bushes,\n       As fearful of him, part, through whom he rushes.\n\n     'Alas! he nought esteems that face of thine,\n     To which Love's eyes pay tributary gazes;            632\n     Nor thy soft hands, sweet lips, and crystal eyne,\n     Whose full perfection all the world amazes;\n       But having thee at vantage, wondrous dread!\n       Would root these beauties as he roots the mead.\n\n     'O! let him keep his loathsome cabin still;          637\n     Beauty hath nought to do with such foul fiends:\n     Come not within his danger by thy will;\n     They that thrive well take counsel of their friends.\n       When thou didst name the boar, not to dissemble,\n       I fear'd thy fortune, and my joints did tremble.\n\n     'Didst thou not mark my face? was it not white?\n     Saw'st thou not signs of fear lurk in mine eye?      644\n     Grew I not faint? And fell I not downright?\n     Within my bosom, whereon thou dost lie,\n       My boding heart pants, beats, and takes no rest,\n       But, like an earthquake, shakes thee on my breast.\n\n     'For where Love reigns, disturbing Jealousy          649\n     Doth call himself Affection's sentinel;\n     Gives false alarms, suggesteth mutiny,\n     And in a peaceful hour doth cry \"Kill, kill!\"        652\n       Distempering gentle Love in his desire,\n       As air and water do abate the fire.\n\n     'This sour informer, this bate-breeding spy,\n     This canker that eats up Love's tender spring,       656\n     This carry-tale, dissentious Jealousy,\n     That sometime true news, sometime false doth bring,\n       Knocks at my heart, and whispers in mine ear\n       That if I love thee, I thy death should fear:      660\n\n     'And more than so, presenteth to mine eye\n     The picture of an angry-chafing boar,\n     Under whose sharp fangs on his back doth lie\n     An image like thyself, all stain'd with gore;        664\n       Whose blood upon the fresh flowers being shed\n       Doth make them droop with grief and hang the head.\n\n     'What should I do, seeing thee so indeed,\n     That tremble at the imagination?                     668\n     The thought of it doth make my faint heart bleed,\n     And fear doth teach it divination:\n       I prophesy thy death, my living sorrow,\n       If thou encounter with the boar to-morrow.         672\n\n     'But if thou needs wilt hunt, be rul'd by me;\n     Uncouple at the timorous flying hare,\n     Or at the fox which lives by subtilty,\n     Or at the roe which no encounter dare:               676\n       Pursue these fearful creatures o'er the downs,\n       And on thy well-breath'd horse keep with thy hound.\n\n     'And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare,\n     Mark the poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles      680\n     How he outruns the winds, and with what care\n     He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles:\n       The many musits through the which he goes\n       Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes.            684\n\n     'Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep,\n     To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell,\n     And sometime where earth-delving conies keep,\n     To stop the loud pursuers in their yell,             688\n       And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer;\n       Danger deviseth shifts, wit waits on fear:\n\n     'For there his smell with others being mingled,      691\n     The hot scent-snuffing hounds are driven to doubt,\n     Ceasing their clamorous cry till they have singled\n     With much ado the cold fault cleanly out;\n       Then do they spend their mouths: Echo replies,\n       As if another chase were in the skies.             696\n\n     'By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill,\n     Stands on his hinder legs with listening ear,\n     To hearken if his foes pursue him still:\n     Anon their loud alarums he doth hear;                700\n     And now his grief may be compared well\n     To one sore sick that hears the passing bell.\n\n     'Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch\n     Turn, and return, indenting with the way;            704\n     Each envious briar his weary legs doth scratch,\n     Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay:\n       For misery is trodden on by many,\n       And being low never reliev'd by any.               708\n\n     'Lie quietly, and hear a little more;\n     Nay, do not struggle, for thou shalt not rise:\n     To make thee hate the hunting of the boar,\n     Unlike myself thou hear'st me moralize,              712\n       Applying this to that, and so to so;\n       For love can comment upon every woe.\n\n     'Where did I leave?' 'No matter where,' quoth he\n     'Leave me, and then the story aptly ends:            716\n     The night is spent,' 'Why, what of that?' quoth she.\n     'I am,' quoth he, 'expected of my friends;\n       And now 'tis dark, and going I shall fall.'\n       'In night,' quoth she, 'desire sees best of all.'  720\n\n     But if thou fall, O! then imagine this,\n     The earth, in love with thee, thy footing trips,\n     And all is but to rob thee of a kiss.                723\n     Rich preys make true men thieves; so do thy lips\n       Make modest Dian cloudy and forlorn,\n       Lest she should steal a kiss and die forsworn.\n\n     'Now of this dark night I perceive the reason:\n     Cynthia for shame obscures her silver shine          728\n     Till forging Nature be condemn'd of treason,\n     For stealing moulds from heaven that were divine;\n       Wherein she fram'd thee in high heaven's despite,\n       To shame the sun by day and her by night.          732\n\n     'And therefore hath she brib'd the Destinies,\n     To cross the curious workmanship of nature\n     To mingle beauty with infirmities,\n     And pure perfection with impure defeature;           736\n       Making it subject to the tyranny\n       Of mad mischances and much misery;\n\n     'As burning fevers, agues pale and faint,\n     Life-poisoning pestilence and frenzies wood,         740\n     The marrow-eating sickness, whose attains\n     Disorder breeds by heating of the blood;\n       Surfeits, imposthumes, grief, and damn'd despair,\n       Swear nature's death for framing thee so fair.     744\n\n     'And not the least of all these maladies\n     But in one minute's fight brings beauty under:\n     Both favour, savour hue, and qualities,\n     Whereat the impartial gazer late did wonder,         748\n       Are on the sudden wasted, thaw'd and done,\n       As mountain-snow melts with the mid-day sun.\n\n     'Therefore, despite of fruitless chastity,\n     Love-lacking vestals and self-loving nuns,           752\n     That on the earth would breed a scarcity\n     And barren dearth of daughters and of sons,\n       Be prodigal: the lamp that burns by night\n       Dries up his oil to lend the world his light.      756\n\n     'What is thy body but a swallowing grave,\n     Seeming to bury that posterity\n     Which by the rights of time thou needs must have,\n     If thou destroy them not in dark obscurity?          760\n       If so, the world will hold thee in disdain,\n       Sith in thy pride so fair a hope is slain.\n\n\n     'So in thyself thyself art made away;\n     A mischief worse than civil home-bred strife,        764\n     Or theirs whose desperate hands themselves do slay,\n     Or butcher-sire that reeves his son of life.\n       Foul-cankering rust the hidden treasure frets,\n       But gold that's put to use more gold begets.'      768\n\n     'Nay then,' quoth Adon, 'you will fall again\n     Into your idle over-handled theme;\n     The kiss I gave you is bestow'd in vain,\n     And all in vain you strive against the stream;       772\n       For by this black-fac'd night, desire's foul nurse,\n       Your treatise makes me like you worse and worse.\n\n     'If love have lent you twenty thousand tongues,\n     And every tongue more moving than your own,          776\n     Bewitching like the wanton mermaid's songs,\n     Yet from mine ear the tempting tune is blown;\n       For know, my heart stands armed in mine ear,\n       And will not let a false sound enter there;        780\n\n     'Lest the deceiving harmony should run\n     Into the quiet closure of my breast;\n     And then my little heart were quite undone,\n     In his bedchamber to be barr'd of rest.              784\n       No, lady, no; my heart longs not to groan,\n       But soundly sleeps, while now it sleeps alone.\n\n     'What have you urg'd that I cannot reprove?\n     The path is smooth that leadeth on to danger;        790\n     I hate not love, but your device in love\n     That lends embracements unto every stranger.\n       You do it for increase: O strange excuse!\n       When reason is the bawd to lust's abuse.           792\n\n     'Call it not, love, for Love to heaven is fled,\n     Since sweating Lust on earth usurp'd his name;\n     Under whose simple semblance he hath fed\n     Upon fresh beauty, blotting it with blame;           796\n       Which the hot tyrant stains and soon bereaves,\n       As caterpillars do the tender leaves.\n\n     'Love comforteth like sunshine after rain,\n     But Lust's effect is tempest after sun;              800\n     Love's gentle spring doth always fresh remain,\n     Lust's winter comes ere summer half be done.\n       Love surfeits not, Lust like a glutton dies;\n       Love is all truth, Lust full of forged lies.       804\n\n     'More I could tell, but more I dare not say;\n     The text is old, the orator too green.\n     Therefore, in sadness, now I will away;\n     My face is full of shame, my heart of teen:          808\n       Mine ears, that to your wanton talk attended\n       Do burn themselves for having so offended.'\n\n     With this he breaketh from the sweet embrace         811\n     Of those fair arms which bound him to her breast,\n     And homeward through the dark laund runs apace;\n     Leaves Love upon her back deeply distress'd.\n       Look, how a bright star shooteth from the sky\n       So glides he in the night from Venus' eye;         816\n\n     Which after him she darts, as one on shore\n     Gazing upon a late-embarked friend,\n     Till the wild waves will have him seen no more,\n     Whose ridges with the meeting clouds contend:        820\n       So did the merciless and pitchy night\n       Fold in the object that did feed her sight.\n\n     Whereat amaz'd, as one that unaware\n     Hath dropp'd a precious jewel in the flood,          824\n     Or 'stonish'd as night-wanderers often are,\n     Their light blown out in some mistrustful wood;\n       Even so confounded in the dark she lay,\n       Having lost the fair discovery of her way.         828\n\n     And now she beats her heart, whereat it groans,\n     That all the neighbour caves, as seeming troubled,\n     Make verbal repetition of her moans;\n     Passion on passion deeply is redoubled:              832\n       'Ay me!' she cries, and twenty times, 'Woe, woe!'\n       And twenty echoes twenty times cry so.\n\n     She marking them, begins a wailing note,\n     And sings extemporally a woeful ditty;               836\n     How love makes young men thrall and old men dote;\n     How love is wise in folly foolish-witty:\n       Her heavy anthem still concludes in woe,\n       And still the choir of echoes answer so.           840\n\n     Her song was tedious, and outwore the night,\n     For lovers' hours are long, though seeming short:\n     If pleas'd themselves, others, they think, delight\n     In such like circumstance, with such like sport:     844\n       Their copious stories, oftentimes begun,\n       End without audience, and are never done.\n\n     For who hath she to spend the night withal,\n     But idle sounds resembling parasites;                848\n     Like shrill-tongu'd tapsters answering every call,\n     Soothing the humour of fantastic wits?\n       She says, ''Tis so:' they answer all, ''Tis so;'\n       And would say after her, if she said 'No'.         852\n\n     Lo! here the gentle lark, weary of rest,\n     From his moist cabinet mounts up on high,\n     And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast\n     The sun ariseth in his majesty;                      856\n       Who doth the world so gloriously behold,\n       That cedar-tops and hills seem burnish'd gold.\n\n     Venus salutes him with this fair good morrow:\n     'O thou clear god, and patron of all light,          860\n     From whom each lamp and shining star doth borrow\n     The beauteous influence that makes him bright,\n       There lives a son that suck'd an earthly mother,\n       May lend thee light, as thou dost lend to other'\n\n     This said, she hasteth to a myrtle grove,            865\n     Musing the morning is so much o'erworn,\n     And yet she hears no tidings of her love;\n     She hearkens for his hounds and for his horn:        868\n       Anon she hears them chant it lustily,\n       And all in haste she coasteth to the cry.\n\n     And as she runs, the bushes in the way\n     Some catch her by the neck, some kiss her face,      872\n     Some twine about her thigh to make her stay:\n     She wildly breaketh from their strict embrace,\n       Like a milch doe, whose swelling dugs do ache,\n       Hasting to feed her fawn hid in some brake.        876\n\n     By this she hears the hounds are at a bay;\n     Whereat she starts, like one that spies an adder\n     Wreath'd up in fatal folds just in his way,\n     The fear whereof doth make him shake and shudder;\n       Even so the timorous yelping of the hounds         881\n       Appals her senses, and her spirit confounds.\n\n     For now she knows it is no gentle chase,\n     But the blunt boar, rough bear, or lion proud,       884\n     Because the cry remaineth in one place,\n     Wilere fearfully the dogs exclaim aloud:\n       Finding their enemy to be so curst,\n       They all strain courtesy who shall cope him first.\n\n     This dismal cry rings sadly in her ear,              889\n     Througll which it enters to surprise her heart;\n     Who, overcome by doubt and bloodless fear,\n     With cold-pale weakness numbs each feeling part;\n       Like soldiers, when their captain once doth yield,\n       They basely fly and dare not stay the field.\n\n     Thus stands she in a trembling ecstasy,\n     Till, cheering up her senses sore dismay'd,          896\n     She tells them 'tis a causeless fantasy,\n     And childish error, that they are afraid;\n       Bids them leave quaking, bids them fear no more:\n       And with that word she spied the hunted boar;\n\n     Whose frothy mouth bepainted all with red,           901\n     Like milk and blood being mingled both together,\n     A second fear through all her sinews spread,\n     Which madly hurries her she knows not whither:       904\n       This way she runs, and now she will no further,\n       But back retires to rate the boar for murther.\n\n     A thousand spleens bear her a thousand ways,\n     She treads the path that she untreads again;         908\n     Her more than haste is mated with delays,\n     Like the proceedings of a drunken brain,\n       Full of respects, yet nought at all respecting,\n       In hand with all things, nought at all effecting.\n\n     Here kennel'd in a brake she finds a hound,          913\n     And asks the weary caitiff for his master,\n     And there another licking of his wound,\n     Gainst venom'd sores the only sovereign plaster;     916\n       And here she meets another sadly scowling,\n       To whom she speaks, and he replies with howling.\n\n     When he hath ceas'd his ill-resounding noise,\n     Another flap-mouth'd mourner, black and grim,        920\n     Against the welkin volleys out his voice;\n     Another and another answer him,\n       Clapping their proud tails to the ground below,\n       Shaking their scratch'd ears, bleeding as they go.\n\n     Look, how the world's poor people are amaz'd         925\n     At apparitions, signs, and prodigies,\n     Whereon with fearful eyes they long have gaz'd,\n     Infusing them with dreadful prophecies;              928\n       So she at these sad sighs draws up her breath,\n       And, sighing it again, exclaims on Death.\n\n     'Hard-favour'd tyrant, ugly, meagre, lean,           931\n     Hateful divorce of love,'--thus chides she Death,--\n     'Grim-grinning ghost, earth's worm, what dost thou mean\n     To stifle beauty and to steal his breath,\n       Who when he liv'd, his breath and beauty set\n       Gloss on the rose, smell to the violet?            936\n\n     'If he be dead, O no! it cannot be,\n     Seeing his beauty, thou shouldst strike at it;\n     O yes! it may; thou hast no eyes to see,\n     But hatefully at random dost thou hit.               940\n       Thy mark is feeble age, but thy false dart\n       Mistakes that aim and cleaves an infant's heart.\n\n     'Hadst thou but bid beware, then he had spoke,\n     And, hearing him, thy power had lost his power.      944\n     The Destinies will curse thee for this stroke;\n     They bid thee crop a weed, thou pluck'st a flower.\n       Love's golden arrow at him shoull have fled,\n       And not Death's ebon dart, to strike him dead.     948\n\n     'Dost thou drink tears, that thou provok'st such weeping?\n     What may a heavy groan advantage thee?\n     Why hast thou cast into eternal sleeping\n     Those eyes that taught all other eyes to see?        952\n       Now Nature cares not for thy mortal vigour\n       Since her best work is ruin'd with thy rigour.'\n\n     Here overcome, as one full of despair,\n     She vail'd her eyelids, who, like sluices, stopp'd   956\n     The crystal tide that from her two cheeks fair\n     In the sweet channel of her bosom dropp'd\n       But through the flood-gates breaks the silver rain,\n       And with his strong course opens them again.       960\n\n     O! how her eyes and tears did lend and borrow;\n     Her eyes seen in the tears, tears in her eye;\n     Both crystals, where they view'd each other's sorrow,\n     Sorrow that friendly sighs sought still to dry;      964\n       But like a stormy day, now wind, now rain,\n       Sighs dry her cheeks, tears make them wet again.\n\n     Variable passions throng her constant woe,\n     As striving who should best become her grief;        968\n     All entertain'd, each passion labours so,\n     That every present sorrow seemeth chief,\n     But none is best; then join they all together,\n     Like many clouds consulting for foul weather.        972\n\n     By this, far off she hears some huntsman holloa;\n     A nurse's song no'er pleas'd her babe so well:\n     The dire imagination she did follow\n     This sound of hope doth labour to expel;             976\n       For now reviving joy bids her rejoice,\n       And flatters her it is Adonis' voice.\n\n     Whereat her tears began to turn their tide,\n     Being prison'd in her eye, like pearls in glass;     980\n     Yet sometimes falls an orient drop beside,\n     Which her cheek melts, as scorning it should pass\n       To wash the foul face of the sluttish ground,\n       Who is but drunken when she seemeth drown'd.\n\n     O hard-believing love! how strange it seems          985\n     Not to believe, and yet too credulous;\n     Thy weal and woe are both of them extremes;\n     Despair and hope make thee ridiculous:               988\n       The one doth flatter thee in thoughts unlikely,\n       In likely thoughts the other kills thee quickly.\n\n     Now she unweaves the web that she hath wrought,\n     Adonis lives, and Death is not to blame;             992\n     It was not she that call'd him all to naught,\n     Now she adds honours to his hateful name;\n       She clepes him king of graves, and grave for kings,\n       Imperious supreme of all mortal things.            996\n\n     'No, no,' quoth she, 'sweet Death, I did but jest;\n     Yet pardon me, I felt a kind of fear\n     Whenas I met the boar, that bloody beast,\n     Which knows no pity, but is still severe;           1000\n       Then, gentle shadow,--truth I must confess--\n       I rail'd on thee, fearing my love's decease.\n\n     'Tis not my fault: the boar provok'd my tongue;\n     Be wreak'd on him, invisible commander;             1004\n     'Tis he, foul creature, that hath done thee wrong;\n     I did but act, he 's author of my slander:\n       Grief hath two tongues: and never woman yet,\n       Could rule them both without ten women's wit.'\n\n     Thus hoping that Adonis is alive,                   1009\n     Her rash suspect sile doth extenuate;\n     And that his beauty may the better thrive,\n     With Death she humbly doth insinuate;               1012\n       Tells him of trophies, statues, tombs; and stories\n       His victories, his triumphs, and his glories.\n\n     'O Jove!' quoth she, 'how much a fool was I,\n     To be of such a weak and silly mind                 1016\n     To wail his death who lives and must not die\n     Till mutual overthrow of mortal kind;\n       For he being dead, with him is beauty slain,\n       And, beauty dead, black chaos comes again.        1020\n\n     'Fie, fie, fond love! thou art so full of fear\n     As one with treasure laden, hemm'd with thieves\n     Trifles, unwitnessed with eye or ear,\n     Thy coward heart with false bethinking grieves.'    1024\n       Even at this word she hears a merry horn\n       Whereat she leaps that was but late forlorn.\n\n     As falcon to the lure, away she flies;\n     The grass stoops not, she treads on it so light;    1028\n     And in her haste unfortunately spies\n     The foul boar's conquest on her fair delight;\n       Which seen, her eyes, as murder'd with the view,\n       Like stars asham'd of day, themselves withdrew:\n\n     Or, as the snail, whose tender horns being hit,     1033\n     Shrinks backwards in his shelly cave with pain,\n     And there, all smother'd up, in shade doth sit,\n     Long after fearing to creep forth again;            1036\n       So, at his bloody view, her eyes are fled\n       Into the deep dark cabills of her head;\n\n     Where they resign their office and their light\n     To the disposing of her troubled brain;             1040\n     Who bids them still consort with ugly night,\n     And never wound the heart with looks again;\n       Who, like a king perplexed in his throne,\n       By their suggestion gives a deadly groan,         1044\n\n     Whereat each tributary subject quakes;\n     As when the wind, imprison'd in the ground,\n     Struggling for passage, earth's foundation shakes,\n     Which with cold terror doth men's minds confound.\n       This mutiny each part doth so surprise            1049\n       That from their dark beds once more leap her eyes;\n\n     And, being open'd, threw unwilling light\n     Upon the wide wound that the boar had trench'd\n     In his soft flank; whose wonted lily white          1053\n     With purple tears, that his wound wept, was drench'd:\n       No flower was nigh, no grass, herb, leaf, or weed\n       But stole his blood and seem'd with him to bleed.\n\n     This solemn sympathy poor Venus noteth,             1057\n     Over one shoulder doth she hang her head,\n     Dumbly she passions, franticly she doteth;\n     She thinks he could not die, he is not dead:        1060\n       Her voice is stopp'd, her joints forget to bow,\n       Her eyes are mad that they have wept till now.\n\n     Upon his hurt she looks so steadfastly,\n     That her sight dazzling makes the wound seem three;\n     And then she reprehends her mangling eye,           1065\n     That makes more gashes where no breach should be:\n       His face seems twain, each several limb is doubled;\n       For oft the eye mistakes, the brain being troubled.\n\n     'My tongue cannot express my grief for one,         1069\n     And yet,' quoth she, 'behold two Adons dead!\n     My sighs are blown away, my salt tears gone,\n     Mine eyes are turn'd to fire, my heart to lead:     1072\n       Heavy heart's lead, melt at mine eyes' red fire!\n       So shall I die by drops of hot desire.\n\n     'Alas! poor world, what treasure hast thou lost!\n     What face remains alive that's worth the viewing?\n     Whose tongue is music now? what canst thou boast\n     Of things long since, or anything ensuing?          1078\n       The flowers are sweet, their colours fresh and trim;\n       But true-sweet beauty liv'd and died with him.\n\n     'Bonnet nor veil henceforth no creature wear!       1081\n     Nor sun nor wind will ever strive to kiss you:\n     Having no fair to lose, you need not fear;\n     The sun doth scorn you, and the wind doth hiss you:\n       But when Adonis liv'd, sun and sharp air          1085\n       Lurk'd like two thieves, to rob him of his fair:\n\n     'And therefore would he put his bonnet on,\n     Under whose brim the gaudy sun would peep;          1088\n     The wind would blow it off, and, being gone,\n     Play with his locks: then would Adonis weep;\n       And straight, in pity of his tender years,\n       They both would strive who first should dry his tears.\n\n     'To see his face the lion walk'd along              1093\n     Behind some hedge, because he would not fear him;\n     To recreate himself when he hath sung,\n     The tiger would be tame and gently hear him;        1096\n       If he had spoke, the wolf would leave his prey,\n       And never fright the silly lamb that day.\n\n     'When he beheld his shadow in the brook,\n     The fishes spread on it their golden gills;         1100\n     When he was by, the birds such pleasure took,\n     That some would sing, some other in their bills\n       Would bring him mulberries and ripe-red cherries\n       He fed them with his sight, they him with berries.\n\n     'But this foul, grim, and urchin-spouted boar,      1105\n     Whose downward eye still looketh for a grave,\n     Ne'er saw the beauteous livery that he wore;\n     Witness the entertainment that he gave:             1108\n       If he did see his face, why then I know\n       He thought to kiss him, and hath killed him so.\n\n     ''Tis true, 'tis true; thus was Adonis slain:\n     He ran upon the boar with his sharp spear,          1112\n     Who did not whet his teeth at him again,\n     But by a kiss thought to persuade him there;\n       And nuzzling in his flank, the loving swine\n       Sheath'd unaware the tusk in his soft groin.      1116\n\n     'Had I been tooth'd like him, I must confess,\n     With kissing him I should have kill'd him first;\n     But he is dead, and never did he bless\n     My youth with his; the more am I accurst.'          1120\n       With this she falleth in the place she stood,\n       And stains her face with his congealed blood.\n\n     Sho looks upon his lips, and they are pale;\n     She takes him by the hand, and that is cold;        1124\n     She whispers in his ears a heavy tale,\n     As if they heard the woeful words she told;\n     She lifts the coffer-lids that close his eyes,\n     Where, lo! two lamps, burnt out, in darkness lies;\n\n     Two glasses where herself herself beheld            1129\n     A thousand times, and now no more reflect;\n     Their virtue lost, wherein they late excell'd,\n     And every beauty robb'd of his effect:              1132\n       'Wonder of time,' quoth she, 'this is my spite,\n       That, you being dead, the day should yet be light.\n\n     'Since thou art dead, lo! here I prophesy,\n     Sorrow on love hereafter shall attend:              1136\n     It shall be waited on with jealousy,\n     Find sweet beginning, but unsavoury end;\n       Ne'er settled equally, but high or low;\n       That all love's pleasure shall not match his woe.\n\n     'It shall be fickle, false, and full of fraud,      1141\n     Bud and be blasted in a breathing-while;\n     The bottom poison, and the top o'erstraw'd\n     With sweets that shall the truest sight beguile:    1144\n       The strongest body shall it make most weak,\n       Strike the wise dumb and teach the fool to speak.\n\n     'It shall be sparing and too full of riot,\n     Teaching decrepit age to tread the measures;        1148\n     The staring ruffian shall it keep in quiet,\n     Pluck down the rich, enrich the poor with treasures;\n       It shall be raging mad, and silly mild,\n       Make the young old, the old become a child.       1152\n\n     'It shall suspect where is no cause of fear;\n     It shall not fear where it should most mistrust;\n     It shall be merciful, and too severe,\n     And most deceiving when it seems most just;         1156\n       Perverse it shall be, where it shows most toward,\n       Put fear to velour, courage to the coward.\n\n     'It shall be cause of war and dire events,\n     And set dissension 'twixt the son and sire;         1160\n     Subject and servile to all discontents,\n     As dry combustious matter is to fire:\n       Sith in his prime Death doth my love destroy,\n       They that love best their love shall not enjoy.'  1164\n\n     By this, the boy that by her side lay kill'd\n     Was melted like a vapour from her sight,\n     And in his blood that on the ground lay spill'd,\n     A purple flower sprung up, chequer'd with white;    1168\n       Resembling well his pale cheeks, and the blood\n       Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood.\n\n     She bows her head, the new-sprung flower to smell,\n     Comparing it to her Adonis' breath;                 1172\n     And says within her bosom it shall dwell,\n     Since he himself is reft from her by death:\n       She drops the stalk, and in the breach appears\n       Green dropping sap, which she compares to tears.\n\n     'Poor flower,' quoth she, 'this was thy father's guise,\n     Sweet issue of a more sweet-smelling sire,\n     For every little grief to wet his eyes:\n     To grow unto himself was his desire,                1180\n       And so 'tis shine; but know, it is as good\n       To wither in my breast as in his blood.\n\n     'Here was thy father's bed, here in my breast;\n     Thou art the next of blood, and 'tis thy right:     1184\n     Lo! in this hollow cradle take thy rest,\n     My throbbing heart shall rock thee day and night:\n       There shall not be one minute in an hour\n       Wherein I will not kiss my sweet love's flower.'\n\n     Thus weary of the world, away she hies,             1189\n     And yokes her silver doves; by whose swift aid\n     Their mistress, mounted, through the empty skies\n     In her light chariot quickly is convey'd;           1192\n       Holding their course to Paphos, where their queen\n       Means to immure herself and not be seen.\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"10606":"proofreading Team\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE TRAGEDIE OF\nHAMLET,\nPRINCE OF DENMARKE\n\nA STUDY WITH THE TEXT\nOF\nTHE FOLIO OF 1623\n\nBY\nGEORGE MACDONALD\n\n\"What would you gracious figure?\"\n\n\n\nTO\n\nMY HONOURED RELATIVE\n\nALEXANDER STEWART MACCOLL\n\nA LITTLE _LESS_ THAN KIN, AND _MORE_ THAN KIND\n\nTO WHOM I OWE IN ESPECIAL THE TRUE UNDERSTANDING OF\n\nTHE GREAT SOLILOQUY\n\nI DEDICATE\n\nWITH LOVE AND GRATITUDE\n\nTHIS EFFORT TO GIVE HAMLET AND SHAKSPERE THEIR DUE\n\nGEORGE MAC DONALD\n\nBORDIGHERA\n\n_Christmas_, 1884\n\n\n               Summary:\n\nThe Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark:\n a study of the text of the folio of 1623\n          By George MacDonald\n[Motto]: \"What would you, gracious figure?\"\n\nDr. Greville MacDonald looks on his father's commentary as the \"most\nimportant interpretation of the play ever written... It is his intuitive\nunderstanding ... rather than learned analysis--of which there is yet\noverwhelming evidence--that makes it so splendid.\"\n\nReading Level: Mature youth and adults.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nBy this edition of HAMLET I hope to help the student of Shakspere to\nunderstand the play--and first of all Hamlet himself, whose spiritual\nand moral nature are the real material of the tragedy, to which every\nother interest of the play is subservient. But while mainly attempting,\nfrom the words and behaviour Shakspere has given him, to explain the\nman, I have cast what light I could upon everything in the play,\nincluding the perplexities arising from extreme condensation of meaning,\nfigure, and expression.\n\nAs it is more than desirable that the student should know when he is\nreading the most approximate presentation accessible of what Shakspere\nuttered, and when that which modern editors have, with reason good or\nbad, often not without presumption, substituted for that which they\nreceived, I have given the text, letter for letter, point for point, of\nthe First Folio, with the variations of the Second Quarto in the margin\nand at the foot of the page.\n\nOf HAMLET there are but two editions of authority, those called the\nSecond Quarto and the First Folio; but there is another which requires\nremark.\n\nIn the year 1603 came out the edition known as the First Quarto--clearly\nwithout the poet's permission, and doubtless as much to his displeasure:\nthe following year he sent out an edition very different, and larger in\nthe proportion of one hundred pages to sixty-four. Concerning the former\nmy theory is--though it is not my business to enter into the question\nhere--that it was printed from Shakspere's sketch for the play, written\nwith matter crowding upon him too fast for expansion or development, and\nintended only for a continuous memorandum of things he would take up and\nwork out afterwards. It seems almost at times as if he but marked\ncertain bales of thought so as to find them again, and for the present\nthrew them aside--knowing that by the marks he could recall the thoughts\nthey stood for, but not intending thereby to convey them to any reader.\nI cannot, with evidence before me, incredible but through the eyes\nthemselves, of the illimitable scope of printers' blundering, believe\n_all_ the confusion, unintelligibility, neglect of grammar,\nconstruction, continuity, sense, attributable to them. In parts it is\nmore like a series of notes printed with the interlineations horribly\njumbled; while in other parts it looks as if it had been taken down from\nthe stage by an ear without a brain, and then yet more incorrectly\nprinted; parts, nevertheless, in which it most differs from the\nauthorized editions, are yet indubitably from the hand of Shakspere. I\ngreatly doubt if any ready-writer would have dared publish some of its\nchaotic passages as taken down from the stage; nor do I believe the play\nwas ever presented in anything like such an unfinished state. I rather\nthink some fellow about the theatre, whether more rogue or fool we will\npay him the thankful tribute not to enquire, chancing upon the crude\nembryonic mass in the poet's hand, traitorously pounced upon it, and\nbetrayed it to the printers--therein serving the poet such an evil turn\nas if a sculptor's workman took a mould of the clay figure on which his\nmaster had been but a few days employed, and published casts of it as\nthe sculptor's work.[1] To us not the less is the _corpus delicti_\nprecious--and that unspeakably--for it enables us to see something of\nthe creational development of the drama, besides serving occasionally to\ncast light upon portions of it, yielding hints of the original intention\nwhere the after work has less plainly presented it.\n\n[Footnote 1: Shakspere has in this matter fared even worse than Sir\nThomas Browne, the first edition of whose _Religio Medici_, nowise\nintended for the public, was printed without his knowledge.]\n\nThe Second Quarto bears on its title-page, compelled to a recognition of\nthe former,--'Newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as much againe as\nit was, according to the true and perfect Coppie'; and it is in truth a\nharmonious world of which the former issue was but the chaos. It is the\ndrama itself, the concluded work of the master's hand, though yet to be\nonce more subjected to a little pruning, a little touching, a little\nrectifying. But the author would seem to have been as trusting over the\nwork of the printers, as they were careless of his, and the result is\nsometimes pitiable. The blunders are appalling. Both in it and in the\nFolio the marginal note again and again suggests itself: 'Here the\ncompositor was drunk, the press-reader asleep, the devil only aware.'\nBut though the blunders elbow one another in tumultuous fashion, not\ntherefore all words and phrases supposed to be such are blunders. The\nold superstition of plenary inspiration may, by its reverence for the\nvery word, have saved many a meaning from the obliteration of a\nmisunderstanding scribe: in all critical work it seems to me well to\ncling to the _word_ until one sinks not merely baffled, but exhausted.\n\nI come now to the relation between the Second Quarto and the Folio.\n\nMy theory is--that Shakspere worked upon his own copy of the Second\nQuarto, cancelling and adding, and that, after his death, this copy\ncame, along with original manuscripts, into the hands of his friends the\neditors of the Folio, who proceeded to print according to his\nalterations.\n\nThese friends and editors in their preface profess thus: 'It had bene a\nthing, we confesse, worthie to haue bene wished, that the Author\nhimselfe had liu'd to haue set forth, and ouerseen his owne writings;\nBut since it hath bin ordain'd otherwise, and he by death departed from\nthat right, we pray you do not envie his Friends, the office of their\ncare, and paine, to haue collected & publish'd them, as where (before)\nyou were abus'd with diuerse stolne, and surreptitious copies, maimed,\nand deformed by the frauds and stealthes of iniurious impostors, that\nexpos'd them: euen those, are now offer'd to your view cur'd, and\nperfect of their limbes; and all the rest, absolute in their numbers, as\nhe conceiued th[=e]. Who, as he was a happie imitator of Nature, was a\nmost gentle expresser of it. His mind and hand went together: And what\nhe thought, he vttered with that easinesse, that wee haue scarse\nreceiued from him a blot in his papers. But it is not our prouince, who\nonely gather his works, and giue them you, to praise him. It is yours\nthat reade him.'\n\nThese are hardly the words of men who would take liberties, and\nliberties enormous, after ideas of their own, with the text of a friend\nthus honoured. But although they printed with intent altogether\nfaithful, they did so certainly without any adequate jealousy of the\nprinters--apparently without a suspicion of how they could blunder. Of\nblunders therefore in the Folio also there are many, some through mere\nfollowing of blundered print, some in fresh corruption of the same, some\nthrough mistaking of the manuscript corrections, and some probably from\nthe misprinting of mistakes, so that the corrections themselves are at\ntimes anything but correctly recorded. I assume also that the printers\nwere not altogether above the mean passion, common to the day-labourers\nof Art, from Chaucer's Adam Scrivener down to the present carvers of\nmarble, for modifying and improving the work of the master. The vain\nincapacity of a self-constituted critic will make him regard his poorest\nfancy as an emendation; seldom has he the insight of Touchstone to\nrecognize, or his modesty to acknowledge, that although his own, it is\nnone the less an ill-favoured thing.\n\nNot such, however, was the spirit of the editors; and all the changes of\nimportance from the text of the Quarto I receive as Shakspere's own.\nWith this belief there can be no presumption in saying that they seem to\nme not only to trim the parts immediately affected, but to render the\nplay more harmonious and consistent. It is no presumption to take the\nPoet for superior to his work and capable of thinking he could better\nit--neither, so believing, to imagine one can see that he has been\nsuccessful.\n\nA main argument for the acceptance of the Folio edition as the Poet's\nlast presentment of his work, lies in the fact that there are passages\nin it which are not in the Quarto, and are very plainly from his hand.\nIf we accept these, what right have we to regard the omission from the\nFolio of passages in the Quarto as not proceeding from the same hand?\nHad there been omissions only, we might well have doubted; but the\ninsertions greatly tend to remove the doubt. I cannot even imagine the\narguments which would prevail upon me to accept the latter and refuse\nthe former. Omission itself shows for a master-hand: see the magnificent\npassage omitted, and rightly, by Milton from the opening of his _Comus_.\n\n'But when a man has published two forms of a thing, may we not judge\nbetween him and himself, and take the reading we like better?'\nAssuredly. Take either the Quarto or the Folio; both are Shakspere's.\nTake any reading from either, and defend it. But do not mix up the two,\nretaining what he omits along with what he inserts, and print them so.\nThis is what the editors do--and the thing is not Shakspere's. With\nhomage like this, no artist could be other than indignant. It is well to\nshow every difference, even to one of spelling where it might indicate\npossibly a different word, but there ought to be no mingling of\ndifferences. If I prefer the reading of the Quarto to that of the Folio,\nas may sometimes well happen where blunders so abound, I say I\n_prefer_--I do not dare to substitute. My student shall owe nothing of\nhis text to any but the editors of the Folio, John Heminge and Henrie\nCondell.\n\nI desire to take him with me. I intend a continuous, but ever-varying,\nwhile one-ended lesson. We shall follow the play step by step, avoiding\nalmost nothing that suggests difficulty, and noting everything that\nseems to throw light on the character of a person of the drama. The\npointing I consider a matter to be dealt with as any one pleases--for\nthe sake of sense, of more sense, of better sense, as much as if the\ntext were a Greek manuscript without any division of words. This\nposition I need not argue with anyone who has given but a cursory glance\nto the original page, or knows anything of printers' pointing. I hold\nhard by the word, for that is, or may be, grain: the pointing as we have\nit is merest chaff, and more likely to be wrong than right. Here also,\nhowever, I change nothing in the text, only suggest in the notes. Nor do\nI remark on any of the pointing where all that is required is the\nattention of the student.\n\nDoubtless many will consider not a few of the notes unnecessary. But\nwhat may be unnecessary to one, may be welcome to another, and it is\nimpossible to tell what a student may or may not know. At the same time\nthose form a large class who imagine they know a thing when they do not\nunderstand it enough to see there is a difficulty in it: to such, an\nattempt at explanation must of course seem foolish.\n\nA _number_ in the margin refers to a passage of the play or in the\nnotes, and is the number of the page where the passage is to be found.\nIf the student finds, for instance, against a certain line upon page 8,\nthe number 12, and turns to page 12, he will there find the number 8\nagainst a certain line: the two lines or passages are to be compared,\nand will be found in some way parallel, or mutually explanatory.\n\nWherever I refer to the Quarto, I intend the 2nd Quarto--that is\nShakspere's own authorized edition, published in his life-time. Where\noccasionally I refer to the surreptitious edition, the mere inchoation\nof the drama, I call it, as it is, the _1st Quarto_.\n\nAny word or phrase or stage-direction in the 2nd Quarto differing from\nthat in the Folio, is placed on the margin in a line with the other:\nchoice between them I generally leave to my student. Omissions are\nmainly given as footnotes. Each edition does something to correct the\nerrors of the other.\n\nI beg my companion on this journey to let Hamlet reveal himself in the\nplay, to observe him as he assumes individuality by the concretion of\ncharacteristics. I warn him that any popular notion concerning him which\nhe may bring with him, will be only obstructive to a perception of the\ntrue idea of the grandest of all Shakspere's presentations.\n\nIt will amuse this and that man to remark how often I speak of Hamlet as\nif he were a real man and not the invention of Shakspere--for indeed the\nHamlet of the old story is no more that of Shakspere than a lump of coal\nis a diamond; but I imagine, if he tried the thing himself, he would\nfind it hardly possible to avoid so speaking, and at the same time say\nwhat he had to say.\n\nI give hearty thanks to the press-reader, a gentleman whose name I do\nnot know, not only for keen watchfulness over the printing-difficulties\nof the book, but for saving me from several blunders in derivation.\n\nBORDIGHERA: _December_, 1884.\n\n[Transcriber's Note: In the paper original, each left-facing page\ncontained the text of the play, with sidenotes and footnote references,\nand the corresponding right-facing page contained the footnotes\nthemselves and additional commentary. In this electronic text, the\nplay-text pages are numbered (contrary to custom in electronic texts),\nto allow use of the cross-references provided in the sidenotes and\nfootnotes. In the play text, sidenotes towards the left of the page are\nthose marginal cross-references described earlier, and sidenotes toward\nthe right of the page are the differences noted a few paragraphs later.]\n\n[Page 1]\n\n\n\n\nTHE TRAGEDIE\n\nOF\n\nHAMLET\n\nPRINCE OF DENMARKE.\n\n[Page 2]\n\n\n\n\n_ACTUS PRIMUS._\n\n\n_Enter Barnardo and Francisco two Centinels_[1].\n\n_Barnardo._ Who's there?\n\n_Fran._[2] Nay answer me: Stand and vnfold yourselfe.\n\n_Bar._ Long liue the King.[3]\n\n_Fran._ _Barnardo?_\n\n_Bar._ He.\n\n_Fran._ You come most carefully vpon your houre.\n\n_Bar._ 'Tis now strook twelue, get thee to bed _Francisco_.\n\n_Fran._ For this releefe much thankes:  'Tis\n[Sidenote: 42] bitter cold,\nAnd I am sicke at heart.[4]\n\n_Barn._ Haue you had quiet Guard?[5]\n\n_Fran._ Not a Mouse stirring.\n\n_Barn._ Well, goodnight. If you do meet _Horatio_ and\n_Marcellus_, the Riuals[6] of my Watch, bid them make hast.\n\n_Enter Horatio and Marcellus._\n\n_Fran._ I thinke I heare them. Stand: who's there?\n                                     [Sidenote: Stand ho, who is there?]\n\n_Hor._ Friends to this ground.\n\n_Mar._ And Leige-men to the Dane.\n\n_Fran._ Giue you good night.\n\n_Mar._ O farwel honest Soldier, who hath           [Sidenote: souldiers]\nrelieu'd you?\n\n[Footnote 1: --meeting. Almost dark.]\n\n[Footnote 2: --on the post, and with the right of challenge.]\n\n[Footnote 3: The watchword.]\n\n[Footnote 4: The key-note to the play--as in _Macbeth_: 'Fair is\nfoul and foul is fair.' The whole nation is troubled by late events at\ncourt.]\n\n[Footnote 5: --thinking of the apparition.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _Companions_.]\n\n[Page 4]\n\n_Fra._ _Barnardo_ ha's my place: giue you good-night.   [Sidenote: hath]\n_Exit Fran._\n\n_Mar._ Holla _Barnardo_.\n\n_Bar._ Say, what is Horatio there?\n\n_Hor._ A peece of him.\n\n_Bar._ Welcome _Horatio_, welcome good _Marcellus_.\n\n_Mar._ What, ha's this thing appear'd againe to    [Sidenote: _Hor_.[1]]\nnight.\n\n_Bar._ I haue seene nothing.\n\n_Mar._ Horatio saies, 'tis but our Fantasie,\nAnd will not let beleefe take hold of him\nTouching this dreaded sight, twice seene of vs,\nTherefore I haue intreated him along\nWith vs, to watch the minutes of this Night,\nThat if againe this Apparition come,\n[Sidenote: 6] He may approue our eyes, and speake to it.[2]\n\n_Hor._ Tush, tush, 'twill not appeare.\n\n_Bar._ Sit downe a-while,\nAnd let vs once againe assaile your eares,\nThat are so fortified against our Story,\nWhat we two Nights haue seene.          [Sidenote: have two nights seen]\n\n_Hor._ Well, sit we downe,\nAnd let vs heare _Barnardo_ speake of this.\n\n_Barn._ Last night of all,\nWhen yond same Starre that's Westward from the Pole\nHad made his course t'illume that part of Heauen\nWhere now it burnes, _Marcellus_ and my selfe,\nThe Bell then beating one.[3]\n\n_Mar._ Peace, breake thee of: _Enter the Ghost_. [Sidenote: Enter Ghost]\nLooke where it comes againe.\n\n_Barn._ In the same figure, like the King that's dead.\n\n[Footnote 1: Better, I think; for the tone is scoffing, and Horatio is\nthe incredulous one who has not seen it.]\n\n[Footnote 2: --being a scholar, and able to address it as an apparition\nought to be addressed--Marcellus thinking, perhaps, with others, that a\nghost required Latin.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _1st Q._ 'towling one.]\n\n[Page 6]\n\n[Sidenote: 4] _Mar._ Thou art a Scholler; speake to it _Horatio._\n\n_Barn._ Lookes it not like the King? Marke it _Horatio_.\n                                                 [Sidenote: Looks a not]\n_Hora._ Most like: It harrowes me with fear and wonder.\n                                                 [Sidenote: horrowes[1]]\n\n_Barn._ It would be spoke too.[2]\n\n_Mar._ Question it _Horatio._          [Sidenote: Speak to it _Horatio_]\n\n_Hor._ What art thou that vsurp'st this time of night,[3]\nTogether with that Faire and Warlike forme[4]\nIn which the Maiesty of buried Denmarke\nDid sometimes[5] march: By Heauen I charge thee speake.\n\n_Mar._ It is offended.[6]\n\n_Barn._ See, it stalkes away.\n\n_Hor._ Stay: speake; speake: I Charge thee, speake.\n               _Exit the Ghost._               [Sidenote: _Exit Ghost._]\n\n_Mar._ 'Tis gone, and will not answer.\n\n_Barn._ How now _Horatio_? You tremble and look pale:\nIs not this something more then Fantasie?\nWhat thinke you on't?\n\n_Hor._ Before my God, I might not this beleeue\nWithout the sensible and true auouch\nOf mine owne eyes.\n\n_Mar._ Is it not like the King?\n\n_Hor._ As thou art to thy selfe,\nSuch was the very Armour he had on,\nWhen th' Ambitious Norwey combatted: [Sidenote: when he the ambitious]\nSo frown'd he once, when in an angry parle\nHe smot the sledded Pollax on the Ice.[8]         [Sidenote: sleaded[7]]\n'Tis strange.\n\n[Sidenote: 274] _Mar._ Thus twice before, and iust at this dead houre,\n                                            [Sidenote: and jump at this]\n\n[Footnote 1: _1st Q_. 'horrors mee'.]\n\n[Footnote 2: A ghost could not speak, it was believed, until it was\nspoken to.]\n\n[Footnote 3: It was intruding upon the realm of the embodied.]\n\n[Footnote 4: None of them took it as certainly the late king: it was\nonly clear to them that it was like him. Hence they say, 'usurp'st the\nforme.']\n\n[Footnote 5: _formerly_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: --at the word _usurp'st_.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Also _1st Q_.]\n\n[Footnote 8: The usual interpretation is 'the sledged Poles'; but not to\nmention that in a parley such action would have been treacherous, there\nis another far more picturesque, and more befitting the _angry parle_,\nat the same time more characteristic and forcible: the king in his anger\nsmote his loaded pole-axe on the ice. There is some uncertainty about\nthe word _sledded_ or _sleaded_ (which latter suggests _lead_), but we\nhave the word _sledge_ and _sledge-hammer_, the smith's heaviest, and\nthe phrase, 'a sledging blow.' The quarrel on the occasion referred to\nrather seems with the Norwegians (See Schmidt's _Shakespeare-Lexicon:\nSledded_.) than with the Poles; and there would be no doubt as to the\nlatter interpretation being the right one, were it not that _the\nPolacke_, for the Pole, or nation of the Poles, does occur in the play.\nThat is, however, no reason why the Dane should not have carried a\npole-axe, or caught one from the hand of an attendant. In both our\nauthorities, and in the _1st Q_. also, the word is _pollax_--as in\nChaucer's _Knights Tale_: 'No maner schot, ne pollax, ne schort\nknyf,'--in the _Folio_ alone with a capital; whereas not once in the\nplay is the similar word that stands for the Poles used in the plural.\nIn the _2nd Quarto_ there is _Pollacke_ three times, _Pollack_ once,\n_Pole_ once; in the _1st Quarto_, _Polacke_ twice; in the _Folio_,\n_Poleak_ twice, _Polake_ once. The Poet seems to have avoided the plural\nform.]\n\n[Page 8]\n\nWith Martiall stalke,[1] hath he gone by our Watch.\n\n_Hor_. In what particular thought to work, I know not:\nBut in the grosse and scope of my Opinion,              [Sidenote: mine]\nThis boades some strange erruption to our State.\n\n_Mar_. Good now sit downe, and tell me he that knowes\n[Sidenote: 16] Why this same strict and most obseruant Watch,[2]\nSo nightly toyles the subiect of the Land,\nAnd why such dayly Cast of Brazon Cannon\n                                    [Sidenote: And with such dayly cost]\nAnd Forraigne Mart for Implements of warre:\nWhy such impresse of Ship-wrights, whose sore Taske\nDo's not diuide the Sunday from the weeke,\nWhat might be toward, that this sweaty hast[3]\nDoth make the Night ioynt-Labourer with the day:\nWho is't that can informe me?\n\n_Hor._ That can I,\nAt least the whisper goes so: Our last King,\nWhose Image euen but now appear'd to vs,\nWas (as you know) by _Fortinbras_ of Norway,\n(Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate Pride)[4]\nDar'd to the Combate. In which, our Valiant _Hamlet_,\n(For so this side of our knowne world esteem'd him)[5]\n[Sidenote: 6] Did slay this _Fortinbras_: who by a Seal'd Compact,\nWell ratified by Law, and Heraldrie,                 [Sidenote: heraldy]\nDid forfeite (with his life) all those his Lands       [Sidenote: these]\nWhich he stood seiz'd on,[6] to the Conqueror:    [Sidenote: seaz'd of,]\nAgainst the which, a Moity[7] competent\nWas gaged by our King: which had return'd        [Sidenote: had returne]\nTo the Inheritance of _Fortinbras_,\n\n[Footnote 1: _1st Q_. 'Marshall stalke'.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Here is set up a frame of external relations, to inclose\nwith fitting contrast, harmony, and suggestion, the coming show of\nthings. 273]\n\n[Footnote 3: _1st Q_. 'sweaty march'.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Pride that leads to emulate: the ambition to excel--not\noneself, but another.]\n\n[Footnote 5: The whole western hemisphere.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _stood possessed of_.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Used by Shakspere for _a part_.]\n\n[Page 10]\n\nHad he bin Vanquisher, as by the same Cou'nant\n                                             [Sidenote: the same comart]\nAnd carriage of the Article designe,[1]           [Sidenote: desseigne,]\nHis fell to _Hamlet_. Now sir, young _Fortinbras_,\nOf vnimproued[2] Mettle, hot and full,\nHath in the skirts of Norway, heere and there,\nShark'd[3] vp a List of Landlesse Resolutes,     [Sidenote: of lawlesse]\nFor Foode and Diet, to some Enterprize\nThat hath a stomacke in't[4]: which is no other\n(And it doth well appeare vnto our State)              [Sidenote: As it]\nBut to recouer of vs by strong hand\nAnd termes Compulsatiue, those foresaid Lands  [Sidenote: compulsatory,]\nSo by his Father lost: and this (I take it)\nIs the maine Motiue of our Preparations,\nThe Sourse of this our Watch, and the cheefe head\nOf this post-hast, and Romage[5] in the Land.\n\n       [A]_Enter Ghost againe_.\n\nBut soft, behold: Loe, where it comes againe:\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\n_Bar._ I thinke it be no other, but enso;\nWell may it sort[6] that this portentous figure\nComes armed through our watch so like the King\nThat was and is the question of these warres.\n\n_Hora._ A moth it is to trouble the mindes eye:\nIn the most high and palmy state of Rome,\nA little ere the mightiest _Iulius_ fell\nThe graues stood tennatlesse, and the sheeted dead\nDid squeake and gibber in the Roman streets[7]\nAs starres with traines of fier, and dewes of blood\nDisasters in the sunne; and the moist starre,\nVpon whose influence _Neptunes_ Empier stands\nWas sicke almost to doomesday with eclipse.\nAnd euen the like precurse of feare euents\nAs harbindgers preceading still the fates\nAnd prologue to the _Omen_ comming on\nHaue heauen and earth together demonstrated\nVnto our Climatures and countrymen.[8]\n\n               _Enter Ghost_.]\n\n[Footnote 1: French d\u00e9sign\u00e9.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _not proved_ or _tried. Improvement_, as we use the word,\nis the result of proof or trial: _upon-proof-ment_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Is _shark'd_ related to the German _scharren_? _Zusammen\nscharren--to scrape together._ The Anglo-Saxon _searwian_ is _to\nprepare, entrap, take_.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Some enterprise of acquisition; one for the sake of getting\nsomething.]\n\n[Footnote 5: In Scotch, _remish_--the noise of confused and varied\nmovements; a _row_; a _rampage_.--Associated with French _remuage_?]\n\n[Footnote 6: _suit_: so used in Scotland still, I think.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _Julius Caesar_, act i. sc. 3, and act ii. sc. 2.]\n\n[Footnote 8: The only suggestion I dare make for the rectifying of the\nconfusion of this speech is, that, if the eleventh line were inserted\nbetween the fifth and sixth, there would be sense, and very nearly\ngrammar.\n\n                              and the sheeted dead\n    Did squeake and gibber in the Roman streets,\n    As harbindgers preceading still the fates;\n    As starres with traines of fier, and dewes of blood\n(Here understand _precede_)\n    Disasters in the sunne;\n\nThe tenth will close with the twelfth line well enough.\n\nBut no one, any more than myself, will be _satisfied_ with the\nsuggestion. The probability is, of course, that a line has dropped out\nbetween the fifth and sixth. Anything like this would restore the\nconnection:\n\n_The labouring heavens themselves teemed dire portent_\nAs starres &c.]\n\n[Page 12]\n\nIle crosse it, though it blast me.[1] Stay Illusion:[2]\n                                  [Sidenote: _It[4] spreads his armes_.]\nIf thou hast any sound, or vse of Voyce,[3]\nSpeake to me. If there be any good thing to be done,\nThat may to thee do ease, and grace to me; speak to me.\nIf thou art priuy to thy Countries Fate\n(Which happily foreknowing may auoyd) Oh speake.\nOr, if thou hast vp-hoorded in thy life\nExtorted Treasure in the wombe of Earth,\n(For which, they say, you Spirits oft walke in death)   [Sidenote: your]\n                                          [Sidenote: _The cocke crowes_]\nSpeake of it. Stay, and speake. Stop it _Marcellus_.\n\n_Mar_. Shall I strike at it with my Partizan? [Sidenote: strike it with]\n\n_Hor_. Do, if it will not stand.\n\n_Barn_. 'Tis heere.\n\n_Hor_. 'Tis heere.\n\n_Mar_. 'Tis gone.         _Exit Ghost_[5]\nWe do it wrong, being so Maiesticall[6]\nTo offer it the shew of Violence,\nFor it is as the Ayre, invulnerable,\nAnd our vaine blowes, malicious Mockery.\n\n_Barn_. It was about to speake, when the Cocke crew.\n\n_Hor_. And then it started, like a guilty thing\nVpon a fearfull Summons. I haue heard,\nThe Cocke that is the Trumpet to the day,      [Sidenote: to the morne,]\nDoth with his lofty and shrill-sounding Throate[7]\nAwake the God of Day: and at his warning,\nWhether in Sea, or Fire, in Earth, or Ayre,\nTh'extrauagant,[8] and erring[9] Spirit, hyes\nTo his Confine. And of the truth heerein,\nThis present Obiect made probation.[10]\n\n_Mar_. It faded on the crowing of the Cocke.[11]\n\n[Footnote 1: There are various tales of the blasting power of evil\nghosts.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Plain doubt, and strong.]\n\n[Footnote 3: 'sound of voice, or use of voice': physical or mental\nfaculty of speech.]\n\n[Footnote 4: I judge this _It_ a mistake for _H._, standing for\n_Horatio_: he would stop it.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'As we cannot hurt it, our blows are a mockery; and it is\nwrong to mock anything so majestic': _For_ belongs to _shew_; 'We do it\nwrong, being so majestical, to offer it what is but a _show_ of\nviolence, for it is, &c.']\n\n[Footnote 7: _1st Q._ 'his earely and shrill crowing throate.']\n\n[Footnote 8: straying beyond bounds.]\n\n[Footnote 9: wandering.]\n\n[Footnote 10: 'gave proof.']\n\n[Footnote 11: This line said thoughtfully--as the text of the\nobservation following it. From the _eerie_ discomfort of their position,\nMarcellus takes refuge in the thought of the Saviour's birth into the\nhaunted world, bringing sweet law, restraint, and health.]\n\n[Page 14]\n\nSome sayes, that euer 'gainst that Season comes          [Sidenote: say]\nWherein our Sauiours Birth is celebrated,\nThe Bird of Dawning singeth all night long:        [Sidenote: This bird]\nAnd then (they say) no Spirit can walke abroad,\n                                          [Sidenote: spirit dare sturre]\nThe nights are wholsome, then no Planets strike,\nNo Faiery talkes, nor Witch hath power to Charme:\n                                             [Sidenote: fairy takes,[1]]\nSo hallow'd, and so gracious is the time.      [Sidenote: is that time.]\n\n_Hor._ So haue I heard, and do in part beleeue it.\nBut looke, the Morne in Russet mantle clad,\nWalkes o're the dew of yon high Easterne Hill,   [Sidenote: Eastward[2]]\nBreake we our Watch vp, and by my aduice              [Sidenote: advise]\nLet vs impart what we haue scene to night\nVnto yong _Hamlet_. For vpon my life,\nThis Spirit dumbe to vs, will speake to him:\nDo you consent we shall acquaint him with it,\nAs needfull in our Loues, fitting our Duty?\n\n[Sidenote: 30] _Mar._ Let do't I pray, and I this morning know\nWhere we shall finde him most conueniently.      [Sidenote: convenient.]\n                                       _Exeunt._\n\n\nSCENA SECUNDA[3]\n\n\n_Enter Claudius King of Denmarke. Gertrude the\nQueene, Hamlet, Polonius, Laertes, and his Sister\nOphelia, Lords Attendant._[4]\n                  [Sidenote: _Florish. Enter Claudius, King of Denmarke,\n                   Gertrad the Queene, Counsaile: as Polonius, and his\n                   sonne Laertes, Hamelt Cum Abijs._]\n\n_King._ Though yet of _Hamlet_ our deere Brothers death\n                                                    [Sidenote: _Claud._]\nThe memory be greene: and that it vs befitted\nTo beare our hearts in greefe, and our whole Kingdome\nTo be contracted in one brow of woe:\nYet so farre hath Discretion fought with Nature,\nThat we with wisest sorrow thinke on him,\n\n[Footnote 1: Does it mean--_carries off any child, leaving a\nchangeling_? or does it mean--_affect with evil_, as a disease might\ninfect or _take_?]\n\n[Footnote 2: _1st Q_. 'hie mountaine top,']\n\n[Footnote 3: _In neither Q._]\n\n[Footnote 4: The first court after the marriage.]\n\n[Page 16]\n\nTogether with remembrance of our selues.\nTherefore our sometimes Sister, now our Queen,\nTh'Imperiall Ioyntresse of this warlike State,       [Sidenote: to this]\nHaue we, as 'twere, with a defeated ioy,\nWith one Auspicious, and one Dropping eye,\n                                         [Sidenote: an auspitious and a]\nWith mirth in Funerall, and with Dirge in Marriage,\nIn equall Scale weighing Delight and Dole[1]\nTaken to Wife; nor haue we heerein barr'd[2]\nYour better Wisedomes, which haue freely gone\nWith this affaire along, for all our Thankes.\n[Sidenote: 8] Now followes, that you know young _Fortinbras_,[3]\nHolding a weake supposall of our worth;\nOr thinking by our late deere Brothers death,\nOur State to be disioynt, and out of Frame,\nColleagued with the dreame of his Aduantage;[4]  [Sidenote: this dreame]\nHe hath not fayl'd to pester vs with Message,\nImporting the surrender of those Lands\nLost by his Father: with all Bonds of Law              [Sidenote: bands]\nTo our most valiant Brother. So much for him.\n\n_Enter Voltemand and Cornelius._[5]\n\nNow for our selfe, and for this time of meeting\nThus much the businesse is. We haue heere writ\nTo Norway, Vncle of young _Fortinbras_,\nWho Impotent and Bedrid, scarsely heares\nOf this his Nephewes purpose, to suppresse\nHis further gate[6] heerein. In that the Leuies,\nThe Lists, and full proportions are all made\nOut of his subiect: and we heere dispatch\nYou good _Cornelius_, and you _Voltemand_,\nFor bearing of this greeting to old Norway,          [Sidenote: bearers]\nGiuing to you no further personall power\nTo businesse with the King, more then the scope\nOf these dilated Articles allow:[7]               [Sidenote: delated[8]]\nFarewell and let your hast commend your duty.[9]\n\n[Footnote 1: weighing out an equal quantity of each.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Like _crossed_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: 'Now follows--that (_which_) you know--young\nFortinbras:--']\n\n[Footnote 4: _Colleagued_ agrees with _supposall_. The preceding two\nlines may be regarded as somewhat parenthetical. _Dream of\nadvantage_--hope of gain.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 6: _going; advance._ Note in Norway also, as well as in\nDenmark, the succession of the brother.]\n\n[Footnote 7: (_giving them papers_).]\n\n[Footnote 8: Which of these is right, I cannot tell. _Dilated_ means\n_expanded_, and would refer to _the scope; _delated_ means\n_committed_--to them, to limit them.]\n\n[Footnote 9: idea of duty.]\n\n[Page 18]\n\n_Volt._ In that, and all things, will we shew our duty.\n\n_King._ We doubt it nothing, heartily farewell.\n\n[Sidenote: 74]           [1]_Exit Voltemand and Cornelius._\n\nAnd now _Laertes_, what's the newes with you?\nYou told vs of some suite. What is't _Laertes_?\nYou cannot speake of Reason to the Dane,\nAnd loose your voyce. What would'st thou beg _Laertes_,\nThat shall not be my Offer, not thy Asking?[2]\nThe Head is not more Natiue to the Heart,\nThe Hand more Instrumentall to the Mouth,\nThen is the Throne of Denmarke to thy Father.[3]\nWhat would'st thou haue _Laertes_?\n\n_Laer._ Dread my Lord,                              [Sidenote: My dread]\nYour leaue and fauour to returne to France,\nFrom whence, though willingly I came to Denmarke\nTo shew my duty in your Coronation,\nYet now I must confesse, that duty done,\n[Sidenote: 22] My thoughts and wishes bend againe towards toward\nFrance,[4]\nAnd bow them to your gracious leaue and pardon.\n\n_King._ Haue you your Fathers leaue?\nWhat sayes _Pollonius_?\n\n[A] _Pol._ He hath my Lord:\nI do beseech you giue him leaue to go.\n\n_King._ Take thy faire houre _Laertes_, time be thine,\nAnd thy best graces spend it at thy will:\nBut now my Cosin _Hamlet_, and my Sonne?\n\n[Footnote A: _In the Quarto_:--\n\n_Polo._ Hath[5] my Lord wroung from me my slowe leaue\nBy laboursome petition, and at last\nVpon his will I seald my hard consent,[6]\nI doe beseech you giue him leaue to goe.]\n\n[Footnote 1: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 2: 'Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet\nspeaking, I will hear.'--_Isaiah_, lxv. 24.]\n\n[Footnote 3: The villain king courts his courtiers.]\n\n[Footnote 4: He had been educated there. Compare 23. But it would seem\nrather to the court than the university he desired to return. See his\nfather's instructions, 38.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _H'ath_--a contraction for _He hath_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: A play upon the act of sealing a will with wax.]\n\n[Page 20]\n\n_Ham._ A little more then kin, and lesse then kinde.[1]\n\n_King._ How is it that the Clouds still hang on you?\n\n_Ham._ Not so my Lord, I am too much i'th'Sun.[2]\n                                [Sidenote: so much my ... in the sonne.]\n\n_Queen._ Good Hamlet cast thy nightly colour off,[4]\n                                                  [Sidenote: nighted[3]]\nAnd let thine eye looke like a Friend on Denmarke.\nDo not for euer with thy veyled[5] lids               [Sidenote: vailed]\nSeeke for thy Noble Father in the dust;\nThou know'st 'tis common, all that liues must dye,\nPassing through Nature, to Eternity.\n\n_Ham._ I Madam, it is common.[6]\n\n_Queen._ If it be;\nWhy seemes it so particular with thee.\n\n_Ham._ Seemes Madam? Nay, it is: I know not Seemes:[7]\n'Tis not alone my Inky Cloake (good Mother)\n                                     [Sidenote: cloake coold mother [8]]\nNor Customary suites of solemne Blacke,\nNor windy suspiration of forc'd breath,\nNo, nor the fruitfull Riuer in the Eye,\nNor the deiected hauiour of the Visage,\nTogether with all Formes, Moods, shewes of Griefe,\n                                           [Sidenote: moodes, chapes of]\nThat can denote me truly. These indeed Seeme,[9]      [Sidenote: deuote]\nFor they are actions that a man might[10] play:\nBut I haue that Within, which passeth show;           [Sidenote: passes]\nThese, but the Trappings, and the Suites of woe.\n\n_King._ 'Tis sweet and commendable\nIn your Nature _Hamlet_,\nTo giue these mourning duties to your Father:[11]\nBut you must know, your Father lost a Father,\nThat Father lost, lost his, and the Suruiuer bound\nIn filiall Obligation, for some terme\nTo do obsequious[12] Sorrow. But to perseuer\nIn obstinate Condolement, is a course\n\n[Footnote 1: An _aside_. Hamlet's first utterance is of dislike to his\nuncle. He is more than _kin_ through his unwelcome marriage--less than\n_kind_ by the difference in their natures. To be _kind_ is to behave as\none _kinned_ or related. But the word here is the noun, and means\n_nature_, or sort by birth.]\n\n[Footnote 2: A word-play may be here intended between _sun_ and _son_:\n_a little more than kin--too much i' th' Son_. So George Herbert:\n\n    For when he sees my ways, I die;\n    But I have got his _Son_, and he hath none;\n\nand Dr. Donne:\n\n                at my death thy Son\n    Shall shine, as he shines now and heretofore.]\n\n[Footnote 3: 'Wintred garments'--_As You Like It_, iii. 2.]\n\n[Footnote 4: He is the only one who has not for the wedding put off his\nmourning.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _lowered_, or cast down: _Fr. avaler_, to lower.]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'Plainly you treat it as a common matter--a thing of no\nsignificance!' _I_ is constantly used for _ay_, _yes_.]\n\n[Footnote 7: He pounces on the word _seems_.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Not unfrequently the type would appear to have been set up\nfrom dictation.]\n\n[Footnote 9: They are things of the outside, and must _seem_, for they\nare capable of being imitated; they are the natural _shows_ of grief.\nBut he has that in him which cannot _show_ or _seem_, because nothing\ncan represent it. These are 'the Trappings and the Suites of _woe_;'\nthey fitly represent woe, but they cannot shadow forth that which is\nwithin him--a something different from woe, far beyond it and worse,\npassing all reach of embodiment and manifestation. What this something\nis, comes out the moment he is left by himself.]\n\n[Footnote 10: The emphasis is on _might_.]\n\n[Footnote 11: Both his uncle and his mother decline to understand him.\nThey will have it he mourns the death of his father, though they must at\nleast suspect another cause for his grief. Note the intellectual mastery\nof the hypocrite--which accounts for his success.]\n\n[Footnote 12: belonging to _obsequies_.]\n\n[Page 22]\n\nOf impious stubbornnesse. Tis vnmanly greefe,\nIt shewes a will most incorrect to Heauen,\nA Heart vnfortified, a Minde impatient,             [Sidenote: or minde]\nAn Vnderstanding simple, and vnschool'd:\nFor, what we know must be, and is as common\nAs any the most vulgar thing to sence,\nWhy should we in our peeuish Opposition\nTake it to heart? Fye, 'tis a fault to Heauen,\nA fault against the Dead, a fault to Nature,\nTo Reason most absurd, whose common Theame\nIs death of Fathers, and who still hath cried,\nFrom the first Coarse,[1] till he that dyed to day,   [Sidenote: course]\nThis must be so. We pray you throw to earth\nThis vnpreuayling woe, and thinke of vs\nAs of a Father; For let the world take note,\nYou are the most immediate to our Throne,[2]\nAnd with no lesse Nobility of Loue,\nThen that which deerest Father beares his Sonne,\nDo I impart towards you. For your intent              [Sidenote: toward]\n[Sidenote: 18] In going backe to Schoole in Wittenberg,[3]\nIt is most retrograde to our desire:               [Sidenote: retrogard]\nAnd we beseech you, bend you to remaine\nHeere in the cheere and comfort of our eye,\nOur cheefest Courtier Cosin, and our Sonne.\n\n_Qu._ Let not thy Mother lose her Prayers _Hamlet_:    [Sidenote: loose]\nI prythee stay with vs, go not to Wittenberg.      [Sidenote: pray thee]\n\n_Ham._ I shall in all my best\nObey you Madam.[4]\n\n_King._ Why 'tis a louing, and a faire Reply,\nBe as our selfe in Denmarke. Madam come,\nThis gentle and vnforc'd accord of _Hamlet_[5]\nSits smiling to my heart; in grace whereof,\nNo iocond health that Denmarke drinkes to day,\n[Sidenote: 44] But the great Cannon to the Clowds shall tell,\n\n[Footnote 1: _Corpse_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: --seeking to propitiate him with the hope that his\nsuccession had been but postponed by his uncle's election.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Note that Hamlet was educated in Germany--at Wittenberg,\nthe university where in 1508 Luther was appointed professor of\nPhilosophy. Compare 19. There was love of study as well as disgust with\nhome in his desire to return to _Schoole_: this from what we know of him\nafterwards.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Emphasis on _obey_. A light on the character of Hamlet.]\n\n[Footnote 5: He takes it, or pretends to take it, for far more than it\nwas. He desires friendly relations with Hamlet.]\n\n[Page 24]\n\nAnd the Kings Rouce,[1] the Heauens shall bruite againe,\nRespeaking earthly Thunder. Come away.\n     _Exeunt_              [Sidenote: _Florish. Exeunt all but Hamlet._]\n\n_Manet Hamlet._\n\n[2]_Ham._ Oh that this too too solid Flesh, would melt,\n                                            [Sidenote: sallied flesh[3]]\nThaw, and resolue it selfe into a Dew:\n[Sidenote: 125,247,260] Or that the Euerlasting had not fixt\n[Sidenote: 121 _bis_] His Cannon 'gainst Selfe-slaughter. O God, O God!\n                                [Sidenote: seale slaughter, o God, God,]\nHow weary, stale, flat, and vnprofitable                [Sidenote: wary]\nSeemes to me all the vses of this world?               [Sidenote: seeme]\nFie on't? Oh fie, fie, 'tis an vnweeded Garden       [Sidenote: ah fie,]\nThat growes to Seed: Things rank, and grosse in Nature\nPossesse it meerely. That it should come to this:\n                            [Sidenote: meerely that it should come thus]\nBut two months dead[4]: Nay, not so much; not two,\nSo excellent a King, that was to this\n_Hiperion_ to a Satyre: so louing to my Mother,\nThat he might not beteene the windes of heauen    [Sidenote: beteeme[5]]\nVisit her face too roughly. Heauen and Earth\nMust I remember: why she would hang on him,           [Sidenote: should]\nAs if encrease of Appetite had growne\nBy what it fed on; and yet within a month?\nLet me not thinke on't: Frailty, thy name is woman.[6]\nA little Month, or ere those shooes were old,\nWith which she followed my poore Fathers body\nLike _Niobe_, all teares. Why she, euen she.[7]\n(O Heauen! A beast that wants discourse[8] of Reason   [Sidenote: O God]\nWould haue mourn'd longer) married with mine Vnkle,       [Sidenote: my]\n\n[Footnote 1: German _Rausch_, _drunkenness_. 44, 68]\n\n[Footnote 2: A soliloquy is as the drawing called a section of a thing:\nit shows the inside of the man. Soliloquy is only rare, not unnatural,\nand in art serves to reveal more of nature. In the drama it is the\nlifting of a veil through which dialogue passes. The scene is for the\nmoment shifted into the lonely spiritual world, and here we begin to\nknow Hamlet. Such is his wretchedness, both in mind and circumstance,\nthat he could well wish to vanish from the world. The suggestion of\nsuicide, however, he dismisses at once--with a momentary regret, it is\ntrue--but he dismisses it--as against the will of God to whom he appeals\nin his misery. The cause of his misery is now made plain to us--his\ntrouble that passes show, deprives life of its interest, and renders the\nworld a disgust to him. There is no lamentation over his father's death,\nso dwelt upon by the king; for loving grief does not crush. Far less\ncould his uncle's sharp practice, in scheming for his own election\nduring Hamlet's absence, have wrought in a philosopher like him such an\neffect. The one makes him sorrowful, the other might well annoy him, but\nneither could render him unhappy: his misery lies at his mother's door;\nit is her conduct that has put out the light of her son's life. She who\nhad been to him the type of all excellence, she whom his father had\nidolized, has within a month of his death married his uncle, and is\nliving in habitual incest--for as such, a marriage of the kind was then\nunanimously regarded. To Hamlet's condition and behaviour, his mother,\nher past and her present, is the only and sufficing key. His very idea\nof unity had been rent in twain.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _1st Q_. 'too much grieu'd and sallied flesh.' _Sallied_,\nsullied: compare _sallets_, 67, 103. I have a strong suspicion that\n_sallied_ and not _solid_ is the true word. It comes nearer the depth of\nHamlet's mood.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Two months at the present moment.]\n\n[Footnote 5: This is the word all the editors take: which is right, I do\nnot know; I doubt if either is. The word in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_,\nact i. sc. 1--\n\n    Belike for want of rain; which I could well\n    Beteem them from the tempest of mine eyes--\n\nI cannot believe the same word. The latter means _produce for_, as from\nthe place of origin. The word, in the sense necessary to this passage,\nis not, so far as I know, to be found anywhere else. I have no\nsuggestion to make.]\n\n[Footnote 6: From his mother he generalizes to _woman_. After having\nbelieved in such a mother, it may well be hard for a man to believe in\nany woman.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _Q._ omits 'euen she.']\n\n[Footnote 8: the going abroad among things.]\n\n[Page 26]\n\nMy Fathers Brother: but no more like my Father,\nThen I to _Hercules_. Within a Moneth?\nEre yet the salt of most vnrighteous Teares\nHad left the flushing of her gauled eyes,             [Sidenote: in her]\nShe married. O most wicked speed, to post[1]\nWith such dexterity to Incestuous sheets:\nIt is not, nor it cannot come to good,\nBut breake my heart, for I must hold my tongue.[2]\n\n_Enter Horatio, Barnard, and Marcellus._\n                                  [Sidenote: _Marcellus, and Bernardo._]\n\n_Hor._ Haile to your Lordship.[3]\n\n_Ham._ I am glad to see you well:\n_Horatio_, or I do forget my selfe.\n\n_Hor._ The same my Lord,\nAnd your poore Seruant euer.\n\n[Sidenote: 134] _Ham._ [4]Sir my good friend,\nIle change that name with you:[5]\nAnd what make you from Wittenberg _Horatio_?[6]\n_Marcellus._[7]\n\n_Mar._ My good Lord.\n\n_Ham._ I am very glad to see you: good euen Sir.[8]\nBut what in faith make you from _Wittemberge_?\n\n_Hor._ A truant disposition, good my Lord.[9]\n\n_Ham._ I would not haue your Enemy say so;[10]     [Sidenote: not heare]\nNor shall you doe mine eare that violence,[11]       [Sidenote: my eare]\n[Sidenote: 134] To make it truster of your owne report\nAgainst your selfe. I know you are no Truant:\nBut what is your affaire in _Elsenour_?\nWee'l teach you to drinke deepe, ere you depart.[12]\n                                       [Sidenote: you for to drinke ere]\n\n_Hor._ My Lord, I came to see your Fathers Funerall.\n\n_Ham._ I pray thee doe not mock me (fellow Student) [Sidenote: pre thee]\nI thinke it was to see my Mothers Wedding.         [Sidenote: was to my]\n\n[Footnote 1: I suggest the pointing:\n\n    speed! To post ... sheets!]\n\n[Footnote 2: Fit moment for the entrance of his father's messengers.]\n\n[Footnote 3: They do not seem to have been intimate before, though we\nknow from Hamlet's speech (134) that he had had the greatest respect for\nHoratio. The small degree of doubt in Hamlet's recognition of his friend\nis due to the darkness, and the unexpectedness of his appearance.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _1st Q._ 'O my good friend, I change, &c.' This would leave\nit doubtful whether he wished to exchange servant or friend; but 'Sir,\nmy _good friend_,' correcting Horatio, makes his intent plain.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Emphasis on _that_: 'I will exchange the name of _friend_\nwith you.']\n\n[Footnote 6: 'What are you doing from--out of, _away\nfrom_--Wittenberg?']\n\n[Footnote 7: In recognition: the word belongs to Hamlet's speech.]\n\n[Footnote 8: _Point thus_: 'you.--Good even, sir.'--_to Barnardo, whom\nhe does not know._]\n\n[Footnote 9: An ungrammatical reply. He does not wish to give the real,\npainful answer, and so replies confusedly, as if he had been asked,\n'What makes you?' instead of, 'What do you make?']\n\n[Footnote 10: '--I should know how to answer him.']\n\n[Footnote 11: Emphasis on _you_.]\n\n[Footnote 12: Said with contempt for his surroundings.]\n\n[Page 28]\n\n_Hor._ Indeed my Lord, it followed hard vpon.\n\n_Ham._ Thrift, thrift _Horatio_: the Funerall Bakt-meats\nDid coldly furnish forth the Marriage Tables;\nWould I had met my dearest foe in heauen,[1]\nEre I had euer seerie that day _Horatio_.[2]   [Sidenote: Or ever I had]\nMy father, me thinkes I see my father.\n\n_Hor._ Oh where my Lord?                            [Sidenote: Where my]\n\n_Ham._ In my minds eye (_Horatio_)[3]\n\n_Hor._ I saw him once; he was a goodly King.     [Sidenote: once, a was]\n\n_Ham._ He was a man, take him for all in all:    [Sidenote: A was a man]\nI shall not look vpon his like againe.\n\n_Hor._ My Lord, I thinke I saw him yesternight.\n\n_Ham._ Saw? Who?[4]\n\n_Hor._ My Lord, the King your Father.\n\n_Ham._ The King my Father?[5]\n\n_Hor._ Season[6] your admiration for a while\nWith an attent eare;[7] till I may deliuer\nVpon the witnesse of these Gentlemen,\nThis maruell to you.\n\n_Ham._ For Heauens loue let me heare.             [Sidenote: God's love]\n\n_Hor._ Two nights together, had these Gentlemen\n(_Marcellus_ and _Barnardo_) on their Watch\nIn the dead wast and middle of the night[8]\nBeene thus encountred. A figure like your Father,[9]\nArm'd at all points exactly, _Cap a Pe_,[10]  [Sidenote: Armed at poynt]\nAppeares before them, and with sollemne march\nGoes slow and stately: By them thrice he walkt,\n                                     [Sidenote: stately by them; thrice]\nBy their opprest and feare-surprized eyes,\nWithin his Truncheons length; whilst they bestil'd\n                                          [Sidenote: they distill'd[11]]\nAlmost to Ielly with the Act of feare,[12]\nStand dumbe and speake not to him. This to me\nIn dreadfull[13] secrecie impart they did,\nAnd I with them the third Night kept the Watch,\nWhereas[14] they had deliuer'd both in time,\n\n[Footnote 1: _Dear_ is not unfrequently used as an intensive; but 'my\ndearest foe' is not 'the man who hates me most,' but 'the man whom most\nI regard as my foe.']\n\n[Footnote 2: Note Hamlet's trouble: the marriage, not the death, nor the\nsupplantation.]\n\n[Footnote 3: --with a little surprise at Horatio's question.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Said as if he must have misheard. Astonishment comes only\nwith the next speech.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _1st Q_. 'Ha, ha, the King my father ke you.']\n\n[Footnote 6: Qualify.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _1st Q_. 'an attentiue eare,'.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Possibly, _dead vast_, as in _1st Q_.; but _waste_ as good,\nleaving also room to suppose a play in the word.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Note the careful uncertainty.]\n\n[Footnote 10: _1st Q. 'Capapea_.']\n\n[Footnote 11: Either word would do: the _distilling_ off of the animal\nspirits would leave the man a jelly; the cold of fear would _bestil_\nthem and him to a jelly. _1st Q. distilled_. But I judge _bestil'd_ the\nbetter, as the truer to the operation of fear. Compare _The Winter's\nTale_, act v. sc. 3:--\n\n    There's magic in thy majesty, which has\n\n    From thy admiring daughter took the spirits,\n    Standing like stone with thee.]\n\n[Footnote 12: Act: present influence.]\n\n[Footnote 13: a secrecy more than solemn.]\n\n[Footnote 14: 'Where, as'.]\n\n[Page 30]\n\nForme of the thing; each word made true and good,\nThe Apparition comes. I knew your Father:\nThese hands are not more like.\n\n_Ham_. But where was this?\n\n_Mar_. My Lord, vpon the platforme where we watcht.    [Sidenote: watch]\n\n_Ham_. Did you not speake to it?\n\n_Her_. My Lord, I did;\nBut answere made it none: yet once me thought\nIt lifted vp it head, and did addresse\nIt selfe to motion, like as it would speake:\nBut euen then, the Morning Cocke crew lowd;\nAnd at the sound it shrunke in hast away,\nAnd vanisht from our sight.\n\n_Ham_. Tis very strange.\n\n_Hor_. As I doe liue my honourd Lord 'tis true;\n[Sidenote: 14] And we did thinke it writ downe in our duty\nTo let you know of it.\n\n[Sidenote: 32,52] _Ham_. Indeed, indeed Sirs; but this troubles me.\n                                            [Sidenote: Indeede Sirs but]\nHold you the watch to Night?\n\n_Both_. We doe my Lord.                               [Sidenote: _All_.]\n\n_Ham_. Arm'd, say you?\n\n_Both_. Arm'd, my Lord.                               [Sidenote: _All_.]\n\n_Ham_. From top to toe?\n\n_Both_. My Lord, from head to foote.                  [Sidenote: _All_.]\n\n_Ham_. Then saw you not his face?\n\n_Hor_. O yes, my Lord, he wore his Beauer vp.\n\n_Ham_. What, lookt he frowningly?\n\n[Sidenote: 54,174] _Hor_. A countenance more in sorrow then in anger.[1]\n\n[Sidenote: 120] _Ham_. Pale, or red?\n\n_Hor_. Nay very pale.\n\n[Footnote 1: The mood of the Ghost thus represented, remains the same\ntowards his wife throughout the play.]\n\n[Page 32]\n\n_Ham._ And fixt his eyes vpon you?\n\n_Hor._ Most constantly.\n\n_Ham._ I would I had beene there.\n\n_Hor._ It would haue much amaz'd you.\n\n_Ham._ Very like, very like: staid it long? [Sidenote: Very like, stayd]\n\n_Hor._ While one with moderate hast might tell a hundred.\n                                                    [Sidenote: hundreth]\n\n_All._ Longer, longer.                               [Sidenote: _Both._]\n\n_Hor._ Not when I saw't.\n\n_Ham._ His Beard was grisly?[1] no.                 [Sidenote: grissl'd]\n\n_Hor._ It was, as I haue seene it in his life,\n[Sidenote: 138] A Sable[2] Siluer'd.\n\n_Ham._ Ile watch to Night; perchance 'twill wake againe.\n                                               [Sidenote: walke againe.]\n\n_Hor._ I warrant you it will.                     [Sidenote:  warn't it]\n\n[Sidenote: 44] _Ham._ If it assume my noble Fathers person,[3]\nIle speake to it, though Hell it selfe should gape\nAnd bid me hold my peace.  I pray you all,\nIf you haue hitherto conceald this sight;\nLet it bee treble[5] in your silence still: [Sidenote: be tenable in[4]]\nAnd whatsoeuer els shall hap to night,      [Sidenote: what someuer els]\nGiue it an vnderstanding but no tongue;\nI will requite your loues; so, fare ye well:       [Sidenote: farre you]\nVpon the Platforme twixt eleuen and twelue,\n                                         [Sidenote: a leauen and twelfe]\nIle visit you.\n\n_All._  Our duty to your Honour.   _Exeunt._\n\n_Ham._ Your loue, as mine to you: farewell.           [Sidenote: loves,]\nMy Fathers Spirit in Armes?[6] All is not well:\n[Sidenote: 30,52] I doubt some foule play: would the Night were come;\nTill then sit still my soule; foule deeds will rise,\n                                                [Sidenote: fonde deedes]\nThough all the earth orewhelm them to mens eies.\n                                           _Exit._\n\n[Footnote 1: _grisly_--gray; _grissl'd_--turned gray;--mixed with\nwhite.]\n\n[Footnote 2: The colour of sable-fur, I think.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Hamlet does not _accept_ the Appearance as his father; he\nthinks it may be he, but seems to take a usurpation of his form for very\npossible.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _1st Q_. 'tenible']\n\n[Footnote 5: If _treble_ be the right word, the actor in uttering it\nmust point to each of the three, with distinct yet rapid motion. The\nphrase would be a strange one, but not unlike Shakspere. Compare\n_Cymbeline_, act v. sc. 5: 'And your three motives to the battle,'\nmeaning 'the motives of you three.' Perhaps, however, it is only the\nadjective for the adverb: '_having concealed it hitherto, conceal it\ntrebly now_.' But _tenible_ may be the word: 'let it be a thing to be\nkept in your silence still.']\n\n[Footnote 6: Alone, he does not dispute _the idea_ of its being his\nfather.]\n\n[Page 34]\n\n\n_SCENA TERTIA_[1]\n\n\n_Enter Laertes and Ophelia_.           [Sidenote: _Ophelia his Sister._]\n\n_Laer_. My necessaries are imbark't; Farewell:     [Sidenote: inbarckt,]\nAnd Sister, as the Winds giue Benefit,\nAnd Conuoy is assistant: doe not sleepe,\n                                    [Sidenote: conuay, in assistant doe]\nBut let me heare from you.\n\n_Ophel_. Doe you doubt that?\n\n_Laer_. For _Hamlet_, and the trifling of his fauours,\n                                                     [Sidenote: favour,]\nHold it a fashion and a toy in Bloud;\nA Violet in the youth of Primy Nature;\nFroward,[2] not permanent; sweet not lasting\nThe suppliance of a minute? No more.[3]\n                                  [Sidenote: The perfume and suppliance]\n\n_Ophel_. No more but so.[4]\n\n_Laer_. Thinke it no more.\nFor nature cressant does not grow alone,\n[Sidenote: 172] In thewes[5] and Bulke: but as his Temple waxes,[6]\n                                         [Sidenote: bulkes, but as this]\nThe inward seruice of the Minde and Soule\nGrowes wide withall. Perhaps he loues you now,[7]\nAnd now no soyle nor cautell[8] doth besmerch\nThe vertue of his feare: but you must feare\n                                            [Sidenote: of his will, but]\nHis greatnesse weigh'd, his will is not his owne;[9]    [Sidenote: wayd]\nFor hee himselfe is subiect to his Birth:[10]\nHee may not, as vnuallued persons doe,\nCarue for himselfe; for, on his choyce depends\nThe sanctity and health of the weole State.\n                                  [Sidenote: The safty and | this whole]\nAnd therefore must his choyce be circumscrib'd[11]\nVnto the voyce and yeelding[12] of that Body,\nWhereof he is the Head. Then if he sayes he loues you,\nIt fits your wisedome so farre to beleeue it;\nAs he in his peculiar Sect and force[13]\n                                [Sidenote: his particuler act and place]\nMay giue his saying deed: which is no further,\n\n[Footnote 1: _Not in Quarto_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Same as _forward_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: 'No more' makes a new line in the _Quarto_.]\n\n[Footnote 4: I think this speech should end with a point of\ninterrogation.]\n\n[Footnote 5: muscles.]\n\n[Footnote 6: The body is the temple, in which the mind and soul are the\nworshippers: their service grows with the temple--wide, changing and\nincreasing its objects. The degraded use of the grand image is after the\ncharacter of him who makes it.]\n\n[Footnote 7: The studied contrast between Laertes and Hamlet begins\nalready to appear: the dishonest man, honestly judging after his own\ndishonesty, warns his sister against the honest man.]\n\n[Footnote 8: deceit.]\n\n[Footnote 9: 'You have cause to fear when you consider his greatness:\nhis will &c.' 'You must fear, his greatness being weighed; for because\nof that greatness, his will is not his own.']\n\n[Footnote 10: _This line not in Quarto._]\n\n[Footnote 11: limited.]\n\n[Footnote 12: allowance.]\n\n[Footnote 13: This change from the _Quarto_ seems to me to bear the mark\nof Shakspere's hand. The meaning is the same, but the words are more\nindividual and choice: the _sect_, the _head_ in relation to the body,\nis more pregnant than _place_; and _force_, that is _power_, is a fuller\nword than _act_, or even _action_, for which it plainly appears to\nstand.]\n\n[Page 36]\n\nThen the maine voyce of _Denmarke_ goes withall.\nThen weigh what losse your Honour may sustaine,\nIf with too credent eare you list his Songs;\nOr lose your Heart; or your chast Treasure open     [Sidenote: Or loose]\nTo his vnmastred[1] importunity.\nFeare it _Ophelia_, feare it my deare Sister,\nAnd keepe within the reare of your Affection;[2]\n                                            [Sidenote: keepe you in the]\nOut of the shot and danger of Desire.\nThe chariest Maid is Prodigall enough,                   [Sidenote: The]\nIf she vnmaske her beauty to the Moone:[3]\nVertue it selfe scapes not calumnious stroakes,       [Sidenote: Vertue]\nThe Canker Galls, the Infants of the Spring\n                                       [Sidenote: The canker gaules the]\nToo oft before the buttons[6] be disclos'd,    [Sidenote: their buttons]\nAnd in the Morne and liquid dew of Youth,\nContagious blastments are most imminent.\nBe wary then, best safety lies in feare;\nYouth to it selfe rebels, though none else neere.[6]\n\n_Ophe_. I shall th'effect of this good Lesson keepe,\nAs watchmen to my heart: but good my Brother        [Sidenote: watchman]\nDoe not as some vngracious Pastors doe,\nShew me the steepe and thorny way to Heauen;\nWhilst like a puft and recklesse Libertine\nHimselfe, the Primrose path of dalliance treads,\nAnd reaks not his owne reade.[7][8][9]\n\n_Laer_. Oh, feare me not.[10]\n\n_Enter Polonius_.\n\nI stay too long; but here my Father comes:\nA double blessing is a double grace;\nOccasion smiles vpon a second leaue.[11]\n\n_Polon_. Yet heere _Laertes_? Aboord, aboord for shame,\nThe winde sits in the shoulder of your saile,\nAnd you are staid for there: my blessing with you;\n                                   [Sidenote: for, there my | with thee]\n\n[Footnote 1: Without a master; lawless.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Do not go so far as inclination would lead you. Keep behind\nyour liking. Do not go to the front with your impulse.]\n\n[Footnote 3: --_but_ to the moon--which can show it so little.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Opened but not closed quotations in the _Quarto_.]\n\n[Footnote 5: The French _bouton_ is also both _button_ and _bud_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'Inclination is enough to have to deal with, let alone\nadded temptation.' Like his father, Laertes is wise for another--a man\nof maxims, not behaviour. His morality is in his intellect and for\nself-ends, not in his will, and for the sake of truth and\nrighteousness.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _1st Q_.\n\n    But my deere brother, do not you\n    Like to a cunning Sophister,\n    Teach me the path and ready way to heauen,\n    While you forgetting what is said to me,\n    Your selfe, like to a carelesse libertine\n    Doth giue his heart, his appetite at ful,\n    And little recks how that his honour dies.\n\n    'The primrose way to the everlasting bonfire.'\n    --_Macbeth_, ii. 3:\n\n    'The flowery way that leads to the broad gate and the great fire.'\n    _All's Well_, iv. 5.]\n\n[Footnote 8: 'heeds not his own counsel.']\n\n[Footnote 9: Here in Quarto, _Enter Polonius._]\n\n[Footnote 10: With the fitting arrogance and impertinence of a libertine\nbrother, he has read his sister a lecture on propriety of behaviour; but\nwhen she gently suggests that what is good for her is good for him\ntoo,--'Oh, fear me not!--I stay too long.']\n\n[Footnote 11: 'A second leave-taking is a happy chance': the chance, or\noccasion, because it is happy, smiles. It does not mean that occasion\nsmiles upon a second leave, but that, upon a second leave, occasion\nsmiles. There should be a comma after _smiles_.]\n\n[Footnote 12: As many of Polonius' aphorismic utterances as are given in\nthe 1st Quarto have there inverted commas; but whether intended as\ngleanings from books or as fruits of experience, the light they throw on\nthe character of him who speaks them is the same: they show it\naltogether selfish. He is a man of the world, wise in his generation,\nhis principles the best of their bad sort. Of these his son is a fit\nrecipient and retailer, passing on to his sister their father's grand\ndoctrine of self-protection. But, wise in maxim, Polonius is foolish in\npractice--not from senility, but from vanity.]\n\n[Page 38]\n\nAnd these few Precepts in thy memory,[1]\nSee thou Character.[2] Giue thy thoughts no tongue,\n                                                  [Sidenote: Looke thou]\nNor any vnproportion'd[3] thought his Act:\nBe thou familiar; but by no meanes vulgar:[4]\nThe friends thou hast, and their adoption tride,[5]\n                                               [Sidenote: Those friends]\nGrapple them to thy Soule, with hoopes of Steele:       [Sidenote: unto]\nBut doe not dull thy palme, with entertainment\nOf each vnhatch't, vnfledg'd Comrade.[6] Beware\n                           [Sidenote: each new hatcht unfledgd courage,]\nOf entrance to a quarrell: but being in\nBear't that th'opposed may beware of thee.\nGiue euery man thine eare; but few thy voyce:      [Sidenote: thy eare,]\nTake each mans censure[7]; but reserue thy Judgement;\nCostly thy habit as thy purse can buy;\nBut not exprest in fancie; rich, not gawdie:\nFor the Apparell oft proclaimes the man.\nAnd they in France of the best ranck and station,\nAre of a most select and generous[8] cheff in that.[10]\n                                 [Sidenote: Or of a generous, chiefe[9]]\nNeither a borrower, nor a lender be;             [Sidenote: lender boy,]\nFor lone oft loses both it selfe and friend:            [Sidenote: loue]\nAnd borrowing duls the edge of Husbandry.[11]\n                                                [Sidenote: dulleth edge]\nThis aboue all; to thine owne selfe be true:\nAnd it must follow, as the Night the Day,\nThou canst not then be false to any man.[12]\nFarewell: my Blessing season[13] this in thee.\n\n_Laer_. Most humbly doe I take my leaue, my Lord.\n\n_Polon_. The time inuites you, goe, your seruants tend.\n                                                [Sidenote: time inuests]\n\n_Laer._ Farewell _Ophelia_, and remember well\nWhat I haue said to you.[14]\n\n_Ophe_. Tis in my memory lockt,\nAnd you your selfe shall keepe the key of it,\n\n_Laer_. Farewell.        _Exit Laer_.\n\n_Polon_. What ist _Ophelia_ he hath said to you?\n\n[Footnote 1: He hurries him to go, yet immediately begins to prose.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Engrave.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Not settled into its true shape (?) or, out of proportion\nwith its occasions (?)--I cannot say which.]\n\n[Footnote 4: 'Cultivate close relations, but do not lie open to common\naccess.' 'Have choice intimacies, but do not be _hail, fellow! well met_\nwith everybody.' What follows is an expansion of the lesson.]\n\n[Footnote 5: 'The friends thou hast--and the choice of them justified by\ntrial--'_equal to_: 'provided their choice be justified &c.']\n\n[Footnote 6: 'Do not make the palm hard, and dull its touch of\ndiscrimination, by shaking hands in welcome with every one that turns\nup.']\n\n[Footnote 7: judgment, opinion.]\n\n[Footnote 8: _Generosus_, of good breed, a gentleman.]\n\n[Footnote 9: _1st Q_. 'generall chiefe.']\n\n[Footnote 10: No doubt the omission of _of a_ gives the right number of\nsyllables to the verse, and makes room for the interpretation which a\ndash between _generous_ and _chief_ renders clearer: 'Are most select\nand generous--chief in that,'--'are most choice and well-bred--chief,\nindeed--at the head or top, in the matter of dress.' But without\n_necessity_ or _authority_--one of the two, I would not throw away a\nword; and suggest therefore that Shakspere had here the French idiom _de\nson chef_ in his mind, and qualifies the noun in it with adjectives of\nhis own. The Academy Dictionary gives _de son propre mouvement_ as one\ninterpretation of the phrase. The meaning would be, 'they are of a most\nchoice and developed instinct in dress.' _Cheff_ or _chief_ suggests the\nupper third of the heraldic shield, but I cannot persuade the suggestion\nto further development. The hypercatalectic syllables _of a_, swiftly\nspoken, matter little to the verse, especially as it is _dramatic_.]\n\n[Footnote 11: Those that borrow, having to pay, lose heart for saving.\n\n    'There's husbandry in heaven;\n    Their candles are all out.'--_Macbeth_, ii. 1.]\n\n[Footnote 12: Certainly a man cannot be true to himself without being\ntrue to others; neither can he be true to others without being true to\nhimself; but if a man make himself the centre for the birth of action,\nit will follow, '_as the night the day_,' that he will be true neither\nto himself nor to any other man. In this regard note the history of\nLaertes, developed in the play.]\n\n[Footnote 13: --as salt, to make the counsel keep.]\n\n[Footnote 14: See _note 9, page 37_.]\n\n[Page 40]\n\n_Ophe._ So please you, somthing touching the L. _Hamlet._\n\n_Polon._ Marry, well bethought:\nTis told me he hath very oft of late\nGiuen priuate time to you; and you your selfe\nHaue of your audience beene most free and bounteous.[1]\nIf it be so, as so tis put on me;[2]\nAnd that in way of caution: I must tell you,\nYou doe not vnderstand your selfe so cleerely,\nAs it behoues my Daughter, and your Honour\nWhat is betweene you, giue me vp the truth?\n\n_Ophe._ He hath my Lord of late, made many tenders\nOf his affection to me.\n\n_Polon._ Affection, puh.  You speake like a greene Girle,\nVnsifted in such perillous Circumstance.\nDoe you beleeue his tenders, as you call them?\n\n_Ophe._ I do not know, my Lord, what I should thinke.\n\n_Polon._ Marry Ile teach you; thinke your self a Baby,\n                                                      [Sidenote: I will]\nThat you haue tane his tenders for true pay,      [Sidenote: tane these]\nWhich are not starling. Tender your selfe more dearly;\n                                                    [Sidenote: sterling]\nOr not to crack the winde of the poore Phrase,\n                                                [Sidenote: (not ... &c.]\nRoaming it[3] thus, you'l tender me a foole.[4]\n                                               [Sidenote: Wrong it thus]\n\n_Ophe._ My Lord, he hath importun'd me with loue,\nIn honourable fashion.\n\n_Polon._ I, fashion you may call it, go too, go too.\n\n_Ophe._ And hath giuen countenance to his speech,\nMy Lord, with all the vowes of Heauen.\n                           [Sidenote: with almost all the holy vowes of]\n\n[Footnote 1: There had then been a good deal of intercourse between\nHamlet and Ophelia: she had heartily encouraged him.]\n\n[Footnote 2: 'as so I am informed, and that by way of caution,']\n\n[Footnote 3: --making it, 'the poor phrase' _tenders_, gallop wildly\nabout--as one might _roam_ a horse; _larking it_.]\n\n[Footnote 4: 'you will in your own person present me a fool.']\n\n[Page 42]\n\n_Polon_. I, Springes to catch Woodcocks.[1] I doe know\n                                                     [Sidenote: springs]\nWhen the Bloud burnes, how Prodigall the Soule[2]\nGiues the tongue vowes: these blazes, Daughter,    [Sidenote: Lends the]\nGiuing more light then heate; extinct in both,[3]\nEuen in their promise, as it is a making;\nYou must not take for fire. For this time Daughter,[4]\n                                             [Sidenote: fire, from this]\nBe somewhat scanter of your Maiden presence;       [Sidenote: something]\nSet your entreatments[5] at a higher rate,\nThen a command to parley. For Lord _Hamlet_,          [Sidenote: parle;]\nBeleeue so much in him, that he is young,\nAnd with a larger tether may he walke,                 [Sidenote: tider]\nThen may be giuen you. In few,[6] _Ophelia_,\nDoe not beleeue his vowes; for they are Broakers,\nNot of the eye,[7] which their Inuestments show:\n                                                 [Sidenote: of that die]\nBut meere implorators of vnholy Sutes,         [Sidenote: imploratators]\nBreathing like sanctified and pious bonds,\nThe better to beguile. This is for all:[8]           [Sidenote: beguide]\nI would not, in plaine tearmes, from this time forth,\nHaue you so slander any moment leisure,[9]\n[Sidenote: 70, 82] As to giue words or talke with the Lord _Hamlet_:[10]\nLooke too't, I charge you; come your wayes.\n\n_Ophe_. I shall obey my Lord.[11]     _Exeunt_.\n\n_Enter Hamlet, Horatio, Marcellus._          [Sidenote: _and Marcellus_]\n\n[Sidenote: 2] _Ham_. [12]The Ayre bites shrewdly: is it very cold?[13]\n\n_Hor_. It is a nipping and an eager ayre.\n\n_Ham_. What hower now?\n\n_Hor_. I thinke it lacks of twelue.\n\n_Mar_. No, it is strooke.\n\n_Hor_. Indeed I heard it not: then it drawes neere the season,\n                                                     [Sidenote: it then]\nWherein the Spirit held his wont to walke.\nWhat does this meane my Lord? [14]\n          [Sidenote: _A flourish of trumpets and 2 peeces goes of._[14]]\n\n[Footnote 1: Woodcocks were understood to have no brains.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _1st Q_. 'How prodigall the tongue lends the heart vowes.'\nI was inclined to take _Prodigall_ for a noun, a proper name or epithet\ngiven to the soul, as in a moral play: _Prodigall, the soul_; but I\nconclude it only an adjective used as an adverb, and the capital P a\nblunder.]\n\n[Footnote 3: --in both light and heat.]\n\n[Footnote 4: The _Quarto_ has not 'Daughter.']\n\n[Footnote 5: _To be entreated_ is _to yield_: 'he would nowise be\nentreated:' _entreatments, yieldings_: 'you are not to see him just\nbecause he chooses to command a parley.']\n\n[Footnote 6: 'In few words'; in brief.]\n\n[Footnote 7: I suspect a misprint in the Folio here--that an _e_ has got\nin for a _d_, and that the change from the _Quarto_ should be _Not of\nthe dye_. Then the line would mean, using the antecedent word _brokers_\nin the bad sense, 'Not themselves of the same colour as their garments\n(_investments_); his vows are clothed in innocence, but are not\ninnocent; they are mere panders.' The passage is rendered yet more\nobscure to the modern sense by the accidental propinquity of _bonds,\nbrokers_, and _investments_--which have nothing to do with _stocks_.]\n\n[Footnote 8: 'This means in sum:'.]\n\n[Footnote 9: 'so slander any moment with the name of leisure as to': to\ncall it leisure, if leisure stood for talk with Hamlet, would be to\nslander the time. We might say, 'so slander any man friend as to expect\nhim to do this or that unworthy thing for you.']\n\n[Footnote 10: _1st Q_.\n\n    _Ofelia_, receiue none of his letters,\n    For louers lines are snares to intrap the heart;\n    [Sidenote: 82] Refuse his tokens, both of them are keyes\n    To vnlocke Chastitie vnto Desire;\n    Come in _Ofelia_; such men often proue,\n    Great in their wordes, but little in their loue.\n\n'_men often prove such_--great &c.'--Compare _Twelfth Night_, act ii.\nsc. 4, lines 120, 121, _Globe ed.]\n\n[Footnote 11: Fresh trouble for Hamlet_.]\n\n[Footnote 12: _1st Q._\n\n    The ayre bites shrewd; it is an eager and\n    An nipping winde, what houre i'st?]\n\n[Footnote 13: Again the cold.]\n\n[Footnote 14: The stage-direction of the _Q_. is necessary here.]\n\n[Page 44]\n\n[Sidenote: 22, 25] _Ham_. The King doth wake to night, and takes his\nrouse,\nKeepes wassels and the swaggering vpspring reeles,[1]\n                                         [Sidenote: wassell | up-spring]\nAnd as he dreines his draughts of Renish downe,\nThe kettle Drum and Trumpet thus bray out\nThe triumph of his Pledge.\n\n_Horat_. Is it a custome?\n\n_Ham_. I marry ist;\nAnd to my mind, though I am natiue heere,             [Sidenote: But to]\nAnd to the manner borne: It is a Custome\nMore honour'd in the breach, then the obseruance.\n[A]\n\n_Enter Ghost._\n\n_Hor_. Looke my Lord, it comes.\n\n[Sidenote: 172] _Ham_. Angels and Ministers of Grace defend vs:\n[Sidenote: 32] Be thou a Spirit of health, or Goblin damn'd,\nBring with thee ayres from Heauen, or blasts from Hell,[2]\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto:--_\n\nThis heauy headed reueale east and west[3]\nMakes vs tradust, and taxed of other nations,\nThey clip[4] vs drunkards, and with Swinish phrase\nSoyle our addition,[5] and indeede it takes\nFrom our atchieuements, though perform'd at height[6]\nThe pith and marrow of our attribute,\nSo oft it chaunces in particuler men,[7]\nThat for some vicious mole[8] of nature in them\nAs in their birth wherein they are not guilty,[8]\n(Since nature cannot choose his origin)\nBy their ore-grow'th of some complextion[10]\nOft breaking downe the pales and forts of reason\nOr by[11] some habit, that too much ore-leauens\nThe forme of plausiue[12] manners, that[13] these men\nCarrying I say the stamp of one defect\nBeing Natures liuery, or Fortunes starre,[14]\nHis[15] vertues els[16] be they as pure as grace,\nAs infinite as man may vndergoe,[17]\nShall in the generall censure[18] take corruption\nFrom that particuler fault:[19] the dram of eale[20]\nDoth all the noble substance of a doubt[21]\nTo his[22] owne scandle.]\n\n[Footnote 1: Does Hamlet here call his uncle an _upspring_, an\n_upstart_? or is the _upspring_ a dance, the English equivalent of 'the\nhigh _lavolt_' of _Troil. and Cress_. iv. 4, and governed by\n_reels_--'keeps wassels, and reels the swaggering upspring'--a dance\nthat needed all the steadiness as well as agility available, if, as I\nsuspect, it was that in which each gentleman lifted the lady high, and\nkissed her before setting her down? I cannot answer, I can only put the\nquestion. The word _swaggering_ makes me lean to the former\ninterpretation.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Observe again Hamlet's uncertainty. He does not take it for\ngranted that it is _his father's_ spirit, though it is plainly his\nform.]\n\n[Footnote 3: The Quarto surely came too early for this passage to have\nbeen suggested by the shameful habits which invaded the court through\nthe example of Anne of Denmark! Perhaps Shakspere cancelled it both\nbecause he would not have it supposed he had meant to reflect on the\nqueen, and because he came to think it too diffuse.]\n\n[Footnote 4: clepe, _call_.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Same as _attribute_, two lines lower--the thing imputed to,\nor added to us--our reputation, our title or epithet.]\n\n[Footnote 6: performed to perfection.]\n\n[Footnote 7: individuals.]\n\n[Footnote 8: A mole on the body, according to the place where it\nappeared, was regarded as significant of character: in that relation, a\n_vicious mole_ would be one that indicated some special vice; but here\nthe allusion is to a live mole of constitutional fault, burrowing\nwithin, whose presence the mole-_heap_ on the skin indicates.]\n\n[Footnote 9: The order here would be: 'for some vicious mole of nature\nin them, as by their o'er-growth, in their birth--wherein they are not\nguilty, since nature cannot choose his origin (or parentage)--their\no'ergrowth of (their being overgrown or possessed by) some complexion,\n&c.']\n\n[Footnote 10: _Complexion_, as the exponent of the _temperament_, or\nmasterful tendency of the nature, stands here for _temperament_--'oft\nbreaking down &c.' Both words have in them the element of _mingling_--a\nmingling to certain results.]\n\n[Footnote 11: The connection is:\n\n    That for some vicious mole--\n    As by their o'ergrowth--\n    Or by some habit, &c.]\n\n[Footnote 12: pleasing.]\n\n[Footnote 13: Repeat from above '--so oft it chaunces,' before 'that\nthese men.']\n\n[Footnote 14: 'whether the thing come by Nature or by Destiny,'\n_Fortune's star_: the mark set on a man by fortune to prove her share in\nhim. 83.]\n\n[Footnote 15: A change to the singular.]\n\n[Footnote l6: 'be his virtues besides as pure &c.']\n\n[Footnote 17: _walk under; carry_.]\n\n[Footnote 18: the judgment of the many.]\n\n[Footnote 19: 'Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send\nforth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in\nreputation for wisdom and honour.' Eccles. x. 1.]\n\n[Footnote 20: Compare Quarto reading, page 112:\n\n    The spirit that I haue scene\n    May be a deale, and the deale hath power &c.\n\nIf _deale_ here stand for _devil_, then _eale_ may in the same edition\nbe taken to stand for _evil_. It is hardly necessary to suspect a Scotch\nprinter; _evil_ is often used as a monosyllable, and _eale_ may have\nbeen a pronunciation of it half-way towards _ill_, which is its\ncontraction.]\n\n[Footnote 21: I do not believe there is any corruption in the rest of\nthe passage. 'Doth it of a doubt:' _affects it with a doubt_, brings it\ninto doubt. The following from _Measure for Measure_, is like, though\nnot the same.\n\n    I have on Angelo imposed the office,\n    Who may, in the ambush of my name, strike home\n    And yet my nature never in the fight\n    _To do in slander._\n\n'To do my nature in slander'; to affect it with slander; to bring it\ninto slander, 'Angelo may punish in my name, but, not being present, I\nshall not be accused of cruelty, which would be to slander my nature.']\n\n[Footnote 22: _his_--the man's; see _note_ 13 above.]\n\n[Page 46]\n\n[Sidenote: 112] Be thy euents wicked or charitable,\n                                                  [Sidenote: thy intent]\nThou com'st in such a questionable shape[1]\nThat I will speake to thee. Ile call thee _Hamlet_,[2]\nKing, Father, Royall Dane: Oh, oh, answer me,\n                                             [Sidenote: Dane, \u00f4 answere]\nLet me not burst in Ignorance; but tell\nWhy thy Canoniz'd bones Hearsed in death,[3]\nHaue burst their cerments; why the Sepulcher\nWherein we saw thee quietly enurn'd,[4]\n                                         [Sidenote: quietly interr'd[3]]\nHath op'd his ponderous and Marble iawes,\nTo cast thee vp againe? What may this meane?\nThat thou dead Coarse againe in compleat steele,\nReuisits thus the glimpses of the Moone,\nMaking Night hidious? And we fooles of Nature,[6]\nSo horridly to shake our disposition,[7]\nWith thoughts beyond thee; reaches of our Soules,[8]\n                                                 [Sidenote: the reaches]\nSay, why is this? wherefore? what should we doe?[9]\n\n_Ghost beckens Hamlet._\n\n_Hor._ It beckons you to goe away with it,           [Sidenote: Beckins]\nAs if it some impartment did desire\nTo you alone.\n\n_Mar._ Looke with what courteous action\nIt wafts you to a more remoued ground:                 [Sidenote: waues]\nBut doe not goe with it.\n\n_Hor._ No, by no meanes.\n\n_Ham_. It will not speake: then will I follow it.\n                                                      [Sidenote: I will]\n\n_Hor._ Doe not my Lord.\n\n_Ham._ Why, what should be the feare?\nI doe not set my life at a pins fee;\nAnd for my Soule, what can it doe to that?\nBeing a thing immortall as it selfe:[10]\nIt waues me forth againe; Ile follow it.\n\n_Hor._ What if it tempt you toward the Floud my Lord?[11]\n\n[Footnote 1: --that of his father, so moving him to question it.\n_Questionable_ does not mean _doubtful_, but _fit to be questioned_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: 'I'll _call_ thee'--for the nonce.]\n\n[Footnote 3: I think _hearse_ was originally the bier--French _herse_, a\nharrow--but came to be applied to the coffin: _hearsed_ in\ndeath--_coffined_ in death.]\n\n[Footnote 4: There is no impropriety in the use of the word _inurned_.\nIt is a figure--a word once-removed in its application: the sepulchre is\nthe urn, the body the ashes. _Interred_ Shakspere had concluded\nincorrect, for the body was not laid in the earth.]\n\n[Footnote 5: So in _1st Q_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'fooles of Nature'--fools in the presence of her\nknowledge--to us no knowledge--of her action, to us inexplicable. _A\nfact_ that looks unreasonable makes one feel like a fool. See Psalm\nlxxiii. 22: 'So foolish was I and ignorant, I was as a beast before\nthee.' As some men are our fools, we are all Nature's fools; we are so\nfar from knowing anything as it is.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Even if Shakspere cared more about grammar than he does, a\nman in Hamlet's perturbation he might well present as making a breach in\nit; but we are not reduced even to justification. _Toschaken_ (_to_ as\nGerman _zu_ intensive) is a recognized English word; it means _to shake\nto pieces_. The construction of the passage is, 'What may this mean,\nthat thou revisitest thus the glimpses of the moon, and that we so\nhorridly to-shake our disposition?' So in _The Merry Wives_,\n\n    And fairy-like to-pinch the unclean knight.\n\n'our disposition': our _cosmic structure_.]\n\n[Footnote 8: 'with thoughts that are too much for them, and as an\nearthquake to them.']\n\n[Footnote 9: Like all true souls, Hamlet wants to know what he is _to\ndo_. He looks out for the action required of him.]\n\n[Footnote 10: Note here Hamlet's mood--dominated by his faith. His life\nin this world his mother has ruined; he does not care for it a pin: he\nis not the less confident of a nature that is immortal. In virtue of\nthis belief in life, he is indifferent to the form of it. When, later in\nthe play, he seems to fear death, it is death the consequence of an\naction of whose rightness he is not convinced.]\n\n[Footnote 11: _The Quarto has dropped out_ 'Lord.']\n\n[Page 48]\n\nOr to the dreadfull Sonnet of the Cliffe,             [Sidenote: somnet]\nThat beetles[1] o're his base into the Sea,          [Sidenote: bettles]\n[Sidenote: 112] And there assumes some other horrible forme,[2]\n                                                      [Sidenote: assume]\nWhich might depriue your Soueraignty[3] of Reason\nAnd draw you into madnesse thinke of it?\n\n[A]\n\n_Ham._ It wafts me still; goe on, Ile follow thee.\n                                                       [Sidenote: waues]\n\n_Mar._ You shall not goe my Lord.\n\n_Ham._ Hold off your hand.                             [Sidenote: hands]\n\n_Hor._ Be rul'd, you shall not goe.\n\n_Ham._ My fate cries out,\nAnd makes each petty Artire[4] in this body,       [Sidenote: arture[4]]\nAs hardy as the Nemian Lions nerue:\nStill am I cal'd? Vnhand me Gentlemen:\nBy Heau'n, Ile make a Ghost of him that lets me:\nI say away, goe on, Ile follow thee.\n\n_Exeunt Ghost & Hamlet._\n\n_Hor._ He waxes desperate with imagination.[5]       [Sidenote: imagion]\n\n_Mar._ Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him.\n\n_Hor._ Haue after, to what issue will this come?\n\n_Mar._ Something is rotten in the State of Denmarke.\n\n_Hor._ Heauen will direct it.\n\n_Mar._ Nay, let's follow him.     _Exeunt._\n\n_Enter Ghost and Hamlet._\n\n_Ham._ Where wilt thou lead me? speak; Ile go no further.\n                                                     [Sidenote: Whether]\n\n_Gho._ Marke me.\n\n_Ham._ I will.\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\nThe very place puts toyes of desperation\nWithout more motiue, into euery braine\nThat lookes so many fadoms to the sea\nAnd heares it rore beneath.]\n\n[Footnote 1: _1st Q_. 'beckles'--perhaps for _buckles--bends_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Note the unbelief in the Ghost.]\n\n[Footnote 3: sovereignty--_soul_: so in _Romeo and Juliet_, act v. sc.\n1, l. 3:--\n\n    My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne.]\n\n[Footnote 4: The word _artery_, invariably substituted by the editors,\nis without authority. In the first Quarto, the word is _Artiue_; in the\nsecond (see margin) _arture_. This latter I take to be the right\none--corrupted into _Artire_ in the Folio. It seems to have troubled the\nprinters, and possibly the editors. The third Q. has followed the\nsecond; the fourth has _artyre_; the fifth Q. and the fourth F. have\n_attire_; the second and third Folios follow the first. Not until the\nsixth Q. does _artery_ appear. See _Cambridge Shakespeare. Arture_ was\nto all concerned, and to the language itself, a new word. That _artery_\nwas not Shakspere's intention might be concluded from its unfitness:\nwhat propriety could there be in _making an artery hardy_? The sole,\nimperfect justification I was able to think of for such use of the word\narose from the fact that, before the discovery of the circulation of the\nblood (published in 1628), it was believed that the arteries (found\nempty after death) served for the movements of the animal spirits: this\nmight vaguely _associate_ the arteries with _courage_. But the sight of\nthe word _arture_ in the second Quarto at once relieved me.\n\nI do not know if a list has ever been gathered of the words _made_ by\nShakspere: here is one of them--_arture_, from the same root as _artus,\na joint--arcere, to hold together_, adjective _arctus, tight. Arture_,\nthen, stands for _juncture_. This perfectly fits. In terror the weakest\nparts are the joints, for their _artures_ are not _hardy_. 'And you, my\nsinews, ... bear me stiffly up.' 55, 56.\n\nSince writing as above, a friend informs me that _arture_ is the exact\nequivalent of the [Greek: haphae] of Colossians ii. 19, as interpreted\nby Bishop Lightfoot--'the relation between contiguous limbs, not the\nparts of the limbs themselves in the neighbourhood of contact,'--for\nwhich relation 'there is no word in our language in common use.']\n\n[Footnote 5: 'with the things he imagines.']\n\n[Page 50]\n\n_Gho._ My hower is almost come,[1]\nWhen I to sulphurous and tormenting Flames\nMust render vp my selfe.\n\n_Ham._ Alas poore Ghost.\n\n_Gho._ Pitty me not, but lend thy serious hearing\nTo what I shall vnfold.\n\n_Ham._ Speake, I am bound to heare.\n\n_Gho._ So art thou to reuenge, when thou shalt heare.\n\n_Ham._ What?\n\n_Gho._ I am thy Fathers Spirit,\nDoom'd for a certaine terme to walke the night;[2]\nAnd for the day confin'd to fast in Fiers,[3]\nTill the foule crimes done in my dayes of Nature\nAre burnt and purg'd away? But that I am forbid\nTo tell the secrets of my Prison-House;\nI could a Tale vnfold, whose lightest word[4]\nWould harrow vp thy soule, freeze thy young blood,\nMake thy two eyes like Starres, start from their Spheres,\nThy knotty and combined locks to part,               [Sidenote: knotted]\nAnd each particular haire to stand an end,[5]\nLike Quilles vpon the fretfull[6] Porpentine    [Sidenote: fearefull[6]]\nBut this eternall blason[7] must not be\nTo eares of flesh and bloud; list _Hamlet_, oh list,\n                                        [Sidenote: blood, list, \u00f4 list;]\nIf thou didst euer thy deare Father loue.\n\n_Ham._ Oh Heauen![8]                                     [Sidenote: God]\n\n_Gho._ Reuenge his foule and most vnnaturall Murther.[9]\n\n_Ham._ Murther?\n\n_Ghost._ Murther most foule, as in the best it is;\nBut this most foule, strange, and vnnaturall.\n\n_Ham._ Hast, hast me to know it,          [Sidenote: Hast me to know't,]\nThat with wings as swift\n\n[Footnote 1: The night is the Ghost's day.]\n\n[Footnote 2: To walk the night, and see how things go, without being\nable to put a finger to them, is part of his cleansing.]\n\n[Footnote 3: More horror yet for Hamlet.]\n\n[Footnote 4: He would have him think of life and its doings as of awful\nimport. He gives his son what warning he may.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _An end_ is like _agape, an hungred_. 71, 175.]\n\n[Footnote 6: The word in the Q. suggests _fretfull_ a misprint for\n_frightful_. It is _fretfull_ in the 1st Q. as well.]\n\n[Footnote 7: To _blason_ is to read off in proper heraldic terms the\narms blasoned upon a shield. _A blason_ is such a reading, but is here\nused for a picture in words of other objects.]\n\n[Footnote 8: --in appeal to God whether he had not loved his father.]\n\n[Footnote 9: The horror still accumulates. The knowledge of evil--not\nevil in the abstract, but evil alive, and all about him--comes darkening\ndown upon Hamlet's being. Not only is his father an inhabitant of the\nnether fires, but he is there by murder.]\n\n[Page 52]\n\nAs meditation, or the thoughts of Loue,\nMay sweepe to my Reuenge.[1]\n\n_Ghost._ I finde thee apt,\nAnd duller should'st thou be then the fat weede[2]\n[Sidenote: 194] That rots it selfe in ease, on Lethe Wharfe,[4]\n                                                   [Sidenote: rootes[3]]\nWould'st thou not stirre in this. Now _Hamlet_ heare:\nIt's giuen out, that sleeping in mine Orchard,          [Sidenote: 'Tis]\nA Serpent stung me: so the whole eare of Denmarke,\nIs by a forged processe of my death\nRankly abus'd: But know thou Noble youth,\nThe Serpent that did sting thy Fathers life,\nNow weares his Crowne.\n\n[Sidenote: 30,32] _Ham._ O my Propheticke soule: mine Vncle?[5]\n                                                          [Sidenote: my]\n\n_Ghost._ I that incestuous, that adulterate Beast[6]\nWith witchcraft of his wits, hath Traitorous guifts.\n                                                  [Sidenote: wits, with]\nOh wicked Wit, and Gifts, that haue the power\nSo to seduce? Won to to this shamefull Lust     [Sidenote: wonne to his]\nThe will of my most seeming vertuous Queene:\nOh _Hamlet_, what a falling off was there,      [Sidenote: what failing]\nFrom me, whose loue was of that dignity,\nThat it went hand in hand, euen with[7] the Vow\nI made to her in Marriage; and to decline\nVpon a wretch, whose Naturall gifts were poore\nTo those of mine. But Vertue, as it neuer wil be moued,\nThough Lewdnesse court it in a shape of Heauen:\nSo Lust, though to a radiant Angell link'd,    [Sidenote: so but though]\nWill sate it selfe in[8] a Celestiall bed, and prey on Garbage.[9]\n                                          [Sidenote: Will sort it selfe]\nBut soft, me thinkes I sent the Mornings Ayre; [Sidenote: morning ayre,]\nBriefe let me be: Sleeping within mine Orchard,           [Sidenote: my]\nMy custome alwayes in the afternoone;                 [Sidenote: of the]\nVpon my secure hower thy Vncle stole\n\n[Footnote 1: Now, _for the moment_, he has no doubt, and vengeance is\nhis first thought.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Hamlet may be supposed to recall this, if we suppose him\nafterwards to accuse himself so bitterly and so unfairly as in the\n_Quarto_, 194.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Also _1st Q_.]\n\n[Footnote 4: landing-place on the bank of Lethe, the hell-river of\noblivion.]\n\n[Footnote 5: This does not mean that he had suspected his uncle, but\nthat his dislike to him was prophetic.]\n\n[Footnote 6: How can it be doubted that in this speech the Ghost accuses\nhis wife and brother of adultery? Their marriage was not adultery. See\nhow the ghastly revelation grows on Hamlet--his father in hell--murdered\nby his brother--dishonoured by his wife!]\n\n[Footnote 7: _parallel with; correspondent to_.]\n\n[Footnote 8: _1st Q_. 'fate itself from a'.]\n\n[Footnote 9: This passage, from 'Oh _Hamlet_,' most indubitably asserts\nthe adultery of Gertrude.]\n\n[Page 54]\n\nWith iuyce of cursed Hebenon[1] in a Violl,           [Sidenote: Hebona]\nAnd in the Porches of mine eares did poure                [Sidenote: my]\nThe leaperous Distilment;[2] whose effect\nHolds such an enmity with bloud of Man,\nThat swift as Quick-siluer, it courses[3] through\nThe naturall Gates and Allies of the Body;\nAnd with a sodaine vigour it doth posset       [Sidenote: doth possesse]\nAnd curd, like Aygre droppings into Milke,          [Sidenote: eager[4]]\nThe thin and wholsome blood: so did it mine;\nAnd a most instant Tetter bak'd about,       [Sidenote: barckt about[5]]\nMost Lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust,\nAll my smooth Body.\nThus was I, sleeping, by a Brothers hand,\nOf Life, of Crowne, and Queene at once dispatcht;  [Sidenote: of Queene]\n[Sidenote: 164] Cut off euen in the Blossomes of my Sinne,\nVnhouzzled, disappointed, vnnaneld,[6] [Sidenote: Vnhuzled, | vnanueld,]\n[Sidenote: 262] No reckoning made, but sent to my account\nWith all my imperfections on my head;\nOh horrible, Oh horrible, most horrible:\nIf thou hast nature in thee beare it not;\nLet not the Royall Bed of Denmarke be\nA Couch for Luxury and damned Incest.[7]\nBut howsoeuer thou pursuest this Act,\n                                     [Sidenote: howsomeuer thou pursues]\n[Sidenote: 30,174] Taint not thy mind; nor let thy Soule contriue\n[Sidenote: 140] Against thy Mother ought; leaue her to heauen,\nAnd to those Thornes that in her bosome lodge,\nTo pricke and sting her. Fare thee well at once;\nThe Glow-worme showes the Matine to be neere,\nAnd gins to pale his vneffectuall Fire:\nAdue, adue, _Hamlet_: remember me. _Exit_.\n                        [Sidenote: Adiew, adiew, adiew, remember me.[8]]\n\n_Ham._ Oh all you host of Heauen! Oh Earth: what els?\nAnd shall I couple Hell?[9] Oh fie[10]: hold my heart;\n                                               [Sidenote: hold, hold my]\nAnd you my sinnewes, grow not instant Old;\n\n[Footnote 1: Ebony.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _producing leprosy_--as described in result below.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _1st Q_. 'posteth'.]\n\n[Footnote 4: So also _1st Q_.]\n\n[Footnote 5: This _barckt_--meaning _cased as a bark cases its tree_--is\nused in _1st Q_. also: 'And all my smoothe body, barked, and tetterd\nouer.' The word is so used in Scotland still.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _Husel (Anglo-Saxon)_ is _an offering, the sacrament.\nDisappointed, not appointed_: Dr. Johnson. _Unaneled, unoiled, without\nthe extreme unction_.]\n\n[Footnote 7: It is on public grounds, as a king and a Dane, rather than\nas a husband and a murdered man, that he urges on his son the execution\nof justice. Note the tenderness towards his wife that follows--more\nmarked, 174; here it is mingled with predominating regard to his son to\nwhose filial nature he dreads injury.]\n\n[Footnote 8: _Q_. omits _Exit_.]\n\n[Footnote 9: He must: his father is there!]\n\n[Footnote 10: The interjection is addressed to _heart_ and _sinews_,\nwhich forget their duty.]\n\n[Page 56]\n\nBut beare me stiffely vp: Remember thee?[1]       [Sidenote: swiftly vp]\nI, thou poore Ghost, while memory holds a seate       [Sidenote: whiles]\nIn this distracted Globe[2]: Remember thee?\nYea, from the Table of my Memory,[3]\nIle wipe away all triuiall fond Records,\nAll sawes[4] of Bookes, all formes, all presures past,\nThat youth and obseruation coppied there;\nAnd thy Commandment all alone shall liue\nWithin the Booke and Volume of my Braine,\nVnmixt with baser matter; yes, yes, by Heauen:\n                                              [Sidenote: matter, yes by]\n[Sidenote: 168] Oh most pernicious woman![5]\nOh Villaine, Villaine, smiling damned Villaine!\nMy Tables, my Tables; meet it is I set it downe,[6]\n                                             [Sidenote: My tables, meet]\nThat one may smile, and smile and be a Villaine;\nAt least I'm sure it may be so in Denmarke;             [Sidenote: I am]\nSo Vnckle there you are: now to my word;[7]\nIt is; Adue, Adue, Remember me:[8] I haue sworn't.\n                              [Sidenote: _Enter Horatio, and Marcellus_]\n\n_Hor. and Mar. within_. My Lord, my Lord.         [Sidenote: _Hora._ My]\n\n_Enter Horatio and Marcellus._\n\n_Mar_. Lord _Hamlet_.\n\n_Hor_. Heauen secure him.                            [Sidenote: Heauens]\n\n_Mar_. So be it.\n\n_Hor_. Illo, ho, ho, my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. Hillo, ho, ho, boy; come bird, come.[9]\n                                         [Sidenote: boy come, and come.]\n\n_Mar_. How ist't my Noble Lord?\n\n_Hor_. What newes, my Lord?\n\n_Ham_. Oh wonderfull![10]\n\n_Hor_. Good my Lord tell it.\n\n_Ham_. No you'l reueale it.                         [Sidenote: you will]\n\n_Hor_. Not I, my Lord, by Heauen.\n\n_Mar_. Nor I, my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. How say you then, would heart of man once think it?\nBut you'l be secret?\n\n[Footnote 1: For the moment he has no doubt that he has seen and spoken\nwith the ghost of his father.]\n\n[Footnote 2: his head.]\n\n[Footnote 3: The whole speech is that of a student, accustomed to books,\nto take notes, and to fix things in his memory. 'Table,' _tablet_.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _wise sayings_.]\n\n[Footnote 5: The Ghost has revealed her adultery: Hamlet suspects her of\ncomplicity in the murder, 168.]\n\n[Footnote 6: It may well seem odd that Hamlet should be represented as,\nat such a moment, making a note in his tablets; but without further\nallusion to the student-habit, I would remark that, in cases where\nstrongest passion is roused, the intellect has yet sometimes an\nautomatic trick of working independently. For instance from Shakspere,\nsee Constance in _King John_--how, in her agony over the loss of her\nson, both her fancy, playing with words, and her imagination, playing\nwith forms, are busy.\n\nNote the glimpse of Hamlet's character here given: he had been something\nof an optimist; at least had known villainy only from books; at thirty\nyears of age it is to him a discovery that a man may smile and be a\nvillain! Then think of the shock of such discoveries as are here forced\nupon him! Villainy is no longer a mere idea, but a fact! and of all\nvillainous deeds those of his own mother and uncle are the worst! But\nnote also his honesty, his justice to humanity, his philosophic\ntemperament, in the qualification he sets to the memorandum, '--at least\nin Denmark!']\n\n[Footnote 7: 'my word,'--the word he has to keep in mind; his cue.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Should not the actor here make a pause, with hand uplifted,\nas taking a solemn though silent oath?]\n\n[Footnote 9: --as if calling to a hawk.]\n\n[Footnote 10: Here comes the test of the actor's _possible_: here Hamlet\nhimself begins to act, and will at once assume a _r\u00f4le_, ere yet he well\nknows what it must be. One thing only is clear to him--that the\ncommunication of the Ghost is not a thing to be shared--that he must\nkeep it with all his power of secrecy: the honour both of father and of\nmother is at stake. In order to do so, he must begin by putting on\nhimself a cloak of darkness, and hiding his feelings--first of all the\npresent agitation which threatens to overpower him. His immediate\nimpulse or instinctive motion is to force an air, and throw a veil of\ngrimmest humour over the occurrence. The agitation of the horror at his\nheart, ever working and constantly repressed, shows through the veil,\nand gives an excited uncertainty to his words, and a wild vacillation to\nhis manner and behaviour.]\n\n[Page 58]\n\n_Both_. I, by Heau'n, my Lord.[1]\n\n_Ham_. There's nere a villaine dwelling in all Denmarke\nBut hee's an arrant knaue.\n\n_Hor_. There needs no Ghost my Lord, come from the\nGraue, to tell vs this.\n\n_Ham_. Why right, you are i'th'right;                 [Sidenote: in the]\nAnd so, without more circumstance at all,\nI hold it fit that we shake hands, and part:\nYou, as your busines and desires shall point you:     [Sidenote: desire]\nFor euery man ha's businesse and desire,[2]             [Sidenote: hath]\nSuch as it is: and for mine owne poore part,              [Sidenote: my]\nLooke you, Ile goe pray.[4]              [Sidenote: I will goe pray.[3]]\n\n_Hor_. These are but wild and hurling words, my Lord.\n                                                 [Sidenote: whurling[5]]\n\n_Ham_. I'm sorry they offend you heartily:              [Sidenote: I am]\nYes faith, heartily.\n\n_Hor_. There's no offence my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. Yes, by Saint _Patricke_, but there is my Lord,[6]\n                                          [Sidenote: there is _Horatio_]\nAnd much offence too, touching this Vision heere;[7]\n[Sidenote: 136] It is an honest Ghost, that let me tell you:[8]\nFor your desire to know what is betweene vs,\nO'remaster't as you may. And now good friends,\nAs you are Friends, Schollers and Soldiers,\nGiue me one poore request.\n\n_Hor_. What is't my Lord? we will.\n\n_Ham_. Neuer make known what you haue seen to night.[9]\n\n_Both_. My Lord, we will not.\n\n_Ham_. Nay, but swear't.\n\n_Hor_. Infaith my Lord, not I.[10]\n\n_Mar_. Nor I my Lord: in faith.\n\n_Ham_. Vpon my sword.[11]\n\n[Footnote 1: _Q. has not_ 'my Lord.']\n\n[Footnote 2: Here shows the philosopher.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _Q. has not_ 'Looke you.']\n\n[Footnote 4: '--nothing else is left me.' This seems to me one of the\nfinest touches in the revelation of Hamlet.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _1st Q_. 'wherling'.]\n\n[Footnote 6: I take the change from the _Quarto_ here to be no blunder.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _Point thus_: 'too!--Touching.']\n\n[Footnote 8: The struggle to command himself is plain throughout.]\n\n[Footnote 9: He could not endure the thought of the resulting\ngossip;--which besides would interfere with, possibly frustrate, the\ncarrying out of his part.]\n\n[Footnote 10: This is not a refusal to swear; it is the oath itself:\n'_In faith I will not_!']\n\n[Footnote 11: He would have them swear on the cross-hilt of his sword.]\n\n[Page 60]\n\n_Marcell._ We haue sworne my Lord already.[1]\n\n_Ham._ Indeed, vpon my sword, Indeed.\n\n_Gho._ Sweare.[2]  _Ghost cries vnder the Stage._[3]\n\n_Ham._ Ah ha boy, sayest thou so. Art thou           [Sidenote: Ha, ha,]\nthere truepenny?[4] Come one you here this fellow\n                                          [Sidenote: Come on, you heare]\nin the selleredge\nConsent to sweare.\n\n_Hor._ Propose the Oath my Lord.[5]\n\n_Ham._ Neuer to speake of this that you haue seene.\nSweare by my sword.\n\n_Gho._ Sweare.\n\n_Ham. Hic & vbique_? Then wee'l shift for grownd,  [Sidenote: shift our]\nCome hither Gentlemen,\nAnd lay your hands againe vpon my sword,\nNeuer to speake of this that you haue heard:[6]\nSweare by my Sword.\n\n_Gho._ Sweare.[7]                       [Sidenote: Sweare by his sword.]\n\n_Ham._ Well said old Mole, can'st worke i'th' ground so fast?\n                                                 [Sidenote: it'h' earth]\nA worthy Pioner, once more remoue good friends.\n\n_Hor._ Oh day and night: but this is wondrous strange.\n\n_Ham._ And therefore as a stranger giue it welcome.\nThere are more things in Heauen and Earth, _Horatio_,\nThen are dream't of in our Philosophy But come,      [Sidenote: in your]\nHere as before, neuer so helpe you mercy,\nHow strange or odde so ere I beare my selfe;   [Sidenote: How | so mere]\n(As I perchance heereafter shall thinke meet              [Sidenote: As]\n[Sidenote: 136, 156, 178] To put an Anticke disposition on:)[8]\n                                                          [Sidenote: on]\nThat you at such time seeing me, neuer shall           [Sidenote: times]\nWith Armes encombred thus, or thus, head shake;\n                                                [Sidenote: or this head]\n\n[Footnote 1: He feels his honour touched.]\n\n[Footnote 2: The Ghost's interference heightens Hamlet's agitation. If\nhe does not talk, laugh, jest, it will overcome him. Also he must not\nshow that he believes it his father's ghost: that must be kept to\nhimself--for the present at least. He shows it therefore no\nrespect--treats the whole thing humorously, so avoiding, or at least\nparrying question. It is all he can do to keep the mastery of himself,\ndodging horror with half-forced, half-hysterical laughter. Yet is he all\nthe time intellectually on the alert. See how, instantly active, he\nmakes use of the voice from beneath to enforce his requisition of\nsilence. Very speedily too he grows quiet: a glimmer of light as to the\ncourse of action necessary to him has begun to break upon him: it breaks\nfrom his own wild and disjointed behaviour in the attempt to hide the\nconflict of his feelings--which suggests to him the idea of shrouding\nhimself, as did David at the court of the Philistines, in the cloak of\nmadness: thereby protected from the full force of what suspicion any\nabsorption of manner or outburst of feeling must occasion, he may win\ntime to lay his plans. Note how, in the midst of his horror, he is yet\nable to think, plan, resolve.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _1st Q. 'The Gost under the stage.'_]\n\n[Footnote 4: While Hamlet seems to take it so coolly, the others have\nfled in terror from the spot. He goes to them. Their fear must be what,\non the two occasions after, makes him shift to another place when the\nGhost speaks.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Now at once he consents.]\n\n[Footnote 6: In the _Quarto_ this and the next line are transposed.]\n\n[Footnote 7: What idea is involved as the cause of the Ghost's thus\ninterfering?--That he too sees what difficulties must encompass the\ncarrying out of his behest, and what absolute secrecy is thereto\nessential.]\n\n[Footnote 8: This idea, hardly yet a resolve, he afterwards carries out\nso well, that he deceives not only king and queen and court, but the\nmost of his critics ever since: to this day they believe him mad. Such\nmust have studied in the play a phantom of their own misconception, and\ncan never have seen the Hamlet of Shakspere. Thus prejudiced, they\nmistake also the effects of moral and spiritual perturbation and misery\nfor further sign of intellectual disorder--even for proof of moral\nweakness, placing them in the same category with the symptoms of the\ninsanity which he simulates, and by which they are deluded.]\n\n[Page 62]\n\nOr by pronouncing of some doubtfull Phrase;\nAs well, we know, or we could and if we would,\n                                           [Sidenote: As well, well, we]\nOr if we list to speake; or there be and if there might,\n                                               [Sidenote: if they might]\nOr such ambiguous giuing out to note,                   [Sidenote: note]\nThat you know ought of me; this not to doe:\n                                        [Sidenote: me, this doe sweare,]\nSo grace and mercy at your most neede helpe you:\nSweare.[1]\n\n_Ghost_. Sweare.[2]\n\n_Ham_. Rest, rest perturbed Spirit[3]: so Gentlemen,\nWith all my loue I doe commend me to you;\nAnd what so poore a man as _Hamlet_ is,\nMay doe t'expresse his loue and friending to you,\nGod willing shall not lacke: let vs goe in together,\nAnd still your fingers on your lippes I pray,\nThe time is out of ioynt: Oh cursed spight,[4]\n[Sidenote: 126] That euer I was borne to set it right.\nNay, come let's goe together.         _Exeunt._[5]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nSUMMARY OF ACT I.\n\n\nThis much of Hamlet we have now learned: he is a thoughtful man, a\ngenuine student, little acquainted with the world save through books,\nand a lover of his kind. His university life at Wittenberg is suddenly\ninterrupted by a call to the funeral of his father, whom he dearly loves\nand honours. Ere he reaches Denmark, his uncle Claudius has contrived,\nin an election (202, 250, 272) probably hastened and secretly\ninfluenced, to gain the voice of the representatives at least of the\npeople, and ascend the throne. Hence his position must have been an\nirksome one from the first; but, within a month of his father's death,\nhis mother's marriage with his uncle--a relation universally regarded as\nincestuous--plunges him in the deepest misery. The play introduces him\nat the first court held after the wedding. He is attired in the mourning\nof his father's funeral, which he had not laid aside for the wedding.\nHis aspect is of absolute dejection, and he appears in a company for\nwhich he is so unfit only for the sake of desiring permission to leave\nthe court, and go back to his studies at Wittenberg.[A] Left to himself,\nhe breaks out in agonized and indignant lamentation over his mother's\nconduct, dwelling mainly on her disregard of his father's memory. Her\nconduct and his partial discovery of her character, is the sole cause of\nhis misery. In such his mood, Horatio, a fellow-student, brings him word\nthat his father's spirit walks at night. He watches for the Ghost, and\nreceives from him a frightful report of his present condition, into\nwhich, he tells him, he was cast by the murderous hand of his brother,\nwith whom his wife had been guilty of adultery. He enjoins him to put a\nstop to the crime in which they are now living, by taking vengeance on\nhis uncle. Uncertain at the moment how to act, and dreading the\nconsequences of rousing suspicion by the perturbation which he could not\nbut betray, he grasps at the sudden idea of affecting madness. We have\nlearned also Hamlet's relation to Ophelia, the daughter of the selfish,\nprating, busy Polonius, who, with his son Laertes, is destined to work\nout the earthly fate of Hamlet. Of Laertes, as yet, we only know that he\nprates like his father, is self-confident, and was educated at Paris,\nwhither he has returned. Of Ophelia we know nothing but that she is\ngentle, and that she is fond of Hamlet, whose attentions she has\nencouraged, but with whom, upon her father's severe remonstrance, she is\nready, outwardly at least, to break.\n\n[Footnote A: Roger Ascham, in his _Scholemaster_, if I mistake not, sets\nthe age, up to which a man should be under tutors, at twenty-nine.]\n\n[Footnote 1: 'Sweare' _not in Quarto_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: They do not this time shift their ground, but swear--in\ndumb show.]\n\n[Footnote 3: --for now they had obeyed his command and sworn secrecy.]\n\n[Footnote 4: 'cursed spight'--not merely that he had been born to do\nhangman's work, but that he should have been born at all--of a mother\nwhose crime against his father had brought upon him the wretched\nnecessity which must proclaim her ignominy. Let the student do his best\nto realize the condition of Hamlet's heart and mind in relation to his\nmother.]\n\n[Footnote: 5 This first act occupies part of a night, a day, and part of\nthe next night.]\n\n[Page 64]\n\n\n\nACTUS SECUNDUS.[1]\n\n\n_Enter Polonius, and Reynoldo._\n                 [Sidenote: _Enter old Polonius, with his man, or two._]\n\n_Polon._ Giue him his money, and these notes _Reynoldo_.[2]\n                                                  [Sidenote: this money]\n\n_Reynol._ I will my Lord.\n\n_Polon._ You shall doe maruels wisely: good _Reynoldo_,\n                                                    [Sidenote: meruiles]\nBefore you visite him you make inquiry\n                                        [Sidenote: him, to make inquire]\nOf his behauiour.[3]\n\n_Reynol._ My Lord, I did intend it.\n\n_Polon._ Marry, well said;\nVery well said. Looke you Sir,\nEnquire me first what Danskers are in Paris;\nAnd how, and who; what meanes; and where they keepe:\nWhat company, at what expence: and finding\nBy this encompassement and drift of question,\nThat they doe know my sonne: Come you more neerer[4]\nThen your particular demands will touch it,\nTake you as 'twere some distant knowledge of him,\nAnd thus I know his father and his friends,          [Sidenote: As thus]\nAnd in part him. Doe you marke this _Reynoldo_?\n\n_Reynol._ I, very well my Lord.\n\n_Polon._ And in part him, but you may say not well;\nBut if't be hee I meane, hees very wilde;\nAddicted so and so; and there put on him\nWhat forgeries you please: marry, none so ranke,\nAs may dishonour him; take heed of that:\nBut Sir, such wanton, wild, and vsuall slips,\nAs are Companions noted and most knowne\nTo youth and liberty.\n\n[Footnote 1: _Not in Quarto._\n\nBetween this act and the former, sufficient time has passed to allow the\nambassadors to go to Norway and return: 74. See 138, and what Hamlet\nsays of the time since his father's death, 24, by which together the\ninterval _seems_ indicated as about two months, though surely so much\ntime was not necessary.\n\nCause and effect _must_ be truly presented; time and space are mere\naccidents, and of small consequence in the drama, whose very idea is\ncompression for the sake of presentation. All that is necessary in\nregard to time is, that, either by the act-pause, or the intervention of\na fresh scene, the passing of it should be indicated.\n\nThis second act occupies the forenoon of one day.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _1st Q._\n\n    _Montano_, here, these letters to my sonne,\n    And this same mony with my blessing to him,\n    And bid him ply his learning good _Montano_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: The father has no confidence in the son, and rightly, for\nboth are unworthy: he turns on him the cunning of the courtier, and\nsends a spy on his behaviour. The looseness of his own principles comes\nout very clear in his anxieties about his son; and, having learned the\nideas of the father as to what becomes a gentleman, we are not surprised\nto find the son such as he afterwards shows himself. Till the end\napproaches, we hear no more of Laertes, nor is more necessary; but\nwithout this scene we should have been unprepared for his vileness.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _Point thus_: 'son, come you more nearer; then &c.' The\n_then_ here does not stand for _than_, and to change it to _than_ makes\nat once a contradiction. The sense is: 'Having put your general\nquestions first, and been answered to your purpose, then your particular\ndemands will come in, and be of service; they will reach to the\npoint--_will touch it_.' The _it_ is impersonal. After it should come a\nperiod.]\n\n[Page 66]\n\n_Reynol._ As gaming my Lord.\n\n_Polon._ I, or drinking, fencing, swearing,\nQuarelling, drabbing. You may goe so farre.\n\n_Reynol._ My Lord that would dishonour him.\n\n_Polon._ Faith no, as you may season it in the charge;[1]\n                                                [Sidenote: Fayth as you]\nYou must not put another scandall on him,\nThat hee is open to Incontinencie;[2]\nThat's not my meaning: but breath his faults so quaintly,\nThat they may seeme the taints of liberty;\nThe flash and out-breake of a fiery minde,\nA sauagenes in vnreclaim'd[3] bloud of generall assault.[4]\n\n_Reynol._ But my good Lord.[5]\n\n_Polon._ Wherefore should you doe this?[6]\n\n_Reynol._ I my Lord, I would know that.\n\n_Polon._ Marry Sir, heere's my drift,\nAnd I belieue it is a fetch of warrant:[7]           [Sidenote: of wit,]\nYou laying these slight sulleyes[8] on my Sonne,\n                                                  [Sidenote: sallies[8]]\nAs 'twere a thing a little soil'd i'th'working:\n                                        [Sidenote: soiled with working,]\nMarke you your party in conuerse; him you would sound,\nHauing euer seene. In the prenominate crimes,   [Sidenote: seene in the]\nThe youth you breath of guilty, be assur'd\nHe closes with you in this consequence:\nGood sir, or so, or friend, or Gentleman.\nAccording to the Phrase and the Addition,[9]   [Sidenote: phrase or the]\nOf man and Country.\n\n_Reynol._ Very good my Lord.\n\n_Polon._ And then Sir does he this?\n                            [Sidenote: doos a this a doos, what was _I_]\nHe does: what was I about to say?\nI was about to say somthing: where did I leaue?\n                                          [Sidenote: By the masse I was]\n\n_Reynol._ At closes in the consequence:\nAt friend, or so, and Gentleman.[10]\n\n[Footnote 1: _1st Q._\n\n    I faith not a whit, no not a whit,\n\n    As you may bridle it not disparage him a iote.]\n\n[Footnote 2: This may well seem prating inconsistency, but I suppose\nmeans that he must not be represented as without moderation in his\nwickedness.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _Untamed_, as a hawk.]\n\n[Footnote 4: The lines are properly arranged in _Q_.\n\n    A sauagenes in vnreclamed blood,\n    Of generall assault.\n\n--that is, 'which assails all.']\n\n[Footnote 5: Here a hesitating pause.]\n\n[Footnote 6: --with the expression of, 'Is that what you would say?']\n\n[Footnote 7: 'a fetch with warrant for it'--a justifiable trick.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Compare _sallied_, 25, both Quartos; _sallets_ 67, 103; and\nsee _soil'd_, next line.]\n\n[Footnote 9: 'Addition,' epithet of courtesy in address.]\n\n[Footnote 10: _Q_. has not this line]\n\n[Page 68]\n\n_Polon._ At closes in the consequence, I marry,\nHe closes with you thus. I know the Gentleman,\n                                             [Sidenote: He closes thus,]\nI saw him yesterday, or tother day;                 [Sidenote: th'other]\nOr then or then, with such and such; and as you say,\n                                                    [Sidenote: or such,]\n[Sidenote: 25] There was he gaming, there o'retooke in's Rouse,\n                                [Sidenote: was a gaming there, or tooke]\nThere falling out at Tennis; or perchance,\nI saw him enter such a house of saile;                 [Sidenote: sale,]\n_Videlicet_, a Brothell, or so forth. See you now;\nYour bait of falshood, takes this Cape of truth;\n                                             [Sidenote: take this carpe]\nAnd thus doe we of wisedome and of reach[1]\nWith windlesses,[2] and with assaies of Bias,\nBy indirections finde directions out:\nSo by my former Lecture and aduice\nShall you my Sonne; you haue me, haue you not?\n\n_Reynol._ My Lord I haue.\n\n_Polon._ God buy you; fare you well,                 [Sidenote: ye | ye]\n\n_Reynol._ Good my Lord.\n\n_Polon._ Obserue his inclination in your selfe.[3]\n\n_Reynol._ I shall my Lord.\n\n_Polon._ And let him[4] plye his Musicke.\n\n_Reynol._ Well, my Lord.        _Exit_.\n\n_Enter Ophelia_.\n\n_Polon_. Farewell:\nHow now _Ophelia_, what's the matter?\n\n_Ophe_. Alas my Lord, I haue beene so affrighted.\n                                         [Sidenote: O my Lord, my Lord,]\n\n_Polon_. With what, in the name of Heauen?\n                                           [Sidenote: i'th name of God?]\n\n_Ophe_. My Lord, as I was sowing in my Chamber,     [Sidenote: closset,]\nLord _Hamlet_ with his doublet all vnbrac'd,[5]\nNo hat vpon his head, his stockings foul'd,\nVngartred, and downe giued[6] to his Anckle,\nPale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other,\nAnd with a looke so pitious in purport,\nAs if he had been loosed out of hell,\n\n[Footnote 1: of far reaching mind.]\n\n[Footnote 2: The word windlaces is explained in the dictionaries as\n_shifts, subtleties_--but apparently on the sole authority of this\npassage. There must be a figure in _windlesses_, as well as in _assaies\nof Bias_, which is a phrase plain enough to bowlers: the trying of other\ndirections than that of the _jack_, in the endeavour to come at one with\nthe law of the bowl's bias. I find _wanlass_ a term in hunting: it had\nto do with driving game to a given point--whether in part by getting to\nwindward of it, I cannot tell. The word may come of the verb wind, from\nits meaning '_to manage by shifts or expedients_': _Barclay_. As he has\nspoken of fishing, could the _windlesses_ refer to any little instrument\nsuch as now used upon a fishing-rod? I do not think it. And how do the\nwords _windlesses_ and _indirections_ come together? Was a windless some\ncontrivance for determining how the wind blew? I bethink me that a thin\nwithered straw is in Scotland called a _windlestrae_: perhaps such\nstraws were thrown up to find out 'by indirection' the direction of the\nwind.\n\nThe press-reader sends me two valuable quotations, through Latham's\nedition of Johnson's Dictionary, from Dr. H. Hammond (1605-1660), in\nwhich _windlass_ is used as a verb:--\n\n'A skilful woodsman, by windlassing, presently gets a shoot, which,\nwithout taking a compass, and thereby a commodious stand, he could never\nhave obtained.'\n\n'She is not so much at leasure as to windlace, or use craft, to satisfy\nthem.'\n\nTo _windlace_ seems then to mean 'to steal along to leeward;' would it\nbe absurd to suggest that, so-doing, the hunter _laces the wind_?\nShakspere, with many another, I fancy, speaks of _threading the night_\nor _the darkness_.\n\nJohnson explains the word in the text as 'A handle by which anything is\nturned.']\n\n[Footnote 3: 'in your selfe.' may mean either 'through the insight\nafforded by your own feelings'; or 'in respect of yourself,' 'toward\nyourself.' I do not know which is intended.]\n\n[Footnote 4: 1st Q. 'And bid him'.]\n\n[Footnote 5: loose; _undone_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: His stockings, slipped down in wrinkles round his ankles,\nsuggested the rings of _gyves_ or fetters. The verb _gyve_, of which the\npassive participle is here used, is rarer.]\n\n[Page 70]\n\nTo speake of horrors: he comes before me.\n\n_Polon._ Mad for thy Loue?\n\n_Ophe._ My Lord, I doe not know: but truly I do feare it.[1]\n\n_Polon._ What said he?\n\n_Ophe._[2] He tooke me by the wrist, and held me hard;\nThen goes he to the length of all his arme;\nAnd with his other hand thus o're his brow,\nHe fals to such perusall of my face,\nAs he would draw it. Long staid he so,                  [Sidenote: As a]\nAt last, a little shaking of mine Arme:\nAnd thrice his head thus wauing vp and downe;\nHe rais'd a sigh, so pittious and profound,\nThat it did seeme to shatter all his bulke,            [Sidenote: As it]\nAnd end his being. That done, he lets me goe,\nAnd with his head ouer his shoulders turn'd,        [Sidenote: shoulder]\nHe seem'd to finde his way without his eyes,\nFor out adores[3] he went without their helpe;        [Sidenote: helps,]\nAnd to the last, bended their light on me.\n\n_Polon._ Goe with me, I will goe seeke the King,   [Sidenote: Come, goe]\nThis is the very extasie of Loue,\nWhose violent property foredoes[4] it selfe,\nAnd leads the will to desperate Vndertakings,\nAs oft as any passion vnder Heauen,                 [Sidenote: passions]\nThat does afflict our Natures. I am sorrie,\nWhat haue you giuen him any hard words of late?\n\n_Ophe_. No my good Lord: but as you did command,\n[Sidenote: 42, 82] I did repell his Letters, and deny'de\nHis accesse to me.[5]\n\n_Pol_. That hath made him mad.\nI am sorrie that with better speed and Judgement\n                                                [Sidenote: better heede]\n[Sidenote: 83] I had not quoted[6] him. I feare he did but trifle,\n                                           [Sidenote: coted[6] | fear'd]\nAnd meant to wracke thee: but beshrew my iealousie:\n\n[Footnote 1: She would be glad her father should think so.]\n\n[Footnote 2: The detailed description of Hamlet and his behaviour that\nfollows, must be introduced in order that the side mirror of narrative\nmay aid the front mirror of drama, and between them be given a true\nnotion of his condition both mental and bodily. Although weeks have\npassed since his interview with the Ghost, he is still haunted with the\nmemory of it, still broods over its horrible revelation. That he had,\nprobably soon, begun to feel far from certain of the truth of the\napparition, could not make the thoughts and questions it had awaked,\ncease tormenting his whole being. The stifling smoke of his mother's\nconduct had in his mind burst into loathsome flame, and through her he\nhas all but lost his faith in humanity. To know his uncle a villain, was\nto know his uncle a villain; to know his mother false, was to doubt\nwomen, doubt the whole world.\n\nIn the meantime Ophelia, in obedience to her father, and evidently\nwithout reason assigned, has broken off communication with him: he reads\nher behaviour by the lurid light of his mother's. She too is false! she\ntoo is heartless! he can look to her for no help! She has turned against\nhim to curry favour with his mother and his uncle!\n\nCan she be such as his mother! Why should she not be? His mother had\nseemed as good! He would give his life to know her honest and pure.\nMight he but believe her what he had believed her, he would yet have a\nhiding-place from the wind, a covert from the tempest! If he could but\nknow the truth! Alone with her once more but for a moment, he would read\nher very soul by the might of his! He must see her! He would see her! In\nthe agony of a doubt upon which seemed to hang the bliss or bale of his\nbeing, yet not altogether unintimidated by a sense of his intrusion, he\nwalks into the house of Polonius, and into the chamber of Ophelia.\n\nEver since the night of the apparition, the court, from the behaviour\nassumed by Hamlet, has believed his mind affected; and when he enters\nher room, Ophelia, though such is the insight of love that she is able\nto read in the face of the son the father's purgatorial sufferings, the\npicture of one 'loosed out of hell, to speak of horrors,' attributes all\nthe strangeness of his appearance and demeanour, such as she describes\nthem to her father, to that supposed fact. But there is, in truth, as\nlittle of affected as of actual madness in his behaviour in her\npresence. When he comes before her pale and trembling, speechless and\nwith staring eyes, it is with no simulated insanity, but in the agonized\nhope, scarce distinguishable from despair, of finding, in the testimony\nof her visible presence, an assurance that the doubts ever tearing his\nspirit and sickening his brain, are but the offspring of his phantasy.\nThere she sits!--and there he stands, vainly endeavouring through her\neyes to read her soul! for, alas,\n\n                    there's no art\n    To find the mind's construction in the face!\n\n--until at length, finding himself utterly baffled, but unable, save by\nthe removal of his person, to take his eyes from her face, he retires\nspeechless as he came. Such is the man whom we are now to see wandering\nabout the halls and corridors of the great castle-palace.\n\nHe may by this time have begun to doubt even the reality of the sight he\nhad seen. The moment the pressure of a marvellous presence is removed,\nit is in the nature of man the same moment to begin to doubt; and\ninstead of having any reason to wish the apparition a true one, he had\nevery reason to desire to believe it an illusion or a lying spirit.\nGreat were his excuse even if he forced likelihoods, and suborned\nwitnesses in the court of his own judgment. To conclude it false was to\nthink his father in heaven, and his mother not an adulteress, not a\nmurderess! At once to kill his uncle would be to seal these horrible\nthings irrevocable, indisputable facts. Strongest reasons he had for not\ntaking immediate action in vengeance; but no smallest incapacity for\naction had share in his delay. The Poet takes recurrent pains, as if he\nforesaw hasty conclusions, to show his hero a man of promptitude, with\nthis truest fitness for action, that he would not make unlawful haste.\nWithout sufficing assurance, he would have no part in the fate either of\nthe uncle he disliked or the mother he loved.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _a doors_, like _an end_. 51, 175.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _undoes, frustrates, destroys_.]\n\n[Footnote 5: See quotation from _1st Quarto,_ 43.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _Quoted_ or _coted: observed_; Fr. _coter_, to mark the\nnumber. Compare 95.]\n\n[Page 72]\n\nIt seemes it is as proper to our Age,        [Sidenote: By heauen it is]\nTo cast beyond our selues[1] in our Opinions,\nAs it is common for the yonger sort\nTo lacke discretion.[2] Come, go we to the King,\nThis must be knowne, which being kept close might moue\nMore greefe to hide, then hate to vtter loue.[3]       [Sidenote: Come.]\n                                     _Exeunt._\n\n\n_SCENA SECUNDA._[4]\n\n\n_Enter King, Queene, Rosincrane, and Guildensterne Cum alijs.\n               [Sidenote: Florish: Enter King and Queene, Rosencraus and\n                                                      Guyldensterne.[5]]\n\n_King._ Welcome deere _Rosincrance_ and _Guildensterne_.\nMoreouer,[6] that we much did long to see you,\nThe neede we haue to vse you, did prouoke\n[Sidenote: 92] Our hastie sending.[7] Something haue you heard\nOf _Hamlets_ transformation: so I call it,           [Sidenote: so call]\nSince not th'exterior, nor the inward man           [Sidenote: Sith nor]\nResembles that it was. What it should bee\nMore then his Fathers death, that thus hath put him\nSo much from th'understanding of himselfe,\nI cannot deeme of.[8] I intreat you both,             [Sidenote: dreame]\nThat being of so young dayes[9] brought vp with him:\nAnd since so Neighbour'd to[10] his youth,and humour,\n                                      [Sidenote: And sith | and hauior,]\nThat you vouchsafe your rest heere in our Court\nSome little time: so by your Companies\nTo draw him on to pleasures, and to gather\n[Sidenote: 116] So much as from Occasions you may gleane,\n                                                    [Sidenote: occasion]\n[A]\nThat open'd lies within our remedie.[11]\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\nWhether ought to vs vnknowne afflicts him thus,]\n\n[Footnote 1:\n\n    'to be overwise--to overreach ourselves'\n    'ambition, which o'erleaps itself,'\n    --_Macbeth_, act i. sc. 7.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Polonius is a man of faculty. His courtier-life, his\nself-seeking, his vanity, have made and make him the fool he is.]\n\n[Footnote 3: He hopes now to get his daughter married to the prince.\n\nWe have here a curious instance of Shakspere's not unfrequently\nexcessive condensation. Expanded, the clause would be like this: 'which,\nbeing kept close, might move more grief by the hiding of love, than to\nutter love might move hate:' the grief in the one case might be greater\nthan the hate in the other would be. It verges on confusion, and may not\nbe as Shakspere wrote it, though it is like his way.\n\n_1st Q._\n\n    Lets to the king, this madnesse may prooue,\n    Though wilde a while, yet more true to thy loue.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _Not in Quarto._]\n\n[Footnote 5: _Q._ has not _Cum alijs._]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'Moreover that &c.': _moreover_ is here used as a\npreposition, with the rest of the clause for its objective.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Rosincrance and Guildensterne are, from the first and\nthroughout, the creatures of the king.]\n\n[Footnote 8: The king's conscience makes him suspicious of Hamlet's\nsuspicion.]\n\n[Footnote 9: 'from such an early age'.]\n\n[Footnote 10: 'since then so familiar with'.]\n\n[Footnote 11: 'to gather as much as you may glean from opportunities, of\nthat which, when disclosed to us, will lie within our remedial power.'\nIf the line of the Quarto be included, it makes plainer construction.\nThe line beginning with '_So much_,' then becomes parenthetical, and _to\ngather_ will not immediately govern that line, but the rest of the\nsentence.]\n\n[Page 74]\n\n_Qu._ Good Gentlemen, he hath much talk'd of you,\nAnd sure I am, two men there are not liuing,    [Sidenote: there is not]\nTo whom he more adheres. If it will please you\nTo shew vs so much Gentrie,[1] and good will,\nAs to expend your time with vs a-while,\nFor the supply and profit of our Hope,[2]\nYour Visitation shall receiue such thankes\nAs fits a Kings remembrance.\n\n_Rosin._ Both your Maiesties\nMight by the Soueraigne power you haue of vs,\nPut your dread pleasures, more into Command\nThen to Entreatie,\n\n_Guil._ We both[3] obey,                              [Sidenote: But we]\nAnd here giue vp our selues, in the full bent,[4]\nTo lay our Seruices freely at your feete,            [Sidenote: seruice]\nTo be commanded.\n\n_King._ Thankes _Rosincrance_, and gentle _Guildensterne_.\n\n_Qu._ Thankes _Guildensterne_ and gentle _Rosincrance_,[5]\nAnd I beseech you instantly to visit\nMy too much changed Sonne.\nGo some of ye,                                           [Sidenote: you]\nAnd bring the Gentlemen where _Hamlet_ is,       [Sidenote: bring these]\n\n_Guil._ Heauens make our presence and our practises\nPleasant and helpfull to him.          _Exit_[6]\n\n_Queene._ Amen.               [Sidenote: Amen. _Exeunt Ros. and Guyld._]\n\n_Enter Polonius._\n\n[Sidenote: 18] _Pol._ Th'Ambassadors from Norwey, my good Lord,\nAre ioyfully return'd.\n\n[Footnote 1: gentleness, grace, favour.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Their hope in Hamlet, as their son and heir.]\n\n[Footnote 3: both majesties.]\n\n[Footnote 4: If we put a comma after _bent_, the phrase will mean 'in\nthe full _purpose_ or _design_ to lay our services &c.' Without the\ncomma, the content of the phrase would be general:--'in the devoted\nforce of our faculty.' The latter is more like Shakspere.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Is there not tact intended in the queen's reversal of her\nhusband's arrangement of the two names--that each might have precedence,\nand neither take offence?]\n\n[Footnote 6: _Not in Quarto._]\n\n[Page 76]\n\n_King._ Thou still hast bin the Father of good Newes.\n\n_Pol._ Haue I, my Lord?[1] Assure you, my good Liege,\n                                                 [Sidenote: I assure my]\nI hold my dutie, as I hold my Soule,\nBoth to my God, one to my gracious King:[2]   [Sidenote: God, and to[2]]\nAnd I do thinke, or else this braine of mine\nHunts not the traile of Policie, so sure\nAs I haue vs'd to do: that I haue found          [Sidenote: it hath vsd]\nThe very cause of _Hamlets_ Lunacie.\n\n_King._ Oh speake of that, that I do long to heare.\n                                                  [Sidenote: doe I long]\n\n_Pol._ Giue first admittance to th'Ambassadors,\nMy Newes shall be the Newes to that great Feast,\n                                          [Sidenote: the fruite to that]\n\n_King._ Thy selfe do grace to them, and bring them in.\nHe tels me my sweet Queene, that he hath found\n                                        [Sidenote: my deere Gertrard he]\nThe head[3] and sourse of all your Sonnes distemper.\n\n_Qu._ I doubt it is no other, but the maine,\nHis Fathers death, and our o're-hasty Marriage.[4]\n                                                  [Sidenote: our hastie]\n\n_Enter Polonius, Voltumand, and Cornelius._\n                                        [Sidenote: _Enter_ Embassadors.]\n\n_King._ Well, we shall sift him. Welcome good Frends:\n                                                     [Sidenote: my good]\nSay _Voltumand_, what from our Brother Norwey?\n\n_Volt._ Most faire returne of Greetings, and Desires.\nVpon our first,[5] he sent out to suppresse\nHis Nephewes Leuies, which to him appear'd\nTo be a preparation 'gainst the Poleak:            [Sidenote: Pollacke,]\nBut better look'd into, he truly found\nIt was against your Highnesse, whereat greeued,\nThat so his Sicknesse, Age, and Impotence\nWas falsely borne in hand,[6] sends[7] out Arrests\nOn _Fortinbras_, which he (in breefe) obeyes,\n\n[Footnote 1: To be spoken triumphantly, but in the peculiar tone of one\nthinking, 'You little know what better news I have behind!']\n\n[Footnote 2: I cannot tell which is the right reading; if the _Q.'s_, it\nmeans, '_I hold my duty precious as my soul, whether to my God or my\nking_'; if the _F.'s_, it is a little confused by the attempt of\nPolonius to make a fine euphuistic speech:--'_I hold my duty as I hold\nmy soul,--both at the command of my God, one at the command of my\nking_.']\n\n[Footnote 3: the spring; the river-head\n\n    'The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood'\n\n    _Macbeth,_ act ii. sc. 3.]\n\n[Footnote 4: She goes a step farther than the king in accounting for\nHamlet's misery--knows there is more cause of it yet, but hopes he does\nnot know so much cause for misery as he might know.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Either 'first' stands for _first desire_, or it is a noun,\nand the meaning of the phrase is, 'The instant we mentioned the\nmatter'.]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'borne in hand'--played with, taken advantage of.\n\n    'How you were borne in hand, how cross'd,'\n\n    _Macbeth,_ act iii. sc. 1.]\n\n[Footnote 7: The nominative pronoun was not _quite_ indispensable to the\nverb in Shakspere's time.]\n\n[Page 78]\n\nReceiues rebuke from Norwey: and in fine,\nMakes Vow before his Vnkle, neuer more\nTo giue th'assay of Armes against your Maiestie.\nWhereon old Norwey, ouercome with ioy,\nGiues him three thousand Crownes in Annuall Fee,\n                                         [Sidenote: threescore thousand]\nAnd his Commission to imploy those Soldiers\nSo leuied as before, against the Poleak:           [Sidenote: Pollacke,]\nWith an intreaty heerein further shewne,\n[Sidenote: 190] That it might please you to giue quiet passe\nThrough your Dominions, for his Enterprize,         [Sidenote: for this]\nOn such regards of safety and allowance,\nAs therein are set downe.\n\n_King_. It likes vs well:\nAnd at our more consider'd[1] time wee'l read,\nAnswer, and thinke vpon this Businesse.\nMeane time we thanke you, for your well-tooke Labour.\nGo to your rest, at night wee'l Feast together.[2]\nMost welcome home.       _Exit Ambass_.\n                                          [Sidenote: Exeunt Embassadors]\n\n_Pol_. This businesse is very well ended.[3]         [Sidenote: is well]\nMy Liege, and Madam, to expostulate[4]\nWhat Maiestie should be, what Dutie is,[5]\nWhy day is day; night, night; and time is time,\nWere nothing but to waste Night, Day and Time.\nTherefore, since Breuitie is the Soule of Wit,\n                                          [Sidenote: Therefore breuitie]\nAnd tediousnesse, the limbes and outward flourishes,[6]\nI will be breefe. Your Noble Sonne is mad:\nMad call I it; for to define true Madnesse,\nWhat is't, but to be nothing else but mad.[7]\nBut let that go.\n\n_Qu_. More matter, with lesse Art.[8]\n\n_Pol_. Madam, I sweare I vse no Art at all:\nThat he is mad, 'tis true: 'Tis true 'tis pittie,  [Sidenote: hee's mad]\nAnd pittie it is true; A foolish figure,[9]\n                                         [Sidenote: pitty tis tis true,]\n\n[Footnote 1: time given up to, or filled with consideration; _or,\nperhaps_, time chosen for a purpose.]\n\n[Footnote 2: He is always feasting.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Now for _his_ turn! He sets to work at once with his\nrhetoric.]\n\n[Footnote 4: to lay down beforehand as postulates.]\n\n[Footnote 5: We may suppose a dash and pause after '_Dutie is_'. The\nmeaning is plain enough, though logical form is wanting.]\n\n[Footnote 6: As there is no imagination in Polonius, we cannot look for\ngreat aptitude in figure.]\n\n[Footnote 7: The nature of madness also is a postulate.]\n\n[Footnote 8: She is impatient, but wraps her rebuke in a compliment.\nArt, so-called, in speech, was much favoured in the time of Elizabeth.\nAnd as a compliment Polonius takes the form in which she expresses her\ndislike of his tediousness, and her anxiety after his news: pretending\nto wave it off, he yet, in his gratification, coming on the top of his\nexcitement with the importance of his fancied discovery, plunges\nimmediately into a very slough of _art_, and becomes absolutely silly.]\n\n[Footnote 9: It is no figure at all. It is hardly even a play with the\nwords.]\n\n[Page 80]\n\nBut farewell it: for I will vse no Art.\nMad let vs grant him then: and now remaines\nThat we finde out the cause of this effect,\nOr rather say, the cause of this defect;\nFor this effect defectiue, comes by cause,\nThus it remaines, and the remainder thus. Perpend,\nI haue a daughter: haue, whil'st she is mine,          [Sidenote: while]\nWho in her Dutie and Obedience, marke,\nHath giuen me this: now gather, and surmise.\n\n                   _The Letter_.[1]\n_To the Celestiall, and my Soules Idoll, the most\n                   beautified Ophelia_.\nThat's an ill Phrase, a vilde Phrase, beautified\nis a vilde Phrase: but you shall heare these in her thus in her\nexcellent white bosome, these.[2]                  [Sidenote: these, &c]\n\n_Qu_. Came this from _Hamlet_ to her.\n\n_Pol_. Good Madam stay awhile, I will be faithfull.\n_Doubt thou, the Starres are fire_,                 [Sidenote: _Letter_]\n_Doubt, that the Sunne doth moue;\nDoubt Truth to be a Lier,\nBut neuer Doubt, I loue.[3]\nO deere Ophelia, I am ill at these Numbers: I\nhaue not Art to reckon my grones; but that I loue\nthee best, oh most Best beleeue it. Adieu.\n          Thine euermore most deere Lady, whilst this\n                  Machine is to him_, Hamlet.\nThis in Obedience hath my daughter shew'd me:\n                                          [Sidenote: _Pol_. This showne]\nAnd more aboue hath his soliciting,   [Sidenote: more about solicitings]\nAs they fell out by Time, by Meanes, and Place,\nAll giuen to mine eare.\n\n_King_. But how hath she receiu'd his Loue?\n\n_Pol_. What do you thinke of me?\n\n_King_. As of a man, faithfull and Honourable.\n\n_Pol_. I wold faine proue so. But what might you think?\n\n[Footnote 1: _Not in Quarto._]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Point thus_: 'but you shall heare. _These, in her\nexcellent white bosom, these_:'\n\nLadies, we are informed, wore a small pocket in front of the\nbodice;--but to accept the fact as an explanation of this passage, is to\ncast the passage away. Hamlet _addresses_ his letter, not to Ophelia's\npocket, but to Ophelia herself, at her house--that is, in the palace of\nher bosom, excellent in whiteness. In like manner, signing himself, he\nmakes mention of his body as a machine of which he has the use for a\ntime. So earnest is Hamlet that when he makes love, he is the more a\nphilosopher. But he is more than a philosopher: he is a man of the\nUniverse, not a man of this world only.\n\nWe must not allow the fashion of the time in which the play was written,\nto cause doubt as to the genuine heartiness of Hamlet's love-making.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _1st Q._\n\n    Doubt that in earth is fire,\n    Doubt that the starres doe moue,\n    Doubt trueth to be a liar,\n    But doe not doubt I loue.]\n\n[Page 82]\n\nWhen I had seene this hot loue on the wing,\nAs I perceiued it, I must tell you that\nBefore my Daughter told me, what might you\nOr my deere Maiestie your Queene heere, think,\nIf I had playd the Deske or Table-booke,[1]\nOr giuen my heart a winking, mute and dumbe,         [Sidenote: working]\nOr look'd vpon this Loue, with idle sight,[2]\nWhat might you thinke? No, I went round to worke,\nAnd (my yong Mistris) thus I did bespeake[3]\nLord _Hamlet_ is a Prince out of thy Starre,[4]\nThis must not be:[5] and then, I Precepts gaue her,\n                                                [Sidenote: I prescripts]\nThat she should locke her selfe from his Resort,    [Sidenote: from her]\n[Sidenote: 42[6], 43, 70] Admit no Messengers, receiue no Tokens:\nWhich done, she tooke the Fruites of my Aduice,[7]\nAnd he repulsed. A short Tale to make,           [Sidenote: repell'd, a]\nFell into a Sadnesse, then into a Fast,[8]\nThence to a Watch, thence into a Weaknesse,       [Sidenote: to a wath,]\nThence to a Lightnesse, and by this declension   [Sidenote: to lightnes]\nInto the Madnesse whereon now he raues,              [Sidenote: wherein]\nAnd all we waile for.[9]                          [Sidenote: mourne for]\n\n_King_. Do you thinke 'tis this?[10]            [Sidenote: thinke this?]\n\n_Qu_. It may be very likely.                            [Sidenote: like]\n\n_Pol_. Hath there bene such a time, I'de fain know that,\n                                                     [Sidenote: I would]\nThat I haue possitiuely said, 'tis so,\nWhen it prou'd otherwise?\n\n_King_. Not that I know.\n\n_Pol_. Take this from this[11]; if this be otherwise,\nIf Circumstances leade me, I will finde\nWhere truth is hid, though it were hid indeede\nWithin the Center.\n\n_King_. How may we try it further?\n\n[Footnote 1: --behaved like a piece of furniture.]\n\n[Footnote 2: The love of talk makes a man use many idle words, foolish\nexpressions, and useless repetitions.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Notwithstanding the parenthesis, I take 'Mistris' to be the\nobjective to 'bespeake'--that is, _address_.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _Star_, mark of sort or quality; brand (45). The _1st Q_.\ngoes on--\n\n    An'd one that is vnequall for your loue:\n\nBut it may mean, as suggested by my _Reader_, 'outside thy destiny,'--as\nruled by the star of nativity--and I think it does.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Here is a change from the impression conveyed in the first\nact: he attributes his interference to his care for what befitted\nroyalty; whereas, talking to Ophelia (40, 72), he attributes it entirely\nto his care for her;--so partly in the speech correspondent to the\npresent in _1st Q_.:--\n\n    Now since which time, seeing his loue thus cross'd,\n    Which I tooke to be idle, and but sport,\n    He straitway grew into a melancholy,]\n\n[Footnote 6: See also passage in note from _1st Q_.]\n\n[Footnote 7: She obeyed him. The 'fruits' of his advice were her\nconformed actions.]\n\n[Footnote 8: When the appetite goes, and the sleep follows, doubtless\nthe man is on the steep slope of madness. But as to Hamlet, and how\nmatters were with him, what Polonius says is worth nothing.]\n\n[Footnote 9: '_wherein_ now he raves, and _wherefor_ all we wail.']\n\n[Footnote 10: _To the queen_.]\n\n[Footnote 11: head from shoulders.]\n\n[Page 84]\n\n_Pol_. You know sometimes\nHe walkes foure houres together, heere[1]\nIn the Lobby.\n\n_Qu_. So he ha's indeed.                    [Sidenote: he dooes indeede]\n\n[Sidenote: 118] _Pol_. At such a time Ile loose my Daughter to him,\nBe you and I behinde an Arras then,\nMarke the encounter: If he loue her not,\nAnd be not from his reason falne thereon;\nLet me be no Assistant for a State,\nAnd keepe a Farme and Carters.                     [Sidenote: But keepe]\n\n_King_. We will try it.\n\n_Enter Hamlet reading on a Booke._[2]\n\n_Qu_. But looke where sadly the poore wretch\nComes reading.[3]\n\n_Pol_. Away I do beseech you, both away,\nHe boord[4] him presently.        _Exit King & Queen_[5]\nOh giue me leaue.[6] How does my good Lord _Hamlet_?\n\n_Ham_. Well, God-a-mercy.\n\n_Pol_. Do you know me, my Lord?\n\n[Sidenote: 180] _Ham_. Excellent, excellent well: y'are a\nFish-monger.[7]                      [Sidenote: Excellent well, you are]\n\n_Pol_. Not I my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. Then I would you were so honest a man.\n\n_Pol_. Honest, my Lord?\n\n_Ham_. I sir, to be honest as this world goes, is\nto bee one man pick'd out of two thousand.\n                                           [Sidenote: tenne thousand[8]]\n\n_Pol_. That's very true, my Lord.\n\n_Ham_.[9] For if the Sun breed Magots in a dead\ndogge, being a good kissing Carrion--[10]      [Sidenote: carrion. Have]\nHaue you a daughter?[11]\n\n_Pol_. I haue my Lord.\n\n[Footnote 1: _1st Q_.\n\n    The Princes walke is here in the galery,\n    There let _Ofelia_, walke vntill hee comes:\n    Your selfe and I will stand close in the study,]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Not in Quarto_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _1st Q_.--\n\n    _King_. See where hee comes poring vppon a booke.]\n\n[Footnote 4: The same as accost, both meaning originally _go to the side\nof_.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _A line back in the Quarto_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'Please you to go away.' 89, 203. Here should come the\npreceding stage-direction.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Now first the Play shows us Hamlet in his affected madness.\nHe has a great dislike to the selfish, time-serving courtier, who, like\nhis mother, has forsaken the memory of his father--and a great distrust\nof him as well. The two men are moral antipodes. Each is given to\nmoralizing--but compare their reflections: those of Polonius reveal a\nlover of himself, those of Hamlet a lover of his kind; Polonius is\ninterested in success; Hamlet in humanity.]\n\n[Footnote 8: So also in _1st Q_.]\n\n[Footnote 9: --reading, or pretending to read, the words from the book\nhe carries.]\n\n[Footnote 10: When the passion for emendation takes possession of a man,\nhis opportunities are endless--so many seeming emendations offer\nthemselves which are in themselves not bad, letters and words affording\nas much play as the keys of a piano. 'Being a god kissing carrion,' is\nin itself good enough; but Shakspere meant what stands in both Quarto\nand Folio: _the dead dog being a carrion good at kissing_. The arbitrary\nchanges of the editors are amazing.]\n\n[Footnote 11: He cannot help his mind constantly turning upon women; and\nif his thoughts of them are often cruelly false, it is not Hamlet but\nhis mother who is to blame: her conduct has hurled him from the peak of\noptimism into the bottomless pool of pessimistic doubt, above the foul\nwaters of which he keeps struggling to lift his head.]\n\n[Page 86]\n\n_Ham_. Let her not walke i'th'Sunne: Conception[1]\nis a blessing, but not as your daughter may      [Sidenote: but as your]\nconceiue. Friend looke too't.\n\n[Sidenote: 100] _Pol_.[2] How say you by that? Still harping on\nmy daughter: yet he knew me not at first; he said   [Sidenote: a sayd I]\nI was a Fishmonger: he is farre gone, farre gone:\n                      [Sidenote: Fishmonger, a is farre gone, and truly]\nand truly in my youth, I suffred much extreamity and truly\nfor loue: very neere this.  Ile speake to him\nagaine.\n\nWhat do you read my Lord?\n\n_Ham_. Words, words, words.\n\n_Pol_. What is the matter, my Lord?\n\n_Ham_. Betweene who?[3]\n\n_Pol_. I meane the matter you meane, my\n                                    [Sidenote: matter that you reade my]\nLord.\n\n_Ham_. Slanders Sir: for the Satyricall slaue\n                                      [Sidenote: satericall rogue sayes]\nsaies here, that old men haue gray Beards; that\ntheir faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thicke\nAmber, or Plum-Tree Gumme: and that they haue     [Sidenote: Amber, and]\na plentifull locke of Wit, together with weake\n                                     [Sidenote: lacke | with most weake]\nHammes. All which Sir, though I most powerfully,\nand potently beleeue; yet I holde it not\nHonestie[4] to haue it thus set downe: For you\n                  [Sidenote: for your selfe sir shall grow old as I am:]\nyour selfe Sir, should be old as I am, if like a Crab\nyou could go backward.\n\n_Pol_.[5] Though this be madnesse,\nYet there is Method in't: will you walke\nOut of the ayre[6] my Lord?\n\n_Ham_. Into my Graue?\n\n_Pol_. Indeed that is out o'th'Ayre:\n                                     [Sidenote: that's out of the ayre;]\nHow pregnant (sometimes) his Replies are?\nA happinesse,\nThat often Madnesse hits on,\nWhich Reason and Sanitie could not                  [Sidenote: sanctity]\nSo prosperously be deliuer'd of.\n\n[Footnote 1: One of the meanings of the word, and more in use then than\nnow, is _understanding_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: (_aside_).]\n\n[Footnote 3: --pretending to take him to mean by _matter_, the _point of\nquarrel_.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Propriety.]\n\n[Footnote 5: (_aside_).]\n\n[Footnote 6: the draught.]\n\n[Page 88]\n\n[A] I will leaue him,\nAnd sodainely contriue the meanes of meeting\nBetweene him,[1] and my daughter.\nMy Honourable Lord, I will most humbly\nTake my leaue of you.\n\n_Ham_. You cannot Sir take from[2] me any thing,\nthat I will more willingly part withall, except my\n                          [Sidenote: will not more | my life, except my]\nlife, my life.[3]\n                      [Sidenote: _Enter Guyldersterne, and Rosencrans_.]\n\n_Polon_. Fare you well my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. These tedious old fooles.\n\n_Polon_. You goe to seeke my Lord _Hamlet_;         [Sidenote: the Lord]\nthere hee is.\n\n_Enter Rosincran and Guildensterne_.[4]\n\n_Rosin_. God saue you Sir.\n\n_Guild_. Mine honour'd Lord?\n\n_Rosin_. My most deare Lord?\n\n_Ham_. My excellent good friends? How do'st   [Sidenote: My extent good]\nthou _Guildensterne_? Oh, _Rosincrane_; good Lads:\n                                                [Sidenote: A Rosencraus]\nHow doe ye both?                                         [Sidenote: you]\n\n_Rosin_. As the indifferent Children of the earth.\n\n_Guild_. Happy, in that we are not ouer-happy: [Sidenote: euer happy on]\non Fortunes Cap, we are not the very Button.  [Sidenote:  Fortunes lap,]\n\n_Ham_. Nor the Soales of her Shoo?\n\n_Rosin_. Neither my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. Then you liue about her waste, or in the\nmiddle of her fauour?                                [Sidenote: fauors.]\n\n_Guil_. Faith, her priuates, we.\n\n_Ham_. In the secret parts of Fortune? Oh,\nmost true: she is a Strumpet.[5] What's the newes?\n                                                 [Sidenote: What newes?]\n\n_Rosin_. None my Lord; but that the World's          [Sidenote: but the]\ngrowne honest.\n\n_Ham_. Then is Doomesday neere: But your\n\n[Footnote A: _In the Quarto, the speech ends thus_:--I will leaue him\nand my daughter.[6] My Lord, I will take my leaue of you.]\n\n[Footnote 1: From 'And sodainely' _to_ 'betweene him,' _not in Quarto_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: It is well here to recall the modes of the word _leave_:\n'_Give me leave_,' Polonius says with proper politeness to the king and\nqueen when he wants _them_ to go--that is, 'Grant me your _departure_';\nbut he would, going himself, _take_ his leave, his departure, _of_ or\n_from_ them--by their permission to go. Hamlet means, 'You cannot take\nfrom me anything I will more willingly part with than your leave, or, my\npermission to you to go.' 85, 203. See the play on the two meanings of\nthe word in _Twelfth Night_, act ii. sc. 4:\n\n    _Duke_. Give me now leave to leave thee;\n\nthough I suspect it ought to be--\n\n    _Duke_. Give me now leave.\n\n    _Clown_. To leave thee!--Now, the melancholy &c.]\n\n[Footnote 3: It is a relief to him to speak the truth under the cloak of\nmadness--ravingly. He has no one to whom to open his heart: what lies\nthere he feels too terrible for even the eye of Horatio. He has not\napparently told him as yet more than the tale of his father's murder.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _Above, in Quarto_.]\n\n[Footnote 5: In this and all like utterances of Hamlet, we see what worm\nit is that lies gnawing at his heart.]\n\n[Footnote 6: This is a slip in the _Quarto_--rectified in the _Folio_:\nhis daughter was not present.]\n\n[Page 90]\n\nnewes is not true.[1] [2] Let me question more in particular:\nwhat haue you my good friends, deserued\nat the hands of Fortune, that she sends you to\nPrison hither?\n\n_Guil_. Prison, my Lord?\n\n_Ham_. Denmark's a Prison.\n\n_Rosin_. Then is the World one.\n\n_Ham_. A goodly one, in which there are many\nConfines, Wards, and Dungeons; _Denmarke_ being\none o'th'worst.\n\n_Rosin_. We thinke not so my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. Why then 'tis none to you; for there is\nnothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it\nso[3]: to me it is a prison.\n\n_Rosin_. Why then your Ambition makes it one:\n'tis too narrow for your minde.[4]\n\n_Ham_. O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell,\nand count my selfe a King of infinite space; were\nit not that I haue bad dreames.\n\n_Guil_. Which dreames indeed are Ambition:\nfor the very substance[5] of the Ambitious, is meerely\nthe shadow of a Dreame.\n\n_Ham_. A dreame it selfe is but a shadow.\n\n_Rosin_. Truely, and I hold Ambition of so ayry\nand light a quality, that it is but a shadowes shadow.\n\n_Ham_. Then are our Beggers bodies; and our\nMonarchs and out-stretcht Heroes the Beggers\nShadowes: shall wee to th'Court: for, by my fey[6]\nI cannot reason?[7]\n\n_Both_. Wee'l wait vpon you.\n\n_Ham_. No such matter.[8] I will not sort you\nwith the rest of my seruants: for to speake to you\nlike an honest man: I am most dreadfully attended;[9]\nbut in the beaten way of friendship,[10]              [Sidenote: But in]\n\nWhat make you at _Elsonower_?\n\n[Footnote 1: 'it is not true that the world is grown honest': he doubts\nthemselves. His eye is sharper because his heart is sorer since he left\nWittenberg. He proceeds to examine them.]\n\n[Footnote 2: This passage, beginning with 'Let me question,' and ending\nwith 'dreadfully attended,' is not in the _Quarto_.\n\nWho inserted in the Folio this and other passages? Was it or was it not\nShakspere? Beyond a doubt they are Shakspere's all. Then who omitted\nthose omitted? Was Shakspere incapable of refusing any of his own work?\nOr would these editors, who profess to have all opportunity, and who,\nbelonging to the theatre, must have had the best of opportunities, have\ndesired or dared to omit what far more painstaking editors have since\npresumed, though out of reverence, to restore?]\n\n[Footnote 3: 'but it is thinking that makes it so:']\n\n[Footnote 4: --feeling after the cause of Hamlet's strangeness, and\nfollowing the readiest suggestion, that of chagrin at missing the\nsuccession.]\n\n[Footnote 5: objects and aims.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _foi_.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Does he choose beggars as the representatives of substance\nbecause they lack ambition--that being shadow? Or does he take them as\nthe shadows of humanity, that, following Rosincrance, he may get their\nshadows, the shadows therefore of shadows, to parallel _monarchs_ and\n_heroes_? But he is not satisfied with his own analogue--therefore will\nto the court, where good logic is not wanted--where indeed he knows a\nhellish lack of reason.]\n\n[Footnote 8: 'On no account.']\n\n[Footnote 9: 'I have very bad servants.' Perhaps he judges his servants\nspies upon him. Or might he mean that he was _haunted with bad\nthoughts_? Or again, is it a stroke of his pretence of\nmadness--suggesting imaginary followers?]\n\n[Footnote: 10: 'to speak plainly, as old friends.']\n\n[Page 92]\n\n_Rosin_. To visit you my Lord, no other occasion.\n\n_Ham_. Begger that I am, I am euen poore in    [Sidenote: am ever poore]\nthankes; but I thanke you: and sure deare friends\nmy thanks are too deare a halfepeny[1]; were you\n[Sidenote: 72] not sent for? Is it your owne inclining? Is it a\nfree visitation?[2] Come, deale iustly with me:\ncome, come; nay speake.                          [Sidenote: come, come,]\n\n_Guil_. What should we say my Lord?[3]\n\n_Ham_. Why any thing. But to the purpose;\n                                [Sidenote: Any thing but to'th purpose:]\nyou were sent for; and there is a kinde confession\n                                          [Sidenote: kind of confession]\nin your lookes; which your modesties haue not\ncraft enough to color, I know the good King and\n[Sidenote: 72] Queene haue sent for you.\n\n_Rosin_. To what end my Lord?\n\n_Ham_. That you must teach me: but let mee\nconiure[4] you by the rights of our fellowship, by\nthe consonancy of our youth,[5] by the Obligation\nof our euer-preserued loue, and by what more\ndeare, a better proposer could charge you withall;       [Sidenote: can]\nbe euen and direct with me, whether you were sent\nfor or no.\n\n_Rosin_. What say you?[6]\n\n_Ham_. Nay then I haue an eye of you[7]: if you\nloue me hold not off.[8]\n\n[Sidenote: 72] _Guil_. My Lord, we were sent for.\n\n_Ham_. I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation\npreuent your discouery of your secricie to [Sidenote: discovery, and\n          your secrecie to the King and Queene moult no feather,[10]]\nthe King and Queene[9] moult no feather, I haue\n[Sidenote: 116] of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my\nmirth, forgone all custome of exercise; and indeed,\n                                                  [Sidenote: exercises;]\nit goes so heauenly with my disposition; that this   [Sidenote: heauily]\ngoodly frame the Earth, seemes to me a sterrill\nPromontory; this most excellent Canopy the Ayre,\nlook you, this braue ore-hanging, this Maiesticall\n                                       [Sidenote: orehanging firmament,]\nRoofe, fretted with golden fire: why, it appeares no\n                                                   [Sidenote: appeareth]\n\n[Footnote 1: --because they were by no means hearty thanks.]\n\n[Footnote 2: He wants to know whether they are in his uncle's employment\nand favour; whether they pay court to himself for his uncle's ends.]\n\n[Footnote 3: He has no answer ready.]\n\n[Footnote 4: He will not cast them from him without trying a direct\nappeal to their old friendship for plain dealing. This must be\nremembered in relation to his treatment of them afterwards. He affords\nthem every chance of acting truly--conjuring them to honesty--giving\nthem a push towards repentance.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Either, 'the harmony of our young days,' or, 'the\nsympathies of our present youth.']\n\n[Footnote 6: --_to Guildenstern_.]\n\n[Footnote 7: (_aside_) 'I will keep an eye upon you;'.]\n\n[Footnote 8: 'do not hold back.']\n\n[Footnote 9: The _Quarto_ seems here to have the right reading.]\n\n[Footnote 10: 'your promise of secrecy remain intact;'.]\n\n[Page 94]\n\nother thing to mee, then a foule and pestilent congregation\n                                         [Sidenote: nothing to me but a]\nof vapours. What a piece of worke is              [Sidenote: what peece]\na man! how Noble in Reason? how infinite in\nfaculty? in forme and mouing how expresse and     [Sidenote: faculties,]\nadmirable? in Action, how like an Angel? in apprehension,\nhow like a God? the beauty of the\nworld, the Parragon of Animals; and yet to me,\nwhat is this Quintessence of Dust? Man delights\nnot me;[1] no, nor Woman neither; though by your\n                                           [Sidenote: not me, nor women]\nsmiling you seeme to say so.[2]\n\n_Rosin._ My Lord, there was no such stuffe in\nmy thoughts.\n\n_Ham._ Why did you laugh, when I said, Man\n                                        [Sidenote: yee laugh then, when]\ndelights not me?\n\n_Rosin._ To thinke, my Lord, if you delight not\nin Man, what Lenton entertainment the Players\nshall receiue from you:[3] wee coated them[4] on the\nway, and hither are they comming to offer you\nSeruice.\n\n_Ham._[5] He that playes the King shall be welcome;\nhis Maiesty shall haue Tribute of mee:                [Sidenote: on me,]\nthe aduenturous Knight shal vse his Foyle and\nTarget: the Louer shall not sigh _gratis_, the\nhumorous man[6] shall end his part in peace: [7] the\nClowne shall make those laugh whose lungs are\ntickled a'th' sere:[8] and the Lady shall say her\nminde freely; or the blanke Verse shall halt for't[9]:\n                                                 [Sidenote: black verse]\nwhat Players are they?\n\n_Rosin._ Euen those you Were wont to take\n                                           [Sidenote: take such delight]\ndelight in the Tragedians of the City.\n\n_Ham._ How chances it they trauaile? their residence\nboth in reputation and profit was better both\nwayes.\n\n_Rosin._ I thinke their Inhibition comes by the\nmeanes of the late Innouation?[10]\n\n[Footnote 1: A genuine description, so far as it goes, of the state of\nHamlet's mind. But he does not reveal the operating cause--his loss of\nfaith in women, which has taken the whole poetic element out of heaven,\nearth, and humanity: he would have his uncle's spies attribute his\ncondition to mere melancholy.]\n\n[Footnote 2: --said angrily, I think.]\n\n[Footnote 3: --a ready-witted subterfuge.]\n\n[Footnote 4: came alongside of them; got up with them; apparently rather\nfrom Fr. _c\u00f4t\u00e9_ than _coter_; like _accost_. Compare 71. But I suspect\nit only means _noted_, _observed_, and is from _coter_.]\n\n[Footnote 5: --_with humorous imitation, perhaps, of each of the\ncharacters_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: --the man with a whim.]\n\n[Footnote 7: This part of the speech--from [7] to [8], is not in the\n_Quarto_.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Halliwell gives a quotation in which the touch-hole of a\npistol is called the _sere_: the _sere_, then, of the lungs would mean\nthe opening of the lungs--the part with which we laugh: those 'whose\nlungs are tickled a' th' sere,' are such as are ready to laugh on the\nleast provocation: _tickled_--_irritable, ticklish_--ready to laugh, as\nanother might be to cough. 'Tickled o' the sere' was a common phrase,\nsignifying, thus, _propense_.\n\n    _1st Q._ The clowne shall make them laugh\n    That are tickled in the lungs,]\n\n[Footnote 9: Does this refer to the pause that expresses the\nunutterable? or to the ruin of the measure of the verse by an\nincompetent heroine?]\n\n[Footnote 10: Does this mean, 'I think their prohibition comes through\nthe late innovation,'--of the children's acting; or, 'I think they are\nprevented from staying at home by the late new measures,'--such, namely,\nas came of the puritan opposition to stage-plays? This had grown so\nstrong, that, in 1600, the Privy Council issued an order restricting the\nnumber of theatres in London to two: by such an _innovation_ a number of\nplayers might well be driven to the country.]\n\n[Page 96]\n\n_Ham_. Doe they hold the same estimation they\ndid when I was in the City? Are they so follow'd?\n\n_Rosin_. No indeed, they are not.              [Sidenote: are they not.]\n\n[1]_Ham_. How comes it? doe they grow rusty?\n\n_Rosin_. Nay, their indeauour keepes in the\nwonted pace; But there is Sir an ayrie of Children,[2]\nlittle Yases,[3] that crye out[4] on the top of question;[5]\nand are most tyrannically clap't for't: these are\nnow the fashion, and so be-ratled the common\nStages[6] (so they call them) that many wearing\nRapiers,[7] are affraide of Goose-quils, and dare\nscarse come thither.[8]\n\n_Ham_. What are they Children? Who maintains\n'em? How are they escoted?[9] Will they pursue\nthe Quality[10] no longer then they can sing?[11] Will\nthey not say afterwards if they should grow themselues\nto common Players (as it is like most[12] if\ntheir meanes are no better) their Writers[13] do them\nwrong, to make them exclaim against their owne\nSuccession.[14]\n\n_Rosin_. Faith there ha's bene much to do on\nboth sides: and the Nation holds it no sinne, to\ntarre them[15] to Controuersie. There was for a\nwhile, no mony bid for argument, vnlesse the Poet\nand the Player went to Cuffes in the Question.[16]\n\n_Ham_. Is't possible?\n\n_Guild_. Oh there ha's beene much throwing\nabout of Braines.\n\n_Ham_. Do the Boyes carry it away?[17]\n\n_Rosin_. I that they do my Lord, _Hercules_ and\nhis load too.[18]\n\n_Ham_. It is not strange: for mine Vnckle is\n                                      [Sidenote: not very strange, | my]\nKing of Denmarke, and those that would make\nmowes at him while my Father liued; giue twenty,\n                                                 [Sidenote: make mouths]\n\n[Footnote 1: The whole of the following passage, beginning with 'How\ncomes it,' and ending with 'Hercules and his load too,' belongs to the\n_Folio_ alone--is not in the _Quarto_.\n\nIn the _1st Quarto_ we find the germ of the passage--unrepresented in\nthe _2nd_, developed in the _Folio_.\n\n    _Ham_. Players, what Players be they?\n\n    _Ross_. My Lord, the Tragedians of the Citty,\n    Those that you tooke delight to see so often.\n\n    _Ham_. How comes it that they trauell? Do\n    they grow restie?\n\n    _Gil_. No my Lord, their reputation holds as it was wont.\n\n    _Ham_. How then?\n\n    _Gil_. Yfaith my Lord, noueltie carries it away,\n    For the principall publike audience that\n    Came to them, are turned to priuate playes,[19]\n    And to the humour[20] of children.\n\n    _Ham_. I doe not greatly wonder of it,\n    For those that would make mops and moes\n    At my vncle, when my father liued, &c.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _a nest of children_. The acting of the children of two or\nthree of the chief choirs had become the rage.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _Eyases_--unfledged hawks.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Children _cry out_ rather than _speak_ on the stage.]\n\n[Footnote 5: 'cry out beyond dispute'--_unquestionably_; 'cry out and no\nmistake.' 'He does not top his part.' _The Rehearsal_, iii. 1.--'_He is\nnot up to it_.' But perhaps here is intended _above reason_: 'they cry\nout excessively, excruciatingly.' 103.\n\nThis said, in top of rage the lines she rents,--_A Lover's Complaint_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: I presume it should be the present tense, _beratle_--except\nthe _are_ of the preceding member be understood: 'and so beratled _are_\nthe common stages.' If the _present_, then the children 'so abuse the\ngrown players,'--in the pieces they acted, particularly in the new\n_arguments_, written for them--whence the reference to _goose-quills_.]\n\n[Footnote 7: --of the play-going public.]\n\n[Footnote 8: --for dread of sharing in the ridicule.]\n\n[Footnote 9: _paid_--from the French _escot_, a shot or reckoning: _Dr.\nJohnson_.]\n\n[Footnote 10: --the quality of players; the profession of the stage.]\n\n[Footnote 11: 'Will they cease playing when their voices change?']\n\n[Footnote 12: Either _will_ should follow here, or _like_ and _most_\nmust change places.]\n\n[Footnote 13: 'those that write for them'.]\n\n[Footnote 14: --what they had had to come to themselves.]\n\n[Footnote 15: 'to incite the children and the grown players to\ncontroversy': _to tarre them on like dogs_: see _King John_, iv. 1.]\n\n[Footnote 16: 'No stage-manager would buy a new argument, or prologue,\nto a play, unless the dramatist and one of the actors were therein\nrepresented as falling out on the question of the relative claims of the\nchildren and adult actors.']\n\n[Footnote 17: 'Have the boys the best of it?']\n\n[Footnote 18: 'That they have, out and away.' Steevens suggests that\nallusion is here made to the sign of the Globe Theatre--Hercules bearing\nthe world for Atlas.]\n\n[Footnote 19: amateur-plays.]\n\n[Footnote 20: whimsical fashion.]\n\n[Page 98]\n\nforty, an hundred Ducates a peece, for his picture[1]\n                                    [Sidenote: fortie, fifty, a hundred]\nin Little.[2] There is something in this more then\n                                    [Sidenote: little, s'bloud there is]\nNaturall, if Philosophic could finde it out.\n\n_Flourish for tke Players_.[3]                  [Sidenote: _A Florish_.]\n\n_Guil_. There are the Players.\n\n_Ham_. Gentlemen, you are welcom to _Elsonower_:\nyour hands, come: The appurtenance of         [Sidenote: come then, th']\nWelcome, is Fashion and Ceremony. Let me\n[Sidenote: 260] comply with you in the Garbe,[4] lest my extent[5] to\n                                 [Sidenote: in this garb: let me extent]\nthe Players (which I tell you must shew fairely\noutward) should more appeare like entertainment[6]\n                                                   [Sidenote: outwards,]\nthen yours.[7] You are welcome: but my Vnckle\nFather, and Aunt Mother are deceiu'd.\n\n_Guil_. In what my deere Lord?\n\n_Ham_. I am but mad North, North-West: when\nthe Winde is Southerly, I know a Hawke from a\nHandsaw.[8]\n\n_Enter Polonius_.\n\n_Pol_. Well[9] be with you Gentlemen.\n\n_Ham_. Hearke you _Guildensterne_, and you too:\nat each eare a hearer: that great Baby you see\nthere, is not yet out of his swathing clouts.\n                                            [Sidenote: swadling clouts.]\n\n_Rosin_. Happily he's the second time come to          [Sidenote: he is]\nthem: for they say, an old man is twice a childe.\n\n_Ham_. I will Prophesie. Hee comes to tell me\nof the Players. Mark it, you say right Sir: for a\n                                               [Sidenote: sir, a Monday]\nMonday morning 'twas so indeed.[10]      [Sidenote: t'was then indeede.]\n\n_Pol_. My Lord, I haue Newes to tell you.\n\n_Ham_. My Lord, I haue Newes to tell you.\nWhen _Rossius_ an Actor in Rome----[11]     [Sidenote: _Rossius_ was an]\n\n_Pol_. The Actors are come hither my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. Buzze, buzze.[12]\n\n_Pol_. Vpon mine Honor.[13]                               [Sidenote: my]\n\n_Ham_. Then can each Actor on his Asse----         [Sidenote: came each]\n\n[Footnote 1: If there be any logical link here, except that, after the\ninstance adduced, no change in social fashion--nothing at all indeed, is\nto be wondered at, I fail to see it. Perhaps the speech is intended to\nbelong to the simulation. The last sentence of it appears meant to\nconvey the impression that he suspects nothing--is only bewildered by\nthe course of things.]\n\n[Footnote 2: his miniature.]\n\n[Footnote 3: --to indicate their approach.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _com'ply_--accent on first syllable--'pass compliments with\nyou' (260)--_in the garb_, either 'in appearance,' or 'in the fashion of\nthe hour.']\n\n[Footnote 5: 'the amount of courteous reception I extend'--'my advances\nto the players.']\n\n[Footnote 6: reception, welcome.]\n\n[Footnote 7: He seems to desire that they shall no more be on the\nfooting of fellow-students, and thus to rid himself of the old relation.\nPerhaps he hints that they are players too. From any further show of\nfriendliness he takes refuge in convention--and professed\nconvention--supplying a reason in order to escape a dangerous\ninterpretation of his sudden formality--'lest you should suppose me more\ncordial to the players than to you.' The speech is full of inwoven\nirony, doubtful, and refusing to be ravelled out. With what merely\nhalf-shown, yet scathing satire it should be spoken and accompanied!]\n\n[Footnote 8: A proverb of the time comically corrupted--_handsaw for\nhernshaw_--a heron, the quarry of the hawk. He denies his madness as\nmadmen do--and in terms themselves not unbefitting madness--so making it\nseem the more genuine. Yet every now and then, urged by the commotion of\nhis being, he treads perilously on the border of self-betrayal.]\n\n[Footnote 9: used as a noun.]\n\n[Footnote 10: _Point thus_: 'Mark it.--You say right, sir; &c.' He takes\nup a speech that means nothing, and might mean anything, to turn aside\nthe suspicion their whispering might suggest to Polonius that they had\nbeen talking about him--so better to lay his trap for him.]\n\n[Footnote 11: He mentions the _actor_ to lead Polonius so that his\nprophecy of him shall come true.]\n\n[Footnote 12: An interjection of mockery: he had made a fool of him.]\n\n[Footnote 13: Polonius thinks he is refusing to believe him.]\n\n[Page 100]\n\n_Polon_. The best Actors in the world, either for\nTragedie, Comedie, Historic, Pastorall: Pastoricall-\nComicall-Historicall-Pastorall: [1] Tragicall-Historicall:\nTragicall-Comicall--Historicall-Pastorall[1]:\nScene indiuible,[2] or Poem vnlimited.[3] _Seneca_ cannot\n                                       [Sidenote: scene indeuidible,[2]]\nbe too heauy, nor _Plautus_ too light, for the law of\nWrit, and the Liberty. These are the onely men.[4]\n\n_Ham_. O _Iephta_ Iudge of Israel, what a Treasure\nhad'st thou?\n\n_Pol_. What a Treasure had he, my Lord?[5]\n\n_Ham_. Why one faire Daughter, and no more,[6]\nThe which he loued passing well.[6]\n\n[Sidenote: 86] _Pol_. Still on my Daughter.\n\n_Ham_. Am I not i'th'right old _Iephta_?\n\n_Polon_. If you call me _Iephta_ my Lord, I haue\na daughter that I loue passing well.\n\n_Ham_. Nay that followes not.[7]\n\n_Polon_. What followes then, my Lord?\n\n_Ham_. Why, As by lot, God wot:[6] and then you\nknow, It came to passe, as most like it was:[6] The\nfirst rowe of the _Pons[8] Chanson_ will shew you more,\n                                               [Sidenote: pious chanson]\nFor looke where my Abridgements[9] come.\n                                         [Sidenote: abridgment[9] comes]\n\n_Enter foure or fiue Players._\n                                        [Sidenote: _Enter the Players._]\n\nY'are welcome Masters, welcome all. I am glad        [Sidenote: You are]\nto see thee well: Welcome good Friends. O my\n               [Sidenote: oh old friend, why thy face is valanct[10]]\nolde Friend? Thy face is valiant[10] since I saw thee\nlast: Com'st thou to beard me in Denmarke?\nWhat, my yong Lady and Mistris?[11] Byrlady          [Sidenote: by lady]\nyour Ladiship is neerer Heauen then when I saw      [Sidenote: nerer to]\nyou last, by the altitude of a Choppine.[12] Pray\nGod your voice like a peece of vncurrant Gold be\nnot crack'd within the ring.[13] Masters, you are all\nwelcome: wee'l e'ne to't like French Faulconers,[14]\n                                       [Sidenote: like friendly Fankner]\nflie at any thing we see: wee'l haue a Speech\n\n[Footnote 1: From [1] to [1] is not in the _Quarto_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Does this phrase mean _all in one scene_?]\n\n[Footnote 3: A poem to be recited only--one not _limited_, or _divided_\ninto speeches.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _Point thus_: 'too light. For the law of Writ, and the\nLiberty, these are the onely men':--_either for written plays_, that is,\n_or for those in which the players extemporized their speeches_.\n\n    _1st Q_. 'For the law hath writ those are the onely men.']\n\n[Footnote 5: Polonius would lead him on to talk of his daughter.]\n\n[Footnote 6: These are lines of the first stanza of an old ballad still\nin existence. Does Hamlet suggest that as Jephthah so Polonius had\nsacrificed his daughter? Or is he only desirous of making him talk about\nher?]\n\n[Footnote 7: 'That is not as the ballad goes.']\n\n[Footnote 8: That this is a corruption of the _pious_ in the _Quarto_,\nis made clearer from the _1st Quarto_: 'the first verse of the godly\nBallet wil tel you all.']\n\n[Footnote 9: _abridgment_--that which _abridges_, or cuts short. His\n'Abridgements' were the Players.]\n\n[Footnote 10: _1st Q_. 'Vallanced'--_with a beard_, that is. Both\nreadings may be correct.]\n\n[Footnote 11: A boy of course: no women had yet appeared on the stage.]\n\n[Footnote 12: A Venetian boot, stilted, sometimes very high.]\n\n[Footnote 13: --because then it would be unfit for a woman-part. A piece\nof gold so worn that it had a crack reaching within the inner circle was\nno longer current. _1st Q_. 'in the ring:'--was a pun intended?]\n\n[Footnote 14: --like French sportsmen of the present day too.]\n\n[Page 102]\n\nstraight. Come giue vs a tast of your quality:\ncome, a passionate speech.\n\n_1. Play._ What speech, my Lord?               [Sidenote: my good Lord?]\n\n_Ham._ I heard thee speak me a speech once, but\nit was neuer Acted: or if it was, not aboue once,\nfor the Play I remember pleas'd not the Million,\n'twas _Cauiarie_ to the Generall[1]: but it was (as I\nreceiu'd it, and others, whose iudgement in such\nmatters, cried in the top of mine)[2] an excellent\nPlay; well digested in the Scoenes, set downe with\nas much modestie, as cunning.[3] I remember one\nsaid there was no Sallets[4] in the lines, to make the  [Sidenote: were]\nmatter sauoury; nor no matter in the phrase,[5] that\nmight indite the Author of affectation, but cal'd it\n                                                  [Sidenote: affection,]\nan honest method[A]. One cheefe Speech in it, I\n                                           [Sidenote: one speech in't I]\ncheefely lou'd, 'twas _\u00c6neas_ Tale to _Dido_, and\n                                           [Sidenote: _Aeneas_ talke to]\nthereabout of it especially, where he speaks of         [Sidenote: when]\n_Priams_[6] slaughter. If it liue in your memory,\nbegin at this Line, let me see, let me see: The\nrugged _Pyrrhus_ like th'_Hyrcanian_ Beast.[7] It is\n                                                     [Sidenote: tis not]\nnot so: it begins[8] with _Pyrrhus_.[9]\n\n[10] The rugged _Pyrrhus_, he whose Sable Armes[11]\nBlacke as his purpose, did the night resemble\nWhen he lay couched in the Ominous[12] Horse,\nHath now this dread and blacke Complexion smear'd\nWith Heraldry more dismall: Head to foote\nNow is he to take Geulles,[13] horridly Trick'd\n                                     [Sidenote: is he totall Gules [18]]\nWith blood of Fathers, Mothers, Daughters, Sonnes,\n[14] Bak'd and impasted with the parching streets,\nThat lend a tyrannous, and damned light         [Sidenote: and a damned]\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto:_--\nas wholesome as sweete, and by very much, more handsome then\nfine:]\n\n[Footnote 1: The salted roe of the sturgeon is a delicacy disliked by\nmost people.]\n\n[Footnote 2: 'were superior to mine.'\n\nThe _1st Quarto_ has,\n\n'Cried in the toppe of their iudgements, an excellent play,'--that is,\n_pronounced it, to the best of their judgments, an excellent play_.\n\nNote the difference between 'the top of _my_ judgment', and 'the top of\n_their_ judgments'. 97.]\n\n[Footnote 3: skill.]\n\n[Footnote 4: coarse jests. 25, 67.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _style_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _1st Q_. 'Princes slaughter.']\n\n[Footnote 7: _1st Q_. 'th'arganian beast:' 'the Hyrcan tiger,' Macbeth,\niii. 4.]\n\n[Footnote 8: 'it _begins_': emphasis on begins.]\n\n[Footnote 9: A pause; then having recollected, he starts afresh.]\n\n[Footnote 10: These passages are Shakspere's own, not quotations: the\nQuartos differ. But when he wrote them he had in his mind a phantom of\nMarlowe's _Dido, Queen of Carthage_. I find Steevens has made a similar\nconjecture, and quotes from Marlowe two of the passages I had marked as\nbeing like passages here.]\n\n[Footnote 11: The poetry is admirable in its kind--intentionally\n_charged_, to raise it to the second stage-level, above the blank verse,\nthat is, of the drama in which it is set, as that blank verse is raised\nabove the ordinary level of speech. 143.\n\nThe correspondent passage in _1st Q_. runs nearly parallel for a few\nlines.]\n\n[Footnote 12:--like _portentous_.]\n\n[Footnote 13: 'all red', _1st Q_. 'totall guise.']\n\n[Footnote 14: Here the _1st Quarto_ has:--\n\n    Back't and imparched in calagulate gore,\n    Rifted in earth and fire, olde grandsire _Pryam_ seekes:\n    So goe on.]\n\n[Page 104]\n\nTo their vilde Murthers, roasted in wrath and fire,\n                                        [Sidenote: their Lords murther,]\nAnd thus o're-sized with coagulate gore,\nWith eyes like Carbuncles, the hellish _Pyrrhus_\nOld Grandsire _Priam_ seekes.[1]\n                                 [Sidenote: seekes; so proceede you.[2]]\n\n_Pol_. Fore God, my Lord, well spoken, with\ngood accent, and good discretion.[3]\n\n_1. Player_. Anon he findes him,                      [Sidenote: _Play_]\nStriking too short at Greekes.[4] His anticke Sword,\nRebellious to his Arme, lyes where it falles\nRepugnant to command[4]: vnequall match,             [Sidenote: matcht,]\n_Pyrrhus_ at _Priam_ driues, in Rage strikes wide:\nBut with the whiffe and winde of his fell Sword,\nTh'vnnerued Father fals.[5] Then senselesse Illium,[6]\nSeeming to feele his blow, with flaming top\n                                        [Sidenote: seele[7] this blowe,]\nStoopes to his Bace, and with a hideous crash\nTakes Prisoner _Pyrrhus_ eare. For loe, his Sword\nWhich was declining on the Milkie head\nOf Reuerend _Priam_, seem'd i'th'Ayre to sticke:\nSo as a painted Tyrant _Pyrrhus_ stood,[8]        [Sidenote: stood Like]\nAnd like a Newtrall to his will and matter,[9] did nothing.[10]\n[11] But as we often see against some storme,\nA silence in the Heauens, the Racke stand still,\nThe bold windes speechlesse, and the Orbe below\nAs hush as death: Anon the dreadfull Thunder\n[Sidenote: 110] Doth rend the Region.[11] So after _Pyrrhus_ pause,\nArowsed Vengeance sets him new a-worke,\nAnd neuer did the Cyclops hammers fall\nOn Mars his Armours, forg'd for proofe Eterne,\n                                              [Sidenote: _Marses_ Armor]\nWith lesse remorse then _Pyrrhus_ bleeding sword\nNow falles on _Priam_.\n[12] Out, out, thou Strumpet-Fortune, all you Gods,\nIn generall Synod take away her power:\nBreake all the Spokes and Fallies from her wheele,   [Sidenote: follies]\n\n[Footnote 1: This, though horrid enough, is in degree below the\ndescription in _Dido_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: He is directing the player to take up the speech there\nwhere he leaves it. See last quotation from _1st Q_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _judgment_.]\n\n[Footnote 4: --with an old man's under-reaching blows--till his arm is\nso jarred by a missed blow, that he cannot raise his sword again.]\n\n[Footnote 5:\n\n    Whereat he lifted up his bedrid limbs,\n    And would have grappled with Achilles' son,\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    Which he, disdaining, whisk'd his sword about,\n    And with the wound[13] thereof the king fell down.\n\n    Marlowe's _Dido, Queen of Carthage_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: The _Quarto_ has omitted '_Then senselesse Illium_,' or\nsomething else.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Printed with the long f[symbol for archaic long s].]\n\n[Footnote 8: --motionless as a tyrant in a picture.]\n\n[Footnote 9: 'standing between his will and its object as if he had no\nrelation to either.']\n\n[Footnote 10:\n\n    And then in triumph ran into the streets,\n    Through which he could not pass for slaughtered men;\n    So, leaning on his sword, he stood stone still,\n    Viewing the fire wherewith rich Ilion burnt.\n\n    Marlowe's _Dido, Queen of Carthage_.]\n\n[Footnote 11: Who does not feel this passage, down to 'Region,'\nthoroughly Shaksperean!]\n\n[Footnote 12: Is not the rest of this speech very plainly Shakspere's?]\n\n[Footnote 13: _wind_, I think it should be.]\n\n[Page 106]\n\nAnd boule the round Naue downe the hill of Heauen,\nAs low as to the Fiends.\n\n_Pol_. This is too long.\n\n_Ham_. It shall to'th Barbars, with your beard.       [Sidenote: to the]\nPrythee say on: He's for a Iigge, or a tale of\nBaudry, or hee sleepes. Say on; come to _Hecuba_.\n\n_1. Play_. But who, O who, had seen the inobled[1] Queen.\n                             [Sidenote: But who, a woe, had | mobled[1]]\n\n_Ham_. The inobled[1] Queene?                         [Sidenote: mobled]\n\n_Pol_. That's good: Inobled[1] Queene is good.[2]\n\n_1. Play_. Run bare-foot vp and downe,\nThreatning the flame                                  [Sidenote: flames]\nWith Bisson Rheume:[3] A clout about that head,  [Sidenote: clout vppon]\nWhere late the Diadem stood, and for a Robe\nAbout her lanke and all ore-teamed Loines,[4]\nA blanket in th'Alarum of feare caught vp.        [Sidenote: the alarme]\nWho this had seene, with tongue in Venome steep'd,\n'Gainst Fortunes State, would Treason haue pronounc'd?[5]\nBut if the Gods themselues did see her then,\nWhen she saw _Pyrrhus_ make malicious sport\nIn mincing with his Sword her Husbands limbes,[6]    [Sidenote: husband]\nThe instant Burst of Clamour that she made\n(Vnlesse things mortall moue them not at all)\nWould haue made milche[7] the Burning eyes of Heauen,\nAnd passion in the Gods.[8]\n\n_Pol_. Looke where[9] he ha's not turn'd his colour,\nand ha's teares in's eyes. Pray you no more.         [Sidenote: prethee]\n\n_Ham_. 'Tis well, He haue thee speake out the\nrest, soone. Good my Lord, will you see the     [Sidenote: rest of this]\nPlayers wel bestow'd. Do ye heare, let them be           [Sidenote: you]\nwell vs'd: for they are the Abstracts and breefe    [Sidenote: abstract]\nChronicles of the time. After your death, you\n\n[Footnote 1: '_mobled_'--also in _1st Q_.--may be the word: _muffled_\nseems a corruption of it: compare _mob-cap_, and\n\n    'The moon does mobble up herself'\n\n    --_Shirley_, quoted by _Farmer_;\n\nbut I incline to '_inobled_,' thrice in the _Folio_--once with a\ncapital: I take it to stand for _'ignobled,' degraded_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: 'Inobled Queene is good.' _Not in Quarto_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: --threatening to put the flames out with blind tears:\n'_bisen,' blind_--Ang. Sax.]\n\n[Footnote 4: --she had had so many children.]\n\n[Footnote 5: There should of course be no point of interrogation here.]\n\n[Footnote 6:\n\n    This butcher, whilst his hands were yet held up,\n    Treading upon his breast, struck off his hands.\n\n    Marlowe's _Dido, Queen of Carthage_.]\n\n[Footnote 7: '_milche_'--capable of giving milk: here _capable of\ntears_, which the burning eyes of the gods were not before.]\n\n[Footnote 8: 'And would have made passion in the Gods.']\n\n[Footnote 9: 'whether'.]\n\n[Page 108]\n\nwere better haue a bad Epitaph, then their ill\nreport while you liued.[1]                              [Sidenote: live]\n\n_Pol_. My Lord, I will vse them according to\ntheir desart.\n\n_Ham_. Gods bodykins man, better. Vse euerie\n                                    [Sidenote: bodkin man, much better,]\nman after his desart, and who should scape whipping:\n                                                       [Sidenote: shall]\nvse them after your own Honor and Dignity.\nThe lesse they deserue, the more merit is in\nyour bountie. Take them in.\n\n_Pol_. Come sirs.            _Exit Polon_.[2]\n\n_Ham_. Follow him Friends: wee'l heare a play\nto morrow.[3] Dost thou heare me old Friend, can\nyou play the murther of _Gonzago_?\n\n_Play_. I my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. Wee'l ha't to morrow night. You could\nfor a need[4] study[5] a speech of some dosen or sixteene\n                                 [Sidenote: for neede | dosen lines, or]\nlines, which I would set downe, and insert\nin't? Could ye not?[6]                                   [Sidenote: you]\n\n_Play_. I my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. Very well. Follow that Lord, and looke\nyou mock him not.[7] My good Friends, Ile leaue\nyou til night you are welcome to _Elsonower_?\n                                 [Sidenote: _Exeuent Pol. and Players_.]\n\n_Rosin_. Good my Lord.         _Exeunt_.\n\n_Manet Hamlet_.[8]\n\n_Ham_. I so, God buy'ye[9]: Now I am alone.   [Sidenote: buy to you,[9]]\nOh what a Rogue and Pesant slaue am I?[10]\nIs it not monstrous that this Player heere,[11]\nBut in a Fixion, in a dreame of Passion,\nCould force his soule so to his whole conceit,[12]\n                                             [Sidenote: his own conceit]\nThat from her working, all his visage warm'd;\n                                        [Sidenote: all the visage wand,]\nTeares in his eyes, distraction in's Aspect,          [Sidenote: in his]\nA broken voyce, and his whole Function suiting        [Sidenote: an his]\nWith Formes, to his Conceit?[13] And all for nothing?\n\n[Footnote 1: Why do the editors choose the present tense of the\n_Quarto_? Hamlet does not mean, 'It is worse to have the ill report of\nthe Players while you live, than a bad epitaph after your death.' The\norder of the sentence has provided against that meaning. What he means\nis, that their ill report in life will be more against your reputation\nafter death than a bad epitaph.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Not in Quarto_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: He detains their leader.]\n\n[Footnote 4: 'for a special reason'.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _Study_ is still the Player's word for _commit to memory_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Note Hamlet's quick resolve, made clearer towards the end\nof the following soliloquy.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Polonius is waiting at the door: this is intended for his\nhearing.]\n\n[Footnote 8: _Not in Q_.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Note the varying forms of _God be with you_.]\n\n[Footnote 10: _1st Q_.\n\n    Why what a dunghill idiote slaue am I?\n    Why these Players here draw water from eyes:\n    For Hecuba, why what is Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba?]\n\n[Footnote 11: Everything rings on the one hard, fixed idea that\npossesses him; but this one idea has many sides. Of late he has been\nthinking more upon the woman-side of it; but the Player with his speech\nhas brought his father to his memory, and he feels he has been\nforgetting him: the rage of the actor recalls his own 'cue for passion.'\nAlways more ready to blame than justify himself, he feels as if he ought\nto have done more, and so falls to abusing himself.]\n\n[Footnote 12: _imagination_.]\n\n[Footnote 13: 'his whole operative nature providing fit forms for the\nembodiment of his imagined idea'--of which forms he has already\nmentioned his _warmed visage_, his _tears_, his _distracted look_, his\n_broken voice_.\n\nIn this passage we have the true idea of the operation of the genuine\n_acting faculty_. Actor as well as dramatist, the Poet gives us here his\nown notion of his second calling.]\n\n[Page 110]\n\nFor _Hecuba_?\nWhat's _Hecuba_ to him, or he to _Hecuba_,[1]\n                                               [Sidenote: or he to her,]\nThat he should weepe for her? What would he doe,\nHad he the Motiue and the Cue[2] for passion\n                                              [Sidenote: , and that for]\nThat I haue? He would drowne the Stage with teares,\nAnd cleaue the generall eare with horrid speech:\nMake mad the guilty, and apale[3] the free,[4]\nConfound the ignorant, and amaze indeed,\nThe very faculty of Eyes and Eares. Yet I,         [Sidenote: faculties]\nA dull and muddy-metled[5] Rascall, peake\nLike Iohn a-dreames, vnpregnant of my cause,[6]\nAnd can say nothing: No, not for a King,\nVpon whose property,[7] and most deere life,\nA damn'd defeate[8] was made. Am I a Coward?[9]\nWho calles me Villaine? breakes my pate a-crosse?\nPluckes off my Beard, and blowes it in my face?\nTweakes me by'th'Nose?[10] giues me the Lye i'th' Throate,\n                                                      [Sidenote: by the]\nAs deepe as to the Lungs? Who does me this?\nHa? Why I should take it: for it cannot be,\n                                             [Sidenote: Hah, s'wounds I]\nBut I am Pigeon-Liuer'd, and lacke Gall[11]\nTo make Oppression bitter, or ere this,\n[Sidenote: 104] I should haue fatted all the Region Kites\n                                             [Sidenote: should a fatted]\nWith this Slaues Offall, bloudy: a Bawdy villaine,\n                                               [Sidenote: bloody, baudy]\nRemorselesse,[12] Treacherous, Letcherous, kindles[13] villaine!\nOh Vengeance![14]\nWho? What an Asse am I? I sure, this is most braue,\n                                 [Sidenote: Why what an Asse am I, this]\nThat I, the Sonne of the Deere murthered,            [Sidenote: a deere]\nPrompted to my Reuenge by Heauen, and Hell,\nMust (like a Whore) vnpacke my heart with words,\nAnd fall a Cursing like a very Drab,[15]\nA Scullion? Fye vpon't: Foh. About my Braine.[16]\n                                 [Sidenote: a stallyon, | braines; hum,]\n\n[Footnote 1: Here follows in 1st _Q_.\n\n    What would he do and if he had my losse?\n    His father murdred, and a Crowne bereft him,\n    [Sidenote: 174] He would turne all his teares to droppes of blood,\n    Amaze the standers by with his laments,\n\n    &c. &c.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Speaking of the Player, he uses the player-word.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _make pale_--appal.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _the innocent_.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _Mettle_ is spirit--rather in the sense of _animal-spirit_:\n_mettlesome_--spirited, _as a horse_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: '_unpossessed by_ my cause'.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _personality, proper person_.]\n\n[Footnote 8: _undoing, destruction_--from French _d\u00e9faire_.]\n\n[Footnote 9: In this mood he no more understands, and altogether doubts\nhimself, as he has previously come to doubt the world.]\n\n[Footnote 10: _1st Q_. 'or twites my nose.']\n\n[Footnote 11: It was supposed that pigeons had no gall--I presume from\ntheir livers not tasting bitter like those of perhaps most birds.]\n\n[Footnote 12: _pitiless_.]\n\n[Footnote 13: _unnatural_.]\n\n[Footnote 14: This line is not in the _Quarto_.]\n\n[Footnote 15: Here in _Q._ the line runs on to include _Foh_. The next\nline ends with _heard_.]\n\n[Footnote 16: _Point thus_: 'About! my brain.' He apostrophizes his\nbrain, telling it to set to work.]\n\n[Page 112]\n\nI haue heard, that guilty Creatures sitting at a Play,\nHaue by the very cunning of the Scoene,[1]\nBene strooke so to the soule, that presently\nThey haue proclaim'd their Malefactions.\nFor Murther, though it haue no tongue, will speake\nWith most myraculous Organ.[2] Ile haue these Players,\nPlay something like the murder of my Father,\nBefore mine Vnkle. Ile obserue his lookes,\n[Sidenote: 137] Ile tent him to the quicke: If he but blench[3]\n                                             [Sidenote: if a doe blench]\nI know my course. The Spirit that I haue seene\n[Sidenote: 48] May[4] be the Diuell, and the Diuel hath power\n                               [Sidenote: May be a deale, and the deale]\nT'assume a pleasing shape, yea and perhaps\nOut of my Weaknesse, and my Melancholly,[5]\nAs he is very potent with such Spirits,[6]\n[Sidenote: 46] Abuses me to damne me.[7] Ile haue grounds\nMore Relatiue then this: The Play's the thing,\nWherein Ile catch the Conscience of the King.\n                                        _Exit._\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nSUMMARY.\n\n\nThe division between the second and third acts is by common consent\nplaced here. The third act occupies the afternoon, evening, and night of\nthe same day with the second.\n\nThis soliloquy is Hamlet's first, and perhaps we may find it correct to\nsay _only_ outbreak of self-accusation. He charges himself with lack of\nfeeling, spirit, and courage, in that he has not yet taken vengeance on\nhis uncle. But unless we are prepared to accept and justify to the full\nhis own hardest words against himself, and grant him a muddy-mettled,\npigeon-livered rascal, we must examine and understand him, so as to\naccount for his conduct better than he could himself. If we allow that\nperhaps he accuses himself too much, we may find on reflection that he\naccuses himself altogether wrongfully. If a man is content to think the\nworst of Hamlet, I care to hold no argument with that man.\n\nWe must not look for _expressed_ logical sequence in a soliloquy, which\nis a vocal mind. The mind is seldom conscious of the links or\ntransitions of a yet perfectly logical process developed in it. This\nremark, however, is more necessary in regard to the famous soliloquy to\nfollow.\n\nIn Hamlet, misery has partly choked even vengeance; and although sure in\nhis heart that his uncle is guilty, in his brain he is not sure.\nBitterly accusing himself in an access of wretchedness and rage and\ncredence, he forgets the doubt that has restrained him, with all besides\nwhich he might so well urge in righteous defence, not excuse, of his\ndelay. But ungenerous criticism has, by all but universal consent,\naccepted his own verdict against himself. So in common life there are\nthousands on thousands who, upon the sad confession of a man\nimmeasurably greater than themselves, and showing his greatness in the\nhumility whose absence makes admission impossible to them, immediately\npounce upon him with vituperation, as if he were one of the vile, and\nthey infinitely better. Such should be indignant with St. Paul and\nsay--if he was the chief of sinners, what insolence to lecture _them_!\nand certainly the more justified publican would never by them have been\nallowed to touch the robe of the less justified Pharisee. Such critics\nsurely take little or no pains to understand the object of their\ncontempt: because Hamlet is troubled and blames himself, they without\nhesitation condemn him--and there where he is most commendable. It is\nthe righteous man who is most ready to accuse himself; the unrighteous\nis least ready. Who is able when in deep trouble, rightly to analyze his\nfeelings? Delay in action is not necessarily abandonment of duty; in\nHamlet's case it is a due recognition of duty, which condemns\nprecipitancy--and action in the face of doubt, so long as it is nowise\ncompelled, is precipitancy. The first thing is _to be sure_: Hamlet has\nnever been sure; he spies at length a chance of making himself sure; he\nseizes upon it; and while his sudden resolve to make use of the players,\nlike the equally sudden resolve to shroud himself in pretended madness,\nmanifests him fertile in expedient, the carrying out of both manifests\nhim right capable and diligent in execution--_a man of action in every\ntrue sense of the word_.\n\nThe self-accusation of Hamlet has its ground in the lapse of weeks\nduring which nothing has been done towards punishing the king. Suddenly\nroused to a keen sense of the fact, he feels as if surely he might have\ndone something. The first act ends with a burning vow of righteous\nvengeance; the second shows him wandering about the palace in\nprofoundest melancholy--such as makes it more than easy for him to\nassume the forms of madness the moment he marks any curious eye bent\nupon him. Let him who has never loved and revered a mother, call such\nmelancholy weakness. He has indeed done nothing towards the fulfilment\nof his vow; but the way in which he made the vow, the terms in which he\nexacted from his companions their promise of silence, and his scheme for\neluding suspicion, combine to show that from the first he perceived its\nfulfilment would be hard, saw the obstacles in his way, and knew it\nwould require both time and caution. That even in the first rush of his\nwrath he should thus be aware of difficulty, indicates moral symmetry;\nbut the full weight of what lay in his path could appear to him only\nupon reflection. Partly in the light of passages yet to come, I will\nimagine the further course of his thoughts, which the closing couplet of\nthe first act shows as having already begun to apale 'the native hue of\nresolution.'\n\n'But how shall I take vengeance on my uncle? Shall I publicly accuse\nhim, or slay him at once? In the one case what answer can I make to his\ndenial? in the other, what justification can I offer? If I say the\nspirit of my father accuses him, what proof can I bring? My companions\nonly saw the apparition--heard no word from him; and my uncle's party\nwill assert, with absolute likelihood to the minds of those who do not\nknow me--and who here knows me but my mother!--that charge is a mere\ncoinage of jealous disappointment, working upon the melancholy I have\nnot cared to hide. (174-6.) When I act, it must be to kill him, and to\nwhat misconstruction shall I not expose myself! (272) If the thing must\nso be, I must brave all; but I could never present myself thereafter as\nsuccessor to the crown of one whom I had first slain and then vilified\non the accusation of an apparition whom no one heard but myself! I must\nfind _proof_--such proof as will satisfy others as well as myself. My\nimmediate duty is _evidence_, not vengeance.'\n\nWe have seen besides, that, when informed of the haunting presence of\nthe Ghost, he expected the apparition with not a little doubt as to its\nauthenticity--a doubt which, even when he saw it, did not immediately\nvanish: is it any wonder that when the apparition was gone, the doubt\nshould return? Return it did, in accordance with the reaction which\nwaits upon all high-strung experience. If he did not believe in the\nperson who performed it, would any man long believe in any miracle?\nHamlet soon begins to question whether he can with confidence accept the\nappearance for that which it appeared and asserted itself to be. He\nsteps over to the stand-point of his judges, and doubts the only\ntestimony he has to produce. Far more:--was he not bound in common\nhumanity, not to say _filialness_, to doubt it? To doubt the Ghost, was\nto doubt a testimony which to accept was to believe his father in\nhorrible suffering, his uncle a murderer, his mother at least an\nadulteress; to kill his uncle was to set his seal to the whole, and,\nbesides, to bring his mother into frightful suspicion of complicity in\nhis father's murder. Ought not the faintest shadow of a doubt, assuaging\never so little the glare of the hell-sun of such crime, to be welcome to\nthe tortured heart? Wretched wife and woman as his mother had shown\nherself, the Ghost would have him think her far worse--perhaps, even\naccessory to her husband's murder! For action he _must_ have proof!\n\nAt the same time, what every one knew of his mother, coupled now with\nthe mere idea of the Ghost's accusation, wrought in him such misery,\nroused in him so many torturing and unanswerable questions, so blotted\nthe face of the universe and withered the heart of hope, that he could\nnot but doubt whether, in such a world of rogues and false women, it was\nworth his while to slay one villain out of the swarm.\n\nOphelia's behaviour to him, in obedience to her father, of which she\ngives him no explanation, has added 'the pangs of disprized love,' and\nincreased his doubts of woman-kind. 120.\n\nBut when his imagination, presenting afresh the awful interview, brings\nhim more immediately under the influence of the apparition and its\nbehest, he is for the moment delivered both from the stunning effect of\nits communication and his doubt of its truth; forgetting then the\nconsiderations that have wrought in him, he accuses himself of\nremissness, blames himself grievously for his delay. Soon, however, his\nsenses resume their influence, and he doubts again. So goes the\nmill-round of his thoughts, with the revolving of many wheels.\n\nHis whole conscious nature is frightfully shaken: he would be the poor\ncreature most of his critics would make of him, were it otherwise; it is\nbecause of his greatness that he suffers so terribly, and doubts so\nmuch. A mother's crime is far more paralyzing than a father's murder is\nstimulating; and either he has not set himself in thorough earnest to\nfind the proof he needs, or he has as yet been unable to think of any\nserviceable means to the end, when the half real, half simulated emotion\nof the Player yet again rouses in him the sense of remissness, leads him\nto accuse himself of forgotten obligation and heartlessness, and\nsimultaneously suggests a device for putting the Ghost and his words to\nthe test. Instantly he seizes the chance: when a thing has to be done,\nand can be done, Hamlet is _never_ wanting--shows himself the very\npromptest of men.\n\nIn the last passage of this act I do not take it that he is expressing\nan idea then first occurring to him: that the whole thing may be a snare\nof the devil is a doubt with which during weeks he has been familiar.\n\nThe delay through which, in utter failure to comprehend his character,\nhe has been so miserably misjudged, falls really between the first and\nsecond acts, although it seems in the regard of most readers to underlie\nand protract the whole play. Its duration is measured by the journey of\nthe ambassadors to and from the neighbouring kingdom of Norway.\n\nIt is notably odd, by the way, that those who accuse Hamlet of inaction,\nare mostly the same who believe his madness a reality! In truth,\nhowever, his affected madness is one of the strongest signs of his\nactivity, and his delay one of the strongest proofs of his sanity.\n\nThis second act, the third act, and a part always given to the fourth,\nbut which really belongs to the third, occupy in all only one day.\n\n[Footnote 1: Here follows in _1st Q._\n\n                        confest a murder\n    Committed long before.\n    This spirit that I haue seene may be the Diuell,\n    And out of my weakenesse and my melancholy,\n    As he is very potent with such men,\n    Doth seeke to damne me, I will haue sounder proofes,\n    The play's the thing, &c.]\n\n[Footnote 2:\n\n    'Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak;' &c.\n\n    _Macbeth_, iii. 4.]\n\n[Footnote 3: In the _1st Q._ Hamlet, speaking to Horatio (l 37), says,\n\n    And if he doe not bleach, and change at that,--\n\n_Bleach_ is radically the same word as _blench_:--to bleach, to blanch,\nto blench--_to grow white_.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Emphasis on _May_, as resuming previous doubtful thought\nand suspicion.]\n\n[Footnote 5: --caused from the first by his mother's behaviour, not\nconstitutional.]\n\n[Footnote 6: --'such conditions of the spirits'.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Here is one element in the very existence of the preceding\nact: doubt as to the facts of the case has been throughout operating to\nrestrain him; and here first he reveals, perhaps first recognizes its\ninfluence. Subject to change of feeling with the wavering of conviction,\nhe now for a moment regards his uncertainty as involving unnatural\ndistrust of a being in whose presence he cannot help _feeling_ him his\nfather. He was familiar with the lore of the supernatural, and knew the\ndoubt he expresses to be not without support.--His companions as well\nhad all been in suspense as to the identity of the apparition with the\nlate king.]\n\n[Page 116]\n\n_Enter King, Queene, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosincrance,\nGuildenstern, and Lords._[1]           [Sidenote: Guyldensterne, Lords.]\n\n[Sidenote: 72] _King._ And can you by no drift of circumstance\n                                      [Sidenote: An can | of conference]\nGet from him why he puts on[2] this Confusion:\nGrating so harshly all his dayes of quiet\nWith turbulent and dangerous Lunacy.\n\n_Rosin._ He does confesse he feeles himselfe distracted,\n[Sidenote: 92] But from what cause he will by no meanes speake.\n                                                      [Sidenote: a will]\n\n_Guil._ Nor do we finde him forward to be sounded,\nBut with a crafty Madnesse[3] keepes aloofe:\nWhen we would bring him on to some Confession\nOf his true state.\n\n_Qu._ Did he receiue you well?\n\n_Rosin._ Most like a Gentleman.\n\n_Guild._ But with much forcing of his disposition.[4]\n\n_Rosin._ Niggard of question, but of our demands\nMost free in his reply.[5]\n\n_Qu._ Did you assay him to any pastime?\n\n_Rosin._ Madam, it so fell out, that certaine Players\nWe ore-wrought on the way: of these we told him,\n                                               [Sidenote: ore-raught[6]]\nAnd there did seeme in him a kinde of ioy\nTo heare of it: They are about the Court,    [Sidenote: are heere about]\nAnd (as I thinke) they haue already order\nThis night to play before him.\n\n_Pol._ 'Tis most true;\nAnd he beseech'd me to intreate your Majesties\nTo heare, and see the matter.\n\n_King._ With all my heart, and it doth much content me\nTo heare him so inclin'd. Good Gentlemen,\n\n[Footnote 1: This may be regarded as the commencement of the Third Act.]\n\n[Footnote 2: The phrase seems to imply a doubt of the genuineness of the\nlunacy.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _Nominative pronoun omitted here._]\n\n[Footnote 4: He has noted, without understanding them, the signs of\nHamlet's suspicion of themselves.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Compare the seemingly opposite statements of the two:\nHamlet had bewildered them.]\n\n[Foonote 6: _over-reached_--came up with, caught up, overtook.]\n\n[Page 118]\n\nGiue him a further edge,[1] and driue his purpose on\n                                          [Sidenote: purpose into these]\nTo these delights.\n\n_Rosin._ We shall my Lord. _Exeunt._\n                                       [Sidenote: _Exeunt Ros. & Guyl._]\n\n_King._ Sweet Gertrude leaue vs too,          [Sidenote: Gertrard | two]\nFor we haue closely sent for _Hamlet_ hither,\n[Sidenote: 84] That he, as 'twere by accident, may there\n                                                       [Sidenote: heere]\nAffront[2] _Ophelia_.  Her Father, and my selfe[3] (lawful espials)[4]\nWill so bestow our selues, that seeing vnseene\nWe may of their encounter frankely iudge,\nAnd gather by him, as he is behaued,\nIf't be th'affliction of his loue, or no,\nThat thus he suffers for.\n\n_Qu._ I shall obey you,\nAnd for your part _Ophelia_,[5] I do wish\nThat your good Beauties be the happy cause\nOf _Hamlets_ wildenesse: so shall I hope your Vertues\n[Sidenote: 240] Will bring him to his wonted way againe,\nTo both your Honors.[6]\n\n_Ophe._ Madam, I wish it may.\n\n_Pol. Ophelia_, walke you heere.  Gracious so please ye[7]\n                                                        [Sidenote: you,]\nWe will bestow our selues: Reade on this booke,[8]\nThat shew of such an exercise may colour\nYour lonelinesse.[9] We are oft too blame in this,[10]\n                                                   [Sidenote: lowlines:]\n'Tis too much prou'd, that with Deuotions visage,\nAnd pious Action, we do surge o're                     [Sidenote: sugar]\nThe diuell himselfe.\n\n[Sidenote: 161]  _King._ Oh 'tis true:          [Sidenote: tis too true]\nHow smart a lash that speech doth giue my Conscience?\nThe Harlots Cheeke beautied with plaist'ring Art\nIs not more vgly to the thing that helpes it,[11]\nThen is my deede, to my most painted word.[12]\nOh heauie burthen![13]\n\n[Footnote 1: '_edge_ him on'--somehow corrupted into _egg_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _confront_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _Clause in parenthesis not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 4: --apologetic to the queen.]\n\n[Footnote 5: --_going up to Ophelia_--I would say, who stands at a\nlittle distance, and has not heard what has been passing between them.]\n\n[Footnote 6: The queen encourages Ophelia in hoping to marry Hamlet, and\nmay so have a share in causing a certain turn her madness takes.]\n\n[Footnote 7: --_aside to the king_.]\n\n[Footnote 8: --_to Ophelia:_ her prayer-book. 122.]\n\n[Footnote 9: _1st Q._\n\n    And here _Ofelia_, reade you on this booke,\n    And walke aloofe, the King shal be vnseene.]\n\n[Footnote 10: --_aside to the king._ I insert these _asides_, and\nsuggest the queen's going up to Ophelia, to show how we may easily hold\nOphelia ignorant of their plot. Poor creature as she was, I would\nbelieve Shakspere did not mean her to lie to Hamlet. This may be why he\nomitted that part of her father's speech in the _1st Q._ given in the\nnote immediately above, telling her the king is going to hide. Still, it\nwould be excuse enough for _her_, that she thought his madness justified\nthe deception.]\n\n[Footnote 11: --ugly to the paint that helps by hiding it--to which it\nlies so close, and from which it has no secrets. Or, 'ugly to' may mean,\n'ugly _compared with_.']\n\n[Footnote 12: 'most painted'--_very much painted_. His painted word is\nthe paint to the deed. _Painted_ may be taken for _full of paint_.]\n\n[Footnote 13: This speech of the king is the first _assurance_ we have\nof his guilt.]\n\n[Page 120]\n\n_Pol._ I heare him comming, let's withdraw my Lord.\n                                          [Sidenote: comming, with-draw]\n                                     _Exeunt._[1]\n\n_Enter Hamlet._[2]\n\n_Ham._ To be, or not to be, that is the Question:\nWhether 'tis Nobler in the minde to suffer\nThe Slings and Arrowes of outragious Fortune,\n[Sidenote: 200,250] Or to take Armes against a Sea of troubles,[3]\nAnd by opposing end them:[4] to dye, to sleepe\nNo more; and by a sleepe, to say we end\nThe Heart-ake, and the thousand Naturall shockes\nThat Flesh is heyre too? 'Tis a consummation\nDeuoutly to be wish'd.[5] To dye to sleepe,\nTo sleepe, perchance to Dreame;[6] I, there's the rub,\nFor in that sleepe of death, what[7] dreames may come,[8]\nWhen we haue shuffle'd off this mortall coile,\n[Sidenote: 186] Must giue vs pawse.[9] There's the respect\nThat makes Calamity of so long life:[10]\nFor who would beare the Whips and Scornes of time,\nThe Oppressors wrong, the poore mans Contumely,\n                                                 [Sidenote: proude mans]\n[Sidenote: 114] The pangs of dispriz'd Loue,[11] the Lawes delay,\n                                                    [Sidenote: despiz'd]\nThe insolence of Office, and the Spurnes\nThat patient merit of the vnworthy takes,                [Sidenote: th']\nWhen he himselfe might his _Quietus_ make\n[Sidenote: 194,252-3] With a bare Bodkin?[12] Who would these Fardles\n    beare[13]                                  [Sidenote: would fardels]\nTo grunt and sweat vnder a weary life,\n[Sidenote: 194] But that the dread of something after death,[14]\nThe vndiscouered Countrey, from whose Borne\nNo Traueller returnes,[15] Puzels the will,\nAnd makes vs rather beare those illes we haue,\nThen flye to others that we know not of.\nThus Conscience does make Cowards of vs all,[16]\n[Sidenote: 30] And thus the Natiue hew of Resolution[17]\nIs sicklied o're, with the pale cast of Thought,[18]\n                                                     [Sidenote: sickled]\n\n[Footnote 1: _Not in Q._--They go behind the tapestry, where it hangs\nover the recess of the doorway. Ophelia thinks they have left the room.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _In Q. before last speech._]\n\n[Footnote 3: Perhaps to a Danish or Dutch critic, or one from the\neastern coast of England, this simile would not seem so unfit as it does\nto some.]\n\n[Footnote 4: To print this so as I would have it read, I would complete\nthis line from here with points, and commence the next with points. At\nthe other breaks of the soliloquy, as indicated below, I would do the\nsame--thus:\n\n    And by opposing end them....\n                       ....To die--to sleep,]\n\n[Footnote 5: _Break_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _Break_.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Emphasis on _what_.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Such dreams as the poor Ghost's.]\n\n[Footnote 9: _Break._ --'_pawse_' is the noun, and from its use at page\n186, we may judge it means here 'pause for reflection.']\n\n[Footnote 10: 'makes calamity so long-lived.']\n\n[Footnote 11: --not necessarily disprized by the _lady_; the disprizer\nin Hamlet's case was the worldly and suspicious father--and that in\npart, and seemingly to Hamlet altogether, for the king's sake.]\n\n[Footnote 12: _small sword_. If there be here any allusion to suicide,\nit is on the general question, and with no special application to\nhimself. 24. But it is the king and the bare bodkin his thought\nassociates. How could he even glance at the things he has just\nmentioned, as each, a reason for suicide? It were a cowardly country\nindeed where the question might be asked, 'Who would not commit suicide\nbecause of any one of these things, except on account of what may follow\nafter death?'! One might well, however, be tempted to destroy an\noppressor, _and risk his life in that._]\n\n[Footnote 13: _Fardel_, burden: the old French for _fardeau_, I am\ninformed.]\n\n[Footnote 14: --a dread caused by conscience.]\n\n[Footnote 15: The Ghost could not be imagined as having _returned_.]\n\n[Footnote 16: 'of us all' _not in Q._ It is not the fear of evil that\nmakes us cowards, but the fear of _deserved_ evil. The Poet may intend\nthat conscience alone is the cause of fear in man. '_Coward_' does not\nhere involve contempt: it should be spoken with a grim smile. But Hamlet\nwould hardly call turning from _suicide_ cowardice in any sense. 24.]\n\n[Footnote 17: --such as was his when he vowed vengeance.]\n\n[Footnote 18: --such as immediately followed on that The _native_ hue of\nresolution--that which is natural to man till interruption comes--is\nruddy; the hue of thought is pale. I suspect the '_pale cast_' of an\nallusion to whitening with _rough-cast_.]\n\n[Page 122]\n\nAnd enterprizes of great pith and moment,[1]       [Sidenote: pitch [1]]\nWith this regard their Currants turne away,             [Sidenote: awry]\nAnd loose the name of Action.[2] Soft you now,\n[Sidenote: 119] The faire _Ophelia_? Nimph, in thy Orizons[3]\nBe all my sinnes remembred.[4]\n\n_Ophe._ Good my Lord,\nHow does your Honor for this many a day?\n\n_Ham._ I humbly thanke you: well, well, well.[5]\n\n_Ophe._ My Lord, I haue Remembrances of yours,\nThat I haue longed long to re-deliuer.\nI pray you now, receiue them.\n\n_Ham._ No, no, I neuer gaue you ought.[6]\n                                          [Sidenote: No, not I, I never]\n\n_Ophe._ My honor'd Lord, I know right well you did,\n                                                    [Sidenote: you know]\nAnd with them words of so sweet breath compos'd,\nAs made the things more rich, then perfume left:\n                    [Sidenote: these things | their perfume lost.[7]]\nTake these againe, for to the Noble minde\nRich gifts wax poore, when giuers proue vnkinde.\nThere my Lord.[8]\n\n_Ham._ Ha, ha: Are you honest?[9]\n\n_Ophe._ My Lord.\n\n_Ham._ Are you faire?\n\n_Ophe._ What meanes your Lordship?\n\n_Ham._ That if you be honest and faire, your\n                                     [Sidenote: faire, you should admit]\nHonesty[10] should admit no discourse to your Beautie.\n\n_Ophe._ Could Beautie my Lord, haue better\nComerce[11] then your Honestie?[12]\n                                     [Sidenote: Then with honestie?[11]]\n\n_Ham._ I trulie: for the power of Beautie, will\nsooner transforme Honestie from what it is, to a\nBawd, then the force of Honestie can translate\nBeautie into his likenesse. This was sometime a\nParadox, but now the time giues it proofe. I did\nloue you once.[13]\n\n_Ophe._ Indeed my Lord, you made me beleeue so.\n\n[Footnote 1: How could _suicide_ be styled _an enterprise of great\npith_? Yet less could it be called _of great pitch_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: I allow this to be a general reflection, but surely it\nserves to show that _conscience_ must at least be one of Hamlet's\nrestraints.]\n\n[Footnote 3: --by way of intercession.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Note the entire change of mood from that of the last\nsoliloquy. The right understanding of this soliloquy is indispensable to\nthe right understanding of Hamlet. But we are terribly trammelled and\nhindered, as in the understanding of Hamlet throughout, so here in the\nunderstanding of his meditation, by traditional assumption. I was roused\nto think in the right direction concerning it, by the honoured friend\nand relative to whom I have feebly acknowledged my obligation by\ndedicating to him this book. I could not at first see it as he saw it:\n'Think about it, and you will,' he said. I did think, and by\ndegrees--not very quickly--my prejudgments thinned, faded, and almost\nvanished. I trust I see it now as a whole, and in its true relations,\ninternal and external--its relations to itself, to the play, and to the\nHamlet, of Shakspere.\n\nNeither in its first verse, then, nor in it anywhere else, do I find\neven an allusion to suicide. What Hamlet is referring to in the said\nfirst verse, it is not possible with certainty to determine, for it is\nbut the vanishing ripple of a preceding ocean of thought, from which he\nis just stepping out upon the shore of the articulate. He may have been\nplunged in some profound depth of the metaphysics of existence, or he\nmay have been occupied with the one practical question, that of the\nslaying of his uncle, which has, now in one form, now in another,\nhaunted his spirit for weeks. Perhaps, from the message he has just\nreceived, he expects to meet the king, and conscience, confronting\ntemptation, has been urging the necessity of proof; perhaps a righteous\nconsideration of consequences, which sometimes have share in the primary\nduty, has been making him shrink afresh from the shedding of blood, for\nevery thoughtful mind recoils from the irrevocable, and that is an awful\nform of the irrevocable. But whatever thought, general or special, this\nfirst verse may be dismissing, we come at once thereafter into the light\nof a definite question: 'Which is nobler--to endure evil fortune, or to\noppose it _\u00e0 outrance_; to bear in passivity, or to resist where\nresistance is hopeless--resist to the last--to the death which is its\nunavoidable end?'\n\nThen comes a pause, during which he is thinking--we will not say 'too\nprecisely on the event,' but taking his account with consequences: the\nresult appears in the uttered conviction that the extreme possible\nconsequence, death, is a good and not an evil. Throughout, observe, how\nhere, as always, he generalizes, himself being to himself but the type\nof his race.\n\nThen follows another pause, during which he seems prosecuting the\nthought, for he has already commenced further remark in similar strain,\nwhen suddenly a new and awful element introduces itself:\n\n                       ....To die--to sleep.--\n    --To _sleep_! perchance to _dream_!\n\nHe had been thinking of death only as the passing away of the present\nwith its troubles; here comes the recollection that death has its own\ntroubles--its own thoughts, its own consciousness: if it be a sleep, it\nhas its dreams. '_What dreams may come_' means, 'the sort of dreams that\nmay come'; the emphasis is on the _what_, not on the _may_; there is no\nquestion whether dreams will come, but there is question of the\ncharacter of the dreams. This consideration is what makes calamity so\nlong-lived! 'For who would bear the multiform ills of life'--he alludes\nto his own wrongs, but mingles, in his generalizing way, others of those\nmost common to humanity, and refers to the special cure for some of his\nown which was close to his hand--'who would bear these things if he\ncould, as I can, make his quietus with a bare bodkin'--that is, by\nslaying his enemy--'who would then bear them, but that he fears the\nfuture, and the divine judgment upon his life and actions--that\nconscience makes a coward of him!'[14]\n\nTo run, not the risk of death, but the risks that attend upon and follow\ndeath, Hamlet must be certain of what he is about; he must be sure it is\na right thing he does, or he will leave it undone. Compare his speech,\n250, 'Does it not, &c.':--by the time he speaks this speech, he has had\nperfect proof, and asserts the righteousness of taking vengeance in\nalmost an agony of appeal to Horatio.\n\nThe more continuous and the more formally logical a soliloquy, the less\nnatural it is. The logic should be all there, but latent; the bones of\nit should not show: they do not show here.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _One_ 'well' _only in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 6: He does not want to take them back, and so sever even that\nweak bond between them. He has not given her up.]\n\n[Footnote 7: The _Q._ reading seems best. The perfume of his gifts was\nthe sweet words with which they were given; those words having lost\ntheir savour, the mere gifts were worth nothing.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Released from the commands her father had laid upon her,\nand emboldened by the queen's approval of more than the old relation\nbetween them, she would timidly draw Hamlet back to the past--to love\nand a sound mind.]\n\n[Footnote 9: I do not here suppose a noise or movement of the arras, or\nthink that the talk from this point bears the mark of the madness he\nwould have assumed on the least suspicion of espial. His distrust of\nOphelia comes from a far deeper source--suspicion of all women, grown\ndoubtful to him through his mother. Hopeless for her, he would give his\nlife to know that Ophelia was not like her. Hence the cruel things he\nsays to her here and elsewhere; they are the brood of a heart haunted\nwith horrible, alas! too excusable phantoms of distrust. A man wretched\nas Hamlet must be forgiven for being rude; it is love suppressed, love\nthat can neither breathe nor burn, that makes him rude. His horrid\ninsinuations are a hungry challenge to indignant rejection. He would\nsting Ophelia to defence of herself and her sex. But, either from her\nlove, or from gentleness to his supposed madness, as afterwards in the\nplay-scene, or from the poverty and weakness of a nature so fathered and\nso brothered, she hears, and says nothing. 139.]\n\n[Footnote 10: Honesty is here figured as a porter,--just after, as a\nporter that may be corrupted.]\n\n[Footnote 11: If the _Folio_ reading is right, _commerce_ means\n_companionship_; if the _Quarto_ reading, then it means _intercourse_.\nNote _then_ constantly for our _than_.]\n\n[Footnote 12: I imagine Ophelia here giving Hamlet a loving look--which\nhardens him. But I do not think she lays emphasis on _your_; the word is\nhere, I take it, used (as so often then) impersonally.]\n\n[Footnote 13: '--proof in you and me: _I_ loved _you_ once, but my\nhonesty did not translate your beauty into its likeness.']\n\n[Footnote 14: That the Great Judgement was here in Shakspere's thought,\nwill be plain to those who take light from the corresponding passage in\nthe _1st Quarto_. As it makes an excellent specimen of that issue in the\ncharacter I am most inclined to attribute to it--that of original sketch\nand continuous line of notes, with more or less finished passages in\nplace among the notes--I will here quote it, recommending it to my\nstudent's attention. If it be what I suggest, it is clear that Shakspere\nhad not at first altogether determined how he would carry the\nsoliloquy--what line he was going to follow in it: here hope and fear\ncontend for the place of motive to patience. The changes from it in the\ntext are well worth noting: the religion is lessened: the hope\ndisappears: were they too much of pearls to cast before 'barren\nspectators'? The manuscript could never have been meant for any eye but\nhis own, seeing it was possible to print from it such a chaos--over\nwhich yet broods the presence of the formative spirit of the Poet.\n\n    _Ham._ To be, or not to be, I there's the point,\n    To Die, to sleepe, is that all? I all:\n    No, to sleepe, to dreame, I mary there it goes,\n    For in that dreame of death, when wee awake,\n    [Sidenote: 24, 247, 260] And borne before an euerlasting Iudge,\n    From whence no passenger euer retur'nd,\n    The vndiscouered country, at whose sight\n    The happy smile, and the accursed damn'd.\n    But for this, the ioyfull hope of this,\n    Whol'd beare the scornes and flattery of the world,\n    Scorned by the right rich, the rich curssed of the poore?\n    The widow being oppressed, the orphan wrong'd,\n    The taste of hunger, or a tirants raigne,\n    And thousand more calamities besides,\n    To grunt and sweate vnder this weary life,\n    When that he may his full _Quietus_ make,\n    With a bare bodkin, who would this indure,\n    But for a hope of something after death?\n    Which pulses the braine, and doth confound the sence,\n    Which makes vs rather beare those euilles we haue,\n    Than flie to others that we know not of.\n    I that, O this conscience makes cowardes of vs all,\n    Lady in thy orizons, be all my sinnes remembred.]\n\n[Page 126]\n\n_Ham._ You should not haue beleeued me. For\nvertue cannot so innocculate[1] our old stocke,[2] but\nwe shall rellish of it.[3] I loued you not.[4]\n\n_Ophe._ I was the more deceiued.\n\n_Ham._ Get thee to a Nunnerie. Why would'st           [Sidenote: thee a]\nthou be a breeder of Sinners? I am my selfe indifferent[5]\n[Sidenote: 132] honest, but yet I could accuse me of\nsuch things,[6] that it were better my Mother had\n[Sidenote: 62] not borne me,[7] I am very prowd, reuengefull,\nAmbitious, with more offences at my becke, then I\nhaue thoughts to put them in imagination, to giue\nthem shape, or time to acte them in. What should\nsuch Fellowes as I do, crawling betweene Heauen\n                                            [Sidenote: earth and heauen]\nand Earth.[8] We are arrant Knaues all[10], beleeue\nnone of vs.[9] Goe thy wayes to a Nunnery.\nWhere's your Father?[11]\n\n_Ophe._ At home, my Lord.[12]\n\n_Ham._ Let the doores be shut vpon him, that\nhe may play the Foole no way, but in's owne house.[13]\n                                                [Sidenote: no where but]\nFarewell.[14]\n\n_Ophe._ O helpe him, you sweet Heauens.\n\n_Ham._[15] If thou doest Marry, Ile giue thee this\nPlague for thy Dowrie. Be thou as chast as Ice,\nas pure as Snow, thou shalt not escape Calumny.[16]\nGet thee to a Nunnery. Go,[17] Farewell.[18] Or if\nthou wilt needs Marry, marry a fool: for Wise men\nknow well enough, what monsters[19] you make of\nthem. To a Nunnery go, and quickly too. Farwell.[20]\n\n_Ophe._ O[21] heauenly Powers, restore him.\n\n_Ham._[22] I haue heard of your pratlings[23] too wel\n                                         [Sidenote: your paintings well]\nenough. God has giuen you one pace,[23] and you\n                                            [Sidenote: hath | one face,]\nmake your selfe another: you gidge, you amble,\n                             [Sidenote: selfes | you gig and amble, and]\nand you lispe, and nickname Gods creatures, and\n                                       [Sidenote: you list you nickname]\nmake your Wantonnesse, your[24] Ignorance.[25] Go\n\n[Footnote 1: 'inoculate'--_bud_, in the horticultural use.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _trunk_ or _stem_ of the family tree.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Emphasis on _relish_--'keep something of the old flavour of\nthe stock.']\n\n[Footnote 4: He tries her now with denying his love--perhaps moved in\npart by a feeling, taught by his mother's, of how imperfect it was.]\n\n[Footnote 5: tolerably.]\n\n[Footnote 6: He turns from baiting woman in her to condemn himself. Is\nit not the case with every noble nature, that the knowledge of wrong in\nanother arouses in it the consciousness of its own faults and sins, of\nits own evil possibilities? Hurled from the heights of ideal humanity,\nHamlet not only recognizes in himself every evil tendency of his race,\nbut almost feels himself individually guilty of every transgression.\n'God, God, forgive us all!' exclaims the doctor who has just witnessed\nthe misery of Lady Macbeth, unveiling her guilt.\n\nThis whole speech of Hamlet is profoundly sane--looking therefore\naltogether insane to the shallow mind, on which the impression of its\ninsanity is deepened by its coming from him so freely. The common nature\ndisappointed rails at humanity; Hamlet, his earthly ideal destroyed,\nwould tear his individual human self to pieces.]\n\n[Footnote 7: This we may suppose uttered with an expression as startling\nto Ophelia as impenetrable.]\n\n[Footnote 8: He is disgusted with himself, with his own nature and\nconsciousness--]\n\n[Footnote 9: --and this reacts on his kind.]\n\n[Footnote 10: 'all' _not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 11: Here, perhaps, he grows suspicious--asks himself why he is\nallowed this prolonged _t\u00eate \u00e0 t\u00eate_.]\n\n[Footnote 12: I am willing to believe she thinks so.]\n\n[Footnote 13: Whether he trusts Ophelia or not, he does not take her\nstatement for correct, and says this in the hope that Polonius is not\ntoo far off to hear it. The speech is for him, not for Ophelia, and will\nseem to her to come only from his madness.]\n\n[Footnote 14: _Exit_.]\n\n[Footnote 15: (_re-entering_)]\n\n[Footnote 16: 'So many are bad, that your virtue will not be believed\nin.']\n\n[Footnote 17: 'Go' _not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 18: _Exit, and re-enter._]\n\n[Footnote 19: _Cornuti._]\n\n[Footnote 20: _Exit._]\n\n[Footnote 21: 'O' _not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 22: (_re-entering_)]\n\n[Footnote 23: I suspect _pratlings_ to be a corruption, not of the\nprinted _paintings_, but of some word substituted for it by the Poet,\nperhaps _prancings_, and _pace_ to be correct.]\n\n[Footnote 24: 'your' _not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 25: As the present type to him of womankind, he assails her\nwith such charges of lightness as are commonly brought against women. He\ndoes not go farther: she is not his mother, and he hopes she is\ninnocent. But he cannot make her speak!]\n\n[Page 128]\n\ntoo, Ile no more on't, it hath made me mad. I say,\nwe will haue no more Marriages.[1] Those that are\n                                             [Sidenote: no mo marriage,]\nmarried already,[2] all but one shall liue, the rest\nshall keep as they are. To a Nunnery, go.\n\n                         _Exit Hamlet_.               [Sidenote: _Exit_]\n\n[3]_Ophe._ O what a Noble minde is heere o're-throwne?\nThe Courtiers, Soldiers, Schollers: Eye, tongue, sword,\nTh'expectansie and Rose[4] of the faire State,\n                                            [Sidenote: Th' expectation,]\nThe glasse of Fashion,[5] and the mould of Forme,[6]\nTh'obseru'd of all Obseruers, quite, quite downe.\nHaue I of Ladies most deiect and wretched,          [Sidenote: And I of]\nThat suck'd the Honie of his Musicke Vowes:          [Sidenote: musickt]\nNow see that Noble, and most Soueraigne Reason,     [Sidenote: see what]\nLike sweet Bels iangled out of tune, and harsh,[7]\n                                                 [Sidenote: out of time]\nThat vnmatch'd Forme and Feature of blowne youth,[8]\n                                              [Sidenote: and stature of]\nBlasted with extasie.[9] Oh woe is me,\nT'haue scene what I haue scene: see what I see.[10]\n                                                     [Sidenote: _Exit_.]\n\n_Enter King, and Polonius_.\n\n_King_. Loue? His affections do not that way tend,\nNor what he spake, though it lack'd Forme a little,      [Sidenote: Not]\nWas not like Madnesse.[11] There's something in his soule?\nO're which his Melancholly sits on brood,\nAnd I do doubt the hatch, and the disclose[12]\nWill be some danger,[11] which to preuent       [Sidenote: which for to]\nI haue in quicke determination\n[Sidenote: 138, 180] Thus set it downe. He shall with speed to England\nFor the demand of our neglected Tribute:\nHaply the Seas and Countries different\n\n[Footnote 1: 'The thing must be put a stop to! the world must cease! it\nis not fit to go on.']\n\n[Footnote 2: 'already--(_aside_) all but one--shall live.']\n\n[Footnote 3: _1st Q_.\n\n    _Ofe._ Great God of heauen, what a quicke change is this?\n    The Courtier, Scholler, Souldier, all in him,\n    All dasht and splinterd thence, O woe is me,\n    To a seene what I haue seene, see what I see. _Exit_.\n\nTo his cruel words Ophelia is impenetrable--from the conviction that not\nhe but his madness speaks.\n\nThe moment he leaves her, she breaks out in such phrase as a young girl\nwould hardly have used had she known that the king and her father were\nlistening. I grant, however, the speech may be taken as a soliloquy\naudible to the spectators only, who to the persons of a play are _but_\nthe spiritual presences.]\n\n[Footnote 4: 'The hope and flower'--The _rose_ is not unfrequently used\nin English literature as the type of perfection.]\n\n[Footnote 5: 'he by whom Fashion dressed herself'--_he who set the\nfashion_. His great and small virtues taken together, Hamlet makes us\nthink of Sir Philip Sidney--ten years older than Shakspere, and dead\nsixteen years before _Hamlet_ was written.]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'he after whose ways, or modes of behaviour, men shaped\ntheirs'--therefore the mould in which their forms were cast;--_the\nobject of universal imitation_.]\n\n[Footnote 7: I do not know whether this means--the peal rung without\nregard to tune or time--or--the single bell so handled that the tongue\nchecks and jars the vibration. In some country places, I understand,\nthey go about ringing a set of hand-bells.]\n\n[Footnote 8: youth in full blossom.]\n\n[Footnote 9: madness 177.]\n\n[Footnote 10: 'to see now such a change from what I saw then.']\n\n[Footnote 11: The king's conscience makes him keen. He is, all through,\ndoubtful of the madness.]\n\n[Footnote 12: --of the fact- or fancy-egg on which his melancholy sits\nbrooding]\n\n[Page 130]\n\nWith variable Obiects, shall expell\nThis something setled matter[1] in his heart\nWhereon his Braines still beating, puts him thus\nFrom[2] fashion of himselfe. What thinke you on't?\n\n_Pol_. It shall do well. But yet do I beleeue\nThe Origin and Commencement of this greefe       [Sidenote: his greefe,]\nSprung from neglected loue.[3] How now _Ophelia_?\nYou neede not tell vs, what Lord _Hamlet_ saide,\nWe heard it all.[4] My Lord, do as you please,\nBut if you hold it fit after the Play,\nLet his Queene Mother all alone intreat him\nTo shew his Greefes: let her be round with him,      [Sidenote: griefe,]\nAnd Ile be plac'd so, please you in the eare\nOf all their Conference. If she finde him not,[5]\nTo England send him: Or confine him where\nYour wisedome best shall thinke.\n\n_King_. It shall be so:\nMadnesse in great Ones, must not vnwatch'd go.[6]\n                                                   [Sidenote: unmatched]\n                                       _Exeunt_.\n\n_Enter Hamlet, and two or three of the Players_.\n                                                 [Sidenote: _and three_]\n\n_Ham_.[7] Speake the Speech I pray you, as I\npronounc'd it to you trippingly[8] on the Tongue:\nBut if you mouth it, as many of your Players do,\n                                              [Sidenote: of our Players]\nI had as liue[9] the Town-Cryer had spoke my     [Sidenote: cryer spoke]\nLines:[10] Nor do not saw the Ayre too much your   [Sidenote: much with]\nhand thus, but vse all gently; for in the verie\nTorrent, Tempest, and (as I may say) the Whirlewinde\n                                              [Sidenote: say, whirlwind]\nof Passion, you must acquire and beget a             [Sidenote: of your]\nTemperance that may giue it Smoothnesse.[11] O it\noffends mee to the Soule, to see a robustious Perywig-pated\n                                                  [Sidenote: to heare a]\nFellow, teare a Passion to tatters, to              [Sidenote: totters,]\nverie ragges, to split the eares of the Groundlings:[12]\n                                                      [Sidenote: spleet]\nwho (for the most part) are capeable[13] of nothing,\nbut inexplicable dumbe shewes,[14] and noise:[15] I\ncould haue such a Fellow whipt for o're-doing          [Sidenote: would]\n\n[Footnote 1: 'something of settled matter'--_id\u00e9e fixe_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: '_away from_ his own true likeness'; 'makes him so unlike\nhimself.']\n\n[Footnote 3: Polonius is crestfallen, but positive.]\n\n[Footnote 4: This supports the notion of Ophelia's ignorance of the\nespial. Polonius thinks she is about to disclose what has passed, and\n_informs_ her of its needlessness. But it _might_ well enough be taken\nas only an assurance of the success of their listening--that they had\nheard without difficulty.]\n\n[Footnote 5: 'If she do not find him out': a comparable phrase, common\nat the time, was, _Take me with you_, meaning, _Let me understand you_.\n\nPolonius, for his daughter's sake, and his own in her, begs for him\nanother chance.]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'in the insignificant, madness may roam the country, but in\nthe great it must be watched.' The _unmatcht_ of the _Quarto_ might bear\nthe meaning of _countermatched_.]\n\n[Footnote 7: I should suggest this exhortation to the Players introduced\nwith the express purpose of showing how absolutely sane Hamlet was,\ncould I believe that Shakspere saw the least danger of Hamlet's pretence\nbeing mistaken for reality.]\n\n[Footnote 8: He would have neither blundering nor emphasis such as might\nrouse too soon the king's suspicion, or turn it into certainty.]\n\n[Footnote 9: 'liue'--_lief_]\n\n[Footnote 10: 1st Q.:--\n\n    I'de rather heare a towne bull bellow,\n    Then such a fellow speake my lines.\n\n_Lines_ is a player-word still.]\n\n[Footnote 11: --smoothness such as belongs to the domain of Art, and\nwill both save from absurdity, and allow the relations with surroundings\nto manifest themselves;--harmoniousness, which is the possibility of\nco-existence.]\n\n[Footnote 12: those on the ground--that is, in the pit; there was no\ngallery then.]\n\n[Footnote 13: _receptive_.]\n\n[Footnote 14: --gestures extravagant and unintelligible as those of a\ndumb show that could not by the beholder be interpreted; gestures\nincorrespondent to the words.\n\nA _dumb show_ was a stage-action without words.]\n\n[Footnote 15: Speech that is little but rant, and scarce related to the\nsense, is hardly better than a noise; it might, for the purposes of art,\nas well be a sound inarticulate.]\n\n[Page 132]\n\nTermagant[1]: it out-Herod's Herod[2] Pray you\nauoid it.\n\n_Player._ I warrant your Honor.\n\n_Ham._ Be not too tame neyther: but let your\nowne Discretion be your Tutor. Sute the Action\nto the Word, the Word to the Action, with this\nspeciall obseruance: That you ore-stop not the    [Sidenote: ore-steppe]\nmodestie of Nature; for any thing so ouer-done,     [Sidenote ore-doone]\nis fro[3] the purpose of Playing, whose end both at\nthe first and now, was and is, to hold as 'twer the\nMirrour vp to Nature; to shew Vertue her owne   [Sidenote: her feature;]\nFeature, Scorne[4] her owne Image, and the verie\nAge and Bodie of the Time, his forme and pressure.[5]\nNow, this ouer-done, or come tardie off,[6] though it\nmake the vnskilfull laugh, cannot but make the      [Sidenote: it makes]\nIudicious greeue; The censure of the which One,[7]\n                                                [Sidenote: of which one]\nmust in your allowance[8] o're-way a whole Theater\nof Others. Oh, there bee Players that I haue\nscene Play, and heard others praise, and that highly\n                                                     [Sidenote: praysd,]\n(not to speake it prophanely) that neyther hauing\nthe accent of Christians, nor the gate of Christian,\nPagan, or Norman, haue so strutted and bellowed,\n                                        [Sidenote: Pagan, nor man, haue]\nthat I haue thought some of Natures Iouerney-men\nhad made men, and not made them well, they\nimitated Humanity so abhominably.[9]\n\n[Sidenote: 126] _Play._ I hope we haue reform'd that indifferently[10]\nwith vs, Sir.\n\n_Ham._ O reforme it altogether. And let those\nthat play your Clownes, speake no more then is set\ndowne for them.[12] For there be of them, that will\nthemselues laugh, to set on some quantitie of\nbarren Spectators to laugh too, though in the\nmeane time, some necessary Question of the Play\nbe then to be considered:[12] that's Villanous, and\nshewes a most pittifull Ambition in the Fool that\nvses it.[13] Go make you readie.    _Exit Players_\n\n[Footnote 1: 'An imaginary God of the Mahometans, represented as a most\nviolent character in the old Miracle-plays and Moralities.'--_Sh. Lex._]\n\n[Footnote 2: 'represented as a swaggering tyrant in the old dramatic\nperformances.'--_Sh. Lex._]\n\n[Footnote 3: _away from_: inconsistent with.]\n\n[Footnote 4: --that which is deserving of scorn.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _impression_, as on wax. Some would persuade us that\nShakspere's own plays do not do this; but such critics take the\n_accidents_ or circumstances of a time for the _body_ of it--the clothes\nfor the person. _Human_ nature is 'Nature,' however _dressed_.\n\nThere should be a comma after 'Age.']\n\n[Footnote 6: 'laggingly represented'--A word belonging to _time_ is\nsubstituted for a word belonging to _space_:--'this over-done, or\ninadequately effected'; 'this over-done, or under-done.']\n\n[Footnote 7: 'and the judgment of such a one.' '_the which_' seems\nequivalent to _and--such_.]\n\n[Footnote 8: 'must, you will grant.']\n\n[Footnote 9: Shakspere may here be playing with a false derivation, as I\nwas myself when the true was pointed out to me--fancying _abominable_\nderived from _ab_ and _homo_. If so, then he means by the phrase: 'they\nimitated humanity so from the nature of man, so _inhumanly_.']\n\n[Footnote 10: tolerably.]\n\n[Footnote 11: 'Sir' _not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 12: Shakspere must have himself suffered from such clowns:\nColeridge thinks some of their _gag_ has crept into his print.]\n\n[Footnote 13: Here follow in the _1st Q._ several specimens of such a\nclown's foolish jests and behaviour.]\n\n[Page 134]\n\n_Enter Polonius, Rosincrance, and Guildensterne_.[1]\n                              [Sidenote: _Guyldensterne, & Rosencraus_.]\n\nHow now my Lord,\nWill the King heare this peece of Worke?\n\n_Pol_. And the Queene too, and that presently.[2]\n\n_Ham_. Bid the Players make hast.\n\n                              _Exit Polonius_.[3]\n\nWill you two helpe to hasten them?[4]\n\n_Both_. We will my Lord.        _Exeunt_.\n                        [Sidenote: _Ros_. I my Lord. _Exeunt they two_.]\n\n_Enter Horatio_[5]\n\n_Ham_. What hoa, _Horatio_?                       [Sidenote: What howe,]\n\n_Hora_. Heere sweet Lord, at your Seruice.\n\n[Sidenote: 26] _Ham_.[7] _Horatio_, thou art eene as iust a man\nAs ere my Conversation coap'd withall.\n\n_Hora_. O my deere Lord.[6]\n\n_Ham_.[7] Nay do not thinke I flatter:\nFor what aduancement may I hope from thee,[8]\nThat no Reuennew hast, but thy good spirits\nTo feed and cloath thee. Why shold the poor be flatter'd?\nNo, let the Candied[9] tongue, like absurd pompe,      [Sidenote: licke]\nAnd crooke the pregnant Hindges of the knee,[10]\nWhere thrift may follow faining? Dost thou heare,\n                                                    [Sidenote: fauning;]\nSince my deere Soule was Mistris of my choyse;[11]\n                                                 [Sidenote: her choice,]\nAnd could of men distinguish, her election\nHath seal'd thee for her selfe. For thou hast bene\n                                                [Sidenote: S'hath seald]\n[Sidenote: 272] As one in suffering all, that suffers nothing.\nA man that Fortunes buffets, and Rewards\nHath 'tane with equall Thankes. And blest are those,    [Sidenote: Hast]\nWhose Blood and Iudgement are so well co-mingled,\n                                               [Sidenote: comedled,[12]]\n[Sidenote: 26] That they are not a Pipe for Fortunes finger,\nTo sound what stop she please.[13] Giue me that man,\nThat is not Passions Slaue,[14] and I will weare him\nIn my hearts Core: I, in my Heart of heart,[15]\nAs I do thee. Something too much of this.[16]\n\n[Footnote 1: _In Q. at end of speech._]\n\n[Footnote 2: He humours Hamlet as if he were a child.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 4: He has sent for Horatio, and is expecting him.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _In Q. after next speech._]\n\n[Footnote 6: --repudiating the praise.]\n\n[Footnote 7: To know a man, there is scarce a readier way than to hear\nhim talk of his friend--why he loves, admires, chooses him. The Poet\nhere gives us a wide window into Hamlet. So genuine is his respect for\n_being_, so indifferent is he to _having_, that he does not shrink, in\nargument for his own truth, from reminding his friend to his face that,\nbeing a poor man, nothing is to be gained from him--nay, from telling\nhim that it is through his poverty he has learned to admire him, as a\nman of courage, temper, contentment, and independence, with nothing but\nhis good spirits for an income--a man whose manhood is dominant both\nover his senses and over his fortune--a true Stoic. He describes an\nideal man, then clasps the ideal to his bosom as his own, in the person\nof his friend. Only a great man could so worship another, choosing him\nfor such qualities; and hereby Shakspere shows us his Hamlet--a brave,\nnoble, wise, pure man, beset by circumstances the most adverse\nconceivable. That Hamlet had not misapprehended Horatio becomes evident\nin the last scene of all. 272.]\n\n[Footnote 8: The mother of flattery is self-advantage.]\n\n[Footnote 9: _sugared_. _1st Q._:\n\n    Let flattery sit on those time-pleasing tongs;\n    To glose with them that loues to heare their praise;\n    And not with such as thou _Horatio_.\n    There is a play to night, &c.]\n\n[Footnote 10: A pregnant figure and phrase, requiring thought.]\n\n[Footnote 11: 'since my real self asserted its dominion, and began to\nrule my choice,' making it pure, and withdrawing it from the tyranny of\nimpulse and liking.]\n\n[Footnote 12: The old word _medle_ is synonymous with _mingle._]\n\n[Footnote 13: To Hamlet, the lordship of man over himself, despite of\ncircumstance, is a truth, and therefore a duty.]\n\n[Footnote 14: The man who has chosen his friend thus, is hardly himself\none to act without sufficing reason, or take vengeance without certain\nproof of guilt.]\n\n[Footnote 15: He justifies the phrase, repeating it.]\n\n[Footnote 16: --apologetic for having praised him to his face.]\n\n[Page 136]\n\nThere is a Play to night before the King,\nOne Scoene of it comes neere the Circumstance\nWhich I haue told thee, of my Fathers death.\nI prythee, when thou see'st that Acte a-foot,[1]\nEuen with the verie Comment of my[2] Soule      [Sidenote: thy[2] soule]\nObserue mine Vnkle: If his occulted guilt,         [Sidenote: my Vncle,]\nDo not it selfe vnkennell in one speech,\n[Sidenote: 58] It is a damned Ghost that we haue seene:[3]\nAnd my Imaginations are as foule\nAs Vulcans Stythe.[4] Giue him needfull note,\n                                          [Sidenote: stithy; | heedfull]\nFor I mine eyes will riuet to his Face:\nAnd after we will both our iudgements ioyne,[5]\nTo censure of his seeming.[6]                     [Sidenote: in censure]\n\n_Hora._ Well my Lord.\nIf he steale ought the whil'st this Play is Playing.    [Sidenote: if a]\nAnd scape detecting, I will pay the Theft.[1]      [Sidenote: detected,]\n\n_Enter King, Queene, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosincrance,\nGuildensterne, and other Lords attendant with\nhis Guard carrying Torches. Danish March.\nSound a Flourish._\n            [Sidenote: _Enter Trumpets and Kettle Drummes, King, Queene,\n                                                    Polonius, Ophelia._]\n\n_Ham._ They are comming to the Play: I must\n[Sidenote: 60, 156, 178] be idle.[7] Get you a place.\n\n_King._ How fares our Cosin _Hamlet_?\n\n_Ham._ Excellent Ifaith, of the Camelions dish:\n[Sidenote: 154] I eate the Ayre promise-cramm'd,[8] you cannot feed\nCapons so.[9]\n\n_King._ I haue nothing with this answer _Hamlet_,\nthese words are not mine.[10]\n\n_Ham._ No, nor mine. Now[11] my Lord, you\nplaid once i'th'Vniuersity, you say?\n\n_Polon._ That I did my Lord, and was accounted         [Sidenote: did I]\na good Actor.\n\n[Footnote 1: Here follows in _1st Q._\n\n    Marke thou the King, doe but obserue his lookes,\n    For I mine eies will riuet to his face:\n    [Sidenote: 112] And if he doe not bleach, and change at that,\n    It is a damned ghost that we haue seene.\n    _Horatio_, haue a care, obserue him well.\n\n    _Hor_. My lord, mine eies shall still be on his face,\n    And not the smallest alteration\n    That shall appeare in him, but I shall note it.]\n\n[Footnote 2: I take 'my' to be right: 'watch my uncle with the\ncomment--the discriminating judgment, that is--of _my_ soul, more intent\nthan thine.']\n\n[Footnote 3: He has then, ere this, taken Horatio into his\nconfidence--so far at least as the Ghost's communication concerning the\nmurder.]\n\n[Footnote 4: a dissyllable: _stithy_, _anvil_; Scotch, _studdy_.\n\nHamlet's doubt is here very evident: he hopes he may find it a false\nghost: what good man, what good son would not? He has clear cause and\nreason--it is his duty to delay. That the cause and reason and duty are\nnot invariably clear to Hamlet himself--not clear in every mood, is\nanother thing. Wavering conviction, doubt of evidence, the corollaries\nof assurance, the oppression of misery, a sense of the worthlessness of\nthe world's whole economy--each demanding delay, might yet well, all\ntogether, affect the man's feeling as mere causes of rather than reasons\nfor hesitation. The conscientiousness of Hamlet stands out the clearer\nthat, throughout, his dislike to his uncle, predisposing him to believe\nany ill of him, is more than evident. By his incompetent or prejudiced\njudges, Hamlet's accusations and justifications of himself are equally\nplaced to the _discredit_ of his account. They seem to think a man could\nnever accuse himself except he were in the wrong; therefore if ever he\nexcuses himself, he is the more certainly in the wrong: whatever point\nmay tell on the other side, it is to be disregarded.]\n\n[Footnote 5: 'bring our two judgments together for comparison.']\n\n[Footnote 6: 'in order to judge of the significance of his looks and\nbehaviour.']\n\n[Footnote 7: Does he mean _foolish_, that is, _lunatic_? or\n_insouciant_, and _unpreoccupied_?]\n\n[Footnote 8: The king asks Hamlet how he _fares_--that is, how he gets\non; Hamlet pretends to think he has asked him about his diet. His talk\nhas at once become wild; ere the king enters he has donned his cloak of\nmadness. Here he confesses to ambition--will favour any notion\nconcerning himself rather than give ground for suspecting the real state\nof his mind and feeling.\n\nIn the _1st Q._ 'the Camelions dish' almost appears to mean the play,\nnot the king's promises.]\n\n[Footnote 9: In some places they push food down the throats of the\npoultry they want to fatten, which is technically, I believe, called\n_cramming_ them.]\n\n[Footnote 10: 'You have not taken me with you; I have not laid hold of\nyour meaning; I have nothing by your answer.' 'Your words have not\nbecome my property; they have not given themselves to me in their\nmeaning.']\n\n[Footnote 11: _Point thus_: 'No, nor mine now.--My Lord,' &c. '--not\nmine, now I have uttered them, for so I have given them away.' Or does\nhe mean to disclaim their purport?]\n\n[Page 138]\n\n_Ham._ And[1] what did you enact?\n\n_Pol._ I did enact _Iulius Caesar_, I was kill'd\ni'th'Capitol: _Brutus_ kill'd me.\n\n_Ham._ It was a bruite part of him, to kill so\nCapitall a Calfe there.[2] Be the Players ready?\n\n_Rosin._ I my Lord, they stay vpon your patience.\n\n_Qu._ Come hither my good _Hamlet_, sit by me.      [Sidenote: my deere]\n\n_Ham._ No good Mother, here's Mettle more attractiue.[3]\n\n_Pol._ Oh ho, do you marke that?[4]\n\n_Ham._ Ladie, shall I lye in your Lap?\n\n_Ophe._ No my Lord.\n\n_Ham._ I meane, my Head vpon your Lap?[5]\n\n_Ophe._ I my Lord.[6]\n\n_Ham._ Do you thinke I meant Country[7] matters?\n\n_Ophe._ I thinke nothing, my Lord.\n\n_Ham._ That's a faire thought to ly between\nMaids legs.\n\n_Ophe._ What is my Lord?\n\n_Ham._ Nothing.\n\n_Ophe._ You are merrie, my Lord?\n\n_Ham._ Who I?\n\n_Ophe._ I my Lord.[8]\n\n_Ham._ Oh God, your onely Iigge-maker[9]: what\nshould a man do, but be merrie. For looke you\nhow cheerefully my Mother lookes, and my Father\ndyed within's two Houres.\n\n[Sidenote: 65] _Ophe._ Nay, 'tis twice two moneths, my Lord.[10]\n\n_Ham._ So long? Nay then let the Diuel weare\n[Sidenote: 32] blacke, for Ile haue a suite of Sables.[11] Oh\nHeauens! dye two moneths ago, and not forgotten\nyet?[12] Then there's hope, a great mans Memorie,\nmay out-liue his life halfe a yeare: But byrlady  [Sidenote: ber Lady a]\nhe must builde Churches then: or else shall he       [Sidenote: shall a]\n\n[Footnote 1: 'And ' _not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 2: Emphasis on _there_. 'There' is not in _1st Q._ Hamlet\nmeans it was a desecration of the Capitol.]\n\n[Footnote 3: He cannot be familiar with his mother, so avoids her--will\nnot sit by her, cannot, indeed, bear to be near her. But he loves and\nhopes in Ophelia still.]\n\n[Footnote 4: '--Did I not tell you so?']\n\n[Footnote 5: This speech and the next are not in the _Q._, but are\nshadowed in the _1st Q._]\n\n[Footnote 6: _--consenting_.]\n\n[Footnote 7: In _1st Quarto_, 'contrary.'\n\nHamlet hints, probing her character--hoping her unable to understand. It\nis the festering soreness of his feeling concerning his mother, making\nhim doubt with the haunting agony of a loathed possibility, that\nprompts, urges, forces from him his ugly speeches--nowise to be\njustified, only to be largely excused in his sickening consciousness of\nhis mother's presence. Such pain as Hamlet's, the ferment of subverted\nlove and reverence, may lightly bear the blame of hideous manners,\nseeing, they spring from no wantonness, but from the writhing of\ntortured and helpless Purity. Good manners may be as impossible as out\nof place in the presence of shameless evil.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Ophelia bears with him for his own and his madness' sake,\nand is less uneasy because of the presence of his mother. To account\n_satisfactorily_ for Hamlet's speeches to her, is not easy. The freer\ncustom of the age, freer to an extent hardly credible in this, will not\n_satisfy_ the lovers of Hamlet, although it must have _some_ weight. The\nnecessity for talking madly, because he is in the presence of his uncle,\nand perhaps, to that end, for uttering whatever comes to him, without\npause for choice, might give us another hair's-weight. Also he may be\nsupposed confident that Ophelia would not understand him, while his\nuncle would naturally set such worse than improprieties down to wildest\nmadness. But I suspect that here as before (123), Shakepere would show\nHamlet's soul full of bitterest, passionate loathing; his mother has\ncompelled him to think of horrors and women together, so turning their\npreciousness into a disgust; and this feeling, his assumed madhess\nallows him to indulge and partly relieve by utterance. Could he have\nprovoked Ophelia to rebuke him with the severity he courted, such rebuke\nwould have been joy to him. Perhaps yet a small addition of weight to\nthe scale of his excuse may be found in his excitement about his play,\nand the necessity for keeping down that excitement. Suggestion is easier\nthan judgment.]\n\n[Footnote 9: 'here's for the jig-maker! he's the right man!' Or perhaps\nhe is claiming the part as his own: 'I am your only jig-maker!']\n\n[Footnote 10: This needs not be taken for the exact time. The statement\nnotwithstanding suggests something like two months between the first and\nsecond acts, for in the first, Hamlet says his father has not been dead\ntwo months. 24. We are not bound to take it for more than a rough\napproximation; Ophelia would make the best of things for the queen, who\nis very kind to her.]\n\n[Footnote 11: the fur of the sable.]\n\n[Footnote 12: _1st Q._\n\n                nay then there's some\n    Likelyhood, a gentlemans death may outliue memorie,\n    But by my faith &c.]\n\n[Page 140]\n\nsuffer not thinking on, with the Hoby-horsse,\nwhose Epitaph is, For o, For o, the Hoby-horse\nis forgot.\n\n_Hoboyes play. The dumbe shew enters._\n                 [Sidenote: _The Trumpets sounds. Dumbe show followes._]\n\n_Enter a King and Queene, very louingly; the Queene\n                                   [Sidenote: _and a Queene, the queen_]\nembracing him. She kneeles, and makes shew of\n   [Sidenote: _embracing him, and he her, he takes her up, and_]\nProtestation vnto him. He takes her vp, and\ndeclines his head vpon her neck. Layes him downe\n                                            [Sidenote: _necke, he lyes_]\nvpon a Banke of Flowers.  She seeing him\na-sleepe, leaues him. Anon comes in a Fellow,\n                                [Sidenote: _anon come in an other man_,]\ntakes off his Crowne, kisses it, and powres poyson\n                                                 [Sidenote: _it, pours_]\nin the Kings eares, and Exits. The Queene returnes,\n                       [Sidenote: _the sleepers eares, and leaues him:_]\nfindes the King dead, and makes passionate       [Sidenote: dead, makes]\nAction. The Poysoner, with some two or\n                   [Sidenote: _some three or foure come in againe, seeme\n                                                            to condole_]\nthree Mutes comes in againe, seeming to lament\nwith her. The dead body is carried away: The\n                                             [Sidenote: _with her, the_]\nPoysoner Wooes the Queene with Gifts, she\n[Sidenote: 54] seemes loath and vnwilling awhile, but in the end,\n                                      [Sidenote: _seemes harsh awhile_,]\naccepts his loue.[1]   _Exeunt[2]_           [Sidenote: _accepts loue._]\n\n_Ophe._ What meanes this, my Lord?\n\n_Ham._ Marry this is Miching _Malicho_[3] that\n                                     [Sidenote: this munching _Mallico_]\nmeanes Mischeefe.\n\n_Ophe._ Belike this shew imports the Argument\nof the Play?\n\n_Ham._ We shall know by these Fellowes:\n                               [Sidenote: this fellow, _Enter Prologue_]\nthe Players cannot keepe counsell, they'l tell\n                                              [Sidenote: keepe, they'le]\nall.[4]\n\n_Ophe._ Will they tell vs what this shew meant?  [Sidenote: Will a tell]\n\n_Ham._ I, or any shew that you'l shew him. Bee      [Sidenote: you will]\nnot you asham'd to shew, hee'l not shame to tell\nyou what it meanes.\n\n_Ophe._ You are naught,[5] you are naught, Ile\nmarke the Play.\n\n[Footnote 1: The king, not the queen, is aimed at. Hamlet does not\nforget the injunction of the Ghost to spare his mother. 54.\n\nThe king should be represented throughout as struggling not to betray\nhimself.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 3: _skulking mischief_: the latter word is Spanish, To _mich_\nis to _play truant_.\n\n    How tenderly her tender hands betweene\n    In yvorie cage she did the micher bind.\n\n_The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia_, page 84.\n\nMy _Reader_ tells me the word is still in use among printers, with the\npronunciation _mike_, and the meaning _to skulk_ or _idle_.]\n\n[Footnote 4: --their part being speech, that of the others only dumb\nshow.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _naughty_: persons who do not behave well are treated as if\nthey were not--are made nought of--are set at nought; hence our word\nnaughty.\n\n'Be naught awhile' (_As You Like It_, i. 1)--'take yourself away;' 'be\nnobody;' 'put yourself in the corner.']\n\n[Page 142]\n\n_Enter[1] Prologue._\n\n_For vs, and for our Tragedie,\nHeere stooping to your Clemencie:\nWe begge your hearing Patientlie._\n\n_Ham._ Is this a Prologue, or the Poesie[2] of a       [Sidenote: posie]\nRing?\n\n_Ophe._ 'Tis[3] briefe my Lord.\n\n_Ham._ As Womans loue.\n\n[4] _Enter King and his Queene._                [Sidenote: _and Queene_]\n\n[Sidenote: 234] _King._ Full thirtie times[5] hath Phoebus Cart gon\nround,\nNeptunes salt Wash, and _Tellus_ Orbed ground:     [Sidenote: orb'd the]\nAnd thirtie dozen Moones with borrowed sheene,\nAbout the World haue times twelue thirties beene,\nSince loue our hearts, and _Hymen_ did our hands\nVnite comutuall, in most sacred Bands.[6]\n\n_Bap._ So many iournies may the Sunne and Moone      [Sidenote: _Quee._]\nMake vs againe count o're, ere loue be done.\nBut woe is me, you are so sicke of late,\nSo farre from cheere, and from your forme state,\n                                      [Sidenote: from our former state,]\nThat I distrust you: yet though I distrust,\nDiscomfort you (my Lord) it nothing must:\n[A]\nFor womens Feare and Loue, holds quantitie,  [Sidenote: And womens hold]\nIn neither ought, or in extremity:[7]\n                                     [Sidenote: Eyther none, in neither]\nNow what my loue is, proofe hath made you know,\n                                           [Sidenote: my Lord is proofe]\nAnd as my Loue is siz'd, my Feare is so.              [Sidenote: ciz'd,]\n[B]\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\n    For women feare too much, euen as they loue,]\n\n[Footnote B: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\n    Where loue is great, the litlest doubts are feare,\n    Where little feares grow great, great loue growes there.]\n\n[Footnote 1: _Enter_ not in _Q._]\n\n[Footnote 2: Commonly _posy_: a little sentence engraved inside a\nring--perhaps originally a tiny couplet, therefore _poesy_, _1st Q._, 'a\npoesie for a ring?']\n\n[Footnote 3: Emphasis on ''Tis.']\n\n[Footnote 4: Very little blank verse of any kind was written before\nShakspere's; the usual form of dramatic verse was long, irregular, rimed\nlines: the Poet here uses the heroic couplet, which gives a resemblance\nto the older plays by its rimes, while also by its stately and\nmonotonous movement the play-play is differenced from the play into\nwhich it is introduced, and caused to _look_ intrinsically like a play\nin relation to the rest of the play of which it is part. In other words,\nit stands off from the surrounding play, slightly elevated both by form\nand formality. 103.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _1st Q._\n\n    _Duke._ Full fortie yeares are past, their date is gone,\n    Since happy time ioyn'd both our hearts as one:\n    And now the blood that fill'd my youthfull veines,\n    Ruunes weakely in their pipes, and all the straines\n    Of musicke, which whilome pleasde mine eare,\n    Is now a burthen that Age cannot beare:\n    And therefore sweete Nature must pay his due,\n    To heauen must I, and leaue the earth with you.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Here Hamlet gives the time his father and mother had been\nmarried, and Shakspere points at Hamlet's age. 234. The Poet takes\npains to show his hero's years.]\n\n[Footnote 7: This line, whose form in the _Quarto_ is very careless,\nseems but a careless correction, leaving the sense as well as the\nconstruction obscure: 'Women's fear and love keep the scales level; in\n_neither_ is there ought, or in _both_ there is fulness;' or: 'there is\nno moderation in their fear and their love; either they have _none_ of\neither, or they have _excess_ of both.' Perhaps he tried to express both\nideas at once. But compression is always in danger of confusion.]\n\n[Page 144]\n\n_King._ Faith I must leaue thee Loue, and shortly too:\nMy operant Powers my Functions leaue to do:  [Sidenote: their functions]\nAnd thou shall liue in this faire world behinde,\nHonour'd, belou'd, and haply, one as kinde.\nFor Husband shalt thou----\n\n_Bap._ Oh confound the rest:                         [Sidenote: _Quee._]\nSuch Loue, must needs be Treason in my brest:\nIn second Husband, let me be accurst,\nNone wed the second, but who kill'd the first.[1]\n\n_Ham._ Wormwood, Wormwood.         [Sidenote: _Ham_. That's wormwood[2]]\n\n_Bapt._ The instances[3] that second Marriage moue,\nAre base respects of Thrift,[4] but none of Loue.\nA second time, I kill my Husband dead,\nWhen second Husband kisses me in Bed.\n\n_King._ I do beleeue you. Think what now you speak:\nBut what we do determine, oft we breake:\nPurpose is but the slaue to Memorie,[5]\nOf violent Birth, but poore validitie:[6]\nWhich now like Fruite vnripe stickes on the Tree,\n                                              [Sidenote: now the fruite]\nBut fall vnshaken, when they mellow bee.[7]\nMost necessary[8] 'tis, that we forget\nTo pay our selues, what to our selues is debt:\nWhat to our selues in passion we propose,\nThe passion ending, doth the purpose lose.\nThe violence of other Greefe or Ioy,                 [Sidenote: eyther,]\nTheir owne ennactors with themselues destroy:     [Sidenote: ennactures]\nWhere Ioy most Reuels, Greefe doth most lament;\nGreefe ioyes, Ioy greeues on slender accident.[9]\n                                      [Sidenote: Greefe ioy ioy griefes]\nThis world is not for aye, nor 'tis not strange\nThat euen our Loues should with our Fortunes change.\nFor 'tis a question left vs yet to proue,\nWhether Loue lead Fortune, or else Fortune Loue.\n\n[Footnote 1: Is this to be supposed in the original play, or inserted by\nHamlet, embodying an unuttered and yet more fearful doubt with regard to\nhis mother?]\n\n[Footnote 2: This speech is on the margin in the _Quarto_, and the\nQueene's speech runs on without break.]\n\n[Footnote 3: the urgencies; the motives.]\n\n[Footnote 4: worldly advantage.]\n\n[Footnote 5: 'Purpose holds but while Memory holds.']\n\n[Footnote 6: 'Purpose is born in haste, but is of poor strength to\nlive.']\n\n[Footnote 7: Here again there is carelessness of construction, as if the\nPoet had not thought it worth his while to correct this subsidiary\nportion of the drama. I do not see how to lay the blame on the\nprinter.--'Purpose is a mere fruit, which holds on or falls only as it\nmust. The element of persistency is not in it.']\n\n[Footnote 8: unavoidable--coming of necessity.]\n\n[Footnote 9: 'Grief turns into joy, and joy into grief, on a slight\nchance.']\n\n[Page 146]\n\nThe great man downe, you marke his fauourites flies,\n                                                   [Sidenote: fauourite]\nThe poore aduanc'd, makes Friends of Enemies:\nAnd hitherto doth Loue on Fortune tend,\nFor who not needs, shall neuer lacke a Frend:\nAnd who in want a hollow Friend doth try,\nDirectly seasons him his Enemie.[1]\nBut orderly to end, where I begun,\nOur Willes and Fates do so contrary run,\nThat our Deuices still are ouerthrowne,\nOur thoughts are ours, their ends none of our owne.[2]\n[Sidenote: 246] So thinke thou wilt no second Husband wed.\nBut die thy thoughts, when thy first Lord is dead.\n\n_Bap._ Nor Earth to giue me food, nor Heauen light,  [Sidenote: _Quee._]\nSport and repose locke from me day and night:[3]\n[A]\nEach opposite that blankes the face of ioy,\nMeet what I would haue well, and it destroy:\nBoth heere, and hence, pursue me lasting strife,[4]\nIf once a Widdow, euer I be Wife.[5] [Sidenote: once I be a | be a wife]\n\n_Ham._ If she should breake it now.[6]\n\n_King._ 'Tis deepely sworne:\nSweet, leaue me heere a while,\nMy spirits grow dull, and faine I would beguile\nThe tedious day with sleepe.\n\n_Qu._ Sleepe rocke thy Braine,                    [Sidenote: Sleepes[7]]\nAnd neuer come mischance betweene vs twaine,\n                              _Exit_               [Sidenote: _Exeunt._]\n\n_Ham._ Madam, how like you this Play?\n\n_Qu._ The Lady protests to much me thinkes,     [Sidenote: doth protest]\n\n_Ham._ Oh but shee'l keepe her word.\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto:_--\n\n    To desperation turne my trust and hope,[8]\n    And Anchors[9] cheere in prison be my scope]\n\n[Footnote 1: All that is wanted to make a real enemy of an unreal friend\nis the seasoning of a requested favour.]\n\n[Footnote 2: 'Our thoughts are ours, but what will come of them we\ncannot tell.']\n\n[Footnote 3: 'May Day and Night lock from me sport and repose.']\n\n[Footnote 4: 'May strife pursue me in the world and out of it.']\n\n[Footnote 5: In all this, there is nothing to reflect on his mother\nbeyond what everybody knew.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _This speech is in the margin of the Quarto._]\n\n[Footnote 7: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 8: 'May my trust and hope turn to despair.']\n\n[Footnote 9: an anchoret's.]\n\n[Page 148]\n\n_King_. Haue you heard the Argument, is there\nno Offence in't?[1]\n\n_Ham_. No, no, they do but iest, poyson in iest,\nno Offence i'th'world.[2]\n\n_King_. What do you call the Play?\n\n_Ham._ The Mouse-trap: Marry how? Tropically:[3]\nThis Play is the Image of a murder done\nin _Vienna: Gonzago_ is the Dukes name, his wife\n_Baptista_: you shall see anon: 'tis a knauish peece\nof worke: But what o'that? Your Maiestie, and       [Sidenote: of that?]\nwee that haue free soules, it touches vs not: let the\ngall'd iade winch: our withers are vnrung.[4]\n\n_Enter Lucianus._[5]\n\nThis is one _Lucianus_ nephew to the King.\n\n_Ophe_. You are a good Chorus, my Lord.\n                                     [Sidenote: are as good as a Chorus]\n\n_Ham_. I could interpret betweene you and your\nloue: if I could see the Puppets dallying.[6]\n\n_Ophe_. You are keene my Lord, you are keene.\n\n_Ham_. It would cost you a groaning, to take off my edge.\n                                                        [Sidenote: mine]\n\n_Ophe_. Still better and worse.\n\n_Ham_. So you mistake Husbands.[7]              [Sidenote: mistake your]\nBegin Murderer. Pox, leaue thy damnable Faces,\n                                            [Sidenote: murtherer, leave]\nand begin. Come, the croaking Rauen doth bellow\nfor Reuenge.[8]\n\n_Lucian_. Thoughts blacke, hands apt,\nDrugges fit, and Time agreeing:\nConfederate season, else, no Creature seeing:[9]  [Sidenote: Considerat]\nThou mixture ranke, of Midnight Weeds collected,\nWith Hecats Ban, thrice blasted, thrice infected,   [Sidenote: invected]\nThy naturall Magicke, and dire propertie,\nOn wholsome life, vsurpe immediately.                 [Sidenote: vsurps]\n\n_Powres the poyson in his eares_.[10]\n\n_Ham_. He poysons him i'th Garden for's estate:\n                                         [Sidenote: A poysons | for his]\n\n[Footnote 1: --said, perhaps, to Polonius. Is there a lapse here in the\nking's self-possession? or is this speech only an outcome of its\ncompleteness--a pretence of fearing the play may glance at the queen for\nmarrying him?]\n\n[Footnote 2: 'It is but jest; don't be afraid: there is no reality in\nit'--as one might say to a child seeing a play.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Figuratively: from _trope_. In the _1st Q._ the passage\nstands thus:\n\n    _Ham_. Mouse-trap: mary how trapically: this play is\n    The image of a murder done in _guyana_,]\n\n[Footnote 4: Here Hamlet endangers himself to force the king to\nself-betrayal.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _In Q. after next line._]\n\n[Footnote 6: In a puppet-play, if she and her love were the puppets, he\ncould supply the speeches.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Is this a misprint for 'so you _must take_ husbands'--for\nbetter and worse, namely? or is it a thrust at his mother--'So you\nmis-take husbands, going from the better to a worse'? In _1st Q._: 'So\nyou must take your husband, begin.']\n\n[Footnote 8: Probably a mocking parody or burlesque of some well-known\nexaggeration--such as not a few of Marlowe's lines.]\n\n[Footnote 9: 'none beholding save the accomplice hour:'.]\n\n[Footnote 10: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Page 150]\n\nHis name's _Gonzago_: the Story is extant and writ\n                                                 [Sidenote: and written]\nin choyce Italian. You shall see anon how the\n                                              [Sidenote: in very choice]\nMurtherer gets the loue of _Gonzago's_ wife.\n\n_Ophe_. The King rises.[1]\n\n_Ham_. What, frighted with false fire.[2]\n\n_Qu_. How fares my Lord?\n\n_Pol_. Giue o're the Play.\n\n_King_. Giue me some Light. Away.[3]\n\n_All_. Lights, Lights, Lights.      _Exeunt_\n                     [Sidenote: _Pol. | Exeunt all but Ham. & Horatio._]\n\n_Manet Hamlet & Horatio._\n\n_Ham_.[4] Why let the strucken Deere go weepe,\nThe Hart vngalled play:\nFor some must watch, while some must sleepe;\nSo runnes the world away.\nWould not this[5] Sir, and a Forrest of Feathers, if\nthe rest of my Fortunes turne Turke with me; with\ntwo Prouinciall Roses[6] on my rac'd[7] Shooes, get me\n                                    [Sidenote: with prouinciall | raz'd]\na Fellowship[8] in a crie[9] of Players sir.        [Sidenote: Players?]\n\n_Hor_. Halfe a share.\n\n_Ham_. A whole one I,[10]\n[11] For thou dost know: Oh Damon deere,\nThis Realme dismantled was of Loue himselfe,\nAnd now reignes heere.\nA verie verie Paiocke.[12]\n\n_Hora_. You might haue Rim'd.[13]\n\n_Ham_. Oh good _Horatio_, Ile take the Ghosts\nword for a thousand pound. Did'st perceiue?\n\n_Hora_. Verie well my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. Vpon the talke of the poysoning?\n\n_Hora_. I did verie well note him.\n\n_Enter Rosincrance and Guildensterne_.[14]\n\n_Ham_. Oh, ha? Come some Musick.[15] Come the Recorders:\n                                                      [Sidenote: Ah ha,]\n\n[Footnote 1: --in ill suppressed agitation.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _This speech is not in the Quarto_.--Is the 'false fire'\nwhat we now call _stage-fire_?--'What! frighted at a mere play?']\n\n[Footnote 3: The stage--the stage-stage, that is--alone is lighted. Does\nthe king stagger out blindly, madly, shaking them from him? I think\nnot--but as if he were taken suddenly ill.]\n\n[Footnote 4: --_singing_--that he may hide his agitation, restrain\nhimself, and be regarded as careless-mad, until all are safely gone.]\n\n[Footnote 5: --his success with the play.]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'Roses of Provins,' we are told--probably artificial.]\n\n[Footnote 7: The meaning is very doubtful. But for the _raz'd_ of the\n_Quarto_, I should suggest _lac'd_. Could it mean _cut low_?]\n\n[Footnote 8: _a share_, as immediately below.]\n\n[Footnote 9: A _cry_ of hounds is a pack. So in _King Lear_, act v. sc.\n3, 'packs and sects of great ones.']\n\n[Footnote 10: _I_ for _ay_--that is, _yes_!--He insists on a whole\nshare.]\n\n[Footnote 11: Again he takes refuge in singing.]\n\n[Footnote 12: The lines are properly measured in the _Quarto_:\n\n    For thou doost know oh Damon deere\n    This Realme dismantled was\n    Of _Ioue_ himselfe, and now raignes heere\n    A very very paiock.\n\nBy _Jove_, he of course intends _his father_. 170. What 'Paiocke' means,\nwhether _pagan_, or _peacock_, or _bajocco_, matters nothing, since it\nis intended for nonsense.]\n\n[Footnote 13: To rime with _was_, Horatio naturally expected _ass_ to\nfollow as the end of the last line: in the wanton humour of his\nexcitement, Hamlet disappointed him.]\n\n[Footnote 14: _In Q. after next speech_.]\n\n[Footnote 15: He hears Rosincrance and Guildensterne coming, and changes\nhis behaviour--calling for music to end the play with. Either he wants,\nunder its cover, to finish his talk with Horatio in what is for the\nmoment the safest place, or he would mask himself before his two false\nfriends. Since the departure of the king--I would suggest--he has borne\nhimself with evident apprehension, every now and then glancing about\nhim, as fearful of what may follow his uncle's recognition of the intent\nof the play. Three times he has burst out singing.\n\nOr might not his whole carriage, with the call for music, be the outcome\nof a grimly merry satisfaction at the success of his scheme?]\n\n[Page 152]\n\nFor if the King like not the Comedie,\nWhy then belike he likes it not perdie.[1]\nCome some Musicke.\n\n_Guild._ Good my Lord, vouchsafe me a word\nwith you.\n\n_Ham._ Sir, a whole History.\n\n_Guild._ The King, sir.\n\n_Ham._ I sir, what of him?\n\n_Guild._ Is in his retyrement, maruellous distemper'd.\n\n_Ham._ With drinke Sir?\n\n_Guild._ No my Lord, rather with choller.[2]      [Sidenote: Lord, with]\n\n_Ham._ Your wisedome should shew it selfe more\nricher, to signifie this to his Doctor: for me to\n                                                 [Sidenote: the Doctor,]\nput him to his Purgation, would perhaps plundge\nhim into farre more Choller.[2]                    [Sidenote: into more]\n\n_Guild._ Good my Lord put your discourse into\nsome frame,[3] and start not so wildely from my        [Sidenote: stare]\naffayre.\n\n_Ham._ I am tame Sir, pronounce.\n\n_Guild._ The Queene your Mother, in most great\naffliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.\n\n_Ham._ You are welcome.[4]\n\n_Guild._ Nay, good my Lord, this courtesie is\nnot of the right breed. If it shall please you to\nmake me a wholsome answer, I will doe your\nMothers command'ment: if not, your pardon, and\nmy returne shall bee the end of my Businesse.    [Sidenote: of busines.]\n\n_Ham._ Sir, I cannot.\n\n_Guild._ What, my Lord?\n\n_Ham._ Make you a wholsome answere: my wits\ndiseas'd. But sir, such answers as I can make, you   [Sidenote: answere]\nshal command: or rather you say, my Mother:    [Sidenote: rather as you]\ntherfore no more but to the matter. My Mother\nyou say.\n\n[Footnote 1: These two lines he may be supposed to sing.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Choler means bile, and thence anger. Hamlet in his answer\nplays on the two meanings:--'to give him the kind of medicine I think\nfit for him, would perhaps much increase his displeasure.']\n\n[Footnote 3: some logical consistency.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _--with an exaggeration of courtesy_.]\n\n[Page 154]\n\n_Rosin._ Then thus she sayes: your behauior\nhath stroke her into amazement, and admiration.[1]\n\n_Ham._ Oh wonderfull Sonne, that can so astonish     [Sidenote: stonish]\na Mother. But is there no sequell at the heeles\nof this Mothers admiration?              [Sidenote: admiration, impart.]\n\n_Rosin._ She desires to speake with you in her\nClosset, ere you go to bed.\n\n_Ham._ We shall obey, were she ten times our\nMother. Haue you any further Trade with vs?\n\n_Rosin._ My Lord, you once did loue me.\n\n_Ham._ So I do still, by these pickers and     [Sidenote: And doe still]\nstealers.[2]\n\n_Rosin._ Good my Lord, what is your cause of\ndistemper? You do freely barre the doore of your\n                             [Sidenote: surely barre the door vpon your]\nowne Libertie, if you deny your greefes to your your\nFriend.\n\n_Ham._ Sir I lacke Aduancement.\n\n_Rosin._ How can that be, when you haue the\n[Sidenote: 136] voyce of the King himselfe, for your Succession in\nDenmarke?\n\n[3]\n\n_Ham._ I, but while the grasse growes,[4] the         [Sidenote: I sir,]\nProuerbe is something musty.\n\n_Enter one with a Recorder._[5]\n\nO the Recorder. Let me see, to withdraw with,\n                        [Sidenote: \u00f4 the Recorders, let mee see one, to]\nyou,[6] why do you go about to recouer the winde of\nmee,[7] as if you would driue me into a toyle?[8]\n\n_Guild._ O my Lord, if my Dutie be too bold,\nmy loue is too vnmannerly.[9]\n\n_Ham._ I do not well vnderstand that.[10] Will you,\nplay vpon this Pipe?\n\n_Guild._ My Lord, I cannot.\n\n_Ham._ I pray you.\n\n_Guild._ Beleeue me, I cannot.\n\n_Ham._ I do beseech you.\n\n[Footnote 1: wonder, astonishment.]\n\n[Footnote 2: He swears an oath that will not hold, being by the hand of\na thief.\n\nIn the Catechism: 'Keep my hands from picking and stealing.']\n\n[Footnote 3: Here in Quarto, _Enter the Players with Recorders._]\n\n[Footnote 4: '... the colt starves.']\n\n[Footnote 5: _Not in Q._ The stage-direction of the _Folio_ seems\ndoubtful. Hamlet has called for the orchestra: we may either suppose one\nto precede the others, or that the rest are already scattered; but the\n_Quarto_ direction and reading seem better.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _--taking Guildensterne aside_.]\n\n[Footnote 7: 'to get to windward of me.']\n\n[Footnote 8: 'Why do you seek to get the advantage of me, as if you\nwould drive me to betray myself?'--Hunters, by sending on the wind their\nscent to the game, drive it into their toils.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Guildensterne tries euphuism, but hardly succeeds. He\nintends to plead that any fault in his approach must be laid to the\ncharge of his love. _Duty_ here means _homage_--so used still by the\ncommon people.]\n\n[Footnote 10: --said with a smile of gentle contempt.]\n\n[Page 156]\n\n_Guild_. I know no touch of it, my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. Tis as easie as lying: gouerne these            [Sidenote: It is]\nVentiges with your finger and thumbe, giue it\n                                  [Sidenote: fingers, & the vmber, giue]\nbreath with your mouth, and it will discourse most\n                                               [Sidenote: most eloquent]\nexcellent Musicke.  Looke you, these are the\nstoppes.\n\n_Guild_. But these cannot I command to any\nvtterance of hermony, I haue not the skill.\n\n_Ham_. Why looke you now, how vnworthy a\nthing you make of me: you would play vpon mee;\nyou would seeme to know my stops: you would\npluck out the heart of my Mysterie; you would\nsound mee from my lowest Note, to the top of my\n                                         [Sidenote: note to my compasse]\nCompasse: and there is much Musicke, excellent\nVoice, in this little Organe, yet cannot you make\n                            [Sidenote: it speak, s'hloud do you think I]\nit. Why do you thinke, that I am easier to bee\nplaid on, then a Pipe? Call me what Instrument\nyou will, though you can fret[1] me, you cannot\n                                            [Sidenote: you fret me not,]\n[Sidenote: 184] play vpon me. God blesse you Sir.[2]\n\n_Enter Polonius_.\n\n_Polon_. My Lord; the Queene would speak\nwith you, and presently.\n\n_Ham_. Do you see that Clowd? that's almost in  [Sidenote: yonder clowd]\nshape like a Camell.                              [Sidenote: shape of a]\n\n_Polon_. By'th'Misse, and it's like a Camell  [Sidenote: masse and tis,]\nindeed.\n\n_Ham_. Me thinkes it is like a Weazell.\n\n_Polon_. It is back'd like a Weazell.\n\n_Ham_. Or like a Whale?[3]\n\n_Polon_. Verie like a Whale.[4]\n\n_Ham_. Then will I come to my Mother, by and by:      [Sidenote: I will]\n[Sidenote: 60, 136, 178] They foole me to the top of my bent.[5]\nI will come by and by.\n\n[Footnote 1: --with allusion to the _frets_ or _stop-marks_ of a\nstringed instrument.]\n\n[Footnote 2: --_to Polonius_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: There is nothing insanely arbitrary in these suggestions of\nlikeness; a cloud might very well be like every one of the three; the\ncamel has a hump, the weasel humps himself, and the whale is a hump.]\n\n[Footnote 4: He humours him in everything, as he would a madman.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Hamlet's cleverness in simulating madness is dwelt upon in\nthe old story. See '_Hystorie of Hamblet, prince of Denmarke_.']\n\n[Page 158]\n\n_Polon_.[1] I will say so.        _Exit_.[1]\n\n_Ham_.[1] By and by, is easily said. Leaue me Friends:\n'Tis now the verie witching time of night,\nWhen Churchyards yawne, and Hell it selfe breaths out\n                                                   [Sidenote: brakes[2]]\nContagion to this world.[3] Now could I drink hot blood,\nAnd do such bitter businesse as the day\n                              [Sidenote: such busines as the bitter day]\nWould quake to looke on.[4] Soft now, to my Mother:\nOh Heart, loose not thy Nature;[5] let not euer\nThe Soule of _Nero_[6] enter this firme bosome:\nLet me be cruell, not vnnaturall.\n[Sidenote: 172] I will speake Daggers[7] to her, but vse none:\n                                                      [Sidenote: dagger]\nMy Tongue and Soule in this be Hypocrites.[8]\nHow in my words someuer she be shent,[9]\nTo giue them Seales,[10] neuer my Soule consent.[4]\n                                                     [Sidenote: _Exit._]\n\n_Enter King, Rosincrance, and Guildensterne_.\n\n_King_. I like him not, nor stands it safe with vs,\nTo let his madnesse range.[11] Therefore prepare you,\n[Sidenote: 167] I your Commission will forthwith dispatch,[12]\n[Sidenote: 180] And he to England shall along with you:\nThe termes of our estate, may not endure[13]\nHazard so dangerous as doth hourely grow        [Sidenote: so neer's as]\nOut of his Lunacies.                             [Sidenote: his browes.]\n\n_Guild_. We will our selues prouide:\nMost holie and Religious feare it is[14]\nTo keepe those many many bodies safe\nThat liue and feede vpon your Maiestie.[15]\n\n_Rosin_. The single\nAnd peculiar[16] life is bound\nWith all the strength and Armour of the minde,\n\n[Footnote 1: The _Quarto_, not having _Polon., Exit, or Ham._, and\narranging differently, reads thus:--\n\n    They foole me to the top of my bent, I will come by and by,\n    Leaue me friends.\n    I will, say so. By and by is easily said,\n    Tis now the very &c.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _belches_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: --thinking of what the Ghost had told him, perhaps: it was\nthe time when awful secrets wander about the world. Compare _Macbeth_,\nact ii. sc. 1; also act iii. sc. 2.]\n\n[Footnote 4: The assurance of his uncle's guilt, gained through the\neffect of the play upon him, and the corroboration of his mother's guilt\nby this partial confirmation of the Ghost's assertion, have once more\nstirred in Hamlet the fierceness of vengeance. But here afresh comes\nout the balanced nature of the man--say rather, the supremacy in him of\nreason and will. His dear soul, having once become mistress of his\nchoice, remains mistress for ever. He _could_ drink hot blood, he\n_could_ do bitter business, but he will carry himself as a son, and the\nson of his father, _ought_ to carry himself towards a guilty\nmother--_mother_ although guilty.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Thus he girds himself for the harrowing interview. Aware of\nthe danger he is in of forgetting his duty to his mother, he strengthens\nhimself in filial righteousness, dreading to what word or deed a burst\nof indignation might drive him. One of his troubles now is the way he\nfeels towards his mother.]\n\n[Footnote 6: --who killed his mother.]\n\n[Footnote 7: His words should be as daggers.]\n\n[Footnote 8: _Pretenders_.]\n\n[Footnote 9: _reproached_ or _rebuked_--though oftener _scolded_.]\n\n[Footnote 10: 'to seal them with actions'--Actions are the seals to\nwords, and make them irrevocable.]\n\n[Footnote 11: _walk at liberty_.]\n\n[Footnote 12: _get ready_.]\n\n[Footnote 13: He had, it would appear, taken them into his confidence in\nthe business; they knew what was to be in their commission, and were\nthorough traitors to Hamlet.]\n\n[Footnote 14: --holy and religious precaution for the sake of the many\ndepending on him.]\n\n[Footnote 15: Is there not unconscious irony of their own parasitism\nhere intended?]\n\n[Footnote 16: _private individual_.]\n\n[Page 160]\n\nTo keepe it selfe from noyance:[1] but much more,\nThat Spirit, vpon whose spirit depends and rests\n                                         [Sidenote: whose weale depends]\nThe lives of many, the cease of Maiestie               [Sidenote: cesse]\nDies not alone;[2] but like a Gulfe doth draw\nWhat's neere it, with it. It is a massie wheele\n                                           [Sidenote: with it, or it is]\nFixt on the Somnet of the highest Mount,\nTo whose huge Spoakes, ten thousand lesser things\n                                                [Sidenote: hough spokes]\nAre mortiz'd and adioyn'd: which when it falles,\nEach small annexment, pettie consequence\nAttends the boystrous Ruine. Neuer alone              [Sidenote: raine,]\nDid the King sighe, but with a generall grone.      [Sidenote: but a[3]]\n\n_King._[4] Arme you,[5] I pray you to this speedie Voyage;\n                                                      [Sidenote: viage,]\nFor we will Fetters put vpon this feare,[6]   [Sidenote: put about this]\nWhich now goes too free-footed.\n\n_Both._ We will haste vs.     _Exeunt Gent_\n\n_Enter Polonius._\n\nPol. My Lord, he's going to his Mothers Closset:\nBehinde the Arras Ile conuey my selfe\nTo heare the Processe. Ile warrant shee'l tax him home,\nAnd as you said, and wisely was it said,\n'Tis meete that some more audience then a Mother,\nSince Nature makes them partiall, should o're-heare\nThe speech of vantage.[7] Fare you well my Liege,\nIle call vpon you ere you go to bed,\nAnd tell you what I know.                              [Sidenote: Exit.]\n\n_King._ Thankes deere my Lord.\nOh my offence is ranke, it smels to heauen,\nIt hath the primall eldest curse vpon't,\nA Brothers murther.[8] Pray can I not,\nThough inclination be as sharpe as will:\nMy stronger guilt,[9] defeats my strong intent,\n\n[Footnote 1: The philosophy of which self is the centre. The speeches of\nboth justify the king in proceeding to extremes against Hamlet.]\n\n[Footnote 2: The same as to say: 'The passing, ceasing, or ending of\nmajesty dies not--is not finished or accomplished, without that of\nothers;' 'the dying ends or ceases not,' &c.]\n\n[Footnote 3: The _but_ of the _Quarto_ is better, only the line halts.\nIt is the preposition, meaning _without_.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _heedless of their flattery_. It is hardly applicable\nenough to interest him.]\n\n[Footnote 5: 'Provide yourselves.']\n\n[Footnote 6: fear active; cause of fear; thing to be afraid of; the noun\nof the verb _fear_, to _frighten_:\n\n    Or in the night, imagining some fear,\n    How easy is a bush supposed a bear!\n\n_A Midsummer Night's Dream_, act v. sc. i.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Schmidt (_Sh. Lex._) says _of vantage_ means _to boot_. I\ndo not think he is right. Perhaps Polonius means 'from a position of\nadvantage.' Or perhaps 'The speech of vantage' is to be understood as\nimplying that Hamlet, finding himself in a position of vantage, that is,\nalone with his mother, will probably utter himself with little\nrestraint.]\n\n[Footnote 8: This is the first proof positive of his guilt accorded even\nto the spectator of the play: here Claudius confesses not merely guilt\n(118), but the very deed. Thoughtless critics are so ready to judge\nanother as if he knew all they know, that it is desirable here to remind\nthe student that only he, not Hamlet, hears this soliloquy. The\nfalseness of half the judgments in the world comes from our not taking\ncare and pains first to know accurately the actions, and then to\nunderstand the mental and moral condition, of those we judge.]\n\n[Footnote 9: --his present guilty indulgence--stronger than his strong\nintent to pray.]\n\n[Page 162]\n\nAnd like a man to double businesse bound,[1]\nI stand in pause where I shall first begin,\nAnd both[2] neglect; what if this cursed hand\nWere thicker then it selfe with Brothers blood,\nIs there not Raine enough in the sweet Heauens\nTo wash it white as Snow? Whereto serues mercy,\nBut to confront the visage of Offence?\nAnd what's in Prayer, but this two-fold force,\nTo be fore-stalled ere we come to fall,\nOr pardon'd being downe? Then Ile looke vp,           [Sidenote: pardon]\nMy fault is past. But oh, what forme of Prayer\nCan serue my turne? Forgiue me my foule Murther:\nThat cannot be, since I am still possest\nOf those effects for which I did the Murther.[3]\nMy Crowne, mine owne Ambition, and my Queene:\nMay one be pardon'd, and retaine th'offence?\nIn the corrupted currants of this world,\nOffences gilded hand may shoue by Iustice              [Sidenote: showe]\nAnd oft 'tis seene, the wicked prize it selfe\nBuyes out the Law; but 'tis not so aboue,\nThere is no shuffling, there the Action lyes\nIn his true Nature, and we our selues compell'd\nEuen to the teeth and forehead of our faults,\nTo giue in euidence. What then? What rests?\nTry what Repentance can. What can it not?\nYet what can it, when one cannot repent?[4]\nOh wretched state! Oh bosome, blacke as death!\nOh limed[5] soule, that strugling to be free,\nArt more ingag'd[6]: Helpe Angels, make assay:[7]\nBow stubborne knees, and heart with strings of Steele,\nBe soft as sinewes of the new-borne Babe,\nAll may be well.\n\n[Footnote 1: Referring to his double guilt--the one crime past, the\nother in continuance.\n\nHere is the corresponding passage in the _1st Q._, with the adultery\nplainly confessed:--\n\n    _Enter the King._\n\n    _King_. O that this wet that falles vpon my face\n    Would wash the crime cleere from my conscience!\n    When I looke vp to heauen, I see my trespasse,\n    The earth doth still crie out vpon my fact,\n    Pay me the murder of a brother and a king,\n    And the adulterous fault I haue committed:\n    O these are sinnes that are vnpardonable:\n    Why say thy sinnes were blacker then is ieat,\n    Yet may contrition make them as white as snowe:\n    I but still to perseuer in a sinne,\n    It is an act gainst the vniuersall power,\n    Most wretched man, stoope, bend thee to thy prayer,\n    Aske grace of heauen to keepe thee from despaire.]\n\n[Footnote 2: both crimes.]\n\n[Footnote 3: He could repent of and pray forgiveness for the murder, if\nhe could repent of the adultery and incest, and give up the queen. It is\nnot the sins they have done, but the sins they will not leave, that damn\nmen. 'This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and\nmen loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.'\nThe murder deeply troubled him; the adultery not so much; the incest and\nusurpation mainly as interfering with the forgiveness of the murder.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Even hatred of crime committed is not repentance:\nrepentance is the turning away from wrong doing: 'Cease to do evil;\nlearn to do well.']\n\n[Footnote 5: --caught and held by crime, as a bird by bird-lime.]\n\n[Footnote 6: entangled.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _said to his knees_. Point thus:--'Helpe Angels! Make\nassay--bow, stubborne knees!']\n\n[Page 164]\n\n_Enter Hamlet_.\n\n_Ham_.[1] Now might I do it pat, now he is praying,\n                             [Sidenote: doe it, but now a is a praying,]\nAnd now Ile doo't, and so he goes to Heauen,       [Sidenote: so a goes]\nAnd so am I reueng'd: that would be scann'd,       [Sidenote: reuendge,]\nA Villaine killes my Father, and for that\nI his foule Sonne, do this same Villaine send     [Sidenote: sole sonne]\nTo heauen. Oh this is hyre and Sallery, not Reuenge.\n                 [Sidenote: To heauen. Why, this is base and silly, not]\nHe tooke my Father grossely, full of bread,          [Sidenote: A tooke]\n[Sidenote: 54, 262] With all his Crimes broad blowne, as fresh as May,\n                                                 [Sidenote: as flush as]\nAnd how his Audit stands, who knowes, saue Heauen:[2]\nBut in our circumstance and course of thought\n'Tis heauie with him: and am I then reueng'd,\nTo take him in the purging of his Soule,\nWhen he is fit and season'd for his passage? No.\nVp Sword, and know thou a more horrid hent[3]\nWhen he is drunke asleepe: or in his Rage,\nOr in th'incestuous pleasure of his bed,\nAt gaming, swearing, or about some acte  [Sidenote: At game a swearing,]\nThat ha's no rellish of Saluation in't,\nThen trip him,[4] that his heeles may kicke at Heauen,\nAnd that his Soule may be as damn'd and blacke\nAs Hell, whereto it goes.[5] My Mother stayes,[6]\nThis Physicke but prolongs thy sickly dayes.[7]\n                                          _Exit_.\n\n_King_. My words flye vp, my thoughts remain below,\nWords without thoughts, neuer to Heauen go.[8]\n                                          _Exit_.\n\n_Enter Queene and Polonius_.            [Sidenote: _Enter Gertrard and_]\n\n_Pol_. He will come straight:                         [Sidenote: A will]\nLooke you lay home to him\n\n[Footnote 1: In the _1st Q._ this speech commences with, 'I so, come\nforth and worke thy last,' evidently addressed to his sword; afterwards,\nhaving changed his purpose, he says, 'no, get thee vp agen.']\n\n[Footnote 2: This indicates doubt of the Ghost still. He is unwilling to\nbelieve in him.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _grasp_. This is the only instance I know of _hent_ as a\nnoun. The verb _to hent, to lay hold of_, is not so rare. 'Wait till\nthou be aware of a grasp with a more horrid purpose in it.']\n\n[Footnote 4: --still addressed to his sword.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Are we to take Hamlet's own presentment of his reasons as\nexhaustive? Doubtless to kill him at his prayers, whereupon, after the\nnotions of the time, he would go to heaven, would be anything but\njustice--the murdered man in hell--the murderer in heaven! But it is\neasy to suppose Hamlet finding it impossible to slay a man on his\nknees--and that from behind: thus in the unseen Presence, he was in\nsanctuary, and the avenger might well seek reason or excuse for not\n_then_, not _there_ executing the decree.]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'waits for me.']\n\n[Footnote 7: He seems now to have made up his mind, and to await only\nfit time and opportunity; but he is yet to receive confirmation strong\nas holy writ.\n\nThis is the first chance Hamlet has had--within the play--of killing the\nking, and any imputation of faulty irresolution therein is simply silly.\nIt shows the soundness of Hamlet's reason, and the steadiness of his\nwill, that he refuses to be carried away by passion, or the temptation\nof opportunity. The sight of the man on his knees might well start fresh\ndoubt of his guilt, or even wake the thought of sparing a repentant\nsinner. He knows also that in taking vengeance on her husband he could\nnot avoid compromising his mother. Besides, a man like Hamlet could not\nfail to perceive how the killing of his uncle, and in such an attitude,\nwould look to others.\n\nIt may be judged, however, that the reason he gives to himself for not\nslaying the king, was only an excuse, that his soul revolted from the\nidea of assassination, and was calmed in a measure by the doubt whether\na man could thus pray--in supposed privacy, we must remember--and be a\nmurderer. Not even yet had he proof _positive_, absolute, conclusive:\nthe king might well take offence at the play, even were he innocent; and\nin any case Hamlet would desire _presentable_ proof: he had positively\nnone to show the people in justification of vengeance.\n\nAs in excitement a man's moods may be opalescent in their changes, and\nas the most contrary feelings may coexist in varying degrees, all might\nbe in a mind, which I have suggested as present in that of Hamlet.\n\nTo have been capable of the kind of action most of his critics would\ndemand of a man, Hamlet must have been the weakling they imagine him.\nWhen at length, after a righteous delay, partly willed, partly\ninevitable, he holds documents in the king's handwriting as proofs of\nhis treachery--_proofs which can be shown_--giving him both right and\npower over the life of the traitor, then, and only then, is he in cool\nblood absolutely satisfied as to his duty--which conviction, working\nwith opportunity, and that opportunity plainly the last, brings the end;\nthe righteous deed is done, and done righteously, the doer blameless in\nthe doing of it. The Poet is not careful of what is called poetic\njustice in his play, though therein is no failure; what he is careful of\nis personal rightness in the hero of it.]\n\n[Footnote 8: _1st Q_.\n\n    _King_ My wordes fly vp, my sinnes remaine below.\n    No King on earth is safe, if Gods his foe. _Exit King_.\n\nSo he goes to make himself safe by more crime! His repentance is mainly\nfear.]\n\n[Page 166]\n\nTell him his prankes haue been too broad to beare with,\nAnd that your Grace hath scree'nd, and stoode betweene\nMuch heate, and him. Ile silence me e'ene heere:\n                                                 [Sidenote: euen heere,]\nPray you be round[1] with him.[2]            [Sidenote: _Enter Hamlet_.]\n\n_Ham. within_. Mother, mother, mother.[3]\n\n_Qu_. Ile warrant you, feare me not.    [Sidenote: _Ger_. Ile wait you,]\nWithdraw, I heare him comming.\n\n_Enter Hamlet_.[4]\n\n_Ham_.[5] Now Mother, what's the matter?\n\n_Qu_. _Hamlet_, thou hast thy Father much offended.   [Sidenote: _Ger_.]\n\n_Ham_. Mother, you haue my Father much offended.\n\n_Qu_. Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.     [Sidenote: _Ger_.]\n\n_Ham._ Go, go, you question with an idle tongue.\n                                       [Sidenote: with a wicked tongue.]\n\n_Qu_. Why how now _Hamlet_?[6]                        [Sidenote: _Ger_.]\n\n_Ham_. Whats the matter now?\n\n_Qu_. Haue you forgot me?[7]                          [Sidenote: _Ger._]\n\n_Ham_. No by the Rood, not so:\nYou are the Queene, your Husbands Brothers wife,\nBut would you were not so. You are my Mother.[8]\n                                           [Sidenote: And would it were]\n\n_Qu_. Nay, then Ile set those to you that can speake.[9]\n                                                      [Sidenote: _Ger_.]\n\n_Ham_. Come, come, and sit you downe, you shall not boudge:\nYou go not till I set you vp a glasse,\nWhere you may see the inmost part of you?      [Sidenote: the most part]\n\n_Qu_. What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murther        [Sidenote: _Ger_.]\nme?[10] Helpe, helpe, hoa.                        [Sidenote: Helpe how.]\n\n_Pol_. What hoa, helpe, helpe, helpe.        [Sidenote: What how helpe.]\n\n_Ham_. How now, a Rat? dead for a Ducate, dead.[11]\n\n[Footnote 1: _The Quarto has not_ 'with him.']\n\n[Footnote 2: _He goes behind the arras._]\n\n[Footnote 3: _The Quarto has not this speech._]\n\n[Footnote 4: _Not in Quarto._]\n\n[Footnote 5: _1st Q._\n\n    _Ham_. Mother, mother, O are you here?\n    How i'st with you mother?\n\n    _Queene_ How i'st with you?\n\n    _Ham_, I'le tell you, but first weele make all safe.\n\nHere, evidently, he bolts the doors.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _1st Q._\n\n    _Queene_ How now boy?\n\n    _Ham_. How now mother! come here, sit downe, for you\n    shall heare me speake.]\n\n[Footnote 7: --'that you speak to me in such fashion?']\n\n[Footnote 8: _Point thus_: 'so: you'--'would you were not so, for you\nare _my_ mother.'--_with emphasis on_ 'my.' The whole is spoken sadly.]\n\n[Footnote 9: --'speak so that you must mind them.']\n\n[Footnote 10: The apprehension comes from the combined action of her\nconscience and the notion of his madness.]\n\n[Footnote 11: There is no precipitancy here--only instant resolve and\nexecution. It is another outcome and embodiment of Hamlet's rare faculty\nfor action, showing his delay the more admirable. There is here neither\ntime nor call for delay. Whoever the man behind the arras might be, he\nhad, by spying upon him in the privacy of his mother's room, forfeited\nto Hamlet his right to live; he had heard what he had said to his\nmother, and his death was necessary; for, if he left the room, Hamlet's\nlast chance of fulfilling his vow to the Ghost was gone: if the play had\nnot sealed, what he had now spoken must seal his doom. But the decree\nhad in fact already gone forth against his life. 158.]\n\n[Page 168]\n\n_Pol._ Oh I am slaine. [1]_Killes Polonius._[2]\n\n_Qu._ Oh me, what hast thou done?                     [Sidenote: _Ger._]\n\n_Ham._ Nay I know not, is it the King?[3]\n\n_Qu._ Oh what a rash, and bloody deed is this?        [Sidenote: _Ger._]\n\n_Ham._ A bloody deed, almost as bad good Mother,\n[Sidenote: 56] As kill a King,[4] and marrie with his Brother.\n\n_Qu._ As kill a King?                                 [Sidenote: _Ger._]\n\n_Ham._ I Lady, 'twas my word.[5]                      [Sidenote: it was]\nThou wretched, rash, intruding foole farewell,\nI tooke thee for thy Betters,[3] take thy Fortune,   [Sidenote: better,]\nThou find'st to be too busie, is some danger,\nLeaue wringing of your hands, peace, sit you downe,\nAnd let me wring your heart, for so I shall\nIf it be made of penetrable stuffe;\nIf damned Custome haue not braz'd it so,\nThat it is proofe and bulwarke against Sense.          [Sidenote: it be]\n\n_Qu._ What haue I done, that thou dar'st wag thy tong,\n                                                      [Sidenote: _Ger._]\nIn noise so rude against me?[6]\n\n_Ham._ Such an Act\nThat blurres the grace and blush of Modestie,[7]\nCalls Vertue Hypocrite, takes off the Rose\nFrom the faire forehead of an innocent loue,\nAnd makes a blister there.[8] Makes marriage vowes\n                                                  [Sidenote: And sets a]\nAs false as Dicers Oathes. Oh such a deed,\nAs from the body of Contraction[9] pluckes\nThe very soule, and sweete Religion makes\nA rapsidie of words. Heauens face doth glow,           [Sidenote: dooes]\nYea this solidity and compound masse,               [Sidenote: Ore this]\nWith tristfull visage as against the doome,\n                                         [Sidenote: with heated visage,]\nIs thought-sicke at the act.[10]                [Sidenote: thought sick]\n\n_Qu._ Aye me; what act,[11] that roares so lowd,[12]\nand thunders in the Index.[13]\n\n[Footnote 1: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 2: --_through the arras_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Hamlet takes him for, hopes it is the king, and thinks here\nto conclude: he is not praying now! and there is not a moment to be\nlost, for he has betrayed his presence and called for help. As often as\nimmediate action is demanded of Hamlet, he is immediate with his\nresponse--never hesitates, never blunders. There is no blunder here:\nbeing where he was, the death of Polonius was necessary now to the death\nof the king. Hamlet's resolve is instant, and the act simultaneous with\nthe resolve. The weak man is sure to be found wanting when immediate\naction is necessary; Hamlet never is. Doubtless those who blame him as\ndilatory, here blame him as precipitate, for they judge according to\nappearance and consequence.\n\nAll his delay after this is plainly compelled, although I grant he was\nnot sorry to have to await such _more presentable_ evidence as at last\nhe procured, so long as he did not lose the final possibility of\nvengeance.]\n\n[Footnote 4: This is the sole reference in the interview to the murder.\nI take it for tentative, and that Hamlet is satisfied by his mother's\nutterance, carriage, and expression, that she is innocent of any\nknowledge of that crime. Neither does he allude to the adultery: there\nis enough in what she cannot deny, and that only which can be remedied\nneeds be taken up; while to break with the king would open the door of\nrepentance for all that had preceded.]\n\n[Footnote 5: He says nothing of the Ghost to his mother.]\n\n[Footnote 6: She still holds up and holds out.]\n\n[Footnote 7: 'makes Modesty itself suspected.']\n\n[Footnote 8: 'makes Innocence ashamed of the love it cherishes.']\n\n[Footnote 9: 'plucks the spirit out of all forms of contracting or\nagreeing.' We have lost the social and kept only the physical meaning of\nthe noun.]\n\n[Footnote 10: I cannot help thinking the _Quarto_ reading of this\npassage the more intelligible, as well as much the more powerful. We may\nimagine a red aurora, by no means a very unusual phenomenon, over the\nexpanse of the sky:--\n\n            Heaven's face doth glow (_blush_)\n    O'er this solidity and compound mass,\n\n(_the earth, solid, material, composite, a corporeal mass in\nconfrontment with the spirit-like etherial, simple, uncompounded heaven\nleaning over it_)\n\n    With tristful (_or_ heated, _as the reader may choose_)\n          visage: as against the doom,\n\n(_as in the presence, or in anticipation of the revealing judgment_)\n\n    Is thought sick at the act.\n\n(_thought is sick at the act of the queen_)\n\nMy difficulties as to the _Folio_ reading are--why the earth should be\nso described without immediate contrast with the sky; and--how the earth\ncould be showing a tristful visage, and the sickness of its thought. I\nthink, if the Poet indeed made the alterations and they are not mere\nblunders, he must have made them hurriedly, and without due attention. I\nwould not forget, however, that there may be something present but too\ngood for me to find, which would make the passage plain as it stands.\n\nCompare _As you like it_, act i. sc. 3.\n\n    For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale,\n    Say what thou canst, I'll go along with thee.]\n\n[Footnote 11: In Q. the rest of this speech is Hamlet's; his long speech\nbegins here, taking up the queen's word.]\n\n[Footnote 12: She still stands out.]\n\n[Footnote 13: 'thunders in the very indication or mention of it.' But by\n'the Index' may be intended the influx or table of contents of a book,\nat the beginning of it.]\n\n[Page 170]\n\n_Ham._ Looke heere vpon this Picture, and on this,\nThe counterfet presentment of two Brothers:[1]\nSee what a grace was seated on his Brow,             [Sidenote: on this]\n[Sidenote: 151] _Hyperions_ curies, the front of Ioue himselfe,\nAn eye like Mars, to threaten or command        [Sidenote: threaten and]\nA Station, like the Herald Mercurie\nNew lighted on a heauen kissing hill:  [Sidenote: on a heaue, a kissing]\nA Combination, and a forme indeed,\nWhere euery God did seeme to set his Seale,\nTo giue the world assurance of a man.[2]\nThis was your Husband. Looke you now what followes.\nHeere is your Husband, like a Mildew'd eare\nBlasting his wholsom breath. Haue you eyes?\n                                           [Sidenote: wholsome brother,]\nCould you on this faire Mountaine leaue to feed,\nAnd batten on this Moore?[3] Ha? Haue you eyes?\nYou cannot call it Loue: For at your age,\nThe hey-day[4] in the blood is tame, it's humble,\nAnd waites vpon the Judgement: and what Iudgement\nWould step from this, to this? [A] What diuell was't,\nThat thus hath cousend you at hoodman-blinde?[5]      [Sidenote: hodman]\n[B]\nO Shame! where is thy Blush? Rebellious Hell,\nIf thou canst mutine in a Matrons bones,\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\n                            sence sure youe haue\nEls could you not haue motion, but sure that sence\nIs appoplext, for madnesse would not erre\nNor sence to extacie[6] was nere so thral'd\nBut it reseru'd some quantity of choise[7]\nTo serue in such[8] a difference,]\n\n[Footnote B: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\nEyes without feeling, feeling without sight.\nEares without hands, or eyes, smelling sance[9] all,\nOr but a sickly part of one true sence\nCould not so mope:[10]]\n\n[Footnote 1: He points to the portraits of the two brothers, side by\nside on the wall.]\n\n[Footnote 2: See _Julius Caesar_, act v. sc. 5,--speech of _Antony_ at\nthe end.]\n\n[Footnote 3: --perhaps an allusion as well to the complexion of\nClaudius, both moral and physical.]\n\n[Footnote 4: --perhaps allied to the German _heida_, and possibly the\nEnglish _hoyden_ and _hoity-toity_. Or is it merely\n_high-day--noontide_?]\n\n[Footnote 5: 'played tricks with you while hooded in the game of\n_blind-man's-bluff_?' The omitted passage of the _Quarto_ enlarges the\nfigure.\n\n_1st Q._ 'hob-man blinde.']\n\n[Footnote 6: madness.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Attributing soul to sense, he calls its distinguishment\n_choice_.]\n\n[Footnote 8: --emphasis on _such_.]\n\n[Footnote 9: This spelling seems to show how the English word _sans_\nshould be pronounced.]\n\n[Footnote 10: --'be so dull.']\n\n[Page 172]\n\nTo flaming youth, let Vertue be as waxe,\nAnd melt in her owne fire. Proclaime no shame,\nWhen the compulsiue Ardure giues the charge,\nSince Frost it selfe,[1] as actiuely doth burne,\nAs Reason panders Will.             [Sidenote: And reason pardons will.]\n\n_Qu._ O Hamlet, speake no more.[2]                    [Sidenote: _Ger._]\nThou turn'st mine eyes into my very soule,\n                                 [Sidenote: my very eyes into my soule,]\nAnd there I see such blacke and grained[3] spots,\n                                               [Sidenote: greeued spots]\nAs will not leaue their Tinct.[4]     [Sidenote: will leaue there their]\n\n_Ham._ Nay, but to liue[5]\nIn the ranke sweat of an enseamed bed,              [Sidenote: inseemed]\nStew'd in Corruption; honying and making loue\n[Sidenote: 34] Ouer the nasty Stye.[6]\n\n_Qu._ Oh speake to me, no more,                       [Sidenote: _Ger._]\n[Sidenote: 158] These words like Daggers enter in mine eares.\n                                                          [Sidenote: my]\nNo more sweet _Hamlet_.\n\n_Ham._ A Murderer, and a Villaine:\nA Slaue, that is not twentieth part the tythe  [Sidenote: part the kyth]\nOf your precedent Lord. A vice[7] of Kings,\nA Cutpurse of the Empire and the Rule.\nThat from a shelfe, the precious Diadem stole,\nAnd put it in his Pocket.\n\n_Qu._ No more.[8]                                     [Sidenote: _Ger._]\n\n_Enter Ghost._[9]\n\n_Ham._ A King of shreds and patches.\n[Sidenote: 44] Saue me; and houer o're me with your wings[10]\nYou heauenly Guards. What would you gracious figure?\n                                               [Sidenote: your gracious]\n\n_Qu._ Alas he's mad.[11]                              [Sidenote: _Ger._]\n\n_Ham._ Do you not come your tardy Sonne to chide,\nThat laps't in Time and Passion, lets go by[12]\nTh'important acting of your dread command? Oh say.[13]\n\n[Footnote 1: --his mother's matronly age.]\n\n[Footnote 2: She gives way at last.]\n\n[Footnote 3: --spots whose blackness has sunk into the grain, or final\nparticles of the substance.]\n\n[Footnote 4: --transition form of tint:--'will never give up their\ncolour;' 'will never be cleansed.']\n\n[Footnote 5: He persists.]\n\n[Footnote 6: --Claudius himself--his body no 'temple of the Holy Ghost,'\nbut a pig-sty. 3.]\n\n[Footnote 7: The clown of the old Moral Play.]\n\n[Footnote 8: She seems neither surprised nor indignant at any point in\nthe accusation: her consciousness of her own guiit has overwhelmed her.]\n\n[Footnote 9: The _1st Q._ has _Enter the ghost in his night gowne_. It\nwas then from the first intended that he should not at this point appear\nin armour--in which, indeed, the epithet _gracious figure_ could hardly\nbe applied to him, though it might well enough in one of the costumes in\nwhich Hamlet was accustomed to see him--as this dressing-gown of the\n_1st Q._ A ghost would appear in the costume in which he naturally\nimagined himself, and in his wife's room would not show himself clothed\nas when walking among the fortifications of the castle. But by the words\nlower down (174)--\n\n    My Father in his habite, as he liued,\n\nthe Poet indicates, not his dressing-gown, but his usual habit, _i.e._\nattire.]\n\n[Footnote 10: --almost the same invocation as when first he saw the\napparition.]\n\n[Footnote 11: The queen cannot see the Ghost. Her conduct has built such\na wall between her and her husband that I doubt whether, were she a\nghost also, she could see him. Her heart had left him, so they are no\nmore together in the sphere of mutual vision. Neither does the Ghost\nwish to show himself to her. As his presence is not corporeal, a ghost\nmay be present to but one of a company.]\n\n[Footnote 12: 1. 'Who, lapsed (_fallen, guilty_), lets action slip in\ndelay and suffering.' 2. 'Who, lapsed in (_fallen in, overwhelmed by_)\ndelay and suffering, omits' &c. 3. 'lapsed in respect of time, and\nbecause of passion'--the meaning of the preposition _in_, common to\nboth, reacted upon by the word it governs. 4. 'faulty both in delaying,\nand in yielding to suffering, when action is required.' 5. 'lapsed\nthrough having too much time and great suffering.' 6. 'allowing himself\nto be swept along by time and grief.'\n\nSurely there is not another writer whose words would so often admit of\nsuch multiform and varied interpretation--each form good, and true, and\nsuitable to the context! He seems to see at once all the relations of a\nthing, and to try to convey them at once, in an utterance single as the\nthing itself. He would condense the infinite soul of the meaning into\nthe trembling, overtaxed body of the phrase!]\n\n[Footnote 13: In the renewed presence of the Ghost, all its former\ninfluence and all the former conviction of its truth, return upon him.\nHe knows also how his behaviour must appear to the Ghost, and sees\nhimself as the Ghost sees him. Confronted with the gracious figure, how\nshould he think of self-justification! So far from being able to explain\nthings, he even forgets the doubt that had held him back--it has\nvanished from the noble presence! He is now in the world of belief; the\nworld of doubt is nowhere!--Note the masterly opposition of moods.]\n\n[Page 174]\n\n_Ghost._ Do not forget: this Visitation\nIs but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.[1]\nBut looke, Amazement on thy Mother sits;[2]\n[Sidenote: 30, 54] O step betweene her, and her fighting Soule,[3]\n[Sidenote: 198] Conceit[4] in weakest bodies, strongest workes.\nSpeake to her _Hamlet_.[5]\n\n_Ham._ How is it with you Lady?[6]\n\n_Qu._ Alas, how is't with you?                        [Sidenote: _Ger._]\nThat you bend your eye on vacancie,              [Sidenote: you do bend]\nAnd with their corporall ayre do hold discourse.\n                                    [Sidenote: with th'incorporall ayre]\nForth at your eyes, your spirits wildely peepe,\nAnd as the sleeping Soldiours in th'Alarme,\nYour bedded haire, like life in excrements,[7]\nStart vp, and stand an end.[8] Oh gentle Sonne,\nVpon the heate and flame of thy distemper\nSprinkle coole patience. Whereon do you looke?[9]\n\n_Ham._ On him, on him: look you how pale he glares,\nHis forme and cause conioyn'd, preaching to stones,\nWould make them capeable.[10] Do not looke vpon me,[11]\nLeast with this pitteous action you conuert\nMy sterne effects: then what I haue to do,[12]\n[Sidenote: 111] Will want true colour; teares perchance for blood.[13]\n\n_Qu._ To who do you speake this?              [Sidenote: _Ger._ To whom]\n\n_Ham._ Do you see nothing there?\n\n_Qu._ Nothing at all, yet all that is I see.[14]      [Sidenote: _Ger._]\n\n_Ham._ Nor did you nothing heare?\n\n_Qu._ No, nothing but our selues.                     [Sidenote: _Ger._]\n\n_Ham._ Why look you there: looke how it steals away:\n[Sidenote: 173] My Father in his habite, as he liued,\nLooke where he goes euen now out at the Portall.\n                        _Exit._                [Sidenote: _Exit Ghost._]\n\n[Sidenote: 114] _Qu._ This is the very coynage of your Braine,\n                                                      [Sidenote: _Ger._]\n\n[Footnote 1: The Ghost here judges, as alone is possible to him, from\nwhat he knows--from the fact that his brother Claudius has not yet made\nhis appearance in the ghost-world. Not understanding Hamlet's\ndifficulties, he mistakes Hamlet himself.]\n\n[Footnote 2: He mistakes also, through his tenderness, the condition of\nhis wife--imagining, it would seem, that she feels his presence, though\nshe cannot see him, or recognize the source of the influence which he\nsupposes to be moving her conscience: she is only perturbed by Hamlet's\nbehaviour.]\n\n[Footnote 3: --fighting within itself, as the sea in a storm may be said\nto fight.\n\nHe is careful as ever over the wife he had loved and loves still;\ncareful no less of the behaviour of the son to his mother.\n\nIn the _1st Q._ we have:--\n\n    But I perceiue by thy distracted lookes,\n    Thy mother's fearefull, and she stands amazde:\n    Speake to her Hamlet, for her sex is weake,\n    Comfort thy mother, Hamlet, thinke on me.]\n\n[Footnote 4: --not used here for bare _imagination_, but imagination\nwith its concomitant feeling:--_conception_. 198.]\n\n[Footnote 5: His last word ere he vanishes utterly, concerns his queen;\nhe is tender and gracious still to her who sent him to hell. This\nattitude of the Ghost towards his faithless wife, is one of the\nprofoundest things in the play. All the time she is not thinking of him\nany more than seeing him--for 'is he not dead!'--is looking straight at\nwhere he stands, but is all unaware of him.]\n\n[Footnote 6: I understand him to speak this with a kind of lost,\nmechanical obedience. The description his mother gives of him makes it\nseem as if the Ghost were drawing his ghost out to himself, and turning\nhis body thereby half dead.]\n\n[Footnote 7: 'as if there were life in excrements.' The nails and hair\nwere 'excrements'--things _growing out_.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Note the form _an end_--not _on end_. 51, 71.]\n\n[Footnote 9: --all spoken coaxingly, as to one in a mad fit. She regards\nhis perturbation as a sudden assault of his ever present malady. One who\nsees what others cannot see they are always ready to count mad.]\n\n[Footnote 10: able to _take_, that is, to _understand_.]\n\n[Footnote 11: --_to the Ghost_.]\n\n[Footnote 12: 'what is in my power to do.']\n\n[Footnote 13: Note antithesis here: '_your piteous action_;' '_my stern\neffects_'--the things, that is, 'which I have to effect.' 'Lest your\npiteous show convert--change--my stern doing; then what I do will lack\ntrue colour; the result may be tears instead of blood; I shall weep\ninstead of striking.']\n\n[Footnote 14: It is one of the constantly recurring delusions of\nhumanity that we see all there is.]\n\n[Page 176]\n\n[Sidenote: 114] This bodilesse Creation extasie[1] is very cunning\nin.[2]\n\n_Ham._ Extasie?[3]\nMy Pulse as yours doth temperately keepe time,\nAnd makes as healthfull Musicke.[4] It is not madnesse\nThat I haue vttered; bring me to the Test\nAnd I the matter will re-word: which madnesse        [Sidenote: And the]\nWould gamboll from. Mother, for loue of Grace,\nLay not a flattering Vnction to your soule,\n                                         [Sidenote: not that flattering]\nThat not your trespasse, but my madnesse speakes:\n[Sidenote: 182] It will but skin and filme the Vlcerous place,\nWhil'st ranke Corruption mining all within,           [Sidenote: whiles]\nInfects vnseene, Confesse your selfe to Heauen,\nRepent what's past, auoyd what is to come,\nAnd do not spred the Compost or the Weedes,   [Sidenote: compost on the]\nTo make them ranke. Forgiue me this my Vertue,       [Sidenote: ranker,]\nFor in the fatnesse of this pursie[5] times,           [Sidenote: these]\nVertue it selfe, of Vice must pardon begge,\nYea courb,[6] and woe, for leaue to do him good.\n                                              [Sidenote: curbe and wooe]\n\n_Qu._ Oh Hamlet,                                      [Sidenote: _Ger._]\nThou hast cleft my heart in twaine.\n\n_Ham._ O throw away the worser part of it,\nAnd Liue the purer with the other halfe.       [Sidenote: And leaue the]\nGood night, but go not to mine Vnkles bed,                [Sidenote: my]\nAssume a Vertue, if you haue it not,[7][A] refraine to night\n                                 [Sidenote: Assune | to refraine night,]\nAnd that shall lend a kinde of easinesse\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\n[8]That monster custome, who all sence doth eate\nOf habits deuill,[9] is angell yet in this\nThat to the vse of actions faire and good,\nHe likewise giues a frock or Liuery\nThat aptly is put on]\n\n[Footnote 1: madness 129.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Here is the correspondent speech in the _1st Q._ I give it\nbecause of the queen's denial of complicity in the murder.\n\n    _Queene_ Alas, it is the weakenesse of thy braine.\n    Which makes thy tongue to blazon thy hearts griefe:\n    But as I haue a soule, I sweare by heauen,\n    I neuer knew of this most horride murder:\n    But Hamlet, this is onely fantasie,\n    And for my loue forget these idle fits.\n\n    _Ham_. Idle, no mother, my pulse doth beate like yours,\n    It is not madnesse that possesseth Hamlet.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 4: --_time_ being a great part of music. Shakspere more than\nonce or twice employs _music_ as a symbol with reference to corporeal\ncondition: see, for instance, _As you like it_, act i. sc. 2, 'But is\nthere any else longs to see this broken music in his sides? is there yet\nanother dotes upon rib-breaking?' where the _broken music_ may be\nregarded as the antithesis of the _healthful music_ here.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _swoln, pampered_: an allusion to the _purse_ itself,\nwhether intended or not, is suggested.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _bend, bow_.]\n\n[Footnote 7: To _assume_ is to take to one: by _assume a virtue_, Hamlet\ndoes not mean _pretend_--but the very opposite: _to pretend_ is _to hold\nforth, to show_; what he means is, 'Adopt a virtue'--that of\n_abstinence_--'and act upon it, order your behaviour by it, although you\nmay not _feel_ it. Choose the virtue--take it, make it yours.']\n\n[Footnote 8: This omitted passage is obscure with the special\nShaksperean obscurity that comes of over-condensation. He omitted it, I\nthink, because of its obscurity. Its general meaning is plain\nenough--that custom helps the man who tries to assume a virtue, as well\nas renders it more and more difficult for him who indulges in vice to\nleave it. I will paraphrase: 'That monster, Custom, who eats away all\nsense, the devil of habits, is angel yet in this, that, for the exercise\nof fair and good actions, he also provides a habit, a suitable frock or\nlivery, that is easily put on.' The play with the two senses of the word\n_habit_ is more easily seen than set forth. To paraphrase more freely:\n'That devil of habits, Custom, who eats away all sense of wrong-doing,\nhas yet an angel-side to him, in that he gives a man a mental dress, a\nhabit, helpful to the doing of the right thing.' The idea of hypocrisy\ndoes not come in at all. The advice of Hamlet is: 'Be virtuous in your\nactions, even if you cannot in your feelings; do not do the wrong thing\nyou would like to do, and custom will render the abstinence easy.']\n\n[Footnote 9: I suspect it should be '_Of habits evil_'--the antithesis\nto _angel_ being _monster_.]\n\n[Page 178]\n\nTo the next abstinence. [A] Once more goodnight,\nAnd when you are desirous to be blest,\nIle blessing begge of you.[1] For this same Lord,\nI do repent: but heauen hath pleas'd it so,[2]\nTo punish me with this, and this with me,\nThat I must be their[3] Scourge and Minister.\nI will bestow him,[4] and will answer well\nThe death I gaue him:[5] so againe, good night.\nI must be cruell, onely to be kinde;[6]\nThus bad begins,[7] and worse remaines behinde.[8]  [Sidenote: This bad]\n\n[B]\n\n_Qu_. What shall I do?                                [Sidenote: _Ger_.]\n\n_Ham_. Not this by no meanes that I bid you do:\nLet the blunt King tempt you againe to bed,   [Sidenote: the blowt King]\nPinch Wanton on your cheeke, call you his Mouse,\nAnd let him for a paire of reechie[9] kisses,\nOr padling in your necke with his damn'd Fingers,\nMake you to rauell all this matter out,               [Sidenote: rouell]\n[Sidenote: 60, 136, 156] That I essentially am not in madnesse.\nBut made in craft.[10] 'Twere good you let him know,     [Sidenote: mad]\nFor who that's but a Queene, faire, sober, wise,\nWould from a Paddocke,[11] from a Bat, a Gibbe,[12]\nSuch deere concernings hide, Who would do so,\nNo in despight of Sense and Secrecie,\nVnpegge the Basket on the houses top:\nLet the Birds flye, and like the famous Ape\nTo try Conclusions[13] in the Basket, creepe\nAnd breake your owne necke downe.[14]\n\n_Qu_. Be thou assur'd, if words be made of breath,    [Sidenote: _Ger_.]\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto;_--\n\n                     the next more easie:[15]\nFor vse almost can change the stamp of nature,\nAnd either[16] the deuill, or throwe him out\nWith wonderous potency:]\n\n[Footnote B: _Here in the Quarto:_--\n\nOne word more good Lady.[17]]\n\n[Footnote 1: In bidding his mother good night, he would naturally, after\nthe custom of the time, have sought her blessing: it would be a farce\nnow: when she seeks the blessing of God, he will beg hers; now, a plain\n_good night_ must serve.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Note the curious inverted use of _pleased_. It is here a\ntransitive, not an impersonal verb. The construction of the sentence is,\n'pleased it so, _in order to_ punish us, that I must' &c.]\n\n[Footnote 3: The noun to which _their_ is the pronoun is _heaven_--as if\nhe had written _the gods_.]\n\n[Footnote 4: 'take him to a place fit for him to lie in.']\n\n[Footnote 5: 'hold my face to it, and justify it.']\n\n[Footnote 6: --omitting or refusing to embrace her.]\n\n[Footnote 7: --looking at Polonius.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Does this mean for himself to do, or for Polonius to\nendure?]\n\n[Footnote 9: reeky, smoky, fumy.]\n\n[Footnote 10: Hamlet considers his madness the same that he so\ndeliberately assumed. But his idea of himself goes for nothing where the\nexperts conclude him mad! His absolute clarity where he has no occasion\nto act madness, goes for as little, for 'all madmen have their sane\nmoments'!]\n\n[Footnote 11: _a toad_; in Scotland, _a frog_.]\n\n[Footnote 12: an old cat.]\n\n[Footnote 13: _Experiments_, Steevens says: is it not rather _results_?]\n\n[Footnote 14: I fancy the story, which so far as I know has not been\ntraced, goes on to say that the basket was emptied from the house-top to\nsend the pigeons flying, and so the ape got his neck broken. The phrase\n'breake your owne necke _downe_' seems strange: it could hardly have\nbeen written _neck-bone_!]\n\n[Footnote 15: This passage would fall in better with the preceding with\nwhich it is vitally one--for it would more evenly continue its form--if\nthe preceding _devil_ were, as I propose above, changed to _evil_. But,\nprecious as is every word in them, both passages are well omitted.]\n\n[Footnote 16: Plainly there is a word left out, if not lost here. There\nis no authority for the supplied _master_. I am inclined to propose a\npause and a gesture, with perhaps an _inarticulation_.]\n\n[Footnote 17: --interrogatively perhaps, Hamlet noting her about to\nspeak; but I would prefer it thus: 'One word more:--good lady--' Here\nhe pauses so long that she speaks. Or we _might_ read it thus:\n\n    _Qu._ One word more.\n    _Ham._ Good lady?\n    _Qu._ What shall I do?]\n\n[Page 180]\n\nAnd breath of life: I haue no life to breath\nWhat thou hast saide to me.[1]\n\n[Sidenote: 128, 158] _Ham._ I must to England, you know that?[2]\n\n_Qu._ Alacke I had forgot: Tis so concluded on.       [Sidenote: _Ger._]\n\n_Ham._ [A] This man shall set me packing:[3]\nIle lugge the Guts into the Neighbor roome,[4]\nMother goodnight. Indeede this Counsellor [Sidenote: night indeed, this]\nIs now most still, most secret, and most graue,\n[Sidenote: 84] Who was in life, a foolish prating Knaue.\n                                              [Sidenote: a most foolish]\nCome sir, to draw toward an end with you.[5]\nGood night Mother.\n\n_Exit Hamlet tugging in Polonius._[6]                [Sidenote: _Exit._]\n\n[7]\n\n_Enter King._                    [Sidenote: Enter King, and Queene, with\n                                          Rosencraus and Guyldensterne.]\n\n_King._ There's matters in these sighes.\nThese profound heaues\nYou must translate; Tis fit we vnderstand them.\nWhere is your Sonne?[8]\n\n_Qu._ [B] Ah my good Lord, what haue I seene to night?\n                                 [Sidenote: _Ger._ | Ah mine owne Lord,]\n\n_King._ What _Gertrude_? How do's _Hamlet_?\n\n_Qu._ Mad as the Seas, and winde, when both contend\n                                            [Sidenote: _Ger._ | sea and]\nWhich is the Mightier, in his lawlesse fit[9]\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\n[10]Ther's letters seald, and my two Schoolefellowes,\nWhom I will trust as I will Adders fang'd,\nThey beare the mandat, they must sweep my way\nAnd marshall me to knauery[11]: let it worke,\nFor tis the sport to haue the enginer\nHoist[12] with his owne petar,[13] an't shall goe hard\nBut I will delue one yard belowe their mines,\nAnd blowe them at the Moone: \u00f4 tis most sweete\nWhen in one line two crafts directly meete,]\n\n[Footnote B: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\nBestow this place on vs a little while.[14]]\n\n[Footnote 1: _1st Q._\n\n    O mother, if euer you did my deare father loue,\n    Forbeare the adulterous bed to night,\n    And win your selfe by little as you may,\n    In time it may be you wil lothe him quite:\n    And mother, but assist mee in reuenge,\n    And in his death your infamy shall die.\n\n    _Queene. Hamlet_, I vow by that maiesty,\n    That knowes our thoughts, and lookes into our hearts,\n    I will conceale, consent, and doe my best,\n    What stratagem soe're thou shalt deuise.]\n\n[Footnote 2: The king had spoken of it both before and after the play:\nHoratio might have heard of it and told Hamlet.]\n\n[Footnote 3: 'My banishment will be laid to this deed of mine.']\n\n[Footnote 4: --to rid his mother of it.]\n\n[Footnote 5: It may cross him, as he says this, dragging the body out by\none end of it, and toward the end of its history, that he is himself\ndrawing toward an end along with Polonius.]\n\n[Footnote 6: --_and weeping_. 182. See _note_ 5, 183.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Here, according to the editors, comes 'Act IV.' For this\nthere is no authority, and the point of division seems to me very\nobjectionable. The scene remains the same, as noted from Capell in _Cam.\nSh._, and the entrance of the king follows immediately on the exit of\nHamlet. He finds his wife greatly perturbed; she has not had time to\ncompose herself.\n\nFrom the beginning of Act II., on to where I would place the end of Act\nIII., there is continuity.]\n\n[Footnote 8: I would have this speech uttered with pauses and growing\nurgency, mingled at length with displeasure.]\n\n[Footnote 9: She is faithful to her son, declaring him mad, and\nattributing the death of 'the unseen' Polonius to his madness.]\n\n[Footnote 10: This passage, like the rest, I hold to be omitted by\nShakspere himself. It represents Hamlet as divining the plot with whose\nexecution his false friends were entrusted. The Poet had at first\nintended Hamlet to go on board the vessel with a design formed upon this\nfor the out-witting of his companions, and to work out that design.\nAfterwards, however, he alters his plan, and represents his escape as\nmore plainly providential: probably he did not see how to manage it by\nany scheme of Hamlet so well as by the attack of a pirate; possibly he\nwished to write the passage (246) in which Hamlet, so consistently with\nhis character, attributes his return to the divine shaping of the end\nrough-hewn by himself. He had designs--'dear plots'--but they were other\nthan fell out--a rough-hewing that was shaped to a different end. The\ndiscomfiture of his enemies was not such as he had designed: it was\nbrought about by no previous plot, but through a discovery. At the same\ntime his deliverance was not effected by the fingering of the packet,\nbut by the attack of the pirate: even the re-writing of the commission\ndid nothing towards his deliverance, resulted only in the punishment of\nhis traitorous companions. In revising the Quarto, the Poet sees that\nthe passage before us, in which is expressed the strongest suspicion of\nhis companions, with a determination to outwit and punish them, is\ninconsistent with the representation Hamlet gives afterwards of a\nrestlessness and suspicion newly come upon him, which he attributes to\nthe Divinity.\n\nNeither was it likely he would say so much to his mother while so little\nsure of her as to warn her, on the ground of danger to herself, against\nrevealing his sanity to the king. As to this, however, the portion\nomitted might, I grant, be regarded as an _aside_.]\n\n[Footnote 11: --to be done _to_ him.]\n\n[Footnote 12: _Hoised_, from verb _hoise_--still used in Scotland.]\n\n[Footnote 13: a kind of explosive shell, which was fixed to the object\nmeant to be destroyed. Note once more Hamlet's delight in action.]\n\n[Footnote 14: --_said to Ros. and Guild._: in plain speech, 'Leave us a\nlittle while.']\n\n[Page 182]\n\nBehinde the Arras, hearing something stirre,\nHe whips his Rapier out, and cries a Rat, a Rat,\n                               [Sidenote: Whyps out his Rapier, cryes a]\nAnd in his brainish apprehension killes              [Sidenote: in this]\nThe vnseene good old man.\n\n_King._ Oh heauy deed:\nIt had bin so with vs[1] had we beene there:\nHis Liberty is full of threats to all,[2]\nTo you your selfe, to vs, to euery one.\nAlas, how shall this bloody deede be answered?\nIt will be laide to vs, whose prouidence\nShould haue kept short, restrain'd, and out of haunt,\nThis mad yong man.[2] But so much was our loue,\nWe would not vnderstand what was most fit,\nBut like the Owner of a foule disease,\n[Sidenote: 176] To keepe it from divulging, let's it feede\n                                                      [Sidenote: let it]\nEuen on the pith of life. Where is he gone?\n\n_Qu._ To draw apart the body he hath kild,              [Sidenote: Ger.]\nO're whom his very madnesse[3] like some Oare\nAmong a Minerall of Mettels base\n[Sidenote: 181] Shewes it selfe pure.[4] He weepes for what is done.[5]\n                                             [Sidenote: pure, a weeepes]\n\n_King:_ Oh _Gertrude_, come away:\nThe Sun no sooner shall the Mountaines touch,\nBut we will ship him hence, and this vilde deed,\nWe must with all our Maiesty and Skill\n[Sidenote: 200] Both countenance, and excuse.[6]\n                       _Enter Ros. & Guild_.[7]\nHo _Guildenstern_:\nFriends both go ioyne you with some further ayde:\n_Hamlet_ in madnesse hath Polonius slaine,\nAnd from his Mother Clossets hath he drag'd him.\n                                             [Sidenote: closet | dreg'd]\nGo seeke him out, speake faire, and bring the body\nInto the Chappell. I pray you hast in this.\n                             _Exit Gent_[8]\nCome _Gertrude_, wee'l call vp our wisest friends,\nTo let them know both what we meane to do,           [Sidenote: And let]\n\n[Footnote 1: the royal plural.]\n\n[Footnote 2: He knows the thrust was meant for him. But he would not\nhave it so understood; he too lays it to his madness, though he too\nknows better.]\n\n[Footnote 3: 'he, although mad'; 'his nature, in spite of his madness.']\n\n[Footnote 4: by his weeping, in the midst of much to give a different\nimpression.]\n\n[Footnote 5: We have no reason to think the queen inventing here: what\ncould she gain by it? the point indeed was rather against Hamlet, as\nshowing it was not Polonius he had thought to kill. He was more than\never annoyed with the contemptible old man, who had by his\nmeddlesomeness brought his death to his door; but he was very sorry\nnevertheless over Ophelia's father: those rough words in his last speech\nare spoken with the tears running down his face. We have seen the\nstrange, almost discordant mingling in him of horror and humour, after\nthe first appearance of the Ghost, 58, 60: something of the same may be\nsupposed when he finds he has killed Polonius: in the highstrung nervous\ncondition that must have followed such a talk with his mother, it would\nbe nowise strange that he should weep heartily even in the midst of\ncontemptuous anger. Or perhaps a sudden breakdown from attempted show of\nindifference, would not be amiss in the representation.]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'both countenance with all our majesty, and excuse with all\nour skill.']\n\n[Footnote 7: In the _Quarto_ a line back.]\n\n[Footnote 8: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Page 184]\n\nAnd what's vntimely[1] done. [A] Oh come away,        [Sidenote: doone,]\nMy soule is full of discord and dismay.   _Exeunt._\n\n_Enter Hamlet._            [Sidenote: _Hamlet, Rosencrans, and others._]\n\n_Ham._ Safely stowed.[2]       [Sidenote: stowed, but soft, what noyse,]\n\n_Gentlemen within._ _Hamlet_. Lord _Hamlet_?\n\n_Ham._ What noise? Who cals on _Hamlet_?\nOh heere they come.\n\n_Enter Ros. and Guildensterne._[4]\n\n_Ro._ What haue you done my Lord with the dead body?\n\n_Ham._ Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis Kinne.[5]\n                                                 [Sidenote: Compound it]\n\n_Rosin._ Tell vs where 'tis, that we may take it thence,\nAnd beare it to the Chappell.\n\n_Ham._ Do not beleeue it.[6]\n\n_Rosin._ Beleeue what?\n\n[Sidenote: 156] _Ham._ That I can keepe your counsell, and not\nmine owne. Besides, to be demanded of a Spundge,\nwhat replication should be made by the Sonne of\na King.[7]\n\n_Rosin._ Take you me for a Spundge, my Lord?\n\n_Ham._ I sir, that sokes vp the Kings Countenance,\nhis Rewards, his Authorities, but such Officers\ndo the King best seruice in the end. He keepes\nthem like an Ape in the corner of his iaw,[8] first\n                                            [Sidenote: like an apple in]\nmouth'd to be last swallowed, when he needes what\nyou haue glean'd, it is but squeezing you, and\nSpundge you shall be dry againe.\n\n_Rosin._ I vnderstand you not my Lord.\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\nWhose whisper ore the worlds dyameter,[9]\n[Sidenote: 206] As leuell as the Cannon to his blanck,[10]\nTransports his poysned shot, may miffe[11] our Name,\nAnd hit the woundlesse ayre.]\n\n[Footnote 1: unhappily.]\n\n[Footnote 2: He has hid the body--to make the whole look the work of a\nmad fit.]\n\n[Footnote 3: This line is not in the _Quarto_.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _Not in Q. See margin above._]\n\n[Footnote 5: He has put it in a place which, little visited, is very\ndusty.]\n\n[Footnote 6: He is mad to them--sane only to his mother and Horatio.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _euphuistic_: 'asked a question by a sponge, what answer\nshould a prince make?']\n\n[Footnote 8: _1st Q._:\n\n    For hee doth keep you as an Ape doth nuttes,\n    In the corner of his Iaw, first mouthes you,\n    Then swallowes you:]\n\n[Footnote 9: Here most modern editors insert, '_so, haply, slander_'.\nBut, although I think the Poet left out this obscure passage merely from\ndissatisfaction with it, I believe it renders a worthy sense as it\nstands. The antecedent to _whose_ is _friends_: _cannon_ is nominative\nto _transports_; and the only difficulty is the epithet _poysned_\napplied to _shot_, which seems transposed from the idea of an\n_unfriendly_ whisper. Perhaps Shakspere wrote _poysed shot_. But taking\nthis as it stands, the passage might be paraphrased thus: 'Whose\n(favourable) whisper over the world's diameter (_from one side of the\nworld to the other_), as level (_as truly aimed_) as the cannon (of an\nevil whisper) transports its poisoned shot to his blank (_the white\ncentre of the target_), may shoot past our name (so keeping us clear),\nand hit only the invulnerable air.' ('_the intrenchant air_': _Macbeth_,\nact v. sc. 8). This interpretation rests on the idea of\nover-condensation with its tendency to seeming confusion--the only fault\nI know in the Poet--a grand fault, peculiarly his own, born of the\nbeating of his wings against the impossible. It is much as if, able to\nthink two thoughts at once, he would compel his phrase to utter them at\nonce.]\n\n[Footnote 10:\n\n                    for the harlot king\n    Is quite beyond mine arm, out of the blank\n    And level of my brain, plot-proof;\n\n    _The Winter's Tale_, act ii. sc. 3.\n\n    My life stands in the level of your dreams,\n\n    _Ibid_, act iii. sc. 2.]\n\n[Footnote 11: two _ff_ for two long _ss_.]\n\n[Page 186]\n\n_Ham._ I am glad of it: a knavish speech\nsleepes in a foolish eare.\n\n_Rosin._ My Lord, you must tell us where the\nbody is, and go with us to the King.\n\n_Ham._ The body is with the King, but the King\nis not with the body.[1] The King, is a thing----\n\n_Guild._ A thing my Lord?\n\n_Ham._ Of nothing[2]: bring me to him, hide\nFox, and all after.[3]              _Exeunt_[4]\n\n_Enter King._                      [Sidenote: _King, and two or three._]\n\n_King._ I have sent to seeke him, and to find the bodie:\nHow dangerous is it that this man goes loose:[5]\nYet must not we put the strong Law on him:\n[Sidenote: 212] Hee's loved of the distracted multitude,[6]\nWho like not in their iudgement, but their eyes:\nAnd where 'tis so, th'Offenders scourge is weigh'd\nBut neerer the offence: to beare all smooth, and euen,\n                                                   [Sidenote: neuer the]\nThis sodaine sending him away, must seeme\n[Sidenote: 120] Deliberate pause,[7] diseases desperate growne,\nBy desperate appliance are releeved,\nOr not at all.       _Enter Rosincrane._\n                              [Sidenote: _Rosencraus and all the rest._]\nHow now? What hath befalne?\n\n_Rosin._ Where the dead body is bestow'd my Lord,\nWe cannot get from him.\n\n_King._ But where is he?[8]\n\n_Rosin._ Without my Lord, guarded[9] to know your pleasure.\n\n_King._ Bring him before us.\n\n_Rosin._ Hoa, Guildensterne? Bring in my Lord.\n                [Sidenote: _Ros._ How, bring in the Lord. _They enter._]\n\n_Enter Hamlet and Guildensterne_[10]\n\n_King._ Now _Hamlet_, where's _Polonius?_\n\n[Footnote 1: 'The body is in the king's house, therefore with the king;\nbut the king knows not where, therefore the king is not with the body.']\n\n[Footnote 2: 'A thing of nothing' seems to have been a common phrase.]\n\n[Footnote 3: The _Quarto_ has not 'hide Fox, and all after.']\n\n[Footnote 4: Hamlet darts out, with the others after him, as in a hunt.\nPossibly there was a game called _Hide fox, and all after_.]\n\n[Footnote 5: He is a hypocrite even to himself.]\n\n[Footnote 6: This had all along helped to Hamlet's safety.]\n\n[Footnote 7: 'must be made to look the result of deliberate reflection.'\nClaudius fears the people may imagine Hamlet treacherously used, driven\nto self-defence, and hurried out of sight to be disposed of.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Emphasis on _he_; the point of importance with the king, is\n_where he is_, not where the body is.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Henceforward he is guarded, or at least closely watched,\naccording to the _Folio_--left much to himself according to the\n_Quarto_. 192.]\n\n[Footnote 10: _Not in Quarto._]\n\n[Page 188]\n\n_Ham._ At Supper.\n\n_King._ At Supper? Where?\n\n_Ham._ Not where he eats, but where he is eaten,\n                                                  [Sidenote: where a is]\na certaine conuocation of wormes are e'ne at him.\n                                      [Sidenote: of politique wormes[1]]\nYour worm is your onely Emperor for diet. We\nfat all creatures else to fat vs, and we fat our selfe\n                                                   [Sidenote: ourselves]\nfor Magots.  Your fat King, and your leane\nBegger is but variable seruice to dishes, but to one\n                                                  [Sidenote: two dishes]\nTable that's the end.\n\n[A]\n\n_King._ What dost thou meane by this?[2]\n\n_Ham._  Nothing but to shew you how a King\nmay go a Progresse[3] through the guts of a Begger.[4]\n\n_King._ Where is _Polonius_.\n\n_Ham._ In heauen, send thither to see. If your\nMessenger finde him not there, seeke him i'th other\nplace your selfe: but indeed, if you finde him not\n                  [Sidenote: but if indeed you find him not within this]\nthis moneth, you shall nose him as you go vp the\nstaires into the Lobby.\n\n_King._ Go seeke him there.\n\n_Ham._ He will stay till ye come.\n                                        [Sidenote: A will stay till you]\n\n_K._ _Hamlet_, this deed of thine, for thine especial safety\n                              [Sidenote: this deede for thine especiall]\nWhich we do tender, as we deerely greeue\nFor that which thou hast done,[5] must send thee hence\nWith fierie Quicknesse.[6] Therefore prepare thy selfe,\nThe Barke is readie, and the winde at helpe,[7]\nTh'Associates tend,[8] and euery thing at bent       [Sidenote: is bent]\nFor England.\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto:_--\n\n_King_ Alas, alas.[9]\n\n_Ham._ A man may fish with the worme that hath eate of a King, and eate\nof the fish that hath fedde of that worme.]\n\n[Footnote 1: --such as Rosincrance and Guildensterne!]\n\n[Footnote 2: I suspect this and the following speech ought by the\nprinters to have been omitted also: without the preceding two speeches\nof the Quarto they are not accounted for.]\n\n[Footnote 3: a royal progress.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Hamlet's philosophy deals much now with the worthlessness\nof all human distinctions and affairs.]\n\n[Footnote 5: 'and we care for your safety as much as we grieve for the\ndeath of Polonius.']\n\n[Footnote 6: 'With fierie Quicknesse.' _Not in Quarto._]\n\n[Footnote 7: fair--ready to help.]\n\n[Footnote 8: attend, wait.]\n\n[Footnote 9: pretending despair over his madness.]\n\n[Page 190]\n\n_Ham._ For England?\n\n_King._ I _Hamlet_.\n\n_Ham._ Good.\n\n_King._ So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes.\n\n_Ham._ I see a Cherube that see's him: but        [Sidenote: sees them,]\ncome, for England. Farewell deere Mother.\n\n_King._ Thy louing Father _Hamlet_.\n\n_Hamlet._ My Mother: Father and Mother is\nman and wife: man and wife is one flesh, and so [Sidenote: flesh, so my]\nmy mother.[1] Come, for England.     _Exit_\n\n[Sidenote: 195] _King._ Follow him at foote,[2]\nTempt him with speed aboord:\nDelay it not, He haue him hence to night.\nAway, for euery thing is Seal'd and done\nThat else leanes on[3] th'Affaire pray you make hast.\nAnd England, if my loue thou holdst at ought,\nAs my great power thereof may giue thee sense,\nSince yet thy Cicatrice lookes raw and red[4]\nAfter the Danish Sword, and thy free awe\nPayes homage to vs[5]; thou maist not coldly set[6]\nOur Soueraigne Processe,[7] which imports at full\nBy Letters conjuring to that effect                [Sidenote: congruing]\nThe present death of _Hamlet_. Do it England,\nFor like the Hecticke[8] in my blood he rages,\nAnd thou must cure me: Till I know 'tis done,\nHow ere my happes,[9] my ioyes were ne're begun.[10]\n                                      [Sidenote: ioyes will nere begin.]\n                                       _Exit_[11]\n\n[Sidenote: 274]  [12]_Enter Fortinbras with an Armie._\n                               [Sidenote: with his Army ouer the stage.]\n\n_For._ Go Captaine, from me greet the Danish King,\nTell him that by his license, _Fortinbras_\n[Sidenote: 78] Claimes the conueyance[13] of a promis'd March\n                                                  [Sidenote: Craues the]\nOuer his Kingdome. You know the Rendeuous:[14]\n\n[Footnote 1: He will not touch the hand of his father's murderer.]\n\n[Footnote 2: 'at his heels.']\n\n[Footnote 3: 'belongs to.']\n\n[Footnote 4: 'as my great power may give thee feeling of its value,\nseeing the scar of my vengeance has hardly yet had time to heal.']\n\n[Footnote 5: 'and thy fear uncompelled by our presence, pays homage to\nus.']\n\n[Footnote 6: 'set down to cool'; 'set in the cold.']\n\n[Footnote 7: _mandate_: 'Where's Fulvia's process?' _Ant. and Cl._, act\ni. sc. 1. _Shakespeare Lexicon_.]\n\n[Footnote 8: _hectic fever--habitual_ or constant fever.]\n\n[Footnote 9: 'whatever my fortunes.']\n\n[Footnote 10: The original, the _Quarto_ reading--'_my ioyes will nere\nbegin_' seems to me in itself better, and the cause of the change to be\nas follows.\n\nIn the _Quarto_ the next scene stands as in our modern editions, ending\nwith the rime,\n\n                  \u00f4 from this time forth,\n    My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth.   _Exit_.\n\nThis was the act-pause, the natural end of act iii.\n\nBut when the author struck out all but the commencement of the scene,\nleaving only the three little speeches of Fortinbras and his captain,\nthen plainly the act-pause must fall at the end of the preceding scene.\nHe therefore altered the end of the last verse to make it rime with the\nforegoing, in accordance with his frequent way of using a rime before an\nimportant pause.\n\nIt perplexes us to think how on his way to the vessel, Hamlet could fall\nin with the Norwegian captain. This may have been one of Shakspere's\nreasons for striking the whole scene out--but he had other and more\npregnant reasons.]\n\n[Footnote 11: Here is now the proper close of the _Third Act_.]\n\n[Footnote 12: _Commencement of the Fourth Act._\n\nBetween the third and the fourth passes the time Hamlet is away; for the\nlatter, in which he returns, and whose scenes are _contiguous_, needs no\nmore than one day.]\n\n[Footnote 13: 'claims a convoy in fulfilment of the king's promise to\nallow him to march over his kingdom.' The meaning is made plainer by the\ncorrespondent passage in the _1st Quarto_:\n\n    Tell him that _Fortenbrasse_ nephew to old _Norway_,\n    Craues a free passe and conduct ouer his land,\n    According to the Articles agreed on:]\n\n[Footnote 14: 'where to rejoin us.']\n\n[Page 192]\n\nIf that his Maiesty would ought with vs,\nWe shall expresse our dutie in his eye,[1]\nAnd let[2] him know so.\n\n_Cap._ I will doo't, my Lord.\n\n_For._ Go safely[3] on.      _Exit._                  [Sidenote: softly]\n\n[A]\n\n[4] _Enter Queene and Horatio_.\n                 [Sidenote: _Enter Horatio, Gertrard, and a Gentleman_.]\n\n_Qu._ I will not speake with her.\n\n_Hor._[5] She is importunate, indeed distract, her   [Sidenote: _Gent_.]\nmoode will needs be pittied.\n\n_Qu_. What would she haue?\n\n_Hor_. She speakes much of her Father; saies she heares\n                                                     [Sidenote: _Gent_.]\n\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\n_Enter Hamlet, Rosencraus, &c._\n\n_Ham_. Good sir whose powers are these?\n\n_Cap_. They are of _Norway_ sir.\n\n_Ham_. How purposd sir I pray you?\n\n_Cap_. Against some part of _Poland_.\n\n_Ham_. Who commaunds them sir?\n\n_Cap_. The Nephew to old _Norway, Fortenbrasse_.\n\n_Ham_. Goes it against the maine of _Poland_ sir,\nOr for some frontire?\n\n_Cap_. Truly to speake, and with no addition,[6]\nWe goe to gaine a little patch of ground[7]\nThat hath in it no profit but the name\nTo pay fiue duckets, fiue I would not farme it;\nNor will it yeeld to _Norway_ or the _Pole_\nA rancker rate, should it be sold in fee.\n\n_Ham_. Why then the Pollacke neuer will defend it.\n\n_Cap_. Yes, it is already garisond.\n\n_Ham_. Two thousand soules, and twenty thousand duckets\nWill not debate the question of this straw\nThis is th'Impostume of much wealth and peace,\nThat inward breakes, and showes no cause without\nWhy the man dies.[8] I humbly thanke you sir.\n\n_Cap_. God buy you sir.\n\n_Ros_. Wil't please you goe my Lord?\n\n[Sidenote: 187, 195] _Ham_. Ile be with you straight, goe a little\nbefore.[9]\n[10]How all occasions[11] doe informe against me,\n\n[Continued on next text page.]]\n\n[Footnote 1: 'we shall pay our respects, waiting upon his person.']\n\n[Footnote 2: 'let,' _imperative mood_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: 'with proper precaution,' _said to his attendant\nofficers._]\n\n[Footnote 4: This was originally intended, I repeat, for the\ncommencement of the act. But when the greater part of the foregoing\nscene was omitted, and the third act made to end with the scene before\nthat, then the small part left of the all-but-cancelled scene must open\nthe fourth act.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Hamlet absent, we find his friend looking after Ophelia.\nGertrude seems less friendly towards her.]\n\n[Footnote 6: exaggeration.]\n\n[Footnote 7: --probably a small outlying island or coast-fortress, _not\nfar off_, else why should Norway care about it at all? If the word\n_frontier_ has the meaning, as the _Shakespeare Lexicon_ says, of 'an\noutwork in fortification,' its use two lines back would, taken\nfiguratively, tend to support this.]\n\n[Footnote 8: The meaning may be as in the following paraphrase: 'This\nquarrelling about nothing is (the breaking of) the abscess caused by\nwealth and peace--which breaking inward (in general corruption), would\nshow no outward sore in sign of why death came.' Or it might be _forced_\nthus:--\n\n    This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace.\n    That (which) inward breaks, and shows no cause without--\n    Why, the man dies!\n\nBut it may mean:--'The war is an imposthume, which will break within,\nand cause much affliction to the people that make the war.' On the other\nhand, Hamlet seems to regard it as a process for, almost a sign of\nhealth.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Note his freedom.]\n\n[Footnote 10: _See_ 'examples grosse as earth' _below_.]\n\n[Footnote 11: While every word that Shakspere wrote we may well take\npains to grasp thoroughly, my endeavour to cast light on this passage is\nmade with the distinct understanding in my own mind that the author\nhimself disapproved of and omitted it, and that good reason is not\nwanting why he should have done so. At the same time, if my student, for\nthis book is for those who would have help and will take pains to the\ntrue understanding of the play, would yet retain the passage, I protest\nagainst the acceptance of Hamlet's judgment of himself, except as\nrevealing the simplicity and humility of his nature and character. That\nas often as a vivid memory of either interview with the Ghost came back\nupon him, he should feel rebuked and ashamed, and vexed with himself,\nis, in the morally, intellectually, and emotionally troubled state of\nhis mind, nowise the less natural that he had the best of reasons for\nthe delay because of which he _here_ so unmercifully abuses himself. A\nman of self-satisfied temperament would never in similar circumstances\nhave done so. But Hamlet was, by nature and education, far from such\nself-satisfaction; and there is in him besides such a strife and turmoil\nof opposing passions and feelings and apparent duties, as can but rarely\nrise in a human soul. With which he ought to side, his conscience is not\nsure--sides therefore now with one, now with another. At the same time\nit is by no means the long delay the critics imagine of which he is\naccusing himself--it is only that the thing _is not done_.\n\nIn certain moods the action a man dislikes will _therefore_ look to him\nthe more like a duty; and this helps to prevent Hamlet from knowing\nalways how great a part conscience bears in the omission because of\nwhich he condemns and even contemns himself. The conscience does not\nnaturally examine itself--is not necessarily self-conscious. In any\nsoliloquy, a man must speak from his present mood: we who are not\nsuffering, and who have many of his moods before us, ought to understand\nHamlet better than he understands himself. To himself, sitting in\njudgment on himself, it would hardly appear a decent cause of, not to\nsay reason for, a moment's delay in punishing his uncle, that he was so\nweighed down with misery because of his mother and Ophelia, that it\nseemed of no use to kill one villain out of the villainous world; it\nwould seem but 'bestial oblivion'; and, although his reputation as a\nprince was deeply concerned, _any_ reflection on the consequences to\nhimself would at times appear but a 'craven scruple'; while at times\neven the whispers of conscience might seem a 'thinking too precisely on\nthe event.' A conscientious man of changeful mood wilt be very ready in\neither mood to condemn the other. The best and rightest men will\nsometimes accuse themselves in a manner that seems to those who know\nthem best, unfounded, unreasonable, almost absurd. We must not, I say,\ntake the hero's judgment of himself as the author's judgment of him. The\ntwo judgments, that of a man upon himself from within, and that of his\nbeholder upon him from without, are not congeneric. They are different\nin origin and in kind, and cannot be adopted either of them into the\nsource of the other without most serious and dangerous mistake. So\nadopted, each becomes another thing altogether. It is to me probable\nthat, although it involves other unfitnesses, the Poet omitted the\npassage chiefly from coming to see the danger of its giving occasion, or\nat least support, to an altogether mistaken and unjust idea of his\nHamlet.]\n\n[Page 194]\n\nThere's trickes i'th'world, and hems, and beats her heart,\nSpurnes enuiously at Strawes,[1] speakes things in doubt,[2]\nThat carry but halfe sense: Her speech is nothing,[3]\nYet the vnshaped vse of it[4] doth moue\nThe hearers to Collection[5]; they ayme[6] at it,\n                                               [Sidenote: they yawne at]\nAnd botch the words[7] vp fit to their owne thoughts\n\n\n[_Continuation of quote from Quarto from previous text page_:--\n\nAnd spur my dull reuenge. [8]What is a man\nIf his chiefe good and market of his time\nBe but to sleepe and feede, a beast, no more;\nSure he that made vs with such large discourse[9]\nLooking before and after, gaue vs not\nThat capabilitie and god-like reason\nTo fust in vs vnvsd,[8] now whether it be\n[Sidenote: 52, 120] Bestiall obliuion,[10] or some crauen scruple\nOf thinking too precisely on th'euent,[11]\nA thought which quarterd hath but one part wisedom,\nAnd euer three parts coward, I doe not know\nWhy yet I liue to say this thing's to doe,\nSith I haue cause, and will, and strength, and meanes\nTo doo't;[12] examples grosse as earth exhort me,\nWitnes this Army of such masse and charge,\n[Sidenote: 235] Led by a delicate and tender Prince,\nWhose spirit with diuine ambition puft,\nMakes mouthes at the invisible euent,\n[Sidenote: 120] Exposing what is mortall, and vnsure,\nTo all that fortune, death, and danger dare,[13]\nEuen for an Egge-shell. Rightly to be great,\nIs not to stirre without great argument,\nBut greatly to find quarrell in a straw\nWhen honour's at the stake, how stand I then\nThat haue a father kild, a mother staind,\nExcytements of my reason, and my blood,\nAnd let all sleepe,[14] while to my shame I see\nThe iminent death of twenty thousand men,\nThat for a fantasie and tricke[15] of fame\nGoe to their graues like beds, fight for a plot\nWhereon the numbers cannot try the cause,[16]\nWhich is not tombe enough and continent[17]\nTo hide the slaine,[18] \u00f4 from this time forth,\nMy thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth.[19]    _Exit._]\n\n[Footnote 1: trifles.]\n\n[Footnote 2: doubtfully.]\n\n[Footnote 3: 'there is nothing in her speech.']\n\n[Footnote 4: 'the formless mode of it.']\n\n[Footnote 5: 'to gathering things and putting them together.']\n\n[Footnote 6: guess.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Ophelia's words.]\n\n[Footnote 8: I am in doubt whether this passage from 'What is a man'\ndown to 'unused,' does not refer to the king, and whether Hamlet is not\npersuading himself that it can be no such objectionable thing to kill\none hardly above a beast. At all events it is far more applicable to the\nking: it was not one of Hamlet's faults, in any case, to fail of using\nhis reason. But he may just as well accuse himself of that too! At the\nsame time the worst neglect of reason lies in not carrying out its\nconclusions, and if we cannot justify Hamlet in his delay, the passage\nis of good application to him. 'Bestiall oblivion' does seem to connect\nhimself with the reflection; but how thoroughly is the thing intended by\nsuch a phrase alien from the character of Hamlet!]\n\n[Footnote 9: --the mental faculty of running hither and thither: 'We\nlook before and after.' _Shelley: To a Skylark_.]\n\n[Footnote 10: --the forgetfulness of such a beast as he has just\nmentioned.]\n\n[Footnote 11: --the _consequences_. The scruples that come of thinking\nof the event, Hamlet certainly had: that they were _craven_ scruples,\nthat his thinking was too precise, I deny to the face of the noble\nself-accuser. Is that a craven scruple which, seeing no good to result\nfrom the horrid deed, shrinks from its irretrievableness, and demands at\nleast absolute assurance of guilt? or that 'a thinking too precisely on\nthe event,' to desire, as the prince of his people, to leave an un\nwounded name behind him?]\n\n[Footnote 12: This passage is the strongest there is on the side of the\nordinary misconception of the character of Hamlet. It comes from\nhimself; and it is as ungenerous as it is common and unfair to use such\na weapon against a man. Does any but St. Paul himself say he was the\nchief of sinners? Consider Hamlet's condition, tormented on all sides,\nwithin and without, and think whether this outbreak against himself be\nnot as unfair as it is natural. Lest it should be accepted against him,\nShakspere did well to leave it out. In bitter disappointment, both\nbecause of what is and what is not, both because of what he has done and\nwhat he has failed to do, having for the time lost all chance, with the\nlast vision of the Ghost still haunting his eyes, his last reproachful\nwords yet ringing in his ears, are we bound to take his judgment of\nhimself because it is against himself? Are we _bound_ to take any man's\njudgment because it is against himself? I answer, 'No more than if it\nwere for himself.' A good man's judgment, where he is at all perplexed,\nespecially if his motive comes within his own question, is ready to be\nagainst himself, as a bad man's is sure to be for himself. Or because he\nis a philosopher, does it follow that throughout he understands himself?\nWere such a man in cool, untroubled conditions, we might feel compelled\nto take his judgment, but surely not here! A philosopher in such state\nas Hamlet's would understand the quality of his spiritual operations\nwith no more certainty than another man. In his present mood, Hamlet\nforgets the cogency of the reasons that swayed him in the other; forgets\nthat his uppermost feeling then was doubt, as horror, indignation, and\nconviction are uppermost now. Things were never so clear to Hamlet as to\nus.\n\nBut how can he say he has strength and means--in the position in which\nhe now finds himself? I am glad to be able to believe, let my defence of\nHamlet against himself be right or wrong, that Shakspere intended the\nomission of the passage. I lay nothing on the great lack of logic\nthroughout the speech, for that would not make it unfit for Hamlet in\nsuch mood, while it makes its omission from the play of less consequence\nto my general argument.]\n\n[Footnote 13: _threaten_. This supports my argument as to the great\nsoliloquy--that it was death as the result of his slaying the king, or\nattempting to do so, not death by suicide, he was thinking of: he\nexpected to die himself in the punishing of his uncle.]\n\n[Footnote 14: He had had no chance but that when the king was on his\nknees.]\n\n[Footnote 15: 'a fancy and illusion.']\n\n[Footnote 16: 'which is too small for those engaged to find room to\nfight on it.']\n\n[Footnote 17: 'continent,' _containing space_.]\n\n[Footnote 18: This soliloquy is antithetic to the other. Here is no\nthought of the 'something after death.']\n\n[Footnote 19: If, with this speech in his mouth, Hamlet goes coolly on\nboard the vessel, _not being compelled thereto_ (190, 192, 216), and\npossessing means to his vengeance, as here he says, and goes merely in\norder to hoist Rosincrance and Guildensterne with their own petard--that\nis, if we must keep the omitted passages, then the author exposes his\nhero to a more depreciatory judgment than any from which I would justify\nhim, and a conception of his character entirely inconsistent with the\nrest of the play. He did not observe the risk at the time he wrote the\npassage, but discovering it afterwards, rectified the oversight--to the\ndissatisfaction of his critics, who have agreed in restoring what he\ncancelled.]\n\n[Page 196]\n\nWhich as her winkes, and nods, and gestures yeeld[1] them,\nIndeed would make one thinke there would[2] be thought,\n                                           [Sidenote: there might[2] be]\nThough nothing sure, yet much vnhappily.\n\n_Qu_. 'Twere good she were spoken with,[3]           [Sidenote: _Hora_.]\nFor she may strew dangerous coniectures\nIn ill breeding minds.[4] Let her come in.  [Sidenote: _Enter Ophelia_.]\nTo my sicke soule (as sinnes true Nature is)\n                                           [Sidenote: _Quee_. 'To my[5]]\nEach toy seemes Prologue, to some great amisse,        [Sidenote: 'Each]\nSo full of Artlesse iealousie is guilt,                  [Sidenote: 'So]\nIt spill's it selfe, in fearing to be spilt.[6]          [Sidenote: 'It]\n\n_Enter Ophelia distracted_.[7]\n\n_Ophe_. Where is the beauteous Maiesty of\nDenmark.\n\n_Qu_. How now _Ophelia_?                       [Sidenote: _shee sings_.]\n\n_Ophe. How should I your true loue know from another one?\nBy his Cockle hat and staffe, and his Sandal shoone._\n\n_Qu_. Alas sweet Lady: what imports this Song?\n\n_Ophe_. Say you? Nay pray you marke.\n_He is dead and gone Lady, he is dead and gone,\nAt his head a grasse-greene Turfe, at his heeles a stone._\n                                                       [Sidenote: O ho.]\n\n_Enter King_.\n\n_Qu_. Nay but _Ophelia_.\n\n_Ophe_. Pray you marke.\n_White his Shrow'd as the Mountaine Snow._     [Sidenote: _Enter King_.]\n\n_Qu_. Alas looke heere my Lord,\n\n[Sidenote: 246] _Ophe. Larded[8] with sweet flowers_:\n                                             [Sidenote: Larded all with]\n_Which bewept to the graue did not go_,     [Sidenote: ground | _Song_.]\n_With true-loue showres_,\n\n[Footnote 1: 'present them,'--her words, that is--giving significance or\ninterpretation to them.]\n\n[Footnote 2: If this _would_, and not the _might_ of the _Quarto_, be\nthe correct reading, it means that Ophelia would have something thought\nso and so.]\n\n[Footnote 3: --changing her mind on Horatio's representation. At first\nshe would not speak with her.]\n\n[Footnote 4: 'minds that breed evil.']\n\n[Footnote 5: --as a quotation.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Instance, the history of Macbeth.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _1st Q. Enter Ofelia playing on a Lute, and her haire downe\nsinging._\n\nHamlet's apparent madness would seem to pass into real madness in\nOphelia. King Lear's growing perturbation becomes insanity the moment he\nsees the pretended madman Edgar.\n\nThe forms of Ophelia's madness show it was not her father's death that\ndrove her mad, but his death by the hand of Hamlet, which, with Hamlet's\nbanishment, destroyed all the hope the queen had been fostering in her\nof marrying him some day.]\n\n[Footnote 8: This expression is, as Dr. Johnson says, taken from\ncookery; but it is so used elsewhere by Shakspere that we cannot regard\nit here as a scintillation of Ophelia's insanity.]\n\n[Page 198]\n\n_King_. How do ye, pretty Lady?                          [Sidenote: you]\n\n_Ophe_. Well, God dil'd you.[1] They say the\n                                           [Sidenote: good dild you,[1]]\nOwle was a Bakers daughter.[2] Lord, wee know\nwhat we are, but know not what we may be. God\nbe at your Table.\n\n[Sidenote: 174] _King_. Conceit[3] vpon her Father.\n\n_Ophe_. Pray you let's haue no words of this:      [Sidenote: Pray lets]\nbut when they aske you what it meanes, say you\nthis:\n\n[4] _To morrow is S. Valentines day, all in the morning betime,\nAnd I a Maid at your Window to be your Valentine.\nThen vp he rose, and don'd[5] his clothes, and dupt[5] the chamber dore,\nLet in the Maid, that out a Maid, neuer departed more._\n\n_King_. Pretty _Ophelia._\n\n_Ophe_. Indeed la? without an oath Ile make an\n                                             [Sidenote: Indeede without]\nend ont.[6]\n\n_By gis, and by S. Charity,\nAlacke, and fie for shame:\nYong men wil doo't, if they come too't,\nBy Cocke they are too blame.\nQuoth she before you tumbled me,\nYou promis'd me to Wed:\nSo would I ha done by yonder Sunne_,  [Sidenote: (He answers,) So would]\n_And thou hadst not come to my bed._\n\n_King_. How long hath she bin this?              [Sidenote: beene thus?]\n\n_Ophe_. I hope all will be well. We must bee\npatient, but I cannot choose but weepe, to thinke\nthey should lay him i'th'cold ground: My brother\n                                              [Sidenote: they wouid lay]\nshall knowe of it, and so I thanke you for your\ngood counsell. Come, my Coach: Goodnight\nLadies: Goodnight sweet Ladies: Goodnight,\ngoodnight.                       _Exit_[7]\n\n[Footnote 1: _1st Q_. 'God yeeld you,' that is, _reward you_. Here we\nhave a blunder for the contraction, 'God 'ild you'--perhaps a common\nblunder.]\n\n[Footnote 2: For the silly legend, see Douce's note in _Johnson and\nSteevens_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: imaginative brooding.]\n\n[Footnote 4: We dare no judgment on madness in life: we need not in\nart.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Preterites of _don_ and _dup_, contracted from _do on_ and\n_do up_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: --disclaiming false modesty.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _Not in Q_.]\n\n[Page 200]\n\n_King_. Follow her close,\nGiue her good watch I pray you:\nOh this is the poyson of deepe greefe, it springs\nAll from her Fathers death. Oh _Gertrude, Gertrude_,\n      [Sidenote: death, and now behold, \u00f4 _Gertrard, Gertrard_,]\nWhen sorrowes comes, they come not single spies,[1]\n                                               [Sidenote: sorrowes come]\nBut in Battaliaes. First, her Father slaine,     [Sidenote: battalians:]\nNext your Sonne gone, and he most violent Author\nOf his owne iust remoue: the people muddied,[2]\nThicke and vnwholsome in their thoughts, and whispers\n                                                 [Sidenote: in thoughts]\nFor[3] good _Polonius_ death; and we haue done but greenly\n[Sidenote: 182] In hugger mugger[4] to interre him. Poore _Ophelia_\nDiuided from her selfe,[5] and her faire Iudgement,\nWithout the which we are Pictures, or meere Beasts.\nLast, and as much containing as all these,\nHer Brother is in secret come from France,\nKeepes on his wonder,[6] keepes himselfe in clouds,\n                                            [Sidenote: Feeds on this[6]]\nAnd wants not Buzzers to infect his eare                [Sidenote: care]\nWith pestilent Speeches of his Fathers death,\nWhere in necessitie of matter Beggard,     [Sidenote: Wherein necessity]\nWill nothing sticke our persons to Arraigne           [Sidenote: person]\nIn eare and eare.[7] O my deere _Gertrude_, this,\nLike to a murdering Peece[8] in many places,\nGiues me superfluous death.          _A Noise within_.\n\n_Enter a Messenger_.\n\n_Qu_. Alacke, what noyse is this?[9]\n\n_King_. Where are my _Switzers_?[10]\n                       [Sidenote: _King_. Attend, where is my Swissers,]\nLet them guard the doore. What is the matter?\n\n_Mes_. Saue your selfe, my Lord.\n[Sidenote: 120] The Ocean (ouer-peering of his List[11])\nEates not the Flats with more impittious[12] haste\n\n[Footnote 1: --each alone, like scouts.]\n\n[Footnote 2: stirred up like pools--with similar result.]\n\n[Footnote 3: because of.]\n\n[Footnote 4: The king wished to avoid giving the people any pretext or\ncause for interfering: he dreaded whatever might lead to enquiry--to the\nqueen of course pretending it was to avoid exposing Hamlet to the\npopular indignation. _Hugger mugger--secretly: Steevens and Malone._]\n\n[Footnote 5: The phrase has the same _visual_ root as _beside\nherself_--both signifying '_not at one_ with herself.']\n\n[Footnote 6: If the _Quarto_ reading is right, 'this wonder' means the\nhurried and suspicious funeral of his father. But the _Folio_ reading is\nquite Shaksperean: 'He keeps on (as a garment) the wonder of the people\nat him'; _keeps his behaviour such that the people go on wondering about\nhim_: the phrase is explained by the next clause. Compare:\n\n    By being seldom seen, I could not stir\n    But, like a comet, I was wondered at.\n\n_K. Henry IV. P. I_. act iii. sc. 1.]\n\n[Footnote 7: 'wherein Necessity, beggared of material, will not scruple\nto whisper invented accusations against us.']\n\n[Footnote 8: --the name given to a certain small cannon--perhaps charged\nwith various missiles, hence the better figuring the number and variety\nof 'sorrows' he has just recounted.]\n\n[Footnote 9: _This line not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 10: Note that the king is well guarded, and Hamlet had to lay\nhis account with great risk in the act of killing him.]\n\n[Footnote 11: _border, as of cloth_: the mounds thrown up to keep the sea out.\nThe figure here specially fits a Dane.]\n\n[Footnote 12: I do not know whether this word means _pitiless_, or\nstands for _impetuous_. The _Quarto_ has one _t_.]\n\n[Page 202]\n\nThen young _Laertes_, in a Riotous head,[1]\nOre-beares your Officers, the rabble call him Lord,\nAnd as the world were now but to begin,\nAntiquity forgot, Custome not knowne,\nThe Ratifiers and props of euery word,[2]\n[Sidenote: 62] They cry choose we? _Laertes_ shall be King,[3]\n                                                     [Sidenote: The cry]\nCaps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds,\n_Laertes_ shall be King, _Laertes_ King.\n\n_Qu_. How cheerefully on the false Traile they cry,\n                                           [Sidenote: _A noise within_.]\nOh this is Counter you false Danish Dogges.[4]\n\n_Noise within.  Enter Laertes_[5].    [Sidenote: _Laertes with others_.]\n\n_King_. The doores are broke.\n\n_Laer_. Where is the King, sirs? Stand you all without.\n                                       [Sidenote: this King? sirs stand]\n\n_All_. No, let's come in.\n\n_Laer_. I pray you giue me leaue.[6]\n\n_All_. We will, we will.\n\n_Laer_. I thanke you: Keepe the doore.\nOh thou vilde King, giue me my Father.\n\n_Qu_. Calmely good _Laertes_.\n\n_Laer_. That drop of blood, that calmes[7]       [Sidenote: thats calme]\nProclaimes me Bastard:\nCries Cuckold to my Father, brands the Harlot\nEuen heere betweene the chaste vnsmirched brow\nOf my true Mother.[8]\n\n_Kin_. What is the cause _Laertes_,\nThat thy Rebellion lookes so Gyant-like?\nLet him go _Gertrude_: Do not feare[9] our person:\nThere's such Diuinity doth hedge a King,[10]\nThat Treason can but peepe to what it would,\nActs little of his will.[11] Tell me _Laertes_,\n\n[Footnote 1: _Head_ is a rising or gathering of people--generally\nrebellious, I think.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Antiquity and Custom.]\n\n[Footnote 3: This refers to the election of Claudius--evidently not a\npopular election, but effected by intrigue with the aristocracy and the\narmy: 'They cry, Let us choose: Laertes shall be king!'\n\nWe may suppose the attempt of Claudius to have been favoured by the\nlingering influence of the old Norse custom of succession, by which not\nthe son but the brother inherited. 16, _bis._]\n\n[Footnote 4: To hunt counter is to 'hunt the game by the heel or track.'\nThe queen therefore accuses them of not using their scent or judgment,\nbut following appearances.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Now at length re-appears Laertes, who has during the\ninterim been ripening in Paris for villainy. He is wanted for the\ncatastrophe, and requires but the last process of a few hours in the\nhell-oven of a king's instigation.]\n\n[Footnote 6: The customary and polite way of saying _leave me_: 'grant\nme your absence.' 85, 89.]\n\n[Footnote 7: grows calm.]\n\n[Footnote 8: In taking vengeance Hamlet must acknowledge his mother such\nas Laertes says inaction on his part would proclaim his mother.\n\nThe actress should here let a shadow cross the queen's face: though too\nweak to break with the king, she has begun to repent.]\n\n[Footnote 9: fear _for_.]\n\n[Footnote 10: The consummate hypocrite claims the protection of the\nsacred hedge through which he had himself broken--or crept rather, like\na snake, to kill. He can act innocence the better that his conscience is\nclear as to Polonius.]\n\n[Footnote 11: 'can only peep through the hedge to its desire--acts\nlittle of its will.']\n\n[Page 204]\n\nWhy thou art thus Incenst? Let him go _Gertrude_.\nSpeake man.\n\n_Laer_. Where's my Father?                             [Sidenote: is my]\n\n_King_. Dead.\n\n_Qu_. But not by him.\n\n_King_. Let him demand his fill.\n\n_Laer_. How came he dead? Ile not be Iuggel'd with.\nTo hell Allegeance: Vowes, to the blackest diuell.\nConscience and Grace, to the profoundest Pit\nI dare Damnation: to this point I stand,\nThat both the worlds I giue to negligence,\nLet come what comes: onely Ile be reueng'd\nMost throughly for my Father.\n\n_King_. Who shall stay you?[1]\n\n_Laer_. My Will, not all the world,[1]               [Sidenote: worlds:]\nAnd for my meanes, Ile husband them so well,\nThey shall go farre with little.\n\n_King_. Good _Laertes_:\nIf you desire to know the certaintie\nOf your deere Fathers death, if writ in your reuenge,\n                                           [Sidenote: Father, i'st writ]\nThat Soop-stake[2] you will draw both Friend and Foe,\nWinner and Looser.[3]\n\n_Laer_. None but his Enemies.\n\n_King_. Will you know them then.\n\n_La_. To his good Friends, thus wide Ile ope my Armes:\nAnd like the kinde Life-rend'ring Politician,[4]\n                                      [Sidenote: life-rendring Pelican,]\nRepast them with my blood.[5]\n\n_King_. Why now you speake\nLike a good Childe,[6] and a true Gentleman.\nThat I am guiltlesse of your Fathers death,\nAnd am most sensible in greefe for it,[7]           [Sidenote: sencibly]\n\n[Footnote 1:\n\n    'Who shall _prevent_ you?'\n    'My own will only--not all the world,'\n\nor,\n\n    'Who will _support_ you?'\n    'My will. Not all the world shall prevent me,'--\n\nso playing on the two meanings of the word _stay._ Or it _might_ mean:\n'Not all the world shall stay my will.']\n\n[Footnote 2: swoop-stake--_sweepstakes_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: 'and be loser as well as winner--' If the _Folio's_ is\nthe right reading, then the sentence is unfinished, and should have a\ndash, not a period.]\n\n[Footnote 4: A curious misprint: may we not suspect a somewhat dull\njoker among the compositors?]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'a true son to your father.']\n\n[Footnote 7: 'feel much grief for it.']\n\n[Footnote 5: Laertes is a ranter--false everywhere.\n\nPlainly he is introduced as the foil from which Hamlet 'shall stick\nfiery off.' In this speech he shows his moral condition directly the\nopposite of Hamlet's: he has no principle but revenge. His conduct ought\nto be quite satisfactory to Hamlet's critics; there is action enough in\nit of the very kind they would have of Hamlet; and doubtless it would be\nsatisfactory to them but for the treachery that follows. The one, dearly\nloving a father who deserves immeasurably better of him than Polonius of\nLaertes, will not for the sake of revenge disregard either conscience,\njustice, or grace; the other will not delay even to inquire into the\nfacts of his father's fate, but will act at once on hearsay, rushing to\na blind satisfaction that cannot even be called retaliation, caring for\nneither right nor wrong, cursing conscience and the will of God, and\ndaring damnation. He slights assurance as to the hand by which his\nfather fell, dismisses all reflection that might interfere with a stupid\nrevenge. To make up one's mind at once, and act without ground, is\nweakness, not strength: this Laertes does--and is therefore just the man\nto be the villainous, not the innocent, tool of villainy. He who has\nsufficing ground and refuses to act is weak; but the ground that will\nsatisfy the populace, of which the commonplace critic is the fair type,\nwill not satisfy either the man of conscience or of wisdom. The mass of\nworld-bepraised action owes its existence to the pressure of\ncircumstance, not to the will and conscience of the man. Hamlet waits\nfor light, even with his heart accusing him; Laertes rushes into the\ndark, dagger in hand, like a mad Malay: so he kill, he cares not whom.\nSuch a man is easily tempted to the vilest treachery, for the light that\nis in him is darkness; he is not a true man; he is false in himself.\nThis is what comes of his father's maxim:\n\n    To thine own self be true;\n    And it must follow, _as the night the day_ (!)\n    Thou canst not then be false to any man.\n\nLike the aphorism 'Honesty is the best policy,' it reveals the\ndifference between a fact and a truth. Both sayings are correct as\nfacts, but as guides of conduct devilishly false, leading to dishonesty\nand treachery. To be true to the divine self in us, is indeed to be true\nto all; but it is only by being true to all, against the ever present\nand urging false self, that at length we shall see the divine self rise\nabove the chaotic waters of our selfishness, and know it so as to be\ntrue to it.\n\nOf Laertes we must note also that it is not all for love of his father\nthat he is ready to cast allegiance to hell, and kill the king: he has\nthe voice of the people to succeed him.]\n\n[Page 206]\n\n[Sidenote: 184] It shall as leuell to your Iudgement pierce\n                                                      [Sidenote: peare']\nAs day do's to your eye.[1]\n\n_A noise within. [2]Let her come in._\n\n_Enter Ophelia[3]_\n\n_Laer_. How now? what noise is that?[4]\n                           [Sidenote: _Laer_. Let her come in. How now,]\nOh heate drie vp my Braines, teares seuen times salt,\nBurne out the Sence and Vertue of mine eye.\nBy Heauen, thy madnesse shall be payed by waight,\n                                                 [Sidenote: with weight]\nTill our Scale turnes the beame. Oh Rose of May,       [Sidenote: turne]\nDeere Maid, kinde Sister, sweet _Ophelia_:\nOh Heauens, is't possible, a yong Maids wits,\nShould be as mortall as an old mans life?[5]    [Sidenote: a poore mans]\nNature is fine[6] in Loue, and where 'tis fine,\nIt sends some precious instance of it selfe\nAfter the thing it loues.[7]\n\n_Ophe. They bore him bare fac'd on the Beer._\n                              [Sidenote: _Song_.] [Sidenote: bare-faste]\n_Hey non nony, nony, hey nony:[8]\nAnd on his graue raines many a teare_,\n                                     [Sidenote: And in his graue rain'd]\n_Fare you well my Doue._\n\n_Laer_. Had'st thou thy wits, and did'st perswade\nReuenge, it could not moue thus.\n\n_Ophe_. You must sing downe a-downe, and\n                                   [Sidenote: sing a downe a downe, And]\nyou call him[9] a-downe-a. Oh, how the wheele[10]\nbecomes it? It is the false Steward that stole his\nmasters daughter.[11]\n\n_Laer_. This nothings more then matter.[12]\n\n_Ophe_. There's Rosemary,[13] that's for Remembraunce.\nPray loue remember: and there is             [Sidenote: , pray you loue]\nPaconcies, that's for Thoughts.                  [Sidenote: Pancies[14]]\n\n_Laer_. A document[15] in madnesse, thoughts and\nremembrance fitted.\n\n_Ophe_. There's Fennell[16] for you, and Columbines[16]:\nther's Rew[17] for you, and heere's some for\n\n[Footnote 1: 'pierce as _directly_ to your judgment.'\n\nBut the simile of the _day_ seems to favour the reading of the\n_Q._--'peare,' for _appear_. In the word _level_ would then be indicated\nthe _rising_ sun.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 3: _1st Q. 'Enter Ofelia as before_.']\n\n[Footnote 4: To render it credible that Laertes could entertain the vile\nproposal the king is about to make, it is needful that all possible\ninfluences should be represented as combining to swell the commotion of\nhis spirit, and overwhelm what poor judgment and yet poorer conscience\nhe had. Altogether unprepared, he learns Ophelia's pitiful condition by\nthe sudden sight of the harrowing change in her--and not till after that\nhears who killed his father and brought madness on his sister.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _1st Q._\n\n    I'st possible a yong maides life,\n    Should be as mortall as an olde mans sawe?]\n\n[Footnote 6: delicate, exquisite.]\n\n[Footnote 7: 'where 'tis fine': I suggest that the _it_ here may be\nimpersonal: 'where _things_, where _all_ is fine,' that is, 'in a fine\nsoul'; then the meaning would be, 'Nature is fine always in love, and\nwhere the soul also is fine, she sends from it' &c. But the _where_ may\nbe equal, perhaps, to _whereas_. I can hardly think the phrase means\nmerely '_and where it is in love_.' It might intend--'and where Love is\nfine, it sends' &c. The 'precious instance of itself,' that is,\n'something that is a part and specimen of itself,' is here the 'young\nmaid's wits': they are sent after the 'old man's life.'--These three\nlines are not in the Quarto. It is not disputed that they are from\nShakspere's hand: if the insertion of these be his, why should the\nomission of others not be his also?]\n\n[Footnote 8: _This line is not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 9: '_if_ you call him': I think this is not a part of the\nsong, but is spoken of her father.]\n\n[Footnote 10: _the burden of the song_: Steevens.]\n\n[Footnote 11: The subject of the ballad.]\n\n[Footnote 12: 'more than sense'--in incitation to revenge.]\n\n[Footnote 13: --an evergreen, and carried at funerals: _Johnson_.\n\n    For you there's rosemary and rue; these keep\n    Seeming and savour ail the winter long:\n    Grace and remembrance be to you both.\n\n_The Winter's Tale_, act iv. sc. 3.]\n\n[Footnote 14: _pense\u00e9s_.]\n\n[Footnote 15: _a teaching, a lesson_--the fitting of thoughts and\nremembrance, namely--which he applies to his intent of revenge. Or may\nit not rather be meant that the putting of these two flowers together\nwas a happy hit of her madness, presenting the fantastic emblem of a\ndocument or writing--the very idea of which is the keeping of thoughts\nin remembrance?]\n\n[Footnote 16: --said to mean _flattery_ and _thanklessness_--perhaps\ngiven to the king.]\n\n[Footnote 17: _Repentance_--given to the queen. Another name of the\nplant was _Herb-Grace_, as below, in allusion, doubtless, to its common\nname--_rue_ or _repentance_ being both the gift of God, and an act of\ngrace.]\n\n[Page 208]\n\nme. Wee may call it Herbe-Grace a Sundaies:\n                    [Sidenote: herbe of Grace a Sondaies, you may weare]\nOh you must weare your Rew with a difference.[1]\nThere's a Daysie,[2] I would giue you some Violets,[3]\nbut they wither'd all when my Father dyed: They\nsay, he made a good end;                          [Sidenote: say a made]\n\n_For bonny sweet Robin is all my ioy._\n\n_Laer_. Thought, and Affliction, Passion, Hell it selfe:\n                                                [Sidenote: afflictions,]\nShe turnes to Fauour, and to prettinesse.\n\n                                                      [Sidenote:_Song._]\n\n_Ophe. And will he not come againe_,              [Sidenote: will a not]\n_And will he not come againe_:                    [Sidenote: will a not]\n_No, no, he is dead, go to thy Death-bed,\nHe neuer wil come againe.\nHis Beard as white as Snow_,                    [Sidenote: beard was as]\n_All[4] Flaxen was his Pole:\nHe is gone, he is gone, and we cast away mone,\nGramercy[5] on his Soule._                    [Sidenote: God a mercy on]\nAnd of all Christian Soules, I pray God.[6]\n                                          [Sidenote: Christians soules,]\nGod buy ye.[7]          _Exeunt Ophelia_[8]             [Sidenote: you.]\n\n_Laer_. Do you see this, you Gods?       [Sidenote: Doe you this \u00f4 God.]\n\n_King. Laertes_, I must common[9] with your greefe,  [Sidenote: commune]\nOr you deny me right: go but apart,\nMake choice of whom your wisest Friends you will,\nAnd they shall heare and iudge 'twixt you and me;\nIf by direct or by Colaterall hand\nThey finde vs touch'd,[10] we will our Kingdome giue,\nOur Crowne, our Life, and all that we call Ours\nTo you in satisfaction. But if not,\nBe you content to lend your patience to vs,[11]\nAnd we shall ioyntly labour with your soule\nTo giue it due content.\n\n_Laer_. Let this be so:[12]\nHis meanes of death,[13] his obscure buriall;      [Sidenote: funerall,]\nNo Trophee, Sword, nor Hatchment o're his bones,[14]\n\n[Footnote 1: --perhaps the heraldic term. The Poet, not Ophelia, intends\nthe special fitness of the speech. Ophelia means only that the rue of\nthe matron must differ from the rue of the girl.]\n\n[Footnote 2: 'the dissembling daisy': _Greene_--quoted by _Henley_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: --standing for _faithfulness: Malone_, from an old song.]\n\n[Footnote 4: '_All' not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 5: Wherever else Shakspere uses the word, it is in the sense\nof _grand merci--great thanks (Skeat's Etym. Dict.)_; here it is surely\na corruption, whether Ophelia's or the printer's, of the _Quarto_\nreading, '_God a mercy_' which, spoken quickly, sounds very near\n_gramercy_. The _1st Quarto_ also has 'God a mercy.']\n\n[Footnote 6: 'I pray God.' _not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 7: 'God b' wi' ye': _good bye._]\n\n[Footnote 8: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 9: 'I must have a share in your grief.' The word does mean\n_commune_, but here is more pregnant, as evidenced in the next phrase,\n'Or you deny me right:'--'do not give me justice.']\n\n[Footnote 10: 'touched with the guilt of the deed, either as having done\nit with our own hand, or caused it to be done by the hand of one at our\nside.']\n\n[Footnote 11: We may paraphrase thus: 'Be pleased to grant us a loan of\nyour patience,' that is, _be patient for a while at our request_, 'and\nwe will work along with your soul to gain for it (your soul) just\nsatisfaction.']\n\n[Footnote 12: He consents--but immediately _re-sums_ the grounds of his\nwrathful suspicion.]\n\n[Footnote 13: --the way in which he met his death.]\n\n[Footnote 14: --customary honours to the noble dead. _A trophy_ was an\narrangement of the armour and arms of the dead in a set decoration. The\norigin of the word _hatchment_ shows its intent: it is a corruption of\n_achievement_.]\n\n[Page 210]\n\nNo Noble rite, nor formall ostentation,[1]\nCry to be heard, as 'twere from Heauen to Earth,\nThat I must call in question.[2]                   [Sidenote: call't in]\n\n_King_. So you shall:\nAnd where th'offence is, let the great Axe fall.\nI pray you go with me.[3]                _Exeunt_\n\n_Enter Horatio, with an Attendant_.    [Sidenote: _Horatio and others_.]\n\n_Hora_. What are they that would speake with\nme?\n\n_Ser_. Saylors sir, they say they haue Letters\n                                           [_Gent_. Sea-faring men sir,]\nfor you.\n\n_Hor_. Let them come in,[4]\nI do not know from what part of the world\nI should be greeted, if not from Lord _Hamlet_.\n\n_Enter Saylor_.                                   [Sidenote: _Saylers_.]\n\n_Say_. God blesse you Sir.\n\n_Hor_. Let him blesse thee too.\n\n_Say_. Hee shall Sir, and't[5] please him. There's\n                                      [Sidenote: A shall sir and please]\na Letter for you Sir: It comes from th'Ambassadours\n                                  [Sidenote: it came fr\u00f5 th' Embassador]\nthat was bound for England, if your name\nbe _Horatio_, as I am let to know[6] it is.\n\n_Reads the Letter_[7]\n\nHoratio, _When thou shalt haue ouerlook'd this_,\n                                         [Sidenote: _Hor. Horatio_ when]\n_giue these Fellowes some meanes to the King: They\nhaue Letters for him. Ere we were two dayes[8] old\nat Sea, a Pyrate of very Warlicke appointment gaue\nvs Chace. Finding our selues too slow of Saile, we\nput on a compelled Valour. In the Grapple, I boarded_\n                                          [Sidenote: valour, and in the]\n_them: On the instant they got cleare of our Shippe,\nso I alone became their Prisoner.[9] They haue dealt\nwith mee, like Theeues of Mercy, but they knew what\nthey did. I am to doe a good turne for them. Let_\n                                                     [Sidenote: a turne]\n_the King have the Letters I haue sent, and repaire\nthou to me with as much hast as thou wouldest flye_\n                                              [Sidenote: much speede as]\n_death[10] I haue words to speake in your eare, will_\n                                               [Sidenote: in thine eare]\n\n[Footnote 1: 'formal ostentation'--show or publication of honour\naccording to form or rule.]\n\n[Footnote 2: 'so that I must call in question'--institute inquiry; or\n'--_that_ (these things) I must call in question.']\n\n[Footnote 3: Note such a half line frequently after the not uncommon\nclosing couplet--as if to take off the formality of the couplet, and\nlead back, through the more speech-like, to greater verisimilitude.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Here the servant goes, and the rest of the speech Horatio\nspeaks _solus_. He had expected to hear from Hamlet.]\n\n[Footnote 5: 'and it please'--_if it please_. _An_ for _if_ is merely\n_and_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'I am told.']\n\n[Footnote 7: _Not in Q_.]\n\n[Footnote 8: This gives an approximate clue to the time between the\nsecond and third acts: it needs not have been a week.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Note once more the unfailing readiness of Hamlet where\nthere was no question as to the fitness of the action seemingly\nrequired. This is the man who by too much thinking, forsooth, has\nrendered himself incapable of action!--so far ahead of the foremost\nbehind him, that, when the pirate, not liking such close quarters, 'on\nthe instant got clear,' he is the only one on her deck! There was no\nquestion here as to what ought to be done: the pirate grappled them; he\nboarded her. Thereafter, with his prompt faculty for dealing with men,\nhe soon comes to an understanding with his captors, and they agree, upon\nsome certain condition, to put him on shore.\n\nHe writes in unusual spirits; for he has now gained full, presentable,\nand indisputable proof of the treachery which before he scarcely\ndoubted, but could not demonstrate. The present instance of it has to do\nwith himself, not his father, but in itself would justify the slaying of\nhis uncle, whose plausible way had possibly perplexed him so that he\ncould not thoroughly believe him the villain he was: bad as he must be,\ncould he actually have killed his own brother, and _such_ a brother? A\nbetter man than Laertes might have acted more promptly than Hamlet, and\nso happened to _do_ right; but he would not have _been_ right, for the\nproof was _not_ sufficient.]\n\n[Footnote 10: The value Hamlet sets on his discovery, evident in his\njoyous urgency to share it with his friend, is explicable only on the\nground of the relief it is to his mind to be now at length quite certain\nof his duty.]\n\n[Page 212]\n\n_make thee dumbe, yet are they much too light for the\nbore of the Matter.[1] These good Fellowes will bring_\n                                                 [Sidenote: the bord of]\n_thee where I am. Rosincrance and Guildensterne,\nhold their course for England. Of them I haue\nmuch to tell thee, Farewell.\n                       He that thou knowest thine._\n                        [Sidenote: _So that thou knowest thine Hamlet._]\n                                    Hamlet.\n\nCome, I will giue you way for these your Letters,\n                                  [Sidenote: _Hor_. Come I will you way]\nAnd do't the speedier, that you may direct me\nTo him from whom you brought them.      _Exit_.    [Sidenote: _Exeunt._]\n\n_Enter King and Laertes._[2]\n\n_King_. Now must your conscience my acquittance seal,\nAnd you must put me in your heart for Friend,\nSith you haue heard, and with a knowing eare,[3]\nThat he which hath your Noble Father slaine,\nPursued my life.[4]\n\n_Laer_. It well appeares. But tell me,\nWhy you proceeded not against these feates,[5]      [Sidenote: proceede]\nSo crimefull, and so Capitall in Nature,[6]        [Sidenote: criminall]\nAs by your Safety, Wisedome, all things else,\n                                 [Sidenote: safetie, greatnes, wisdome,]\nYou mainly[7] were stirr'd vp?\n\n_King_. O for two speciall Reasons,\nWhich may to you (perhaps) seeme much vnsinnowed,[8]\nAnd yet to me they are strong. The Queen his Mother,\n                                      [Sidenote: But yet | tha'r strong]\nLiues almost by his lookes: and for my selfe,\nMy Vertue or my Plague, be it either which,[9]\nShe's so coniunctiue to my life and soule;\n                                          [Sidenote: she is so concliue]\nThat as the Starre moues not but in his Sphere,[10]\nI could not but by her. The other Motiue,\nWhy to a publike count I might not go,\n[Sidenote: 186] Is the great loue the generall gender[11] beare him,\nWho dipping all his Faults in their affection,\n\n[Footnote 1: Note here also Hamlet's feeling of the importance of what\nhas passed since he parted with his friend. 'The bullet of my words,\nthough it will strike thee dumb, is much too small for the bore of the\nreality (the facts) whence it will issue.']\n\n[Footnote 2: While we have been present at the interview between Horatio\nand the sailors, the king has been persuading Laertes.]\n\n[Footnote 3: an ear of judgment.]\n\n[Footnote 4: 'thought then to have killed me.']\n\n[Footnote 5: _faits_, deeds.]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'deeds so deserving of death, not merely in the eye of the\nlaw, but in their own nature.']\n\n[Footnote 7: powerfully.]\n\n[Footnote 8: 'unsinewed.']\n\n[Footnote 9: 'either-which.']\n\n[Footnote 10: 'moves not but in the moving of his sphere,'--The stars\nwere popularly supposed to be fixed in a solid crystalline sphere, and\nmoved in its motion only. The queen, Claudius implies, is his sphere; he\ncould not move but by her.]\n\n[Footnote 11: Here used in the sense of the Fr. _'genre'--sort_. It is\nnot the only instance of the word so used by Shakspere.\n\nThe king would rouse in Laertes jealousy of Hamlet.]\n\n[Page 214]\n\nWould like the Spring that turneth Wood to Stone, [Sidenote: Worke like]\nConuert his Gyues to Graces.[1] So that my Arrowes\nToo slightly timbred for so loud a Winde,\n                                       [Sidenote: for so loued Arm'd[2]]\nWould haue reuerted to my Bow againe,\nAnd not where I had arm'd them.[2]\n                                  [Sidenote: But not | have aym'd them.]\n\n_Laer_. And so haue I a Noble Father lost,\nA Sister driuen into desperate tearmes,[3]\nWho was (if praises may go backe againe)     [Sidenote: whose worth, if]\nStood Challenger on mount of all the Age\nFor her perfections. But my reuenge will come.\n\n_King_. Breake not your sleepes for that,\nYou must not thinke\nThat we are made of stuffe, so flat, and dull,\nThat we can let our Beard be shooke with danger,[4]\nAnd thinke it pastime. You shortly shall heare more,[5]\nI lou'd your Father, and we loue our Selfe,\nAnd that I hope will teach you to imagine----[6]\n\n_Enter a Messenger_.                         [Sidenote: _with letters._]\n\nHow now? What Newes?\n\n_Mes._ Letters my Lord from _Hamlet_.[7] This to\n                                          [Sidenote: _Messen_. These to]\nyour Maiesty: this to the Queene.\n\n_King_. From _Hamlet_? Who brought them?\n\n_Mes_. Saylors my Lord they say, I saw them not:\nThey were giuen me by _Claudio_, he recciu'd them.[8]\n                              [Sidenote: them Of him that brought them.]\n\n_King. Laertes_ you shall heare them:[9]\nLeaue vs.                 _Exit Messenger_[10]\n\n_High and Mighty, you shall know I am set\nnaked on your Kingdome. To morrow shall I begge\nleaue to see your Kingly Eyes[11] When I shall (first\nasking your Pardon thereunto) recount th'Occasions_\n                        [Sidenote: the occasion of my suddaine returne.]\n_of my sodaine, and more strange returne._[12]\n                                        Hamlet.[13]\nWhat should this meane? Are all the rest come backe?\n                                                [Sidenote: _King_. What]\n\n[Footnote 1: 'would convert his fetters--if I imprisoned him--to graces,\ncommending him yet more to their regard.']\n\n[Footnote 2: _arm'd_ is certainly the right, and a true Shaksperean\nword:--it was no fault in the aim, but in the force of the flight--no\nmatter of the eye, but of the arm, which could not give momentum enough\nto such slightly timbered arrows. The fault in the construction of the\nlast line, I need not remark upon.\n\nI think there is a hint of this the genuine meaning even in the\nblundered and partly unintelligible reading of the _Quarto_. If we leave\nout 'for so loued,' we have this: 'So that my arrows, too slightly\ntimbered, would have reverted armed to my bow again, but not (_would not\nhave gone_) where I have aimed them,'--implying that his arrows would\nhave turned their armed heads against himself.\n\nWhat the king says here is true, but far from _the_ truth: he feared\ndriving Hamlet, and giving him at the same time opportunity, to speak in\nhis own defence and render his reasons.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _extremes_? or _conditions_?]\n\n[Footnote 4: 'With many a tempest hadde his berd ben\nschake.'--_Chaucer_, of the Schipman, in _The Prologue_ to _The\nCanterbury Tales_.]\n\n[Footnote 5: --hear of Hamlet's death in England, he means.\n\nAt this point in the _1st Q._ comes a scene between Horatio and the\nqueen, in which he informs her of a letter he had just received from\nHamlet,\n\n    Whereas he writes how he escap't the danger,\n    And subtle treason that the king had plotted,\n    Being crossed by the contention of the windes,\n    He found the Packet &c.\n\nHoratio does not mention the pirates, but speaks of Hamlet 'being set\nashore,' and of _Gilderstone_ and _Rossencraft_ going on to their fate.\nThe queen assures Horatio that she is but temporizing with the king, and\nshows herself anxious for the success of her son's design against his\nlife. The Poet's intent was not yet clear to himself.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Here his crow cracks.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _From_ 'How now' _to_ 'Hamlet' is _not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 8: Horatio has given the sailors' letters to Claudio, he to\nanother.]\n\n[Footnote 9: He wants to show him that he has nothing behind--that he is\nopen with him: he will read without having pre-read.]\n\n[Footnote 10: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 11: He makes this request for an interview with the intent of\nkilling him. The king takes care he does not have it.]\n\n[Footnote 12: '_more strange than sudden_.']\n\n[Footnote 13: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Page 216]\n\nOr is it some abuse?[1] Or no such thing?[2]\n                                            [Sidenote: abuse, and no[2]]\n\n_Laer_. Know you the hand?[3]\n\n_Kin_. 'Tis _Hamlets_ Character, naked and in a\nPostscript here he sayes alone:[4] Can you aduise [Sidenote: deuise me?]\nme?[5]\n\n_Laer_. I'm lost in it my Lord; but let him come,       [Sidenote: I am]\nIt warmes the very sicknesse in my heart,\nThat I shall liue and tell him to his teeth; [Sidenote: That I liue and]\nThus diddest thou.                                     [Sidenote: didst]\n\n_Kin_. If it be so _Laertes_, as how should it be so:[6]\nHow otherwise will you be rul'd by me?\n\n_Laer_. If so[7] you'l not o'rerule me to a peace.\n                                  [Sidenote: I my Lord, so you will not]\n\n_Kin_. To thine owne peace: if he be now return'd,\n[Sidenote: 195] As checking[8] at his Voyage, and that he meanes\n                                       [Sidenote: As the King[8] at his]\nNo more to vndertake it; I will worke him\nTo an exployt now ripe in my Deuice,                 [Sidenote: deuise,]\nVnder the which he shall not choose but fall;\nAnd for his death no winde of blame shall breath,\n[Sidenote: 221] But euen his Mother shall vncharge the practice,[9]\nAnd call it accident: [A] Some two Monthes hence[10]\n                                            [Sidenote: two months since]\nHere was a Gentleman of _Normandy_,\nI'ue seene my selfe, and seru'd against the French,   [Sidenote: I haue]\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\n_Laer_. My Lord I will be rul'd,\nThe rather if you could deuise it so\nThat I might be the organ.\n\n_King_. It falls right,\nYou haue beene talkt of since your trauaile[11] much,\nAnd that in _Hamlets_ hearing, for a qualitie\nWherein they say you shine, your summe of parts[12]\nDid not together plucke such enuie from him\nAs did that one, and that in my regard\nOf the vnworthiest siedge.[13]\n\n_Laer_. What part is that my Lord?\n\n_King_. A very ribaud[14] in the cap of youth,\nYet needfull to, for youth no lesse becomes[15]\nThe light and carelesse liuery that it weares\nThen setled age, his sables, and his weedes[16]\nImporting health[17] and grauenes;]\n\n[Footnote 1: 'some trick played on me?' Compare _K. Lear_, act v. sc. 7:\n'I am mightily abused.']\n\n[Footnote 2: I incline to the _Q._ reading here: 'or is it some trick,\nand no reality in it?']\n\n[Footnote 3: --following the king's suggestion.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _Point thus_: 'Tis _Hamlets_ Character. 'Naked'!--And, in a\nPostscript here, he sayes 'alone'! Can &c.\n\n'_Alone_'--to allay suspicion of his having brought assistance with\nhim.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Fine flattery--preparing the way for the instigation he is\nabout to commence.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _Point thus_: '--as how should it be so? how\notherwise?--will' &c. The king cannot tell what to think--either how it\ncan be, or how it might be otherwise--for here is Hamlet's own hand!]\n\n[Footnote 7: provided.]\n\n[Footnote 8: A hawk was said _to check_ when it forsook its proper game\nfor some other bird that crossed its flight. The blunder in the _Quarto_\nis odd, plainly from manuscript copy, and is not likely to have been set\nright by any but the author.]\n\n[Footnote 9: 'shall not give the _practice'--artifice, cunning attempt,\nchicane_, or _trick_--but a word not necessarily offensive--'the name it\ndeserves, but call it _accident_:' 221.]\n\n[Footnote 10: 'Some' _not in Q.--Hence_ may be either _backwards_ or\n_forwards_; now it is used only _forwards_.]\n\n[Footnote 11: travels.]\n\n[Footnote 12: 'all your excellencies together.']\n\n[Footnote 13: seat, place, grade, position, merit.]\n\n[Footnote 14: 'A very riband'--a mere trifling accomplishment: the _u_\nof the text can but be a misprint for _n_.]\n\n[Footnote 15: _youth_ obj., _livery_ nom. to _becomes_.]\n\n[Footnote 16: 'than his furs and his robes become settled age.']\n\n[Footnote 17: Warburton thinks the word ought to be _wealth_, but I\ndoubt it; _health_, in its sense of wholeness, general soundness, in\naffairs as well as person, I should prefer.]\n\n[Page 218]\n\nAnd they ran[1] well on Horsebacke; but this Gallant\n                                            [Sidenote: they can well[1]]\nHad witchcraft in't[2]; he grew into his Seat,   [Sidenote: vnto his]\nAnd to such wondrous doing brought his Horse,\nAs had he beene encorps't and demy-Natur'd\nWith the braue Beast,[3] so farre he past my thought,\n                                      [Sidenote: he topt me thought,[4]]\nThat I in forgery[5] of shapes and trickes,\nCome short of what he did.[6]\n\n_Laer_. A Norman was't?\n\n_Kin_. A Norman.\n\n_Laer_. Vpon my life _Lamound_.                    [Sidenote: _Lamord_.]\n\n_Kin_. The very same.\n\n_Laer_. I know him well, he is the Brooch indeed,\nAnd Iemme of all our Nation,                 [Sidenote: all the Nation.]\n\n_Kin_. Hee mad confession of you,\nAnd gaue you such a Masterly report,\nFor Art and exercise in your defence;\nAnd for your Rapier most especially,              [Sidenote: especiall,]\nThat he cryed out, t'would be a sight indeed,[7]\nIf one could match you [A] Sir. This report of his\n                                                  [Sidenote: ; sir this]\n[Sidenote: 120, 264] Did _Hamlet_ so envenom with his Enuy,[8]\nThat he could nothing doe but wish and begge,\nYour sodaine comming ore to play with him;[9]       [Sidenote: with you]\nNow out of this.[10]\n\n_Laer_. Why out of this, my Lord?                   [Sidenote: What out]\n\n_Kin. Laertes_ was your Father deare to you?\nOr are you like the painting[11] of a sorrow,\nA face without a heart?\n\n_Laer_. Why aske you this?\n\n_Kin_. Not that I thinke you did not loue your Father,\nBut that I know Loue is begun by Time[12]:\n\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto:--_\n\n                      ; the Scrimures[13] of their nation\nHe swore had neither motion, guard nor eye,\nIf you opposd them;]\n\n[Footnote 1: I think the _can_ of the _Quarto_ is the true word.]\n\n[Footnote 2: --in his horsemanship.]\n\n[Footnote 3: There is no mistake in the order 'had he beene'; the\ntransposition is equivalent to _if_: 'as if he had been unbodied with,\nand shared half the nature of the brave beast.'\n\nThese two lines, from _As_ to _thought_, must be taken parenthetically;\nor else there must be supposed a dash after _Beast_, and a fresh start\nmade.\n\n'But he (as if Centaur-like he had been one piece with the horse) was no\nmore moved than one with the going of his own legs:'\n\n'it seemed, as he borrowed the horse's body, so he lent the horse his\nmind:'--Sir Philip Sidney. _Arcadia_, B. ii. p. 115.]\n\n[Footnote 4: '--surpassed, I thought.']\n\n[Footnote 5: 'in invention of.']\n\n[Footnote 6: Emphasis on _did_, as antithetic to _forgery_: 'my\ninventing came short of his doing.']\n\n[Footnote 7: 'it would be a sight indeed to see you matched with an\nequal.' The king would strengthen Laertes' confidence in his\nproficiency.]\n\n[Footnote 8: 'made him so spiteful by stirring up his habitual envy.']\n\n[Footnote 9: All invention.]\n\n[Footnote 10: Here should be a dash: the king pauses. He is approaching\ndangerous ground--is about to propose a thing abominable, and therefore\nto the influence of flattered vanity and roused emulation, would add the\nfiercest heat of stimulated love and hatred--to which end he proceeds to\ncast doubt on the quality of Laertes' love for his father.]\n\n[Footnote 11: the picture.]\n\n[Footnote 12: 'through habit.']\n\n[Footnote 13: French _escrimeurs_: fencers.]\n\n[Page 220]\n\nAnd that I see in passages of proofe,[1]\nTime qualifies the sparke and fire of it:[2]\n[A]\n_Hamlet_ comes backe: what would you vndertake,\nTo show your selfe your Fathers sonne indeed,\n                            [Sidenote: selfe indeede your fathers sonne]\nMore then in words?\n\n_Laer_. To cut his throat i'th'Church.[3]\n\n_Kin_. No place indeed should murder Sancturize;\nReuenge should haue no bounds: but good _Laertes_\nWill you doe this, keepe close within your Chamber,\n_Hamlet_ return'd, shall know you are come home:\nWee'l put on those shall praise your excellence,\nAnd set a double varnish on the fame\nThe Frenchman gaue you, bring you in fine together,\nAnd wager on your heads, he being remisse,[4]       [Sidenote: ore your]\n[Sidenote: 218] Most generous, and free from all contriuing,\nWill not peruse[5] the Foiles? So that with ease,\nOr with a little shuffling, you may choose\nA Sword vnbaited,[6] and in a passe of practice,[7]  [Sidenote: pace of]\nRequit him for your Father.\n\n_Laer_. I will doo't,\nAnd for that purpose Ile annoint my Sword:[8]   [Sidenote: for purpose,]\nI bought an Vnction of a Mountebanke\nSo mortall, I but dipt a knife in it,[9]\n                                   [Sidenote: mortall, that but dippe a]\nWhere it drawes blood, no Cataplasme so rare,\nCollected from all Simples that haue Vertue\n\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\nThere liues within the very flame of loue\nA kind of weeke or snufe that will abate it,[10]\nAnd nothing is at a like goodnes still,[11]\nFor goodnes growing to a plurisie,[12]\nDies in his owne too much, that we would doe\nWe should doe when we would: for this would change,[13]\nAnd hath abatements and delayes as many,\nAs there are tongues, are hands, are accedents,\nAnd then this should is like a spend thrifts sigh,\nThat hurts by easing;[14] but to the quick of th'vlcer,]\n\n[Footnote 1: 'passages of proofe,'--_trials_. 'I see when it is put to\nthe test.']\n\n[Footnote 2: 'time modifies it.']\n\n[Footnote 3: Contrast him here with Hamlet.]\n\n[Footnote 4: careless.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _examine_--the word being of general application then.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _unblunted_. Some foils seem to have been made with a\nbutton that could be taken--probably _screwed_ off.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Whether _practice_ here means exercise or cunning, I cannot\ndetermine. Possibly the king uses the word as once before 216--to be\ntaken as Laertes may please.]\n\n[Footnote 8: In the _1st Q._ this proposal also is made by the king.]\n\n[Footnote 9:\n\n    'So mortal, yes, a knife being but dipt in it,' or,\n    'So mortal, did I but dip a knife in it.']\n\n[Footnote 10: To understand this figure, one must be familiar with the\nbehaviour of the wick of a common lamp or tallow candle.]\n\n[Footnote 11: 'nothing keeps always at the same degree of goodness.']\n\n[Footnote 12: A _plurisie_ is just a _too-muchness_, from _plus,\npluris--a plethora_, not our word _pleurisy_, from [Greek: pleura]. See\nnotes in _Johnson and Steevens_.]\n\n[Footnote 13: The sense here requires an _s_, and the space in the\n_Quarto_ between the _e_ and the comma gives the probability that a\nletter has dropt out.]\n\n[Footnote 14: Modern editors seem agreed to substitute the adjective\n_spendthrift_: our sole authority has _spendthrifts_, and by it I hold.\nThe meaning seems this: 'the _would_ changes, the thing is not done, and\nthen the _should_, the mere acknowledgment of duty, is like the sigh of\na spendthrift, who regrets consequences but does not change his way: it\neases his conscience for a moment, and so injures him.' There would at\nthe same time be allusion to what was believed concerning sighs: Dr.\nJohnson says, 'It is a notion very prevalent, that _sighs_ impair the\nstrength, and wear out the animal powers.']\n\n[Page 222]\n\nVnder the Moone, can saue the thing from death,\nThat is but scratcht withall: Ile touch my point,\nWith this contagion, that if I gall him slightly,[1]\nIt may be death.\n\n_Kin_. Let's further thinke of this,\nWeigh what conuenience[2] both of time and meanes\nMay fit vs to our shape,[3] if this should faile;\nAnd that our drift looke through our bad performance,\n'Twere better not assaid; therefore this Proiect\nShould haue a backe or second, that might hold,\nIf this should blast in proofe:[4] Soft, let me see[5]\n                                                   [Sidenote: did blast]\nWee'l make a solemne wager on your commings,[6]  [Sidenote: cunnings[6]]\nI ha't: when in your motion you are hot and dry,  [Sidenote: hate, when]\nAs[7] make your bowts more violent to the end,[8]\n                                                [Sidenote: to that end,]\nAnd that he cals for drinke; Ile haue prepar'd him\n                                                 [Sidenote: prefard him]\n[Sidenote: 268] A Challice for the nonce[9]; whereon but sipping,\nIf he by chance escape your venom'd stuck,[10]\nOur purpose may[11] hold there: how sweet Queene.\n                                [Sidenote: there: but stay, what noyse?]\n\n_Enter Queene_.\n\n_Queen_. One woe doth tread vpon anothers heele,\nSo fast they'l follow[12]: your Sister's drown'd _Laertes_.\n                                                [Sidenote: they follow;]\n\n_Laer_. Drown'd! O where?[13]\n\n_Queen_. There is a Willow[14] growes aslant a Brooke,\n                                          [Sidenote: ascaunt the Brooke]\nThat shewes his hore leaues in the glassie streame:\n                                                [Sidenote: horry leaues]\nThere with fantasticke Garlands did she come,[15]\n                                        [Sidenote: Therewith | she make]\nOf Crow-flowers,[16] Nettles, Daysies, and long Purples,\nThat liberall Shepheards giue a grosser name;\nBut our cold Maids doe Dead Mens Fingers call them:\n                                               [Sidenote: our cull-cold]\nThere on the pendant[17] boughes, her Coronet weeds[18]\nClambring to hang;[19] an enuious sliuer broke,[20]\nWhen downe the weedy Trophies,[19] and her selfe,  [Sidenote: her weedy]\n\n[Footnote 1: 'that though I should gall him but slightly,' or, 'that if\nI gall him ever so slightly.']\n\n[Footnote 2: proper arrangement.]\n\n[Footnote 3: 'fit us exactly, like a garment cut to our shape,' or\nperhaps 'shape' is used for _intent, purpose. Point thus_: 'shape. If\nthis should faile, And' &c.]\n\n[Footnote 4: This seems to allude to the assay of a firearm, and to mean\n'_burst on the trial_.' Note 'assaid' two lines back.]\n\n[Footnote 5: There should be a pause here, and a longer pause after\n_commings_: the king is contriving. 'I ha't' should have a line to\nitself, with again a pause, but a shorter one.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _Veney, venue_, is a term of fencing: a bout, a\nthrust--from _venir, to come_--whence 'commings.' (259) But _cunnings_,\nmeaning _skills_, may be the word.]\n\n[Footnote 7: 'As' is here equivalent to 'and so.']\n\n[Footnote 8: --to the end of making Hamlet hot and dry.]\n\n[Footnote 9: for the special occasion.]\n\n[Footnote 10: thrust. _Twelfth Night_, act iii. sc. 4. 'he gives me the\nstuck in with such a mortal motion.' _Stocco_ in Italian is a long\nrapier; and _stoccata_ a thrust. _Rom. and Jul_., act iii. sc. 1. See\n_Shakespeare-Lexicon_.]\n\n[Footnote 11: 'may' does not here express _doubt_, but _intention_.]\n\n[Footnote 12: If this be the right reading, it means, 'so fast they\ninsist on following.']\n\n[Footnote 13: He speaks it as about to rush to her.]\n\n[Footnote 14: --the choice of Ophelia's fantastic madness, as being the\ntree of lamenting lovers.]\n\n[Footnote 15: --always busy with flowers.]\n\n[Footnote 16: Ranunculus: _Sh. Lex._]\n\n[Footnote 17: --specially descriptive of the willow.]\n\n[Footnote 18: her wild flowers made into a garland.]\n\n[Footnote 19: The intention would seem, that she imagined herself\ndecorating a monument to her father. Hence her _Coronet weeds_ and the\nPoet's _weedy Trophies_.]\n\n[Footnote 20: _Sliver_, I suspect, called so after the fact, because\n_slivered_ or torn off. In _Macbeth_ we have:\n\n    slips of yew\n    Slivered in the moon's eclipse.\n\nBut it may be that _sliver_ was used for a _twig_, such as could be torn\noff.\n\n_Slip_ and _sliver_ must be of the same root.]\n\n[Page 224]\n\nFell in the weeping Brooke, her cloathes spred wide,\nAnd Mermaid-like, a while they bore her vp,\nWhich time she chaunted snatches of old tunes,[1]\n                                              [Sidenote: old laudes,[1]]\nAs one incapable of[2] her owne distresse,\nOr like a creature Natiue, and indued[3]\nVnto that Element: but long it could not be,\nTill that her garments, heauy with her drinke,  [Sidenote: theyr drinke]\nPul'd the poore wretch from her melodious buy,[4]\n                                               [Sidenote: melodious lay]\nTo muddy death.[5]\n\n_Laer_. Alas then, is she drown'd?                    [Sidenote: she is]\n\n_Queen_. Drown'd, drown'd.\n\n_Laer_. Too much of water hast thou poore _Ophelia_,\nAnd therefore I forbid my teares: but yet\nIt is our tricke,[6] Nature her custome holds,\nLet shame say what it will; when these are gone\nThe woman will be out:[7] Adue my Lord,\nI haue a speech of fire, that faine would blaze,\n                                               [Sidenote: speech a fire]\nBut that this folly doubts[8] it.     _Exit._ [Sidenote: drownes it.[8]]\n\n_Kin_. Let's follow, _Gertrude_:\nHow much I had to doe to calme his rage?\nNow feare I this will giue it start againe;\nTherefore let's follow.                _Exeunt_.[9]\n\n[10]_Enter two Clownes._\n\n_Clown_. Is she to bee buried in Christian buriall,\n                                  [Sidenote: buriall, when she wilfully]\nthat wilfully seekes her owne saluation?[11]\n\n_Other_. I tell thee she is, and therefore make her\n                                               [Sidenote: is, therefore]\nGraue straight,[12] the Crowner hath sate on her, and\nfinds it Christian buriall.\n\n_Clo_. How can that be, vnlesse she drowned her\nselfe in her owne defence?\n\n_Other_. Why 'tis found so.[13]\n\n_Clo_. It must be _Se offendendo_,[14] it cannot bee else:\n                                          [Sidenote: be so offended, it]\n\n[Footnote 1: They were not lauds she was in the habit of singing, to\njudge by the snatches given.]\n\n[Footnote 2: not able to take in, not understanding, not conscious of.]\n\n[Footnote 3: clothed, endowed, fitted for. See _Sh. Lex._]\n\n[Footnote 4: _Could_ the word be for _buoy_--'her clothes spread wide,'\non which she floated singing--therefore her melodious buoy or float?]\n\n[Footnote 5: How could the queen know all this, when there was no one\nnear enough to rescue her? Does not the Poet intend the mode of her\ndeath given here for an invention of the queen, to hide the girl's\nsuicide, and by circumstance beguile the sorrow-rage of Laertes?]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'I cannot help it.']\n\n[Footnote 7: 'when these few tears are spent, all the woman will be out\nof me: I shall be a man again.']\n\n[Footnote 8: _douts_: 'this foolish water of tears puts it out.' _See Q.\nreading._]\n\n[Footnote 9: Here ends the Fourth Act, between which and the Fifth may\nintervene a day or two.]\n\n[Footnote 10: Act V. This act _requires_ only part of a day; the funeral\nand the catastrophe might be on the same.]\n\n[Footnote 11: Has this a confused connection with the fancy that\nsalvation is getting to heaven?]\n\n[Footnote 12: Whether this means _straightway_, or _not crooked_, I\ncannot tell.]\n\n[Footnote 13: 'the coroner has settled it.']\n\n[Footnote 14: The Clown's blunder for _defendendo_.]\n\n[Page 226]\n\nfor heere lies the point; If I drowne my selfe\nwittingly, it argues an Act: and an Act hath three\nbranches. It is an Act to doe and to performe;\n              [Sidenote: it is to act, to doe, to performe, or all: she]\nargall[1] she drown'd her selfe wittingly.\n\n_Other_. Nay but heare you Goodman Deluer.  [Sidenote: good man deluer.]\n\n_Clown_. Giue me leaue; heere lies the water;\ngood: heere stands the man; good: If the man\ngoe to this water and drowne himsele; it is will\nhe nill he, he goes; marke you that? But if the\nwater come to him and drowne him; hee drownes\nnot himselfe. Argall, hee that is not guilty of his\nowne death, shortens not his owne life.\n\n_Other_. But is this law?\n\n_Clo_. I marry is't, Crowners Quest Law.\n\n_Other_. Will you ha the truth on't: if this had  [Sidenote: truth an't]\nnot beene a Gentlewoman, shee should haue beene\nburied out of[2] Christian Buriall.                    [Sidenote: out a]\n\n_Clo_. Why there thou say'st. And the more\npitty that great folke should haue countenance in\nthis world to drowne or hang themselues, more then\ntheir euen[3] Christian. Come, my Spade; there is\nno ancient Gentlemen, but Gardiners, Ditchers and\nGraue-makers; they hold vp _Adams_ Profession.\n\n_Other_. Was he a Gentleman?\n\n_Clo_. He was the first that euer bore Armes.          [Sidenote: A was]\n\n[4]_Other_. Why he had none.\n\n_Clo_. What, ar't a Heathen? how dost thou vnderstand\nthe Scripture? the Scripture sayes _Adam_\ndig'd; could hee digge without Armes?[4] Ile put\nanother question to thee; if thou answerest me not\nto the purpose, confesse thy selfe----\n\n_Other_. Go too.\n\n_Clo_. What is he that builds stronger then either\nthe Mason, the Shipwright, or the Carpenter?\n\n_Other_. The Gallowes-maker; for that Frame\noutliues a thousand Tenants.                   [Sidenote: that outliues]\n\n[Footnote 1: _ergo_, therefore.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _without_. The pleasure the speeches of the Clown give us,\nlies partly in the undercurrent of sense, so disguised by stupidity in\nthe utterance; and partly in the wit which mainly succeeds in its end by\nthe failure of its means.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _equal_, that is _fellow_ Christian.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _From 'Other' to_ 'Armes' _not in Quarto._]\n\n[Page 228]\n\n_Clo_. I like thy wit well in good faith, the\nGallowes does well; but how does it well? it does\nwell to those that doe ill: now, thou dost ill to say\nthe Gallowes is built stronger then the Church:\nArgall, the Gallowes may doe well to thee. Too't\nagaine, Come.\n\n_Other_. Who builds stronger then a Mason, a\nShipwright, or a Carpenter?\n\n_Clo_. I, tell me that, and vnyoake.[1]\n\n_Other_. Marry, now I can tell.\n\n_Clo_. Too't.\n\n_Other_. Masse, I cannot tell.\n\n_Enter Hamlet and Horatio a farre off._[2]\n\n_Clo_. Cudgell thy braines no more about it; for\nyour dull Asse will not mend his pace with beating,\nand when you are ask't this question next, say\na Graue-maker: the Houses that he makes, lasts\n                                            [Sidenote: houses hee makes]\ntill Doomesday: go, get thee to _Yaughan_,[3] fetch\n                           [Sidenote: thee in, and fetch mee a soope of]\nme a stoupe of Liquor.\n\n_Sings._[4]\n\n_In youth when I did loue, did loue_,                [Sidenote: _Song._]\n  _me thought it was very sweete:\nTo contract O the time for a my behoue,\n  O me thought there was nothing meete[5]_\n                                 [Sidenote: there a was nothing a meet.]\n\n                            [Sidenote: _Enter Hamlet & Horatio_]\n\n_Ham_. Ha's this fellow no feeling of his businesse,\n                           [Sidenote: busines? a sings in graue-making.]\nthat he sings at Graue-making?[6]\n\n_Hor_. Custome hath made it in him a property[7]\nof easinesse.\n\n_Ham_. 'Tis ee'n so; the hand of little Imployment\nhath the daintier sense.\n\n_Clowne sings._[8]\n\n_But Age with his stealing steps_               [Sidenote _Clow. Song._]\n_hath caught me in his clutch_:               [Sidenote: hath clawed me]\n\n[Footnote 1: 'unyoke your team'--as having earned his rest.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Not in Quarto._]\n\n[Footnote 3: Whether this is the name of a place, or the name of an\ninnkeeper, or is merely an inexplicable corruption--some take it for a\nstage-direction to yawn--I cannot tell. See _Q._ reading.\n\nIt is said to have been discovered that a foreigner named Johan sold ale\nnext door to the Globe.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _Not in Quarto._]\n\n[Footnote 5: A song ascribed to Lord Vaux is in this and the following\nstanzas made nonsense of.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Note Hamlet's mood throughout what follows. He has entered\nthe shadow of death.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _Property_ is what specially belongs to the individual;\nhere it is his _peculiar work_, or _personal calling_: 'custom has made\nit with him an easy duty.']\n\n[Footnote 8: _Not in Quarto._]\n\n[Page 230]\n\n_And hath shipped me intill the Land_,                  [Sidenote: into]\n  _as if I had neuer beene such_.\n\n_Ham_. That Scull had a tongue in it, and could\nsing once: how the knaue iowles it to th' grownd,        [Sidenote: the]\nas if it were _Caines_ Iaw-bone, that did the first    [Sidenote: twere]\nmurther: It might be the Pate of a Polititian which\n                                          [Sidenote: murder, this might]\nthis Asse o're Offices: one that could circumuent\n                        [Sidenote: asse now ore-reaches; one that would]\nGod, might it not?\n\n_Hor_. It might, my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. Or of a Courtier, which could say, Good\nMorrow sweet Lord: how dost thou, good Lord?\n                                            [Sidenote: thou sweet lord?]\nthis might be my Lord such a one, that prais'd my\nLord such a ones Horse, when he meant to begge\n                                              [Sidenote: when a went to]\nit; might it not?[1]\n\n_Hor_. I, my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. Why ee'n so: and now my Lady\nWormes,[2] Chaplesse,[3] and knockt about the Mazard[4]\n                                  [Sidenote: Choples | the massene with]\nwith a Sextons Spade; heere's fine Reuolution, if\n                                                  [Sidenote: and we had]\nwee had the tricke to see't. Did these bones cost\nno more the breeding, but to play at Loggets[5] with\n'em? mine ake to thinke on't.                           [Sidenote: them]\n\n_Clowne sings._[6]\n\n_A Pickhaxe and a Spade, a Spade_,             [Sidenote: _Clow. Song._]\n  _for and a shrowding-Sheete:\nO a Pit of Clay for to be made,\n  for such a Guest is meete_.\n\n_Ham_. There's another: why might not that\nbee the Scull of of a Lawyer? where be his        [Sidenote: skull of a]\nQuiddits[7] now? his Quillets[7]? his Cases? his  [Sidenote: quiddities]\nTenures, and his Tricks? why doe's he suffer this\nrude knaue now to knocke him about the Sconce[8]\n                                            [Sidenote: this madde knaue]\nwith a dirty Shouell, and will not tell him of his\nAction of Battery? hum. This fellow might be\nin's time a great buyer of Land, with his\nStatutes, his Recognizances, his Fines, his double\n\n[Footnote 1: To feel the full force of this, we must call up the\nexpression on the face of 'such a one' as he begged the horse--probably\nimitated by Hamlet--and contrast it with the look on the face of the\nskull.]\n\n[Footnote 2: 'now the property of my Lady Worm.']\n\n[Footnote 3: the lower jaw gone.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _the upper jaw_, I think--not _the head_.]\n\n[Footnote 5: a game in which pins of wood, called loggats, nearly two\nfeet long, were half thrown, half slid, towards a bowl. _Blount_:\nJohnson and Steevens.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _Not in Quarto._]\n\n[Footnote 7: a lawyer's quirks and quibbles. See _Johnson and Steevens_.\n\n_1st Q._\n\n                    now where is your\n    Quirkes and quillets now,]\n\n[Footnote 8: Humorous, or slang word for _the head_. 'A fort--a\nhead-piece--the head': _Webster's Dict_.]\n\n[Page 232]\n\nVouchers, his Recoueries: [1] Is this the fine[2] of his\nFines, and the recouery[3] of his Recoueries,[1] to haue\nhis fine[4] Pate full of fine[4] Dirt? will his Vouchers\n                                               [Sidenote: will vouchers]\nvouch him no more of his Purchases, and double\n                                    [Sidenote: purchases & doubles then]\nones too, then the length and breadth of a paire of\nIndentures? the very Conueyances of his Lands\nwill hardly lye in this Boxe[5]; and must the Inheritor\n                                         [Sidenote: scarcely iye; | th']\nhimselfe haue no more?[6] ha?\n\n_Hor_. Not a iot more, my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. Is not Parchment made of Sheep-skinnes?\n\n_Hor_. I my Lord, and of Calue-skinnes too.\n                                           [Sidenote: Calues-skinnes to]\n\n_Ham_. They are Sheepe and Calues that seek       [Sidenote: which seek]\nout assurance in that. I will speake to this fellow:\nwhose Graue's this Sir?                          [Sidenote: this sirra?]\n\n_Clo_. Mine Sir:                  [Sidenote: _Clow_. Mine sir, or a pit]\n\n_O a Pit of Clay for to be made,\nfor such a Guest is meete._[7]\n\n_Ham_. I thinke it be thine indeed: for thou\nliest in't.\n\n_Clo_. You lye out on't Sir, and therefore it is not     [Sidenote: tis]\nyours: for my part, I doe not lye in't; and yet it [Sidenote: in't, yet]\nis mine.\n\n_Ham_. Thou dost lye in't, to be in't and say 'tis     [Sidenote: it is]\nthine: 'tis for the dead, not for the quicke, therefore\nthou lyest.\n\n_Clo_. Tis a quicke lye Sir, 'twill away againe\nfrom me to you.[8]\n\n_Ham_. What man dost thou digge it for?\n\n_Clo_. For no man Sir.\n\n_Ham_. What woman then?\n\n_Clo_. For none neither.\n\n_Ham_. Who is to be buried in't?\n\n_Clo_. One that was a woman Sir; but rest her\nSoule, shee's dead.\n\n[Footnote 1: _From_ 'Is' _to_ 'Recoueries' _not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 2: the end.]\n\n[Footnote 3: the property regained by his Recoveries.]\n\n[Footnote 4: third and fourth meanings of the word _fine_.]\n\n[Footnote 5: the skull.]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'must the heir have no more either?'\n\n_1st Q_.\n\n                                     and must\n    The honor (_owner?_) lie there?]\n\n[Footnote 7: _This line not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 8: He _gives_ the lie.]\n\n[Page 234]\n\n_Ham_. How absolute[1] the knaue is? wee must\n[Sidenote: 256] speake by the Carde,[2] or equiuocation will vndoe\nvs: by the Lord _Horatio_, these three yeares[3] I haue\n                                                  [Sidenote: this three]\ntaken note of it, the Age is growne so picked,[4]      [Sidenote: tooke]\nthat the toe of the Pesant comes so neere the\nheeles of our Courtier, hee galls his Kibe.[5] How\n                                            [Sidenote: the heele of the]\nlong hast thou been a Graue-maker?         [Sidenote: been Graue-maker?]\n\n_Clo_. Of all the dayes i'th'yeare, I came too't\n                                                [Sidenote: Of the dayes]\nthat day[6] that our last King _Hamlet_ o'recame    [Sidenote: ouercame]\n_Fortinbras_.\n\n_Ham_. How long is that since?\n\n_Clo_. Cannot you tell that? euery foole can tell\n[Sidenote: 143] that: It was the very day,[6] that young _Hamlet_ was\n                                               [Sidenote: was that very]\nborne,[8] hee that was mad, and sent into England,\n                                                 [Sidenote: that is mad]\n\n_Ham_. I marry, why was he sent into England?\n\n_Clo_. Why, because he was mad; hee shall recouer\n                                          [Sidenote: a was mad: a shall]\nhis wits there; or if he do not, it's no great\n                                               [Sidenote: if a do | tis]\nmatter there.\n\n_Ham_. Why?\n\n_Clo_. 'Twill not be scene in him, there the men\n                                            [Sidenote: him there, there]\nare as mad as he.\n\n_Ham_. How came he mad?\n\n_Clo_. Very strangely they say.\n\n_Ham_. How strangely?[7]\n\n_Clo_. Faith e'ene with loosing his wits.\n\n_Ham_. Vpon what ground?\n\n_Clo_. Why heere in Denmarke[8]: I haue bin sixeteene [Sidenote: Sexten]\n[Sidenote: 142-3] heere, man and Boy thirty yeares.[9]\n\n_Ham_. How long will a man lie 'ith' earth ere he\nrot?\n\n_Clo_. Ifaith, if he be not rotten before he die (as\n                                   [Sidenote: Fayth if a be not | a die]\nwe haue many pocky Coarses now adaies, that will\n                                           [Sidenote: corses, that will]\nscarce hold the laying in) he will last you some      [Sidenote: a will]\neight yeare, or nine yeare. A Tanner will last you\nnine yeare.\n\n[Footnote 1: 'How the knave insists on precision!']\n\n[Footnote 2: chart: _Skeat's Etym. Dict._]\n\n[Footnote 3: Can this indicate any point in the history of English\nsociety?]\n\n[Footnote 4: so fastidious; so given to _picking_ and choosing; so\nchoice.]\n\n[Footnote 5: The word is to be found in any dictionary, but is not\ngenerally understood. Lord Byron, a very inaccurate writer, takes it to\nmean _heel_:\n\n    Devices quaint, and frolics ever new,\n      Tread on each others' kibes:\n\n_Childe Harold, Canto 1. St. 67._\n\nIt means a _chilblain_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Then Fortinbras _could_ have been but a few months younger\nthan Hamlet, and may have been older. Hamlet then, in the Quarto\npassage, could not by _tender_ mean _young_.]\n\n[Footnote 7: 'In what way strangely?'--_in what strange way_? Or the\n_How_ may be _how much_, in retort to the _very_; but the intent would\nbe the same--a request for further information.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Hamlet has asked on what ground or provocation, that is,\nfrom what cause, Hamlet lost his wits; the sexton chooses to take the\nword _ground_ materially.]\n\n[Footnote 9: The Poet makes him say how long he had been sexton--but how\nnaturally and informally--by a stupid joke!--in order a second time, and\nmore certainly, to tell us Hamlet's age: he must have held it a point\nnecessary to the understanding of Hamlet.\n\nNote Hamlet's question immediately following. It looks as if he had\nfirst said to himself: 'Yes--I have been thirty years above ground!' and\n_then_ said to the sexton, 'How long will a man lie i' th' earth ere he\nrot?' We might enquire even too curiously as to the connecting links.]\n\n[Page 236]\n\n_Ham_. Why he, more then another?\n\n_Clo_. Why sir, his hide is so tan'd with his Trade,\nthat he will keepe out water a great while. And       [Sidenote: a will]\nyour water, is a sore Decayer of your horson dead\nbody. Heres a Scull now: this Scul, has laine in\n                    [Sidenote: now hath iyen you i'th earth 23. yeeres.]\nthe earth three and twenty years.\n\n_Ham_. Whose was it?\n\n_Clo_. A whoreson mad Fellowes it was;\nWhose doe you thinke it was?\n\n_Ham_. Nay, I know not.\n\n_Clo_. A pestlence on him for a mad Rogue, a\npou'rd a Flaggon of Renish on my head once.\nThis same Scull Sir, this same Scull sir, was _Yoricks_\n                [Sidenote: once; this same skull sir, was sir _Yoricks_]\nScull, the Kings Iester.\n\n_Ham_. This?\n\n_Clo_. E'ene that.\n\n_Ham_. Let me see. Alas poore _Yorick_, I knew\n                                           [Sidenote: _Ham_. Alas poore]\nhim _Horatio_, a fellow of infinite Iest; of most excellent\nfancy, he hath borne me on his backe a                  [Sidenote: bore]\nthousand times: And how abhorred[1] my Imagination\n                                         [Sidenote: and now how | in my]\nis, my gorge rises at it. Heere hung those            [Sidenote: it is:]\nlipps, that I haue kist I know not how oft. Where\nbe your Iibes now? Your Gambals? Your Songs?\nYour flashes of Merriment that were wont to set\nthe Table on a Rore? No one[2] now to mock your      [Sidenote: not one]\nown Ieering? Quite chopfalne[3]? Now get you to\n                                              [Sidenote: owne grinning,]\nmy Ladies Chamber, and tell her, let her paint an\n                                               [Sidenote: Ladies table,]\ninch thicke, to this fauour[4] she must come. Make\nher laugh at that: prythee _Horatio_ tell me one\nthing.\n\n_Hor_. What's that my Lord?\n\n_Ham_. Dost thou thinke _Alexander_ lookt o'this      [Sidenote: a this]\nfashion i'th' earth?\n\n_Hor_. E'ene so.\n\n_Ham_. And smelt so? Puh.\n\n[Footnote 1: If this be the true reading, _abhorred_ must mean\n_horrified_; but I incline to the _Quarto_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: 'Not one jibe, not one flash of merriment now?']\n\n[Footnote 3: --chop indeed quite fallen off!]\n\n[Footnote 4: _to this look_--that of the skull.]\n\n[Page 238]\n\n_Hor_. E'ene so, my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. To what base vses we may returne\n_Horatio_. Why may not Imagination trace the\nNoble dust of _Alexander_, till he[1] find it stopping a\n                                                      [Sidenote: a find]\nbunghole.\n\n_Hor_. 'Twere to consider: to curiously to consider\n                                     [Sidenote:  consider too curiously]\nso.\n\n_Ham_. No faith, not a iot. But to follow him\nthether with modestie[2] enough, and likeliehood to\nlead it; as thus. _Alexander_ died: _Alexander_ was\n                                        [Sidenote: lead it. _Alexander_]\nburied: _Alexander_ returneth into dust; the dust is      [Sidenote: to]\nearth; of earth we make Lome, and why of that\nLome (whereto he was conuerted) might they not\nstopp a Beere-barrell?[3]\n\nImperiall _Caesar_, dead and turn'd to clay,       [Sidenote: Imperious]\nMight stop a hole to keepe the winde away.\nOh, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,\nShould patch a Wall, t'expell the winters flaw.[4]\n                                                [Sidenote: waters flaw.]\nBut soft, but soft, aside; heere comes the King.\n                                     [Sidenote: , but soft awhile, here]\n\n_Enter King, Queene, Laertes, and a Coffin_,\n                        [Sidenote: _Enter K. Q. Laertes and the corse._]\n      _with Lords attendant._\n\nThe Queene, the Courtiers. Who is that they follow,\n                                                   [Sidenote: this they]\nAnd with such maimed rites? This doth betoken,\nThe Coarse they follow, did with disperate hand,\nFore do it owne life; 'twas some Estate.[5]  [Sidenote: twas of some[5]]\nCouch[6] we a while, and mark.\n\n_Laer_. What Cerimony else?\n\n_Ham_. That is _Laertes_, a very Noble youth:[7]\nMarke.\n\n_Laer_. What Cerimony else?[8]\n\n_Priest_. Her Obsequies haue bin as farre inlarg'd,  [Sidenote: _Doct_.]\nAs we haue warrantis,[9] her death was doubtfull,[10]\n                                                  [Sidenote: warrantie,]\nAnd but that great Command, o're-swaies the order,[11]\n\n[Footnote 1: Imagination personified.]\n\n[Footnote 2: moderation.]\n\n[Footnote 3: 'Loam, Lome--grafting clay. Mortar made of Clay and Straw;\nalso a sort of Plaister used by Chymists to stop up their\nVessels.'--_Bailey's Dict._]\n\n[Footnote 4: a sudden puff or blast of wind.\n\nHamlet here makes a solemn epigram. For the right understanding of the\nwhole scene, the student must remember that Hamlet is\nphilosophizing--following things out, curiously or otherwise--on the\nbrink of a grave, concerning the tenant for which he has enquired--'what\nwoman then?'--but received no answer.]\n\n[Footnote 5: 'the corpse was of some position.']\n\n[Footnote 6: 'let us lie down'--behind a grave or stone.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Hamlet was quite in the dark as to Laertes' character; he\nhad seen next to nothing of him.]\n\n[Footnote 8: The priest making no answer, Laertes repeats the question.]\n\n[Footnote 9: _warrantise_.]\n\n[Footnote 10: This casts discredit on the queen's story, 222. The\npriest believes she died by suicide, only calls her death doubtful to\nexcuse their granting her so many of the rites of burial.]\n\n[Footnote 11: 'settled mode of proceeding.'--_Schmidt's Sh. Lex._--But\nis it not rather _the order_ of the church?]\n\n[Page 240]\n\nShe should in ground vnsanctified haue lodg'd,\n                                    [Sidenote: vnsanctified been lodged]\nTill the last Trumpet. For charitable praier,       [Sidenote: prayers,]\nShardes,[1] Flints, and Peebles, should be throwne on her:\nYet heere she is allowed her Virgin Rites,\n                                           [Sidenote: virgin Crants,[2]]\nHer Maiden strewments,[3] and the bringing home\nOf Bell and Buriall.[4]\n\n_Laer_. Must there no more be done?\n\n_Priest_. No more be done:[5]                        [Sidenote: _Doct._]\nWe should prophane the seruice of the dead,\nTo sing sage[6] _Requiem_, and such rest to her\n                                              [Sidenote: sing a Requiem]\nAs to peace-parted Soules.\n\n_Laer_. Lay her i'th' earth,\nAnd from her faire and vnpolluted flesh,\nMay Violets spring. I tell thee (churlish Priest)\nA Ministring Angell shall my Sister be,\nWhen thou liest howling?\n\n_Ham_. What, the faire _Ophelia_?[7]\n\n_Queene_. Sweets, to the sweet farewell.[8]\n[Sidenote: 118] I hop'd thou should'st haue bin my _Hamlets_ wife:\nI thought thy Bride-bed to haue deckt (sweet Maid)\nAnd not t'haue strew'd thy Graue.                   [Sidenote: not haue]\n\n_Laer_. Oh terrible woer,[9]                    [Sidenote: O treble woe]\nFall ten times trebble, on that cursed head  [Sidenote: times double on]\nWhose wicked deed, thy most Ingenioussence\nDepriu'd thee of. Hold off the earth a while,\nTill I haue caught her once more in mine armes:\n                          _Leaps in the graue._[10]\nNow pile your dust, vpon the quicke, and dead,\nTill of this flat a Mountaine you haue made,\nTo o're top old _Pelion_, or the skyish head        [Sidenote: To'retop]\nOf blew _Olympus_.[11]\n\n_Ham_.[12] What is he, whose griefes                  [Sidenote: griefe]\nBeares such an Emphasis? whose phrase of Sorrow\n\n[Footnote 1: 'Shardes' _not in Quarto._ It means _potsherds_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: chaplet--_German_ krantz, used even for virginity itself.]\n\n[Footnote 3: strewments with _white_ flowers. (?)]\n\n[Footnote 4: the burial service.]\n\n[Footnote 5: as an exclamation, I think.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Is the word _sage_ used as representing the unfitness of a\nrequiem to her state of mind? or is it only from its kindred with\n_solemn_? It was because she was not 'peace-parted' that they could not\nsing _rest_ to her.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _Everything_ here depends on the actor.]\n\n[Footnote 8: I am not sure the queen is not _apostrophizing_ the flowers\nshe is throwing into or upon the coffin: 'Sweets, be my farewell to the\nsweet.']\n\n[Footnote 9: The Folio _may_ be right here:--'Oh terrible wooer!--May\nten times treble thy misfortunes fall' &c.]\n\n[Footnote 10: This stage-direction is not in the _Quarto_.\n\nHere the _1st Quarto_ has:--\n\n    _Lear_. Forbeare the earth a while: sister farewell:\n           _Leartes leapes into the graue._\n    Now powre your earth on _Olympus_ hie,\n    And make a hill to o're top olde _Pellon_:\n           _Hamlet leapes in after Leartes_\n    Whats he that coniures so?\n\n    _Ham_. Beholde tis I, _Hamlet_ the Dane.]\n\n[Footnote 11: The whole speech is bravado--the frothy grief of a weak,\nexcitable effusive nature.]\n\n[Footnote 12: He can remain apart no longer, and approaches the\ncompany.]\n\n[Page 242]\n\nConiure the wandring Starres, and makes them stand   [Sidenote: Coniues]\nLike wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,\n_Hamlet_ the Dane.[1]\n\n_Laer_. The deuill take thy soule.[2]\n\n_Ham_. Thou prai'st not well,\nI prythee take thy fingers from my throat;[3]\nSir though I am not Spleenatiue, and rash,\n                              [Sidenote: For though | spleenatiue rash,]\nYet haue I something in me dangerous,        [Sidenote: in me something]\nWhich let thy wisenesse feare. Away thy hand.\n                               [Sidenote: wisedome feare; hold off they]\n\n_King_. Pluck them asunder.\n\n_Qu. Hamlet, Hamlet_.                      [Sidenote: _All_. Gentlemen.]\n\n_Gen_. Good my Lord be quiet.                   [Sidenote: _Hora_. Good]\n\n_Ham_. Why I will fight with him vppon this Theme,\nVntill my eielids will no longer wag.[4]\n\n_Qu_. Oh my Sonne, what Theame?\n\n_Ham_. I lou'd _Ophelia_[5]; fortie thousand Brothers\nCould not (with all there quantitie of Loue)\nMake vp my summe. What wilt thou do for her?[6]\n\n_King_. Oh he is mad _Laertes_.[7]\n\n_Qu_. For loue of God forbeare him.\n\n_Ham_. Come show me what thou'lt doe.\n                          [Sidenote: _Ham_ S'wounds shew | th'owt fight,\n                                                woo't fast, woo't teare]\nWoo't weepe? Woo't fight? Woo't teare thy selfe?\nWoo't drinke vp _Esile_, eate a Crocodile?[6]\nIle doo't. Dost thou come heere to whine;         [Sidenote: doost come]\nTo outface me with leaping in her Graue?\nBe[8] buried quicke with her, and so will I.\nAnd if thou prate of Mountaines; let them throw\nMillions of Akers on vs; till our ground\nSindging his pate against the burning Zone,\n[Sidenote: 262] Make _Ossa_ like a wart. Nay, and thoul't mouth,\nIle rant as well as thou.[9]\n\n[Footnote 1: This fine speech is yet spoken in the character of madman,\nwhich Hamlet puts on once more the moment he has to appear before the\nking. Its poetry and dignity belong to Hamlet's feeling; its\nextravagance to his assumed insanity. It must be remembered that death\nis a small affair to Hamlet beside his mother's life, and that the death\nof Ophelia may even be some consolation to him.\n\nIn the _Folio_, a few lines back, Laertes leaps into the grave. There is\nno such direction in the _Q_. In neither is Hamlet said to leap into the\ngrave; only the _1st Q._ so directs. It is a stage-business that must\nplease the _common_ actor of Hamlet; but there is nothing in the text\nany more than in the margin of _Folio_ or _Quarto_ to justify it, and it\nwould but for the horror of it be ludicrous. The coffin is supposed to\nbe in the grave: must Laertes jump down upon it, followed by Hamlet, and\nthe two fight and trample over the body?\n\nYet I take the '_Leaps in the grave_' to be an action intended for\nLaertes by the Poet. His 'Hold off the earth a while,' does not\nnecessarily imply that the body is already in the grave. He has before\nsaid, 'Lay her i'th' earth': then it was not in the grave. It is just\nabout to be lowered, when, with that cry of 'Hold off the earth a\nwhile,' he jumps into the grave, and taking the corpse, on a bier at the\nside of it, in his arms, calls to the spectators to pile a mountain on\nthem--in the wild speech that brings out Hamlet. The quiet dignity of\nHamlet's speech does not comport with his jumping into the grave:\nLaertes comes out of the grave, and flies at Hamlet's throat. So, at\nleast, I would have the thing acted.\n\nThere is, however, nothing in the text to show that Laertes comes out of\nthe grave, and if the manager insist on the traditional mode, I would\nsuggest that the grave be represented much larger. In Mr. Jewitt's book\non Grave-Mounds, I read of a 'female skeleton in a grave six feet deep,\nten feet long, and eight feet wide.' Such a grave would give room for\nboth beside the body, and dismiss the hideousness of the common\nrepresentation.]\n\n[Footnote 2: --_springing out of the grave and flying at Hamlet_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Note the temper, self-knowledge, self-government, and\nself-distrust of Hamlet.]\n\n[Footnote 4: The eyelids last of all become incapable of motion.]\n\n[Footnote 5: That he loved her is the only thing to explain the\nharshness of his behaviour to her. Had he not loved her and not been\nmiserable about her, he would have been as polite to her as well bred\npeople would have him.]\n\n[Footnote 6: The gallants of Shakspere's day would challenge each other\nto do more disagreeable things than any of these in honour of their\nmistresses.\n\n'_\u00c9sil._ s.m. Ancien nom du Vinaigre.' _Supplement to Academy Dict._,\n1847.--'Eisile, _vinegar_': Bosworth's _Anglo-Saxon Dict_., from\nSomner's _Saxon Dict._, 1659.--'Eisel (_Saxon), vinegar; verjuice; any\nacid_': Johnson's _Dict_.\n\n_1st Q_. 'Wilt drinke vp vessels.' The word _up_ very likely implies the\nsteady emptying of a vessel specified--at a draught, and not by\ndegrees.]\n\n[Footnote 7: --pretending care over Hamlet.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Emphasis on _Be_, which I take for the _imperative mood_.]\n\n[Footnote 9: The moment it is uttered, he recognizes and confesses to\nthe rant, ashamed of it even under the cover of his madness. It did not\nbelong _altogether_ to the madness. Later he expresses to Horatio his\nregret in regard to this passage between him and Laertes, and afterwards\napologizes to Laertes. 252, 262.\n\nPerhaps this is the speech in all the play of which it is most difficult\nto get into a sympathetic comprehension. The student must call to mind\nthe elements at war in Hamlet's soul, and generating discords in his\nbehaviour: to those comes now the shock of Ophelia's death; the last tie\nthat bound him to life is gone--the one glimmer of hope left him for\nthis world! The grave upon whose brink he has been bandying words with\nthe sexton, is for _her_! Into such a consciousness comes the rant of\nLaertes. Only the forms of madness are free to him, while no form is too\nstrong in which to repudiate indifference to Ophelia: for her sake, as\nwell as to relieve his own heart, he casts the clear confession of his\nlove into her grave. He is even jealous, over her dead body, of her\nbrother's profession of love to her--as if any brother could love as he\nloved! This is foolish, no doubt, but human, and natural to a certain\nchildishness in grief. 252.\n\nAdd to this, that Hamlet--see later in his speeches to Osricke--had a\nlively inclination to answer a fool according to his folly (256), to\noutherod Herod if Herod would rave, out-euphuize Euphues himself if he\nwould be ridiculous:--the digestion of all these things in the retort of\nmeditation will result, I would fain think, in an understanding and\nartistic justification of even this speech of Hamlet: the more I\nconsider it the truer it seems. If proof be necessary that real feeling\nis mingled in the madness of the utterance, it may be found in the fact\nthat he is immediately ashamed of its extravagance.]\n\n[Page 244]\n\n_Kin_.[1] This is meere Madnesse:                 [Sidenote: _Quee_.[1]]\nAnd thus awhile the fit will worke on him:          [Sidenote: And this]\nAnon as patient as the female Doue,\nWhen that her golden[2] Cuplet[3] are disclos'd[4];\n                                                  [Sidenote: cuplets[3]]\nHis silence will sit drooping.[5]\n\n_Ham_. Heare you Sir:[6]\nWhat is the reason that you vse me thus?\nI loud' you euer;[7] but it is no matter:[8]\nLet _Hercules_ himselfe doe what he may,\nThe Cat will Mew, and Dogge will haue his day.[9]\n           _Exit._                [Sidenote: _Exit Hamlet and Horatio._]\n\n_Kin_. I pray you good Horatio wait vpon him,\n                                              [Sidenote: pray thee good]\nStrengthen you patience in our last nights speech,      [Sidenote: your]\n[Sidenote: 254] Wee'l put the matter to the present push:[10]\nGood _Gertrude_ set some watch ouer your Sonne,\nThis Graue shall haue a liuing[11] Monument:[12]\nAn houre of quiet shortly shall we see;[13]\n                                         [Sidenote: quiet thirtie shall]\nTill then, in patience our proceeding be.   _Exeunt._\n\n[Footnote 1: I hardly know which to choose as the speaker of this\nspeech. It would be a fine specimen of the king's hypocrisy; and perhaps\nindeed its poetry, lovely in itself, but at such a time sentimental, is\nfitter for him than the less guilty queen.]\n\n[Footnote 2: 'covered with a yellow down' _Heath_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: The singular is better: 'the pigeon lays no more than _two_\neggs.' _Steevens_. Only, _couplets_ might be used like _twins_.]\n\n[Footnote 4: --_hatched_, the sporting term of the time.]\n\n[Footnote 5: 'The pigeon never quits her nest for three days after her\ntwo young ones are hatched, except for a few moments to get food.'\n_Steevens_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Laertes stands eyeing him with evil looks.]\n\n[Footnote 7: I suppose here a pause: he waits in vain some response from\nLaertes.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Here he retreats into his madness.]\n\n[Footnote 9: '--but I cannot compel you to hear reason. Do what he will,\nHercules himself cannot keep the cat from mewing, or the dog from\nfollowing his inclination!'--said in a half humorous, half contemptuous\ndespair.]\n\n[Footnote 10: 'into immediate train'--_to Laertes_.]\n\n[Footnote 11: _life-like_, or _lasting_?]\n\n[Footnote 12: --_again to Laertes_.]\n\n[Footnote 13: --when Hamlet is dead.]\n\n[Page 246]\n\n_Enter Hamlet and Horatio._\n\n_Ham._ So much for this Sir; now let me see the other,[1]\n                                           [Sidenote: now shall you see]\nYou doe remember all the Circumstance.[2]\n\n_Hor._ Remember it my Lord?[3]\n\n_Ham._ Sir, in my heart there was a kinde of fighting,\nThat would not let me sleepe;[4] me thought I lay\n                                                  [Sidenote: my thought]\nWorse then the mutines in the Bilboes,[5] rashly,      [Sidenote: bilbo]\n(And praise be rashnesse for it)[6] let vs know,      [Sidenote: prayed]\nOur indiscretion sometimes serues vs well,          [Sidenote: sometime]\nWhen our deare plots do paule,[7] and that should teach vs,\n                                    [Sidenote: deepe | should learne us]\n[Sidenote: 146, 181] There's a Diuinity that shapes our ends,[8]\nRough-hew them how we will.[9]\n\n_Hor._ That is most certaine.\n\n_Ham._ Vp from my Cabin\nMy sea-gowne scarft about me in the darke,\nGrop'd I to finde out them;[10] had my desire,\nFinger'd their Packet[11], and in fine, withdrew\nTo mine owne roome againe, making so bold,\n(My feares forgetting manners) to vnseale          [Sidenote: to vnfold]\nTheir grand Commission, where I found _Horatio_,\nOh royall[12] knauery: An exact command,            [Sidenote: A royall]\n[Sidenote: 196] Larded with many seuerall sorts of reason;\n                                                    [Sidenote: reasons,]\nImporting Denmarks health, and Englands too,\nWith hoo, such Bugges[13] and Goblins in my life,        [Sidenote: hoe]\nThat on the superuize[14] no leasure bated,[15]\nNo not to stay the grinding of the Axe,\nMy head shoud be struck off.\n\n_Hor._ Ist possible?\n\n_Ham._ Here's the Commission, read it at more leysure:\n\n[Footnote 1: I would suggest that the one paper, which he has just\nshown, is a commission the king gave to himself; the other, which he is\nabout to show, that given to Rosincrance and Guildensterne. He is\nsetting forth his proof of the king's treachery.]\n\n[Footnote 2: --of the king's words and behaviour, possibly, in giving\nhim his papers, Horatio having been present; or it might mean, 'Have you\ngot the things I have just told you clear in your mind?']\n\n[Footnote 3: '--as if I could forget a single particular of it!']\n\n[Footnote 4: The _Shaping Divinity_ was moving him.]\n\n[Footnote 5: The fetters called _bilboes_ fasten a couple of mutinous\nsailors together by the legs.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Does he not here check himself and begin\nafresh--remembering that the praise belongs to the Divinity?]\n\n[Footnote 7: _pall_--from the root of _pale_--'come to nothing.' He had\nhad his plots from which he hoped much; the king's commission had\nrendered them futile. But he seems to have grown doubtful of his plans\nbefore, probably through the doubt of his companions which led him to\nseek acquaintance with their commission, and he may mean that his 'dear\nplots' had begun to pall _upon him_. Anyhow the sudden 'indiscretion' of\nsearching for and unsealing the ambassadors' commission served him as\nnothing else could have served him.]\n\n[Footnote 8: --even by our indiscretion. Emphasis on _shapes_.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Here is another sign of Hamlet's religion. 24, 125, 260.\nWe start to work out an idea, but the result does not correspond with\nthe idea: another has been at work along with us. We rough-hew--block\nout our marble, say for a Mercury; the result is an Apollo. Hamlet had\nrough-hewn his ends--he had begun plans to certain ends, but had he been\nallowed to go on shaping them alone, the result, even had he carried out\nhis plans and shaped his ends to his mind, would have been failure.\nAnother mallet and chisel were busy shaping them otherwise from the\nfirst, and carrying them out to a true success. For _success_ is not the\nsuccess of plans, but the success of ends.]\n\n[Footnote 10: Emphasize _I_ and _them_, as the rhythm requires, and the\nphrase becomes picturesque.]\n\n[Footnote 11: 'got my fingers on their papers.']\n\n[Footnote 12: Emphasize _royal_.]\n\n[Footnote 13: A _bug_ is any object causing terror.]\n\n[Footnote 14: immediately on the reading.]\n\n[Footnote 15: --no interval abated, taken off the immediacy of the order\nrespite granted.]\n\n[Page 248]\n\nBut wilt thou heare me how I did proceed?      [Sidenote: heare now how]\n\n_Hor_. I beseech you.\n\n_Ham_. Being thus benetted round with Villaines,[1]\nEre I could make a Prologue to my braines,        [Sidenote: Or I could]\nThey had begun the Play.[2] I sate me downe,\nDeuis'd a new Commission,[3] wrote it faire,\nI once did hold it as our Statists[4] doe,\nA basenesse to write faire; and laboured much\nHow to forget that learning: but Sir now,\nIt did me Yeomans[5] seruice: wilt thou know          [Sidenote: yemans]\nThe effects[6] of what I wrote?                 [Sidenote: Th'effect[6]]\n\n_Hor_. I, good my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. An earnest Coniuration from the King,\nAs England was his faithfull Tributary,\nAs loue betweene them, as the Palme should flourish,\n                              [Sidenote: them like the | might florish,]\nAs Peace should still her wheaten Garland weare,\nAnd stand a Comma 'tweene their amities,[7]\nAnd many such like Assis[8] of great charge,\n                                             [Sidenote: like, as sir of]\nThat on the view and know of these Contents,         [Sidenote: knowing]\nWithout debatement further, more or lesse,\nHe should the bearers put to sodaine death,    [Sidenote: those bearers]\nNot shriuing time allowed.\n\n_Hor_. How was this seal'd?\n\n_Ham_. Why, euen in that was Heauen ordinate;      [Sidenote: ordinant,]\nI had my fathers Signet in my Purse,\nWhich was the Modell of that Danish Seale:\nFolded the Writ vp in forme of the other,\n                                         [Sidenote: in the forme of th']\nSubscrib'd it, gau't th'impression, plac't it safely,\n                                               [Sidenote: Subscribe it,]\nThe changeling neuer knowne: Now, the next day\nWas our Sea Fight, and what to this was sement,  [Sidenote: was sequent]\nThou know'st already.[9]\n\n_Hor_. So _Guildensterne_ and _Rosincrance_, go too't.\n\n[Footnote 1: --the nearest, Rosincrance and Guildensterne: Hamlet was\nquite satisfied of their villainy.]\n\n[Footnote 2: 'I had no need to think: the thing came to me at once.']\n\n[Footnote 3: Note Hamlet's rapid practicality--not merely in devising,\nbut in carrying out.]\n\n[Footnote 4: statesmen.]\n\n[Footnote 5: '_Yeomen of the guard of the king's body_ were anciently\ntwo hundred and fifty men, of the best rank under gentry, and of larger\nstature than ordinary; every one being required to be six feet\nhigh.'--_E. Chambers' Cyclopaedia_. Hence '_yeoman's_ service' must mean\nthe very best of service.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Note our common phrase: 'I wrote to this effect.']\n\n[Footnote 7: 'as he would have Peace stand between their friendships\nlike a comma between two words.' Every point has in it a conjunctive, as\nwell as a disjunctive element: the former seems the one regarded\nhere--only that some amities require more than a comma to separate them.\nThe _comma_ does not make much of a figure--is good enough for its\nposition, however; if indeed the fact be not, that, instead of standing\nfor _Peace_, it does not even stand for itself, but for some other word.\nI do not for my part think so.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Dr. Johnson says there is a quibble here with _asses_ as\nbeasts of _charge_ or burden. It is probable enough, seeing, as Malone\ntells us, that in Warwickshire, as did Dr. Johnson himself, they\npronounce _as_ hard. In Aberdeenshire the sound of the _s_ varies with\nthe intent of the word: '_az_ he said'; '_ass_ strong _az_ a horse.']\n\n[Footnote 9: To what purpose is this half-voyage to England made part of\nthe play? The action--except, as not a few would have it, the very\naction be delay--is nowise furthered by it; Hamlet merely goes and\nreturns.\n\nTo answer this question, let us find the real ground for Hamlet's\nreflection, 'There's a Divinity that shapes our ends.' Observe, he is\nset at liberty without being in the least indebted to the finding of the\ncommission--by the attack, namely, of the pirate; and this was not the\nshaping of his ends of which he was thinking when he made the\nreflection, for it had reference to the finding of the commission. What\nthen was the ground of the reflection? And what justifies the whole\npassage in relation to the Poet's object, the character of Hamlet?\n\nThis, it seems to me:--\n\nAlthough Hamlet could not have had much doubt left with regard to his\nuncle's guilt, yet a man with a fine, delicate--what most men would\nthink, because so much more exacting than theirs--fastidious conscience,\nmight well desire some proof more positive yet, before he did a deed so\nrepugnant to his nature, and carrying in it such a loud condemnation of\nhis mother. And more: he might well wish to have something to _show_: a\nman's conviction is no proof, though it may work in others inclination\nto receive proof. Hamlet is sent to sea just to get such proof as will\nnot only thoroughly satisfy himself, but be capable of being shown to\nothers. He holds now in his hand--to lay before the people--the two\ncontradictory commissions. By his voyage then he has gained both\nassurance of his duty, and provision against the consequence he mainly\ndreaded, that of leaving a wounded name behind him. 272. This is the\nshaping of his ends--so exactly to his needs, so different from his\nrough-hewn plans--which is the work of the Divinity. The man who desires\nto know his duty that he may _do_ it, who will not shirk it when he does\nknow it, will have time allowed him and the thing made plain to him; his\nperplexity will even strengthen and purify his will. The weak man is he\nwho, certain of what is required of him, fails to meet it: so never once\nfails Hamlet. Note, in all that follows, that a load seems taken off\nhim: after a gracious tardiness to believe up to the point of action, he\nis at length satisfied. Hesitation belongs to the noble nature, to\nHamlet; precipitation to the poor nature, to Laertes, the son of\nPolonius. Compare Brutus in _Julius Caesar_--a Hamlet in favourable\ncircumstances, with Hamlet--a Brutus in the most unfavourable\ncircumstances conceivable.]\n\n[Page 250]\n\n_Ham_. Why man, they did make loue to this imployment[1]\nThey are not neere my Conscience; their debate\n                                             [Sidenote: their defeat[2]]\nDoth by their owne insinuation[3] grow:[4]             [Sidenote: Dooes]\n'Tis dangerous, when the baser nature comes\nBetweene the passe, and fell incensed points\nOf mighty opposites.[5]\n\n_Hor_. Why, what a King is this?[6]\n\n_Ham_. Does it not, thinkst thee,[7] stand me now vpon[8]\n                                    [Sidenote: not thinke thee[7] stand]\n[Sidenote: 120] He that hath kil'd my King,[9] and whor'd my Mother,\n[Sidenote: 62] Popt in betweene th'election and my hopes,\n\n[Footnote 1: _This verse not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 2: destruction.]\n\n[Footnote 3: 'Their destruction they have enticed on themselves by their\nown behaviour;' or, 'they have _crept into_ their fate by their\nunderhand dealings.' The _Sh. Lex._ explains _insinuation_ as\n_meddling_.]\n\n[Footnote 4: With the concern of Horatio for the fate of Rosincrance and\nGuildensterne, Hamlet shows no sympathy. It has been objected to his\ncharacter that there is nothing in the play to show them privy to the\ncontents of their commission; to this it would be answer enough, that\nHamlet is satisfied of their worthlessness, and that their whole\nbehaviour in the play shows them merest parasites; but, at the same\ntime, we must note that, in changing the commission, he had no\nintention, could have had no thought, of letting them go to England\nwithout him: that was a pure shaping of their ends by the Divinity.\nPossibly his own 'dear plots' had in them the notion of getting help\nagainst his uncle from the king of England, in which case he would\nwillingly of course have continued his journey; but whatever they may be\nsupposed to have been, they were laid in connection with the voyage, not\nfounded on the chance of its interruption. It is easy to imagine a man\nlike him, averse to the shedding of blood, intending interference for\ntheir lives: as heir apparent, he would certainly have been listened to.\nThe tone of his reply to Horatio is that of one who has been made the\nunintending cause of a deserved fate: the thing having fallen out so,\nthe Divinity having so shaped their ends, there was nothing in their\ncharacter, any more than in that of Polonius, to make him regret their\ndeath, or the part he had had in it.]\n\n[Footnote 5: The 'mighty opposites' here are the king and Hamlet.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Perhaps, as Hamlet talked, he has been parenthetically\nglancing at the real commission. Anyhow conviction is growing stronger\nin Horatio, whom, for the occasion, we may regard as a type of the\npublic.]\n\n[Footnote 7: 'thinkst thee,' in the fashion of the Friends, or 'thinke\nthee' in the sense of 'bethink thee.']\n\n[Footnote 8: 'Does it not rest now on me?--is it not now my duty?--is it\nnot _incumbent on me_ (with _lie_ for _stand_)--\"is't not perfect\nconscience\"?']\n\n[Footnote 9: Note '_my king_' not _my father_: he had to avenge a crime\nagainst the state, the country, himself as a subject--not merely a\nprivate wrong.]\n\n[Page 252]\n\nThrowne out his Angle for my proper life,[1]\nAnd with such coozenage;[2] is't not perfect conscience,[3]\n                                                 [Sidenote: conscience?]\n[Sidenote: 120] To quit him with this arme?[4] And is't not to be\ndamn'd[5]\nTo let this Canker of our nature come\nIn further euill.[6]\n\n_Hor._ It must be shortly knowne to him from England\nWhat is the issue of the businesse there.[7]\n\n_Ham._ It will be short,\n[Sidenote: 262] The _interim's_ mine,[8] and a mans life's no more[9]\nThen to say one:[10] but I am very sorry good _Horatio_,\n[Sidenote: 245] That to _Laertes_ I forgot my selfe;\nFor by the image of my Cause, I see\n[Sidenote: 262] The Portraiture of his;[11] Ile count his fauours:[12]\n\n[Footnote 1: Here is the charge at length in full against the king--of\nquality and proof sufficient now, not merely to justify, but to compel\naction against him.]\n\n[Footnote 2: He was such a _fine_ hypocrite that Hamlet, although he\nhated and distrusted him, was perplexed as to the possibility of his\nguilt. His good acting was almost too much for Hamlet himself. This is\nhis 'coozenage.'\n\nAfter 'coozenage' should come a dash, bringing '--is't not perfect\nconscience' (_is it not absolutely righteous_) into closest sequence,\nalmost apposition, with 'Does it not stand me now upon--'.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Here comes in the _Quarto, 'Enter a Courtier_.' All from\nthis point to 'Peace, who comes heere?' included, is in addition to the\n_Quarto_ text--not in the _Q._, that is.]\n\n[Footnote 4: I would here refer my student to the soliloquy--with its\n_sea of troubles_, and _the taking of arms against it_. 123, n. 4.]\n\n[Footnote 5: These three questions: 'Does it not stand me now\nupon?'--'Is't not perfect conscience?'--'Is't not to be damned?' reveal\nthe whole relation between the inner and outer, the unseen and the seen,\nthe thinking and the acting Hamlet. 'Is not the thing right?--Is it not\nmy duty?--Would not the neglect of it deserve damnation?' He is\nsatisfied.]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'is it not a thing to be damned--to let &c.?' or, 'would it\nnot be to be damned, (to be in a state of damnation, or, to bring\ndamnation on oneself) to let this human cancer, the king, go on to\nfurther evil?']\n\n[Footnote 7: '--so you have not much time.']\n\n[Footnote 8: 'True, it will be short, but till then is mine, and will be\nlong enough for me.' He is resolved.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Now that he is assured of what is right, the Shadow that\nwaits him on the path to it, has no terror for him. He ceases to be\nanxious as to 'what dreams may come,' as to the 'something after death,'\nas to 'the undiscovered country,' the moment his conscience is\nsatisfied. 120. It cannot now make a coward of him. It was never in\nregard to the past that Hamlet dreaded death, but in regard to the\nrighteousness of the action which was about to occasion his death. Note\nthat he expects death; at least he has long made up his mind to the\ngreat risk of it--the death referred to in the soliloquy--which, after\nall, was not that which did overtake him. There is nothing about suicide\nhere, nor was there there.]\n\n[Footnote 10: 'a man's life must soon be over anyhow.']\n\n[Footnote 11: The approach of death causes him to think of and regret\neven the small wrongs he has done; he laments his late behaviour to\nLaertes, and makes excuse for him: the similarity of their condition,\neach having lost a father by violence, ought, he says, to have taught\nhim gentleness with him. The _1st Quarto_ is worth comparing here:--\n\n    _Enter Hamlet and Horatio_\n\n    _Ham_. Beleeue mee, it greeues mee much _Horatio_,\n    That to _Leartes_ I forgot my selfe:\n    For by my selfe me thinkes I feele his griefe,\n    Though there's a difference in each others wrong.]\n\n[Footnote 12: 'I will not forget,' or, 'I will call to mind, what merits\nhe has,' or 'what favours he has shown me.' But I suspect the word\n'_count_' ought to be _court_.--He does court his favour when next they\nmeet--in lovely fashion. He has no suspicion of his enmity.]\n\n[Page 254]\n\n[Sidenote: 242, 262] But sure the brauery[1] of his griefe did put me\nInto a Towring passion.[2]\n\n_Hor._ Peace, who comes heere?\n\n_Enter young Osricke._[3]                [Sidenote: _Enter a Courtier._]\n\n_Osr._ Your Lordship is right welcome back to        [Sidenote: _Cour._]\nDenmarke.\n\n_Ham._ I humbly thank you Sir, dost know this   [Sidenote: humble thank]\nwaterflie?[4]\n\n_Hor._ No my good Lord.\n\n_Ham._ Thy state is the more gracious; for 'tis a\nvice to know him[5]: he hath much Land, and fertile;\nlet a Beast be Lord of Beasts, and his Crib shall\nstand at the Kings Messe;[6] 'tis a Chowgh[7]; but\nas I saw spacious in the possession of dirt.[8]    [Sidenote: as I say,]\n\n_Osr._ Sweet Lord, if your friendship[9] were at\n                                     [Sidenote: _Cour._ | Lordshippe[?]]\nleysure, I should impart a thing to you from his\nMaiesty.\n\n_Ham._ I will receiue it with all diligence of   [Sidenote: it sir with]\nspirit; put your Bonet to his right vse, 'tis for the\n                                                [Sidenote: spirit, your]\nhead.\n\nOsr. I thanke your Lordship, 'tis very hot[10]\n                                               [Sidenote: Cour. | it is]\n\n_Ham._ No, beleeue mee 'tis very cold, the winde\nis Northerly.\n\n_Osr._ It is indifferent cold[11] my Lord indeed.    [Sidenote: _Cour._]\n\n_Ham._ Mee thinkes it is very soultry, and hot\n                           [Sidenote: But yet me | sully and hot, or my]\nfor my Complexion.[12]\n\n_Osr._ Exceedingly, my Lord, it is very soultry,     [Sidenote: _Cour._]\nas 'twere I cannot tell how: but my Lord,[13] his\n                                                [Sidenote: how: my Lord]\nMaiesty bad me signifie to you, that he ha's laid a\n                                                  [Sidenote: that a had]\n[Sidenote: 244] great wager on your head: Sir, this is the matter.[14]\n\n_Ham._ I beseech you remember.[15]\n\n_Osr._ Nay, in good faith, for mine ease in good\n                          [Sidenote: Cour. Nay good my Lord for my ease]\n\n[Footnote 1: the great show; bravado.]\n\n[Footnote 2: --with which fell in well the forms of his pretended\nmadness. But that the passion was real, this reaction of repentance\nshows. It was not the first time his pretence had given him liberty to\nease his heart with wild words. Jealous of the boastfulness of Laertes'\naffection, he began at once--in keeping with his assumed character of\nmadman, but not the less in harmony with his feelings--to outrave him.]\n\n[Footnote 3: One of the sort that would gather to such a king--of the\nsame kind as Rosincrance and Guildensterne.\n\nIn the _1st Q. 'Enter a Bragart Gentleman_.']\n\n[Footnote 4: --_to Horatio_.]\n\n[Footnote 5: 'Thou art the more in a state of grace, for it is a vice to\nknow him.']\n\n[Footnote 6: 'his manger shall stand where the king is served.' Wealth\nis always received by Rank--Mammon nowhere better worshipped than in\nkings' courts.]\n\n[Footnote 7: '_a bird of the crow-family_'--as a figure, '_always\napplied to rich and avaricious people_.' A _chuff_ is a surly _clown_.\nIn Scotch a _coof_ is 'a silly, dastardly fellow.']\n\n[Footnote 8: land.]\n\n[Footnote 9: 'friendship' is better than 'Lordshippe,' as euphuistic.]\n\n[Footnote 10: 'I thanke your Lordship; (_puts on his hat_) 'tis very\nhot.']\n\n[Footnote 11: 'rather cold.']\n\n[Footnote 12: 'and hot--for _my_ temperament.']\n\n[Footnote 13: Not able to go on, he plunges into his message.]\n\n[Footnote 14: --_takes off his hat_.]\n\n[Footnote 15: --making a sign to him again to put on his hat.]\n\n[Page 256]\n\nfaith[1]: Sir, [A] you are not ignorant of what excellence\n_Laertes_ [B] is at his weapon.[2]          [Sidenote: _Laertes_ is.[2]]\n\n_Ham_. What's his weapon?[3]\n\n_Osr_. Rapier and dagger.               [Sidenote: _Cour._]\n\n_Ham_. That's two of his weapons: but well.\n\n_Osr_. The sir King ha's wag'd with him six\n                            [Sidenote: _Cour_. The King sir hath wagerd]\nBarbary Horses, against the which he impon'd[4] as I\n                                             [Sidenote: hee has impaund]\ntake it, sixe French Rapiers and Poniards, with\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\n[5] here is newly com to Court _Laertes_, belieue me an absolute\ngentlemen, ful of most excellent differences,[6] of very soft\nsociety,[7] and great\n[Sidenote: 234] showing[8]: indeede to speake sellingly[9] of him, hee\nis the card or kalender[10] of gentry: for you shall find in him the\ncontinent of what part a Gentleman would see.[11]\n\n[Sidenote: 245] _Ham_.[12] Sir, his definement suffers no perdition[13]\nin you, though I know to deuide him inuentorially,[14] would dosie[15]\nth'arithmaticke of memory, and yet but yaw[16] neither in respect of\nhis quick saile, but in the veritie of extolment, I take him to be a\nsoule of great article,[17] & his infusion[18] of such dearth[19] and\nrarenesse, as to make true dixion of him, his semblable is his\nmirrour,[20] & who els would trace him, his vmbrage, nothing more.[21]\n\n_Cour_. Your Lordship speakes most infallibly of him.[22]\n\n_Ham_. The concernancy[23] sir, why doe we wrap the gentleman in our\nmore rawer breath?[24]\n\n_Cour_. Sir.[25]\n\n_Hora_. Ist not possible to vnderstand in another tongue,[26] you will\ntoo't sir really.[27]\n\n_Ham_. What imports the nomination of this gentleman.\n\n_Cour_. Of _Laertes_.[28]\n\n_Hora_. His purse is empty already, all's golden words are spent.\n\n_Ham_. Of him sir.[29]\n\n_Cour_. I know you are not ignorant.[30]\n\n_Ham_. I would you did sir, yet in faith if you did, it would not\nmuch approoue me,[31] well sir.\n\n_Cour_.]\n\n[Footnote B: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\n_Ham_. I dare not confesse that, least I should compare with him in\nexcellence, but to know a man wel, were to knowe himselfe.[32]\n\n_Cour_. I meane sir for this weapon, but in the imputation laide on\nhim,[33] by them in his meed, hee's vnfellowed.[34]]\n\n[Footnote 1: 'in good faith, it is not for manners, but for my comfort I\ntake it off.' Perhaps the hat was intended only to be carried, and would\nnot really go on his head.]\n\n[Footnote 2: The _Quarto_ has not 'at his weapon,' which is inserted to\ntake the place of the passage omitted, and connect the edges of the\ngap.]\n\n[Footnote 3: So far from having envied Laertes' reputation for fencing,\nas the king asserts, Hamlet seems not even to have known which was\nLaertes' weapon.]\n\n[Footnote 4: laid down--staked.]\n\n[Footnote 5: This and the following passages seem omitted for\ncurtailment, and perhaps in part because they were less amusing when the\nfashion of euphuism had passed. The good of holding up the mirror to\nfolly was gone when it was no more the 'form and pressure' of 'the very\nage and body of the time.']\n\n[Footnote 6: of great variety of excellence.]\n\n[Footnote 7: gentle manners.]\n\n[Footnote 8: fine presence.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Is this a stupid attempt at wit on the part of Osricke--'to\npraise him as if you wanted to sell him'--stupid because it acknowledges\nexaggeration?]\n\n[Footnote 10: 'the chart or book of reference.' 234.]\n\n[Footnote 11: I think _part_ here should be plural; then the passage\nwould paraphrase thus:--'you shall find in him the sum of what parts\n(_endowments_) a gentleman would wish to see.']\n\n[Footnote 12: Hamlet answers the fool according to his folly, but\noutdoes him, to his discomfiture.]\n\n[Footnote 13: 'his description suffers no loss in your mouth.']\n\n[Footnote 14: 'to analyze him into all and each of his qualities.']\n\n[Footnote 15: dizzy.]\n\n[Footnote 16: 'and yet _would_ but yaw neither' _Yaw_, 'the movement by\nwhich a ship deviates from the line of her course towards the right or\nleft in steering.' Falconer's _Marine Dictionary_. The meaning seems to\nbe that the inventorial description could not overtake his merits,\nbecause it would _yaw_--keep turning out of the direct line of their\nquick sail. But Hamlet is set on using far-fetched and absurd forms and\nphrases to the non-plussing of Osricke, nor cares much to be _correct_.]\n\n[Footnote 17: I take this use of the word _article_ to be merely for the\noccasion; it uas never surely in _use_ for _substance_.]\n\n[Footnote 18: '--the infusion of his soul into his body,' 'his soul's\nembodiment.' The _Sh. Lex._ explains _infusion_ as 'endowments,\nqualities,' and it may be right.]\n\n[Footnote 19: scarcity.]\n\n[Footnote 20: '--it alone can show his likeness.']\n\n[Footnote 21: 'whoever would follow in his footsteps--copy him--is only\nhis shadow.']\n\n[Footnote 22: Here a pause, I think.]\n\n[Footnote 23: 'To the matter in hand!'--recalling the attention of\nOsricke to the purport of his visit.]\n\n[Footnote 24: 'why do we presume to talk about him with our less refined\nbreath?']\n\n[Footnote 25: The Courtier is now thoroughly bewildered.]\n\n[Footnote 26: 'Can you only _speak_ in another tongue? Is it not\npossible to _understand_ in it as well?']\n\n[Footnote 27: 'It is your own fault; you _will_ court your fate! you\n_will_ go and be made a fool of!']\n\n[Footnote 28: He catches at the word he understands. The actor must here\nsupply the meaning, with the baffled, disconcerted look of a fool who\nhas failed in the attempt to seem knowing.]\n\n[Footnote 29:--answering the Courtier.]\n\n[Footnote 30: He pauses, looking for some out-of-the-way mode wherein to\ncontinue. Hamlet takes him up.]\n\n[Footnote 31: 'your witness to my knowledge would not be of much\navail.']\n\n[Footnote 32: Paraphrase: 'for merely to know a man well, implies that\nyou yourself _know_.' To know a man well, you must know his knowledge: a\nman, to judge his neighbour, must be at least his equal.]\n\n[Footnote 33: faculty attributed to him.]\n\n[Footnote 34: _Point thus_: 'laide on him by them, in his meed hee's\nunfellowed.' 'in his merit he is peerless.']\n\n[Page 258]\n\ntheir assignes,[1] as Girdle, Hangers or so[2]: three of\n                                              [Sidenote: hanger and so.]\nthe Carriages infaith are very deare to fancy,[3] very\nresponsiue[4] to the hilts, most delicate carriages\nand of very liberall conceit.[5]\n\n_Ham_. What call you the Carriages?[6]\n\n[A]\n\n_Osr_. The Carriages Sir, are the hangers.\n                                        [Sidenote: _Cour_. The carriage]\n\n_Ham_. The phrase would bee more Germaine[7] to\nthe matter: If we could carry Cannon by our sides;\n                                              [Sidenote: carry a cannon]\nI would it might be Hangers till then; but on sixe\n                                   [Sidenote: it be | then, but on, six]\nBarbary Horses against sixe French Swords: their\nAssignes, and three liberall conceited Carriages,[8]\nthat's the French but against the Danish; why is  [Sidenote: French bet]\nthis impon'd as you call it[9]?              [Sidenote: this all you[9]]\n\n_Osr_.  The King Sir, hath laid that in a dozen\n                                    [Sidenote: _Cour_. | layd sir, that]\npasses betweene you and him, hee shall not exceed\n                                         [Sidenote: your selfe and him,]\nyou three hits;[10] He hath one twelue for mine,[11]\n                               [Sidenote: hath layd on twelue for nine,]\nand that would come to imediate tryall, if your [Sidenote: and it would]\nLordship would vouchsafe the Answere.[12]\n\n_Ham_. How if I answere no?[13]\n\n_Osr_. I meane my Lord,[14] the opposition of your   [Sidenote: _Cour_.]\nperson in tryall.\n\n_Ham_. Sir, I will walke heere in the Hall; if it\nplease his Maiestie, 'tis the breathing time of day    [Sidenote: it is]\nwith me[15]; let the Foyles bee brought, the Gentleman\nwilling, and the King hold his purpose; I will\nwin for him if I can: if not, Ile gaine nothing but\n                                          [Sidenote: him and I | I will]\nmy shame, and the odde hits.[16]\n\n_Osr_. Shall I redeliuer you ee'n so?[17]\n                             [Sidenote: _Cour_. Shall I deliuer you so?]\n\n_Ham_. To this effect Sir, after what flourish your\nnature will.\n\n_Osr_. I commend my duty to your Lordship.           [Sidenote: _Cour_.]\n\n_Ham_. Yours, yours [18]: hee does well to commend\n                                 [Sidenote: _Ham_. Yours doo's well[18]]\nit himselfe, there are no tongues else for's tongue,  [Sidenote: turne.]\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\n_Hora_. I knew you must be edified by the margent[19] ere you had\ndone.]\n\n[Footnote 1: accompaniments or belongings; things _assigned_ to them.]\n\n[Footnote 2: the thongs or chains attaching the sheath of a weapon to\nthe girdle; what the weapon _hangs_ by. The '_or so_' seems to indicate\nthat Osricke regrets having used the old-fashioned word, which he\nimmediately changes for _carriages_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: imagination, taste, the artistic faculty.]\n\n[Footnote 4: 'corresponding to--going well with the hilts,'--in shape,\nornament, and colour.]\n\n[Footnote 5: bold invention.]\n\n[Footnote 6: a new word, unknown to Hamlet;--court-slang, to which he\nprefers the old-fashioned, homely word.]\n\n[Footnote 7: related; 'akin to the matter.']\n\n[Footnote 8: He uses Osricke's words--with a touch of derision, I should\nsay.]\n\n[Footnote 9: I do not take the _Quarto_ reading for incorrect. Hamlet\nsays: 'why is this all----you call it --? --?' as if he wanted to use\nthe word (_imponed_) which Osricke had used, but did not remember it: he\nasks for it, saying '_you call it_' interrogatively.]\n\n[Footnote 10: _1st Q_\n\n                  that yong Leartes in twelue venies   223\n    At Rapier and Dagger do not get three oddes of you,]\n\n[Footnote 11: In all printer's work errors are apt to come in clusters.]\n\n[Footnote 12: the response, or acceptance of the challenge.]\n\n[Footnote 13: Hamlet plays with the word, pretending to take it in its\ncommon meaning.]\n\n[Footnote 14: 'By _answer_, I mean, my lord, the opposition &c.']\n\n[Footnote 15: 'my time for exercise:' he treats the proposal as the\ntrifle it seems--a casual affair to be settled at once--hoping perhaps\nthat the king will come with like carelessness.]\n\n[Footnote 16: the _three_.]\n\n[Footnote 17: To Osricke the answer seems too direct and unadorned for\nears royal.]\n\n[Footnote 18: I cannot help here preferring the _Q_. If we take the\n_Folio_ reading, we must take it thus: 'Yours! yours!' spoken with\ncontempt;--'as if _you_ knew anything of duty!'--for we see from what\nfollows that he is playing with the word _duty_. Or we might read it,\n'Yours commends yours,' with the same sense as the reading of the _Q._,\nwhich is, 'Yours,' that is, '_Your_ lordship--does well to commend his\nduty himself--there is no one else to do it.' This former shape is\nsimpler; that of the _Folio_ is burdened with ellipsis--loaded with\nlack. And surely _turne_ is the true reading!--though we may take the\nother to mean, 'there are no tongues else on the side of his tongue.']\n\n[Footnote 19: --as of the Bible, for a second interpretative word or\nphrase.]\n\n[Page 260]\n\n_Hor_. This Lapwing runs away with the shell\non his head.[1]\n\n[Sidenote: 98] _Ham_. He did Compile[2] with his Dugge before\n                                    [Sidenote: _Ham_. A did sir[2] with]\nhee suck't it: thus had he and mine more of the\n                                  [Sidenote: a suckt has he | many more]\nsame Beauy[3] that I know the drossie age dotes  [Sidenote: same breede]\non; only got the tune[4] of the time, and outward\n                                   [Sidenote: and out of an habit of[5]]\nhabite of encounter,[5] a kinde of yesty collection,   [Sidenote: histy]\nwhich carries them through and through the most\nfond and winnowed opinions; and doe but blow\n                             [Sidenote: prophane and trennowed opinions]\nthem to their tryalls: the Bubbles are out.[6]\n                                           [Sidenote: their triall, the]\n\n[A]\n\n_Hor_. You will lose this wager, my Lord.     [Sidenote: loose my Lord.]\n\n_Ham_. I doe not thinke so, since he went into\nFrance, I haue beene in continuall practice; I shall\n[Sidenote: 265] winne at the oddes:[7] but thou wouldest not thinke\n                                                   [Sidenote: ods; thou]\nhow all heere about my heart:[8] but it is no matter[9]\n                                         [Sidenote: how ill all's heere]\n\n_Hor_. Nay, good my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. It is but foolery; but it is such a kinde\nof gain-giuing[10] as would perhaps trouble a woman,\n                                                  [Sidenote: gamgiuing.]\n\n_Hor_. If your minde dislike any thing, obey.[11]   [Sidenote: obay it.]\nI will forestall[12] their repaire hither, and say you\nare not fit.\n\n_Ham_. Not a whit, we defie Augury[13]; there's a\n                                           [Sidenote: there is speciall]\n[Sidenote: 24, 125, 247] speciall Prouidence in the fall of a\nsparrow.[14] If\n\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto:--_\n\n_Enter a Lord_.[15]\n\n_Lord_. My Lord, his Maiestie commended him to you by young\nOstricke,[16] who brings backe to him that you attend him in the hall,\nhe sends to know if your pleasure hold to play with _Laertes_, or that\nyou will take longer time?[17]\n\n_Ham_. I am constant to my purposes, they followe the Kings pleasure,\nif his fitnes speakes, mine is ready[18]: now or whensoeuer, prouided I\nbe so able as now.\n\n_Lord_. The King, and Queene, and all are comming downe.\n\n_Ham_. In happy time.[19]\n\n_Lord_. The Queene desires you to vse some gentle\nentertainment[20] _Laertes_, before you fall to play.\n\n_Ham_. Shee well instructs me.]\n\n[Footnote 1: 'Well, he _is_ a young one!']\n\n[Footnote 2: '_Com'ply_,' with accent on first syllable: _comply with_\nmeans _pay compliments to, compliment_. See _Q._ reading: 'A did sir\nwith':--_sir_ here is a verb--_sir with_ means _say sir to_: 'he\n_sirred, complied_ with his nurse's breast before &c.' Hamlet speaks in\nmockery of the affected court-modes of speech and address, the fashion\nof euphuism--a mechanical attempt at the poetic.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _a flock of birds_--suggested by '_This Lapwing_.']\n\n[Footnote 4: 'the mere mode.']\n\n[Footnote 5: 'and external custom of intercourse.' But here too I rather\ntake the _Q._ to be right: 'They have only got the fashion of the time;\nand, out of a habit of wordy conflict, (they have got) a collection of\ntricks of speech,--a yesty, frothy mass, with nothing in it, which\ncarries them in triumph through the most foolish and fastidious (nice,\nchoice, punctilious, whimsical) judgments.' _Yesty_ I take to be right,\nand _prophane_ (vulgar) to have been altered by the Poet to _fond_\n(foolish); of _trennowed_ I can make nothing beyond a misprint.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Hamlet had just blown Osricke to his trial in his chosen\nkind, and the bubble had burst. The braggart gentleman had no faculty to\ngenerate after the dominant fashion, no invention to support his\nambition--had but a yesty collection, which failing him the moment\nsomething unconventional was wanted, the fool had to look a discovered\nfool.]\n\n[Footnote 7: 'I shall win by the odds allowed me; he will not exceed me\nthree hits.']\n\n[Footnote 8: He has a presentiment of what is coming.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Nothing in this world is of much consequence to him now.\nAlso, he believes in 'a special Providence.']\n\n[Footnote 10: 'a yielding, a sinking' at the heart? The _Sh. Lex._ says\n_misgiving_.]\n\n[Footnote 11: 'obey the warning.']\n\n[Footnote 12: 'go to them before they come here'--'_prevent_ their\ncoming.']\n\n[Footnote 13: The knowledge, even, of what is to come could never, any\nmore than ordinary expediency, be the _law_ of a man's conduct. St.\nPaul, informed by the prophet Agabus of the troubles that awaited him at\nJerusalem, and entreated by his friends not to go thither, believed the\nprophet, and went on to Jerusalem to be delivered into the hands of the\nGentiles.]\n\n[Footnote 14: One of Shakspere's many allusions to sayings of the Lord.]\n\n[Footnote 15: Osricke does not come back: he has begged off but ventures\nlater, under the wing of the king.]\n\n[Footnote 16: May not this form of the name suggest that in it is\nintended the 'foolish' ostrich?]\n\n[Footnote 17: The king is making delay: he has to have his 'union'\nready.]\n\n[Footnote 18: 'if he feels ready, I am.']\n\n[Footnote 19: 'They are _well-come_.']\n\n[Footnote 20: 'to be polite to Laertes.' The print shows where _to_ has\nslipped out.\n\nThe queen is anxious; she distrusts Laertes, and the king's influence\nover him.]\n\n[Page 262]\n\nit[1] be now, 'tis not to come: if it bee not to come,\n                                                     [Sidenote: be, tis]\nit will bee now: if it be not now; yet it will come;\n                                               [Sidenote: it well come,]\n[Sidenote: 54, 164] the readinesse is all,[2] since no man ha's ought of\n                      [Sidenote: man of ought he leaues, knowes what ist\n                                              to leaue betimes, let be.]\n[Sidenote: 252] what he leaues. What is't to leaue betimes?[3]\n\n_Enter King, Queene, Laertes and Lords, with other\nAttendants with Foyles, and Gauntlets, a Table\nand Flagons of Wine on it._\n               [Sidenote: _A table prepard, Trumpets, Drums and officers\n                         with cushion,  King, Queene, and all the state,\n                                         Foiles, Daggers, and Laertes._]\n\n_Kin_. Come _Hamlet_ come, and take this hand\nfrom me.\n\n[Sidenote: 245] _Ham_.[4] Giue me your pardon Sir, I'ue done you\nwrong,[5]                                             [Sidenote: I haue]\nBut pardon't as you are a Gentleman.\nThis presence[6] knowes,\nAnd you must needs haue heard how I am punisht\nWith sore distraction?[7] What I haue done       [Sidenote: With a sore]\nThat might your nature honour, and exception\n[Sidenote: 242, 252] Roughly awake,[8] heere proclaime was madnesse:[9]\nWas't _Hamlet_ wrong'd _Laertes_? Neuer _Hamlet_.\nIf _Hamlet_ from himselfe be tane away:           [Sidenote: fane away,]\nAnd when he's not himselfe, do's wrong _Laertes_,\nThen _Hamlet_ does it not, _Hamlet_ denies it:[10]\nWho does it then? His Madnesse? If't be so,\n_Hamlet_ is of the Faction that is wrong'd,\nHis madnesse is poore _Hamlets_ Enemy.[11]\nSir, in this Audience,[12]\nLet my disclaiming from a purpos'd euill,[13]\nFree me so farre[14] in your most generous thoughts,\nThat I haue shot mine Arrow o're the house,               [Sidenote: my]\nAnd hurt my Mother.[15]                         [Sidenote: brother.[15]]\n\n[Footnote 1: 'it'--death, the end.]\n\n[Footnote 2: His father had been taken unready. 54.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _Point_: 'all. Since'; 'leaves, what'--'Since no man has\nanything of what he has left, those who left it late are in the same\nposition as those who left it early.' Compare the common saying, 'It\nwill be all the same in a hundred years.' The _Q._ reading comes much to\nthe same thing--'knows of ought he leaves'--'has any knowledge of it,\nanything to do with it, in any sense possesses it.'\n\nWe may find a deeper meaning in the passage, however--surely not too\ndeep for Shakspere:--'Since nothing can be truly said to be possessed as\nhis own which a man must at one time or another yield; since that which\nis _own_ can never be taken from the owner, but solely that which is\nlent him; since the nature of a thing that has to be left is not such\nthat it _could_ be possessed, why should a man mind parting with it\nearly?'--There is far more in this than merely that at the end of the\nday it will be all the same. The thing that ever was really a man's own,\nGod has given, and God will not, and man cannot, take away. Note the\nunity of religion and philosophy in Hamlet: he takes the one true\nposition. Note also his courage: he has a strong presentiment of death,\nbut will not turn a step from his way. If Death be coming, he will\nconfront him. He does not believe in chance. He is ready--that is\nwilling. All that is needful is, that he should not go as one who cannot\nhelp it, but as one who is for God's will, who chooses that will as his\nown.\n\nThere is so much behind in Shakspere's characters--so much that can only\nbe hinted at! The dramatist has not the _word_-scope of the novelist;\nhis art gives him little _room_; he must effect in a phrase what the\nother may take pages to. He needs good seconding by his actors as sorely\nas the composer needs good rendering of his music by the orchestra. It\nis a lesson in unity that the greatest art can least work alone; that\nthe greatest _finder_ most needs the help of others to show his\n_findings_. The dramatist has live men and women for the very\ninstruments of his art--who must not be mere instruments, but\nfellow-workers; and upon them he is greatly dependent for final outcome.\n\nHere the actor should show a marked calmness and elevation in Hamlet. He\nshould have around him as it were a luminous cloud, the cloud of his\ncoming end. A smile not all of this world should close the speech. He\nhas given himself up, and is at peace.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Note in this apology the sweetness of Hamlet's nature. How\nfew are alive enough, that is unselfish and true enough, to be capable\nof genuine apology! The low nature always feels, not the wrong, but the\nconfession of it, degrading.]\n\n[Footnote 5: --the wrong of his rudeness at the funeral.]\n\n[Footnote 6: all present.]\n\n[Footnote 7: --true in a deeper sense than they would understand.]\n\n[Footnote 8: 'that might roughly awake your nature, honour, and\nexception,':--consider the phrase--_to take exception at a thing_.]\n\n[Footnote 9: It was by cause of madness, not by cause of evil intent.\nFor all purpose of excuse it was madness, if only pretended madness; it\nwas there of another necessity, and excused offence like real madness.\nWhat he said was true, not merely expedient, to the end he meant it to\nserve. But all passion may be called madness, because therein the mind\nis absorbed with one idea; 'anger is a brief madness,' and he was in a\n'towering passion': he proclaims it madness and so abjures it.]\n\n[Footnote 10: 'refuses the wrong altogether--will in his true self have\nnothing to do with it.' No evil thing comes of our true selves, and\nconfession is the casting of it from us, the only true denial. He who\nwill not confess a wrong, holds to the wrong.]\n\n[Footnote 11: All here depends on the expression in the utterance.]\n\n[Footnote 12: _This line not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 13: This is Hamlet's summing up of the whole--his explanation\nof the speech.]\n\n[Footnote 14: 'so far as this in your generous judgment--that you regard\nme as having shot &c.']\n\n[Footnote 15: _Brother_ is much easier to accept, though _Mother_ might\nbe in the simile.\n\nTo do justice to the speech we must remember that Hamlet has no quarrel\nwhatever with Laertes, that he has expressed admiration of him, and that\nhe is inclined to love him for Ophelia's sake. His apology has no\nreference to the fate of his father or his sister; Hamlet is not aware\nthat Laertes associates him with either, and plainly the public did not\nknow Hamlet killed Polonius; while Laertes could have no intention of\nalluding to the fact, seeing it would frustrate his scheme of\ntreachery.]\n\n[Page 264]\n\n_Laer_. I am satisfied in Nature,[1]\nWhose motiue in this case should stirre me most\nTo my Reuenge. But in my termes of Honor\nI stand aloofe, and will no reconcilement,\nTill by some elder Masters of knowne Honor,\nI haue a voyce, and president of peace\nTo keepe my name vngorg'd.[2] But till that time,\n                             [Sidenote: To my name vngord: but all that]\nI do receiue your offer'd loue like loue,\nAnd wil not wrong it.\n\n_Ham_. I do embrace it freely,                     [Sidenote: I embrace]\nAnd will this Brothers wager frankely play.\nGiue vs the Foyles: Come on.[3]\n\n_Laer_. Come one for me.[4]\n\n_Ham_. Ile be your foile[5] _Laertes_, in mine ignorance,\n[Sidenote: 218] Your Skill shall like a Starre i'th'darkest night,[6]\nSticke fiery off indeede.\n\n_Laer_. You mocke me Sir.\n\n_Ham_. No by this hand.[7]\n\n_King_. Giue them the Foyles yong _Osricke_,[8]\n                                              [Sidenote: _Ostricke_,[8]]\nCousen _Hamlet_, you know the wager.\n\n_Ham_. Verie well my Lord,\nYour Grace hath laide the oddes a'th'weaker side,        [Sidenote: has]\n\n_King._ I do not feare it,\nI haue seene you both:[9]\nBut since he is better'd, we haue therefore oddes.[10]\n                                                  [Sidenote: better, we]\n\n[Footnote 1: 'in my own feelings and person.' Laertes does not refer to\nhis father or sister. He professes to be satisfied in his heart with\nHamlet's apology for his behaviour at the funeral, but not to be sure\nwhether in the opinion of others, and by the laws of honour, he can\naccept it as amends, and forbear to challenge him. But the words 'Whose\nmotiue in this case should stirre me most to my Reuenge' may refer to\nhis father and sister, and, if so taken, should be spoken aside. To\naccept apology for them and not for his honour would surely be too\nbarefaced! The point concerning them has not been started.\n\nBut why not receive the apology as quite satisfactory? That he would not\nseems to show a lingering regard to _real_ honour. A downright villain,\nlike the king, would have pretended its _thorough_\nacceptance--especially as they were just going to fence like friends;\nbut he, as regards his honour, will not accept it until justified in\ndoing so by the opinion of 'some elder masters,' receiving from them 'a\nvoice and precedent of peace'--counsel to, and justification, or example\nof peace. He keeps the door of quarrel open--will not profess to be\n_altogether_ friends with him, though he does not hint at his real\nground of offence: that mooted, the match of skill, with its immense\nadvantages for villainy, would have been impossible. He means treachery\nall the time; careful of his honour, he can, like most apes of fashion,\nlet his honesty go; still, so complex is human nature, he holds his\nspeech declining thorough reconciliation as a shield to shelter his\ntreachery from his own contempt: he has taken care not to profess\nabsolute friendship, and so left room for absolute villainy! He has had\nregard to his word! Relieved perhaps by the demoniacal quibble, he\nfollows it immediately with an utterance of full-blown perfidy.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Perhaps _ungorg'd_ might mean _unthrottled_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: 'Come on' _is not in the Q._--I suspect this _Come on_ but\na misplaced shadow from the '_Come one_' immediately below, and better\nomitted. Hamlet could not say '_Come on_' before Laertes was ready, and\n'_Come one_' after 'Give us the foils,' would be very awkward. But it\nmay be said to the attendant courtiers.]\n\n[Footnote 4: He says this while Hamlet is still choosing, in order that\na second bundle of foils, in which is the unbated and poisoned one, may\nbe brought him. So 'generous and free from all contriving' is Hamlet,\n(220) that, even with the presentiment in his heart, he has no fear of\ntreachery.]\n\n[Footnote 5: As persons of the drama, the Poet means Laertes to be foil\nto Hamlet.--With the play upon the word before us, we can hardly help\nthinking of the _third_ signification of the word _foil_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'My ignorance will be the foil of darkest night to the\nburning star of your skill.' This is no flattery; Hamlet believes\nLaertes, to whose praises he has listened (218)--though not with the\nenvy his uncle attributes to him--the better fencer: he expects to win\nonly 'at the odds.' 260.]\n\n[Footnote 7: --not '_by these pickers and stealers_,' his oath to his\nfalse friends. 154.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Plainly a favourite with the king.--He is _Ostricke_ always\nin the _Q_.]\n\n[Footnote 9: 'seen you both play'--though not together.]\n\n[Footnote 10: _Point thus_:\n\n    I do not fear it--I have seen you both!\n    But since, he is bettered: we have therefore odds.\n\n'Since'--'_since the time I saw him_.']\n\n[Page 266]\n\n_Laer_. This is too heauy,\nLet me see another.[1]\n\n_Ham_. This likes me well,\nThese Foyles haue all a length.[2]   _Prepare to play._[3]\n\n_Osricke_. I my good Lord.                           [Sidenote: _Ostr._]\n\n_King_. Set me the Stopes of wine vpon that Table:\nIf _Hamlet_ giue the first, or second hit,\nOr quit in answer of the third exchange,[4]\nLet all the Battlements their Ordinance fire,\n[Sidenote: 268] The King shal drinke to _Hamlets_ better breath,\nAnd in the Cup an vnion[5] shal he throw            [Sidenote: an Vince]\nRicher then that,[6] which foure successiue Kings\nIn Denmarkes Crowne haue worne.\nGiue me the Cups,\nAnd let the Kettle to the Trumpets speake,           [Sidenote: trumpet]\nThe Trumpet to the Cannoneer without,\nThe Cannons to the Heauens, the Heauen to Earth,\nNow the King drinkes to _Hamlet_. Come, begin,\n                                       [Sidenote: _Trumpets the while._]\nAnd you the Iudges[7] beare a wary eye.\n\n_Ham_. Come on sir.\n\n_Laer_. Come on sir.          _They play._[8]  [Sidenote: Come my Lord.]\n\n_Ham_. One.\n\n_Laer_. No.\n\n_Ham_. Iudgement.[9]\n\n_Osr_. A hit, a very palpable hit.                [Sidenote: _Ostrick._]\n\n_Laer_. Well: againe.             [Sidenote: _Drum, trumpets and a shot.\n                                            Florish, a peece goes off._]\n\n_King_. Stay, giue me drinke.\n_Hamlet_, this Pearle is thine,\nHere's to thy health. Giue him the cup,[10]\n\n             _Trumpets sound, and shot goes off._[11]\n\n_Ham_. Ile play this bout first, set by a-while.[12]\n                                                   [Sidenote: set it by]\nCome: Another hit; what say you?\n\n_Laer_. A touch, a touch, I do confesse.[13]\n                                      [Sidenote: _Laer_. | doe confest.]\n\n_King_. Our Sonne shall win.\n\n[Footnote 1: --to make it look as if he were choosing.]\n\n[Footnote 2: --asked in an offhand way. The fencers must not measure\nweapons, because how then could the unbated point escape discovery? It\nis quite like Hamlet to take even Osricke's word for their equal\nlength.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 4: 'or be quits with Laertes the third bout':--in any case,\nwhatever the probabilities, even if Hamlet be wounded, the king, who has\nnot perfect confidence in the 'unction,' will fall back on his second\nline of ambush--in which he has more trust: he will drink to Hamlet,\nwhen Hamlet will be bound to drink also.]\n\n[Footnote 5: The Latin _unio_ was a large pearl. The king's _union_ I\ntake to be poison made up like a pearl.]\n\n[Footnote 6: --a well-known one in the crown.]\n\n[Footnote 7: --of whom Osricke was one.]\n\n[Footnote 8: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 9: --appealing to the judges.]\n\n[Footnote 10: He throws in the _pearl_, and drinks--for it will take\nsome moments to dissolve and make the wine poisonous--then sends the cup\nto Hamlet.]\n\n[Footnote 11: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 12: He does not refuse to drink, but puts it by, neither\nshowing nor entertaining suspicion, fearing only the effect of the\ndraught on his play. He is bent on winning the wager--perhaps with\nfurther intent.]\n\n[Footnote 13: Laertes has little interest in the match, but much in his\nown play.]\n\n[Page 268]\n\n[Sidenote: 266] _Qu_. He's fat, and scant of breath.[1]\nHeere's a Napkin, rub thy browes,\n                               [Sidenote: Heere _Hamlet_ take my napkin]\nThe Queene Carowses to thy fortune, _Hamlet_.\n\n_Ham_. Good Madam.[2]\n\n_King_. _Gertrude_, do not drinke.\n\n_Qu_. I will my Lord;\nI pray you pardon me.[3]\n\n[Sidenote: 222]_King_. It is the poyson'd Cup, it is too late.[4]\n\n_Ham_. I dare not drinke yet Madam,\nBy and by.[5]\n\n_Qu_. Come, let me wipe thy face.[6]\n\n_Laer_. My Lord, Ile hit him now.\n\n_King_. I do not thinke't.\n\n_Laer_. And yet 'tis almost 'gainst my conscience.[7]\n                                             [Sidenote: it is | against]\n\n_Ham_. Come for the third.\n_Laertes_, you but dally,                        [Sidenote: you doe but]\nI pray you passe with your best violence,\nI am affear'd you make a wanton of me.[8]      [Sidenote: I am sure you]\n\n_Laer_. Say you so? Come on.      _Play._\n\n_Osr_. Nothing neither way.                          [Sidenote: _Ostr._]\n\n_Laer_. Haue at you now.[9]\n\n    _In scuffling they change Rapiers._[10]\n\n_King_. Part them, they are incens'd.[11]\n\n_Ham_. Nay come, againe.[12]\n\n_Osr_. Looke to the Queene there hoa.  [Sidenote: _Ostr._ | there howe.]\n\n_Hor_. They bleed on both sides. How is't my           [Sidenote: is it]\nLord?\n\n_Osr_. How is't _Laertes_?                           [Sidenote: _Ostr._]\n\n_Laer_. Why as a Woodcocke[13]\nTo mine Sprindge, _Osricke_,   [Sidenote: mine owne sprindge _Ostrick_,]\nI am iustly kill'd with mine owne Treacherie.[14]\n\n_Ham_. How does the Queene?\n\n_King_. She sounds[15] to see them bleede.\n\n_Qu_. No, no, the drinke, the drinke[16]\n\n[Footnote 1: She is anxious about him. It may be that this speech, and\nthat of the king before (266), were fitted to the person of the actor\nwho first represented Hamlet.]\n\n[Footnote 2: --a simple acknowledgment of her politeness: he can no more\nbe familiarly loving with his mother.]\n\n[Footnote 3: She drinks, and offers the cup to Hamlet.]\n\n[Footnote 4: He is too much afraid of exposing his villainy to be prompt\nenough to prevent her.]\n\n[Footnote 5: This is not meant by the Poet to show suspicion: he does\nnot mean Hamlet to die so.]\n\n[Footnote 6: The actor should not allow her: she approaches Hamlet; he\nrecoils a little.]\n\n[Footnote 7: He has compunctions, but it needs failure to make them\npotent.]\n\n[Footnote 8: 'treat me as an effeminate creature.']\n\n[Footnote 9: He makes a sudden attack, without warning of the fourth\nbout.]\n\n[Footnote 10: _Not in Q._\n\nThe 1st Q. directs:--_They catch one anothers Rapiers, find both are\nwounded_, &c.\n\nThe thing, as I understand it, goes thus: With the words 'Have at you\nnow!' Laertes stabs Hamlet; Hamlet, apprised thus of his treachery, lays\nhold of his rapier, wrenches it from him, and stabs him with it in\nreturn.]\n\n[Footnote 11: 'they have lost their temper.']\n\n[Footnote 12: --said with indignation and scorn, but without suspicion\nof the worst.]\n\n[Footnote 13: --the proverbially foolish bird. The speech must be spoken\nwith breaks. Its construction is broken.]\n\n[Footnote 14: His conscience starts up, awake and strong, at the\napproach of Death. As the show of the world withdraws, the realities\nassert themselves. He repents, and makes confession of his sin, seeing\nit now in its true nature, and calling it by its own name. It is a\ncompensation of the weakness of some that they cannot be strong in\nwickedness. The king did not so repent, and with his strength was the\nmore to blame.]\n\n[Footnote 15: _swounds, swoons_.]\n\n[Footnote 16: She is true to her son. The maternal outlasts the\nadulterous.]\n\n[Page 270]\n\nOh my deere _Hamlet_, the drinke, the drinke,\nI am poyson'd.\n\n_Ham_. Oh Villany! How? Let the doore be lock'd.\nTreacherie, seeke it out.[1]\n\n_Laer_. It is heere _Hamlet_.[2]\n_Hamlet_,[3] thou art slaine,\nNo Medicine in the world can do thee good.\nIn thee, there is not halfe an houre of life;   [Sidenote: houres life,]\nThe Treacherous Instrument is in thy hand,             [Sidenote: in my]\nVnbated and envenom'd: the foule practise[4]\nHath turn'd it selfe on me. Loe, heere I lye,\nNeuer to rise againe: Thy Mothers poyson'd:\nI can no more, the King, the King's too blame.[5]\n\n_Ham_. The point envenom'd too,\nThen venome to thy worke.[6]\n                         _Hurts the King._[7]\n\n_All_. Treason, Treason.\n\n_King_. O yet defend me Friends, I am but hurt.\n\n_Ham_. Heere thou incestuous, murdrous,\n                         [Sidenote:  Heare thou incestious damned Dane,]\nDamned Dane,\nDrinke off this Potion: Is thy Vnion heere?\n                               [Sidenote: of this | is the Onixe heere?]\nFollow my Mother.[8]           _King Dyes._[9]\n\n_Laer_. He is iustly seru'd.\nIt is a poyson temp'red by himselfe:\nExchange forgiuenesse with me, Noble _Hamlet_;\nMine and my Fathers death come not vpon thee,\nNor thine on me.[10]                 _Dyes._[11]\n\n_Ham_. Heauen make thee free of it,[12] I follow thee.\nI am dead _Horatio_, wretched Queene adiew.\nYou that looke pale, and tremble at this chance,\nThat are but Mutes[13] or audience to this acte:\nHad I but time (as this fell Sergeant death\nIs strick'd in his Arrest) oh I could tell you.       [Sidenote: strict]\n\n[Footnote 1: The thing must be ended now. The door must be locked, to\nkeep all in that are in, and all out that are out. Then he can do as he\nwill.]\n\n[Footnote 2: --laying his hand on his heart, I think.]\n\n[Footnote 3: In Q. _Hamlet_ only once.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _scheme, artifice, deceitful contrivance_; in modern slang,\n_dodge_.]\n\n[Footnote 5: He turns on the prompter of his sin--crowning the justice\nof the king's capital punishment.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _Point_: 'too!'\n\n_1st Q._ Then venome to thy venome, die damn'd villaine.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _Not in Quarto._\n\nThe true moment, now only, has at last come. Hamlet has lived to do his\nduty with a clear conscience, and is thereupon permitted to go. The man\nwho asks whether this be poetic justice or no, is unworthy of an answer.\n'The Tragedie of Hamlet' is _The Drama of Moral Perplexity_.]\n\n[Footnote 8: A grim play on the word _Union: 'follow my mother_'. It\nsuggests a terrible meeting below.]\n\n[Footnote 9: _Not in Quarto._]\n\n[Footnote 10: His better nature triumphs. The moment he was wounded,\nknowing he must die, he began to change. Defeat is a mighty aid to\nrepentance; and processes grow rapid in the presence of Death: he\nforgives and desires forgiveness.]\n\n[Footnote 11: _Not in Quarto._]\n\n[Footnote 12: Note how heartily Hamlet pardons the wrong done to\nhimself--the only wrong of course which a man has to pardon.]\n\n[Footnote 13: _supernumeraries_. Note the other figures too--_audience,\nact_--all of the theatre.]\n\n[Page 272]\n\nBut let it be: _Horatio_, I am dead,\nThou liu'st, report me and my causes right     [Sidenote: cause a right]\nTo the vnsatisfied.[1]\n\n_Hor_. Neuer beleeue it.\n[Sidenote: 134] I am more an Antike Roman then a Dane:\n[Sidenote: 135] Heere's yet some Liquor left.[2]\n\n_Ham_. As th'art a man, giue me the Cup.\nLet go, by Heauen Ile haue't.                          [Sidenote: hate,]\n[Sidenote: 114, 251] Oh good _Horatio_, what a wounded name,[3]\n                                            [Sidenote: O god _Horatio_,]\n(Things standing thus vnknowne) shall liue behind me.\n                                    [Sidenote: shall I leaue behind me?]\nIf thou did'st euer hold me in thy heart,\nAbsent thee from felicitie awhile,\nAnd in this harsh world draw thy breath in paine,[1]\n                                      [Sidenote: _A march a farre off._]\nTo tell my Storie.[4]\n            _March afarre off, and shout within._[5]\nWhat warlike noyse is this?\n\n_Enter Osricke._\n\n_Osr_. Yong _Fortinbras_, with conquest come from Poland\nTo th'Ambassadors of England giues this warlike volly.[6]\n\n_Ham_. O I dye _Horatio_:\nThe potent poyson quite ore-crowes my spirit,\nI cannot liue to heare the Newes from England,\n[Sidenote: 62] But I do prophesie[7] th'election lights\n[Sidenote: 276] On _Fortinbras_, he ha's my dying voyce,[8]\nSo tell him with the occurrents more and lesse,[9]       [Sidenote: th']\nWhich haue solicited.[10] The rest is silence. O, o, o, o.[11]\n                                       _Dyes_[12]\n\n_Hora_. Now cracke a Noble heart:                   [Sidenote: cracks a]\nGoodnight sweet Prince,\nAnd flights of Angels sing thee to thy rest,\nWhy do's the Drumme come hither?\n\n[Footnote 1: His care over his reputation with the people is princely,\nand casts a true light on his delay. No good man can be willing to seem\nbad, except the _being good_ necessitates it. A man must be willing to\nappear a villain if that is the consequence of being a true man, but he\ncannot be indifferent to that appearance. He cannot be indifferent to\nwearing the look of the thing he hates. Hamlet, that he may be\nunderstood by the nation, makes, with noble confidence in his\nfriendship, the large demand on Horatio, to live and suffer for his\nsake.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Here first we see plainly the love of Horatio for Hamlet:\nhere first is Hamlet's judgment of Horatio (134) justified.]\n\n[Footnote 3: --for having killed his uncle:--what, then, if he had slain\nhim at once?]\n\n[Footnote 4: Horatio must be represented as here giving sign of assent.\n\n_1st Q._\n\n    _Ham_. Vpon my loue I charge thee let it goe,\n    O fie _Horatio_, and if thou shouldst die,\n    What a scandale wouldst thou leaue behinde?\n    What tongue should tell the story of our deaths,\n    If not from thee?]\n\n[Footnote 5: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 6: The frame is closing round the picture. 9.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Shakspere more than once or twice makes the dying\nprophesy.]\n\n[Footnote 8: His last thought is for his country; his last effort at\nutterance goes to prevent a disputed succession.]\n\n[Footnote 9: 'greater and less'--as in the psalm,\n\n    'The Lord preserves all, more and less,\n      That bear to him a loving heart.']\n\n[Footnote 10: led to the necessity.]\n\n[Footnote 11: _These interjections are not in the Quarto._]\n\n[Footnote 12: _Not in Q._\n\nAll Shakspere's tragedies suggest that no action ever ends, only goes\noff the stage of the world on to another.]\n\n[Page 274]\n\n[Sidenote: 190] _Enter Fortinbras and English Ambassador, with_\n                 [Sidenote: _Enter Fortenbrasse, with the Embassadors._]\n  _Drumme, Colours, and Attendants._\n\n_Fortin_. Where is this sight?\n\n_Hor_. What is it ye would see;                          [Sidenote: you]\nIf ought of woe, or wonder, cease your search.[1]\n\n_For_. His quarry[2] cries on hauocke.[3] Oh proud death,\n                                                 [Sidenote: This quarry]\nWhat feast is toward[4] in thine eternall Cell.\nThat thou so many Princes, at a shoote,                 [Sidenote: shot]\nSo bloodily hast strooke.[5]\n\n_Amb_. The sight is dismall,\nAnd our affaires from England come too late,\nThe eares are senselesse that should giue vs hearing,[6]\nTo tell him his command'ment is fulfill'd,\nThat _Rosincrance_ and _Guildensterne_ are dead:\nWhere should we haue our thankes?[7]\n\n_Hor_. Not from his mouth,[8]\nHad it[9] th'abilitie of life to thanke you:\nHe neuer gaue command'ment for their death.\n[Sidenote: 6] But since so iumpe[10] vpon this bloodie question,[11]\nYou from the Polake warres, and you from England\nAre heere arriued. Giue order[12] that these bodies\nHigh on a stage be placed to the view,\nAnd let me speake to th'yet vnknowing world,        [Sidenote: , to yet]\nHow these things came about. So shall you heare\nOf carnall, bloudie, and vnnaturall acts,[13]\nOf accidentall Judgements,[14] casuall slaughters[15]\nOf death's put on by cunning[16] and forc'd cause,[17]\n                                   [Sidenote: deaths | and for no cause]\nAnd in this vpshot, purposes mistooke,[18]\nFalne on the Inuentors heads. All this can I             [Sidenote: th']\nTruly deliuer.\n\n_For_. Let vs hast to heare it,\nAnd call the Noblest to the Audience.\nFor me, with sorrow, I embrace my Fortune,\nI haue some Rites of memory[19] in this Kingdome,\n                                               [Sidenote: rights of[19]]\n\n[Footnote 1: --for here it is.]\n\n[Footnote 2: the heap of game after a hunt.]\n\n[Footnote 3: 'Havoc's victims cry out against him.']\n\n[Footnote 4: in preparation.]\n\n[Footnote 5: All the real actors in the tragedy, except Horatio, are\ndead.]\n\n[Footnote 6: This line may be taken as a parenthesis; then--'come too\nlate' joins itself with 'to tell him.' Or we may connect 'hearing' with\n'to tell him':--'the ears that should give us hearing in order that we\nmight tell him' etc.]\n\n[Footnote 7: They thus inquire after the successor of Claudius.]\n\n[Footnote 8: --the mouth of Claudius.]\n\n[Footnote 9: --even if it had.]\n\n[Footnote 10: 'so exactly,' or 'immediately'--perhaps\n_opportunely--fittingly_.]\n\n[Footnote 11: dispute, strife.]\n\n[Footnote 12: --addressed to Fortinbras, I should say. The state is\ndisrupt, the household in disorder; there is no head; Horatio turns\ntherefore to Fortinbras, who, besides having a claim to the crown, and\nbeing favoured by Hamlet, alone has power at the moment--for his army is\nwith him.]\n\n[Footnote 13: --those of Claudius.]\n\n[Footnote 14: 'just judgments brought about by accident'--as in the case\nof all slain except the king, whose judgment was not accidental, and\nHamlet, whose death was not a judgment.]\n\n[Footnote 15: --those of the queen, Polonius, and Ophelia.]\n\n[Footnote 16: 'put on,' _indued_, 'brought on themselves'--those of\nRosincrance, Guildensterne, and Laertes.]\n\n[Footnote 17: --those of the king and Polonius.]\n\n[Footnote 18: 'and in this result'--_pointing to the bodies_--'purposes\nwhich have mistaken their way, and fallen on the inventors' heads.' _I\nam mistaken_ or _mistook_, means _I have mistaken_; 'purposes\nmistooke'--_purposes in themselves mistaken_:--that of Laertes, which\ncame back on himself; and that of the king in the matter of the poison,\nwhich, by falling on the queen, also came back on the inventor.]\n\n[Footnote 19: The _Quarto_ is correct here, I think: '_rights of the\npast_'--'claims of descent.' Or 'rights of memory' might mean--'_rights\nyet remembered_.'\n\nFortinbras is not one to miss a chance: even in this shadowy 'person,'\ncharacter is recognizably maintained.]\n\n[Page 276]\n\nWhich are to claime,[1] my vantage doth   [Sidenote: Which now to clame]\nInuite me,\n\n_Hor_. Of that I shall haue alwayes[2] cause to speake,\n                                          [Sidenote: haue also cause[3]]\nAnd from his mouth\n[Sidenote: 272] Whose voyce will draw on more:[3]\n                                              [Sidenote: drawe no more,]\nBut let this same be presently perform'd,\nEuen whiles mens mindes are wilde,                     [Sidenote: while]\nLest more mischance\nOn plots, and errors happen.[4]\n\n_For_. Let foure Captaines\nBeare _Hamlet_ like a Soldier to the Stage,\nFor he was likely, had he beene put on[5]\nTo haue prou'd most royally:[6]                      [Sidenote: royall;]\nAnd for his passage,[7]\nThe Souldiours Musicke, and the rites of Warre[8]   [Sidenote: right of]\nSpeake[9] lowdly for him.\nTake vp the body; Such a sight as this               [Sidenote: bodies,]\nBecomes the Field, but heere shewes much amis.\nGo, bid the Souldiers shoote.[10]\n\n_Exeunt Marching: after the which, a Peale_        [Sidenote: _Exeunt._]\n_of Ordenance are shot off._\n\n\nFINIS.\n\n[Footnote 1: 'which must now be claimed'--except the _Quarto_ be right\nhere also.]\n\n[Footnote 2: The _Quarto_ surely is right here.]\n\n[Footnote 3: --Hamlet's mouth. The message he entrusted to Horatio for\nFortinbras, giving his voice, or vote, for him, was sure to 'draw on\nmore' voices.]\n\n[Footnote 4: 'lest more mischance happen in like manner, through plots\nand mistakes.']\n\n[Footnote 5: 'had he been put forward'--_had occasion sent him out_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'to have proved a most royal soldier:'--A soldier gives\nhere his testimony to Hamlet's likelihood in the soldier's calling. Note\nthe kind of regard in which the Poet would show him held.]\n\n[Footnote 7: --the passage of his spirit to its place.]\n\n[Footnote 8: --military mourning or funeral rites.]\n\n[Footnote 9: _imperative mood_: 'let the soldier's music and the rites\nof war speak loudly for him.' 'Go, bid the souldiers shoote,' with which\nthe drama closes, is a more definite initiatory order to the same\neffect.]\n\n[Footnote 10: The end is a half-line after a riming couplet--as if there\nwere more to come--as there must be after every tragedy. Mere poetic\njustice will not satisfy Shakspere in a tragedy, for tragedy is _life_;\nin a comedy it may do well enough, for that deals but with\nlife-surfaces--and who then more careful of it! but in tragedy something\nfar higher ought to be aimed at. The end of this drama is reached when\nHamlet, having attained the possibility of doing so, performs his work\n_in righteousness_. The common critical mind would have him left the\nfatherless, motherless, loverless, almost friendless king of a\njustifiably distrusting nation--with an eternal grief for his father\nweighing him down to the abyss; with his mother's sin blackening for him\nall womankind, and blasting the face of both heaven and earth; and with\nthe knowledge in his heart that he had sent the woman he loved, with her\nfather and her brother, out of the world--maniac, spy, and traitor.\nInstead of according him such 'poetic justice,' the Poet gives Hamlet\nthe only true success of doing his duty to the end--for it was as much\nhis duty not to act before, as it was his duty to act at last--then\nsends him after his Ophelia--into a world where true heart will find\ntrue way of setting right what is wrong, and of atoning for every ill,\nwittingly or unwittingly done or occasioned in this.\n\nIt seems to me most admirable that Hamlet, being so great, is yet\noutwardly so like other people: the Poet never obtrudes his greatness.\nAnd just because he is modest, confessing weakness and perplexity, small\npeople take him for yet smaller than themselves who never confess\nanything, and seldom feel anything amiss with them. Such will adduce\neven Hamlet's disparagement of himself to Ophelia when overwhelmed with\na sense of human worthlessness (126), as proof that he was no hero!\nThey call it weakness that he would not, foolishly and selfishly, make\ngood his succession against the king, regardless of the law of election,\nand careless of the weal of the kingdom for which he shows himself so\nanxious even in the throes of death! To my mind he is the grandest hero\nin fiction--absolutely human--so troubled, yet so true!]\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"1100":"\n\n\n\n\n1592\n\nTHE FIRST PART OF HENRY THE SIXTH\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  KING HENRY THE SIXTH\n  DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, uncle to the King, and Protector\n  DUKE OF BEDFORD, uncle to the King, and Regent of France\n  THOMAS BEAUFORT, DUKE OF EXETER, great-uncle to the king\n  HENRY BEAUFORT, great-uncle to the King, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER,\n     and afterwards CARDINAL\n  JOHN BEAUFORT, EARL OF SOMERSET, afterwards Duke\n  RICHARD PLANTAGENET, son of Richard late Earl of Cambridge,\n    afterwards DUKE OF YORK\n  EARL OF WARWICK\n  EARL OF SALISBURY\n  EARL OF SUFFOLK\n  LORD TALBOT, afterwards EARL OF SHREWSBURY\n  JOHN TALBOT, his son\n  EDMUND MORTIMER, EARL OF MARCH\n  SIR JOHN FASTOLFE\n  SIR WILLIAM LUCY\n  SIR WILLIAM GLANSDALE\n  SIR THOMAS GARGRAVE\n  MAYOR of LONDON\n  WOODVILLE, Lieutenant of the Tower\n  VERNON, of the White Rose or York faction\n  BASSET, of the Red Rose or Lancaster faction\n  A LAWYER\n  GAOLERS, to Mortimer\n  CHARLES, Dauphin, and afterwards King of France\n  REIGNIER, DUKE OF ANJOU, and titular King of Naples\n  DUKE OF BURGUNDY\n  DUKE OF ALENCON\n  BASTARD OF ORLEANS\n  GOVERNOR OF PARIS\n  MASTER-GUNNER OF ORLEANS, and his SON\n  GENERAL OF THE FRENCH FORCES in Bordeaux\n  A FRENCH SERGEANT\n  A PORTER\n  AN OLD SHEPHERD, father to Joan la Pucelle\n  MARGARET, daughter to Reignier, afterwards married to\n    King Henry\n  COUNTESS OF AUVERGNE\n  JOAN LA PUCELLE, Commonly called JOAN OF ARC\n\n  Lords, Warders of the Tower, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers,\n  Messengers, English and French Attendants. Fiends appearing\n    to La Pucelle\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nEngland and France\n\n\n\n\nThe First Part of King Henry the Sixth\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 1.\n\nWestminster Abbey\n\nDead March. Enter the funeral of KING HENRY THE FIFTH,\nattended on by the DUKE OF BEDFORD, Regent of France,\nthe DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, Protector, the DUKE OF EXETER,\nthe EARL OF WARWICK, the BISHOP OF WINCHESTER\n\n  BEDFORD. Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to\n    night! Comets, importing change of times and states,\n    Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky\n    And with them scourge the bad revolting stars\n    That have consented unto Henry's death!\n    King Henry the Fifth, too famous to live long!\n    England ne'er lost a king of so much worth.\n  GLOUCESTER. England ne'er had a king until his time.\n    Virtue he had, deserving to command;\n    His brandish'd sword did blind men with his beams;\n    His arms spread wider than a dragon's wings;\n    His sparkling eyes, replete with wrathful fire,\n    More dazzled and drove back his enemies\n    Than mid-day sun fierce bent against their faces.\n    What should I say? His deeds exceed all speech:\n    He ne'er lift up his hand but conquered.\n  EXETER. We mourn in black; why mourn we not in blood?\n    Henry is dead and never shall revive.\n    Upon a wooden coffin we attend;\n    And death's dishonourable victory\n    We with our stately presence glorify,\n    Like captives bound to a triumphant car.\n    What! shall we curse the planets of mishap\n    That plotted thus our glory's overthrow?\n    Or shall we think the subtle-witted French\n    Conjurers and sorcerers, that, afraid of him,\n    By magic verses have contriv'd his end?\n  WINCHESTER. He was a king bless'd of the King of kings;\n    Unto the French the dreadful judgment-day\n    So dreadful will not be as was his sight.\n    The battles of the Lord of Hosts he fought;\n    The Church's prayers made him so prosperous.\n  GLOUCESTER. The Church! Where is it? Had not churchmen\n    pray'd,\n    His thread of life had not so soon decay'd.\n    None do you like but an effeminate prince,\n    Whom like a school-boy you may overawe.\n  WINCHESTER. Gloucester, whate'er we like, thou art\n    Protector\n    And lookest to command the Prince and realm.\n    Thy wife is proud; she holdeth thee in awe\n    More than God or religious churchmen may.\n  GLOUCESTER. Name not religion, for thou lov'st the flesh;\n    And ne'er throughout the year to church thou go'st,\n    Except it be to pray against thy foes.\n  BEDFORD. Cease, cease these jars and rest your minds in peace;\n    Let's to the altar. Heralds, wait on us.\n    Instead of gold, we'll offer up our arms,\n    Since arms avail not, now that Henry's dead.\n    Posterity, await for wretched years,\n    When at their mothers' moist'ned eyes babes shall suck,\n    Our isle be made a nourish of salt tears,\n    And none but women left to wail the dead.\n  HENRY the Fifth, thy ghost I invocate:\n    Prosper this realm, keep it from civil broils,\n    Combat with adverse planets in the heavens.\n    A far more glorious star thy soul will make\n    Than Julius Caesar or bright\n\n                          Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. My honourable lords, health to you all!\n    Sad tidings bring I to you out of France,\n    Of loss, of slaughter, and discomfiture:\n    Guienne, Champagne, Rheims, Orleans,\n    Paris, Guysors, Poictiers, are all quite lost.\n  BEDFORD. What say'st thou, man, before dead Henry's corse?\n    Speak softly, or the loss of those great towns\n    Will make him burst his lead and rise from death.\n  GLOUCESTER. Is Paris lost? Is Rouen yielded up?\n    If Henry were recall'd to life again,\n    These news would cause him once more yield the ghost.\n  EXETER. How were they lost? What treachery was us'd?\n  MESSENGER. No treachery, but want of men and money.\n    Amongst the soldiers this is muttered\n    That here you maintain several factions;\n    And whilst a field should be dispatch'd and fought,\n    You are disputing of your generals:\n    One would have ling'ring wars, with little cost;\n    Another would fly swift, but wanteth wings;\n    A third thinks, without expense at all,\n    By guileful fair words peace may be obtain'd.\n    Awake, awake, English nobility!\n    Let not sloth dim your honours, new-begot.\n    Cropp'd are the flower-de-luces in your arms;\n    Of England's coat one half is cut away.\n  EXETER. Were our tears wanting to this funeral,\n    These tidings would call forth their flowing tides.\n  BEDFORD. Me they concern; Regent I am of France.\n    Give me my steeled coat; I'll fight for France.\n    Away with these disgraceful wailing robes!\n    Wounds will I lend the French instead of eyes,\n    To weep their intermissive miseries.\n\n                   Enter a second MESSENGER\n\n  SECOND MESSENGER. Lords, view these letters full of bad\n    mischance.\n    France is revolted from the English quite,\n    Except some petty towns of no import.\n    The Dauphin Charles is crowned king in Rheims;\n    The Bastard of Orleans with him is join'd;\n    Reignier, Duke of Anjou, doth take his part;\n    The Duke of Alencon flieth to his side.\n  EXETER. The Dauphin crowned king! all fly to him!\n    O, whither shall we fly from this reproach?\n  GLOUCESTER. We will not fly but to our enemies' throats.\n    Bedford, if thou be slack I'll fight it out.\n  BEDFORD. Gloucester, why doubt'st thou of my forwardness?\n    An army have I muster'd in my thoughts,\n    Wherewith already France is overrun.\n\n                   Enter a third MESSENGER\n\n  THIRD MESSENGER. My gracious lords, to add to your\n    laments,\n    Wherewith you now bedew King Henry's hearse,\n    I must inform you of a dismal fight\n    Betwixt the stout Lord Talbot and the French.\n  WINCHESTER. What! Wherein Talbot overcame? Is't so?\n  THIRD MESSENGER. O, no; wherein Lord Talbot was\n    o'erthrown.\n    The circumstance I'll tell you more at large.\n    The tenth of August last this dreadful lord,\n    Retiring from the siege of Orleans,\n    Having full scarce six thousand in his troop,\n    By three and twenty thousand of the French\n    Was round encompassed and set upon.\n    No leisure had he to enrank his men;\n    He wanted pikes to set before his archers;\n    Instead whereof sharp stakes pluck'd out of hedges\n    They pitched in the ground confusedly\n    To keep the horsemen off from breaking in.\n    More than three hours the fight continued;\n    Where valiant Talbot, above human thought,\n    Enacted wonders with his sword and lance:\n    Hundreds he sent to hell, and none durst stand him;\n    Here, there, and everywhere, enrag'd he slew\n    The French exclaim'd the devil was in arms;\n    All the whole army stood agaz'd on him.\n    His soldiers, spying his undaunted spirit,\n    'A Talbot! a Talbot!' cried out amain,\n    And rush'd into the bowels of the battle.\n    Here had the conquest fully been seal'd up\n    If Sir John Fastolfe had not play'd the coward.\n    He, being in the vaward plac'd behind\n    With purpose to relieve and follow them-\n    Cowardly fled, not having struck one stroke;\n    Hence grew the general wreck and massacre.\n    Enclosed were they with their enemies.\n    A base Walloon, to win the Dauphin's grace,\n    Thrust Talbot with a spear into the back;\n    Whom all France, with their chief assembled strength,\n    Durst not presume to look once in the face.\n  BEDFORD. Is Talbot slain? Then I will slay myself,\n    For living idly here in pomp and ease,\n    Whilst such a worthy leader, wanting aid,\n    Unto his dastard foemen is betray'd.\n  THIRD MESSENGER. O no, he lives, but is took prisoner,\n    And Lord Scales with him, and Lord Hungerford;\n    Most of the rest slaughter'd or took likewise.\n  BEDFORD. His ransom there is none but I shall pay.\n    I'll hale the Dauphin headlong from his throne;\n    His crown shall be the ransom of my friend;\n    Four of their lords I'll change for one of ours.\n    Farewell, my masters; to my task will I;\n    Bonfires in France forthwith I am to make\n    To keep our great Saint George's feast withal.\n    Ten thousand soldiers with me I will take,\n    Whose bloody deeds shall make an Europe quake.\n  THIRD MESSENGER. So you had need; for Orleans is besieg'd;\n    The English army is grown weak and faint;\n    The Earl of Salisbury craveth supply\n    And hardly keeps his men from mutiny,\n    Since they, so few, watch such a multitude.\n  EXETER. Remember, lords, your oaths to Henry sworn,\n    Either to quell the Dauphin utterly,\n    Or bring him in obedience to your yoke.\n  BEDFORD. I do remember it, and here take my leave\n    To go about my preparation.                             Exit\n  GLOUCESTER. I'll to the Tower with all the haste I can\n    To view th' artillery and munition;\n    And then I will proclaim young Henry king.              Exit\n  EXETER. To Eltham will I, where the young King is,\n    Being ordain'd his special governor;\n    And for his safety there I'll best devise.              Exit\n  WINCHESTER.  [Aside]  Each hath his place and function to\n    attend:\n    I am left out; for me nothing remains.\n    But long I will not be Jack out of office.\n    The King from Eltham I intend to steal,\n    And sit at chiefest stern of public weal.             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                          SCENE 2.\n\n                  France. Before Orleans\n\n      Sound a flourish. Enter CHARLES THE DAUPHIN, ALENCON,\n           and REIGNIER, marching with drum and soldiers\n\n  CHARLES. Mars his true moving, even as in the heavens\n    So in the earth, to this day is not known.\n    Late did he shine upon the English side;\n    Now we are victors, upon us he smiles.\n    What towns of any moment but we have?\n    At pleasure here we lie near Orleans;\n    Otherwhiles the famish'd English, like pale ghosts,\n    Faintly besiege us one hour in a month.\n  ALENCON. They want their porridge and their fat bull\n    beeves.\n    Either they must be dieted like mules\n    And have their provender tied to their mouths,\n    Or piteous they will look, like drowned mice.\n  REIGNIER. Let's raise the siege. Why live we idly here?\n    Talbot is taken, whom we wont to fear;\n    Remaineth none but mad-brain'd Salisbury,\n    And he may well in fretting spend his gall\n    Nor men nor money hath he to make war.\n  CHARLES. Sound, sound alarum; we will rush on them.\n    Now for the honour of the forlorn French!\n    Him I forgive my death that killeth me,\n    When he sees me go back one foot or flee.             Exeunt\n\n       Here alarum. They are beaten hack by the English, with\n         great loss. Re-enter CHARLES, ALENCON, and REIGNIER\n\n  CHARLES. Who ever saw the like? What men have I!\n    Dogs! cowards! dastards! I would ne'er have fled\n    But that they left me midst my enemies.\n  REIGNIER. Salisbury is a desperate homicide;\n    He fighteth as one weary of his life.\n    The other lords, like lions wanting food,\n    Do rush upon us as their hungry prey.\n  ALENCON. Froissart, a countryman of ours, records\n    England all Olivers and Rowlands bred\n    During the time Edward the Third did reign.\n    More truly now may this be verified;\n    For none but Samsons and Goliases\n    It sendeth forth to skirmish. One to ten!\n    Lean raw-bon'd rascals! Who would e'er suppose\n    They had such courage and audacity?\n  CHARLES. Let's leave this town; for they are hare-brain'd\n    slaves,\n    And hunger will enforce them to be more eager.\n    Of old I know them; rather with their teeth\n    The walls they'll tear down than forsake the siege.\n  REIGNIER. I think by some odd gimmers or device\n    Their arms are set, like clocks, still to strike on;\n    Else ne'er could they hold out so as they do.\n    By my consent, we'll even let them alone.\n  ALENCON. Be it so.\n\n                   Enter the BASTARD OF ORLEANS\n\n  BASTARD. Where's the Prince Dauphin? I have news for him.\n  CHARLES. Bastard of Orleans, thrice welcome to us.\n  BASTARD. Methinks your looks are sad, your cheer appall'd.\n    Hath the late overthrow wrought this offence?\n    Be not dismay'd, for succour is at hand.\n    A holy maid hither with me I bring,\n    Which, by a vision sent to her from heaven,\n    Ordained is to raise this tedious siege\n    And drive the English forth the bounds of France.\n    The spirit of deep prophecy she hath,\n    Exceeding the nine sibyls of old Rome:\n    What's past and what's to come she can descry.\n    Speak, shall I call her in? Believe my words,\n    For they are certain and unfallible.\n  CHARLES. Go, call her in.                       [Exit BASTARD]\n    But first, to try her skill,\n    Reignier, stand thou as Dauphin in my place;\n    Question her proudly; let thy looks be stern;\n    By this means shall we sound what skill she hath.\n\n                  Re-enter the BASTARD OF ORLEANS with\n                          JOAN LA PUCELLE\n\n  REIGNIER. Fair maid, is 't thou wilt do these wondrous feats?\n  PUCELLE. Reignier, is 't thou that thinkest to beguile me?\n    Where is the Dauphin? Come, come from behind;\n    I know thee well, though never seen before.\n    Be not amaz'd, there's nothing hid from me.\n    In private will I talk with thee apart.\n    Stand back, you lords, and give us leave awhile.\n  REIGNIER. She takes upon her bravely at first dash.\n  PUCELLE. Dauphin, I am by birth a shepherd's daughter,\n    My wit untrain'd in any kind of art.\n    Heaven and our Lady gracious hath it pleas'd\n    To shine on my contemptible estate.\n    Lo, whilst I waited on my tender lambs\n    And to sun's parching heat display'd my cheeks,\n    God's Mother deigned to appear to me,\n    And in a vision full of majesty\n    Will'd me to leave my base vocation\n    And free my country from calamity\n    Her aid she promis'd and assur'd success.\n    In complete glory she reveal'd herself;\n    And whereas I was black and swart before,\n    With those clear rays which she infus'd on me\n    That beauty am I bless'd with which you may see.\n    Ask me what question thou canst possible,\n    And I will answer unpremeditated.\n    My courage try by combat if thou dar'st,\n    And thou shalt find that I exceed my sex.\n    Resolve on this: thou shalt be fortunate\n    If thou receive me for thy warlike mate.\n  CHARLES. Thou hast astonish'd me with thy high terms.\n    Only this proof I'll of thy valour make\n    In single combat thou shalt buckle with me;\n    And if thou vanquishest, thy words are true;\n    Otherwise I renounce all confidence.\n  PUCELLE. I am prepar'd; here is my keen-edg'd sword,\n    Deck'd with five flower-de-luces on each side,\n    The which at Touraine, in Saint Katherine's churchyard,\n    Out of a great deal of old iron I chose forth.\n  CHARLES. Then come, o' God's name; I fear no woman.\n  PUCELLE. And while I live I'll ne'er fly from a man.\n                 [Here they fight and JOAN LA PUCELLE overcomes]\n  CHARLES. Stay, stay thy hands; thou art an Amazon,\n    And fightest with the sword of Deborah.\n  PUCELLE. Christ's Mother helps me, else I were too weak.\n  CHARLES. Whoe'er helps thee, 'tis thou that must help me.\n    Impatiently I burn with thy desire;\n    My heart and hands thou hast at once subdu'd.\n    Excellent Pucelle, if thy name be so,\n    Let me thy servant and not sovereign be.\n    'Tis the French Dauphin sueth to thee thus.\n  PUCELLE. I must not yield to any rites of love,\n    For my profession's sacred from above.\n    When I have chased all thy foes from hence,\n    Then will I think upon a recompense.\n  CHARLES. Meantime look gracious on thy prostrate thrall.\n  REIGNIER. My lord, methinks, is very long in talk.\n  ALENCON. Doubtless he shrives this woman to her smock;\n    Else ne'er could he so long protract his speech.\n  REIGNIER. Shall we disturb him, since he keeps no mean?\n  ALENCON. He may mean more than we poor men do know;\n    These women are shrewd tempters with their tongues.\n  REIGNIER. My lord, where are you? What devise you on?\n    Shall we give o'er Orleans, or no?\n  PUCELLE. Why, no, I say; distrustful recreants!\n    Fight till the last gasp; I will be your guard.\n  CHARLES. What she says I'll confirm; we'll fight it out.\n  PUCELLE. Assign'd am I to be the English scourge.\n    This night the siege assuredly I'll raise.\n    Expect Saint Martin's summer, halcyon days,\n    Since I have entered into these wars.\n    Glory is like a circle in the water,\n    Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself\n    Till by broad spreading it disperse to nought.\n    With Henry's death the English circle ends;\n    Dispersed are the glories it included.\n    Now am I like that proud insulting ship\n    Which Caesar and his fortune bare at once.\n  CHARLES. Was Mahomet inspired with a dove?\n    Thou with an eagle art inspired then.\n    Helen, the mother of great Constantine,\n    Nor yet Saint Philip's daughters were like thee.\n    Bright star of Venus, fall'n down on the earth,\n    How may I reverently worship thee enough?\n  ALENCON. Leave off delays, and let us raise the siege.\n  REIGNIER. Woman, do what thou canst to save our honours;\n    Drive them from Orleans, and be immortaliz'd.\n  CHARLES. Presently we'll try. Come, let's away about it.\n    No prophet will I trust if she prove false.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                          SCENE 3.\n\n                London. Before the Tower gates\n\n       Enter the DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, with his serving-men\n                       in blue coats\n\n  GLOUCESTER. I am come to survey the Tower this day;\n    Since Henry's death, I fear, there is conveyance.\n    Where be these warders that they wait not here?\n    Open the gates; 'tis Gloucester that calls.\n  FIRST WARDER.  [Within]  Who's there that knocks so\n    imperiously?\n  FIRST SERVING-MAN. It is the noble Duke of Gloucester.\n  SECOND WARDER.  [Within]  Whoe'er he be, you may not be\n    let in.\n  FIRST SERVING-MAN. Villains, answer you so the Lord\n    Protector?\n  FIRST WARDER.  [Within]  The Lord protect him! so we\n    answer him.\n    We do no otherwise than we are will'd.\n  GLOUCESTER. Who willed you, or whose will stands but\n    mine?\n    There's none Protector of the realm but I.\n    Break up the gates, I'll be your warrantize.\n    Shall I be flouted thus by dunghill grooms?\n                  [GLOUCESTER'S men rush at the Tower gates, and\n                         WOODVILLE the Lieutenant speaks within]\n  WOODVILLE.  [Within]  What noise is this? What traitors\n    have we here?\n  GLOUCESTER. Lieutenant, is it you whose voice I hear?\n    Open the gates; here's Gloucester that would enter.\n  WOODVILLE.  [Within]  Have patience, noble Duke, I may\n    not open;\n    The Cardinal of Winchester forbids.\n    From him I have express commandment\n    That thou nor none of thine shall be let in.\n  GLOUCESTER. Faint-hearted Woodville, prizest him fore me?\n    Arrogant Winchester, that haughty prelate\n    Whom Henry, our late sovereign, ne'er could brook!\n    Thou art no friend to God or to the King.\n    Open the gates, or I'll shut thee out shortly.\n  SERVING-MEN. Open the gates unto the Lord Protector,\n    Or we'll burst them open, if that you come not quickly.\n\n       Enter to the PROTECTOR at the Tower gates WINCHESTER\n                   and his men in tawny coats\n\n  WINCHESTER. How now, ambitious Humphry! What means\n    this?\n  GLOUCESTER. Peel'd priest, dost thou command me to be\n    shut out?\n  WINCHESTER. I do, thou most usurping proditor,\n    And not Protector of the King or realm.\n  GLOUCESTER. Stand back, thou manifest conspirator,\n    Thou that contrived'st to murder our dead lord;\n    Thou that giv'st whores indulgences to sin.\n    I'll canvass thee in thy broad cardinal's hat,\n    If thou proceed in this thy insolence.\n  WINCHESTER. Nay, stand thou back; I will not budge a foot.\n    This be Damascus; be thou cursed Cain,\n    To slay thy brother Abel, if thou wilt.\n  GLOUCESTER. I will not slay thee, but I'll drive thee back.\n    Thy scarlet robes as a child's bearing-cloth\n    I'll use to carry thee out of this place.\n  WINCHESTER. Do what thou dar'st; I beard thee to thy face.\n  GLOUCESTER. What! am I dar'd and bearded to my face?\n    Draw, men, for all this privileged place\n    Blue-coats to tawny-coats. Priest, beware your beard;\n    I mean to tug it, and to cuff you soundly;\n    Under my feet I stamp thy cardinal's hat;\n    In spite of Pope or dignities of church,\n    Here by the cheeks I'll drag thee up and down.\n  WINCHESTER. Gloucester, thou wilt answer this before the\n    Pope.\n  GLOUCESTER. Winchester goose! I cry 'A rope, a rope!'\n    Now beat them hence; why do you let them stay?\n    Thee I'll chase hence, thou wolf in sheep's array.\n    Out, tawny-coats! Out, scarlet hypocrite!\n\n         Here GLOUCESTER'S men beat out the CARDINAL'S\n        men; and enter in the hurly burly the MAYOR OF\n                  LONDON and his OFFICERS\n\n  MAYOR. Fie, lords! that you, being supreme magistrates,\n    Thus contumeliously should break the peace!\n  GLOUCESTER. Peace, Mayor! thou know'st little of my wrongs:\n    Here's Beaufort, that regards nor God nor King,\n    Hath here distrain'd the Tower to his use.\n  WINCHESTER. Here's Gloucester, a foe to citizens;\n    One that still motions war and never peace,\n    O'ercharging your free purses with large fines;\n    That seeks to overthrow religion,\n    Because he is Protector of the realm,\n    And would have armour here out of the Tower,\n    To crown himself King and suppress the Prince.\n  GLOUCESTER. I Will not answer thee with words, but blows.\n                                      [Here they skirmish again]\n  MAYOR. Nought rests for me in this tumultuous strife\n    But to make open proclamation.\n    Come, officer, as loud as e'er thou canst,\n    Cry.\n  OFFICER.  [Cries]  All manner of men assembled here in arms\n    this day against God's peace and the King's, we charge\n    and command you, in his Highness' name, to repair to\n    your several dwelling-places; and not to wear, handle, or\n    use, any sword, weapon, or dagger, henceforward, upon\n    pain of death.\n  GLOUCESTER. Cardinal, I'll be no breaker of the law;\n    But we shall meet and break our minds at large.\n  WINCHESTER. Gloucester, we'll meet to thy cost, be sure;\n    Thy heart-blood I will have for this day's work.\n  MAYOR. I'll call for clubs if you will not away.\n    This Cardinal's more haughty than the devil.\n  GLOUCESTER. Mayor, farewell; thou dost but what thou\n    mayst.\n  WINCHESTER. Abominable Gloucester, guard thy head,\n    For I intend to have it ere long.\n                    Exeunt, severally, GLOUCESTER and WINCHESTER\n                                             with their servants\n  MAYOR. See the coast clear'd, and then we will depart.\n    Good God, these nobles should such stomachs bear!\n    I myself fight not once in forty year.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                               SCENE 4.\n\n                        France. Before Orleans\n\n               Enter, on the walls, the MASTER-GUNNER\n                       OF ORLEANS and his BOY\n\n  MASTER-GUNNER. Sirrah, thou know'st how Orleans is\n    besieg'd,\n    And how the English have the suburbs won.\n  BOY. Father, I know; and oft have shot at them,\n    Howe'er unfortunate I miss'd my aim.\n  MASTER-GUNNER. But now thou shalt not. Be thou rul'd\n    by me.\n    Chief master-gunner am I of this town;\n    Something I must do to procure me grace.\n    The Prince's espials have informed me\n    How the English, in the suburbs close intrench'd,\n    Wont, through a secret grate of iron bars\n    In yonder tower, to overpeer the city,\n    And thence discover how with most advantage\n    They may vex us with shot or with assault.\n    To intercept this inconvenience,\n    A piece of ordnance 'gainst it I have plac'd;\n    And even these three days have I watch'd\n    If I could see them. Now do thou watch,\n    For I can stay no longer.\n    If thou spy'st any, run and bring me word;\n    And thou shalt find me at the Governor's.               Exit\n  BOY. Father, I warrant you; take you no care;\n    I'll never trouble you, if I may spy them.              Exit\n\n          Enter SALISBURY and TALBOT on the turrets, with\n            SIR WILLIAM GLANSDALE, SIR THOMAS GARGRAVE,\n                            and others\n\n  SALISBURY. Talbot, my life, my joy, again return'd!\n    How wert thou handled being prisoner?\n    Or by what means got'st thou to be releas'd?\n    Discourse, I prithee, on this turret's top.\n  TALBOT. The Earl of Bedford had a prisoner\n    Call'd the brave Lord Ponton de Santrailles;\n    For him was I exchang'd and ransomed.\n    But with a baser man of arms by far\n    Once, in contempt, they would have barter'd me;\n    Which I disdaining scorn'd, and craved death\n    Rather than I would be so vile esteem'd.\n    In fine, redeem'd I was as I desir'd.\n    But, O! the treacherous Fastolfe wounds my heart\n    Whom with my bare fists I would execute,\n    If I now had him brought into my power.\n  SALISBURY. Yet tell'st thou not how thou wert entertain'd.\n  TALBOT. With scoffs, and scorns, and contumelious taunts,\n    In open market-place produc'd they me\n    To be a public spectacle to all;\n    Here, said they, is the terror of the French,\n    The scarecrow that affrights our children so.\n    Then broke I from the officers that led me,\n    And with my nails digg'd stones out of the ground\n    To hurl at the beholders of my shame;\n    My grisly countenance made others fly;\n    None durst come near for fear of sudden death.\n    In iron walls they deem'd me not secure;\n    So great fear of my name 'mongst them was spread\n    That they suppos'd I could rend bars of steel\n    And spurn in pieces posts of adamant;\n    Wherefore a guard of chosen shot I had\n    That walk'd about me every minute-while;\n    And if I did but stir out of my bed,\n    Ready they were to shoot me to the heart.\n\n                Enter the BOY with a linstock\n\n  SALISBURY. I grieve to hear what torments you endur'd;\n    But we will be reveng'd sufficiently.\n    Now it is supper-time in Orleans:\n    Here, through this grate, I count each one\n    And view the Frenchmen how they fortify.\n    Let us look in; the sight will much delight thee.\n    Sir Thomas Gargrave and Sir William Glansdale,\n    Let me have your express opinions\n    Where is best place to make our batt'ry next.\n  GARGRAVE. I think at the North Gate; for there stand lords.\n  GLANSDALE. And I here, at the bulwark of the bridge.\n  TALBOT. For aught I see, this city must be famish'd,\n    Or with light skirmishes enfeebled.\n                     [Here they shoot and SALISBURY and GARGRAVE\n                                                      fall down]\n  SALISBURY. O Lord, have mercy on us, wretched sinners!\n  GARGRAVE. O Lord, have mercy on me, woeful man!\n  TALBOT. What chance is this that suddenly hath cross'd us?\n    Speak, Salisbury; at least, if thou canst speak.\n    How far'st thou, mirror of all martial men?\n    One of thy eyes and thy cheek's side struck off!\n    Accursed tower! accursed fatal hand\n    That hath contriv'd this woeful tragedy!\n    In thirteen battles Salisbury o'ercame;\n    Henry the Fifth he first train'd to the wars;\n    Whilst any trump did sound or drum struck up,\n    His sword did ne'er leave striking in the field.\n    Yet liv'st thou, Salisbury? Though thy speech doth fail,\n    One eye thou hast to look to heaven for grace;\n    The sun with one eye vieweth all the world.\n    Heaven, be thou gracious to none alive\n    If Salisbury wants mercy at thy hands!\n    Bear hence his body; I will help to bury it.\n    Sir Thomas Gargrave, hast thou any life?\n    Speak unto Talbot; nay, look up to him.\n    Salisbury, cheer thy spirit with this comfort,\n    Thou shalt not die whiles\n    He beckons with his hand and smiles on me,\n    As who should say 'When I am dead and gone,\n    Remember to avenge me on the French.'\n    Plantagenet, I will; and like thee, Nero,\n    Play on the lute, beholding the towns burn.\n    Wretched shall France be only in my name.\n                  [Here an alarum, and it thunders and lightens]\n    What stir is this? What tumult's in the heavens?\n    Whence cometh this alarum and the noise?\n\n                          Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. My lord, my lord, the French have gather'd\n    head\n    The Dauphin, with one Joan la Pucelle join'd,\n    A holy prophetess new risen up,\n    Is come with a great power to raise the siege.\n                  [Here SALISBURY lifteth himself up and groans]\n  TALBOT. Hear, hear how dying Salisbury doth groan.\n    It irks his heart he cannot be reveng'd.\n    Frenchmen, I'll be a Salisbury to you.\n    Pucelle or puzzel, dolphin or dogfish,\n    Your hearts I'll stamp out with my horse's heels\n    And make a quagmire of your mingled brains.\n    Convey me Salisbury into his tent,\n    And then we'll try what these dastard Frenchmen dare.\n                                                  Alarum. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 5.\n\n                          Before Orleans\n\n         Here an alarum again, and TALBOT pursueth the\n      DAUPHIN and driveth him. Then enter JOAN LA PUCELLE\n       driving Englishmen before her. Then enter TALBOT\n\n  TALBOT. Where is my strength, my valour, and my force?\n    Our English troops retire, I cannot stay them;\n    A woman clad in armour chaseth them.\n\n                          Enter LA PUCELLE\n\n    Here, here she comes. I'll have a bout with thee.\n    Devil or devil's dam, I'll conjure thee;\n    Blood will I draw on thee-thou art a witch\n    And straightway give thy soul to him thou serv'st.\n  PUCELLE. Come, come, 'tis only I that must disgrace thee.\n                                               [Here they fight]\n  TALBOT. Heavens, can you suffer hell so to prevail?\n    My breast I'll burst with straining of my courage.\n    And from my shoulders crack my arms asunder,\n    But I will chastise this high minded strumpet.\n                                              [They fight again]\n  PUCELLE. Talbot, farewell; thy hour is not yet come.\n    I must go victual Orleans forthwith.\n             [A short alarum; then enter the town with soldiers]\n    O'ertake me if thou canst; I scorn thy strength.\n    Go, go, cheer up thy hungry starved men;\n    Help Salisbury to make his testament.\n    This day is ours, as many more shall be.                Exit\n  TALBOT. My thoughts are whirled like a potter's wheel;\n    I know not where I am nor what I do.\n    A witch by fear, not force, like Hannibal,\n    Drives back our troops and conquers as she lists.\n    So bees with smoke and doves with noisome stench\n    Are from their hives and houses driven away.\n    They call'd us, for our fierceness, English dogs;\n    Now like to whelps we crying run away.\n                                                [A short alarum]\n    Hark, countrymen! Either renew the fight\n    Or tear the lions out of England's coat;\n    Renounce your soil, give sheep in lions' stead:\n    Sheep run not half so treacherous from the wolf,\n    Or horse or oxen from the leopard,\n    As you fly from your oft subdued slaves.\n                                 [Alarum. Here another skirmish]\n    It will not be-retire into your trenches.\n    You all consented unto Salisbury's death,\n    For none would strike a stroke in his revenge.\n    Pucelle is ent'red into Orleans\n    In spite of us or aught that we could do.\n    O, would I were to die with Salisbury!\n    The shame hereof will make me hide my head.\n                                    Exit TALBOT. Alarum; retreat\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 6.\n\n                              ORLEANS\n\n        Flourish. Enter on the walls, LA PUCELLE, CHARLES,\n                REIGNIER, ALENCON, and soldiers\n\n  PUCELLE. Advance our waving colours on the walls;\n    Rescu'd is Orleans from the English.\n    Thus Joan la Pucelle hath perform'd her word.\n  CHARLES. Divinest creature, Astraea's daughter,\n    How shall I honour thee for this success?\n    Thy promises are like Adonis' gardens,\n    That one day bloom'd and fruitful were the next.\n    France, triumph in thy glorious prophetess.\n    Recover'd is the town of Orleans.\n    More blessed hap did ne'er befall our state.\n  REIGNIER. Why ring not out the bells aloud throughout the\n    town?\n    Dauphin, command the citizens make bonfires\n    And feast and banquet in the open streets\n    To celebrate the joy that God hath given us.\n  ALENCON. All France will be replete with mirth and joy\n    When they shall hear how we have play'd the men.\n  CHARLES. 'Tis Joan, not we, by whom the day is won;\n    For which I will divide my crown with her;\n    And all the priests and friars in my realm\n    Shall in procession sing her endless praise.\n    A statelier pyramis to her I'll rear\n    Than Rhodope's of Memphis ever was.\n    In memory of her, when she is dead,\n    Her ashes, in an urn more precious\n    Than the rich jewel'd coffer of Darius,\n    Transported shall be at high festivals\n    Before the kings and queens of France.\n    No longer on Saint Denis will we cry,\n    But Joan la Pucelle shall be France's saint.\n    Come in, and let us banquet royally\n    After this golden day of victory. Flourish.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 1.\n\nBefore Orleans\n\nEnter a FRENCH SERGEANT and two SENTINELS\n\n  SERGEANT. Sirs, take your places and be vigilant.\n    If any noise or soldier you perceive\n    Near to the walls, by some apparent sign\n    Let us have knowledge at the court of guard.\n  FIRST SENTINEL. Sergeant, you shall.           [Exit SERGEANT]\n    Thus are poor servitors,\n    When others sleep upon their quiet beds,\n    Constrain'd to watch in darkness, rain, and cold.\n\n             Enter TALBOT, BEDFORD, BURGUNDY, and forces,\n          with scaling-ladders; their drums beating a dead\n                              march\n\n  TALBOT. Lord Regent, and redoubted Burgundy,\n    By whose approach the regions of Artois,\n    Wallon, and Picardy, are friends to us,\n    This happy night the Frenchmen are secure,\n    Having all day carous'd and banqueted;\n    Embrace we then this opportunity,\n    As fitting best to quittance their deceit,\n    Contriv'd by art and baleful sorcery.\n  BEDFORD. Coward of France, how much he wrongs his fame,\n    Despairing of his own arm's fortitude,\n    To join with witches and the help of hell!\n  BURGUNDY. Traitors have never other company.\n    But what's that Pucelle whom they term so pure?\n  TALBOT. A maid, they say.\n  BEDFORD. A maid! and be so martial!\n  BURGUNDY. Pray God she prove not masculine ere long,\n    If underneath the standard of the French\n    She carry armour as she hath begun.\n  TALBOT. Well, let them practise and converse with spirits:\n    God is our fortress, in whose conquering name\n    Let us resolve to scale their flinty bulwarks.\n  BEDFORD. Ascend, brave Talbot; we will follow thee.\n  TALBOT. Not all together; better far, I guess,\n    That we do make our entrance several ways;\n    That if it chance the one of us do fail\n    The other yet may rise against their force.\n  BEDFORD. Agreed; I'll to yond corner.\n  BURGUNDY. And I to this.\n  TALBOT. And here will Talbot mount or make his grave.\n    Now, Salisbury, for thee, and for the right\n    Of English Henry, shall this night appear\n    How much in duty I am bound to both.\n             [The English scale the walls and cry 'Saint George!\n                                                     a Talbot!']\n    SENTINEL. Arm! arm! The enemy doth make assault.\n\n           The French leap o'er the walls in their shirts.\n           Enter, several ways, BASTARD, ALENCON, REIGNIER,\n                     half ready and half unready\n\n  ALENCON. How now, my lords? What, all unready so?\n  BASTARD. Unready! Ay, and glad we 'scap'd so well.\n  REIGNIER. 'Twas time, I trow, to wake and leave our beds,\n    Hearing alarums at our chamber doors.\n  ALENCON. Of all exploits since first I follow'd arms\n    Ne'er heard I of a warlike enterprise\n    More venturous or desperate than this.\n  BASTARD. I think this Talbot be a fiend of hell.\n  REIGNIER. If not of hell, the heavens, sure, favour him\n  ALENCON. Here cometh Charles; I marvel how he sped.\n\n                    Enter CHARLES and LA PUCELLE\n\n  BASTARD. Tut! holy Joan was his defensive guard.\n  CHARLES. Is this thy cunning, thou deceitful dame?\n    Didst thou at first, to flatter us withal,\n    Make us partakers of a little gain\n    That now our loss might be ten times so much?\n  PUCELLE. Wherefore is Charles impatient with his friend?\n    At all times will you have my power alike?\n    Sleeping or waking, must I still prevail\n    Or will you blame and lay the fault on me?\n    Improvident soldiers! Had your watch been good\n    This sudden mischief never could have fall'n.\n  CHARLES. Duke of Alencon, this was your default\n    That, being captain of the watch to-night,\n    Did look no better to that weighty charge.\n  ALENCON. Had all your quarters been as safely kept\n    As that whereof I had the government,\n    We had not been thus shamefully surpris'd.\n  BASTARD. Mine was secure.\n  REIGNIER. And so was mine, my lord.\n  CHARLES. And, for myself, most part of all this night,\n    Within her quarter and mine own precinct\n    I was employ'd in passing to and fro\n    About relieving of the sentinels.\n    Then how or which way should they first break in?\n  PUCELLE. Question, my lords, no further of the case,\n    How or which way; 'tis sure they found some place\n    But weakly guarded, where the breach was made.\n    And now there rests no other shift but this\n    To gather our soldiers, scatter'd and dispers'd,\n    And lay new platforms to endamage them.\n\n               Alarum. Enter an ENGLISH SOLDIER, crying\n            'A Talbot! A Talbot!' They fly, leaving their\n                           clothes behind\n\n  SOLDIER. I'll be so bold to take what they have left.\n    The cry of Talbot serves me for a sword;\n    For I have loaden me with many spoils,\n    Using no other weapon but his name.                     Exit\n\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 2.\n\n                      ORLEANS. Within the town\n\n            Enter TALBOT, BEDFORD, BURGUNDY, a CAPTAIN,\n                           and others\n\n  BEDFORD. The day begins to break, and night is fled\n    Whose pitchy mantle over-veil'd the earth.\n    Here sound retreat and cease our hot pursuit.\n                                               [Retreat sounded]\n  TALBOT. Bring forth the body of old Salisbury\n    And here advance it in the market-place,\n    The middle centre of this cursed town.\n    Now have I paid my vow unto his soul;\n    For every drop of blood was drawn from him\n    There hath at least five Frenchmen died to-night.\n    And that hereafter ages may behold\n    What ruin happened in revenge of him,\n    Within their chiefest temple I'll erect\n    A tomb, wherein his corpse shall be interr'd;\n    Upon the which, that every one may read,\n    Shall be engrav'd the sack of Orleans,\n    The treacherous manner of his mournful death,\n    And what a terror he had been to France.\n    But, lords, in all our bloody massacre,\n    I muse we met not with the Dauphin's grace,\n    His new-come champion, virtuous Joan of Arc,\n    Nor any of his false confederates.\n  BEDFORD. 'Tis thought, Lord Talbot, when the fight began,\n    Rous'd on the sudden from their drowsy beds,\n    They did amongst the troops of armed men\n    Leap o'er the walls for refuge in the field.\n  BURGUNDY. Myself, as far as I could well discern\n    For smoke and dusky vapours of the night,\n    Am sure I scar'd the Dauphin and his trull,\n    When arm in arm they both came swiftly running,\n    Like to a pair of loving turtle-doves\n    That could not live asunder day or night.\n    After that things are set in order here,\n    We'll follow them with all the power we have.\n\n                          Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. All hail, my lords! Which of this princely train\n    Call ye the warlike Talbot, for his acts\n    So much applauded through the realm of France?\n  TALBOT. Here is the Talbot; who would speak with him?\n  MESSENGER. The virtuous lady, Countess of Auvergne,\n    With modesty admiring thy renown,\n    By me entreats, great lord, thou wouldst vouchsafe\n    To visit her poor castle where she lies,\n    That she may boast she hath beheld the man\n    Whose glory fills the world with loud report.\n  BURGUNDY. Is it even so? Nay, then I see our wars\n    Will turn into a peaceful comic sport,\n    When ladies crave to be encount'red with.\n    You may not, my lord, despise her gentle suit.\n  TALBOT. Ne'er trust me then; for when a world of men\n    Could not prevail with all their oratory,\n    Yet hath a woman's kindness overrul'd;\n    And therefore tell her I return great thanks\n    And in submission will attend on her.\n    Will not your honours bear me company?\n  BEDFORD. No, truly; 'tis more than manners will;\n    And I have heard it said unbidden guests\n    Are often welcomest when they are gone.\n  TALBOT. Well then, alone, since there's no remedy,\n    I mean to prove this lady's courtesy.\n    Come hither, Captain.  [Whispers]   You perceive my mind?\n  CAPTAIN. I do, my lord, and mean accordingly.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 3.\n\n                      AUVERGNE. The Castle\n\n               Enter the COUNTESS and her PORTER\n\n  COUNTESS. Porter, remember what I gave in charge;\n    And when you have done so, bring the keys to me.\n  PORTER. Madam, I will.\n  COUNTESS. The plot is laid; if all things fall out right,\n    I shall as famous be by this exploit.\n    As Scythian Tomyris by Cyrus' death.\n    Great is the rumour of this dreadful knight,\n    And his achievements of no less account.\n    Fain would mine eyes be witness with mine ears\n    To give their censure of these rare reports.\n\n    Enter MESSENGER and TALBOT.\n\n  MESSENGER. Madam, according as your ladyship desir'd,\n    By message crav'd, so is Lord Talbot come.\n  COUNTESS. And he is welcome. What! is this the man?\n  MESSENGER. Madam, it is.\n  COUNTESS. Is this the scourge of France?\n    Is this Talbot, so much fear'd abroad\n    That with his name the mothers still their babes?\n    I see report is fabulous and false.\n    I thought I should have seen some Hercules,\n    A second Hector, for his grim aspect\n    And large proportion of his strong-knit limbs.\n    Alas, this is a child, a silly dwarf!\n    It cannot be this weak and writhled shrimp\n    Should strike such terror to his enemies.\n  TALBOT. Madam, I have been bold to trouble you;\n    But since your ladyship is not at leisure,\n    I'll sort some other time to visit you.              [Going]\n  COUNTESS. What means he now? Go ask him whither he\n    goes.\n  MESSENGER. Stay, my Lord Talbot; for my lady craves\n    To know the cause of your abrupt departure.\n  TALBOT. Marry, for that she's in a wrong belief,\n    I go to certify her Talbot's here.\n\n                      Re-enter PORTER With keys\n\n  COUNTESS. If thou be he, then art thou prisoner.\n  TALBOT. Prisoner! To whom?\n  COUNTESS. To me, blood-thirsty lord\n    And for that cause I train'd thee to my house.\n    Long time thy shadow hath been thrall to me,\n    For in my gallery thy picture hangs;\n    But now the substance shall endure the like\n    And I will chain these legs and arms of thine\n    That hast by tyranny these many years\n    Wasted our country, slain our citizens,\n    And sent our sons and husbands captivate.\n  TALBOT. Ha, ha, ha!\n  COUNTESS. Laughest thou, wretch? Thy mirth shall turn to\n    moan.\n  TALBOT. I laugh to see your ladyship so fond\n    To think that you have aught but Talbot's shadow\n    Whereon to practise your severity.\n  COUNTESS. Why, art not thou the man?\n  TALBOT. I am indeed.\n  COUNTESS. Then have I substance too.\n  TALBOT. No, no, I am but shadow of myself.\n    You are deceiv'd, my substance is not here;\n    For what you see is but the smallest part\n    And least proportion of humanity.\n    I tell you, madam, were the whole frame here,\n    It is of such a spacious lofty pitch\n    Your roof were not sufficient to contain 't.\n  COUNTESS. This is a riddling merchant for the nonce;\n    He will be here, and yet he is not here.\n    How can these contrarieties agree?\n  TALBOT. That will I show you presently.\n\n                   Winds his horn; drums strike up;\n                  a peal of ordnance. Enter soldiers\n\n    How say you, madam? Are you now persuaded\n    That Talbot is but shadow of himself?\n    These are his substance, sinews, arms, and strength,\n    With which he yoketh your rebellious necks,\n    Razeth your cities, and subverts your towns,\n    And in a moment makes them desolate.\n  COUNTESS. Victorious Talbot! pardon my abuse.\n    I find thou art no less than fame hath bruited,\n    And more than may be gathered by thy shape.\n    Let my presumption not provoke thy wrath,\n    For I am sorry that with reverence\n    I did not entertain thee as thou art.\n  TALBOT. Be not dismay'd, fair lady; nor misconster\n    The mind of Talbot as you did mistake\n    The outward composition of his body.\n    What you have done hath not offended me.\n    Nor other satisfaction do I crave\n    But only, with your patience, that we may\n    Taste of your wine and see what cates you have,\n    For soldiers' stomachs always serve them well.\n  COUNTESS. With all my heart, and think me honoured\n    To feast so great a warrior in my house.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n                            SCENE 4.\n\n                   London. The Temple garden\n\n         Enter the EARLS OF SOMERSET, SUFFOLK, and WARWICK;\n           RICHARD PLANTAGENET, VERNON, and another LAWYER\n\n  PLANTAGENET. Great lords and gentlemen, what means this\n    silence?\n    Dare no man answer in a case of truth?\n  SUFFOLK. Within the Temple Hall we were too loud;\n    The garden here is more convenient.\n  PLANTAGENET. Then say at once if I maintain'd the truth;\n    Or else was wrangling Somerset in th' error?\n  SUFFOLK. Faith, I have been a truant in the law\n    And never yet could frame my will to it;\n    And therefore frame the law unto my will.\n  SOMERSET. Judge you, my Lord of Warwick, then, between us.\n  WARWICK. Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch;\n    Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth;\n    Between two blades, which bears the better temper;\n    Between two horses, which doth bear him best;\n    Between two girls, which hath the merriest eye\n    I have perhaps some shallow spirit of judgment;\n    But in these nice sharp quillets of the law,\n    Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw.\n  PLANTAGENET. Tut, tut, here is a mannerly forbearance:\n    The truth appears so naked on my side\n    That any purblind eye may find it out.\n  SOMERSET. And on my side it is so well apparell'd,\n    So clear, so shining, and so evident,\n    That it will glimmer through a blind man's eye.\n  PLANTAGENET. Since you are tongue-tied and so loath to speak,\n    In dumb significants proclaim your thoughts.\n    Let him that is a true-born gentleman\n    And stands upon the honour of his birth,\n    If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,\n    From off this brier pluck a white rose with me.\n  SOMERSET. Let him that is no coward nor no flatterer,\n    But dare maintain the party of the truth,\n    Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me.\n  WARWICK. I love no colours; and, without all colour\n    Of base insinuating flattery,\n    I pluck this white rose with Plantagenet.\n  SUFFOLK. I pluck this red rose with young Somerset,\n    And say withal I think he held the right.\n  VERNON. Stay, lords and gentlemen, and pluck no more\n    Till you conclude that he upon whose side\n    The fewest roses are cropp'd from the tree\n    Shall yield the other in the right opinion.\n  SOMERSET. Good Master Vernon, it is well objected;\n    If I have fewest, I subscribe in silence.\n  PLANTAGENET. And I.\n  VERNON. Then, for the truth and plainness of the case,\n    I pluck this pale and maiden blossom here,\n    Giving my verdict on the white rose side.\n  SOMERSET. Prick not your finger as you pluck it off,\n    Lest, bleeding, you do paint the white rose red,\n    And fall on my side so, against your will.\n  VERNON. If I, my lord, for my opinion bleed,\n    Opinion shall be surgeon to my hurt\n    And keep me on the side where still I am.\n  SOMERSET. Well, well, come on; who else?\n  LAWYER.  [To Somerset]  Unless my study and my books be\n    false,\n    The argument you held was wrong in you;\n    In sign whereof I pluck a white rose too.\n  PLANTAGENET. Now, Somerset, where is your argument?\n  SOMERSET. Here in my scabbard, meditating that\n    Shall dye your white rose in a bloody red.\n  PLANTAGENET. Meantime your cheeks do counterfeit our\n    roses;\n    For pale they look with fear, as witnessing\n    The truth on our side.\n  SOMERSET. No, Plantagenet,\n    'Tis not for fear but anger that thy cheeks\n    Blush for pure shame to counterfeit our roses,\n    And yet thy tongue will not confess thy error.\n  PLANTAGENET. Hath not thy rose a canker, Somerset?\n  SOMERSET. Hath not thy rose a thorn, Plantagenet?\n  PLANTAGENET. Ay, sharp and piercing, to maintain his truth;\n    Whiles thy consuming canker eats his falsehood.\n  SOMERSET. Well, I'll find friends to wear my bleeding roses,\n    That shall maintain what I have said is true,\n    Where false Plantagenet dare not be seen.\n  PLANTAGENET. Now, by this maiden blossom in my hand,\n    I scorn thee and thy fashion, peevish boy.\n  SUFFOLK. Turn not thy scorns this way, Plantagenet.\n  PLANTAGENET. Proud Pole, I will, and scorn both him and\n    thee.\n  SUFFOLK. I'll turn my part thereof into thy throat.\n  SOMERSET. Away, away, good William de la Pole!\n    We grace the yeoman by conversing with him.\n  WARWICK. Now, by God's will, thou wrong'st him, Somerset;\n    His grandfather was Lionel Duke of Clarence,\n    Third son to the third Edward, King of England.\n    Spring crestless yeomen from so deep a root?\n  PLANTAGENET. He bears him on the place's privilege,\n    Or durst not for his craven heart say thus.\n  SOMERSET. By Him that made me, I'll maintain my words\n    On any plot of ground in Christendom.\n    Was not thy father, Richard Earl of Cambridge,\n    For treason executed in our late king's days?\n    And by his treason stand'st not thou attainted,\n    Corrupted, and exempt from ancient gentry?\n    His trespass yet lives guilty in thy blood;\n    And till thou be restor'd thou art a yeoman.\n  PLANTAGENET. My father was attached, not attainted;\n    Condemn'd to die for treason, but no traitor;\n    And that I'll prove on better men than Somerset,\n    Were growing time once ripened to my will.\n    For your partaker Pole, and you yourself,\n    I'll note you in my book of memory\n    To scourge you for this apprehension.\n    Look to it well, and say you are well warn'd.\n  SOMERSET. Ay, thou shalt find us ready for thee still;\n    And know us by these colours for thy foes\n    For these my friends in spite of thee shall wear.\n  PLANTAGENET. And, by my soul, this pale and angry rose,\n    As cognizance of my blood-drinking hate,\n    Will I for ever, and my faction, wear,\n    Until it wither with me to my grave,\n    Or flourish to the height of my degree.\n  SUFFOLK. Go forward, and be chok'd with thy ambition!\n    And so farewell until I meet thee next.                 Exit\n  SOMERSET. Have with thee, Pole. Farewell, ambitious\n    Richard.                                                Exit\n  PLANTAGENET. How I am brav'd, and must perforce endure\n    it!\n  WARWICK. This blot that they object against your house\n    Shall be wip'd out in the next Parliament,\n    Call'd for the truce of Winchester and Gloucester;\n    And if thou be not then created York,\n    I will not live to be accounted Warwick.\n    Meantime, in signal of my love to thee,\n    Against proud Somerset and William Pole,\n    Will I upon thy party wear this rose;\n    And here I prophesy: this brawl to-day,\n    Grown to this faction in the Temple Garden,\n    Shall send between the Red Rose and the White\n    A thousand souls to death and deadly night.\n  PLANTAGENET. Good Master Vernon, I am bound to you\n    That you on my behalf would pluck a flower.\n  VERNON. In your behalf still will I wear the same.\n  LAWYER. And so will I.\n  PLANTAGENET. Thanks, gentle sir.\n    Come, let us four to dinner. I dare say\n    This quarrel will drink blood another day.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 5.\n\n                       The Tower of London\n\n         Enter MORTIMER, brought in a chair, and GAOLERS\n\n  MORTIMER. Kind keepers of my weak decaying age,\n    Let dying Mortimer here rest himself.\n    Even like a man new haled from the rack,\n    So fare my limbs with long imprisonment;\n    And these grey locks, the pursuivants of death,\n    Nestor-like aged in an age of care,\n    Argue the end of Edmund Mortimer.\n    These eyes, like lamps whose wasting oil is spent,\n    Wax dim, as drawing to their exigent;\n    Weak shoulders, overborne with burdening grief,\n    And pithless arms, like to a withered vine\n    That droops his sapless branches to the ground.\n    Yet are these feet, whose strengthless stay is numb,\n    Unable to support this lump of clay,\n    Swift-winged with desire to get a grave,\n    As witting I no other comfort have.\n    But tell me, keeper, will my nephew come?\n  FIRST KEEPER. Richard Plantagenet, my lord, will come.\n    We sent unto the Temple, unto his chamber;\n    And answer was return'd that he will come.\n  MORTIMER. Enough; my soul shall then be satisfied.\n    Poor gentleman! his wrong doth equal mine.\n    Since Henry Monmouth first began to reign,\n    Before whose glory I was great in arms,\n    This loathsome sequestration have I had;\n    And even since then hath Richard been obscur'd,\n    Depriv'd of honour and inheritance.\n    But now the arbitrator of despairs,\n    Just Death, kind umpire of men's miseries,\n    With sweet enlargement doth dismiss me hence.\n    I would his troubles likewise were expir'd,\n    That so he might recover what was lost.\n\n                     Enter RICHARD PLANTAGENET\n\n  FIRST KEEPER. My lord, your loving nephew now is come.\n  MORTIMER. Richard Plantagenet, my friend, is he come?\n  PLANTAGENET. Ay, noble uncle, thus ignobly us'd,\n    Your nephew, late despised Richard, comes.\n  MORTIMER. Direct mine arms I may embrace his neck\n    And in his bosom spend my latter gasp.\n    O, tell me when my lips do touch his cheeks,\n    That I may kindly give one fainting kiss.\n    And now declare, sweet stem from York's great stock,\n    Why didst thou say of late thou wert despis'd?\n  PLANTAGENET. First, lean thine aged back against mine arm;\n    And, in that ease, I'll tell thee my disease.\n    This day, in argument upon a case,\n    Some words there grew 'twixt Somerset and me;\n    Among which terms he us'd his lavish tongue\n    And did upbraid me with my father's death;\n    Which obloquy set bars before my tongue,\n    Else with the like I had requited him.\n    Therefore, good uncle, for my father's sake,\n    In honour of a true Plantagenet,\n    And for alliance sake, declare the cause\n    My father, Earl of Cambridge, lost his head.\n  MORTIMER. That cause, fair nephew, that imprison'd me\n    And hath detain'd me all my flow'ring youth\n    Within a loathsome dungeon, there to pine,\n    Was cursed instrument of his decease.\n  PLANTAGENET. Discover more at large what cause that was,\n    For I am ignorant and cannot guess.\n  MORTIMER. I will, if that my fading breath permit\n    And death approach not ere my tale be done.\n    Henry the Fourth, grandfather to this king,\n    Depos'd his nephew Richard, Edward's son,\n    The first-begotten and the lawful heir\n    Of Edward king, the third of that descent;\n    During whose reign the Percies of the north,\n    Finding his usurpation most unjust,\n    Endeavour'd my advancement to the throne.\n    The reason mov'd these warlike lords to this\n    Was, for that-young Richard thus remov'd,\n    Leaving no heir begotten of his body-\n    I was the next by birth and parentage;\n    For by my mother I derived am\n    From Lionel Duke of Clarence, third son\n    To King Edward the Third; whereas he\n    From John of Gaunt doth bring his pedigree,\n    Being but fourth of that heroic line.\n    But mark: as in this haughty great attempt\n    They laboured to plant the rightful heir,\n    I lost my liberty, and they their lives.\n    Long after this, when Henry the Fifth,\n    Succeeding his father Bolingbroke, did reign,\n    Thy father, Earl of Cambridge, then deriv'd\n    From famous Edmund Langley, Duke of York,\n    Marrying my sister, that thy mother was,\n    Again, in pity of my hard distress,\n    Levied an army, weening to redeem\n    And have install'd me in the diadem;\n    But, as the rest, so fell that noble earl,\n    And was beheaded. Thus the Mortimers,\n    In whom the title rested, were suppress'd.\n  PLANTAGENET. Of Which, my lord, your honour is the last.\n  MORTIMER. True; and thou seest that I no issue have,\n    And that my fainting words do warrant death.\n    Thou art my heir; the rest I wish thee gather;\n    But yet be wary in thy studious care.\n  PLANTAGENET. Thy grave admonishments prevail with me.\n    But yet methinks my father's execution\n    Was nothing less than bloody tyranny.\n  MORTIMER. With silence, nephew, be thou politic;\n    Strong fixed is the house of Lancaster\n    And like a mountain not to be remov'd.\n    But now thy uncle is removing hence,\n    As princes do their courts when they are cloy'd\n    With long continuance in a settled place.\n  PLANTAGENET. O uncle, would some part of my young years\n    Might but redeem the passage of your age!\n  MORTIMER. Thou dost then wrong me, as that slaughterer\n    doth\n    Which giveth many wounds when one will kill.\n    Mourn not, except thou sorrow for my good;\n    Only give order for my funeral.\n    And so, farewell; and fair be all thy hopes,\n    And prosperous be thy life in peace and war!          [Dies]\n  PLANTAGENET. And peace, no war, befall thy parting soul!\n    In prison hast thou spent a pilgrimage,\n    And like a hermit overpass'd thy days.\n    Well, I will lock his counsel in my breast;\n    And what I do imagine, let that rest.\n    Keepers, convey him hence; and I myself\n    Will see his burial better than his life.\n                Exeunt GAOLERS, hearing out the body of MORTIMER\n    Here dies the dusky torch of Mortimer,\n    Chok'd with ambition of the meaner sort;\n    And for those wrongs, those bitter injuries,\n    Which Somerset hath offer'd to my house,\n    I doubt not but with honour to redress;\n    And therefore haste I to the Parliament,\n    Either to be restored to my blood,\n    Or make my ill th' advantage of my good.                Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 1.\n\nLondon. The Parliament House\n\nFlourish. Enter the KING, EXETER, GLOUCESTER, WARWICK, SOMERSET,\nand SUFFOLK;\nthe BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, RICHARD PLANTAGENET, and others.\nGLOUCESTER offers to put up a bill; WINCHESTER snatches it, and\ntears it\n\n  WINCHESTER. Com'st thou with deep premeditated lines,\n    With written pamphlets studiously devis'd?\n    Humphrey of Gloucester, if thou canst accuse\n    Or aught intend'st to lay unto my charge,\n    Do it without invention, suddenly;\n    I with sudden and extemporal speech\n    Purpose to answer what thou canst object.\n  GLOUCESTER. Presumptuous priest, this place commands my\n    patience,\n    Or thou shouldst find thou hast dishonour'd me.\n    Think not, although in writing I preferr'd\n    The manner of thy vile outrageous crimes,\n    That therefore I have forg'd, or am not able\n    Verbatim to rehearse the method of my pen.\n    No, prelate; such is thy audacious wickedness,\n    Thy lewd, pestiferous, and dissentious pranks,\n    As very infants prattle of thy pride.\n    Thou art a most pernicious usurer;\n    Froward by nature, enemy to peace;\n    Lascivious, wanton, more than well beseems\n    A man of thy profession and degree;\n    And for thy treachery, what's more manifest\n    In that thou laid'st a trap to take my life,\n    As well at London Bridge as at the Tower?\n    Beside, I fear me, if thy thoughts were sifted,\n    The King, thy sovereign, is not quite exempt\n    From envious malice of thy swelling heart.\n  WINCHESTER. Gloucester, I do defy thee. Lords, vouchsafe\n    To give me hearing what I shall reply.\n    If I were covetous, ambitious, or perverse,\n    As he will have me, how am I so poor?\n    Or how haps it I seek not to advance\n    Or raise myself, but keep my wonted calling?\n    And for dissension, who preferreth peace\n    More than I do, except I be provok'd?\n    No, my good lords, it is not that offends;\n    It is not that that incens'd hath incens'd the Duke:\n    It is because no one should sway but he;\n    No one but he should be about the King;\n    And that engenders thunder in his breast\n    And makes him roar these accusations forth.\n    But he shall know I am as good\n  GLOUCESTER. As good!\n    Thou bastard of my grandfather!\n  WINCHESTER. Ay, lordly sir; for what are you, I pray,\n    But one imperious in another's throne?\n  GLOUCESTER. Am I not Protector, saucy priest?\n  WINCHESTER. And am not I a prelate of the church?\n  GLOUCESTER. Yes, as an outlaw in a castle keeps,\n    And useth it to patronage his theft.\n  WINCHESTER. Unreverent Gloucester!\n  GLOUCESTER. Thou art reverend\n    Touching thy spiritual function, not thy life.\n  WINCHESTER. Rome shall remedy this.\n  WARWICK. Roam thither then.\n  SOMERSET. My lord, it were your duty to forbear.\n  WARWICK. Ay, see the bishop be not overborne.\n  SOMERSET. Methinks my lord should be religious,\n    And know the office that belongs to such.\n  WARWICK. Methinks his lordship should be humbler;\n    It fitteth not a prelate so to plead.\n  SOMERSET. Yes, when his holy state is touch'd so near.\n  WARWICK. State holy or unhallow'd, what of that?\n    Is not his Grace Protector to the King?\n  PLANTAGENET.  [Aside]  Plantagenet, I see, must hold his\n    tongue,\n    Lest it be said 'Speak, sirrah, when you should;\n    Must your bold verdict enter talk with lords?'\n    Else would I have a fling at Winchester.\n  KING HENRY. Uncles of Gloucester and of Winchester,\n    The special watchmen of our English weal,\n    I would prevail, if prayers might prevail\n    To join your hearts in love and amity.\n    O, what a scandal is it to our crown\n    That two such noble peers as ye should jar!\n    Believe me, lords, my tender years can tell\n    Civil dissension is a viperous worm\n    That gnaws the bowels of the commonwealth.\n                  [A noise within: 'Down with the tawny coats!']\n    What tumult's this?\n  WARWICK. An uproar, I dare warrant,\n    Begun through malice of the Bishop's men.\n                              [A noise again: 'Stones! Stones!']\n\n                Enter the MAYOR OF LONDON, attended\n\n  MAYOR. O, my good lords, and virtuous Henry,\n    Pity the city of London, pity us!\n    The Bishop and the Duke of Gloucester's men,\n    Forbidden late to carry any weapon,\n    Have fill'd their pockets full of pebble stones\n    And, banding themselves in contrary parts,\n    Do pelt so fast at one another's pate\n    That many have their giddy brains knock'd out.\n    Our windows are broke down in every street,\n    And we for fear compell'd to shut our shops.\n\n        Enter in skirmish, the retainers of GLOUCESTER and\n               WINCHESTER, with bloody pates\n\n  KING HENRY. We charge you, on allegiance to ourself,\n    To hold your slaught'ring hands and keep the peace.\n    Pray, uncle Gloucester, mitigate this strife.\n  FIRST SERVING-MAN. Nay, if we be forbidden stones, we'll\n    fall to it with our teeth.\n  SECOND SERVING-MAN. Do what ye dare, we are as resolute.\n                                                [Skirmish again]\n  GLOUCESTER. You of my household, leave this peevish broil,\n    And set this unaccustom'd fight aside.\n  THIRD SERVING-MAN. My lord, we know your Grace to be a\n    man\n    Just and upright, and for your royal birth\n    Inferior to none but to his Majesty;\n    And ere that we will suffer such a prince,\n    So kind a father of the commonweal,\n    To be disgraced by an inkhorn mate,\n    We and our wives and children all will fight\n    And have our bodies slaught'red by thy foes.\n  FIRST SERVING-MAN. Ay, and the very parings of our nails\n    Shall pitch a field when we are dead.          [Begin again]\n  GLOUCESTER. Stay, stay, I say!\n    And if you love me, as you say you do,\n    Let me persuade you to forbear awhile.\n  KING HENRY. O, how this discord doth afflict my soul!\n    Can you, my Lord of Winchester, behold\n    My sighs and tears and will not once relent?\n    Who should be pitiful, if you be not?\n    Or who should study to prefer a peace,\n    If holy churchmen take delight in broils?\n  WARWICK. Yield, my Lord Protector; yield, Winchester;\n    Except you mean with obstinate repulse\n    To slay your sovereign and destroy the realm.\n    You see what mischief, and what murder too,\n    Hath been enacted through your enmity;\n    Then be at peace, except ye thirst for blood.\n  WINCHESTER. He shall submit, or I will never yield.\n  GLOUCESTER. Compassion on the King commands me stoop,\n    Or I would see his heart out ere the priest\n    Should ever get that privilege of me.\n  WARWICK. Behold, my Lord of Winchester, the Duke\n    Hath banish'd moody discontented fury,\n    As by his smoothed brows it doth appear;\n    Why look you still so stem and tragical?\n  GLOUCESTER. Here, Winchester, I offer thee my hand.\n  KING HENRY. Fie, uncle Beaufort! I have heard you preach\n    That malice was a great and grievous sin;\n    And will not you maintain the thing you teach,\n    But prove a chief offender in the same?\n  WARWICK. Sweet King! The Bishop hath a kindly gird.\n    For shame, my Lord of Winchester, relent;\n    What, shall a child instruct you what to do?\n  WINCHESTER. Well, Duke of Gloucester, I will yield to thee;\n    Love for thy love and hand for hand I give.\n  GLOUCESTER  [Aside]  Ay, but, I fear me, with a hollow\n    heart.\n    See here, my friends and loving countrymen:\n    This token serveth for a flag of truce\n    Betwixt ourselves and all our followers.\n    So help me God, as I dissemble not!\n  WINCHESTER  [Aside]  So help me God, as I intend it not!\n  KING HENRY. O loving uncle, kind Duke of Gloucester,\n    How joyful am I made by this contract!\n    Away, my masters! trouble us no more;\n    But join in friendship, as your lords have done.\n  FIRST SERVING-MAN. Content: I'll to the surgeon's.\n  SECOND SERVING-MAN. And so will I.\n  THIRD SERVING-MAN. And I will see what physic the tavern\n    affords.                         Exeunt servants, MAYOR, &C.\n  WARWICK. Accept this scroll, most gracious sovereign;\n    Which in the right of Richard Plantagenet\n    We do exhibit to your Majesty.\n  GLOUCESTER. Well urg'd, my Lord of Warwick; for, sweet\n    prince,\n    An if your Grace mark every circumstance,\n    You have great reason to do Richard right;\n    Especially for those occasions\n    At Eltham Place I told your Majesty.\n  KING HENRY. And those occasions, uncle, were of force;\n    Therefore, my loving lords, our pleasure is\n    That Richard be restored to his blood.\n  WARWICK. Let Richard be restored to his blood;\n    So shall his father's wrongs be recompens'd.\n  WINCHESTER. As will the rest, so willeth Winchester.\n  KING HENRY. If Richard will be true, not that alone\n    But all the whole inheritance I give\n    That doth belong unto the house of York,\n    From whence you spring by lineal descent.\n  PLANTAGENET. Thy humble servant vows obedience\n    And humble service till the point of death.\n  KING HENRY. Stoop then and set your knee against my foot;\n    And in reguerdon of that duty done\n    I girt thee with the valiant sword of York.\n    Rise, Richard, like a true Plantagenet,\n    And rise created princely Duke of York.\n  PLANTAGENET. And so thrive Richard as thy foes may fall!\n    And as my duty springs, so perish they\n    That grudge one thought against your Majesty!\n  ALL. Welcome, high Prince, the mighty Duke of York!\n  SOMERSET.  [Aside]  Perish, base Prince, ignoble Duke of\n    York!\n  GLOUCESTER. Now will it best avail your Majesty\n    To cross the seas and to be crown'd in France:\n    The presence of a king engenders love\n    Amongst his subjects and his loyal friends,\n    As it disanimates his enemies.\n  KING HENRY. When Gloucester says the word, King Henry\n    goes;\n    For friendly counsel cuts off many foes.\n  GLOUCESTER. Your ships already are in readiness.\n                         Sennet. Flourish. Exeunt all but EXETER\n  EXETER. Ay, we may march in England or in France,\n    Not seeing what is likely to ensue.\n    This late dissension grown betwixt the peers\n    Burns under feigned ashes of forg'd love\n    And will at last break out into a flame;\n    As fest'red members rot but by degree\n    Till bones and flesh and sinews fall away,\n    So will this base and envious discord breed.\n    And now I fear that fatal prophecy.\n    Which in the time of Henry nam'd the Fifth\n    Was in the mouth of every sucking babe:\n    That Henry born at Monmouth should win all,\n    And Henry born at Windsor should lose all.\n    Which is so plain that Exeter doth wish\n    His days may finish ere that hapless time.              Exit\n\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 2.\n\n                      France. Before Rouen\n\n       Enter LA PUCELLE disguis'd, with four soldiers dressed\n            like countrymen, with sacks upon their backs\n\n  PUCELLE. These are the city gates, the gates of Rouen,\n    Through which our policy must make a breach.\n    Take heed, be wary how you place your words;\n    Talk like the vulgar sort of market-men\n    That come to gather money for their corn.\n    If we have entrance, as I hope we shall,\n    And that we find the slothful watch but weak,\n    I'll by a sign give notice to our friends,\n    That Charles the Dauphin may encounter them.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Our sacks shall be a mean to sack the city,\n    And we be lords and rulers over Rouen;\n    Therefore we'll knock.                              [Knocks]\n  WATCH.  [Within]  Qui est la?\n  PUCELLE. Paysans, pauvres gens de France\n    Poor market-folks that come to sell their corn.\n  WATCH. Enter, go in; the market-bell is rung.\n  PUCELLE. Now, Rouen, I'll shake thy bulwarks to the\n    ground.\n\n                               [LA PUCELLE, &c., enter the town]\n\n        Enter CHARLES, BASTARD, ALENCON, REIGNIER, and forces\n\n  CHARLES. Saint Denis bless this happy stratagem!\n    And once again we'll sleep secure in Rouen.\n  BASTARD. Here ent'red Pucelle and her practisants;\n    Now she is there, how will she specify\n    Here is the best and safest passage in?\n  ALENCON. By thrusting out a torch from yonder tower;\n    Which once discern'd shows that her meaning is\n    No way to that, for weakness, which she ent'red.\n\n             Enter LA PUCELLE, on the top, thrusting out\n                         a torch burning\n\n  PUCELLE. Behold, this is the happy wedding torch\n    That joineth Rouen unto her countrymen,\n    But burning fatal to the Talbotites.                    Exit\n  BASTARD. See, noble Charles, the beacon of our friend;\n    The burning torch in yonder turret stands.\n  CHARLES. Now shine it like a comet of revenge,\n    A prophet to the fall of all our foes!\n  ALENCON. Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends;\n    Enter, and cry 'The Dauphin!' presently,\n    And then do execution on the watch. Alarum.           Exeunt\n\n              An alarum. Enter TALBOT in an excursion\n\n  TALBOT. France, thou shalt rue this treason with thy tears,\n    If Talbot but survive thy treachery.\n  PUCELLE, that witch, that damned sorceress,\n    Hath wrought this hellish mischief unawares,\n    That hardly we escap'd the pride of France.             Exit\n\n        An alarum; excursions. BEDFORD brought in sick in\n          a chair. Enter TALBOT and BURGUNDY without;\n         within, LA PUCELLE, CHARLES, BASTARD, ALENCON,\n                 and REIGNIER, on the walls\n\n  PUCELLE. Good morrow, gallants! Want ye corn for bread?\n    I think the Duke of Burgundy will fast\n    Before he'll buy again at such a rate.\n    'Twas full of darnel-do you like the taste?\n  BURGUNDY. Scoff on, vile fiend and shameless courtezan.\n    I trust ere long to choke thee with thine own,\n    And make thee curse the harvest of that corn.\n  CHARLES. Your Grace may starve, perhaps, before that time.\n  BEDFORD. O, let no words, but deeds, revenge this treason!\n  PUCELLE. What you do, good grey beard? Break a\n    lance,\n    And run a tilt at death within a chair?\n  TALBOT. Foul fiend of France and hag of all despite,\n    Encompass'd with thy lustful paramours,\n    Becomes it thee to taunt his valiant age\n    And twit with cowardice a man half dead?\n    Damsel, I'll have a bout with you again,\n    Or else let Talbot perish with this shame.\n  PUCELLE. Are ye so hot, sir? Yet, Pucelle, hold thy peace;\n    If Talbot do but thunder, rain will follow.\n                 [The English party whisper together in council]\n    God speed the parliament! Who shall be the Speaker?\n  TALBOT. Dare ye come forth and meet us in the field?\n  PUCELLE. Belike your lordship takes us then for fools,\n    To try if that our own be ours or no.\n  TALBOT. I speak not to that railing Hecate,\n    But unto thee, Alencon, and the rest.\n    Will ye, like soldiers, come and fight it out?\n  ALENCON. Signior, no.\n  TALBOT. Signior, hang! Base muleteers of France!\n    Like peasant foot-boys do they keep the walls,\n    And dare not take up arms like gentlemen.\n  PUCELLE. Away, captains! Let's get us from the walls;\n    For Talbot means no goodness by his looks.\n    God b'uy, my lord; we came but to tell you\n    That we are here.                      Exeunt from the walls\n\n  TALBOT. And there will we be too, ere it be long,\n    Or else reproach be Talbot's greatest fame!\n    Vow, Burgundy, by honour of thy house,\n    Prick'd on by public wrongs sustain'd in France,\n    Either to get the town again or die;\n    And I, as sure as English Henry lives\n    And as his father here was conqueror,\n    As sure as in this late betrayed town\n    Great Coeur-de-lion's heart was buried\n    So sure I swear to get the town or die.\n  BURGUNDY. My vows are equal partners with thy vows.\n  TALBOT. But ere we go, regard this dying prince,\n    The valiant Duke of Bedford. Come, my lord,\n    We will bestow you in some better place,\n    Fitter for sickness and for crazy age.\n  BEDFORD. Lord Talbot, do not so dishonour me;\n    Here will I sit before the walls of Rouen,\n    And will be partner of your weal or woe.\n  BURGUNDY. Courageous Bedford, let us now persuade you.\n  BEDFORD. Not to be gone from hence; for once I read\n    That stout Pendragon in his litter sick\n    Came to the field, and vanquished his foes.\n    Methinks I should revive the soldiers' hearts,\n    Because I ever found them as myself.\n  TALBOT. Undaunted spirit in a dying breast!\n    Then be it so. Heavens keep old Bedford safe!\n    And now no more ado, brave Burgundy,\n    But gather we our forces out of hand\n    And set upon our boasting enemy.\n          Exeunt against the town all but BEDFORD and attendants\n\n           An alarum; excursions. Enter SIR JOHN FASTOLFE,\n                           and a CAPTAIN\n\n  CAPTAIN. Whither away, Sir John Fastolfe, in such haste?\n  FASTOLFE. Whither away? To save myself by flight:\n    We are like to have the overthrow again.\n  CAPTAIN. What! Will you and leave Lord Talbot?\n  FASTOLFE. Ay,\n    All the Talbots in the world, to save my life.          Exit\n\n  CAPTAIN. Cowardly knight! ill fortune follow thee!\n                                              Exit into the town\n\n         Retreat; excursions. LA PUCELLE, ALENCON,\n                      and CHARLES fly\n\n  BEDFORD. Now, quiet soul, depart when heaven please,\n    For I have seen our enemies' overthrow.\n    What is the trust or strength of foolish man?\n    They that of late were daring with their scoffs\n    Are glad and fain by flight to save themselves.\n            [BEDFORD dies and is carried in by two in his chair]\n\n          An alarum. Re-enter TALBOT, BURGUNDY, and the rest\n\n  TALBOT. Lost and recovered in a day again!\n    This is a double honour, Burgundy.\n    Yet heavens have glory for this victory!\n  BURGUNDY. Warlike and martial Talbot, Burgundy\n    Enshrines thee in his heart, and there erects\n    Thy noble deeds as valour's monuments.\n  TALBOT. Thanks, gentle Duke. But where is Pucelle now?\n    I think her old familiar is asleep.\n    Now where's the Bastard's braves, and Charles his gleeks?\n    What, all amort? Rouen hangs her head for grief\n    That such a valiant company are fled.\n    Now will we take some order in the town,\n    Placing therein some expert officers;\n    And then depart to Paris to the King,\n    For there young Henry with his nobles lie.\n  BURGUNDY. What Lord Talbot pleaseth Burgundy.\n  TALBOT. But yet, before we go, let's not forget\n    The noble Duke of Bedford, late deceas'd,\n    But see his exequies fulfill'd in Rouen.\n    A braver soldier never couched lance,\n    A gentler heart did never sway in court;\n    But kings and mightiest potentates must die,\n    For that's the end of human misery.                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 3.\n\n                      The plains near Rouen\n\n        Enter CHARLES, the BASTARD, ALENCON, LA PUCELLE,\n                          and forces\n\n  PUCELLE. Dismay not, Princes, at this accident,\n    Nor grieve that Rouen is so recovered.\n    Care is no cure, but rather corrosive,\n    For things that are not to be remedied.\n    Let frantic Talbot triumph for a while\n    And like a peacock sweep along his tail;\n    We'll pull his plumes and take away his train,\n    If Dauphin and the rest will be but rul'd.\n  CHARLES. We have guided by thee hitherto,\n    And of thy cunning had no diffidence;\n    One sudden foil shall never breed distrust\n  BASTARD. Search out thy wit for secret policies,\n    And we will make thee famous through the world.\n    ALENCON. We'll set thy statue in some holy place,\n    And have thee reverenc'd like a blessed saint.\n    Employ thee, then, sweet virgin, for our good.\n  PUCELLE. Then thus it must be; this doth Joan devise:\n    By fair persuasions, mix'd with sug'red words,\n    We will entice the Duke of Burgundy\n    To leave the Talbot and to follow us.\n  CHARLES. Ay, marry, sweeting, if we could do that,\n    France were no place for Henry's warriors;\n    Nor should that nation boast it so with us,\n    But be extirped from our provinces.\n  ALENCON. For ever should they be expuls'd from France,\n    And not have tide of an earldom here.\n  PUCELLE. Your honours shall perceive how I will work\n    To bring this matter to the wished end.\n                                          [Drum sounds afar off]\n    Hark! by the sound of drum you may perceive\n    Their powers are marching unto Paris-ward.\n\n          Here sound an English march. Enter, and pass over\n                at a distance, TALBOT and his forces\n\n    There goes the Talbot, with his colours spread,\n    And all the troops of English after him.\n\n            French march. Enter the DUKE OF BURGUNDY and\n                         his forces\n\n    Now in the rearward comes the Duke and his.\n    Fortune in favour makes him lag behind.\n    Summon a parley; we will talk with him.\n                                       [Trumpets sound a parley]\n  CHARLES. A parley with the Duke of Burgundy!\n  BURGUNDY. Who craves a parley with the Burgundy?\n  PUCELLE. The princely Charles of France, thy countryman.\n  BURGUNDY. What say'st thou, Charles? for I am marching\n    hence.\n  CHARLES. Speak, Pucelle, and enchant him with thy words.\n  PUCELLE. Brave Burgundy, undoubted hope of France!\n    Stay, let thy humble handmaid speak to thee.\n  BURGUNDY. Speak on; but be not over-tedious.\n  PUCELLE. Look on thy country, look on fertile France,\n    And see the cities and the towns defac'd\n    By wasting ruin of the cruel foe;\n    As looks the mother on her lowly babe\n    When death doth close his tender dying eyes,\n    See, see the pining malady of France;\n    Behold the wounds, the most unnatural wounds,\n    Which thou thyself hast given her woeful breast.\n    O, turn thy edged sword another way;\n    Strike those that hurt, and hurt not those that help!\n    One drop of blood drawn from thy country's bosom\n    Should grieve thee more than streams of foreign gore.\n    Return thee therefore with a flood of tears,\n    And wash away thy country's stained spots.\n  BURGUNDY. Either she hath bewitch'd me with her words,\n    Or nature makes me suddenly relent.\n  PUCELLE. Besides, all French and France exclaims on thee,\n    Doubting thy birth and lawful progeny.\n    Who join'st thou with but with a lordly nation\n    That will not trust thee but for profit's sake?\n    When Talbot hath set footing once in France,\n    And fashion'd thee that instrument of ill,\n    Who then but English Henry will be lord,\n    And thou be thrust out like a fugitive?\n    Call we to mind-and mark but this for proof:\n    Was not the Duke of Orleans thy foe?\n    And was he not in England prisoner?\n    But when they heard he was thine enemy\n    They set him free without his ransom paid,\n    In spite of Burgundy and all his friends.\n    See then, thou fight'st against thy countrymen,\n    And join'st with them will be thy slaughtermen.\n    Come, come, return; return, thou wandering lord;\n    Charles and the rest will take thee in their arms.\n  BURGUNDY. I am vanquished; these haughty words of hers\n    Have batt'red me like roaring cannon-shot\n    And made me almost yield upon my knees.\n    Forgive me, country, and sweet countrymen\n    And, lords, accept this hearty kind embrace.\n    My forces and my power of men are yours;\n    So, farewell, Talbot; I'll no longer trust thee.\n  PUCELLE. Done like a Frenchman-  [Aside]  turn and turn\n    again.\n  CHARLES. Welcome, brave Duke! Thy friendship makes us\n    fresh.\n  BASTARD. And doth beget new courage in our breasts.\n  ALENCON. Pucelle hath bravely play'd her part in this,\n    And doth deserve a coronet of gold.\n  CHARLES. Now let us on, my lords, and join our powers,\n    And seek how we may prejudice the foe.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                          SCENE 4.\n\n                     Paris. The palace\n\n         Enter the KING, GLOUCESTER, WINCHESTER, YORK,\n             SUFFOLK, SOMERSET, WARWICK, EXETER,\n           VERNON, BASSET, and others. To them, with\n                     his soldiers, TALBOT\n\n  TALBOT. My gracious Prince, and honourable peers,\n    Hearing of your arrival in this realm,\n    I have awhile given truce unto my wars\n    To do my duty to my sovereign;\n    In sign whereof, this arm that hath reclaim'd\n    To your obedience fifty fortresses,\n    Twelve cities, and seven walled towns of strength,\n    Beside five hundred prisoners of esteem,\n    Lets fall his sword before your Highness' feet,\n    And with submissive loyalty of heart\n    Ascribes the glory of his conquest got\n    First to my God and next unto your Grace.           [Kneels]\n  KING HENRY. Is this the Lord Talbot, uncle Gloucester,\n    That hath so long been resident in France?\n  GLOUCESTER. Yes, if it please your Majesty, my liege.\n  KING HENRY. Welcome, brave captain and victorious lord!\n    When I was young, as yet I am not old,\n    I do remember how my father said\n    A stouter champion never handled sword.\n    Long since we were resolved of your truth,\n    Your faithful service, and your toil in war;\n    Yet never have you tasted our reward,\n    Or been reguerdon'd with so much as thanks,\n    Because till now we never saw your face.\n    Therefore stand up; and for these good deserts\n    We here create you Earl of Shrewsbury;\n    And in our coronation take your place.\n              Sennet. Flourish. Exeunt all but VERNON and BASSET\n  VERNON. Now, sir, to you, that were so hot at sea,\n    Disgracing of these colours that I wear\n    In honour of my noble Lord of York\n    Dar'st thou maintain the former words thou spak'st?\n  BASSET. Yes, sir; as well as you dare patronage\n    The envious barking of your saucy tongue\n    Against my lord the Duke of Somerset.\n  VERNON. Sirrah, thy lord I honour as he is.\n  BASSET. Why, what is he? As good a man as York!\n  VERNON. Hark ye: not so. In witness, take ye that.\n                                                   [Strikes him]\n  BASSET. Villain, thou knowest the law of arms is such\n    That whoso draws a sword 'tis present death,\n    Or else this blow should broach thy dearest blood.\n    But I'll unto his Majesty and crave\n    I may have liberty to venge this wrong;\n    When thou shalt see I'll meet thee to thy cost.\n  VERNON. Well, miscreant, I'll be there as soon as you;\n    And, after, meet you sooner than you would.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 1.\n\nPark. The palace\n\nEnter the KING, GLOUCESTER, WINCHESTER, YORK, SUFFOLK, SOMERSET,\nWARWICK,\nTALBOT, EXETER, the GOVERNOR OF PARIS, and others\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Lord Bishop, set the crown upon his head.\n  WINCHESTER. God save King Henry, of that name the Sixth!\n  GLOUCESTER. Now, Governor of Paris, take your oath\n                                               [GOVERNOR kneels]\n    That you elect no other king but him,\n    Esteem none friends but such as are his friends,\n    And none your foes but such as shall pretend\n    Malicious practices against his state.\n    This shall ye do, so help you righteous God!\n                                   Exeunt GOVERNOR and his train\n\n                    Enter SIR JOHN FASTOLFE\n\n  FASTOLFE. My gracious sovereign, as I rode from Calais,\n    To haste unto your coronation,\n    A letter was deliver'd to my hands,\n    Writ to your Grace from th' Duke of Burgundy.\n  TALBOT. Shame to the Duke of Burgundy and thee!\n    I vow'd, base knight, when I did meet thee next\n    To tear the Garter from thy craven's leg,  [Plucking it off]\n    Which I have done, because unworthily\n    Thou wast installed in that high degree.\n    Pardon me, princely Henry, and the rest:\n    This dastard, at the battle of Patay,\n    When but in all I was six thousand strong,\n    And that the French were almost ten to one,\n    Before we met or that a stroke was given,\n    Like to a trusty squire did run away;\n    In which assault we lost twelve hundred men;\n    Myself and divers gentlemen beside\n    Were there surpris'd and taken prisoners.\n    Then judge, great lords, if I have done amiss,\n    Or whether that such cowards ought to wear\n    This ornament of knighthood-yea or no.\n  GLOUCESTER. To say the truth, this fact was infamous\n    And ill beseeming any common man,\n    Much more a knight, a captain, and a leader.\n  TALBOT. When first this order was ordain'd, my lords,\n    Knights of the Garter were of noble birth,\n    Valiant and virtuous, full of haughty courage,\n    Such as were grown to credit by the wars;\n    Not fearing death nor shrinking for distress,\n    But always resolute in most extremes.\n    He then that is not furnish'd in this sort\n    Doth but usurp the sacred name of knight,\n    Profaning this most honourable order,\n    And should, if I were worthy to be judge,\n    Be quite degraded, like a hedge-born swain\n    That doth presume to boast of gentle blood.\n  KING HENRY. Stain to thy countrymen, thou hear'st thy\n    doom.\n    Be packing, therefore, thou that wast a knight;\n    Henceforth we banish thee on pain of death.\n                                                   Exit FASTOLFE\n\n    And now, my Lord Protector, view the letter\n    Sent from our uncle Duke of Burgundy.\n  GLOUCESTER.  [Viewing the superscription]  What means his\n    Grace, that he hath chang'd his style?\n    No more but plain and bluntly 'To the King!'\n    Hath he forgot he is his sovereign?\n    Or doth this churlish superscription\n    Pretend some alteration in good-will?\n    What's here?  [Reads]  'I have, upon especial cause,\n    Mov'd with compassion of my country's wreck,\n    Together with the pitiful complaints\n    Of such as your oppression feeds upon,\n    Forsaken your pernicious faction,\n    And join'd with Charles, the rightful King of France.'\n    O monstrous treachery! Can this be so\n    That in alliance, amity, and oaths,\n    There should be found such false dissembling guile?\n  KING HENRY. What! Doth my uncle Burgundy revolt?\n  GLOUCESTER. He doth, my lord, and is become your foe.\n  KING HENRY. Is that the worst this letter doth contain?\n  GLOUCESTER. It is the worst, and all, my lord, he writes.\n  KING HENRY. Why then Lord Talbot there shall talk with\n    him\n    And give him chastisement for this abuse.\n    How say you, my lord, are you not content?\n  TALBOT. Content, my liege! Yes; but that I am prevented,\n    I should have begg'd I might have been employ'd.\n  KING HENRY. Then gather strength and march unto him\n    straight;\n    Let him perceive how ill we brook his treason.\n    And what offence it is to flout his friends.\n  TALBOT. I go, my lord, in heart desiring still\n    You may behold confusion of your foes.                  Exit\n\n                       Enter VERNON and BASSET\n\n  VERNON. Grant me the combat, gracious sovereign.\n  BASSET. And me, my lord, grant me the combat too.\n  YORK. This is my servant: hear him, noble Prince.\n  SOMERSET. And this is mine: sweet Henry, favour him.\n  KING HENRY. Be patient, lords, and give them leave to speak.\n    Say, gentlemen, what makes you thus exclaim,\n    And wherefore crave you combat, or with whom?\n  VERNON. With him, my lord; for he hath done me wrong.\n  BASSET. And I with him; for he hath done me wrong.\n  KING HENRY. What is that wrong whereof you both\n    complain? First let me know, and then I'll answer you.\n  BASSET. Crossing the sea from England into France,\n    This fellow here, with envious carping tongue,\n    Upbraided me about the rose I wear,\n    Saying the sanguine colour of the leaves\n    Did represent my master's blushing cheeks\n    When stubbornly he did repugn the truth\n    About a certain question in the law\n    Argu'd betwixt the Duke of York and him;\n    With other vile and ignominious terms\n    In confutation of which rude reproach\n    And in defence of my lord's worthiness,\n    I crave the benefit of law of arms.\n  VERNON. And that is my petition, noble lord;\n    For though he seem with forged quaint conceit\n    To set a gloss upon his bold intent,\n    Yet know, my lord, I was provok'd by him,\n    And he first took exceptions at this badge,\n    Pronouncing that the paleness of this flower\n    Bewray'd the faintness of my master's heart.\n  YORK. Will not this malice, Somerset, be left?\n  SOMERSET. Your private grudge, my Lord of York, will out,\n    Though ne'er so cunningly you smother it.\n  KING HENRY. Good Lord, what madness rules in brainsick\n    men, When for so slight and frivolous a cause\n    Such factious emulations shall arise!\n    Good cousins both, of York and Somerset,\n    Quiet yourselves, I pray, and be at peace.\n  YORK. Let this dissension first be tried by fight,\n    And then your Highness shall command a peace.\n  SOMERSET. The quarrel toucheth none but us alone;\n    Betwixt ourselves let us decide it then.\n  YORK. There is my pledge; accept it, Somerset.\n  VERNON. Nay, let it rest where it began at first.\n  BASSET. Confirm it so, mine honourable lord.\n  GLOUCESTER. Confirm it so? Confounded be your strife;\n    And perish ye, with your audacious prate!\n    Presumptuous vassals, are you not asham'd\n    With this immodest clamorous outrage\n    To trouble and disturb the King and us?\n    And you, my lords- methinks you do not well\n    To bear with their perverse objections,\n    Much less to take occasion from their mouths\n    To raise a mutiny betwixt yourselves.\n    Let me persuade you take a better course.\n  EXETER. It grieves his Highness. Good my lords, be friends.\n  KING HENRY. Come hither, you that would be combatants:\n    Henceforth I charge you, as you love our favour,\n    Quite to forget this quarrel and the cause.\n    And you, my lords, remember where we are:\n    In France, amongst a fickle wavering nation;\n    If they perceive dissension in our looks\n    And that within ourselves we disagree,\n    How will their grudging stomachs be provok'd\n    To wilful disobedience, and rebel!\n    Beside, what infamy will there arise\n    When foreign princes shall be certified\n    That for a toy, a thing of no regard,\n    King Henry's peers and chief nobility\n    Destroy'd themselves and lost the realm of France!\n    O, think upon the conquest of my father,\n    My tender years; and let us not forgo\n    That for a trifle that was bought with blood!\n    Let me be umpire in this doubtful strife.\n    I see no reason, if I wear this rose,\n                                         [Putting on a red rose]\n    That any one should therefore be suspicious\n    I more incline to Somerset than York:\n    Both are my kinsmen, and I love them both.\n    As well they may upbraid me with my crown,\n    Because, forsooth, the King of Scots is crown'd.\n    But your discretions better can persuade\n    Than I am able to instruct or teach;\n    And, therefore, as we hither came in peace,\n    So let us still continue peace and love.\n    Cousin of York, we institute your Grace\n    To be our Regent in these parts of France.\n    And, good my Lord of Somerset, unite\n    Your troops of horsemen with his bands of foot;\n    And like true subjects, sons of your progenitors,\n    Go cheerfully together and digest\n    Your angry choler on your enemies.\n    Ourself, my Lord Protector, and the rest,\n    After some respite will return to Calais;\n    From thence to England, where I hope ere long\n    To be presented by your victories\n    With Charles, Alencon, and that traitorous rout.\n                         Flourish. Exeunt all but YORK, WARWICK,\n                                                  EXETER, VERNON\n  WARWICK. My Lord of York, I promise you, the King\n    Prettily, methought, did play the orator.\n  YORK. And so he did; but yet I like it not,\n    In that he wears the badge of Somerset.\n  WARWICK. Tush, that was but his fancy; blame him not;\n    I dare presume, sweet prince, he thought no harm.\n  YORK. An if I wist he did-but let it rest;\n    Other affairs must now be managed.\n                                           Exeunt all but EXETER\n  EXETER. Well didst thou, Richard, to suppress thy voice;\n    For had the passions of thy heart burst out,\n    I fear we should have seen decipher'd there\n    More rancorous spite, more furious raging broils,\n    Than yet can be imagin'd or suppos'd.\n    But howsoe'er, no simple man that sees\n    This jarring discord of nobility,\n    This shouldering of each other in the court,\n    This factious bandying of their favourites,\n    But that it doth presage some ill event.\n    'Tis much when sceptres are in children's hands;\n    But more when envy breeds unkind division:\n    There comes the ruin, there begins confusion.           Exit\n\n\n\n\n                               SCENE 2.\n\n                        France. Before Bordeaux\n\n                   Enter TALBOT, with trump and drum\n\n  TALBOT. Go to the gates of Bordeaux, trumpeter;\n    Summon their general unto the wall.\n\n             Trumpet sounds a parley. Enter, aloft, the\n                 GENERAL OF THE FRENCH, and others\n\n    English John Talbot, Captains, calls you forth,\n    Servant in arms to Harry King of England;\n    And thus he would open your city gates,\n    Be humble to us, call my sovereignvours\n    And do him homage as obedient subjects,\n    And I'll withdraw me and my bloody power;\n    But if you frown upon this proffer'd peace,\n    You tempt the fury of my three attendants,\n    Lean famine, quartering steel, and climbing fire;\n    Who in a moment even with the earth\n    Shall lay your stately and air braving towers,\n    If you forsake the offer of their love.\n  GENERAL OF THE FRENCH. Thou ominous and fearful owl of\n    death,\n    Our nation's terror and their bloody scourge!\n    The period of thy tyranny approacheth.\n    On us thou canst not enter but by death;\n    For, I protest, we are well fortified,\n    And strong enough to issue out and fight.\n    If thou retire, the Dauphin, well appointed,\n    Stands with the snares of war to tangle thee.\n    On either hand thee there are squadrons pitch'd\n    To wall thee from the liberty of flight,\n    And no way canst thou turn thee for redress\n    But death doth front thee with apparent spoil\n    And pale destruction meets thee in the face.\n    Ten thousand French have ta'en the sacrament\n    To rive their dangerous artillery\n    Upon no Christian soul but English Talbot.\n    Lo, there thou stand'st, a breathing valiant man,\n    Of an invincible unconquer'd spirit!\n    This is the latest glory of thy praise\n    That I, thy enemy, due thee withal;\n    For ere the glass that now begins to run\n    Finish the process of his sandy hour,\n    These eyes that see thee now well coloured\n    Shall see thee withered, bloody, pale, and dead.\n                                                 [Drum afar off]\n    Hark! hark! The Dauphin's drum, a warning bell,\n    Sings heavy music to thy timorous soul;\n    And mine shall ring thy dire departure out.             Exit\n  TALBOT. He fables not; I hear the enemy.\n    Out, some light horsemen, and peruse their wings.\n    O, negligent and heedless discipline!\n    How are we park'd and bounded in a pale\n    A little herd of England's timorous deer,\n    Maz'd with a yelping kennel of French curs!\n    If we be English deer, be then in blood;\n    Not rascal-like to fall down with a pinch,\n    But rather, moody-mad and desperate stags,\n    Turn on the bloody hounds with heads of steel\n    And make the cowards stand aloof at bay.\n    Sell every man his life as dear as mine,\n    And they shall find dear deer of us, my friends.\n    God and Saint George, Talbot and England's right,\n    Prosper our colours in this dangerous fight!          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                          SCENE 3.\n\n                      Plains in Gascony\n\n        Enter YORK, with trumpet and many soldiers. A\n                   MESSENGER meets him\n\n  YORK. Are not the speedy scouts return'd again\n    That dogg'd the mighty army of the Dauphin?\n  MESSENGER. They are return'd, my lord, and give it out\n    That he is march'd to Bordeaux with his power\n    To fight with Talbot; as he march'd along,\n    By your espials were discovered\n    Two mightier troops than that the Dauphin led,\n    Which join'd with him and made their march for\n    Bordeaux.\n  YORK. A plague upon that villain Somerset\n    That thus delays my promised supply\n    Of horsemen that were levied for this siege!\n    Renowned Talbot doth expect my aid,\n    And I am louted by a traitor villain\n    And cannot help the noble chevalier.\n    God comfort him in this necessity!\n    If he miscarry, farewell wars in France.\n\n                      Enter SIR WILLIAM LUCY\n\n  LUCY. Thou princely leader of our English strength,\n    Never so needful on the earth of France,\n    Spur to the rescue of the noble Talbot,\n    Who now is girdled with a waist of iron\n    And hemm'd about with grim destruction.\n    To Bordeaux, warlike Duke! to Bordeaux, York!\n    Else, farewell Talbot, France, and England's honour.\n  YORK. O God, that Somerset, who in proud heart\n    Doth stop my cornets, were in Talbot's place!\n    So should we save a valiant gentleman\n    By forfeiting a traitor and a coward.\n    Mad ire and wrathful fury makes me weep\n    That thus we die while remiss traitors sleep.\n  LUCY. O, send some succour to the distress'd lord!\n  YORK. He dies; we lose; I break my warlike word.\n    We mourn: France smiles. We lose: they daily get-\n    All long of this vile traitor Somerset.\n  LUCY. Then God take mercy on brave Talbot's soul,\n    And on his son, young John, who two hours since\n    I met in travel toward his warlike father.\n    This seven years did not Talbot see his son;\n    And now they meet where both their lives are done.\n  YORK. Alas, what joy shall noble Talbot have\n    To bid his young son welcome to his grave?\n    Away! vexation almost stops my breath,\n    That sund'red friends greet in the hour of death.\n    Lucy, farewell; no more my fortune can\n    But curse the cause I cannot aid the man.\n    Maine, Blois, Poictiers, and Tours, are won away\n    Long all of Somerset and his delay.         Exit with forces\n  LUCY. Thus, while the vulture of sedition\n    Feeds in the bosom of such great commanders,\n    Sleeping neglection doth betray to loss\n    The conquest of our scarce cold conqueror,\n    That ever-living man of memory,\n    Henry the Fifth. Whiles they each other cross,\n    Lives, honours, lands, and all, hurry to loss.          Exit\n\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 4.\n\n                     Other plains of Gascony\n\n        Enter SOMERSET, With his forces; an OFFICER of\n                     TALBOT'S with him\n\n  SOMERSET. It is too late; I cannot send them now.\n    This expedition was by York and Talbot\n    Too rashly plotted; all our general force\n    Might with a sally of the very town\n    Be buckled with. The over daring Talbot\n    Hath sullied all his gloss of former honour\n    By this unheedful, desperate, wild adventure.\n    York set him on to fight and die in shame.\n    That, Talbot dead, great York might bear the name.\n  OFFICER. Here is Sir William Lucy, who with me\n    Set from our o'er-match'd forces forth for aid.\n\n                       Enter SIR WILLIAM LUCY\n\n  SOMERSET. How now, Sir William! Whither were you sent?\n  LUCY. Whither, my lord! From bought and sold Lord\n    Talbot,\n    Who, ring'd about with bold adversity,\n    Cries out for noble York and Somerset\n    To beat assailing death from his weak legions;\n    And whiles the honourable captain there\n    Drops bloody sweat from his war-wearied limbs\n    And, in advantage ling'ring, looks for rescue,\n    You, his false hopes, the trust of England's honour,\n    Keep off aloof with worthless emulation.\n    Let not your private discord keep away\n    The levied succours that should lend him aid,\n    While he, renowned noble gentleman,\n    Yield up his life unto a world of odds.\n    Orleans the Bastard, Charles, Burgundy,\n    Alencon, Reignier, compass him about,\n    And Talbot perisheth by your default.\n  SOMERSET. York set him on; York should have sent him aid.\n  LUCY. And York as fast upon your Grace exclaims,\n    Swearing that you withhold his levied host,\n    Collected for this expedition.\n  SOMERSET. York lies; he might have sent and had the horse.\n    I owe him little duty and less love,\n    And take foul scorn to fawn on him by sending.\n  LUCY. The fraud of England, not the force of France,\n    Hath now entrapp'd the noble minded Talbot.\n    Never to England shall he bear his life,\n    But dies betray'd to fortune by your strife.\n  SOMERSET. Come, go; I will dispatch the horsemen straight;\n    Within six hours they will be at his aid.\n  LUCY. Too late comes rescue; he is ta'en or slain,\n    For fly he could not if he would have fled;\n    And fly would Talbot never, though he might.\n  SOMERSET. If he be dead, brave Talbot, then, adieu!\n  LUCY. His fame lives in the world, his shame in you.\nExeunt\n\n\n                               SCENE 5.\n\n                   The English camp near Bordeaux\n\n                    Enter TALBOT and JOHN his son\n\n  TALBOT. O young John Talbot! I did send for thee\n    To tutor thee in stratagems of war,\n    That Talbot's name might be in thee reviv'd\n    When sapless age and weak unable limbs\n    Should bring thy father to his drooping chair.\n    But, O malignant and ill-boding stars!\n    Now thou art come unto a feast of death,\n    A terrible and unavoided danger;\n    Therefore, dear boy, mount on my swiftest horse,\n    And I'll direct thee how thou shalt escape\n    By sudden flight. Come, dally not, be gone.\n  JOHN. Is my name Talbot, and am I your son?\n    And shall I fly? O, if you love my mother,\n    Dishonour not her honourable name,\n    To make a bastard and a slave of me!\n    The world will say he is not Talbot's blood\n    That basely fled when noble Talbot stood.\n  TALBOT. Fly to revenge my death, if I be slain.\n  JOHN. He that flies so will ne'er return again.\n  TALBOT. If we both stay, we both are sure to die.\n  JOHN. Then let me stay; and, father, do you fly.\n    Your loss is great, so your regard should be;\n    My worth unknown, no loss is known in me;\n    Upon my death the French can little boast;\n    In yours they will, in you all hopes are lost.\n    Flight cannot stain the honour you have won;\n    But mine it will, that no exploit have done;\n    You fled for vantage, every one will swear;\n    But if I bow, they'll say it was for fear.\n    There is no hope that ever I will stay\n    If the first hour I shrink and run away.\n    Here, on my knee, I beg mortality,\n    Rather than life preserv'd with infamy.\n  TALBOT. Shall all thy mother's hopes lie in one tomb?\n  JOHN. Ay, rather than I'll shame my mother's womb.\n  TALBOT. Upon my blessing I command thee go.\n  JOHN. To fight I will, but not to fly the foe.\n  TALBOT. Part of thy father may be sav'd in thee.\n  JOHN. No part of him but will be shame in me.\n  TALBOT. Thou never hadst renown, nor canst not lose it.\n  JOHN. Yes, your renowned name; shall flight abuse it?\n  TALBOT. Thy father's charge shall clear thee from that stain.\n  JOHN. You cannot witness for me, being slain.\n    If death be so apparent, then both fly.\n  TALBOT. And leave my followers here to fight and die?\n    My age was never tainted with such shame.\n  JOHN. And shall my youth be guilty of such blame?\n    No more can I be severed from your side\n    Than can yourself yourself yourself in twain divide.\n    Stay, go, do what you will, the like do I;\n    For live I will not if my father die.\n  TALBOT. Then here I take my leave of thee, fair son,\n    Born to eclipse thy life this afternoon.\n    Come, side by side together live and die;\n    And soul with soul from France to heaven fly.         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 6.\n\n                         A field of battle\n\n         Alarum: excursions wherein JOHN TALBOT is hemm'd\n                  about, and TALBOT rescues him\n\n  TALBOT. Saint George and victory! Fight, soldiers, fight.\n    The Regent hath with Talbot broke his word\n    And left us to the rage of France his sword.\n    Where is John Talbot? Pause and take thy breath;\n    I gave thee life and rescu'd thee from death.\n  JOHN. O, twice my father, twice am I thy son!\n    The life thou gav'st me first was lost and done\n    Till with thy warlike sword, despite of fate,\n    To my determin'd time thou gav'st new date.\n  TALBOT. When from the Dauphin's crest thy sword struck\n    fire,\n    It warm'd thy father's heart with proud desire\n    Of bold-fac'd victory. Then leaden age,\n    Quicken'd with youthful spleen and warlike rage,\n    Beat down Alencon, Orleans, Burgundy,\n    And from the pride of Gallia rescued thee.\n    The ireful bastard Orleans, that drew blood\n    From thee, my boy, and had the maidenhood\n    Of thy first fight, I soon encountered\n    And, interchanging blows, I quickly shed\n    Some of his bastard blood; and in disgrace\n    Bespoke him thus: 'Contaminated, base,\n    And misbegotten blood I spill of thine,\n    Mean and right poor, for that pure blood of mine\n    Which thou didst force from Talbot, my brave boy.'\n    Here purposing the Bastard to destroy,\n    Came in strong rescue. Speak, thy father's care;\n    Art thou not weary, John? How dost thou fare?\n    Wilt thou yet leave the battle, boy, and fly,\n    Now thou art seal'd the son of chivalry?\n    Fly, to revenge my death when I am dead:\n    The help of one stands me in little stead.\n    O, too much folly is it, well I wot,\n    To hazard all our lives in one small boat!\n    If I to-day die not with Frenchmen's rage,\n    To-morrow I shall die with mickle age.\n    By me they nothing gain an if I stay:\n    'Tis but the short'ning of my life one day.\n    In thee thy mother dies, our household's name,\n    My death's revenge, thy youth, and England's fame.\n    All these and more we hazard by thy stay;\n    All these are sav'd if thou wilt fly away.\n  JOHN. The sword of Orleans hath not made me smart;\n    These words of yours draw life-blood from my heart.\n    On that advantage, bought with such a shame,\n    To save a paltry life and slay bright fame,\n    Before young Talbot from old Talbot fly,\n    The coward horse that bears me fall and die!\n    And like me to the peasant boys of France,\n    To be shame's scorn and subject of mischance!\n    Surely, by all the glory you have won,\n    An if I fly, I am not Talbot's son;\n    Then talk no more of flight, it is no boot;\n    If son to Talbot, die at Talbot's foot.\n  TALBOT. Then follow thou thy desp'rate sire of Crete,\n    Thou Icarus; thy life to me is sweet.\n    If thou wilt fight, fight by thy father's side;\n    And, commendable prov'd, let's die in pride.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                               SCENE 7.\n\n                      Another part of the field\n\n       Alarum; excursions. Enter old TALBOT led by a SERVANT\n\n  TALBOT. Where is my other life? Mine own is gone.\n    O, where's young Talbot? Where is valiant John?\n    Triumphant death, smear'd with captivity,\n    Young Talbot's valour makes me smile at thee.\n    When he perceiv'd me shrink and on my knee,\n    His bloody sword he brandish'd over me,\n    And like a hungry lion did commence\n    Rough deeds of rage and stern impatience;\n    But when my angry guardant stood alone,\n    Tend'ring my ruin and assail'd of none,\n    Dizzy-ey'd fury and great rage of heart\n    Suddenly made him from my side to start\n    Into the clust'ring battle of the French;\n    And in that sea of blood my boy did drench\n    His overmounting spirit; and there died,\n    My Icarus, my blossom, in his pride.\n\n         Enter soldiers, bearing the body of JOHN TALBOT\n\n  SERVANT. O my dear lord, lo where your son is borne!\n  TALBOT. Thou antic Death, which laugh'st us here to scorn,\n    Anon, from thy insulting tyranny,\n    Coupled in bonds of perpetuity,\n    Two Talbots, winged through the lither sky,\n    In thy despite shall scape mortality.\n    O thou whose wounds become hard-favoured Death,\n    Speak to thy father ere thou yield thy breath!\n    Brave Death by speaking, whether he will or no;\n    Imagine him a Frenchman and thy foe.\n    Poor boy! he smiles, methinks, as who should say,\n    Had Death been French, then Death had died to-day.\n    Come, come, and lay him in his father's arms.\n    My spirit can no longer bear these harms.\n    Soldiers, adieu! I have what I would have,\n    Now my old arms are young John Talbot's grave.        [Dies]\n\n            Enter CHARLES, ALENCON, BURGUNDY, BASTARD,\n                     LA PUCELLE, and forces\n\n  CHARLES. Had York and Somerset brought rescue in,\n    We should have found a bloody day of this.\n  BASTARD. How the young whelp of Talbot's, raging wood,\n    Did flesh his puny sword in Frenchmen's blood!\n  PUCELLE. Once I encount'red him, and thus I said:\n    'Thou maiden youth, be vanquish'd by a maid.'\n    But with a proud majestical high scorn\n    He answer'd thus: 'Young Talbot was not born\n    To be the pillage of a giglot wench.'\n    So, rushing in the bowels of the French,\n    He left me proudly, as unworthy fight.\n  BURGUNDY. Doubtless he would have made a noble knight.\n    See where he lies inhearsed in the arms\n    Of the most bloody nurser of his harms!\n  BASTARD. Hew them to pieces, hack their bones asunder,\n    Whose life was England's glory, Gallia's wonder.\n  CHARLES. O, no; forbear! For that which we have fled\n    During the life, let us not wrong it dead.\n\n            Enter SIR WILLIAM Lucy, attended; a FRENCH\n                         HERALD preceding\n\n  LUCY. Herald, conduct me to the Dauphin's tent,\n    To know who hath obtain'd the glory of the day.\n  CHARLES. On what submissive message art thou sent?\n  LUCY. Submission, Dauphin! 'Tis a mere French word:\n    We English warriors wot not what it means.\n    I come to know what prisoners thou hast ta'en,\n    And to survey the bodies of the dead.\n  CHARLES. For prisoners ask'st thou? Hell our prison is.\n    But tell me whom thou seek'st.\n  LUCY. But where's the great Alcides of the field,\n    Valiant Lord Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury,\n    Created for his rare success in arms\n    Great Earl of Washford, Waterford, and Valence,\n    Lord Talbot of Goodrig and Urchinfield,\n    Lord Strange of Blackmere, Lord Verdun of Alton,\n    Lord Cromwell of Wingfield, Lord Furnival of Sheffield,\n    The thrice victorious Lord of Falconbridge,\n    Knight of the noble order of Saint George,\n    Worthy Saint Michael, and the Golden Fleece,\n    Great Marshal to Henry the Sixth\n    Of all his wars within the realm of France?\n  PUCELLE. Here's a silly-stately style indeed!\n    The Turk, that two and fifty kingdoms hath,\n    Writes not so tedious a style as this.\n    Him that thou magnifi'st with all these tides,\n    Stinking and fly-blown lies here at our feet.\n  LUCY. Is Talbot slain-the Frenchmen's only scourge,\n    Your kingdom's terror and black Nemesis?\n    O, were mine eye-bans into bullets turn'd,\n    That I in rage might shoot them at your faces!\n    O that I could but can these dead to life!\n    It were enough to fright the realm of France.\n    Were but his picture left amongst you here,\n    It would amaze the proudest of you all.\n    Give me their bodies, that I may bear them hence\n    And give them burial as beseems their worth.\n  PUCELLE. I think this upstart is old Talbot's ghost,\n    He speaks with such a proud commanding spirit.\n    For God's sake, let him have them; to keep them here,\n    They would but stink, and putrefy the air.\n  CHARLES. Go, take their bodies hence.\n  LUCY. I'll bear them hence; but from their ashes shall be\n    rear'd\n    A phoenix that shall make all France afeard.\n  CHARLES. So we be rid of them, do with them what thou\n    wilt.\n    And now to Paris in this conquering vein!\n    All will be ours, now bloody Talbot's slain.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 1.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nSennet. Enter the KING, GLOUCESTER, and EXETER\n\n  KING HENRY. Have you perus'd the letters from the Pope,\n    The Emperor, and the Earl of Armagnac?\n  GLOUCESTER. I have, my lord; and their intent is this:\n    They humbly sue unto your Excellence\n    To have a godly peace concluded of\n    Between the realms of England and of France.\n  KING HENRY. How doth your Grace affect their motion?\n  GLOUCESTER. Well, my good lord, and as the only means\n    To stop effusion of our Christian blood\n    And stablish quietness on every side.\n  KING HENRY. Ay, marry, uncle; for I always thought\n    It was both impious and unnatural\n    That such immanity and bloody strife\n    Should reign among professors of one faith.\n  GLOUCESTER. Beside, my lord, the sooner to effect\n    And surer bind this knot of amity,\n    The Earl of Armagnac, near knit to Charles,\n    A man of great authority in France,\n    Proffers his only daughter to your Grace\n    In marriage, with a large and sumptuous dowry.\n  KING HENRY. Marriage, uncle! Alas, my years are young\n    And fitter is my study and my books\n    Than wanton dalliance with a paramour.\n    Yet call th' ambassadors, and, as you please,\n    So let them have their answers every one.\n    I shall be well content with any choice\n    Tends to God's glory and my country's weal.\n\n                   Enter in Cardinal's habit\n        BEAUFORT, the PAPAL LEGATE, and two AMBASSADORS\n\n  EXETER. What! Is my Lord of Winchester install'd\n    And call'd unto a cardinal's degree?\n    Then I perceive that will be verified\n    Henry the Fifth did sometime prophesy:\n    'If once he come to be a cardinal,\n    He'll make his cap co-equal with the crown.'\n  KING HENRY. My Lords Ambassadors, your several suits\n    Have been consider'd and debated on.\n    Your purpose is both good and reasonable,\n    And therefore are we certainly resolv'd\n    To draw conditions of a friendly peace,\n    Which by my Lord of Winchester we mean\n    Shall be transported presently to France.\n  GLOUCESTER. And for the proffer of my lord your master,\n    I have inform'd his Highness so at large,\n    As, liking of the lady's virtuous gifts,\n    Her beauty, and the value of her dower,\n    He doth intend she shall be England's Queen.\n  KING HENRY.  [To AMBASSADOR]  In argument and proof of\n    which contract,\n    Bear her this jewel, pledge of my affection.\n    And so, my Lord Protector, see them guarded\n    And safely brought to Dover; where inshipp'd,\n    Commit them to the fortune of the sea.\n\n                        Exeunt all but WINCHESTER and the LEGATE\n  WINCHESTER. Stay, my Lord Legate; you shall first receive\n    The sum of money which I promised\n    Should be delivered to his Holiness\n    For clothing me in these grave ornaments.\n  LEGATE. I will attend upon your lordship's leisure.\n  WINCHESTER.  [Aside]  Now Winchester will not submit, I\n    trow,\n    Or be inferior to the proudest peer.\n    Humphrey of Gloucester, thou shalt well perceive\n    That neither in birth or for authority\n    The Bishop will be overborne by thee.\n    I'll either make thee stoop and bend thy knee,\n    Or sack this country with a mutiny.                   Exeunt\n\n\n                              SCENE 2.\n\n                       France. Plains in Anjou\n\n              Enter CHARLES, BURGUNDY, ALENCON, BASTARD,\n                   REIGNIER, LA PUCELLE, and forces\n\n  CHARLES. These news, my lords, may cheer our drooping\n    spirits:\n    'Tis said the stout Parisians do revolt\n    And turn again unto the warlike French.\n  ALENCON. Then march to Paris, royal Charles of France,\n    And keep not back your powers in dalliance.\n  PUCELLE. Peace be amongst them, if they turn to us;\n    Else ruin combat with their palaces!\n\n                            Enter a SCOUT\n\n  SCOUT. Success unto our valiant general,\n    And happiness to his accomplices!\n  CHARLES. What tidings send our scouts? I prithee speak.\n  SCOUT. The English army, that divided was\n    Into two parties, is now conjoin'd in one,\n    And means to give you battle presently.\n  CHARLES. Somewhat too sudden, sirs, the warning is;\n    But we will presently provide for them.\n  BURGUNDY. I trust the ghost of Talbot is not there.\n    Now he is gone, my lord, you need not fear.\n  PUCELLE. Of all base passions fear is most accurs'd.\n    Command the conquest, Charles, it shall be thine,\n    Let Henry fret and all the world repine.\n  CHARLES. Then on, my lords; and France be fortunate!\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                            SCENE 3.\n\n                         Before Angiers\n\n              Alarum, excursions. Enter LA PUCELLE\n\n  PUCELLE. The Regent conquers and the Frenchmen fly.\n    Now help, ye charming spells and periapts;\n    And ye choice spirits that admonish me\n    And give me signs of future accidents;             [Thunder]\n    You speedy helpers that are substitutes\n    Under the lordly monarch of the north,\n    Appear and aid me in this enterprise!\n\n                          Enter FIENDS\n\n    This speedy and quick appearance argues proof\n    Of your accustom'd diligence to me.\n    Now, ye familiar spirits that are cull'd\n    Out of the powerful regions under earth,\n    Help me this once, that France may get the field.\n                                       [They walk and speak not]\n\n    O, hold me not with silence over-long!\n    Where I was wont to feed you with my blood,\n    I'll lop a member off and give it you\n    In earnest of a further benefit,\n    So you do condescend to help me now.\n                                         [They hang their heads]\n    No hope to have redress? My body shall\n    Pay recompense, if you will grant my suit.\n                                        [They shake their heads]\n    Cannot my body nor blood sacrifice\n    Entreat you to your wonted furtherance?\n    Then take my soul-my body, soul, and all,\n    Before that England give the French the foil.\n                                                   [They depart]\n    See! they forsake me. Now the time is come\n    That France must vail her lofty-plumed crest\n    And let her head fall into England's lap.\n    My ancient incantations are too weak,\n    And hell too strong for me to buckle with.\n    Now, France, thy glory droopeth to the dust.            Exit\n\n\n          Excursions. Enter French and English, fighting.\n         LA PUCELLE and YORK fight hand to hand; LA PUCELLE\n                    is taken. The French fly\n\n  YORK. Damsel of France, I think I have you fast.\n    Unchain your spirits now with spelling charms,\n    And try if they can gain your liberty.\n    A goodly prize, fit for the devil's grace!\n    See how the ugly witch doth bend her brows\n    As if, with Circe, she would change my shape!\n  PUCELLE. Chang'd to a worser shape thou canst not be.\n  YORK. O, Charles the Dauphin is a proper man:\n    No shape but his can please your dainty eye.\n  PUCELLE. A plaguing mischief fight on Charles and thee!\n    And may ye both be suddenly surpris'd\n    By bloody hands, in sleeping on your beds!\n  YORK. Fell banning hag; enchantress, hold thy tongue.\n  PUCELLE. I prithee give me leave to curse awhile.\n  YORK. Curse, miscreant, when thou comest to the stake.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n          Alarum. Enter SUFFOLK, with MARGARET in his hand\n\n  SUFFOLK. Be what thou wilt, thou art my prisoner.\n                                                  [Gazes on her]\n    O fairest beauty, do not fear nor fly!\n    For I will touch thee but with reverent hands;\n    I kiss these fingers for eternal peace,\n    And lay them gently on thy tender side.\n    Who art thou? Say, that I may honour thee.\n  MARGARET. Margaret my name, and daughter to a king,\n    The King of Naples-whosoe'er thou art.\n  SUFFOLK. An earl I am, and Suffolk am I call'd.\n    Be not offended, nature's miracle,\n    Thou art allotted to be ta'en by me.\n    So doth the swan her downy cygnets save,\n    Keeping them prisoner underneath her wings.\n    Yet, if this servile usage once offend,\n    Go and be free again as Suffolk's friend.     [She is going]\n\n    O, stay!  [Aside]  I have no power to let her pass;\n    My hand would free her, but my heart says no.\n    As plays the sun upon the glassy streams,\n    Twinkling another counterfeited beam,\n    So seems this gorgeous beauty to mine eyes.\n    Fain would I woo her, yet I dare not speak.\n    I'll call for pen and ink, and write my mind.\n    Fie, de la Pole! disable not thyself;\n    Hast not a tongue? Is she not here thy prisoner?\n    Wilt thou be daunted at a woman's sight?\n    Ay, beauty's princely majesty is such\n    Confounds the tongue and makes the senses rough.\n  MARGARET. Say, Earl of Suffolk, if thy name be so,\n    What ransom must I pay before I pass?\n    For I perceive I am thy prisoner.\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  How canst thou tell she will deny thy\n    suit,\n    Before thou make a trial of her love?\n  MARGARET. Why speak'st thou not? What ransom must I\n    pay?\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  She's beautiful, and therefore to be woo'd;\n    She is a woman, therefore to be won.\n  MARGARET. Wilt thou accept of ransom-yea or no?\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  Fond man, remember that thou hast a\n    wife;\n    Then how can Margaret be thy paramour?\n  MARGARET. I were best leave him, for he will not hear.\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  There all is marr'd; there lies a cooling\n    card.\n  MARGARET. He talks at random; sure, the man is mad.\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  And yet a dispensation may be had.\n  MARGARET. And yet I would that you would answer me.\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  I'll win this Lady Margaret. For whom?\n    Why, for my King! Tush, that's a wooden thing!\n  MARGARET. He talks of wood. It is some carpenter.\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  Yet so my fancy may be satisfied,\n    And peace established between these realms.\n    But there remains a scruple in that too;\n    For though her father be the King of Naples,\n    Duke of Anjou and Maine, yet is he poor,\n    And our nobility will scorn the match.\n  MARGARET. Hear ye, Captain-are you not at leisure?\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  It shall be so, disdain they ne'er so much.\n    Henry is youthful, and will quickly yield.\n    Madam, I have a secret to reveal.\n  MARGARET.  [Aside]  What though I be enthrall'd? He seems\n    a knight,\n    And will not any way dishonour me.\n  SUFFOLK. Lady, vouchsafe to listen what I say.\n  MARGARET.  [Aside]  Perhaps I shall be rescu'd by the French;\n    And then I need not crave his courtesy.\n  SUFFOLK. Sweet madam, give me hearing in a cause\n  MARGARET.  [Aside]  Tush! women have been captivate ere\n    now.\n  SUFFOLK. Lady, wherefore talk you so?\n  MARGARET. I cry you mercy, 'tis but quid for quo.\n  SUFFOLK. Say, gentle Princess, would you not suppose\n    Your bondage happy, to be made a queen?\n  MARGARET. To be a queen in bondage is more vile\n    Than is a slave in base servility;\n    For princes should be free.\n  SUFFOLK. And so shall you,\n    If happy England's royal king be free.\n  MARGARET. Why, what concerns his freedom unto me?\n  SUFFOLK. I'll undertake to make thee Henry's queen,\n    To put a golden sceptre in thy hand\n    And set a precious crown upon thy head,\n    If thou wilt condescend to be my-\n  MARGARET. What?\n  SUFFOLK. His love.\n  MARGARET. I am unworthy to be Henry's wife.\n  SUFFOLK. No, gentle madam; I unworthy am\n    To woo so fair a dame to be his wife\n    And have no portion in the choice myself.\n    How say you, madam? Are ye so content?\n  MARGARET. An if my father please, I am content.\n  SUFFOLK. Then call our captains and our colours forth!\n    And, madam, at your father's castle walls\n    We'll crave a parley to confer with him.\n\n           Sound a parley. Enter REIGNIER on the walls\n\n    See, Reignier, see, thy daughter prisoner!\n  REIGNIER. To whom?\n  SUFFOLK. To me.\n  REIGNIER. Suffolk, what remedy?\n    I am a soldier and unapt to weep\n    Or to exclaim on fortune's fickleness.\n  SUFFOLK. Yes, there is remedy enough, my lord.\n    Consent, and for thy honour give consent,\n    Thy daughter shall be wedded to my king,\n    Whom I with pain have woo'd and won thereto;\n    And this her easy-held imprisonment\n    Hath gain'd thy daughter princely liberty.\n  REIGNIER. Speaks Suffolk as he thinks?\n  SUFFOLK. Fair Margaret knows\n    That Suffolk doth not flatter, face, or feign.\n  REIGNIER. Upon thy princely warrant I descend\n    To give thee answer of thy just demand.\n                                    Exit REIGNIER from the walls\n\n  SUFFOLK. And here I will expect thy coming.\n\n                Trumpets sound. Enter REIGNIER below\n\n  REIGNIER. Welcome, brave Earl, into our territories;\n    Command in Anjou what your Honour pleases.\n  SUFFOLK. Thanks, Reignier, happy for so sweet a child,\n    Fit to be made companion with a king.\n    What answer makes your Grace unto my suit?\n  REIGNIER. Since thou dost deign to woo her little worth\n    To be the princely bride of such a lord,\n    Upon condition I may quietly\n    Enjoy mine own, the country Maine and Anjou,\n    Free from oppression or the stroke of war,\n    My daughter shall be Henry's, if he please.\n  SUFFOLK. That is her ransom; I deliver her.\n    And those two counties I will undertake\n    Your Grace shall well and quietly enjoy.\n  REIGNIER. And I again, in Henry's royal name,\n    As deputy unto that gracious king,\n    Give thee her hand for sign of plighted faith.\n  SUFFOLK. Reignier of France, I give thee kingly thanks,\n    Because this is in traffic of a king.\n    [Aside]  And yet, methinks, I could be well content\n    To be mine own attorney in this case.\n    I'll over then to England with this news,\n    And make this marriage to be solemniz'd.\n    So, farewell, Reignier. Set this diamond safe\n    In golden palaces, as it becomes.\n  REIGNIER. I do embrace thee as I would embrace\n    The Christian prince, King Henry, were he here.\n  MARGARET. Farewell, my lord. Good wishes, praise, and\n    prayers,\n    Shall Suffolk ever have of Margaret.          [She is going]\n  SUFFOLK. Farewell, sweet madam. But hark you, Margaret\n    No princely commendations to my king?\n  MARGARET. Such commendations as becomes a maid,\n    A virgin, and his servant, say to him.\n  SUFFOLK. Words sweetly plac'd and modestly directed.\n    But, madam, I must trouble you again\n    No loving token to his Majesty?\n  MARGARET. Yes, my good lord: a pure unspotted heart,\n    Never yet taint with love, I send the King.\n  SUFFOLK. And this withal.                         [Kisses her]\n  MARGARET. That for thyself, I will not so presume\n    To send such peevish tokens to a king.\n                                    Exeunt REIGNIER and MARGARET\n  SUFFOLK. O, wert thou for myself! But, Suffolk, stay;\n    Thou mayst not wander in that labyrinth:\n    There Minotaurs and ugly treasons lurk.\n    Solicit Henry with her wondrous praise.\n    Bethink thee on her virtues that surmount,\n    And natural graces that extinguish art;\n    Repeat their semblance often on the seas,\n    That, when thou com'st to kneel at Henry's feet,\n    Thou mayst bereave him of his wits with wonder.         Exit\n\n\n\n\n                               SCENE 4.\n\n                  Camp of the DUKE OF YORK in Anjou\n\n                   Enter YORK, WARWICK, and others\n  YORK. Bring forth that sorceress, condemn'd to burn.\n\n              Enter LA PUCELLE, guarded, and a SHEPHERD\n\n  SHEPHERD. Ah, Joan, this kills thy father's heart outright!\n    Have I sought every country far and near,\n    And, now it is my chance to find thee out,\n    Must I behold thy timeless cruel death?\n    Ah, Joan, sweet daughter Joan, I'll die with thee!\n  PUCELLE. Decrepit miser! base ignoble wretch!\n    I am descended of a gentler blood;\n    Thou art no father nor no friend of mine.\n  SHEPHERD. Out, out! My lords, an please you, 'tis not so;\n    I did beget her, all the parish knows.\n    Her mother liveth yet, can testify\n    She was the first fruit of my bach'lorship.\n  WARWICK. Graceless, wilt thou deny thy parentage?\n  YORK. This argues what her kind of life hath been-\n    Wicked and vile; and so her death concludes.\n  SHEPHERD. Fie, Joan, that thou wilt be so obstacle!\n    God knows thou art a collop of my flesh;\n    And for thy sake have I shed many a tear.\n    Deny me not, I prithee, gentle Joan.\n  PUCELLE. Peasant, avaunt! You have suborn'd this man\n    Of purpose to obscure my noble birth.\n  SHEPHERD. 'Tis true, I gave a noble to the priest\n    The morn that I was wedded to her mother.\n    Kneel down and take my blessing, good my girl.\n    Wilt thou not stoop? Now cursed be the time\n    Of thy nativity. I would the milk\n    Thy mother gave thee when thou suck'dst her breast\n    Had been a little ratsbane for thy sake.\n    Or else, when thou didst keep my lambs afield,\n    I wish some ravenous wolf had eaten thee.\n    Dost thou deny thy father, cursed drab?\n    O, burn her, burn her! Hanging is too good.             Exit\n  YORK. Take her away; for she hath liv'd too long,\n    To fill the world with vicious qualities.\n  PUCELLE. First let me tell you whom you have condemn'd:\n    Not me begotten of a shepherd swain,\n    But issued from the progeny of kings;\n    Virtuous and holy, chosen from above\n    By inspiration of celestial grace,\n    To work exceeding miracles on earth.\n    I never had to do with wicked spirits.\n    But you, that are polluted with your lusts,\n    Stain'd with the guiltless blood of innocents,\n    Corrupt and tainted with a thousand vices,\n    Because you want the grace that others have,\n    You judge it straight a thing impossible\n    To compass wonders but by help of devils.\n    No, misconceived! Joan of Arc hath been\n    A virgin from her tender infancy,\n    Chaste and immaculate in very thought;\n    Whose maiden blood, thus rigorously effus'd,\n    Will cry for vengeance at the gates of heaven.\n  YORK. Ay, ay. Away with her to execution!\n  WARWICK. And hark ye, sirs; because she is a maid,\n    Spare for no fagots, let there be enow.\n    Place barrels of pitch upon the fatal stake,\n    That so her torture may be shortened.\n  PUCELLE. Will nothing turn your unrelenting hearts?\n    Then, Joan, discover thine infirmity\n    That warranteth by law to be thy privilege:\n    I am with child, ye bloody homicides;\n    Murder not then the fruit within my womb,\n    Although ye hale me to a violent death.\n  YORK. Now heaven forfend! The holy maid with child!\n  WARWICK. The greatest miracle that e'er ye wrought:\n    Is all your strict preciseness come to this?\n  YORK. She and the Dauphin have been juggling.\n    I did imagine what would be her refuge.\n  WARWICK. Well, go to; we'll have no bastards live;\n    Especially since Charles must father it.\n  PUCELLE. You are deceiv'd; my child is none of his:\n    It was Alencon that enjoy'd my love.\n  YORK. Alencon, that notorious Machiavel!\n    It dies, an if it had a thousand lives.\n  PUCELLE. O, give me leave, I have deluded you.\n    'Twas neither Charles nor yet the Duke I nam'd,\n    But Reignier, King of Naples, that prevail'd.\n  WARWICK. A married man! That's most intolerable.\n  YORK. Why, here's a girl! I think she knows not well\n    There were so many-whom she may accuse.\n  WARWICK. It's sign she hath been liberal and free.\n  YORK. And yet, forsooth, she is a virgin pure.\n    Strumpet, thy words condemn thy brat and thee.\n    Use no entreaty, for it is in vain.\n  PUCELLE. Then lead me hence-with whom I leave my\n    curse:\n    May never glorious sun reflex his beams\n    Upon the country where you make abode;\n    But darkness and the gloomy shade of death\n    Environ you, till mischief and despair\n    Drive you to break your necks or hang yourselves!\n                                                   Exit, guarded\n  YORK. Break thou in pieces and consume to ashes,\n    Thou foul accursed minister of hell!\n\n               Enter CARDINAL BEAUFORT, attended\n\n  CARDINAL. Lord Regent, I do greet your Excellence\n    With letters of commission from the King.\n    For know, my lords, the states of Christendom,\n    Mov'd with remorse of these outrageous broils,\n    Have earnestly implor'd a general peace\n    Betwixt our nation and the aspiring French;\n    And here at hand the Dauphin and his train\n    Approacheth, to confer about some matter.\n  YORK. Is all our travail turn'd to this effect?\n    After the slaughter of so many peers,\n    So many captains, gentlemen, and soldiers,\n    That in this quarrel have been overthrown\n    And sold their bodies for their country's benefit,\n    Shall we at last conclude effeminate peace?\n    Have we not lost most part of all the towns,\n    By treason, falsehood, and by treachery,\n    Our great progenitors had conquered?\n    O Warwick, Warwick! I foresee with grief\n    The utter loss of all the realm of France.\n  WARWICK. Be patient, York. If we conclude a peace,\n    It shall be with such strict and severe covenants\n    As little shall the Frenchmen gain thereby.\n\n        Enter CHARLES, ALENCON, BASTARD, REIGNIER, and others\n\n  CHARLES. Since, lords of England, it is thus agreed\n    That peaceful truce shall be proclaim'd in France,\n    We come to be informed by yourselves\n    What the conditions of that league must be.\n  YORK. Speak, Winchester; for boiling choler chokes\n    The hollow passage of my poison'd voice,\n    By sight of these our baleful enemies.\n  CARDINAL. Charles, and the rest, it is enacted thus:\n    That, in regard King Henry gives consent,\n    Of mere compassion and of lenity,\n    To ease your country of distressful war,\n    An suffer you to breathe in fruitful peace,\n    You shall become true liegemen to his crown;\n    And, Charles, upon condition thou wilt swear\n    To pay him tribute and submit thyself,\n    Thou shalt be plac'd as viceroy under him,\n    And still enjoy thy regal dignity.\n  ALENCON. Must he be then as shadow of himself?\n    Adorn his temples with a coronet\n    And yet, in substance and authority,\n    Retain but privilege of a private man?\n    This proffer is absurd and reasonless.\n  CHARLES. 'Tis known already that I am possess'd\n    With more than half the Gallian territories,\n    And therein reverenc'd for their lawful king.\n    Shall I, for lucre of the rest unvanquish'd,\n    Detract so much from that prerogative\n    As to be call'd but viceroy of the whole?\n    No, Lord Ambassador; I'll rather keep\n    That which I have than, coveting for more,\n    Be cast from possibility of all.\n  YORK. Insulting Charles! Hast thou by secret means\n    Us'd intercession to obtain a league,\n    And now the matter grows to compromise\n    Stand'st thou aloof upon comparison?\n    Either accept the title thou usurp'st,\n    Of benefit proceeding from our king\n    And not of any challenge of desert,\n    Or we will plague thee with incessant wars.\n  REIGNIER.  [To CHARLES]  My lord, you do not well in\n    obstinacy\n    To cavil in the course of this contract.\n    If once it be neglected, ten to one\n    We shall not find like opportunity.\n  ALENCON.  [To CHARLES]  To say the truth, it is your policy\n    To save your subjects from such massacre\n    And ruthless slaughters as are daily seen\n    By our proceeding in hostility;\n    And therefore take this compact of a truce,\n    Although you break it when your pleasure serves.\n  WARWICK. How say'st thou, Charles? Shall our condition\n    stand?\n  CHARLES. It shall;\n    Only reserv'd, you claim no interest\n    In any of our towns of garrison.\n  YORK. Then swear allegiance to his Majesty:\n    As thou art knight, never to disobey\n    Nor be rebellious to the crown of England\n    Thou, nor thy nobles, to the crown of England.\n                    [CHARLES and the rest give tokens of fealty]\n    So, now dismiss your army when ye please;\n    Hang up your ensigns, let your drums be still,\n    For here we entertain a solemn peace.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                              SCENE 5.\n\n                         London. The palace\n\n            Enter SUFFOLK, in conference with the KING,\n                     GLOUCESTER and EXETER\n\n  KING HENRY. Your wondrous rare description, noble Earl,\n    Of beauteous Margaret hath astonish'd me.\n    Her virtues, graced with external gifts,\n    Do breed love's settled passions in my heart;\n    And like as rigour of tempestuous gusts\n    Provokes the mightiest hulk against the tide,\n    So am I driven by breath of her renown\n    Either to suffer shipwreck or arrive\n    Where I may have fruition of her love.\n  SUFFOLK. Tush, my good lord! This superficial tale\n    Is but a preface of her worthy praise.\n    The chief perfections of that lovely dame,\n    Had I sufficient skill to utter them,\n    Would make a volume of enticing lines,\n    Able to ravish any dull conceit;\n    And, which is more, she is not so divine,\n    So full-replete with choice of all delights,\n    But with as humble lowliness of mind\n    She is content to be at your command\n    Command, I mean, of virtuous intents,\n    To love and honour Henry as her lord.\n  KING HENRY. And otherwise will Henry ne'er presume.\n    Therefore, my Lord Protector, give consent\n    That Margaret may be England's royal Queen.\n  GLOUCESTER. So should I give consent to flatter sin.\n    You know, my lord, your Highness is betroth'd\n    Unto another lady of esteem.\n    How shall we then dispense with that contract,\n    And not deface your honour with reproach?\n  SUFFOLK. As doth a ruler with unlawful oaths;\n    Or one that at a triumph, having vow'd\n    To try his strength, forsaketh yet the lists\n    By reason of his adversary's odds:\n    A poor earl's daughter is unequal odds,\n    And therefore may be broke without offence.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, what, I pray, is Margaret more than\n    that?\n    Her father is no better than an earl,\n    Although in glorious titles he excel.\n  SUFFOLK. Yes, my lord, her father is a king,\n    The King of Naples and Jerusalem;\n    And of such great authority in France\n    As his alliance will confirm our peace,\n    And keep the Frenchmen in allegiance.\n  GLOUCESTER. And so the Earl of Armagnac may do,\n    Because he is near kinsman unto Charles.\n  EXETER. Beside, his wealth doth warrant a liberal dower;\n    Where Reignier sooner will receive than give.\n  SUFFOLK. A dow'r, my lords! Disgrace not so your king,\n    That he should be so abject, base, and poor,\n    To choose for wealth and not for perfect love.\n    Henry is able to enrich his queen,\n    And not to seek a queen to make him rich.\n    So worthless peasants bargain for their wives,\n    As market-men for oxen, sheep, or horse.\n    Marriage is a matter of more worth\n    Than to be dealt in by attorneyship;\n    Not whom we will, but whom his Grace affects,\n    Must be companion of his nuptial bed.\n    And therefore, lords, since he affects her most,\n    It most of all these reasons bindeth us\n    In our opinions she should be preferr'd;\n    For what is wedlock forced but a hell,\n    An age of discord and continual strife?\n    Whereas the contrary bringeth bliss,\n    And is a pattern of celestial peace.\n    Whom should we match with Henry, being a king,\n    But Margaret, that is daughter to a king?\n    Her peerless feature, joined with her birth,\n    Approves her fit for none but for a king;\n    Her valiant courage and undaunted spirit,\n    More than in women commonly is seen,\n    Will answer our hope in issue of a king;\n    For Henry, son unto a conqueror,\n    Is likely to beget more conquerors,\n    If with a lady of so high resolve\n    As is fair Margaret he be link'd in love.\n    Then yield, my lords; and here conclude with me\n    That Margaret shall be Queen, and none but she.\n  KING HENRY. Whether it be through force of your report,\n    My noble Lord of Suffolk, or for that\n    My tender youth was never yet attaint\n    With any passion of inflaming love,\n    I cannot tell; but this I am assur'd,\n    I feel such sharp dissension in my breast,\n    Such fierce alarums both of hope and fear,\n    As I am sick with working of my thoughts.\n    Take therefore shipping; post, my lord, to France;\n    Agree to any covenants; and procure\n    That Lady Margaret do vouchsafe to come\n    To cross the seas to England, and be crown'd\n    King Henry's faithful and anointed queen.\n    For your expenses and sufficient charge,\n    Among the people gather up a tenth.\n    Be gone, I say; for till you do return\n    I rest perplexed with a thousand cares.\n    And you, good uncle, banish all offence:\n    If you do censure me by what you were,\n    Not what you are, I know it will excuse\n    This sudden execution of my will.\n    And so conduct me where, from company,\n    I may revolve and ruminate my grief.                    Exit\n  GLOUCESTER. Ay, grief, I fear me, both at first and last.\n                                    Exeunt GLOUCESTER and EXETER\n  SUFFOLK. Thus Suffolk hath prevail'd; and thus he goes,\n    As did the youthful Paris once to Greece,\n    With hope to find the like event in love\n    But prosper better than the Troyan did.\n    Margaret shall now be Queen, and rule the King;\n    But I will rule both her, the King, and realm.          Exit\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of this Etext of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare\nThe First Part of King Henry the Sixth"}
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{"1101":"\n\n\n\n\n1591\n\nTHE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  KING HENRY THE SIXTH\n  HUMPHREY, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, his uncle\n  CARDINAL BEAUFORT, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, great-uncle to the\nKing\n  RICHARD PLANTAGENET, DUKE OF YORK\n  EDWARD and RICHARD, his sons\n  DUKE OF SOMERSET\n  DUKE OF SUFFOLK\n  DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM\n  LORD CLIFFORD\n  YOUNG CLIFFORD, his son\n  EARL OF SALISBURY\n  EARL OF WARWICK\n  LORD SCALES\n  LORD SAY\n  SIR HUMPHREY STAFFORD\n  WILLIAM STAFFORD, his brother\n  SIR JOHN STANLEY\n  VAUX\n  MATTHEW GOFFE\n  A LIEUTENANT, a SHIPMASTER, a MASTER'S MATE, and WALTER\nWHITMORE\n  TWO GENTLEMEN, prisoners with Suffolk\n  JOHN HUME and JOHN SOUTHWELL, two priests\n  ROGER BOLINGBROKE, a conjurer\n  A SPIRIT raised by him\n  THOMAS HORNER, an armourer\n  PETER, his man\n  CLERK OF CHATHAM\n  MAYOR OF SAINT ALBANS\n  SAUNDER SIMPCOX, an impostor\n  ALEXANDER IDEN, a Kentish gentleman\n  JACK CADE, a rebel\n  GEORGE BEVIS, JOHN HOLLAND, DICK THE BUTCHER, SMITH THE WEAVER,\n    MICHAEL, &c., followers of Cade\n  TWO MURDERERS\n\n  MARGARET, Queen to King Henry\n  ELEANOR, Duchess of Gloucester\n  MARGERY JOURDAIN, a witch\n  WIFE to SIMPCOX\n\n  Lords, Ladies, and Attendants; Petitioners, Aldermen, a Herald,\n    a Beadle, a Sheriff, Officers, Citizens, Prentices,\nFalconers,\n    Guards, Soldiers, Messengers, &c.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nEngland\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nLondon. The palace\n\nFlourish of trumpets; then hautboys. Enter the KING, DUKE\nHUMPHREY\nOF GLOUCESTER, SALISBURY, WARWICK, and CARDINAL BEAUFORT, on the\none side;\nthe QUEEN, SUFFOLK, YORK, SOMERSET, and BUCKINGHAM, on the other\n\n  SUFFOLK. As by your high imperial Majesty\n    I had in charge at my depart for France,\n    As procurator to your Excellence,\n    To marry Princess Margaret for your Grace;\n    So, in the famous ancient city Tours,\n    In presence of the Kings of France and Sicil,\n    The Dukes of Orleans, Calaber, Bretagne, and Alencon,\n    Seven earls, twelve barons, and twenty reverend bishops,\n    I have perform'd my task, and was espous'd;\n    And humbly now upon my bended knee,\n    In sight of England and her lordly peers,\n    Deliver up my title in the Queen\n    To your most gracious hands, that are the substance\n    Of that great shadow I did represent:\n    The happiest gift that ever marquis gave,\n    The fairest queen that ever king receiv'd.\n  KING HENRY. Suffolk, arise. Welcome, Queen Margaret:\n    I can express no kinder sign of love\n    Than this kind kiss. O Lord, that lends me life,\n    Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness!\n    For thou hast given me in this beauteous face\n    A world of earthly blessings to my soul,\n    If sympathy of love unite our thoughts.\n  QUEEN. Great King of England, and my gracious lord,\n    The mutual conference that my mind hath had,\n    By day, by night, waking and in my dreams,\n    In courtly company or at my beads,\n    With you, mine alder-liefest sovereign,\n    Makes me the bolder to salute my king\n    With ruder terms, such as my wit affords\n    And over-joy of heart doth minister.\n  KING HENRY. Her sight did ravish, but her grace in speech,\n    Her words y-clad with wisdom's majesty,\n    Makes me from wond'ring fall to weeping joys,\n    Such is the fulness of my heart's content.\n    Lords, with one cheerful voice welcome my love.\n  ALL. [Kneeling] Long live Queen Margaret, England's happiness!\n  QUEEN. We thank you all.                            [Flourish]\n  SUFFOLK. My Lord Protector, so it please your Grace,\n    Here are the articles of contracted peace\n    Between our sovereign and the French King Charles,\n    For eighteen months concluded by consent.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Reads] 'Imprimis: It is agreed between the French\nKing\n    Charles and William de la Pole, Marquess of Suffolk,\nambassador\n    for Henry King of England, that the said Henry shall espouse\nthe\n    Lady Margaret, daughter unto Reignier King of Naples,\nSicilia,\n    and Jerusalem, and crown her Queen of England ere the\nthirtieth\n    of May next ensuing.\n      Item: That the duchy of Anjou and the county of Maine shall\nbe\n    released and delivered to the King her father'-\n                                           [Lets the paper fall]\n  KING HENRY. Uncle, how now!\n  GLOUCESTER. Pardon me, gracious lord;\n    Some sudden qualm hath struck me at the heart,\n    And dimm'd mine eyes, that I can read no further.\n  KING HENRY. Uncle of Winchester, I pray read on.\n  CARDINAL. [Reads] 'Item: It is further agreed between them that\nthe\n    duchies of Anjou and Maine shall be released and delivered\nover\n    to the King her father, and she sent over of the King of\n    England's own proper cost and charges, without having any\ndowry.'\n  KING HENRY. They please us well. Lord Marquess, kneel down.\n    We here create thee the first Duke of Suffolk,\n    And girt thee with the sword. Cousin of York,\n    We here discharge your Grace from being Regent\n    I' th' parts of France, till term of eighteen months\n    Be full expir'd. Thanks, uncle Winchester,\n    Gloucester, York, Buckingham, Somerset,\n    Salisbury, and Warwick;\n    We thank you all for this great favour done\n    In entertainment to my princely queen.\n    Come, let us in, and with all speed provide\n    To see her coronation be perform'd.\n                                 Exeunt KING, QUEEN, and SUFFOLK\n  GLOUCESTER. Brave peers of England, pillars of the state,\n    To you Duke Humphrey must unload his grief\n    Your grief, the common grief of all the land.\n    What! did my brother Henry spend his youth,\n    His valour, coin, and people, in the wars?\n    Did he so often lodge in open field,\n    In winter's cold and summer's parching heat,\n    To conquer France, his true inheritance?\n    And did my brother Bedford toil his wits\n    To keep by policy what Henry got?\n    Have you yourselves, Somerset, Buckingham,\n    Brave York, Salisbury, and victorious Warwick,\n    Receiv'd deep scars in France and Normandy?\n    Or hath mine uncle Beaufort and myself,\n    With all the learned Council of the realm,\n    Studied so long, sat in the Council House\n    Early and late, debating to and fro\n    How France and Frenchmen might be kept in awe?\n    And had his Highness in his infancy\n    Crowned in Paris, in despite of foes?\n    And shall these labours and these honours die?\n    Shall Henry's conquest, Bedford's vigilance,\n    Your deeds of war, and all our counsel die?\n    O peers of England, shameful is this league!\n    Fatal this marriage, cancelling your fame,\n    Blotting your names from books of memory,\n    Razing the characters of your renown,\n    Defacing monuments of conquer'd France,\n    Undoing all, as all had never been!\n  CARDINAL. Nephew, what means this passionate discourse,\n    This peroration with such circumstance?\n    For France, 'tis ours; and we will keep it still.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ay, uncle, we will keep it if we can;\n    But now it is impossible we should.\n    Suffolk, the new-made duke that rules the roast,\n    Hath given the duchy of Anjou and Maine\n    Unto the poor King Reignier, whose large style\n    Agrees not with the leanness of his purse.\n  SALISBURY. Now, by the death of Him that died for all,\n    These counties were the keys of Normandy!\n    But wherefore weeps Warwick, my valiant son?\n  WARWICK. For grief that they are past recovery;\n    For were there hope to conquer them again\n    My sword should shed hot blood, mine eyes no tears.\n    Anjou and Maine! myself did win them both;\n    Those provinces these arms of mine did conquer;\n    And are the cities that I got with wounds\n    Deliver'd up again with peaceful words?\n    Mort Dieu!\n  YORK. For Suffolk's duke, may he be suffocate,\n    That dims the honour of this warlike isle!\n    France should have torn and rent my very heart\n    Before I would have yielded to this league.\n    I never read but England's kings have had\n    Large sums of gold and dowries with their wives;\n    And our King Henry gives away his own\n    To match with her that brings no vantages.\n  GLOUCESTER. A proper jest, and never heard before,\n    That Suffolk should demand a whole fifteenth\n    For costs and charges in transporting her!\n    She should have stay'd in France, and starv'd in France,\n    Before-\n  CARDINAL. My Lord of Gloucester, now ye grow too hot:\n    It was the pleasure of my lord the King.\n  GLOUCESTER. My Lord of Winchester, I know your mind;\n    'Tis not my speeches that you do mislike,\n    But 'tis my presence that doth trouble ye.\n    Rancour will out: proud prelate, in thy face\n    I see thy fury; if I longer stay\n    We shall begin our ancient bickerings.\n    Lordings, farewell; and say, when I am gone,\n    I prophesied France will be lost ere long.              Exit\n  CARDINAL. So, there goes our Protector in a rage.\n    'Tis known to you he is mine enemy;\n    Nay, more, an enemy unto you all,\n    And no great friend, I fear me, to the King.\n    Consider, lords, he is the next of blood\n    And heir apparent to the English crown.\n    Had Henry got an empire by his marriage\n    And all the wealthy kingdoms of the west,\n    There's reason he should be displeas'd at it.\n    Look to it, lords; let not his smoothing words\n    Bewitch your hearts; be wise and circumspect.\n    What though the common people favour him,\n    Calling him 'Humphrey, the good Duke of Gloucester,'\n    Clapping their hands, and crying with loud voice\n    'Jesu maintain your royal excellence!'\n    With 'God preserve the good Duke Humphrey!'\n    I fear me, lords, for all this flattering gloss,\n    He will be found a dangerous Protector.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Why should he then protect our sovereign,\n    He being of age to govern of himself?\n    Cousin of Somerset, join you with me,\n    And all together, with the Duke of Suffolk,\n    We'll quickly hoise Duke Humphrey from his seat.\n  CARDINAL. This weighty business will not brook delay;\n    I'll to the Duke of Suffolk presently.                  Exit\n  SOMERSET. Cousin of Buckingham, though Humphrey's pride\n    And greatness of his place be grief to us,\n    Yet let us watch the haughty cardinal;\n    His insolence is more intolerable\n    Than all the princes in the land beside;\n    If Gloucester be displac'd, he'll be Protector.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Or thou or I, Somerset, will be Protector,\n    Despite Duke Humphrey or the Cardinal.\n                                  Exeunt BUCKINGHAM and SOMERSET\n  SALISBURY. Pride went before, ambition follows him.\n    While these do labour for their own preferment,\n    Behoves it us to labour for the realm.\n    I never saw but Humphrey Duke of Gloucester\n    Did bear him like a noble gentleman.\n    Oft have I seen the haughty Cardinal-\n    More like a soldier than a man o' th' church,\n    As stout and proud as he were lord of all-\n    Swear like a ruffian and demean himself\n    Unlike the ruler of a commonweal.\n    Warwick my son, the comfort of my age,\n    Thy deeds, thy plainness, and thy housekeeping,\n    Hath won the greatest favour of the commons,\n    Excepting none but good Duke Humphrey.\n    And, brother York, thy acts in Ireland,\n    In bringing them to civil discipline,\n    Thy late exploits done in the heart of France\n    When thou wert Regent for our sovereign,\n    Have made thee fear'd and honour'd of the people:\n    Join we together for the public good,\n    In what we can, to bridle and suppress\n    The pride of Suffolk and the Cardinal,\n    With Somerset's and Buckingham's ambition;\n    And, as we may, cherish Duke Humphrey's deeds\n    While they do tend the profit of the land.\n  WARWICK. So God help Warwick, as he loves the land\n    And common profit of his country!\n  YORK. And so says York- [Aside] for he hath greatest cause.\n  SALISBURY. Then let's make haste away and look unto the main.\n  WARWICK. Unto the main! O father, Maine is lost-\n    That Maine which by main force Warwick did win,\n    And would have kept so long as breath did last.\n    Main chance, father, you meant; but I meant Maine,\n    Which I will win from France, or else be slain.\n                                    Exeunt WARWICK and SALISBURY\n\n  YORK. Anjou and Maine are given to the French;\n    Paris is lost; the state of Normandy\n    Stands on a tickle point now they are gone.\n    Suffolk concluded on the articles;\n    The peers agreed; and Henry was well pleas'd\n    To changes two dukedoms for a duke's fair daughter.\n    I cannot blame them all: what is't to them?\n    'Tis thine they give away, and not their own.\n    Pirates may make cheap pennyworths of their pillage,\n    And purchase friends, and give to courtezans,\n    Still revelling like lords till all be gone;\n    While as the silly owner of the goods\n    Weeps over them and wrings his hapless hands\n    And shakes his head and trembling stands aloof,\n    While all is shar'd and all is borne away,\n    Ready to starve and dare not touch his own.\n    So York must sit and fret and bite his tongue,\n    While his own lands are bargain'd for and sold.\n    Methinks the realms of England, France, and Ireland,\n    Bear that proportion to my flesh and blood\n    As did the fatal brand Althaea burnt\n    Unto the prince's heart of Calydon.\n    Anjou and Maine both given unto the French!\n    Cold news for me, for I had hope of France,\n    Even as I have of fertile England's soil.\n    A day will come when York shall claim his own;\n    And therefore I will take the Nevils' parts,\n    And make a show of love to proud Duke Humphrey,\n    And when I spy advantage, claim the crown,\n    For that's the golden mark I seek to hit.\n    Nor shall proud Lancaster usurp my right,\n    Nor hold the sceptre in his childish fist,\n    Nor wear the diadem upon his head,\n    Whose church-like humours fits not for a crown.\n    Then, York, be still awhile, till time do serve;\n    Watch thou and wake, when others be asleep,\n    To pry into the secrets of the state;\n    Till Henry, surfeiting in joys of love\n    With his new bride and England's dear-bought queen,\n    And Humphrey with the peers be fall'n at jars;\n    Then will I raise aloft the milk-white rose,\n    With whose sweet smell the air shall be perfum'd,\n    And in my standard bear the arms of York,\n    To grapple with the house of Lancaster;\n    And force perforce I'll make him yield the crown,\n    Whose bookish rule hath pull'd fair England down.       Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe DUKE OF GLOUCESTER'S house\n\nEnter DUKE and his wife ELEANOR\n\n  DUCHESS. Why droops my lord, like over-ripen'd corn\n    Hanging the head at Ceres' plenteous load?\n    Why doth the great Duke Humphrey knit his brows,\n    As frowning at the favours of the world?\n    Why are thine eyes fix'd to the sullen earth,\n    Gazing on that which seems to dim thy sight?\n    What see'st thou there? King Henry's diadem,\n    Enchas'd with all the honours of the world?\n    If so, gaze on, and grovel on thy face\n    Until thy head be circled with the same.\n    Put forth thy hand, reach at the glorious gold.\n    What, is't too short? I'll lengthen it with mine;\n    And having both together heav'd it up,\n    We'll both together lift our heads to heaven,\n    And never more abase our sight so low\n    As to vouchsafe one glance unto the ground.\n  GLOUCESTER. O Nell, sweet Nell, if thou dost love thy lord,\n    Banish the canker of ambitious thoughts!\n    And may that thought, when I imagine ill\n    Against my king and nephew, virtuous Henry,\n    Be my last breathing in this mortal world!\n    My troublous dreams this night doth make me sad.\n  DUCHESS. What dream'd my lord? Tell me, and I'll requite it\n    With sweet rehearsal of my morning's dream.\n  GLOUCESTER. Methought this staff, mine office-badge in court,\n    Was broke in twain; by whom I have forgot,\n    But, as I think, it was by th' Cardinal;\n    And on the pieces of the broken wand\n    Were plac'd the heads of Edmund Duke of Somerset\n    And William de la Pole, first Duke of Suffolk.\n    This was my dream; what it doth bode God knows.\n  DUCHESS. Tut, this was nothing but an argument\n    That he that breaks a stick of Gloucester's grove\n    Shall lose his head for his presumption.\n    But list to me, my Humphrey, my sweet Duke:\n    Methought I sat in seat of majesty\n    In the cathedral church of Westminster,\n    And in that chair where kings and queens were crown'd;\n    Where Henry and Dame Margaret kneel'd to me,\n    And on my head did set the diadem.\n  GLOUCESTER. Nay, Eleanor, then must I chide outright.\n    Presumptuous dame, ill-nurtur'd Eleanor!\n    Art thou not second woman in the realm,\n    And the Protector's wife, belov'd of him?\n    Hast thou not worldly pleasure at command\n    Above the reach or compass of thy thought?\n    And wilt thou still be hammering treachery\n    To tumble down thy husband and thyself\n    From top of honour to disgrace's feet?\n    Away from me, and let me hear no more!\n  DUCHESS. What, what, my lord! Are you so choleric\n    With Eleanor for telling but her dream?\n    Next time I'll keep my dreams unto myself\n    And not be check'd.\n  GLOUCESTER. Nay, be not angry; I am pleas'd again.\n\n                       Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. My Lord Protector, 'tis his Highness' pleasure\n    You do prepare to ride unto Saint Albans,\n    Where as the King and Queen do mean to hawk.\n  GLOUCESTER. I go. Come, Nell, thou wilt ride with us?\n  DUCHESS. Yes, my good lord, I'll follow presently.\n                                 Exeunt GLOUCESTER and MESSENGER\n    Follow I must; I cannot go before,\n    While Gloucester bears this base and humble mind.\n    Were I a man, a duke, and next of blood,\n    I would remove these tedious stumbling-blocks\n    And smooth my way upon their headless necks;\n    And, being a woman, I will not be slack\n    To play my part in Fortune's pageant.\n    Where are you there, Sir John? Nay, fear not, man,\n    We are alone; here's none but thee and I.\n\n                           Enter HUME\n\n  HUME. Jesus preserve your royal Majesty!\n  DUCHESS. What say'st thou? Majesty! I am but Grace.\n  HUME. But, by the grace of God and Hume's advice,\n    Your Grace's title shall be multiplied.\n  DUCHESS. What say'st thou, man? Hast thou as yet conferr'd\n    With Margery Jourdain, the cunning witch of Eie,\n    With Roger Bolingbroke, the conjurer?\n    And will they undertake to do me good?\n  HUME. This they have promised, to show your Highness\n    A spirit rais'd from depth of underground\n    That shall make answer to such questions\n    As by your Grace shall be propounded him\n  DUCHESS. It is enough; I'll think upon the questions;\n    When from Saint Albans we do make return\n    We'll see these things effected to the full.\n    Here, Hume, take this reward; make merry, man,\n    With thy confederates in this weighty cause.            Exit\n  HUME. Hume must make merry with the Duchess' gold;\n    Marry, and shall. But, how now, Sir John Hume!\n    Seal up your lips and give no words but mum:\n    The business asketh silent secrecy.\n    Dame Eleanor gives gold to bring the witch:\n    Gold cannot come amiss were she a devil.\n    Yet have I gold flies from another coast-\n    I dare not say from the rich Cardinal,\n    And from the great and new-made Duke of Suffolk;\n    Yet I do find it so; for, to be plain,\n    They, knowing Dame Eleanor's aspiring humour,\n    Have hired me to undermine the Duchess,\n    And buzz these conjurations in her brain.\n    They say 'A crafty knave does need no broker';\n    Yet am I Suffolk and the Cardinal's broker.\n    Hume, if you take not heed, you shall go near\n    To call them both a pair of crafty knaves.\n    Well, so its stands; and thus, I fear, at last\n    Hume's knavery will be the Duchess' wreck,\n    And her attainture will be Humphrey's fall\n    Sort how it will, I shall have gold for all.            Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter three or four PETITIONERS, PETER, the Armourer's man, being\none\n\n  FIRST PETITIONER. My masters, let's stand close; my Lord\nProtector\n    will come this way by and by, and then we may deliver our\n    supplications in the quill.\n  SECOND PETITIONER. Marry, the Lord protect him, for he's a good\n    man, Jesu bless him!\n\n                       Enter SUFFOLK and QUEEN\n\n  FIRST PETITIONER. Here 'a comes, methinks, and the Queen with\nhim.\n    I'll be the first, sure.\n  SECOND PETITIONER. Come back, fool; this is the Duke of Suffolk\nand\n    not my Lord Protector.\n  SUFFOLK. How now, fellow! Wouldst anything with me?\n  FIRST PETITIONER. I pray, my lord, pardon me; I took ye for my\nLord\n    Protector.\n  QUEEN. [Reads] 'To my Lord Protector!' Are your supplications\nto\n    his lordship? Let me see them. What is thine?\n  FIRST PETITIONER. Mine is, an't please your Grace, against John\n    Goodman, my Lord Cardinal's man, for keeping my house and\nlands,\n    and wife and all, from me.\n  SUFFOLK. Thy wife too! That's some wrong indeed. What's yours?\n    What's here! [Reads] 'Against the Duke of Suffolk, for\nenclosing\n    the commons of Melford.' How now, sir knave!\n  SECOND PETITIONER. Alas, sir, I am but a poor petitioner of our\n    whole township.\n  PETER. [Presenting his petition] Against my master, Thomas\nHorner,\n    for saying that the Duke of York was rightful heir to the\ncrown.\n  QUEEN. What say'st thou? Did the Duke of York say he was\nrightful\n    heir to the crown?\n  PETER. That my master was? No, forsooth. My master said that he\n    was, and that the King was an usurper.\n  SUFFOLK. Who is there? [Enter servant] Take this fellow in, and\n    send for his master with a pursuivant presently. We'll hear\nmore\n    of your matter before the King.\n                                         Exit servant with PETER\n  QUEEN. And as for you, that love to be protected\n    Under the wings of our Protector's grace,\n    Begin your suits anew, and sue to him.\n                                       [Tears the supplications]\n    Away, base cullions! Suffolk, let them go.\n  ALL. Come, let's be gone.                               Exeunt\n  QUEEN. My Lord of Suffolk, say, is this the guise,\n    Is this the fashions in the court of England?\n    Is this the government of Britain's isle,\n    And this the royalty of Albion's king?\n    What, shall King Henry be a pupil still,\n    Under the surly Gloucester's governance?\n    Am I a queen in title and in style,\n    And must be made a subject to a duke?\n    I tell thee, Pole, when in the city Tours\n    Thou ran'st a tilt in honour of my love\n    And stol'st away the ladies' hearts of France,\n    I thought King Henry had resembled thee\n    In courage, courtship, and proportion;\n    But all his mind is bent to holiness,\n    To number Ave-Maries on his beads;\n    His champions are the prophets and apostles;\n    His weapons, holy saws of sacred writ;\n    His study is his tilt-yard, and his loves\n    Are brazen images of canonized saints.\n    I would the college of the Cardinals\n    Would choose him Pope, and carry him to Rome,\n    And set the triple crown upon his head;\n    That were a state fit for his holiness.\n  SUFFOLK. Madam, be patient. As I was cause\n    Your Highness came to England, so will I\n    In England work your Grace's full content.\n  QUEEN. Beside the haughty Protector, have we Beaufort\n    The imperious churchman; Somerset, Buckingham,\n    And grumbling York; and not the least of these\n    But can do more in England than the King.\n  SUFFOLK. And he of these that can do most of all\n    Cannot do more in England than the Nevils;\n    Salisbury and Warwick are no simple peers.\n  QUEEN. Not all these lords do vex me half so much\n    As that proud dame, the Lord Protector's wife.\n    She sweeps it through the court with troops of ladies,\n    More like an empress than Duke Humphrey's wife.\n    Strangers in court do take her for the Queen.\n    She bears a duke's revenues on her back,\n    And in her heart she scorns our poverty;\n    Shall I not live to be aveng'd on her?\n    Contemptuous base-born callet as she is,\n    She vaunted 'mongst her minions t' other day\n    The very train of her worst wearing gown\n    Was better worth than all my father's lands,\n    Till Suffolk gave two dukedoms for his daughter.\n  SUFFOLK. Madam, myself have lim'd a bush for her,\n    And plac'd a quire of such enticing birds\n    That she will light to listen to the lays,\n    And never mount to trouble you again.\n    So, let her rest. And, madam, list to me,\n    For I am bold to counsel you in this:\n    Although we fancy not the Cardinal,\n    Yet must we join with him and with the lords,\n    Till we have brought Duke Humphrey in disgrace.\n    As for the Duke of York, this late complaint\n    Will make but little for his benefit.\n    So one by one we'll weed them all at last,\n    And you yourself shall steer the happy helm.\n\n          Sound a sennet. Enter the KING, DUKE HUMPHREY,\n     CARDINAL BEAUFORT, BUCKINGHAM, YORK, SOMERSET, SALISBURY,\n              WARWICK, and the DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER\n\n  KING HENRY. For my part, noble lords, I care not which:\n    Or Somerset or York, all's one to me.\n  YORK. If York have ill demean'd himself in France,\n    Then let him be denay'd the regentship.\n  SOMERSET. If Somerset be unworthy of the place,\n    Let York be Regent; I will yield to him.\n  WARWICK. Whether your Grace be worthy, yea or no,\n    Dispute not that; York is the worthier.\n  CARDINAL. Ambitious Warwick, let thy betters speak.\n  WARWICK. The Cardinal's not my better in the field.\n  BUCKINGHAM. All in this presence are thy betters, Warwick.\n  WARWICK. Warwick may live to be the best of all.\n  SALISBURY. Peace, son! And show some reason, Buckingham,\n    Why Somerset should be preferr'd in this.\n  QUEEN. Because the King, forsooth, will have it so.\n  GLOUCESTER. Madam, the King is old enough himself\n    To give his censure. These are no women's matters.\n  QUEEN. If he be old enough, what needs your Grace\n    To be Protector of his Excellence?\n  GLOUCESTER. Madam, I am Protector of the realm;\n    And at his pleasure will resign my place.\n  SUFFOLK. Resign it then, and leave thine insolence.\n    Since thou wert king- as who is king but thou?-\n    The commonwealth hath daily run to wrack,\n    The Dauphin hath prevail'd beyond the seas,\n    And all the peers and nobles of the realm\n    Have been as bondmen to thy sovereignty.\n  CARDINAL. The commons hast thou rack'd; the clergy's bags\n    Are lank and lean with thy extortions.\n  SOMERSET. Thy sumptuous buildings and thy wife's attire\n    Have cost a mass of public treasury.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Thy cruelty in execution\n    Upon offenders hath exceeded law,\n    And left thee to the mercy of the law.\n  QUEEN. Thy sale of offices and towns in France,\n    If they were known, as the suspect is great,\n    Would make thee quickly hop without thy head.\n                  Exit GLOUCESTER. The QUEEN drops QUEEN her fan\n    Give me my fan. What, minion, can ye not?\n                        [She gives the DUCHESS a box on the ear]\n    I cry your mercy, madam; was it you?\n  DUCHESS. Was't I? Yea, I it was, proud Frenchwoman.\n    Could I come near your beauty with my nails,\n    I could set my ten commandments in your face.\n  KING HENRY. Sweet aunt, be quiet; 'twas against her will.\n  DUCHESS. Against her will, good King? Look to 't in time;\n    She'll hamper thee and dandle thee like a baby.\n    Though in this place most master wear no breeches,\n    She shall not strike Dame Eleanor unreveng'd.           Exit\n  BUCKINGHAM. Lord Cardinal, I will follow Eleanor,\n    And listen after Humphrey, how he proceeds.\n    She's tickled now; her fume needs no spurs,\n    She'll gallop far enough to her destruction.            Exit\n\n                      Re-enter GLOUCESTER\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Now, lords, my choler being overblown\n    With walking once about the quadrangle,\n    I come to talk of commonwealth affairs.\n    As for your spiteful false objections,\n    Prove them, and I lie open to the law;\n    But God in mercy so deal with my soul\n    As I in duty love my king and country!\n    But to the matter that we have in hand:\n    I say, my sovereign, York is meetest man\n    To be your Regent in the realm of France.\n  SUFFOLK. Before we make election, give me leave\n    To show some reason, of no little force,\n    That York is most unmeet of any man.\n  YORK. I'll tell thee, Suffolk, why I am unmeet:\n    First, for I cannot flatter thee in pride;\n    Next, if I be appointed for the place,\n    My Lord of Somerset will keep me here\n    Without discharge, money, or furniture,\n    Till France be won into the Dauphin's hands.\n    Last time I danc'd attendance on his will\n    Till Paris was besieg'd, famish'd, and lost.\n  WARWICK. That can I witness; and a fouler fact\n    Did never traitor in the land commit.\n  SUFFOLK. Peace, headstrong Warwick!\n  WARWICK. Image of pride, why should I hold my peace?\n\n        Enter HORNER, the Armourer, and his man PETER, guarded\n\n  SUFFOLK. Because here is a man accus'd of treason:\n    Pray God the Duke of York excuse himself!\n  YORK. Doth any one accuse York for a traitor?\n  KING HENRY. What mean'st thou, Suffolk? Tell me, what are\nthese?\n  SUFFOLK. Please it your Majesty, this is the man\n    That doth accuse his master of high treason;\n    His words were these: that Richard Duke of York\n    Was rightful heir unto the English crown,\n    And that your Majesty was an usurper.\n  KING HENRY. Say, man, were these thy words?\n  HORNER. An't shall please your Majesty, I never said nor\nthought\n    any such matter. God is my witness, I am falsely accus'd by\nthe\n    villain.\n  PETER. [Holding up his hands] By these ten bones, my lords, he\ndid\n    speak them to me in the garret one night, as we were scouring\nmy\n    Lord of York's armour.\n  YORK. Base dunghill villain and mechanical,\n    I'll have thy head for this thy traitor's speech.\n    I do beseech your royal Majesty,\n    Let him have all the rigour of the law.\n  HORNER`. Alas, my lord, hang me if ever I spake the words. My\n    accuser is my prentice; and when I did correct him for his\nfault\n    the other day, he did vow upon his knees he would be even\nwith\n    me. I have good witness of this; therefore I beseech your\n    Majesty, do not cast away an honest man for a villain's\n    accusation.\n  KING HENRY. Uncle, what shall we say to this in law?\n  GLOUCESTER. This doom, my lord, if I may judge:\n    Let Somerset be Regent o'er the French,\n    Because in York this breeds suspicion;\n    And let these have a day appointed them\n    For single combat in convenient place,\n    For he hath witness of his servant's malice.\n    This is the law, and this Duke Humphrey's doom.\n  SOMERSET. I humbly thank your royal Majesty.\n  HORNER. And I accept the combat willingly.\n  PETER. Alas, my lord, I cannot fight; for God's sake, pity my\ncase!\n    The spite of man prevaileth against me. O Lord, have mercy\nupon\n    me, I shall never be able to fight a blow! O Lord, my heart!\n  GLOUCESTER. Sirrah, or you must fight or else be hang'd.\n  KING HENRY. Away with them to prison; and the day of combat\nshall\n    be the last of the next month.\n    Come, Somerset, we'll see thee sent away.   Flourish. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nLondon. The DUKE OF GLOUCESTER'S garden\n\nEnter MARGERY JOURDAIN, the witch; the two priests, HUME and\nSOUTHWELL;\nand BOLINGBROKE\n\n  HUME. Come, my masters; the Duchess, I tell you, expects\n    performance of your promises.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Master Hume, we are therefore provided; will her\n    ladyship behold and hear our exorcisms?\n  HUME. Ay, what else? Fear you not her courage.\n  BOLINGBROKE. I have heard her reported to be a woman of an\n    invincible spirit; but it shall be convenient, Master Hume,\nthat\n    you be by her aloft while we be busy below; and so I pray you\ngo,\n    in God's name, and leave us. [Exit HUME] Mother Jourdain, be\nyou\n    prostrate and grovel on the earth; John Southwell, read you;\nand\n    let us to our work.\n\n                 Enter DUCHESS aloft, followed by HUME\n\n  DUCHESS. Well said, my masters; and welcome all. To this gear,\nthe\n    sooner the better.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Patience, good lady; wizards know their times:\n    Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night,\n    The time of night when Troy was set on fire;\n    The time when screech-owls cry and ban-dogs howl,\n    And spirits walk and ghosts break up their graves-\n    That time best fits the work we have in hand.\n    Madam, sit you, and fear not: whom we raise\n    We will make fast within a hallow'd verge.\n\n     [Here they do the ceremonies belonging, and make the circle;\n          BOLINGBROKE or SOUTHWELL reads: 'Conjuro te,' &c.\n     It thunders and lightens terribly; then the SPIRIT riseth]\n\n  SPIRIT. Adsum.\n  MARGERY JOURDAIN. Asmath,\n    By the eternal God, whose name and power\n    Thou tremblest at, answer that I shall ask;\n    For till thou speak thou shalt not pass from hence.\n  SPIRIT. Ask what thou wilt; that I had said and done.\n  BOLINGBROKE. [Reads] 'First of the king: what shall of him\nbecome?'\n  SPIRIT. The Duke yet lives that Henry shall depose;\n    But him outlive, and die a violent death.\n             [As the SPIRIT speaks, SOUTHWELL writes the answer]\n  BOLINGBROKE. 'What fates await the Duke of Suffolk?'\n  SPIRIT. By water shall he die and take his end.\n  BOLINGBROKE. 'What shall befall the Duke of Somerset?'\n  SPIRIT. Let him shun castles:\n    Safer shall he be upon the sandy plains\n    Than where castles mounted stand.\n    Have done, for more I hardly can endure.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Descend to darkness and the burning lake;\n    False fiend, avoid!       Thunder and lightning. Exit SPIRIT\n\n               Enter the DUKE OF YORK and the DUKE OF\n                 BUCKINGHAM with guard, and break in\n\n  YORK. Lay hands upon these traitors and their trash.\n    Beldam, I think we watch'd you at an inch.\n    What, madam, are you there? The King and commonweal\n    Are deeply indebted for this piece of pains;\n    My Lord Protector will, I doubt it not,\n    See you well guerdon'd for these good deserts.\n  DUCHESS. Not half so bad as thine to England's king,\n    Injurious Duke, that threatest where's no cause.\n  BUCKINGHAM. True, madam, none at all. What can you this?\n    Away with them! let them be clapp'd up close,\n    And kept asunder. You, madam, shall with us.\n    Stafford, take her to thee.\n    We'll see your trinkets here all forthcoming.\n    All, away!\n                Exeunt, above, DUCHESS and HUME, guarded; below,\n                       WITCH, SOUTHWELL and BOLINGBROKE, guarded\n  YORK. Lord Buckingham, methinks you watch'd her well.\n    A pretty plot, well chosen to build upon!\n    Now, pray, my lord, let's see the devil's writ.\n    What have we here?                                   [Reads]\n    'The duke yet lives that Henry shall depose;\n    But him outlive, and die a violent death.'\n    Why, this is just\n    'Aio te, Aeacida, Romanos vincere posse.'\n    Well, to the rest:\n    'Tell me what fate awaits the Duke of Suffolk?'\n    'By water shall he die and take his end.'\n    'What shall betide the Duke of Somerset?'\n    'Let him shun castles;\n    Safer shall he be upon the sandy plains\n    Than where castles mounted stand.'\n    Come, come, my lords;\n    These oracles are hardly attain'd,\n    And hardly understood.\n    The King is now in progress towards Saint Albans,\n    With him the husband of this lovely lady;\n    Thither go these news as fast as horse can carry them-\n    A sorry breakfast for my Lord Protector.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Your Grace shall give me leave, my Lord of York,\n    To be the post, in hope of his reward.\n  YORK. At your pleasure, my good lord.\n    Who's within there, ho?\n\n                       Enter a serving-man\n\n    Invite my Lords of Salisbury and Warwick\n    To sup with me to-morrow night. Away!                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nSaint Albans\n\nEnter the KING, QUEEN, GLOUCESTER, CARDINAL, and SUFFOLK,\nwith Falconers halloing\n\n  QUEEN. Believe me, lords, for flying at the brook,\n    I saw not better sport these seven years' day;\n    Yet, by your leave, the wind was very high,\n    And ten to one old Joan had not gone out.\n  KING HENRY. But what a point, my lord, your falcon made,\n    And what a pitch she flew above the rest!\n    To see how God in all His creatures works!\n    Yea, man and birds are fain of climbing high.\n  SUFFOLK. No marvel, an it like your Majesty,\n    My Lord Protector's hawks do tow'r so well;\n    They know their master loves to be aloft,\n    And bears his thoughts above his falcon's pitch.\n  GLOUCESTER. My lord, 'tis but a base ignoble mind\n    That mounts no higher than a bird can soar.\n  CARDINAL. I thought as much; he would be above the clouds.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ay, my lord Cardinal, how think you by that?\n    Were it not good your Grace could fly to heaven?\n  KING HENRY. The treasury of everlasting joy!\n  CARDINAL. Thy heaven is on earth; thine eyes and thoughts\n    Beat on a crown, the treasure of thy heart;\n    Pernicious Protector, dangerous peer,\n    That smooth'st it so with King and commonweal.\n  GLOUCESTER. What, Cardinal, is your priesthood grown\nperemptory?\n    Tantaene animis coelestibus irae?\n    Churchmen so hot? Good uncle, hide such malice;\n    With such holiness can you do it?\n  SUFFOLK. No malice, sir; no more than well becomes\n    So good a quarrel and so bad a peer.\n  GLOUCESTER. As who, my lord?\n  SUFFOLK. Why, as you, my lord,\n    An't like your lordly Lord's Protectorship.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, Suffolk, England knows thine insolence.\n  QUEEN. And thy ambition, Gloucester.\n  KING HENRY. I prithee, peace,\n    Good Queen, and whet not on these furious peers;\n    For blessed are the peacemakers on earth.\n  CARDINAL. Let me be blessed for the peace I make\n    Against this proud Protector with my sword!\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CARDINAL] Faith, holy uncle, would 'twere\n    come to that!\n  CARDINAL. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Marry, when thou dar'st.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CARDINAL] Make up no factious numbers for\nthe\n      matter;\n    In thine own person answer thy abuse.\n  CARDINAL. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Ay, where thou dar'st not peep;\nan\n      if thou dar'st,\n    This evening on the east side of the grove.\n  KING HENRY. How now, my lords!\n  CARDINAL. Believe me, cousin Gloucester,\n    Had not your man put up the fowl so suddenly,\n    We had had more sport. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Come with thy\n      two-hand sword.\n  GLOUCESTER. True, uncle.\n  CARDINAL. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Are ye advis'd? The east side\nof\n    the grove?\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CARDINAL] Cardinal, I am with you.\n  KING HENRY. Why, how now, uncle Gloucester!\n  GLOUCESTER. Talking of hawking; nothing else, my lord.\n    [Aside to CARDINAL] Now, by God's Mother, priest,\n    I'll shave your crown for this,\n    Or all my fence shall fail.\n  CARDINAL. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Medice, teipsum;\n    Protector, see to't well; protect yourself.\n  KING HENRY. The winds grow high; so do your stomachs, lords.\n    How irksome is this music to my heart!\n    When such strings jar, what hope of harmony?\n    I pray, my lords, let me compound this strife.\n\n         Enter a TOWNSMAN of Saint Albans, crying 'A miracle!'\n\n  GLOUCESTER. What means this noise?\n    Fellow, what miracle dost thou proclaim?\n  TOWNSMAN. A miracle! A miracle!\n  SUFFOLK. Come to the King, and tell him what miracle.\n  TOWNSMAN. Forsooth, a blind man at Saint Albans shrine\n    Within this half hour hath receiv'd his sight;\n    A man that ne'er saw in his life before.\n  KING HENRY. Now God be prais'd that to believing souls\n    Gives light in darkness, comfort in despair!\n\n           Enter the MAYOR OF SAINT ALBANS and his brethren,\n               bearing Simpcox between two in a chair;\n                 his WIFE and a multitude following\n\n  CARDINAL. Here comes the townsmen on procession\n    To present your Highness with the man.\n  KING HENRY. Great is his comfort in this earthly vale,\n    Although by his sight his sin be multiplied.\n  GLOUCESTER. Stand by, my masters; bring him near the King;\n    His Highness' pleasure is to talk with him.\n  KING HENRY. Good fellow, tell us here the circumstance,\n    That we for thee may glorify the Lord.\n    What, hast thou been long blind and now restor'd?\n  SIMPCOX. Born blind, an't please your Grace.\n  WIFE. Ay indeed was he.\n  SUFFOLK. What woman is this?\n  WIFE. His wife, an't like your worship.\n  GLOUCESTER. Hadst thou been his mother, thou couldst have\nbetter\n    told.\n  KING HENRY. Where wert thou born?\n  SIMPCOX. At Berwick in the north, an't like your Grace.\n  KING HENRY. Poor soul, God's goodness hath been great to thee.\n    Let never day nor night unhallowed pass,\n    But still remember what the Lord hath done.\n  QUEEN. Tell me, good fellow, cam'st thou here by chance,\n    Or of devotion, to this holy shrine?\n  SIMPCOX. God knows, of pure devotion; being call'd\n    A hundred times and oft'ner, in my sleep,\n    By good Saint Alban, who said 'Simpcox, come,\n    Come, offer at my shrine, and I will help thee.'\n  WIFE. Most true, forsooth; and many time and oft\n    Myself have heard a voice to call him so.\n  CARDINAL. What, art thou lame?\n  SIMPCOX. Ay, God Almighty help me!\n  SUFFOLK. How cam'st thou so?\n  SIMPCOX. A fall off of a tree.\n  WIFE. A plum tree, master.\n  GLOUCESTER. How long hast thou been blind?\n  SIMPCOX. O, born so, master!\n  GLOUCESTER. What, and wouldst climb a tree?\n  SIMPCOX. But that in all my life, when I was a youth.\n  WIFE. Too true; and bought his climbing very dear.\n  GLOUCESTER. Mass, thou lov'dst plums well, that wouldst venture\nso.\n  SIMPCOX. Alas, good master, my wife desir'd some damsons\n    And made me climb, With danger of my life.\n  GLOUCESTER. A subtle knave! But yet it shall not serve:\n    Let me see thine eyes; wink now; now open them;\n    In my opinion yet thou seest not well.\n  SIMPCOX. Yes, master, clear as day, I thank God and Saint\nAlban.\n  GLOUCESTER. Say'st thou me so? What colour is this cloak of?\n  SIMPCOX. Red, master; red as blood.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, that's well said. What colour is my gown of?\n  SIMPCOX. Black, forsooth; coal-black as jet.\n  KING HENRY. Why, then, thou know'st what colour jet is of?\n  SUFFOLK. And yet, I think, jet did he never see.\n  GLOUCESTER. But cloaks and gowns before this day a many.\n  WIFE. Never before this day in all his life.\n  GLOUCESTER. Tell me, sirrah, what's my name?\n  SIMPCOX. Alas, master, I know not.\n  GLOUCESTER. What's his name?\n  SIMPCOX. I know not.\n  GLOUCESTER. Nor his?\n  SIMPCOX. No, indeed, master.\n  GLOUCESTER. What's thine own name?\n  SIMPCOX. Saunder Simpcox, an if it please you, master.\n  GLOUCESTER. Then, Saunder, sit there, the lying'st knave in\n    Christendom. If thou hadst been born blind, thou mightst as\nwell\n    have known all our names as thus to name the several colours\nwe\n    do wear. Sight may distinguish of colours; but suddenly to\n    nominate them all, it is impossible. My lords, Saint Alban\nhere\n    hath done a miracle; and would ye not think his cunning to be\n    great that could restore this cripple to his legs again?\n  SIMPCOX. O master, that you could!\n  GLOUCESTER. My masters of Saint Albans, have you not beadles in\n    your town, and things call'd whips?\n  MAYOR. Yes, my lord, if it please your Grace.\n  GLOUCESTER. Then send for one presently.\n  MAYOR. Sirrah, go fetch the beadle hither straight.\n                                               Exit an attendant\n  GLOUCESTER. Now fetch me a stool hither by and by. [A stool\n    brought] Now, sirrah, if you mean to save yourself from\nwhipping,\n    leap me over this stool and run away.\n  SIMPCOX. Alas, master, I am not able to stand alone!\n    You go about to torture me in vain.\n\n                         Enter a BEADLE with whips\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Well, sir, we must have you find your legs.\n    Sirrah beadle, whip him till he leap over that same stool.\n  BEADLE. I will, my lord. Come on, sirrah; off with your doublet\n    quickly.\n  SIMPCOX. Alas, master, what shall I do? I am not able to stand.\n\n           After the BEADLE hath hit him once, he leaps over\n           the stool and runs away; and they follow and cry\n                             'A miracle!'\n\n  KING HENRY. O God, seest Thou this, and bearest so long?\n  QUEEN. It made me laugh to see the villain run.\n  GLOUCESTER. Follow the knave, and take this drab away.\n  WIFE. Alas, sir, we did it for pure need!\n  GLOUCESTER. Let them be whipp'd through every market town till\nthey\n    come to Berwick, from whence they came.\n                                 Exeunt MAYOR, BEADLE, WIFE, &c.\n  CARDINAL. Duke Humphrey has done a miracle to-day.\n  SUFFOLK. True; made the lame to leap and fly away.\n  GLOUCESTER. But you have done more miracles than I:\n    You made in a day, my lord, whole towns to fly.\n\n                         Enter BUCKINGHAM\n\n  KING HENRY. What tidings with our cousin Buckingham?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Such as my heart doth tremble to unfold:\n    A sort of naughty persons, lewdly bent,\n    Under the countenance and confederacy\n    Of Lady Eleanor, the Protector's wife,\n    The ringleader and head of all this rout,\n    Have practis'd dangerously against your state,\n    Dealing with witches and with conjurers,\n    Whom we have apprehended in the fact,\n    Raising up wicked spirits from under ground,\n    Demanding of King Henry's life and death\n    And other of your Highness' Privy Council,\n    As more at large your Grace shall understand.\n  CARDINAL. And so, my Lord Protector, by this means\n    Your lady is forthcoming yet at London.\n    This news, I think, hath turn'd your weapon's edge;\n    'Tis like, my lord, you will not keep your hour.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ambitious churchman, leave to afflict my heart.\n    Sorrow and grief have vanquish'd all my powers;\n    And, vanquish'd as I am, I yield to the\n    Or to the meanest groom.\n  KING HENRY. O God, what mischiefs work the wicked ones,\n    Heaping confusion on their own heads thereby!\n  QUEEN. Gloucester, see here the tainture of thy nest;\n    And look thyself be faultless, thou wert best.\n  GLOUCESTER. Madam, for myself, to heaven I do appeal\n    How I have lov'd my King and commonweal;\n    And for my wife I know not how it stands.\n    Sorry I am to hear what I have heard.\n    Noble she is; but if she have forgot\n    Honour and virtue, and convers'd with such\n    As, like to pitch, defile nobility,\n    I banish her my bed and company\n    And give her as a prey to law and shame,\n    That hath dishonoured Gloucester's honest name.\n  KING HENRY. Well, for this night we will repose us here.\n    To-morrow toward London back again\n    To look into this business thoroughly\n    And call these foul offenders to their answers,\n    And poise the cause in justice' equal scales,\n    Whose beam stands sure, whose rightful cause prevails.\n                                                Flourish. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nLondon. The DUKE OF YORK'S garden\n\nEnter YORK, SALISBURY, and WARWICK\n\n  YORK. Now, my good Lords of Salisbury and Warwick,\n    Our simple supper ended, give me leave\n    In this close walk to satisfy myself\n    In craving your opinion of my tide,\n    Which is infallible, to England's crown.\n  SALISBURY. My lord, I long to hear it at full.\n  WARWICK. Sweet York, begin; and if thy claim be good,\n    The Nevils are thy subjects to command.\n  YORK. Then thus:\n    Edward the Third, my lords, had seven sons;\n    The first, Edward the Black Prince, Prince of Wales;\n    The second, William of Hatfield; and the third,\n    Lionel Duke of Clarence; next to whom\n    Was John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster;\n    The fifth was Edmund Langley, Duke of York;\n    The sixth was Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester;\n    William of Windsor was the seventh and last.\n    Edward the Black Prince died before his father\n    And left behind him Richard, his only son,\n    Who, after Edward the Third's death, reign'd as king\n    Till Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster,\n    The eldest son and heir of John of Gaunt,\n    Crown'd by the name of Henry the Fourth,\n    Seiz'd on the realm, depos'd the rightful king,\n    Sent his poor queen to France, from whence she came.\n    And him to Pomfret, where, as all you know,\n    Harmless Richard was murdered traitorously.\n  WARWICK. Father, the Duke hath told the truth;\n    Thus got the house of Lancaster the crown.\n  YORK. Which now they hold by force, and not by right;\n    For Richard, the first son's heir, being dead,\n    The issue of the next son should have reign'd.\n  SALISBURY. But William of Hatfield died without an heir.\n  YORK. The third son, Duke of Clarence, from whose line\n    I claim the crown, had issue Philippe, a daughter,\n    Who married Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March;\n    Edmund had issue, Roger Earl of March;\n    Roger had issue, Edmund, Anne, and Eleanor.\n  SALISBURY. This Edmund, in the reign of Bolingbroke,\n    As I have read, laid claim unto the crown;\n    And, but for Owen Glendower, had been king,\n    Who kept him in captivity till he died.\n    But, to the rest.\n  YORK. His eldest sister, Anne,\n    My mother, being heir unto the crown,\n    Married Richard Earl of Cambridge, who was\n    To Edmund Langley, Edward the Third's fifth son, son.\n    By her I claim the kingdom: she was heir\n    To Roger Earl of March, who was the son\n    Of Edmund Mortimer, who married Philippe,\n    Sole daughter unto Lionel Duke of Clarence;\n    So, if the issue of the elder son\n    Succeed before the younger, I am King.\n  WARWICK. What plain proceedings is more plain than this?\n    Henry doth claim the crown from John of Gaunt,\n    The fourth son: York claims it from the third.\n    Till Lionel's issue fails, his should not reign.\n    It fails not yet, but flourishes in thee\n    And in thy sons, fair slips of such a stock.\n    Then, father Salisbury, kneel we together,\n    And in this private plot be we the first\n    That shall salute our rightful sovereign\n    With honour of his birthright to the crown.\n  BOTH. Long live our sovereign Richard, England's King!\n  YORK. We thank you, lords. But I am not your king\n    Till I be crown'd, and that my sword be stain'd\n    With heart-blood of the house of Lancaster;\n    And that's not suddenly to be perform'd,\n    But with advice and silent secrecy.\n    Do you as I do in these dangerous days:\n    Wink at the Duke of Suffolk's insolence,\n    At Beaufort's pride, at Somerset's ambition,\n    At Buckingham, and all the crew of them,\n    Till they have snar'd the shepherd of the flock,\n    That virtuous prince, the good Duke Humphrey;\n    'Tis that they seek; and they, in seeking that,\n    Shall find their deaths, if York can prophesy.\n  SALISBURY. My lord, break we off; we know your mind at full.\n  WARWICK. My heart assures me that the Earl of Warwick\n    Shall one day make the Duke of York a king.\n  YORK. And, Nevil, this I do assure myself,\n    Richard shall live to make the Earl of Warwick\n    The greatest man in England but the King.             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nLondon. A hall of justice\n\nSound trumpets. Enter the KING and State: the QUEEN, GLOUCESTER,\nYORK,\nSUFFOLK, and SALISBURY, with guard, to banish the DUCHESS. Enter,\nguarded,\nthe DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER, MARGERY JOURDAIN, HUME, SOUTHWELL, and\nBOLINGBROKE\n\n  KING HENRY. Stand forth, Dame Eleanor Cobham, Gloucester's\nwife:\n    In sight of God and us, your guilt is great;\n    Receive the sentence of the law for sins\n    Such as by God's book are adjudg'd to death.\n    You four, from hence to prison back again;\n    From thence unto the place of execution:\n    The witch in Smithfield shall be burnt to ashes,\n    And you three shall be strangled on the gallows.\n    You, madam, for you are more nobly born,\n    Despoiled of your honour in your life,\n    Shall, after three days' open penance done,\n    Live in your country here in banishment\n    With Sir John Stanley in the Isle of Man.\n  DUCHESS. Welcome is banishment; welcome were my death.\n  GLOUCESTER. Eleanor, the law, thou seest, hath judged thee.\n    I cannot justify whom the law condemns.\n             Exeunt the DUCHESS and the other prisoners, guarded\n    Mine eyes are full of tears, my heart of grief.\n    Ah, Humphrey, this dishonour in thine age\n    Will bring thy head with sorrow to the ground!\n    I beseech your Majesty give me leave to go;\n    Sorrow would solace, and mine age would ease.\n  KING HENRY. Stay, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester; ere thou go,\n    Give up thy staff; Henry will to himself\n    Protector be; and God shall be my hope,\n    My stay, my guide, and lantern to my feet.\n    And go in peace, Humphrey, no less belov'd\n    Than when thou wert Protector to thy King.\n  QUEEN. I see no reason why a king of years\n    Should be to be protected like a child.\n    God and King Henry govern England's realm!\n    Give up your staff, sir, and the King his realm.\n  GLOUCESTER. My staff! Here, noble Henry, is my staff.\n    As willingly do I the same resign\n    As ere thy father Henry made it mine;\n    And even as willingly at thy feet I leave it\n    As others would ambitiously receive it.\n    Farewell, good King; when I am dead and gone,\n    May honourable peace attend thy throne!                 Exit\n  QUEEN. Why, now is Henry King, and Margaret Queen,\n    And Humphrey Duke of Gloucester scarce himself,\n    That bears so shrewd a maim: two pulls at once-\n    His lady banish'd and a limb lopp'd off.\n    This staff of honour raught, there let it stand\n    Where it best fits to be, in Henry's hand.\n  SUFFOLK. Thus droops this lofty pine and hangs his sprays;\n    Thus Eleanor's pride dies in her youngest days.\n  YORK. Lords, let him go. Please it your Majesty,\n    This is the day appointed for the combat;\n    And ready are the appellant and defendant,\n    The armourer and his man, to enter the lists,\n    So please your Highness to behold the fight.\n  QUEEN. Ay, good my lord; for purposely therefore\n    Left I the court, to see this quarrel tried.\n  KING HENRY. A God's name, see the lists and all things fit;\n    Here let them end it, and God defend the right!\n  YORK. I never saw a fellow worse bested,\n    Or more afraid to fight, than is the appellant,\n    The servant of his armourer, my lords.\n\n        Enter at one door, HORNER, the Armourer, and his\n         NEIGHBOURS, drinking to him so much that he is\n        drunk; and he enters with a drum before him and\n       his staff with a sand-bag fastened to it; and at the\n        other door PETER, his man, with a drum and sandbag,\n                  and PRENTICES drinking to him\n\n  FIRST NEIGHBOUR. Here, neighbour Horner, I drink to you in a\ncup of\n    sack; and fear not, neighbour, you shall do well enough.\n  SECOND NEIGHBOUR. And here, neighbour, here's a cup of\ncharneco.\n  THIRD NEIGHBOUR. And here's a pot of good double beer,\nneighbour;\n    drink, and fear not your man.\n  HORNER. Let it come, i' faith, and I'll pledge you all; and a\nfig\n    for Peter!\n  FIRST PRENTICE. Here, Peter, I drink to thee; and be not\nafraid.\n  SECOND PRENTICE. Be merry, Peter, and fear not thy master:\nfight\n    for credit of the prentices.\n  PETER. I thank you all. Drink, and pray for me, I pray you; for\nI\n    think I have taken my last draught in this world. Here,\nRobin, an\n    if I die, I give thee my apron; and, Will, thou shalt have my\n    hammer; and here, Tom, take all the money that I have. O Lord\n    bless me, I pray God! for I am never able to deal with my\nmaster,\n    he hath learnt so much fence already.\n  SALISBURY. Come, leave your drinking and fall to blows.\n    Sirrah, what's thy name?\n  PETER. Peter, forsooth.\n  SALISBURY. Peter? What more?\n  PETER. Thump.\n  SALISBURY. Thump? Then see thou thump thy master well.\n  HORNER. Masters, I am come hither, as it were, upon my man's\n    instigation, to prove him a knave and myself an honest man;\nand\n    touching the Duke of York, I will take my death I never meant\nhim\n    any ill, nor the King, nor the Queen; and therefore, Peter,\nhave\n    at thee with a down right blow!\n  YORK. Dispatch- this knave's tongue begins to double.\n    Sound, trumpets, alarum to the combatants!\n                 [Alarum. They fight and PETER strikes him down]\n  HORNER. Hold, Peter, hold! I confess, I confess treason.\n                                                          [Dies]\n  YORK. Take away his weapon. Fellow, thank God, and the good\nwine in\n    thy master's way.\n  PETER. O God, have I overcome mine enemies in this presence? O\n    Peter, thou hast prevail'd in right!\n  KING HENRY. Go, take hence that traitor from our sight,\n    For by his death we do perceive his guilt;\n    And God in justice hath reveal'd to us\n    The truth and innocence of this poor fellow,\n    Which he had thought to have murder'd wrongfully.\n    Come, fellow, follow us for thy reward.\n                                        Sound a flourish. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nLondon. A street\n\nEnter DUKE HUMPHREY and his men, in mourning cloaks\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Thus sometimes hath the brightest day a cloud,\n    And after summer evermore succeeds\n    Barren winter, with his wrathful nipping cold;\n    So cares and joys abound, as seasons fleet.\n    Sirs, what's o'clock?\n  SERVING-MAN. Ten, my lord.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ten is the hour that was appointed me\n    To watch the coming of my punish'd duchess.\n    Uneath may she endure the flinty streets\n    To tread them with her tender-feeling feet.\n    Sweet Nell, ill can thy noble mind abrook\n    The abject people gazing on thy face,\n    With envious looks, laughing at thy shame,\n    That erst did follow thy proud chariot wheels\n    When thou didst ride in triumph through the streets.\n    But, soft! I think she comes, and I'll prepare\n    My tear-stain'd eyes to see her miseries.\n\n          Enter the DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER in a white sheet,\n            and a taper burning in her hand, with SIR JOHN\n               STANLEY, the SHERIFF, and OFFICERS\n\n  SERVING-MAN. So please your Grace, we'll take her from the\nsheriff.\n  GLOUCESTER. No, stir not for your lives; let her pass by.\n  DUCHESS. Come you, my lord, to see my open shame?\n    Now thou dost penance too. Look how they gaze!\n    See how the giddy multitude do point\n    And nod their heads and throw their eyes on thee;\n    Ah, Gloucester, hide thee from their hateful looks,\n    And, in thy closet pent up, rue my shame\n    And ban thine enemies, both mine and thine!\n  GLOUCESTER. Be patient, gentle Nell; forget this grief.\n  DUCHESS. Ah, Gloucester, teach me to forget myself!\n    For whilst I think I am thy married wife\n    And thou a prince, Protector of this land,\n    Methinks I should not thus be led along,\n    Mail'd up in shame, with papers on my back,\n    And follow'd with a rabble that rejoice\n    To see my tears and hear my deep-fet groans.\n    The ruthless flint doth cut my tender feet,\n    And when I start, the envious people laugh\n    And bid me be advised how I tread.\n    Ah, Humphrey, can I bear this shameful yoke?\n    Trowest thou that e'er I'll look upon the world\n    Or count them happy that enjoy the sun?\n    No; dark shall be my light and night my day;\n    To think upon my pomp shall be my hell.\n    Sometimes I'll say I am Duke Humphrey's wife,\n    And he a prince, and ruler of the land;\n    Yet so he rul'd, and such a prince he was,\n    As he stood by whilst I, his forlorn duchess,\n    Was made a wonder and a pointing-stock\n    To every idle rascal follower.\n    But be thou mild, and blush not at my shame,\n    Nor stir at nothing till the axe of death\n    Hang over thee, as sure it shortly will.\n    For Suffolk- he that can do all in all\n    With her that hateth thee and hates us all-\n    And York, and impious Beaufort, that false priest,\n    Have all lim'd bushes to betray thy wings,\n    And, fly thou how thou canst, they'll tangle thee.\n    But fear not thou until thy foot be snar'd,\n    Nor never seek prevention of thy foes.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ah, Nell, forbear! Thou aimest all awry.\n    I must offend before I be attainted;\n    And had I twenty times so many foes,\n    And each of them had twenty times their power,\n    All these could not procure me any scathe\n    So long as I am loyal, true, and crimeless.\n    Wouldst have me rescue thee from this reproach?\n    Why, yet thy scandal were not wip'd away,\n    But I in danger for the breach of law.\n    Thy greatest help is quiet, gentle Nell.\n    I pray thee sort thy heart to patience;\n    These few days' wonder will be quickly worn.\n\n                          Enter a HERALD\n\n  HERALD. I summon your Grace to his Majesty's Parliament,\n    Holden at Bury the first of this next month.\n  GLOUCESTER. And my consent ne'er ask'd herein before!\n    This is close dealing. Well, I will be there.    Exit HERALD\n    My Nell, I take my leave- and, master sheriff,\n    Let not her penance exceed the King's commission.\n  SHERIFF. An't please your Grace, here my commission stays;\n    And Sir John Stanley is appointed now\n    To take her with him to the Isle of Man.\n  GLOUCESTER. Must you, Sir John, protect my lady here?\n  STANLEY. So am I given in charge, may't please your Grace.\n  GLOUCESTER. Entreat her not the worse in that I pray\n    You use her well; the world may laugh again,\n    And I may live to do you kindness if\n    You do it her. And so, Sir John, farewell.\n  DUCHESS. What, gone, my lord, and bid me not farewell!\n  GLOUCESTER. Witness my tears, I cannot stay to speak.\n                                  Exeunt GLOUCESTER and servants\n  DUCHESS. Art thou gone too? All comfort go with thee!\n    For none abides with me. My joy is death-\n    Death, at whose name I oft have been afeard,\n    Because I wish'd this world's eternity.\n    Stanley, I prithee go, and take me hence;\n    I care not whither, for I beg no favour,\n    Only convey me where thou art commanded.\n  STANLEY. Why, madam, that is to the Isle of Man,\n    There to be us'd according to your state.\n  DUCHESS. That's bad enough, for I am but reproach-\n    And shall I then be us'd reproachfully?\n  STANLEY. Like to a duchess and Duke Humphrey's lady;\n    According to that state you shall be us'd.\n  DUCHESS. Sheriff, farewell, and better than I fare,\n    Although thou hast been conduct of my shame.\n  SHERIFF. It is my office; and, madam, pardon me.\n  DUCHESS. Ay, ay, farewell; thy office is discharg'd.\n    Come, Stanley, shall we go?\n  STANLEY. Madam, your penance done, throw off this sheet,\n    And go we to attire you for our journey.\n  DUCHESS. My shame will not be shifted with my sheet.\n    No, it will hang upon my richest robes\n    And show itself, attire me how I can.\n    Go, lead the way; I long to see my prison.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nThe Abbey at Bury St. Edmunds\n\nSound a sennet. Enter the KING, the QUEEN, CARDINAL, SUFFOLK,\nYORK,\nBUCKINGHAM, SALISBURY, and WARWICK, to the Parliament\n\n  KING HENRY. I muse my Lord of Gloucester is not come.\n    'Tis not his wont to be the hindmost man,\n    Whate'er occasion keeps him from us now.\n  QUEEN. Can you not see, or will ye not observe\n    The strangeness of his alter'd countenance?\n    With what a majesty he bears himself;\n    How insolent of late he is become,\n    How proud, how peremptory, and unlike himself?\n    We know the time since he was mild and affable,\n    And if we did but glance a far-off look\n    Immediately he was upon his knee,\n    That all the court admir'd him for submission.\n    But meet him now and be it in the morn,\n    When every one will give the time of day,\n    He knits his brow and shows an angry eye\n    And passeth by with stiff unbowed knee,\n    Disdaining duty that to us belongs.\n    Small curs are not regarded when they grin,\n    But great men tremble when the lion roars,\n    And Humphrey is no little man in England.\n    First note that he is near you in descent,\n    And should you fall he is the next will mount;\n    Me seemeth, then, it is no policy-\n    Respecting what a rancorous mind he bears,\n    And his advantage following your decease-\n    That he should come about your royal person\n    Or be admitted to your Highness' Council.\n    By flattery hath he won the commons' hearts;\n    And when he please to make commotion,\n    'Tis to be fear'd they all will follow him.\n    Now 'tis the spring, and weeds are shallow-rooted;\n    Suffer them now, and they'll o'ergrow the garden\n    And choke the herbs for want of husbandry.\n    The reverent care I bear unto my lord\n    Made me collect these dangers in the Duke.\n    If it be fond, can it a woman's fear;\n    Which fear if better reasons can supplant,\n    I will subscribe, and say I wrong'd the Duke.\n    My Lord of Suffolk, Buckingham, and York,\n    Reprove my allegation if you can,\n    Or else conclude my words effectual.\n  SUFFOLK. Well hath your Highness seen into this duke;\n    And had I first been put to speak my mind,\n    I think I should have told your Grace's tale.\n    The Duchess, by his subornation,\n    Upon my life, began her devilish practices;\n    Or if he were not privy to those faults,\n    Yet by reputing of his high descent-\n    As next the King he was successive heir-\n    And such high vaunts of his nobility,\n    Did instigate the bedlam brainsick Duchess\n    By wicked means to frame our sovereign's fall.\n    Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep,\n    And in his simple show he harbours treason.\n    The fox barks not when he would steal the lamb.\n    No, no, my sovereign, Gloucester is a man\n    Unsounded yet, and full of deep deceit.\n  CARDINAL. Did he not, contrary to form of law,\n    Devise strange deaths for small offences done?\n  YORK. And did he not, in his protectorship,\n    Levy great sums of money through the realm\n    For soldiers' pay in France, and never sent it?\n    By means whereof the towns each day revolted.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Tut, these are petty faults to faults unknown\n    Which time will bring to light in smooth Duke Humphrey.\n  KING HENRY. My lords, at once: the care you have of us,\n    To mow down thorns that would annoy our foot,\n    Is worthy praise; but shall I speak my conscience?\n    Our kinsman Gloucester is as innocent\n    From meaning treason to our royal person\n    As is the sucking lamb or harmless dove:\n    The Duke is virtuous, mild, and too well given\n    To dream on evil or to work my downfall.\n  QUEEN. Ah, what's more dangerous than this fond affiance?\n    Seems he a dove? His feathers are but borrow'd,\n    For he's disposed as the hateful raven.\n    Is he a lamb? His skin is surely lent him,\n    For he's inclin'd as is the ravenous wolf.\n    Who cannot steal a shape that means deceit?\n    Take heed, my lord; the welfare of us all\n    Hangs on the cutting short that fraudful man.\n\n                          Enter SOMERSET\n\n  SOMERSET. All health unto my gracious sovereign!\n  KING HENRY. Welcome, Lord Somerset. What news from France?\n  SOMERSET. That all your interest in those territories\n    Is utterly bereft you; all is lost.\n  KING HENRY. Cold news, Lord Somerset; but God's will be done!\n  YORK. [Aside] Cold news for me; for I had hope of France\n    As firmly as I hope for fertile England.\n    Thus are my blossoms blasted in the bud,\n    And caterpillars eat my leaves away;\n    But I will remedy this gear ere long,\n    Or sell my title for a glorious grave.\n\n                         Enter GLOUCESTER\n\n  GLOUCESTER. All happiness unto my lord the King!\n    Pardon, my liege, that I have stay'd so long.\n  SUFFOLK. Nay, Gloucester, know that thou art come too soon,\n    Unless thou wert more loyal than thou art.\n    I do arrest thee of high treason here.\n  GLOUCESTER. Well, Suffolk, thou shalt not see me blush\n    Nor change my countenance for this arrest:\n    A heart unspotted is not easily daunted.\n    The purest spring is not so free from mud\n    As I am clear from treason to my sovereign.\n    Who can accuse me? Wherein am I guilty?\n  YORK. 'Tis thought, my lord, that you took bribes of France\n    And, being Protector, stay'd the soldiers' pay;\n    By means whereof his Highness hath lost France.\n  GLOUCESTER. Is it but thought so? What are they that think it?\n    I never robb'd the soldiers of their pay\n    Nor ever had one penny bribe from France.\n    So help me God, as I have watch'd the night-\n    Ay, night by night- in studying good for England!\n    That doit that e'er I wrested from the King,\n    Or any groat I hoarded to my use,\n    Be brought against me at my trial-day!\n    No; many a pound of mine own proper store,\n    Because I would not tax the needy commons,\n    Have I dispursed to the garrisons,\n    And never ask'd for restitution.\n  CARDINAL. It serves you well, my lord, to say so much.\n  GLOUCESTER. I say no more than truth, so help me God!\n  YORK. In your protectorship you did devise\n    Strange tortures for offenders, never heard of,\n    That England was defam'd by tyranny.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, 'tis well known that whiles I was Protector\n    Pity was all the fault that was in me;\n    For I should melt at an offender's tears,\n    And lowly words were ransom for their fault.\n    Unless it were a bloody murderer,\n    Or foul felonious thief that fleec'd poor passengers,\n    I never gave them condign punishment.\n    Murder indeed, that bloody sin, I tortur'd\n    Above the felon or what trespass else.\n  SUFFOLK. My lord, these faults are easy, quickly answer'd;\n    But mightier crimes are laid unto your charge,\n    Whereof you cannot easily purge yourself.\n    I do arrest you in His Highness' name,\n    And here commit you to my Lord Cardinal\n    To keep until your further time of trial.\n  KING HENRY. My Lord of Gloucester, 'tis my special hope\n    That you will clear yourself from all suspense.\n    My conscience tells me you are innocent.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ah, gracious lord, these days are dangerous!\n    Virtue is chok'd with foul ambition,\n    And charity chas'd hence by rancour's hand;\n    Foul subornation is predominant,\n    And equity exil'd your Highness' land.\n    I know their complot is to have my life;\n    And if my death might make this island happy\n    And prove the period of their tyranny,\n    I would expend it with all willingness.\n    But mine is made the prologue to their play;\n    For thousands more that yet suspect no peril\n    Will not conclude their plotted tragedy.\n    Beaufort's red sparkling eyes blab his heart's malice,\n    And Suffolk's cloudy brow his stormy hate;\n    Sharp Buckingham unburdens with his tongue\n    The envious load that lies upon his heart;\n    And dogged York, that reaches at the moon,\n    Whose overweening arm I have pluck'd back,\n    By false accuse doth level at my life.\n    And you, my sovereign lady, with the rest,\n    Causeless have laid disgraces on my head,\n    And with your best endeavour have stirr'd up\n    My liefest liege to be mine enemy;\n    Ay, all of you have laid your heads together-\n    Myself had notice of your conventicles-\n    And all to make away my guiltless life.\n    I shall not want false witness to condemn me\n    Nor store of treasons to augment my guilt.\n    The ancient proverb will be well effected:\n    'A staff is quickly found to beat a dog.'\n  CARDINAL. My liege, his railing is intolerable.\n    If those that care to keep your royal person\n    From treason's secret knife and traitor's rage\n    Be thus upbraided, chid, and rated at,\n    And the offender granted scope of speech,\n    'Twill make them cool in zeal unto your Grace.\n  SUFFOLK. Hath he not twit our sovereign lady here\n    With ignominious words, though clerkly couch'd,\n    As if she had suborned some to swear\n    False allegations to o'erthrow his state?\n  QUEEN. But I can give the loser leave to chide.\n  GLOUCESTER. Far truer spoke than meant: I lose indeed.\n    Beshrew the winners, for they play'd me false!\n    And well such losers may have leave to speak.\n  BUCKINGHAM. He'll wrest the sense, and hold us here all day.\n    Lord Cardinal, he is your prisoner.\n  CARDINAL. Sirs, take away the Duke, and guard him sure.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ah, thus King Henry throws away his crutch\n    Before his legs be firm to bear his body!\n    Thus is the shepherd beaten from thy side,\n    And wolves are gnarling who shall gnaw thee first.\n    Ah, that my fear were false! ah, that it were!\n    For, good King Henry, thy decay I fear.        Exit, guarded\n  KING HENRY. My lords, what to your wisdoms seemeth best\n    Do or undo, as if ourself were here.\n  QUEEN. What, will your Highness leave the Parliament?\n  KING HENRY. Ay, Margaret; my heart is drown'd with grief,\n    Whose flood begins to flow within mine eyes;\n    My body round engirt with misery-\n    For what's more miserable than discontent?\n    Ah, uncle Humphrey, in thy face I see\n    The map of honour, truth, and loyalty!\n    And yet, good Humphrey, is the hour to come\n    That e'er I prov'd thee false or fear'd thy faith.\n    What louring star now envies thy estate\n    That these great lords, and Margaret our Queen,\n    Do seek subversion of thy harmless life?\n    Thou never didst them wrong, nor no man wrong;\n    And as the butcher takes away the calf,\n    And binds the wretch, and beats it when it strays,\n    Bearing it to the bloody slaughter-house,\n    Even so, remorseless, have they borne him hence;\n    And as the dam runs lowing up and down,\n    Looking the way her harmless young one went,\n    And can do nought but wail her darling's loss,\n    Even so myself bewails good Gloucester's case\n    With sad unhelpful tears, and with dimm'd eyes\n    Look after him, and cannot do him good,\n    So mighty are his vowed enemies.\n    His fortunes I will weep, and 'twixt each groan\n    Say 'Who's a traitor? Gloucester he is none.'           Exit\n  QUEEN. Free lords, cold snow melts with the sun's hot beams:\n    Henry my lord is cold in great affairs,\n    Too full of foolish pity; and Gloucester's show\n    Beguiles him as the mournful crocodile\n    With sorrow snares relenting passengers;\n    Or as the snake, roll'd in a flow'ring bank,\n    With shining checker'd slough, doth sting a child\n    That for the beauty thinks it excellent.\n    Believe me, lords, were none more wise than I-\n    And yet herein I judge mine own wit good-\n    This Gloucester should be quickly rid the world\n    To rid us from the fear we have of him.\n  CARDINAL. That he should die is worthy policy;\n    But yet we want a colour for his death.\n    'Tis meet he be condemn'd by course of law.\n  SUFFOLK. But, in my mind, that were no policy:\n    The King will labour still to save his life;\n    The commons haply rise to save his life;\n    And yet we have but trivial argument,\n    More than mistrust, that shows him worthy death.\n  YORK. So that, by this, you would not have him die.\n  SUFFOLK. Ah, York, no man alive so fain as I!\n  YORK. 'Tis York that hath more reason for his death.\n    But, my Lord Cardinal, and you, my Lord of Suffolk,\n    Say as you think, and speak it from your souls:\n    Were't not all one an empty eagle were set\n    To guard the chicken from a hungry kite\n    As place Duke Humphrey for the King's Protector?\n  QUEEN. So the poor chicken should be sure of death.\n  SUFFOLK. Madam, 'tis true; and were't not madness then\n    To make the fox surveyor of the fold?\n    Who being accus'd a crafty murderer,\n    His guilt should be but idly posted over,\n    Because his purpose is not executed.\n    No; let him die, in that he is a fox,\n    By nature prov'd an enemy to the flock,\n    Before his chaps be stain'd with crimson blood,\n    As Humphrey, prov'd by reasons, to my liege.\n    And do not stand on quillets how to slay him;\n    Be it by gins, by snares, by subtlety,\n    Sleeping or waking, 'tis no matter how,\n    So he be dead; for that is good deceit\n    Which mates him first that first intends deceit.\n  QUEEN. Thrice-noble Suffolk, 'tis resolutely spoke.\n  SUFFOLK. Not resolute, except so much were done,\n    For things are often spoke and seldom meant;\n    But that my heart accordeth with my tongue,\n    Seeing the deed is meritorious,\n    And to preserve my sovereign from his foe,\n    Say but the word, and I will be his priest.\n  CARDINAL. But I would have him dead, my Lord of Suffolk,\n    Ere you can take due orders for a priest;\n    Say you consent and censure well the deed,\n    And I'll provide his executioner-\n    I tender so the safety of my liege.\n  SUFFOLK. Here is my hand the deed is worthy doing.\n  QUEEN. And so say I.\n  YORK. And I. And now we three have spoke it,\n    It skills not greatly who impugns our doom.\n\n                          Enter a POST\n\n  POST. Great lords, from Ireland am I come amain\n    To signify that rebels there are up\n    And put the Englishmen unto the sword.\n    Send succours, lords, and stop the rage betime,\n    Before the wound do grow uncurable;\n    For, being green, there is great hope of help.\n  CARDINAL. A breach that craves a quick expedient stop!\n    What counsel give you in this weighty cause?\n  YORK. That Somerset be sent as Regent thither;\n    'Tis meet that lucky ruler be employ'd,\n    Witness the fortune he hath had in France.\n  SOMERSET. If York, with all his far-fet policy,\n    Had been the Regent there instead of me,\n    He never would have stay'd in France so long.\n  YORK. No, not to lose it all as thou hast done.\n    I rather would have lost my life betimes\n    Than bring a burden of dishonour home\n    By staying there so long till all were lost.\n    Show me one scar character'd on thy skin:\n    Men's flesh preserv'd so whole do seldom win.\n  QUEEN. Nay then, this spark will prove a raging fire,\n    If wind and fuel be brought to feed it with;\n    No more, good York; sweet Somerset, be still.\n    Thy fortune, York, hadst thou been Regent there,\n    Might happily have prov'd far worse than his.\n  YORK. What, worse than nought? Nay, then a shame take all!\n  SOMERSET. And in the number, thee that wishest shame!\n  CARDINAL. My Lord of York, try what your fortune is.\n    Th' uncivil kerns of Ireland are in arms\n    And temper clay with blood of Englishmen;\n    To Ireland will you lead a band of men,\n    Collected choicely, from each county some,\n    And try your hap against the Irishmen?\n  YORK. I will, my lord, so please his Majesty.\n  SUFFOLK. Why, our authority is his consent,\n    And what we do establish he confirms;\n    Then, noble York, take thou this task in hand.\n  YORK. I am content; provide me soldiers, lords,\n    Whiles I take order for mine own affairs.\n  SUFFOLK. A charge, Lord York, that I will see perform'd.\n    But now return we to the false Duke Humphrey.\n  CARDINAL. No more of him; for I will deal with him\n    That henceforth he shall trouble us no more.\n    And so break off; the day is almost spent.\n    Lord Suffolk, you and I must talk of that event.\n  YORK. My Lord of Suffolk, within fourteen days\n    At Bristol I expect my soldiers;\n    For there I'll ship them all for Ireland.\n  SUFFOLK. I'll see it truly done, my Lord of York.\n                                             Exeunt all but YORK\n  YORK. Now, York, or never, steel thy fearful thoughts\n    And change misdoubt to resolution;\n    Be that thou hop'st to be; or what thou art\n    Resign to death- it is not worth th' enjoying.\n    Let pale-fac'd fear keep with the mean-born man\n    And find no harbour in a royal heart.\n    Faster than spring-time show'rs comes thought on thought,\n    And not a thought but thinks on dignity.\n    My brain, more busy than the labouring spider,\n    Weaves tedious snares to trap mine enemies.\n    Well, nobles, well, 'tis politicly done\n    To send me packing with an host of men.\n    I fear me you but warm the starved snake,\n    Who, cherish'd in your breasts, will sting your hearts.\n    'Twas men I lack'd, and you will give them me;\n    I take it kindly. Yet be well assur'd\n    You put sharp weapons in a madman's hands.\n    Whiles I in Ireland nourish a mighty band,\n    I will stir up in England some black storm\n    Shall blow ten thousand souls to heaven or hell;\n    And this fell tempest shall not cease to rage\n    Until the golden circuit on my head,\n    Like to the glorious sun's transparent beams,\n    Do calm the fury of this mad-bred flaw.\n    And for a minister of my intent\n    I have seduc'd a headstrong Kentishman,\n    John Cade of Ashford,\n    To make commotion, as full well he can,\n    Under the tide of John Mortimer.\n    In Ireland have I seen this stubborn Cade\n    Oppose himself against a troop of kerns,\n    And fought so long tiff that his thighs with darts\n    Were almost like a sharp-quill'd porpentine;\n    And in the end being rescu'd, I have seen\n    Him caper upright like a wild Morisco,\n    Shaking the bloody darts as he his bells.\n    Full often, like a shag-hair'd crafty kern,\n    Hath he conversed with the enemy,\n    And undiscover'd come to me again\n    And given me notice of their villainies.\n    This devil here shall be my substitute;\n    For that John Mortimer, which now is dead,\n    In face, in gait, in speech, he doth resemble.\n    By this I shall perceive the commons' mind,\n    How they affect the house and claim of York.\n    Say he be taken, rack'd, and tortured;\n    I know no pain they can inflict upon him\n    Will make him say I mov'd him to those arms.\n    Say that he thrive, as 'tis great like he will,\n    Why, then from Ireland come I with my strength,\n    And reap the harvest which that rascal sow'd;\n    For Humphrey being dead, as he shall be,\n    And Henry put apart, the next for me.                   Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBury St. Edmunds. A room of state\n\nEnter two or three MURDERERS running over the stage,\nfrom the murder of DUKE HUMPHREY\n\n  FIRST MURDERER. Run to my Lord of Suffolk; let him know\n    We have dispatch'd the Duke, as he commanded.\n  SECOND MURDERER. O that it were to do! What have we done?\n    Didst ever hear a man so penitent?\n\n                           Enter SUFFOLK\n\n  FIRST MURDERER. Here comes my lord.\n  SUFFOLK. Now, sirs, have you dispatch'd this thing?\n  FIRST MURDERER. Ay, my good lord, he's dead.\n  SUFFOLK. Why, that's well said. Go, get you to my house;\n    I will reward you for this venturous deed.\n    The King and all the peers are here at hand.\n    Have you laid fair the bed? Is all things well,\n    According as I gave directions?\n  FIRST MURDERER. 'Tis, my good lord.\n  SUFFOLK. Away! be gone.                       Exeunt MURDERERS\n\n             Sound trumpets. Enter the KING, the QUEEN,\n                CARDINAL, SOMERSET, with attendants\n\n  KING HENRY. Go call our uncle to our presence straight;\n    Say we intend to try his Grace to-day,\n    If he be guilty, as 'tis published.\n  SUFFOLK. I'll call him presently, my noble lord.          Exit\n  KING HENRY. Lords, take your places; and, I pray you all,\n    Proceed no straiter 'gainst our uncle Gloucester\n    Than from true evidence, of good esteem,\n    He be approv'd in practice culpable.\n  QUEEN. God forbid any malice should prevail\n    That faultless may condemn a nobleman!\n    Pray God he may acquit him of suspicion!\n  KING HENRY. I thank thee, Meg; these words content me much.\n\n                           Re-enter SUFFOLK\n\n    How now! Why look'st thou pale? Why tremblest thou?\n    Where is our uncle? What's the matter, Suffolk?\n  SUFFOLK. Dead in his bed, my lord; Gloucester is dead.\n  QUEEN. Marry, God forfend!\n  CARDINAL. God's secret judgment! I did dream to-night\n    The Duke was dumb and could not speak a word.\n                                               [The KING swoons]\n  QUEEN. How fares my lord? Help, lords! The King is dead.\n  SOMERSET. Rear up his body; wring him by the nose.\n  QUEEN. Run, go, help, help! O Henry, ope thine eyes!\n  SUFFOLK. He doth revive again; madam, be patient.\n  KING. O heavenly God!\n  QUEEN. How fares my gracious lord?\n  SUFFOLK. Comfort, my sovereign! Gracious Henry, comfort!\n  KING HENRY. What, doth my Lord of Suffolk comfort me?\n    Came he right now to sing a raven's note,\n    Whose dismal tune bereft my vital pow'rs;\n    And thinks he that the chirping of a wren,\n    By crying comfort from a hollow breast,\n    Can chase away the first conceived sound?\n    Hide not thy poison with such sug'red words;\n    Lay not thy hands on me; forbear, I say,\n    Their touch affrights me as a serpent's sting.\n    Thou baleful messenger, out of my sight!\n    Upon thy eye-balls murderous tyranny\n    Sits in grim majesty to fright the world.\n    Look not upon me, for thine eyes are wounding;\n    Yet do not go away; come, basilisk,\n    And kill the innocent gazer with thy sight;\n    For in the shade of death I shall find joy-\n    In life but double death,'now Gloucester's dead.\n  QUEEN. Why do you rate my Lord of Suffolk thus?\n    Although the Duke was enemy to him,\n    Yet he most Christian-like laments his death;\n    And for myself- foe as he was to me-\n    Might liquid tears, or heart-offending groans,\n    Or blood-consuming sighs, recall his life,\n    I would be blind with weeping, sick with groans,\n    Look pale as primrose with blood-drinking sighs,\n    And all to have the noble Duke alive.\n    What know I how the world may deem of me?\n    For it is known we were but hollow friends:\n    It may be judg'd I made the Duke away;\n    So shall my name with slander's tongue be wounded,\n    And princes' courts be fill'd with my reproach.\n    This get I by his death. Ay me, unhappy!\n    To be a queen and crown'd with infamy!\n  KING HENRY. Ah, woe is me for Gloucester, wretched man!\n  QUEEN. Be woe for me, more wretched than he is.\n    What, dost thou turn away, and hide thy face?\n    I am no loathsome leper- look on me.\n    What, art thou like the adder waxen deaf?\n    Be poisonous too, and kill thy forlorn Queen.\n    Is all thy comfort shut in Gloucester's tomb?\n    Why, then Dame Margaret was ne'er thy joy.\n    Erect his statue and worship it,\n    And make my image but an alehouse sign.\n    Was I for this nigh wreck'd upon the sea,\n    And twice by awkward wind from England's bank\n    Drove back again unto my native clime?\n    What boded this but well-forewarning wind\n    Did seem to say 'Seek not a scorpion's nest,\n    Nor set no footing on this unkind shore'?\n    What did I then but curs'd the gentle gusts,\n    And he that loos'd them forth their brazen caves;\n    And bid them blow towards England's blessed shore,\n    Or turn our stern upon a dreadful rock?\n    Yet Aeolus would not be a murderer,\n    But left that hateful office unto thee.\n    The pretty-vaulting sea refus'd to drown me,\n    Knowing that thou wouldst have me drown'd on shore\n    With tears as salt as sea through thy unkindness;\n    The splitting rocks cow'r'd in the sinking sands\n    And would not dash me with their ragged sides,\n    Because thy flinty heart, more hard than they,\n    Might in thy palace perish Margaret.\n    As far as I could ken thy chalky cliffs,\n    When from thy shore the tempest beat us back,\n    I stood upon the hatches in the storm;\n    And when the dusky sky began to rob\n    My earnest-gaping sight of thy land's view,\n    I took a costly jewel from my neck-\n    A heart it was, bound in with diamonds-\n    And threw it towards thy land. The sea receiv'd it;\n    And so I wish'd thy body might my heart.\n    And even with this I lost fair England's view,\n    And bid mine eyes be packing with my heart,\n    And call'd them blind and dusky spectacles\n    For losing ken of Albion's wished coast.\n    How often have I tempted Suffolk's tongue-\n    The agent of thy foul inconstancy-\n    To sit and witch me, as Ascanius did\n    When he to madding Dido would unfold\n    His father's acts commenc'd in burning Troy!\n    Am I not witch'd like her? Or thou not false like him?\n    Ay me, I can no more! Die, Margaret,\n    For Henry weeps that thou dost live so long.\n\n               Noise within. Enter WARWICK, SALISBURY,\n                          and many commons\n\n  WARWICK. It is reported, mighty sovereign,\n    That good Duke Humphrey traitorously is murd'red\n    By Suffolk and the Cardinal Beaufort's means.\n    The commons, like an angry hive of bees\n    That want their leader, scatter up and down\n    And care not who they sting in his revenge.\n    Myself have calm'd their spleenful mutiny\n    Until they hear the order of his death.\n  KING HENRY. That he is dead, good Warwick, 'tis too true;\n    But how he died God knows, not Henry.\n    Enter his chamber, view his breathless corpse,\n    And comment then upon his sudden death.\n  WARWICK. That shall I do, my liege. Stay, Salisbury,\n    With the rude multitude till I return.                  Exit\n                                   Exit SALISBURY with the\ncommons\n  KING HENRY. O Thou that judgest all things, stay my thoughts-\n    My thoughts that labour to persuade my soul\n    Some violent hands were laid on Humphrey's life!\n    If my suspect be false, forgive me, God;\n    For judgment only doth belong to Thee.\n    Fain would I go to chafe his paly lips\n    With twenty thousand kisses and to drain\n    Upon his face an ocean of salt tears\n    To tell my love unto his dumb deaf trunk;\n    And with my fingers feel his hand un-feeling;\n    But all in vain are these mean obsequies;\n    And to survey his dead and earthy image,\n    What were it but to make my sorrow greater?\n\n               Bed put forth with the body. Enter WARWICK\n\n  WARWICK. Come hither, gracious sovereign, view this body.\n  KING HENRY. That is to see how deep my grave is made;\n    For with his soul fled all my worldly solace,\n    For, seeing him, I see my life in death.\n  WARWICK. As surely as my soul intends to live\n    With that dread King that took our state upon Him\n    To free us from his Father's wrathful curse,\n    I do believe that violent hands were laid\n    Upon the life of this thrice-famed Duke.\n  SUFFOLK. A dreadful oath, sworn with a solemn tongue!\n    What instance gives Lord Warwick for his vow?\n  WARWICK. See how the blood is settled in his face.\n    Oft have I seen a timely-parted ghost,\n    Of ashy semblance, meagre, pale, and bloodless,\n    Being all descended to the labouring heart,\n    Who, in the conflict that it holds with death,\n    Attracts the same for aidance 'gainst the enemy,\n    Which with the heart there cools, and ne'er returneth\n    To blush and beautify the cheek again.\n    But see, his face is black and full of blood;\n    His eye-balls further out than when he liv'd,\n    Staring full ghastly like a strangled man;\n    His hair uprear'd, his nostrils stretch'd with struggling;\n    His hands abroad display'd, as one that grasp'd\n    And tugg'd for life, and was by strength subdu'd.\n    Look, on the sheets his hair, you see, is sticking;\n    His well-proportion'd beard made rough and rugged,\n    Like to the summer's corn by tempest lodged.\n    It cannot be but he was murd'red here:\n    The least of all these signs were probable.\n  SUFFOLK. Why, Warwick, who should do the Duke to death?\n    Myself and Beaufort had him in protection;\n    And we, I hope, sir, are no murderers.\n  WARWICK. But both of you were vow'd Duke Humphrey's foes;\n    And you, forsooth, had the good Duke to keep.\n    'Tis like you would not feast him like a friend;\n    And 'tis well seen he found an enemy.\n  QUEEN. Then you, belike, suspect these noblemen\n    As guilty of Duke Humphrey's timeless death.\n  WARWICK. Who finds the heifer dead and bleeding fresh,\n    And sees fast by a butcher with an axe,\n    But will suspect 'twas he that made the slaughter?\n    Who finds the partridge in the puttock's nest\n    But may imagine how the bird was dead,\n    Although the kite soar with unbloodied beak?\n    Even so suspicious is this tragedy.\n  QUEEN. Are you the butcher, Suffolk? Where's your knife?\n    Is Beaufort term'd a kite? Where are his talons?\n  SUFFOLK. I wear no knife to slaughter sleeping men;\n    But here's a vengeful sword, rusted with ease,\n    That shall be scoured in his rancorous heart\n    That slanders me with murder's crimson badge.\n    Say if thou dar'st, proud Lord of Warwickshire,\n    That I am faulty in Duke Humphrey's death.\n                           Exeunt CARDINAL, SOMERSET, and others\n  WARWICK. What dares not Warwick, if false Suffolk dare him?\n  QUEEN. He dares not calm his contumelious spirit,\n    Nor cease to be an arrogant controller,\n    Though Suffolk dare him twenty thousand times.\n  WARWICK. Madam, be still- with reverence may I say;\n    For every word you speak in his behalf\n    Is slander to your royal dignity.\n  SUFFOLK. Blunt-witted lord, ignoble in demeanour,\n    If ever lady wrong'd her lord so much,\n    Thy mother took into her blameful bed\n    Some stern untutor'd churl, and noble stock\n    Was graft with crab-tree slip, whose fruit thou art,\n    And never of the Nevils' noble race.\n  WARWICK. But that the guilt of murder bucklers thee,\n    And I should rob the deathsman of his fee,\n    Quitting thee thereby of ten thousand shames,\n    And that my sovereign's presence makes me mild,\n    I would, false murd'rous coward, on thy knee\n    Make thee beg pardon for thy passed speech\n    And say it was thy mother that thou meant'st,\n    That thou thyself was born in bastardy;\n    And, after all this fearful homage done,\n    Give thee thy hire and send thy soul to hell,\n    Pernicious blood-sucker of sleeping men.\n  SUFFOLK. Thou shalt be waking while I shed thy blood,\n    If from this presence thou dar'st go with me.\n  WARWICK. Away even now, or I will drag thee hence.\n    Unworthy though thou art, I'll cope with thee,\n    And do some service to Duke Humphrey's ghost.\n                                      Exeunt SUFFOLK and WARWICK\n  KING HENRY. What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted?\n    Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just;\n    And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel,\n    Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.\n                                                [A noise within]\n  QUEEN. What noise is this?\n\n       Re-enter SUFFOLK and WARWICK, with their weapons drawn\n\n  KING. Why, how now, lords, your wrathful weapons drawn\n    Here in our presence! Dare you be so bold?\n    Why, what tumultuous clamour have we here?\n  SUFFOLK. The trait'rous Warwick, with the men of Bury,\n    Set all upon me, mighty sovereign.\n\n                        Re-enter SALISBURY\n\n  SALISBURY. [To the Commons within] Sirs, stand apart, the King\n      shall know your mind.\n    Dread lord, the commons send you word by me\n    Unless Lord Suffolk straight be done to death,\n    Or banished fair England's territories,\n    They will by violence tear him from your palace\n    And torture him with grievous ling'ring death.\n    They say by him the good Duke Humphrey died;\n    They say in him they fear your Highness' death;\n    And mere instinct of love and loyalty,\n    Free from a stubborn opposite intent,\n    As being thought to contradict your liking,\n    Makes them thus forward in his banishment.\n    They say, in care of your most royal person,\n    That if your Highness should intend to sleep\n    And charge that no man should disturb your rest,\n    In pain of your dislike or pain of death,\n    Yet, notwithstanding such a strait edict,\n    Were there a serpent seen with forked tongue\n    That slily glided towards your Majesty,\n    It were but necessary you were wak'd,\n    Lest, being suffer'd in that harmful slumber,\n    The mortal worm might make the sleep eternal.\n    And therefore do they cry, though you forbid,\n    That they will guard you, whe'er you will or no,\n    From such fell serpents as false Suffolk is;\n    With whose envenomed and fatal sting\n    Your loving uncle, twenty times his worth,\n    They say, is shamefully bereft of life.\n  COMMONS. [Within] An answer from the King, my Lord of\nSalisbury!\n  SUFFOLK. 'Tis like the commons, rude unpolish'd hinds,\n    Could send such message to their sovereign;\n    But you, my lord, were glad to be employ'd,\n    To show how quaint an orator you are.\n    But all the honour Salisbury hath won\n    Is that he was the lord ambassador\n    Sent from a sort of tinkers to the King.\n  COMMONS. [Within] An answer from the King, or we will all break\nin!\n  KING HENRY. Go, Salisbury, and tell them all from me\n    I thank them for their tender loving care;\n    And had I not been cited so by them,\n    Yet did I purpose as they do entreat;\n    For sure my thoughts do hourly prophesy\n    Mischance unto my state by Suffolk's means.\n    And therefore by His Majesty I swear,\n    Whose far unworthy deputy I am,\n    He shall not breathe infection in this air\n    But three days longer, on the pain of death.\n                                                  Exit SALISBURY\n  QUEEN. O Henry, let me plead for gentle Suffolk!\n  KING HENRY. Ungentle Queen, to call him gentle Suffolk!\n    No more, I say; if thou dost plead for him,\n    Thou wilt but add increase unto my wrath.\n    Had I but said, I would have kept my word;\n    But when I swear, it is irrevocable.\n    If after three days' space thou here be'st found\n    On any ground that I am ruler of,\n    The world shall not be ransom for thy life.\n    Come, Warwick, come, good Warwick, go with me;\n    I have great matters to impart to thee.\n                                Exeunt all but QUEEN and SUFFOLK\n  QUEEN. Mischance and sorrow go along with you!\n    Heart's discontent and sour affliction\n    Be playfellows to keep you company!\n    There's two of you; the devil make a third,\n    And threefold vengeance tend upon your steps!\n  SUFFOLK. Cease, gentle Queen, these execrations,\n    And let thy Suffolk take his heavy leave.\n  QUEEN. Fie, coward woman and soft-hearted wretch,\n    Has thou not spirit to curse thine enemy?\n  SUFFOLK. A plague upon them! Wherefore should I curse them?\n    Would curses kill as doth the mandrake's groan,\n    I would invent as bitter searching terms,\n    As curst, as harsh, and horrible to hear,\n    Deliver'd strongly through my fixed teeth,\n    With full as many signs of deadly hate,\n    As lean-fac'd Envy in her loathsome cave.\n    My tongue should stumble in mine earnest words,\n    Mine eyes should sparkle like the beaten flint,\n    Mine hair be fix'd an end, as one distract;\n    Ay, every joint should seem to curse and ban;\n    And even now my burden'd heart would break,\n    Should I not curse them. Poison be their drink!\n    Gall, worse than gall, the daintiest that they taste!\n    Their sweetest shade a grove of cypress trees!\n    Their chiefest prospect murd'ring basilisks!\n    Their softest touch as smart as lizards' stings!\n    Their music frightful as the serpent's hiss,\n    And boding screech-owls make the consort full!\n    all the foul terrors in dark-seated hell-\n  QUEEN. Enough, sweet Suffolk, thou torment'st thyself;\n    And these dread curses, like the sun 'gainst glass,\n    Or like an overcharged gun, recoil,\n    And turns the force of them upon thyself.\n  SUFFOLK. You bade me ban, and will you bid me leave?\n    Now, by the ground that I am banish'd from,\n    Well could I curse away a winter's night,\n    Though standing naked on a mountain top\n    Where biting cold would never let grass grow,\n    And think it but a minute spent in sport.\n  QUEEN. O, let me entreat thee cease! Give me thy hand,\n    That I may dew it with my mournful tears;\n    Nor let the rain of heaven wet this place\n    To wash away my woeful monuments.\n    O, could this kiss be printed in thy hand,\n    That thou might'st think upon these by the seal,\n    Through whom a thousand sighs are breath'd for thee!\n    So, get thee gone, that I may know my grief;\n    'Tis but surmis'd whiles thou art standing by,\n    As one that surfeits thinking on a want.\n    I will repeal thee or, be well assur'd,\n    Adventure to be banished myself;\n    And banished I am, if but from thee.\n    Go, speak not to me; even now be gone.\n    O, go not yet! Even thus two friends condemn'd\n    Embrace, and kiss, and take ten thousand leaves,\n    Loather a hundred times to part than die.\n    Yet now, farewell; and farewell life with thee!\n  SUFFOLK. Thus is poor Suffolk ten times banished,\n    Once by the King and three times thrice by thee,\n    'Tis not the land I care for, wert thou thence;\n    A wilderness is populous enough,\n    So Suffolk had thy heavenly company;\n    For where thou art, there is the world itself,\n    With every several pleasure in the world;\n    And where thou art not, desolation.\n    I can no more: Live thou to joy thy life;\n    Myself no joy in nought but that thou liv'st.\n\n                           Enter VAUX\n\n  QUEEN. Whither goes Vaux so fast? What news, I prithee?\n  VAUX. To signify unto his Majesty\n    That Cardinal Beaufort is at point of death;\n    For suddenly a grievous sickness took him\n    That makes him gasp, and stare, and catch the air,\n    Blaspheming God, and cursing men on earth.\n    Sometime he talks as if Duke Humphrey's ghost\n    Were by his side; sometime he calls the King\n    And whispers to his pillow, as to him,\n    The secrets of his overcharged soul;\n    And I am sent to tell his Majesty\n    That even now he cries aloud for him.\n  QUEEN. Go tell this heavy message to the King.       Exit VAUX\n    Ay me! What is this world! What news are these!\n    But wherefore grieve I at an hour's poor loss,\n    Omitting Suffolk's exile, my soul's treasure?\n    Why only, Suffolk, mourn I not for thee,\n    And with the southern clouds contend in tears-\n    Theirs for the earth's increase, mine for my sorrows?\n    Now get thee hence: the King, thou know'st, is coming;\n    If thou be found by me; thou art but dead.\n  SUFFOLK. If I depart from thee I cannot live;\n    And in thy sight to die, what were it else\n    But like a pleasant slumber in thy lap?\n    Here could I breathe my soul into the air,\n    As mild and gentle as the cradle-babe\n    Dying with mother's dug between its lips;\n    Where, from thy sight, I should be raging mad\n    And cry out for thee to close up mine eyes,\n    To have thee with thy lips to stop my mouth;\n    So shouldst thou either turn my flying soul,\n    Or I should breathe it so into thy body,\n    And then it liv'd in sweet Elysium.\n    To die by thee were but to die in jest:\n    From thee to die were torture more than death.\n    O, let me stay, befall what may befall!\n  QUEEN. Away! Though parting be a fretful corrosive,\n    It is applied to a deathful wound.\n    To France, sweet Suffolk. Let me hear from thee;\n    For whereso'er thou art in this world's globe\n    I'll have an Iris that shall find thee out.\n  SUFFOLK. I go.\n  QUEEN. And take my heart with thee.           [She kisses him]\n  SUFFOLK. A jewel, lock'd into the woefull'st cask\n    That ever did contain a thing of worth.\n    Even as a splitted bark, so sunder we:\n    This way fall I to death.\n  QUEEN. This way for me.                       Exeunt severally\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nLondon. CARDINAL BEAUFORT'S bedchamber\n\nEnter the KING, SALISBURY, and WARWICK, to the CARDINAL in bed\n\n  KING HENRY. How fares my lord? Speak, Beaufort, to thy\nsovereign.\n  CARDINAL. If thou be'st Death I'll give thee England's\ntreasure,\n    Enough to purchase such another island,\n    So thou wilt let me live and feel no pain.\n  KING HENRY. Ah, what a sign it is of evil life\n    Where death's approach is seen so terrible!\n  WARWICK. Beaufort, it is thy sovereign speaks to thee.\n  CARDINAL. Bring me unto my trial when you will.\n    Died he not in his bed? Where should he die?\n    Can I make men live, whe'er they will or no?\n    O, torture me no more! I will confess.\n    Alive again? Then show me where he is;\n    I'll give a thousand pound to look upon him.\n    He hath no eyes, the dust hath blinded them.\n    Comb down his hair; look, look! it stands upright,\n    Like lime-twigs set to catch my winged soul!\n    Give me some drink; and bid the apothecary\n    Bring the strong poison that I bought of him.\n  KING HENRY. O Thou eternal Mover of the heavens,\n    Look with a gentle eye upon this wretch!\n    O, beat away the busy meddling fiend\n    That lays strong siege unto this wretch's soul,\n    And from his bosom purge this black despair!\n  WARWICK. See how the pangs of death do make him grin\n  SALISBURY. Disturb him not, let him pass peaceably.\n  KING HENRY. Peace to his soul, if God's good pleasure be!\n    Lord Card'nal, if thou think'st on heaven's bliss,\n    Hold up thy hand, make signal of thy hope.\n    He dies, and makes no sign: O God, forgive him!\n  WARWICK. So bad a death argues a monstrous life.\n  KING HENRY. Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all.\n    Close up his eyes, and draw the curtain close;\n    And let us all to meditation.                         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nThe coast of Kent\n\nAlarum.  Fight at sea.  Ordnance goes off.  Enter a LIEUTENANT,\na SHIPMASTER and his MATE, and WALTER WHITMORE, with sailors;\nSUFFOLK and other GENTLEMEN, as prisoners\n\n  LIEUTENANT. The gaudy, blabbing, and remorseful day\n    Is crept into the bosom of the sea;\n    And now loud-howling wolves arouse the jades\n    That drag the tragic melancholy night;\n    Who with their drowsy, slow, and flagging wings\n    Clip dead men's graves, and from their misty jaws\n    Breathe foul contagious darkness in the air.\n    Therefore bring forth the soldiers of our prize;\n    For, whilst our pinnace anchors in the Downs,\n    Here shall they make their ransom on the sand,\n    Or with their blood stain this discoloured shore.\n    Master, this prisoner freely give I thee;\n    And thou that art his mate make boot of this;\n    The other, Walter Whitmore, is thy share.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. What is my ransom, master, let me know?\n  MASTER. A thousand crowns, or else lay down your head.\n  MATE. And so much shall you give, or off goes yours.\n  LIEUTENANT. What, think you much to pay two thousand crowns,\n    And bear the name and port of gentlemen?\n    Cut both the villains' throats- for die you shall;\n    The lives of those which we have lost in fight\n    Be counterpois'd with such a petty sum!\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I'll give it, sir: and therefore spare my\nlife.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. And so will I, and write home for it\nstraight.\n  WHITMORE. I lost mine eye in laying the prize aboard,\n    [To SUFFOLK] And therefore, to revenge it, shalt thou die;\n    And so should these, if I might have my will.\n  LIEUTENANT. Be not so rash; take ransom, let him live.\n  SUFFOLK. Look on my George, I am a gentleman:\n    Rate me at what thou wilt, thou shalt be paid.\n  WHITMORE. And so am I: my name is Walter Whitmore.\n    How now! Why start'st thou? What, doth death affright?\n  SUFFOLK. Thy name affrights me, in whose sound is death.\n    A cunning man did calculate my birth\n    And told me that by water I should die;\n    Yet let not this make thee be bloody-minded;\n    Thy name is Gualtier, being rightly sounded.\n  WHITMORE. Gualtier or Walter, which it is I care not:\n    Never yet did base dishonour blur our name\n    But with our sword we wip'd away the blot;\n    Therefore, when merchant-like I sell revenge,\n    Broke be my sword, my arms torn and defac'd,\n    And I proclaim'd a coward through the world.\n  SUFFOLK. Stay, Whitmore, for thy prisoner is a prince,\n    The Duke of Suffolk, William de la Pole.\n  WHITMORE. The Duke of Suffolk muffled up in rags?\n  SUFFOLK. Ay, but these rags are no part of the Duke:\n    Jove sometime went disguis'd, and why not I?\n  LIEUTENANT. But Jove was never slain, as thou shalt be.\n  SUFFOLK. Obscure and lowly swain, King Henry's blood,\n    The honourable blood of Lancaster,\n    Must not be shed by such a jaded groom.\n    Hast thou not kiss'd thy hand and held my stirrup,\n    Bareheaded plodded by my foot-cloth mule,\n    And thought thee happy when I shook my head?\n    How often hast thou waited at my cup,\n    Fed from my trencher, kneel'd down at the board,\n    When I have feasted with Queen Margaret?\n    Remember it, and let it make thee crestfall'n,\n    Ay, and allay thus thy abortive pride,\n    How in our voiding-lobby hast thou stood\n    And duly waited for my coming forth.\n    This hand of mine hath writ in thy behalf,\n    And therefore shall it charm thy riotous tongue.\n  WHITMORE. Speak, Captain, shall I stab the forlorn swain?\n  LIEUTENANT. First let my words stab him, as he hath me.\n  SUFFOLK. Base slave, thy words are blunt, and so art thou.\n  LIEUTENANT. Convey him hence, and on our longboat's side\n    Strike off his head.\n  SUFFOLK. Thou dar'st not, for thy own.\n  LIEUTENANT. Poole!\n  SUFFOLK. Poole?\n  LIEUTENANT. Ay, kennel, puddle, sink, whose filth and dirt\n    Troubles the silver spring where England drinks;\n    Now will I dam up this thy yawning mouth\n    For swallowing the treasure of the realm.\n    Thy lips, that kiss'd the Queen, shall sweep the ground;\n    And thou that smil'dst at good Duke Humphrey's death\n    Against the senseless winds shalt grin in vain,\n    Who in contempt shall hiss at thee again;\n    And wedded be thou to the hags of hell\n    For daring to affy a mighty lord\n    Unto the daughter of a worthless king,\n    Having neither subject, wealth, nor diadem.\n    By devilish policy art thou grown great,\n    And, like ambitious Sylla, overgorg'd\n    With gobbets of thy mother's bleeding heart.\n    By thee Anjou and Maine were sold to France;\n    The false revolting Normans thorough thee\n    Disdain to call us lord; and Picardy\n    Hath slain their governors, surpris'd our forts,\n    And sent the ragged soldiers wounded home.\n    The princely Warwick, and the Nevils all,\n    Whose dreadful swords were never drawn in vain,\n    As hating thee, are rising up in arms;\n    And now the house of York- thrust from the crown\n    By shameful murder of a guiltless king\n    And lofty proud encroaching tyranny-\n    Burns with revenging fire, whose hopeful colours\n    Advance our half-fac'd sun, striving to shine,\n    Under the which is writ 'Invitis nubibus.'\n    The commons here in Kent are up in arms;\n    And to conclude, reproach and beggary\n    Is crept into the palace of our King,\n    And all by thee. Away! convey him hence.\n  SUFFOLK. O that I were a god, to shoot forth thunder\n    Upon these paltry, servile, abject drudges!\n    Small things make base men proud: this villain here,\n    Being captain of a pinnace, threatens more\n    Than Bargulus, the strong Illyrian pirate.\n    Drones suck not eagles' blood but rob beehives.\n    It is impossible that I should die\n    By such a lowly vassal as thyself.\n    Thy words move rage and not remorse in me.\n    I go of message from the Queen to France:\n    I charge thee waft me safely cross the Channel.\n  LIEUTENANT. Walter-\n  WHITMORE. Come, Suffolk, I must waft thee to thy death.\n  SUFFOLK. Gelidus timor occupat artus: it is thee I fear.\n  WHITMORE. Thou shalt have cause to fear before I leave thee.\n    What, are ye daunted now? Now will ye stoop?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. My gracious lord, entreat him, speak him fair.\n  SUFFOLK. Suffolk's imperial tongue is stem and rough,\n    Us'd to command, untaught to plead for favour.\n    Far be it we should honour such as these\n    With humble suit: no, rather let my head\n    Stoop to the block than these knees bow to any\n    Save to the God of heaven and to my king;\n    And sooner dance upon a bloody pole\n    Than stand uncover'd to the vulgar groom.\n    True nobility is exempt from fear:\n    More can I bear than you dare execute.\n  LIEUTENANT. Hale him away, and let him talk no more.\n  SUFFOLK. Come, soldiers, show what cruelty ye can,\n    That this my death may never be forgot-\n    Great men oft die by vile bezonians:\n    A Roman sworder and banditto slave\n    Murder'd sweet Tully; Brutus' bastard hand\n    Stabb'd Julius Caesar; savage islanders\n    Pompey the Great; and Suffolk dies by pirates.\n                                        Exit WALTER with SUFFOLK\n  LIEUTENANT. And as for these, whose ransom we have set,\n    It is our pleasure one of them depart;\n    Therefore come you with us, and let him go.\n                              Exeunt all but the FIRST GENTLEMAN\n\n                Re-enter WHITMORE with SUFFOLK'S body\n\n  WHITMORE. There let his head and lifeless body lie,\n    Until the Queen his mistress bury it.                   Exit\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. O barbarous and bloody spectacle!\n    His body will I bear unto the King.\n    If he revenge it not, yet will his friends;\n    So will the Queen, that living held him dear.\n                                              Exit with the body\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBlackheath\n\nEnter GEORGE BEVIS and JOHN HOLLAND\n\n  GEORGE. Come and get thee a sword, though made of a lath; they\nhave\n    been up these two days.\n  JOHN. They have the more need to sleep now, then.\n  GEORGE. I tell thee Jack Cade the clothier means to dress the\n    commonwealth, and turn it, and set a new nap upon it.\n  JOHN. So he had need, for 'tis threadbare. Well, I say it was\nnever\n    merry world in England since gentlemen came up.\n  GEORGE. O miserable age! Virtue is not regarded in\nhandicraftsmen.\n  JOHN. The nobility think scorn to go in leather aprons.\n  GEORGE. Nay, more, the King's Council are no good workmen.\n  JOHN. True; and yet it is said 'Labour in thy vocation'; which\nis\n    as much to say as 'Let the magistrates be labouring men'; and\n    therefore should we be magistrates.\n  GEORGE. Thou hast hit it; for there's no better sign of a brave\n    mind than a hard hand.\n  JOHN. I see them! I see them! There's Best's son, the tanner of\n    Wingham-\n  GEORGE. He shall have the skins of our enemies to make dog's\n    leather of.\n  JOHN. And Dick the butcher-\n  GEORGE. Then is sin struck down, like an ox, and iniquity's\nthroat\n    cut like a calf.\n  JOHN. And Smith the weaver-\n  GEORGE. Argo, their thread of life is spun.\n  JOHN. Come, come, let's fall in with them.\n\n                Drum. Enter CADE, DICK THE BUTCHER, SMITH\n             THE WEAVER, and a SAWYER, with infinite numbers\n\n  CADE. We John Cade, so term'd of our supposed father-\n  DICK. [Aside] Or rather, of stealing a cade of herrings.\n  CADE. For our enemies shall fall before us, inspired with the\n    spirit of putting down kings and princes- command silence.\n  DICK. Silence!\n  CADE. My father was a Mortimer-\n  DICK. [Aside] He was an honest man and a good bricklayer.\n  CADE. My mother a Plantagenet-\n  DICK. [Aside] I knew her well; she was a midwife.\n  CADE. My wife descended of the Lacies-\n  DICK. [Aside] She was, indeed, a pedlar's daughter, and sold\nmany\n    laces.\n  SMITH. [Aside] But now of late, not able to travel with her\nfurr'd\n    pack, she washes bucks here at home.\n  CADE. Therefore am I of an honourable house.\n  DICK. [Aside] Ay, by my faith, the field is honourable, and\nthere\n    was he born, under a hedge, for his father had never a house\nbut\n    the cage.\n  CADE. Valiant I am.\n  SMITH. [Aside] 'A must needs; for beggary is valiant.\n  CADE. I am able to endure much.\n  DICK. [Aside] No question of that; for I have seen him whipt\nthree\n    market days together.\n  CADE. I fear neither sword nor fire.\n  SMITH. [Aside] He need not fear the sword, for his coat is of\n    proof.\n  DICK. [Aside] But methinks he should stand in fear of fire,\nbeing\n    burnt i' th' hand for stealing of sheep.\n  CADE. Be brave, then, for your captain is brave, and vows\n    reformation. There shall be in England seven halfpenny loaves\n    sold for a penny; the three-hoop'd pot shall have ten hoops;\nand\n    I will make it felony to drink small beer. All the realm\nshall be\n    in common, and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to grass. And\n    when I am king- as king I will be\n  ALL. God save your Majesty!\n  CADE. I thank you, good people- there shall be no money; all\nshall\n    eat and drink on my score, and I will apparel them all in one\n    livery, that they may agree like brothers and worship me\ntheir\n    lord.\n  DICK. The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.\n  CADE. Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable thing,\nthat\n    of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment?\nThat\n    parchment, being scribbl'd o'er, should undo a man? Some say\nthe\n    bee stings; but I say 'tis the bee's wax; for I did but seal\nonce\n    to a thing, and I was never mine own man since. How now!\nWho's\n    there?\n\n              Enter some, bringing in the CLERK OF CHATHAM\n\n  SMITH. The clerk of Chatham. He can write and read and cast\n    accompt.\n  CADE. O monstrous!\n  SMITH. We took him setting of boys' copies.\n  CADE. Here's a villain!\n  SMITH. Has a book in his pocket with red letters in't.\n  CADE. Nay, then he is a conjurer.\n  DICK. Nay, he can make obligations and write court-hand.\n  CADE. I am sorry for't; the man is a proper man, of mine\nhonour;\n    unless I find him guilty, he shall not die. Come hither,\nsirrah,\n    I must examine thee. What is thy name?\n  CLERK. Emmanuel.\n  DICK. They use to write it on the top of letters; 'twill go\nhard\n    with you.\n  CADE. Let me alone. Dost thou use to write thy name, or hast\nthou a\n    mark to thyself, like a honest plain-dealing man?\n  CLERK. Sir, I thank God, I have been so well brought up that I\ncan\n    write my name.\n  ALL. He hath confess'd. Away with him! He's a villain and a\n    traitor.\n  CADE. Away with him, I say! Hang him with his pen and inkhorn\nabout\n    his neck.                            Exit one with the CLERK\n\n                           Enter MICHAEL\n\n  MICHAEL. Where's our General?\n  CADE. Here I am, thou particular fellow.\n  MICHAEL. Fly, fly, fly! Sir Humphrey Stafford and his brother\nare\n    hard by, with the King's forces.\n  CADE. Stand, villain, stand, or I'll fell thee down. He shall\nbe\n    encount'red with a man as good as himself. He is but a\nknight,\n    is 'a?\n  MICHAEL. No.\n  CADE. To equal him, I will make myself a knight presently.\n    [Kneels] Rise up, Sir John Mortimer. [Rises] Now have at him!\n\n                Enter SIR HUMPHREY STAFFORD and WILLIAM\n                  his brother, with drum and soldiers\n\n  STAFFORD. Rebellious hinds, the filth and scum of Kent,\n    Mark'd for the gallows, lay your weapons down;\n    Home to your cottages, forsake this groom;\n    The King is merciful if you revolt.\n  WILLIAM STAFFORD. But angry, wrathful, and inclin'd to blood,\n    If you go forward; therefore yield or die.\n  CADE. As for these silken-coated slaves, I pass not;\n    It is to you, good people, that I speak,\n    O'er whom, in time to come, I hope to reign;\n    For I am rightful heir unto the crown.\n  STAFFORD. Villain, thy father was a plasterer;\n    And thou thyself a shearman, art thou not?\n  CADE. And Adam was a gardener.\n  WILLIAM STAFFORD. And what of that?\n  CADE. Marry, this: Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March,\n    Married the Duke of Clarence' daughter, did he not?\n  STAFFORD. Ay, sir.\n  CADE. By her he had two children at one birth.\n  WILLIAM STAFFORD. That's false.\n  CADE. Ay, there's the question; but I say 'tis true.\n    The elder of them being put to nurse,\n    Was by a beggar-woman stol'n away,\n    And, ignorant of his birth and parentage,\n    Became a bricklayer when he came to age.\n    His son am I; deny it if you can.\n  DICK. Nay, 'tis too true; therefore he shall be king.\n  SMITH. Sir, he made a chimney in my father's house, and the\nbricks\n    are alive at this day to testify it; therefore deny it not.\n  STAFFORD. And will you credit this base drudge's words\n    That speaks he knows not what?\n  ALL. Ay, marry, will we; therefore get ye gone.\n  WILLIAM STAFFORD. Jack Cade, the Duke of York hath taught you\nthis.\n  CADE. [Aside] He lies, for I invented it myself- Go to, sirrah,\n    tell the King from me that for his father's sake, Henry the\n    Fifth, in whose time boys went to span-counter for French\ncrowns,\n    I am content he shall reign; but I'll be Protector over him.\n  DICK. And furthermore, we'll have the Lord Say's head for\nselling\n    the dukedom of Maine.\n  CADE. And good reason; for thereby is England main'd and fain\nto go\n    with a staff, but that my puissance holds it up. Fellow\nkings, I\n    tell you that that Lord Say hath gelded the commonwealth and\nmade\n    it an eunuch; and more than that, he can speak French, and\n    therefore he is a traitor.\n  STAFFORD. O gross and miserable ignorance!\n  CADE. Nay, answer if you can; the Frenchmen are our enemies. Go\nto,\n    then, I ask but this: can he that speaks with the tongue of\nan\n    enemy be a good counsellor, or no?\n  ALL. No, no; and therefore we'll have his head.\n  WILLIAM STAFFORD. Well, seeing gentle words will not prevail,\n    Assail them with the army of the King.\n  STAFFORD. Herald, away; and throughout every town\n    Proclaim them traitors that are up with Cade;\n    That those which fly before the battle ends\n    May, even in their wives'and children's sight,\n    Be hang'd up for example at their doors.\n    And you that be the King's friends, follow me.\n                           Exeunt the TWO STAFFORDS and soldiers\n  CADE. And you that love the commons follow me.\n    Now show yourselves men; 'tis for liberty.\n    We will not leave one lord, one gentleman;\n    Spare none but such as go in clouted shoon,\n    For they are thrifty honest men and such\n    As would- but that they dare not- take our parts.\n  DICK. They are all in order, and march toward us.\n  CADE. But then are we in order when we are most out of order.\nCome,\n    march forward.                                        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nAnother part of Blackheath\n\nAlarums to the fight, wherein both the STAFFORDS are slain.\nEnter CADE and the rest\n\n  CADE. Where's Dick, the butcher of Ashford?\n  DICK. Here, sir.\n  CADE. They fell before thee like sheep and oxen, and thou\nbehavedst\n    thyself as if thou hadst been in thine own slaughter-house;\n    therefore thus will I reward thee- the Lent shall be as long\n    again as it is, and thou shalt have a licence to kill for a\n    hundred lacking one.\n  DICK. I desire no more.\n  CADE. And, to speak truth, thou deserv'st no less. [Putting on\nSIR\n    HUMPHREY'S brigandine] This monument of the victory will I\nbear,\n    and the bodies shall be dragged at my horse heels till I do\ncome\n    to London, where we will have the mayor's sword borne before\nus.\n  DICK. If we mean to thrive and do good, break open the gaols\nand\n    let out the prisoners.\n  CADE. Fear not that, I warrant thee. Come, let's march towards\n    London.                                               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter the KING with a supplication, and the QUEEN with SUFFOLK'S\nhead;\nthe DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, and the LORD SAY\n\n  QUEEN. Oft have I heard that grief softens the mind\n    And makes it fearful and degenerate;\n    Think therefore on revenge and cease to weep.\n    But who can cease to weep, and look on this?\n    Here may his head lie on my throbbing breast;\n    But where's the body that I should embrace?\n  BUCKINGHAM. What answer makes your Grace to the rebels'\n    supplication?\n  KING HENRY. I'll send some holy bishop to entreat;\n    For God forbid so many simple souls\n    Should perish by the sword! And I myself,\n    Rather than bloody war shall cut them short,\n    Will parley with Jack Cade their general.\n    But stay, I'll read it over once again.\n  QUEEN. Ah, barbarous villains! Hath this lovely face\n    Rul'd like a wandering planet over me,\n    And could it not enforce them to relent\n    That were unworthy to behold the same?\n  KING HENRY. Lord Say, Jack Cade hath sworn to have thy head.\n  SAY. Ay, but I hope your Highness shall have his.\n  KING HENRY. How now, madam!\n    Still lamenting and mourning for Suffolk's death?\n    I fear me, love, if that I had been dead,\n    Thou wouldst not have mourn'd so much for me.\n  QUEEN. No, my love, I should not mourn, but die for thee.\n\n                        Enter A MESSENGER\n\n  KING HENRY. How now! What news? Why com'st thou in such haste?\n  MESSENGER. The rebels are in Southwark; fly, my lord!\n    Jack Cade proclaims himself Lord Mortimer,\n    Descended from the Duke of Clarence' house,\n    And calls your Grace usurper, openly,\n    And vows to crown himself in Westminster.\n    His army is a ragged multitude\n    Of hinds and peasants, rude and merciless;\n    Sir Humphrey Stafford and his brother's death\n    Hath given them heart and courage to proceed.\n    All scholars, lawyers, courtiers, gentlemen,\n    They call false caterpillars and intend their death.\n  KING HENRY. O graceless men! they know not what they do.\n  BUCKINGHAM. My gracious lord, retire to Killingworth\n    Until a power be rais'd to put them down.\n  QUEEN. Ah, were the Duke of Suffolk now alive,\n    These Kentish rebels would be soon appeas'd!\n  KING HENRY. Lord Say, the traitors hate thee;\n    Therefore away with us to Killingworth.\n  SAY. So might your Grace's person be in danger.\n    The sight of me is odious in their eyes;\n    And therefore in this city will I stay\n    And live alone as secret as I may.\n\n                      Enter another MESSENGER\n\n  SECOND MESSENGER. Jack Cade hath gotten London Bridge.\n    The citizens fly and forsake their houses;\n    The rascal people, thirsting after prey,\n    Join with the traitor; and they jointly swear\n    To spoil the city and your royal court.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Then linger not, my lord; away, take horse.\n  KING HENRY. Come Margaret; God, our hope, will succour us.\n  QUEEN. My hope is gone, now Suffolk is deceas'd.\n  KING HENRY. [To LORD SAY] Farewell, my lord, trust not the\nKentish\n    rebels.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Trust nobody, for fear you be betray'd.\n  SAY. The trust I have is in mine innocence,\n    And therefore am I bold and resolute.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nLondon. The Tower\n\nEnter LORD SCALES Upon the Tower, walking. Then enter two or\nthree CITIZENS,\nbelow\n\n  SCALES. How now! Is Jack Cade slain?\n  FIRST CITIZEN. No, my lord, nor likely to be slain; for they\nhave\n    won the bridge, killing all those that withstand them.\n    The Lord Mayor craves aid of your honour from the\n    Tower, to defend the city from the rebels.\n  SCALES. Such aid as I can spare you shall command,\n    But I am troubled here with them myself;\n    The rebels have assay'd to win the Tower.\n    But get you to Smithfield, and gather head,\n    And thither I will send you Matthew Goffe;\n    Fight for your King, your country, and your lives;\n    And so, farewell, for I must hence again.             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nLondon. Cannon street\n\nEnter JACK CADE and the rest, and strikes his staff on London\nStone\n\n  CADE. Now is Mortimer lord of this city. And here, sitting upon\n    London Stone, I charge and command that, of the city's cost,\nthe\n    pissing conduit run nothing but claret wine this first year\nof\n    our reign. And now henceforward it shall be treason for any\nthat\n    calls me other than Lord Mortimer.\n\n                    Enter a SOLDIER, running\n\n  SOLDIER. Jack Cade! Jack Cade!\n  CADE. Knock him down there.                    [They kill him]\n  SMITH. If this fellow be wise, he'll never call ye Jack Cade\nmore;\n    I think he hath a very fair warning.\n  DICK. My lord, there's an army gathered together in Smithfield.\n  CADE. Come then, let's go fight with them. But first go and set\n    London Bridge on fire; and, if you can, burn down the Tower\ntoo.\n    Come, let's away.                                     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nLondon. Smithfield\n\nAlarums. MATTHEW GOFFE is slain, and all the rest.  Then enter\nJACK CADE,\nwith his company\n\n  CADE. So, sirs. Now go some and pull down the Savoy; others to\nth'\n    Inns of Court; down with them all.\n  DICK. I have a suit unto your lordship.\n  CADE. Be it a lordship, thou shalt have it for that word.\n  DICK. Only that the laws of England may come out of your mouth.\n  JOHN. [Aside] Mass, 'twill be sore law then; for he was thrust\nin\n    the mouth with a spear, and 'tis not whole yet.\n  SMITH. [Aside] Nay, John, it will be stinking law; for his\nbreath\n    stinks with eating toasted cheese.\n  CADE. I have thought upon it; it shall be so. Away, burn all\nthe\n    records of the realm. My mouth shall be the Parliament of\n    England.\n  JOHN. [Aside] Then we are like to have biting statutes, unless\nhis\n    teeth be pull'd out.\n  CADE. And henceforward all things shall be in common.\n\n                          Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. My lord, a prize, a prize! Here's the Lord Say,\nwhich\n    sold the towns in France; he that made us pay one and twenty\n    fifteens, and one shining to the pound, the last subsidy.\n\n                Enter GEORGE BEVIS, with the LORD SAY\n\n  CADE. Well, he shall be beheaded for it ten times. Ah, thou\nsay,\n    thou serge, nay, thou buckram lord! Now art thou within point\n    blank of our jurisdiction regal. What canst thou answer to my\n    Majesty for giving up of Normandy unto Mounsieur Basimecu the\n    Dauphin of France? Be it known unto thee by these presence,\neven\n    the presence of Lord Mortimer, that I am the besom that must\n    sweep the court clean of such filth as thou art. Thou hast\nmost\n    traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a\n    grammar school; and whereas, before, our forefathers had no\nother\n    books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing\nto\n    be us'd, and, contrary to the King, his crown, and dignity,\nthou\n    hast built a paper-mill. It will be proved to thy face that\nthou\n    hast men about thee that usually talk of a noun and a verb,\nand\n    such abominable words as no Christian ear can endure to hear.\n    Thou hast appointed justices of peace, to call poor men\nbefore\n    them about matters they were not able to answer. Moreover,\nthou\n    hast put them in prison, and because they could not read,\nthou\n    hast hang'd them, when, indeed, only for that cause they have\n    been most worthy to live. Thou dost ride in a foot-cloth,\ndost\n    thou not?\n  SAY. What of that?\n  CADE. Marry, thou ought'st not to let thy horse wear a cloak,\nwhen\n    honester men than thou go in their hose and doublets.\n  DICK. And work in their shirt too, as myself, for example, that\nam\n    a butcher.\n  SAY. You men of Kent-\n  DICK. What say you of Kent?\n  SAY. Nothing but this: 'tis 'bona terra, mala gens.'\n  CADE. Away with him, away with him! He speaks Latin.\n  SAY. Hear me but speak, and bear me where you will.\n    Kent, in the Commentaries Caesar writ,\n    Is term'd the civil'st place of all this isle.\n    Sweet is the country, because full of riches;\n    The people liberal valiant, active, wealthy;\n    Which makes me hope you are not void of pity.\n    I sold not Maine, I lost not Normandy;\n    Yet, to recover them, would lose my life.\n    Justice with favour have I always done;\n    Pray'rs and tears have mov'd me, gifts could never.\n    When have I aught exacted at your hands,\n    But to maintain the King, the realm, and you?\n    Large gifts have I bestow'd on learned clerks,\n    Because my book preferr'd me to the King,\n    And seeing ignorance is the curse of God,\n    Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven,\n    Unless you be possess'd with devilish spirits\n    You cannot but forbear to murder me.\n    This tongue hath parley'd unto foreign kings\n    For your behoof.\n  CADE. Tut, when struck'st thou one blow in the field?\n  SAY. Great men have reaching hands. Oft have I struck\n    Those that I never saw, and struck them dead.\n  GEORGE. O monstrous coward! What, to come behind folks?\n  SAY. These cheeks are pale for watching for your good.\n  CADE. Give him a box o' th' ear, and that will make 'em red\nagain.\n  SAY. Long sitting to determine poor men's causes\n    Hath made me full of sickness and diseases.\n  CADE. Ye shall have a hempen caudle then, and the help of\nhatchet.\n  DICK. Why dost thou quiver, man?\n  SAY. The palsy, and not fear, provokes me.\n  CADE. Nay, he nods at us, as who should say 'I'll be even with\n    you'; I'll see if his head will stand steadier on a pole, or\nno.\n    Take him away, and behead him.\n  SAY. Tell me: wherein have I offended most?\n    Have I affected wealth or honour? Speak.\n    Are my chests fill'd up with extorted gold?\n    Is my apparel sumptuous to behold?\n    Whom have I injur'd, that ye seek my death?\n    These hands are free from guiltless bloodshedding,\n    This breast from harbouring foul deceitful thoughts.\n    O, let me live!\n  CADE. [Aside] I feel remorse in myself with his words; but I'll\n\n    bridle it. He shall die, an it be but for pleading so well\nfor\n    his life.- Away with him! He has a familiar under his tongue;\nhe\n    speaks not o' God's name. Go, take him away, I say, and\nstrike\n    off his head presently, and then break into his son-in-law's\n    house, Sir James Cromer, and strike off his head, and bring\nthem\n    both upon two poles hither.\n  ALL. It shall be done.\n  SAY. Ah, countrymen! if when you make your pray'rs,\n    God should be so obdurate as yourselves,\n    How would it fare with your departed souls?\n    And therefore yet relent and save my life.\n  CADE. Away with him, and do as I command ye.  [Exeunt some with\n    LORD SAY]  The proudest peer in the realm shall not wear a\nhead\n    on his shoulders, unless he pay me tribute; there shall not a\n    maid be married, but she shall pay to me her maidenhead ere\nthey\n    have it. Men shall hold of me in capite; and we charge and\n    command that their wives be as free as heart can wish or\ntongue\n    can tell.\n  DICK. My lord, when shall we go to Cheapside, and take up\n    commodities upon our bills?\n  CADE. Marry, presently.\n  ALL. O, brave!\n\n                      Re-enter one with the heads\n\n  CADE. But is not this braver? Let them kiss one another, for\nthey\n    lov'd well when they were alive. Now part them again, lest\nthey\n    consult about the giving up of some more towns in France.\n    Soldiers, defer the spoil of the city until night; for with\nthese\n    borne before us instead of maces will we ride through the\n    streets, and at every corner have them kiss. Away!     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VIII.\nSouthwark\n\nAlarum and retreat. Enter again CADE and all his rabblement\n\n  CADE. Up Fish Street! down Saint Magnus' Corner! Kill and knock\n    down! Throw them into Thames!               [Sound a parley]\n    What noise is this I hear? Dare any be so bold to sound\nretreat\n    or parley when I command them kill?\n\n            Enter BUCKINGHAM and old CLIFFORD, attended\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. Ay, here they be that dare and will disturb thee.\n    And therefore yet relent, and save my life.\n    Know, Cade, we come ambassadors from the King\n    Unto the commons whom thou hast misled;\n    And here pronounce free pardon to them all\n    That will forsake thee and go home in peace.\n  CLIFFORD. What say ye, countrymen? Will ye relent\n    And yield to mercy whilst 'tis offer'd you,\n    Or let a rebel lead you to your deaths?\n    Who loves the King, and will embrace his pardon,\n    Fling up his cap and say 'God save his Majesty!'\n    Who hateth him and honours not his father,\n    Henry the Fifth, that made all France to quake,\n    Shake he his weapon at us and pass by.\n  ALL. God save the King! God save the King!\n  CADE. What, Buckingham and Clifford, are ye so brave?\n    And you, base peasants, do ye believe him? Will you needs be\n    hang'd with your about your necks? Hath my sword therefore\nbroke\n    through London gates, that you should leave me at the White\nHart\n    in Southwark? I thought ye would never have given out these\narms\n    till you had recovered your ancient freedom. But you are all\n    recreants and dastards, and delight to live in slavery to the\n    nobility. Let them break your backs with burdens, take your\n    houses over your heads, ravish your wives and daughters\nbefore\n    your faces. For me, I will make shift for one; and so God's\ncurse\n    light upon you all!\n  ALL. We'll follow Cade, we'll follow Cade!\n  CLIFFORD. Is Cade the son of Henry the Fifth,\n    That thus you do exclaim you'll go with him?\n    Will he conduct you through the heart of France,\n    And make the meanest of you earls and dukes?\n    Alas, he hath no home, no place to fly to;\n    Nor knows he how to live but by the spoil,\n    Unless by robbing of your friends and us.\n    Were't not a shame that whilst you live at jar\n    The fearful French, whom you late vanquished,\n    Should make a start o'er seas and vanquish you?\n    Methinks already in this civil broil\n    I see them lording it in London streets,\n    Crying 'Villiago!' unto all they meet.\n    Better ten thousand base-born Cades miscarry\n    Than you should stoop unto a Frenchman's mercy.\n    To France, to France, and get what you have lost;\n    Spare England, for it is your native coast.\n    Henry hath money; you are strong and manly.\n    God on our side, doubt not of victory.\n  ALL. A Clifford! a Clifford! We'll follow the King and\nClifford.\n  CADE. Was ever feather so lightly blown to and fro as this\n    multitude? The name of Henry the Fifth hales them to an\nhundred\n    mischiefs, and makes them leave me desolate. I see them lay\ntheir\n    heads together to surprise me. My sword make way for me for\nhere\n    is no staying. In despite of the devils and hell, have\nthrough\n    the very middest of you! and heavens and honour be witness\nthat\n    no want of resolution in me, but only my followers' base and\n    ignominious treasons, makes me betake me to my heels.\n Exit\n  BUCKINGHAM. What, is he fled? Go some, and follow him;\n    And he that brings his head unto the King\n    Shall have a thousand crowns for his reward.\n                                             Exeunt some of them\n    Follow me, soldiers; we'll devise a mean\n    To reconcile you all unto the King.                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IX.\nKilling, worth Castle\n\nSound trumpets. Enter KING, QUEEN, and SOMERSET, on the terrace\n\n  KING HENRY. Was ever king that joy'd an earthly throne\n    And could command no more content than I?\n    No sooner was I crept out of my cradle\n    But I was made a king, at nine months old.\n    Was never subject long'd to be a King\n    As I do long and wish to be a subject.\n\n               Enter BUCKINGHAM and old CLIFFORD\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. Health and glad tidings to your Majesty!\n  KING HENRY. Why, Buckingham, is the traitor Cade surpris'd?\n    Or is he but retir'd to make him strong?\n\n     Enter, below, multitudes, with halters about their necks\n\n  CLIFFORD. He is fled, my lord, and all his powers do yield,\n    And humbly thus, with halters on their necks,\n    Expect your Highness' doom of life or death.\n  KING HENRY. Then, heaven, set ope thy everlasting gates,\n    To entertain my vows of thanks and praise!\n    Soldiers, this day have you redeem'd your lives,\n    And show'd how well you love your Prince and country.\n    Continue still in this so good a mind,\n    And Henry, though he be infortunate,\n    Assure yourselves, will never be unkind.\n    And so, with thanks and pardon to you all,\n    I do dismiss you to your several countries.\n  ALL. God save the King! God save the King!\n\n                     Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. Please it your Grace to be advertised\n    The Duke of York is newly come from Ireland\n    And with a puissant and a mighty power\n    Of gallowglasses and stout kerns\n    Is marching hitherward in proud array,\n    And still proclaimeth, as he comes along,\n    His arms are only to remove from thee\n    The Duke of Somerset, whom he terms a traitor.\n  KING HENRY. Thus stands my state, 'twixt Cade and York\ndistress'd;\n    Like to a ship that, having scap'd a tempest,\n    Is straightway calm'd, and boarded with a pirate;\n    But now is Cade driven back, his men dispers'd,\n    And now is York in arms to second him.\n    I pray thee, Buckingham, go and meet him\n    And ask him what's the reason of these arms.\n    Tell him I'll send Duke Edmund to the Tower-\n    And Somerset, we will commit thee thither\n    Until his army be dismiss'd from him.\n  SOMERSET. My lord,\n    I'll yield myself to prison willingly,\n    Or unto death, to do my country good.\n  KING HENRY. In any case be not too rough in terms,\n    For he is fierce and cannot brook hard language.\n  BUCKINGHAM. I will, my lord, and doubt not so to deal\n    As all things shall redound unto your good.\n  KING HENRY. Come, wife, let's in, and learn to govern better;\n    For yet may England curse my wretched reign.\n                                                Flourish. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE X.\nKent. Iden's garden\n\nEnter CADE\n\n  CADE. Fie on ambitions! Fie on myself, that have a sword and\nyet am\n    ready to famish! These five days have I hid me in these woods\nand\n    durst not peep out, for all the country is laid for me; but\nnow\n    am I so hungry that, if I might have a lease of my life for a\n    thousand years, I could stay no longer. Wherefore, on a brick\n    wall have I climb'd into this garden, to see if I can eat\ngrass\n    or pick a sallet another while, which is not amiss to cool a\n    man's stomach this hot weather. And I think this word\n'sallet'\n    was born to do me good; for many a time, but for a sallet, my\n    brain-pain had been cleft with a brown bill; and many a time,\n    when I have been dry, and bravely marching, it hath serv'd me\n    instead of a quart-pot to drink in; and now the word 'sallet'\n    must serve me to feed on.\n\n                             Enter IDEN\n\n  IDEN. Lord, who would live turmoiled in the court\n    And may enjoy such quiet walks as these?\n    This small inheritance my father left me\n    Contenteth me, and worth a monarchy.\n    I seek not to wax great by others' waning\n    Or gather wealth I care not with what envy;\n    Sufficeth that I have maintains my state,\n    And sends the poor well pleased from my gate.\n  CADE. Here's the lord of the soil come to seize me for a stray,\nfor\n    entering his fee-simple without leave. Ah, villain, thou wilt\n    betray me, and get a thousand crowns of the King by carrying\nmy\n    head to him; but I'll make thee eat iron like an ostrich and\n    swallow my sword like a great pin ere thou and I part.\n  IDEN. Why, rude companion, whatsoe'er thou be,\n    I know thee not; why then should I betray thee?\n    Is't not enough to break into my garden\n    And like a thief to come to rob my grounds,\n    Climbing my walls in spite of me the owner,\n    But thou wilt brave me with these saucy terms?\n  CADE. Brave thee? Ay, by the best blood that ever was broach'd,\nand\n    beard thee too. Look on me well: I have eat no meat these\nfive\n    days, yet come thou and thy five men and if I do not leave\nyou\n    all as dead as a door-nail, I pray God I may never eat grass\n    more.\n  IDEN. Nay, it shall ne'er be said, while England stands,\n    That Alexander Iden, an esquire of Kent,\n    Took odds to combat a poor famish'd man.\n    Oppose thy steadfast-gazing eyes to mine;\n    See if thou canst outface me with thy looks;\n    Set limb to limb, and thou art far the lesser;\n    Thy hand is but a finger to my fist,\n    Thy leg a stick compared with this truncheon;\n    My foot shall fight with all the strength thou hast,\n    And if mine arm be heaved in the air,\n    Thy grave is digg'd already in the earth.\n    As for words, whose greatness answers words,\n    Let this my sword report what speech forbears.\n  CADE. By my valour, the most complete champion that ever I\nheard!\n    Steel, if thou turn the edge, or cut not out the burly bon'd\n    clown in chines of beef ere thou sleep in thy sheath, I\nbeseech\n    God on my knees thou mayst be turn'd to hobnails. [Here they\n\n    fight; CADE falls] O, I am slain! famine and no other hath\nslain\n    me. Let ten thousand devils come against me, and give me but\nthe\n    ten meals I have lost, and I'd defy them all. Wither, garden,\nand\n    be henceforth a burying place to all that do dwell in this\nhouse,\n    because the unconquered soul of Cade is fled.\n  IDEN. Is't Cade that I have slain, that monstrous traitor?\n    Sword, I will hallow thee for this thy deed\n    And hang thee o'er my tomb when I am dead.\n    Ne'er shall this blood be wiped from thy point,\n    But thou shalt wear it as a herald's coat\n    To emblaze the honour that thy master got.\n  CADE. Iden, farewell; and be proud of thy victory. Tell Kent\nfrom\n    me she hath lost her best man, and exhort all the world to be\n    cowards; for I, that never feared any, am vanquished by\nfamine,\n    not by valour.                                        [Dies]\n  IDEN. How much thou wrong'st me, heaven be my judge.\n    Die, damned wretch, the curse of her that bare thee!\n    And as I thrust thy body in with my sword,\n    So wish I, I might thrust thy soul to hell.\n    Hence will I drag thee headlong by the heels\n    Unto a dunghill, which shall be thy grave,\n    And there cut off thy most ungracious head,\n    Which I will bear in triumph to the King,\n    Leaving thy trunk for crows to feed upon.               Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nFields between Dartford and Blackheath\n\nEnter YORK, and his army of Irish, with drum and colours\n\n  YORK. From Ireland thus comes York to claim his right\n    And pluck the crown from feeble Henry's head:\n    Ring bells aloud, burn bonfires clear and bright,\n    To entertain great England's lawful king.\n    Ah, sancta majestas! who would not buy thee dear?\n    Let them obey that knows not how to rule;\n    This hand was made to handle nought but gold.\n    I cannot give due action to my words\n    Except a sword or sceptre balance it.\n    A sceptre shall it have, have I a soul\n    On which I'll toss the flower-de-luce of France.\n\n                         Enter BUCKINGHAM\n\n    [Aside] Whom have we here? Buckingham, to disturb me?\n    The King hath sent him, sure: I must dissemble.\n  BUCKINGHAM. York, if thou meanest well I greet thee well.\n  YORK. Humphrey of Buckingham, I accept thy greeting.\n    Art thou a messenger, or come of pleasure?\n  BUCKINGHAM. A messenger from Henry, our dread liege,\n    To know the reason of these arms in peace;\n    Or why thou, being a subject as I am,\n    Against thy oath and true allegiance sworn,\n    Should raise so great a power without his leave,\n    Or dare to bring thy force so near the court.\n  YORK. [Aside] Scarce can I speak, my choler is so great.\n    O, I could hew up rocks and fight with flint,\n    I am so angry at these abject terms;\n    And now, like Ajax Telamonius,\n    On sheep or oxen could I spend my fury.\n    I am far better born than is the King,\n    More like a king, more kingly in my thoughts;\n    But I must make fair weather yet awhile,\n    Till Henry be more weak and I more strong.-\n    Buckingham, I prithee, pardon me\n    That I have given no answer all this while;\n    My mind was troubled with deep melancholy.\n    The cause why I have brought this army hither\n    Is to remove proud Somerset from the King,\n    Seditious to his Grace and to the state.\n  BUCKINGHAM. That is too much presumption on thy part;\n    But if thy arms be to no other end,\n    The King hath yielded unto thy demand:\n    The Duke of Somerset is in the Tower.\n  YORK. Upon thine honour, is he prisoner?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Upon mine honour, he is prisoner.\n  YORK. Then, Buckingham, I do dismiss my pow'rs.\n    Soldiers, I thank you all; disperse yourselves;\n    Meet me to-morrow in Saint George's field,\n    You shall have pay and everything you wish.\n    And let my sovereign, virtuous Henry,\n    Command my eldest son, nay, all my sons,\n    As pledges of my fealty and love.\n    I'll send them all as willing as I live:\n    Lands, goods, horse, armour, anything I have,\n    Is his to use, so Somerset may die.\n  BUCKINGHAM. York, I commend this kind submission.\n    We twain will go into his Highness' tent.\n\n                  Enter the KING, and attendants\n\n  KING HENRY. Buckingham, doth York intend no harm to us,\n    That thus he marcheth with thee arm in arm?\n  YORK. In all submission and humility\n    York doth present himself unto your Highness.\n  KING HENRY. Then what intends these forces thou dost bring?\n  YORK. To heave the traitor Somerset from hence,\n    And fight against that monstrous rebel Cade,\n    Who since I heard to be discomfited.\n\n                    Enter IDEN, with CADE's head\n\n  IDEN. If one so rude and of so mean condition\n    May pass into the presence of a king,\n    Lo, I present your Grace a traitor's head,\n    The head of Cade, whom I in combat slew.\n  KING HENRY. The head of Cade! Great God, how just art Thou!\n    O, let me view his visage, being dead,\n    That living wrought me such exceeding trouble.\n    Tell me, my friend, art thou the man that slew him?\n  IDEN. I was, an't like your Majesty.\n  KING HENRY. How art thou call'd? And what is thy degree?\n  IDEN. Alexander Iden, that's my name;\n    A poor esquire of Kent that loves his king.\n  BUCKINGHAM. So please it you, my lord, 'twere not amiss\n    He were created knight for his good service.\n  KING HENRY. Iden, kneel down. [He kneels] Rise up a knight.\n    We give thee for reward a thousand marks,\n    And will that thou thenceforth attend on us.\n  IDEN. May Iden live to merit such a bounty,\n    And never live but true unto his liege!\n\n                    Enter the QUEEN and SOMERSET\n\n  KING HENRY. See, Buckingham! Somerset comes with th' Queen:\n    Go, bid her hide him quickly from the Duke.\n  QUEEN. For thousand Yorks he shall not hide his head,\n    But boldly stand and front him to his face.\n  YORK. How now! Is Somerset at liberty?\n    Then, York, unloose thy long-imprisoned thoughts\n    And let thy tongue be equal with thy heart.\n    Shall I endure the sight of Somerset?\n    False king, why hast thou broken faith with me,\n    Knowing how hardly I can brook abuse?\n    King did I call thee? No, thou art not king;\n    Not fit to govern and rule multitudes,\n    Which dar'st not, no, nor canst not rule a traitor.\n    That head of thine doth not become a crown;\n    Thy hand is made to grasp a palmer's staff,\n    And not to grace an awful princely sceptre.\n    That gold must round engirt these brows of mine,\n    Whose smile and frown, like to Achilles' spear,\n    Is able with the change to kill and cure.\n    Here is a hand to hold a sceptre up,\n    And with the same to act controlling laws.\n    Give place. By heaven, thou shalt rule no more\n    O'er him whom heaven created for thy ruler.\n  SOMERSET. O monstrous traitor! I arrest thee, York,\n    Of capital treason 'gainst the King and crown.\n    Obey, audacious traitor; kneel for grace.\n  YORK. Wouldst have me kneel? First let me ask of these,\n    If they can brook I bow a knee to man.\n    Sirrah, call in my sons to be my bail:        Exit attendant\n    I know, ere thy will have me go to ward,\n    They'll pawn their swords for my enfranchisement.\n  QUEEN. Call hither Clifford; bid him come amain,\n    To say if that the bastard boys of York\n    Shall be the surety for their traitor father.\n                                                 Exit BUCKINGHAM\n  YORK. O blood-bespotted Neapolitan,\n    Outcast of Naples, England's bloody scourge!\n    The sons of York, thy betters in their birth,\n    Shall be their father's bail; and bane to those\n    That for my surety will refuse the boys!\n\n               Enter EDWARD and RICHARD PLANTAGENET\n\n    See where they come: I'll warrant they'll make it good.\n\n                     Enter CLIFFORD and his SON\n\n  QUEEN. And here comes Clifford to deny their bail.\n  CLIFFORD. Health and all happiness to my lord the King!\n                                                        [Kneels]\n  YORK. I thank thee, Clifford. Say, what news with thee?\n    Nay, do not fright us with an angry look.\n    We are thy sovereign, Clifford, kneel again;\n    For thy mistaking so, we pardon thee.\n  CLIFFORD. This is my King, York, I do not mistake;\n    But thou mistakes me much to think I do.\n    To Bedlam with him! Is the man grown mad?\n  KING HENRY. Ay, Clifford; a bedlam and ambitious humour\n    Makes him oppose himself against his king.\n  CLIFFORD. He is a traitor; let him to the Tower,\n    And chop away that factious pate of his.\n  QUEEN. He is arrested, but will not obey;\n    His sons, he says, shall give their words for him.\n  YORK. Will you not, sons?\n  EDWARD. Ay, noble father, if our words will serve.\n  RICHARD. And if words will not, then our weapons shall.\n  CLIFFORD. Why, what a brood of traitors have we here!\n  YORK. Look in a glass, and call thy image so:\n    I am thy king, and thou a false-heart traitor.\n    Call hither to the stake my two brave bears,\n    That with the very shaking of their chains\n    They may astonish these fell-lurking curs.\n    Bid Salisbury and Warwick come to me.\n\n               Enter the EARLS OF WARWICK and SALISBURY\n\n  CLIFFORD. Are these thy bears? We'll bait thy bears to death,\n    And manacle the berard in their chains,\n    If thou dar'st bring them to the baiting-place.\n  RICHARD. Oft have I seen a hot o'er weening cur\n    Run back and bite, because he was withheld;\n    Who, being suffer'd, with the bear's fell paw,\n    Hath clapp'd his tail between his legs and cried;\n    And such a piece of service will you do,\n    If you oppose yourselves to match Lord Warwick.\n  CLIFFORD. Hence, heap of wrath, foul indigested lump,\n    As crooked in thy manners as thy shape!\n  YORK. Nay, we shall heat you thoroughly anon.\n  CLIFFORD. Take heed, lest by your heat you burn yourselves.\n  KING HENRY. Why, Warwick, hath thy knee forgot to bow?\n    Old Salisbury, shame to thy silver hair,\n    Thou mad misleader of thy brainsick son!\n    What, wilt thou on thy death-bed play the ruffian\n    And seek for sorrow with thy spectacles?\n    O, where is faith? O, where is loyalty?\n    If it be banish'd from the frosty head,\n    Where shall it find a harbour in the earth?\n    Wilt thou go dig a grave to find out war\n    And shame thine honourable age with blood?\n    Why art thou old, and want'st experience?\n    Or wherefore dost abuse it, if thou hast it?\n    For shame! In duty bend thy knee to me,\n    That bows unto the grave with mickle age.\n  SALISBURY. My lord, I have considered with myself\n    The tide of this most renowned duke,\n    And in my conscience do repute his Grace\n    The rightful heir to England's royal seat.\n  KING HENRY. Hast thou not sworn allegiance unto me?\n  SALISBURY. I have.\n  KING HENRY. Canst thou dispense with heaven for such an oath?\n  SALISBURY. It is great sin to swear unto a sin;\n    But greater sin to keep a sinful oath.\n    Who can be bound by any solemn vow\n    To do a murd'rous deed, to rob a man,\n    To force a spotless virgin's chastity,\n    To reave the orphan of his patrimony,\n    To wring the widow from her custom'd right,\n    And have no other reason for this wrong\n    But that he was bound by a solemn oath?\n  QUEEN. A subtle traitor needs no sophister.\n  KING HENRY. Call Buckingham, and bid him arm himself.\n  YORK. Call Buckingham, and all the friends thou hast,\n    I am resolv'd for death or dignity.\n  CLIFFORD. The first I warrant thee, if dreams prove true.\n  WARWICK. You were best to go to bed and dream again\n    To keep thee from the tempest of the field.\n  CLIFFORD. I am resolv'd to bear a greater storm\n    Than any thou canst conjure up to-day;\n    And that I'll write upon thy burgonet,\n    Might I but know thee by thy household badge.\n  WARWICK. Now, by my father's badge, old Nevil's crest,\n    The rampant bear chain'd to the ragged staff,\n    This day I'll wear aloft my burgonet,\n    As on a mountain-top the cedar shows,\n    That keeps his leaves in spite of any storm,\n    Even to affright thee with the view thereof.\n  CLIFFORD. And from thy burgonet I'll rend thy bear\n    And tread it under foot with all contempt,\n    Despite the berard that protects the bear.\n  YOUNG CLIFFORD. And so to arms, victorious father,\n    To quell the rebels and their complices.\n  RICHARD. Fie! charity, for shame! Speak not in spite,\n    For you shall sup with Jesu Christ to-night.\n  YOUNG CLIFFORD. Foul stigmatic, that's more than thou canst\ntell.\n  RICHARD. If not in heaven, you'll surely sup in hell.\n                                                Exeunt severally\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nSaint Albans\n\nAlarums to the battle. Enter WARWICK\n\n  WARWICK. Clifford of Cumberland, 'tis Warwick calls;\n    And if thou dost not hide thee from the bear,\n    Now, when the angry trumpet sounds alarum\n    And dead men's cries do fill the empty air,\n    Clifford, I say, come forth and fight with me.\n    Proud northern lord, Clifford of Cumberland,\n  WARWICK is hoarse with calling thee to arms.\n\n                          Enter YORK\n\n    How now, my noble lord! what, all a-foot?\n  YORK. The deadly-handed Clifford slew my steed;\n    But match to match I have encount'red him,\n    And made a prey for carrion kites and crows\n    Even of the bonny beast he lov'd so well.\n\n                      Enter OLD CLIFFORD\n\n  WARWICK. Of one or both of us the time is come.\n  YORK. Hold, Warwick, seek thee out some other chase,\n    For I myself must hunt this deer to death.\n  WARWICK. Then, nobly, York; 'tis for a crown thou fight'st.\n    As I intend, Clifford, to thrive to-day,\n    It grieves my soul to leave thee unassail'd.            Exit\n  CLIFFORD. What seest thou in me, York? Why dost thou pause?\n  YORK. With thy brave bearing should I be in love\n    But that thou art so fast mine enemy.\n  CLIFFORD. Nor should thy prowess want praise and esteem\n    But that 'tis shown ignobly and in treason.\n  YORK. So let it help me now against thy sword,\n    As I in justice and true right express it!\n  CLIFFORD. My soul and body on the action both!\n  YORK. A dreadful lay! Address thee instantly.\n                                 [They fight and CLIFFORD falls]\n  CLIFFORD. La fin couronne les oeuvres.                  [Dies]\n  YORK. Thus war hath given thee peace, for thou art still.\n    Peace with his soul, heaven, if it be thy will!         Exit\n\n\n                     Enter YOUNG CLIFFORD\n\n  YOUNG CLIFFORD. Shame and confusion! All is on the rout;\n    Fear frames disorder, and disorder wounds\n    Where it should guard. O war, thou son of hell,\n    Whom angry heavens do make their minister,\n    Throw in the frozen bosoms of our part\n    Hot coals of vengeance! Let no soldier fly.\n    He that is truly dedicate to war\n    Hath no self-love; nor he that loves himself\n    Hath not essentially, but by circumstance,\n    The name of valour.                 [Sees his father's body]\n    O, let the vile world end\n    And the premised flames of the last day\n    Knit earth and heaven together!\n    Now let the general trumpet blow his blast,\n    Particularities and petty sounds\n    To cease! Wast thou ordain'd, dear father,\n    To lose thy youth in peace and to achieve\n    The silver livery of advised age,\n    And in thy reverence and thy chair-days thus\n    To die in ruffian battle? Even at this sight\n    My heart is turn'd to stone; and while 'tis mine\n    It shall be stony. York not our old men spares;\n    No more will I their babes. Tears virginal\n    Shall be to me even as the dew to fire;\n    And beauty, that the tyrant oft reclaims,\n    Shall to my flaming wrath be oil and flax.\n    Henceforth I will not have to do with pity:\n    Meet I an infant of the house of York,\n    Into as many gobbets will I cut it\n    As wild Medea young Absyrtus did;\n    In cruelty will I seek out my fame.\n    Come, thou new ruin of old Clifford's house;\n    As did Aeneas old Anchises bear,\n    So bear I thee upon my manly shoulders;\n    But then Aeneas bare a living load,\n    Nothing so heavy as these woes of mine.\n                                              Exit with the body\n\n\n       Enter RICHARD and SOMERSET to fight. SOMERSET is killed\n\n  RICHARD. So, lie thou there;\n    For underneath an alehouse' paltry sign,\n    The Castle in Saint Albans, Somerset\n    Hath made the wizard famous in his death.\n    Sword, hold thy temper; heart, be wrathful still:\n    Priests pray for enemies, but princes kill.             Exit\n\n        Fight. Excursions. Enter KING, QUEEN, and others\n\n  QUEEN. Away, my lord! You are slow; for shame, away!\n  KING HENRY. Can we outrun the heavens? Good Margaret, stay.\n  QUEEN. What are you made of? You'll nor fight nor fly.\n    Now is it manhood, wisdom, and defence,\n    To give the enemy way, and to secure us\n    By what we can, which can no more but fly.\n                                               [Alarum afar off]\n    If you be ta'en, we then should see the bottom\n    Of all our fortunes; but if we haply scape-\n    As well we may, if not through your neglect-\n    We shall to London get, where you are lov'd,\n    And where this breach now in our fortunes made\n    May readily be stopp'd.\n\n                     Re-enter YOUNG CLIFFORD\n\n  YOUNG CLIFFORD. But that my heart's on future mischief set,\n    I would speak blasphemy ere bid you fly;\n    But fly you must; uncurable discomfit\n    Reigns in the hearts of all our present parts.\n    Away, for your relief! and we will live\n    To see their day and them our fortune give.\n    Away, my lord, away!                                  Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nFields near Saint Albans\n\nAlarum. Retreat. Enter YORK, RICHARD, WARWICK, and soldiers,\nwith drum and colours\n\n  YORK. Of Salisbury, who can report of him,\n    That winter lion, who in rage forgets\n    Aged contusions and all brush of time\n    And, like a gallant in the brow of youth,\n    Repairs him with occasion? This happy day\n    Is not itself, nor have we won one foot,\n    If Salisbury be lost.\n  RICHARD. My noble father,\n    Three times to-day I holp him to his horse,\n    Three times bestrid him, thrice I led him off,\n    Persuaded him from any further act;\n    But still where danger was, still there I met him;\n    And like rich hangings in a homely house,\n    So was his will in his old feeble body.\n    But, noble as he is, look where he comes.\n\n                         Enter SALISBURY\n\n  SALISBURY. Now, by my sword, well hast thou fought to-day!\n    By th' mass, so did we all. I thank you, Richard:\n    God knows how long it is I have to live,\n    And it hath pleas'd Him that three times to-day\n    You have defended me from imminent death.\n    Well, lords, we have not got that which we have;\n    'Tis not enough our foes are this time fled,\n    Being opposites of such repairing nature.\n  YORK. I know our safety is to follow them;\n    For, as I hear, the King is fled to London\n    To call a present court of Parliament.\n    Let us pursue him ere the writs go forth.\n    What says Lord Warwick? Shall we after them?\n  WARWICK. After them? Nay, before them, if we can.\n    Now, by my faith, lords, 'twas a glorious day:\n    Saint Albans' battle, won by famous York,\n    Shall be eterniz'd in all age to come.\n    Sound drum and trumpets and to London all;\n    And more such days as these to us befall!             Exeunt\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of this Etext of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare\nThe Second Part of King Henry the Sixth\n\n"}
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{"1102":"\n\n\n\n\n1591\n\nTHE THIRD PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  KING HENRY THE SIXTH\n  EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALES, his son\n  LEWIS XI, King of France           DUKE OF SOMERSET\n  DUKE OF EXETER                     EARL OF OXFORD\n  EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND             EARL OF WESTMORELAND\n  LORD CLIFFORD\n  RICHARD PLANTAGENET, DUKE OF YORK\n  EDWARD, EARL OF MARCH, afterwards KING EDWARD IV, his son\n  EDMUND, EARL OF RUTLAND, his son\n  GEORGE, afterwards DUKE OF CLARENCE, his son\n  RICHARD, afterwards DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, his son\n  DUKE OF NORFOLK                    MARQUIS OF MONTAGUE\n  EARL OF WARWICK                    EARL OF PEMBROKE\n  LORD HASTINGS                      LORD STAFFORD\n  SIR JOHN MORTIMER, uncle to the Duke of York\n  SIR HUGH MORTIMER, uncle to the Duke of York\n  HENRY, EARL OF RICHMOND, a youth\n  LORD RIVERS, brother to Lady Grey\n  SIR WILLIAM STANLEY                SIR JOHN MONTGOMERY\n  SIR JOHN SOMERVILLE                TUTOR, to Rutland\n  MAYOR OF YORK                      LIEUTENANT OF THE TOWER\n  A NOBLEMAN                         TWO KEEPERS\n  A HUNTSMAN\n  A SON that has killed his father\n  A FATHER that has killed his son\n\n  QUEEN MARGARET\n  LADY GREY, afterwards QUEEN to Edward IV\n  BONA, sister to the French Queen\n\n  Soldiers, Attendants, Messengers, Watchmen, etc.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nEngland and France\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nLondon. The Parliament House\n\nAlarum. Enter DUKE OF YORK, EDWARD, RICHARD, NORFOLK, MONTAGUE,\nWARWICK,\nand soldiers, with white roses in their hats\n\n  WARWICK. I wonder how the King escap'd our hands.\n  YORK. While we pursu'd the horsemen of the north,\n    He slily stole away and left his men;\n    Whereat the great Lord of Northumberland,\n    Whose warlike ears could never brook retreat,\n    Cheer'd up the drooping army, and himself,\n    Lord Clifford, and Lord Stafford, all abreast,\n    Charg'd our main battle's front, and, breaking in,\n    Were by the swords of common soldiers slain.\n  EDWARD. Lord Stafford's father, Duke of Buckingham,\n    Is either slain or wounded dangerous;\n    I cleft his beaver with a downright blow.\n    That this is true, father, behold his blood.\n  MONTAGUE. And, brother, here's the Earl of Wiltshire's blood,\n    Whom I encount'red as the battles join'd.\n  RICHARD. Speak thou for me, and tell them what I did.\n                                 [Throwing down SOMERSET'S head]\n  YORK. Richard hath best deserv'd of all my sons.\n    But is your Grace dead, my Lord of Somerset?\n  NORFOLK. Such hope have all the line of John of Gaunt!\n  RICHARD. Thus do I hope to shake King Henry's head.\n  WARWICK. And so do I. Victorious Prince of York,\n    Before I see thee seated in that throne\n    Which now the house of Lancaster usurps,\n    I vow by heaven these eyes shall never close.\n    This is the palace of the fearful King,\n    And this the regal seat. Possess it, York;\n    For this is thine, and not King Henry's heirs'.\n  YORK. Assist me then, sweet Warwick, and I will;\n    For hither we have broken in by force.\n  NORFOLK. We'll all assist you; he that flies shall die.\n  YORK. Thanks, gentle Norfolk. Stay by me, my lords;\n    And, soldiers, stay and lodge by me this night.\n                                                    [They go up]\n  WARWICK. And when the King comes, offer him no violence.\n    Unless he seek to thrust you out perforce.\n  YORK. The Queen this day here holds her parliament,\n    But little thinks we shall be of her council.\n    By words or blows here let us win our right.\n  RICHARD. Arm'd as we are, let's stay within this house.\n  WARWICK. The bloody parliament shall this be call'd,\n    Unless Plantagenet, Duke of York, be King,\n    And bashful Henry depos'd, whose cowardice\n    Hath made us by-words to our enemies.\n  YORK. Then leave me not, my lords; be resolute:\n    I mean to take possession of my right.\n  WARWICK. Neither the King, nor he that loves him best,\n    The proudest he that holds up Lancaster,\n    Dares stir a wing if Warwick shake his bells.\n    I'll plant Plantagenet, root him up who dares.\n    Resolve thee, Richard; claim the English crown.\n                                      [YORK occupies the throne]\n\n       Flourish. Enter KING HENRY, CLIFFORD, NORTHUMBERLAND,\n        WESTMORELAND, EXETER, and others, with red roses in\n                            their hats\n\n  KING HENRY. My lords, look where the sturdy rebel sits,\n    Even in the chair of state! Belike he means,\n    Back'd by the power of Warwick, that false peer,\n    To aspire unto the crown and reign as king.\n    Earl of Northumberland, he slew thy father;\n    And thine, Lord Clifford; and you both have vow'd revenge\n    On him, his sons, his favourites, and his friends.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. If I be not, heavens be reveng'd on me!\n  CLIFFORD. The hope thereof makes Clifford mourn in steel.\n  WESTMORELAND. What, shall we suffer this? Let's pluck him down;\n    My heart for anger burns; I cannot brook it.\n  KING HENRY. Be patient, gentle Earl of Westmoreland.\n  CLIFFORD. Patience is for poltroons such as he;\n    He durst not sit there had your father liv'd.\n    My gracious lord, here in the parliament\n    Let us assail the family of York.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Well hast thou spoken, cousin; be it so.\n  KING HENRY. Ah, know you not the city favours them,\n    And they have troops of soldiers at their beck?\n  EXETER. But when the Duke is slain they'll quickly fly.\n  KING HENRY. Far be the thought of this from Henry's heart,\n    To make a shambles of the parliament house!\n    Cousin of Exeter, frowns, words, and threats,\n    Shall be the war that Henry means to use.\n    Thou factious Duke of York, descend my throne\n    And kneel for grace and mercy at my feet;\n    I am thy sovereign.\n  YORK. I am thine.\n  EXETER. For shame, come down; he made thee Duke of York.\n  YORK. 'Twas my inheritance, as the earldom was.\n  EXETER. Thy father was a traitor to the crown.\n  WARWICK. Exeter, thou art a traitor to the crown\n    In following this usurping Henry.\n  CLIFFORD. Whom should he follow but his natural king?\n  WARWICK. True, Clifford; and that's Richard Duke of York.\n  KING HENRY. And shall I stand, and thou sit in my throne?\n  YORK. It must and shall be so; content thyself.\n  WARWICK. Be Duke of Lancaster; let him be King.\n  WESTMORELAND. He is both King and Duke of Lancaster;\n    And that the Lord of Westmoreland shall maintain.\n  WARWICK. And Warwick shall disprove it. You forget\n    That we are those which chas'd you from the field,\n    And slew your fathers, and with colours spread\n    March'd through the city to the palace gates.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Yes, Warwick, I remember it to my grief;\n    And, by his soul, thou and thy house shall rue it.\n  WESTMORELAND. Plantagenet, of thee, and these thy sons,\n    Thy kinsmen, and thy friends, I'll have more lives\n    Than drops of blood were in my father's veins.\n  CLIFFORD. Urge it no more; lest that instead of words\n    I send thee, Warwick, such a messenger\n    As shall revenge his death before I stir.\n  WARWICK. Poor Clifford, how I scorn his worthless threats!\n  YORK. Will you we show our title to the crown?\n    If not, our swords shall plead it in the field.\n  KING HENRY. What title hast thou, traitor, to the crown?\n    Thy father was, as thou art, Duke of York;\n    Thy grandfather, Roger Mortimer, Earl of March:\n    I am the son of Henry the Fifth,\n    Who made the Dauphin and the French to stoop,\n    And seiz'd upon their towns and provinces.\n  WARWICK. Talk not of France, sith thou hast lost it all.\n  KING HENRY. The Lord Protector lost it, and not I:\n    When I was crown'd, I was but nine months old.\n  RICHARD. You are old enough now, and yet methinks you lose.\n    Father, tear the crown from the usurper's head.\n  EDWARD. Sweet father, do so; set it on your head.\n  MONTAGUE. Good brother, as thou lov'st and honourest arms,\n    Let's fight it out and not stand cavilling thus.\n  RICHARD. Sound drums and trumpets, and the King will fly.\n  YORK. Sons, peace!\n  KING HENRY. Peace thou! and give King Henry leave to speak.\n  WARWICK. Plantagenet shall speak first. Hear him, lords;\n    And be you silent and attentive too,\n    For he that interrupts him shall not live.\n  KING HENRY. Think'st thou that I will leave my kingly throne,\n    Wherein my grandsire and my father sat?\n    No; first shall war unpeople this my realm;\n    Ay, and their colours, often borne in France,\n    And now in England to our heart's great sorrow,\n    Shall be my winding-sheet. Why faint you, lords?\n    My title's good, and better far than his.\n  WARWICK. Prove it, Henry, and thou shalt be King.\n  KING HENRY. Henry the Fourth by conquest got the crown.\n  YORK. 'Twas by rebellion against his king.\n  KING HENRY. [Aside] I know not what to say; my title's weak.-\n    Tell me, may not a king adopt an heir?\n  YORK. What then?\n  KING HENRY. An if he may, then am I lawful King;\n    For Richard, in the view of many lords,\n    Resign'd the crown to Henry the Fourth,\n    Whose heir my father was, and I am his.\n  YORK. He rose against him, being his sovereign,\n    And made him to resign his crown perforce.\n  WARWICK. Suppose, my lords, he did it unconstrain'd,\n    Think you 'twere prejudicial to his crown?\n  EXETER. No; for he could not so resign his crown\n    But that the next heir should succeed and reign.\n  KING HENRY. Art thou against us, Duke of Exeter?\n  EXETER. His is the right, and therefore pardon me.\n  YORK. Why whisper you, my lords, and answer not?\n  EXETER. My conscience tells me he is lawful King.\n  KING HENRY. [Aside] All will revolt from me, and turn to him.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Plantagenet, for all the claim thou lay'st,\n    Think not that Henry shall be so depos'd.\n  WARWICK. Depos'd he shall be, in despite of all.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Thou art deceiv'd. 'Tis not thy southern power\n    Of Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, nor of Kent,\n    Which makes thee thus presumptuous and proud,\n    Can set the Duke up in despite of me.\n  CLIFFORD. King Henry, be thy title right or wrong,\n    Lord Clifford vows to fight in thy defence.\n    May that ground gape, and swallow me alive,\n    Where I shall kneel to him that slew my father!\n  KING HENRY. O Clifford, how thy words revive my heart!\n  YORK. Henry of Lancaster, resign thy crown.\n    What mutter you, or what conspire you, lords?\n  WARWICK. Do right unto this princely Duke of York;\n    Or I will fill the house with armed men,\n    And over the chair of state, where now he sits,\n    Write up his title with usurping blood.\n                                [He stamps with his foot and the\n                                       soldiers show themselves]\n  KING HENRY. My Lord of Warwick, hear but one word:\n    Let me for this my life-time reign as king.\n  YORK. Confirm the crown to me and to mine heirs,\n    And thou shalt reign in quiet while thou liv'st.\n  KING HENRY. I am content. Richard Plantagenet,\n    Enjoy the kingdom after my decease.\n  CLIFFORD. What wrong is this unto the Prince your son!\n  WARWICK. What good is this to England and himself!\n  WESTMORELAND. Base, fearful, and despairing Henry!\n  CLIFFORD. How hast thou injur'd both thyself and or us!\n  WESTMORELAND. I cannot stay to hear these articles.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Nor I.\n  CLIFFORD. Come, cousin, let us tell the Queen these news.\n  WESTMORELAND. Farewell, faint-hearted and degenerate king,\n    In whose cold blood no spark of honour bides.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Be thou a prey unto the house of York\n    And die in bands for this unmanly deed!\n  CLIFFORD. In dreadful war mayst thou be overcome,\n    Or live in peace abandon'd and despis'd!\n                                Exeunt NORTHUMBERLAND, CLIFFORD,\n                                                and WESTMORELAND\n  WARWICK. Turn this way, Henry, and regard them not.\n  EXETER. They seek revenge, and therefore will not yield.\n  KING HENRY. Ah, Exeter!\n  WARWICK. Why should you sigh, my lord?\n  KING HENRY. Not for myself, Lord Warwick, but my son,\n    Whom I unnaturally shall disinherit.\n    But be it as it may. [To YORK] I here entail\n    The crown to thee and to thine heirs for ever;\n    Conditionally, that here thou take an oath\n    To cease this civil war, and, whilst I live,\n    To honour me as thy king and sovereign,\n    And neither by treason nor hostility\n    To seek to put me down and reign thyself.\n  YORK. This oath I willingly take, and will perform.\n                                        [Coming from the throne]\n  WARWICK. Long live King Henry! Plantagenet, embrace him.\n  KING HENRY. And long live thou, and these thy forward sons!\n  YORK. Now York and Lancaster are reconcil'd.\n  EXETER. Accurs'd be he that seeks to make them foes!\n                                   [Sennet. Here they come down]\n  YORK. Farewell, my gracious lord; I'll to my castle.\n  WARWICK. And I'll keep London with my soldiers.\n  NORFOLK. And I to Norfolk with my followers.\n  MONTAGUE. And I unto the sea, from whence I came.\n                                             Exeunt the YORKISTS\n  KING HENRY. And I, with grief and sorrow, to the court.\n\n            Enter QUEEN MARGARET and the PRINCE OF WALES\n\n  EXETER. Here comes the Queen, whose looks bewray her anger.\n    I'll steal away.\n  KING HENRY. Exeter, so will I.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Nay, go not from me; I will follow thee.\n  KING HENRY. Be patient, gentle queen, and I will stay.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Who can be patient in such extremes?\n    Ah, wretched man! Would I had died a maid,\n    And never seen thee, never borne thee son,\n    Seeing thou hast prov'd so unnatural a father!\n    Hath he deserv'd to lose his birthright thus?\n    Hadst thou but lov'd him half so well as I,\n    Or felt that pain which I did for him once,\n    Or nourish'd him as I did with my blood,\n    Thou wouldst have left thy dearest heart-blood there\n    Rather than have made that savage duke thine heir,\n    And disinherited thine only son.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. Father, you cannot disinherit me.\n    If you be King, why should not I succeed?\n  KING HENRY. Pardon me, Margaret; pardon me, sweet son.\n    The Earl of Warwick and the Duke enforc'd me.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Enforc'd thee! Art thou King and wilt be\n      forc'd?\n    I shame to hear thee speak. Ah, timorous wretch!\n    Thou hast undone thyself, thy son, and me;\n    And giv'n unto the house of York such head\n    As thou shalt reign but by their sufferance.\n    To entail him and his heirs unto the crown,\n    What is it but to make thy sepulchre\n    And creep into it far before thy time?\n    Warwick is Chancellor and the lord of Calais;\n    Stern Falconbridge commands the narrow seas;\n    The Duke is made Protector of the realm;\n    And yet shalt thou be safe? Such safety finds\n    The trembling lamb environed with wolves.\n    Had I been there, which am a silly woman,\n    The soldiers should have toss'd me on their pikes\n    Before I would have granted to that act.\n    But thou prefer'st thy life before thine honour;\n    And seeing thou dost, I here divorce myself,\n    Both from thy table, Henry, and thy bed,\n    Until that act of parliament be repeal'd\n    Whereby my son is disinherited.\n    The northern lords that have forsworn thy colours\n    Will follow mine, if once they see them spread;\n    And spread they shall be, to thy foul disgrace\n    And utter ruin of the house of York.\n    Thus do I leave thee. Come, son, let's away;\n    Our army is ready; come, we'll after them.\n  KING HENRY. Stay, gentle Margaret, and hear me speak.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Thou hast spoke too much already; get thee\ngone.\n  KING HENRY. Gentle son Edward, thou wilt stay with me?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, to be murder'd by his enemies.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. When I return with victory from the field\n    I'll see your Grace; till then I'll follow her.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Come, son, away; we may not linger thus.\n                            Exeunt QUEEN MARGARET and the PRINCE\n  KING HENRY. Poor queen! How love to me and to her son\n    Hath made her break out into terms of rage!\n    Reveng'd may she be on that hateful Duke,\n    Whose haughty spirit, winged with desire,\n    Will cost my crown, and like an empty eagle\n    Tire on the flesh of me and of my son!\n    The loss of those three lords torments my heart.\n    I'll write unto them, and entreat them fair;\n    Come, cousin, you shall be the messenger.\n  EXETER. And I, I hope, shall reconcile them all.        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nSandal Castle, near Wakefield, in Yorkshire\n\nFlourish. Enter EDWARD, RICHARD, and MONTAGUE\n\n  RICHARD. Brother, though I be youngest, give me leave.\n  EDWARD. No, I can better play the orator.\n  MONTAGUE. But I have reasons strong and forcible.\n\n                     Enter the DUKE OF YORK\n\n  YORK. Why, how now, sons and brother! at a strife?\n    What is your quarrel? How began it first?\n  EDWARD. No quarrel, but a slight contention.\n  YORK. About what?\n  RICHARD. About that which concerns your Grace and us-\n    The crown of England, father, which is yours.\n  YORK. Mine, boy? Not till King Henry be dead.\n  RICHARD. Your right depends not on his life or death.\n  EDWARD. Now you are heir, therefore enjoy it now.\n    By giving the house of Lancaster leave to breathe,\n    It will outrun you, father, in the end.\n  YORK. I took an oath that he should quietly reign.\n  EDWARD. But for a kingdom any oath may be broken:\n    I would break a thousand oaths to reign one year.\n  RICHARD. No; God forbid your Grace should be forsworn.\n  YORK. I shall be, if I claim by open war.\n  RICHARD. I'll prove the contrary, if you'll hear me speak.\n  YORK. Thou canst not, son; it is impossible.\n  RICHARD. An oath is of no moment, being not took\n    Before a true and lawful magistrate\n    That hath authority over him that swears.\n    Henry had none, but did usurp the place;\n    Then, seeing 'twas he that made you to depose,\n    Your oath, my lord, is vain and frivolous.\n    Therefore, to arms. And, father, do but think\n    How sweet a thing it is to wear a crown,\n    Within whose circuit is Elysium\n    And all that poets feign of bliss and joy.\n    Why do we linger thus? I cannot rest\n    Until the white rose that I wear be dy'd\n    Even in the lukewarm blood of Henry's heart.\n  YORK. Richard, enough; I will be King, or die.\n    Brother, thou shalt to London presently\n    And whet on Warwick to this enterprise.\n    Thou, Richard, shalt to the Duke of Norfolk\n    And tell him privily of our intent.\n    You, Edward, shall unto my Lord Cobham,\n    With whom the Kentishmen will willingly rise;\n    In them I trust, for they are soldiers,\n    Witty, courteous, liberal, full of spirit.\n    While you are thus employ'd, what resteth more\n    But that I seek occasion how to rise,\n    And yet the King not privy to my drift,\n    Nor any of the house of Lancaster?\n\n                      Enter a MESSENGER\n\n    But, stay. What news? Why com'st thou in such post?\n  MESSENGER. The Queen with all the northern earls and lords\n    Intend here to besiege you in your castle.\n    She is hard by with twenty thousand men;\n    And therefore fortify your hold, my lord.\n  YORK. Ay, with my sword. What! think'st thou that we fear them?\n    Edward and Richard, you shall stay with me;\n    My brother Montague shall post to London.\n    Let noble Warwick, Cobham, and the rest,\n    Whom we have left protectors of the King,\n    With pow'rful policy strengthen themselves\n    And trust not simple Henry nor his oaths.\n  MONTAGUE. Brother, I go; I'll win them, fear it not.\n    And thus most humbly I do take my leave.                Exit\n\n              Enter SIR JOHN and SIR HUGH MORTIMER\n\n  YORK. Sir john and Sir Hugh Mortimer, mine uncles!\n    You are come to Sandal in a happy hour;\n    The army of the Queen mean to besiege us.\n  SIR JOHN. She shall not need; we'll meet her in the field.\n  YORK. What, with five thousand men?\n  RICHARD. Ay, with five hundred, father, for a need.\n    A woman's general; what should we fear?\n                                              [A march afar off]\n  EDWARD. I hear their drums. Let's set our men in order,\n    And issue forth and bid them battle straight.\n  YORK. Five men to twenty! Though the odds be great,\n    I doubt not, uncle, of our victory.\n    Many a battle have I won in France,\n    When as the enemy hath been ten to one;\n    Why should I not now have the like success?           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nField of battle between Sandal Castle and Wakefield\n\nAlarum. Enter RUTLAND and his TUTOR\n\n  RUTLAND. Ah, whither shall I fly to scape their hands?\n    Ah, tutor, look where bloody Clifford comes!\n\n                  Enter CLIFFORD and soldiers\n\n  CLIFFORD. Chaplain, away! Thy priesthood saves thy life.\n    As for the brat of this accursed duke,\n    Whose father slew my father, he shall die.\n  TUTOR. And I, my lord, will bear him company.\n  CLIFFORD. Soldiers, away with him!\n  TUTOR. Ah, Clifford, murder not this innocent child,\n    Lest thou be hated both of God and man.\n                                    Exit, forced off by soldiers\n  CLIFFORD. How now, is he dead already? Or is it fear\n    That makes him close his eyes? I'll open them.\n  RUTLAND. So looks the pent-up lion o'er the wretch\n    That trembles under his devouring paws;\n    And so he walks, insulting o'er his prey,\n    And so he comes, to rend his limbs asunder.\n    Ah, gentle Clifford, kill me with thy sword,\n    And not with such a cruel threat'ning look!\n    Sweet Clifford, hear me speak before I die.\n    I am too mean a subject for thy wrath;\n    Be thou reveng'd on men, and let me live.\n  CLIFFORD. In vain thou speak'st, poor boy; my father's blood\n    Hath stopp'd the passage where thy words should enter.\n  RUTLAND. Then let my father's blood open it again:\n    He is a man, and, Clifford, cope with him.\n  CLIFFORD. Had I thy brethren here, their lives and thine\n    Were not revenge sufficient for me;\n    No, if I digg'd up thy forefathers' graves\n    And hung their rotten coffins up in chains,\n    It could not slake mine ire nor ease my heart.\n    The sight of any of the house of York\n    Is as a fury to torment my soul;\n    And till I root out their accursed line\n    And leave not one alive, I live in hell.\n    Therefore-\n  RUTLAND. O, let me pray before I take my death!\n    To thee I pray: sweet Clifford, pity me.\n  CLIFFORD. Such pity as my rapier's point affords.\n  RUTLAND. I never did thee harm; why wilt thou slay me?\n  CLIFFORD. Thy father hath.\n  RUTLAND. But 'twas ere I was born.\n    Thou hast one son; for his sake pity me,\n    Lest in revenge thereof, sith God is just,\n    He be as miserably slain as I.\n    Ah, let me live in prison all my days;\n    And when I give occasion of offence\n    Then let me die, for now thou hast no cause.\n  CLIFFORD. No cause!\n    Thy father slew my father; therefore, die.       [Stabs him]\n  RUTLAND. Di faciant laudis summa sit ista tuae!         [Dies]\n  CLIFFORD. Plantagenet, I come, Plantagenet;\n    And this thy son's blood cleaving to my blade\n    Shall rust upon my weapon, till thy blood,\n    Congeal'd with this, do make me wipe off both.          Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nAnother part of the field\n\nAlarum. Enter the DUKE OF YORK\n\n  YORK. The army of the Queen hath got the field.\n    My uncles both are slain in rescuing me;\n    And all my followers to the eager foe\n    Turn back and fly, like ships before the wind,\n    Or lambs pursu'd by hunger-starved wolves.\n    My sons- God knows what hath bechanced them;\n    But this I know- they have demean'd themselves\n    Like men born to renown by life or death.\n    Three times did Richard make a lane to me,\n    And thrice cried 'Courage, father! fight it out.'\n    And full as oft came Edward to my side\n    With purple falchion, painted to the hilt\n    In blood of those that had encount'red him.\n    And when the hardiest warriors did retire,\n    Richard cried 'Charge, and give no foot of ground!'\n    And cried 'A crown, or else a glorious tomb!\n    A sceptre, or an earthly sepulchre!'\n    With this we charg'd again; but out alas!\n    We bodg'd again; as I have seen a swan\n    With bootless labour swim against the tide\n    And spend her strength with over-matching waves.\n                                         [A short alarum within]\n    Ah, hark! The fatal followers do pursue,\n    And I am faint and cannot fly their fury;\n    And were I strong, I would not shun their fury.\n    The sands are numb'red that make up my life;\n    Here must I stay, and here my life must end.\n\n         Enter QUEEN MARGARET, CLIFFORD, NORTHUMBERLAND,\n               the PRINCE OF WALES, and soldiers\n\n    Come, bloody Clifford, rough Northumberland,\n    I dare your quenchless fury to more rage;\n    I am your butt, and I abide your shot.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Yield to our mercy, proud Plantagenet.\n  CLIFFORD. Ay, to such mercy as his ruthless arm\n    With downright payment show'd unto my father.\n    Now Phaethon hath tumbled from his car,\n    And made an evening at the noontide prick.\n  YORK. My ashes, as the phoenix, may bring forth\n    A bird that will revenge upon you all;\n    And in that hope I throw mine eyes to heaven,\n    Scorning whate'er you can afflict me with.\n    Why come you not? What! multitudes, and fear?\n  CLIFFORD. So cowards fight when they can fly no further;\n    So doves do peck the falcon's piercing talons;\n    So desperate thieves, all hopeless of their lives,\n    Breathe out invectives 'gainst the officers.\n  YORK. O Clifford, but bethink thee once again,\n    And in thy thought o'errun my former time;\n    And, if thou canst for blushing, view this face,\n    And bite thy tongue that slanders him with cowardice\n    Whose frown hath made thee faint and fly ere this!\n  CLIFFORD. I will not bandy with thee word for word,\n    But buckler with thee blows, twice two for one.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Hold, valiant Clifford; for a thousand causes\n    I would prolong awhile the traitor's life.\n    Wrath makes him deaf; speak thou, Northumberland.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Hold, Clifford! do not honour him so much\n    To prick thy finger, though to wound his heart.\n    What valour were it, when a cur doth grin,\n    For one to thrust his hand between his teeth,\n    When he might spurn him with his foot away?\n    It is war's prize to take all vantages;\n    And ten to one is no impeach of valour.\n                         [They lay hands on YORK, who struggles]\n  CLIFFORD. Ay, ay, so strives the woodcock with the gin.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. So doth the cony struggle in the net.\n  YORK. So triumph thieves upon their conquer'd booty;\n    So true men yield, with robbers so o'er-match'd.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. What would your Grace have done unto him now?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Brave warriors, Clifford and Northumberland,\n    Come, make him stand upon this molehill here\n    That raught at mountains with outstretched arms,\n    Yet parted but the shadow with his hand.\n    What, was it you that would be England's king?\n    Was't you that revell'd in our parliament\n    And made a preachment of your high descent?\n    Where are your mess of sons to back you now?\n    The wanton Edward and the lusty George?\n    And where's that valiant crook-back prodigy,\n    Dicky your boy, that with his grumbling voice\n    Was wont to cheer his dad in mutinies?\n    Or, with the rest, where is your darling Rutland?\n    Look, York: I stain'd this napkin with the blood\n    That valiant Clifford with his rapier's point\n    Made issue from the bosom of the boy;\n    And if thine eyes can water for his death,\n    I give thee this to dry thy cheeks withal.\n    Alas, poor York! but that I hate thee deadly,\n    I should lament thy miserable state.\n    I prithee grieve to make me merry, York.\n    What, hath thy fiery heart so parch'd thine entrails\n    That not a tear can fall for Rutland's death?\n    Why art thou patient, man? Thou shouldst be mad;\n    And I to make thee mad do mock thee thus.\n    Stamp, rave, and fret, that I may sing and dance.\n    Thou wouldst be fee'd, I see, to make me sport;\n    York cannot speak unless he wear a crown.\n    A crown for York!-and, lords, bow low to him.\n    Hold you his hands whilst I do set it on.\n                             [Putting a paper crown on his head]\n    Ay, marry, sir, now looks he like a king!\n    Ay, this is he that took King Henry's chair,\n    And this is he was his adopted heir.\n    But how is it that great Plantagenet\n    Is crown'd so soon and broke his solemn oath?\n    As I bethink me, you should not be King\n    Till our King Henry had shook hands with death.\n    And will you pale your head in Henry's glory,\n    And rob his temples of the diadem,\n    Now in his life, against your holy oath?\n    O, 'tis a fault too too\n    Off with the crown and with the crown his head;\n    And, whilst we breathe, take time to do him dead.\n  CLIFFORD. That is my office, for my father's sake.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Nay, stay; let's hear the orisons he makes.\n  YORK. She-wolf of France, but worse than wolves of France,\n    Whose tongue more poisons than the adder's tooth!\n    How ill-beseeming is it in thy sex\n    To triumph like an Amazonian trull\n    Upon their woes whom fortune captivates!\n    But that thy face is visard-like, unchanging,\n    Made impudent with use of evil deeds,\n    I would assay, proud queen, to make thee blush.\n    To tell thee whence thou cam'st, of whom deriv'd,\n    Were shame enough to shame thee, wert thou not shameless.\n    Thy father bears the type of King of Naples,\n    Of both the Sicils and Jerusalem,\n    Yet not so wealthy as an English yeoman.\n    Hath that poor monarch taught thee to insult?\n    It needs not, nor it boots thee not, proud queen;\n    Unless the adage must be verified,\n    That beggars mounted run their horse to death.\n    'Tis beauty that doth oft make women proud;\n    But, God He knows, thy share thereof is small.\n    'Tis virtue that doth make them most admir'd;\n    The contrary doth make thee wond'red at.\n    'Tis government that makes them seem divine;\n    The want thereof makes thee abominable.\n    Thou art as opposite to every good\n    As the Antipodes are unto us,\n    Or as the south to the septentrion.\n    O tiger's heart wrapp'd in a woman's hide!\n    How couldst thou drain the life-blood of the child,\n    To bid the father wipe his eyes withal,\n    And yet be seen to bear a woman's face?\n    Women are soft, mild, pitiful, and flexible:\n    Thou stern, obdurate, flinty, rough, remorseless.\n    Bid'st thou me rage? Why, now thou hast thy wish;\n    Wouldst have me weep? Why, now thou hast thy will;\n    For raging wind blows up incessant showers,\n    And when the rage allays, the rain begins.\n    These tears are my sweet Rutland's obsequies;\n    And every drop cries vengeance for his death\n    'Gainst thee, fell Clifford, and thee, false Frenchwoman.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Beshrew me, but his passions move me so\n    That hardly can I check my eyes from tears.\n  YORK. That face of his the hungry cannibals\n    Would not have touch'd, would not have stain'd with blood;\n    But you are more inhuman, more inexorable-\n    O, ten times more- than tigers of Hyrcania.\n    See, ruthless queen, a hapless father's tears.\n    This cloth thou dipp'dst in blood of my sweet boy,\n    And I with tears do wash the blood away.\n    Keep thou the napkin, and go boast of this;\n    And if thou tell'st the heavy story right,\n    Upon my soul, the hearers will shed tears;\n    Yea, even my foes will shed fast-falling tears\n    And say 'Alas, it was a piteous deed!'\n    There, take the crown, and with the crown my curse;\n    And in thy need such comfort come to thee\n    As now I reap at thy too cruel hand!\n    Hard-hearted Clifford, take me from the world;\n    My soul to heaven, my blood upon your heads!\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Had he been slaughter-man to all my kin,\n    I should not for my life but weep with him,\n    To see how inly sorrow gripes his soul.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. What, weeping-ripe, my Lord Northumberland?\n    Think but upon the wrong he did us all,\n    And that will quickly dry thy melting tears.\n  CLIFFORD. Here's for my oath, here's for my father's death.\n                                                  [Stabbing him]\n  QUEEN MARGARET. And here's to right our gentle-hearted king.\n                                                  [Stabbing him]\n  YORK. Open Thy gate of mercy, gracious God!\n    My soul flies through these wounds to seek out Thee.\n                                                          [Dies]\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Off with his head, and set it on York gates;\n    So York may overlook the town of York.\n                                                Flourish. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nA plain near Mortimer's Cross in Herefordshire\n\nA march. Enter EDWARD, RICHARD, and their power\n\n  EDWARD. I wonder how our princely father scap'd,\n    Or whether he be scap'd away or no\n    From Clifford's and Northumberland's pursuit.\n    Had he been ta'en, we should have heard the news;\n    Had he been slain, we should have heard the news;\n    Or had he scap'd, methinks we should have heard\n    The happy tidings of his good escape.\n    How fares my brother? Why is he so sad?\n  RICHARD. I cannot joy until I be resolv'd\n    Where our right valiant father is become.\n    I saw him in the battle range about,\n    And watch'd him how he singled Clifford forth.\n    Methought he bore him in the thickest troop\n    As doth a lion in a herd of neat;\n    Or as a bear, encompass'd round with dogs,\n    Who having pinch'd a few and made them cry,\n    The rest stand all aloof and bark at him.\n    So far'd our father with his enemies;\n    So fled his enemies my warlike father.\n    Methinks 'tis prize enough to be his son.\n    See how the morning opes her golden gates\n    And takes her farewell of the glorious sun.\n    How well resembles it the prime of youth,\n    Trimm'd like a younker prancing to his love!\n  EDWARD. Dazzle mine eyes, or do I see three suns?\n  RICHARD. Three glorious suns, each one a perfect sun;\n    Not separated with the racking clouds,\n    But sever'd in a pale clear-shining sky.\n    See, see! they join, embrace, and seem to kiss,\n    As if they vow'd some league inviolable.\n    Now are they but one lamp, one light, one sun.\n    In this the heaven figures some event.\n  EDWARD. 'Tis wondrous strange, the like yet never heard of.\n    I think it cites us, brother, to the field,\n    That we, the sons of brave Plantagenet,\n    Each one already blazing by our meeds,\n    Should notwithstanding join our lights together\n    And overshine the earth, as this the world.\n    Whate'er it bodes, henceforward will I bear\n    Upon my target three fair shining suns.\n  RICHARD. Nay, bear three daughters- by your leave I speak it,\n    You love the breeder better than the male.\n\n                 Enter a MESSENGER, blowing\n\n    But what art thou, whose heavy looks foretell\n    Some dreadful story hanging on thy tongue?\n  MESSENGER. Ah, one that was a woeful looker-on\n    When as the noble Duke of York was slain,\n    Your princely father and my loving lord!\n  EDWARD. O, speak no more! for I have heard too much.\n  RICHARD. Say how he died, for I will hear it all.\n  MESSENGER. Environed he was with many foes,\n    And stood against them as the hope of Troy\n    Against the Greeks that would have ent'red Troy.\n    But Hercules himself must yield to odds;\n    And many strokes, though with a little axe,\n    Hews down and fells the hardest-timber'd oak.\n    By many hands your father was subdu'd;\n    But only slaught'red by the ireful arm\n    Of unrelenting Clifford and the Queen,\n    Who crown'd the gracious Duke in high despite,\n    Laugh'd in his face; and when with grief he wept,\n    The ruthless Queen gave him to dry his cheeks\n    A napkin steeped in the harmless blood\n    Of sweet young Rutland, by rough Clifford slain;\n    And after many scorns, many foul taunts,\n    They took his head, and on the gates of York\n    They set the same; and there it doth remain,\n    The saddest spectacle that e'er I view'd.\n  EDWARD. Sweet Duke of York, our prop to lean upon,\n    Now thou art gone, we have no staff, no stay.\n    O Clifford, boist'rous Clifford, thou hast slain\n    The flow'r of Europe for his chivalry;\n    And treacherously hast thou vanquish'd him,\n    For hand to hand he would have vanquish'd thee.\n    Now my soul's palace is become a prison.\n    Ah, would she break from hence, that this my body\n    Might in the ground be closed up in rest!\n    For never henceforth shall I joy again;\n    Never, O never, shall I see more joy.\n  RICHARD. I cannot weep, for all my body's moisture\n    Scarce serves to quench my furnace-burning heart;\n    Nor can my tongue unload my heart's great burden,\n    For self-same wind that I should speak withal\n    Is kindling coals that fires all my breast,\n    And burns me up with flames that tears would quench.\n    To weep is to make less the depth of grief.\n    Tears then for babes; blows and revenge for me!\n    Richard, I bear thy name; I'll venge thy death,\n    Or die renowned by attempting it.\n  EDWARD. His name that valiant duke hath left with thee;\n    His dukedom and his chair with me is left.\n  RICHARD. Nay, if thou be that princely eagle's bird,\n    Show thy descent by gazing 'gainst the sun;\n    For chair and dukedom, throne and kingdom, say:\n    Either that is thine, or else thou wert not his.\n\n         March. Enter WARWICK, MONTAGUE, and their army\n\n  WARWICK. How now, fair lords! What fare? What news abroad?\n  RICHARD. Great Lord of Warwick, if we should recount\n    Our baleful news and at each word's deliverance\n    Stab poinards in our flesh till all were told,\n    The words would add more anguish than the wounds.\n    O valiant lord, the Duke of York is slain!\n  EDWARD. O Warwick, Warwick! that Plantagenet\n    Which held thee dearly as his soul's redemption\n    Is by the stern Lord Clifford done to death.\n  WARWICK. Ten days ago I drown'd these news in tears;\n    And now, to add more measure to your woes,\n    I come to tell you things sith then befall'n.\n    After the bloody fray at Wakefield fought,\n    Where your brave father breath'd his latest gasp,\n    Tidings, as swiftly as the posts could run,\n    Were brought me of your loss and his depart.\n    I, then in London, keeper of the King,\n    Muster'd my soldiers, gathered flocks of friends,\n    And very well appointed, as I thought,\n    March'd toward Saint Albans to intercept the Queen,\n    Bearing the King in my behalf along;\n    For by my scouts I was advertised\n    That she was coming with a full intent\n    To dash our late decree in parliament\n    Touching King Henry's oath and your succession.\n    Short tale to make- we at Saint Albans met,\n    Our battles join'd, and both sides fiercely fought;\n    But whether 'twas the coldness of the King,\n    Who look'd full gently on his warlike queen,\n    That robb'd my soldiers of their heated spleen,\n    Or whether 'twas report of her success,\n    Or more than common fear of Clifford's rigour,\n    Who thunders to his captives blood and death,\n    I cannot judge; but, to conclude with truth,\n    Their weapons like to lightning came and went:\n    Our soldiers', like the night-owl's lazy flight\n    Or like an idle thresher with a flail,\n    Fell gently down, as if they struck their friends.\n    I cheer'd them up with justice of our cause,\n    With promise of high pay and great rewards,\n    But all in vain; they had no heart to fight,\n    And we in them no hope to win the day;\n    So that we fled: the King unto the Queen;\n    Lord George your brother, Norfolk, and myself,\n    In haste post-haste are come to join with you;\n    For in the marches here we heard you were\n    Making another head to fight again.\n  EDWARD. Where is the Duke of Norfolk, gentle Warwick?\n    And when came George from Burgundy to England?\n  WARWICK. Some six miles off the Duke is with the soldiers;\n    And for your brother, he was lately sent\n    From your kind aunt, Duchess of Burgundy,\n    With aid of soldiers to this needful war.\n  RICHARD. 'Twas odds, belike, when valiant Warwick fled.\n    Oft have I heard his praises in pursuit,\n    But ne'er till now his scandal of retire.\n  WARWICK. Nor now my scandal, Richard, dost thou hear;\n    For thou shalt know this strong right hand of mine\n    Can pluck the diadem from faint Henry's head\n    And wring the awful sceptre from his fist,\n    Were he as famous and as bold in war\n    As he is fam'd for mildness, peace, and prayer.\n  RICHARD. I know it well, Lord Warwick; blame me not.\n    'Tis love I bear thy glories makes me speak.\n    But in this troublous time what's to be done?\n    Shall we go throw away our coats of steel\n    And wrap our bodies in black mourning-gowns,\n    Numbering our Ave-Maries with our beads?\n    Or shall we on the helmets of our foes\n    Tell our devotion with revengeful arms?\n    If for the last, say 'Ay,' and to it, lords.\n  WARWICK. Why, therefore Warwick came to seek you out;\n    And therefore comes my brother Montague.\n    Attend me, lords. The proud insulting Queen,\n    With Clifford and the haught Northumberland,\n    And of their feather many moe proud birds,\n    Have wrought the easy-melting King like wax.\n    He swore consent to your succession,\n    His oath enrolled in the parliament;\n    And now to London all the crew are gone\n    To frustrate both his oath and what beside\n    May make against the house of Lancaster.\n    Their power, I think, is thirty thousand strong.\n    Now if the help of Norfolk and myself,\n    With all the friends that thou, brave Earl of March,\n    Amongst the loving Welshmen canst procure,\n    Will but amount to five and twenty thousand,\n    Why, Via! to London will we march amain,\n    And once again bestride our foaming steeds,\n    And once again cry 'Charge upon our foes!'\n    But never once again turn back and fly.\n  RICHARD. Ay, now methinks I hear great Warwick speak.\n    Ne'er may he live to see a sunshine day\n    That cries 'Retire!' if Warwick bid him stay.\n  EDWARD. Lord Warwick, on thy shoulder will I lean;\n    And when thou fail'st- as God forbid the hour!-\n    Must Edward fall, which peril heaven forfend.\n  WARWICK. No longer Earl of March, but Duke of York;\n    The next degree is England's royal throne,\n    For King of England shalt thou be proclaim'd\n    In every borough as we pass along;\n    And he that throws not up his cap for joy\n    Shall for the fault make forfeit of his head.\n    King Edward, valiant Richard, Montague,\n    Stay we no longer, dreaming of renown,\n    But sound the trumpets and about our task.\n  RICHARD. Then, Clifford, were thy heart as hard as steel,\n    As thou hast shown it flinty by thy deeds,\n    I come to pierce it or to give thee mine.\n  EDWARD. Then strike up drums. God and Saint George for us!\n\n                       Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  WARWICK. How now! what news?\n  MESSENGER. The Duke of Norfolk sends you word by me\n    The Queen is coming with a puissant host,\n    And craves your company for speedy counsel.\n  WARWICK. Why, then it sorts; brave warriors, let's away.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBefore York\n\nFlourish. Enter KING HENRY, QUEEN MARGARET, the PRINCE OF WALES,\nCLIFFORD,\nNORTHUMBERLAND, with drum and trumpets\n\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Welcome, my lord, to this brave town of York.\n    Yonder's the head of that arch-enemy\n    That sought to be encompass'd with your crown.\n    Doth not the object cheer your heart, my lord?\n  KING HENRY. Ay, as the rocks cheer them that fear their wreck-\n    To see this sight, it irks my very soul.\n    Withhold revenge, dear God; 'tis not my fault,\n    Nor wittingly have I infring'd my vow.\n  CLIFFORD. My gracious liege, this too much lenity\n    And harmful pity must be laid aside.\n    To whom do lions cast their gentle looks?\n    Not to the beast that would usurp their den.\n    Whose hand is that the forest bear doth lick?\n    Not his that spoils her young before her face.\n    Who scapes the lurking serpent's mortal sting?\n    Not he that sets his foot upon her back,\n    The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on,\n    And doves will peck in safeguard of their brood.\n    Ambitious York did level at thy crown,\n    Thou smiling while he knit his angry brows.\n    He, but a Duke, would have his son a king,\n    And raise his issue like a loving sire:\n    Thou, being a king, bless'd with a goodly son,\n    Didst yield consent to disinherit him,\n    Which argued thee a most unloving father.\n    Unreasonable creatures feed their young;\n    And though man's face be fearful to their eyes,\n    Yet, in protection of their tender ones,\n    Who hath not seen them- even with those wings\n    Which sometime they have us'd with fearful flight-\n    Make war with him that climb'd unto their nest,\n    Offering their own lives in their young's defence\n    For shame, my liege, make them your precedent!\n    Were it not pity that this goodly boy\n    Should lose his birthright by his father's fault,\n    And long hereafter say unto his child\n    'What my great-grandfather and grandsire got\n    My careless father fondly gave away'?\n    Ah, what a shame were this! Look on the boy;\n    And let his manly face, which promiseth\n    Successful fortune, steel thy melting heart\n    To hold thine own and leave thine own with him.\n  KING HENRY. Full well hath Clifford play'd the orator,\n    Inferring arguments of mighty force.\n    But, Clifford, tell me, didst thou never hear\n    That things ill got had ever bad success?\n    And happy always was it for that son\n    Whose father for his hoarding went to hell?\n    I'll leave my son my virtuous deeds behind;\n    And would my father had left me no more!\n    For all the rest is held at such a rate\n    As brings a thousand-fold more care to keep\n    Than in possession any jot of pleasure.\n    Ah, cousin York! would thy best friends did know\n    How it doth grieve me that thy head is here!\n  QUEEN MARGARET. My lord, cheer up your spirits; our foes are\nnigh,\n    And this soft courage makes your followers faint.\n    You promis'd knighthood to our forward son:\n    Unsheathe your sword and dub him presently.\n    Edward, kneel down.\n  KING HENRY. Edward Plantagenet, arise a knight;\n    And learn this lesson: Draw thy sword in right.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. My gracious father, by your kingly leave,\n    I'll draw it as apparent to the crown,\n    And in that quarrel use it to the death.\n  CLIFFORD. Why, that is spoken like a toward prince.\n\n                      Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. Royal commanders, be in readiness;\n    For with a band of thirty thousand men\n    Comes Warwick, backing of the Duke of York,\n    And in the towns, as they do march along,\n    Proclaims him king, and many fly to him.\n    Darraign your battle, for they are at hand.\n  CLIFFORD. I would your Highness would depart the field:\n    The Queen hath best success when you are absent.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, good my lord, and leave us to our fortune.\n  KING HENRY. Why, that's my fortune too; therefore I'll stay.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Be it with resolution, then, to fight.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. My royal father, cheer these noble lords,\n    And hearten those that fight in your defence.\n    Unsheathe your sword, good father; cry 'Saint George!'\n\n         March. Enter EDWARD, GEORGE, RICHARD, WARWICK,\n                NORFOLK, MONTAGUE, and soldiers\n\n  EDWARD. Now, perjur'd Henry, wilt thou kneel for grace\n    And set thy diadem upon my head,\n    Or bide the mortal fortune of the field?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Go rate thy minions, proud insulting boy.\n    Becomes it thee to be thus bold in terms\n    Before thy sovereign and thy lawful king?\n  EDWARD. I am his king, and he should bow his knee.\n    I was adopted heir by his consent:\n    Since when, his oath is broke; for, as I hear,\n    You that are King, though he do wear the crown,\n    Have caus'd him by new act of parliament\n    To blot out me and put his own son in.\n  CLIFFORD. And reason too:\n    Who should succeed the father but the son?\n  RICHARD. Are you there, butcher? O, I cannot speak!\n  CLIFFORD. Ay, crook-back, here I stand to answer thee,\n    Or any he, the proudest of thy sort.\n  RICHARD. 'Twas you that kill'd young Rutland, was it not?\n  CLIFFORD. Ay, and old York, and yet not satisfied.\n  RICHARD. For God's sake, lords, give signal to the fight.\n  WARWICK. What say'st thou, Henry? Wilt thou yield the crown?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Why, how now, long-tongu'd Warwick! Dare you\nspeak?\n    When you and I met at Saint Albans last\n    Your legs did better service than your hands.\n  WARWICK. Then 'twas my turn to fly, and now 'tis thine.\n  CLIFFORD. You said so much before, and yet you fled.\n  WARWICK. 'Twas not your valour, Clifford, drove me thence.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. No, nor your manhood that durst make you stay.\n\n  RICHARD. Northumberland, I hold thee reverently.\n    Break off the parley; for scarce I can refrain\n    The execution of my big-swol'n heart\n    Upon that Clifford, that cruel child-killer.\n  CLIFFORD. I slew thy father; call'st thou him a child?\n  RICHARD. Ay, like a dastard and a treacherous coward,\n    As thou didst kill our tender brother Rutland;\n    But ere sunset I'll make thee curse the deed.\n  KING HENRY. Have done with words, my lords, and hear me speak.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Defy them then, or else hold close thy lips.\n  KING HENRY. I prithee give no limits to my tongue:\n    I am a king, and privileg'd to speak.\n  CLIFFORD. My liege, the wound that bred this meeting here\n    Cannot be cur'd by words; therefore be still.\n  RICHARD. Then, executioner, unsheathe thy sword.\n    By Him that made us all, I am resolv'd\n    That Clifford's manhood lies upon his tongue.\n  EDWARD. Say, Henry, shall I have my right, or no?\n    A thousand men have broke their fasts to-day\n    That ne'er shall dine unless thou yield the crown.\n  WARWICK. If thou deny, their blood upon thy head;\n    For York in justice puts his armour on.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. If that be right which Warwick says is right,\n    There is no wrong, but every thing is right.\n  RICHARD. Whoever got thee, there thy mother stands;\n    For well I wot thou hast thy mother's tongue.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. But thou art neither like thy sire nor dam;\n    But like a foul misshapen stigmatic,\n    Mark'd by the destinies to be avoided,\n    As venom toads or lizards' dreadful stings.\n  RICHARD. Iron of Naples hid with English gilt,\n    Whose father bears the title of a king-\n    As if a channel should be call'd the sea-\n    Sham'st thou not, knowing whence thou art extraught,\n    To let thy tongue detect thy base-born heart?\n  EDWARD. A wisp of straw were worth a thousand crowns\n    To make this shameless callet know herself.\n    Helen of Greece was fairer far than thou,\n    Although thy husband may be Menelaus;\n    And ne'er was Agamemmon's brother wrong'd\n    By that false woman as this king by thee.\n    His father revell'd in the heart of France,\n    And tam'd the King, and made the Dauphin stoop;\n    And had he match'd according to his state,\n    He might have kept that glory to this day;\n    But when he took a beggar to his bed\n    And grac'd thy poor sire with his bridal day,\n    Even then that sunshine brew'd a show'r for him\n    That wash'd his father's fortunes forth of France\n    And heap'd sedition on his crown at home.\n    For what hath broach'd this tumult but thy pride?\n    Hadst thou been meek, our title still had slept;\n    And we, in pity of the gentle King,\n    Had slipp'd our claim until another age.\n  GEORGE. But when we saw our sunshine made thy spring,\n    And that thy summer bred us no increase,\n    We set the axe to thy usurping root;\n    And though the edge hath something hit ourselves,\n    Yet know thou, since we have begun to strike,\n    We'll never leave till we have hewn thee down,\n    Or bath'd thy growing with our heated bloods.\n  EDWARD. And in this resolution I defy thee;\n    Not willing any longer conference,\n    Since thou deniest the gentle King to speak.\n    Sound trumpets; let our bloody colours wave,\n    And either victory or else a grave!\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Stay, Edward.\n  EDWARD. No, wrangling woman, we'll no longer stay;\n    These words will cost ten thousand lives this day.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nA field of battle between Towton and Saxton, in Yorkshire\n\nAlarum; excursions. Enter WARWICK\n\n  WARWICK. Forspent with toil, as runners with a race,\n    I lay me down a little while to breathe;\n    For strokes receiv'd and many blows repaid\n    Have robb'd my strong-knit sinews of their strength,\n    And spite of spite needs must I rest awhile.\n\n                     Enter EDWARD, running\n\n  EDWARD. Smile, gentle heaven, or strike, ungentle death;\n    For this world frowns, and Edward's sun is clouded.\n  WARWICK. How now, my lord. What hap? What hope of good?\n\n                         Enter GEORGE\n\n  GEORGE. Our hap is lost, our hope but sad despair;\n    Our ranks are broke, and ruin follows us.\n    What counsel give you? Whither shall we fly?\n  EDWARD. Bootless is flight: they follow us with wings;\n    And weak we are, and cannot shun pursuit.\n\n                         Enter RICHARD\n\n  RICHARD. Ah, Warwick, why hast thou withdrawn thyself?\n    Thy brother's blood the thirsty earth hath drunk,\n    Broach'd with the steely point of Clifford's lance;\n    And in the very pangs of death he cried,\n    Like to a dismal clangor heard from far,\n    'Warwick, revenge! Brother, revenge my death.'\n    So, underneath the belly of their steeds,\n    That stain'd their fetlocks in his smoking blood,\n    The noble gentleman gave up the ghost.\n  WARWICK. Then let the earth be drunken with our blood.\n    I'll kill my horse, because I will not fly.\n    Why stand we like soft-hearted women here,\n    Wailing our losses, whiles the foe doth rage,\n    And look upon, as if the tragedy\n    Were play'd in jest by counterfeiting actors?\n    Here on my knee I vow to God above\n    I'll never pause again, never stand still,\n    Till either death hath clos'd these eyes of mine\n    Or fortune given me measure of revenge.\n  EDWARD. O Warwick, I do bend my knee with thine,\n    And in this vow do chain my soul to thine!\n    And ere my knee rise from the earth's cold face\n    I throw my hands, mine eyes, my heart to Thee,\n    Thou setter-up and plucker-down of kings,\n    Beseeching Thee, if with Thy will it stands\n    That to my foes this body must be prey,\n    Yet that Thy brazen gates of heaven may ope\n    And give sweet passage to my sinful soul.\n    Now, lords, take leave until we meet again,\n    Where'er it be, in heaven or in earth.\n  RICHARD. Brother, give me thy hand; and, gentle Warwick,\n    Let me embrace thee in my weary arms.\n    I that did never weep now melt with woe\n    That winter should cut off our spring-time so.\n  WARWICK. Away, away! Once more, sweet lords, farewell.\n  GEORGE. Yet let us all together to our troops,\n    And give them leave to fly that will not stay,\n    And call them pillars that will stand to us;\n    And if we thrive, promise them such rewards\n    As victors wear at the Olympian games.\n    This may plant courage in their quailing breasts,\n    For yet is hope of life and victory.\n    Forslow no longer; make we hence amain.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nAnother part of the field\n\nExcursions. Enter RICHARD and CLIFFORD\n\n  RICHARD. Now, Clifford, I have singled thee alone.\n    Suppose this arm is for the Duke of York,\n    And this for Rutland; both bound to revenge,\n    Wert thou environ'd with a brazen wall.\n  CLIFFORD. Now, Richard, I am with thee here alone.\n    This is the hand that stabbed thy father York;\n    And this the hand that slew thy brother Rutland;\n    And here's the heart that triumphs in their death\n    And cheers these hands that slew thy sire and brother\n    To execute the like upon thyself;\n    And so, have at thee!                           [They fight]\n\n                 Enter WARWICK; CLIFFORD flies\n\n  RICHARD. Nay, Warwick, single out some other chase;\n    For I myself will hunt this wolf to death.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nAnother part of the field\n\nAlarum. Enter KING HENRY alone\n\n  KING HENRY. This battle fares like to the morning's war,\n    When dying clouds contend with growing light,\n    What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails,\n    Can neither call it perfect day nor night.\n    Now sways it this way, like a mighty sea\n    Forc'd by the tide to combat with the wind;\n    Now sways it that way, like the selfsame sea\n    Forc'd to retire by fury of the wind.\n    Sometime the flood prevails, and then the wind;\n    Now one the better, then another best;\n    Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast,\n    Yet neither conqueror nor conquered.\n    So is the equal poise of this fell war.\n    Here on this molehill will I sit me down.\n    To whom God will, there be the victory!\n    For Margaret my queen, and Clifford too,\n    Have chid me from the battle, swearing both\n    They prosper best of all when I am thence.\n    Would I were dead, if God's good will were so!\n    For what is in this world but grief and woe?\n    O God! methinks it were a happy life\n    To be no better than a homely swain;\n    To sit upon a hill, as I do now,\n    To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,\n    Thereby to see the minutes how they run-\n    How many makes the hour full complete,\n    How many hours brings about the day,\n    How many days will finish up the year,\n    How many years a mortal man may live.\n    When this is known, then to divide the times-\n    So many hours must I tend my flock;\n    So many hours must I take my rest;\n    So many hours must I contemplate;\n    So many hours must I sport myself;\n    So many days my ewes have been with young;\n    So many weeks ere the poor fools will can;\n    So many years ere I shall shear the fleece:\n    So minutes, hours, days, months, and years,\n    Pass'd over to the end they were created,\n    Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.\n    Ah, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely!\n    Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade\n    To shepherds looking on their silly sheep,\n    Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy\n    To kings that fear their subjects' treachery?\n    O yes, it doth; a thousand-fold it doth.\n    And to conclude: the shepherd's homely curds,\n    His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,\n    His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade,\n    All which secure and sweetly he enjoys,\n    Is far beyond a prince's delicates-\n    His viands sparkling in a golden cup,\n    His body couched in a curious bed,\n    When care, mistrust, and treason waits on him.\n\n       Alarum. Enter a son that hath kill'd his Father, at\n       one door; and a FATHER that hath kill'd his Son, at\n                         another door\n\n  SON. Ill blows the wind that profits nobody.\n    This man whom hand to hand I slew in fight\n    May be possessed with some store of crowns;\n    And I, that haply take them from him now,\n    May yet ere night yield both my life and them\n    To some man else, as this dead man doth me.\n    Who's this? O God! It is my father's face,\n    Whom in this conflict I unwares have kill'd.\n    O heavy times, begetting such events!\n    From London by the King was I press'd forth;\n    My father, being the Earl of Warwick's man,\n    Came on the part of York, press'd by his master;\n    And I, who at his hands receiv'd my life,\n    Have by my hands of life bereaved him.\n    Pardon me, God, I knew not what I did.\n    And pardon, father, for I knew not thee.\n    My tears shall wipe away these bloody marks;\n    And no more words till they have flow'd their fill.\n  KING HENRY. O piteous spectacle! O bloody times!\n    Whiles lions war and battle for their dens,\n    Poor harmless lambs abide their enmity.\n    Weep, wretched man; I'll aid thee tear for tear;\n    And let our hearts and eyes, like civil war,\n    Be blind with tears and break o'ercharg'd with grief.\n\n               Enter FATHER, bearing of his SON\n\n  FATHER. Thou that so stoutly hath resisted me,\n    Give me thy gold, if thou hast any gold;\n    For I have bought it with an hundred blows.\n    But let me see. Is this our foeman's face?\n    Ah, no, no, no, no, it is mine only son!\n    Ah, boy, if any life be left in thee,\n    Throw up thine eye! See, see what show'rs arise,\n    Blown with the windy tempest of my heart\n    Upon thy wounds, that kills mine eye and heart!\n    O, pity, God, this miserable age!\n    What stratagems, how fell, how butcherly,\n    Erroneous, mutinous, and unnatural,\n    This deadly quarrel daily doth beget!\n    O boy, thy father gave thee life too soon,\n    And hath bereft thee of thy life too late!\n  KING HENRY. Woe above woe! grief more than common grief!\n    O that my death would stay these ruthful deeds!\n    O pity, pity, gentle heaven, pity!\n    The red rose and the white are on his face,\n    The fatal colours of our striving houses:\n    The one his purple blood right well resembles;\n    The other his pale cheeks, methinks, presenteth.\n    Wither one rose, and let the other flourish!\n    If you contend, a thousand lives must perish.\n  SON. How will my mother for a father's death\n    Take on with me, and ne'er be satisfied!\n  FATHER. How will my wife for slaughter of my son\n    Shed seas of tears, and ne'er be satisfied!\n  KING HENRY. How will the country for these woeful chances\n    Misthink the King, and not be satisfied!\n  SON. Was ever son so rued a father's death?\n  FATHER. Was ever father so bemoan'd his son?\n  KING HENRY. Was ever king so griev'd for subjects' woe?\n    Much is your sorrow; mine ten times so much.\n  SON. I'll bear thee hence, where I may weep my fill.\n                                              Exit with the body\n  FATHER. These arms of mine shall be thy winding-sheet;\n    My heart, sweet boy, shall be thy sepulchre,\n    For from my heart thine image ne'er shall go;\n    My sighing breast shall be thy funeral bell;\n    And so obsequious will thy father be,\n    Even for the loss of thee, having no more,\n    As Priam was for all his valiant sons.\n    I'll bear thee hence; and let them fight that will,\n    For I have murdered where I should not kill.\n                                              Exit with the body\n  KING HENRY. Sad-hearted men, much overgone with care,\n    Here sits a king more woeful than you are.\n\n           Alarums, excursions. Enter QUEEN MARGARET,\n                  PRINCE OF WALES, and EXETER\n\n  PRINCE OF WALES. Fly, father, fly; for all your friends are\nfled,\n    And Warwick rages like a chafed bull.\n    Away! for death doth hold us in pursuit.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Mount you, my lord; towards Berwick post amain.\n    Edward and Richard, like a brace of greyhounds\n    Having the fearful flying hare in sight,\n    With fiery eyes sparkling for very wrath,\n    And bloody steel grasp'd in their ireful hands,\n    Are at our backs; and therefore hence amain.\n  EXETER. Away! for vengeance comes along with them.\n    Nay, stay not to expostulate; make speed;\n    Or else come after. I'll away before.\n  KING HENRY. Nay, take me with thee, good sweet Exeter.\n    Not that I fear to stay, but love to go\n    Whither the Queen intends. Forward; away!             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nAnother part of the field\n\nA loud alarum. Enter CLIFFORD, wounded\n\n  CLIFFORD. Here burns my candle out; ay, here it dies,\n    Which, whiles it lasted, gave King Henry light.\n    O Lancaster, I fear thy overthrow\n    More than my body's parting with my soul!\n    My love and fear glu'd many friends to thee;\n    And, now I fall, thy tough commixture melts,\n    Impairing Henry, strength'ning misproud York.\n    The common people swarm like summer flies;\n    And whither fly the gnats but to the sun?\n    And who shines now but Henry's enemies?\n    O Phoebus, hadst thou never given consent\n    That Phaethon should check thy fiery steeds,\n    Thy burning car never had scorch'd the earth!\n    And, Henry, hadst thou sway'd as kings should do,\n    Or as thy father and his father did,\n    Giving no ground unto the house of York,\n    They never then had sprung like summer flies;\n    I and ten thousand in this luckless realm\n    Had left no mourning widows for our death;\n    And thou this day hadst kept thy chair in peace.\n    For what doth cherish weeds but gentle air?\n    And what makes robbers bold but too much lenity?\n    Bootless are plaints, and cureless are my wounds.\n    No way to fly, nor strength to hold out flight.\n    The foe is merciless and will not pity;\n    For at their hands I have deserv'd no pity.\n    The air hath got into my deadly wounds,\n    And much effuse of blood doth make me faint.\n    Come, York and Richard, Warwick and the rest;\n    I stabb'd your fathers' bosoms: split my breast.\n                                                     [He faints]\n\n       Alarum and retreat. Enter EDWARD, GEORGE, RICHARD\n               MONTAGUE, WARWICK, and soldiers\n\n  EDWARD. Now breathe we, lords. Good fortune bids us pause\n    And smooth the frowns of war with peaceful looks.\n    Some troops pursue the bloody-minded Queen\n    That led calm Henry, though he were a king,\n    As doth a sail, fill'd with a fretting gust,\n    Command an argosy to stern the waves.\n    But think you, lords, that Clifford fled with them?\n  WARWICK. No, 'tis impossible he should escape;\n    For, though before his face I speak the words,\n    Your brother Richard mark'd him for the grave;\n    And, whereso'er he is, he's surely dead.\n                                     [CLIFFORD groans, and dies]\n  RICHARD. Whose soul is that which takes her heavy leave?\n    A deadly groan, like life and death's departing.\n    See who it is.\n  EDWARD. And now the battle's ended,\n    If friend or foe, let him be gently used.\n  RICHARD. Revoke that doom of mercy, for 'tis Clifford;\n    Who not contented that he lopp'd the branch\n    In hewing Rutland when his leaves put forth,\n    But set his murd'ring knife unto the root\n    From whence that tender spray did sweetly spring-\n    I mean our princely father, Duke of York.\n  WARWICK. From off the gates of York fetch down the head,\n    Your father's head, which Clifford placed there;\n    Instead whereof let this supply the room.\n    Measure for measure must be answered.\n  EDWARD. Bring forth that fatal screech-owl to our house,\n    That nothing sung but death to us and ours.\n    Now death shall stop his dismal threat'ning sound,\n    And his ill-boding tongue no more shall speak.\n  WARWICK. I think his understanding is bereft.\n    Speak, Clifford, dost thou know who speaks to thee?\n    Dark cloudy death o'ershades his beams of life,\n    And he nor sees nor hears us what we say.\n  RICHARD. O, would he did! and so, perhaps, he doth.\n    'Tis but his policy to counterfeit,\n    Because he would avoid such bitter taunts\n    Which in the time of death he gave our father.\n  GEORGE. If so thou think'st, vex him with eager words.\n  RICHARD. Clifford, ask mercy and obtain no grace.\n  EDWARD. Clifford, repent in bootless penitence.\n  WARWICK. Clifford, devise excuses for thy faults.\n  GEORGE. While we devise fell tortures for thy faults.\n  RICHARD. Thou didst love York, and I am son to York.\n  EDWARD. Thou pitied'st Rutland, I will pity thee.\n  GEORGE. Where's Captain Margaret, to fence you now?\n  WARWICK. They mock thee, Clifford; swear as thou wast wont.\n  RICHARD. What, not an oath? Nay, then the world goes hard\n    When Clifford cannot spare his friends an oath.\n    I know by that he's dead; and by my soul,\n    If this right hand would buy two hours' life,\n    That I in all despite might rail at him,\n    This hand should chop it off, and with the issuing blood\n    Stifle the villain whose unstanched thirst\n    York and young Rutland could not satisfy.\n  WARWICK. Ay, but he's dead. Off with the traitor's head,\n    And rear it in the place your father's stands.\n    And now to London with triumphant march,\n    There to be crowned England's royal King;\n    From whence shall Warwick cut the sea to France,\n    And ask the Lady Bona for thy queen.\n    So shalt thou sinew both these lands together;\n    And, having France thy friend, thou shalt not dread\n    The scatt'red foe that hopes to rise again;\n    For though they cannot greatly sting to hurt,\n    Yet look to have them buzz to offend thine ears.\n    First will I see the coronation;\n    And then to Brittany I'll cross the sea\n    To effect this marriage, so it please my lord.\n  EDWARD. Even as thou wilt, sweet Warwick, let it be;\n    For in thy shoulder do I build my seat,\n    And never will I undertake the thing\n    Wherein thy counsel and consent is wanting.\n    Richard, I will create thee Duke of Gloucester;\n    And George, of Clarence; Warwick, as ourself,\n    Shall do and undo as him pleaseth best.\n  RICHARD. Let me be Duke of Clarence, George of Gloucester;\n    For Gloucester's dukedom is too ominous.\n  WARWICK. Tut, that's a foolish observation.\n    Richard, be Duke of Gloucester. Now to London\n    To see these honours in possession.                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nA chase in the north of England\n\nEnter two KEEPERS, with cross-bows in their hands\n\n  FIRST KEEPER. Under this thick-grown brake we'll shroud\nourselves,\n    For through this laund anon the deer will come;\n    And in this covert will we make our stand,\n    Culling the principal of all the deer.\n  SECOND KEEPER. I'll stay above the hill, so both may shoot.\n  FIRST KEEPER. That cannot be; the noise of thy cross-bow\n    Will scare the herd, and so my shoot is lost.\n    Here stand we both, and aim we at the best;\n    And, for the time shall not seem tedious,\n    I'll tell thee what befell me on a day\n    In this self-place where now we mean to stand.\n  SECOND KEEPER. Here comes a man; let's stay till he be past.\n\n        Enter KING HENRY, disguised, with a prayer-book\n\n  KING HENRY. From Scotland am I stol'n, even of pure love,\n    To greet mine own land with my wishful sight.\n    No, Harry, Harry, 'tis no land of thine;\n    Thy place is fill'd, thy sceptre wrung from thee,\n    Thy balm wash'd off wherewith thou wast anointed.\n    No bending knee will call thee Caesar now,\n    No humble suitors press to speak for right,\n    No, not a man comes for redress of thee;\n    For how can I help them and not myself?\n  FIRST KEEPER. Ay, here's a deer whose skin's a keeper's fee.\n    This is the quondam King; let's seize upon him.\n  KING HENRY. Let me embrace thee, sour adversity,\n    For wise men say it is the wisest course.\n  SECOND KEEPER. Why linger we? let us lay hands upon him.\n  FIRST KEEPER. Forbear awhile; we'll hear a little more.\n  KING HENRY. My Queen and son are gone to France for aid;\n    And, as I hear, the great commanding Warwick\n    Is thither gone to crave the French King's sister\n    To wife for Edward. If this news be true,\n    Poor queen and son, your labour is but lost;\n    For Warwick is a subtle orator,\n    And Lewis a prince soon won with moving words.\n    By this account, then, Margaret may win him;\n    For she's a woman to be pitied much.\n    Her sighs will make a batt'ry in his breast;\n    Her tears will pierce into a marble heart;\n    The tiger will be mild whiles she doth mourn;\n    And Nero will be tainted with remorse\n    To hear and see her plaints, her brinish tears.\n    Ay, but she's come to beg: Warwick, to give.\n    She, on his left side, craving aid for Henry:\n    He, on his right, asking a wife for Edward.\n    She weeps, and says her Henry is depos'd:\n    He smiles, and says his Edward is install'd;\n    That she, poor wretch, for grief can speak no more;\n    Whiles Warwick tells his title, smooths the wrong,\n    Inferreth arguments of mighty strength,\n    And in conclusion wins the King from her\n    With promise of his sister, and what else,\n    To strengthen and support King Edward's place.\n    O Margaret, thus 'twill be; and thou, poor soul,\n    Art then forsaken, as thou went'st forlorn!\n  SECOND KEEPER. Say, what art thou that talk'st of kings and\nqueens?\n  KING HENRY. More than I seem, and less than I was born to:\n    A man at least, for less I should not be;\n    And men may talk of kings, and why not I?\n  SECOND KEEPER. Ay, but thou talk'st as if thou wert a king.\n  KING HENRY. Why, so I am- in mind; and that's enough.\n  SECOND KEEPER. But, if thou be a king, where is thy crown?\n  KING HENRY. My crown is in my heart, not on my head;\n    Not deck'd with diamonds and Indian stones,\n    Not to be seen. My crown is call'd content;\n    A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.\n  SECOND KEEPER. Well, if you be a king crown'd with content,\n    Your crown content and you must be contented\n    To go along with us; for as we think,\n    You are the king King Edward hath depos'd;\n    And we his subjects, sworn in all allegiance,\n    Will apprehend you as his enemy.\n  KING HENRY. But did you never swear, and break an oath?\n  SECOND KEEPER. No, never such an oath; nor will not now.\n  KING HENRY. Where did you dwell when I was King of England?\n  SECOND KEEPER. Here in this country, where we now remain.\n  KING HENRY. I was anointed king at nine months old;\n    My father and my grandfather were kings;\n    And you were sworn true subjects unto me;\n    And tell me, then, have you not broke your oaths?\n  FIRST KEEPER. No;\n    For we were subjects but while you were king.\n  KING HENRY. Why, am I dead? Do I not breathe a man?\n    Ah, simple men, you know not what you swear!\n    Look, as I blow this feather from my face,\n    And as the air blows it to me again,\n    Obeying with my wind when I do blow,\n    And yielding to another when it blows,\n    Commanded always by the greater gust,\n    Such is the lightness of you common men.\n    But do not break your oaths; for of that sin\n    My mild entreaty shall not make you guilty.\n    Go where you will, the King shall be commanded;\n    And be you kings: command, and I'll obey.\n  FIRST KEEPER. We are true subjects to the King, King Edward.\n  KING HENRY. So would you be again to Henry,\n    If he were seated as King Edward is.\n  FIRST KEEPER. We charge you, in God's name and the King's,\n    To go with us unto the officers.\n  KING HENRY. In God's name, lead; your King's name be obey'd;\n    And what God will, that let your King perform;\n    And what he will, I humbly yield unto.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter KING EDWARD, GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, and LADY GREY\n\n  KING EDWARD. Brother of Gloucester, at Saint Albans' field\n    This lady's husband, Sir Richard Grey, was slain,\n    His land then seiz'd on by the conqueror.\n    Her suit is now to repossess those lands;\n    Which we in justice cannot well deny,\n    Because in quarrel of the house of York\n    The worthy gentleman did lose his life.\n  GLOUCESTER. Your Highness shall do well to grant her suit;\n    It were dishonour to deny it her.\n  KING EDWARD. It were no less; but yet I'll make a pause.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CLARENCE] Yea, is it so?\n    I see the lady hath a thing to grant,\n    Before the King will grant her humble suit.\n  CLARENCE. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] He knows the game; how true he\n    keeps the wind!\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CLARENCE] Silence!\n  KING EDWARD. Widow, we will consider of your suit;\n    And come some other time to know our mind.\n  LADY GREY. Right gracious lord, I cannot brook delay.\n    May it please your Highness to resolve me now;\n    And what your pleasure is shall satisfy me.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] Ay, widow? Then I'll warrant you all your\n      lands,\n    An if what pleases him shall pleasure you.\n    Fight closer or, good faith, you'll catch a blow.\n  CLARENCE. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] I fear her not, unless she\nchance\n    to fall.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CLARENCE] God forbid that, for he'll take\n    vantages.\n  KING EDWARD. How many children hast thou, widow, tell me.\n  CLARENCE. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] I think he means to beg a child\nof\n    her.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CLARENCE] Nay, then whip me; he'll rather\n    give her two.\n  LADY GREY. Three, my most gracious lord.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] You shall have four if you'll be rul'd by\nhim.\n  KING EDWARD. 'Twere pity they should lose their father's lands.\n\n  LADY GREY. Be pitiful, dread lord, and grant it, then.\n  KING EDWARD. Lords, give us leave; I'll try this widow's wit.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] Ay, good leave have you; for you will have\n      leave\n    Till youth take leave and leave you to the crutch.\n                              [GLOUCESTER and CLARENCE withdraw]\n  KING EDWARD. Now tell me, madam, do you love your children?\n  LADY GREY. Ay, full as dearly as I love myself.\n  KING EDWARD. And would you not do much to do them good?\n  LADY GREY. To do them good I would sustain some harm.\n  KING EDWARD. Then get your husband's lands, to do them good.\n  LADY GREY. Therefore I came unto your Majesty.\n  KING EDWARD. I'll tell you how these lands are to be got.\n  LADY GREY. So shall you bind me to your Highness' service.\n  KING EDWARD. What service wilt thou do me if I give them?\n  LADY GREY. What you command that rests in me to do.\n  KING EDWARD. But you will take exceptions to my boon.\n  LADY GREY. No, gracious lord, except I cannot do it.\n  KING EDWARD. Ay, but thou canst do what I mean to ask.\n  LADY GREY. Why, then I will do what your Grace commands.\n  GLOUCESTER. He plies her hard; and much rain wears the marble.\n  CLARENCE. As red as fire! Nay, then her wax must melt.\n  LADY GREY. Why stops my lord? Shall I not hear my task?\n  KING EDWARD. An easy task; 'tis but to love a king.\n  LADY GREY. That's soon perform'd, because I am a subject.\n  KING EDWARD. Why, then, thy husband's lands I freely give thee.\n  LADY GREY. I take my leave with many thousand thanks.\n  GLOUCESTER. The match is made; she seals it with a curtsy.\n  KING EDWARD. But stay thee- 'tis the fruits of love I mean.\n  LADY GREY. The fruits of love I mean, my loving liege.\n  KING EDWARD. Ay, but, I fear me, in another sense.\n    What love, thinkst thou, I sue so much to get?\n  LADY GREY. My love till death, my humble thanks, my prayers;\n    That love which virtue begs and virtue grants.\n  KING EDWARD. No, by my troth, I did not mean such love.\n  LADY GREY. Why, then you mean not as I thought you did.\n  KING EDWARD. But now you partly may perceive my mind.\n  LADY GREY. My mind will never grant what I perceive\n    Your Highness aims at, if I aim aright.\n  KING EDWARD. To tell thee plain, I aim to lie with thee.\n  LADY GREY. To tell you plain, I had rather lie in prison.\n  KING EDWARD. Why, then thou shalt not have thy husband's lands.\n  LADY GREY. Why, then mine honesty shall be my dower;\n    For by that loss I will not purchase them.\n  KING EDWARD. Therein thou wrong'st thy children mightily.\n  LADY GREY. Herein your Highness wrongs both them and me.\n    But, mighty lord, this merry inclination\n    Accords not with the sadness of my suit.\n    Please you dismiss me, either with ay or no.\n  KING EDWARD. Ay, if thou wilt say ay to my request;\n    No, if thou dost say no to my demand.\n  LADY GREY. Then, no, my lord. My suit is at an end.\n  GLOUCESTER. The widow likes him not; she knits her brows.\n  CLARENCE. He is the bluntest wooer in Christendom.\n  KING EDWARD. [Aside] Her looks doth argue her replete with\nmodesty;\n    Her words doth show her wit incomparable;\n    All her perfections challenge sovereignty.\n    One way or other, she is for a king;\n    And she shall be my love, or else my queen.\n    Say that King Edward take thee for his queen?\n  LADY GREY. 'Tis better said than done, my gracious lord.\n    I am a subject fit to jest withal,\n    But far unfit to be a sovereign.\n  KING EDWARD. Sweet widow, by my state I swear to thee\n    I speak no more than what my soul intends;\n    And that is to enjoy thee for my love.\n  LADY GREY. And that is more than I will yield unto.\n    I know I am too mean to be your queen,\n    And yet too good to be your concubine.\n  KING EDWARD. You cavil, widow; I did mean my queen.\n  LADY GREY. 'Twill grieve your Grace my sons should call you\nfather.\n  KING EDWARD.No more than when my daughters call thee mother.\n    Thou art a widow, and thou hast some children;\n    And, by God's Mother, I, being but a bachelor,\n    Have other some. Why, 'tis a happy thing\n    To be the father unto many sons.\n    Answer no more, for thou shalt be my queen.\n  GLOUCESTER. The ghostly father now hath done his shrift.\n  CLARENCE. When he was made a shriver, 'twas for shrift.\n  KING EDWARD. Brothers, you muse what chat we two have had.\n  GLOUCESTER. The widow likes it not, for she looks very sad.\n  KING EDWARD. You'd think it strange if I should marry her.\n  CLARENCE. To who, my lord?\n  KING EDWARD. Why, Clarence, to myself.\n  GLOUCESTER. That would be ten days' wonder at the least.\n  CLARENCE. That's a day longer than a wonder lasts.\n  GLOUCESTER. By so much is the wonder in extremes.\n  KING EDWARD. Well, jest on, brothers; I can tell you both\n    Her suit is granted for her husband's lands.\n\n                       Enter a NOBLEMAN\n\n  NOBLEMAN. My gracious lord, Henry your foe is taken\n    And brought your prisoner to your palace gate.\n  KING EDWARD. See that he be convey'd unto the Tower.\n    And go we, brothers, to the man that took him\n    To question of his apprehension.\n    Widow, go you along. Lords, use her honourably.\n                                       Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER\n  GLOUCESTER. Ay, Edward will use women honourably.\n    Would he were wasted, marrow, bones, and all,\n    That from his loins no hopeful branch may spring\n    To cross me from the golden time I look for!\n    And yet, between my soul's desire and me-\n    The lustful Edward's title buried-\n    Is Clarence, Henry, and his son young Edward,\n    And all the unlook'd for issue of their bodies,\n    To take their rooms ere I can place myself.\n    A cold premeditation for my purpose!\n    Why, then I do but dream on sovereignty;\n    Like one that stands upon a promontory\n    And spies a far-off shore where he would tread,\n    Wishing his foot were equal with his eye;\n    And chides the sea that sunders him from thence,\n    Saying he'll lade it dry to have his way-\n    So do I wish the crown, being so far off;\n    And so I chide the means that keeps me from it;\n    And so I say I'll cut the causes off,\n    Flattering me with impossibilities.\n    My eye's too quick, my heart o'erweens too much,\n    Unless my hand and strength could equal them.\n    Well, say there is no kingdom then for Richard;\n    What other pleasure can the world afford?\n    I'll make my heaven in a lady's lap,\n    And deck my body in gay ornaments,\n    And witch sweet ladies with my words and looks.\n    O miserable thought! and more unlikely\n    Than to accomplish twenty golden crowns.\n    Why, love forswore me in my mother's womb;\n    And, for I should not deal in her soft laws,\n    She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe\n    To shrink mine arm up like a wither'd shrub\n    To make an envious mountain on my back,\n    Where sits deformity to mock my body;\n    To shape my legs of an unequal size;\n    To disproportion me in every part,\n    Like to a chaos, or an unlick'd bear-whelp\n    That carries no impression like the dam.\n    And am I, then, a man to be belov'd?\n    O monstrous fault to harbour such a thought!\n    Then, since this earth affords no joy to me\n    But to command, to check, to o'erbear such\n    As are of better person than myself,\n    I'll make my heaven to dream upon the crown,\n    And whiles I live t' account this world but hell,\n    Until my misshap'd trunk that bear this head\n    Be round impaled with a glorious crown.\n    And yet I know not how to get the crown,\n    For many lives stand between me and home;\n    And I- like one lost in a thorny wood\n    That rents the thorns and is rent with the thorns,\n    Seeking a way and straying from the way\n    Not knowing how to find the open air,\n    But toiling desperately to find it out-\n    Torment myself to catch the English crown;\n    And from that torment I will free myself\n    Or hew my way out with a bloody axe.\n    Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile,\n    And cry 'Content!' to that which grieves my heart,\n    And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,\n    And frame my face to all occasions.\n    I'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall;\n    I'll slay more gazers than the basilisk;\n    I'll play the orator as well as Nestor,\n    Deceive more slily than Ulysses could,\n    And, like a Sinon, take another Troy.\n    I can add colours to the chameleon,\n    Change shapes with Protheus for advantages,\n    And set the murderous Machiavel to school.\n    Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?\n    Tut, were it farther off, I'll pluck it down.           Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nFrance.  The KING'S palace\n\nFlourish.  Enter LEWIS the French King, his sister BONA,\nhis Admiral call'd BOURBON; PRINCE EDWARD, QUEEN MARGARET,\nand the EARL of OXFORD.  LEWIS sits, and riseth up again\n\n  LEWIS. Fair Queen of England, worthy Margaret,\n    Sit down with us. It ill befits thy state\n    And birth that thou shouldst stand while Lewis doth sit.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. No, mighty King of France. Now Margaret\n    Must strike her sail and learn a while to serve\n    Where kings command. I was, I must confess,\n    Great Albion's Queen in former golden days;\n    But now mischance hath trod my title down\n    And with dishonour laid me on the ground,\n    Where I must take like seat unto my fortune,\n    And to my humble seat conform myself.\n  LEWIS. Why, say, fair Queen, whence springs this deep despair?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. From such a cause as fills mine eyes with tears\n    And stops my tongue, while heart is drown'd in cares.\n  LEWIS. Whate'er it be, be thou still like thyself,\n    And sit thee by our side. [Seats her by him] Yield not thy\nneck\n    To fortune's yoke, but let thy dauntless mind\n    Still ride in triumph over all mischance.\n    Be plain, Queen Margaret, and tell thy grief;\n    It shall be eas'd, if France can yield relief.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Those gracious words revive my drooping\nthoughts\n    And give my tongue-tied sorrows leave to speak.\n    Now therefore be it known to noble Lewis\n    That Henry, sole possessor of my love,\n    Is, of a king, become a banish'd man,\n    And forc'd to live in Scotland a forlorn;\n    While proud ambitious Edward Duke of York\n    Usurps the regal title and the seat\n    Of England's true-anointed lawful King.\n    This is the cause that I, poor Margaret,\n    With this my son, Prince Edward, Henry's heir,\n    Am come to crave thy just and lawful aid;\n    And if thou fail us, all our hope is done.\n    Scotland hath will to help, but cannot help;\n    Our people and our peers are both misled,\n    Our treasure seiz'd, our soldiers put to flight,\n    And, as thou seest, ourselves in heavy plight.\n  LEWIS. Renowned Queen, with patience calm the storm,\n    While we bethink a means to break it off.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. The more we stay, the stronger grows our foe.\n  LEWIS. The more I stay, the more I'll succour thee.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. O, but impatience waiteth on true sorrow.\n    And see where comes the breeder of my sorrow!\n\n                        Enter WARWICK\n\n  LEWIS. What's he approacheth boldly to our presence?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Our Earl of Warwick, Edward's greatest friend.\n  LEWIS. Welcome, brave Warwick! What brings thee to France?\n                                      [He descends. She ariseth]\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, now begins a second storm to rise;\n    For this is he that moves both wind and tide.\n  WARWICK. From worthy Edward, King of Albion,\n    My lord and sovereign, and thy vowed friend,\n    I come, in kindness and unfeigned love,\n    First to do greetings to thy royal person,\n    And then to crave a league of amity,\n    And lastly to confirm that amity\n    With nuptial knot, if thou vouchsafe to grant\n    That virtuous Lady Bona, thy fair sister,\n    To England's King in lawful marriage.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. [Aside] If that go forward, Henry's hope is\ndone.\n  WARWICK. [To BONA] And, gracious madam, in our king's behalf,\n    I am commanded, with your leave and favour,\n    Humbly to kiss your hand, and with my tongue\n    To tell the passion of my sovereign's heart;\n    Where fame, late ent'ring at his heedful ears,\n    Hath plac'd thy beauty's image and thy virtue.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. King Lewis and Lady Bona, hear me speak\n    Before you answer Warwick. His demand\n    Springs not from Edward's well-meant honest love,\n    But from deceit bred by necessity;\n    For how can tyrants safely govern home\n    Unless abroad they purchase great alliance?\n    To prove him tyrant this reason may suffice,\n    That Henry liveth still; but were he dead,\n    Yet here Prince Edward stands, King Henry's son.\n    Look therefore, Lewis, that by this league and marriage\n    Thou draw not on thy danger and dishonour;\n    For though usurpers sway the rule a while\n    Yet heav'ns are just, and time suppresseth wrongs.\n  WARWICK. Injurious Margaret!\n  PRINCE OF WALES. And why not Queen?\n  WARWICK. Because thy father Henry did usurp;\n    And thou no more art prince than she is queen.\n  OXFORD. Then Warwick disannuls great John of Gaunt,\n    Which did subdue the greatest part of Spain;\n    And, after John of Gaunt, Henry the Fourth,\n    Whose wisdom was a mirror to the wisest;\n    And, after that wise prince, Henry the Fifth,\n    Who by his prowess conquered all France.\n    From these our Henry lineally descends.\n  WARWICK. Oxford, how haps it in this smooth discourse\n    You told not how Henry the Sixth hath lost\n    All that which Henry the Fifth had gotten?\n    Methinks these peers of France should smile at that.\n    But for the rest: you tell a pedigree\n    Of threescore and two years- a silly time\n    To make prescription for a kingdom's worth.\n  OXFORD. Why, Warwick, canst thou speak against thy liege,\n    Whom thou obeyed'st thirty and six years,\n    And not betray thy treason with a blush?\n  WARWICK. Can Oxford that did ever fence the right\n    Now buckler falsehood with a pedigree?\n    For shame! Leave Henry, and call Edward king.\n  OXFORD. Call him my king by whose injurious doom\n    My elder brother, the Lord Aubrey Vere,\n    Was done to death; and more than so, my father,\n    Even in the downfall of his mellow'd years,\n    When nature brought him to the door of death?\n    No, Warwick, no; while life upholds this arm,\n    This arm upholds the house of Lancaster.\n  WARWICK. And I the house of York.\n  LEWIS. Queen Margaret, Prince Edward, and Oxford,\n    Vouchsafe at our request to stand aside\n    While I use further conference with Warwick.\n                                              [They stand aloof]\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Heavens grant that Warwick's words bewitch him\nnot!\n  LEWIS. Now, Warwick, tell me, even upon thy conscience,\n    Is Edward your true king? for I were loath\n    To link with him that were not lawful chosen.\n  WARWICK. Thereon I pawn my credit and mine honour.\n  LEWIS. But is he gracious in the people's eye?\n  WARWICK. The more that Henry was unfortunate.\n  LEWIS. Then further: all dissembling set aside,\n    Tell me for truth the measure of his love\n    Unto our sister Bona.\n  WARWICK. Such it seems\n    As may beseem a monarch like himself.\n    Myself have often heard him say and swear\n    That this his love was an eternal plant\n    Whereof the root was fix'd in virtue's ground,\n    The leaves and fruit maintain'd with beauty's sun,\n    Exempt from envy, but not from disdain,\n    Unless the Lady Bona quit his pain.\n  LEWIS. Now, sister, let us hear your firm resolve.\n  BONA. Your grant or your denial shall be mine.\n    [To WARWICK] Yet I confess that often ere this day,\n    When I have heard your king's desert recounted,\n    Mine ear hath tempted judgment to desire.\n  LEWIS. Then, Warwick, thus: our sister shall be Edward's.\n    And now forthwith shall articles be drawn\n    Touching the jointure that your king must make,\n    Which with her dowry shall be counterpois'd.\n    Draw near, Queen Margaret, and be a witness\n    That Bona shall be wife to the English king.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. To Edward, but not to the English king.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Deceitful Warwick, it was thy device\n    By this alliance to make void my suit.\n    Before thy coming, Lewis was Henry's friend.\n  LEWIS. And still is friend to him and Margaret.\n    But if your title to the crown be weak,\n    As may appear by Edward's good success,\n    Then 'tis but reason that I be releas'd\n    From giving aid which late I promised.\n    Yet shall you have all kindness at my hand\n    That your estate requires and mine can yield.\n  WARWICK. Henry now lives in Scotland at his case,\n    Where having nothing, nothing can he lose.\n    And as for you yourself, our quondam queen,\n    You have a father able to maintain you,\n    And better 'twere you troubled him than France.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Peace, impudent and shameless Warwick,\n    Proud setter up and puller down of kings!\n    I will not hence till with my talk and tears,\n    Both full of truth, I make King Lewis behold\n    Thy sly conveyance and thy lord's false love;\n    For both of you are birds of self-same feather.\n                                    [POST blowing a horn within]\n  LEWIS. Warwick, this is some post to us or thee.\n\n                       Enter the POST\n\n  POST. My lord ambassador, these letters are for you,\n    Sent from your brother, Marquis Montague.\n    These from our King unto your Majesty.\n    And, madam, these for you; from whom I know not.\n                                   [They all read their letters]\n  OXFORD. I like it well that our fair Queen and mistress\n    Smiles at her news, while Warwick frowns at his.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. Nay, mark how Lewis stamps as he were nettled.\n    I hope all's for the best.\n  LEWIS. Warwick, what are thy news? And yours, fair Queen?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Mine such as fill my heart with unhop'd joys.\n  WARWICK. Mine, full of sorrow and heart's discontent.\n  LEWIS. What, has your king married the Lady Grey?\n    And now, to soothe your forgery and his,\n    Sends me a paper to persuade me patience?\n    Is this th' alliance that he seeks with France?\n    Dare he presume to scorn us in this manner?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. I told your Majesty as much before.\n    This proveth Edward's love and Warwick's honesty.\n  WARWICK. King Lewis, I here protest in sight of heaven,\n    And by the hope I have of heavenly bliss,\n    That I am clear from this misdeed of Edward's-\n    No more my king, for he dishonours me,\n    But most himself, if he could see his shame.\n    Did I forget that by the house of York\n    My father came untimely to his death?\n    Did I let pass th' abuse done to my niece?\n    Did I impale him with the regal crown?\n    Did I put Henry from his native right?\n    And am I guerdon'd at the last with shame?\n    Shame on himself! for my desert is honour;\n    And to repair my honour lost for him\n    I here renounce him and return to Henry.\n    My noble Queen, let former grudges pass,\n    And henceforth I am thy true servitor.\n    I will revenge his wrong to Lady Bona,\n    And replant Henry in his former state.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Warwick, these words have turn'd my hate to\nlove;\n    And I forgive and quite forget old faults,\n    And joy that thou becom'st King Henry's friend.\n  WARWICK. So much his friend, ay, his unfeigned friend,\n    That if King Lewis vouchsafe to furnish us\n    With some few bands of chosen soldiers,\n    I'll undertake to land them on our coast\n    And force the tyrant from his seat by war.\n    'Tis not his new-made bride shall succour him;\n    And as for Clarence, as my letters tell me,\n    He's very likely now to fall from him\n    For matching more for wanton lust than honour\n    Or than for strength and safety of our country.\n  BONA. Dear brother, how shall Bona be reveng'd\n    But by thy help to this distressed queen?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Renowned Prince, how shall poor Henry live\n    Unless thou rescue him from foul despair?\n  BONA. My quarrel and this English queen's are one.\n  WARWICK. And mine, fair Lady Bona, joins with yours.\n  LEWIS. And mine with hers, and thine, and Margaret's.\n    Therefore, at last, I firmly am resolv'd\n    You shall have aid.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Let me give humble thanks for all at once.\n  LEWIS. Then, England's messenger, return in post\n    And tell false Edward, thy supposed king,\n    That Lewis of France is sending over masquers\n    To revel it with him and his new bride.\n    Thou seest what's past; go fear thy king withal.\n  BONA. Tell him, in hope he'll prove a widower shortly,\n    I'll wear the willow-garland for his sake.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Tell him my mourning weeds are laid aside,\n    And I am ready to put armour on.\n  WARWICK. Tell him from me that he hath done me wrong,\n    And therefore I'll uncrown him ere't be long.\n    There's thy reward; be gone.                       Exit POST\n  LEWIS. But, Warwick,\n    Thou and Oxford, with five thousand men,\n    Shall cross the seas and bid false Edward battle:\n    And, as occasion serves, this noble Queen\n    And Prince shall follow with a fresh supply.\n    Yet, ere thou go, but answer me one doubt:\n    What pledge have we of thy firm loyalty?\n  WARWICK. This shall assure my constant loyalty:\n    That if our Queen and this young Prince agree,\n    I'll join mine eldest daughter and my joy\n    To him forthwith in holy wedlock bands.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Yes, I agree, and thank you for your motion.\n    Son Edward, she is fair and virtuous,\n    Therefore delay not- give thy hand to Warwick;\n    And with thy hand thy faith irrevocable\n    That only Warwick's daughter shall be thine.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. Yes, I accept her, for she well deserves it;\n    And here, to pledge my vow, I give my hand.\n                                  [He gives his hand to WARWICK]\n  LEWIS. stay we now? These soldiers shall be levied;\n    And thou, Lord Bourbon, our High Admiral,\n    Shall waft them over with our royal fleet.\n    I long till Edward fall by war's mischance\n    For mocking marriage with a dame of France.\n                                          Exeunt all but WARWICK\n  WARWICK. I came from Edward as ambassador,\n    But I return his sworn and mortal foe.\n    Matter of marriage was the charge he gave me,\n    But dreadful war shall answer his demand.\n    Had he none else to make a stale but me?\n    Then none but I shall turn his jest to sorrow.\n    I was the chief that rais'd him to the crown,\n    And I'll be chief to bring him down again;\n    Not that I pity Henry's misery,\n    But seek revenge on Edward's mockery.                   Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, SOMERSET, and MONTAGUE\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Now tell me, brother Clarence, what think you\n    Of this new marriage with the Lady Grey?\n    Hath not our brother made a worthy choice?\n  CLARENCE. Alas, you know 'tis far from hence to France!\n    How could he stay till Warwick made return?\n  SOMERSET. My lords, forbear this talk; here comes the King.\n\n           Flourish. Enter KING EDWARD, attended; LADY\n          GREY, as Queen; PEMBROKE, STAFFORD, HASTINGS,\n      and others. Four stand on one side, and four on the other\n\n  GLOUCESTER. And his well-chosen bride.\n  CLARENCE. I mind to tell him plainly what I think.\n  KING EDWARD. Now, brother of Clarence, how like you our choice\n    That you stand pensive as half malcontent?\n  CLARENCE. As well as Lewis of France or the Earl of Warwick,\n    Which are so weak of courage and in judgment\n    That they'll take no offence at our abuse.\n  KING EDWARD. Suppose they take offence without a cause;\n    They are but Lewis and Warwick: I am Edward,\n    Your King and Warwick's and must have my will.\n  GLOUCESTER. And shall have your will, because our King.\n    Yet hasty marriage seldom proveth well.\n  KING EDWARD. Yea, brother Richard, are you offended too?\n  GLOUCESTER. Not I.\n    No, God forbid that I should wish them sever'd\n    Whom God hath join'd together; ay, and 'twere pity\n    To sunder them that yoke so well together.\n  KING EDWARD. Setting your scorns and your mislike aside,\n    Tell me some reason why the Lady Grey\n    Should not become my wife and England's Queen.\n    And you too, Somerset and Montague,\n    Speak freely what you think.\n  CLARENCE. Then this is mine opinion: that King Lewis\n    Becomes your enemy for mocking him\n    About the marriage of the Lady Bona.\n  GLOUCESTER. And Warwick, doing what you gave in charge,\n    Is now dishonoured by this new marriage.\n  KING EDWARD. What if both Lewis and Warwick be appeas'd\n    By such invention as I can devise?\n  MONTAGUE. Yet to have join'd with France in such alliance\n    Would more have strength'ned this our commonwealth\n    'Gainst foreign storms than any home-bred marriage.\n  HASTINGS. Why, knows not Montague that of itself\n    England is safe, if true within itself?\n  MONTAGUE. But the safer when 'tis back'd with France.\n  HASTINGS. 'Tis better using France than trusting France.\n    Let us be back'd with God, and with the seas\n    Which He hath giv'n for fence impregnable,\n    And with their helps only defend ourselves.\n    In them and in ourselves our safety lies.\n  CLARENCE. For this one speech Lord Hastings well deserves\n    To have the heir of the Lord Hungerford.\n  KING EDWARD. Ay, what of that? it was my will and grant;\n    And for this once my will shall stand for law.\n  GLOUCESTER. And yet methinks your Grace hath not done well\n    To give the heir and daughter of Lord Scales\n    Unto the brother of your loving bride.\n    She better would have fitted me or Clarence;\n    But in your bride you bury brotherhood.\n  CLARENCE. Or else you would not have bestow'd the heir\n    Of the Lord Bonville on your new wife's son,\n    And leave your brothers to go speed elsewhere.\n  KING EDWARD. Alas, poor Clarence! Is it for a wife\n    That thou art malcontent? I will provide thee.\n  CLARENCE. In choosing for yourself you show'd your judgment,\n    Which being shallow, you shall give me leave\n    To play the broker in mine own behalf;\n    And to that end I shortly mind to leave you.\n  KING EDWARD. Leave me or tarry, Edward will be King,\n    And not be tied unto his brother's will.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. My lords, before it pleas'd his Majesty\n    To raise my state to title of a queen,\n    Do me but right, and you must all confess\n    That I was not ignoble of descent:\n    And meaner than myself have had like fortune.\n    But as this title honours me and mine,\n    So your dislikes, to whom I would be pleasing,\n    Doth cloud my joys with danger and with sorrow.\n  KING EDWARD. My love, forbear to fawn upon their frowns.\n    What danger or what sorrow can befall thee,\n    So long as Edward is thy constant friend\n    And their true sovereign whom they must obey?\n    Nay, whom they shall obey, and love thee too,\n    Unless they seek for hatred at my hands;\n    Which if they do, yet will I keep thee safe,\n    And they shall feel the vengeance of my wrath.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] I hear, yet say not much, but think the\nmore.\n\n                          Enter a POST\n\n  KING EDWARD. Now, messenger, what letters or what news\n    From France?\n  MESSENGER. My sovereign liege, no letters, and few words,\n    But such as I, without your special pardon,\n    Dare not relate.\n  KING EDWARD. Go to, we pardon thee; therefore, in brief,\n    Tell me their words as near as thou canst guess them.\n    What answer makes King Lewis unto our letters?\n  MESSENGER. At my depart, these were his very words:\n    'Go tell false Edward, the supposed king,\n    That Lewis of France is sending over masquers\n    To revel it with him and his new bride.'\n  KING EDWARD. IS Lewis so brave? Belike he thinks me Henry.\n    But what said Lady Bona to my marriage?\n  MESSENGER. These were her words, utt'red with mild disdain:\n    'Tell him, in hope he'll prove a widower shortly,\n    I'll wear the willow-garland for his sake.'\n  KING EDWARD. I blame not her: she could say little less;\n    She had the wrong. But what said Henry's queen?\n    For I have heard that she was there in place.\n  MESSENGER. 'Tell him' quoth she 'my mourning weeds are done,\n    And I am ready to put armour on.'\n  KING EDWARD. Belike she minds to play the Amazon.\n    But what said Warwick to these injuries?\n  MESSENGER. He, more incens'd against your Majesty\n    Than all the rest, discharg'd me with these words:\n    'Tell him from me that he hath done me wrong;\n    And therefore I'll uncrown him ere't be long.'\n  KING EDWARD. Ha! durst the traitor breathe out so proud words?\n    Well, I will arm me, being thus forewarn'd.\n    They shall have wars and pay for their presumption.\n    But say, is Warwick friends with Margaret?\n  MESSENGER. Ay, gracious sovereign; they are so link'd in\nfriendship\n    That young Prince Edward marries Warwick's daughter.\n  CLARENCE. Belike the elder; Clarence will have the younger.\n    Now, brother king, farewell, and sit you fast,\n    For I will hence to Warwick's other daughter;\n    That, though I want a kingdom, yet in marriage\n    I may not prove inferior to yourself.\n    You that love me and Warwick, follow me.\n                                      Exit, and SOMERSET follows\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] Not I.\n    My thoughts aim at a further matter; I\n    Stay not for the love of Edward but the crown.\n  KING EDWARD. Clarence and Somerset both gone to Warwick!\n    Yet am I arm'd against the worst can happen;\n    And haste is needful in this desp'rate case.\n    Pembroke and Stafford, you in our behalf\n    Go levy men and make prepare for war;\n    They are already, or quickly will be landed.\n    Myself in person will straight follow you.\n                                    Exeunt PEMBROKE and STAFFORD\n    But ere I go, Hastings and Montague,\n    Resolve my doubt. You twain, of all the rest,\n    Are near to Warwick by blood and by alliance.\n    Tell me if you love Warwick more than me?\n    If it be so, then both depart to him:\n    I rather wish you foes than hollow friends.\n    But if you mind to hold your true obedience,\n    Give me assurance with some friendly vow,\n    That I may never have you in suspect.\n  MONTAGUE. So God help Montague as he proves true!\n  HASTINGS. And Hastings as he favours Edward's cause!\n  KING EDWARD. Now, brother Richard, will you stand by us?\n  GLOUCESTER. Ay, in despite of all that shall withstand you.\n  KING EDWARD. Why, so! then am I sure of victory.\n    Now therefore let us hence, and lose no hour\n    Till we meet Warwick with his foreign pow'r.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA plain in Warwickshire\n\nEnter WARWICK and OXFORD, with French soldiers\n\n  WARWICK. Trust me, my lord, all hitherto goes well;\n    The common people by numbers swarm to us.\n\n                 Enter CLARENCE and SOMERSET\n\n    But see where Somerset and Clarence comes.\n    Speak suddenly, my lords- are we all friends?\n  CLARENCE. Fear not that, my lord.\n  WARWICK. Then, gentle Clarence, welcome unto Warwick;\n    And welcome, Somerset. I hold it cowardice\n    To rest mistrustful where a noble heart\n    Hath pawn'd an open hand in sign of love;\n    Else might I think that Clarence, Edward's brother,\n    Were but a feigned friend to our proceedings.\n    But welcome, sweet Clarence; my daughter shall be thine.\n    And now what rests but, in night's coverture,\n    Thy brother being carelessly encamp'd,\n    His soldiers lurking in the towns about,\n    And but attended by a simple guard,\n    We may surprise and take him at our pleasure?\n    Our scouts have found the adventure very easy;\n    That as Ulysses and stout Diomede\n    With sleight and manhood stole to Rhesus' tents,\n    And brought from thence the Thracian fatal steeds,\n    So we, well cover'd with the night's black mantle,\n    At unawares may beat down Edward's guard\n    And seize himself- I say not 'slaughter him,'\n    For I intend but only to surprise him.\n    You that will follow me to this attempt,\n    Applaud the name of Henry with your leader.\n                                         [They all cry 'Henry!']\n    Why then, let's on our way in silent sort.\n    For Warwick and his friends, God and Saint George!    Exeunt\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nEdward's camp, near Warwick\n\nEnter three WATCHMEN, to guard the KING'S tent\n\n  FIRST WATCHMAN. Come on, my masters, each man take his stand;\n    The King by this is set him down to sleep.\n  SECOND WATCHMAN. What, will he not to bed?\n  FIRST WATCHMAN. Why, no; for he hath made a solemn vow\n    Never to lie and take his natural rest\n    Till Warwick or himself be quite suppress'd.\n  SECOND WATCHMAN. To-morrow then, belike, shall be the day,\n    If Warwick be so near as men report.\n  THIRD WATCHMAN. But say, I pray, what nobleman is that\n    That with the King here resteth in his tent?\n  FIRST WATCHMAN. 'Tis the Lord Hastings, the King's chiefest\nfriend.\n  THIRD WATCHMAN. O, is it So? But why commands the King\n    That his chief followers lodge in towns about him,\n    While he himself keeps in the cold field?\n  SECOND WATCHMAN. 'Tis the more honour, because more dangerous.\n  THIRD WATCHMAN. Ay, but give me worship and quietness;\n    I like it better than dangerous honour.\n    If Warwick knew in what estate he stands,\n    'Tis to be doubted he would waken him.\n  FIRST WATCHMAN. Unless our halberds did shut up his passage.\n  SECOND WATCHMAN. Ay, wherefore else guard we his royal tent\n    But to defend his person from night-foes?\n\n             Enter WARWICK, CLARENCE, OXFORD, SOMERSET,\n                   and French soldiers, silent all\n\n  WARWICK. This is his tent; and see where stand his guard.\n    Courage, my masters! Honour now or never!\n    But follow me, and Edward shall be ours.\n  FIRST WATCHMAN. Who goes there?\n  SECOND WATCHMAN. Stay, or thou diest.\n\n       WARWICK and the rest cry all 'Warwick! Warwick!' and\n      set upon the guard, who fly, crying 'Arm! Arm!' WARWICK\n                   and the rest following them\n\n      The drum playing and trumpet sounding, re-enter WARWICK\n         and the rest, bringing the KING out in his gown,\n   sitting in a chair. GLOUCESTER and HASTINGS fly over the stage\n\n  SOMERSET. What are they that fly there?\n  WARWICK. Richard and Hastings. Let them go; here is the Duke.\n  KING EDWARD. The Duke! Why, Warwick, when we parted,\n    Thou call'dst me King?\n  WARWICK. Ay, but the case is alter'd.\n    When you disgrac'd me in my embassade,\n    Then I degraded you from being King,\n    And come now to create you Duke of York.\n    Alas, how should you govern any kingdom\n    That know not how to use ambassadors,\n    Nor how to be contented with one wife,\n    Nor how to use your brothers brotherly,\n    Nor how to study for the people's welfare,\n    Nor how to shroud yourself from enemies?\n  KING EDWARD. Yea, brother of Clarence, art thou here too?\n    Nay, then I see that Edward needs must down.\n    Yet, Warwick, in despite of all mischance,\n    Of thee thyself and all thy complices,\n    Edward will always bear himself as King.\n    Though fortune's malice overthrow my state,\n    My mind exceeds the compass of her wheel.\n  WARWICK. Then, for his mind, be Edward England's king;\n                                           [Takes off his crown]\n    But Henry now shall wear the English crown\n    And be true King indeed; thou but the shadow.\n    My Lord of Somerset, at my request,\n    See that forthwith Duke Edward be convey'd\n    Unto my brother, Archbishop of York.\n    When I have fought with Pembroke and his fellows,\n    I'll follow you and tell what answer\n    Lewis and the Lady Bona send to him.\n    Now for a while farewell, good Duke of York.\n  KING EDWARD. What fates impose, that men must needs abide;\n    It boots not to resist both wind and tide.\n                                    [They lead him out forcibly]\n  OXFORD. What now remains, my lords, for us to do\n    But march to London with our soldiers?\n  WARWICK. Ay, that's the first thing that we have to do;\n    To free King Henry from imprisonment,\n    And see him seated in the regal throne.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter QUEEN ELIZABETH and RIVERS\n\n  RIVERS. Madam, what makes you in this sudden change?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Why, brother Rivers, are you yet to learn\n    What late misfortune is befall'n King Edward?\n  RIVERS. What, loss of some pitch'd battle against Warwick?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. No, but the loss of his own royal person.\n  RIVERS. Then is my sovereign slain?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ay, almost slain, for he is taken prisoner;\n    Either betray'd by falsehood of his guard\n    Or by his foe surpris'd at unawares;\n    And, as I further have to understand,\n    Is new committed to the Bishop of York,\n    Fell Warwick's brother, and by that our foe.\n  RIVERS. These news, I must confess, are full of grief;\n    Yet, gracious madam, bear it as you may:\n    Warwick may lose that now hath won the day.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Till then, fair hope must hinder life's decay.\n    And I the rather wean me from despair\n    For love of Edward's offspring in my womb.\n    This is it that makes me bridle passion\n    And bear with mildness my misfortune's cross;\n    Ay, ay, for this I draw in many a tear\n    And stop the rising of blood-sucking sighs,\n    Lest with my sighs or tears I blast or drown\n    King Edward's fruit, true heir to th' English crown.\n  RIVERS. But, madam, where is Warwick then become?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. I am inform'd that he comes towards London\n    To set the crown once more on Henry's head.\n    Guess thou the rest: King Edward's friends must down.\n    But to prevent the tyrant's violence-\n    For trust not him that hath once broken faith-\n    I'll hence forthwith unto the sanctuary\n    To save at least the heir of Edward's right.\n    There shall I rest secure from force and fraud.\n    Come, therefore, let us fly while we may fly:\n    If Warwick take us, we are sure to die.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nA park near Middleham Castle in Yorkshire\n\nEnter GLOUCESTER, LORD HASTINGS, SIR WILLIAM STANLEY, and others\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Now, my Lord Hastings and Sir William Stanley,\n    Leave off to wonder why I drew you hither\n    Into this chiefest thicket of the park.\n    Thus stands the case: you know our King, my brother,\n    Is prisoner to the Bishop here, at whose hands\n    He hath good usage and great liberty;\n    And often but attended with weak guard\n    Comes hunting this way to disport himself.\n    I have advertis'd him by secret means\n    That if about this hour he make this way,\n    Under the colour of his usual game,\n    He shall here find his friends, with horse and men,\n    To set him free from his captivity.\n\n             Enter KING EDWARD and a HUNTSMAN with him\n\n  HUNTSMAN. This way, my lord; for this way lies the game.\n  KING EDWARD. Nay, this way, man. See where the huntsmen stand.\n    Now, brother of Gloucester, Lord Hastings, and the rest,\n    Stand you thus close to steal the Bishop's deer?\n  GLOUCESTER. Brother, the time and case requireth haste;\n    Your horse stands ready at the park corner.\n  KING EDWARD. But whither shall we then?\n  HASTINGS. To Lynn, my lord; and shipt from thence to Flanders.\n  GLOUCESTER. Well guess'd, believe me; for that was my meaning.\n  KING EDWARD. Stanley, I will requite thy forwardness.\n  GLOUCESTER. But wherefore stay we? 'Tis no time to talk.\n  KING EDWARD. Huntsman, what say'st thou? Wilt thou go along?\n  HUNTSMAN. Better do so than tarry and be hang'd.\n  GLOUCESTER. Come then, away; let's ha' no more ado.\n  KING EDWARD. Bishop, farewell. Shield thee from Warwick's\nfrown,\n    And pray that I may repossess the crown.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nLondon. The Tower\n\nFlourish. Enter KING HENRY, CLARENCE, WARWICK, SOMERSET, young\nHENRY,\nEARL OF RICHMOND, OXFORD, MONTAGUE, LIEUTENANT OF THE TOWER, and\nattendants\n\n  KING HENRY. Master Lieutenant, now that God and friends\n    Have shaken Edward from the regal seat\n    And turn'd my captive state to liberty,\n    My fear to hope, my sorrows unto joys,\n    At our enlargement what are thy due fees?\n  LIEUTENANT. Subjects may challenge nothing of their sov'reigns;\n    But if an humble prayer may prevail,\n    I then crave pardon of your Majesty.\n  KING HENRY. For what, Lieutenant? For well using me?\n    Nay, be thou sure I'll well requite thy kindness,\n    For that it made my imprisonment a pleasure;\n    Ay, such a pleasure as incaged birds\n    Conceive when, after many moody thoughts,\n    At last by notes of household harmony\n    They quite forget their loss of liberty.\n    But, Warwick, after God, thou set'st me free,\n    And chiefly therefore I thank God and thee;\n    He was the author, thou the instrument.\n    Therefore, that I may conquer fortune's spite\n    By living low where fortune cannot hurt me,\n    And that the people of this blessed land\n    May not be punish'd with my thwarting stars,\n    Warwick, although my head still wear the crown,\n    I here resign my government to thee,\n    For thou art fortunate in all thy deeds.\n  WARWICK. Your Grace hath still been fam'd for virtuous,\n    And now may seem as wise as virtuous\n    By spying and avoiding fortune's malice,\n    For few men rightly temper with the stars;\n    Yet in this one thing let me blame your Grace,\n    For choosing me when Clarence is in place.\n  CLARENCE. No, Warwick, thou art worthy of the sway,\n    To whom the heav'ns in thy nativity\n    Adjudg'd an olive branch and laurel crown,\n    As likely to be blest in peace and war;\n    And therefore I yield thee my free consent.\n  WARWICK. And I choose Clarence only for Protector.\n  KING HENRY. Warwick and Clarence, give me both your hands.\n    Now join your hands, and with your hands your hearts,\n    That no dissension hinder government.\n    I make you both Protectors of this land,\n    While I myself will lead a private life\n    And in devotion spend my latter days,\n    To sin's rebuke and my Creator's praise.\n  WARWICK. What answers Clarence to his sovereign's will?\n  CLARENCE. That he consents, if Warwick yield consent,\n    For on thy fortune I repose myself.\n  WARWICK. Why, then, though loath, yet must I be content.\n    We'll yoke together, like a double shadow\n    To Henry's body, and supply his place;\n    I mean, in bearing weight of government,\n    While he enjoys the honour and his ease.\n    And, Clarence, now then it is more than needful\n    Forthwith that Edward be pronounc'd a traitor,\n    And all his lands and goods confiscated.\n  CLARENCE. What else? And that succession be determin'd.\n  WARWICK. Ay, therein Clarence shall not want his part.\n  KING HENRY. But, with the first of all your chief affairs,\n    Let me entreat- for I command no more-\n    That Margaret your Queen and my son Edward\n    Be sent for to return from France with speed;\n    For till I see them here, by doubtful fear\n    My joy of liberty is half eclips'd.\n  CLARENCE. It shall be done, my sovereign, with all speed.\n  KING HENRY. My Lord of Somerset, what youth is that,\n    Of whom you seem to have so tender care?\n  SOMERSET. My liege, it is young Henry, Earl of Richmond.\n  KING HENRY. Come hither, England's hope.\n                                     [Lays his hand on his head]\n    If secret powers\n    Suggest but truth to my divining thoughts,\n    This pretty lad will prove our country's bliss.\n    His looks are full of peaceful majesty;\n    His head by nature fram'd to wear a crown,\n    His hand to wield a sceptre; and himself\n    Likely in time to bless a regal throne.\n    Make much of him, my lords; for this is he\n    Must help you more than you are hurt by me.\n\n                          Enter a POST\n\n  WARWICK. What news, my friend?\n  POST. That Edward is escaped from your brother\n    And fled, as he hears since, to Burgundy.\n  WARWICK. Unsavoury news! But how made he escape?\n  POST. He was convey'd by Richard Duke of Gloucester\n    And the Lord Hastings, who attended him\n    In secret ambush on the forest side\n    And from the Bishop's huntsmen rescu'd him;\n    For hunting was his daily exercise.\n  WARWICK. My brother was too careless of his charge.\n    But let us hence, my sovereign, to provide\n    A salve for any sore that may betide.\n                   Exeunt all but SOMERSET, RICHMOND, and OXFORD\n  SOMERSET. My lord, I like not of this flight of Edward's;\n    For doubtless Burgundy will yield him help,\n    And we shall have more wars befor't be long.\n    As Henry's late presaging prophecy\n    Did glad my heart with hope of this young Richmond,\n    So doth my heart misgive me, in these conflicts,\n    What may befall him to his harm and ours.\n    Therefore, Lord Oxford, to prevent the worst,\n    Forthwith we'll send him hence to Brittany,\n    Till storms be past of civil enmity.\n  OXFORD. Ay, for if Edward repossess the crown,\n    'Tis like that Richmond with the rest shall down.\n  SOMERSET. It shall be so; he shall to Brittany.\n    Come therefore, let's about it speedily.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nBefore York\n\nFlourish. Enter KING EDWARD, GLOUCESTER, HASTINGS, and soldiers\n\n  KING EDWARD. Now, brother Richard, Lord Hastings, and the rest,\n    Yet thus far fortune maketh us amends,\n    And says that once more I shall interchange\n    My waned state for Henry's regal crown.\n    Well have we pass'd and now repass'd the seas,\n    And brought desired help from Burgundy;\n    What then remains, we being thus arriv'd\n    From Ravenspurgh haven before the gates of York,\n    But that we enter, as into our dukedom?\n  GLOUCESTER. The gates made fast! Brother, I like not this;\n    For many men that stumble at the threshold\n    Are well foretold that danger lurks within.\n  KING EDWARD. Tush, man, abodements must not now affright us.\n    By fair or foul means we must enter in,\n    For hither will our friends repair to us.\n  HASTINGS. My liege, I'll knock once more to summon them.\n\n         Enter, on the walls, the MAYOR OF YORK and\n                       his BRETHREN\n\n  MAYOR. My lords, we were forewarned of your coming\n    And shut the gates for safety of ourselves,\n    For now we owe allegiance unto Henry.\n  KING EDWARD. But, Master Mayor, if Henry be your King,\n    Yet Edward at the least is Duke of York.\n  MAYOR. True, my good lord; I know you for no less.\n  KING EDWARD. Why, and I challenge nothing but my dukedom,\n    As being well content with that alone.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] But when the fox hath once got in his nose,\n    He'll soon find means to make the body follow.\n  HASTINGS. Why, Master Mayor, why stand you in a doubt?\n    Open the gates; we are King Henry's friends.\n  MAYOR. Ay, say you so? The gates shall then be open'd.\n                                                   [He descends]\n  GLOUCESTER. A wise stout captain, and soon persuaded!\n  HASTINGS. The good old man would fain that all were well,\n    So 'twere not long of him; but being ent'red,\n    I doubt not, I, but we shall soon persuade\n    Both him and all his brothers unto reason.\n\n             Enter, below, the MAYOR and two ALDERMEN\n\n  KING EDWARD. So, Master Mayor. These gates must not be shut\n    But in the night or in the time of war.\n    What! fear not, man, but yield me up the keys;\n                                                [Takes his keys]\n    For Edward will defend the town and thee,\n    And all those friends that deign to follow me.\n\n           March. Enter MONTGOMERY with drum and soldiers\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Brother, this is Sir John Montgomery,\n    Our trusty friend, unless I be deceiv'd.\n  KING EDWARD. Welcome, Sir john! But why come you in arms?\n  MONTGOMERY. To help King Edward in his time of storm,\n    As every loyal subject ought to do.\n  KING EDWARD. Thanks, good Montgomery; but we now forget\n    Our title to the crown, and only claim\n    Our dukedom till God please to send the rest.\n  MONTGOMERY. Then fare you well, for I will hence again.\n    I came to serve a king and not a duke.\n    Drummer, strike up, and let us march away.\n                                      [The drum begins to march]\n  KING EDWARD. Nay, stay, Sir John, a while, and we'll debate\n    By what safe means the crown may be recover'd.\n  MONTGOMERY. What talk you of debating? In few words:\n    If you'll not here proclaim yourself our King,\n    I'll leave you to your fortune and be gone\n    To keep them back that come to succour you.\n    Why shall we fight, if you pretend no title?\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, brother, wherefore stand you on nice points?\n  KING EDWARD. When we grow stronger, then we'll make our claim;\n    Till then 'tis wisdom to conceal our meaning.\n  HASTINGS. Away with scrupulous wit! Now arms must rule.\n  GLOUCESTER. And fearless minds climb soonest unto crowns.\n    Brother, we will proclaim you out of hand;\n    The bruit thereof will bring you many friends.\n  KING EDWARD. Then be it as you will; for 'tis my right,\n    And Henry but usurps the diadem.\n  MONTGOMERY. Ay, now my sovereign speaketh like himself;\n    And now will I be Edward's champion.\n  HASTINGS. Sound trumpet; Edward shall be here proclaim'd.\n    Come, fellow soldier, make thou proclamation.\n                                   [Gives him a paper. Flourish]\n  SOLDIER. [Reads] 'Edward the Fourth, by the grace of God,\n    King of England and France, and Lord of Ireland, &c.'\n  MONTGOMERY. And whoso'er gainsays King Edward's right,\n    By this I challenge him to single fight.\n                                          [Throws down gauntlet]\n  ALL. Long live Edward the Fourth!\n  KING EDWARD. Thanks, brave Montgomery, and thanks unto you all;\n    If fortune serve me, I'll requite this kindness.\n    Now for this night let's harbour here in York;\n    And when the morning sun shall raise his car\n    Above the border of this horizon,\n    We'll forward towards Warwick and his mates;\n    For well I wot that Henry is no soldier.\n    Ah, froward Clarence, how evil it beseems the\n    To flatter Henry and forsake thy brother!\n    Yet, as we may, we'll meet both thee and Warwick.\n    Come on, brave soldiers; doubt not of the day,\n    And, that once gotten, doubt not of large pay.        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VIII.\nLondon. The palace\n\nFlourish. Enter KING HENRY, WARWICK, MONTAGUE, CLARENCE, OXFORD,\nand EXETER\n\n  WARWICK. What counsel, lords? Edward from Belgia,\n    With hasty Germans and blunt Hollanders,\n    Hath pass'd in safety through the narrow seas\n    And with his troops doth march amain to London;\n    And many giddy people flock to him.\n  KING HENRY. Let's levy men and beat him back again.\n  CLARENCE. A little fire is quickly trodden out,\n    Which, being suffer'd, rivers cannot quench.\n  WARWICK. In Warwickshire I have true-hearted friends,\n    Not mutinous in peace, yet bold in war;\n    Those will I muster up, and thou, son Clarence,\n    Shalt stir up in Suffolk, Norfolk, and in Kent,\n    The knights and gentlemen to come with thee.\n    Thou, brother Montague, in Buckingham,\n    Northampton, and in Leicestershire, shalt find\n    Men well inclin'd to hear what thou command'st.\n    And thou, brave Oxford, wondrous well belov'd,\n    In Oxfordshire shalt muster up thy friends.\n    My sovereign, with the loving citizens,\n    Like to his island girt in with the ocean\n    Or modest Dian circled with her nymphs,\n    Shall rest in London till we come to him.\n    Fair lords, take leave and stand not to reply.\n    Farewell, my sovereign.\n  KING HENRY. Farewell, my Hector and my Troy's true hope.\n  CLARENCE. In sign of truth, I kiss your Highness' hand.\n  KING HENRY. Well-minded Clarence, be thou fortunate!\n  MONTAGUE. Comfort, my lord; and so I take my leave.\n  OXFORD. [Kissing the KING'S band] And thus I seal my truth and\nbid\n    adieu.\n  KING HENRY. Sweet Oxford, and my loving Montague,\n    And all at once, once more a happy farewell.\n  WARWICK. Farewell, sweet lords; let's meet at Coventry.\n                              Exeunt all but the KING and EXETER\n  KING HENRY. Here at the palace will I rest a while.\n    Cousin of Exeter, what thinks your lordship?\n    Methinks the power that Edward hath in field\n    Should not be able to encounter mine.\n  EXETER. The doubt is that he will seduce the rest.\n  KING HENRY. That's not my fear; my meed hath got me fame:\n    I have not stopp'd mine ears to their demands,\n    Nor posted off their suits with slow delays;\n    My pity hath been balm to heal their wounds,\n    My mildness hath allay'd their swelling griefs,\n    My mercy dried their water-flowing tears;\n    I have not been desirous of their wealth,\n    Nor much oppress'd them with great subsidies,\n    Nor forward of revenge, though they much err'd.\n    Then why should they love Edward more than me?\n    No, Exeter, these graces challenge grace;\n    And, when the lion fawns upon the lamb,\n    The lamb will never cease to follow him.\n                      [Shout within 'A Lancaster! A Lancaster!']\n  EXETER. Hark, hark, my lord! What shouts are these?\n\n            Enter KING EDWARD, GLOUCESTER, and soldiers\n\n  KING EDWARD. Seize on the shame-fac'd Henry, bear him hence;\n    And once again proclaim us King of England.\n    You are the fount that makes small brooks to flow.\n    Now stops thy spring; my sea shall suck them dry,\n    And swell so much the higher by their ebb.\n    Hence with him to the Tower: let him not speak.\n                                     Exeunt some with KING HENRY\n    And, lords, towards Coventry bend we our course,\n    Where peremptory Warwick now remains.\n    The sun shines hot; and, if we use delay,\n    Cold biting winter mars our hop'd-for hay.\n  GLOUCESTER. Away betimes, before his forces join,\n    And take the great-grown traitor unawares.\n    Brave warriors, march amain towards Coventry.         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nCoventry\n\nEnter WARWICK, the MAYOR OF COVENTRY, two MESSENGERS,\nand others upon the walls\n\n  WARWICK. Where is the post that came from valiant Oxford?\n    How far hence is thy lord, mine honest fellow?\n  FIRST MESSENGER. By this at Dunsmore, marching hitherward.\n  WARWICK. How far off is our brother Montague?\n    Where is the post that came from Montague?\n  SECOND MESSENGER. By this at Daintry, with a puissant troop.\n\n                   Enter SIR JOHN SOMERVILLE\n\n  WARWICK. Say, Somerville, what says my loving son?\n    And by thy guess how nigh is Clarence now?\n  SOMERVILLE. At Southam I did leave him with his forces,\n    And do expect him here some two hours hence.\n                                                    [Drum heard]\n  WARWICK. Then Clarence is at hand; I hear his drum.\n  SOMERVILLE. It is not his, my lord; here Southam lies.\n    The drum your Honour hears marcheth from Warwick.\n  WARWICK. Who should that be? Belike unlook'd for friends.\n  SOMERVILLE. They are at hand, and you shall quickly know.\n\n        March. Flourish. Enter KING EDWARD, GLOUCESTER,\n                         and soldiers\n\n  KING EDWARD. Go, trumpet, to the walls, and sound a parle.\n  GLOUCESTER. See how the surly Warwick mans the wall.\n  WARWICK. O unbid spite! Is sportful Edward come?\n    Where slept our scouts or how are they seduc'd\n    That we could hear no news of his repair?\n  KING EDWARD. Now, Warwick, wilt thou ope the city gates,\n    Speak gentle words, and humbly bend thy knee,\n    Call Edward King, and at his hands beg mercy?\n    And he shall pardon thee these outrages.\n  WARWICK. Nay, rather, wilt thou draw thy forces hence,\n    Confess who set thee up and pluck'd thee down,\n    Call Warwick patron, and be penitent?\n    And thou shalt still remain the Duke of York.\n  GLOUCESTER. I thought, at least, he would have said the King;\n    Or did he make the jest against his will?\n  WARWICK. Is not a dukedom, sir, a goodly gift?\n  GLOUCESTER. Ay, by my faith, for a poor earl to give.\n    I'll do thee service for so good a gift.\n  WARWICK. 'Twas I that gave the kingdom to thy brother.\n  KING EDWARD. Why then 'tis mine, if but by Warwick's gift.\n  WARWICK. Thou art no Atlas for so great a weight;\n    And, weakling, Warwick takes his gift again;\n    And Henry is my King, Warwick his subject.\n  KING EDWARD. But Warwick's king is Edward's prisoner.\n    And, gallant Warwick, do but answer this:\n    What is the body when the head is off?\n  GLOUCESTER. Alas, that Warwick had no more forecast,\n    But, whiles he thought to steal the single ten,\n    The king was slily finger'd from the deck!\n    You left poor Henry at the Bishop's palace,\n    And ten to one you'll meet him in the Tower.\n  KING EDWARD. 'Tis even so; yet you are Warwick still.\n  GLOUCESTER. Come, Warwick, take the time; kneel down, kneel\ndown.\n    Nay, when? Strike now, or else the iron cools.\n  WARWICK. I had rather chop this hand off at a blow,\n    And with the other fling it at thy face,\n    Than bear so low a sail to strike to thee.\n  KING EDWARD. Sail how thou canst, have wind and tide thy\nfriend,\n    This hand, fast wound about thy coal-black hair,\n    Shall, whiles thy head is warm and new cut off,\n    Write in the dust this sentence with thy blood:\n    'Wind-changing Warwick now can change no more.'\n\n               Enter OXFORD, with drum and colours\n\n  WARWICK. O cheerful colours! See where Oxford comes.\n  OXFORD. Oxford, Oxford, for Lancaster!\n                              [He and his forces enter the city]\n  GLOUCESTER. The gates are open, let us enter too.\n  KING EDWARD. So other foes may set upon our backs.\n    Stand we in good array, for they no doubt\n    Will issue out again and bid us battle;\n    If not, the city being but of small defence,\n    We'll quietly rouse the traitors in the same.\n  WARWICK. O, welcome, Oxford! for we want thy help.\n\n             Enter MONTAGUE, with drum and colours\n\n  MONTAGUE. Montague, Montague, for Lancaster!\n                              [He and his forces enter the city]\n  GLOUCESTER. Thou and thy brother both shall buy this treason\n    Even with the dearest blood your bodies bear.\n  KING EDWARD. The harder match'd, the greater victory.\n    My mind presageth happy gain and conquest.\n\n             Enter SOMERSET, with drum and colours\n\n  SOMERSET. Somerset, Somerset, for Lancaster!\n                              [He and his forces enter the city]\n  GLOUCESTER. Two of thy name, both Dukes of Somerset,\n    Have sold their lives unto the house of York;\n    And thou shalt be the third, if this sword hold.\n\n             Enter CLARENCE, with drum and colours\n\n  WARWICK. And lo where George of Clarence sweeps along,\n    Of force enough to bid his brother battle;\n    With whom an upright zeal to right prevails\n    More than the nature of a brother's love.\n  CLARENCE. Clarence, Clarence, for Lancaster!\n  KING EDWARD. Et tu Brute- wilt thou stab Caesar too?\n    A parley, sirrah, to George of Clarence.\n                  [Sound a parley. RICHARD and CLARENCE whisper]\n  WARWICK. Come, Clarence, come. Thou wilt if Warwick call.\n  CLARENCE. [Taking the red rose from his hat and throwing\n      it at WARWICK]\n    Father of Warwick, know you what this means?\n    Look here, I throw my infamy at thee.\n    I will not ruinate my father's house,\n    Who gave his blood to lime the stones together,\n    And set up Lancaster. Why, trowest thou, Warwick,\n    That Clarence is so harsh, so blunt, unnatural,\n    To bend the fatal instruments of war\n    Against his brother and his lawful King?\n    Perhaps thou wilt object my holy oath.\n    To keep that oath were more impiety\n    Than Jephtha when he sacrific'd his daughter.\n    I am so sorry for my trespass made\n    That, to deserve well at my brother's hands,\n    I here proclaim myself thy mortal foe;\n    With resolution whereso'er I meet thee-\n    As I will meet thee, if thou stir abroad-\n    To plague thee for thy foul misleading me.\n    And so, proud-hearted Warwick, I defy thee,\n    And to my brother turn my blushing cheeks.\n    Pardon me, Edward, I will make amends;\n    And, Richard, do not frown upon my faults,\n    For I will henceforth be no more unconstant.\n  KING EDWARD. Now welcome more, and ten times more belov'd,\n    Than if thou never hadst deserv'd our hate.\n  GLOUCESTER. Welcome, good Clarence; this is brother-like.\n  WARWICK. O passing traitor, perjur'd and unjust!\n  KING EDWARD. What, Warwick, wilt thou leave die town and fight?\n\n    Or shall we beat the stones about thine ears?\n  WARWICK. Alas, I am not coop'd here for defence!\n    I will away towards Barnet presently\n    And bid thee battle, Edward, if thou dar'st.\n  KING EDWARD. Yes, Warwick, Edward dares and leads the way.\n    Lords, to the field; Saint George and victory!\n                                                 Exeunt YORKISTS\n                         [March. WARWICK and his company follow]\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA field of battle near Barnet\n\nAlarum and excursions. Enter KING EDWARD, bringing forth WARWICK,\nwounded\n\n  KING EDWARD. So, lie thou there. Die thou, and die our fear;\n    For Warwick was a bug that fear'd us all.\n    Now, Montague, sit fast; I seek for thee,\n    That Warwick's bones may keep thine company.            Exit\n  WARWICK. Ah, who is nigh? Come to me, friend or foe,\n    And tell me who is victor, York or Warwick?\n    Why ask I that? My mangled body shows,\n    My blood, my want of strength, my sick heart shows,\n    That I must yield my body to the earth\n    And, by my fall, the conquest to my foe.\n    Thus yields the cedar to the axe's edge,\n    Whose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle,\n    Under whose shade the ramping lion slept,\n    Whose top-branch overpeer'd Jove's spreading tree\n    And kept low shrubs from winter's pow'rful wind.\n    These eyes, that now are dimm'd with death's black veil,\n    Have been as piercing as the mid-day sun\n    To search the secret treasons of the world;\n    The wrinkles in my brows, now fill'd with blood,\n    Were lik'ned oft to kingly sepulchres;\n    For who liv'd King, but I could dig his grave?\n    And who durst smile when Warwick bent his brow?\n    Lo now my glory smear'd in dust and blood!\n    My parks, my walks, my manors, that I had,\n    Even now forsake me; and of all my lands\n    Is nothing left me but my body's length.\n    what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust?\n    And live we how we can, yet die we must.\n\n                  Enter OXFORD and SOMERSET\n\n  SOMERSET. Ah, Warwick, Warwick! wert thou as we are,\n    We might recover all our loss again.\n    The Queen from France hath brought a puissant power;\n    Even now we heard the news. Ah, couldst thou fly!\n  WARWICK. Why then, I would not fly. Ah, Montague,\n    If thou be there, sweet brother, take my hand,\n    And with thy lips keep in my soul a while!\n    Thou lov'st me not; for, brother, if thou didst,\n    Thy tears would wash this cold congealed blood\n    That glues my lips and will not let me speak.\n    Come quickly, Montague, or I am dead.\n  SOMERSET. Ah, Warwick! Montague hath breath'd his last;\n    And to the latest gasp cried out for Warwick,\n    And said 'Commend me to my valiant brother.'\n    And more he would have said; and more he spoke,\n    Which sounded like a clamour in a vault,\n    That mought not be distinguish'd; but at last,\n    I well might hear, delivered with a groan,\n    'O farewell, Warwick!'\n  WARWICK. Sweet rest his soul! Fly, lords, and save yourselves:\n    For Warwick bids you all farewell, to meet in heaven.\n                                                          [Dies]\n  OXFORD. Away, away, to meet the Queen's great power!\n                                  [Here they bear away his body]\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nAnother part of the field\n\nFlourish. Enter KING in triumph; with GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, and\nthe rest\n\n  KING EDWARD. Thus far our fortune keeps an upward course,\n    And we are grac'd with wreaths of victory.\n    But in the midst of this bright-shining day\n    I spy a black, suspicious, threat'ning cloud\n    That will encounter with our glorious sun\n    Ere he attain his easeful western bed-\n    I mean, my lords, those powers that the Queen\n    Hath rais'd in Gallia have arriv'd our coast\n    And, as we hear, march on to fight with us.\n  CLARENCE. A little gale will soon disperse that cloud\n    And blow it to the source from whence it came;\n    Thy very beams will dry those vapours up,\n    For every cloud engenders not a storm.\n  GLOUCESTER. The Queen is valued thirty thousand strong,\n    And Somerset, with Oxford, fled to her.\n    If she have time to breathe, be well assur'd\n    Her faction will be full as strong as ours.\n  KING EDWARD. are advertis'd by our loving friends\n    That they do hold their course toward Tewksbury;\n    We, having now the best at Barnet field,\n    Will thither straight, for willingness rids way;\n    And as we march our strength will be augmented\n    In every county as we go along.\n    Strike up the drum; cry 'Courage!' and away.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nPlains wear Tewksbury\n\nFlourish. March. Enter QUEEN MARGARET, PRINCE EDWARD, SOMERSET,\nOXFORD,\nand SOLDIERS\n\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Great lords, wise men ne'er sit and wail their\n      loss,\n    But cheerly seek how to redress their harms.\n    What though the mast be now blown overboard,\n    The cable broke, the holding-anchor lost,\n    And half our sailors swallow'd in the flood;\n    Yet lives our pilot still. Is't meet that he\n    Should leave the helm and, like a fearful lad,\n    With tearful eyes add water to the sea\n    And give more strength to that which hath too much;\n    Whiles, in his moan, the ship splits on the rock,\n    Which industry and courage might have sav'd?\n    Ah, what a shame! ah, what a fault were this!\n    Say Warwick was our anchor; what of that?\n    And Montague our top-mast; what of him?\n    Our slaught'red friends the tackles; what of these?\n    Why, is not Oxford here another anchor?\n    And Somerset another goodly mast?\n    The friends of France our shrouds and tacklings?\n    And, though unskilful, why not Ned and I\n    For once allow'd the skilful pilot's charge?\n    We will not from the helm to sit and weep,\n    But keep our course, though the rough wind say no,\n    From shelves and rocks that threaten us with wreck,\n    As good to chide the waves as speak them fair.\n    And what is Edward but a ruthless sea?\n    What Clarence but a quicksand of deceit?\n    And Richard but a ragged fatal rock?\n    All these the enemies to our poor bark.\n    Say you can swim; alas, 'tis but a while!\n    Tread on the sand; why, there you quickly sink.\n    Bestride the rock; the tide will wash you off,\n    Or else you famish- that's a threefold death.\n    This speak I, lords, to let you understand,\n    If case some one of you would fly from us,\n    That there's no hop'd-for mercy with the brothers\n    More than with ruthless waves, with sands, and rocks.\n    Why, courage then! What cannot be avoided\n    'Twere childish weakness to lament or fear.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. Methinks a woman of this valiant spirit\n    Should, if a coward hear her speak these words,\n    Infuse his breast with magnanimity\n    And make him naked foil a man-at-arms.\n    I speak not this as doubting any here;\n    For did I but suspect a fearful man,\n    He should have leave to go away betimes,\n    Lest in our need he might infect another\n    And make him of the like spirit to himself.\n    If any such be here- as God forbid!-\n    Let him depart before we need his help.\n  OXFORD. Women and children of so high a courage,\n    And warriors faint! Why, 'twere perpetual shame.\n    O brave young Prince! thy famous grandfather\n    Doth live again in thee. Long mayst thou Eve\n    To bear his image and renew his glories!\n  SOMERSET. And he that will not fight for such a hope,\n    Go home to bed and, like the owl by day,\n    If he arise, be mock'd and wond'red at.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Thanks, gentle Somerset; sweet Oxford, thanks.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. And take his thanks that yet hath nothing\nelse.\n\n                        Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. Prepare you, lords, for Edward is at hand\n    Ready to fight; therefore be resolute.\n  OXFORD. I thought no less. It is his policy\n    To haste thus fast, to find us unprovided.\n  SOMERSET. But he's deceiv'd; we are in readiness.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. This cheers my heart, to see your forwardness.\n  OXFORD. Here pitch our battle; hence we will not budge.\n\n      Flourish and march. Enter, at a distance, KING EDWARD,\n               GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, and soldiers\n\n  KING EDWARD. Brave followers, yonder stands the thorny wood\n    Which, by the heavens' assistance and your strength,\n    Must by the roots be hewn up yet ere night.\n    I need not add more fuel to your fire,\n    For well I wot ye blaze to burn them out.\n    Give signal to the fight, and to it, lords.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Lords, knights, and gentlemen, what I should\nsay\n    My tears gainsay; for every word I speak,\n    Ye see, I drink the water of my eye.\n    Therefore, no more but this: Henry, your sovereign,\n    Is prisoner to the foe; his state usurp'd,\n    His realm a slaughter-house, his subjects slain,\n    His statutes cancell'd, and his treasure spent;\n    And yonder is the wolf that makes this spoil.\n    You fight in justice. Then, in God's name, lords,\n    Be valiant, and give signal to the fight.\n                             Alarum, retreat, excursions. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nAnother part of the field\n\nFlourish. Enter KING EDWARD, GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, and forces,\nWith QUEEN MARGARET, OXFORD, and SOMERSET, prisoners\n\n  KING EDWARD. Now here a period of tumultuous broils.\n    Away with Oxford to Hames Castle straight;\n    For Somerset, off with his guilty head.\n    Go, bear them hence; I will not hear them speak.\n  OXFORD. For my part, I'll not trouble thee with words.\n  SOMERSET. Nor I, but stoop with patience to my fortune.\n                             Exeunt OXFORD and SOMERSET, guarded\n  QUEEN MARGARET. So part we sadly in this troublous world,\n    To meet with joy in sweet Jerusalem.\n  KING EDWARD. Is proclamation made that who finds Edward\n    Shall have a high reward, and he his life?\n  GLOUCESTER. It is; and lo where youthful Edward comes.\n\n                Enter soldiers, with PRINCE EDWARD\n\n  KING EDWARD. Bring forth the gallant; let us hear him speak.\n    What, can so young a man begin to prick?\n    Edward, what satisfaction canst thou make\n    For bearing arms, for stirring up my subjects,\n    And all the trouble thou hast turn'd me to?\n  PRINCE OF WALES. Speak like a subject, proud ambitious York.\n    Suppose that I am now my father's mouth;\n    Resign thy chair, and where I stand kneel thou,\n    Whilst I propose the self-same words to the\n    Which, traitor, thou wouldst have me answer to.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Ah, that thy father had been so resolv'd!\n  GLOUCESTER. That you might still have worn the petticoat\n    And ne'er have stol'n the breech from Lancaster.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. Let Aesop fable in a winter's night;\n    His currish riddle sorts not with this place.\n  GLOUCESTER. By heaven, brat, I'll plague ye for that word.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, thou wast born to be a plague to men.\n  GLOUCESTER. For God's sake, take away this captive scold.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. Nay, take away this scolding crookback rather.\n  KING EDWARD. Peace, wilful boy, or I will charm your tongue.\n  CLARENCE. Untutor'd lad, thou art too malapert.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. I know my duty; you are all undutiful.\n    Lascivious Edward, and thou perjur'd George,\n    And thou misshapen Dick, I tell ye all\n    I am your better, traitors as ye are;\n    And thou usurp'st my father's right and mine.\n  KING EDWARD. Take that, the likeness of this railer here.\n                                                     [Stabs him]\n  GLOUCESTER. Sprawl'st thou? Take that, to end thy agony.\n                                                     [Stabs him]\n  CLARENCE. And there's for twitting me with perjury.\n                                                     [Stabs him]\n  QUEEN MARGARET. O, kill me too!\n  GLOUCESTER. Marry, and shall.             [Offers to kill her]\n  KING EDWARD. Hold, Richard, hold; for we have done to much.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why should she live to fill the world with words?\n  KING EDWARD. What, doth she swoon? Use means for her recovery.\n  GLOUCESTER. Clarence, excuse me to the King my brother.\n    I'll hence to London on a serious matter;\n    Ere ye come there, be sure to hear some news.\n  CLARENCE. What? what?\n  GLOUCESTER. The Tower! the Tower!                         Exit\n  QUEEN MARGARET. O Ned, sweet Ned, speak to thy mother, boy!\n    Canst thou not speak? O traitors! murderers!\n    They that stabb'd Caesar shed no blood at all,\n    Did not offend, nor were not worthy blame,\n    If this foul deed were by to equal it.\n    He was a man: this, in respect, a child;\n    And men ne'er spend their fury on a child.\n    What's worse than murderer, that I may name it?\n    No, no, my heart will burst, an if I speak-\n    And I will speak, that so my heart may burst.\n    Butchers and villains! bloody cannibals!\n    How sweet a plant have you untimely cropp'd!\n    You have no children, butchers, if you had,\n    The thought of them would have stirr'd up remorse.\n    But if you ever chance to have a child,\n    Look in his youth to have him so cut off\n    As, deathsmen, you have rid this sweet young prince!\n  KING EDWARD. Away with her; go, bear her hence perforce.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Nay, never bear me hence; dispatch me here.\n    Here sheathe thy sword; I'll pardon thee my death.\n    What, wilt thou not? Then, Clarence, do it thou.\n  CLARENCE. By heaven, I will not do thee so much ease.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Good Clarence, do; sweet Clarence, do thou do\nit.\n  CLARENCE. Didst thou not hear me swear I would not do it?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, but thou usest to forswear thyself.\n    'Twas sin before, but now 'tis charity.\n    What! wilt thou not? Where is that devil's butcher,\n    Hard-favour'd Richard? Richard, where art thou?\n    Thou art not here. Murder is thy alms-deed;\n    Petitioners for blood thou ne'er put'st back.\n  KING EDWARD. Away, I say; I charge ye bear her hence.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. So come to you and yours as to this prince.\n                                          Exit, led out forcibly\n  KING EDWARD. Where's Richard gone?\n  CLARENCE. To London, all in post; and, as I guess,\n    To make a bloody supper in the Tower.\n  KING EDWARD. He's sudden, if a thing comes in his head.\n    Now march we hence. Discharge the common sort\n    With pay and thanks; and let's away to London\n    And see our gentle queen how well she fares.\n    By this, I hope, she hath a son for me.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nLondon. The Tower\n\nEnter KING HENRY and GLOUCESTER with the LIEUTENANT, on the walls\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Good day, my lord. What, at your book so hard?\n  KING HENRY. Ay, my good lord- my lord, I should say rather.\n    'Tis sin to flatter; 'good' was little better.\n    'Good Gloucester' and 'good devil' were alike,\n    And both preposterous; therefore, not 'good lord.'\n  GLOUCESTER. Sirrah, leave us to ourselves; we must confer.\n                                                 Exit LIEUTENANT\n  KING HENRY. So flies the reckless shepherd from the wolf;\n    So first the harmless sheep doth yield his fleece,\n    And next his throat unto the butcher's knife.\n    What scene of death hath Roscius now to act?\n  GLOUCESTER. Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind:\n    The thief doth fear each bush an officer.\n  KING HENRY. The bird that hath been limed in a bush\n    With trembling wings misdoubteth every bush;\n    And I, the hapless male to one sweet bird,\n    Have now the fatal object in my eye\n    Where my poor young was lim'd, was caught, and kill'd.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, what a peevish fool was that of Crete\n    That taught his son the office of a fowl!\n    And yet, for all his wings, the fool was drown'd.\n  KING HENRY. I, Daedalus; my poor boy, Icarus;\n    Thy father, Minos, that denied our course;\n    The sun that sear'd the wings of my sweet boy,\n    Thy brother Edward; and thyself, the sea\n    Whose envious gulf did swallow up his life.\n    Ah, kill me with thy weapon, not with words!\n    My breast can better brook thy dagger's point\n    Than can my ears that tragic history.\n    But wherefore dost thou come? Is't for my life?\n  GLOUCESTER. Think'st thou I am an executioner?\n  KING HENRY. A persecutor I am sure thou art.\n    If murdering innocents be executing,\n    Why, then thou are an executioner.\n  GLOUCESTER. Thy son I kill'd for his presumption.\n  KING HENRY. Hadst thou been kill'd when first thou didst\npresume,\n    Thou hadst not liv'd to kill a son of mine.\n    And thus I prophesy, that many a thousand\n    Which now mistrust no parcel of my fear,\n    And many an old man's sigh, and many a widow's,\n    And many an orphan's water-standing eye-\n    Men for their sons, wives for their husbands,\n    Orphans for their parents' timeless death-\n    Shall rue the hour that ever thou wast born.\n    The owl shriek'd at thy birth- an evil sign;\n    The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time;\n    Dogs howl'd, and hideous tempest shook down trees;\n    The raven rook'd her on the chimney's top,\n    And chatt'ring pies in dismal discords sung;\n    Thy mother felt more than a mother's pain,\n    And yet brought forth less than a mother's hope,\n    To wit, an indigest deformed lump,\n    Not like the fruit of such a goodly tree.\n    Teeth hadst thou in thy head when thou wast born,\n    To signify thou cam'st to bite the world;\n    And if the rest be true which I have heard,\n    Thou cam'st-\n  GLOUCESTER. I'll hear no more. Die, prophet, in thy speech.\n                                                     [Stabs him]\n    For this, amongst the rest, was I ordain'd.\n  KING HENRY. Ay, and for much more slaughter after this.\n    O, God forgive my sins and pardon thee!               [Dies]\n  GLOUCESTER. What, will the aspiring blood of Lancaster\n    Sink in the ground? I thought it would have mounted.\n    See how my sword weeps for the poor King's death.\n    O, may such purple tears be always shed\n    From those that wish the downfall of our house!\n    If any spark of life be yet remaining,\n    Down, down to hell; and say I sent thee thither-\n                                               [Stabs him again]\n    I, that have neither pity, love, nor fear.\n    Indeed, 'tis true that Henry told me of;\n    For I have often heard my mother say\n    I came into the world with my legs forward.\n    Had I not reason, think ye, to make haste\n    And seek their ruin that usurp'd our right?\n    The midwife wonder'd; and the women cried\n    'O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!'\n    And so I was, which plainly signified\n    That I should snarl, and bite, and play the dog.\n    Then, since the heavens have shap'd my body so,\n    Let hell make crook'd my mind to answer it.\n    I have no brother, I am like no brother;\n    And this word 'love,' which greybeards call divine,\n    Be resident in men like one another,\n    And not in me! I am myself alone.\n    Clarence, beware; thou keep'st me from the light,\n    But I will sort a pitchy day for thee;\n    For I will buzz abroad such prophecies\n    That Edward shall be fearful of his life;\n    And then to purge his fear, I'll be thy death.\n    King Henry and the Prince his son are gone.\n    Clarence, thy turn is next, and then the rest;\n    Counting myself but bad till I be best.\n    I'll throw thy body in another room,\n    And triumph, Henry, in thy day of doom.\n                                              Exit with the body\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nLondon. The palace\n\nFlourish. Enter KING EDWARD, QUEEN ELIZABETH, CLARENCE,\nGLOUCESTER,\nHASTINGS, NURSE, with the Young PRINCE, and attendants\n\n  KING EDWARD. Once more we sit in England's royal throne,\n    Repurchas'd with the blood of enemies.\n    What valiant foemen, like to autumn's corn,\n    Have we mow'd down in tops of all their pride!\n    Three Dukes of Somerset, threefold renown'd\n    For hardy and undoubted champions;\n    Two Cliffords, as the father and the son;\n    And two Northumberlands- two braver men\n    Ne'er spurr'd their coursers at the trumpet's sound;\n    With them the two brave bears, Warwick and Montague,\n    That in their chains fetter'd the kingly lion\n    And made the forest tremble when they roar'd.\n    Thus have we swept suspicion from our seat\n    And made our footstool of security.\n    Come hither, Bess, and let me kiss my boy.\n    Young Ned, for thee thine uncles and myself\n    Have in our armours watch'd the winter's night,\n    Went all afoot in summer's scalding heat,\n    That thou might'st repossess the crown in peace;\n    And of our labours thou shalt reap the gain.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] I'll blast his harvest if your head were\nlaid;\n    For yet I am not look'd on in the world.\n    This shoulder was ordain'd so thick to heave;\n    And heave it shall some weight or break my back.\n    Work thou the way- and that shall execute.\n  KING EDWARD. Clarence and Gloucester, love my lovely queen;\n    And kiss your princely nephew, brothers both.\n  CLARENCE. The duty that I owe unto your Majesty\n    I seal upon the lips of this sweet babe.\n  KING EDWARD. Thanks, noble Clarence; worthy brother, thanks.\n  GLOUCESTER. And that I love the tree from whence thou\nsprang'st,\n    Witness the loving kiss I give the fruit.\n    [Aside] To say the truth, so Judas kiss'd his master\n    And cried 'All hail!' when as he meant all harm.\n  KING EDWARD. Now am I seated as my soul delights,\n    Having my country's peace and brothers' loves.\n  CLARENCE. What will your Grace have done with Margaret?\n    Reignier, her father, to the King of France\n    Hath pawn'd the Sicils and Jerusalem,\n    And hither have they sent it for her ransom.\n  KING EDWARD. Away with her, and waft her hence to France.\n    And now what rests but that we spend the time\n    With stately triumphs, mirthful comic shows,\n    Such as befits the pleasure of the court?\n    Sound drums and trumpets. Farewell, sour annoy!\n    For here, I hope, begins our lasting joy.             Exeunt\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of this Etext of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare\nTHE THIRD PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH"}
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{"1103":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThis Etext file is presented by Project Gutenberg, in\ncooperation with World Library, Inc., from their Library of the\nFuture and Shakespeare CDROMS.  Project Gutenberg often releases\nEtexts that are NOT placed in the Public Domain!!\n\n*This Etext has certain copyright implications you should read!*\n\n\n\n\nSCENE: England\n\nKing Richard the Third\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 1.\n\nLondon. A street\n\nEnter RICHARD, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, solus\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Now is the winter of our discontent\n    Made glorious summer by this sun of York;\n    And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house\n    In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.\n    Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;\n    Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;\n    Our stern alarums chang'd to merry meetings,\n    Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.\n    Grim-visag'd war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front,\n    And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds\n    To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,\n    He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber\n    To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.\n    But I-that am not shap'd for sportive tricks,\n    Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass-\n    I-that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty\n    To strut before a wanton ambling nymph-\n    I-that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,\n    Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,\n    Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time\n    Into this breathing world scarce half made up,\n    And that so lamely and unfashionable\n    That dogs bark at me as I halt by them-\n    Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,\n    Have no delight to pass away the time,\n    Unless to spy my shadow in the sun\n    And descant on mine own deformity.\n    And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover\n    To entertain these fair well-spoken days,\n    I am determined to prove a villain\n    And hate the idle pleasures of these days.\n    Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,\n    By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams,\n    To set my brother Clarence and the King\n    In deadly hate the one against the other;\n    And if King Edward be as true and just\n    As I am subtle, false, and treacherous,\n    This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up-\n    About a prophecy which says that G\n    Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.\n    Dive, thoughts, down to my soul. Here Clarence comes.\n\n             Enter CLARENCE, guarded, and BRAKENBURY\n\n    Brother, good day. What means this armed guard\n    That waits upon your Grace?\n  CLARENCE. His Majesty,\n    Tend'ring my person's safety, hath appointed\n    This conduct to convey me to th' Tower.\n  GLOUCESTER. Upon what cause?\n  CLARENCE. Because my name is George.\n  GLOUCESTER. Alack, my lord, that fault is none of yours:\n    He should, for that, commit your godfathers.\n    O, belike his Majesty hath some intent\n    That you should be new-christ'ned in the Tower.\n    But what's the matter, Clarence? May I know?\n  CLARENCE. Yea, Richard, when I know; for I protest\n    As yet I do not; but, as I can learn,\n    He hearkens after prophecies and dreams,\n    And from the cross-row plucks the letter G,\n    And says a wizard told him that by G\n    His issue disinherited should be;\n    And, for my name of George begins with G,\n    It follows in his thought that I am he.\n    These, as I learn, and such like toys as these\n    Hath mov'd his Highness to commit me now.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, this it is when men are rul'd by women:\n    'Tis not the King that sends you to the Tower;\n    My Lady Grey his wife, Clarence, 'tis she\n    That tempers him to this extremity.\n    Was it not she and that good man of worship,\n    Antony Woodville, her brother there,\n    That made him send Lord Hastings to the Tower,\n    From whence this present day he is delivered?\n    We are not safe, Clarence; we are not safe.\n  CLARENCE. By heaven, I think there is no man is secure\n    But the Queen's kindred, and night-walking heralds\n    That trudge betwixt the King and Mistress Shore.\n    Heard you not what an humble suppliant\n    Lord Hastings was, for her delivery?\n  GLOUCESTER. Humbly complaining to her deity\n    Got my Lord Chamberlain his liberty.\n    I'll tell you what-I think it is our way,\n    If we will keep in favour with the King,\n    To be her men and wear her livery:\n    The jealous o'er-worn widow, and herself,\n    Since that our brother dubb'd them gentlewomen,\n    Are mighty gossips in our monarchy.\n  BRAKENBURY. I beseech your Graces both to pardon me:\n    His Majesty hath straitly given in charge\n    That no man shall have private conference,\n    Of what degree soever, with your brother.\n  GLOUCESTER. Even so; an't please your worship, Brakenbury,\n    You may partake of any thing we say:\n    We speak no treason, man; we say the King\n    Is wise and virtuous, and his noble queen\n    Well struck in years, fair, and not jealous;\n    We say that Shore's wife hath a pretty foot,\n    A cherry lip, a bonny eye, a passing pleasing tongue;\n    And that the Queen's kindred are made gentlefolks.\n    How say you, sir? Can you deny all this?\n  BRAKENBURY. With this, my lord, myself have naught to do.\n  GLOUCESTER. Naught to do with Mistress Shore! I tell thee,\n    fellow,\n    He that doth naught with her, excepting one,\n    Were best to do it secretly alone.\n  BRAKENBURY. What one, my lord?\n  GLOUCESTER. Her husband, knave! Wouldst thou betray me?\n  BRAKENBURY. I do beseech your Grace to pardon me, and\n    withal\n    Forbear your conference with the noble Duke.\n  CLARENCE. We know thy charge, Brakenbury, and will\n    obey.\n  GLOUCESTER. We are the Queen's abjects and must obey.\n    Brother, farewell; I will unto the King;\n    And whatsoe'er you will employ me in-\n    Were it to call King Edward's widow sister-\n    I will perform it to enfranchise you.\n    Meantime, this deep disgrace in brotherhood\n    Touches me deeper than you can imagine.\n  CLARENCE. I know it pleaseth neither of us well.\n  GLOUCESTER. Well, your imprisonment shall not be long;\n    I will deliver or else lie for you.\n    Meantime, have patience.\n  CLARENCE. I must perforce. Farewell.\n                          Exeunt CLARENCE, BRAKENBURY, and guard\n  GLOUCESTER. Go tread the path that thou shalt ne'er return.\n    Simple, plain Clarence, I do love thee so\n    That I will shortly send thy soul to heaven,\n    If heaven will take the present at our hands.\n    But who comes here? The new-delivered Hastings?\n\n                       Enter LORD HASTINGS\n\n  HASTINGS. Good time of day unto my gracious lord!\n  GLOUCESTER. As much unto my good Lord Chamberlain!\n    Well are you welcome to the open air.\n    How hath your lordship brook'd imprisonment?\n  HASTINGS. With patience, noble lord, as prisoners must;\n    But I shall live, my lord, to give them thanks\n    That were the cause of my imprisonment.\n  GLOUCESTER. No doubt, no doubt; and so shall Clarence too;\n    For they that were your enemies are his,\n    And have prevail'd as much on him as you.\n  HASTINGS. More pity that the eagles should be mew'd\n    Whiles kites and buzzards prey at liberty.\n  GLOUCESTER. What news abroad?\n  HASTINGS. No news so bad abroad as this at home:\n    The King is sickly, weak, and melancholy,\n    And his physicians fear him mightily.\n  GLOUCESTER. Now, by Saint John, that news is bad indeed.\n    O, he hath kept an evil diet long\n    And overmuch consum'd his royal person!\n    'Tis very grievous to be thought upon.\n    Where is he? In his bed?\n  HASTINGS. He is.\n  GLOUCESTER. Go you before, and I will follow you.\n                                                   Exit HASTINGS\n    He cannot live, I hope, and must not die\n    Till George be pack'd with posthorse up to heaven.\n    I'll in to urge his hatred more to Clarence\n    With lies well steel'd with weighty arguments;\n    And, if I fail not in my deep intent,\n    Clarence hath not another day to live;\n    Which done, God take King Edward to his mercy,\n    And leave the world for me to bustle in!\n    For then I'll marry Warwick's youngest daughter.\n    What though I kill'd her husband and her father?\n    The readiest way to make the wench amends\n    Is to become her husband and her father;\n    The which will I-not all so much for love\n    As for another secret close intent\n    By marrying her which I must reach unto.\n    But yet I run before my horse to market.\n    Clarence still breathes; Edward still lives and reigns;\n    When they are gone, then must I count my gains.         Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nLondon. Another street\n\nEnter corpse of KING HENRY THE SIXTH, with halberds to guard it;\nLADY ANNE being the mourner, attended by TRESSEL and BERKELEY\n\n  ANNE. Set down, set down your honourable load-\n    If honour may be shrouded in a hearse;\n    Whilst I awhile obsequiously lament\n    Th' untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.\n    Poor key-cold figure of a holy king!\n    Pale ashes of the house of Lancaster!\n    Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood!\n    Be it lawful that I invocate thy ghost\n    To hear the lamentations of poor Anne,\n    Wife to thy Edward, to thy slaughtered son,\n    Stabb'd by the self-same hand that made these wounds.\n    Lo, in these windows that let forth thy life\n    I pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes.\n    O, cursed be the hand that made these holes!\n    Cursed the heart that had the heart to do it!\n    Cursed the blood that let this blood from hence!\n    More direful hap betide that hated wretch\n    That makes us wretched by the death of thee\n    Than I can wish to adders, spiders, toads,\n    Or any creeping venom'd thing that lives!\n    If ever he have child, abortive be it,\n    Prodigious, and untimely brought to light,\n    Whose ugly and unnatural aspect\n    May fright the hopeful mother at the view,\n    And that be heir to his unhappiness!\n    If ever he have wife, let her be made\n    More miserable by the death of him\n    Than I am made by my young lord and thee!\n    Come, now towards Chertsey with your holy load,\n    Taken from Paul's to be interred there;\n    And still as you are weary of this weight\n    Rest you, whiles I lament King Henry's corse.\n                                [The bearers take up the coffin]\n\n                      Enter GLOUCESTER\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Stay, you that bear the corse, and set it down.\n  ANNE. What black magician conjures up this fiend\n    To stop devoted charitable deeds?\n  GLOUCESTER. Villains, set down the corse; or, by Saint Paul,\n    I'll make a corse of him that disobeys!\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. My lord, stand back, and let the coffin\n    pass.\n  GLOUCESTER. Unmannerd dog! Stand thou, when I command.\n    Advance thy halberd higher than my breast,\n    Or, by Saint Paul, I'll strike thee to my foot\n    And spurn upon thee, beggar, for thy boldness.\n                               [The bearers set down the coffin]\n  ANNE. What, do you tremble? Are you all afraid?\n    Alas, I blame you not, for you are mortal,\n    And mortal eyes cannot endure the devil.\n    Avaunt, thou dreadful minister of hell!\n    Thou hadst but power over his mortal body,\n    His soul thou canst not have; therefore, be gone.\n  GLOUCESTER. Sweet saint, for charity, be not so curst.\n  ANNE. Foul devil, for God's sake, hence and trouble us not;\n    For thou hast made the happy earth thy hell\n    Fill'd it with cursing cries and deep exclaims.\n    If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,\n    Behold this pattern of thy butcheries.\n    O, gentlemen, see, see! Dead Henry's wounds\n    Open their congeal'd mouths and bleed afresh.\n    Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity,\n    For 'tis thy presence that exhales this blood\n    From cold and empty veins where no blood dwells;\n    Thy deeds inhuman and unnatural\n    Provokes this deluge most unnatural.\n    O God, which this blood mad'st, revenge his death!\n    O earth, which this blood drink'st, revenge his death!\n    Either, heav'n, with lightning strike the murd'rer dead;\n    Or, earth, gape open wide and eat him quick,\n    As thou dost swallow up this good king's blood,\n    Which his hell-govern'd arm hath butchered.\n  GLOUCESTER. Lady, you know no rules of charity,\n    Which renders good for bad, blessings for curses.\n  ANNE. Villain, thou knowest nor law of God nor man:\n    No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.\n  GLOUCESTER. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.\n  ANNE. O wonderful, when devils tell the truth!\n  GLOUCESTER. More wonderful when angels are so angry.\n    Vouchsafe, divine perfection of a woman,\n    Of these supposed crimes to give me leave\n    By circumstance but to acquit myself.\n  ANNE. Vouchsafe, diffus'd infection of a man,\n    Of these known evils but to give me leave\n    By circumstance to accuse thy cursed self.\n  GLOUCESTER. Fairer than tongue can name thee, let me have\n    Some patient leisure to excuse myself.\n  ANNE. Fouler than heart can think thee, thou canst make\n    No excuse current but to hang thyself.\n  GLOUCESTER. By such despair I should accuse myself.\n  ANNE. And by despairing shalt thou stand excused\n    For doing worthy vengeance on thyself\n    That didst unworthy slaughter upon others.\n  GLOUCESTER. Say that I slew them not?\n  ANNE. Then say they were not slain.\n    But dead they are, and, devilish slave, by thee.\n  GLOUCESTER. I did not kill your husband.\n  ANNE. Why, then he is alive.\n  GLOUCESTER. Nay, he is dead, and slain by Edward's hands.\n  ANNE. In thy foul throat thou liest: Queen Margaret saw\n    Thy murd'rous falchion smoking in his blood;\n    The which thou once didst bend against her breast,\n    But that thy brothers beat aside the point.\n  GLOUCESTER. I was provoked by her sland'rous tongue\n    That laid their guilt upon my guiltless shoulders.\n  ANNE. Thou wast provoked by thy bloody mind,\n    That never dream'st on aught but butcheries.\n    Didst thou not kill this king?\n  GLOUCESTER. I grant ye.\n  ANNE. Dost grant me, hedgehog? Then, God grant me to\n    Thou mayst be damned for that wicked deed!\n    O, he was gentle, mild, and virtuous!\n  GLOUCESTER. The better for the King of Heaven, that hath\n    him.\n  ANNE. He is in heaven, where thou shalt never come.\n  GLOUCESTER. Let him thank me that holp to send him\n    thither,\n    For he was fitter for that place than earth.\n  ANNE. And thou unfit for any place but hell.\n  GLOUCESTER. Yes, one place else, if you will hear me name it.\n  ANNE. Some dungeon.\n  GLOUCESTER. Your bed-chamber.\n  ANNE. Ill rest betide the chamber where thou liest!\n  GLOUCESTER. So will it, madam, till I lie with you.\n  ANNE. I hope so.\n  GLOUCESTER. I know so. But, gentle Lady Anne,\n    To leave this keen encounter of our wits,\n    And fall something into a slower method-\n    Is not the causer of the timeless deaths\n    Of these Plantagenets, Henry and Edward,\n    As blameful as the executioner?\n  ANNE. Thou wast the cause and most accurs'd effect.\n  GLOUCESTER. Your beauty was the cause of that effect-\n    Your beauty that did haunt me in my sleep\n    To undertake the death of all the world\n    So I might live one hour in your sweet bosom.\n  ANNE. If I thought that, I tell thee, homicide,\n    These nails should rend that beauty from my cheeks.\n  GLOUCESTER. These eyes could not endure that beauty's\n    wreck;\n    You should not blemish it if I stood by.\n    As all the world is cheered by the sun,\n    So I by that; it is my day, my life.\n  ANNE. Black night o'ershade thy day, and death thy life!\n  GLOUCESTER. Curse not thyself, fair creature; thou art both.\n  ANNE. I would I were, to be reveng'd on thee.\n  GLOUCESTER. It is a quarrel most unnatural,\n    To be reveng'd on him that loveth thee.\n  ANNE. It is a quarrel just and reasonable,\n    To be reveng'd on him that kill'd my husband.\n  GLOUCESTER. He that bereft thee, lady, of thy husband\n    Did it to help thee to a better husband.\n  ANNE. His better doth not breathe upon the earth.\n  GLOUCESTER. He lives that loves thee better than he could.\n  ANNE. Name him.\n  GLOUCESTER. Plantagenet.\n  ANNE. Why, that was he.\n  GLOUCESTER. The self-same name, but one of better nature.\n  ANNE. Where is he?\n  GLOUCESTER. Here.  [She spits at him]  Why dost thou spit\n    at me?\n  ANNE. Would it were mortal poison, for thy sake!\n  GLOUCESTER. Never came poison from so sweet a place.\n  ANNE. Never hung poison on a fouler toad.\n    Out of my sight! Thou dost infect mine eyes.\n  GLOUCESTER. Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine.\n  ANNE. Would they were basilisks to strike thee dead!\n  GLOUCESTER. I would they were, that I might die at once;\n    For now they kill me with a living death.\n    Those eyes of thine from mine have drawn salt tears,\n    Sham'd their aspects with store of childish drops-\n    These eyes, which never shed remorseful tear,\n    No, when my father York and Edward wept\n    To hear the piteous moan that Rutland made\n    When black-fac'd Clifford shook his sword at him;\n    Nor when thy warlike father, like a child,\n    Told the sad story of my father's death,\n    And twenty times made pause to sob and weep\n    That all the standers-by had wet their cheeks\n    Like trees bedash'd with rain-in that sad time\n    My manly eyes did scorn an humble tear;\n    And what these sorrows could not thence exhale\n    Thy beauty hath, and made them blind with weeping.\n    I never sued to friend nor enemy;\n    My tongue could never learn sweet smoothing word;\n    But, now thy beauty is propos'd my fee,\n    My proud heart sues, and prompts my tongue to speak.\n                                   [She looks scornfully at him]\n    Teach not thy lip such scorn; for it was made\n    For kissing, lady, not for such contempt.\n    If thy revengeful heart cannot forgive,\n    Lo here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword;\n    Which if thou please to hide in this true breast\n    And let the soul forth that adoreth thee,\n    I lay it naked to the deadly stroke,\n    And humbly beg the death upon my knee.\n      [He lays his breast open; she offers at it with his sword]\n    Nay, do not pause; for I did kill King Henry-\n    But 'twas thy beauty that provoked me.\n    Nay, now dispatch; 'twas I that stabb'd young Edward-\n    But 'twas thy heavenly face that set me on.\n                                           [She falls the sword]\n    Take up the sword again, or take up me.\n  ANNE. Arise, dissembler; though I wish thy death,\n    I will not be thy executioner.\n  GLOUCESTER. Then bid me kill myself, and I will do it;\n  ANNE. I have already.\n  GLOUCESTER. That was in thy rage.\n    Speak it again, and even with the word\n    This hand, which for thy love did kill thy love,\n    Shall for thy love kill a far truer love;\n    To both their deaths shalt thou be accessary.\n  ANNE. I would I knew thy heart.\n  GLOUCESTER. 'Tis figur'd in my tongue.\n  ANNE. I fear me both are false.\n  GLOUCESTER. Then never was man true.\n  ANNE. well put up your sword.\n  GLOUCESTER. Say, then, my peace is made.\n  ANNE. That shalt thou know hereafter.\n  GLOUCESTER. But shall I live in hope?\n  ANNE. All men, I hope, live so.\n  GLOUCESTER. Vouchsafe to wear this ring.\n  ANNE. To take is not to give.               [Puts on the ring]\n  GLOUCESTER. Look how my ring encompasseth thy finger,\n    Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart;\n    Wear both of them, for both of them are thine.\n    And if thy poor devoted servant may\n    But beg one favour at thy gracious hand,\n    Thou dost confirm his happiness for ever.\n  ANNE. What is it?\n  GLOUCESTER. That it may please you leave these sad designs\n    To him that hath most cause to be a mourner,\n    And presently repair to Crosby House;\n    Where-after I have solemnly interr'd\n    At Chertsey monast'ry this noble king,\n    And wet his grave with my repentant tears-\n    I will with all expedient duty see you.\n    For divers unknown reasons, I beseech you,\n    Grant me this boon.\n  ANNE. With all my heart; and much it joys me too\n    To see you are become so penitent.\n    Tressel and Berkeley, go along with me.\n  GLOUCESTER. Bid me farewell.\n  ANNE. 'Tis more than you deserve;\n    But since you teach me how to flatter you,\n    Imagine I have said farewell already.\n                             Exeunt two GENTLEMEN With LADY ANNE\n  GLOUCESTER. Sirs, take up the corse.\n  GENTLEMEN. Towards Chertsey, noble lord?\n  GLOUCESTER. No, to White Friars; there attend my coming.\n                                       Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER\n    Was ever woman in this humour woo'd?\n    Was ever woman in this humour won?\n    I'll have her; but I will not keep her long.\n    What! I that kill'd her husband and his father-\n    To take her in her heart's extremest hate,\n    With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,\n    The bleeding witness of my hatred by;\n    Having God, her conscience, and these bars against me,\n    And I no friends to back my suit at all\n    But the plain devil and dissembling looks,\n    And yet to win her, all the world to nothing!\n    Ha!\n    Hath she forgot already that brave prince,\n    Edward, her lord, whom I, some three months since,\n    Stabb'd in my angry mood at Tewksbury?\n    A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman-\n    Fram'd in the prodigality of nature,\n    Young, valiant, wise, and no doubt right royal-\n    The spacious world cannot again afford;\n    And will she yet abase her eyes on me,\n    That cropp'd the golden prime of this sweet prince\n    And made her widow to a woeful bed?\n    On me, whose all not equals Edward's moiety?\n    On me, that halts and am misshapen thus?\n    My dukedom to a beggarly denier,\n    I do mistake my person all this while.\n    Upon my life, she finds, although I cannot,\n    Myself to be a marv'llous proper man.\n    I'll be at charges for a looking-glass,\n    And entertain a score or two of tailors\n    To study fashions to adorn my body.\n    Since I am crept in favour with myself,\n    I will maintain it with some little cost.\n    But first I'll turn yon fellow in his grave,\n    And then return lamenting to my love.\n    Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,\n    That I may see my shadow as I pass.                     Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter QUEEN ELIZABETH, LORD RIVERS, and LORD GREY\n\n  RIVERS. Have patience, madam; there's no doubt his Majesty\n    Will soon recover his accustom'd health.\n  GREY. In that you brook it ill, it makes him worse;\n    Therefore, for God's sake, entertain good comfort,\n    And cheer his Grace with quick and merry eyes.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. If he were dead, what would betide on\n    me?\n  GREY. No other harm but loss of such a lord.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. The loss of such a lord includes all\n    harms.\n  GREY. The heavens have bless'd you with a goodly son\n    To be your comforter when he is gone.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ah, he is young; and his minority\n    Is put unto the trust of Richard Gloucester,\n    A man that loves not me, nor none of you.\n  RIVER. Is it concluded he shall be Protector?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. It is determin'd, not concluded yet;\n    But so it must be, if the King miscarry.\n\n                     Enter BUCKINGHAM and DERBY\n\n  GREY. Here come the Lords of Buckingham and Derby.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Good time of day unto your royal Grace!\n  DERBY. God make your Majesty joyful as you have been.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. The Countess Richmond, good my Lord\n    of Derby,\n    To your good prayer will scarcely say amen.\n    Yet, Derby, notwithstanding she's your wife\n    And loves not me, be you, good lord, assur'd\n    I hate not you for her proud arrogance.\n  DERBY. I do beseech you, either not believe\n    The envious slanders of her false accusers;\n    Or, if she be accus'd on true report,\n    Bear with her weakness, which I think proceeds\n    From wayward sickness and no grounded malice.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Saw you the King to-day, my Lord of\n    Derby?\n  DERBY. But now the Duke of Buckingham and I\n    Are come from visiting his Majesty.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. What likelihood of his amendment,\n    Lords?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Madam, good hope; his Grace speaks\n    cheerfully.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. God grant him health! Did you confer\n    with him?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Ay, madam; he desires to make atonement\n    Between the Duke of Gloucester and your brothers,\n    And between them and my Lord Chamberlain;\n    And sent to warn them to his royal presence.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Would all were well! But that will\n    never be.\n    I fear our happiness is at the height.\n\n              Enter GLOUCESTER, HASTINGS, and DORSET\n\n  GLOUCESTER. They do me wrong, and I will not endure it.\n    Who is it that complains unto the King\n    That I, forsooth, am stern and love them not?\n    By holy Paul, they love his Grace but lightly\n    That fill his ears with such dissentious rumours.\n    Because I cannot flatter and look fair,\n    Smile in men's faces, smooth, deceive, and cog,\n    Duck with French nods and apish courtesy,\n    I must be held a rancorous enemy.\n    Cannot a plain man live and think no harm\n    But thus his simple truth must be abus'd\n    With silken, sly, insinuating Jacks?\n  GREY. To who in all this presence speaks your Grace?\n  GLOUCESTER. To thee, that hast nor honesty nor grace.\n    When have I injur'd thee? when done thee wrong,\n    Or thee, or thee, or any of your faction?\n    A plague upon you all! His royal Grace-\n    Whom God preserve better than you would wish!-\n    Cannot be quiet searce a breathing while\n    But you must trouble him with lewd complaints.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Brother of Gloucester, you mistake the\n    matter.\n    The King, on his own royal disposition\n    And not provok'd by any suitor else-\n    Aiming, belike, at your interior hatred\n    That in your outward action shows itself\n    Against my children, brothers, and myself-\n    Makes him to send that he may learn the ground.\n  GLOUCESTER. I cannot tell; the world is grown so bad\n    That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.\n    Since every Jack became a gentleman,\n    There's many a gentle person made a Jack.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Come, come, we know your meaning,\n    brother Gloucester:\n    You envy my advancement and my friends';\n    God grant we never may have need of you!\n  GLOUCESTER. Meantime, God grants that I have need of you.\n    Our brother is imprison'd by your means,\n    Myself disgrac'd, and the nobility\n    Held in contempt; while great promotions\n    Are daily given to ennoble those\n    That scarce some two days since were worth a noble.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. By Him that rais'd me to this careful\n    height\n    From that contented hap which I enjoy'd,\n    I never did incense his Majesty\n    Against the Duke of Clarence, but have been\n    An earnest advocate to plead for him.\n    My lord, you do me shameful injury\n    Falsely to draw me in these vile suspects.\n  GLOUCESTER. You may deny that you were not the mean\n    Of my Lord Hastings' late imprisonment.\n  RIVERS. She may, my lord; for-\n  GLOUCESTER. She may, Lord Rivers? Why, who knows\n    not so?\n    She may do more, sir, than denying that:\n    She may help you to many fair preferments\n    And then deny her aiding hand therein,\n    And lay those honours on your high desert.\n    What may she not? She may-ay, marry, may she-\n  RIVERS. What, marry, may she?\n  GLOUCESTER. What, marry, may she? Marry with a king,\n    A bachelor, and a handsome stripling too.\n    Iwis your grandam had a worser match.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. My Lord of Gloucester, I have too long\n    borne\n    Your blunt upbraidings and your bitter scoffs.\n    By heaven, I will acquaint his Majesty\n    Of those gross taunts that oft I have endur'd.\n    I had rather be a country servant-maid\n    Than a great queen with this condition-\n    To be so baited, scorn'd, and stormed at.\n\n                Enter old QUEEN MARGARET, behind\n\n    Small joy have I in being England's Queen.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. And less'ned be that small, God, I\n    beseech Him!\n    Thy honour, state, and seat, is due to me.\n  GLOUCESTER. What! Threat you me with telling of the\n    King?\n    Tell him and spare not. Look what I have said\n    I will avouch't in presence of the King.\n    I dare adventure to be sent to th' Tow'r.\n    'Tis time to speak-my pains are quite forgot.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Out, devil! I do remember them to\n    well:\n    Thou kill'dst my husband Henry in the Tower,\n    And Edward, my poor son, at Tewksbury.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ere you were queen, ay, or your husband\n    King,\n    I was a pack-horse in his great affairs,\n    A weeder-out of his proud adversaries,\n    A liberal rewarder of his friends;\n    To royalize his blood I spent mine own.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, and much better blood than his or\n    thine.\n  GLOUCESTER. In all which time you and your husband Grey\n    Were factious for the house of Lancaster;\n    And, Rivers, so were you. Was not your husband\n    In Margaret's battle at Saint Albans slain?\n    Let me put in your minds, if you forget,\n    What you have been ere this, and what you are;\n    Withal, what I have been, and what I am.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. A murd'rous villain, and so still thou art.\n  GLOUCESTER. Poor Clarence did forsake his father, Warwick,\n    Ay, and forswore himself-which Jesu pardon!-\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Which God revenge!\n  GLOUCESTER. To fight on Edward's party for the crown;\n    And for his meed, poor lord, he is mewed up.\n    I would to God my heart were flint like Edward's,\n    Or Edward's soft and pitiful like mine.\n    I am too childish-foolish for this world.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Hie thee to hell for shame and leave this\n    world,\n    Thou cacodemon; there thy kingdom is.\n  RIVERS. My Lord of Gloucester, in those busy days\n    Which here you urge to prove us enemies,\n    We follow'd then our lord, our sovereign king.\n    So should we you, if you should be our king.\n  GLOUCESTER. If I should be! I had rather be a pedlar.\n    Far be it from my heart, the thought thereof!\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. As little joy, my lord, as you suppose\n    You should enjoy were you this country's king,\n    As little joy you may suppose in me\n    That I enjoy, being the Queen thereof.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. As little joy enjoys the Queen thereof;\n    For I am she, and altogether joyless.\n    I can no longer hold me patient.                 [Advancing]\n    Hear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out\n    In sharing that which you have pill'd from me.\n    Which of you trembles not that looks on me?\n    If not that, I am Queen, you bow like subjects,\n    Yet that, by you depos'd, you quake like rebels?\n    Ah, gentle villain, do not turn away!\n  GLOUCESTER. Foul wrinkled witch, what mak'st thou in my\n    sight?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. But repetition of what thou hast marr'd,\n    That will I make before I let thee go.\n  GLOUCESTER. Wert thou not banished on pain of death?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. I was; but I do find more pain in\n    banishment\n    Than death can yield me here by my abode.\n    A husband and a son thou ow'st to me;\n    And thou a kingdom; all of you allegiance.\n    This sorrow that I have by right is yours;\n    And all the pleasures you usurp are mine.\n  GLOUCESTER. The curse my noble father laid on thee,\n    When thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper\n    And with thy scorns drew'st rivers from his eyes,\n    And then to dry them gav'st the Duke a clout\n    Steep'd in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland-\n    His curses then from bitterness of soul\n    Denounc'd against thee are all fall'n upon thee;\n    And God, not we, hath plagu'd thy bloody deed.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. So just is God to right the innocent.\n  HASTINGS. O, 'twas the foulest deed to slay that babe,\n    And the most merciless that e'er was heard of!\n  RIVERS. Tyrants themselves wept when it was reported.\n  DORSET. No man but prophesied revenge for it.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Northumberland, then present, wept to see it.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. What, were you snarling all before I came,\n    Ready to catch each other by the throat,\n    And turn you all your hatred now on me?\n    Did York's dread curse prevail so much with heaven\n    That Henry's death, my lovely Edward's death,\n    Their kingdom's loss, my woeful banishment,\n    Should all but answer for that peevish brat?\n    Can curses pierce the clouds and enter heaven?\n    Why then, give way, dull clouds, to my quick curses!\n    Though not by war, by surfeit die your king,\n    As ours by murder, to make him a king!\n    Edward thy son, that now is Prince of Wales,\n    For Edward our son, that was Prince of Wales,\n    Die in his youth by like untimely violence!\n    Thyself a queen, for me that was a queen,\n    Outlive thy glory, like my wretched self!\n    Long mayest thou live to wail thy children's death,\n    And see another, as I see thee now,\n    Deck'd in thy rights, as thou art stall'd in mine!\n    Long die thy happy days before thy death;\n    And, after many length'ned hours of grief,\n    Die neither mother, wife, nor England's Queen!\n    Rivers and Dorset, you were standers by,\n    And so wast thou, Lord Hastings, when my son\n    Was stabb'd with bloody daggers. God, I pray him,\n    That none of you may live his natural age,\n    But by some unlook'd accident cut off!\n  GLOUCESTER. Have done thy charm, thou hateful wither'd\n    hag.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. And leave out thee? Stay, dog, for thou\n    shalt hear me.\n    If heaven have any grievous plague in store\n    Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee,\n    O, let them keep it till thy sins be ripe,\n    And then hurl down their indignation\n    On thee, the troubler of the poor world's peace!\n    The worm of conscience still be-gnaw thy soul!\n    Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou liv'st,\n    And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends!\n    No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine,\n    Unless it be while some tormenting dream\n    Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils!\n    Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog,\n    Thou that wast seal'd in thy nativity\n    The slave of nature and the son of hell,\n    Thou slander of thy heavy mother's womb,\n    Thou loathed issue of thy father's loins,\n    Thou rag of honour, thou detested-\n  GLOUCESTER. Margaret!\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Richard!\n  GLOUCESTER. Ha?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. I call thee not.\n  GLOUCESTER. I cry thee mercy then, for I did think\n    That thou hadst call'd me all these bitter names.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Why, so I did, but look'd for no reply.\n    O, let me make the period to my curse!\n  GLOUCESTER. 'Tis done by me, and ends in-Margaret.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Thus have you breath'd your curse\n    against yourself.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Poor painted queen, vain flourish of my\n    fortune!\n    Why strew'st thou sugar on that bottled spider\n    Whose deadly web ensnareth thee about?\n    Fool, fool! thou whet'st a knife to kill thyself.\n    The day will come that thou shalt wish for me\n    To help thee curse this poisonous bunch-back'd toad.\n  HASTINGS. False-boding woman, end thy frantic curse,\n    Lest to thy harm thou move our patience.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Foul shame upon you! you have all\n    mov'd mine.\n  RIVERS. Were you well serv'd, you would be taught your\n      duty.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. To serve me well you all should do me\n    duty,\n    Teach me to be your queen and you my subjects.\n    O, serve me well, and teach yourselves that duty!\n  DORSET. Dispute not with her; she is lunatic.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Peace, Master Marquis, you are malapert;\n    Your fire-new stamp of honour is scarce current.\n    O, that your young nobility could judge\n    What 'twere to lose it and be miserable!\n    They that stand high have many blasts to shake them,\n    And if they fall they dash themselves to pieces.\n  GLOUCESTER. Good counsel, marry; learn it, learn it, Marquis.\n  DORSET. It touches you, my lord, as much as me.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ay, and much more; but I was born so high,\n    Our aery buildeth in the cedar's top,\n    And dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. And turns the sun to shade-alas! alas!\n    Witness my son, now in the shade of death,\n    Whose bright out-shining beams thy cloudy wrath\n    Hath in eternal darkness folded up.\n    Your aery buildeth in our aery's nest.\n    O God that seest it, do not suffer it;\n    As it is won with blood, lost be it so!\n  BUCKINGHAM. Peace, peace, for shame, if not for charity!\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Urge neither charity nor shame to me.\n    Uncharitably with me have you dealt,\n    And shamefully my hopes by you are butcher'd.\n    My charity is outrage, life my shame;\n    And in that shame still live my sorrow's rage!\n  BUCKINGHAM. Have done, have done.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. O princely Buckingham, I'll kiss thy\n    hand\n    In sign of league and amity with thee.\n    Now fair befall thee and thy noble house!\n    Thy garments are not spotted with our blood,\n    Nor thou within the compass of my curse.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Nor no one here; for curses never pass\n    The lips of those that breathe them in the air.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. I will not think but they ascend the sky\n    And there awake God's gentle-sleeping peace.\n    O Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog!\n    Look when he fawns, he bites; and when he bites,\n    His venom tooth will rankle to the death:\n    Have not to do with him, beware of him;\n    Sin, death, and hell, have set their marks on him,\n    And all their ministers attend on him.\n  GLOUCESTER. What doth she say, my Lord of Buckingham?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Nothing that I respect, my gracious lord.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. What, dost thou scorn me for my gentle\n    counsel,\n    And soothe the devil that I warn thee from?\n    O, but remember this another day,\n    When he shall split thy very heart with sorrow,\n    And say poor Margaret was a prophetess!\n    Live each of you the subjects to his hate,\n    And he to yours, and all of you to God's!               Exit\n  BUCKINGHAM. My hair doth stand an end to hear her curses.\n  RIVERS. And so doth mine. I muse why she's at liberty.\n  GLOUCESTER. I cannot blame her; by God's holy Mother,\n    She hath had too much wrong; and I repent\n    My part thereof that I have done to her.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. I never did her any to my knowledge.\n  GLOUCESTER. Yet you have all the vantage of her wrong.\n    I was too hot to do somebody good\n    That is too cold in thinking of it now.\n    Marry, as for Clarence, he is well repaid;\n    He is frank'd up to fatting for his pains;\n    God pardon them that are the cause thereof!\n  RIVERS. A virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion,\n    To pray for them that have done scathe to us!\n  GLOUCESTER. So do I ever-  [Aside]  being well advis'd;\n    For had I curs'd now, I had curs'd myself.\n\n                         Enter CATESBY\n\n  CATESBY. Madam, his Majesty doth can for you,\n    And for your Grace, and you, my gracious lords.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Catesby, I come. Lords, will you go\n    with me?\n  RIVERS. We wait upon your Grace.\n                                       Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER\n  GLOUCESTER. I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl.\n    The secret mischiefs that I set abroach\n    I lay unto the grievous charge of others.\n    Clarence, who I indeed have cast in darkness,\n    I do beweep to many simple gulls;\n    Namely, to Derby, Hastings, Buckingham;\n    And tell them 'tis the Queen and her allies\n    That stir the King against the Duke my brother.\n    Now they believe it, and withal whet me\n    To be reveng'd on Rivers, Dorset, Grey;\n    But then I sigh and, with a piece of Scripture,\n    Tell them that God bids us do good for evil.\n    And thus I clothe my naked villainy\n    With odd old ends stol'n forth of holy writ,\n    And seem a saint when most I play the devil.\n\n                       Enter two MURDERERS\n\n    But, soft, here come my executioners.\n    How now, my hardy stout resolved mates!\n    Are you now going to dispatch this thing?\n  FIRST MURDERER. We are, my lord, and come to have the\n    warrant,\n    That we may be admitted where he is.\n  GLOUCESTER. Well thought upon; I have it here about me.\n                                             [Gives the warrant]\n    When you have done, repair to Crosby Place.\n    But, sirs, be sudden in the execution,\n    Withal obdurate, do not hear him plead;\n    For Clarence is well-spoken, and perhaps\n    May move your hearts to pity, if you mark him.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Tut, tut, my lord, we will not stand to\n    prate;\n    Talkers are no good doers. Be assur'd\n    We go to use our hands and not our tongues.\n  GLOUCESTER. Your eyes drop millstones when fools' eyes fall\n    tears.\n    I like you, lads; about your business straight;\n    Go, go, dispatch.\n  FIRST MURDERER. We will, my noble lord.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\n\nLondon. The Tower\n\nEnter CLARENCE and KEEPER\n\n  KEEPER. Why looks your Grace so heavily to-day?\n  CLARENCE. O, I have pass'd a miserable night,\n    So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,\n    That, as I am a Christian faithful man,\n    I would not spend another such a night\n    Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days-\n    So full of dismal terror was the time!\n  KEEPER. What was your dream, my lord? I pray you\n    tell me.\n  CLARENCE. Methoughts that I had broken from the Tower\n    And was embark'd to cross to Burgundy;\n    And in my company my brother Gloucester,\n    Who from my cabin tempted me to walk\n    Upon the hatches. Thence we look'd toward England,\n    And cited up a thousand heavy times,\n    During the wars of York and Lancaster,\n    That had befall'n us. As we pac'd along\n    Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,\n    Methought that Gloucester stumbled, and in falling\n    Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard\n    Into the tumbling billows of the main.\n    O Lord, methought what pain it was to drown,\n    What dreadful noise of waters in my ears,\n    What sights of ugly death within my eyes!\n    Methoughts I saw a thousand fearful wrecks,\n    A thousand men that fishes gnaw'd upon,\n    Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,\n    Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,\n    All scatt'red in the bottom of the sea;\n    Some lay in dead men's skulls, and in the holes\n    Where eyes did once inhabit there were crept,\n    As 'twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,\n    That woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep\n    And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatt'red by.\n  KEEPER. Had you such leisure in the time of death\n    To gaze upon these secrets of the deep?\n  CLARENCE. Methought I had; and often did I strive\n    To yield the ghost, but still the envious flood\n    Stopp'd in my soul and would not let it forth\n    To find the empty, vast, and wand'ring air;\n    But smother'd it within my panting bulk,\n    Who almost burst to belch it in the sea.\n  KEEPER. Awak'd you not in this sore agony?\n  CLARENCE. No, no, my dream was lengthen'd after life.\n    O, then began the tempest to my soul!\n    I pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood\n    With that sour ferryman which poets write of,\n    Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.\n    The first that there did greet my stranger soul\n    Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick,\n    Who spake aloud 'What scourge for perjury\n    Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?'\n    And so he vanish'd. Then came wand'ring by\n    A shadow like an angel, with bright hair\n    Dabbled in blood, and he shriek'd out aloud\n    'Clarence is come-false, fleeting, perjur'd Clarence,\n    That stabb'd me in the field by Tewksbury.\n    Seize on him, Furies, take him unto torment!'\n    With that, methoughts, a legion of foul fiends\n    Environ'd me, and howled in mine ears\n    Such hideous cries that, with the very noise,\n    I trembling wak'd, and for a season after\n    Could not believe but that I was in hell,\n    Such terrible impression made my dream.\n  KEEPER. No marvel, lord, though it affrighted you;\n    I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it.\n  CLARENCE. Ah, Keeper, Keeper, I have done these things\n    That now give evidence against my soul\n    For Edward's sake, and see how he requites me!\n    O God! If my deep prayers cannot appease Thee,\n    But Thou wilt be aveng'd on my misdeeds,\n    Yet execute Thy wrath in me alone;\n    O, spare my guiltless wife and my poor children!\n    Keeper, I prithee sit by me awhile;\n    My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.\n  KEEPER. I will, my lord. God give your Grace good rest.\n                                               [CLARENCE sleeps]\n\n                  Enter BRAKENBURY the Lieutenant\n\n  BRAKENBURY. Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours,\n    Makes the night morning and the noontide night.\n    Princes have but their titles for their glories,\n    An outward honour for an inward toil;\n    And for unfelt imaginations\n    They often feel a world of restless cares,\n    So that between their tides and low name\n    There's nothing differs but the outward fame.\n\n                      Enter the two MURDERERS\n\n  FIRST MURDERER. Ho! who's here?\n  BRAKENBURY. What wouldst thou, fellow, and how cam'st\n    thou hither?\n  FIRST MURDERER. I would speak with Clarence, and I came\n    hither on my legs.\n  BRAKENBURY. What, so brief?\n  SECOND MURDERER. 'Tis better, sir, than to be tedious. Let\n    him see our commission and talk no more.\n                                           [BRAKENBURY reads it]\n  BRAKENBURY. I am, in this, commanded to deliver\n    The noble Duke of Clarence to your hands.\n    I will not reason what is meant hereby,\n    Because I will be guiltless from the meaning.\n    There lies the Duke asleep; and there the keys.\n    I'll to the King and signify to him\n    That thus I have resign'd to you my charge.\n  FIRST MURDERER. You may, sir; 'tis a point of wisdom. Fare\n    you well.                       Exeunt BRAKENBURY and KEEPER\n  SECOND MURDERER. What, shall I stab him as he sleeps?\n  FIRST MURDERER. No; he'll say 'twas done cowardly, when\n    he wakes.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Why, he shall never wake until the great\n    judgment-day.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Why, then he'll say we stabb'd him\n    sleeping.\n  SECOND MURDERER. The urging of that word judgment hath\n    bred a kind of remorse in me.\n  FIRST MURDERER. What, art thou afraid?\n  SECOND MURDERER. Not to kill him, having a warrant; but to\n    be damn'd for killing him, from the which no warrant can\n    defend me.\n  FIRST MURDERER. I thought thou hadst been resolute.\n  SECOND MURDERER. So I am, to let him live.\n  FIRST MURDERER. I'll back to the Duke of Gloucester and\n    tell him so.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Nay, I prithee, stay a little. I hope this\n    passionate humour of mine will change; it was wont to\n    hold me but while one tells twenty.\n  FIRST MURDERER. How dost thou feel thyself now?\n    SECOND MURDERER. Faith, some certain dregs of conscience\n    are yet within me.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Remember our reward, when the deed's\n    done.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Zounds, he dies; I had forgot the reward.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Where's thy conscience now?\n  SECOND MURDERER. O, in the Duke of Gloucester's purse!\n  FIRST MURDERER. When he opens his purse to give us our\n    reward, thy conscience flies out.\n  SECOND MURDERER. 'Tis no matter; let it go; there's few or\n    none will entertain it.\n  FIRST MURDERER. What if it come to thee again?\n  SECOND MURDERER. I'll not meddle with it-it makes a man\n    coward: a man cannot steal, but it accuseth him; a man\n    cannot swear, but it checks him; a man cannot lie with his\n    neighbour's wife, but it detects him. 'Tis a blushing shame-\n    fac'd spirit that mutinies in a man's bosom; it fills a man\n    full of obstacles: it made me once restore a purse of gold\n    that-by chance I found. It beggars any man that keeps it.\n    It is turn'd out of towns and cities for a dangerous thing;\n    and every man that means to live well endeavours to trust\n    to himself and live without it.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Zounds, 'tis even now at my elbow,\n    persuading me not to kill the Duke.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Take the devil in thy mind and believe\n    him not; he would insinuate with thee but to make the\n    sigh.\n  FIRST MURDERER. I am strong-fram'd; he cannot prevail with\n    me.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Spoke like a tall man that respects thy\n    reputation. Come, shall we fall to work?\n  FIRST MURDERER. Take him on the costard with the hilts of\n    thy sword, and then chop him in the malmsey-butt in the\n    next room.\n  SECOND MURDERER. O excellent device! and make a sop of\n    him.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Soft! he wakes.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Strike!\n  FIRST MURDERER. No, we'll reason with him.\n  CLARENCE. Where art thou, Keeper? Give me a cup of wine.\n  SECOND MURDERER. You shall have wine enough, my lord,\n    anon.\n  CLARENCE. In God's name, what art thou?\n  FIRST MURDERER. A man, as you are.\n  CLARENCE. But not as I am, royal.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Nor you as we are, loyal.\n  CLARENCE. Thy voice is thunder, but thy looks are humble.\n  FIRST MURDERER. My voice is now the King's, my looks\n    mine own.\n  CLARENCE. How darkly and how deadly dost thou speak!\n    Your eyes do menace me. Why look you pale?\n    Who sent you hither? Wherefore do you come?\n  SECOND MURDERER. To, to, to-\n  CLARENCE. To murder me?\n  BOTH MURDERERS. Ay, ay.\n  CLARENCE. You scarcely have the hearts to tell me so,\n    And therefore cannot have the hearts to do it.\n    Wherein, my friends, have I offended you?\n  FIRST MURDERER. Offended us you have not, but the King.\n  CLARENCE. I shall be reconcil'd to him again.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Never, my lord; therefore prepare to die.\n  CLARENCE. Are you drawn forth among a world of men\n    To slay the innocent? What is my offence?\n    Where is the evidence that doth accuse me?\n    What lawful quest have given their verdict up\n    Unto the frowning judge, or who pronounc'd\n    The bitter sentence of poor Clarence' death?\n    Before I be convict by course of law,\n    To threaten me with death is most unlawful.\n    I charge you, as you hope to have redemption\n    By Christ's dear blood shed for our grievous sins,\n    That you depart and lay no hands on me.\n    The deed you undertake is damnable.\n  FIRST MURDERER. What we will do, we do upon command.\n  SECOND MURDERER. And he that hath commanded is our\n    King.\n  CLARENCE. Erroneous vassals! the great King of kings\n    Hath in the tables of his law commanded\n    That thou shalt do no murder. Will you then\n    Spurn at his edict and fulfil a man's?\n    Take heed; for he holds vengeance in his hand\n    To hurl upon their heads that break his law.\n  SECOND MURDERER. And that same vengeance doth he hurl\n    on thee\n    For false forswearing, and for murder too;\n    Thou didst receive the sacrament to fight\n    In quarrel of the house of Lancaster.\n  FIRST MURDERER. And like a traitor to the name of God\n    Didst break that vow; and with thy treacherous blade\n    Unripp'dst the bowels of thy sov'reign's son.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Whom thou wast sworn to cherish and\n    defend.\n  FIRST MURDERER. How canst thou urge God's dreadful law\n    to us,\n    When thou hast broke it in such dear degree?\n  CLARENCE. Alas! for whose sake did I that ill deed?\n    For Edward, for my brother, for his sake.\n    He sends you not to murder me for this,\n    For in that sin he is as deep as I.\n    If God will be avenged for the deed,\n    O, know you yet He doth it publicly.\n    Take not the quarrel from His pow'rful arm;\n    He needs no indirect or lawless course\n    To cut off those that have offended Him.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Who made thee then a bloody minister\n    When gallant-springing brave Plantagenet,\n    That princely novice, was struck dead by thee?\n  CLARENCE. My brother's love, the devil, and my rage.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Thy brother's love, our duty, and thy\n    faults,\n    Provoke us hither now to slaughter thee.\n  CLARENCE. If you do love my brother, hate not me;\n    I am his brother, and I love him well.\n    If you are hir'd for meed, go back again,\n    And I will send you to my brother Gloucester,\n    Who shall reward you better for my life\n    Than Edward will for tidings of my death.\n  SECOND MURDERER. You are deceiv'd: your brother Gloucester\n    hates you.\n  CLARENCE. O, no, he loves me, and he holds me dear.\n    Go you to him from me.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Ay, so we will.\n  CLARENCE. Tell him when that our princely father York\n    Bless'd his three sons with his victorious arm\n    And charg'd us from his soul to love each other,\n    He little thought of this divided friendship.\n    Bid Gloucester think of this, and he will weep.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Ay, millstones; as he lesson'd us to weep.\n  CLARENCE. O, do not slander him, for he is kind.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Right, as snow in harvest. Come, you\n    deceive yourself:\n    'Tis he that sends us to destroy you here.\n    CLARENCE. It cannot be; for he bewept my fortune\n    And hugg'd me in his arms, and swore with sobs\n    That he would labour my delivery.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Why, so he doth, when he delivers you\n    From this earth's thraldom to the joys of heaven.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Make peace with God, for you must die,\n    my lord.\n  CLARENCE. Have you that holy feeling in your souls\n    To counsel me to make my peace with God,\n    And are you yet to your own souls so blind\n    That you will war with God by murd'ring me?\n    O, sirs, consider: they that set you on\n    To do this deed will hate you for the deed.\n  SECOND MURDERER. What shall we do?\n  CLARENCE. Relent, and save your souls.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Relent! No, 'tis cowardly and womanish.\n  CLARENCE. Not to relent is beastly, savage, devilish.\n    Which of you, if you were a prince's son,\n    Being pent from liberty as I am now,\n    If two such murderers as yourselves came to you,\n    Would not entreat for life?\n    My friend, I spy some pity in thy looks;\n    O, if thine eye be not a flatterer,\n    Come thou on my side and entreat for me-\n    As you would beg were you in my distress.\n    A begging prince what beggar pities not?\n  SECOND MURDERER. Look behind you, my lord.\n  FIRST MURDERER.  [Stabbing him]  Take that, and that. If all\n    this will not do,\n    I'll drown you in the malmsey-butt within.\n                                              Exit with the body\n  SECOND MURDERER. A bloody deed, and desperately\n    dispatch'd!\n    How fain, like Pilate, would I wash my hands\n    Of this most grievous murder!\n\n                       Re-enter FIRST MURDERER\n\n  FIRST MURDERER-How now, what mean'st thou that thou\n    help'st me not?\n    By heavens, the Duke shall know how slack you have\n    been!\n  SECOND MURDERER. I would he knew that I had sav'd his\n    brother!\n    Take thou the fee, and tell him what I say;\n    For I repent me that the Duke is slain.                 Exit\n  FIRST MURDERER. So do not I. Go, coward as thou art.\n    Well, I'll go hide the body in some hole,\n    Till that the Duke give order for his burial;\n    And when I have my meed, I will away;\n    For this will out, and then I must not stay.            Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 1.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nFlourish. Enter KING EDWARD sick, QUEEN ELIZABETH, DORSET,\nRIVERS,\nHASTINGS, BUCKINGHAM, GREY, and others\n\n  KING EDWARD. Why, so. Now have I done a good day's\n    work.\n    You peers, continue this united league.\n    I every day expect an embassage\n    From my Redeemer to redeem me hence;\n    And more at peace my soul shall part to heaven,\n    Since I have made my friends at peace on earth.\n    Hastings and Rivers, take each other's hand;\n    Dissemble not your hatred, swear your love.\n  RIVERS. By heaven, my soul is purg'd from grudging hate;\n    And with my hand I seal my true heart's love.\n  HASTINGS. So thrive I, as I truly swear the like!\n  KING EDWARD. Take heed you dally not before your king;\n    Lest He that is the supreme King of kings\n    Confound your hidden falsehood and award\n    Either of you to be the other's end.\n  HASTINGS. So prosper I, as I swear perfect love!\n  RIVERS. And I, as I love Hastings with my heart!\n  KING EDWARD. Madam, yourself is not exempt from this;\n    Nor you, son Dorset; Buckingham, nor you:\n    You have been factious one against the other.\n    Wife, love Lord Hastings, let him kiss your hand;\n    And what you do, do it unfeignedly.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. There, Hastings; I will never more\n    remember\n    Our former hatred, so thrive I and mine!\n  KING EDWARD. Dorset, embrace him; Hastings, love Lord\n    Marquis.\n  DORSET. This interchange of love, I here protest,\n    Upon my part shall be inviolable.\n  HASTINGS. And so swear I.                       [They embrace]\n  KING EDWARD. Now, princely Buckingham, seal thou this\n    league\n    With thy embracements to my wife's allies,\n    And make me happy in your unity.\n  BUCKINGHAM.  [To the QUEEN]  Whenever Buckingham\n    doth turn his hate\n    Upon your Grace, but with all duteous love\n    Doth cherish you and yours, God punish me\n    With hate in those where I expect most love!\n    When I have most need to employ a friend\n    And most assured that he is a friend,\n    Deep, hollow, treacherous, and full of guile,\n    Be he unto me! This do I beg of God\n    When I am cold in love to you or yours.\n                                                  [They embrace]\n  KING EDWARD. A pleasing cordial, princely Buckingham,\n    Is this thy vow unto my sickly heart.\n    There wanteth now our brother Gloucester here\n    To make the blessed period of this peace.\n  BUCKINGHAM. And, in good time,\n    Here comes Sir Richard Ratcliff and the Duke.\n\n                      Enter GLOUCESTER, and RATCLIFF\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Good morrow to my sovereign king and\n    Queen;\n    And, princely peers, a happy time of day!\n  KING EDWARD. Happy, indeed, as we have spent the day.\n    Gloucester, we have done deeds of charity,\n    Made peace of enmity, fair love of hate,\n    Between these swelling wrong-incensed peers.\n  GLOUCESTER. A blessed labour, my most sovereign lord.\n    Among this princely heap, if any here,\n    By false intelligence or wrong surmise,\n    Hold me a foe-\n    If I unwittingly, or in my rage,\n    Have aught committed that is hardly borne\n    To any in this presence, I desire\n    To reconcile me to his friendly peace:\n    'Tis death to me to be at enmity;\n    I hate it, and desire all good men's love.\n    First, madam, I entreat true peace of you,\n    Which I will purchase with my duteous service;\n    Of you, my noble cousin Buckingham,\n    If ever any grudge were lodg'd between us;\n    Of you, and you, Lord Rivers, and of Dorset,\n    That all without desert have frown'd on me;\n    Of you, Lord Woodville, and, Lord Scales, of you;\n    Dukes, earls, lords, gentlemen-indeed, of all.\n    I do not know that Englishman alive\n    With whom my soul is any jot at odds\n    More than the infant that is born to-night.\n    I thank my God for my humility.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. A holy day shall this be kept hereafter.\n    I would to God all strifes were well compounded.\n    My sovereign lord, I do beseech your Highness\n    To take our brother Clarence to your grace.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, madam, have I off'red love for this,\n    To be so flouted in this royal presence?\n    Who knows not that the gentle Duke is dead?\n                                                [They all start]\n    You do him injury to scorn his corse.\n  KING EDWARD. Who knows not he is dead! Who knows\n    he is?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. All-seeing heaven, what a world is this!\n  BUCKINGHAM. Look I so pale, Lord Dorset, as the rest?\n  DORSET. Ay, my good lord; and no man in the presence\n    But his red colour hath forsook his cheeks.\n  KING EDWARD. Is Clarence dead? The order was revers'd.\n  GLOUCESTER. But he, poor man, by your first order died,\n    And that a winged Mercury did bear;\n    Some tardy cripple bare the countermand\n    That came too lag to see him buried.\n    God grant that some, less noble and less loyal,\n    Nearer in bloody thoughts, an not in blood,\n    Deserve not worse than wretched Clarence did,\n    And yet go current from suspicion!\n\n                           Enter DERBY\n\n  DERBY. A boon, my sovereign, for my service done!\n  KING EDWARD. I prithee, peace; my soul is full of sorrow.\n  DERBY. I Will not rise unless your Highness hear me.\n  KING EDWARD. Then say at once what is it thou requests.\n  DERBY. The forfeit, sovereign, of my servant's life;\n    Who slew to-day a riotous gentleman\n    Lately attendant on the Duke of Norfolk.\n  KING EDWARD. Have I a tongue to doom my brother's death,\n    And shall that tongue give pardon to a slave?\n    My brother killed no man-his fault was thought,\n    And yet his punishment was bitter death.\n    Who sued to me for him? Who, in my wrath,\n    Kneel'd at my feet, and bid me be advis'd?\n    Who spoke of brotherhood? Who spoke of love?\n    Who told me how the poor soul did forsake\n    The mighty Warwick and did fight for me?\n    Who told me, in the field at Tewksbury\n    When Oxford had me down, he rescued me\n    And said 'Dear Brother, live, and be a king'?\n    Who told me, when we both lay in the field\n    Frozen almost to death, how he did lap me\n    Even in his garments, and did give himself,\n    All thin and naked, to the numb cold night?\n    All this from my remembrance brutish wrath\n    Sinfully pluck'd, and not a man of you\n    Had so much race to put it in my mind.\n    But when your carters or your waiting-vassals\n    Have done a drunken slaughter and defac'd\n    The precious image of our dear Redeemer,\n    You straight are on your knees for pardon, pardon;\n    And I, unjustly too, must grant it you.        [DERBY rises]\n    But for my brother not a man would speak;\n    Nor I, ungracious, speak unto myself\n    For him, poor soul. The proudest of you all\n    Have been beholding to him in his life;\n    Yet none of you would once beg for his life.\n    O God, I fear thy justice will take hold\n    On me, and you, and mine, and yours, for this!\n    Come, Hastings, help me to my closet. Ah, poor Clarence!\n                                 Exeunt some with KING and QUEEN\n  GLOUCESTER. This is the fruits of rashness. Mark'd you not\n    How that the guilty kindred of the Queen\n    Look'd pale when they did hear of Clarence' death?\n    O, they did urge it still unto the King!\n    God will revenge it. Come, lords, will you go\n    To comfort Edward with our company?\n  BUCKINGHAM. We wait upon your Grace.                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter the old DUCHESS OF YORK, with the SON and DAUGHTER of\nCLARENCE\n\n  SON. Good grandam, tell us, is our father dead?\n  DUCHESS. No, boy.\n  DAUGHTER. Why do you weep so oft, and beat your breast,\n    And cry 'O Clarence, my unhappy son!'?\n  SON. Why do you look on us, and shake your head,\n    And call us orphans, wretches, castaways,\n    If that our noble father were alive?\n  DUCHESS. My pretty cousins, you mistake me both;\n    I do lament the sickness of the King,\n    As loath to lose him, not your father's death;\n    It were lost sorrow to wail one that's lost.\n  SON. Then you conclude, my grandam, he is dead.\n    The King mine uncle is to blame for it.\n    God will revenge it; whom I will importune\n    With earnest prayers all to that effect.\n  DAUGHTER. And so will I.\n  DUCHESS. Peace, children, peace! The King doth love you\n    well.\n    Incapable and shallow innocents,\n    You cannot guess who caus'd your father's death.\n  SON. Grandam, we can; for my good uncle Gloucester\n    Told me the King, provok'd to it by the Queen,\n    Devis'd impeachments to imprison him.\n    And when my uncle told me so, he wept,\n    And pitied me, and kindly kiss'd my cheek;\n    Bade me rely on him as on my father,\n    And he would love me dearly as a child.\n  DUCHESS. Ah, that deceit should steal such gentle shape,\n    And with a virtuous vizor hide deep vice!\n    He is my son; ay, and therein my shame;\n    Yet from my dugs he drew not this deceit.\n  SON. Think you my uncle did dissemble, grandam?\n  DUCHESS. Ay, boy.\n  SON. I cannot think it. Hark! what noise is this?\n\n            Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH, with her hair about her\n                ears; RIVERS and DORSET after her\n\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ah, who shall hinder me to wail and\n    weep,\n    To chide my fortune, and torment myself?\n    I'll join with black despair against my soul\n    And to myself become an enemy.\n  DUCHESS. What means this scene of rude impatience?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. To make an act of tragic violence.\n  EDWARD, my lord, thy son, our king, is dead.\n    Why grow the branches when the root is gone?\n    Why wither not the leaves that want their sap?\n    If you will live, lament; if die, be brief,\n    That our swift-winged souls may catch the King's,\n    Or like obedient subjects follow him\n    To his new kingdom of ne'er-changing night.\n  DUCHESS. Ah, so much interest have I in thy sorrow\n    As I had title in thy noble husband!\n    I have bewept a worthy husband's death,\n    And liv'd with looking on his images;\n    But now two mirrors of his princely semblance\n    Are crack'd in pieces by malignant death,\n    And I for comfort have but one false glass,\n    That grieves me when I see my shame in him.\n    Thou art a widow, yet thou art a mother\n    And hast the comfort of thy children left;\n    But death hath snatch'd my husband from mine arms\n    And pluck'd two crutches from my feeble hands-\n    Clarence and Edward. O, what cause have I-\n    Thine being but a moiety of my moan-\n    To overgo thy woes and drown thy cries?\n  SON. Ah, aunt, you wept not for our father's death!\n    How can we aid you with our kindred tears?\n  DAUGHTER. Our fatherless distress was left unmoan'd;\n    Your widow-dolour likewise be unwept!\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Give me no help in lamentation;\n    I am not barren to bring forth complaints.\n    All springs reduce their currents to mine eyes\n    That I, being govern'd by the watery moon,\n    May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world!\n    Ah for my husband, for my dear Lord Edward!\n  CHILDREN. Ah for our father, for our dear Lord Clarence!\n  DUCHESS. Alas for both, both mine, Edward and Clarence!\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. What stay had I but Edward? and he's\n    gone.\n  CHILDREN. What stay had we but Clarence? and he's gone.\n  DUCHESS. What stays had I but they? and they are gone.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Was never widow had so dear a loss.\n  CHILDREN. Were never orphans had so dear a loss.\n  DUCHESS. Was never mother had so dear a loss.\n    Alas, I am the mother of these griefs!\n    Their woes are parcell'd, mine is general.\n    She for an Edward weeps, and so do I:\n    I for a Clarence weep, so doth not she.\n    These babes for Clarence weep, and so do I:\n    I for an Edward weep, so do not they.\n    Alas, you three on me, threefold distress'd,\n    Pour all your tears! I am your sorrow's nurse,\n    And I will pamper it with lamentation.\n  DORSET. Comfort, dear mother. God is much displeas'd\n    That you take with unthankfulness his doing.\n    In common worldly things 'tis called ungrateful\n    With dull unwillingness to repay a debt\n    Which with a bounteous hand was kindly lent;\n    Much more to be thus opposite with heaven,\n    For it requires the royal debt it lent you.\n  RIVERS. Madam, bethink you, like a careful mother,\n    Of the young prince your son. Send straight for him;\n    Let him be crown'd; in him your comfort lives.\n    Drown desperate sorrow in dead Edward's grave,\n    And plant your joys in living Edward's throne.\n\n               Enter GLOUCESTER, BUCKINGHAM, DERBY,\n                      HASTINGS, and RATCLIFF\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Sister, have comfort. All of us have cause\n    To wail the dimming of our shining star;\n    But none can help our harms by wailing them.\n    Madam, my mother, I do cry you mercy;\n    I did not see your Grace. Humbly on my knee\n    I crave your blessing.\n  DUCHESS. God bless thee; and put meekness in thy breast,\n    Love, charity, obedience, and true duty!\n  GLOUCESTER. Amen!  [Aside]  And make me die a good old\n    man!\n    That is the butt end of a mother's blessing;\n    I marvel that her Grace did leave it out.\n  BUCKINGHAM. You cloudy princes and heart-sorrowing\n    peers,\n    That bear this heavy mutual load of moan,\n    Now cheer each other in each other's love.\n    Though we have spent our harvest of this king,\n    We are to reap the harvest of his son.\n    The broken rancour of your high-swol'n hearts,\n    But lately splinter'd, knit, and join'd together,\n    Must gently be preserv'd, cherish'd, and kept.\n    Me seemeth good that, with some little train,\n    Forthwith from Ludlow the young prince be fet\n    Hither to London, to be crown'd our King.\n\n RIVERS. Why with some little train, my Lord of\n    Buckingham?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Marry, my lord, lest by a multitude\n    The new-heal'd wound of malice should break out,\n    Which would be so much the more dangerous\n    By how much the estate is green and yet ungovern'd;\n    Where every horse bears his commanding rein\n    And may direct his course as please himself,\n    As well the fear of harm as harm apparent,\n    In my opinion, ought to be prevented.\n  GLOUCESTER. I hope the King made peace with all of us;\n    And the compact is firm and true in me.\n  RIVERS. And so in me; and so, I think, in an.\n    Yet, since it is but green, it should be put\n    To no apparent likelihood of breach,\n    Which haply by much company might be urg'd;\n    Therefore I say with noble Buckingham\n    That it is meet so few should fetch the Prince.\n  HASTINGS. And so say I.\n  GLOUCESTER. Then be it so; and go we to determine\n    Who they shall be that straight shall post to Ludlow.\n    Madam, and you, my sister, will you go\n    To give your censures in this business?\n                        Exeunt all but BUCKINGHAM and GLOUCESTER\n  BUCKINGHAM. My lord, whoever journeys to the Prince,\n    For God sake, let not us two stay at home;\n    For by the way I'll sort occasion,\n    As index to the story we late talk'd of,\n    To part the Queen's proud kindred from the Prince.\n  GLOUCESTER. My other self, my counsel's consistory,\n    My oracle, my prophet, my dear cousin,\n    I, as a child, will go by thy direction.\n    Toward Ludlow then, for we'll not stay behind.        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nLondon. A street\n\nEnter one CITIZEN at one door, and another at the other\n\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Good morrow, neighbour. Whither away so\n    fast?\n  SECOND CITIZEN. I promise you, I scarcely know myself.\n    Hear you the news abroad?\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Yes, that the King is dead.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Ill news, by'r lady; seldom comes the\n    better.\n    I fear, I fear 'twill prove a giddy world.\n\n                        Enter another CITIZEN\n\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Neighbours, God speed!\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Give you good morrow, sir.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Doth the news hold of good King Edward's\n    death?\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Ay, sir, it is too true; God help the while!\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Then, masters, look to see a troublous\n    world.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. No, no; by God's good grace, his son shall\n    reign.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Woe to that land that's govern'd by a child.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. In him there is a hope of government,\n    Which, in his nonage, council under him,\n    And, in his full and ripened years, himself,\n    No doubt, shall then, and till then, govern well.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. So stood the state when Henry the Sixth\n    Was crown'd in Paris but at nine months old.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Stood the state so? No, no, good friends,\n    God wot;\n    For then this land was famously enrich'd\n    With politic grave counsel; then the King\n    Had virtuous uncles to protect his Grace.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Why, so hath this, both by his father and\n    mother.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Better it were they all came by his father,\n    Or by his father there were none at all;\n    For emulation who shall now be nearest\n    Will touch us all too near, if God prevent not.\n    O, full of danger is the Duke of Gloucester!\n    And the Queen's sons and brothers haught and proud;\n    And were they to be rul'd, and not to rule,\n    This sickly land might solace as before.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Come, come, we fear the worst; all will be\n    well.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. When clouds are seen, wise men put on\n    their cloaks;\n    When great leaves fall, then winter is at hand;\n    When the sun sets, who doth not look for night?\n    Untimely storms make men expect a dearth.\n    All may be well; but, if God sort it so,\n    'Tis more than we deserve or I expect.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Truly, the hearts of men are fun of fear.\n    You cannot reason almost with a man\n    That looks not heavily and fun of dread.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Before the days of change, still is it so;\n    By a divine instinct men's minds mistrust\n    Ensuing danger; as by proof we see\n    The water swell before a boist'rous storm.\n    But leave it all to God. Whither away?\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Marry, we were sent for to the justices.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. And so was I; I'll bear you company.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, the young DUKE OF YORK, QUEEN\nELIZABETH,\nand the DUCHESS OF YORK\n\n  ARCHBISHOP. Last night, I hear, they lay at Stony Stratford,\n    And at Northampton they do rest to-night;\n    To-morrow or next day they will be here.\n  DUCHESS. I long with all my heart to see the Prince.\n    I hope he is much grown since last I saw him.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. But I hear no; they say my son of York\n    Has almost overta'en him in his growth.\n  YORK. Ay, mother; but I would not have it so.\n  DUCHESS. Why, my good cousin, it is good to grow.\n  YORK. Grandam, one night as we did sit at supper,\n    My uncle Rivers talk'd how I did grow\n    More than my brother. 'Ay,' quoth my uncle Gloucester\n    'Small herbs have grace: great weeds do grow apace.'\n    And since, methinks, I would not grow so fast,\n    Because sweet flow'rs are slow and weeds make haste.\n  DUCHESS. Good faith, good faith, the saying did not hold\n    In him that did object the same to thee.\n    He was the wretched'st thing when he was young,\n    So long a-growing and so leisurely\n    That, if his rule were true, he should be gracious.\n  ARCHBISHOP. And so no doubt he is, my gracious madam.\n  DUCHESS. I hope he is; but yet let mothers doubt.\n  YORK. Now, by my troth, if I had been rememb'red,\n    I could have given my uncle's Grace a flout\n    To touch his growth nearer than he touch'd mine.\n  DUCHESS. How, my young York? I prithee let me hear it.\n  YORK. Marry, they say my uncle grew so fast\n    That he could gnaw a crust at two hours old.\n    'Twas full two years ere I could get a tooth.\n    Grandam, this would have been a biting jest.\n  DUCHESS. I prithee, pretty York, who told thee this?\n  YORK. Grandam, his nurse.\n  DUCHESS. His nurse! Why she was dead ere thou wast\n    born.\n  YORK. If 'twere not she, I cannot tell who told me.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. A parlous boy! Go to, you are too\n    shrewd.\n  ARCHBISHOP. Good madam, be not angry with the child.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Pitchers have ears.\n\n                        Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  ARCHBISHOP. Here comes a messenger. What news?\n  MESSENGER. Such news, my lord, as grieves me to report.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. How doth the Prince?\n  MESSENGER. Well, madam, and in health.\n  DUCHESS. What is thy news?\n  MESSENGER. Lord Rivers and Lord Grey\n    Are sent to Pomfret, and with them\n    Sir Thomas Vaughan, prisoners.\n  DUCHESS. Who hath committed them?\n  MESSENGER. The mighty Dukes, Gloucester and Buckingham.\n  ARCHBISHOP. For what offence?\n  MESSENGER. The sum of all I can, I have disclos'd.\n    Why or for what the nobles were committed\n    Is all unknown to me, my gracious lord.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ay me, I see the ruin of my house!\n    The tiger now hath seiz'd the gentle hind;\n    Insulting tyranny begins to jet\n    Upon the innocent and aweless throne.\n    Welcome, destruction, blood, and massacre!\n    I see, as in a map, the end of all.\n  DUCHESS. Accursed and unquiet wrangling days,\n    How many of you have mine eyes beheld!\n    My husband lost his life to get the crown;\n    And often up and down my sons were toss'd\n    For me to joy and weep their gain and loss;\n    And being seated, and domestic broils\n    Clean over-blown, themselves the conquerors\n    Make war upon themselves-brother to brother,\n    Blood to blood, self against self. O, preposterous\n    And frantic outrage, end thy damned spleen,\n    Or let me die, to look on death no more!\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Come, come, my boy; we will to\n    sanctuary.\n    Madam, farewell.\n  DUCHESS. Stay, I will go with you.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. You have no cause.\n  ARCHBISHOP.  [To the QUEEN]  My gracious lady, go.\n    And thither bear your treasure and your goods.\n    For my part, I'll resign unto your Grace\n    The seal I keep; and so betide to me\n    As well I tender you and all of yours!\n    Go, I'll conduct you to the sanctuary.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 1.\n\nLondon. A street\n\nThe trumpets sound. Enter the PRINCE OF WALES, GLOUCESTER,\nBUCKINGHAM,\nCATESBY, CARDINAL BOURCHIER, and others\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. Welcome, sweet Prince, to London, to your\n    chamber.\n  GLOUCESTER. Welcome, dear cousin, my thoughts' sovereign.\n    The weary way hath made you melancholy.\n  PRINCE. No, uncle; but our crosses on the way\n    Have made it tedious, wearisome, and heavy.\n    I want more uncles here to welcome me.\n  GLOUCESTER. Sweet Prince, the untainted virtue of your\n    years\n    Hath not yet div'd into the world's deceit;\n    Nor more can you distinguish of a man\n    Than of his outward show; which, God He knows,\n    Seldom or never jumpeth with the heart.\n    Those uncles which you want were dangerous;\n    Your Grace attended to their sug'red words\n    But look'd not on the poison of their hearts.\n    God keep you from them and from such false friends!\n  PRINCE. God keep me from false friends! but they were\n    none.\n  GLOUCESTER. My lord, the Mayor of London comes to greet\n    you.\n\n                Enter the LORD MAYOR and his train\n\n  MAYOR. God bless your Grace with health and happy days!\n  PRINCE. I thank you, good my lord, and thank you all.\n    I thought my mother and my brother York\n    Would long ere this have met us on the way.\n    Fie, what a slug is Hastings, that he comes not\n    To tell us whether they will come or no!\n\n                        Enter LORD HASTINGS\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. And, in good time, here comes the sweating\n    Lord.\n  PRINCE. Welcome, my lord. What, will our mother come?\n  HASTINGS. On what occasion, God He knows, not I,\n    The Queen your mother and your brother York\n    Have taken sanctuary. The tender Prince\n    Would fain have come with me to meet your Grace,\n    But by his mother was perforce withheld.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Fie, what an indirect and peevish course\n    Is this of hers? Lord Cardinal, will your Grace\n    Persuade the Queen to send the Duke of York\n    Unto his princely brother presently?\n    If she deny, Lord Hastings, go with him\n    And from her jealous arms pluck him perforce.\n  CARDINAL. My Lord of Buckingham, if my weak oratory\n    Can from his mother win the Duke of York,\n    Anon expect him here; but if she be obdurate\n    To mild entreaties, God in heaven forbid\n    We should infringe the holy privilege\n    Of blessed sanctuary! Not for all this land\n    Would I be guilty of so deep a sin.\n  BUCKINGHAM. You are too senseless-obstinate, my lord,\n    Too ceremonious and traditional.\n    Weigh it but with the grossness of this age,\n    You break not sanctuary in seizing him.\n    The benefit thereof is always granted\n    To those whose dealings have deserv'd the place\n    And those who have the wit to claim the place.\n    This Prince hath neither claim'd it nor deserv'd it,\n    And therefore, in mine opinion, cannot have it.\n    Then, taking him from thence that is not there,\n    You break no privilege nor charter there.\n    Oft have I heard of sanctuary men;\n    But sanctuary children never till now.\n  CARDINAL. My lord, you shall o'errule my mind for once.\n    Come on, Lord Hastings, will you go with me?\n  HASTINGS. I go, my lord.\n  PRINCE. Good lords, make all the speedy haste you may.\n                                    Exeunt CARDINAL and HASTINGS\n    Say, uncle Gloucester, if our brother come,\n    Where shall we sojourn till our coronation?\n  GLOUCESTER. Where it seems best unto your royal self.\n    If I may counsel you, some day or two\n    Your Highness shall repose you at the Tower,\n    Then where you please and shall be thought most fit\n    For your best health and recreation.\n  PRINCE. I do not like the Tower, of any place.\n    Did Julius Caesar build that place, my lord?\n  BUCKINGHAM. He did, my gracious lord, begin that place,\n    Which, since, succeeding ages have re-edified.\n  PRINCE. Is it upon record, or else reported\n    Successively from age to age, he built it?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Upon record, my gracious lord.\n  PRINCE. But say, my lord, it were not regist'red,\n    Methinks the truth should Eve from age to age,\n    As 'twere retail'd to all posterity,\n    Even to the general all-ending day.\n  GLOUCESTER.  [Aside]  So wise so young, they say, do never\n    live long.\n  PRINCE. What say you, uncle?\n  GLOUCESTER. I say, without characters, fame lives long.\n    [Aside]  Thus, like the formal vice, Iniquity,\n    I moralize two meanings in one word.\n  PRINCE. That Julius Caesar was a famous man;\n    With what his valour did enrich his wit,\n    His wit set down to make his valour live.\n    Death makes no conquest of this conqueror;\n    For now he lives in fame, though not in life.\n    I'll tell you what, my cousin Buckingham-\n  BUCKINGHAM. What, my gracious lord?\n  PRINCE. An if I live until I be a man,\n    I'll win our ancient right in France again,\n    Or die a soldier as I liv'd a king.\n  GLOUCESTER.  [Aside]  Short summers lightly have a forward\n    spring.\n\n              Enter HASTINGS, young YORK, and the CARDINAL\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. Now, in good time, here comes the Duke of\n    York.\n  PRINCE. Richard of York, how fares our loving brother?\n  YORK. Well, my dread lord; so must I can you now.\n  PRINCE. Ay brother, to our grief, as it is yours.\n    Too late he died that might have kept that title,\n    Which by his death hath lost much majesty.\n  GLOUCESTER. How fares our cousin, noble Lord of York?\n  YORK. I thank you, gentle uncle. O, my lord,\n    You said that idle weeds are fast in growth.\n    The Prince my brother hath outgrown me far.\n  GLOUCESTER. He hath, my lord.\n  YORK. And therefore is he idle?\n  GLOUCESTER. O, my fair cousin, I must not say so.\n  YORK. Then he is more beholding to you than I.\n  GLOUCESTER. He may command me as my sovereign;\n    But you have power in me as in a kinsman.\n  YORK. I pray you, uncle, give me this dagger.\n  GLOUCESTER. My dagger, little cousin? With all my heart!\n  PRINCE. A beggar, brother?\n  YORK. Of my kind uncle, that I know will give,\n    And being but a toy, which is no grief to give.\n  GLOUCESTER. A greater gift than that I'll give my cousin.\n  YORK. A greater gift! O, that's the sword to it!\n  GLOUCESTER. Ay, gentle cousin, were it light enough.\n  YORK. O, then, I see you will part but with light gifts:\n    In weightier things you'll say a beggar nay.\n  GLOUCESTER. It is too heavy for your Grace to wear.\n  YORK. I weigh it lightly, were it heavier.\n  GLOUCESTER. What, would you have my weapon, little\n    Lord?\n  YORK. I would, that I might thank you as you call me.\n  GLOUCESTER. How?\n  YORK. Little.\n  PRINCE. My Lord of York will still be cross in talk.\n    Uncle, your Grace knows how to bear with him.\n  YORK. You mean, to bear me, not to bear with me.\n    Uncle, my brother mocks both you and me;\n    Because that I am little, like an ape,\n    He thinks that you should bear me on your shoulders.\n  BUCKINGHAM. With what a sharp-provided wit he reasons!\n    To mitigate the scorn he gives his uncle\n    He prettily and aptly taunts himself.\n    So cunning and so young is wonderful.\n  GLOUCESTER. My lord, will't please you pass along?\n    Myself and my good cousin Buckingham\n    Will to your mother, to entreat of her\n    To meet you at the Tower and welcome you.\n  YORK. What, will you go unto the Tower, my lord?\n  PRINCE. My Lord Protector needs will have it so.\n  YORK. I shall not sleep in quiet at the Tower.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, what should you fear?\n  YORK. Marry, my uncle Clarence' angry ghost.\n    My grandam told me he was murder'd there.\n  PRINCE. I fear no uncles dead.\n  GLOUCESTER. Nor none that live, I hope.\n  PRINCE. An if they live, I hope I need not fear.\n    But come, my lord; and with a heavy heart,\n    Thinking on them, go I unto the Tower.\n    A sennet.\n              Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER, BUCKINGHAM, and CATESBY\n  BUCKINGHAM. Think you, my lord, this little prating York\n    Was not incensed by his subtle mother\n    To taunt and scorn you thus opprobriously?\n  GLOUCESTER. No doubt, no doubt. O, 'tis a perilous boy;\n    Bold, quick, ingenious, forward, capable.\n    He is all the mother's, from the top to toe.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Well, let them rest. Come hither, Catesby.\n    Thou art sworn as deeply to effect what we intend\n    As closely to conceal what we impart.\n    Thou know'st our reasons urg'd upon the way.\n    What think'st thou? Is it not an easy matter\n    To make William Lord Hastings of our mind,\n    For the instalment of this noble Duke\n    In the seat royal of this famous isle?\n  CATESBY. He for his father's sake so loves the Prince\n    That he will not be won to aught against him.\n  BUCKINGHAM. What think'st thou then of Stanley? Will\n    not he?\n  CATESBY. He will do all in all as Hastings doth.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Well then, no more but this: go, gentle\n    Catesby,\n    And, as it were far off, sound thou Lord Hastings\n    How he doth stand affected to our purpose;\n    And summon him to-morrow to the Tower,\n    To sit about the coronation.\n    If thou dost find him tractable to us,\n    Encourage him, and tell him all our reasons;\n    If he be leaden, icy, cold, unwilling,\n    Be thou so too, and so break off the talk,\n    And give us notice of his inclination;\n    For we to-morrow hold divided councils,\n    Wherein thyself shalt highly be employ'd.\n  GLOUCESTER. Commend me to Lord William. Tell him,\n    Catesby,\n    His ancient knot of dangerous adversaries\n    To-morrow are let blood at Pomfret Castle;\n    And bid my lord, for joy of this good news,\n    Give Mistress Shore one gentle kiss the more.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Good Catesby, go effect this business soundly.\n  CATESBY. My good lords both, with all the heed I can.\n  GLOUCESTER. Shall we hear from you, Catesby, ere we sleep?\n  CATESBY. You shall, my lord.\n  GLOUCESTER. At Crosby House, there shall you find us both.\n                                                    Exit CATESBY\n  BUCKINGHAM. Now, my lord, what shall we do if we\n    perceive\n    Lord Hastings will not yield to our complots?\n  GLOUCESTER. Chop off his head-something we will\n    determine.\n    And, look when I am King, claim thou of me\n    The earldom of Hereford and all the movables\n    Whereof the King my brother was possess'd.\n  BUCKINGHAM. I'll claim that promise at your Grace's hand.\n  GLOUCESTER. And look to have it yielded with all kindness.\n    Come, let us sup betimes, that afterwards\n    We may digest our complots in some form.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nBefore LORD HASTING'S house\n\nEnter a MESSENGER to the door of HASTINGS\n\n  MESSENGER. My lord, my lord!                        [Knocking]\n  HASTINGS.  [Within]  Who knocks?\n  MESSENGER. One from the Lord Stanley.\n  HASTINGS.  [Within]  What is't o'clock?\n  MESSENGER. Upon the stroke of four.\n\n                        Enter LORD HASTINGS\n\n  HASTINGS. Cannot my Lord Stanley sleep these tedious\n    nights?\n  MESSENGER. So it appears by that I have to say.\n    First, he commends him to your noble self.\n  HASTINGS. What then?\n  MESSENGER. Then certifies your lordship that this night\n    He dreamt the boar had razed off his helm.\n    Besides, he says there are two councils kept,\n    And that may be determin'd at the one\n    Which may make you and him to rue at th' other.\n    Therefore he sends to know your lordship's pleasure-\n    If you will presently take horse with him\n    And with all speed post with him toward the north\n    To shun the danger that his soul divines.\n  HASTINGS. Go, fellow, go, return unto thy lord;\n    Bid him not fear the separated council:\n    His honour and myself are at the one,\n    And at the other is my good friend Catesby;\n    Where nothing can proceed that toucheth us\n    Whereof I shall not have intelligence.\n    Tell him his fears are shallow, without instance;\n    And for his dreams, I wonder he's so simple\n    To trust the mock'ry of unquiet slumbers.\n    To fly the boar before the boar pursues\n    Were to incense the boar to follow us\n    And make pursuit where he did mean no chase.\n    Go, bid thy master rise and come to me;\n    And we will both together to the Tower,\n    Where, he shall see, the boar will use us kindly.\n  MESSENGER. I'll go, my lord, and tell him what you say.\n Exit\n\n                         Enter CATESBY\n\n  CATESBY. Many good morrows to my noble lord!\n  HASTINGS. Good morrow, Catesby; you are early stirring.\n    What news, what news, in this our tott'ring state?\n  CATESBY. It is a reeling world indeed, my lord;\n    And I believe will never stand upright\n    Till Richard wear the garland of the realm.\n  HASTINGS. How, wear the garland! Dost thou mean the\n    crown?\n  CATESBY. Ay, my good lord.\n  HASTINGS. I'll have this crown of mine cut from my\n    shoulders\n    Before I'll see the crown so foul misplac'd.\n    But canst thou guess that he doth aim at it?\n  CATESBY. Ay, on my life; and hopes to find you forward\n    Upon his party for the gain thereof;\n    And thereupon he sends you this good news,\n    That this same very day your enemies,\n    The kindred of the Queen, must die at Pomfret.\n  HASTINGS. Indeed, I am no mourner for that news,\n    Because they have been still my adversaries;\n    But that I'll give my voice on Richard's side\n    To bar my master's heirs in true descent,\n    God knows I will not do it to the death.\n  CATESBY. God keep your lordship in that gracious mind!\n  HASTINGS. But I shall laugh at this a twelve month hence,\n    That they which brought me in my master's hate,\n    I live to look upon their tragedy.\n    Well, Catesby, ere a fortnight make me older,\n    I'll send some packing that yet think not on't.\n  CATESBY. 'Tis a vile thing to die, my gracious lord,\n    When men are unprepar'd and look not for it.\n  HASTINGS. O monstrous, monstrous! And so falls it out\n    With Rivers, Vaughan, Grey; and so 'twill do\n    With some men else that think themselves as safe\n    As thou and I, who, as thou knowest, are dear\n    To princely Richard and to Buckingham.\n  CATESBY. The Princes both make high account of you-\n    [Aside]  For they account his head upon the bridge.\n  HASTINGS. I know they do, and I have well deserv'd it.\n\n                      Enter LORD STANLEY\n\n    Come on, come on; where is your boar-spear, man?\n    Fear you the boar, and go so unprovided?\n  STANLEY. My lord, good morrow; good morrow, Catesby.\n    You may jest on, but, by the holy rood,\n    I do not like these several councils, I.\n  HASTINGS. My lord, I hold my life as dear as yours,\n    And never in my days, I do protest,\n    Was it so precious to me as 'tis now.\n    Think you, but that I know our state secure,\n    I would be so triumphant as I am?\n  STANLEY. The lords at Pomfret, when they rode from\n    London,\n    Were jocund and suppos'd their states were sure,\n    And they indeed had no cause to mistrust;\n    But yet you see how soon the day o'ercast.\n    This sudden stab of rancour I misdoubt;\n    Pray God, I say, I prove a needless coward.\n    What, shall we toward the Tower? The day is spent.\n  HASTINGS. Come, come, have with you. Wot you what, my\n    Lord?\n    To-day the lords you talk'd of are beheaded.\n  STANLEY. They, for their truth, might better wear their\n    heads\n    Than some that have accus'd them wear their hats.\n    But come, my lord, let's away.\n\n                 Enter HASTINGS, a pursuivant\n\n  HASTINGS. Go on before; I'll talk with this good fellow.\n                                      Exeunt STANLEY and CATESBY\n    How now, Hastings! How goes the world with thee?\n  PURSUIVANT. The better that your lordship please to ask.\n  HASTINGS. I tell thee, man, 'tis better with me now\n    Than when thou met'st me last where now we meet:\n    Then was I going prisoner to the Tower\n    By the suggestion of the Queen's allies;\n    But now, I tell thee-keep it to thyself-\n    This day those enernies are put to death,\n    And I in better state than e'er I was.\n  PURSUIVANT. God hold it, to your honour's good content!\n  HASTINGS. Gramercy, Hastings; there, drink that for me.\n                                          [Throws him his purse]\n  PURSUIVANT. I thank your honour.                          Exit\n\n                            Enter a PRIEST\n\n  PRIEST. Well met, my lord; I am glad to see your honour.\n  HASTINGS. I thank thee, good Sir John, with all my heart.\n    I am in your debt for your last exercise;\n    Come the next Sabbath, and I will content you.\n                                        [He whispers in his ear]\n  PRIEST. I'll wait upon your lordship.\n\n                            Enter BUCKINGHAM\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. What, talking with a priest, Lord\n    Chamberlain!\n    Your friends at Pomfret, they do need the priest:\n    Your honour hath no shriving work in hand.\n  HASTINGS. Good faith, and when I met this holy man,\n    The men you talk of came into my mind.\n    What, go you toward the Tower?\n  BUCKINGHAM. I do, my lord, but long I cannot stay there;\n    I shall return before your lordship thence.\n  HASTINGS. Nay, like enough, for I stay dinner there.\n  BUCKINGHAM.  [Aside]  And supper too, although thou\n    knowest it not.-\n    Come, will you go?\n  HASTINGS. I'll wait upon your lordship.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nPomfret Castle\n\nEnter SIR RICHARD RATCLIFF, with halberds, carrying the Nobles,\nRIVERS, GREY, and VAUGHAN, to death\n\n  RIVERS. Sir Richard Ratcliff, let me tell thee this:\n    To-day shalt thou behold a subject die\n    For truth, for duty, and for loyalty.\n  GREY. God bless the Prince from all the pack of you!\n    A knot you are of damned blood-suckers.\n  VAUGHAN. You live that shall cry woe for this hereafter.\n  RATCLIFF. Dispatch; the limit of your lives is out.\n  RIVERS. O Pomfret, Pomfret! O thou bloody prison,\n    Fatal and ominous to noble peers!\n    Within the guilty closure of thy walls\n  RICHARD the Second here was hack'd to death;\n    And for more slander to thy dismal seat,\n    We give to thee our guiltless blood to drink.\n  GREY. Now Margaret's curse is fall'n upon our heads,\n    When she exclaim'd on Hastings, you, and I,\n    For standing by when Richard stabb'd her son.\n  RIVERS. Then curs'd she Richard, then curs'd she\n    Buckingham,\n    Then curs'd she Hastings. O, remember, God,\n    To hear her prayer for them, as now for us!\n    And for my sister, and her princely sons,\n    Be satisfied, dear God, with our true blood,\n    Which, as thou know'st, unjustly must be spilt.\n  RATCLIFF. Make haste; the hour of death is expiate.\n  RIVERS. Come, Grey; come, Vaughan; let us here embrace.\n    Farewell, until we meet again in heaven.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4\n\nLondon. The Tower\n\nEnter BUCKINGHAM, DERBY, HASTINGS, the BISHOP of ELY, RATCLIFF,\nLOVEL,\nwith others and seat themselves at a table\n\n  HASTINGS. Now, noble peers, the cause why we are met\n    Is to determine of the coronation.\n    In God's name speak-when is the royal day?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Is all things ready for the royal time?\n  DERBY. It is, and wants but nomination.\n  BISHOP OF ELY. To-morrow then I judge a happy day.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Who knows the Lord Protector's mind\n    herein?\n    Who is most inward with the noble Duke?\n  BISHOP OF ELY. Your Grace, we think, should soonest know\n    his mind.\n  BUCKINGHAM. We know each other's faces; for our hearts,\n    He knows no more of mine than I of yours;\n    Or I of his, my lord, than you of mine.\n    Lord Hastings, you and he are near in love.\n  HASTINGS. I thank his Grace, I know he loves me well;\n    But for his purpose in the coronation\n    I have not sounded him, nor he deliver'd\n    His gracious pleasure any way therein.\n    But you, my honourable lords, may name the time;\n    And in the Duke's behalf I'll give my voice,\n    Which, I presume, he'll take in gentle part.\n\n                       Enter GLOUCESTER\n\n  BISHOP OF ELY. In happy time, here comes the Duke himself.\n  GLOUCESTER. My noble lords and cousins an, good morrow.\n    I have been long a sleeper, but I trust\n    My absence doth neglect no great design\n    Which by my presence might have been concluded.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Had you not come upon your cue, my lord,\n  WILLIAM Lord Hastings had pronounc'd your part-\n    I mean, your voice for crowning of the King.\n  GLOUCESTER. Than my Lord Hastings no man might be\n    bolder;\n    His lordship knows me well and loves me well.\n    My lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn\n    I saw good strawberries in your garden there.\n    I do beseech you send for some of them.\n  BISHOP of ELY. Marry and will, my lord, with all my heart.\n Exit\n  GLOUCESTER. Cousin of Buckingham, a word with you.\n                                               [Takes him aside]\n    Catesby hath sounded Hastings in our business,\n    And finds the testy gentleman so hot\n    That he will lose his head ere give consent\n    His master's child, as worshipfully he terms it,\n    Shall lose the royalty of England's throne.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Withdraw yourself awhile; I'll go with you.\n                                Exeunt GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM\n  DERBY. We have not yet set down this day of triumph.\n    To-morrow, in my judgment, is too sudden;\n    For I myself am not so well provided\n    As else I would be, were the day prolong'd.\n\n                    Re-enter the BISHOP OF ELY\n\n  BISHOP OF ELY. Where is my lord the Duke of Gloucester?\n    I have sent for these strawberries.\n  HASTINGS. His Grace looks cheerfully and smooth this\n    morning;\n    There's some conceit or other likes him well\n    When that he bids good morrow with such spirit.\n    I think there's never a man in Christendom\n    Can lesser hide his love or hate than he;\n    For by his face straight shall you know his heart.\n  DERBY. What of his heart perceive you in his face\n    By any livelihood he show'd to-day?\n  HASTINGS. Marry, that with no man here he is offended;\n    For, were he, he had shown it in his looks.\n\n               Re-enter GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM\n\n  GLOUCESTER. I pray you all, tell me what they deserve\n    That do conspire my death with devilish plots\n    Of damned witchcraft, and that have prevail'd\n    Upon my body with their hellish charms?\n  HASTINGS. The tender love I bear your Grace, my lord,\n    Makes me most forward in this princely presence\n    To doom th' offenders, whosoe'er they be.\n    I say, my lord, they have deserved death.\n  GLOUCESTER. Then be your eyes the witness of their evil.\n    Look how I am bewitch'd; behold, mine arm\n    Is like a blasted sapling wither'd up.\n    And this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch,\n    Consorted with that harlot strumpet Shore,\n    That by their witchcraft thus have marked me.\n  HASTINGS. If they have done this deed, my noble lord-\n  GLOUCESTER. If?-thou protector of this damned strumpet,\n    Talk'st thou to me of ifs? Thou art a traitor.\n    Off with his head! Now by Saint Paul I swear\n    I will not dine until I see the same.\n    Lovel and Ratcliff, look that it be done.\n    The rest that love me, rise and follow me.\n                    Exeunt all but HASTINGS, LOVEL, and RATCLIFF\n  HASTINGS. Woe, woe, for England! not a whit for me;\n    For I, too fond, might have prevented this.\n  STANLEY did dream the boar did raze our helms,\n    And I did scorn it and disdain to fly.\n    Three times to-day my foot-cloth horse did stumble,\n    And started when he look'd upon the Tower,\n    As loath to bear me to the slaughter-house.\n    O, now I need the priest that spake to me!\n    I now repent I told the pursuivant,\n    As too triumphing, how mine enemies\n    To-day at Pomfret bloodily were butcher'd,\n    And I myself secure in grace and favour.\n    O Margaret, Margaret, now thy heavy curse\n    Is lighted on poor Hastings' wretched head!\n  RATCLIFF. Come, come, dispatch; the Duke would be at\n    dinner.\n    Make a short shrift; he longs to see your head.\n  HASTINGS. O momentary grace of mortal men,\n    Which we more hunt for than the grace of God!\n    Who builds his hope in air of your good looks\n    Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast,\n    Ready with every nod to tumble down\n    Into the fatal bowels of the deep.\n  LOVEL. Come, come, dispatch; 'tis bootless to exclaim.\n  HASTINGS. O bloody Richard! Miserable England!\n    I prophesy the fearfull'st time to thee\n    That ever wretched age hath look'd upon.\n    Come, lead me to the block; bear him my head.\n    They smile at me who shortly shall be dead.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 5.\n\nLondon. The Tower-walls\n\nEnter GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM in rotten armour, marvellous\nill-favoured\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Come, cousin, canst thou quake and change\n    thy colour,\n    Murder thy breath in middle of a word,\n    And then again begin, and stop again,\n    As if thou were distraught and mad with terror?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Tut, I can counterfeit the deep tragedian;\n    Speak and look back, and pry on every side,\n    Tremble and start at wagging of a straw,\n    Intending deep suspicion. Ghastly looks\n    Are at my service, like enforced smiles;\n    And both are ready in their offices\n    At any time to grace my stratagems.\n    But what, is Catesby gone?\n  GLOUCESTER. He is; and, see, he brings the mayor along.\n\n                 Enter the LORD MAYOR and CATESBY\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. Lord Mayor-\n  GLOUCESTER. Look to the drawbridge there!\n  BUCKINGHAM. Hark! a drum.\n  GLOUCESTER. Catesby, o'erlook the walls.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Lord Mayor, the reason we have sent-\n  GLOUCESTER. Look back, defend thee; here are enemies.\n  BUCKINGHAM. God and our innocence defend and guard us!\n\n           Enter LOVEL and RATCLIFF, with HASTINGS' head\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Be patient; they are friends-Ratcliff and Lovel.\n  LOVEL. Here is the head of that ignoble traitor,\n    The dangerous and unsuspected Hastings.\n  GLOUCESTER. So dear I lov'd the man that I must weep.\n    I took him for the plainest harmless creature\n    That breath'd upon the earth a Christian;\n    Made him my book, wherein my soul recorded\n    The history of all her secret thoughts.\n    So smooth he daub'd his vice with show of virtue\n    That, his apparent open guilt omitted,\n    I mean his conversation with Shore's wife-\n    He liv'd from all attainder of suspects.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Well, well, he was the covert'st shelt'red\n    traitor\n    That ever liv'd.\n    Would you imagine, or almost believe-\n    Were't not that by great preservation\n    We live to tell it-that the subtle traitor\n    This day had plotted, in the council-house,\n    To murder me and my good Lord of Gloucester.\n  MAYOR. Had he done so?\n  GLOUCESTER. What! think you we are Turks or Infidels?\n    Or that we would, against the form of law,\n    Proceed thus rashly in the villain's death\n    But that the extreme peril of the case,\n    The peace of England and our persons' safety,\n    Enforc'd us to this execution?\n  MAYOR. Now, fair befall you! He deserv'd his death;\n    And your good Graces both have well proceeded\n    To warn false traitors from the like attempts.\n    I never look'd for better at his hands\n    After he once fell in with Mistress Shore.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Yet had we not determin'd he should die\n    Until your lordship came to see his end-\n    Which now the loving haste of these our friends,\n    Something against our meanings, have prevented-\n    Because, my lord, I would have had you heard\n    The traitor speak, and timorously confess\n    The manner and the purpose of his treasons:\n    That you might well have signified the same\n    Unto the citizens, who haply may\n    Misconster us in him and wail his death.\n  MAYOR. But, my good lord, your Grace's words shall serve\n    As well as I had seen and heard him speak;\n    And do not doubt, right noble Princes both,\n    But I'll acquaint our duteous citizens\n    With all your just proceedings in this cause.\n  GLOUCESTER. And to that end we wish'd your lordship here,\n    T' avoid the the the censures of the carping world.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Which since you come too late of our intent,\n    Yet witness what you hear we did intend.\n    And so, my good Lord Mayor, we bid farewell.\n                                                 Exit LORD MAYOR\n  GLOUCESTER. Go, after, after, cousin Buckingham.\n    The Mayor towards Guildhall hies him in an post.\n    There, at your meet'st advantage of the time,\n    Infer the bastardy of Edward's children.\n    Tell them how Edward put to death a citizen\n    Only for saying he would make his son\n    Heir to the crown-meaning indeed his house,\n    Which by the sign thereof was termed so.\n    Moreover, urge his hateful luxury\n    And bestial appetite in change of lust,\n    Which stretch'd unto their servants, daughters, wives,\n    Even where his raging eye or savage heart\n    Without control lusted to make a prey.\n    Nay, for a need, thus far come near my person:\n    Tell them, when that my mother went with child\n    Of that insatiate Edward, noble York\n    My princely father then had wars in France\n    And, by true computation of the time,\n    Found that the issue was not his begot;\n    Which well appeared in his lineaments,\n    Being nothing like the noble Duke my father.\n    Yet touch this sparingly, as 'twere far off;\n    Because, my lord, you know my mother lives.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Doubt not, my lord, I'll play the orator\n    As if the golden fee for which I plead\n    Were for myself; and so, my lord, adieu.\n  GLOUCESTER. If you thrive well, bring them to Baynard's\n    Castle;\n    Where you shall find me well accompanied\n    With reverend fathers and well learned bishops.\n  BUCKINGHAM. I go; and towards three or four o'clock\n    Look for the news that the Guildhall affords.           Exit\n  GLOUCESTER. Go, Lovel, with all speed to Doctor Shaw.\n    [To CATESBY]  Go thou to Friar Penker. Bid them both\n    Meet me within this hour at Baynard's Castle.\n                                       Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER\n    Now will I go to take some privy order\n    To draw the brats of Clarence out of sight,\n    And to give order that no manner person\n    Have any time recourse unto the Princes.                Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 6.\n\nLondon. A street\n\nEnter a SCRIVENER\n\n  SCRIVENER. Here is the indictment of the good Lord Hastings;\n    Which in a set hand fairly is engross'd\n    That it may be to-day read o'er in Paul's.\n    And mark how well the sequel hangs together:\n    Eleven hours I have spent to write it over,\n    For yesternight by Catesby was it sent me;\n    The precedent was full as long a-doing;\n    And yet within these five hours Hastings liv'd,\n    Untainted, unexamin'd, free, at liberty.\n    Here's a good world the while! Who is so gros\n    That cannot see this palpable device?\n    Yet who's so bold but says he sees it not?\n    Bad is the world; and all will come to nought,\n    When such ill dealing must be seen in thought.          Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 7.\n\nLondon. Baynard's Castle\n\nEnter GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM, at several doors\n\n  GLOUCESTER. How now, how now! What say the citizens?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Now, by the holy Mother of our Lord,\n    The citizens are mum, say not a word.\n  GLOUCESTER. Touch'd you the bastardy of Edward's\n    children?\n  BUCKINGHAM. I did; with his contract with Lady Lucy,\n    And his contract by deputy in France;\n    Th' insatiate greediness of his desire,\n    And his enforcement of the city wives;\n    His tyranny for trifles; his own bastardy,\n    As being got, your father then in France,\n    And his resemblance, being not like the Duke.\n    Withal I did infer your lineaments,\n    Being the right idea of your father,\n    Both in your form and nobleness of mind;\n    Laid open all your victories in Scotland,\n    Your discipline in war, wisdom in peace,\n    Your bounty, virtue, fair humility;\n    Indeed, left nothing fitting for your purpose\n    Untouch'd or slightly handled in discourse.\n    And when mine oratory drew toward end\n    I bid them that did love their country's good\n    Cry 'God save Richard, England's royal King!'\n  GLOUCESTER. And did they so?\n  BUCKINGHAM. No, so God help me, they spake not a word;\n    But, like dumb statues or breathing stones,\n    Star'd each on other, and look'd deadly pale.\n    Which when I saw, I reprehended them,\n    And ask'd the Mayor what meant this wilfull silence.\n    His answer was, the people were not used\n    To be spoke to but by the Recorder.\n    Then he was urg'd to tell my tale again.\n    'Thus saith the Duke, thus hath the Duke inferr'd'-\n    But nothing spoke in warrant from himself.\n    When he had done, some followers of mine own\n    At lower end of the hall hurl'd up their caps,\n    And some ten voices cried 'God save King Richard!'\n    And thus I took the vantage of those few-\n    'Thanks, gentle citizens and friends,' quoth I\n    'This general applause and cheerful shout\n    Argues your wisdoms and your love to Richard.'\n    And even here brake off and came away.\n  GLOUCESTER. What, tongueless blocks were they? Would\n    they not speak?\n    Will not the Mayor then and his brethren come?\n  BUCKINGHAM. The Mayor is here at hand. Intend some fear;\n    Be not you spoke with but by mighty suit;\n    And look you get a prayer-book in your hand,\n    And stand between two churchmen, good my lord;\n    For on that ground I'll make a holy descant;\n    And be not easily won to our requests.\n    Play the maid's part: still answer nay, and take it.\n  GLOUCESTER. I go; and if you plead as well for them\n    As I can say nay to thee for myself,\n    No doubt we bring it to a happy issue.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Go, go, up to the leads; the Lord Mayor\n    knocks.                                      Exit GLOUCESTER\n\n           Enter the LORD MAYOR, ALDERMEN, and citizens\n\n    Welcome, my lord. I dance attendance here;\n    I think the Duke will not be spoke withal.\n\n                         Enter CATESBY\n\n    Now, Catesby, what says your lord to my request?\n  CATESBY. He doth entreat your Grace, my noble lord,\n    To visit him to-morrow or next day.\n    He is within, with two right reverend fathers,\n    Divinely bent to meditation;\n    And in no worldly suits would he be mov'd,\n    To draw him from his holy exercise.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Return, good Catesby, to the gracious Duke;\n    Tell him, myself, the Mayor and Aldermen,\n    In deep designs, in matter of great moment,\n    No less importing than our general good,\n    Are come to have some conference with his Grace.\n  CATESBY. I'll signify so much unto him straight.          Exit\n  BUCKINGHAM. Ah ha, my lord, this prince is not an Edward!\n    He is not lolling on a lewd love-bed,\n    But on his knees at meditation;\n    Not dallying with a brace of courtezans,\n    But meditating with two deep divines;\n    Not sleeping, to engross his idle body,\n    But praying, to enrich his watchful soul.\n    Happy were England would this virtuous prince\n    Take on his Grace the sovereignty thereof;\n    But, sure, I fear we shall not win him to it.\n  MAYOR. Marry, God defend his Grace should say us nay!\n  BUCKINGHAM. I fear he will. Here Catesby comes again.\n\n                          Re-enter CATESBY\n\n    Now, Catesby, what says his Grace?\n  CATESBY. My lord,\n    He wonders to what end you have assembled\n    Such troops of citizens to come to him.\n    His Grace not being warn'd thereof before,\n    He fears, my lord, you mean no good to him.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Sorry I am my noble cousin should\n    Suspect me that I mean no good to him.\n    By heaven, we come to him in perfect love;\n    And so once more return and tell his Grace.\n                                                    Exit CATESBY\n    When holy and devout religious men\n    Are at their beads, 'tis much to draw them thence,\n    So sweet is zealous contemplation.\n\n           Enter GLOUCESTER aloft, between two BISHOPS.\n                      CATESBY returns\n\n  MAYOR. See where his Grace stands 'tween two clergymen!\n  BUCKINGHAM. Two props of virtue for a Christian prince,\n    To stay him from the fall of vanity;\n    And, see, a book of prayer in his hand,\n    True ornaments to know a holy man.\n    Famous Plantagenet, most gracious Prince,\n    Lend favourable ear to our requests,\n    And pardon us the interruption\n    Of thy devotion and right Christian zeal.\n  GLOUCESTER. My lord, there needs no such apology:\n    I do beseech your Grace to pardon me,\n    Who, earnest in the service of my God,\n    Deferr'd the visitation of my friends.\n    But, leaving this, what is your Grace's pleasure?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Even that, I hope, which pleaseth God above,\n    And all good men of this ungovern'd isle.\n  GLOUCESTER. I do suspect I have done some offence\n    That seems disgracious in the city's eye,\n    And that you come to reprehend my ignorance.\n  BUCKINGHAM. You have, my lord. Would it might please\n    your Grace,\n    On our entreaties, to amend your fault!\n  GLOUCESTER. Else wherefore breathe I in a Christian land?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Know then, it is your fault that you resign\n    The supreme seat, the throne majestical,\n    The scept'red office of your ancestors,\n    Your state of fortune and your due of birth,\n    The lineal glory of your royal house,\n    To the corruption of a blemish'd stock;\n    Whiles in the mildness of your sleepy thoughts,\n    Which here we waken to our country's good,\n    The noble isle doth want her proper limbs;\n    Her face defac'd with scars of infamy,\n    Her royal stock graft with ignoble plants,\n    And almost should'red in the swallowing gulf\n    Of dark forgetfulness and deep oblivion.\n    Which to recure, we heartily solicit\n    Your gracious self to take on you the charge\n    And kingly government of this your land-\n    Not as protector, steward, substitute,\n    Or lowly factor for another's gain;\n    But as successively, from blood to blood,\n    Your right of birth, your empery, your own.\n    For this, consorted with the citizens,\n    Your very worshipful and loving friends,\n    And by their vehement instigation,\n    In this just cause come I to move your Grace.\n  GLOUCESTER. I cannot tell if to depart in silence\n    Or bitterly to speak in your reproof\n    Best fitteth my degree or your condition.\n    If not to answer, you might haply think\n    Tongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded\n    To bear the golden yoke of sovereignty,\n    Which fondly you would here impose on me;\n    If to reprove you for this suit of yours,\n    So season'd with your faithful love to me,\n    Then, on the other side, I check'd my friends.\n    Therefore-to speak, and to avoid the first,\n    And then, in speaking, not to incur the last-\n    Definitively thus I answer you:\n    Your love deserves my thanks, but my desert\n    Unmeritable shuns your high request.\n    First, if all obstacles were cut away,\n    And that my path were even to the crown,\n    As the ripe revenue and due of birth,\n    Yet so much is my poverty of spirit,\n    So mighty and so many my defects,\n    That I would rather hide me from my greatness-\n    Being a bark to brook no mighty sea-\n    Than in my greatness covet to be hid,\n    And in the vapour of my glory smother'd.\n    But, God be thank'd, there is no need of me-\n    And much I need to help you, were there need.\n    The royal tree hath left us royal fruit\n    Which, mellow'd by the stealing hours of time,\n    Will well become the seat of majesty\n    And make, no doubt, us happy by his reign.\n    On him I lay that you would lay on me-\n    The right and fortune of his happy stars,\n    Which God defend that I should wring from him.\n  BUCKINGHAM. My lord, this argues conscience in your\n    Grace;\n    But the respects thereof are nice and trivial,\n    All circumstances well considered.\n    You say that Edward is your brother's son.\n    So say we too, but not by Edward's wife;\n    For first was he contract to Lady Lucy-\n    Your mother lives a witness to his vow-\n    And afterward by substitute betroth'd\n    To Bona, sister to the King of France.\n    These both put off, a poor petitioner,\n    A care-craz'd mother to a many sons,\n    A beauty-waning and distressed widow,\n    Even in the afternoon of her best days,\n    Made prize and purchase of his wanton eye,\n    Seduc'd the pitch and height of his degree\n    To base declension and loath'd bigamy.\n    By her, in his unlawful bed, he got\n    This Edward, whom our manners call the Prince.\n    More bitterly could I expostulate,\n    Save that, for reverence to some alive,\n    I give a sparing limit to my tongue.\n    Then, good my lord, take to your royal self\n    This proffer'd benefit of dignity;\n    If not to bless us and the land withal,\n    Yet to draw forth your noble ancestry\n    From the corruption of abusing times\n    Unto a lineal true-derived course.\n  MAYOR. Do, good my lord; your citizens entreat you.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Refuse not, mighty lord, this proffer'd love.\n  CATESBY. O, make them joyful, grant their lawful suit!\n  GLOUCESTER. Alas, why would you heap this care on me?\n    I am unfit for state and majesty.\n    I do beseech you, take it not amiss:\n    I cannot nor I will not yield to you.\n  BUCKINGHAM. If you refuse it-as, in love and zeal,\n    Loath to depose the child, your brother's son;\n    As well we know your tenderness of heart\n    And gentle, kind, effeminate remorse,\n    Which we have noted in you to your kindred\n    And egally indeed to all estates-\n    Yet know, whe'er you accept our suit or no,\n    Your brother's son shall never reign our king;\n    But we will plant some other in the throne\n    To the disgrace and downfall of your house;\n    And in this resolution here we leave you.\n    Come, citizens. Zounds, I'll entreat no more.\n  GLOUCESTER. O, do not swear, my lord of Buckingham.\n                          Exeunt BUCKINGHAM, MAYOR, and citizens\n  CATESBY. Call him again, sweet Prince, accept their suit.\n    If you deny them, all the land will rue it.\n  GLOUCESTER. Will you enforce me to a world of cares?\n    Call them again. I am not made of stones,\n    But penetrable to your kind entreaties,\n    Albeit against my conscience and my soul.\n\n                  Re-enter BUCKINGHAM and the rest\n\n    Cousin of Buckingham, and sage grave men,\n    Since you will buckle fortune on my back,\n    To bear her burden, whe'er I will or no,\n    I must have patience to endure the load;\n    But if black scandal or foul-fac'd reproach\n    Attend the sequel of your imposition,\n    Your mere enforcement shall acquittance me\n    From all the impure blots and stains thereof;\n    For God doth know, and you may partly see,\n    How far I am from the desire of this.\n  MAYOR. God bless your Grace! We see it, and will say it.\n  GLOUCESTER. In saying so, you shall but say the truth.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Then I salute you with this royal title-\n    Long live King Richard, England's worthy King!\n  ALL. Amen.\n  BUCKINGHAM. To-morrow may it please you to be crown'd?\n  GLOUCESTER. Even when you please, for you will have it so.\n  BUCKINGHAM. To-morrow, then, we will attend your Grace;\n    And so, most joyfully, we take our leave.\n  GLOUCESTER.  [To the BISHOPS]  Come, let us to our holy\n    work again.\n    Farewell, my cousin; farewell, gentle friends.        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 1.\n\nLondon. Before the Tower\n\nEnter QUEEN ELIZABETH, DUCHESS of YORK, and MARQUIS of DORSET, at\none door;\nANNE, DUCHESS of GLOUCESTER, leading LADY MARGARET PLANTAGENET,\nCLARENCE's young daughter, at another door\n\n  DUCHESS. Who meets us here? My niece Plantagenet,\n    Led in the hand of her kind aunt of Gloucester?\n    Now, for my life, she's wand'ring to the Tower,\n    On pure heart's love, to greet the tender Princes.\n    Daughter, well met.\n  ANNE. God give your Graces both\n    A happy and a joyful time of day!\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. As much to you, good sister! Whither\n    away?\n  ANNE. No farther than the Tower; and, as I guess,\n    Upon the like devotion as yourselves,\n    To gratulate the gentle Princes there.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Kind sister, thanks; we'll enter\n    all together.\n\n                       Enter BRAKENBURY\n\n    And in good time, here the lieutenant comes.\n    Master Lieutenant, pray you, by your leave,\n    How doth the Prince, and my young son of York?\n  BRAKENBURY. Right well, dear madam. By your patience,\n    I may not suffer you to visit them.\n    The King hath strictly charg'd the contrary.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. The King! Who's that?\n  BRAKENBURY. I mean the Lord Protector.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. The Lord protect him from that kingly\n    title!\n    Hath he set bounds between their love and me?\n    I am their mother; who shall bar me from them?\n  DUCHESS. I am their father's mother; I will see them.\n  ANNE. Their aunt I am in law, in love their mother.\n    Then bring me to their sights; I'll bear thy blame,\n    And take thy office from thee on my peril.\n  BRAKENBURY. No, madam, no. I may not leave it so;\n    I am bound by oath, and therefore pardon me.            Exit\n\n                         Enter STANLEY\n\n  STANLEY. Let me but meet you, ladies, one hour hence,\n    And I'll salute your Grace of York as mother\n    And reverend looker-on of two fair queens.\n    [To ANNE]  Come, madam, you must straight to\n    Westminster,\n    There to be crowned Richard's royal queen.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ah, cut my lace asunder\n    That my pent heart may have some scope to beat,\n    Or else I swoon with this dead-killing news!\n  ANNE. Despiteful tidings! O unpleasing news!\n  DORSET. Be of good cheer; mother, how fares your Grace?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. O Dorset, speak not to me, get thee\n    gone!\n    Death and destruction dogs thee at thy heels;\n    Thy mother's name is ominous to children.\n    If thou wilt outstrip death, go cross the seas,\n    And live with Richmond, from the reach of hell.\n    Go, hie thee, hie thee from this slaughter-house,\n    Lest thou increase the number of the dead,\n    And make me die the thrall of Margaret's curse,\n    Nor mother, wife, nor England's counted queen.\n  STANLEY. Full of wise care is this your counsel, madam.\n    Take all the swift advantage of the hours;\n    You shall have letters from me to my son\n    In your behalf, to meet you on the way.\n    Be not ta'en tardy by unwise delay.\n  DUCHESS. O ill-dispersing wind of misery!\n    O my accursed womb, the bed of death!\n    A cockatrice hast thou hatch'd to the world,\n    Whose unavoided eye is murderous.\n  STANLEY. Come, madam, come; I in all haste was sent.\n  ANNE. And I with all unwillingness will go.\n    O, would to God that the inclusive verge\n    Of golden metal that must round my brow\n    Were red-hot steel, to sear me to the brains!\n    Anointed let me be with deadly venom,\n    And die ere men can say 'God save the Queen!'\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Go, go, poor soul; I envy not thy glory.\n    To feed my humour, wish thyself no harm.\n  ANNE. No, why? When he that is my husband now\n    Came to me, as I follow'd Henry's corse;\n    When scarce the blood was well wash'd from his hands\n    Which issued from my other angel husband,\n    And that dear saint which then I weeping follow'd-\n    O, when, I say, I look'd on Richard's face,\n    This was my wish: 'Be thou' quoth I 'accurs'd\n    For making me, so young, so old a widow;\n    And when thou wed'st, let sorrow haunt thy bed;\n    And be thy wife, if any be so mad,\n    More miserable by the life of thee\n    Than thou hast made me by my dear lord's death.'\n    Lo, ere I can repeat this curse again,\n    Within so small a time, my woman's heart\n    Grossly grew captive to his honey words\n    And prov'd the subject of mine own soul's curse,\n    Which hitherto hath held my eyes from rest;\n    For never yet one hour in his bed\n    Did I enjoy the golden dew of sleep,\n    But with his timorous dreams was still awak'd.\n    Besides, he hates me for my father Warwick;\n    And will, no doubt, shortly be rid of me.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Poor heart, adieu! I pity thy complaining.\n  ANNE. No more than with my soul I mourn for yours.\n  DORSET. Farewell, thou woeful welcomer of glory!\n  ANNE. Adieu, poor soul, that tak'st thy leave of it!\n  DUCHESS.  [To DORSET]  Go thou to Richmond, and good\n    fortune guide thee!\n    [To ANNE]  Go thou to Richard, and good angels tend\n    thee!  [To QUEEN ELIZABETH]  Go thou to sanctuary, and good\n    thoughts possess thee!\n    I to my grave, where peace and rest lie with me!\n    Eighty odd years of sorrow have I seen,\n    And each hour's joy wreck'd with a week of teen.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Stay, yet look back with me unto the\n    Tower.\n    Pity, you ancient stones, those tender babes\n    Whom envy hath immur'd within your walls,\n    Rough cradle for such little pretty ones.\n    Rude ragged nurse, old sullen playfellow\n    For tender princes, use my babies well.\n    So foolish sorrows bids your stones farewell.         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nSound a sennet. Enter RICHARD, in pomp, as KING; BUCKINGHAM,\nCATESBY,\nRATCLIFF, LOVEL, a PAGE, and others\n\n  KING RICHARD. Stand all apart. Cousin of Buckingham!\n  BUCKINGHAM. My gracious sovereign?\n  KING RICHARD. Give me thy hand.\n                           [Here he ascendeth the throne. Sound]\n    Thus high, by thy advice\n    And thy assistance, is King Richard seated.\n    But shall we wear these glories for a day;\n    Or shall they last, and we rejoice in them?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Still live they, and for ever let them last!\n  KING RICHARD. Ah, Buckingham, now do I play the touch,\n    To try if thou be current gold indeed.\n    Young Edward lives-think now what I would speak.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Say on, my loving lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Why, Buckingham, I say I would be King.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Why, so you are, my thrice-renowned lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Ha! am I King? 'Tis so; but Edward lives.\n  BUCKINGHAM. True, noble Prince.\n  KING RICHARD. O bitter consequence:\n    That Edward still should live-true noble Prince!\n    Cousin, thou wast not wont to be so dull.\n    Shall I be plain? I wish the bastards dead.\n    And I would have it suddenly perform'd.\n    What say'st thou now? Speak suddenly, be brief.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Your Grace may do your pleasure.\n  KING RICHARD. Tut, tut, thou art all ice; thy kindness freezes.\n    Say, have I thy consent that they shall die?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Give me some little breath, some pause,\n    dear Lord,\n    Before I positively speak in this.\n    I will resolve you herein presently.                    Exit\n  CATESBY.  [Aside to another]  The King is angry; see, he\n    gnaws his lip.\n  KING RICHARD. I will converse with iron-witted fools\n                                      [Descends from the throne]\n    And unrespective boys; none are for me\n    That look into me with considerate eyes.\n    High-reaching Buckingham grows circumspect.\n    Boy!\n  PAGE. My lord?\n  KING RICHARD. Know'st thou not any whom corrupting\n    gold\n    Will tempt unto a close exploit of death?\n  PAGE. I know a discontented gentleman\n    Whose humble means match not his haughty spirit.\n    Gold were as good as twenty orators,\n    And will, no doubt, tempt him to anything.\n  KING RICHARD. What is his name?\n  PAGE. His name, my lord, is Tyrrel.\n  KING RICHARD. I partly know the man. Go, call him hither,\n    boy.                                               Exit PAGE\n    The deep-revolving witty Buckingham\n    No more shall be the neighbour to my counsels.\n    Hath he so long held out with me, untir'd,\n    And stops he now for breath? Well, be it so.\n\n                            Enter STANLEY\n\n    How now, Lord Stanley! What's the news?\n  STANLEY. Know, my loving lord,\n    The Marquis Dorset, as I hear, is fled\n    To Richmond, in the parts where he abides.    [Stands apart]\n  KING RICHARD. Come hither, Catesby. Rumour it abroad\n    That Anne, my wife, is very grievous sick;\n    I will take order for her keeping close.\n    Inquire me out some mean poor gentleman,\n    Whom I will marry straight to Clarence' daughter-\n    The boy is foolish, and I fear not him.\n    Look how thou dream'st! I say again, give out\n    That Anne, my queen, is sick and like to die.\n    About it; for it stands me much upon\n    To stop all hopes whose growth may damage me.\n                                                    Exit CATESBY\n    I must be married to my brother's daughter,\n    Or else my kingdom stands on brittle glass.\n    Murder her brothers, and then marry her!\n    Uncertain way of gain! But I am in\n    So far in blood that sin will pluck on sin.\n    Tear-falling pity dwells not in this eye.\n\n                     Re-enter PAGE, with TYRREL\n\n    Is thy name Tyrrel?\n  TYRREL. James Tyrrel, and your most obedient subject.\n  KING RICHARD. Art thou, indeed?\n  TYRREL. Prove me, my gracious lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Dar'st'thou resolve to kill a friend of mine?\n  TYRREL. Please you;\n    But I had rather kill two enemies.\n  KING RICHARD. Why, then thou hast it. Two deep enemies,\n    Foes to my rest, and my sweet sleep's disturbers,\n    Are they that I would have thee deal upon.\n  TYRREL, I mean those bastards in the Tower.\n  TYRREL. Let me have open means to come to them,\n    And soon I'll rid you from the fear of them.\n  KING RICHARD. Thou sing'st sweet music. Hark, come\n    hither, Tyrrel.\n    Go, by this token. Rise, and lend thine ear.      [Whispers]\n    There is no more but so: say it is done,\n    And I will love thee and prefer thee for it.\n  TYRREL. I will dispatch it straight.                      Exit\n\n                    Re-enter BUCKINGHAM\n\n    BUCKINGHAM. My lord, I have consider'd in my mind\n    The late request that you did sound me in.\n  KING RICHARD. Well, let that rest. Dorset is fled to\n    Richmond.\n  BUCKINGHAM. I hear the news, my lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Stanley, he is your wife's son: well, look\n    unto it.\n  BUCKINGHAM. My lord, I claim the gift, my due by promise,\n    For which your honour and your faith is pawn'd:\n    Th' earldom of Hereford and the movables\n    Which you have promised I shall possess.\n  KING RICHARD. Stanley, look to your wife; if she convey\n    Letters to Richmond, you shall answer it.\n  BUCKINGHAM. What says your Highness to my just request?\n  KING RICHARD. I do remember me: Henry the Sixth\n    Did prophesy that Richmond should be King,\n    When Richmond was a little peevish boy.\n    A king!-perhaps-\n  BUCKINGHAM. My lord-\n  KING RICHARD. How chance the prophet could not at that\n    time\n    Have told me, I being by, that I should kill him?\n  BUCKINGHAM. My lord, your promise for the earldom-\n  KING RICHARD. Richmond! When last I was at Exeter,\n    The mayor in courtesy show'd me the castle\n    And call'd it Rugemount, at which name I started,\n    Because a bard of Ireland told me once\n    I should not live long after I saw Richmond.\n  BUCKINGHAM. My lord-\n  KING RICHARD. Ay, what's o'clock?\n  BUCKINGHAM. I am thus bold to put your Grace in mind\n    Of what you promis'd me.\n  KING RICHARD. Well, but o'clock?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Upon the stroke of ten.\n  KING RICHARD. Well, let it strike.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Why let it strike?\n  KING RICHARD. Because that like a Jack thou keep'st the\n    stroke\n    Betwixt thy begging and my meditation.\n    I am not in the giving vein to-day.\n  BUCKINGHAM. May it please you to resolve me in my suit.\n  KING RICHARD. Thou troublest me; I am not in the vein.\n                                       Exeunt all but Buckingham\n  BUCKINGHAM. And is it thus? Repays he my deep service\n    With such contempt? Made I him King for this?\n    O, let me think on Hastings, and be gone\n    To Brecknock while my fearful head is on!               Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter TYRREL\n\n  TYRREL. The tyrannous and bloody act is done,\n    The most arch deed of piteous massacre\n    That ever yet this land was guilty of.\n    Dighton and Forrest, who I did suborn\n    To do this piece of ruthless butchery,\n    Albeit they were flesh'd villains, bloody dogs,\n    Melted with tenderness and mild compassion,\n    Wept like two children in their deaths' sad story.\n    'O, thus' quoth Dighton 'lay the gentle babes'-\n    'Thus, thus,' quoth Forrest 'girdling one another\n    Within their alabaster innocent arms.\n    Their lips were four red roses on a stalk,\n    And in their summer beauty kiss'd each other.\n    A book of prayers on their pillow lay;\n    Which once,' quoth Forrest 'almost chang'd my mind;\n    But, O, the devil'-there the villain stopp'd;\n    When Dighton thus told on: 'We smothered\n    The most replenished sweet work of nature\n    That from the prime creation e'er she framed.'\n    Hence both are gone with conscience and remorse\n    They could not speak; and so I left them both,\n    To bear this tidings to the bloody King.\n\n                        Enter KING RICHARD\n\n    And here he comes. All health, my sovereign lord!\n  KING RICHARD. Kind Tyrrel, am I happy in thy news?\n  TYRREL. If to have done the thing you gave in charge\n    Beget your happiness, be happy then,\n    For it is done.\n  KING RICHARD. But didst thou see them dead?\n  TYRREL. I did, my lord.\n  KING RICHARD. And buried, gentle Tyrrel?\n  TYRREL. The chaplain of the Tower hath buried them;\n    But where, to say the truth, I do not know.\n  KING RICHARD. Come to me, Tyrrel, soon at after supper,\n    When thou shalt tell the process of their death.\n    Meantime, but think how I may do thee good\n    And be inheritor of thy desire.\n    Farewell till then.\n  TYRREL. I humbly take my leave.                           Exit\n  KING RICHARD. The son of Clarence have I pent up close;\n    His daughter meanly have I match'd in marriage;\n    The sons of Edward sleep in Abraham's bosom,\n    And Anne my wife hath bid this world good night.\n    Now, for I know the Britaine Richmond aims\n    At young Elizabeth, my brother's daughter,\n    And by that knot looks proudly on the crown,\n    To her go I, a jolly thriving wooer.\n\n                           Enter RATCLIFF\n\n  RATCLIFF. My lord!\n  KING RICHARD. Good or bad news, that thou com'st in so\n    bluntly?\n  RATCLIFF. Bad news, my lord: Morton is fled to Richmond;\n    And Buckingham, back'd with the hardy Welshmen,\n    Is in the field, and still his power increaseth.\n  KING RICHARD. Ely with Richmond troubles me more near\n    Than Buckingham and his rash-levied strength.\n    Come, I have learn'd that fearful commenting\n    Is leaden servitor to dull delay;\n    Delay leads impotent and snail-pac'd beggary.\n    Then fiery expedition be my wing,\n    Jove's Mercury, and herald for a king!\n    Go, muster men. My counsel is my shield.\n    We must be brief when traitors brave the field.       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\n\nLondon. Before the palace\n\nEnter old QUEEN MARGARET\n\n  QUEEN MARGARET. So now prosperity begins to mellow\n    And drop into the rotten mouth of death.\n    Here in these confines slily have I lurk'd\n    To watch the waning of mine enemies.\n    A dire induction am I witness to,\n    And will to France, hoping the consequence\n    Will prove as bitter, black, and tragical.\n    Withdraw thee, wretched Margaret. Who comes here?\n                                                       [Retires]\n\n           Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH and the DUCHESS OF YORK\n\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ah, my poor princes! ah, my tender\n    babes!\n    My unblown flowers, new-appearing sweets!\n    If yet your gentle souls fly in the air\n    And be not fix'd in doom perpetual,\n    Hover about me with your airy wings\n    And hear your mother's lamentation.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Hover about her; say that right for right\n    Hath dimm'd your infant morn to aged night.\n  DUCHESS. So many miseries have craz'd my voice\n    That my woe-wearied tongue is still and mute.\n    Edward Plantagenet, why art thou dead?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Plantagenet doth quit Plantagenet,\n    Edward for Edward pays a dying debt.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Wilt thou, O God, fly from such gentle\n    lambs\n    And throw them in the entrails of the wolf?\n    When didst thou sleep when such a deed was done?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. When holy Harry died, and my sweet\n    son.\n  DUCHESS. Dead life, blind sight, poor mortal living ghost,\n    Woe's scene, world's shame, grave's due by life usurp'd,\n    Brief abstract and record of tedious days,\n    Rest thy unrest on England's lawful earth,    [Sitting down]\n    Unlawfully made drunk with innocent blood.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ah, that thou wouldst as soon afford a\n    grave\n    As thou canst yield a melancholy seat!\n    Then would I hide my bones, not rest them here.\n    Ah, who hath any cause to mourn but we?\n                                           [Sitting down by her]\n  QUEEN MARGARET.  [Coming forward]  If ancient sorrow be\n    most reverend,\n    Give mine the benefit of seniory,\n    And let my griefs frown on the upper hand.\n    If sorrow can admit society,        [Sitting down with them]\n    Tell o'er your woes again by viewing mine.\n    I had an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him;\n    I had a husband, till a Richard kill'd him:\n    Thou hadst an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him;\n    Thou hadst a Richard, till a Richard kill'd him.\n  DUCHESS. I had a Richard too, and thou didst kill him;\n    I had a Rutland too, thou holp'st to kill him.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Thou hadst a Clarence too, and Richard\n    kill'd him.\n    From forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept\n    A hell-hound that doth hunt us all to death.\n    That dog, that had his teeth before his eyes\n    To worry lambs and lap their gentle blood,\n    That foul defacer of God's handiwork,\n    That excellent grand tyrant of the earth\n    That reigns in galled eyes of weeping souls,\n    Thy womb let loose to chase us to our graves.\n    O upright, just, and true-disposing God,\n    How do I thank thee that this carnal cur\n    Preys on the issue of his mother's body\n    And makes her pew-fellow with others' moan!\n  DUCHESS. O Harry's wife, triumph not in my woes!\n    God witness with me, I have wept for thine.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Bear with me; I am hungry for revenge,\n    And now I cloy me with beholding it.\n    Thy Edward he is dead, that kill'd my Edward;\n    The other Edward dead, to quit my Edward;\n    Young York he is but boot, because both they\n    Match'd not the high perfection of my loss.\n    Thy Clarence he is dead that stabb'd my Edward;\n    And the beholders of this frantic play,\n    Th' adulterate Hastings, Rivers, Vaughan, Grey,\n    Untimely smother'd in their dusky graves.\n    Richard yet lives, hell's black intelligencer;\n    Only reserv'd their factor to buy souls\n    And send them thither. But at hand, at hand,\n    Ensues his piteous and unpitied end.\n    Earth gapes, hell burns, fiends roar, saints pray,\n    To have him suddenly convey'd from hence.\n    Cancel his bond of life, dear God, I pray,\n    That I may live and say 'The dog is dead.'\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. O, thou didst prophesy the time would\n      come\n    That I should wish for thee to help me curse\n    That bottled spider, that foul bunch-back'd toad!\n  QUEEN MARGARET. I Call'd thee then vain flourish of my\n      fortune;\n    I call'd thee then poor shadow, painted queen,\n    The presentation of but what I was,\n    The flattering index of a direful pageant,\n    One heav'd a-high to be hurl'd down below,\n    A mother only mock'd with two fair babes,\n    A dream of what thou wast, a garish flag\n    To be the aim of every dangerous shot,\n    A sign of dignity, a breath, a bubble,\n    A queen in jest, only to fill the scene.\n    Where is thy husband now? Where be thy brothers?\n    Where be thy two sons? Wherein dost thou joy?\n    Who sues, and kneels, and says 'God save the Queen'?\n    Where be the bending peers that flattered thee?\n    Where be the thronging troops that followed thee?\n    Decline an this, and see what now thou art:\n    For happy wife, a most distressed widow;\n    For joyful mother, one that wails the name;\n    For one being su'd to, one that humbly sues;\n    For Queen, a very caitiff crown'd with care;\n    For she that scorn'd at me, now scorn'd of me;\n    For she being fear'd of all, now fearing one;\n    For she commanding all, obey'd of none.\n    Thus hath the course of justice whirl'd about\n    And left thee but a very prey to time,\n    Having no more but thought of what thou wast\n    To torture thee the more, being what thou art.\n    Thou didst usurp my place, and dost thou not\n    Usurp the just proportion of my sorrow?\n    Now thy proud neck bears half my burden'd yoke,\n    From which even here I slip my weary head\n    And leave the burden of it all on thee.\n    Farewell, York's wife, and queen of sad mischance;\n    These English woes shall make me smile in France.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. O thou well skill'd in curses, stay awhile\n    And teach me how to curse mine enemies!\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Forbear to sleep the nights, and fast the\n      days;\n    Compare dead happiness with living woe;\n    Think that thy babes were sweeter than they were,\n    And he that slew them fouler than he is.\n    Bett'ring thy loss makes the bad-causer worse;\n    Revolving this will teach thee how to curse.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. My words are dull; O, quicken them\n    with thine!\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Thy woes will make them sharp and\n    pierce like mine.                                       Exit\n  DUCHESS. Why should calamity be fun of words?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Windy attorneys to their client woes,\n    Airy succeeders of intestate joys,\n    Poor breathing orators of miseries,\n    Let them have scope; though what they will impart\n    Help nothing else, yet do they case the heart.\n  DUCHESS. If so, then be not tongue-tied. Go with me,\n    And in the breath of bitter words let's smother\n    My damned son that thy two sweet sons smother'd.\n    The trumpet sounds; be copious in exclaims.\n\n         Enter KING RICHARD and his train, marching with\n                     drums and trumpets\n\n  KING RICHARD. Who intercepts me in my expedition?\n  DUCHESS. O, she that might have intercepted thee,\n    By strangling thee in her accursed womb,\n    From all the slaughters, wretch, that thou hast done!\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Hidest thou that forehead with a golden\n    crown\n    Where't should be branded, if that right were right,\n    The slaughter of the Prince that ow'd that crown,\n    And the dire death of my poor sons and brothers?\n    Tell me, thou villain slave, where are my children?\n  DUCHESS. Thou toad, thou toad, where is thy brother\n    Clarence?\n    And little Ned Plantagenet, his son?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Where is the gentle Rivers, Vaughan,\n    Grey?\n  DUCHESS. Where is kind Hastings?\n  KING RICHARD. A flourish, trumpets! Strike alarum, drums!\n    Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women\n    Rail on the Lord's anointed. Strike, I say!\n                                             [Flourish. Alarums]\n    Either be patient and entreat me fair,\n    Or with the clamorous report of war\n    Thus will I drown your exclamations.\n  DUCHESS. Art thou my son?\n  KING RICHARD. Ay, I thank God, my father, and yourself.\n  DUCHESS. Then patiently hear my impatience.\n  KING RICHARD. Madam, I have a touch of your condition\n    That cannot brook the accent of reproof.\n  DUCHESS. O, let me speak!\n  KING RICHARD. Do, then; but I'll not hear.\n  DUCHESS. I will be mild and gentle in my words.\n  KING RICHARD. And brief, good mother; for I am in haste.\n  DUCHESS. Art thou so hasty? I have stay'd for thee,\n    God knows, in torment and in agony.\n  KING RICHARD. And came I not at last to comfort you?\n  DUCHESS. No, by the holy rood, thou know'st it well\n    Thou cam'st on earth to make the earth my hell.\n    A grievous burden was thy birth to me;\n    Tetchy and wayward was thy infancy;\n    Thy school-days frightful, desp'rate, wild, and furious;\n    Thy prime of manhood daring, bold, and venturous;\n    Thy age confirm'd, proud, subtle, sly, and bloody,\n    More mild, but yet more harmful-kind in hatred.\n    What comfortable hour canst thou name\n    That ever grac'd me with thy company?\n  KING RICHARD. Faith, none but Humphrey Hour, that call'd\n    your Grace\n    To breakfast once forth of my company.\n    If I be so disgracious in your eye,\n    Let me march on and not offend you, madam.\n    Strike up the drum.\n  DUCHESS. I prithee hear me speak.\n  KING RICHARD. You speak too bitterly.\n  DUCHESS. Hear me a word;\n    For I shall never speak to thee again.\n  KING RICHARD. So.\n  DUCHESS. Either thou wilt die by God's just ordinance\n    Ere from this war thou turn a conqueror;\n    Or I with grief and extreme age shall perish\n    And never more behold thy face again.\n    Therefore take with thee my most grievous curse,\n    Which in the day of battle tire thee more\n    Than all the complete armour that thou wear'st!\n    My prayers on the adverse party fight;\n    And there the little souls of Edward's children\n    Whisper the spirits of thine enemies\n    And promise them success and victory.\n    Bloody thou art; bloody will be thy end.\n    Shame serves thy life and doth thy death attend.        Exit\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Though far more cause, yet much less\n      spirit to curse\n    Abides in me; I say amen to her.\n  KING RICHARD. Stay, madam, I must talk a word with you.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. I have no moe sons of the royal blood\n    For thee to slaughter. For my daughters, Richard,\n    They shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens;\n    And therefore level not to hit their lives.\n  KING RICHARD. You have a daughter call'd Elizabeth.\n    Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. And must she die for this? O, let her\n      live,\n    And I'll corrupt her manners, stain her beauty,\n    Slander myself as false to Edward's bed,\n    Throw over her the veil of infamy;\n    So she may live unscarr'd of bleeding slaughter,\n    I will confess she was not Edward's daughter.\n  KING RICHARD. Wrong not her birth; she is a royal\n    Princess.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. To save her life I'll say she is not so.\n  KING RICHARD. Her life is safest only in her birth.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. And only in that safety died her\n      brothers.\n  KING RICHARD. Lo, at their birth good stars were opposite.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. No, to their lives ill friends were\n      contrary.\n  KING RICHARD. All unavoided is the doom of destiny.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. True, when avoided grace makes destiny.\n    My babes were destin'd to a fairer death,\n    If grace had bless'd thee with a fairer life.\n  KING RICHARD. You speak as if that I had slain my cousins.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Cousins, indeed; and by their uncle\n      cozen'd\n    Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life.\n    Whose hand soever lanc'd their tender hearts,\n    Thy head, an indirectly, gave direction.\n    No doubt the murd'rous knife was dull and blunt\n    Till it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart\n    To revel in the entrails of my lambs.\n    But that stiff use of grief makes wild grief tame,\n    My tongue should to thy ears not name my boys\n    Till that my nails were anchor'd in thine eyes;\n    And I, in such a desp'rate bay of death,\n    Like a poor bark, of sails and tackling reft,\n    Rush all to pieces on thy rocky bosom.\n  KING RICHARD. Madam, so thrive I in my enterprise\n    And dangerous success of bloody wars,\n    As I intend more good to you and yours\n    Than ever you or yours by me were harm'd!\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. What good is cover'd with the face of\n      heaven,\n    To be discover'd, that can do me good?\n  KING RICHARD. advancement of your children, gentle\n    lady.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Up to some scaffold, there to lose their\n    heads?\n  KING RICHARD. Unto the dignity and height of Fortune,\n    The high imperial type of this earth's glory.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Flatter my sorrow with report of it;\n    Tell me what state, what dignity, what honour,\n    Canst thou demise to any child of mine?\n  KING RICHARD. Even all I have-ay, and myself and all\n    Will I withal endow a child of thine;\n    So in the Lethe of thy angry soul\n    Thou drown the sad remembrance of those wrongs\n    Which thou supposest I have done to thee.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Be brief, lest that the process of thy\n      kindness\n    Last longer telling than thy kindness' date.\n  KING RICHARD. Then know, that from my soul I love thy\n    daughter.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. My daughter's mother thinks it with her\n    soul.\n  KING RICHARD. What do you think?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. That thou dost love my daughter from\n      thy soul.\n    So from thy soul's love didst thou love her brothers,\n    And from my heart's love I do thank thee for it.\n  KING RICHARD. Be not so hasty to confound my meaning.\n    I mean that with my soul I love thy daughter\n    And do intend to make her Queen of England.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Well, then, who dost thou mean shall be\n    her king?\n  KING RICHARD. Even he that makes her Queen. Who else\n    should be?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. What, thou?\n  KING RICHARD. Even so. How think you of it?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. How canst thou woo her?\n  KING RICHARD. That would I learn of you,\n    As one being best acquainted with her humour.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. And wilt thou learn of me?\n  KING RICHARD. Madam, with all my heart.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Send to her, by the man that slew her\n    brothers,\n    A pair of bleeding hearts; thereon engrave\n    'Edward' and 'York.' Then haply will she weep;\n    Therefore present to her-as sometimes Margaret\n    Did to thy father, steep'd in Rutland's blood-\n    A handkerchief; which, say to her, did drain\n    The purple sap from her sweet brother's body,\n    And bid her wipe her weeping eyes withal.\n    If this inducement move her not to love,\n    Send her a letter of thy noble deeds;\n    Tell her thou mad'st away her uncle Clarence,\n    Her uncle Rivers; ay, and for her sake\n    Mad'st quick conveyance with her good aunt Anne.\n  KING RICHARD. You mock me, madam; this is not the way\n    To win your daughter.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. There is no other way;\n    Unless thou couldst put on some other shape\n    And not be Richard that hath done all this.\n  KING RICHARD. Say that I did all this for love of her.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Nay, then indeed she cannot choose but\n      hate thee,\n    Having bought love with such a bloody spoil.\n  KING RICHARD. Look what is done cannot be now amended.\n    Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes,\n    Which after-hours gives leisure to repent.\n    If I did take the kingdom from your sons,\n    To make amends I'll give it to your daughter.\n    If I have kill'd the issue of your womb,\n    To quicken your increase I will beget\n    Mine issue of your blood upon your daughter.\n    A grandam's name is little less in love\n    Than is the doating title of a mother;\n    They are as children but one step below,\n    Even of your metal, of your very blood;\n    Of all one pain, save for a night of groans\n    Endur'd of her, for whom you bid like sorrow.\n    Your children were vexation to your youth;\n    But mine shall be a comfort to your age.\n    The loss you have is but a son being King,\n    And by that loss your daughter is made Queen.\n    I cannot make you what amends I would,\n    Therefore accept such kindness as I can.\n    Dorset your son, that with a fearful soul\n    Leads discontented steps in foreign soil,\n    This fair alliance quickly shall can home\n    To high promotions and great dignity.\n    The King, that calls your beauteous daughter wife,\n    Familiarly shall call thy Dorset brother;\n    Again shall you be mother to a king,\n    And all the ruins of distressful times\n    Repair'd with double riches of content.\n    What! we have many goodly days to see.\n    The liquid drops of tears that you have shed\n    Shall come again, transform'd to orient pearl,\n    Advantaging their loan with interest\n    Of ten times double gain of happiness.\n    Go, then, my mother, to thy daughter go;\n    Make bold her bashful years with your experience;\n    Prepare her ears to hear a wooer's tale;\n    Put in her tender heart th' aspiring flame\n    Of golden sovereignty; acquaint the Princes\n    With the sweet silent hours of marriage joys.\n    And when this arm of mine hath chastised\n    The petty rebel, dull-brain'd Buckingham,\n    Bound with triumphant garlands will I come,\n    And lead thy daughter to a conqueror's bed;\n    To whom I will retail my conquest won,\n    And she shall be sole victoress, Caesar's Caesar.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. What were I best to say? Her father's\n      brother\n    Would be her lord? Or shall I say her uncle?\n    Or he that slew her brothers and her uncles?\n    Under what title shall I woo for thee\n    That God, the law, my honour, and her love\n    Can make seem pleasing to her tender years?\n  KING RICHARD. Infer fair England's peace by this alliance.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Which she shall purchase with\n    still-lasting war.\n  KING RICHARD. Tell her the King, that may command,\n    entreats.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. That at her hands which the King's\n    King forbids.\n  KING RICHARD. Say she shall be a high and mighty queen.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. To wail the title, as her mother doth.\n  KING RICHARD. Say I will love her everlastingly.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. But how long shall that title 'ever' last?\n  KING RICHARD. Sweetly in force unto her fair life's end.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. But how long fairly shall her sweet life\n    last?\n  KING RICHARD. As long as heaven and nature lengthens it.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. As long as hell and Richard likes of it.\n  KING RICHARD. Say I, her sovereign, am her subject low.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. But she, your subject, loathes such\n    sovereignty.\n  KING RICHARD. Be eloquent in my behalf to her.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. An honest tale speeds best being plainly\n    told.\n  KING RICHARD. Then plainly to her tell my loving tale.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Plain and not honest is too harsh a style.\n  KING RICHARD. Your reasons are too shallow and too quick.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. O, no, my reasons are too deep and\n      dead-\n    Too deep and dead, poor infants, in their graves.\n  KING RICHARD. Harp not on that string, madam; that is past.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Harp on it still shall I till heartstrings\n    break.\n  KING RICHARD. Now, by my George, my garter, and my\n    crown-\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Profan'd, dishonour'd, and the third\n    usurp'd.\n  KING RICHARD. I swear-\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. By nothing; for this is no oath:\n    Thy George, profan'd, hath lost his lordly honour;\n    Thy garter, blemish'd, pawn'd his knightly virtue;\n    Thy crown, usurp'd, disgrac'd his kingly glory.\n    If something thou wouldst swear to be believ'd,\n    Swear then by something that thou hast not wrong'd.\n  KING RICHARD. Then, by my self-\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Thy self is self-misus'd.\n  KING RICHARD. Now, by the world-\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. 'Tis full of thy foul wrongs.\n  KING RICHARD. My father's death-\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Thy life hath it dishonour'd.\n  KING RICHARD. Why, then, by God-\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. God's wrong is most of all.\n    If thou didst fear to break an oath with Him,\n    The unity the King my husband made\n    Thou hadst not broken, nor my brothers died.\n    If thou hadst fear'd to break an oath by Him,\n    Th' imperial metal, circling now thy head,\n    Had grac'd the tender temples of my child;\n    And both the Princes had been breathing here,\n    Which now, two tender bedfellows for dust,\n    Thy broken faith hath made the prey for worms.\n    What canst thou swear by now?\n  KING RICHARD. The time to come.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. That thou hast wronged in the time\n    o'erpast;\n    For I myself have many tears to wash\n    Hereafter time, for time past wrong'd by thee.\n    The children live whose fathers thou hast slaughter'd,\n    Ungovern'd youth, to wail it in their age;\n    The parents live whose children thou hast butcheed,\n    Old barren plants, to wail it with their age.\n    Swear not by time to come; for that thou hast\n    Misus'd ere us'd, by times ill-us'd o'erpast.\n  KING RICHARD. As I intend to prosper and repent,\n    So thrive I in my dangerous affairs\n    Of hostile arms! Myself myself confound!\n    Heaven and fortune bar me happy hours!\n    Day, yield me not thy light; nor, night, thy rest!\n    Be opposite all planets of good luck\n    To my proceeding!-if, with dear heart's love,\n    Immaculate devotion, holy thoughts,\n    I tender not thy beauteous princely daughter.\n    In her consists my happiness and thine;\n    Without her, follows to myself and thee,\n    Herself, the land, and many a Christian soul,\n    Death, desolation, ruin, and decay.\n    It cannot be avoided but by this;\n    It will not be avoided but by this.\n    Therefore, dear mother-I must call you so-\n    Be the attorney of my love to her;\n    Plead what I will be, not what I have been;\n    Not my deserts, but what I will deserve.\n    Urge the necessity and state of times,\n    And be not peevish-fond in great designs.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Shall I be tempted of the devil thus?\n  KING RICHARD. Ay, if the devil tempt you to do good.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Shall I forget myself to be myself?\n  KING RICHARD. Ay, if your self's remembrance wrong\n    yourself.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Yet thou didst kill my children.\n  KING RICHARD. But in your daughter's womb I bury them;\n    Where, in that nest of spicery, they will breed\n    Selves of themselves, to your recomforture.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Shall I go win my daughter to thy will?\n  KING RICHARD. And be a happy mother by the deed.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. I go. Write to me very shortly,\n    And you shall understand from me her mind.\n  KING RICHARD. Bear her my true love's kiss; and so, farewell.\n                               Kissing her. Exit QUEEN ELIZABETH\n    Relenting fool, and shallow, changing woman!\n\n                 Enter RATCLIFF; CATESBY following\n\n    How now! what news?\n  RATCLIFF. Most mighty sovereign, on the western coast\n    Rideth a puissant navy; to our shores\n    Throng many doubtful hollow-hearted friends,\n    Unarm'd, and unresolv'd to beat them back.\n    'Tis thought that Richmond is their admiral;\n    And there they hull, expecting but the aid\n    Of Buckingham to welcome them ashore.\n  KING RICHARD. Some light-foot friend post to the Duke of\n    Norfolk.\n    Ratcliff, thyself-or Catesby; where is he?\n  CATESBY. Here, my good lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Catesby, fly to the Duke.\n  CATESBY. I will my lord, with all convenient haste.\n  KING RICHARD. Ratcliff, come hither. Post to Salisbury;\n    When thou com'st thither-  [To CATESBY]  Dull,\n    unmindfull villain,\n    Why stay'st thou here, and go'st not to the Duke?\n  CATESBY. First, mighty liege, tell me your Highness' pleasure,\n    What from your Grace I shall deliver to him.\n  KING RICHARD. O, true, good Catesby. Bid him levy straight\n    The greatest strength and power that he can make\n    And meet me suddenly at Salisbury.\n  CATESBY. I go.                                            Exit\n  RATCLIFF. What, may it please you, shall I do at Salisbury?\n  KING RICHARD. Why, what wouldst thou do there before I\n    go?\n  RATCLIFF. Your Highness told me I should post before.\n  KING RICHARD. My mind is chang'd.\n\n                           Enter LORD STANLEY\n\n  STANLEY, what news with you?\n  STANLEY. None good, my liege, to please you with\n    the hearing;\n    Nor none so bad but well may be reported.\n  KING RICHARD. Hoyday, a riddle! neither good nor bad!\n    What need'st thou run so many miles about,\n    When thou mayest tell thy tale the nearest way?\n    Once more, what news?\n  STANLEY. Richmond is on the seas.\n  KING RICHARD. There let him sink, and be the seas on him!\n    White-liver'd runagate, what doth he there?\n  STANLEY. I know not, mighty sovereign, but by guess.\n  KING RICHARD. Well, as you guess?\n  STANLEY. Stirr'd up by Dorset, Buckingham, and Morton,\n    He makes for England here to claim the crown.\n  KING RICHARD. Is the chair empty? Is the sword unsway'd?\n    Is the King dead, the empire unpossess'd?\n    What heir of York is there alive but we?\n    And who is England's King but great York's heir?\n    Then tell me what makes he upon the seas.\n  STANLEY. Unless for that, my liege, I cannot guess.\n  KING RICHARD. Unless for that he comes to be your liege,\n    You cannot guess wherefore the Welshman comes.\n    Thou wilt revolt and fly to him, I fear.\n  STANLEY. No, my good lord; therefore mistrust me not.\n  KING RICHARD. Where is thy power then, to beat him back?\n    Where be thy tenants and thy followers?\n    Are they not now upon the western shore,\n    Safe-conducting the rebels from their ships?\n  STANLEY. No, my good lord, my friends are in the north.\n  KING RICHARD. Cold friends to me. What do they in the\n    north,\n    When they should serve their sovereign in the west?\n  STANLEY. They have not been commanded, mighty King.\n    Pleaseth your Majesty to give me leave,\n    I'll muster up my friends and meet your Grace\n    Where and what time your Majesty shall please.\n  KING RICHARD. Ay, ay, thou wouldst be gone to join with\n    Richmond;\n    But I'll not trust thee.\n  STANLEY. Most mighty sovereign,\n    You have no cause to hold my friendship doubtful.\n    I never was nor never will be false.\n  KING RICHARD. Go, then, and muster men. But leave behind\n    Your son, George Stanley. Look your heart be firm,\n    Or else his head's assurance is but frail.\n  STANLEY. So deal with him as I prove true to you.         Exit\n\n                          Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. My gracious sovereign, now in Devonshire,\n    As I by friends am well advertised,\n    Sir Edward Courtney and the haughty prelate,\n    Bishop of Exeter, his elder brother,\n    With many moe confederates, are in arms.\n\n                         Enter another MESSENGER\n\n  SECOND MESSENGER. In Kent, my liege, the Guilfords are in\n    arms;\n    And every hour more competitors\n    Flock to the rebels, and their power grows strong.\n\n                         Enter another MESSENGER\n\n  THIRD MESSENGER. My lord, the army of great Buckingham-\n  KING RICHARD. Out on you, owls! Nothing but songs of\n    death?                                      [He strikes him]\n    There, take thou that till thou bring better news.\n  THIRD MESSENGER. The news I have to tell your Majesty\n    Is that by sudden floods and fall of waters\n    Buckingham's army is dispers'd and scatter'd;\n    And he himself wand'red away alone,\n    No man knows whither.\n  KING RICHARD. I cry thee mercy.\n    There is my purse to cure that blow of thine.\n    Hath any well-advised friend proclaim'd\n    Reward to him that brings the traitor in?\n  THIRD MESSENGER. Such proclamation hath been made,\n    my Lord.\n\n                      Enter another MESSENGER\n\n  FOURTH MESSENGER. Sir Thomas Lovel and Lord Marquis\n    Dorset,\n    'Tis said, my liege, in Yorkshire are in arms.\n    But this good comfort bring I to your Highness-\n    The Britaine navy is dispers'd by tempest.\n    Richmond in Dorsetshire sent out a boat\n    Unto the shore, to ask those on the banks\n    If they were his assistants, yea or no;\n    Who answer'd him they came from Buckingham\n    Upon his party. He, mistrusting them,\n    Hois'd sail, and made his course again for Britaine.\n  KING RICHARD. March on, march on, since we are up in\n    arms;\n    If not to fight with foreign enemies,\n    Yet to beat down these rebels here at home.\n\n                          Re-enter CATESBY\n\n  CATESBY. My liege, the Duke of Buckingham is taken-\n    That is the best news. That the Earl of Richmond\n    Is with a mighty power landed at Milford\n    Is colder tidings, yet they must be told.\n  KING RICHARD. Away towards Salisbury! While we reason\n    here\n    A royal battle might be won and lost.\n    Some one take order Buckingham be brought\n    To Salisbury; the rest march on with me.\n    Flourish.                                             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 5.\n\nLORD DERBY'S house\n\nEnter STANLEY and SIR CHRISTOPHER URSWICK\n\n  STANLEY. Sir Christopher, tell Richmond this from me:\n    That in the sty of the most deadly boar\n    My son George Stanley is frank'd up in hold;\n    If I revolt, off goes young George's head;\n    The fear of that holds off my present aid.\n    So, get thee gone; commend me to thy lord.\n    Withal say that the Queen hath heartily consented\n    He should espouse Elizabeth her daughter.\n    But tell me, where is princely Richmond now?\n  CHRISTOPHER. At Pembroke, or at Ha'rford west in Wales.\n  STANLEY. What men of name resort to him?\n  CHRISTOPHER. Sir Walter Herbert, a renowned soldier;\n  SIR Gilbert Talbot, Sir William Stanley,\n  OXFORD, redoubted Pembroke, Sir James Blunt,\n    And Rice ap Thomas, with a valiant crew;\n    And many other of great name and worth;\n    And towards London do they bend their power,\n    If by the way they be not fought withal.\n  STANLEY. Well, hie thee to thy lord; I kiss his hand;\n    My letter will resolve him of my mind.\n    Farewell.                                             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 1.\n\nSalisbury. An open place\n\nEnter the SHERIFF and guard, with BUCKINGHAM, led to execution\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. Will not King Richard let me speak with\n    him?\n  SHERIFF. No, my good lord; therefore be patient.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Hastings, and Edward's children, Grey, and\n    Rivers,\n    Holy King Henry, and thy fair son Edward,\n    Vaughan, and all that have miscarried\n    By underhand corrupted foul injustice,\n    If that your moody discontented souls\n    Do through the clouds behold this present hour,\n    Even for revenge mock my destruction!\n    This is All-Souls' day, fellow, is it not?\n  SHERIFF. It is, my lord.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Why, then All-Souls' day is my body's\n    doomsday.\n    This is the day which in King Edward's time\n    I wish'd might fall on me when I was found\n    False to his children and his wife's allies;\n    This is the day wherein I wish'd to fall\n    By the false faith of him whom most I trusted;\n    This, this All-Souls' day to my fearful soul\n    Is the determin'd respite of my wrongs;\n    That high All-Seer which I dallied with\n    Hath turn'd my feigned prayer on my head\n    And given in earnest what I begg'd in jest.\n    Thus doth He force the swords of wicked men\n    To turn their own points in their masters' bosoms.\n    Thus Margaret's curse falls heavy on my neck.\n    'When he' quoth she 'shall split thy heart with sorrow,\n    Remember Margaret was a prophetess.'\n    Come lead me, officers, to the block of shame;\n    Wrong hath but wrong, and blame the due of blame.\nExeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nCamp near Tamworth\n\nEnter RICHMOND, OXFORD, SIR JAMES BLUNT, SIR WALTER HERBERT, and\nothers,\nwith drum and colours\n\n  RICHMOND. Fellows in arms, and my most loving friends,\n    Bruis'd underneath the yoke of tyranny,\n    Thus far into the bowels of the land\n    Have we march'd on without impediment;\n    And here receive we from our father Stanley\n    Lines of fair comfort and encouragement.\n    The wretched, bloody, and usurping boar,\n    That spoil'd your summer fields and fruitful vines,\n    Swills your warm blood like wash, and makes his trough\n    In your embowell'd bosoms-this foul swine\n    Is now even in the centre of this isle,\n    Near to the town of Leicester, as we learn.\n    From Tamworth thither is but one day's march.\n    In God's name cheerly on, courageous friends,\n    To reap the harvest of perpetual peace\n    By this one bloody trial of sharp war.\n  OXFORD. Every man's conscience is a thousand men,\n    To fight against this guilty homicide.\n  HERBERT. I doubt not but his friends will turn to us.\n  BLUNT. He hath no friends but what are friends for fear,\n    Which in his dearest need will fly from him.\n  RICHMOND. All for our vantage. Then in God's name march.\n    True hope is swift and flies with swallow's wings;\n    Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.      Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nBosworth Field\n\nEnter KING RICHARD in arms, with NORFOLK, RATCLIFF,\nthe EARL of SURREYS and others\n\n  KING RICHARD. Here pitch our tent, even here in Bosworth\n    field.\n    My Lord of Surrey, why look you so sad?\n  SURREY. My heart is ten times lighter than my looks.\n  KING RICHARD. My Lord of Norfolk!\n  NORFOLK. Here, most gracious liege.\n  KING RICHARD. Norfolk, we must have knocks; ha! must we\n    not?\n  NORFOLK. We must both give and take, my loving lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Up With my tent! Here will I lie to-night;\n                      [Soldiers begin to set up the KING'S tent]\n    But where to-morrow? Well, all's one for that.\n    Who hath descried the number of the traitors?\n  NORFOLK. Six or seven thousand is their utmost power.\n  KING RICHARD. Why, our battalia trebles that account;\n    Besides, the King's name is a tower of strength,\n    Which they upon the adverse faction want.\n    Up with the tent! Come, noble gentlemen,\n    Let us survey the vantage of the ground.\n    Call for some men of sound direction.\n    Let's lack no discipline, make no delay;\n    For, lords, to-morrow is a busy day.                  Exeunt\n\n             Enter, on the other side of the field,\n          RICHMOND, SIR WILLIAM BRANDON, OXFORD, DORSET,\n              and others. Some pitch RICHMOND'S tent\n\n  RICHMOND. The weary sun hath made a golden set,\n    And by the bright tract of his fiery car\n    Gives token of a goodly day to-morrow.\n    Sir William Brandon, you shall bear my standard.\n    Give me some ink and paper in my tent.\n    I'll draw the form and model of our battle,\n    Limit each leader to his several charge,\n    And part in just proportion our small power.\n    My Lord of Oxford-you, Sir William Brandon-\n    And you, Sir Walter Herbert-stay with me.\n    The Earl of Pembroke keeps his regiment;\n    Good Captain Blunt, bear my good night to him,\n    And by the second hour in the morning\n    Desire the Earl to see me in my tent.\n    Yet one thing more, good Captain, do for me-\n    Where is Lord Stanley quarter'd, do you know?\n  BLUNT. Unless I have mista'en his colours much-\n    Which well I am assur'd I have not done-\n    His regiment lies half a mile at least\n    South from the mighty power of the King.\n  RICHMOND. If without peril it be possible,\n    Sweet Blunt, make some good means to speak with him\n    And give him from me this most needful note.\n  BLUNT. Upon my life, my lord, I'll undertake it;\n    And so, God give you quiet rest to-night!\n  RICHMOND. Good night, good Captain Blunt. Come,\n    gentlemen,\n    Let us consult upon to-morrow's business.\n    In to my tent; the dew is raw and cold.\n                                   [They withdraw into the tent]\n\n            Enter, to his-tent, KING RICHARD, NORFOLK,\n                       RATCLIFF, and CATESBY\n\n  KING RICHARD. What is't o'clock?\n  CATESBY. It's supper-time, my lord;\n    It's nine o'clock.\n  KING RICHARD. I will not sup to-night.\n    Give me some ink and paper.\n    What, is my beaver easier than it was?\n    And all my armour laid into my tent?\n  CATESBY. It is, my liege; and all things are in readiness.\n  KING RICHARD. Good Norfolk, hie thee to thy charge;\n    Use careful watch, choose trusty sentinels.\n  NORFOLK. I go, my lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Stir with the lark to-morrow, gentle Norfolk.\n  NORFOLK. I warrant you, my lord.                          Exit\n  KING RICHARD. Catesby!\n  CATESBY. My lord?\n  KING RICHARD. Send out a pursuivant-at-arms\n    To Stanley's regiment; bid him bring his power\n    Before sunrising, lest his son George fall\n    Into the blind cave of eternal night.           Exit CATESBY\n    Fill me a bowl of wine. Give me a watch.\n    Saddle white Surrey for the field to-morrow.\n    Look that my staves be sound, and not too heavy.\n    Ratcliff!\n  RATCLIFF. My lord?\n  KING RICHARD. Saw'st thou the melancholy Lord\n    Northumberland?\n  RATCLIFF. Thomas the Earl of Surrey and himself,\n    Much about cock-shut time, from troop to troop\n    Went through the army, cheering up the soldiers.\n  KING RICHARD. So, I am satisfied. Give me a bowl of wine.\n    I have not that alacrity of spirit\n    Nor cheer of mind that I was wont to have.\n    Set it down. Is ink and paper ready?\n  RATCLIFF. It is, my lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Bid my guard watch; leave me.\n  RATCLIFF, about the mid of night come to my tent\n    And help to arm me. Leave me, I say.\n                                   Exit RATCLIFF. RICHARD sleeps\n\n               Enter DERBY to RICHMOND in his tent;\n                        LORDS attending\n\n  DERBY. Fortune and victory sit on thy helm!\n  RICHMOND. All comfort that the dark night can afford\n    Be to thy person, noble father-in-law!\n    Tell me, how fares our loving mother?\n  DERBY. I, by attorney, bless thee from thy mother,\n    Who prays continually for Richmond's good.\n    So much for that. The silent hours steal on,\n    And flaky darkness breaks within the east.\n    In brief, for so the season bids us be,\n    Prepare thy battle early in the morning,\n    And put thy fortune to the arbitrement\n    Of bloody strokes and mortal-staring war.\n    I, as I may-that which I would I cannot-\n    With best advantage will deceive the time\n    And aid thee in this doubtful shock of arms;\n    But on thy side I may not be too forward,\n    Lest, being seen, thy brother, tender George,\n    Be executed in his father's sight.\n    Farewell; the leisure and the fearful time\n    Cuts off the ceremonious vows of love\n    And ample interchange of sweet discourse\n    Which so-long-sund'red friends should dwell upon.\n    God give us leisure for these rites of love!\n    Once more, adieu; be valiant, and speed well!\n  RICHMOND. Good lords, conduct him to his regiment.\n    I'll strive with troubled thoughts to take a nap,\n    Lest leaden slumber peise me down to-morrow\n    When I should mount with wings of victory.\n    Once more, good night, kind lords and gentlemen.\n                                         Exeunt all but RICHMOND\n    O Thou, whose captain I account myself,\n    Look on my forces with a gracious eye;\n    Put in their hands Thy bruising irons of wrath,\n    That they may crush down with a heavy fall\n    The usurping helmets of our adversaries!\n    Make us Thy ministers of chastisement,\n    That we may praise Thee in the victory!\n    To Thee I do commend my watchful soul\n    Ere I let fall the windows of mine eyes.\n    Sleeping and waking, O, defend me still!            [Sleeps]\n\n            Enter the GHOST Of YOUNG PRINCE EDWARD,\n                    son to HENRY THE SIXTH\n\n  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  Let me sit heavy on thy soul\n    to-morrow!\n    Think how thou stabb'dst me in my prime of youth\n    At Tewksbury; despair, therefore, and die!\n    [To RICHMOND]  Be cheerful, Richmond; for the wronged\n    souls\n    Of butcher'd princes fight in thy behalf.\n    King Henry's issue, Richmond, comforts thee.\n\n              Enter the GHOST of HENRY THE SIXTH\n\n  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  When I was mortal, my anointed\n    body\n    By thee was punched full of deadly holes.\n    Think on the Tower and me. Despair, and die.\n    Harry the Sixth bids thee despair and die.\n    [To RICHMOND]  Virtuous and holy, be thou conqueror!\n    Harry, that prophesied thou shouldst be King,\n    Doth comfort thee in thy sleep. Live and flourish!\n\n                   Enter the GHOST of CLARENCE\n\n  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  Let me sit heavy in thy soul\n    to-morrow! I that was wash'd to death with fulsome wine,\n    Poor Clarence, by thy guile betray'd to death!\n    To-morrow in the battle think on me,\n    And fall thy edgeless sword. Despair and die!\n    [To RICHMOND]  Thou offspring of the house of Lancaster,\n    The wronged heirs of York do pray for thee.\n    Good angels guard thy battle! Live and flourish!\n\n           Enter the GHOSTS of RIVERS, GREY, and VAUGHAN\n\n  GHOST OF RIVERS.  [To RICHARD]  Let me sit heavy in thy\n    soul to-morrow,\n    Rivers that died at Pomfret! Despair and die!\n  GHOST OF GREY.  [To RICHARD]  Think upon Grey, and let\n    thy soul despair!\n  GHOST OF VAUGHAN.  [To RICHARD]  Think upon Vaughan,\n    and with guilty fear\n    Let fall thy lance. Despair and die!\n  ALL.  [To RICHMOND]  Awake, and think our wrongs in\n    Richard's bosom\n    Will conquer him. Awake and win the day.\n\n                Enter the GHOST of HASTINGS\n\n  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  Bloody and guilty, guiltily awake,\n    And in a bloody battle end thy days!\n    Think on Lord Hastings. Despair and die.\n    [To RICHMOND]   Quiet untroubled soul, awake, awake!\n    Arm, fight, and conquer, for fair England's sake!\n\n         Enter the GHOSTS of the two young PRINCES\n\n  GHOSTS.  [To RICHARD]  Dream on thy cousins smothered in\n    the Tower.\n    Let us be lead within thy bosom, Richard,\n    And weigh thee down to ruin, shame, and death!\n    Thy nephews' souls bid thee despair and die.\n    [To RICHMOND]  Sleep, Richmond, sleep in peace, and\n    wake in joy;\n    Good angels guard thee from the boar's annoy!\n    Live, and beget a happy race of kings!\n    Edward's unhappy sons do bid thee flourish.\n\n          Enter the GHOST of LADY ANNE, his wife\n\n  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  Richard, thy wife, that wretched\n    Anne thy wife\n    That never slept a quiet hour with thee\n    Now fills thy sleep with perturbations.\n    To-morrow in the battle think on me,\n    And fall thy edgeless sword. Despair and die.\n    [To RICHMOND]  Thou quiet soul, sleep thou a quiet sleep;\n    Dream of success and happy victory.\n    Thy adversary's wife doth pray for thee.\n\n                   Enter the GHOST of BUCKINGHAM\n\n  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  The first was I that help'd thee\n    to the crown;\n    The last was I that felt thy tyranny.\n    O, in the battle think on Buckingham,\n    And die in terror of thy guiltiness!\n    Dream on, dream on of bloody deeds and death;\n    Fainting, despair; despairing, yield thy breath!\n    [To RICHMOND]  I died for hope ere I could lend thee aid;\n    But cheer thy heart and be thou not dismay'd:\n    God and good angels fight on Richmond's side;\n    And Richard falls in height of all his pride.\n            [The GHOSTS vanish. RICHARD starts out of his dream]\n  KING RICHARD. Give me another horse. Bind up my wounds.\n    Have mercy, Jesu! Soft! I did but dream.\n    O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!\n    The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight.\n    Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.\n    What do I fear? Myself? There's none else by.\n    Richard loves Richard; that is, I am I.\n    Is there a murderer here? No-yes, I am.\n    Then fly. What, from myself? Great reason why-\n    Lest I revenge. What, myself upon myself!\n    Alack, I love myself. Wherefore? For any good\n    That I myself have done unto myself?\n    O, no! Alas, I rather hate myself\n    For hateful deeds committed by myself!\n    I am a villain; yet I lie, I am not.\n    Fool, of thyself speak well. Fool, do not flatter.\n    My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,\n    And every tongue brings in a several tale,\n    And every tale condemns me for a villain.\n    Perjury, perjury, in the high'st degree;\n    Murder, stern murder, in the dir'st degree;\n    All several sins, all us'd in each degree,\n    Throng to the bar, crying all 'Guilty! guilty!'\n    I shall despair. There is no creature loves me;\n    And if I die no soul will pity me:\n    And wherefore should they, since that I myself\n    Find in myself no pity to myself?\n    Methought the souls of all that I had murder'd\n    Came to my tent, and every one did threat\n    To-morrow's vengeance on the head of Richard.\n\n                            Enter RATCLIFF\n\n  RATCLIFF. My lord!\n  KING RICHARD. Zounds, who is there?\n  RATCLIFF. Ratcliff, my lord; 'tis I. The early village-cock\n    Hath twice done salutation to the morn;\n    Your friends are up and buckle on their armour.\n  KING RICHARD. O Ratcliff, I have dream'd a fearful dream!\n    What think'st thou-will our friends prove all true?\n  RATCLIFF. No doubt, my lord.\n  KING RICHARD. O Ratcliff, I fear, I fear.\n  RATCLIFF. Nay, good my lord, be not afraid of shadows.\n  KING RICHARD By the apostle Paul, shadows to-night\n    Have stuck more terror to the soul of Richard\n    Than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers\n    Armed in proof and led by shallow Richmond.\n    'Tis not yet near day. Come, go with me;\n    Under our tents I'll play the eaves-dropper,\n    To see if any mean to shrink from me.                 Exeunt\n\n          Enter the LORDS to RICHMOND sitting in his tent\n\n  LORDS. Good morrow, Richmond!\n  RICHMOND. Cry mercy, lords and watchful gentlemen,\n    That you have ta'en a tardy sluggard here.\n  LORDS. How have you slept, my lord?\n  RICHMOND. The sweetest sleep and fairest-boding dreams\n    That ever ent'red in a drowsy head\n    Have I since your departure had, my lords.\n    Methought their souls whose bodies Richard murder'd\n    Came to my tent and cried on victory.\n    I promise you my soul is very jocund\n    In the remembrance of so fair a dream.\n    How far into the morning is it, lords?\n  LORDS. Upon the stroke of four.\n  RICHMOND. Why, then 'tis time to arm and give direction.\n\n                 His ORATION to his SOLDIERS\n\n    More than I have said, loving countrymen,\n    The leisure and enforcement of the time\n    Forbids to dwell upon; yet remember this:\n    God and our good cause fight upon our side;\n    The prayers of holy saints and wronged souls,\n    Like high-rear'd bulwarks, stand before our faces;\n    Richard except, those whom we fight against\n    Had rather have us win than him they follow.\n    For what is he they follow? Truly, gentlemen,\n    A bloody tyrant and a homicide;\n    One rais'd in blood, and one in blood establish'd;\n    One that made means to come by what he hath,\n    And slaughtered those that were the means to help him;\n    A base foul stone, made precious by the foil\n    Of England's chair, where he is falsely set;\n    One that hath ever been God's enemy.\n    Then if you fight against God's enemy,\n    God will in justice ward you as his soldiers;\n    If you do sweat to put a tyrant down,\n    You sleep in peace, the tyrant being slain;\n    If you do fight against your country's foes,\n    Your country's foes shall pay your pains the hire;\n    If you do fight in safeguard of your wives,\n    Your wives shall welcome home the conquerors;\n    If you do free your children from the sword,\n    Your children's children quits it in your age.\n    Then, in the name of God and all these rights,\n    Advance your standards, draw your willing swords.\n    For me, the ransom of my bold attempt\n    Shall be this cold corpse on the earth's cold face;\n    But if I thrive, the gain of my attempt\n    The least of you shall share his part thereof.\n    Sound drums and trumpets boldly and cheerfully;\n    God and Saint George! Richmond and victory!           Exeunt\n\n           Re-enter KING RICHARD, RATCLIFF, attendants,\n                         and forces\n\n  KING RICHARD. What said Northumberland as touching\n    Richmond?\n  RATCLIFF. That he was never trained up in arms.\n  KING RICHARD. He said the truth; and what said Surrey\n    then?\n  RATCLIFF. He smil'd, and said 'The better for our purpose.'\n  KING He was in the right; and so indeed it is.\n                                                 [Clock strikes]\n    Tell the clock there. Give me a calendar.\n    Who saw the sun to-day?\n  RATCLIFF. Not I, my lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Then he disdains to shine; for by the book\n    He should have brav'd the east an hour ago.\n    A black day will it be to somebody.\n    Ratcliff!\n  RATCLIFF. My lord?\n  KING RICHARD. The sun will not be seen to-day;\n    The sky doth frown and lour upon our army.\n    I would these dewy tears were from the ground.\n    Not shine to-day! Why, what is that to me\n    More than to Richmond? For the selfsame heaven\n    That frowns on me looks sadly upon him.\n\n                       Enter NORFOLK\n\n  NORFOLK. Arm, arm, my lord; the foe vaunts in the field.\n  KING RICHARD. Come, bustle, bustle; caparison my horse;\n    Call up Lord Stanley, bid him bring his power.\n    I will lead forth my soldiers to the plain,\n    And thus my battle shall be ordered:\n    My foreward shall be drawn out all in length,\n    Consisting equally of horse and foot;\n    Our archers shall be placed in the midst.\n    John Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Earl of Surrey,\n    Shall have the leading of this foot and horse.\n    They thus directed, we will follow\n    In the main battle, whose puissance on either side\n    Shall be well winged with our chiefest horse.\n    This, and Saint George to boot! What think'st thou,\n    Norfolk?\n  NORFOLK. A good direction, warlike sovereign.\n    This found I on my tent this morning.\n                                        [He sheweth him a paper]\n  KING RICHARD.                                          [Reads]\n    'Jockey of Norfolk, be not so bold,\n    For Dickon thy master is bought and sold.'\n    A thing devised by the enemy.\n    Go, gentlemen, every man unto his charge.\n    Let not our babbling dreams affright our souls;\n    Conscience is but a word that cowards use,\n    Devis'd at first to keep the strong in awe.\n    Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law.\n    March on, join bravely, let us to it pell-mell;\n    If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell.\n\n                      His ORATION to his ARMY\n\n    What shall I say more than I have inferr'd?\n    Remember whom you are to cope withal-\n    A sort of vagabonds, rascals, and runaways,\n    A scum of Britaines, and base lackey peasants,\n    Whom their o'er-cloyed country vomits forth\n    To desperate adventures and assur'd destruction.\n    You sleeping safe, they bring to you unrest;\n    You having lands, and bless'd with beauteous wives,\n    They would restrain the one, distain the other.\n    And who doth lead them but a paltry fellow,\n    Long kept in Britaine at our mother's cost?\n    A milk-sop, one that never in his life\n    Felt so much cold as over shoes in snow?\n    Let's whip these stragglers o'er the seas again;\n    Lash hence these over-weening rags of France,\n    These famish'd beggars, weary of their lives;\n    Who, but for dreaming on this fond exploit,\n    For want of means, poor rats, had hang'd themselves.\n    If we be conquered, let men conquer us,\n    And not these bastard Britaines, whom our fathers\n    Have in their own land beaten, bobb'd, and thump'd,\n    And, in record, left them the heirs of shame.\n    Shall these enjoy our lands? lie with our wives,\n    Ravish our daughters?  [Drum afar off]  Hark! I hear their\n    drum.\n    Fight, gentlemen of England! Fight, bold yeomen!\n    Draw, archers, draw your arrows to the head!\n    Spur your proud horses hard, and ride in blood;\n    Amaze the welkin with your broken staves!\n\n                        Enter a MESSENGER\n\n    What says Lord Stanley? Will he bring his power?\n  MESSENGER. My lord, he doth deny to come.\n  KING RICHARD. Off with his son George's head!\n  NORFOLK. My lord, the enemy is pass'd the marsh.\n    After the battle let George Stanley die.\n  KING RICHARD. A thousand hearts are great within my\n    bosom.\n    Advance our standards, set upon our foes;\n    Our ancient word of courage, fair Saint George,\n    Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons!\n    Upon them! Victory sits on our helms.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\n\nAnother part of the field\n\nAlarum; excursions. Enter NORFOLK and forces; to him CATESBY\n\n  CATESBY. Rescue, my Lord of Norfolk, rescue, rescue!\n    The King enacts more wonders than a man,\n    Daring an opposite to every danger.\n    His horse is slain, and all on foot he fights,\n    Seeking for Richmond in the throat of death.\n    Rescue, fair lord, or else the day is lost.\n\n                     Alarums. Enter KING RICHARD\n\n  KING RICHARD. A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!\n  CATESBY. Withdraw, my lord! I'll help you to a horse.\n  KING RICHARD. Slave, I have set my life upon a cast\n    And I Will stand the hazard of the die.\n    I think there be six Richmonds in the field;\n    Five have I slain to-day instead of him.\n    A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 5.\n\nAnother part of the field\n\nAlarum. Enter RICHARD and RICHMOND; they fight; RICHARD is slain.\nRetreat and flourish. Enter RICHMOND, DERBY bearing the crown,\nwith other LORDS\n\n  RICHMOND. God and your arms be prais'd, victorious friends;\n    The day is ours, the bloody dog is dead.\n  DERBY. Courageous Richmond, well hast thou acquit thee!\n    Lo, here, this long-usurped royalty\n    From the dead temples of this bloody wretch\n    Have I pluck'd off, to grace thy brows withal.\n    Wear it, enjoy it, and make much of it.\n  RICHMOND. Great God of heaven, say Amen to all!\n    But, teLL me is young George Stanley living.\n  DERBY. He is, my lord, and safe in Leicester town,\n    Whither, if it please you, we may now withdraw us.\n  RICHMOND. What men of name are slain on either side?\n  DERBY. John Duke of Norfolk, Walter Lord Ferrers,\n    Sir Robert Brakenbury, and Sir William Brandon.\n  RICHMOND. Inter their bodies as becomes their births.\n    Proclaim a pardon to the soldiers fled\n    That in submission will return to us.\n    And then, as we have ta'en the sacrament,\n    We will unite the white rose and the red.\n    Smile heaven upon this fair conjunction,\n    That long have frown'd upon their emnity!\n    What traitor hears me, and says not Amen?\n    England hath long been mad, and scarr'd herself;\n    The brother blindly shed the brother's blood,\n    The father rashly slaughter'd his own son,\n    The son, compell'd, been butcher to the sire;\n    All this divided York and Lancaster,\n    Divided in their dire division,\n    O, now let Richmond and Elizabeth,\n    The true succeeders of each royal house,\n    By God's fair ordinance conjoin together!\n    And let their heirs, God, if thy will be so,\n    Enrich the time to come with smooth-fac'd peace,\n    With smiling plenty, and fair prosperous days!\n    Abate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord,\n    That would reduce these bloody days again\n    And make poor England weep in streams of blood!\n    Let them not live to taste this land's increase\n    That would with treason wound this fair land's peace!\n    Now civil wounds are stopp'd, peace lives again-\n    That she may long live here, God say Amen!            Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"1104":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1593\n\nTHE COMEDY OF ERRORS\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\nSOLINUS, Duke of Ephesus\nAEGEON, a merchant of Syracuse\n\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS twin brothers and sons to\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Aegion and Aemelia\n\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS twin brothers, and attendants on\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE the two Antipholuses\n\nBALTHAZAR, a merchant\nANGELO, a goldsmith\nFIRST MERCHANT, friend to Antipholus of Syracuse\nSECOND MERCHANT, to whom Angelo is a debtor\nPINCH, a schoolmaster\n\nAEMILIA, wife to AEgeon; an abbess at Ephesus\nADRIANA, wife to Antipholus of Ephesus\nLUCIANA, her sister\nLUCE, servant to Adriana\n\nA COURTEZAN\n\nGaoler, Officers, Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nEphesus\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE COMEDY OF ERRORS\n\nACT I. SCENE 1\n\nA hall in the DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter the DUKE OF EPHESUS, AEGEON, the Merchant\nof Syracuse, GAOLER, OFFICERS, and other ATTENDANTS\n\nAEGEON. Proceed, Solinus, to procure my fall,\n  And by the doom of death end woes and all.\nDUKE. Merchant of Syracuse, plead no more;\n  I am not partial to infringe our laws.\n  The enmity and discord which of late\n  Sprung from the rancorous outrage of your duke\n  To merchants, our well-dealing countrymen,\n  Who, wanting guilders to redeem their lives,\n  Have seal'd his rigorous statutes with their bloods,\n  Excludes all pity from our threat'ning looks.\n  For, since the mortal and intestine jars\n  'Twixt thy seditious countrymen and us,\n  It hath in solemn synods been decreed,\n  Both by the Syracusians and ourselves,\n  To admit no traffic to our adverse towns;\n  Nay, more: if any born at Ephesus\n  Be seen at any Syracusian marts and fairs;\n  Again, if any Syracusian born\n  Come to the bay of Ephesus-he dies,\n  His goods confiscate to the Duke's dispose,\n  Unless a thousand marks be levied,\n  To quit the penalty and to ransom him.\n  Thy substance, valued at the highest rate,\n  Cannot amount unto a hundred marks;\n  Therefore by law thou art condemn'd to die.\nAEGEON. Yet this my comfort: when your words are done,\n  My woes end likewise with the evening sun.\nDUKE. Well, Syracusian, say in brief the cause\n  Why thou departed'st from thy native home,\n  And for what cause thou cam'st to Ephesus.\nAEGEON. A heavier task could not have been impos'd\n  Than I to speak my griefs unspeakable;\n  Yet, that the world may witness that my end\n  Was wrought by nature, not by vile offence,\n  I'll utter what my sorrow gives me leave.\n  In Syracuse was I born, and wed\n  Unto a woman, happy but for me,\n  And by me, had not our hap been bad.\n  With her I liv'd in joy; our wealth increas'd\n  By prosperous voyages I often made\n  To Epidamnum; till my factor's death,\n  And the great care of goods at random left,\n  Drew me from kind embracements of my spouse:\n  From whom my absence was not six months old,\n  Before herself, almost at fainting under\n  The pleasing punishment that women bear,\n  Had made provision for her following me,\n  And soon and safe arrived where I was.\n  There had she not been long but she became\n  A joyful mother of two goodly sons;\n  And, which was strange, the one so like the other\n  As could not be disdnguish'd but by names.\n  That very hour, and in the self-same inn,\n  A mean woman was delivered\n  Of such a burden, male twins, both alike.\n  Those, for their parents were exceeding poor,\n  I bought, and brought up to attend my sons.\n  My wife, not meanly proud of two such boys,\n  Made daily motions for our home return;\n  Unwilling, I agreed. Alas! too soon\n  We came aboard.\n  A league from Epidamnum had we sail'd\n  Before the always-wind-obeying deep\n  Gave any tragic instance of our harm:\n  But longer did we not retain much hope,\n  For what obscured light the heavens did grant\n  Did but convey unto our fearful minds\n  A doubtful warrant of immediate death;\n  Which though myself would gladly have embrac'd,\n  Yet the incessant weepings of my wife,\n  Weeping before for what she saw must come,\n  And piteous plainings of the pretty babes,\n  That mourn'd for fashion, ignorant what to fear,\n  Forc'd me to seek delays for them and me.\n  And this it was, for other means was none:\n  The sailors sought for safety by our boat,\n  And left the ship, then sinking-ripe, to us;\n  My wife, more careful for the latter-born,\n  Had fast'ned him unto a small spare mast,\n  Such as sea-faring men provide for storms;\n  To him one of the other twins was bound,\n  Whilst I had been like heedful of the other.\n  The children thus dispos'd, my wife and I,\n  Fixing our eyes on whom our care was fix'd,\n  Fast'ned ourselves at either end the mast,\n  And, floating straight, obedient to the stream,\n  Was carried towards Corinth, as we thought.\n  At length the sun, gazing upon the earth,\n  Dispers'd those vapours that offended us;\n  And, by the benefit of his wished light,\n  The seas wax'd calm, and we discovered\n  Two ships from far making amain to us-\n  Of Corinth that, of Epidaurus this.\n  But ere they came-O, let me say no more!\n  Gather the sequel by that went before.\nDUKE. Nay, forward, old man, do not break off so;\n  For we may pity, though not pardon thee.\nAEGEON. O, had the gods done so, I had not now\n  Worthily term'd them merciless to us!\n  For, ere the ships could meet by twice five leagues,\n  We were encount'red by a mighty rock,\n  Which being violently borne upon,\n  Our helpful ship was splitted in the midst;\n  So that, in this unjust divorce of us,\n  Fortune had left to both of us alike\n  What to delight in, what to sorrow for.\n  Her part, poor soul, seeming as burdened\n  With lesser weight, but not with lesser woe,\n  Was carried with more speed before the wind;\n  And in our sight they three were taken up\n  By fishermen of Corinth, as we thought.\n  At length another ship had seiz'd on us;\n  And, knowing whom it was their hap to save,\n  Gave healthful welcome to their ship-wreck'd guests,\n  And would have reft the fishers of their prey,\n  Had not their bark been very slow of sail;\n  And therefore homeward did they bend their course.\n  Thus have you heard me sever'd from my bliss,\n  That by misfortunes was my life prolong'd,\n  To tell sad stories of my own mishaps.\nDUKE. And, for the sake of them thou sorrowest for,\n  Do me the favour to dilate at full\n  What have befall'n of them and thee till now.\nAEGEON. My youngest boy, and yet my eldest care,\n  At eighteen years became inquisitive\n  After his brother, and importun'd me\n  That his attendant-so his case was like,\n  Reft of his brother, but retain'd his name-\n  Might bear him company in the quest of him;\n  Whom whilst I laboured of a love to see,\n  I hazarded the loss of whom I lov'd.\n  Five summers have I spent in farthest Greece,\n  Roaming clean through the bounds of Asia,\n  And, coasting homeward, came to Ephesus;\n  Hopeless to find, yet loath to leave unsought\n  Or that or any place that harbours men.\n  But here must end the story of my life;\n  And happy were I in my timely death,\n  Could all my travels warrant me they live.\nDUKE. Hapless, Aegeon, whom the fates have mark'd\n  To bear the extremity of dire mishap!\n  Now, trust me, were it not against our laws,\n  Against my crown, my oath, my dignity,\n  Which princes, would they, may not disannul,\n  My soul should sue as advocate for thee.\n  But though thou art adjudged to the death,\n  And passed sentence may not be recall'd\n  But to our honour's great disparagement,\n  Yet will I favour thee in what I can.\n  Therefore, merchant, I'll limit thee this day\n  To seek thy help by beneficial hap.\n  Try all the friends thou hast in Ephesus;\n  Beg thou, or borrow, to make up the sum,\n  And live; if no, then thou art doom'd to die.\n  Gaoler, take him to thy custody.\nGAOLER. I will, my lord.\nAEGEON. Hopeless and helpless doth Aegeon wend,\n  But to procrastinate his lifeless end.\n<Exeunt\n\n\nSCENE 2\n\nThe mart\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE, DROMIO OF SYRACUSE, and FIRST\nMERCHANT\n\nFIRST MERCHANT. Therefore, give out you are of Epidamnum,\n  Lest that your goods too soon be confiscate.\n  This very day a Syracusian merchant\n  Is apprehended for arrival here;\n  And, not being able to buy out his life,\n  According to the statute of the town,\n  Dies ere the weary sun set in the west.\n  There is your money that I had to keep.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Go bear it to the Centaur, where we host.\n  And stay there, Dromio, till I come to thee.\n  Within this hour it will be dinner-time;\n  Till that, I'll view the manners of the town,\n  Peruse the traders, gaze upon the buildings,\n  And then return and sleep within mine inn;\n  For with long travel I am stiff and weary.\n  Get thee away.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Many a man would take you at your word,\n  And go indeed, having so good a mean.\n<Exit\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. A trusty villain, sir, that very oft,\n  When I am dull with care and melancholy,\n  Lightens my humour with his merry jests.\n  What, will you walk with me about the town,\n  And then go to my inn and dine with me?\nFIRST MERCHANT. I am invited, sir, to certain merchants,\n  Of whom I hope to make much benefit;\n  I crave your pardon. Soon at five o'clock,\n  Please you, I'll meet with you upon the mart,\n  And afterward consort you till bed time.\n  My present business calls me from you now.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Farewell till then. I will go lose\nmyself,\n  And wander up and down to view the city.\nFIRST MERCHANT. Sir, I commend you to your own content.\n<Exit FIRST MERCHANT\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. He that commends me to mine own content\n  Commends me to the thing I cannot get.\n  I to the world am like a drop of water\n  That in the ocean seeks another drop,\n  Who, falling there to find his fellow forth,\n  Unseen, inquisitive, confounds himself.\n  So I, to find a mother and a brother,\n  In quest of them, unhappy, lose myself.\n\nEnter DROMIO OF EPHESUS\n\n  Here comes the almanac of my true date.\n  What now? How chance thou art return'd so soon?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Return'd so soon! rather approach'd too late.\n  The capon burns, the pig falls from the spit;\n  The clock hath strucken twelve upon the bell-\n  My mistress made it one upon my cheek;\n  She is so hot because the meat is cold,\n  The meat is cold because you come not home,\n  You come not home because you have no stomach,\n  You have no stomach, having broke your fast;\n  But we, that know what 'tis to fast and pray,\n  Are penitent for your default to-day.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Stop in your wind, sir; tell me this, I\npray:\n  Where have you left the money that I gave you?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. O-Sixpence that I had a Wednesday last\n  To pay the saddler for my mistress' crupper?\n  The saddler had it, sir; I kept it not.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I am not in a sportive humour now;\n  Tell me, and dally not, where is the money?\n  We being strangers here, how dar'st thou trust\n  So great a charge from thine own custody?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. I pray you jest, sir, as you sit at dinner.\n  I from my mistress come to you in post;\n  If I return, I shall be post indeed,\n  For she will score your fault upon my pate.\n  Methinks your maw, like mine, should be your clock,\n  And strike you home without a messenger.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Come, Dromio, come, these jests are out\nof season;\n  Reserve them till a merrier hour than this.\n  Where is the gold I gave in charge to thee?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. To me, sir? Why, you gave no gold to me.\n  ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Come on, sir knave, have done your\nfoolishness,\n  And tell me how thou hast dispos'd thy charge.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. My charge was but to fetch you from the mart\n  Home to your house, the Phoenix, sir, to dinner.\n  My mistress and her sister stays for you.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Now, as I am a Christian, answer me\n  In what safe place you have bestow'd my money,\n  Or I shall break that merry sconce of yours,\n  That stands on tricks when I am undispos'd.\n  Where is the thousand marks thou hadst of me?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. I have some marks of yours upon my pate,\n  Some of my mistress' marks upon my shoulders,\n  But not a thousand marks between you both.\n  If I should pay your worship those again,\n  Perchance you will not bear them patiently.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thy mistress' marks! What mistress,\nslave, hast thou?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Your worship's wife, my mistress at the\nPhoenix;\n  She that doth fast till you come home to dinner,\n  And prays that you will hie you home to dinner.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What, wilt thou flout me thus unto my\nface,\n  Being forbid? There, take you that, sir knave.\n[Beats him]\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. What mean you, sir? For God's sake hold your\nhands!\n  Nay, an you will not, sir, I'll take my heels.\n<Exit\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Upon my life, by some device or other\n  The villain is o'erraught of all my money.\n  They say this town is full of cozenage;\n  As, nimble jugglers that deceive the eye,\n  Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind,\n  Soul-killing witches that deform the body,\n  Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks,\n  And many such-like liberties of sin;\n  If it prove so, I will be gone the sooner.\n  I'll to the Centaur to go seek this slave.\n  I greatly fear my money is not safe.\n<Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT Il. SCENE 1\n\nThe house of ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS\n\nEnter ADRIANA, wife to ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS, with LUCIANA, her\nsister\n\nADRIANA. Neither my husband nor the slave return'd\n  That in such haste I sent to seek his master!\n  Sure, Luciana, it is two o'clock.\nLUCIANA. Perhaps some merchant hath invited him,\n  And from the mart he's somewhere gone to dinner;\n  Good sister, let us dine, and never fret.\n  A man is master of his liberty;\n  Time is their master, and when they see time,\n  They'll go or come. If so, be patient, sister.\nADRIANA. Why should their liberty than ours be more?\nLUCIANA. Because their business still lies out o' door.\nADRIANA. Look when I serve him so, he takes it ill.\nLUCIANA. O, know he is the bridle of your will.\nADRIANA. There's none but asses will be bridled so.\nLUCIANA. Why, headstrong liberty is lash'd with woe.\n  There's nothing situate under heaven's eye\n  But hath his bound, in earth, in sea, in sky.\n  The beasts, the fishes, and the winged fowls,\n  Are their males' subjects, and at their controls.\n  Man, more divine, the master of all these,\n  Lord of the wide world and wild wat'ry seas,\n  Indu'd with intellectual sense and souls,\n  Of more pre-eminence than fish and fowls,\n  Are masters to their females, and their lords;\n  Then let your will attend on their accords.\nADRIANA. This servitude makes you to keep unwed.\nLUCIANA. Not this, but troubles of the marriage-bed.\nADRIANA. But, were you wedded, you would bear some sway.\nLUCIANA. Ere I learn love, I'll practise to obey.\nADRIANA. How if your husband start some other where?\nLUCIANA. Till he come home again, I would forbear.\nADRIANA. Patience unmov'd! no marvel though she pause:\n  They can be meek that have no other cause.\n  A wretched soul, bruis'd with adversity,\n  We bid be quiet when we hear it cry;\n  But were we burd'ned with like weight of pain,\n  As much, or more, we should ourselves complain.\n  So thou, that hast no unkind mate to grieve thee,\n  With urging helpless patience would relieve me;\n  But if thou live to see like right bereft,\n  This fool-begg'd patience in thee will be left.\nLUCIANA. Well, I will marry one day, but to try.\n  Here comes your man, now is your husband nigh.\n\nEnter DROMIO OF EPHESUS\n\nADRIANA. Say, is your tardy master now at hand?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Nay, he's at two hands with me, and that my\ntwo\n  ears can witness.\nADRIANA. Say, didst thou speak with him? Know'st thou his mind?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Ay, ay, he told his mind upon mine ear.\n  Beshrew his hand, I scarce could understand it.\nLUCIANA. Spake he so doubtfully thou could'st not feel his\nmeaning?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Nay, he struck so plainly I could to\n  well feel his blows; and withal so doubtfully that I could\n  scarce understand them.\nADRIANA. But say, I prithee, is he coming home?\n  It seems he hath great care to please his wife.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Why, mistress, sure my master is horn-mad.\nADRIANA. Horn-mad, thou villain!\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. I mean not cuckold-mad;\n  But, sure, he is stark mad.\n  When I desir'd him to come home to dinner,\n  He ask'd me for a thousand marks in gold.\n  \"Tis dinner time' quoth I; 'My gold!' quoth he.\n  'Your meat doth burn' quoth I; 'My gold!' quoth he.\n  'Will you come home?' quoth I; 'My gold!' quoth he.\n  'Where is the thousand marks I gave thee, villain?'\n  'The pig' quoth I 'is burn'd'; 'My gold!' quoth he.\n  'My mistress, sir,' quoth I; 'Hang up thy mistress;\n  I know not thy mistress; out on thy mistress.'\nLUCIANA. Quoth who?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Quoth my master.\n  'I know' quoth he 'no house, no wife, no mistress.'\n  So that my errand, due unto my tongue,\n  I thank him, I bare home upon my shoulders;\n  For, in conclusion, he did beat me there.\nADRIANA. Go back again, thou slave, and fetch him home.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Go back again, and be new beaten home?\n  For God's sake, send some other messenger.\nADRIANA. Back, slave, or I will break thy pate across.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. And he will bless that cross with other\nbeating;\n  Between you I shall have a holy head.\nADRIANA. Hence, prating peasant! Fetch thy master home.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Am I so round with you, as you with me,\n  That like a football you do spurn me thus?\n  You spurn me hence, and he will spurn me hither;\n  If I last in this service, you must case me in leather.\n<Exit\nLUCIANA. Fie, how impatience loureth in your face!\nADRIANA. His company must do his minions grace,\n  Whilst I at home starve for a merry look.\n  Hath homely age th' alluring beauty took\n  From my poor cheek? Then he hath wasted it.\n  Are my discourses dull? Barren my wit?\n  If voluble and sharp discourse be marr'd,\n  Unkindness blunts it more than marble hard.\n  Do their gay vestments his affections bait?\n  That's not my fault; he's master of my state.\n  What ruins are in me that can be found\n  By him not ruin'd? Then is he the ground\n  Of my defeatures. My decayed fair\n  A sunny look of his would soon repair.\n  But, too unruly deer, he breaks the pale,\n  And feeds from home; poor I am but his stale.\nLUCIANA. Self-harming jealousy! fie, beat it hence.\nADRIANA. Unfeeling fools can with such wrongs dispense.\n  I know his eye doth homage otherwhere;\n  Or else what lets it but he would be here?\n  Sister, you know he promis'd me a chain;\n  Would that alone a love he would detain,\n  So he would keep fair quarter with his bed!\n  I see the jewel best enamelled\n  Will lose his beauty; yet the gold bides still\n  That others touch and, often touching, will\n  Where gold; and no man that hath a name\n  By falsehood and corruption doth it shame.\n  Since that my beauty cannot please his eye,\n  I'll weep what's left away, and weeping die.\nLUCIANA. How many fond fools serve mad jealousy!\n<Exeunt\n\n\nSCENE 2\n\nThe mart\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE\n\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. The gold I gave to Dromio is laid up\n  Safe at the Centaur, and the heedful slave\n  Is wand'red forth in care to seek me out.\n  By computation and mine host's report\n  I could not speak with Dromio since at first\n  I sent him from the mart. See, here he comes.\n\nEnter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE\n\n  How now, sir, is your merry humour alter'd?\n  As you love strokes, so jest with me again.\n  You know no Centaur! You receiv'd no gold!\n  Your mistress sent to have me home to dinner!\n  My house was at the Phoenix! Wast thou mad,\n  That thus so madly thou didst answer me?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. What answer, sir? When spake I such a word?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Even now, even here, not half an hour\nsince.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I did not see you since you sent me hence,\n  Home to the Centaur, with the gold you gave me.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Villain, thou didst deny the gold's\nreceipt,\n  And told'st me of a mistress and a dinner;\n  For which, I hope, thou felt'st I was displeas'd.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I am glad to see you in this merry vein.\n  What means this jest? I pray you, master, tell me.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Yea, dost thou jeer and flout me in the\nteeth?\n  Think'st thou I jest? Hold, take thou that, and that.\n[Beating him]\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Hold, sir, for God's sake! Now your jest is\nearnest.\n  Upon what bargain do you give it me?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Because that I familiarly sometimes\n  Do use you for my fool and chat with you,\n  Your sauciness will jest upon my love,\n  And make a common of my serious hours.\n  When the sun shines let foolish gnats make sport,\n  But creep in crannies when he hides his beams.\n  If you will jest with me, know my aspect,\n  And fashion your demeanour to my looks,\n  Or I will beat this method in your sconce.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Sconce, call you it? So you would\n  leave battering, I had rather have it a head. An you use\n  these blows long, I must get a sconce for my head, and\n  insconce it too; or else I shall seek my wit in my shoulders.\n  But I pray, sir, why am I beaten?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Dost thou not know?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Nothing, sir, but that I am beaten.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Shall I tell you why?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Ay, sir, and wherefore; for they say\n  every why hath a wherefore.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why, first for flouting me; and then\nwherefore,\n  For urging it the second time to me.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Was there ever any man thus beaten out of\nseason,\n  When in the why and the wherefore is neither rhyme nor reason?\n  Well, sir, I thank you.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thank me, sir! for what?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, for this something that you gave\n  me for nothing.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I'll make you amends next, to\n  give you nothing for something. But say, sir, is it dinnertime?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No, sir; I think the meat wants that I have.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. In good time, sir, what's that?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Basting.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Well, sir, then 'twill be dry.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. If it be, sir, I pray you eat none of it.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Your reason?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Lest it make you choleric, and purchase me\n  another dry basting.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Well, sir, learn to jest in good time;\n  there's a time for all things.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I durst have denied that, before you\n  were so choleric.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. By what rule, sir?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, by a rule as plain as the\n  plain bald pate of Father Time himself.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Let's hear it.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. There's no time for a man to recover\n  his hair that grows bald by nature.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. May he not do it by fine and recovery?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Yes, to pay a fine for a periwig, and\n  recover the lost hair of another man.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why is Time such a niggard of\n  hair, being, as it is, so plentiful an excrement?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Because it is a blessing that he bestows\n  on beasts, and what he hath scanted men in hair he hath\n  given them in wit.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why, but there's many a man\n  hath more hair than wit.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Not a man of those but he hath the\n  wit to lose his hair.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why, thou didst conclude hairy\n  men plain dealers without wit.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. The plainer dealer, the sooner lost;\n  yet he loseth it in a kind of jollity.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. For what reason?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. For two; and sound ones too.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Nay, not sound I pray you.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Sure ones, then.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Nay, not sure, in a thing falsing.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Certain ones, then.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Name them.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. The one, to save the money that he spends in\n  tiring; the other, that at dinner they should not drop in his\n  porridge.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. You would all this time have prov'd there\n  is no time for all things.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, and did, sir; namely, no time to\nrecover\n  hair lost by nature.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. But your reason was not substantial, why\n  there is no time to recover.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Thus I mend it: Time himself is bald,\n  and therefore to the world's end will have bald followers.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I knew 't'would be a bald conclusion.\nBut,\n  soft, who wafts us yonder?\n\nEnter ADRIANA and LUCIANA\n\nADRIANA. Ay, ay, Antipholus, look strange and frown.\n  Some other mistress hath thy sweet aspects;\n  I am not Adriana, nor thy wife.\n  The time was once when thou unurg'd wouldst vow\n  That never words were music to thine ear,\n  That never object pleasing in thine eye,\n  That never touch well welcome to thy hand,\n  That never meat sweet-savour'd in thy taste,\n  Unless I spake, or look'd, or touch'd, or carv'd to thee.\n  How comes it now, my husband, O, how comes it,\n  That thou art then estranged from thyself?\n  Thyself I call it, being strange to me,\n  That, undividable, incorporate,\n  Am better than thy dear self's better part.\n  Ah, do not tear away thyself from me;\n  For know, my love, as easy mayst thou fall\n  A drop of water in the breaking gulf,\n  And take unmingled thence that drop again\n  Without addition or diminishing,\n  As take from me thyself, and not me too.\n  How dearly would it touch thee to the quick,\n  Should'st thou but hear I were licentious,\n  And that this body, consecrate to thee,\n  By ruffian lust should be contaminate!\n  Wouldst thou not spit at me and spurn at me,\n  And hurl the name of husband in my face,\n  And tear the stain'd skin off my harlot-brow,\n  And from my false hand cut the wedding-ring,\n  And break it with a deep-divorcing vow?\n  I know thou canst, and therefore see thou do it.\n  I am possess'd with an adulterate blot;\n  My blood is mingled with the crime of lust;\n  For if we two be one, and thou play false,\n  I do digest the poison of thy flesh,\n  Being strumpeted by thy contagion.\n  Keep then fair league and truce with thy true bed;\n  I live dis-stain'd, thou undishonoured.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Plead you to me, fair dame? I know you\nnot:\n  In Ephesus I am but two hours old,\n  As strange unto your town as to your talk,\n  Who, every word by all my wit being scann'd,\n  Wants wit in all one word to understand.\nLUCIANA. Fie, brother, how the world is chang'd with you!\n  When were you wont to use my sister thus?\n  She sent for you by Dromio home to dinner.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. By Dromio?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. By me?\nADRIANA. By thee; and this thou didst return from him-\n  That he did buffet thee, and in his blows\n  Denied my house for his, me for his wife.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Did you converse, sir, with this\ngentlewoman?\n  What is the course and drift of your compact?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I, Sir? I never saw her till this time.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Villain, thou liest; for even her very\nwords\n  Didst thou deliver to me on the mart.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I never spake with her in all my life.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. How can she thus, then, call us by our\nnames,\n  Unless it be by inspiration?\nADRIANA. How ill agrees it with your gravity\n  To counterfeit thus grossly with your slave,\n  Abetting him to thwart me in my mood!\n  Be it my wrong you are from me exempt,\n  But wrong not that wrong with a more contempt.\n  Come, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine;\n  Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine,\n  Whose weakness, married to thy stronger state,\n  Makes me with thy strength to communicate.\n  If aught possess thee from me, it is dross,\n  Usurping ivy, brier, or idle moss;\n  Who all, for want of pruning, with intrusion\n  Infect thy sap, and live on thy confusion.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. To me she speaks; she moves me for her\ntheme.\n  What, was I married to her in my dream?\n  Or sleep I now, and think I hear all this?\n  What error drives our eyes and ears amiss?\n  Until I know this sure uncertainty,\n  I'll entertain the offer'd fallacy.\nLUCIANA. Dromio, go bid the servants spread for dinner.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. O, for my beads! I cross me for sinner.\n  This is the fairy land. O spite of spites!\n  We talk with goblins, owls, and sprites.\n  If we obey them not, this will ensue:\n  They'll suck our breath, or pinch us black and blue.\nLUCIANA. Why prat'st thou to thyself, and answer'st not?\n  Dromio, thou drone, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot!\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I am transformed, master, am not I?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I think thou art in mind, and so am I.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Nay, master, both in mind and in my shape.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thou hast thine own form.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No, I am an ape.\nLUCIANA. If thou art chang'd to aught, 'tis to an ass.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. 'Tis true; she rides me, and I long for\ngrass.\n  'Tis so, I am an ass; else it could never be\n  But I should know her as well as she knows me.\nADRIANA. Come, come, no longer will I be a fool,\n  To put the finger in the eye and weep,\n  Whilst man and master laughs my woes to scorn.\n  Come, sir, to dinner. Dromio, keep the gate.\n  Husband, I'll dine above with you to-day,\n  And shrive you of a thousand idle pranks.\n  Sirrah, if any ask you for your master,\n  Say he dines forth, and let no creature enter.\n  Come, sister. Dromio, play the porter well.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell?\n  Sleeping or waking, mad or well-advis'd?\n  Known unto these, and to myself disguis'd!\n  I'll say as they say, and persever so,\n  And in this mist at all adventures go.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, shall I be porter at the gate?\nADRIANA. Ay; and let none enter, lest I break your pate.\nLUCIANA. Come, come, Antipholus, we dine too late.\n<Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 1\n\nBefore the house of ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS, DROMIO OF EPHESUS, ANGELO, and\nBALTHAZAR\n\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Good Signior Angelo, you must excuse us\nall;\n  My wife is shrewish when I keep not hours.\n  Say that I linger'd with you at your shop\n  To see the making of her carcanet,\n  And that to-morrow you will bring it home.\n  But here's a villain that would face me down\n  He met me on the mart, and that I beat him,\n  And charg'd him with a thousand marks in gold,\n  And that I did deny my wife and house.\n  Thou drunkard, thou, what didst thou mean by this?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Say what you will, sir, but I know what I\nknow.\n  That you beat me at the mart I have your hand to show;\n  If the skin were parchment, and the blows you gave were ink,\n  Your own handwriting would tell you what I think.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I think thou art an ass.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Marry, so it doth appear\n  By the wrongs I suffer and the blows I bear.\n  I should kick, being kick'd; and being at that pass,\n  You would keep from my heels, and beware of an ass.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Y'are sad, Signior Balthazar; pray God our\ncheer\n  May answer my good will and your good welcome here.\nBALTHAZAR. I hold your dainties cheap, sir, and your welcome\ndear.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. O, Signior Balthazar, either at flesh or\nfish,\n  A table full of welcome makes scarce one dainty dish.\nBALTHAZAR. Good meat, sir, is common; that every churl affords.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. And welcome more common; for that's\nnothing\n  but words.\nBALTHAZAR. Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Ay, to a niggardly host and more sparing\nguest.\n  But though my cates be mean, take them in good part;\n  Better cheer may you have, but not with better heart.\n  But, soft, my door is lock'd; go bid them let us in.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Maud, Bridget, Marian, Cicely, Gillian, Ginn!\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. [Within] Mome, malt-horse, capon, coxcomb,\nidiot, patch!\n  Either get thee from the door, or sit down at the hatch.\n  Dost thou conjure for wenches, that thou call'st for such\nstore,\n  When one is one too many? Go get thee from the door.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. What patch is made our porter?\n  My master stays in the street.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  Let him walk from whence he came,\n    lest he catch cold on's feet.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Who talks within there? Ho, open the door!\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  Right, sir; I'll tell you when,\n    an you'll tell me wherefore.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Wherefore? For my dinner;\n    I have not din'd to-day.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  Nor to-day here you must not;\n    come again when you may.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. What art thou that keep'st me out\n    from the house I owe?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  The porter for this time,\n    sir, and my name is Dromio.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. O Villain, thou hast stol'n both mine\n    office and my name!\n  The one ne'er got me credit, the other mickle blame.\n  If thou hadst been Dromio to-day in my place,\n  Thou wouldst have chang'd thy face for a name, or thy name for\nan ass.\n\nEnter LUCE, within\n\nLUCE.  [Within]  What a coil is there, Dromio? Who are those at\nthe gate?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Let my master in, Luce.\nLUCE.  [Within]  Faith, no, he comes too late;\n  And so tell your master.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. O Lord, I must laugh!\n  Have at you with a proverb: Shall I set in my staff?\nLUCE.  [Within]  Have at you with another: that's-when? can you\ntell?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  If thy name be called Luce\n    -Luce, thou hast answer'd him well.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Do you hear, you minion? You'll let us in,\nI hope?\nLUCE.  [Within]  I thought to have ask'd you.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  And you said no.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. SO, Come, help: well struck! there was blow\nfor blow.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Thou baggage, let me in.\nLUCE.  [Within]  Can you tell for whose sake?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Master, knock the door hard.\nLUCE.  [Within]  Let him knock till it ache.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. You'll cry for this, minion, if beat the\ndoor down.\nLUCE.  [Within] What needs all that, and a pair of stocks in the\ntown?\n\nEnter ADRIANA, within\n\nADRIANA.  [Within]  Who is that at the door, that keeps all this\nnoise?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  By my troth, your town is\n    troubled with unruly boys.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Are you there, wife? You might\n    have come before.\nADRIANA.  [Within]  Your wife, sir knave! Go get you from the\ndoor.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. If YOU went in pain, master, this 'knave'\nwould go sore.\nANGELO. Here is neither cheer, sir, nor welcome; we would fain\nhave either.\nBALTHAZAR. In debating which was best, we shall part with\nneither.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. They stand at the door, master; bid them\nwelcome hither.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. There is something in the wind, that we\ncannot get in.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. You would say so, master, if your garments\nwere thin.\n  Your cake here is warm within; you stand here in the cold;\n  It would make a man mad as a buck to be so bought and sold.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Go fetch me something; I'll break ope the\ngate.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  Break any breaking here,\n    and I'll break your knave's pate.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. A man may break a word with you,\n    sir; and words are but wind;\n  Ay, and break it in your face, so he break it not behind.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  It seems thou want'st breaking;\n    out upon thee, hind!\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Here's too much 'out upon thee!' pray thee let\nme in.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  Ay, when fowls have no\n    feathers and fish have no fin.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Well, I'll break in; go borrow me a crow.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. A crow without feather? Master, mean you so?\n  For a fish without a fin, there's a fowl without a feather;\n  If a crow help us in, sirrah, we'll pluck a crow together.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Go get thee gone; fetch me an iron crow.\nBALTHAZAR. Have patience, sir; O, let it not be so!\n  Herein you war against your reputation,\n  And draw within the compass of suspect\n  Th' unviolated honour of your wife.\n  Once this-your long experience of her wisdom,\n  Her sober virtue, years, and modesty,\n  Plead on her part some cause to you unknown;\n  And doubt not, sir, but she will well excuse\n  Why at this time the doors are made against you.\n  Be rul'd by me: depart in patience,\n  And let us to the Tiger all to dinner;\n  And, about evening, come yourself alone\n  To know the reason of this strange restraint.\n  If by strong hand you offer to break in\n  Now in the stirring passage of the day,\n  A vulgar comment will be made of it,\n  And that supposed by the common rout\n  Against your yet ungalled estimation\n  That may with foul intrusion enter in\n  And dwell upon your grave when you are dead;\n  For slander lives upon succession,\n  For ever hous'd where it gets possession.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. You have prevail'd. I will depart in\nquiet,\n  And in despite of mirth mean to be merry.\n  I know a wench of excellent discourse,\n  Pretty and witty; wild, and yet, too, gentle;\n  There will we dine. This woman that I mean,\n  My wife-but, I protest, without desert-\n  Hath oftentimes upbraided me withal;\n  To her will we to dinner.  [To ANGELO]  Get you home\n  And fetch the chain; by this I know 'tis made.\n  Bring it, I pray you, to the Porpentine;\n  For there's the house. That chain will I bestow-\n  Be it for nothing but to spite my wife-\n  Upon mine hostess there; good sir, make haste.\n  Since mine own doors refuse to entertain me,\n  I'll knock elsewhere, to see if they'll disdain me.\nANGELO. I'll meet you at that place some hour hence.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Do so; this jest shall cost me some\nexpense.\n<Exeunt\n\n\nSCENE 2\n\nBefore the house of ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS\n\nEnter LUCIANA with ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE\n\nLUCIANA. And may it be that you have quite forgot\n  A husband's office? Shall, Antipholus,\n  Even in the spring of love, thy love-springs rot?\n  Shall love, in building, grow so ruinous?\n  If you did wed my sister for her wealth,\n  Then for her wealth's sake use her with more kindness;\n  Or, if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth;\n  Muffle your false love with some show of blindness;\n  Let not my sister read it in your eye;\n  Be not thy tongue thy own shame's orator;\n  Look sweet, speak fair, become disloyalty;\n  Apparel vice like virtue's harbinger;\n  Bear a fair presence, though your heart be tainted;\n  Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint;\n  Be secret-false. What need she be acquainted?\n  What simple thief brags of his own attaint?\n  'Tis double wrong to truant with your bed\n  And let her read it in thy looks at board;\n  Shame hath a bastard fame, well managed;\n  Ill deeds is doubled with an evil word.\n  Alas, poor women! make us but believe,\n  Being compact of credit, that you love us;\n  Though others have the arm, show us the sleeve;\n  We in your motion turn, and you may move us.\n  Then, gentle brother, get you in again;\n  Comfort my sister, cheer her, call her wife.\n  'Tis holy sport to be a little vain\n  When the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Sweet mistress-what your name is else, I\nknow not,\n  Nor by what wonder you do hit of mine-\n  Less in your knowledge and your grace you show not\n  Than our earth's wonder-more than earth, divine.\n  Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak;\n  Lay open to my earthy-gross conceit,\n  Smoth'red in errors, feeble, shallow, weak,\n  The folded meaning of your words' deceit.\n  Against my soul's pure truth why labour you\n  To make it wander in an unknown field?\n  Are you a god? Would you create me new?\n  Transform me, then, and to your pow'r I'll yield.\n  But if that I am I, then well I know\n  Your weeping sister is no wife of mine,\n  Nor to her bed no homage do I owe;\n  Far more, far more, to you do I decline.\n  O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note,\n  To drown me in thy sister's flood of tears.\n  Sing, siren, for thyself, and I will dote;\n  Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs,\n  And as a bed I'll take them, and there he;\n  And in that glorious supposition think\n  He gains by death that hath such means to die.\n  Let Love, being light, be drowned if she sink.\nLUCIANA. What, are you mad, that you do reason so?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Not mad, but mated; how, I do not know.\nLUCIANA. It is a fault that springeth from your eye.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. For gazing on your beams, fair sun, being\nby.\nLUCIANA. Gaze where you should, and that will clear your sight.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. As good to wink, sweet love, as look on\nnight.\nLUCIANA. Why call you me love? Call my sister so.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thy sister's sister.\nLUCIANA. That's my sister.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. No;\n  It is thyself, mine own self's better part;\n  Mine eye's clear eye, my dear heart's dearer heart,\n  My food, my fortune, and my sweet hope's aim,\n  My sole earth's heaven, and my heaven's claim.\nLUCIANA. All this my sister is, or else should be.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Call thyself sister, sweet, for I am\nthee;\n  Thee will I love, and with thee lead my life;\n  Thou hast no husband yet, nor I no wife.\n  Give me thy hand.\nLUCIANA. O, soft, sir, hold you still;\n  I'll fetch my sister to get her good will.\n<Exit LUCIANA\n\nEnter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.\n\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why, how now, Dromio! Where run'st thou\n  so fast?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Do you know me, sir? Am I Dromio?\n  Am I your man? Am I myself?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thou art Dromio, thou art my\n  man, thou art thyself.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I am an ass, I am a woman's man, and besides\n  myself.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What woman's man, and how besides\nthyself?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, besides myself, I am due\n  to a woman-one that claims me, one that haunts me, one\n  that will have me.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What claim lays she to thee?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, such claim as you would\n  lay to your horse; and she would have me as a beast: not\n  that, I being a beast, she would have me; but that she,\n  being a very beastly creature, lays claim to me.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What is she?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. A very reverent body; ay, such a one\n  as a man may not speak of without he say 'Sir-reverence.'\n  I have but lean luck in the match, and yet is she a\n  wondrous fat marriage.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. How dost thou mean a fat marriage?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, she's the kitchen-wench,\n  and all grease; and I know not what use to put her to but\n  to make a lamp of her and run from her by her own light.\n  I warrant, her rags and the tallow in them will burn\n  Poland winter. If she lives till doomsday, she'll burn\n  week longer than the whole world.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What complexion is she of?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Swart, like my shoe; but her face\n  nothing like so clean kept; for why, she sweats, a man may\n  go over shoes in the grime of it.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. That's a fault that water will mend.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No, sir, 'tis in grain; Noah's flood\n  could not do it.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What's her name?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Nell, sir; but her name and three\n  quarters, that's an ell and three quarters, will not measure\n  her from hip to hip.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Then she bears some breadth?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No longer from head to foot than\n  from hip to hip: she is spherical, like a globe; I could find\n  out countries in her.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. In what part of her body stands Ireland?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, in her buttocks; I found it out\nby\n  the bogs.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where Scotland?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I found it by the barrenness, hard in\n  the palm of the hand.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where France?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. In her forehead, arm'd and reverted,\n  making war against her heir.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where England?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I look'd for the chalky cliffs, but I\n  could find no whiteness in them; but I guess it stood in her\n  chin, by the salt rheum that ran between France and it.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where Spain?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Faith, I saw it not, but I felt it hot in\n  her breath.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where America, the Indies?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. O, sir, upon her nose, an o'er embellished\nwith\n  rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich aspect to\nthe\n  hot breath of Spain; who sent whole armadoes of caracks to be\n  ballast at her nose.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. O, Sir, I did not look so low. To\n  conclude: this drudge or diviner laid claim to me; call'd me\n  Dromio; swore I was assur'd to her; told me what privy\n  marks I had about me, as, the mark of my shoulder, the\n  mole in my neck, the great wart on my left arm, that I,\n  amaz'd, ran from her as a witch.\n  And, I think, if my breast had not been made of faith,\n    and my heart of steel,\n  She had transform'd me to a curtal dog, and made me turn i' th'\nwheel.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Go hie thee presently post to the road;\n  An if the wind blow any way from shore,\n  I will not harbour in this town to-night.\n  If any bark put forth, come to the mart,\n  Where I will walk till thou return to me.\n  If every one knows us, and we know none,\n  'Tis time, I think, to trudge, pack and be gone.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. As from a bear a man would run for life,\n  So fly I from her that would be my wife.\n<Exit\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. There's none but witches do inhabit here,\n  And therefore 'tis high time that I were hence.\n  She that doth call me husband, even my soul\n  Doth for a wife abhor. But her fair sister,\n  Possess'd with such a gentle sovereign grace,\n  Of such enchanting presence and discourse,\n  Hath almost made me traitor to myself;\n  But, lest myself be guilty to self-wrong,\n  I'll stop mine ears against the mermaid's song.\n\nEnter ANGELO with the chain\n\nANGELO. Master Antipholus!\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Ay, that's my name.\nANGELO. I know it well, sir. Lo, here is the chain.\n  I thought to have ta'en you at the Porpentine;\n  The chain unfinish'd made me stay thus long.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What is your will that I shall do with\nthis?\nANGELO. What please yourself, sir; I have made it for you.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Made it for me, sir! I bespoke it not.\nANGELO. Not once nor twice, but twenty times you have.\n  Go home with it, and please your wife withal;\n  And soon at supper-time I'll visit you,\n  And then receive my money for the chain.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I pray you, sir, receive the money now,\n  For fear you ne'er see chain nor money more.\nANGELO. You are a merry man, sir; fare you well.\n<Exit\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What I should think of this cannot tell:\n  But this I think, there's no man is so vain\n  That would refuse so fair an offer'd chain.\n  I see a man here needs not live by shifts,\n  When in the streets he meets such golden gifts.\n  I'll to the mart, and there for Dromio stay;\n  If any ship put out, then straight away.\n<Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 1\n\nA public place\n\nEnter SECOND MERCHANT, ANGELO, and an OFFICER\n\nSECOND MERCHANT. You know since Pentecost the sum is due,\n  And since I have not much importun'd you;\n  Nor now I had not, but that I am bound\n  To Persia, and want guilders for my voyage.\n  Therefore make present satisfaction,\n  Or I'll attach you by this officer.\nANGELO. Even just the sum that I do owe to you\n  Is growing to me by Antipholus;\n  And in the instant that I met with you\n  He had of me a chain; at five o'clock\n  I shall receive the money for the same.\n  Pleaseth you walk with me down to his house,\n  I will discharge my bond, and thank you too.\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS, and DROMIO OF EPHESUS, from the\nCOURTEZAN'S\n\nOFFICER. That labour may you save; see where he comes.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. While I go to the goldsmith's house, go\nthou\n  And buy a rope's end; that will I bestow\n  Among my wife and her confederates,\n  For locking me out of my doors by day.\n  But, soft, I see the goldsmith. Get thee gone;\n  Buy thou a rope, and bring it home to me.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. I buy a thousand pound a year; I buy a rope.\n<Exit DROMIO\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. A man is well holp up that trusts to you!\n  I promised your presence and the chain;\n  But neither chain nor goldsmith came to me.\n  Belike you thought our love would last too long,\n  If it were chain'd together, and therefore came not.\nANGELO. Saving your merry humour, here's the note\n  How much your chain weighs to the utmost carat,\n  The fineness of the gold, and chargeful fashion,\n  Which doth amount to three odd ducats more\n  Than I stand debted to this gentleman.\n  I pray you see him presently discharg'd,\n  For he is bound to sea, and stays but for it.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I am not furnish'd with the present money;\n  Besides, I have some business in the town.\n  Good signior, take the stranger to my house,\n  And with you take the chain, and bid my wife\n  Disburse the sum on the receipt thereof.\n  Perchance I will be there as soon as you.\nANGELO. Then you will bring the chain to her yourself?\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. No; bear it with you, lest I come not time\nenough.\nANGELO. Well, sir, I will. Have you the chain about you?\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. An if I have not, sir, I hope you have;\n  Or else you may return without your money.\nANGELO. Nay, come, I pray you, sir, give me the chain;\n  Both wind and tide stays for this gentleman,\n  And I, to blame, have held him here too long.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Good Lord! you use this dalliance to\nexcuse\n  Your breach of promise to the Porpentine;\n  I should have chid you for not bringing it,\n  But, like a shrew, you first begin to brawl.\nSECOND MERCHANT. The hour steals on; I pray you, sir, dispatch.\nANGELO. You hear how he importunes me-the chain!\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Why, give it to my wife, and fetch your\nmoney.\nANGELO. Come, come, you know I gave it you even now.\n  Either send the chain or send by me some token.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Fie, now you run this humour out of\nbreath!\n  Come, where's the chain? I pray you let me see it.\nSECOND MERCHANT. My business cannot brook this dalliance.\n  Good sir, say whe'r you'll answer me or no;\n  If not, I'll leave him to the officer.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I answer you! What should I answer you?\nANGELO. The money that you owe me for the chain.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I owe you none till I receive the chain.\nANGELO. You know I gave it you half an hour since.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. You gave me none; you wrong me much to say\nso.\nANGELO. You wrong me more, sir, in denying it.\n  Consider how it stands upon my credit.\nSECOND MERCHANT. Well, officer, arrest him at my suit.\nOFFICER. I do; and charge you in the Duke's name to obey me.\nANGELO. This touches me in reputation.\n  Either consent to pay this sum for me,\n  Or I attach you by this officer.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Consent to pay thee that I never had!\n  Arrest me, foolish fellow, if thou dar'st.\nANGELO. Here is thy fee; arrest him, officer.\n  I would not spare my brother in this case,\n  If he should scorn me so apparently.\nOFFICER. I do arrest you, sir; you hear the suit.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I do obey thee till I give thee bail.\n  But, sirrah, you shall buy this sport as dear\n  As all the metal in your shop will answer.\nANGELO. Sir, sir, I shall have law in Ephesus,\n  To your notorious shame, I doubt it not.\n\nEnter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE, from the bay\n\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, there's a bark of Epidamnum\n  That stays but till her owner comes aboard,\n  And then, sir, she bears away. Our fraughtage, sir,\n  I have convey'd aboard; and I have bought\n  The oil, the balsamum, and aqua-vitx.\n  The ship is in her trim; the merry wind\n  Blows fair from land; they stay for nought at an\n  But for their owner, master, and yourself.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. How now! a madman? Why, thou peevish\nsheep,\n  What ship of Epidamnum stays for me?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. A ship you sent me to, to hire waftage.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. THOU drunken slave! I sent the for a rope;\n  And told thee to what purpose and what end.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. YOU sent me for a rope's end as soon-\n  You sent me to the bay, sir, for a bark.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I Will debate this matter at more leisure,\n  And teach your ears to list me with more heed.\n  To Adriana, villain, hie thee straight;\n  Give her this key, and tell her in the desk\n  That's cover'd o'er with Turkish tapestry\n  There is a purse of ducats; let her send it.\n  Tell her I am arrested in the street,\n  And that shall bail me; hie thee, slave, be gone.\n  On, officer, to prison till it come.\n<Exeunt all but DROMIO\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. To Adriana! that is where we din'd,\n  Where Dowsabel did claim me for her husband.\n  She is too big, I hope, for me to compass.\n  Thither I must, although against my will,\n  For servants must their masters' minds fulfil.\n<Exit\n\n\nSCENE 2\n\nThe house of ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS\n\nEnter ADRIANA and LUCIANA\n\nADRIANA. Ah, Luciana, did he tempt thee so?\n  Might'st thou perceive austerely in his eye\n  That he did plead in earnest? Yea or no?\n  Look'd he or red or pale, or sad or merrily?\n  What observation mad'st thou in this case\n  Of his heart's meteors tilting in his face?\nLUCIANA. First he denied you had in him no right.\nADRIANA. He meant he did me none-the more my spite.\nLUCIANA. Then swore he that he was a stranger here.\nADRIANA. And true he swore, though yet forsworn he were.\nLUCIANA. Then pleaded I for you.\nADRIANA. And what said he?\nLUCIANA. That love I begg'd for you he begg'd of me.\nADRIANA. With what persuasion did he tempt thy love?\nLUCIANA. With words that in an honest suit might move.\n  First he did praise my beauty, then my speech.\nADRIANA. Didst speak him fair?\nLUCIANA. Have patience, I beseech.\nADRIANA. I cannot, nor I will not hold me still;\n  My tongue, though not my heart, shall have his will.\n  He is deformed, crooked, old, and sere,\n  Ill-fac'd, worse bodied, shapeless everywhere;\n  Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind;\n  Stigmatical in making, worse in mind.\nLUCIANA. Who would be jealous then of such a one?\n  No evil lost is wail'd when it is gone.\nADRIANA. Ah, but I think him better than I say,\n  And yet would herein others' eyes were worse.\n  Far from her nest the lapwing cries away;\n  My heart prays for him, though my tongue do curse.\n\nEnter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.\n\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Here go-the desk, the purse. Sweet\n  now, make haste.\nLUCIANA. How hast thou lost thy breath?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. By running fast.\nADRIANA. Where is thy master, Dromio? Is he well?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No, he's in Tartar limbo, worse than hell.\n  A devil in an everlasting garment hath him;\n  One whose hard heart is button'd up with steel;\n  A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough;\n  A wolf, nay worse, a fellow all in buff;\n  A back-friend, a shoulder-clapper, one that countermands\n  The passages of alleys, creeks, and narrow lands;\n  A hound that runs counter, and yet draws dry-foot well;\n  One that, before the Judgment, carries poor souls to hell.\nADRIANA. Why, man, what is the matter?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I do not know the matter; he is rested on the\ncase.\nADRIANA. What, is he arrested? Tell me, at whose suit?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I know not at whose suit he is arrested well;\n  But he's in a suit of buff which 'rested him, that can I tell.\n  Will you send him, mistress, redemption, the money in his desk?\nADRIANA. Go fetch it, sister.  [Exit LUCIANA]  This I wonder at:\n  Thus he unknown to me should be in debt.\n  Tell me, was he arrested on a band?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. on a band, but on a stronger thing,\n  A chain, a chain. Do you not hear it ring?\nADRIANA. What, the chain?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No, no, the bell; 'tis time that I were gone.\n  It was two ere I left him, and now the clock strikes one.\nADRIANA. The hours come back! That did I never hear.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. O yes. If any hour meet a sergeant,\n    'a turns back for very fear.\nADRIANA. As if Time were in debt! How fondly dost thou reason!\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Time is a very bankrupt, and owes\n    more than he's worth to season.\n  Nay, he's a thief too: have you not heard men say\n  That Time comes stealing on by night and day?\n  If 'a be in debt and theft, and a sergeant in the way,\n  Hath he not reason to turn back an hour in a day?\n\nRe-enter LUCIANA with a purse\n\nADRIANA. Go, Dromio, there's the money; bear it straight,\n  And bring thy master home immediately.\n  Come, sister; I am press'd down with conceit-\n  Conceit, my comfort and my injury.\n<Exeunt\n\n\nSCENE 3\n\nThe mart\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE\n\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. There's not a man I meet but doth salute\nme\n  As if I were their well-acquainted friend;\n  And every one doth call me by my name.\n  Some tender money to me, some invite me,\n  Some other give me thanks for kindnesses,\n  Some offer me commodities to buy;\n  Even now a tailor call'd me in his shop,\n  And show'd me silks that he had bought for me,\n  And therewithal took measure of my body.\n  Sure, these are but imaginary wiles,\n  And Lapland sorcerers inhabit here.\n\nEnter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE\n\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, here's the gold you sent me\n  for. What, have you got the picture of old Adam new-apparell'd?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What gold is this? What Adam dost thou\nmean?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Not that Adam that kept the Paradise,\n  but that Adam that keeps the prison; he that goes in the\n  calf's skin that was kill'd for the Prodigal; he that came\nbehind\n  you, sir, like an evil angel, and bid you forsake your liberty.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I understand thee not.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No? Why, 'tis a plain case: he that\n  went, like a bass-viol, in a case of leather; the man, sir,\n  that, when gentlemen are tired, gives them a sob, and rest\n  them; he, sir, that takes pity on decayed men, and give\n  them suits of durance; he that sets up his rest to do more\n  exploits with his mace than a morris-pike.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What, thou mean'st an officer?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Ay, sir, the sergeant of the band;\n  that brings any man to answer it that breaks his band; on\n  that thinks a man always going to bed, and says 'God give\n  you good rest!'\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Well, sir, there rest in your foolery. Is\n  there any ship puts forth to-night? May we be gone?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Why, sir, I brought you word an\n  hour since that the bark Expedition put forth to-night; and\n  then were you hind'red by the sergeant, to tarry for the\n  boy Delay. Here are the angels that you sent for to deliver\nyou.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. The fellow is distract, and so am I;\n  And here we wander in illusions.\n  Some blessed power deliver us from hence!\n\nEnter a COURTEZAN\n\nCOURTEZAN. Well met, well met, Master Antipholus.\n  I see, sir, you have found the goldsmith now.\n  Is that the chain you promis'd me to-day?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Satan, avoid! I charge thee, tempt me\nnot.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, is this Mistress Satan?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. It is the devil.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Nay, she is worse, she is the devil's\n  dam, and here she comes in the habit of a light wench; and\n  thereof comes that the wenches say 'God damn me!' That's\n  as much to say 'God make me a light wench!' It is written\n  they appear to men like angels of light; light is an effect\n  of fire, and fire will burn; ergo, light wenches will burn.\n  Come not near her.\nCOURTEZAN. Your man and you are marvellous merry, sir.\n  Will you go with me? We'll mend our dinner here.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, if you do, expect spoon-meat,\n  or bespeak a long spoon.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why, Dromio?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, he must have a long spoon\n  that must eat with the devil.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Avoid then, fiend! What tell'st thou me\nof supping?\n  Thou art, as you are all, a sorceress;\n  I conjure thee to leave me and be gone.\nCOURTEZAN. Give me the ring of mine you had at dinner,\n  Or, for my diamond, the chain you promis'd,\n  And I'll be gone, sir, and not trouble you.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Some devils ask but the parings of one's\nnail,\n  A rush, a hair, a drop of blood, a pin,\n  A nut, a cherry-stone;\n  But she, more covetous, would have a chain.\n  Master, be wise; an if you give it her,\n  The devil will shake her chain, and fright us with it.\nCOURTEZAN. I pray you, sir, my ring, or else the chain;\n  I hope you do not mean to cheat me so.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Avaunt, thou witch! Come, Dromio, let us\ngo.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. 'Fly pride' says the peacock. Mistress, that\nyou know.\n<Exeunt ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and DROMIO OF SYRACUSE\nCOURTEZAN. Now, out of doubt, Antipholus is mad,\n  Else would he never so demean himself.\n  A ring he hath of mine worth forty ducats,\n  And for the same he promis'd me a chain;\n  Both one and other he denies me now.\n  The reason that I gather he is mad,\n  Besides this present instance of his rage,\n  Is a mad tale he told to-day at dinner\n  Of his own doors being shut against his entrance.\n  Belike his wife, acquainted with his fits,\n  On purpose shut the doors against his way.\n  My way is now to hie home to his house,\n  And tell his wife that, being lunatic,\n  He rush'd into my house and took perforce\n  My ring away. This course I fittest choose,\n  For forty ducats is too much to lose.\n<Exit\n\n\nSCENE 4\n\nA street\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS with the OFFICER\n\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Fear me not, man; I will not break away.\n  I'll give thee, ere I leave thee, so much money,\n  To warrant thee, as I am 'rested for.\n  My wife is in a wayward mood to-day,\n  And will not lightly trust the messenger.\n  That I should be attach'd in Ephesus,\n  I tell you 'twill sound harshly in her cars.\n\nEnter DROMIO OF EPHESUS, with a rope's-end\n\n  Here comes my man; I think he brings the money.\n  How now, sir! Have you that I sent you for?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Here's that, I warrant you, will pay them all.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. But where's the money?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Why, sir, I gave the money for the rope.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Five hundred ducats, villain, for rope?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. I'll serve you, sir, five hundred at the rate.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. To what end did I bid thee hie thee home?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. To a rope's-end, sir; and to that end am I\n  return'd.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. And to that end, sir, I will welcome you.\n[Beating him]\nOFFICER. Good sir, be patient.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Nay, 'tis for me to be patient; I am in\n  adversity.\nOFFICER. Good now, hold thy tongue.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Nay, rather persuade him to hold his hands.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Thou whoreson, senseless villain!\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. I would I were senseless, sir, that I\n  might not feel your blows.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Thou art sensible in nothing but\n  blows, and so is an ass.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. I am an ass indeed; you may prove it\n  by my long 'ears. I have served him from the hour of my\n  nativity to this instant, and have nothing at his hands for\n  my service but blows. When I am cold he heats me with\n  beating; when I am warm he cools me with beating. I am\n  wak'd with it when I sleep; rais'd with it when I sit; driven\n  out of doors with it when I go from home; welcom'd home\n  with it when I return; nay, I bear it on my shoulders as\n  beggar wont her brat; and I think, when he hath lam'd me,\n  I shall beg with it from door to door.\n\nEnter ADRIANA, LUCIANA, the COURTEZAN, and a SCHOOLMASTER\ncall'd PINCH\n\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Come, go along; my wife is coming yonder.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Mistress, 'respice finem,' respect your end;\nor\n  rather, to prophesy like the parrot, 'Beware the rope's-end.'\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Wilt thou still talk?\n[Beating him]\nCOURTEZAN. How say you now? Is not your husband mad?\nADRIANA. His incivility confirms no less.\n  Good Doctor Pinch, you are a conjurer:\n  Establish him in his true sense again,\n  And I will please you what you will demand.\nLUCIANA. Alas, how fiery and how sharp he looks!\nCOURTEZAN. Mark how he trembles in his ecstasy.\nPINCH. Give me your hand, and let me feel your pulse.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. There is my hand, and let it feel your\near.\n[Striking him]\nPINCH. I charge thee, Satan, hous'd within this man,\n  To yield possession to my holy prayers,\n  And to thy state of darkness hie thee straight.\n  I conjure thee by all the saints in heaven.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Peace, doting wizard, peace! I am not mad.\nADRIANA. O, that thou wert not, poor distressed soul!\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. You minion, you, are these your customers?\n  Did this companion with the saffron face\n  Revel and feast it at my house to-day,\n  Whilst upon me the guilty doors were shut,\n  And I denied to enter in my house?\nADRIANA. O husband, God doth know you din'd at home,\n  Where would you had remain'd until this time,\n  Free from these slanders and this open shame!\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Din'd at home! Thou villain, what sayest\nthou?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Sir, Sooth to say, you did not dine at home.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Were not my doors lock'd up and I shut\nout?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Perdie, your doors were lock'd and you shut\nout.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. And did not she herself revile me there?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Sans fable, she herself revil'd you there.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Did not her kitchen-maid rail, taunt, and\nscorn me?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Certes, she did; the kitchen-vestal scorn'd\nyou.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. And did not I in rage depart from thence?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. In verity, you did. My bones bear witness,\n  That since have felt the vigour of his rage.\nADRIANA. Is't good to soothe him in these contraries?\nPINCH. It is no shame; the fellow finds his vein,\n  And, yielding to him, humours well his frenzy.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Thou hast suborn'd the goldsmith to arrest\nme.\nADRIANA. Alas, I sent you money to redeem you,\n  By Dromio here, who came in haste for it.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Money by me! Heart and goodwill you might,\n  But surely, master, not a rag of money.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Went'st not thou to her for purse of\nducats?\nADRIANA. He came to me, and I deliver'd it.\nLUCIANA. And I am witness with her that she did.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. God and the rope-maker bear me witness\n  That I was sent for nothing but a rope!\nPINCH. Mistress, both man and master is possess'd;\n  I know it by their pale and deadly looks.\n  They must be bound, and laid in some dark room.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Say, wherefore didst thou lock me forth\nto-day?\n  And why dost thou deny the bag of gold?\nADRIANA. I did not, gentle husband, lock thee forth.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. And, gentle master, I receiv'd no gold;\n  But I confess, sir, that we were lock'd out.\nADRIANA. Dissembling villain, thou speak'st false in both.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Dissembling harlot, thou art false in all,\n  And art confederate with a damned pack\n  To make a loathsome abject scorn of me;\n  But with these nails I'll pluck out these false eyes\n  That would behold in me this shameful sport.\nADRIANA. O, bind him, bind him; let him not come near me.\nPINCH. More company! The fiend is strong within him.\n\nEnter three or four, and offer to bind him. He strives\n\nLUCIANA. Ay me, poor man, how pale and wan he looks!\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. What, will you murder me? Thou gaoler,\nthou,\n  I am thy prisoner. Wilt thou suffer them\n  To make a rescue?\nOFFICER. Masters, let him go;\n  He is my prisoner, and you shall not have him.\nPINCH. Go bind this man, for he is frantic too.\n[They bind DROMIO]\nADRIANA. What wilt thou do, thou peevish officer?\n  Hast thou delight to see a wretched man\n  Do outrage and displeasure to himself?\nOFFICER. He is my prisoner; if I let him go,\n  The debt he owes will be requir'd of me.\nADRIANA. I will discharge thee ere I go from thee;\n  Bear me forthwith unto his creditor,\n  And, knowing how the debt grows, I will pay it.\n  Good Master Doctor, see him safe convey'd\n  Home to my house. O most unhappy day!\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. O most unhappy strumpet!\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Master, I am here ent'red in bond for you.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Out on thee, villian! Wherefore\n  dost thou mad me?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Will you be bound for nothing?\n  Be mad, good master; cry 'The devil!'\nLUCIANA. God help, poor souls, how idly do they talk!\nADRIANA. Go bear him hence. Sister, go you with me.\n<Exeunt all but ADRIANA, LUCIANA, OFFICERS, and COURTEZAN\n  Say now, whose suit is he arrested at?\nOFFICER. One Angelo, a goldsmith; do you know him?\nADRIANA. I know the man. What is the sum he owes?\nOFFICER. Two hundred ducats.\nADRIANA. Say, how grows it due?\nOFFICER. Due for a chain your husband had of him.\nADRIANA. He did bespeak a chain for me, but had it not.\nCOURTEZAN. When as your husband, all in rage, to-day\n  Came to my house, and took away my ring-\n  The ring I saw upon his finger now-\n  Straight after did I meet him with a chain.\nADRIANA. It may be so, but I did never see it.\n  Come, gaoler, bring me where the goldsmith is;\n  I long to know the truth hereof at large.\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE, with his rapier drawn, and\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.\n\nLUCIANA. God, for thy mercy! they are loose again.\nADRIANA. And come with naked swords.\n  Let's call more help to have them bound again.\nOFFICER. Away, they'll kill us!\n<Exeunt all but ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE as fast as may be, frighted\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I see these witches are afraid of swords.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. She that would be your wife now ran from you.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Come to the Centaur; fetch our stuff from\nthence.\n  I long that we were safe and sound aboard.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Faith, stay here this night; they will\n  surely do us no harm; you saw they speak us fair, give us\n  gold; methinks they are such a gentle nation that, but for\n  the mountain of mad flesh that claims marriage of me,\n  could find in my heart to stay here still and turn witch.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I will not stay to-night for all the\ntown;\n  Therefore away, to get our stuff aboard.\n<Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 1\n\nA street before a priory\n\nEnter SECOND MERCHANT and ANGELO\n\nANGELO. I am sorry, sir, that I have hind'red you;\n  But I protest he had the chain of me,\n  Though most dishonestly he doth deny it.\nSECOND MERCHANT. How is the man esteem'd here in the city?\nANGELO. Of very reverend reputation, sir,\n  Of credit infinite, highly belov'd,\n  Second to none that lives here in the city;\n  His word might bear my wealth at any time.\nSECOND MERCHANT. Speak softly; yonder, as I think, he walks.\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and DROMIO OF SYRACUSE\n\nANGELO. 'Tis so; and that self chain about his neck\n  Which he forswore most monstrously to have.\n  Good sir, draw near to me, I'll speak to him.\n  Signior Andpholus, I wonder much\n  That you would put me to this shame and trouble;\n  And, not without some scandal to yourself,\n  With circumstance and oaths so to deny\n  This chain, which now you wear so openly.\n  Beside the charge, the shame, imprisonment,\n  You have done wrong to this my honest friend;\n  Who, but for staying on our controversy,\n  Had hoisted sail and put to sea to-day.\n  This chain you had of me; can you deny it?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I think I had; I never did deny it.\nSECOND MERCHANT. Yes, that you did, sir, and forswore it too.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Who heard me to deny it or forswear it?\nSECOND MERCHANT. These ears of mine, thou know'st, did hear thee.\n  Fie on thee, wretch! 'tis pity that thou liv'st\n  To walk where any honest men resort.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thou art a villain to impeach me thus;\n  I'll prove mine honour and mine honesty\n  Against thee presently, if thou dar'st stand.\nSECOND MERCHANT. I dare, and do defy thee for a villain.\n[They draw]\n\nEnter ADRIANA, LUCIANA, the COURTEZAN, and OTHERS\n\nADRIANA. Hold, hurt him not, for God's sake! He is mad.\n  Some get within him, take his sword away;\n  Bind Dromio too, and bear them to my house.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Run, master, run; for God's sake take a\nhouse.\n  This is some priory. In, or we are spoil'd.\n<Exeunt ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and DROMIO OF SYRACUSE to the\npriory\n\nEnter the LADY ABBESS\n\nABBESS. Be quiet, people. Wherefore throng you hither?\nADRIANA. To fetch my poor distracted husband hence.\n  Let us come in, that we may bind him fast,\n  And bear him home for his recovery.\nANGELO. I knew he was not in his perfect wits.\nSECOND MERCHANT. I am sorry now that I did draw on him.\nABBESS. How long hath this possession held the man?\nADRIANA. This week he hath been heavy, sour, sad,\n  And much different from the man he was;\n  But till this afternoon his passion\n  Ne'er brake into extremity of rage.\nABBESS. Hath he not lost much wealth by wreck of sea?\n  Buried some dear friend? Hath not else his eye\n  Stray'd his affection in unlawful love?\n  A sin prevailing much in youthful men\n  Who give their eyes the liberty of gazing.\n  Which of these sorrows is he subject to?\nADRIANA. To none of these, except it be the last;\n  Namely, some love that drew him oft from home.\nABBESS. You should for that have reprehended him.\nADRIANA. Why, so I did.\nABBESS. Ay, but not rough enough.\nADRIANA. As roughly as my modesty would let me.\nABBESS. Haply in private.\nADRIANA. And in assemblies too.\nABBESS. Ay, but not enough.\nADRIANA. It was the copy of our conference.\n  In bed, he slept not for my urging it;\n  At board, he fed not for my urging it;\n  Alone, it was the subject of my theme;\n  In company, I often glanced it;\n  Still did I tell him it was vile and bad.\nABBESS. And thereof came it that the man was mad.\n  The venom clamours of a jealous woman\n  Poisons more deadly than a mad dog's tooth.\n  It seems his sleeps were hind'red by thy railing,\n  And thereof comes it that his head is light.\n  Thou say'st his meat was sauc'd with thy upbraidings:\n  Unquiet meals make ill digestions;\n  Thereof the raging fire of fever bred;\n  And what's a fever but a fit of madness?\n  Thou say'st his sports were hind'red by thy brawls.\n  Sweet recreation barr'd, what doth ensue\n  But moody and dull melancholy,\n  Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair,\n  And at her heels a huge infectious troop\n  Of pale distemperatures and foes to life?\n  In food, in sport, and life-preserving rest,\n  To be disturb'd would mad or man or beast.\n  The consequence is, then, thy jealous fits\n  Hath scar'd thy husband from the use of wits.\nLUCIANA. She never reprehended him but mildly,\n  When he demean'd himself rough, rude, and wildly.\n  Why bear you these rebukes, and answer not?\nADRIANA. She did betray me to my own reproof.\n  Good people, enter, and lay hold on him.\nABBESS. No, not a creature enters in my house.\nADRIANA. Then let your servants bring my husband forth.\nABBESS. Neither; he took this place for sanctuary,\n  And it shall privilege him from your hands\n  Till I have brought him to his wits again,\n  Or lose my labour in assaying it.\nADRIANA. I will attend my husband, be his nurse,\n  Diet his sickness, for it is my office,\n  And will have no attorney but myself;\n  And therefore let me have him home with me.\nABBESS. Be patient; for I will not let him stir\n  Till I have us'd the approved means I have,\n  With wholesome syrups, drugs, and holy prayers,\n  To make of him a formal man again.\n  It is a branch and parcel of mine oath,\n  A charitable duty of my order;\n  Therefore depart, and leave him here with me.\nADRIANA. I will not hence and leave my husband here;\n  And ill it doth beseem your holiness\n  To separate the husband and the wife.\nABBESS. Be quiet, and depart; thou shalt not have him.\n<Exit\nLUCIANA. Complain unto the Duke of this indignity.\nADRIANA. Come, go; I will fall prostrate at his feet,\n  And never rise until my tears and prayers\n  Have won his Grace to come in person hither\n  And take perforce my husband from the Abbess.\nSECOND MERCHANT. By this, I think, the dial points at five;\n  Anon, I'm sure, the Duke himself in person\n  Comes this way to the melancholy vale,\n  The place of death and sorry execution,\n  Behind the ditches of the abbey here.\nANGELO. Upon what cause?\nSECOND MERCHANT. To see a reverend Syracusian merchant,\n  Who put unluckily into this bay\n  Against the laws and statutes of this town,\n  Beheaded publicly for his offence.\nANGELO. See where they come; we will behold his death.\nLUCIANA. Kneel to the Duke before he pass the abbey.\n\nEnter the DUKE, attended; AEGEON, bareheaded;\nwith the HEADSMAN and other OFFICERS\n\nDUKE. Yet once again proclaim it publicly,\n  If any friend will pay the sum for him,\n  He shall not die; so much we tender him.\nADRIANA. Justice, most sacred Duke, against the Abbess!\nDUKE. She is a virtuous and a reverend lady;\n  It cannot be that she hath done thee wrong.\nADRIANA. May it please your Grace, Antipholus, my husband,\n  Who I made lord of me and all I had\n  At your important letters-this ill day\n  A most outrageous fit of madness took him,\n  That desp'rately he hurried through the street,\n  With him his bondman all as mad as he,\n  Doing displeasure to the citizens\n  By rushing in their houses, bearing thence\n  Rings, jewels, anything his rage did like.\n  Once did I get him bound and sent him home,\n  Whilst to take order for the wrongs I went,\n  That here and there his fury had committed.\n  Anon, I wot not by what strong escape,\n  He broke from those that had the guard of him,\n  And with his mad attendant and himself,\n  Each one with ireful passion, with drawn swords,\n  Met us again and, madly bent on us,\n  Chas'd us away; till, raising of more aid,\n  We came again to bind them. Then they fled\n  Into this abbey, whither we pursu'd them;\n  And here the Abbess shuts the gates on us,\n  And will not suffer us to fetch him out,\n  Nor send him forth that we may bear him hence.\n  Therefore, most gracious Duke, with thy command\n  Let him be brought forth and borne hence for help.\nDUKE. Long since thy husband serv'd me in my wars,\n  And I to thee engag'd a prince's word,\n  When thou didst make him master of thy bed,\n  To do him all the grace and good I could.\n  Go, some of you, knock at the abbey gate,\n  And bid the Lady Abbess come to me,\n  I will determine this before I stir.\n\nEnter a MESSENGER\n\nMESSENGER. O mistress, mistress, shift and save yourself!\n  My master and his man are both broke loose,\n  Beaten the maids a-row and bound the doctor,\n  Whose beard they have sing'd off with brands of fire;\n  And ever, as it blaz'd, they threw on him\n  Great pails of puddled mire to quench the hair.\n  My master preaches patience to him, and the while\n  His man with scissors nicks him like a fool;\n  And sure, unless you send some present help,\n  Between them they will kill the conjurer.\nADRIANA. Peace, fool! thy master and his man are here,\n  And that is false thou dost report to us.\nMESSENGER. Mistress, upon my life, I tell you true;\n  I have not breath'd almost since I did see it.\n  He cries for you, and vows, if he can take you,\n  To scorch your face, and to disfigure you.\n[Cry within]\n  Hark, hark, I hear him, mistress; fly, be gone!\nDUKE. Come, stand by me; fear nothing. Guard with halberds.\nADRIANA. Ay me, it is my husband! Witness you\n  That he is borne about invisible.\n  Even now we hous'd him in the abbey here,\n  And now he's there, past thought of human reason.\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OFEPHESUS and DROMIO OFEPHESUS\n\nANTIPHOLUS OFEPHESUS. Justice, most gracious Duke; O, grant me\njustice!\n  Even for the service that long since I did thee,\n  When I bestrid thee in the wars, and took\n  Deep scars to save thy life; even for the blood\n  That then I lost for thee, now grant me justice.\nAEGEON. Unless the fear of death doth make me dote,\n  I see my son Antipholus, and Dromio.\nANTIPHOLUS OFEPHESUS. Justice, sweet Prince, against that woman\nthere!\n  She whom thou gav'st to me to be my wife,\n  That hath abused and dishonoured me\n  Even in the strength and height of injury.\n  Beyond imagination is the wrong\n  That she this day hath shameless thrown on me.\nDUKE. Discover how, and thou shalt find me just.\nANTIPHOLUS OFEPHESUS. This day, great Duke, she shut the doors\nupon me,\n  While she with harlots feasted in my house.\nDUKE. A grievous fault. Say, woman, didst thou so?\nADRIANA. No, my good lord. Myself, he, and my sister,\n  To-day did dine together. So befall my soul\n  As this is false he burdens me withal!\nLUCIANA. Ne'er may I look on day nor sleep on night\n  But she tells to your Highness simple truth!\nANGELO. O peflur'd woman! They are both forsworn.\n  In this the madman justly chargeth them.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. My liege, I am advised what I say;\n  Neither disturbed with the effect of wine,\n  Nor heady-rash, provok'd with raging ire,\n  Albeit my wrongs might make one wiser mad.\n  This woman lock'd me out this day from dinner;\n  That goldsmith there, were he not pack'd with her,\n  Could witness it, for he was with me then;\n  Who parted with me to go fetch a chain,\n  Promising to bring it to the Porpentine,\n  Where Balthazar and I did dine together.\n  Our dinner done, and he not coming thither,\n  I went to seek him. In the street I met him,\n  And in his company that gentleman.\n  There did this perjur'd goldsmith swear me down\n  That I this day of him receiv'd the chain,\n  Which, God he knows, I saw not; for the which\n  He did arrest me with an officer.\n  I did obey, and sent my peasant home\n  For certain ducats; he with none return'd.\n  Then fairly I bespoke the officer\n  To go in person with me to my house.\n  By th' way we met my wife, her sister, and a rabble more\n  Of vile confederates. Along with them\n  They brought one Pinch, a hungry lean-fac'd villain,\n  A mere anatomy, a mountebank,\n  A threadbare juggler, and a fortune-teller,\n  A needy, hollow-ey'd, sharp-looking wretch,\n  A living dead man. This pernicious slave,\n  Forsooth, took on him as a conjurer,\n  And gazing in mine eyes, feeling my pulse,\n  And with no face, as 'twere, outfacing me,\n  Cries out I was possess'd. Then all together\n  They fell upon me, bound me, bore me thence,\n  And in a dark and dankish vault at home\n  There left me and my man, both bound together;\n  Till, gnawing with my teeth my bonds in sunder,\n  I gain'd my freedom, and immediately\n  Ran hither to your Grace; whom I beseech\n  To give me ample satisfaction\n  For these deep shames and great indignities.\nANGELO. My lord, in truth, thus far I witness with him,\n  That he din'd not at home, but was lock'd out.\nDUKE. But had he such a chain of thee, or no?\nANGELO. He had, my lord, and when he ran in here,\n  These people saw the chain about his neck.\nSECOND MERCHANT. Besides, I will be sworn these ears of mine\n  Heard you confess you had the chain of him,\n  After you first forswore it on the mart;\n  And thereupon I drew my sword on you,\n  And then you fled into this abbey here,\n  From whence, I think, you are come by miracle.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I never came within these abbey walls,\n  Nor ever didst thou draw thy sword on me;\n  I never saw the chain, so help me Heaven!\n  And this is false you burden me withal.\nDUKE. Why, what an intricate impeach is this!\n  I think you all have drunk of Circe's cup.\n  If here you hous'd him, here he would have been;\n  If he were mad, he would not plead so coldly.\n  You say he din'd at home: the goldsmith here\n  Denies that saying. Sirrah, what say you?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Sir, he din'd with her there, at the\nPorpentine.\nCOURTEZAN. He did; and from my finger snatch'd that ring.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. 'Tis true, my liege; this ring I had of\nher.\nDUKE. Saw'st thou him enter at the abbey here?\nCOURTEZAN. As sure, my liege, as I do see your Grace.\nDUKE. Why, this is strange. Go call the Abbess hither.\n  I think you are all mated or stark mad.\n<Exit one to the ABBESS\nAEGEON. Most mighty Duke, vouchsafe me speak a word:\n  Haply I see a friend will save my life\n  And pay the sum that may deliver me.\nDUKE. Speak freely, Syracusian, what thou wilt.\nAEGEON. Is not your name, sir, call'd Antipholus?\n  And is not that your bondman Dromio?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Within this hour I was his bondman, sir,\n  But he, I thank him, gnaw'd in two my cords\n  Now am I Dromio and his man unbound.\nAEGEON. I am sure you both of you remember me.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Ourselves we do remember, sir, by you;\n  For lately we were bound as you are now.\n  You are not Pinch's patient, are you, sir?\nAEGEON. Why look you strange on me? You know me well.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I never saw you in my life till now.\nAEGEON. O! grief hath chang'd me since you saw me last;\n  And careful hours with time's deformed hand\n  Have written strange defeatures in my face.\n  But tell me yet, dost thou not know my voice?\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Neither.\nAEGEON. Dromio, nor thou?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. No, trust me, sir, nor I.\nAEGEON. I am sure thou dost.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Ay, sir, but I am sure I do not; and\n  whatsoever a man denies, you are now bound to believe him.\nAEGEON. Not know my voice! O time's extremity,\n  Hast thou so crack'd and splitted my poor tongue\n  In seven short years that here my only son\n  Knows not my feeble key of untun'd cares?\n  Though now this grained face of mine be hid\n  In sap-consuming winter's drizzled snow,\n  And all the conduits of my blood froze up,\n  Yet hath my night of life some memory,\n  My wasting lamps some fading glimmer left,\n  My dull deaf ears a little use to hear;\n  All these old witnesses-I cannot err-\n  Tell me thou art my son Antipholus.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I never saw my father in my life.\nAEGEON. But seven years since, in Syracuse, boy,\n  Thou know'st we parted; but perhaps, my son,\n  Thou sham'st to acknowledge me in misery.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. The Duke and all that know me in\n  the city Can witness with me that it is not so:\n  I ne'er saw Syracuse in my life.\nDUKE. I tell thee, Syracusian, twenty years\n  Have I been patron to Antipholus,\n  During which time he ne'er saw Syracuse.\n  I see thy age and dangers make thee dote.\n\nRe-enter the ABBESS, with ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and DROMIO OF\nSYRACUSE\n\nABBESS. Most mighty Duke, behold a man much wrong'd.\n[All gather to see them]\nADRIANA. I see two husbands, or mine eyes deceive me.\nDUKE. One of these men is genius to the other;\n  And so of these. Which is the natural man,\n  And which the spirit? Who deciphers them?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I, sir, am Dromio; command him away.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. I, Sir, am Dromio; pray let me stay.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Aegeon, art thou not? or else his\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. O, my old master! who hath bound\nABBESS. Whoever bound him, I will loose his bonds,\n  And gain a husband by his liberty.\n  Speak, old Aegeon, if thou be'st the man\n  That hadst a wife once call'd Aemilia,\n  That bore thee at a burden two fair sons.\n  O, if thou be'st the same Aegeon, speak,\n  And speak unto the same Aemilia!\nAEGEON. If I dream not, thou art Aemilia.\n  If thou art she, tell me where is that son\n  That floated with thee on the fatal raft?\nABBESS. By men of Epidamnum he and I\n  And the twin Dromio, all were taken up;\n  But by and by rude fishermen of Corinth\n  By force took Dromio and my son from them,\n  And me they left with those of Epidamnum.\n  What then became of them I cannot tell;\n  I to this fortune that you see me in.\nDUKE. Why, here begins his morning story right.\n  These two Antipholus', these two so like,\n  And these two Dromios, one in semblance-\n  Besides her urging of her wreck at sea-\n  These are the parents to these children,\n  Which accidentally are met together.\n  Antipholus, thou cam'st from Corinth first?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. No, sir, not I; I came from Syracuse.\nDUKE. Stay, stand apart; I know not which is which.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I came from Corinth, my most gracious\nlord.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. And I with him.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Brought to this town by that most famous\nwarrior,\n  Duke Menaphon, your most renowned uncle.\nADRIANA. Which of you two did dine with me to-day?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I, gentle mistress.\nADRIANA. And are not you my husband?\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. No; I say nay to that.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. And so do I, yet did she call me so;\n  And this fair gentlewoman, her sister here,\n  Did call me brother.  [To LUCIANA]  What I told you then,\n  I hope I shall have leisure to make good;\n  If this be not a dream I see and hear.\nANGELO. That is the chain, sir, which you had of me.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I think it be, sir; I deny it not.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. And you, sir, for this chain arrested me.\nANGELO. I think I did, sir; I deny it not.\nADRIANA. I sent you money, sir, to be your bail,\n  By Dromio; but I think he brought it not.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. No, none by me.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. This purse of ducats I receiv'd from you,\n  And Dromio my man did bring them me.\n  I see we still did meet each other's man,\n  And I was ta'en for him, and he for me,\n  And thereupon these ERRORS are arose.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. These ducats pawn I for my father here.\nDUKE. It shall not need; thy father hath his life.\nCOURTEZAN. Sir, I must have that diamond from you.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. There, take it; and much thanks for my\n  good cheer.\nABBESS. Renowned Duke, vouchsafe to take the pains\n  To go with us into the abbey here,\n  And hear at large discoursed all our fortunes;\n  And all that are assembled in this place\n  That by this sympathized one day's error\n  Have suffer'd wrong, go keep us company,\n  And we shall make full satisfaction.\n  Thirty-three years have I but gone in travail\n  Of you, my sons; and till this present hour\n  My heavy burden ne'er delivered.\n  The Duke, my husband, and my children both,\n  And you the calendars of their nativity,\n  Go to a gossips' feast, and go with me;\n  After so long grief, such nativity!\nDUKE. With all my heart, I'll gossip at this feast.\n<Exeunt all but ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE, ANTIPHOLUS OF\nEPHESUS, DROMIO OF SYRACUSE, and DROMIO OF EPHESUS\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, shall I fetch your stuff from\nshipboard?\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Dromio, what stuff of mine hast thou\nembark'd?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Your goods that lay at host, sir, in the\nCentaur.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. He speaks to me. I am your master,\nDromio.\n  Come, go with us; we'll look to that anon.\n  Embrace thy brother there; rejoice with him.\n<Exeunt ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. There is a fat friend at your master's house,\n  That kitchen'd me for you to-day at dinner;\n  She now shall be my sister, not my wife.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Methinks you are my glass, and not my brother;\n  I see by you I am a sweet-fac'd youth.\n  Will you walk in to see their gossiping?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Not I, sir; you are my elder.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. That's a question; how shall we try it?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. We'll draw cuts for the senior; till then,\n    lead thou first.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Nay, then, thus:\n  We came into the world like brother and brother,\n  And now let's go hand in hand, not one before another.\n<Exeunt\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of this Etext of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare\nTHE COMEDY OF ERRORS"}
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{"1105":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE SONNETS\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\n                     1\n  From fairest creatures we desire increase,\n  That thereby beauty's rose might never die,\n  But as the riper should by time decease,\n  His tender heir might bear his memory:\n  But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,\n  Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,\n  Making a famine where abundance lies,\n  Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:\n  Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,\n  And only herald to the gaudy spring,\n  Within thine own bud buriest thy content,\n  And tender churl mak'st waste in niggarding:\n    Pity the world, or else this glutton be,\n    To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.\n\n\n                     2\n  When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,\n  And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,\n  Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now,\n  Will be a tattered weed of small worth held:\n  Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,\n  Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;\n  To say within thine own deep sunken eyes,\n  Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.\n  How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use,\n  If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine\n  Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse'\n  Proving his beauty by succession thine.\n    This were to be new made when thou art old,\n    And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.\n\n\n                     3\n  Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest,\n  Now is the time that face should form another,\n  Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,\n  Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.\n  For where is she so fair whose uneared womb\n  Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?\n  Or who is he so fond will be the tomb,\n  Of his self-love to stop posterity?\n  Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee\n  Calls back the lovely April of her prime,\n  So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,\n  Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.\n    But if thou live remembered not to be,\n    Die single and thine image dies with thee.\n\n\n                     4\n  Unthrifty loveliness why dost thou spend,\n  Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy?\n  Nature's bequest gives nothing but doth lend,\n  And being frank she lends to those are free:\n  Then beauteous niggard why dost thou abuse,\n  The bounteous largess given thee to give?\n  Profitless usurer why dost thou use\n  So great a sum of sums yet canst not live?\n  For having traffic with thy self alone,\n  Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive,\n  Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,\n  What acceptable audit canst thou leave?\n    Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,\n    Which used lives th' executor to be.\n\n\n                     5\n  Those hours that with gentle work did frame\n  The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell\n  Will play the tyrants to the very same,\n  And that unfair which fairly doth excel:\n  For never-resting time leads summer on\n  To hideous winter and confounds him there,\n  Sap checked with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,\n  Beauty o'er-snowed and bareness every where:\n  Then were not summer's distillation left\n  A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,\n  Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,\n  Nor it nor no remembrance what it was.\n    But flowers distilled though they with winter meet,\n    Leese but their show, their substance still lives sweet.\n\n\n                     6\n  Then let not winter's ragged hand deface,\n  In thee thy summer ere thou be distilled:\n  Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place,\n  With beauty's treasure ere it be self-killed:\n  That use is not forbidden usury,\n  Which happies those that pay the willing loan;\n  That's for thy self to breed another thee,\n  Or ten times happier be it ten for one,\n  Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,\n  If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:\n  Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,\n  Leaving thee living in posterity?\n    Be not self-willed for thou art much too fair,\n    To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.\n\n\n                     7\n  Lo in the orient when the gracious light\n  Lifts up his burning head, each under eye\n  Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,\n  Serving with looks his sacred majesty,\n  And having climbed the steep-up heavenly hill,\n  Resembling strong youth in his middle age,\n  Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,\n  Attending on his golden pilgrimage:\n  But when from highmost pitch with weary car,\n  Like feeble age he reeleth from the day,\n  The eyes (fore duteous) now converted are\n  From his low tract and look another way:\n    So thou, thy self out-going in thy noon:\n    Unlooked on diest unless thou get a son.\n\n\n                     8\n  Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?\n  Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:\n  Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,\n  Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?\n  If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,\n  By unions married do offend thine ear,\n  They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds\n  In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear:\n  Mark how one string sweet husband to another,\n  Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;\n  Resembling sire, and child, and happy mother,\n  Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing:\n    Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,\n    Sings this to thee, 'Thou single wilt prove none'.\n\n\n                     9\n  Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye,\n  That thou consum'st thy self in single life?\n  Ah, if thou issueless shalt hap to die,\n  The world will wail thee like a makeless wife,\n  The world will be thy widow and still weep,\n  That thou no form of thee hast left behind,\n  When every private widow well may keep,\n  By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind:\n  Look what an unthrift in the world doth spend\n  Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;\n  But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,\n  And kept unused the user so destroys it:\n    No love toward others in that bosom sits\n    That on himself such murd'rous shame commits.\n\n\n                     10\n  For shame deny that thou bear'st love to any\n  Who for thy self art so unprovident.\n  Grant if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,\n  But that thou none lov'st is most evident:\n  For thou art so possessed with murd'rous hate,\n  That 'gainst thy self thou stick'st not to conspire,\n  Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate\n  Which to repair should be thy chief desire:\n  O change thy thought, that I may change my mind,\n  Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?\n  Be as thy presence is gracious and kind,\n  Or to thy self at least kind-hearted prove,\n    Make thee another self for love of me,\n    That beauty still may live in thine or thee.\n\n\n                     11\n  As fast as thou shalt wane so fast thou grow'st,\n  In one of thine, from that which thou departest,\n  And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow'st,\n  Thou mayst call thine, when thou from youth convertest,\n  Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase,\n  Without this folly, age, and cold decay,\n  If all were minded so, the times should cease,\n  And threescore year would make the world away:\n  Let those whom nature hath not made for store,\n  Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish:\n  Look whom she best endowed, she gave thee more;\n  Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish:\n    She carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby,\n    Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.\n\n\n                     12\n  When I do count the clock that tells the time,\n  And see the brave day sunk in hideous night,\n  When I behold the violet past prime,\n  And sable curls all silvered o'er with white:\n  When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,\n  Which erst from heat did canopy the herd\n  And summer's green all girded up in sheaves\n  Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard:\n  Then of thy beauty do I question make\n  That thou among the wastes of time must go,\n  Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake,\n  And die as fast as they see others grow,\n    And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence\n    Save breed to brave him, when he takes thee hence.\n\n\n                     13\n  O that you were your self, but love you are\n  No longer yours, than you your self here live,\n  Against this coming end you should prepare,\n  And your sweet semblance to some other give.\n  So should that beauty which you hold in lease\n  Find no determination, then you were\n  Your self again after your self's decease,\n  When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.\n  Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,\n  Which husbandry in honour might uphold,\n  Against the stormy gusts of winter's day\n  And barren rage of death's eternal cold?\n    O none but unthrifts, dear my love you know,\n    You had a father, let your son say so.\n\n\n                     14\n  Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck,\n  And yet methinks I have astronomy,\n  But not to tell of good, or evil luck,\n  Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality,\n  Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell;\n  Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,\n  Or say with princes if it shall go well\n  By oft predict that I in heaven find.\n  But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,\n  And constant stars in them I read such art\n  As truth and beauty shall together thrive\n  If from thy self, to store thou wouldst convert:\n    Or else of thee this I prognosticate,\n    Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.\n\n\n                     15\n  When I consider every thing that grows\n  Holds in perfection but a little moment.\n  That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows\n  Whereon the stars in secret influence comment.\n  When I perceive that men as plants increase,\n  Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky:\n  Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,\n  And wear their brave state out of memory.\n  Then the conceit of this inconstant stay,\n  Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,\n  Where wasteful time debateth with decay\n  To change your day of youth to sullied night,\n    And all in war with Time for love of you,\n    As he takes from you, I engraft you new.\n\n\n                     16\n  But wherefore do not you a mightier way\n  Make war upon this bloody tyrant Time?\n  And fortify your self in your decay\n  With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?\n  Now stand you on the top of happy hours,\n  And many maiden gardens yet unset,\n  With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers,\n  Much liker than your painted counterfeit:\n  So should the lines of life that life repair\n  Which this (Time's pencil) or my pupil pen\n  Neither in inward worth nor outward fair\n  Can make you live your self in eyes of men.\n    To give away your self, keeps your self still,\n    And you must live drawn by your own sweet skill.\n\n\n                     17\n  Who will believe my verse in time to come\n  If it were filled with your most high deserts?\n  Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb\n  Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts:\n  If I could write the beauty of your eyes,\n  And in fresh numbers number all your graces,\n  The age to come would say this poet lies,\n  Such heavenly touches ne'er touched earthly faces.\n  So should my papers (yellowed with their age)\n  Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue,\n  And your true rights be termed a poet's rage,\n  And stretched metre of an antique song.\n    But were some child of yours alive that time,\n    You should live twice in it, and in my rhyme.\n\n\n                     18\n  Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?\n  Thou art more lovely and more temperate:\n  Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,\n  And summer's lease hath all too short a date:\n  Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,\n  And often is his gold complexion dimmed,\n  And every fair from fair sometime declines,\n  By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:\n  But thy eternal summer shall not fade,\n  Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,\n  Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,\n  When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,\n    So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,\n    So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.\n\n\n                     19\n  Devouring Time blunt thou the lion's paws,\n  And make the earth devour her own sweet brood,\n  Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,\n  And burn the long-lived phoenix, in her blood,\n  Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet'st,\n  And do whate'er thou wilt swift-footed Time\n  To the wide world and all her fading sweets:\n  But I forbid thee one most heinous crime,\n  O carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,\n  Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen,\n  Him in thy course untainted do allow,\n  For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.\n    Yet do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong,\n    My love shall in my verse ever live young.\n\n\n                     20\n  A woman's face with nature's own hand painted,\n  Hast thou the master mistress of my passion,\n  A woman's gentle heart but not acquainted\n  With shifting change as is false women's fashion,\n  An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling:\n  Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth,\n  A man in hue all hues in his controlling,\n  Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.\n  And for a woman wert thou first created,\n  Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,\n  And by addition me of thee defeated,\n  By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.\n    But since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure,\n    Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.\n\n\n                     21\n  So is it not with me as with that muse,\n  Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse,\n  Who heaven it self for ornament doth use,\n  And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,\n  Making a couplement of proud compare\n  With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems:\n  With April's first-born flowers and all things rare,\n  That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.\n  O let me true in love but truly write,\n  And then believe me, my love is as fair,\n  As any mother's child, though not so bright\n  As those gold candles fixed in heaven's air:\n    Let them say more that like of hearsay well,\n    I will not praise that purpose not to sell.\n\n\n                     22\n  My glass shall not persuade me I am old,\n  So long as youth and thou are of one date,\n  But when in thee time's furrows I behold,\n  Then look I death my days should expiate.\n  For all that beauty that doth cover thee,\n  Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,\n  Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me,\n  How can I then be elder than thou art?\n  O therefore love be of thyself so wary,\n  As I not for my self, but for thee will,\n  Bearing thy heart which I will keep so chary\n  As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.\n    Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain,\n    Thou gav'st me thine not to give back again.\n\n\n                     23\n  As an unperfect actor on the stage,\n  Who with his fear is put beside his part,\n  Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,\n  Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart;\n  So I for fear of trust, forget to say,\n  The perfect ceremony of love's rite,\n  And in mine own love's strength seem to decay,\n  O'ercharged with burthen of mine own love's might:\n  O let my looks be then the eloquence,\n  And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,\n  Who plead for love, and look for recompense,\n  More than that tongue that more hath more expressed.\n    O learn to read what silent love hath writ,\n    To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.\n\n\n                     24\n  Mine eye hath played the painter and hath stelled,\n  Thy beauty's form in table of my heart,\n  My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,\n  And perspective it is best painter's art.\n  For through the painter must you see his skill,\n  To find where your true image pictured lies,\n  Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,\n  That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes:\n  Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done,\n  Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me\n  Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun\n  Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;\n    Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art,\n    They draw but what they see, know not the heart.\n\n\n                     25\n  Let those who are in favour with their stars,\n  Of public honour and proud titles boast,\n  Whilst I whom fortune of such triumph bars\n  Unlooked for joy in that I honour most;\n  Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread,\n  But as the marigold at the sun's eye,\n  And in themselves their pride lies buried,\n  For at a frown they in their glory die.\n  The painful warrior famoused for fight,\n  After a thousand victories once foiled,\n  Is from the book of honour razed quite,\n  And all the rest forgot for which he toiled:\n    Then happy I that love and am beloved\n    Where I may not remove nor be removed.\n\n\n                     26\n  Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage\n  Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit;\n  To thee I send this written embassage\n  To witness duty, not to show my wit.\n  Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine\n  May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it;\n  But that I hope some good conceit of thine\n  In thy soul's thought (all naked) will bestow it:\n  Till whatsoever star that guides my moving,\n  Points on me graciously with fair aspect,\n  And puts apparel on my tattered loving,\n  To show me worthy of thy sweet respect,\n    Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee,\n    Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me.\n\n\n                     27\n  Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,\n  The dear respose for limbs with travel tired,\n  But then begins a journey in my head\n  To work my mind, when body's work's expired.\n  For then my thoughts (from far where I abide)\n  Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,\n  And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,\n  Looking on darkness which the blind do see.\n  Save that my soul's imaginary sight\n  Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,\n  Which like a jewel (hung in ghastly night)\n  Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.\n    Lo thus by day my limbs, by night my mind,\n    For thee, and for my self, no quiet find.\n\n\n                     28\n  How can I then return in happy plight\n  That am debarred the benefit of rest?\n  When day's oppression is not eased by night,\n  But day by night and night by day oppressed.\n  And each (though enemies to either's reign)\n  Do in consent shake hands to torture me,\n  The one by toil, the other to complain\n  How far I toil, still farther off from thee.\n  I tell the day to please him thou art bright,\n  And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:\n  So flatter I the swart-complexioned night,\n  When sparkling stars twire not thou gild'st the even.\n    But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,\n    And night doth nightly make grief's length seem stronger\n\n\n                     29\n  When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,\n  I all alone beweep my outcast state,\n  And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,\n  And look upon my self and curse my fate,\n  Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,\n  Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,\n  Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,\n  With what I most enjoy contented least,\n  Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,\n  Haply I think on thee, and then my state,\n  (Like to the lark at break of day arising\n  From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate,\n    For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,\n    That then I scorn to change my state with kings.\n\n\n                     30\n  When to the sessions of sweet silent thought,\n  I summon up remembrance of things past,\n  I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,\n  And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:\n  Then can I drown an eye (unused to flow)\n  For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,\n  And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,\n  And moan th' expense of many a vanished sight.\n  Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,\n  And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er\n  The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,\n  Which I new pay as if not paid before.\n    But if the while I think on thee (dear friend)\n    All losses are restored, and sorrows end.\n\n\n                     31\n  Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,\n  Which I by lacking have supposed dead,\n  And there reigns love and all love's loving parts,\n  And all those friends which I thought buried.\n  How many a holy and obsequious tear\n  Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye,\n  As interest of the dead, which now appear,\n  But things removed that hidden in thee lie.\n  Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,\n  Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,\n  Who all their parts of me to thee did give,\n  That due of many, now is thine alone.\n    Their images I loved, I view in thee,\n    And thou (all they) hast all the all of me.\n\n\n                     32\n  If thou survive my well-contented day,\n  When that churl death my bones with dust shall cover\n  And shalt by fortune once more re-survey\n  These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover:\n  Compare them with the bett'ring of the time,\n  And though they be outstripped by every pen,\n  Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,\n  Exceeded by the height of happier men.\n  O then vouchsafe me but this loving thought,\n  'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age,\n  A dearer birth than this his love had brought\n  To march in ranks of better equipage:\n    But since he died and poets better prove,\n    Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love'.\n\n\n                     33\n  Full many a glorious morning have I seen,\n  Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,\n  Kissing with golden face the meadows green;\n  Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy:\n  Anon permit the basest clouds to ride,\n  With ugly rack on his celestial face,\n  And from the forlorn world his visage hide\n  Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:\n  Even so my sun one early morn did shine,\n  With all triumphant splendour on my brow,\n  But out alack, he was but one hour mine,\n  The region cloud hath masked him from me now.\n    Yet him for this, my love no whit disdaineth,\n    Suns of the world may stain, when heaven's sun staineth.\n\n\n                     34\n  Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,\n  And make me travel forth without my cloak,\n  To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,\n  Hiding thy brav'ry in their rotten smoke?\n  'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,\n  To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,\n  For no man well of such a salve can speak,\n  That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:\n  Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief,\n  Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss,\n  Th' offender's sorrow lends but weak relief\n  To him that bears the strong offence's cross.\n    Ah but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,\n    And they are rich, and ransom all ill deeds.\n\n\n                     35\n  No more be grieved at that which thou hast done,\n  Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud,\n  Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,\n  And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.\n  All men make faults, and even I in this,\n  Authorizing thy trespass with compare,\n  My self corrupting salving thy amiss,\n  Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are:\n  For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,\n  Thy adverse party is thy advocate,\n  And 'gainst my self a lawful plea commence:\n  Such civil war is in my love and hate,\n    That I an accessary needs must be,\n    To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.\n\n\n                     36\n  Let me confess that we two must be twain,\n  Although our undivided loves are one:\n  So shall those blots that do with me remain,\n  Without thy help, by me be borne alone.\n  In our two loves there is but one respect,\n  Though in our lives a separable spite,\n  Which though it alter not love's sole effect,\n  Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.\n  I may not evermore acknowledge thee,\n  Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,\n  Nor thou with public kindness honour me,\n  Unless thou take that honour from thy name:\n    But do not so, I love thee in such sort,\n    As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.\n\n\n                     37\n  As a decrepit father takes delight,\n  To see his active child do deeds of youth,\n  So I, made lame by Fortune's dearest spite\n  Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth.\n  For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,\n  Or any of these all, or all, or more\n  Entitled in thy parts, do crowned sit,\n  I make my love engrafted to this store:\n  So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised,\n  Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give,\n  That I in thy abundance am sufficed,\n  And by a part of all thy glory live:\n    Look what is best, that best I wish in thee,\n    This wish I have, then ten times happy me.\n\n\n                     38\n  How can my muse want subject to invent\n  While thou dost breathe that pour'st into my verse,\n  Thine own sweet argument, too excellent,\n  For every vulgar paper to rehearse?\n  O give thy self the thanks if aught in me,\n  Worthy perusal stand against thy sight,\n  For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,\n  When thou thy self dost give invention light?\n  Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth\n  Than those old nine which rhymers invocate,\n  And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth\n  Eternal numbers to outlive long date.\n    If my slight muse do please these curious days,\n    The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.\n\n\n                     39\n  O how thy worth with manners may I sing,\n  When thou art all the better part of me?\n  What can mine own praise to mine own self bring:\n  And what is't but mine own when I praise thee?\n  Even for this, let us divided live,\n  And our dear love lose name of single one,\n  That by this separation I may give:\n  That due to thee which thou deserv'st alone:\n  O absence what a torment wouldst thou prove,\n  Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave,\n  To entertain the time with thoughts of love,\n  Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive.\n    And that thou teachest how to make one twain,\n    By praising him here who doth hence remain.\n\n\n                     40\n  Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all,\n  What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?\n  No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call,\n  All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more:\n  Then if for my love, thou my love receivest,\n  I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest,\n  But yet be blamed, if thou thy self deceivest\n  By wilful taste of what thy self refusest.\n  I do forgive thy robbery gentle thief\n  Although thou steal thee all my poverty:\n  And yet love knows it is a greater grief\n  To bear love's wrong, than hate's known injury.\n    Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,\n    Kill me with spites yet we must not be foes.\n\n\n                     41\n  Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits,\n  When I am sometime absent from thy heart,\n  Thy beauty, and thy years full well befits,\n  For still temptation follows where thou art.\n  Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,\n  Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed.\n  And when a woman woos, what woman's son,\n  Will sourly leave her till he have prevailed?\n  Ay me, but yet thou mightst my seat forbear,\n  And chide thy beauty, and thy straying youth,\n  Who lead thee in their riot even there\n  Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth:\n    Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,\n    Thine by thy beauty being false to me.\n\n\n                     42\n  That thou hast her it is not all my grief,\n  And yet it may be said I loved her dearly,\n  That she hath thee is of my wailing chief,\n  A loss in love that touches me more nearly.\n  Loving offenders thus I will excuse ye,\n  Thou dost love her, because thou know'st I love her,\n  And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,\n  Suff'ring my friend for my sake to approve her.\n  If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain,\n  And losing her, my friend hath found that loss,\n  Both find each other, and I lose both twain,\n  And both for my sake lay on me this cross,\n    But here's the joy, my friend and I are one,\n    Sweet flattery, then she loves but me alone.\n\n\n                     43\n  When most I wink then do mine eyes best see,\n  For all the day they view things unrespected,\n  But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,\n  And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.\n  Then thou whose shadow shadows doth make bright\n  How would thy shadow's form, form happy show,\n  To the clear day with thy much clearer light,\n  When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!\n  How would (I say) mine eyes be blessed made,\n  By looking on thee in the living day,\n  When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade,\n  Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!\n    All days are nights to see till I see thee,\n    And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.\n\n\n                     44\n  If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,\n  Injurious distance should not stop my way,\n  For then despite of space I would be brought,\n  From limits far remote, where thou dost stay,\n  No matter then although my foot did stand\n  Upon the farthest earth removed from thee,\n  For nimble thought can jump both sea and land,\n  As soon as think the place where he would be.\n  But ah, thought kills me that I am not thought\n  To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,\n  But that so much of earth and water wrought,\n  I must attend, time's leisure with my moan.\n    Receiving nought by elements so slow,\n    But heavy tears, badges of either's woe.\n\n\n                     45\n  The other two, slight air, and purging fire,\n  Are both with thee, wherever I abide,\n  The first my thought, the other my desire,\n  These present-absent with swift motion slide.\n  For when these quicker elements are gone\n  In tender embassy of love to thee,\n  My life being made of four, with two alone,\n  Sinks down to death, oppressed with melancholy.\n  Until life's composition be recured,\n  By those swift messengers returned from thee,\n  Who even but now come back again assured,\n  Of thy fair health, recounting it to me.\n    This told, I joy, but then no longer glad,\n    I send them back again and straight grow sad.\n\n\n                     46\n  Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,\n  How to divide the conquest of thy sight,\n  Mine eye, my heart thy picture's sight would bar,\n  My heart, mine eye the freedom of that right,\n  My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,\n  (A closet never pierced with crystal eyes)\n  But the defendant doth that plea deny,\n  And says in him thy fair appearance lies.\n  To side this title is impanelled\n  A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart,\n  And by their verdict is determined\n  The clear eye's moiety, and the dear heart's part.\n    As thus, mine eye's due is thy outward part,\n    And my heart's right, thy inward love of heart.\n\n\n                     47\n  Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,\n  And each doth good turns now unto the other,\n  When that mine eye is famished for a look,\n  Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother;\n  With my love's picture then my eye doth feast,\n  And to the painted banquet bids my heart:\n  Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,\n  And in his thoughts of love doth share a part.\n  So either by thy picture or my love,\n  Thy self away, art present still with me,\n  For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,\n  And I am still with them, and they with thee.\n    Or if they sleep, thy picture in my sight\n    Awakes my heart, to heart's and eye's delight.\n\n\n                     48\n  How careful was I when I took my way,\n  Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,\n  That to my use it might unused stay\n  From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!\n  But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are,\n  Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief,\n  Thou best of dearest, and mine only care,\n  Art left the prey of every vulgar thief.\n  Thee have I not locked up in any chest,\n  Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art,\n  Within the gentle closure of my breast,\n  From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part,\n    And even thence thou wilt be stol'n I fear,\n    For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.\n\n\n                     49\n  Against that time (if ever that time come)\n  When I shall see thee frown on my defects,\n  When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,\n  Called to that audit by advised respects,\n  Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass,\n  And scarcely greet me with that sun thine eye,\n  When love converted from the thing it was\n  Shall reasons find of settled gravity;\n  Against that time do I ensconce me here\n  Within the knowledge of mine own desert,\n  And this my hand, against my self uprear,\n  To guard the lawful reasons on thy part,\n    To leave poor me, thou hast the strength of laws,\n    Since why to love, I can allege no cause.\n\n\n                     50\n  How heavy do I journey on the way,\n  When what I seek (my weary travel's end)\n  Doth teach that case and that repose to say\n  'Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend.'\n  The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,\n  Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,\n  As if by some instinct the wretch did know\n  His rider loved not speed being made from thee:\n  The bloody spur cannot provoke him on,\n  That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,\n  Which heavily he answers with a groan,\n  More sharp to me than spurring to his side,\n    For that same groan doth put this in my mind,\n    My grief lies onward and my joy behind.\n\n\n                     51\n  Thus can my love excuse the slow offence,\n  Of my dull bearer, when from thee I speed,\n  From where thou art, why should I haste me thence?\n  Till I return of posting is no need.\n  O what excuse will my poor beast then find,\n  When swift extremity can seem but slow?\n  Then should I spur though mounted on the wind,\n  In winged speed no motion shall I know,\n  Then can no horse with my desire keep pace,\n  Therefore desire (of perfect'st love being made)\n  Shall neigh (no dull flesh) in his fiery race,\n  But love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade,\n    Since from thee going, he went wilful-slow,\n    Towards thee I'll run, and give him leave to go.\n\n\n                     52\n  So am I as the rich whose blessed key,\n  Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,\n  The which he will not every hour survey,\n  For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.\n  Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,\n  Since seldom coming in that long year set,\n  Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,\n  Or captain jewels in the carcanet.\n  So is the time that keeps you as my chest\n  Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,\n  To make some special instant special-blest,\n  By new unfolding his imprisoned pride.\n    Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,\n    Being had to triumph, being lacked to hope.\n\n\n                     53\n  What is your substance, whereof are you made,\n  That millions of strange shadows on you tend?\n  Since every one, hath every one, one shade,\n  And you but one, can every shadow lend:\n  Describe Adonis and the counterfeit,\n  Is poorly imitated after you,\n  On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set,\n  And you in Grecian tires are painted new:\n  Speak of the spring, and foison of the year,\n  The one doth shadow of your beauty show,\n  The other as your bounty doth appear,\n  And you in every blessed shape we know.\n    In all external grace you have some part,\n    But you like none, none you for constant heart.\n\n\n                     54\n  O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem,\n  By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!\n  The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem\n  For that sweet odour, which doth in it live:\n  The canker blooms have full as deep a dye,\n  As the perfumed tincture of the roses,\n  Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly,\n  When summer's breath their masked buds discloses:\n  But for their virtue only is their show,\n  They live unwooed, and unrespected fade,\n  Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so,\n  Of their sweet deaths, are sweetest odours made:\n    And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,\n    When that shall vade, by verse distills your truth.\n\n\n                     55\n  Not marble, nor the gilded monuments\n  Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,\n  But you shall shine more bright in these contents\n  Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.\n  When wasteful war shall statues overturn,\n  And broils root out the work of masonry,\n  Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn:\n  The living record of your memory.\n  'Gainst death, and all-oblivious enmity\n  Shall you pace forth, your praise shall still find room,\n  Even in the eyes of all posterity\n  That wear this world out to the ending doom.\n    So till the judgment that your self arise,\n    You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.\n\n\n                     56\n  Sweet love renew thy force, be it not said\n  Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,\n  Which but to-day by feeding is allayed,\n  To-morrow sharpened in his former might.\n  So love be thou, although to-day thou fill\n  Thy hungry eyes, even till they wink with fulness,\n  To-morrow see again, and do not kill\n  The spirit of love, with a perpetual dulness:\n  Let this sad interim like the ocean be\n  Which parts the shore, where two contracted new,\n  Come daily to the banks, that when they see:\n  Return of love, more blest may be the view.\n    Or call it winter, which being full of care,\n    Makes summer's welcome, thrice more wished, more rare.\n\n\n                     57\n  Being your slave what should I do but tend,\n  Upon the hours, and times of your desire?\n  I have no precious time at all to spend;\n  Nor services to do till you require.\n  Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour,\n  Whilst I (my sovereign) watch the clock for you,\n  Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,\n  When you have bid your servant once adieu.\n  Nor dare I question with my jealous thought,\n  Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,\n  But like a sad slave stay and think of nought\n  Save where you are, how happy you make those.\n    So true a fool is love, that in your will,\n    (Though you do any thing) he thinks no ill.\n\n\n                     58\n  That god forbid, that made me first your slave,\n  I should in thought control your times of pleasure,\n  Or at your hand th' account of hours to crave,\n  Being your vassal bound to stay your leisure.\n  O let me suffer (being at your beck)\n  Th' imprisoned absence of your liberty,\n  And patience tame to sufferance bide each check,\n  Without accusing you of injury.\n  Be where you list, your charter is so strong,\n  That you your self may privilage your time\n  To what you will, to you it doth belong,\n  Your self to pardon of self-doing crime.\n    I am to wait, though waiting so be hell,\n    Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well.\n\n\n                     59\n  If there be nothing new, but that which is,\n  Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,\n  Which labouring for invention bear amis\n  The second burthen of a former child!\n  O that record could with a backward look,\n  Even of five hundred courses of the sun,\n  Show me your image in some antique book,\n  Since mind at first in character was done.\n  That I might see what the old world could say,\n  To this composed wonder of your frame,\n  Whether we are mended, or whether better they,\n  Or whether revolution be the same.\n    O sure I am the wits of former days,\n    To subjects worse have given admiring praise.\n\n\n                     60\n  Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,\n  So do our minutes hasten to their end,\n  Each changing place with that which goes before,\n  In sequent toil all forwards do contend.\n  Nativity once in the main of light,\n  Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned,\n  Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,\n  And Time that gave, doth now his gift confound.\n  Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,\n  And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,\n  Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,\n  And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.\n    And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand\n    Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.\n\n\n                     61\n  Is it thy will, thy image should keep open\n  My heavy eyelids to the weary night?\n  Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,\n  While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?\n  Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee\n  So far from home into my deeds to pry,\n  To find out shames and idle hours in me,\n  The scope and tenure of thy jealousy?\n  O no, thy love though much, is not so great,\n  It is my love that keeps mine eye awake,\n  Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,\n  To play the watchman ever for thy sake.\n    For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,\n    From me far off, with others all too near.\n\n\n                     62\n  Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye,\n  And all my soul, and all my every part;\n  And for this sin there is no remedy,\n  It is so grounded inward in my heart.\n  Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,\n  No shape so true, no truth of such account,\n  And for my self mine own worth do define,\n  As I all other in all worths surmount.\n  But when my glass shows me my self indeed\n  beated and chopt with tanned antiquity,\n  Mine own self-love quite contrary I read:\n  Self, so self-loving were iniquity.\n    'Tis thee (my self) that for my self I praise,\n    Painting my age with beauty of thy days.\n\n\n                     63\n  Against my love shall be as I am now\n  With Time's injurious hand crushed and o'erworn,\n  When hours have drained his blood and filled his brow\n  With lines and wrinkles, when his youthful morn\n  Hath travelled on to age's steepy night,\n  And all those beauties whereof now he's king\n  Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,\n  Stealing away the treasure of his spring:\n  For such a time do I now fortify\n  Against confounding age's cruel knife,\n  That he shall never cut from memory\n  My sweet love's beauty, though my lover's life.\n    His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,\n    And they shall live, and he in them still green.\n\n\n                     64\n  When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced\n  The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age,\n  When sometime lofty towers I see down-rased,\n  And brass eternal slave to mortal rage.\n  When I have seen the hungry ocean gain\n  Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,\n  And the firm soil win of the watery main,\n  Increasing store with loss, and loss with store.\n  When I have seen such interchange of State,\n  Or state it self confounded, to decay,\n  Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate\n  That Time will come and take my love away.\n    This thought is as a death which cannot choose\n    But weep to have, that which it fears to lose.\n\n\n                     65\n  Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,\n  But sad mortality o'ersways their power,\n  How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,\n  Whose action is no stronger than a flower?\n  O how shall summer's honey breath hold out,\n  Against the wrackful siege of batt'ring days,\n  When rocks impregnable are not so stout,\n  Nor gates of steel so strong but time decays?\n  O fearful meditation, where alack,\n  Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?\n  Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back,\n  Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?\n    O none, unless this miracle have might,\n    That in black ink my love may still shine bright.\n\n\n                     66\n  Tired with all these for restful death I cry,\n  As to behold desert a beggar born,\n  And needy nothing trimmed in jollity,\n  And purest faith unhappily forsworn,\n  And gilded honour shamefully misplaced,\n  And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,\n  And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,\n  And strength by limping sway disabled\n  And art made tongue-tied by authority,\n  And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill,\n  And simple truth miscalled simplicity,\n  And captive good attending captain ill.\n    Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,\n    Save that to die, I leave my love alone.\n\n\n                     67\n  Ah wherefore with infection should he live,\n  And with his presence grace impiety,\n  That sin by him advantage should achieve,\n  And lace it self with his society?\n  Why should false painting imitate his cheek,\n  And steal dead seeming of his living hue?\n  Why should poor beauty indirectly seek,\n  Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?\n  Why should he live, now nature bankrupt is,\n  Beggared of blood to blush through lively veins,\n  For she hath no exchequer now but his,\n  And proud of many, lives upon his gains?\n    O him she stores, to show what wealth she had,\n    In days long since, before these last so bad.\n\n\n                     68\n  Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,\n  When beauty lived and died as flowers do now,\n  Before these bastard signs of fair were born,\n  Or durst inhabit on a living brow:\n  Before the golden tresses of the dead,\n  The right of sepulchres, were shorn away,\n  To live a second life on second head,\n  Ere beauty's dead fleece made another gay:\n  In him those holy antique hours are seen,\n  Without all ornament, it self and true,\n  Making no summer of another's green,\n  Robbing no old to dress his beauty new,\n    And him as for a map doth Nature store,\n    To show false Art what beauty was of yore.\n\n\n                     69\n  Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view,\n  Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend:\n  All tongues (the voice of souls) give thee that due,\n  Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.\n  Thy outward thus with outward praise is crowned,\n  But those same tongues that give thee so thine own,\n  In other accents do this praise confound\n  By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.\n  They look into the beauty of thy mind,\n  And that in guess they measure by thy deeds,\n  Then churls their thoughts (although their eyes were kind)\n  To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds:\n    But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,\n    The soil is this, that thou dost common grow.\n\n\n                     70\n  That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,\n  For slander's mark was ever yet the fair,\n  The ornament of beauty is suspect,\n  A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.\n  So thou be good, slander doth but approve,\n  Thy worth the greater being wooed of time,\n  For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,\n  And thou present'st a pure unstained prime.\n  Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days,\n  Either not assailed, or victor being charged,\n  Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,\n  To tie up envy, evermore enlarged,\n    If some suspect of ill masked not thy show,\n    Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.\n\n\n                     71\n  No longer mourn for me when I am dead,\n  Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell\n  Give warning to the world that I am fled\n  From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell:\n  Nay if you read this line, remember not,\n  The hand that writ it, for I love you so,\n  That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,\n  If thinking on me then should make you woe.\n  O if (I say) you look upon this verse,\n  When I (perhaps) compounded am with clay,\n  Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;\n  But let your love even with my life decay.\n    Lest the wise world should look into your moan,\n    And mock you with me after I am gone.\n\n\n                     72\n  O lest the world should task you to recite,\n  What merit lived in me that you should love\n  After my death (dear love) forget me quite,\n  For you in me can nothing worthy prove.\n  Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,\n  To do more for me than mine own desert,\n  And hang more praise upon deceased I,\n  Than niggard truth would willingly impart:\n  O lest your true love may seem false in this,\n  That you for love speak well of me untrue,\n  My name be buried where my body is,\n  And live no more to shame nor me, nor you.\n    For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,\n    And so should you, to love things nothing worth.\n\n\n                     73\n  That time of year thou mayst in me behold,\n  When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang\n  Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,\n  Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.\n  In me thou seest the twilight of such day,\n  As after sunset fadeth in the west,\n  Which by and by black night doth take away,\n  Death's second self that seals up all in rest.\n  In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,\n  That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,\n  As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,\n  Consumed with that which it was nourished by.\n    This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,\n    To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.\n\n\n                     74\n  But be contented when that fell arrest,\n  Without all bail shall carry me away,\n  My life hath in this line some interest,\n  Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.\n  When thou reviewest this, thou dost review,\n  The very part was consecrate to thee,\n  The earth can have but earth, which is his due,\n  My spirit is thine the better part of me,\n  So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,\n  The prey of worms, my body being dead,\n  The coward conquest of a wretch's knife,\n  Too base of thee to be remembered,\n    The worth of that, is that which it contains,\n    And that is this, and this with thee remains.\n\n\n                     75\n  So are you to my thoughts as food to life,\n  Or as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground;\n  And for the peace of you I hold such strife\n  As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found.\n  Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon\n  Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure,\n  Now counting best to be with you alone,\n  Then bettered that the world may see my pleasure,\n  Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,\n  And by and by clean starved for a look,\n  Possessing or pursuing no delight\n  Save what is had, or must from you be took.\n    Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,\n    Or gluttoning on all, or all away.\n\n\n                     76\n  Why is my verse so barren of new pride?\n  So far from variation or quick change?\n  Why with the time do I not glance aside\n  To new-found methods, and to compounds strange?\n  Why write I still all one, ever the same,\n  And keep invention in a noted weed,\n  That every word doth almost tell my name,\n  Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?\n  O know sweet love I always write of you,\n  And you and love are still my argument:\n  So all my best is dressing old words new,\n  Spending again what is already spent:\n    For as the sun is daily new and old,\n    So is my love still telling what is told.\n\n\n                     77\n  Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,\n  Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste,\n  These vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,\n  And of this book, this learning mayst thou taste.\n  The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show,\n  Of mouthed graves will give thee memory,\n  Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know,\n  Time's thievish progress to eternity.\n  Look what thy memory cannot contain,\n  Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find\n  Those children nursed, delivered from thy brain,\n  To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.\n    These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,\n    Shall profit thee, and much enrich thy book.\n\n\n                     78\n  So oft have I invoked thee for my muse,\n  And found such fair assistance in my verse,\n  As every alien pen hath got my use,\n  And under thee their poesy disperse.\n  Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing,\n  And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,\n  Have added feathers to the learned's wing,\n  And given grace a double majesty.\n  Yet be most proud of that which I compile,\n  Whose influence is thine, and born of thee,\n  In others' works thou dost but mend the style,\n  And arts with thy sweet graces graced be.\n    But thou art all my art, and dost advance\n    As high as learning, my rude ignorance.\n\n\n                     79\n  Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,\n  My verse alone had all thy gentle grace,\n  But now my gracious numbers are decayed,\n  And my sick muse doth give an other place.\n  I grant (sweet love) thy lovely argument\n  Deserves the travail of a worthier pen,\n  Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent,\n  He robs thee of, and pays it thee again,\n  He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word,\n  From thy behaviour, beauty doth he give\n  And found it in thy cheek: he can afford\n  No praise to thee, but what in thee doth live.\n    Then thank him not for that which he doth say,\n    Since what he owes thee, thou thy self dost pay.\n\n\n                     80\n  O how I faint when I of you do write,\n  Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,\n  And in the praise thereof spends all his might,\n  To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame.\n  But since your worth (wide as the ocean is)\n  The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,\n  My saucy bark (inferior far to his)\n  On your broad main doth wilfully appear.\n  Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,\n  Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride,\n  Or (being wrecked) I am a worthless boat,\n  He of tall building, and of goodly pride.\n    Then if he thrive and I be cast away,\n    The worst was this, my love was my decay.\n\n\n                     81\n  Or I shall live your epitaph to make,\n  Or you survive when I in earth am rotten,\n  From hence your memory death cannot take,\n  Although in me each part will be forgotten.\n  Your name from hence immortal life shall have,\n  Though I (once gone) to all the world must die,\n  The earth can yield me but a common grave,\n  When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie,\n  Your monument shall be my gentle verse,\n  Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read,\n  And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse,\n  When all the breathers of this world are dead,\n    You still shall live (such virtue hath my pen)\n    Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.\n\n\n                     82\n  I grant thou wert not married to my muse,\n  And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook\n  The dedicated words which writers use\n  Of their fair subject, blessing every book.\n  Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,\n  Finding thy worth a limit past my praise,\n  And therefore art enforced to seek anew,\n  Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days.\n  And do so love, yet when they have devised,\n  What strained touches rhetoric can lend,\n  Thou truly fair, wert truly sympathized,\n  In true plain words, by thy true-telling friend.\n    And their gross painting might be better used,\n    Where cheeks need blood, in thee it is abused.\n\n\n                     83\n  I never saw that you did painting need,\n  And therefore to your fair no painting set,\n  I found (or thought I found) you did exceed,\n  That barren tender of a poet's debt:\n  And therefore have I slept in your report,\n  That you your self being extant well might show,\n  How far a modern quill doth come too short,\n  Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow.\n  This silence for my sin you did impute,\n  Which shall be most my glory being dumb,\n  For I impair not beauty being mute,\n  When others would give life, and bring a tomb.\n    There lives more life in one of your fair eyes,\n    Than both your poets can in praise devise.\n\n\n                     84\n  Who is it that says most, which can say more,\n  Than this rich praise, that you alone, are you?\n  In whose confine immured is the store,\n  Which should example where your equal grew.\n  Lean penury within that pen doth dwell,\n  That to his subject lends not some small glory,\n  But he that writes of you, if he can tell,\n  That you are you, so dignifies his story.\n  Let him but copy what in you is writ,\n  Not making worse what nature made so clear,\n  And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,\n  Making his style admired every where.\n    You to your beauteous blessings add a curse,\n    Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.\n\n\n                     85\n  My tongue-tied muse in manners holds her still,\n  While comments of your praise richly compiled,\n  Reserve their character with golden quill,\n  And precious phrase by all the Muses filed.\n  I think good thoughts, whilst other write good words,\n  And like unlettered clerk still cry Amen,\n  To every hymn that able spirit affords,\n  In polished form of well refined pen.\n  Hearing you praised, I say 'tis so, 'tis true,\n  And to the most of praise add something more,\n  But that is in my thought, whose love to you\n  (Though words come hindmost) holds his rank before,\n    Then others, for the breath of words respect,\n    Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.\n\n\n                     86\n  Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,\n  Bound for the prize of (all too precious) you,\n  That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,\n  Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?\n  Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write,\n  Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?\n  No, neither he, nor his compeers by night\n  Giving him aid, my verse astonished.\n  He nor that affable familiar ghost\n  Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,\n  As victors of my silence cannot boast,\n  I was not sick of any fear from thence.\n    But when your countenance filled up his line,\n    Then lacked I matter, that enfeebled mine.\n\n\n                     87\n  Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,\n  And like enough thou know'st thy estimate,\n  The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing:\n  My bonds in thee are all determinate.\n  For how do I hold thee but by thy granting,\n  And for that riches where is my deserving?\n  The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,\n  And so my patent back again is swerving.\n  Thy self thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing,\n  Or me to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking,\n  So thy great gift upon misprision growing,\n  Comes home again, on better judgement making.\n    Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter,\n    In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.\n\n\n                     88\n  When thou shalt be disposed to set me light,\n  And place my merit in the eye of scorn,\n  Upon thy side, against my self I'll fight,\n  And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn:\n  With mine own weakness being best acquainted,\n  Upon thy part I can set down a story\n  Of faults concealed, wherein I am attainted:\n  That thou in losing me, shalt win much glory:\n  And I by this will be a gainer too,\n  For bending all my loving thoughts on thee,\n  The injuries that to my self I do,\n  Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me.\n    Such is my love, to thee I so belong,\n    That for thy right, my self will bear all wrong.\n\n\n                     89\n  Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault,\n  And I will comment upon that offence,\n  Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt:\n  Against thy reasons making no defence.\n  Thou canst not (love) disgrace me half so ill,\n  To set a form upon desired change,\n  As I'll my self disgrace, knowing thy will,\n  I will acquaintance strangle and look strange:\n  Be absent from thy walks and in my tongue,\n  Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell,\n  Lest I (too much profane) should do it wrong:\n  And haply of our old acquaintance tell.\n    For thee, against my self I'll vow debate,\n    For I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate.\n\n\n                     90\n  Then hate me when thou wilt, if ever, now,\n  Now while the world is bent my deeds to cross,\n  join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,\n  And do not drop in for an after-loss:\n  Ah do not, when my heart hath 'scaped this sorrow,\n  Come in the rearward of a conquered woe,\n  Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,\n  To linger out a purposed overthrow.\n  If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,\n  When other petty griefs have done their spite,\n  But in the onset come, so shall I taste\n  At first the very worst of fortune's might.\n    And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,\n    Compared with loss of thee, will not seem so.\n\n\n                     91\n  Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,\n  Some in their wealth, some in their body's force,\n  Some in their garments though new-fangled ill:\n  Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse.\n  And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure,\n  Wherein it finds a joy above the rest,\n  But these particulars are not my measure,\n  All these I better in one general best.\n  Thy love is better than high birth to me,\n  Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' costs,\n  Of more delight than hawks and horses be:\n  And having thee, of all men's pride I boast.\n    Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take,\n    All this away, and me most wretchcd make.\n\n\n                     92\n  But do thy worst to steal thy self away,\n  For term of life thou art assured mine,\n  And life no longer than thy love will stay,\n  For it depends upon that love of thine.\n  Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs,\n  When in the least of them my life hath end,\n  I see, a better state to me belongs\n  Than that, which on thy humour doth depend.\n  Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind,\n  Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie,\n  O what a happy title do I find,\n  Happy to have thy love, happy to die!\n    But what's so blessed-fair that fears no blot?\n    Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not.\n\n\n                     93\n  So shall I live, supposing thou art true,\n  Like a deceived husband, so love's face,\n  May still seem love to me, though altered new:\n  Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place.\n  For there can live no hatred in thine eye,\n  Therefore in that I cannot know thy change,\n  In many's looks, the false heart's history\n  Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange.\n  But heaven in thy creation did decree,\n  That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell,\n  Whate'er thy thoughts, or thy heart's workings be,\n  Thy looks should nothing thence, but sweetness tell.\n    How like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow,\n    If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show.\n\n\n                     94\n  They that have power to hurt, and will do none,\n  That do not do the thing, they most do show,\n  Who moving others, are themselves as stone,\n  Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow:\n  They rightly do inherit heaven's graces,\n  And husband nature's riches from expense,\n  Tibey are the lords and owners of their faces,\n  Others, but stewards of their excellence:\n  The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,\n  Though to it self, it only live and die,\n  But if that flower with base infection meet,\n  The basest weed outbraves his dignity:\n    For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds,\n    Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.\n\n\n                     95\n  How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame,\n  Which like a canker in the fragrant rose,\n  Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!\n  O in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose!\n  That tongue that tells the story of thy days,\n  (Making lascivious comments on thy sport)\n  Cannot dispraise, but in a kind of praise,\n  Naming thy name, blesses an ill report.\n  O what a mansion have those vices got,\n  Which for their habitation chose out thee,\n  Where beauty's veil doth cover every blot,\n  And all things turns to fair, that eyes can see!\n    Take heed (dear heart) of this large privilege,\n    The hardest knife ill-used doth lose his edge.\n\n\n                     96\n  Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness,\n  Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport,\n  Both grace and faults are loved of more and less:\n  Thou mak'st faults graces, that to thee resort:\n  As on the finger of a throned queen,\n  The basest jewel will be well esteemed:\n  So are those errors that in thee are seen,\n  To truths translated, and for true things deemed.\n  How many lambs might the stern wolf betray,\n  If like a lamb he could his looks translate!\n  How many gazers mightst thou lead away,\n  if thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state!\n    But do not so, I love thee in such sort,\n    As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.\n\n\n                     97\n  How like a winter hath my absence been\n  From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!\n  What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!\n  What old December's bareness everywhere!\n  And yet this time removed was summer's time,\n  The teeming autumn big with rich increase,\n  Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,\n  Like widowed wombs after their lords' decease:\n  Yet this abundant issue seemed to me\n  But hope of orphans, and unfathered fruit,\n  For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,\n  And thou away, the very birds are mute.\n    Or if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer,\n    That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.\n\n\n                     98\n  From you have I been absent in the spring,\n  When proud-pied April (dressed in all his trim)\n  Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing:\n  That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him.\n  Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell\n  Of different flowers in odour and in hue,\n  Could make me any summer's story tell:\n  Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:\n  Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,\n  Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose,\n  They were but sweet, but figures of delight:\n  Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.\n    Yet seemed it winter still, and you away,\n    As with your shadow I with these did play.\n\n\n                     99\n  The forward violet thus did I chide,\n  Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,\n  If not from my love's breath? The purple pride\n  Which on thy soft check for complexion dwells,\n  In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed.\n  The lily I condemned for thy hand,\n  And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair,\n  The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,\n  One blushing shame, another white despair:\n  A third nor red, nor white, had stol'n of both,\n  And to his robbery had annexed thy breath,\n  But for his theft in pride of all his growth\n  A vengeful canker eat him up to death.\n    More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,\n    But sweet, or colour it had stol'n from thee.\n\n\n                     100\n  Where art thou Muse that thou forget'st so long,\n  To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?\n  Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,\n  Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?\n  Return forgetful Muse, and straight redeem,\n  In gentle numbers time so idly spent,\n  Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem,\n  And gives thy pen both skill and argument.\n  Rise resty Muse, my love's sweet face survey,\n  If time have any wrinkle graven there,\n  If any, be a satire to decay,\n  And make time's spoils despised everywhere.\n    Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life,\n    So thou prevent'st his scythe, and crooked knife.\n\n\n                     101\n  O truant Muse what shall be thy amends,\n  For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?\n  Both truth and beauty on my love depends:\n  So dost thou too, and therein dignified:\n  Make answer Muse, wilt thou not haply say,\n  'Truth needs no colour with his colour fixed,\n  Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay:\n  But best is best, if never intermixed'?\n  Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?\n  Excuse not silence so, for't lies in thee,\n  To make him much outlive a gilded tomb:\n  And to be praised of ages yet to be.\n    Then do thy office Muse, I teach thee how,\n    To make him seem long hence, as he shows now.\n\n\n                     102\n  My love is strengthened though more weak in seeming,\n  I love not less, though less the show appear,\n  That love is merchandized, whose rich esteeming,\n  The owner's tongue doth publish every where.\n  Our love was new, and then but in the spring,\n  When I was wont to greet it with my lays,\n  As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,\n  And stops her pipe in growth of riper days:\n  Not that the summer is less pleasant now\n  Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,\n  But that wild music burthens every bough,\n  And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.\n    Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue:\n    Because I would not dull you with my song.\n\n\n                     103\n  Alack what poverty my muse brings forth,\n  That having such a scope to show her pride,\n  The argument all bare is of more worth\n  Than when it hath my added praise beside.\n  O blame me not if I no more can write!\n  Look in your glass and there appears a face,\n  That over-goes my blunt invention quite,\n  Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.\n  Were it not sinful then striving to mend,\n  To mar the subject that before was well?\n  For to no other pass my verses tend,\n  Than of your graces and your gifts to tell.\n    And more, much more than in my verse can sit,\n    Your own glass shows you, when you look in it.\n\n\n                     104\n  To me fair friend you never can be old,\n  For as you were when first your eye I eyed,\n  Such seems your beauty still: three winters cold,\n  Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,\n  Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned,\n  In process of the seasons have I seen,\n  Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,\n  Since first I saw you fresh which yet are green.\n  Ah yet doth beauty like a dial hand,\n  Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived,\n  So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand\n  Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived.\n    For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred,\n    Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.\n\n\n                     105\n  Let not my love be called idolatry,\n  Nor my beloved as an idol show,\n  Since all alike my songs and praises be\n  To one, of one, still such, and ever so.\n  Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,\n  Still constant in a wondrous excellence,\n  Therefore my verse to constancy confined,\n  One thing expressing, leaves out difference.\n  Fair, kind, and true, is all my argument,\n  Fair, kind, and true, varying to other words,\n  And in this change is my invention spent,\n  Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.\n    Fair, kind, and true, have often lived alone.\n    Which three till now, never kept seat in one.\n\n\n                     106\n  When in the chronicle of wasted time,\n  I see descriptions of the fairest wights,\n  And beauty making beautiful old rhyme,\n  In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights,\n  Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,\n  Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,\n  I see their antique pen would have expressed,\n  Even such a beauty as you master now.\n  So all their praises are but prophecies\n  Of this our time, all you prefiguring,\n  And for they looked but with divining eyes,\n  They had not skill enough your worth to sing:\n    For we which now behold these present days,\n    Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.\n\n\n                     107\n  Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul,\n  Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come,\n  Can yet the lease of my true love control,\n  Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom.\n  The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,\n  And the sad augurs mock their own presage,\n  Incertainties now crown themselves assured,\n  And peace proclaims olives of endless age.\n  Now with the drops of this most balmy time,\n  My love looks fresh, and death to me subscribes,\n  Since spite of him I'll live in this poor rhyme,\n  While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes.\n    And thou in this shalt find thy monument,\n    When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.\n\n\n                     108\n  What's in the brain that ink may character,\n  Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit,\n  What's new to speak, what now to register,\n  That may express my love, or thy dear merit?\n  Nothing sweet boy, but yet like prayers divine,\n  I must each day say o'er the very same,\n  Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,\n  Even as when first I hallowed thy fair name.\n  So that eternal love in love's fresh case,\n  Weighs not the dust and injury of age,\n  Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,\n  But makes antiquity for aye his page,\n    Finding the first conceit of love there bred,\n    Where time and outward form would show it dead.\n\n\n                     109\n  O never say that I was false of heart,\n  Though absence seemed my flame to qualify,\n  As easy might I from my self depart,\n  As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie:\n  That is my home of love, if I have ranged,\n  Like him that travels I return again,\n  Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,\n  So that my self bring water for my stain,\n  Never believe though in my nature reigned,\n  All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,\n  That it could so preposterously be stained,\n  To leave for nothing all thy sum of good:\n    For nothing this wide universe I call,\n    Save thou my rose, in it thou art my all.\n\n\n                     110\n  Alas 'tis true, I have gone here and there,\n  And made my self a motley to the view,\n  Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,\n  Made old offences of affections new.\n  Most true it is, that I have looked on truth\n  Askance and strangely: but by all above,\n  These blenches gave my heart another youth,\n  And worse essays proved thee my best of love.\n  Now all is done, have what shall have no end,\n  Mine appetite I never more will grind\n  On newer proof, to try an older friend,\n  A god in love, to whom I am confined.\n    Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,\n    Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.\n\n\n                     111\n  O for my sake do you with Fortune chide,\n  The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,\n  That did not better for my life provide,\n  Than public means which public manners breeds.\n  Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,\n  And almost thence my nature is subdued\n  To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:\n  Pity me then, and wish I were renewed,\n  Whilst like a willing patient I will drink,\n  Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection,\n  No bitterness that I will bitter think,\n  Nor double penance to correct correction.\n    Pity me then dear friend, and I assure ye,\n    Even that your pity is enough to cure me.\n\n\n                     112\n  Your love and pity doth th' impression fill,\n  Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow,\n  For what care I who calls me well or ill,\n  So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow?\n  You are my all the world, and I must strive,\n  To know my shames and praises from your tongue,\n  None else to me, nor I to none alive,\n  That my steeled sense or changes right or wrong.\n  In so profound abysm I throw all care\n  Of others' voices, that my adder's sense,\n  To critic and to flatterer stopped are:\n  Mark how with my neglect I do dispense.\n    You are so strongly in my purpose bred,\n    That all the world besides methinks are dead.\n\n\n                     113\n  Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind,\n  And that which governs me to go about,\n  Doth part his function, and is partly blind,\n  Seems seeing, but effectually is out:\n  For it no form delivers to the heart\n  Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch,\n  Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,\n  Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch:\n  For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight,\n  The most sweet favour or deformed'st creature,\n  The mountain, or the sea, the day, or night:\n  The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.\n    Incapable of more, replete with you,\n    My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.\n\n\n                     114\n  Or whether doth my mind being crowned with you\n  Drink up the monarch's plague this flattery?\n  Or whether shall I say mine eye saith true,\n  And that your love taught it this alchemy?\n  To make of monsters, and things indigest,\n  Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,\n  Creating every bad a perfect best\n  As fast as objects to his beams assemble:\n  O 'tis the first, 'tis flattery in my seeing,\n  And my great mind most kingly drinks it up,\n  Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing,\n  And to his palate doth prepare the cup.\n    If it be poisoned, 'tis the lesser sin,\n    That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.\n\n\n                     115\n  Those lines that I before have writ do lie,\n  Even those that said I could not love you dearer,\n  Yet then my judgment knew no reason why,\n  My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer,\n  But reckoning time, whose millioned accidents\n  Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,\n  Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents,\n  Divert strong minds to the course of alt'ring things:\n  Alas why fearing of time's tyranny,\n  Might I not then say 'Now I love you best,'\n  When I was certain o'er incertainty,\n  Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?\n    Love is a babe, then might I not say so\n    To give full growth to that which still doth grow.\n\n\n                     116\n  Let me not to the marriage of true minds\n  Admit impediments, love is not love\n  Which alters when it alteration finds,\n  Or bends with the remover to remove.\n  O no, it is an ever-fixed mark\n  That looks on tempests and is never shaken;\n  It is the star to every wand'ring bark,\n  Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.\n  Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks\n  Within his bending sickle's compass come,\n  Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,\n  But bears it out even to the edge of doom:\n    If this be error and upon me proved,\n    I never writ, nor no man ever loved.\n\n\n                     117\n  Accuse me thus, that I have scanted all,\n  Wherein I should your great deserts repay,\n  Forgot upon your dearest love to call,\n  Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day,\n  That I have frequent been with unknown minds,\n  And given to time your own dear-purchased right,\n  That I have hoisted sail to all the winds\n  Which should transport me farthest from your sight.\n  Book both my wilfulness and errors down,\n  And on just proof surmise, accumulate,\n  Bring me within the level of your frown,\n  But shoot not at me in your wakened hate:\n    Since my appeal says I did strive to prove\n    The constancy and virtue of your love.\n\n\n                     118\n  Like as to make our appetite more keen\n  With eager compounds we our palate urge,\n  As to prevent our maladies unseen,\n  We sicken to shun sickness when we purge.\n  Even so being full of your ne'er-cloying sweetness,\n  To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding;\n  And sick of welfare found a kind of meetness,\n  To be diseased ere that there was true needing.\n  Thus policy in love t' anticipate\n  The ills that were not, grew to faults assured,\n  And brought to medicine a healthful state\n  Which rank of goodness would by ill be cured.\n    But thence I learn and find the lesson true,\n    Drugs poison him that so feil sick of you.\n\n\n                     119\n  What potions have I drunk of Siren tears\n  Distilled from limbecks foul as hell within,\n  Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,\n  Still losing when I saw my self to win!\n  What wretched errors hath my heart committed,\n  Whilst it hath thought it self so blessed never!\n  How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted\n  In the distraction of this madding fever!\n  O benefit of ill, now I find true\n  That better is, by evil still made better.\n  And ruined love when it is built anew\n  Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.\n    So I return rebuked to my content,\n    And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent.\n\n\n                     120\n  That you were once unkind befriends me now,\n  And for that sorrow, which I then did feel,\n  Needs must I under my transgression bow,\n  Unless my nerves were brass or hammered steel.\n  For if you were by my unkindness shaken\n  As I by yours, y'have passed a hell of time,\n  And I a tyrant have no leisure taken\n  To weigh how once I suffered in your crime.\n  O that our night of woe might have remembered\n  My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,\n  And soon to you, as you to me then tendered\n  The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits!\n    But that your trespass now becomes a fee,\n    Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.\n\n\n                     121\n  'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed,\n  When not to be, receives reproach of being,\n  And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed,\n  Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing.\n  For why should others' false adulterate eyes\n  Give salutation to my sportive blood?\n  Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,\n  Which in their wills count bad what I think good?\n  No, I am that I am, and they that level\n  At my abuses, reckon up their own,\n  I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;\n  By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown\n    Unless this general evil they maintain,\n    All men are bad and in their badness reign.\n\n\n                     122\n  Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain\n  Full charactered with lasting memory,\n  Which shall above that idle rank remain\n  Beyond all date even to eternity.\n  Or at the least, so long as brain and heart\n  Have faculty by nature to subsist,\n  Till each to razed oblivion yield his part\n  Of thee, thy record never can be missed:\n  That poor retention could not so much hold,\n  Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score,\n  Therefore to give them from me was I bold,\n  To trust those tables that receive thee more:\n    To keep an adjunct to remember thee\n    Were to import forgetfulness in me.\n\n\n                     123\n  No! Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change,\n  Thy pyramids built up with newer might\n  To me are nothing novel, nothing strange,\n  They are but dressings Of a former sight:\n  Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire,\n  What thou dost foist upon us that is old,\n  And rather make them born to our desire,\n  Than think that we before have heard them told:\n  Thy registers and thee I both defy,\n  Not wond'ring at the present, nor the past,\n  For thy records, and what we see doth lie,\n  Made more or less by thy continual haste:\n    This I do vow and this shall ever be,\n    I will be true despite thy scythe and thee.\n\n\n                     124\n  If my dear love were but the child of state,\n  It might for Fortune's bastard be unfathered,\n  As subject to time's love or to time's hate,\n  Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gathered.\n  No it was builded far from accident,\n  It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls\n  Under the blow of thralled discontent,\n  Whereto th' inviting time our fashion calls:\n  It fears not policy that heretic,\n  Which works on leases of short-numbered hours,\n  But all alone stands hugely politic,\n  That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.\n    To this I witness call the fools of time,\n    Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.\n\n\n                     125\n  Were't aught to me I bore the canopy,\n  With my extern the outward honouring,\n  Or laid great bases for eternity,\n  Which proves more short than waste or ruining?\n  Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour\n  Lose all, and more by paying too much rent\n  For compound sweet; forgoing simple savour,\n  Pitiful thrivers in their gazing spent?\n  No, let me be obsequious in thy heart,\n  And take thou my oblation, poor but free,\n  Which is not mixed with seconds, knows no art,\n  But mutual render, only me for thee.\n    Hence, thou suborned informer, a true soul\n    When most impeached, stands least in thy control.\n\n\n                     126\n  O thou my lovely boy who in thy power,\n  Dost hold Time's fickle glass his fickle hour:\n  Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st,\n  Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st.\n  If Nature (sovereign mistress over wrack)\n  As thou goest onwards still will pluck thee back,\n  She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill\n  May time disgrace, and wretched minutes kill.\n  Yet fear her O thou minion of her pleasure,\n  She may detain, but not still keep her treasure!\n    Her audit (though delayed) answered must be,\n    And her quietus is to render thee.\n\n\n                     127\n  In the old age black was not counted fair,\n  Or if it were it bore not beauty's name:\n  But now is black beauty's successive heir,\n  And beauty slandered with a bastard shame,\n  For since each hand hath put on nature's power,\n  Fairing the foul with art's false borrowed face,\n  Sweet beauty hath no name no holy bower,\n  But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.\n  Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black,\n  Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem,\n  At such who not born fair no beauty lack,\n  Slandering creation with a false esteem,\n    Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe,\n    That every tongue says beauty should look so.\n\n\n                     128\n  How oft when thou, my music, music play'st,\n  Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds\n  With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway'st\n  The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,\n  Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap,\n  To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,\n  Whilst my poor lips which should that harvest reap,\n  At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand.\n  To be so tickled they would change their state\n  And situation with those dancing chips,\n  O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,\n  Making dead wood more blest than living lips,\n    Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,\n    Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.\n\n\n                     129\n  Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame\n  Is lust in action, and till action, lust\n  Is perjured, murd'rous, bloody full of blame,\n  Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,\n  Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight,\n  Past reason hunted, and no sooner had\n  Past reason hated as a swallowed bait,\n  On purpose laid to make the taker mad.\n  Mad in pursuit and in possession so,\n  Had, having, and in quest, to have extreme,\n  A bliss in proof and proved, a very woe,\n  Before a joy proposed behind a dream.\n    All this the world well knows yet none knows well,\n    To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.\n\n\n                     130\n  My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun,\n  Coral is far more red, than her lips red,\n  If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun:\n  If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head:\n  I have seen roses damasked, red and white,\n  But no such roses see I in her cheeks,\n  And in some perfumes is there more delight,\n  Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.\n  I love to hear her speak, yet well I know,\n  That music hath a far more pleasing sound:\n  I grant I never saw a goddess go,\n  My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.\n    And yet by heaven I think my love as rare,\n    As any she belied with false compare.\n\n\n                     131\n  Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,\n  As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;\n  For well thou know'st to my dear doting heart\n  Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.\n  Yet in good faith some say that thee behold,\n  Thy face hath not the power to make love groan;\n  To say they err, I dare not be so bold,\n  Although I swear it to my self alone.\n  And to be sure that is not false I swear,\n  A thousand groans but thinking on thy face,\n  One on another's neck do witness bear\n  Thy black is fairest in my judgment's place.\n    In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,\n    And thence this slander as I think proceeds.\n\n\n                     132\n  Thine eyes I love, and they as pitying me,\n  Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain,\n  Have put on black, and loving mourners be,\n  Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.\n  And truly not the morning sun of heaven\n  Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,\n  Nor that full star that ushers in the even\n  Doth half that glory to the sober west\n  As those two mourning eyes become thy face:\n  O let it then as well beseem thy heart\n  To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace,\n  And suit thy pity like in every part.\n    Then will I swear beauty herself is black,\n    And all they foul that thy complexion lack.\n\n\n                     133\n  Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan\n  For that deep wound it gives my friend and me;\n  Is't not enough to torture me alone,\n  But slave to slavery my sweet'st friend must be?\n  Me from my self thy cruel eye hath taken,\n  And my next self thou harder hast engrossed,\n  Of him, my self, and thee I am forsaken,\n  A torment thrice three-fold thus to be crossed:\n  Prison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward,\n  But then my friend's heart let my poor heart bail,\n  Whoe'er keeps me, let my heart be his guard,\n  Thou canst not then use rigour in my gaol.\n    And yet thou wilt, for I being pent in thee,\n    Perforce am thine and all that is in me.\n\n\n                     134\n  So now I have confessed that he is thine,\n  And I my self am mortgaged to thy will,\n  My self I'll forfeit, so that other mine,\n  Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still:\n  But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,\n  For thou art covetous, and he is kind,\n  He learned but surety-like to write for me,\n  Under that bond that him as fist doth bind.\n  The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,\n  Thou usurer that put'st forth all to use,\n  And sue a friend, came debtor for my sake,\n  So him I lose through my unkind abuse.\n    Him have I lost, thou hast both him and me,\n    He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.\n\n\n                     135\n  Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy will,\n  And 'Will' to boot, and 'Will' in over-plus,\n  More than enough am I that vex thee still,\n  To thy sweet will making addition thus.\n  Wilt thou whose will is large and spacious,\n  Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?\n  Shall will in others seem right gracious,\n  And in my will no fair acceptance shine?\n  The sea all water, yet receives rain still,\n  And in abundance addeth to his store,\n  So thou being rich in will add to thy will\n  One will of mine to make thy large will more.\n    Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill,\n    Think all but one, and me in that one 'Will.'\n\n\n                     136\n  If thy soul check thee that I come so near,\n  Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy 'Will',\n  And will thy soul knows is admitted there,\n  Thus far for love, my love-suit sweet fulfil.\n  'Will', will fulfil the treasure of thy love,\n  Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one,\n  In things of great receipt with case we prove,\n  Among a number one is reckoned none.\n  Then in the number let me pass untold,\n  Though in thy store's account I one must be,\n  For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold,\n  That nothing me, a something sweet to thee.\n    Make but my name thy love, and love that still,\n    And then thou lov'st me for my name is Will.\n\n\n                     137\n  Thou blind fool Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,\n  That they behold and see not what they see?\n  They know what beauty is, see where it lies,\n  Yet what the best is, take the worst to be.\n  If eyes corrupt by over-partial looks,\n  Be anchored in the bay where all men ride,\n  Why of eyes' falsehood hast thou forged hooks,\n  Whereto the judgment of my heart is tied?\n  Why should my heart think that a several plot,\n  Which my heart knows the wide world's common place?\n  Or mine eyes seeing this, say this is not\n  To put fair truth upon so foul a face?\n    In things right true my heart and eyes have erred,\n    And to this false plague are they now transferred.\n\n\n                     138\n  When my love swears that she is made of truth,\n  I do believe her though I know she lies,\n  That she might think me some untutored youth,\n  Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.\n  Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,\n  Although she knows my days are past the best,\n  Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue,\n  On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed:\n  But wherefore says she not she is unjust?\n  And wherefore say not I that I am old?\n  O love's best habit is in seeming trust,\n  And age in love, loves not to have years told.\n    Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,\n    And in our faults by lies we flattered be.\n\n\n                     139\n  O call not me to justify the wrong,\n  That thy unkindness lays upon my heart,\n  Wound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue,\n  Use power with power, and slay me not by art,\n  Tell me thou lov'st elsewhere; but in my sight,\n  Dear heart forbear to glance thine eye aside,\n  What need'st thou wound with cunning when thy might\n  Is more than my o'erpressed defence can bide?\n  Let me excuse thee, ah my love well knows,\n  Her pretty looks have been mine enemies,\n  And therefore from my face she turns my foes,\n  That they elsewhere might dart their injuries:\n    Yet do not so, but since I am near slain,\n    Kill me outright with looks, and rid my pain.\n\n\n                     140\n  Be wise as thou art cruel, do not press\n  My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain:\n  Lest sorrow lend me words and words express,\n  The manner of my pity-wanting pain.\n  If I might teach thee wit better it were,\n  Though not to love, yet love to tell me so,\n  As testy sick men when their deaths be near,\n  No news but health from their physicians know.\n  For if I should despair I should grow mad,\n  And in my madness might speak ill of thee,\n  Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,\n  Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.\n    That I may not be so, nor thou belied,\n    Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.\n\n\n                     141\n  In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes,\n  For they in thee a thousand errors note,\n  But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,\n  Who in despite of view is pleased to dote.\n  Nor are mine cars with thy tongue's tune delighted,\n  Nor tender feeling to base touches prone,\n  Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited\n  To any sensual feast with thee alone:\n  But my five wits, nor my five senses can\n  Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,\n  Who leaves unswayed the likeness of a man,\n  Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be:\n    Only my plague thus far I count my gain,\n    That she that makes me sin, awards me pain.\n\n\n                     142\n  Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,\n  Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving,\n  O but with mine, compare thou thine own state,\n  And thou shalt find it merits not reproving,\n  Or if it do, not from those lips of thine,\n  That have profaned their scarlet ornaments,\n  And sealed false bonds of love as oft as mine,\n  Robbed others' beds' revenues of their rents.\n  Be it lawful I love thee as thou lov'st those,\n  Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee,\n  Root pity in thy heart that when it grows,\n  Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.\n    If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,\n    By self-example mayst thou be denied.\n\n\n                     143\n  Lo as a careful huswife runs to catch,\n  One of her feathered creatures broke away,\n  Sets down her babe and makes all swift dispatch\n  In pursuit of the thing she would have stay:\n  Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,\n  Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent,\n  To follow that which flies before her face:\n  Not prizing her poor infant's discontent;\n  So run'st thou after that which flies from thee,\n  Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind,\n  But if thou catch thy hope turn back to me:\n  And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind.\n    So will I pray that thou mayst have thy Will,\n    If thou turn back and my loud crying still.\n\n\n                     144\n  Two loves I have of comfort and despair,\n  Which like two spirits do suggest me still,\n  The better angel is a man right fair:\n  The worser spirit a woman coloured ill.\n  To win me soon to hell my female evil,\n  Tempteth my better angel from my side,\n  And would corrupt my saint to be a devil:\n  Wooing his purity with her foul pride.\n  And whether that my angel be turned fiend,\n  Suspect I may, yet not directly tell,\n  But being both from me both to each friend,\n  I guess one angel in another's hell.\n    Yet this shall I ne'er know but live in doubt,\n    Till my bad angel fire my good one out.\n\n\n                     145\n  Those lips that Love's own hand did make,\n  Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate',\n  To me that languished for her sake:\n  But when she saw my woeful state,\n  Straight in her heart did mercy come,\n  Chiding that tongue that ever sweet,\n  Was used in giving gentle doom:\n  And taught it thus anew to greet:\n  'I hate' she altered with an end,\n  That followed it as gentle day,\n  Doth follow night who like a fiend\n  From heaven to hell is flown away.\n    'I hate', from hate away she threw,\n    And saved my life saying 'not you'.\n\n\n                     146\n  Poor soul the centre of my sinful earth,\n  My sinful earth these rebel powers array,\n  Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth\n  Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?\n  Why so large cost having so short a lease,\n  Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?\n  Shall worms inheritors of this excess\n  Eat up thy charge? is this thy body's end?\n  Then soul live thou upon thy servant's loss,\n  And let that pine to aggravate thy store;\n  Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;\n  Within be fed, without be rich no more,\n    So shall thou feed on death, that feeds on men,\n    And death once dead, there's no more dying then.\n\n\n                     147\n  My love is as a fever longing still,\n  For that which longer nurseth the disease,\n  Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,\n  Th' uncertain sickly appetite to please:\n  My reason the physician to my love,\n  Angry that his prescriptions are not kept\n  Hath left me, and I desperate now approve,\n  Desire is death, which physic did except.\n  Past cure I am, now reason is past care,\n  And frantic-mad with evermore unrest,\n  My thoughts and my discourse as mad men's are,\n  At random from the truth vainly expressed.\n    For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,\n    Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.\n\n\n                     148\n  O me! what eyes hath love put in my head,\n  Which have no correspondence with true sight,\n  Or if they have, where is my judgment fled,\n  That censures falsely what they see aright?\n  If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,\n  What means the world to say it is not so?\n  If it be not, then love doth well denote,\n  Love's eye is not so true as all men's: no,\n  How can it? O how can love's eye be true,\n  That is so vexed with watching and with tears?\n  No marvel then though I mistake my view,\n  The sun it self sees not, till heaven clears.\n    O cunning love, with tears thou keep'st me blind,\n    Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.\n\n\n                     149\n  Canst thou O cruel, say I love thee not,\n  When I against my self with thee partake?\n  Do I not think on thee when I forgot\n  Am of my self, all-tyrant, for thy sake?\n  Who hateth thee that I do call my friend,\n  On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon,\n  Nay if thou lour'st on me do I not spend\n  Revenge upon my self with present moan?\n  What merit do I in my self respect,\n  That is so proud thy service to despise,\n  When all my best doth worship thy defect,\n  Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?\n    But love hate on for now I know thy mind,\n    Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind.\n\n\n                     150\n  O from what power hast thou this powerful might,\n  With insufficiency my heart to sway,\n  To make me give the lie to my true sight,\n  And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?\n  Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,\n  That in the very refuse of thy deeds,\n  There is such strength and warrantise of skill,\n  That in my mind thy worst all best exceeds?\n  Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,\n  The more I hear and see just cause of hate?\n  O though I love what others do abhor,\n  With others thou shouldst not abhor my state.\n    If thy unworthiness raised love in me,\n    More worthy I to be beloved of thee.\n\n\n                     151\n  Love is too young to know what conscience is,\n  Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?\n  Then gentle cheater urge not my amiss,\n  Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove.\n  For thou betraying me, I do betray\n  My nobler part to my gross body's treason,\n  My soul doth tell my body that he may,\n  Triumph in love, flesh stays no farther reason,\n  But rising at thy name doth point out thee,\n  As his triumphant prize, proud of this pride,\n  He is contented thy poor drudge to be,\n  To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.\n    No want of conscience hold it that I call,\n    Her love, for whose dear love I rise and fall.\n\n\n                     152\n  In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn,\n  But thou art twice forsworn to me love swearing,\n  In act thy bed-vow broke and new faith torn,\n  In vowing new hate after new love bearing:\n  But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee,\n  When I break twenty? I am perjured most,\n  For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee:\n  And all my honest faith in thee is lost.\n  For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness:\n  Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy,\n  And to enlighten thee gave eyes to blindness,\n  Or made them swear against the thing they see.\n    For I have sworn thee fair: more perjured I,\n    To swear against the truth so foul a be.\n\n\n                     153\n  Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep,\n  A maid of Dian's this advantage found,\n  And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep\n  In a cold valley-fountain of that ground:\n  Which borrowed from this holy fire of Love,\n  A dateless lively heat still to endure,\n  And grew a seeting bath which yet men prove,\n  Against strange maladies a sovereign cure:\n  But at my mistress' eye Love's brand new-fired,\n  The boy for trial needs would touch my breast,\n  I sick withal the help of bath desired,\n  And thither hied a sad distempered guest.\n    But found no cure, the bath for my help lies,\n    Where Cupid got new fire; my mistress' eyes.\n\n\n                     154\n  The little Love-god lying once asleep,\n  Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,\n  Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep,\n  Came tripping by, but in her maiden hand,\n  The fairest votary took up that fire,\n  Which many legions of true hearts had warmed,\n  And so the general of hot desire,\n  Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarmed.\n  This brand she quenched in a cool well by,\n  Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual,\n  Growing a bath and healthful remedy,\n  For men discased, but I my mistress' thrall,\n    Came there for cure and this by that I prove,\n    Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of this Etext of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare,\nThe Sonnets."}
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{"1106":"\n\n\n\n\n1594\n\nTHE TRAGEDY OF TITUS ANDRONICUS\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  SATURNINUS, son to the late Emperor of Rome, afterwards Emperor\n  BASSIANUS, brother to Saturninus\n  TITUS ANDRONICUS, a noble Roman\n  MARCUS ANDRONICUS, Tribune of the People, and brother to Titus\n\n    Sons to Titus Andronicus:\n  LUCIUS\n  QUINTUS\n  MARTIUS\n  MUTIUS\n\n  YOUNG LUCIUS, a boy, son to Lucius\n  PUBLIUS, son to Marcus Andronicus\n\n    Kinsmen to Titus:\n  SEMPRONIUS\n  CAIUS\n  VALENTINE\n\n  AEMILIUS, a noble Roman\n\n    Sons to Tamora:\n  ALARBUS\n  DEMETRIUS\n  CHIRON\n\n  AARON, a Moor, beloved by Tamora\n  A CAPTAIN\n  A MESSENGER\n  A CLOWN\n\n  TAMORA, Queen of the Goths\n  LAVINIA, daughter to Titus Andronicus\n  A NURSE, and a black CHILD\n\n  Romans and Goths, Senators, Tribunes, Officers, Soldiers, and\n    Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                          SCENE:\n               Rome and the neighbourhood\n\n\nACT 1. SCENE I.\nRome. Before the Capitol\n\nFlourish. Enter the TRIBUNES and SENATORS aloft; and then enter\nbelow\nSATURNINUS and his followers at one door, and BASSIANUS and his\nfollowers\nat the other, with drums and trumpets\n\n  SATURNINUS. Noble patricians, patrons of my right,\n    Defend the justice of my cause with arms;\n    And, countrymen, my loving followers,\n    Plead my successive title with your swords.\n    I am his first born son that was the last\n    That ware the imperial diadem of Rome;\n    Then let my father's honours live in me,\n    Nor wrong mine age with this indignity.\n  BASSIANUS. Romans, friends, followers, favourers of my right,\n    If ever Bassianus, Caesar's son,\n    Were gracious in the eyes of royal Rome,\n    Keep then this passage to the Capitol;\n    And suffer not dishonour to approach\n    The imperial seat, to virtue consecrate,\n    To justice, continence, and nobility;\n    But let desert in pure election shine;\n    And, Romans, fight for freedom in your choice.\n\n        Enter MARCUS ANDRONICUS aloft, with the crown\n\n  MARCUS. Princes, that strive by factions and by friends\n    Ambitiously for rule and empery,\n    Know that the people of Rome, for whom we stand\n    A special party, have by common voice\n    In election for the Roman empery\n    Chosen Andronicus, surnamed Pius\n    For many good and great deserts to Rome.\n    A nobler man, a braver warrior,\n    Lives not this day within the city walls.\n    He by the Senate is accited home,\n    From weary wars against the barbarous Goths,\n    That with his sons, a terror to our foes,\n    Hath yok'd a nation strong, train'd up in arms.\n    Ten years are spent since first he undertook\n    This cause of Rome, and chastised with arms\n    Our enemies' pride; five times he hath return'd\n    Bleeding to Rome, bearing his valiant sons\n    In coffins from the field; and at this day\n    To the monument of that Andronici\n    Done sacrifice of expiation,\n    And slain the noblest prisoner of the Goths.\n    And now at last, laden with honour's spoils,\n    Returns the good Andronicus to Rome,\n    Renowned Titus, flourishing in arms.\n    Let us entreat, by honour of his name\n    Whom worthily you would have now succeed,\n    And in the Capitol and Senate's right,\n    Whom you pretend to honour and adore,\n    That you withdraw you and abate your strength,\n    Dismiss your followers, and, as suitors should,\n    Plead your deserts in peace and humbleness.\n  SATURNINUS. How fair the Tribune speaks to calm my thoughts.\n  BASSIANUS. Marcus Andronicus, so I do affy\n    In thy uprightness and integrity,\n    And so I love and honour thee and thine,\n    Thy noble brother Titus and his sons,\n    And her to whom my thoughts are humbled all,\n    Gracious Lavinia, Rome's rich ornament,\n    That I will here dismiss my loving friends,\n    And to my fortunes and the people's favour\n    Commit my cause in balance to be weigh'd.\n                                Exeunt the soldiers of BASSIANUS\n  SATURNINUS. Friends, that have been thus forward in my right,\n    I thank you all and here dismiss you all,\n    And to the love and favour of my country\n    Commit myself, my person, and the cause.\n                               Exeunt the soldiers of SATURNINUS\n    Rome, be as just and gracious unto me\n    As I am confident and kind to thee.\n    Open the gates and let me in.\n  BASSIANUS. Tribunes, and me, a poor competitor.\n                    [Flourish. They go up into the Senate House]\n\n                      Enter a CAPTAIN\n\n  CAPTAIN. Romans, make way. The good Andronicus,\n    Patron of virtue, Rome's best champion,\n    Successful in the battles that he fights,\n    With honour and with fortune is return'd\n    From where he circumscribed with his sword\n    And brought to yoke the enemies of Rome.\n\n        Sound drums and trumpets, and then enter MARTIUS\n        and MUTIUS, two of TITUS' sons; and then two men\n        bearing a coffin covered with black; then LUCIUS\n        and QUINTUS, two other sons; then TITUS ANDRONICUS;\n        and then TAMORA the Queen of Goths, with her three\n        sons, ALARBUS, DEMETRIUS, and CHIRON, with AARON the\n        Moor, and others,  as many as can be. Then set down\n        the coffin and TITUS speaks\n\n  TITUS. Hail, Rome, victorious in thy mourning weeds!\n    Lo, as the bark that hath discharg'd her fraught\n    Returns with precious lading to the bay\n    From whence at first she weigh'd her anchorage,\n    Cometh Andronicus, bound with laurel boughs,\n    To re-salute his country with his tears,\n    Tears of true joy for his return to Rome.\n    Thou great defender of this Capitol,\n    Stand gracious to the rites that we intend!\n    Romans, of five and twenty valiant sons,\n    Half of the number that King Priam had,\n    Behold the poor remains, alive and dead!\n    These that survive let Rome reward with love;\n    These that I bring unto their latest home,\n    With burial amongst their ancestors.\n    Here Goths have given me leave to sheathe my sword.\n    Titus, unkind, and careless of thine own,\n    Why suffer'st thou thy sons, unburied yet,\n    To hover on the dreadful shore of Styx?\n    Make way to lay them by their brethren.\n                                            [They open the tomb]\n    There greet in silence, as the dead are wont,\n    And sleep in peace, slain in your country's wars.\n    O sacred receptacle of my joys,\n    Sweet cell of virtue and nobility,\n    How many sons hast thou of mine in store\n    That thou wilt never render to me more!\n  LUCIUS. Give us the proudest prisoner of the Goths,\n    That we may hew his limbs, and on a pile\n    Ad manes fratrum sacrifice his flesh\n    Before this earthy prison of their bones,\n    That so the shadows be not unappeas'd,\n    Nor we disturb'd with prodigies on earth.\n  TITUS. I give him you- the noblest that survives,\n    The eldest son of this distressed queen.\n  TAMORA. Stay, Roman brethen! Gracious conqueror,\n    Victorious Titus, rue the tears I shed,\n    A mother's tears in passion for her son;\n    And if thy sons were ever dear to thee,\n    O, think my son to be as dear to me!\n    Sufficeth not that we are brought to Rome\n    To beautify thy triumphs, and return\n    Captive to thee and to thy Roman yoke;\n    But must my sons be slaughtered in the streets\n    For valiant doings in their country's cause?\n    O, if to fight for king and commonweal\n    Were piety in thine, it is in these.\n    Andronicus, stain not thy tomb with blood.\n    Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods?\n    Draw near them then in being merciful.\n    Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.\n    Thrice-noble Titus, spare my first-born son.\n  TITUS. Patient yourself, madam, and pardon me.\n    These are their brethren, whom your Goths beheld\n    Alive and dead; and for their brethren slain\n    Religiously they ask a sacrifice.\n    To this your son is mark'd, and die he must\n    T' appease their groaning shadows that are gone.\n  LUCIUS. Away with him, and make a fire straight;\n    And with our swords, upon a pile of wood,\n    Let's hew his limbs till they be clean consum'd.\n                                Exeunt TITUS' SONS, with ALARBUS\n  TAMORA. O cruel, irreligious piety!\n  CHIRON. Was never Scythia half so barbarous!\n  DEMETRIUS. Oppose not Scythia to ambitious Rome.\n    Alarbus goes to rest, and we survive\n    To tremble under Titus' threat'ning look.\n    Then, madam, stand resolv'd, but hope withal\n    The self-same gods that arm'd the Queen of Troy\n    With opportunity of sharp revenge\n    Upon the Thracian tyrant in his tent\n    May favour Tamora, the Queen of Goths-\n    When Goths were Goths and Tamora was queen-\n    To quit the bloody wrongs upon her foes.\n\n            Re-enter LUCIUS, QUINTUS, MARTIUS, and\n   MUTIUS, the sons of ANDRONICUS, with their swords bloody\n\n  LUCIUS. See, lord and father, how we have perform'd\n    Our Roman rites: Alarbus' limbs are lopp'd,\n    And entrails feed the sacrificing fire,\n    Whose smoke like incense doth perfume the sky.\n    Remaineth nought but to inter our brethren,\n    And with loud 'larums welcome them to Rome.\n  TITUS. Let it be so, and let Andronicus\n    Make this his latest farewell to their souls.\n                 [Sound trumpets and lay the coffin in the tomb]\n    In peace and honour rest you here, my sons;\n    Rome's readiest champions, repose you here in rest,\n    Secure from worldly chances and mishaps!\n    Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells,\n    Here grow no damned drugs, here are no storms,\n    No noise, but silence and eternal sleep.\n    In peace and honour rest you here, my sons!\n\n                       Enter LAVINIA\n\n  LAVINIA. In peace and honour live Lord Titus long;\n    My noble lord and father, live in fame!\n    Lo, at this tomb my tributary tears\n    I render for my brethren's obsequies;\n    And at thy feet I kneel, with tears of joy\n    Shed on this earth for thy return to Rome.\n    O, bless me here with thy victorious hand,\n    Whose fortunes Rome's best citizens applaud!\n  TITUS. Kind Rome, that hast thus lovingly reserv'd\n    The cordial of mine age to glad my heart!\n    Lavinia, live; outlive thy father's days,\n    And fame's eternal date, for virtue's praise!\n\n          Enter, above, MARCUS ANDRONICUS and TRIBUNES;\n          re-enter SATURNINUS, BASSIANUS, and attendants\n\n  MARCUS. Long live Lord Titus, my beloved brother,\n    Gracious triumpher in the eyes of Rome!\n  TITUS. Thanks, gentle Tribune, noble brother Marcus.\n  MARCUS. And welcome, nephews, from successful wars,\n    You that survive and you that sleep in fame.\n    Fair lords, your fortunes are alike in all\n    That in your country's service drew your swords;\n    But safer triumph is this funeral pomp\n    That hath aspir'd to Solon's happiness\n    And triumphs over chance in honour's bed.\n    Titus Andronicus, the people of Rome,\n    Whose friend in justice thou hast ever been,\n    Send thee by me, their Tribune and their trust,\n    This par]iament of white and spotless hue;\n    And name thee in election for the empire\n    With these our late-deceased Emperor's sons:\n    Be candidatus then, and put it on,\n    And help to set a head on headless Rome.\n  TITUS. A better head her glorious body fits\n    Than his that shakes for age and feebleness.\n    What should I don this robe and trouble you?\n    Be chosen with proclamations to-day,\n    To-morrow yield up rule, resign my life,\n    And set abroad new business for you all?\n    Rome, I have been thy soldier forty years,\n    And led my country's strength successfully,\n    And buried one and twenty valiant sons,\n    Knighted in field, slain manfully in arms,\n    In right and service of their noble country.\n    Give me a staff of honour for mine age,\n    But not a sceptre to control the world.\n    Upright he held it, lords, that held it last.\n  MARCUS. Titus, thou shalt obtain and ask the empery.\n  SATURNINUS. Proud and ambitious Tribune, canst thou tell?\n  TITUS. Patience, Prince Saturninus.\n  SATURNINUS. Romans, do me right.\n    Patricians, draw your swords, and sheathe them not\n    Till Saturninus be Rome's Emperor.\n    Andronicus, would thou were shipp'd to hell\n    Rather than rob me of the people's hearts!\n  LUCIUS. Proud Saturnine, interrupter of the good\n    That noble-minded Titus means to thee!\n  TITUS. Content thee, Prince; I will restore to thee\n    The people's hearts, and wean them from themselves.\n  BASSIANUS. Andronicus, I do not flatter thee,\n    But honour thee, and will do till I die.\n    My faction if thou strengthen with thy friends,\n    I will most thankful be; and thanks to men\n    Of noble minds is honourable meed.\n  TITUS. People of Rome, and people's Tribunes here,\n    I ask your voices and your suffrages:\n    Will ye bestow them friendly on Andronicus?\n  TRIBUNES. To gratify the good Andronicus,\n    And gratulate his safe return to Rome,\n    The people will accept whom he admits.\n  TITUS. Tribunes, I thank you; and this suit I make,\n    That you create our Emperor's eldest son,\n    Lord Saturnine; whose virtues will, I hope,\n    Reflect on Rome as Titan's rays on earth,\n    And ripen justice in this commonweal.\n    Then, if you will elect by my advice,\n    Crown him, and say 'Long live our Emperor!'\n  MARCUS. With voices and applause of every sort,\n    Patricians and plebeians, we create\n    Lord Saturninus Rome's great Emperor;\n    And say 'Long live our Emperor Saturnine!'\n                           [A long flourish till they come down]\n  SATURNINUS. Titus Andronicus, for thy favours done\n    To us in our election this day\n    I give thee thanks in part of thy deserts,\n    And will with deeds requite thy gentleness;\n    And for an onset, Titus, to advance\n    Thy name and honourable family,\n    Lavinia will I make my emperess,\n    Rome's royal mistress, mistress of my heart,\n    And in the sacred Pantheon her espouse.\n    Tell me, Andronicus, doth this motion please thee?\n  TITUS. It doth, my worthy lord, and in this match\n    I hold me highly honoured of your Grace,\n    And here in sight of Rome, to Saturnine,\n    King and commander of our commonweal,\n    The wide world's Emperor, do I consecrate\n    My sword, my chariot, and my prisoners,\n    Presents well worthy Rome's imperious lord;\n    Receive them then, the tribute that I owe,\n    Mine honour's ensigns humbled at thy feet.\n  SATURNINUS. Thanks, noble Titus, father of my life.\n    How proud I am of thee and of thy gifts\n    Rome shall record; and when I do forget\n    The least of these unspeakable deserts,\n    Romans, forget your fealty to me.\n  TITUS.  [To TAMORA]  Now, madam, are you prisoner to an\nemperor;\n    To him that for your honour and your state\n    Will use you nobly and your followers.\n  SATURNINUS.  [Aside]  A goodly lady, trust me; of the hue\n    That I would choose, were I to choose anew.-\n    Clear up, fair Queen, that cloudy countenance;\n    Though chance of war hath wrought this change of cheer,\n    Thou com'st not to be made a scorn in Rome-\n    Princely shall be thy usage every way.\n    Rest on my word, and let not discontent\n    Daunt all your hopes. Madam, he comforts you\n    Can make you greater than the Queen of Goths.\n    Lavinia, you are not displeas'd with this?\n  LAVINIA. Not I, my lord, sith true nobility\n    Warrants these words in princely courtesy.\n  SATURNINUS. Thanks, sweet Lavinia. Romans, let us go.\n    Ransomless here we set our prisoners free.\n    Proclaim our honours, lords, with trump and drum.\n                                                      [Flourish]\n  BASSIANUS. Lord Titus, by your leave, this maid is mine.\n                                               [Seizing LAVINIA]\n  TITUS. How, sir! Are you in earnest then, my lord?\n  BASSIANUS. Ay, noble Titus, and resolv'd withal\n    To do myself this reason and this right.\n  MARCUS. Suum cuique is our Roman justice:\n    This prince in justice seizeth but his own.\n  LUCIUS. And that he will and shall, if Lucius live.\n  TITUS. Traitors, avaunt! Where is the Emperor's guard?\n    Treason, my lord- Lavinia is surpris'd!\n  SATURNINUS. Surpris'd! By whom?\n  BASSIANUS. By him that justly may\n    Bear his betroth'd from all the world away.\n                        Exeunt BASSIANUS and MARCUS with LAVINIA\n  MUTIUS. Brothers, help to convey her hence away,\n    And with my sword I'll keep this door safe.\n                             Exeunt LUCIUS, QUINTUS, and MARTIUS\n  TITUS. Follow, my lord, and I'll soon bring her back.\n  MUTIUS. My lord, you pass not here.\n  TITUS. What, villain boy!\n    Bar'st me my way in Rome?\n  MUTIUS. Help, Lucius, help!\n            TITUS kills him. During the fray, exeunt SATURNINUS,\n                            TAMORA, DEMETRIUS, CHIRON, and AARON\n\n                      Re-enter Lucius\n\n  LUCIUS. My lord, you are unjust, and more than so:\n    In wrongful quarrel you have slain your son.\n  TITUS. Nor thou nor he are any sons of mine;\n    My sons would never so dishonour me.\n\n                 Re-enter aloft the EMPEROR\n      with TAMORA and her two Sons, and AARON the Moor\n\n    Traitor, restore Lavinia to the Emperor.\n  LUCIUS. Dead, if you will; but not to be his wife,\n    That is another's lawful promis'd love.                 Exit\n  SATURNINUS. No, Titus, no; the Emperor needs her not,\n    Nor her, nor thee, nor any of thy stock.\n    I'll trust by leisure him that mocks me once;\n    Thee never, nor thy traitorous haughty sons,\n    Confederates all thus to dishonour me.\n    Was there none else in Rome to make a stale\n    But Saturnine? Full well, Andronicus,\n    Agree these deeds with that proud brag of thine\n    That saidst I begg'd the empire at thy hands.\n  TITUS. O monstrous! What reproachful words are these?\n  SATURNINUS. But go thy ways; go, give that changing piece\n    To him that flourish'd for her with his sword.\n    A valiant son-in-law thou shalt enjoy;\n    One fit to bandy with thy lawless sons,\n    To ruffle in the commonwealth of Rome.\n  TITUS. These words are razors to my wounded heart.\n  SATURNINUS. And therefore, lovely Tamora, Queen of Goths,\n    That, like the stately Phoebe 'mongst her nymphs,\n    Dost overshine the gallant'st dames of Rome,\n    If thou be pleas'd with this my sudden choice,\n    Behold, I choose thee, Tamora, for my bride\n    And will create thee Emperess of Rome.\n    Speak, Queen of Goths, dost thou applaud my choice?\n    And here I swear by all the Roman gods-\n    Sith priest and holy water are so near,\n    And tapers burn so bright, and everything\n    In readiness for Hymenaeus stand-\n    I will not re-salute the streets of Rome,\n    Or climb my palace, till from forth this place\n    I lead espous'd my bride along with me.\n  TAMORA. And here in sight of heaven to Rome I swear,\n    If Saturnine advance the Queen of Goths,\n    She will a handmaid be to his desires,\n    A loving nurse, a mother to his youth.\n  SATURNINUS. Ascend, fair Queen, Pantheon. Lords, accompany\n    Your noble Emperor and his lovely bride,\n    Sent by the heavens for Prince Saturnine,\n    Whose wisdom hath her fortune conquered;\n    There shall we consummate our spousal rites.\n                                            Exeunt all but TITUS\n  TITUS. I am not bid to wait upon this bride.\n  TITUS, when wert thou wont to walk alone,\n    Dishonoured thus, and challenged of wrongs?\n\n                      Re-enter MARCUS,\n        and TITUS' SONS, LUCIUS, QUINTUS, and MARTIUS\n\n  MARCUS. O Titus, see, O, see what thou hast done!\n    In a bad quarrel slain a virtuous son.\n  TITUS. No, foolish Tribune, no; no son of mine-\n    Nor thou, nor these, confederates in the deed\n    That hath dishonoured all our family;\n    Unworthy brother and unworthy sons!\n  LUCIUS. But let us give him burial, as becomes;\n    Give Mutius burial with our bretheren.\n  TITUS. Traitors, away! He rests not in this tomb.\n    This monument five hundred years hath stood,\n    Which I have sumptuously re-edified;\n    Here none but soldiers and Rome's servitors\n    Repose in fame; none basely slain in brawls.\n    Bury him where you can, he comes not here.\n  MARCUS. My lord, this is impiety in you.\n    My nephew Mutius' deeds do plead for him;\n    He must be buried with his bretheren.\n  QUINTUS & MARTIUS. And shall, or him we will accompany.\n  TITUS. 'And shall!' What villain was it spake that word?\n  QUINTUS. He that would vouch it in any place but here.\n  TITUS. What, would you bury him in my despite?\n  MARCUS. No, noble Titus, but entreat of thee\n    To pardon Mutius and to bury him.\n  TITUS. Marcus, even thou hast struck upon my crest,\n    And with these boys mine honour thou hast wounded.\n    My foes I do repute you every one;\n    So trouble me no more, but get you gone.\n  MARTIUS. He is not with himself; let us withdraw.\n  QUINTUS. Not I, till Mutius' bones be buried.\n                                [The BROTHER and the SONS kneel]\n  MARCUS. Brother, for in that name doth nature plead-\n  QUINTUS. Father, and in that name doth nature speak-\n  TITUS. Speak thou no more, if all the rest will speed.\n  MARCUS. Renowned Titus, more than half my soul-\n  LUCIUS. Dear father, soul and substance of us all-\n  MARCUS. Suffer thy brother Marcus to inter\n    His noble nephew here in virtue's nest,\n    That died in honour and Lavinia's cause.\n    Thou art a Roman- be not barbarous.\n    The Greeks upon advice did bury Ajax,\n    That slew himself; and wise Laertes' son\n    Did graciously plead for his funerals.\n    Let not young Mutius, then, that was thy joy,\n    Be barr'd his entrance here.\n  TITUS. Rise, Marcus, rise;\n    The dismal'st day is this that e'er I saw,\n    To be dishonoured by my sons in Rome!\n    Well, bury him, and bury me the next.\n                                   [They put MUTIUS in the tomb]\n  LUCIUS. There lie thy bones, sweet Mutius, with thy friends,\n    Till we with trophies do adorn thy tomb.\n  ALL.  [Kneeling]  No man shed tears for noble Mutius;\n    He lives in fame that died in virtue's cause.\n  MARCUS. My lord- to step out of these dreary dumps-\n    How comes it that the subtle Queen of Goths\n    Is of a sudden thus advanc'd in Rome?\n  TITUS. I know not, Marcus, but I know it is-\n    Whether by device or no, the heavens can tell.\n    Is she not, then, beholding to the man\n    That brought her for this high good turn so far?\n  MARCUS. Yes, and will nobly him remunerate.\n\n           Flourish. Re-enter the EMPEROR, TAMORA\n        and her two SONS, with the MOOR, at one door;\n    at the other door, BASSIANUS and LAVINIA, with others\n\n  SATURNINUS. So, Bassianus, you have play'd your prize:\n    God give you joy, sir, of your gallant bride!\n  BASSIANUS. And you of yours, my lord! I say no more,\n    Nor wish no less; and so I take my leave.\n  SATURNINUS. Traitor, if Rome have law or we have power,\n    Thou and thy faction shall repent this rape.\n  BASSIANUS. Rape, call you it, my lord, to seize my own,\n    My true betrothed love, and now my wife?\n    But let the laws of Rome determine all;\n    Meanwhile am I possess'd of that is mine.\n  SATURNINUS. 'Tis good, sir. You are very short with us;\n    But if we live we'll be as sharp with you.\n  BASSIANUS. My lord, what I have done, as best I may,\n    Answer I must, and shall do with my life.\n    Only thus much I give your Grace to know:\n    By all the duties that I owe to Rome,\n    This noble gentleman, Lord Titus here,\n    Is in opinion and in honour wrong'd,\n    That, in the rescue of Lavinia,\n    With his own hand did slay his youngest son,\n    In zeal to you, and highly mov'd to wrath\n    To be controll'd in that he frankly gave.\n    Receive him then to favour, Saturnine,\n    That hath express'd himself in all his deeds\n    A father and a friend to thee and Rome.\n  TITUS. Prince Bassianus, leave to plead my deeds.\n    'Tis thou and those that have dishonoured me.\n    Rome and the righteous heavens be my judge\n    How I have lov'd and honoured Saturnine!\n  TAMORA. My worthy lord, if ever Tamora\n    Were gracious in those princely eyes of thine,\n    Then hear me speak indifferently for all;\n    And at my suit, sweet, pardon what is past.\n  SATURNINUS. What, madam! be dishonoured openly,\n    And basely put it up without revenge?\n  TAMORA. Not so, my lord; the gods of Rome forfend\n    I should be author to dishonour you!\n    But on mine honour dare I undertake\n    For good Lord Titus' innocence in all,\n    Whose fury not dissembled speaks his griefs.\n    Then at my suit look graciously on him;\n    Lose not so noble a friend on vain suppose,\n    Nor with sour looks afflict his gentle heart.\n    [Aside to SATURNINUS]  My lord, be rul'd by me,\n      be won at last;\n    Dissemble all your griefs and discontents.\n    You are but newly planted in your throne;\n    Lest, then, the people, and patricians too,\n    Upon a just survey take Titus' part,\n    And so supplant you for ingratitude,\n    Which Rome reputes to be a heinous sin,\n    Yield at entreats, and then let me alone:\n    I'll find a day to massacre them all,\n    And raze their faction and their family,\n    The cruel father and his traitorous sons,\n    To whom I sued for my dear son's life;\n    And make them know what 'tis to let a queen\n    Kneel in the streets and beg for grace in vain.-\n    Come, come, sweet Emperor; come, Andronicus.\n    Take up this good old man, and cheer the heart\n    That dies in tempest of thy angry frown.\n  SATURNINUS. Rise, Titus, rise; my Empress hath prevail'd.\n  TITUS. I thank your Majesty and her, my lord;\n    These words, these looks, infuse new life in me.\n  TAMORA. Titus, I am incorporate in Rome,\n    A Roman now adopted happily,\n    And must advise the Emperor for his good.\n    This day all quarrels die, Andronicus;\n    And let it be mine honour, good my lord,\n    That I have reconcil'd your friends and you.\n    For you, Prince Bassianus, I have pass'd\n    My word and promise to the Emperor\n    That you will be more mild and tractable.\n    And fear not, lords- and you, Lavinia.\n    By my advice, all humbled on your knees,\n    You shall ask pardon of his Majesty.\n  LUCIUS. We do, and vow to heaven and to his Highness\n    That what we did was mildly as we might,\n    Tend'ring our sister's honour and our own.\n  MARCUS. That on mine honour here do I protest.\n  SATURNINUS. Away, and talk not; trouble us no more.\n  TAMORA. Nay, nay, sweet Emperor, we must all be friends.\n    The Tribune and his nephews kneel for grace.\n    I will not be denied. Sweet heart, look back.\n  SATURNINUS. Marcus, for thy sake, and thy brother's here,\n    And at my lovely Tamora's entreats,\n    I do remit these young men's heinous faults.\n    Stand up.\n    Lavinia, though you left me like a churl,\n    I found a friend; and sure as death I swore\n    I would not part a bachelor from the priest.\n    Come, if the Emperor's court can feast two brides,\n    You are my guest, Lavinia, and your friends.\n    This day shall be a love-day, Tamora.\n  TITUS. To-morrow, and it please your Majesty\n    To hunt the panther and the hart with me,\n    With horn and hound we'll give your Grace bonjour.\n  SATURNINUS. Be it so, Titus, and gramercy too.\n                                          Exeunt. Sound trumpets\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nRome. Before the palace\n\nEnter AARON\n\n  AARON. Now climbeth Tamora Olympus' top,\n    Safe out of Fortune's shot, and sits aloft,\n    Secure of thunder's crack or lightning flash,\n    Advanc'd above pale envy's threat'ning reach.\n    As when the golden sun salutes the morn,\n    And, having gilt the ocean with his beams,\n    Gallops the zodiac in his glistening coach\n    And overlooks the highest-peering hills,\n    So Tamora.\n    Upon her wit doth earthly honour wait,\n    And virtue stoops and trembles at her frown.\n    Then, Aaron, arm thy heart and fit thy thoughts\n    To mount aloft with thy imperial mistress,\n    And mount her pitch whom thou in triumph long.\n    Hast prisoner held, fett'red in amorous chains,\n    And faster bound to Aaron's charming eyes\n    Than is Prometheus tied to Caucasus.\n    Away with slavish weeds and servile thoughts!\n    I will be bright and shine in pearl and gold,\n    To wait upon this new-made emperess.\n    To wait, said I? To wanton with this queen,\n    This goddess, this Semiramis, this nymph,\n    This siren that will charm Rome's Saturnine,\n    And see his shipwreck and his commonweal's.\n    Hullo! what storm is this?\n\n            Enter CHIRON and DEMETRIUS, braving\n\n  DEMETRIUS. Chiron, thy years wants wit, thy wits wants edge\n    And manners, to intrude where I am grac'd,\n    And may, for aught thou knowest, affected be.\n  CHIRON. Demetrius, thou dost over-ween in all;\n    And so in this, to bear me down with braves.\n    'Tis not the difference of a year or two\n    Makes me less gracious or thee more fortunate:\n    I am as able and as fit as thou\n    To serve and to deserve my mistress' grace;\n    And that my sword upon thee shall approve,\n    And plead my passions for Lavinia's love.\n  AARON.  [Aside]  Clubs, clubs! These lovers will not keep the\n    peace.\n  DEMETRIUS. Why, boy, although our mother, unadvis'd,\n    Gave you a dancing rapier by your side,\n    Are you so desperate grown to threat your friends?\n    Go to; have your lath glued within your sheath\n    Till you know better how to handle it.\n  CHIRON. Meanwhile, sir, with the little skill I have,\n    Full well shalt thou perceive how much I dare.\n  DEMETRIUS. Ay, boy, grow ye so brave?              [They draw]\n  AARON.  [Coming forward]  Why, how now, lords!\n    So near the Emperor's palace dare ye draw\n    And maintain such a quarrel openly?\n    Full well I wot the ground of all this grudge:\n    I would not for a million of gold\n    The cause were known to them it most concerns;\n    Nor would your noble mother for much more\n    Be so dishonoured in the court of Rome.\n    For shame, put up.\n  DEMETRIUS. Not I, till I have sheath'd\n    My rapier in his bosom, and withal\n    Thrust those reproachful speeches down his throat\n    That he hath breath'd in my dishonour here.\n  CHIRON. For that I am prepar'd and full resolv'd,\n    Foul-spoken coward, that thund'rest with thy tongue,\n    And with thy weapon nothing dar'st perform.\n  AARON. Away, I say!\n    Now, by the gods that warlike Goths adore,\n    This pretty brabble will undo us all.\n    Why, lords, and think you not how dangerous\n    It is to jet upon a prince's right?\n    What, is Lavinia then become so loose,\n    Or Bassianus so degenerate,\n    That for her love such quarrels may be broach'd\n    Without controlment, justice, or revenge?\n    Young lords, beware; an should the Empress know\n    This discord's ground, the music would not please.\n  CHIRON. I care not, I, knew she and all the world:\n    I love Lavinia more than all the world.\n  DEMETRIUS. Youngling, learn thou to make some meaner choice:\n    Lavina is thine elder brother's hope.\n  AARON. Why, are ye mad, or know ye not in Rome\n    How furious and impatient they be,\n    And cannot brook competitors in love?\n    I tell you, lords, you do but plot your deaths\n    By this device.\n  CHIRON. Aaron, a thousand deaths\n    Would I propose to achieve her whom I love.\n  AARON. To achieve her- how?\n  DEMETRIUS. Why mak'st thou it so strange?\n    She is a woman, therefore may be woo'd;\n    She is a woman, therefore may be won;\n    She is Lavinia, therefore must be lov'd.\n    What, man! more water glideth by the mill\n    Than wots the miller of; and easy it is\n    Of a cut loaf to steal a shive, we know.\n    Though Bassianus be the Emperor's brother,\n    Better than he have worn Vulcan's badge.\n  AARON.  [Aside]  Ay, and as good as Saturninus may.\n  DEMETRIUS. Then why should he despair that knows to court it\n    With words, fair looks, and liberality?\n    What, hast not thou full often struck a doe,\n    And borne her cleanly by the keeper's nose?\n  AARON. Why, then, it seems some certain snatch or so\n    Would serve your turns.\n  CHIRON. Ay, so the turn were served.\n  DEMETRIUS. Aaron, thou hast hit it.\n  AARON. Would you had hit it too!\n    Then should not we be tir'd with this ado.\n    Why, hark ye, hark ye! and are you such fools\n    To square for this? Would it offend you, then,\n    That both should speed?\n  CHIRON. Faith, not me.\n  DEMETRIUS. Nor me, so I were one.\n  AARON. For shame, be friends, and join for that you jar.\n    'Tis policy and stratagem must do\n    That you affect; and so must you resolve\n    That what you cannot as you would achieve,\n    You must perforce accomplish as you may.\n    Take this of me: Lucrece was not more chaste\n    Than this Lavinia, Bassianus' love.\n    A speedier course than ling'ring languishment\n    Must we pursue, and I have found the path.\n    My lords, a solemn hunting is in hand;\n    There will the lovely Roman ladies troop;\n    The forest walks are wide and spacious,\n    And many unfrequented plots there are\n    Fitted by kind for rape and villainy.\n    Single you thither then this dainty doe,\n    And strike her home by force if not by words.\n    This way, or not at all, stand you in hope.\n    Come, come, our Empress, with her sacred wit\n    To villainy and vengeance consecrate,\n    Will we acquaint with all what we intend;\n    And she shall file our engines with advice\n    That will not suffer you to square yourselves,\n    But to your wishes' height advance you both.\n    The Emperor's court is like the house of Fame,\n    The palace full of tongues, of eyes, and ears;\n    The woods are ruthless, dreadful, deaf, and dull.\n    There speak and strike, brave boys, and take your turns;\n    There serve your lust, shadowed from heaven's eye,\n    And revel in Lavinia's treasury.\n  CHIRON. Thy counsel, lad, smells of no cowardice.\n  DEMETRIUS. Sit fas aut nefas, till I find the stream\n    To cool this heat, a charm to calm these fits,\n    Per Styga, per manes vehor.                           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA forest near Rome\n\nEnter TITUS ANDRONICUS, and his three sons, LUCIUS, QUINTUS,\nMARTIUS,\nmaking a noise with hounds and horns; and MARCUS\n\n  TITUS. The hunt is up, the morn is bright and grey,\n    The fields are fragrant, and the woods are green.\n    Uncouple here, and let us make a bay,\n    And wake the Emperor and his lovely bride,\n    And rouse the Prince, and ring a hunter's peal,\n    That all the court may echo with the noise.\n    Sons, let it be your charge, as it is ours,\n    To attend the Emperor's person carefully.\n    I have been troubled in my sleep this night,\n    But dawning day new comfort hath inspir'd.\n\n         Here a cry of hounds, and wind horns in a peal.\n       Then enter SATURNINUS, TAMORA, BASSIANUS LAVINIA,\n            CHIRON, DEMETRIUS, and their attendants\n    Many good morrows to your Majesty!\n    Madam, to you as many and as good!\n    I promised your Grace a hunter's peal.\n  SATURNINUS. And you have rung it lustily, my lords-\n    Somewhat too early for new-married ladies.\n  BASSIANUS. Lavinia, how say you?\n  LAVINIA. I say no;\n    I have been broad awake two hours and more.\n  SATURNINUS. Come on then, horse and chariots let us have,\n    And to our sport.  [To TAMORA]  Madam, now shall ye see\n    Our Roman hunting.\n  MARCUS. I have dogs, my lord,\n    Will rouse the proudest panther in the chase,\n    And climb the highest promontory top.\n  TITUS. And I have horse will follow where the game\n    Makes way, and run like swallows o'er the plain.\n  DEMETRIUS. Chiron, we hunt not, we, with horse nor hound,\n    But hope to pluck a dainty doe to ground.             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nA lonely part of the forest\n\nEnter AARON alone, with a bag of gold\n\n  AARON. He that had wit would think that I had none,\n    To bury so much gold under a tree\n    And never after to inherit it.\n    Let him that thinks of me so abjectly\n    Know that this gold must coin a stratagem,\n    Which, cunningly effected, will beget\n    A very excellent piece of villainy.\n    And so repose, sweet gold, for their unrest\n                                                [Hides the gold]\n    That have their alms out of the Empress' chest.\n\n               Enter TAMORA alone, to the Moor\n\n  TAMORA. My lovely Aaron, wherefore look'st thou sad\n    When everything does make a gleeful boast?\n    The birds chant melody on every bush;\n    The snakes lie rolled in the cheerful sun;\n    The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind\n    And make a chequer'd shadow on the ground;\n    Under their sweet shade, Aaron, let us sit,\n    And while the babbling echo mocks the hounds,\n    Replying shrilly to the well-tun'd horns,\n    As if a double hunt were heard at once,\n    Let us sit down and mark their yellowing noise;\n    And- after conflict such as was suppos'd\n    The wand'ring prince and Dido once enjoyed,\n    When with a happy storm they were surpris'd,\n    And curtain'd with a counsel-keeping cave-\n    We may, each wreathed in the other's arms,\n    Our pastimes done, possess a golden slumber,\n    Whiles hounds and horns and sweet melodious birds\n    Be unto us as is a nurse's song\n    Of lullaby to bring her babe asleep.\n  AARON. Madam, though Venus govern your desires,\n    Saturn is dominator over mine.\n    What signifies my deadly-standing eye,\n    My silence and my cloudy melancholy,\n    My fleece of woolly hair that now uncurls\n    Even as an adder when she doth unroll\n    To do some fatal execution?\n    No, madam, these are no venereal signs.\n    Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand,\n    Blood and revenge are hammering in my head.\n    Hark, Tamora, the empress of my soul,\n    Which never hopes more heaven than rests in thee-\n    This is the day of doom for Bassianus;\n    His Philomel must lose her tongue to-day,\n    Thy sons make pillage of her chastity,\n    And wash their hands in Bassianus' blood.\n    Seest thou this letter? Take it up, I pray thee,\n    And give the King this fatal-plotted scroll.\n    Now question me no more; we are espied.\n    Here comes a parcel of our hopeful booty,\n    Which dreads not yet their lives' destruction.\n\n                Enter BASSIANUS and LAVINIA\n\n  TAMORA. Ah, my sweet Moor, sweeter to me than life!\n  AARON. No more, great Empress: Bassianus comes.\n    Be cross with him; and I'll go fetch thy sons\n    To back thy quarrels, whatsoe'er they be.               Exit\n  BASSIANUS. Who have we here? Rome's royal Emperess,\n    Unfurnish'd of her well-beseeming troop?\n    Or is it Dian, habited like her,\n    Who hath abandoned her holy groves\n    To see the general hunting in this forest?\n  TAMORA. Saucy controller of my private steps!\n    Had I the pow'r that some say Dian had,\n    Thy temples should be planted presently\n    With horns, as was Actaeon's; and the hounds\n    Should drive upon thy new-transformed limbs,\n    Unmannerly intruder as thou art!\n  LAVINIA. Under your patience, gentle Emperess,\n    'Tis thought you have a goodly gift in horning,\n    And to be doubted that your Moor and you\n    Are singled forth to try thy experiments.\n    Jove shield your husband from his hounds to-day!\n    'Tis pity they should take him for a stag.\n  BASSIANUS. Believe me, Queen, your swarth Cimmerian\n    Doth make your honour of his body's hue,\n    Spotted, detested, and abominable.\n    Why are you sequest'red from all your train,\n    Dismounted from your snow-white goodly steed,\n    And wand'red hither to an obscure plot,\n    Accompanied but with a barbarous Moor,\n    If foul desire had not conducted you?\n  LAVINIA. And, being intercepted in your sport,\n    Great reason that my noble lord be rated\n    For sauciness. I pray you let us hence,\n    And let her joy her raven-coloured love;\n    This valley fits the purpose passing well.\n  BASSIANUS. The King my brother shall have notice of this.\n  LAVINIA. Ay, for these slips have made him noted long.\n    Good king, to be so mightily abused!\n  TAMORA. Why, I have patience to endure all this.\n\n                  Enter CHIRON and DEMETRIUS\n\n  DEMETRIUS. How now, dear sovereign, and our gracious mother!\n    Why doth your Highness look so pale and wan?\n  TAMORA. Have I not reason, think you, to look pale?\n    These two have 'ticed me hither to this place.\n    A barren detested vale you see it is:\n    The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean,\n    Overcome with moss and baleful mistletoe;\n    Here never shines the sun; here nothing breeds,\n    Unless the nightly owl or fatal raven.\n    And when they show'd me this abhorred pit,\n    They told me, here, at dead time of the night,\n    A thousand fiends, a thousand hissing snakes,\n    Ten thousand swelling toads, as many urchins,\n    Would make such fearful and confused cries\n    As any mortal body hearing it\n    Should straight fall mad or else die suddenly.\n    No sooner had they told this hellish tale\n    But straight they told me they would bind me here\n    Unto the body of a dismal yew,\n    And leave me to this miserable death.\n    And then they call'd me foul adulteress,\n    Lascivious Goth, and all the bitterest terms\n    That ever ear did hear to such effect;\n    And had you not by wondrous fortune come,\n    This vengeance on me had they executed.\n    Revenge it, as you love your mother's life,\n    Or be ye not henceforth call'd my children.\n  DEMETRIUS. This is a witness that I am thy son.\n                                               [Stabs BASSIANUS]\n  CHIRON. And this for me, struck home to show my strength.\n                                                    [Also stabs]\n  LAVINIA. Ay, come, Semiramis- nay, barbarous Tamora,\n    For no name fits thy nature but thy own!\n  TAMORA. Give me the poniard; you shall know, my boys,\n    Your mother's hand shall right your mother's wrong.\n  DEMETRIUS. Stay, madam, here is more belongs to her;\n    First thrash the corn, then after burn the straw.\n    This minion stood upon her chastity,\n    Upon her nuptial vow, her loyalty,\n    And with that painted hope braves your mightiness;\n    And shall she carry this unto her grave?\n  CHIRON. An if she do, I would I were an eunuch.\n    Drag hence her husband to some secret hole,\n    And make his dead trunk pillow to our lust.\n  TAMORA. But when ye have the honey we desire,\n    Let not this wasp outlive, us both to sting.\n  CHIRON. I warrant you, madam, we will make that sure.\n    Come, mistress, now perforce we will enjoy\n    That nice-preserved honesty of yours.\n  LAVINIA. O Tamora! thou bearest a woman's face-\n  TAMORA. I will not hear her speak; away with her!\n  LAVINIA. Sweet lords, entreat her hear me but a word.\n  DEMETRIUS. Listen, fair madam: let it be your glory\n    To see her tears; but be your heart to them\n    As unrelenting flint to drops of rain.\n  LAVINIA. When did the tiger's young ones teach the dam?\n    O, do not learn her wrath- she taught it thee;\n    The milk thou suck'dst from her did turn to marble,\n    Even at thy teat thou hadst thy tyranny.\n    Yet every mother breeds not sons alike:\n    [To CHIRON]  Do thou entreat her show a woman's pity.\n  CHIRON. What, wouldst thou have me prove myself a bastard?\n  LAVINIA. 'Tis true, the raven doth not hatch a lark.\n    Yet have I heard- O, could I find it now!-\n    The lion, mov'd with pity, did endure\n    To have his princely paws par'd all away.\n    Some say that ravens foster forlorn children,\n    The whilst their own birds famish in their nests;\n    O, be to me, though thy hard heart say no,\n    Nothing so kind, but something pitiful!\n  TAMORA. I know not what it means; away with her!\n  LAVINIA. O, let me teach thee! For my father's sake,\n    That gave thee life when well he might have slain thee,\n    Be not obdurate, open thy deaf ears.\n  TAMORA. Hadst thou in person ne'er offended me,\n    Even for his sake am I pitiless.\n    Remember, boys, I pour'd forth tears in vain\n    To save your brother from the sacrifice;\n    But fierce Andronicus would not relent.\n    Therefore away with her, and use her as you will;\n    The worse to her the better lov'd of me.\n  LAVINIA. O Tamora, be call'd a gentle queen,\n    And with thine own hands kill me in this place!\n    For 'tis not life that I have begg'd so long;\n    Poor I was slain when Bassianus died.\n  TAMORA. What beg'st thou, then? Fond woman, let me go.\n  LAVINIA. 'Tis present death I beg; and one thing more,\n    That womanhood denies my tongue to tell:\n    O, keep me from their worse than killing lust,\n    And tumble me into some loathsome pit,\n    Where never man's eye may behold my body;\n    Do this, and be a charitable murderer.\n  TAMORA. So should I rob my sweet sons of their fee;\n    No, let them satisfy their lust on thee.\n  DEMETRIUS. Away! for thou hast stay'd us here too long.\n  LAVINIA. No grace? no womanhood? Ah, beastly creature,\n    The blot and enemy to our general name!\n    Confusion fall-\n  CHIRON. Nay, then I'll stop your mouth. Bring thou her husband.\n\n    This is the hole where Aaron bid us hide him.\n\n                 DEMETRIUS throws the body\n           of BASSIANUS into the pit; then exeunt\n         DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, dragging off LAVINIA\n\n  TAMORA. Farewell, my sons; see that you make her sure.\n    Ne'er let my heart know merry cheer indeed\n    Till all the Andronici be made away.\n    Now will I hence to seek my lovely Moor,\n    And let my spleenful sons this trull deflower.          Exit\n\n                  Re-enter AARON, with two\n             of TITUS' sons, QUINTUS and MARTIUS\n\n  AARON. Come on, my lords, the better foot before;\n    Straight will I bring you to the loathsome pit\n    Where I espied the panther fast asleep.\n  QUINTUS. My sight is very dull, whate'er it bodes.\n  MARTIUS. And mine, I promise you; were it not for shame,\n    Well could I leave our sport to sleep awhile.\n                                            [Falls into the pit]\n  QUINTUS. What, art thou fallen? What subtle hole is this,\n    Whose mouth is covered with rude-growing briers,\n    Upon whose leaves are drops of new-shed blood\n    As fresh as morning dew distill'd on flowers?\n    A very fatal place it seems to me.\n    Speak, brother, hast thou hurt thee with the fall?\n  MARTIUS. O brother, with the dismal'st object hurt\n    That ever eye with sight made heart lament!\n  AARON.  [Aside]  Now will I fetch the King to find them here,\n    That he thereby may have a likely guess\n    How these were they that made away his brother.         Exit\n  MARTIUS. Why dost not comfort me, and help me out\n    From this unhallow'd and blood-stained hole?\n  QUINTUS. I am surprised with an uncouth fear;\n    A chilling sweat o'er-runs my trembling joints;\n    My heart suspects more than mine eye can see.\n  MARTIUS. To prove thou hast a true divining heart,\n    Aaron and thou look down into this den,\n    And see a fearful sight of blood and death.\n  QUINTUS. Aaron is gone, and my compassionate heart\n    Will not permit mine eyes once to behold\n    The thing whereat it trembles by surmise;\n    O, tell me who it is, for ne'er till now\n    Was I a child to fear I know not what.\n  MARTIUS. Lord Bassianus lies beray'd in blood,\n    All on a heap, like to a slaughtered lamb,\n    In this detested, dark, blood-drinking pit.\n  QUINTUS. If it be dark, how dost thou know 'tis he?\n  MARTIUS. Upon his bloody finger he doth wear\n    A precious ring that lightens all this hole,\n    Which, like a taper in some monument,\n    Doth shine upon the dead man's earthy cheeks,\n    And shows the ragged entrails of this pit;\n    So pale did shine the moon on Pyramus\n    When he by night lay bath'd in maiden blood.\n    O brother, help me with thy fainting hand-\n    If fear hath made thee faint, as me it hath-\n    Out of this fell devouring receptacle,\n    As hateful as Cocytus' misty mouth.\n  QUINTUS. Reach me thy hand, that I may help thee out,\n    Or, wanting strength to do thee so much good,\n    I may be pluck'd into the swallowing womb\n    Of this deep pit, poor Bassianus' grave.\n    I have no strength to pluck thee to the brink.\n  MARTIUS. Nor I no strength to climb without thy help.\n  QUINTUS. Thy hand once more; I will not loose again,\n    Till thou art here aloft, or I below.\n    Thou canst not come to me- I come to thee.        [Falls in]\n\n            Enter the EMPEROR and AARON the Moor\n\n  SATURNINUS. Along with me! I'll see what hole is here,\n    And what he is that now is leapt into it.\n    Say, who art thou that lately didst descend\n    Into this gaping hollow of the earth?\n  MARTIUS. The unhappy sons of old Andronicus,\n    Brought hither in a most unlucky hour,\n    To find thy brother Bassianus dead.\n  SATURNINUS. My brother dead! I know thou dost but jest:\n    He and his lady both are at the lodge\n    Upon the north side of this pleasant chase;\n    'Tis not an hour since I left them there.\n  MARTIUS. We know not where you left them all alive;\n    But, out alas! here have we found him dead.\n\n                   Re-enter TAMORA, with\n         attendants; TITUS ANDRONICUS and Lucius\n\n  TAMORA. Where is my lord the King?\n  SATURNINUS. Here, Tamora; though griev'd with killing grief.\n  TAMORA. Where is thy brother Bassianus?\n  SATURNINUS. Now to the bottom dost thou search my wound;\n    Poor Bassianus here lies murdered.\n  TAMORA. Then all too late I bring this fatal writ,\n    The complot of this timeless tragedy;\n    And wonder greatly that man's face can fold\n    In pleasing smiles such murderous tyranny.\n                                 [She giveth SATURNINE a letter]\n    SATURNINUS.  [Reads]  'An if we miss to meet him handsomely,\n    Sweet huntsman- Bassianus 'tis we mean-\n    Do thou so much as dig the grave for him.\n    Thou know'st our meaning. Look for thy reward\n    Among the nettles at the elder-tree\n    Which overshades the mouth of that same pit\n    Where we decreed to bury Bassianus.\n    Do this, and purchase us thy lasting friends.'\n    O Tamora! was ever heard the like?\n    This is the pit and this the elder-tree.\n    Look, sirs, if you can find the huntsman out\n    That should have murdered Bassianus here.\n  AARON. My gracious lord, here is the bag of gold.\n  SATURNINUS.  [To TITUS]  Two of thy whelps, fell curs of bloody\n      kind,\n    Have here bereft my brother of his life.\n    Sirs, drag them from the pit unto the prison;\n    There let them bide until we have devis'd\n    Some never-heard-of torturing pain for them.\n  TAMORA. What, are they in this pit? O wondrous thing!\n    How easily murder is discovered!\n  TITUS. High Emperor, upon my feeble knee\n    I beg this boon, with tears not lightly shed,\n    That this fell fault of my accursed sons-\n    Accursed if the fault be prov'd in them-\n  SATURNINUS. If it be prov'd! You see it is apparent.\n    Who found this letter? Tamora, was it you?\n  TAMORA. Andronicus himself did take it up.\n  TITUS. I did, my lord, yet let me be their bail;\n    For, by my fathers' reverend tomb, I vow\n    They shall be ready at your Highness' will\n    To answer their suspicion with their lives.\n  SATURNINUS. Thou shalt not bail them; see thou follow me.\n    Some bring the murdered body, some the murderers;\n    Let them not speak a word- the guilt is plain;\n    For, by my soul, were there worse end than death,\n    That end upon them should be executed.\n  TAMORA. Andronicus, I will entreat the King.\n    Fear not thy sons; they shall do well enough.\n  TITUS. Come, Lucius, come; stay not to talk with them.\nExeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nAnother part of the forest\n\nEnter the Empress' sons, DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, with LAVINIA,\nher hands cut off, and her tongue cut out, and ravish'd\n\n  DEMETRIUS. So, now go tell, an if thy tongue can speak,\n    Who 'twas that cut thy tongue and ravish'd thee.\n  CHIRON. Write down thy mind, bewray thy meaning so,\n    An if thy stumps will let thee play the scribe.\n  DEMETRIUS. See how with signs and tokens she can scrowl.\n  CHIRON. Go home, call for sweet water, wash thy hands.\n  DEMETRIUS. She hath no tongue to call, nor hands to wash;\n    And so let's leave her to her silent walks.\n  CHIRON. An 'twere my cause, I should go hang myself.\n  DEMETRIUS. If thou hadst hands to help thee knit the cord.\n                                     Exeunt DEMETRIUS and CHIRON\n\n           Wind horns. Enter MARCUS, from hunting\n\n  MARCUS. Who is this?- my niece, that flies away so fast?\n    Cousin, a word: where is your husband?\n    If I do dream, would all my wealth would wake me!\n    If I do wake, some planet strike me down,\n    That I may slumber an eternal sleep!\n    Speak, gentle niece. What stern ungentle hands\n    Hath lopp'd, and hew'd, and made thy body bare\n    Of her two branches- those sweet ornaments\n    Whose circling shadows kings have sought to sleep in,\n    And might not gain so great a happiness\n    As half thy love? Why dost not speak to me?\n    Alas, a crimson river of warm blood,\n    Like to a bubbling fountain stirr'd with wind,\n    Doth rise and fall between thy rosed lips,\n    Coming and going with thy honey breath.\n    But sure some Tereus hath deflowered thee,\n    And, lest thou shouldst detect him, cut thy tongue.\n    Ah, now thou turn'st away thy face for shame!\n    And notwithstanding all this loss of blood-\n    As from a conduit with three issuing spouts-\n    Yet do thy cheeks look red as Titan's face\n    Blushing to be encount'red with a cloud.\n    Shall I speak for thee? Shall I say 'tis so?\n    O, that I knew thy heart, and knew the beast,\n    That I might rail at him to ease my mind!\n    Sorrow concealed, like an oven stopp'd,\n    Doth burn the heart to cinders where it is.\n    Fair Philomel, why she but lost her tongue,\n    And in a tedious sampler sew'd her mind;\n    But, lovely niece, that mean is cut from thee.\n    A craftier Tereus, cousin, hast thou met,\n    And he hath cut those pretty fingers off\n    That could have better sew'd than Philomel.\n    O, had the monster seen those lily hands\n    Tremble like aspen leaves upon a lute\n    And make the silken strings delight to kiss them,\n    He would not then have touch'd them for his life!\n    Or had he heard the heavenly harmony\n    Which that sweet tongue hath made,\n    He would have dropp'd his knife, and fell asleep,\n    As Cerberus at the Thracian poet's feet.\n    Come, let us go, and make thy father blind,\n    For such a sight will blind a father's eye;\n    One hour's storm will drown the fragrant meads,\n    What will whole months of tears thy father's eyes?\n    Do not draw back, for we will mourn with thee;\n    O, could our mourning case thy misery!                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nRome. A street\n\nEnter the JUDGES, TRIBUNES, and SENATORS, with TITUS' two sons\nMARTIUS and QUINTUS bound, passing on the stage to the place of\nexecution,\nand TITUS going before, pleading\n\n  TITUS. Hear me, grave fathers; noble Tribunes, stay!\n    For pity of mine age, whose youth was spent\n    In dangerous wars whilst you securely slept;\n    For all my blood in Rome's great quarrel shed,\n    For all the frosty nights that I have watch'd,\n    And for these bitter tears, which now you see\n    Filling the aged wrinkles in my cheeks,\n    Be pitiful to my condemned sons,\n    Whose souls are not corrupted as 'tis thought.\n    For two and twenty sons I never wept,\n    Because they died in honour's lofty bed.\n                          [ANDRONICUS lieth down, and the judges\n                     pass by him with the prisoners, and exeunt]\n    For these, Tribunes, in the dust I write\n    My heart's deep languor and my soul's sad tears.\n    Let my tears stanch the earth's dry appetite;\n    My sons' sweet blood will make it shame and blush.\n    O earth, I will befriend thee more with rain\n    That shall distil from these two ancient urns,\n    Than youthful April shall with all his show'rs.\n    In summer's drought I'll drop upon thee still;\n    In winter with warm tears I'll melt the snow\n    And keep eternal spring-time on thy face,\n    So thou refuse to drink my dear sons' blood.\n\n             Enter Lucius with his weapon drawn\n\n    O reverend Tribunes! O gentle aged men!\n    Unbind my sons, reverse the doom of death,\n    And let me say, that never wept before,\n    My tears are now prevailing orators.\n  LUCIUS. O noble father, you lament in vain;\n    The Tribunes hear you not, no man is by,\n    And you recount your sorrows to a stone.\n  TITUS. Ah, Lucius, for thy brothers let me plead!\n    Grave Tribunes, once more I entreat of you.\n  LUCIUS. My gracious lord, no tribune hears you speak.\n  TITUS. Why, 'tis no matter, man: if they did hear,\n    They would not mark me; if they did mark,\n    They would not pity me; yet plead I must,\n    And bootless unto them.\n    Therefore I tell my sorrows to the stones;\n    Who though they cannot answer my distress,\n    Yet in some sort they are better than the Tribunes,\n    For that they will not intercept my tale.\n    When I do weep, they humbly at my feet\n    Receive my tears, and seem to weep with me;\n    And were they but attired in grave weeds,\n    Rome could afford no tribunes like to these.\n    A stone is soft as wax: tribunes more hard than stones.\n    A stone is silent and offendeth not,\n    And tribunes with their tongues doom men to death.\n                                                         [Rises]\n    But wherefore stand'st thou with thy weapon drawn?\n  LUCIUS. To rescue my two brothers from their death;\n    For which attempt the judges have pronounc'd\n    My everlasting doom of banishment.\n  TITUS. O happy man! they have befriended thee.\n    Why, foolish Lucius, dost thou not perceive\n    That Rome is but a wilderness of tigers?\n    Tigers must prey, and Rome affords no prey\n    But me and mine; how happy art thou then\n    From these devourers to be banished!\n    But who comes with our brother Marcus here?\n\n                 Enter MARCUS with LAVINIA\n\n  MARCUS. Titus, prepare thy aged eyes to weep,\n    Or if not so, thy noble heart to break.\n    I bring consuming sorrow to thine age.\n  TITUS. Will it consume me? Let me see it then.\n  MARCUS. This was thy daughter.\n  TITUS. Why, Marcus, so she is.\n  LUCIUS. Ay me! this object kills me.\n  TITUS. Faint-hearted boy, arise, and look upon her.\n    Speak, Lavinia, what accursed hand\n    Hath made thee handless in thy father's sight?\n    What fool hath added water to the sea,\n    Or brought a fagot to bright-burning Troy?\n    My grief was at the height before thou cam'st,\n    And now like Nilus it disdaineth bounds.\n    Give me a sword, I'll chop off my hands too,\n    For they have fought for Rome, and all in vain;\n    And they have nurs'd this woe in feeding life;\n    In bootless prayer have they been held up,\n    And they have serv'd me to effectless use.\n    Now all the service I require of them\n    Is that the one will help to cut the other.\n    'Tis well, Lavinia, that thou hast no hands;\n    For hands to do Rome service is but vain.\n  LUCIUS. Speak, gentle sister, who hath martyr'd thee?\n  MARCUS. O, that delightful engine of her thoughts\n    That blabb'd them with such pleasing eloquence\n    Is torn from forth that pretty hollow cage,\n    Where like a sweet melodious bird it sung\n    Sweet varied notes, enchanting every ear!\n  LUCIUS. O, say thou for her, who hath done this deed?\n  MARCUS. O, thus I found her straying in the park,\n    Seeking to hide herself as doth the deer\n    That hath receiv'd some unrecuring wound.\n  TITUS. It was my dear, and he that wounded her\n    Hath hurt me more than had he kill'd me dead;\n    For now I stand as one upon a rock,\n    Environ'd with a wilderness of sea,\n    Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave,\n    Expecting ever when some envious surge\n    Will in his brinish bowels swallow him.\n    This way to death my wretched sons are gone;\n    Here stands my other son, a banish'd man,\n    And here my brother, weeping at my woes.\n    But that which gives my soul the greatest spurn\n    Is dear Lavinia, dearer than my soul.\n    Had I but seen thy picture in this plight,\n    It would have madded me; what shall I do\n    Now I behold thy lively body so?\n    Thou hast no hands to wipe away thy tears,\n    Nor tongue to tell me who hath martyr'd thee;\n    Thy husband he is dead, and for his death\n    Thy brothers are condemn'd, and dead by this.\n    Look, Marcus! Ah, son Lucius, look on her!\n    When I did name her brothers, then fresh tears\n    Stood on her cheeks, as doth the honey dew\n    Upon a gath'red lily almost withered.\n  MARCUS. Perchance she weeps because they kill'd her husband;\n    Perchance because she knows them innocent.\n  TITUS. If they did kill thy husband, then be joyful,\n    Because the law hath ta'en revenge on them.\n    No, no, they would not do so foul a deed;\n    Witness the sorrow that their sister makes.\n    Gentle Lavinia, let me kiss thy lips,\n    Or make some sign how I may do thee ease.\n    Shall thy good uncle and thy brother Lucius\n    And thou and I sit round about some fountain,\n    Looking all downwards to behold our cheeks\n    How they are stain'd, like meadows yet not dry\n    With miry slime left on them by a flood?\n    And in the fountain shall we gaze so long,\n    Till the fresh taste be taken from that clearness,\n    And made a brine-pit with our bitter tears?\n    Or shall we cut away our hands like thine?\n    Or shall we bite our tongues, and in dumb shows\n    Pass the remainder of our hateful days?\n    What shall we do? Let us that have our tongues\n    Plot some device of further misery\n    To make us wonder'd at in time to come.\n  LUCIUS. Sweet father, cease your tears; for at your grief\n    See how my wretched sister sobs and weeps.\n  MARCUS. Patience, dear niece. Good Titus, dry thine eyes.\n  TITUS. Ah, Marcus, Marcus! Brother, well I wot\n    Thy napkin cannot drink a tear of mine,\n    For thou, poor man, hast drown'd it with thine own.\n  LUCIUS. Ah, my Lavinia, I will wipe thy cheeks.\n  TITUS. Mark, Marcus, mark! I understand her signs.\n    Had she a tongue to speak, now would she say\n    That to her brother which I said to thee:\n    His napkin, with his true tears all bewet,\n    Can do no service on her sorrowful cheeks.\n    O, what a sympathy of woe is this\n    As far from help as Limbo is from bliss!\n\n                   Enter AARON the Moor\n\n  AARON. Titus Andronicus, my lord the Emperor\n    Sends thee this word, that, if thou love thy sons,\n    Let Marcus, Lucius, or thyself, old Titus,\n    Or any one of you, chop off your hand\n    And send it to the King: he for the same\n    Will send thee hither both thy sons alive,\n    And that shall be the ransom for their fault.\n  TITUS. O gracious Emperor! O gentle Aaron!\n    Did ever raven sing so like a lark\n    That gives sweet tidings of the sun's uprise?\n    With all my heart I'll send the Emperor my hand.\n    Good Aaron, wilt thou help to chop it off?\n  LUCIUS. Stay, father! for that noble hand of thine,\n    That hath thrown down so many enemies,\n    Shall not be sent. My hand will serve the turn,\n    My youth can better spare my blood than you,\n    And therefore mine shall save my brothers' lives.\n  MARCUS. Which of your hands hath not defended Rome\n    And rear'd aloft the bloody battle-axe,\n    Writing destruction on the enemy's castle?\n    O, none of both but are of high desert!\n    My hand hath been but idle; let it serve\n    To ransom my two nephews from their death;\n    Then have I kept it to a worthy end.\n  AARON. Nay, come, agree whose hand shall go along,\n    For fear they die before their pardon come.\n  MARCUS. My hand shall go.\n  LUCIUS. By heaven, it shall not go!\n  TITUS. Sirs, strive no more; such with'red herbs as these\n    Are meet for plucking up, and therefore mine.\n  LUCIUS. Sweet father, if I shall be thought thy son,\n    Let me redeem my brothers both from death.\n  MARCUS. And for our father's sake and mother's care,\n    Now let me show a brother's love to thee.\n  TITUS. Agree between you; I will spare my hand.\n  LUCIUS. Then I'll go fetch an axe.\n  MARCUS. But I will use the axe.\n                                        Exeunt LUCIUS and MARCUS\n  TITUS. Come hither, Aaron, I'll deceive them both;\n    Lend me thy hand, and I will give thee mine.\n  AARON.  [Aside]  If that be call'd deceit, I will be honest,\n    And never whilst I live deceive men so;\n    But I'll deceive you in another sort,\n    And that you'll say ere half an hour pass.\n                                       [He cuts off TITUS' hand]\n\n                 Re-enter LUCIUS and MARCUS\n\n TITUS. Now stay your strife. What shall be is dispatch'd.\n    Good Aaron, give his Majesty my hand;\n    Tell him it was a hand that warded him\n    From thousand dangers; bid him bury it.\n    More hath it merited- that let it have.\n    As for my sons, say I account of them\n    As jewels purchas'd at an easy price;\n    And yet dear too, because I bought mine own.\n  AARON. I go, Andronicus; and for thy hand\n    Look by and by to have thy sons with thee.\n    [Aside]  Their heads I mean. O, how this villainy\n    Doth fat me with the very thoughts of it!\n    Let fools do good, and fair men call for grace:\n    Aaron will have his soul black like his face.           Exit\n  TITUS. O, here I lift this one hand up to heaven,\n    And bow this feeble ruin to the earth;\n    If any power pities wretched tears,\n    To that I call!  [To LAVINIA]  What, would'st thou kneel with\nme?\n    Do, then, dear heart; for heaven shall hear our prayers,\n    Or with our sighs we'll breathe the welkin dim\n    And stain the sun with fog, as sometime clouds\n    When they do hug him in their melting bosoms.\n  MARCUS. O brother, speak with possibility,\n    And do not break into these deep extremes.\n  TITUS. Is not my sorrow deep, having no bottom?\n    Then be my passions bottomless with them.\n  MARCUS. But yet let reason govern thy lament.\n  TITUS. If there were reason for these miseries,\n    Then into limits could I bind my woes.\n    When heaven doth weep, doth not the earth o'erflow?\n    If the winds rage, doth not the sea wax mad,\n    Threat'ning the welkin with his big-swol'n face?\n    And wilt thou have a reason for this coil?\n    I am the sea; hark how her sighs do blow.\n    She is the weeping welkin, I the earth;\n    Then must my sea be moved with her sighs;\n    Then must my earth with her continual tears\n    Become a deluge, overflow'd and drown'd;\n    For why my bowels cannot hide her woes,\n    But like a drunkard must I vomit them.\n    Then give me leave; for losers will have leave\n    To ease their stomachs with their bitter tongues.\n\n        Enter a MESSENGER, with two heads and a hand\n\n  MESSENGER. Worthy Andronicus, ill art thou repaid\n    For that good hand thou sent'st the Emperor.\n    Here are the heads of thy two noble sons;\n    And here's thy hand, in scorn to thee sent back-\n    Thy grief their sports, thy resolution mock'd,\n    That woe is me to think upon thy woes,\n    More than remembrance of my father's death.             Exit\n  MARCUS. Now let hot Aetna cool in Sicily,\n    And be my heart an ever-burning hell!\n    These miseries are more than may be borne.\n    To weep with them that weep doth ease some deal,\n    But sorrow flouted at is double death.\n  LUCIUS. Ah, that this sight should make so deep a wound,\n    And yet detested life not shrink thereat!\n    That ever death should let life bear his name,\n    Where life hath no more interest but to breathe!\n                                          [LAVINIA kisses TITUS]\n  MARCUS. Alas, poor heart, that kiss is comfortless\n    As frozen water to a starved snake.\n  TITUS. When will this fearful slumber have an end?\n  MARCUS. Now farewell, flatt'ry; die, Andronicus.\n    Thou dost not slumber: see thy two sons' heads,\n    Thy warlike hand, thy mangled daughter here;\n    Thy other banish'd son with this dear sight\n    Struck pale and bloodless; and thy brother, I,\n    Even like a stony image, cold and numb.\n    Ah! now no more will I control thy griefs.\n    Rent off thy silver hair, thy other hand\n    Gnawing with thy teeth; and be this dismal sight\n    The closing up of our most wretched eyes.\n    Now is a time to storm; why art thou still?\n  TITUS. Ha, ha, ha!\n  MARCUS. Why dost thou laugh? It fits not with this hour.\n  TITUS. Why, I have not another tear to shed;\n    Besides, this sorrow is an enemy,\n    And would usurp upon my wat'ry eyes\n    And make them blind with tributary tears.\n    Then which way shall I find Revenge's cave?\n    For these two heads do seem to speak to me,\n    And threat me I shall never come to bliss\n    Till all these mischiefs be return'd again\n    Even in their throats that have committed them.\n    Come, let me see what task I have to do.\n    You heavy people, circle me about,\n    That I may turn me to each one of you\n    And swear unto my soul to right your wrongs.\n    The vow is made. Come, brother, take a head,\n    And in this hand the other will I bear.\n    And, Lavinia, thou shalt be employ'd in this;\n    Bear thou my hand, sweet wench, between thy teeth.\n    As for thee, boy, go, get thee from my sight;\n    Thou art an exile, and thou must not stay.\n    Hie to the Goths and raise an army there;\n    And if ye love me, as I think you do,\n    Let's kiss and part, for we have much to do.\n                                           Exeunt all but Lucius\n  LUCIUS. Farewell, Andronicus, my noble father,\n    The woefull'st man that ever liv'd in Rome.\n    Farewell, proud Rome; till Lucius come again,\n    He leaves his pledges dearer than his life.\n    Farewell, Lavinia, my noble sister;\n    O, would thou wert as thou tofore hast been!\n    But now nor Lucius nor Lavinia lives\n    But in oblivion and hateful griefs.\n    If Lucius live, he will requite your wrongs\n    And make proud Saturnine and his emperess\n    Beg at the gates like Tarquin and his queen.\n    Now will I to the Goths, and raise a pow'r\n    To be reveng'd on Rome and Saturnine.                   Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nRome. TITUS' house\n\nA banquet.\n\nEnter TITUS, MARCUS, LAVINIA, and the boy YOUNG LUCIUS\n\n  TITUS. So so, now sit; and look you eat no more\n    Than will preserve just so much strength in us\n    As will revenge these bitter woes of ours.\n    Marcus, unknit that sorrow-wreathen knot;\n    Thy niece and I, poor creatures, want our hands,\n    And cannot passionate our tenfold grief\n    With folded arms. This poor right hand of mine\n    Is left to tyrannize upon my breast;\n    Who, when my heart, all mad with misery,\n    Beats in this hollow prison of my flesh,\n    Then thus I thump it down.\n    [To LAVINIA]  Thou map of woe, that thus dost talk in signs!\n    When thy poor heart beats with outrageous beating,\n    Thou canst not strike it thus to make it still.\n    Wound it with sighing, girl, kill it with groans;\n    Or get some little knife between thy teeth\n    And just against thy heart make thou a hole,\n    That all the tears that thy poor eyes let fall\n    May run into that sink and, soaking in,\n    Drown the lamenting fool in sea-salt tears.\n  MARCUS. Fie, brother, fie! Teach her not thus to lay\n    Such violent hands upon her tender life.\n  TITUS. How now! Has sorrow made thee dote already?\n    Why, Marcus, no man should be mad but I.\n    What violent hands can she lay on her life?\n    Ah, wherefore dost thou urge the name of hands?\n    To bid Aeneas tell the tale twice o'er\n    How Troy was burnt and he made miserable?\n    O, handle not the theme, to talk of hands,\n    Lest we remember still that we have none.\n    Fie, fie, how franticly I square my talk,\n    As if we should forget we had no hands,\n    If Marcus did not name the word of hands!\n    Come, let's fall to; and, gentle girl, eat this:\n    Here is no drink. Hark, Marcus, what she says-\n    I can interpret all her martyr'd signs;\n    She says she drinks no other drink but tears,\n    Brew'd with her sorrow, mesh'd upon her cheeks.\n    Speechless complainer, I will learn thy thought;\n    In thy dumb action will I be as perfect\n    As begging hermits in their holy prayers.\n    Thou shalt not sigh, nor hold thy stumps to heaven,\n    Nor wink, nor nod, nor kneel, nor make a sign,\n    But I of these will wrest an alphabet,\n    And by still practice learn to know thy meaning.\n  BOY. Good grandsire, leave these bitter deep laments;\n    Make my aunt merry with some pleasing tale.\n  MARCUS. Alas, the tender boy, in passion mov'd,\n    Doth weep to see his grandsire's heaviness.\n  TITUS. Peace, tender sapling; thou art made of tears,\n    And tears will quickly melt thy life away.\n                          [MARCUS strikes the dish with a knife]\n    What dost thou strike at, Marcus, with thy knife?\n  MARCUS. At that that I have kill'd, my lord- a fly.\n  TITUS. Out on thee, murderer, thou kill'st my heart!\n    Mine eyes are cloy'd with view of tyranny;\n    A deed of death done on the innocent\n    Becomes not Titus' brother. Get thee gone;\n    I see thou art not for my company.\n  MARCUS. Alas, my lord, I have but kill'd a fly.\n  TITUS. 'But!' How if that fly had a father and mother?\n    How would he hang his slender gilded wings\n    And buzz lamenting doings in the air!\n    Poor harmless fly,\n    That with his pretty buzzing melody\n    Came here to make us merry! And thou hast kill'd him.\n  MARCUS. Pardon me, sir; it was a black ill-favour'd fly,\n    Like to the Empress' Moor; therefore I kill'd him.\n  TITUS. O, O, O!\n    Then pardon me for reprehending thee,\n    For thou hast done a charitable deed.\n    Give me thy knife, I will insult on him,\n    Flattering myself as if it were the Moor\n    Come hither purposely to poison me.\n    There's for thyself, and that's for Tamora.\n    Ah, sirrah!\n    Yet, I think, we are not brought so low\n    But that between us we can kill a fly\n    That comes in likeness of a coal-black Moor.\n  MARCUS. Alas, poor man! grief has so wrought on him,\n    He takes false shadows for true substances.\n  TITUS. Come, take away. Lavinia, go with me;\n    I'll to thy closet, and go read with thee\n    Sad stories chanced in the times of old.\n    Come, boy, and go with me; thy sight is young,\n    And thou shalt read when mine begin to dazzle.        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nRome. TITUS' garden\n\nEnter YOUNG LUCIUS and LAVINIA running after him,\nand the boy flies from her with his books under his arm.\n\nEnter TITUS and MARCUS\n\n  BOY. Help, grandsire, help! my aunt Lavinia\n    Follows me everywhere, I know not why.\n    Good uncle Marcus, see how swift she comes!\n    Alas, sweet aunt, I know not what you mean.\n  MARCUS. Stand by me, Lucius; do not fear thine aunt.\n  TITUS. She loves thee, boy, too well to do thee harm.\n  BOY. Ay, when my father was in Rome she did.\n  MARCUS. What means my niece Lavinia by these signs?\n  TITUS. Fear her not, Lucius; somewhat doth she mean.\n    See, Lucius, see how much she makes of thee.\n    Somewhither would she have thee go with her.\n    Ah, boy, Cornelia never with more care\n    Read to her sons than she hath read to thee\n    Sweet poetry and Tully's Orator.\n  MARCUS. Canst thou not guess wherefore she plies thee thus?\n  BOY. My lord, I know not, I, nor can I guess,\n    Unless some fit or frenzy do possess her;\n    For I have heard my grandsire say full oft\n    Extremity of griefs would make men mad;\n    And I have read that Hecuba of Troy\n    Ran mad for sorrow. That made me to fear;\n    Although, my lord, I know my noble aunt\n    Loves me as dear as e'er my mother did,\n    And would not, but in fury, fright my youth;\n    Which made me down to throw my books, and fly-\n    Causeless, perhaps. But pardon me, sweet aunt;\n    And, madam, if my uncle Marcus go,\n    I will most willingly attend your ladyship.\n  MARCUS. Lucius, I will.           [LAVINIA turns over with her\n                     stumps the books which Lucius has let fall]\n  TITUS. How now, Lavinia! Marcus, what means this?\n    Some book there is that she desires to see.\n    Which is it, girl, of these?- Open them, boy.-\n    But thou art deeper read and better skill'd;\n    Come and take choice of all my library,\n    And so beguile thy sorrow, till the heavens\n    Reveal the damn'd contriver of this deed.\n    Why lifts she up her arms in sequence thus?\n  MARCUS. I think she means that there were more than one\n    Confederate in the fact; ay, more there was,\n    Or else to heaven she heaves them for revenge.\n  TITUS. Lucius, what book is that she tosseth so?\n  BOY. Grandsire, 'tis Ovid's Metamorphoses;\n    My mother gave it me.\n  MARCUS. For love of her that's gone,\n    Perhaps she cull'd it from among the rest.\n  TITUS. Soft! So busily she turns the leaves! Help her.\n    What would she find? Lavinia, shall I read?\n    This is the tragic tale of Philomel\n    And treats of Tereus' treason and his rape;\n    And rape, I fear, was root of thy annoy.\n  MARCUS. See, brother, see! Note how she quotes the leaves.\n  TITUS. Lavinia, wert thou thus surpris'd, sweet girl,\n    Ravish'd and wrong'd as Philomela was,\n    Forc'd in the ruthless, vast, and gloomy woods?\n    See, see!\n    Ay, such a place there is where we did hunt-\n    O, had we never, never hunted there!-\n    Pattern'd by that the poet here describes,\n    By nature made for murders and for rapes.\n  MARCUS. O, why should nature build so foul a den,\n    Unless the gods delight in tragedies?\n  TITUS. Give signs, sweet girl, for here are none but friends,\n    What Roman lord it was durst do the deed.\n    Or slunk not Saturnine, as Tarquin erst,\n    That left the camp to sin in Lucrece' bed?\n  MARCUS. Sit down, sweet niece; brother, sit down by me.\n    Apollo, Pallas, Jove, or Mercury,\n    Inspire me, that I may this treason find!\n    My lord, look here! Look here, Lavinia!\n                                    [He writes his name with his\n                       staff, and guides it with feet and mouth]\n    This sandy plot is plain; guide, if thou canst,\n    This after me. I have writ my name\n    Without the help of any hand at all.\n    Curs'd be that heart that forc'd us to this shift!\n    Write thou, good niece, and here display at last\n    What God will have discovered for revenge.\n    Heaven guide thy pen to print thy sorrows plain,\n    That we may know the traitors and the truth!\n                               [She takes the staff in her mouth\n                          and guides it with stumps, and writes]\n    O, do ye read, my lord, what she hath writ?\n  TITUS. 'Stuprum- Chiron- Demetrius.'\n  MARCUS. What, what! the lustful sons of Tamora\n    Performers of this heinous bloody deed?\n  TITUS. Magni Dominator poli,\n    Tam lentus audis scelera? tam lentus vides?\n  MARCUS. O, calm thee, gentle lord! although I know\n    There is enough written upon this earth\n    To stir a mutiny in the mildest thoughts,\n    And arm the minds of infants to exclaims.\n    My lord, kneel down with me; Lavinia, kneel;\n    And kneel, sweet boy, the Roman Hector's hope;\n    And swear with me- as, with the woeful fere\n    And father of that chaste dishonoured dame,\n    Lord Junius Brutus sware for Lucrece' rape-\n    That we will prosecute, by good advice,\n    Mortal revenge upon these traitorous Goths,\n    And see their blood or die with this reproach.\n  TITUS. 'Tis sure enough, an you knew how;\n    But if you hunt these bear-whelps, then beware:\n    The dam will wake; and if she wind ye once,\n    She's with the lion deeply still in league,\n    And lulls him whilst she playeth on her back,\n    And when he sleeps will she do what she list.\n    You are a young huntsman, Marcus; let alone;\n    And come, I will go get a leaf of brass,\n    And with a gad of steel will write these words,\n    And lay it by. The angry northern wind\n    Will blow these sands like Sibyl's leaves abroad,\n    And where's our lesson, then? Boy, what say you?\n  BOY. I say, my lord, that if I were a man\n    Their mother's bedchamber should not be safe\n    For these base bondmen to the yoke of Rome.\n  MARCUS. Ay, that's my boy! Thy father hath full oft\n    For his ungrateful country done the like.\n  BOY. And, uncle, so will I, an if I live.\n  TITUS. Come, go with me into mine armoury.\n    Lucius, I'll fit thee; and withal my boy\n    Shall carry from me to the Empress' sons\n    Presents that I intend to send them both.\n    Come, come; thou'lt do my message, wilt thou not?\n  BOY. Ay, with my dagger in their bosoms, grandsire.\n  TITUS. No, boy, not so; I'll teach thee another course.\n    Lavinia, come. Marcus, look to my house.\n    Lucius and I'll go brave it at the court;\n    Ay, marry, will we, sir! and we'll be waited on.\n                         Exeunt TITUS, LAVINIA, and YOUNG LUCIUS\n  MARCUS. O heavens, can you hear a good man groan\n    And not relent, or not compassion him?\n    Marcus, attend him in his ecstasy,\n    That hath more scars of sorrow in his heart\n    Than foemen's marks upon his batt'red shield,\n    But yet so just that he will not revenge.\n    Revenge the heavens for old Andronicus!                 Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nRome. The palace\n\nEnter AARON, DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, at one door; and at the other\ndoor,\nYOUNG LUCIUS and another with a bundle of weapons, and verses\nwrit upon them\n\n  CHIRON. Demetrius, here's the son of Lucius;\n    He hath some message to deliver us.\n  AARON. Ay, some mad message from his mad grandfather.\n  BOY. My lords, with all the humbleness I may,\n    I greet your honours from Andronicus-\n    [Aside]  And pray the Roman gods confound you both!\n  DEMETRIUS. Gramercy, lovely Lucius. What's the news?\n  BOY.  [Aside]  That you are both decipher'd, that's the news,\n    For villains mark'd with rape.- May it please you,\n    My grandsire, well advis'd, hath sent by me\n    The goodliest weapons of his armoury\n    To gratify your honourable youth,\n    The hope of Rome; for so he bid me say;\n    And so I do, and with his gifts present\n    Your lordships, that, whenever you have need,\n    You may be armed and appointed well.\n    And so I leave you both-  [Aside]  like bloody villains.\n                               Exeunt YOUNG LUCIUS and attendant\n  DEMETRIUS. What's here? A scroll, and written round about.\n    Let's see:\n    [Reads]  'Integer vitae, scelerisque purus,\n    Non eget Mauri iaculis, nec arcu.'\n  CHIRON. O, 'tis a verse in Horace, I know it well;\n    I read it in the grammar long ago.\n  AARON. Ay, just- a verse in Horace. Right, you have it.\n    [Aside]  Now, what a thing it is to be an ass!\n    Here's no sound jest! The old man hath found their guilt,\n    And sends them weapons wrapp'd about with lines\n    That wound, beyond their feeling, to the quick.\n    But were our witty Empress well afoot,\n    She would applaud Andronicus' conceit.\n    But let her rest in her unrest awhile-\n    And now, young lords, was't not a happy star\n    Led us to Rome, strangers, and more than so,\n    Captives, to be advanced to this height?\n    It did me good before the palace gate\n    To brave the Tribune in his brother's hearing.\n  DEMETRIUS. But me more good to see so great a lord\n    Basely insinuate and send us gifts.\n  AARON. Had he not reason, Lord Demetrius?\n    Did you not use his daughter very friendly?\n  DEMETRIUS. I would we had a thousand Roman dames\n    At such a bay, by turn to serve our lust.\n  CHIRON. A charitable wish and full of love.\n  AARON. Here lacks but your mother for to say amen.\n  CHIRON. And that would she for twenty thousand more.\n  DEMETRIUS. Come, let us go and pray to all the gods\n    For our beloved mother in her pains.\n  AARON.  [Aside]  Pray to the devils; the gods have given us\nover.\n                                                [Trumpets sound]\n  DEMETRIUS. Why do the Emperor's trumpets flourish thus?\n  CHIRON. Belike, for joy the Emperor hath a son.\n  DEMETRIUS. Soft! who comes here?\n\n            Enter NURSE, with a blackamoor CHILD\n\n  NURSE. Good morrow, lords.\n    O, tell me, did you see Aaron the Moor?\n  AARON. Well, more or less, or ne'er a whit at all,\n    Here Aaron is; and what with Aaron now?\n  NURSE. O gentle Aaron, we are all undone!\n    Now help, or woe betide thee evermore!\n  AARON. Why, what a caterwauling dost thou keep!\n    What dost thou wrap and fumble in thy arms?\n  NURSE. O, that which I would hide from heaven's eye:\n    Our Empress' shame and stately Rome's disgrace!\n    She is delivered, lord; she is delivered.\n  AARON. To whom?\n  NURSE. I mean she is brought a-bed.\n  AARON. Well, God give her good rest! What hath he sent her?\n  NURSE. A devil.\n  AARON. Why, then she is the devil's dam;\n    A joyful issue.\n  NURSE. A joyless, dismal, black, and sorrowful issue!\n    Here is the babe, as loathsome as a toad\n    Amongst the fair-fac'd breeders of our clime;\n    The Empress sends it thee, thy stamp, thy seal,\n    And bids thee christen it with thy dagger's point.\n  AARON. Zounds, ye whore! Is black so base a hue?\n    Sweet blowse, you are a beauteous blossom sure.\n  DEMETRIUS. Villain, what hast thou done?\n  AARON. That which thou canst not undo.\n  CHIRON. Thou hast undone our mother.\n  AARON. Villain, I have done thy mother.\n  DEMETRIUS. And therein, hellish dog, thou hast undone her.\n    Woe to her chance, and damn'd her loathed choice!\n    Accurs'd the offspring of so foul a fiend!\n  CHIRON. It shall not live.\n  AARON. It shall not die.\n  NURSE. Aaron, it must; the mother wills it so.\n  AARON. What, must it, nurse? Then let no man but I\n    Do execution on my flesh and blood.\n  DEMETRIUS. I'll broach the tadpole on my rapier's point.\n    Nurse, give it me; my sword shall soon dispatch it.\n  AARON. Sooner this sword shall plough thy bowels up.\n                     [Takes the CHILD from the NURSE, and draws]\n    Stay, murderous villains, will you kill your brother!\n    Now, by the burning tapers of the sky\n    That shone so brightly when this boy was got,\n    He dies upon my scimitar's sharp point\n    That touches this my first-born son and heir.\n    I tell you, younglings, not Enceladus,\n    With all his threat'ning band of Typhon's brood,\n    Nor great Alcides, nor the god of war,\n    Shall seize this prey out of his father's hands.\n    What, what, ye sanguine, shallow-hearted boys!\n    Ye white-lim'd walls! ye alehouse painted signs!\n    Coal-black is better than another hue\n    In that it scorns to bear another hue;\n    For all the water in the ocean\n    Can never turn the swan's black legs to white,\n    Although she lave them hourly in the flood.\n    Tell the Empress from me I am of age\n    To keep mine own- excuse it how she can.\n  DEMETRIUS. Wilt thou betray thy noble mistress thus?\n  AARON. My mistress is my mistress: this my self,\n    The vigour and the picture of my youth.\n    This before all the world do I prefer;\n    This maugre all the world will I keep safe,\n    Or some of you shall smoke for it in Rome.\n  DEMETRIUS. By this our mother is for ever sham'd.\n  CHIRON. Rome will despise her for this foul escape.\n  NURSE. The Emperor in his rage will doom her death.\n  CHIRON. I blush to think upon this ignomy.\n  AARON. Why, there's the privilege your beauty bears:\n    Fie, treacherous hue, that will betray with blushing\n    The close enacts and counsels of thy heart!\n    Here's a young lad fram'd of another leer.\n    Look how the black slave smiles upon the father,\n    As who should say 'Old lad, I am thine own.'\n    He is your brother, lords, sensibly fed\n    Of that self-blood that first gave life to you;\n    And from your womb where you imprisoned were\n    He is enfranchised and come to light.\n    Nay, he is your brother by the surer side,\n    Although my seal be stamped in his face.\n  NURSE. Aaron, what shall I say unto the Empress?\n  DEMETRIUS. Advise thee, Aaron, what is to be done,\n    And we will all subscribe to thy advice.\n    Save thou the child, so we may all be safe.\n  AARON. Then sit we down and let us all consult.\n    My son and I will have the wind of you:\n    Keep there; now talk at pleasure of your safety.\n                                                      [They sit]\n  DEMETRIUS. How many women saw this child of his?\n  AARON. Why, so, brave lords! When we join in league\n    I am a lamb; but if you brave the Moor,\n    The chafed boar, the mountain lioness,\n    The ocean swells not so as Aaron storms.\n    But say, again, how many saw the child?\n  NURSE. Cornelia the midwife and myself;\n    And no one else but the delivered Empress.\n  AARON. The Emperess, the midwife, and yourself.\n    Two may keep counsel when the third's away:\n    Go to the Empress, tell her this I said.      [He kills her]\n    Weeke weeke!\n    So cries a pig prepared to the spit.\n  DEMETRIUS. What mean'st thou, Aaron? Wherefore didst thou this?\n  AARON. O Lord, sir, 'tis a deed of policy.\n    Shall she live to betray this guilt of ours-\n    A long-tongu'd babbling gossip? No, lords, no.\n    And now be it known to you my full intent:\n    Not far, one Muliteus, my countryman-\n    His wife but yesternight was brought to bed;\n    His child is like to her, fair as you are.\n    Go pack with him, and give the mother gold,\n    And tell them both the circumstance of all,\n    And how by this their child shall be advanc'd,\n    And be received for the Emperor's heir\n    And substituted in the place of mine,\n    To calm this tempest whirling in the court;\n    And let the Emperor dandle him for his own.\n    Hark ye, lords. You see I have given her physic,\n                                         [Pointing to the NURSE]\n    And you must needs bestow her funeral;\n    The fields are near, and you are gallant grooms.\n    This done, see that you take no longer days,\n    But send the midwife presently to me.\n    The midwife and the nurse well made away,\n    Then let the ladies tattle what they please.\n  CHIRON. Aaron, I see thou wilt not trust the air\n    With secrets.\n  DEMETRIUS. For this care of Tamora,\n    Herself and hers are highly bound to thee.\n\n         Exeunt DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, bearing off the dead NURSE\n\n  AARON. Now to the Goths, as swift as swallow flies,\n    There to dispose this treasure in mine arms,\n    And secretly to greet the Empress' friends.\n    Come on, you thick-lipp'd slave, I'll bear you hence;\n    For it is you that puts us to our shifts.\n    I'll make you feed on berries and on roots,\n    And feed on curds and whey, and suck the goat,\n    And cabin in a cave, and bring you up\n    To be a warrior and command a camp.\n                                             Exit with the CHILD\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nRome. A public place\n\nEnter TITUS, bearing arrows with letters on the ends of them;\nwith him MARCUS, YOUNG LUCIUS, and other gentlemen,\nPUBLIUS, SEMPRONIUS, and CAIUS, with bows\n\n  TITUS. Come, Marcus, come; kinsmen, this is the way.\n    Sir boy, let me see your archery;\n    Look ye draw home enough, and 'tis there straight.\n    Terras Astrea reliquit,\n    Be you rememb'red, Marcus; she's gone, she's fled.\n    Sirs, take you to your tools. You, cousins, shall\n    Go sound the ocean and cast your nets;\n    Happily you may catch her in the sea;\n    Yet there's as little justice as at land.\n    No; Publius and Sempronius, you must do it;\n    'Tis you must dig with mattock and with spade,\n    And pierce the inmost centre of the earth;\n    Then, when you come to Pluto's region,\n    I pray you deliver him this petition.\n    Tell him it is for justice and for aid,\n    And that it comes from old Andronicus,\n    Shaken with sorrows in ungrateful Rome.\n    Ah, Rome! Well, well, I made thee miserable\n    What time I threw the people's suffrages\n    On him that thus doth tyrannize o'er me.\n    Go get you gone; and pray be careful all,\n    And leave you not a man-of-war unsearch'd.\n    This wicked Emperor may have shipp'd her hence;\n    And, kinsmen, then we may go pipe for justice.\n  MARCUS. O Publius, is not this a heavy case,\n    To see thy noble uncle thus distract?\n  PUBLIUS. Therefore, my lords, it highly us concerns\n    By day and night t' attend him carefully,\n    And feed his humour kindly as we may\n    Till time beget some careful remedy.\n  MARCUS. Kinsmen, his sorrows are past remedy.\n    Join with the Goths, and with revengeful war\n    Take wreak on Rome for this ingratitude,\n    And vengeance on the traitor Saturnine.\n  TITUS. Publius, how now? How now, my masters?\n    What, have you met with her?\n  PUBLIUS. No, my good lord; but Pluto sends you word,\n    If you will have Revenge from hell, you shall.\n    Marry, for Justice, she is so employ'd,\n    He thinks, with Jove in heaven, or somewhere else,\n    So that perforce you must needs stay a time.\n  TITUS. He doth me wrong to feed me with delays.\n    I'll dive into the burning lake below\n    And pull her out of Acheron by the heels.\n    Marcus, we are but shrubs, no cedars we,\n    No big-bon'd men fram'd of the Cyclops' size;\n    But metal, Marcus, steel to the very back,\n    Yet wrung with wrongs more than our backs can bear;\n    And, sith there's no justice in earth nor hell,\n    We will solicit heaven, and move the gods\n    To send down justice for to wreak our wrongs.\n    Come, to this gear. You are a good archer, Marcus.\n                                      [He gives them the arrows]\n    'Ad Jovem' that's for you; here 'Ad Apollinem.'\n    'Ad Martem' that's for myself.\n    Here, boy, 'To Pallas'; here 'To Mercury.'\n    'To Saturn,' Caius- not to Saturnine:\n    You were as good to shoot against the wind.\n    To it, boy. Marcus, loose when I bid.\n    Of my word, I have written to effect;\n    There's not a god left unsolicited.\n  MARCUS. Kinsmen, shoot all your shafts into the court;\n    We will afflict the Emperor in his pride.\n  TITUS. Now, masters, draw.  [They shoot]  O, well said, Lucius!\n    Good boy, in Virgo's lap! Give it Pallas.\n  MARCUS. My lord, I aim a mile beyond the moon;\n    Your letter is with Jupiter by this.\n  TITUS. Ha! ha!\n    Publius, Publius, hast thou done?\n    See, see, thou hast shot off one of Taurus' horns.\n  MARCUS. This was the sport, my lord: when Publius shot,\n    The Bull, being gall'd, gave Aries such a knock\n    That down fell both the Ram's horns in the court;\n    And who should find them but the Empress' villain?\n    She laugh'd, and told the Moor he should not choose\n    But give them to his master for a present.\n  TITUS. Why, there it goes! God give his lordship joy!\n\n    Enter the CLOWN, with a basket and two pigeons in it\n\n    News, news from heaven! Marcus, the post is come.\n    Sirrah, what tidings? Have you any letters?\n    Shall I have justice? What says Jupiter?\n  CLOWN. Ho, the gibbet-maker? He says that he hath taken them\ndown\n    again, for the man must not be hang'd till the next week.\n  TITUS. But what says Jupiter, I ask thee?\n  CLOWN. Alas, sir, I know not Jupiter; I never drank with him in\nall\n    my life.\n  TITUS. Why, villain, art not thou the carrier?\n  CLOWN. Ay, of my pigeons, sir; nothing else.\n  TITUS. Why, didst thou not come from heaven?\n  CLOWN. From heaven! Alas, sir, I never came there. God forbid I\n    should be so bold to press to heaven in my young days. Why, I\nam\n    going with my pigeons to the Tribunal Plebs, to take up a\nmatter\n    of brawl betwixt my uncle and one of the Emperal's men.\n  MARCUS. Why, sir, that is as fit as can be to serve for your\n    oration; and let him deliver the pigeons to the Emperor from\nyou.\n  TITUS. Tell me, can you deliver an oration to the Emperor with\na\n    grace?\n  CLOWN. Nay, truly, sir, I could never say grace in all my life.\n  TITUS. Sirrah, come hither. Make no more ado,\n    But give your pigeons to the Emperor;\n    By me thou shalt have justice at his hands.\n    Hold, hold! Meanwhile here's money for thy charges.\n    Give me pen and ink. Sirrah, can you with a grace deliver up\na\n    supplication?\n  CLOWN. Ay, sir.\n  TITUS. Then here is a supplication for you. And when you come\nto\n    him, at the first approach you must kneel; then kiss his\nfoot;\n    then deliver up your pigeons; and then look for your reward.\nI'll\n    be at hand, sir; see you do it bravely.\n  CLOWN. I warrant you, sir; let me alone.\n  TITUS. Sirrah, hast thou a knife? Come let me see it.\n    Here, Marcus, fold it in the oration;\n    For thou hast made it like a humble suppliant.\n    And when thou hast given it to the Emperor,\n    Knock at my door, and tell me what he says.\n  CLOWN. God be with you, sir; I will.\n  TITUS. Come, Marcus, let us go. Publius, follow me.     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nRome. Before the palace\n\nEnter the EMPEROR, and the EMPRESS and her two sons, DEMETRIUS\nand CHIRON;\nLORDS and others. The EMPEROR brings the arrows in his hand that\nTITUS\nshot at him\n\n  SATURNINUS. Why, lords, what wrongs are these! Was ever seen\n    An emperor in Rome thus overborne,\n    Troubled, confronted thus; and, for the extent\n    Of egal justice, us'd in such contempt?\n    My lords, you know, as know the mightful gods,\n    However these disturbers of our peace\n    Buzz in the people's ears, there nought hath pass'd\n    But even with law against the wilful sons\n    Of old Andronicus. And what an if\n    His sorrows have so overwhelm'd his wits,\n    Shall we be thus afflicted in his wreaks,\n    His fits, his frenzy, and his bitterness?\n    And now he writes to heaven for his redress.\n    See, here's 'To Jove' and this 'To Mercury';\n    This 'To Apollo'; this 'To the God of War'-\n    Sweet scrolls to fly about the streets of Rome!\n    What's this but libelling against the Senate,\n    And blazoning our unjustice every where?\n    A goodly humour, is it not, my lords?\n    As who would say in Rome no justice were.\n    But if I live, his feigned ecstasies\n    Shall be no shelter to these outrages;\n    But he and his shall know that justice lives\n    In Saturninus' health; whom, if she sleep,\n    He'll so awake as he in fury shall\n    Cut off the proud'st conspirator that lives.\n  TAMORA. My gracious lord, my lovely Saturnine,\n    Lord of my life, commander of my thoughts,\n    Calm thee, and bear the faults of Titus' age,\n    Th' effects of sorrow for his valiant sons\n    Whose loss hath pierc'd him deep and scarr'd his heart;\n    And rather comfort his distressed plight\n    Than prosecute the meanest or the best\n    For these contempts.  [Aside]  Why, thus it shall become\n    High-witted Tamora to gloze with all.\n    But, Titus, I have touch'd thee to the quick,\n    Thy life-blood out; if Aaron now be wise,\n    Then is all safe, the anchor in the port.\n\n                       Enter CLOWN\n\n    How now, good fellow! Wouldst thou speak with us?\n  CLOWN. Yes, forsooth, an your mistriship be Emperial.\n  TAMORA. Empress I am, but yonder sits the Emperor.\n  CLOWN. 'Tis he.- God and Saint Stephen give you godden. I have\n    brought you a letter and a couple of pigeons here.\n                                   [SATURNINUS reads the letter]\n  SATURNINUS. Go take him away, and hang him presently.\n  CLOWN. How much money must I have?\n  TAMORA. Come, sirrah, you must be hang'd.\n  CLOWN. Hang'd! by'r lady, then I have brought up a neck to a\nfair\n    end.                                          [Exit guarded]\n  SATURNINUS. Despiteful and intolerable wrongs!\n    Shall I endure this monstrous villainy?\n    I know from whence this same device proceeds.\n    May this be borne- as if his traitorous sons\n    That died by law for murder of our brother\n    Have by my means been butchered wrongfully?\n    Go drag the villain hither by the hair;\n    Nor age nor honour shall shape privilege.\n    For this proud mock I'll be thy slaughterman,\n    Sly frantic wretch, that holp'st to make me great,\n    In hope thyself should govern Rome and me.\n\n                   Enter NUNTIUS AEMILIUS\n\n    What news with thee, Aemilius?\n  AEMILIUS. Arm, my lords! Rome never had more cause.\n    The Goths have gathered head; and with a power\n    Of high resolved men, bent to the spoil,\n    They hither march amain, under conduct\n    Of Lucius, son to old Andronicus;\n    Who threats in course of this revenge to do\n    As much as ever Coriolanus did.\n  SATURNINUS. Is warlike Lucius general of the Goths?\n    These tidings nip me, and I hang the head\n    As flowers with frost, or grass beat down with storms.\n    Ay, now begins our sorrows to approach.\n    'Tis he the common people love so much;\n    Myself hath often heard them say-\n    When I have walked like a private man-\n    That Lucius' banishment was wrongfully,\n    And they have wish'd that Lucius were their emperor.\n  TAMORA. Why should you fear? Is not your city strong?\n  SATURNINUS. Ay, but the citizens favour Lucius,\n    And will revolt from me to succour him.\n  TAMORA. King, be thy thoughts imperious like thy name!\n    Is the sun dimm'd, that gnats do fly in it?\n    The eagle suffers little birds to sing,\n    And is not careful what they mean thereby,\n    Knowing that with the shadow of his wings\n    He can at pleasure stint their melody;\n    Even so mayest thou the giddy men of Rome.\n    Then cheer thy spirit; for know thou, Emperor,\n    I will enchant the old Andronicus\n    With words more sweet, and yet more dangerous,\n    Than baits to fish or honey-stalks to sheep,\n    When as the one is wounded with the bait,\n    The other rotted with delicious feed.\n  SATURNINUS. But he will not entreat his son for us.\n  TAMORA. If Tamora entreat him, then he will;\n    For I can smooth and fill his aged ears\n    With golden promises, that, were his heart\n    Almost impregnable, his old ears deaf,\n    Yet should both ear and heart obey my tongue.\n    [To AEMILIUS]  Go thou before to be our ambassador;\n    Say that the Emperor requests a parley\n    Of warlike Lucius, and appoint the meeting\n    Even at his father's house, the old Andronicus.\n  SATURNINUS. Aemilius, do this message honourably;\n    And if he stand on hostage for his safety,\n    Bid him demand what pledge will please him best.\n  AEMILIUS. Your bidding shall I do effectually.            Exit\n  TAMORA. Now will I to that old Andronicus,\n    And temper him with all the art I have,\n    To pluck proud Lucius from the warlike Goths.\n    And now, sweet Emperor, be blithe again,\n    And bury all thy fear in my devices.\n  SATURNINUS. Then go successantly, and plead to him.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nPlains near Rome\n\nEnter LUCIUS with an army of GOTHS with drums and colours\n\n  LUCIUS. Approved warriors and my faithful friends,\n    I have received letters from great Rome\n    Which signifies what hate they bear their Emperor\n    And how desirous of our sight they are.\n    Therefore, great lords, be, as your titles witness,\n    Imperious and impatient of your wrongs;\n    And wherein Rome hath done you any scath,\n    Let him make treble satisfaction.\n  FIRST GOTH. Brave slip, sprung from the great Andronicus,\n    Whose name was once our terror, now our comfort,\n    Whose high exploits and honourable deeds\n    Ingrateful Rome requites with foul contempt,\n    Be bold in us: we'll follow where thou lead'st,\n    Like stinging bees in hottest summer's day,\n    Led by their master to the flow'red fields,\n    And be aveng'd on cursed Tamora.\n  ALL THE GOTHS. And as he saith, so say we all with him.\n  LUCIUS. I humbly thank him, and I thank you all.\n    But who comes here, led by a lusty Goth?\n\n     Enter a GOTH, leading AARON with his CHILD in his arms\n\n  SECOND GOTH. Renowned Lucius, from our troops I stray'd\n    To gaze upon a ruinous monastery;\n    And as I earnestly did fix mine eye\n    Upon the wasted building, suddenly\n    I heard a child cry underneath a wall.\n    I made unto the noise, when soon I heard\n    The crying babe controll'd with this discourse:\n    'Peace, tawny slave, half me and half thy dam!\n    Did not thy hue bewray whose brat thou art,\n    Had nature lent thee but thy mother's look,\n    Villain, thou mightst have been an emperor;\n    But where the bull and cow are both milk-white,\n    They never do beget a coal-black calf.\n    Peace, villain, peace!'- even thus he rates the babe-\n    'For I must bear thee to a trusty Goth,\n    Who, when he knows thou art the Empress' babe,\n    Will hold thee dearly for thy mother's sake.'\n    With this, my weapon drawn, I rush'd upon him,\n    Surpris'd him suddenly, and brought him hither\n    To use as you think needful of the man.\n  LUCIUS. O worthy Goth, this is the incarnate devil\n    That robb'd Andronicus of his good hand;\n    This is the pearl that pleas'd your Empress' eye;\n    And here's the base fruit of her burning lust.\n    Say, wall-ey'd slave, whither wouldst thou convey\n    This growing image of thy fiend-like face?\n    Why dost not speak? What, deaf? Not a word?\n    A halter, soldiers! Hang him on this tree,\n    And by his side his fruit of bastardy.\n  AARON. Touch not the boy, he is of royal blood.\n  LUCIUS. Too like the sire for ever being good.\n    First hang the child, that he may see it sprawl-\n    A sight to vex the father's soul withal.\n    Get me a ladder.\n                [A ladder brought, which AARON is made to climb]\n  AARON. Lucius, save the child,\n    And bear it from me to the Emperess.\n    If thou do this, I'll show thee wondrous things\n    That highly may advantage thee to hear;\n    If thou wilt not, befall what may befall,\n    I'll speak no more but 'Vengeance rot you all!'\n  LUCIUS. Say on; an if it please me which thou speak'st,\n    Thy child shall live, and I will see it nourish'd.\n  AARON. An if it please thee! Why, assure thee, Lucius,\n    'Twill vex thy soul to hear what I shall speak;\n    For I must talk of murders, rapes, and massacres,\n    Acts of black night, abominable deeds,\n    Complots of mischief, treason, villainies,\n    Ruthful to hear, yet piteously perform'd;\n    And this shall all be buried in my death,\n    Unless thou swear to me my child shall live.\n  LUCIUS. Tell on thy mind; I say thy child shall live.\n  AARON. Swear that he shall, and then I will begin.\n  LUCIUS. Who should I swear by? Thou believest no god;\n    That granted, how canst thou believe an oath?\n  AARON. What if I do not? as indeed I do not;\n    Yet, for I know thou art religious\n    And hast a thing within thee called conscience,\n    With twenty popish tricks and ceremonies\n    Which I have seen thee careful to observe,\n    Therefore I urge thy oath. For that I know\n    An idiot holds his bauble for a god,\n    And keeps the oath which by that god he swears,\n    To that I'll urge him. Therefore thou shalt vow\n    By that same god- what god soe'er it be\n    That thou adorest and hast in reverence-\n    To save my boy, to nourish and bring him up;\n    Or else I will discover nought to thee.\n  LUCIUS. Even by my god I swear to thee I will.\n  AARON. First know thou, I begot him on the Empress.\n  LUCIUS. O most insatiate and luxurious woman!\n  AARON. Tut, Lucius, this was but a deed of charity\n    To that which thou shalt hear of me anon.\n    'Twas her two sons that murdered Bassianus;\n    They cut thy sister's tongue, and ravish'd her,\n    And cut her hands, and trimm'd her as thou sawest.\n  LUCIUS. O detestable villain! Call'st thou that trimming?\n  AARON. Why, she was wash'd, and cut, and trimm'd, and 'twas\n    Trim sport for them which had the doing of it.\n  LUCIUS. O barbarous beastly villains like thyself!\n  AARON. Indeed, I was their tutor to instruct them.\n    That codding spirit had they from their mother,\n    As sure a card as ever won the set;\n    That bloody mind, I think, they learn'd of me,\n    As true a dog as ever fought at head.\n    Well, let my deeds be witness of my worth.\n    I train'd thy brethren to that guileful hole\n    Where the dead corpse of Bassianus lay;\n    I wrote the letter that thy father found,\n    And hid the gold within that letter mention'd,\n    Confederate with the Queen and her two sons;\n    And what not done, that thou hast cause to rue,\n    Wherein I had no stroke of mischief in it?\n    I play'd the cheater for thy father's hand,\n    And, when I had it, drew myself apart\n    And almost broke my heart with extreme laughter.\n    I pried me through the crevice of a wall,\n    When, for his hand, he had his two sons' heads;\n    Beheld his tears, and laugh'd so heartily\n    That both mine eyes were rainy like to his;\n    And when I told the Empress of this sport,\n    She swooned almost at my pleasing tale,\n    And for my tidings gave me twenty kisses.\n  GOTH. What, canst thou say all this and never blush?\n  AARON. Ay, like a black dog, as the saying is.\n  LUCIUS. Art thou not sorry for these heinous deeds?\n  AARON. Ay, that I had not done a thousand more.\n    Even now I curse the day- and yet, I think,\n    Few come within the compass of my curse-\n    Wherein I did not some notorious ill;\n    As kill a man, or else devise his death;\n    Ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it;\n    Accuse some innocent, and forswear myself;\n    Set deadly enmity between two friends;\n    Make poor men's cattle break their necks;\n    Set fire on barns and hay-stacks in the night,\n    And bid the owners quench them with their tears.\n    Oft have I digg'd up dead men from their graves,\n    And set them upright at their dear friends' door\n    Even when their sorrows almost was forgot,\n    And on their skins, as on the bark of trees,\n    Have with my knife carved in Roman letters\n    'Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead.'\n    Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful things\n    As willingly as one would kill a fly;\n    And nothing grieves me heartily indeed\n    But that I cannot do ten thousand more.\n  LUCIUS. Bring down the devil, for he must not die\n    So sweet a death as hanging presently.\n  AARON. If there be devils, would I were a devil,\n    To live and burn in everlasting fire,\n    So I might have your company in hell\n    But to torment you with my bitter tongue!\n  LUCIUS. Sirs, stop his mouth, and let him speak no more.\n\n                       Enter AEMILIUS\n\n  GOTH. My lord, there is a messenger from Rome\n    Desires to be admitted to your presence.\n  LUCIUS. Let him come near.\n    Welcome, Aemilius. What's the news from Rome?\n  AEMILIUS. Lord Lucius, and you Princes of the Goths,\n    The Roman Emperor greets you all by me;\n    And, for he understands you are in arms,\n    He craves a parley at your father's house,\n    Willing you to demand your hostages,\n    And they shall be immediately deliver'd.\n  FIRST GOTH. What says our general?\n  LUCIUS. Aemilius, let the Emperor give his pledges\n    Unto my father and my uncle Marcus.\n    And we will come. March away.                         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nRome. Before TITUS' house\n\nEnter TAMORA, and her two sons, DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, disguised\n\n  TAMORA. Thus, in this strange and sad habiliment,\n    I will encounter with Andronicus,\n    And say I am Revenge, sent from below\n    To join with him and right his heinous wrongs.\n    Knock at his study, where they say he keeps\n    To ruminate strange plots of dire revenge;\n    Tell him Revenge is come to join with him,\n    And work confusion on his enemies.\n\n         They knock and TITUS opens his study door, above\n\n  TITUS. Who doth molest my contemplation?\n    Is it your trick to make me ope the door,\n    That so my sad decrees may fly away\n    And all my study be to no effect?\n    You are deceiv'd; for what I mean to do\n    See here in bloody lines I have set down;\n    And what is written shall be executed.\n  TAMORA. Titus, I am come to talk with thee.\n  TITUS. No, not a word. How can I grace my talk,\n    Wanting a hand to give it that accord?\n    Thou hast the odds of me; therefore no more.\n  TAMORA. If thou didst know me, thou wouldst talk with me.\n  TITUS. I am not mad, I know thee well enough:\n    Witness this wretched stump, witness these crimson lines;\n    Witness these trenches made by grief and care;\n    Witness the tiring day and heavy night;\n    Witness all sorrow that I know thee well\n    For our proud Empress, mighty Tamora.\n    Is not thy coming for my other hand?\n  TAMORA. Know thou, sad man, I am not Tamora:\n    She is thy enemy and I thy friend.\n    I am Revenge, sent from th' infernal kingdom\n    To ease the gnawing vulture of thy mind\n    By working wreakful vengeance on thy foes.\n    Come down and welcome me to this world's light;\n    Confer with me of murder and of death;\n    There's not a hollow cave or lurking-place,\n    No vast obscurity or misty vale,\n    Where bloody murder or detested rape\n    Can couch for fear but I will find them out;\n    And in their ears tell them my dreadful name-\n    Revenge, which makes the foul offender quake.\n  TITUS. Art thou Revenge? and art thou sent to me\n    To be a torment to mine enemies?\n  TAMORA. I am; therefore come down and welcome me.\n  TITUS. Do me some service ere I come to thee.\n    Lo, by thy side where Rape and Murder stands;\n    Now give some surance that thou art Revenge-\n    Stab them, or tear them on thy chariot wheels;\n    And then I'll come and be thy waggoner\n    And whirl along with thee about the globes.\n    Provide thee two proper palfreys, black as jet,\n    To hale thy vengeful waggon swift away,\n    And find out murderers in their guilty caves;\n    And when thy car is loaden with their heads,\n    I will dismount, and by thy waggon wheel\n    Trot, like a servile footman, all day long,\n    Even from Hyperion's rising in the east\n    Until his very downfall in the sea.\n    And day by day I'll do this heavy task,\n    So thou destroy Rapine and Murder there.\n  TAMORA. These are my ministers, and come with me.\n  TITUS. Are they thy ministers? What are they call'd?\n  TAMORA. Rape and Murder; therefore called so\n    'Cause they take vengeance of such kind of men.\n  TITUS. Good Lord, how like the Empress' sons they are!\n    And you the Empress! But we worldly men\n    Have miserable, mad, mistaking eyes.\n    O sweet Revenge, now do I come to thee;\n    And, if one arm's embracement will content thee,\n    I will embrace thee in it by and by.\n  TAMORA. This closing with him fits his lunacy.\n    Whate'er I forge to feed his brain-sick humours,\n    Do you uphold and maintain in your speeches,\n    For now he firmly takes me for Revenge;\n    And, being credulous in this mad thought,\n    I'll make him send for Lucius his son,\n    And whilst I at a banquet hold him sure,\n    I'll find some cunning practice out of hand\n    To scatter and disperse the giddy Goths,\n    Or, at the least, make them his enemies.\n    See, here he comes, and I must ply my theme.\n\n                 Enter TITUS, below\n\n  TITUS. Long have I been forlorn, and all for thee.\n    Welcome, dread Fury, to my woeful house.\n    Rapine and Murder, you are welcome too.\n    How like the Empress and her sons you are!\n    Well are you fitted, had you but a Moor.\n    Could not all hell afford you such a devil?\n    For well I wot the Empress never wags\n    But in her company there is a Moor;\n    And, would you represent our queen aright,\n    It were convenient you had such a devil.\n    But welcome as you are. What shall we do?\n  TAMORA. What wouldst thou have us do, Andronicus?\n  DEMETRIUS. Show me a murderer, I'll deal with him.\n  CHIRON. Show me a villain that hath done a rape,\n    And I am sent to be reveng'd on him.\n  TAMORA. Show me a thousand that hath done thee wrong,\n    And I will be revenged on them all.\n  TITUS. Look round about the wicked streets of Rome,\n    And when thou find'st a man that's like thyself,\n    Good Murder, stab him; he's a murderer.\n    Go thou with him, and when it is thy hap\n    To find another that is like to thee,\n    Good Rapine, stab him; he is a ravisher.\n    Go thou with them; and in the Emperor's court\n    There is a queen, attended by a Moor;\n    Well shalt thou know her by thine own proportion,\n    For up and down she doth resemble thee.\n    I pray thee, do on them some violent death;\n    They have been violent to me and mine.\n  TAMORA. Well hast thou lesson'd us; this shall we do.\n    But would it please thee, good Andronicus,\n    To send for Lucius, thy thrice-valiant son,\n    Who leads towards Rome a band of warlike Goths,\n    And bid him come and banquet at thy house;\n    When he is here, even at thy solemn feast,\n    I will bring in the Empress and her sons,\n    The Emperor himself, and all thy foes;\n    And at thy mercy shall they stoop and kneel,\n    And on them shalt thou ease thy angry heart.\n    What says Andronicus to this device?\n  TITUS. Marcus, my brother! 'Tis sad Titus calls.\n\n                  Enter MARCUS\n\n    Go, gentle Marcus, to thy nephew Lucius;\n    Thou shalt inquire him out among the Goths.\n    Bid him repair to me, and bring with him\n    Some of the chiefest princes of the Goths;\n    Bid him encamp his soldiers where they are.\n    Tell him the Emperor and the Empress too\n    Feast at my house, and he shall feast with them.\n    This do thou for my love; and so let him,\n    As he regards his aged father's life.\n  MARCUS. This will I do, and soon return again.            Exit\n  TAMORA. Now will I hence about thy business,\n    And take my ministers along with me.\n  TITUS. Nay, nay, let Rape and Murder stay with me,\n    Or else I'll call my brother back again,\n    And cleave to no revenge but Lucius.\n  TAMORA.  [Aside to her sons]  What say you, boys? Will you\nabide\n      with him,\n    Whiles I go tell my lord the Emperor\n    How I have govern'd our determin'd jest?\n    Yield to his humour, smooth and speak him fair,\n    And tarry with him till I turn again.\n  TITUS.  [Aside]  I knew them all, though they suppos'd me mad,\n    And will o'er reach them in their own devices,\n    A pair of cursed hell-hounds and their dam.\n  DEMETRIUS. Madam, depart at pleasure; leave us here.\n  TAMORA. Farewell, Andronicus, Revenge now goes\n    To lay a complot to betray thy foes.\n  TITUS. I know thou dost; and, sweet Revenge, farewell.\n                                                     Exit TAMORA\n  CHIRON. Tell us, old man, how shall we be employ'd?\n  TITUS. Tut, I have work enough for you to do.\n    Publius, come hither, Caius, and Valentine.\n\n          Enter PUBLIUS, CAIUS, and VALENTINE\n\n  PUBLIUS. What is your will?\n  TITUS. Know you these two?\n  PUBLIUS. The Empress' sons, I take them: Chiron, Demetrius.\n  TITUS. Fie, Publius, fie! thou art too much deceiv'd.\n    The one is Murder, and Rape is the other's name;\n    And therefore bind them, gentle Publius-\n    Caius and Valentine, lay hands on them.\n    Oft have you heard me wish for such an hour,\n    And now I find it; therefore bind them sure,\n    And stop their mouths if they begin to cry.             Exit\n                         [They lay hold on CHIRON and DEMETRIUS]\n  CHIRON. Villains, forbear! we are the Empress' sons.\n  PUBLIUS. And therefore do we what we are commanded.\n    Stop close their mouths, let them not speak a word.\n    Is he sure bound? Look that you bind them fast.\n\n               Re-enter TITUS ANDRONICUS\n        with a knife, and LAVINIA, with a basin\n\n  TITUS. Come, come, Lavinia; look, thy foes are bound.\n    Sirs, stop their mouths, let them not speak to me;\n    But let them hear what fearful words I utter.\n    O villains, Chiron and Demetrius!\n    Here stands the spring whom you have stain'd with mud;\n    This goodly summer with your winter mix'd.\n    You kill'd her husband; and for that vile fault\n    Two of her brothers were condemn'd to death,\n    My hand cut off and made a merry jest;\n    Both her sweet hands, her tongue, and that more dear\n    Than hands or tongue, her spotless chastity,\n    Inhuman traitors, you constrain'd and forc'd.\n    What would you say, if I should let you speak?\n    Villains, for shame you could not beg for grace.\n    Hark, wretches! how I mean to martyr you.\n    This one hand yet is left to cut your throats,\n    Whiles that Lavinia 'tween her stumps doth hold\n    The basin that receives your guilty blood.\n    You know your mother means to feast with me,\n    And calls herself Revenge, and thinks me mad.\n    Hark, villains! I will grind your bones to dust,\n    And with your blood and it I'll make a paste;\n    And of the paste a coffin I will rear,\n    And make two pasties of your shameful heads;\n    And bid that strumpet, your unhallowed dam,\n    Like to the earth, swallow her own increase.\n    This is the feast that I have bid her to,\n    And this the banquet she shall surfeit on;\n    For worse than Philomel you us'd my daughter,\n    And worse than Progne I will be reveng'd.\n    And now prepare your throats. Lavinia, come,\n    Receive the blood; and when that they are dead,\n    Let me go grind their bones to powder small,\n    And with this hateful liquor temper it;\n    And in that paste let their vile heads be bak'd.\n    Come, come, be every one officious\n    To make this banquet, which I wish may prove\n    More stern and bloody than the Centaurs' feast.\n                                         [He cuts their throats]\n    So.\n    Now bring them in, for I will play the cook,\n    And see them ready against their mother comes.\n                                 Exeunt, bearing the dead bodies\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe court of TITUS' house\n\nEnter Lucius, MARCUS, and the GOTHS, with AARON prisoner,\nand his CHILD in the arms of an attendant\n\n  LUCIUS. Uncle Marcus, since 'tis my father's mind\n    That I repair to Rome, I am content.\n    FIRST GOTH. And ours with thine, befall what fortune will.\n  LUCIUS. Good uncle, take you in this barbarous Moor,\n    This ravenous tiger, this accursed devil;\n    Let him receive no sust'nance, fetter him,\n    Till he be brought unto the Empress' face\n    For testimony of her foul proceedings.\n    And see the ambush of our friends be strong;\n    I fear the Emperor means no good to us.\n  AARON. Some devil whisper curses in my ear,\n    And prompt me that my tongue may utter forth\n    The venomous malice of my swelling heart!\n  LUCIUS. Away, inhuman dog, unhallowed slave!\n    Sirs, help our uncle to convey him in.\n                        Exeunt GOTHS with AARON. Flourish within\n    The trumpets show the Emperor is at hand.\n\n            Sound trumpets. Enter SATURNINUS and\n    TAMORA, with AEMILIUS, TRIBUNES, SENATORS, and others\n\n  SATURNINUS. What, hath the firmament more suns than one?\n  LUCIUS. What boots it thee to can thyself a sun?\n  MARCUS. Rome's Emperor, and nephew, break the parle;\n    These quarrels must be quietly debated.\n    The feast is ready which the careful Titus\n    Hath ordain'd to an honourable end,\n    For peace, for love, for league, and good to Rome.\n    Please you, therefore, draw nigh and take your places.\n  SATURNINUS. Marcus, we will.\n                      [A table brought in. The company sit down]\n\n               Trumpets sounding, enter TITUS\n         like a cook, placing the dishes, and LAVINIA\n   with a veil over her face; also YOUNG LUCIUS, and others\n\n  TITUS. Welcome, my lord; welcome, dread Queen;\n    Welcome, ye warlike Goths; welcome, Lucius;\n    And welcome all. Although the cheer be poor,\n    'Twill fill your stomachs; please you eat of it.\n  SATURNINUS. Why art thou thus attir'd, Andronicus?\n  TITUS. Because I would be sure to have all well\n    To entertain your Highness and your Empress.\n  TAMORA. We are beholding to you, good Andronicus.\n  TITUS. An if your Highness knew my heart, you were.\n    My lord the Emperor, resolve me this:\n    Was it well done of rash Virginius\n    To slay his daughter with his own right hand,\n    Because she was enforc'd, stain'd, and deflower'd?\n  SATURNINUS. It was, Andronicus.\n  TITUS. Your reason, mighty lord.\n  SATURNINUS. Because the girl should not survive her shame,\n    And by her presence still renew his sorrows.\n  TITUS. A reason mighty, strong, and effectual;\n    A pattern, precedent, and lively warrant\n    For me, most wretched, to perform the like.\n    Die, die, Lavinia, and thy shame with thee;   [He kills her]\n    And with thy shame thy father's sorrow die!\n  SATURNINUS. What hast thou done, unnatural and unkind?\n  TITUS. Kill'd her for whom my tears have made me blind.\n    I am as woeful as Virginius was,\n    And have a thousand times more cause than he\n    To do this outrage; and it now is done.\n  SATURNINUS. What, was she ravish'd? Tell who did the deed.\n  TITUS. Will't please you eat?  Will't please your Highness\nfeed?\n  TAMORA. Why hast thou slain thine only daughter thus?\n  TITUS. Not I; 'twas Chiron and Demetrius.\n    They ravish'd her, and cut away her tongue;\n    And they, 'twas they, that did her all this wrong.\n  SATURNINUS. Go, fetch them hither to us presently.\n  TITUS. Why, there they are, both baked in this pie,\n    Whereof their mother daintily hath fed,\n    Eating the flesh that she herself hath bred.\n    'Tis true, 'tis true: witness my knife's sharp point.\n                                          [He stabs the EMPRESS]\n  SATURNINUS. Die, frantic wretch, for this accursed deed!\n                                                [He stabs TITUS]\n  LUCIUS. Can the son's eye behold his father bleed?\n    There's meed for meed, death for a deadly deed.\n                   [He stabs SATURNINUS. A great tumult. LUCIUS,\n               MARCUS, and their friends go up into the balcony]\n  MARCUS. You sad-fac'd men, people and sons of Rome,\n    By uproars sever'd, as a flight of fowl\n    Scatter'd by winds and high tempestuous gusts?\n    O, let me teach you how to knit again\n    This scattered corn into one mutual sheaf,\n    These broken limbs again into one body;\n    Lest Rome herself be bane unto herself,\n    And she whom mighty kingdoms curtsy to,\n    Like a forlorn and desperate castaway,\n    Do shameful execution on herself.\n    But if my frosty signs and chaps of age,\n    Grave witnesses of true experience,\n    Cannot induce you to attend my words,\n    [To Lucius]  Speak, Rome's dear friend, as erst our ancestor,\n\n    When with his solemn tongue he did discourse\n    To love-sick Dido's sad attending ear\n    The story of that baleful burning night,\n    When subtle Greeks surpris'd King Priam's Troy.\n    Tell us what Sinon hath bewitch'd our ears,\n    Or who hath brought the fatal engine in\n    That gives our Troy, our Rome, the civil wound.\n    My heart is not compact of flint nor steel;\n    Nor can I utter all our bitter grief,\n    But floods of tears will drown my oratory\n    And break my utt'rance, even in the time\n    When it should move ye to attend me most,\n    And force you to commiseration.\n    Here's Rome's young Captain, let him tell the tale;\n    While I stand by and weep to hear him speak.\n  LUCIUS. Then, gracious auditory, be it known to you\n    That Chiron and the damn'd Demetrius\n    Were they that murd'red our Emperor's brother;\n    And they it were that ravished our sister.\n    For their fell faults our brothers were beheaded,\n    Our father's tears despis'd, and basely cozen'd\n    Of that true hand that fought Rome's quarrel out\n    And sent her enemies unto the grave.\n    Lastly, myself unkindly banished,\n    The gates shut on me, and turn'd weeping out,\n    To beg relief among Rome's enemies;\n    Who drown'd their enmity in my true tears,\n    And op'd their arms to embrace me as a friend.\n    I am the turned forth, be it known to you,\n    That have preserv'd her welfare in my blood\n    And from her bosom took the enemy's point,\n    Sheathing the steel in my advent'rous body.\n    Alas! you know I am no vaunter, I;\n    My scars can witness, dumb although they are,\n    That my report is just and full of truth.\n    But, soft! methinks I do digress too much,\n    Citing my worthless praise. O, pardon me!\n    For when no friends are by, men praise themselves.\n  MARCUS. Now is my turn to speak. Behold the child.\n                  [Pointing to the CHILD in an attendant's arms]\n    Of this was Tamora delivered,\n    The issue of an irreligious Moor,\n    Chief architect and plotter of these woes.\n    The villain is alive in Titus' house,\n    Damn'd as he is, to witness this is true.\n    Now judge what cause had Titus to revenge\n    These wrongs unspeakable, past patience,\n    Or more than any living man could bear.\n    Now have you heard the truth: what say you, Romans?\n    Have we done aught amiss, show us wherein,\n    And, from the place where you behold us pleading,\n    The poor remainder of Andronici\n    Will, hand in hand, all headlong hurl ourselves,\n    And on the ragged stones beat forth our souls,\n    And make a mutual closure of our house.\n    Speak, Romans, speak; and if you say we shall,\n    Lo, hand in hand, Lucius and I will fall.\n  AEMILIUS. Come, come, thou reverend man of Rome,\n    And bring our Emperor gently in thy hand,\n    Lucius our Emperor; for well I know\n    The common voice do cry it shall be so.\n  ALL. Lucius, all hail, Rome's royal Emperor!\n  MARCUS. Go, go into old Titus' sorrowful house,\n    And hither hale that misbelieving Moor\n    To be adjudg'd some direful slaught'ring death,\n    As punishment for his most wicked life.          Exeunt some\n              attendants. LUCIUS, MARCUS, and the others descend\n  ALL. Lucius, all hail, Rome's gracious governor!\n  LUCIUS. Thanks, gentle Romans! May I govern so\n    To heal Rome's harms and wipe away her woe!\n    But, gentle people, give me aim awhile,\n    For nature puts me to a heavy task.\n    Stand all aloof; but, uncle, draw you near\n    To shed obsequious tears upon this trunk.\n    O, take this warm kiss on thy pale cold lips.  [Kisses TITUS]\n    These sorrowful drops upon thy blood-stain'd face,\n    The last true duties of thy noble son!\n  MARCUS. Tear for tear and loving kiss for kiss\n    Thy brother Marcus tenders on thy lips.\n    O, were the sum of these that I should pay\n    Countless and infinite, yet would I pay them!\n  LUCIUS. Come hither, boy; come, come, come, and learn of us\n    To melt in showers. Thy grandsire lov'd thee well;\n    Many a time he danc'd thee on his knee,\n    Sung thee asleep, his loving breast thy pillow;\n    Many a story hath he told to thee,\n    And bid thee bear his pretty tales in mind\n    And talk of them when he was dead and gone.\n  MARCUS. How many thousand times hath these poor lips,\n    When they were living, warm'd themselves on thine!\n    O, now, sweet boy, give them their latest kiss!\n    Bid him farewell; commit him to the grave;\n    Do them that kindness, and take leave of them.\n  BOY. O grandsire, grandsire! ev'n with all my heart\n    Would I were dead, so you did live again!\n    O Lord, I cannot speak to him for weeping;\n    My tears will choke me, if I ope my mouth.\n\n            Re-enter attendants with AARON\n\n  A ROMAN. You sad Andronici, have done with woes;\n    Give sentence on the execrable wretch\n    That hath been breeder of these dire events.\n  LUCIUS. Set him breast-deep in earth, and famish him;\n    There let him stand and rave and cry for food.\n    If any one relieves or pities him,\n    For the offence he dies. This is our doom.\n    Some stay to see him fast'ned in the earth.\n  AARON. Ah, why should wrath be mute and fury dumb?\n    I am no baby, I, that with base prayers\n    I should repent the evils I have done;\n    Ten thousand worse than ever yet I did\n    Would I perform, if I might have my will.\n    If one good deed in all my life I did,\n    I do repent it from my very soul.\n  LUCIUS. Some loving friends convey the Emperor hence,\n    And give him burial in his father's grave.\n    My father and Lavinia shall forthwith\n    Be closed in our household's monument.\n    As for that ravenous tiger, Tamora,\n    No funeral rite, nor man in mourning weed,\n    No mournful bell shall ring her burial;\n    But throw her forth to beasts and birds to prey.\n    Her life was beastly and devoid of pity,\n    And being dead, let birds on her take pity.           Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of this Etext of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare\nThe Tragedy of Titus Andronicus"}
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{"1107":"\n\n\n\n\n1594\n\nTHE TAMING OF THE SHREW\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n    Persons in the Induction\n  A LORD\n  CHRISTOPHER SLY, a tinker\n  HOSTESS\n  PAGE\n  PLAYERS\n  HUNTSMEN\n  SERVANTS\n\n  BAPTISTA MINOLA, a gentleman of Padua\n  VINCENTIO, a Merchant of Pisa\n  LUCENTIO, son to Vincentio, in love with Bianca\n  PETRUCHIO, a gentleman of Verona, a suitor to Katherina\n\n    Suitors to Bianca\n  GREMIO\n  HORTENSIO\n\n    Servants to Lucentio\n  TRANIO\n  BIONDELLO\n\n    Servants to Petruchio\n  GRUMIO\n  CURTIS\n\n  A PEDANT\n\n    Daughters to Baptista\n  KATHERINA, the shrew\n  BIANCA\n\n  A WIDOW\n\n  Tailor, Haberdasher, and Servants attending on Baptista and\n    Petruchio\n\n                             SCENE:\n            Padua, and PETRUCHIO'S house in the country\n\nSC_1\n                      INDUCTION. SCENE I.\n                  Before an alehouse on a heath\n\n                      Enter HOSTESS and SLY\n\n  SLY. I'll pheeze you, in faith.\n  HOSTESS. A pair of stocks, you rogue!\n  SLY. Y'are a baggage; the Slys are no rogues. Look in the\n    chronicles: we came in with Richard Conqueror. Therefore,\npaucas\n    pallabris; let the world slide. Sessa!\n  HOSTESS. You will not pay for the glasses you have burst?\n  SLY. No, not a denier. Go by, Saint Jeronimy, go to thy cold\nbed\n    and warm thee.\n  HOSTESS. I know my remedy; I must go fetch the third-borough.\n Exit\n  SLY. Third, or fourth, or fifth borough, I'll answer him by\nlaw.\n    I'll not budge an inch, boy; let him come, and kindly.\n                                                  [Falls asleep]\n\n       Wind horns. Enter a LORD from hunting, with his train\n\n  LORD. Huntsman, I charge thee, tender well my hounds;\n    Brach Merriman, the poor cur, is emboss'd;\n    And couple Clowder with the deep-mouth'd brach.\n    Saw'st thou not, boy, how Silver made it good\n    At the hedge corner, in the coldest fault?\n    I would not lose the dog for twenty pound.\n  FIRST HUNTSMAN. Why, Belman is as good as he, my lord;\n    He cried upon it at the merest loss,\n    And twice to-day pick'd out the dullest scent;\n    Trust me, I take him for the better dog.\n  LORD. Thou art a fool; if Echo were as fleet,\n    I would esteem him worth a dozen such.\n    But sup them well, and look unto them all;\n    To-morrow I intend to hunt again.\n  FIRST HUNTSMAN. I will, my lord.\n  LORD. What's here? One dead, or drunk?\n    See, doth he breathe?\n  SECOND HUNTSMAN. He breathes, my lord. Were he not warm'd with\nale,\n    This were a bed but cold to sleep so soundly.\n  LORD. O monstrous beast, how like a swine he lies!\n    Grim death, how foul and loathsome is thine image!\n    Sirs, I will practise on this drunken man.\n    What think you, if he were convey'd to bed,\n    Wrapp'd in sweet clothes, rings put upon his fingers,\n    A most delicious banquet by his bed,\n    And brave attendants near him when he wakes,\n    Would not the beggar then forget himself?\n  FIRST HUNTSMAN. Believe me, lord, I think he cannot choose.\n  SECOND HUNTSMAN. It would seem strange unto him when he wak'd.\n  LORD. Even as a flatt'ring dream or worthless fancy.\n    Then take him up, and manage well the jest:\n    Carry him gently to my fairest chamber,\n    And hang it round with all my wanton pictures;\n    Balm his foul head in warm distilled waters,\n    And burn sweet wood to make the lodging sweet;\n    Procure me music ready when he wakes,\n    To make a dulcet and a heavenly sound;\n    And if he chance to speak, be ready straight,\n    And with a low submissive reverence\n    Say 'What is it your honour will command?'\n    Let one attend him with a silver basin\n    Full of rose-water and bestrew'd with flowers;\n    Another bear the ewer, the third a diaper,\n    And say 'Will't please your lordship cool your hands?'\n    Some one be ready with a costly suit,\n    And ask him what apparel he will wear;\n    Another tell him of his hounds and horse,\n    And that his lady mourns at his disease;\n    Persuade him that he hath been lunatic,\n    And, when he says he is, say that he dreams,\n    For he is nothing but a mighty lord.\n    This do, and do it kindly, gentle sirs;\n    It will be pastime passing excellent,\n    If it be husbanded with modesty.\n  FIRST HUNTSMAN. My lord, I warrant you we will play our part\n    As he shall think by our true diligence\n    He is no less than what we say he is.\n  LORD. Take him up gently, and to bed with him;\n    And each one to his office when he wakes.\n                          [SLY is carried out. A trumpet sounds]\n    Sirrah, go see what trumpet 'tis that sounds-\n                                                    Exit SERVANT\n    Belike some noble gentleman that means,\n    Travelling some journey, to repose him here.\n\n                         Re-enter a SERVINGMAN\n\n    How now! who is it?\n  SERVANT. An't please your honour, players\n    That offer service to your lordship.\n  LORD. Bid them come near.\n\n                             Enter PLAYERS\n\n    Now, fellows, you are welcome.\n  PLAYERS. We thank your honour.\n  LORD. Do you intend to stay with me to-night?\n  PLAYER. So please your lordship to accept our duty.\n  LORD. With all my heart. This fellow I remember\n    Since once he play'd a farmer's eldest son;\n    'Twas where you woo'd the gentlewoman so well.\n    I have forgot your name; but, sure, that part\n    Was aptly fitted and naturally perform'd.\n  PLAYER. I think 'twas Soto that your honour means.\n  LORD. 'Tis very true; thou didst it excellent.\n    Well, you are come to me in happy time,\n    The rather for I have some sport in hand\n    Wherein your cunning can assist me much.\n    There is a lord will hear you play to-night;\n    But I am doubtful of your modesties,\n    Lest, over-eying of his odd behaviour,\n    For yet his honour never heard a play,\n    You break into some merry passion\n    And so offend him; for I tell you, sirs,\n    If you should smile, he grows impatient.\n  PLAYER. Fear not, my lord; we can contain ourselves,\n    Were he the veriest antic in the world.\n  LORD. Go, sirrah, take them to the buttery,\n    And give them friendly welcome every one;\n    Let them want nothing that my house affords.\n                                       Exit one with the PLAYERS\n    Sirrah, go you to Bartholomew my page,\n    And see him dress'd in all suits like a lady;\n    That done, conduct him to the drunkard's chamber,\n    And call him 'madam,' do him obeisance.\n    Tell him from me- as he will win my love-\n    He bear himself with honourable action,\n    Such as he hath observ'd in noble ladies\n    Unto their lords, by them accomplished;\n    Such duty to the drunkard let him do,\n    With soft low tongue and lowly courtesy,\n    And say 'What is't your honour will command,\n    Wherein your lady and your humble wife\n    May show her duty and make known her love?'\n    And then with kind embracements, tempting kisses,\n    And with declining head into his bosom,\n    Bid him shed tears, as being overjoyed\n    To see her noble lord restor'd to health,\n    Who for this seven years hath esteemed him\n    No better than a poor and loathsome beggar.\n    And if the boy have not a woman's gift\n    To rain a shower of commanded tears,\n    An onion will do well for such a shift,\n    Which, in a napkin being close convey'd,\n    Shall in despite enforce a watery eye.\n    See this dispatch'd with all the haste thou canst;\n    Anon I'll give thee more instructions.     Exit a SERVINGMAN\n    I know the boy will well usurp the grace,\n    Voice, gait, and action, of a gentlewoman;\n    I long to hear him call the drunkard 'husband';\n    And how my men will stay themselves from laughter\n    When they do homage to this simple peasant.\n    I'll in to counsel them; haply my presence\n    May well abate the over-merry spleen,\n    Which otherwise would grow into extremes.             Exeunt\n\nSC_2\n                            SCENE II.\n               A bedchamber in the LORD'S house\n\n    Enter aloft SLY, with ATTENDANTS; some with apparel, basin\n             and ewer, and other appurtenances; and LORD\n\n  SLY. For God's sake, a pot of small ale.\n  FIRST SERVANT. Will't please your lordship drink a cup of sack?\n  SECOND SERVANT. Will't please your honour taste of these\nconserves?\n  THIRD SERVANT. What raiment will your honour wear to-day?\n  SLY. I am Christophero Sly; call not me 'honour' nor\n'lordship.' I\n    ne'er drank sack in my life; and if you give me any\nconserves,\n    give me conserves of beef. Ne'er ask me what raiment I'll\nwear,\n    for I have no more doublets than backs, no more stockings\nthan\n    legs, nor no more shoes than feet- nay, sometime more feet\nthan\n    shoes, or such shoes as my toes look through the overleather.\n  LORD. Heaven cease this idle humour in your honour!\n    O, that a mighty man of such descent,\n    Of such possessions, and so high esteem,\n    Should be infused with so foul a spirit!\n  SLY. What, would you make me mad? Am not I Christopher Sly, old\n    Sly's son of Burton Heath; by birth a pedlar, by education a\n    cardmaker, by transmutation a bear-herd, and now by present\n    profession a tinker? Ask Marian Hacket, the fat ale-wife of\n    Wincot, if she know me not; if she say I am not fourteen\npence on\n    the score for sheer ale, score me up for the lying'st knave\nin\n    Christendom. What! I am not bestraught.  [Taking a pot of\nale]\n    Here's-\n  THIRD SERVANT. O, this it is that makes your lady mourn!\n  SECOND SERVANT. O, this is it that makes your servants droop!\n  LORD. Hence comes it that your kindred shuns your house,\n    As beaten hence by your strange lunacy.\n    O noble lord, bethink thee of thy birth!\n    Call home thy ancient thoughts from banishment,\n    And banish hence these abject lowly dreams.\n    Look how thy servants do attend on thee,\n    Each in his office ready at thy beck.\n    Wilt thou have music? Hark! Apollo plays,            [Music]\n    And twenty caged nightingales do sing.\n    Or wilt thou sleep? We'll have thee to a couch\n    Softer and sweeter than the lustful bed\n    On purpose trimm'd up for Semiramis.\n    Say thou wilt walk: we will bestrew the ground.\n    Or wilt thou ride? Thy horses shall be trapp'd,\n    Their harness studded all with gold and pearl.\n    Dost thou love hawking? Thou hast hawks will soar\n    Above the morning lark. Or wilt thou hunt?\n    Thy hounds shall make the welkin answer them\n    And fetch shall echoes from the hollow earth.\n  FIRST SERVANT. Say thou wilt course; thy greyhounds are as\nswift\n    As breathed stags; ay, fleeter than the roe.\n  SECOND SERVANT. Dost thou love pictures? We will fetch thee\n      straight\n    Adonis painted by a running brook,\n    And Cytherea all in sedges hid,\n    Which seem to move and wanton with her breath\n    Even as the waving sedges play wi' th' wind.\n  LORD. We'll show thee lo as she was a maid\n    And how she was beguiled and surpris'd,\n    As lively painted as the deed was done.\n  THIRD SERVANT. Or Daphne roaming through a thorny wood,\n    Scratching her legs, that one shall swear she bleeds\n    And at that sight shall sad Apollo weep,\n    So workmanly the blood and tears are drawn.\n  LORD. Thou art a lord, and nothing but a lord.\n    Thou hast a lady far more beautiful\n    Than any woman in this waning age.\n  FIRST SERVANT. And, till the tears that she hath shed for thee\n    Like envious floods o'er-run her lovely face,\n    She was the fairest creature in the world;\n    And yet she is inferior to none.\n  SLY. Am I a lord and have I such a lady?\n    Or do I dream? Or have I dream'd till now?\n    I do not sleep: I see, I hear, I speak;\n    I smell sweet savours, and I feel soft things.\n    Upon my life, I am a lord indeed,\n    And not a tinker, nor Christopher Sly.\n    Well, bring our lady hither to our sight;\n    And once again, a pot o' th' smallest ale.\n  SECOND SERVANT. Will't please your Mightiness to wash your\nhands?\n    O, how we joy to see your wit restor'd!\n    O, that once more you knew but what you are!\n    These fifteen years you have been in a dream;\n    Or, when you wak'd, so wak'd as if you slept.\n  SLY. These fifteen years! by my fay, a goodly nap.\n    But did I never speak of all that time?\n  FIRST SERVANT. O, yes, my lord, but very idle words;\n    For though you lay here in this goodly chamber,\n    Yet would you say ye were beaten out of door;\n    And rail upon the hostess of the house,\n    And say you would present her at the leet,\n    Because she brought stone jugs and no seal'd quarts.\n    Sometimes you would call out for Cicely Hacket.\n  SLY. Ay, the woman's maid of the house.\n  THIRD SERVANT. Why, sir, you know no house nor no such maid,\n    Nor no such men as you have reckon'd up,\n    As Stephen Sly, and old John Naps of Greece,\n    And Peter Turph, and Henry Pimpernell;\n    And twenty more such names and men as these,\n    Which never were, nor no man ever saw.\n  SLY. Now, Lord be thanked for my good amends!\n  ALL. Amen.\n\n           Enter the PAGE as a lady, with ATTENDANTS\n\n  SLY. I thank thee; thou shalt not lose by it.\n  PAGE. How fares my noble lord?\n  SLY. Marry, I fare well; for here is cheer enough.\n    Where is my wife?\n  PAGE. Here, noble lord; what is thy will with her?\n  SLY. Are you my wife, and will not call me husband?\n    My men should call me 'lord'; I am your goodman.\n  PAGE. My husband and my lord, my lord and husband;\n    I am your wife in all obedience.\n  SLY. I know it well. What must I call her?\n  LORD. Madam.\n  SLY. Al'ce madam, or Joan madam?\n  LORD. Madam, and nothing else; so lords call ladies.\n  SLY. Madam wife, they say that I have dream'd\n    And slept above some fifteen year or more.\n  PAGE. Ay, and the time seems thirty unto me,\n    Being all this time abandon'd from your bed.\n  SLY. 'Tis much. Servants, leave me and her alone.\n                                                 Exeunt SERVANTS\n    Madam, undress you, and come now to bed.\n  PAGE. Thrice noble lord, let me entreat of you\n    To pardon me yet for a night or two;\n    Or, if not so, until the sun be set.\n    For your physicians have expressly charg'd,\n    In peril to incur your former malady,\n    That I should yet absent me from your bed.\n    I hope this reason stands for my excuse.\n  SLY. Ay, it stands so that I may hardly tarry so long. But I\nwould\n    be loath to fall into my dreams again. I will therefore tarry\nin\n    despite of the flesh and the blood.\n\n                       Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. Your honour's players, hearing your amendment,\n    Are come to play a pleasant comedy;\n    For so your doctors hold it very meet,\n    Seeing too much sadness hath congeal'd your blood,\n    And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy.\n    Therefore they thought it good you hear a play\n    And frame your mind to mirth and merriment,\n    Which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life.\n  SLY. Marry, I will; let them play it. Is not a comonty a\n    Christmas gambold or a tumbling-trick?\n  PAGE. No, my good lord, it is more pleasing stuff.\n  SLY. What, household stuff?\n  PAGE. It is a kind of history.\n  SLY. Well, we'll see't. Come, madam wife, sit by my side and\nlet\n    the world slip;-we shall ne'er be younger.\n                                                 [They sit down]\n\n          A flourish of trumpets announces the play\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nPadua. A public place\n\nEnter LUCENTIO and his man TRANIO\n\n  LUCENTIO. Tranio, since for the great desire I had\n    To see fair Padua, nursery of arts,\n    I am arriv'd for fruitful Lombardy,\n    The pleasant garden of great Italy,\n    And by my father's love and leave am arm'd\n    With his good will and thy good company,\n    My trusty servant well approv'd in all,\n    Here let us breathe, and haply institute\n    A course of learning and ingenious studies.\n    Pisa, renowned for grave citizens,\n    Gave me my being and my father first,\n    A merchant of great traffic through the world,\n    Vincentio, come of the Bentivolii;\n    Vincentio's son, brought up in Florence,\n    It shall become to serve all hopes conceiv'd,\n    To deck his fortune with his virtuous deeds.\n    And therefore, Tranio, for the time I study,\n    Virtue and that part of philosophy\n    Will I apply that treats of happiness\n    By virtue specially to be achiev'd.\n    Tell me thy mind; for I have Pisa left\n    And am to Padua come as he that leaves\n    A shallow plash to plunge him in the deep,\n    And with satiety seeks to quench his thirst.\n  TRANIO. Mi perdonato, gentle master mine;\n    I am in all affected as yourself;\n    Glad that you thus continue your resolve\n    To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy.\n    Only, good master, while we do admire\n    This virtue and this moral discipline,\n    Let's be no Stoics nor no stocks, I pray,\n    Or so devote to Aristotle's checks\n    As Ovid be an outcast quite abjur'd.\n    Balk logic with acquaintance that you have,\n    And practise rhetoric in your common talk;\n    Music and poesy use to quicken you;\n    The mathematics and the metaphysics,\n    Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you.\n    No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en;\n    In brief, sir, study what you most affect.\n  LUCENTIO. Gramercies, Tranio, well dost thou advise.\n    If, Biondello, thou wert come ashore,\n    We could at once put us in readiness,\n    And take a lodging fit to entertain\n    Such friends as time in Padua shall beget.\n\n      Enter BAPTISTA with his two daughters, KATHERINA\n        and BIANCA; GREMIO, a pantaloon; HORTENSIO,\n        suitor to BIANCA. LUCENTIO and TRANIO stand by\n\n    But stay awhile; what company is this?\n  TRANIO. Master, some show to welcome us to town.\n  BAPTISTA. Gentlemen, importune me no farther,\n    For how I firmly am resolv'd you know;\n    That is, not to bestow my youngest daughter\n    Before I have a husband for the elder.\n    If either of you both love Katherina,\n    Because I know you well and love you well,\n    Leave shall you have to court her at your pleasure.\n  GREMIO. To cart her rather. She's too rough for me.\n    There, there, Hortensio, will you any wife?\n  KATHERINA.  [To BAPTISTA]  I pray you, sir, is it your will\n    To make a stale of me amongst these mates?\n  HORTENSIO. Mates, maid! How mean you that? No mates for you,\n    Unless you were of gentler, milder mould.\n  KATHERINA. I' faith, sir, you shall never need to fear;\n    Iwis it is not halfway to her heart;\n    But if it were, doubt not her care should be\n    To comb your noddle with a three-legg'd stool,\n    And paint your face, and use you like a fool.\n  HORTENSIO. From all such devils, good Lord deliver us!\n  GREMIO. And me, too, good Lord!\n  TRANIO. Husht, master! Here's some good pastime toward;\n    That wench is stark mad or wonderful froward.\n  LUCENTIO. But in the other's silence do I see\n    Maid's mild behaviour and sobriety.\n    Peace, Tranio!\n  TRANIO. Well said, master; mum! and gaze your fill.\n  BAPTISTA. Gentlemen, that I may soon make good\n    What I have said- Bianca, get you in;\n    And let it not displease thee, good Bianca,\n    For I will love thee ne'er the less, my girl.\n  KATHERINA. A pretty peat! it is best\n    Put finger in the eye, an she knew why.\n  BIANCA. Sister, content you in my discontent.\n    Sir, to your pleasure humbly I subscribe;\n    My books and instruments shall be my company,\n    On them to look, and practise by myself.\n  LUCENTIO. Hark, Tranio, thou mayst hear Minerva speak!\n  HORTENSIO. Signior Baptista, will you be so strange?\n    Sorry am I that our good will effects\n    Bianca's grief.\n  GREMIO. Why will you mew her up,\n    Signior Baptista, for this fiend of hell,\n    And make her bear the penance of her tongue?\n  BAPTISTA. Gentlemen, content ye; I am resolv'd.\n    Go in, Bianca.                                   Exit BIANCA\n    And for I know she taketh most delight\n    In music, instruments, and poetry,\n    Schoolmasters will I keep within my house\n    Fit to instruct her youth. If you, Hortensio,\n    Or, Signior Gremio, you, know any such,\n    Prefer them hither; for to cunning men\n    I will be very kind, and liberal\n    To mine own children in good bringing-up;\n    And so, farewell. Katherina, you may stay;\n    For I have more to commune with Bianca.                 Exit\n  KATHERINA. Why, and I trust I may go too, may I not?\n    What! shall I be appointed hours, as though, belike,\n    I knew not what to take and what to leave? Ha!          Exit\n  GREMIO. You may go to the devil's dam; your gifts are so good\n    here's none will hold you. There! Love is not so great,\n    Hortensio, but we may blow our nails together, and fast it\nfairly\n    out; our cake's dough on both sides. Farewell; yet, for the\nlove\n    I bear my sweet Bianca, if I can by any means light on a fit\nman\n    to teach her that wherein she delights, I will wish him to\nher\n    father.\n  HORTENSIO. SO Will I, Signior Gremio; but a word, I pray.\nThough\n    the nature of our quarrel yet never brook'd parle, know now,\nupon\n    advice, it toucheth us both- that we may yet again have\naccess to\n    our fair mistress, and be happy rivals in Bianca's love- to\n    labour and effect one thing specially.\n  GREMIO. What's that, I pray?\n  HORTENSIO. Marry, sir, to get a husband for her sister.\n  GREMIO. A husband? a devil.\n  HORTENSIO. I say a husband.\n  GREMIO. I say a devil. Think'st thou, Hortensio, though her\nfather\n    be very rich, any man is so very a fool to be married to\nhell?\n  HORTENSIO. Tush, Gremio! Though it pass your patience and mine\nto\n    endure her loud alarums, why, man, there be good fellows in\nthe\n    world, an a man could light on them, would take her with all\n    faults, and money enough.\n  GREMIO. I cannot tell; but I had as lief take her dowry with\nthis\n    condition: to be whipp'd at the high cross every morning.\n  HORTENSIO. Faith, as you say, there's small choice in rotten\n    apples. But, come; since this bar in law makes us friends, it\n    shall be so far forth friendly maintain'd till by helping\n    Baptista's eldest daughter to a husband we set his youngest\nfree\n    for a husband, and then have to't afresh. Sweet Bianca! Happy\nman\n    be his dole! He that runs fastest gets the ring. How say you,\n    Signior Gremio?\n  GREMIO. I am agreed; and would I had given him the best horse\nin\n    Padua to begin his wooing that would thoroughly woo her, wed\nher,\n    and bed her, and rid the house of her! Come on.\n                                     Exeunt GREMIO and HORTENSIO\n  TRANIO. I pray, sir, tell me, is it possible\n    That love should of a sudden take such hold?\n  LUCENTIO. O Tranio, till I found it to be true,\n    I never thought it possible or likely.\n    But see! while idly I stood looking on,\n    I found the effect of love in idleness;\n    And now in plainness do confess to thee,\n    That art to me as secret and as dear\n    As Anna to the Queen of Carthage was-\n    Tranio, I burn, I pine, I perish, Tranio,\n    If I achieve not this young modest girl.\n    Counsel me, Tranio, for I know thou canst;\n    Assist me, Tranio, for I know thou wilt.\n  TRANIO. Master, it is no time to chide you now;\n    Affection is not rated from the heart;\n    If love have touch'd you, nought remains but so:\n    'Redime te captum quam queas minimo.'\n  LUCENTIO. Gramercies, lad. Go forward; this contents;\n    The rest will comfort, for thy counsel's sound.\n  TRANIO. Master, you look'd so longly on the maid.\n    Perhaps you mark'd not what's the pith of all.\n  LUCENTIO. O, yes, I saw sweet beauty in her face,\n    Such as the daughter of Agenor had,\n    That made great Jove to humble him to her hand,\n    When with his knees he kiss'd the Cretan strand.\n  TRANIO. Saw you no more? Mark'd you not how her sister\n    Began to scold and raise up such a storm\n    That mortal ears might hardly endure the din?\n  LUCENTIO. Tranio, I saw her coral lips to move,\n    And with her breath she did perfume the air;\n    Sacred and sweet was all I saw in her.\n  TRANIO. Nay, then 'tis time to stir him from his trance.\n    I pray, awake, sir. If you love the maid,\n    Bend thoughts and wits to achieve her. Thus it stands:\n    Her elder sister is so curst and shrewd\n    That, till the father rid his hands of her,\n    Master, your love must live a maid at home;\n    And therefore has he closely mew'd her up,\n    Because she will not be annoy'd with suitors.\n  LUCENTIO. Ah, Tranio, what a cruel father's he!\n    But art thou not advis'd he took some care\n    To get her cunning schoolmasters to instruct her?\n  TRANIO. Ay, marry, am I, sir, and now 'tis plotted.\n  LUCENTIO. I have it, Tranio.\n  TRANIO. Master, for my hand,\n    Both our inventions meet and jump in one.\n  LUCENTIO. Tell me thine first.\n  TRANIO. You will be schoolmaster,\n    And undertake the teaching of the maid-\n    That's your device.\n  LUCENTIO. It is. May it be done?\n  TRANIO. Not possible; for who shall bear your part\n    And be in Padua here Vincentio's son;\n    Keep house and ply his book, welcome his friends,\n    Visit his countrymen, and banquet them?\n  LUCENTIO. Basta, content thee, for I have it full.\n    We have not yet been seen in any house,\n    Nor can we be distinguish'd by our faces\n    For man or master. Then it follows thus:\n    Thou shalt be master, Tranio, in my stead,\n    Keep house and port and servants, as I should;\n    I will some other be- some Florentine,\n    Some Neapolitan, or meaner man of Pisa.\n    'Tis hatch'd, and shall be so. Tranio, at once\n    Uncase thee; take my colour'd hat and cloak.\n    When Biondello comes, he waits on thee;\n    But I will charm him first to keep his tongue.\n  TRANIO. So had you need.                [They exchange habits]\n    In brief, sir, sith it your pleasure is,\n    And I am tied to be obedient-\n    For so your father charg'd me at our parting:\n    'Be serviceable to my son' quoth he,\n    Although I think 'twas in another sense-\n    I am content to be Lucentio,\n    Because so well I love Lucentio.\n  LUCENTIO. Tranio, be so because Lucentio loves;\n    And let me be a slave t' achieve that maid\n    Whose sudden sight hath thrall'd my wounded eye.\n\n                       Enter BIONDELLO.\n\n    Here comes the rogue. Sirrah, where have you been?\n  BIONDELLO. Where have I been! Nay, how now! where are you?\n    Master, has my fellow Tranio stol'n your clothes?\n    Or you stol'n his? or both? Pray, what's the news?\n  LUCENTIO. Sirrah, come hither; 'tis no time to jest,\n    And therefore frame your manners to the time.\n    Your fellow Tranio here, to save my life,\n    Puts my apparel and my count'nance on,\n    And I for my escape have put on his;\n    For in a quarrel since I came ashore\n    I kill'd a man, and fear I was descried.\n    Wait you on him, I charge you, as becomes,\n    While I make way from hence to save my life.\n    You understand me?\n  BIONDELLO. I, sir? Ne'er a whit.\n  LUCENTIO. And not a jot of Tranio in your mouth:\n    Tranio is chang'd into Lucentio.\n  BIONDELLO. The better for him; would I were so too!\n  TRANIO. So could I, faith, boy, to have the next wish after,\n    That Lucentio indeed had Baptista's youngest daughter.\n    But, sirrah, not for my sake but your master's, I advise\n    You use your manners discreetly in all kind of companies.\n    When I am alone, why, then I am Tranio;\n    But in all places else your master Lucentio.\n  LUCENTIO. Tranio, let's go.\n    One thing more rests, that thyself execute-\n    To make one among these wooers. If thou ask me why-\n    Sufficeth, my reasons are both good and weighty.      Exeunt\n\n                 The Presenters above speak\n\n  FIRST SERVANT. My lord, you nod; you do not mind the play.\n  SLY. Yes, by Saint Anne do I. A good matter, surely; comes\nthere\n    any more of it?\n  PAGE. My lord, 'tis but begun.\n  SLY. 'Tis a very excellent piece of work, madam lady\n    Would 'twere done!                        [They sit and mark]\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nPadua. Before HORTENSIO'S house\n\nEnter PETRUCHIO and his man GRUMIO\n\n  PETRUCHIO. Verona, for a while I take my leave,\n    To see my friends in Padua; but of all\n    My best beloved and approved friend,\n    Hortensio; and I trow this is his house.\n    Here, sirrah Grumio, knock, I say.\n GRUMIO. Knock, sir! Whom should I knock?\n    Is there any man has rebus'd your worship?\n  PETRUCHIO. Villain, I say, knock me here soundly.\n  GRUMIO. Knock you here, sir? Why, sir, what am I, sir, that I\n    should knock you here, sir?\n  PETRUCHIO. Villain, I say, knock me at this gate,\n    And rap me well, or I'll knock your knave's pate.\n  GRUMIO. My master is grown quarrelsome. I should knock you\nfirst,\n    And then I know after who comes by the worst.\n  PETRUCHIO. Will it not be?\n    Faith, sirrah, an you'll not knock I'll ring it;\n    I'll try how you can sol-fa, and sing it.\n                                     [He wrings him by the ears]\n  GRUMIO. Help, masters, help! My master is mad.\n  PETRUCHIO. Now knock when I bid you, sirrah villain!\n\n                        Enter HORTENSIO\n\n  HORTENSIO. How now! what's the matter? My old friend Grumio and\nmy\n    good friend Petruchio! How do you all at Verona?\n  PETRUCHIO. Signior Hortensio, come you to part the fray?\n    'Con tutto il cuore ben trovato' may I say.\n  HORTENSIO. Alla nostra casa ben venuto,\n    Molto honorato signor mio Petruchio.\n    Rise, Grumio, rise; we will compound this quarrel.\n  GRUMIO. Nay, 'tis no matter, sir, what he 'leges in Latin. If\nthis\n    be not a lawful cause for me to leave his service- look you,\nsir:\n    he bid me knock him and rap him soundly, sir. Well, was it\nfit\n    for a servant to use his master so; being, perhaps, for aught\nI\n    see, two and thirty, a pip out?\n    Whom would to God I had well knock'd at first,\n    Then had not Grumio come by the worst.\n  PETRUCHIO. A senseless villain! Good Hortensio,\n    I bade the rascal knock upon your gate,\n    And could not get him for my heart to do it.\n  GRUMIO. Knock at the gate? O heavens! Spake you not these words\n    plain: 'Sirrah knock me here, rap me here, knock me well, and\n    knock me soundly'? And come you now with 'knocking at the\ngate'?\n  PETRUCHIO. Sirrah, be gone, or talk not, I advise you.\n  HORTENSIO. Petruchio, patience; I am Grumio's pledge;\n    Why, this's a heavy chance 'twixt him and you,\n    Your ancient, trusty, pleasant servant Grumio.\n    And tell me now, sweet friend, what happy gale\n    Blows you to Padua here from old Verona?\n  PETRUCHIO. Such wind as scatters young men through the world\n    To seek their fortunes farther than at home,\n    Where small experience grows. But in a few,\n    Signior Hortensio, thus it stands with me:\n    Antonio, my father, is deceas'd,\n    And I have thrust myself into this maze,\n    Haply to wive and thrive as best I may;\n    Crowns in my purse I have, and goods at home,\n    And so am come abroad to see the world.\n  HORTENSIO. Petruchio, shall I then come roundly to thee\n    And wish thee to a shrewd ill-favour'd wife?\n    Thou'dst thank me but a little for my counsel,\n    And yet I'll promise thee she shall be rich,\n    And very rich; but th'art too much my friend,\n    And I'll not wish thee to her.\n  PETRUCHIO. Signior Hortensio, 'twixt such friends as we\n    Few words suffice; and therefore, if thou know\n    One rich enough to be Petruchio's wife,\n    As wealth is burden of my wooing dance,\n    Be she as foul as was Florentius' love,\n    As old as Sibyl, and as curst and shrewd\n    As Socrates' Xanthippe or a worse-\n    She moves me not, or not removes, at least,\n    Affection's edge in me, were she as rough\n    As are the swelling Adriatic seas.\n    I come to wive it wealthily in Padua;\n    If wealthily, then happily in Padua.\n  GRUMIO. Nay, look you, sir, he tells you flatly what his mind\nis.\n    Why, give him gold enough and marry him to a puppet or an\n    aglet-baby, or an old trot with ne'er a tooth in her head,\nthough\n    she has as many diseases as two and fifty horses. Why,\nnothing\n    comes amiss, so money comes withal.\n  HORTENSIO. Petruchio, since we are stepp'd thus far in,\n    I will continue that I broach'd in jest.\n    I can, Petruchio, help thee to a wife\n    With wealth enough, and young and beauteous;\n    Brought up as best becomes a gentlewoman;\n    Her only fault, and that is faults enough,\n    Is- that she is intolerable curst,\n    And shrewd and froward so beyond all measure\n    That, were my state far worser than it is,\n    I would not wed her for a mine of gold.\n  PETRUCHIO. Hortensio, peace! thou know'st not gold's effect.\n    Tell me her father's name, and 'tis enough;\n    For I will board her though she chide as loud\n    As thunder when the clouds in autumn crack.\n  HORTENSIO. Her father is Baptista Minola,\n    An affable and courteous gentleman;\n    Her name is Katherina Minola,\n    Renown'd in Padua for her scolding tongue.\n  PETRUCHIO. I know her father, though I know not her;\n    And he knew my deceased father well.\n    I will not sleep, Hortensio, till I see her;\n    And therefore let me be thus bold with you\n    To give you over at this first encounter,\n    Unless you will accompany me thither.\n  GRUMIO. I pray you, sir, let him go while the humour lasts. O'\nmy\n    word, and she knew him as well as I do, she would think\nscolding\n    would do little good upon him. She may perhaps call him half\na\n    score knaves or so. Why, that's nothing; and he begin once,\nhe'll\n    rail in his rope-tricks. I'll tell you what, sir: an she\nstand\n    him but a little, he will throw a figure in her face, and so\n    disfigure her with it that she shall have no more eyes to see\n    withal than a cat. You know him not, sir.\n  HORTENSIO. Tarry, Petruchio, I must go with thee,\n    For in Baptista's keep my treasure is.\n    He hath the jewel of my life in hold,\n    His youngest daughter, beautiful Bianca;\n    And her withholds from me, and other more,\n    Suitors to her and rivals in my love;\n    Supposing it a thing impossible-\n    For those defects I have before rehears'd-\n    That ever Katherina will be woo'd.\n    Therefore this order hath Baptista ta'en,\n    That none shall have access unto Bianca\n    Till Katherine the curst have got a husband.\n  GRUMIO. Katherine the curst!\n    A title for a maid of all titles the worst.\n  HORTENSIO. Now shall my friend Petruchio do me grace,\n    And offer me disguis'd in sober robes\n    To old Baptista as a schoolmaster\n    Well seen in music, to instruct Bianca;\n    That so I may by this device at least\n    Have leave and leisure to make love to her,\n    And unsuspected court her by herself.\n\n        Enter GREMIO with LUCENTIO disguised as CAMBIO\n\n  GRUMIO. Here's no knavery! See, to beguile the old folks, how\nthe\n    young folks lay their heads together! Master, master, look\nabout\n    you. Who goes there, ha?\n  HORTENSIO. Peace, Grumio! It is the rival of my love.\nPetruchio,\n    stand by awhile.\n  GRUMIO. A proper stripling, and an amorous!\n                                              [They stand aside]\n  GREMIO. O, very well; I have perus'd the note.\n    Hark you, sir; I'll have them very fairly bound-\n    All books of love, see that at any hand;\n    And see you read no other lectures to her.\n    You understand me- over and beside\n    Signior Baptista's liberality,\n    I'll mend it with a largess. Take your paper too,\n    And let me have them very well perfum'd;\n    For she is sweeter than perfume itself\n    To whom they go to. What will you read to her?\n  LUCENTIO. Whate'er I read to her, I'll plead for you\n    As for my patron, stand you so assur'd,\n    As firmly as yourself were still in place;\n    Yea, and perhaps with more successful words\n    Than you, unless you were a scholar, sir.\n  GREMIO. O this learning, what a thing it is!\n  GRUMIO. O this woodcock, what an ass it is!\n  PETRUCHIO. Peace, sirrah!\n  HORTENSIO. Grumio, mum!                       [Coming forward]\n    God save you, Signior Gremio!\n  GREMIO. And you are well met, Signior Hortensio.\n    Trow you whither I am going? To Baptista Minola.\n    I promis'd to enquire carefully\n    About a schoolmaster for the fair Bianca;\n    And by good fortune I have lighted well\n    On this young man; for learning and behaviour\n    Fit for her turn, well read in poetry\n    And other books- good ones, I warrant ye.\n  HORTENSIO. 'Tis well; and I have met a gentleman\n    Hath promis'd me to help me to another,\n    A fine musician to instruct our mistress;\n    So shall I no whit be behind in duty\n    To fair Bianca, so beloved of me.\n  GREMIO. Beloved of me- and that my deeds shall prove.\n  GRUMIO. And that his bags shall prove.\n  HORTENSIO. Gremio, 'tis now no time to vent our love.\n    Listen to me, and if you speak me fair\n    I'll tell you news indifferent good for either.\n    Here is a gentleman whom by chance I met,\n    Upon agreement from us to his liking,\n    Will undertake to woo curst Katherine;\n    Yea, and to marry her, if her dowry please.\n  GREMIO. So said, so done, is well.\n    Hortensio, have you told him all her faults?\n  PETRUCHIO. I know she is an irksome brawling scold;\n    If that be all, masters, I hear no harm.\n  GREMIO. No, say'st me so, friend? What countryman?\n  PETRUCHIO. Born in Verona, old Antonio's son.\n    My father dead, my fortune lives for me;\n    And I do hope good days and long to see.\n  GREMIO. O Sir, such a life with such a wife were strange!\n    But if you have a stomach, to't a God's name;\n    You shall have me assisting you in all.\n    But will you woo this wild-cat?\n  PETRUCHIO. Will I live?\n  GRUMIO. Will he woo her? Ay, or I'll hang her.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why came I hither but to that intent?\n    Think you a little din can daunt mine ears?\n    Have I not in my time heard lions roar?\n    Have I not heard the sea, puff'd up with winds,\n    Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?\n    Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,\n    And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?\n    Have I not in a pitched battle heard\n    Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets' clang?\n    And do you tell me of a woman's tongue,\n    That gives not half so great a blow to hear\n    As will a chestnut in a fariner's fire?\n    Tush! tush! fear boys with bugs.\n  GRUMIO. For he fears none.\n  GREMIO. Hortensio, hark:\n    This gentleman is happily arriv'd,\n    My mind presumes, for his own good and ours.\n  HORTENSIO. I promis'd we would be contributors\n    And bear his charge of wooing, whatsoe'er.\n  GREMIO. And so we will- provided that he win her.\n  GRUMIO. I would I were as sure of a good dinner.\n\n    Enter TRANIO, bravely apparelled as LUCENTIO, and BIONDELLO\n\n  TRANIO. Gentlemen, God save you! If I may be bold,\n    Tell me, I beseech you, which is the readiest way\n    To the house of Signior Baptista Minola?\n  BIONDELLO. He that has the two fair daughters; is't he you\nmean?\n  TRANIO. Even he, Biondello.\n  GREMIO. Hark you, sir, you mean not her to-\n  TRANIO. Perhaps him and her, sir; what have you to do?\n  PETRUCHIO. Not her that chides, sir, at any hand, I pray.\n  TRANIO. I love no chiders, sir. Biondello, let's away.\n  LUCENTIO.  [Aside]  Well begun, Tranio.\n  HORTENSIO. Sir, a word ere you go.\n    Are you a suitor to the maid you talk of, yea or no?\n  TRANIO. And if I be, sir, is it any offence?\n  GREMIO. No; if without more words you will get you hence.\n  TRANIO. Why, sir, I pray, are not the streets as free\n    For me as for you?\n  GREMIO. But so is not she.\n\n  TRANIO. For what reason, I beseech you?\n  GREMIO. For this reason, if you'll know,\n    That she's the choice love of Signior Gremio.\n  HORTENSIO. That she's the chosen of Signior Hortensio.\n  TRANIO. Softly, my masters! If you be gentlemen,\n    Do me this right- hear me with patience.\n    Baptista is a noble gentleman,\n    To whom my father is not all unknown,\n    And, were his daughter fairer than she is,\n    She may more suitors have, and me for one.\n    Fair Leda's daughter had a thousand wooers;\n    Then well one more may fair Bianca have;\n    And so she shall: Lucentio shall make one,\n    Though Paris came in hope to speed alone.\n  GREMIO. What, this gentleman will out-talk us all!\n  LUCENTIO. Sir, give him head; I know he'll prove a jade.\n  PETRUCHIO. Hortensio, to what end are all these words?\n  HORTENSIO. Sir, let me be so bold as ask you,\n    Did you yet ever see Baptista's daughter?\n  TRANIO. No, sir, but hear I do that he hath two:\n    The one as famous for a scolding tongue\n    As is the other for beauteous modesty.\n  PETRUCHIO. Sir, sir, the first's for me; let her go by.\n  GREMIO. Yea, leave that labour to great Hercules,\n    And let it be more than Alcides' twelve.\n  PETRUCHIO. Sir, understand you this of me, in sooth:\n    The youngest daughter, whom you hearken for,\n    Her father keeps from all access of suitors,\n    And will not promise her to any man\n    Until the elder sister first be wed.\n    The younger then is free, and not before.\n  TRANIO. If it be so, sir, that you are the man\n    Must stead us all, and me amongst the rest;\n    And if you break the ice, and do this feat,\n    Achieve the elder, set the younger free\n    For our access- whose hap shall be to have her\n    Will not so graceless be to be ingrate.\n  HORTENSIO. Sir, you say well, and well you do conceive;\n    And since you do profess to be a suitor,\n    You must, as we do, gratify this gentleman,\n    To whom we all rest generally beholding.\n  TRANIO. Sir, I shall not be slack; in sign whereof,\n    Please ye we may contrive this afternoon,\n    And quaff carouses to our mistress' health;\n    And do as adversaries do in law-\n    Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.\n  GRUMIO, BIONDELLO. O excellent motion! Fellows, let's be gone.\n  HORTENSIO. The motion's good indeed, and be it so.\n    Petruchio, I shall be your ben venuto.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nPadua. BAPTISTA'S house\n\nEnter KATHERINA and BIANCA\n\n  BIANCA. Good sister, wrong me not, nor wrong yourself,\n    To make a bondmaid and a slave of me-\n    That I disdain; but for these other gawds,\n    Unbind my hands, I'll pull them off myself,\n    Yea, all my raiment, to my petticoat;\n    Or what you will command me will I do,\n    So well I know my duty to my elders.\n  KATHERINA. Of all thy suitors here I charge thee tell\n    Whom thou lov'st best. See thou dissemble not.\n  BIANCA. Believe me, sister, of all the men alive\n    I never yet beheld that special face\n    Which I could fancy more than any other.\n  KATHERINA. Minion, thou liest. Is't not Hortensio?\n  BIANCA. If you affect him, sister, here I swear\n    I'll plead for you myself but you shall have him.\n  KATHERINA. O then, belike, you fancy riches more:\n    You will have Gremio to keep you fair.\n  BIANCA. Is it for him you do envy me so?\n    Nay, then you jest; and now I well perceive\n    You have but jested with me all this while.\n    I prithee, sister Kate, untie my hands.\n  KATHERINA. [Strikes her]  If that be jest, then an the rest was\nso.\n\n                            Enter BAPTISTA\n\n  BAPTISTA. Why, how now, dame! Whence grows this insolence?\n    Bianca, stand aside- poor girl! she weeps.\n                                                [He unbinds her]\n    Go ply thy needle; meddle not with her.\n    For shame, thou hilding of a devilish spirit,\n    Why dost thou wrong her that did ne'er wrong thee?\n    When did she cross thee with a bitter word?\n  KATHERINA. Her silence flouts me, and I'll be reveng'd.\n                                            [Flies after BIANCA]\n  BAPTISTA. What, in my sight? Bianca, get thee in.\n                                                     Exit BIANCA\n  KATHERINA. What, will you not suffer me? Nay, now I see\n    She is your treasure, she must have a husband;\n    I must dance bare-foot on her wedding-day,\n    And for your love to her lead apes in hell.\n    Talk not to me; I will go sit and weep,\n    Till I can find occasion of revenge.          Exit KATHERINA\n  BAPTISTA. Was ever gentleman thus griev'd as I?\n    But who comes here?\n\n        Enter GREMIO, with LUCENTIO in the habit of a mean man;\n         PETRUCHIO, with HORTENSIO as a musician; and TRANIO,\n    as LUCENTIO, with his boy, BIONDELLO, bearing a lute and\nbooks\n\n  GREMIO. Good morrow, neighbour Baptista.\n  BAPTISTA. Good morrow, neighbour Gremio.\n    God save you, gentlemen!\n  PETRUCHIO. And you, good sir! Pray, have you not a daughter\n    Call'd Katherina, fair and virtuous?\n  BAPTISTA. I have a daughter, sir, call'd Katherina.\n  GREMIO. You are too blunt; go to it orderly.\n  PETRUCHIO. You wrong me, Signior Gremio; give me leave.\n    I am a gentleman of Verona, sir,\n    That, hearing of her beauty and her wit,\n    Her affability and bashful modesty,\n    Her wondrous qualities and mild behaviour,\n    Am bold to show myself a forward guest\n    Within your house, to make mine eye the witness\n    Of that report which I so oft have heard.\n    And, for an entrance to my entertainment,\n    I do present you with a man of mine,\n                                          [Presenting HORTENSIO]\n    Cunning in music and the mathematics,\n    To instruct her fully in those sciences,\n    Whereof I know she is not ignorant.\n    Accept of him, or else you do me wrong-\n    His name is Licio, born in Mantua.\n  BAPTISTA. Y'are welcome, sir, and he for your good sake;\n    But for my daughter Katherine, this I know,\n    She is not for your turn, the more my grief.\n  PETRUCHIO. I see you do not mean to part with her;\n    Or else you like not of my company.\n  BAPTISTA. Mistake me not; I speak but as I find.\n    Whence are you, sir? What may I call your name?\n  PETRUCHIO. Petruchio is my name, Antonio's son,\n    A man well known throughout all Italy.\n  BAPTISTA. I know him well; you are welcome for his sake.\n  GREMIO. Saving your tale, Petruchio, I pray,\n    Let us that are poor petitioners speak too.\n    Bacare! you are marvellous forward.\n  PETRUCHIO. O, pardon me, Signior Gremio! I would fain be doing.\n  GREMIO. I doubt it not, sir; but you will curse your wooing.\n    Neighbour, this is a gift very grateful, I am sure of it. To\n    express the like kindness, myself, that have been more kindly\n    beholding to you than any, freely give unto you this young\n    scholar  [Presenting LUCENTIO]  that hath been long studying\nat\n    Rheims; as cunning in Greek, Latin, and other languages, as\nthe\n    other in music and mathematics. His name is Cambio. Pray\naccept\n    his service.\n  BAPTISTA. A thousand thanks, Signior Gremio. Welcome, good\nCambio.\n    [To TRANIO]  But, gentle sir, methinks you walk like a\nstranger.\n    May I be so bold to know the cause of your coming?\n  TRANIO. Pardon me, sir, the boldness is mine own\n    That, being a stranger in this city here,\n    Do make myself a suitor to your daughter,\n    Unto Bianca, fair and virtuous.\n    Nor is your firm resolve unknown to me\n    In the preferment of the eldest sister.\n    This liberty is all that I request-\n    That, upon knowledge of my parentage,\n    I may have welcome 'mongst the rest that woo,\n    And free access and favour as the rest.\n    And toward the education of your daughters\n    I here bestow a simple instrument,\n    And this small packet of Greek and Latin books.\n    If you accept them, then their worth is great.\n  BAPTISTA. Lucentio is your name? Of whence, I pray?\n  TRANIO. Of Pisa, sir; son to Vincentio.\n  BAPTISTA. A mighty man of Pisa. By report\n    I know him well. You are very welcome, sir.\n    Take you the lute, and you the set of books;\n    You shall go see your pupils presently.\n    Holla, within!\n\n                         Enter a SERVANT\n\n    Sirrah, lead these gentlemen\n    To my daughters; and tell them both\n    These are their tutors. Bid them use them well.\n\n                Exit SERVANT leading HORTENSIO carrying the lute\n                                     and LUCENTIO with the books\n\n    We will go walk a little in the orchard,\n    And then to dinner. You are passing welcome,\n    And so I pray you all to think yourselves.\n  PETRUCHIO. Signior Baptista, my business asketh haste,\n    And every day I cannot come to woo.\n    You knew my father well, and in him me,\n    Left solely heir to all his lands and goods,\n    Which I have bettered rather than decreas'd.\n    Then tell me, if I get your daughter's love,\n    What dowry shall I have with her to wife?\n  BAPTISTA. After my death, the one half of my lands\n    And, in possession, twenty thousand crowns.\n  PETRUCHIO. And for that dowry, I'll assure her of\n    Her widowhood, be it that she survive me,\n    In all my lands and leases whatsoever.\n    Let specialities be therefore drawn between us,\n    That covenants may be kept on either hand.\n  BAPTISTA. Ay, when the special thing is well obtain'd,\n    That is, her love; for that is all in all.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, that is nothing; for I tell you, father,\n    I am as peremptory as she proud-minded;\n    And where two raging fires meet together,\n    They do consume the thing that feeds their fury.\n    Though little fire grows great with little wind,\n    Yet extreme gusts will blow out fire and all.\n    So I to her, and so she yields to me;\n    For I am rough, and woo not like a babe.\n  BAPTISTA. Well mayst thou woo, and happy be thy speed\n    But be thou arm'd for some unhappy words.\n  PETRUCHIO. Ay, to the proof, as mountains are for winds,\n    That shake not though they blow perpetually.\n\n             Re-enter HORTENSIO, with his head broke\n\n  BAPTISTA. How now, my friend! Why dost thou look so pale?\n  HORTENSIO. For fear, I promise you, if I look pale.\n  BAPTISTA. What, will my daughter prove a good musician?\n  HORTENSIO. I think she'll sooner prove a soldier:\n    Iron may hold with her, but never lutes.\n  BAPTISTA. Why, then thou canst not break her to the lute?\n  HORTENSIO. Why, no; for she hath broke the lute to me.\n    I did but tell her she mistook her frets,\n    And bow'd her hand to teach her fingering,\n    When, with a most impatient devilish spirit,\n    'Frets, call you these?' quoth she 'I'll fume with them.'\n    And with that word she struck me on the head,\n    And through the instrument my pate made way;\n    And there I stood amazed for a while,\n    As on a pillory, looking through the lute,\n    While she did call me rascal fiddler\n    And twangling Jack, with twenty such vile terms,\n    As she had studied to misuse me so.\n  PETRUCHIO. Now, by the world, it is a lusty wench;\n    I love her ten times more than e'er I did.\n    O, how I long to have some chat with her!\n  BAPTISTA. Well, go with me, and be not so discomfited;\n    Proceed in practice with my younger daughter;\n    She's apt to learn, and thankful for good turns.\n    Signior Petruchio, will you go with us,\n    Or shall I send my daughter Kate to you?\n  PETRUCHIO. I pray you do.             Exeunt all but PETRUCHIO\n    I'll attend her here,\n    And woo her with some spirit when she comes.\n    Say that she rail; why, then I'll tell her plain\n    She sings as sweetly as a nightingale.\n    Say that she frown; I'll say she looks as clear\n    As morning roses newly wash'd with dew.\n    Say she be mute, and will not speak a word;\n    Then I'll commend her volubility,\n    And say she uttereth piercing eloquence.\n    If she do bid me pack, I'll give her thanks,\n    As though she bid me stay by her a week;\n    If she deny to wed, I'll crave the day\n    When I shall ask the banns, and when be married.\n    But here she comes; and now, Petruchio, speak.\n\n                        Enter KATHERINA\n\n    Good morrow, Kate- for that's your name, I hear.\n  KATHERINA. Well have you heard, but something hard of hearing:\n    They call me Katherine that do talk of me.\n  PETRUCHIO. You lie, in faith, for you are call'd plain Kate,\n    And bonny Kate, and sometimes Kate the curst;\n    But, Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom,\n    Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate,\n    For dainties are all Kates, and therefore, Kate,\n    Take this of me, Kate of my consolation-\n    Hearing thy mildness prais'd in every town,\n    Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded,\n    Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs,\n    Myself am mov'd to woo thee for my wife.\n  KATHERINA. Mov'd! in good time! Let him that mov'd you hither\n    Remove you hence. I knew you at the first\n    You were a moveable.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, what's a moveable?\n  KATHERINA. A join'd-stool.\n  PETRUCHIO. Thou hast hit it. Come, sit on me.\n  KATHERINA. Asses are made to bear, and so are you.\n  PETRUCHIO. Women are made to bear, and so are you.\n  KATHERINA. No such jade as you, if me you mean.\n  PETRUCHIO. Alas, good Kate, I will not burden thee!\n    For, knowing thee to be but young and light-\n  KATHERINA. Too light for such a swain as you to catch;\n    And yet as heavy as my weight should be.\n  PETRUCHIO. Should be! should- buzz!\n  KATHERINA. Well ta'en, and like a buzzard.\n  PETRUCHIO. O, slow-wing'd turtle, shall a buzzard take thee?\n  KATHERINA. Ay, for a turtle, as he takes a buzzard.\n  PETRUCHIO. Come, come, you wasp; i' faith, you are too angry.\n  KATHERINA. If I be waspish, best beware my sting.\n  PETRUCHIO. My remedy is then to pluck it out.\n  KATHERINA. Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies.\n  PETRUCHIO. Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting?\n    In his tail.\n  KATHERINA. In his tongue.\n  PETRUCHIO. Whose tongue?\n  KATHERINA. Yours, if you talk of tales; and so farewell.\n  PETRUCHIO. What, with my tongue in your tail? Nay, come again,\n    Good Kate; I am a gentleman.\n  KATHERINA. That I'll try.                    [She strikes him]\n  PETRUCHIO. I swear I'll cuff you, if you strike again.\n  KATHERINA. So may you lose your arms.\n    If you strike me, you are no gentleman;\n    And if no gentleman, why then no arms.\n  PETRUCHIO. A herald, Kate? O, put me in thy books!\n  KATHERINA. What is your crest- a coxcomb?\n  PETRUCHIO. A combless cock, so Kate will be my hen.\n  KATHERINA. No cock of mine: you crow too like a craven.\n  PETRUCHIO. Nay, come, Kate, come; you must not look so sour.\n  KATHERINA. It is my fashion, when I see a crab.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, here's no crab; and therefore look not sour.\n  KATHERINA. There is, there is.\n  PETRUCHIO. Then show it me.\n  KATHERINA. Had I a glass I would.\n  PETRUCHIO. What, you mean my face?\n  KATHERINA. Well aim'd of such a young one.\n  PETRUCHIO. Now, by Saint George, I am too young for you.\n  KATHERINA. Yet you are wither'd.\n  PETRUCHIO. 'Tis with cares.\n  KATHERINA. I care not.\n  PETRUCHIO. Nay, hear you, Kate- in sooth, you scape not so.\n  KATHERINA. I chafe you, if I tarry; let me go.\n  PETRUCHIO. No, not a whit; I find you passing gentle.\n    'Twas told me you were rough, and coy, and sullen,\n    And now I find report a very liar;\n    For thou art pleasant, gamesome, passing courteous,\n    But slow in speech, yet sweet as springtime flowers.\n    Thou canst not frown, thou canst not look askance,\n    Nor bite the lip, as angry wenches will,\n    Nor hast thou pleasure to be cross in talk;\n    But thou with mildness entertain'st thy wooers;\n    With gentle conference, soft and affable.\n    Why does the world report that Kate doth limp?\n    O sland'rous world! Kate like the hazel-twig\n    Is straight and slender, and as brown in hue\n    As hazel-nuts, and sweeter than the kernels.\n    O, let me see thee walk. Thou dost not halt.\n  KATHERINA. Go, fool, and whom thou keep'st command.\n  PETRUCHIO. Did ever Dian so become a grove\n    As Kate this chamber with her princely gait?\n    O, be thou Dian, and let her be Kate;\n    And then let Kate be chaste, and Dian sportful!\n  KATHERINA. Where did you study all this goodly speech?\n  PETRUCHIO. It is extempore, from my mother wit.\n  KATHERINA. A witty mother! witless else her son.\n  PETRUCHIO. Am I not wise?\n  KATHERINA. Yes, keep you warm.\n  PETRUCHIO. Marry, so I mean, sweet Katherine, in thy bed.\n    And therefore, setting all this chat aside,\n    Thus in plain terms: your father hath consented\n    That you shall be my wife your dowry greed on;\n    And will you, nill you, I will marry you.\n    Now, Kate, I am a husband for your turn;\n    For, by this light, whereby I see thy beauty,\n    Thy beauty that doth make me like thee well,\n    Thou must be married to no man but me;\n    For I am he am born to tame you, Kate,\n    And bring you from a wild Kate to a Kate\n    Conformable as other household Kates.\n\n               Re-enter BAPTISTA, GREMIO, and TRANIO\n\n    Here comes your father. Never make denial;\n    I must and will have Katherine to my wife.\n  BAPTISTA. Now, Signior Petruchio, how speed you with my\ndaughter?\n  PETRUCHIO. How but well, sir? how but well?\n    It were impossible I should speed amiss.\n  BAPTISTA. Why, how now, daughter Katherine, in your dumps?\n  KATHERINA. Call you me daughter? Now I promise you\n    You have show'd a tender fatherly regard\n    To wish me wed to one half lunatic,\n    A mad-cap ruffian and a swearing Jack,\n    That thinks with oaths to face the matter out.\n  PETRUCHIO. Father, 'tis thus: yourself and all the world\n    That talk'd of her have talk'd amiss of her.\n    If she be curst, it is for policy,\n    For,she's not froward, but modest as the dove;\n    She is not hot, but temperate as the morn;\n    For patience she will prove a second Grissel,\n    And Roman Lucrece for her chastity.\n    And, to conclude, we have 'greed so well together\n    That upon Sunday is the wedding-day.\n  KATHERINA. I'll see thee hang'd on Sunday first.\n  GREMIO. Hark, Petruchio; she says she'll see thee hang'd first.\n  TRANIO. Is this your speeding? Nay, then good-night our part!\n  PETRUCHIO. Be patient, gentlemen. I choose her for myself;\n    If she and I be pleas'd, what's that to you?\n    'Tis bargain'd 'twixt us twain, being alone,\n    That she shall still be curst in company.\n    I tell you 'tis incredible to believe.\n    How much she loves me- O, the kindest Kate!\n    She hung about my neck, and kiss on kiss\n    She vied so fast, protesting oath on oath,\n    That in a twink she won me to her love.\n    O, you are novices! 'Tis a world to see,\n    How tame, when men and women are alone,\n    A meacock wretch can make the curstest shrew.\n    Give me thy hand, Kate; I will unto Venice,\n    To buy apparel 'gainst the wedding-day.\n    Provide the feast, father, and bid the guests;\n    I will be sure my Katherine shall be fine.\n  BAPTISTA. I know not what to say; but give me your hands.\n    God send you joy, Petruchio! 'Tis a match.\n  GREMIO, TRANIO. Amen, say we; we will be witnesses.\n  PETRUCHIO. Father, and wife, and gentlemen, adieu.\n    I will to Venice; Sunday comes apace;\n    We will have rings and things, and fine array;\n    And kiss me, Kate; we will be married a Sunday.\n                        Exeunt PETRUCHIO and KATHERINA severally\n  GREMIO. Was ever match clapp'd up so suddenly?\n  BAPTISTA. Faith, gentlemen, now I play a merchant's part,\n    And venture madly on a desperate mart.\n  TRANIO. 'Twas a commodity lay fretting by you;\n    'Twill bring you gain, or perish on the seas.\n  BAPTISTA. The gain I seek is quiet in the match.\n  GREMIO. No doubt but he hath got a quiet catch.\n    But now, Baptista, to your younger daughter:\n    Now is the day we long have looked for;\n    I am your neighbour, and was suitor first.\n  TRANIO. And I am one that love Bianca more\n    Than words can witness or your thoughts can guess.\n  GREMIO. Youngling, thou canst not love so dear as I.\n  TRANIO. Greybeard, thy love doth freeze.\n  GREMIO. But thine doth fry.\n    Skipper, stand back; 'tis age that nourisheth.\n  TRANIO. But youth in ladies' eyes that flourisheth.\n  BAPTISTA. Content you, gentlemen; I will compound this strife.\n    'Tis deeds must win the prize, and he of both\n    That can assure my daughter greatest dower\n    Shall have my Bianca's love.\n    Say, Signior Gremio, what can you assure her?\n  GREMIO. First, as you know, my house within the city\n    Is richly furnished with plate and gold,\n    Basins and ewers to lave her dainty hands;\n    My hangings all of Tyrian tapestry;\n    In ivory coffers I have stuff'd my crowns;\n    In cypress chests my arras counterpoints,\n    Costly apparel, tents, and canopies,\n    Fine linen, Turkey cushions boss'd with pearl,\n    Valance of Venice gold in needle-work;\n    Pewter and brass, and all things that belongs\n    To house or housekeeping. Then at my farm\n    I have a hundred milch-kine to the pail,\n    Six score fat oxen standing in my stalls,\n    And all things answerable to this portion.\n    Myself am struck in years, I must confess;\n    And if I die to-morrow this is hers,\n    If whilst I live she will be only mine.\n  TRANIO. That 'only' came well in. Sir, list to me:\n    I am my father's heir and only son;\n    If I may have your daughter to my wife,\n    I'll leave her houses three or four as good\n    Within rich Pisa's walls as any one\n    Old Signior Gremio has in Padua;\n    Besides two thousand ducats by the year\n    Of fruitful land, all which shall be her jointure.\n    What, have I pinch'd you, Signior Gremio?\n  GREMIO. Two thousand ducats by the year of land!\n    [Aside]  My land amounts not to so much in all.-\n    That she shall have, besides an argosy\n    That now is lying in Marseilles road.\n    What, have I chok'd you with an argosy?\n  TRANIO. Gremio, 'tis known my father hath no less\n    Than three great argosies, besides two galliasses,\n    And twelve tight galleys. These I will assure her,\n    And twice as much whate'er thou off'rest next.\n  GREMIO. Nay, I have off'red all; I have no more;\n    And she can have no more than all I have;\n    If you like me, she shall have me and mine.\n  TRANIO. Why, then the maid is mine from all the world\n    By your firm promise; Gremio is out-vied.\n  BAPTISTA. I must confess your offer is the best;\n    And let your father make her the assurance,\n    She is your own. Else, you must pardon me;\n    If you should die before him, where's her dower?\n  TRANIO. That's but a cavil; he is old, I young.\n  GREMIO. And may not young men die as well as old?\n  BAPTISTA. Well, gentlemen,\n    I am thus resolv'd: on Sunday next you know\n    My daughter Katherine is to be married;\n    Now, on the Sunday following shall Bianca\n    Be bride to you, if you make this assurance;\n    If not, to Signior Gremio.\n    And so I take my leave, and thank you both.\n  GREMIO. Adieu, good neighbour.                   Exit BAPTISTA\n    Now, I fear thee not.\n    Sirrah young gamester, your father were a fool\n    To give thee all, and in his waning age\n    Set foot under thy table. Tut, a toy!\n    An old Italian fox is not so kind, my boy.              Exit\n  TRANIO. A vengeance on your crafty withered hide!\n    Yet I have fac'd it with a card of ten.\n    'Tis in my head to do my master good:\n    I see no reason but suppos'd Lucentio\n    Must get a father, call'd suppos'd Vincentio;\n    And that's a wonder- fathers commonly\n    Do get their children; but in this case of wooing\n    A child shall get a sire, if I fail not of my cunning.\n Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nPadua. BAPTISTA'S house\n\nEnter LUCENTIO as CAMBIO, HORTENSIO as LICIO, and BIANCA\n\n  LUCENTIO. Fiddler, forbear; you grow too forward, sir.\n    Have you so soon forgot the entertainment\n    Her sister Katherine welcome'd you withal?\n  HORTENSIO. But, wrangling pedant, this is\n    The patroness of heavenly harmony.\n    Then give me leave to have prerogative;\n    And when in music we have spent an hour,\n    Your lecture shall have leisure for as much.\n  LUCENTIO. Preposterous ass, that never read so far\n    To know the cause why music was ordain'd!\n    Was it not to refresh the mind of man\n    After his studies or his usual pain?\n    Then give me leave to read philosophy,\n    And while I pause serve in your harmony.\n  HORTENSIO. Sirrah, I will not bear these braves of thine.\n  BIANCA. Why, gentlemen, you do me double wrong\n    To strive for that which resteth in my choice.\n    I arn no breeching scholar in the schools,\n    I'll not be tied to hours nor 'pointed times,\n    But learn my lessons as I please myself.\n    And to cut off all strife: here sit we down;\n    Take you your instrument, play you the whiles!\n    His lecture will be done ere you have tun'd.\n  HORTENSIO. You'll leave his lecture when I am in tune?\n  LUCENTIO. That will be never- tune your instrument.\n  BIANCA. Where left we last?\n  LUCENTIO. Here, madam:\n    'Hic ibat Simois, hic est Sigeia tellus,\n    Hic steterat Priami regia celsa senis.'\n  BIANCA. Construe them.\n  LUCENTIO. 'Hic ibat' as I told you before- 'Simois' I am\nLucentio-\n    'hic est' son unto Vincentio of Pisa- 'Sigeia tellus'\ndisguised\n    thus to get your love- 'Hic steterat' and that Lucentio that\n    comes a-wooing- 'Priami' is my man Tranio- 'regia' bearing my\n    port- 'celsa senis' that we might beguile the old pantaloon.\n  HORTENSIO. Madam, my instrument's in tune.\n  BIANCA. Let's hear. O fie! the treble jars.\n  LUCENTIO. Spit in the hole, man, and tune again.\n  BIANCA. Now let me see if I can construe it: 'Hic ibat Simois'\nI\n    know you not- 'hic est Sigeia tellus' I trust you not- 'Hic\n    steterat Priami' take heed he hear us not- 'regia' presume\nnot-\n   'celsa senis' despair not.\n  HORTENSIO. Madam, 'tis now in tune.\n  LUCENTIO. All but the bass.\n  HORTENSIO. The bass is right; 'tis the base knave that jars.\n    [Aside]  How fiery and forward our pedant is!\n    Now, for my life, the knave doth court my love.\n    Pedascule, I'll watch you better yet.\n  BIANCA. In time I may believe, yet I mistrust.\n  LUCENTIO. Mistrust it not- for sure, AEacides\n    Was Ajax, call'd so from his grandfather.\n  BIANCA. I must believe my master; else, I promise you,\n    I should be arguing still upon that doubt;\n    But let it rest. Now, Licio, to you.\n    Good master, take it not unkindly, pray,\n    That I have been thus pleasant with you both.\n  HORTENSIO.  [To LUCENTIO]  You may go walk and give me leave\n      awhile;\n    My lessons make no music in three Parts.\n  LUCENTIO. Are you so formal, sir? Well, I must wait,\n    [Aside]  And watch withal; for, but I be deceiv'd,\n    Our fine musician groweth amorous.\n  HORTENSIO. Madam, before you touch the instrument\n    To learn the order of my fingering,\n    I must begin with rudiments of art,\n    To teach you gamut in a briefer sort,\n    More pleasant, pithy, and effectual,\n    Than hath been taught by any of my trade;\n    And there it is in writing fairly drawn.\n  BIANCA. Why, I am past my gamut long ago.\n  HORTENSIO. Yet read the gamut of Hortensio.\n  BIANCA.  [Reads]\n         '\"Gamut\" I am, the ground of all accord-\n         \"A re\" to plead Hortensio's passion-\n         \"B mi\" Bianca, take him for thy lord-\n         \"C fa ut\" that loves with all affection-\n         \"D sol re\" one clef, two notes have I-\n         \"E la mi\" show pity or I die.'\n    Call you this gamut? Tut, I like it not!\n    Old fashions please me best; I am not so nice\n    To change true rules for odd inventions.\n\n                       Enter a SERVANT\n\n  SERVANT. Mistress, your father prays you leave your books\n    And help to dress your sister's chamber up.\n    You know to-morrow is the wedding-day.\n  BIANCA. Farewell, sweet masters, both; I must be gone.\n                                       Exeunt BIANCA and SERVANT\n  LUCENTIO. Faith, mistress, then I have no cause to stay.\n Exit\n  HORTENSIO. But I have cause to pry into this pedant;\n    Methinks he looks as though he were in love.\n    Yet if thy thoughts, Bianca, be so humble\n    To cast thy wand'ring eyes on every stale-\n    Seize thee that list. If once I find thee ranging,\n  HORTENSIO will be quit with thee by changing.             Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nPadua. Before BAPTISTA'S house\n\nEnter BAPTISTA, GREMIO, TRANIO as LUCENTIO, KATHERINA, BIANCA,\nLUCENTIO as CAMBIO, and ATTENDANTS\n\n  BAPTISTA.  [To TRANIO]  Signior Lucentio, this is the 'pointed\nday\n    That Katherine and Petruchio should be married,\n    And yet we hear not of our son-in-law.\n    What will be said? What mockery will it be\n    To want the bridegroom when the priest attends\n    To speak the ceremonial rites of marriage!\n    What says Lucentio to this shame of ours?\n  KATHERINA. No shame but mine; I must, forsooth, be forc'd\n    To give my hand, oppos'd against my heart,\n    Unto a mad-brain rudesby, full of spleen,\n    Who woo'd in haste and means to wed at leisure.\n    I told you, I, he was a frantic fool,\n    Hiding his bitter jests in blunt behaviour;\n    And, to be noted for a merry man,\n    He'll woo a thousand, 'point the day of marriage,\n    Make friends invited, and proclaim the banns;\n    Yet never means to wed where he hath woo'd.\n    Now must the world point at poor Katherine,\n    And say 'Lo, there is mad Petruchio's wife,\n    If it would please him come and marry her!'\n  TRANIO. Patience, good Katherine, and Baptista too.\n    Upon my life, Petruchio means but well,\n    Whatever fortune stays him from his word.\n    Though he be blunt, I know him passing wise;\n    Though he be merry, yet withal he's honest.\n  KATHERINA. Would Katherine had never seen him though!\n                    Exit, weeping, followed by BIANCA and others\n  BAPTISTA. Go, girl, I cannot blame thee now to weep,\n    For such an injury would vex a very saint;\n    Much more a shrew of thy impatient humour.\n\n                           Enter BIONDELLO\n\n    Master, master! News, and such old news as you never heard\nof!\n  BAPTISTA. Is it new and old too? How may that be?\n  BIONDELLO. Why, is it not news to hear of Petruchio's coming?\n  BAPTISTA. Is he come?\n  BIONDELLO. Why, no, sir.\n  BAPTISTA. What then?\n  BIONDELLO. He is coming.\n  BAPTISTA. When will he be here?\n  BIONDELLO. When he stands where I am and sees you there.\n  TRANIO. But, say, what to thine old news?\n  BIONDELLO. Why, Petruchio is coming- in a new hat and an old\n    jerkin; a pair of old breeches thrice turn'd; a pair of boots\n    that have been candle-cases, one buckled, another lac'd; an\nold\n    rusty sword ta'en out of the town armoury, with a broken\nhilt,\n    and chapeless; with two broken points; his horse hipp'd, with\nan\n    old motley saddle and stirrups of no kindred; besides,\npossess'd\n    with the glanders and like to mose in the chine, troubled\nwith\n    the lampass, infected with the fashions, full of windgalls,\nsped\n    with spavins, rayed with the yellows, past cure of the fives,\n    stark spoil'd with the staggers, begnawn with the bots,\nsway'd in\n    the back and shoulder-shotten, near-legg'd before, and with a\n    half-cheek'd bit, and a head-stall of sheep's leather which,\n    being restrained to keep him from stumbling, hath been often\n    burst, and now repaired with knots; one girth six times\npiec'd,\n    and a woman's crupper of velure, which hath two letters for\nher\n    name fairly set down in studs, and here and there piec'd with\n    pack-thread.\n  BAPTISTA. Who comes with him?\n  BIONDELLO. O, sir, his lackey, for all the world caparison'd\nlike\n    the horse- with a linen stock on one leg and a kersey\nboot-hose\n    on the other, gart'red with a red and blue list; an old hat,\nand\n    the humour of forty fancies prick'd in't for a feather; a\n    monster, a very monster in apparel, and not like a Christian\n    footboy or a gentleman's lackey.\n  TRANIO. 'Tis some odd humour pricks him to this fashion;\n    Yet oftentimes lie goes but mean-apparell'd.\n  BAPTISTA. I am glad he's come, howsoe'er he comes.\n  BIONDELLO. Why, sir, he comes not.\n  BAPTISTA. Didst thou not say he comes?\n  BIONDELLO. Who? that Petruchio came?\n  BAPTISTA. Ay, that Petruchio came.\n  BIONDELLO. No, sir; I say his horse comes with him on his back.\n  BAPTISTA. Why, that's all one.\n  BIONDELLO. Nay, by Saint Jamy,\n             I hold you a penny,\n             A horse and a man\n             Is more than one,\n             And yet not many.\n\n                  Enter PETRUCHIO and GRUMIO\n\n  PETRUCHIO. Come, where be these gallants? Who's at home?\n  BAPTISTA. You are welcome, sir.\n  PETRUCHIO. And yet I come not well.\n  BAPTISTA. And yet you halt not.\n  TRANIO. Not so well apparell'd\n    As I wish you were.\n  PETRUCHIO. Were it better, I should rush in thus.\n    But where is Kate? Where is my lovely bride?\n    How does my father? Gentles, methinks you frown;\n    And wherefore gaze this goodly company\n    As if they saw some wondrous monument,\n    Some comet or unusual prodigy?\n  BAPTISTA. Why, sir, you know this is your wedding-day.\n    First were we sad, fearing you would not come;\n    Now sadder, that you come so unprovided.\n    Fie, doff this habit, shame to your estate,\n    An eye-sore to our solemn festival!\n  TRANIO. And tell us what occasion of import\n    Hath all so long detain'd you from your wife,\n    And sent you hither so unlike yourself?\n  PETRUCHIO. Tedious it were to tell, and harsh to hear;\n    Sufficeth I am come to keep my word,\n    Though in some part enforced to digress,\n    Which at more leisure I will so excuse\n    As you shall well be satisfied withal.\n    But where is Kate? I stay too long from her;\n    The morning wears, 'tis time we were at church.\n  TRANIO. See not your bride in these unreverent robes;\n    Go to my chamber, put on clothes of mine.\n  PETRUCHIO. Not I, believe me; thus I'll visit her.\n  BAPTISTA. But thus, I trust, you will not marry her.\n  PETRUCHIO. Good sooth, even thus; therefore ha' done with\nwords;\n    To me she's married, not unto my clothes.\n    Could I repair what she will wear in me\n    As I can change these poor accoutrements,\n    'Twere well for Kate and better for myself.\n    But what a fool am I to chat with you,\n    When I should bid good-morrow to my bride\n    And seal the title with a lovely kiss!\n                                  Exeunt PETRUCHIO and GRUMIO\n  TRANIO. He hath some meaning in his mad attire.\n    We will persuade him, be it possible,\n    To put on better ere he go to church.\n  BAPTISTA. I'll after him and see the event of this.\n              Exeunt BAPTISTA, GREMIO, BIONDELLO, and ATTENDENTS\n  TRANIO. But to her love concerneth us to ad\n    Her father's liking; which to bring to pass,\n    As I before imparted to your worship,\n    I am to get a man- whate'er he be\n    It skills not much; we'll fit him to our turn-\n    And he shall be Vincentio of Pisa,\n    And make assurance here in Padua\n    Of greater sums than I have promised.\n    So shall you quietly enjoy your hope\n    And marry sweet Bianca with consent.\n  LUCENTIO. Were it not that my fellow schoolmaster\n    Doth watch Bianca's steps so narrowly,\n    'Twere good, methinks, to steal our marriage;\n    Which once perform'd, let all the world say no,\n    I'll keep mine own despite of all the world.\n  TRANIO. That by degrees we mean to look into\n    And watch our vantage in this business;\n    We'll over-reach the greybeard, Gremio,\n    The narrow-prying father, Minola,\n    The quaint musician, amorous Licio-\n    All for my master's sake, Lucentio.\n\n                           Re-enter GREMIO\n\n    Signior Gremio, came you from the church?\n  GREMIO. As willingly as e'er I came from school.\n  TRANIO. And is the bride and bridegroom coming home?\n  GREMIO. A bridegroom, say you? 'Tis a groom indeed,\n    A grumbling groom, and that the girl shall find.\n  TRANIO. Curster than she? Why, 'tis impossible.\n  GREMIO. Why, he's a devil, a devil, a very fiend.\n  TRANIO. Why, she's a devil, a devil, the devil's dam.\n  GREMIO. Tut, she's a lamb, a dove, a fool, to him!\n    I'll tell you, Sir Lucentio: when the priest\n    Should ask if Katherine should be his wife,\n    'Ay, by gogs-wouns' quoth he, and swore so loud\n    That, all amaz'd, the priest let fall the book;\n    And as he stoop'd again to take it up,\n    This mad-brain'd bridegroom took him such a cuff\n    That down fell priest and book, and book and priest.\n    'Now take them up,' quoth he 'if any list.'\n  TRANIO. What said the wench, when he rose again?\n  GREMIO. Trembled and shook, for why he stamp'd and swore\n    As if the vicar meant to cozen him.\n    But after many ceremonies done\n    He calls for wine: 'A health!' quoth he, as if\n    He had been abroad, carousing to his mates\n    After a storm; quaff'd off the muscadel,\n    And threw the sops all in the sexton's face,\n    Having no other reason\n    But that his beard grew thin and hungerly\n    And seem'd to ask him sops as he was drinking.\n    This done, he took the bride about the neck,\n    And kiss'd her lips with such a clamorous smack\n    That at the parting all the church did echo.\n    And I, seeing this, came thence for very shame;\n    And after me, I know, the rout is coming.\n    Such a mad marriage never was before.\n    Hark, hark! I hear the minstrels play.         [Music plays]\n\n       Enter PETRUCHIO, KATHERINA, BIANCA, BAPTISTA, HORTENSIO,\n                         GRUMIO, and train\n\n  PETRUCHIO. Gentlemen and friends, I thank you for your pains.\n    I know you think to dine with me to-day,\n    And have prepar'd great store of wedding cheer\n    But so it is- my haste doth call me hence,\n    And therefore here I mean to take my leave.\n  BAPTISTA. Is't possible you will away to-night?\n  PETRUCHIO. I must away to-day before night come.\n    Make it no wonder; if you knew my business,\n    You would entreat me rather go than stay.\n    And, honest company, I thank you all\n    That have beheld me give away myself\n    To this most patient, sweet, and virtuous wife.\n    Dine with my father, drink a health to me.\n    For I must hence; and farewell to you all.\n  TRANIO. Let us entreat you stay till after dinner.\n  PETRUCHIO. It may not be.\n  GREMIO. Let me entreat you.\n  PETRUCHIO. It cannot be.\n  KATHERINA. Let me entreat you.\n  PETRUCHIO. I am content.\n  KATHERINA. Are you content to stay?\n  PETRUCHIO. I am content you shall entreat me stay;\n    But yet not stay, entreat me how you can.\n  KATHERINA. Now, if you love me, stay.\n  PETRUCHIO. Grumio, my horse.\n  GRUMIO. Ay, sir, they be ready; the oats have eaten the horses.\n  KATHERINA. Nay, then,\n    Do what thou canst, I will not go to-day;\n    No, nor to-morrow, not till I please myself.\n    The door is open, sir; there lies your way;\n    You may be jogging whiles your boots are green;\n    For me, I'll not be gone till I please myself.\n    'Tis like you'll prove a jolly surly groom\n    That take it on you at the first so roundly.\n  PETRUCHIO. O Kate, content thee; prithee be not angry.\n  KATHERINA. I will be angry; what hast thou to do?\n    Father, be quiet; he shall stay my leisure.\n  GREMIO. Ay, marry, sir, now it begins to work.\n  KATHERINA. Gentlemen, forward to the bridal dinner.\n    I see a woman may be made a fool\n    If she had not a spirit to resist.\n  PETRUCHIO. They shall go forward, Kate, at thy command.\n    Obey the bride, you that attend on her;\n    Go to the feast, revel and domineer,\n    Carouse full measure to her maidenhead;\n    Be mad and merry, or go hang yourselves.\n    But for my bonny Kate, she must with me.\n    Nay, look not big, nor stamp, nor stare, nor fret;\n    I will be master of what is mine own-\n    She is my goods, my chattels, she is my house,\n    My household stuff, my field, my barn,\n    My horse, my ox, my ass, my any thing,\n    And here she stands; touch her whoever dare;\n    I'll bring mine action on the proudest he\n    That stops my way in Padua. Grumio,\n    Draw forth thy weapon; we are beset with thieves;\n    Rescue thy mistress, if thou be a man.\n    Fear not, sweet wench; they shall not touch thee, Kate;\n    I'll buckler thee against a million.\n                         Exeunt PETRUCHIO, KATHERINA, and GRUMIO\n  BAPTISTA. Nay, let them go, a couple of quiet ones.\n  GREMIO. Went they not quickly, I should die with laughing.\n  TRANIO. Of all mad matches, never was the like.\n  LUCENTIO. Mistress, what's your opinion of your sister?\n  BIANCA. That, being mad herself, she's madly mated.\n  GREMIO. I warrant him, Petruchio is Kated.\n  BAPTISTA. Neighbours and friends, though bride and bridegroom\nwants\n    For to supply the places at the table,\n    You know there wants no junkets at the feast.\n    Lucentio, you shall supply the bridegroom's place;\n    And let Bianca take her sister's room.\n  TRANIO. Shall sweet Bianca practise how to bride it?\n  BAPTISTA. She shall, Lucentio. Come, gentlemen, let's go.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nPETRUCHIO'S country house\n\nEnter GRUMIO\n\n  GRUMIO. Fie, fie on all tired jades, on all mad masters, and\nall\n    foul ways! Was ever man so beaten? Was ever man so ray'd? Was\n    ever man so weary? I am sent before to make a fire, and they\nare\n    coming after to warm them. Now were not I a little pot and\nsoon\n    hot, my very lips might freeze to my teeth, my tongue to the\nroof\n    of my mouth, my heart in my belly, ere I should come by a\nfire to\n    thaw me. But I with blowing the fire shall warm myself; for,\n    considering the weather, a taller man than I will take cold.\n    Holla, ho! Curtis!\n\n                            Enter CURTIS\n\n  CURTIS. Who is that calls so coldly?\n  GRUMIO. A piece of ice. If thou doubt it, thou mayst slide from\nmy\n    shoulder to my heel with no greater a run but my head and my\n    neck. A fire, good Curtis.\n  CURTIS. Is my master and his wife coming, Grumio?\n  GRUMIO. O, ay, Curtis, ay; and therefore fire, fire; cast on no\n    water.\n  CURTIS. Is she so hot a shrew as she's reported?\n  GRUMIO. She was, good Curtis, before this frost; but thou\nknow'st\n    winter tames man, woman, and beast; for it hath tam'd my old\n    master, and my new mistress, and myself, fellow Curtis.\n  CURTIS. Away, you three-inch fool! I am no beast.\n  GRUMIO. Am I but three inches? Why, thy horn is a foot, and so\nlong\n    am I at the least. But wilt thou make a fire, or shall I\ncomplain\n    on thee to our mistress, whose hand- she being now at hand-\nthou\n    shalt soon feel, to thy cold comfort, for being slow in thy\nhot\n    office?\n  CURTIS. I prithee, good Grumio, tell me how goes the world?\n  GRUMIO. A cold world, Curtis, in every office but thine; and\n    therefore fire. Do thy duty, and have thy duty, for my master\nand\n    mistress are almost frozen to death.\n  CURTIS. There's fire ready; and therefore, good Grumio, the\nnews?\n  GRUMIO. Why, 'Jack boy! ho, boy!' and as much news as thou\nwilt.\n  CURTIS. Come, you are so full of cony-catching!\n  GRUMIO. Why, therefore, fire; for I have caught extreme cold.\n    Where's the cook? Is supper ready, the house trimm'd, rushes\n    strew'd, cobwebs swept, the serving-men in their new fustian,\n    their white stockings, and every officer his wedding-garment\non?\n    Be the jacks fair within, the jills fair without, the carpets\n    laid, and everything in order?\n  CURTIS. All ready; and therefore, I pray thee, news.\n  GRUMIO. First know my horse is tired; my master and mistress\nfall'n\n    out.\n  CURTIS. How?\n  GRUMIO. Out of their saddles into the dirt; and thereby hangs a\n    tale.\n  CURTIS. Let's ha't, good Grumio.\n  GRUMIO. Lend thine ear.\n  CURTIS. Here.\n  GRUMIO. There.                                  [Striking him]\n  CURTIS. This 'tis to feel a tale, not to hear a tale.\n  GRUMIO. And therefore 'tis call'd a sensible tale; and this\ncuff\n    was but to knock at your car and beseech list'ning. Now I\nbegin:\n    Imprimis, we came down a foul hill, my master riding behind\nmy\n    mistress-\n  CURTIS. Both of one horse?\n  GRUMIO. What's that to thee?\n  CURTIS. Why, a horse.\n  GRUMIO. Tell thou the tale. But hadst thou not cross'd me, thou\n    shouldst have heard how her horse fell and she under her\nhorse;\n    thou shouldst have heard in how miry a place, how she was\n    bemoil'd, how he left her with the horse upon her, how he\nbeat me\n    because her horse stumbled, how she waded through the dirt to\n    pluck him off me, how he swore, how she pray'd that never\npray'd\n    before, how I cried, how the horses ran away, how her bridle\nwas\n    burst, how I lost my crupper- with many things of worthy\nmemory,\n    which now shall die in oblivion, and thou return\nunexperienc'd to\n    thy grave.\n  CURTIS. By this reck'ning he is more shrew than she.\n  GRUMIO. Ay, and that thou and the proudest of you all shall\nfind\n    when he comes home. But what talk I of this? Call forth\n    Nathaniel, Joseph, Nicholas, Philip, Walter, Sugarsop, and\nthe\n    rest; let their heads be sleekly comb'd, their blue coats\nbrush'd\n    and their garters of an indifferent knit; let them curtsy\nwith\n    their left legs, and not presume to touch a hair of my\nmaster's\n    horse-tail till they kiss their hands. Are they all ready?\n  CURTIS. They are.\n  GRUMIO. Call them forth.\n  CURTIS. Do you hear, ho? You must meet my master, to\ncountenance my\n    mistress.\n  GRUMIO. Why, she hath a face of her own.\n  CURTIS. Who knows not that?\n  GRUMIO. Thou, it seems, that calls for company to countenance\nher.\n  CURTIS. I call them forth to credit her.\n  GRUMIO. Why, she comes to borrow nothing of them.\n\n                     Enter four or five SERVINGMEN\n\n  NATHANIEL. Welcome home, Grumio!\n  PHILIP. How now, Grumio!\n  JOSEPH. What, Grumio!\n  NICHOLAS. Fellow Grumio!\n  NATHANIEL. How now, old lad!\n  GRUMIO. Welcome, you!- how now, you!- what, you!- fellow, you!-\nand\n    thus much for greeting. Now, my spruce companions, is all\nready,\n    and all things neat?\n  NATHANIEL. All things is ready. How near is our master?\n  GRUMIO. E'en at hand, alighted by this; and therefore be not-\n   Cock's passion, silence! I hear my master.\n\n                     Enter PETRUCHIO and KATHERINA\n\n  PETRUCHIO. Where be these knaves? What, no man at door\n    To hold my stirrup nor to take my horse!\n    Where is Nathaniel, Gregory, Philip?\n  ALL SERVANTS. Here, here, sir; here, sir.\n  PETRUCHIO. Here, sir! here, sir! here, sir! here, sir!\n    You logger-headed and unpolish'd grooms!\n    What, no attendance? no regard? no duty?\n    Where is the foolish knave I sent before?\n  GRUMIO. Here, sir; as foolish as I was before.\n  PETRUCHIO. YOU peasant swain! you whoreson malt-horse drudge!\n    Did I not bid thee meet me in the park\n    And bring along these rascal knaves with thee?\n  GRUMIO. Nathaniel's coat, sir, was not fully made,\n    And Gabriel's pumps were all unpink'd i' th' heel;\n    There was no link to colour Peter's hat,\n    And Walter's dagger was not come from sheathing;\n    There were none fine but Adam, Ralph, and Gregory;\n    The rest were ragged, old, and beggarly;\n    Yet, as they are, here are they come to meet you.\n  PETRUCHIO. Go, rascals, go and fetch my supper in.\n                                   Exeunt some of the SERVINGMEN\n\n    [Sings]  Where is the life that late I led?\n             Where are those-\n\n    Sit down, Kate, and welcome. Soud, soud, soud, soud!\n\n                 Re-enter SERVANTS with supper\n\n    Why, when, I say? Nay, good sweet Kate, be merry.\n    Off with my boots, you rogues! you villains, when?\n\n    [Sings]  It was the friar of orders grey,\n             As he forth walked on his way-\n\n    Out, you rogue! you pluck my foot awry;\n    Take that, and mend the plucking off the other.\n                                                   [Strikes him]\n    Be merry, Kate. Some water, here, what, ho!\n\n                      Enter one with water\n\n    Where's my spaniel Troilus? Sirrah, get you hence,\n    And bid my cousin Ferdinand come hither:\n                                                 Exit SERVINGMAN\n    One, Kate, that you must kiss and be acquainted with.\n    Where are my slippers? Shall I have some water?\n    Come, Kate, and wash, and welcome heartily.\n    You whoreson villain! will you let it fall?    [Strikes him]\n  KATHERINA. Patience, I pray you; 'twas a fault unwilling.\n  PETRUCHIO. A whoreson, beetle-headed, flap-ear'd knave!\n    Come, Kate, sit down; I know you have a stomach.\n    Will you give thanks, sweet Kate, or else shall I?\n    What's this? Mutton?\n  FIRST SERVANT. Ay.\n  PETRUCHIO. Who brought it?\n  PETER. I.\n  PETRUCHIO. 'Tis burnt; and so is all the meat.\n    What dogs are these? Where is the rascal cook?\n    How durst you villains bring it from the dresser\n    And serve it thus to me that love it not?\n    There, take it to you, trenchers, cups, and all;\n                                [Throws the meat, etc., at them]\n    You heedless joltheads and unmanner'd slaves!\n    What, do you grumble? I'll be with you straight.\n                                                 Exeunt SERVANTS\n  KATHERINA. I pray you, husband, be not so disquiet;\n    The meat was well, if you were so contented.\n  PETRUCHIO. I tell thee, Kate, 'twas burnt and dried away,\n    And I expressly am forbid to touch it;\n    For it engenders choler, planteth anger;\n    And better 'twere that both of us did fast,\n    Since, of ourselves, ourselves are choleric,\n    Than feed it with such over-roasted flesh.\n    Be patient; to-morrow 't shall be mended.\n    And for this night we'll fast for company.\n    Come, I will bring thee to thy bridal chamber.        Exeunt\n\n                     Re-enter SERVANTS severally\n\n  NATHANIEL. Peter, didst ever see the like?\n  PETER. He kills her in her own humour.\n\n                            Re-enter CURTIS\n\n  GRUMIO. Where is he?\n  CURTIS. In her chamber. Making a sermon of continency to her,\n    And rails, and swears, and rates, that she, poor soul,\n    Knows not which way to stand, to look, to speak.\n    And sits as one new risen from a dream.\n    Away, away! for he is coming hither.                  Exeunt\n\n                       Re-enter PETRUCHIO\n\n  PETRUCHIO. Thus have I politicly begun my reign,\n    And 'tis my hope to end successfully.\n    My falcon now is sharp and passing empty.\n    And till she stoop she must not be full-gorg'd,\n    For then she never looks upon her lure.\n    Another way I have to man my haggard,\n    To make her come, and know her keeper's call,\n    That is, to watch her, as we watch these kites\n    That bate and beat, and will not be obedient.\n    She eat no meat to-day, nor none shall eat;\n    Last night she slept not, nor to-night she shall not;\n    As with the meat, some undeserved fault\n    I'll find about the making of the bed;\n    And here I'll fling the pillow, there the bolster,\n    This way the coverlet, another way the sheets;\n    Ay, and amid this hurly I intend\n    That all is done in reverend care of her-\n    And, in conclusion, she shall watch all night;\n    And if she chance to nod I'll rail and brawl\n    And with the clamour keep her still awake.\n    This is a way to kill a wife with kindness,\n    And thus I'll curb her mad and headstrong humour.\n    He that knows better how to tame a shrew,\n    Now let him speak; 'tis charity to show.                Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nPadua. Before BAPTISTA'S house\n\nEnter TRANIO as LUCENTIO, and HORTENSIO as LICIO\n\n  TRANIO. Is 't possible, friend Licio, that Mistress Bianca\n    Doth fancy any other but Lucentio?\n    I tell you, sir, she bears me fair in hand.\n  HORTENSIO. Sir, to satisfy you in what I have said,\n    Stand by and mark the manner of his teaching.\n                                              [They stand aside]\n\n               Enter BIANCA, and LUCENTIO as CAMBIO\n\n  LUCENTIO. Now, mistress, profit you in what you read?\n  BIANCA. What, master, read you, First resolve me that.\n  LUCENTIO. I read that I profess, 'The Art to Love.'\n  BIANCA. And may you prove, sir, master of your art!\n  LUCENTIO. While you, sweet dear, prove mistress of my heart.\n                                                   [They retire]\n  HORTENSIO. Quick proceeders, marry! Now tell me, I pray,\n    You that durst swear that your Mistress Blanca\n    Lov'd none in the world so well as Lucentio.\n  TRANIO. O despiteful love! unconstant womankind!\n    I tell thee, Licio, this is wonderful.\n  HORTENSIO. Mistake no more; I am not Licio.\n    Nor a musician as I seem to be;\n    But one that scorn to live in this disguise\n    For such a one as leaves a gentleman\n    And makes a god of such a cullion.\n    Know, sir, that I am call'd Hortensio.\n  TRANIO. Signior Hortensio, I have often heard\n    Of your entire affection to Bianca;\n    And since mine eyes are witness of her lightness,\n    I will with you, if you be so contented,\n    Forswear Bianca and her love for ever.\n  HORTENSIO. See, how they kiss and court! Signior Lucentio,\n    Here is my hand, and here I firmly vow\n    Never to woo her more, but do forswear her,\n    As one unworthy all the former favours\n    That I have fondly flatter'd her withal.\n  TRANIO. And here I take the like unfeigned oath,\n    Never to marry with her though she would entreat;\n    Fie on her! See how beastly she doth court him!\n  HORTENSIO. Would all the world but he had quite forsworn!\n    For me, that I may surely keep mine oath,\n    I will be married to a wealthy widow\n    Ere three days pass, which hath as long lov'd me\n    As I have lov'd this proud disdainful haggard.\n    And so farewell, Signior Lucentio.\n    Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks,\n    Shall win my love; and so I take my leave,\n    In resolution as I swore before.                        Exit\n  TRANIO. Mistress Bianca, bless you with such grace\n    As 'longeth to a lover's blessed case!\n    Nay, I have ta'en you napping, gentle love,\n    And have forsworn you with Hortensio.\n  BIANCA. Tranio, you jest; but have you both forsworn me?\n  TRANIO. Mistress, we have.\n  LUCENTIO. Then we are rid of Licio.\n  TRANIO. I' faith, he'll have a lusty widow now,\n    That shall be woo'd and wedded in a day.\n  BIANCA. God give him joy!\n  TRANIO. Ay, and he'll tame her.\n  BIANCA. He says so, Tranio.\n  TRANIO. Faith, he is gone unto the taming-school.\n  BIANCA. The taming-school! What, is there such a place?\n  TRANIO. Ay, mistress; and Petruchio is the master,\n    That teacheth tricks eleven and twenty long,\n    To tame a shrew and charm her chattering tongue.\n\n                       Enter BIONDELLO\n\n  BIONDELLO. O master, master, have watch'd so long\n    That I am dog-weary; but at last I spied\n    An ancient angel coming down the hill\n    Will serve the turn.\n  TRANIO. What is he, Biondello?\n  BIONDELLO. Master, a mercatante or a pedant,\n    I know not what; but formal in apparel,\n    In gait and countenance surely like a father.\n  LUCENTIO. And what of him, Tranio?\n  TRANIO. If he be credulous and trust my tale,\n    I'll make him glad to seem Vincentio,\n    And give assurance to Baptista Minola\n    As if he were the right Vincentio.\n    Take in your love, and then let me alone.\n                                      Exeunt LUCENTIO and BIANCA\n\n                         Enter a PEDANT\n\n  PEDANT. God save you, sir!\n  TRANIO. And you, sir; you are welcome.\n    Travel you far on, or are you at the farthest?\n  PEDANT. Sir, at the farthest for a week or two;\n    But then up farther, and as far as Rome;\n    And so to Tripoli, if God lend me life.\n  TRANIO. What countryman, I pray?\n  PEDANT. Of Mantua.\n  TRANIO. Of Mantua, sir? Marry, God forbid,\n    And come to Padua, careless of your life!\n  PEDANT. My life, sir! How, I pray? For that goes hard.\n  TRANIO. 'Tis death for any one in Mantua\n    To come to Padua. Know you not the cause?\n    Your ships are stay'd at Venice; and the Duke,\n    For private quarrel 'twixt your Duke and him,\n    Hath publish'd and proclaim'd it openly.\n    'Tis marvel- but that you are but newly come,\n    You might have heard it else proclaim'd about.\n  PEDANT. Alas, sir, it is worse for me than so!\n    For I have bills for money by exchange\n    From Florence, and must here deliver them.\n  TRANIO. Well, sir, to do you courtesy,\n    This will I do, and this I will advise you-\n    First, tell me, have you ever been at Pisa?\n  PEDANT. Ay, sir, in Pisa have I often been,\n    Pisa renowned for grave citizens.\n  TRANIO. Among them know you one Vincentio?\n  PEDANT. I know him not, but I have heard of him,\n    A merchant of incomparable wealth.\n  TRANIO. He is my father, sir; and, sooth to say,\n    In count'nance somewhat doth resemble you.\n  BIONDELLO.  [Aside]  As much as an apple doth an oyster, and\nall\n    one.\n  TRANIO. To save your life in this extremity,\n    This favour will I do you for his sake;\n    And think it not the worst of all your fortunes\n    That you are like to Sir Vincentio.\n    His name and credit shall you undertake,\n    And in my house you shall be friendly lodg'd;\n    Look that you take upon you as you should.\n    You understand me, sir. So shall you stay\n    Till you have done your business in the city.\n    If this be court'sy, sir, accept of it.\n  PEDANT. O, sir, I do; and will repute you ever\n    The patron of my life and liberty.\n  TRANIO. Then go with me to make the matter good.\n    This, by the way, I let you understand:\n    My father is here look'd for every day\n    To pass assurance of a dow'r in marriage\n    'Twixt me and one Baptista's daughter here.\n    In all these circumstances I'll instruct you.\n    Go with me to clothe you as becomes you.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nPETRUCHIO'S house\n\nEnter KATHERINA and GRUMIO\n\n  GRUMIO. No, no, forsooth; I dare not for my life.\n  KATHERINA. The more my wrong, the more his spite appears.\n    What, did he marry me to famish me?\n    Beggars that come unto my father's door\n    Upon entreaty have a present alms;\n    If not, elsewhere they meet with charity;\n    But I, who never knew how to entreat,\n    Nor never needed that I should entreat,\n    Am starv'd for meat, giddy for lack of sleep;\n    With oaths kept waking, and with brawling fed;\n    And that which spites me more than all these wants-\n    He does it under name of perfect love;\n    As who should say, if I should sleep or eat,\n    'Twere deadly sickness or else present death.\n    I prithee go and get me some repast;\n    I care not what, so it be wholesome food.\n  GRUMIO. What say you to a neat's foot?\n  KATHERINA. 'Tis passing good; I prithee let me have it.\n  GRUMIO. I fear it is too choleric a meat.\n    How say you to a fat tripe finely broil'd?\n  KATHERINA. I like it well; good Grumio, fetch it me.\n  GRUMIO. I cannot tell; I fear 'tis choleric.\n    What say you to a piece of beef and mustard?\n  KATHERINA. A dish that I do love to feed upon.\n  GRUMIO. Ay, but the mustard is too hot a little.\n  KATHERINA. Why then the beef, and let the mustard rest.\n  GRUMIO. Nay, then I will not; you shall have the mustard,\n    Or else you get no beef of Grumio.\n  KATHERINA. Then both, or one, or anything thou wilt.\n  GRUMIO. Why then the mustard without the beef.\n  KATHERINA. Go, get thee gone, thou false deluding slave,\n                                                     [Beats him]\n    That feed'st me with the very name of meat.\n    Sorrow on thee and all the pack of you\n    That triumph thus upon my misery!\n    Go, get thee gone, I say.\n\n               Enter PETRUCHIO, and HORTENSIO with meat\n\n  PETRUCHIO. How fares my Kate? What, sweeting, all amort?\n  HORTENSIO. Mistress, what cheer?\n  KATHERINA. Faith, as cold as can be.\n  PETRUCHIO. Pluck up thy spirits, look cheerfully upon me.\n    Here, love, thou seest how diligent I am,\n    To dress thy meat myself, and bring it thee.\n    I am sure, sweet Kate, this kindness merits thanks.\n    What, not a word? Nay, then thou lov'st it not,\n    And all my pains is sorted to no proof.\n    Here, take away this dish.\n  KATHERINA. I pray you, let it stand.\n  PETRUCHIO. The poorest service is repaid with thanks;\n    And so shall mine, before you touch the meat.\n  KATHERINA. I thank you, sir.\n  HORTENSIO. Signior Petruchio, fie! you are to blame.\n    Come, Mistress Kate, I'll bear you company.\n  PETRUCHIO.  [Aside]  Eat it up all, Hortensio, if thou lovest\nme.-\n    Much good do it unto thy gentle heart!\n    Kate, eat apace. And now, my honey love,\n    Will we return unto thy father's house\n    And revel it as bravely as the best,\n    With silken coats and caps, and golden rings,\n    With ruffs and cuffs and farthingales and things,\n    With scarfs and fans and double change of brav'ry.\n    With amber bracelets, beads, and all this knav'ry.\n    What, hast thou din'd? The tailor stays thy leisure,\n    To deck thy body with his ruffling treasure.\n\n                          Enter TAILOR\n\n    Come, tailor, let us see these ornaments;\n    Lay forth the gown.\n\n                        Enter HABERDASHER\n\n    What news with you, sir?\n  HABERDASHER. Here is the cap your worship did bespeak.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, this was moulded on a porringer;\n    A velvet dish. Fie, fie! 'tis lewd and filthy;\n    Why, 'tis a cockle or a walnut-shell,\n    A knack, a toy, a trick, a baby's cap.\n    Away with it. Come, let me have a bigger.\n  KATHERINA. I'll have no bigger; this doth fit the time,\n    And gentlewomen wear such caps as these.\n  PETRUCHIO. When you are gentle, you shall have one too,\n    And not till then.\n  HORTENSIO.  [Aside]  That will not be in haste.\n  KATHERINA. Why, sir, I trust I may have leave to speak;\n    And speak I will. I am no child, no babe.\n    Your betters have endur'd me say my mind,\n    And if you cannot, best you stop your ears.\n    My tongue will tell the anger of my heart,\n    Or else my heart, concealing it, will break;\n    And rather than it shall, I will be free\n    Even to the uttermost, as I please, in words.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, thou say'st true; it is a paltry cap,\n    A custard-coffin, a bauble, a silken pie;\n    I love thee well in that thou lik'st it not.\n  KATHERINA. Love me or love me not, I like the cap;\n    And it I will have, or I will have none.    Exit HABERDASHER\n  PETRUCHIO. Thy gown? Why, ay. Come, tailor, let us see't.\n    O mercy, God! what masquing stuff is here?\n    What's this? A sleeve? 'Tis like a demi-cannon.\n    What, up and down, carv'd like an appletart?\n    Here's snip and nip and cut and slish and slash,\n    Like to a censer in a barber's shop.\n    Why, what a devil's name, tailor, call'st thou this?\n  HORTENSIO.  [Aside]  I see she's like to have neither cap nor\ngown.\n  TAILOR. You bid me make it orderly and well,\n    According to the fashion and the time.\n  PETRUCHIO. Marry, and did; but if you be rememb'red,\n    I did not bid you mar it to the time.\n    Go, hop me over every kennel home,\n    For you shall hop without my custom, sir.\n    I'll none of it; hence! make your best of it.\n  KATHERINA. I never saw a better fashion'd gown,\n    More quaint, more pleasing, nor more commendable;\n    Belike you mean to make a puppet of me.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, true; he means to make a puppet of thee.\n  TAILOR. She says your worship means to make a puppet of her.\n  PETRUCHIO. O monstrous arrogance! Thou liest, thou thread, thou\n      thimble,\n    Thou yard, three-quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail,\n    Thou flea, thou nit, thou winter-cricket thou-\n    Brav'd in mine own house with a skein of thread!\n    Away, thou rag, thou quantity, thou remnant;\n    Or I shall so bemete thee with thy yard\n    As thou shalt think on prating whilst thou liv'st!\n    I tell thee, I, that thou hast marr'd her gown.\n  TAILOR. Your worship is deceiv'd; the gown is made\n    Just as my master had direction.\n    Grumio gave order how it should be done.\n  GRUMIO. I gave him no order; I gave him the stuff.\n  TAILOR. But how did you desire it should be made?\n  GRUMIO. Marry, sir, with needle and thread.\n  TAILOR. But did you not request to have it cut?\n  GRUMIO. Thou hast fac'd many things.\n  TAILOR. I have.\n  GRUMIO. Face not me. Thou hast brav'd many men; brave not me. I\n    will neither be fac'd nor brav'd. I say unto thee, I bid thy\n    master cut out the gown; but I did not bid him cut it to\npieces.\n    Ergo, thou liest.\n  TAILOR. Why, here is the note of the fashion to testify.\n  PETRUCHIO. Read it.\n  GRUMIO. The note lies in's throat, if he say I said so.\n  TAILOR.  [Reads]  'Imprimis, a loose-bodied gown'-\n  GRUMIO. Master, if ever I said loose-bodied gown, sew me in the\n    skirts of it and beat me to death with a bottom of brown\nbread; I\n    said a gown.\n  PETRUCHIO. Proceed.\n  TAILOR.  [Reads]  'With a small compass'd cape'-\n  GRUMIO. I confess the cape.\n  TAILOR.  [Reads]  'With a trunk sleeve'-\n  GRUMIO. I confess two sleeves.\n  TAILOR.  [Reads]  'The sleeves curiously cut.'\n  PETRUCHIO. Ay, there's the villainy.\n  GRUMIO. Error i' th' bill, sir; error i' th' bill! I commanded\nthe\n    sleeves should be cut out, and sew'd up again; and that I'll\n    prove upon thee, though thy little finger be armed in a\nthimble.\n  TAILOR. This is true that I say; an I had thee in place where,\nthou\n    shouldst know it.\n  GRUMIO. I am for thee straight; take thou the bill, give me thy\n    meteyard, and spare not me.\n  HORTENSIO. God-a-mercy, Grumio! Then he shall have no odds.\n  PETRUCHIO. Well, sir, in brief, the gown is not for me.\n  GRUMIO. You are i' th' right, sir; 'tis for my mistress.\n  PETRUCHIO. Go, take it up unto thy master's use.\n  GRUMIO. Villain, not for thy life! Take up my mistress' gown\nfor\n    thy master's use!\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, sir, what's your conceit in that?\n  GRUMIO. O, sir, the conceit is deeper than you think for.\n    Take up my mistress' gown to his master's use!\n    O fie, fie, fie!\n  PETRUCHIO.  [Aside]  Hortensio, say thou wilt see the tailor\npaid.-\n    Go take it hence; be gone, and say no more.\n  HORTENSIO. Tailor, I'll pay thee for thy gown to-morrow;\n    Take no unkindness of his hasty words.\n    Away, I say; commend me to thy master.           Exit TAILOR\n  PETRUCHIO. Well, come, my Kate; we will unto your father's\n    Even in these honest mean habiliments;\n    Our purses shall be proud, our garments poor;\n    For 'tis the mind that makes the body rich;\n    And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds,\n    So honour peereth in the meanest habit.\n    What, is the jay more precious than the lark\n    Because his feathers are more beautiful?\n    Or is the adder better than the eel\n    Because his painted skin contents the eye?\n    O no, good Kate; neither art thou the worse\n    For this poor furniture and mean array.\n    If thou account'st it shame, lay it on me;\n    And therefore frolic; we will hence forthwith\n    To feast and sport us at thy father's house.\n    Go call my men, and let us straight to him;\n    And bring our horses unto Long-lane end;\n    There will we mount, and thither walk on foot.\n    Let's see; I think 'tis now some seven o'clock,\n    And well we may come there by dinner-time.\n  KATHERINA. I dare assure you, sir, 'tis almost two,\n    And 'twill be supper-time ere you come there.\n  PETRUCHIO. It shall be seven ere I go to horse.\n    Look what I speak, or do, or think to do,\n    You are still crossing it. Sirs, let 't alone;\n    I will not go to-day; and ere I do,\n    It shall be what o'clock I say it is.\n  HORTENSIO. Why, so this gallant will command the sun.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nPadua. Before BAPTISTA'S house\n\nEnter TRANIO as LUCENTIO, and the PEDANT dressed like VINCENTIO\n\n  TRANIO. Sir, this is the house; please it you that I call?\n  PEDANT. Ay, what else? And, but I be deceived,\n    Signior Baptista may remember me\n    Near twenty years ago in Genoa,\n    Where we were lodgers at the Pegasus.\n  TRANIO. 'Tis well; and hold your own, in any case,\n    With such austerity as longeth to a father.\n\n                       Enter BIONDELLO\n\n  PEDANT. I warrant you. But, sir, here comes your boy;\n    'Twere good he were school'd.\n  TRANIO. Fear you not him. Sirrah Biondello,\n    Now do your duty throughly, I advise you.\n    Imagine 'twere the right Vincentio.\n  BIONDELLO. Tut, fear not me.\n  TRANIO. But hast thou done thy errand to Baptista?\n  BIONDELLO. I told him that your father was at Venice,\n    And that you look'd for him this day in Padua.\n  TRANIO. Th'art a tall fellow; hold thee that to drink.\n    Here comes Baptista. Set your countenance, sir.\n\n                 Enter BAPTISTA, and LUCENTIO as CAMBIO\n\n    Signior Baptista, you are happily met.\n    [To the PEDANT] Sir, this is the gentleman I told you of;\n    I pray you stand good father to me now;\n    Give me Bianca for my patrimony.\n  PEDANT. Soft, son!\n    Sir, by your leave: having come to Padua\n    To gather in some debts, my son Lucentio\n    Made me acquainted with a weighty cause\n    Of love between your daughter and himself;\n    And- for the good report I hear of you,\n    And for the love he beareth to your daughter,\n    And she to him- to stay him not too long,\n    I am content, in a good father's care,\n    To have him match'd; and, if you please to like\n    No worse than I, upon some agreement\n    Me shall you find ready and willing\n    With one consent to have her so bestow'd;\n    For curious I cannot be with you,\n    Signior Baptista, of whom I hear so well.\n  BAPTISTA. Sir, pardon me in what I have to say.\n    Your plainness and your shortness please me well.\n    Right true it is your son Lucentio here\n    Doth love my daughter, and she loveth him,\n    Or both dissemble deeply their affections;\n    And therefore, if you say no more than this,\n    That like a father you will deal with him,\n    And pass my daughter a sufficient dower,\n    The match is made, and all is done-\n    Your son shall have my daughter with consent.\n  TRANIO. I thank you, sir. Where then do you know best\n    We be affied, and such assurance ta'en\n    As shall with either part's agreement stand?\n  BAPTISTA. Not in my house, Lucentio, for you know\n    Pitchers have ears, and I have many servants;\n    Besides, old Gremio is heark'ning still,\n    And happily we might be interrupted.\n  TRANIO. Then at my lodging, an it like you.\n    There doth my father lie; and there this night\n    We'll pass the business privately and well.\n    Send for your daughter by your servant here;\n    My boy shall fetch the scrivener presently.\n    The worst is this, that at so slender warning\n    You are like to have a thin and slender pittance.\n  BAPTISTA. It likes me well. Cambio, hie you home,\n    And bid Bianca make her ready straight;\n    And, if you will, tell what hath happened-\n    Lucentio's father is arriv'd in Padua,\n    And how she's like to be Lucentio's wife.      Exit LUCENTIO\n  BIONDELLO. I pray the gods she may, with all my heart.\n  TRANIO. Dally not with the gods, but get thee gone.\n                                                  Exit BIONDELLO\n    Signior Baptista, shall I lead the way?\n    Welcome! One mess is like to be your cheer;\n    Come, sir; we will better it in Pisa.\n  BAPTISTA. I follow you.                                 Exeunt\n\n            Re-enter LUCENTIO as CAMBIO, and BIONDELLO\n\n  BIONDELLO. Cambio.\n  LUCENTIO. What say'st thou, Biondello?\n  BIONDELLO. You saw my master wink and laugh upon you?\n  LUCENTIO. Biondello, what of that?\n  BIONDELLO. Faith, nothing; but has left me here behind to\nexpound\n    the meaning or moral of his signs and tokens.\n  LUCENTIO. I pray thee moralize them.\n  BIONDELLO. Then thus: Baptista is safe, talking with the\ndeceiving\n    father of a deceitful son.\n  LUCENTIO. And what of him?\n  BIONDELLO. His daughter is to be brought by you to the supper.\n  LUCENTIO. And then?\n  BIONDELLO. The old priest at Saint Luke's church is at your\ncommand\n    at all hours.\n  LUCENTIO. And what of all this?\n  BIONDELLO. I cannot tell, except they are busied about a\n    counterfeit assurance. Take your assurance of her, cum\nprivilegio\n    ad imprimendum solum; to th' church take the priest, clerk,\nand\n    some sufficient honest witnesses.\n    If this be not that you look for, I have more to say,\n    But bid Bianca farewell for ever and a day.\n  LUCENTIO. Hear'st thou, Biondello?\n  BIONDELLO. I cannot tarry. I knew a wench married in an\nafternoon\n    as she went to the garden for parsley to stuff a rabbit; and\nso\n    may you, sir; and so adieu, sir. My master hath appointed me\nto\n    go to Saint Luke's to bid the priest be ready to come against\nyou\n    come with your appendix.\n Exit\n  LUCENTIO. I may and will, if she be so contented.\n    She will be pleas'd; then wherefore should I doubt?\n    Hap what hap may, I'll roundly go about her;\n    It shall go hard if Cambio go without her.              Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nA public road\n\nEnter PETRUCHIO, KATHERINA, HORTENSIO, and SERVANTS\n\n  PETRUCHIO. Come on, a God's name; once more toward our\nfather's.\n    Good Lord, how bright and goodly shines the moon!\n  KATHERINA. The moon? The sun! It is not moonlight now.\n  PETRUCHIO. I say it is the moon that shines so bright.\n  KATHERINA. I know it is the sun that shines so bright.\n  PETRUCHIO. Now by my mother's son, and that's myself,\n    It shall be moon, or star, or what I list,\n    Or ere I journey to your father's house.\n    Go on and fetch our horses back again.\n    Evermore cross'd and cross'd; nothing but cross'd!\n  HORTENSIO. Say as he says, or we shall never go.\n  KATHERINA. Forward, I pray, since we have come so far,\n    And be it moon, or sun, or what you please;\n    And if you please to call it a rush-candle,\n    Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me.\n  PETRUCHIO. I say it is the moon.\n  KATHERINA. I know it is the moon.\n  PETRUCHIO. Nay, then you lie; it is the blessed sun.\n  KATHERINA. Then, God be bless'd, it is the blessed sun;\n    But sun it is not, when you say it is not;\n    And the moon changes even as your mind.\n    What you will have it nam'd, even that it is,\n    And so it shall be so for Katherine.\n  HORTENSIO. Petruchio, go thy ways, the field is won.\n  PETRUCHIO. Well, forward, forward! thus the bowl should run,\n    And not unluckily against the bias.\n    But, soft! Company is coming here.\n\n                            Enter VINCENTIO\n\n    [To VINCENTIO]  Good-morrow, gentle mistress; where away?-\n    Tell me, sweet Kate, and tell me truly too,\n    Hast thou beheld a fresher gentlewoman?\n    Such war of white and red within her cheeks!\n    What stars do spangle heaven with such beauty\n    As those two eyes become that heavenly face?\n    Fair lovely maid, once more good day to thee.\n    Sweet Kate, embrace her for her beauty's sake.\n  HORTENSIO. 'A will make the man mad, to make a woman of him.\n  KATHERINA. Young budding virgin, fair and fresh and sweet,\n    Whither away, or where is thy abode?\n    Happy the parents of so fair a child;\n    Happier the man whom favourable stars\n    Allots thee for his lovely bed-fellow.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, how now, Kate, I hope thou art not mad!\n    This is a man, old, wrinkled, faded, withered,\n    And not a maiden, as thou sayst he is.\n  KATHERINA. Pardon, old father, my mistaking eyes,\n    That have been so bedazzled with the sun\n    That everything I look on seemeth green;\n    Now I perceive thou art a reverend father.\n    Pardon, I pray thee, for my mad mistaking.\n  PETRUCHIO. Do, good old grandsire, and withal make known\n    Which way thou travellest- if along with us,\n    We shall be joyful of thy company.\n  VINCENTIO. Fair sir, and you my merry mistress,\n    That with your strange encounter much amaz'd me,\n    My name is call'd Vincentio, my dwelling Pisa,\n    And bound I am to Padua, there to visit\n    A son of mine, which long I have not seen.\n  PETRUCHIO. What is his name?\n  VINCENTIO. Lucentio, gentle sir.\n  PETRUCHIO. Happily met; the happier for thy son.\n    And now by law, as well as reverend age,\n    I may entitle thee my loving father:\n    The sister to my wife, this gentlewoman,\n    Thy son by this hath married. Wonder not,\n    Nor be not grieved- she is of good esteem,\n    Her dowry wealthy, and of worthy birth;\n    Beside, so qualified as may beseem\n    The spouse of any noble gentleman.\n    Let me embrace with old Vincentio;\n    And wander we to see thy honest son,\n    Who will of thy arrival be full joyous.\n  VINCENTIO. But is this true; or is it else your pleasure,\n    Like pleasant travellers, to break a jest\n    Upon the company you overtake?\n  HORTENSIO. I do assure thee, father, so it is.\n  PETRUCHIO. Come, go along, and see the truth hereof;\n    For our first merriment hath made thee jealous.\n                                        Exeunt all but HORTENSIO\n  HORTENSIO. Well, Petruchio, this has put me in heart.\n    Have to my widow; and if she be froward,\n    Then hast thou taught Hortensio to be untoward.         Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nPadua. Before LUCENTIO'S house\n\nEnter BIONDELLO, LUCENTIO, and BIANCA; GREMIO is out before\n\n  BIONDELLO. Softly and swiftly, sir, for the priest is ready.\n  LUCENTIO. I fly, Biondello; but they may chance to need thee at\n    home, therefore leave us.\n  BIONDELLO. Nay, faith, I'll see the church a your back, and\nthen\n    come back to my master's as soon as I can.\n                          Exeunt LUCENTIO, BIANCA, and BIONDELLO\n  GREMIO. I marvel Cambio comes not all this while.\n\n           Enter PETRUCHIO, KATHERINA, VINCENTIO, GRUMIO,\n                          and ATTENDANTS\n\n  PETRUCHIO. Sir, here's the door; this is Lucentio's house;\n    My father's bears more toward the market-place;\n    Thither must I, and here I leave you, sir.\n  VINCENTIO. You shall not choose but drink before you go;\n    I think I shall command your welcome here,\n    And by all likelihood some cheer is toward.         [Knocks]\n  GREMIO. They're busy within; you were best knock louder.\n                                [PEDANT looks out of the window]\n  PEDANT. What's he that knocks as he would beat down the gate?\n  VINCENTIO. Is Signior Lucentio within, sir?\n  PEDANT. He's within, sir, but not to be spoken withal.\n  VINCENTIO. What if a man bring him a hundred pound or two to\nmake\n    merry withal?\n  PEDANT. Keep your hundred pounds to yourself; he shall need\nnone so\n    long as I live.\n  PETRUCHIO. Nay, I told you your son was well beloved in Padua.\nDo\n    you hear, sir? To leave frivolous circumstances, I pray you\ntell\n    Signior Lucentio that his father is come from Pisa, and is\nhere\n    at the door to speak with him.\n  PEDANT. Thou liest: his father is come from Padua, and here\nlooking\n    out at the window.\n  VINCENTIO. Art thou his father?\n  PEDANT. Ay, sir; so his mother says, if I may believe her.\n  PETRUCHIO.  [To VINCENTIO]  Why, how now, gentleman!\n    Why, this is flat knavery to take upon you another man's\nname.\n  PEDANT. Lay hands on the villain; I believe 'a means to cozen\n    somebody in this city under my countenance.\n\n                       Re-enter BIONDELLO\n\n  BIONDELLO. I have seen them in the church together. God send\n'em\n    good shipping! But who is here? Mine old master, Vicentio!\nNow we\n    are undone and brought to nothing.\n  VINCENTIO.  [Seeing BIONDELLO]  Come hither, crack-hemp.\n  BIONDELLO. I hope I may choose, sir.\n  VINCENTIO. Come hither, you rogue. What, have you forgot me?\n  BIONDELLO. Forgot you! No, sir. I could not forget you, for I\nnever\n    saw you before in all my life.\n  VINCENTIO. What, you notorious villain, didst thou never see\nthy\n    master's father, Vincentio?\n  BIONDELLO. What, my old worshipful old master? Yes, marry, sir;\nsee\n    where he looks out of the window.\n  VINCENTIO. Is't so, indeed?               [He beats BIONDELLO]\n  BIONDELLO. Help, help, help! Here's a madman will murder me.\n Exit\n  PEDANT. Help, son! help, Signior Baptista!     Exit from above\n  PETRUCHIO. Prithee, Kate, let's stand aside and see the end of\nthis\n    controversy.                              [They stand aside]\n\n       Re-enter PEDANT below; BAPTISTA, TRANIO, and SERVANTS\n\n  TRANIO. Sir, what are you that offer to beat my servant?\n  VINCENTIO. What am I, sir? Nay, what are you, sir? O immortal\ngods!\n    O fine villain! A silken doublet, a velvet hose, a scarlet\ncloak,\n    and a copatain hat! O, I am undone! I am undone! While I play\nthe\n    good husband at home, my son and my servant spend all at the\n    university.\n  TRANIO. How now! what's the matter?\n  BAPTISTA. What, is the man lunatic?\n  TRANIO. Sir, you seem a sober ancient gentleman by your habit,\nbut\n    your words show you a madman. Why, sir, what 'cerns it you if\nI\n    wear pearl and gold? I thank my good father, I am able to\n    maintain it.\n  VINCENTIO. Thy father! O villain! he is a sailmaker in Bergamo.\n  BAPTISTA. You mistake, sir; you mistake, sir. Pray, what do you\n\n    think is his name?\n  VINCENTIO. His name! As if I knew not his name! I have brought\nhim\n    up ever since he was three years old, and his name is Tranio.\n  PEDANT. Away, away, mad ass! His name is Lucentio; and he is\nmine\n    only son, and heir to the lands of me, Signior Vicentio.\n  VINCENTIO. Lucentio! O, he hath murd'red his master! Lay hold\non\n    him, I charge you, in the Duke's name. O, my son, my son!\nTell\n    me, thou villain, where is my son, Lucentio?\n  TRANIO. Call forth an officer.\n\n                      Enter one with an OFFICER\n\n    Carry this mad knave to the gaol. Father Baptista, I charge\nyou\n    see that he be forthcoming.\n  VINCENTIO. Carry me to the gaol!\n  GREMIO. Stay, Officer; he shall not go to prison.\n  BAPTISTA. Talk not, Signior Gremio; I say he shall go to\nprison.\n  GREMIO. Take heed, Signior Baptista, lest you be cony-catch'd\nin\n    this business; I dare swear this is the right Vincentio.\n  PEDANT. Swear if thou dar'st.\n  GREMIO. Nay, I dare not swear it.\n  TRANIO. Then thou wert best say that I am not Lucentio.\n  GREMIO. Yes, I know thee to be Signior Lucentio.\n  BAPTISTA. Away with the dotard; to the gaol with him!\n  VINCENTIO. Thus strangers may be hal'd and abus'd. O monstrous\n    villain!\n\n          Re-enter BIONDELLO, with LUCENTIO and BIANCA\n\n  BIONDELLO. O, we are spoil'd; and yonder he is! Deny him,\nforswear\n    him, or else we are all undone.\n         Exeunt BIONDELLO, TRANIO, and PEDANT, as fast as may be\n  LUCENTIO.  [Kneeling]  Pardon, sweet father.\n  VINCENTIO. Lives my sweet son?\n  BIANCA. Pardon, dear father.\n  BAPTISTA. How hast thou offended?\n    Where is Lucentio?\n  LUCENTIO. Here's Lucentio,\n    Right son to the right Vincentio,\n    That have by marriage made thy daughter mine,\n    While counterfeit supposes blear'd thine eyne.\n  GREMIO. Here's packing, with a witness, to deceive us all!\n  VINCENTIO. Where is that damned villain, Tranio,\n    That fac'd and brav'd me in this matter so?\n  BAPTISTA. Why, tell me, is not this my Cambio?\n  BIANCA. Cambio is chang'd into Lucentio.\n  LUCENTIO. Love wrought these miracles. Bianca's love\n    Made me exchange my state with Tranio,\n    While he did bear my countenance in the town;\n    And happily I have arrived at the last\n    Unto the wished haven of my bliss.\n    What Tranio did, myself enforc'd him to;\n    Then pardon him, sweet father, for my sake.\n  VINCENTIO. I'll slit the villain's nose that would have sent me\nto\n    the gaol.\n  BAPTISTA.  [To LUCENTIO]  But do you hear, sir? Have you\nmarried my\n    daughter without asking my good will?\n  VINCENTIO. Fear not, Baptista; we will content you, go to; but\nI\n    will in to be revenged for this villainy.               Exit\n  BAPTISTA. And I to sound the depth of this knavery.       Exit\n  LUCENTIO. Look not pale, Bianca; thy father will not frown.\n                                      Exeunt LUCENTIO and BIANCA\n  GREMIO. My cake is dough, but I'll in among the rest;\n    Out of hope of all but my share of the feast.           Exit\n  KATHERINA. Husband, let's follow to see the end of this ado.\n  PETRUCHIO. First kiss me, Kate, and we will.\n  KATHERINA. What, in the midst of the street?\n  PETRUCHIO. What, art thou asham'd of me?\n  KATHERINA. No, sir; God forbid; but asham'd to kiss.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, then, let's home again. Come, sirrah, let's\naway.\n  KATHERINA. Nay, I will give thee a kiss; now pray thee, love,\nstay.\n  PETRUCHIO. Is not this well? Come, my sweet Kate:\n    Better once than never, for never too late.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nLUCENTIO'S house\n\nEnter BAPTISTA, VINCENTIO, GREMIO, the PEDANT, LUCENTIO, BIANCA,\nPETRUCHIO, KATHERINA, HORTENSIO, and WIDOW. The SERVINGMEN with\nTRANIO,\nBIONDELLO, and GRUMIO, bringing in a banquet\n\n  LUCENTIO. At last, though long, our jarring notes agree;\n    And time it is when raging war is done\n    To smile at scapes and perils overblown.\n    My fair Bianca, bid my father welcome,\n    While I with self-same kindness welcome thine.\n    Brother Petruchio, sister Katherina,\n    And thou, Hortensio, with thy loving widow,\n    Feast with the best, and welcome to my house.\n    My banquet is to close our stomachs up\n    After our great good cheer. Pray you, sit down;\n    For now we sit to chat as well as eat.            [They sit]\n  PETRUCHIO. Nothing but sit and sit, and eat and eat!\n  BAPTISTA. Padua affords this kindness, son Petruchio.\n  PETRUCHIO. Padua affords nothing but what is kind.\n  HORTENSIO. For both our sakes I would that word were true.\n  PETRUCHIO. Now, for my life, Hortensio fears his widow.\n  WIDOW. Then never trust me if I be afeard.\n  PETRUCHIO. YOU are very sensible, and yet you miss my sense:\n    I mean Hortensio is afeard of you.\n  WIDOW. He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.\n  PETRUCHIO. Roundly replied.\n  KATHERINA. Mistress, how mean you that?\n  WIDOW. Thus I conceive by him.\n  PETRUCHIO. Conceives by me! How likes Hortensio that?\n  HORTENSIO. My widow says thus she conceives her tale.\n  PETRUCHIO. Very well mended. Kiss him for that, good widow.\n  KATHERINA. 'He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.'\n    I pray you tell me what you meant by that.\n  WIDOW. Your husband, being troubled with a shrew,\n    Measures my husband's sorrow by his woe;\n    And now you know my meaning.\n  KATHERINA. A very mean meaning.\n  WIDOW. Right, I mean you.\n  KATHERINA. And I am mean, indeed, respecting you.\n  PETRUCHIO. To her, Kate!\n  HORTENSIO. To her, widow!\n  PETRUCHIO. A hundred marks, my Kate does put her down.\n  HORTENSIO. That's my office.\n  PETRUCHIO. Spoke like an officer- ha' to thee, lad.\n                                           [Drinks to HORTENSIO]\n  BAPTISTA. How likes Gremio these quick-witted folks?\n  GREMIO. Believe me, sir, they butt together well.\n  BIANCA. Head and butt! An hasty-witted body\n    Would say your head and butt were head and horn.\n  VINCENTIO. Ay, mistress bride, hath that awakened you?\n  BIANCA. Ay, but not frighted me; therefore I'll sleep again.\n  PETRUCHIO. Nay, that you shall not; since you have begun,\n    Have at you for a bitter jest or two.\n  BIANCA. Am I your bird? I mean to shift my bush,\n    And then pursue me as you draw your bow.\n    You are welcome all.\n                             Exeunt BIANCA, KATHERINA, and WIDOW\n  PETRUCHIO. She hath prevented me. Here, Signior Tranio,\n    This bird you aim'd at, though you hit her not;\n    Therefore a health to all that shot and miss'd.\n  TRANIO. O, sir, Lucentio slipp'd me like his greyhound,\n    Which runs himself, and catches for his master.\n  PETRUCHIO. A good swift simile, but something currish.\n  TRANIO. 'Tis well, sir, that you hunted for yourself;\n    'Tis thought your deer does hold you at a bay.\n  BAPTISTA. O, O, Petruchio! Tranio hits you now.\n  LUCENTIO. I thank thee for that gird, good Tranio.\n  HORTENSIO. Confess, confess; hath he not hit you here?\n  PETRUCHIO. 'A has a little gall'd me, I confess;\n    And, as the jest did glance away from me,\n    'Tis ten to one it maim'd you two outright.\n  BAPTISTA. Now, in good sadness, son Petruchio,\n    I think thou hast the veriest shrew of all.\n  PETRUCHIO. Well, I say no; and therefore, for assurance,\n    Let's each one send unto his wife,\n    And he whose wife is most obedient,\n    To come at first when he doth send for her,\n    Shall win the wager which we will propose.\n  HORTENSIO. Content. What's the wager?\n  LUCENTIO. Twenty crowns.\n  PETRUCHIO. Twenty crowns?\n    I'll venture so much of my hawk or hound,\n    But twenty times so much upon my wife.\n  LUCENTIO. A hundred then.\n  HORTENSIO. Content.\n  PETRUCHIO. A match! 'tis done.\n  HORTENSIO. Who shall begin?\n  LUCENTIO. That will I.\n    Go, Biondello, bid your mistress come to me.\n  BIONDELLO. I go.                                          Exit\n  BAPTISTA. Son, I'll be your half Bianca comes.\n  LUCENTIO. I'll have no halves; I'll bear it all myself.\n\n                          Re-enter BIONDELLO\n\n    How now! what news?\n  BIONDELLO. Sir, my mistress sends you word\n    That she is busy and she cannot come.\n  PETRUCHIO. How! She's busy, and she cannot come!\n    Is that an answer?\n  GREMIO. Ay, and a kind one too.\n    Pray God, sir, your wife send you not a worse.\n  PETRUCHIO. I hope better.\n  HORTENSIO. Sirrah Biondello, go and entreat my wife\n    To come to me forthwith.                      Exit BIONDELLO\n  PETRUCHIO. O, ho! entreat her!\n    Nay, then she must needs come.\n  HORTENSIO. I am afraid, sir,\n    Do what you can, yours will not be entreated.\n\n                            Re-enter BIONDELLO\n\n    Now, where's my wife?\n  BIONDELLO. She says you have some goodly jest in hand:\n    She will not come; she bids you come to her.\n  PETRUCHIO. Worse and worse; she will not come! O vile,\n    Intolerable, not to be endur'd!\n    Sirrah Grumio, go to your mistress;\n    Say I command her come to me.                    Exit GRUMIO\n  HORTENSIO. I know her answer.\n  PETRUCHIO. What?\n  HORTENSIO. She will not.\n  PETRUCHIO. The fouler fortune mine, and there an end.\n\n                             Re-enter KATHERINA\n\n  BAPTISTA. Now, by my holidame, here comes Katherina!\n  KATHERINA. What is your will, sir, that you send for me?\n  PETRUCHIO. Where is your sister, and Hortensio's wife?\n  KATHERINA. They sit conferring by the parlour fire.\n  PETRUCHIO. Go, fetch them hither; if they deny to come.\n    Swinge me them soundly forth unto their husbands.\n    Away, I say, and bring them hither straight.\n                                                  Exit KATHERINA\n  LUCENTIO. Here is a wonder, if you talk of a wonder.\n  HORTENSIO. And so it is. I wonder what it bodes.\n  PETRUCHIO. Marry, peace it bodes, and love, and quiet life,\n    An awful rule, and right supremacy;\n    And, to be short, what not that's sweet and happy.\n  BAPTISTA. Now fair befall thee, good Petruchio!\n    The wager thou hast won; and I will ad\n    Unto their losses twenty thousand crowns;\n    Another dowry to another daughter,\n    For she is chang'd, as she had never been.\n  PETRUCHIO. Nay, I will win my wager better yet,\n    And show more sign of her obedience,\n    Her new-built virtue and obedience.\n\n                 Re-enter KATHERINA with BIANCA and WIDOW\n\n    See where she comes, and brings your froward wives\n    As prisoners to her womanly persuasion.\n    Katherine, that cap of yours becomes you not:\n    Off with that bauble, throw it underfoot.\n                                            [KATHERINA complies]\n  WIDOW. Lord, let me never have a cause to sigh\n    Till I be brought to such a silly pass!\n  BIANCA. Fie! what a foolish duty call you this?\n  LUCENTIO. I would your duty were as foolish too;\n    The wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca,\n    Hath cost me a hundred crowns since supper-time!\n  BIANCA. The more fool you for laying on my duty.\n  PETRUCHIO. Katherine, I charge thee, tell these headstrong\nwomen\n    What duty they do owe their lords and husbands.\n  WIDOW. Come, come, you're mocking; we will have no telling.\n  PETRUCHIO. Come on, I say; and first begin with her.\n  WIDOW. She shall not.\n  PETRUCHIO. I say she shall. And first begin with her.\n  KATHERINA. Fie, fie! unknit that threatening unkind brow,\n    And dart not scornful glances from those eyes\n    To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor.\n    It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads,\n    Confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds,\n    And in no sense is meet or amiable.\n    A woman mov'd is like a fountain troubled-\n    Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;\n    And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty\n    Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.\n    Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,\n    Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,\n    And for thy maintenance commits his body\n    To painful labour both by sea and land,\n    To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,\n    Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;\n    And craves no other tribute at thy hands\n    But love, fair looks, and true obedience-\n    Too little payment for so great a debt.\n    Such duty as the subject owes the prince,\n    Even such a woman oweth to her husband;\n    And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,\n    And not obedient to his honest will,\n    What is she but a foul contending rebel\n    And graceless traitor to her loving lord?\n    I am asham'd that women are so simple\n    To offer war where they should kneel for peace;\n    Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway,\n    When they are bound to serve, love, and obey.\n    Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,\n    Unapt to toll and trouble in the world,\n    But that our soft conditions and our hearts\n    Should well agree with our external parts?\n    Come, come, you froward and unable worins!\n    My mind hath been as big as one of yours,\n    My heart as great, my reason haply more,\n    To bandy word for word and frown for frown;\n    But now I see our lances are but straws,\n    Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,\n    That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.\n    Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,\n    And place your hands below your husband's foot;\n    In token of which duty, if he please,\n    My hand is ready, may it do him ease.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, there's a wench! Come on, and kiss me, Kate.\n  LUCENTIO. Well, go thy ways, old lad, for thou shalt ha't.\n  VINCENTIO. 'Tis a good hearing when children are toward.\n  LUCENTIO. But a harsh hearing when women are froward.\n  PETRUCHIO. Come, Kate, we'll to bed.\n    We three are married, but you two are sped.\n    [To LUCENTIO]  'Twas I won the wager, though you hit the\nwhite;\n    And being a winner, God give you good night!\n                                  Exeunt PETRUCHIO and KATHERINA\n  HORTENSIO. Now go thy ways; thou hast tam'd a curst shrow.\n  LUCENTIO. 'Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tam'd so.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of this Etext of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare\nThe Taming of the Shrew"}
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{"1108":"\n\n\n\n\n1595\n\nTHE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  DUKE OF MILAN, father to Silvia\n  VALENTINE, one of the two gentlemen\n  PROTEUS,    \"  \"   \"   \"     \"\n  ANTONIO, father to Proteus\n  THURIO, a foolish rival to Valentine\n  EGLAMOUR, agent for Silvia in her escape\n  SPEED, a clownish servant to Valentine\n  LAUNCE, the like to Proteus\n  PANTHINO, servant to Antonio\n  HOST, where Julia lodges in Milan\n  OUTLAWS, with Valentine\n\n  JULIA, a lady of Verona, beloved of Proteus\n  SILVIA, the Duke's daughter, beloved of Valentine\n  LUCETTA, waiting-woman to Julia\n\n  SERVANTS\n  MUSICIANS\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nVerona; Milan; the frontiers of Mantua\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nVerona. An open place\n\nEnter VALENTINE and PROTEUS\n\n  VALENTINE. Cease to persuade, my loving Proteus:\n    Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.\n    Were't not affection chains thy tender days\n    To the sweet glances of thy honour'd love,\n    I rather would entreat thy company\n    To see the wonders of the world abroad,\n    Than, living dully sluggardiz'd at home,\n    Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness.\n    But since thou lov'st, love still, and thrive therein,\n    Even as I would, when I to love begin.\n  PROTEUS. Wilt thou be gone? Sweet Valentine, adieu!\n    Think on thy Proteus, when thou haply seest\n    Some rare noteworthy object in thy travel.\n    Wish me partaker in thy happiness\n    When thou dost meet good hap; and in thy danger,\n    If ever danger do environ thee,\n    Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers,\n    For I will be thy headsman, Valentine.\n  VALENTINE. And on a love-book pray for my success?\n  PROTEUS. Upon some book I love I'll pray for thee.\n  VALENTINE. That's on some shallow story of deep love:\n    How young Leander cross'd the Hellespont.\n  PROTEUS. That's a deep story of a deeper love;\n    For he was more than over shoes in love.\n  VALENTINE. 'Tis true; for you are over boots in love,\n    And yet you never swum the Hellespont.\n  PROTEUS. Over the boots! Nay, give me not the boots.\n  VALENTINE. No, I will not, for it boots thee not.\n  PROTEUS. What?\n  VALENTINE. To be in love- where scorn is bought with groans,\n    Coy looks with heart-sore sighs, one fading moment's mirth\n    With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights;\n    If haply won, perhaps a hapless gain;\n    If lost, why then a grievous labour won;\n    However, but a folly bought with wit,\n    Or else a wit by folly vanquished.\n  PROTEUS. So, by your circumstance, you call me fool.\n  VALENTINE. So, by your circumstance, I fear you'll prove.\n  PROTEUS. 'Tis love you cavil at; I am not Love.\n  VALENTINE. Love is your master, for he masters you;\n    And he that is so yoked by a fool,\n    Methinks, should not be chronicled for wise.\n  PROTEUS. Yet writers say, as in the sweetest bud\n    The eating canker dwells, so eating love\n    Inhabits in the finest wits of all.\n  VALENTINE. And writers say, as the most forward bud\n    Is eaten by the canker ere it blow,\n    Even so by love the young and tender wit\n    Is turn'd to folly, blasting in the bud,\n    Losing his verdure even in the prime,\n    And all the fair effects of future hopes.\n    But wherefore waste I time to counsel the\n    That art a votary to fond desire?\n    Once more adieu. My father at the road\n    Expects my coming, there to see me shipp'd.\n  PROTEUS. And thither will I bring thee, Valentine.\n  VALENTINE. Sweet Proteus, no; now let us take our leave.\n    To Milan let me hear from thee by letters\n    Of thy success in love, and what news else\n    Betideth here in absence of thy friend;\n    And I likewise will visit thee with mine.\n  PROTEUS. All happiness bechance to thee in Milan!\n  VALENTINE. As much to you at home; and so farewell!\n                                                  Exit VALENTINE\n  PROTEUS. He after honour hunts, I after love;\n    He leaves his friends to dignify them more:\n    I leave myself, my friends, and all for love.\n    Thou, Julia, thou hast metamorphis'd me,\n    Made me neglect my studies, lose my time,\n    War with good counsel, set the world at nought;\n    Made wit with musing weak, heart sick with thought.\n\n                         Enter SPEED\n\n  SPEED. Sir Proteus, save you! Saw you my master?\n  PROTEUS. But now he parted hence to embark for Milan.\n  SPEED. Twenty to one then he is shipp'd already,\n    And I have play'd the sheep in losing him.\n  PROTEUS. Indeed a sheep doth very often stray,\n    An if the shepherd be awhile away.\n  SPEED. You conclude that my master is a shepherd then, and\n    I a sheep?\n  PROTEUS. I do.\n  SPEED. Why then, my horns are his horns, whether I wake or\nsleep.\n  PROTEUS. A silly answer, and fitting well a sheep.\n  SPEED. This proves me still a sheep.\n  PROTEUS. True; and thy master a shepherd.\n  SPEED. Nay, that I can deny by a circumstance.\n  PROTEUS. It shall go hard but I'll prove it by another.\n  SPEED. The shepherd seeks the sheep, and not the sheep the\n    shepherd; but I seek my master, and my master seeks not me;\n    therefore, I am no sheep.\n  PROTEUS. The sheep for fodder follow the shepherd; the shepherd\nfor\n    food follows not the sheep: thou for wages followest thy\nmaster;\n    thy master for wages follows not thee. Therefore, thou art a\n    sheep.\n  SPEED. Such another proof will make me cry 'baa.'\n  PROTEUS. But dost thou hear? Gav'st thou my letter to Julia?\n  SPEED. Ay, sir; I, a lost mutton, gave your letter to her, a\nlac'd\n    mutton; and she, a lac'd mutton, gave me, a lost mutton,\nnothing\n    for my labour.\n  PROTEUS. Here's too small a pasture for such store of muttons.\n  SPEED. If the ground be overcharg'd, you were best stick her.\n  PROTEUS. Nay, in that you are astray: 'twere best pound you.\n  SPEED. Nay, sir, less than a pound shall serve me for carrying\nyour\n    letter.\n  PROTEUS. You mistake; I mean the pound- a pinfold.\n  SPEED. From a pound to a pin? Fold it over and over,\n    'Tis threefold too little for carrying a letter to your\nlover.\n  PROTEUS. But what said she?\n  SPEED.  [Nodding]  Ay.\n  PROTEUS. Nod- ay. Why, that's 'noddy.'\n  SPEED. You mistook, sir; I say she did nod; and you ask me if\nshe\n    did nod; and I say 'Ay.'\n  PROTEUS. And that set together is 'noddy.'\n  SPEED. Now you have taken the pains to set it together, take it\nfor\n    your pains.\n  PROTEUS. No, no; you shall have it for bearing the letter.\n  SPEED. Well, I perceive I must be fain to bear with you.\n  PROTEUS. Why, sir, how do you bear with me?\n  SPEED. Marry, sir, the letter, very orderly; having nothing but\nthe\n    word 'noddy' for my pains.\n  PROTEUS. Beshrew me, but you have a quick wit.\n  SPEED. And yet it cannot overtake your slow purse.\n  PROTEUS. Come, come, open the matter; in brief, what said she?\n  SPEED. Open your purse, that the money and the matter may be\nboth\n    at once delivered.\n  PROTEUS. Well, sir, here is for your pains. What said she?\n  SPEED. Truly, sir, I think you'll hardly win her.\n  PROTEUS. Why, couldst thou perceive so much from her?\n  SPEED. Sir, I could perceive nothing at all from her; no, not\nso\n    much as a ducat for delivering your letter; and being so hard\nto\n    me that brought your mind, I fear she'll prove as hard to you\nin\n    telling your mind. Give her no token but stones, for she's as\n    hard as steel.\n  PROTEUS. What said she? Nothing?\n  SPEED. No, not so much as 'Take this for thy pains.' To testify\n\n    your bounty, I thank you, you have testern'd me; in requital\n    whereof, henceforth carry your letters yourself; and so, sir,\n    I'll commend you to my master.\n  PROTEUS. Go, go, be gone, to save your ship from wreck,\n    Which cannot perish, having thee aboard,\n    Being destin'd to a drier death on shore.         Exit SPEED\n    I must go send some better messenger.\n    I fear my Julia would not deign my lines,\n    Receiving them from such a worthless post.              Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nVerona. The garden Of JULIA'S house\n\nEnter JULIA and LUCETTA\n\n  JULIA. But say, Lucetta, now we are alone,\n    Wouldst thou then counsel me to fall in love?\n  LUCETTA. Ay, madam; so you stumble not unheedfully.\n  JULIA. Of all the fair resort of gentlemen\n    That every day with parle encounter me,\n    In thy opinion which is worthiest love?\n  LUCETTA. Please you, repeat their names; I'll show my mind\n    According to my shallow simple skill.\n  JULIA. What think'st thou of the fair Sir Eglamour?\n  LUCETTA. As of a knight well-spoken, neat, and fine;\n    But, were I you, he never should be mine.\n  JULIA. What think'st thou of the rich Mercatio?\n  LUCETTA. Well of his wealth; but of himself, so so.\n  JULIA. What think'st thou of the gentle Proteus?\n  LUCETTA. Lord, Lord! to see what folly reigns in us!\n  JULIA. How now! what means this passion at his name?\n  LUCETTA. Pardon, dear madam; 'tis a passing shame\n    That I, unworthy body as I am,\n    Should censure thus on lovely gentlemen.\n  JULIA. Why not on Proteus, as of all the rest?\n  LUCETTA. Then thus: of many good I think him best.\n  JULIA. Your reason?\n  LUCETTA. I have no other but a woman's reason:\n    I think him so, because I think him so.\n  JULIA. And wouldst thou have me cast my love on him?\n  LUCETTA. Ay, if you thought your love not cast away.\n  JULIA. Why, he, of all the rest, hath never mov'd me.\n  LUCETTA. Yet he, of all the rest, I think, best loves ye.\n  JULIA. His little speaking shows his love but small.\n  LUCETTA. Fire that's closest kept burns most of all.\n  JULIA. They do not love that do not show their love.\n  LUCETTA. O, they love least that let men know their love.\n  JULIA. I would I knew his mind.\n  LUCETTA. Peruse this paper, madam.\n  JULIA. 'To Julia'- Say, from whom?\n  LUCETTA. That the contents will show.\n  JULIA. Say, say, who gave it thee?\n  LUCETTA. Sir Valentine's page; and sent, I think, from Proteus.\n    He would have given it you; but I, being in the way,\n    Did in your name receive it; pardon the fault, I pray.\n  JULIA. Now, by my modesty, a goodly broker!\n    Dare you presume to harbour wanton lines?\n    To whisper and conspire against my youth?\n    Now, trust me, 'tis an office of great worth,\n    And you an officer fit for the place.\n    There, take the paper; see it be return'd;\n    Or else return no more into my sight.\n  LUCETTA. To plead for love deserves more fee than hate.\n  JULIA. Will ye be gone?\n  LUCETTA. That you may ruminate.                           Exit\n  JULIA. And yet, I would I had o'erlook'd the letter.\n    It were a shame to call her back again,\n    And pray her to a fault for which I chid her.\n    What fool is she, that knows I am a maid\n    And would not force the letter to my view!\n    Since maids, in modesty, say 'No' to that\n    Which they would have the profferer construe 'Ay.'\n    Fie, fie, how wayward is this foolish love,\n    That like a testy babe will scratch the nurse,\n    And presently, all humbled, kiss the rod!\n    How churlishly I chid Lucetta hence,\n    When willingly I would have had her here!\n    How angerly I taught my brow to frown,\n    When inward joy enforc'd my heart to smile!\n    My penance is to call Lucetta back\n    And ask remission for my folly past.\n    What ho! Lucetta!\n\n                     Re-enter LUCETTA\n\n  LUCETTA. What would your ladyship?\n  JULIA. Is't near dinner time?\n  LUCETTA. I would it were,\n    That you might kill your stomach on your meat\n    And not upon your maid.\n  JULIA. What is't that you took up so gingerly?\n  LUCETTA. Nothing.\n  JULIA. Why didst thou stoop then?\n  LUCETTA. To take a paper up that I let fall.\n  JULIA. And is that paper nothing?\n  LUCETTA. Nothing concerning me.\n  JULIA. Then let it lie for those that it concerns.\n  LUCETTA. Madam, it will not lie where it concerns,\n    Unless it have a false interpreter.\n  JULIA. Some love of yours hath writ to you in rhyme.\n  LUCETTA. That I might sing it, madam, to a tune.\n    Give me a note; your ladyship can set.\n  JULIA. As little by such toys as may be possible.\n    Best sing it to the tune of 'Light o' Love.'\n  LUCETTA. It is too heavy for so light a tune.\n  JULIA. Heavy! belike it hath some burden then.\n  LUCETTA. Ay; and melodious were it, would you sing it.\n  JULIA. And why not you?\n  LUCETTA. I cannot reach so high.\n  JULIA. Let's see your song.     [LUCETTA withholds the letter]\n    How now, minion!\n  LUCETTA. Keep tune there still, so you will sing it out.\n    And yet methinks I do not like this tune.\n  JULIA. You do not!\n  LUCETTA. No, madam; 'tis too sharp.\n  JULIA. You, minion, are too saucy.\n  LUCETTA. Nay, now you are too flat\n    And mar the concord with too harsh a descant;\n    There wanteth but a mean to fill your song.\n  JULIA. The mean is drown'd with your unruly bass.\n  LUCETTA. Indeed, I bid the base for Proteus.\n  JULIA. This babble shall not henceforth trouble me.\n    Here is a coil with protestation!         [Tears the letter]\n    Go, get you gone; and let the papers lie.\n    You would be fing'ring them, to anger me.\n  LUCETTA. She makes it strange; but she would be best pleas'd\n    To be so ang'red with another letter.                   Exit\n  JULIA. Nay, would I were so ang'red with the same!\n    O hateful hands, to tear such loving words!\n    Injurious wasps, to feed on such sweet honey\n    And kill the bees that yield it with your stings!\n    I'll kiss each several paper for amends.\n    Look, here is writ 'kind Julia.' Unkind Julia,\n    As in revenge of thy ingratitude,\n    I throw thy name against the bruising stones,\n    Trampling contemptuously on thy disdain.\n    And here is writ 'love-wounded Proteus.'\n    Poor wounded name! my bosom,,as a bed,\n    Shall lodge thee till thy wound be throughly heal'd;\n    And thus I search it with a sovereign kiss.\n    But twice or thrice was 'Proteus' written down.\n    Be calm, good wind, blow not a word away\n    Till I have found each letter in the letter-\n    Except mine own name; that some whirlwind bear\n    Unto a ragged, fearful, hanging rock,\n    And throw it thence into the raging sea.\n    Lo, here in one line is his name twice writ:\n    'Poor forlorn Proteus, passionate Proteus,\n    To the sweet Julia.' That I'll tear away;\n    And yet I will not, sith so prettily\n    He couples it to his complaining names.\n    Thus will I fold them one upon another;\n    Now kiss, embrace, contend, do what you will.\n\n                        Re-enter LUCETTA\n\n  LUCETTA. Madam,\n    Dinner is ready, and your father stays.\n  JULIA. Well, let us go.\n  LUCETTA. What, shall these papers lie like tell-tales here?\n  JULIA. If you respect them, best to take them up.\n  LUCETTA. Nay, I was taken up for laying them down;\n    Yet here they shall not lie for catching cold.\n  JULIA. I see you have a month's mind to them.\n  LUCETTA. Ay, madam, you may say what sights you see;\n    I see things too, although you judge I wink.\n  JULIA. Come, come; will't please you go?                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nVerona. ANTONIO'S house\n\nEnter ANTONIO and PANTHINO\n\n  ANTONIO. Tell me, Panthino, what sad talk was that\n    Wherewith my brother held you in the cloister?\n  PANTHINO. 'Twas of his nephew Proteus, your son.\n  ANTONIO. Why, what of him?\n  PANTHINO. He wond'red that your lordship\n    Would suffer him to spend his youth at home,\n    While other men, of slender reputation,\n    Put forth their sons to seek preferment out:\n    Some to the wars, to try their fortune there;\n    Some to discover islands far away;\n    Some to the studious universities.\n    For any, or for all these exercises,\n    He said that Proteus, your son, was meet;\n    And did request me to importune you\n    To let him spend his time no more at home,\n    Which would be great impeachment to his age,\n    In having known no travel in his youth.\n  ANTONIO. Nor need'st thou much importune me to that\n    Whereon this month I have been hammering.\n    I have consider'd well his loss of time,\n    And how he cannot be a perfect man,\n    Not being tried and tutor'd in the world:\n    Experience is by industry achiev'd,\n    And perfected by the swift course of time.\n    Then tell me whither were I best to send him.\n  PANTHINO. I think your lordship is not ignorant\n    How his companion, youthful Valentine,\n    Attends the Emperor in his royal court.\n  ANTONIO. I know it well.\n  PANTHINO. 'Twere good, I think, your lordship sent him thither:\n    There shall he practise tilts and tournaments,\n    Hear sweet discourse, converse with noblemen,\n    And be in eye of every exercise\n    Worthy his youth and nobleness of birth.\n  ANTONIO. I like thy counsel; well hast thou advis'd;\n    And that thou mayst perceive how well I like it,\n    The execution of it shall make known:\n    Even with the speediest expedition\n    I will dispatch him to the Emperor's court.\n  PANTHINO. To-morrow, may it please you, Don Alphonso\n    With other gentlemen of good esteem\n    Are journeying to salute the Emperor,\n    And to commend their service to his will.\n  ANTONIO. Good company; with them shall Proteus go.\n\n                        Enter PROTEUS\n\n    And- in good time!- now will we break with him.\n  PROTEUS. Sweet love! sweet lines! sweet life!\n    Here is her hand, the agent of her heart;\n    Here is her oath for love, her honour's pawn.\n    O that our fathers would applaud our loves,\n    To seal our happiness with their consents!\n    O heavenly Julia!\n  ANTONIO. How now! What letter are you reading there?\n  PROTEUS. May't please your lordship, 'tis a word or two\n    Of commendations sent from Valentine,\n    Deliver'd by a friend that came from him.\n  ANTONIO. Lend me the letter; let me see what news.\n  PROTEUS. There is no news, my lord; but that he writes\n    How happily he lives, how well-belov'd\n    And daily graced by the Emperor;\n    Wishing me with him, partner of his fortune.\n  ANTONIO. And how stand you affected to his wish?\n  PROTEUS. As one relying on your lordship's will,\n    And not depending on his friendly wish.\n  ANTONIO. My will is something sorted with his wish.\n    Muse not that I thus suddenly proceed;\n    For what I will, I will, and there an end.\n    I am resolv'd that thou shalt spend some time\n    With Valentinus in the Emperor's court;\n    What maintenance he from his friends receives,\n    Like exhibition thou shalt have from me.\n    To-morrow be in readiness to go-\n    Excuse it not, for I am peremptory.\n  PROTEUS. My lord, I cannot be so soon provided;\n    Please you, deliberate a day or two.\n  ANTONIO. Look what thou want'st shall be sent after thee.\n    No more of stay; to-morrow thou must go.\n    Come on, Panthino; you shall be employ'd\n    To hasten on his expedition.\n                                     Exeunt ANTONIO and PANTHINO\n  PROTEUS. Thus have I shunn'd the fire for fear of burning,\n    And drench'd me in the sea, where I am drown'd.\n    I fear'd to show my father Julia's letter,\n    Lest he should take exceptions to my love;\n    And with the vantage of mine own excuse\n    Hath he excepted most against my love.\n    O, how this spring of love resembleth\n    The uncertain glory of an April day,\n    Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,\n    And by an by a cloud takes all away!\n\n                       Re-enter PANTHINO\n\n  PANTHINO. Sir Proteus, your father calls for you;\n    He is in haste; therefore, I pray you, go.\n  PROTEUS. Why, this it is: my heart accords thereto;\n    And yet a thousand times it answers 'No.'             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nMilan. The DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter VALENTINE and SPEED\n\n  SPEED. Sir, your glove.\n  VALENTINE. Not mine: my gloves are on.\n  SPEED. Why, then, this may be yours; for this is but one.\n  VALENTINE. Ha! let me see; ay, give it me, it's mine;\n    Sweet ornament that decks a thing divine!\n    Ah, Silvia! Silvia!\n  SPEED.  [Calling]  Madam Silvia! Madam Silvia!\n  VALENTINE. How now, sirrah?\n  SPEED. She is not within hearing, sir.\n  VALENTINE. Why, sir, who bade you call her?\n  SPEED. Your worship, sir; or else I mistook.\n  VALENTINE. Well, you'll still be too forward.\n  SPEED. And yet I was last chidden for being too slow.\n  VALENTINE. Go to, sir; tell me, do you know Madam Silvia?\n  SPEED. She that your worship loves?\n  VALENTINE. Why, how know you that I am in love?\n  SPEED. Marry, by these special marks: first, you have learn'd,\nlike\n    Sir Proteus, to wreath your arms like a malcontent; to relish\na\n    love-song, like a robin redbreast; to walk alone, like one\nthat\n    had the pestilence; to sigh, like a school-boy that had lost\nhis\n    A B C; to weep, like a young wench that had buried her\ngrandam;\n    to fast, like one that takes diet; to watch, like one that\nfears\n    robbing; to speak puling, like a beggar at Hallowmas. You\nwere\n    wont, when you laughed, to crow like a cock; when you walk'd,\nto\n    walk like one of the lions; when you fasted, it was presently\n    after dinner; when you look'd sadly, it was for want of\nmoney.\n    And now you are metamorphis'd with a mistress, that, when I\nlook\n    on you, I can hardly think you my master.\n  VALENTINE. Are all these things perceiv'd in me?\n  SPEED. They are all perceiv'd without ye.\n  VALENTINE. Without me? They cannot.\n  SPEED. Without you! Nay, that's certain; for, without you were\nso\n    simple, none else would; but you are so without these follies\n    that these follies are within you, and shine through you like\nthe\n    water in an urinal, that not an eye that sees you but is a\n    physician to comment on your malady.\n  VALENTINE. But tell me, dost thou know my lady Silvia?\n  SPEED. She that you gaze on so, as she sits at supper?\n  VALENTINE. Hast thou observ'd that? Even she, I mean.\n  SPEED. Why, sir, I know her not.\n  VALENTINE. Dost thou know her by my gazing on her, and yet\nknow'st\n    her not?\n  SPEED. Is she not hard-favour'd, sir?\n  VALENTINE. Not so fair, boy, as well-favour'd.\n  SPEED. Sir, I know that well enough.\n  VALENTINE. What dost thou know?\n  SPEED. That she is not so fair as, of you, well-favour'd.\n  VALENTINE. I mean that her beauty is exquisite, but her favour\n    infinite.\n  SPEED. That's because the one is painted, and the other out of\nall\n    count.\n  VALENTINE. How painted? and how out of count?\n  SPEED. Marry, sir, so painted, to make her fair, that no man\ncounts\n    of her beauty.\n  VALENTINE. How esteem'st thou me? I account of her beauty.\n  SPEED. You never saw her since she was deform'd.\n  VALENTINE. How long hath she been deform'd?\n  SPEED. Ever since you lov'd her.\n  VALENTINE. I have lov'd her ever since I saw her, and still\n    I see her beautiful.\n  SPEED. If you love her, you cannot see her.\n  VALENTINE. Why?\n  SPEED. Because Love is blind. O that you had mine eyes; or your\nown\n    eyes had the lights they were wont to have when you chid at\nSir\n    Proteus for going ungarter'd!\n  VALENTINE. What should I see then?\n  SPEED. Your own present folly and her passing deformity; for\nhe,\n    being in love, could not see to garter his hose; and you,\nbeing\n    in love, cannot see to put on your hose.\n  VALENTINE. Belike, boy, then you are in love; for last morning\nyou\n    could not see to wipe my shoes.\n  SPEED. True, sir; I was in love with my bed. I thank you, you\n    swing'd me for my love, which makes me the bolder to chide\nyou\n    for yours.\n  VALENTINE. In conclusion, I stand affected to her.\n  SPEED. I would you were set, so your affection would cease.\n  VALENTINE. Last night she enjoin'd me to write some lines to\none\n    she loves.\n  SPEED. And have you?\n  VALENTINE. I have.\n  SPEED. Are they not lamely writ?\n  VALENTINE. No, boy, but as well as I can do them.\n\n                           Enter SILVIA\n\n    Peace! here she comes.\n  SPEED.  [Aside]  O excellent motion! O exceeding puppet!\n    Now will he interpret to her.\n  VALENTINE. Madam and mistress, a thousand good morrows.\n  SPEED.  [Aside]  O, give ye good ev'n!\n    Here's a million of manners.\n  SILVIA. Sir Valentine and servant, to you two thousand.\n  SPEED.  [Aside]  He should give her interest, and she gives it\nhim.\n  VALENTINE. As you enjoin'd me, I have writ your letter\n    Unto the secret nameless friend of yours;\n    Which I was much unwilling to proceed in,\n    But for my duty to your ladyship.\n  SILVIA. I thank you, gentle servant. 'Tis very clerkly done.\n  VALENTINE. Now trust me, madam, it came hardly off;\n    For, being ignorant to whom it goes,\n    I writ at random, very doubtfully.\n  SILVIA. Perchance you think too much of so much pains?\n  VALENTINE. No, madam; so it stead you, I will write,\n    Please you command, a thousand times as much;\n    And yet-\n  SILVIA. A pretty period! Well, I guess the sequel;\n    And yet I will not name it- and yet I care not.\n    And yet take this again- and yet I thank you-\n    Meaning henceforth to trouble you no more.\n  SPEED.  [Aside]  And yet you will; and yet another' yet.'\n  VALENTINE. What means your ladyship? Do you not like it?\n  SILVIA. Yes, yes; the lines are very quaintly writ;\n    But, since unwillingly, take them again.\n    Nay, take them.                      [Gives hack the letter]\n  VALENTINE. Madam, they are for you.\n  SILVIA. Ay, ay, you writ them, sir, at my request;\n    But I will none of them; they are for you:\n    I would have had them writ more movingly.\n  VALENTINE. Please you, I'll write your ladyship another.\n  SILVIA. And when it's writ, for my sake read it over;\n    And if it please you, so; if not, why, so.\n  VALENTINE. If it please me, madam, what then?\n  SILVIA. Why, if it please you, take it for your labour.\n    And so good morrow, servant.                     Exit SILVIA\n  SPEED. O jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible,\n    As a nose on a man's face, or a weathercock on a steeple!\n    My master sues to her; and she hath taught her suitor,\n    He being her pupil, to become her tutor.\n    O excellent device! Was there ever heard a better,\n    That my master, being scribe, to himself should write the\nletter?\n  VALENTINE. How now, sir! What are you reasoning with yourself?\n  SPEED. Nay, I was rhyming: 'tis you that have the reason.\n  VALENTINE. To do what?\n  SPEED. To be a spokesman from Madam Silvia?\n  VALENTINE. To whom?\n  SPEED. To yourself; why, she woos you by a figure.\n  VALENTINE. What figure?\n  SPEED. By a letter, I should say.\n  VALENTINE. Why, she hath not writ to me.\n  SPEED. What need she, when she hath made you write to yourself?\n    Why, do you not perceive the jest?\n  VALENTINE. No, believe me.\n  SPEED. No believing you indeed, sir. But did you perceive her\n    earnest?\n  VALENTINE. She gave me none except an angry word.\n  SPEED. Why, she hath given you a letter.\n  VALENTINE. That's the letter I writ to her friend.\n  SPEED. And that letter hath she deliver'd, and there an end.\n  VALENTINE. I would it were no worse.\n  SPEED. I'll warrant you 'tis as well.\n    'For often have you writ to her; and she, in modesty,\n    Or else for want of idle time, could not again reply;\n    Or fearing else some messenger that might her mind discover,\n    Herself hath taught her love himself to write unto her\nlover.'\n    All this I speak in print, for in print I found it. Why muse\nyou,\n    sir? 'Tis dinner time.\n  VALENTINE. I have din'd.\n  SPEED. Ay, but hearken, sir; though the chameleon Love can feed\non\n    the air, I am one that am nourish'd by my victuals, and would\n    fain have meat. O, be not like your mistress! Be moved, be\nmoved.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nVerona. JULIA'S house\n\nEnter PROTEUS and JULIA\n\n  PROTEUS. Have patience, gentle Julia.\n  JULIA. I must, where is no remedy.\n  PROTEUS. When possibly I can, I will return.\n  JULIA. If you turn not, you will return the sooner.\n    Keep this remembrance for thy Julia's sake.\n                                                 [Giving a ring]\n  PROTEUS. Why, then, we'll make exchange. Here, take you this.\n  JULIA. And seal the bargain with a holy kiss.\n  PROTEUS. Here is my hand for my true constancy;\n    And when that hour o'erslips me in the day\n    Wherein I sigh not, Julia, for thy sake,\n    The next ensuing hour some foul mischance\n    Torment me for my love's forgetfulness!\n    My father stays my coming; answer not;\n    The tide is now- nay, not thy tide of tears:\n    That tide will stay me longer than I should.\n    Julia, farewell!                                  Exit JULIA\n    What, gone without a word?\n    Ay, so true love should do: it cannot speak;\n    For truth hath better deeds than words to grace it.\n\n                          Enter PANTHINO\n\n  PANTHINO. Sir Proteus, you are stay'd for.\n  PROTEUS. Go; I come, I come.\n    Alas! this parting strikes poor lovers dumb.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nVerona. A street\n\nEnter LAUNCE, leading a dog\n\n  LAUNCE. Nay, 'twill be this hour ere I have done weeping; all\nthe\n    kind of the Launces have this very fault. I have receiv'd my\n    proportion, like the Prodigious Son, and am going with Sir\n    Proteus to the Imperial's court. I think Crab my dog be the\n    sourest-natured dog that lives: my mother weeping, my father\n    wailing, my sister crying, our maid howling, our cat wringing\nher\n    hands, and all our house in a great perplexity; yet did not\nthis\n    cruel-hearted cur shed one tear. He is a stone, a very pebble\n    stone, and has no more pity in him than a dog. A Jew would\nhave\n    wept to have seen our parting; why, my grandam having no\neyes,\n    look you, wept herself blind at my parting. Nay, I'll show\nyou\n    the manner of it. This shoe is my father; no, this left shoe\nis\n    my father; no, no, left shoe is my mother; nay, that cannot\nbe so\n    neither; yes, it is so, it is so, it hath the worser sole.\nThis\n    shoe with the hole in it is my mother, and this my father. A\n    vengeance on 't! There 'tis. Now, sir, this staff is my\nsister,\n    for, look you, she is as white as a lily and as small as a\nwand;\n    this hat is Nan our maid; I am the dog; no, the dog is\nhimself,\n    and I am the dog- O, the dog is me, and I am myself; ay, so,\nso.\n    Now come I to my father: 'Father, your blessing.' Now should\nnot\n    the shoe speak a word for weeping; now should I kiss my\nfather;\n    well, he weeps on. Now come I to my mother. O that she could\n    speak now like a wood woman! Well, I kiss her- why there\n'tis;\n    here's my mother's breath up and down. Now come I to my\nsister;\n    mark the moan she makes. Now the dog all this while sheds not\na\n    tear, nor speaks a word; but see how I lay the dust with my\n    tears.\n\n                            Enter PANTHINO\n\n  PANTHINO. Launce, away, away, aboard! Thy master is shipp'd,\nand\n    thou art to post after with oars. What's the matter? Why\nweep'st\n    thou, man? Away, ass! You'll lose the tide if you tarry any\n    longer.\n  LAUNCE. It is no matter if the tied were lost; for it is the\n    unkindest tied that ever any man tied.\n  PANTHINO. What's the unkindest tide?\n  LAUNCE. Why, he that's tied here, Crab, my dog.\n  PANTHINO. Tut, man, I mean thou'lt lose the flood, and, in\nlosing\n    the flood, lose thy voyage, and, in losing thy voyage, lose\nthy\n    master, and, in losing thy master, lose thy service, and, in\n    losing thy service- Why dost thou stop my mouth?\n  LAUNCE. For fear thou shouldst lose thy tongue.\n  PANTHINO. Where should I lose my tongue?\n  LAUNCE. In thy tale.\n  PANTHINO. In thy tail!\n  LAUNCE. Lose the tide, and the voyage, and the master, and the\n    service, and the tied! Why, man, if the river were dry, I am\nable\n    to fill it with my tears; if the wind were down, I could\ndrive\n    the boat with my sighs.\n  PANTHINO. Come, come away, man; I was sent to call thee.\n  LAUNCE. Sir, call me what thou dar'st.\n  PANTHINO. Will thou go?\n  LAUNCE. Well, I will go.                                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nMilan. The DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter SILVIA, VALENTINE, THURIO, and SPEED\n\n  SILVIA. Servant!\n  VALENTINE. Mistress?\n  SPEED. Master, Sir Thurio frowns on you.\n  VALENTINE. Ay, boy, it's for love.\n  SPEED. Not of you.\n  VALENTINE. Of my mistress, then.\n  SPEED. 'Twere good you knock'd him.                       Exit\n  SILVIA. Servant, you are sad.\n  VALENTINE. Indeed, madam, I seem so.\n  THURIO. Seem you that you are not?\n  VALENTINE. Haply I do.\n  THURIO. So do counterfeits.\n  VALENTINE. So do you.\n  THURIO. What seem I that I am not?\n  VALENTINE. Wise.\n  THURIO. What instance of the contrary?\n  VALENTINE. Your folly.\n  THURIO. And how quote you my folly?\n  VALENTINE. I quote it in your jerkin.\n  THURIO. My jerkin is a doublet.\n  VALENTINE. Well, then, I'll double your folly.\n  THURIO. How?\n  SILVIA. What, angry, Sir Thurio! Do you change colour?\n  VALENTINE. Give him leave, madam; he is a kind of chameleon.\n  THURIO. That hath more mind to feed on your blood than live in\nyour\n    air.\n  VALENTINE. You have said, sir.\n  THURIO. Ay, sir, and done too, for this time.\n  VALENTINE. I know it well, sir; you always end ere you begin.\n  SILVIA. A fine volley of words, gentlemen, and quickly shot\noff.\n  VALENTINE. 'Tis indeed, madam; we thank the giver.\n  SILVIA. Who is that, servant?\n  VALENTINE. Yourself, sweet lady; for you gave the fire. Sir\nThurio\n    borrows his wit from your ladyship's looks, and spends what\nhe\n    borrows kindly in your company.\n  THURIO. Sir, if you spend word for word with me, I shall make\nyour\n    wit bankrupt.\n  VALENTINE. I know it well, sir; you have an exchequer of words,\n    and, I think, no other treasure to give your followers; for\nit\n    appears by their bare liveries that they live by your bare\nwords.\n\n                             Enter DUKE\n\n  SILVIA. No more, gentlemen, no more. Here comes my father.\n  DUKE. Now, daughter Silvia, you are hard beset.\n    Sir Valentine, your father is in good health.\n    What say you to a letter from your friends\n    Of much good news?\n  VALENTINE. My lord, I will be thankful\n    To any happy messenger from thence.\n  DUKE. Know ye Don Antonio, your countryman?\n  VALENTINE. Ay, my good lord, I know the gentleman\n    To be of worth and worthy estimation,\n    And not without desert so well reputed.\n  DUKE. Hath he not a son?\n  VALENTINE. Ay, my good lord; a son that well deserves\n    The honour and regard of such a father.\n  DUKE. You know him well?\n  VALENTINE. I knew him as myself; for from our infancy\n    We have convers'd and spent our hours together;\n    And though myself have been an idle truant,\n    Omitting the sweet benefit of time\n    To clothe mine age with angel-like perfection,\n    Yet hath Sir Proteus, for that's his name,\n    Made use and fair advantage of his days:\n    His years but young, but his experience old;\n    His head unmellowed, but his judgment ripe;\n    And, in a word, for far behind his worth\n    Comes all the praises that I now bestow,\n    He is complete in feature and in mind,\n    With all good grace to grace a gentleman.\n  DUKE. Beshrew me, sir, but if he make this good,\n    He is as worthy for an empress' love\n    As meet to be an emperor's counsellor.\n    Well, sir, this gentleman is come to me\n    With commendation from great potentates,\n    And here he means to spend his time awhile.\n    I think 'tis no unwelcome news to you.\n  VALENTINE. Should I have wish'd a thing, it had been he.\n  DUKE. Welcome him, then, according to his worth-\n    Silvia, I speak to you, and you, Sir Thurio;\n    For Valentine, I need not cite him to it.\n    I will send him hither to you presently.           Exit DUKE\n  VALENTINE. This is the gentleman I told your ladyship\n    Had come along with me but that his mistresss\n    Did hold his eyes lock'd in her crystal looks.\n  SILVIA. Belike that now she hath enfranchis'd them\n    Upon some other pawn for fealty.\n  VALENTINE. Nay, sure, I think she holds them prisoners still.\n  SILVIA. Nay, then, he should be blind; and, being blind,\n    How could he see his way to seek out you?\n  VALENTINE. Why, lady, Love hath twenty pair of eyes.\n  THURIO. They say that Love hath not an eye at all.\n  VALENTINE. To see such lovers, Thurio, as yourself;\n    Upon a homely object Love can wink.              Exit THURIO\n\n                         Enter PROTEUS\n\n  SILVIA. Have done, have done; here comes the gentleman.\n  VALENTINE. Welcome, dear Proteus! Mistress, I beseech you\n    Confirm his welcome with some special favour.\n  SILVIA. His worth is warrant for his welcome hither,\n    If this be he you oft have wish'd to hear from.\n  VALENTINE. Mistress, it is; sweet lady, entertain him\n    To be my fellow-servant to your ladyship.\n  SILVIA. Too low a mistress for so high a servant.\n  PROTEUS. Not so, sweet lady; but too mean a servant\n    To have a look of such a worthy mistress.\n  VALENTINE. Leave off discourse of disability;\n    Sweet lady, entertain him for your servant.\n  PROTEUS. My duty will I boast of, nothing else.\n  SILVIA. And duty never yet did want his meed.\n    Servant, you are welcome to a worthless mistress.\n  PROTEUS. I'll die on him that says so but yourself.\n  SILVIA. That you are welcome?\n  PROTEUS. That you are worthless.\n\n                          Re-enter THURIO\n\n  THURIO. Madam, my lord your father would speak with you.\n  SILVIA. I wait upon his pleasure. Come, Sir Thurio,\n    Go with me. Once more, new servant, welcome.\n    I'll leave you to confer of home affairs;\n    When you have done we look to hear from you.\n  PROTEUS. We'll both attend upon your ladyship.\n                                        Exeunt SILVIA and THURIO\n  VALENTINE. Now, tell me, how do all from whence you came?\n  PROTEUS. Your friends are well, and have them much commended.\n  VALENTINE. And how do yours?\n  PROTEUS. I left them all in health.\n  VALENTINE. How does your lady, and how thrives your love?\n  PROTEUS. My tales of love were wont to weary you;\n    I know you joy not in a love-discourse.\n  VALENTINE. Ay, Proteus, but that life is alter'd now;\n    I have done penance for contemning Love,\n    Whose high imperious thoughts have punish'd me\n    With bitter fasts, with penitential groans,\n    With nightly tears, and daily heart-sore sighs;\n    For, in revenge of my contempt of love,\n    Love hath chas'd sleep from my enthralled eyes\n    And made them watchers of mine own heart's sorrow.\n    O gentle Proteus, Love's a mighty lord,\n    And hath so humbled me as I confess\n    There is no woe to his correction,\n    Nor to his service no such joy on earth.\n    Now no discourse, except it be of love;\n    Now can I break my fast, dine, sup, and sleep,\n    Upon the very naked name of love.\n  PROTEUS. Enough; I read your fortune in your eye.\n    Was this the idol that you worship so?\n  VALENTINE. Even she; and is she not a heavenly saint?\n  PROTEUS. No; but she is an earthly paragon.\n  VALENTINE. Call her divine.\n  PROTEUS. I will not flatter her.\n  VALENTINE. O, flatter me; for love delights in praises!\n  PROTEUS. When I was sick you gave me bitter pills,\n    And I must minister the like to you.\n  VALENTINE. Then speak the truth by her; if not divine,\n    Yet let her be a principality,\n    Sovereign to all the creatures on the earth.\n  PROTEUS. Except my mistress.\n  VALENTINE. Sweet, except not any;\n    Except thou wilt except against my love.\n  PROTEUS. Have I not reason to prefer mine own?\n  VALENTINE. And I will help thee to prefer her too:\n    She shall be dignified with this high honour-\n    To bear my lady's train, lest the base earth\n    Should from her vesture chance to steal a kiss\n    And, of so great a favour growing proud,\n    Disdain to root the summer-swelling flow'r\n    And make rough winter everlastingly.\n  PROTEUS. Why, Valentine, what braggardism is this?\n  VALENTINE. Pardon me, Proteus; all I can is nothing\n    To her, whose worth makes other worthies nothing;\n    She is alone.\n  PROTEUS. Then let her alone.\n  VALENTINE. Not for the world! Why, man, she is mine own;\n    And I as rich in having such a jewel\n    As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,\n    The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.\n    Forgive me that I do not dream on thee,\n    Because thou seest me dote upon my love.\n    My foolish rival, that her father likes\n    Only for his possessions are so huge,\n    Is gone with her along; and I must after,\n    For love, thou know'st, is full of jealousy.\n  PROTEUS. But she loves you?\n  VALENTINE. Ay, and we are betroth'd; nay more, our\nmarriage-hour,\n    With all the cunning manner of our flight,\n    Determin'd of- how I must climb her window,\n    The ladder made of cords, and all the means\n    Plotted and 'greed on for my happiness.\n    Good Proteus, go with me to my chamber,\n    In these affairs to aid me with thy counsel.\n  PROTEUS. Go on before; I shall enquire you forth;\n    I must unto the road to disembark\n    Some necessaries that I needs must use;\n    And then I'll presently attend you.\n  VALENTINE. Will you make haste?\n  PROTEUS. I will.                                Exit VALENTINE\n    Even as one heat another heat expels\n    Or as one nail by strength drives out another,\n    So the remembrance of my former love\n    Is by a newer object quite forgotten.\n    Is it my mind, or Valentinus' praise,\n    Her true perfection, or my false transgression,\n    That makes me reasonless to reason thus?\n    She is fair; and so is Julia that I love-\n    That I did love, for now my love is thaw'd;\n    Which like a waxen image 'gainst a fire\n    Bears no impression of the thing it was.\n    Methinks my zeal to Valentine is cold,\n    And that I love him not as I was wont.\n    O! but I love his lady too too much,\n    And that's the reason I love him so little.\n    How shall I dote on her with more advice\n    That thus without advice begin to love her!\n    'Tis but her picture I have yet beheld,\n    And that hath dazzled my reason's light;\n    But when I look on her perfections,\n    There is no reason but I shall be blind.\n    If I can check my erring love, I will;\n    If not, to compass her I'll use my skill.               Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nMilan. A street\n\nEnter SPEED and LAUNCE severally\n\n  SPEED. Launce! by mine honesty, welcome to Padua.\n  LAUNCE. Forswear not thyself, sweet youth, for I am not\nwelcome. I\n    reckon this always, that a man is never undone till he be\nhang'd,\n    nor never welcome to a place till some certain shot be paid,\nand\n    the hostess say 'Welcome!'\n  SPEED. Come on, you madcap; I'll to the alehouse with you\n    presently; where, for one shot of five pence, thou shalt have\n    five thousand welcomes. But, sirrah, how did thy master part\nwith\n    Madam Julia?\n  LAUNCE. Marry, after they clos'd in earnest, they parted very\n    fairly in jest.\n  SPEED. But shall she marry him?\n  LAUNCE. No.\n  SPEED. How then? Shall he marry her?\n  LAUNCE. No, neither.\n  SPEED. What, are they broken?\n  LAUNCE. No, they are both as whole as a fish.\n  SPEED. Why then, how stands the matter with them?\n  LAUNCE. Marry, thus: when it stands well with him, it stands\nwell\n    with her.\n  SPEED. What an ass art thou! I understand thee not.\n  LAUNCE. What a block art thou that thou canst not! My staff\n    understands me.\n  SPEED. What thou say'st?\n  LAUNCE. Ay, and what I do too; look thee, I'll but lean, and my\n    staff understands me.\n  SPEED. It stands under thee, indeed.\n  LAUNCE. Why, stand-under and under-stand is all one.\n  SPEED. But tell me true, will't be a match?\n  LAUNCE. Ask my dog. If he say ay, it will; if he say no, it\nwill;\n    if he shake his tail and say nothing, it will.\n  SPEED. The conclusion is, then, that it will.\n  LAUNCE. Thou shalt never get such a secret from me but by a\n    parable.\n  SPEED. 'Tis well that I get it so. But, Launce, how say'st thou\n    that my master is become a notable lover?\n  LAUNCE. I never knew him otherwise.\n  SPEED. Than how?\n  LAUNCE. A notable lubber, as thou reportest him to be.\n  SPEED. Why, thou whoreson ass, thou mistak'st me.\n  LAUNCE. Why, fool, I meant not thee, I meant thy master.\n  SPEED. I tell thee my master is become a hot lover.\n  LAUNCE. Why, I tell thee I care not though he burn himself in\nlove.\n    If thou wilt, go with me to the alehouse; if not, thou art an\n    Hebrew, a Jew, and not worth the name of a Christian.\n  SPEED. Why?\n  LAUNCE. Because thou hast not so much charity in thee as to go\nto\n    the ale with a Christian. Wilt thou go?\n  SPEED. At thy service.                                  Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nMilan. The DUKE's palace\n\nEnter PROTEUS\n\n  PROTEUS. To leave my Julia, shall I be forsworn;\n    To love fair Silvia, shall I be forsworn;\n    To wrong my friend, I shall be much forsworn;\n    And ev'n that pow'r which gave me first my oath\n    Provokes me to this threefold perjury:\n    Love bade me swear, and Love bids me forswear.\n    O sweet-suggesting Love, if thou hast sinn'd,\n    Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it!\n    At first I did adore a twinkling star,\n    But now I worship a celestial sun.\n    Unheedful vows may heedfully be broken;\n    And he wants wit that wants resolved will\n    To learn his wit t' exchange the bad for better.\n    Fie, fie, unreverend tongue, to call her bad\n    Whose sovereignty so oft thou hast preferr'd\n    With twenty thousand soul-confirming oaths!\n    I cannot leave to love, and yet I do;\n    But there I leave to love where I should love.\n    Julia I lose, and Valentine I lose;\n    If I keep them, I needs must lose myself;\n    If I lose them, thus find I by their loss:\n    For Valentine, myself; for Julia, Silvia.\n    I to myself am dearer than a friend;\n    For love is still most precious in itself;\n    And Silvia- witness heaven, that made her fair!-\n    Shows Julia but a swarthy Ethiope.\n    I will forget that Julia is alive,\n    Rememb'ring that my love to her is dead;\n    And Valentine I'll hold an enemy,\n    Aiming at Silvia as a sweeter friend.\n    I cannot now prove constant to myself\n    Without some treachery us'd to Valentine.\n    This night he meaneth with a corded ladder\n    To climb celestial Silvia's chamber window,\n    Myself in counsel, his competitor.\n    Now presently I'll give her father notice\n    Of their disguising and pretended flight,\n    Who, all enrag'd, will banish Valentine,\n    For Thurio, he intends, shall wed his daughter;\n    But, Valentine being gone, I'll quickly cross\n    By some sly trick blunt Thurio's dull proceeding.\n    Love, lend me wings to make my purpose swift,\n    As thou hast lent me wit to plot this drift.            Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nVerona. JULIA'S house\n\nEnter JULIA and LUCETTA\n\n  JULIA. Counsel, Lucetta; gentle girl, assist me;\n    And, ev'n in kind love, I do conjure thee,\n    Who art the table wherein all my thoughts\n    Are visibly character'd and engrav'd,\n    To lesson me and tell me some good mean\n    How, with my honour, I may undertake\n    A journey to my loving Proteus.\n  LUCETTA. Alas, the way is wearisome and long!\n  JULIA. A true-devoted pilgrim is not weary\n    To measure kingdoms with his feeble steps;\n    Much less shall she that hath Love's wings to fly,\n    And when the flight is made to one so dear,\n    Of such divine perfection, as Sir Proteus.\n  LUCETTA. Better forbear till Proteus make return.\n  JULIA. O, know'st thou not his looks are my soul's food?\n    Pity the dearth that I have pined in\n    By longing for that food so long a time.\n    Didst thou but know the inly touch of love.\n    Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow\n    As seek to quench the fire of love with words.\n  LUCETTA. I do not seek to quench your love's hot fire,\n    But qualify the fire's extreme rage,\n    Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason.\n  JULIA. The more thou dam'st it up, the more it burns.\n    The current that with gentle murmur glides,\n    Thou know'st, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage;\n    But when his fair course is not hindered,\n    He makes sweet music with th' enamell'd stones,\n    Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge\n    He overtaketh in his pilgrimage;\n    And so by many winding nooks he strays,\n    With willing sport, to the wild ocean.\n    Then let me go, and hinder not my course.\n    I'll be as patient as a gentle stream,\n    And make a pastime of each weary step,\n    Till the last step have brought me to my love;\n    And there I'll rest as, after much turmoil,\n    A blessed soul doth in Elysium.\n  LUCETTA. But in what habit will you go along?\n  JULIA. Not like a woman, for I would prevent\n    The loose encounters of lascivious men;\n    Gentle Lucetta, fit me with such weeds\n    As may beseem some well-reputed page.\n  LUCETTA. Why then, your ladyship must cut your hair.\n  JULIA. No, girl; I'll knit it up in silken strings\n    With twenty odd-conceited true-love knots-\n    To be fantastic may become a youth\n    Of greater time than I shall show to be.\n  LUCETTA. What fashion, madam, shall I make your breeches?\n  JULIA. That fits as well as 'Tell me, good my lord,\n    What compass will you wear your farthingale.'\n    Why ev'n what fashion thou best likes, Lucetta.\n  LUCETTA. You must needs have them with a codpiece, madam.\n  JULIA. Out, out, Lucetta, that will be ill-favour'd.\n  LUCETTA. A round hose, madam, now's not worth a pin,\n    Unless you have a codpiece to stick pins on.\n  JULIA. Lucetta, as thou lov'st me, let me have\n    What thou think'st meet, and is most mannerly.\n    But tell me, wench, how will the world repute me\n    For undertaking so unstaid a journey?\n    I fear me it will make me scandaliz'd.\n  LUCETTA. If you think so, then stay at home and go not.\n  JULIA. Nay, that I will not.\n  LUCETTA. Then never dream on infamy, but go.\n    If Proteus like your journey when you come,\n    No matter who's displeas'd when you are gone.\n    I fear me he will scarce be pleas'd withal.\n  JULIA. That is the least, Lucetta, of my fear:\n    A thousand oaths, an ocean of his tears,\n    And instances of infinite of love,\n    Warrant me welcome to my Proteus.\n  LUCETTA. All these are servants to deceitful men.\n  JULIA. Base men that use them to so base effect!\n    But truer stars did govern Proteus' birth;\n    His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles,\n    His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate,\n    His tears pure messengers sent from his heart,\n    His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth.\n  LUCETTA. Pray heav'n he prove so when you come to him.\n  JULIA. Now, as thou lov'st me, do him not that wrong\n    To bear a hard opinion of his truth;\n    Only deserve my love by loving him.\n    And presently go with me to my chamber,\n    To take a note of what I stand in need of\n    To furnish me upon my longing journey.\n    All that is mine I leave at thy dispose,\n    My goods, my lands, my reputation;\n    Only, in lieu thereof, dispatch me hence.\n    Come, answer not, but to it presently;\n    I am impatient of my tarriance.                       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nMilan. The DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter DUKE, THURIO, and PROTEUS\n\n  DUKE. Sir Thurio, give us leave, I pray, awhile;\n    We have some secrets to confer about.            Exit THURIO\n    Now tell me, Proteus, what's your will with me?\n  PROTEUS. My gracious lord, that which I would discover\n    The law of friendship bids me to conceal;\n    But, when I call to mind your gracious favours\n    Done to me, undeserving as I am,\n    My duty pricks me on to utter that\n    Which else no worldly good should draw from me.\n    Know, worthy prince, Sir Valentine, my friend,\n    This night intends to steal away your daughter;\n    Myself am one made privy to the plot.\n    I know you have determin'd to bestow her\n    On Thurio, whom your gentle daughter hates;\n    And should she thus be stol'n away from you,\n    It would be much vexation to your age.\n    Thus, for my duty's sake, I rather chose\n    To cross my friend in his intended drift\n    Than, by concealing it, heap on your head\n    A pack of sorrows which would press you down,\n    Being unprevented, to your timeless grave.\n  DUKE. Proteus, I thank thee for thine honest care,\n    Which to requite, command me while I live.\n    This love of theirs myself have often seen,\n    Haply when they have judg'd me fast asleep,\n    And oftentimes have purpos'd to forbid\n    Sir Valentine her company and my court;\n    But, fearing lest my jealous aim might err\n    And so, unworthily, disgrace the man,\n    A rashness that I ever yet have shunn'd,\n    I gave him gentle looks, thereby to find\n    That which thyself hast now disclos'd to me.\n    And, that thou mayst perceive my fear of this,\n    Knowing that tender youth is soon suggested,\n    I nightly lodge her in an upper tow'r,\n    The key whereof myself have ever kept;\n    And thence she cannot be convey'd away.\n  PROTEUS. Know, noble lord, they have devis'd a mean\n    How he her chamber window will ascend\n    And with a corded ladder fetch her down;\n    For which the youthful lover now is gone,\n    And this way comes he with it presently;\n    Where, if it please you, you may intercept him.\n    But, good my lord, do it so cunningly\n    That my discovery be not aimed at;\n    For love of you, not hate unto my friend,\n    Hath made me publisher of this pretence.\n  DUKE. Upon mine honour, he shall never know\n    That I had any light from thee of this.\n  PROTEUS. Adieu, my lord; Sir Valentine is coming.         Exit\n\n                        Enter VALENTINE\n\n  DUKE. Sir Valentine, whither away so fast?\n  VALENTINE. Please it your Grace, there is a messenger\n    That stays to bear my letters to my friends,\n    And I am going to deliver them.\n  DUKE. Be they of much import?\n  VALENTINE. The tenour of them doth but signify\n    My health and happy being at your court.\n  DUKE. Nay then, no matter; stay with me awhile;\n    I am to break with thee of some affairs\n    That touch me near, wherein thou must be secret.\n    'Tis not unknown to thee that I have sought\n    To match my friend Sir Thurio to my daughter.\n  VALENTINE. I know it well, my lord; and, sure, the match\n    Were rich and honourable; besides, the gentleman\n    Is full of virtue, bounty, worth, and qualities\n    Beseeming such a wife as your fair daughter.\n    Cannot your grace win her to fancy him?\n  DUKE. No, trust me; she is peevish, sullen, froward,\n    Proud, disobedient, stubborn, lacking duty;\n    Neither regarding that she is my child\n    Nor fearing me as if I were her father;\n    And, may I say to thee, this pride of hers,\n    Upon advice, hath drawn my love from her;\n    And, where I thought the remnant of mine age\n    Should have been cherish'd by her childlike duty,\n    I now am full resolv'd to take a wife\n    And turn her out to who will take her in.\n    Then let her beauty be her wedding-dow'r;\n    For me and my possessions she esteems not.\n  VALENTINE. What would your Grace have me to do in this?\n  DUKE. There is a lady, in Verona here,\n    Whom I affect; but she is nice, and coy,\n    And nought esteems my aged eloquence.\n    Now, therefore, would I have thee to my tutor-\n    For long agone I have forgot to court;\n    Besides, the fashion of the time is chang'd-\n    How and which way I may bestow myself\n    To be regarded in her sun-bright eye.\n  VALENTINE. Win her with gifts, if she respect not words:\n    Dumb jewels often in their silent kind\n    More than quick words do move a woman's mind.\n  DUKE. But she did scorn a present that I sent her.\n  VALENTINE. A woman sometime scorns what best contents her.\n    Send her another; never give her o'er,\n    For scorn at first makes after-love the more.\n    If she do frown, 'tis not in hate of you,\n    But rather to beget more love in you;\n    If she do chide, 'tis not to have you gone,\n    For why, the fools are mad if left alone.\n    Take no repulse, whatever she doth say;\n    For 'Get you gone' she doth not mean 'Away!'\n    Flatter and praise, commend, extol their graces;\n    Though ne'er so black, say they have angels' faces.\n    That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man,\n    If with his tongue he cannot win a woman.\n  DUKE. But she I mean is promis'd by her friends\n    Unto a youthful gentleman of worth;\n    And kept severely from resort of men,\n    That no man hath access by day to her.\n  VALENTINE. Why then I would resort to her by night.\n  DUKE. Ay, but the doors be lock'd and keys kept safe,\n    That no man hath recourse to her by night.\n  VALENTINE. What lets but one may enter at her window?\n  DUKE. Her chamber is aloft, far from the ground,\n    And built so shelving that one cannot climb it\n    Without apparent hazard of his life.\n  VALENTINE. Why then a ladder, quaintly made of cords,\n    To cast up with a pair of anchoring hooks,\n    Would serve to scale another Hero's tow'r,\n    So bold Leander would adventure it.\n  DUKE. Now, as thou art a gentleman of blood,\n    Advise me where I may have such a ladder.\n  VALENTINE. When would you use it? Pray, sir, tell me that.\n  DUKE. This very night; for Love is like a child,\n    That longs for everything that he can come by.\n  VALENTINE. By seven o'clock I'll get you such a ladder.\n  DUKE. But, hark thee; I will go to her alone;\n    How shall I best convey the ladder thither?\n  VALENTINE. It will be light, my lord, that you may bear it\n    Under a cloak that is of any length.\n  DUKE. A cloak as long as thine will serve the turn?\n  VALENTINE. Ay, my good lord.\n  DUKE. Then let me see thy cloak.\n    I'll get me one of such another length.\n  VALENTINE. Why, any cloak will serve the turn, my lord.\n  DUKE. How shall I fashion me to wear a cloak?\n    I pray thee, let me feel thy cloak upon me.\n    What letter is this same? What's here? 'To Silvia'!\n    And here an engine fit for my proceeding!\n    I'll be so bold to break the seal for once.          [Reads]\n      'My thoughts do harbour with my Silvia nightly,\n        And slaves they are to me, that send them flying.\n      O, could their master come and go as lightly,\n        Himself would lodge where, senseless, they are lying!\n      My herald thoughts in thy pure bosom rest them,\n        While I, their king, that thither them importune,\n      Do curse the grace that with such grace hath blest them,\n        Because myself do want my servants' fortune.\n      I curse myself, for they are sent by me,\n        That they should harbour where their lord should be.'\n    What's here?\n      'Silvia, this night I will enfranchise thee.'\n    'Tis so; and here's the ladder for the purpose.\n    Why, Phaethon- for thou art Merops' son-\n    Wilt thou aspire to guide the heavenly car,\n    And with thy daring folly burn the world?\n    Wilt thou reach stars because they shine on thee?\n    Go, base intruder, over-weening slave,\n    Bestow thy fawning smiles on equal mates;\n    And think my patience, more than thy desert,\n    Is privilege for thy departure hence.\n    Thank me for this more than for all the favours\n    Which, all too much, I have bestow'd on thee.\n    But if thou linger in my territories\n    Longer than swiftest expedition\n    Will give thee time to leave our royal court,\n    By heaven! my wrath shall far exceed the love\n    I ever bore my daughter or thyself.\n    Be gone; I will not hear thy vain excuse,\n    But, as thou lov'st thy life, make speed from hence.    Exit\n  VALENTINE. And why not death rather than living torment?\n    To die is to be banish'd from myself,\n    And Silvia is myself; banish'd from her\n    Is self from self, a deadly banishment.\n    What light is light, if Silvia be not seen?\n    What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?\n    Unless it be to think that she is by,\n    And feed upon the shadow of perfection.\n    Except I be by Silvia in the night,\n    There is no music in the nightingale;\n    Unless I look on Silvia in the day,\n    There is no day for me to look upon.\n    She is my essence, and I leave to be\n    If I be not by her fair influence\n    Foster'd, illumin'd, cherish'd, kept alive.\n    I fly not death, to fly his deadly doom:\n    Tarry I here, I but attend on death;\n    But fly I hence, I fly away from life.\n\n                      Enter PROTEUS and LAUNCE\n\n  PROTEUS. Run, boy, run, run, seek him out.\n  LAUNCE. So-ho, so-ho!\n  PROTEUS. What seest thou?\n  LAUNCE. Him we go to find: there's not a hair on 's head but\n'tis a\n    Valentine.\n  PROTEUS. Valentine?\n  VALENTINE. No.\n  PROTEUS. Who then? his spirit?\n  VALENTINE. Neither.\n  PROTEUS. What then?\n  VALENTINE. Nothing.\n  LAUNCE. Can nothing speak? Master, shall I strike?\n  PROTEUS. Who wouldst thou strike?\n  LAUNCE. Nothing.\n  PROTEUS. Villain, forbear.\n  LAUNCE. Why, sir, I'll strike nothing. I pray you-\n  PROTEUS. Sirrah, I say, forbear. Friend Valentine, a word.\n  VALENTINE. My ears are stopp'd and cannot hear good news,\n    So much of bad already hath possess'd them.\n  PROTEUS. Then in dumb silence will I bury mine,\n    For they are harsh, untuneable, and bad.\n  VALENTINE. Is Silvia dead?\n  PROTEUS. No, Valentine.\n  VALENTINE. No Valentine, indeed, for sacred Silvia.\n    Hath she forsworn me?\n  PROTEUS. No, Valentine.\n  VALENTINE. No Valentine, if Silvia have forsworn me.\n    What is your news?\n  LAUNCE. Sir, there is a proclamation that you are vanished.\n  PROTEUS. That thou art banished- O, that's the news!-\n    From hence, from Silvia, and from me thy friend.\n  VALENTINE. O, I have fed upon this woe already,\n    And now excess of it will make me surfeit.\n    Doth Silvia know that I am banished?\n  PROTEUS. Ay, ay; and she hath offered to the doom-\n    Which, unrevers'd, stands in effectual force-\n    A sea of melting pearl, which some call tears;\n    Those at her father's churlish feet she tender'd;\n    With them, upon her knees, her humble self,\n    Wringing her hands, whose whiteness so became them\n    As if but now they waxed pale for woe.\n    But neither bended knees, pure hands held up,\n    Sad sighs, deep groans, nor silver-shedding tears,\n    Could penetrate her uncompassionate sire-\n    But Valentine, if he be ta'en, must die.\n    Besides, her intercession chaf'd him so,\n    When she for thy repeal was suppliant,\n    That to close prison he commanded her,\n    With many bitter threats of biding there.\n  VALENTINE. No more; unless the next word that thou speak'st\n    Have some malignant power upon my life:\n    If so, I pray thee breathe it in mine ear,\n    As ending anthem of my endless dolour.\n  PROTEUS. Cease to lament for that thou canst not help,\n    And study help for that which thou lament'st.\n    Time is the nurse and breeder of all good.\n    Here if thou stay thou canst not see thy love;\n    Besides, thy staying will abridge thy life.\n    Hope is a lover's staff; walk hence with that,\n    And manage it against despairing thoughts.\n    Thy letters may be here, though thou art hence,\n    Which, being writ to me, shall be deliver'd\n    Even in the milk-white bosom of thy love.\n    The time now serves not to expostulate.\n    Come, I'll convey thee through the city gate;\n    And, ere I part with thee, confer at large\n    Of all that may concern thy love affairs.\n    As thou lov'st Silvia, though not for thyself,\n    Regard thy danger, and along with me.\n  VALENTINE. I pray thee, Launce, an if thou seest my boy,\n    Bid him make haste and meet me at the Northgate.\n  PROTEUS. Go, sirrah, find him out. Come, Valentine.\n  VALENTINE. O my dear Silvia! Hapless Valentine!\n                                    Exeunt VALENTINE and PROTEUS\n  LAUNCE. I am but a fool, look you, and yet I have the wit to\nthink\n    my master is a kind of a knave; but that's all one if he be\nbut\n    one knave. He lives not now that knows me to be in love; yet\nI am\n    in love; but a team of horse shall not pluck that from me;\nnor\n    who 'tis I love; and yet 'tis a woman; but what woman I will\nnot\n    tell myself; and yet 'tis a milkmaid; yet 'tis not a maid,\nfor\n    she hath had gossips; yet 'tis a maid, for she is her\nmaster's\n    maid and serves for wages. She hath more qualities than a\n    water-spaniel- which is much in a bare Christian. Here is the\n\n    cate-log  [Pulling out a paper]  of her condition. 'Inprimis:\nShe\n    can fetch and carry.' Why, a horse can do no more; nay, a\nhorse\n    cannot fetch, but only carry; therefore is she better than a\n    jade. 'Item: She can milk.' Look you, a sweet virtue in a\nmaid\n    with clean hands.\n\n                             Enter SPEED\n\n  SPEED. How now, Signior Launce! What news with your mastership?\n  LAUNCE. With my master's ship? Why, it is at sea.\n  SPEED. Well, your old vice still: mistake the word. What news,\n    then, in your paper?\n  LAUNCE. The black'st news that ever thou heard'st.\n  SPEED. Why, man? how black?\n  LAUNCE. Why, as black as ink.\n  SPEED. Let me read them.\n  LAUNCE. Fie on thee, jolt-head; thou canst not read.\n  SPEED. Thou liest; I can.\n  LAUNCE. I will try thee. Tell me this: Who begot thee?\n  SPEED. Marry, the son of my grandfather.\n  LAUNCE. O illiterate loiterer. It was the son of thy\ngrandmother.\n    This proves that thou canst not read.\n  SPEED. Come, fool, come; try me in thy paper.\n  LAUNCE.  [Handing over the paper]  There; and Saint Nicholas be\nthy\n    speed.\n  SPEED.  [Reads]  'Inprimis: She can milk.'\n  LAUNCE. Ay, that she can.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She brews good ale.'\n  LAUNCE. And thereof comes the proverb: Blessing of your heart,\nyou\n    brew good ale.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She can sew.'\n  LAUNCE. That's as much as to say 'Can she so?'\n  SPEED. 'Item: She can knit.'\n  LAUNCE. What need a man care for a stock with a wench, when she\ncan\n    knit him a stock.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She can wash and scour.'\n  LAUNCE. A special virtue; for then she need not be wash'd and\n    scour'd.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She can spin.'\n  LAUNCE. Then may I set the world on wheels, when she can spin\nfor\n    her living.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She hath many nameless virtues.'\n  LAUNCE. That's as much as to say 'bastard virtues'; that indeed\n    know not their fathers, and therefore have no names.\n  SPEED. 'Here follow her vices.'\n  LAUNCE. Close at the heels of her virtues.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She is not to be kiss'd fasting, in respect of\nher\n    breath.'\n  LAUNCE. Well, that fault may be mended with a breakfast.\n    Read on.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She hath a sweet mouth.'\n  LAUNCE. That makes amends for her sour breath.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She doth talk in her sleep.'\n  LAUNCE. It's no matter for that, so she sleep not in her talk.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She is slow in words.'\n  LAUNCE. O villain, that set this down among her vices! To be\nslow\n    in words is a woman's only virtue. I pray thee, out with't;\nand\n    place it for her chief virtue.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She is proud.'\n  LAUNCE. Out with that too; it was Eve's legacy, and cannot be\nta'en\n    from her.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She hath no teeth.'\n  LAUNCE. I care not for that neither, because I love crusts.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She is curst.'\n  LAUNCE. Well, the best is, she hath no teeth to bite.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She will often praise her liquor.'\n  LAUNCE. If her liquor be good, she shall; if she will not, I\nwill;\n    for good things should be praised.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She is too liberal.'\n  LAUNCE. Of her tongue she cannot, for that's writ down she is\nslow\n    of; of her purse she shall not, for that I'll keep shut. Now\nof\n    another thing she may, and that cannot I help. Well, proceed.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She hath more hair than wit, and more faults\n    than hairs, and more wealth than faults.'\n  LAUNCE. Stop there; I'll have her; she was mine, and not mine,\n    twice or thrice in that last article. Rehearse that once\nmore.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She hath more hair than wit'-\n  LAUNCE. More hair than wit. It may be; I'll prove it: the cover\nof\n    the salt hides the salt, and therefore it is more than the\nsalt;\n    the hair that covers the wit is more than the wit, for the\n    greater hides the less. What's next?\n  SPEED. 'And more faults than hairs'-\n  LAUNCE. That's monstrous. O that that were out!\n  SPEED. 'And more wealth than faults.'\n  LAUNCE. Why, that word makes the faults gracious. Well, I'll\nhave\n    her; an if it be a match, as nothing is impossible-\n  SPEED. What then?\n  LAUNCE. Why, then will I tell thee- that thy master stays for\nthee\n    at the Northgate.\n  SPEED. For me?\n  LAUNCE. For thee! ay, who art thou? He hath stay'd for a better\nman\n    than thee.\n  SPEED. And must I go to him?\n  LAUNCE. Thou must run to him, for thou hast stay'd so long that\n    going will scarce serve the turn.\n  SPEED. Why didst not tell me sooner? Pox of your love letters!\n Exit\n  LAUNCE. Now will he be swing'd for reading my letter. An\nunmannerly\n    slave that will thrust himself into secrets! I'll after, to\n    rejoice in the boy's correction.                        Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nMilan. The DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter DUKE and THURIO\n\n  DUKE. Sir Thurio, fear not but that she will love you\n    Now Valentine is banish'd from her sight.\n  THURIO. Since his exile she hath despis'd me most,\n    Forsworn my company and rail'd at me,\n    That I am desperate of obtaining her.\n  DUKE. This weak impress of love is as a figure\n    Trenched in ice, which with an hour's heat\n    Dissolves to water and doth lose his form.\n    A little time will melt her frozen thoughts,\n    And worthless Valentine shall be forgot.\n\n                          Enter PROTEUS\n\n    How now, Sir Proteus! Is your countryman,\n    According to our proclamation, gone?\n  PROTEUS. Gone, my good lord.\n  DUKE. My daughter takes his going grievously.\n  PROTEUS. A little time, my lord, will kill that grief.\n  DUKE. So I believe; but Thurio thinks not so.\n    Proteus, the good conceit I hold of thee-\n    For thou hast shown some sign of good desert-\n    Makes me the better to confer with thee.\n  PROTEUS. Longer than I prove loyal to your Grace\n    Let me not live to look upon your Grace.\n  DUKE. Thou know'st how willingly I would effect\n    The match between Sir Thurio and my daughter.\n  PROTEUS. I do, my lord.\n  DUKE. And also, I think, thou art not ignorant\n    How she opposes her against my will.\n  PROTEUS. She did, my lord, when Valentine was here.\n  DUKE. Ay, and perversely she persevers so.\n    What might we do to make the girl forget\n    The love of Valentine, and love Sir Thurio?\n  PROTEUS. The best way is to slander Valentine\n    With falsehood, cowardice, and poor descent-\n    Three things that women highly hold in hate.\n  DUKE. Ay, but she'll think that it is spoke in hate.\n  PROTEUS. Ay, if his enemy deliver it;\n    Therefore it must with circumstance be spoken\n    By one whom she esteemeth as his friend.\n  DUKE. Then you must undertake to slander him.\n  PROTEUS. And that, my lord, I shall be loath to do:\n    'Tis an ill office for a gentleman,\n    Especially against his very friend.\n  DUKE. Where your good word cannot advantage him,\n    Your slander never can endamage him;\n    Therefore the office is indifferent,\n    Being entreated to it by your friend.\n  PROTEUS. You have prevail'd, my lord; if I can do it\n    By aught that I can speak in his dispraise,\n    She shall not long continue love to him.\n    But say this weed her love from Valentine,\n    It follows not that she will love Sir Thurio.\n  THURIO. Therefore, as you unwind her love from him,\n    Lest it should ravel and be good to none,\n    You must provide to bottom it on me;\n    Which must be done by praising me as much\n    As you in worth dispraise Sir Valentine.\n  DUKE. And, Proteus, we dare trust you in this kind,\n    Because we know, on Valentine's report,\n    You are already Love's firm votary\n    And cannot soon revolt and change your mind.\n    Upon this warrant shall you have access\n    Where you with Silvia may confer at large-\n    For she is lumpish, heavy, melancholy,\n    And, for your friend's sake, will be glad of you-\n    Where you may temper her by your persuasion\n    To hate young Valentine and love my friend.\n  PROTEUS. As much as I can do I will effect.\n    But you, Sir Thurio, are not sharp enough;\n    You must lay lime to tangle her desires\n    By wailful sonnets, whose composed rhymes\n    Should be full-fraught with serviceable vows.\n  DUKE. Ay,\n    Much is the force of heaven-bred poesy.\n  PROTEUS. Say that upon the altar of her beauty\n    You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart;\n    Write till your ink be dry, and with your tears\n    Moist it again, and frame some feeling line\n    That may discover such integrity;\n    For Orpheus' lute was strung with poets' sinews,\n    Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones,\n    Make tigers tame, and huge leviathans\n    Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.\n    After your dire-lamenting elegies,\n    Visit by night your lady's chamber window\n    With some sweet consort; to their instruments\n    Tune a deploring dump- the night's dead silence\n    Will well become such sweet-complaining grievance.\n    This, or else nothing, will inherit her.\n  DUKE. This discipline shows thou hast been in love.\n  THURIO. And thy advice this night I'll put in practice;\n    Therefore, sweet Proteus, my direction-giver,\n    Let us into the city presently\n    To sort some gentlemen well skill'd in music.\n    I have a sonnet that will serve the turn\n    To give the onset to thy good advice.\n  DUKE. About it, gentlemen!\n  PROTEUS. We'll wait upon your Grace till after supper,\n    And afterward determine our proceedings.\n  DUKE. Even now about it! I will pardon you.             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT_4|SC_1\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nThe frontiers of Mantua. A forest\n\nEnter certain OUTLAWS\n\n  FIRST OUTLAW. Fellows, stand fast; I see a passenger.\n  SECOND OUTLAW. If there be ten, shrink not, but down with 'em.\n\n                  Enter VALENTINE and SPEED\n\n  THIRD OUTLAW. Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about ye;\n    If not, we'll make you sit, and rifle you.\n  SPEED. Sir, we are undone; these are the villains\n    That all the travellers do fear so much.\n  VALENTINE. My friends-\n  FIRST OUTLAW. That's not so, sir; we are your enemies.\n  SECOND OUTLAW. Peace! we'll hear him.\n  THIRD OUTLAW. Ay, by my beard, will we; for he is a proper man.\n  VALENTINE. Then know that I have little wealth to lose;\n    A man I am cross'd with adversity;\n    My riches are these poor habiliments,\n    Of which if you should here disfurnish me,\n    You take the sum and substance that I have.\n  SECOND OUTLAW. Whither travel you?\n  VALENTINE. To Verona.\n  FIRST OUTLAW. Whence came you?\n  VALENTINE. From Milan.\n  THIRD OUTLAW. Have you long sojourn'd there?\n  VALENTINE. Some sixteen months, and longer might have stay'd,\n    If crooked fortune had not thwarted me.\n  FIRST OUTLAW. What, were you banish'd thence?\n  VALENTINE. I was.\n  SECOND OUTLAW. For what offence?\n  VALENTINE. For that which now torments me to rehearse:\n    I kill'd a man, whose death I much repent;\n    But yet I slew him manfully in fight,\n    Without false vantage or base treachery.\n  FIRST OUTLAW. Why, ne'er repent it, if it were done so.\n    But were you banish'd for so small a fault?\n  VALENTINE. I was, and held me glad of such a doom.\n  SECOND OUTLAW. Have you the tongues?\n  VALENTINE. My youthful travel therein made me happy,\n    Or else I often had been miserable.\n  THIRD OUTLAW. By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar,\n    This fellow were a king for our wild faction!\n  FIRST OUTLAW. We'll have him. Sirs, a word.\n  SPEED. Master, be one of them; it's an honourable kind of\nthievery.\n  VALENTINE. Peace, villain!\n  SECOND OUTLAW. Tell us this: have you anything to take to?\n  VALENTINE. Nothing but my fortune.\n  THIRD OUTLAW. Know, then, that some of us are gentlemen,\n    Such as the fury of ungovern'd youth\n    Thrust from the company of awful men;\n    Myself was from Verona banished\n    For practising to steal away a lady,\n    An heir, and near allied unto the Duke.\n  SECOND OUTLAW. And I from Mantua, for a gentleman\n    Who, in my mood, I stabb'd unto the heart.\n  FIRST OUTLAW. And I for such-like petty crimes as these.\n    But to the purpose- for we cite our faults\n    That they may hold excus'd our lawless lives;\n    And, partly, seeing you are beautified\n    With goodly shape, and by your own report\n    A linguist, and a man of such perfection\n    As we do in our quality much want-\n  SECOND OUTLAW. Indeed, because you are a banish'd man,\n    Therefore, above the rest, we parley to you.\n    Are you content to be our general-\n    To make a virtue of necessity,\n    And live as we do in this wilderness?\n  THIRD OUTLAW. What say'st thou? Wilt thou be of our consort?\n    Say 'ay' and be the captain of us all.\n    We'll do thee homage, and be rul'd by thee,\n    Love thee as our commander and our king.\n  FIRST OUTLAW. But if thou scorn our courtesy thou diest.\n  SECOND OUTLAW. Thou shalt not live to brag what we have\noffer'd.\n  VALENTINE. I take your offer, and will live with you,\n    Provided that you do no outrages\n    On silly women or poor passengers.\n  THIRD OUTLAW. No, we detest such vile base practices.\n    Come, go with us; we'll bring thee to our crews,\n    And show thee all the treasure we have got;\n    Which, with ourselves, all rest at thy dispose.       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nMilan. Outside the DUKE'S palace, under SILVIA'S window\n\nEnter PROTEUS\n\n  PROTEUS. Already have I been false to Valentine,\n    And now I must be as unjust to Thurio.\n    Under the colour of commending him\n    I have access my own love to prefer;\n    But Silvia is too fair, too true, too holy,\n    To be corrupted with my worthless gifts.\n    When I protest true loyalty to her,\n    She twits me with my falsehood to my friend;\n    When to her beauty I commend my vows,\n    She bids me think how I have been forsworn\n    In breaking faith with Julia whom I lov'd;\n    And notwithstanding all her sudden quips,\n    The least whereof would quell a lover's hope,\n    Yet, spaniel-like, the more she spurns my love\n    The more it grows and fawneth on her still.\n\n                 Enter THURIO and MUSICIANS\n\n    But here comes Thurio. Now must we to her window,\n    And give some evening music to her ear.\n  THURIO. How now, Sir Proteus, are you crept before us?\n  PROTEUS. Ay, gentle Thurio; for you know that love\n    Will creep in service where it cannot go.\n  THURIO. Ay, but I hope, sir, that you love not here.\n  PROTEUS. Sir, but I do; or else I would be hence.\n  THURIO. Who? Silvia?\n  PROTEUS. Ay, Silvia- for your sake.\n  THURIO. I thank you for your own. Now, gentlemen,\n    Let's tune, and to it lustily awhile.\n\n    Enter at a distance, HOST, and JULIA in boy's clothes\n\n  HOST. Now, my young guest, methinks you're allycholly; I pray\nyou,\n    why is it?\n  JULIA. Marry, mine host, because I cannot be merry.\n  HOST. Come, we'll have you merry; I'll bring you where you\nshall\n    hear music, and see the gentleman that you ask'd for.\n  JULIA. But shall I hear him speak?\n  HOST. Ay, that you shall.                        [Music plays]\n  JULIA. That will be music.\n  HOST. Hark, hark!\n  JULIA. Is he among these?\n  HOST. Ay; but peace! let's hear 'em.\n\n                   SONG\n         Who is Silvia? What is she,\n           That all our swains commend her?\n         Holy, fair, and wise is she;\n           The heaven such grace did lend her,\n         That she might admired be.\n\n         Is she kind as she is fair?\n           For beauty lives with kindness.\n         Love doth to her eyes repair,\n           To help him of his blindness;\n         And, being help'd, inhabits there.\n\n         Then to Silvia let us sing\n           That Silvia is excelling;\n         She excels each mortal thing\n           Upon the dull earth dwelling.\n         'To her let us garlands bring.\n\n  HOST. How now, are you sadder than you were before?\n    How do you, man? The music likes you not.\n  JULIA. You mistake; the musician likes me not.\n  HOST. Why, my pretty youth?\n  JULIA. He plays false, father.\n  HOST. How, out of tune on the strings?\n  JULIA. Not so; but yet so false that he grieves my very\n    heart-strings.\n  HOST. You have a quick ear.\n  JULIA. Ay, I would I were deaf; it makes me have a slow heart.\n  HOST. I perceive you delight not in music.\n  JULIA. Not a whit, when it jars so.\n  HOST. Hark, what fine change is in the music!\n  JULIA. Ay, that change is the spite.\n  HOST. You would have them always play but one thing?\n  JULIA. I would always have one play but one thing.\n    But, Host, doth this Sir Proteus, that we talk on,\n    Often resort unto this gentlewoman?\n  HOST. I tell you what Launce, his man, told me: he lov'd her\nout of\n    all nick.\n  JULIA. Where is Launce?\n  HOST. Gone to seek his dog, which to-morrow, by his master's\n    command, he must carry for a present to his lady.\n  JULIA. Peace, stand aside; the company parts.\n  PROTEUS. Sir Thurio, fear not you; I will so plead\n    That you shall say my cunning drift excels.\n  THURIO. Where meet we?\n  PROTEUS. At Saint Gregory's well.\n  THURIO. Farewell.                  Exeunt THURIO and MUSICIANS\n\n                  Enter SILVIA above, at her window\n\n  PROTEUS. Madam, good ev'n to your ladyship.\n  SILVIA. I thank you for your music, gentlemen.\n    Who is that that spake?\n  PROTEUS. One, lady, if you knew his pure heart's truth,\n    You would quickly learn to know him by his voice.\n  SILVIA. Sir Proteus, as I take it.\n  PROTEUS. Sir Proteus, gentle lady, and your servant.\n  SILVIA. What's your will?\n  PROTEUS. That I may compass yours.\n  SILVIA. You have your wish; my will is even this,\n    That presently you hie you home to bed.\n    Thou subtle, perjur'd, false, disloyal man,\n    Think'st thou I am so shallow, so conceitless,\n    To be seduced by thy flattery\n    That hast deceiv'd so many with thy vows?\n    Return, return, and make thy love amends.\n    For me, by this pale queen of night I swear,\n    I am so far from granting thy request\n    That I despise thee for thy wrongful suit,\n    And by and by intend to chide myself\n    Even for this time I spend in talking to thee.\n  PROTEUS. I grant, sweet love, that I did love a lady;\n    But she is dead.\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  'Twere false, if I should speak it;\n    For I am sure she is not buried.\n  SILVIA. Say that she be; yet Valentine, thy friend,\n    Survives, to whom, thyself art witness,\n    I am betroth'd; and art thou not asham'd\n    To wrong him with thy importunacy?\n  PROTEUS. I likewise hear that Valentine is dead.\n  SILVIA. And so suppose am I; for in his grave\n    Assure thyself my love is buried.\n  PROTEUS. Sweet lady, let me rake it from the earth.\n  SILVIA. Go to thy lady's grave, and call hers thence;\n    Or, at the least, in hers sepulchre thine.\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  He heard not that.\n  PROTEUS. Madam, if your heart be so obdurate,\n    Vouchsafe me yet your picture for my love,\n    The picture that is hanging in your chamber;\n    To that I'll speak, to that I'll sigh and weep;\n    For, since the substance of your perfect self\n    Is else devoted, I am but a shadow;\n    And to your shadow will I make true love.\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  If 'twere a substance, you would, sure,\ndeceive it\n    And make it but a shadow, as I am.\n  SILVIA. I am very loath to be your idol, sir;\n    But since your falsehood shall become you well\n    To worship shadows and adore false shapes,\n    Send to me in the morning, and I'll send it;\n    And so, good rest.\n  PROTEUS. As wretches have o'ernight\n    That wait for execution in the morn.\n                                       Exeunt PROTEUS and SILVIA\n  JULIA. Host, will you go?\n  HOST. By my halidom, I was fast asleep.\n  JULIA. Pray you, where lies Sir Proteus?\n  HOST. Marry, at my house. Trust me, I think 'tis almost day.\n  JULIA. Not so; but it hath been the longest night\n    That e'er I watch'd, and the most heaviest.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nUnder SILVIA'S window\n\nEnter EGLAMOUR\n\n  EGLAMOUR. This is the hour that Madam Silvia\n    Entreated me to call and know her mind;\n    There's some great matter she'd employ me in.\n    Madam, madam!\n\n             Enter SILVIA above, at her window\n\n  SILVIA. Who calls?\n  EGLAMOUR. Your servant and your friend;\n    One that attends your ladyship's command.\n  SILVIA. Sir Eglamour, a thousand times good morrow!\n  EGLAMOUR. As many, worthy lady, to yourself!\n    According to your ladyship's impose,\n    I am thus early come to know what service\n    It is your pleasure to command me in.\n  SILVIA. O Eglamour, thou art a gentleman-\n    Think not I flatter, for I swear I do not-\n    Valiant, wise, remorseful, well accomplish'd.\n    Thou art not ignorant what dear good will\n    I bear unto the banish'd Valentine;\n    Nor how my father would enforce me marry\n    Vain Thurio, whom my very soul abhors.\n    Thyself hast lov'd; and I have heard thee say\n    No grief did ever come so near thy heart\n    As when thy lady and thy true love died,\n    Upon whose grave thou vow'dst pure chastity.\n    Sir Eglamour, I would to Valentine,\n    To Mantua, where I hear he makes abode;\n    And, for the ways are dangerous to pass,\n    I do desire thy worthy company,\n    Upon whose faith and honour I repose.\n    Urge not my father's anger, Eglamour,\n    But think upon my grief, a lady's grief,\n    And on the justice of my flying hence\n    To keep me from a most unholy match,\n    Which heaven and fortune still rewards with plagues.\n    I do desire thee, even from a heart\n    As full of sorrows as the sea of sands,\n    To bear me company and go with me;\n    If not, to hide what I have said to thee,\n    That I may venture to depart alone.\n  EGLAMOUR. Madam, I pity much your grievances;\n    Which since I know they virtuously are plac'd,\n    I give consent to go along with you,\n    Recking as little what betideth me\n    As much I wish all good befortune you.\n    When will you go?\n  SILVIA. This evening coming.\n  EGLAMOUR. Where shall I meet you?\n  SILVIA. At Friar Patrick's cell,\n    Where I intend holy confession.\n  EGLAMOUR. I will not fail your ladyship. Good morrow, gentle\nlady.\n  SILVIA. Good morrow, kind Sir Eglamour.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nUnder SILVIA'S Window\n\nEnter LAUNCE with his dog\n\n  LAUNCE. When a man's servant shall play the cur with him, look\nyou,\n    it goes hard- one that I brought up of a puppy; one that I\nsav'd\n    from drowning, when three or four of his blind brothers and\n    sisters went to it. I have taught him, even as one would say\n    precisely 'Thus I would teach a dog.' I was sent to deliver\nhim\n    as a present to Mistress Silvia from my master; and I came no\n    sooner into the dining-chamber, but he steps me to her\ntrencher\n    and steals her capon's leg. O, 'tis a foul thing when a cur\n    cannot keep himself in all companies! I would have, as one\nshould\n    say, one that takes upon him to be a dog indeed, to be, as it\n    were, a dog at all things. If I had not had more wit than he,\nto\n    take a fault upon me that he did, I think verily he had been\n    hang'd for't; sure as I live, he had suffer'd for't. You\nshall\n    judge. He thrusts me himself into the company of three or\nfour\n    gentleman-like dogs under the Duke's table; he had not been\n    there, bless the mark, a pissing while but all the chamber\nsmelt\n    him. 'Out with the dog' says one; 'What cur is that?' says\n    another; 'Whip him out' says the third; 'Hang him up' says\nthe\n    Duke. I, having been acquainted with the smell before, knew\nit\n    was Crab, and goes me to the fellow that whips the dogs.\n    'Friend,' quoth I 'you mean to whip the dog.' 'Ay, marry do\nI'\n    quoth he. 'You do him the more wrong,' quoth I; \"twas I did\nthe\n    thing you wot of.' He makes me no more ado, but whips me out\nof\n    the chamber. How many masters would do this for his servant?\nNay,\n    I'll be sworn, I have sat in the stock for puddings he hath\n    stol'n, otherwise he had been executed; I have stood on the\n    pillory for geese he hath kill'd, otherwise he had suffer'd\n    for't. Thou think'st not of this now. Nay, I remember the\ntrick\n    you serv'd me when I took my leave of Madam Silvia. Did not I\nbid\n    thee still mark me and do as I do? When didst thou see me\nheave\n    up my leg and make water against a gentlewoman's farthingale?\n    Didst thou ever see me do such a trick?\n\n               Enter PROTEUS, and JULIA in boy's clothes\n\n  PROTEUS. Sebastian is thy name? I like thee well,\n    And will employ thee in some service presently.\n  JULIA. In what you please; I'll do what I can.\n  PROTEUS..I hope thou wilt.  [To LAUNCE]  How now, you whoreson\n      peasant!\n    Where have you been these two days loitering?\n  LAUNCE. Marry, sir, I carried Mistress Silvia the dog you bade\nme.\n  PROTEUS. And what says she to my little jewel?\n  LAUNCE. Marry, she says your dog was a cur, and tells you\ncurrish\n    thanks is good enough for such a present.\n  PROTEUS. But she receiv'd my dog?\n  LAUNCE. No, indeed, did she not; here have I brought him back\n    again.\n  PROTEUS. What, didst thou offer her this from me?\n  LAUNCE. Ay, sir; the other squirrel was stol'n from me by the\n    hangman's boys in the market-place; and then I offer'd her\nmine\n    own, who is a dog as big as ten of yours, and therefore the\ngift\n    the greater.\n  PROTEUS. Go, get thee hence and find my dog again,\n    Or ne'er return again into my sight.\n    Away, I say. Stayest thou to vex me here?        Exit LAUNCE\n    A slave that still an end turns me to shame!\n    Sebastian, I have entertained thee\n    Partly that I have need of such a youth\n    That can with some discretion do my business,\n    For 'tis no trusting to yond foolish lout,\n    But chiefly for thy face and thy behaviour,\n    Which, if my augury deceive me not,\n    Witness good bringing up, fortune, and truth;\n    Therefore, know thou, for this I entertain thee.\n    Go presently, and take this ring with thee,\n    Deliver it to Madam Silvia-\n    She lov'd me well deliver'd it to me.\n  JULIA. It seems you lov'd not her, to leave her token.\n    She is dead, belike?\n  PROTEUS. Not so; I think she lives.\n  JULIA. Alas!\n  PROTEUS. Why dost thou cry 'Alas'?\n  JULIA. I cannot choose\n    But pity her.\n  PROTEUS. Wherefore shouldst thou pity her?\n  JULIA. Because methinks that she lov'd you as well\n    As you do love your lady Silvia.\n    She dreams on him that has forgot her love:\n    You dote on her that cares not for your love.\n    'Tis pity love should be so contrary;\n    And thinking on it makes me cry 'Alas!'\n  PROTEUS. Well, give her that ring, and therewithal\n    This letter. That's her chamber. Tell my lady\n    I claim the promise for her heavenly picture.\n    Your message done, hie home unto my chamber,\n    Where thou shalt find me sad and solitary.      Exit PROTEUS\n  JULIA. How many women would do such a message?\n    Alas, poor Proteus, thou hast entertain'd\n    A fox to be the shepherd of thy lambs.\n    Alas, poor fool, why do I pity him\n    That with his very heart despiseth me?\n    Because he loves her, he despiseth me;\n    Because I love him, I must pity him.\n    This ring I gave him, when he parted from me,\n    To bind him to remember my good will;\n    And now am I, unhappy messenger,\n    To plead for that which I would not obtain,\n    To carry that which I would have refus'd,\n    To praise his faith, which I would have disprais'd.\n    I am my master's true confirmed love,\n    But cannot be true servant to my master\n    Unless I prove false traitor to myself.\n    Yet will I woo for him, but yet so coldly\n    As, heaven it knows, I would not have him speed.\n\n                     Enter SILVIA, attended\n\n    Gentlewoman, good day! I pray you be my mean\n    To bring me where to speak with Madam Silvia.\n  SILVIA. What would you with her, if that I be she?\n  JULIA. If you be she, I do entreat your patience\n    To hear me speak the message I am sent on.\n  SILVIA. From whom?\n  JULIA. From my master, Sir Proteus, madam.\n  SILVIA. O, he sends you for a picture?\n  JULIA. Ay, madam.\n  SILVIA. Ursula, bring my picture there.\n    Go, give your master this. Tell him from me,\n    One Julia, that his changing thoughts forget,\n    Would better fit his chamber than this shadow.\n  JULIA. Madam, please you peruse this letter.\n    Pardon me, madam; I have unadvis'd\n    Deliver'd you a paper that I should not.\n    This is the letter to your ladyship.\n  SILVIA. I pray thee let me look on that again.\n  JULIA. It may not be; good madam, pardon me.\n  SILVIA. There, hold!\n    I will not look upon your master's lines.\n    I know they are stuff'd with protestations,\n    And full of new-found oaths, which he wul break\n    As easily as I do tear his paper.\n  JULIA. Madam, he sends your ladyship this ring.\n  SILVIA. The more shame for him that he sends it me;\n    For I have heard him say a thousand times\n    His Julia gave it him at his departure.\n    Though his false finger have profan'd the ring,\n    Mine shall not do his Julia so much wrong.\n  JULIA. She thanks you.\n  SILVIA. What say'st thou?\n  JULIA. I thank you, madam, that you tender her.\n    Poor gentlewoman, my master wrongs her much.\n  SILVIA. Dost thou know her?\n  JULIA. Almost as well as I do know myself.\n    To think upon her woes, I do protest\n    That I have wept a hundred several times.\n  SILVIA. Belike she thinks that Proteus hath forsook her.\n  JULIA. I think she doth, and that's her cause of sorrow.\n  SILVIA. Is she not passing fair?\n  JULIA. She hath been fairer, madam, than she is.\n    When she did think my master lov'd her well,\n    She, in my judgment, was as fair as you;\n    But since she did neglect her looking-glass\n    And threw her sun-expelling mask away,\n    The air hath starv'd the roses in her cheeks\n    And pinch'd the lily-tincture of her face,\n    That now she is become as black as I.\n  SILVIA. How tall was she?\n  JULIA. About my stature; for at Pentecost,\n    When all our pageants of delight were play'd,\n    Our youth got me to play the woman's part,\n    And I was trimm'd in Madam Julia's gown;\n    Which served me as fit, by all men's judgments,\n    As if the garment had been made for me;\n    Therefore I know she is about my height.\n    And at that time I made her weep a good,\n    For I did play a lamentable part.\n    Madam, 'twas Ariadne passioning\n    For Theseus' perjury and unjust flight;\n    Which I so lively acted with my tears\n    That my poor mistress, moved therewithal,\n    Wept bitterly; and would I might be dead\n    If I in thought felt not her very sorrow.\n  SILVIA. She is beholding to thee, gentle youth.\n    Alas, poor lady, desolate and left!\n    I weep myself, to think upon thy words.\n    Here, youth, there is my purse; I give thee this\n    For thy sweet mistress' sake, because thou lov'st her.\n    Farewell.                        Exit SILVIA with ATTENDANTS\n  JULIA. And she shall thank you for't, if e'er you know her.\n    A virtuous gentlewoman, mild and beautiful!\n    I hope my master's suit will be but cold,\n    Since she respects my mistress' love so much.\n    Alas, how love can trifle with itself!\n    Here is her picture; let me see. I think,\n    If I had such a tire, this face of mine\n    Were full as lovely as is this of hers;\n    And yet the painter flatter'd her a little,\n    Unless I flatter with myself too much.\n    Her hair is auburn, mine is perfect yellow;\n    If that be all the difference in his love,\n    I'll get me such a colour'd periwig.\n    Her eyes are grey as glass, and so are mine;\n    Ay, but her forehead's low, and mine's as high.\n    What should it be that he respects in her\n    But I can make respective in myself,\n    If this fond Love were not a blinded god?\n    Come, shadow, come, and take this shadow up,\n    For 'tis thy rival. O thou senseless form,\n    Thou shalt be worshipp'd, kiss'd, lov'd, and ador'd!\n    And were there sense in his idolatry\n    My substance should be statue in thy stead.\n    I'll use thee kindly for thy mistress' sake,\n    That us'd me so; or else, by Jove I vow,\n    I should have scratch'd out your unseeing eyes,\n    To make my master out of love with thee.                Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nMilan. An abbey\n\nEnter EGLAMOUR\n\n  EGLAMOUR. The sun begins to gild the western sky,\n    And now it is about the very hour\n    That Silvia at Friar Patrick's cell should meet me.\n    She will not fail, for lovers break not hours\n    Unless it be to come before their time,\n    So much they spur their expedition.\n\n                         Enter SILVIA\n\n    See where she comes. Lady, a happy evening!\n  SILVIA. Amen, amen! Go on, good Eglamour,\n    Out at the postern by the abbey wall;\n    I fear I am attended by some spies.\n  EGLAMOUR. Fear not. The forest is not three leagues off;\n    If we recover that, we are sure enough.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nMilan. The DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter THURIO, PROTEUS, and JULIA as SEBASTIAN\n\n  THURIO. Sir Proteus, what says Silvia to my suit?\n  PROTEUS. O, sir, I find her milder than she was;\n    And yet she takes exceptions at your person.\n  THURIO. What, that my leg is too long?\n  PROTEUS. No; that it is too little.\n  THURIO. I'll wear a boot to make it somewhat rounder.\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  But love will not be spurr'd to what it\nloathes.\n  THURIO. What says she to my face?\n  PROTEUS. She says it is a fair one.\n  THURIO. Nay, then, the wanton lies; my face is black.\n  PROTEUS. But pearls are fair; and the old saying is:\n    Black men are pearls in beauteous ladies' eyes.\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  'Tis true, such pearls as put out ladies'\neyes;\n    For I had rather wink than look on them.\n  THURIO. How likes she my discourse?\n  PROTEUS. Ill, when you talk of war.\n  THURIO. But well when I discourse of love and peace?\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  But better, indeed, when you hold your peace.\n  THURIO. What says she to my valour?\n  PROTEUS. O, sir, she makes no doubt of that.\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  She needs not, when she knows it cowardice.\n  THURIO. What says she to my birth?\n  PROTEUS. That you are well deriv'd.\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  True; from a gentleman to a fool.\n  THURIO. Considers she my possessions?\n  PROTEUS. O, ay; and pities them.\n  THURIO. Wherefore?\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  That such an ass should owe them.\n  PROTEUS. That they are out by lease.\n  JULIA. Here comes the Duke.\n\n                          Enter DUKE\n\n  DUKE. How now, Sir Proteus! how now, Thurio!\n    Which of you saw Sir Eglamour of late?\n  THURIO. Not I.\n  PROTEUS. Nor I.\n  DUKE. Saw you my daughter?\n  PROTEUS. Neither.\n  DUKE. Why then,\n    She's fled unto that peasant Valentine;\n    And Eglamour is in her company.\n    'Tis true; for Friar Lawrence met them both\n    As he in penance wander'd through the forest;\n    Him he knew well, and guess'd that it was she,\n    But, being mask'd, he was not sure of it;\n    Besides, she did intend confession\n    At Patrick's cell this even; and there she was not.\n    These likelihoods confirm her flight from hence;\n    Therefore, I pray you, stand not to discourse,\n    But mount you presently, and meet with me\n    Upon the rising of the mountain foot\n    That leads toward Mantua, whither they are fled.\n    Dispatch, sweet gentlemen, and follow me.               Exit\n  THURIO. Why, this it is to be a peevish girl\n    That flies her fortune when it follows her.\n    I'll after, more to be reveng'd on Eglamour\n    Than for the love of reckless Silvia.                   Exit\n  PROTEUS. And I will follow, more for Silvia's love\n    Than hate of Eglamour, that goes with her.              Exit\n  JULIA. And I will follow, more to cross that love\n    Than hate for Silvia, that is gone for love.            Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe frontiers of Mantua. The forest\n\nEnter OUTLAWS with SILVA\n\n  FIRST OUTLAW. Come, come.\n    Be patient; we must bring you to our captain.\n  SILVIA. A thousand more mischances than this one\n    Have learn'd me how to brook this patiently.\n  SECOND OUTLAW. Come, bring her away.\n  FIRST OUTLAW. Where is the gentleman that was with her?\n  SECOND OUTLAW. Being nimble-footed, he hath outrun us,\n    But Moyses and Valerius follow him.\n    Go thou with her to the west end of the wood;\n    There is our captain; we'll follow him that's fled.\n    The thicket is beset; he cannot 'scape.\n  FIRST OUTLAW. Come, I must bring you to our captain's cave;\n    Fear not; he bears an honourable mind,\n    And will not use a woman lawlessly.\n  SILVIA. O Valentine, this I endure for thee!            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nAnother part of the forest\n\nEnter VALENTINE\n\n  VALENTINE. How use doth breed a habit in a man!\n    This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods,\n    I better brook than flourishing peopled towns.\n    Here can I sit alone, unseen of any,\n    And to the nightingale's complaining notes\n    Tune my distresses and record my woes.\n    O thou that dost inhabit in my breast,\n    Leave not the mansion so long tenantless,\n    Lest, growing ruinous, the building fall\n    And leave no memory of what it was!\n    Repair me with thy presence, Silvia:\n    Thou gentle nymph, cherish thy forlorn swain.\n    What halloing and what stir is this to-day?\n    These are my mates, that make their wills their law,\n    Have some unhappy passenger in chase.\n    They love me well; yet I have much to do\n    To keep them from uncivil outrages.\n    Withdraw thee, Valentine. Who's this comes here?\n                                                   [Steps aside]\n\n          Enter PROTEUS, SILVIA, and JULIA as Sebastian\n\n  PROTEUS. Madam, this service I have done for you,\n    Though you respect not aught your servant doth,\n    To hazard life, and rescue you from him\n    That would have forc'd your honour and your love.\n    Vouchsafe me, for my meed, but one fair look;\n    A smaller boon than this I cannot beg,\n    And less than this, I am sure, you cannot give.\n  VALENTINE.  [Aside]  How like a dream is this I see and hear!\n    Love, lend me patience to forbear awhile.\n  SILVIA. O miserable, unhappy that I am!\n  PROTEUS. Unhappy were you, madam, ere I came;\n    But by my coming I have made you happy.\n  SILVIA. By thy approach thou mak'st me most unhappy.\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  And me, when he approacheth to your presence.\n  SILVIA. Had I been seized by a hungry lion,\n    I would have been a breakfast to the beast\n    Rather than have false Proteus rescue me.\n    O, heaven be judge how I love Valentine,\n    Whose life's as tender to me as my soul!\n    And full as much, for more there cannot be,\n    I do detest false, perjur'd Proteus.\n    Therefore be gone; solicit me no more.\n  PROTEUS. What dangerous action, stood it next to death,\n    Would I not undergo for one calm look?\n    O, 'tis the curse in love, and still approv'd,\n    When women cannot love where they're belov'd!\n  SILVIA. When Proteus cannot love where he's belov'd!\n    Read over Julia's heart, thy first best love,\n    For whose dear sake thou didst then rend thy faith\n    Into a thousand oaths; and all those oaths\n    Descended into perjury, to love me.\n    Thou hast no faith left now, unless thou'dst two,\n    And that's far worse than none; better have none\n    Than plural faith, which is too much by one.\n    Thou counterfeit to thy true friend!\n  PROTEUS. In love,\n    Who respects friend?\n  SILVIA. All men but Proteus.\n  PROTEUS. Nay, if the gentle spirit of moving words\n    Can no way change you to a milder form,\n    I'll woo you like a soldier, at arms' end,\n    And love you 'gainst the nature of love- force ye.\n  SILVIA. O heaven!\n  PROTEUS. I'll force thee yield to my desire.\n  VALENTINE. Ruffian! let go that rude uncivil touch;\n    Thou friend of an ill fashion!\n  PROTEUS. Valentine!\n  VALENTINE. Thou common friend, that's without faith or love-\n    For such is a friend now; treacherous man,\n    Thou hast beguil'd my hopes; nought but mine eye\n    Could have persuaded me. Now I dare not say\n    I have one friend alive: thou wouldst disprove me.\n    Who should be trusted, when one's own right hand\n    Is perjured to the bosom? Proteus,\n    I am sorry I must never trust thee more,\n    But count the world a stranger for thy sake.\n    The private wound is deepest. O time most accurst!\n    'Mongst all foes that a friend should be the worst!\n  PROTEUS. My shame and guilt confounds me.\n    Forgive me, Valentine; if hearty sorrow\n    Be a sufficient ransom for offence,\n    I tender 't here; I do as truly suffer\n    As e'er I did commit.\n  VALENTINE. Then I am paid;\n    And once again I do receive thee honest.\n    Who by repentance is not satisfied\n    Is nor of heaven nor earth, for these are pleas'd;\n    By penitence th' Eternal's wrath's appeas'd.\n    And, that my love may appear plain and free,\n    All that was mine in Silvia I give thee.\n  JULIA. O me unhappy!                                  [Swoons]\n  PROTEUS. Look to the boy.\n  VALENTINE. Why, boy! why, wag! how now!\n    What's the matter? Look up; speak.\n  JULIA. O good sir, my master charg'd me to deliver a ring to\nMadam\n    Silvia, which, out of my neglect, was never done.\n  PROTEUS. Where is that ring, boy?\n  JULIA. Here 'tis; this is it.\n  PROTEUS. How! let me see. Why, this is the ring I gave to\nJulia.\n  JULIA. O, cry you mercy, sir, I have mistook;\n    This is the ring you sent to Silvia.\n  PROTEUS. But how cam'st thou by this ring?\n    At my depart I gave this unto Julia.\n  JULIA. And Julia herself did give it me;\n    And Julia herself have brought it hither.\n  PROTEUS. How! Julia!\n  JULIA. Behold her that gave aim to all thy oaths,\n    And entertain'd 'em deeply in her heart.\n    How oft hast thou with perjury cleft the root!\n    O Proteus, let this habit make thee blush!\n    Be thou asham'd that I have took upon me\n    Such an immodest raiment- if shame live\n    In a disguise of love.\n    It is the lesser blot, modesty finds,\n    Women to change their shapes than men their minds.\n  PROTEUS. Than men their minds! 'tis true. O heaven, were man\n    But constant, he were perfect! That one error\n    Fills him with faults; makes him run through all th' sins:\n    Inconstancy falls off ere it begins.\n    What is in Silvia's face but I may spy\n    More fresh in Julia's with a constant eye?\n  VALENTINE. Come, come, a hand from either.\n    Let me be blest to make this happy close;\n    'Twere pity two such friends should be long foes.\n  PROTEUS. Bear witness, heaven, I have my wish for ever.\n  JULIA. And I mine.\n\n                Enter OUTLAWS, with DUKE and THURIO\n\n  OUTLAW. A prize, a prize, a prize!\n  VALENTINE. Forbear, forbear, I say; it is my lord the Duke.\n    Your Grace is welcome to a man disgrac'd,\n    Banished Valentine.\n  DUKE. Sir Valentine!\n  THURIO. Yonder is Silvia; and Silvia's mine.\n  VALENTINE. Thurio, give back, or else embrace thy death;\n    Come not within the measure of my wrath;\n    Do not name Silvia thine; if once again,\n    Verona shall not hold thee. Here she stands\n    Take but possession of her with a touch-\n    I dare thee but to breathe upon my love.\n  THURIO. Sir Valentine, I care not for her, I;\n    I hold him but a fool that will endanger\n    His body for a girl that loves him not.\n    I claim her not, and therefore she is thine.\n  DUKE. The more degenerate and base art thou\n    To make such means for her as thou hast done\n    And leave her on such slight conditions.\n    Now, by the honour of my ancestry,\n    I do applaud thy spirit, Valentine,\n    And think thee worthy of an empress' love.\n    Know then, I here forget all former griefs,\n    Cancel all grudge, repeal thee home again,\n    Plead a new state in thy unrivall'd merit,\n    To which I thus subscribe: Sir Valentine,\n    Thou art a gentleman, and well deriv'd;\n    Take thou thy Silvia, for thou hast deserv'd her.\n  VALENTINE. I thank your Grace; the gift hath made me happy.\n    I now beseech you, for your daughter's sake,\n    To grant one boon that I shall ask of you.\n  DUKE. I grant it for thine own, whate'er it be.\n  VALENTINE. These banish'd men, that I have kept withal,\n    Are men endu'd with worthy qualities;\n    Forgive them what they have committed here,\n    And let them be recall'd from their exile:\n    They are reformed, civil, full of good,\n    And fit for great employment, worthy lord.\n  DUKE. Thou hast prevail'd; I pardon them, and thee;\n    Dispose of them as thou know'st their deserts.\n    Come, let us go; we will include all jars\n    With triumphs, mirth, and rare solemnity.\n  VALENTINE. And, as we walk along, I dare be bold\n    With our discourse to make your Grace to smile.\n    What think you of this page, my lord?\n  DUKE. I think the boy hath grace in him; he blushes.\n  VALENTINE. I warrant you, my lord- more grace than boy.\n  DUKE. What mean you by that saying?\n  VALENTINE. Please you, I'll tell you as we pass along,\n    That you will wonder what hath fortuned.\n    Come, Proteus, 'tis your penance but to hear\n    The story of your loves discovered.\n    That done, our day of marriage shall be yours;\n    One feast, one house, one mutual happiness!     Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of this Etext of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare\nTwo Gentlemen of Verona"}
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{"1109":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1595\n\nLOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae.\n\n  FERDINAND, King of Navarre\n  BEROWNE,    lord attending on the King\n  LONGAVILLE,  \"      \"      \"   \"   \"\n  DUMAIN,      \"      \"      \"   \"   \"\n  BOYET,   lord attending on the Princess of France\n  MARCADE,   \"     \"       \"  \"     \"      \"    \"\n  DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO, fantastical Spaniard\n  SIR NATHANIEL, a curate\n  HOLOFERNES, a schoolmaster\n  DULL, a constable\n  COSTARD, a clown\n  MOTH, page to Armado\n  A FORESTER\n\n  THE PRINCESS OF FRANCE\n  ROSALINE, lady attending on the Princess\n  MARIA,      \"     \"       \"  \"     \"\n  KATHARINE, lady attending on the Princess\n  JAQUENETTA, a country wench\n\n  Lords, Attendants, etc.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nNavarre\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nNavarre. The King's park\n\nEnter the King, BEROWNE, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN\n\n  KING. Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,\n    Live regist'red upon our brazen tombs,\n    And then grace us in the disgrace of death;\n    When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,\n    Th' endeavour of this present breath may buy\n    That honour which shall bate his scythe's keen edge,\n    And make us heirs of all eternity.\n    Therefore, brave conquerors- for so you are\n    That war against your own affections\n    And the huge army of the world's desires-\n    Our late edict shall strongly stand in force:\n    Navarre shall be the wonder of the world;\n    Our court shall be a little Academe,\n    Still and contemplative in living art.\n    You three, Berowne, Dumain, and Longaville,\n    Have sworn for three years' term to live with me\n    My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes\n    That are recorded in this schedule here.\n    Your oaths are pass'd; and now subscribe your names,\n    That his own hand may strike his honour down\n    That violates the smallest branch herein.\n    If you are arm'd to do as sworn to do,\n    Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too.\n  LONGAVILLE. I am resolv'd; 'tis but a three years' fast.\n    The mind shall banquet, though the body pine.\n    Fat paunches have lean pates; and dainty bits\n    Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits.\n  DUMAIN. My loving lord, Dumain is mortified.\n    The grosser manner of these world's delights\n    He throws upon the gross world's baser slaves;\n    To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die,\n    With all these living in philosophy.\n  BEROWNE. I can but say their protestation over;\n    So much, dear liege, I have already sworn,\n    That is, to live and study here three years.\n    But there are other strict observances,\n    As: not to see a woman in that term,\n    Which I hope well is not enrolled there;\n    And one day in a week to touch no food,\n    And but one meal on every day beside,\n    The which I hope is not enrolled there;\n    And then to sleep but three hours in the night\n    And not be seen to wink of all the day-\n    When I was wont to think no harm all night,\n    And make a dark night too of half the day-\n    Which I hope well is not enrolled there.\n    O, these are barren tasks, too hard to keep,\n    Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep!\n  KING. Your oath is pass'd to pass away from these.\n  BEROWNE. Let me say no, my liege, an if you please:\n    I only swore to study with your Grace,\n    And stay here in your court for three years' space.\n  LONGAVILLE. You swore to that, Berowne, and to the rest.\n  BEROWNE. By yea and nay, sir, then I swore in jest.\n    What is the end of study, let me know.\n  KING. Why, that to know which else we should not know.\n  BEROWNE. Things hid and barr'd, you mean, from common sense?\n  KING. Ay, that is study's god-like recompense.\n  BEROWNE. Come on, then; I will swear to study so,\n    To know the thing I am forbid to know,\n    As thus: to study where I well may dine,\n    When I to feast expressly am forbid;\n    Or study where to meet some mistress fine,\n    When mistresses from common sense are hid;\n    Or, having sworn too hard-a-keeping oath,\n    Study to break it, and not break my troth.\n    If study's gain be thus, and this be so,\n    Study knows that which yet it doth not know.\n    Swear me to this, and I will ne'er say no.\n  KING. These be the stops that hinder study quite,\n    And train our intellects to vain delight.\n  BEROWNE. Why, all delights are vain; but that most vain\n    Which, with pain purchas'd, doth inherit pain,\n    As painfully to pore upon a book\n    To seek the light of truth; while truth the while\n    Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look.\n    Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile;\n    So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,\n    Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.\n    Study me how to please the eye indeed,\n    By fixing it upon a fairer eye;\n    Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed,\n    And give him light that it was blinded by.\n    Study is like the heaven's glorious sun,\n    That will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks;\n    Small have continual plodders ever won,\n    Save base authority from others' books.\n    These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights\n    That give a name to every fixed star\n    Have no more profit of their shining nights\n    Than those that walk and wot not what they are.\n    Too much to know is to know nought but fame;\n    And every godfather can give a name.\n  KING. How well he's read, to reason against reading!\n  DUMAIN. Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding!\n  LONGAVILLE. He weeds the corn, and still lets grow the weeding.\n  BEROWNE. The spring is near, when green geese are a-breeding.\n  DUMAIN. How follows that?\n  BEROWNE. Fit in his place and time.\n  DUMAIN. In reason nothing.\n  BEROWNE. Something then in rhyme.\n  LONGAVILLE. Berowne is like an envious sneaping frost\n    That bites the first-born infants of the spring.\n  BEROWNE. Well, say I am; why should proud summer boast\n    Before the birds have any cause to sing?\n    Why should I joy in any abortive birth?\n    At Christmas I no more desire a rose\n    Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled shows;\n    But like of each thing that in season grows;\n    So you, to study now it is too late,\n    Climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate.\n  KING. Well, sit out; go home, Berowne; adieu.\n  BEROWNE. No, my good lord; I have sworn to stay with you;\n    And though I have for barbarism spoke more\n    Than for that angel knowledge you can say,\n    Yet confident I'll keep what I have swore,\n    And bide the penance of each three years' day.\n    Give me the paper; let me read the same;\n    And to the strictest decrees I'll write my name.\n  KING. How well this yielding rescues thee from shame!\n  BEROWNE. [Reads] 'Item. That no woman shall come within a mile\nof\n    my court'- Hath this been proclaimed?\n  LONGAVILLE. Four days ago.\n  BEROWNE. Let's see the penalty. [Reads] '-on pain of losing her\n    tongue.' Who devis'd this penalty?\n  LONGAVILLE. Marry, that did I.\n  BEROWNE. Sweet lord, and why?\n  LONGAVILLE. To fright them hence with that dread penalty.\n  BEROWNE. A dangerous law against gentility.\n    [Reads] 'Item. If any man be seen to talk with a woman within\n    the term of three years, he shall endure such public shame as\nthe\n    rest of the court can possibly devise.'\n    This article, my liege, yourself must break;\n    For well you know here comes in embassy\n    The French king's daughter, with yourself to speak-\n    A mild of grace and complete majesty-\n    About surrender up of Aquitaine\n    To her decrepit, sick, and bedrid father;\n    Therefore this article is made in vain,\n    Or vainly comes th' admired princess hither.\n  KING. What say you, lords? Why, this was quite forgot.\n  BEROWNE. So study evermore is over-shot.\n    While it doth study to have what it would,\n    It doth forget to do the thing it should;\n    And when it hath the thing it hunteth most,\n    'Tis won as towns with fire- so won, so lost.\n  KING. We must of force dispense with this decree;\n    She must lie here on mere necessity.\n  BEROWNE. Necessity will make us all forsworn\n    Three thousand times within this three years' space;\n    For every man with his affects is born,\n    Not by might mast'red, but by special grace.\n    If I break faith, this word shall speak for me:\n    I am forsworn on mere necessity.\n    So to the laws at large I write my name;        [Subscribes]\n    And he that breaks them in the least degree\n    Stands in attainder of eternal shame.\n    Suggestions are to other as to me;\n    But I believe, although I seem so loath,\n    I am the last that will last keep his oath.\n    But is there no quick recreation granted?\n  KING. Ay, that there is. Our court, you know, is haunted\n    With a refined traveller of Spain,\n    A man in all the world's new fashion planted,\n    That hath a mint of phrases in his brain;\n    One who the music of his own vain tongue\n    Doth ravish like enchanting harmony;\n    A man of complements, whom right and wrong\n    Have chose as umpire of their mutiny.\n    This child of fancy, that Armado hight,\n    For interim to our studies shall relate,\n    In high-born words, the worth of many a knight\n    From tawny Spain lost in the world's debate.\n    How you delight, my lords, I know not, I;\n    But I protest I love to hear him lie,\n    And I will use him for my minstrelsy.\n  BEROWNE. Armado is a most illustrious wight,\n    A man of fire-new words, fashion's own knight.\n  LONGAVILLE. Costard the swain and he shall be our sport;\n    And so to study three years is but short.\n\n      Enter DULL, a constable, with a letter, and COSTARD\n\n  DULL. Which is the Duke's own person?\n  BEROWNE. This, fellow. What wouldst?\n  DULL. I myself reprehend his own person, for I am his Grace's\n    farborough; but I would see his own person in flesh and\nblood.\n  BEROWNE. This is he.\n  DULL. Signior Arme- Arme- commends you. There's villainy\nabroad;\n    this letter will tell you more.\n  COSTARD. Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me.\n  KING. A letter from the magnificent Armado.\n  BEROWNE. How low soever the matter, I hope in God for high\nwords.\n  LONGAVILLE. A high hope for a low heaven. God grant us\npatience!\n  BEROWNE. To hear, or forbear hearing?\n  LONGAVILLE. To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately; or,\nto\n    forbear both.\n  BEROWNE. Well, sir, be it as the style shall give us cause to\nclimb\n    in the merriness.\n  COSTARD. The matter is to me, sir, as concerning Jaquenetta.\n    The manner of it is, I was taken with the manner.\n  BEROWNE. In what manner?\n  COSTARD. In manner and form following, sir; all those three: I\nwas\n    seen with her in the manor-house, sitting with her upon the\nform,\n    and taken following her into the park; which, put together,\nis in\n    manner and form following. Now, sir, for the manner- it is\nthe\n    manner of a man to speak to a woman. For the form- in some\nform.\n  BEROWNE. For the following, sir?\n  COSTARD. As it shall follow in my correction; and God defend\nthe\n    right!\n  KING. Will you hear this letter with attention?\n  BEROWNE. As we would hear an oracle.\n  COSTARD. Such is the simplicity of man to hearken after the\nflesh.\n  KING. [Reads] 'Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent and sole\n    dominator of Navarre, my soul's earth's god and body's\nfost'ring\n    patron'-\n  COSTARD. Not a word of Costard yet.\n  KING. [Reads] 'So it is'-\n  COSTARD. It may be so; but if he say it is so, he is, in\ntelling\n    true, but so.\n  KING. Peace!\n  COSTARD. Be to me, and every man that dares not fight!\n  KING. No words!\n  COSTARD. Of other men's secrets, I beseech you.\n  KING. [Reads] 'So it is, besieged with sable-coloured\nmelancholy, I\n    did commend the black oppressing humour to the most wholesome\n    physic of thy health-giving air; and, as I am a gentleman,\nbetook\n    myself to walk. The time When? About the sixth hour; when\nbeasts\n    most graze, birds best peck, and men sit down to that\nnourishment\n    which is called supper. So much for the time When. Now for\nthe\n    ground Which? which, I mean, I upon; it is ycleped thy park.\nThen\n    for the place Where? where, I mean, I did encounter that\nobscene\n    and most prepost'rous event that draweth from my snow-white\npen\n    the ebon-coloured ink which here thou viewest, beholdest,\n    surveyest, or seest. But to the place Where? It standeth\n    north-north-east and by east from the west corner of thy\n    curious-knotted garden. There did I see that low-spirited\nswain,\n    that base minnow of thy mirth,'\n  COSTARD. Me?\n  KING. 'that unlettered small-knowing soul,'\n  COSTARD. Me?\n  KING. 'that shallow vassal,'\n  COSTARD. Still me?\n  KING. 'which, as I remember, hight Costard,'\n  COSTARD. O, me!\n  KING. 'sorted and consorted, contrary to thy established\nproclaimed\n    edict and continent canon; which, with, O, with- but with\nthis I\n    passion to say wherewith-'\n  COSTARD. With a wench.\n    King. 'with a child of our grandmother Eve, a female; or, for\nthy\n    more sweet understanding, a woman. Him I, as my ever-esteemed\n    duty pricks me on, have sent to thee, to receive the meed of\n    punishment, by thy sweet Grace's officer, Antony Dull, a man\nof\n    good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation.'\n  DULL. Me, an't shall please you; I am Antony Dull.\n  KING. 'For Jaquenetta- so is the weaker vessel called, which I\n    apprehended with the aforesaid swain- I keep her as a vessel\nof\n    thy law's fury; and shall, at the least of thy sweet notice,\n    bring her to trial. Thine, in all compliments of devoted and\n    heart-burning heat of duty,\n                                         DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.'\n\n  BEROWNE. This is not so well as I look'd for, but the best that\n    ever I heard.\n  KING. Ay, the best for the worst. But, sirrah, what say you to\n    this?\n  COSTARD. Sir, I confess the wench.\n  KING. Did you hear the proclamation?\n  COSTARD. I do confess much of the hearing it, but little of the\n    marking of it.\n  KING. It was proclaimed a year's imprisonment to be taken with\na\n    wench.\n  COSTARD. I was taken with none, sir; I was taken with a damsel.\n  KING. Well, it was proclaimed damsel.\n  COSTARD. This was no damsel neither, sir; she was a virgin.\n  KING. It is so varied too, for it was proclaimed virgin.\n  COSTARD. If it were, I deny her virginity; I was taken with a\nmaid.\n  KING. This 'maid' not serve your turn, sir.\n  COSTARD. This maid will serve my turn, sir.\n  KING. Sir, I will pronounce your sentence: you shall fast a\nweek\n    with bran and water.\n  COSTARD. I had rather pray a month with mutton and porridge.\n  KING. And Don Armado shall be your keeper.\n    My Lord Berowne, see him delivered o'er;\n    And go we, lords, to put in practice that\n    Which each to other hath so strongly sworn.\n                             Exeunt KING, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN\n  BEROWNE. I'll lay my head to any good man's hat\n    These oaths and laws will prove an idle scorn.\n    Sirrah, come on.\n  COSTARD. I suffer for the truth, sir; for true it is I was\ntaken\n    with Jaquenetta, and Jaquenetta is a true girl; and therefore\n    welcome the sour cup of prosperity! Affliction may one day\nsmile\n    again; and till then, sit thee down, sorrow.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe park\n\nEnter ARMADO and MOTH, his page\n\n  ARMADO. Boy, what sign is it when a man of great spirit grows\n    melancholy?\n  MOTH. A great sign, sir, that he will look sad.\n  ARMADO. Why, sadness is one and the self-same thing, dear imp.\n  MOTH. No, no; O Lord, sir, no!\n  ARMADO. How canst thou part sadness and melancholy, my tender\n    juvenal?\n  MOTH. By a familiar demonstration of the working, my tough\nsignior.\n  ARMADO. Why tough signior? Why tough signior?\n  MOTH. Why tender juvenal? Why tender juvenal?\n  ARMADO. I spoke it, tender juvenal, as a congruent epitheton\n    appertaining to thy young days, which we may nominate tender.\n  MOTH. And I, tough signior, as an appertinent title to your old\n    time, which we may name tough.\n  ARMADO. Pretty and apt.\n  MOTH. How mean you, sir? I pretty, and my saying apt? or I apt,\nand\n    my saying pretty?\n  ARMADO. Thou pretty, because little.\n  MOTH. Little pretty, because little. Wherefore apt?\n  ARMADO. And therefore apt, because quick.\n  MOTH. Speak you this in my praise, master?\n  ARMADO. In thy condign praise.\n  MOTH. I will praise an eel with the same praise.\n  ARMADO. that an eel is ingenious?\n  MOTH. That an eel is quick.\n  ARMADO. I do say thou art quick in answers; thou heat'st my\nblood.\n  MOTH. I am answer'd, sir.\n  ARMADO. I love not to be cross'd.\n  MOTH. [Aside] He speaks the mere contrary: crosses love not\nhim.\n  ARMADO. I have promised to study three years with the Duke.\n  MOTH. You may do it in an hour, sir.\n  ARMADO. Impossible.\n  MOTH. How many is one thrice told?\n  ARMADO. I am ill at reck'ning; it fitteth the spirit of a\ntapster.\n  MOTH. You are a gentleman and a gamester, sir.\n  ARMADO. I confess both; they are both the varnish of a complete\n    man.\n  MOTH. Then I am sure you know how much the gross sum of\ndeuce-ace\n    amounts to.\n  ARMADO. It doth amount to one more than two.\n  MOTH. Which the base vulgar do call three.\n  ARMADO. True.\n  MOTH. Why, sir, is this such a piece of study? Now here is\nthree\n    studied ere ye'll thrice wink; and how easy it is to put\n'years'\n    to the word 'three,' and study three years in two words, the\n    dancing horse will tell you.\n  ARMADO. A most fine figure!\n  MOTH. [Aside] To prove you a cipher.\n  ARMADO. I will hereupon confess I am in love. And as it is base\nfor\n    a soldier to love, so am I in love with a base wench. If\ndrawing\n    my sword against the humour of affection would deliver me\nfrom\n    the reprobate thought of it, I would take Desire prisoner,\nand\n    ransom him to any French courtier for a new-devis'd curtsy. I\n    think scorn to sigh; methinks I should out-swear Cupid.\nComfort\n    me, boy; what great men have been in love?\n  MOTH. Hercules, master.\n  ARMADO. Most sweet Hercules! More authority, dear boy, name\nmore;\n    and, sweet my child, let them be men of good repute and\ncarriage.\n  MOTH. Samson, master; he was a man of good carriage, great\n    carriage, for he carried the town gates on his back like a\n    porter; and he was in love.\n  ARMADO. O well-knit Samson! strong-jointed Samson! I do excel\nthee\n    in my rapier as much as thou didst me in carrying gates. I am\nin\n    love too. Who was Samson's love, my dear Moth?\n  MOTH. A woman, master.\n  ARMADO. Of what complexion?\n  MOTH. Of all the four, or the three, or the two, or one of the\n    four.\n  ARMADO. Tell me precisely of what complexion.\n  MOTH. Of the sea-water green, sir.\n  ARMADO. Is that one of the four complexions?\n  MOTH. As I have read, sir; and the best of them too.\n  ARMADO. Green, indeed, is the colour of lovers; but to have a\nlove\n    of that colour, methinks Samson had small reason for it. He\n    surely affected her for her wit.\n  MOTH. It was so, sir; for she had a green wit.\n  ARMADO. My love is most immaculate white and red.\n  MOTH. Most maculate thoughts, master, are mask'd under such\n    colours.\n  ARMADO. Define, define, well-educated infant.\n  MOTH. My father's wit my mother's tongue assist me!\n  ARMADO. Sweet invocation of a child; most pretty, and\npathetical!\n  MOTH.      If she be made of white and red,\n               Her faults will ne'er be known;\n             For blushing cheeks by faults are bred,\n               And fears by pale white shown.\n             Then if she fear, or be to blame,\n               By this you shall not know;\n             For still her cheeks possess the same\n               Which native she doth owe.\n    A dangerous rhyme, master, against the reason of white and\nred.\n  ARMADO. Is there not a ballad, boy, of the King and the Beggar?\n  MOTH. The world was very guilty of such a ballad some three\nages\n    since; but I think now 'tis not to be found; or if it were,\nit\n    would neither serve for the writing nor the tune.\n  ARMADO. I will have that subject newly writ o'er, that I may\n    example my digression by some mighty precedent. Boy, I do\nlove\n    that country girl that I took in the park with the rational\nhind\n    Costard; she deserves well.\n  MOTH. [Aside] To be whipt; and yet a better love than my\nmaster.\n  ARMADO. Sing, boy; my spirit grows heavy in love.\n  MOTH. And that's great marvel, loving a light wench.\n  ARMADO. I say, sing.\n  MOTH. Forbear till this company be past.\n\n                Enter DULL, COSTARD, and JAQUENETTA\n\n  DULL. Sir, the Duke's pleasure is that you keep Costard safe;\nand\n    you must suffer him to take no delight nor no penance; but 'a\n    must fast three days a week. For this damsel, I must keep her\nat\n    the park; she is allow'd for the day-woman. Fare you well.\n  ARMADO. I do betray myself with blushing. Maid!\n  JAQUENETTA. Man!\n  ARMADO. I will visit thee at the lodge.\n  JAQUENETTA. That's hereby.\n  ARMADO. I know where it is situate.\n  JAQUENETTA. Lord, how wise you are!\n  ARMADO. I will tell thee wonders.\n  JAQUENETTA. With that face?\n  ARMADO. I love thee.\n  JAQUENETTA. So I heard you say.\n  ARMADO. And so, farewell.\n  JAQUENETTA. Fair weather after you!\n  DULL. Come, Jaquenetta, away.             Exit with JAQUENETTA\n  ARMADO. Villain, thou shalt fast for thy offences ere thou be\n    pardoned.\n  COSTARD. Well, sir, I hope when I do it I shall do it on a full\n    stomach.\n  ARMADO. Thou shalt be heavily punished.\n  COSTARD. I am more bound to you than your fellows, for they are\nbut\n    lightly rewarded.\n  ARMADO. Take away this villain; shut him up.\n  MOTH. Come, you transgressing slave, away.\n  COSTARD. Let me not be pent up, sir; I will fast, being loose.\n  MOTH. No, sir; that were fast, and loose. Thou shalt to prison.\n  COSTARD. Well, if ever I do see the merry days of desolation\nthat I\n    have seen, some shall see.\n  MOTH. What shall some see?\n  COSTARD. Nay, nothing, Master Moth, but what they look upon. It\nis\n    not for prisoners to be too silent in their words, and\ntherefore\n    I will say nothing. I thank God I have as little patience as\n    another man, and therefore I can be quiet.\n                                         Exeunt MOTH and COSTARD\n  ARMADO. I do affect the very ground, which is base, where her\nshoe,\n    which is baser, guided by her foot, which is basest, doth\ntread.\n    I shall be forsworn- which is a great argument of falsehood-\nif I\n    love. And how can that be true love which is falsely\nattempted?\n    Love is a familiar; Love is a devil. There is no evil angel\nbut\n    Love. Yet was Samson so tempted, and he had an excellent\n    strength; yet was Solomon so seduced, and he had a very good\nwit.\n    Cupid's butt-shaft is too hard for Hercules' club, and\ntherefore\n    too much odds for a Spaniard's rapier. The first and second\ncause\n    will not serve my turn; the passado he respects not, the\nduello\n    he regards not; his disgrace is to be called boy, but his\nglory\n    is to subdue men. Adieu, valour; rust, rapier; be still,\ndrum;\n    for your manager is in love; yea, he loveth. Assist me, some\n    extemporal god of rhyme, for I am sure I shall turn sonnet.\n    Devise, wit; write, pen; for I am for whole volumes in folio.\n Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE II.\nThe park\n\nEnter the PRINCESS OF FRANCE, with three attending ladies,\nROSALINE, MARIA, KATHARINE, BOYET, and two other LORDS\n\n  BOYET. Now, madam, summon up your dearest spirits.\n    Consider who the King your father sends,\n    To whom he sends, and what's his embassy:\n    Yourself, held precious in the world's esteem,\n    To parley with the sole inheritor\n    Of all perfections that a man may owe,\n    Matchless Navarre; the plea of no less weight\n    Than Aquitaine, a dowry for a queen.\n    Be now as prodigal of all dear grace\n    As Nature was in making graces dear,\n    When she did starve the general world beside\n    And prodigally gave them all to you.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but\nmean,\n    Needs not the painted flourish of your praise.\n    Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye,\n    Not utt'red by base sale of chapmen's tongues;\n    I am less proud to hear you tell my worth\n    Than you much willing to be counted wise\n    In spending your wit in the praise of mine.\n    But now to task the tasker: good Boyet,\n    You are not ignorant all-telling fame\n    Doth noise abroad Navarre hath made a vow,\n    Till painful study shall outwear three years,\n    No woman may approach his silent court.\n    Therefore to's seemeth it a needful course,\n    Before we enter his forbidden gates,\n    To know his pleasure; and in that behalf,\n    Bold of your worthiness, we single you\n    As our best-moving fair solicitor.\n    Tell him the daughter of the King of France,\n    On serious business, craving quick dispatch,\n    Importunes personal conference with his Grace.\n    Haste, signify so much; while we attend,\n    Like humble-visag'd suitors, his high will.\n  BOYET. Proud of employment, willingly I go.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. All pride is willing pride, and yours is\nso.\n                                                      Exit BOYET\n    Who are the votaries, my loving lords,\n    That are vow-fellows with this virtuous duke?\n  FIRST LORD. Lord Longaville is one.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Know you the man?\n  MARIA. I know him, madam; at a marriage feast,\n    Between Lord Perigort and the beauteous heir\n    Of Jaques Falconbridge, solemnized\n    In Normandy, saw I this Longaville.\n    A man of sovereign parts, peerless esteem'd,\n    Well fitted in arts, glorious in arms;\n    Nothing becomes him ill that he would well.\n    The only soil of his fair virtue's gloss,\n    If virtue's gloss will stain with any soil,\n    Is a sharp wit match'd with too blunt a will,\n    Whose edge hath power to cut, whose will still wills\n    It should none spare that come within his power.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Some merry mocking lord, belike; is't so?\n  MARIA. They say so most that most his humours know.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Such short-liv'd wits do wither as they\ngrow.\n    Who are the rest?\n  KATHARINE. The young Dumain, a well-accomplish'd youth,\n    Of all that virtue love for virtue loved;\n    Most power to do most harm, least knowing ill,\n    For he hath wit to make an ill shape good,\n    And shape to win grace though he had no wit.\n    I saw him at the Duke Alencon's once;\n    And much too little of that good I saw\n    Is my report to his great worthiness.\n  ROSALINE. Another of these students at that time\n    Was there with him, if I have heard a truth.\n    Berowne they call him; but a merrier man,\n    Within the limit of becoming mirth,\n    I never spent an hour's talk withal.\n    His eye begets occasion for his wit,\n    For every object that the one doth catch\n    The other turns to a mirth-moving jest,\n    Which his fair tongue, conceit's expositor,\n    Delivers in such apt and gracious words\n    That aged ears play truant at his tales,\n    And younger hearings are quite ravished;\n    So sweet and voluble is his discourse.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. God bless my ladies! Are they all in love,\n    That every one her own hath garnished\n    With such bedecking ornaments of praise?\n  FIRST LORD. Here comes Boyet.\n\n                       Re-enter BOYET\n\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Now, what admittance, lord?\n  BOYET. Navarre had notice of your fair approach,\n    And he and his competitors in oath\n    Were all address'd to meet you, gentle lady,\n    Before I came. Marry, thus much I have learnt:\n    He rather means to lodge you in the field,\n    Like one that comes here to besiege his court,\n    Than seek a dispensation for his oath,\n    To let you enter his unpeopled house.\n                                    [The LADIES-IN-WAITING mask]\n\n             Enter KING, LONGAVILLE, DUMAIN, BEROWNE,\n                         and ATTENDANTS\n\n    Here comes Navarre.\n  KING. Fair Princess, welcome to the court of Navarre.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. 'Fair' I give you back again; and 'welcome'\nI\n    have not yet. The roof of this court is too high to be yours,\nand\n    welcome to the wide fields too base to be mine.\n  KING. You shall be welcome, madam, to my court.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. I will be welcome then; conduct me thither.\n  KING. Hear me, dear lady: I have sworn an oath-\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Our Lady help my lord! He'll be forsworn.\n  KING. Not for the world, fair madam, by my will.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Why, will shall break it; will, and nothing\n    else.\n  KING. Your ladyship is ignorant what it is.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Were my lord so, his ignorance were wise,\n    Where now his knowledge must prove ignorance.\n    I hear your Grace hath sworn out house-keeping.\n    'Tis deadly sin to keep that oath, my lord,\n    And sin to break it.\n    But pardon me, I am too sudden bold;\n    To teach a teacher ill beseemeth me.\n    Vouchsafe to read the purpose of my coming,\n    And suddenly resolve me in my suit.         [Giving a paper]\n  KING. Madam, I will, if suddenly I may.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. YOU Will the sooner that I were away,\n    For you'll prove perjur'd if you make me stay.\n  BEROWNE. Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?\n  KATHARINE. Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?\n  BEROWNE. I know you did.\n  KATHARINE. How needless was it then to ask the question!\n  BEROWNE. You must not be so quick.\n  KATHARINE. 'Tis long of you, that spur me with such questions.\n  BEROWNE. Your wit 's too hot, it speeds too fast, 'twill tire.\n  KATHARINE. Not till it leave the rider in the mire.\n  BEROWNE. What time o' day?\n  KATHARINE. The hour that fools should ask.\n  BEROWNE. Now fair befall your mask!\n  KATHARINE. Fair fall the face it covers!\n  BEROWNE. And send you many lovers!\n  KATHARINE. Amen, so you be none.\n  BEROWNE. Nay, then will I be gone.\n  KING. Madam, your father here doth intimate\n    The payment of a hundred thousand crowns;\n    Being but the one half of an entire sum\n    Disbursed by my father in his wars.\n    But say that he or we, as neither have,\n    Receiv'd that sum, yet there remains unpaid\n    A hundred thousand more, in surety of the which,\n    One part of Aquitaine is bound to us,\n    Although not valued to the money's worth.\n    If then the King your father will restore\n    But that one half which is unsatisfied,\n    We will give up our right in Aquitaine,\n    And hold fair friendship with his Majesty.\n    But that, it seems, he little purposeth,\n    For here he doth demand to have repaid\n    A hundred thousand crowns; and not demands,\n    On payment of a hundred thousand crowns,\n    To have his title live in Aquitaine;\n    Which we much rather had depart withal,\n    And have the money by our father lent,\n    Than Aquitaine so gelded as it is.\n    Dear Princess, were not his requests so far\n    From reason's yielding, your fair self should make\n    A yielding 'gainst some reason in my breast,\n    And go well satisfied to France again.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. You do the King my father too much wrong,\n    And wrong the reputation of your name,\n    In so unseeming to confess receipt\n    Of that which hath so faithfully been paid.\n  KING. I do protest I never heard of it;\n    And, if you prove it, I'll repay it back\n    Or yield up Aquitaine.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. We arrest your word.\n    Boyet, you can produce acquittances\n    For such a sum from special officers\n    Of Charles his father.\n  KING. Satisfy me so.\n  BOYET. So please your Grace, the packet is not come,\n    Where that and other specialties are bound;\n    To-morrow you shall have a sight of them.\n  KING. It shall suffice me; at which interview\n    All liberal reason I will yield unto.\n    Meantime receive such welcome at my hand\n    As honour, without breach of honour, may\n    Make tender of to thy true worthiness.\n    You may not come, fair Princess, within my gates;\n    But here without you shall be so receiv'd\n    As you shall deem yourself lodg'd in my heart,\n    Though so denied fair harbour in my house.\n    Your own good thoughts excuse me, and farewell.\n    To-morrow shall we visit you again.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Sweet health and fair desires consort your\n    Grace!\n  KING. Thy own wish wish I thee in every place.\n                                            Exit with attendants\n  BEROWNE. Lady, I will commend you to mine own heart.\n  ROSALINE. Pray you, do my commendations;\n    I would be glad to see it.\n  BEROWNE. I would you heard it groan.\n  ROSALINE. Is the fool sick?\n  BEROWNE. Sick at the heart.\n  ROSALINE. Alack, let it blood.\n  BEROWNE. Would that do it good?\n  ROSALINE. My physic says 'ay.'\n  BEROWNE. Will YOU prick't with your eye?\n  ROSALINE. No point, with my knife.\n  BEROWNE. Now, God save thy life!\n  ROSALINE. And yours from long living!\n  BEROWNE. I cannot stay thanksgiving.                [Retiring]\n  DUMAIN. Sir, I pray you, a word: what lady is that same?\n  BOYET. The heir of Alencon, Katharine her name.\n  DUMAIN. A gallant lady! Monsieur, fare you well.          Exit\n  LONGAVILLE. I beseech you a word: what is she in the white?\n  BOYET. A woman sometimes, an you saw her in the light.\n  LONGAVILLE. Perchance light in the light. I desire her name.\n  BOYET. She hath but one for herself; to desire that were a\nshame.\n  LONGAVILLE. Pray you, sir, whose daughter?\n  BOYET. Her mother's, I have heard.\n  LONGAVILLE. God's blessing on your beard!\n  BOYET. Good sir, be not offended;\n    She is an heir of Falconbridge.\n  LONGAVILLE. Nay, my choler is ended.\n    She is a most sweet lady.\n  BOYET. Not unlike, sir; that may be.           Exit LONGAVILLE\n  BEROWNE. What's her name in the cap?\n  BOYET. Rosaline, by good hap.\n  BEROWNE. Is she wedded or no?\n  BOYET. To her will, sir, or so.\n  BEROWNE. You are welcome, sir; adieu!\n  BOYET. Farewell to me, sir, and welcome to you.\n                                     Exit BEROWNE. LADIES Unmask\n  MARIA. That last is Berowne, the merry mad-cap lord;\n    Not a word with him but a jest.\n  BOYET. And every jest but a word.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. It was well done of you to take him at his\n    word.\n  BOYET. I was as willing to grapple as he was to board.\n  KATHARINE. Two hot sheeps, marry!\n  BOYET. And wherefore not ships?\n    No sheep, sweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips.\n  KATHARINE. You sheep and I pasture- shall that finish the jest?\n  BOYET. So you grant pasture for me.     [Offering to kiss her]\n  KATHARINE. Not so, gentle beast;\n    My lips are no common, though several they be.\n  BOYET. Belonging to whom?\n  KATHARINE. To my fortunes and me.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Good wits will be jangling; but, gentles,\n      agree;\n    This civil war of wits were much better used\n    On Navarre and his book-men, for here 'tis abused.\n  BOYET. If my observation, which very seldom lies,\n    By the heart's still rhetoric disclosed with eyes,\n    Deceive me not now, Navarre is infected.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. With what?\n  BOYET. With that which we lovers entitle 'affected.'\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Your reason?\n  BOYET. Why, all his behaviours did make their retire\n    To the court of his eye, peeping thorough desire.\n    His heart, like an agate, with your print impressed,\n    Proud with his form, in his eye pride expressed;\n    His tongue, all impatient to speak and not see,\n    Did stumble with haste in his eyesight to be;\n    All senses to that sense did make their repair,\n    To feel only looking on fairest of fair.\n    Methought all his senses were lock'd in his eye,\n    As jewels in crystal for some prince to buy;\n    Who, tend'ring their own worth from where they were glass'd,\n    Did point you to buy them, along as you pass'd.\n    His face's own margent did quote such amazes\n    That all eyes saw his eyes enchanted with gazes.\n    I'll give you Aquitaine and all that is his,\n    An you give him for my sake but one loving kiss.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Come, to our pavilion. Boyet is dispos'd.\n  BOYET. But to speak that in words which his eye hath disclos'd;\n    I only have made a mouth of his eye,\n    By adding a tongue which I know will not lie.\n  MARIA. Thou art an old love-monger, and speakest skilfully.\n  KATHARINE. He is Cupid's grandfather, and learns news of him.\n  ROSALINE. Then was Venus like her mother; for her father is but\n    grim.\n  BOYET. Do you hear, my mad wenches?\n  MARIA. No.\n  BOYET. What, then; do you see?\n  MARIA. Ay, our way to be gone.\n  BOYET. You are too hard for me.                         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nThe park\n\nEnter ARMADO and MOTH\n\n  ARMADO. Warble, child; make passionate my sense of hearing.\n                                         [MOTH sings Concolinel]\n  ARMADO. Sweet air! Go, tenderness of years, take this key, give\n    enlargement to the swain, bring him festinately hither; I\nmust\n    employ him in a letter to my love.\n  MOTH. Master, will you win your love with a French brawl?\n  ARMADO. How meanest thou? Brawling in French?\n  MOTH. No, my complete master; but to jig off a tune at the\ntongue's\n    end, canary to it with your feet, humour it with turning up\nyour\n    eyelids, sigh a note and sing a note, sometime through the\n    throat, as if you swallowed love with singing love, sometime\n    through the nose, as if you snuff'd up love by smelling love,\n    with your hat penthouse-like o'er the shop of your eyes, with\n    your arms cross'd on your thin-belly doublet, like a rabbit\non a\n    spit, or your hands in your pocket, like a man after the old\n    painting; and keep not too long in one tune, but a snip and\naway.\n    These are complements, these are humours; these betray nice\n    wenches, that would be betrayed without these; and make them\nmen\n    of note- do you note me?- that most are affected to these.\n  ARMADO. How hast thou purchased this experience?\n  MOTH. By my penny of observation.\n  ARMADO. But O- but O-\n  MOTH. The hobby-horse is forgot.\n  ARMADO. Call'st thou my love 'hobby-horse'?\n  MOTH. No, master; the hobby-horse is but a colt, and your love\n    perhaps a hackney. But have you forgot your love?\n  ARMADO. Almost I had.\n  MOTH. Negligent student! learn her by heart.\n  ARMADO. By heart and in heart, boy.\n  MOTH. And out of heart, master; all those three I will prove.\n  ARMADO. What wilt thou prove?\n  MOTH. A man, if I live; and this, by, in, and without, upon the\n    instant. By heart you love her, because your heart cannot\ncome by\n    her; in heart you love her, because your heart is in love\nwith\n    her; and out of heart you love her, being out of heart that\nyou\n    cannot enjoy her.\n  ARMADO. I am all these three.\n  MOTH. And three times as much more, and yet nothing at all.\n  ARMADO. Fetch hither the swain; he must carry me a letter.\n  MOTH. A message well sympathiz'd- a horse to be ambassador for\nan\n    ass.\n  ARMADO. Ha, ha, what sayest thou?\n  MOTH. Marry, sir, you must send the ass upon the horse, for he\nis\n    very slow-gaited. But I go.\n  ARMADO. The way is but short; away.\n  MOTH. As swift as lead, sir.\n  ARMADO. The meaning, pretty ingenious?\n    Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow?\n  MOTH. Minime, honest master; or rather, master, no.\n  ARMADO. I say lead is slow.\n  MOTH. You are too swift, sir, to say so:\n    Is that lead slow which is fir'd from a gun?\n  ARMADO. Sweet smoke of rhetoric!\n    He reputes me a cannon; and the bullet, that's he;\n    I shoot thee at the swain.\n  MOTH. Thump, then, and I flee.                            Exit\n  ARMADO. A most acute juvenal; volable and free of grace!\n    By thy favour, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face;\n    Most rude melancholy, valour gives thee place.\n    My herald is return'd.\n\n                       Re-enter MOTH with COSTARD\n\n  MOTH. A wonder, master! here's a costard broken in a shin.\n  ARMADO. Some enigma, some riddle; come, thy l'envoy; begin.\n  COSTARD. No egma, no riddle, no l'envoy; no salve in the mail,\nsir.\n    O, sir, plantain, a plain plantain; no l'envoy, no l'envoy;\nno\n    salve, sir, but a plantain!\n  ARMADO. By virtue thou enforcest laughter; thy silly thought,\nmy\n    spleen; the heaving of my lungs provokes me to ridiculous\n    smiling. O, pardon me, my stars! Doth the inconsiderate take\n    salve for l'envoy, and the word 'l'envoy' for a salve?\n  MOTH. Do the wise think them other? Is not l'envoy a salve?\n  ARMADO. No, page; it is an epilogue or discourse to make plain\n    Some obscure precedence that hath tofore been sain.\n    I will example it:\n           The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,\n           Were still at odds, being but three.\n    There's the moral. Now the l'envoy.\n  MOTH. I will add the l'envoy. Say the moral again.\n  ARMADO.  The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,\n           Were still at odds, being but three.\n  MOTH.    Until the goose came out of door,\n           And stay'd the odds by adding four.\n    Now will I begin your moral, and do you follow with my\nl'envoy.\n           The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,\n           Were still at odds, being but three.\n  ARMADO.  Until the goose came out of door,\n           Staying the odds by adding four.\n  MOTH. A good l'envoy, ending in the goose; would you desire\nmore?\n  COSTARD. The boy hath sold him a bargain, a goose, that's flat.\n    Sir, your pennyworth is good, an your goose be fat.\n    To sell a bargain well is as cunning as fast and loose;\n    Let me see: a fat l'envoy; ay, that's a fat goose.\n  ARMADO. Come hither, come hither. How did this argument begin?\n  MOTH. By saying that a costard was broken in a shin.\n    Then call'd you for the l'envoy.\n  COSTARD. True, and I for a plantain. Thus came your argument\nin;\n    Then the boy's fat l'envoy, the goose that you bought;\n    And he ended the market.\n  ARMADO. But tell me: how was there a costard broken in a shin?\n  MOTH. I will tell you sensibly.\n  COSTARD. Thou hast no feeling of it, Moth; I will speak that\n      l'envoy.\n    I, Costard, running out, that was safely within,\n    Fell over the threshold and broke my shin.\n  ARMADO. We will talk no more of this matter.\n  COSTARD. Till there be more matter in the shin.\n  ARMADO. Sirrah Costard. I will enfranchise thee.\n  COSTARD. O, Marry me to one Frances! I smell some l'envoy, some\n    goose, in this.\n  ARMADO. By my sweet soul, I mean setting thee at liberty,\n    enfreedoming thy person; thou wert immured, restrained,\n    captivated, bound.\n  COSTARD. True, true; and now you will be my purgation, and let\nme\n    loose.\n  ARMADO. I give thee thy liberty, set thee from durance; and, in\n\n    lieu thereof, impose on thee nothing but this: bear this\n    significant [giving a letter] to the country maid Jaquenetta;\n    there is remuneration, for the best ward of mine honour is\n    rewarding my dependents. Moth, follow.                  Exit\n  MOTH. Like the sequel, I. Signior Costard, adieu.\n  COSTARD. My sweet ounce of man's flesh, my incony Jew!\n                                                       Exit MOTH\n    Now will I look to his remuneration. Remuneration! O, that's\nthe\n    Latin word for three farthings. Three farthings-\nremuneration.\n    'What's the price of this inkle?'- 'One penny.'- 'No, I'll\ngive\n    you a remuneration.' Why, it carries it. Remuneration! Why,\nit is\n    a fairer name than French crown. I will never buy and sell\nout of\n    this word.\n\n                          Enter BEROWNE\n\n  BEROWNE. My good knave Costard, exceedingly well met!\n  COSTARD. Pray you, sir, how much carnation ribbon may a man buy\nfor\n    a remuneration?\n  BEROWNE. What is a remuneration?\n  COSTARD. Marry, sir, halfpenny farthing.\n  BEROWNE. Why, then, three-farthing worth of silk.\n  COSTARD. I thank your worship. God be wi' you!\n  BEROWNE. Stay, slave; I must employ thee.\n    As thou wilt win my favour, good my knave,\n    Do one thing for me that I shall entreat.\n  COSTARD. When would you have it done, sir?\n  BEROWNE. This afternoon.\n  COSTARD. Well, I will do it, sir; fare you well.\n  BEROWNE. Thou knowest not what it is.\n  COSTARD. I shall know, sir, when I have done it.\n  BEROWNE. Why, villain, thou must know first.\n  COSTARD. I will come to your worship to-morrow morning.\n  BEROWNE. It must be done this afternoon.\n    Hark, slave, it is but this:\n    The Princess comes to hunt here in the park,\n    And in her train there is a gentle lady;\n    When tongues speak sweetly, then they name her name,\n    And Rosaline they call her. Ask for her,\n    And to her white hand see thou do commend\n    This seal'd-up counsel. There's thy guerdon; go.\n                                         [Giving him a shilling]\n  COSTARD. Gardon, O sweet gardon! better than remuneration; a\n    'leven-pence farthing better; most sweet gardon! I will do\nit,\n    sir, in print. Gardon- remuneration!                    Exit\n  BEROWNE. And I, forsooth, in love; I, that have been love's\nwhip;\n    A very beadle to a humorous sigh;\n    A critic, nay, a night-watch constable;\n    A domineering pedant o'er the boy,\n    Than whom no mortal so magnificent!\n    This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy,\n    This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid;\n    Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms,\n    Th' anointed sovereign of sighs and groans,\n    Liege of all loiterers and malcontents,\n    Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces,\n    Sole imperator, and great general\n    Of trotting paritors. O my little heart!\n    And I to be a corporal of his field,\n    And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop!\n    What! I love, I sue, I seek a wife-\n    A woman, that is like a German clock,\n    Still a-repairing, ever out of frame,\n    And never going aright, being a watch,\n    But being watch'd that it may still go right!\n    Nay, to be perjur'd, which is worst of all;\n    And, among three, to love the worst of all,\n    A whitely wanton with a velvet brow,\n    With two pitch balls stuck in her face for eyes;\n    Ay, and, by heaven, one that will do the deed,\n    Though Argus were her eunuch and her guard.\n    And I to sigh for her! to watch for her!\n    To pray for her! Go to; it is a plague\n    That Cupid will impose for my neglect\n    Of his almighty dreadful little might.\n    Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue, and groan:\n    Some men must love my lady, and some Joan.              Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nThe park\n\nEnter the PRINCESS, ROSALINE, MARIA, KATHARINE, BOYET, LORDS,\nATTENDANTS,\nand a FORESTER\n\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Was that the King that spurr'd his horse so\n      hard\n    Against the steep uprising of the hill?\n  BOYET. I know not; but I think it was not he.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Whoe'er 'a was, 'a show'd a mounting mind.\n    Well, lords, to-day we shall have our dispatch;\n    On Saturday we will return to France.\n    Then, forester, my friend, where is the bush\n    That we must stand and play the murderer in?\n  FORESTER. Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice;\n    A stand where you may make the fairest shoot.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. I thank my beauty I am fair that shoot,\n    And thereupon thou speak'st the fairest shoot.\n  FORESTER. Pardon me, madam, for I meant not so.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. What, what? First praise me, and again say\nno?\n    O short-liv'd pride! Not fair? Alack for woe!\n  FORESTER. Yes, madam, fair.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Nay, never paint me now;\n    Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the brow.\n    Here, good my glass, take this for telling true:\n                                             [ Giving him money]\n    Fair payment for foul words is more than due.\n  FORESTER. Nothing but fair is that which you inherit.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. See, see, my beauty will be sav'd by merit.\n    O heresy in fair, fit for these days!\n    A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise.\n    But come, the bow. Now mercy goes to kill,\n    And shooting well is then accounted ill;\n    Thus will I save my credit in the shoot:\n    Not wounding, pity would not let me do't;\n    If wounding, then it was to show my skill,\n    That more for praise than purpose meant to kill.\n    And, out of question, so it is sometimes:\n    Glory grows guilty of detested crimes,\n    When, for fame's sake, for praise, an outward part,\n    We bend to that the working of the heart;\n    As I for praise alone now seek to spill\n    The poor deer's blood that my heart means no ill.\n  BOYET. Do not curst wives hold that self-sovereignty\n    Only for praise sake, when they strive to be\n    Lords o'er their lords?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Only for praise; and praise we may afford\n    To any lady that subdues a lord.\n\n                       Enter COSTARD\n\n  BOYET. Here comes a member of the commonwealth.\n  COSTARD. God dig-you-den all! Pray you, which is the head lady?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Thou shalt know her, fellow, by the rest\nthat\n    have no heads.\n  COSTARD. Which is the greatest lady, the highest?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. The thickest and the tallest.\n  COSTARD. The thickest and the tallest! It is so; truth is\ntruth.\n    An your waist, mistress, were as slender as my wit,\n    One o' these maids' girdles for your waist should be fit.\n    Are not you the chief woman? You are the thickest here.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. What's your will, sir? What's your will?\n  COSTARD. I have a letter from Monsieur Berowne to one\n    Lady Rosaline.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. O, thy letter, thy letter! He's a good\nfriend\n      of mine.\n    Stand aside, good bearer. Boyet, you can carve.\n    Break up this capon.\n  BOYET. I am bound to serve.\n    This letter is mistook; it importeth none here.\n    It is writ to Jaquenetta.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. We will read it, I swear.\n    Break the neck of the wax, and every one give ear.\n  BOYET. [Reads] 'By heaven, that thou art fair is most\ninfallible;\n    true that thou art beauteous; truth itself that thou art\nlovely.\n    More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous, truer than\ntruth\n    itself, have commiseration on thy heroical vassal. The\n    magnanimous and most illustrate king Cophetua set eye upon\nthe\n    pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon; and he it was\nthat\n    might rightly say, 'Veni, vidi, vici'; which to annothanize\nin\n    the vulgar,- O base and obscure vulgar!- videlicet, He came,\nsaw,\n    and overcame. He came, one; saw, two; overcame, three. Who\ncame?-\n    the king. Why did he come?- to see. Why did he see?-to\novercome.\n    To whom came he?- to the beggar. What saw he?- the beggar.\nWho\n    overcame he?- the beggar. The conclusion is victory; on whose\n    side?- the king's. The captive is enrich'd; on whose side?-\nthe\n    beggar's. The catastrophe is a nuptial; on whose side?- the\n    king's. No, on both in one, or one in both. I am the king,\nfor so\n    stands the comparison; thou the beggar, for so witnesseth thy\n    lowliness. Shall I command thy love? I may. Shall I enforce\nthy\n    love? I could. Shall I entreat thy love? I will. What shalt\nthou\n    exchange for rags?- robes, for tittles?- titles, for thyself?\n    -me. Thus expecting thy reply, I profane my lips on thy foot,\nmy\n    eyes on thy picture, and my heart on thy every part.\n                  Thine in the dearest design of industry,\n                                           DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.\n\n    'Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar\n    'Gainst thee, thou lamb, that standest as his prey;\n    Submissive fall his princely feet before,\n    And he from forage will incline to play.\n    But if thou strive, poor soul, what are thou then?\n    Food for his rage, repasture for his den.'\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. What plume of feathers is he that indited\nthis\n      letter?\n    What vane? What weathercock? Did you ever hear better?\n  BOYET. I am much deceived but I remember the style.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Else your memory is bad, going o'er it\n    erewhile.\n  BOYET. This Armado is a Spaniard, that keeps here in court;\n    A phantasime, a Monarcho, and one that makes sport\n    To the Prince and his book-mates.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Thou fellow, a word.\n    Who gave thee this letter?\n  COSTARD. I told you: my lord.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. To whom shouldst thou give it?\n  COSTARD. From my lord to my lady.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. From which lord to which lady?\n  COSTARD. From my Lord Berowne, a good master of mine,\n    To a lady of France that he call'd Rosaline.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Thou hast mistaken his letter. Come, lords,\n\n      away.\n    [To ROSALINE] Here, sweet, put up this; 'twill be thine\nanother\n      day.                             Exeunt PRINCESS and TRAIN\n  BOYET. Who is the shooter? who is the shooter?\n  ROSALINE. Shall I teach you to know?\n  BOYET. Ay, my continent of beauty.\n  ROSALINE. Why, she that bears the bow.\n    Finely put off!\n  BOYET. My lady goes to kill horns; but, if thou marry,\n    Hang me by the neck, if horns that year miscarry.\n    Finely put on!\n  ROSALINE. Well then, I am the shooter.\n  BOYET. And who is your deer?\n  ROSALINE. If we choose by the horns, yourself come not near.\n    Finely put on indeed!\n  MARIA. You Still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes at\nthe\n    brow.\n  BOYET. But she herself is hit lower. Have I hit her now?\n  ROSALINE. Shall I come upon thee with an old saying, that was a\nman\n    when King Pepin of France was a little boy, as touching the\nhit\n    it?\n  BOYET. So I may answer thee with one as old, that was a woman\nwhen\n    Queen Guinever of Britain was a little wench, as touching the\nhit\n    it.\n  ROSALINE. [Singing]\n            Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it,\n            Thou canst not hit it, my good man.\n  BOYET.    An I cannot, cannot, cannot,\n            An I cannot, another can.\n                                   Exeunt ROSALINE and KATHARINE\n  COSTARD. By my troth, most pleasant! How both did fit it!\n  MARIA. A mark marvellous well shot; for they both did hit it.\n  BOYET. A mark! O, mark but that mark! A mark, says my lady!\n    Let the mark have a prick in't, to mete at, if it may be.\n  MARIA. Wide o' the bow-hand! I' faith, your hand is out.\n  COSTARD. Indeed, 'a must shoot nearer, or he'll ne'er hit the\n    clout.\n  BOYET. An if my hand be out, then belike your hand is in.\n  COSTARD. Then will she get the upshoot by cleaving the pin.\n  MARIA. Come, come, you talk greasily; your lips grow foul.\n  COSTARD. She's too hard for you at pricks, sir; challenge her\nto\n    bowl.\n  BOYET. I fear too much rubbing; good-night, my good owl.\n                                          Exeunt BOYET and MARIA\n  COSTARD. By my soul, a swain, a most simple clown!\n    Lord, Lord! how the ladies and I have put him down!\n    O' my troth, most sweet jests, most incony vulgar wit!\n    When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it were, so\nfit.\n    Armado a th' t'one side- O, a most dainty man!\n    To see him walk before a lady and to bear her fan!\n    To see him kiss his hand, and how most sweetly 'a will swear!\n    And his page a t' other side, that handful of wit!\n    Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit!\n    Sola, sola!                                     Exit COSTARD\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe park\n\nFrom the shooting within, enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and\nDULL\n\n  NATHANIEL. Very reverent sport, truly; and done in the\ntestimony of\n    a good conscience.\n  HOLOFERNES. The deer was, as you know, sanguis, in blood; ripe\nas\n    the pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of\ncaelo,\n    the sky, the welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a crab\non\n    the face of terra, the soil, the land, the earth.\n  NATHANIEL. Truly, Master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly\n    varied, like a scholar at the least; but, sir, I assure ye it\nwas\n    a buck of the first head.\n  HOLOFERNES. Sir Nathaniel, haud credo.\n  DULL. 'Twas not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket.\n  HOLOFERNES. Most barbarous intimation! yet a kind of\ninsinuation,\n    as it were, in via, in way, of explication; facere, as it\nwere,\n    replication, or rather, ostentare, to show, as it were, his\n    inclination, after his undressed, unpolished, uneducated,\n    unpruned, untrained, or rather unlettered, or ratherest\n    unconfirmed fashion, to insert again my haud credo for a\ndeer.\n  DULL. I Said the deer was not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket.\n  HOLOFERNES. Twice-sod simplicity, bis coctus!\n    O thou monster Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!\n  NATHANIEL. Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred\nin\n      a book;\n    He hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink; his\n    intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only\nsensible\n    in the duller parts;\n    And such barren plants are set before us that we thankful\nshould\n      be-\n    Which we of taste and feeling are- for those parts that do\n      fructify in us more than he.\n    For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or a\nfool,\n    So, were there a patch set on learning, to see him in a\nschool.\n    But, omne bene, say I, being of an old father's mind:\n    Many can brook the weather that love not the wind.\n  DULL. You two are book-men: can you tell me by your wit\n    What was a month old at Cain's birth that's not five weeks\nold as\n      yet?\n  HOLOFERNES. Dictynna, goodman Dull; Dictynna, goodman Dull.\n  DULL. What is Dictynna?\n  NATHANIEL. A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon.\n  HOLOFERNES. The moon was a month old when Adam was no more,\n    And raught not to five weeks when he came to five-score.\n    Th' allusion holds in the exchange.\n  DULL. 'Tis true, indeed; the collusion holds in the exchange.\n  HOLOFERNES. God comfort thy capacity! I say th' allusion holds\nin\n    the exchange.\n  DULL. And I say the polusion holds in the exchange; for the\nmoon is\n    never but a month old; and I say, beside, that 'twas a\npricket\n    that the Princess kill'd.\n  HOLOFERNES. Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph\non\n    the death of the deer? And, to humour the ignorant, call the\ndeer\n    the Princess kill'd a pricket.\n  NATHANIEL. Perge, good Master Holofernes, perge, so it shall\nplease\n    you to abrogate scurrility.\n  HOLOFERNES. I Will something affect the letter, for it argues\n    facility.\n\n    The preyful Princess pierc'd and prick'd a pretty pleasing\n      pricket.\n    Some say a sore; but not a sore till now made sore with\nshooting.\n    The dogs did yell; put el to sore, then sorel jumps from\nthicket-\n    Or pricket sore, or else sorel; the people fall a-hooting.\n    If sore be sore, then L to sore makes fifty sores o' sorel.\n    Of one sore I an hundred make by adding but one more L.\n\n  NATHANIEL. A rare talent!\n  DULL. [Aside] If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with\na\n    talent.\n  HOLOFERNES. This is a gift that I have, simple, simple; a\nfoolish\n    extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects,\n    ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions. These are begot\nin\n    the ventricle of memory, nourish'd in the womb of pia mater,\nand\n    delivered upon the mellowing of occasion. But the gift is\ngood in\n    those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it.\n  NATHANIEL. Sir, I praise the Lord for you, and so may my\n    parishioners; for their sons are well tutor'd by you, and\ntheir\n    daughters profit very greatly under you. You are a good\nmember of\n    the commonwealth.\n  HOLOFERNES. Mehercle, if their sons be ingenious, they shall\nwant\n    no instruction; if their daughters be capable, I will put it\nto\n    them; but, vir sapit qui pauca loquitur. A soul feminine\nsaluteth\n    us.\n\n                    Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD\n\n  JAQUENETTA. God give you good morrow, Master Person.\n  HOLOFERNES. Master Person, quasi pers-one. And if one should be\n    pierc'd which is the one?\n  COSTARD. Marry, Master Schoolmaster, he that is likest to a\n    hogshead.\n  HOLOFERNES. Piercing a hogshead! A good lustre of conceit in a\nturf\n    of earth; fire enough for a flint, pearl enough for a swine;\n'tis\n    pretty; it is well.\n  JAQUENETTA. Good Master Parson, be so good as read me this\nletter;\n    it was given me by Costard, and sent me from Don Armado. I\n    beseech you read it.\n  HOLOFERNES. Fauste, precor gelida quando pecus omne sub umbra\n    Ruminat-\n    and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! I may speak of thee as\n    the traveller doth of Venice:\n                   Venetia, Venetia,\n                   Chi non ti vede, non ti pretia.\n    Old Mantuan, old Mantuan! Who understandeth thee not,\n    loves thee not-\n                      Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa.\n    Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? or rather as\n    Horace says in his- What, my soul, verses?\n  NATHANIEL. Ay, sir, and very learned.\n  HOLOFERNES. Let me hear a staff, a stanze, a verse; lege,\ndomine.\n  NATHANIEL. [Reads] 'If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear\nto\n      love?\n    Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vowed!\n    Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll faithful prove;\n    Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers bowed.\n    Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine eyes,\n    Where all those pleasures live that art would comprehend.\n    If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice;\n    Well learned is that tongue that well can thee commend;\n    All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder;\n    Which is to me some praise that I thy parts admire.\n    Thy eye Jove's lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful\nthunder,\n    Which, not to anger bent, is music and sweet fire.\n    Celestial as thou art, O, pardon love this wrong,\n    That singes heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue.'\n  HOLOFERNES. You find not the apostrophas, and so miss the\naccent:\n    let me supervise the canzonet. Here are only numbers\nratified;\n    but, for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy,\n    caret. Ovidius Naso was the man. And why, indeed, 'Naso' but\nfor\n    smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of\n    invention? Imitari is nothing: so doth the hound his master,\nthe\n    ape his keeper, the tired horse his rider. But, damosella\nvirgin,\n    was this directed to you?\n  JAQUENETTA. Ay, sir, from one Monsieur Berowne, one of the\nstrange\n    queen's lords.\n  HOLOFERNES. I will overglance the superscript: 'To the\nsnow-white\n    hand of the most beauteous Lady Rosaline.' I will look again\non\n    the intellect of the letter, for the nomination of the party\n    writing to the person written unto: 'Your Ladyship's in all\n    desired employment, Berowne.' Sir Nathaniel, this Berowne is\none\n    of the votaries with the King; and here he hath framed a\nletter\n    to a sequent of the stranger queen's which accidentally, or\nby\n    the way of progression, hath miscarried. Trip and go, my\nsweet;\n    deliver this paper into the royal hand of the King; it may\n    concern much. Stay not thy compliment; I forgive thy duty.\nAdieu.\n  JAQUENETTA. Good Costard, go with me. Sir, God save your life!\n  COSTARD. Have with thee, my girl.\n                                   Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA\n  NATHANIEL. Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very\n    religiously; and, as a certain father saith-\n  HOLOFERNES. Sir, tell not me of the father; I do fear\ncolourable\n    colours. But to return to the verses: did they please you,\nSir\n    Nathaniel?\n  NATHANIEL. Marvellous well for the pen.\n  HOLOFERNES. I do dine to-day at the father's of a certain pupil\nof\n    mine; where, if, before repast, it shall please you to\ngratify\n    the table with a grace, I will, on my privilege I have with\nthe\n    parents of the foresaid child or pupil, undertake your ben\n    venuto; where I will prove those verses to be very unlearned,\n    neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention. I beseech\nyour\n    society.\n  NATHANIEL. And thank you too; for society, saith the text, is\nthe\n    happiness of life.\n  HOLOFERNES. And certes, the text most infallibly concludes it.\n    [To DULL] Sir, I do invite you too; you shall not say me nay:\n    pauca verba. Away; the gentles are at their game, and we will\nto\n    our recreation.                                       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe park\n\nEnter BEROWNE, with a paper his band, alone\n\n  BEROWNE. The King he is hunting the deer: I am coursing myself.\n    They have pitch'd a toil: I am tolling in a pitch- pitch that\n    defiles. Defile! a foul word. Well, 'set thee down, sorrow!'\nfor\n    so they say the fool said, and so say I, and I am the fool.\nWell\n    proved, wit. By the Lord, this love is as mad as Ajax: it\nkills\n    sheep; it kills me- I a sheep. Well proved again o' my side.\nI\n    will not love; if I do, hang me. I' faith, I will not. O, but\nher\n    eye! By this light, but for her eye, I would not love her-\nyes,\n    for her two eyes. Well, I do nothing in the world but lie,\nand\n    lie in my throat. By heaven, I do love; and it hath taught me\nto\n    rhyme, and to be melancholy; and here is part of my rhyme,\nand\n    here my melancholy. Well, she hath one o' my sonnets already;\nthe\n    clown bore it, the fool sent it, and the lady hath it: sweet\n    clown, sweeter fool, sweetest lady! By the world, I would not\n    care a pin if the other three were in. Here comes one with a\n    paper; God give him grace to groan!\n                                            [Climbs into a tree]\n\n                      Enter the KING, with a paper\n\n  KING. Ay me!\n  BEROWNE. Shot, by heaven! Proceed, sweet Cupid; thou hast\nthump'd\n    him with thy bird-bolt under the left pap. In faith, secrets!\n  KING. [Reads]\n      'So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not\n      To those fresh morning drops upon the rose,\n      As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote\n      The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows;\n      Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright\n      Through the transparent bosom of the deep,\n      As doth thy face through tears of mine give light.\n      Thou shin'st in every tear that I do weep;\n      No drop but as a coach doth carry thee;\n      So ridest thou triumphing in my woe.\n      Do but behold the tears that swell in me,\n      And they thy glory through my grief will show.\n      But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep\n      My tears for glasses, and still make me weep.\n      O queen of queens! how far dost thou excel\n      No thought can think nor tongue of mortal tell.'\n    How shall she know my griefs? I'll drop the paper-\n    Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here?\n                                                   [Steps aside]\n\n                  Enter LONGAVILLE, with a paper\n\n    What, Longaville, and reading! Listen, car.\n  BEROWNE. Now, in thy likeness, one more fool appear!\n  LONGAVILLE. Ay me, I am forsworn!\n  BEROWNE. Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers.\n  KING. In love, I hope; sweet fellowship in shame!\n  BEROWNE. One drunkard loves another of the name.\n  LONGAVILLE. Am I the first that have been perjur'd so?\n  BEROWNE. I could put thee in comfort: not by two that I know;\n    Thou makest the triumviry, the corner-cap of society,\n    The shape of Love's Tyburn that hangs up simplicity.\n  LONGAVILLE. I fear these stubborn lines lack power to move.\n    O sweet Maria, empress of my love!\n    These numbers will I tear, and write in prose.\n  BEROWNE. O, rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid's hose:\n    Disfigure not his slop.\n  LONGAVILLE. This same shall go.          [He reads the sonnet]\n      'Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,\n      'Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,\n      Persuade my heart to this false perjury?\n      Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.\n      A woman I forswore; but I will prove,\n      Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee:\n      My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;\n      Thy grace being gain'd cures all disgrace in me.\n      Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is;\n      Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine,\n      Exhal'st this vapour-vow; in thee it is.\n      If broken, then it is no fault of mine;\n      If by me broke, what fool is not so wise\n      To lose an oath to win a paradise?'\n  BEROWNE. This is the liver-vein, which makes flesh a deity,\n    A green goose a goddess- pure, pure idolatry.\n    God amend us, God amend! We are much out o' th' way.\n\n                      Enter DUMAIN, with a paper\n\n  LONGAVILLE. By whom shall I send this?- Company! Stay.\n                                                   [Steps aside]\n  BEROWNE. 'All hid, all hid'- an old infant play.\n    Like a demigod here sit I in the sky,\n    And wretched fools' secrets heedfully o'er-eye.\n    More sacks to the mill! O heavens, I have my wish!\n    Dumain transformed! Four woodcocks in a dish!\n  DUMAIN. O most divine Kate!\n  BEROWNE. O most profane coxcomb!\n  DUMAIN. By heaven, the wonder in a mortal eye!\n  BEROWNE. By earth, she is not, corporal: there you lie.\n  DUMAIN. Her amber hairs for foul hath amber quoted.\n  BEROWNE. An amber-colour'd raven was well noted.\n  DUMAIN. As upright as the cedar.\n  BEROWNE. Stoop, I say;\n    Her shoulder is with child.\n  DUMAIN. As fair as day.\n  BEROWNE. Ay, as some days; but then no sun must shine.\n  DUMAIN. O that I had my wish!\n  LONGAVILLE. And I had mine!\n  KING. And I mine too,.good Lord!\n  BEROWNE. Amen, so I had mine! Is not that a good word?\n  DUMAIN. I would forget her; but a fever she\n    Reigns in my blood, and will rememb'red be.\n  BEROWNE. A fever in your blood? Why, then incision\n    Would let her out in saucers. Sweet misprision!\n  DUMAIN. Once more I'll read the ode that I have writ.\n  BEROWNE. Once more I'll mark how love can vary wit.\n  DUMAIN. [Reads]\n        'On a day-alack the day!-\n        Love, whose month is ever May,\n        Spied a blossom passing fair\n        Playing in the wanton air.\n        Through the velvet leaves the wind,\n        All unseen, can passage find;\n        That the lover, sick to death,\n        Wish'd himself the heaven's breath.\n        \"Air,\" quoth he \"thy cheeks may blow;\n        Air, would I might triumph so!\n        But, alack, my hand is sworn\n        Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn;\n        Vow, alack, for youth unmeet,\n        Youth so apt to pluck a sweet.\n        Do not call it sin in me\n        That I am forsworn for thee;\n        Thou for whom Jove would swear\n        Juno but an Ethiope were;\n        And deny himself for Jove,\n        Turning mortal for thy love.\"'\n    This will I send; and something else more plain\n    That shall express my true love's fasting pain.\n    O, would the King, Berowne and Longaville,\n    Were lovers too! Ill, to example ill,\n    Would from my forehead wipe a perjur'd note;\n    For none offend where all alike do dote.\n  LONGAVILLE. [Advancing] Dumain, thy love is far from charity,\n    That in love's grief desir'st society;\n    You may look pale, but I should blush, I know,\n    To be o'erheard and taken napping so.\n  KING. [Advancing] Come, sir, you blush; as his, your case is\nsuch.\n    You chide at him, offending twice as much:\n    You do not love Maria! Longaville\n    Did never sonnet for her sake compile;\n    Nor never lay his wreathed arms athwart\n    His loving bosom, to keep down his heart.\n    I have been closely shrouded in this bush,\n    And mark'd you both, and for you both did blush.\n    I heard your guilty rhymes, observ'd your fashion,\n    Saw sighs reek from you, noted well your passion.\n    'Ay me!' says one. 'O Jove!' the other cries.\n    One, her hairs were gold; crystal the other's eyes.\n    [To LONGAVILLE] You would for paradise break faith and troth;\n    [To Dumain] And Jove for your love would infringe an oath.\n    What will Berowne say when that he shall hear\n    Faith infringed which such zeal did swear?\n    How will he scorn, how will he spend his wit!\n    How will he triumph, leap, and laugh at it!\n    For all the wealth that ever I did see,\n    I would not have him know so much by me.\n  BEROWNE. [Descending] Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy,\n    Ah, good my liege, I pray thee pardon me.\n    Good heart, what grace hast thou thus to reprove\n    These worms for loving, that art most in love?\n    Your eyes do make no coaches; in your tears\n    There is no certain princess that appears;\n    You'll not be perjur'd; 'tis a hateful thing;\n    Tush, none but minstrels like of sonneting.\n    But are you not ashamed? Nay, are you not,\n    All three of you, to be thus much o'ershot?\n    You found his mote; the King your mote did see;\n    But I a beam do find in each of three.\n    O, what a scene of fool'ry have I seen,\n    Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow, and of teen!\n    O, me, with what strict patience have I sat,\n    To see a king transformed to a gnat!\n    To see great Hercules whipping a gig,\n    And profound Solomon to tune a jig,\n    And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys,\n    And critic Timon laugh at idle toys!\n    Where lies thy grief, O, tell me, good Dumain?\n    And, gentle Longaville, where lies thy pain?\n    And where my liege's? All about the breast.\n    A caudle, ho!\n  KING. Too bitter is thy jest.\n    Are we betrayed thus to thy over-view?\n  BEROWNE. Not you by me, but I betrayed to you.\n    I that am honest, I that hold it sin\n    To break the vow I am engaged in;\n    I am betrayed by keeping company\n    With men like you, men of inconstancy.\n    When shall you see me write a thing in rhyme?\n    Or groan for Joan? or spend a minute's time\n    In pruning me? When shall you hear that I\n    Will praise a hand, a foot, a face, an eye,\n    A gait, a state, a brow, a breast, a waist,\n    A leg, a limb-\n  KING. Soft! whither away so fast?\n    A true man or a thief that gallops so?\n  BEROWNE. I post from love; good lover, let me go.\n\n                 Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD\n\n  JAQUENETTA. God bless the King!\n  KING. What present hast thou there?\n  COSTARD. Some certain treason.\n  KING. What makes treason here?\n  COSTARD. Nay, it makes nothing, sir.\n  KING. If it mar nothing neither,\n    The treason and you go in peace away together.\n  JAQUENETTA. I beseech your Grace, let this letter be read;\n    Our person misdoubts it: 'twas treason, he said.\n  KING. Berowne, read it over.        [BEROWNE reads the letter]\n    Where hadst thou it?\n  JAQUENETTA. Of Costard.\n  KING. Where hadst thou it?\n  COSTARD. Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio.\n                                      [BEROWNE tears the letter]\n  KING. How now! What is in you? Why dost thou tear it?\n  BEROWNE. A toy, my liege, a toy! Your Grace needs not fear it.\n  LONGAVILLE. It did move him to passion, and therefore let's\nhear\n     it.\n  DUMAIN. It is Berowne's writing, and here is his name.\n                                       [Gathering up the pieces]\n  BEROWNE. [ To COSTARD] Ah, you whoreson loggerhead, you were\nborn\n      to do me shame.\n    Guilty, my lord, guilty! I confess, I confess.\n  KING. What?\n  BEROWNE. That you three fools lack'd me fool to make up the\nmess;\n    He, he, and you- and you, my liege!- and I\n    Are pick-purses in love, and we deserve to die.\n    O, dismiss this audience, and I shall tell you more.\n    DUMAIN. Now the number is even.\n  BEROWNE. True, true, we are four.\n    Will these turtles be gone?\n  KING. Hence, sirs, away.\n  COSTARD. Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay.\n                                   Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA\n  BEROWNE. Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O, let us embrace!\n    As true we are as flesh and blood can be.\n    The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face;\n    Young blood doth not obey an old decree.\n    We cannot cross the cause why we were born,\n    Therefore of all hands must we be forsworn.\n  KING. What, did these rent lines show some love of thine?\n  BEROWNE. 'Did they?' quoth you. Who sees the heavenly Rosaline\n    That, like a rude and savage man of Inde\n    At the first op'ning of the gorgeous east,\n    Bows not his vassal head and, strucken blind,\n    Kisses the base ground with obedient breast?\n    What peremptory eagle-sighted eye\n    Dares look upon the heaven of her brow\n    That is not blinded by her majesty?\n  KING. What zeal, what fury hath inspir'd thee now?\n    My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon;\n    She, an attending star, scarce seen a light.\n  BEROWNE. My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Berowne.\n    O, but for my love, day would turn to night!\n    Of all complexions the cull'd sovereignty\n    Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek,\n    Where several worthies make one dignity,\n    Where nothing wants that want itself doth seek.\n    Lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues-\n    Fie, painted rhetoric! O, she needs it not!\n    To things of sale a seller's praise belongs:\n    She passes praise; then praise too short doth blot.\n    A wither'd hermit, five-score winters worn,\n    Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye.\n    Beauty doth varnish age, as if new-born,\n    And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy.\n    O, 'tis the sun that maketh all things shine!\n  KING. By heaven, thy love is black as ebony.\n  BEROWNE. Is ebony like her? O wood divine!\n    A wife of such wood were felicity.\n    O, who can give an oath? Where is a book?\n    That I may swear beauty doth beauty lack,\n    If that she learn not of her eye to look.\n    No face is fair that is not full so black.\n  KING. O paradox! Black is the badge of hell,\n    The hue of dungeons, and the school of night;\n    And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well.\n  BEROWNE. Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light.\n    O, if in black my lady's brows be deckt,\n    It mourns that painting and usurping hair\n    Should ravish doters with a false aspect;\n    And therefore is she born to make black fair.\n    Her favour turns the fashion of the days;\n    For native blood is counted painting now;\n    And therefore red that would avoid dispraise\n    Paints itself black, to imitate her brow.\n  DUMAIN. To look like her are chimney-sweepers black.\n  LONGAVILLE. And since her time are colliers counted bright.\n  KING. And Ethiopes of their sweet complexion crack.\n  DUMAIN. Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light.\n  BEROWNE. Your mistresses dare never come in rain\n    For fear their colours should be wash'd away.\n  KING. 'Twere good yours did; for, sir, to tell you plain,\n    I'll find a fairer face not wash'd to-day.\n  BEROWNE. I'll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday here.\n  KING. No devil will fright thee then so much as she.\n  DUMAIN. I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear.\n  LONGAVILLE. Look, here's thy love: my foot and her face see.\n                                              [Showing his shoe]\n  BEROWNE. O, if the streets were paved with thine eyes,\n    Her feet were much too dainty for such tread!\n  DUMAIN. O vile! Then, as she goes, what upward lies\n    The street should see as she walk'd overhead.\n  KING. But what of this? Are we not all in love?\n  BEROWNE. Nothing so sure; and thereby all forsworn.\n  KING. Then leave this chat; and, good Berowne, now prove\n    Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn.\n  DUMAIN. Ay, marry, there; some flattery for this evil.\n  LONGAVILLE. O, some authority how to proceed;\n    Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil!\n  DUMAIN. Some salve for perjury.\n  BEROWNE. 'Tis more than need.\n    Have at you, then, affection's men-at-arms.\n    Consider what you first did swear unto:\n    To fast, to study, and to see no woman-\n    Flat treason 'gainst the kingly state of youth.\n    Say, can you fast? Your stomachs are too young,\n    And abstinence engenders maladies.\n    And, where that you you have vow'd to study, lords,\n    In that each of you have forsworn his book,\n    Can you still dream, and pore, and thereon look?\n    For when would you, my lord, or you, or you,\n    Have found the ground of study's excellence\n    Without the beauty of a woman's face?\n    From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:\n    They are the ground, the books, the academes,\n    From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire.\n    Why, universal plodding poisons up\n    The nimble spirits in the arteries,\n    As motion and long-during action tires\n    The sinewy vigour of the traveller.\n    Now, for not looking on a woman's face,\n    You have in that forsworn the use of eyes,\n    And study too, the causer of your vow;\n    For where is author in the world\n    Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye?\n    Learning is but an adjunct to ourself,\n    And where we are our learning likewise is;\n    Then when ourselves we see in ladies' eyes,\n    With ourselves.\n    Do we not likewise see our learning there?\n    O, we have made a vow to study, lords,\n    And in that vow we have forsworn our books.\n    For when would you, my liege, or you, or you,\n    In leaden contemplation have found out\n    Such fiery numbers as the prompting eyes\n    Of beauty's tutors have enrich'd you with?\n    Other slow arts entirely keep the brain;\n    And therefore, finding barren practisers,\n    Scarce show a harvest of their heavy toil;\n    But love, first learned in a lady's eyes,\n    Lives not alone immured in the brain,\n    But with the motion of all elements\n    Courses as swift as thought in every power,\n    And gives to every power a double power,\n    Above their functions and their offices.\n    It adds a precious seeing to the eye:\n    A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind.\n    A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound,\n    When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd.\n    Love's feeling is more soft and sensible\n    Than are the tender horns of cockled snails:\n    Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste.\n    For valour, is not Love a Hercules,\n    Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?\n    Subtle as Sphinx; as sweet and musical\n    As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair.\n    And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods\n    Make heaven drowsy with the harmony.\n    Never durst poet touch a pen to write\n    Until his ink were temp'red with Love's sighs;\n    O, then his lines would ravish savage ears,\n    And plant in tyrants mild humility.\n    From women's eyes this doctrine I derive.\n    They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;\n    They are the books, the arts, the academes,\n    That show, contain, and nourish, all the world,\n    Else none at all in aught proves excellent.\n    Then fools you were these women to forswear;\n    Or, keeping what is sworn, you will prove fools.\n    For wisdom's sake, a word that all men love;\n    Or for Love's sake, a word that loves all men;\n    Or for men's sake, the authors of these women;\n    Or women's sake, by whom we men are men-\n    Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves,\n    Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths.\n    It is religion to be thus forsworn;\n    For charity itself fulfils the law,\n    And who can sever love from charity?\n  KING. Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the field!\n  BEROWNE. Advance your standards, and upon them, lords;\n    Pell-mell, down with them! be first advis'd,\n    In conflict, that you get the sun of them.\n  LONGAVILLE. Now to plain-dealing; lay these glozes by.\n    Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France?\n  KING. And win them too; therefore let us devise\n    Some entertainment for them in their tents.\n  BEROWNE. First, from the park let us conduct them thither;\n    Then homeward every man attach the hand\n    Of his fair mistress. In the afternoon\n    We will with some strange pastime solace them,\n    Such as the shortness of the time can shape;\n    For revels, dances, masks, and merry hours,\n    Forerun fair Love, strewing her way with flowers.\n  KING. Away, away! No time shall be omitted\n    That will betime, and may by us be fitted.\n  BEROWNE. Allons! allons! Sow'd cockle reap'd no corn,\n    And justice always whirls in equal measure.\n    Light wenches may prove plagues to men forsworn;\n    If so, our copper buys no better treasure.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nThe park\n\nEnter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL\n\n  HOLOFERNES. Satis quod sufficit.\n  NATHANIEL. I praise God for you, sir. Your reasons at dinner\nhave\n    been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility,\nwitty\n    without affection, audacious without impudency, learned\nwithout\n    opinion, and strange without heresy. I did converse this\nquondam\n    day with a companion of the King's who is intituled,\nnominated,\n    or called, Don Adriano de Armado.\n  HOLOFERNES. Novi hominem tanquam te. His humour is lofty, his\n    discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious,\nhis\n    gait majestical and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous,\nand\n    thrasonical. He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too\nodd,\n    as it were, too peregrinate, as I may call it.\n  NATHANIEL. A most singular and choice epithet.\n                                      [Draws out his table-book]\n  HOLOFERNES. He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer\nthan\n    the staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical\nphantasimes,\n    such insociable and point-devise companions; such rackers of\n    orthography, as to speak 'dout' fine, when he should say\n'doubt';\n    'det' when he should pronounce 'debt'- d, e, b, t, not d, e,\nt.\n    He clepeth a calf 'cauf,' half 'hauf'; neighbour vocatur\n    'nebour'; 'neigh' abbreviated 'ne.' This is abhominable-\nwhich he\n    would call 'abbominable.' It insinuateth me of insanie: ne\n    intelligis, domine? to make frantic, lunatic.\n  NATHANIEL. Laus Deo, bone intelligo.\n  HOLOFERNES. 'Bone'?- 'bone' for 'bene.' Priscian a little\n    scratch'd; 'twill serve.\n\n                 Enter ARMADO, MOTH, and COSTARD\n\n  NATHANIEL. Videsne quis venit?\n  HOLOFERNES. Video, et gaudeo.\n  ARMADO. [To MOTH] Chirrah!\n  HOLOFERNES. Quare 'chirrah,' not 'sirrah'?\n  ARMADO. Men of peace, well encount'red.\n  HOLOFERNES. Most military sir, salutation.\n  MOTH. [Aside to COSTARD] They have been at a great feast of\n    languages and stol'n the scraps.\n  COSTARD. O, they have liv'd long on the alms-basket of words. I\n    marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word, for thou\nare\n    not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus; thou\nart\n    easier swallowed than a flap-dragon.\n  MOTH. Peace! the peal begins.\n  ARMADO. [To HOLOFERNES] Monsieur, are you not lett'red?\n  MOTH. Yes, yes; he teaches boys the hornbook. What is a, b,\nspelt\n    backward with the horn on his head?\n  HOLOFERNES. Ba, pueritia, with a horn added.\n  MOTH. Ba, most silly sheep with a horn. You hear his learning.\n  HOLOFERNES. Quis, quis, thou consonant?\n  MOTH. The third of the five vowels, if You repeat them; or the\n    fifth, if I.\n  HOLOFERNES. I will repeat them: a, e, I-\n  MOTH. The sheep; the other two concludes it: o, U.\n  ARMADO. Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum, a sweet\ntouch,\n    a quick venue of wit- snip, snap, quick and home. It\nrejoiceth my\n    intellect. True wit!\n  MOTH. Offer'd by a child to an old man; which is wit-old.\n  HOLOFERNES. What is the figure? What is the figure?\n  MOTH. Horns.\n  HOLOFERNES. Thou disputes like an infant; go whip thy gig.\n  MOTH. Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your\n    infamy circum circa- a gig of a cuckold's horn.\n  COSTARD. An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst\nhave it\n    to buy ginger-bread. Hold, there is the very remuneration I\nhad\n    of thy master, thou halfpenny purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg\nof\n    discretion. O, an the heavens were so pleased that thou wert\nbut\n    my bastard, what a joyful father wouldst thou make me! Go to;\n    thou hast it ad dunghill, at the fingers' ends, as they say.\n  HOLOFERNES. O, I smell false Latin; 'dunghill' for unguem.\n  ARMADO. Arts-man, preambulate; we will be singuled from the\n    barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the charge-house on\nthe\n    top of the mountain?\n  HOLOFERNES. Or mons, the hill.\n  ARMADO. At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain.\n  HOLOFERNES. I do, sans question.\n  ARMADO. Sir, it is the King's most sweet pleasure and affection\nto\n    congratulate the Princess at her pavilion, in the posteriors\nof\n    this day; which the rude multitude call the afternoon.\n  HOLOFERNES. The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is\nliable,\n    congruent, and measurable, for the afternoon. The word is\nwell\n    cull'd, chose, sweet, and apt, I do assure you, sir, I do\nassure.\n  ARMADO. Sir, the King is a noble gentleman, and my familiar, I\ndo\n    assure ye, very good friend. For what is inward between us,\nlet\n    it pass. I do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy. I beseech\n    thee, apparel thy head. And among other importunate and most\n    serious designs, and of great import indeed, too- but let\nthat\n    pass; for I must tell thee it will please his Grace, by the\n    world, sometime to lean upon my poor shoulder, and with his\nroyal\n    finger thus dally with my excrement, with my mustachio; but,\n    sweet heart, let that pass. By the world, I recount no fable:\n    some certain special honours it pleaseth his greatness to\nimpart\n    to Armado, a soldier, a man of travel, that hath seen the\nworld;\n    but let that pass. The very all of all is- but, sweet heart,\nI do\n    implore secrecy- that the King would have me present the\n    Princess, sweet chuck, with some delightful ostentation, or\nshow,\n    or pageant, or antic, or firework. Now, understanding that\nthe\n    curate and your sweet self are good at such eruptions and\nsudden\n    breaking-out of mirth, as it were, I have acquainted you\nwithal,\n    to the end to crave your assistance.\n  HOLOFERNES. Sir, you shall present before her the Nine\nWorthies.\n    Sir Nathaniel, as concerning some entertainment of time, some\n    show in the posterior of this day, to be rend'red by our\n    assistance, the King's command, and this most gallant,\n    illustrate, and learned gentleman, before the Princess- I say\n    none so fit as to present the Nine Worthies.\n  NATHANIEL. Where will you find men worthy enough to present\nthem?\n  HOLOFERNES. Joshua, yourself; myself, Alexander; this gallant\n    gentleman, Judas Maccabaeus; this swain, because of his great\n    limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the Great; the page,\nHercules.\n  ARMADO. Pardon, sir; error: he is not quantity enough for that\n    Worthy's thumb; he is not so big as the end of his club.\n  HOLOFERNES. Shall I have audience? He shall present Hercules in\n    minority: his enter and exit shall be strangling a snake; and\nI\n    will have an apology for that purpose.\n  MOTH. An excellent device! So, if any of the audience hiss, you\nmay\n    cry 'Well done, Hercules; now thou crushest the snake!' That\nis\n    the way to make an offence gracious, though few have the\ngrace to\n    do it.\n  ARMADO. For the rest of the Worthies?\n  HOLOFERNES. I will play three myself.\n  MOTH. Thrice-worthy gentleman!\n  ARMADO. Shall I tell you a thing?\n  HOLOFERNES. We attend.\n  ARMADO. We will have, if this fadge not, an antic. I beseech\nyou,\n    follow.\n  HOLOFERNES. Via, goodman Dull! Thou has spoken no word all this\n    while.\n  DULL. Nor understood none neither, sir.\n  HOLOFERNES. Allons! we will employ thee.\n  DULL. I'll make one in a dance, or so, or I will play\n    On the tabor to the Worthies, and let them dance the hay.\n  HOLOFERNES. Most dull, honest Dull! To our sport, away.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe park\n\nEnter the PRINCESS, MARIA, KATHARINE, and ROSALINE\n\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we\ndepart,\n    If fairings come thus plentifully in.\n    A lady wall'd about with diamonds!\n    Look you what I have from the loving King.\n  ROSALINE. Madam, came nothing else along with that?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Nothing but this! Yes, as much love in\nrhyme\n    As would be cramm'd up in a sheet of paper\n    Writ o' both sides the leaf, margent and all,\n    That he was fain to seal on Cupid's name.\n  ROSALINE. That was the way to make his godhead wax;\n    For he hath been five thousand year a boy.\n  KATHARINE. Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows too.\n  ROSALINE. You'll ne'er be friends with him: 'a kill'd your\nsister.\n  KATHARINE. He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy;\n    And so she died. Had she been light, like you,\n    Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit,\n    She might 'a been a grandam ere she died.\n    And so may you; for a light heart lives long.\n  ROSALINE. What's your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word?\n  KATHARINE. A light condition in a beauty dark.\n  ROSALINE. We need more light to find your meaning out.\n  KATHARINE. You'll mar the light by taking it in snuff;\n    Therefore I'll darkly end the argument.\n  ROSALINE. Look what you do, you do it still i' th' dark.\n  KATHARINE. So do not you; for you are a light wench.\n  ROSALINE. Indeed, I weigh not you; and therefore light.\n  KATHARINE. You weigh me not? O, that's you care not for me.\n  ROSALINE. Great reason; for 'past cure is still past care.'\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Well bandied both; a set of wit well\nplay'd.\n    But, Rosaline, you have a favour too?\n    Who sent it? and what is it?\n  ROSALINE. I would you knew.\n    An if my face were but as fair as yours,\n    My favour were as great: be witness this.\n    Nay, I have verses too, I thank Berowne;\n    The numbers true, and, were the numb'ring too,\n    I were the fairest goddess on the ground.\n    I am compar'd to twenty thousand fairs.\n    O, he hath drawn my picture in his letter!\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Anything like?\n  ROSALINE. Much in the letters; nothing in the praise.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Beauteous as ink- a good conclusion.\n  KATHARINE. Fair as a text B in a copy-book.\n  ROSALINE. Ware pencils, ho! Let me not die your debtor,\n    My red dominical, my golden letter:\n    O that your face were not so full of O's!\n  KATHARINE. A pox of that jest! and I beshrew all shrows!\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. But, Katharine, what was sent to you from\nfair\n    Dumain?\n  KATHARINE. Madam, this glove.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Did he not send you twain?\n  KATHARINE. Yes, madam; and, moreover,\n    Some thousand verses of a faithful lover;\n    A huge translation of hypocrisy,\n    Vilely compil'd, profound simplicity.\n  MARIA. This, and these pearl, to me sent Longaville;\n    The letter is too long by half a mile.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. I think no less. Dost thou not wish in\nheart\n    The chain were longer and the letter short?\n  MARIA. Ay, or I would these hands might never part.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. We are wise girls to mock our lovers so.\n  ROSALINE. They are worse fools to purchase mocking so.\n    That same Berowne I'll torture ere I go.\n    O that I knew he were but in by th' week!\n    How I would make him fawn, and beg, and seek,\n    And wait the season, and observe the times,\n    And spend his prodigal wits in bootless rhymes,\n    And shape his service wholly to my hests,\n    And make him proud to make me proud that jests!\n    So pertaunt-like would I o'ersway his state\n    That he should be my fool, and I his fate.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. None are so surely caught, when they are\n      catch'd,\n    As wit turn'd fool; folly, in wisdom hatch'd,\n    Hath wisdom's warrant and the help of school,\n    And wit's own grace to grace a learned fool.\n  ROSALINE. The blood of youth burns not with such excess\n    As gravity's revolt to wantonness.\n  MARIA. Folly in fools bears not so strong a note\n    As fool'ry in the wise when wit doth dote,\n    Since all the power thereof it doth apply\n    To prove, by wit, worth in simplicity.\n\n                          Enter BOYET\n\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Here comes Boyet, and mirth is in his face.\n  BOYET. O, I am stabb'd with laughter! Where's her Grace?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Thy news, Boyet?\n  BOYET. Prepare, madam, prepare!\n    Arm, wenches, arm! Encounters mounted are\n    Against your peace. Love doth approach disguis'd,\n    Armed in arguments; you'll be surpris'd.\n    Muster your wits; stand in your own defence;\n    Or hide your heads like cowards, and fly hence.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Saint Dennis to Saint Cupid! What are they\n    That charge their breath against us? Say, scout, say.\n  BOYET. Under the cool shade of a sycamore\n    I thought to close mine eyes some half an hour;\n    When, lo, to interrupt my purpos'd rest,\n    Toward that shade I might behold addrest\n    The King and his companions; warily\n    I stole into a neighbour thicket by,\n    And overheard what you shall overhear-\n    That, by and by, disguis'd they will be here.\n    Their herald is a pretty knavish page,\n    That well by heart hath conn'd his embassage.\n    Action and accent did they teach him there:\n    'Thus must thou speak' and 'thus thy body bear,'\n    And ever and anon they made a doubt\n    Presence majestical would put him out;\n    'For' quoth the King 'an angel shalt thou see;\n    Yet fear not thou, but speak audaciously.'\n    The boy replied 'An angel is not evil;\n    I should have fear'd her had she been a devil.'\n    With that all laugh'd, and clapp'd him on the shoulder,\n    Making the bold wag by their praises bolder.\n    One rubb'd his elbow, thus, and fleer'd, and swore\n    A better speech was never spoke before.\n    Another with his finger and his thumb\n    Cried 'Via! we will do't, come what will come.'\n    The third he caper'd, and cried 'All goes well.'\n    The fourth turn'd on the toe, and down he fell.\n    With that they all did tumble on the ground,\n    With such a zealous laughter, so profound,\n    That in this spleen ridiculous appears,\n    To check their folly, passion's solemn tears.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. But what, but what, come they to visit us?\n  BOYET. They do, they do, and are apparell'd thus,\n    Like Muscovites or Russians, as I guess.\n    Their purpose is to parley, court, and dance;\n    And every one his love-feat will advance\n    Unto his several mistress; which they'll know\n    By favours several which they did bestow.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. And will they so? The gallants shall be\ntask'd,\n    For, ladies, we will every one be mask'd;\n    And not a man of them shall have the grace,\n    Despite of suit, to see a lady's face.\n    Hold, Rosaline, this favour thou shalt wear,\n    And then the King will court thee for his dear;\n    Hold, take thou this, my sweet, and give me thine,\n    So shall Berowne take me for Rosaline.\n    And change you favours too; so shall your loves\n    Woo contrary, deceiv'd by these removes.\n  ROSALINE. Come on, then, wear the favours most in sight.\n  KATHARINE. But, in this changing, what is your intent?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. The effect of my intent is to cross theirs.\n    They do it but in mocking merriment,\n    And mock for mock is only my intent.\n    Their several counsels they unbosom shall\n    To loves mistook, and so be mock'd withal\n    Upon the next occasion that we meet\n    With visages display'd to talk and greet.\n  ROSALINE. But shall we dance, if they desire us to't?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. No, to the death, we will not move a foot,\n    Nor to their penn'd speech render we no grace;\n    But while 'tis spoke each turn away her face.\n  BOYET. Why, that contempt will kill the speaker's heart,\n    And quite divorce his memory from his part.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Therefore I do it; and I make no doubt\n    The rest will ne'er come in, if he be out.\n    There's no such sport as sport by sport o'erthrown,\n    To make theirs ours, and ours none but our own;\n    So shall we stay, mocking intended game,\n    And they well mock'd depart away with shame.\n                                         [Trumpet sounds within]\n  BOYET. The trumpet sounds; be mask'd; the maskers come.\n                                               [The LADIES mask]\n\n          Enter BLACKAMOORS music, MOTH as Prologue, the\n     KING and his LORDS as maskers, in the guise of Russians\n\n  MOTH. All hail, the richest heauties on the earth!\n  BOYET. Beauties no richer than rich taffeta.\n  MOTH. A holy parcel of the fairest dames\n                            [The LADIES turn their backs to him]\n    That ever turn'd their- backs- to mortal views!\n  BEROWNE. Their eyes, villain, their eyes.\n  MOTH. That ever turn'd their eyes to mortal views!\n    Out-\n  BOYET. True; out indeed.\n  MOTH. Out of your favours, heavenly spirits, vouchsafe\n    Not to behold-\n  BEROWNE. Once to behold, rogue.\n  MOTH. Once to behold with your sun-beamed eyes- with your\n    sun-beamed eyes-\n  BOYET. They will not answer to that epithet;\n    You were best call it 'daughter-beamed eyes.'\n  MOTH. They do not mark me, and that brings me out.\n  BEROWNE. Is this your perfectness? Be gone, you rogue.\n                                                       Exit MOTH\n  ROSALINE. What would these strangers? Know their minds, Boyet.\n    If they do speak our language, 'tis our will\n    That some plain man recount their purposes.\n    Know what they would.\n  BOYET. What would you with the Princess?\n  BEROWNE. Nothing but peace and gentle visitation.\n  ROSALINE. What would they, say they?\n  BOYET. Nothing but peace and gentle visitation.\n  ROSALINE. Why, that they have; and bid them so be gone.\n  BOYET. She says you have it, and you may be gone.\n  KING. Say to her we have measur'd many miles\n    To tread a measure with her on this grass.\n  BOYET. They say that they have measur'd many a mile\n    To tread a measure with you on this grass.\n  ROSALINE. It is not so. Ask them how many inches\n    Is in one mile? If they have measured many,\n    The measure, then, of one is eas'ly told.\n  BOYET. If to come hither you have measur'd miles,\n    And many miles, the Princess bids you tell\n    How many inches doth fill up one mile.\n  BEROWNE. Tell her we measure them by weary steps.\n  BOYET. She hears herself.\n  ROSALINE. How many weary steps\n    Of many weary miles you have o'ergone\n    Are numb'red in the travel of one mile?\n  BEROWNE. We number nothing that we spend for you;\n    Our duty is so rich, so infinite,\n    That we may do it still without accompt.\n    Vouchsafe to show the sunshine of your face,\n    That we, like savages, may worship it.\n  ROSALINE. My face is but a moon, and clouded too.\n  KING. Blessed are clouds, to do as such clouds do.\n    Vouchsafe, bright moon, and these thy stars, to shine,\n    Those clouds removed, upon our watery eyne.\n  ROSALINE. O vain petitioner! beg a greater matter;\n    Thou now requests but moonshine in the water.\n  KING. Then in our measure do but vouchsafe one change.\n    Thou bid'st me beg; this begging is not strange.\n  ROSALINE. Play, music, then. Nay, you must do it soon.\n    Not yet? No dance! Thus change I like the moon.\n  KING. Will you not dance? How come you thus estranged?\n  ROSALINE. You took the moon at full; but now she's changed.\n  KING. Yet still she is the Moon, and I the Man.\n    The music plays; vouchsafe some motion to it.\n  ROSALINE. Our ears vouchsafe it.\n  KING. But your legs should do it.\n  ROSALINE. Since you are strangers, and come here by chance,\n    We'll not be nice; take hands. We will not dance.\n  KING. Why take we hands then?\n  ROSALINE. Only to part friends.\n    Curtsy, sweet hearts; and so the measure ends.\n  KING. More measure of this measure; be not nice.\n  ROSALINE. We can afford no more at such a price.\n  KING. Price you yourselves. What buys your company?\n  ROSALINE. Your absence only.\n  KING. That can never be.\n  ROSALINE. Then cannot we be bought; and so adieu-\n    Twice to your visor and half once to you.\n  KING. If you deny to dance, let's hold more chat.\n  ROSALINE. In private then.\n  KING. I am best pleas'd with that.       [They converse apart]\n  BEROWNE. White-handed mistress, one sweet word with thee.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Honey, and milk, and sugar; there is three.\n  BEROWNE. Nay, then, two treys, an if you grow so nice,\n    Metheglin, wort, and malmsey; well run dice!\n    There's half a dozen sweets.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Seventh sweet, adieu!\n    Since you can cog, I'll play no more with you.\n  BEROWNE. One word in secret.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Let it not be sweet.\n  BEROWNE. Thou grievest my gall.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Gall! bitter.\n  BEROWNE. Therefore meet.                 [They converse apart]\n  DUMAIN. Will you vouchsafe with me to change a word?\n  MARIA. Name it.\n  DUMAIN. Fair lady-\n  MARIA. Say you so? Fair lord-\n    Take that for your fair lady.\n  DUMAIN. Please it you,\n    As much in private, and I'll bid adieu.\n                                           [They converse apart]\n  KATHARINE. What, was your vizard made without a tongue?\n  LONGAVILLE. I know the reason, lady, why you ask.\n  KATHARINE. O for your reason! Quickly, sir; I long.\n  LONGAVILLE. You have a double tongue within your mask,\n    And would afford my speechless vizard half.\n  KATHARINE. 'Veal' quoth the Dutchman. Is not 'veal' a calf?\n  LONGAVILLE. A calf, fair lady!\n  KATHARINE. No, a fair lord calf.\n  LONGAVILLE. Let's part the word.\n  KATHARINE. No, I'll not be your half.\n    Take all and wean it; it may prove an ox.\n  LONGAVILLE. Look how you butt yourself in these sharp mocks!\n    Will you give horns, chaste lady? Do not so.\n  KATHARINE. Then die a calf, before your horns do grow.\n  LONGAVILLE. One word in private with you ere I die.\n  KATHARINE. Bleat softly, then; the butcher hears you cry.\n                                           [They converse apart]\n  BOYET. The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen\n    As is the razor's edge invisible,\n    Cutting a smaller hair than may be seen,\n    Above the sense of sense; so sensible\n    Seemeth their conference; their conceits have wings,\n    Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, swifter things.\n  ROSALINE. Not one word more, my maids; break off, break off.\n  BEROWNE. By heaven, all dry-beaten with pure scoff!\n  KING. Farewell, mad wenches; you have simple wits.\n                             Exeunt KING, LORDS, and BLACKAMOORS\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Twenty adieus, my frozen Muscovits.\n    Are these the breed of wits so wondered at?\n  BOYET. Tapers they are, with your sweet breaths puff'd out.\n  ROSALINE. Well-liking wits they have; gross, gross; fat, fat.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. O poverty in wit, kingly-poor flout!\n    Will they not, think you, hang themselves to-night?\n    Or ever but in vizards show their faces?\n    This pert Berowne was out of count'nance quite.\n  ROSALINE. They were all in lamentable cases!\n    The King was weeping-ripe for a good word.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Berowne did swear himself out of all suit.\n  MARIA. Dumain was at my service, and his sword.\n    'No point' quoth I; my servant straight was mute.\n  KATHARINE. Lord Longaville said I came o'er his heart;\n    And trow you what he call'd me?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Qualm, perhaps.\n  KATHARINE. Yes, in good faith.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Go, sickness as thou art!\n  ROSALINE. Well, better wits have worn plain statute-caps.\n    But will you hear? The King is my love sworn.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. And quick Berowne hath plighted faith to\nme.\n  KATHARINE. And Longaville was for my service born.\n  MARIA. Dumain is mine, as sure as bark on tree.\n  BOYET. Madam, and pretty mistresses, give ear:\n    Immediately they will again be here\n    In their own shapes; for it can never be\n    They will digest this harsh indignity.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Will they return?\n  BOYET. They will, they will, God knows,\n    And leap for joy, though they are lame with blows;\n    Therefore, change favours; and, when they repair,\n    Blow like sweet roses in this summer air.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. How blow? how blow? Speak to be understood.\n  BOYET. Fair ladies mask'd are roses in their bud:\n    Dismask'd, their damask sweet commixture shown,\n    Are angels vailing clouds, or roses blown.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Avaunt, perplexity! What shall we do\n    If they return in their own shapes to woo?\n  ROSALINE. Good madam, if by me you'll be advis'd,\n    Let's mock them still, as well known as disguis'd.\n    Let us complain to them what fools were here,\n    Disguis'd like Muscovites, in shapeless gear;\n    And wonder what they were, and to what end\n    Their shallow shows and prologue vilely penn'd,\n    And their rough carriage so ridiculous,\n    Should be presented at our tent to us.\n  BOYET. Ladies, withdraw; the gallants are at hand.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Whip to our tents, as roes run o'er land.\n                 Exeunt PRINCESS, ROSALINE, KATHARINE, and MARIA\n\n         Re-enter the KING, BEROWNE, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN,\n                        in their proper habits\n\n  KING. Fair sir, God save you! Where's the Princess?\n  BOYET. Gone to her tent. Please it your Majesty\n    Command me any service to her thither?\n  KING. That she vouchsafe me audience for one word.\n  BOYET. I will; and so will she, I know, my lord.          Exit\n  BEROWNE. This fellow pecks up wit as pigeons pease,\n    And utters it again when God doth please.\n    He is wit's pedlar, and retails his wares\n    At wakes, and wassails, meetings, markets, fairs;\n    And we that sell by gross, the Lord doth know,\n    Have not the grace to grace it with such show.\n    This gallant pins the wenches on his sleeve;\n    Had he been Adam, he had tempted Eve.\n    'A can carve too, and lisp; why this is he\n    That kiss'd his hand away in courtesy;\n    This is the ape of form, Monsieur the Nice,\n    That, when he plays at tables, chides the dice\n    In honourable terms; nay, he can sing\n    A mean most meanly; and in ushering,\n    Mend him who can. The ladies call him sweet;\n    The stairs, as he treads on them, kiss his feet.\n    This is the flow'r that smiles on every one,\n    To show his teeth as white as whales-bone;\n    And consciences that will not die in debt\n    Pay him the due of 'honey-tongued Boyet.'\n  KING. A blister on his sweet tongue, with my heart,\n    That put Armado's page out of his part!\n\n        Re-enter the PRINCESS, ushered by BOYET; ROSALINE,\n                      MARIA, and KATHARINE\n\n  BEROWNE. See where it comes! Behaviour, what wert thou\n    Till this man show'd thee? And what art thou now?\n  KING. All hail, sweet madam, and fair time of day!\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. 'Fair' in 'all hail' is foul, as I\nconceive.\n  KING. Construe my speeches better, if you may.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Then wish me better; I will give you leave.\n  KING. We came to visit you, and purpose now\n    To lead you to our court; vouchsafe it then.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. This field shall hold me, and so hold your\nvow:\n    Nor God, nor I, delights in perjur'd men.\n  KING. Rebuke me not for that which you provoke.\n    The virtue of your eye must break my oath.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. You nickname virtue: vice you should have\n      spoke;\n    For virtue's office never breaks men's troth.\n    Now by my maiden honour, yet as pure\n    As the unsullied lily, I protest,\n    A world of torments though I should endure,\n    I would not yield to be your house's guest;\n    So much I hate a breaking cause to be\n    Of heavenly oaths, vowed with integrity.\n  KING. O, you have liv'd in desolation here,\n    Unseen, unvisited, much to our shame.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Not so, my lord; it is not so, I swear;\n    We have had pastimes here, and pleasant game;\n    A mess of Russians left us but of late.\n  KING. How, madam! Russians!\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Ay, in truth, my lord;\n    Trim gallants, full of courtship and of state.\n  ROSALINE. Madam, speak true. It is not so, my lord.\n    My lady, to the manner of the days,\n    In courtesy gives undeserving praise.\n    We four indeed confronted were with four\n    In Russian habit; here they stayed an hour\n    And talk'd apace; and in that hour, my lord,\n    They did not bless us with one happy word.\n    I dare not call them fools; but this I think,\n    When they are thirsty, fools would fain have drink.\n  BEROWNE. This jest is dry to me. Fair gentle sweet,\n    Your wit makes wise things foolish; when we greet,\n    With eyes best seeing, heaven's fiery eye,\n    By light we lose light; your capacity\n    Is of that nature that to your huge store\n    Wise things seem foolish and rich things but poor.\n  ROSALINE. This proves you wise and rich, for in my eye-\n  BEROWNE. I am a fool, and full of poverty.\n  ROSALINE. But that you take what doth to you belong,\n    It were a fault to snatch words from my tongue.\n  BEROWNE. O, I am yours, and all that I possess.\n  ROSALINE. All the fool mine?\n  BEROWNE. I cannot give you less.\n  ROSALINE. Which of the vizards was it that you wore?\n  BEROWNE. Where? when? what vizard? Why demand you this?\n  ROSALINE. There, then, that vizard; that superfluous case\n    That hid the worse and show'd the better face.\n  KING. We were descried; they'll mock us now downright.\n  DUMAIN. Let us confess, and turn it to a jest.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Amaz'd, my lord? Why looks your Highness\nsad?\n  ROSALINE. Help, hold his brows! he'll swoon! Why look you pale?\n    Sea-sick, I think, coming from Muscovy.\n  BEROWNE. Thus pour the stars down plagues for perjury.\n    Can any face of brass hold longer out?\n    Here stand I, lady- dart thy skill at me,\n    Bruise me with scorn, confound me with a flout,\n    Thrust thy sharp wit quite through my ignorance,\n    Cut me to pieces with thy keen conceit;\n    And I will wish thee never more to dance,\n    Nor never more in Russian habit wait.\n    O, never will I trust to speeches penn'd,\n    Nor to the motion of a school-boy's tongue,\n    Nor never come in vizard to my friend,\n    Nor woo in rhyme, like a blind harper's song.\n    Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise,\n    Three-pil'd hyperboles, spruce affectation,\n    Figures pedantical- these summer-flies\n    Have blown me full of maggot ostentation.\n    I do forswear them; and I here protest,\n    By this white glove- how white the hand, God knows!-\n    Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express'd\n    In russet yeas, and honest kersey noes.\n    And, to begin, wench- so God help me, law!-\n    My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw.\n  ROSALINE. Sans 'sans,' I pray you.\n  BEROWNE. Yet I have a trick\n    Of the old rage; bear with me, I am sick;\n    I'll leave it by degrees. Soft, let us see-\n    Write 'Lord have mercy on us' on those three;\n    They are infected; in their hearts it lies;\n    They have the plague, and caught it of your eyes.\n    These lords are visited; you are not free,\n    For the Lord's tokens on you do I see.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. No, they are free that gave these tokens to\nus.\n  BEROWNE. Our states are forfeit; seek not to undo us.\n  ROSALINE. It is not so; for how can this be true,\n    That you stand forfeit, being those that sue?\n  BEROWNE. Peace; for I will not have to do with you.\n  ROSALINE. Nor shall not, if I do as I intend.\n  BEROWNE. Speak for yourselves; my wit is at an end.\n  KING. Teach us, sweet madam, for our rude transgression\n    Some fair excuse.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. The fairest is confession.\n    Were not you here but even now, disguis'd?\n  KING. Madam, I was.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. And were you well advis'd?\n  KING. I was, fair madam.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. When you then were here,\n    What did you whisper in your lady's ear?\n  KING. That more than all the world I did respect her.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. When she shall challenge this, you will\nreject\n    her.\n  KING. Upon mine honour, no.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Peace, peace, forbear;\n    Your oath once broke, you force not to forswear.\n  KING. Despise me when I break this oath of mine.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. I will; and therefore keep it. Rosaline,\n    What did the Russian whisper in your ear?\n  ROSALINE. Madam, he swore that he did hold me dear\n    As precious eyesight, and did value me\n    Above this world; adding thereto, moreover,\n    That he would wed me, or else die my lover.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. God give thee joy of him! The noble lord\n     Most honourably doth uphold his word.\n  KING. What mean you, madam? By my life, my troth,\n    I never swore this lady such an oath.\n  ROSALINE. By heaven, you did; and, to confirm it plain,\n    You gave me this; but take it, sir, again.\n  KING. My faith and this the Princess I did give;\n    I knew her by this jewel on her sleeve.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Pardon me, sir, this jewel did she wear;\n    And Lord Berowne, I thank him, is my dear.\n    What, will you have me, or your pearl again?\n BEROWNE. Neither of either; I remit both twain.\n    I see the trick on't: here was a consent,\n    Knowing aforehand of our merriment,\n    To dash it like a Christmas comedy.\n    Some carry-tale, some please-man, some slight zany,\n    Some mumble-news, some trencher-knight, some Dick,\n    That smiles his cheek in years and knows the trick\n    To make my lady laugh when she's dispos'd,\n    Told our intents before; which once disclos'd,\n    The ladies did change favours; and then we,\n    Following the signs, woo'd but the sign of she.\n    Now, to our perjury to add more terror,\n    We are again forsworn in will and error.\n    Much upon this it is; [To BOYET] and might not you\n    Forestall our sport, to make us thus untrue?\n    Do not you know my lady's foot by th' squier,\n    And laugh upon the apple of her eye?\n    And stand between her back, sir, and the fire,\n    Holding a trencher, jesting merrily?\n    You put our page out. Go, you are allow'd;\n    Die when you will, a smock shall be your shroud.\n    You leer upon me, do you? There's an eye\n    Wounds like a leaden sword.\n  BOYET. Full merrily\n    Hath this brave manage, this career, been run.\n  BEROWNE. Lo, he is tilting straight! Peace; I have done.\n\n                          Enter COSTARD\n\n    Welcome, pure wit! Thou part'st a fair fray.\n  COSTARD. O Lord, sir, they would know\n     Whether the three Worthies shall come in or no?\n  BEROWNE. What, are there but three?\n  COSTARD. No, sir; but it is vara fine,\n    For every one pursents three.\n  BEROWNE. And three times thrice is nine.\n  COSTARD. Not so, sir; under correction, sir,\n    I hope it is not so.\n    You cannot beg us, sir, I can assure you, sir; we know what\nwe\n      know;\n    I hope, sir, three times thrice, sir-\n  BEROWNE. Is not nine.\n  COSTARD. Under correction, sir, we know whereuntil it doth\namount.\n  BEROWNE. By Jove, I always took three threes for nine.\n  COSTARD. O Lord, sir, it were pity you should get your living\nby\n    reck'ning, sir.\n  BEROWNE. How much is it?\n  COSTARD. O Lord, sir, the parties themselves, the actors, sir,\nwill\n    show whereuntil it doth amount. For mine own part, I am, as\nthey\n    say, but to parfect one man in one poor man, Pompion the\nGreat,\n    sir.\n  BEROWNE. Art thou one of the Worthies?\n  COSTARD. It pleased them to think me worthy of Pompey the\nGreat;\n    for mine own part, I know not the degree of the Worthy; but I\nam\n    to stand for him.\n  BEROWNE. Go, bid them prepare.\n  COSTARD. We will turn it finely off, sir; we will take some\ncare.\n                                                    Exit COSTARD\n  KING. Berowne, they will shame us; let them not approach.\n  BEROWNE. We are shame-proof, my lord, and 'tis some policy\n    To have one show worse than the King's and his company.\n  KING. I say they shall not come.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Nay, my good lord, let me o'errule you now.\n    That sport best pleases that doth least know how;\n    Where zeal strives to content, and the contents\n    Dies in the zeal of that which it presents.\n    Their form confounded makes most form in mirth,\n    When great things labouring perish in their birth.\n  BEROWNE. A right description of our sport, my lord.\n\n                        Enter ARMADO\n\n  ARMADO. Anointed, I implore so much expense of thy royal sweet\n    breath as will utter a brace of words.\n           [Converses apart with the KING, and delivers a paper]\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Doth this man serve God?\n  BEROWNE. Why ask you?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. 'A speaks not like a man of God his making.\n  ARMADO. That is all one, my fair, sweet, honey monarch; for, I\n    protest, the schoolmaster is exceeding fantastical; too too\nvain,\n    too too vain; but we will put it, as they say, to fortuna de\nla\n    guerra. I wish you the peace of mind, most royal couplement!\n                                                     Exit ARMADO\n  KING. Here is like to be a good presence of Worthies. He\npresents\n    Hector of Troy; the swain, Pompey the Great; the parish\ncurate,\n    Alexander; Arinado's page, Hercules; the pedant, Judas\n    Maccabaeus.\n    And if these four Worthies in their first show thrive,\n    These four will change habits and present the other five.\n  BEROWNE. There is five in the first show.\n  KING. You are deceived, 'tis not so.\n  BEROWNE. The pedant, the braggart, the hedge-priest, the fool,\nand\n    the boy:\n    Abate throw at novum, and the whole world again\n    Cannot pick out five such, take each one in his vein.\n  KING. The ship is under sail, and here she comes amain.\n\n                   Enter COSTARD, armed for POMPEY\n\n  COSTARD. I Pompey am-\n  BEROWNE. You lie, you are not he.\n  COSTARD. I Pompey am-\n  BOYET. With libbard's head on knee.\n  BEROWNE. Well said, old mocker; I must needs be friends with\nthee.\n  COSTARD. I Pompey am, Pompey surnam'd the Big-\n   DUMAIN. The Great.\n  COSTARD. It is Great, sir.\n    Pompey surnam'd the Great,\n    That oft in field, with targe and shield, did make my foe to\n      sweat;\n    And travelling along this coast, I bere am come by chance,\n    And lay my arms before the legs of this sweet lass of France.\n\n    If your ladyship would say 'Thanks, Pompey,' I had done.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Great thanks, great Pompey.\n  COSTARD. 'Tis not so much worth; but I hope I was perfect.\n    I made a little fault in Great.\n  BEROWNE. My hat to a halfpenny, Pompey proves the best Worthy.\n\n                 Enter SIR NATHANIEL, for ALEXANDER\n\n  NATHANIEL. When in the world I liv'd, I was the world's\ncommander;\n    By east, west, north, and south, I spread my conquering\nmight.\n    My scutcheon plain declares that I am Alisander-\n  BOYET. Your nose says, no, you are not; for it stands to right.\n\n  BEROWNE. Your nose smells 'no' in this, most tender-smelling\n    knight.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. The conqueror is dismay'd. Proceed, good\n    Alexander.\n  NATHANIEL. When in the world I liv'd, I was the world's\ncommander-\n  BOYET. Most true, 'tis right, you were so, Alisander.\n  BEROWNE. Pompey the Great!\n  COSTARD. Your servant, and Costard.\n  BEROWNE. Take away the conqueror, take away Alisander.\n  COSTARD. [To Sir Nathaniel] O, Sir, you have overthrown\nAlisander\n    the conqueror! You will be scrap'd out of the painted cloth\nfor\n    this. Your lion, that holds his poleaxe sitting on a\nclose-stool,\n    will be given to Ajax. He will be the ninth Worthy. A\nconqueror\n    and afeard to speak! Run away for shame, Alisander.\n    [Sir Nathaniel retires] There, an't shall please you, a\nfoolish\n    mild man; an honest man, look you, and soon dash'd. He is a\n    marvellous good neighbour, faith, and a very good bowler; but\nfor\n    Alisander- alas! you see how 'tis- a little o'erparted. But\nthere\n    are Worthies a-coming will speak their mind in some other\nsort.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Stand aside, good Pompey.\n\n         Enter HOLOFERNES, for JUDAS; and MOTH, for HERCULES\n\n  HOLOFERNES. Great Hercules is presented by this imp,\n    Whose club kill'd Cerberus, that three-headed canus;\n    And when be was a babe, a child, a shrimp,\n    Thus did he strangle serpents in his manus.\n    Quoniam he seemeth in minority,\n    Ergo I come with this apology.\n    Keep some state in thy exit, and vanish.      [MOTH retires]\n    Judas I am-\n  DUMAIN. A Judas!\n  HOLOFERNES. Not Iscariot, sir.\n    Judas I am, ycliped Maccabaeus.\n  DUMAIN. Judas Maccabaeus clipt is plain Judas.\n  BEROWNE. A kissing traitor. How art thou prov'd Judas?\n  HOLOFERNES. Judas I am-\n  DUMAIN. The more shame for you, Judas!\n  HOLOFERNES. What mean you, sir?\n  BOYET. To make Judas hang himself.\n  HOLOFERNES. Begin, sir; you are my elder.\n  BEROWNE. Well followed: Judas was hanged on an elder.\n  HOLOFERNES. I will not be put out of countenance.\n  BEROWNE. Because thou hast no face.\n  HOLOFERNES. What is this?\n  BOYET. A cittern-head.\n  DUMAIN. The head of a bodkin.\n  BEROWNE. A death's face in a ring.\n  LONGAVILLE. The face of an old Roman coin, scarce seen.\n  BOYET. The pommel of Coesar's falchion.\n  DUMAIN. The carv'd-bone face on a flask.\n  BEROWNE. Saint George's half-cheek in a brooch.\n  DUMAIN. Ay, and in a brooch of lead.\n  BEROWNE. Ay, and worn in the cap of a tooth-drawer. And now,\n    forward; for we have put thee in countenance.\n  HOLOFERNES. You have put me out of countenance.\n  BEROWNE. False: we have given thee faces.\n  HOLOFERNES. But you have outfac'd them all.\n  BEROWNE. An thou wert a lion we would do so.\n  BOYET. Therefore, as he is an ass, let him go.\n    And so adieu, sweet Jude! Nay, why dost thou stay?\n  DUMAIN. For the latter end of his name.\n  BEROWNE. For the ass to the Jude; give it him- Jud-as, away.\n  HOLOFERNES. This is not generous, not gentle, not humble.\n  BOYET. A light for Monsieur Judas! It grows dark, he may\nstumble.\n                                            [HOLOFERNES retires]\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Alas, poor Maccabaeus, how hath he been\nbaited!\n\n                   Enter ARMADO, for HECTOR\n\n  BEROWNE. Hide thy head, Achilles; here comes Hector in arms.\n  DUMAIN. Though my mocks come home by me, I will now be merry.\n  KING. Hector was but a Troyan in respect of this.\n  BOYET. But is this Hector?\n  DUMAIN. I think Hector was not so clean-timber'd.\n  LONGAVILLE. His leg is too big for Hector's.\n  DUMAIN. More calf, certain.\n  BOYET. No; he is best indued in the small.\n  BEROWNE. This cannot be Hector.\n  DUMAIN. He's a god or a painter, for he makes faces.\n  ARMADO. The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty,\n    Gave Hector a gift-\n  DUMAIN. A gilt nutmeg.\n  BEROWNE. A lemon.\n  LONGAVILLE. Stuck with cloves.\n  DUMAIN. No, cloven.\n  ARMADO. Peace!\n    The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty,\n    Gave Hector a gift, the heir of Ilion;\n    A man so breathed that certain he would fight ye,\n    From morn till night out of his pavilion.\n    I am that flower-\n  DUMAIN. That mint.\n  LONGAVILLE. That columbine.\n  ARMADO. Sweet Lord Longaville, rein thy tongue.\n  LONGAVILLE. I must rather give it the rein, for it runs against\n    Hector.\n  DUMAIN. Ay, and Hector's a greyhound.\n  ARMADO. The sweet war-man is dead and rotten; sweet chucks,\nbeat\n    not the bones of the buried; when he breathed, he was a man.\nBut\n    I will forward with my device. [To the PRINCESS] Sweet\nroyalty,\n    bestow on me the sense of hearing.\n\n          [BEROWNE steps forth, and speaks to COSTARD]\n\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Speak, brave Hector; we are much delighted.\n  ARMADO. I do adore thy sweet Grace's slipper.\n  BOYET. [Aside to DUMAIN] Loves her by the foot.\n  DUMAIN. [Aside to BOYET] He may not by the yard.\n  ARMADO. This Hector far surmounted Hannibal-\n  COSTARD. The party is gone, fellow Hector, she is gone; she is\ntwo\n    months on her way.\n  ARMADO. What meanest thou?\n  COSTARD. Faith, unless you play the honest Troyan, the poor\nwench\n    is cast away. She's quick; the child brags in her belly\nalready;\n    'tis yours.\n  ARMADO. Dost thou infamonize me among potentates? Thou shalt\ndie.\n  COSTARD. Then shall Hector be whipt for Jaquenetta that is\nquick by\n    him, and hang'd for Pompey that is dead by him.\n  DUMAIN. Most rare Pompey!\n  BOYET. Renowned Pompey!\n  BEROWNE. Greater than Great! Great, great, great Pompey! Pompey\nthe\n    Huge!\n  DUMAIN. Hector trembles.\n  BEROWNE. Pompey is moved. More Ates, more Ates! Stir them on!\nstir\n    them on!\n  DUMAIN. Hector will challenge him.\n  BEROWNE. Ay, if 'a have no more man's blood in his belly than\nwill\n    sup a flea.\n  ARMADO. By the North Pole, I do challenge thee.\n  COSTARD. I will not fight with a pole, like a Northern man;\nI'll\n    slash; I'll do it by the sword. I bepray you, let me borrow\nmy\n    arms again.\n  DUMAIN. Room for the incensed Worthies!\n  COSTARD. I'll do it in my shirt.\n  DUMAIN. Most resolute Pompey!\n  MOTH. Master, let me take you a buttonhole lower. Do you not\nsee\n    Pompey is uncasing for the combat? What mean you? You will\nlose\n    your reputation.\n  ARMADO. Gentlemen and soldiers, pardon me; I will not combat in\nmy\n    shirt.\n  DUMAIN. You may not deny it: Pompey hath made the challenge.\n  ARMADO. Sweet bloods, I both may and will.\n  BEROWNE. What reason have you for 't?\n  ARMADO. The naked truth of it is: I have no shirt; I go\nwoolward\n    for penance.\n  BOYET. True, and it was enjoined him in Rome for want of linen;\n    since when, I'll be sworn, he wore none but a dishclout of\n    Jaquenetta's, and that 'a wears next his heart for a favour.\n\n                 Enter as messenger, MONSIEUR MARCADE\n\n  MARCADE. God save you, madam!\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Welcome, Marcade;\n    But that thou interruptest our merriment.\n  MARCADE. I am sorry, madam; for the news I bring\n    Is heavy in my tongue. The King your father-\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Dead, for my life!\n  MARCADE. Even so; my tale is told.\n  BEROWNE. WOrthies away; the scene begins to cloud.\n  ARMADO. For mine own part, I breathe free breath. I have seen\nthe\n    day of wrong through the little hole of discretion, and I\nwill\n    right myself like a soldier.                 Exeunt WORTHIES\n  KING. How fares your Majesty?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Boyet, prepare; I will away to-night.\n  KING. Madam, not so; I do beseech you stay.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Prepare, I say. I thank you, gracious\nlords,\n    For all your fair endeavours, and entreat,\n    Out of a new-sad soul, that you vouchsafe\n    In your rich wisdom to excuse or hide\n    The liberal opposition of our spirits,\n    If over-boldly we have borne ourselves\n    In the converse of breath- your gentleness\n    Was guilty of it. Farewell, worthy lord.\n    A heavy heart bears not a nimble tongue.\n    Excuse me so, coming too short of thanks\n    For my great suit so easily obtain'd.\n  KING. The extreme parts of time extremely forms\n    All causes to the purpose of his speed;\n    And often at his very loose decides\n    That which long process could not arbitrate.\n    And though the mourning brow of progeny\n    Forbid the smiling courtesy of love\n    The holy suit which fain it would convince,\n    Yet, since love's argument was first on foot,\n    Let not the cloud of sorrow justle it\n    From what it purpos'd; since to wail friends lost\n    Is not by much so wholesome-profitable\n    As to rejoice at friends but newly found.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. I understand you not; my griefs are double.\n  BEROWNE. Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief;\n    And by these badges understand the King.\n    For your fair sakes have we neglected time,\n    Play'd foul play with our oaths; your beauty, ladies,\n    Hath much deformed us, fashioning our humours\n    Even to the opposed end of our intents;\n    And what in us hath seem'd ridiculous,\n    As love is full of unbefitting strains,\n    All wanton as a child, skipping and vain;\n    Form'd by the eye and therefore, like the eye,\n    Full of strange shapes, of habits, and of forms,\n    Varying in subjects as the eye doth roll\n    To every varied object in his glance;\n    Which parti-coated presence of loose love\n    Put on by us, if in your heavenly eyes\n    Have misbecom'd our oaths and gravities,\n    Those heavenly eyes that look into these faults\n    Suggested us to make. Therefore, ladies,\n    Our love being yours, the error that love makes\n    Is likewise yours. We to ourselves prove false,\n    By being once false for ever to be true\n    To those that make us both- fair ladies, you;\n    And even that falsehood, in itself a sin,\n    Thus purifies itself and turns to grace.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. We have receiv'd your letters, full of\nlove;\n    Your favours, the ambassadors of love;\n    And, in our maiden council, rated them\n    At courtship, pleasant jest, and courtesy,\n    As bombast and as lining to the time;\n    But more devout than this in our respects\n    Have we not been; and therefore met your loves\n    In their own fashion, like a merriment.\n  DUMAIN. Our letters, madam, show'd much more than jest.\n  LONGAVILLE. So did our looks.\n  ROSALINE. We did not quote them so.\n  KING. Now, at the latest minute of the hour,\n    Grant us your loves.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. A time, methinks, too short\n    To make a world-without-end bargain in.\n    No, no, my lord, your Grace is perjur'd much,\n    Full of dear guiltiness; and therefore this,\n    If for my love, as there is no such cause,\n    You will do aught- this shall you do for me:\n    Your oath I will not trust; but go with speed\n    To some forlorn and naked hermitage,\n    Remote from all the pleasures of the world;\n    There stay until the twelve celestial signs\n    Have brought about the annual reckoning.\n    If this austere insociable life\n    Change not your offer made in heat of blood,\n    If frosts and fasts, hard lodging and thin weeds,\n    Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love,\n    But that it bear this trial, and last love,\n    Then, at the expiration of the year,\n    Come, challenge me, challenge me by these deserts;\n    And, by this virgin palm now kissing thine,\n    I will be thine; and, till that instant, shut\n    My woeful self up in a mournful house,\n    Raining the tears of lamentation\n    For the remembrance of my father's death.\n    If this thou do deny, let our hands part,\n    Neither intitled in the other's heart.\n  KING. If this, or more than this, I would deny,\n    To flatter up these powers of mine with rest,\n    The sudden hand of death close up mine eye!\n    Hence hermit then, my heart is in thy breast.\n  BEROWNE. And what to me, my love? and what to me?\n  ROSALINE. You must he purged too, your sins are rack'd;\n    You are attaint with faults and perjury;\n    Therefore, if you my favour mean to get,\n    A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest,\n    But seek the weary beds of people sick.\n  DUMAIN. But what to me, my love? but what to me?\n    A wife?\n  KATHARINE. A beard, fair health, and honesty;\n    With threefold love I wish you all these three.\n  DUMAIN. O, shall I say I thank you, gentle wife?\n  KATHARINE. No so, my lord; a twelvemonth and a day\n    I'll mark no words that smooth-fac'd wooers say.\n    Come when the King doth to my lady come;\n    Then, if I have much love, I'll give you some.\n  DUMAIN. I'll serve thee true and faithfully till then.\n  KATHARINE. Yet swear not, lest ye be forsworn again.\n  LONGAVILLE. What says Maria?\n  MARIA. At the twelvemonth's end\n    I'll change my black gown for a faithful friend.\n  LONGAVILLE. I'll stay with patience; but the time is long.\n  MARIA. The liker you; few taller are so young.\n  BEROWNE. Studies my lady? Mistress, look on me;\n    Behold the window of my heart, mine eye,\n    What humble suit attends thy answer there.\n    Impose some service on me for thy love.\n  ROSALINE. Oft have I heard of you, my Lord Berowne,\n    Before I saw you; and the world's large tongue\n    Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks,\n    Full of comparisons and wounding flouts,\n    Which you on all estates will execute\n    That lie within the mercy of your wit.\n    To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain,\n    And therewithal to win me, if you please,\n    Without the which I am not to be won,\n    You shall this twelvemonth term from day to day\n    Visit the speechless sick, and still converse\n    With groaning wretches; and your task shall be,\n    With all the fierce endeavour of your wit,\n    To enforce the pained impotent to smile.\n  BEROWNE. To move wild laughter in the throat of death?\n    It cannot be; it is impossible;\n    Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.\n  ROSALINE. Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit,\n    Whose influence is begot of that loose grace\n    Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools.\n    A jest's prosperity lies in the ear\n    Of him that hears it, never in the tongue\n    Of him that makes it; then, if sickly ears,\n    Deaf'd with the clamours of their own dear groans,\n    Will hear your idle scorns, continue then,\n    And I will have you and that fault withal.\n    But if they will not, throw away that spirit,\n    And I shall find you empty of that fault,\n    Right joyful of your reformation.\n  BEROWNE. A twelvemonth? Well, befall what will befall,\n    I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. [ To the King] Ay, sweet my lord, and so I\ntake\n    my leave.\n  KING. No, madam; we will bring you on your way.\n  BEROWNE. Our wooing doth not end like an old play:\n    Jack hath not Jill. These ladies' courtesy\n    Might well have made our sport a comedy.\n  KING. Come, sir, it wants a twelvemonth an' a day,\n    And then 'twill end.\n  BEROWNE. That's too long for a play.\n\n                          Re-enter ARMADO\n\n  ARMADO. Sweet Majesty, vouchsafe me-\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Was not that not Hector?\n  DUMAIN. The worthy knight of Troy.\n  ARMADO. I will kiss thy royal finger, and take leave. I am a\n    votary: I have vow'd to Jaquenetta to hold the plough for her\n    sweet love three year. But, most esteemed greatness, will you\n    hear the dialogue that the two learned men have compiled in\n    praise of the Owl and the Cuckoo? It should have followed in\nthe\n    end of our show.\n  KING. Call them forth quickly; we will do so.\n  ARMADO. Holla! approach.\n\n                            Enter All\n\n    This side is Hiems, Winter; this Ver, the Spring- the one\n    maintained by the Owl, th' other by the Cuckoo. Ver, begin.\n\n                      SPRING\n         When daisies pied and violets blue\n         And lady-smocks all silver-white\n         And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue\n         Do paint the meadows with delight,\n         The cuckoo then on every tree\n         Mocks married men, for thus sings he:\n              'Cuckoo;\n         Cuckoo, cuckoo'- O word of fear,\n         Unpleasing to a married ear!\n\n         When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,\n         And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks;\n         When turtles tread, and rooks and daws,\n         And maidens bleach their summer smocks;\n         The cuckoo then on every tree\n         Mocks married men, for thus sings he:\n              'Cuckoo;\n         Cuckoo, cuckoo'- O word of fear,\n         Unpleasing to a married ear!\n\n\n                    WINTER\n\n         When icicles hang by the wall,\n         And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,\n         And Tom bears logs into the hall,\n         And milk comes frozen home in pail,\n         When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,\n         Then nightly sings the staring owl:\n              'Tu-who;\n         Tu-whit, Tu-who'- A merry note,\n         While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.\n\n         When all aloud the wind doth blow,\n         And coughing drowns the parson's saw,\n         And birds sit brooding in the snow,\n         And Marian's nose looks red and raw,\n         When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,\n         Then nightly sings the staring owl:\n              'Tu-who;\n         Tu-whit, To-who'- A merry note,\n         While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.\n\n  ARMADO. The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of\nApollo.\n    You that way: we this way.                            Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of this Etext of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare\nLove's Labour's Lost"}
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{"1110":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1597\n\nKING JOHN\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n    KING JOHN\n    PRINCE HENRY, his son\n    ARTHUR, DUKE OF BRITAINE, son of Geffrey, late Duke of\n      Britaine, the elder brother of King John\n    EARL OF PEMBROKE\n    EARL OF ESSEX\n    EARL OF SALISBURY\n    LORD BIGOT\n    HUBERT DE BURGH\n    ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE, son to Sir Robert Faulconbridge\n    PHILIP THE BASTARD, his half-brother\n    JAMES GURNEY, servant to Lady Faulconbridge\n    PETER OF POMFRET, a prophet\n\n    KING PHILIP OF FRANCE\n    LEWIS, the Dauphin\n    LYMOGES, Duke of Austria\n    CARDINAL PANDULPH, the Pope's legate\n    MELUN, a French lord\n    CHATILLON, ambassador from France to King John\n\n    QUEEN ELINOR, widow of King Henry II and mother to\n      King John\n    CONSTANCE, Mother to Arthur\n    BLANCH OF SPAIN, daughter to the King of Castile\n      and niece to King John\n    LADY FAULCONBRIDGE, widow of Sir Robert Faulconbridge\n\n    Lords, Citizens of Angiers, Sheriff, Heralds, Officers,\n      Soldiers, Executioners, Messengers, Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nEngland and France\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 1\n\nKING JOHN's palace\n\nEnter KING JOHN, QUEEN ELINOR, PEMBROKE, ESSEX, SALISBURY, and\nothers,\nwith CHATILLON\n\n  KING JOHN. Now, say, Chatillon, what would France with us?\n  CHATILLON. Thus, after greeting, speaks the King of France\n    In my behaviour to the majesty,\n    The borrowed majesty, of England here.\n  ELINOR. A strange beginning- 'borrowed majesty'!\n  KING JOHN. Silence, good mother; hear the embassy.\n  CHATILLON. Philip of France, in right and true behalf\n    Of thy deceased brother Geffrey's son,\n    Arthur Plantagenet, lays most lawful claim\n    To this fair island and the territories,\n    To Ireland, Poictiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine,\n    Desiring thee to lay aside the sword\n    Which sways usurpingly these several titles,\n    And put the same into young Arthur's hand,\n    Thy nephew and right royal sovereign.\n  KING JOHN. What follows if we disallow of this?\n  CHATILLON. The proud control of fierce and bloody war,\n    To enforce these rights so forcibly withheld.\n  KING JOHN. Here have we war for war, and blood for blood,\n    Controlment for controlment- so answer France.\n  CHATILLON. Then take my king's defiance from my mouth-\n    The farthest limit of my embassy.\n  KING JOHN. Bear mine to him, and so depart in peace;\n    Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France;\n    For ere thou canst report I will be there,\n    The thunder of my cannon shall be heard.\n    So hence! Be thou the trumpet of our wrath\n    And sullen presage of your own decay.\n    An honourable conduct let him have-\n    Pembroke, look to 't. Farewell, Chatillon.\n                                        Exeunt CHATILLON and\nPEMBROKE\n  ELINOR. What now, my son! Have I not ever said\n    How that ambitious Constance would not cease\n    Till she had kindled France and all the world\n    Upon the right and party of her son?\n    This might have been prevented and made whole\n    With very easy arguments of love,\n    Which now the manage of two kingdoms must\n    With fearful bloody issue arbitrate.\n  KING JOHN. Our strong possession and our right for us!\n  ELINOR. Your strong possession much more than your right,\n    Or else it must go wrong with you and me;\n    So much my conscience whispers in your ear,\n    Which none but heaven and you and I shall hear.\n\n                  Enter a SHERIFF\n\n  ESSEX. My liege, here is the strangest controversy\n    Come from the country to be judg'd by you\n    That e'er I heard. Shall I produce the men?\n  KING JOHN. Let them approach.                          Exit\nSHERIFF\n    Our abbeys and our priories shall pay\n    This expedition's charge.\n\n     Enter ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE and PHILIP, his bastard\n                     brother\n\n    What men are you?\n  BASTARD. Your faithful subject I, a gentleman\n    Born in Northamptonshire, and eldest son,\n    As I suppose, to Robert Faulconbridge-\n    A soldier by the honour-giving hand\n    Of Coeur-de-lion knighted in the field.\n  KING JOHN. What art thou?\n  ROBERT. The son and heir to that same Faulconbridge.\n  KING JOHN. Is that the elder, and art thou the heir?\n    You came not of one mother then, it seems.\n  BASTARD. Most certain of one mother, mighty king-\n    That is well known- and, as I think, one father;\n    But for the certain knowledge of that truth\n    I put you o'er to heaven and to my mother.\n    Of that I doubt, as all men's children may.\n  ELINOR. Out on thee, rude man! Thou dost shame thy mother,\n    And wound her honour with this diffidence.\n  BASTARD. I, madam? No, I have no reason for it-\n    That is my brother's plea, and none of mine;\n    The which if he can prove, 'a pops me out\n    At least from fair five hundred pound a year.\n    Heaven guard my mother's honour and my land!\n  KING JOHN. A good blunt fellow. Why, being younger born,\n    Doth he lay claim to thine inheritance?\n  BASTARD. I know not why, except to get the land.\n    But once he slander'd me with bastardy;\n    But whe'er I be as true begot or no,\n    That still I lay upon my mother's head;\n    But that I am as well begot, my liege-\n    Fair fall the bones that took the pains for me!-\n    Compare our faces and be judge yourself.\n    If old Sir Robert did beget us both\n    And were our father, and this son like him-\n    O old Sir Robert, father, on my knee\n    I give heaven thanks I was not like to thee!\n  KING JOHN. Why, what a madcap hath heaven lent us here!\n  ELINOR. He hath a trick of Coeur-de-lion's face;\n    The accent of his tongue affecteth him.\n    Do you not read some tokens of my son\n    In the large composition of this man?\n  KING JOHN. Mine eye hath well examined his parts\n    And finds them perfect Richard. Sirrah, speak,\n    What doth move you to claim your brother's land?\n  BASTARD. Because he hath a half-face, like my father.\n    With half that face would he have all my land:\n    A half-fac'd groat five hundred pound a year!\n  ROBERT. My gracious liege, when that my father liv'd,\n    Your brother did employ my father much-\n  BASTARD. Well, sir, by this you cannot get my land:\n    Your tale must be how he employ'd my mother.\n  ROBERT. And once dispatch'd him in an embassy\n    To Germany, there with the Emperor\n    To treat of high affairs touching that time.\n    Th' advantage of his absence took the King,\n    And in the meantime sojourn'd at my father's;\n    Where how he did prevail I shame to speak-\n    But truth is truth: large lengths of seas and shores\n    Between my father and my mother lay,\n    As I have heard my father speak himself,\n    When this same lusty gentleman was got.\n    Upon his death-bed he by will bequeath'd\n    His lands to me, and took it on his death\n    That this my mother's son was none of his;\n    And if he were, he came into the world\n    Full fourteen weeks before the course of time.\n    Then, good my liege, let me have what is mine,\n    My father's land, as was my father's will.\n  KING JOHN. Sirrah, your brother is legitimate:\n    Your father's wife did after wedlock bear him,\n    And if she did play false, the fault was hers;\n    Which fault lies on the hazards of all husbands\n    That marry wives. Tell me, how if my brother,\n    Who, as you say, took pains to get this son,\n    Had of your father claim'd this son for his?\n    In sooth, good friend, your father might have kept\n    This calf, bred from his cow, from all the world;\n    In sooth, he might; then, if he were my brother's,\n    My brother might not claim him; nor your father,\n    Being none of his, refuse him. This concludes:\n    My mother's son did get your father's heir;\n    Your father's heir must have your father's land.\n  ROBERT. Shall then my father's will be of no force\n    To dispossess that child which is not his?\n  BASTARD. Of no more force to dispossess me, sir,\n    Than was his will to get me, as I think.\n  ELINOR. Whether hadst thou rather be a Faulconbridge,\n    And like thy brother, to enjoy thy land,\n    Or the reputed son of Coeur-de-lion,\n    Lord of thy presence and no land beside?\n  BASTARD. Madam, an if my brother had my shape\n    And I had his, Sir Robert's his, like him;\n    And if my legs were two such riding-rods,\n    My arms such eel-skins stuff'd, my face so thin\n    That in mine ear I durst not stick a rose\n    Lest men should say 'Look where three-farthings goes!'\n    And, to his shape, were heir to all this land-\n    Would I might never stir from off this place,\n    I would give it every foot to have this face!\n    I would not be Sir Nob in any case.\n  ELINOR. I like thee well. Wilt thou forsake thy fortune,\n    Bequeath thy land to him and follow me?\n    I am a soldier and now bound to France.\n  BASTARD. Brother, take you my land, I'll take my chance.\n    Your face hath got five hundred pound a year,\n    Yet sell your face for fivepence and 'tis dear.\n    Madam, I'll follow you unto the death.\n  ELINOR. Nay, I would have you go before me thither.\n  BASTARD. Our country manners give our betters way.\n  KING JOHN. What is thy name?\n  BASTARD. Philip, my liege, so is my name begun:\n    Philip, good old Sir Robert's wife's eldest son.\n  KING JOHN. From henceforth bear his name whose form thou\nbearest:\n    Kneel thou down Philip, but rise more great-\n    Arise Sir Richard and Plantagenet.\n  BASTARD. Brother by th' mother's side, give me your hand;\n    My father gave me honour, yours gave land.\n    Now blessed be the hour, by night or day,\n    When I was got, Sir Robert was away!\n  ELINOR. The very spirit of Plantagenet!\n    I am thy grandam, Richard: call me so.\n  BASTARD. Madam, by chance, but not by truth; what though?\n    Something about, a little from the right,\n    In at the window, or else o'er the hatch;\n    Who dares not stir by day must walk by night;\n    And have is have, however men do catch.\n    Near or far off, well won is still well shot;\n    And I am I, howe'er I was begot.\n  KING JOHN. Go, Faulconbridge; now hast thou thy desire:\n    A landless knight makes thee a landed squire.\n    Come, madam, and come, Richard, we must speed\n    For France, for France, for it is more than need.\n  BASTARD. Brother, adieu. Good fortune come to thee!\n    For thou wast got i' th' way of honesty.\n                                           Exeunt all but the\nBASTARD\n    A foot of honour better than I was;\n    But many a many foot of land the worse.\n    Well, now can I make any Joan a lady.\n    'Good den, Sir Richard!'-'God-a-mercy, fellow!'\n    And if his name be George, I'll call him Peter;\n    For new-made honour doth forget men's names:\n    'Tis too respective and too sociable\n    For your conversion. Now your traveller,\n    He and his toothpick at my worship's mess-\n    And when my knightly stomach is suffic'd,\n    Why then I suck my teeth and catechize\n    My picked man of countries: 'My dear sir,'\n    Thus leaning on mine elbow I begin\n    'I shall beseech you'-That is question now;\n    And then comes answer like an Absey book:\n    'O sir,' says answer 'at your best command,\n    At your employment, at your service, sir!'\n    'No, sir,' says question 'I, sweet sir, at yours.'\n    And so, ere answer knows what question would,\n    Saving in dialogue of compliment,\n    And talking of the Alps and Apennines,\n    The Pyrenean and the river Po-\n    It draws toward supper in conclusion so.\n    But this is worshipful society,\n    And fits the mounting spirit like myself;\n    For he is but a bastard to the time\n    That doth not smack of observation-\n    And so am I, whether I smack or no;\n    And not alone in habit and device,\n    Exterior form, outward accoutrement,\n    But from the inward motion to deliver\n    Sweet, sweet, sweet poison for the age's tooth;\n    Which, though I will not practise to deceive,\n    Yet, to avoid deceit, I mean to learn;\n    For it shall strew the footsteps of my rising.\n    But who comes in such haste in riding-robes?\n    What woman-post is this? Hath she no husband\n    That will take pains to blow a horn before her?\n\n      Enter LADY FAULCONBRIDGE, and JAMES GURNEY\n\n    O me, 'tis my mother! How now, good lady!\n    What brings you here to court so hastily?\n  LADY FAULCONBRIDGE. Where is that slave, thy brother?\n      Where is he\n    That holds in chase mine honour up and down?\n  BASTARD. My brother Robert, old Sir Robert's son?\n    Colbrand the giant, that same mighty man?\n    Is it Sir Robert's son that you seek so?\n  LADY FAULCONBRIDGE. Sir Robert's son! Ay, thou unreverend boy,\n    Sir Robert's son! Why scorn'st thou at Sir Robert?\n    He is Sir Robert's son, and so art thou.\n  BASTARD. James Gurney, wilt thou give us leave awhile?\n  GURNEY. Good leave, good Philip.\n  BASTARD. Philip-Sparrow! James,\n    There's toys abroad-anon I'll tell thee more.\n                                                          Exit\nGURNEY\n    Madam, I was not old Sir Robert's son;\n    Sir Robert might have eat his part in me\n    Upon Good Friday, and ne'er broke his fast.\n    Sir Robert could do: well-marry, to confess-\n    Could he get me? Sir Robert could not do it:\n    We know his handiwork. Therefore, good mother,\n    To whom am I beholding for these limbs?\n    Sir Robert never holp to make this leg.\n  LADY FAULCONBRIDGE. Hast thou conspired with thy brother too,\n    That for thine own gain shouldst defend mine honour?\n    What means this scorn, thou most untoward knave?\n  BASTARD. Knight, knight, good mother, Basilisco-like.\n    What! I am dubb'd; I have it on my shoulder.\n    But, mother, I am not Sir Robert's son:\n    I have disclaim'd Sir Robert and my land;\n    Legitimation, name, and all is gone.\n    Then, good my mother, let me know my father-\n    Some proper man, I hope. Who was it, mother?\n  LADY FAULCONBRIDGE. Hast thou denied thyself a Faulconbridge?\n  BASTARD. As faithfully as I deny the devil.\n  LADY FAULCONBRIDGE. King Richard Coeur-de-lion was thy father.\n    By long and vehement suit I was seduc'd\n    To make room for him in my husband's bed.\n    Heaven lay not my transgression to my charge!\n    Thou art the issue of my dear offence,\n    Which was so strongly urg'd past my defence.\n  BASTARD. Now, by this light, were I to get again,\n    Madam, I would not wish a better father.\n    Some sins do bear their privilege on earth,\n    And so doth yours: your fault was not your folly;\n    Needs must you lay your heart at his dispose,\n    Subjected tribute to commanding love,\n    Against whose fury and unmatched force\n    The aweless lion could not wage the fight\n    Nor keep his princely heart from Richard's hand.\n    He that perforce robs lions of their hearts\n    May easily win a woman's. Ay, my mother,\n    With all my heart I thank thee for my father!\n    Who lives and dares but say thou didst not well\n    When I was got, I'll send his soul to hell.\n    Come, lady, I will show thee to my kin;\n    And they shall say when Richard me begot,\n    If thou hadst said him nay, it had been sin.\n    Who says it was, he lies; I say 'twas not.\nExeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 1\n\nFrance. Before Angiers\n\nEnter, on one side, AUSTRIA and forces; on the other, KING PHILIP\nOF FRANCE,\nLEWIS the Dauphin, CONSTANCE, ARTHUR, and forces\n\n  KING PHILIP. Before Angiers well met, brave Austria.\n    Arthur, that great forerunner of thy blood,\n    Richard, that robb'd the lion of his heart\n    And fought the holy wars in Palestine,\n    By this brave duke came early to his grave;\n    And for amends to his posterity,\n    At our importance hither is he come\n    To spread his colours, boy, in thy behalf;\n    And to rebuke the usurpation\n    Of thy unnatural uncle, English John.\n    Embrace him, love him, give him welcome hither.\n  ARTHUR. God shall forgive you Coeur-de-lion's death\n    The rather that you give his offspring life,\n    Shadowing their right under your wings of war.\n    I give you welcome with a powerless hand,\n    But with a heart full of unstained love;\n    Welcome before the gates of Angiers, Duke.\n  KING PHILIP. A noble boy! Who would not do thee right?\n  AUSTRIA. Upon thy cheek lay I this zealous kiss\n    As seal to this indenture of my love:\n    That to my home I will no more return\n    Till Angiers and the right thou hast in France,\n    Together with that pale, that white-fac'd shore,\n    Whose foot spurns back the ocean's roaring tides\n    And coops from other lands her islanders-\n    Even till that England, hedg'd in with the main,\n    That water-walled bulwark, still secure\n    And confident from foreign purposes-\n    Even till that utmost corner of the west\n    Salute thee for her king. Till then, fair boy,\n    Will I not think of home, but follow arms.\n  CONSTANCE. O, take his mother's thanks, a widow's thanks,\n    Till your strong hand shall help to give him strength\n    To make a more requital to your love!\n  AUSTRIA. The peace of heaven is theirs that lift their swords\n    In such a just and charitable war.\n  KING PHILIP. Well then, to work! Our cannon shall be bent\n    Against the brows of this resisting town;\n    Call for our chiefest men of discipline,\n    To cull the plots of best advantages.\n    We'll lay before this town our royal bones,\n    Wade to the market-place in Frenchmen's blood,\n    But we will make it subject to this boy.\n  CONSTANCE. Stay for an answer to your embassy,\n    Lest unadvis'd you stain your swords with blood;\n    My Lord Chatillon may from England bring\n    That right in peace which here we urge in war,\n    And then we shall repent each drop of blood\n    That hot rash haste so indirectly shed.\n\n                  Enter CHATILLON\n\n  KING PHILIP. A wonder, lady! Lo, upon thy wish,\n    Our messenger Chatillon is arriv'd.\n    What England says, say briefly, gentle lord;\n    We coldly pause for thee. Chatillon, speak.\n  CHATILLON. Then turn your forces from this paltry siege\n    And stir them up against a mightier task.\n    England, impatient of your just demands,\n    Hath put himself in arms. The adverse winds,\n    Whose leisure I have stay'd, have given him time\n    To land his legions all as soon as I;\n    His marches are expedient to this town,\n    His forces strong, his soldiers confident.\n    With him along is come the mother-queen,\n    An Ate, stirring him to blood and strife;\n    With her the Lady Blanch of Spain;\n    With them a bastard of the king's deceas'd;\n    And all th' unsettled humours of the land-\n    Rash, inconsiderate, fiery voluntaries,\n    With ladies' faces and fierce dragons' spleens-\n    Have sold their fortunes at their native homes,\n    Bearing their birthrights proudly on their backs,\n    To make a hazard of new fortunes here.\n    In brief, a braver choice of dauntless spirits\n    Than now the English bottoms have waft o'er\n    Did never float upon the swelling tide\n    To do offence and scathe in Christendom.             [Drum\nbeats]\n    The interruption of their churlish drums\n    Cuts off more circumstance: they are at hand;\n    To parley or to fight, therefore prepare.\n  KING PHILIP. How much unlook'd for is this expedition!\n  AUSTRIA. By how much unexpected, by so much\n    We must awake endeavour for defence,\n    For courage mounteth with occasion.\n    Let them be welcome then; we are prepar'd.\n\n       Enter KING JOHN, ELINOR, BLANCH, the BASTARD,\n                 PEMBROKE, and others\n\n  KING JOHN. Peace be to France, if France in peace permit\n    Our just and lineal entrance to our own!\n    If not, bleed France, and peace ascend to heaven,\n    Whiles we, God's wrathful agent, do correct\n    Their proud contempt that beats His peace to heaven!\n  KING PHILIP. Peace be to England, if that war return\n    From France to England, there to live in peace!\n    England we love, and for that England's sake\n    With burden of our armour here we sweat.\n    This toil of ours should be a work of thine;\n    But thou from loving England art so far\n    That thou hast under-wrought his lawful king,\n    Cut off the sequence of posterity,\n    Outfaced infant state, and done a rape\n    Upon the maiden virtue of the crown.\n    Look here upon thy brother Geffrey's face:\n    These eyes, these brows, were moulded out of his;\n    This little abstract doth contain that large\n    Which died in Geffrey, and the hand of time\n    Shall draw this brief into as huge a volume.\n    That Geffrey was thy elder brother born,\n    And this his son; England was Geffrey's right,\n    And this is Geffrey's. In the name of God,\n    How comes it then that thou art call'd a king,\n    When living blood doth in these temples beat\n    Which owe the crown that thou o'er-masterest?\n  KING JOHN. From whom hast thou this great commission, France,\n    To draw my answer from thy articles?\n  KING PHILIP. From that supernal judge that stirs good thoughts\n    In any breast of strong authority\n    To look into the blots and stains of right.\n    That judge hath made me guardian to this boy,\n    Under whose warrant I impeach thy wrong,\n    And by whose help I mean to chastise it.\n  KING JOHN. Alack, thou dost usurp authority.\n  KING PHILIP. Excuse it is to beat usurping down.\n  ELINOR. Who is it thou dost call usurper, France?\n  CONSTANCE. Let me make answer: thy usurping son.\n  ELINOR. Out, insolent! Thy bastard shall be king,\n    That thou mayst be a queen and check the world!\n  CONSTANCE. My bed was ever to thy son as true\n    As thine was to thy husband; and this boy\n    Liker in feature to his father Geffrey\n    Than thou and John in manners-being as Eke\n    As rain to water, or devil to his dam.\n    My boy a bastard! By my soul, I think\n    His father never was so true begot;\n    It cannot be, an if thou wert his mother.\n  ELINOR. There's a good mother, boy, that blots thy father.\n  CONSTANCE. There's a good grandam, boy, that would blot thee.\n  AUSTRIA. Peace!\n  BASTARD. Hear the crier.\n  AUSTRIA. What the devil art thou?\n  BASTARD. One that will play the devil, sir, with you,\n    An 'a may catch your hide and you alone.\n    You are the hare of whom the proverb goes,\n    Whose valour plucks dead lions by the beard;\n    I'll smoke your skin-coat an I catch you right;\n    Sirrah, look to 't; i' faith I will, i' faith.\n  BLANCH. O, well did he become that lion's robe\n    That did disrobe the lion of that robe!\n  BASTARD. It lies as sightly on the back of him\n    As great Alcides' shows upon an ass;\n    But, ass, I'll take that burden from your back,\n    Or lay on that shall make your shoulders crack.\n  AUSTRIA. What cracker is this same that deafs our ears\n    With this abundance of superfluous breath?\n    King Philip, determine what we shall do straight.\n  KING PHILIP. Women and fools, break off your conference.\n    King John, this is the very sum of all:\n    England and Ireland, Anjou, Touraine, Maine,\n    In right of Arthur, do I claim of thee;\n    Wilt thou resign them and lay down thy arms?\n  KING JOHN. My life as soon. I do defy thee, France.\n    Arthur of Britaine, yield thee to my hand,\n    And out of my dear love I'll give thee more\n    Than e'er the coward hand of France can win.\n    Submit thee, boy.\n  ELINOR. Come to thy grandam, child.\n  CONSTANCE. Do, child, go to it grandam, child;\n    Give grandam kingdom, and it grandam will\n    Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig.\n    There's a good grandam!\n  ARTHUR. Good my mother, peace!\n    I would that I were low laid in my grave:\n    I am not worth this coil that's made for me.\n  ELINOR. His mother shames him so, poor boy, he weeps.\n  CONSTANCE. Now shame upon you, whe'er she does or no!\n    His grandam's wrongs, and not his mother's shames,\n    Draws those heaven-moving pearls from his poor eyes,\n    Which heaven shall take in nature of a fee;\n    Ay, with these crystal beads heaven shall be brib'd\n    To do him justice and revenge on you.\n  ELINOR. Thou monstrous slanderer of heaven and earth!\n  CONSTANCE. Thou monstrous injurer of heaven and earth,\n    Call not me slanderer! Thou and thine usurp\n    The dominations, royalties, and rights,\n    Of this oppressed boy; this is thy eldest son's son,\n    Infortunate in nothing but in thee.\n    Thy sins are visited in this poor child;\n    The canon of the law is laid on him,\n    Being but the second generation\n    Removed from thy sin-conceiving womb.\n  KING JOHN. Bedlam, have done.\n  CONSTANCE. I have but this to say-\n    That he is not only plagued for her sin,\n    But God hath made her sin and her the plague\n    On this removed issue, plagued for her\n    And with her plague; her sin his injury,\n    Her injury the beadle to her sin;\n    All punish'd in the person of this child,\n    And all for her-a plague upon her!\n  ELINOR. Thou unadvised scold, I can produce\n    A will that bars the title of thy son.\n  CONSTANCE. Ay, who doubts that? A will, a wicked will;\n    A woman's will; a cank'red grandam's will!\n  KING PHILIP. Peace, lady! pause, or be more temperate.\n    It ill beseems this presence to cry aim\n    To these ill-tuned repetitions.\n    Some trumpet summon hither to the walls\n    These men of Angiers; let us hear them speak\n    Whose title they admit, Arthur's or John's.\n\n      Trumpet sounds. Enter citizens upon the walls\n\n  CITIZEN. Who is it that hath warn'd us to the walls?\n  KING PHILIP. 'Tis France, for England.\n  KING JOHN. England for itself.\n    You men of Angiers, and my loving subjects-\n  KING PHILIP. You loving men of Angiers, Arthur's subjects,\n    Our trumpet call'd you to this gentle parle-\n  KING JOHN. For our advantage; therefore hear us first.\n    These flags of France, that are advanced here\n    Before the eye and prospect of your town,\n    Have hither march'd to your endamagement;\n    The cannons have their bowels full of wrath,\n    And ready mounted are they to spit forth\n    Their iron indignation 'gainst your walls;\n    All preparation for a bloody siege\n    And merciless proceeding by these French\n    Confront your city's eyes, your winking gates;\n    And but for our approach those sleeping stones\n    That as a waist doth girdle you about\n    By the compulsion of their ordinance\n    By this time from their fixed beds of lime\n    Had been dishabited, and wide havoc made\n    For bloody power to rush upon your peace.\n    But on the sight of us your lawful king,\n    Who painfully with much expedient march\n    Have brought a countercheck before your gates,\n    To save unscratch'd your city's threat'ned cheeks-\n    Behold, the French amaz'd vouchsafe a parle;\n    And now, instead of bullets wrapp'd in fire,\n    To make a shaking fever in your walls,\n    They shoot but calm words folded up in smoke,\n    To make a faithless error in your cars;\n    Which trust accordingly, kind citizens,\n    And let us in-your King, whose labour'd spirits,\n    Forwearied in this action of swift speed,\n    Craves harbourage within your city walls.\n  KING PHILIP. When I have said, make answer to us both.\n    Lo, in this right hand, whose protection\n    Is most divinely vow'd upon the right\n    Of him it holds, stands young Plantagenet,\n    Son to the elder brother of this man,\n    And king o'er him and all that he enjoys;\n    For this down-trodden equity we tread\n    In warlike march these greens before your town,\n    Being no further enemy to you\n    Than the constraint of hospitable zeal\n    In the relief of this oppressed child\n    Religiously provokes. Be pleased then\n    To pay that duty which you truly owe\n    To him that owes it, namely, this young prince;\n    And then our arms, like to a muzzled bear,\n    Save in aspect, hath all offence seal'd up;\n    Our cannons' malice vainly shall be spent\n    Against th' invulnerable clouds of heaven;\n    And with a blessed and unvex'd retire,\n    With unhack'd swords and helmets all unbruis'd,\n    We will bear home that lusty blood again\n    Which here we came to spout against your town,\n    And leave your children, wives, and you, in peace.\n    But if you fondly pass our proffer'd offer,\n    'Tis not the roundure of your old-fac'd walls\n    Can hide you from our messengers of war,\n    Though all these English and their discipline\n    Were harbour'd in their rude circumference.\n    Then tell us, shall your city call us lord\n    In that behalf which we have challeng'd it;\n    Or shall we give the signal to our rage,\n    And stalk in blood to our possession?\n  CITIZEN. In brief: we are the King of England's subjects;\n    For him, and in his right, we hold this town.\n  KING JOHN. Acknowledge then the King, and let me in.\n  CITIZEN. That can we not; but he that proves the King,\n    To him will we prove loyal. Till that time\n    Have we ramm'd up our gates against the world.\n  KING JOHN. Doth not the crown of England prove the King?\n    And if not that, I bring you witnesses:\n    Twice fifteen thousand hearts of England's breed-\n  BASTARD. Bastards and else.\n  KING JOHN. To verify our title with their lives.\n  KING PHILIP. As many and as well-born bloods as those-\n  BASTARD. Some bastards too.\n  KING PHILIP. Stand in his face to contradict his claim.\n  CITIZEN. Till you compound whose right is worthiest,\n    We for the worthiest hold the right from both.\n  KING JOHN. Then God forgive the sin of all those souls\n    That to their everlasting residence,\n    Before the dew of evening fall shall fleet\n    In dreadful trial of our kingdom's king!\n  KING PHILIP. Amen, Amen! Mount, chevaliers; to arms!\n  BASTARD. Saint George, that swing'd the dragon, and e'er since\n    Sits on's horse back at mine hostess' door,\n    Teach us some fence!  [To AUSTRIA]  Sirrah, were I at home,\n    At your den, sirrah, with your lioness,\n    I would set an ox-head to your lion's hide,\n    And make a monster of you.\n  AUSTRIA. Peace! no more.\n  BASTARD. O, tremble, for you hear the lion roar!\n  KING JOHN. Up higher to the plain, where we'll set forth\n    In best appointment all our regiments.\n  BASTARD. Speed then to take advantage of the field.\n  KING PHILIP. It shall be so; and at the other hill\n    Command the rest to stand. God and our right!\nExeunt\n\n    Here, after excursions, enter the HERALD OF FRANCE,\n              with trumpets, to the gates\n\n  FRENCH HERALD. You men of Angiers, open wide your gates\n    And let young Arthur, Duke of Britaine, in,\n    Who by the hand of France this day hath made\n    Much work for tears in many an English mother,\n    Whose sons lie scattered on the bleeding ground;\n    Many a widow's husband grovelling lies,\n    Coldly embracing the discoloured earth;\n    And victory with little loss doth play\n    Upon the dancing banners of the French,\n    Who are at hand, triumphantly displayed,\n    To enter conquerors, and to proclaim\n    Arthur of Britaine England's King and yours.\n\n         Enter ENGLISH HERALD, with trumpet\n\n  ENGLISH HERALD. Rejoice, you men of Angiers, ring your bells:\n    King John, your king and England's, doth approach,\n    Commander of this hot malicious day.\n    Their armours that march'd hence so silver-bright\n    Hither return all gilt with Frenchmen's blood.\n    There stuck no plume in any English crest\n    That is removed by a staff of France;\n    Our colours do return in those same hands\n    That did display them when we first march'd forth;\n    And like a jolly troop of huntsmen come\n    Our lusty English, all with purpled hands,\n    Dy'd in the dying slaughter of their foes.\n    Open your gates and give the victors way.\n  CITIZEN. Heralds, from off our tow'rs we might behold\n    From first to last the onset and retire\n    Of both your armies, whose equality\n    By our best eyes cannot be censured.\n    Blood hath bought blood, and blows have answer'd blows;\n    Strength match'd with strength, and power confronted power;\n    Both are alike, and both alike we like.\n    One must prove greatest. While they weigh so even,\n    We hold our town for neither, yet for both.\n\n    Enter the two KINGS, with their powers, at several doors\n\n  KING JOHN. France, hast thou yet more blood to cast away?\n    Say, shall the current of our right run on?\n    Whose passage, vex'd with thy impediment,\n    Shall leave his native channel and o'erswell\n    With course disturb'd even thy confining shores,\n    Unless thou let his silver water keep\n    A peaceful progress to the ocean.\n  KING PHILIP. England, thou hast not sav'd one drop of blood\n    In this hot trial more than we of France;\n    Rather, lost more. And by this hand I swear,\n    That sways the earth this climate overlooks,\n    Before we will lay down our just-borne arms,\n    We'll put thee down, 'gainst whom these arms we bear,\n    Or add a royal number to the dead,\n    Gracing the scroll that tells of this war's loss\n    With slaughter coupled to the name of kings.\n  BASTARD. Ha, majesty! how high thy glory tow'rs\n    When the rich blood of kings is set on fire!\n    O, now doth Death line his dead chaps with steel;\n    The swords of soldiers are his teeth, his fangs;\n    And now he feasts, mousing the flesh of men,\n    In undetermin'd differences of kings.\n    Why stand these royal fronts amazed thus?\n    Cry 'havoc!' kings; back to the stained field,\n    You equal potents, fiery kindled spirits!\n    Then let confusion of one part confirm\n    The other's peace. Till then, blows, blood, and death!\n  KING JOHN. Whose party do the townsmen yet admit?\n  KING PHILIP. Speak, citizens, for England; who's your king?\n  CITIZEN. The King of England, when we know the King.\n  KING PHILIP. Know him in us that here hold up his right.\n  KING JOHN. In us that are our own great deputy\n    And bear possession of our person here,\n    Lord of our presence, Angiers, and of you.\n  CITIZEN. A greater pow'r than we denies all this;\n    And till it be undoubted, we do lock\n    Our former scruple in our strong-barr'd gates;\n    King'd of our fears, until our fears, resolv'd,\n    Be by some certain king purg'd and depos'd.\n  BASTARD. By heaven, these scroyles of Angiers flout you, kings,\n    And stand securely on their battlements\n    As in a theatre, whence they gape and point\n    At your industrious scenes and acts of death.\n    Your royal presences be rul'd by me:\n    Do like the mutines of Jerusalem,\n    Be friends awhile, and both conjointly bend\n    Your sharpest deeds of malice on this town.\n    By east and west let France and England mount\n    Their battering cannon, charged to the mouths,\n    Till their soul-fearing clamours have brawl'd down\n    The flinty ribs of this contemptuous city.\n    I'd play incessantly upon these jades,\n    Even till unfenced desolation\n    Leave them as naked as the vulgar air.\n    That done, dissever your united strengths\n    And part your mingled colours once again,\n    Turn face to face and bloody point to point;\n    Then in a moment Fortune shall cull forth\n    Out of one side her happy minion,\n    To whom in favour she shall give the day,\n    And kiss him with a glorious victory.\n    How like you this wild counsel, mighty states?\n    Smacks it not something of the policy?\n  KING JOHN. Now, by the sky that hangs above our heads,\n    I like it well. France, shall we knit our pow'rs\n    And lay this Angiers even with the ground;\n    Then after fight who shall be king of it?\n  BASTARD. An if thou hast the mettle of a king,\n    Being wrong'd as we are by this peevish town,\n    Turn thou the mouth of thy artillery,\n    As we will ours, against these saucy walls;\n    And when that we have dash'd them to the ground,\n    Why then defy each other, and pell-mell\n    Make work upon ourselves, for heaven or hell.\n  KING PHILIP. Let it be so. Say, where will you assault?\n  KING JOHN. We from the west will send destruction\n    Into this city's bosom.\n  AUSTRIA. I from the north.\n  KING PHILIP. Our thunder from the south\n    Shall rain their drift of bullets on this town.\n  BASTARD.  [Aside]  O prudent discipline! From north to south,\n    Austria and France shoot in each other's mouth.\n    I'll stir them to it.-Come, away, away!\n  CITIZEN. Hear us, great kings: vouchsafe awhile to stay,\n    And I shall show you peace and fair-fac'd league;\n    Win you this city without stroke or wound;\n    Rescue those breathing lives to die in beds\n    That here come sacrifices for the field.\n    Persever not, but hear me, mighty kings.\n  KING JOHN. Speak on with favour; we are bent to hear.\n  CITIZEN. That daughter there of Spain, the Lady Blanch,\n    Is niece to England; look upon the years\n    Of Lewis the Dauphin and that lovely maid.\n    If lusty love should go in quest of beauty,\n    Where should he find it fairer than in Blanch?\n    If zealous love should go in search of virtue,\n    Where should he find it purer than in Blanch?\n    If love ambitious sought a match of birth,\n    Whose veins bound richer blood than Lady Blanch?\n    Such as she is, in beauty, virtue, birth,\n    Is the young Dauphin every way complete-\n    If not complete of, say he is not she;\n    And she again wants nothing, to name want,\n    If want it be not that she is not he.\n    He is the half part of a blessed man,\n    Left to be finished by such as she;\n    And she a fair divided excellence,\n    Whose fulness of perfection lies in him.\n    O, two such silver currents, when they join,\n    Do glorify the banks that bound them in;\n    And two such shores to two such streams made one,\n    Two such controlling bounds, shall you be, Kings,\n    To these two princes, if you marry them.\n    This union shall do more than battery can\n    To our fast-closed gates; for at this match\n    With swifter spleen than powder can enforce,\n    The mouth of passage shall we fling wide ope\n    And give you entrance; but without this match,\n    The sea enraged is not half so deaf,\n    Lions more confident, mountains and rocks\n    More free from motion-no, not Death himself\n    In mortal fury half so peremptory\n    As we to keep this city.\n  BASTARD. Here's a stay\n    That shakes the rotten carcass of old Death\n    Out of his rags! Here's a large mouth, indeed,\n    That spits forth death and mountains, rocks and seas;\n    Talks as familiarly of roaring lions\n    As maids of thirteen do of puppy-dogs!\n    What cannoneer begot this lusty blood?\n    He speaks plain cannon-fire, and smoke and bounce;\n    He gives the bastinado with his tongue;\n    Our ears are cudgell'd; not a word of his\n    But buffets better than a fist of France.\n    Zounds! I was never so bethump'd with words\n    Since I first call'd my brother's father dad.\n  ELINOR. Son, list to this conjunction, make this match;\n    Give with our niece a dowry large enough;\n    For by this knot thou shalt so surely tie\n    Thy now unsur'd assurance to the crown\n    That yon green boy shall have no sun to ripe\n    The bloom that promiseth a mighty fruit.\n    I see a yielding in the looks of France;\n    Mark how they whisper. Urge them while their souls\n    Are capable of this ambition,\n    Lest zeal, now melted by the windy breath\n    Of soft petitions, pity, and remorse,\n    Cool and congeal again to what it was.\n  CITIZEN. Why answer not the double majesties\n    This friendly treaty of our threat'ned town?\n  KING PHILIP. Speak England first, that hath been forward first\n    To speak unto this city: what say you?\n  KING JOHN. If that the Dauphin there, thy princely son,\n    Can in this book of beauty read 'I love,'\n    Her dowry shall weigh equal with a queen;\n    For Anjou, and fair Touraine, Maine, Poictiers,\n    And all that we upon this side the sea-\n    Except this city now by us besieg'd-\n    Find liable to our crown and dignity,\n    Shall gild her bridal bed, and make her rich\n    In titles, honours, and promotions,\n    As she in beauty, education, blood,\n    Holds hand with any princess of the world.\n  KING PHILIP. What say'st thou, boy? Look in the lady's face.\n  LEWIS. I do, my lord, and in her eye I find\n    A wonder, or a wondrous miracle,\n    The shadow of myself form'd in her eye;\n    Which, being but the shadow of your son,\n    Becomes a sun, and makes your son a shadow.\n    I do protest I never lov'd myself\n    Till now infixed I beheld myself\n    Drawn in the flattering table of her eye.\n                                               [Whispers with\nBLANCH]\n  BASTARD.  [Aside]  Drawn in the flattering table of her eye,\n    Hang'd in the frowning wrinkle of her brow,\n    And quarter'd in her heart-he doth espy\n    Himself love's traitor. This is pity now,\n    That hang'd and drawn and quarter'd there should be\n    In such a love so vile a lout as he.\n  BLANCH. My uncle's will in this respect is mine.\n    If he see aught in you that makes him like,\n    That anything he sees which moves his liking\n    I can with ease translate it to my will;\n    Or if you will, to speak more properly,\n    I will enforce it eas'ly to my love.\n    Further I will not flatter you, my lord,\n    That all I see in you is worthy love,\n    Than this: that nothing do I see in you-\n    Though churlish thoughts themselves should be your judge-\n    That I can find should merit any hate.\n  KING JOHN. What say these young ones? What say you, my niece?\n  BLANCH. That she is bound in honour still to do\n    What you in wisdom still vouchsafe to say.\n  KING JOHN. Speak then, Prince Dauphin; can you love this lady?\n  LEWIS. Nay, ask me if I can refrain from love;\n    For I do love her most unfeignedly.\n  KING JOHN. Then do I give Volquessen, Touraine, Maine,\n    Poictiers, and Anjou, these five provinces,\n    With her to thee; and this addition more,\n    Full thirty thousand marks of English coin.\n    Philip of France, if thou be pleas'd withal,\n    Command thy son and daughter to join hands.\n  KING PHILIP. It likes us well; young princes, close your hands.\n  AUSTRIA. And your lips too; for I am well assur'd\n    That I did so when I was first assur'd.\n  KING PHILIP. Now, citizens of Angiers, ope your gates,\n    Let in that amity which you have made;\n    For at Saint Mary's chapel presently\n    The rites of marriage shall be solemniz'd.\n    Is not the Lady Constance in this troop?\n    I know she is not; for this match made up\n    Her presence would have interrupted much.\n    Where is she and her son? Tell me, who knows.\n  LEWIS. She is sad and passionate at your Highness' tent.\n  KING PHILIP. And, by my faith, this league that we have made\n    Will give her sadness very little cure.\n    Brother of England, how may we content\n    This widow lady? In her right we came;\n    Which we, God knows, have turn'd another way,\n    To our own vantage.\n  KING JOHN. We will heal up all,\n    For we'll create young Arthur Duke of Britaine,\n    And Earl of Richmond; and this rich fair town\n    We make him lord of. Call the Lady Constance;\n    Some speedy messenger bid her repair\n    To our solemnity. I trust we shall,\n    If not fill up the measure of her will,\n    Yet in some measure satisfy her so\n    That we shall stop her exclamation.\n    Go we as well as haste will suffer us\n    To this unlook'd-for, unprepared pomp.\n                                           Exeunt all but the\nBASTARD\n  BASTARD. Mad world! mad kings! mad composition!\n    John, to stop Arthur's tide in the whole,\n    Hath willingly departed with a part;\n    And France, whose armour conscience buckled on,\n    Whom zeal and charity brought to the field\n    As God's own soldier, rounded in the ear\n    With that same purpose-changer, that sly devil,\n    That broker that still breaks the pate of faith,\n    That daily break-vow, he that wins of all,\n    Of kings, of beggars, old men, young men, maids,\n    Who having no external thing to lose\n    But the word 'maid,' cheats the poor maid of that;\n    That smooth-fac'd gentleman, tickling commodity,\n    Commodity, the bias of the world-\n    The world, who of itself is peised well,\n    Made to run even upon even ground,\n    Till this advantage, this vile-drawing bias,\n    This sway of motion, this commodity,\n    Makes it take head from all indifferency,\n    From all direction, purpose, course, intent-\n    And this same bias, this commodity,\n    This bawd, this broker, this all-changing word,\n    Clapp'd on the outward eye of fickle France,\n    Hath drawn him from his own determin'd aid,\n    From a resolv'd and honourable war,\n    To a most base and vile-concluded peace.\n    And why rail I on this commodity?\n    But for because he hath not woo'd me yet;\n    Not that I have the power to clutch my hand\n    When his fair angels would salute my palm,\n    But for my hand, as unattempted yet,\n    Like a poor beggar raileth on the rich.\n    Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail\n    And say there is no sin but to be rich;\n    And being rich, my virtue then shall be\n    To say there is no vice but beggary.\n    Since kings break faith upon commodity,\n    Gain, be my lord, for I will worship thee.\nExit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 1.\n\nFrance. The FRENCH KING'S camp\n\nEnter CONSTANCE, ARTHUR, and SALISBURY\n\n  CONSTANCE. Gone to be married! Gone to swear a peace!\n    False blood to false blood join'd! Gone to be friends!\n    Shall Lewis have Blanch, and Blanch those provinces?\n    It is not so; thou hast misspoke, misheard;\n    Be well advis'd, tell o'er thy tale again.\n    It cannot be; thou dost but say 'tis so;\n    I trust I may not trust thee, for thy word\n    Is but the vain breath of a common man:\n    Believe me I do not believe thee, man;\n    I have a king's oath to the contrary.\n    Thou shalt be punish'd for thus frighting me,\n    For I am sick and capable of fears,\n    Oppress'd with wrongs, and therefore full of fears;\n    A widow, husbandless, subject to fears;\n    A woman, naturally born to fears;\n    And though thou now confess thou didst but jest,\n    With my vex'd spirits I cannot take a truce,\n    But they will quake and tremble all this day.\n    What dost thou mean by shaking of thy head?\n    Why dost thou look so sadly on my son?\n    What means that hand upon that breast of thine?\n    Why holds thine eye that lamentable rheum,\n    Like a proud river peering o'er his bounds?\n    Be these sad signs confirmers of thy words?\n    Then speak again-not all thy former tale,\n    But this one word, whether thy tale be true.\n  SALISBURY. As true as I believe you think them false\n    That give you cause to prove my saying true.\n  CONSTANCE. O, if thou teach me to believe this sorrow,\n    Teach thou this sorrow how to make me die;\n    And let belief and life encounter so\n    As doth the fury of two desperate men\n    Which in the very meeting fall and die!\n    Lewis marry Blanch! O boy, then where art thou?\n    France friend with England; what becomes of me?\n    Fellow, be gone: I cannot brook thy sight;\n    This news hath made thee a most ugly man.\n  SALISBURY. What other harm have I, good lady, done\n    But spoke the harm that is by others done?\n  CONSTANCE. Which harm within itself so heinous is\n    As it makes harmful all that speak of it.\n  ARTHUR. I do beseech you, madam, be content.\n  CONSTANCE. If thou that bid'st me be content wert grim,\n    Ugly, and sland'rous to thy mother's womb,\n    Full of unpleasing blots and sightless stains,\n    Lame, foolish, crooked, swart, prodigious,\n    Patch'd with foul moles and eye-offending marks,\n    I would not care, I then would be content;\n    For then I should not love thee; no, nor thou\n    Become thy great birth, nor deserve a crown.\n    But thou art fair, and at thy birth, dear boy,\n    Nature and Fortune join'd to make thee great:\n    Of Nature's gifts thou mayst with lilies boast,\n    And with the half-blown rose; but Fortune, O!\n    She is corrupted, chang'd, and won from thee;\n    Sh' adulterates hourly with thine uncle John,\n    And with her golden hand hath pluck'd on France\n    To tread down fair respect of sovereignty,\n    And made his majesty the bawd to theirs.\n    France is a bawd to Fortune and King John-\n    That strumpet Fortune, that usurping John!\n    Tell me, thou fellow, is not France forsworn?\n    Envenom him with words, or get thee gone\n    And leave those woes alone which I alone\n    Am bound to under-bear.\n  SALISBURY. Pardon me, madam,\n    I may not go without you to the kings.\n  CONSTANCE. Thou mayst, thou shalt; I will not go with thee;\n    I will instruct my sorrows to be proud,\n    For grief is proud, and makes his owner stoop.\n    To me, and to the state of my great grief,\n    Let kings assemble; for my grief's so great\n    That no supporter but the huge firm earth\n    Can hold it up.                     [Seats herself on the\nground]\n    Here I and sorrows sit;\n    Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it.\n\n       Enter KING JOHN, KING PHILIP, LEWIS, BLANCH,\n       ELINOR, the BASTARD, AUSTRIA, and attendants\n\n  KING PHILIP. 'Tis true, fair daughter, and this blessed day\n    Ever in France shall be kept festival.\n    To solemnize this day the glorious sun\n    Stays in his course and plays the alchemist,\n    Turning with splendour of his precious eye\n    The meagre cloddy earth to glittering gold.\n    The yearly course that brings this day about\n    Shall never see it but a holiday.\n  CONSTANCE.  [Rising]  A wicked day, and not a holy day!\n    What hath this day deserv'd? what hath it done\n    That it in golden letters should be set\n    Among the high tides in the calendar?\n    Nay, rather turn this day out of the week,\n    This day of shame, oppression, perjury;\n    Or, if it must stand still, let wives with child\n    Pray that their burdens may not fall this day,\n    Lest that their hopes prodigiously be cross'd;\n    But on this day let seamen fear no wreck;\n    No bargains break that are not this day made;\n    This day, all things begun come to ill end,\n    Yea, faith itself to hollow falsehood change!\n  KING PHILIP. By heaven, lady, you shall have no cause\n    To curse the fair proceedings of this day.\n    Have I not pawn'd to you my majesty?\n  CONSTANCE. You have beguil'd me with a counterfeit\n    Resembling majesty, which, being touch'd and tried,\n    Proves valueless; you are forsworn, forsworn;\n    You came in arms to spill mine enemies' blood,\n    But now in arms you strengthen it with yours.\n    The grappling vigour and rough frown of war\n    Is cold in amity and painted peace,\n    And our oppression hath made up this league.\n    Arm, arm, you heavens, against these perjur'd kings!\n    A widow cries: Be husband to me, heavens!\n    Let not the hours of this ungodly day\n    Wear out the day in peace; but, ere sunset,\n    Set armed discord 'twixt these perjur'd kings!\n    Hear me, O, hear me!\n  AUSTRIA. Lady Constance, peace!\n  CONSTANCE. War! war! no peace! Peace is to me a war.\n    O Lymoges! O Austria! thou dost shame\n    That bloody spoil. Thou slave, thou wretch, thou coward!\n    Thou little valiant, great in villainy!\n    Thou ever strong upon the stronger side!\n    Thou Fortune's champion that dost never fight\n    But when her humorous ladyship is by\n    To teach thee safety! Thou art perjur'd too,\n    And sooth'st up greatness. What a fool art thou,\n    A ramping fool, to brag and stamp and swear\n    Upon my party! Thou cold-blooded slave,\n    Hast thou not spoke like thunder on my side,\n    Been sworn my soldier, bidding me depend\n    Upon thy stars, thy fortune, and thy strength,\n    And dost thou now fall over to my foes?\n    Thou wear a lion's hide! Doff it for shame,\n    And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant limbs.\n  AUSTRIA. O that a man should speak those words to me!\n  BASTARD. And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant limbs.\n  AUSTRIA. Thou dar'st not say so, villain, for thy life.\n  BASTARD. And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant limbs.\n  KING JOHN. We like not this: thou dost forget thyself.\n\n                  Enter PANDULPH\n\n  KING PHILIP. Here comes the holy legate of the Pope.\n  PANDULPH. Hail, you anointed deputies of heaven!\n    To thee, King John, my holy errand is.\n    I Pandulph, of fair Milan cardinal,\n    And from Pope Innocent the legate here,\n    Do in his name religiously demand\n    Why thou against the Church, our holy mother,\n    So wilfully dost spurn; and force perforce\n    Keep Stephen Langton, chosen Archbishop\n    Of Canterbury, from that holy see?\n    This, in our foresaid holy father's name,\n    Pope Innocent, I do demand of thee.\n  KING JOHN. What earthly name to interrogatories\n    Can task the free breath of a sacred king?\n    Thou canst not, Cardinal, devise a name\n    So slight, unworthy, and ridiculous,\n    To charge me to an answer, as the Pope.\n    Tell him this tale, and from the mouth of England\n    Add thus much more, that no Italian priest\n    Shall tithe or toll in our dominions;\n    But as we under heaven are supreme head,\n    So, under Him that great supremacy,\n    Where we do reign we will alone uphold,\n    Without th' assistance of a mortal hand.\n    So tell the Pope, all reverence set apart\n    To him and his usurp'd authority.\n  KING PHILIP. Brother of England, you blaspheme in this.\n  KING JOHN. Though you and all the kings of Christendom\n    Are led so grossly by this meddling priest,\n    Dreading the curse that money may buy out,\n    And by the merit of vile gold, dross, dust,\n    Purchase corrupted pardon of a man,\n    Who in that sale sells pardon from himself-\n    Though you and all the rest, so grossly led,\n    This juggling witchcraft with revenue cherish;\n    Yet I alone, alone do me oppose\n    Against the Pope, and count his friends my foes.\n  PANDULPH. Then by the lawful power that I have\n    Thou shalt stand curs'd and excommunicate;\n    And blessed shall he be that doth revolt\n    From his allegiance to an heretic;\n    And meritorious shall that hand be call'd,\n    Canonized, and worshipp'd as a saint,\n    That takes away by any secret course\n    Thy hateful life.\n  CONSTANCE. O, lawful let it be\n    That I have room with Rome to curse awhile!\n    Good father Cardinal, cry thou 'amen'\n    To my keen curses; for without my wrong\n    There is no tongue hath power to curse him right.\n  PANDULPH. There's law and warrant, lady, for my curse.\n  CONSTANCE. And for mine too; when law can do no right,\n    Let it be lawful that law bar no wrong;\n    Law cannot give my child his kingdom here,\n    For he that holds his kingdom holds the law;\n    Therefore, since law itself is perfect wrong,\n    How can the law forbid my tongue to curse?\n  PANDULPH. Philip of France, on peril of a curse,\n    Let go the hand of that arch-heretic,\n    And raise the power of France upon his head,\n    Unless he do submit himself to Rome.\n  ELINOR. Look'st thou pale, France? Do not let go thy hand.\n  CONSTANCE. Look to that, devil, lest that France repent\n    And by disjoining hands hell lose a soul.\n  AUSTRIA. King Philip, listen to the Cardinal.\n  BASTARD. And hang a calf's-skin on his recreant limbs.\n  AUSTRIA. Well, ruffian, I must pocket up these wrongs,\n    Because-\n  BASTARD. Your breeches best may carry them.\n  KING JOHN. Philip, what say'st thou to the Cardinal?\n  CONSTANCE. What should he say, but as the Cardinal?\n  LEWIS. Bethink you, father; for the difference\n    Is purchase of a heavy curse from Rome\n    Or the light loss of England for a friend.\n    Forgo the easier.\n  BLANCH. That's the curse of Rome.\n  CONSTANCE. O Lewis, stand fast! The devil tempts thee here\n    In likeness of a new untrimmed bride.\n  BLANCH. The Lady Constance speaks not from her faith,\n    But from her need.\n  CONSTANCE. O, if thou grant my need,\n    Which only lives but by the death of faith,\n    That need must needs infer this principle-\n    That faith would live again by death of need.\n    O then, tread down my need, and faith mounts up:\n    Keep my need up, and faith is trodden down!\n  KING JOHN. The King is mov'd, and answers not to this.\n  CONSTANCE. O be remov'd from him, and answer well!\n  AUSTRIA. Do so, King Philip; hang no more in doubt.\n  BASTARD. Hang nothing but a calf's-skin, most sweet lout.\n  KING PHILIP. I am perplex'd and know not what to say.\n  PANDULPH. What canst thou say but will perplex thee more,\n    If thou stand excommunicate and curs'd?\n  KING PHILIP. Good reverend father, make my person yours,\n    And tell me how you would bestow yourself.\n    This royal hand and mine are newly knit,\n    And the conjunction of our inward souls\n    Married in league, coupled and link'd together\n    With all religious strength of sacred vows;\n    The latest breath that gave the sound of words\n    Was deep-sworn faith, peace, amity, true love,\n    Between our kingdoms and our royal selves;\n    And even before this truce, but new before,\n    No longer than we well could wash our hands,\n    To clap this royal bargain up of peace,\n    Heaven knows, they were besmear'd and overstain'd\n    With slaughter's pencil, where revenge did paint\n    The fearful difference of incensed kings.\n    And shall these hands, so lately purg'd of blood,\n    So newly join'd in love, so strong in both,\n    Unyoke this seizure and this kind regreet?\n    Play fast and loose with faith? so jest with heaven,\n    Make such unconstant children of ourselves,\n    As now again to snatch our palm from palm,\n    Unswear faith sworn, and on the marriage-bed\n    Of smiling peace to march a bloody host,\n    And make a riot on the gentle brow\n    Of true sincerity? O, holy sir,\n    My reverend father, let it not be so!\n    Out of your grace, devise, ordain, impose,\n    Some gentle order; and then we shall be blest\n    To do your pleasure, and continue friends.\n  PANDULPH. All form is formless, order orderless,\n    Save what is opposite to England's love.\n    Therefore, to arms! be champion of our church,\n    Or let the church, our mother, breathe her curse-\n    A mother's curse-on her revolting son.\n    France, thou mayst hold a serpent by the tongue,\n    A chafed lion by the mortal paw,\n    A fasting tiger safer by the tooth,\n    Than keep in peace that hand which thou dost hold.\n  KING PHILIP. I may disjoin my hand, but not my faith.\n  PANDULPH. So mak'st thou faith an enemy to faith;\n    And like. a civil war set'st oath to oath.\n    Thy tongue against thy tongue. O, let thy vow\n    First made to heaven, first be to heaven perform'd,\n    That is, to be the champion of our Church.\n    What since thou swor'st is sworn against thyself\n    And may not be performed by thyself,\n    For that which thou hast sworn to do amiss\n    Is not amiss when it is truly done;\n    And being not done, where doing tends to ill,\n    The truth is then most done not doing it;\n    The better act of purposes mistook\n    Is to mistake again; though indirect,\n    Yet indirection thereby grows direct,\n    And falsehood cures, as fire cools fire\n    Within the scorched veins of one new-burn'd.\n    It is religion that doth make vows kept;\n    But thou hast sworn against religion\n    By what thou swear'st against the thing thou swear'st,\n    And mak'st an oath the surety for thy truth\n    Against an oath; the truth thou art unsure\n    To swear swears only not to be forsworn;\n    Else what a mockery should it be to swear!\n    But thou dost swear only to be forsworn;\n    And most forsworn to keep what thou dost swear.\n    Therefore thy later vows against thy first\n    Is in thyself rebellion to thyself;\n    And better conquest never canst thou make\n    Than arm thy constant and thy nobler parts\n    Against these giddy loose suggestions;\n    Upon which better part our pray'rs come in,\n    If thou vouchsafe them. But if not, then know\n    The peril of our curses fight on thee\n    So heavy as thou shalt not shake them off,\n    But in despair die under the black weight.\n  AUSTRIA. Rebellion, flat rebellion!\n  BASTARD. Will't not be?\n    Will not a calf's-skin stop that mouth of thine?\n  LEWIS. Father, to arms!\n  BLANCH. Upon thy wedding-day?\n    Against the blood that thou hast married?\n    What, shall our feast be kept with slaughtered men?\n    Shall braying trumpets and loud churlish drums,\n    Clamours of hell, be measures to our pomp?\n    O husband, hear me! ay, alack, how new\n    Is 'husband' in my mouth! even for that name,\n    Which till this time my tongue did ne'er pronounce,\n    Upon my knee I beg, go not to arms\n    Against mine uncle.\n  CONSTANCE. O, upon my knee,\n    Made hard with kneeling, I do pray to thee,\n    Thou virtuous Dauphin, alter not the doom\n    Forethought by heaven!\n  BLANCH. Now shall I see thy love. What motive may\n    Be stronger with thee than the name of wife?\n  CONSTANCE. That which upholdeth him that thee upholds,\n    His honour. O, thine honour, Lewis, thine honour!\n  LEWIS. I muse your Majesty doth seem so cold,\n    When such profound respects do pull you on.\n  PANDULPH. I will denounce a curse upon his head.\n  KING PHILIP. Thou shalt not need. England, I will fall from\nthee.\n  CONSTANCE. O fair return of banish'd majesty!\n  ELINOR. O foul revolt of French inconstancy!\n  KING JOHN. France, thou shalt rue this hour within this hour.\n  BASTARD. Old Time the clock-setter, that bald sexton Time,\n    Is it as he will? Well then, France shall rue.\n  BLANCH. The sun's o'ercast with blood. Fair day, adieu!\n    Which is the side that I must go withal?\n    I am with both: each army hath a hand;\n    And in their rage, I having hold of both,\n    They whirl asunder and dismember me.\n    Husband, I cannot pray that thou mayst win;\n    Uncle, I needs must pray that thou mayst lose;\n    Father, I may not wish the fortune thine;\n    Grandam, I will not wish thy wishes thrive.\n    Whoever wins, on that side shall I lose:\n    Assured loss before the match be play'd.\n  LEWIS. Lady, with me, with me thy fortune lies.\n  BLANCH. There where my fortune lives, there my life dies.\n  KING JOHN. Cousin, go draw our puissance together.\n                                                         Exit\nBASTARD\n    France, I am burn'd up with inflaming wrath,\n    A rage whose heat hath this condition\n    That nothing can allay, nothing but blood,\n    The blood, and dearest-valu'd blood, of France.\n  KING PHILIP. Thy rage shall burn thee up, and thou shalt turn\n    To ashes, ere our blood shall quench that fire.\n    Look to thyself, thou art in jeopardy.\n  KING JOHN. No more than he that threats. To arms let's hie!\n                                                     Exeunt\nseverally\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nFrance. Plains near Angiers\n\nAlarums, excursions. Enter the BASTARD with AUSTRIA'S head\n\n  BASTARD. Now, by my life, this day grows wondrous hot;\n    Some airy devil hovers in the sky\n    And pours down mischief. Austria's head lie there,\n    While Philip breathes.\n\n          Enter KING JOHN, ARTHUR, and HUBERT\n\n  KING JOHN. Hubert, keep this boy. Philip, make up:\n    My mother is assailed in our tent,\n    And ta'en, I fear.\n  BASTARD. My lord, I rescued her;\n    Her Highness is in safety, fear you not;\n    But on, my liege, for very little pains\n    Will bring this labour to an happy end.\nExeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nFrance. Plains near Angiers\n\nAlarums, excursions, retreat. Enter KING JOHN, ELINOR, ARTHUR,\nthe BASTARD, HUBERT, and LORDS\n\n  KING JOHN.  [To ELINOR]  So shall it be; your Grace shall stay\n      behind,\n    So strongly guarded.  [To ARTHUR]  Cousin, look not sad;\n    Thy grandam loves thee, and thy uncle will\n    As dear be to thee as thy father was.\n  ARTHUR. O, this will make my mother die with grief!\n  KING JOHN.  [To the BASTARD]  Cousin, away for England! haste\n      before,\n    And, ere our coming, see thou shake the bags\n    Of hoarding abbots; imprisoned angels\n    Set at liberty; the fat ribs of peace\n    Must by the hungry now be fed upon.\n    Use our commission in his utmost force.\n  BASTARD. Bell, book, and candle, shall not drive me back,\n    When gold and silver becks me to come on.\n    I leave your Highness. Grandam, I will pray,\n    If ever I remember to be holy,\n    For your fair safety. So, I kiss your hand.\n  ELINOR. Farewell, gentle cousin.\n  KING JOHN. Coz, farewell.\n                                                         Exit\nBASTARD\n  ELINOR. Come hither, little kinsman; hark, a word.\n  KING JOHN. Come hither, Hubert. O my gentle Hubert,\n    We owe thee much! Within this wall of flesh\n    There is a soul counts thee her creditor,\n    And with advantage means to pay thy love;\n    And, my good friend, thy voluntary oath\n    Lives in this bosom, dearly cherished.\n    Give me thy hand. I had a thing to say-\n    But I will fit it with some better time.\n    By heaven, Hubert, I am almost asham'd\n    To say what good respect I have of thee.\n  HUBERT. I am much bounden to your Majesty.\n  KING JOHN. Good friend, thou hast no cause to say so yet,\n    But thou shalt have; and creep time ne'er so slow,\n    Yet it shall come for me to do thee good.\n    I had a thing to say-but let it go:\n    The sun is in the heaven, and the proud day,\n    Attended with the pleasures of the world,\n    Is all too wanton and too full of gawds\n    To give me audience. If the midnight bell\n    Did with his iron tongue and brazen mouth\n    Sound on into the drowsy race of night;\n    If this same were a churchyard where we stand,\n    And thou possessed with a thousand wrongs;\n    Or if that surly spirit, melancholy,\n    Had bak'd thy blood and made it heavy-thick,\n    Which else runs tickling up and down the veins,\n    Making that idiot, laughter, keep men's eyes\n    And strain their cheeks to idle merriment,\n    A passion hateful to my purposes;\n    Or if that thou couldst see me without eyes,\n    Hear me without thine cars, and make reply\n    Without a tongue, using conceit alone,\n    Without eyes, ears, and harmful sound of words-\n    Then, in despite of brooded watchful day,\n    I would into thy bosom pour my thoughts.\n    But, ah, I will not! Yet I love thee well;\n    And, by my troth, I think thou lov'st me well.\n  HUBERT. So well that what you bid me undertake,\n    Though that my death were adjunct to my act,\n    By heaven, I would do it.\n  KING JOHN. Do not I know thou wouldst?\n    Good Hubert, Hubert, Hubert, throw thine eye\n    On yon young boy. I'll tell thee what, my friend,\n    He is a very serpent in my way;\n    And wheresoe'er this foot of mine doth tread,\n    He lies before me. Dost thou understand me?\n    Thou art his keeper.\n  HUBERT. And I'll keep him so\n    That he shall not offend your Majesty.\n  KING JOHN. Death.\n  HUBERT. My lord?\n  KING JOHN. A grave.\n  HUBERT. He shall not live.\n  KING JOHN. Enough!\n    I could be merry now. Hubert, I love thee.\n    Well, I'll not say what I intend for thee.\n    Remember. Madam, fare you well;\n    I'll send those powers o'er to your Majesty.\n  ELINOR. My blessing go with thee!\n  KING JOHN.  [To ARTHUR]  For England, cousin, go;\n    Hubert shall be your man, attend on you\n    With all true duty. On toward Calais, ho!\nExeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\n\nFrance. The FRENCH KING's camp\n\nEnter KING PHILIP, LEWIS, PANDULPH, and attendants\n\n  KING PHILIP. So by a roaring tempest on the flood\n    A whole armado of convicted sail\n    Is scattered and disjoin'd from fellowship.\n  PANDULPH. Courage and comfort! All shall yet go well.\n  KING PHILIP. What can go well, when we have run so ill.\n    Are we not beaten? Is not Angiers lost?\n    Arthur ta'en prisoner? Divers dear friends slain?\n    And bloody England into England gone,\n    O'erbearing interruption, spite of France?\n  LEWIS. he hath won, that hath he fortified;\n    So hot a speed with such advice dispos'd,\n    Such temperate order in so fierce a cause,\n    Doth want example; who hath read or heard\n    Of any kindred action like to this?\n  KING PHILIP. Well could I bear that England had this praise,\n    So we could find some pattern of our shame.\n\n                   Enter CONSTANCE\n\n    Look who comes here! a grave unto a soul;\n    Holding th' eternal spirit, against her will,\n    In the vile prison of afflicted breath.\n    I prithee, lady, go away with me.\n  CONSTANCE. Lo now! now see the issue of your peace!\n  KING PHILIP. Patience, good lady! Comfort, gentle Constance!\n  CONSTANCE. No, I defy all counsel, all redress,\n    But that which ends all counsel, true redress-\n    Death, death; O amiable lovely death!\n    Thou odoriferous stench! sound rottenness!\n    Arise forth from the couch of lasting night,\n    Thou hate and terror to prosperity,\n    And I will kiss thy detestable bones,\n    And put my eyeballs in thy vaulty brows,\n    And ring these fingers with thy household worms,\n    And stop this gap of breath with fulsome dust,\n    And be a carrion monster like thyself.\n    Come, grin on me, and I will think thou smil'st,\n    And buss thee as thy wife. Misery's love,\n    O, come to me!\n  KING PHILIP. O fair affliction, peace!\n  CONSTANCE. No, no, I will not, having breath to cry.\n    O that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth!\n    Then with a passion would I shake the world,\n    And rouse from sleep that fell anatomy\n    Which cannot hear a lady's feeble voice,\n    Which scorns a modern invocation.\n  PANDULPH. Lady, you utter madness and not sorrow.\n  CONSTANCE. Thou art not holy to belie me so.\n    I am not mad: this hair I tear is mine;\n    My name is Constance; I was Geffrey's wife;\n    Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost.\n    I am not mad-I would to heaven I were!\n    For then 'tis like I should forget myself.\n    O, if I could, what grief should I forget!\n    Preach some philosophy to make me mad,\n    And thou shalt be canoniz'd, Cardinal;\n    For, being not mad, but sensible of grief,\n    My reasonable part produces reason\n    How I may be deliver'd of these woes,\n    And teaches me to kill or hang myself.\n    If I were mad I should forget my son,\n    Or madly think a babe of clouts were he.\n    I am not mad; too well, too well I feel\n    The different plague of each calamity.\n  KING PHILIP. Bind up those tresses. O, what love I note\n    In the fair multitude of those her hairs!\n    Where but by a chance a silver drop hath fall'n,\n    Even to that drop ten thousand wiry friends\n    Do glue themselves in sociable grief,\n    Like true, inseparable, faithful loves,\n    Sticking together in calamity.\n  CONSTANCE. To England, if you will.\n  KING PHILIP. Bind up your hairs.\n  CONSTANCE. Yes, that I will; and wherefore will I do it?\n    I tore them from their bonds, and cried aloud\n    'O that these hands could so redeem my son,\n    As they have given these hairs their liberty!'\n    But now I envy at their liberty,\n    And will again commit them to their bonds,\n    Because my poor child is a prisoner.\n    And, father Cardinal, I have heard you say\n    That we shall see and know our friends in heaven;\n    If that be true, I shall see my boy again;\n    For since the birth of Cain, the first male child,\n    To him that did but yesterday suspire,\n    There was not such a gracious creature born.\n    But now will canker sorrow eat my bud\n    And chase the native beauty from his cheek,\n    And he will look as hollow as a ghost,\n    As dim and meagre as an ague's fit;\n    And so he'll die; and, rising so again,\n    When I shall meet him in the court of heaven\n    I shall not know him. Therefore never, never\n    Must I behold my pretty Arthur more.\n  PANDULPH. You hold too heinous a respect of grief.\n  CONSTANCE. He talks to me that never had a son.\n  KING PHILIP. You are as fond of grief as of your child.\n  CONSTANCE. Grief fills the room up of my absent child,\n    Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,\n    Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,\n    Remembers me of all his gracious parts,\n    Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;\n    Then have I reason to be fond of grief.\n    Fare you well; had you such a loss as I,\n    I could give better comfort than you do.\n    I will not keep this form upon my head,\n                                                   [Tearing her\nhair]\n    When there is such disorder in my wit.\n    O Lord! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son!\n    My life, my joy, my food, my ail the world!\n    My widow-comfort, and my sorrows' cure!\nExit\n  KING PHILIP. I fear some outrage, and I'll follow her.\nExit\n  LEWIS. There's nothing in this world can make me joy.\n    Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale\n    Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man;\n    And bitter shame hath spoil'd the sweet world's taste,\n    That it yields nought but shame and bitterness.\n  PANDULPH. Before the curing of a strong disease,\n    Even in the instant of repair and health,\n    The fit is strongest; evils that take leave\n    On their departure most of all show evil;\n    What have you lost by losing of this day?\n  LEWIS. All days of glory, joy, and happiness.\n  PANDULPH. If you had won it, certainly you had.\n    No, no; when Fortune means to men most good,\n    She looks upon them with a threat'ning eye.\n    'Tis strange to think how much King John hath lost\n    In this which he accounts so clearly won.\n    Are not you griev'd that Arthur is his prisoner?\n  LEWIS. As heartily as he is glad he hath him.\n  PANDULPH. Your mind is all as youthful as your blood.\n    Now hear me speak with a prophetic spirit;\n    For even the breath of what I mean to speak\n    Shall blow each dust, each straw, each little rub,\n    Out of the path which shall directly lead\n    Thy foot to England's throne. And therefore mark:\n    John hath seiz'd Arthur; and it cannot be\n    That, whiles warm life plays in that infant's veins,\n    The misplac'd John should entertain an hour,\n    One minute, nay, one quiet breath of rest.\n    A sceptre snatch'd with an unruly hand\n    Must be boisterously maintain'd as gain'd,\n    And he that stands upon a slipp'ry place\n    Makes nice of no vile hold to stay him up;\n    That John may stand then, Arthur needs must fall;\n    So be it, for it cannot be but so.\n  LEWIS. But what shall I gain by young Arthur's fall?\n  PANDULPH. You, in the right of Lady Blanch your wife,\n    May then make all the claim that Arthur did.\n  LEWIS. And lose it, life and all, as Arthur did.\n  PANDULPH. How green you are and fresh in this old world!\n    John lays you plots; the times conspire with you;\n    For he that steeps his safety in true blood\n    Shall find but bloody safety and untrue.\n    This act, so evilly borne, shall cool the hearts\n    Of all his people and freeze up their zeal,\n    That none so small advantage shall step forth\n    To check his reign but they will cherish it;\n    No natural exhalation in the sky,\n    No scope of nature, no distemper'd day,\n    No common wind, no customed event,\n    But they will pluck away his natural cause\n    And call them meteors, prodigies, and signs,\n    Abortives, presages, and tongues of heaven,\n    Plainly denouncing vengeance upon John.\n  LEWIS. May be he will not touch young Arthur's life,\n    But hold himself safe in his prisonment.\n  PANDULPH. O, Sir, when he shall hear of your approach,\n    If that young Arthur be not gone already,\n    Even at that news he dies; and then the hearts\n    Of all his people shall revolt from him,\n    And kiss the lips of unacquainted change,\n    And pick strong matter of revolt and wrath\n    Out of the bloody fingers' ends of john.\n    Methinks I see this hurly all on foot;\n    And, O, what better matter breeds for you\n    Than I have nam'd! The bastard Faulconbridge\n    Is now in England ransacking the Church,\n    Offending charity; if but a dozen French\n    Were there in arms, they would be as a can\n    To train ten thousand English to their side;\n    Or as a little snow, tumbled about,\n    Anon becomes a mountain. O noble Dauphin,\n    Go with me to the King. 'Tis wonderful\n    What may be wrought out of their discontent,\n    Now that their souls are topful of offence.\n    For England go; I will whet on the King.\n  LEWIS. Strong reasons makes strong actions. Let us go;\n    If you say ay, the King will not say no.\nExeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 1.\n\nEngland. A castle\n\nEnter HUBERT and EXECUTIONERS\n\n  HUBERT. Heat me these irons hot; and look thou stand\n    Within the arras. When I strike my foot\n    Upon the bosom of the ground, rush forth\n    And bind the boy which you shall find with me\n    Fast to the chair. Be heedful; hence, and watch.\n  EXECUTIONER. I hope your warrant will bear out the deed.\n  HUBERT. Uncleanly scruples! Fear not you. Look to't.\n                                                  Exeunt\nEXECUTIONERS\n    Young lad, come forth; I have to say with you.\n\n                    Enter ARTHUR\n\n  ARTHUR. Good morrow, Hubert.\n  HUBERT. Good morrow, little Prince.\n  ARTHUR. As little prince, having so great a tide\n    To be more prince, as may be. You are sad.\n  HUBERT. Indeed I have been merrier.\n  ARTHUR. Mercy on me!\n    Methinks no body should be sad but I;\n    Yet, I remember, when I was in France,\n    Young gentlemen would be as sad as night,\n    Only for wantonness. By my christendom,\n    So I were out of prison and kept sheep,\n    I should be as merry as the day is long;\n    And so I would be here but that I doubt\n    My uncle practises more harm to me;\n    He is afraid of me, and I of him.\n    Is it my fault that I was Geffrey's son?\n    No, indeed, ist not; and I would to heaven\n    I were your son, so you would love me, Hubert.\n  HUBERT.  [Aside]  If I talk to him, with his innocent prate\n    He will awake my mercy, which lies dead;\n    Therefore I will be sudden and dispatch.\n  ARTHUR. Are you sick, Hubert? You look pale to-day;\n    In sooth, I would you were a little sick,\n    That I might sit all night and watch with you.\n    I warrant I love you more than you do me.\n  HUBERT.  [Aside]  His words do take possession of my bosom.-\n    Read here, young Arthur.                        [Showing a\npaper]\n      [Aside]  How now, foolish rheum!\n    Turning dispiteous torture out of door!\n    I must be brief, lest resolution drop\n    Out at mine eyes in tender womanish tears.-\n    Can you not read it? Is it not fair writ?\n  ARTHUR. Too fairly, Hubert, for so foul effect.\n    Must you with hot irons burn out both mine eyes?\n  HUBERT. Young boy, I must.\n  ARTHUR. And will you?\n  HUBERT. And I will.\n  ARTHUR. Have you the heart? When your head did but ache,\n    I knit my handkerchief about your brows-\n    The best I had, a princess wrought it me-\n    And I did never ask it you again;\n    And with my hand at midnight held your head;\n    And, like the watchful minutes to the hour,\n    Still and anon cheer'd up the heavy time,\n    Saying 'What lack you?' and 'Where lies your grief?'\n    Or 'What good love may I perform for you?'\n    Many a poor man's son would have lyen still,\n    And ne'er have spoke a loving word to you;\n    But you at your sick service had a prince.\n    Nay, you may think my love was crafty love,\n    And call it cunning. Do, an if you will.\n    If heaven be pleas'd that you must use me ill,\n    Why, then you must. Will you put out mine eyes,\n    These eyes that never did nor never shall\n    So much as frown on you?\n  HUBERT. I have sworn to do it;\n    And with hot irons must I burn them out.\n  ARTHUR. Ah, none but in this iron age would do it!\n    The iron of itself, though heat red-hot,\n    Approaching near these eyes would drink my tears,\n    And quench his fiery indignation\n    Even in the matter of mine innocence;\n    Nay, after that, consume away in rust\n    But for containing fire to harm mine eye.\n    Are you more stubborn-hard than hammer'd iron?\n    An if an angel should have come to me\n    And told me Hubert should put out mine eyes,\n    I would not have believ'd him-no tongue but Hubert's.\n  HUBERT.  [Stamps]  Come forth.\n\n     Re-enter EXECUTIONERS, With cord, irons, etc.\n\n    Do as I bid you do.\n  ARTHUR. O, save me, Hubert, save me! My eyes are out\n    Even with the fierce looks of these bloody men.\n  HUBERT. Give me the iron, I say, and bind him here.\n  ARTHUR. Alas, what need you be so boist'rous rough?\n    I will not struggle, I will stand stone-still.\n    For heaven sake, Hubert, let me not be bound!\n    Nay, hear me, Hubert! Drive these men away,\n    And I will sit as quiet as a lamb;\n    I will not stir, nor wince, nor speak a word,\n    Nor look upon the iron angrily;\n    Thrust but these men away, and I'll forgive you,\n    Whatever torment you do put me to.\n  HUBERT. Go, stand within; let me alone with him.\n  EXECUTIONER. I am best pleas'd to be from such a deed.\n                                                  Exeunt\nEXECUTIONERS\n  ARTHUR. Alas, I then have chid away my friend!\n    He hath a stern look but a gentle heart.\n    Let him come back, that his compassion may\n    Give life to yours.\n  HUBERT. Come, boy, prepare yourself.\n  ARTHUR. Is there no remedy?\n  HUBERT. None, but to lose your eyes.\n  ARTHUR. O heaven, that there were but a mote in yours,\n    A grain, a dust, a gnat, a wandering hair,\n    Any annoyance in that precious sense!\n    Then, feeling what small things are boisterous there,\n    Your vile intent must needs seem horrible.\n  HUBERT. Is this your promise? Go to, hold your tongue.\n  ARTHUR. Hubert, the utterance of a brace of tongues\n    Must needs want pleading for a pair of eyes.\n    Let me not hold my tongue, let me not, Hubert;\n    Or, Hubert, if you will, cut out my tongue,\n    So I may keep mine eyes. O, spare mine eyes,\n    Though to no use but still to look on you!\n    Lo, by my troth, the instrument is cold\n    And would not harm me.\n  HUBERT. I can heat it, boy.\n  ARTHUR. No, in good sooth; the fire is dead with grief,\n    Being create for comfort, to be us'd\n    In undeserved extremes. See else yourself:\n    There is no malice in this burning coal;\n    The breath of heaven hath blown his spirit out,\n    And strew'd repentant ashes on his head.\n  HUBERT. But with my breath I can revive it, boy.\n  ARTHUR. An if you do, you will but make it blush\n    And glow with shame of your proceedings, Hubert.\n    Nay, it perchance will sparkle in your eyes,\n    And, like a dog that is compell'd to fight,\n    Snatch at his master that doth tarre him on.\n    All things that you should use to do me wrong\n    Deny their office; only you do lack\n    That mercy which fierce fire and iron extends,\n    Creatures of note for mercy-lacking uses.\n  HUBERT. Well, see to live; I will not touch thine eye\n    For all the treasure that thine uncle owes.\n    Yet I am sworn, and I did purpose, boy,\n    With this same very iron to burn them out.\n  ARTHUR. O, now you look like Hubert! All this while\n    You were disguis'd.\n  HUBERT. Peace; no more. Adieu.\n    Your uncle must not know but you are dead:\n    I'll fill these dogged spies with false reports;\n    And, pretty child, sleep doubtless and secure\n    That Hubert, for the wealth of all the world,\n    Will not offend thee.\n  ARTHUR. O heaven! I thank you, Hubert.\n  HUBERT. Silence; no more. Go closely in with me.\n    Much danger do I undergo for thee.\nExeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nEngland. KING JOHN'S palace\n\nEnter KING JOHN, PEMBROKE, SALISBURY, and other LORDS\n\n  KING JOHN. Here once again we sit, once again crown'd,\n    And look'd upon, I hope, with cheerful eyes.\n  PEMBROKE. This once again, but that your Highness pleas'd,\n    Was once superfluous: you were crown'd before,\n    And that high royalty was ne'er pluck'd off,\n    The faiths of men ne'er stained with revolt;\n    Fresh expectation troubled not the land\n    With any long'd-for change or better state.\n  SALISBURY. Therefore, to be possess'd with double pomp,\n    To guard a title that was rich before,\n    To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,\n    To throw a perfume on the violet,\n    To smooth the ice, or add another hue\n    Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light\n    To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,\n    Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.\n  PEMBROKE. But that your royal pleasure must be done,\n    This act is as an ancient tale new told\n    And, in the last repeating, troublesome,\n    Being urged at a time unseasonable.\n  SALISBURY. In this the antique and well-noted face\n    Of plain old form is much disfigured;\n    And like a shifted wind unto a sail\n    It makes the course of thoughts to fetch about,\n    Startles and frights consideration,\n    Makes sound opinion sick, and truth suspected,\n    For putting on so new a fashion'd robe.\n  PEMBROKE. When workmen strive to do better than well,\n    They do confound their skill in covetousness;\n    And oftentimes excusing of a fault\n    Doth make the fault the worse by th' excuse,\n    As patches set upon a little breach\n    Discredit more in hiding of the fault\n    Than did the fault before it was so patch'd.\n  SALISBURY. To this effect, before you were new-crown'd,\n    We breath'd our counsel; but it pleas'd your Highness\n    To overbear it; and we are all well pleas'd,\n    Since all and every part of what we would\n    Doth make a stand at what your Highness will.\n  KING JOHN. Some reasons of this double coronation\n    I have possess'd you with, and think them strong;\n    And more, more strong, when lesser is my fear,\n    I shall indue you with. Meantime but ask\n    What you would have reform'd that is not well,\n    And well shall you perceive how willingly\n    I will both hear and grant you your requests.\n  PEMBROKE. Then I, as one that am the tongue of these,\n    To sound the purposes of all their hearts,\n    Both for myself and them- but, chief of all,\n    Your safety, for the which myself and them\n    Bend their best studies, heartily request\n    Th' enfranchisement of Arthur, whose restraint\n    Doth move the murmuring lips of discontent\n    To break into this dangerous argument:\n    If what in rest you have in right you hold,\n    Why then your fears-which, as they say, attend\n    The steps of wrong-should move you to mew up\n    Your tender kinsman, and to choke his days\n    With barbarous ignorance, and deny his youth\n    The rich advantage of good exercise?\n    That the time's enemies may not have this\n    To grace occasions, let it be our suit\n    That you have bid us ask his liberty;\n    Which for our goods we do no further ask\n    Than whereupon our weal, on you depending,\n    Counts it your weal he have his liberty.\n  KING JOHN. Let it be so. I do commit his youth\n    To your direction.\n\n                     Enter HUBERT\n\n    [Aside]  Hubert, what news with you?\n  PEMBROKE. This is the man should do the bloody deed:\n    He show'd his warrant to a friend of mine;\n    The image of a wicked heinous fault\n    Lives in his eye; that close aspect of his\n    Doth show the mood of a much troubled breast,\n    And I do fearfully believe 'tis done\n    What we so fear'd he had a charge to do.\n  SALISBURY. The colour of the King doth come and go\n    Between his purpose and his conscience,\n    Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles set.\n    His passion is so ripe it needs must break.\n  PEMBROKE. And when it breaks, I fear will issue thence\n    The foul corruption of a sweet child's death.\n  KING JOHN. We cannot hold mortality's strong hand.\n    Good lords, although my will to give is living,\n    The suit which you demand is gone and dead:\n    He tells us Arthur is deceas'd to-night.\n  SALISBURY. Indeed, we fear'd his sickness was past cure.\n  PEMBROKE. Indeed, we heard how near his death he was,\n    Before the child himself felt he was sick.\n    This must be answer'd either here or hence.\n  KING JOHN. Why do you bend such solemn brows on me?\n    Think you I bear the shears of destiny?\n    Have I commandment on the pulse of life?\n  SALISBURY. It is apparent foul-play; and 'tis shame\n    That greatness should so grossly offer it.\n    So thrive it in your game! and so, farewell.\n  PEMBROKE. Stay yet, Lord Salisbury, I'll go with thee\n    And find th' inheritance of this poor child,\n    His little kingdom of a forced grave.\n    That blood which ow'd the breadth of all this isle\n    Three foot of it doth hold-bad world the while!\n    This must not be thus borne: this will break out\n    To all our sorrows, and ere long I doubt.            Exeunt\nLORDS\n  KING JOHN. They burn in indignation. I repent.\n    There is no sure foundation set on blood,\n    No certain life achiev'd by others' death.\n\n                 Enter a MESSENGER\n\n    A fearful eye thou hast; where is that blood\n    That I have seen inhabit in those cheeks?\n    So foul a sky clears not without a storm.\n    Pour down thy weather-how goes all in France?\n  MESSENGER. From France to England. Never such a pow'r\n    For any foreign preparation\n    Was levied in the body of a land.\n    The copy of your speed is learn'd by them,\n    For when you should be told they do prepare,\n    The tidings comes that they are all arriv'd.\n  KING JOHN. O, where hath our intelligence been drunk?\n    Where hath it slept? Where is my mother's care,\n    That such an army could be drawn in France,\n    And she not hear of it?\n  MESSENGER. My liege, her ear\n    Is stopp'd with dust: the first of April died\n    Your noble mother; and as I hear, my lord,\n    The Lady Constance in a frenzy died\n    Three days before; but this from rumour's tongue\n    I idly heard-if true or false I know not.\n  KING JOHN. Withhold thy speed, dreadful occasion!\n    O, make a league with me, till I have pleas'd\n    My discontented peers! What! mother dead!\n    How wildly then walks my estate in France!\n    Under whose conduct came those pow'rs of France\n    That thou for truth giv'st out are landed here?\n  MESSENGER. Under the Dauphin.\n  KING JOHN. Thou hast made me giddy\n    With these in tidings.\n\n         Enter the BASTARD and PETER OF POMFRET\n\n    Now! What says the world\n    To your proceedings? Do not seek to stuff\n    My head with more ill news, for it is fun.\n  BASTARD. But if you be afear'd to hear the worst,\n    Then let the worst, unheard, fall on your head.\n  KING JOHN. Bear with me, cousin, for I was amaz'd\n    Under the tide; but now I breathe again\n    Aloft the flood, and can give audience\n    To any tongue, speak it of what it will.\n  BASTARD. How I have sped among the clergymen\n    The sums I have collected shall express.\n    But as I travell'd hither through the land,\n    I find the people strangely fantasied;\n    Possess'd with rumours, full of idle dreams.\n    Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear;\n    And here's a prophet that I brought with me\n    From forth the streets of Pomfret, whom I found\n    With many hundreds treading on his heels;\n    To whom he sung, in rude harsh-sounding rhymes,\n    That, ere the next Ascension-day at noon,\n    Your Highness should deliver up your crown.\n  KING JOHN. Thou idle dreamer, wherefore didst thou so?\n  PETER. Foreknowing that the truth will fall out so.\n  KING JOHN. Hubert, away with him; imprison him;\n    And on that day at noon whereon he says\n    I shall yield up my crown let him be hang'd.\n    Deliver him to safety; and return,\n    For I must use thee.\n                                               Exit HUBERT with\nPETER\n    O my gentle cousin,\n    Hear'st thou the news abroad, who are arriv'd?\n  BASTARD. The French, my lord; men's mouths are full of it;\n    Besides, I met Lord Bigot and Lord Salisbury,\n    With eyes as red as new-enkindled fire,\n    And others more, going to seek the grave\n    Of Arthur, whom they say is kill'd to-night\n    On your suggestion.\n  KING JOHN. Gentle kinsman, go\n    And thrust thyself into their companies.\n    I have a way to will their loves again;\n    Bring them before me.\n  BASTARD. I Will seek them out.\n  KING JOHN. Nay, but make haste; the better foot before.\n    O, let me have no subject enemies\n    When adverse foreigners affright my towns\n    With dreadful pomp of stout invasion!\n    Be Mercury, set feathers to thy heels,\n    And fly like thought from them to me again.\n  BASTARD. The spirit of the time shall teach me speed.\n  KING JOHN. Spoke like a sprightful noble gentleman.\n                                                         Exit\nBASTARD\n    Go after him; for he perhaps shall need\n    Some messenger betwixt me and the peers;\n    And be thou he.\n  MESSENGER. With all my heart, my liege.\nExit\n  KING JOHN. My mother dead!\n\n                   Re-enter HUBERT\n\n  HUBERT. My lord, they say five moons were seen to-night;\n    Four fixed, and the fifth did whirl about\n    The other four in wondrous motion.\n  KING JOHN. Five moons!\n  HUBERT. Old men and beldams in the streets\n    Do prophesy upon it dangerously;\n    Young Arthur's death is common in their mouths;\n    And when they talk of him, they shake their heads,\n    And whisper one another in the ear;\n    And he that speaks doth gripe the hearer's wrist,\n    Whilst he that hears makes fearful action\n    With wrinkled brows, with nods, with rolling eyes.\n    I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,\n    The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool,\n    With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news;\n    Who, with his shears and measure in his hand,\n    Standing on slippers, which his nimble haste\n    Had falsely thrust upon contrary feet,\n    Told of a many thousand warlike French\n    That were embattailed and rank'd in Kent.\n    Another lean unwash'd artificer\n    Cuts off his tale, and talks of Arthur's death.\n  KING JOHN. Why seek'st thou to possess me with these fears?\n    Why urgest thou so oft young Arthur's death?\n    Thy hand hath murd'red him. I had a mighty cause\n    To wish him dead, but thou hadst none to kill him.\n  HUBERT. No had, my lord! Why, did you not provoke me?\n  KING JOHN. It is the curse of kings to be attended\n    By slaves that take their humours for a warrant\n    To break within the bloody house of life,\n    And on the winking of authority\n    To understand a law; to know the meaning\n    Of dangerous majesty, when perchance it frowns\n    More upon humour than advis'd respect.\n  HUBERT. Here is your hand and seal for what I did.\n  KING JOHN. O, when the last account 'twixt heaven and earth\n    Is to be made, then shall this hand and seal\n    Witness against us to damnation!\n    How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds\n    Make deeds ill done! Hadst not thou been by,\n    A fellow by the hand of nature mark'd,\n    Quoted and sign'd to do a deed of shame,\n    This murder had not come into my mind;\n    But, taking note of thy abhorr'd aspect,\n    Finding thee fit for bloody villainy,\n    Apt, liable to be employ'd in danger,\n    I faintly broke with thee of Arthur's death;\n    And thou, to be endeared to a king,\n    Made it no conscience to destroy a prince.\n  HUBERT. My lord-\n  KING JOHN. Hadst thou but shook thy head or made pause,\n    When I spake darkly what I purposed,\n    Or turn'd an eye of doubt upon my face,\n    As bid me tell my tale in express words,\n    Deep shame had struck me dumb, made me break off,\n    And those thy fears might have wrought fears in me.\n    But thou didst understand me by my signs,\n    And didst in signs again parley with sin;\n    Yea, without stop, didst let thy heart consent,\n    And consequently thy rude hand to act\n    The deed which both our tongues held vile to name.\n    Out of my sight, and never see me more!\n    My nobles leave me; and my state is braved,\n    Even at my gates, with ranks of foreign pow'rs;\n    Nay, in the body of the fleshly land,\n    This kingdom, this confine of blood and breath,\n    Hostility and civil tumult reigns\n    Between my conscience and my cousin's death.\n  HUBERT. Arm you against your other enemies,\n    I'll make a peace between your soul and you.\n    Young Arthur is alive. This hand of mine\n    Is yet a maiden and an innocent hand,\n    Not painted with the crimson spots of blood.\n    Within this bosom never ent'red yet\n    The dreadful motion of a murderous thought\n    And you have slander'd nature in my form,\n    Which, howsoever rude exteriorly,\n    Is yet the cover of a fairer mind\n    Than to be butcher of an innocent child.\n  KING JOHN. Doth Arthur live? O, haste thee to the peers,\n    Throw this report on their incensed rage\n    And make them tame to their obedience!\n    Forgive the comment that my passion made\n    Upon thy feature; for my rage was blind,\n    And foul imaginary eyes of blood\n    Presented thee more hideous than thou art.\n    O, answer not; but to my closet bring\n    The angry lords with all expedient haste.\n    I conjure thee but slowly; run more fast.\nExeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nEngland. Before the castle\n\nEnter ARTHUR, on the walls\n\n  ARTHUR. The wall is high, and yet will I leap down.\n    Good ground, be pitiful and hurt me not!\n    There's few or none do know me; if they did,\n    This ship-boy's semblance hath disguis'd me quite.\n    I am afraid; and yet I'll venture it.\n    If I get down and do not break my limbs,\n    I'll find a thousand shifts to get away.\n    As good to die and go, as die and stay.              [Leaps\ndown]\n    O me! my uncle's spirit is in these stones.\n    Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones!\n    [Dies]\n\n          Enter PEMBROKE, SALISBURY, and BIGOT\n\n  SALISBURY. Lords, I will meet him at Saint Edmundsbury;\n    It is our safety, and we must embrace\n    This gentle offer of the perilous time.\n  PEMBROKE. Who brought that letter from the Cardinal?\n  SALISBURY. The Count Melun, a noble lord of France,\n    Whose private with me of the Dauphin's love\n    Is much more general than these lines import.\n  BIGOT. To-morrow morning let us meet him then.\n  SALISBURY. Or rather then set forward; for 'twill be\n    Two long days' journey, lords, or ere we meet.\n\n                 Enter the BASTARD\n\n  BASTARD. Once more to-day well met, distemper'd lords!\n    The King by me requests your presence straight.\n  SALISBURY. The King hath dispossess'd himself of us.\n    We will not line his thin bestained cloak\n    With our pure honours, nor attend the foot\n    That leaves the print of blood where'er it walks.\n    Return and tell him so. We know the worst.\n  BASTARD. Whate'er you think, good words, I think, were best.\n  SALISBURY. Our griefs, and not our manners, reason now.\n  BASTARD. But there is little reason in your grief;\n    Therefore 'twere reason you had manners now.\n  PEMBROKE. Sir, sir, impatience hath his privilege.\n  BASTARD. 'Tis true-to hurt his master, no man else.\n  SALISBURY. This is the prison. What is he lies here?\n  PEMBROKE. O death, made proud with pure and princely beauty!\n    The earth had not a hole to hide this deed.\n  SALISBURY. Murder, as hating what himself hath done,\n    Doth lay it open to urge on revenge.\n  BIGOT. Or, when he doom'd this beauty to a grave,\n    Found it too precious-princely for a grave.\n  SALISBURY. Sir Richard, what think you? Have you beheld,\n    Or have you read or heard, or could you think?\n    Or do you almost think, although you see,\n    That you do see? Could thought, without this object,\n    Form such another? This is the very top,\n    The height, the crest, or crest unto the crest,\n    Of murder's arms; this is the bloodiest shame,\n    The wildest savagery, the vilest stroke,\n    That ever wall-ey'd wrath or staring rage\n    Presented to the tears of soft remorse.\n  PEMBROKE. All murders past do stand excus'd in this;\n    And this, so sole and so unmatchable,\n    Shall give a holiness, a purity,\n    To the yet unbegotten sin of times,\n    And prove a deadly bloodshed but a jest,\n    Exampled by this heinous spectacle.\n  BASTARD. It is a damned and a bloody work;\n    The graceless action of a heavy hand,\n    If that it be the work of any hand.\n  SALISBURY. If that it be the work of any hand!\n    We had a kind of light what would ensue.\n    It is the shameful work of Hubert's hand;\n    The practice and the purpose of the King;\n    From whose obedience I forbid my soul\n    Kneeling before this ruin of sweet life,\n    And breathing to his breathless excellence\n    The incense of a vow, a holy vow,\n    Never to taste the pleasures of the world,\n    Never to be infected with delight,\n    Nor conversant with ease and idleness,\n    Till I have set a glory to this hand\n    By giving it the worship of revenge.\n  PEMBROKE. and BIGOT. Our souls religiously confirm thy words.\n\n                     Enter HUBERT\n\n  HUBERT. Lords, I am hot with haste in seeking you.\n    Arthur doth live; the King hath sent for you.\n  SALISBURY. O, he is bold, and blushes not at death!\n    Avaunt, thou hateful villain, get thee gone!\n  HUBERT. I am no villain.\n  SALISBURY. Must I rob the law?                  [Drawing his\nsword]\n  BASTARD. Your sword is bright, sir; put it up again.\n  SALISBURY. Not till I sheathe it in a murderer's skin.\n  HUBERT. Stand back, Lord Salisbury, stand back, I say;\n    By heaven, I think my sword's as sharp as yours.\n    I would not have you, lord, forget yourself,\n    Nor tempt the danger of my true defence;\n    Lest I, by marking of your rage, forget\n    Your worth, your greatness and nobility.\n  BIGOT. Out, dunghill! Dar'st thou brave a nobleman?\n  HUBERT. Not for my life; but yet I dare defend\n    My innocent life against an emperor.\n  SALISBURY. Thou art a murderer.\n  HUBERT. Do not prove me so.\n    Yet I am none. Whose tongue soe'er speaks false,\n    Not truly speaks; who speaks not truly, lies.\n  PEMBROKE. Cut him to pieces.\n  BASTARD. Keep the peace, I say.\n  SALISBURY. Stand by, or I shall gall you, Faulconbridge.\n  BASTARD. Thou wert better gall the devil, Salisbury.\n    If thou but frown on me, or stir thy foot,\n    Or teach thy hasty spleen to do me shame,\n    I'll strike thee dead. Put up thy sword betime;\n    Or I'll so maul you and your toasting-iron\n    That you shall think the devil is come from hell.\n  BIGOT. What wilt thou do, renowned Faulconbridge?\n    Second a villain and a murderer?\n  HUBERT. Lord Bigot, I am none.\n  BIGOT. Who kill'd this prince?\n  HUBERT. 'Tis not an hour since I left him well.\n    I honour'd him, I lov'd him, and will weep\n    My date of life out for his sweet life's loss.\n  SALISBURY. Trust not those cunning waters of his eyes,\n    For villainy is not without such rheum;\n    And he, long traded in it, makes it seem\n    Like rivers of remorse and innocency.\n    Away with me, all you whose souls abhor\n    Th' uncleanly savours of a slaughter-house;\n    For I am stifled with this smell of sin.\n  BIGOT. Away toward Bury, to the Dauphin there!\n  PEMBROKE. There tell the King he may inquire us out.\n                                                         Exeunt\nLORDS\n  BASTARD. Here's a good world! Knew you of this fair work?\n    Beyond the infinite and boundless reach\n    Of mercy, if thou didst this deed of death,\n    Art thou damn'd, Hubert.\n  HUBERT. Do but hear me, sir.\n  BASTARD. Ha! I'll tell thee what:\n    Thou'rt damn'd as black-nay, nothing is so black-\n    Thou art more deep damn'd than Prince Lucifer;\n    There is not yet so ugly a fiend of hell\n    As thou shalt be, if thou didst kill this child.\n  HUBERT. Upon my soul-\n  BASTARD. If thou didst but consent\n    To this most cruel act, do but despair;\n    And if thou want'st a cord, the smallest thread\n    That ever spider twisted from her womb\n    Will serve to strangle thee; a rush will be a beam\n    To hang thee on; or wouldst thou drown thyself,\n    Put but a little water in a spoon\n    And it shall be as all the ocean,\n    Enough to stifle such a villain up\n    I do suspect thee very grievously.\n  HUBERT. If I in act, consent, or sin of thought,\n    Be guilty of the stealing that sweet breath\n    Which was embounded in this beauteous clay,\n    Let hell want pains enough to torture me!\n    I left him well.\n  BASTARD. Go, bear him in thine arms.\n    I am amaz'd, methinks, and lose my way\n    Among the thorns and dangers of this world.\n    How easy dost thou take all England up!\n    From forth this morsel of dead royalty\n    The life, the right, and truth of all this realm\n    Is fled to heaven; and England now is left\n    To tug and scamble, and to part by th' teeth\n    The unowed interest of proud-swelling state.\n    Now for the bare-pick'd bone of majesty\n    Doth dogged war bristle his angry crest\n    And snarleth in the gentle eyes of peace;\n    Now powers from home and discontents at home\n    Meet in one line; and vast confusion waits,\n    As doth a raven on a sick-fall'n beast,\n    The imminent decay of wrested pomp.\n    Now happy he whose cloak and cincture can\n    Hold out this tempest. Bear away that child,\n    And follow me with speed. I'll to the King;\n    A thousand businesses are brief in hand,\n    And heaven itself doth frown upon the land.\nExeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 1.\nEngland. KING JOHN'S palace\n\nEnter KING JOHN, PANDULPH, and attendants\n\n  KING JOHN. Thus have I yielded up into your hand\n    The circle of my glory.\n  PANDULPH.  [Gives back the crown]  Take again\n    From this my hand, as holding of the Pope,\n    Your sovereign greatness and authority.\n  KING JOHN. Now keep your holy word; go meet the French;\n    And from his Holiness use all your power\n    To stop their marches fore we are inflam'd.\n    Our discontented counties do revolt;\n    Our people quarrel with obedience,\n    Swearing allegiance and the love of soul\n    To stranger blood, to foreign royalty.\n    This inundation of mistemp'red humour\n    Rests by you only to be qualified.\n    Then pause not; for the present time's so sick\n    That present med'cine must be minist'red\n    Or overthrow incurable ensues.\n  PANDULPH. It was my breath that blew this tempest up,\n    Upon your stubborn usage of the Pope;\n    But since you are a gentle convertite,\n    My tongue shall hush again this storm of war\n    And make fair weather in your blust'ring land.\n    On this Ascension-day, remember well,\n    Upon your oath of service to the Pope,\n    Go I to make the French lay down their arms.\nExit\n  KING JOHN. Is this Ascension-day? Did not the prophet\n    Say that before Ascension-day at noon\n    My crown I should give off? Even so I have.\n    I did suppose it should be on constraint;\n    But, heaven be thank'd, it is but voluntary.\n\n                 Enter the BASTARD\n\n  BASTARD. All Kent hath yielded; nothing there holds out\n    But Dover Castle. London hath receiv'd,\n    Like a kind host, the Dauphin and his powers.\n    Your nobles will not hear you, but are gone\n    To offer service to your enemy;\n    And wild amazement hurries up and down\n    The little number of your doubtful friends.\n  KING JOHN. Would not my lords return to me again\n    After they heard young Arthur was alive?\n    BASTARD. They found him dead, and cast into the streets,\n    An empty casket, where the jewel of life\n    By some damn'd hand was robbed and ta'en away.\n  KING JOHN. That villain Hubert told me he did live.\n  BASTARD. So, on my soul, he did, for aught he knew.\n    But wherefore do you droop? Why look you sad?\n    Be great in act, as you have been in thought;\n    Let not the world see fear and sad distrust\n    Govern the motion of a kingly eye.\n    Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire;\n    Threaten the threat'ner, and outface the brow\n    Of bragging horror; so shall inferior eyes,\n    That borrow their behaviours from the great,\n    Grow great by your example and put on\n    The dauntless spirit of resolution.\n    Away, and glister like the god of war\n    When he intendeth to become the field;\n    Show boldness and aspiring confidence.\n    What, shall they seek the lion in his den,\n    And fright him there, and make him tremble there?\n    O, let it not be said! Forage, and run\n    To meet displeasure farther from the doors\n    And grapple with him ere he come so nigh.\n  KING JOHN. The legate of the Pope hath been with me,\n    And I have made a happy peace with him;\n    And he hath promis'd to dismiss the powers\n    Led by the Dauphin.\n  BASTARD. O inglorious league!\n    Shall we, upon the footing of our land,\n    Send fair-play orders, and make compromise,\n    Insinuation, parley, and base truce,\n    To arms invasive? Shall a beardless boy,\n    A cock'red silken wanton, brave our fields\n    And flesh his spirit in a warlike soil,\n    Mocking the air with colours idly spread,\n    And find no check? Let us, my liege, to arms.\n    Perchance the Cardinal cannot make your peace;\n    Or, if he do, let it at least be said\n    They saw we had a purpose of defence.\n  KING JOHN. Have thou the ordering of this present time.\n  BASTARD. Away, then, with good courage!\n    Yet, I know\n    Our party may well meet a prouder foe.\nExeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\nEngland. The DAUPHIN'S camp at Saint Edmundsbury\n\nEnter, in arms, LEWIS, SALISBURY, MELUN, PEMBROKE, BIGOT, and\nsoldiers\n\n  LEWIS. My Lord Melun, let this be copied out\n    And keep it safe for our remembrance;\n    Return the precedent to these lords again,\n    That, having our fair order written down,\n    Both they and we, perusing o'er these notes,\n    May know wherefore we took the sacrament,\n    And keep our faiths firm and inviolable.\n  SALISBURY. Upon our sides it never shall be broken.\n    And, noble Dauphin, albeit we swear\n    A voluntary zeal and an unurg'd faith\n    To your proceedings; yet, believe me, Prince,\n    I am not glad that such a sore of time\n    Should seek a plaster by contemn'd revolt,\n    And heal the inveterate canker of one wound\n    By making many. O, it grieves my soul\n    That I must draw this metal from my side\n    To be a widow-maker! O, and there\n    Where honourable rescue and defence\n    Cries out upon the name of Salisbury!\n    But such is the infection of the time\n    That, for the health and physic of our right,\n    We cannot deal but with the very hand\n    Of stern injustice and confused wrong.\n    And is't not pity, O my grieved friends!\n    That we, the sons and children of this isle,\n    Were born to see so sad an hour as this;\n    Wherein we step after a stranger-march\n    Upon her gentle bosom, and fill up\n    Her enemies' ranks-I must withdraw and weep\n    Upon the spot of this enforced cause-\n    To grace the gentry of a land remote\n    And follow unacquainted colours here?\n    What, here? O nation, that thou couldst remove!\n    That Neptune's arms, who clippeth thee about,\n    Would bear thee from the knowledge of thyself\n    And grapple thee unto a pagan shore,\n    Where these two Christian armies might combine\n    The blood of malice in a vein of league,\n    And not to spend it so unneighbourly!\n  LEWIS. A noble temper dost thou show in this;\n    And great affections wrestling in thy bosom\n    Doth make an earthquake of nobility.\n    O, what a noble combat hast thou fought\n    Between compulsion and a brave respect!\n    Let me wipe off this honourable dew\n    That silverly doth progress on thy cheeks.\n    My heart hath melted at a lady's tears,\n    Being an ordinary inundation;\n    But this effusion of such manly drops,\n    This show'r, blown up by tempest of the soul,\n    Startles mine eyes and makes me more amaz'd\n    Than had I seen the vaulty top of heaven\n    Figur'd quite o'er with burning meteors.\n    Lift up thy brow, renowned Salisbury,\n    And with a great heart heave away this storm;\n    Commend these waters to those baby eyes\n    That never saw the giant world enrag'd,\n    Nor met with fortune other than at feasts,\n    Full of warm blood, of mirth, of gossiping.\n    Come, come; for thou shalt thrust thy hand as deep\n    Into the purse of rich prosperity\n    As Lewis himself. So, nobles, shall you all,\n    That knit your sinews to the strength of mine.\n\n                Enter PANDULPH\n\n    And even there, methinks, an angel spake:\n    Look where the holy legate comes apace,\n    To give us warrant from the hand of heaven\n    And on our actions set the name of right\n    With holy breath.\n  PANDULPH. Hail, noble prince of France!\n    The next is this: King John hath reconcil'd\n    Himself to Rome; his spirit is come in,\n    That so stood out against the holy Church,\n    The great metropolis and see of Rome.\n    Therefore thy threat'ning colours now wind up\n    And tame the savage spirit of wild war,\n    That, like a lion fostered up at hand,\n    It may lie gently at the foot of peace\n    And be no further harmful than in show.\n  LEWIS. Your Grace shall pardon me, I will not back:\n    I am too high-born to be propertied,\n    To be a secondary at control,\n    Or useful serving-man and instrument\n    To any sovereign state throughout the world.\n    Your breath first kindled the dead coal of wars\n    Between this chastis'd kingdom and myself\n    And brought in matter that should feed this fire;\n    And now 'tis far too huge to be blown out\n    With that same weak wind which enkindled it.\n    You taught me how to know the face of right,\n    Acquainted me with interest to this land,\n    Yea, thrust this enterprise into my heart;\n    And come ye now to tell me John hath made\n    His peace with Rome? What is that peace to me?\n    I, by the honour of my marriage-bed,\n    After young Arthur, claim this land for mine;\n    And, now it is half-conquer'd, must I back\n    Because that John hath made his peace with Rome?\n    Am I Rome's slave? What penny hath Rome borne,\n    What men provided, what munition sent,\n    To underprop this action? Is 't not I\n    That undergo this charge? Who else but I,\n    And such as to my claim are liable,\n    Sweat in this business and maintain this war?\n    Have I not heard these islanders shout out\n    'Vive le roi!' as I have bank'd their towns?\n    Have I not here the best cards for the game\n    To will this easy match, play'd for a crown?\n    And shall I now give o'er the yielded set?\n    No, no, on my soul, it never shall be said.\n  PANDULPH. You look but on the outside of this work.\n  LEWIS. Outside or inside, I will not return\n    Till my attempt so much be glorified\n    As to my ample hope was promised\n    Before I drew this gallant head of war,\n    And cull'd these fiery spirits from the world\n    To outlook conquest, and to will renown\n    Even in the jaws of danger and of death.\n                                                     [Trumpet\nsounds]\n    What lusty trumpet thus doth summon us?\n\n             Enter the BASTARD, attended\n\n  BASTARD. According to the fair play of the world,\n    Let me have audience: I am sent to speak.\n    My holy lord of Milan, from the King\n    I come, to learn how you have dealt for him;\n    And, as you answer, I do know the scope\n    And warrant limited unto my tongue.\n  PANDULPH. The Dauphin is too wilful-opposite,\n    And will not temporize with my entreaties;\n    He flatly says he'll not lay down his arms.\n  BASTARD. By all the blood that ever fury breath'd,\n    The youth says well. Now hear our English King;\n    For thus his royalty doth speak in me.\n    He is prepar'd, and reason too he should.\n    This apish and unmannerly approach,\n    This harness'd masque and unadvised revel\n    This unhair'd sauciness and boyish troops,\n    The King doth smile at; and is well prepar'd\n    To whip this dwarfish war, these pigmy arms,\n    From out the circle of his territories.\n    That hand which had the strength, even at your door.\n    To cudgel you and make you take the hatch,\n    To dive like buckets in concealed wells,\n    To crouch in litter of your stable planks,\n    To lie like pawns lock'd up in chests and trunks,\n    To hug with swine, to seek sweet safety out\n    In vaults and prisons, and to thrill and shake\n    Even at the crying of your nation's crow,\n    Thinking this voice an armed Englishman-\n    Shall that victorious hand be feebled here\n    That in your chambers gave you chastisement?\n    No. Know the gallant monarch is in arms\n    And like an eagle o'er his aery tow'rs\n    To souse annoyance that comes near his nest.\n    And you degenerate, you ingrate revolts,\n    You bloody Neroes, ripping up the womb\n    Of your dear mother England, blush for shame;\n    For your own ladies and pale-visag'd maids,\n    Like Amazons, come tripping after drums,\n    Their thimbles into armed gauntlets change,\n    Their needles to lances, and their gentle hearts\n    To fierce and bloody inclination.\n  LEWIS. There end thy brave, and turn thy face in peace;\n    We grant thou canst outscold us. Fare thee well;\n    We hold our time too precious to be spent\n    With such a brabbler.\n  PANDULPH. Give me leave to speak.\n  BASTARD. No, I will speak.\n  LEWIS. We will attend to neither.\n    Strike up the drums; and let the tongue of war,\n    Plead for our interest and our being here.\n  BASTARD. Indeed, your drums, being beaten, will cry out;\n    And so shall you, being beaten. Do but start\n    And echo with the clamour of thy drum,\n    And even at hand a drum is ready brac'd\n    That shall reverberate all as loud as thine:\n    Sound but another, and another shall,\n    As loud as thine, rattle the welkin's ear\n    And mock the deep-mouth'd thunder; for at hand-\n    Not trusting to this halting legate here,\n    Whom he hath us'd rather for sport than need-\n    Is warlike John; and in his forehead sits\n    A bare-ribb'd death, whose office is this day\n    To feast upon whole thousands of the French.\n  LEWIS. Strike up our drums to find this danger out.\n  BASTARD. And thou shalt find it, Dauphin, do not doubt.\n    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nEngland. The field of battle\n\nAlarums. Enter KING JOHN and HUBERT\n\n  KING JOHN. How goes the day with us? O, tell me, Hubert.\n  HUBERT. Badly, I fear. How fares your Majesty?\n  KING JOHN. This fever that hath troubled me so long\n    Lies heavy on me. O, my heart is sick!\n\n                  Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. My lord, your valiant kinsman, Faulconbridge,\n    Desires your Majesty to leave the field\n    And send him word by me which way you go.\n  KING JOHN. Tell him, toward Swinstead, to the abbey there.\n  MESSENGER. Be of good comfort; for the great supply\n    That was expected by the Dauphin here\n    Are wreck'd three nights ago on Goodwin Sands;\n    This news was brought to Richard but even now.\n    The French fight coldly, and retire themselves.\n  KING JOHN. Ay me, this tyrant fever burns me up\n    And will not let me welcome this good news.\n    Set on toward Swinstead; to my litter straight;\n    Weakness possesseth me, and I am faint.\nExeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\n\nEngland. Another part of the battlefield\n\nEnter SALISBURY, PEMBROKE, and BIGOT\n\n  SALISBURY. I did not think the King so stor'd with friends.\n  PEMBROKE. Up once again; put spirit in the French;\n    If they miscarry, we miscarry too.\n  SALISBURY. That misbegotten devil, Faulconbridge,\n    In spite of spite, alone upholds the day.\n  PEMBROKE. They say King John, sore sick, hath left the field.\n\n                 Enter MELUN, wounded\n\n  MELUN. Lead me to the revolts of England here.\n  SALISBURY. When we were happy we had other names.\n  PEMBROKE. It is the Count Melun.\n  SALISBURY. Wounded to death.\n  MELUN. Fly, noble English, you are bought and sold;\n    Unthread the rude eye of rebellion,\n    And welcome home again discarded faith.\n    Seek out King John, and fall before his feet;\n    For if the French be lords of this loud day,\n    He means to recompense the pains you take\n    By cutting off your heads. Thus hath he sworn,\n    And I with him, and many moe with me,\n    Upon the altar at Saint Edmundsbury;\n    Even on that altar where we swore to you\n    Dear amity and everlasting love.\n  SALISBURY. May this be possible? May this be true?\n  MELUN. Have I not hideous death within my view,\n    Retaining but a quantity of life,\n    Which bleeds away even as a form of wax\n    Resolveth from his figure 'gainst the fire?\n    What in the world should make me now deceive,\n    Since I must lose the use of all deceit?\n    Why should I then be false, since it is true\n    That I must die here, and live hence by truth?\n    I say again, if Lewis do will the day,\n    He is forsworn if e'er those eyes of yours\n    Behold another day break in the east;\n    But even this night, whose black contagious breath\n    Already smokes about the burning crest\n    Of the old, feeble, and day-wearied sun,\n    Even this ill night, your breathing shall expire,\n    Paying the fine of rated treachery\n    Even with a treacherous fine of all your lives.\n    If Lewis by your assistance win the day.\n    Commend me to one Hubert, with your King;\n    The love of him-and this respect besides,\n    For that my grandsire was an Englishman-\n    Awakes my conscience to confess all this.\n    In lieu whereof, I pray you, bear me hence\n    From forth the noise and rumour of the field,\n    Where I may think the remnant of my thoughts\n    In peace, and part this body and my soul\n    With contemplation and devout desires.\n  SALISBURY. We do believe thee; and beshrew my soul\n    But I do love the favour and the form\n    Of this most fair occasion, by the which\n    We will untread the steps of damned flight,\n    And like a bated and retired flood,\n    Leaving our rankness and irregular course,\n    Stoop low within those bounds we have o'erlook'd,\n    And calmly run on in obedience\n    Even to our ocean, to great King John.\n    My arm shall give thee help to bear thee hence;\n    For I do see the cruel pangs of death\n    Right in thine eye. Away, my friends! New flight,\n    And happy newness, that intends old right.\n                                            Exeunt, leading off\nMELUN\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 5.\n\nEngland. The French camp\n\nEnter LEWIS and his train\n\n  LEWIS. The sun of heaven, methought, was loath to set,\n    But stay'd and made the western welkin blush,\n    When English measure backward their own ground\n    In faint retire. O, bravely came we off,\n    When with a volley of our needless shot,\n    After such bloody toil, we bid good night;\n    And wound our tott'ring colours clearly up,\n    Last in the field and almost lords of it!\n\n                 Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. Where is my prince, the Dauphin?\n  LEWIS. Here; what news?\n  MESSENGER. The Count Melun is slain; the English lords\n    By his persuasion are again fall'n off,\n    And your supply, which you have wish'd so long,\n    Are cast away and sunk on Goodwin Sands.\n  LEWIS. Ah, foul shrewd news! Beshrew thy very heart!\n    I did not think to be so sad to-night\n    As this hath made me. Who was he that said\n    King John did fly an hour or two before\n    The stumbling night did part our weary pow'rs?\n  MESSENGER. Whoever spoke it, it is true, my lord.\n  LEWIS. keep good quarter and good care to-night;\n    The day shall not be up so soon as I\n    To try the fair adventure of to-morrow.\nExeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 6.\n\nAn open place wear Swinstead Abbey\n\nEnter the BASTARD and HUBERT, severally\n\n  HUBERT. Who's there? Speak, ho! speak quickly, or I shoot.\n  BASTARD. A friend. What art thou?\n  HUBERT. Of the part of England.\n  BASTARD. Whither dost thou go?\n  HUBERT. What's that to thee? Why may I not demand\n    Of thine affairs as well as thou of mine?\n  BASTARD. Hubert, I think.\n  HUBERT. Thou hast a perfect thought.\n    I will upon all hazards well believe\n    Thou art my friend that know'st my tongue so well.\n    Who art thou?\n  BASTARD. Who thou wilt. And if thou please,\n    Thou mayst befriend me so much as to think\n    I come one way of the Plantagenets.\n  HUBERT. Unkind remembrance! thou and eyeless night\n    Have done me shame. Brave soldier, pardon me\n    That any accent breaking from thy tongue\n    Should scape the true acquaintance of mine ear.\n  BASTARD. Come, come; sans compliment, what news abroad?\n  HUBERT. Why, here walk I in the black brow of night\n    To find you out.\n  BASTARD. Brief, then; and what's the news?\n  HUBERT. O, my sweet sir, news fitting to the night,\n    Black, fearful, comfortless, and horrible.\n  BASTARD. Show me the very wound of this ill news;\n    I am no woman, I'll not swoon at it.\n  HUBERT. The King, I fear, is poison'd by a monk;\n    I left him almost speechless and broke out\n    To acquaint you with this evil, that you might\n    The better arm you to the sudden time\n    Than if you had at leisure known of this.\n  BASTARD. How did he take it; who did taste to him?\n  HUBERT. A monk, I tell you; a resolved villain,\n    Whose bowels suddenly burst out. The King\n    Yet speaks, and peradventure may recover.\n  BASTARD. Who didst thou leave to tend his Majesty?\n  HUBERT. Why, know you not? The lords are all come back,\n    And brought Prince Henry in their company;\n    At whose request the King hath pardon'd them,\n    And they are all about his Majesty.\n  BASTARD. Withhold thine indignation, mighty heaven,\n    And tempt us not to bear above our power!\n    I'll tell thee, Hubert, half my power this night,\n    Passing these flats, are taken by the tide-\n    These Lincoln Washes have devoured them;\n    Myself, well-mounted, hardly have escap'd.\n    Away, before! conduct me to the King;\n    I doubt he will be dead or ere I come.\nExeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 7.\n\nThe orchard at Swinstead Abbey\n\nEnter PRINCE HENRY, SALISBURY, and BIGOT\n\n  PRINCE HENRY. It is too late; the life of all his blood\n    Is touch'd corruptibly, and his pure brain.\n    Which some suppose the soul's frail dwelling-house,\n    Doth by the idle comments that it makes\n    Foretell the ending of mortality.\n\n                   Enter PEMBROKE\n\n  PEMBROKE. His Highness yet doth speak, and holds belief\n    That, being brought into the open air,\n    It would allay the burning quality\n    Of that fell poison which assaileth him.\n  PRINCE HENRY. Let him be brought into the orchard here.\n    Doth he still rage?                                    Exit\nBIGOT\n  PEMBROKE. He is more patient\n    Than when you left him; even now he sung.\n  PRINCE HENRY. O vanity of sickness! Fierce extremes\n    In their continuance will not feel themselves.\n    Death, having prey'd upon the outward parts,\n    Leaves them invisible, and his siege is now\n    Against the mind, the which he pricks and wounds\n    With many legions of strange fantasies,\n    Which, in their throng and press to that last hold,\n    Confound themselves. 'Tis strange that death should sing.\n    I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan\n    Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death,\n    And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings\n    His soul and body to their lasting rest.\n  SALISBURY. Be of good comfort, Prince; for you are born\n    To set a form upon that indigest\n    Which he hath left so shapeless and so rude.\n\n       Re-enter BIGOT and attendants, who bring in\n                KING JOHN in a chair\n\n  KING JOHN. Ay, marry, now my soul hath elbow-room;\n    It would not out at windows nor at doors.\n    There is so hot a summer in my bosom\n    That all my bowels crumble up to dust.\n    I am a scribbled form drawn with a pen\n    Upon a parchment, and against this fire\n    Do I shrink up.\n  PRINCE HENRY. How fares your Majesty?\n  KING JOHN. Poison'd-ill-fare! Dead, forsook, cast off;\n    And none of you will bid the winter come\n    To thrust his icy fingers in my maw,\n    Nor let my kingdom's rivers take their course\n    Through my burn'd bosom, nor entreat the north\n    To make his bleak winds kiss my parched lips\n    And comfort me with cold. I do not ask you much;\n    I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait\n    And so ingrateful you deny me that.\n  PRINCE HENRY. O that there were some virtue in my tears,\n    That might relieve you!\n  KING JOHN. The salt in them is hot.\n    Within me is a hell; and there the poison\n    Is as a fiend confin'd to tyrannize\n    On unreprievable condemned blood.\n\n                 Enter the BASTARD\n\n  BASTARD. O, I am scalded with my violent motion\n    And spleen of speed to see your Majesty!\n  KING JOHN. O cousin, thou art come to set mine eye!\n    The tackle of my heart is crack'd and burnt,\n    And all the shrouds wherewith my life should sail\n    Are turned to one thread, one little hair;\n    My heart hath one poor string to stay it by,\n    Which holds but till thy news be uttered;\n    And then all this thou seest is but a clod\n    And module of confounded royalty.\n  BASTARD. The Dauphin is preparing hitherward,\n    Where God He knows how we shall answer him;\n    For in a night the best part of my pow'r,\n    As I upon advantage did remove,\n    Were in the Washes all unwarily\n    Devoured by the unexpected flood.                 [The KING\ndies]\n  SALISBURY. You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear.\n    My liege! my lord! But now a king-now thus.\n  PRINCE HENRY. Even so must I run on, and even so stop.\n    What surety of the world, what hope, what stay,\n    When this was now a king, and now is clay?\n  BASTARD. Art thou gone so? I do but stay behind\n    To do the office for thee of revenge,\n    And then my soul shall wait on thee to heaven,\n    As it on earth hath been thy servant still.\n    Now, now, you stars that move in your right spheres,\n    Where be your pow'rs? Show now your mended faiths,\n    And instantly return with me again\n    To push destruction and perpetual shame\n    Out of the weak door of our fainting land.\n    Straight let us seek, or straight we shall be sought;\n    The Dauphin rages at our very heels.\n  SALISBURY. It seems you know not, then, so much as we:\n    The Cardinal Pandulph is within at rest,\n    Who half an hour since came from the Dauphin,\n    And brings from him such offers of our peace\n    As we with honour and respect may take,\n    With purpose presently to leave this war.\n  BASTARD. He will the rather do it when he sees\n    Ourselves well sinewed to our defence.\n  SALISBURY. Nay, 'tis in a manner done already;\n    For many carriages he hath dispatch'd\n    To the sea-side, and put his cause and quarrel\n    To the disposing of the Cardinal;\n    With whom yourself, myself, and other lords,\n    If you think meet, this afternoon will post\n    To consummate this business happily.\n  BASTARD. Let it be so. And you, my noble Prince,\n    With other princes that may best be spar'd,\n    Shall wait upon your father's funeral.\n  PRINCE HENRY. At Worcester must his body be interr'd;\n    For so he will'd it.\n  BASTARD. Thither shall it, then;\n    And happily may your sweet self put on\n    The lineal state and glory of the land!\n    To whom, with all submission, on my knee\n    I do bequeath my faithful services\n    And true subjection everlastingly.\n  SALISBURY. And the like tender of our love we make,\n    To rest without a spot for evermore.\n  PRINCE HENRY. I have a kind soul that would give you thanks,\n    And knows not how to do it but with tears.\n  BASTARD. O, let us pay the time but needful woe,\n    Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs.\n    This England never did, nor never shall,\n    Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,\n    But when it first did help to wound itself.\n    Now these her princes are come home again,\n    Come the three corners of the world in arms,\n    And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue,\n    If England to itself do rest but true.\nExeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of this Etext of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare\nKing John"}
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{"1111":"\n\n\n\n\n\n1596\n\nKING RICHARD THE SECOND\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  KING RICHARD THE SECOND\n  JOHN OF GAUNT, Duke of Lancaster - uncle to the King\n  EDMUND LANGLEY, Duke of York - uncle to the King\n  HENRY, surnamed BOLINGBROKE, Duke of Hereford, son of\n    John of Gaunt, afterwards King Henry IV\n  DUKE OF AUMERLE, son of the Duke of York\n  THOMAS MOWBRAY, Duke of Norfolk\n  DUKE OF SURREY\n  EARL OF SALISBURY\n  EARL BERKELEY\n  BUSHY - favourites of King Richard\n  BAGOT -     \"      \"   \"     \"\n  GREEN -     \"      \"   \"     \"\n  EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND\n  HENRY PERCY, surnamed HOTSPUR, his son\n  LORD Ross                             LORD WILLOUGHBY\n  LORD FITZWATER                        BISHOP OF CARLISLE\n  ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER                  LORD MARSHAL\n  SIR STEPHEN SCROOP                    SIR PIERCE OF EXTON\n  CAPTAIN of a band of Welshmen         TWO GARDENERS\n\n  QUEEN to King Richard\n  DUCHESS OF YORK\n  DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER, widow of Thomas of Woodstock,\n    Duke of Gloucester\n  LADY attending on the Queen\n\n  Lords, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Keeper, Messenger,\n    Groom, and other Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nEngland and Wales\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter RICHARD, JOHN OF GAUNT, with other NOBLES and attendants\n\n  KING RICHARD. Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster,\n    Hast thou, according to thy oath and band,\n    Brought hither Henry Hereford, thy bold son,\n    Here to make good the boist'rous late appeal,\n    Which then our leisure would not let us hear,\n    Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?\n  GAUNT. I have, my liege.\n  KING RICHARD. Tell me, moreover, hast thou sounded him\n    If he appeal the Duke on ancient malice,\n    Or worthily, as a good subject should,\n    On some known ground of treachery in him?\n  GAUNT. As near as I could sift him on that argument,\n    On some apparent danger seen in him\n    Aim'd at your Highness-no inveterate malice.\n  KING RICHARD. Then call them to our presence: face to face\n    And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear\n    The accuser and the accused freely speak.\n    High-stomach'd are they both and full of ire,\n    In rage, deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.\n\n         Enter BOLINGBROKE and MOWBRAY\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. Many years of happy days befall\n    My gracious sovereign, my most loving liege!\n  MOWBRAY. Each day still better other's happiness\n    Until the heavens, envying earth's good hap,\n    Add an immortal title to your crown!\n  KING RICHARD. We thank you both; yet one but flatters us,\n    As well appeareth by the cause you come;\n    Namely, to appeal each other of high treason.\n    Cousin of Hereford, what dost thou object\n    Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?\n  BOLINGBROKE. First-heaven be the record to my speech!\n    In the devotion of a subject's love,\n    Tend'ring the precious safety of my prince,\n    And free from other misbegotten hate,\n    Come I appellant to this princely presence.\n    Now, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee,\n    And mark my greeting well; for what I speak\n    My body shall make good upon this earth,\n    Or my divine soul answer it in heaven-\n    Thou art a traitor and a miscreant,\n    Too good to be so, and too bad to live,\n    Since the more fair and crystal is the sky,\n    The uglier seem the clouds that in it fly.\n    Once more, the more to aggravate the note,\n    With a foul traitor's name stuff I thy throat;\n    And wish-so please my sovereign-ere I move,\n    What my tongue speaks, my right drawn sword may prove.\n  MOWBRAY. Let not my cold words here accuse my zeal.\n    'Tis not the trial of a woman's war,\n    The bitter clamour of two eager tongues,\n    Can arbitrate this cause betwixt us twain;\n    The blood is hot that must be cool'd for this.\n    Yet can I not of such tame patience boast\n    As to be hush'd and nought at an to say.\n    First, the fair reverence of your Highness curbs me\n    From giving reins and spurs to my free speech;\n    Which else would post until it had return'd\n    These terms of treason doubled down his throat.\n    Setting aside his high blood's royalty,\n    And let him be no kinsman to my liege,\n    I do defy him, and I spit at him,\n    Call him a slanderous coward and a villain;\n    Which to maintain, I would allow him odds\n    And meet him, were I tied to run afoot\n    Even to the frozen ridges of the Alps,\n    Or any other ground inhabitable\n    Where ever Englishman durst set his foot.\n    Meantime let this defend my loyalty-\n    By all my hopes, most falsely doth he lie\n  BOLINGBROKE. Pale trembling coward, there I throw my gage,\n    Disclaiming here the kindred of the King;\n    And lay aside my high blood's royalty,\n    Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to except.\n    If guilty dread have left thee so much strength\n    As to take up mine honour's pawn, then stoop.\n    By that and all the rites of knighthood else\n    Will I make good against thee, arm to arm,\n    What I have spoke or thou canst worst devise.\n  MOWBRAY. I take it up; and by that sword I swear\n    Which gently laid my knighthood on my shoulder\n    I'll answer thee in any fair degree\n    Or chivalrous design of knightly trial;\n    And when I mount, alive may I not light\n    If I be traitor or unjustly fight!\n  KING RICHARD. What doth our cousin lay to Mowbray's charge?\n    It must be great that can inherit us\n    So much as of a thought of ill in him.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Look what I speak, my life shall prove it true-\n    That Mowbray hath receiv'd eight thousand nobles\n    In name of lendings for your Highness' soldiers,\n    The which he hath detain'd for lewd employments\n    Like a false traitor and injurious villain.\n    Besides, I say and will in battle prove-\n    Or here, or elsewhere to the furthest verge\n    That ever was survey'd by English eye-\n    That all the treasons for these eighteen years\n    Complotted and contrived in this land\n    Fetch from false Mowbray their first head and spring.\n    Further I say, and further will maintain\n    Upon his bad life to make all this good,\n    That he did plot the Duke of Gloucester's death,\n    Suggest his soon-believing adversaries,\n    And consequently, like a traitor coward,\n    Sluic'd out his innocent soul through streams of blood;\n    Which blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries,\n    Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth,\n    To me for justice and rough chastisement;\n    And, by the glorious worth of my descent,\n    This arm shall do it, or this life be spent.\n  KING RICHARD. How high a pitch his resolution soars!\n    Thomas of Norfolk, what say'st thou to this?\n  MOWBRAY. O, let my sovereign turn away his face\n    And bid his ears a little while be deaf,\n    Till I have told this slander of his blood\n    How God and good men hate so foul a liar.\n  KING RICHARD. Mowbray, impartial are our eyes and cars.\n    Were he my brother, nay, my kingdom's heir,\n    As he is but my father's brother's son,\n    Now by my sceptre's awe I make a vow,\n    Such neighbour nearness to our sacred blood\n    Should nothing privilege him nor partialize\n    The unstooping firmness of my upright soul.\n    He is our subject, Mowbray; so art thou:\n    Free speech and fearless I to thee allow.\n  MOWBRAY. Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart,\n    Through the false passage of thy throat, thou liest.\n    Three parts of that receipt I had for Calais\n    Disburs'd I duly to his Highness' soldiers;\n    The other part reserv'd I by consent,\n    For that my sovereign liege was in my debt\n    Upon remainder of a dear account\n    Since last I went to France to fetch his queen:\n    Now swallow down that lie. For Gloucester's death-\n    I slew him not, but to my own disgrace\n    Neglected my sworn duty in that case.\n    For you, my noble Lord of Lancaster,\n    The honourable father to my foe,\n    Once did I lay an ambush for your life,\n    A trespass that doth vex my grieved soul;\n    But ere I last receiv'd the sacrament\n    I did confess it, and exactly begg'd\n    Your Grace's pardon; and I hope I had it.\n    This is my fault. As for the rest appeal'd,\n    It issues from the rancour of a villain,\n    A recreant and most degenerate traitor;\n    Which in myself I boldly will defend,\n    And interchangeably hurl down my gage\n    Upon this overweening traitor's foot\n    To prove myself a loyal gentleman\n    Even in the best blood chamber'd in his bosom.\n    In haste whereof, most heartily I pray\n    Your Highness to assign our trial day.\n  KING RICHARD. Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be rul'd by me;\n    Let's purge this choler without letting blood-\n    This we prescribe, though no physician;\n    Deep malice makes too deep incision.\n    Forget, forgive; conclude and be agreed:\n    Our doctors say this is no month to bleed.\n    Good uncle, let this end where it begun;\n    We'll calm the Duke of Norfolk, you your son.\n  GAUNT. To be a make-peace shall become my age.\n    Throw down, my son, the Duke of Norfolk's gage.\n  KING RICHARD. And, Norfolk, throw down his.\n  GAUNT. When, Harry, when?\n    Obedience bids I should not bid again.\n  KING RICHARD. Norfolk, throw down; we bid.\n    There is no boot.\n  MOWBRAY. Myself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy foot;\n    My life thou shalt command, but not my shame:\n    The one my duty owes; but my fair name,\n    Despite of death, that lives upon my grave\n    To dark dishonour's use thou shalt not have.\n    I am disgrac'd, impeach'd, and baffl'd here;\n    Pierc'd to the soul with slander's venom'd spear,\n    The which no balm can cure but his heart-blood\n    Which breath'd this poison.\n  KING RICHARD. Rage must be withstood:\n    Give me his gage-lions make leopards tame.\n  MOWBRAY. Yea, but not change his spots. Take but my shame,\n    And I resign my gage. My dear dear lord,\n    The purest treasure mortal times afford\n    Is spotless reputation; that away,\n    Men are but gilded loam or painted clay.\n    A jewel in a ten-times barr'd-up chest\n    Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast.\n    Mine honour is my life; both grow in one;\n    Take honour from me, and my life is done:\n    Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me try;\n    In that I live, and for that will I die.\n  KING RICHARD. Cousin, throw up your gage; do you begin.\n  BOLINGBROKE. O, God defend my soul from such deep sin!\n    Shall I seem crest-fallen in my father's sight?\n    Or with pale beggar-fear impeach my height\n    Before this outdar'd dastard? Ere my tongue\n    Shall wound my honour with such feeble wrong\n    Or sound so base a parle, my teeth shall tear\n    The slavish motive of recanting fear,\n    And spit it bleeding in his high disgrace,\n    Where shame doth harbour, even in Mowbray's face.\n                                                      Exit GAUNT\n  KING RICHARD. We were not born to sue, but to command;\n    Which since we cannot do to make you friends,\n    Be ready, as your lives shall answer it,\n    At Coventry, upon Saint Lambert's day.\n    There shall your swords and lances arbitrate\n    The swelling difference of your settled hate;\n    Since we can not atone you, we shall see\n    Justice design the victor's chivalry.\n    Lord Marshal, command our officers-at-arms\n    Be ready to direct these home alarms.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\nLondon. The DUKE OF LANCASTER'S palace\n\nEnter JOHN OF GAUNT with the DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER\n\n  GAUNT. Alas, the part I had in Woodstock's blood\n    Doth more solicit me than your exclaims\n    To stir against the butchers of his life!\n    But since correction lieth in those hands\n    Which made the fault that we cannot correct,\n    Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven;\n    Who, when they see the hours ripe on earth,\n    Will rain hot vengeance on offenders' heads.\n  DUCHESS. Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur?\n    Hath love in thy old blood no living fire?\n    Edward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one,\n    Were as seven vials of his sacred blood,\n    Or seven fair branches springing from one root.\n    Some of those seven are dried by nature's course,\n    Some of those branches by the Destinies cut;\n    But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloucester,\n    One vial full of Edward's sacred blood,\n    One flourishing branch of his most royal root,\n    Is crack'd, and all the precious liquor spilt;\n    Is hack'd down, and his summer leaves all faded,\n    By envy's hand and murder's bloody axe.\n    Ah, Gaunt, his blood was thine! That bed, that womb,\n    That mettle, that self mould, that fashion'd thee,\n    Made him a man; and though thou livest and breathest,\n    Yet art thou slain in him. Thou dost consent\n    In some large measure to thy father's death\n    In that thou seest thy wretched brother die,\n    Who was the model of thy father's life.\n    Call it not patience, Gaunt-it is despair;\n    In suff'ring thus thy brother to be slaught'red,\n    Thou showest the naked pathway to thy life,\n    Teaching stern murder how to butcher thee.\n    That which in mean men we entitle patience\n    Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.\n    What shall I say? To safeguard thine own life\n    The best way is to venge my Gloucester's death.\n  GAUNT. God's is the quarrel; for God's substitute,\n    His deputy anointed in His sight,\n    Hath caus'd his death; the which if wrongfully,\n    Let heaven revenge; for I may never lift\n    An angry arm against His minister.\n  DUCHESS. Where then, alas, may I complain myself?\n  GAUNT. To God, the widow's champion and defence.\n  DUCHESS. Why then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt.\n    Thou goest to Coventry, there to behold\n    Our cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight.\n    O, sit my husband's wrongs on Hereford's spear,\n    That it may enter butcher Mowbray's breast!\n    Or, if misfortune miss the first career,\n    Be Mowbray's sins so heavy in his bosom\n    That they may break his foaming courser's back\n    And throw the rider headlong in the lists,\n    A caitiff recreant to my cousin Hereford!\n    Farewell, old Gaunt; thy sometimes brother's wife,\n    With her companion, Grief, must end her life.\n  GAUNT. Sister, farewell; I must to Coventry.\n    As much good stay with thee as go with me!\n  DUCHESS. Yet one word more- grief boundeth where it falls,\n    Not with the empty hollowness, but weight.\n    I take my leave before I have begun,\n    For sorrow ends not when it seemeth done.\n    Commend me to thy brother, Edmund York.\n    Lo, this is all- nay, yet depart not so;\n    Though this be all, do not so quickly go;\n    I shall remember more. Bid him- ah, what?-\n    With all good speed at Plashy visit me.\n    Alack, and what shall good old York there see\n    But empty lodgings and unfurnish'd walls,\n    Unpeopled offices, untrodden stones?\n    And what hear there for welcome but my groans?\n    Therefore commend me; let him not come there\n    To seek out sorrow that dwells every where.\n    Desolate, desolate, will I hence and die;\n    The last leave of thee takes my weeping eye.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\nThe lists at Coventry\n\nEnter the LORD MARSHAL and the DUKE OF AUMERLE\n\n  MARSHAL. My Lord Aumerle, is Harry Hereford arm'd?\n  AUMERLE. Yea, at all points; and longs to enter in.\n  MARSHAL. The Duke of Norfolk, spightfully and bold,\n    Stays but the summons of the appelant's trumpet.\n  AUMERLE. Why then, the champions are prepar'd, and stay\n    For nothing but his Majesty's approach.\n\n     The trumpets sound, and the KING enters with his nobles,\n     GAUNT, BUSHY, BAGOT, GREEN, and others. When they are set,\n     enter MOWBRAY, Duke of Nor folk, in arms, defendant, and\n     a HERALD\n\n  KING RICHARD. Marshal, demand of yonder champion\n    The cause of his arrival here in arms;\n    Ask him his name; and orderly proceed\n    To swear him in the justice of his cause.\n  MARSHAL. In God's name and the King's, say who thou art,\n    And why thou comest thus knightly clad in arms;\n    Against what man thou com'st, and what thy quarrel.\n    Speak truly on thy knighthood and thy oath;\n    As so defend thee heaven and thy valour!\n  MOWBRAY. My name is Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk;\n    Who hither come engaged by my oath-\n    Which God defend a knight should violate!-\n    Both to defend my loyalty and truth\n    To God, my King, and my succeeding issue,\n    Against the Duke of Hereford that appeals me;\n    And, by the grace of God and this mine arm,\n    To prove him, in defending of myself,\n    A traitor to my God, my King, and me.\n    And as I truly fight, defend me heaven!\n\n   The trumpets sound. Enter BOLINGBROKE, Duke of Hereford,\n            appellant, in armour, and a HERALD\n\n  KING RICHARD. Marshal, ask yonder knight in arms,\n    Both who he is and why he cometh hither\n    Thus plated in habiliments of war;\n    And formally, according to our law,\n    Depose him in the justice of his cause.\n  MARSHAL. What is thy name? and wherefore com'st thou hither\n    Before King Richard in his royal lists?\n    Against whom comest thou? and what's thy quarrel?\n    Speak like a true knight, so defend thee heaven!\n  BOLINGBROKE. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,\n    Am I; who ready here do stand in arms\n    To prove, by God's grace and my body's valour,\n    In lists on Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,\n    That he is a traitor, foul and dangerous,\n    To God of heaven, King Richard, and to me.\n    And as I truly fight, defend me heaven!\n  MARSHAL. On pain of death, no person be so bold\n    Or daring-hardy as to touch the lists,\n    Except the Marshal and such officers\n    Appointed to direct these fair designs.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Lord Marshal, let me kiss my sovereign's hand,\n    And bow my knee before his Majesty;\n    For Mowbray and myself are like two men\n    That vow a long and weary pilgrimage.\n    Then let us take a ceremonious leave\n    And loving farewell of our several friends.\n  MARSHAL. The appellant in all duty greets your Highness,\n    And craves to kiss your hand and take his leave.\n  KING RICHARD. We will descend and fold him in our arms.\n    Cousin of Hereford, as thy cause is right,\n    So be thy fortune in this royal fight!\n    Farewell, my blood; which if to-day thou shed,\n    Lament we may, but not revenge thee dead.\n  BOLINGBROKE. O, let no noble eye profane a tear\n    For me, if I be gor'd with Mowbray's spear.\n    As confident as is the falcon's flight\n    Against a bird, do I with Mowbray fight.\n    My loving lord, I take my leave of you;\n    Of you, my noble cousin, Lord Aumerle;\n    Not sick, although I have to do with death,\n    But lusty, young, and cheerly drawing breath.\n    Lo, as at English feasts, so I regreet\n    The daintiest last, to make the end most sweet.\n    O thou, the earthly author of my blood,\n    Whose youthful spirit, in me regenerate,\n    Doth with a twofold vigour lift me up\n    To reach at victory above my head,\n    Add proof unto mine armour with thy prayers,\n    And with thy blessings steel my lance's point,\n    That it may enter Mowbray's waxen coat\n    And furbish new the name of John o' Gaunt,\n    Even in the lusty haviour of his son.\n  GAUNT. God in thy good cause make thee prosperous!\n    Be swift like lightning in the execution,\n    And let thy blows, doubly redoubled,\n    Fall like amazing thunder on the casque\n    Of thy adverse pernicious enemy.\n    Rouse up thy youthful blood, be valiant, and live.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Mine innocence and Saint George to thrive!\n  MOWBRAY. However God or fortune cast my lot,\n    There lives or dies, true to King Richard's throne,\n    A loyal, just, and upright gentleman.\n    Never did captive with a freer heart\n    Cast off his chains of bondage, and embrace\n    His golden uncontroll'd enfranchisement,\n    More than my dancing soul doth celebrate\n    This feast of battle with mine adversary.\n    Most mighty liege, and my companion peers,\n    Take from my mouth the wish of happy years.\n    As gentle and as jocund as to jest\n    Go I to fight: truth hath a quiet breast.\n  KING RICHARD. Farewell, my lord, securely I espy\n    Virtue with valour couched in thine eye.\n    Order the trial, Marshal, and begin.\n  MARSHAL. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,\n    Receive thy lance; and God defend the right!\n  BOLINGBROKE. Strong as a tower in hope, I cry amen.\n  MARSHAL. [To an officer] Go bear this lance to Thomas,\n      Duke of Norfolk.\n  FIRST HERALD. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,\n    Stands here for God, his sovereign, and himself,\n    On pain to be found false and recreant,\n    To prove the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray,\n    A traitor to his God, his King, and him;\n    And dares him to set forward to the fight.\n  SECOND HERALD. Here standeth Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,\n    On pain to be found false and recreant,\n    Both to defend himself, and to approve\n    Henry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,\n    To God, his sovereign, and to him disloyal,\n    Courageously and with a free desire\n    Attending but the signal to begin.\n  MARSHAL. Sound trumpets; and set forward, combatants.\n                                           [A charge sounded]\n    Stay, the King hath thrown his warder down.\n  KING RICHARD. Let them lay by their helmets and their spears,\n    And both return back to their chairs again.\n    Withdraw with us; and let the trumpets sound\n    While we return these dukes what we decree.\n\n    A long flourish, while the KING consults his Council\n\n    Draw near,\n    And list what with our council we have done.\n    For that our kingdom's earth should not be soil'd\n    With that dear blood which it hath fostered;\n    And for our eyes do hate the dire aspect\n    Of civil wounds plough'd up with neighbours' sword;\n    And for we think the eagle-winged pride\n    Of sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts,\n    With rival-hating envy, set on you\n    To wake our peace, which in our country's cradle\n    Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep;\n    Which so rous'd up with boist'rous untun'd drums,\n    With harsh-resounding trumpets' dreadful bray,\n    And grating shock of wrathful iron arms,\n    Might from our quiet confines fright fair peace\n    And make us wade even in our kindred's blood-\n    Therefore we banish you our territories.\n    You, cousin Hereford, upon pain of life,\n    Till twice five summers have enrich'd our fields\n    Shall not regreet our fair dominions,\n    But tread the stranger paths of banishment.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Your will be done. This must my comfort be-\n    That sun that warms you here shall shine on me,\n    And those his golden beams to you here lent\n    Shall point on me and gild my banishment.\n  KING RICHARD. Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom,\n    Which I with some unwillingness pronounce:\n    The sly slow hours shall not determinate\n    The dateless limit of thy dear exile;\n    The hopeless word of 'never to return'\n    Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life.\n  MOWBRAY. A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,\n    And all unlook'd for from your Highness' mouth.\n    A dearer merit, not so deep a maim\n    As to be cast forth in the common air,\n    Have I deserved at your Highness' hands.\n    The language I have learnt these forty years,\n    My native English, now I must forgo;\n    And now my tongue's use is to me no more\n    Than an unstringed viol or a harp;\n    Or like a cunning instrument cas'd up\n    Or, being open, put into his hands\n    That knows no touch to tune the harmony.\n    Within my mouth you have engaol'd my tongue,\n    Doubly portcullis'd with my teeth and lips;\n    And dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance\n    Is made my gaoler to attend on me.\n    I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,\n    Too far in years to be a pupil now.\n    What is thy sentence, then, but speechless death,\n    Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?\n  KING RICHARD. It boots thee not to be compassionate;\n    After our sentence plaining comes too late.\n  MOWBRAY. Then thus I turn me from my countrv's light,\n    To dwell in solemn shades of endless night.\n  KING RICHARD. Return again, and take an oath with thee.\n    Lay on our royal sword your banish'd hands;\n    Swear by the duty that you owe to God,\n    Our part therein we banish with yourselves,\n    To keep the oath that we administer:\n    You never shall, so help you truth and God,\n    Embrace each other's love in banishment;\n    Nor never look upon each other's face;\n    Nor never write, regreet, nor reconcile\n    This louring tempest of your home-bred hate;\n    Nor never by advised purpose meet\n    To plot, contrive, or complot any ill,\n    'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land.\n  BOLINGBROKE. I swear.\n  MOWBRAY. And I, to keep all this.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Norfolk, so far as to mine enemy.\n    By this time, had the King permitted us,\n    One of our souls had wand'red in the air,\n    Banish'd this frail sepulchre of our flesh,\n    As now our flesh is banish'd from this land-\n    Confess thy treasons ere thou fly the realm;\n    Since thou hast far to go, bear not along\n    The clogging burden of a guilty soul.\n  MOWBRAY. No, Bolingbroke; if ever I were traitor,\n    My name be blotted from the book of life,\n    And I from heaven banish'd as from hence!\n    But what thou art, God, thou, and I, do know;\n    And all too soon, I fear, the King shall rue.\n    Farewell, my liege. Now no way can I stray:\n    Save back to England, an the world's my way.            Exit\n  KING RICHARD. Uncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes\n    I see thy grieved heart. Thy sad aspect\n    Hath from the number of his banish'd years\n    Pluck'd four away. [To BOLINGBROKE] Six frozen winters spent,\n    Return with welcome home from banishment.\n  BOLINGBROKE. How long a time lies in one little word!\n    Four lagging winters and four wanton springs\n    End in a word: such is the breath of Kings.\n  GAUNT. I thank my liege that in regard of me\n    He shortens four years of my son's exile;\n    But little vantage shall I reap thereby,\n    For ere the six years that he hath to spend\n    Can change their moons and bring their times about,\n    My oil-dried lamp and time-bewasted light\n    Shall be extinct with age and endless night;\n    My inch of taper will be burnt and done,\n    And blindfold death not let me see my son.\n  KING RICHARD. Why, uncle, thou hast many years to live.\n  GAUNT. But not a minute, King, that thou canst give:\n    Shorten my days thou canst with sullen sorrow\n    And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow;\n    Thou can'st help time to furrow me with age,\n    But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage;\n    Thy word is current with him for my death,\n    But dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.\n  KING RICHARD. Thy son is banish'd upon good advice,\n    Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave.\n    Why at our justice seem'st thou then to lour?\n  GAUNT. Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.\n    You urg'd me as a judge; but I had rather\n    You would have bid me argue like a father.\n    O, had it been a stranger, not my child,\n    To smooth his fault I should have been more mild.\n    A partial slander sought I to avoid,\n    And in the sentence my own life destroy'd.\n    Alas, I look'd when some of you should say\n    I was too strict to make mine own away;\n    But you gave leave to my unwilling tongue\n    Against my will to do myself this wrong.\n  KING RICHARD. Cousin, farewell; and, uncle, bid him so.\n    Six years we banish him, and he shall go.\n                                  Flourish. Exit KING with train\n  AUMERLE. Cousin, farewell; what presence must not know,\n    From where you do remain let paper show.\n  MARSHAL. My lord, no leave take I, for I will ride\n    As far as land will let me by your side.\n  GAUNT. O, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words,\n    That thou returnest no greeting to thy friends?\n  BOLINGBROKE. I have too few to take my leave of you,\n    When the tongue's office should be prodigal\n    To breathe the abundant dolour of the heart.\n  GAUNT. Thy grief is but thy absence for a time.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Joy absent, grief is present for that time.\n  GAUNT. What is six winters? They are quickly gone.\n  BOLINGBROKE. To men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten.\n  GAUNT. Call it a travel that thou tak'st for pleasure.\n  BOLINGBROKE. My heart will sigh when I miscall it so,\n    Which finds it an enforced pilgrimage.\n  GAUNT. The sullen passage of thy weary steps\n    Esteem as foil wherein thou art to set\n    The precious jewel of thy home return.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Nay, rather, every tedious stride I make\n    Will but remember me what a deal of world\n    I wander from the jewels that I love.\n    Must I not serve a long apprenticehood\n    To foreign passages; and in the end,\n    Having my freedom, boast of nothing else\n    But that I was a journeyman to grief?\n  GAUNT. All places that the eye of heaven visits\n    Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.\n    Teach thy necessity to reason thus:\n    There is no virtue like necessity.\n    Think not the King did banish thee,\n    But thou the King. Woe doth the heavier sit\n    Where it perceives it is but faintly home.\n    Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour,\n    And not the King exil'd thee; or suppose\n    Devouring pestilence hangs in our air\n    And thou art flying to a fresher clime.\n    Look what thy soul holds dear, imagine it\n    To lie that way thou goest, not whence thou com'st.\n    Suppose the singing birds musicians,\n    The grass whereon thou tread'st the presence strew'd,\n    The flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more\n    Than a delightful measure or a dance;\n    For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite\n    The man that mocks at it and sets it light.\n  BOLINGBROKE. O, who can hold a fire in his hand\n    By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?\n    Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite\n    By bare imagination of a feast?\n    Or wallow naked in December snow\n    By thinking on fantastic summer's heat?\n    O, no! the apprehension of the good\n    Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.\n    Fell sorrow's tooth doth never rankle more\n    Than when he bites, but lanceth not the sore.\n  GAUNT. Come, come, my son, I'll bring thee on thy way.\n    Had I thy youtli and cause, I would not stay.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Then, England's ground, farewell; sweet soil,\nadieu;\n    My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet!\n    Where'er I wander, boast of this I can:\n    Though banish'd, yet a trueborn English man.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\nLondon. The court\n\nEnter the KING, with BAGOT and GREEN, at one door;\nand the DUKE OF AUMERLE at another\n\n  KING RICHARD. We did observe. Cousin Aumerle,\n    How far brought you high Hereford on his way?\n  AUMERLE. I brought high Hereford, if you call him so,\n    But to the next high way, and there I left him.\n  KING RICHARD. And say, what store of parting tears were shed?\n  AUMERLE. Faith, none for me; except the north-east wind,\n    Which then blew bitterly against our faces,\n    Awak'd the sleeping rheum, and so by chance\n    Did grace our hollow parting with a tear.\n  KING RICHARD. What said our cousin when you parted with him?\n  AUMERLE. 'Farewell.'\n    And, for my heart disdained that my tongue\n    Should so profane the word, that taught me craft\n    To counterfeit oppression of such grief\n    That words seem'd buried in my sorrow's grave.\n    Marry, would the word 'farewell' have length'ned hours\n    And added years to his short banishment,\n    He should have had a volume of farewells;\n    But since it would not, he had none of me.\n  KING RICHARD. He is our cousin, cousin; but 'tis doubt,\n    When time shall call him home from banishment,\n    Whether our kinsman come to see his friends.\n    Ourself, and Bushy, Bagot here, and Green,\n    Observ'd his courtship to the common people;\n    How he did seem to dive into their hearts\n    With humble and familiar courtesy;\n    What reverence he did throw away on slaves,\n    Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles\n    And patient underbearing of his fortune,\n    As 'twere to banish their affects with him.\n    Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench;\n    A brace of draymen bid God speed him well\n    And had the tribute of his supple knee,\n    With 'Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends';\n    As were our England in reversion his,\n    And he our subjects' next degree in hope.\n  GREEN. Well, he is gone; and with him go these thoughts!\n    Now for the rebels which stand out in Ireland,\n    Expedient manage must be made, my liege,\n    Ere further leisure yicld them further means\n    For their advantage and your Highness' loss.\n  KING RICHARD. We will ourself in person to this war;\n    And, for our coffers, with too great a court\n    And liberal largess, are grown somewhat light,\n    We are enforc'd to farm our royal realm;\n    The revenue whereof shall furnish us\n    For our affairs in hand. If that come short,\n    Our substitutes at home shall have blank charters;\n    Whereto, when they shall know what men are rich,\n    They shall subscribe them for large sums of gold,\n    And send them after to supply our wants;\n    For we will make for Ireland presently.\n\n                     Enter BUSHY\n\n    Bushy, what news?\n  BUSHY. Old John of Gaunt is grievous sick, my lord,\n    Suddenly taken; and hath sent poste-haste\n    To entreat your Majesty to visit him.\n  KING RICHARD. Where lies he?\n  BUSHY. At Ely House.\n  KING RICHARD. Now put it, God, in the physician's mind\n    To help him to his grave immediately!\n    The lining of his coffers shall make coats\n    To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars.\n    Come, gentlemen, let's all go visit him.\n    Pray God we may make haste, and come too late!\n  ALL. Amen.                                              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nLondon. Ely House\n\nEnter JOHN OF GAUNT, sick, with the DUKE OF YORK, etc.\n\n  GAUNT. Will the King come, that I may breathe my last\n    In wholesome counsel to his unstaid youth?\n  YORK. Vex not yourself, nor strive not with your breath;\n    For all in vain comes counsel to his ear.\n  GAUNT. O, but they say the tongues of dying men\n    Enforce attention like deep harmony.\n    Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain;\n    For they breathe truth that breathe their words -in pain.\n    He that no more must say is listen'd more\n    Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose;\n    More are men's ends mark'd than their lives before.\n    The setting sun, and music at the close,\n    As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,\n    Writ in remembrance more than things long past.\n    Though Richard my life's counsel would not hear,\n    My death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.\n  YORK. No; it is stopp'd with other flattering sounds,\n    As praises, of whose taste the wise are fond,\n    Lascivious metres, to whose venom sound\n    The open ear of youth doth always listen;\n    Report of fashions in proud Italy,\n    Whose manners still our tardy apish nation\n    Limps after in base imitation.\n    Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity-\n    So it be new, there's no respect how vile-\n    That is not quickly buzz'd into his ears?\n    Then all too late comes counsel to be heard\n    Where will doth mutiny with wit's regard.\n    Direct not him whose way himself will choose.\n    'Tis breath thou lack'st, and that breath wilt thou lose.\n  GAUNT. Methinks I am a prophet new inspir'd,\n    And thus expiring do foretell of him:\n    His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last,\n    For violent fires soon burn out themselves;\n    Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short;\n    He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes;\n    With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder;\n    Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,\n    Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.\n    This royal throne of kings, this scept'red isle,\n    This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,\n    This other Eden, demi-paradise,\n    This fortress built by Nature for herself\n    Against infection and the hand of war,\n    This happy breed of men, this little world,\n    This precious stone set in the silver sea,\n    Which serves it in the office of a wall,\n    Or as a moat defensive to a house,\n    Against the envy of less happier lands;\n    This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,\n    This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,\n    Fear'd by their breed, and famous by their birth,\n    Renowned for their deeds as far from home,\n    For Christian service and true chivalry,\n    As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry\n    Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son;\n    This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,\n    Dear for her reputation through the world,\n    Is now leas'd out-I die pronouncing it-\n    Like to a tenement or pelting farm.\n    England, bound in with the triumphant sea,\n    Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege\n    Of wat'ry Neptune, is now bound in with shame,\n    With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds;\n    That England, that was wont to conquer others,\n    Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.\n    Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life,\n    How happy then were my ensuing death!\n\n    Enter KING and QUEEN, AUMERLE, BUSHY, GREEN, BAGOT,\n                Ross, and WILLOUGHBY\n\n  YORK. The King is come; deal mildly with his youth,\n    For young hot colts being rag'd do rage the more.\n  QUEEN. How fares our noble uncle Lancaster?\n  KING RICHARD. What comfort, man? How is't with aged Gaunt?\n  GAUNT. O, how that name befits my composition!\n    Old Gaunt, indeed; and gaunt in being old.\n    Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast;\n    And who abstains from meat that is not gaunt?\n    For sleeping England long time have I watch'd;\n    Watching breeds leanness, leanness is an gaunt.\n    The pleasure that some fathers feed upon\n    Is my strict fast-I mean my children's looks;\n    And therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt.\n    Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave,\n    Whose hollow womb inherits nought but bones.\n  KING RICHARD. Can sick men play so nicely with their names?\n  GAUNT. No, misery makes sport to mock itself:\n    Since thou dost seek to kill my name in me,\n    I mock my name, great king, to flatter thee.\n  KING RICHARD. Should dying men flatter with those that live?\n  GAUNT. No, no; men living flatter those that die.\n  KING RICHARD. Thou, now a-dying, sayest thou flatterest me.\n  GAUNT. O, no! thou diest, though I the sicker be.\n  KING RICHARD. I am in health, I breathe, and see thee ill.\n  GAUNT. Now He that made me knows I see thee ill;\n    Ill in myself to see, and in thee seeing ill.\n    Thy death-bed is no lesser than thy land\n    Wherein thou liest in reputation sick;\n    And thou, too careless patient as thou art,\n    Commit'st thy anointed body to the cure\n    Of those physicians that first wounded thee:\n    A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown,\n    Whose compass is no bigger than thy head;\n    And yet, incaged in so small a verge,\n    The waste is no whit lesser than thy land.\n    O, had thy grandsire with a prophet's eye\n    Seen how his son's son should destroy his sons,\n    From forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame,\n    Deposing thee before thou wert possess'd,\n    Which art possess'd now to depose thyself.\n    Why, cousin, wert thou regent of the world,\n    It were a shame to let this land by lease;\n    But for thy world enjoying but this land,\n    Is it not more than shame to shame it so?\n    Landlord of England art thou now, not King.\n    Thy state of law is bondslave to the law;\n    And thou-\n  KING RICHARD. A lunatic lean-witted fool,\n    Presuming on an ague's privilege,\n    Darest with thy frozen admonition\n    Make pale our cheek, chasing the royal blood\n    With fury from his native residence.\n    Now by my seat's right royal majesty,\n    Wert thou not brother to great Edward's son,\n    This tongue that runs so roundly in thy head\n    Should run thy head from thy unreverent shoulders.\n  GAUNT. O, Spare me not, my brother Edward's son,\n    For that I was his father Edward's son;\n    That blood already, like the pelican,\n    Hast thou tapp'd out, and drunkenly carous'd.\n    My brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul-\n    Whom fair befall in heaven 'mongst happy souls!-\n    May be a precedent and witness good\n    That thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood.\n    Join with the present sickness that I have;\n    And thy unkindness be like crooked age,\n    To crop at once a too long withered flower.\n    Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee!\n    These words hereafter thy tormentors be!\n    Convey me to my bed, then to my grave.\n    Love they to live that love and honour have.\n                               Exit, borne out by his attendants\n  KING RICHARD. And let them die that age and sullens have;\n    For both hast thou, and both become the grave.\n  YORK. I do beseech your Majesty impute his words\n    To wayward sickliness and age in him.\n    He loves you, on my life, and holds you dear\n    As Harry Duke of Hereford, were he here.\n  KING RICHARD. Right, you say true: as Hereford's love, so his;\n    As theirs, so mine; and all be as it is.\n\n                Enter NORTHUMBERLAND\n\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your\nMajesty.\n  KING RICHARD. What says he?\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Nay, nothing; all is said.\n    His tongue is now a stringless instrument;\n    Words, life, and all, old Lancaster hath spent.\n  YORK. Be York the next that must be bankrupt so!\n    Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.\n  KING RICHARD. The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he;\n    His time is spent, our pilgrimage must be.\n    So much for that. Now for our Irish wars.\n    We must supplant those rough rug-headed kerns,\n    Which live like venom where no venom else\n    But only they have privilege to live.\n    And for these great affairs do ask some charge,\n    Towards our assistance we do seize to us\n    The plate, coin, revenues, and moveables,\n    Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possess'd.\n  YORK. How long shall I be patient? Ah, how long\n    Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong?\n    Not Gloucester's death, nor Hereford's banishment,\n    Nor Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private wrongs,\n    Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke\n    About his marriage, nor my own disgrace,\n    Have ever made me sour my patient cheek\n    Or bend one wrinkle on my sovereign's face.\n    I am the last of noble Edward's sons,\n    Of whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first.\n    In war was never lion rag'd more fierce,\n    In peace was never gentle lamb more mild,\n    Than was that young and princely gentleman.\n    His face thou hast, for even so look'd he,\n    Accomplish'd with the number of thy hours;\n    But when he frown'd, it was against the French\n    And not against his friends. His noble hand\n    Did win what he did spend, and spent not that\n    Which his triumphant father's hand had won.\n    His hands were guilty of no kindred blood,\n    But bloody with the enemies of his kin.\n    O Richard! York is too far gone with grief,\n    Or else he never would compare between-\n  KING RICHARD. Why, uncle, what's the matter?\n  YORK. O my liege,\n    Pardon me, if you please; if not, I, pleas'd\n    Not to be pardoned, am content withal.\n    Seek you to seize and gripe into your hands\n    The royalties and rights of banish'd Hereford?\n    Is not Gaunt dead? and doth not Hereford live?\n    Was not Gaunt just? and is not Harry true?\n    Did not the one deserve to have an heir?\n    Is not his heir a well-deserving son?\n    Take Hereford's rights away, and take from Time\n    His charters and his customary rights;\n    Let not to-morrow then ensue to-day;\n    Be not thyself-for how art thou a king\n    But by fair sequence and succession?\n    Now, afore God-God forbid I say true!-\n    If you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights,\n    Call in the letters patents that he hath\n    By his attorneys-general to sue\n    His livery, and deny his off'red homage,\n    You pluck a thousand dangers on your head,\n    You lose a thousand well-disposed hearts,\n    And prick my tender patience to those thoughts\n    Which honour and allegiance cannot think.\n  KING RICHARD. Think what you will, we seize into our hands\n    His plate, his goods, his money, and his lands.\n  YORK. I'll not be by the while. My liege, farewell.\n    What will ensue hereof there's none can tell;\n    But by bad courses may be understood\n    That their events can never fall out good.              Exit\n  KING RICHARD. Go, Bushy, to the Earl of Wiltshire straight;\n    Bid him repair to us to Ely House\n    To see this business. To-morrow next\n    We will for Ireland; and 'tis time, I trow.\n    And we create, in absence of ourself,\n    Our Uncle York Lord Governor of England;\n    For he is just, and always lov'd us well.\n    Come on, our queen; to-morrow must we part;\n    Be merry, for our time of stay is short.\n                   Flourish. Exeunt KING, QUEEN, BUSHY, AUMERLE,\n                                                GREEN, and BAGOT\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Well, lords, the Duke of Lancaster is dead.\n    Ross. And living too; for now his son is Duke.\n  WILLOUGHBY. Barely in title, not in revenues.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Richly in both, if justice had her right.\n  ROSS. My heart is great; but it must break with silence,\n    Ere't be disburdened with a liberal tongue.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Nay, speak thy mind; and let him ne'er speak\nmore\n    That speaks thy words again to do thee harm!\n  WILLOUGHBY. Tends that thou wouldst speak to the Duke of\nHereford?\n    If it be so, out with it boldly, man;\n    Quick is mine ear to hear of good towards him.\n  ROSS. No good at all that I can do for him;\n    Unless you call it good to pity him,\n    Bereft and gelded of his patrimony.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Now, afore God, 'tis shame such wrongs are\nborne\n    In him, a royal prince, and many moe\n    Of noble blood in this declining land.\n    The King is not himself, but basely led\n    By flatterers; and what they will inform,\n    Merely in hate, 'gainst any of us an,\n    That will the King severely prosecute\n    'Gainst us, our lives, our children, and our heirs.\n  ROSS. The commons hath he pill'd with grievous taxes;\n    And quite lost their hearts; the nobles hath he find\n    For ancient quarrels and quite lost their hearts.\n  WILLOUGHBY. And daily new exactions are devis'd,\n    As blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what;\n    But what, a God's name, doth become of this?\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Wars hath not wasted it, for warr'd he hath\nnot,\n    But basely yielded upon compromise\n    That which his noble ancestors achiev'd with blows.\n    More hath he spent in peace than they in wars.\n  ROSS. The Earl of Wiltshire hath the realm in farm.\n  WILLOUGHBY. The King's grown bankrupt like a broken man.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Reproach and dissolution hangeth over him.\n  ROSS. He hath not money for these Irish wars,\n    His burdenous taxations notwithstanding,\n    But by the robbing of the banish'd Duke.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. His noble kinsman-most degenerate king!\n    But, lords, we hear this fearful tempest sing,\n    Yet seek no shelter to avoid the storm;\n    We see the wind sit sore upon our sails,\n    And yet we strike not, but securely perish.\n  ROSS. We see the very wreck that we must suffer;\n    And unavoided is the danger now\n    For suffering so the causes of our wreck.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Not so; even through the hollow eyes of death\n    I spy life peering; but I dare not say\n    How near the tidings of our comfort is.\n  WILLOUGHBY. Nay, let us share thy thoughts as thou dost ours.\n  ROSS. Be confident to speak, Northumberland.\n    We three are but thyself, and, speaking so,\n    Thy words are but as thoughts; therefore be bold.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Then thus: I have from Le Port Blanc, a bay\n    In Brittany, receiv'd intelligence\n    That Harry Duke of Hereford, Rainold Lord Cobham,\n    That late broke from the Duke of Exeter,\n    His brother, Archbishop late of Canterbury,\n    Sir Thomas Erpingham, Sir John Ramston,\n    Sir John Norbery, Sir Robert Waterton, and Francis Quoint-\n    All these, well furnish'd by the Duke of Britaine,\n    With eight tall ships, three thousand men of war,\n    Are making hither with all due expedience,\n    And shortly mean to touch our northern shore.\n    Perhaps they had ere this, but that they stay\n    The first departing of the King for Ireland.\n    If then we shall shake off our slavish yoke,\n    Imp out our drooping country's broken wing,\n    Redeem from broking pawn the blemish'd crown,\n    Wipe off the dust that hides our sceptre's gilt,\n    And make high majesty look like itself,\n    Away with me in post to Ravenspurgh;\n    But if you faint, as fearing to do so,\n    Stay and be secret, and myself will go.\n  ROSS. To horse, to horse! Urge doubts to them that fear.\n  WILLOUGHBY. Hold out my horse, and I will first be there.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\nWindsor Castle\n\nEnter QUEEN, BUSHY, and BAGOT\n\n  BUSHY. Madam, your Majesty is too much sad.\n    You promis'd, when you parted with the King,\n    To lay aside life-harming heaviness\n    And entertain a cheerful disposition.\n  QUEEN. To please the King, I did; to please myself\n    I cannot do it; yet I know no cause\n    Why I should welcome such a guest as grief,\n    Save bidding farewell to so sweet a guest\n    As my sweet Richard. Yet again methinks\n    Some unborn sorrow, ripe in fortune's womb,\n    Is coming towards me, and my inward soul\n    With nothing trembles. At some thing it grieves\n    More than with parting from my lord the King.\n  BUSHY. Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows,\n    Which shows like grief itself, but is not so;\n    For sorrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears,\n    Divides one thing entire to many objects,\n    Like perspectives which, rightly gaz'd upon,\n    Show nothing but confusion-ey'd awry,\n    Distinguish form. So your sweet Majesty,\n    Looking awry upon your lord's departure,\n    Find shapes of grief more than himself to wail;\n    Which, look'd on as it is, is nought but shadows\n    Of what it is not. Then, thrice-gracious Queen,\n    More than your lord's departure weep not-more is not seen;\n    Or if it be, 'tis with false sorrow's eye,\n    Which for things true weeps things imaginary.\n  QUEEN. It may be so; but yet my inward soul\n    Persuades me it is otherwise. Howe'er it be,\n    I cannot but be sad; so heavy sad\n    As-though, on thinking, on no thought I think-\n    Makes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink.\n  BUSHY. 'Tis nothing but conceit, my gracious lady.\n  QUEEN. 'Tis nothing less: conceit is still deriv'd\n    From some forefather grief; mine is not so,\n    For nothing hath begot my something grief,\n    Or something hath the nothing that I grieve;\n    'Tis in reversion that I do possess-\n    But what it is that is not yet known what,\n    I cannot name; 'tis nameless woe, I wot.\n\n                   Enter GREEN\n\n  GREEN. God save your Majesty! and well met, gentlemen.\n    I hope the King is not yet shipp'd for Ireland.\n  QUEEN. Why hopest thou so? 'Tis better hope he is;\n    For his designs crave haste, his haste good hope.\n    Then wherefore dost thou hope he is not shipp'd?\n  GREEN. That he, our hope, might have retir'd his power\n    And driven into despair an enemy's hope\n    Who strongly hath set footing in this land.\n    The banish'd Bolingbroke repeals himself,\n    And with uplifted arms is safe arriv'd\n    At Ravenspurgh.\n  QUEEN. Now God in heaven forbid!\n  GREEN. Ah, madam, 'tis too true; and that is worse,\n    The Lord Northumberland, his son young Henry Percy,\n    The Lords of Ross, Beaumond, and Willoughby,\n    With all their powerful friends, are fled to him.\n  BUSHY. Why have you not proclaim'd Northumberland\n    And all the rest revolted faction traitors?\n  GREEN. We have; whereupon the Earl of Worcester\n    Hath broken his staff, resign'd his stewardship,\n    And all the household servants fled with him\n    To Bolingbroke.\n  QUEEN. So, Green, thou art the midwife to my woe,\n    And Bolingbroke my sorrow's dismal heir.\n    Now hath my soul brought forth her prodigy;\n    And I, a gasping new-deliver'd mother,\n    Have woe to woe, sorrow to sorrow join'd.\n  BUSHY. Despair not, madam.\n  QUEEN. Who shall hinder me?\n    I will despair, and be at enmity\n    With cozening hope-he is a flatterer,\n    A parasite, a keeper-back of death,\n    Who gently would dissolve the bands of life,\n    Which false hope lingers in extremity.\n\n                    Enter YORK\n\n  GREEN. Here comes the Duke of York.\n  QUEEN. With signs of war about his aged neck.\n    O, full of careful business are his looks!\n    Uncle, for God's sake, speak comfortable words.\n  YORK. Should I do so, I should belie my thoughts.\n    Comfort's in heaven; and we are on the earth,\n    Where nothing lives but crosses, cares, and grief.\n    Your husband, he is gone to save far off,\n    Whilst others come to make him lose at home.\n    Here am I left to underprop his land,\n    Who, weak with age, cannot support myself.\n    Now comes the sick hour that his surfeit made;\n    Now shall he try his friends that flatter'd him.\n\n                   Enter a SERVINGMAN\n\n  SERVINGMAN. My lord, your son was gone before I came.\n  YORK. He was-why so go all which way it will!\n    The nobles they are fled, the commons they are cold\n    And will, I fear, revolt on Hereford's side.\n    Sirrah, get thee to Plashy, to my sister Gloucester;\n    Bid her send me presently a thousand pound.\n    Hold, take my ring.\n  SERVINGMAN. My lord, I had forgot to tell your lordship,\n    To-day, as I came by, I called there-\n    But I shall grieve you to report the rest.\n  YORK. What is't, knave?\n  SERVINGMAN. An hour before I came, the Duchess died.\n  YORK. God for his mercy! what a tide of woes\n    Comes rushing on this woeful land at once!\n    I know not what to do. I would to God,\n    So my untruth had not provok'd him to it,\n    The King had cut off my head with my brother's.\n    What, are there no posts dispatch'd for Ireland?\n    How shall we do for money for these wars?\n    Come, sister-cousin, I would say-pray, pardon me.\n    Go, fellow, get thee home, provide some carts,\n    And bring away the armour that is there.\n                                                 Exit SERVINGMAN\n    Gentlemen, will you go muster men?\n    If I know how or which way to order these affairs\n    Thus disorderly thrust into my hands,\n    Never believe me. Both are my kinsmen.\n    T'one is my sovereign, whom both my oath\n    And duty bids defend; t'other again\n    Is my kinsman, whom the King hath wrong'd,\n    Whom conscience and my kindred bids to right.\n    Well, somewhat we must do.-Come, cousin,\n    I'll dispose of you. Gentlemen, go muster up your men\n    And meet me presently at Berkeley.\n    I should to Plashy too,\n    But time will not permit. All is uneven,\n    And everything is left at six and seven.\n                                           Exeunt YORK and QUEEN\n  BUSHY. The wind sits fair for news to go to Ireland.\n    But none returns. For us to levy power\n    Proportionable to the enemy\n    Is all unpossible.\n  GREEN. Besides, our nearness to the King in love\n    Is near the hate of those love not the King.\n  BAGOT. And that is the wavering commons; for their love\n    Lies in their purses; and whoso empties them,\n    By so much fills their hearts with deadly hate.\n  BUSHY. Wherein the King stands generally condemn'd.\n  BAGOT. If judgment lie in them, then so do we,\n    Because we ever have been near the King.\n  GREEN. Well, I will for refuge straight to Bristow Castle.\n    The Earl of Wiltshire is already there.\n  BUSHY. Thither will I with you; for little office\n    Will the hateful commons perform for us,\n    Except Eke curs to tear us all to pieces.\n    Will you go along with us?\n  BAGOT. No; I will to Ireland to his Majesty.\n    Farewell. If heart's presages be not vain,\n    We three here part that ne'er shall meet again.\n  BUSHY. That's as York thrives to beat back Bolingbroke.\n  GREEN. Alas, poor Duke! the task he undertakes\n    Is numb'ring sands and drinking oceans dry.\n    Where one on his side fights, thousands will fly.\n    Farewell at once-for once, for all, and ever.\n  BUSHY. Well, we may meet again.\n  BAGOT. I fear me, never.                                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\nGloucestershire\n\nEnter BOLINGBROKE and NORTHUMBERLAND, forces\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. How far is it, my lord, to Berkeley now?\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Believe me, noble lord,\n    I am a stranger here in Gloucestershire.\n    These high wild hills and rough uneven ways\n    Draws out our miles, and makes them wearisome;\n    And yet your fair discourse hath been as sugar,\n    Making the hard way sweet and delectable.\n    But I bethink me what a weary way\n    From Ravenspurgh to Cotswold will be found\n    In Ross and Willoughby, wanting your company,\n    Which, I protest, hath very much beguil'd\n    The tediousness and process of my travel.\n    But theirs is sweet'ned with the hope to have\n    The present benefit which I possess;\n    And hope to joy is little less in joy\n    Than hope enjoy'd. By this the weary lords\n    Shall make their way seem short, as mine hath done\n    By sight of what I have, your noble company.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Of much less value is my company\n    Than your good words. But who comes here?\n\n                 Enter HARRY PERCY\n\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. It is my son, young Harry Percy,\n    Sent from my brother Worcester, whencesoever.\n    Harry, how fares your uncle?\n  PERCY. I had thought, my lord, to have learn'd his health of\nyou.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Why, is he not with the Queen?\n  PERCY. No, my good lord; he hath forsook the court,\n    Broken his staff of office, and dispers'd\n    The household of the King.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. What was his reason?\n    He was not so resolv'd when last we spake together.\n  PERCY. Because your lordship was proclaimed traitor.\n    But he, my lord, is gone to Ravenspurgh,\n    To offer service to the Duke of Hereford;\n    And sent me over by Berkeley, to discover\n    What power the Duke of York had levied there;\n    Then with directions to repair to Ravenspurgh.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Have you forgot the Duke of Hereford, boy?\n  PERCY. No, my good lord; for that is not forgot\n    Which ne'er I did remember; to my knowledge,\n    I never in my life did look on him.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Then learn to know him now; this is the Duke.\n  PERCY. My gracious lord, I tender you my service,\n    Such as it is, being tender, raw, and young;\n    Which elder days shall ripen, and confirm\n    To more approved service and desert.\n  BOLINGBROKE. I thank thee, gentle Percy; and be sure\n    I count myself in nothing else so happy\n    As in a soul rememb'ring my good friends;\n    And as my fortune ripens with thy love,\n    It shall be still thy true love's recompense.\n    My heart this covenant makes, my hand thus seals it.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. How far is it to Berkeley? And what stir\n    Keeps good old York there with his men of war?\n  PERCY. There stands the castle, by yon tuft of trees,\n    Mann'd with three hundred men, as I have heard;\n    And in it are the Lords of York, Berkeley, and Seymour-\n    None else of name and noble estimate.\n\n                  Enter Ross and WILLOUGHBY\n\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Here come the Lords of Ross and Willoughby,\n    Bloody with spurring, fiery-red with haste.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Welcome, my lords. I wot your love pursues\n    A banish'd traitor. All my treasury\n    Is yet but unfelt thanks, which, more enrich'd,\n    Shall be your love and labour's recompense.\n  ROSS. Your presence makes us rich, most noble lord.\n  WILLOUGHBY. And far surmounts our labour to attain it.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Evermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor;\n    Which, till my infant fortune comes to years,\n    Stands for my bounty. But who comes here?\n\n                     Enter BERKELEY\n\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. It is my Lord of Berkeley, as I guess.\n  BERKELEY. My Lord of Hereford, my message is to you.\n  BOLINGBROKE. My lord, my answer is-'to Lancaster';\n    And I am come to seek that name in England;\n    And I must find that title in your tongue\n    Before I make reply to aught you say.\n  BERKELEY. Mistake me not, my lord; 'tis not my meaning\n    To raze one title of your honour out.\n    To you, my lord, I come-what lord you will-\n    From the most gracious regent of this land,\n    The Duke of York, to know what pricks you on\n    To take advantage of the absent time,\n    And fright our native peace with self-borne arms.\n\n                 Enter YORK, attended\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. I shall not need transport my words by you;\n    Here comes his Grace in person. My noble uncle!\n                                                     [Kneels]\n  YORK. Show me thy humble heart, and not thy knee,\n    Whose duty is deceivable and false.\n  BOLINGBROKE. My gracious uncle!-\n  YORK. Tut, tut!\n    Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle.\n    I am no traitor's uncle; and that word 'grace'\n    In an ungracious mouth is but profane.\n    Why have those banish'd and forbidden legs\n    Dar'd once to touch a dust of England's ground?\n    But then more 'why?'-why have they dar'd to march\n    So many miles upon her peaceful bosom,\n    Frighting her pale-fac'd villages with war\n    And ostentation of despised arms?\n    Com'st thou because the anointed King is hence?\n    Why, foolish boy, the King is left behind,\n    And in my loyal bosom lies his power.\n    Were I but now lord of such hot youth\n    As when brave Gaunt, thy father, and myself\n    Rescued the Black Prince, that young Mars of men,\n    From forth the ranks of many thousand French,\n    O, then how quickly should this arm of mine,\n    Now prisoner to the palsy, chastise the\n    And minister correction to thy fault!\n  BOLINGBROKE My gracious uncle, let me know my fault;\n    On what condition stands it and wherein?\n  YORK. Even in condition of the worst degree-\n    In gross rebellion and detested treason.\n    Thou art a banish'd man, and here art come\n    Before the expiration of thy time,\n    In braving arms against thy sovereign.\n  BOLINGBROKE. As I was banish'd, I was banish'd Hereford;\n    But as I come, I come for Lancaster.\n    And, noble uncle, I beseech your Grace\n    Look on my wrongs with an indifferent eye.\n    You are my father, for methinks in you\n    I see old Gaunt alive. O, then, my father,\n    Will you permit that I shall stand condemn'd\n    A wandering vagabond; my rights and royalties\n    Pluck'd from my arms perforce, and given away\n    To upstart unthrifts? Wherefore was I born?\n    If that my cousin king be King in England,\n    It must be granted I am Duke of Lancaster.\n    You have a son, Aumerle, my noble cousin;\n    Had you first died, and he been thus trod down,\n    He should have found his uncle Gaunt a father\n    To rouse his wrongs and chase them to the bay.\n    I am denied to sue my livery here,\n    And yet my letters patents give me leave.\n    My father's goods are all distrain'd and sold;\n    And these and all are all amiss employ'd.\n    What would you have me do? I am a subject,\n    And I challenge law-attorneys are denied me;\n    And therefore personally I lay my claim\n    To my inheritance of free descent.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. The noble Duke hath been too much abused.\n  ROSS. It stands your Grace upon to do him right.\n  WILLOUGHBY. Base men by his endowments are made great.\n  YORK. My lords of England, let me tell you this:\n    I have had feeling of my cousin's wrongs,\n    And labour'd all I could to do him right;\n    But in this kind to come, in braving arms,\n    Be his own carver and cut out his way,\n    To find out right with wrong-it may not be;\n    And you that do abet him in this kind\n    Cherish rebellion, and are rebels all.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. The noble Duke hath sworn his coming is\n    But for his own; and for the right of that\n    We all have strongly sworn to give him aid;\n    And let him never see joy that breaks that oath!\n  YORK. Well, well, I see the issue of these arms.\n    I cannot mend it, I must needs confess,\n    Because my power is weak and all ill left;\n    But if I could, by Him that gave me life,\n    I would attach you all and make you stoop\n    Unto the sovereign mercy of the King;\n    But since I cannot, be it known unto you\n    I do remain as neuter. So, fare you well;\n    Unless you please to enter in the castle,\n    And there repose you for this night.\n  BOLINGBROKE. An offer, uncle, that we will accept.\n    But we must win your Grace to go with us\n    To Bristow Castle, which they say is held\n    By Bushy, Bagot, and their complices,\n    The caterpillars of the commonwealth,\n    Which I have sworn to weed and pluck away.\n  YORK. It may be I will go with you; but yet I'll pause,\n    For I am loath to break our country's laws.\n    Nor friends nor foes, to me welcome you are.\n    Things past redress are now with me past care.        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\nA camp in Wales\n\nEnter EARL OF SALISBURY and a WELSH CAPTAIN\n\n  CAPTAIN. My Lord of Salisbury, we have stay'd ten days\n    And hardly kept our countrymen together,\n    And yet we hear no tidings from the King;\n    Therefore we will disperse ourselves. Farewell.\n  SALISBURY. Stay yet another day, thou trusty Welshman;\n    The King reposeth all his confidence in thee.\n  CAPTAIN. 'Tis thought the King is dead; we will not stay.\n    The bay trees in our country are all wither'd,\n    And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven;\n    The pale-fac'd moon looks bloody on the earth,\n    And lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change;\n    Rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap-\n    The one in fear to lose what they enjoy,\n    The other to enjoy by rage and war.\n    These signs forerun the death or fall of kings.\n    Farewell. Our countrymen are gone and fled,\n    As well assur'd Richard their King is dead.             Exit\n  SALISBURY. Ah, Richard, with the eyes of heavy mind,\n    I see thy glory like a shooting star\n    Fall to the base earth from the firmament!\n    The sun sets weeping in the lowly west,\n    Witnessing storms to come, woe, and unrest;\n    Thy friends are fled, to wait upon thy foes;\n    And crossly to thy good all fortune goes.               Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nBOLINGBROKE'S camp at Bristol\n\nEnter BOLINGBROKE, YORK, NORTHUMBERLAND, PERCY, ROSS, WILLOUGHBY,\nBUSHY and GREEN, prisoners\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. Bring forth these men.\n    Bushy and Green, I will not vex your souls-\n    Since presently your souls must part your bodies-\n    With too much urging your pernicious lives,\n    For 'twere no charity; yet, to wash your blood\n    From off my hands, here in the view of men\n    I will unfold some causes of your deaths:\n    You have misled a prince, a royal king,\n    A happy gentleman in blood and lineaments,\n    By you unhappied and disfigured clean;\n    You have in manner with your sinful hours\n    Made a divorce betwixt his queen and him;\n    Broke the possession of a royal bed,\n    And stain'd the beauty of a fair queen's cheeks\n    With tears drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs;\n    Myself-a prince by fortune of my birth,\n    Near to the King in blood, and near in love\n    Till you did make him misinterpret me-\n    Have stoop'd my neck under your injuries\n    And sigh'd my English breath in foreign clouds,\n    Eating the bitter bread of banishment,\n    Whilst you have fed upon my signories,\n    Dispark'd my parks and fell'd my forest woods,\n    From my own windows torn my household coat,\n    Raz'd out my imprese, leaving me no sign\n    Save men's opinions and my living blood\n    To show the world I am a gentleman.\n    This and much more, much more than twice all this,\n    Condemns you to the death. See them delivered over\n    To execution and the hand of death.\n  BUSHY. More welcome is the stroke of death to me\n    Than Bolingbroke to England. Lords, farewell.\n  GREEN. My comfort is that heaven will take our souls,\n    And plague injustice with the pains of hell.\n  BOLINGBROKE. My Lord Northumberland, see them dispatch'd.\n           Exeunt NORTHUMBERLAND, and others, with the prisoners\n    Uncle, you say the Queen is at your house;\n    For God's sake, fairly let her be entreated.\n    Tell her I send to her my kind commends;\n    Take special care my greetings be delivered.\n  YORK. A gentleman of mine I have dispatch'd\n    With letters of your love to her at large.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Thanks, gentle uncle. Come, lords, away,\n    To fight with Glendower and his complices.\n    Awhile to work, and after holiday.                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\nThe coast of Wales. A castle in view\n\nDrums. Flourish and colours. Enter the KING, the BISHOP OF\nCARLISLE,\nAUMERLE, and soldiers\n\n  KING RICHARD. Barkloughly Castle can they this at hand?\n  AUMERLE. Yea, my lord. How brooks your Grace the air\n    After your late tossing on the breaking seas?\n  KING RICHARD. Needs must I like it well. I weep for joy\n    To stand upon my kingdom once again.\n    Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand,\n    Though rebels wound thee with their horses' hoofs.\n    As a long-parted mother with her child\n    Plays fondly with her tears and smiles in meeting,\n    So weeping-smiling greet I thee, my earth,\n    And do thee favours with my royal hands.\n    Feed not thy sovereign's foe, my gentle earth,\n    Nor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense;\n    But let thy spiders, that suck up thy venom,\n    And heavy-gaited toads, lie in their way,\n    Doing annoyance to the treacherous feet\n    Which with usurping steps do trample thee;\n    Yield stinging nettles to mine enemies;\n    And when they from thy bosom pluck a flower,\n    Guard it, I pray thee, with a lurking adder,\n    Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch\n    Throw death upon thy sovereign's enemies.\n    Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords.\n    This earth shall have a feeling, and these stones\n    Prove armed soldiers, ere her native king\n    Shall falter under foul rebellion's arms.\n  CARLISLE. Fear not, my lord; that Power that made you king\n    Hath power to keep you king in spite of all.\n    The means that heaven yields must be embrac'd\n    And not neglected; else, if heaven would,\n    And we will not, heaven's offer we refuse,\n    The proffered means of succour and redress.\n  AUMERLE. He means, my lord, that we are too remiss;\n    Whilst Bolingbroke, through our security,\n    Grows strong and great in substance and in power.\n  KING RICHARD. Discomfortable cousin! know'st thou not\n    That when the searching eye of heaven is hid,\n    Behind the globe, that lights the lower world,\n    Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen\n    In murders and in outrage boldly here;\n    But when from under this terrestrial ball\n    He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines\n    And darts his light through every guilty hole,\n    Then murders, treasons, and detested sins,\n    The cloak of night being pluck'd from off their backs,\n    Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves?\n    So when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke,\n    Who all this while hath revell'd in the night,\n    Whilst we were wand'ring with the Antipodes,\n    Shall see us rising in our throne, the east,\n    His treasons will sit blushing in his face,\n    Not able to endure the sight of day,\n    But self-affrighted tremble at his sin.\n    Not all the water in the rough rude sea\n    Can wash the balm off from an anointed king;\n    The breath of worldly men cannot depose\n    The deputy elected by the Lord.\n    For every man that Bolingbroke hath press'd\n    To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,\n    God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay\n    A glorious angel. Then, if angels fight,\n    Weak men must fall; for heaven still guards the right.\n\n                 Enter SALISBURY\n\n    Welcome, my lord. How far off lies your power?\n  SALISBURY. Nor near nor farther off, my gracious lord,\n    Than this weak arm. Discomfort guides my tongue,\n    And bids me speak of nothing but despair.\n    One day too late, I fear me, noble lord,\n    Hath clouded all thy happy days on earth.\n    O, call back yesterday, bid time return,\n    And thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men!\n    To-day, to-day, unhappy day, too late,\n    O'erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune, and thy state;\n    For all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead,\n    Are gone to Bolingbroke, dispers'd, and fled.\n  AUMERLE. Comfort, my liege, why looks your Grace so pale?\n  KING RICHARD. But now the blood of twenty thousand men\n    Did triumph in my face, and they are fled;\n    And, till so much blood thither come again,\n    Have I not reason to look pale and dead?\n    All souls that will be safe, fly from my side;\n    For time hath set a blot upon my pride.\n  AUMERLE. Comfort, my liege; remember who you are.\n  KING RICHARD. I had forgot myself; am I not King?\n    Awake, thou coward majesty! thou sleepest.\n    Is not the King's name twenty thousand names?\n    Arm, arm, my name! a puny subject strikes\n    At thy great glory. Look not to the ground,\n    Ye favourites of a king; are we not high?\n    High be our thoughts. I know my uncle York\n    Hath power enough to serve our turn. But who comes here?\n\n                   Enter SCROOP\n\n  SCROOP. More health and happiness betide my liege\n    Than can my care-tun'd tongue deliver him.\n  KING RICHARD. Mine ear is open and my heart prepar'd.\n    The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold.\n    Say, is my kingdom lost? Why, 'twas my care,\n    And what loss is it to be rid of care?\n    Strives Bolingbroke to be as great as we?\n    Greater he shall not be; if he serve God,\n    We'll serve him too, and be his fellow so.\n    Revolt our subjects? That we cannot mend;\n    They break their faith to God as well as us.\n    Cry woe, destruction, ruin, and decay-\n    The worst is death, and death will have his day.\n  SCROOP. Glad am I that your Highness is so arm'd\n    To bear the tidings of calamity.\n    Like an unseasonable stormy day\n    Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores,\n    As if the world were all dissolv'd to tears,\n    So high above his limits swells the rage\n    Of Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land\n    With hard bright steel and hearts harder than steel.\n    White-beards have arm'd their thin and hairless scalps\n    Against thy majesty; boys, with women's voices,\n    Strive to speak big, and clap their female joints\n    In stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown;\n    Thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bows\n    Of double-fatal yew against thy state;\n    Yea, distaff-women manage rusty bills\n    Against thy seat: both young and old rebel,\n    And all goes worse than I have power to tell.\n  KING RICHARD. Too well, too well thou tell'st a tale so in.\n    Where is the Earl of Wiltshire? Where is Bagot?\n    What is become of Bushy? Where is Green?\n    That they have let the dangerous enemy\n    Measure our confines with such peaceful steps?\n    If we prevail, their heads shall pay for it.\n    I warrant they have made peace with Bolingbroke.\n  SCROOP. Peace have they made with him indeed, my lord.\n  KING RICHARD. O villains, vipers, damn'd without redemption!\n    Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man!\n    Snakes, in my heart-blood warm'd, that sting my heart!\n    Three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas!\n    Would they make peace? Terrible hell make war\n    Upon their spotted souls for this offence!\n  SCROOP. Sweet love, I see, changing his property,\n    Turns to the sourest and most deadly hate.\n    Again uncurse their souls; their peace is made\n    With heads, and not with hands; those whom you curse\n    Have felt the worst of death's destroying wound\n    And lie full low, grav'd in the hollow ground.\n  AUMERLE. Is Bushy, Green, and the Earl of Wiltshire dead?\n  SCROOP. Ay, all of them at Bristow lost their heads.\n  AUMERLE. Where is the Duke my father with his power?\n  KING RICHARD. No matter where-of comfort no man speak.\n    Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;\n    Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes\n    Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.\n    Let's choose executors and talk of wills;\n    And yet not so-for what can we bequeath\n    Save our deposed bodies to the ground?\n    Our lands, our lives, and an, are Bolingbroke's.\n    And nothing can we can our own but death\n    And that small model of the barren earth\n    Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.\n    For God's sake let us sit upon the ground\n    And tell sad stories of the death of kings:\n    How some have been depos'd, some slain in war,\n    Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos'd,\n    Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kill'd,\n    All murder'd-for within the hollow crown\n    That rounds the mortal temples of a king\n    Keeps Death his court; and there the antic sits,\n    Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp;\n    Allowing him a breath, a little scene,\n    To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks;\n    Infusing him with self and vain conceit,\n    As if this flesh which walls about our life\n    Were brass impregnable; and, humour'd thus,\n    Comes at the last, and with a little pin\n    Bores through his castle wall, and farewell, king!\n    Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood\n    With solemn reverence; throw away respect,\n    Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty;\n    For you have but mistook me all this while.\n    I live with bread like you, feel want,\n    Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,\n    How can you say to me I am a king?\n  CARLISLE. My lord, wise men ne'er sit and wail their woes,\n    But presently prevent the ways to wail.\n    To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength,\n    Gives, in your weakness, strength unto your foe,\n    And so your follies fight against yourself.\n    Fear and be slain-no worse can come to fight;\n    And fight and die is death destroying death,\n    Where fearing dying pays death servile breath.\n  AUMERLE. My father hath a power; inquire of him,\n    And learn to make a body of a limb.\n  KING RICHARD. Thou chid'st me well. Proud Bolingbroke, I come\n    To change blows with thee for our day of doom.\n    This ague fit of fear is over-blown;\n    An easy task it is to win our own.\n    Say, Scroop, where lies our uncle with his power?\n    Speak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour.\n  SCROOP. Men judge by the complexion of the sky\n    The state in inclination of the day;\n    So may you by my dull and heavy eye,\n    My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say.\n    I play the torturer, by small and small\n    To lengthen out the worst that must be spoken:\n    Your uncle York is join'd with Bolingbroke;\n    And all your northern castles yielded up,\n    And all your southern gentlemen in arms\n    Upon his party.\n  KING RICHARD. Thou hast said enough.\n      [To AUMERLE] Beshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me\nforth\n    Of that sweet way I was in to despair!\n    What say you now? What comfort have we now?\n    By heaven, I'll hate him everlastingly\n    That bids me be of comfort any more.\n    Go to Flint Castle; there I'll pine away;\n    A king, woe's slave, shall kingly woe obey.\n    That power I have, discharge; and let them go\n    To ear the land that hath some hope to grow,\n    For I have none. Let no man speak again\n    To alter this, for counsel is but vain.\n  AUMERLE. My liege, one word.\n  KING RICHARD. He does me double wrong\n    That wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue.\n    Discharge my followers; let them hence away,\n    From Richard's night to Bolingbroke's fair day.       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\nWales. Before Flint Castle\n\nEnter, with drum and colours, BOLINGBROKE, YORK, NORTHUMBERLAND,\nand forces\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. So that by this intelligence we learn\n    The Welshmen are dispers'd; and Salisbury\n    Is gone to meet the King, who lately landed\n    With some few private friends upon this coast.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. The news is very fair and good, my lord.\n    Richard not far from hence hath hid his head.\n  YORK. It would beseem the Lord Northumberland\n    To say 'King Richard.' Alack the heavy day\n    When such a sacred king should hide his head!\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Your Grace mistakes; only to be brief,\n    Left I his title out.\n  YORK. The time hath been,\n    Would you have been so brief with him, he would\n    Have been so brief with you to shorten you,\n    For taking so the head, your whole head's length.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Mistake not, uncle, further than you should.\n  YORK. Take not, good cousin, further than you should,\n    Lest you mistake. The heavens are over our heads.\n  BOLINGBROKE. I know it, uncle; and oppose not myself\n    Against their will. But who comes here?\n\n                    Enter PERCY\n\n    Welcome, Harry. What, will not this castle yield?\n  PIERCY. The castle royally is mann'd, my lord,\n    Against thy entrance.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Royally!\n    Why, it contains no king?\n  PERCY. Yes, my good lord,\n    It doth contain a king; King Richard lies\n    Within the limits of yon lime and stone;\n    And with him are the Lord Aumerle, Lord Salisbury,\n    Sir Stephen Scroop, besides a clergyman\n    Of holy reverence; who, I cannot learn.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. O, belike it is the Bishop of Carlisle.\n  BOLINGBROKE. [To NORTHUMBERLAND] Noble lord,\n    Go to the rude ribs of that ancient castle;\n    Through brazen trumpet send the breath of parley\n    Into his ruin'd ears, and thus deliver:\n    Henry Bolingbroke\n    On both his knees doth kiss King Richard's hand,\n    And sends allegiance and true faith of heart\n    To his most royal person; hither come\n    Even at his feet to lay my arms and power,\n    Provided that my banishment repeal'd\n    And lands restor'd again be freely granted;\n    If not, I'll use the advantage of my power\n    And lay the summer's dust with showers of blood\n    Rain'd from the wounds of slaughtered Englishmen;\n    The which how far off from the mind of Bolingbroke\n    It is such crimson tempest should bedrench\n    The fresh green lap of fair King Richard's land,\n    My stooping duty tenderly shall show.\n    Go, signify as much, while here we march\n    Upon the grassy carpet of this plain.\n           [NORTHUMBERLAND advances to the Castle, with a\ntrumpet]\n    Let's march without the noise of threat'ning drum,\n    That from this castle's tottered battlements\n    Our fair appointments may be well perus'd.\n    Methinks King Richard and myself should meet\n    With no less terror than the elements\n    Of fire and water, when their thund'ring shock\n    At meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven.\n    Be he the fire, I'll be the yielding water;\n    The rage be his, whilst on the earth I rain\n    My waters-on the earth, and not on him.\n    March on, and mark King Richard how he looks.\n\n      Parle without, and answer within; then a flourish.\n      Enter on the walls, the KING, the BISHOP OF CARLISLE,\n      AUMERLE, SCROOP, and SALISBURY\n\n    See, see, King Richard doth himself appear,\n    As doth the blushing discontented sun\n    From out the fiery portal of the east,\n    When he perceives the envious clouds are bent\n    To dim his glory and to stain the track\n    Of his bright passage to the occident.\n  YORK. Yet he looks like a king. Behold, his eye,\n    As bright as is the eagle's, lightens forth\n    Controlling majesty. Alack, alack, for woe,\n    That any harm should stain so fair a show!\n  KING RICHARD. [To NORTHUMBERLAND] We are amaz'd; and thus long\n      have we stood\n    To watch the fearful bending of thy knee,\n    Because we thought ourself thy lawful King;\n    And if we be, how dare thy joints forget\n    To pay their awful duty to our presence?\n    If we be not, show us the hand of God\n    That hath dismiss'd us from our stewardship;\n    For well we know no hand of blood and bone\n    Can gripe the sacred handle of our sceptre,\n    Unless he do profane, steal, or usurp.\n    And though you think that all, as you have done,\n    Have torn their souls by turning them from us,\n    And we are barren and bereft of friends,\n    Yet know-my master, God omnipotent,\n    Is mustering in his clouds on our behalf\n    Armies of pestilence; and they shall strike\n    Your children yet unborn and unbegot,\n    That lift your vassal hands against my head\n    And threat the glory of my precious crown.\n    Tell Bolingbroke, for yon methinks he stands,\n    That every stride he makes upon my land\n    Is dangerous treason; he is come to open\n    The purple testament of bleeding war;\n    But ere the crown he looks for live in peace,\n    Ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers' sons\n    Shall ill become the flower of England's face,\n    Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace\n    To scarlet indignation, and bedew\n    Her pastures' grass with faithful English blood.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. The King of Heaven forbid our lord the King\n    Should so with civil and uncivil arms\n    Be rush'd upon! Thy thrice noble cousin,\n    Harry Bolingbroke, doth humbly kiss thy hand;\n    And by the honourable tomb he swears\n    That stands upon your royal grandsire's bones,\n    And by the royalties of both your bloods,\n    Currents that spring from one most gracious head,\n    And by the buried hand of warlike Gaunt,\n    And by the worth and honour of himself,\n    Comprising all that may be sworn or said,\n    His coming hither hath no further scope\n    Than for his lineal royalties, and to beg\n    Enfranchisement immediate on his knees;\n    Which on thy royal party granted once,\n    His glittering arms he will commend to rust,\n    His barbed steeds to stables, and his heart\n    To faithful service of your Majesty.\n    This swears he, as he is a prince, is just;\n    And as I am a gentleman I credit him.\n  KING RICHARD. Northumberland, say thus the King returns:\n    His noble cousin is right welcome hither;\n    And all the number of his fair demands\n    Shall be accomplish'd without contradiction.\n    With all the gracious utterance thou hast\n    Speak to his gentle hearing kind commends.\n    [To AUMERLE] We do debase ourselves, cousin, do we not,\n    To look so poorly and to speak so fair?\n    Shall we call back Northumberland, and send\n    Defiance to the traitor, and so die?\n  AUMERLE. No, good my lord; let's fight with gentle words\n    Till time lend friends, and friends their helpful swords.\n  KING RICHARD. O God, O God! that e'er this tongue of mine\n    That laid the sentence of dread banishment\n    On yon proud man should take it off again\n    With words of sooth! O that I were as great\n    As is my grief, or lesser than my name!\n    Or that I could forget what I have been!\n    Or not remember what I must be now!\n    Swell'st thou, proud heart? I'll give thee scope to beat,\n    Since foes have scope to beat both thee and me.\n  AUMERLE. Northumberland comes back from Bolingbroke.\n  KING RICHARD. What must the King do now? Must he submit?\n    The King shall do it. Must he be depos'd?\n    The King shall be contented. Must he lose\n    The name of king? A God's name, let it go.\n    I'll give my jewels for a set of beads,\n    My gorgeous palace for a hermitage,\n    My gay apparel for an almsman's gown,\n    My figur'd goblets for a dish of wood,\n    My sceptre for a palmer's walking staff,\n    My subjects for a pair of carved saints,\n    And my large kingdom for a little grave,\n    A little little grave, an obscure grave-\n    Or I'll be buried in the king's high way,\n    Some way of common trade, where subjects' feet\n    May hourly trample on their sovereign's head;\n    For on my heart they tread now whilst I live,\n    And buried once, why not upon my head?\n    Aumerle, thou weep'st, my tender-hearted cousin!\n    We'll make foul weather with despised tears;\n    Our sighs and they shall lodge the summer corn\n    And make a dearth in this revolting land.\n    Or shall we play the wantons with our woes\n    And make some pretty match with shedding tears?\n    As thus: to drop them still upon one place\n    Till they have fretted us a pair of graves\n    Within the earth; and, therein laid-there lies\n    Two kinsmen digg'd their graves with weeping eyes.\n    Would not this ill do well? Well, well, I see\n    I talk but idly, and you laugh at me.\n    Most mighty prince, my Lord Northumberland,\n    What says King Bolingbroke? Will his Majesty\n    Give Richard leave to live till Richard die?\n    You make a leg, and Bolingbroke says ay.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord, in the base court he doth attend\n    To speak with you; may it please you to come down?\n  KING RICHARD. Down, down I come, like glist'ring Phaethon,\n    Wanting the manage of unruly jades.\n    In the base court? Base court, where kings grow base,\n    To come at traitors' calls, and do them grace.\n    In the base court? Come down? Down, court! down, king!\n    For night-owls shriek where mounting larks should sing.\n                                               Exeunt from above\n  BOLINGBROKE. What says his Majesty?\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Sorrow and grief of heart\n    Makes him speak fondly, like a frantic man;\n    Yet he is come.\n\n          Enter the KING, and his attendants, below\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. Stand all apart,\n    And show fair duty to his Majesty.   [He kneels down]\n    My gracious lord-\n  KING RICHARD. Fair cousin, you debase your princely knee\n    To make the base earth proud with kissing it.\n    Me rather had my heart might feel your love\n    Than my unpleas'd eye see your courtesy.\n    Up, cousin, up; your heart is up, I know,\n    [Touching his own head] Thus high at least, although your\n      knee be low.\n  BOLINGBROKE. My gracious lord, I come but for mine own.\n  KING RICHARD. Your own is yours, and I am yours, and all.\n  BOLINGBROKE. So far be mine, my most redoubted lord,\n    As my true service shall deserve your love.\n  KING RICHARD. Well you deserve. They well deserve to have\n    That know the strong'st and surest way to get.\n    Uncle, give me your hands; nay, dry your eyes:\n    Tears show their love, but want their remedies.\n    Cousin, I am too young to be your father,\n    Though you are old enough to be my heir.\n    What you will have, I'll give, and willing too;\n    For do we must what force will have us do.\n    Set on towards London. Cousin, is it so?\n  BOLINGBROKE. Yea, my good lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Then I must not say no.         Flourish. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\nThe DUKE OF YORK's garden\n\nEnter the QUEEN and two LADIES\n\n  QUEEN. What sport shall we devise here in this garden\n    To drive away the heavy thought of care?\n  LADY. Madam, we'll play at bowls.\n  QUEEN. 'Twill make me think the world is full of rubs\n    And that my fortune runs against the bias.\n  LADY. Madam, we'll dance.\n  QUEEN. My legs can keep no measure in delight,\n    When my poor heart no measure keeps in grief;\n    Therefore no dancing, girl; some other sport.\n  LADY. Madam, we'll tell tales.\n  QUEEN. Of sorrow or of joy?\n  LADY. Of either, madam.\n  QUEEN. Of neither, girl;\n    For if of joy, being altogether wanting,\n    It doth remember me the more of sorrow;\n    Or if of grief, being altogether had,\n    It adds more sorrow to my want of joy;\n    For what I have I need not to repeat,\n    And what I want it boots not to complain.\n  LADY. Madam, I'll sing.\n  QUEEN. 'Tis well' that thou hast cause;\n    But thou shouldst please me better wouldst thou weep.\n  LADY. I could weep, madam, would it do you good.\n  QUEEN. And I could sing, would weeping do me good,\n    And never borrow any tear of thee.\n\n           Enter a GARDENER and two SERVANTS\n\n    But stay, here come the gardeners.\n    Let's step into the shadow of these trees.\n    My wretchedness unto a row of pins,\n    They will talk of state, for every one doth so\n    Against a change: woe is forerun with woe.\n                                       [QUEEN and LADIES retire]\n  GARDENER. Go, bind thou up yon dangling apricocks,\n    Which, like unruly children, make their sire\n    Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight;\n    Give some supportance to the bending twigs.\n    Go thou, and Eke an executioner\n    Cut off the heads of too fast growing sprays\n    That look too lofty in our commonwealth:\n    All must be even in our government.\n    You thus employ'd, I will go root away\n    The noisome weeds which without profit suck\n    The soil's fertility from wholesome flowers.\n  SERVANT. Why should we, in the compass of a pale,\n    Keep law and form and due proportion,\n    Showing, as in a model, our firm estate,\n    When our sea-walled garden, the whole land,\n    Is full of weeds; her fairest flowers chok'd up,\n    Her fruit trees all unprun'd, her hedges ruin'd,\n    Her knots disordered, and her wholesome herbs\n    Swarming with caterpillars?\n  GARDENER. Hold thy peace.\n    He that hath suffer'd this disorder'd spring\n    Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf;\n    The weeds which his broad-spreading leaves did shelter,\n    That seem'd in eating him to hold him up,\n    Are pluck'd up root and all by Bolingbroke-\n    I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.\n  SERVANT. What, are they dead?\n  GARDENER. They are; and Bolingbroke\n    Hath seiz'd the wasteful King. O, what pity is it\n    That he had not so trimm'd and dress'd his land\n    As we this garden! We at time of year\n    Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit trees,\n    Lest, being over-proud in sap and blood,\n    With too much riches it confound itself;\n    Had he done so to great and growing men,\n    They might have Ev'd to bear, and he to taste\n    Their fruits of duty. Superfluous branches\n    We lop away, that bearing boughs may live;\n    Had he done so, himself had home the crown,\n    Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down.\n  SERVANT. What, think you the King shall be deposed?\n  GARDENER. Depress'd he is already, and depos'd\n    'Tis doubt he will be. Letters came last night\n    To a dear friend of the good Duke of York's\n    That tell black tidings.\n  QUEEN. O, I am press'd to death through want of speaking!\n                                                [Coming forward]\n    Thou, old Adam's likeness, set to dress this garden,\n    How dares thy harsh rude tongue sound this unpleasing news?\n    What Eve, what serpent, hath suggested the\n    To make a second fall of cursed man?\n    Why dost thou say King Richard is depos'd?\n    Dar'st thou, thou little better thing than earth,\n    Divine his downfall? Say, where, when, and how,\n    Cam'st thou by this ill tidings? Speak, thou wretch.\n  GARDENER. Pardon me, madam; little joy have\n    To breathe this news; yet what I say is true.\n    King Richard, he is in the mighty hold\n    Of Bolingbroke. Their fortunes both are weigh'd.\n    In your lord's scale is nothing but himself,\n    And some few vanities that make him light;\n    But in the balance of great Bolingbroke,\n    Besides himself, are all the English peers,\n    And with that odds he weighs King Richard down.\n    Post you to London, and you will find it so;\n    I speak no more than every one doth know.\n  QUEEN. Nimble mischance, that art so light of foot,\n    Doth not thy embassage belong to me,\n    And am I last that knows it? O, thou thinkest\n    To serve me last, that I may longest keep\n    Thy sorrow in my breast. Come, ladies, go\n    To meet at London London's King in woe.\n    What, was I born to this, that my sad look\n    Should grace the triumph of great Bolingbroke?\n    Gard'ner, for telling me these news of woe,\n    Pray God the plants thou graft'st may never grow!\n                                         Exeunt QUEEN and LADIES\n  GARDENER. Poor Queen, so that thy state might be no worse,\n    I would my skill were subject to thy curse.\n    Here did she fall a tear; here in this place\n    I'll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace.\n    Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen,\n    In the remembrance of a weeping queen.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 1.\nWestminster Hall\n\nEnter, as to the Parliament, BOLINGBROKE, AUMERLE,\nNORTHUMBERLAND, PERCY,\nFITZWATER, SURREY, the BISHOP OF CARLISLE, the ABBOT OF\nWESTMINSTER,\nand others; HERALD, OFFICERS, and BAGOT\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. Call forth Bagot.\n    Now, Bagot, freely speak thy mind-\n    What thou dost know of noble Gloucester's death;\n    Who wrought it with the King, and who perform'd\n    The bloody office of his timeless end.\n  BAGOT. Then set before my face the Lord Aumerle.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Cousin, stand forth, and look upon that man.\n  BAGOT. My Lord Aumerle, I know your daring tongue\n    Scorns to unsay what once it hath deliver'd.\n    In that dead time when Gloucester's death was plotted\n    I heard you say 'Is not my arm of length,\n    That reacheth from the restful English Court\n    As far as Calais, to mine uncle's head?'\n    Amongst much other talk that very time\n    I heard you say that you had rather refuse\n    The offer of an hundred thousand crowns\n    Than Bolingbroke's return to England;\n    Adding withal, how blest this land would be\n    In this your cousin's death.\n  AUMERLE. Princes, and noble lords,\n    What answer shall I make to this base man?\n    Shall I so much dishonour my fair stars\n    On equal terms to give him chastisement?\n    Either I must, or have mine honour soil'd\n    With the attainder of his slanderous lips.\n    There is my gage, the manual seal of death\n    That marks thee out for hell. I say thou liest,\n    And will maintain what thou hast said is false\n    In thy heart-blood, through being all too base\n    To stain the temper of my knightly sword.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Bagot, forbear; thou shalt not take it up.\n  AUMERLE. Excepting one, I would he were the best\n    In all this presence that hath mov'd me so.\n  FITZWATER. If that thy valour stand on sympathy,\n    There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine.\n    By that fair sun which shows me where thou stand'st,\n    I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spak'st it,\n    That thou wert cause of noble Gloucester's death.\n    If thou deniest it twenty times, thou liest;\n    And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart,\n    Where it was forged, with my rapier's point.\n  AUMERLE. Thou dar'st not, coward, live to see that day.\n  FITZWATER. Now, by my soul, I would it were this hour.\n  AUMERLE. Fitzwater, thou art damn'd to hell for this.\n  PERCY. Aumerle, thou liest; his honour is as true\n    In this appeal as thou art an unjust;\n    And that thou art so, there I throw my gage,\n    To prove it on thee to the extremest point\n    Of mortal breathing. Seize it, if thou dar'st.\n  AUMERLE. An if I do not, may my hands rot of\n    And never brandish more revengeful steel\n    Over the glittering helmet of my foe!\n  ANOTHER LORD. I task the earth to the like, forsworn Aumerle;\n    And spur thee on with fun as many lies\n    As may be halloa'd in thy treacherous ear\n    From sun to sun. There is my honour's pawn;\n    Engage it to the trial, if thou darest.\n  AUMERLE. Who sets me else? By heaven, I'll throw at all!\n    I have a thousand spirits in one breast\n    To answer twenty thousand such as you.\n  SURREY. My Lord Fitzwater, I do remember well\n    The very time Aumerle and you did talk.\n  FITZWATER. 'Tis very true; you were in presence then,\n    And you can witness with me this is true.\n  SURREY. As false, by heaven, as heaven itself is true.\n  FITZWATER. Surrey, thou liest.\n  SURREY. Dishonourable boy!\n    That lie shall lie so heavy on my sword\n    That it shall render vengeance and revenge\n    Till thou the lie-giver and that lie do he\n    In earth as quiet as thy father's skull.\n    In proof whereof, there is my honour's pawn;\n    Engage it to the trial, if thou dar'st.\n  FITZWATER. How fondly dost thou spur a forward horse!\n    If I dare eat, or drink, or breathe, or live,\n    I dare meet Surrey in a wilderness,\n    And spit upon him whilst I say he lies,\n    And lies, and lies. There is my bond of faith,\n    To tie thee to my strong correction.\n    As I intend to thrive in this new world,\n    Aumerle is guilty of my true appeal.\n    Besides, I heard the banish'd Norfolk say\n    That thou, Aumerle, didst send two of thy men\n    To execute the noble Duke at Calais.\n  AUMERLE. Some honest Christian trust me with a gage\n    That Norfolk lies. Here do I throw down this,\n    If he may be repeal'd to try his honour.\n  BOLINGBROKE. These differences shall all rest under gage\n    Till Norfolk be repeal'd-repeal'd he shall be\n    And, though mine enemy, restor'd again\n    To all his lands and signories. When he is return'd,\n    Against Aumerle we will enforce his trial.\n  CARLISLE. That honourable day shall never be seen.\n    Many a time hath banish'd Norfolk fought\n    For Jesu Christ in glorious Christian field,\n    Streaming the ensign of the Christian cross\n    Against black pagans, Turks, and Saracens;\n    And, toil'd with works of war, retir'd himself\n    To Italy; and there, at Venice, gave\n    His body to that pleasant country's earth,\n    And his pure soul unto his captain, Christ,\n    Under whose colours he had fought so long.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Why, Bishop, is Norfolk dead?\n  CARLISLE. As surely as I live, my lord.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Sweet peace conduct his sweet soul to the bosom\n    Of good old Abraham! Lords appellants,\n    Your differences shall all rest under gage\n    Till we assign you to your days of trial\n\n                 Enter YORK, attended\n\n  YORK. Great Duke of Lancaster, I come to the\n    From plume-pluck'd Richard, who with willing soul\n    Adopts thee heir, and his high sceptre yields\n    To the possession of thy royal hand.\n    Ascend his throne, descending now from him-\n    And long live Henry, fourth of that name!\n  BOLINGBROKE. In God's name, I'll ascend the regal throne.\n  CARLISLE. Marry, God forbid!\n    Worst in this royal presence may I speak,\n    Yet best beseeming me to speak the truth.\n    Would God that any in this noble presence\n    Were enough noble to be upright judge\n    Of noble Richard! Then true noblesse would\n    Learn him forbearance from so foul a wrong.\n    What subject can give sentence on his king?\n    And who sits here that is not Richard's subject?\n    Thieves are not judg'd but they are by to hear,\n    Although apparent guilt be seen in them;\n    And shall the figure of God's majesty,\n    His captain, steward, deputy elect,\n    Anointed, crowned, planted many years,\n    Be judg'd by subject and inferior breath,\n    And he himself not present? O, forfend it, God,\n    That in a Christian climate souls refin'd\n    Should show so heinous, black, obscene a deed!\n    I speak to subjects, and a subject speaks,\n    Stirr'd up by God, thus boldly for his king.\n    My Lord of Hereford here, whom you call king,\n    Is a foul traitor to proud Hereford's king;\n    And if you crown him, let me prophesy-\n    The blood of English shall manure the ground,\n    And future ages groan for this foul act;\n    Peace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels,\n    And in this seat of peace tumultuous wars\n    Shall kin with kin and kind with kind confound;\n    Disorder, horror, fear, and mutiny,\n    Shall here inhabit, and this land be call'd\n    The field of Golgotha and dead men's skulls.\n    O, if you raise this house against this house,\n    It will the woefullest division prove\n    That ever fell upon this cursed earth.\n    Prevent it, resist it, let it not be so,\n    Lest child, child's children, cry against you woe.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Well have you argued, sir; and, for your pains,\n    Of capital treason we arrest you here.\n    My Lord of Westminster, be it your charge\n    To keep him safely till his day of trial.\n    May it please you, lords, to grant the commons' suit?\n  BOLINGBROKE. Fetch hither Richard, that in common view\n    He may surrender; so we shall proceed\n    Without suspicion.\n  YORK. I will be his conduct.                              Exit\n  BOLINGBROKE. Lords, you that here are under our arrest,\n    Procure your sureties for your days of answer.\n    Little are we beholding to your love,\n    And little look'd for at your helping hands.\n\n      Re-enter YORK, with KING RICHARD, and OFFICERS\n                bearing the regalia\n\n  KING RICHARD. Alack, why am I sent for to a king,\n    Before I have shook off the regal thoughts\n    Wherewith I reign'd? I hardly yet have learn'd\n    To insinuate, flatter, bow, and bend my knee.\n    Give sorrow leave awhile to tutor me\n    To this submission. Yet I well remember\n    The favours of these men. Were they not mine?\n    Did they not sometime cry 'All hail!' to me?\n    So Judas did to Christ; but he, in twelve,\n    Found truth in all but one; I, in twelve thousand, none.\n    God save the King! Will no man say amen?\n    Am I both priest and clerk? Well then, amen.\n    God save the King! although I be not he;\n    And yet, amen, if heaven do think him me.\n    To do what service am I sent for hither?\n  YORK. To do that office of thine own good will\n    Which tired majesty did make thee offer-\n    The resignation of thy state and crown\n    To Henry Bolingbroke.\n  KING RICHARD. Give me the crown. Here, cousin, seize the crown.\n    Here, cousin,\n    On this side my hand, and on that side thine.\n    Now is this golden crown like a deep well\n    That owes two buckets, filling one another;\n    The emptier ever dancing in the air,\n    The other down, unseen, and full of water.\n    That bucket down and fun of tears am I,\n    Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.\n  BOLINGBROKE. I thought you had been willing to resign.\n  KING RICHARD. My crown I am; but still my griefs are mine.\n    You may my glories and my state depose,\n    But not my griefs; still am I king of those.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Part of your cares you give me with your crown.\n  KING RICHARD. Your cares set up do not pluck my cares down.\n    My care is loss of care, by old care done;\n    Your care is gain of care, by new care won.\n    The cares I give I have, though given away;\n    They tend the crown, yet still with me they stay.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Are you contented to resign the crown?\n  KING RICHARD. Ay, no; no, ay; for I must nothing be;\n    Therefore no no, for I resign to thee.\n    Now mark me how I will undo myself:\n    I give this heavy weight from off my head,\n    And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand,\n    The pride of kingly sway from out my heart;\n    With mine own tears I wash away my balm,\n    With mine own hands I give away my crown,\n    With mine own tongue deny my sacred state,\n    With mine own breath release all duteous oaths;\n    All pomp and majesty I do forswear;\n    My manors, rents, revenues, I forgo;\n    My acts, decrees, and statutes, I deny.\n    God pardon all oaths that are broke to me!\n    God keep all vows unbroke are made to thee!\n    Make me, that nothing have, with nothing griev'd,\n    And thou with all pleas'd, that hast an achiev'd.\n    Long mayst thou live in Richard's seat to sit,\n    And soon lie Richard in an earthly pit.\n    God save King Henry, unking'd Richard says,\n    And send him many years of sunshine days!\n    What more remains?\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. No more; but that you read\n    These accusations, and these grievous crimes\n    Committed by your person and your followers\n    Against the state and profit of this land;\n    That, by confessing them, the souls of men\n    May deem that you are worthily depos'd.\n  KING RICHARD. Must I do so? And must I ravel out\n    My weav'd-up follies? Gentle Northumberland,\n    If thy offences were upon record,\n    Would it not shame thee in so fair a troop\n    To read a lecture of them? If thou wouldst,\n    There shouldst thou find one heinous article,\n    Containing the deposing of a king\n    And cracking the strong warrant of an oath,\n    Mark'd with a blot, damn'd in the book of heaven.\n    Nay, all of you that stand and look upon me\n    Whilst that my wretchedness doth bait myself,\n    Though some of you, with Pilate, wash your hands,\n    Showing an outward pity-yet you Pilates\n    Have here deliver'd me to my sour cross,\n    And water cannot wash away your sin.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord, dispatch; read o'er these\n    articles.\n  KING RICHARD. Mine eyes are full of tears; I cannot see.\n    And yet salt water blinds them not so much\n    But they can see a sort of traitors here.\n    Nay, if I turn mine eyes upon myself,\n    I find myself a traitor with the rest;\n    For I have given here my soul's consent\n    T'undeck the pompous body of a king;\n    Made glory base, and sovereignty a slave,\n    Proud majesty a subject, state a peasant.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord-\n  KING RICHARD. No lord of thine, thou haught insulting man,\n    Nor no man's lord; I have no name, no tide-\n    No, not that name was given me at the font-\n    But 'tis usurp'd. Alack the heavy day,\n    That I have worn so many winters out,\n    And know not now what name to call myself!\n    O that I were a mockery king of snow,\n    Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke\n    To melt myself away in water drops!\n    Good king, great king, and yet not greatly good,\n    An if my word be sterling yet in England,\n    Let it command a mirror hither straight,\n    That it may show me what a face I have\n    Since it is bankrupt of his majesty.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Go some of you and fetch a looking-glass.\n                                               Exit an attendant\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Read o'er this paper while the glass doth come.\n  KING RICHARD. Fiend, thou torments me ere I come to hell.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Urge it no more, my Lord Northumberland.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. The Commons will not, then, be satisfied.\n  KING RICHARD. They shall be satisfied. I'll read enough,\n    When I do see the very book indeed\n    Where all my sins are writ, and that's myself.\n\n                Re-enter attendant with glass\n\n    Give me that glass, and therein will I read.\n    No deeper wrinkles yet? Hath sorrow struck\n    So many blows upon this face of mine\n    And made no deeper wounds? O flatt'ring glass,\n    Like to my followers in prosperity,\n    Thou dost beguile me! Was this face the face\n    That every day under his household roof\n    Did keep ten thousand men? Was this the face\n    That like the sun did make beholders wink?\n    Is this the face which fac'd so many follies\n    That was at last out-fac'd by Bolingbroke?\n    A brittle glory shineth in this face;\n    As brittle as the glory is the face;\n                        [Dashes the glass against the ground]\n    For there it is, crack'd in a hundred shivers.\n    Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport-\n    How soon my sorrow hath destroy'd my face.\n  BOLINGBROKE. The shadow of your sorrow hath destroy'd\n    The shadow of your face.\n  KING RICHARD. Say that again.\n    The shadow of my sorrow? Ha! let's see.\n    'Tis very true: my grief lies all within;\n    And these external manner of laments\n    Are merely shadows to the unseen grief\n    That swells with silence in the tortur'd soul.\n    There lies the substance; and I thank thee, king,\n    For thy great bounty, that not only giv'st\n    Me cause to wail, but teachest me the way\n    How to lament the cause. I'll beg one boon,\n    And then be gone and trouble you no more.\n    Shall I obtain it?\n  BOLINGBROKE. Name it, fair cousin.\n  KING RICHARD. Fair cousin! I am greater than a king;\n    For when I was a king, my flatterers\n    Were then but subjects; being now a subject,\n    I have a king here to my flatterer.\n    Being so great, I have no need to beg.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Yet ask.\n  KING RICHARD. And shall I have?\n  BOLINGBROKE. You shall.\n  KING RICHARD. Then give me leave to go.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Whither?\n  KING RICHARD. Whither you will, so I were from your sights.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Go, some of you convey him to the Tower.\n  KING RICHARD. O, good! Convey! Conveyers are you all,\n    That rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall.\n                     Exeunt KING RICHARD, some Lords and a Guard\n  BOLINGBROKE. On Wednesday next we solemnly set down\n    Our coronation. Lords, prepare yourselves.\n                    Exeunt all but the ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER, the\n                                 BISHOP OF CARLISLE, and AUMERLE\n  ABBOT. A woeful pageant have we here beheld.\n  CARLISLE. The woe's to come; the children yet unborn\n    Shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn.\n  AUMERLE. You holy clergymen, is there no plot\n    To rid the realm of this pernicious blot?\n  ABBOT. My lord,\n    Before I freely speak my mind herein,\n    You shall not only take the sacrament\n    To bury mine intents, but also to effect\n    Whatever I shall happen to devise.\n    I see your brows are full of discontent,\n    Your hearts of sorrow, and your eyes of tears.\n    Come home with me to supper; I will lay\n    A plot shall show us all a merry day.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 1.\nLondon. A street leading to the Tower\n\nEnter the QUEEN, with her attendants\n\n  QUEEN. This way the King will come; this is the way\n    To Julius Caesar's ill-erected tower,\n    To whose flint bosom my condemned lord\n    Is doom'd a prisoner by proud Bolingbroke.\n    Here let us rest, if this rebellious earth\n    Have any resting for her true King's queen.\n\n            Enter KING RICHARD and Guard\n\n    But soft, but see, or rather do not see,\n    My fair rose wither. Yet look up, behold,\n    That you in pity may dissolve to dew,\n    And wash him fresh again with true-love tears.\n    Ah, thou, the model where old Troy did stand;\n    Thou map of honour, thou King Richard's tomb,\n    And not King Richard; thou most beauteous inn,\n    Why should hard-favour'd grief be lodg'd in thee,\n    When triumph is become an alehouse guest?\n  KING RICHARD. Join not with grief, fair woman, do not so,\n    To make my end too sudden. Learn, good soul,\n    To think our former state a happy dream;\n    From which awak'd, the truth of what we are\n    Shows us but this: I am sworn brother, sweet,\n    To grim Necessity; and he and\n    Will keep a league till death. Hie thee to France,\n    And cloister thee in some religious house.\n    Our holy lives must win a new world's crown,\n    Which our profane hours here have thrown down.\n  QUEEN. What, is my Richard both in shape and mind\n    Transform'd and weak'ned? Hath Bolingbroke depos'd\n    Thine intellect? Hath he been in thy heart?\n    The lion dying thrusteth forth his paw\n    And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage\n    To be o'erpow'r'd; and wilt thou, pupil-like,\n    Take the correction mildly, kiss the rod,\n    And fawn on rage with base humility,\n    Which art a lion and the king of beasts?\n  KING RICHARD. A king of beasts, indeed! If aught but beasts,\n    I had been still a happy king of men.\n    Good sometimes queen, prepare thee hence for France.\n    Think I am dead, and that even here thou takest,\n    As from my death-bed, thy last living leave.\n    In winter's tedious nights sit by the fire\n    With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales\n    Of woeful ages long ago betid;\n    And ere thou bid good night, to quit their griefs\n    Tell thou the lamentable tale of me,\n    And send the hearers weeping to their beds;\n    For why, the senseless brands will sympathize\n    The heavy accent of thy moving tongue,\n    And in compassion weep the fire out;\n    And some will mourn in ashes, some coal-black,\n    For the deposing of a rightful king.\n\n             Enter NORTHUMBERLAND attended\n\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is chang'd;\n    You must to Pomfret, not unto the Tower.\n    And, madam, there is order ta'en for you:\n    With all swift speed you must away to France.\n  KING RICHARD. Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal\n    The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne,\n    The time shall not be many hours of age\n    More than it is, ere foul sin gathering head\n    Shall break into corruption. Thou shalt think\n    Though he divide the realm and give thee half\n    It is too little, helping him to all;\n    And he shall think that thou, which knowest the way\n    To plant unrightful kings, wilt know again,\n    Being ne'er so little urg'd, another way\n    To pluck him headlong from the usurped throne.\n    The love of wicked men converts to fear;\n    That fear to hate; and hate turns one or both\n    To worthy danger and deserved death.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. My guilt be on my head, and there an end.\n    Take leave, and part; for you must part forthwith.\n  KING RICHARD. Doubly divorc'd! Bad men, you violate\n    A twofold marriage-'twixt my crown and me,\n    And then betwixt me and my married wife.\n    Let me unkiss the oath 'twixt thee and me;\n    And yet not so, for with a kiss 'twas made.\n    Part us, Northumberland; I towards the north,\n    Where shivering cold and sickness pines the clime;\n    My wife to France, from whence set forth in pomp,\n    She came adorned hither like sweet May,\n    Sent back like Hallowmas or short'st of day.\n  QUEEN. And must we be divided? Must we part?\n  KING RICHARD. Ay, hand from hand, my love, and heart from\nheart.\n  QUEEN. Banish us both, and send the King with me.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. That were some love, but little policy.\n  QUEEN. Then whither he goes thither let me go.\n  KING RICHARD. So two, together weeping, make one woe.\n    Weep thou for me in France, I for thee here;\n    Better far off than near, be ne'er the near.\n    Go, count thy way with sighs; I mine with groans.\n  QUEEN. So longest way shall have the longest moans.\n  KING RICHARD. Twice for one step I'll groan, the way being\nshort,\n    And piece the way out with a heavy heart.\n    Come, come, in wooing sorrow let's be brief,\n    Since, wedding it, there is such length in grief.\n    One kiss shall stop our mouths, and dumbly part;\n    Thus give I mine, and thus take I thy heart.\n  QUEEN. Give me mine own again; 'twere no good part\n    To take on me to keep and kill thy heart.\n    So, now I have mine own again, be gone.\n    That I may strive to kill it with a groan.\n  KING RICHARD. We make woe wanton with this fond delay.\n    Once more, adieu; the rest let sorrow say.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\nThe DUKE OF YORK's palace\n\nEnter the DUKE OF YORK and the DUCHESS\n\n  DUCHESS. My Lord, you told me you would tell the rest,\n    When weeping made you break the story off,\n    Of our two cousins' coming into London.\n  YORK. Where did I leave?\n  DUCHESS. At that sad stop, my lord,\n    Where rude misgoverned hands from windows' tops\n    Threw dust and rubbish on King Richard's head.\n  YORK. Then, as I said, the Duke, great Bolingbroke,\n    Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed\n    Which his aspiring rider seem'd to know,\n    With slow but stately pace kept on his course,\n    Whilst all tongues cried 'God save thee, Bolingbroke!'\n    You would have thought the very windows spake,\n    So many greedy looks of young and old\n    Through casements darted their desiring eyes\n    Upon his visage; and that all the walls\n    With painted imagery had said at once\n    'Jesu preserve thee! Welcome, Bolingbroke!'\n    Whilst he, from the one side to the other turning,\n    Bareheaded, lower than his proud steed's neck,\n    Bespake them thus, 'I thank you, countrymen.'\n    And thus still doing, thus he pass'd along.\n  DUCHESS. Alack, poor Richard! where rode he the whilst?\n  YORK. As in a theatre the eyes of men\n    After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage\n    Are idly bent on him that enters next,\n    Thinking his prattle to be tedious;\n    Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes\n    Did scowl on gentle Richard; no man cried 'God save him!'\n    No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home;\n    But dust was thrown upon his sacred head;\n    Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off,\n    His face still combating with tears and smiles,\n    The badges of his grief and patience,\n    That had not God, for some strong purpose, steel'd\n    The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted,\n    And barbarism itself have pitied him.\n    But heaven hath a hand in these events,\n    To whose high will we bound our calm contents.\n    To Bolingbroke are we sworn subjects now,\n    Whose state and honour I for aye allow.\n  DUCHESS. Here comes my son Aumerle.\n  YORK. Aumerle that was\n    But that is lost for being Richard's friend,\n    And madam, you must call him Rudand now.\n    I am in Parliament pledge for his truth\n    And lasting fealty to the new-made king.\n\n                  Enter AUMERLE\n\n  DUCHESS. Welcome, my son. Who are the violets now\n    That strew the green lap of the new come spring?\n  AUMERLE. Madam, I know not, nor I greatly care not.\n    God knows I had as lief be none as one.\n  YORK. Well, bear you well in this new spring of time,\n    Lest you be cropp'd before you come to prime.\n    What news from Oxford? Do these justs and triumphs hold?\n  AUMERLE. For aught I know, my lord, they do.\n  YORK. You will be there, I know.\n  AUMERLE. If God prevent not, I purpose so.\n  YORK. What seal is that that without thy bosom?\n    Yea, look'st thou pale? Let me see the writing.\n  AUMERLE. My lord, 'tis nothing.\n  YORK. No matter, then, who see it.\n    I will be satisfied; let me see the writing.\n  AUMERLE. I do beseech your Grace to pardon me;\n    It is a matter of small consequence\n    Which for some reasons I would not have seen.\n  YORK. Which for some reasons, sir, I mean to see.\n    I fear, I fear-\n  DUCHESS. What should you fear?\n    'Tis nothing but some bond that he is ent'red into\n    For gay apparel 'gainst the triumph-day.\n  YORK. Bound to himself! What doth he with a bond\n    That he is bound to? Wife, thou art a fool.\n    Boy, let me see the writing.\n  AUMERLE. I do beseech you, pardon me; I may not show it.\n  YORK. I will be satisfied; let me see it, I say.\n                [He plucks it out of his bosom, and reads it]\n    Treason, foul treason! Villain! traitor! slave!\n  DUCHESS. What is the matter, my lord?\n  YORK. Ho! who is within there?\n\n                    Enter a servant\n\n    Saddle my horse.\n    God for his mercy, what treachery is here!\n  DUCHESS. Why, York, what is it, my lord?\n  YORK. Give me my boots, I say; saddle my horse.\n                                                    Exit servant\n    Now, by mine honour, by my life, my troth,\n    I will appeach the villain.\n  DUCHESS. What is the matter?\n  YORK. Peace, foolish woman.\n  DUCHESS. I will not peace. What is the matter, Aumerle?\n  AUMERLE. Good mother, be content; it is no more\n    Than my poor life must answer.\n  DUCHESS. Thy life answer!\n  YORK. Bring me my boots. I will unto the King.\n\n              His man enters with his boots\n\n  DUCHESS. Strike him, Aumerle. Poor boy, thou art amaz'd.\n    Hence, villain! never more come in my sight.\n  YORK. Give me my boots, I say.\n  DUCHESS. Why, York, what wilt thou do?\n    Wilt thou not hide the trespass of thine own?\n    Have we more sons? or are we like to have?\n    Is not my teeming date drunk up with time?\n    And wilt thou pluck my fair son from mine age\n    And rob me of a happy mother's name?\n    Is he not like thee? Is he not thine own?\n  YORK. Thou fond mad woman,\n    Wilt thou conceal this dark conspiracy?\n    A dozen of them here have ta'en the sacrament,\n    And interchangeably set down their hands\n    To kill the King at Oxford.\n  DUCHESS. He shall be none;\n    We'll keep him here. Then what is that to him?\n  YORK. Away, fond woman! were he twenty times my son\n    I would appeach him.\n  DUCHESS. Hadst thou groan'd for him\n    As I have done, thou wouldst be more pitiful.\n    But now I know thy mind: thou dost suspect\n    That I have been disloyal to thy bed\n    And that he is a bastard, not thy son.\n    Sweet York, sweet husband, be not of that mind.\n    He is as like thee as a man may be\n    Not like to me, or any of my kin,\n    And yet I love him.\n  YORK. Make way, unruly woman!                             Exit\n  DUCHESS. After, Aumerle! Mount thee upon his horse;\n    Spur post, and get before him to the King,\n    And beg thy pardon ere he do accuse thee.\n    I'll not be long behind; though I be old,\n    I doubt not but to ride as fast as York;\n    And never will I rise up from the ground\n    Till Bolingbroke have pardon'd thee. Away, be gone.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\nWindsor Castle\n\nEnter BOLINGBROKE as King, PERCY, and other LORDS\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. Can no man tell me of my unthrifty son?\n    'Tis full three months since I did see him last.\n    If any plague hang over us, 'tis he.\n    I would to God, my lords, he might be found.\n    Inquire at London, 'mongst the taverns there,\n    For there, they say, he daily doth frequent\n    With unrestrained loose companions,\n    Even such, they say, as stand in narrow lanes\n    And beat our watch and rob our passengers,\n    Which he, young wanton and effeminate boy,\n    Takes on the point of honour to support\n    So dissolute a crew.\n  PERCY. My lord, some two days since I saw the Prince,\n    And told him of those triumphs held at Oxford.\n  BOLINGBROKE. And what said the gallant?\n  PERCY. His answer was, he would unto the stews,\n    And from the common'st creature pluck a glove\n    And wear it as a favour; and with that\n    He would unhorse the lustiest challenger.\n  BOLINGBROKE. As dissolute as desperate; yet through both\n    I see some sparks of better hope, which elder years\n    May happily bring forth. But who comes here?\n\n                Enter AUMERLE amazed\n\n  AUMERLE. Where is the King?\n  BOLINGBROKE. What means our cousin that he stares and looks\n    So wildly?\n  AUMERLE. God save your Grace! I do beseech your Majesty,\n    To have some conference with your Grace alone.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Withdraw yourselves, and leave us here alone.\n                                          Exeunt PERCY and LORDS\n    What is the matter with our cousin now?\n  AUMERLE. For ever may my knees grow to the earth,\n                                                    [Kneels]\n    My tongue cleave to my roof within my mouth,\n    Unless a pardon ere I rise or speak.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Intended or committed was this fault?\n    If on the first, how heinous e'er it be,\n    To win thy after-love I pardon thee.\n  AUMERLE. Then give me leave that I may turn the key,\n    That no man enter till my tale be done.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Have thy desire.\n            [The DUKE OF YORK knocks at the door and crieth]\n  YORK. [Within] My liege, beware; look to thyself;\n    Thou hast a traitor in thy presence there.\n  BOLINGBROKE. [Drawing] Villain, I'll make thee safe.\n  AUMERLE. Stay thy revengeful hand; thou hast no cause to fear.\n  YORK. [Within] Open the door, secure, foolhardy King.\n    Shall I, for love, speak treason to thy face?\n    Open the door, or I will break it open.\n\n                    Enter YORK\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. What is the matter, uncle? Speak;\n    Recover breath; tell us how near is danger,\n    That we may arm us to encounter it.\n  YORK. Peruse this writing here, and thou shalt know\n    The treason that my haste forbids me show.\n  AUMERLE. Remember, as thou read'st, thy promise pass'd.\n    I do repent me; read not my name there;\n    My heart is not confederate with my hand.\n  YORK. It was, villain, ere thy hand did set it down.\n    I tore it from the traitor's bosom, King;\n    Fear, and not love, begets his penitence.\n    Forget to pity him, lest thy pity prove\n    A serpent that will sting thee to the heart.\n  BOLINGBROKE. O heinous, strong, and bold conspiracy!\n    O loyal father of a treacherous son!\n    Thou sheer, immaculate, and silver fountain,\n    From whence this stream through muddy passages\n    Hath held his current and defil'd himself!\n    Thy overflow of good converts to bad;\n    And thy abundant goodness shall excuse\n    This deadly blot in thy digressing son.\n  YORK. So shall my virtue be his vice's bawd;\n    And he shall spend mine honour with his shame,\n    As thriftless sons their scraping fathers' gold.\n    Mine honour lives when his dishonour dies,\n    Or my sham'd life in his dishonour lies.\n    Thou kill'st me in his life; giving him breath,\n    The traitor lives, the true man's put to death.\n  DUCHESS. [Within] I What ho, my liege, for God's sake, let me\nin.\n  BOLINGBROKE. What shrill-voic'd suppliant makes this eager cry?\n  DUCHESS. [Within] A woman, and thine aunt, great King; 'tis I.\n    Speak with me, pity me, open the door.\n    A beggar begs that never begg'd before.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Our scene is alt'red from a serious thing,\n    And now chang'd to 'The Beggar and the King.'\n    My dangerous cousin, let your mother in.\n    I know she is come to pray for your foul sin.\n  YORK. If thou do pardon whosoever pray,\n    More sins for this forgiveness prosper may.\n    This fest'red joint cut off, the rest rest sound;\n    This let alone will all the rest confound.\n\n                 Enter DUCHESS\n\n  DUCHESS. O King, believe not this hard-hearted man!\n    Love loving not itself, none other can.\n  YORK. Thou frantic woman, what dost thou make here?\n    Shall thy old dugs once more a traitor rear?\n  DUCHESS. Sweet York, be patient. Hear me, gentle liege.\n                                                     [Kneels]\n  BOLINGBROKE. Rise up, good aunt.\n  DUCHESS. Not yet, I thee beseech.\n    For ever will I walk upon my knees,\n    And never see day that the happy sees\n    Till thou give joy; until thou bid me joy\n    By pardoning Rutland, my transgressing boy.\n  AUMERLE. Unto my mother's prayers I bend my knee.\n                                                     [Kneels]\n  YORK. Against them both, my true joints bended be.\n                                                     [Kneels]\n    Ill mayst thou thrive, if thou grant any grace!\n  DUCHESS. Pleads he in earnest? Look upon his face;\n    His eyes do drop no tears, his prayers are in jest;\n    His words come from his mouth, ours from our breast.\n    He prays but faintly and would be denied;\n    We pray with heart and soul, and all beside.\n    His weary joints would gladly rise, I know;\n    Our knees still kneel till to the ground they grow.\n    His prayers are full of false hypocrisy;\n    Ours of true zeal and deep integrity.\n    Our prayers do out-pray his; then let them have\n    That mercy which true prayer ought to have.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Good aunt, stand up.\n  DUCHESS. do not say 'stand up';\n    Say 'pardon' first, and afterwards 'stand up.'\n    An if I were thy nurse, thy tongue to teach,\n    'Pardon' should be the first word of thy speech.\n    I never long'd to hear a word till now;\n    Say 'pardon,' King; let pity teach thee how.\n    The word is short, but not so short as sweet;\n    No word like 'pardon' for kings' mouths so meet.\n  YORK. Speak it in French, King, say 'pardonne moy.'\n  DUCHESS. Dost thou teach pardon pardon to destroy?\n    Ah, my sour husband, my hard-hearted lord,\n    That sets the word itself against the word!\n    Speak 'pardon' as 'tis current in our land;\n    The chopping French we do not understand.\n    Thine eye begins to speak, set thy tongue there;\n    Or in thy piteous heart plant thou thine ear,\n    That hearing how our plaints and prayers do pierce,\n    Pity may move thee 'pardon' to rehearse.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Good aunt, stand up.\n  DUCHESS. I do not sue to stand;\n    Pardon is all the suit I have in hand.\n  BOLINGBROKE. I pardon him, as God shall pardon me.\n  DUCHESS. O happy vantage of a kneeling knee!\n    Yet am I sick for fear. Speak it again.\n    Twice saying 'pardon' doth not pardon twain,\n    But makes one pardon strong.\n  BOLINGBROKE. With all my heart\n    I pardon him.\n  DUCHESS. A god on earth thou art.\n  BOLINGBROKE. But for our trusty brother-in-law and the Abbot,\n    With all the rest of that consorted crew,\n    Destruction straight shall dog them at the heels.\n    Good uncle, help to order several powers\n    To Oxford, or where'er these traitors are.\n    They shall not live within this world, I swear,\n    But I will have them, if I once know where.\n    Uncle, farewell; and, cousin, adieu;\n    Your mother well hath pray'd, and prove you true.\n  DUCHESS. Come, my old son; I pray God make thee new.\nExeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\nWindsor Castle\n\nEnter SIR PIERCE OF EXTON and a servant\n\n  EXTON. Didst thou not mark the King, what words he spake?\n    'Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?'\n    Was it not so?\n  SERVANT. These were his very words.\n  EXTON. 'Have I no friend?' quoth he. He spake it twice\n    And urg'd it twice together, did he not?\n  SERVANT. He did.\n  EXTON. And, speaking it, he wishtly look'd on me,\n    As who should say 'I would thou wert the man\n    That would divorce this terror from my heart';\n    Meaning the King at Pomfret. Come, let's go.\n    I am the King's friend, and will rid his foe.         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 5.\nPomfret Castle. The dungeon of the Castle\n\nEnter KING RICHARD\n\n  KING RICHARD. I have been studying how I may compare\n    This prison where I live unto the world\n    And, for because the world is populous\n    And here is not a creature but myself,\n    I cannot do it. Yet I'll hammer it out.\n    My brain I'll prove the female to my soul,\n    My soul the father; and these two beget\n    A generation of still-breeding thoughts,\n    And these same thoughts people this little world,\n    In humours like the people of this world,\n    For no thought is contented. The better sort,\n    As thoughts of things divine, are intermix'd\n    With scruples, and do set the word itself\n    Against the word,\n    As thus: 'Come, little ones'; and then again,\n    'It is as hard to come as for a camel\n    To thread the postern of a small needle's eye.'\n    Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot\n    Unlikely wonders: how these vain weak nails\n    May tear a passage through the flinty ribs\n    Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls;\n    And, for they cannot, die in their own pride.\n    Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves\n    That they are not the first of fortune's slaves,\n    Nor shall not be the last; like silly beggars\n    Who, sitting in the stocks, refuge their shame,\n    That many have and others must sit there;\n    And in this thought they find a kind of ease,\n    Bearing their own misfortunes on the back\n    Of such as have before endur'd the like.\n    Thus play I in one person many people,\n    And none contented. Sometimes am I king;\n    Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar,\n    And so I am. Then crushing penury\n    Persuades me I was better when a king;\n    Then am I king'd again; and by and by\n    Think that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke,\n    And straight am nothing. But whate'er I be,\n    Nor I, nor any man that but man is,\n    With nothing shall be pleas'd till he be eas'd\n    With being nothing.                    [The music plays]\n    Music do I hear?\n    Ha, ha! keep time. How sour sweet music is\n    When time is broke and no proportion kept!\n    So is it in the music of men's lives.\n    And here have I the daintiness of ear\n    To check time broke in a disorder'd string;\n    But, for the concord of my state and time,\n    Had not an ear to hear my true time broke.\n    I wasted time, and now doth time waste me;\n    For now hath time made me his numb'ring clock:\n    My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar\n    Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch,\n    Whereto my finger, like a dial's point,\n    Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.\n    Now sir, the sound that tells what hour it is\n    Are clamorous groans which strike upon my heart,\n    Which is the bell. So sighs, and tears, and groans,\n    Show minutes, times, and hours; but my time\n    Runs posting on in Bolingbroke's proud joy,\n    While I stand fooling here, his Jack of the clock.\n    This music mads me. Let it sound no more;\n    For though it have holp madmen to their wits,\n    In me it seems it will make wise men mad.\n    Yet blessing on his heart that gives it me!\n    For 'tis a sign of love; and love to Richard\n    Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world.\n\n              Enter a GROOM of the stable\n\n  GROOM. Hail, royal Prince!\n  KING RICHARD. Thanks, noble peer!\n    The cheapest of us is ten groats too dear.\n    What art thou? and how comest thou hither,\n    Where no man never comes but that sad dog\n    That brings me food to make misfortune live?\n  GROOM. I was a poor groom of thy stable, King,\n    When thou wert king; who, travelling towards York,\n    With much ado at length have gotten leave\n    To look upon my sometimes royal master's face.\n    O, how it ern'd my heart, when I beheld,\n    In London streets, that coronation-day,\n    When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary-\n    That horse that thou so often hast bestrid,\n    That horse that I so carefully have dress'd!\n  KING RICHARD. Rode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend,\n    How went he under him?\n  GROOM. So proudly as if he disdain'd the ground.\n  KING RICHARD. So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back!\n    That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand;\n    This hand hath made him proud with clapping him.\n    Would he not stumble? would he not fall down,\n    Since pride must have a fall, and break the neck\n    Of that proud man that did usurp his back?\n    Forgiveness, horse! Why do I rail on thee,\n    Since thou, created to be aw'd by man,\n    Wast born to bear? I was not made a horse;\n    And yet I bear a burden like an ass,\n    Spurr'd, gall'd, and tir'd, by jauncing Bolingbroke.\n\n              Enter KEEPER with meat\n\n  KEEPER. Fellow, give place; here is no longer stay.\n  KING RICHARD. If thou love me, 'tis time thou wert away.\n  GROOM. my tongue dares not, that my heart shall say.\n Exit\n  KEEPER. My lord, will't please you to fall to?\n  KING RICHARD. Taste of it first as thou art wont to do.\n  KEEPER. My lord, I dare not. Sir Pierce of Exton,\n    Who lately came from the King, commands the contrary.\n  KING RICHARD. The devil take Henry of Lancaster and thee!\n    Patience is stale, and I am weary of it.\n                                           [Beats the KEEPER]\n  KEEPER. Help, help, help!\n    The murderers, EXTON and servants, rush in, armed\n  KING RICHARD. How now! What means death in this rude assault?\n    Villain, thy own hand yields thy death's instrument.\n                         [Snatching a weapon and killing one]\n    Go thou and fill another room in hell.\n              [He kills another, then EXTON strikes him down]\n    That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire\n    That staggers thus my person. Exton, thy fierce hand\n    Hath with the King's blood stain'd the King's own land.\n    Mount, mount, my soul! thy seat is up on high;\n    Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die.\n                                                       [Dies]\n  EXTON. As full of valour as of royal blood.\n    Both have I spill'd. O, would the deed were good!\n    For now the devil, that told me I did well,\n    Says that this deed is chronicled in hell.\n    This dead King to the living King I'll bear.\n    Take hence the rest, and give them burial here.       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 6.\nWindsor Castle\n\nFlourish. Enter BOLINGBROKE, the DUKE OF YORK, With other LORDS\nand attendants\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. Kind uncle York, the latest news we hear\n    Is that the rebels have consum'd with fire\n    Our town of Ciceter in Gloucestershire;\n    But whether they be ta'en or slain we hear not.\n\n              Enter NORTHUMBERLAND\n\n    Welcome, my lord. What is the news?\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. First, to thy sacred state wish I all\nhappiness.\n    The next news is, I have to London sent\n    The heads of Salisbury, Spencer, Blunt, and Kent.\n    The manner of their taking may appear\n    At large discoursed in this paper here.\n  BOLINGBROKE. We thank thee, gentle Percy, for thy pains;\n    And to thy worth will add right worthy gains.\n\n                  Enter FITZWATER\n\n  FITZWATER. My lord, I have from Oxford sent to London\n    The heads of Brocas and Sir Bennet Seely;\n    Two of the dangerous consorted traitors\n    That sought at Oxford thy dire overthrow.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Thy pains, Fitzwater, shall not be forgot;\n    Right noble is thy merit, well I wot.\n\n         Enter PERCY, With the BISHOP OF CARLISLE\n\n  PERCY. The grand conspirator, Abbot of Westminster,\n    With clog of conscience and sour melancholy,\n    Hath yielded up his body to the grave;\n    But here is Carlisle living, to abide\n    Thy kingly doom, and sentence of his pride.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Carlisle, this is your doom:\n    Choose out some secret place, some reverend room,\n    More than thou hast, and with it joy thy life;\n    So as thou liv'st in peace, die free from strife;\n    For though mine enemy thou hast ever been,\n    High sparks of honour in thee have I seen.\n\n      Enter EXTON, with attendants, hearing a coffin\n\n  EXTON. Great King, within this coffin I present\n    Thy buried fear. Herein all breathless lies\n    The mightiest of thy greatest enemies,\n    Richard of Bordeaux, by me hither brought.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Exton, I thank thee not; for thou hast wrought\n    A deed of slander with thy fatal hand\n    Upon my head and all this famous land.\n  EXTON. From your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed.\n  BOLINGBROKE. They love not poison that do poison need,\n    Nor do I thee. Though I did wish him dead,\n    I hate the murderer, love him murdered.\n    The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour,\n    But neither my good word nor princely favour;\n    With Cain go wander thorough shades of night,\n    And never show thy head by day nor light.\n    Lords, I protest my soul is full of woe\n    That blood should sprinkle me to make me grow.\n    Come, mourn with me for what I do lament,\n    And put on sullen black incontinent.\n    I'll make a voyage to the Holy Land,\n    To wash this blood off from my guilty hand.\n    March sadly after; grace my mournings here\n    In weeping after this untimely bier.                  Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of this Etext of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare\nKing Richard the Second"}
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{"1112":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n*Project Gutenberg is proud to cooperate with The World Library*\nin the presentation of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare\nfor your reading for education and entertainment.  HOWEVER, THIS\nIS NEITHER SHAREWARE NOR PUBLIC DOMAIN. . .AND UNDER THE LIBRARY\nOF THE FUTURE CONDITIONS OF THIS PRESENTATION. . .NO CHARGES MAY\nBE MADE FOR *ANY* ACCESS TO THIS MATERIAL.  YOU ARE ENCOURAGED!!\nTO GIVE IT AWAY TO ANYONE YOU LIKE, BUT NO CHARGES ARE ALLOWED!!\n\n\n\n\nThe Complete Works of William Shakespeare\n\nThe Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet\n\nThe Library of the Future Complete Works of William Shakespeare\nLibrary of the Future is a TradeMark (TM) of World Library Inc.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1595\n\nTHE TRAGEDY OF ROMEO AND JULIET\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  Chorus.\n\n\n  Escalus, Prince of Verona.\n\n  Paris, a young Count, kinsman to the Prince.\n\n  Montague, heads of two houses at variance with each other.\n\n  Capulet, heads of two houses at variance with each other.\n\n  An old Man, of the Capulet family.\n\n  Romeo, son to Montague.\n\n  Tybalt, nephew to Lady Capulet.\n\n  Mercutio, kinsman to the Prince and friend to Romeo.\n\n  Benvolio, nephew to Montague, and friend to Romeo\n\n  Tybalt, nephew to Lady Capulet.\n\n  Friar Laurence, Franciscan.\n\n  Friar John, Franciscan.\n\n  Balthasar, servant to Romeo.\n\n  Abram, servant to Montague.\n\n  Sampson, servant to Capulet.\n\n  Gregory, servant to Capulet.\n\n  Peter, servant to Juliet's nurse.\n\n  An Apothecary.\n\n  Three Musicians.\n\n  An Officer.\n\n\n  Lady Montague, wife to Montague.\n\n  Lady Capulet, wife to Capulet.\n\n  Juliet, daughter to Capulet.\n\n  Nurse to Juliet.\n\n\n  Citizens of Verona; Gentlemen and Gentlewomen of both houses;\n    Maskers, Torchbearers, Pages, Guards, Watchmen, Servants, and\n    Attendants.\n\n                            SCENE.--Verona; Mantua.\n\n\n\n                        THE PROLOGUE\n\n                        Enter Chorus.\n\n\n  Chor. Two households, both alike in dignity,\n    In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,\n    From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,\n    Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.\n    From forth the fatal loins of these two foes\n    A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;\n    Whose misadventur'd piteous overthrows\n    Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.\n    The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,\n    And the continuance of their parents' rage,\n    Which, but their children's end, naught could remove,\n    Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;\n    The which if you with patient ears attend,\n    What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.\n                                                         [Exit.]\n\n\n\n\nACT I. Scene I.\nVerona. A public place.\n\nEnter Sampson and Gregory (with swords and bucklers) of the house\nof Capulet.\n\n\n  Samp. Gregory, on my word, we'll not carry coals.\n\n  Greg. No, for then we should be colliers.\n\n  Samp. I mean, an we be in choler, we'll draw.\n\n  Greg. Ay, while you live, draw your neck out of collar.\n\n  Samp. I strike quickly, being moved.\n\n  Greg. But thou art not quickly moved to strike.\n\n  Samp. A dog of the house of Montague moves me.\n\n  Greg. To move is to stir, and to be valiant is to stand.\n    Therefore, if thou art moved, thou runn'st away.\n\n  Samp. A dog of that house shall move me to stand. I will take\n    the wall of any man or maid of Montague's.\n\n  Greg. That shows thee a weak slave; for the weakest goes to the\n    wall.\n\n  Samp. 'Tis true; and therefore women, being the weaker vessels,\n    are ever thrust to the wall. Therefore I will push Montague's men\n    from the wall and thrust his maids to the wall.\n\n  Greg. The quarrel is between our masters and us their men.\n\n  Samp. 'Tis all one. I will show myself a tyrant. When I have\n    fought with the men, I will be cruel with the maids- I will cut off\n    their heads.\n\n  Greg. The heads of the maids?\n\n  Samp. Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads.\n    Take it in what sense thou wilt.\n\n  Greg. They must take it in sense that feel it.\n\n  Samp. Me they shall feel while I am able to stand; and 'tis known I\n    am a pretty piece of flesh.\n\n  Greg. 'Tis well thou art not fish; if thou hadst, thou hadst\n    been poor-John. Draw thy tool! Here comes two of the house of\n    Montagues.\n\n           Enter two other Servingmen [Abram and Balthasar].\n\n\n  Samp. My naked weapon is out. Quarrel! I will back thee.\n\n  Greg. How? turn thy back and run?\n\n  Samp. Fear me not.\n\n  Greg. No, marry. I fear thee!\n\n  Samp. Let us take the law of our sides; let them begin.\n\n  Greg. I will frown as I pass by, and let them take it as they list.\n\n  Samp. Nay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb at them; which is\n    disgrace to them, if they bear it.\n\n  Abr. Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?\n\n  Samp. I do bite my thumb, sir.\n\n  Abr. Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?\n\n  Samp. [aside to Gregory] Is the law of our side if I say ay?\n\n  Greg. [aside to Sampson] No.\n\n  Samp. No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir; but I bite my\n    thumb, sir.\n\n  Greg. Do you quarrel, sir?\n\n  Abr. Quarrel, sir? No, sir.\n\n  Samp. But if you do, sir, am for you. I serve as good a man as\n    you.\n\n  Abr. No better.\n\n  Samp. Well, sir.\n\n                        Enter Benvolio.\n\n\n  Greg. [aside to Sampson] Say 'better.' Here comes one of my\n    master's kinsmen.\n\n  Samp. Yes, better, sir.\n\n  Abr. You lie.\n\n  Samp. Draw, if you be men. Gregory, remember thy swashing blow.\n                                                     They fight.\n\n  Ben. Part, fools! [Beats down their swords.]\n    Put up your swords. You know not what you do.\n\n                          Enter Tybalt.\n\n\n  Tyb. What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds?\n    Turn thee Benvolio! look upon thy death.\n\n  Ben. I do but keep the peace. Put up thy sword,\n    Or manage it to part these men with me.\n\n  Tyb. What, drawn, and talk of peace? I hate the word\n    As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee.\n    Have at thee, coward!                            They fight.\n\n     Enter an officer, and three or four Citizens with clubs or\n                          partisans.\n\n\n  Officer. Clubs, bills, and partisans! Strike! beat them down!\n\n  Citizens. Down with the Capulets! Down with the Montagues!\n\n           Enter Old Capulet in his gown, and his Wife.\n\n\n  Cap. What noise is this? Give me my long sword, ho!\n\n  Wife. A crutch, a crutch! Why call you for a sword?\n\n  Cap. My sword, I say! Old Montague is come\n    And flourishes his blade in spite of me.\n\n                 Enter Old Montague and his Wife.\n\n\n  Mon. Thou villain Capulet!- Hold me not, let me go.\n\n  M. Wife. Thou shalt not stir one foot to seek a foe.\n\n                Enter Prince Escalus, with his Train.\n\n\n  Prince. Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,\n    Profaners of this neighbour-stained steel-\n    Will they not hear? What, ho! you men, you beasts,\n    That quench the fire of your pernicious rage\n    With purple fountains issuing from your veins!\n    On pain of torture, from those bloody hands\n    Throw your mistempered weapons to the ground\n    And hear the sentence of your moved prince.\n    Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word\n    By thee, old Capulet, and Montague,\n    Have thrice disturb'd the quiet of our streets\n    And made Verona's ancient citizens\n    Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments\n    To wield old partisans, in hands as old,\n    Cank'red with peace, to part your cank'red hate.\n    If ever you disturb our streets again,\n    Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.\n    For this time all the rest depart away.\n    You, Capulet, shall go along with me;\n    And, Montague, come you this afternoon,\n    To know our farther pleasure in this case,\n    To old Freetown, our common judgment place.\n    Once more, on pain of death, all men depart.\n              Exeunt [all but Montague, his Wife, and Benvolio].\n\n  Mon. Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach?\n    Speak, nephew, were you by when it began?\n\n  Ben. Here were the servants of your adversary\n    And yours, close fighting ere I did approach.\n    I drew to part them. In the instant came\n    The fiery Tybalt, with his sword prepar'd;\n    Which, as he breath'd defiance to my ears,\n    He swung about his head and cut the winds,\n    Who, nothing hurt withal, hiss'd him in scorn.\n    While we were interchanging thrusts and blows,\n    Came more and more, and fought on part and part,\n    Till the Prince came, who parted either part.\n\n  M. Wife. O, where is Romeo? Saw you him to-day?\n    Right glad I am he was not at this fray.\n\n  Ben. Madam, an hour before the worshipp'd sun\n    Peer'd forth the golden window of the East,\n    A troubled mind drave me to walk abroad;\n    Where, underneath the grove of sycamore\n    That westward rooteth from the city's side,\n    So early walking did I see your son.\n    Towards him I made; but he was ware of me\n    And stole into the covert of the wood.\n    I- measuring his affections by my own,\n    Which then most sought where most might not be found,\n    Being one too many by my weary self-\n    Pursu'd my humour, not Pursuing his,\n    And gladly shunn'd who gladly fled from me.\n\n  Mon. Many a morning hath he there been seen,\n    With tears augmenting the fresh morning's dew,\n    Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs;\n    But all so soon as the all-cheering sun\n    Should in the furthest East bean to draw\n    The shady curtains from Aurora's bed,\n    Away from light steals home my heavy son\n    And private in his chamber pens himself,\n    Shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight\n    And makes himself an artificial night.\n    Black and portentous must this humour prove\n    Unless good counsel may the cause remove.\n\n  Ben. My noble uncle, do you know the cause?\n\n  Mon. I neither know it nor can learn of him\n\n  Ben. Have you importun'd him by any means?\n\n  Mon. Both by myself and many other friend;\n    But he, his own affections' counsellor,\n    Is to himself- I will not say how true-\n    But to himself so secret and so close,\n    So far from sounding and discovery,\n    As is the bud bit with an envious worm\n    Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air\n    Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.\n    Could we but learn from whence his sorrows grow,\n    We would as willingly give cure as know.\n\n                       Enter Romeo.\n\n\n  Ben. See, where he comes. So please you step aside,\n    I'll know his grievance, or be much denied.\n\n  Mon. I would thou wert so happy by thy stay\n    To hear true shrift. Come, madam, let's away,\n                                     Exeunt [Montague and Wife].\n\n  Ben. Good morrow, cousin.\n\n  Rom. Is the day so young?\n\n  Ben. But new struck nine.\n\n  Rom. Ay me! sad hours seem long.\n    Was that my father that went hence so fast?\n\n  Ben. It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo's hours?\n\n  Rom. Not having that which having makes them short.\n\n  Ben. In love?\n\n  Rom. Out-\n\n  Ben. Of love?\n\n  Rom. Out of her favour where I am in love.\n\n  Ben. Alas that love, so gentle in his view,\n    Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!\n\n  Rom. Alas that love, whose view is muffled still,\n    Should without eyes see pathways to his will!\n    Where shall we dine? O me! What fray was here?\n    Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.\n    Here's much to do with hate, but more with love.\n    Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate!\n    O anything, of nothing first create!\n    O heavy lightness! serious vanity!\n    Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!\n    Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!\n    Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is\n    This love feel I, that feel no love in this.\n    Dost thou not laugh?\n\n  Ben. No, coz, I rather weep.\n\n  Rom. Good heart, at what?\n\n  Ben. At thy good heart's oppression.\n\n  Rom. Why, such is love's transgression.\n    Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,\n    Which thou wilt propagate, to have it prest\n    With more of thine. This love that thou hast shown\n    Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.\n    Love is a smoke rais'd with the fume of sighs;\n    Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;\n    Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears.\n    What is it else? A madness most discreet,\n    A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.\n    Farewell, my coz.\n\n  Ben. Soft! I will go along.\n    An if you leave me so, you do me wrong.\n\n  Rom. Tut! I have lost myself; I am not here:\n    This is not Romeo, he's some other where.\n\n  Ben. Tell me in sadness, who is that you love?\n\n  Rom. What, shall I groan and tell thee?\n\n  Ben. Groan? Why, no;\n    But sadly tell me who.\n\n  Rom. Bid a sick man in sadness make his will.\n    Ah, word ill urg'd to one that is so ill!\n    In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.\n\n  Ben. I aim'd so near when I suppos'd you lov'd.\n\n  Rom. A right good markman! And she's fair I love.\n\n  Ben. A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.\n\n  Rom. Well, in that hit you miss. She'll not be hit\n    With Cupid's arrow. She hath Dian's wit,\n    And, in strong proof of chastity well arm'd,\n    From Love's weak childish bow she lives unharm'd.\n    She will not stay the siege of loving terms,\n    Nor bide th' encounter of assailing eyes,\n    Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold.\n    O, she's rich in beauty; only poor\n    That, when she dies, with beauty dies her store.\n\n  Ben. Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?\n\n  Rom. She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste;\n    For beauty, starv'd with her severity,\n    Cuts beauty off from all posterity.\n    She is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair,\n    To merit bliss by making me despair.\n    She hath forsworn to love, and in that vow\n    Do I live dead that live to tell it now.\n\n  Ben. Be rul'd by me: forget to think of her.\n\n  Rom. O, teach me how I should forget to think!\n\n  Ben. By giving liberty unto thine eyes.\n    Examine other beauties.\n\n  Rom. 'Tis the way\n    To call hers (exquisite) in question more.\n    These happy masks that kiss fair ladies' brows,\n    Being black puts us in mind they hide the fair.\n    He that is strucken blind cannot forget\n    The precious treasure of his eyesight lost.\n    Show me a mistress that is passing fair,\n    What doth her beauty serve but as a note\n    Where I may read who pass'd that passing fair?\n    Farewell. Thou canst not teach me to forget.\n\n  Ben. I'll pay that doctrine, or else die in debt.      Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nA Street.\n\nEnter Capulet, County Paris, and [Servant] -the Clown.\n\n\n  Cap. But Montague is bound as well as I,\n    In penalty alike; and 'tis not hard, I think,\n    For men so old as we to keep the peace.\n\n  Par. Of honourable reckoning are you both,\n    And pity 'tis you liv'd at odds so long.\n    But now, my lord, what say you to my suit?\n\n  Cap. But saying o'er what I have said before:\n    My child is yet a stranger in the world,\n    She hath not seen the change of fourteen years;\n    Let two more summers wither in their pride\n    Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.\n\n  Par. Younger than she are happy mothers made.\n\n  Cap. And too soon marr'd are those so early made.\n    The earth hath swallowed all my hopes but she;\n    She is the hopeful lady of my earth.\n    But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart;\n    My will to her consent is but a part.\n    An she agree, within her scope of choice\n    Lies my consent and fair according voice.\n    This night I hold an old accustom'd feast,\n    Whereto I have invited many a guest,\n    Such as I love; and you among the store,\n    One more, most welcome, makes my number more.\n    At my poor house look to behold this night\n    Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light.\n    Such comfort as do lusty young men feel\n    When well apparell'd April on the heel\n    Of limping Winter treads, even such delight\n    Among fresh female buds shall you this night\n    Inherit at my house. Hear all, all see,\n    And like her most whose merit most shall be;\n    Which, on more view of many, mine, being one,\n    May stand in number, though in reck'ning none.\n    Come, go with me. [To Servant, giving him a paper] Go,\n    sirrah, trudge about\n    Through fair Verona; find those persons out\n    Whose names are written there, and to them say,\n    My house and welcome on their pleasure stay-\n                                     Exeunt [Capulet and Paris].\n\n  Serv. Find them out whose names are written here? It is written\n    that the shoemaker should meddle with his yard and the tailor\n    with his last, the fisher with his pencil and the painter\n    with his nets; but I am sent to find those persons whose names are\n    here writ, and can never find what names the writing person\n    hath here writ. I must to the learned. In good time!\n\n                   Enter Benvolio and Romeo.\n\n\n  Ben. Tut, man, one fire burns out another's burning;\n    One pain is lessoned by another's anguish;\n    Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning;\n    One desperate grief cures with another's languish.\n    Take thou some new infection to thy eye,\n    And the rank poison of the old will die.\n\n  Rom. Your plantain leaf is excellent for that.\n\n  Ben. For what, I pray thee?\n\n  Rom. For your broken shin.\n\n  Ben. Why, Romeo, art thou mad?\n\n  Rom. Not mad, but bound more than a madman is;\n    Shut up in Prison, kept without my food,\n    Whipp'd and tormented and- God-den, good fellow.\n\n  Serv. God gi' go-den. I pray, sir, can you read?\n\n  Rom. Ay, mine own fortune in my misery.\n\n  Serv. Perhaps you have learned it without book. But I pray, can\n    you read anything you see?\n\n  Rom. Ay, If I know the letters and the language.\n\n  Serv. Ye say honestly. Rest you merry!\n\n  Rom. Stay, fellow; I can read.                       He reads.\n\n      'Signior Martino and his wife and daughters;\n      County Anselmo and his beauteous sisters;\n      The lady widow of Vitruvio;\n      Signior Placentio and His lovely nieces;\n      Mercutio and his brother Valentine;\n      Mine uncle Capulet, his wife, and daughters;\n      My fair niece Rosaline and Livia;\n      Signior Valentio and His cousin Tybalt;\n      Lucio and the lively Helena.'\n\n    [Gives back the paper.] A fair assembly. Whither should they\n    come?\n\n  Serv. Up.\n\n  Rom. Whither?\n\n  Serv. To supper, to our house.\n\n  Rom. Whose house?\n\n  Serv. My master's.\n\n  Rom. Indeed I should have ask'd you that before.\n\n  Serv. Now I'll tell you without asking. My master is the great\n    rich Capulet; and if you be not of the house of Montagues, I pray\n    come and crush a cup of wine. Rest you merry!               Exit.\n\n  Ben. At this same ancient feast of Capulet's\n    Sups the fair Rosaline whom thou so lov'st;\n    With all the admired beauties of Verona.\n    Go thither, and with unattainted eye\n    Compare her face with some that I shall show,\n    And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.\n\n  Rom. When the devout religion of mine eye\n    Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires;\n    And these, who, often drown'd, could never die,\n    Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars!\n    One fairer than my love? The all-seeing sun\n    Ne'er saw her match since first the world begun.\n\n  Ben. Tut! you saw her fair, none else being by,\n    Herself pois'd with herself in either eye;\n    But in that crystal scales let there be weigh'd\n    Your lady's love against some other maid\n    That I will show you shining at this feast,\n    And she shall scant show well that now seems best.\n\n  Rom. I'll go along, no such sight to be shown,\n    But to rejoice in splendour of my own.              [Exeunt.]\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nCapulet's house.\n\nEnter Capulet's Wife, and Nurse.\n\n\n  Wife. Nurse, where's my daughter? Call her forth to me.\n\n  Nurse. Now, by my maidenhead at twelve year old,\n    I bade her come. What, lamb! what ladybird!\n    God forbid! Where's this girl? What, Juliet!\n\n                         Enter Juliet.\n\n\n  Jul. How now? Who calls?\n\n  Nurse. Your mother.\n\n  Jul. Madam, I am here.\n    What is your will?\n\n  Wife. This is the matter- Nurse, give leave awhile,\n    We must talk in secret. Nurse, come back again;\n    I have rememb'red me, thou's hear our counsel.\n    Thou knowest my daughter's of a pretty age.\n\n  Nurse. Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.\n\n  Wife. She's not fourteen.\n\n  Nurse. I'll lay fourteen of my teeth-\n    And yet, to my teen be it spoken, I have but four-\n    She is not fourteen. How long is it now\n    To Lammastide?\n\n  Wife. A fortnight and odd days.\n\n  Nurse. Even or odd, of all days in the year,\n    Come Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen.\n    Susan and she (God rest all Christian souls!)\n    Were of an age. Well, Susan is with God;\n    She was too good for me. But, as I said,\n    On Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen;\n    That shall she, marry; I remember it well.\n    'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;\n    And she was wean'd (I never shall forget it),\n    Of all the days of the year, upon that day;\n    For I had then laid wormwood to my dug,\n    Sitting in the sun under the dovehouse wall.\n    My lord and you were then at Mantua.\n    Nay, I do bear a brain. But, as I said,\n    When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple\n    Of my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool,\n    To see it tetchy and fall out with the dug!\n    Shake, quoth the dovehouse! 'Twas no need, I trow,\n    To bid me trudge.\n    And since that time it is eleven years,\n    For then she could stand high-lone; nay, by th' rood,\n    She could have run and waddled all about;\n    For even the day before, she broke her brow;\n    And then my husband (God be with his soul!\n    'A was a merry man) took up the child.\n    'Yea,' quoth he, 'dost thou fall upon thy face?\n    Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit;\n    Wilt thou not, Jule?' and, by my holidam,\n    The pretty wretch left crying, and said 'Ay.'\n    To see now how a jest shall come about!\n    I warrant, an I should live a thousand yeas,\n    I never should forget it. 'Wilt thou not, Jule?' quoth he,\n    And, pretty fool, it stinted, and said 'Ay.'\n\n  Wife. Enough of this. I pray thee hold thy peace.\n\n  Nurse. Yes, madam. Yet I cannot choose but laugh\n    To think it should leave crying and say 'Ay.'\n    And yet, I warrant, it bad upon it brow\n    A bump as big as a young cock'rel's stone;\n    A perilous knock; and it cried bitterly.\n    'Yea,' quoth my husband, 'fall'st upon thy face?\n    Thou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age;\n    Wilt thou not, Jule?' It stinted, and said 'Ay.'\n\n  Jul. And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I.\n\n  Nurse. Peace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace!\n    Thou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nurs'd.\n    An I might live to see thee married once, I have my wish.\n\n  Wife. Marry, that 'marry' is the very theme\n    I came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet,\n    How stands your disposition to be married?\n\n  Jul. It is an honour that I dream not of.\n\n  Nurse. An honour? Were not I thine only nurse,\n    I would say thou hadst suck'd wisdom from thy teat.\n\n  Wife. Well, think of marriage now. Younger than you,\n    Here in Verona, ladies of esteem,\n    Are made already mothers. By my count,\n    I was your mother much upon these years\n    That you are now a maid. Thus then in brief:\n    The valiant Paris seeks you for his love.\n\n  Nurse. A man, young lady! lady, such a man\n    As all the world- why he's a man of wax.\n\n  Wife. Verona's summer hath not such a flower.\n\n  Nurse. Nay, he's a flower, in faith- a very flower.\n\n  Wife. What say you? Can you love the gentleman?\n    This night you shall behold him at our feast.\n    Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face,\n    And find delight writ there with beauty's pen;\n    Examine every married lineament,\n    And see how one another lends content;\n    And what obscur'd in this fair volume lies\n    Find written in the margent of his eyes,\n    This precious book of love, this unbound lover,\n    To beautify him only lacks a cover.\n    The fish lives in the sea, and 'tis much pride\n    For fair without the fair within to hide.\n    That book in many's eyes doth share the glory,\n    That in gold clasps locks in the golden story;\n    So shall you share all that he doth possess,\n    By having him making yourself no less.\n\n  Nurse. No less? Nay, bigger! Women grow by men\n\n  Wife. Speak briefly, can you like of Paris' love?\n\n  Jul. I'll look to like, if looking liking move;\n    But no more deep will I endart mine eye\n    Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.\n\n                        Enter Servingman.\n\n\n  Serv. Madam, the guests are come, supper serv'd up, you call'd,\n    my young lady ask'd for, the nurse curs'd in the pantry, and\n    everything in extremity. I must hence to wait. I beseech you\n    follow straight.\n\n  Wife. We follow thee.                       Exit [Servingman].\n    Juliet, the County stays.\n\n  Nurse. Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nA street.\n\nEnter Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio, with five or six other Maskers;\nTorchbearers.\n\n\n  Rom. What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse?\n    Or shall we on without apology?\n\n  Ben. The date is out of such prolixity.\n    We'll have no Cupid hoodwink'd with a scarf,\n    Bearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath,\n    Scaring the ladies like a crowkeeper;\n    Nor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke\n    After the prompter, for our entrance;\n    But, let them measure us by what they will,\n    We'll measure them a measure, and be gone.\n\n  Rom. Give me a torch. I am not for this ambling.\n    Being but heavy, I will bear the light.\n\n  Mer. Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.\n\n  Rom. Not I, believe me. You have dancing shoes\n    With nimble soles; I have a soul of lead\n    So stakes me to the ground I cannot move.\n\n  Mer. You are a lover. Borrow Cupid's wings\n    And soar with them above a common bound.\n\n  Rom. I am too sore enpierced with his shaft\n    To soar with his light feathers; and so bound\n    I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe.\n    Under love's heavy burthen do I sink.\n\n  Mer. And, to sink in it, should you burthen love-\n    Too great oppression for a tender thing.\n\n  Rom. Is love a tender thing? It is too rough,\n    Too rude, too boist'rous, and it pricks like thorn.\n\n  Mer. If love be rough with you, be rough with love.\n    Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.\n    Give me a case to put my visage in.\n    A visor for a visor! What care I\n    What curious eye doth quote deformities?\n    Here are the beetle brows shall blush for me.\n\n  Ben. Come, knock and enter; and no sooner in\n    But every man betake him to his legs.\n\n  Rom. A torch for me! Let wantons light of heart\n    Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels;\n    For I am proverb'd with a grandsire phrase,\n    I'll be a candle-holder and look on;\n    The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done.\n\n  Mer. Tut! dun's the mouse, the constable's own word!\n    If thou art Dun, we'll draw thee from the mire\n    Of this sir-reverence love, wherein thou stick'st\n    Up to the ears. Come, we burn daylight, ho!\n\n  Rom. Nay, that's not so.\n\n  Mer. I mean, sir, in delay\n    We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day.\n    Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits\n    Five times in that ere once in our five wits.\n\n  Rom. And we mean well, in going to this masque;\n    But 'tis no wit to go.\n\n  Mer. Why, may one ask?\n\n  Rom. I dreamt a dream to-night.\n\n  Mer. And so did I.\n\n  Rom. Well, what was yours?\n\n  Mer. That dreamers often lie.\n\n  Rom. In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.\n\n  Mer. O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you.\n    She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes\n    In shape no bigger than an agate stone\n    On the forefinger of an alderman,\n    Drawn with a team of little atomies\n    Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;\n    Her wagon spokes made of long spinners' legs,\n    The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;\n    Her traces, of the smallest spider's web;\n    Her collars, of the moonshine's wat'ry beams;\n    Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film;\n    Her wagoner, a small grey-coated gnat,\n    Not half so big as a round little worm\n    Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;\n    Her chariot is an empty hazelnut,\n    Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,\n    Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.\n    And in this state she 'gallops night by night\n    Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;\n    O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on cursies straight;\n    O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees;\n    O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream,\n    Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,\n    Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are.\n    Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,\n    And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;\n    And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail\n    Tickling a parson's nose as 'a lies asleep,\n    Then dreams he of another benefice.\n    Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,\n    And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,\n    Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,\n    Of healths five fadom deep; and then anon\n    Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,\n    And being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two\n    And sleeps again. This is that very Mab\n    That plats the manes of horses in the night\n    And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish, hairs,\n    Which once untangled much misfortune bodes\n    This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,\n    That presses them and learns them first to bear,\n    Making them women of good carriage.\n    This is she-\n\n  Rom. Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace!\n    Thou talk'st of nothing.\n\n  Mer. True, I talk of dreams;\n    Which are the children of an idle brain,\n    Begot of nothing but vain fantasy;\n    Which is as thin of substance as the air,\n    And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes\n    Even now the frozen bosom of the North\n    And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,\n    Turning his face to the dew-dropping South.\n\n  Ben. This wind you talk of blows us from ourselves.\n    Supper is done, and we shall come too late.\n\n  Rom. I fear, too early; for my mind misgives\n    Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars,\n    Shall bitterly begin his fearful date\n    With this night's revels and expire the term\n    Of a despised life, clos'd in my breast,\n    By some vile forfeit of untimely death.\n    But he that hath the steerage of my course\n    Direct my sail! On, lusty gentlemen!\n\n  Ben. Strike, drum.\n                           They march about the stage. [Exeunt.]\n\n\n\n\nScene V.\nCapulet's house.\n\nServingmen come forth with napkins.\n\n  1. Serv. Where's Potpan, that he helps not to take away?\n    He shift a trencher! he scrape a trencher!\n  2. Serv. When good manners shall lie all in one or two men's\n    hands, and they unwash'd too, 'tis a foul thing.\n  1. Serv. Away with the join-stools, remove the court-cubbert,\n    look to the plate. Good thou, save me a piece of marchpane and, as\n    thou loves me, let the porter let in Susan Grindstone and\nNell.\n    Anthony, and Potpan!\n  2. Serv. Ay, boy, ready.\n  1. Serv. You are look'd for and call'd for, ask'd for and\n    sought for, in the great chamber.\n  3. Serv. We cannot be here and there too. Cheerly, boys!\n    Be brisk awhile, and the longer liver take all.      Exeunt.\n\n    Enter the Maskers, Enter, [with Servants,] Capulet, his Wife,\n              Juliet, Tybalt, and all the Guests\n               and Gentlewomen to the Maskers.\n\n\n  Cap. Welcome, gentlemen! Ladies that have their toes\n    Unplagu'd with corns will have a bout with you.\n    Ah ha, my mistresses! which of you all\n    Will now deny to dance? She that makes dainty,\n    She I'll swear hath corns. Am I come near ye now?\n    Welcome, gentlemen! I have seen the day\n    That I have worn a visor and could tell\n    A whispering tale in a fair lady's ear,\n    Such as would please. 'Tis gone, 'tis gone, 'tis gone!\n    You are welcome, gentlemen! Come, musicians, play.\n    A hall, a hall! give room! and foot it, girls.\n                                    Music plays, and they dance.\n    More light, you knaves! and turn the tables up,\n    And quench the fire, the room is grown too hot.\n    Ah, sirrah, this unlook'd-for sport comes well.\n    Nay, sit, nay, sit, good cousin Capulet,\n    For you and I are past our dancing days.\n    How long is't now since last yourself and I\n    Were in a mask?\n  2. Cap. By'r Lady, thirty years.\n\n  Cap. What, man? 'Tis not so much, 'tis not so much!\n    'Tis since the nuptial of Lucentio,\n    Come Pentecost as quickly as it will,\n    Some five-and-twenty years, and then we mask'd.\n  2. Cap. 'Tis more, 'tis more! His son is elder, sir;\n    His son is thirty.\n\n  Cap. Will you tell me that?\n    His son was but a ward two years ago.\n\n  Rom. [to a Servingman] What lady's that, which doth enrich the\n    hand Of yonder knight?\n\n  Serv. I know not, sir.\n\n  Rom. O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!\n    It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night\n    Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear-\n    Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!\n    So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows\n    As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.\n    The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand\n    And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.\n    Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!\n    For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.\n\n  Tyb. This, by his voice, should be a Montague.\n    Fetch me my rapier, boy. What, dares the slave\n    Come hither, cover'd with an antic face,\n    To fleer and scorn at our solemnity?\n    Now, by the stock and honour of my kin,\n    To strike him dead I hold it not a sin.\n\n  Cap. Why, how now, kinsman? Wherefore storm you so?\n\n  Tyb. Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe;\n    A villain, that is hither come in spite\n    To scorn at our solemnity this night.\n\n  Cap. Young Romeo is it?\n\n  Tyb. 'Tis he, that villain Romeo.\n\n  Cap. Content thee, gentle coz, let him alone.\n    'A bears him like a portly gentleman,\n    And, to say truth, Verona brags of him\n    To be a virtuous and well-govern'd youth.\n    I would not for the wealth of all this town\n    Here in my house do him disparagement.\n    Therefore be patient, take no note of him.\n    It is my will; the which if thou respect,\n    Show a fair presence and put off these frowns,\n    An ill-beseeming semblance for a feast.\n\n  Tyb. It fits when such a villain is a guest.\n    I'll not endure him.\n\n  Cap. He shall be endur'd.\n    What, goodman boy? I say he shall. Go to!\n    Am I the master here, or you? Go to!\n    You'll not endure him? God shall mend my soul!\n    You'll make a mutiny among my guests!\n    You will set cock-a-hoop! you'll be the man!\n\n  Tyb. Why, uncle, 'tis a shame.\n\n  Cap. Go to, go to!\n    You are a saucy boy. Is't so, indeed?\n    This trick may chance to scathe you. I know what.\n    You must contrary me! Marry, 'tis time.-\n    Well said, my hearts!- You are a princox- go!\n    Be quiet, or- More light, more light!- For shame!\n    I'll make you quiet; what!- Cheerly, my hearts!\n\n  Tyb. Patience perforce with wilful choler meeting\n    Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting.\n    I will withdraw; but this intrusion shall,\n    Now seeming sweet, convert to bitt'rest gall.          Exit.\n\n  Rom. If I profane with my unworthiest hand\n    This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:\n    My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand\n    To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.\n\n  Jul. Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,\n    Which mannerly devotion shows in this;\n    For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,\n    And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.\n\n  Rom. Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?\n\n  Jul. Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in pray'r.\n\n  Rom. O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do!\n    They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.\n\n  Jul. Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.\n\n  Rom. Then move not while my prayer's effect I take.\n    Thus from my lips, by thine my sin is purg'd.  [Kisses her.]\n\n  Jul. Then have my lips the sin that they have took.\n\n  Rom. Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urg'd!\n    Give me my sin again.                          [Kisses her.]\n\n  Jul. You kiss by th' book.\n\n  Nurse. Madam, your mother craves a word with you.\n\n  Rom. What is her mother?\n\n  Nurse. Marry, bachelor,\n    Her mother is the lady of the house.\n    And a good lady, and a wise and virtuous.\n    I nurs'd her daughter that you talk'd withal.\n    I tell you, he that can lay hold of her\n    Shall have the chinks.\n\n  Rom. Is she a Capulet?\n    O dear account! my life is my foe's debt.\n\n  Ben. Away, be gone; the sport is at the best.\n\n  Rom. Ay, so I fear; the more is my unrest.\n\n  Cap. Nay, gentlemen, prepare not to be gone;\n    We have a trifling foolish banquet towards.\n    Is it e'en so? Why then, I thank you all.\n    I thank you, honest gentlemen. Good night.\n    More torches here! [Exeunt Maskers.] Come on then, let's to bed.\n    Ah, sirrah, by my fay, it waxes late;\n    I'll to my rest.\n                              Exeunt [all but Juliet and Nurse].\n\n  Jul. Come hither, nurse. What is yond gentleman?\n\n  Nurse. The son and heir of old Tiberio.\n\n  Jul. What's he that now is going out of door?\n\n  Nurse. Marry, that, I think, be young Petruchio.\n\n  Jul. What's he that follows there, that would not dance?\n\n  Nurse. I know not.\n\n  Jul. Go ask his name.- If he be married,\n    My grave is like to be my wedding bed.\n\n  Nurse. His name is Romeo, and a Montague,\n    The only son of your great enemy.\n\n  Jul. My only love, sprung from my only hate!\n    Too early seen unknown, and known too late!\n    Prodigious birth of love it is to me\n    That I must love a loathed enemy.\n\n  Nurse. What's this? what's this?\n\n  Jul. A rhyme I learnt even now\n    Of one I danc'd withal.\n                                     One calls within, 'Juliet.'\n\n  Nurse. Anon, anon!\n    Come, let's away; the strangers all are gone.        Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nPROLOGUE\n\nEnter Chorus.\n\n\n  Chor. Now old desire doth in his deathbed lie,\n    And young affection gapes to be his heir;\n    That fair for which love groan'd for and would die,\n    With tender Juliet match'd, is now not fair.\n    Now Romeo is belov'd, and loves again,\n    Alike bewitched by the charm of looks;\n    But to his foe suppos'd he must complain,\n    And she steal love's sweet bait from fearful hooks.\n    Being held a foe, he may not have access\n    To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear,\n    And she as much in love, her means much less\n    To meet her new beloved anywhere;\n    But passion lends them power, time means, to meet,\n    Temp'ring extremities with extreme sweet.\nExit.\n\n\n\n\nACT II. Scene I.\nA lane by the wall of Capulet's orchard.\n\nEnter Romeo alone.\n\n\n  Rom. Can I go forward when my heart is here?\n    Turn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out.\n                     [Climbs the wall and leaps down within it.]\n\n                   Enter Benvolio with Mercutio.\n\n\n  Ben. Romeo! my cousin Romeo! Romeo!\n\n  Mer. He is wise,\n    And, on my life, hath stol'n him home to bed.\n\n  Ben. He ran this way, and leapt this orchard wall.\n    Call, good Mercutio.\n\n  Mer. Nay, I'll conjure too.\n    Romeo! humours! madman! passion! lover!\n    Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh;\n    Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied!\n    Cry but 'Ay me!' pronounce but 'love' and 'dove';\n    Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word,\n    One nickname for her purblind son and heir,\n    Young Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim\n    When King Cophetua lov'd the beggar maid!\n    He heareth not, he stirreth not, be moveth not;\n    The ape is dead, and I must conjure him.\n    I conjure thee by Rosaline's bright eyes.\n    By her high forehead and her scarlet lip,\n    By her fine foot, straight leg, and quivering thigh,\n    And the demesnes that there adjacent lie,\n    That in thy likeness thou appear to us!\n\n  Ben. An if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him.\n\n  Mer. This cannot anger him. 'Twould anger him\n    To raise a spirit in his mistress' circle\n    Of some strange nature, letting it there stand\n    Till she had laid it and conjur'd it down.\n    That were some spite; my invocation\n    Is fair and honest: in his mistress' name,\n    I conjure only but to raise up him.\n\n  Ben. Come, he hath hid himself among these trees\n    To be consorted with the humorous night.\n    Blind is his love and best befits the dark.\n\n  Mer. If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.\n    Now will he sit under a medlar tree\n    And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit\n    As maids call medlars when they laugh alone.\n    O, Romeo, that she were, O that she were\n    An open et cetera, thou a pop'rin pear!\n    Romeo, good night. I'll to my truckle-bed;\n    This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep.\n    Come, shall we go?\n\n  Ben. Go then, for 'tis in vain\n    'To seek him here that means not to be found.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nCapulet's orchard.\n\nEnter Romeo.\n\n\n  Rom. He jests at scars that never felt a wound.\n\n                     Enter Juliet above at a window.\n\n    But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?\n    It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!\n    Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,\n    Who is already sick and pale with grief\n    That thou her maid art far more fair than she.\n    Be not her maid, since she is envious.\n    Her vestal livery is but sick and green,\n    And none but fools do wear it. Cast it off.\n    It is my lady; O, it is my love!\n    O that she knew she were!\n    She speaks, yet she says nothing. What of that?\n    Her eye discourses; I will answer it.\n    I am too bold; 'tis not to me she speaks.\n    Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,\n    Having some business, do entreat her eyes\n    To twinkle in their spheres till they return.\n    What if her eyes were there, they in her head?\n    The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars\n    As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven\n    Would through the airy region stream so bright\n    That birds would sing and think it were not night.\n    See how she leans her cheek upon her hand!\n    O that I were a glove upon that hand,\n    That I might touch that cheek!\n\n  Jul. Ay me!\n\n  Rom. She speaks.\n    O, speak again, bright angel! for thou art\n    As glorious to this night, being o'er my head,\n    As is a winged messenger of heaven\n    Unto the white-upturned wond'ring eyes\n    Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him\n    When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds\n    And sails upon the bosom of the air.\n\n  Jul. O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?\n    Deny thy father and refuse thy name!\n    Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,\n    And I'll no longer be a Capulet.\n\n  Rom. [aside] Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?\n\n  Jul. 'Tis but thy name that is my enemy.\n    Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.\n    What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,\n    Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part\n    Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!\n    What's in a name? That which we call a rose\n    By any other name would smell as sweet.\n    So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,\n    Retain that dear perfection which he owes\n    Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name;\n    And for that name, which is no part of thee,\n    Take all myself.\n\n  Rom. I take thee at thy word.\n    Call me but love, and I'll be new baptiz'd;\n    Henceforth I never will be Romeo.\n\n  Jul. What man art thou that, thus bescreen'd in night,\n    So stumblest on my counsel?\n\n  Rom. By a name\n    I know not how to tell thee who I am.\n    My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,\n    Because it is an enemy to thee.\n    Had I it written, I would tear the word.\n\n  Jul. My ears have yet not drunk a hundred words\n    Of that tongue's utterance, yet I know the sound.\n    Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague?\n\n  Rom. Neither, fair saint, if either thee dislike.\n\n  Jul. How cam'st thou hither, tell me, and wherefore?\n    The orchard walls are high and hard to climb,\n    And the place death, considering who thou art,\n    If any of my kinsmen find thee here.\n\n  Rom. With love's light wings did I o'erperch these walls;\n    For stony limits cannot hold love out,\n    And what love can do, that dares love attempt.\n    Therefore thy kinsmen are no let to me.\n\n  Jul. If they do see thee, they will murther thee.\n\n  Rom. Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye\n    Than twenty of their swords! Look thou but sweet,\n    And I am proof against their enmity.\n\n  Jul. I would not for the world they saw thee here.\n\n  Rom. I have night's cloak to hide me from their sight;\n    And but thou love me, let them find me here.\n    My life were better ended by their hate\n    Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.\n\n  Jul. By whose direction found'st thou out this place?\n\n  Rom. By love, that first did prompt me to enquire.\n    He lent me counsel, and I lent him eyes.\n    I am no pilot; yet, wert thou as far\n    As that vast shore wash'd with the farthest sea,\n    I would adventure for such merchandise.\n\n  Jul. Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face;\n    Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek\n    For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night.\n    Fain would I dwell on form- fain, fain deny\n    What I have spoke; but farewell compliment!\n    Dost thou love me, I know thou wilt say 'Ay';\n    And I will take thy word. Yet, if thou swear'st,\n    Thou mayst prove false. At lovers' perjuries,\n    They say Jove laughs. O gentle Romeo,\n    If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully.\n    Or if thou thinkest I am too quickly won,\n    I'll frown, and be perverse, and say thee nay,\n    So thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world.\n    In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond,\n    And therefore thou mayst think my haviour light;\n    But trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true\n    Than those that have more cunning to be strange.\n    I should have been more strange, I must confess,\n    But that thou overheard'st, ere I was ware,\n    My true-love passion. Therefore pardon me,\n    And not impute this yielding to light love,\n    Which the dark night hath so discovered.\n\n  Rom. Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear,\n    That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops-\n\n  Jul. O, swear not by the moon, th' inconstant moon,\n    That monthly changes in her circled orb,\n    Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.\n\n  Rom. What shall I swear by?\n\n  Jul. Do not swear at all;\n    Or if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self,\n    Which is the god of my idolatry,\n    And I'll believe thee.\n\n  Rom. If my heart's dear love-\n\n  Jul. Well, do not swear. Although I joy in thee,\n    I have no joy of this contract to-night.\n    It is too rash, too unadvis'd, too sudden;\n    Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be\n    Ere one can say 'It lightens.' Sweet, good night!\n    This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath,\n    May prove a beauteous flow'r when next we meet.\n    Good night, good night! As sweet repose and rest\n    Come to thy heart as that within my breast!\n\n  Rom. O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?\n\n  Jul. What satisfaction canst thou have to-night?\n\n  Rom. Th' exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine.\n\n  Jul. I gave thee mine before thou didst request it;\n    And yet I would it were to give again.\n\n  Rom. Would'st thou withdraw it? For what purpose, love?\n\n  Jul. But to be frank and give it thee again.\n    And yet I wish but for the thing I have.\n    My bounty is as boundless as the sea,\n    My love as deep; the more I give to thee,\n    The more I have, for both are infinite.\n    I hear some noise within. Dear love, adieu!\n                                           [Nurse] calls within.\n    Anon, good nurse! Sweet Montague, be true.\n    Stay but a little, I will come again.                [Exit.]\n\n  Rom. O blessed, blessed night! I am afeard,\n    Being in night, all this is but a dream,\n    Too flattering-sweet to be substantial.\n\n                       Enter Juliet above.\n\n\n  Jul. Three words, dear Romeo, and good night indeed.\n    If that thy bent of love be honourable,\n    Thy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow,\n    By one that I'll procure to come to thee,\n    Where and what time thou wilt perform the rite;\n    And all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay\n    And follow thee my lord throughout the world.\n\n  Nurse. (within) Madam!\n\n  Jul. I come, anon.- But if thou meanest not well,\n    I do beseech thee-\n\n  Nurse. (within) Madam!\n\n  Jul. By-and-by I come.-\n    To cease thy suit and leave me to my grief.\n    To-morrow will I send.\n\n  Rom. So thrive my soul-\n\n  Jul. A thousand times good night!                        Exit.\n\n  Rom. A thousand times the worse, to want thy light!\n    Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books;\n    But love from love, towards school with heavy looks.\n\n                     Enter Juliet again, [above].\n\n\n  Jul. Hist! Romeo, hist! O for a falconer's voice\n    To lure this tassel-gentle back again!\n    Bondage is hoarse and may not speak aloud;\n    Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies,\n    And make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine\n    With repetition of my Romeo's name.\n    Romeo!\n\n  Rom. It is my soul that calls upon my name.\n    How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night,\n    Like softest music to attending ears!\n\n  Jul. Romeo!\n\n  Rom. My dear?\n\n  Jul. At what o'clock to-morrow\n    Shall I send to thee?\n\n  Rom. By the hour of nine.\n\n  Jul. I will not fail. 'Tis twenty years till then.\n    I have forgot why I did call thee back.\n\n  Rom. Let me stand here till thou remember it.\n\n  Jul. I shall forget, to have thee still stand there,\n    Rememb'ring how I love thy company.\n\n  Rom. And I'll still stay, to have thee still forget,\n    Forgetting any other home but this.\n\n  Jul. 'Tis almost morning. I would have thee gone-\n    And yet no farther than a wanton's bird,\n    That lets it hop a little from her hand,\n    Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,\n    And with a silk thread plucks it back again,\n    So loving-jealous of his liberty.\n\n  Rom. I would I were thy bird.\n\n  Jul. Sweet, so would I.\n    Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing.\n    Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow,\n    That I shall say good night till it be morrow.\n                                                         [Exit.]\n\n  Rom. Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast!\n    Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest!\n    Hence will I to my ghostly father's cell,\n    His help to crave and my dear hap to tell.\n Exit\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nFriar Laurence's cell.\n\nEnter Friar, [Laurence] alone, with a basket.\n\n\n  Friar. The grey-ey'd morn smiles on the frowning night,\n    Check'ring the Eastern clouds with streaks of light;\n    And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels\n    From forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels.\n    Non, ere the sun advance his burning eye\n    The day to cheer and night's dank dew to dry,\n    I must up-fill this osier cage of ours\n    With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers.\n    The earth that's nature's mother is her tomb.\n    What is her burying gave, that is her womb;\n    And from her womb children of divers kind\n    We sucking on her natural bosom find;\n    Many for many virtues excellent,\n    None but for some, and yet all different.\n    O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies\n    In plants, herbs, stones, and their true qualities;\n    For naught so vile that on the earth doth live\n    But to the earth some special good doth give;\n    Nor aught so good but, strain'd from that fair use,\n    Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse.\n    Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied,\n    And vice sometime's by action dignified.\n    Within the infant rind of this small flower\n    Poison hath residence, and medicine power;\n    For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;\n    Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.\n    Two such opposed kings encamp them still\n    In man as well as herbs- grace and rude will;\n    And where the worser is predominant,\n    Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.\n\n                        Enter Romeo.\n\n\n  Rom. Good morrow, father.\n\n  Friar. Benedicite!\n    What early tongue so sweet saluteth me?\n    Young son, it argues a distempered head\n    So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed.\n    Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye,\n    And where care lodges sleep will never lie;\n    But where unbruised youth with unstuff'd brain\n    Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign.\n    Therefore thy earliness doth me assure\n    Thou art uprous'd with some distemp'rature;\n    Or if not so, then here I hit it right-\n    Our Romeo hath not been in bed to-night.\n\n  Rom. That last is true-the sweeter rest was mine.\n\n  Friar. God pardon sin! Wast thou with Rosaline?\n\n  Rom. With Rosaline, my ghostly father? No.\n    I have forgot that name, and that name's woe.\n\n  Friar. That's my good son! But where hast thou been then?\n\n  Rom. I'll tell thee ere thou ask it me again.\n    I have been feasting with mine enemy,\n    Where on a sudden one hath wounded me\n    That's by me wounded. Both our remedies\n    Within thy help and holy physic lies.\n    I bear no hatred, blessed man, for, lo,\n    My intercession likewise steads my foe.\n\n  Friar. Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift\n    Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.\n\n  Rom. Then plainly know my heart's dear love is set\n    On the fair daughter of rich Capulet;\n    As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine,\n    And all combin'd, save what thou must combine\n    By holy marriage. When, and where, and how\n    We met, we woo'd, and made exchange of vow,\n    I'll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray,\n    That thou consent to marry us to-day.\n\n  Friar. Holy Saint Francis! What a change is here!\n    Is Rosaline, that thou didst love so dear,\n    So soon forsaken? Young men's love then lies\n    Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.\n    Jesu Maria! What a deal of brine\n    Hath wash'd thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline!\n    How much salt water thrown away in waste,\n    To season love, that of it doth not taste!\n    The sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears,\n    Thy old groans ring yet in mine ancient ears.\n    Lo, here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit\n    Of an old tear that is not wash'd off yet.\n    If e'er thou wast thyself, and these woes thine,\n    Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline.\n    And art thou chang'd? Pronounce this sentence then:\n    Women may fall when there's no strength in men.\n\n  Rom. Thou chid'st me oft for loving Rosaline.\n\n  Friar. For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.\n\n  Rom. And bad'st me bury love.\n\n  Friar. Not in a grave\n    To lay one in, another out to have.\n\n  Rom. I pray thee chide not. She whom I love now\n    Doth grace for grace and love for love allow.\n    The other did not so.\n\n  Friar. O, she knew well\n    Thy love did read by rote, that could not spell.\n    But come, young waverer, come go with me.\n    In one respect I'll thy assistant be;\n    For this alliance may so happy prove\n    To turn your households' rancour to pure love.\n\n  Rom. O, let us hence! I stand on sudden haste.\n\n  Friar. Wisely, and slow. They stumble that run fast.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nA street.\n\nEnter Benvolio and Mercutio.\n\n\n  Mer. Where the devil should this Romeo be?\n    Came he not home to-night?\n\n  Ben. Not to his father's. I spoke with his man.\n\n  Mer. Why, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline,\n    Torments him so that he will sure run mad.\n\n  Ben. Tybalt, the kinsman to old Capulet,\n    Hath sent a letter to his father's house.\n\n  Mer. A challenge, on my life.\n\n  Ben. Romeo will answer it.\n\n  Mer. Any man that can write may answer a letter.\n\n  Ben. Nay, he will answer the letter's master, how he dares,\n    being dared.\n\n  Mer. Alas, poor Romeo, he is already dead! stabb'd with a white\n    wench's black eye; shot through the ear with a love song; the\n    very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy's\n    butt-shaft; and is he a man to encounter Tybalt?\n\n  Ben. Why, what is Tybalt?\n\n  Mer. More than Prince of Cats, I can tell you. O, he's the\n    courageous captain of compliments. He fights as you sing\n    pricksong-keeps time, distance, and proportion; rests me his\n    minim rest, one, two, and the third in your bosom! the very\n    butcher of a silk button, a duellist, a duellist! a gentleman\n    of the very first house, of the first and second cause. Ah, the\n    immortal passado! the punto reverse! the hay.\n\n  Ben. The what?\n\n  Mer. The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting fantasticoes-\n    these new tuners of accent! 'By Jesu, a very good blade! a very\n    tall man! a very good whore!' Why, is not this a lamentable thing,\n    grandsir, that we should be thus afflicted with these strange\n    flies, these fashion-mongers, these pardona-mi's, who stand\n    so much on the new form that they cannot sit at ease on the old\n    bench? O, their bones, their bones!\n\n                               Enter Romeo.\n\n\n  Ben. Here comes Romeo! here comes Romeo!\n\n  Mer. Without his roe, like a dried herring. O flesh, flesh, how\n    art thou fishified! Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch\n    flowed in. Laura, to his lady, was but a kitchen wench (marry, she\n    had a better love to berhyme her), Dido a dowdy, Cleopatra a gypsy,\n    Helen and Hero hildings and harlots, This be a gray eye or so,\n    but not to the purpose. Signior Romeo, bon jour! There's a French\n    salutation to your French slop. You gave us the counterfeit\n    fairly last night.\n\n  Rom. Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you?\n\n  Mer. The slip, sir, the slip. Can you not conceive?\n\n  Rom. Pardon, good Mercutio. My business was great, and in such a\n    case as mine a man may strain courtesy.\n\n  Mer. That's as much as to say, such a case as yours constrains a\n    man to bow in the hams.\n\n  Rom. Meaning, to cursy.\n\n  Mer. Thou hast most kindly hit it.\n\n  Rom. A most courteous exposition.\n\n  Mer. Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy.\n\n  Rom. Pink for flower.\n\n  Mer. Right.\n\n  Rom. Why, then is my pump well-flower'd.\n\n  Mer. Well said! Follow me this jest now till thou hast worn out\n    thy pump, that, when the single sole of it is worn, the jest may\n    remain, after the wearing, solely singular.\n\n  Rom. O single-sold jest, solely singular for the singleness!\n\n  Mer. Come between us, good Benvolio! My wits faint.\n\n  Rom. Swits and spurs, swits and spurs! or I'll cry a match.\n\n  Mer. Nay, if our wits run the wild-goose chase, I am done; for\n    thou hast more of the wild goose in one of thy wits than, I am\n    sure, I have in my whole five. Was I with you there for the goose?\n\n  Rom. Thou wast never with me for anything when thou wast not\n    there for the goose.\n\n  Mer. I will bite thee by the ear for that jest.\n\n  Rom. Nay, good goose, bite not!\n\n  Mer. Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a most sharp sauce.\n\n  Rom. And is it not, then, well serv'd in to a sweet goose?\n\n  Mer. O, here's a wit of cheveril, that stretches from an inch\n    narrow to an ell broad!\n\n  Rom. I stretch it out for that word 'broad,' which, added to\n    the goose, proves thee far and wide a broad goose.\n\n  Mer. Why, is not this better now than groaning for love? Now\n    art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo; now art thou what thou art, by\n    art as well as by nature. For this drivelling love is like a\n    great natural that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in\n    a hole.\n\n  Ben. Stop there, stop there!\n\n  Mer. Thou desirest me to stop in my tale against the hair.\n\n  Ben. Thou wouldst else have made thy tale large.\n\n  Mer. O, thou art deceiv'd! I would have made it short; for I\n    was come to the whole depth of my tale, and meant indeed to\n    occupy the argument no longer.\n\n  Rom. Here's goodly gear!\n\n                      Enter Nurse and her Man [Peter].\n\n\n  Mer. A sail, a sail!\n\n  Ben. Two, two! a shirt and a smock.\n\n  Nurse. Peter!\n\n  Peter. Anon.\n\n  Nurse. My fan, Peter.\n\n  Mer. Good Peter, to hide her face; for her fan's the fairer face of\n    the two.\n\n  Nurse. God ye good morrow, gentlemen.\n\n  Mer. God ye good-den, fair gentlewoman.\n\n  Nurse. Is it good-den?\n\n  Mer. 'Tis no less, I tell ye; for the bawdy hand of the dial is\n    now upon the prick of noon.\n\n  Nurse. Out upon you! What a man are you!\n\n  Rom. One, gentlewoman, that God hath made for himself to mar.\n\n  Nurse. By my troth, it is well said. 'For himself to mar,'\n    quoth 'a? Gentlemen, can any of you tell me where I may find the\n    young Romeo?\n\n  Rom. I can tell you; but young Romeo will be older when you\n    have found him than he was when you sought him. I am the youngest\n    of that name, for fault of a worse.\n\n  Nurse. You say well.\n\n  Mer. Yea, is the worst well? Very well took, i' faith! wisely,\n    wisely.\n\n  Nurse. If you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with you.\n\n  Ben. She will endite him to some supper.\n\n  Mer. A bawd, a bawd, a bawd! So ho!\n\n  Rom. What hast thou found?\n\n  Mer. No hare, sir; unless a hare, sir, in a lenten pie, that is\n    something stale and hoar ere it be spent\n                                     He walks by them and sings.\n\n                   An old hare hoar,\n                   And an old hare hoar,\n                Is very good meat in Lent;\n                   But a hare that is hoar\n                   Is too much for a score\n                When it hoars ere it be spent.\n\n    Romeo, will you come to your father's? We'll to dinner thither.\n\n  Rom. I will follow you.\n\n  Mer. Farewell, ancient lady. Farewell,\n    [sings] lady, lady, lady.\n                                      Exeunt Mercutio, Benvolio.\n\n  Nurse. Marry, farewell! I Pray you, Sir, what saucy merchant\n    was this that was so full of his ropery?\n\n  Rom. A gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself talk and\n    will speak more in a minute than he will stand to in a month.\n\n  Nurse. An 'a speak anything against me, I'll take him down, an\n'a\n    were lustier than he is, and twenty such jacks; and if I cannot,\n    I'll find those that shall. Scurvy knave! I am none of his\n    flirt-gills; I am none of his skains-mates. And thou must\n    stand by too, and suffer every knave to use me at his pleasure!\n\n  Peter. I saw no man use you at his pleasure. If I had, my\n    weapon should quickly have been out, I warrant you. I dare draw as\n    soon as another man, if I see occasion in a good quarrel, and the\n    law on my side.\n\n  Nurse. Now, afore God, I am so vexed that every part about me\n    quivers. Scurvy knave! Pray you, sir, a word; and, as I told you,\n    my young lady bid me enquire you out. What she bid me say, I\n    will keep to myself; but first let me tell ye, if ye should lead\n    her into a fool's paradise, as they say, it were a very gross kind of\n    behaviour, as they say; for the gentlewoman is young; and\n    therefore, if you should deal double with her, truly it were\n    an ill thing to be off'red to any gentlewoman, and very weak dealing.\n\n  Rom. Nurse, commend me to thy lady and mistress. I protest unto\n    thee-\n\n  Nurse. Good heart, and I faith I will tell her as much. Lord,\n    Lord! she will be a joyful woman.\n\n  Rom. What wilt thou tell her, nurse? Thou dost not mark me.\n\n  Nurse. I will tell her, sir, that you do protest, which, as I\n    take it, is a gentlemanlike offer.\n\n  Rom. Bid her devise\n    Some means to come to shrift this afternoon;\n    And there she shall at Friar Laurence' cell\n    Be shriv'd and married. Here is for thy pains.\n\n  Nurse. No, truly, sir; not a penny.\n\n  Rom. Go to! I say you shall.\n\n  Nurse. This afternoon, sir? Well, she shall be there.\n\n  Rom. And stay, good nurse, behind the abbey wall.\n    Within this hour my man shall be with thee\n    And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair,\n    Which to the high topgallant of my joy\n    Must be my convoy in the secret night.\n    Farewell. Be trusty, and I'll quit thy pains.\n    Farewell. Commend me to thy mistress.\n\n  Nurse. Now God in heaven bless thee! Hark you, sir.\n\n  Rom. What say'st thou, my dear nurse?\n\n  Nurse. Is your man secret? Did you ne'er hear say,\n    Two may keep counsel, putting one away?\n\n  Rom. I warrant thee my man's as true as steel.\n\n  Nurse. Well, sir, my mistress is the sweetest lady. Lord, Lord!\n    when 'twas a little prating thing- O, there is a nobleman in\n    town, one Paris, that would fain lay knife aboard; but she,\n    good soul, had as lieve see a toad, a very toad, as see him. I\n    anger her sometimes, and tell her that Paris is the properer man;\n    but I'll warrant you, when I say so, she looks as pale as any\n    clout in the versal world. Doth not rosemary and Romeo begin both\n    with a letter?\n\n  Rom. Ay, nurse; what of that? Both with an R.\n\n  Nurse. Ah, mocker! that's the dog's name. R is for the- No; I\n    know it begins with some other letter; and she hath the prettiest\n    sententious of it, of you and rosemary, that it would do you\n    good to hear it.\n\n  Rom. Commend me to thy lady.\n\n  Nurse. Ay, a thousand times. [Exit Romeo.] Peter!\n\n  Peter. Anon.\n\n  Nurse. Peter, take my fan, and go before, and apace.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene V.\nCapulet's orchard.\n\nEnter Juliet.\n\n\n  Jul. The clock struck nine when I did send the nurse;\n    In half an hour she 'promis'd to return.\n    Perchance she cannot meet him. That's not so.\n    O, she is lame! Love's heralds should be thoughts,\n    Which ten times faster glide than the sun's beams\n    Driving back shadows over low'ring hills.\n    Therefore do nimble-pinion'd doves draw Love,\n    And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings.\n    Now is the sun upon the highmost hill\n    Of this day's journey, and from nine till twelve\n    Is three long hours; yet she is not come.\n    Had she affections and warm youthful blood,\n    She would be as swift in motion as a ball;\n    My words would bandy her to my sweet love,\n    And his to me,\n    But old folks, many feign as they were dead-\n    Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead.\n\n                      Enter Nurse [and Peter].\n\n    O God, she comes! O honey nurse, what news?\n    Hast thou met with him? Send thy man away.\n\n  Nurse. Peter, stay at the gate.\n                                                   [Exit Peter.]\n\n  Jul. Now, good sweet nurse- O Lord, why look'st thou sad?\n    Though news be sad, yet tell them merrily;\n    If good, thou shamest the music of sweet news\n    By playing it to me with so sour a face.\n\n  Nurse. I am aweary, give me leave awhile.\n    Fie, how my bones ache! What a jaunce have I had!\n\n  Jul. I would thou hadst my bones, and I thy news.\n    Nay, come, I pray thee speak. Good, good nurse, speak.\n\n  Nurse. Jesu, what haste! Can you not stay awhile?\n    Do you not see that I am out of breath?\n\n  Jul. How art thou out of breath when thou hast breath\n    To say to me that thou art out of breath?\n    The excuse that thou dost make in this delay\n    Is longer than the tale thou dost excuse.\n    Is thy news good or bad? Answer to that.\n    Say either, and I'll stay the circumstance.\n    Let me be satisfied, is't good or bad?\n\n  Nurse. Well, you have made a simple choice; you know not how to\n    choose a man. Romeo? No, not he. Though his face be better\n    than any man's, yet his leg excels all men's; and for a hand and a\n    foot, and a body, though they be not to be talk'd on, yet\n    they are past compare. He is not the flower of courtesy, but, I'll\n    warrant him, as gentle as a lamb. Go thy ways, wench; serve\nGod.\n    What, have you din'd at home?\n\n  Jul. No, no. But all this did I know before.\n    What says he of our marriage? What of that?\n\n  Nurse. Lord, how my head aches! What a head have I!\n    It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces.\n    My back o' t' other side,- ah, my back, my back!\n    Beshrew your heart for sending me about\n    To catch my death with jauncing up and down!\n\n  Jul. I' faith, I am sorry that thou art not well.\n    Sweet, sweet, Sweet nurse, tell me, what says my love?\n\n  Nurse. Your love says, like an honest gentleman, and a courteous,\n    and a kind, and a handsome; and, I warrant, a virtuous- Where\n    is your mother?\n\n  Jul. Where is my mother? Why, she is within.\n    Where should she be? How oddly thou repliest!\n    'Your love says, like an honest gentleman,\n    \"Where is your mother?\"'\n\n  Nurse. O God's Lady dear!\n    Are you so hot? Marry come up, I trow.\n    Is this the poultice for my aching bones?\n    Henceforward do your messages yourself.\n\n  Jul. Here's such a coil! Come, what says Romeo?\n\n  Nurse. Have you got leave to go to shrift to-day?\n\n  Jul. I have.\n\n  Nurse. Then hie you hence to Friar Laurence' cell;\n    There stays a husband to make you a wife.\n    Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks:\n    They'll be in scarlet straight at any news.\n    Hie you to church; I must another way,\n    To fetch a ladder, by the which your love\n    Must climb a bird's nest soon when it is dark.\n    I am the drudge, and toil in your delight;\n    But you shall bear the burthen soon at night.\n    Go; I'll to dinner; hie you to the cell.\n\n  Jul. Hie to high fortune! Honest nurse, farewell.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene VI.\nFriar Laurence's cell.\n\nEnter Friar [Laurence] and Romeo.\n\n\n  Friar. So smile the heavens upon this holy act\n    That after-hours with sorrow chide us not!\n\n  Rom. Amen, amen! But come what sorrow can,\n    It cannot countervail the exchange of joy\n    That one short minute gives me in her sight.\n    Do thou but close our hands with holy words,\n    Then love-devouring death do what he dare-\n    It is enough I may but call her mine.\n\n  Friar. These violent delights have violent ends\n    And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,\n    Which, as they kiss, consume. The sweetest honey\n    Is loathsome in his own deliciousness\n    And in the taste confounds the appetite.\n    Therefore love moderately: long love doth so;\n    Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.\n\n                     Enter Juliet.\n\n    Here comes the lady. O, so light a foot\n    Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint.\n    A lover may bestride the gossamer\n    That idles in the wanton summer air,\n    And yet not fall; so light is vanity.\n\n  Jul. Good even to my ghostly confessor.\n\n  Friar. Romeo shall thank thee, daughter, for us both.\n\n  Jul. As much to him, else is his thanks too much.\n\n  Rom. Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy\n    Be heap'd like mine, and that thy skill be more\n    To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath\n    This neighbour air, and let rich music's tongue\n    Unfold the imagin'd happiness that both\n    Receive in either by this dear encounter.\n\n  Jul. Conceit, more rich in matter than in words,\n    Brags of his substance, not of ornament.\n    They are but beggars that can count their worth;\n    But my true love is grown to such excess\n    cannot sum up sum of half my wealth.\n\n  Friar. Come, come with me, and we will make short work;\n    For, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone\n    Till Holy Church incorporate two in one.\n                                                       [Exeunt.]\n\n\n\n\nACT III. Scene I.\nA public place.\n\nEnter Mercutio, Benvolio, and Men.\n\n\n  Ben. I pray thee, good Mercutio, let's retire.\n    The day is hot, the Capulets abroad.\n    And if we meet, we shall not scape a brawl,\n    For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.\n\n  Mer. Thou art like one of these fellows that, when he enters\n    the confines of a tavern, claps me his sword upon the table and\n    says 'God send me no need of thee!' and by the operation of the\n    second cup draws him on the drawer, when indeed there is no need.\n\n  Ben. Am I like such a fellow?\n\n  Mer. Come, come, thou art as hot a jack in thy mood as any in\n    Italy; and as soon moved to be moody, and as soon moody to be\n    moved.\n\n  Ben. And what to?\n\n  Mer. Nay, an there were two such, we should have none shortly,\n    for one would kill the other. Thou! why, thou wilt quarrel with a\n    man that hath a hair more or a hair less in his beard than thou hast.\n    Thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no\n    other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes. What eye but such an\n    eye would spy out such a quarrel? Thy head is as full of quarrels\n    as an egg is full of meat; and yet thy head hath been beaten as\n    addle as an egg for quarrelling. Thou hast quarrell'd with a\n    man for coughing in the street, because he hath wakened thy dog\n    that hath lain asleep in the sun. Didst thou not fall out with a\n    tailor for wearing his new doublet before Easter, with\n    another for tying his new shoes with an old riband? And yet thou wilt\n    tutor me from quarrelling!\n\n  Ben. An I were so apt to quarrel as thou art, any man should\n    buy the fee simple of my life for an hour and a quarter.\n\n  Mer. The fee simple? O simple!\n\n                       Enter Tybalt and others.\n\n\n  Ben. By my head, here come the Capulets.\n\n  Mer. By my heel, I care not.\n\n  Tyb. Follow me close, for I will speak to them.\n    Gentlemen, good den. A word with one of you.\n\n  Mer. And but one word with one of us?\n    Couple it with something; make it a word and a blow.\n\n  Tyb. You shall find me apt enough to that, sir, an you will give me\n    occasion.\n\n  Mer. Could you not take some occasion without giving\n\n  Tyb. Mercutio, thou consortest with Romeo.\n\n  Mer. Consort? What, dost thou make us minstrels? An thou make\n    minstrels of us, look to hear nothing but discords. Here's my\n    fiddlestick; here's that shall make you dance. Zounds, consort!\n\n  Ben. We talk here in the public haunt of men.\n    Either withdraw unto some private place\n    And reason coldly of your grievances,\n    Or else depart. Here all eyes gaze on us.\n\n  Mer. Men's eyes were made to look, and let them gaze.\n    I will not budge for no man's pleasure,\n\n                        Enter Romeo.\n\n\n  Tyb. Well, peace be with you, sir. Here comes my man.\n\n  Mer. But I'll be hang'd, sir, if he wear your livery.\n    Marry, go before to field, he'll be your follower!\n    Your worship in that sense may call him man.\n\n  Tyb. Romeo, the love I bear thee can afford\n    No better term than this: thou art a villain.\n\n  Rom. Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee\n    Doth much excuse the appertaining rage\n    To such a greeting. Villain am I none.\n    Therefore farewell. I see thou knowest me not.\n\n  Tyb. Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries\n    That thou hast done me; therefore turn and draw.\n\n  Rom. I do protest I never injur'd thee,\n    But love thee better than thou canst devise\n    Till thou shalt know the reason of my love;\n    And so good Capulet, which name I tender\n    As dearly as mine own, be satisfied.\n\n  Mer. O calm, dishonourable, vile submission!\n    Alla stoccata carries it away.                      [Draws.]\n    Tybalt, you ratcatcher, will you walk?\n\n  Tyb. What wouldst thou have with me?\n\n  Mer. Good King of Cats, nothing but one of your nine lives.\nThat I\n    mean to make bold withal, and, as you shall use me hereafter,\n\n    dry-beat the rest of the eight. Will you pluck your sword out\n    of his pitcher by the ears? Make haste, lest mine be about your\n    ears ere it be out.\n\n  Tyb. I am for you.                                    [Draws.]\n\n  Rom. Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up.\n\n  Mer. Come, sir, your passado!\n                                                   [They fight.]\n\n  Rom. Draw, Benvolio; beat down their weapons.\n    Gentlemen, for shame! forbear this outrage!\n    Tybalt, Mercutio, the Prince expressly hath\n    Forbid this bandying in Verona streets.\n    Hold, Tybalt! Good Mercutio!\n         Tybalt under Romeo's arm thrusts Mercutio in, and flies\n                                           [with his Followers].\n\n  Mer. I am hurt.\n    A plague o' both your houses! I am sped.\n    Is he gone and hath nothing?\n\n  Ben. What, art thou hurt?\n\n  Mer. Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch. Marry, 'tis enough.\n    Where is my page? Go, villain, fetch a surgeon.\n                                                    [Exit Page.]\n\n  Rom. Courage, man. The hurt cannot be much.\n\n  Mer. No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door;\n    but 'tis enough, 'twill serve. Ask for me to-morrow, and you\n    shall find me a grave man. I am peppered, I warrant, for this\n    world. A plague o' both your houses! Zounds, a dog, a rat, a\n    mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to death! a braggart, a rogue,\na\n    villain, that fights by the book of arithmetic! Why the devil\n    came you between us? I was hurt under your arm.\n\n  Rom. I thought all for the best.\n\n  Mer. Help me into some house, Benvolio,\n    Or I shall faint. A plague o' both your houses!\n    They have made worms' meat of me. I have it,\n    And soundly too. Your houses!\n                                 [Exit. [supported by Benvolio].\n\n  Rom. This gentleman, the Prince's near ally,\n    My very friend, hath got this mortal hurt\n    In my behalf- my reputation stain'd\n    With Tybalt's slander- Tybalt, that an hour\n    Hath been my kinsman. O sweet Juliet,\n    Thy beauty hath made me effeminate\n    And in my temper soft'ned valour's steel\n\n                      Enter Benvolio.\n\n\n  Ben. O Romeo, Romeo, brave Mercutio's dead!\n    That gallant spirit hath aspir'd the clouds,\n    Which too untimely here did scorn the earth.\n\n  Rom. This day's black fate on moe days doth depend;\n    This but begins the woe others must end.\n\n                       Enter Tybalt.\n\n\n  Ben. Here comes the furious Tybalt back again.\n\n  Rom. Alive in triumph, and Mercutio slain?\n    Away to heaven respective lenity,\n    And fire-ey'd fury be my conduct now!\n    Now, Tybalt, take the 'villain' back again\n    That late thou gavest me; for Mercutio's soul\n    Is but a little way above our heads,\n    Staying for thine to keep him company.\n    Either thou or I, or both, must go with him.\n\n  Tyb. Thou, wretched boy, that didst consort him here,\n    Shalt with him hence.\n\n  Rom. This shall determine that.\n                                       They fight. Tybalt falls.\n\n  Ben. Romeo, away, be gone!\n    The citizens are up, and Tybalt slain.\n    Stand not amaz'd. The Prince will doom thee death\n    If thou art taken. Hence, be gone, away!\n\n  Rom. O, I am fortune's fool!\n\n  Ben. Why dost thou stay?\n                                                     Exit Romeo.\n                      Enter Citizens.\n\n\n  Citizen. Which way ran he that kill'd Mercutio?\n    Tybalt, that murtherer, which way ran he?\n\n  Ben. There lies that Tybalt.\n\n  Citizen. Up, sir, go with me.\n    I charge thee in the Prince's name obey.\n\n\n  Enter Prince [attended], Old Montague, Capulet, their Wives,\n                     and [others].\n\n\n  Prince. Where are the vile beginners of this fray?\n\n  Ben. O noble Prince. I can discover all\n    The unlucky manage of this fatal brawl.\n    There lies the man, slain by young Romeo,\n    That slew thy kinsman, brave Mercutio.\n\n  Cap. Wife. Tybalt, my cousin! O my brother's child!\n    O Prince! O husband! O, the blood is spill'd\n    Of my dear kinsman! Prince, as thou art true,\n    For blood of ours shed blood of Montague.\n    O cousin, cousin!\n\n  Prince. Benvolio, who began this bloody fray?\n\n  Ben. Tybalt, here slain, whom Romeo's hand did stay.\n    Romeo, that spoke him fair, bid him bethink\n    How nice the quarrel was, and urg'd withal\n    Your high displeasure. All this- uttered\n    With gentle breath, calm look, knees humbly bow'd-\n    Could not take truce with the unruly spleen\n    Of Tybalt deaf to peace, but that he tilts\n    With piercing steel at bold Mercutio's breast;\n    Who, all as hot, turns deadly point to point,\n    And, with a martial scorn, with one hand beats\n    Cold death aside and with the other sends\n    It back to Tybalt, whose dexterity\n    Retorts it. Romeo he cries aloud,\n    'Hold, friends! friends, part!' and swifter than his tongue,\n    His agile arm beats down their fatal points,\n    And 'twixt them rushes; underneath whose arm\n    An envious thrust from Tybalt hit the life\n    Of stout Mercutio, and then Tybalt fled;\n    But by-and-by comes back to Romeo,\n    Who had but newly entertain'd revenge,\n    And to't they go like lightning; for, ere I\n    Could draw to part them, was stout Tybalt slain;\n    And, as he fell, did Romeo turn and fly.\n    This is the truth, or let Benvolio die.\n\n  Cap. Wife. He is a kinsman to the Montague;\n    Affection makes him false, he speaks not true.\n    Some twenty of them fought in this black strife,\n    And all those twenty could but kill one life.\n    I beg for justice, which thou, Prince, must give.\n    Romeo slew Tybalt; Romeo must not live.\n\n  Prince. Romeo slew him; he slew Mercutio.\n    Who now the price of his dear blood doth owe?\n\n  Mon. Not Romeo, Prince; he was Mercutio's friend;\n    His fault concludes but what the law should end,\n    The life of Tybalt.\n\n  Prince. And for that offence\n    Immediately we do exile him hence.\n    I have an interest in your hate's proceeding,\n    My blood for your rude brawls doth lie a-bleeding;\n    But I'll amerce you with so strong a fine\n    That you shall all repent the loss of mine.\n    I will be deaf to pleading and excuses;\n    Nor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses.\n    Therefore use none. Let Romeo hence in haste,\n    Else, when he is found, that hour is his last.\n    Bear hence this body, and attend our will.\n    Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nCapulet's orchard.\n\nEnter Juliet alone.\n\n\n  Jul. Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,\n    Towards Phoebus' lodging! Such a wagoner\n    As Phaeton would whip you to the West\n    And bring in cloudy night immediately.\n    Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,\n    That runaway eyes may wink, and Romeo\n    Leap to these arms untalk'd of and unseen.\n    Lovers can see to do their amorous rites\n    By their own beauties; or, if love be blind,\n    It best agrees with night. Come, civil night,\n    Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,\n    And learn me how to lose a winning match,\n    Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods.\n    Hood my unmann'd blood, bating in my cheeks,\n    With thy black mantle till strange love, grown bold,\n    Think true love acted simple modesty.\n    Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night;\n    For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night\n    Whiter than new snow upon a raven's back.\n    Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-brow'd night;\n    Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,\n    Take him and cut him out in little stars,\n    And he will make the face of heaven so fine\n    That all the world will be in love with night\n    And pay no worship to the garish sun.\n    O, I have bought the mansion of a love,\n    But not possess'd it; and though I am sold,\n    Not yet enjoy'd. So tedious is this day\n    As is the night before some festival\n    To an impatient child that hath new robes\n    And may not wear them. O, here comes my nurse,\n\n                Enter Nurse, with cords.\n\n    And she brings news; and every tongue that speaks\n    But Romeo's name speaks heavenly eloquence.\n    Now, nurse, what news? What hast thou there? the cords\n    That Romeo bid thee fetch?\n\n  Nurse. Ay, ay, the cords.\n                                             [Throws them down.]\n\n  Jul. Ay me! what news? Why dost thou wring thy hands\n\n  Nurse. Ah, weraday! he's dead, he's dead, he's dead!\n    We are undone, lady, we are undone!\n    Alack the day! he's gone, he's kill'd, he's dead!\n\n  Jul. Can heaven be so envious?\n\n  Nurse. Romeo can,\n    Though heaven cannot. O Romeo, Romeo!\n    Who ever would have thought it? Romeo!\n\n  Jul. What devil art thou that dost torment me thus?\n    This torture should be roar'd in dismal hell.\n    Hath Romeo slain himself? Say thou but 'I,'\n    And that bare vowel 'I' shall poison more\n    Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice.\n    I am not I, if there be such an 'I';\n    Or those eyes shut that make thee answer 'I.'\n    If he be slain, say 'I'; or if not, 'no.'\n    Brief sounds determine of my weal or woe.\n\n  Nurse. I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes,\n    (God save the mark!) here on his manly breast.\n    A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse;\n    Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaub'd in blood,\n    All in gore-blood. I swounded at the sight.\n\n  Jul. O, break, my heart! poor bankrout, break at once!\n    To prison, eyes; ne'er look on liberty!\n    Vile earth, to earth resign; end motion here,\n    And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier!\n\n  Nurse. O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had!\n    O courteous Tybalt! honest gentleman\n    That ever I should live to see thee dead!\n\n  Jul. What storm is this that blows so contrary?\n    Is Romeo slaught'red, and is Tybalt dead?\n    My dear-lov'd cousin, and my dearer lord?\n    Then, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom!\n    For who is living, if those two are gone?\n\n  Nurse. Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished;\n    Romeo that kill'd him, he is banished.\n\n  Jul. O God! Did Romeo's hand shed Tybalt's blood?\n\n  Nurse. It did, it did! alas the day, it did!\n\n  Jul. O serpent heart, hid with a flow'ring face!\n    Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?\n    Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!\n    Dove-feather'd raven! wolvish-ravening lamb!\n    Despised substance of divinest show!\n    Just opposite to what thou justly seem'st-\n    A damned saint, an honourable villain!\n    O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell\n    When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend\n    In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh?\n    Was ever book containing such vile matter\n    So fairly bound? O, that deceit should dwell\n    In such a gorgeous palace!\n\n  Nurse. There's no trust,\n    No faith, no honesty in men; all perjur'd,\n    All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.\n    Ah, where's my man? Give me some aqua vitae.\n    These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.\n    Shame come to Romeo!\n\n  Jul. Blister'd be thy tongue\n    For such a wish! He was not born to shame.\n    Upon his brow shame is asham'd to sit;\n    For 'tis a throne where honour may be crown'd\n    Sole monarch of the universal earth.\n    O, what a beast was I to chide at him!\n\n  Nurse. Will you speak well of him that kill'd your cousin?\n\n  Jul. Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?\n    Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name\n    When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it?\n    But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?\n    That villain cousin would have kill'd my husband.\n    Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring!\n    Your tributary drops belong to woe,\n    Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy.\n    My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain;\n    And Tybalt's dead, that would have slain my husband.\n    All this is comfort; wherefore weep I then?\n    Some word there was, worser than Tybalt's death,\n    That murd'red me. I would forget it fain;\n    But O, it presses to my memory\n    Like damned guilty deeds to sinners' minds!\n    'Tybalt is dead, and Romeo- banished.'\n    That 'banished,' that one word 'banished,'\n    Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt's death\n    Was woe enough, if it had ended there;\n    Or, if sour woe delights in fellowship\n    And needly will be rank'd with other griefs,\n    Why followed not, when she said 'Tybalt's dead,'\n    Thy father, or thy mother, nay, or both,\n    Which modern lamentation might have mov'd?\n    But with a rearward following Tybalt's death,\n    'Romeo is banished'- to speak that word\n    Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,\n    All slain, all dead. 'Romeo is banished'-\n    There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,\n    In that word's death; no words can that woe sound.\n    Where is my father and my mother, nurse?\n\n  Nurse. Weeping and wailing over Tybalt's corse.\n    Will you go to them? I will bring you thither.\n\n  Jul. Wash they his wounds with tears? Mine shall be spent,\n    When theirs are dry, for Romeo's banishment.\n    Take up those cords. Poor ropes, you are beguil'd,\n    Both you and I, for Romeo is exil'd.\n    He made you for a highway to my bed;\n    But I, a maid, die maiden-widowed.\n    Come, cords; come, nurse. I'll to my wedding bed;\n    And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!\n\n  Nurse. Hie to your chamber. I'll find Romeo\n    To comfort you. I wot well where he is.\n    Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at night.\n    I'll to him; he is hid at Laurence' cell.\n\n  Jul. O, find him! give this ring to my true knight\n    And bid him come to take his last farewell.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nFriar Laurence's cell.\n\nEnter Friar [Laurence].\n\n\n  Friar. Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful man.\n    Affliction is enanmour'd of thy parts,\n    And thou art wedded to calamity.\n\n                         Enter Romeo.\n\n\n  Rom. Father, what news? What is the Prince's doom\n    What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand\n    That I yet know not?\n\n  Friar. Too familiar\n    Is my dear son with such sour company.\n    I bring thee tidings of the Prince's doom.\n\n  Rom. What less than doomsday is the Prince's doom?\n\n  Friar. A gentler judgment vanish'd from his lips-\n    Not body's death, but body's banishment.\n\n  Rom. Ha, banishment? Be merciful, say 'death';\n    For exile hath more terror in his look,\n    Much more than death. Do not say 'banishment.'\n\n  Friar. Hence from Verona art thou banished.\n    Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.\n\n  Rom. There is no world without Verona walls,\n    But purgatory, torture, hell itself.\n    Hence banished is banish'd from the world,\n    And world's exile is death. Then 'banishment'\n    Is death misterm'd. Calling death 'banishment,'\n    Thou cut'st my head off with a golden axe\n    And smilest upon the stroke that murders me.\n\n  Friar. O deadly sin! O rude unthankfulness!\n    Thy fault our law calls death; but the kind Prince,\n    Taking thy part, hath rush'd aside the law,\n    And turn'd that black word death to banishment.\n    This is dear mercy, and thou seest it not.\n\n  Rom. 'Tis torture, and not mercy. Heaven is here,\n    Where Juliet lives; and every cat and dog\n    And little mouse, every unworthy thing,\n    Live here in heaven and may look on her;\n    But Romeo may not. More validity,\n    More honourable state, more courtship lives\n    In carrion flies than Romeo. They may seize\n    On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand\n    And steal immortal blessing from her lips,\n    Who, even in pure and vestal modesty,\n    Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin;\n    But Romeo may not- he is banished.\n    This may flies do, when I from this must fly;\n    They are free men, but I am banished.\n    And sayest thou yet that exile is not death?\n    Hadst thou no poison mix'd, no sharp-ground knife,\n    No sudden mean of death, though ne'er so mean,\n    But 'banished' to kill me- 'banished'?\n    O friar, the damned use that word in hell;\n    Howling attends it! How hast thou the heart,\n    Being a divine, a ghostly confessor,\n    A sin-absolver, and my friend profess'd,\n    To mangle me with that word 'banished'?\n\n  Friar. Thou fond mad man, hear me a little speak.\n\n  Rom. O, thou wilt speak again of banishment.\n\n  Friar. I'll give thee armour to keep off that word;\n    Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy,\n    To comfort thee, though thou art banished.\n\n  Rom. Yet 'banished'? Hang up philosophy!\n    Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,\n    Displant a town, reverse a prince's doom,\n    It helps not, it prevails not. Talk no more.\n\n  Friar. O, then I see that madmen have no ears.\n\n  Rom. How should they, when that wise men have no eyes?\n\n  Friar. Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.\n\n  Rom. Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel.\n    Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,\n    An hour but married, Tybalt murdered,\n    Doting like me, and like me banished,\n    Then mightst thou speak, then mightst thou tear thy hair,\n    And fall upon the ground, as I do now,\n    Taking the measure of an unmade grave.\n                                                 Knock [within].\n\n  Friar. Arise; one knocks. Good Romeo, hide thyself.\n\n  Rom. Not I; unless the breath of heartsick groans,\n    Mist-like infold me from the search of eyes.          Knock.\n\n  Friar. Hark, how they knock! Who's there? Romeo, arise;\n    Thou wilt be taken.- Stay awhile!- Stand up;          Knock.\n    Run to my study.- By-and-by!- God's will,\n    What simpleness is this.- I come, I come!             Knock.\n    Who knocks so hard? Whence come you? What's your will\n\n  Nurse. [within] Let me come in, and you shall know my errand.\n    I come from Lady Juliet.\n\n  Friar. Welcome then.\n\n                       Enter Nurse.\n\n\n  Nurse. O holy friar, O, tell me, holy friar\n    Where is my lady's lord, where's Romeo?\n\n  Friar. There on the ground, with his own tears made drunk.\n\n  Nurse. O, he is even in my mistress' case,\n    Just in her case!\n\n  Friar. O woeful sympathy!\n    Piteous predicament!\n\n  Nurse. Even so lies she,\n    Blubb'ring and weeping, weeping and blubbering.\n    Stand up, stand up! Stand, an you be a man.\n    For Juliet's sake, for her sake, rise and stand!\n    Why should you fall into so deep an O?\n\n  Rom. (rises) Nurse-\n\n  Nurse. Ah sir! ah sir! Well, death's the end of all.\n\n  Rom. Spakest thou of Juliet? How is it with her?\n    Doth not she think me an old murtherer,\n    Now I have stain'd the childhood of our joy\n    With blood remov'd but little from her own?\n    Where is she? and how doth she! and what says\n    My conceal'd lady to our cancell'd love?\n\n  Nurse. O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps;\n    And now falls on her bed, and then starts up,\n    And Tybalt calls; and then on Romeo cries,\n    And then down falls again.\n\n  Rom. As if that name,\n    Shot from the deadly level of a gun,\n    Did murther her; as that name's cursed hand\n    Murder'd her kinsman. O, tell me, friar, tell me,\n    In what vile part of this anatomy\n    Doth my name lodge? Tell me, that I may sack\n    The hateful mansion.                     [Draws his dagger.]\n\n  Friar. Hold thy desperate hand.\n    Art thou a man? Thy form cries out thou art;\n    Thy tears are womanish, thy wild acts denote\n    The unreasonable fury of a beast.\n    Unseemly woman in a seeming man!\n    Or ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!\n    Thou hast amaz'd me. By my holy order,\n    I thought thy disposition better temper'd.\n    Hast thou slain Tybalt? Wilt thou slay thyself?\n    And slay thy lady that in thy life lives,\n    By doing damned hate upon thyself?\n    Why railest thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth?\n    Since birth and heaven and earth, all three do meet\n    In thee at once; which thou at once wouldst lose.\n    Fie, fie, thou shamest thy shape, thy love, thy wit,\n    Which, like a usurer, abound'st in all,\n    And usest none in that true use indeed\n    Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit.\n    Thy noble shape is but a form of wax\n    Digressing from the valour of a man;\n    Thy dear love sworn but hollow perjury,\n    Killing that love which thou hast vow'd to cherish;\n    Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,\n    Misshapen in the conduct of them both,\n    Like powder in a skilless soldier's flask,\n    is get afire by thine own ignorance,\n    And thou dismemb'red with thine own defence.\n    What, rouse thee, man! Thy Juliet is alive,\n    For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead.\n    There art thou happy. Tybalt would kill thee,\n    But thou slewest Tybalt. There art thou happy too.\n    The law, that threat'ned death, becomes thy friend\n    And turns it to exile. There art thou happy.\n    A pack of blessings light upon thy back;\n    Happiness courts thee in her best array;\n    But, like a misbhav'd and sullen wench,\n    Thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love.\n    Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.\n    Go get thee to thy love, as was decreed,\n    Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her.\n    But look thou stay not till the watch be set,\n    For then thou canst not pass to Mantua,\n    Where thou shalt live till we can find a time\n    To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,\n    Beg pardon of the Prince, and call thee back\n    With twenty hundred thousand times more joy\n    Than thou went'st forth in lamentation.\n    Go before, nurse. Commend me to thy lady,\n    And bid her hasten all the house to bed,\n    Which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto.\n    Romeo is coming.\n\n  Nurse. O Lord, I could have stay'd here all the night\n    To hear good counsel. O, what learning is!\n    My lord, I'll tell my lady you will come.\n\n  Rom. Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide.\n\n  Nurse. Here is a ring she bid me give you, sir.\n    Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late.           Exit.\n\n  Rom. How well my comfort is reviv'd by this!\n\n  Friar. Go hence; good night; and here stands all your state:\n    Either be gone before the watch be set,\n    Or by the break of day disguis'd from hence.\n    Sojourn in Mantua. I'll find out your man,\n    And he shall signify from time to time\n    Every good hap to you that chances here.\n    Give me thy hand. 'Tis late. Farewell; good night.\n\n  Rom. But that a joy past joy calls out on me,\n    It were a grief so brief to part with thee.\n    Farewell.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nCapulet's house\n\nEnter Old Capulet, his Wife, and Paris.\n\n\n  Cap. Things have fall'n out, sir, so unluckily\n    That we have had no time to move our daughter.\n    Look you, she lov'd her kinsman Tybalt dearly,\n    And so did I. Well, we were born to die.\n    'Tis very late; she'll not come down to-night.\n    I promise you, but for your company,\n    I would have been abed an hour ago.\n\n  Par. These times of woe afford no tune to woo.\n    Madam, good night. Commend me to your daughter.\n\n  Lady. I will, and know her mind early to-morrow;\n    To-night she's mew'd up to her heaviness.\n\n  Cap. Sir Paris, I will make a desperate tender\n    Of my child's love. I think she will be rul'd\n    In all respects by me; nay more, I doubt it not.\n    Wife, go you to her ere you go to bed;\n    Acquaint her here of my son Paris' love\n    And bid her (mark you me?) on Wednesday next-\n    But, soft! what day is this?\n\n  Par. Monday, my lord.\n\n  Cap. Monday! ha, ha! Well, Wednesday is too soon.\n    Thursday let it be- a Thursday, tell her\n    She shall be married to this noble earl.\n    Will you be ready? Do you like this haste?\n    We'll keep no great ado- a friend or two;\n    For hark you, Tybalt being slain so late,\n    It may be thought we held him carelessly,\n    Being our kinsman, if we revel much.\n    Therefore we'll have some half a dozen friends,\n    And there an end. But what say you to Thursday?\n\n  Par. My lord, I would that Thursday were to-morrow.\n\n  Cap. Well, get you gone. A Thursday be it then.\n    Go you to Juliet ere you go to bed;\n    Prepare her, wife, against this wedding day.\n    Farewell, My lord.- Light to my chamber, ho!\n    Afore me, It is so very very late\n    That we may call it early by-and-by.\n    Good night.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nScene V.\nCapulet's orchard.\n\nEnter Romeo and Juliet aloft, at the Window.\n\n\n  Jul. Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day.\n    It was the nightingale, and not the lark,\n    That pierc'd the fearful hollow of thine ear.\n    Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate tree.\n    Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.\n\n  Rom. It was the lark, the herald of the morn;\n    No nightingale. Look, love, what envious streaks\n    Do lace the severing clouds in yonder East.\n    Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day\n    Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.\n    I must be gone and live, or stay and die.\n\n  Jul. Yond light is not daylight; I know it, I.\n    It is some meteor that the sun exhales\n    To be to thee this night a torchbearer\n    And light thee on the way to Mantua.\n    Therefore stay yet; thou need'st not to be gone.\n\n  Rom. Let me be ta'en, let me be put to death.\n    I am content, so thou wilt have it so.\n    I'll say yon grey is not the morning's eye,\n    'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow;\n    Nor that is not the lark whose notes do beat\n    The vaulty heaven so high above our heads.\n    I have more care to stay than will to go.\n    Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so.\n    How is't, my soul? Let's talk; it is not day.\n\n  Jul. It is, it is! Hie hence, be gone, away!\n    It is the lark that sings so out of tune,\n    Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.\n    Some say the lark makes sweet division;\n    This doth not so, for she divideth us.\n    Some say the lark and loathed toad chang'd eyes;\n    O, now I would they had chang'd voices too,\n    Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,\n    Hunting thee hence with hunt's-up to the day!\n    O, now be gone! More light and light it grows.\n\n  Rom. More light and light- more dark and dark our woes!\n\n                          Enter Nurse.\n\n\n  Nurse. Madam!\n\n  Jul. Nurse?\n\n  Nurse. Your lady mother is coming to your chamber.\n    The day is broke; be wary, look about.\n\n  Jul. Then, window, let day in, and let life out.\n                                                         [Exit.]\n\n  Rom. Farewell, farewell! One kiss, and I'll descend.\n                                                  He goeth down.\n\n  Jul. Art thou gone so, my lord, my love, my friend?\n    I must hear from thee every day in the hour,\n    For in a minute there are many days.\n    O, by this count I shall be much in years\n    Ere I again behold my Romeo!\n\n  Rom. Farewell!\n    I will omit no opportunity\n    That may convey my greetings, love, to thee.\n\n  Jul. O, think'st thou we shall ever meet again?\n\n  Rom. I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve\n    For sweet discourses in our time to come.\n\n  Jul. O God, I have an ill-divining soul!\n    Methinks I see thee, now thou art below,\n    As one dead in the bottom of a tomb.\n    Either my eyesight fails, or thou look'st pale.\n\n  Rom. And trust me, love, in my eye so do you.\n    Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu!\nExit.\n\n  Jul. O Fortune, Fortune! all men call thee fickle.\n    If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him\n    That is renown'd for faith? Be fickle, Fortune,\n    For then I hope thou wilt not keep him long\n    But send him back.\n\n  Lady. [within] Ho, daughter! are you up?\n\n  Jul. Who is't that calls? It is my lady mother.\n    Is she not down so late, or up so early?\n    What unaccustom'd cause procures her hither?\n\n                       Enter Mother.\n\n\n  Lady. Why, how now, Juliet?\n\n  Jul. Madam, I am not well.\n\n  Lady. Evermore weeping for your cousin's death?\n    What, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears?\n    An if thou couldst, thou couldst not make him live.\n    Therefore have done. Some grief shows much of love;\n    But much of grief shows still some want of wit.\n\n  Jul. Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss.\n\n  Lady. So shall you feel the loss, but not the friend\n    Which you weep for.\n\n  Jul. Feeling so the loss,\n    I cannot choose but ever weep the friend.\n\n  Lady. Well, girl, thou weep'st not so much for his death\n    As that the villain lives which slaughter'd him.\n\n  Jul. What villain, madam?\n\n  Lady. That same villain Romeo.\n\n  Jul. [aside] Villain and he be many miles asunder.-\n    God pardon him! I do, with all my heart;\n    And yet no man like he doth grieve my heart.\n\n  Lady. That is because the traitor murderer lives.\n\n  Jul. Ay, madam, from the reach of these my hands.\n    Would none but I might venge my cousin's death!\n\n  Lady. We will have vengeance for it, fear thou not.\n    Then weep no more. I'll send to one in Mantua,\n    Where that same banish'd runagate doth live,\n    Shall give him such an unaccustom'd dram\n    That he shall soon keep Tybalt company;\n    And then I hope thou wilt be satisfied.\n\n  Jul. Indeed I never shall be satisfied\n    With Romeo till I behold him- dead-\n    Is my poor heart so for a kinsman vex'd.\n    Madam, if you could find out but a man\n    To bear a poison, I would temper it;\n    That Romeo should, upon receipt thereof,\n    Soon sleep in quiet. O, how my heart abhors\n    To hear him nam'd and cannot come to him,\n    To wreak the love I bore my cousin Tybalt\n    Upon his body that hath slaughter'd him!\n\n  Lady. Find thou the means, and I'll find such a man.\n    But now I'll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.\n\n  Jul. And joy comes well in such a needy time.\n    What are they, I beseech your ladyship?\n\n  Lady. Well, well, thou hast a careful father, child;\n    One who, to put thee from thy heaviness,\n    Hath sorted out a sudden day of joy\n    That thou expects not nor I look'd not for.\n\n  Jul. Madam, in happy time! What day is that?\n\n  Lady. Marry, my child, early next Thursday morn\n    The gallant, young, and noble gentleman,\n    The County Paris, at Saint Peter's Church,\n    Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride.\n\n  Jul. Now by Saint Peter's Church, and Peter too,\n    He shall not make me there a joyful bride!\n    I wonder at this haste, that I must wed\n    Ere he that should be husband comes to woo.\n    I pray you tell my lord and father, madam,\n    I will not marry yet; and when I do, I swear\n    It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate,\n    Rather than Paris. These are news indeed!\n\n  Lady. Here comes your father. Tell him so yourself,\n    And see how he will take it at your hands.\n\n                   Enter Capulet and Nurse.\n\n\n  Cap. When the sun sets the air doth drizzle dew,\n    But for the sunset of my brother's son\n    It rains downright.\n    How now? a conduit, girl? What, still in tears?\n    Evermore show'ring? In one little body\n    Thou counterfeit'st a bark, a sea, a wind:\n    For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea,\n    Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is\n    Sailing in this salt flood; the winds, thy sighs,\n    Who, raging with thy tears and they with them,\n    Without a sudden calm will overset\n    Thy tempest-tossed body. How now, wife?\n    Have you delivered to her our decree?\n\n  Lady. Ay, sir; but she will none, she gives you thanks.\n    I would the fool were married to her grave!\n\n  Cap. Soft! take me with you, take me with you, wife.\n    How? Will she none? Doth she not give us thanks?\n    Is she not proud? Doth she not count her blest,\n    Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought\n    So worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom?\n\n  Jul. Not proud you have, but thankful that you have.\n    Proud can I never be of what I hate,\n    But thankful even for hate that is meant love.\n\n  Cap. How, how, how, how, choplogic? What is this?\n    'Proud'- and 'I thank you'- and 'I thank you not'-\n    And yet 'not proud'? Mistress minion you,\n    Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds,\n    But fettle your fine joints 'gainst Thursday next\n    To go with Paris to Saint Peter's Church,\n    Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.\n    Out, you green-sickness carrion I out, you baggage!\n    You tallow-face!\n\n  Lady. Fie, fie! what, are you mad?\n\n  Jul. Good father, I beseech you on my knees,\n    Hear me with patience but to speak a word.\n\n  Cap. Hang thee, young baggage! disobedient wretch!\n    I tell thee what- get thee to church a Thursday\n    Or never after look me in the face.\n    Speak not, reply not, do not answer me!\n    My fingers itch. Wife, we scarce thought us blest\n    That God had lent us but this only child;\n    But now I see this one is one too much,\n    And that we have a curse in having her.\n    Out on her, hilding!\n\n  Nurse. God in heaven bless her!\n    You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.\n\n  Cap. And why, my Lady Wisdom? Hold your tongue,\n    Good Prudence. Smatter with your gossips, go!\n\n  Nurse. I speak no treason.\n\n  Cap. O, God-i-god-en!\n\n  Nurse. May not one speak?\n\n  Cap. Peace, you mumbling fool!\n    Utter your gravity o'er a gossip's bowl,\n    For here we need it not.\n\n  Lady. You are too hot.\n\n  Cap. God's bread I it makes me mad. Day, night, late, early,\n    At home, abroad, alone, in company,\n    Waking or sleeping, still my care hath been\n    To have her match'd; and having now provided\n    A gentleman of princely parentage,\n    Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly train'd,\n    Stuff'd, as they say, with honourable parts,\n    Proportion'd as one's thought would wish a man-\n    And then to have a wretched puling fool,\n    A whining mammet, in her fortune's tender,\n    To answer 'I'll not wed, I cannot love;\n    I am too young, I pray you pardon me'!\n    But, an you will not wed, I'll pardon you.\n    Graze where you will, you shall not house with me.\n    Look to't, think on't; I do not use to jest.\n    Thursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise:\n    An you be mine, I'll give you to my friend;\n    An you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets,\n    For, by my soul, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee,\n    Nor what is mine shall never do thee good.\n    Trust to't. Bethink you. I'll not be forsworn.         Exit.\n\n  Jul. Is there no pity sitting in the clouds\n    That sees into the bottom of my grief?\n    O sweet my mother, cast me not away!\n    Delay this marriage for a month, a week;\n    Or if you do not, make the bridal bed\n    In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.\n\n  Lady. Talk not to me, for I'll not speak a word.\n    Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.            Exit.\n\n  Jul. O God!- O nurse, how shall this be prevented?\n    My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven.\n    How shall that faith return again to earth\n    Unless that husband send it me from heaven\n    By leaving earth? Comfort me, counsel me.\n    Alack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems\n    Upon so soft a subject as myself!\n    What say'st thou? Hast thou not a word of joy?\n    Some comfort, nurse.\n\n  Nurse. Faith, here it is.\n    Romeo is banish'd; and all the world to nothing\n    That he dares ne'er come back to challenge you;\n    Or if he do, it needs must be by stealth.\n    Then, since the case so stands as now it doth,\n    I think it best you married with the County.\n    O, he's a lovely gentleman!\n    Romeo's a dishclout to him. An eagle, madam,\n    Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye\n    As Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart,\n    I think you are happy in this second match,\n    For it excels your first; or if it did not,\n    Your first is dead- or 'twere as good he were\n    As living here and you no use of him.\n\n  Jul. Speak'st thou this from thy heart?\n\n  Nurse. And from my soul too; else beshrew them both.\n\n  Jul. Amen!\n\n  Nurse. What?\n\n  Jul. Well, thou hast comforted me marvellous much.\n    Go in; and tell my lady I am gone,\n    Having displeas'd my father, to Laurence' cell,\n    To make confession and to be absolv'd.\n\n  Nurse. Marry, I will; and this is wisely done.           Exit.\n\n  Jul. Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend!\n    Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn,\n    Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue\n    Which she hath prais'd him with above compare\n    So many thousand times? Go, counsellor!\n    Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.\n    I'll to the friar to know his remedy.\n    If all else fail, myself have power to die.            Exit.\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. Scene I.\nFriar Laurence's cell.\n\nEnter Friar, [Laurence] and County Paris.\n\n\n  Friar. On Thursday, sir? The time is very short.\n\n  Par. My father Capulet will have it so,\n    And I am nothing slow to slack his haste.\n\n  Friar. You say you do not know the lady's mind.\n    Uneven is the course; I like it not.\n\n  Par. Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt's death,\n    And therefore have I little talk'd of love;\n    For Venus smiles not in a house of tears.\n    Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous\n    That she do give her sorrow so much sway,\n    And in his wisdom hastes our marriage\n    To stop the inundation of her tears,\n    Which, too much minded by herself alone,\n    May be put from her by society.\n    Now do you know the reason of this haste.\n\n  Friar. [aside] I would I knew not why it should be slow'd.-\n    Look, sir, here comes the lady toward my cell.\n\n                    Enter Juliet.\n\n\n  Par. Happily met, my lady and my wife!\n\n  Jul. That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.\n\n  Par. That may be must be, love, on Thursday next.\n\n  Jul. What must be shall be.\n\n  Friar. That's a certain text.\n\n  Par. Come you to make confession to this father?\n\n  Jul. To answer that, I should confess to you.\n\n  Par. Do not deny to him that you love me.\n\n  Jul. I will confess to you that I love him.\n\n  Par. So will ye, I am sure, that you love me.\n\n  Jul. If I do so, it will be of more price,\n    Being spoke behind your back, than to your face.\n\n  Par. Poor soul, thy face is much abus'd with tears.\n\n  Jul. The tears have got small victory by that,\n    For it was bad enough before their spite.\n\n  Par. Thou wrong'st it more than tears with that report.\n\n  Jul. That is no slander, sir, which is a truth;\n    And what I spake, I spake it to my face.\n\n  Par. Thy face is mine, and thou hast sland'red it.\n\n  Jul. It may be so, for it is not mine own.\n    Are you at leisure, holy father, now,\n    Or shall I come to you at evening mass\n\n  Friar. My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now.\n    My lord, we must entreat the time alone.\n\n  Par. God shield I should disturb devotion!\n    Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye.\n    Till then, adieu, and keep this holy kiss.             Exit.\n\n  Jul. O, shut the door! and when thou hast done so,\n    Come weep with me- past hope, past cure, past help!\n\n  Friar. Ah, Juliet, I already know thy grief;\n    It strains me past the compass of my wits.\n    I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it,\n    On Thursday next be married to this County.\n\n  Jul. Tell me not, friar, that thou hear'st of this,\n    Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it.\n    If in thy wisdom thou canst give no help,\n    Do thou but call my resolution wise\n    And with this knife I'll help it presently.\n    God join'd my heart and Romeo's, thou our hands;\n    And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo's seal'd,\n    Shall be the label to another deed,\n    Or my true heart with treacherous revolt\n    Turn to another, this shall slay them both.\n    Therefore, out of thy long-experienc'd time,\n    Give me some present counsel; or, behold,\n    'Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife\n    Shall play the empire, arbitrating that\n    Which the commission of thy years and art\n    Could to no issue of true honour bring.\n    Be not so long to speak. I long to die\n    If what thou speak'st speak not of remedy.\n\n  Friar. Hold, daughter. I do spy a kind of hope,\n    Which craves as desperate an execution\n    As that is desperate which we would prevent.\n    If, rather than to marry County Paris\n    Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,\n    Then is it likely thou wilt undertake\n    A thing like death to chide away this shame,\n    That cop'st with death himself to scape from it;\n    And, if thou dar'st, I'll give thee remedy.\n\n  Jul. O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,\n    From off the battlements of yonder tower,\n    Or walk in thievish ways, or bid me lurk\n    Where serpents are; chain me with roaring bears,\n    Or shut me nightly in a charnel house,\n    O'ercover'd quite with dead men's rattling bones,\n    With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls;\n    Or bid me go into a new-made grave\n    And hide me with a dead man in his shroud-\n    Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble-\n    And I will do it without fear or doubt,\n    To live an unstain'd wife to my sweet love.\n\n  Friar. Hold, then. Go home, be merry, give consent\n    To marry Paris. Wednesday is to-morrow.\n    To-morrow night look that thou lie alone;\n    Let not the nurse lie with thee in thy chamber.\n    Take thou this vial, being then in bed,\n    And this distilled liquor drink thou off;\n    When presently through all thy veins shall run\n    A cold and drowsy humour; for no pulse\n    Shall keep his native progress, but surcease;\n    No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou livest;\n    The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade\n    To paly ashes, thy eyes' windows fall\n    Like death when he shuts up the day of life;\n    Each part, depriv'd of supple government,\n    Shall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death;\n    And in this borrowed likeness of shrunk death\n    Thou shalt continue two-and-forty hours,\n    And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.\n    Now, when the bridegroom in the morning comes\n    To rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead.\n    Then, as the manner of our country is,\n    In thy best robes uncovered on the bier\n    Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault\n    Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie.\n    In the mean time, against thou shalt awake,\n    Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift;\n    And hither shall he come; and he and I\n    Will watch thy waking, and that very night\n    Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.\n    And this shall free thee from this present shame,\n    If no inconstant toy nor womanish fear\n    Abate thy valour in the acting it.\n\n  Jul. Give me, give me! O, tell not me of fear!\n\n  Friar. Hold! Get you gone, be strong and prosperous\n    In this resolve. I'll send a friar with speed\n    To Mantua, with my letters to thy lord.\n\n  Jul. Love give me strength! and strength shall help afford.\n    Farewell, dear father.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nCapulet's house.\n\nEnter Father Capulet, Mother, Nurse, and Servingmen,\n                        two or three.\n\n\n  Cap. So many guests invite as here are writ.\n                                            [Exit a Servingman.]\n    Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks.\n\n  Serv. You shall have none ill, sir; for I'll try if they can\n    lick their fingers.\n\n  Cap. How canst thou try them so?\n\n  Serv. Marry, sir, 'tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own\n    fingers. Therefore he that cannot lick his fingers goes not\n    with me.\n\n  Cap. Go, begone.\n                                                Exit Servingman.\n    We shall be much unfurnish'd for this time.\n    What, is my daughter gone to Friar Laurence?\n\n  Nurse. Ay, forsooth.\n\n  Cap. Well, be may chance to do some good on her.\n    A peevish self-will'd harlotry it is.\n\n                        Enter Juliet.\n\n\n  Nurse. See where she comes from shrift with merry look.\n\n  Cap. How now, my headstrong? Where have you been gadding?\n\n  Jul. Where I have learnt me to repent the sin\n    Of disobedient opposition\n    To you and your behests, and am enjoin'd\n    By holy Laurence to fall prostrate here\n    To beg your pardon. Pardon, I beseech you!\n    Henceforward I am ever rul'd by you.\n\n  Cap. Send for the County. Go tell him of this.\n    I'll have this knot knit up to-morrow morning.\n\n  Jul. I met the youthful lord at Laurence' cell\n    And gave him what becomed love I might,\n    Not stepping o'er the bounds of modesty.\n\n  Cap. Why, I am glad on't. This is well. Stand up.\n    This is as't should be. Let me see the County.\n    Ay, marry, go, I say, and fetch him hither.\n    Now, afore God, this reverend holy friar,\n    All our whole city is much bound to him.\n\n  Jul. Nurse, will you go with me into my closet\n    To help me sort such needful ornaments\n    As you think fit to furnish me to-morrow?\n\n  Mother. No, not till Thursday. There is time enough.\n\n  Cap. Go, nurse, go with her. We'll to church to-morrow.\n                                        Exeunt Juliet and Nurse.\n\n  Mother. We shall be short in our provision.\n    'Tis now near night.\n\n  Cap. Tush, I will stir about,\n    And all things shall be well, I warrant thee, wife.\n    Go thou to Juliet, help to deck up her.\n    I'll not to bed to-night; let me alone.\n    I'll play the housewife for this once. What, ho!\n    They are all forth; well, I will walk myself\n    To County Paris, to prepare him up\n    Against to-morrow. My heart is wondrous light,\n    Since this same wayward girl is so reclaim'd.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nJuliet's chamber.\n\nEnter Juliet and Nurse.\n\n\n  Jul. Ay, those attires are best; but, gentle nurse,\n    I pray thee leave me to myself to-night;\n    For I have need of many orisons\n    To move the heavens to smile upon my state,\n    Which, well thou knowest, is cross and full of sin.\n\n                          Enter Mother.\n\n\n  Mother. What, are you busy, ho? Need you my help?\n\n  Jul. No, madam; we have cull'd such necessaries\n    As are behooffull for our state to-morrow.\n    So please you, let me now be left alone,\n    And let the nurse this night sit up with you;\n    For I am sure you have your hands full all\n    In this so sudden business.\n\n  Mother. Good night.\n    Get thee to bed, and rest; for thou hast need.\n                                      Exeunt [Mother and Nurse.]\n\n  Jul. Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again.\n    I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins\n    That almost freezes up the heat of life.\n    I'll call them back again to comfort me.\n    Nurse!- What should she do here?\n    My dismal scene I needs must act alone.\n    Come, vial.\n    What if this mixture do not work at all?\n    Shall I be married then to-morrow morning?\n    No, No! This shall forbid it. Lie thou there.\n                                             Lays down a dagger.\n    What if it be a poison which the friar\n    Subtilly hath minist'red to have me dead,\n    Lest in this marriage he should be dishonour'd\n    Because he married me before to Romeo?\n    I fear it is; and yet methinks it should not,\n    For he hath still been tried a holy man.\n    I will not entertain so bad a thought.\n    How if, when I am laid into the tomb,\n    I wake before the time that Romeo\n    Come to redeem me? There's a fearful point!\n    Shall I not then be stifled in the vault,\n    To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,\n    And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?\n    Or, if I live, is it not very like\n    The horrible conceit of death and night,\n    Together with the terror of the place-\n    As in a vault, an ancient receptacle\n    Where for this many hundred years the bones\n    Of all my buried ancestors are pack'd;\n    Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,\n    Lies fest'ring in his shroud; where, as they say,\n    At some hours in the night spirits resort-\n    Alack, alack, is it not like that I,\n    So early waking- what with loathsome smells,\n    And shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth,\n    That living mortals, hearing them, run mad-\n    O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught,\n    Environed with all these hideous fears,\n    And madly play with my forefathers' joints,\n    And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud.,\n    And, in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone\n    As with a club dash out my desp'rate brains?\n    O, look! methinks I see my cousin's ghost\n    Seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body\n    Upon a rapier's point. Stay, Tybalt, stay!\n    Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee.\n\n        She [drinks and] falls upon her bed within the curtains.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nCapulet's house.\n\nEnter Lady of the House and Nurse.\n\n\n  Lady. Hold, take these keys and fetch more spices, nurse.\n\n  Nurse. They call for dates and quinces in the pastry.\n\n                       Enter Old Capulet.\n\n\n  Cap. Come, stir, stir, stir! The second cock hath crow'd,\n    The curfew bell hath rung, 'tis three o'clock.\n    Look to the bak'd meats, good Angelica;\n    Spare not for cost.\n\n  Nurse. Go, you cot-quean, go,\n    Get you to bed! Faith, you'll be sick to-morrow\n    For this night's watching.\n\n  Cap. No, not a whit. What, I have watch'd ere now\n    All night for lesser cause, and ne'er been sick.\n\n  Lady. Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt in your time;\n    But I will watch you from such watching now.\n                                          Exeunt Lady and Nurse.\n\n  Cap. A jealous hood, a jealous hood!\n\n\n  Enter three or four [Fellows, with spits and logs and baskets.\n\n    What is there? Now, fellow,\n\n  Fellow. Things for the cook, sir; but I know not what.\n\n  Cap. Make haste, make haste. [Exit Fellow.] Sirrah, fetch drier\n      logs.\n    Call Peter; he will show thee where they are.\n\n  Fellow. I have a head, sir, that will find out logs\n    And never trouble Peter for the matter.\n\n  Cap. Mass, and well said; a merry whoreson, ha!\n    Thou shalt be loggerhead. [Exit Fellow.] Good faith, 'tis day.\n    The County will be here with music straight,\n    For so he said he would.                         Play music.\n    I hear him near.\n    Nurse! Wife! What, ho! What, nurse, I say!\n\n                              Enter Nurse.\n    Go waken Juliet; go and trim her up.\n    I'll go and chat with Paris. Hie, make haste,\n    Make haste! The bridegroom he is come already:\n    Make haste, I say.\n                                                       [Exeunt.]\n\n\n\n\nScene V.\nJuliet's chamber.\n\n[Enter Nurse.]\n\n\n  Nurse. Mistress! what, mistress! Juliet! Fast, I warrant her, she.\n    Why, lamb! why, lady! Fie, you slug-abed!\n    Why, love, I say! madam! sweetheart! Why, bride!\n    What, not a word? You take your pennyworths now!\n    Sleep for a week; for the next night, I warrant,\n    The County Paris hath set up his rest\n    That you shall rest but little. God forgive me!\n    Marry, and amen. How sound is she asleep!\n    I needs must wake her. Madam, madam, madam!\n    Ay, let the County take you in your bed!\n    He'll fright you up, i' faith. Will it not be?\n                                     [Draws aside the curtains.]\n    What, dress'd, and in your clothes, and down again?\n    I must needs wake you. Lady! lady! lady!\n    Alas, alas! Help, help! My lady's dead!\n    O weraday that ever I was born!\n    Some aqua-vitae, ho! My lord! my lady!\n\n                           Enter Mother.\n\n\n  Mother. What noise is here?\n\n  Nurse. O lamentable day!\n\n  Mother. What is the matter?\n\n  Nurse. Look, look! O heavy day!\n\n  Mother. O me, O me! My child, my only life!\n    Revive, look up, or I will die with thee!\n    Help, help! Call help.\n\n                            Enter Father.\n\n\n  Father. For shame, bring Juliet forth; her lord is come.\n\n  Nurse. She's dead, deceas'd; she's dead! Alack the day!\n\n  Mother. Alack the day, she's dead, she's dead, she's dead!\n\n  Cap. Ha! let me see her. Out alas! she's cold,\n    Her blood is settled, and her joints are stiff;\n    Life and these lips have long been separated.\n    Death lies on her like an untimely frost\n    Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.\n\n  Nurse. O lamentable day!\n\n  Mother. O woful time!\n\n  Cap. Death, that hath ta'en her hence to make me wail,\n    Ties up my tongue and will not let me speak.\n\n\n  Enter Friar [Laurence] and the County [Paris], with Musicians.\n\n\n  Friar. Come, is the bride ready to go to church?\n\n  Cap. Ready to go, but never to return.\n    O son, the night before thy wedding day\n    Hath Death lain with thy wife. See, there she lies,\n    Flower as she was, deflowered by him.\n    Death is my son-in-law, Death is my heir;\n    My daughter he hath wedded. I will die\n    And leave him all. Life, living, all is Death's.\n\n  Par. Have I thought long to see this morning's face,\n    And doth it give me such a sight as this?\n\n  Mother. Accurs'd, unhappy, wretched, hateful day!\n    Most miserable hour that e'er time saw\n    In lasting labour of his pilgrimage!\n    But one, poor one, one poor and loving child,\n    But one thing to rejoice and solace in,\n    And cruel Death hath catch'd it from my sight!\n\n  Nurse. O woe? O woful, woful, woful day!\n    Most lamentable day, most woful day\n    That ever ever I did yet behold!\n    O day! O day! O day! O hateful day!\n    Never was seen so black a day as this.\n    O woful day! O woful day!\n\n  Par. Beguil'd, divorced, wronged, spited, slain!\n    Most detestable Death, by thee beguil'd,\n    By cruel cruel thee quite overthrown!\n    O love! O life! not life, but love in death\n\n  Cap. Despis'd, distressed, hated, martyr'd, kill'd!\n    Uncomfortable time, why cam'st thou now\n    To murther, murther our solemnity?\n    O child! O child! my soul, and not my child!\n    Dead art thou, dead! alack, my child is dead,\n    And with my child my joys are buried!\n\n  Friar. Peace, ho, for shame! Confusion's cure lives not\n    In these confusions. Heaven and yourself\n    Had part in this fair maid! now heaven hath all,\n    And all the better is it for the maid.\n    Your part in her you could not keep from death,\n    But heaven keeps his part in eternal life.\n    The most you sought was her promotion,\n    For 'twas your heaven she should be advanc'd;\n    And weep ye now, seeing she is advanc'd\n    Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself?\n    O, in this love, you love your child so ill\n    That you run mad, seeing that she is well.\n    She's not well married that lives married long,\n    But she's best married that dies married young.\n    Dry up your tears and stick your rosemary\n    On this fair corse, and, as the custom is,\n    In all her best array bear her to church;\n    For though fond nature bids us all lament,\n    Yet nature's tears are reason's merriment.\n\n  Cap. All things that we ordained festival\n    Turn from their office to black funeral-\n    Our instruments to melancholy bells,\n    Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast;\n    Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change;\n    Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse;\n    And all things change them to the contrary.\n\n  Friar. Sir, go you in; and, madam, go with him;\n    And go, Sir Paris. Every one prepare\n    To follow this fair corse unto her grave.\n    The heavens do low'r upon you for some ill;\n    Move them no more by crossing their high will.\n                           Exeunt. Manent Musicians [and Nurse].\n  1. Mus. Faith, we may put up our pipes and be gone.\n\n  Nurse. Honest good fellows, ah, put up, put up!\n    For well you know this is a pitiful case.            [Exit.]\n  1. Mus. Ay, by my troth, the case may be amended.\n\n                         Enter Peter.\n\n\n  Pet. Musicians, O, musicians, 'Heart's ease,' 'Heart's ease'!\n    O, an you will have me live, play 'Heart's ease.'\n  1. Mus. Why 'Heart's ease'',\n\n  Pet. O, musicians, because my heart itself plays 'My heart is\n    full of woe.' O, play me some merry dump to comfort me.\n  1. Mus. Not a dump we! 'Tis no time to play now.\n\n  Pet. You will not then?\n  1. Mus. No.\n\n  Pet. I will then give it you soundly.\n  1. Mus. What will you give us?\n\n  Pet. No money, on my faith, but the gleek. I will give you the\n     minstrel.\n  1. Mus. Then will I give you the serving-creature.\n\n  Pet. Then will I lay the serving-creature's dagger on your pate.\n    I will carry no crotchets. I'll re you, I'll fa you. Do you\n    note me?\n  1. Mus. An you re us and fa us, you note us.\n  2. Mus. Pray you put up your dagger, and put out your wit.\n\n  Pet. Then have at you with my wit! I will dry-beat you with an\n    iron wit, and put up my iron dagger. Answer me like men.\n\n           'When griping grief the heart doth wound,\n             And doleful dumps the mind oppress,\n           Then music with her silver sound'-\n\n    Why 'silver sound'? Why 'music with her silver sound'?\n    What say you, Simon Catling?\n  1. Mus. Marry, sir, because silver hath a sweet sound.\n\n  Pet. Pretty! What say You, Hugh Rebeck?\n  2. Mus. I say 'silver sound' because musicians sound for silver.\n\n  Pet. Pretty too! What say you, James Soundpost?\n  3. Mus. Faith, I know not what to say.\n\n  Pet. O, I cry you mercy! you are the singer. I will say for you. It\n    is 'music with her silver sound' because musicians have no\n    gold for sounding.\n\n           'Then music with her silver sound\n             With speedy help doth lend redress.'         [Exit.\n\n  1. Mus. What a pestilent knave is this same?\n  2. Mus. Hang him, Jack! Come, we'll in here, tarry for the\n    mourners, and stay dinner.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nACT V. Scene I.\nMantua. A street.\n\nEnter Romeo.\n\n\n  Rom. If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep\n    My dreams presage some joyful news at hand.\n    My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne,\n    And all this day an unaccustom'd spirit\n    Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.\n    I dreamt my lady came and found me dead\n    (Strange dream that gives a dead man leave to think!)\n    And breath'd such life with kisses in my lips\n    That I reviv'd and was an emperor.\n    Ah me! how sweet is love itself possess'd,\n    When but love's shadows are so rich in joy!\n\n                Enter Romeo's Man Balthasar, booted.\n\n    News from Verona! How now, Balthasar?\n    Dost thou not bring me letters from the friar?\n    How doth my lady? Is my father well?\n    How fares my Juliet? That I ask again,\n    For nothing can be ill if she be well.\n\n  Man. Then she is well, and nothing can be ill.\n    Her body sleeps in Capel's monument,\n    And her immortal part with angels lives.\n    I saw her laid low in her kindred's vault\n    And presently took post to tell it you.\n    O, pardon me for bringing these ill news,\n    Since you did leave it for my office, sir.\n\n  Rom. Is it e'en so? Then I defy you, stars!\n    Thou knowest my lodging. Get me ink and paper\n    And hire posthorses. I will hence to-night.\n\n  Man. I do beseech you, sir, have patience.\n    Your looks are pale and wild and do import\n    Some misadventure.\n\n  Rom. Tush, thou art deceiv'd.\n    Leave me and do the thing I bid thee do.\n    Hast thou no letters to me from the friar?\n\n  Man. No, my good lord.\n\n  Rom. No matter. Get thee gone\n    And hire those horses. I'll be with thee straight.\n                                               Exit [Balthasar].\n    Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night.\n    Let's see for means. O mischief, thou art swift\n    To enter in the thoughts of desperate men!\n    I do remember an apothecary,\n    And hereabouts 'a dwells, which late I noted\n    In tatt'red weeds, with overwhelming brows,\n    Culling of simples. Meagre were his looks,\n    Sharp misery had worn him to the bones;\n    And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,\n    An alligator stuff'd, and other skins\n    Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves\n    A beggarly account of empty boxes,\n    Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds,\n    Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses\n    Were thinly scattered, to make up a show.\n    Noting this penury, to myself I said,\n    'An if a man did need a poison now\n    Whose sale is present death in Mantua,\n    Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.'\n    O, this same thought did but forerun my need,\n    And this same needy man must sell it me.\n    As I remember, this should be the house.\n    Being holiday, the beggar's shop is shut. What, ho! apothecary!\n\n                        Enter Apothecary.\n\n\n  Apoth. Who calls so loud?\n\n  Rom. Come hither, man. I see that thou art poor.\n    Hold, there is forty ducats. Let me have\n    A dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear\n    As will disperse itself through all the veins\n    That the life-weary taker mall fall dead,\n    And that the trunk may be discharg'd of breath\n    As violently as hasty powder fir'd\n    Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb.\n\n  Apoth. Such mortal drugs I have; but Mantua's law\n    Is death to any he that utters them.\n\n  Rom. Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness\n    And fearest to die? Famine is in thy cheeks,\n    Need and oppression starveth in thine eyes,\n    Contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back:\n    The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law;\n    The world affords no law to make thee rich;\n    Then be not poor, but break it and take this.\n\n  Apoth. My poverty but not my will consents.\n\n  Rom. I pay thy poverty and not thy will.\n\n  Apoth. Put this in any liquid thing you will\n    And drink it off, and if you had the strength\n    Of twenty men, it would dispatch you straight.\n\n  Rom. There is thy gold- worse poison to men's souls,\n    Doing more murther in this loathsome world,\n    Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell.\n    I sell thee poison; thou hast sold me none.\n    Farewell. Buy food and get thyself in flesh.\n    Come, cordial and not poison, go with me\n    To Juliet's grave; for there must I use thee.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nVerona. Friar Laurence's cell.\n\nEnter Friar John to Friar Laurence.\n\n\n  John. Holy Franciscan friar, brother, ho!\n\n                      Enter Friar Laurence.\n\n\n  Laur. This same should be the voice of Friar John.\n    Welcome from Mantua. What says Romeo?\n    Or, if his mind be writ, give me his letter.\n\n  John. Going to find a barefoot brother out,\n    One of our order, to associate me\n    Here in this city visiting the sick,\n    And finding him, the searchers of the town,\n    Suspecting that we both were in a house\n    Where the infectious pestilence did reign,\n    Seal'd up the doors, and would not let us forth,\n    So that my speed to Mantua there was stay'd.\n\n  Laur. Who bare my letter, then, to Romeo?\n\n  John. I could not send it- here it is again-\n    Nor get a messenger to bring it thee,\n    So fearful were they of infection.\n\n  Laur. Unhappy fortune! By my brotherhood,\n    The letter was not nice, but full of charge,\n    Of dear import; and the neglecting it\n    May do much danger. Friar John, go hence,\n    Get me an iron crow and bring it straight\n    Unto my cell.\n\n  John. Brother, I'll go and bring it thee.                 Exit.\n\n  Laur. Now, must I to the monument alone.\n    Within this three hours will fair Juliet wake.\n    She will beshrew me much that Romeo\n    Hath had no notice of these accidents;\n    But I will write again to Mantua,\n    And keep her at my cell till Romeo come-\n    Poor living corse, clos'd in a dead man's tomb!        Exit.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nVerona. A churchyard; in it the monument of the Capulets.\n\nEnter Paris and his Page with flowers and [a torch].\n\n\n  Par. Give me thy torch, boy. Hence, and stand aloof.\n    Yet put it out, for I would not be seen.\n    Under yond yew tree lay thee all along,\n    Holding thine ear close to the hollow ground.\n    So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread\n    (Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves)\n    But thou shalt hear it. Whistle then to me,\n    As signal that thou hear'st something approach.\n    Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee, go.\n\n  Page. [aside] I am almost afraid to stand alone\n    Here in the churchyard; yet I will adventure.     [Retires.]\n\n  Par. Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew\n    (O woe! thy canopy is dust and stones)\n    Which with sweet water nightly I will dew;\n    Or, wanting that, with tears distill'd by moans.\n    The obsequies that I for thee will keep\n    Nightly shall be to strew, thy grave and weep.\n                                                    Whistle Boy.\n    The boy gives warning something doth approach.\n    What cursed foot wanders this way to-night\n    To cross my obsequies and true love's rite?\n    What, with a torch? Muffle me, night, awhile.     [Retires.]\n\n       Enter Romeo, and Balthasar with a torch, a mattock,\n                    and a crow of iron.\n\n\n  Rom. Give me that mattock and the wrenching iron.\n    Hold, take this letter. Early in the morning\n    See thou deliver it to my lord and father.\n    Give me the light. Upon thy life I charge thee,\n    Whate'er thou hearest or seest, stand all aloof\n    And do not interrupt me in my course.\n    Why I descend into this bed of death\n    Is partly to behold my lady's face,\n    But chiefly to take thence from her dead finger\n    A precious ring- a ring that I must use\n    In dear employment. Therefore hence, be gone.\n    But if thou, jealous, dost return to pry\n    In what I farther shall intend to do,\n    By heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint\n    And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs.\n    The time and my intents are savage-wild,\n    More fierce and more inexorable far\n    Than empty tigers or the roaring sea.\n\n  Bal. I will be gone, sir, and not trouble you.\n\n  Rom. So shalt thou show me friendship. Take thou that.\n    Live, and be prosperous; and farewell, good fellow.\n\n  Bal. [aside] For all this same, I'll hide me hereabout.\n    His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt.        [Retires.]\n\n  Rom. Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,\n    Gorg'd with the dearest morsel of the earth,\n    Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,\n    And in despite I'll cram thee with more food.\n                                           Romeo opens the tomb.\n\n  Par. This is that banish'd haughty Montague\n    That murd'red my love's cousin- with which grief\n    It is supposed the fair creature died-\n    And here is come to do some villanous shame\n    To the dead bodies. I will apprehend him.\n    Stop thy unhallowed toil, vile Montague!\n    Can vengeance be pursu'd further than death?\n    Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee.\n    Obey, and go with me; for thou must die.\n\n  Rom. I must indeed; and therefore came I hither.\n    Good gentle youth, tempt not a desp'rate man.\n    Fly hence and leave me. Think upon these gone;\n    Let them affright thee. I beseech thee, youth,\n    But not another sin upon my head\n    By urging me to fury. O, be gone!\n    By heaven, I love thee better than myself,\n    For I come hither arm'd against myself.\n    Stay not, be gone. Live, and hereafter say\n    A madman's mercy bid thee run away.\n\n  Par. I do defy thy, conjuration\n    And apprehend thee for a felon here.\n\n  Rom. Wilt thou provoke me? Then have at thee, boy!\n                                                     They fight.\n\n  Page. O Lord, they fight! I will go call the watch.\n                                            [Exit. Paris falls.]\n\n  Par. O, I am slain! If thou be merciful,\n    Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.                   [Dies.]\n\n  Rom. In faith, I will. Let me peruse this face.\n    Mercutio's kinsman, noble County Paris!\n    What said my man when my betossed soul\n    Did not attend him as we rode? I think\n    He told me Paris should have married Juliet.\n    Said he not so? or did I dream it so?\n    Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet\n    To think it was so? O, give me thy hand,\n    One writ with me in sour misfortune's book!\n    I'll bury thee in a triumphant grave.\n    A grave? O, no, a lanthorn, slaught'red youth,\n    For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes\n    This vault a feasting presence full of light.\n    Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interr'd.\n                                         [Lays him in the tomb.]\n    How oft when men are at the point of death\n    Have they been merry! which their keepers call\n    A lightning before death. O, how may I\n    Call this a lightning? O my love! my wife!\n    Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,\n    Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.\n    Thou art not conquer'd. Beauty's ensign yet\n    Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,\n    And death's pale flag is not advanced there.\n    Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?\n    O, what more favour can I do to thee\n    Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain\n    To sunder his that was thine enemy?\n    Forgive me, cousin.' Ah, dear Juliet,\n    Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe\n    That unsubstantial Death is amorous,\n    And that the lean abhorred monster keeps\n    Thee here in dark to be his paramour?\n    For fear of that I still will stay with thee\n    And never from this palace of dim night\n    Depart again. Here, here will I remain\n    With worms that are thy chambermaids. O, here\n    Will I set up my everlasting rest\n    And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars\n    From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!\n    Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you\n    The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss\n    A dateless bargain to engrossing death!\n    Come, bitter conduct; come, unsavoury guide!\n    Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on\n    The dashing rocks thy seasick weary bark!\n    Here's to my love! [Drinks.] O true apothecary!\n    Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.          Falls.\n\n    Enter Friar [Laurence], with lanthorn, crow, and spade.\n\n\n  Friar. Saint Francis be my speed! how oft to-night\n    Have my old feet stumbled at graves! Who's there?\n\n  Bal. Here's one, a friend, and one that knows you well.\n\n  Friar. Bliss be upon you! Tell me, good my friend,\n    What torch is yond that vainly lends his light\n    To grubs and eyeless skulls? As I discern,\n    It burneth in the Capels' monument.\n\n  Bal. It doth so, holy sir; and there's my master,\n    One that you love.\n\n  Friar. Who is it?\n\n  Bal. Romeo.\n\n  Friar. How long hath he been there?\n\n  Bal. Full half an hour.\n\n  Friar. Go with me to the vault.\n\n  Bal. I dare not, sir.\n    My master knows not but I am gone hence,\n    And fearfully did menace me with death\n    If I did stay to look on his intents.\n\n  Friar. Stay then; I'll go alone. Fear comes upon me.\n    O, much I fear some ill unthrifty thing.\n\n  Bal. As I did sleep under this yew tree here,\n    I dreamt my master and another fought,\n    And that my master slew him.\n\n  Friar. Romeo!\n    Alack, alack, what blood is this which stains\n    The stony entrance of this sepulchre?\n    What mean these masterless and gory swords\n    To lie discolour'd by this place of peace? [Enters the tomb.]\n    Romeo! O, pale! Who else? What, Paris too?\n    And steep'd in blood? Ah, what an unkind hour\n    Is guilty of this lamentable chance! The lady stirs.\n                                                   Juliet rises.\n\n  Jul. O comfortable friar! where is my lord?\n    I do remember well where I should be,\n    And there I am. Where is my Romeo?\n\n  Friar. I hear some noise. Lady, come from that nest\n    Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep.\n    A greater power than we can contradict\n    Hath thwarted our intents. Come, come away.\n    Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead;\n    And Paris too. Come, I'll dispose of thee\n    Among a sisterhood of holy nuns.\n    Stay not to question, for the watch is coming.\n    Come, go, good Juliet. I dare no longer stay.\n\n  Jul. Go, get thee hence, for I will not away.\n                                                   Exit [Friar].\n    What's here? A cup, clos'd in my true love's hand?\n    Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end.\n    O churl! drunk all, and left no friendly drop\n    To help me after? I will kiss thy lips.\n    Haply some poison yet doth hang on them\n    To make me die with a restorative.             [Kisses him.]\n    Thy lips are warm!\n\n  Chief Watch. [within] Lead, boy. Which way?\n    Yea, noise? Then I'll be brief. O happy dagger!\n                                      [Snatches Romeo's dagger.]\n    This is thy sheath; there rest, and let me die.\n                  She stabs herself and falls [on Romeo's body].\n\n                Enter [Paris's] Boy and Watch.\n\n\n  Boy. This is the place. There, where the torch doth burn.\n\n  Chief Watch. 'the ground is bloody. Search about the churchyard.\n    Go, some of you; whoe'er you find attach.\n                                     [Exeunt some of the Watch.]\n    Pitiful sight! here lies the County slain;\n    And Juliet bleeding, warm, and newly dead,\n    Who here hath lain this two days buried.\n    Go, tell the Prince; run to the Capulets;\n    Raise up the Montagues; some others search.\n                                   [Exeunt others of the Watch.]\n    We see the ground whereon these woes do lie,\n    But the true ground of all these piteous woes\n    We cannot without circumstance descry.\n\n     Enter [some of the Watch,] with Romeo's Man [Balthasar].\n\n  2. Watch. Here's Romeo's man. We found him in the churchyard.\n\n  Chief Watch. Hold him in safety till the Prince come hither.\n\n          Enter Friar [Laurence] and another Watchman.\n\n  3. Watch. Here is a friar that trembles, sighs, and weeps.\n    We took this mattock and this spade from him\n    As he was coming from this churchyard side.\n\n  Chief Watch. A great suspicion! Stay the friar too.\n\n              Enter the Prince [and Attendants].\n\n\n  Prince. What misadventure is so early up,\n    That calls our person from our morning rest?\n\n            Enter Capulet and his Wife [with others].\n\n\n  Cap. What should it be, that they so shriek abroad?\n\n  Wife. The people in the street cry 'Romeo,'\n    Some 'Juliet,' and some 'Paris'; and all run,\n    With open outcry, toward our monument.\n\n  Prince. What fear is this which startles in our ears?\n\n  Chief Watch. Sovereign, here lies the County Paris slain;\n    And Romeo dead; and Juliet, dead before,\n    Warm and new kill'd.\n\n  Prince. Search, seek, and know how this foul murder comes.\n\n  Chief Watch. Here is a friar, and slaughter'd Romeo's man,\n    With instruments upon them fit to open\n    These dead men's tombs.\n\n  Cap. O heavens! O wife, look how our daughter bleeds!\n    This dagger hath mista'en, for, lo, his house\n    Is empty on the back of Montague,\n    And it missheathed in my daughter's bosom!\n\n  Wife. O me! this sight of death is as a bell\n    That warns my old age to a sepulchre.\n\n               Enter Montague [and others].\n\n\n  Prince. Come, Montague; for thou art early up\n    To see thy son and heir more early down.\n\n  Mon. Alas, my liege, my wife is dead to-night!\n    Grief of my son's exile hath stopp'd her breath.\n    What further woe conspires against mine age?\n\n  Prince. Look, and thou shalt see.\n\n  Mon. O thou untaught! what manners is in this,\n    To press before thy father to a grave?\n\n  Prince. Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while,\n    Till we can clear these ambiguities\n    And know their spring, their head, their true descent;\n    And then will I be general of your woes\n    And lead you even to death. Meantime forbear,\n    And let mischance be slave to patience.\n    Bring forth the parties of suspicion.\n\n  Friar. I am the greatest, able to do least,\n    Yet most suspected, as the time and place\n    Doth make against me, of this direful murther;\n    And here I stand, both to impeach and purge\n    Myself condemned and myself excus'd.\n\n  Prince. Then say it once what thou dost know in this.\n\n  Friar. I will be brief, for my short date of breath\n    Is not so long as is a tedious tale.\n    Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet;\n    And she, there dead, that Romeo's faithful wife.\n    I married them; and their stol'n marriage day\n    Was Tybalt's doomsday, whose untimely death\n    Banish'd the new-made bridegroom from this city;\n    For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pin'd.\n    You, to remove that siege of grief from her,\n    Betroth'd and would have married her perforce\n    To County Paris. Then comes she to me\n    And with wild looks bid me devise some mean\n    To rid her from this second marriage,\n    Or in my cell there would she kill herself.\n    Then gave I her (so tutored by my art)\n    A sleeping potion; which so took effect\n    As I intended, for it wrought on her\n    The form of death. Meantime I writ to Romeo\n    That he should hither come as this dire night\n    To help to take her from her borrowed grave,\n    Being the time the potion's force should cease.\n    But he which bore my letter, Friar John,\n    Was stay'd by accident, and yesternight\n    Return'd my letter back. Then all alone\n    At the prefixed hour of her waking\n    Came I to take her from her kindred's vault;\n    Meaning to keep her closely at my cell\n    Till I conveniently could send to Romeo.\n    But when I came, some minute ere the time\n    Of her awaking, here untimely lay\n    The noble Paris and true Romeo dead.\n    She wakes; and I entreated her come forth\n    And bear this work of heaven with patience;\n    But then a noise did scare me from the tomb,\n    And she, too desperate, would not go with me,\n    But, as it seems, did violence on herself.\n    All this I know, and to the marriage\n    Her nurse is privy; and if aught in this\n    Miscarried by my fault, let my old life\n    Be sacrific'd, some hour before his time,\n    Unto the rigour of severest law.\n\n  Prince. We still have known thee for a holy man.\n    Where's Romeo's man? What can he say in this?\n\n  Bal. I brought my master news of Juliet's death;\n    And then in post he came from Mantua\n    To this same place, to this same monument.\n    This letter he early bid me give his father,\n    And threat'ned me with death, going in the vault,\n    If I departed not and left him there.\n\n  Prince. Give me the letter. I will look on it.\n    Where is the County's page that rais'd the watch?\n    Sirrah, what made your master in this place?\n\n  Boy. He came with flowers to strew his lady's grave;\n    And bid me stand aloof, and so I did.\n    Anon comes one with light to ope the tomb;\n    And by-and-by my master drew on him;\n    And then I ran away to call the watch.\n\n  Prince. This letter doth make good the friar's words,\n    Their course of love, the tidings of her death;\n    And here he writes that he did buy a poison\n    Of a poor pothecary, and therewithal\n    Came to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet.\n    Where be these enemies? Capulet, Montage,\n    See what a scourge is laid upon your hate,\n    That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love!\n    And I, for winking at you, discords too,\n    Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punish'd.\n\n  Cap. O brother Montague, give me thy hand.\n    This is my daughter's jointure, for no more\n    Can I demand.\n\n  Mon. But I can give thee more;\n    For I will raise her Statue in pure gold,\n    That whiles Verona by that name is known,\n    There shall no figure at such rate be set\n    As that of true and faithful Juliet.\n\n  Cap. As rich shall Romeo's by his lady's lie-\n    Poor sacrifices of our enmity!\n\n  Prince. A glooming peace this morning with it brings.\n    The sun for sorrow will not show his head.\n    Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;\n    Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished;\n    For never was a story of more woe\n    Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.\n                                                   Exeunt omnes.\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"1113":"\n\n\n\n\n1596\n\nA MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  THESEUS, Duke of Athens\n  EGEUS, father to Hermia\n  LYSANDER, in love with Hermia\n  DEMETRIUS, in love with Hermia\n  PHILOSTRATE, Master of the Revels to Theseus\n  QUINCE, a carpenter\n  SNUG, a joiner\n  BOTTOM, a weaver\n  FLUTE, a bellows-mender\n  SNOUT, a tinker\n  STARVELING, a tailor\n\n  HIPPOLYTA, Queen of the Amazons, bethrothed to Theseus\n  HERMIA, daughter to Egeus, in love with Lysander\n  HELENA, in love with Demetrius\n\n  OBERON, King of the Fairies\n  TITANIA, Queen of the Fairies\n  PUCK, or ROBIN GOODFELLOW\n  PEASEBLOSSOM, fairy\n  COBWEB, fairy\n  MOTH, fairy\n  MUSTARDSEED, fairy\n\n  PROLOGUE, PYRAMUS, THISBY, WALL, MOONSHINE, LION are presented\nby:\n    QUINCE, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, STARVELING, AND SNUG\n\n  Other Fairies attending their King and Queen\n  Attendants on Theseus and Hippolyta\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nAthens and a wood near it\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nAthens. The palace of THESEUS\n\nEnter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, and ATTENDANTS\n\n  THESEUS. Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour\n    Draws on apace; four happy days bring in\n    Another moon; but, O, methinks, how slow\n    This old moon wanes! She lingers my desires,\n    Like to a step-dame or a dowager,\n    Long withering out a young man's revenue.\n  HIPPOLYTA. Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;\n    Four nights will quickly dream away the time;\n    And then the moon, like to a silver bow\n    New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night\n    Of our solemnities.\n  THESEUS. Go, Philostrate,\n    Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;\n    Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth;\n    Turn melancholy forth to funerals;\n    The pale companion is not for our pomp.     Exit PHILOSTRATE\n    Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword,\n    And won thy love doing thee injuries;\n    But I will wed thee in another key,\n    With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling.\n\n          Enter EGEUS, and his daughter HERMIA, LYSANDER,\n                           and DEMETRIUS\n\n  EGEUS. Happy be Theseus, our renowned Duke!\n  THESEUS. Thanks, good Egeus; what's the news with thee?\n  EGEUS. Full of vexation come I, with complaint\n    Against my child, my daughter Hermia.\n    Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord,\n    This man hath my consent to marry her.\n    Stand forth, Lysander. And, my gracious Duke,\n    This man hath bewitch'd the bosom of my child.\n    Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,\n    And interchang'd love-tokens with my child;\n    Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung,\n    With feigning voice, verses of feigning love,\n    And stol'n the impression of her fantasy\n    With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits,\n    Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats- messengers\n    Of strong prevailment in unhardened youth;\n    With cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's heart;\n    Turn'd her obedience, which is due to me,\n    To stubborn harshness. And, my gracious Duke,\n    Be it so she will not here before your Grace\n    Consent to marry with Demetrius,\n    I beg the ancient privilege of Athens:\n    As she is mine I may dispose of her;\n    Which shall be either to this gentleman\n    Or to her death, according to our law\n    Immediately provided in that case.\n  THESEUS. What say you, Hermia? Be advis'd, fair maid.\n    To you your father should be as a god;\n    One that compos'd your beauties; yea, and one\n    To whom you are but as a form in wax,\n    By him imprinted, and within his power\n    To leave the figure, or disfigure it.\n    Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.\n  HERMIA. So is Lysander.\n  THESEUS. In himself he is;\n    But, in this kind, wanting your father's voice,\n    The other must be held the worthier.\n  HERMIA. I would my father look'd but with my eyes.\n  THESEUS. Rather your eyes must with his judgment look.\n  HERMIA. I do entreat your Grace to pardon me.\n    I know not by what power I am made bold,\n    Nor how it may concern my modesty\n    In such a presence here to plead my thoughts;\n    But I beseech your Grace that I may know\n    The worst that may befall me in this case,\n    If I refuse to wed Demetrius.\n  THESEUS. Either to die the death, or to abjure\n    For ever the society of men.\n    Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires,\n    Know of your youth, examine well your blood,\n    Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice,\n    You can endure the livery of a nun,\n    For aye to be shady cloister mew'd,\n    To live a barren sister all your life,\n    Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.\n    Thrice-blessed they that master so their blood\n    To undergo such maiden pilgrimage;\n    But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd\n    Than that which withering on the virgin thorn\n    Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness.\n  HERMIA. So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,\n    Ere I will yield my virgin patent up\n    Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke\n    My soul consents not to give sovereignty.\n  THESEUS. Take time to pause; and by the next new moon-\n    The sealing-day betwixt my love and me\n    For everlasting bond of fellowship-\n    Upon that day either prepare to die\n    For disobedience to your father's will,\n    Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would,\n    Or on Diana's altar to protest\n    For aye austerity and single life.\n  DEMETRIUS. Relent, sweet Hermia; and, Lysander, yield\n    Thy crazed title to my certain right.\n  LYSANDER. You have her father's love, Demetrius;\n    Let me have Hermia's; do you marry him.\n  EGEUS. Scornful Lysander, true, he hath my love;\n    And what is mine my love shall render him;\n    And she is mine; and all my right of her\n    I do estate unto Demetrius.\n  LYSANDER. I am, my lord, as well deriv'd as he,\n    As well possess'd; my love is more than his;\n    My fortunes every way as fairly rank'd,\n    If not with vantage, as Demetrius';\n    And, which is more than all these boasts can be,\n    I am belov'd of beauteous Hermia.\n    Why should not I then prosecute my right?\n    Demetrius, I'll avouch it to his head,\n    Made love to Nedar's daughter, Helena,\n    And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes,\n    Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,\n    Upon this spotted and inconstant man.\n  THESEUS. I must confess that I have heard so much,\n    And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof;\n    But, being over-full of self-affairs,\n    My mind did lose it. But, Demetrius, come;\n    And come, Egeus; you shall go with me;\n    I have some private schooling for you both.\n    For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself\n    To fit your fancies to your father's will,\n    Or else the law of Athens yields you up-\n    Which by no means we may extenuate-\n    To death, or to a vow of single life.\n    Come, my Hippolyta; what cheer, my love?\n    Demetrius, and Egeus, go along;\n    I must employ you in some business\n    Against our nuptial, and confer with you\n    Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.\n  EGEUS. With duty and desire we follow you.\n                              Exeunt all but LYSANDER and HERMIA\n  LYSANDER. How now, my love! Why is your cheek so pale?\n    How chance the roses there do fade so fast?\n  HERMIA. Belike for want of rain, which I could well\n    Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.\n  LYSANDER. Ay me! for aught that I could ever read,\n    Could ever hear by tale or history,\n    The course of true love never did run smooth;\n    But either it was different in blood-\n  HERMIA. O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low.\n  LYSANDER. Or else misgraffed in respect of years-\n  HERMIA. O spite! too old to be engag'd to young.\n  LYSANDER. Or else it stood upon the choice of friends-\n  HERMIA. O hell! to choose love by another's eyes.\n  LYSANDER. Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,\n    War, death, or sickness, did lay siege to it,\n    Making it momentary as a sound,\n    Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,\n    Brief as the lightning in the collied night\n    That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,\n    And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!'\n    The jaws of darkness do devour it up;\n    So quick bright things come to confusion.\n  HERMIA. If then true lovers have ever cross'd,\n    It stands as an edict in destiny.\n    Then let us teach our trial patience,\n    Because it is a customary cross,\n    As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs,\n    Wishes and tears, poor Fancy's followers.\n  LYSANDER. A good persuasion; therefore, hear me, Hermia.\n    I have a widow aunt, a dowager\n    Of great revenue, and she hath no child-\n    From Athens is her house remote seven leagues-\n    And she respects me as her only son.\n    There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee;\n    And to that place the sharp Athenian law\n    Cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me then,\n    Steal forth thy father's house to-morrow night;\n    And in the wood, a league without the town,\n    Where I did meet thee once with Helena\n    To do observance to a morn of May,\n    There will I stay for thee.\n  HERMIA. My good Lysander!\n    I swear to thee by Cupid's strongest bow,\n    By his best arrow, with the golden head,\n    By the simplicity of Venus' doves,\n    By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,\n    And by that fire which burn'd the Carthage Queen,\n    When the false Troyan under sail was seen,\n    By all the vows that ever men have broke,\n    In number more than ever women spoke,\n    In that same place thou hast appointed me,\n    To-morrow truly will I meet with thee.\n  LYSANDER. Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena.\n\n                         Enter HELENA\n\n  HERMIA. God speed fair Helena! Whither away?\n  HELENA. Call you me fair? That fair again unsay.\n    Demetrius loves your fair. O happy fair!\n    Your eyes are lode-stars and your tongue's sweet air\n    More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear,\n    When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.\n    Sickness is catching; O, were favour so,\n    Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go!\n    My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,\n    My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody.\n    Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,\n    The rest I'd give to be to you translated.\n    O, teach me how you look, and with what art\n    You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart!\n  HERMIA. I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.\n  HELENA. O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!\n  HERMIA. I give him curses, yet he gives me love.\n  HELENA. O that my prayers could such affection move!\n  HERMIA. The more I hate, the more he follows me.\n  HELENA. The more I love, the more he hateth me.\n  HERMIA. His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.\n  HELENA. None, but your beauty; would that fault were mine!\n  HERMIA. Take comfort: he no more shall see my face;\n    Lysander and myself will fly this place.\n    Before the time I did Lysander see,\n    Seem'd Athens as a paradise to me.\n    O, then, what graces in my love do dwell,\n    That he hath turn'd a heaven unto a hell!\n  LYSANDER. Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:\n    To-morrow night, when Phoebe doth behold\n    Her silver visage in the wat'ry glass,\n    Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass,\n    A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal,\n    Through Athens' gates have we devis'd to steal.\n  HERMIA. And in the wood where often you and I\n    Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie,\n    Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet,\n    There my Lysander and myself shall meet;\n    And thence from Athens turn away our eyes,\n    To seek new friends and stranger companies.\n    Farewell, sweet playfellow; pray thou for us,\n    And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius!\n    Keep word, Lysander; we must starve our sight\n    From lovers' food till morrow deep midnight.\n  LYSANDER. I will, my Hermia. [Exit HERMIA] Helena, adieu;\n    As you on him, Demetrius dote on you.                   Exit\n  HELENA. How happy some o'er other some can be!\n    Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.\n    But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;\n    He will not know what all but he do know.\n    And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes,\n    So I, admiring of his qualities.\n    Things base and vile, holding no quantity,\n    Love can transpose to form and dignity.\n    Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;\n    And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.\n    Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste;\n    Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste;\n    And therefore is Love said to be a child,\n    Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd.\n    As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,\n    So the boy Love is perjur'd everywhere;\n    For ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne,\n    He hail'd down oaths that he was only mine;\n    And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,\n    So he dissolv'd, and show'rs of oaths did melt.\n    I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight;\n    Then to the wood will he to-morrow night\n    Pursue her; and for this intelligence\n    If I have thanks, it is a dear expense.\n    But herein mean I to enrich my pain,\n    To have his sight thither and back again.               Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nAthens. QUINCE'S house\n\nEnter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING\n\n  QUINCE. Is all our company here?\n  BOTTOM. You were best to call them generally, man by man,\naccording\n    to the scrip.\n  QUINCE. Here is the scroll of every man's name which is thought\n    fit, through all Athens, to play in our interlude before the\nDuke\n    and the Duchess on his wedding-day at night.\n  BOTTOM. First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on;\nthen\n    read the names of the actors; and so grow to a point.\n  QUINCE. Marry, our play is 'The most Lamentable Comedy and most\n    Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisby.'\n  BOTTOM. A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry.\nNow,\n    good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll.\nMasters,\n    spread yourselves.\n  QUINCE. Answer, as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver.\n  BOTTOM. Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed.\n  QUINCE. You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus.\n  BOTTOM. What is Pyramus? A lover, or a tyrant?\n  QUINCE. A lover, that kills himself most gallant for love.\n  BOTTOM. That will ask some tears in the true performing of it.\nIf I\n    do it, let the audience look to their eyes; I will move\nstorms; I\n    will condole in some measure. To the rest- yet my chief\nhumour is\n    for a tyrant. I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a\ncat\n    in, to make all split.\n\n                 'The raging rocks\n                 And shivering shocks\n                 Shall break the locks\n                   Of prison gates;\n\n                 And Phibbus' car\n                 Shall shine from far,\n                 And make and mar\n                   The foolish Fates.'\n\n    This was lofty. Now name the rest of the players. This is\n    Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein: a lover is more condoling.\n  QUINCE. Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.\n  FLUTE. Here, Peter Quince.\n  QUINCE. Flute, you must take Thisby on you.\n  FLUTE. What is Thisby? A wand'ring knight?\n  QUINCE. It is the lady that Pyramus must love.\n  FLUTE. Nay, faith, let not me play a woman; I have a beard\ncoming.\n  QUINCE. That's all one; you shall play it in a mask, and you\nmay\n    speak as small as you will.\n  BOTTOM. An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too.\n    I'll speak in a monstrous little voice: 'Thisne, Thisne!'\n    [Then speaking small] 'Ah Pyramus, my lover dear! Thy\n    Thisby dear, and lady dear!'\n  QUINCE. No, no, you must play Pyramus; and, Flute, you Thisby.\n  BOTTOM. Well, proceed.\n  QUINCE. Robin Starveling, the tailor.\n  STARVELING. Here, Peter Quince.\n  QUINCE. Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's mother.\n    Tom Snout, the tinker.\n  SNOUT. Here, Peter Quince.\n  QUINCE. You, Pyramus' father; myself, Thisby's father; Snug,\nthe\n    joiner, you, the lion's part. And, I hope, here is a play\nfitted.\n  SNUG. Have you the lion's part written? Pray you, if it be,\ngive it\n    me, for I am slow of study.\n  QUINCE. You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.\n  BOTTOM. Let me play the lion too. I will roar that I will do\nany\n    man's heart good to hear me; I will roar that I will make the\n    Duke say 'Let him roar again, let him roar again.'\n  QUINCE. An you should do it too terribly, you would fright the\n    Duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek; and that were\n    enough to hang us all.\n  ALL. That would hang us, every mother's son.\n  BOTTOM. I grant you, friends, if you should fright the ladies\nout\n    of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang\nus;\n    but I will aggravate my voice so, that I will roar you as\ngently\n    as any sucking dove; I will roar you an 'twere any\nnightingale.\n  QUINCE. You can play no part but Pyramus; for Pyramus is a\n    sweet-fac'd man; a proper man, as one shall see in a summer's\n    day; a most lovely gentleman-like man; therefore you must\nneeds\n    play Pyramus.\n  BOTTOM. Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to\nplay\n    it in?\n  QUINCE. Why, what you will.\n  BOTTOM. I will discharge it in either your straw-colour beard,\nyour\n    orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your\n    French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow.\n  QUINCE. Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and\nthen\n    you will play bare-fac'd. But, masters, here are your parts;\nand\n    I am to entreat you, request you, and desire you, to con them\nby\n    to-morrow night; and meet me in the palace wood, a mile\nwithout\n    the town, by moonlight; there will we rehearse; for if we\nmeet in\n    the city, we shall be dogg'd with company, and our devices\nknown.\n    In the meantime I will draw a bill of properties, such as our\n    play wants. I pray you, fail me not.\n  BOTTOM. We will meet; and there we may rehearse most obscenely\nand\n    courageously. Take pains; be perfect; adieu.\n  QUINCE. At the Duke's oak we meet.\n  BOTTOM. Enough; hold, or cut bow-strings.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nA wood near Athens\n\nEnter a FAIRY at One door, and PUCK at another\n\n  PUCK. How now, spirit! whither wander you?\n  FAIRY.      Over hill, over dale,\n                Thorough bush, thorough brier,\n              Over park, over pale,\n                Thorough flood, thorough fire,\n              I do wander every where,\n              Swifter than the moon's sphere;\n              And I serve the Fairy Queen,\n              To dew her orbs upon the green.\n              The cowslips tall her pensioners be;\n              In their gold coats spots you see;\n              Those be rubies, fairy favours,\n              In those freckles live their savours.\n\n    I must go seek some dewdrops here,\n    And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.\n    Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I'll be gone.\n    Our Queen and all her elves come here anon.\n  PUCK. The King doth keep his revels here to-night;\n    Take heed the Queen come not within his sight;\n    For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,\n    Because that she as her attendant hath\n    A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king.\n    She never had so sweet a changeling;\n    And jealous Oberon would have the child\n    Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild;\n    But she perforce withholds the loved boy,\n    Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy.\n    And now they never meet in grove or green,\n    By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,\n    But they do square, that all their elves for fear\n    Creep into acorn cups and hide them there.\n  FAIRY. Either I mistake your shape and making quite,\n    Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite\n    Call'd Robin Goodfellow. Are not you he\n    That frights the maidens of the villagery,\n    Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern,\n    And bootless make the breathless housewife churn,\n    And sometime make the drink to bear no barm,\n    Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?\n    Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,\n    You do their work, and they shall have good luck.\n    Are not you he?\n  PUCK. Thou speakest aright:\n    I am that merry wanderer of the night.\n    I jest to Oberon, and make him smile\n    When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,\n    Neighing in likeness of a filly foal;\n    And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl\n    In very likeness of a roasted crab,\n    And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob,\n    And on her withered dewlap pour the ale.\n    The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,\n    Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;\n    Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,\n    And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough;\n    And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,\n    And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear\n    A merrier hour was never wasted there.\n    But room, fairy, here comes Oberon.\n  FAIRY. And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!\n\n       Enter OBERON at one door, with his TRAIN, and TITANIA,\n                        at another, with hers\n\n  OBERON. Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.\n  TITANIA. What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence;\n    I have forsworn his bed and company.\n  OBERON. Tarry, rash wanton; am not I thy lord?\n  TITANIA. Then I must be thy lady; but I know\n    When thou hast stolen away from fairy land,\n    And in the shape of Corin sat all day,\n    Playing on pipes of corn, and versing love\n    To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,\n    Come from the farthest steep of India,\n    But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,\n    Your buskin'd mistress and your warrior love,\n    To Theseus must be wedded, and you come\n    To give their bed joy and prosperity?\n  OBERON. How canst thou thus, for shame, Titania,\n    Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,\n    Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?\n    Didst not thou lead him through the glimmering night\n    From Perigouna, whom he ravished?\n    And make him with fair Aegles break his faith,\n    With Ariadne and Antiopa?\n  TITANIA. These are the forgeries of jealousy;\n    And never, since the middle summer's spring,\n    Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead,\n    By paved fountain, or by rushy brook,\n    Or in the beached margent of the sea,\n    To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,\n    But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.\n    Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,\n    As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea\n    Contagious fogs; which, falling in the land,\n    Hath every pelting river made so proud\n    That they have overborne their continents.\n    The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,\n    The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn\n    Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard;\n    The fold stands empty in the drowned field,\n    And crows are fatted with the murrion flock;\n    The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud,\n    And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,\n    For lack of tread, are undistinguishable.\n    The human mortals want their winter here;\n    No night is now with hymn or carol blest;\n    Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,\n    Pale in her anger, washes all the air,\n    That rheumatic diseases do abound.\n    And thorough this distemperature we see\n    The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts\n    Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose;\n    And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown\n    An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds\n    Is, as in mockery, set. The spring, the summer,\n    The childing autumn, angry winter, change\n    Their wonted liveries; and the mazed world,\n    By their increase, now knows not which is which.\n    And this same progeny of evils comes\n    From our debate, from our dissension;\n    We are their parents and original.\n  OBERON. Do you amend it, then; it lies in you.\n    Why should Titania cross her Oberon?\n    I do but beg a little changeling boy\n    To be my henchman.\n  TITANIA. Set your heart at rest;\n    The fairy land buys not the child of me.\n    His mother was a vot'ress of my order;\n    And, in the spiced Indian air, by night,\n    Full often hath she gossip'd by my side;\n    And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,\n    Marking th' embarked traders on the flood;\n    When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive,\n    And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind;\n    Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait\n    Following- her womb then rich with my young squire-\n    Would imitate, and sail upon the land,\n    To fetch me trifles, and return again,\n    As from a voyage, rich with merchandise.\n    But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;\n    And for her sake do I rear up her boy;\n    And for her sake I will not part with him.\n  OBERON. How long within this wood intend you stay?\n  TITANIA. Perchance till after Theseus' wedding-day.\n    If you will patiently dance in our round,\n    And see our moonlight revels, go with us;\n    If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.\n  OBERON. Give me that boy and I will go with thee.\n  TITANIA. Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away.\n    We shall chide downright if I longer stay.\n                                     Exit TITANIA with her train\n  OBERON. Well, go thy way; thou shalt not from this grove\n    Till I torment thee for this injury.\n    My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememb'rest\n    Since once I sat upon a promontory,\n    And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back\n    Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath\n    That the rude sea grew civil at her song,\n    And certain stars shot madly from their spheres\n    To hear the sea-maid's music.\n  PUCK. I remember.\n  OBERON. That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,\n    Flying between the cold moon and the earth\n    Cupid, all arm'd; a certain aim he took\n    At a fair vestal, throned by the west,\n    And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow,\n    As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;\n    But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft\n    Quench'd in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon;\n    And the imperial vot'ress passed on,\n    In maiden meditation, fancy-free.\n    Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell.\n    It fell upon a little western flower,\n    Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,\n    And maidens call it Love-in-idleness.\n    Fetch me that flow'r, the herb I showed thee once.\n    The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid\n    Will make or man or woman madly dote\n    Upon the next live creature that it sees.\n    Fetch me this herb, and be thou here again\n    Ere the leviathan can swim a league.\n  PUCK. I'll put a girdle round about the earth\n    In forty minutes.                                  Exit PUCK\n  OBERON. Having once this juice,\n    I'll watch Titania when she is asleep,\n    And drop the liquor of it in her eyes;\n    The next thing then she waking looks upon,\n    Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,\n    On meddling monkey, or on busy ape,\n    She shall pursue it with the soul of love.\n    And ere I take this charm from off her sight,\n    As I can take it with another herb,\n    I'll make her render up her page to me.\n    But who comes here? I am invisible;\n    And I will overhear their conference.\n\n               Enter DEMETRIUS, HELENA following him\n\n  DEMETRIUS. I love thee not, therefore pursue me not.\n    Where is Lysander and fair Hermia?\n    The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me.\n    Thou told'st me they were stol'n unto this wood,\n    And here am I, and wood within this wood,\n    Because I cannot meet my Hermia.\n    Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.\n  HELENA. You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant;\n    But yet you draw not iron, for my heart\n    Is true as steel. Leave you your power to draw,\n    And I shall have no power to follow you.\n  DEMETRIUS. Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair?\n    Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth\n    Tell you I do not nor I cannot love you?\n  HELENA. And even for that do I love you the more.\n    I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius,\n    The more you beat me, I will fawn on you.\n    Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me,\n    Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave,\n    Unworthy as I am, to follow you.\n    What worser place can I beg in your love,\n    And yet a place of high respect with me,\n    Than to be used as you use your dog?\n  DEMETRIUS. Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit;\n    For I am sick when I do look on thee.\n  HELENA. And I am sick when I look not on you.\n  DEMETRIUS. You do impeach your modesty too much\n    To leave the city and commit yourself\n    Into the hands of one that loves you not;\n    To trust the opportunity of night,\n    And the ill counsel of a desert place,\n    With the rich worth of your virginity.\n  HELENA. Your virtue is my privilege for that:\n    It is not night when I do see your face,\n    Therefore I think I am not in the night;\n    Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company,\n    For you, in my respect, are all the world.\n    Then how can it be said I am alone\n    When all the world is here to look on me?\n  DEMETRIUS. I'll run from thee and hide me in the brakes,\n    And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.\n  HELENA. The wildest hath not such a heart as you.\n    Run when you will; the story shall be chang'd:\n    Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase;\n    The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind\n    Makes speed to catch the tiger- bootless speed,\n    When cowardice pursues and valour flies.\n  DEMETRIUS. I will not stay thy questions; let me go;\n    Or, if thou follow me, do not believe\n    But I shall do thee mischief in the wood.\n  HELENA. Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field,\n    You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius!\n    Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex.\n    We cannot fight for love as men may do;\n    We should be woo'd, and were not made to woo.\n                                                  Exit DEMETRIUS\n    I'll follow thee, and make a heaven of hell,\n    To die upon the hand I love so well.             Exit HELENA\n  OBERON. Fare thee well, nymph; ere he do leave this grove,\n    Thou shalt fly him, and he shall seek thy love.\n\n                            Re-enter PUCK\n\n    Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer.\n  PUCK. Ay, there it is.\n  OBERON. I pray thee give it me.\n    I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,\n    Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,\n    Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,\n    With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine;\n    There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,\n    Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight;\n    And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin,\n    Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in;\n    And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes,\n    And make her full of hateful fantasies.\n    Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove:\n    A sweet Athenian lady is in love\n    With a disdainful youth; anoint his eyes;\n    But do it when the next thing he espies\n    May be the lady. Thou shalt know the man\n    By the Athenian garments he hath on.\n    Effect it with some care, that he may prove\n    More fond on her than she upon her love.\n    And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.\n  PUCK. Fear not, my lord; your servant shall do so.      Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nAnother part of the wood\n\nEnter TITANIA, with her train\n\n  TITANIA. Come now, a roundel and a fairy song;\n    Then, for the third part of a minute, hence:\n    Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds;\n    Some war with rere-mice for their leathern wings,\n    To make my small elves coats; and some keep back\n    The clamorous owl that nightly hoots and wonders\n    At our quaint spirits. Sing me now asleep;\n    Then to your offices, and let me rest.\n\n                          The FAIRIES Sing\n\n  FIRST FAIRY. You spotted snakes with double tongue,\n               Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;\n               Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong,\n               Come not near our fairy Queen.\n  CHORUS.      Philomel with melody\n               Sing in our sweet lullaby.\n               Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby.\n               Never harm\n               Nor spell nor charm\n               Come our lovely lady nigh.\n               So good night, with lullaby.\n  SECOND FAIRY.  Weaving spiders, come not here;\n                 Hence, you long-legg'd spinners, hence.\n                 Beetles black, approach not near;\n                 Worm nor snail do no offence.\n  CHORUS.      Philomel with melody, etc.       [TITANIA Sleeps]\n  FIRST FAIRY. Hence away; now all is well.\n               One aloof stand sentinel.          Exeunt FAIRIES\n\n      Enter OBERON and squeezes the flower on TITANIA'S eyelids\n\n  OBERON. What thou seest when thou dost wake,\n    Do it for thy true-love take;\n    Love and languish for his sake.\n    Be it ounce, or cat, or bear,\n    Pard, or boar with bristled hair,\n    In thy eye that shall appear\n    When thou wak'st, it is thy dear.\n    Wake when some vile thing is near.                      Exit\n\n                     Enter LYSANDER and HERMIA\n\n  LYSANDER. Fair love, you faint with wand'ring in the wood;\n    And, to speak troth, I have forgot our way;\n    We'll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good,\n    And tarry for the comfort of the day.\n  HERMIA. Be it so, Lysander: find you out a bed,\n    For I upon this bank will rest my head.\n  LYSANDER. One turf shall serve as pillow for us both;\n    One heart, one bed, two bosoms, and one troth.\n  HERMIA. Nay, good Lysander; for my sake, my dear,\n    Lie further off yet; do not lie so near.\n  LYSANDER. O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence!\n    Love takes the meaning in love's conference.\n    I mean that my heart unto yours is knit,\n    So that but one heart we can make of it;\n    Two bosoms interchained with an oath,\n    So then two bosoms and a single troth.\n    Then by your side no bed-room me deny,\n    For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.\n  HERMIA. Lysander riddles very prettily.\n    Now much beshrew my manners and my pride,\n    If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied!\n    But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy\n    Lie further off, in human modesty;\n    Such separation as may well be said\n    Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid,\n    So far be distant; and good night, sweet friend.\n    Thy love ne'er alter till thy sweet life end!\n  LYSANDER. Amen, amen, to that fair prayer say I;\n    And then end life when I end loyalty!\n    Here is my bed; sleep give thee all his rest!\n  HERMIA. With half that wish the wisher's eyes be press'd!\n                                                    [They sleep]\n\n                          Enter PUCK\n\n  PUCK.      Through the forest have I gone,\n             But Athenian found I none\n             On whose eyes I might approve\n             This flower's force in stirring love.\n             Night and silence- Who is here?\n             Weeds of Athens he doth wear:\n             This is he, my master said,\n             Despised the Athenian maid;\n             And here the maiden, sleeping sound,\n             On the dank and dirty ground.\n             Pretty soul! she durst not lie\n             Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.\n             Churl, upon thy eyes I throw\n             All the power this charm doth owe:\n             When thou wak'st let love forbid\n             Sleep his seat on thy eyelid.\n             So awake when I am gone;\n             For I must now to Oberon.                      Exit\n\n               Enter DEMETRIUS and HELENA, running\n\n  HELENA. Stay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius.\n  DEMETRIUS. I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus.\n  HELENA. O, wilt thou darkling leave me? Do not so.\n  DEMETRIUS. Stay on thy peril; I alone will go.            Exit\n  HELENA. O, I am out of breath in this fond chase!\n    The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.\n    Happy is Hermia, wheresoe'er she lies,\n    For she hath blessed and attractive eyes.\n    How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears;\n    If so, my eyes are oft'ner wash'd than hers.\n    No, no, I am as ugly as a bear,\n    For beasts that meet me run away for fear;\n    Therefore no marvel though Demetrius\n    Do, as a monster, fly my presence thus.\n    What wicked and dissembling glass of mine\n    Made me compare with Hermia's sphery eyne?\n    But who is here? Lysander! on the ground!\n    Dead, or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.\n    Lysander, if you live, good sir, awake.\n  LYSANDER. [Waking] And run through fire I will for thy sweet\nsake.\n    Transparent Helena! Nature shows art,\n    That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart.\n    Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word\n    Is that vile name to perish on my sword!\n  HELENA. Do not say so, Lysander; say not so.\n    What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though?\n    Yet Hermia still loves you; then be content.\n  LYSANDER. Content with Hermia! No: I do repent\n    The tedious minutes I with her have spent.\n    Not Hermia but Helena I love:\n    Who will not change a raven for a dove?\n    The will of man is by his reason sway'd,\n    And reason says you are the worthier maid.\n    Things growing are not ripe until their season;\n    So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason;\n    And touching now the point of human skill,\n    Reason becomes the marshal to my will,\n    And leads me to your eyes, where I o'erlook\n    Love's stories, written in Love's richest book.\n  HELENA. Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born?\n    When at your hands did I deserve this scorn?\n    Is't not enough, is't not enough, young man,\n    That I did never, no, nor never can,\n    Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius' eye,\n    But you must flout my insufficiency?\n    Good troth, you do me wrong, good sooth, you do,\n    In such disdainful manner me to woo.\n    But fare you well; perforce I must confess\n    I thought you lord of more true gentleness.\n    O, that a lady of one man refus'd\n    Should of another therefore be abus'd!                  Exit\n  LYSANDER. She sees not Hermia. Hermia, sleep thou there;\n    And never mayst thou come Lysander near!\n    For, as a surfeit of the sweetest things\n    The deepest loathing to the stomach brings,\n    Or as the heresies that men do leave\n    Are hated most of those they did deceive,\n    So thou, my surfeit and my heresy,\n    Of all be hated, but the most of me!\n    And, all my powers, address your love and might\n    To honour Helen, and to be her knight!                  Exit\n  HERMIA. [Starting] Help me, Lysander, help me; do thy best\n    To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast.\n    Ay me, for pity! What a dream was here!\n    Lysander, look how I do quake with fear.\n    Methought a serpent eat my heart away,\n    And you sat smiling at his cruel prey.\n    Lysander! What, remov'd? Lysander! lord!\n    What, out of hearing gone? No sound, no word?\n    Alack, where are you? Speak, an if you hear;\n    Speak, of all loves! I swoon almost with fear.\n    No? Then I well perceive you are not nigh.\n    Either death or you I'll find immediately.              Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nThe wood. TITANIA lying asleep\n\nEnter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING\n\n  BOTTOM. Are we all met?\n  QUINCE. Pat, pat; and here's a marvellous convenient place for\nour\n    rehearsal. This green plot shall be our stage, this hawthorn\n    brake our tiring-house; and we will do it in action, as we\nwill\n    do it before the Duke.\n  BOTTOM. Peter Quince!\n  QUINCE. What sayest thou, bully Bottom?\n  BOTTOM. There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisby\nthat\n    will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill\n    himself; which the ladies cannot abide. How answer you that?\n  SNOUT. By'r lakin, a parlous fear.\n  STARVELING. I believe we must leave the killing out, when all\nis\n    done.\n  BOTTOM. Not a whit; I have a device to make all well. Write me\na\n    prologue; and let the prologue seem to say we will do no harm\n    with our swords, and that Pyramus is not kill'd indeed; and\nfor\n    the more better assurance, tell them that I Pyramus am not\n    Pyramus but Bottom the weaver. This will put them out of\nfear.\n  QUINCE. Well, we will have such a prologue; and it shall be\nwritten\n    in eight and six.\n  BOTTOM. No, make it two more; let it be written in eight and\neight.\n  SNOUT. Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?\n  STARVELING. I fear it, I promise you.\n  BOTTOM. Masters, you ought to consider with yourself to bring\nin-\n    God shield us!- a lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing;\nfor\n    there is not a more fearful wild-fowl than your lion living;\nand\n    we ought to look to't.\n  SNOUT. Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion.\n  BOTTOM. Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must be\nseen\n    through the lion's neck; and he himself must speak through,\n    saying thus, or to the same defect: 'Ladies,' or 'Fair\nladies, I\n    would wish you' or 'I would request you' or 'I would entreat\nyou\n    not to fear, not to tremble. My life for yours! If you think\nI\n    come hither as a lion, it were pity of my life. No, I am no\nsuch\n    thing; I am a man as other men are.' And there, indeed, let\nhim\n    name his name, and tell them plainly he is Snug the joiner.\n  QUINCE. Well, it shall be so. But there is two hard things-\nthat\n    is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber; for, you know,\nPyramus\n    and Thisby meet by moonlight.\n  SNOUT. Doth the moon shine that night we play our play?\n  BOTTOM. A calendar, a calendar! Look in the almanack; find out\n    moonshine, find out moonshine.\n  QUINCE. Yes, it doth shine that night.\n  BOTTOM. Why, then may you leave a casement of the great chamber\n    window, where we play, open; and the moon may shine in at the\n    casement.\n  QUINCE. Ay; or else one must come in with a bush of thorns and\na\n    lantern, and say he comes to disfigure or to present the\nperson\n    of Moonshine. Then there is another thing: we must have a\nwall in\n    the great chamber; for Pyramus and Thisby, says the story,\ndid\n    talk through the chink of a wall.\n  SNOUT. You can never bring in a wall. What say you, Bottom?\n  BOTTOM. Some man or other must present Wall; and let him have\nsome\n    plaster, or some loam, or some rough-cast about him, to\nsignify\n    wall; and let him hold his fingers thus, and through that\ncranny\n    shall Pyramus and Thisby whisper.\n  QUINCE. If that may be, then all is well. Come, sit down, every\n    mother's son, and rehearse your parts. Pyramus, you begin;\nwhen\n    you have spoken your speech, enter into that brake; and so\nevery\n    one according to his cue.\n\n                          Enter PUCK behind\n\n  PUCK. What hempen homespuns have we swagg'ring here,\n    So near the cradle of the Fairy Queen?\n    What, a play toward! I'll be an auditor;\n    An actor too perhaps, if I see cause.\n  QUINCE. Speak, Pyramus. Thisby, stand forth.\n  BOTTOM. Thisby, the flowers of odious savours sweet-\n  QUINCE. 'Odious'- odorous!\n  BOTTOM. -odours savours sweet;\n    So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisby dear.\n    But hark, a voice! Stay thou but here awhile,\n    And by and by I will to thee appear.                    Exit\n  PUCK. A stranger Pyramus than e'er played here!           Exit\n  FLUTE. Must I speak now?\n  QUINCE. Ay, marry, must you; for you must understand he goes\nbut to\n    see a noise that he heard, and is to come again.\n  FLUTE. Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,\n    Of colour like the red rose on triumphant brier,\n    Most brisky juvenal, and eke most lovely Jew,\n    As true as truest horse, that would never tire,\n    I'll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny's tomb.\n  QUINCE. 'Ninus' tomb,' man! Why, you must not speak that yet;\nthat\n    you answer to Pyramus. You speak all your part at once, cues,\nand\n    all. Pyramus enter: your cue is past; it is 'never tire.'\n  FLUTE. O- As true as truest horse, that y et would never tire.\n\n            Re-enter PUCK, and BOTTOM with an ass's head\n\n  BOTTOM. If I were fair, Thisby, I were only thine.\n  QUINCE. O monstrous! O strange! We are haunted. Pray, masters!\nfly,\n    masters! Help!\n                                  Exeunt all but BOTTOM and PUCK\n  PUCK. I'll follow you; I'll lead you about a round,\n    Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier;\n    Sometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound,\n    A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire;\n    And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn,\n    Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn.\nExit\n  BOTTOM. Why do they run away? This is a knavery of them to make\nme\n    afeard.\n\n                          Re-enter SNOUT\n\n  SNOUT. O Bottom, thou art chang'd! What do I see on thee?\n  BOTTOM. What do you see? You see an ass-head of your own, do\nyou?\n                                                      Exit SNOUT\n\n                          Re-enter QUINCE\n\n  QUINCE. Bless thee, Bottom, bless thee! Thou art translated.\n Exit\n  BOTTOM. I see their knavery: this is to make an ass of me; to\n    fright me, if they could. But I will not stir from this\nplace, do\n    what they can; I will walk up and down here, and will sing,\nthat\n    they shall hear I am not afraid.                     [Sings]\n\n          The ousel cock, so black of hue,\n            With orange-tawny bill,\n          The throstle with his note so true,\n            The wren with little quill.\n\n  TITANIA. What angel wakes me from my flow'ry bed?\n  BOTTOM. [Sings]\n          The finch, the sparrow, and the lark,\n            The plain-song cuckoo grey,\n          Whose note full many a man doth mark,\n            And dares not answer nay-\n    for, indeed, who would set his wit to so foolish a bird?\n    Who would give a bird the he, though he cry 'cuckoo' never\nso?\n  TITANIA. I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again.\n    Mine ear is much enamoured of thy note;\n    So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape;\n    And thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me,\n    On the first view, to say, to swear, I love thee.\n  BOTTOM. Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason for\nthat.\n    And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little\ncompany\n    together now-a-days. The more the pity that some honest\n    neighbours will not make them friends. Nay, I can gleek upon\n    occasion.\n  TITANIA. Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful.\n  BOTTOM. Not so, neither; but if I had wit enough to get out of\nthis\n    wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn.\n  TITANIA. Out of this wood do not desire to go;\n    Thou shalt remain here whether thou wilt or no.\n    I am a spirit of no common rate;\n    The summer still doth tend upon my state;\n    And I do love thee; therefore, go with me.\n    I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee;\n    And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep,\n    And sing, while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep;\n    And I will purge thy mortal grossness so\n    That thou shalt like an airy spirit go.\n    Peaseblossom! Cobweb! Moth! and Mustardseed!\n\n       Enter PEASEBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH, and MUSTARDSEED\n\n  PEASEBLOSSOM. Ready.\n  COBWEB. And I.\n  MOTH. And I.\n  MUSTARDSEED. And I.\n  ALL. Where shall we go?\n  TITANIA. Be kind and courteous to this gentleman;\n    Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes;\n    Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,\n    With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;\n    The honey bags steal from the humble-bees,\n    And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs,\n    And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes,\n    To have my love to bed and to arise;\n    And pluck the wings from painted butterflies,\n    To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes.\n    Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.\n  PEASEBLOSSOM. Hail, mortal!\n  COBWEB. Hail!\n  MOTH. Hail!\n  MUSTARDSEED. Hail!\n  BOTTOM. I cry your worships mercy, heartily; I beseech your\n    worship's name.\n  COBWEB. Cobweb.\n  BOTTOM. I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good Master\n    Cobweb. If I cut my finger, I shall make bold with you. Your\n    name, honest gentleman?\n  PEASEBLOSSOM. Peaseblossom.\n  BOTTOM. I pray you, commend me to Mistress Squash, your mother,\nand\n    to Master Peascod, your father. Good Master Peaseblossom, I\nshall\n    desire you of more acquaintance too. Your name, I beseech\nyou,\n    sir?\n  MUSTARDSEED. Mustardseed.\n  BOTTOM. Good Master Mustardseed, I know your patience well.\nThat\n    same cowardly giant-like ox-beef hath devour'd many a\ngentleman\n    of your house. I promise you your kindred hath made my eyes\nwater\n    ere now. I desire you of more acquaintance, good Master\n    Mustardseed.\n  TITANIA. Come, wait upon him; lead him to my bower.\n    The moon, methinks, looks with a wat'ry eye;\n    And when she weeps, weeps every little flower;\n    Lamenting some enforced chastity.\n    Tie up my love's tongue, bring him silently.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nAnother part of the wood\n\nEnter OBERON\n\n  OBERON. I wonder if Titania be awak'd;\n    Then, what it was that next came in her eye,\n    Which she must dote on in extremity.\n\n                          Enter PUCK\n\n    Here comes my messenger. How now, mad spirit!\n    What night-rule now about this haunted grove?\n  PUCK. My mistress with a monster is in love.\n    Near to her close and consecrated bower,\n    While she was in her dull and sleeping hour,\n    A crew of patches, rude mechanicals,\n    That work for bread upon Athenian stalls,\n    Were met together to rehearse a play\n    Intended for great Theseus' nuptial day.\n    The shallowest thickskin of that barren sort,\n    Who Pyramus presented, in their sport\n    Forsook his scene and ent'red in a brake;\n    When I did him at this advantage take,\n    An ass's nole I fixed on his head.\n    Anon his Thisby must be answered,\n    And forth my mimic comes. When they him spy,\n    As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,\n    Or russet-pated choughs, many in sort,\n    Rising and cawing at the gun's report,\n    Sever themselves and madly sweep the sky,\n    So at his sight away his fellows fly;\n    And at our stamp here, o'er and o'er one falls;\n    He murder cries, and help from Athens calls.\n    Their sense thus weak, lost with their fears thus strong,\n    Made senseless things begin to do them wrong,\n    For briers and thorns at their apparel snatch;\n    Some sleeves, some hats, from yielders all things catch.\n    I led them on in this distracted fear,\n    And left sweet Pyramus translated there;\n    When in that moment, so it came to pass,\n    Titania wak'd, and straightway lov'd an ass.\n  OBERON. This falls out better than I could devise.\n    But hast thou yet latch'd the Athenian's eyes\n    With the love-juice, as I did bid thee do?\n  PUCK. I took him sleeping- that is finish'd too-\n    And the Athenian woman by his side;\n    That, when he wak'd, of force she must be ey'd.\n\n                 Enter DEMETRIUS and HERMIA\n\n  OBERON. Stand close; this is the same Athenian.\n  PUCK. This is the woman, but not this the man.\n  DEMETRIUS. O, why rebuke you him that loves you so?\n    Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe.\n  HERMIA. Now I but chide, but I should use thee worse,\n    For thou, I fear, hast given me cause to curse.\n    If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep,\n    Being o'er shoes in blood, plunge in the deep,\n    And kill me too.\n    The sun was not so true unto the day\n    As he to me. Would he have stolen away\n    From sleeping Hermia? I'll believe as soon\n    This whole earth may be bor'd, and that the moon\n    May through the centre creep and so displease\n    Her brother's noontide with th' Antipodes.\n    It cannot be but thou hast murd'red him;\n    So should a murderer look- so dead, so grim.\n  DEMETRIUS. So should the murdered look; and so should I,\n    Pierc'd through the heart with your stern cruelty;\n    Yet you, the murderer, look as bright, as clear,\n    As yonder Venus in her glimmering sphere.\n  HERMIA. What's this to my Lysander? Where is he?\n    Ah, good Demetrius, wilt thou give him me?\n  DEMETRIUS. I had rather give his carcass to my hounds.\n  HERMIA. Out, dog! out, cur! Thou driv'st me past the bounds\n    Of maiden's patience. Hast thou slain him, then?\n    Henceforth be never numb'red among men!\n    O, once tell true; tell true, even for my sake!\n    Durst thou have look'd upon him being awake,\n    And hast thou kill'd him sleeping? O brave touch!\n    Could not a worm, an adder, do so much?\n    An adder did it; for with doubler tongue\n    Than thine, thou serpent, never adder stung.\n  DEMETRIUS. You spend your passion on a mispris'd mood:\n    I am not guilty of Lysander's blood;\n    Nor is he dead, for aught that I can tell.\n  HERMIA. I pray thee, tell me then that he is well.\n  DEMETRIUS. An if I could, what should I get therefore?\n  HERMIA. A privilege never to see me more.\n    And from thy hated presence part I so;\n    See me no more whether he be dead or no.                Exit\n  DEMETRIUS. There is no following her in this fierce vein;\n    Here, therefore, for a while I will remain.\n    So sorrow's heaviness doth heavier grow\n    For debt that bankrupt sleep doth sorrow owe;\n    Which now in some slight measure it will pay,\n    If for his tender here I make some stay.         [Lies down]\n  OBERON. What hast thou done? Thou hast mistaken quite,\n    And laid the love-juice on some true-love's sight.\n    Of thy misprision must perforce ensue\n    Some true love turn'd, and not a false turn'd true.\n  PUCK. Then fate o'er-rules, that, one man holding troth,\n    A million fail, confounding oath on oath.\n  OBERON. About the wood go swifter than the wind,\n    And Helena of Athens look thou find;\n    All fancy-sick she is and pale of cheer,\n    With sighs of love that costs the fresh blood dear.\n    By some illusion see thou bring her here;\n    I'll charm his eyes against she do appear.\n  PUCK. I go, I go; look how I go,\n    Swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow.               Exit\n  OBERON.       Flower of this purple dye,\n                Hit with Cupid's archery,\n                Sink in apple of his eye.\n                When his love he doth espy,\n                Let her shine as gloriously\n                As the Venus of the sky.\n                When thou wak'st, if she be by,\n                Beg of her for remedy.\n\n                       Re-enter PUCK\n\n  PUCK.         Captain of our fairy band,\n                Helena is here at hand,\n                And the youth mistook by me\n                Pleading for a lover's fee;\n                Shall we their fond pageant see?\n                Lord, what fools these mortals be!\n  OBERON.       Stand aside. The noise they make\n                Will cause Demetrius to awake.\n  PUCK.         Then will two at once woo one.\n                That must needs be sport alone;\n                And those things do best please me\n                That befall prepost'rously.\n\n                   Enter LYSANDER and HELENA\n\n  LYSANDER. Why should you think that I should woo in scorn?\n    Scorn and derision never come in tears.\n    Look when I vow, I weep; and vows so born,\n    In their nativity all truth appears.\n    How can these things in me seem scorn to you,\n    Bearing the badge of faith, to prove them true?\n  HELENA. You do advance your cunning more and more.\n    When truth kills truth, O devilish-holy fray!\n    These vows are Hermia's. Will you give her o'er?\n    Weigh oath with oath, and you will nothing weigh:\n    Your vows to her and me, put in two scales,\n    Will even weigh; and both as light as tales.\n  LYSANDER. I hod no judgment when to her I swore.\n  HELENA. Nor none, in my mind, now you give her o'er.\n  LYSANDER. Demetrius loves her, and he loves not you.\n  DEMETRIUS. [Awaking] O Helen, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine!\n    To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne?\n    Crystal is muddy. O, how ripe in show\n    Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow!\n    That pure congealed white, high Taurus' snow,\n    Fann'd with the eastern wind, turns to a crow\n    When thou hold'st up thy hand. O, let me kiss\n    This princess of pure white, this seal of bliss!\n  HELENA. O spite! O hell! I see you all are bent\n    To set against me for your merriment.\n    If you were civil and knew courtesy,\n    You would not do me thus much injury.\n    Can you not hate me, as I know you do,\n    But you must join in souls to mock me too?\n    If you were men, as men you are in show,\n    You would not use a gentle lady so:\n    To vow, and swear, and superpraise my parts,\n    When I am sure you hate me with your hearts.\n    You both are rivals, and love Hermia;\n    And now both rivals, to mock Helena.\n    A trim exploit, a manly enterprise,\n    To conjure tears up in a poor maid's eyes\n    With your derision! None of noble sort\n    Would so offend a virgin, and extort\n    A poor soul's patience, all to make you sport.\n  LYSANDER. You are unkind, Demetrius; be not so;\n    For you love Hermia. This you know I know;\n    And here, with all good will, with all my heart,\n    In Hermia's love I yield you up my part;\n    And yours of Helena to me bequeath,\n    Whom I do love and will do till my death.\n  HELENA. Never did mockers waste more idle breath.\n  DEMETRIUS. Lysander, keep thy Hermia; I will none.\n    If e'er I lov'd her, all that love is gone.\n    My heart to her but as guest-wise sojourn'd,\n    And now to Helen is it home return'd,\n    There to remain.\n  LYSANDER. Helen, it is not so.\n  DEMETRIUS. Disparage not the faith thou dost not know,\n    Lest, to thy peril, thou aby it dear.\n    Look where thy love comes; yonder is thy dear.\n\n                       Enter HERMIA\n\n  HERMIA. Dark night, that from the eye his function takes,\n    The ear more quick of apprehension makes;\n    Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense,\n    It pays the hearing double recompense.\n    Thou art not by mine eye, Lysander, found;\n    Mine ear, I thank it, brought me to thy sound.\n    But why unkindly didst thou leave me so?\n  LYSANDER. Why should he stay whom love doth press to go?\n  HERMIA. What love could press Lysander from my side?\n  LYSANDER. Lysander's love, that would not let him bide-\n    Fair Helena, who more engilds the night\n    Than all yon fiery oes and eyes of light.\n    Why seek'st thou me? Could not this make thee know\n    The hate I bare thee made me leave thee so?\n  HERMIA. You speak not as you think; it cannot be.\n  HELENA. Lo, she is one of this confederacy!\n    Now I perceive they have conjoin'd all three\n    To fashion this false sport in spite of me.\n    Injurious Hermia! most ungrateful maid!\n    Have you conspir'd, have you with these contriv'd,\n    To bait me with this foul derision?\n    Is all the counsel that we two have shar'd,\n    The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent,\n    When we have chid the hasty-footed time\n    For parting us- O, is all forgot?\n    All school-days' friendship, childhood innocence?\n    We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,\n    Have with our needles created both one flower,\n    Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,\n    Both warbling of one song, both in one key;\n    As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds,\n    Had been incorporate. So we grew together,\n    Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,\n    But yet an union in partition,\n    Two lovely berries moulded on one stern;\n    So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart;\n    Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,\n    Due but to one, and crowned with one crest.\n    And will you rent our ancient love asunder,\n    To join with men in scorning your poor friend?\n    It is not friendly, 'tis not maidenly;\n    Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it,\n    Though I alone do feel the injury.\n  HERMIA. I am amazed at your passionate words;\n    I scorn you not; it seems that you scorn me.\n  HELENA. Have you not set Lysander, as in scorn,\n    To follow me and praise my eyes and face?\n    And made your other love, Demetrius,\n    Who even but now did spurn me with his foot,\n    To call me goddess, nymph, divine, and rare,\n    Precious, celestial? Wherefore speaks he this\n    To her he hates? And wherefore doth Lysander\n    Deny your love, so rich within his soul,\n    And tender me, forsooth, affection,\n    But by your setting on, by your consent?\n    What though I be not so in grace as you,\n    So hung upon with love, so fortunate,\n    But miserable most, to love unlov'd?\n    This you should pity rather than despise.\n  HERMIA. I understand not what you mean by this.\n  HELENA. Ay, do- persever, counterfeit sad looks,\n    Make mouths upon me when I turn my back,\n    Wink each at other; hold the sweet jest up;\n    This sport, well carried, shall be chronicled.\n    If you have any pity, grace, or manners,\n    You would not make me such an argument.\n    But fare ye well; 'tis partly my own fault,\n    Which death, or absence, soon shall remedy.\n  LYSANDER. Stay, gentle Helena; hear my excuse;\n    My love, my life, my soul, fair Helena!\n  HELENA. O excellent!\n  HERMIA. Sweet, do not scorn her so.\n  DEMETRIUS. If she cannot entreat, I can compel.\n  LYSANDER. Thou canst compel no more than she entreat;\n    Thy threats have no more strength than her weak prayers\n    Helen, I love thee, by my life I do;\n    I swear by that which I will lose for thee\n    To prove him false that says I love thee not.\n  DEMETRIUS. I say I love thee more than he can do.\n  LYSANDER. If thou say so, withdraw, and prove it too.\n  DEMETRIUS. Quick, come.\n  HERMIA. Lysander, whereto tends all this?\n  LYSANDER. Away, you Ethiope!\n  DEMETRIUS. No, no, he will\n    Seem to break loose- take on as you would follow,\n    But yet come not. You are a tame man; go!\n  LYSANDER. Hang off, thou cat, thou burr; vile thing, let loose,\n    Or I will shake thee from me like a serpent.\n  HERMIA. Why are you grown so rude? What change is this,\n    Sweet love?\n  LYSANDER. Thy love! Out, tawny Tartar, out!\n    Out, loathed med'cine! O hated potion, hence!\n  HERMIA. Do you not jest?\n  HELENA. Yes, sooth; and so do you.\n  LYSANDER. Demetrius, I will keep my word with thee.\n  DEMETRIUS. I would I had your bond; for I perceive\n    A weak bond holds you; I'll not trust your word.\n  LYSANDER. What, should I hurt her, strike her, kill her dead?\n    Although I hate her, I'll not harm her so.\n  HERMIA. What! Can you do me greater harm than hate?\n    Hate me! wherefore? O me! what news, my love?\n    Am not I Hermia? Are not you Lysander?\n    I am as fair now as I was erewhile.\n    Since night you lov'd me; yet since night you left me.\n    Why then, you left me- O, the gods forbid!-\n    In earnest, shall I say?\n  LYSANDER. Ay, by my life!\n    And never did desire to see thee more.\n    Therefore be out of hope, of question, of doubt;\n    Be certain, nothing truer; 'tis no jest\n    That I do hate thee and love Helena.\n  HERMIA. O me! you juggler! you cankerblossom!\n    You thief of love! What! Have you come by night,\n    And stol'n my love's heart from him?\n  HELENA. Fine, i' faith!\n    Have you no modesty, no maiden shame,\n    No touch of bashfulness? What! Will you tear\n    Impatient answers from my gentle tongue?\n    Fie, fie! you counterfeit, you puppet you!\n  HERMIA. 'Puppet!' why so? Ay, that way goes the game.\n    Now I perceive that she hath made compare\n    Between our statures; she hath urg'd her height;\n    And with her personage, her tall personage,\n    Her height, forsooth, she hath prevail'd with him.\n    And are you grown so high in his esteem\n    Because I am so dwarfish and so low?\n    How low am I, thou painted maypole? Speak.\n    How low am I? I am not yet so low\n    But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.\n  HELENA. I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen,\n    Let her not hurt me. I was never curst;\n    I have no gift at all in shrewishness;\n    I am a right maid for my cowardice;\n    Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think,\n    Because she is something lower than myself,\n    That I can match her.\n  HERMIA. 'Lower' hark, again.\n  HELENA. Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me.\n    I evermore did love you, Hermia,\n    Did ever keep your counsels, never wrong'd you;\n    Save that, in love unto Demetrius,\n    I told him of your stealth unto this wood.\n    He followed you; for love I followed him;\n    But he hath chid me hence, and threat'ned me\n    To strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too;\n    And now, so you will let me quiet go,\n    To Athens will I bear my folly back,\n    And follow you no further. Let me go.\n    You see how simple and how fond I am.\n  HERMIA. Why, get you gone! Who is't that hinders you?\n  HELENA. A foolish heart that I leave here behind.\n  HERMIA. What! with Lysander?\n  HELENA. With Demetrius.\n  LYSANDER. Be not afraid; she shall not harm thee, Helena.\n  DEMETRIUS. No, sir, she shall not, though you take her part.\n  HELENA. O, when she is angry, she is keen and shrewd;\n    She was a vixen when she went to school;\n    And, though she be but little, she is fierce.\n  HERMIA. 'Little' again! Nothing but 'low' and 'little'!\n    Why will you suffer her to flout me thus?\n    Let me come to her.\n  LYSANDER. Get you gone, you dwarf;\n    You minimus, of hind'ring knot-grass made;\n    You bead, you acorn.\n  DEMETRIUS. You are too officious\n    In her behalf that scorns your services.\n    Let her alone; speak not of Helena;\n    Take not her part; for if thou dost intend\n    Never so little show of love to her,\n    Thou shalt aby it.\n  LYSANDER. Now she holds me not.\n    Now follow, if thou dar'st, to try whose right,\n    Of thine or mine, is most in Helena.\n  DEMETRIUS. Follow! Nay, I'll go with thee, cheek by jowl.\n                                   Exeunt LYSANDER and DEMETRIUS\n  HERMIA. You, mistress, all this coil is long of you.\n    Nay, go not back.\n  HELENA. I will not trust you, I;\n    Nor longer stay in your curst company.\n    Your hands than mine are quicker for a fray;\n    My legs are longer though, to run away.                 Exit\n  HERMIA. I am amaz'd, and know not what to say.            Exit\n  OBERON. This is thy negligence. Still thou mistak'st,\n    Or else committ'st thy knaveries wilfully.\n  PUCK. Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook.\n    Did not you tell me I should know the man\n    By the Athenian garments he had on?\n    And so far blameless proves my enterprise\n    That I have 'nointed an Athenian's eyes;\n    And so far am I glad it so did sort,\n    As this their jangling I esteem a sport.\n  OBERON. Thou seest these lovers seek a place to fight.\n    Hie therefore, Robin, overcast the night;\n    The starry welkin cover thou anon\n    With drooping fog as black as Acheron,\n    And lead these testy rivals so astray\n    As one come not within another's way.\n    Like to Lysander sometime frame thy tongue,\n    Then stir Demetrius up with bitter wrong;\n    And sometime rail thou like Demetrius;\n    And from each other look thou lead them thus,\n    Till o'er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep\n    With leaden legs and batty wings doth creep.\n    Then crush this herb into Lysander's eye;\n    Whose liquor hath this virtuous property,\n    To take from thence all error with his might\n    And make his eyeballs roll with wonted sight.\n    When they next wake, all this derision\n    Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision;\n    And back to Athens shall the lovers wend\n    With league whose date till death shall never end.\n    Whiles I in this affair do thee employ,\n    I'll to my queen, and beg her Indian boy;\n    And then I will her charmed eye release\n    From monster's view, and all things shall be peace.\n  PUCK. My fairy lord, this must be done with haste,\n    For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast;\n    And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger,\n    At whose approach ghosts, wand'ring here and there,\n    Troop home to churchyards. Damned spirits all\n    That in cross-ways and floods have burial,\n    Already to their wormy beds are gone,\n    For fear lest day should look their shames upon;\n    They wilfully themselves exil'd from light,\n    And must for aye consort with black-brow'd night.\n  OBERON. But we are spirits of another sort:\n    I with the Morning's love have oft made sport;\n    And, like a forester, the groves may tread\n    Even till the eastern gate, all fiery red,\n    Opening on Neptune with fair blessed beams,\n    Turns into yellow gold his salt green streams.\n    But, notwithstanding, haste, make no delay;\n    We may effect this business yet ere day.         Exit OBERON\n  PUCK.      Up and down, up and down,\n             I will lead them up and down.\n             I am fear'd in field and town.\n             Goblin, lead them up and down.\n    Here comes one.\n\n                      Enter LYSANDER\n\n  LYSANDER. Where art thou, proud Demetrius? Speak thou now.\n  PUCK. Here, villain, drawn and ready. Where art thou?\n  LYSANDER. I will be with thee straight.\n  PUCK. Follow me, then,\n    To plainer ground.      Exit LYSANDER as following the voice\n\n                      Enter DEMETRIUS\n\n  DEMETRIUS. Lysander, speak again.\n    Thou runaway, thou coward, art thou fled?\n    Speak! In some bush? Where dost thou hide thy head?\n  PUCK. Thou coward, art thou bragging to the stars,\n    Telling the bushes that thou look'st for wars,\n    And wilt not come? Come, recreant, come, thou child;\n    I'll whip thee with a rod. He is defil'd\n    That draws a sword on thee.\n  DEMETRIUS. Yea, art thou there?\n  PUCK. Follow my voice; we'll try no manhood here.       Exeunt\n\n                      Re-enter LYSANDER\n\n  LYSANDER. He goes before me, and still dares me on;\n    When I come where he calls, then he is gone.\n    The villain is much lighter heel'd than I.\n    I followed fast, but faster he did fly,\n    That fallen am I in dark uneven way,\n    And here will rest me. [Lies down] Come, thou gentle day.\n    For if but once thou show me thy grey light,\n    I'll find Demetrius, and revenge this spite.        [Sleeps]\n\n                 Re-enter PUCK and DEMETRIUS\n\n  PUCK. Ho, ho, ho! Coward, why com'st thou not?\n  DEMETRIUS. Abide me, if thou dar'st; for well I wot\n    Thou run'st before me, shifting every place,\n    And dar'st not stand, nor look me in the face.\n    Where art thou now?\n  PUCK. Come hither; I am here.\n  DEMETRIUS. Nay, then, thou mock'st me. Thou shalt buy this\ndear,\n    If ever I thy face by daylight see;\n    Now, go thy way. Faintness constraineth me\n    To measure out my length on this cold bed.\n    By day's approach look to be visited.\n                                          [Lies down and sleeps]\n\n                       Enter HELENA\n\n  HELENA. O weary night, O long and tedious night,\n    Abate thy hours! Shine comforts from the east,\n    That I may back to Athens by daylight,\n    From these that my poor company detest.\n    And sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow's eye,\n    Steal me awhile from mine own company.              [Sleeps]\n  PUCK.       Yet but three? Come one more;\n              Two of both kinds makes up four.\n              Here she comes, curst and sad.\n              Cupid is a knavish lad,\n              Thus to make poor females mad.\n\n                     Enter HERMIA\n\n  HERMIA. Never so weary, never so in woe,\n    Bedabbled with the dew, and torn with briers,\n    I can no further crawl, no further go;\n    My legs can keep no pace with my desires.\n    Here will I rest me till the break of day.\n    Heavens shield Lysander, if they mean a fray!\n                                          [Lies down and sleeps]\n  PUCK.          On the ground\n                 Sleep sound;\n                 I'll apply\n                 To your eye,\n          Gentle lover, remedy.\n                        [Squeezing the juice on LYSANDER'S eyes]\n                 When thou wak'st,\n                 Thou tak'st\n                 True delight\n                 In the sight\n          Of thy former lady's eye;\n          And the country proverb known,\n          That every man should take his own,\n          In your waking shall be shown:\n                 Jack shall have Jill;\n                 Nought shall go ill;\n    The man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well.\n Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nThe wood. LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HELENA, and HERMIA, lying asleep\n\nEnter TITANIA and Bottom; PEASEBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH,\nMUSTARDSEED,\nand other FAIRIES attending;\n                      OBERON behind, unseen\n\n  TITANIA. Come, sit thee down upon this flow'ry bed,\n    While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,\n    And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,\n    And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.\n  BOTTOM. Where's Peaseblossom?\n  PEASEBLOSSOM. Ready.\n  BOTTOM. Scratch my head, Peaseblossom.\n    Where's Mounsieur Cobweb?\n  COBWEB. Ready.\n  BOTTOM. Mounsieur Cobweb; good mounsieur, get you your weapons\nin\n    your hand and kill me a red-hipp'd humble-bee on the top of a\n    thistle; and, good mounsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not\nfret\n    yourself too much in the action, mounsieur; and, good\nmounsieur,\n    have a care the honey-bag break not; I would be loath to have\nyou\n    overflown with a honey-bag, signior. Where's Mounsieur\n    Mustardseed?\n  MUSTARDSEED. Ready.\n  BOTTOM. Give me your neaf, Mounsieur Mustardseed. Pray you,\nleave\n    your curtsy, good mounsieur.\n  MUSTARDSEED. What's your will?\n  BOTTOM. Nothing, good mounsieur, but to help Cavalery Cobweb to\n    scratch. I must to the barber's, mounsieur; for methinks I am\n    marvellous hairy about the face; and I am such a tender ass,\nif\n    my hair do but tickle me I must scratch.\n  TITANIA. What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love?\n  BOTTOM. I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let's have the\ntongs\n    and the bones.\n  TITANIA. Or say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat.\n  BOTTOM. Truly, a peck of provender; I could munch your good dry\n    oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle of hay. Good\n    hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.\n  TITANIA. I have a venturous fairy that shall seek\n    The squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.\n  BOTTOM. I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas. But,\nI\n    pray you, let none of your people stir me; I have an\nexposition\n    of sleep come upon me.\n  TITANIA. Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.\n    Fairies, be gone, and be all ways away.       Exeunt FAIRIES\n    So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle\n    Gently entwist; the female ivy so\n    Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.\n    O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee!         [They sleep]\n\n                         Enter PUCK\n\n  OBERON. [Advancing] Welcome, good Robin. Seest thou this sweet\n      sight?\n    Her dotage now I do begin to pity;\n    For, meeting her of late behind the wood,\n    Seeking sweet favours for this hateful fool,\n    I did upbraid her and fall out with her.\n    For she his hairy temples then had rounded\n    With coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers;\n    And that same dew which sometime on the buds\n    Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls\n    Stood now within the pretty flowerets' eyes,\n    Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail.\n    When I had at my pleasure taunted her,\n    And she in mild terms begg'd my patience,\n    I then did ask of her her changeling child;\n    Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sent\n    To bear him to my bower in fairy land.\n    And now I have the boy, I will undo\n    This hateful imperfection of her eyes.\n    And, gentle Puck, take this transformed scalp\n    From off the head of this Athenian swain,\n    That he awaking when the other do\n    May all to Athens back again repair,\n    And think no more of this night's accidents\n    But as the fierce vexation of a dream.\n    But first I will release the Fairy Queen.\n                                             [Touching her eyes]\n           Be as thou wast wont to be;\n           See as thou was wont to see.\n           Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower\n           Hath such force and blessed power.\n    Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet queen.\n  TITANIA. My Oberon! What visions have I seen!\n    Methought I was enamour'd of an ass.\n  OBERON. There lies your love.\n  TITANIA. How came these things to pass?\n    O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!\n  OBERON. Silence awhile. Robin, take off this head.\n    Titania, music call; and strike more dead\n    Than common sleep of all these five the sense.\n  TITANIA. Music, ho, music, such as charmeth sleep!\n  PUCK. Now when thou wak'st with thine own fool's eyes peep.\n  OBERON. Sound, music. Come, my Queen, take hands with me,\n                                                         [Music]\n    And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.\n    Now thou and I are new in amity,\n    And will to-morrow midnight solemnly\n    Dance in Duke Theseus' house triumphantly,\n    And bless it to all fair prosperity.\n    There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be\n    Wedded, with Theseus, an in jollity.\n  PUCK.       Fairy King, attend and mark;\n              I do hear the morning lark.\n  OBERON.     Then, my Queen, in silence sad,\n              Trip we after night's shade.\n              We the globe can compass soon,\n              Swifter than the wand'ring moon.\n  TITANIA.    Come, my lord; and in our flight,\n              Tell me how it came this night\n              That I sleeping here was found\n              With these mortals on the ground.           Exeunt\n\n        To the winding of horns, enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA,\n                      EGEUS, and train\n\n  THESEUS. Go, one of you, find out the forester;\n    For now our observation is perform'd,\n    And since we have the vaward of the day,\n    My love shall hear the music of my hounds.\n    Uncouple in the western valley; let them go.\n    Dispatch, I say, and find the forester.    Exit an ATTENDANT\n    We will, fair Queen, up to the mountain's top,\n    And mark the musical confusion\n    Of hounds and echo in conjunction.\n  HIPPOLYTA. I was with Hercules and Cadmus once\n    When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear\n    With hounds of Sparta; never did I hear\n    Such gallant chiding, for, besides the groves,\n    The skies, the fountains, every region near\n    Seem'd all one mutual cry. I never heard\n    So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.\n  THESEUS. My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,\n    So flew'd, so sanded; and their heads are hung\n    With ears that sweep away the morning dew;\n    Crook-knee'd and dew-lapp'd like Thessalian bulls;\n    Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells,\n    Each under each. A cry more tuneable\n    Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn,\n    In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly.\n    Judge when you hear. But, soft, what nymphs are these?\n  EGEUS. My lord, this is my daughter here asleep,\n    And this Lysander, this Demetrius is,\n    This Helena, old Nedar's Helena.\n    I wonder of their being here together.\n  THESEUS. No doubt they rose up early to observe\n    The rite of May; and, hearing our intent,\n    Came here in grace of our solemnity.\n    But speak, Egeus; is not this the day\n    That Hermia should give answer of her choice?\n  EGEUS. It is, my lord.\n  THESEUS. Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.\n                           [Horns and shout within. The sleepers\n                                     awake and kneel to THESEUS]\n    Good-morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past;\n    Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?\n  LYSANDER. Pardon, my lord.\n  THESEUS. I pray you all, stand up.\n    I know you two are rival enemies;\n    How comes this gentle concord in the world\n    That hatred is so far from jealousy\n    To sleep by hate, and fear no enmity?\n  LYSANDER. My lord, I shall reply amazedly,\n    Half sleep, half waking; but as yet, I swear,\n    I cannot truly say how I came here,\n    But, as I think- for truly would I speak,\n    And now I do bethink me, so it is-\n    I came with Hermia hither. Our intent\n    Was to be gone from Athens, where we might,\n    Without the peril of the Athenian law-\n  EGEUS. Enough, enough, my Lord; you have enough;\n    I beg the law, the law upon his head.\n    They would have stol'n away, they would, Demetrius,\n    Thereby to have defeated you and me:\n    You of your wife, and me of my consent,\n    Of my consent that she should be your wife.\n  DEMETRIUS. My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,\n    Of this their purpose hither to this wood;\n    And I in fury hither followed them,\n    Fair Helena in fancy following me.\n    But, my good lord, I wot not by what power-\n    But by some power it is- my love to Hermia,\n    Melted as the snow, seems to me now\n    As the remembrance of an idle gaud\n    Which in my childhood I did dote upon;\n    And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,\n    The object and the pleasure of mine eye,\n    Is only Helena. To her, my lord,\n    Was I betroth'd ere I saw Hermia.\n    But, like a sickness, did I loathe this food;\n    But, as in health, come to my natural taste,\n    Now I do wish it, love it, long for it,\n    And will for evermore be true to it.\n  THESEUS. Fair lovers, you are fortunately met;\n    Of this discourse we more will hear anon.\n    Egeus, I will overbear your will;\n    For in the temple, by and by, with us\n    These couples shall eternally be knit.\n    And, for the morning now is something worn,\n    Our purpos'd hunting shall be set aside.\n    Away with us to Athens, three and three;\n    We'll hold a feast in great solemnity.\n    Come, Hippolyta.\n                     Exeunt THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and train\n  DEMETRIUS. These things seem small and undistinguishable,\n    Like far-off mountains turned into clouds.\n  HERMIA. Methinks I see these things with parted eye,\n    When every thing seems double.\n  HELENA. So methinks;\n    And I have found Demetrius like a jewel,\n    Mine own, and not mine own.\n  DEMETRIUS. Are you sure\n    That we are awake? It seems to me\n    That yet we sleep, we dream. Do not you think\n    The Duke was here, and bid us follow him?\n  HERMIA. Yea, and my father.\n  HELENA. And Hippolyta.\n  LYSANDER. And he did bid us follow to the temple.\n  DEMETRIUS. Why, then, we are awake; let's follow him;\n    And by the way let us recount our dreams.             Exeunt\n  BOTTOM. [Awaking] When my cue comes, call me, and I will\nanswer. My\n    next is 'Most fair Pyramus.' Heigh-ho! Peter Quince! Flute,\nthe\n    bellows-mender! Snout, the tinker! Starveling! God's my life,\n    stol'n hence, and left me asleep! I have had a most rare\nvision.\n    I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it\nwas.\n    Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream.\nMethought\n    I was- there is no man can tell what. Methought I was, and\n    methought I had, but man is but a patch'd fool, if he will\noffer\n    to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard,\nthe\n    ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste,\nhis\n    tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream\nwas. I\n    will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream. It\nshall\n    be call'd 'Bottom's Dream,' because it hath no bottom; and I\nwill\n    sing it in the latter end of a play, before the Duke.\n    Peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall sing it\nat\n    her death.                                              Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nAthens. QUINCE'S house\n\nEnter QUINCE, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING\n\n  QUINCE. Have you sent to Bottom's house? Is he come home yet?\n  STARVELING. He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt he is\ntransported.\n  FLUTE. If he come not, then the play is marr'd; it goes not\n    forward, doth it?\n  QUINCE. It is not possible. You have not a man in all Athens\nable\n    to discharge Pyramus but he.\n  FLUTE. No; he hath simply the best wit of any handicraft man in\n    Athens.\n  QUINCE. Yea, and the best person too; and he is a very paramour\nfor\n    a sweet voice.\n  FLUTE. You must say 'paragon.' A paramour is- God bless us!- A\n    thing of naught.\n\n                           Enter SNUG\n\n  SNUG. Masters, the Duke is coming from the temple; and there is\ntwo\n    or three lords and ladies more married. If our sport had gone\n\n    forward, we had all been made men.\n  FLUTE. O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a day\n    during his life; he could not have scaped sixpence a day. An\nthe\n    Duke had not given him sixpence a day for playing Pyramus,\nI'll\n    be hanged. He would have deserved it: sixpence a day in\nPyramus,\n    or nothing.\n\n                           Enter BOTTOM\n\n  BOTTOM. Where are these lads? Where are these hearts?\n  QUINCE. Bottom! O most courageous day! O most happy hour!\n  BOTTOM. Masters, I am to discourse wonders; but ask me not\nwhat;\n    for if I tell you, I am not true Athenian. I will tell you\n    everything, right as it fell out.\n  QUINCE. Let us hear, sweet Bottom.\n  BOTTOM. Not a word of me. All that I will tell you is, that the\n    Duke hath dined. Get your apparel together; good strings to\nyour\n    beards, new ribbons to your pumps; meet presently at the\npalace;\n    every man look o'er his part; for the short and the long is,\nour\n    play is preferr'd. In any case, let Thisby have clean linen;\nand\n    let not him that plays the lion pare his nails, for they\nshall\n    hang out for the lion's claws. And, most dear actors, eat no\n    onions nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath; and I do\nnot\n    doubt but to hear them say it is a sweet comedy. No more\nwords.\n    Away, go, away!                                       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nAthens. The palace of THESEUS\n\nEnter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, LORDS, and ATTENDANTS\n\n  HIPPOLYTA. 'Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak\nof.\n  THESEUS. More strange than true. I never may believe\n    These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.\n    Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,\n    Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend\n    More than cool reason ever comprehends.\n    The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,\n    Are of imagination all compact.\n    One sees more devils than vast hell can hold;\n    That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic,\n    Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt.\n    The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,\n    Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;\n    And as imagination bodies forth\n    The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen\n    Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing\n    A local habitation and a name.\n    Such tricks hath strong imagination\n    That, if it would but apprehend some joy,\n    It comprehends some bringer of that joy;\n    Or in the night, imagining some fear,\n    How easy is a bush suppos'd a bear?\n  HIPPOLYTA. But all the story of the night told over,\n    And all their minds transfigur'd so together,\n    More witnesseth than fancy's images,\n    And grows to something of great constancy,\n    But howsoever strange and admirable.\n\n          Enter LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HERMIA, and HELENA\n\n  THESEUS. Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.\n    Joy, gentle friends, joy and fresh days of love\n    Accompany your hearts!\n  LYSANDER. More than to us\n    Wait in your royal walks, your board, your bed!\n  THESEUS. Come now; what masques, what dances shall we have,\n    To wear away this long age of three hours\n    Between our after-supper and bed-time?\n    Where is our usual manager of mirth?\n    What revels are in hand? Is there no play\n    To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?\n    Call Philostrate.\n  PHILOSTRATE. Here, mighty Theseus.\n  THESEUS. Say, what abridgment have you for this evening?\n    What masque? what music? How shall we beguile\n    The lazy time, if not with some delight?\n  PHILOSTRATE. There is a brief how many sports are ripe;\n    Make choice of which your Highness will see first.\n                                                [Giving a paper]\n  THESEUS. 'The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung\n    By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.'\n    We'll none of that: that have I told my love,\n    In glory of my kinsman Hercules.\n    'The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,\n    Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.'\n    That is an old device, and it was play'd\n    When I from Thebes came last a conqueror.\n    'The thrice three Muses mourning for the death\n    Of Learning, late deceas'd in beggary.'\n    That is some satire, keen and critical,\n    Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony.\n    'A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus\n    And his love Thisby; very tragical mirth.'\n    Merry and tragical! tedious and brief!\n    That is hot ice and wondrous strange snow.\n    How shall we find the concord of this discord?\n  PHILOSTRATE. A play there is, my lord, some ten words long,\n    Which is as brief as I have known a play;\n    But by ten words, my lord, it is too long,\n    Which makes it tedious; for in all the play\n    There is not one word apt, one player fitted.\n    And tragical, my noble lord, it is;\n    For Pyramus therein doth kill himself.\n    Which when I saw rehears'd, I must confess,\n    Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears\n    The passion of loud laughter never shed.\n  THESEUS. What are they that do play it?\n  PHILOSTRATE. Hard-handed men that work in Athens here,\n    Which never labour'd in their minds till now;\n    And now have toil'd their unbreathed memories\n    With this same play against your nuptial.\n  THESEUS. And we will hear it.\n  PHILOSTRATE. No, my noble lord,\n    It is not for you. I have heard it over,\n    And it is nothing, nothing in the world;\n    Unless you can find sport in their intents,\n    Extremely stretch'd and conn'd with cruel pain,\n    To do you service.\n  THESEUS. I will hear that play;\n    For never anything can be amiss\n    When simpleness and duty tender it.\n    Go, bring them in; and take your places, ladies.\n                                                Exit PHILOSTRATE\n  HIPPOLYTA. I love not to see wretchedness o'er-charged,\n    And duty in his service perishing.\n  THESEUS. Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing.\n  HIPPOLYTA. He says they can do nothing in this kind.\n  THESEUS. The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing.\n    Our sport shall be to take what they mistake;\n    And what poor duty cannot do, noble respect\n    Takes it in might, not merit.\n    Where I have come, great clerks have purposed\n    To greet me with premeditated welcomes;\n    Where I have seen them shiver and look pale,\n    Make periods in the midst of sentences,\n    Throttle their practis'd accent in their fears,\n    And, in conclusion, dumbly have broke off,\n    Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, sweet,\n    Out of this silence yet I pick'd a welcome;\n    And in the modesty of fearful duty\n    I read as much as from the rattling tongue\n    Of saucy and audacious eloquence.\n    Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity\n    In least speak most to my capacity.\n\n                       Re-enter PHILOSTRATE\n\n  PHILOSTRATE. SO please your Grace, the Prologue is address'd.\n  THESEUS. Let him approach.              [Flourish of trumpets]\n\n                 Enter QUINCE as the PROLOGUE\n\n  PROLOGUE. If we offend, it is with our good will.\n    That you should think, we come not to offend,\n    But with good will. To show our simple skill,\n    That is the true beginning of our end.\n    Consider then, we come but in despite.\n    We do not come, as minding to content you,\n    Our true intent is. All for your delight\n    We are not here. That you should here repent you,\n    The actors are at band; and, by their show,\n    You shall know all, that you are like to know,\n  THESEUS. This fellow doth not stand upon points.\n  LYSANDER. He hath rid his prologue like a rough colt; he knows\nnot\n    the stop. A good moral, my lord: it is not enough to speak,\nbut\n    to speak true.\n  HIPPOLYTA. Indeed he hath play'd on this prologue like a child\non a\n    recorder- a sound, but not in government.\n  THESEUS. His speech was like a tangled chain; nothing im\npaired,\n    but all disordered. Who is next?\n\n          Enter, with a trumpet before them, as in dumb show,\n            PYRAMUS and THISBY, WALL, MOONSHINE, and LION\n\n  PROLOGUE. Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show;\n    But wonder on, till truth make all things plain.\n    This man is Pyramus, if you would know;\n    This beauteous lady Thisby is certain.\n    This man, with lime and rough-cast, doth present\n    Wall, that vile Wall which did these lovers sunder;\n    And through Walls chink, poor souls, they are content\n    To whisper. At the which let no man wonder.\n    This man, with lanthorn, dog, and bush of thorn,\n    Presenteth Moonshine; for, if you will know,\n    By moonshine did these lovers think no scorn\n    To meet at Ninus' tomb, there, there to woo.\n    This grisly beast, which Lion hight by name,\n    The trusty Thisby, coming first by night,\n    Did scare away, or rather did affright;\n    And as she fled, her mantle she did fall;\n    Which Lion vile with bloody mouth did stain.\n    Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth and tall,\n    And finds his trusty Thisby's mantle slain;\n    Whereat with blade, with bloody blameful blade,\n    He bravely broach'd his boiling bloody breast;\n    And Thisby, tarrying in mulberry shade,\n    His dagger drew, and died. For all the rest,\n    Let Lion, Moonshine, Wall, and lovers twain,\n    At large discourse while here they do remain.\n                               Exeunt PROLOGUE, PYRAMUS, THISBY,\n                                             LION, and MOONSHINE\n  THESEUS. I wonder if the lion be to speak.\n  DEMETRIUS. No wonder, my lord: one lion may, when many asses\ndo.\n  WALL. In this same interlude it doth befall\n    That I, one Snout by name, present a wall;\n    And such a wall as I would have you think\n    That had in it a crannied hole or chink,\n    Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisby,\n    Did whisper often very secretly.\n    This loam, this rough-cast, and this stone, doth show\n    That I am that same wall; the truth is so;\n    And this the cranny is, right and sinister,\n    Through which the fearful lovers are to whisper.\n  THESEUS. Would you desire lime and hair to speak better?\n  DEMETRIUS. It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard\n    discourse, my lord.\n\n                       Enter PYRAMUS\n\n  THESEUS. Pyramus draws near the wall; silence.\n  PYRAMUS. O grim-look'd night! O night with hue so black!\n    O night, which ever art when day is not!\n    O night, O night, alack, alack, alack,\n    I fear my Thisby's promise is forgot!\n    And thou, O wall, O sweet, O lovely wall,\n    That stand'st between her father's ground and mine;\n    Thou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall,\n    Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne.\n                                     [WALL holds up his fingers]\n    Thanks, courteous wall. Jove shield thee well for this!\n    But what see what see I? No Thisby do I see.\n    O wicked wall, through whom I see no bliss,\n    Curs'd he thy stones for thus deceiving me!\n  THESEUS. The wall, methinks, being sensible, should curse\nagain.\n  PYRAMUS. No, in truth, sir, he should not. Deceiving me is\nThisby's\n    cue. She is to enter now, and I am to spy her through the\nwall.\n    You shall see it will fall pat as I told you; yonder she\ncomes.\n\n                          Enter THISBY\n\n  THISBY. O wall, full often hast thou beard my moans,\n    For parting my fair Pyramus and me!\n    My cherry lips have often kiss'd thy stones,\n    Thy stones with lime and hair knit up in thee.\n  PYRAMUS. I see a voice; now will I to the chink,\n    To spy an I can hear my Thisby's face.\n    Thisby!\n  THISBY. My love! thou art my love, I think.\n  PYRAMUS. Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover's grace;\n    And like Limander am I trusty still.\n  THISBY. And I like Helen, till the Fates me kill.\n  PYRAMUS. Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true.\n  THISBY. As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you.\n  PYRAMUS. O, kiss me through the hole of this vile wall.\n  THISBY. I kiss the wall's hole, not your lips at all.\n  PYRAMUS. Wilt thou at Ninny's tomb meet me straightway?\n  THISBY. Tide life, tide death, I come without delay.\n                                       Exeunt PYRAMUS and THISBY\n  WALL. Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so;\n    And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.           Exit WALL\n  THESEUS. Now is the moon used between the two neighbours.\n  DEMETRIUS. No remedy, my lord, when walls are so wilful to hear\n    without warning.\n  HIPPOLYTA. This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.\n  THESEUS. The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst\nare\n    no worse, if imagination amend them.\n  HIPPOLYTA. It must be your imagination then, and not theirs.\n  THESEUS. If we imagine no worse of them than they of\nthemselves,\n    they may pass for excellent men. Here come two noble beasts\nin, a\n    man and a lion.\n\n                   Enter LION and MOONSHINE\n\n  LION. You, ladies, you, whose gentle hearts do fear\n    The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor,\n    May now, perchance, both quake and tremble here,\n    When lion rough in wildest rage doth roar.\n    Then know that I as Snug the joiner am\n    A lion fell, nor else no lion's dam;\n    For, if I should as lion come in strife\n    Into this place, 'twere pity on my life.\n  THESEUS. A very gentle beast, and of a good conscience.\n  DEMETRIUS. The very best at a beast, my lord, that e'er I saw.\n  LYSANDER. This lion is a very fox for his valour.\n  THESEUS. True; and a goose for his discretion.\n  DEMETRIUS. Not so, my lord; for his valour cannot carry his\n    discretion, and the fox carries the goose.\n  THESEUS. His discretion, I am sure, cannot carry his valour;\nfor\n    the goose carries not the fox. It is well. Leave it to his\n    discretion, and let us listen to the Moon.\n  MOONSHINE. This lanthorn doth the horned moon present-\n  DEMETRIUS. He should have worn the horns on his head.\n  THESEUS. He is no crescent, and his horns are invisible within\nthe\n    circumference.\n  MOONSHINE. This lanthorn doth the horned moon present;\n    Myself the Man i' th' Moon do seem to be.\n  THESEUS. This is the greatest error of all the rest; the man\nshould\n    be put into the lantern. How is it else the man i' th' moon?\n  DEMETRIUS. He dares not come there for the candle; for, you\nsee, it\n    is already in snuff.\n  HIPPOLYTA. I am aweary of this moon. Would he would change!\n  THESEUS. It appears, by his small light of discretion, that he\nis\n    in the wane; but yet, in courtesy, in all reason, we must\nstay\n    the time.\n  LYSANDER. Proceed, Moon.\n  MOON. All that I have to say is to tell you that the lanthorn\nis\n    the moon; I, the Man i' th' Moon; this thorn-bush, my\nthorn-bush;\n    and this dog, my dog.\n  DEMETRIUS. Why, all these should be in the lantern; for all\nthese\n    are in the moon. But silence; here comes Thisby.\n\n                        Re-enter THISBY\n\n  THISBY. This is old Ninny's tomb. Where is my love?\n  LION. [Roaring] O-                           [THISBY runs off]\n  DEMETRIUS. Well roar'd, Lion.\n  THESEUS. Well run, Thisby.\n  HIPPOLYTA. Well shone, Moon. Truly, the moon shines with a good\n    grace.            [The LION tears THISBY'S Mantle, and exit]\n  THESEUS. Well mous'd, Lion.\n\n                        Re-enter PYRAMUS\n\n  DEMETRIUS. And then came Pyramus.\n  LYSANDER. And so the lion vanish'd.\n  PYRAMUS. Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams;\n    I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright;\n    For, by thy gracious golden, glittering gleams,\n    I trust to take of truest Thisby sight.\n             But stay, O spite!\n             But mark, poor knight,\n           What dreadful dole is here!\n             Eyes, do you see?\n             How can it he?\n           O dainty duck! O dear!\n             Thy mantle good,\n             What! stain'd with blood?\n           Approach, ye Furies fell.\n             O Fates! come, come;\n             Cut thread and thrum;\n           Quail, crush, conclude, and quell.\n  THESEUS. This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would go\n    near to make a man look sad.\n  HIPPOLYTA. Beshrew my heart, but I pity the man.\n  PYRAMUS. O wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions frame?\n    Since lion vile hath here deflower'd my dear;\n    Which is- no, no- which was the fairest dame\n    That liv'd, that lov'd, that lik'd, that look'd with cheer.\n             Come, tears, confound;\n             Out, sword, and wound\n           The pap of Pyramus;\n             Ay, that left pap,\n             Where heart doth hop.               [Stabs himself]\n           Thus die I, thus, thus, thus.\n             Now am I dead,\n             Now am I fled;\n           My soul is in the sky.\n             Tongue, lose thy light;\n             Moon, take thy flight.             [Exit MOONSHINE]\n           Now die, die, die, die, die.                   [Dies]\n  DEMETRIUS. No die, but an ace, for him; for he is but one.\n  LYSANDER. Less than an ace, man; for he is dead; he is nothing.\n  THESEUS. With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover and\nyet\n    prove an ass.\n  HIPPOLYTA. How chance Moonshine is gone before Thisby comes\nback\n    and finds her lover?\n\n                       Re-enter THISBY\n\n  THESEUS. She will find him by starlight. Here she comes; and\nher\n    passion ends the play.\n  HIPPOLYTA. Methinks she should not use a long one for such a\n    Pyramus; I hope she will be brief.\n  DEMETRIUS. A mote will turn the balance, which Pyramus, which\n    Thisby, is the better- he for a man, God warrant us: She for\na\n    woman, God bless us!\n  LYSANDER. She hath spied him already with those sweet eyes.\n  DEMETRIUS. And thus she moans, videlicet:-\n  THISBY.      Asleep, my love?\n               What, dead, my dove?\n             O Pyramus, arise,\n               Speak, speak. Quite dumb?\n               Dead, dead? A tomb\n             Must cover thy sweet eyes.\n               These lily lips,\n               This cherry nose,\n             These yellow cowslip cheeks,\n               Are gone, are gone;\n               Lovers, make moan;\n             His eyes were green as leeks.\n               O Sisters Three,\n               Come, come to me,\n             With hands as pale as milk;\n               Lay them in gore,\n               Since you have shore\n             With shears his thread of silk.\n               Tongue, not a word.\n               Come, trusty sword;\n             Come, blade, my breast imbrue.      [Stabs herself]\n               And farewell, friends;\n               Thus Thisby ends;\n             Adieu, adieu, adieu.                         [Dies]\n  THESEUS. Moonshine and Lion are left to bury the dead.\n  DEMETRIUS. Ay, and Wall too.\n  BOTTOM. [Starting up] No, I assure you; the wall is down that\n    parted their fathers. Will it please you to see the Epilogue,\nor\n    to hear a Bergomask dance between two of our company?\n  THESEUS. No epilogue, I pray you; for your play needs no\nexcuse.\n    Never excuse; for when the players are all dead there need\nnone\n    to be blamed. Marry, if he that writ it had played Pyramus,\nand\n    hang'd himself in Thisby's garter, it would have been a fine\n    tragedy. And so it is, truly; and very notably discharg'd.\nBut\n    come, your Bergomask; let your epilogue alone.     [A dance]\n    The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve.\n    Lovers, to bed; 'tis almost fairy time.\n    I fear we shall out-sleep the coming morn,\n    As much as we this night have overwatch'd.\n    This palpable-gross play hath well beguil'd\n    The heavy gait of night. Sweet friends, to bed.\n    A fortnight hold we this solemnity,\n    In nightly revels and new jollity.                    Exeunt\n\n                     Enter PUCK with a broom\n\n  PUCK.      Now the hungry lion roars,\n             And the wolf behowls the moon;\n             Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,\n             All with weary task fordone.\n             Now the wasted brands do glow,\n             Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud,\n             Puts the wretch that lies in woe\n             In remembrance of a shroud.\n             Now it is the time of night\n             That the graves, all gaping wide,\n             Every one lets forth his sprite,\n             In the church-way paths to glide.\n             And we fairies, that do run\n             By the triple Hecate's team\n             From the presence of the sun,\n             Following darkness like a dream,\n             Now are frolic. Not a mouse\n             Shall disturb this hallowed house.\n             I am sent with broom before,\n             To sweep the dust behind the door.\n\n         Enter OBERON and TITANIA, with all their train\n\n  OBERON.    Through the house give glimmering light,\n             By the dead and drowsy fire;\n             Every elf and fairy sprite\n             Hop as light as bird from brier;\n             And this ditty, after me,\n             Sing and dance it trippingly.\n  TITANIA.      First, rehearse your song by rote,\n                To each word a warbling note;\n                Hand in hand, with fairy grace,\n                Will we sing, and bless this place.\n\n           [OBERON leading, the FAIRIES sing and dance]\n\n  OBERON.    Now, until the break of day,\n             Through this house each fairy stray.\n             To the best bride-bed will we,\n             Which by us shall blessed be;\n             And the issue there create\n             Ever shall be fortunate.\n             So shall all the couples three\n             Ever true in loving be;\n             And the blots of Nature's hand\n             Shall not in their issue stand;\n             Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar,\n             Nor mark prodigious, such as are\n             Despised in nativity,\n             Shall upon their children be.\n             With this field-dew consecrate,\n             Every fairy take his gait,\n             And each several chamber bless,\n             Through this palace, with sweet peace;\n             And the owner of it blest\n             Ever shall in safety rest.\n             Trip away; make no stay;\n             Meet me all by break of day.    Exeunt all but PUCK\n  PUCK.      If we shadows have offended,\n             Think but this, and all is mended,\n             That you have but slumb'red here\n             While these visions did appear.\n             And this weak and idle theme,\n             No more yielding but a dream,\n             Gentles, do not reprehend.\n             If you pardon, we will mend.\n             And, as I am an honest Puck,\n             If we have unearned luck\n             Now to scape the serpent's tongue,\n             We will make amends ere long;\n             Else the Puck a liar call.\n             So, good night unto you all.\n             Give me your hands, if we be friends,\n             And Robin shall restore amends.                Exit\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of this Etext of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare\nA Midsummer Night's Dream"}
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{"1114":"\n\n\n\n\n1597\n\nTHE MERCHANT OF VENICE\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  THE DUKE OF VENICE\n  THE PRINCE OF MOROCCO, suitor to Portia\n  THE PRINCE OF ARRAGON,    \"    \"    \"\n  ANTONIO, a merchant of Venice\n  BASSANIO, his friend, suitor to Portia\n  SOLANIO,   friend to Antonio and Bassanio\n  SALERIO,      \"    \"    \"     \"     \"\n  GRATIANO,     \"    \"    \"     \"     \"\n  LORENZO, in love with Jessica\n  SHYLOCK, a rich Jew\n  TUBAL, a Jew, his friend\n  LAUNCELOT GOBBO, a clown, servant to Shylock\n  OLD GOBBO, father to Launcelot\n  LEONARDO, servant to Bassanio\n  BALTHASAR, servant to Portia\n  STEPHANO,     \"     \"    \"\n\n  PORTIA, a rich heiress\n  NERISSA, her waiting-maid\n  JESSICA, daughter to Shylock\n\n  Magnificoes of Venice, Officers of the Court of Justice,\n    Gaoler, Servants, and other Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nVenice, and PORTIA'S house at Belmont\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nVenice. A street\n\nEnter ANTONIO, SALERIO, and SOLANIO\n\n  ANTONIO. In sooth, I know not why I am so sad.\n    It wearies me; you say it wearies you;\n    But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,\n    What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,\n    I am to learn;\n    And such a want-wit sadness makes of me\n    That I have much ado to know myself.\n  SALERIO. Your mind is tossing on the ocean;\n    There where your argosies, with portly sail-\n    Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood,\n    Or as it were the pageants of the sea-\n    Do overpeer the petty traffickers,\n    That curtsy to them, do them reverence,\n    As they fly by them with their woven wings.\n  SOLANIO. Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth,\n    The better part of my affections would\n    Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still\n    Plucking the grass to know where sits the wind,\n    Peering in maps for ports, and piers, and roads;\n    And every object that might make me fear\n    Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt,\n    Would make me sad.\n  SALERIO. My wind, cooling my broth,\n    Would blow me to an ague when I thought\n    What harm a wind too great might do at sea.\n    I should not see the sandy hour-glass run\n    But I should think of shallows and of flats,\n    And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand,\n    Vailing her high top lower than her ribs\n    To kiss her burial. Should I go to church\n    And see the holy edifice of stone,\n    And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks,\n    Which, touching but my gentle vessel's side,\n    Would scatter all her spices on the stream,\n    Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks,\n    And, in a word, but even now worth this,\n    And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought\n    To think on this, and shall I lack the thought\n    That such a thing bechanc'd would make me sad?\n    But tell not me; I know Antonio\n    Is sad to think upon his merchandise.\n  ANTONIO. Believe me, no; I thank my fortune for it,\n    My ventures are not in one bottom trusted,\n    Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate\n    Upon the fortune of this present year;\n    Therefore my merchandise makes me not sad.\n  SOLANIO. Why then you are in love.\n  ANTONIO. Fie, fie!\n  SOLANIO. Not in love neither? Then let us say you are sad\n    Because you are not merry; and 'twere as easy\n    For you to laugh and leap and say you are merry,\n    Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed Janus,\n    Nature hath fram'd strange fellows in her time:\n    Some that will evermore peep through their eyes,\n    And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper;\n    And other of such vinegar aspect\n    That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile\n    Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.\n\n               Enter BASSANIO, LORENZO, and GRATIANO\n\n    Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman,\n    Gratiano and Lorenzo. Fare ye well;\n    We leave you now with better company.\n  SALERIO. I would have stay'd till I had made you merry,\n    If worthier friends had not prevented me.\n  ANTONIO. Your worth is very dear in my regard.\n    I take it your own business calls on you,\n    And you embrace th' occasion to depart.\n  SALERIO. Good morrow, my good lords.\n  BASSANIO. Good signiors both, when shall we laugh? Say when.\n    You grow exceeding strange; must it be so?\n  SALERIO. We'll make our leisures to attend on yours.\n                                      Exeunt SALERIO and SOLANIO\n  LORENZO. My Lord Bassanio, since you have found Antonio,\n    We two will leave you; but at dinner-time,\n    I pray you, have in mind where we must meet.\n  BASSANIO. I will not fail you.\n  GRATIANO. You look not well, Signior Antonio;\n    You have too much respect upon the world;\n    They lose it that do buy it with much care.\n    Believe me, you are marvellously chang'd.\n  ANTONIO. I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano-\n    A stage, where every man must play a part,\n    And mine a sad one.\n  GRATIANO. Let me play the fool.\n    With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come;\n    And let my liver rather heat with wine\n    Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.\n    Why should a man whose blood is warm within\n    Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster,\n    Sleep when he wakes, and creep into the jaundice\n    By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio-\n    I love thee, and 'tis my love that speaks-\n    There are a sort of men whose visages\n    Do cream and mantle like a standing pond,\n    And do a wilful stillness entertain,\n    With purpose to be dress'd in an opinion\n    Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit;\n    As who should say 'I am Sir Oracle,\n    And when I ope my lips let no dog bark.'\n    O my Antonio, I do know of these\n    That therefore only are reputed wise\n    For saying nothing; when, I am very sure,\n    If they should speak, would almost damn those ears\n    Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools.\n    I'll tell thee more of this another time.\n    But fish not with this melancholy bait\n    For this fool gudgeon, this opinion.\n    Come, good Lorenzo. Fare ye well awhile;\n    I'll end my exhortation after dinner.\n  LORENZO. Well, we will leave you then till dinner-time.\n    I must be one of these same dumb wise men,\n    For Gratiano never lets me speak.\n  GRATIANO. Well, keep me company but two years moe,\n    Thou shalt not know the sound of thine own tongue.\n  ANTONIO. Fare you well; I'll grow a talker for this gear.\n  GRATIANO. Thanks, i' faith, for silence is only commendable\n    In a neat's tongue dried, and a maid not vendible.\n                                     Exeunt GRATIANO and LORENZO\n  ANTONIO. Is that anything now?\n  BASSANIO. Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more\nthan\n    any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat\nhid\n    in, two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find\n    them, and when you have them they are not worth the search.\n  ANTONIO. Well; tell me now what lady is the same\n    To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage,\n    That you to-day promis'd to tell me of?\n  BASSANIO. 'Tis not unknown to you, Antonio,\n    How much I have disabled mine estate\n    By something showing a more swelling port\n    Than my faint means would grant continuance;\n    Nor do I now make moan to be abridg'd\n    From such a noble rate; but my chief care\n    Is to come fairly off from the great debts\n    Wherein my time, something too prodigal,\n    Hath left me gag'd. To you, Antonio,\n    I owe the most, in money and in love;\n    And from your love I have a warranty\n    To unburden all my plots and purposes\n    How to get clear of all the debts I owe.\n  ANTONIO. I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it;\n    And if it stand, as you yourself still do,\n    Within the eye of honour, be assur'd\n    My purse, my person, my extremest means,\n    Lie all unlock'd to your occasions.\n  BASSANIO. In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft,\n    I shot his fellow of the self-same flight\n    The self-same way, with more advised watch,\n    To find the other forth; and by adventuring both\n    I oft found both. I urge this childhood proof,\n    Because what follows is pure innocence.\n    I owe you much; and, like a wilful youth,\n    That which I owe is lost; but if you please\n    To shoot another arrow that self way\n    Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt,\n    As I will watch the aim, or to find both,\n    Or bring your latter hazard back again\n    And thankfully rest debtor for the first.\n  ANTONIO. You know me well, and herein spend but time\n    To wind about my love with circumstance;\n    And out of doubt you do me now more wrong\n    In making question of my uttermost\n    Than if you had made waste of all I have.\n    Then do but say to me what I should do\n    That in your knowledge may by me be done,\n    And I am prest unto it; therefore, speak.\n  BASSANIO. In Belmont is a lady richly left,\n    And she is fair and, fairer than that word,\n    Of wondrous virtues. Sometimes from her eyes\n    I did receive fair speechless messages.\n    Her name is Portia- nothing undervalu'd\n    To Cato's daughter, Brutus' Portia.\n    Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth;\n    For the four winds blow in from every coast\n    Renowned suitors, and her sunny locks\n    Hang on her temples like a golden fleece,\n    Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos' strond,\n    And many Jasons come in quest of her.\n    O my Antonio, had I but the means\n    To hold a rival place with one of them,\n    I have a mind presages me such thrift\n    That I should questionless be fortunate.\n  ANTONIO. Thou know'st that all my fortunes are at sea;\n    Neither have I money nor commodity\n    To raise a present sum; therefore go forth,\n    Try what my credit can in Venice do;\n    That shall be rack'd, even to the uttermost,\n    To furnish thee to Belmont to fair Portia.\n    Go presently inquire, and so will I,\n    Where money is; and I no question make\n    To have it of my trust or for my sake.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBelmont. PORTIA'S house\n\nEnter PORTIA with her waiting-woman, NERISSA\n\n  PORTIA. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this\n    great world.\n  NERISSA. You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in\nthe\n    same abundance as your good fortunes are; and yet, for aught\nI\n    see, they are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that\n    starve with nothing. It is no mean happiness, therefore, to\nbe\n    seated in the mean: superfluity come sooner by white hairs,\nbut\n    competency lives longer.\n  PORTIA. Good sentences, and well pronounc'd.\n  NERISSA. They would be better, if well followed.\n  PORTIA. If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do,\n    chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes'\n    palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own\ninstructions; I\n    can easier teach twenty what were good to be done than to be\none\n    of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may\ndevise\n    laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold\ndecree;\n    such a hare is madness the youth, to skip o'er the meshes of\ngood\n    counsel the cripple. But this reasoning is not in the fashion\nto\n    choose me a husband. O me, the word 'choose'! I may neither\n    choose who I would nor refuse who I dislike; so is the will\nof a\n    living daughter curb'd by the will of a dead father. Is it\nnot\n    hard, Nerissa, that I cannot choose one, nor refuse none?\n  NERISSA. Your father was ever virtuous, and holy men at their\ndeath\n    have good inspirations; therefore the lott'ry that he hath\n    devised in these three chests, of gold, silver, and lead-\nwhereof\n    who chooses his meaning chooses you- will no doubt never be\n    chosen by any rightly but one who you shall rightly love. But\n    what warmth is there in your affection towards any of these\n    princely suitors that are already come?\n  PORTIA. I pray thee over-name them; and as thou namest them, I\nwill\n    describe them; and according to my description, level at my\n    affection.\n  NERISSA. First, there is the Neapolitan prince.\n  PORTIA. Ay, that's a colt indeed, for he doth nothing but talk\nof\n    his horse; and he makes it a great appropriation to his own\ngood\n    parts that he can shoe him himself; I am much afear'd my lady\nhis\n    mother play'd false with a smith.\n  NERISSA. Then is there the County Palatine.\n  PORTIA. He doth nothing but frown, as who should say 'An you\nwill\n    not have me, choose.' He hears merry tales and smiles not. I\nfear\n    he will prove the weeping philosopher when he grows old,\nbeing so\n    full of unmannerly sadness in his youth. I had rather be\nmarried\n    to a death's-head with a bone in his mouth than to either of\n    these. God defend me from these two!\n  NERISSA. How say you by the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon?\n  PORTIA. God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man. In\n    truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker, but he- why, he\nhath a\n    horse better than the Neapolitan's, a better bad habit of\n    frowning than the Count Palatine; he is every man in no man.\nIf a\n    throstle sing he falls straight a-cap'ring; he will fence\nwith\n    his own shadow; if I should marry him, I should marry twenty\n    husbands. If he would despise me, I would forgive him; for if\nhe\n    love me to madness, I shall never requite him.\n  NERISSA. What say you then to Falconbridge, the young baron of\n    England?\n  PORTIA. You know I say nothing to him, for he understands not\nme,\n    nor I him: he hath neither Latin, French, nor Italian, and\nyou\n    will come into the court and swear that I have a poor\npennyworth\n    in the English. He is a proper man's picture; but alas, who\ncan\n    converse with a dumb-show? How oddly he is suited! I think he\n    bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his\nbonnet\n    in Germany, and his behaviour everywhere.\n  NERISSA. What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbour?\n  PORTIA. That he hath a neighbourly charity in him, for he\nborrowed\n    a box of the ear of the Englishman, and swore he would pay\nhim\n    again when he was able; I think the Frenchman became his\nsurety,\n    and seal'd under for another.\n  NERISSA. How like you the young German, the Duke of Saxony's\n    nephew?\n  PORTIA. Very vilely in the morning when he is sober; and most\n    vilely in the afternoon when he is drunk. When he is best, he\nis\n    a little worse than a man, and when he is worst, he is little\n    better than a beast. An the worst fall that ever fell, I hope\nI\n    shall make shift to go without him.\n  NERISSA. If he should offer to choose, and choose the right\ncasket,\n    you should refuse to perform your father's will, if you\nshould\n    refuse to accept him.\n  PORTIA. Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray thee set a\ndeep\n    glass of Rhenish wine on the contrary casket; for if the\ndevil be\n    within and that temptation without, I know he will choose it.\nI\n    will do anything, Nerissa, ere I will be married to a sponge.\n  NERISSA. You need not fear, lady, the having any of these\nlords;\n    they have acquainted me with their determinations, which is\n    indeed to return to their home, and to trouble you with no\nmore\n    suit, unless you may be won by some other sort than your\nfather's\n    imposition, depending on the caskets.\n  PORTIA. If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die as chaste\nas\n    Diana, unless I be obtained by the manner of my father's\nwill. I\n    am glad this parcel of wooers are so reasonable; for there is\nnot\n    one among them but I dote on his very absence, and I pray God\n    grant them a fair departure.\n  NERISSA. Do you not remember, lady, in your father's time, a\n    Venetian, a scholar and a soldier, that came hither in\ncompany of\n    the Marquis of Montferrat?\n  PORTIA. Yes, yes, it was Bassanio; as I think, so was he\ncall'd.\n  NERISSA. True, madam; he, of all the men that ever my foolish\neyes\n    look'd upon, was the best deserving a fair lady.\n  PORTIA. I remember him well, and I remember him worthy of thy\n    praise.\n\n                         Enter a SERVINGMAN\n\n    How now! what news?\n  SERVINGMAN. The four strangers seek for you, madam, to take\ntheir\n    leave; and there is a forerunner come from a fifth, the\nPrince of\n    Morocco, who brings word the Prince his master will be here\n    to-night.\n  PORTIA. If I could bid the fifth welcome with so good heart as\nI\n    can bid the other four farewell, I should be glad of his\n    approach; if he have the condition of a saint and the\ncomplexion\n    of a devil, I had rather he should shrive me than wive me.\n    Come, Nerissa. Sirrah, go before.\n    Whiles we shut the gate upon one wooer, another knocks at the\n      door.                                               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nVenice. A public place\n\nEnter BASSANIO With SHYLOCK the Jew\n\n  SHYLOCK. Three thousand ducats- well.\n  BASSANIO. Ay, sir, for three months.\n  SHYLOCK. For three months- well.\n  BASSANIO. For the which, as I told you, Antonio shall be bound.\n  SHYLOCK. Antonio shall become bound- well.\n  BASSANIO. May you stead me? Will you pleasure me? Shall I know\nyour\n    answer?\n  SHYLOCK. Three thousand ducats for three months, and Antonio\nbound.\n  BASSANIO. Your answer to that.\n  SHYLOCK. Antonio is a good man.\n  BASSANIO. Have you heard any imputation to the contrary?\n  SHYLOCK. Ho, no, no, no, no; my meaning in saying he is a good\nman\n    is to have you understand me that he is sufficient; yet his\nmeans\n    are in supposition: he hath an argosy bound to Tripolis,\nanother\n    to the Indies; I understand, moreover, upon the Rialto, he\nhath a\n    third at Mexico, a fourth for England- and other ventures he\n    hath, squand'red abroad. But ships are but boards, sailors\nbut\n    men; there be land-rats and water-rats, water-thieves and\n    land-thieves- I mean pirates; and then there is the peril of\n    waters, winds, and rocks. The man is, notwithstanding,\n    sufficient. Three thousand ducats- I think I may take his\nbond.\n  BASSANIO. Be assur'd you may.\n  SHYLOCK. I will be assur'd I may; and, that I may be assured, I\n    will bethink me. May I speak with Antonio?\n  BASSANIO. If it please you to dine with us.\n  SHYLOCK. Yes, to smell pork, to eat of the habitation which\nyour\n    prophet, the Nazarite, conjured the devil into! I will buy\nwith\n    you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so\n    following; but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor\npray\n    with you. What news on the Rialto? Who is he comes here?\n\n                            Enter ANTONIO\n\n  BASSANIO. This is Signior Antonio.\n  SHYLOCK.  [Aside]  How like a fawning publican he looks!\n    I hate him for he is a Christian;\n    But more for that in low simplicity\n    He lends out money gratis, and brings down\n    The rate of usance here with us in Venice.\n    If I can catch him once upon the hip,\n    I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him.\n    He hates our sacred nation; and he rails,\n    Even there where merchants most do congregate,\n    On me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift,\n    Which he calls interest. Cursed be my tribe\n    If I forgive him!\n  BASSANIO. Shylock, do you hear?\n  SHYLOCK. I am debating of my present store,\n    And, by the near guess of my memory,\n    I cannot instantly raise up the gross\n    Of full three thousand ducats. What of that?\n    Tubal, a wealthy Hebrew of my tribe,\n    Will furnish me. But soft! how many months\n    Do you desire?  [To ANTONIO]  Rest you fair, good signior;\n    Your worship was the last man in our mouths.\n  ANTONIO. Shylock, albeit I neither lend nor borrow\n    By taking nor by giving of excess,\n    Yet, to supply the ripe wants of my friend,\n    I'll break a custom.  [To BASSANIO]  Is he yet possess'd\n    How much ye would?\n  SHYLOCK. Ay, ay, three thousand ducats.\n  ANTONIO. And for three months.\n  SHYLOCK. I had forgot- three months; you told me so.\n    Well then, your bond; and, let me see- but hear you,\n    Methoughts you said you neither lend nor borrow\n    Upon advantage.\n  ANTONIO. I do never use it.\n  SHYLOCK. When Jacob graz'd his uncle Laban's sheep-\n    This Jacob from our holy Abram was,\n    As his wise mother wrought in his behalf,\n    The third possessor; ay, he was the third-\n  ANTONIO. And what of him? Did he take interest?\n  SHYLOCK. No, not take interest; not, as you would say,\n    Directly int'rest; mark what Jacob did:\n    When Laban and himself were compromis'd\n    That all the eanlings which were streak'd and pied\n    Should fall as Jacob's hire, the ewes, being rank,\n    In end of autumn turned to the rams;\n    And when the work of generation was\n    Between these woolly breeders in the act,\n    The skilful shepherd pill'd me certain wands,\n    And, in the doing of the deed of kind,\n    He stuck them up before the fulsome ewes,\n    Who, then conceiving, did in eaning time\n    Fall parti-colour'd lambs, and those were Jacob's.\n    This was a way to thrive, and he was blest;\n    And thrift is blessing, if men steal it not.\n  ANTONIO. This was a venture, sir, that Jacob serv'd for;\n    A thing not in his power to bring to pass,\n    But sway'd and fashion'd by the hand of heaven.\n    Was this inserted to make interest good?\n    Or is your gold and silver ewes and rams?\n  SHYLOCK. I cannot tell; I make it breed as fast.\n    But note me, signior.\n  ANTONIO.  [Aside]  Mark you this, Bassanio,\n    The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.\n    An evil soul producing holy witness\n    Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,\n    A goodly apple rotten at the heart.\n    O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!\n  SHYLOCK. Three thousand ducats- 'tis a good round sum.\n    Three months from twelve; then let me see, the rate-\n  ANTONIO. Well, Shylock, shall we be beholding to you?\n  SHYLOCK. Signior Antonio, many a time and oft\n    In the Rialto you have rated me\n    About my moneys and my usances;\n    Still have I borne it with a patient shrug,\n    For suff'rance is the badge of all our tribe;\n    You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,\n    And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine,\n    And all for use of that which is mine own.\n    Well then, it now appears you need my help;\n    Go to, then; you come to me, and you say\n    'Shylock, we would have moneys.' You say so-\n    You that did void your rheum upon my beard\n    And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur\n    Over your threshold; moneys is your suit.\n    What should I say to you? Should I not say\n    'Hath a dog money? Is it possible\n    A cur can lend three thousand ducats?' Or\n    Shall I bend low and, in a bondman's key,\n    With bated breath and whisp'ring humbleness,\n    Say this:\n    'Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last,\n    You spurn'd me such a day; another time\n    You call'd me dog; and for these courtesies\n    I'll lend you thus much moneys'?\n  ANTONIO. I am as like to call thee so again,\n    To spit on thee again, to spurn thee too.\n    If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not\n    As to thy friends- for when did friendship take\n    A breed for barren metal of his friend?-\n    But lend it rather to thine enemy,\n    Who if he break thou mayst with better face\n    Exact the penalty.\n  SHYLOCK. Why, look you, how you storm!\n    I would be friends with you, and have your love,\n    Forget the shames that you have stain'd me with,\n    Supply your present wants, and take no doit\n    Of usance for my moneys, and you'll not hear me.\n    This is kind I offer.\n  BASSANIO. This were kindness.\n  SHYLOCK. This kindness will I show.\n    Go with me to a notary, seal me there\n    Your single bond, and, in a merry sport,\n    If you repay me not on such a day,\n    In such a place, such sum or sums as are\n    Express'd in the condition, let the forfeit\n    Be nominated for an equal pound\n    Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken\n    In what part of your body pleaseth me.\n  ANTONIO. Content, in faith; I'll seal to such a bond,\n    And say there is much kindness in the Jew.\n  BASSANIO. You shall not seal to such a bond for me;\n    I'll rather dwell in my necessity.\n  ANTONIO. Why, fear not, man; I will not forfeit it;\n    Within these two months- that's a month before\n    This bond expires- I do expect return\n    Of thrice three times the value of this bond.\n  SHYLOCK. O father Abram, what these Christians are,\n    Whose own hard dealings teaches them suspect\n    The thoughts of others! Pray you, tell me this:\n    If he should break his day, what should I gain\n    By the exaction of the forfeiture?\n    A pound of man's flesh taken from a man\n    Is not so estimable, profitable neither,\n    As flesh of muttons, beefs, or goats. I say,\n    To buy his favour, I extend this friendship;\n    If he will take it, so; if not, adieu;\n    And, for my love, I pray you wrong me not.\n  ANTONIO. Yes, Shylock, I will seal unto this bond.\n  SHYLOCK. Then meet me forthwith at the notary's;\n    Give him direction for this merry bond,\n    And I will go and purse the ducats straight,\n    See to my house, left in the fearful guard\n    Of an unthrifty knave, and presently\n    I'll be with you.\n  ANTONIO. Hie thee, gentle Jew.                    Exit SHYLOCK\n    The Hebrew will turn Christian: he grows kind.\n  BASSANIO. I like not fair terms and a villain's mind.\n  ANTONIO. Come on; in this there can be no dismay;\n    My ships come home a month before the day.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nBelmont. PORTIA'S house\n\nFlourish of cornets. Enter the PRINCE of MOROCCO, a tawny Moor\nall in white,\nand three or four FOLLOWERS accordingly, with PORTIA, NERISSA,\nand train\n\n  PRINCE OF Morocco. Mislike me not for my complexion,\n    The shadowed livery of the burnish'd sun,\n    To whom I am a neighbour, and near bred.\n    Bring me the fairest creature northward born,\n    Where Phoebus' fire scarce thaws the icicles,\n    And let us make incision for your love\n    To prove whose blood is reddest, his or mine.\n    I tell thee, lady, this aspect of mine\n    Hath fear'd the valiant; by my love, I swear\n    The best-regarded virgins of our clime\n    Have lov'd it too. I would not change this hue,\n    Except to steal your thoughts, my gentle queen.\n  PORTIA. In terms of choice I am not solely led\n    By nice direction of a maiden's eyes;\n    Besides, the lott'ry of my destiny\n    Bars me the right of voluntary choosing.\n    But, if my father had not scanted me,\n    And hedg'd me by his wit to yield myself\n    His wife who wins me by that means I told you,\n    Yourself, renowned Prince, then stood as fair\n    As any comer I have look'd on yet\n    For my affection.\n  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. Even for that I thank you.\n    Therefore, I pray you, lead me to the caskets\n    To try my fortune. By this scimitar,\n    That slew the Sophy and a Persian prince,\n    That won three fields of Sultan Solyman,\n    I would o'erstare the sternest eyes that look,\n    Outbrave the heart most daring on the earth,\n    Pluck the young sucking cubs from the she-bear,\n    Yea, mock the lion when 'a roars for prey,\n    To win thee, lady. But, alas the while!\n    If Hercules and Lichas play at dice\n    Which is the better man, the greater throw\n    May turn by fortune from the weaker band.\n    So is Alcides beaten by his page;\n    And so may I, blind Fortune leading me,\n    Miss that which one unworthier may attain,\n    And die with grieving.\n  PORTIA. You must take your chance,\n    And either not attempt to choose at all,\n    Or swear before you choose, if you choose wrong,\n    Never to speak to lady afterward\n    In way of marriage; therefore be advis'd.\n  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. Nor will not; come, bring me unto my chance.\n  PORTIA. First, forward to the temple. After dinner\n    Your hazard shall be made.\n  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. Good fortune then,\n    To make me blest or cursed'st among men!\n                                           [Cornets, and exeunt]\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nVenice. A street\n\nEnter LAUNCELOT GOBBO\n\n  LAUNCELOT. Certainly my conscience will serve me to run from\nthis\n    Jew my master. The fiend is at mine elbow and tempts me,\nsaying\n    to me 'Gobbo, Launcelot Gobbo, good Launcelot' or 'good\nGobbo' or\n    'good Launcelot Gobbo, use your legs, take the start, run\naway.'\n    My conscience says 'No; take heed, honest Launcelot, take\nheed,\n    honest Gobbo' or, as aforesaid, 'honest Launcelot Gobbo, do\nnot\n    run; scorn running with thy heels.' Well, the most courageous\n    fiend bids me pack. 'Via!' says the fiend; 'away!' says the\n    fiend. 'For the heavens, rouse up a brave mind' says the\nfiend\n    'and run.' Well, my conscience, hanging about the neck of my\n    heart, says very wisely to me 'My honest friend Launcelot,\nbeing\n    an honest man's son' or rather 'an honest woman's son'; for\n    indeed my father did something smack, something grow to, he\nhad a\n    kind of taste- well, my conscience says 'Launcelot, budge\nnot.'\n    'Budge,' says the fiend. 'Budge not,' says my conscience.\n    'Conscience,' say I, (you counsel well.' 'Fiend,' say I, 'you\n    counsel well.' To be rul'd by my conscience, I should stay\nwith\n    the Jew my master, who- God bless the mark!- is a kind of\ndevil;\n    and, to run away from the Jew, I should be ruled by the\nfiend,\n    who- saving your reverence!- is the devil himself. Certainly\nthe\n    Jew is the very devil incarnation; and, in my conscience, my\n    conscience is but a kind of hard conscience to offer to\ncounsel\n    me to stay with the Jew. The fiend gives the more friendly\n    counsel. I will run, fiend; my heels are at your commandment;\nI\n    will run.\n\n                     Enter OLD GOBBO, with a basket\n\n  GOBBO. Master young man, you, I pray you, which is the way to\n    master Jew's?\n  LAUNCELOT.  [Aside]  O heavens! This is my true-begotten\nfather,\n    who, being more than sand-blind, high-gravel blind, knows me\nnot.\n    I will try confusions with him.\n  GOBBO. Master young gentleman, I pray you, which is the way to\n    master Jew's?\n  LAUNCELOT. Turn up on your right hand at the next turning, but,\nat\n    the next turning of all, on your left; marry, at the very\nnext\n    turning, turn of no hand, but turn down indirectly to the\nJew's\n    house.\n  GOBBO. Be God's sonties, 'twill be a hard way to hit! Can you\ntell\n    me whether one Launcelot, that dwells with him, dwell with\nhim or\n    no?\n  LAUNCELOT. Talk you of young Master Launcelot?  [Aside]  Mark\nme\n    now; now will I raise the waters.- Talk you of young Master\n    Launcelot?\n  GOBBO. No master, sir, but a poor man's son; his father, though\nI\n    say't, is an honest exceeding poor man, and, God be thanked,\nwell\n    to live.\n  LAUNCELOT. Well, let his father be what 'a will, we talk of\nyoung\n    Master Launcelot.\n  GOBBO. Your worship's friend, and Launcelot, sir.\n  LAUNCELOT. But I pray you, ergo, old man, ergo, I beseech you,\ntalk\n    you of young Master Launcelot?\n  GOBBO. Of Launcelot, an't please your mastership.\n  LAUNCELOT. Ergo, Master Launcelot. Talk not of Master\nLauncelot,\n    father; for the young gentleman, according to Fates and\nDestinies\n    and such odd sayings, the Sisters Three and such branches of\n    learning, is indeed deceased; or, as you would say in plain\n    terms, gone to heaven.\n  GOBBO. Marry, God forbid! The boy was the very staff of my age,\nmy\n    very prop.\n  LAUNCELOT. Do I look like a cudgel or a hovel-post, a staff or\na\n    prop? Do you know me, father?\n  GOBBO. Alack the day, I know you not, young gentleman; but I\npray\n    you tell me, is my boy- God rest his soul!- alive or dead?\n  LAUNCELOT. Do you not know me, father?\n  GOBBO. Alack, sir, I am sand-blind; I know you not.\n  LAUNCELOT. Nay, indeed, if you had your eyes, you might fail of\nthe\n    knowing me: it is a wise father that knows his own child.\nWell,\n    old man, I will tell you news of your son. Give me your\nblessing;\n    truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long; a man's\nson\n    may, but in the end truth will out.\n  GOBBO. Pray you, sir, stand up; I am sure you are not Launcelot\nmy\n    boy.\n  LAUNCELOT. Pray you, let's have no more fooling about it, but\ngive\n    me your blessing; I am Launcelot, your boy that was, your son\n    that is, your child that shall be.\n  GOBBO. I cannot think you are my son.\n  LAUNCELOT. I know not what I shall think of that; but I am\n    Launcelot, the Jew's man, and I am sure Margery your wife is\nmy\n    mother.\n  GOBBO. Her name is Margery, indeed. I'll be sworn, if thou be\n    Launcelot, thou art mine own flesh and blood. Lord worshipp'd\n    might he be, what a beard hast thou got! Thou hast got more\nhair\n    on thy chin than Dobbin my fill-horse has on his tail.\n  LAUNCELOT. It should seem, then, that Dobbin's tail grows\nbackward;\n    I am sure he had more hair of his tail than I have of my face\n    when I last saw him.\n  GOBBO. Lord, how art thou chang'd! How dost thou and thy master\n    agree? I have brought him a present. How 'gree you now?\n  LAUNCELOT. Well, well; but, for mine own part, as I have set up\nmy\n    rest to run away, so I will not rest till I have run some\nground.\n    My master's a very Jew. Give him a present! Give him a\nhalter. I\n    am famish'd in his service; you may tell every finger I have\nwith\n    my ribs. Father, I am glad you are come; give me your present\nto\n    one Master Bassanio, who indeed gives rare new liveries; if I\n    serve not him, I will run as far as God has any ground. O\nrare\n    fortune! Here comes the man. To him, father, for I am a Jew,\nif I\n    serve the Jew any longer.\n\n         Enter BASSANIO, with LEONARDO, with a FOLLOWER or two\n\n  BASSANIO. You may do so; but let it be so hasted that supper be\n    ready at the farthest by five of the clock. See these letters\n    delivered, put the liveries to making, and desire Gratiano to\n    come anon to my lodging.                      Exit a SERVANT\n  LAUNCELOT. To him, father.\n  GOBBO. God bless your worship!\n  BASSANIO. Gramercy; wouldst thou aught with me?\n  GOBBO. Here's my son, sir, a poor boy-\n  LAUNCELOT. Not a poor boy, sir, but the rich Jew's man, that\nwould,\n    sir, as my father shall specify-\n  GOBBO. He hath a great infection, sir, as one would say, to\nserve-\n  LAUNCELOT. Indeed the short and the long is, I serve the Jew,\nand\n    have a desire, as my father shall specify-\n  GOBBO. His master and he, saving your worship's reverence, are\n    scarce cater-cousins-\n  LAUNCELOT. To be brief, the very truth is that the Jew, having\ndone\n    me wrong, doth cause me, as my father, being I hope an old\nman,\n    shall frutify unto you-\n  GOBBO. I have here a dish of doves that I would bestow upon\nyour\n    worship; and my suit is-\n  LAUNCELOT. In very brief, the suit is impertinent to myself, as\n    your worship shall know by this honest old man; and, though I\nsay\n    it, though old man, yet poor man, my father.\n  BASSANIO. One speak for both. What would you?\n  LAUNCELOT. Serve you, sir.\n  GOBBO. That is the very defect of the matter, sir.\n  BASSANIO. I know thee well; thou hast obtain'd thy suit.\n    Shylock thy master spoke with me this day,\n    And hath preferr'd thee, if it be preferment\n    To leave a rich Jew's service to become\n    The follower of so poor a gentleman.\n  LAUNCELOT. The old proverb is very well parted between my\nmaster\n    Shylock and you, sir: you have the grace of God, sir, and he\nhath\n    enough.\n  BASSANIO. Thou speak'st it well. Go, father, with thy son.\n    Take leave of thy old master, and inquire\n    My lodging out.  [To a SERVANT]  Give him a livery\n    More guarded than his fellows'; see it done.\n  LAUNCELOT. Father, in. I cannot get a service, no! I have ne'er\na\n    tongue in my head!  [Looking on his palm]  Well; if any man\nin\n    Italy have a fairer table which doth offer to swear upon a\nbook- I\n    shall have good fortune. Go to, here's a simple line of life;\n    here's a small trifle of wives; alas, fifteen wives is\nnothing;\n    a'leven widows and nine maids is a simple coming-in for one\nman.\n    And then to scape drowning thrice, and to be in peril of my\nlife\n    with the edge of a feather-bed-here are simple scapes. Well,\nif\n    Fortune be a woman, she's a good wench for this gear. Father,\n    come; I'll take my leave of the Jew in the twinkling.\n                                  Exeunt LAUNCELOT and OLD GOBBO\n  BASSANIO. I pray thee, good Leonardo, think on this.\n    These things being bought and orderly bestowed,\n    Return in haste, for I do feast to-night\n    My best esteem'd acquaintance; hie thee, go.\n  LEONARDO. My best endeavours shall be done herein.\n\n                          Enter GRATIANO\n\n  GRATIANO. Where's your master?\n  LEONARDO. Yonder, sir, he walks.                          Exit\n  GRATIANO. Signior Bassanio!\n  BASSANIO. Gratiano!\n  GRATIANO. I have suit to you.\n  BASSANIO. You have obtain'd it.\n  GRATIANO. You must not deny me: I must go with you to Belmont.\n  BASSANIO. Why, then you must. But hear thee, Gratiano:\n    Thou art too wild, too rude, and bold of voice-\n    Parts that become thee happily enough,\n    And in such eyes as ours appear not faults;\n    But where thou art not known, why there they show\n    Something too liberal. Pray thee, take pain\n    To allay with some cold drops of modesty\n    Thy skipping spirit; lest through thy wild behaviour\n    I be misconst'red in the place I go to\n    And lose my hopes.\n  GRATIANO. Signior Bassanio, hear me:\n    If I do not put on a sober habit,\n    Talk with respect, and swear but now and then,\n    Wear prayer-books in my pocket, look demurely,\n    Nay more, while grace is saying hood mine eyes\n    Thus with my hat, and sigh, and say amen,\n    Use all the observance of civility\n    Like one well studied in a sad ostent\n    To please his grandam, never trust me more.\n  BASSANIO. Well, we shall see your bearing.\n  GRATIANO. Nay, but I bar to-night; you shall not gauge me\n    By what we do to-night.\n  BASSANIO. No, that were pity;\n    I would entreat you rather to put on\n    Your boldest suit of mirth, for we have friends\n    That purpose merriment. But fare you well;\n    I have some business.\n  GRATIANO. And I must to Lorenzo and the rest;\n    But we will visit you at supper-time.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nVenice. SHYLOCK'S house\n\nEnter JESSICA and LAUNCELOT\n\n  JESSICA. I am sorry thou wilt leave my father so.\n    Our house is hell; and thou, a merry devil,\n    Didst rob it of some taste of tediousness.\n    But fare thee well; there is a ducat for thee;\n    And, Launcelot, soon at supper shalt thou see\n    Lorenzo, who is thy new master's guest.\n    Give him this letter; do it secretly.\n    And so farewell. I would not have my father\n    See me in talk with thee.\n  LAUNCELOT. Adieu! tears exhibit my tongue. Most beautiful\npagan,\n    most sweet Jew! If a Christian do not play the knave and get\n    thee, I am much deceived. But, adieu! these foolish drops do\n    something drown my manly spirit; adieu!\n  JESSICA. Farewell, good Launcelot.              Exit LAUNCELOT\n    Alack, what heinous sin is it in me\n    To be asham'd to be my father's child!\n    But though I am a daughter to his blood,\n    I am not to his manners. O Lorenzo,\n    If thou keep promise, I shall end this strife,\n    Become a Christian and thy loving wife.                 Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nVenice. A street\n\nEnter GRATIANO, LORENZO, SALERIO, and SOLANIO\n\n  LORENZO. Nay, we will slink away in suppertime,\n    Disguise us at my lodging, and return\n    All in an hour.\n  GRATIANO. We have not made good preparation.\n  SALERIO. We have not spoke us yet of torch-bearers.\n  SOLANIO. 'Tis vile, unless it may be quaintly ordered;\n    And better in my mind not undertook.\n  LORENZO. 'Tis now but four o'clock; we have two hours\n    To furnish us.\n\n                 Enter LAUNCELOT, With a letter\n\n    Friend Launcelot, what's the news?\n  LAUNCELOT. An it shall please you to break up this, it shall\nseem\n    to signify.\n  LORENZO. I know the hand; in faith, 'tis a fair hand,\n    And whiter than the paper it writ on\n    Is the fair hand that writ.\n  GRATIANO. Love-news, in faith!\n  LAUNCELOT. By your leave, sir.\n  LORENZO. Whither goest thou?\n  LAUNCELOT. Marry, sir, to bid my old master, the Jew, to sup\n    to-night with my new master, the Christian.\n  LORENZO. Hold, here, take this. Tell gentle Jessica\n    I will not fail her; speak it privately.\n    Go, gentlemen,                                Exit LAUNCELOT\n    Will you prepare you for this masque to-night?\n    I am provided of a torch-bearer.\n  SALERIO. Ay, marry, I'll be gone about it straight.\n  SOLANIO. And so will I.\n  LORENZO. Meet me and Gratiano\n    At Gratiano's lodging some hour hence.\n  SALERIO. 'Tis good we do so.        Exeunt SALERIO and SOLANIO\n  GRATIANO. Was not that letter from fair Jessica?\n  LORENZO. I must needs tell thee all. She hath directed\n    How I shall take her from her father's house;\n    What gold and jewels she is furnish'd with;\n    What page's suit she hath in readiness.\n    If e'er the Jew her father come to heaven,\n    It will be for his gentle daughter's sake;\n    And never dare misfortune cross her foot,\n    Unless she do it under this excuse,\n    That she is issue to a faithless Jew.\n    Come, go with me, peruse this as thou goest;\n    Fair Jessica shall be my torch-bearer.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nVenice. Before SHYLOCK'S house\n\nEnter SHYLOCK and LAUNCELOT\n\n  SHYLOCK. Well, thou shalt see; thy eyes shall be thy judge,\n    The difference of old Shylock and Bassanio.-\n    What, Jessica!- Thou shalt not gormandize\n    As thou hast done with me- What, Jessica!-\n    And sleep and snore, and rend apparel out-\n    Why, Jessica, I say!\n  LAUNCELOT. Why, Jessica!\n  SHYLOCK. Who bids thee call? I do not bid thee call.\n  LAUNCELOT. Your worship was wont to tell me I could do nothing\n    without bidding.\n\n                          Enter JESSICA\n\n  JESSICA. Call you? What is your will?\n  SHYLOCK. I am bid forth to supper, Jessica;\n    There are my keys. But wherefore should I go?\n    I am not bid for love; they flatter me;\n    But yet I'll go in hate, to feed upon\n    The prodigal Christian. Jessica, my girl,\n    Look to my house. I am right loath to go;\n    There is some ill a-brewing towards my rest,\n    For I did dream of money-bags to-night.\n  LAUNCELOT. I beseech you, sir, go; my young master doth expect\nyour\n    reproach.\n  SHYLOCK. So do I his.\n  LAUNCELOT. And they have conspired together; I will not say you\n    shall see a masque, but if you do, then it was not for\nnothing\n    that my nose fell a-bleeding on Black Monday last at six\no'clock\n    i' th' morning, falling out that year on Ash Wednesday was\nfour\n    year, in th' afternoon.\n  SHYLOCK. What, are there masques? Hear you me, Jessica:\n    Lock up my doors, and when you hear the drum,\n    And the vile squealing of the wry-neck'd fife,\n    Clamber not you up to the casements then,\n    Nor thrust your head into the public street\n    To gaze on Christian fools with varnish'd faces;\n    But stop my house's ears- I mean my casements;\n    Let not the sound of shallow fopp'ry enter\n    My sober house. By Jacob's staff, I swear\n    I have no mind of feasting forth to-night;\n    But I will go. Go you before me, sirrah;\n    Say I will come.\n  LAUNCELOT. I will go before, sir. Mistress, look out at window\nfor\n    all this.\n        There will come a Christian by\n        Will be worth a Jewess' eye.                        Exit\n  SHYLOCK. What says that fool of Hagar's offspring, ha?\n  JESSICA. His words were 'Farewell, mistress'; nothing else.\n  SHYLOCK. The patch is kind enough, but a huge feeder,\n    Snail-slow in profit, and he sleeps by day\n    More than the wild-cat; drones hive not with me,\n    Therefore I part with him; and part with him\n    To one that I would have him help to waste\n    His borrowed purse. Well, Jessica, go in;\n    Perhaps I will return immediately.\n    Do as I bid you, shut doors after you.\n    Fast bind, fast find-\n    A proverb never stale in thrifty mind.                  Exit\n  JESSICA. Farewell; and if my fortune be not crost,\n    I have a father, you a daughter, lost.                  Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nVenice. Before SHYLOCK'S house\n\nEnter the maskers, GRATIANO and SALERIO\n\n  GRATIANO. This is the pent-house under which Lorenzo\n    Desired us to make stand.\n  SALERIO. His hour is almost past.\n  GRATIANO. And it is marvel he out-dwells his hour,\n    For lovers ever run before the clock.\n  SALERIO. O, ten times faster Venus' pigeons fly\n    To seal love's bonds new made than they are wont\n    To keep obliged faith unforfeited!\n  GRATIANO. That ever holds: who riseth from a feast\n    With that keen appetite that he sits down?\n    Where is the horse that doth untread again\n    His tedious measures with the unbated fire\n    That he did pace them first? All things that are\n    Are with more spirit chased than enjoyed.\n    How like a younker or a prodigal\n    The scarfed bark puts from her native bay,\n    Hugg'd and embraced by the strumpet wind;\n    How like the prodigal doth she return,\n    With over-weather'd ribs and ragged sails,\n    Lean, rent, and beggar'd by the strumpet wind!\n\n                       Enter LORENZO\n\n  SALERIO. Here comes Lorenzo; more of this hereafter.\n  LORENZO. Sweet friends, your patience for my long abode!\n    Not I, but my affairs, have made you wait.\n    When you shall please to play the thieves for wives,\n    I'll watch as long for you then. Approach;\n    Here dwells my father Jew. Ho! who's within?\n\n           Enter JESSICA, above, in boy's clothes\n\n  JESSICA. Who are you? Tell me, for more certainty,\n    Albeit I'll swear that I do know your tongue.\n  LORENZO. Lorenzo, and thy love.\n  JESSICA. Lorenzo, certain; and my love indeed;\n    For who love I so much? And now who knows\n    But you, Lorenzo, whether I am yours?\n  LORENZO. Heaven and thy thoughts are witness that thou art.\n  JESSICA. Here, catch this casket; it is worth the pains.\n    I am glad 'tis night, you do not look on me,\n    For I am much asham'd of my exchange;\n    But love is blind, and lovers cannot see\n    The pretty follies that themselves commit,\n    For, if they could, Cupid himself would blush\n    To see me thus transformed to a boy.\n  LORENZO. Descend, for you must be my torch-bearer.\n  JESSICA. What! must I hold a candle to my shames?\n    They in themselves, good sooth, are too too light.\n    Why, 'tis an office of discovery, love,\n    And I should be obscur'd.\n  LORENZO. So are you, sweet,\n    Even in the lovely garnish of a boy.\n    But come at once,\n    For the close night doth play the runaway,\n    And we are stay'd for at Bassanio's feast.\n  JESSICA. I will make fast the doors, and gild myself\n    With some moe ducats, and be with you straight.\n                                                      Exit above\n\n  GRATIANO. Now, by my hood, a gentle, and no Jew.\n  LORENZO. Beshrew me, but I love her heartily,\n    For she is wise, if I can judge of her,\n    And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true,\n    And true she is, as she hath prov'd herself;\n    And therefore, like herself, wise, fair, and true,\n    Shall she be placed in my constant soul.\n\n                     Enter JESSICA, below\n\n    What, art thou come? On, gentlemen, away;\n    Our masquing mates by this time for us stay.\n                                   Exit with JESSICA and SALERIO\n\n                        Enter ANTONIO\n\n  ANTONIO. Who's there?\n  GRATIANO. Signior Antonio?\n  ANTONIO. Fie, fie, Gratiano, where are all the rest?\n    'Tis nine o'clock; our friends all stay for you;\n    No masque to-night; the wind is come about;\n    Bassanio presently will go aboard;\n    I have sent twenty out to seek for you.\n  GRATIANO. I am glad on't; I desire no more delight\n    Than to be under sail and gone to-night.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nBelmont. PORTIA's house\n\nFlourish of cornets. Enter PORTIA, with the PRINCE OF MOROCCO,\nand their trains\n\n  PORTIA. Go draw aside the curtains and discover\n    The several caskets to this noble Prince.\n    Now make your choice.\n  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. The first, of gold, who this inscription\nbears:\n    'Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.'\n    The second, silver, which this promise carries:\n    'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.'\n    This third, dull lead, with warning all as blunt:\n    'Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.'\n    How shall I know if I do choose the right?\n  PORTIA. The one of them contains my picture, Prince;\n    If you choose that, then I am yours withal.\n  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. Some god direct my judgment! Let me see;\n    I will survey th' inscriptions back again.\n    What says this leaden casket?\n    'Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.'\n    Must give- for what? For lead? Hazard for lead!\n    This casket threatens; men that hazard all\n    Do it in hope of fair advantages.\n    A golden mind stoops not to shows of dross;\n    I'll then nor give nor hazard aught for lead.\n    What says the silver with her virgin hue?\n    'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.'\n    As much as he deserves! Pause there, Morocco,\n    And weigh thy value with an even hand.\n    If thou beest rated by thy estimation,\n    Thou dost deserve enough, and yet enough\n    May not extend so far as to the lady;\n    And yet to be afeard of my deserving\n    Were but a weak disabling of myself.\n    As much as I deserve? Why, that's the lady!\n    I do in birth deserve her, and in fortunes,\n    In graces, and in qualities of breeding;\n    But more than these, in love I do deserve.\n    What if I stray'd no farther, but chose here?\n    Let's see once more this saying grav'd in gold:\n    'Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.'\n    Why, that's the lady! All the world desires her;\n    From the four corners of the earth they come\n    To kiss this shrine, this mortal-breathing saint.\n    The Hyrcanian deserts and the vasty wilds\n    Of wide Arabia are as throughfares now\n    For princes to come view fair Portia.\n    The watery kingdom, whose ambitious head\n    Spits in the face of heaven, is no bar\n    To stop the foreign spirits, but they come\n    As o'er a brook to see fair Portia.\n    One of these three contains her heavenly picture.\n    Is't like that lead contains her? 'Twere damnation\n    To think so base a thought; it were too gross\n    To rib her cerecloth in the obscure grave.\n    Or shall I think in silver she's immur'd,\n    Being ten times undervalued to tried gold?\n    O sinful thought! Never so rich a gem\n    Was set in worse than gold. They have in England\n    A coin that bears the figure of an angel\n    Stamp'd in gold; but that's insculp'd upon.\n    But here an angel in a golden bed\n    Lies all within. Deliver me the key;\n    Here do I choose, and thrive I as I may!\n  PORTIA. There, take it, Prince, and if my form lie there,\n    Then I am yours.                [He opens the golden casket]\n  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. O hell! what have we here?\n    A carrion Death, within whose empty eye\n    There is a written scroll! I'll read the writing.\n         'All that glisters is not gold,\n         Often have you heard that told;\n         Many a man his life hath sold\n         But my outside to behold.\n         Gilded tombs do worms infold.\n         Had you been as wise as bold,\n         Young in limbs, in judgment old,\n         Your answer had not been inscroll'd.\n         Fare you well, your suit is cold.'\n      Cold indeed, and labour lost,\n      Then farewell, heat, and welcome, frost.\n    Portia, adieu! I have too griev'd a heart\n    To take a tedious leave; thus losers part.\n                        Exit with his train. Flourish of cornets\n  PORTIA. A gentle riddance. Draw the curtains, go.\n    Let all of his complexion choose me so.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VIII.\nVenice. A street\n\nEnter SALERIO and SOLANIO\n\n  SALERIO. Why, man, I saw Bassanio under sail;\n    With him is Gratiano gone along;\n    And in their ship I am sure Lorenzo is not.\n  SOLANIO. The villain Jew with outcries rais'd the Duke,\n    Who went with him to search Bassanio's ship.\n  SALERIO. He came too late, the ship was under sail;\n    But there the Duke was given to understand\n    That in a gondola were seen together\n    Lorenzo and his amorous Jessica;\n    Besides, Antonio certified the Duke\n    They were not with Bassanio in his ship.\n  SOLANIO. I never heard a passion so confus'd,\n    So strange, outrageous, and so variable,\n    As the dog Jew did utter in the streets.\n    'My daughter! O my ducats! O my daughter!\n    Fled with a Christian! O my Christian ducats!\n    Justice! the law! My ducats and my daughter!\n    A sealed bag, two sealed bags of ducats,\n    Of double ducats, stol'n from me by my daughter!\n    And jewels- two stones, two rich and precious stones,\n    Stol'n by my daughter! Justice! Find the girl;\n    She hath the stones upon her and the ducats.'\n  SALERIO. Why, all the boys in Venice follow him,\n    Crying, his stones, his daughter, and his ducats.\n  SOLANIO. Let good Antonio look he keep his day,\n    Or he shall pay for this.\n  SALERIO. Marry, well rememb'red;\n    I reason'd with a Frenchman yesterday,\n    Who told me, in the narrow seas that part\n    The French and English, there miscarried\n    A vessel of our country richly fraught.\n    I thought upon Antonio when he told me,\n    And wish'd in silence that it were not his.\n  SOLANIO. You were best to tell Antonio what you hear;\n    Yet do not suddenly, for it may grieve him.\n  SALERIO. A kinder gentleman treads not the earth.\n    I saw Bassanio and Antonio part.\n    Bassanio told him he would make some speed\n    Of his return. He answered 'Do not so;\n    Slubber not business for my sake, Bassanio,\n    But stay the very riping of the time;\n    And for the Jew's bond which he hath of me,\n    Let it not enter in your mind of love;\n    Be merry, and employ your chiefest thoughts\n    To courtship, and such fair ostents of love\n    As shall conveniently become you there.'\n    And even there, his eye being big with tears,\n    Turning his face, he put his hand behind him,\n    And with affection wondrous sensible\n    He wrung Bassanio's hand; and so they parted.\n  SOLANIO. I think he only loves the world for him.\n    I pray thee, let us go and find him out,\n    And quicken his embraced heaviness\n    With some delight or other.\n  SALERIO. Do we so.                                      Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IX.\nBelmont. PORTIA'S house\n\nEnter NERISSA, and a SERVITOR\n\n  NERISSA. Quick, quick, I pray thee, draw the curtain straight;\n    The Prince of Arragon hath ta'en his oath,\n    And comes to his election presently.\n\n       Flourish of cornets. Enter the PRINCE OF ARRAGON,\n                    PORTIA, and their trains\n\n  PORTIA. Behold, there stand the caskets, noble Prince.\n    If you choose that wherein I am contain'd,\n    Straight shall our nuptial rites be solemniz'd;\n    But if you fail, without more speech, my lord,\n    You must be gone from hence immediately.\n  ARRAGON. I am enjoin'd by oath to observe three things:\n    First, never to unfold to any one\n    Which casket 'twas I chose; next, if I fail\n    Of the right casket, never in my life\n    To woo a maid in way of marriage;\n    Lastly,\n    If I do fail in fortune of my choice,\n    Immediately to leave you and be gone.\n  PORTIA. To these injunctions every one doth swear\n    That comes to hazard for my worthless self.\n  ARRAGON. And so have I address'd me. Fortune now\n    To my heart's hope! Gold, silver, and base lead.\n    'Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.'\n    You shall look fairer ere I give or hazard.\n    What says the golden chest? Ha! let me see:\n    'Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.'\n    What many men desire- that 'many' may be meant\n    By the fool multitude, that choose by show,\n    Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach;\n    Which pries not to th' interior, but, like the martlet,\n    Builds in the weather on the outward wall,\n    Even in the force and road of casualty.\n    I will not choose what many men desire,\n    Because I will not jump with common spirits\n    And rank me with the barbarous multitudes.\n    Why, then to thee, thou silver treasure-house!\n    Tell me once more what title thou dost bear.\n    'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.'\n    And well said too; for who shall go about\n    To cozen fortune, and be honourable\n    Without the stamp of merit? Let none presume\n    To wear an undeserved dignity.\n    O that estates, degrees, and offices,\n    Were not deriv'd corruptly, and that clear honour\n    Were purchas'd by the merit of the wearer!\n    How many then should cover that stand bare!\n    How many be commanded that command!\n    How much low peasantry would then be gleaned\n    From the true seed of honour! and how much honour\n    Pick'd from the chaff and ruin of the times,\n    To be new varnish'd! Well, but to my choice.\n    'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.'\n    I will assume desert. Give me a key for this,\n    And instantly unlock my fortunes here.\n                                    [He opens the silver casket]\n  PORTIA.  [Aside]  Too long a pause for that which you find\nthere.\n  ARRAGON. What's here? The portrait of a blinking idiot\n    Presenting me a schedule! I will read it.\n    How much unlike art thou to Portia!\n    How much unlike my hopes and my deservings!\n    'Who chooseth me shall have as much as he deserves.'\n    Did I deserve no more than a fool's head?\n    Is that my prize? Are my deserts no better?\n  PORTIA. To offend and judge are distinct offices\n    And of opposed natures.\n  ARRAGON. What is here?  [Reads]\n\n         'The fire seven times tried this;\n         Seven times tried that judgment is\n         That did never choose amiss.\n         Some there be that shadows kiss,\n         Such have but a shadow's bliss.\n         There be fools alive iwis\n         Silver'd o'er, and so was this.\n         Take what wife you will to bed,\n         I will ever be your head.\n         So be gone; you are sped.'\n\n         Still more fool I shall appear\n         By the time I linger here.\n         With one fool's head I came to woo,\n         But I go away with two.\n         Sweet, adieu! I'll keep my oath,\n         Patiently to bear my wroth.         Exit with his train\n\n  PORTIA. Thus hath the candle sing'd the moth.\n    O, these deliberate fools! When they do choose,\n    They have the wisdom by their wit to lose.\n  NERISSA. The ancient saying is no heresy:\n    Hanging and wiving goes by destiny.\n  PORTIA. Come, draw the curtain, Nerissa.\n\n                       Enter a SERVANT\n\n  SERVANT. Where is my lady?\n  PORTIA. Here; what would my lord?\n  SERVANT. Madam, there is alighted at your gate\n    A young Venetian, one that comes before\n    To signify th' approaching of his lord,\n    From whom he bringeth sensible regreets;\n    To wit, besides commends and courteous breath,\n    Gifts of rich value. Yet I have not seen\n    So likely an ambassador of love.\n    A day in April never came so sweet\n    To show how costly summer was at hand\n    As this fore-spurrer comes before his lord.\n  PORTIA. No more, I pray thee; I am half afeard\n    Thou wilt say anon he is some kin to thee,\n    Thou spend'st such high-day wit in praising him.\n    Come, come, Nerissa, for I long to see\n    Quick Cupid's post that comes so mannerly.\n  NERISSA. Bassanio, Lord Love, if thy will it be!        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nVenice. A street\n\nEnter SOLANIO and SALERIO\n\n  SOLANIO. Now, what news on the Rialto?\n  SALERIO. Why, yet it lives there uncheck'd that Antonio hath a\nship\n    of rich lading wreck'd on the narrow seas; the Goodwins I\nthink\n    they call the place, a very dangerous flat and fatal, where\nthe\n    carcases of many a tall ship lie buried, as they say, if my\n    gossip Report be an honest woman of her word.\n  SOLANIO. I would she were as lying a gossip in that as ever\nknapp'd\n    ginger or made her neighbours believe she wept for the death\nof a\n    third husband. But it is true, without any slips of prolixity\nor\n    crossing the plain highway of talk, that the good Antonio,\nthe\n    honest Antonio- O that I had a title good enough to keep his\nname\n    company!-\n  SALERIO. Come, the full stop.\n  SOLANIO. Ha! What sayest thou? Why, the end is, he hath lost a\n    ship.\n  SALERIO. I would it might prove the end of his losses.\n  SOLANIO. Let me say amen betimes, lest the devil cross my\nprayer,\n    for here he comes in the likeness of a Jew.\n\n                             Enter SHYLOCK\n\n    How now, Shylock? What news among the merchants?\n  SHYLOCK. You knew, none so well, none so well as you, of my\n    daughter's flight.\n  SALERIO. That's certain; I, for my part, knew the tailor that\nmade\n    the wings she flew withal.\n  SOLANIO. And Shylock, for his own part, knew the bird was\nflidge;\n    and then it is the complexion of them all to leave the dam.\n  SHYLOCK. She is damn'd for it.\n  SALERIO. That's certain, if the devil may be her judge.\n  SHYLOCK. My own flesh and blood to rebel!\n  SOLANIO. Out upon it, old carrion! Rebels it at these years?\n  SHYLOCK. I say my daughter is my flesh and my blood.\n  SALERIO. There is more difference between thy flesh and hers\nthan\n    between jet and ivory; more between your bloods than there is\n    between red wine and Rhenish. But tell us, do you hear\nwhether\n    Antonio have had any loss at sea or no?\n  SHYLOCK. There I have another bad match: a bankrupt, a\nprodigal,\n    who dare scarce show his head on the Rialto; a beggar, that\nwas\n    us'd to come so smug upon the mart. Let him look to his bond.\nHe\n    was wont to call me usurer; let him look to his bond. He was\nwont\n    to lend money for a Christian courtesy; let him look to his\nbond.\n  SALERIO. Why, I am sure, if he forfeit, thou wilt not take his\n    flesh. What's that good for?\n  SHYLOCK. To bait fish withal. If it will feed nothing else, it\nwill\n    feed my revenge. He hath disgrac'd me and hind'red me half a\n    million; laugh'd at my losses, mock'd at my gains, scorned my\n    nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine\n    enemies. And what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew\neyes?\n    Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections,\n    passions, fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons,\n    subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means,\nwarmed\n    and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is?\nIf\n    you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not\nlaugh?\n    If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall\nwe\n    not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble\nyou\n    in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility?\n    Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his\nsufferance\n    be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach\nme\n    I will execute; and itshall go hard but I will better the\n    instruction.\n\n                    Enter a MAN from ANTONIO\n\n  MAN. Gentlemen, my master Antonio is at his house, and desires\nto\n    speak with you both.\n  SALERIO. We have been up and down to seek him.\n\n                          Enter TUBAL\n\n  SOLANIO. Here comes another of the tribe; a third cannot be\n    match'd, unless the devil himself turn Jew.\n                                Exeunt SOLANIO, SALERIO, and MAN\n  SHYLOCK. How now, Tubal, what news from Genoa? Hast thou found\nmy\n    daughter?\n  TUBAL. I often came where I did hear of her, but cannot find\nher.\n  SHYLOCK. Why there, there, there, there! A diamond gone, cost\nme\n    two thousand ducats in Frankfort! The curse never fell upon\nour\n    nation till now; I never felt it till now. Two thousand\nducats in\n    that, and other precious, precious jewels. I would my\ndaughter\n    were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear; would she\nwere\n    hears'd at my foot, and the ducats in her coffin! No news of\n    them? Why, so- and I know not what's spent in the search.\nWhy,\n    thou- loss upon loss! The thief gone with so much, and so\nmuch to\n    find the thief; and no satisfaction, no revenge; nor no ill\nluck\n    stirring but what lights o' my shoulders; no sighs but o' my\n    breathing; no tears but o' my shedding!\n  TUBAL. Yes, other men have ill luck too: Antonio, as I heard in\n    Genoa-\n  SHYLOCK. What, what, what? Ill luck, ill luck?\n  TUBAL. Hath an argosy cast away coming from Tripolis.\n  SHYLOCK. I thank God, I thank God. Is it true, is it true?\n  TUBAL. I spoke with some of the sailors that escaped the wreck.\n  SHYLOCK. I thank thee, good Tubal. Good news, good news- ha,\nha!-\n    heard in Genoa.\n  TUBAL. Your daughter spent in Genoa, as I heard, one night,\n    fourscore ducats.\n  SHYLOCK. Thou stick'st a dagger in me- I shall never see my\ngold\n    again. Fourscore ducats at a sitting! Fourscore ducats!\n  TUBAL. There came divers of Antonio's creditors in my company\nto\n    Venice that swear he cannot choose but break.\n  SHYLOCK. I am very glad of it; I'll plague him, I'll torture\nhim; I\n    am glad of it.\n  TUBAL. One of them showed me a ring that he had of your\ndaughter\n    for a monkey.\n  SHYLOCK. Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal. It was my\n    turquoise; I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor; I would\nnot\n    have given it for a wilderness of monkeys.\n  TUBAL. But Antonio is certainly undone.\n  SHYLOCK. Nay, that's true; that's very true. Go, Tubal, fee me\nan\n    officer; bespeak him a fortnight before. I will have the\nheart of\n    him, if he forfeit; for, were he out of Venice, I can make\nwhat\n    merchandise I will. Go, Tubal, and meet me at our synagogue;\ngo,\n    good Tubal; at our synagogue, Tubal.                  Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBelmont. PORTIA'S house\n\nEnter BASSANIO, PORTIA, GRATIANO, NERISSA, and all their trains\n\n  PORTIA. I pray you tarry; pause a day or two\n    Before you hazard; for, in choosing wrong,\n    I lose your company; therefore forbear a while.\n    There's something tells me- but it is not love-\n    I would not lose you; and you know yourself\n    Hate counsels not in such a quality.\n    But lest you should not understand me well-\n    And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought-\n    I would detain you here some month or two\n    Before you venture for me. I could teach you\n    How to choose right, but then I am forsworn;\n    So will I never be; so may you miss me;\n    But if you do, you'll make me wish a sin,\n    That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes!\n    They have o'erlook'd me and divided me;\n    One half of me is yours, the other half yours-\n    Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours,\n    And so all yours. O! these naughty times\n    Puts bars between the owners and their rights;\n    And so, though yours, not yours. Prove it so,\n    Let fortune go to hell for it, not I.\n    I speak too long, but 'tis to peize the time,\n    To eke it, and to draw it out in length,\n    To stay you from election.\n  BASSANIO. Let me choose;\n    For as I am, I live upon the rack.\n  PORTIA. Upon the rack, Bassanio? Then confess\n    What treason there is mingled with your love.\n  BASSANIO. None but that ugly treason of mistrust\n    Which makes me fear th' enjoying of my love;\n    There may as well be amity and life\n    'Tween snow and fire as treason and my love.\n  PORTIA. Ay, but I fear you speak upon the rack,\n    Where men enforced do speak anything.\n  BASSANIO. Promise me life, and I'll confess the truth.\n  PORTIA. Well then, confess and live.\n  BASSANIO. 'Confess' and 'love'\n    Had been the very sum of my confession.\n    O happy torment, when my torturer\n    Doth teach me answers for deliverance!\n    But let me to my fortune and the caskets.\n  PORTIA. Away, then; I am lock'd in one of them.\n    If you do love me, you will find me out.\n    Nerissa and the rest, stand all aloof;\n    Let music sound while he doth make his choice;\n    Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end,\n    Fading in music. That the comparison\n    May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream\n    And wat'ry death-bed for him. He may win;\n    And what is music then? Then music is\n    Even as the flourish when true subjects bow\n    To a new-crowned monarch; such it is\n    As are those dulcet sounds in break of day\n    That creep into the dreaming bridegroom's ear\n    And summon him to marriage. Now he goes,\n    With no less presence, but with much more love,\n    Than young Alcides when he did redeem\n    The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy\n    To the sea-monster. I stand for sacrifice;\n    The rest aloof are the Dardanian wives,\n    With bleared visages come forth to view\n    The issue of th' exploit. Go, Hercules!\n    Live thou, I live. With much much more dismay\n    I view the fight than thou that mak'st the fray.\n\n                            A SONG\n\n      the whilst BASSANIO comments on the caskets to himself\n\n                 Tell me where is fancy bred,\n                 Or in the heart or in the head,\n                 How begot, how nourished?\n                   Reply, reply.\n                 It is engend'red in the eyes,\n                 With gazing fed; and fancy dies\n                 In the cradle where it lies.\n                   Let us all ring fancy's knell:\n                   I'll begin it- Ding, dong, bell.\n  ALL.           Ding, dong, bell.\n\n  BASSANIO. So may the outward shows be least themselves;\n    The world is still deceiv'd with ornament.\n    In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt\n    But, being season'd with a gracious voice,\n    Obscures the show of evil? In religion,\n    What damned error but some sober brow\n    Will bless it, and approve it with a text,\n    Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?\n    There is no vice so simple but assumes\n    Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.\n    How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false\n    As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins\n    The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars;\n    Who, inward search'd, have livers white as milk!\n    And these assume but valour's excrement\n    To render them redoubted. Look on beauty\n    And you shall see 'tis purchas'd by the weight,\n    Which therein works a miracle in nature,\n    Making them lightest that wear most of it;\n    So are those crisped snaky golden locks\n    Which make such wanton gambols with the wind\n    Upon supposed fairness often known\n    To be the dowry of a second head-\n    The skull that bred them in the sepulchre.\n    Thus ornament is but the guiled shore\n    To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf\n    Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word,\n    The seeming truth which cunning times put on\n    To entrap the wisest. Therefore, thou gaudy gold,\n    Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee;\n    Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge\n    'Tween man and man; but thou, thou meagre lead,\n    Which rather threaten'st than dost promise aught,\n    Thy plainness moves me more than eloquence,\n    And here choose I. Joy be the consequence!\n  PORTIA.  [Aside]  How all the other passions fleet to air,\n    As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embrac'd despair,\n    And shudd'ring fear, and green-ey'd jealousy!\n    O love, be moderate, allay thy ecstasy,\n    In measure rain thy joy, scant this excess!\n    I feel too much thy blessing. Make it less,\n    For fear I surfeit.\n  BASSANIO.  [Opening the leaden casket]  What find I here?\n    Fair Portia's counterfeit! What demi-god\n    Hath come so near creation? Move these eyes?\n    Or whether riding on the balls of mine\n    Seem they in motion? Here are sever'd lips,\n    Parted with sugar breath; so sweet a bar\n    Should sunder such sweet friends. Here in her hairs\n    The painter plays the spider, and hath woven\n    A golden mesh t' entrap the hearts of men\n    Faster than gnats in cobwebs. But her eyes-\n    How could he see to do them? Having made one,\n    Methinks it should have power to steal both his,\n    And leave itself unfurnish'd. Yet look how far\n    The substance of my praise doth wrong this shadow\n    In underprizing it, so far this shadow\n    Doth limp behind the substance. Here's the scroll,\n    The continent and summary of my fortune.\n         'You that choose not by the view,\n         Chance as fair and choose as true!\n         Since this fortune falls to you,\n         Be content and seek no new.\n         If you be well pleas'd with this,\n         And hold your fortune for your bliss,\n         Turn to where your lady is\n         And claim her with a loving kiss.'\n    A gentle scroll. Fair lady, by your leave;\n    I come by note, to give and to receive.\n    Like one of two contending in a prize,\n    That thinks he hath done well in people's eyes,\n    Hearing applause and universal shout,\n    Giddy in spirit, still gazing in a doubt\n    Whether those peals of praise be his or no;\n    So, thrice-fair lady, stand I even so,\n    As doubtful whether what I see be true,\n    Until confirm'd, sign'd, ratified by you.\n  PORTIA. You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand,\n    Such as I am. Though for myself alone\n    I would not be ambitious in my wish\n    To wish myself much better, yet for you\n    I would be trebled twenty times myself,\n    A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich,\n    That only to stand high in your account\n    I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends,\n    Exceed account. But the full sum of me\n    Is sum of something which, to term in gross,\n    Is an unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractis'd;\n    Happy in this, she is not yet so old\n    But she may learn; happier than this,\n    She is not bred so dull but she can learn;\n    Happiest of all is that her gentle spirit\n    Commits itself to yours to be directed,\n    As from her lord, her governor, her king.\n    Myself and what is mine to you and yours\n    Is now converted. But now I was the lord\n    Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,\n    Queen o'er myself; and even now, but now,\n    This house, these servants, and this same myself,\n    Are yours- my lord's. I give them with this ring,\n    Which when you part from, lose, or give away,\n    Let it presage the ruin of your love,\n    And be my vantage to exclaim on you.\n  BASSANIO. Madam, you have bereft me of all words;\n    Only my blood speaks to you in my veins;\n    And there is such confusion in my powers\n    As, after some oration fairly spoke\n    By a beloved prince, there doth appear\n    Among the buzzing pleased multitude,\n    Where every something, being blent together,\n    Turns to a wild of nothing, save of joy\n    Express'd and not express'd. But when this ring\n    Parts from this finger, then parts life from hence;\n    O, then be bold to say Bassanio's dead!\n  NERISSA. My lord and lady, it is now our time\n    That have stood by and seen our wishes prosper\n    To cry 'Good joy.' Good joy, my lord and lady!\n  GRATIANO. My Lord Bassanio, and my gentle lady,\n    I wish you all the joy that you can wish,\n    For I am sure you can wish none from me;\n    And, when your honours mean to solemnize\n    The bargain of your faith, I do beseech you\n    Even at that time I may be married too.\n  BASSANIO. With all my heart, so thou canst get a wife.\n  GRATIANO. I thank your lordship, you have got me one.\n    My eyes, my lord, can look as swift as yours:\n    You saw the mistress, I beheld the maid;\n    You lov'd, I lov'd; for intermission\n    No more pertains to me, my lord, than you.\n    Your fortune stood upon the caskets there,\n    And so did mine too, as the matter falls;\n    For wooing here until I sweat again,\n    And swearing till my very roof was dry\n    With oaths of love, at last- if promise last-\n    I got a promise of this fair one here\n    To have her love, provided that your fortune\n    Achiev'd her mistress.\n  PORTIA. Is this true, Nerissa?\n  NERISSA. Madam, it is, so you stand pleas'd withal.\n  BASSANIO. And do you, Gratiano, mean good faith?\n  GRATIANO. Yes, faith, my lord.\n  BASSANIO. Our feast shall be much honoured in your marriage.\n  GRATIANO. We'll play with them: the first boy for a thousand\n    ducats.\n  NERISSA. What, and stake down?\n  GRATIANO. No; we shall ne'er win at that sport, and stake down-\n    But who comes here? Lorenzo and his infidel?\n    What, and my old Venetian friend, Salerio!\n\n          Enter LORENZO, JESSICA, and SALERIO, a messenger\n                           from Venice\n\n  BASSANIO. Lorenzo and Salerio, welcome hither,\n    If that the youth of my new int'rest here\n    Have power to bid you welcome. By your leave,\n    I bid my very friends and countrymen,\n    Sweet Portia, welcome.\n  PORTIA. So do I, my lord;\n    They are entirely welcome.\n  LORENZO. I thank your honour. For my part, my lord,\n    My purpose was not to have seen you here;\n    But meeting with Salerio by the way,\n    He did entreat me, past all saying nay,\n    To come with him along.\n  SALERIO. I did, my lord,\n    And I have reason for it. Signior Antonio\n    Commends him to you.               [Gives BASSANIO a letter]\n  BASSANIO. Ere I ope his letter,\n    I pray you tell me how my good friend doth.\n  SALERIO. Not sick, my lord, unless it be in mind;\n    Nor well, unless in mind; his letter there\n    Will show you his estate.        [BASSANIO opens the letter]\n  GRATIANO. Nerissa, cheer yond stranger; bid her welcome.\n    Your hand, Salerio. What's the news from Venice?\n    How doth that royal merchant, good Antonio?\n    I know he will be glad of our success:\n    We are the Jasons, we have won the fleece.\n  SALERIO. I would you had won the fleece that he hath lost.\n  PORTIA. There are some shrewd contents in yond same paper\n    That steals the colour from Bassanio's cheek:\n    Some dear friend dead, else nothing in the world\n    Could turn so much the constitution\n    Of any constant man. What, worse and worse!\n    With leave, Bassanio: I am half yourself,\n    And I must freely have the half of anything\n    That this same paper brings you.\n  BASSANIO. O sweet Portia,\n    Here are a few of the unpleasant'st words\n    That ever blotted paper! Gentle lady,\n    When I did first impart my love to you,\n    I freely told you all the wealth I had\n    Ran in my veins- I was a gentleman;\n    And then I told you true. And yet, dear lady,\n    Rating myself at nothing, you shall see\n    How much I was a braggart. When I told you\n    My state was nothing, I should then have told you\n    That I was worse than nothing; for indeed\n    I have engag'd myself to a dear friend,\n    Engag'd my friend to his mere enemy,\n    To feed my means. Here is a letter, lady,\n    The paper as the body of my friend,\n    And every word in it a gaping wound\n    Issuing life-blood. But is it true, Salerio?\n    Hath all his ventures fail'd? What, not one hit?\n    From Tripolis, from Mexico, and England,\n    From Lisbon, Barbary, and India,\n    And not one vessel scape the dreadful touch\n    Of merchant-marring rocks?\n  SALERIO. Not one, my lord.\n    Besides, it should appear that, if he had\n    The present money to discharge the Jew,\n    He would not take it. Never did I know\n    A creature that did bear the shape of man\n    So keen and greedy to confound a man.\n    He plies the Duke at morning and at night,\n    And doth impeach the freedom of the state,\n    If they deny him justice. Twenty merchants,\n    The Duke himself, and the magnificoes\n    Of greatest port, have all persuaded with him;\n    But none can drive him from the envious plea\n    Of forfeiture, of justice, and his bond.\n  JESSICA. When I was with him, I have heard him swear\n    To Tubal and to Chus, his countrymen,\n    That he would rather have Antonio's flesh\n    Than twenty times the value of the sum\n    That he did owe him; and I know, my lord,\n    If law, authority, and power, deny not,\n    It will go hard with poor Antonio.\n  PORTIA. Is it your dear friend that is thus in trouble?\n  BASSANIO. The dearest friend to me, the kindest man,\n    The best condition'd and unwearied spirit\n    In doing courtesies; and one in whom\n    The ancient Roman honour more appears\n    Than any that draws breath in Italy.\n  PORTIA. What sum owes he the Jew?\n  BASSANIO. For me, three thousand ducats.\n  PORTIA. What! no more?\n    Pay him six thousand, and deface the bond;\n    Double six thousand, and then treble that,\n    Before a friend of this description\n    Shall lose a hair through Bassanio's fault.\n    First go with me to church and call me wife,\n    And then away to Venice to your friend;\n    For never shall you lie by Portia's side\n    With an unquiet soul. You shall have gold\n    To pay the petty debt twenty times over.\n    When it is paid, bring your true friend along.\n    My maid Nerissa and myself meantime\n    Will live as maids and widows. Come, away;\n    For you shall hence upon your wedding day.\n    Bid your friends welcome, show a merry cheer;\n    Since you are dear bought, I will love you dear.\n    But let me hear the letter of your friend.\n  BASSANIO.  [Reads]  'Sweet Bassanio, my ships have all\nmiscarried,\n    my creditors grow cruel, my estate is very low, my bond to\nthe\n    Jew is forfeit; and since, in paying it, it is impossible I\n    should live, all debts are clear'd between you and I, if I\nmight\n    but see you at my death. Notwithstanding, use your pleasure;\nif\n    your love do not persuade you to come, let not my letter.'\n  PORTIA. O love, dispatch all business and be gone!\n  BASSANIO. Since I have your good leave to go away,\n    I will make haste; but, till I come again,\n    No bed shall e'er be guilty of my stay,\n    Nor rest be interposer 'twixt us twain.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nVenice. A street\n\nEnter SHYLOCK, SOLANIO, ANTONIO, and GAOLER\n\n  SHYLOCK. Gaoler, look to him. Tell not me of mercy-\n    This is the fool that lent out money gratis.\n    Gaoler, look to him.\n  ANTONIO. Hear me yet, good Shylock.\n  SHYLOCK. I'll have my bond; speak not against my bond.\n    I have sworn an oath that I will have my bond.\n    Thou call'dst me dog before thou hadst a cause,\n    But, since I am a dog, beware my fangs;\n    The Duke shall grant me justice. I do wonder,\n    Thou naughty gaoler, that thou art so fond\n    To come abroad with him at his request.\n  ANTONIO. I pray thee hear me speak.\n  SHYLOCK. I'll have my bond. I will not hear thee speak;\n    I'll have my bond; and therefore speak no more.\n    I'll not be made a soft and dull-ey'd fool,\n    To shake the head, relent, and sigh, and yield,\n    To Christian intercessors. Follow not;\n    I'll have no speaking; I will have my bond.             Exit\n  SOLANIO. It is the most impenetrable cur\n    That ever kept with men.\n  ANTONIO. Let him alone;\n    I'll follow him no more with bootless prayers.\n    He seeks my life; his reason well I know:\n    I oft deliver'd from his forfeitures\n    Many that have at times made moan to me;\n    Therefore he hates me.\n  SOLANIO. I am sure the Duke\n    Will never grant this forfeiture to hold.\n  ANTONIO. The Duke cannot deny the course of law;\n    For the commodity that strangers have\n    With us in Venice, if it be denied,\n    Will much impeach the justice of the state,\n    Since that the trade and profit of the city\n    Consisteth of all nations. Therefore, go;\n    These griefs and losses have so bated me\n    That I shall hardly spare a pound of flesh\n    To-morrow to my bloody creditor.\n    Well, gaoler, on; pray God Bassanio come\n    To see me pay his debt, and then I care not.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nBelmont. PORTIA'S house\n\nEnter PORTIA, NERISSA, LORENZO, JESSICA, and BALTHASAR\n\n  LORENZO. Madam, although I speak it in your presence,\n    You have a noble and a true conceit\n    Of godlike amity, which appears most strongly\n    In bearing thus the absence of your lord.\n    But if you knew to whom you show this honour,\n    How true a gentleman you send relief,\n    How dear a lover of my lord your husband,\n    I know you would be prouder of the work\n    Than customary bounty can enforce you.\n  PORTIA. I never did repent for doing good,\n    Nor shall not now; for in companions\n    That do converse and waste the time together,\n    Whose souls do bear an equal yoke of love,\n    There must be needs a like proportion\n    Of lineaments, of manners, and of spirit,\n    Which makes me think that this Antonio,\n    Being the bosom lover of my lord,\n    Must needs be like my lord. If it be so,\n    How little is the cost I have bestowed\n    In purchasing the semblance of my soul\n    From out the state of hellish cruelty!\n    This comes too near the praising of myself;\n    Therefore, no more of it; hear other things.\n    Lorenzo, I commit into your hands\n    The husbandry and manage of my house\n    Until my lord's return; for mine own part,\n    I have toward heaven breath'd a secret vow\n    To live in prayer and contemplation,\n    Only attended by Nerissa here,\n    Until her husband and my lord's return.\n    There is a monastery two miles off,\n    And there we will abide. I do desire you\n    Not to deny this imposition,\n    The which my love and some necessity\n    Now lays upon you.\n  LORENZO. Madam, with all my heart\n    I shall obey you in an fair commands.\n  PORTIA. My people do already know my mind,\n    And will acknowledge you and Jessica\n    In place of Lord Bassanio and myself.\n    So fare you well till we shall meet again.\n  LORENZO. Fair thoughts and happy hours attend on you!\n  JESSICA. I wish your ladyship all heart's content.\n  PORTIA. I thank you for your wish, and am well pleas'd\n    To wish it back on you. Fare you well, Jessica.\n                                      Exeunt JESSICA and LORENZO\n    Now, Balthasar,\n    As I have ever found thee honest-true,\n    So let me find thee still. Take this same letter,\n    And use thou all th' endeavour of a man\n    In speed to Padua; see thou render this\n    Into my cousin's hands, Doctor Bellario;\n    And look what notes and garments he doth give thee,\n    Bring them, I pray thee, with imagin'd speed\n    Unto the traject, to the common ferry\n    Which trades to Venice. Waste no time in words,\n    But get thee gone; I shall be there before thee.\n  BALTHASAR. Madam, I go with all convenient speed.         Exit\n  PORTIA. Come on, Nerissa, I have work in hand\n    That you yet know not of; we'll see our husbands\n    Before they think of us.\n  NERISSA. Shall they see us?\n  PORTIA. They shall, Nerissa; but in such a habit\n    That they shall think we are accomplished\n    With that we lack. I'll hold thee any wager,\n    When we are both accoutred like young men,\n    I'll prove the prettier fellow of the two,\n    And wear my dagger with the braver grace,\n    And speak between the change of man and boy\n    With a reed voice; and turn two mincing steps\n    Into a manly stride; and speak of frays\n    Like a fine bragging youth; and tell quaint lies,\n    How honourable ladies sought my love,\n    Which I denying, they fell sick and died-\n    I could not do withal. Then I'll repent,\n    And wish for all that, that I had not kill'd them.\n    And twenty of these puny lies I'll tell,\n    That men shall swear I have discontinued school\n    About a twelvemonth. I have within my mind\n    A thousand raw tricks of these bragging Jacks,\n    Which I will practise.\n  NERISSA. Why, shall we turn to men?\n  PORTIA. Fie, what a question's that,\n    If thou wert near a lewd interpreter!\n    But come, I'll tell thee all my whole device\n    When I am in my coach, which stays for us\n    At the park gate; and therefore haste away,\n    For we must measure twenty miles to-day.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nBelmont. The garden\n\nEnter LAUNCELOT and JESSICA\n\n  LAUNCELOT. Yes, truly; for, look you, the sins of the father\nare to\n    be laid upon the children; therefore, I promise you, I fear\nyou.\n    I was always plain with you, and so now I speak my agitation\nof\n    the matter; therefore be o' good cheer, for truly I think you\nare\n    damn'd. There is but one hope in it that can do you any good,\nand\n    that is but a kind of bastard hope, neither.\n  JESSICA. And what hope is that, I pray thee?\n  LAUNCELOT. Marry, you may partly hope that your father got you\nnot-\n   that you are not the Jew's daughter.\n  JESSICA. That were a kind of bastard hope indeed; so the sins\nof my\n    mother should be visited upon me.\n  LAUNCELOT. Truly then I fear you are damn'd both by father and\n    mother; thus when I shun Scylla, your father, I fall into\n    Charybdis, your mother; well, you are gone both ways.\n  JESSICA. I shall be sav'd by my husband; he hath made me a\n    Christian.\n  LAUNCELOT. Truly, the more to blame he; we were Christians enow\n\n    before, e'en as many as could well live one by another. This\n    making of Christians will raise the price of hogs; if we grow\nall\n    to be pork-eaters, we shall not shortly have a rasher on the\n    coals for money.\n\n                             Enter LORENZO\n\n  JESSICA. I'll tell my husband, Launcelot, what you say; here he\n    comes.\n  LORENZO. I shall grow jealous of you shortly, Launcelot, if you\n    thus get my wife into corners.\n  JESSICA. Nay, you need nor fear us, Lorenzo; Launcelot and I\nare\n    out; he tells me flatly there's no mercy for me in heaven,\n    because I am a Jew's daughter; and he says you are no good\nmember\n    of the commonwealth, for in converting Jews to Christians you\n    raise the price of pork.\n  LORENZO. I shall answer that better to the commonwealth than\nyou\n    can the getting up of the negro's belly; the Moor is with\nchild\n    by you, Launcelot.\n  LAUNCELOT. It is much that the Moor should be more than reason;\nbut\n    if she be less than an honest woman, she is indeed more than\nI\n    took her for.\n  LORENZO. How every fool can play upon the word! I think the\nbest\n    grace of wit will shortly turn into silence, and discourse\ngrow\n    commendable in none only but parrots. Go in, sirrah; bid them\n    prepare for dinner.\n  LAUNCELOT. That is done, sir; they have all stomachs.\n  LORENZO. Goodly Lord, what a wit-snapper are you! Then bid them\n    prepare dinner.\n  LAUNCELOT. That is done too, sir, only 'cover' is the word.\n  LORENZO. Will you cover, then, sir?\n  LAUNCELOT. Not so, sir, neither; I know my duty.\n  LORENZO. Yet more quarrelling with occasion! Wilt thou show the\n    whole wealth of thy wit in an instant? I pray thee understand\na\n    plain man in his plain meaning: go to thy fellows, bid them\ncover\n    the table, serve in the meat, and we will come in to dinner.\n  LAUNCELOT. For the table, sir, it shall be serv'd in; for the\nmeat,\n    sir, it shall be cover'd; for your coming in to dinner, sir,\nwhy,\n    let it be as humours and conceits shall govern.\n Exit\n  LORENZO. O dear discretion, how his words are suited!\n    The fool hath planted in his memory\n    An army of good words; and I do know\n    A many fools that stand in better place,\n    Garnish'd like him, that for a tricksy word\n    Defy the matter. How cheer'st thou, Jessica?\n    And now, good sweet, say thy opinion,\n    How dost thou like the Lord Bassanio's wife?\n  JESSICA. Past all expressing. It is very meet\n    The Lord Bassanio live an upright life,\n    For, having such a blessing in his lady,\n    He finds the joys of heaven here on earth;\n    And if on earth he do not merit it,\n    In reason he should never come to heaven.\n    Why, if two gods should play some heavenly match,\n    And on the wager lay two earthly women,\n    And Portia one, there must be something else\n    Pawn'd with the other; for the poor rude world\n    Hath not her fellow.\n  LORENZO. Even such a husband\n    Hast thou of me as she is for a wife.\n  JESSICA. Nay, but ask my opinion too of that.\n  LORENZO. I will anon; first let us go to dinner.\n  JESSICA. Nay, let me praise you while I have a stomach.\n  LORENZO. No, pray thee, let it serve for table-talk;\n    Then howsome'er thou speak'st, 'mong other things\n    I shall digest it.\n  JESSICA. Well, I'll set you forth.                      Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nVenice. The court of justice\n\nEnter the DUKE, the MAGNIFICOES, ANTONIO, BASSANIO, GRATIANO,\nSALERIO,\nand OTHERS\n\n  DUKE OF VENICE. What, is Antonio here?\n  ANTONIO. Ready, so please your Grace.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. I am sorry for thee; thou art come to answer\n    A stony adversary, an inhuman wretch,\n    Uncapable of pity, void and empty\n    From any dram of mercy.\n  ANTONIO. I have heard\n    Your Grace hath ta'en great pains to qualify\n    His rigorous course; but since he stands obdurate,\n    And that no lawful means can carry me\n    Out of his envy's reach, I do oppose\n    My patience to his fury, and am arm'd\n    To suffer with a quietness of spirit\n    The very tyranny and rage of his.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. Go one, and call the Jew into the court.\n  SALERIO. He is ready at the door; he comes, my lord.\n\n                          Enter SHYLOCK\n\n  DUKE OF VENICE. Make room, and let him stand before our face.\n    Shylock, the world thinks, and I think so too,\n    That thou but leadest this fashion of thy malice\n    To the last hour of act; and then, 'tis thought,\n    Thou'lt show thy mercy and remorse, more strange\n    Than is thy strange apparent cruelty;\n    And where thou now exacts the penalty,\n    Which is a pound of this poor merchant's flesh,\n    Thou wilt not only loose the forfeiture,\n    But, touch'd with human gentleness and love,\n    Forgive a moiety of the principal,\n    Glancing an eye of pity on his losses,\n    That have of late so huddled on his back-\n    Enow to press a royal merchant down,\n    And pluck commiseration of his state\n    From brassy bosoms and rough hearts of flint,\n    From stubborn Turks and Tartars, never train'd\n    To offices of tender courtesy.\n    We all expect a gentle answer, Jew.\n  SHYLOCK. I have possess'd your Grace of what I purpose,\n    And by our holy Sabbath have I sworn\n    To have the due and forfeit of my bond.\n    If you deny it, let the danger light\n    Upon your charter and your city's freedom.\n    You'll ask me why I rather choose to have\n    A weight of carrion flesh than to receive\n    Three thousand ducats. I'll not answer that,\n    But say it is my humour- is it answer'd?\n    What if my house be troubled with a rat,\n    And I be pleas'd to give ten thousand ducats\n    To have it ban'd? What, are you answer'd yet?\n    Some men there are love not a gaping pig;\n    Some that are mad if they behold a cat;\n    And others, when the bagpipe sings i' th' nose,\n    Cannot contain their urine; for affection,\n    Mistress of passion, sways it to the mood\n    Of what it likes or loathes. Now, for your answer:\n    As there is no firm reason to be rend'red\n    Why he cannot abide a gaping pig;\n    Why he, a harmless necessary cat;\n    Why he, a woollen bagpipe, but of force\n    Must yield to such inevitable shame\n    As to offend, himself being offended;\n    So can I give no reason, nor I will not,\n    More than a lodg'd hate and a certain loathing\n    I bear Antonio, that I follow thus\n    A losing suit against him. Are you answered?\n  BASSANIO. This is no answer, thou unfeeling man,\n    To excuse the current of thy cruelty.\n  SHYLOCK. I am not bound to please thee with my answers.\n  BASSANIO. Do all men kill the things they do not love?\n  SHYLOCK. Hates any man the thing he would not kill?\n  BASSANIO. Every offence is not a hate at first.\n  SHYLOCK. What, wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice?\n  ANTONIO. I pray you, think you question with the Jew.\n    You may as well go stand upon the beach\n    And bid the main flood bate his usual height;\n    You may as well use question with the wolf,\n    Why he hath made the ewe bleat for the lamb;\n    You may as well forbid the mountain pines\n    To wag their high tops and to make no noise\n    When they are fretten with the gusts of heaven;\n    You may as well do anything most hard\n    As seek to soften that- than which what's harder?-\n    His jewish heart. Therefore, I do beseech you,\n    Make no moe offers, use no farther means,\n    But with all brief and plain conveniency\n    Let me have judgment, and the Jew his will.\n  BASSANIO. For thy three thousand ducats here is six.\n  SHYLOCK. If every ducat in six thousand ducats\n    Were in six parts, and every part a ducat,\n    I would not draw them; I would have my bond.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. How shalt thou hope for mercy, rend'ring none?\n  SHYLOCK. What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong?\n    You have among you many a purchas'd slave,\n    Which, fike your asses and your dogs and mules,\n    You use in abject and in slavish parts,\n    Because you bought them; shall I say to you\n    'Let them be free, marry them to your heirs-\n    Why sweat they under burdens?- let their beds\n    Be made as soft as yours, and let their palates\n    Be season'd with such viands'? You will answer\n    'The slaves are ours.' So do I answer you:\n    The pound of flesh which I demand of him\n    Is dearly bought, 'tis mine, and I will have it.\n    If you deny me, fie upon your law!\n    There is no force in the decrees of Venice.\n    I stand for judgment; answer; shall I have it?\n  DUKE OF VENICE. Upon my power I may dismiss this court,\n    Unless Bellario, a learned doctor,\n    Whom I have sent for to determine this,\n    Come here to-day.\n  SALERIO. My lord, here stays without\n    A messenger with letters from the doctor,\n    New come from Padua.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. Bring us the letters; call the messenger.\n  BASSANIO. Good cheer, Antonio! What, man, courage yet!\n    The Jew shall have my flesh, blood, bones, and all,\n    Ere thou shalt lose for me one drop of blood.\n  ANTONIO. I am a tainted wether of the flock,\n    Meetest for death; the weakest kind of fruit\n    Drops earliest to the ground, and so let me.\n    You cannot better be employ'd, Bassanio,\n    Than to live still, and write mine epitaph.\n\n           Enter NERISSA dressed like a lawyer's clerk\n\n  DUKE OF VENICE. Came you from Padua, from Bellario?\n  NERISSA. From both, my lord. Bellario greets your Grace.\n                                             [Presents a letter]\n  BASSANIO. Why dost thou whet thy knife so earnestly?\n  SHYLOCK. To cut the forfeiture from that bankrupt there.\n  GRATIANO. Not on thy sole, but on thy soul, harsh Jew,\n    Thou mak'st thy knife keen; but no metal can,\n    No, not the hangman's axe, bear half the keenness\n    Of thy sharp envy. Can no prayers pierce thee?\n  SHYLOCK. No, none that thou hast wit enough to make.\n  GRATIANO. O, be thou damn'd, inexecrable dog!\n    And for thy life let justice be accus'd.\n    Thou almost mak'st me waver in my faith,\n    To hold opinion with Pythagoras\n    That souls of animals infuse themselves\n    Into the trunks of men. Thy currish spirit\n    Govern'd a wolf who, hang'd for human slaughter,\n    Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet,\n    And, whilst thou layest in thy unhallowed dam,\n    Infus'd itself in thee; for thy desires\n    Are wolfish, bloody, starv'd and ravenous.\n  SHYLOCK. Till thou canst rail the seal from off my bond,\n    Thou but offend'st thy lungs to speak so loud;\n    Repair thy wit, good youth, or it will fall\n    To cureless ruin. I stand here for law.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. This letter from Bellario doth commend\n    A young and learned doctor to our court.\n    Where is he?\n  NERISSA. He attendeth here hard by\n    To know your answer, whether you'll admit him.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. With all my heart. Some three or four of you\n    Go give him courteous conduct to this place.\n    Meantime, the court shall hear Bellario's letter.\n  CLERK.  [Reads]  'Your Grace shall understand that at the\nreceipt\n    of your letter I am very sick; but in the instant that your\n    messenger came, in loving visitation was with me a young\ndoctor\n    of Rome- his name is Balthazar. I acquainted him with the\ncause\n    in controversy between the Jew and Antonio the merchant; we\n    turn'd o'er many books together; he is furnished with my\nopinion\n    which, bettered with his own learning-the greatness whereof I\n    cannot enough commend- comes with him at my importunity to\nfill\n    up your Grace's request in my stead. I beseech you let his\nlack\n    of years be no impediment to let him lack a reverend\nestimation,\n    for I never knew so young a body with so old a head. I leave\nhim\n    to your gracious acceptance, whose trial shall better publish\nhis\n    commendation.'\n\n      Enter PORTIA for BALTHAZAR, dressed like a Doctor of Laws\n\n  DUKE OF VENICE. YOU hear the learn'd Bellario, what he writes;\n    And here, I take it, is the doctor come.\n    Give me your hand; come you from old Bellario?\n  PORTIA. I did, my lord.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. You are welcome; take your place.\n    Are you acquainted with the difference\n    That holds this present question in the court?\n  PORTIA. I am informed throughly of the cause.\n    Which is the merchant here, and which the Jew?\n  DUKE OF VENICE. Antonio and old Shylock, both stand forth.\n  PORTIA. Is your name Shylock?\n  SHYLOCK. Shylock is my name.\n  PORTIA. Of a strange nature is the suit you follow;\n    Yet in such rule that the Venetian law\n    Cannot impugn you as you do proceed.\n    You stand within his danger, do you not?\n  ANTONIO. Ay, so he says.\n  PORTIA. Do you confess the bond?\n  ANTONIO. I do.\n  PORTIA. Then must the Jew be merciful.\n  SHYLOCK. On what compulsion must I? Tell me that.\n  PORTIA. The quality of mercy is not strain'd;\n    It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven\n    Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:\n    It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.\n    'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes\n    The throned monarch better than his crown;\n    His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,\n    The attribute to awe and majesty,\n    Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;\n    But mercy is above this sceptred sway,\n    It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,\n    It is an attribute to God himself;\n    And earthly power doth then show likest God's\n    When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,\n    Though justice be thy plea, consider this-\n    That in the course of justice none of us\n    Should see salvation; we do pray for mercy,\n    And that same prayer doth teach us all to render\n    The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much\n    To mitigate the justice of thy plea,\n    Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice\n    Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there.\n  SHYLOCK. My deeds upon my head! I crave the law,\n    The penalty and forfeit of my bond.\n  BASSANIO. Yes; here I tender it for him in the court;\n    Yea, twice the sum; if that will not suffice,\n    I will be bound to pay it ten times o'er\n    On forfeit of my hands, my head, my heart;\n    If this will not suffice, it must appear\n    That malice bears down truth. And, I beseech you,\n    Wrest once the law to your authority;\n    To do a great right do a little wrong,\n    And curb this cruel devil of his will.\n  PORTIA. It must not be; there is no power in Venice\n    Can alter a decree established;\n    'Twill be recorded for a precedent,\n    And many an error, by the same example,\n    Will rush into the state; it cannot be.\n  SHYLOCK. A Daniel come to judgment! Yea, a Daniel!\n    O wise young judge, how I do honour thee!\n  PORTIA. I pray you, let me look upon the bond.\n  SHYLOCK. Here 'tis, most reverend Doctor; here it is.\n  PORTIA. Shylock, there's thrice thy money off'red thee.\n  SHYLOCK. An oath, an oath! I have an oath in heaven.\n    Shall I lay perjury upon my soul?\n    No, not for Venice.\n  PORTIA. Why, this bond is forfeit;\n    And lawfully by this the Jew may claim\n    A pound of flesh, to be by him cut off\n    Nearest the merchant's heart. Be merciful.\n    Take thrice thy money; bid me tear the bond.\n  SHYLOCK. When it is paid according to the tenour.\n    It doth appear you are a worthy judge;\n    You know the law; your exposition\n    Hath been most sound; I charge you by the law,\n    Whereof you are a well-deserving pillar,\n    Proceed to judgment. By my soul I swear\n    There is no power in the tongue of man\n    To alter me. I stay here on my bond.\n  ANTONIO. Most heartily I do beseech the court\n    To give the judgment.\n  PORTIA. Why then, thus it is:\n    You must prepare your bosom for his knife.\n  SHYLOCK. O noble judge! O excellent young man!\n  PORTIA. For the intent and purpose of the law\n    Hath full relation to the penalty,\n    Which here appeareth due upon the bond.\n  SHYLOCK. 'Tis very true. O wise and upright judge,\n    How much more elder art thou than thy looks!\n  PORTIA. Therefore, lay bare your bosom.\n  SHYLOCK. Ay, his breast-\n    So says the bond; doth it not, noble judge?\n    'Nearest his heart,' those are the very words.\n  PORTIA. It is so. Are there balance here to weigh\n    The flesh?\n  SHYLOCK. I have them ready.\n  PORTIA. Have by some surgeon, Shylock, on your charge,\n    To stop his wounds, lest he do bleed to death.\n  SHYLOCK. Is it so nominated in the bond?\n  PORTIA. It is not so express'd, but what of that?\n    'Twere good you do so much for charity.\n  SHYLOCK. I cannot find it; 'tis not in the bond.\n  PORTIA. You, merchant, have you anything to say?\n  ANTONIO. But little: I am arm'd and well prepar'd.\n    Give me your hand, Bassanio; fare you well.\n    Grieve not that I am fall'n to this for you,\n    For herein Fortune shows herself more kind\n    Than is her custom. It is still her use\n    To let the wretched man outlive his wealth,\n    To view with hollow eye and wrinkled brow\n    An age of poverty; from which ling'ring penance\n    Of such misery doth she cut me off.\n    Commend me to your honourable wife;\n    Tell her the process of Antonio's end;\n    Say how I lov'd you; speak me fair in death;\n    And, when the tale is told, bid her be judge\n    Whether Bassanio had not once a love.\n    Repent but you that you shall lose your friend,\n    And he repents not that he pays your debt;\n    For if the Jew do cut but deep enough,\n    I'll pay it instantly with all my heart.\n  BASSANIO. Antonio, I am married to a wife\n    Which is as dear to me as life itself;\n    But life itself, my wife, and all the world,\n    Are not with me esteem'd above thy life;\n    I would lose all, ay, sacrifice them all\n    Here to this devil, to deliver you.\n  PORTIA. Your wife would give you little thanks for that,\n    If she were by to hear you make the offer.\n  GRATIANO. I have a wife who I protest I love;\n    I would she were in heaven, so she could\n    Entreat some power to change this currish Jew.\n  NERISSA. 'Tis well you offer it behind her back;\n    The wish would make else an unquiet house.\n  SHYLOCK.  [Aside]  These be the Christian husbands! I have a\n    daughter-\n    Would any of the stock of Barrabas\n    Had been her husband, rather than a Christian!-\n    We trifle time; I pray thee pursue sentence.\n  PORTIA. A pound of that same merchant's flesh is thine.\n    The court awards it and the law doth give it.\n  SHYLOCK. Most rightful judge!\n  PORTIA. And you must cut this flesh from off his breast.\n    The law allows it and the court awards it.\n  SHYLOCK. Most learned judge! A sentence! Come, prepare.\n  PORTIA. Tarry a little; there is something else.\n    This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood:\n    The words expressly are 'a pound of flesh.'\n    Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh;\n    But, in the cutting it, if thou dost shed\n    One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods\n    Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate\n    Unto the state of Venice.\n  GRATIANO. O upright judge! Mark, Jew. O learned judge!\n  SHYLOCK. Is that the law?\n  PORTIA. Thyself shalt see the act;\n    For, as thou urgest justice, be assur'd\n    Thou shalt have justice, more than thou desir'st.\n  GRATIANO. O learned judge! Mark, Jew. A learned judge!\n  SHYLOCK. I take this offer then: pay the bond thrice,\n    And let the Christian go.\n  BASSANIO. Here is the money.\n  PORTIA. Soft!\n    The Jew shall have all justice. Soft! No haste.\n    He shall have nothing but the penalty.\n  GRATIANO. O Jew! an upright judge, a learned judge!\n  PORTIA. Therefore, prepare thee to cut off the flesh.\n    Shed thou no blood, nor cut thou less nor more\n    But just a pound of flesh; if thou tak'st more\n    Or less than a just pound- be it but so much\n    As makes it light or heavy in the substance,\n    Or the division of the twentieth part\n    Of one poor scruple; nay, if the scale do turn\n    But in the estimation of a hair-\n    Thou diest, and all thy goods are confiscate.\n  GRATIANO. A second Daniel, a Daniel, Jew!\n    Now, infidel, I have you on the hip.\n  PORTIA. Why doth the Jew pause? Take thy forfeiture.\n  SHYLOCK. Give me my principal, and let me go.\n  BASSANIO. I have it ready for thee; here it is.\n  PORTIA. He hath refus'd it in the open court;\n    He shall have merely justice, and his bond.\n  GRATIANO. A Daniel still say I, a second Daniel!\n    I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word.\n  SHYLOCK. Shall I not have barely my principal?\n  PORTIA. Thou shalt have nothing but the forfeiture\n    To be so taken at thy peril, Jew.\n  SHYLOCK. Why, then the devil give him good of it!\n    I'll stay no longer question.\n  PORTIA. Tarry, Jew.\n    The law hath yet another hold on you.\n    It is enacted in the laws of Venice,\n    If it be proved against an alien\n    That by direct or indirect attempts\n    He seek the life of any citizen,\n    The party 'gainst the which he doth contrive\n    Shall seize one half his goods; the other half\n    Comes to the privy coffer of the state;\n    And the offender's life lies in the mercy\n    Of the Duke only, 'gainst all other voice.\n    In which predicament, I say, thou stand'st;\n    For it appears by manifest proceeding\n    That indirectly, and directly too,\n    Thou hast contrived against the very life\n    Of the defendant; and thou hast incurr'd\n    The danger formerly by me rehears'd.\n    Down, therefore, and beg mercy of the Duke.\n  GRATIANO. Beg that thou mayst have leave to hang thyself;\n    And yet, thy wealth being forfeit to the state,\n    Thou hast not left the value of a cord;\n    Therefore thou must be hang'd at the state's charge.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. That thou shalt see the difference of our\nspirit,\n    I pardon thee thy life before thou ask it.\n    For half thy wealth, it is Antonio's;\n    The other half comes to the general state,\n    Which humbleness may drive unto a fine.\n  PORTIA. Ay, for the state; not for Antonio.\n  SHYLOCK. Nay, take my life and all, pardon not that.\n    You take my house when you do take the prop\n    That doth sustain my house; you take my life\n    When you do take the means whereby I live.\n  PORTIA. What mercy can you render him, Antonio?\n  GRATIANO. A halter gratis; nothing else, for God's sake!\n  ANTONIO. So please my lord the Duke and all the court\n    To quit the fine for one half of his goods;\n    I am content, so he will let me have\n    The other half in use, to render it\n    Upon his death unto the gentleman\n    That lately stole his daughter-\n    Two things provided more; that, for this favour,\n    He presently become a Christian;\n    The other, that he do record a gift,\n    Here in the court, of all he dies possess'd\n    Unto his son Lorenzo and his daughter.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. He shall do this, or else I do recant\n    The pardon that I late pronounced here.\n  PORTIA. Art thou contented, Jew? What dost thou say?\n  SHYLOCK. I am content.\n  PORTIA. Clerk, draw a deed of gift.\n  SHYLOCK. I pray you, give me leave to go from hence;\n    I am not well; send the deed after me\n    And I will sign it.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. Get thee gone, but do it.\n  GRATIANO. In christ'ning shalt thou have two god-fathers;\n    Had I been judge, thou shouldst have had ten more,\n    To bring thee to the gallows, not to the font.\n                                                    Exit SHYLOCK\n  DUKE OF VENICE. Sir, I entreat you home with me to dinner.\n  PORTIA. I humbly do desire your Grace of pardon;\n    I must away this night toward Padua,\n    And it is meet I presently set forth.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. I am sorry that your leisure serves you not.\n    Antonio, gratify this gentleman,\n    For in my mind you are much bound to him.\n                             Exeunt DUKE, MAGNIFICOES, and train\n  BASSANIO. Most worthy gentleman, I and my friend\n    Have by your wisdom been this day acquitted\n    Of grievous penalties; in lieu whereof\n    Three thousand ducats, due unto the Jew,\n    We freely cope your courteous pains withal.\n  ANTONIO. And stand indebted, over and above,\n    In love and service to you evermore.\n  PORTIA. He is well paid that is well satisfied,\n    And I, delivering you, am satisfied,\n    And therein do account myself well paid.\n    My mind was never yet more mercenary.\n    I pray you, know me when we meet again;\n    I wish you well, and so I take my leave.\n  BASSANIO. Dear sir, of force I must attempt you further;\n    Take some remembrance of us, as a tribute,\n    Not as fee. Grant me two things, I pray you,\n    Not to deny me, and to pardon me.\n  PORTIA. You press me far, and therefore I will yield.\n    [To ANTONIO]  Give me your gloves, I'll wear them for your\nsake.\n    [To BASSANIO]  And, for your love, I'll take this ring from\nyou.\n    Do not draw back your hand; I'll take no more,\n    And you in love shall not deny me this.\n  BASSANIO. This ring, good sir- alas, it is a trifle;\n    I will not shame myself to give you this.\n  PORTIA. I will have nothing else but only this;\n    And now, methinks, I have a mind to it.\n  BASSANIO.. There's more depends on this than on the value.\n    The dearest ring in Venice will I give you,\n    And find it out by proclamation;\n    Only for this, I pray you, pardon me.\n  PORTIA. I see, sir, you are liberal in offers;\n    You taught me first to beg, and now, methinks,\n    You teach me how a beggar should be answer'd.\n  BASSANIO. Good sir, this ring was given me by my wife;\n    And, when she put it on, she made me vow\n    That I should neither sell, nor give, nor lose it.\n  PORTIA. That 'scuse serves many men to save their gifts.\n    And if your wife be not a mad woman,\n    And know how well I have deserv'd this ring,\n    She would not hold out enemy for ever\n    For giving it to me. Well, peace be with you!\n                                       Exeunt PORTIA and NERISSA\n  ANTONIO. My Lord Bassanio, let him have the ring.\n    Let his deservings, and my love withal,\n    Be valued 'gainst your wife's commandment.\n  BASSANIO. Go, Gratiano, run and overtake him;\n    Give him the ring, and bring him, if thou canst,\n    Unto Antonio's house. Away, make haste.        Exit GRATIANO\n    Come, you and I will thither presently;\n    And in the morning early will we both\n    Fly toward Belmont. Come, Antonio.                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nVenice. A street\n\nEnter PORTIA and NERISSA\n\n  PORTIA. Inquire the Jew's house out, give him this deed,\n    And let him sign it; we'll away tonight,\n    And be a day before our husbands home.\n    This deed will be well welcome to Lorenzo.\n\n                          Enter GRATIANO\n\n  GRATIANO. Fair sir, you are well o'erta'en.\n    My Lord Bassanio, upon more advice,\n    Hath sent you here this ring, and doth entreat\n    Your company at dinner.\n  PORTIA. That cannot be.\n    His ring I do accept most thankfully,\n    And so, I pray you, tell him. Furthermore,\n    I pray you show my youth old Shylock's house.\n  GRATIANO. That will I do.\n  NERISSA. Sir, I would speak with you.\n    [Aside to PORTIA]  I'll See if I can get my husband's ring,\n    Which I did make him swear to keep for ever.\n  PORTIA.  [To NERISSA]  Thou Mayst, I warrant. We shall have old\n      swearing\n    That they did give the rings away to men;\n    But we'll outface them, and outswear them too.\n    [Aloud]  Away, make haste, thou know'st where I will tarry.\n  NERISSA. Come, good sir, will you show me to this house?\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nBelmont. The garden before PORTIA'S house\n\nEnter LORENZO and JESSICA\n\n  LORENZO. The moon shines bright. In such a night as this,\n    When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees,\n    And they did make no noise- in such a night,\n    Troilus methinks mounted the Troyan walls,\n    And sigh'd his soul toward the Grecian tents,\n    Where Cressid lay that night.\n  JESSICA. In such a night\n    Did Thisby fearfully o'ertrip the dew,\n    And saw the lion's shadow ere himself,\n    And ran dismayed away.\n  LORENZO. In such a night\n    Stood Dido with a willow in her hand\n    Upon the wild sea-banks, and waft her love\n    To come again to Carthage.\n  JESSICA. In such a night\n    Medea gathered the enchanted herbs\n    That did renew old AEson.\n LORENZO. In such a night\n    Did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew,\n    And with an unthrift love did run from Venice\n    As far as Belmont.\n  JESSICA. In such a night\n    Did young Lorenzo swear he lov'd her well,\n    Stealing her soul with many vows of faith,\n    And ne'er a true one.\n  LORENZO. In such a night\n    Did pretty Jessica, like a little shrew,\n    Slander her love, and he forgave it her.\n  JESSICA. I would out-night you, did no body come;\n    But, hark, I hear the footing of a man.\n\n                       Enter STEPHANO\n\n  LORENZO. Who comes so fast in silence of the night?\n  STEPHANO. A friend.\n  LORENZO. A friend! What friend? Your name, I pray you, friend?\n  STEPHANO. Stephano is my name, and I bring word\n    My mistress will before the break of day\n    Be here at Belmont; she doth stray about\n    By holy crosses, where she kneels and prays\n    For happy wedlock hours.\n  LORENZO. Who comes with her?\n  STEPHANO. None but a holy hermit and her maid.\n    I pray you, is my master yet return'd?\n  LORENZO. He is not, nor we have not heard from him.\n    But go we in, I pray thee, Jessica,\n    And ceremoniously let us prepare\n    Some welcome for the mistress of the house.\n\n                         Enter LAUNCELOT\n\n  LAUNCELOT. Sola, sola! wo ha, ho! sola, sola!\n  LORENZO. Who calls?\n  LAUNCELOT. Sola! Did you see Master Lorenzo? Master Lorenzo!\nSola,\n    sola!\n  LORENZO. Leave holloaing, man. Here!\n  LAUNCELOT. Sola! Where, where?\n  LORENZO. Here!\n  LAUNCELOT. Tell him there's a post come from my master with his\n    horn full of good news; my master will be here ere morning.\n Exit\n  LORENZO. Sweet soul, let's in, and there expect their coming.\n    And yet no matter- why should we go in?\n    My friend Stephano, signify, I pray you,\n    Within the house, your mistress is at hand;\n    And bring your music forth into the air.       Exit STEPHANO\n    How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!\n    Here will we sit and let the sounds of music\n    Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night\n    Become the touches of sweet harmony.\n    Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven\n    Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold;\n    There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st\n    But in his motion like an angel sings,\n    Still quiring to the young-ey'd cherubins;\n    Such harmony is in immortal souls,\n    But whilst this muddy vesture of decay\n    Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.\n\n                          Enter MUSICIANS\n\n    Come, ho, and wake Diana with a hymn;\n    With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear.\n    And draw her home with music.                        [Music]\n  JESSICA. I am never merry when I hear sweet music.\n  LORENZO. The reason is your spirits are attentive;\n    For do but note a wild and wanton herd,\n    Or race of youthful and unhandled colts,\n    Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud,\n    Which is the hot condition of their blood-\n    If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,\n    Or any air of music touch their ears,\n    You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,\n    Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze\n    By the sweet power of music. Therefore the poet\n    Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods;\n    Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage,\n    But music for the time doth change his nature.\n    The man that hath no music in himself,\n    Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,\n    Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;\n    The motions of his spirit are dull:as night,\n    And his affections dark as Erebus.\n    Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.\n\n                    Enter PORTIA and NERISSA\n\n  PORTIA. That light we see is burning in my hall.\n    How far that little candle throws his beams!\n    So shines a good deed in a naughty world.\n  NERISSA. When the moon shone, we did not see the candle.\n  PORTIA. So doth the greater glory dim the less:\n    A substitute shines brightly as a king\n    Until a king be by, and then his state\n    Empties itself, as doth an inland brook\n    Into the main of waters. Music! hark!\n  NERISSA. It is your music, madam, of the house.\n  PORTIA. Nothing is good, I see, without respect;\n    Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.\n  NERISSA. Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam.\n  PORTIA. The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark\n    When neither is attended; and I think\n    ne nightingale, if she should sing by day,\n    When every goose is cackling, would be thought\n    No better a musician than the wren.\n    How many things by season season'd are\n    To their right praise and true perfection!\n    Peace, ho! The moon sleeps with Endymion,\n    And would not be awak'd.                      [Music ceases]\n  LORENZO. That is the voice,\n    Or I am much deceiv'd, of Portia.\n  PORTIA. He knows me as the blind man knows the cuckoo,\n    By the bad voice.\n  LORENZO. Dear lady, welcome home.\n  PORTIA. We have been praying for our husbands' welfare,\n    Which speed, we hope, the better for our words.\n    Are they return'd?\n  LORENZO. Madam, they are not yet;\n    But there is come a messenger before,\n    To signify their coming.\n  PORTIA.. Go in, Nerissa;\n    Give order to my servants that they take\n    No note at all of our being absent hence;\n    Nor you, Lorenzo; Jessica, nor you.        [A tucket sounds]\n  LORENZO. Your husband is at hand; I hear his trumpet.\n    We are no tell-tales, madam, fear you not.\n  PORTIA. This night methinks is but the daylight sick;\n    It looks a little paler; 'tis a day\n    Such as the day is when the sun is hid.\n\n       Enter BASSANIO, ANTONIO, GRATIANO, and their followers\n\n  BASSANIO. We should hold day with the Antipodes,\n    If you would walk in absence of the sun.\n  PORTIA. Let me give light, but let me not be light,\n    For a light wife doth make a heavy husband,\n    And never be Bassanio so for me;\n    But God sort all! You are welcome home, my lord.\n  BASSANIO. I thank you, madam; give welcome to my friend.\n    This is the man, this is Antonio,\n    To whom I am so infinitely bound.\n  PORTIA. You should in all sense be much bound to him,\n    For, as I hear, he was much bound for you.\n  ANTONIO. No more than I am well acquitted of.\n  PORTIA. Sir, you are very welcome to our house.\n    It must appear in other ways than words,\n    Therefore I scant this breathing courtesy.\n  GRATIANO.  [To NERISSA]  By yonder moon I swear you do me\nwrong;\n    In faith, I gave it to the judge's clerk.\n    Would he were gelt that had it, for my part,\n    Since you do take it, love, so much at heart.\n  PORTIA. A quarrel, ho, already! What's the matter?\n  GRATIANO. About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring\n    That she did give me, whose posy was\n    For all the world like cutler's poetry\n    Upon a knife, 'Love me, and leave me not.'\n  NERISSA. What talk you of the posy or the value?\n    You swore to me, when I did give it you,\n    That you would wear it till your hour of death,\n    And that it should lie with you in your grave;\n    Though not for me, yet for your vehement oaths,\n    You should have been respective and have kept it.\n    Gave it a judge's clerk! No, God's my judge,\n    The clerk will ne'er wear hair on's face that had it.\n  GRATIANO. He will, an if he live to be a man.\n  NERISSA. Ay, if a woman live to be a man.\n  GRATIANO. Now by this hand I gave it to a youth,\n    A kind of boy, a little scrubbed boy\n    No higher than thyself, the judge's clerk;\n    A prating boy that begg'd it as a fee;\n    I could not for my heart deny it him.\n  PORTIA. You were to blame, I must be plain with you,\n    To part so slightly with your wife's first gift,\n    A thing stuck on with oaths upon your finger\n    And so riveted with faith unto your flesh.\n    I gave my love a ring, and made him swear\n    Never to part with it, and here he stands;\n    I dare be sworn for him he would not leave it\n    Nor pluck it from his finger for the wealth\n    That the world masters. Now, in faith, Gratiano,\n    You give your wife too unkind a cause of grief;\n    An 'twere to me, I should be mad at it.\n  BASSANIO.  [Aside]  Why, I were best to cut my left hand off,\n    And swear I lost the ring defending it.\n  GRATIANO. My Lord Bassanio gave his ring away\n    Unto the judge that begg'd it, and indeed\n    Deserv'd it too; and then the boy, his clerk,\n    That took some pains in writing, he begg'd mine;\n    And neither man nor master would take aught\n    But the two rings.\n  PORTIA. What ring gave you, my lord?\n    Not that, I hope, which you receiv'd of me.\n  BASSANIO. If I could add a lie unto a fault,\n    I would deny it; but you see my finger\n    Hath not the ring upon it; it is gone.\n  PORTIA. Even so void is your false heart of truth;\n    By heaven, I will ne'er come in your bed\n    Until I see the ring.\n  NERISSA. Nor I in yours\n    Till I again see mine.\n  BASSANIO. Sweet Portia,\n    If you did know to whom I gave the ring,\n    If you did know for whom I gave the ring,\n    And would conceive for what I gave the ring,\n    And how unwillingly I left the ring,\n    When nought would be accepted but the ring,\n    You would abate the strength of your displeasure.\n  PORTIA. If you had known the virtue of the ring,\n    Or half her worthiness that gave the ring,\n    Or your own honour to contain the ring,\n    You would not then have parted with the ring.\n    What man is there so much unreasonable,\n    If you had pleas'd to have defended it\n    With any terms of zeal, wanted the modesty\n    To urge the thing held as a ceremony?\n    Nerissa teaches me what to believe:\n    I'll die for't but some woman had the ring.\n  BASSANIO. No, by my honour, madam, by my soul,\n    No woman had it, but a civil doctor,\n    Which did refuse three thousand ducats of me,\n    And begg'd the ring; the which I did deny him,\n    And suffer'd him to go displeas'd away-\n    Even he that had held up the very life\n    Of my dear friend. What should I say, sweet lady?\n    I was enforc'd to send it after him;\n    I was beset with shame and courtesy;\n    My honour would not let ingratitude\n    So much besmear it. Pardon me, good lady;\n    For by these blessed candles of the night,\n    Had you been there, I think you would have begg'd\n    The ring of me to give the worthy doctor.\n  PORTIA. Let not that doctor e'er come near my house;\n    Since he hath got the jewel that I loved,\n    And that which you did swear to keep for me,\n    I will become as liberal as you;\n    I'll not deny him anything I have,\n    No, not my body, nor my husband's bed.\n    Know him I shall, I am well sure of it.\n    Lie not a night from home; watch me like Argus;\n    If you do not, if I be left alone,\n    Now, by mine honour which is yet mine own,\n    I'll have that doctor for mine bedfellow.\n  NERISSA. And I his clerk; therefore be well advis'd\n    How you do leave me to mine own protection.\n  GRATIANO. Well, do you so, let not me take him then;\n    For, if I do, I'll mar the young clerk's pen.\n  ANTONIO. I am th' unhappy subject of these quarrels.\n  PORTIA. Sir, grieve not you; you are welcome not withstanding.\n  BASSANIO. Portia, forgive me this enforced wrong;\n    And in the hearing of these many friends\n    I swear to thee, even by thine own fair eyes,\n    Wherein I see myself-\n  PORTIA. Mark you but that!\n    In both my eyes he doubly sees himself,\n    In each eye one; swear by your double self,\n    And there's an oath of credit.\n  BASSANIO. Nay, but hear me.\n    Pardon this fault, and by my soul I swear\n    I never more will break an oath with thee.\n  ANTONIO. I once did lend my body for his wealth,\n    Which, but for him that had your husband's ring,\n    Had quite miscarried; I dare be bound again,\n    My soul upon the forfeit, that your lord\n    Will never more break faith advisedly.\n  PORTIA. Then you shall be his surety. Give him this,\n    And bid him keep it better than the other.\n  ANTONIO. Here, Lord Bassanio, swear to keep this ring.\n  BASSANIO. By heaven, it is the same I gave the doctor!\n  PORTIA. I had it of him. Pardon me, Bassanio,\n    For, by this ring, the doctor lay with me.\n  NERISSA. And pardon me, my gentle Gratiano,\n    For that same scrubbed boy, the doctor's clerk,\n    In lieu of this, last night did lie with me.\n  GRATIANO. Why, this is like the mending of highways\n    In summer, where the ways are fair enough.\n    What, are we cuckolds ere we have deserv'd it?\n  PORTIA. Speak not so grossly. You are all amaz'd.\n    Here is a letter; read it at your leisure;\n    It comes from Padua, from Bellario;\n    There you shall find that Portia was the doctor,\n    Nerissa there her clerk. Lorenzo here\n    Shall witness I set forth as soon as you,\n    And even but now return'd; I have not yet\n    Enter'd my house. Antonio, you are welcome;\n    And I have better news in store for you\n    Than you expect. Unseal this letter soon;\n    There you shall find three of your argosies\n    Are richly come to harbour suddenly.\n    You shall not know by what strange accident\n    I chanced on this letter.\n  ANTONIO. I am dumb.\n  BASSANIO. Were you the doctor, and I knew you not?\n  GRATIANO. Were you the clerk that is to make me cuckold?\n  NERISSA. Ay, but the clerk that never means to do it,\n    Unless he live until he be a man.\n  BASSANIO. Sweet doctor, you shall be my bedfellow;\n    When I am absent, then lie with my wife.\n  ANTONIO. Sweet lady, you have given me life and living;\n    For here I read for certain that my ships\n    Are safely come to road.\n  PORTIA. How now, Lorenzo!\n    My clerk hath some good comforts too for you.\n  NERISSA. Ay, and I'll give them him without a fee.\n    There do I give to you and Jessica,\n    From the rich Jew, a special deed of gift,\n    After his death, of all he dies possess'd of.\n  LORENZO. Fair ladies, you drop manna in the way\n    Of starved people.\n  PORTIA. It is almost morning,\n    And yet I am sure you are not satisfied\n    Of these events at full. Let us go in,\n    And charge us there upon inter'gatories,\n    And we will answer all things faithfully.\n  GRATIANO. Let it be so. The first inter'gatory\n    That my Nerissa shall be sworn on is,\n    Whether till the next night she had rather stay,\n    Or go to bed now, being two hours to day.\n    But were the day come, I should wish it dark,\n    Till I were couching with the doctor's clerk.\n    Well, while I live, I'll fear no other thing\n    So sore as keeping safe Nerissa's ring.               Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of this Etext of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare\nThe Merchant of Venice"}
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{"1115":"\n\n\n\n\n1598\n\nTHE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY THE FOURTH\n\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  King Henry the Fourth.\n  Henry, Prince of Wales, son to the King.\n  Prince John of Lancaster, son to the King.\n  Earl of Westmoreland.\n  Sir Walter Blunt.\n  Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester.\n  Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland.\n  Henry Percy, surnamed Hotspur, his son.\n  Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March.\n  Richard Scroop, Archbishop of York.\n  Archibald, Earl of Douglas.\n  Owen Glendower.\n  Sir Richard Vernon.\n  Sir John Falstaff.\n  Sir Michael, a friend to the Archbishop of York.\n  Poins.\n  Gadshill\n  Peto.\n  Bardolph.\n\n  Lady Percy, wife to Hotspur, and sister to Mortimer.\n  Lady Mortimer, daughter to Glendower, and wife to Mortimer.\n  Mistress Quickly, hostess of the Boar's Head in Eastcheap.\n\n  Lords, Officers, Sheriff, Vintner, Chamberlain, Drawers, two\n    Carriers, Travellers, and Attendants.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE.--England and Wales.\n\n\nACT I. Scene I.\nLondon. The Palace.\n\nEnter the King, Lord John of Lancaster, Earl of Westmoreland,\n[Sir Walter Blunt,] with others.\n\n  King. So shaken as we are, so wan with care,\n    Find we a time for frighted peace to pant\n    And breathe short-winded accents of new broils\n    To be commenc'd in stronds afar remote.\n    No more the thirsty entrance of this soil\n    Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood.\n    No more shall trenching war channel her fields,\n    Nor Bruise her flow'rets with the armed hoofs\n    Of hostile paces. Those opposed eyes\n    Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven,\n    All of one nature, of one substance bred,\n    Did lately meet in the intestine shock\n    And furious close of civil butchery,\n    Shall now in mutual well-beseeming ranks\n    March all one way and be no more oppos'd\n    Against acquaintance, kindred, and allies.\n    The edge of war, like an ill-sheathed knife,\n    No more shall cut his master. Therefore, friends,\n    As far as to the sepulchre of Christ-\n    Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross\n    We are impressed and engag'd to fight-\n    Forthwith a power of English shall we levy,\n    Whose arms were moulded in their mother's womb\n    To chase these pagans in those holy fields\n    Over whose acres walk'd those blessed feet\n    Which fourteen hundred years ago were nail'd\n    For our advantage on the bitter cross.\n    But this our purpose now is twelvemonth old,\n    And bootless 'tis to tell you we will go.\n    Therefore we meet not now. Then let me hear\n    Of you, my gentle cousin Westmoreland,\n    What yesternight our Council did decree\n    In forwarding this dear expedience.\n  West. My liege, this haste was hot in question\n    And many limits of the charge set down\n    But yesternight; when all athwart there came\n    A post from Wales, loaden with heavy news;\n    Whose worst was that the noble Mortimer,\n    Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight\n    Against the irregular and wild Glendower,\n    Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken,\n    A thousand of his people butchered;\n    Upon whose dead corpse there was such misuse,\n    Such beastly shameless transformation,\n    By those Welshwomen done as may not be\n    Without much shame retold or spoken of.\n  King. It seems then that the tidings of this broil\n    Brake off our business for the Holy Land.\n  West. This, match'd with other, did, my gracious lord;\n    For more uneven and unwelcome news\n    Came from the North, and thus it did import:\n    On Holy-rood Day the gallant Hotspur there,\n    Young Harry Percy, and brave Archibald,\n    That ever-valiant and approved Scot,\n    At Holmedon met,\n    Where they did spend a sad and bloody hour;\n    As by discharge of their artillery\n    And shape of likelihood the news was told;\n    For he that brought them, in the very heat\n    And pride of their contention did take horse,\n    Uncertain of the issue any way.\n  King. Here is a dear, a true-industrious friend,\n    Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse,\n    Stain'd with the variation of each soil\n    Betwixt that Holmedon and this seat of ours,\n    And he hath brought us smooth and welcome news.\n    The Earl of Douglas is discomfited;\n    Ten thousand bold Scots, two-and-twenty knights,\n    Balk'd in their own blood did Sir Walter see\n    On Holmedon's plains. Of prisoners, Hotspur took\n    Mordake Earl of Fife and eldest son\n    To beaten Douglas, and the Earl of Athol,\n    Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith.\n    And is not this an honourable spoil?\n    A gallant prize? Ha, cousin, is it not?\n  West. In faith,\n    It is a conquest for a prince to boast of.\n  King. Yea, there thou mak'st me sad, and mak'st me sin\n    In envy that my Lord Northumberland\n    Should be the father to so blest a son-\n    A son who is the theme of honour's tongue,\n    Amongst a grove the very straightest plant;\n    Who is sweet Fortune's minion and her pride;\n    Whilst I, by looking on the praise of him,\n    See riot and dishonour stain the brow\n    Of my young Harry. O that it could be prov'd\n    That some night-tripping fairy had exchang'd\n    In cradle clothes our children where they lay,\n    And call'd mine Percy, his Plantagenet!\n    Then would I have his Harry, and he mine.\n    But let him from my thoughts. What think you, coz,\n    Of this young Percy's pride? The prisoners\n    Which he in this adventure hath surpris'd\n    To his own use he keeps, and sends me word\n    I shall have none but Mordake Earl of Fife.\n  West. This is his uncle's teaching, this Worcester,\n    Malevolent to you In all aspects,\n    Which makes him prune himself and bristle up\n    The crest of youth against your dignity.\n  King. But I have sent for him to answer this;\n    And for this cause awhile we must neglect\n    Our holy purpose to Jerusalem.\n    Cousin, on Wednesday next our council we\n    Will hold at Windsor. So inform the lords;\n    But come yourself with speed to us again;\n    For more is to be said and to be done\n    Than out of anger can be uttered.\n  West. I will my liege.                                 Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nLondon. An apartment of the Prince's.\n\nEnter Prince of Wales and Sir John Falstaff.\n\n  Fal. Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?\n  Prince. Thou art so fat-witted with drinking of old sack, and\n    unbuttoning thee after supper, and sleeping upon benches\nafter\n    noon, that thou hast forgotten to demand that truly which\nthou\n    wouldest truly know. What a devil hast thou to do with the\ntime\n    of the day, Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes\ncapons,\n    and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of\nleaping\n    houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in\n    flame-coloured taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst be\nso\n    superfluous to demand the time of the day.\n  Fal. Indeed you come near me now, Hal; for we that take purses\ngo\n    by the moon And the seven stars, and not by Phoebus, he, that\n    wand'ring knight so fair. And I prithee, sweet wag, when thou\nart\n    king, as, God save thy Grace-Majesty I should say, for grace\nthou\n    wilt have none-\n  Prince. What, none?\n  Fal. No, by my troth; not so much as will serve to be prologue\nto\n    an egg and butter.\n  Prince. Well, how then? Come, roundly, roundly.\n  Fal. Marry, then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let not us\nthat\n    are squires of the night's body be called thieves of the\nday's\n    beauty. Let us be Diana's Foresters, Gentlemen of the Shade,\n    Minions of the Moon; and let men say we be men of good\n    government, being governed as the sea is, by our noble and\nchaste\n    mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal.\n  Prince. Thou sayest well, and it holds well too; for the\nfortune of\n    us that are the moon's men doth ebb and flow like the sea,\nbeing\n    governed, as the sea is, by the moon. As, for proof now: a\npurse\n    of gold most resolutely snatch'd on Monday night and most\n    dissolutely spent on Tuesday morning; got with swearing 'Lay\nby,'\n    and spent with crying 'Bring in'; now ill as low an ebb as\nthe\n    foot of the ladder, and by-and-by in as high a flow as the\nridge\n    of the gallows.\n  Fal. By the Lord, thou say'st true, lad- and is not my hostess\nof\n    the tavern a most sweet wench?\n  Prince. As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of the castle- and is\nnot\n    a buff jerkin a most sweet robe of durance?\n  Fal. How now, how now, mad wag? What, in thy quips and thy\n    quiddities? What a plague have I to do with a buff jerkin?\n  Prince. Why, what a pox have I to do with my hostess of the\ntavern?\n  Fal. Well, thou hast call'd her to a reckoning many a time and\noft.\n  Prince. Did I ever call for thee to pay thy part?\n  Fal. No; I'll give thee thy due, thou hast paid all there.\n  Prince. Yea, and elsewhere, so far as my coin would stretch;\nand\n    where it would not, I have used my credit.\n  Fal. Yea, and so us'd it that, were it not here apparent that\nthou\n    art heir apparent- But I prithee, sweet wag, shall there be\n    gallows standing in England when thou art king? and\nresolution\n    thus fubb'd as it is with the rusty curb of old father antic\nthe\n    law? Do not thou, when thou art king, hang a thief.\n  Prince. No; thou shalt.\n  Fal. Shall I? O rare! By the Lord, I'll be a brave judge.\n  Prince. Thou judgest false already. I mean, thou shalt have the\n    hanging of the thieves and so become a rare hangman.\n  Fal. Well, Hal, well; and in some sort it jumps with my humour\nas\n    well as waiting in the court, I can tell you.\n  Prince. For obtaining of suits?\n  Fal. Yea, for obtaining of suits, whereof the hangman hath no\nlean\n    wardrobe. 'Sblood, I am as melancholy as a gib-cat or a\nlugg'd\n    bear.\n  Prince. Or an old lion, or a lover's lute.\n  Fal. Yea, or the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe.\n  Prince. What sayest thou to a hare, or the melancholy of Moor\n    Ditch?\n  Fal. Thou hast the most unsavoury similes, and art indeed the\nmost\n    comparative, rascalliest, sweet young prince. But, Hal, I\nprithee\n    trouble me no more with vanity. I would to God thou and I\nknew\n    where a commodity of good names were to be bought. An old\nlord of\n    the Council rated me the other day in the street about you,\nsir,\n    but I mark'd him not; and yet he talked very wisely, but I\n    regarded him not; and yet he talk'd wisely, and in the street\n    too.\n  Prince. Thou didst well; for wisdom cries out in the streets,\nand\n    no man regards it.\n  Fal. O, thou hast damnable iteration, and art indeed able to\n    corrupt a saint. Thou hast done much harm upon me, Hal- God\n    forgive thee for it! Before I knew thee, Hal, I knew nothing;\nand\n    now am I, if a man should speak truly, little better than one\nof\n    the wicked. I must give over this life, and I will give it\nover!\n    By the Lord, an I do not, I am a villain! I'll be damn'd for\n    never a king's son in Christendom.\n  Prince. Where shall we take a purse tomorrow, Jack?\n  Fal. Zounds, where thou wilt, lad! I'll make one. An I do not,\ncall\n    me villain and baffle me.\n  Prince. I see a good amendment of life in thee- from praying to\n    purse-taking.\n  Fal. Why, Hal, 'tis my vocation, Hal. 'Tis no sin for a man to\n    labour in his vocation.\n\n                             Enter Poins.\n\n    Poins! Now shall we know if Gadshill have set a match. O, if\nmen\n    were to be saved by merit, what hole in hell were hot enough\nfor\n    him? This is the most omnipotent villain that ever cried\n'Stand!'\n    to a true man.\n  Prince. Good morrow, Ned.\n  Poins. Good morrow, sweet Hal. What says Monsieur Remorse? What\n\n    says Sir John Sack and Sugar? Jack, how agrees the devil and\nthee\n    about thy soul, that thou soldest him on Good Friday last for\na\n    cup of Madeira and a cold capon's leg?\n  Prince. Sir John stands to his word, the devil shall have his\n    bargain; for he was never yet a breaker of proverbs. He will\ngive\n    the devil his due.\n  Poins. Then art thou damn'd for keeping thy word with the\ndevil.\n  Prince. Else he had been damn'd for cozening the devil.\n  Poins. But, my lads, my lads, to-morrow morning, by four\no'clock\n    early, at Gadshill! There are pilgrims gong to Canterbury\nwith\n    rich offerings, and traders riding to London with fat purses.\nI\n    have vizards for you all; you have horses for yourselves.\n    Gadshill lies to-night in Rochester. I have bespoke supper\n    to-morrow night in Eastcheap. We may do it as secure as\nsleep. If\n    you will go, I will stuff your purses full of crowns; if you\nwill\n    not, tarry at home and be hang'd!\n  Fal. Hear ye, Yedward: if I tarry at home and go not, I'll hang\nyou\n    for going.\n  Poins. You will, chops?\n  Fal. Hal, wilt thou make one?\n  Prince. Who, I rob? I a thief? Not I, by my faith.\n  Fal. There's neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellowship in\nthee,\n    nor thou cam'st not of the blood royal if thou darest not\nstand\n    for ten shillings.\n  Prince. Well then, once in my days I'll be a madcap.\n  Fal. Why, that's well said.\n  Prince. Well, come what will, I'll tarry at home.\n  Fal. By the Lord, I'll be a traitor then, when thou art king.\n  Prince. I care not.\n  Poins. Sir John, I prithee, leave the Prince and me alone. I\nwill\n    lay him down such reasons for this adventure that he shall\ngo.\n  Fal. Well, God give thee the spirit of persuasion and him the\nears\n    of profiting, that what thou speakest may move and what he\nhears\n    may be believed, that the true prince may (for recreation\nsake)\n    prove a false thief; for the poor abuses of the time want\n    countenance. Farewell; you shall find me in Eastcheap.\n  Prince. Farewell, thou latter spring! farewell, All-hallown\nsummer!\n                                                  Exit Falstaff.\n  Poins. Now, my good sweet honey lord, ride with us to-morrow. I\n    have a jest to execute that I cannot manage alone. Falstaff,\n\n    Bardolph, Peto, and Gadshill shall rob those men that we have\n    already waylaid; yourself and I will not be there; and when\nthey\n    have the booty, if you and I do not rob them, cut this head\noff\n    from my shoulders.\n  Prince. How shall we part with them in setting forth?\n  Poins. Why, we will set forth before or after them and appoint\nthem\n    a place of meeting, wherein it is at our pleasure to fail;\nand\n    then will they adventure upon the exploit themselves; which\nthey\n    shall have no sooner achieved, but we'll set upon them.\n  Prince. Yea, but 'tis like that they will know us by our\nhorses, by\n    our habits, and by every other appointment, to be ourselves.\n  Poins. Tut! our horses they shall not see- I'll tie them in the\n    wood; our wizards we will change after we leave them; and,\n    sirrah, I have cases of buckram for the nonce, to immask our\n    noted outward garments.\n  Prince. Yea, but I doubt they will be too hard for us.\n  Poins. Well, for two of them, I know them to be as true-bred\n    cowards as ever turn'd back; and for the third, if he fight\n    longer than he sees reason, I'll forswear arms. The virtue of\n    this jest will lie the incomprehensible lies that this same\nfat\n    rogue will tell us when we meet at supper: how thirty, at\nleast,\n    he fought with; what wards, what blows, what extremities he\n    endured; and in the reproof of this lies the jest.\n  Prince. Well, I'll go with thee. Provide us all things\nnecessary\n    and meet me to-night in Eastcheap. There I'll sup. Farewell.\n  Poins. Farewell, my lord.                                Exit.\n  Prince. I know you all, and will awhile uphold\n    The unyok'd humour of your idleness.\n    Yet herein will I imitate the sun,\n    Who doth permit the base contagious clouds\n    To smother up his beauty from the world,\n    That, when he please again to lie himself,\n    Being wanted, he may be more wond'red at\n    By breaking through the foul and ugly mists\n    Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.\n    If all the year were playing holidays,\n    To sport would be as tedious as to work;\n    But when they seldom come, they wish'd-for come,\n    And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.\n    So, when this loose behaviour I throw off\n    And pay the debt I never promised,\n    By how much better than my word I am,\n    By so much shall I falsify men's hopes;\n    And, like bright metal on a sullen ground,\n    My reformation, glitt'ring o'er my fault,\n    Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes\n    Than that which hath no foil to set it off.\n    I'll so offend to make offence a skill,\n    Redeeming time when men think least I will.            Exit.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nLondon. The Palace.\n\nEnter the King, Northumberland, Worcester, Hotspur, Sir Walter\nBlunt,\nwith others.\n\n  King. My blood hath been too cold and temperate,\n    Unapt to stir at these indignities,\n    And you have found me, for accordingly\n    You tread upon my patience; but be sure\n    I will from henceforth rather be myself,\n    Mighty and to be fear'd, than my condition,\n    Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down,\n    And therefore lost that title of respect\n    Which the proud soul ne'er pays but to the proud.\n  Wor. Our house, my sovereign liege, little deserves\n    The scourge of greatness to be us'd on it-\n    And that same greatness too which our own hands\n    Have holp to make so portly.\n  North. My lord-\n  King. Worcester, get thee gone; for I do see\n    Danger and disobedience in thine eye.\n    O, sir, your presence is too bold and peremptory,\n    And majesty might never yet endure\n    The moody frontier of a servant brow.\n    Tou have good leave to leave us. When we need\n    'Your use and counsel, we shall send for you.\n                                                 Exit Worcester.\n    You were about to speak.\n  North. Yea, my good lord.\n    Those prisoners in your Highness' name demanded\n    Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took,\n    Were, as he says, not with such strength denied\n    As is delivered to your Majesty.\n    Either envy, therefore, or misprision\n    Is guilty of this fault, and not my son.\n  Hot. My liege, I did deny no prisoners.\n    But I remember, when the fight was done,\n    When I was dry with rage and extreme toll,\n    Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,\n    Came there a certain lord, neat and trimly dress'd,\n    Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin new reap'd\n    Show'd like a stubble land at harvest home.\n    He was perfumed like a milliner,\n    And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held\n    A pouncet box, which ever and anon\n    He gave his nose, and took't away again;\n    Who therewith angry, when it next came there,\n    Took it in snuff; and still he smil'd and talk'd;\n    And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,\n    He call'd them untaught knaves, unmannerly,\n    To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse\n    Betwixt the wind and his nobility.\n    With many holiday and lady terms\n    He questioned me, amongst the rest demanded\n    My prisoners in your Majesty's behalf.\n    I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold,\n    To be so pest'red with a popingay,\n    Out of my grief and my impatience\n    Answer'd neglectingly, I know not what-\n    He should, or he should not; for he made me mad\n    To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,\n    And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman\n    Of guns and drums and wounds- God save the mark!-\n    And telling me the sovereignest thing on earth\n    Was parmacity for an inward bruise;\n    And that it was great pity, so it was,\n    This villanous saltpetre should be digg'd\n    Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,\n    Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd\n    So cowardly; and but for these vile 'guns,\n    He would himself have been a soldier.\n    This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord,\n    I answered indirectly, as I said,\n    And I beseech you, let not his report\n    Come current for an accusation\n    Betwixt my love and your high majesty.\n  Blunt. The circumstance considered, good my lord,\n    Whate'er Lord Harry Percy then had said\n    To such a person, and in such a place,\n    At such a time, with all the rest retold,\n    May reasonably die, and never rise\n    To do him wrong, or any way impeach\n    What then he said, so he unsay it now.\n  King. Why, yet he doth deny his prisoners,\n    But with proviso and exception,\n    That we at our own charge shall ransom straight\n    His brother-in-law, the foolish Mortimer;\n    Who, on my soul, hath wilfully betray'd\n    The lives of those that he did lead to fight\n    Against that great magician, damn'd Glendower,\n    Whose daughter, as we hear, the Earl of March\n    Hath lately married. Shall our coffers, then,\n    Be emptied to redeem a traitor home?\n    Shall we buy treason? and indent with fears\n    When they have lost and forfeited themselves?\n    No, on the barren mountains let him starve!\n    For I shall never hold that man my friend\n    Whose tongue shall ask me for one penny cost\n    To ransom home revolted Mortimer.\n  Hot. Revolted Mortimer?\n    He never did fall off, my sovereign liege,\n    But by the chance of war. To prove that true\n    Needs no more but one tongue for all those wounds,\n    Those mouthed wounds, which valiantly he took\n    When on the gentle Severn's sedgy bank,\n    In single opposition hand to hand,\n    He did confound the best part of an hour\n    In changing hardiment with great Glendower.\n    Three times they breath'd, and three times did they drink,\n    Upon agreement, of swift Severn's flood;\n    Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks,\n    Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds\n    And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank,\n    Bloodstained with these valiant cohabitants.\n    Never did base and rotten policy\n    Colour her working with such deadly wounds;\n    Nor never could the noble Mortimer\n    Receive so many, and all willingly.\n    Then let not him be slandered with revolt.\n  King. Thou dost belie him, Percy, thou dost belie him!\n    He never did encounter with Glendower.\n    I tell thee\n    He durst as well have met the devil alone\n    As Owen Glendower for an enemy.\n    Art thou not asham'd? But, sirrah, henceforth\n    Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer.\n    Send me your prisoners with the speediest means,\n    Or you shall hear in such a kind from me\n    As will displease you. My Lord Northumberland,\n    We license your departure with your son.-\n    Send us your prisoners, or you will hear of it.\n                                 Exeunt King, [Blunt, and Train]\n  Hot. An if the devil come and roar for them,\n    I will not send them. I will after straight\n    And tell him so; for I will else my heart,\n    Albeit I make a hazard of my head.\n  North. What, drunk with choler? Stay, and pause awhile.\n    Here comes your uncle.\n\n                          Enter Worcester.\n\n  Hot. Speak of Mortimer?\n    Zounds, I will speak of him, and let my soul\n    Want mercy if I do not join with him!\n    Yea, on his part I'll empty all these veins,\n    And shed my dear blood drop by drop in the dust,\n    But I will lift the downtrod Mortimer\n    As high in the air as this unthankful king,\n    As this ingrate and cank'red Bolingbroke.\n  North. Brother, the King hath made your nephew mad.\n  Wor. Who struck this heat up after I was gone?\n  Hot. He will (forsooth) have all my prisoners;\n    And when I urg'd the ransom once again\n    Of my wive's brother, then his cheek look'd pale,\n    And on my face he turn'd an eye of death,\n    Trembling even at the name of Mortimer.\n  Wor. I cannot blame him. Was not he proclaim'd\n    By Richard that dead is, the next of blood?\n  North. He was; I heard the proclamation.\n    And then it was when the unhappy King\n    (Whose wrongs in us God pardon!) did set forth\n    Upon his Irish expedition;\n    From whence he intercepted did return\n    To be depos'd, and shortly murdered.\n  Wor. And for whose death we in the world's wide mouth\n    Live scandaliz'd and foully spoken of.\n  Hot. But soft, I pray you. Did King Richard then\n    Proclaim my brother Edmund Mortimer\n    Heir to the crown?\n  North. He did; myself did hear it.\n  Hot. Nay, then I cannot blame his cousin king,\n    That wish'd him on the barren mountains starve.\n    But shall it be that you, that set the crown\n    Upon the head of this forgetful man,\n    And for his sake wear the detested blot\n    Of murtherous subornation- shall it be\n    That you a world of curses undergo,\n    Being the agents or base second means,\n    The cords, the ladder, or the hangman rather?\n    O, pardon me that I descend so low\n    To show the line and the predicament\n    Wherein you range under this subtile king!\n    Shall it for shame be spoken in these days,\n    Or fill up chronicles in time to come,\n    That men of your nobility and power\n    Did gage them both in an unjust behalf\n    (As both of you, God pardon it! have done)\n    To put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose,\n    And plant this thorn, this canker, Bolingbroke?\n    And shall it in more shame be further spoken\n    That you are fool'd, discarded, and shook off\n    By him for whom these shames ye underwent?\n    No! yet time serves wherein you may redeem\n    Your banish'd honours and restore yourselves\n    Into the good thoughts of the world again;\n    Revenge the jeering and disdain'd contempt\n    Of this proud king, who studies day and night\n    To answer all the debt he owes to you\n    Even with the bloody payment of your deaths.\n    Therefore I say-\n  Wor. Peace, cousin, say no more;\n    And now, I will unclasp a secret book,\n    And to your quick-conceiving discontents\n    I'll read you matter deep and dangerous,\n    As full of peril and adventurous spirit\n    As to o'erwalk a current roaring loud\n    On the unsteadfast footing of a spear.\n  Hot. If he fall in, good night, or sink or swim!\n    Send danger from the east unto the west,\n    So honour cross it from the north to south,\n    And let them grapple. O, the blood more stirs\n    To rouse a lion than to start a hare!\n  North. Imagination of some great exploit\n    Drives him beyond the bounds of patience.\n  Hot. By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap\n    To pluck bright honour from the pale-fac'd moon,\n    Or dive into the bottom of the deep,\n    Where fadom line could never touch the ground,\n    And pluck up drowned honour by the locks,\n    So he that doth redeem her thence might wear\n    Without corrival all her dignities;\n    But out upon this half-fac'd fellowship!\n  Wor. He apprehends a world of figures here,\n    But not the form of what he should attend.\n    Good cousin, give me audience for a while.\n  Hot. I cry you mercy.\n  Wor. Those same noble Scots\n    That are your prisoners-\n  Hot. I'll keep them all.\n    By God, he shall not have a Scot of them!\n    No, if a Scot would save his soul, he shall not.\n    I'll keep them, by this hand!\n  Wor. You start away.\n    And lend no ear unto my purposes.\n    Those prisoners you shall keep.\n  Hot. Nay, I will! That is flat!\n    He said he would not ransom Mortimer,\n    Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer,\n    But I will find him when he lies asleep,\n    And in his ear I'll holloa 'Mortimer.'\n    Nay;\n    I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak\n    Nothing but 'Mortimer,' and give it him\n    To keep his anger still in motion.\n  Wor. Hear you, cousin, a word.\n  Hot. All studies here I solemnly defy\n    Save how to gall and pinch this Bolingbroke;\n    And that same sword-and-buckler Prince of Wales-\n    But that I think his father loves him not\n    And would be glad he met with some mischance,\n    I would have him poisoned with a pot of ale.\n  Wor. Farewell, kinsman. I will talk to you\n    When you are better temper'd to attend.\n  North. Why, what a wasp-stung and impatient fool\n    Art thou to break into this woman's mood,\n    Tying thine ear to no tongue but thine own!\n  Hot. Why, look you, I am whipp'd and scourg'd with rods,\n    Nettled, and stung with pismires when I hear\n    Of this vile politician, Bolingbroke.\n    In Richard's time- what do you call the place-\n    A plague upon it! it is in GIoucestershire-\n    'Twas where the madcap Duke his uncle kept-\n    His uncle York- where I first bow'd my knee\n    Unto this king of smiles, this Bolingbroke-\n    'S blood!\n    When you and he came back from Ravenspurgh-\n  North. At Berkeley Castle.\n  Hot. You say true.\n    Why, what a candy deal of courtesy\n    This fawning greyhound then did proffer me!\n    Look, 'when his infant fortune came to age,'\n    And 'gentle Harry Percy,' and 'kind cousin'-\n    O, the devil take such cozeners!- God forgive me!\n    Good uncle, tell your tale, for I have done.\n  Wor. Nay, if you have not, to it again.\n    We will stay your leisure.\n  Hot. I have done, i' faith.\n  Wor. Then once more to your Scottish prisoners.\n    Deliver them up without their ransom straight,\n    And make the Douglas' son your only mean\n    For powers In Scotland; which, for divers reasons\n    Which I shall send you written, be assur'd\n    Will easily be granted. [To Northumberland] You, my lord,\n    Your son in Scotland being thus employ'd,\n    Shall secretly into the bosom creep\n    Of that same noble prelate well-belov'd,\n    The Archbishop.\n  Hot. Of York, is it not?\n  Wor. True; who bears hard\n    His brother's death at Bristow, the Lord Scroop.\n    I speak not this in estimation,\n    As what I think might be, but what I know\n    Is ruminated, plotted, and set down,\n    And only stays but to behold the face\n    Of that occasion that shall bring it on.\n  Hot. I smell it. Upon my life, it will do well.\n  North. Before the game is afoot thou still let'st slip.\n  Hot. Why, it cannot choose but be a noble plot.\n    And then the power of Scotland and of York\n    To join with Mortimer, ha?\n  Wor. And so they shall.\n  Hot. In faith, it is exceedingly well aim'd.\n  Wor. And 'tis no little reason bids us speed,\n    To save our heads by raising of a head;\n    For, bear ourselves as even as we can,\n    The King will always think him in our debt,\n    And think we think ourselves unsatisfied,\n    Till he hath found a time to pay us home.\n    And see already how he doth begin\n    To make us strangers to his looks of love.\n  Hot. He does, he does! We'll be reveng'd on him.\n  Wor. Cousin, farewell. No further go in this\n    Than I by letters shall direct your course.\n    When time is ripe, which will be suddenly,\n    I'll steal to Glendower and Lord Mortimer,\n    Where you and Douglas, and our pow'rs at once,\n    As I will fashion it, shall happily meet,\n    To bear our fortunes in our own strong arms,\n    Which now we hold at much uncertainty.\n  North. Farewell, good brother. We shall thrive, I trust.\n  Hot. Uncle, adieu. O, let the hours be short\n    Till fields and blows and groans applaud our sport!\nExeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. Scene I.\nRochester. An inn yard.\n\nEnter a Carrier with a lantern in his hand.\n\n  1. Car. Heigh-ho! an it be not four by the day, I'll be hang'd.\n    Charles' wain is over the new chimney, and yet our horse not\n    pack'd.- What, ostler!\n  Ost. [within] Anon, anon.\n  1. Car. I prithee, Tom, beat Cut's saddle, put a few flocks in\nthe\n    point. Poor jade is wrung in the withers out of all cess.\n\n                        Enter another Carrier.\n\n  2. Car. Peas and beans are as dank here as a dog, and that is\nthe\n    next way to give poor jades the bots. This house is turned\nupside\n    down since Robin Ostler died.\n  1. Car. Poor fellow never joyed since the price of oats rose.\nIt\n    was the death of him.\n  2. Car. I think this be the most villanous house in all London\nroad\n    for fleas. I am stung like a tench.\n  1. Car. Like a tench I By the mass, there is ne'er a king\nchristen\n    could be better bit than I have been since the first cock.\n  2. Car. Why, they will allow us ne'er a jordan, and then we\nleak in\n    your chimney, and your chamber-lye breeds fleas like a loach.\n  1. Car. What, ostler! come away and be hang'd! come away!\n  2. Car. I have a gammon of bacon and two razes of ginger, to be\n    delivered as far as Charing Cross.\n  1. Car. God's body! the turkeys in my pannier are quite\nstarved.\n    What, ostler! A plague on thee! hast thou never an eye in thy\n    head? Canst not hear? An 'twere not as good deed as drink to\n    break the pate on thee, I am a very villain. Come, and be\nhang'd!\n    Hast no faith in thee?\n\n                           Enter Gadshill.\n\n  Gads. Good morrow, carriers. What's o'clock?\n  1. Car. I think it be two o'clock.\n  Gads. I prithee lend me this lantern to see my gelding in the\n    stable.\n  1. Car. Nay, by God, soft! I know a trick worth two of that,\n    i' faith.\n  Gads. I pray thee lend me thine.\n  2. Car. Ay, when? canst tell? Lend me thy lantern, quoth he?\nMarry,\n    I'll see thee hang'd first!\n  Gads. Sirrah carrier, what time do you mean to come to London?\n  2. Car. Time enough to go to bed with a candle, I warrant thee.\n    Come, neighbour Mugs, we'll call up the gentlemen. They will\n    along with company, for they have great charge.\n                                              Exeunt [Carriers].\n  Gads. What, ho! chamberlain!\n\n                            Enter Chamberlain.\n\n  Cham. At hand, quoth pickpurse.\n  Gads. That's even as fair as- 'at hand, quoth the chamberlain';\nfor\n    thou variest no more from picking of purses than giving\ndirection\n    doth from labouring: thou layest the plot how.\n  Cham. Good morrow, Master Gadshill. It holds current that I\ntold\n    you yesternight. There's a franklin in the Wild of Kent hath\n    brought three hundred marks with him in gold. I heard him\ntell it\n    to one of his company last night at supper- a kind of\nauditor;\n    one that hath abundance of charge too, God knows what. They\nare\n    up already and call for eggs and butter. They will away\n    presently.\n  Gads. Sirrah, if they meet not with Saint Nicholas' clerks,\nI'll\n    give thee this neck.\n  Cham. No, I'll none of it. I pray thee keep that for the\nhangman;\n    for I know thou worshippest Saint Nicholas as truly as a man\nof\n    falsehood may.\n  Gads. What talkest thou to me of the hangman? If I hang, I'll\nmake\n    a fat pair of gallows; for if I hang, old Sir John hangs with\nme,\n    and thou knowest he is no starveling. Tut! there are other\n    Troyans that thou dream'st not of, the which for sport sake\nare\n    content to do the profession some grace; that would (if\nmatters\n    should be look'd into) for their own credit sake make all\nwhole.\n    I am joined with no foot land-rakers, no long-staff sixpenny\n    strikers, none of these mad mustachio purple-hued maltworms;\nbut\n    with nobility, and tranquillity, burgomasters and great\noneyers,\n    such as can hold in, such as will strike sooner than speak,\nand\n    speak sooner than drink, and drink sooner than pray; and yet,\n    zounds, I lie; for they pray continually to their saint, the\n\n    commonwealth, or rather, not pray to her, but prey on her,\nfor\n    they ride up and down on her and make her their boots.\n  Cham. What, the commonwealth their boots? Will she hold out\nwater\n    in foul way?\n  Gads. She will, she will! Justice hath liquor'd her. We steal\nas in\n    a castle, cocksure. We have the receipt of fernseed, we walk\n    invisible.\n  Cham. Nay, by my faith, I think you are more beholding to the\nnight\n    than to fernseed for your walking invisible.\n  Gads. Give me thy hand. Thou shalt have a share in our\npurchase, as\n    I and a true man.\n  Cham. Nay, rather let me have it, as you are a false thief.\n  Gads. Go to; 'homo' is a common name to all men. Bid the ostler\n    bring my gelding out of the stable. Farewell, you muddy\nknave.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nThe highway near Gadshill.\n\nEnter Prince and Poins.\n\n  Poins. Come, shelter, shelter! I have remov'd Falstaff's horse,\nand\n    he frets like a gumm'd velvet.\n  Prince. Stand close.                        [They step aside.]\n\n                             Enter Falstaff.\n\n  Fal. Poins! Poins, and be hang'd! Poins!\n  Prince. I comes forward I Peace, ye fat-kidney'd rascal! What a\n    brawling dost thou keep!\n  Fal. Where's Poins, Hal?\n  Prince. He is walk'd up to the top of the hill. I'll go seek\nhim.\n                                                  [Steps aside.]\n  Fal. I am accurs'd to rob in that thief's company. The rascal\nhath\n    removed my horse and tied him I know not where. If I travel\nbut\n    four foot by the squire further afoot, I shall break my wind.\n    Well, I doubt not but to die a fair death for all this, if I\n    scape hanging for killing that rogue. I have forsworn his\ncompany\n    hourly any time this two-and-twenty years, and yet I am\nbewitch'd\n    with the rogue's company. If the rascal have not given me\n    medicines to make me love him, I'll be hang'd. It could not\nbe\n    else. I have drunk medicines. Poins! Hal! A plague upon you\nboth!\n    Bardolph! Peto! I'll starve ere I'll rob a foot further. An\n    'twere not as good a deed as drink to turn true man and to\nleave\n    these rogues, I am the veriest varlet that ever chewed with a\n    tooth. Eight yards of uneven ground is threescore and ten\nmiles\n    afoot with me, and the stony-hearted villains know it well\n    enough. A plague upon it when thieves cannot be true one to\n    another! (They whistle.) Whew! A plague upon you all! Give me\nmy\n    horse, you rogues! give me my horse and be hang'd!\n  Prince. [comes forward] Peace, ye fat-guts! Lie down, lay thine\near\n    close to the ground, and list if thou canst hear the tread of\n    travellers.\n  Fal. Have you any levers to lift me up again, being down?\n'Sblood,\n    I'll not bear mine own flesh so far afoot again for all the\ncoin\n    in thy father's exchequer. What a plague mean ye to colt me\nthus?\n  Prince. Thou liest; thou art not colted, thou art uncolted.\n  Fal. I prithee, good Prince Hal, help me to my horse, good\nking's\n    son.\n  Prince. Out, ye rogue! Shall I be your ostler?\n  Fal. Go hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent garters! If I\nbe\n    ta'en, I'll peach for this. An I have not ballads made on you\n    all, and sung to filthy tunes, let a cup of sack be my\npoison.\n    When a jest is so forward- and afoot too- I hate it.\n\n             Enter Gadshill, [Bardolph and Peto with him].\n\n  Gads. Stand!\n  Fal. So I do, against my will.\n  Poins. [comes fortward] O, 'tis our setter. I know his voice.\n    Bardolph, what news?\n  Bar. Case ye, case ye! On with your vizards! There's money of\nthe\n    King's coming down the hill; 'tis going to the King's\nexchequer.\n  Fal. You lie, ye rogue! 'Tis going to the King's tavern.\n  Gads. There's enough to make us all.\n  Fal. To be hang'd.\n  Prince. Sirs, you four shall front them in the narrow lane; Ned\n    Poins and I will walk lower. If they scape from your\nencounter,\n    then they light on us.\n  Peto. How many be there of them?\n  Gads. Some eight or ten.\n  Fal. Zounds, will they not rob us?\n  Prince. What, a coward, Sir John Paunch?\n  Fal. Indeed, I am not John of Gaunt, your grandfather; but yet\nno\n    coward, Hal.\n  Prince. Well, we leave that to the proof.\n  Poins. Sirrah Jack, thy horse stands behind the hedge. When\nthou\n    need'st him, there thou shalt find him. Farewell and stand\nfast.\n  Fal. Now cannot I strike him, if I should be hang'd.\n  Prince. [aside to Poins] Ned, where are our disguises?\n  Poins. [aside to Prince] Here, hard by. Stand close.\n                                      [Exeunt Prince and Poins.]\n  Fal. Now, my masters, happy man be his dole, say I. Every man\nto\n    his business.\n\n                         Enter the Travellers.\n\n  Traveller. Come, neighbour.\n    The boy shall lead our horses down the hill;\n    We'll walk afoot awhile and ease our legs.\n  Thieves. Stand!\n  Traveller. Jesus bless us!\n  Fal. Strike! down with them! cut the villains' throats! Ah,\n    whoreson caterpillars! bacon-fed knaves! they hate us youth.\nDown\n    with them! fleece them!\n  Traveller. O, we are undone, both we and ours for ever!\n  Fal. Hang ye, gorbellied knaves, are ye undone? No, ye fat\nchuffs;\n    I would your store were here! On, bacons on! What, ye knaves!\n    young men must live. You are grandjurors, are ye? We'll jure\nye,\n    faith!\n                            Here they rob and bind them. Exeunt.\n\n            Enter the Prince and Poins [in buckram suits].\n\n  Prince. The thieves have bound the true men. Now could thou and\nI\n    rob the thieves and go merrily to London, it would be\nargument\n    for a week, laughter for a month, and a good jest for ever.\n  Poins. Stand close! I hear them coming.\n                                             [They stand aside.]\n\n                       Enter the Thieves again.\n\n  Fal. Come, my masters, let us share, and then to horse before\nday.\n    An the Prince and Poins be not two arrant cowards, there's no\n    equity stirring. There's no more valour in that Poins than in\na\n    wild duck.\n\n        [As they are sharing, the Prince and Poins set upon\n        them. THey all run away, and Falstaff, after a blow or\n        two, runs awasy too, leaving the booty behind them.]\n\n  Prince. Your money!\n  Poins. Villains!\n\n  Prince. Got with much ease. Now merrily to horse.\n    The thieves are scattered, and possess'd with fear\n    So strongly that they dare not meet each other.\n    Each takes his fellow for an officer.\n    Away, good Ned. Falstaff sweats to death\n    And lards the lean earth as he walks along.\n    Were't not for laughing, I should pity him.\n  Poins. How the rogue roar'd!                           Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nWarkworth Castle.\n\nEnter Hotspur solus, reading a letter.\n\n  Hot. 'But, for mine own part, my lord, I could be well\ncontented to\n    be there, in respect of the love I bear your house.' He could\nbe\n    contented- why is he not then? In respect of the love he\nbears\n    our house! He shows in this he loves his own barn better than\nhe\n    loves our house. Let me see some more. 'The purpose you\nundertake\n    is dangerous'- Why, that's certain! 'Tis dangerous to take a\n    cold, to sleep, to drink; but I tell you, my lord fool, out\nof\n    this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety. 'The\npurpose\n    you undertake is dangerous, the friends you have named\nuncertain,\n    the time itself unsorted, and your whole plot too light for\nthe\n    counterpoise of so great an opposition.' Say you so, say you\nso?\n    I say unto you again, you are a shallow, cowardly hind, and\nyou\n    lie. What a lack-brain is this! By the Lord, our plot is a\ngood\n    plot as ever was laid; our friends true and constant: a good\n    plot, good friends, and full of expectation; an excellent\nplot,\n    very good friends. What a frosty-spirited rogue is this! Why,\nmy\n    Lord of York commends the plot and the general course of the\n\n    action. Zounds, an I were now by this rascal, I could brain\nhim\n    with his lady's fan. Is there not my father, my uncle, and\n    myself; Lord Edmund Mortimer, my Lord of York, and Owen\n    Glendower? Is there not, besides, the Douglas? Have I not all\n    their letters to meet me in arms by the ninth of the next\nmonth,\n    and are they not some of them set forward already? What a\npagan\n    rascal is this! an infidel! Ha! you shall see now, in very\n    sincerity of fear and cold heart will he to the King and lay\nopen\n    all our proceedings. O, I could divide myself and go to\nbuffets\n    for moving such a dish of skim milk with so honourable an\naction!\n    Hang him, let him tell the King! we are prepared. I will set\n    forward to-night.\n\n                         Enter his Lady.\n\n    How now, Kate? I must leave you within these two hours.\n  Lady. O my good lord, why are you thus alone?\n    For what offence have I this fortnight been\n    A banish'd woman from my Harry's bed,\n    Tell me, sweet lord, what is't that takes from thee\n    Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep?\n    Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth,\n    And start so often when thou sit'st alone?\n    Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks\n    And given my treasures and my rights of thee\n    To thick-ey'd musing and curs'd melancholy?\n    In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watch'd,\n    And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars,\n    Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed,\n    Cry 'Courage! to the field!' And thou hast talk'd\n    Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tent,\n    Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets,\n    Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin,\n    Of prisoners' ransom, and of soldiers slain,\n    And all the currents of a heady fight.\n    Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war,\n    And thus hath so bestirr'd thee in thy sleep,\n    That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow\n    Like bubbles ill a late-disturbed stream,\n    And in thy face strange motions have appear'd,\n    Such as we see when men restrain their breath\n    On some great sudden hest. O, what portents are these?\n    Some heavy business hath my lord in hand,\n    And I must know it, else he loves me not.\n  Hot. What, ho!\n\n                    [Enter a Servant.]\n\n    Is Gilliams with the packet gone?\n  Serv. He is, my lord, an hour ago.\n  Hot. Hath Butler brought those horses from the sheriff?\n  Serv. One horse, my lord, he brought even now.\n  Hot. What horse? A roan, a crop-ear, is it not?\n  Serv. It is, my lord.\n  Hot. That roan shall be my throne.\n    Well, I will back him straight. O esperance!\n    Bid Butler lead him forth into the park.\n                                                 [Exit Servant.]\n  Lady. But hear you, my lord.\n  Hot. What say'st thou, my lady?\n  Lady. What is it carries you away?\n  Hot. Why, my horse, my love- my horse!\n  Lady. Out, you mad-headed ape!\n    A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen\n    As you are toss'd with. In faith,\n    I'll know your business, Harry; that I will!\n    I fear my brother Mortimer doth stir\n    About his title and hath sent for you\n    To line his enterprise; but if you go-\n  Hot. So far afoot, I shall be weary, love.\n  Lady. Come, come, you paraquito, answer me\n    Directly unto this question that I ask.\n    I'll break thy little finger, Harry,\n    An if thou wilt not tell my all things true.\n  Hot. Away.\n    Away, you trifler! Love? I love thee not;\n    I care not for thee, Kate. This is no world\n    To play with mammets and to tilt with lips.\n    We must have bloody noses and crack'd crowns,\n    And pass them current too. Gods me, my horse!\n    What say'st thou, Kate? What wouldst thou have with me?\n  Lady. Do you not love me? do you not indeed?\n    Well, do not then; for since you love me not,\n    I will not love myself. Do you not love me?\n    Nay, tell me if you speak in jest or no.\n  Hot. Come, wilt thou see me ride?\n    And when I am a-horseback, I will swear\n    I love thee infinitely. But hark you. Kate:\n    I must not have you henceforth question me\n    Whither I go, nor reason whereabout.\n    Whither I must, I must; and to conclude,\n    This evening must I leave you, gentle Kate.\n    I know you wise; but yet no farther wise\n    Than Harry Percy's wife; constant you are,\n    But yet a woman; and for secrecy,\n    No lady closer, for I well believe\n    Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know,\n    And so far will I trust thee, gentle Kate.\n  Lady. How? so far?\n  Hot. Not an inch further. But hark you, Kate:\n    Whither I go, thither shall you go too;\n    To-day will I set forth, to-morrow you.\n    Will this content you, Kate,?\n  Lady. It must of force.                                Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nEastcheap. The Boar's Head Tavern.\n\nEnter Prince and Poins.\n\n  Prince. Ned, prithee come out of that fat-room and lend me thy\nhand\n    to laugh a little.\n  Poins. Where hast been, Hal?\n    Prince,. With three or four loggerheads amongst three or\n    fourscore hogsheads. I have sounded the very bass-string of\n    humility. Sirrah, I am sworn brother to a leash of drawers\nand\n    can call them all by their christen names, as Tom, Dick, and\n    Francis. They take it already upon their salvation that,\nthough\n    I be but Prince of Wales, yet I am the king of courtesy; and\ntell\n    me flatly I am no proud Jack like Falstaff, but a Corinthian,\na\n    lad of mettle, a good boy (by the Lord, so they call me!),\nand\n    when I am King of England I shall command all the good lads\n    Eastcheap. They call drinking deep, dying scarlet; and when\n    you breathe in your watering, they cry 'hem!' and bid you\nplay it\n    off. To conclude, I am so good a proficient in one quarter of\nan\n    hour that I can drink with any tinker in his own language\nduring\n    my life. I tell thee, Ned, thou hast lost much honour that\nthou\n    wert not with me in this action. But, sweet Ned- to sweeten\nwhich\n    name of Ned, I give thee this pennyworth of sugar, clapp'd\neven\n    now into my hand by an under-skinker, one that never spake\nother\n    English in his life than 'Eight shillings and sixpence,' and\n'You\n    are welcome,' with this shrill addition, 'Anon, anon, sir!\nScore\n    a pint of bastard in the Half-moon,' or so- but, Ned, to\ndrive\n    away the time till Falstaff come, I prithee do thou stand in\nsome\n    by-room while I question my puny drawer to what end be gave\nme\n    the sugar; and do thou never leave calling 'Francis!' that\nhis\n    tale to me may be nothing but 'Anon!' Step aside, and I'll\nshow\n    thee a precedent.\n  Poins. Francis!\n  Prince. Thou art perfect.\n  Poins. Francis!                                  [Exit Poins.]\n\n                    Enter [Francis, a] Drawer.\n\n  Fran. Anon, anon, sir.- Look down into the Pomgarnet, Ralph.\n  Prince. Come hither, Francis.\n  Fran. My lord?\n  Prince. How long hast thou to serve, Francis?\n  Fran. Forsooth, five years, and as much as to-\n  Poins. [within] Francis!\n  Fran. Anon, anon, sir.\n  Prince. Five year! by'r Lady, a long lease for the clinking of\n    Pewter. But, Francis, darest thou be so valiant as to play\nthe\n    coward with thy indenture and show it a fair pair of heels\nand\n    run from it?\n  Fran. O Lord, sir, I'll be sworn upon all the books in England\nI\n    could find in my heart-\n  Poins. [within] Francis!\n  Fran. Anon, sir.\n  Prince. How old art thou, Francis?\n  Fran. Let me see. About Michaelmas next I shall be-\n  Poins. [within] Francis!\n  Fran. Anon, sir. Pray stay a little, my lord.\n  Prince. Nay, but hark you, Francis. For the sugar thou gavest\nme-\n    'twas a pennyworth, wast not?\n  Fran. O Lord! I would it had been two!\n  Prince. I will give thee for it a thousand pound. Ask me when\nthou\n    wilt, and, thou shalt have it.\n  Poins. [within] Francis!\n  Fran. Anon, anon.\n  Prince. Anon, Francis? No, Francis; but to-morrow, Francis; or,\n    Francis, a Thursday; or indeed, Francis, when thou wilt. But\n    Francis-\n  Fran. My lord?\n  Prince. Wilt thou rob this leathern-jerkin, crystal-button,\n    not-pated, agate-ring, puke-stocking, caddis-garter,\n    smooth-tongue, Spanish-pouch-\n  Fran. O Lord, sir, who do you mean?\n  Prince. Why then, your brown bastard is your only drink; for\nlook\n    you, Francis, your white canvas doublet will sully. In\nBarbary,\n    sir, it cannot come to so much.\n  Fran. What, sir?\n  Poins. [within] Francis!\n  Prince. Away, you rogue! Dost thou not hear them call?\n              Here they both call him. The Drawer stands amazed,\n                                    not knowing which way to go.\n\n                         Enter Vintner.\n\n  Vint. What, stand'st thou still, and hear'st such a calling?\nLook\n    to the guests within. [Exit Francis.] My lord, old Sir John,\nwith\n    half-a-dozen more, are at the door. Shall I let them in?\n  Prince. Let them alone awhile, and then open the door.\n                                                  [Exit Vintner.]\n    Poins!\n  Poins. [within] Anon, anon, sir.\n\n                          Enter Poins.\n\n  Prince. Sirrah, Falstaff and the rest of the thieves are at the\n    door. Shall we be merry?\n  Poins. As merry as crickets, my lad. But hark ye; what cunning\n    match have you made with this jest of the drawer? Come,\nwhat's\n    the issue?\n  Prince. I am now of all humours that have showed themselves\nhumours\n    since the old days of goodman Adam to the pupil age of this\n    present this twelve o'clock at midnight.\n\n                         [Enter Francis.]\n\n    What's o'clock, Francis?\n  Fran. Anon, anon, sir.                                 [Exit.]\n  Prince. That ever this fellow should have fewer words than a\n    parrot, and yet the son of a woman! His industry is upstairs\nand\n    downstairs, his eloquence the parcel of a reckoning. I am not\nyet\n    of Percy's mind, the Hotspur of the North; he that kills me\nsome\n    six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast, washes his hands,\nand\n    says to his wife, 'Fie upon this quiet life! I want work.' 'O\nmy\n    sweet Harry,' says she, 'how many hast thou  kill'd to-day?'\n    'Give my roan horse a drench,' says he, and answers 'Some\n    fourteen,' an hour after, 'a trifle, a trifle.' I prithee\ncall in\n    Falstaff. I'll play Percy, and that damn'd brawn shall play\nDame\n    Mortimer his wife. 'Rivo!' says the drunkard. Call in ribs,\ncall\n    in tallow.\n\n           Enter Falstaff, [Gadshill, Bardolph, and Peto;\n                   Francis follows with wine].\n\n  Poins. Welcome, Jack. Where hast thou been?\n  Fal. A plague of all cowards, I say, and a vengeance too! Marry\nand\n    amen! Give me a cup of sack, boy. Ere I lead this life long,\nI'll\n    sew nether-stocks, and mend them and foot them too. A plague\nof\n    all cowards! Give me a cup of sack, rogue. Is there no virtue\n    extant?\n                                                    He drinketh.\n  Prince. Didst thou never see Titan kiss a dish of butter?\n    Pitiful-hearted butter, that melted at the sweet tale of the\nsun!\n    If thou didst, then behold that compound.\n  Fal. You rogue, here's lime in this sack too! There is nothing\nbut\n    roguery to be found in villanous man. Yet a coward is worse\nthan\n    a cup of sack with lime in it- a villanous coward! Go thy\nways,\n    old Jack, die when thou wilt; if manhood, good manhood, be\nnot\n    forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I a shotten\nherring.\n    There lives not three good men unhang'd in England; and one\nof\n    them is fat, and grows old. God help the while! A bad world,\nI\n    say. I would I were a weaver; I could sing psalms or\nanything. A\n    plague of all cowards I say still!\n  Prince. How now, woolsack? What mutter you?\n  Fal. A king's son! If I do not beat thee out of thy kingdom\nwith a\n    dagger of lath and drive all thy subjects afore thee like a\nflock\n    of wild geese, I'll never wear hair on my face more. You\nPrince\n    of Wales?\n  Prince. Why, you whoreson round man, what's the matter?\n  Fal. Are not you a coward? Answer me to that- and Poins there?\n  Poins. Zounds, ye fat paunch, an ye call me coward, by the\n    Lord, I'll stab thee.\n  Fal. I call thee coward? I'll see thee damn'd ere I call thee\n    coward, but I would give a thousand pound I could run as fast\nas\n    thou canst. You are straight enough in the shoulders; you\ncare\n    not who sees Your back. Call you that backing of your\nfriends? A\n    plague upon such backing! Give me them that will face me.\nGive me\n    a cup of sack. I am a rogue if I drunk to-day.\n  Prince. O villain! thy lips are scarce wip'd since thou\ndrunk'st\n    last.\n  Fal. All is one for that. (He drinketh.) A plague of all\ncowards\n    still say I.\n  Prince. What's the matter?\n  Fal. What's the matter? There be four of us here have ta'en a\n    thousand pound this day morning.\n  Prince. Where is it, Jack? Where is it?\n  Fal. Where is it, Taken from us it is. A hundred upon poor four\nof\n    us!\n  Prince. What, a hundred, man?\n  Fal. I am a rogue if I were not at half-sword with a dozen of\nthem\n    two hours together. I have scap'd by miracle. I am eight\ntimes\n    thrust through the doublet, four through the hose; my buckler\ncut\n    through and through; my sword hack'd like a handsaw- ecce\nsignum!\n    I never dealt better since I was a man. All would not do. A\n    plague of all cowards! Let them speak, If they speak more or\nless\n    than truth, they are villains and the sons of darkness.\n  Prince. Speak, sirs. How was it?\n  Gads. We four set upon some dozen-\n  Fal. Sixteen at least, my lord.\n  Gads. And bound them.\n  Peto. No, no, they were not bound.\n  Fal. You rogue, they were bound, every man of them, or I am a\nJew\n    else- an Ebrew Jew.\n  Gads. As we were sharing, some six or seven fresh men sea upon\nus-\n  Fal. And unbound the rest, and then come in the other.\n  Prince. What, fought you with them all?\n  Fal. All? I know not what you call all, but if I fought not\nwith\n    fifty of them, I am a bunch of radish! If there were not two\nor\n    three and fifty upon poor old Jack, then am I no two-legg'd\n    creature.\n  Prince. Pray God you have not murd'red some of them.\n  Fal. Nay, that's past praying for. I have pepper'd two of them.\nTwo\n    I am sure I have paid, two rogues in buckram suits. I tell\nthee\n    what, Hal- if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face, call me\nhorse.\n    Thou knowest my old ward. Here I lay, and thus I bore my\npoint.\n    Four rogues in buckram let drive at me.\n  Prince. What, four? Thou saidst but two even now.\n  Fal. Four, Hal. I told thee four.\n  Poins. Ay, ay, he said four.\n  Fal. These four came all afront and mainly thrust at me. I made\nme\n    no more ado but took all their seven points in my target,\nthus.\n  Prince. Seven? Why, there were but four even now.\n  Fal. In buckram?\n  Poins. Ay, four, in buckram suits.\n  Fal. Seven, by these hilts, or I am a villain else.\n  Prince. [aside to Poins] Prithee let him alone. We shall have\nmore\n    anon.\n  Fal. Dost thou hear me, Hal?\n  Prince. Ay, and mark thee too, Jack.\n  Fal. Do so, for it is worth the list'ning to. These nine in\nbuckram\n    that I told thee of-\n  Prince. So, two more already.\n  Fal. Their points being broken-\n  Poins. Down fell their hose.\n  Fal. Began to give me ground; but I followed me close, came in,\n    foot and hand, and with a thought seven of the eleven I paid.\n  Prince. O monstrous! Eleven buckram men grown out of two!\n  Fal. But, as the devil would have it, three misbegotten knaves\nin\n    Kendal green came at my back and let drive at me; for it was\nso\n    dark, Hal, that thou couldst not see thy hand.\n  Prince. These lies are like their father that begets them-\ngross as\n    a mountain, open, palpable. Why, thou clay-brain'd guts, thou\n    knotty-pated fool, thou whoreson obscene greasy tallow-catch-\n  Fal. What, art thou mad? art thou mad? Is not the truth the\ntruth?\n  Prince. Why, how couldst thou know these men in Kendal green\nwhen\n    it was so dark thou couldst not see thy hand? Come, tell us\nyour\n    reason. What sayest thou to this?\n  Poins. Come, your reason, Jack, your reason.\n  Fal. What, upon compulsion? Zounds, an I were at the strappado\nor\n    all the racks in the world, I would not tell you on\ncompulsion.\n    Give you a reason on compulsion? If reasons were as plentiful\nas\n    blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion,\nI.\n  Prince. I'll be no longer guilty, of this sin; this sanguine\n    coward, this bed-presser, this horseback-breaker, this huge\nhill\n    of flesh-\n  Fal. 'Sblood, you starveling, you elf-skin, you dried\n    neat's-tongue, you bull's sizzle, you stockfish- O for breath\nto\n    utter what is like thee!- you tailor's yard, you sheath, you\n    bowcase, you vile standing tuck!\n  Prince. Well, breathe awhile, and then to it again; and when\nthou\n    hast tired thyself in base comparisons, hear me speak but\nthis.\n  Poins. Mark, Jack.\n  Prince. We two saw you four set on four, and bound them and\nwere\n    masters of their wealth. Mark now how a plain tale shall put\nyou\n    down. Then did we two set on you four and, with a word,\noutfac'd\n    you from your prize, and have it; yea, and can show it you\nhere\n    in the house. And, Falstaff, you carried your guts away as\n    nimbly, with as quick dexterity, and roar'd for mercy, and\nstill\n    run and roar'd, as ever I heard bullcalf. What a slave art\nthou\n    to hack thy sword as thou hast done, and then say it was in\n    fight! What trick, what device, what starting hole canst thou\nnow\n    find out to hide thee from this open and apparent shame?\n  Poins. Come, let's hear, Jack. What trick hast thou now?\n  Fal. By the Lord, I knew ye as well as he that made ye. Why,\nhear\n    you, my masters. Was it for me to kill the heir apparent?\nShould\n    I turn upon the true prince? Why, thou knowest I am as\nvaliant as\n    Hercules; but beware instinct. The lion will not touch the\ntrue\n    prince. Instinct is a great matter. I was now a coward on\n    instinct. I shall think the better of myself, and thee,\nduring my\n    life- I for a valiant lion, and thou for a true prince. But,\nby\n    the Lord, lads, I am glad you have the money. Hostess, clap\nto\n    the doors. Watch to-night, pray to-morrow. Gallants, lads,\nboys,\n    hearts of gold, all the titles of good fellowship come to\nyou!\n    What, shall we be merry? Shall we have a play extempore?\n  Prince. Content- and the argument shall be thy running away.\n  Fal. Ah, no more of that, Hal, an thou lovest me!\n\n                             Enter Hostess.\n\n  Host. O Jesu, my lord the Prince!\n  Prince. How now, my lady the hostess? What say'st thou to me?\n  Host. Marry, my lord, there is a nobleman of the court at door\n    would speak with you. He says he comes from your father.\n  Prince. Give him as much as will make him a royal man, and send\nhim\n    back again to my mother.\n  Fal. What manner of man is he?\n  Host. An old man.\n  Fal. What doth gravity out of his bed at midnight? Shall I give\nhim\n    his answer?\n  Prince. Prithee do, Jack.\n  Fal. Faith, and I'll send him packing.\nExit.\n  Prince. Now, sirs. By'r Lady, you fought fair; so did you,\nPeto; so\n    did you, Bardolph. You are lions too, you ran away upon\ninstinct,\n    you will not touch the true prince; no- fie!\n  Bard. Faith, I ran when I saw others run.\n  Prince. Tell me now in earnest, how came Falstaff's sword so\n    hack'd?\n  Peto. Why, he hack'd it with his dagger, and said he would\nswear\n    truth out of England but he would make you believe it was\ndone in\n    fight, and persuaded us to do the like.\n  Bard. Yea, and to tickle our noses with speargrass to make them\n    bleed, and then to beslubber our garments with it and swear\nit\n    was the blood of true men. I did that I did not this seven\nyear\n    before- I blush'd to hear his monstrous devices.\n  Prince. O villain! thou stolest a cup of sack eighteen years\nago\n    and wert taken with the manner, and ever since thou hast\nblush'd\n    extempore. Thou hadst fire and sword on thy side, and yet\nthou\n    ran'st away. What instinct hadst thou for it?\n  Bard. My lord, do you see these meteors? Do you behold these\n    exhalations?\n  Prince. I do.\n  Bard. What think you they portend?\n  Prince. Hot livers and cold purses.\n  Bard. Choler, my lord, if rightly taken.\n  Prince. No, if rightly taken, halter.\n\n                         Enter Falstaff.\n\n    Here comes lean Jack; here comes bare-bone. How now, my sweet\n    creature of bombast? How long is't ago, Jack, since thou\nsawest\n    thine own knee?\n  Fal. My own knee? When I was about thy years, Hal, I was not an\n    eagle's talent in the waist; I could have crept into any\n    alderman's thumb-ring. A plague of sighing and grief! It\nblows a\n    man up like a bladder. There's villanous news abroad. Here\nwas\n    Sir John Bracy from your father. You must to the court in the\n    morning. That same mad fellow of the North, Percy, and he of\n    Wales that gave Amamon the bastinado, and made Lucifer\ncuckold,\n    and swore the devil his true liegeman upon the cross of a\nWelsh\n    hook- what a plague call you him?\n  Poins. O, Glendower.\n  Fal. Owen, Owen- the same; and his son-in-law Mortimer, and old\n    Northumberland, and that sprightly Scot of Scots, Douglas,\nthat\n    runs a-horseback up a hill perpendicular-\n  Prince. He that rides at high speed and with his pistol kills a\n    sparrow flying.\n  Fal. You have hit it.\n  Prince. So did he never the sparrow.\n  Fal. Well, that rascal hath good metal in him; he will not run.\n  Prince. Why, what a rascal art thou then, to praise him so for\n    running!\n  Fal. A-horseback, ye cuckoo! but afoot he will not budge a\nfoot.\n  Prince. Yes, Jack, upon instinct.\n  Fal. I grant ye, upon instinct. Well, he is there too, and one\n    Mordake, and a thousand bluecaps more. Worcester is stol'n\naway\n    to-night; thy father's beard is turn'd white with the news;\nyou\n    may buy land now as cheap as stinking mack'rel.\n  Prince. Why then, it is like, if there come a hot June, and\nthis\n    civil buffeting hold, we shall buy maidenheads as they buy\n    hobnails, by the hundreds.\n  Fal. By the mass, lad, thou sayest true; it is like we shall\nhave\n    good trading that way. But tell me, Hal, art not thou\nhorrible\n    afeard? Thou being heir apparent, could the world pick thee\nout\n    three such enemies again as that fiend Douglas, that spirit\n    Percy, and that devil Glendower? Art thou not horribly\nafraid?\n    Doth not thy blood thrill at it?\n  Prince. Not a whit, i' faith. I lack some of thy instinct.\n  Fal. Well, thou wilt be horribly chid to-morrow when thou\ncomest to\n    thy father. If thou love file, practise an answer.\n  Prince. Do thou stand for my father and examine me upon the\n    particulars of my life.\n  Fal. Shall I? Content. This chair shall be my state, this\ndagger my\n    sceptre, and this cushion my, crown.\n  Prince. Thy state is taken for a join'd-stool, thy golden\nsceptre\n    for a leaden dagger, and thy precious rich crown for a\npitiful\n    bald crown.\n  Fal. Well, an the fire of grace be not quite out of thee, now\nshalt\n    thou be moved. Give me a cup of sack to make my eyes look\nred,\n    that it may be thought I have wept; for I must speak in\npassion,\n    and I will do it in King Cambyses' vein.\n  Prince. Well, here is my leg.\n  Fal. And here is my speech. Stand aside, nobility.\n  Host. O Jesu, this is excellent sport, i' faith!\n  Fal. Weep not, sweet queen, for trickling tears are vain.\n  Host. O, the Father, how he holds his countenance!\n  Fal. For God's sake, lords, convey my tristful queen!\n    For tears do stop the floodgates of her eyes.\n  Host. O Jesu, he doth it as like one of these harlotry players\nas\n    ever I see!\n  Fal. Peace, good pintpot. Peace, good tickle-brain.- Harry, I\ndo\n    not only marvel where thou spendest thy time, but also how\nthou\n    art accompanied. For though the camomile, the more it is\ntrodden\n    on, the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted,\nthe\n    sooner it wears. That thou art my son I have partly thy\nmother's\n    word, partly my own opinion, but chiefly a villanous trick of\n    thine eye and a foolish hanging of thy nether lip that doth\n    warrant me. If then thou be son to me, here lies the point:\nwhy,\n    being son to me, art thou so pointed at? Shall the blessed\nsun of\n    heaven prove a micher and eat blackberries? A question not to\nbe\n    ask'd. Shall the son of England prove a thief and take\npurses? A\n    question to be ask'd. There is a thing, Harry, which thou\nhast\n    often heard of, and it is known to many in our land by the\nname\n    of pitch. This pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth\ndefile;\n    so doth the company thou keepest. For, Harry, now I do not\nspeak\n    to thee in drink, but in tears; not in pleasure, but in\npassion;\n    not in words only, but in woes also: and yet there is a\nvirtuous\n    man whom I have often noted in thy company, but I know not\nhis\n    name.\n  Prince. What manner of man, an it like your Majesty?\n  Fal. A goodly portly man, i' faith, and a corpulent; of a\ncheerful\n    look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage; and, as I\nthink,\n    his age some fifty, or, by'r Lady, inclining to threescore;\nand\n    now I remember me, his name is Falstaff. If that man should\nbe\n    lewdly, given, he deceiveth me; for, Harry, I see virtue in\nhis\n    looks. If then the tree may be known by the fruit, as the\nfruit\n    by the tree, then, peremptorily I speak it, there is virtue\nin\n    that Falstaff. Him keep with, the rest banish. And tell me\nnow,\n    thou naughty varlet, tell me where hast thou been this month?\n  Prince. Dost thou speak like a king? Do thou stand for me, and\nI'll\n    play my father.\n  Fal. Depose me? If thou dost it half so gravely, so\nmajestically,\n    both in word and matter, hang me up by the heels for a\n    rabbit-sucker or a poulter's hare.\n  Prince. Well, here I am set.\n  Fal. And here I stand. Judge, my masters.\n  Prince. Now, Harry, whence come you?\n  Fal. My noble lord, from Eastcheap.\n  Prince. The complaints I hear of thee are grievous.\n  Fal. 'Sblood, my lord, they are false! Nay, I'll tickle ye for\na\n    young prince, i' faith.\n  Prince. Swearest thou, ungracious boy? Henceforth ne'er look on\nme.\n    Thou art violently carried away from grace. There is a devil\n    haunts thee in the likeness of an old fat man; a tun of man\nis\n    thy companion. Why dost thou converse with that trunk of\nhumours,\n    that bolting hutch of beastliness, that swoll'n parcel of\n    dropsies, that huge bombard of sack, that stuff'd cloakbag of\n    guts, that roasted Manningtree ox with the pudding in his\nbelly,\n    that reverend vice, that grey iniquity, that father ruffian,\nthat\n    vanity in years? Wherein is he good, but to taste sack and\ndrink\n    it? wherein neat and cleanly, but to carve a capon and eat\nit?\n    wherein cunning, but in craft? wherein crafty, but in\nvillany?\n    wherein villanous, but in all things? wherein worthy, but in\n    nothing?\n  Fal. I would your Grace would take me with you. Whom means your\n    Grace?\n  Prince. That villanous abominable misleader of youth, Falstaff,\n    that old white-bearded Satan.\n  Fal. My lord, the man I know.\n  Prince. I know thou dost.\n  Fal. But to say I know more harm in him than in myself were to\nsay\n    more than I know. That he is old (the more the pity) his\nwhite\n    hairs do witness it; but that he is (saving your reverence) a\n    whoremaster, that I utterly deny. If sack and sugar be a\nfault,\n    God help the wicked! If to be old and merry be a sin, then\nmany\n    an old host that I know is damn'd. If to be fat be to be\nhated,\n    then Pharaoh's lean kine are to be loved. No, my good lord.\n    Banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins; but for sweet\nJack\n    Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant\nJack\n    Falstaff, and therefore more valiant being, as he is, old\nJack\n    Falstaff, banish not him thy Harry's company, banish not him\nthy\n    Harry's company. Banish plump Jack, and banish all the world!\n  Prince. I do, I will.                      [A knocking heard.]\n                        [Exeunt Hostess, Francis, and Bardolph.]\n\n\n                     Enter Bardolph, running.\n\n  Bard. O, my lord, my lord! the sheriff with a most monstrous\nwatch\n    is at the door.\n  Fal. Out, ye rogue! Play out the play. I have much to say in\nthe\n    behalf of that Falstaff.\n\n                       Enter the Hostess.\n\n  Host. O Jesu, my lord, my lord!\n  Prince. Heigh, heigh, the devil rides upon a fiddlestick!\n    What's the matter?\n  Host. The sheriff and all the watch are at the door. They are\ncome\n    to search the house. Shall I let them in?\n  Fal. Dost thou hear, Hal? Never call a true piece of gold a\n    counterfeit. Thou art essentially mad without seeming so.\n  Prince. And thou a natural coward without instinct.\n  Fal. I deny your major. If you will deny the sheriff, so; if\nnot,\n    let him enter. If I become not a cart as well as another man,\na\n    plague on my bringing up! I hope I shall as soon be strangled\n    with a halter as another.\n  Prince. Go hide thee behind the arras. The rest walk, up above.\n    Now, my masters, for a true face and good conscience.\n  Fal. Both which I have had; but their date is out, and\ntherefore\n    I'll hide me.                                          Exit.\n  Prince. Call in the sheriff.\n                            [Exeunt Manent the Prince and Peto.]\n\n                    Enter Sheriff and the Carrier.\n\n    Now, Master Sheriff, what is your will with me?\n  Sher. First, pardon me, my lord. A hue and cry\n    Hath followed certain men unto this house.\n  Prince. What men?\n  Sher. One of them is well known, my gracious lord-\n    A gross fat man.\n  Carrier. As fat as butter.\n  Prince. The man, I do assure you, is not here,\n    For I myself at this time have employ'd him.\n    And, sheriff, I will engage my word to thee\n    That I will by to-morrow dinner time\n    Send him to answer thee, or any man,\n    For anything he shall be charg'd withal;\n    And so let me entreat you leave the house.\n  Sher. I will, my lord. There are two gentlemen\n    Have in this robbery lost three hundred marks.\n  Prince. It may be so. If he have robb'd these men,\n    He shall be answerable; and so farewell.\n  Sher. Good night, my noble lord.\n  Prince. I think it is good morrow, is it not?\n  Sher. Indeed, my lord, I think it be two o'clock.\n                                            Exit [with Carrier].\n  Prince. This oily rascal is known as well as Paul's. Go call\nhim\n    forth.\n  Peto. Falstaff! Fast asleep behind the arras, and snorting like\na\n    horse.\n  Prince. Hark how hard he fetches breath. Search his pockets.\n            He searcheth his pockets and findeth certain papers.\n    What hast thou found?\n  Peto. Nothing but papers, my lord.\n  Prince. Let's see whit they be. Read them.\n\n  Peto. [reads] 'Item. A capon. . . . . . . . . . . . .  ii s. ii\nd.\n                 Item, Sauce. . . . . . . . . . . . . .      iiii\nd.\n                 Item, Sack two gallons . . . . . . . . v s. viii\nd.\n                 Item, Anchovies and sack after supper.  ii s. vi\nd.\n                 Item, Bread. . . . . . . . . . . . . .\nob.'\n\n  Prince. O monstrous! but one halfpennyworth of bread to this\n    intolerable deal of sack! What there is else, keep close;\nwe'll\n    read it at more advantage. There let him sleep till day. I'll\nto\n    the court in the morning . We must all to the wars. and thy\nplace\n    shall be honourable. I'll procure this fat rogue a charge of\n    foot; and I know, his death will be a march of twelve score.\nThe\n    money shall be paid back again with advantage. Be with me\nbetimes\n    in the morning, and so good morrow, Peto.\n  Peto. Good morrow, good my lord.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. Scene I.\nBangor. The Archdeacon's house.\n\nEnter Hotspur, Worcester, Lord Mortimer, Owen Glendower.\n\n  Mort. These promises are fair, the parties sure,\n    And our induction full of prosperous hope.\n  Hot. Lord Mortimer, and cousin Glendower,\n    Will you sit down?\n    And uncle Worcester. A plague upon it!\n    I have forgot the map.\n  Glend. No, here it is.\n    Sit, cousin Percy; sit, good cousin Hotspur,\n    For by that name as oft as Lancaster\n    Doth speak of you, his cheek looks pale, and with\n    A rising sigh he wisheth you in heaven.\n  Hot. And you in hell, as oft as he hears\n    Owen Glendower spoke of.\n  Glend. I cannot blame him. At my nativity\n    The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes\n    Of burning cressets, and at my birth\n    The frame and huge foundation of the earth\n    Shak'd like a coward.\n  Hot. Why, so it would have done at the same season, if your\n    mother's cat had but kitten'd, though yourself had never been\n    born.\n  Glend. I say the earth did shake when I was born.\n  Hot. And I say the earth was not of my mind,\n    If you suppose as fearing you it shook.\n  Glend. The heavens were all on fire, the earth did tremble.\n  Hot. O, then the earth shook to see the heavens on fire,\n    And not in fear of your nativity.\n    Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth\n    In strange eruptions; oft the teeming earth\n    Is with a kind of colic pinch'd and vex'd\n    By the imprisoning of unruly wind\n    Within her womb, which, for enlargement striving,\n    Shakes the old beldame earth and topples down\n    Steeples and mossgrown towers. At your birth\n    Our grandam earth, having this distemp'rature,\n    In passion shook.\n  Glend. Cousin, of many men\n    I do not bear these crossings. Give me leave\n    To tell you once again that at my birth\n    The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,\n    The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds\n    Were strangely clamorous to the frighted fields.\n    These signs have mark'd me extraordinary,\n    And all the courses of my life do show\n    I am not in the roll of common men.\n    Where is he living, clipp'd in with the sea\n    That chides the banks of England, Scotland, Wales,\n    Which calls me pupil or hath read to me?\n    And bring him out that is but woman's son\n    Can trace me in the tedious ways of art\n    And hold me pace in deep experiments.\n  Hot. I think there's no man speaks better Welsh. I'll to\ndinner.\n  Mort. Peace, cousin Percy; you will make him mad.\n  Glend. I can call spirits from the vasty deep.\n  Hot. Why, so can I, or so can any man;\n    But will they come when you do call for them?\n  Glend. Why, I can teach you, cousin, to command the devil.\n  Hot. And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil-\n    By telling truth. Tell truth and shame the devil.\n    If thou have power to raise him, bring him hither,\n    And I'll be sworn I have power to shame him hence.\n    O, while you live, tell truth and shame the devil!\n  Mort. Come, come, no more of this unprofitable chat.\n  Glend. Three times hath Henry Bolingbroke made head\n    Against my power; thrice from the banks of Wye\n    And sandy-bottom'd Severn have I sent him\n    Bootless home and weather-beaten back.\n  Hot. Home without boots, and in foul weather too?\n    How scapes he agues, in the devil's name\n  Glend. Come, here's the map. Shall we divide our right\n    According to our threefold order ta'en?\n  Mort. The Archdeacon hath divided it\n    Into three limits very equally.\n    England, from Trent and Severn hitherto,\n    By south and east is to my part assign'd;\n    All westward, Wales beyond the Severn shore,\n    And all the fertile land within that bound,\n    To Owen Glendower; and, dear coz, to you\n    The remnant northward lying off from Trent.\n    And our indentures tripartite are drawn;\n    Which being sealed interchangeably\n    (A business that this night may execute),\n    To-morrow, cousin Percy, you and I\n    And my good Lord of Worcester will set forth\n    To meet your father and the Scottish bower,\n    As is appointed us, at Shrewsbury.\n    My father Glendower is not ready yet,\n    Nor shall we need his help these fourteen days.\n    [To Glend.] Within that space you may have drawn together\n    Your tenants, friends, and neighbouring gentlemen.\n  Glend. A shorter time shall send me to you, lords;\n    And in my conduct shall your ladies come,\n    From whom you now must steal and take no leave,\n    For there will be a world of water shed\n    Upon the parting of your wives and you.\n  Hot. Methinks my moiety, north from Burton here,\n    In quantity equals not one of yours.\n    See how this river comes me cranking in\n    And cuts me from the best of all my land\n    A huge half-moon, a monstrous cantle out.\n    I'll have the current ill this place damm'd up,\n    And here the smug and sliver Trent shall run\n    In a new channel fair and evenly.\n    It shall not wind with such a deep indent\n    To rob me of so rich a bottom here.\n  Glend. Not wind? It shall, it must! You see it doth.\n  Mort. Yea, but\n    Mark how he bears his course, and runs me up\n    With like advantage on the other side,\n    Gelding the opposed continent as much\n    As on the other side it takes from you.\n  Wor. Yea, but a little charge will trench him here\n    And on this north side win this cape of land;\n    And then he runs straight and even.\n  Hot. I'll have it so. A little charge will do it.\n  Glend. I will not have it alt'red.\n  Hot. Will not you?\n  Glend. No, nor you shall not.\n  Hot. Who shall say me nay?\n  Glend. No, that will I.\n  Hot. Let me not understand you then; speak it in Welsh.\n  Glend. I can speak English, lord, as well as you;\n    For I was train'd up in the English court,\n    Where, being but young, I framed to the harp\n    Many an English ditty lovely well,\n    And gave the tongue a helpful ornament-\n    A virtue that was never seen in you.\n  Hot. Marry,\n    And I am glad of it with all my heart!\n    I had rather be a kitten and cry mew\n    Than one of these same metre ballet-mongers.\n    I had rather hear a brazen canstick turn'd\n    Or a dry wheel grate on the axletree,\n    And that would set my teeth nothing on edge,\n    Nothing so much as mincing poetry.\n    'Tis like the forc'd gait of a shuffling nag,\n  Glend. Come, you shall have Trent turn'd.\n  Hot. I do not care. I'll give thrice so much land\n    To any well-deserving friend;\n    But in the way of bargain, mark ye me,\n    I'll cavil on the ninth part of a hair\n    Are the indentures drawn? Shall we be gone?\n  Glend. The moon shines fair; you may away by night.\n    I'll haste the writer, and withal\n    Break with your wives of your departure hence.\n    I am afraid my daughter will run mad,\n    So much she doteth on her Mortimer.                    Exit.\n  Mort. Fie, cousin Percy! how you cross my father!\n  Hot. I cannot choose. Sometimes he angers me\n    With telling me of the moldwarp and the ant,\n    Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies,\n    And of a dragon and a finless fish,\n    A clip-wing'd griffin and a moulten raven,\n    A couching lion and a ramping cat,\n    And such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff\n    As puts me from my faith. I tell you what-\n    He held me last night at least nine hours\n    In reckoning up the several devils' names\n    That were his lackeys. I cried 'hum,' and 'Well, go to!'\n    But mark'd him not a word. O, he is as tedious\n    As a tired horse, a railing wife;\n    Worse than a smoky house. I had rather live\n    With cheese and garlic in a windmill far\n    Than feed on cates and have him talk to me\n    In any summer house in Christendom).\n  Mort. In faith, he is a worthy gentleman,\n    Exceedingly well read, and profited\n    In strange concealments, valiant as a lion,\n    And wondrous affable, and as bountiful\n    As mines of India. Shall I tell you, cousin?\n    He holds your temper in a high respect\n    And curbs himself even of his natural scope\n    When you come 'cross his humour. Faith, he does.\n    I warrant you that man is not alive\n    Might so have tempted him as you have done\n    Without the taste of danger and reproof.\n    But do not use it oft, let me entreat you.\n  Wor. In faith, my lord, you are too wilful-blame,\n    And since your coming hither have done enough\n    To put him quite besides his patience.\n    You must needs learn, lord, to amend this fault.\n    Though sometimes it show greatness, courage, blood-\n    And that's the dearest grace it renders you-\n    Yet oftentimes it doth present harsh rage,\n    Defect of manners, want of government,\n    Pride, haughtiness, opinion, and disdain;\n    The least of which haunting a nobleman\n    Loseth men's hearts, and leaves behind a stain\n    Upon the beauty of all parts besides,\n    Beguiling them of commendation.\n  Hot. Well, I am school'd. Good manners be your speed!\n    Here come our wives, and let us take our leave.\n\n            Enter Glendower with the Ladies.\n\n  Mort. This is the deadly spite that angers me-\n    My wife can speak no English, I no Welsh.\n  Glend. My daughter weeps; she will not part with you;\n    She'll be a soldier too, she'll to the wars.\n  Mort. Good father, tell her that she and my aunt Percy\n    Shall follow in your conduct speedily.\n               Glendower speaks to her in Welsh, and she answers\n                                                him in the same.\n  Glend. She is desperate here. A peevish self-will'd harlotry,\n    One that no persuasion can do good upon.\n                                       The Lady speaks in Welsh.\n  Mort. I understand thy looks. That pretty Welsh\n    Which thou pourest down from these swelling heavens\n    I am too perfect in; and, but for shame,\n    In such a Barley should I answer thee.\n                                        The Lady again in Welsh.\n    I understand thy kisses, and thou mine,\n    And that's a feeling disputation.\n    But I will never be a truant, love,\n    Till I have learnt thy language: for thy tongue\n    Makes Welsh as sweet as ditties highly penn'd,\n    Sung by a fair queen in a summer's bow'r,\n    With ravishing division, to her lute.\n  Glend. Nay, if you melt, then will she run mad.\n                                 The Lady speaks again in Welsh.\n  Mort. O, I am ignorance itself in this!\n  Glend. She bids you on the wanton rushes lay you down\n    And rest your gentle head upon her lap,\n    And she will sing the song that pleaseth you\n    And on your eyelids crown the god of sleep,\n    Charming your blood with pleasing heaviness,\n    Making such difference 'twixt wake and sleep\n    As is the difference betwixt day and night\n    The hour before the heavenly-harness'd team\n    Begins his golden progress in the East.\n  Mort. With all my heart I'll sit and hear her sing.\n    By that time will our book, I think, be drawn.\n  Glend. Do so,\n    And those musicians that shall play to you\n    Hang in the air a thousand leagues from hence,\n    And straight they shall be here. Sit, and attend.\n  Hot. Come, Kate, thou art perfect in lying down. Come, quick,\n    quick, that I may lay my head in thy lap.\n  Lady P. Go, ye giddy goose.\n                                                The music plays.\n  Hot. Now I perceive the devil understands Welsh;\n    And 'tis no marvel, be is so humorous.\n    By'r Lady, he is a good musician.\n  Lady P. Then should you be nothing but musical; for you are\n    altogether govern'd by humours. Lie still, ye thief, and hear\nthe\n    lady sing in Welsh.\n  Hot. I had rather hear Lady, my brach, howl in Irish.\n  Lady P. Wouldst thou have thy head broken?\n  Hot. No.\n  Lady P. Then be still.\n  Hot. Neither! 'Tis a woman's fault.\n  Lady P. Now God help thee!\n  Hot. To the Welsh lady's bed.\n  Lady P. What's that?\n  Hot. Peace! she sings.\n                               Here the Lady sings a Welsh song.\n    Come, Kate, I'll have your song too.\n  Lady P. Not mine, in good sooth.\n  Hot. Not yours, in good sooth? Heart! you swear like a\n    comfit-maker's wife. 'Not you, in good sooth!' and 'as true\nas I\n    live!' and 'as God shall mend me!' and 'as sure as day!'\n    And givest such sarcenet surety for thy oaths\n    As if thou ne'er walk'st further than Finsbury.\n    Swear me, Kate, like a lady as thou art,\n    A good mouth-filling oath; and leave 'in sooth'\n    And such protest of pepper gingerbread\n    To velvet guards and Sunday citizens. Come, sing.\n  Lady P. I will not sing.\n  Hot. 'Tis the next way to turn tailor or be redbreast-teacher.\nAn\n    the indentures be drawn, I'll away within these two hours;\nand so\n    come in when ye will.                                  Exit.\n  Glend. Come, come, Lord Mortimer. You are as slow\n    As hot Lord Percy is on fire to go.\n    By this our book is drawn; we'll but seal,\n    And then to horse immediately.\n  Mort. With all my heart.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nLondon. The Palace.\n\nEnter the King, Prince of Wales, and others.\n\n  King. Lords, give us leave. The Prince of Wales and I\n    Must have some private conference; but be near at hand,\n    For we shall presently have need of you.\n                                                   Exeunt Lords.\n    I know not whether God will have it so,\n    For some displeasing service I have done,\n    That, in his secret doom, out of my blood\n    He'll breed revengement and a scourge for me;\n    But thou dost in thy passages of life\n    Make me believe that thou art only mark'd\n    For the hot vengeance and the rod of heaven\n    To punish my mistreadings. Tell me else,\n    Could such inordinate and low desires,\n    Such poor, such bare, such lewd, such mean attempts,\n    Such barren pleasures, rude society,\n    As thou art match'd withal and grafted to,\n    Accompany the greatness of thy blood\n    And hold their level with thy princely heart?\n  Prince. So please your Majesty, I would I could\n    Quit all offences with as clear excuse\n    As well as I am doubtless I can purge\n    Myself of many I am charged withal.\n    Yet such extenuation let me beg\n    As, in reproof of many tales devis'd,\n    Which oft the ear of greatness needs must bear\n    By, smiling pickthanks and base newsmongers,\n    I may, for some things true wherein my youth\n    Hath faulty wand'red and irregular,\n    And pardon on lily true submission.\n  King. God pardon thee! Yet let me wonder, Harry,\n    At thy affections, which do hold a wing,\n    Quite from the flight of all thy ancestors.\n    Thy place in Council thou hast rudely lost,\n    Which by thy younger brother is supplied,\n    And art almost an alien to the hearts\n    Of all the court and princes of my blood.\n    The hope and expectation of thy time\n    Is ruin'd, and the soul of every man\n    Prophetically do forethink thy fall.\n    Had I so lavish of my presence been,\n    So common-hackney'd in the eyes of men,\n    So stale and cheap to vulgar company,\n    Opinion, that did help me to the crown,\n    Had still kept loyal to possession\n    And left me in reputeless banishment,\n    A fellow of no mark nor likelihood.\n    By being seldom seen, I could not stir\n    But, like a comet, I Was wond'red at;\n    That men would tell their children, 'This is he!'\n    Others would say, 'Where? Which is Bolingbroke?'\n    And then I stole all courtesy from heaven,\n    And dress'd myself in such humility\n    That I did pluck allegiance from men's hearts,\n    Loud shouts and salutations from their mouths\n    Even in the presence of the crowned King.\n    Thus did I keep my person fresh and new,\n    My presence, like a robe pontifical,\n    Ne'er seen but wond'red at; and so my state,\n    Seldom but sumptuous, show'd like a feast\n    And won by rareness such solemnity.\n    The skipping King, he ambled up and down\n    With shallow jesters and rash bavin wits,\n    Soon kindled and soon burnt; carded his state;\n    Mingled his royalty with cap'ring fools;\n    Had his great name profaned with their scorns\n    And gave his countenance, against his name,\n    To laugh at gibing boys and stand the push\n    Of every beardless vain comparative;\n    Grew a companion to the common streets,\n    Enfeoff'd himself to popularity;\n    That, being dally swallowed by men's eyes,\n    They surfeited with honey and began\n    To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little\n    More than a little is by much too much.\n    So, when he had occasion to be seen,\n    He was but as the cuckoo is in June,\n    Heard, not regarded- seen, but with such eyes\n    As, sick and blunted with community,\n    Afford no extraordinary gaze,\n    Such as is bent on unlike majesty\n    When it shines seldom in admiring eyes;\n    But rather drows'd and hung their eyelids down,\n    Slept in his face, and rend'red such aspect\n    As cloudy men use to their adversaries,\n    Being with his presence glutted, gorg'd, and full.\n    And in that very line, Harry, standest thou;\n    For thou hast lost thy princely privilege\n    With vile participation. Not an eye\n    But is aweary of thy common sight,\n    Save mine, which hath desir'd to see thee more;\n    Which now doth that I would not have it do-\n    Make blind itself with foolish tenderness.\n  Prince. I shall hereafter, my thrice-gracious lord,\n    Be more myself.\n  King. For all the world,\n    As thou art to this hour, was Richard then\n    When I from France set foot at Ravenspurgh;\n    And even as I was then is Percy now.\n    Now, by my sceptre, and my soul to boot,\n    He hath more worthy interest to the state\n    Than thou, the shadow of succession;\n    For of no right, nor colour like to right,\n    He doth fill fields with harness in the realm,\n    Turns head against the lion's armed jaws,\n    And, Being no more in debt to years than thou,\n    Leads ancient lords and reverend Bishops on\n    To bloody battles and to bruising arms.\n    What never-dying honour hath he got\n    Against renowmed Douglas! whose high deeds,\n    Whose hot incursions and great name in arms\n    Holds from all soldiers chief majority\n    And military title capital\n    Through all the kingdoms that acknowledge Christ.\n    Thrice hath this Hotspur, Mars in swathling clothes,\n    This infant warrior, in his enterprises\n    Discomfited great Douglas; ta'en him once,\n    Enlarged him, and made a friend of him,\n    To fill the mouth of deep defiance up\n    And shake the peace and safety of our throne.\n    And what say you to this? Percy, Northumberland,\n    The Archbishop's Grace of York, Douglas, Mortimer\n    Capitulate against us and are up.\n    But wherefore do I tell these news to thee\n    Why, Harry, do I tell thee of my foes,\n    Which art my nearest and dearest enemy'\n    Thou that art like enough, through vassal fear,\n    Base inclination, and the start of spleen,\n    To fight against me under Percy's pay,\n    To dog his heels and curtsy at his frowns,\n    To show how much thou art degenerate.\n  Prince. Do not think so. You shall not find it so.\n    And God forgive them that so much have sway'd\n    Your Majesty's good thoughts away from me!\n    I will redeem all this on Percy's head\n    And, in the closing of some glorious day,\n    Be bold to tell you that I am your son,\n    When I will wear a garment all of blood,\n    And stain my favours in a bloody mask,\n    Which, wash'd away, shall scour my shame with it.\n    And that shall be the day, whene'er it lights,\n    That this same child of honour and renown,\n    This gallant Hotspur, this all-praised knight,\n    And your unthought of Harry chance to meet.\n    For every honour sitting on his helm,\n    Would they were multitudes, and on my head\n    My shames redoubled! For the time will come\n    That I shall make this Northern youth exchange\n    His glorious deeds for my indignities.\n    Percy is but my factor, good my lord,\n    To engross up glorious deeds on my behalf;\n    And I will call hall to so strict account\n    That he shall render every glory up,\n    Yea, even the slightest worship of his time,\n    Or I will tear the reckoning from his heart.\n    This in the name of God I promise here;\n    The which if he be pleas'd I shall perform,\n    I do beseech your Majesty may salve\n    The long-grown wounds of my intemperance.\n    If not, the end of life cancels all bands,\n    And I will die a hundred thousand deaths\n    Ere break the smallest parcel of this vow.\n  King. A hundred thousand rebels die in this!\n    Thou shalt have charge and sovereign trust herein.\n\n                        Enter Blunt.\n\n    How now, good Blunt? Thy looks are full of speed.\n  Blunt. So hath the business that I come to speak of.\n    Lord Mortimer of Scotland hath sent word\n    That Douglas and the English rebels met\n    The eleventh of this month at Shrewsbury.\n    A mighty and a fearful head they are,\n    If promises be kept oil every hand,\n    As ever off'red foul play in a state.\n  King. The Earl of Westmoreland set forth to-day;\n    With him my son, Lord John of Lancaster;\n    For this advertisement is five days old.\n    On Wednesday next, Harry, you shall set forward;\n    On Thursday we ourselves will march. Our meeting\n    Is Bridgenorth; and, Harry, you shall march\n    Through Gloucestershire; by which account,\n    Our business valued, some twelve days hence\n    Our general forces at Bridgenorth shall meet.\n    Our hands are full of business. Let's away.\n    Advantage feeds him fat while men delay.            Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nEastcheap. The Boar's Head Tavern.\n\nEnter Falstaff and Bardolph.\n\n  Fal. Bardolph, am I not fall'n away vilely since this last\naction?\n    Do I not bate? Do I not dwindle? Why, my skin hangs about me\nlike\n    an old lady's loose gown! I am withered like an old apple\nJohn.\n    Well, I'll repent, and that suddenly, while I am in some\nliking.\n    I shall be out of heart shortly, and then I shall have no\n    strength to repent. An I have not forgotten what the inside\nof a\n    church is made of, I am a peppercorn, a brewer's horse. The\n    inside of a church! Company, villanous company, hath been the\n    spoil of me.\n  Bard. Sir John, you are so fretful you cannot live long.\n  Fal. Why, there is it! Come, sing me a bawdy song; make me\nmerry. I\n    was as virtuously given as a gentleman need to be, virtuous\n    enough: swore little, dic'd not above seven times a week,\nwent to\n    a bawdy house not above once in a quarter- of an hour, paid\nmoney\n    that I borrowed- three or four times, lived well, and in good\n    compass; and now I live out of all order, out of all compass.\n  Bard. Why, you are so fat, Sir John, that you must needs be out\nof\n    all compass- out of all reasonable compass, Sir John.\n  Fal. Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life. Thou art\nour\n    admiral, thou bearest the lantern in the poop- but 'tis in\nthe\n    nose of thee. Thou art the Knight of the Burning Lamp.\n  Bard. Why, Sir John, my face does you no harm.\n  Fal. No, I'll be sworn. I make as good use of it as many a man\ndoth\n    of a death's-head or a memento mori. I never see thy face but\nI\n    think upon hellfire and Dives that lived in purple; for there\nhe\n    is in his robes, burning, burning. if thou wert any way given\nto\n    virtue, I would swear by thy face; my oath should be 'By this\n    fire, that's God's angel.' But thou art altogether given\nover,\n    and wert indeed, but for the light in thy face, the son of\nutter\n    darkness. When thou ran'st up Gadshill in the night to catch\nmy\n    horse, if I did not think thou hadst been an ignis fatuus or\na\n    ball of wildfire, there's no purchase in money. O, thou art a\n    perpetual triumph, an everlasting bonfire-light! Thou hast\nsaved\n    me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee\nin\n    the night betwixt tavern and tavern; but the sack that thou\nhast\n    drunk me would have bought me lights as good cheap at the\ndearest\n    chandler's in Europe. I have maintained that salamander of\nyours\n    with fire any time this two-and-thirty years. God reward me\nfor\n    it!\n  Bard. 'Sblood, I would my face were in your belly!\n  Fal. God-a-mercy! so should I be sure to be heart-burn'd.\n\n                          Enter Hostess.\n\n    How now, Dame Partlet the hen? Have you enquir'd yet who\npick'd\n    my pocket?\n  Host. Why, Sir John, what do you think, Sir John? Do you think\nI\n    keep thieves in my house? I have search'd, I have enquired,\nso\n    has my husband, man by man, boy by boy, servant by servant.\nThe\n    tithe of a hair was never lost in my house before.\n  Fal. Ye lie, hostess. Bardolph was shav'd and lost many a hair,\nand\n    I'll be sworn my pocket was pick'd. Go to, you are a woman,\ngo!\n  Host. Who, I? No; I defy thee! God's light, I was never call'd\nso\n    in mine own house before!\n  Fal. Go to, I know you well enough.\n  Host. No, Sir John; you do not know me, Sir John. I know you,\nSir\n    John. You owe me money, Sir John, and now you pick a quarrel\nto\n    beguile me of it. I bought you a dozen of shirts to your\nback.\n  Fal. Dowlas, filthy dowlas! I have given them away to bakers'\n    wives; they have made bolters of them.\n  Host. Now, as I am a true woman, holland of eight shillings an\nell.\n    You owe money here besides, Sir John, for your diet and\n    by-drinkings, and money lent you, four-and-twenty pound.\n  Fal. He had his part of it; let him pay.\n  Host. He? Alas, he is poor; he hath nothing.\n  Fal. How? Poor? Look upon his face. What call you rich? Let\nthem\n    coin his nose, let them coin his cheeks. I'll not pay a\ndenier.\n    What, will you make a younker of me? Shall I not take mine\nease\n    in mine inn but I shall have my pocket pick'd? I have lost a\n    seal-ring of my grandfather's worth forty mark.\n  Host. O Jesu, I have heard the Prince tell him, I know not how\noft,\n    that that ring was copper!\n  Fal. How? the Prince is a Jack, a sneak-cup. 'Sblood, an he\nwere\n    here, I would cudgel him like a dog if he would say so.\n\n      Enter the Prince [and Poins], marching; and Falstaff meets\n          them, playing upon his truncheon like a fife.\n\n    How now, lad? Is the wind in that door, i' faith? Must we all\n    march?\n  Bard. Yea, two and two, Newgate fashion.\n  Host. My lord, I pray you hear me.\n  Prince. What say'st thou, Mistress Quickly? How doth thy\nhusband?\n    I love him well; he is an honest man.\n  Host. Good my lord, hear me.\n  Fal. Prithee let her alone and list to me.\n  Prince. What say'st thou, Jack?\n  Fal. The other night I fell asleep here behind the arras and\nhad my\n    pocket pick'd. This house is turn'd bawdy house; they pick\n    pockets.\n  Prince. What didst thou lose, Jack?\n  Fal. Wilt thou believe me, Hal? Three or four bonds of forty\npound\n    apiece and a seal-ring of my grandfather's.\n  Prince. A trifle, some eightpenny matter.\n  Host. So I told him, my lord, and I said I heard your Grace say\nso;\n    and, my lord, he speaks most vilely of you, like a\nfoul-mouth'd\n    man as he is, and said he would cudgel you.\n  Prince. What! he did not?\n  Host. There's neither faith, truth, nor womanhood in me else.\n  Fal. There's no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune, nor\nno\n    more truth in thee than in a drawn fox; and for woman-hood,\nMaid\n    Marian may be the deputy's wife of the ward to thee. Go, you\n    thing, go!\n  Host. Say, what thing? what thing?\n  Fal. What thing? Why, a thing to thank God on.\n  Host. I am no thing to thank God on, I would thou shouldst know\nit!\n    I am an honest man's wife, and, setting thy knight-hood\naside,\n    thou art a knave to call me so.\n  Fal. Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast to say\n    otherwise.\n  Host. Say, what beast, thou knave, thou?\n  Fal. What beast? Why, an otter.\n  Prince. An otter, Sir John? Why an otter?\n  Fal. Why, she's neither fish nor flesh; a man knows not where\nto\n    have her.\n  Host. Thou art an unjust man in saying so. Thou or any man\nknows\n    where to have me, thou knave, thou!\n  Prince. Thou say'st true, hostess, and he slanders thee most\n    grossly.\n  Host. So he doth you, my lord, and said this other day you\nought\n    him a thousand pound.\n  Prince. Sirrah, do I owe you a thousand pound?\n  Fal. A thousand pound, Hal? A million! Thy love is worth a\nmillion;\n    thou owest me thy love.\n  Host. Nay, my lord, he call'd you Jack and said he would cudgel\n    you.\n  Fal. Did I, Bardolph?\n  Bard. Indeed, Sir John, you said so.\n  Fal. Yea. if he said my ring was copper.\n  Prince. I say, 'tis copper. Darest thou be as good as thy word\nnow?\n  Fal. Why, Hal, thou knowest, as thou art but man, I dare; but\nas\n    thou art Prince, I fear thee as I fear the roaring of the\nlion's\n    whelp.\n  Prince. And why not as the lion?\n  Fal. The King himself is to be feared as the lion. Dost thou\nthink\n    I'll fear thee as I fear thy father? Nay, an I do, I pray God\nmy\n    girdle break.\n  Prince. O, if it should, how would thy guts fall about thy\nknees!\n    But, sirrah, there's no room for faith, truth, nor honesty in\n    this bosom of thine. It is all fill'd up with guts and\nmidriff.\n    Charge an honest woman with picking thy pocket? Why, thou\n    whoreson, impudent, emboss'd rascal, if there were anything\nin\n    thy pocket but tavern reckonings, memorandums of bawdy\nhouses,\n    and one poor pennyworth of sugar candy to make thee\nlong-winded-\n    if thy pocket were enrich'd with any other injuries but\nthese, I\n    am a villain. And yet you will stand to it; you will not\npocket\n    up wrong. Art thou not ashamed?\n  Fal. Dost thou hear, Hal? Thou knowest in the state of\ninnocency\n    Adam fell; and what should poor Jack Falstaff do in the days\nof\n    villany? Thou seest I have more flesh than another man, and\n    therefore more frailty. You confess then, you pick'd my\npocket?\n  Prince. It appears so by the story.\n  Fal. Hostess, I forgive thee. Go make ready breakfast. Love thy\n    husband, look to thy servants, cherish thy guests. Thou shalt\n    find me tractable to any honest reason. Thou seest I am\npacified.\n    -Still?- Nay, prithee be gone. [Exit Hostess.] Now, Hal, to\nthe\n    news at court. For the robbery, lad- how is that answered?\n  Prince. O my sweet beef, I must still be good angel to thee.\n    The money is paid back again.\n  Fal. O, I do not like that paying back! 'Tis a double labour.\n  Prince. I am good friends with my father, and may do anything.\n  Fal. Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou doest, and do it\n    with unwash'd hands too.\n  Bard. Do, my lord.\n  Prince. I have procured thee, Jack, a charge of foot.\n  Fal. I would it had been of horse. Where shall I find one that\ncan\n    steal well? O for a fine thief of the age of two-and-twenty\nor\n    thereabouts! I am heinously unprovided. Well, God be thanked\nfor\n    these rebels. They offend none but the virtuous. I laud them,\nI\n    praise them.\n  Prince. Bardolph!\n  Bard. My lord?\n  Prince. Go bear this letter to Lord John of Lancaster,\n    To my brother John; this to my Lord of Westmoreland.\n                                                [Exit Bardolph.]\n    Go, Poins, to horse, to horse; for thou and I\n    Have thirty miles to ride yet ere dinner time.\n                                                   [Exit Poins.]\n    Jack, meet me to-morrow in the Temple Hall\n    At two o'clock in the afternoon.\n    There shalt thou know thy charge. and there receive\n    Money and order for their furniture.\n    The land is burning; Percy stands on high;\n    And either they or we must lower lie.                [Exit.]\n  Fal. Rare words! brave world! Hostess, my breakfast, come.\n    O, I could wish this tavern were my drum!\nExit.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. Scene I.\nThe rebel camp near Shrewsbury.\n\nEnter Harry Hotspur, Worcester, and Douglas.\n\n  Hot. Well said, my noble Scot. If speaking truth\n    In this fine age were not thought flattery,\n    Such attribution should the Douglas have\n    As not a soldier of this season's stamp\n    Should go so general current through the world.\n    By God, I cannot flatter, I defy\n    The tongues of soothers! but a braver place\n    In my heart's love hath no man than yourself.\n    Nay, task me to my word; approve me, lord.\n  Doug. Thou art the king of honour.\n    No man so potent breathes upon the ground\n    But I will beard him.\n\n                     Enter one with letters.\n\n  Hot. Do so, and 'tis well.-\n    What letters hast thou there?- I can but thank you.\n  Messenger. These letters come from your father.\n  Hot. Letters from him? Why comes he not himself?\n  Mess. He cannot come, my lord; he is grievous sick.\n  Hot. Zounds! how has he the leisure to be sick\n    In such a justling time? Who leads his power?\n    Under whose government come they along?\n  Mess. His letters bears his mind, not I, my lord.\n  Wor. I prithee tell me, doth he keep his bed?\n  Mess. He did, my lord, four days ere I set forth,\n    And at the time of my departure thence\n    He was much fear'd by his physicians.\n  Wor. I would the state of time had first been whole\n    Ere he by sickness had been visited.\n    His health was never better worth than now.\n  Hot. Sick now? droop now? This sickness doth infect\n    The very lifeblood of our enterprise.\n    'Tis catching hither, even to our camp.\n    He writes me here that inward sickness-\n    And that his friends by deputation could not\n    So soon be drawn; no did he think it meet\n    To lay so dangerous and dear a trust\n    On any soul remov'd but on his own.\n    Yet doth he give us bold advertisement,\n    That with our small conjunction we should on,\n    To see how fortune is dispos'd to us;\n    For, as he writes, there is no quailing now,\n    Because the King is certainly possess'd\n    Of all our purposes. What say you to it?\n  Wor. Your father's sickness is a maim to us.\n  Hot. A perilous gash, a very limb lopp'd off.\n    And yet, in faith, it is not! His present want\n    Seems more than we shall find it. Were it good\n    To set the exact wealth of all our states\n    All at one cast? to set so rich a man\n    On the nice hazard of one doubtful hour?\n    It were not good; for therein should we read\n    The very bottom and the soul of hope,\n    The very list, the very utmost bound\n    Of all our fortunes.\n  Doug. Faith, and so we should;\n    Where now remains a sweet reversion.\n    We may boldly spend upon the hope of what\n    Is to come in.\n    A comfort of retirement lives in this.\n  Hot. A rendezvous, a home to fly unto,\n    If that the devil and mischance look big\n    Upon the maidenhead of our affairs.\n  Wor. But yet I would your father had been here.\n    The quality and hair of our attempt\n    Brooks no division. It will be thought\n    By some that know not why he is away,\n    That wisdom, loyalty, and mere dislike\n    Of our proceedings kept the Earl from hence.\n    And think how such an apprehension\n    May turn the tide of fearful faction\n    And breed a kind of question in our cause.\n    For well you know we of the off'ring side\n    Must keep aloof from strict arbitrement,\n    And stop all sight-holes, every loop from whence\n    The eye of reason may pry in upon us.\n    This absence of your father's draws a curtain\n    That shows the ignorant a kind of fear\n    Before not dreamt of.\n  Hot. You strain too far.\n    I rather of his absence make this use:\n    It lends a lustre and more great opinion,\n    A larger dare to our great enterprise,\n    Than if the Earl were here; for men must think,\n    If we, without his help, can make a head\n    To push against a kingdom, with his help\n    We shall o'erturn it topsy-turvy down.\n    Yet all goes well; yet all our joints are whole.\n  Doug. As heart can think. There is not such a word\n    Spoke of in Scotland as this term of fear.\n\n                 Enter Sir Richard Vernon.\n\n  Hot. My cousin Vernon! welcome, by my soul.\n  Ver. Pray God my news be worth a welcome, lord.\n    The Earl of Westmoreland, seven thousand strong,\n    Is marching hitherwards; with him Prince John.\n  Hot. No harm. What more?\n  Ver. And further, I have learn'd\n    The King himself in person is set forth,\n    Or hitherwards intended speedily,\n    With strong and mighty preparation.\n  Hot. He shall be welcome too. Where is his son,\n    The nimble-footed madcap Prince of Wales,\n    And his comrades, that daff'd the world aside\n    And bid it pass?\n  Ver. All furnish'd, all in arms;\n    All plum'd like estridges that with the wind\n    Bated like eagles having lately bath'd;\n    Glittering in golden coats like images;\n    As full of spirit as the month of May\n    And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer;\n    Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls.\n    I saw young Harry with his beaver on\n    His cushes on his thighs, gallantly arm'd,\n    Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury,\n    And vaulted with such ease into his seat\n    As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds\n    To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus\n    And witch the world with noble horsemanship.\n  Hot. No more, no more! Worse than the sun in March,\n    This praise doth nourish agues. Let them come.\n    They come like sacrifices in their trim,\n    And to the fire-ey'd maid of smoky war\n    All hot and bleeding Will we offer them.\n    The mailed Mars Shall on his altar sit\n    Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire\n    To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh,\n    And yet not ours. Come, let me taste my horse,\n    Who is to bear me like a thunderbolt\n    Against the bosom of the Prince of Wales.\n    Harry to Harry shall, hot horse to horse,\n    Meet, and ne'er part till one drop down a corse.\n    that Glendower were come!\n  Ver. There is more news.\n    I learn'd in Worcester, as I rode along,\n    He cannot draw his power this fourteen days.\n  Doug. That's the worst tidings that I hear of yet.\n  Wor. Ay, by my faith, that bears a frosty sound.\n  Hot. What may the King's whole battle reach unto?\n  Ver. To thirty thousand.\n  Hot. Forty let it be.\n    My father and Glendower being both away,\n    The powers of us may serve so great a day.\n    Come, let us take a muster speedily.\n    Doomsday is near. Die all, die merrily.\n  Doug. Talk not of dying. I am out of fear\n    Of death or death's hand for this one half-year.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nA public road near Coventry.\n\nEnter Falstaff and Bardolph.\n\n  Fal. Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry; fill me a bottle of\n    sack. Our soldiers shall march through. We'll to Sutton\nCo'fil'\n    to-night.\n  Bard. Will you give me money, Captain?\n  Fal. Lay out, lay out.\n  Bald. This bottle makes an angel.\n  Fal. An if it do, take it for thy labour; an if it make twenty,\n    take them all; I'll answer the coinage. Bid my lieutenant\nPeto\n    meet me at town's end.\n  Bard. I Will, Captain. Farewell.                         Exit.\n  Fal. If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a sous'd gurnet.\nI\n    have misused the King's press damnably. I have got in\nexchange of\n    a hundred and fifty soldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I\n    press me none but good householders, yeomen's sons; inquire\nme\n    out contracted bachelors, such as had been ask'd twice on the\n    banes- such a commodity of warm slaves as had as lieve hear\nthe\n    devil as a drum; such as fear the report of a caliver worse\nthan\n    a struck fowl or a hurt wild duck. I press'd me none but such\n    toasts-and-butter, with hearts in their bellies no bigger\nthan\n    pins' heads, and they have bought out their services; and now\nmy\n    whole charge consists of ancients, corporals, lieutenants,\n    gentlemen of companies- slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the\n    painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs licked his sores; and\n    such as indeed were never soldiers, but discarded unjust\n    serving-men, younger sons to Younger brothers, revolted\ntapsters,\n    and ostlers trade-fall'n; the cankers of a calm world and a\nlong\n    peace; ten times more dishonourable ragged than an old fac'd\n    ancient; and such have I to fill up the rooms of them that\nhave\n    bought out their services that you would think that I had a\n    hundred and fifty tattered Prodigals lately come from\n    swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks. A mad fellow met\nme\n    on the way, and told me I had unloaded all the gibbets and\n    press'd the dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scarecrows.\nI'll\n    not march through Coventry with them, that's flat. Nay, and\nthe\n    villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had gyves\non;\n    for indeed I had the most of them out of prison. There's but\na\n    shirt and a half in all my company; and the half-shirt is two\n\n    napkins tack'd together and thrown over the shoulders like a\n    herald's coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say the\ntruth,\n    stol'n from my host at Saint Alban's, or the red-nose\ninnkeeper\n    of Daventry. But that's all one; they'll find linen enough on\n    every hedge.\n\n              Enter the Prince and the Lord of Westmoreland.\n\n  Prince. How now, blown Jack? How now, quilt?\n  Fal. What, Hal? How now, mad wag? What a devil dost thou in\n    Warwickshire? My good Lord of Westmoreland, I cry you mercy.\nI\n    thought your honour had already been at Shrewsbury.\n  West. Faith, Sir John, 'tis more than time that I were there,\nand\n    you too; but my powers are there already. The King, I can\ntell\n    you, looks for us all. We must away all, to-night.\n  Fal. Tut, never fear me. I am as vigilant as a cat to steal\ncream.\n  Prince. I think, to steal cream indeed, for thy theft hath\nalready\n    made thee butter. But tell me, Jack, whose fellows are these\nthat\n    come after?\n  Fal. Mine, Hal, mine.\n  Prince. I did never see such pitiful rascals.\n  Fal. Tut, tut! good enough to toss; food for powder, food for\n    powder. They'll fill a pit as well as better. Tush, man,\nmortal\n    men, mortal men.\n  West. Ay, but, Sir John, methinks they are exceeding poor and\nbare-\n    too beggarly.\n  Fal. Faith, for their poverty, I know, not where they had that;\nand\n    for their bareness, I am surd they never learn'd that of me.\n  Prince. No, I'll be sworn, unless you call three fingers on the\n    ribs bare. But, sirrah, make haste. Percy 's already in the\n    field.\nExit.\n  Fal. What, is the King encamp'd?\n  West. He is, Sir John. I fear we shall stay too long.\n                                                         [Exit.]\n  Fal. Well,\n    To the latter end of a fray and the beginning of a feast\n    Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest.                  Exit.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nThe rebel camp near Shrewsbury.\n\nEnter Hotspur, Worcester, Douglas, Vernon.\n\n  Hot. We'll fight with him to-night.\n  Wor. It may not be.\n  Doug. You give him then advantage.\n  Ver. Not a whit.\n  Hot. Why say you so? Looks he no for supply?\n  Ver. So do we.\n  Hot. His is certain, ours 's doubtful.\n  Wor. Good cousin, be advis'd; stir not to-night.\n  Ver. Do not, my lord.\n  Doug. You do not counsel well.\n    You speak it out of fear and cold heart.\n  Ver. Do me no slander, Douglas. By my life-\n    And I dare well maintain it with my life-\n    If well-respected honour bid me on\n    I hold as little counsel with weak fear\n    As you, my lord, or any Scot that this day lives.\n    Let it be seen to-morrow in the battle\n    Which of us fears.\n  Doug. Yea, or to-night.\n  Ver. Content.\n  Hot. To-night, say I.\n    Come, come, it may not be. I wonder much,\n    Being men of such great leading as you are,\n    That you foresee not what impediments\n    Drag back our expedition. Certain horse\n    Of my cousin Vernon's are not yet come up.\n    Your uncle Worcester's horse came but to-day;\n    And now their pride and mettle is asleep,\n    Their courage with hard labour tame and dull,\n    That not a horse is half the half of himself.\n  Hot. So are the horses of the enemy,\n    In general journey-bated and brought low.\n    The better part of ours are full of rest.\n  Wor. The number of the King exceedeth ours.\n    For God's sake, cousin, stay till all come in.\n\n              The trumpet sounds a parley.\n\n                 Enter Sir Walter Blunt.\n\n  Blunt. I come with gracious offers from the King,\n    If you vouchsafe me hearing and respect.\n  Hot. Welcome, Sir Walter Blunt, and would to God\n    You were of our determination!\n    Some of us love you well; and even those some\n    Envy your great deservings and good name,\n    Because you are not of our quality,\n    But stand against us like an enemy.\n  Blunt. And God defend but still I should stand so,\n    So long as out of limit and true rule\n    You stand against anointed majesty!\n    But to my charge. The King hath sent to know\n    The nature of your griefs; and whereupon\n    You conjure from the breast of civil peace\n    Such bold hostility, teaching his duteous land\n    Audacious cruelty. If that the King\n    Have any way your good deserts forgot,\n    Which he confesseth to be manifold,\n    He bids you name your griefs, and with all speed\n    You shall have your desires with interest,\n    And pardon absolute for yourself and these\n    Herein misled by your suggestion.\n  Hot. The King is kind; and well we know the King\n    Knows at what time to promise, when to pay.\n    My father and my uncle and myself\n    Did give him that same royalty he wears;\n    And when he was not six-and-twenty strong,\n    Sick in the world's regard, wretched and low,\n    A poor unminded outlaw sneaking home,\n    My father gave him welcome to the shore;\n    And when he heard him swear and vow to God\n    He came but to be Duke of Lancaster,\n    To sue his livery and beg his peace,\n    With tears of innocency and terms of zeal,\n    My father, in kind heart and pity mov'd,\n    Swore him assistance, and performed it too.\n    Now, when the lords and barons of the realm\n    Perceiv'd Northumberland did lean to him,\n    The more and less came in with cap and knee;\n    Met him on boroughs, cities, villages,\n    Attended him on bridges, stood in lanes,\n    Laid gifts before him, proffer'd him their oaths,\n    Give him their heirs as pages, followed him\n    Even at the heels in golden multitudes.\n    He presently, as greatness knows itself,\n    Steps me a little higher than his vow\n    Made to my father, while his blood was poor,\n    Upon the naked shore at Ravenspurgh;\n    And now, forsooth, takes on him to reform\n    Some certain edicts and some strait decrees\n    That lie too heavy on the commonwealth;\n    Cries out upon abuses, seems to weep\n    Over his country's wrongs; and by this face,\n    This seeming brow of justice, did he win\n    The hearts of all that he did angle for;\n    Proceeded further- cut me off the heads\n    Of all the favourites that the absent King\n    In deputation left behind him here\n    When he was personal in the Irish war.\n    But. Tut! I came not to hear this.\n  Hot. Then to the point.\n    In short time after lie depos'd the King;\n    Soon after that depriv'd him of his life;\n    And in the neck of that task'd the whole state;\n    To make that worse, suff'red his kinsman March\n    (Who is, if every owner were well placid,\n    Indeed his king) to be engag'd in Wales,\n    There without ransom to lie forfeited;\n    Disgrac'd me in my happy victories,\n    Sought to entrap me by intelligence;\n    Rated mine uncle from the Council board;\n    In rage dismiss'd my father from the court;\n    Broke an oath on oath, committed wrong on wrong;\n    And in conclusion drove us to seek out\n    This head of safety, and withal to pry\n    Into his title, the which we find\n    Too indirect for long continuance.\n  Blunt. Shall I return this answer to the King?\n  Hot. Not so, Sir Walter. We'll withdraw awhile.\n    Go to the King; and let there be impawn'd\n    Some surety for a safe return again,\n    And In the morning early shall mine uncle\n    Bring him our purposes; and so farewell.\n  Blunt. I would you would accept of grace and love.\n  Hot. And may be so we shall.\n  Blunt. Pray God you do.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nYork. The Archbishop's Palace.\n\nEnter the Archbishop of York and Sir Michael.\n\n  Arch. Hie, good Sir Michael; bear this sealed brief\n    With winged haste to the Lord Marshal;\n    This to my cousin Scroop; and all the rest\n    To whom they are directed. If you knew\n    How much they do import, you would make haste.\n  Sir M. My good lord,\n    I guess their tenour.\n  Arch. Like enough you do.\n    To-morrow, good Sir Michael, is a day\n    Wherein the fortune of ten thousand men\n    Must bide the touch; for, sir, at Shrewsbury,\n    As I am truly given to understand,\n    The King with mighty and quick-raised power\n    Meets with Lord Harry; and I fear, Sir Michael,\n    What with the sickness of Northumberland,\n    Whose power was in the first proportion,\n    And what with Owen Glendower's absence thence,\n    Who with them was a rated sinew too\n    And comes not in, overrul'd by prophecies-\n    I fear the power of Percy is too weak\n    To wage an instant trial with the King.\n  Sir M. Why, my good lord, you need not fear;\n    There is Douglas and Lord Mortimer.\n  Arch. No, Mortimer is not there.\n  Sir M. But there is Mordake, Vernon, Lord Harry Percy,\n    And there is my Lord of Worcester, and a head\n    Of gallant warriors, noble gentlemen.\n  Arch. And so there is; but yet the King hath drawn\n    The special head of all the land together-\n    The Prince of Wales, Lord John of Lancaster,\n    The noble Westmoreland and warlike Blunt,\n    And many moe corrivals and dear men\n    Of estimation and command in arms.\n  Sir M. Doubt not, my lord, they shall be well oppos'd.\n  Arch. I hope no less, yet needful 'tis to fear;\n    And, to prevent the worst, Sir Michael, speed.\n    For if Lord Percy thrive not, ere the King\n    Dismiss his power, he means to visit us,\n    For he hath heard of our confederacy,\n    And 'tis but wisdom to make strong against him.\n    Therefore make haste. I must go write again\n    To other friends; and so farewell, Sir Michael.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. Scene I.\nThe King's camp near Shrewsbury.\n\nEnter the King, Prince of Wales, Lord John of Lancaster, Sir\nWalter Blunt,\nFalstaff.\n\n  King. How bloodily the sun begins to peer\n    Above yon busky hill! The day looks pale\n    At his distemp'rature.\n  Prince. The southern wind\n    Doth play the trumpet to his purposes\n    And by his hollow whistling in the leaves\n    Foretells a tempest and a blust'ring day.\n  King. Theft with the losers let it sympathize,\n    For nothing can seem foul to those that win.\n\n     The trumpet sounds. Enter Worcester [and Vernon].\n\n    How, now, my Lord of Worcester? 'Tis not well\n    That you and I should meet upon such terms\n    As now we meet. You have deceiv'd our trust\n    And made us doff our easy robes of peace\n    To crush our old limbs in ungentle steel.\n    This is not well, my lord; this is not well.\n    What say you to it? Will you again unknit\n    This churlish knot of all-abhorred war,\n    And move in that obedient orb again\n    Where you did give a fair and natural light,\n    And be no more an exhal'd meteor,\n    A prodigy of fear, and a portent\n    Of broached mischief to the unborn times?\n  Wor. Hear me, my liege.\n    For mine own part, I could be well content\n    To entertain the lag-end of my life\n    With quiet hours; for I do protest\n    I have not sought the day of this dislike.\n  King. You have not sought it! How comes it then,\n  Fal. Rebellion lay in his way, and he found it.\n  Prince. Peace, chewet, peace!\n  Wor. It pleas'd your Majesty to turn your looks\n    Of favour from myself and all our house;\n    And yet I must remember you, my lord,\n    We were the first and dearest of your friends.\n    For you my staff of office did I break\n    In Richard's time, and posted day and night\n    To meet you on the way and kiss your hand\n    When yet you were in place and in account\n    Nothing so strong and fortunate as I.\n    It was myself, my brother, and his son\n    That brought you home and boldly did outdare\n    The dangers of the time. You swore to us,\n    And you did swear that oath at Doncaster,\n    That you did nothing purpose 'gainst the state,\n    Nor claim no further than your new-fall'n right,\n    The seat of Gaunt, dukedom of Lancaster.\n    To this we swore our aid. But in short space\n    It it rain'd down fortune show'ring on your head,\n    And such a flood of greatness fell on you-\n    What with our help, what with the absent King,\n    What with the injuries of a wanton time,\n    The seeming sufferances that you had borne,\n    And the contrarious winds that held the King\n    So long in his unlucky Irish wars\n    That all in England did repute him dead-\n    And from this swarm of fair advantages\n    You took occasion to be quickly woo'd\n    To gripe the general sway into your hand;\n    Forgot your oath to us at Doncaster;\n    And, being fed by us, you us'd us so\n    As that ungentle gull, the cuckoo's bird,\n    Useth the sparrow- did oppress our nest;\n    Grew, by our feeding to so great a bulk\n    That even our love thirst not come near your sight\n    For fear of swallowing; but with nimble wing\n    We were enforc'd for safety sake to fly\n    Out of your sight and raise this present head;\n    Whereby we stand opposed by such means\n    As you yourself have forg'd against yourself\n    By unkind usage, dangerous countenance,\n    And violation of all faith and troth\n    Sworn to tis in your younger enterprise.\n  King. These things, indeed, you have articulate,\n    Proclaim'd at market crosses, read in churches,\n    To face the garment of rebellion\n    With some fine colour that may please the eye\n    Of fickle changelings and poor discontents,\n    Which gape and rub the elbow at the news\n    Of hurlyburly innovation.\n    And never yet did insurrection want\n    Such water colours to impaint his cause,\n    Nor moody beggars, starving for a time\n    Of pell-mell havoc and confusion.\n  Prince. In both our armies there is many a soul\n    Shall pay full dearly for this encounter,\n    If once they join in trial. Tell your nephew\n    The Prince of Wales doth join with all the world\n    In praise of Henry Percy. By my hopes,\n    This present enterprise set off his head,\n    I do not think a braver gentleman,\n    More active-valiant or more valiant-young,\n    More daring or more bold, is now alive\n    To grace this latter age with noble deeds.\n    For my part, I may speak it to my shame,\n    I have a truant been to chivalry;\n    And so I hear he doth account me too.\n    Yet this before my father's Majesty-\n    I am content that he shall take the odds\n    Of his great name and estimation,\n    And will to save the blood on either side,\n    Try fortune with him in a single fight.\n  King. And, Prince of Wales, so dare we venture thee,\n    Albeit considerations infinite\n    Do make against it. No, good Worcester, no!\n    We love our people well; even those we love\n    That are misled upon your cousin's part;\n    And, will they take the offer of our grace,\n    Both he, and they, and you, yea, every man\n    Shall be my friend again, and I'll be his.\n    So tell your cousin, and bring me word\n    What he will do. But if he will not yield,\n    Rebuke and dread correction wait on us,\n    And they shall do their office. So be gone.\n    We will not now be troubled with reply.\n    We offer fair; take it advisedly.\n                                    Exit Worcester [with Vernon]\n  Prince. It will not be accepted, on my life.\n    The Douglas and the Hotspur both together\n    Are confident against the world in arms.\n  King. Hence, therefore, every leader to his charge;\n    For, on their answer, will we set on them,\n    And God befriend us as our cause is just!\n                                Exeunt. Manent Prince, Falstaff.\n  Fal. Hal, if thou see me down in the battle and bestride me,\nso!\n    'Tis a point of friendship.\n  Prince. Nothing but a Colossus can do thee that friendship.\n    Say thy prayers, and farewell.\n  Fal. I would 'twere bedtime, Hal, and all well.\n  Prince. Why, thou owest God a death.\nExit.\n  Fal. 'Tis not due yet. I would be loath to pay him before his\nday.\n    What need I be so forward with him that calls not on me?\nWell,\n    'tis no matter; honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour\nprick\n    me off when I come on? How then? Can honor set to a leg? No.\nOr\n    an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour\nhath no\n    skill in surgery then? No. What is honour? A word. What is\nthat\n    word honour? Air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? He that died\na\n    Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth be bear it? No. 'Tis\n    insensible then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with\nthe\n    living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore\nI'll\n    none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon- and so ends my\ncatechism.\nExit.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nThe rebel camp.\n\nEnter Worcester and Sir Richard Vernon.\n\n  Wor. O no, my nephew must not know, Sir Richard,\n    The liberal and kind offer of the King.\n  Ver. 'Twere best he did.\n  Wor. Then are we all undone.\n    It is not possible, it cannot be\n    The King should keep his word in loving us.\n    He will suspect us still and find a time\n    To punish this offence in other faults.\n    Suspicion all our lives shall be stuck full of eyes;\n    For treason is but trusted like the fox\n    Who, ne'er so tame, so cherish'd and lock'd up,\n    Will have a wild trick of his ancestors.\n    Look how we can, or sad or merrily,\n    Interpretation will misquote our looks,\n    And we shall feed like oxen at a stall,\n    The better cherish'd, still the nearer death.\n    My nephew's trespass may be well forgot;\n    It hath the excuse of youth and heat of blood,\n    And an adopted name of privilege-\n    A hare-brained Hotspur govern'd by a spleen.\n    All his offences live upon my head\n    And on his father's. We did train him on;\n    And, his corruption being taken from us,\n    We, as the spring of all, shall pay for all.\n    Therefore, good cousin, let not Harry know,\n    In any case, the offer of the King.\n\n               Enter Hotspur [and Douglas].\n\n  Ver. Deliver what you will, I'll say 'tis so.\n    Here comes your cousin.\n  Hot. My uncle is return'd.\n    Deliver up my Lord of Westmoreland.\n    Uncle, what news?\n  Wor. The King will bid you battle presently.\n  Doug. Defy him by the Lord Of Westmoreland.\n  Hot. Lord Douglas, go you and tell him so.\n  Doug. Marry, and shall, and very willingly.\nExit.\n  Wor. There is no seeming mercy in the King.\n  Hot. Did you beg any, God forbid!\n  Wor. I told him gently of our grievances,\n    Of his oath-breaking; which he mended thus,\n    By now forswearing that he is forsworn.\n    He calls us rebels, traitors, aid will scourge\n    With haughty arms this hateful name in us.\n\n                       Enter Douglas.\n\n  Doug. Arm, gentlemen! to arms! for I have thrown\n    A brave defiance in King Henry's teeth,\n    And Westmoreland, that was engag'd, did bear it;\n    Which cannot choose but bring him quickly on.\n  Wor. The Prince of Wales stepp'd forth before the King\n    And, nephew, challeng'd you to single fight.\n  Hot. O, would the quarrel lay upon our heads,\n    And that no man might draw short breath to-day\n    But I and Harry Monmouth! Tell me, tell me,\n    How show'd his tasking? Seem'd it in contempt?\n    No, by my soul. I never in my life\n    Did hear a challenge urg'd more modestly,\n    Unless a brother should a brother dare\n    To gentle exercise and proof of arms.\n    He gave you all the duties of a man;\n    Trimm'd up your praises with a princely tongue;\n    Spoke your deservings like a chronicle;\n    Making you ever better than his praise\n    By still dispraising praise valued with you;\n    And, which became him like a prince indeed,\n    He made a blushing cital of himself,\n    And chid his truant youth with such a grace\n    As if lie mast'red there a double spirit\n    Of teaching and of learning instantly.\n    There did he pause; but let me tell the world,\n    If he outlive the envy of this day,\n    England did never owe so sweet a hope,\n    So much misconstrued in his wantonness.\n  Hot. Cousin, I think thou art enamoured\n    Upon his follies. Never did I hear\n    Of any prince so wild a libertine.\n    But be he as he will, yet once ere night\n    I will embrace him with a soldier's arm,\n    That he shall shrink under my courtesy.\n    Arm, arm with speed! and, fellows, soldiers, friends,\n    Better consider what you have to do\n    Than I, that have not well the gift of tongue,\n    Can lift your blood up with persuasion.\n\n                       Enter a Messenger.\n\n  Mess. My lord, here are letters for you.\n  Hot. I cannot read them now.-\n    O gentlemen, the time of life is short!\n    To spend that shortness basely were too long\n    If life did ride upon a dial's point,\n    Still ending at the arrival of an hour.\n    An if we live, we live to tread on kings;\n    If die, brave death, when princes die with us!\n    Now for our consciences, the arms are fair,\n    When the intent of bearing them is just.\n\n                  Enter another Messenger.\n\n  Mess. My lord, prepare. The King comes on apace.\n  Hot. I thank him that he cuts me from my tale,\n    For I profess not talking. Only this-\n    Let each man do his best; and here draw I\n    A sword whose temper I intend to stain\n    With the best blood that I can meet withal\n    In the adventure of this perilous day.\n    Now, Esperance! Percy! and set on.\n    Sound all the lofty instruments of war,\n    And by that music let us all embrace;\n    For, heaven to earth, some of us never shall\n    A second time do such a courtesy.\n                          Here they embrace. The trumpets sound.\n                                                       [Exeunt.]\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nPlain between the camps.\n\nThe King enters with his Power.  Alarum to the battle.  Then\nenter Douglas\nand Sir Walter Blunt.\n\n  Blunt. What is thy name, that in the battle thus\n    Thou crossest me? What honour dost thou seek\n    Upon my head?\n  Doug. Know then my name is Douglas,\n    And I do haunt thee in the battle thus\n    Because some tell me that thou art a king.\n  Blunt. They tell thee true.\n  Doug. The Lord of Stafford dear to-day hath bought\n    Thy likeness; for instead of thee, King Harry,\n    This sword hath ended him. So shall it thee,\n    Unless thou yield thee as my prisoner.\n  Blunt. I was not born a yielder, thou proud Scot;\n    And thou shalt find a king that will revenge\n    Lord Stafford's death.\n\n    They fight. Douglas kills Blunt. Then enter Hotspur.\n\n  Hot. O Douglas, hadst thou fought at Holmedon thus,\n    I never had triumph'd upon a Scot.\n  Doug. All's done, all's won. Here breathless lies the King.\n  Hot. Where?\n  Doug. Here.\n  Hot. This, Douglas? No. I know this face full well.\n    A gallant knight he was, his name was Blunt;\n    Semblably furnish'd like the King himself.\n  Doug. A fool go with thy soul, whither it goes!\n    A borrowed title hast thou bought too dear:\n    Why didst thou tell me that thou wert a king?\n  Hot. The King hath many marching in his coats.\n  Doug. Now, by my sword, I will kill all his coats;\n    I'll murder all his wardrop, piece by piece,\n    Until I meet the King.\n  Hot. Up and away!\n    Our soldiers stand full fairly for the day.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n                 Alarum. Enter Falstaff solus.\n\n  Fal. Though I could scape shot-free at London, I fear the shot\n    here. Here's no scoring but upon the pate. Soft! who are you?\n    Sir Walter Blunt. There's honour for you! Here's no vanity! I\nam\n    as hot as molten lead, and as heavy too. God keep lead out of\nme!\n    I need no more weight than mine own bowels. I have led my\n    rag-of-muffins where they are pepper'd. There's not three of\nmy\n    hundred and fifty left alive; and they are for the town's\nend, to\n    beg during life. But who comes here?\n\n                         Enter the Prince.\n\n  Prince. What, stand'st thou idle here? Lend me thy sword.\n    Many a nobleman lies stark and stiff\n    Under the hoofs of vaunting enemies,\n    Whose deaths are yet unreveng'd. I prithee\n    Rend me thy sword.\n  Fal. O Hal, I prithee give me leave to breathe awhile. Turk\nGregory\n    never did such deeds in arms as I have done this day. I have\npaid\n    Percy; I have made him sure.\n  Prince. He is indeed, and living to kill thee.\n    I prithee lend me thy sword.\n  Fal. Nay, before God, Hal, if Percy be alive, thou get'st not\nmy\n    sword; but take my pistol, if thou wilt.\n  Prince. Give it me. What, is it in the case?\n  Fal. Ay, Hal. 'Tis hot, 'tis hot. There's that will sack a\ncity.\n\n    The Prince draws it out and finds it to he a bottle of sack.\n\n    What, is it a time to jest and dally now?\n                              He throws the bottle at him. Exit.\n  Fal. Well, if Percy be alive, I'll pierce him. If he do come in\nmy\n    way, so; if he do not, if I come in his willingly, let him\nmake a\n    carbonado of me. I like not such grinning honour as Sir\nWalter\n    hath. Give me life; which if I can save, so; if not, honour\ncomes\n    unlook'd for, and there's an end.                      Exit.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nAnother part of the field.\n\nAlarum. Excursions. Enter the King, the Prince, Lord John of\nLancaster,\nEarl of Westmoreland\n\n  King. I prithee,\n    Harry, withdraw thyself; thou bleedest too much.\n    Lord John of Lancaster, go you unto him.\n  John. Not I, my lord, unless I did bleed too.\n  Prince. I do beseech your Majesty make up,\n    Lest Your retirement do amaze your friends.\n  King. I will do so.\n    My Lord of Westmoreland, lead him to his tent.\n  West. Come, my lord, I'll lead you to your tent.\n  Prince. Lead me, my lord, I do not need your help;\n    And God forbid a shallow scratch should drive\n    The Prince of Wales from such a field as this,\n    Where stain'd nobility lies trodden on,\n    And rebels' arms triumph in massacres!\n  John. We breathe too long. Come, cousin Westmoreland,\n    Our duty this way lies. For God's sake, come.\n                          [Exeunt Prince John and Westmoreland.]\n  Prince. By God, thou hast deceiv'd me, Lancaster!\n    I did not think thee lord of such a spirit.\n    Before, I lov'd thee as a brother, John;\n    But now, I do respect thee as my soul.\n  King. I saw him hold Lord Percy at the point\n    With lustier maintenance than I did look for\n    Of such an ungrown warrior.\n  Prince. O, this boy\n    Lends mettle to us all!                                Exit.\n\n                         Enter Douglas.\n\n  Doug. Another king? They grow like Hydra's heads.\n    I am the Douglas, fatal to all those\n    That wear those colours on them. What art thou\n    That counterfeit'st the person of a king?\n  King. The King himself, who, Douglas, grieves at heart\n    So many of his shadows thou hast met,\n    And not the very King. I have two boys\n    Seek Percy and thyself about the field;\n    But, seeing thou fall'st on me so luckily,\n    I will assay thee. So defend thyself.\n  Doug. I fear thou art another counterfeit;\n    And yet, in faith, thou bearest thee like a king.\n    But mine I am sure thou art, whoe'er thou be,\n    And thus I win thee.\n\n   They fight. The King being in danger, enter Prince of Wales.\n\n  Prince. Hold up thy head, vile Scot, or thou art like\n    Never to hold it up again! The spirits\n    Of valiant Shirley, Stafford, Blunt are in my arms.\n    It is the Prince of Wales that threatens thee,\n    Who never promiseth but he means to pay.\n                                     They fight. Douglas flieth.\n    Cheerly, my lord. How fares your Grace?\n    Sir Nicholas Gawsey hath for succour sent,\n    And so hath Clifton. I'll to Clifton straight.\n  King. Stay and breathe awhile.\n    Thou hast redeem'd thy lost opinion,\n    And show'd thou mak'st some tender of my life,\n    In this fair rescue thou hast brought to me.\n  Prince. O God! they did me too much injury\n    That ever said I heark'ned for your death.\n    If it were so, I might have let alone\n    The insulting hand of Douglas over you,\n    Which would have been as speedy in your end\n    As all the poisonous potions in the world,\n    And sav'd the treacherous labour of your son.\n  King. Make up to Clifton; I'll to Sir Nicholas Gawsey.\nExit.\n\n                      Enter Hotspur.\n\n  Hot. If I mistake not, thou art Harry Monmouth.\n  Prince. Thou speak'st as if I would deny my name.\n  Hot. My name is Harry Percy.\n  Prince. Why, then I see\n    A very valiant rebel of the name.\n    I am the Prince of Wales; and think not, Percy,\n    To share with me in glory any more.\n    Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere,\n    Nor can one England brook a double reign\n    Of Harry Percy and the Prince of Wales.\n  Hot. Nor shall it, Harry; for the hour is come\n    To end the one of us and would to God\n    Thy name in arms were now as great as mine!\n  Prince. I'll make it greater ere I part from thee,\n    And all the budding honours on thy crest\n    I'll crop to make a garland for my head.\n  Hot. I can no longer brook thy vanities.\n                                                     They fight.\n\n                      Enter Falstaff.\n\n  Fal. Well said, Hal! to it, Hal! Nay, you shall find no boy's\nplay\n    here, I can tell you.\n\n   Enter Douglas. He fighteth with Falstaff, who falls down as if\n\n      he were dead. [Exit Douglas.] The Prince killeth Percy.\n\n  Hot. O Harry, thou hast robb'd me of my youth!\n    I better brook the loss of brittle life\n    Than those proud titles thou hast won of me.\n    They wound my thoughts worse than thy sword my flesh.\n    But thoughts the slave, of life, and life time's fool,\n    And time, that takes survey of all the world,\n    Must have a stop. O, I could prophesy,\n    But that the earthy and cold hand of death\n    Lies on my tongue. No, Percy, thou art dust,\n    And food for-                                        [Dies.]\n  Prince. For worms, brave Percy. Fare thee well, great heart!\n    Ill-weav'd ambition, how much art thou shrunk!\n    When that this body did contain a spirit,\n    A kingdom for it was too small a bound;\n    But now two paces of the vilest earth\n    Is room enough. This earth that bears thee dead\n    Bears not alive so stout a gentleman.\n    If thou wert sensible of courtesy,\n    I should not make so dear a show of zeal.\n    But let my favours hide thy mangled face;\n    And, even in thy behalf, I'll thank myself\n    For doing these fair rites of tenderness.\n    Adieu, and take thy praise with thee to heaven!\n    Thy ignominy sleep with thee in the grave,\n    But not rememb'red in thy epitaph!\n                               He spieth Falstaff on the ground.\n    What, old acquaintance? Could not all this flesh\n    Keep in a little life? Poor Jack, farewell!\n    I could have better spar'd a better man.\n    O, I should have a heavy miss of thee\n    If I were much in love with vanity!\n    Death hath not struck so fat a deer to-day,\n    Though many dearer, in this bloody fray.\n    Embowell'd will I see thee by-and-by;\n    Till then in blood by noble Percy lie.                 Exit.\n\n                     Falstaff riseth up.\n\n  Fal. Embowell'd? If thou embowel me to-day, I'll give you leave\nto\n    powder me and eat me too to-morrow. 'Sblood, 'twas time to\n    counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had paid me scot and\nlot\n    too. Counterfeit? I lie; I am no counterfeit. To die is to be\na\n    counterfeit; for he is but the counterfeit of a man who hath\nnot\n    the life of a man; but to counterfeit dying when a man\nthereby\n    liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect\nimage\n    of life indeed. The better part of valour is discretion; in\nthe\n    which better part I have saved my life. Zounds, I am afraid\nof\n    this gunpowder Percy, though he be dead. How if he should\n    counterfeit too, and rise? By my faith, I am afraid he would\n    prove the better counterfeit. Therefore I'll make him sure;\nyea,\n    and I'll swear I kill'd him. Why may not he rise as well as\nI?\n    Nothing confutes me but eyes, and nobody sees me. Therefore,\n    sirrah [stabs him], with a new wound in your thigh, come you\n    along with me.\n\n   He takes up Hotspur on his hack. [Enter Prince, and John of\n                            Lancaster.\n\n  Prince. Come, brother John; full bravely hast thou flesh'd\n    Thy maiden sword.\n  John. But, soft! whom have we here?\n    Did you not tell me this fat man was dead?\n  Prince. I did; I saw him dead,\n    Breathless and bleeding on the ground. Art thou alive,\n    Or is it fantasy that plays upon our eyesight?\n    I prithee speak. We will not trust our eyes\n    Without our ears. Thou art not what thou seem'st.\n  Fal. No, that's certain! I am not a double man; but if I be not\n    Jack Falstaff, then am I a Jack. There 's Percy. If your\nfather\n    will do me any honour, so; if not, let him kill the next\nPercy\n    himself. I look to be either earl or duke, I can assure you.\n  Prince. Why, Percy I kill'd myself, and saw thee dead!\n  Fal. Didst thou? Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying!\nI\n    grant you I was down, and out of breath, and so was he; but\nwe\n    rose both at an instant and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury\n    clock. If I may be believ'd, so; if not, let them that should\n    reward valour bear the sin upon their own heads. I'll take it\n    upon my death, I gave him this wound in the thigh. If the man\n\n    were alive and would deny it, zounds! I would make him eat a\n    piece of my sword.\n  John. This is the strangest tale that ever I beard.\n  Prince. This is the strangest fellow, brother John.\n    Come, bring your luggage nobly on your back.\n    For my part, if a lie may do thee grace,\n    I'll gild it with the happiest terms I have.\n                                           A retreat is sounded.\n    The trumpet sounds retreat; the day is ours.\n    Come, brother, let's to the highest of the field,\n    To see what friends are living, who are dead.\n                          Exeunt [Prince Henry and Prince John].\n  Fal. I'll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards me,\nGod\n    reward him! If I do grow great, I'll grow less; for I'll\npurge,\n    and leave sack, and live cleanly, as a nobleman should do.\n                                    Exit [bearing off the body].\n\n\n\n\nScene V.\nAnother part of the field.\n\nThe trumpets sound. [Enter the King, Prince of Wales, Lord John\nof Lancaster,\nEarl of Westmoreland, with Worcester and Vernon prisoners.\n\n  King. Thus ever did rebellion find rebuke.\n    Ill-spirited Worcester! did not we send grace,\n    Pardon, and terms of love to all of you?\n    And wouldst thou turn our offers contrary?\n    Misuse the tenour of thy kinsman's trust?\n    Three knights upon our party slain to-day,\n    A noble earl, and many a creature else\n    Had been alive this hour,\n    If like a Christian thou hadst truly borne\n    Betwixt our armies true intelligence.\n  Wor. What I have done my safety urg'd me to;\n    And I embrace this fortune patiently,\n    Since not to be avoided it fails on me.\n  King. Bear Worcester to the death, and Vernon too;\n    Other offenders we will pause upon.\n                         Exeunt Worcester and Vernon, [guarded].\n    How goes the field?\n  Prince. The noble Scot, Lord Douglas, when he saw\n    The fortune of the day quite turn'd from him,\n    The Noble Percy slain and all his men\n    Upon the foot of fear, fled with the rest;\n    And falling from a hill,he was so bruis'd\n    That the pursuers took him. At my tent\n    The Douglas is, and I beseech Your Grace\n    I may dispose of him.\n  King. With all my heart.\n  Prince. Then brother John of Lancaster, to you\n    This honourable bounty shall belong.\n    Go to the Douglas and deliver him\n    Up to his pleasure, ransomless and free.\n    His valour shown upon our crests today\n    Hath taught us how to cherish such high deeds,\n    Even in the bosom of our adversaries.\n  John. I thank your Grace for this high courtesy,\n    Which I shall give away immediately.\n  King. Then this remains, that we divide our power.\n    You, son John, and my cousin Westmoreland,\n    Towards York shall bend you with your dearest speed\n    To meet Northumberland and the prelate Scroop,\n    Who, as we hear, are busily in arms.\n    Myself and you, son Harry, will towards Wales\n    To fight with Glendower and the Earl of March.\n    Rebellion in this laud shall lose his sway,\n    Meeting the check of such another day;\n    And since this business so fair is done,\n    Let us not leave till all our own be won.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of this Etext of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare\nTHE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY THE FOURTH\n"}
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{"1023":"and revised by Thomas Berger and Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.\n\n\n\nBLEAK HOUSE\n\nby\n\nCHARLES DICKENS\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n            Preface\n         I. In Chancery\n        II. In Fashion\n       III. A Progress\n        IV. Telescopic Philanthropy\n         V. A Morning Adventure\n        VI. Quite at Home\n       VII. The Ghost's Walk\n      VIII. Covering a Multitude of Sins\n        IX. Signs and Tokens\n         X. The Law-Writer\n        XI. Our Dear Brother\n       XII. On the Watch\n      XIII. Esther's Narrative\n       XIV. Deportment\n        XV. Bell Yard\n       XVI. Tom-all-Alone's\n      XVII. Esther's Narrative\n     XVIII. Lady Dedlock\n       XIX. Moving On\n        XX. A New Lodger\n       XXI. The Smallweed Family\n      XXII. Mr. Bucket\n     XXIII. Esther's Narrative\n      XXIV. An Appeal Case\n       XXV. Mrs. Snagsby Sees It All\n      XXVI. Sharpshooters\n     XXVII. More Old Soldiers Than One\n    XXVIII. The Ironmaster\n      XXIX. The Young Man\n       XXX. Esther's Narrative\n      XXXI. Nurse and Patient\n     XXXII. The Appointed Time\n    XXXIII. Interlopers\n     XXXIV. A Turn of the Screw\n      XXXV. Esther's Narrative\n     XXXVI. Chesney Wold\n    XXXVII. Jarndyce and Jarndyce\n   XXXVIII. A Struggle\n     XXXIX. Attorney and Client\n        XL. National and Domestic\n       XLI. In Mr. Tulkinghorn's Room\n      XLII. In Mr. Tulkinghorn's Chambers\n     XLIII. Esther's Narrative\n      XLIV. The Letter and the Answer\n       XLV. In Trust\n      XLVI. Stop Him!\n     XLVII. Jo's Will\n    XLVIII. Closing In\n      XLIX. Dutiful Friendship\n         L. Esther's Narrative\n        LI. Enlightened\n       LII. Obstinacy\n      LIII. The Track\n       LIV. Springing a Mine\n        LV. Flight\n       LVI. Pursuit\n      LVII. Esther's Narrative\n     LVIII. A Wintry Day and Night\n       LIX. Esther's Narrative\n        LX. Perspective\n       LXI. A Discovery\n      LXII. Another Discovery\n     LXIII. Steel and Iron\n   LXIV. Esther's Narrative\n   LXV. Beginning the World\n   LXVI. Down in Lincolnshire\n   LXVII. The Close of Esther's Narrative\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nA Chancery judge once had the kindness to inform me, as one of a\ncompany of some hundred and fifty men and women not labouring under\nany suspicions of lunacy, that the Court of Chancery, though the\nshining subject of much popular prejudice (at which point I thought\nthe judge's eye had a cast in my direction), was almost immaculate.\nThere had been, he admitted, a trivial blemish or so in its rate of\nprogress, but this was exaggerated and had been entirely owing to the\n\"parsimony of the public,\" which guilty public, it appeared, had been\nuntil lately bent in the most determined manner on by no means\nenlarging the number of Chancery judges appointed--I believe by\nRichard the Second, but any other king will do as well.\n\nThis seemed to me too profound a joke to be inserted in the body of\nthis book or I should have restored it to Conversation Kenge or to\nMr. Vholes, with one or other of whom I think it must have\noriginated. In such mouths I might have coupled it with an apt\nquotation from one of Shakespeare's sonnets:\n\n                     \"My nature is subdued\n   To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:\n   Pity me, then, and wish I were renewed!\"\n\nBut as it is wholesome that the parsimonious public should know what\nhas been doing, and still is doing, in this connexion, I mention here\nthat everything set forth in these pages concerning the Court of\nChancery is substantially true, and within the truth. The case of\nGridley is in no essential altered from one of actual occurrence,\nmade public by a disinterested person who was professionally\nacquainted with the whole of the monstrous wrong from beginning to\nend. At the present moment (August, 1853) there is a suit before the\ncourt which was commenced nearly twenty years ago, in which from\nthirty to forty counsel have been known to appear at one time, in\nwhich costs have been incurred to the amount of seventy thousand\npounds, which is A FRIENDLY SUIT, and which is (I am assured) no\nnearer to its termination now than when it was begun. There is\nanother well-known suit in Chancery, not yet decided, which was\ncommenced before the close of the last century and in which more than\ndouble the amount of seventy thousand pounds has been swallowed up in\ncosts. If I wanted other authorities for Jarndyce and Jarndyce, I\ncould rain them on these pages, to the shame of--a parsimonious\npublic.\n\nThere is only one other point on which I offer a word of remark. The\npossibility of what is called spontaneous combustion has been denied\nsince the death of Mr. Krook; and my good friend Mr. Lewes (quite\nmistaken, as he soon found, in supposing the thing to have been\nabandoned by all authorities) published some ingenious letters to me\nat the time when that event was chronicled, arguing that spontaneous\ncombustion could not possibly be. I have no need to observe that I do\nnot wilfully or negligently mislead my readers and that before I\nwrote that description I took pains to investigate the subject. There\nare about thirty cases on record, of which the most famous, that of\nthe Countess Cornelia de Baudi Cesenate, was minutely investigated\nand described by Giuseppe Bianchini, a prebendary of Verona,\notherwise distinguished in letters, who published an account of it at\nVerona in 1731, which he afterwards republished at Rome. The\nappearances, beyond all rational doubt, observed in that case are the\nappearances observed in Mr. Krook's case. The next most famous\ninstance happened at Rheims six years earlier, and the historian in\nthat case is Le Cat, one of the most renowned surgeons produced by\nFrance. The subject was a woman, whose husband was ignorantly\nconvicted of having murdered her; but on solemn appeal to a higher\ncourt, he was acquitted because it was shown upon the evidence that\nshe had died the death of which this name of spontaneous combustion\nis given. I do not think it necessary to add to these notable facts,\nand that general reference to the authorities which will be found at\npage 30, vol. ii.,* the recorded opinions and experiences of\ndistinguished medical professors, French, English, and Scotch, in\nmore modern days, contenting myself with observing that I shall not\nabandon the facts until there shall have been a considerable\nspontaneous combustion of the testimony on which human occurrences\nare usually received.**\n\nIn Bleak House I have purposely dwelt upon the romantic side of\nfamiliar things.\n\n\n1853\n\n\n   *Transcriber's note. This referred to a specific page in\n    the printed book. In this Project Gutenberg edition the\n    pertinent information is in Chapter XXX, paragraph 90.\n\n   ** Another case, very clearly described by a dentist,\n    occurred at the town of Columbus, in the United States\n    of America, quite recently. The subject was a German who\n    kept a liquor-shop and was an inveterate drunkard.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nIn Chancery\n\n\nLondon. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting\nin Lincoln's Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in\nthe streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of\nthe earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus,\nforty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn\nHill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black\ndrizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown\nsnowflakes--gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of\nthe sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better;\nsplashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one\nanother's umbrellas in a general infection of ill temper, and losing\ntheir foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other\nfoot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke\n(if this day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust\nof mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and\naccumulating at compound interest.\n\nFog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and\nmeadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers\nof shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city.\nFog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping\ninto the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards and\nhovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales\nof barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient\nGreenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog\nin the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper,\ndown in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of\nhis shivering little 'prentice boy on deck. Chance people on the\nbridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog\nall round them, as if they were up in a balloon and hanging in the\nmisty clouds.\n\nGas looming through the fog in divers places in the streets, much as\nthe sun may, from the spongey fields, be seen to loom by husbandman\nand ploughboy. Most of the shops lighted two hours before their\ntime--as the gas seems to know, for it has a haggard and unwilling\nlook.\n\nThe raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the\nmuddy streets are muddiest near that leaden-headed old obstruction,\nappropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old\ncorporation, Temple Bar. And hard by Temple Bar, in Lincoln's Inn\nHall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in\nhis High Court of Chancery.\n\nNever can there come fog too thick, never can there come mud and mire\ntoo deep, to assort with the groping and floundering condition which\nthis High Court of Chancery, most pestilent of hoary sinners, holds\nthis day in the sight of heaven and earth.\n\nOn such an afternoon, if ever, the Lord High Chancellor ought to be\nsitting here--as here he is--with a foggy glory round his head,\nsoftly fenced in with crimson cloth and curtains, addressed by a\nlarge advocate with great whiskers, a little voice, and an\ninterminable brief, and outwardly directing his contemplation to the\nlantern in the roof, where he can see nothing but fog. On such an\nafternoon some score of members of the High Court of Chancery bar\nought to be--as here they are--mistily engaged in one of the ten\nthousand stages of an endless cause, tripping one another up on\nslippery precedents, groping knee-deep in technicalities, running\ntheir goat-hair and horsehair warded heads against walls of words and\nmaking a pretence of equity with serious faces, as players might. On\nsuch an afternoon the various solicitors in the cause, some two or\nthree of whom have inherited it from their fathers, who made a\nfortune by it, ought to be--as are they not?--ranged in a line, in a\nlong matted well (but you might look in vain for truth at the bottom\nof it) between the registrar's red table and the silk gowns, with\nbills, cross-bills, answers, rejoinders, injunctions, affidavits,\nissues, references to masters, masters' reports, mountains of costly\nnonsense, piled before them. Well may the court be dim, with wasting\ncandles here and there; well may the fog hang heavy in it, as if it\nwould never get out; well may the stained-glass windows lose their\ncolour and admit no light of day into the place; well may the\nuninitiated from the streets, who peep in through the glass panes in\nthe door, be deterred from entrance by its owlish aspect and by the\ndrawl, languidly echoing to the roof from the padded dais where the\nLord High Chancellor looks into the lantern that has no light in it\nand where the attendant wigs are all stuck in a fog-bank! This is the\nCourt of Chancery, which has its decaying houses and its blighted\nlands in every shire, which has its worn-out lunatic in every\nmadhouse and its dead in every churchyard, which has its ruined\nsuitor with his slipshod heels and threadbare dress borrowing and\nbegging through the round of every man's acquaintance, which gives to\nmonied might the means abundantly of wearying out the right, which so\nexhausts finances, patience, courage, hope, so overthrows the brain\nand breaks the heart, that there is not an honourable man among its\npractitioners who would not give--who does not often give--the\nwarning, \"Suffer any wrong that can be done you rather than come\nhere!\"\n\nWho happen to be in the Lord Chancellor's court this murky afternoon\nbesides the Lord Chancellor, the counsel in the cause, two or three\ncounsel who are never in any cause, and the well of solicitors before\nmentioned? There is the registrar below the judge, in wig and gown;\nand there are two or three maces, or petty-bags, or privy purses, or\nwhatever they may be, in legal court suits. These are all yawning,\nfor no crumb of amusement ever falls from Jarndyce and Jarndyce (the\ncause in hand), which was squeezed dry years upon years ago. The\nshort-hand writers, the reporters of the court, and the reporters of\nthe newspapers invariably decamp with the rest of the regulars when\nJarndyce and Jarndyce comes on. Their places are a blank. Standing on\na seat at the side of the hall, the better to peer into the curtained\nsanctuary, is a little mad old woman in a squeezed bonnet who is\nalways in court, from its sitting to its rising, and always expecting\nsome incomprehensible judgment to be given in her favour. Some say\nshe really is, or was, a party to a suit, but no one knows for\ncertain because no one cares. She carries some small litter in a\nreticule which she calls her documents, principally consisting of\npaper matches and dry lavender. A sallow prisoner has come up, in\ncustody, for the half-dozenth time to make a personal application \"to\npurge himself of his contempt,\" which, being a solitary surviving\nexecutor who has fallen into a state of conglomeration about accounts\nof which it is not pretended that he had ever any knowledge, he is\nnot at all likely ever to do. In the meantime his prospects in life\nare ended. Another ruined suitor, who periodically appears from\nShropshire and breaks out into efforts to address the Chancellor at\nthe close of the day's business and who can by no means be made to\nunderstand that the Chancellor is legally ignorant of his existence\nafter making it desolate for a quarter of a century, plants himself\nin a good place and keeps an eye on the judge, ready to call out \"My\nLord!\" in a voice of sonorous complaint on the instant of his rising.\nA few lawyers' clerks and others who know this suitor by sight linger\non the chance of his furnishing some fun and enlivening the dismal\nweather a little.\n\nJarndyce and Jarndyce drones on. This scarecrow of a suit has, in\ncourse of time, become so complicated that no man alive knows what it\nmeans. The parties to it understand it least, but it has been\nobserved that no two Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five\nminutes without coming to a total disagreement as to all the\npremises. Innumerable children have been born into the cause;\ninnumerable young people have married into it; innumerable old people\nhave died out of it. Scores of persons have deliriously found\nthemselves made parties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce without knowing how\nor why; whole families have inherited legendary hatreds with the\nsuit. The little plaintiff or defendant who was promised a new\nrocking-horse when Jarndyce and Jarndyce should be settled has grown\nup, possessed himself of a real horse, and trotted away into the\nother world. Fair wards of court have faded into mothers and\ngrandmothers; a long procession of Chancellors has come in and gone\nout; the legion of bills in the suit have been transformed into mere\nbills of mortality; there are not three Jarndyces left upon the earth\nperhaps since old Tom Jarndyce in despair blew his brains out at a\ncoffee-house in Chancery Lane; but Jarndyce and Jarndyce still drags\nits dreary length before the court, perennially hopeless.\n\nJarndyce and Jarndyce has passed into a joke. That is the only good\nthat has ever come of it. It has been death to many, but it is a joke\nin the profession. Every master in Chancery has had a reference out\nof it. Every Chancellor was \"in it,\" for somebody or other, when he\nwas counsel at the bar. Good things have been said about it by\nblue-nosed, bulbous-shoed old benchers in select port-wine committee\nafter dinner in hall. Articled clerks have been in the habit of\nfleshing their legal wit upon it. The last Lord Chancellor handled it\nneatly, when, correcting Mr. Blowers, the eminent silk gown who said\nthat such a thing might happen when the sky rained potatoes, he\nobserved, \"or when we get through Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Mr.\nBlowers\"--a pleasantry that particularly tickled the maces, bags, and\npurses.\n\nHow many people out of the suit Jarndyce and Jarndyce has stretched\nforth its unwholesome hand to spoil and corrupt would be a very wide\nquestion. From the master upon whose impaling files reams of dusty\nwarrants in Jarndyce and Jarndyce have grimly writhed into many\nshapes, down to the copying-clerk in the Six Clerks' Office who has\ncopied his tens of thousands of Chancery folio-pages under that\neternal heading, no man's nature has been made better by it. In\ntrickery, evasion, procrastination, spoliation, botheration, under\nfalse pretences of all sorts, there are influences that can never\ncome to good. The very solicitors' boys who have kept the wretched\nsuitors at bay, by protesting time out of mind that Mr. Chizzle,\nMizzle, or otherwise was particularly engaged and had appointments\nuntil dinner, may have got an extra moral twist and shuffle into\nthemselves out of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. The receiver in the cause\nhas acquired a goodly sum of money by it but has acquired too a\ndistrust of his own mother and a contempt for his own kind. Chizzle,\nMizzle, and otherwise have lapsed into a habit of vaguely promising\nthemselves that they will look into that outstanding little matter\nand see what can be done for Drizzle--who was not well used--when\nJarndyce and Jarndyce shall be got out of the office. Shirking and\nsharking in all their many varieties have been sown broadcast by the\nill-fated cause; and even those who have contemplated its history\nfrom the outermost circle of such evil have been insensibly tempted\ninto a loose way of letting bad things alone to take their own bad\ncourse, and a loose belief that if the world go wrong it was in some\noff-hand manner never meant to go right.\n\nThus, in the midst of the mud and at the heart of the fog, sits the\nLord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery.\n\n\"Mr. Tangle,\" says the Lord High Chancellor, latterly something\nrestless under the eloquence of that learned gentleman.\n\n\"Mlud,\" says Mr. Tangle. Mr. Tangle knows more of Jarndyce and\nJarndyce than anybody. He is famous for it--supposed never to have\nread anything else since he left school.\n\n\"Have you nearly concluded your argument?\"\n\n\"Mlud, no--variety of points--feel it my duty tsubmit--ludship,\" is\nthe reply that slides out of Mr. Tangle.\n\n\"Several members of the bar are still to be heard, I believe?\" says\nthe Chancellor with a slight smile.\n\nEighteen of Mr. Tangle's learned friends, each armed with a little\nsummary of eighteen hundred sheets, bob up like eighteen hammers in a\npianoforte, make eighteen bows, and drop into their eighteen places\nof obscurity.\n\n\"We will proceed with the hearing on Wednesday fortnight,\" says the\nChancellor. For the question at issue is only a question of costs, a\nmere bud on the forest tree of the parent suit, and really will come\nto a settlement one of these days.\n\nThe Chancellor rises; the bar rises; the prisoner is brought forward\nin a hurry; the man from Shropshire cries, \"My lord!\" Maces, bags,\nand purses indignantly proclaim silence and frown at the man from\nShropshire.\n\n\"In reference,\" proceeds the Chancellor, still on Jarndyce and\nJarndyce, \"to the young girl--\"\n\n\"Begludship's pardon--boy,\" says Mr. Tangle prematurely. \"In\nreference,\" proceeds the Chancellor with extra distinctness, \"to the\nyoung girl and boy, the two young people\"--Mr. Tangle crushed--\"whom\nI directed to be in attendance to-day and who are now in my private\nroom, I will see them and satisfy myself as to the expediency of\nmaking the order for their residing with their uncle.\"\n\nMr. Tangle on his legs again. \"Begludship's pardon--dead.\"\n\n\"With their\"--Chancellor looking through his double eye-glass at the\npapers on his desk--\"grandfather.\"\n\n\"Begludship's pardon--victim of rash action--brains.\"\n\nSuddenly a very little counsel with a terrific bass voice arises,\nfully inflated, in the back settlements of the fog, and says, \"Will\nyour lordship allow me? I appear for him. He is a cousin, several\ntimes removed. I am not at the moment prepared to inform the court in\nwhat exact remove he is a cousin, but he IS a cousin.\"\n\nLeaving this address (delivered like a sepulchral message) ringing in\nthe rafters of the roof, the very little counsel drops, and the fog\nknows him no more. Everybody looks for him. Nobody can see him.\n\n\"I will speak with both the young people,\" says the Chancellor anew,\n\"and satisfy myself on the subject of their residing with their\ncousin. I will mention the matter to-morrow morning when I take my\nseat.\"\n\nThe Chancellor is about to bow to the bar when the prisoner is\npresented. Nothing can possibly come of the prisoner's conglomeration\nbut his being sent back to prison, which is soon done. The man from\nShropshire ventures another remonstrative \"My lord!\" but the\nChancellor, being aware of him, has dexterously vanished. Everybody\nelse quickly vanishes too. A battery of blue bags is loaded with\nheavy charges of papers and carried off by clerks; the little mad old\nwoman marches off with her documents; the empty court is locked up.\nIf all the injustice it has committed and all the misery it has\ncaused could only be locked up with it, and the whole burnt away in a\ngreat funeral pyre--why so much the better for other parties than the\nparties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nIn Fashion\n\n\nIt is but a glimpse of the world of fashion that we want on this same\nmiry afternoon. It is not so unlike the Court of Chancery but that we\nmay pass from the one scene to the other, as the crow flies. Both the\nworld of fashion and the Court of Chancery are things of precedent\nand usage: oversleeping Rip Van Winkles who have played at strange\ngames through a deal of thundery weather; sleeping beauties whom the\nknight will wake one day, when all the stopped spits in the kitchen\nshall begin to turn prodigiously!\n\nIt is not a large world. Relatively even to this world of ours, which\nhas its limits too (as your Highness shall find when you have made\nthe tour of it and are come to the brink of the void beyond), it is a\nvery little speck. There is much good in it; there are many good and\ntrue people in it; it has its appointed place. But the evil of it is\nthat it is a world wrapped up in too much jeweller's cotton and fine\nwool, and cannot hear the rushing of the larger worlds, and cannot\nsee them as they circle round the sun. It is a deadened world, and\nits growth is sometimes unhealthy for want of air.\n\nMy Lady Dedlock has returned to her house in town for a few days\nprevious to her departure for Paris, where her ladyship intends to\nstay some weeks, after which her movements are uncertain. The\nfashionable intelligence says so for the comfort of the Parisians,\nand it knows all fashionable things. To know things otherwise were to\nbe unfashionable. My Lady Dedlock has been down at what she calls, in\nfamiliar conversation, her \"place\" in Lincolnshire. The waters are\nout in Lincolnshire. An arch of the bridge in the park has been\nsapped and sopped away. The adjacent low-lying ground for half a mile\nin breadth is a stagnant river with melancholy trees for islands in\nit and a surface punctured all over, all day long, with falling rain.\nMy Lady Dedlock's place has been extremely dreary. The weather for\nmany a day and night has been so wet that the trees seem wet through,\nand the soft loppings and prunings of the woodman's axe can make no\ncrash or crackle as they fall. The deer, looking soaked, leave\nquagmires where they pass. The shot of a rifle loses its sharpness in\nthe moist air, and its smoke moves in a tardy little cloud towards\nthe green rise, coppice-topped, that makes a background for the\nfalling rain. The view from my Lady Dedlock's own windows is\nalternately a lead-coloured view and a view in Indian ink. The vases\non the stone terrace in the foreground catch the rain all day; and\nthe heavy drops fall--drip, drip, drip--upon the broad flagged\npavement, called from old time the Ghost's Walk, all night. On\nSundays the little church in the park is mouldy; the oaken pulpit\nbreaks out into a cold sweat; and there is a general smell and taste\nas of the ancient Dedlocks in their graves. My Lady Dedlock (who is\nchildless), looking out in the early twilight from her boudoir at a\nkeeper's lodge and seeing the light of a fire upon the latticed\npanes, and smoke rising from the chimney, and a child, chased by a\nwoman, running out into the rain to meet the shining figure of a\nwrapped-up man coming through the gate, has been put quite out of\ntemper. My Lady Dedlock says she has been \"bored to death.\"\n\nTherefore my Lady Dedlock has come away from the place in\nLincolnshire and has left it to the rain, and the crows, and the\nrabbits, and the deer, and the partridges and pheasants. The pictures\nof the Dedlocks past and gone have seemed to vanish into the damp\nwalls in mere lowness of spirits, as the housekeeper has passed along\nthe old rooms shutting up the shutters. And when they will next come\nforth again, the fashionable intelligence--which, like the fiend, is\nomniscient of the past and present, but not the future--cannot yet\nundertake to say.\n\nSir Leicester Dedlock is only a baronet, but there is no mightier\nbaronet than he. His family is as old as the hills, and infinitely\nmore respectable. He has a general opinion that the world might get\non without hills but would be done up without Dedlocks. He would on\nthe whole admit nature to be a good idea (a little low, perhaps, when\nnot enclosed with a park-fence), but an idea dependent for its\nexecution on your great county families. He is a gentleman of strict\nconscience, disdainful of all littleness and meanness and ready on\nthe shortest notice to die any death you may please to mention rather\nthan give occasion for the least impeachment of his integrity. He is\nan honourable, obstinate, truthful, high-spirited, intensely\nprejudiced, perfectly unreasonable man.\n\nSir Leicester is twenty years, full measure, older than my Lady. He\nwill never see sixty-five again, nor perhaps sixty-six, nor yet\nsixty-seven. He has a twist of the gout now and then and walks a\nlittle stiffly. He is of a worthy presence, with his light-grey hair\nand whiskers, his fine shirt-frill, his pure-white waistcoat, and his\nblue coat with bright buttons always buttoned. He is ceremonious,\nstately, most polite on every occasion to my Lady, and holds her\npersonal attractions in the highest estimation. His gallantry to my\nLady, which has never changed since he courted her, is the one little\ntouch of romantic fancy in him.\n\nIndeed, he married her for love. A whisper still goes about that she\nhad not even family; howbeit, Sir Leicester had so much family that\nperhaps he had enough and could dispense with any more. But she had\nbeauty, pride, ambition, insolent resolve, and sense enough to\nportion out a legion of fine ladies. Wealth and station, added to\nthese, soon floated her upward, and for years now my Lady Dedlock has\nbeen at the centre of the fashionable intelligence and at the top of\nthe fashionable tree.\n\nHow Alexander wept when he had no more worlds to conquer, everybody\nknows--or has some reason to know by this time, the matter having\nbeen rather frequently mentioned. My Lady Dedlock, having conquered\nHER world, fell not into the melting, but rather into the freezing,\nmood. An exhausted composure, a worn-out placidity, an equanimity of\nfatigue not to be ruffled by interest or satisfaction, are the\ntrophies of her victory. She is perfectly well-bred. If she could be\ntranslated to heaven to-morrow, she might be expected to ascend\nwithout any rapture.\n\nShe has beauty still, and if it be not in its heyday, it is not yet\nin its autumn. She has a fine face--originally of a character that\nwould be rather called very pretty than handsome, but improved into\nclassicality by the acquired expression of her fashionable state. Her\nfigure is elegant and has the effect of being tall. Not that she is\nso, but that \"the most is made,\" as the Honourable Bob Stables has\nfrequently asserted upon oath, \"of all her points.\" The same\nauthority observes that she is perfectly got up and remarks in\ncommendation of her hair especially that she is the best-groomed\nwoman in the whole stud.\n\nWith all her perfections on her head, my Lady Dedlock has come up\nfrom her place in Lincolnshire (hotly pursued by the fashionable\nintelligence) to pass a few days at her house in town previous to her\ndeparture for Paris, where her ladyship intends to stay some weeks,\nafter which her movements are uncertain. And at her house in town,\nupon this muddy, murky afternoon, presents himself an old-fashioned\nold gentleman, attorney-at-law and eke solicitor of the High Court of\nChancery, who has the honour of acting as legal adviser of the\nDedlocks and has as many cast-iron boxes in his office with that name\noutside as if the present baronet were the coin of the conjuror's\ntrick and were constantly being juggled through the whole set. Across\nthe hall, and up the stairs, and along the passages, and through the\nrooms, which are very brilliant in the season and very dismal out of\nit--fairy-land to visit, but a desert to live in--the old gentleman\nis conducted by a Mercury in powder to my Lady's presence.\n\nThe old gentleman is rusty to look at, but is reputed to have made\ngood thrift out of aristocratic marriage settlements and aristocratic\nwills, and to be very rich. He is surrounded by a mysterious halo of\nfamily confidences, of which he is known to be the silent depository.\nThere are noble mausoleums rooted for centuries in retired glades of\nparks among the growing timber and the fern, which perhaps hold fewer\nnoble secrets than walk abroad among men, shut up in the breast of\nMr. Tulkinghorn. He is of what is called the old school--a phrase\ngenerally meaning any school that seems never to have been young--and\nwears knee-breeches tied with ribbons, and gaiters or stockings. One\npeculiarity of his black clothes and of his black stockings, be they\nsilk or worsted, is that they never shine. Mute, close, irresponsive\nto any glancing light, his dress is like himself. He never converses\nwhen not professionally consulted. He is found sometimes, speechless\nbut quite at home, at corners of dinner-tables in great country\nhouses and near doors of drawing-rooms, concerning which the\nfashionable intelligence is eloquent, where everybody knows him and\nwhere half the Peerage stops to say \"How do you do, Mr. Tulkinghorn?\"\nHe receives these salutations with gravity and buries them along with\nthe rest of his knowledge.\n\nSir Leicester Dedlock is with my Lady and is happy to see Mr.\nTulkinghorn. There is an air of prescription about him which is\nalways agreeable to Sir Leicester; he receives it as a kind of\ntribute. He likes Mr. Tulkinghorn's dress; there is a kind of tribute\nin that too. It is eminently respectable, and likewise, in a general\nway, retainer-like. It expresses, as it were, the steward of the\nlegal mysteries, the butler of the legal cellar, of the Dedlocks.\n\nHas Mr. Tulkinghorn any idea of this himself? It may be so, or it may\nnot, but there is this remarkable circumstance to be noted in\neverything associated with my Lady Dedlock as one of a class--as one\nof the leaders and representatives of her little world. She supposes\nherself to be an inscrutable Being, quite out of the reach and ken of\nordinary mortals--seeing herself in her glass, where indeed she looks\nso. Yet every dim little star revolving about her, from her maid to\nthe manager of the Italian Opera, knows her weaknesses, prejudices,\nfollies, haughtinesses, and caprices and lives upon as accurate a\ncalculation and as nice a measure of her moral nature as her\ndressmaker takes of her physical proportions. Is a new dress, a new\ncustom, a new singer, a new dancer, a new form of jewellery, a new\ndwarf or giant, a new chapel, a new anything, to be set up? There are\ndeferential people in a dozen callings whom my Lady Dedlock suspects\nof nothing but prostration before her, who can tell you how to manage\nher as if she were a baby, who do nothing but nurse her all their\nlives, who, humbly affecting to follow with profound subservience,\nlead her and her whole troop after them; who, in hooking one, hook\nall and bear them off as Lemuel Gulliver bore away the stately fleet\nof the majestic Lilliput. \"If you want to address our people, sir,\"\nsay Blaze and Sparkle, the jewellers--meaning by our people Lady\nDedlock and the rest--\"you must remember that you are not dealing\nwith the general public; you must hit our people in their weakest\nplace, and their weakest place is such a place.\" \"To make this\narticle go down, gentlemen,\" say Sheen and Gloss, the mercers, to\ntheir friends the manufacturers, \"you must come to us, because we\nknow where to have the fashionable people, and we can make it\nfashionable.\" \"If you want to get this print upon the tables of my\nhigh connexion, sir,\" says Mr. Sladdery, the librarian, \"or if you\nwant to get this dwarf or giant into the houses of my high connexion,\nsir, or if you want to secure to this entertainment the patronage of\nmy high connexion, sir, you must leave it, if you please, to me, for\nI have been accustomed to study the leaders of my high connexion,\nsir, and I may tell you without vanity that I can turn them round my\nfinger\"--in which Mr. Sladdery, who is an honest man, does not\nexaggerate at all.\n\nTherefore, while Mr. Tulkinghorn may not know what is passing in the\nDedlock mind at present, it is very possible that he may.\n\n\"My Lady's cause has been again before the Chancellor, has it, Mr.\nTulkinghorn?\" says Sir Leicester, giving him his hand.\n\n\"Yes. It has been on again to-day,\" Mr. Tulkinghorn replies, making\none of his quiet bows to my Lady, who is on a sofa near the fire,\nshading her face with a hand-screen.\n\n\"It would be useless to ask,\" says my Lady with the dreariness of the\nplace in Lincolnshire still upon her, \"whether anything has been\ndone.\"\n\n\"Nothing that YOU would call anything has been done to-day,\" replies\nMr. Tulkinghorn.\n\n\"Nor ever will be,\" says my Lady.\n\nSir Leicester has no objection to an interminable Chancery suit. It\nis a slow, expensive, British, constitutional kind of thing. To be\nsure, he has not a vital interest in the suit in question, her part\nin which was the only property my Lady brought him; and he has a\nshadowy impression that for his name--the name of Dedlock--to be in a\ncause, and not in the title of that cause, is a most ridiculous\naccident. But he regards the Court of Chancery, even if it should\ninvolve an occasional delay of justice and a trifling amount of\nconfusion, as a something devised in conjunction with a variety of\nother somethings by the perfection of human wisdom for the eternal\nsettlement (humanly speaking) of everything. And he is upon the whole\nof a fixed opinion that to give the sanction of his countenance to\nany complaints respecting it would be to encourage some person in the\nlower classes to rise up somewhere--like Wat Tyler.\n\n\"As a few fresh affidavits have been put upon the file,\" says Mr.\nTulkinghorn, \"and as they are short, and as I proceed upon the\ntroublesome principle of begging leave to possess my clients with any\nnew proceedings in a cause\"--cautious man Mr. Tulkinghorn, taking no\nmore responsibility than necessary--\"and further, as I see you are\ngoing to Paris, I have brought them in my pocket.\"\n\n(Sir Leicester was going to Paris too, by the by, but the delight of\nthe fashionable intelligence was in his Lady.)\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn takes out his papers, asks permission to place them\non a golden talisman of a table at my Lady's elbow, puts on his\nspectacles, and begins to read by the light of a shaded lamp.\n\n\"'In Chancery. Between John Jarndyce--'\"\n\nMy Lady interrupts, requesting him to miss as many of the formal\nhorrors as he can.\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn glances over his spectacles and begins again lower\ndown. My Lady carelessly and scornfully abstracts her attention. Sir\nLeicester in a great chair looks at the file and appears to have a\nstately liking for the legal repetitions and prolixities as ranging\namong the national bulwarks. It happens that the fire is hot where my\nLady sits and that the hand-screen is more beautiful than useful,\nbeing priceless but small. My Lady, changing her position, sees the\npapers on the table--looks at them nearer--looks at them nearer\nstill--asks impulsively, \"Who copied that?\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn stops short, surprised by my Lady's animation and her\nunusual tone.\n\n\"Is it what you people call law-hand?\" she asks, looking full at him\nin her careless way again and toying with her screen.\n\n\"Not quite. Probably\"--Mr. Tulkinghorn examines it as he speaks--\"the\nlegal character which it has was acquired after the original hand was\nformed. Why do you ask?\"\n\n\"Anything to vary this detestable monotony. Oh, go on, do!\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn reads again. The heat is greater; my Lady screens her\nface. Sir Leicester dozes, starts up suddenly, and cries, \"Eh? What\ndo you say?\"\n\n\"I say I am afraid,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, who had risen hastily,\n\"that Lady Dedlock is ill.\"\n\n\"Faint,\" my Lady murmurs with white lips, \"only that; but it is like\nthe faintness of death. Don't speak to me. Ring, and take me to my\nroom!\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn retires into another chamber; bells ring, feet\nshuffle and patter, silence ensues. Mercury at last begs Mr.\nTulkinghorn to return.\n\n\"Better now,\" quoth Sir Leicester, motioning the lawyer to sit down\nand read to him alone. \"I have been quite alarmed. I never knew my\nLady swoon before. But the weather is extremely trying, and she\nreally has been bored to death down at our place in Lincolnshire.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nA Progress\n\n\nI have a great deal of difficulty in beginning to write my portion of\nthese pages, for I know I am not clever. I always knew that. I can\nremember, when I was a very little girl indeed, I used to say to my\ndoll when we were alone together, \"Now, Dolly, I am not clever, you\nknow very well, and you must be patient with me, like a dear!\" And so\nshe used to sit propped up in a great arm-chair, with her beautiful\ncomplexion and rosy lips, staring at me--or not so much at me, I\nthink, as at nothing--while I busily stitched away and told her every\none of my secrets.\n\nMy dear old doll! I was such a shy little thing that I seldom dared\nto open my lips, and never dared to open my heart, to anybody else.\nIt almost makes me cry to think what a relief it used to be to me\nwhen I came home from school of a day to run upstairs to my room and\nsay, \"Oh, you dear faithful Dolly, I knew you would be expecting me!\"\nand then to sit down on the floor, leaning on the elbow of her great\nchair, and tell her all I had noticed since we parted. I had always\nrather a noticing way--not a quick way, oh, no!--a silent way of\nnoticing what passed before me and thinking I should like to\nunderstand it better. I have not by any means a quick understanding.\nWhen I love a person very tenderly indeed, it seems to brighten. But\neven that may be my vanity.\n\nI was brought up, from my earliest remembrance--like some of the\nprincesses in the fairy stories, only I was not charming--by my\ngodmother. At least, I only knew her as such. She was a good, good\nwoman! She went to church three times every Sunday, and to morning\nprayers on Wednesdays and Fridays, and to lectures whenever there\nwere lectures; and never missed. She was handsome; and if she had\never smiled, would have been (I used to think) like an angel--but she\nnever smiled. She was always grave and strict. She was so very good\nherself, I thought, that the badness of other people made her frown\nall her life. I felt so different from her, even making every\nallowance for the differences between a child and a woman; I felt so\npoor, so trifling, and so far off that I never could be unrestrained\nwith her--no, could never even love her as I wished. It made me very\nsorry to consider how good she was and how unworthy of her I was, and\nI used ardently to hope that I might have a better heart; and I\ntalked it over very often with the dear old doll, but I never loved\nmy godmother as I ought to have loved her and as I felt I must have\nloved her if I had been a better girl.\n\nThis made me, I dare say, more timid and retiring than I naturally\nwas and cast me upon Dolly as the only friend with whom I felt at\nease. But something happened when I was still quite a little thing\nthat helped it very much.\n\nI had never heard my mama spoken of. I had never heard of my papa\neither, but I felt more interested about my mama. I had never worn a\nblack frock, that I could recollect. I had never been shown my mama's\ngrave. I had never been told where it was. Yet I had never been\ntaught to pray for any relation but my godmother. I had more than\nonce approached this subject of my thoughts with Mrs. Rachael, our\nonly servant, who took my light away when I was in bed (another very\ngood woman, but austere to me), and she had only said, \"Esther, good\nnight!\" and gone away and left me.\n\nAlthough there were seven girls at the neighbouring school where I\nwas a day boarder, and although they called me little Esther\nSummerson, I knew none of them at home. All of them were older than\nI, to be sure (I was the youngest there by a good deal), but there\nseemed to be some other separation between us besides that, and\nbesides their being far more clever than I was and knowing much more\nthan I did. One of them in the first week of my going to the school\n(I remember it very well) invited me home to a little party, to my\ngreat joy. But my godmother wrote a stiff letter declining for me,\nand I never went. I never went out at all.\n\nIt was my birthday. There were holidays at school on other\nbirthdays--none on mine. There were rejoicings at home on other\nbirthdays, as I knew from what I heard the girls relate to one\nanother--there were none on mine. My birthday was the most melancholy\nday at home in the whole year.\n\nI have mentioned that unless my vanity should deceive me (as I know\nit may, for I may be very vain without suspecting it, though indeed I\ndon't), my comprehension is quickened when my affection is. My\ndisposition is very affectionate, and perhaps I might still feel such\na wound if such a wound could be received more than once with the\nquickness of that birthday.\n\nDinner was over, and my godmother and I were sitting at the table\nbefore the fire. The clock ticked, the fire clicked; not another\nsound had been heard in the room or in the house for I don't know how\nlong. I happened to look timidly up from my stitching, across the\ntable at my godmother, and I saw in her face, looking gloomily at me,\n\"It would have been far better, little Esther, that you had had no\nbirthday, that you had never been born!\"\n\nI broke out crying and sobbing, and I said, \"Oh, dear godmother, tell\nme, pray do tell me, did Mama die on my birthday?\"\n\n\"No,\" she returned. \"Ask me no more, child!\"\n\n\"Oh, do pray tell me something of her. Do now, at last, dear\ngodmother, if you please! What did I do to her? How did I lose her?\nWhy am I so different from other children, and why is it my fault,\ndear godmother? No, no, no, don't go away. Oh, speak to me!\"\n\nI was in a kind of fright beyond my grief, and I caught hold of her\ndress and was kneeling to her. She had been saying all the while,\n\"Let me go!\" But now she stood still.\n\nHer darkened face had such power over me that it stopped me in the\nmidst of my vehemence. I put up my trembling little hand to clasp\nhers or to beg her pardon with what earnestness I might, but withdrew\nit as she looked at me, and laid it on my fluttering heart. She\nraised me, sat in her chair, and standing me before her, said slowly\nin a cold, low voice--I see her knitted brow and pointed\nfinger--\"Your mother, Esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers.\nThe time will come--and soon enough--when you will understand this\nbetter and will feel it too, as no one save a woman can. I have\nforgiven her\"--but her face did not relent--\"the wrong she did to me,\nand I say no more of it, though it was greater than you will ever\nknow--than any one will ever know but I, the sufferer. For yourself,\nunfortunate girl, orphaned and degraded from the first of these evil\nanniversaries, pray daily that the sins of others be not visited upon\nyour head, according to what is written. Forget your mother and leave\nall other people to forget her who will do her unhappy child that\ngreatest kindness. Now, go!\"\n\nShe checked me, however, as I was about to depart from her--so frozen\nas I was!--and added this, \"Submission, self-denial, diligent work,\nare the preparations for a life begun with such a shadow on it. You\nare different from other children, Esther, because you were not born,\nlike them, in common sinfulness and wrath. You are set apart.\"\n\nI went up to my room, and crept to bed, and laid my doll's cheek\nagainst mine wet with tears, and holding that solitary friend upon my\nbosom, cried myself to sleep. Imperfect as my understanding of my\nsorrow was, I knew that I had brought no joy at any time to anybody's\nheart and that I was to no one upon earth what Dolly was to me.\n\nDear, dear, to think how much time we passed alone together\nafterwards, and how often I repeated to the doll the story of my\nbirthday and confided to her that I would try as hard as ever I could\nto repair the fault I had been born with (of which I confessedly felt\nguilty and yet innocent) and would strive as I grew up to be\nindustrious, contented, and kind-hearted and to do some good to some\none, and win some love to myself if I could. I hope it is not\nself-indulgent to shed these tears as I think of it. I am very\nthankful, I am very cheerful, but I cannot quite help their coming to\nmy eyes.\n\nThere! I have wiped them away now and can go on again properly.\n\nI felt the distance between my godmother and myself so much more\nafter the birthday, and felt so sensible of filling a place in her\nhouse which ought to have been empty, that I found her more difficult\nof approach, though I was fervently grateful to her in my heart, than\never. I felt in the same way towards my school companions; I felt in\nthe same way towards Mrs. Rachael, who was a widow; and oh, towards\nher daughter, of whom she was proud, who came to see her once a\nfortnight! I was very retired and quiet, and tried to be very\ndiligent.\n\nOne sunny afternoon when I had come home from school with my books\nand portfolio, watching my long shadow at my side, and as I was\ngliding upstairs to my room as usual, my godmother looked out of the\nparlour-door and called me back. Sitting with her, I found--which was\nvery unusual indeed--a stranger. A portly, important-looking\ngentleman, dressed all in black, with a white cravat, large gold\nwatch seals, a pair of gold eye-glasses, and a large seal-ring upon\nhis little finger.\n\n\"This,\" said my godmother in an undertone, \"is the child.\" Then she\nsaid in her naturally stern way of speaking, \"This is Esther, sir.\"\n\nThe gentleman put up his eye-glasses to look at me and said, \"Come\nhere, my dear!\" He shook hands with me and asked me to take off my\nbonnet, looking at me all the while. When I had complied, he said,\n\"Ah!\" and afterwards \"Yes!\" And then, taking off his eye-glasses and\nfolding them in a red case, and leaning back in his arm-chair,\nturning the case about in his two hands, he gave my godmother a nod.\nUpon that, my godmother said, \"You may go upstairs, Esther!\" And I\nmade him my curtsy and left him.\n\nIt must have been two years afterwards, and I was almost fourteen,\nwhen one dreadful night my godmother and I sat at the fireside. I was\nreading aloud, and she was listening. I had come down at nine o'clock\nas I always did to read the Bible to her, and was reading from St.\nJohn how our Saviour stooped down, writing with his finger in the\ndust, when they brought the sinful woman to him.\n\n\"So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself and said\nunto them, 'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a\nstone at her!'\"\n\nI was stopped by my godmother's rising, putting her hand to her head,\nand crying out in an awful voice from quite another part of the book,\n\"'Watch ye, therefore, lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And\nwhat I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch!'\"\n\nIn an instant, while she stood before me repeating these words, she\nfell down on the floor. I had no need to cry out; her voice had\nsounded through the house and been heard in the street.\n\nShe was laid upon her bed. For more than a week she lay there, little\naltered outwardly, with her old handsome resolute frown that I so\nwell knew carved upon her face. Many and many a time, in the day and\nin the night, with my head upon the pillow by her that my whispers\nmight be plainer to her, I kissed her, thanked her, prayed for her,\nasked her for her blessing and forgiveness, entreated her to give me\nthe least sign that she knew or heard me. No, no, no. Her face was\nimmovable. To the very last, and even afterwards, her frown remained\nunsoftened.\n\nOn the day after my poor good godmother was buried, the gentleman in\nblack with the white neckcloth reappeared. I was sent for by Mrs.\nRachael, and found him in the same place, as if he had never gone\naway.\n\n\"My name is Kenge,\" he said; \"you may remember it, my child; Kenge\nand Carboy, Lincoln's Inn.\"\n\nI replied that I remembered to have seen him once before.\n\n\"Pray be seated--here near me. Don't distress yourself; it's of no\nuse. Mrs. Rachael, I needn't inform you who were acquainted with the\nlate Miss Barbary's affairs, that her means die with her and that\nthis young lady, now her aunt is dead--\"\n\n\"My aunt, sir!\"\n\n\"It is really of no use carrying on a deception when no object is to\nbe gained by it,\" said Mr. Kenge smoothly, \"Aunt in fact, though not\nin law. Don't distress yourself! Don't weep! Don't tremble! Mrs.\nRachael, our young friend has no doubt heard of--the--a--Jarndyce and\nJarndyce.\"\n\n\"Never,\" said Mrs. Rachael.\n\n\"Is it possible,\" pursued Mr. Kenge, putting up his eye-glasses,\n\"that our young friend--I BEG you won't distress yourself!--never\nheard of Jarndyce and Jarndyce!\"\n\nI shook my head, wondering even what it was.\n\n\"Not of Jarndyce and Jarndyce?\" said Mr. Kenge, looking over his\nglasses at me and softly turning the case about and about as if he\nwere petting something. \"Not of one of the greatest Chancery suits\nknown? Not of Jarndyce and Jarndyce--the--a--in itself a monument of\nChancery practice. In which (I would say) every difficulty, every\ncontingency, every masterly fiction, every form of procedure known\nin that court, is represented over and over again? It is a cause\nthat could not exist out of this free and great country. I should\nsay that the aggregate of costs in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Mrs.\nRachael\"--I was afraid he addressed himself to her because I appeared\ninattentive\"--amounts at the present hour to from SIX-ty to SEVEN-ty\nTHOUSAND POUNDS!\" said Mr. Kenge, leaning back in his chair.\n\nI felt very ignorant, but what could I do? I was so entirely\nunacquainted with the subject that I understood nothing about it even\nthen.\n\n\"And she really never heard of the cause!\" said Mr. Kenge.\n\"Surprising!\"\n\n\"Miss Barbary, sir,\" returned Mrs. Rachael, \"who is now among the\nSeraphim--\"\n\n\"I hope so, I am sure,\" said Mr. Kenge politely.\n\n\"--Wished Esther only to know what would be serviceable to her. And\nshe knows, from any teaching she has had here, nothing more.\"\n\n\"Well!\" said Mr. Kenge. \"Upon the whole, very proper. Now to the\npoint,\" addressing me. \"Miss Barbary, your sole relation (in fact\nthat is, for I am bound to observe that in law you had none) being\ndeceased and it naturally not being to be expected that Mrs.\nRachael--\"\n\n\"Oh, dear no!\" said Mrs. Rachael quickly.\n\n\"Quite so,\" assented Mr. Kenge; \"--that Mrs. Rachael should charge\nherself with your maintenance and support (I beg you won't distress\nyourself), you are in a position to receive the renewal of an offer\nwhich I was instructed to make to Miss Barbary some two years ago and\nwhich, though rejected then, was understood to be renewable under the\nlamentable circumstances that have since occurred. Now, if I avow\nthat I represent, in Jarndyce and Jarndyce and otherwise, a highly\nhumane, but at the same time singular, man, shall I compromise myself\nby any stretch of my professional caution?\" said Mr. Kenge, leaning\nback in his chair again and looking calmly at us both.\n\nHe appeared to enjoy beyond everything the sound of his own voice. I\ncouldn't wonder at that, for it was mellow and full and gave great\nimportance to every word he uttered. He listened to himself with\nobvious satisfaction and sometimes gently beat time to his own music\nwith his head or rounded a sentence with his hand. I was very much\nimpressed by him--even then, before I knew that he formed himself on\nthe model of a great lord who was his client and that he was\ngenerally called Conversation Kenge.\n\n\"Mr. Jarndyce,\" he pursued, \"being aware of the--I would say,\ndesolate--position of our young friend, offers to place her at a\nfirst-rate establishment where her education shall be completed,\nwhere her comfort shall be secured, where her reasonable wants shall\nbe anticipated, where she shall be eminently qualified to discharge\nher duty in that station of life unto which it has pleased--shall I\nsay Providence?--to call her.\"\n\nMy heart was filled so full, both by what he said and by his\naffecting manner of saying it, that I was not able to speak, though I\ntried.\n\n\"Mr. Jarndyce,\" he went on, \"makes no condition beyond expressing his\nexpectation that our young friend will not at any time remove herself\nfrom the establishment in question without his knowledge and\nconcurrence. That she will faithfully apply herself to the\nacquisition of those accomplishments, upon the exercise of which she\nwill be ultimately dependent. That she will tread in the paths of\nvirtue and honour, and--the--a--so forth.\"\n\nI was still less able to speak than before.\n\n\"Now, what does our young friend say?\" proceeded Mr. Kenge. \"Take\ntime, take time! I pause for her reply. But take time!\"\n\nWhat the destitute subject of such an offer tried to say, I need not\nrepeat. What she did say, I could more easily tell, if it were worth\nthe telling. What she felt, and will feel to her dying hour, I could\nnever relate.\n\nThis interview took place at Windsor, where I had passed (as far as I\nknew) my whole life. On that day week, amply provided with all\nnecessaries, I left it, inside the stagecoach, for Reading.\n\nMrs. Rachael was too good to feel any emotion at parting, but I was\nnot so good, and wept bitterly. I thought that I ought to have known\nher better after so many years and ought to have made myself enough\nof a favourite with her to make her sorry then. When she gave me one\ncold parting kiss upon my forehead, like a thaw-drop from the stone\nporch--it was a very frosty day--I felt so miserable and\nself-reproachful that I clung to her and told her it was my fault, I\nknew, that she could say good-bye so easily!\n\n\"No, Esther!\" she returned. \"It is your misfortune!\"\n\nThe coach was at the little lawn-gate--we had not come out until we\nheard the wheels--and thus I left her, with a sorrowful heart. She\nwent in before my boxes were lifted to the coach-roof and shut the\ndoor. As long as I could see the house, I looked back at it from the\nwindow through my tears. My godmother had left Mrs. Rachael all the\nlittle property she possessed; and there was to be a sale; and an old\nhearth-rug with roses on it, which always seemed to me the first\nthing in the world I had ever seen, was hanging outside in the frost\nand snow. A day or two before, I had wrapped the dear old doll in her\nown shawl and quietly laid her--I am half ashamed to tell it--in the\ngarden-earth under the tree that shaded my old window. I had no\ncompanion left but my bird, and him I carried with me in his cage.\n\nWhen the house was out of sight, I sat, with my bird-cage in the\nstraw at my feet, forward on the low seat to look out of the high\nwindow, watching the frosty trees, that were like beautiful pieces of\nspar, and the fields all smooth and white with last night's snow, and\nthe sun, so red but yielding so little heat, and the ice, dark like\nmetal where the skaters and sliders had brushed the snow away. There\nwas a gentleman in the coach who sat on the opposite seat and looked\nvery large in a quantity of wrappings, but he sat gazing out of the\nother window and took no notice of me.\n\nI thought of my dead godmother, of the night when I read to her, of\nher frowning so fixedly and sternly in her bed, of the strange place\nI was going to, of the people I should find there, and what they\nwould be like, and what they would say to me, when a voice in the\ncoach gave me a terrible start.\n\nIt said, \"What the de-vil are you crying for?\"\n\nI was so frightened that I lost my voice and could only answer in a\nwhisper, \"Me, sir?\" For of course I knew it must have been the\ngentleman in the quantity of wrappings, though he was still looking\nout of his window.\n\n\"Yes, you,\" he said, turning round.\n\n\"I didn't know I was crying, sir,\" I faltered.\n\n\"But you are!\" said the gentleman. \"Look here!\" He came quite\nopposite to me from the other corner of the coach, brushed one of his\nlarge furry cuffs across my eyes (but without hurting me), and showed\nme that it was wet.\n\n\"There! Now you know you are,\" he said. \"Don't you?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" I said.\n\n\"And what are you crying for?\" said the gentleman, \"Don't you want to\ngo there?\"\n\n\"Where, sir?\"\n\n\"Where? Why, wherever you are going,\" said the gentleman.\n\n\"I am very glad to go there, sir,\" I answered.\n\n\"Well, then! Look glad!\" said the gentleman.\n\nI thought he was very strange, or at least that what I could see of\nhim was very strange, for he was wrapped up to the chin, and his face\nwas almost hidden in a fur cap with broad fur straps at the side of\nhis head fastened under his chin; but I was composed again, and not\nafraid of him. So I told him that I thought I must have been crying\nbecause of my godmother's death and because of Mrs. Rachael's not\nbeing sorry to part with me.\n\n\"Confound Mrs. Rachael!\" said the gentleman. \"Let her fly away in a\nhigh wind on a broomstick!\"\n\nI began to be really afraid of him now and looked at him with the\ngreatest astonishment. But I thought that he had pleasant eyes,\nalthough he kept on muttering to himself in an angry manner and\ncalling Mrs. Rachael names.\n\nAfter a little while he opened his outer wrapper, which appeared to\nme large enough to wrap up the whole coach, and put his arm down into\na deep pocket in the side.\n\n\"Now, look here!\" he said. \"In this paper,\" which was nicely folded,\n\"is a piece of the best plum-cake that can be got for money--sugar on\nthe outside an inch thick, like fat on mutton chops. Here's a little\npie (a gem this is, both for size and quality), made in France. And\nwhat do you suppose it's made of? Livers of fat geese. There's a pie!\nNow let's see you eat 'em.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir,\" I replied; \"thank you very much indeed, but I hope\nyou won't be offended--they are too rich for me.\"\n\n\"Floored again!\" said the gentleman, which I didn't at all\nunderstand, and threw them both out of window.\n\nHe did not speak to me any more until he got out of the coach a\nlittle way short of Reading, when he advised me to be a good girl and\nto be studious, and shook hands with me. I must say I was relieved by\nhis departure. We left him at a milestone. I often walked past it\nafterwards, and never for a long time without thinking of him and\nhalf expecting to meet him. But I never did; and so, as time went on,\nhe passed out of my mind.\n\nWhen the coach stopped, a very neat lady looked up at the window and\nsaid, \"Miss Donny.\"\n\n\"No, ma'am, Esther Summerson.\"\n\n\"That is quite right,\" said the lady, \"Miss Donny.\"\n\nI now understood that she introduced herself by that name, and begged\nMiss Donny's pardon for my mistake, and pointed out my boxes at her\nrequest. Under the direction of a very neat maid, they were put\noutside a very small green carriage; and then Miss Donny, the maid,\nand I got inside and were driven away.\n\n\"Everything is ready for you, Esther,\" said Miss Donny, \"and the\nscheme of your pursuits has been arranged in exact accordance with\nthe wishes of your guardian, Mr. Jarndyce.\"\n\n\"Of--did you say, ma'am?\"\n\n\"Of your guardian, Mr. Jarndyce,\" said Miss Donny.\n\nI was so bewildered that Miss Donny thought the cold had been too\nsevere for me and lent me her smelling-bottle.\n\n\"Do you know my--guardian, Mr. Jarndyce, ma'am?\" I asked after a good\ndeal of hesitation.\n\n\"Not personally, Esther,\" said Miss Donny; \"merely through his\nsolicitors, Messrs. Kenge and Carboy, of London. A very superior\ngentleman, Mr. Kenge. Truly eloquent indeed. Some of his periods\nquite majestic!\"\n\nI felt this to be very true but was too confused to attend to it. Our\nspeedy arrival at our destination, before I had time to recover\nmyself, increased my confusion, and I never shall forget the\nuncertain and the unreal air of everything at Greenleaf (Miss Donny's\nhouse) that afternoon!\n\nBut I soon became used to it. I was so adapted to the routine of\nGreenleaf before long that I seemed to have been there a great while\nand almost to have dreamed rather than really lived my old life at my\ngodmother's. Nothing could be more precise, exact, and orderly than\nGreenleaf. There was a time for everything all round the dial of the\nclock, and everything was done at its appointed moment.\n\nWe were twelve boarders, and there were two Miss Donnys, twins. It\nwas understood that I would have to depend, by and by, on my\nqualifications as a governess, and I was not only instructed in\neverything that was taught at Greenleaf, but was very soon engaged in\nhelping to instruct others. Although I was treated in every other\nrespect like the rest of the school, this single difference was made\nin my case from the first. As I began to know more, I taught more,\nand so in course of time I had plenty to do, which I was very fond of\ndoing because it made the dear girls fond of me. At last, whenever a\nnew pupil came who was a little downcast and unhappy, she was so\nsure--indeed I don't know why--to make a friend of me that all\nnew-comers were confided to my care. They said I was so gentle, but I\nam sure THEY were! I often thought of the resolution I had made on my\nbirthday to try to be industrious, contented, and true-hearted and to\ndo some good to some one and win some love if I could; and indeed,\nindeed, I felt almost ashamed to have done so little and have won so\nmuch.\n\nI passed at Greenleaf six happy, quiet years. I never saw in any face\nthere, thank heaven, on my birthday, that it would have been better\nif I had never been born. When the day came round, it brought me so\nmany tokens of affectionate remembrance that my room was beautiful\nwith them from New Year's Day to Christmas.\n\nIn those six years I had never been away except on visits at holiday\ntime in the neighbourhood. After the first six months or so I had\ntaken Miss Donny's advice in reference to the propriety of writing to\nMr. Kenge to say that I was happy and grateful, and with her approval\nI had written such a letter. I had received a formal answer\nacknowledging its receipt and saying, \"We note the contents thereof,\nwhich shall be duly communicated to our client.\" After that I\nsometimes heard Miss Donny and her sister mention how regular my\naccounts were paid, and about twice a year I ventured to write a\nsimilar letter. I always received by return of post exactly the same\nanswer in the same round hand, with the signature of Kenge and Carboy\nin another writing, which I supposed to be Mr. Kenge's.\n\nIt seems so curious to me to be obliged to write all this about\nmyself! As if this narrative were the narrative of MY life! But my\nlittle body will soon fall into the background now.\n\nSix quiet years (I find I am saying it for the second time) I had\npassed at Greenleaf, seeing in those around me, as it might be in a\nlooking-glass, every stage of my own growth and change there, when,\none November morning, I received this letter. I omit the date.\n\n\n   Old Square, Lincoln's Inn\n\n   Madam,\n\n   Jarndyce and Jarndyce\n\n   Our clt Mr. Jarndyce being abt to rece into his house,\n   under an Order of the Ct of Chy, a Ward of the Ct in this\n   cause, for whom he wishes to secure an elgble compn,\n   directs us to inform you that he will be glad of your\n   serces in the afsd capacity.\n\n   We have arrngd for your being forded, carriage free, pr\n   eight o'clock coach from Reading, on Monday morning next,\n   to White Horse Cellar, Piccadilly, London, where one of\n   our clks will be in waiting to convey you to our offe as\n   above.\n\n   We are, Madam, Your obedt Servts,\n\n   Kenge and Carboy\n\n   Miss Esther Summerson\n\n\nOh, never, never, never shall I forget the emotion this letter caused\nin the house! It was so tender in them to care so much for me, it was\nso gracious in that father who had not forgotten me to have made my\norphan way so smooth and easy and to have inclined so many youthful\nnatures towards me, that I could hardly bear it. Not that I would\nhave had them less sorry--I am afraid not; but the pleasure of it,\nand the pain of it, and the pride and joy of it, and the humble\nregret of it were so blended that my heart seemed almost breaking\nwhile it was full of rapture.\n\nThe letter gave me only five days' notice of my removal. When every\nminute added to the proofs of love and kindness that were given me in\nthose five days, and when at last the morning came and when they took\nme through all the rooms that I might see them for the last time, and\nwhen some cried, \"Esther, dear, say good-bye to me here at my\nbedside, where you first spoke so kindly to me!\" and when others\nasked me only to write their names, \"With Esther's love,\" and when\nthey all surrounded me with their parting presents and clung to me\nweeping and cried, \"What shall we do when dear, dear Esther's gone!\"\nand when I tried to tell them how forbearing and how good they had\nall been to me and how I blessed and thanked them every one, what a\nheart I had!\n\nAnd when the two Miss Donnys grieved as much to part with me as the\nleast among them, and when the maids said, \"Bless you, miss, wherever\nyou go!\" and when the ugly lame old gardener, who I thought had\nhardly noticed me in all those years, came panting after the coach to\ngive me a little nosegay of geraniums and told me I had been the\nlight of his eyes--indeed the old man said so!--what a heart I had\nthen!\n\nAnd could I help it if with all this, and the coming to the little\nschool, and the unexpected sight of the poor children outside waving\ntheir hats and bonnets to me, and of a grey-haired gentleman and lady\nwhose daughter I had helped to teach and at whose house I had visited\n(who were said to be the proudest people in all that country), caring\nfor nothing but calling out, \"Good-bye, Esther. May you be very\nhappy!\"--could I help it if I was quite bowed down in the coach by\nmyself and said \"Oh, I am so thankful, I am so thankful!\" many times\nover!\n\nBut of course I soon considered that I must not take tears where I\nwas going after all that had been done for me. Therefore, of course,\nI made myself sob less and persuaded myself to be quiet by saying\nvery often, \"Esther, now you really must! This WILL NOT do!\" I\ncheered myself up pretty well at last, though I am afraid I was\nlonger about it than I ought to have been; and when I had cooled my\neyes with lavender water, it was time to watch for London.\n\nI was quite persuaded that we were there when we were ten miles off,\nand when we really were there, that we should never get there.\nHowever, when we began to jolt upon a stone pavement, and\nparticularly when every other conveyance seemed to be running into\nus, and we seemed to be running into every other conveyance, I began\nto believe that we really were approaching the end of our journey.\nVery soon afterwards we stopped.\n\nA young gentleman who had inked himself by accident addressed me from\nthe pavement and said, \"I am from Kenge and Carboy's, miss, of\nLincoln's Inn.\"\n\n\"If you please, sir,\" said I.\n\nHe was very obliging, and as he handed me into a fly after\nsuperintending the removal of my boxes, I asked him whether there was\na great fire anywhere? For the streets were so full of dense brown\nsmoke that scarcely anything was to be seen.\n\n\"Oh, dear no, miss,\" he said. \"This is a London particular.\"\n\nI had never heard of such a thing.\n\n\"A fog, miss,\" said the young gentleman.\n\n\"Oh, indeed!\" said I.\n\nWe drove slowly through the dirtiest and darkest streets that ever\nwere seen in the world (I thought) and in such a distracting state of\nconfusion that I wondered how the people kept their senses, until we\npassed into sudden quietude under an old gateway and drove on through\na silent square until we came to an odd nook in a corner, where there\nwas an entrance up a steep, broad flight of stairs, like an entrance\nto a church. And there really was a churchyard outside under some\ncloisters, for I saw the gravestones from the staircase window.\n\nThis was Kenge and Carboy's. The young gentleman showed me through an\nouter office into Mr. Kenge's room--there was no one in it--and\npolitely put an arm-chair for me by the fire. He then called my\nattention to a little looking-glass hanging from a nail on one side\nof the chimney-piece.\n\n\"In case you should wish to look at yourself, miss, after the\njourney, as you're going before the Chancellor. Not that it's\nrequisite, I am sure,\" said the young gentleman civilly.\n\n\"Going before the Chancellor?\" I said, startled for a moment.\n\n\"Only a matter of form, miss,\" returned the young gentleman. \"Mr.\nKenge is in court now. He left his compliments, and would you partake\nof some refreshment\"--there were biscuits and a decanter of wine on a\nsmall table--\"and look over the paper,\" which the young gentleman\ngave me as he spoke. He then stirred the fire and left me.\n\nEverything was so strange--the stranger from its being night in the\nday-time, the candles burning with a white flame, and looking raw and\ncold--that I read the words in the newspaper without knowing what\nthey meant and found myself reading the same words repeatedly. As it\nwas of no use going on in that way, I put the paper down, took a peep\nat my bonnet in the glass to see if it was neat, and looked at the\nroom, which was not half lighted, and at the shabby, dusty tables,\nand at the piles of writings, and at a bookcase full of the most\ninexpressive-looking books that ever had anything to say for\nthemselves. Then I went on, thinking, thinking, thinking; and the\nfire went on, burning, burning, burning; and the candles went on\nflickering and guttering, and there were no snuffers--until the young\ngentleman by and by brought a very dirty pair--for two hours.\n\nAt last Mr. Kenge came. HE was not altered, but he was surprised to\nsee how altered I was and appeared quite pleased. \"As you are going\nto be the companion of the young lady who is now in the Chancellor's\nprivate room, Miss Summerson,\" he said, \"we thought it well that you\nshould be in attendance also. You will not be discomposed by the Lord\nChancellor, I dare say?\"\n\n\"No, sir,\" I said, \"I don't think I shall,\" really not seeing on\nconsideration why I should be.\n\nSo Mr. Kenge gave me his arm and we went round the corner, under a\ncolonnade, and in at a side door. And so we came, along a passage,\ninto a comfortable sort of room where a young lady and a young\ngentleman were standing near a great, loud-roaring fire. A screen was\ninterposed between them and it, and they were leaning on the screen,\ntalking.\n\nThey both looked up when I came in, and I saw in the young lady, with\nthe fire shining upon her, such a beautiful girl! With such rich\ngolden hair, such soft blue eyes, and such a bright, innocent,\ntrusting face!\n\n\"Miss Ada,\" said Mr. Kenge, \"this is Miss Summerson.\"\n\nShe came to meet me with a smile of welcome and her hand extended,\nbut seemed to change her mind in a moment and kissed me. In short,\nshe had such a natural, captivating, winning manner that in a few\nminutes we were sitting in the window-seat, with the light of the\nfire upon us, talking together as free and happy as could be.\n\nWhat a load off my mind! It was so delightful to know that she could\nconfide in me and like me! It was so good of her, and so encouraging\nto me!\n\nThe young gentleman was her distant cousin, she told me, and his name\nRichard Carstone. He was a handsome youth with an ingenuous face and\na most engaging laugh; and after she had called him up to where we\nsat, he stood by us, in the light of the fire, talking gaily, like a\nlight-hearted boy. He was very young, not more than nineteen then, if\nquite so much, but nearly two years older than she was. They were\nboth orphans and (what was very unexpected and curious to me) had\nnever met before that day. Our all three coming together for the\nfirst time in such an unusual place was a thing to talk about, and we\ntalked about it; and the fire, which had left off roaring, winked its\nred eyes at us--as Richard said--like a drowsy old Chancery lion.\n\nWe conversed in a low tone because a full-dressed gentleman in a bag\nwig frequently came in and out, and when he did so, we could hear a\ndrawling sound in the distance, which he said was one of the counsel\nin our case addressing the Lord Chancellor. He told Mr. Kenge that\nthe Chancellor would be up in five minutes; and presently we heard a\nbustle and a tread of feet, and Mr. Kenge said that the Court had\nrisen and his lordship was in the next room.\n\nThe gentleman in the bag wig opened the door almost directly and\nrequested Mr. Kenge to come in. Upon that, we all went into the next\nroom, Mr. Kenge first, with my darling--it is so natural to me now\nthat I can't help writing it; and there, plainly dressed in black and\nsitting in an arm-chair at a table near the fire, was his lordship,\nwhose robe, trimmed with beautiful gold lace, was thrown upon another\nchair. He gave us a searching look as we entered, but his manner was\nboth courtly and kind.\n\nThe gentleman in the bag wig laid bundles of papers on his lordship's\ntable, and his lordship silently selected one and turned over the\nleaves.\n\n\"Miss Clare,\" said the Lord Chancellor. \"Miss Ada Clare?\"\n\nMr. Kenge presented her, and his lordship begged her to sit down near\nhim. That he admired her and was interested by her even I could see\nin a moment. It touched me that the home of such a beautiful young\ncreature should be represented by that dry, official place. The Lord\nHigh Chancellor, at his best, appeared so poor a substitute for the\nlove and pride of parents.\n\n\"The Jarndyce in question,\" said the Lord Chancellor, still turning\nover leaves, \"is Jarndyce of Bleak House.\"\n\n\"Jarndyce of Bleak House, my lord,\" said Mr. Kenge.\n\n\"A dreary name,\" said the Lord Chancellor.\n\n\"But not a dreary place at present, my lord,\" said Mr. Kenge.\n\n\"And Bleak House,\" said his lordship, \"is in--\"\n\n\"Hertfordshire, my lord.\"\n\n\"Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House is not married?\" said his lordship.\n\n\"He is not, my lord,\" said Mr. Kenge.\n\nA pause.\n\n\"Young Mr. Richard Carstone is present?\" said the Lord Chancellor,\nglancing towards him.\n\nRichard bowed and stepped forward.\n\n\"Hum!\" said the Lord Chancellor, turning over more leaves.\n\n\"Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House, my lord,\" Mr. Kenge observed in a low\nvoice, \"if I may venture to remind your lordship, provides a suitable\ncompanion for--\"\n\n\"For Mr. Richard Carstone?\" I thought (but I am not quite sure) I\nheard his lordship say in an equally low voice and with a smile.\n\n\"For Miss Ada Clare. This is the young lady. Miss Summerson.\"\n\nHis lordship gave me an indulgent look and acknowledged my curtsy\nvery graciously.\n\n\"Miss Summerson is not related to any party in the cause, I think?\"\n\n\"No, my lord.\"\n\nMr. Kenge leant over before it was quite said and whispered. His\nlordship, with his eyes upon his papers, listened, nodded twice or\nthrice, turned over more leaves, and did not look towards me again\nuntil we were going away.\n\nMr. Kenge now retired, and Richard with him, to where I was, near the\ndoor, leaving my pet (it is so natural to me that again I can't help\nit!) sitting near the Lord Chancellor, with whom his lordship spoke a\nlittle part, asking her, as she told me afterwards, whether she had\nwell reflected on the proposed arrangement, and if she thought she\nwould be happy under the roof of Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House, and why\nshe thought so? Presently he rose courteously and released her, and\nthen he spoke for a minute or two with Richard Carstone, not seated,\nbut standing, and altogether with more ease and less ceremony, as if\nhe still knew, though he WAS Lord Chancellor, how to go straight to\nthe candour of a boy.\n\n\"Very well!\" said his lordship aloud. \"I shall make the order. Mr.\nJarndyce of Bleak House has chosen, so far as I may judge,\" and this\nwas when he looked at me, \"a very good companion for the young lady,\nand the arrangement altogether seems the best of which the\ncircumstances admit.\"\n\nHe dismissed us pleasantly, and we all went out, very much obliged to\nhim for being so affable and polite, by which he had certainly lost\nno dignity but seemed to us to have gained some.\n\nWhen we got under the colonnade, Mr. Kenge remembered that he must go\nback for a moment to ask a question and left us in the fog, with the\nLord Chancellor's carriage and servants waiting for him to come out.\n\n\"Well!\" said Richard Carstone. \"THAT'S over! And where do we go next,\nMiss Summerson?\"\n\n\"Don't you know?\" I said.\n\n\"Not in the least,\" said he.\n\n\"And don't YOU know, my love?\" I asked Ada.\n\n\"No!\" said she. \"Don't you?\"\n\n\"Not at all!\" said I.\n\nWe looked at one another, half laughing at our being like the\nchildren in the wood, when a curious little old woman in a squeezed\nbonnet and carrying a reticule came curtsying and smiling up to us\nwith an air of great ceremony.\n\n\"Oh!\" said she. \"The wards in Jarndyce! Ve-ry happy, I am sure, to\nhave the honour! It is a good omen for youth, and hope, and beauty\nwhen they find themselves in this place, and don't know what's to\ncome of it.\"\n\n\"Mad!\" whispered Richard, not thinking she could hear him.\n\n\"Right! Mad, young gentleman,\" she returned so quickly that he was\nquite abashed. \"I was a ward myself. I was not mad at that time,\"\ncurtsying low and smiling between every little sentence. \"I had youth\nand hope. I believe, beauty. It matters very little now. Neither of\nthe three served or saved me. I have the honour to attend court\nregularly. With my documents. I expect a judgment. Shortly. On the\nDay of Judgment. I have discovered that the sixth seal mentioned in\nthe Revelations is the Great Seal. It has been open a long time! Pray\naccept my blessing.\"\n\nAs Ada was a little frightened, I said, to humour the poor old lady,\nthat we were much obliged to her.\n\n\"Ye-es!\" she said mincingly. \"I imagine so. And here is Conversation\nKenge. With HIS documents! How does your honourable worship do?\"\n\n\"Quite well, quite well! Now don't be troublesome, that's a good\nsoul!\" said Mr. Kenge, leading the way back.\n\n\"By no means,\" said the poor old lady, keeping up with Ada and me.\n\"Anything but troublesome. I shall confer estates on both--which is\nnot being troublesome, I trust? I expect a judgment. Shortly. On the\nDay of Judgment. This is a good omen for you. Accept my blessing!\"\n\nShe stopped at the bottom of the steep, broad flight of stairs; but\nwe looked back as we went up, and she was still there, saying, still\nwith a curtsy and a smile between every little sentence, \"Youth. And\nhope. And beauty. And Chancery. And Conversation Kenge! Ha! Pray\naccept my blessing!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nTelescopic Philanthropy\n\n\nWe were to pass the night, Mr. Kenge told us when we arrived in his\nroom, at Mrs. Jellyby's; and then he turned to me and said he took it\nfor granted I knew who Mrs. Jellyby was.\n\n\"I really don't, sir,\" I returned. \"Perhaps Mr. Carstone--or Miss\nClare--\"\n\nBut no, they knew nothing whatever about Mrs. Jellyby. \"In-deed! Mrs.\nJellyby,\" said Mr. Kenge, standing with his back to the fire and\ncasting his eyes over the dusty hearth-rug as if it were Mrs.\nJellyby's biography, \"is a lady of very remarkable strength of\ncharacter who devotes herself entirely to the public. She has devoted\nherself to an extensive variety of public subjects at various times\nand is at present (until something else attracts her) devoted to the\nsubject of Africa, with a view to the general cultivation of the\ncoffee berry--AND the natives--and the happy settlement, on the banks\nof the African rivers, of our superabundant home population. Mr.\nJarndyce, who is desirous to aid any work that is considered likely\nto be a good work and who is much sought after by philanthropists,\nhas, I believe, a very high opinion of Mrs. Jellyby.\"\n\nMr. Kenge, adjusting his cravat, then looked at us.\n\n\"And Mr. Jellyby, sir?\" suggested Richard.\n\n\"Ah! Mr. Jellyby,\" said Mr. Kenge, \"is--a--I don't know that I can\ndescribe him to you better than by saying that he is the husband of\nMrs. Jellyby.\"\n\n\"A nonentity, sir?\" said Richard with a droll look.\n\n\"I don't say that,\" returned Mr. Kenge gravely. \"I can't say that,\nindeed, for I know nothing whatever OF Mr. Jellyby. I never, to my\nknowledge, had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Jellyby. He may be a very\nsuperior man, but he is, so to speak, merged--merged--in the more\nshining qualities of his wife.\" Mr. Kenge proceeded to tell us that\nas the road to Bleak House would have been very long, dark, and\ntedious on such an evening, and as we had been travelling already,\nMr. Jarndyce had himself proposed this arrangement. A carriage would\nbe at Mrs. Jellyby's to convey us out of town early in the forenoon\nof to-morrow.\n\nHe then rang a little bell, and the young gentleman came in.\nAddressing him by the name of Guppy, Mr. Kenge inquired whether Miss\nSummerson's boxes and the rest of the baggage had been \"sent round.\"\nMr. Guppy said yes, they had been sent round, and a coach was waiting\nto take us round too as soon as we pleased.\n\n\"Then it only remains,\" said Mr. Kenge, shaking hands with us, \"for\nme to express my lively satisfaction in (good day, Miss Clare!) the\narrangement this day concluded and my (GOOD-bye to you, Miss\nSummerson!) lively hope that it will conduce to the happiness, the\n(glad to have had the honour of making your acquaintance, Mr.\nCarstone!) welfare, the advantage in all points of view, of all\nconcerned! Guppy, see the party safely there.\"\n\n\"Where IS 'there,' Mr. Guppy?\" said Richard as we went downstairs.\n\n\"No distance,\" said Mr. Guppy; \"round in Thavies Inn, you know.\"\n\n\"I can't say I know where it is, for I come from Winchester and am\nstrange in London.\"\n\n\"Only round the corner,\" said Mr. Guppy. \"We just twist up Chancery\nLane, and cut along Holborn, and there we are in four minutes' time,\nas near as a toucher. This is about a London particular NOW, ain't\nit, miss?\" He seemed quite delighted with it on my account.\n\n\"The fog is very dense indeed!\" said I.\n\n\"Not that it affects you, though, I'm sure,\" said Mr. Guppy, putting\nup the steps. \"On the contrary, it seems to do you good, miss,\njudging from your appearance.\"\n\nI knew he meant well in paying me this compliment, so I laughed at\nmyself for blushing at it when he had shut the door and got upon the\nbox; and we all three laughed and chatted about our inexperience and\nthe strangeness of London until we turned up under an archway to our\ndestination--a narrow street of high houses like an oblong cistern to\nhold the fog. There was a confused little crowd of people,\nprincipally children, gathered about the house at which we stopped,\nwhich had a tarnished brass plate on the door with the inscription\nJELLYBY.\n\n\"Don't be frightened!\" said Mr. Guppy, looking in at the\ncoach-window. \"One of the young Jellybys been and got his head\nthrough the area railings!\"\n\n\"Oh, poor child,\" said I; \"let me out, if you please!\"\n\n\"Pray be careful of yourself, miss. The young Jellybys are always up\nto something,\" said Mr. Guppy.\n\nI made my way to the poor child, who was one of the dirtiest little\nunfortunates I ever saw, and found him very hot and frightened and\ncrying loudly, fixed by the neck between two iron railings, while a\nmilkman and a beadle, with the kindest intentions possible, were\nendeavouring to drag him back by the legs, under a general impression\nthat his skull was compressible by those means. As I found (after\npacifying him) that he was a little boy with a naturally large head,\nI thought that perhaps where his head could go, his body could\nfollow, and mentioned that the best mode of extrication might be to\npush him forward. This was so favourably received by the milkman and\nbeadle that he would immediately have been pushed into the area if I\nhad not held his pinafore while Richard and Mr. Guppy ran down\nthrough the kitchen to catch him when he should be released. At last\nhe was happily got down without any accident, and then he began to\nbeat Mr. Guppy with a hoop-stick in quite a frantic manner.\n\nNobody had appeared belonging to the house except a person in\npattens, who had been poking at the child from below with a broom; I\ndon't know with what object, and I don't think she did. I therefore\nsupposed that Mrs. Jellyby was not at home, and was quite surprised\nwhen the person appeared in the passage without the pattens, and\ngoing up to the back room on the first floor before Ada and me,\nannounced us as, \"Them two young ladies, Missis Jellyby!\" We passed\nseveral more children on the way up, whom it was difficult to avoid\ntreading on in the dark; and as we came into Mrs. Jellyby's presence,\none of the poor little things fell downstairs--down a whole flight\n(as it sounded to me), with a great noise.\n\nMrs. Jellyby, whose face reflected none of the uneasiness which we\ncould not help showing in our own faces as the dear child's head\nrecorded its passage with a bump on every stair--Richard afterwards\nsaid he counted seven, besides one for the landing--received us with\nperfect equanimity. She was a pretty, very diminutive, plump woman of\nfrom forty to fifty, with handsome eyes, though they had a curious\nhabit of seeming to look a long way off. As if--I am quoting Richard\nagain--they could see nothing nearer than Africa!\n\n\"I am very glad indeed,\" said Mrs. Jellyby in an agreeable voice, \"to\nhave the pleasure of receiving you. I have a great respect for Mr.\nJarndyce, and no one in whom he is interested can be an object of\nindifference to me.\"\n\nWe expressed our acknowledgments and sat down behind the door, where\nthere was a lame invalid of a sofa. Mrs. Jellyby had very good hair\nbut was too much occupied with her African duties to brush it. The\nshawl in which she had been loosely muffled dropped onto her chair\nwhen she advanced to us; and as she turned to resume her seat, we\ncould not help noticing that her dress didn't nearly meet up the back\nand that the open space was railed across with a lattice-work of\nstay-lace--like a summer-house.\n\nThe room, which was strewn with papers and nearly filled by a great\nwriting-table covered with similar litter, was, I must say, not only\nvery untidy but very dirty. We were obliged to take notice of that\nwith our sense of sight, even while, with our sense of hearing, we\nfollowed the poor child who had tumbled downstairs: I think into the\nback kitchen, where somebody seemed to stifle him.\n\nBut what principally struck us was a jaded and unhealthy-looking\nthough by no means plain girl at the writing-table, who sat biting\nthe feather of her pen and staring at us. I suppose nobody ever was\nin such a state of ink. And from her tumbled hair to her pretty feet,\nwhich were disfigured with frayed and broken satin slippers trodden\ndown at heel, she really seemed to have no article of dress upon her,\nfrom a pin upwards, that was in its proper condition or its right\nplace.\n\n\"You find me, my dears,\" said Mrs. Jellyby, snuffing the two great\noffice candles in tin candlesticks, which made the room taste\nstrongly of hot tallow (the fire had gone out, and there was nothing\nin the grate but ashes, a bundle of wood, and a poker), \"you find me,\nmy dears, as usual, very busy; but that you will excuse. The African\nproject at present employs my whole time. It involves me in\ncorrespondence with public bodies and with private individuals\nanxious for the welfare of their species all over the country. I am\nhappy to say it is advancing. We hope by this time next year to have\nfrom a hundred and fifty to two hundred healthy families cultivating\ncoffee and educating the natives of Borrioboola-Gha, on the left bank\nof the Niger.\"\n\nAs Ada said nothing, but looked at me, I said it must be very\ngratifying.\n\n\"It IS gratifying,\" said Mrs. Jellyby. \"It involves the devotion of\nall my energies, such as they are; but that is nothing, so that it\nsucceeds; and I am more confident of success every day. Do you know,\nMiss Summerson, I almost wonder that YOU never turned your thoughts\nto Africa.\"\n\nThis application of the subject was really so unexpected to me that I\nwas quite at a loss how to receive it. I hinted that the climate--\n\n\"The finest climate in the world!\" said Mrs. Jellyby.\n\n\"Indeed, ma'am?\"\n\n\"Certainly. With precaution,\" said Mrs. Jellyby. \"You may go into\nHolborn, without precaution, and be run over. You may go into\nHolborn, with precaution, and never be run over. Just so with\nAfrica.\"\n\nI said, \"No doubt.\" I meant as to Holborn.\n\n\"If you would like,\" said Mrs. Jellyby, putting a number of papers\ntowards us, \"to look over some remarks on that head, and on the\ngeneral subject, which have been extensively circulated, while I\nfinish a letter I am now dictating to my eldest daughter, who is my\namanuensis--\"\n\nThe girl at the table left off biting her pen and made a return to\nour recognition, which was half bashful and half sulky.\n\n\"--I shall then have finished for the present,\" proceeded Mrs.\nJellyby with a sweet smile, \"though my work is never done. Where are\nyou, Caddy?\"\n\n\"'Presents her compliments to Mr. Swallow, and begs--'\" said Caddy.\n\n\"'And begs,'\" said Mrs. Jellyby, dictating, \"'to inform him, in\nreference to his letter of inquiry on the African project--' No,\nPeepy! Not on my account!\"\n\nPeepy (so self-named) was the unfortunate child who had fallen\ndownstairs, who now interrupted the correspondence by presenting\nhimself, with a strip of plaster on his forehead, to exhibit his\nwounded knees, in which Ada and I did not know which to pity\nmost--the bruises or the dirt. Mrs. Jellyby merely added, with the\nserene composure with which she said everything, \"Go along, you\nnaughty Peepy!\" and fixed her fine eyes on Africa again.\n\nHowever, as she at once proceeded with her dictation, and as I\ninterrupted nothing by doing it, I ventured quietly to stop poor\nPeepy as he was going out and to take him up to nurse. He looked very\nmuch astonished at it and at Ada's kissing him, but soon fell fast\nasleep in my arms, sobbing at longer and longer intervals, until he\nwas quiet. I was so occupied with Peepy that I lost the letter in\ndetail, though I derived such a general impression from it of the\nmomentous importance of Africa, and the utter insignificance of all\nother places and things, that I felt quite ashamed to have thought so\nlittle about it.\n\n\"Six o'clock!\" said Mrs. Jellyby. \"And our dinner hour is nominally\n(for we dine at all hours) five! Caddy, show Miss Clare and Miss\nSummerson their rooms. You will like to make some change, perhaps?\nYou will excuse me, I know, being so much occupied. Oh, that very bad\nchild! Pray put him down, Miss Summerson!\"\n\nI begged permission to retain him, truly saying that he was not at\nall troublesome, and carried him upstairs and laid him on my bed. Ada\nand I had two upper rooms with a door of communication between. They\nwere excessively bare and disorderly, and the curtain to my window\nwas fastened up with a fork.\n\n\"You would like some hot water, wouldn't you?\" said Miss Jellyby,\nlooking round for a jug with a handle to it, but looking in vain.\n\n\"If it is not being troublesome,\" said we.\n\n\"Oh, it's not the trouble,\" returned Miss Jellyby; \"the question is,\nif there IS any.\"\n\nThe evening was so very cold and the rooms had such a marshy smell\nthat I must confess it was a little miserable, and Ada was half\ncrying. We soon laughed, however, and were busily unpacking when Miss\nJellyby came back to say that she was sorry there was no hot water,\nbut they couldn't find the kettle, and the boiler was out of order.\n\nWe begged her not to mention it and made all the haste we could to\nget down to the fire again. But all the little children had come up\nto the landing outside to look at the phenomenon of Peepy lying on my\nbed, and our attention was distracted by the constant apparition of\nnoses and fingers in situations of danger between the hinges of the\ndoors. It was impossible to shut the door of either room, for my\nlock, with no knob to it, looked as if it wanted to be wound up; and\nthough the handle of Ada's went round and round with the greatest\nsmoothness, it was attended with no effect whatever on the door.\nTherefore I proposed to the children that they should come in and be\nvery good at my table, and I would tell them the story of Little Red\nRiding Hood while I dressed; which they did, and were as quiet as\nmice, including Peepy, who awoke opportunely before the appearance of\nthe wolf.\n\nWhen we went downstairs we found a mug with \"A Present from Tunbridge\nWells\" on it lighted up in the staircase window with a floating wick,\nand a young woman, with a swelled face bound up in a flannel bandage\nblowing the fire of the drawing-room (now connected by an open door\nwith Mrs. Jellyby's room) and choking dreadfully. It smoked to that\ndegree, in short, that we all sat coughing and crying with the\nwindows open for half an hour, during which Mrs. Jellyby, with the\nsame sweetness of temper, directed letters about Africa. Her being so\nemployed was, I must say, a great relief to me, for Richard told us\nthat he had washed his hands in a pie-dish and that they had found\nthe kettle on his dressing-table, and he made Ada laugh so that they\nmade me laugh in the most ridiculous manner.\n\nSoon after seven o'clock we went down to dinner, carefully, by Mrs.\nJellyby's advice, for the stair-carpets, besides being very deficient\nin stair-wires, were so torn as to be absolute traps. We had a fine\ncod-fish, a piece of roast beef, a dish of cutlets, and a pudding; an\nexcellent dinner, if it had had any cooking to speak of, but it was\nalmost raw. The young woman with the flannel bandage waited, and\ndropped everything on the table wherever it happened to go, and never\nmoved it again until she put it on the stairs. The person I had seen\nin pattens, who I suppose to have been the cook, frequently came and\nskirmished with her at the door, and there appeared to be ill will\nbetween them.\n\nAll through dinner--which was long, in consequence of such accidents\nas the dish of potatoes being mislaid in the coal skuttle and the\nhandle of the corkscrew coming off and striking the young woman in\nthe chin--Mrs. Jellyby preserved the evenness of her disposition. She\ntold us a great deal that was interesting about Borrioboola-Gha and\nthe natives, and received so many letters that Richard, who sat by\nher, saw four envelopes in the gravy at once. Some of the letters\nwere proceedings of ladies' committees or resolutions of ladies'\nmeetings, which she read to us; others were applications from people\nexcited in various ways about the cultivation of coffee, and natives;\nothers required answers, and these she sent her eldest daughter from\nthe table three or four times to write. She was full of business and\nundoubtedly was, as she had told us, devoted to the cause.\n\nI was a little curious to know who a mild bald gentleman in\nspectacles was, who dropped into a vacant chair (there was no top or\nbottom in particular) after the fish was taken away and seemed\npassively to submit himself to Borrioboola-Gha but not to be actively\ninterested in that settlement. As he never spoke a word, he might\nhave been a native but for his complexion. It was not until we left\nthe table and he remained alone with Richard that the possibility of\nhis being Mr. Jellyby ever entered my head. But he WAS Mr. Jellyby;\nand a loquacious young man called Mr. Quale, with large shining knobs\nfor temples and his hair all brushed to the back of his head, who\ncame in the evening, and told Ada he was a philanthropist, also\ninformed her that he called the matrimonial alliance of Mrs. Jellyby\nwith Mr. Jellyby the union of mind and matter.\n\nThis young man, besides having a great deal to say for himself about\nAfrica and a project of his for teaching the coffee colonists to\nteach the natives to turn piano-forte legs and establish an export\ntrade, delighted in drawing Mrs. Jellyby out by saying, \"I believe\nnow, Mrs. Jellyby, you have received as many as from one hundred and\nfifty to two hundred letters respecting Africa in a single day, have\nyou not?\" or, \"If my memory does not deceive me, Mrs. Jellyby, you\nonce mentioned that you had sent off five thousand circulars from one\npost-office at one time?\"--always repeating Mrs. Jellyby's answer to\nus like an interpreter. During the whole evening, Mr. Jellyby sat in\na corner with his head against the wall as if he were subject to low\nspirits. It seemed that he had several times opened his mouth when\nalone with Richard after dinner, as if he had something on his mind,\nbut had always shut it again, to Richard's extreme confusion, without\nsaying anything.\n\nMrs. Jellyby, sitting in quite a nest of waste paper, drank coffee\nall the evening and dictated at intervals to her eldest daughter. She\nalso held a discussion with Mr. Quale, of which the subject seemed to\nbe--if I understood it--the brotherhood of humanity, and gave\nutterance to some beautiful sentiments. I was not so attentive an\nauditor as I might have wished to be, however, for Peepy and the\nother children came flocking about Ada and me in a corner of the\ndrawing-room to ask for another story; so we sat down among them and\ntold them in whispers \"Puss in Boots\" and I don't know what else\nuntil Mrs. Jellyby, accidentally remembering them, sent them to bed.\nAs Peepy cried for me to take him to bed, I carried him upstairs,\nwhere the young woman with the flannel bandage charged into the midst\nof the little family like a dragon and overturned them into cribs.\n\nAfter that I occupied myself in making our room a little tidy and in\ncoaxing a very cross fire that had been lighted to burn, which at\nlast it did, quite brightly. On my return downstairs, I felt that\nMrs. Jellyby looked down upon me rather for being so frivolous, and I\nwas sorry for it, though at the same time I knew that I had no higher\npretensions.\n\nIt was nearly midnight before we found an opportunity of going to\nbed, and even then we left Mrs. Jellyby among her papers drinking\ncoffee and Miss Jellyby biting the feather of her pen.\n\n\"What a strange house!\" said Ada when we got upstairs. \"How curious\nof my cousin Jarndyce to send us here!\"\n\n\"My love,\" said I, \"it quite confuses me. I want to understand it,\nand I can't understand it at all.\"\n\n\"What?\" asked Ada with her pretty smile.\n\n\"All this, my dear,\" said I. \"It MUST be very good of Mrs. Jellyby to\ntake such pains about a scheme for the benefit of natives--and\nyet--Peepy and the housekeeping!\"\n\nAda laughed and put her arm about my neck as I stood looking at the\nfire, and told me I was a quiet, dear, good creature and had won her\nheart. \"You are so thoughtful, Esther,\" she said, \"and yet so\ncheerful! And you do so much, so unpretendingly! You would make a\nhome out of even this house.\"\n\nMy simple darling! She was quite unconscious that she only praised\nherself and that it was in the goodness of her own heart that she\nmade so much of me!\n\n\"May I ask you a question?\" said I when we had sat before the fire a\nlittle while.\n\n\"Five hundred,\" said Ada.\n\n\"Your cousin, Mr. Jarndyce. I owe so much to him. Would you mind\ndescribing him to me?\"\n\nShaking her golden hair, Ada turned her eyes upon me with such\nlaughing wonder that I was full of wonder too, partly at her beauty,\npartly at her surprise.\n\n\"Esther!\" she cried.\n\n\"My dear!\"\n\n\"You want a description of my cousin Jarndyce?\"\n\n\"My dear, I never saw him.\"\n\n\"And I never saw him!\" returned Ada.\n\nWell, to be sure!\n\nNo, she had never seen him. Young as she was when her mama died, she\nremembered how the tears would come into her eyes when she spoke of\nhim and of the noble generosity of his character, which she had said\nwas to be trusted above all earthly things; and Ada trusted it. Her\ncousin Jarndyce had written to her a few months ago--\"a plain, honest\nletter,\" Ada said--proposing the arrangement we were now to enter on\nand telling her that \"in time it might heal some of the wounds made\nby the miserable Chancery suit.\" She had replied, gratefully\naccepting his proposal. Richard had received a similar letter and had\nmade a similar response. He HAD seen Mr. Jarndyce once, but only\nonce, five years ago, at Winchester school. He had told Ada, when\nthey were leaning on the screen before the fire where I found them,\nthat he recollected him as \"a bluff, rosy fellow.\" This was the\nutmost description Ada could give me.\n\nIt set me thinking so that when Ada was asleep, I still remained\nbefore the fire, wondering and wondering about Bleak House, and\nwondering and wondering that yesterday morning should seem so long\nago. I don't know where my thoughts had wandered when they were\nrecalled by a tap at the door.\n\nI opened it softly and found Miss Jellyby shivering there with a\nbroken candle in a broken candlestick in one hand and an egg-cup in\nthe other.\n\n\"Good night!\" she said very sulkily.\n\n\"Good night!\" said I.\n\n\"May I come in?\" she shortly and unexpectedly asked me in the same\nsulky way.\n\n\"Certainly,\" said I. \"Don't wake Miss Clare.\"\n\nShe would not sit down, but stood by the fire dipping her inky middle\nfinger in the egg-cup, which contained vinegar, and smearing it over\nthe ink stains on her face, frowning the whole time and looking very\ngloomy.\n\n\"I wish Africa was dead!\" she said on a sudden.\n\nI was going to remonstrate.\n\n\"I do!\" she said \"Don't talk to me, Miss Summerson. I hate it and\ndetest it. It's a beast!\"\n\nI told her she was tired, and I was sorry. I put my hand upon her\nhead, and touched her forehead, and said it was hot now but would be\ncool to-morrow. She still stood pouting and frowning at me, but\npresently put down her egg-cup and turned softly towards the bed\nwhere Ada lay.\n\n\"She is very pretty!\" she said with the same knitted brow and in the\nsame uncivil manner.\n\nI assented with a smile.\n\n\"An orphan. Ain't she?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"But knows a quantity, I suppose? Can dance, and play music, and\nsing? She can talk French, I suppose, and do geography, and globes,\nand needlework, and everything?\"\n\n\"No doubt,\" said I.\n\n\"I can't,\" she returned. \"I can't do anything hardly, except write.\nI'm always writing for Ma. I wonder you two were not ashamed of\nyourselves to come in this afternoon and see me able to do nothing\nelse. It was like your ill nature. Yet you think yourselves very\nfine, I dare say!\"\n\nI could see that the poor girl was near crying, and I resumed my\nchair without speaking and looked at her (I hope) as mildly as I felt\ntowards her.\n\n\"It's disgraceful,\" she said. \"You know it is. The whole house is\ndisgraceful. The children are disgraceful. I'M disgraceful. Pa's\nmiserable, and no wonder! Priscilla drinks--she's always drinking.\nIt's a great shame and a great story of you if you say you didn't\nsmell her to-day. It was as bad as a public-house, waiting at dinner;\nyou know it was!\"\n\n\"My dear, I don't know it,\" said I.\n\n\"You do,\" she said very shortly. \"You shan't say you don't. You do!\"\n\n\"Oh, my dear!\" said I. \"If you won't let me speak--\"\n\n\"You're speaking now. You know you are. Don't tell stories, Miss\nSummerson.\"\n\n\"My dear,\" said I, \"as long as you won't hear me out--\"\n\n\"I don't want to hear you out.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, I think you do,\" said I, \"because that would be so very\nunreasonable. I did not know what you tell me because the servant did\nnot come near me at dinner; but I don't doubt what you tell me, and I\nam sorry to hear it.\"\n\n\"You needn't make a merit of that,\" said she.\n\n\"No, my dear,\" said I. \"That would be very foolish.\"\n\nShe was still standing by the bed, and now stooped down (but still\nwith the same discontented face) and kissed Ada. That done, she came\nsoftly back and stood by the side of my chair. Her bosom was heaving\nin a distressful manner that I greatly pitied, but I thought it\nbetter not to speak.\n\n\"I wish I was dead!\" she broke out. \"I wish we were all dead. It\nwould be a great deal better for us.\"\n\nIn a moment afterwards, she knelt on the ground at my side, hid her\nface in my dress, passionately begged my pardon, and wept. I\ncomforted her and would have raised her, but she cried no, no; she\nwanted to stay there!\n\n\"You used to teach girls,\" she said, \"If you could only have taught\nme, I could have learnt from you! I am so very miserable, and I like\nyou so much!\"\n\nI could not persuade her to sit by me or to do anything but move a\nragged stool to where she was kneeling, and take that, and still hold\nmy dress in the same manner. By degrees the poor tired girl fell\nasleep, and then I contrived to raise her head so that it should rest\non my lap, and to cover us both with shawls. The fire went out, and\nall night long she slumbered thus before the ashy grate. At first I\nwas painfully awake and vainly tried to lose myself, with my eyes\nclosed, among the scenes of the day. At length, by slow degrees, they\nbecame indistinct and mingled. I began to lose the identity of the\nsleeper resting on me. Now it was Ada, now one of my old Reading\nfriends from whom I could not believe I had so recently parted. Now\nit was the little mad woman worn out with curtsying and smiling, now\nsome one in authority at Bleak House. Lastly, it was no one, and I\nwas no one.\n\nThe purblind day was feebly struggling with the fog when I opened my\neyes to encounter those of a dirty-faced little spectre fixed upon\nme. Peepy had scaled his crib, and crept down in his bed-gown and\ncap, and was so cold that his teeth were chattering as if he had cut\nthem all.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nA Morning Adventure\n\n\nAlthough the morning was raw, and although the fog still seemed\nheavy--I say seemed, for the windows were so encrusted with dirt that\nthey would have made midsummer sunshine dim--I was sufficiently\nforewarned of the discomfort within doors at that early hour and\nsufficiently curious about London to think it a good idea on the part\nof Miss Jellyby when she proposed that we should go out for a walk.\n\n\"Ma won't be down for ever so long,\" she said, \"and then it's a\nchance if breakfast's ready for an hour afterwards, they dawdle so.\nAs to Pa, he gets what he can and goes to the office. He never has\nwhat you would call a regular breakfast. Priscilla leaves him out the\nloaf and some milk, when there is any, overnight. Sometimes there\nisn't any milk, and sometimes the cat drinks it. But I'm afraid you\nmust be tired, Miss Summerson, and perhaps you would rather go to\nbed.\"\n\n\"I am not at all tired, my dear,\" said I, \"and would much prefer to\ngo out.\"\n\n\"If you're sure you would,\" returned Miss Jellyby, \"I'll get my\nthings on.\"\n\nAda said she would go too, and was soon astir. I made a proposal to\nPeepy, in default of being able to do anything better for him, that\nhe should let me wash him and afterwards lay him down on my bed\nagain. To this he submitted with the best grace possible, staring at\nme during the whole operation as if he never had been, and never\ncould again be, so astonished in his life--looking very miserable\nalso, certainly, but making no complaint, and going snugly to sleep\nas soon as it was over. At first I was in two minds about taking such\na liberty, but I soon reflected that nobody in the house was likely\nto notice it.\n\nWhat with the bustle of dispatching Peepy and the bustle of getting\nmyself ready and helping Ada, I was soon quite in a glow. We found\nMiss Jellyby trying to warm herself at the fire in the writing-room,\nwhich Priscilla was then lighting with a smutty parlour candlestick,\nthrowing the candle in to make it burn better. Everything was just as\nwe had left it last night and was evidently intended to remain so.\nBelow-stairs the dinner-cloth had not been taken away, but had been\nleft ready for breakfast. Crumbs, dust, and waste-paper were all over\nthe house. Some pewter pots and a milk-can hung on the area railings;\nthe door stood open; and we met the cook round the corner coming out\nof a public-house, wiping her mouth. She mentioned, as she passed us,\nthat she had been to see what o'clock it was.\n\nBut before we met the cook, we met Richard, who was dancing up and\ndown Thavies Inn to warm his feet. He was agreeably surprised to see\nus stirring so soon and said he would gladly share our walk. So he\ntook care of Ada, and Miss Jellyby and I went first. I may mention\nthat Miss Jellyby had relapsed into her sulky manner and that I\nreally should not have thought she liked me much unless she had told\nme so.\n\n\"Where would you wish to go?\" she asked.\n\n\"Anywhere, my dear,\" I replied.\n\n\"Anywhere's nowhere,\" said Miss Jellyby, stopping perversely.\n\n\"Let us go somewhere at any rate,\" said I.\n\nShe then walked me on very fast.\n\n\"I don't care!\" she said. \"Now, you are my witness, Miss Summerson, I\nsay I don't care--but if he was to come to our house with his great,\nshining, lumpy forehead night after night till he was as old as\nMethuselah, I wouldn't have anything to say to him. Such ASSES as he\nand Ma make of themselves!\"\n\n\"My dear!\" I remonstrated, in allusion to the epithet and the\nvigorous emphasis Miss Jellyby set upon it. \"Your duty as a child--\"\n\n\"Oh! Don't talk of duty as a child, Miss Summerson; where's Ma's duty\nas a parent? All made over to the public and Africa, I suppose! Then\nlet the public and Africa show duty as a child; it's much more their\naffair than mine. You are shocked, I dare say! Very well, so am I\nshocked too; so we are both shocked, and there's an end of it!\"\n\nShe walked me on faster yet.\n\n\"But for all that, I say again, he may come, and come, and come, and\nI won't have anything to say to him. I can't bear him. If there's any\nstuff in the world that I hate and detest, it's the stuff he and Ma\ntalk. I wonder the very paving-stones opposite our house can have the\npatience to stay there and be a witness of such inconsistencies and\ncontradictions as all that sounding nonsense, and Ma's management!\"\n\nI could not but understand her to refer to Mr. Quale, the young\ngentleman who had appeared after dinner yesterday. I was saved the\ndisagreeable necessity of pursuing the subject by Richard and Ada\ncoming up at a round pace, laughing and asking us if we meant to run\na race. Thus interrupted, Miss Jellyby became silent and walked\nmoodily on at my side while I admired the long successions and\nvarieties of streets, the quantity of people already going to and\nfro, the number of vehicles passing and repassing, the busy\npreparations in the setting forth of shop windows and the sweeping\nout of shops, and the extraordinary creatures in rags secretly\ngroping among the swept-out rubbish for pins and other refuse.\n\n\"So, cousin,\" said the cheerful voice of Richard to Ada behind me.\n\"We are never to get out of Chancery! We have come by another way to\nour place of meeting yesterday, and--by the Great Seal, here's the\nold lady again!\"\n\nTruly, there she was, immediately in front of us, curtsying, and\nsmiling, and saying with her yesterday's air of patronage, \"The wards\nin Jarndyce! Ve-ry happy, I am sure!\"\n\n\"You are out early, ma'am,\" said I as she curtsied to me.\n\n\"Ye-es! I usually walk here early. Before the court sits. It's\nretired. I collect my thoughts here for the business of the day,\"\nsaid the old lady mincingly. \"The business of the day requires a\ngreat deal of thought. Chancery justice is so ve-ry difficult to\nfollow.\"\n\n\"Who's this, Miss Summerson?\" whispered Miss Jellyby, drawing my arm\ntighter through her own.\n\nThe little old lady's hearing was remarkably quick. She answered for\nherself directly.\n\n\"A suitor, my child. At your service. I have the honour to attend\ncourt regularly. With my documents. Have I the pleasure of addressing\nanother of the youthful parties in Jarndyce?\" said the old lady,\nrecovering herself, with her head on one side, from a very low\ncurtsy.\n\nRichard, anxious to atone for his thoughtlessness of yesterday,\ngood-naturedly explained that Miss Jellyby was not connected with the\nsuit.\n\n\"Ha!\" said the old lady. \"She does not expect a judgment? She will\nstill grow old. But not so old. Oh, dear, no! This is the garden of\nLincoln's Inn. I call it my garden. It is quite a bower in the\nsummer-time. Where the birds sing melodiously. I pass the greater\npart of the long vacation here. In contemplation. You find the long\nvacation exceedingly long, don't you?\"\n\nWe said yes, as she seemed to expect us to say so.\n\n\"When the leaves are falling from the trees and there are no more\nflowers in bloom to make up into nosegays for the Lord Chancellor's\ncourt,\" said the old lady, \"the vacation is fulfilled and the sixth\nseal, mentioned in the Revelations, again prevails. Pray come and see\nmy lodging. It will be a good omen for me. Youth, and hope, and\nbeauty are very seldom there. It is a long, long time since I had a\nvisit from either.\"\n\nShe had taken my hand, and leading me and Miss Jellyby away, beckoned\nRichard and Ada to come too. I did not know how to excuse myself and\nlooked to Richard for aid. As he was half amused and half curious and\nall in doubt how to get rid of the old lady without offence, she\ncontinued to lead us away, and he and Ada continued to follow, our\nstrange conductress informing us all the time, with much smiling\ncondescension, that she lived close by.\n\nIt was quite true, as it soon appeared. She lived so close by that we\nhad not time to have done humouring her for a few moments before she\nwas at home. Slipping us out at a little side gate, the old lady\nstopped most unexpectedly in a narrow back street, part of some\ncourts and lanes immediately outside the wall of the inn, and said,\n\"This is my lodging. Pray walk up!\"\n\nShe had stopped at a shop over which was written KROOK, RAG AND\nBOTTLE WAREHOUSE. Also, in long thin letters, KROOK, DEALER IN MARINE\nSTORES. In one part of the window was a picture of a red paper mill\nat which a cart was unloading a quantity of sacks of old rags. In\nanother was the inscription BONES BOUGHT. In another, KITCHEN-STUFF\nBOUGHT. In another, OLD IRON BOUGHT. In another, WASTE-PAPER BOUGHT.\nIn another, LADIES' AND GENTLEMEN'S WARDROBES BOUGHT. Everything\nseemed to be bought and nothing to be sold there. In all parts of the\nwindow were quantities of dirty bottles--blacking bottles, medicine\nbottles, ginger-beer and soda-water bottles, pickle bottles, wine\nbottles, ink bottles; I am reminded by mentioning the latter that the\nshop had in several little particulars the air of being in a legal\nneighbourhood and of being, as it were, a dirty hanger-on and\ndisowned relation of the law. There were a great many ink bottles.\nThere was a little tottering bench of shabby old volumes outside the\ndoor, labelled \"Law Books, all at 9d.\" Some of the inscriptions I\nhave enumerated were written in law-hand, like the papers I had seen\nin Kenge and Carboy's office and the letters I had so long received\nfrom the firm. Among them was one, in the same writing, having\nnothing to do with the business of the shop, but announcing that a\nrespectable man aged forty-five wanted engrossing or copying to\nexecute with neatness and dispatch: Address to Nemo, care of Mr.\nKrook, within. There were several second-hand bags, blue and red,\nhanging up. A little way within the shop-door lay heaps of old\ncrackled parchment scrolls and discoloured and dog's-eared\nlaw-papers. I could have fancied that all the rusty keys, of which\nthere must have been hundreds huddled together as old iron, had once\nbelonged to doors of rooms or strong chests in lawyers' offices. The\nlitter of rags tumbled partly into and partly out of a one-legged\nwooden scale, hanging without any counterpoise from a beam, might\nhave been counsellors' bands and gowns torn up. One had only to\nfancy, as Richard whispered to Ada and me while we all stood looking\nin, that yonder bones in a corner, piled together and picked very\nclean, were the bones of clients, to make the picture complete.\n\nAs it was still foggy and dark, and as the shop was blinded besides\nby the wall of Lincoln's Inn, intercepting the light within a couple\nof yards, we should not have seen so much but for a lighted lantern\nthat an old man in spectacles and a hairy cap was carrying about in\nthe shop. Turning towards the door, he now caught sight of us. He was\nshort, cadaverous, and withered, with his head sunk sideways between\nhis shoulders and the breath issuing in visible smoke from his mouth\nas if he were on fire within. His throat, chin, and eyebrows were so\nfrosted with white hairs and so gnarled with veins and puckered skin\nthat he looked from his breast upward like some old root in a fall of\nsnow.\n\n\"Hi, hi!\" said the old man, coming to the door. \"Have you anything to\nsell?\"\n\nWe naturally drew back and glanced at our conductress, who had been\ntrying to open the house-door with a key she had taken from her\npocket, and to whom Richard now said that as we had had the pleasure\nof seeing where she lived, we would leave her, being pressed for\ntime. But she was not to be so easily left. She became so\nfantastically and pressingly earnest in her entreaties that we would\nwalk up and see her apartment for an instant, and was so bent, in her\nharmless way, on leading me in, as part of the good omen she desired,\nthat I (whatever the others might do) saw nothing for it but to\ncomply. I suppose we were all more or less curious; at any rate, when\nthe old man added his persuasions to hers and said, \"Aye, aye! Please\nher! It won't take a minute! Come in, come in! Come in through the\nshop if t'other door's out of order!\" we all went in, stimulated by\nRichard's laughing encouragement and relying on his protection.\n\n\"My landlord, Krook,\" said the little old lady, condescending to him\nfrom her lofty station as she presented him to us. \"He is called\namong the neighbours the Lord Chancellor. His shop is called the\nCourt of Chancery. He is a very eccentric person. He is very odd. Oh,\nI assure you he is very odd!\"\n\nShe shook her head a great many times and tapped her forehead with\nher finger to express to us that we must have the goodness to excuse\nhim, \"For he is a little--you know--M!\" said the old lady with great\nstateliness. The old man overheard, and laughed.\n\n\"It's true enough,\" he said, going before us with the lantern, \"that\nthey call me the Lord Chancellor and call my shop Chancery. And why\ndo you think they call me the Lord Chancellor and my shop Chancery?\"\n\n\"I don't know, I am sure!\" said Richard rather carelessly.\n\n\"You see,\" said the old man, stopping and turning round, \"they--Hi!\nHere's lovely hair! I have got three sacks of ladies' hair below, but\nnone so beautiful and fine as this. What colour, and what texture!\"\n\n\"That'll do, my good friend!\" said Richard, strongly disapproving of\nhis having drawn one of Ada's tresses through his yellow hand. \"You\ncan admire as the rest of us do without taking that liberty.\"\n\nThe old man darted at him a sudden look which even called my\nattention from Ada, who, startled and blushing, was so remarkably\nbeautiful that she seemed to fix the wandering attention of the\nlittle old lady herself. But as Ada interposed and laughingly said\nshe could only feel proud of such genuine admiration, Mr. Krook\nshrunk into his former self as suddenly as he had leaped out of it.\n\n\"You see, I have so many things here,\" he resumed, holding up the\nlantern, \"of so many kinds, and all as the neighbours think (but THEY\nknow nothing), wasting away and going to rack and ruin, that that's\nwhy they have given me and my place a christening. And I have so many\nold parchmentses and papers in my stock. And I have a liking for rust\nand must and cobwebs. And all's fish that comes to my net. And I\ncan't abear to part with anything I once lay hold of (or so my\nneighbours think, but what do THEY know?) or to alter anything, or to\nhave any sweeping, nor scouring, nor cleaning, nor repairing going on\nabout me. That's the way I've got the ill name of Chancery. I don't\nmind. I go to see my noble and learned brother pretty well every day,\nwhen he sits in the Inn. He don't notice me, but I notice him.\nThere's no great odds betwixt us. We both grub on in a muddle. Hi,\nLady Jane!\"\n\nA large grey cat leaped from some neighbouring shelf on his shoulder\nand startled us all.\n\n\"Hi! Show 'em how you scratch. Hi! Tear, my lady!\" said her master.\n\nThe cat leaped down and ripped at a bundle of rags with her tigerish\nclaws, with a sound that it set my teeth on edge to hear.\n\n\"She'd do as much for any one I was to set her on,\" said the old man.\n\"I deal in cat-skins among other general matters, and hers was\noffered to me. It's a very fine skin, as you may see, but I didn't\nhave it stripped off! THAT warn't like Chancery practice though, says\nyou!\"\n\nHe had by this time led us across the shop, and now opened a door in\nthe back part of it, leading to the house-entry. As he stood with his\nhand upon the lock, the little old lady graciously observed to him\nbefore passing out, \"That will do, Krook. You mean well, but are\ntiresome. My young friends are pressed for time. I have none to spare\nmyself, having to attend court very soon. My young friends are the\nwards in Jarndyce.\"\n\n\"Jarndyce!\" said the old man with a start.\n\n\"Jarndyce and Jarndyce. The great suit, Krook,\" returned his lodger.\n\n\"Hi!\" exclaimed the old man in a tone of thoughtful amazement and\nwith a wider stare than before. \"Think of it!\"\n\nHe seemed so rapt all in a moment and looked so curiously at us that\nRichard said, \"Why, you appear to trouble yourself a good deal about\nthe causes before your noble and learned brother, the other\nChancellor!\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said the old man abstractedly. \"Sure! YOUR name now will be--\"\n\n\"Richard Carstone.\"\n\n\"Carstone,\" he repeated, slowly checking off that name upon his\nforefinger; and each of the others he went on to mention upon a\nseparate finger. \"Yes. There was the name of Barbary, and the name of\nClare, and the name of Dedlock, too, I think.\"\n\n\"He knows as much of the cause as the real salaried Chancellor!\" said\nRichard, quite astonished, to Ada and me.\n\n\"Aye!\" said the old man, coming slowly out of his abstraction. \"Yes!\nTom Jarndyce--you'll excuse me, being related; but he was never known\nabout court by any other name, and was as well known there as--she is\nnow,\" nodding slightly at his lodger. \"Tom Jarndyce was often in\nhere. He got into a restless habit of strolling about when the cause\nwas on, or expected, talking to the little shopkeepers and telling\n'em to keep out of Chancery, whatever they did. 'For,' says he, 'it's\nbeing ground to bits in a slow mill; it's being roasted at a slow\nfire; it's being stung to death by single bees; it's being drowned by\ndrops; it's going mad by grains.' He was as near making away with\nhimself, just where the young lady stands, as near could be.\"\n\nWe listened with horror.\n\n\"He come in at the door,\" said the old man, slowly pointing an\nimaginary track along the shop, \"on the day he did it--the whole\nneighbourhood had said for months before that he would do it, of a\ncertainty sooner or later--he come in at the door that day, and\nwalked along there, and sat himself on a bench that stood there, and\nasked me (you'll judge I was a mortal sight younger then) to fetch\nhim a pint of wine. 'For,' says he, 'Krook, I am much depressed; my\ncause is on again, and I think I'm nearer judgment than I ever was.'\nI hadn't a mind to leave him alone; and I persuaded him to go to the\ntavern over the way there, t'other side my lane (I mean Chancery\nLane); and I followed and looked in at the window, and saw him,\ncomfortable as I thought, in the arm-chair by the fire, and company\nwith him. I hadn't hardly got back here when I heard a shot go\nechoing and rattling right away into the inn. I ran out--neighbours\nran out--twenty of us cried at once, 'Tom Jarndyce!'\"\n\nThe old man stopped, looked hard at us, looked down into the lantern,\nblew the light out, and shut the lantern up.\n\n\"We were right, I needn't tell the present hearers. Hi! To be sure,\nhow the neighbourhood poured into court that afternoon while the\ncause was on! How my noble and learned brother, and all the rest of\n'em, grubbed and muddled away as usual and tried to look as if they\nhadn't heard a word of the last fact in the case or as if they\nhad--Oh, dear me!--nothing at all to do with it if they had heard of\nit by any chance!\"\n\nAda's colour had entirely left her, and Richard was scarcely less\npale. Nor could I wonder, judging even from my emotions, and I was no\nparty in the suit, that to hearts so untried and fresh it was a shock\nto come into the inheritance of a protracted misery, attended in the\nminds of many people with such dreadful recollections. I had another\nuneasiness, in the application of the painful story to the poor\nhalf-witted creature who had brought us there; but, to my surprise,\nshe seemed perfectly unconscious of that and only led the way\nupstairs again, informing us with the toleration of a superior\ncreature for the infirmities of a common mortal that her landlord was\n\"a little M, you know!\"\n\nShe lived at the top of the house, in a pretty large room, from which\nshe had a glimpse of Lincoln's Inn Hall. This seemed to have been her\nprincipal inducement, originally, for taking up her residence there.\nShe could look at it, she said, in the night, especially in the\nmoonshine. Her room was clean, but very, very bare. I noticed the\nscantiest necessaries in the way of furniture; a few old prints from\nbooks, of Chancellors and barristers, wafered against the wall; and\nsome half-dozen reticles and work-bags, \"containing documents,\" as\nshe informed us. There were neither coals nor ashes in the grate, and\nI saw no articles of clothing anywhere, nor any kind of food. Upon a\nshelf in an open cupboard were a plate or two, a cup or two, and so\nforth, but all dry and empty. There was a more affecting meaning in\nher pinched appearance, I thought as I looked round, than I had\nunderstood before.\n\n\"Extremely honoured, I am sure,\" said our poor hostess with the\ngreatest suavity, \"by this visit from the wards in Jarndyce. And very\nmuch indebted for the omen. It is a retired situation. Considering. I\nam limited as to situation. In consequence of the necessity of\nattending on the Chancellor. I have lived here many years. I pass my\ndays in court, my evenings and my nights here. I find the nights\nlong, for I sleep but little and think much. That is, of course,\nunavoidable, being in Chancery. I am sorry I cannot offer chocolate.\nI expect a judgment shortly and shall then place my establishment on\na superior footing. At present, I don't mind confessing to the wards\nin Jarndyce (in strict confidence) that I sometimes find it difficult\nto keep up a genteel appearance. I have felt the cold here. I have\nfelt something sharper than cold. It matters very little. Pray excuse\nthe introduction of such mean topics.\"\n\nShe partly drew aside the curtain of the long, low garret window and\ncalled our attention to a number of bird-cages hanging there, some\ncontaining several birds. There were larks, linnets, and\ngoldfinches--I should think at least twenty.\n\n\"I began to keep the little creatures,\" she said, \"with an object\nthat the wards will readily comprehend. With the intention of\nrestoring them to liberty. When my judgment should be given. Ye-es!\nThey die in prison, though. Their lives, poor silly things, are so\nshort in comparison with Chancery proceedings that, one by one, the\nwhole collection has died over and over again. I doubt, do you know,\nwhether one of these, though they are all young, will live to be\nfree! Ve-ry mortifying, is it not?\"\n\nAlthough she sometimes asked a question, she never seemed to expect a\nreply, but rambled on as if she were in the habit of doing so when no\none but herself was present.\n\n\"Indeed,\" she pursued, \"I positively doubt sometimes, I do assure\nyou, whether while matters are still unsettled, and the sixth or\nGreat Seal still prevails, I may not one day be found lying stark and\nsenseless here, as I have found so many birds!\"\n\nRichard, answering what he saw in Ada's compassionate eyes, took the\nopportunity of laying some money, softly and unobserved, on the\nchimney-piece. We all drew nearer to the cages, feigning to examine\nthe birds.\n\n\"I can't allow them to sing much,\" said the little old lady, \"for\n(you'll think this curious) I find my mind confused by the idea that\nthey are singing while I am following the arguments in court. And my\nmind requires to be so very clear, you know! Another time, I'll tell\nyou their names. Not at present. On a day of such good omen, they\nshall sing as much as they like. In honour of youth,\" a smile and\ncurtsy, \"hope,\" a smile and curtsy, \"and beauty,\" a smile and curtsy.\n\"There! We'll let in the full light.\"\n\nThe birds began to stir and chirp.\n\n\"I cannot admit the air freely,\" said the little old lady--the room\nwas close, and would have been the better for it--\"because the cat\nyou saw downstairs, called Lady Jane, is greedy for their lives. She\ncrouches on the parapet outside for hours and hours. I have\ndiscovered,\" whispering mysteriously, \"that her natural cruelty is\nsharpened by a jealous fear of their regaining their liberty. In\nconsequence of the judgment I expect being shortly given. She is sly\nand full of malice. I half believe, sometimes, that she is no cat,\nbut the wolf of the old saying. It is so very difficult to keep her\nfrom the door.\"\n\nSome neighbouring bells, reminding the poor soul that it was\nhalf-past nine, did more for us in the way of bringing our visit to\nan end than we could easily have done for ourselves. She hurriedly\ntook up her little bag of documents, which she had laid upon the\ntable on coming in, and asked if we were also going into court. On\nour answering no, and that we would on no account detain her, she\nopened the door to attend us downstairs.\n\n\"With such an omen, it is even more necessary than usual that I\nshould be there before the Chancellor comes in,\" said she, \"for he\nmight mention my case the first thing. I have a presentiment that he\nWILL mention it the first thing this morning.\"\n\nShe stopped to tell us in a whisper as we were going down that the\nwhole house was filled with strange lumber which her landlord had\nbought piecemeal and had no wish to sell, in consequence of being a\nlittle M. This was on the first floor. But she had made a previous\nstoppage on the second floor and had silently pointed at a dark door\nthere.\n\n\"The only other lodger,\" she now whispered in explanation, \"a\nlaw-writer. The children in the lanes here say he has sold himself to\nthe devil. I don't know what he can have done with the money. Hush!\"\n\nShe appeared to mistrust that the lodger might hear her even there,\nand repeating \"Hush!\" went before us on tiptoe as though even the\nsound of her footsteps might reveal to him what she had said.\n\nPassing through the shop on our way out, as we had passed through it\non our way in, we found the old man storing a quantity of packets of\nwaste-paper in a kind of well in the floor. He seemed to be working\nhard, with the perspiration standing on his forehead, and had a piece\nof chalk by him, with which, as he put each separate package or\nbundle down, he made a crooked mark on the panelling of the wall.\n\nRichard and Ada, and Miss Jellyby, and the little old lady had gone\nby him, and I was going when he touched me on the arm to stay me, and\nchalked the letter J upon the wall--in a very curious manner,\nbeginning with the end of the letter and shaping it backward. It was\na capital letter, not a printed one, but just such a letter as any\nclerk in Messrs. Kenge and Carboy's office would have made.\n\n\"Can you read it?\" he asked me with a keen glance.\n\n\"Surely,\" said I. \"It's very plain.\"\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"J.\"\n\nWith another glance at me, and a glance at the door, he rubbed it out\nand turned an \"a\" in its place (not a capital letter this time), and\nsaid, \"What's that?\"\n\nI told him. He then rubbed that out and turned the letter \"r,\" and\nasked me the same question. He went on quickly until he had formed in\nthe same curious manner, beginning at the ends and bottoms of the\nletters, the word Jarndyce, without once leaving two letters on the\nwall together.\n\n\"What does that spell?\" he asked me.\n\nWhen I told him, he laughed. In the same odd way, yet with the same\nrapidity, he then produced singly, and rubbed out singly, the letters\nforming the words Bleak House. These, in some astonishment, I also\nread; and he laughed again.\n\n\"Hi!\" said the old man, laying aside the chalk. \"I have a turn for\ncopying from memory, you see, miss, though I can neither read nor\nwrite.\"\n\nHe looked so disagreeable and his cat looked so wickedly at me, as if\nI were a blood-relation of the birds upstairs, that I was quite\nrelieved by Richard's appearing at the door and saying, \"Miss\nSummerson, I hope you are not bargaining for the sale of your hair.\nDon't be tempted. Three sacks below are quite enough for Mr. Krook!\"\n\nI lost no time in wishing Mr. Krook good morning and joining my\nfriends outside, where we parted with the little old lady, who gave\nus her blessing with great ceremony and renewed her assurance of\nyesterday in reference to her intention of settling estates on Ada\nand me. Before we finally turned out of those lanes, we looked back\nand saw Mr. Krook standing at his shop-door, in his spectacles,\nlooking after us, with his cat upon his shoulder, and her tail\nsticking up on one side of his hairy cap like a tall feather.\n\n\"Quite an adventure for a morning in London!\" said Richard with a\nsigh. \"Ah, cousin, cousin, it's a weary word this Chancery!\"\n\n\"It is to me, and has been ever since I can remember,\" returned Ada.\n\"I am grieved that I should be the enemy--as I suppose I am--of a\ngreat number of relations and others, and that they should be my\nenemies--as I suppose they are--and that we should all be ruining one\nanother without knowing how or why and be in constant doubt and\ndiscord all our lives. It seems very strange, as there must be right\nsomewhere, that an honest judge in real earnest has not been able to\nfind out through all these years where it is.\"\n\n\"Ah, cousin!\" said Richard. \"Strange, indeed! All this wasteful,\nwanton chess-playing IS very strange. To see that composed court\nyesterday jogging on so serenely and to think of the wretchedness of\nthe pieces on the board gave me the headache and the heartache both\ntogether. My head ached with wondering how it happened, if men were\nneither fools nor rascals; and my heart ached to think they could\npossibly be either. But at all events, Ada--I may call you Ada?\"\n\n\"Of course you may, cousin Richard.\"\n\n\"At all events, Chancery will work none of its bad influences on US.\nWe have happily been brought together, thanks to our good kinsman,\nand it can't divide us now!\"\n\n\"Never, I hope, cousin Richard!\" said Ada gently.\n\nMiss Jellyby gave my arm a squeeze and me a very significant look. I\nsmiled in return, and we made the rest of the way back very\npleasantly.\n\nIn half an hour after our arrival, Mrs. Jellyby appeared; and in the\ncourse of an hour the various things necessary for breakfast\nstraggled one by one into the dining-room. I do not doubt that Mrs.\nJellyby had gone to bed and got up in the usual manner, but she\npresented no appearance of having changed her dress. She was greatly\noccupied during breakfast, for the morning's post brought a heavy\ncorrespondence relative to Borrioboola-Gha, which would occasion her\n(she said) to pass a busy day. The children tumbled about, and\nnotched memoranda of their accidents in their legs, which were\nperfect little calendars of distress; and Peepy was lost for an hour\nand a half, and brought home from Newgate market by a policeman. The\nequable manner in which Mrs. Jellyby sustained both his absence and\nhis restoration to the family circle surprised us all.\n\nShe was by that time perseveringly dictating to Caddy, and Caddy was\nfast relapsing into the inky condition in which we had found her. At\none o'clock an open carriage arrived for us, and a cart for our\nluggage. Mrs. Jellyby charged us with many remembrances to her good\nfriend Mr. Jarndyce; Caddy left her desk to see us depart, kissed me\nin the passage, and stood biting her pen and sobbing on the steps;\nPeepy, I am happy to say, was asleep and spared the pain of\nseparation (I was not without misgivings that he had gone to Newgate\nmarket in search of me); and all the other children got up behind the\nbarouche and fell off, and we saw them, with great concern, scattered\nover the surface of Thavies Inn as we rolled out of its precincts.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nQuite at Home\n\n\nThe day had brightened very much, and still brightened as we went\nwestward. We went our way through the sunshine and the fresh air,\nwondering more and more at the extent of the streets, the brilliancy\nof the shops, the great traffic, and the crowds of people whom the\npleasanter weather seemed to have brought out like many-coloured\nflowers. By and by we began to leave the wonderful city and to\nproceed through suburbs which, of themselves, would have made a\npretty large town in my eyes; and at last we got into a real country\nroad again, with windmills, rick-yards, milestones, farmers' waggons,\nscents of old hay, swinging signs, and horse troughs: trees, fields,\nand hedge-rows. It was delightful to see the green landscape before\nus and the immense metropolis behind; and when a waggon with a train\nof beautiful horses, furnished with red trappings and clear-sounding\nbells, came by us with its music, I believe we could all three have\nsung to the bells, so cheerful were the influences around.\n\n\"The whole road has been reminding me of my namesake Whittington,\"\nsaid Richard, \"and that waggon is the finishing touch. Halloa! What's\nthe matter?\"\n\nWe had stopped, and the waggon had stopped too. Its music changed as\nthe horses came to a stand, and subsided to a gentle tinkling, except\nwhen a horse tossed his head or shook himself and sprinkled off a\nlittle shower of bell-ringing.\n\n\"Our postilion is looking after the waggoner,\" said Richard, \"and the\nwaggoner is coming back after us. Good day, friend!\" The waggoner was\nat our coach-door. \"Why, here's an extraordinary thing!\" added\nRichard, looking closely at the man. \"He has got your name, Ada, in\nhis hat!\"\n\nHe had all our names in his hat. Tucked within the band were three\nsmall notes--one addressed to Ada, one to Richard, one to me. These\nthe waggoner delivered to each of us respectively, reading the name\naloud first. In answer to Richard's inquiry from whom they came, he\nbriefly answered, \"Master, sir, if you please\"; and putting on his\nhat again (which was like a soft bowl), cracked his whip, re-awakened\nhis music, and went melodiously away.\n\n\"Is that Mr. Jarndyce's waggon?\" said Richard, calling to our\npost-boy.\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" he replied. \"Going to London.\"\n\nWe opened the notes. Each was a counterpart of the other and\ncontained these words in a solid, plain hand.\n\n\n   I look forward, my dear, to our meeting easily and\n   without constraint on either side. I therefore have to\n   propose that we meet as old friends and take the past for\n   granted. It will be a relief to you possibly, and to me\n   certainly, and so my love to you.\n\n   John Jarndyce\n\n\nI had perhaps less reason to be surprised than either of my\ncompanions, having never yet enjoyed an opportunity of thanking one\nwho had been my benefactor and sole earthly dependence through so\nmany years. I had not considered how I could thank him, my gratitude\nlying too deep in my heart for that; but I now began to consider how\nI could meet him without thanking him, and felt it would be very\ndifficult indeed.\n\nThe notes revived in Richard and Ada a general impression that they\nboth had, without quite knowing how they came by it, that their\ncousin Jarndyce could never bear acknowledgments for any kindness he\nperformed and that sooner than receive any he would resort to the\nmost singular expedients and evasions or would even run away. Ada\ndimly remembered to have heard her mother tell, when she was a very\nlittle child, that he had once done her an act of uncommon generosity\nand that on her going to his house to thank him, he happened to see\nher through a window coming to the door, and immediately escaped by\nthe back gate, and was not heard of for three months. This discourse\nled to a great deal more on the same theme, and indeed it lasted us\nall day, and we talked of scarcely anything else. If we did by any\nchance diverge into another subject, we soon returned to this, and\nwondered what the house would be like, and when we should get there,\nand whether we should see Mr. Jarndyce as soon as we arrived or after\na delay, and what he would say to us, and what we should say to him.\nAll of which we wondered about, over and over again.\n\nThe roads were very heavy for the horses, but the pathway was\ngenerally good, so we alighted and walked up all the hills, and liked\nit so well that we prolonged our walk on the level ground when we got\nto the top. At Barnet there were other horses waiting for us, but as\nthey had only just been fed, we had to wait for them too, and got a\nlong fresh walk over a common and an old battle-field before the\ncarriage came up. These delays so protracted the journey that the\nshort day was spent and the long night had closed in before we came\nto St. Albans, near to which town Bleak House was, we knew.\n\nBy that time we were so anxious and nervous that even Richard\nconfessed, as we rattled over the stones of the old street, to\nfeeling an irrational desire to drive back again. As to Ada and me,\nwhom he had wrapped up with great care, the night being sharp and\nfrosty, we trembled from head to foot. When we turned out of the\ntown, round a corner, and Richard told us that the post-boy, who had\nfor a long time sympathized with our heightened expectation, was\nlooking back and nodding, we both stood up in the carriage (Richard\nholding Ada lest she should be jolted down) and gazed round upon the\nopen country and the starlight night for our destination. There was a\nlight sparkling on the top of a hill before us, and the driver,\npointing to it with his whip and crying, \"That's Bleak House!\" put\nhis horses into a canter and took us forward at such a rate, uphill\nthough it was, that the wheels sent the road drift flying about our\nheads like spray from a water-mill. Presently we lost the light,\npresently saw it, presently lost it, presently saw it, and turned\ninto an avenue of trees and cantered up towards where it was beaming\nbrightly. It was in a window of what seemed to be an old-fashioned\nhouse with three peaks in the roof in front and a circular sweep\nleading to the porch. A bell was rung as we drew up, and amidst the\nsound of its deep voice in the still air, and the distant barking of\nsome dogs, and a gush of light from the opened door, and the smoking\nand steaming of the heated horses, and the quickened beating of our\nown hearts, we alighted in no inconsiderable confusion.\n\n\"Ada, my love, Esther, my dear, you are welcome. I rejoice to see\nyou! Rick, if I had a hand to spare at present, I would give it you!\"\n\nThe gentleman who said these words in a clear, bright, hospitable\nvoice had one of his arms round Ada's waist and the other round mine,\nand kissed us both in a fatherly way, and bore us across the hall\ninto a ruddy little room, all in a glow with a blazing fire. Here he\nkissed us again, and opening his arms, made us sit down side by side\non a sofa ready drawn out near the hearth. I felt that if we had been\nat all demonstrative, he would have run away in a moment.\n\n\"Now, Rick!\" said he. \"I have a hand at liberty. A word in earnest is\nas good as a speech. I am heartily glad to see you. You are at home.\nWarm yourself!\"\n\nRichard shook him by both hands with an intuitive mixture of respect\nand frankness, and only saying (though with an earnestness that\nrather alarmed me, I was so afraid of Mr. Jarndyce's suddenly\ndisappearing), \"You are very kind, sir! We are very much obliged to\nyou!\" laid aside his hat and coat and came up to the fire.\n\n\"And how did you like the ride? And how did you like Mrs. Jellyby, my\ndear?\" said Mr. Jarndyce to Ada.\n\nWhile Ada was speaking to him in reply, I glanced (I need not say\nwith how much interest) at his face. It was a handsome, lively, quick\nface, full of change and motion; and his hair was a silvered\niron-grey. I took him to be nearer sixty than fifty, but he was\nupright, hearty, and robust. From the moment of his first speaking to\nus his voice had connected itself with an association in my mind that\nI could not define; but now, all at once, a something sudden in his\nmanner and a pleasant expression in his eyes recalled the gentleman\nin the stagecoach six years ago on the memorable day of my journey to\nReading. I was certain it was he. I never was so frightened in my\nlife as when I made the discovery, for he caught my glance, and\nappearing to read my thoughts, gave such a look at the door that I\nthought we had lost him.\n\nHowever, I am happy to say he remained where he was, and asked me\nwhat I thought of Mrs. Jellyby.\n\n\"She exerts herself very much for Africa, sir,\" I said.\n\n\"Nobly!\" returned Mr. Jarndyce. \"But you answer like Ada.\" Whom I had\nnot heard. \"You all think something else, I see.\"\n\n\"We rather thought,\" said I, glancing at Richard and Ada, who\nentreated me with their eyes to speak, \"that perhaps she was a little\nunmindful of her home.\"\n\n\"Floored!\" cried Mr. Jarndyce.\n\nI was rather alarmed again.\n\n\"Well! I want to know your real thoughts, my dear. I may have sent\nyou there on purpose.\"\n\n\"We thought that, perhaps,\" said I, hesitating, \"it is right to begin\nwith the obligations of home, sir; and that, perhaps, while those are\noverlooked and neglected, no other duties can possibly be substituted\nfor them.\"\n\n\"The little Jellybys,\" said Richard, coming to my relief, \"are\nreally--I can't help expressing myself strongly, sir--in a devil of a\nstate.\"\n\n\"She means well,\" said Mr. Jarndyce hastily. \"The wind's in the\neast.\"\n\n\"It was in the north, sir, as we came down,\" observed Richard.\n\n\"My dear Rick,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, poking the fire, \"I'll take an\noath it's either in the east or going to be. I am always conscious of\nan uncomfortable sensation now and then when the wind is blowing in\nthe east.\"\n\n\"Rheumatism, sir?\" said Richard.\n\n\"I dare say it is, Rick. I believe it is. And so the little Jell--I\nhad my doubts about 'em--are in a--oh, Lord, yes, it's easterly!\"\nsaid Mr. Jarndyce.\n\nHe had taken two or three undecided turns up and down while uttering\nthese broken sentences, retaining the poker in one hand and rubbing\nhis hair with the other, with a good-natured vexation at once so\nwhimsical and so lovable that I am sure we were more delighted with\nhim than we could possibly have expressed in any words. He gave an\narm to Ada and an arm to me, and bidding Richard bring a candle, was\nleading the way out when he suddenly turned us all back again.\n\n\"Those little Jellybys. Couldn't you--didn't you--now, if it had\nrained sugar-plums, or three-cornered raspberry tarts, or anything of\nthat sort!\" said Mr. Jarndyce.\n\n\"Oh, cousin--\" Ada hastily began.\n\n\"Good, my pretty pet. I like cousin. Cousin John, perhaps, is\nbetter.\"\n\n\"Then, cousin John--\" Ada laughingly began again.\n\n\"Ha, ha! Very good indeed!\" said Mr. Jarndyce with great enjoyment.\n\"Sounds uncommonly natural. Yes, my dear?\"\n\n\"It did better than that. It rained Esther.\"\n\n\"Aye?\" said Mr. Jarndyce. \"What did Esther do?\"\n\n\"Why, cousin John,\" said Ada, clasping her hands upon his arm and\nshaking her head at me across him--for I wanted her to be\nquiet--\"Esther was their friend directly. Esther nursed them, coaxed\nthem to sleep, washed and dressed them, told them stories, kept them\nquiet, bought them keepsakes\"--My dear girl! I had only gone out with\nPeepy after he was found and given him a little, tiny horse!--\"and,\ncousin John, she softened poor Caroline, the eldest one, so much and\nwas so thoughtful for me and so amiable! No, no, I won't be\ncontradicted, Esther dear! You know, you know, it's true!\"\n\nThe warm-hearted darling leaned across her cousin John and kissed me,\nand then looking up in his face, boldly said, \"At all events, cousin\nJohn, I WILL thank you for the companion you have given me.\" I felt\nas if she challenged him to run away. But he didn't.\n\n\"Where did you say the wind was, Rick?\" asked Mr. Jarndyce.\n\n\"In the north as we came down, sir.\"\n\n\"You are right. There's no east in it. A mistake of mine. Come,\ngirls, come and see your home!\"\n\nIt was one of those delightfully irregular houses where you go up and\ndown steps out of one room into another, and where you come upon more\nrooms when you think you have seen all there are, and where there is\na bountiful provision of little halls and passages, and where you\nfind still older cottage-rooms in unexpected places with lattice\nwindows and green growth pressing through them. Mine, which we\nentered first, was of this kind, with an up-and-down roof that had\nmore corners in it than I ever counted afterwards and a chimney\n(there was a wood fire on the hearth) paved all around with pure\nwhite tiles, in every one of which a bright miniature of the fire was\nblazing. Out of this room, you went down two steps into a charming\nlittle sitting-room looking down upon a flower-garden, which room was\nhenceforth to belong to Ada and me. Out of this you went up three\nsteps into Ada's bedroom, which had a fine broad window commanding a\nbeautiful view (we saw a great expanse of darkness lying underneath\nthe stars), to which there was a hollow window-seat, in which, with a\nspring-lock, three dear Adas might have been lost at once. Out of\nthis room you passed into a little gallery, with which the other best\nrooms (only two) communicated, and so, by a little staircase of\nshallow steps with a number of corner stairs in it, considering its\nlength, down into the hall. But if instead of going out at Ada's door\nyou came back into my room, and went out at the door by which you had\nentered it, and turned up a few crooked steps that branched off in an\nunexpected manner from the stairs, you lost yourself in passages,\nwith mangles in them, and three-cornered tables, and a native Hindu\nchair, which was also a sofa, a box, and a bedstead, and looked in\nevery form something between a bamboo skeleton and a great bird-cage,\nand had been brought from India nobody knew by whom or when. From\nthese you came on Richard's room, which was part library, part\nsitting-room, part bedroom, and seemed indeed a comfortable compound\nof many rooms. Out of that you went straight, with a little interval\nof passage, to the plain room where Mr. Jarndyce slept, all the year\nround, with his window open, his bedstead without any furniture\nstanding in the middle of the floor for more air, and his cold bath\ngaping for him in a smaller room adjoining. Out of that you came into\nanother passage, where there were back-stairs and where you could\nhear the horses being rubbed down outside the stable and being told\nto \"Hold up\" and \"Get over,\" as they slipped about very much on the\nuneven stones. Or you might, if you came out at another door (every\nroom had at least two doors), go straight down to the hall again by\nhalf-a-dozen steps and a low archway, wondering how you got back\nthere or had ever got out of it.\n\nThe furniture, old-fashioned rather than old, like the house, was as\npleasantly irregular. Ada's sleeping-room was all flowers--in chintz\nand paper, in velvet, in needlework, in the brocade of two stiff\ncourtly chairs which stood, each attended by a little page of a stool\nfor greater state, on either side of the fire-place. Our sitting-room\nwas green and had framed and glazed upon the walls numbers of\nsurprising and surprised birds, staring out of pictures at a real\ntrout in a case, as brown and shining as if it had been served with\ngravy; at the death of Captain Cook; and at the whole process of\npreparing tea in China, as depicted by Chinese artists. In my room\nthere were oval engravings of the months--ladies haymaking in short\nwaists and large hats tied under the chin, for June; smooth-legged\nnoblemen pointing with cocked-hats to village steeples, for October.\nHalf-length portraits in crayons abounded all through the house, but\nwere so dispersed that I found the brother of a youthful officer of\nmine in the china-closet and the grey old age of my pretty young\nbride, with a flower in her bodice, in the breakfast-room. As\nsubstitutes, I had four angels, of Queen Anne's reign, taking a\ncomplacent gentleman to heaven, in festoons, with some difficulty;\nand a composition in needlework representing fruit, a kettle, and an\nalphabet. All the movables, from the wardrobes to the chairs and\ntables, hangings, glasses, even to the pincushions and scent-bottles\non the dressing-tables, displayed the same quaint variety. They\nagreed in nothing but their perfect neatness, their display of the\nwhitest linen, and their storing-up, wheresoever the existence of a\ndrawer, small or large, rendered it possible, of quantities of\nrose-leaves and sweet lavender. Such, with its illuminated windows,\nsoftened here and there by shadows of curtains, shining out upon the\nstarlight night; with its light, and warmth, and comfort; with its\nhospitable jingle, at a distance, of preparations for dinner; with\nthe face of its generous master brightening everything we saw; and\njust wind enough without to sound a low accompaniment to everything\nwe heard, were our first impressions of Bleak House.\n\n\"I am glad you like it,\" said Mr. Jarndyce when he had brought us\nround again to Ada's sitting-room. \"It makes no pretensions, but it\nis a comfortable little place, I hope, and will be more so with such\nbright young looks in it. You have barely half an hour before dinner.\nThere's no one here but the finest creature upon earth--a child.\"\n\n\"More children, Esther!\" said Ada.\n\n\"I don't mean literally a child,\" pursued Mr. Jarndyce; \"not a child\nin years. He is grown up--he is at least as old as I am--but in\nsimplicity, and freshness, and enthusiasm, and a fine guileless\ninaptitude for all worldly affairs, he is a perfect child.\"\n\nWe felt that he must be very interesting.\n\n\"He knows Mrs. Jellyby,\" said Mr. Jarndyce. \"He is a musical man, an\namateur, but might have been a professional. He is an artist too, an\namateur, but might have been a professional. He is a man of\nattainments and of captivating manners. He has been unfortunate in\nhis affairs, and unfortunate in his pursuits, and unfortunate in his\nfamily; but he don't care--he's a child!\"\n\n\"Did you imply that he has children of his own, sir?\" inquired\nRichard.\n\n\"Yes, Rick! Half-a-dozen. More! Nearer a dozen, I should think. But\nhe has never looked after them. How could he? He wanted somebody to\nlook after HIM. He is a child, you know!\" said Mr. Jarndyce.\n\n\"And have the children looked after themselves at all, sir?\" inquired\nRichard.\n\n\"Why, just as you may suppose,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, his countenance\nsuddenly falling. \"It is said that the children of the very poor are\nnot brought up, but dragged up. Harold Skimpole's children have\ntumbled up somehow or other. The wind's getting round again, I am\nafraid. I feel it rather!\"\n\nRichard observed that the situation was exposed on a sharp night.\n\n\"It IS exposed,\" said Mr. Jarndyce. \"No doubt that's the cause. Bleak\nHouse has an exposed sound. But you are coming my way. Come along!\"\n\nOur luggage having arrived and being all at hand, I was dressed in a\nfew minutes and engaged in putting my worldly goods away when a maid\n(not the one in attendance upon Ada, but another, whom I had not\nseen) brought a basket into my room with two bunches of keys in it,\nall labelled.\n\n\"For you, miss, if you please,\" said she.\n\n\"For me?\" said I.\n\n\"The housekeeping keys, miss.\"\n\nI showed my surprise, for she added with some little surprise on her\nown part, \"I was told to bring them as soon as you was alone, miss.\nMiss Summerson, if I don't deceive myself?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said I. \"That is my name.\"\n\n\"The large bunch is the housekeeping, and the little bunch is the\ncellars, miss. Any time you was pleased to appoint to-morrow morning,\nI was to show you the presses and things they belong to.\"\n\nI said I would be ready at half-past six, and after she was gone,\nstood looking at the basket, quite lost in the magnitude of my trust.\nAda found me thus and had such a delightful confidence in me when I\nshowed her the keys and told her about them that it would have been\ninsensibility and ingratitude not to feel encouraged. I knew, to be\nsure, that it was the dear girl's kindness, but I liked to be so\npleasantly cheated.\n\nWhen we went downstairs, we were presented to Mr. Skimpole, who was\nstanding before the fire telling Richard how fond he used to be, in\nhis school-time, of football. He was a little bright creature with a\nrather large head, but a delicate face and a sweet voice, and there\nwas a perfect charm in him. All he said was so free from effort and\nspontaneous and was said with such a captivating gaiety that it was\nfascinating to hear him talk. Being of a more slender figure than Mr.\nJarndyce and having a richer complexion, with browner hair, he looked\nyounger. Indeed, he had more the appearance in all respects of a\ndamaged young man than a well-preserved elderly one. There was an\neasy negligence in his manner and even in his dress (his hair\ncarelessly disposed, and his neck-kerchief loose and flowing, as I\nhave seen artists paint their own portraits) which I could not\nseparate from the idea of a romantic youth who had undergone some\nunique process of depreciation. It struck me as being not at all like\nthe manner or appearance of a man who had advanced in life by the\nusual road of years, cares, and experiences.\n\nI gathered from the conversation that Mr. Skimpole had been educated\nfor the medical profession and had once lived, in his professional\ncapacity, in the household of a German prince. He told us, however,\nthat as he had always been a mere child in point of weights and\nmeasures and had never known anything about them (except that they\ndisgusted him), he had never been able to prescribe with the\nrequisite accuracy of detail. In fact, he said, he had no head for\ndetail. And he told us, with great humour, that when he was wanted to\nbleed the prince or physic any of his people, he was generally found\nlying on his back in bed, reading the newspapers or making\nfancy-sketches in pencil, and couldn't come. The prince, at last,\nobjecting to this, \"in which,\" said Mr. Skimpole, in the frankest\nmanner, \"he was perfectly right,\" the engagement terminated, and Mr.\nSkimpole having (as he added with delightful gaiety) \"nothing to live\nupon but love, fell in love, and married, and surrounded himself with\nrosy cheeks.\" His good friend Jarndyce and some other of his good\nfriends then helped him, in quicker or slower succession, to several\nopenings in life, but to no purpose, for he must confess to two of\nthe oldest infirmities in the world: one was that he had no idea of\ntime, the other that he had no idea of money. In consequence of which\nhe never kept an appointment, never could transact any business, and\nnever knew the value of anything! Well! So he had got on in life, and\nhere he was! He was very fond of reading the papers, very fond of\nmaking fancy-sketches with a pencil, very fond of nature, very fond\nof art. All he asked of society was to let him live. THAT wasn't\nmuch. His wants were few. Give him the papers, conversation, music,\nmutton, coffee, landscape, fruit in the season, a few sheets of\nBristol-board, and a little claret, and he asked no more. He was a\nmere child in the world, but he didn't cry for the moon. He said to\nthe world, \"Go your several ways in peace! Wear red coats, blue\ncoats, lawn sleeves; put pens behind your ears, wear aprons; go after\nglory, holiness, commerce, trade, any object you prefer; only--let\nHarold Skimpole live!\"\n\nAll this and a great deal more he told us, not only with the\nutmost brilliancy and enjoyment, but with a certain vivacious\ncandour--speaking of himself as if he were not at all his own affair,\nas if Skimpole were a third person, as if he knew that Skimpole had\nhis singularities but still had his claims too, which were the\ngeneral business of the community and must not be slighted. He was\nquite enchanting. If I felt at all confused at that early time in\nendeavouring to reconcile anything he said with anything I had\nthought about the duties and accountabilities of life (which I am far\nfrom sure of), I was confused by not exactly understanding why he was\nfree of them. That he WAS free of them, I scarcely doubted; he was so\nvery clear about it himself.\n\n\"I covet nothing,\" said Mr. Skimpole in the same light way.\n\"Possession is nothing to me. Here is my friend Jarndyce's excellent\nhouse. I feel obliged to him for possessing it. I can sketch it and\nalter it. I can set it to music. When I am here, I have sufficient\npossession of it and have neither trouble, cost, nor responsibility.\nMy steward's name, in short, is Jarndyce, and he can't cheat me. We\nhave been mentioning Mrs. Jellyby. There is a bright-eyed woman, of a\nstrong will and immense power of business detail, who throws herself\ninto objects with surprising ardour! I don't regret that I have not a\nstrong will and an immense power of business detail to throw myself\ninto objects with surprising ardour. I can admire her without envy. I\ncan sympathize with the objects. I can dream of them. I can lie down\non the grass--in fine weather--and float along an African river,\nembracing all the natives I meet, as sensible of the deep silence and\nsketching the dense overhanging tropical growth as accurately as if I\nwere there. I don't know that it's of any direct use my doing so, but\nit's all I can do, and I do it thoroughly. Then, for heaven's sake,\nhaving Harold Skimpole, a confiding child, petitioning you, the\nworld, an agglomeration of practical people of business habits, to\nlet him live and admire the human family, do it somehow or other,\nlike good souls, and suffer him to ride his rocking-horse!\"\n\nIt was plain enough that Mr. Jarndyce had not been neglectful of the\nadjuration. Mr. Skimpole's general position there would have rendered\nit so without the addition of what he presently said.\n\n\"It's only you, the generous creatures, whom I envy,\" said Mr.\nSkimpole, addressing us, his new friends, in an impersonal manner. \"I\nenvy you your power of doing what you do. It is what I should revel\nin myself. I don't feel any vulgar gratitude to you. I almost feel as\nif YOU ought to be grateful to ME for giving you the opportunity of\nenjoying the luxury of generosity. I know you like it. For anything I\ncan tell, I may have come into the world expressly for the purpose of\nincreasing your stock of happiness. I may have been born to be a\nbenefactor to you by sometimes giving you an opportunity of assisting\nme in my little perplexities. Why should I regret my incapacity for\ndetails and worldly affairs when it leads to such pleasant\nconsequences? I don't regret it therefore.\"\n\nOf all his playful speeches (playful, yet always fully meaning what\nthey expressed) none seemed to be more to the taste of Mr. Jarndyce\nthan this. I had often new temptations, afterwards, to wonder whether\nit was really singular, or only singular to me, that he, who was\nprobably the most grateful of mankind upon the least occasion, should\nso desire to escape the gratitude of others.\n\nWe were all enchanted. I felt it a merited tribute to the engaging\nqualities of Ada and Richard that Mr. Skimpole, seeing them for the\nfirst time, should be so unreserved and should lay himself out to be\nso exquisitely agreeable. They (and especially Richard) were\nnaturally pleased, for similar reasons, and considered it no common\nprivilege to be so freely confided in by such an attractive man. The\nmore we listened, the more gaily Mr. Skimpole talked. And what with\nhis fine hilarious manner and his engaging candour and his genial way\nof lightly tossing his own weaknesses about, as if he had said, \"I am\na child, you know! You are designing people compared with me\" (he\nreally made me consider myself in that light) \"but I am gay and\ninnocent; forget your worldly arts and play with me!\" the effect was\nabsolutely dazzling.\n\nHe was so full of feeling too and had such a delicate sentiment for\nwhat was beautiful or tender that he could have won a heart by that\nalone. In the evening, when I was preparing to make tea and Ada was\ntouching the piano in the adjoining room and softly humming a tune to\nher cousin Richard, which they had happened to mention, he came and\nsat down on the sofa near me and so spoke of Ada that I almost loved\nhim.\n\n\"She is like the morning,\" he said. \"With that golden hair, those\nblue eyes, and that fresh bloom on her cheek, she is like the summer\nmorning. The birds here will mistake her for it. We will not call\nsuch a lovely young creature as that, who is a joy to all mankind, an\norphan. She is the child of the universe.\"\n\nMr. Jarndyce, I found, was standing near us with his hands behind him\nand an attentive smile upon his face.\n\n\"The universe,\" he observed, \"makes rather an indifferent parent, I\nam afraid.\"\n\n\"Oh! I don't know!\" cried Mr. Skimpole buoyantly.\n\n\"I think I do know,\" said Mr. Jarndyce.\n\n\"Well!\" cried Mr. Skimpole. \"You know the world (which in your sense\nis the universe), and I know nothing of it, so you shall have your\nway. But if I had mine,\" glancing at the cousins, \"there should be no\nbrambles of sordid realities in such a path as that. It should be\nstrewn with roses; it should lie through bowers, where there was no\nspring, autumn, nor winter, but perpetual summer. Age or change\nshould never wither it. The base word money should never be breathed\nnear it!\"\n\nMr. Jarndyce patted him on the head with a smile, as if he had been\nreally a child, and passing a step or two on, and stopping a moment,\nglanced at the young cousins. His look was thoughtful, but had a\nbenignant expression in it which I often (how often!) saw again,\nwhich has long been engraven on my heart. The room in which they\nwere, communicating with that in which he stood, was only lighted by\nthe fire. Ada sat at the piano; Richard stood beside her, bending\ndown. Upon the wall, their shadows blended together, surrounded by\nstrange forms, not without a ghostly motion caught from the unsteady\nfire, though reflecting from motionless objects. Ada touched the\nnotes so softly and sang so low that the wind, sighing away to the\ndistant hills, was as audible as the music. The mystery of the future\nand the little clue afforded to it by the voice of the present seemed\nexpressed in the whole picture.\n\nBut it is not to recall this fancy, well as I remember it, that I\nrecall the scene. First, I was not quite unconscious of the contrast\nin respect of meaning and intention between the silent look directed\nthat way and the flow of words that had preceded it. Secondly, though\nMr. Jarndyce's glance as he withdrew it rested for but a moment on\nme, I felt as if in that moment he confided to me--and knew that he\nconfided to me and that I received the confidence--his hope that Ada\nand Richard might one day enter on a dearer relationship.\n\nMr. Skimpole could play on the piano and the violoncello, and he was\na composer--had composed half an opera once, but got tired of it--and\nplayed what he composed with taste. After tea we had quite a little\nconcert, in which Richard--who was enthralled by Ada's singing and\ntold me that she seemed to know all the songs that ever were\nwritten--and Mr. Jarndyce, and I were the audience. After a little\nwhile I missed first Mr. Skimpole and afterwards Richard, and while I\nwas thinking how could Richard stay away so long and lose so much,\nthe maid who had given me the keys looked in at the door, saying, \"If\nyou please, miss, could you spare a minute?\"\n\nWhen I was shut out with her in the hall, she said, holding up her\nhands, \"Oh, if you please, miss, Mr. Carstone says would you come\nupstairs to Mr. Skimpole's room. He has been took, miss!\"\n\n\"Took?\" said I.\n\n\"Took, miss. Sudden,\" said the maid.\n\nI was apprehensive that his illness might be of a dangerous kind, but\nof course I begged her to be quiet and not disturb any one and\ncollected myself, as I followed her quickly upstairs, sufficiently to\nconsider what were the best remedies to be applied if it should prove\nto be a fit. She threw open a door and I went into a chamber, where,\nto my unspeakable surprise, instead of finding Mr. Skimpole stretched\nupon the bed or prostrate on the floor, I found him standing before\nthe fire smiling at Richard, while Richard, with a face of great\nembarrassment, looked at a person on the sofa, in a white great-coat,\nwith smooth hair upon his head and not much of it, which he was\nwiping smoother and making less of with a pocket-handkerchief.\n\n\"Miss Summerson,\" said Richard hurriedly, \"I am glad you are come.\nYou will be able to advise us. Our friend Mr. Skimpole--don't be\nalarmed!--is arrested for debt.\"\n\n\"And really, my dear Miss Summerson,\" said Mr. Skimpole with his\nagreeable candour, \"I never was in a situation in which that\nexcellent sense and quiet habit of method and usefulness, which\nanybody must observe in you who has the happiness of being a quarter\nof an hour in your society, was more needed.\"\n\nThe person on the sofa, who appeared to have a cold in his head, gave\nsuch a very loud snort that he startled me.\n\n\"Are you arrested for much, sir?\" I inquired of Mr. Skimpole.\n\n\"My dear Miss Summerson,\" said he, shaking his head pleasantly, \"I\ndon't know. Some pounds, odd shillings, and halfpence, I think, were\nmentioned.\"\n\n\"It's twenty-four pound, sixteen, and sevenpence ha'penny,\" observed\nthe stranger. \"That's wot it is.\"\n\n\"And it sounds--somehow it sounds,\" said Mr. Skimpole, \"like a small\nsum?\"\n\nThe strange man said nothing but made another snort. It was such a\npowerful one that it seemed quite to lift him out of his seat.\n\n\"Mr. Skimpole,\" said Richard to me, \"has a delicacy in applying to my\ncousin Jarndyce because he has lately--I think, sir, I understood you\nthat you had lately--\"\n\n\"Oh, yes!\" returned Mr. Skimpole, smiling. \"Though I forgot how much\nit was and when it was. Jarndyce would readily do it again, but I\nhave the epicure-like feeling that I would prefer a novelty in help,\nthat I would rather,\" and he looked at Richard and me, \"develop\ngenerosity in a new soil and in a new form of flower.\"\n\n\"What do you think will be best, Miss Summerson?\" said Richard,\naside.\n\nI ventured to inquire, generally, before replying, what would happen\nif the money were not produced.\n\n\"Jail,\" said the strange man, coolly putting his handkerchief into\nhis hat, which was on the floor at his feet. \"Or Coavinses.\"\n\n\"May I ask, sir, what is--\"\n\n\"Coavinses?\" said the strange man. \"A 'ouse.\"\n\nRichard and I looked at one another again. It was a most singular\nthing that the arrest was our embarrassment and not Mr. Skimpole's.\nHe observed us with a genial interest, but there seemed, if I may\nventure on such a contradiction, nothing selfish in it. He had\nentirely washed his hands of the difficulty, and it had become ours.\n\n\"I thought,\" he suggested, as if good-naturedly to help us out, \"that\nbeing parties in a Chancery suit concerning (as people say) a large\namount of property, Mr. Richard or his beautiful cousin, or both,\ncould sign something, or make over something, or give some sort of\nundertaking, or pledge, or bond? I don't know what the business name\nof it may be, but I suppose there is some instrument within their\npower that would settle this?\"\n\n\"Not a bit on it,\" said the strange man.\n\n\"Really?\" returned Mr. Skimpole. \"That seems odd, now, to one who is\nno judge of these things!\"\n\n\"Odd or even,\" said the stranger gruffly, \"I tell you, not a bit on\nit!\"\n\n\"Keep your temper, my good fellow, keep your temper!\" Mr. Skimpole\ngently reasoned with him as he made a little drawing of his head on\nthe fly-leaf of a book. \"Don't be ruffled by your occupation. We can\nseparate you from your office; we can separate the individual from\nthe pursuit. We are not so prejudiced as to suppose that in private\nlife you are otherwise than a very estimable man, with a great deal\nof poetry in your nature, of which you may not be conscious.\"\n\nThe stranger only answered with another violent snort, whether in\nacceptance of the poetry-tribute or in disdainful rejection of it, he\ndid not express to me.\n\n\"Now, my dear Miss Summerson, and my dear Mr. Richard,\" said Mr.\nSkimpole gaily, innocently, and confidingly as he looked at his\ndrawing with his head on one side, \"here you see me utterly incapable\nof helping myself, and entirely in your hands! I only ask to be free.\nThe butterflies are free. Mankind will surely not deny to Harold\nSkimpole what it concedes to the butterflies!\"\n\n\"My dear Miss Summerson,\" said Richard in a whisper, \"I have ten\npounds that I received from Mr. Kenge. I must try what that will do.\"\n\nI possessed fifteen pounds, odd shillings, which I had saved from my\nquarterly allowance during several years. I had always thought that\nsome accident might happen which would throw me suddenly, without any\nrelation or any property, on the world and had always tried to keep\nsome little money by me that I might not be quite penniless. I told\nRichard of my having this little store and having no present need of\nit, and I asked him delicately to inform Mr. Skimpole, while I should\nbe gone to fetch it, that we would have the pleasure of paying his\ndebt.\n\nWhen I came back, Mr. Skimpole kissed my hand and seemed quite\ntouched. Not on his own account (I was again aware of that perplexing\nand extraordinary contradiction), but on ours, as if personal\nconsiderations were impossible with him and the contemplation of our\nhappiness alone affected him. Richard, begging me, for the greater\ngrace of the transaction, as he said, to settle with Coavinses (as\nMr. Skimpole now jocularly called him), I counted out the money and\nreceived the necessary acknowledgment. This, too, delighted Mr.\nSkimpole.\n\nHis compliments were so delicately administered that I blushed less\nthan I might have done and settled with the stranger in the white\ncoat without making any mistakes. He put the money in his pocket and\nshortly said, \"Well, then, I'll wish you a good evening, miss.\n\n\"My friend,\" said Mr. Skimpole, standing with his back to the fire\nafter giving up the sketch when it was half finished, \"I should like\nto ask you something, without offence.\"\n\nI think the reply was, \"Cut away, then!\"\n\n\"Did you know this morning, now, that you were coming out on this\nerrand?\" said Mr. Skimpole.\n\n\"Know'd it yes'day aft'noon at tea-time,\" said Coavinses.\n\n\"It didn't affect your appetite? Didn't make you at all uneasy?\"\n\n\"Not a bit,\" said Coavinses. \"I know'd if you wos missed to-day, you\nwouldn't be missed to-morrow. A day makes no such odds.\"\n\n\"But when you came down here,\" proceeded Mr. Skimpole, \"it was a fine\nday. The sun was shining, the wind was blowing, the lights and\nshadows were passing across the fields, the birds were singing.\"\n\n\"Nobody said they warn't, in MY hearing,\" returned Coavinses.\n\n\"No,\" observed Mr. Skimpole. \"But what did you think upon the road?\"\n\n\"Wot do you mean?\" growled Coavinses with an appearance of strong\nresentment. \"Think! I've got enough to do, and little enough to get\nfor it without thinking. Thinking!\" (with profound contempt).\n\n\"Then you didn't think, at all events,\" proceeded Mr. Skimpole, \"to\nthis effect: 'Harold Skimpole loves to see the sun shine, loves to\nhear the wind blow, loves to watch the changing lights and shadows,\nloves to hear the birds, those choristers in Nature's great\ncathedral. And does it seem to me that I am about to deprive Harold\nSkimpole of his share in such possessions, which are his only\nbirthright!' You thought nothing to that effect?\"\n\n\"I--certainly--did--NOT,\" said Coavinses, whose doggedness in utterly\nrenouncing the idea was of that intense kind that he could only give\nadequate expression to it by putting a long interval between each\nword, and accompanying the last with a jerk that might have\ndislocated his neck.\n\n\"Very odd and very curious, the mental process is, in you men of\nbusiness!\" said Mr. Skimpole thoughtfully. \"Thank you, my friend.\nGood night.\"\n\nAs our absence had been long enough already to seem strange\ndownstairs, I returned at once and found Ada sitting at work by the\nfireside talking to her cousin John. Mr. Skimpole presently appeared,\nand Richard shortly after him. I was sufficiently engaged during the\nremainder of the evening in taking my first lesson in backgammon from\nMr. Jarndyce, who was very fond of the game and from whom I wished of\ncourse to learn it as quickly as I could in order that I might be of\nthe very small use of being able to play when he had no better\nadversary. But I thought, occasionally, when Mr. Skimpole played some\nfragments of his own compositions or when, both at the piano and the\nvioloncello, and at our table, he preserved with an absence of all\neffort his delightful spirits and his easy flow of conversation, that\nRichard and I seemed to retain the transferred impression of having\nbeen arrested since dinner and that it was very curious altogether.\n\nIt was late before we separated, for when Ada was going at eleven\no'clock, Mr. Skimpole went to the piano and rattled hilariously that\nthe best of all ways to lengthen our days was to steal a few hours\nfrom night, my dear! It was past twelve before he took his candle and\nhis radiant face out of the room, and I think he might have kept us\nthere, if he had seen fit, until daybreak. Ada and Richard were\nlingering for a few moments by the fire, wondering whether Mrs.\nJellyby had yet finished her dictation for the day, when Mr.\nJarndyce, who had been out of the room, returned.\n\n\"Oh, dear me, what's this, what's this!\" he said, rubbing his head\nand walking about with his good-humoured vexation. \"What's this they\ntell me? Rick, my boy, Esther, my dear, what have you been doing? Why\ndid you do it? How could you do it? How much apiece was it? The\nwind's round again. I feel it all over me!\"\n\nWe neither of us quite knew what to answer.\n\n\"Come, Rick, come! I must settle this before I sleep. How much are\nyou out of pocket? You two made the money up, you know! Why did you?\nHow could you? Oh, Lord, yes, it's due east--must be!\"\n\n\"Really, sir,\" said Richard, \"I don't think it would be honourable in\nme to tell you. Mr. Skimpole relied upon us--\"\n\n\"Lord bless you, my dear boy! He relies upon everybody!\" said Mr.\nJarndyce, giving his head a great rub and stopping short.\n\n\"Indeed, sir?\"\n\n\"Everybody! And he'll be in the same scrape again next week!\" said\nMr. Jarndyce, walking again at a great pace, with a candle in his\nhand that had gone out. \"He's always in the same scrape. He was born\nin the same scrape. I verily believe that the announcement in the\nnewspapers when his mother was confined was 'On Tuesday last, at her\nresidence in Botheration Buildings, Mrs. Skimpole of a son in\ndifficulties.'\"\n\nRichard laughed heartily but added, \"Still, sir, I don't want to\nshake his confidence or to break his confidence, and if I submit to\nyour better knowledge again, that I ought to keep his secret, I hope\nyou will consider before you press me any more. Of course, if you do\npress me, sir, I shall know I am wrong and will tell you.\"\n\n\"Well!\" cried Mr. Jarndyce, stopping again, and making several absent\nendeavours to put his candlestick in his pocket. \"I--here! Take it\naway, my dear. I don't know what I am about with it; it's all the\nwind--invariably has that effect--I won't press you, Rick; you may be\nright. But really--to get hold of you and Esther--and to squeeze you\nlike a couple of tender young Saint Michael's oranges! It'll blow a\ngale in the course of the night!\"\n\nHe was now alternately putting his hands into his pockets as if he\nwere going to keep them there a long time, and taking them out again\nand vehemently rubbing them all over his head.\n\nI ventured to take this opportunity of hinting that Mr. Skimpole,\nbeing in all such matters quite a child--\n\n\"Eh, my dear?\" said Mr. Jarndyce, catching at the word.\n\n\"Being quite a child, sir,\" said I, \"and so different from other\npeople--\"\n\n\"You are right!\" said Mr. Jarndyce, brightening. \"Your woman's wit\nhits the mark. He is a child--an absolute child. I told you he was a\nchild, you know, when I first mentioned him.\"\n\nCertainly! Certainly! we said.\n\n\"And he IS a child. Now, isn't he?\" asked Mr. Jarndyce, brightening\nmore and more.\n\nHe was indeed, we said.\n\n\"When you come to think of it, it's the height of childishness in\nyou--I mean me--\" said Mr. Jarndyce, \"to regard him for a moment as a\nman. You can't make HIM responsible. The idea of Harold Skimpole with\ndesigns or plans, or knowledge of consequences! Ha, ha, ha!\"\n\nIt was so delicious to see the clouds about his bright face clearing,\nand to see him so heartily pleased, and to know, as it was impossible\nnot to know, that the source of his pleasure was the goodness which\nwas tortured by condemning, or mistrusting, or secretly accusing any\none, that I saw the tears in Ada's eyes, while she echoed his laugh,\nand felt them in my own.\n\n\"Why, what a cod's head and shoulders I am,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, \"to\nrequire reminding of it! The whole business shows the child from\nbeginning to end. Nobody but a child would have thought of singling\nYOU two out for parties in the affair! Nobody but a child would have\nthought of YOUR having the money! If it had been a thousand pounds,\nit would have been just the same!\" said Mr. Jarndyce with his whole\nface in a glow.\n\nWe all confirmed it from our night's experience.\n\n\"To be sure, to be sure!\" said Mr. Jarndyce. \"However, Rick, Esther,\nand you too, Ada, for I don't know that even your little purse is\nsafe from his inexperience--I must have a promise all round that\nnothing of this sort shall ever be done any more. No advances! Not\neven sixpences.\"\n\nWe all promised faithfully, Richard with a merry glance at me\ntouching his pocket as if to remind me that there was no danger of\nOUR transgressing.\n\n\"As to Skimpole,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, \"a habitable doll's house with\ngood board and a few tin people to get into debt with and borrow\nmoney of would set the boy up in life. He is in a child's sleep by\nthis time, I suppose; it's time I should take my craftier head to my\nmore worldly pillow. Good night, my dears. God bless you!\"\n\nHe peeped in again, with a smiling face, before we had lighted our\ncandles, and said, \"Oh! I have been looking at the weather-cock. I\nfind it was a false alarm about the wind. It's in the south!\" And\nwent away singing to himself.\n\nAda and I agreed, as we talked together for a little while upstairs,\nthat this caprice about the wind was a fiction and that he used the\npretence to account for any disappointment he could not conceal,\nrather than he would blame the real cause of it or disparage or\ndepreciate any one. We thought this very characteristic of his\neccentric gentleness and of the difference between him and those\npetulant people who make the weather and the winds (particularly that\nunlucky wind which he had chosen for such a different purpose) the\nstalking-horses of their splenetic and gloomy humours.\n\nIndeed, so much affection for him had been added in this one evening\nto my gratitude that I hoped I already began to understand him\nthrough that mingled feeling. Any seeming inconsistencies in Mr.\nSkimpole or in Mrs. Jellyby I could not expect to be able to\nreconcile, having so little experience or practical knowledge.\nNeither did I try, for my thoughts were busy when I was alone, with\nAda and Richard and with the confidence I had seemed to receive\nconcerning them. My fancy, made a little wild by the wind perhaps,\nwould not consent to be all unselfish, either, though I would have\npersuaded it to be so if I could. It wandered back to my godmother's\nhouse and came along the intervening track, raising up shadowy\nspeculations which had sometimes trembled there in the dark as to\nwhat knowledge Mr. Jarndyce had of my earliest history--even as to\nthe possibility of his being my father, though that idle dream was\nquite gone now.\n\nIt was all gone now, I remembered, getting up from the fire. It was\nnot for me to muse over bygones, but to act with a cheerful spirit\nand a grateful heart. So I said to myself, \"Esther, Esther, Esther!\nDuty, my dear!\" and gave my little basket of housekeeping keys such a\nshake that they sounded like little bells and rang me hopefully to\nbed.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nThe Ghost's Walk\n\n\nWhile Esther sleeps, and while Esther wakes, it is still wet weather\ndown at the place in Lincolnshire. The rain is ever falling--drip,\ndrip, drip--by day and night upon the broad flagged terrace-pavement,\nthe Ghost's Walk. The weather is so very bad down in Lincolnshire\nthat the liveliest imagination can scarcely apprehend its ever being\nfine again. Not that there is any superabundant life of imagination\non the spot, for Sir Leicester is not here (and, truly, even if he\nwere, would not do much for it in that particular), but is in Paris\nwith my Lady; and solitude, with dusky wings, sits brooding upon\nChesney Wold.\n\nThere may be some motions of fancy among the lower animals at Chesney\nWold. The horses in the stables--the long stables in a barren,\nred-brick court-yard, where there is a great bell in a turret, and a\nclock with a large face, which the pigeons who live near it and who\nlove to perch upon its shoulders seem to be always consulting--THEY\nmay contemplate some mental pictures of fine weather on occasions,\nand may be better artists at them than the grooms. The old roan, so\nfamous for cross-country work, turning his large eyeball to the\ngrated window near his rack, may remember the fresh leaves that\nglisten there at other times and the scents that stream in, and may\nhave a fine run with the hounds, while the human helper, clearing out\nthe next stall, never stirs beyond his pitchfork and birch-broom. The\ngrey, whose place is opposite the door and who with an impatient\nrattle of his halter pricks his ears and turns his head so wistfully\nwhen it is opened, and to whom the opener says, \"Woa grey, then,\nsteady! Noabody wants you to-day!\" may know it quite as well as the\nman. The whole seemingly monotonous and uncompanionable half-dozen,\nstabled together, may pass the long wet hours when the door is shut\nin livelier communication than is held in the servants' hall or at\nthe Dedlock Arms, or may even beguile the time by improving (perhaps\ncorrupting) the pony in the loose-box in the corner.\n\nSo the mastiff, dozing in his kennel in the court-yard with his large\nhead on his paws, may think of the hot sunshine when the shadows of\nthe stable-buildings tire his patience out by changing and leave him\nat one time of the day no broader refuge than the shadow of his own\nhouse, where he sits on end, panting and growling short, and very\nmuch wanting something to worry besides himself and his chain. So\nnow, half-waking and all-winking, he may recall the house full of\ncompany, the coach-houses full of vehicles, the stables full of\nhorses, and the out-buildings full of attendants upon horses, until\nhe is undecided about the present and comes forth to see how it is.\nThen, with that impatient shake of himself, he may growl in the\nspirit, \"Rain, rain, rain! Nothing but rain--and no family here!\" as\nhe goes in again and lies down with a gloomy yawn.\n\nSo with the dogs in the kennel-buildings across the park, who have\ntheir restless fits and whose doleful voices when the wind has been\nvery obstinate have even made it known in the house itself--upstairs,\ndownstairs, and in my Lady's chamber. They may hunt the whole\ncountry-side, while the raindrops are pattering round their\ninactivity. So the rabbits with their self-betraying tails, frisking\nin and out of holes at roots of trees, may be lively with ideas of\nthe breezy days when their ears are blown about or of those seasons\nof interest when there are sweet young plants to gnaw. The turkey in\nthe poultry-yard, always troubled with a class-grievance (probably\nChristmas), may be reminiscent of that summer morning wrongfully\ntaken from him when he got into the lane among the felled trees,\nwhere there was a barn and barley. The discontented goose, who stoops\nto pass under the old gateway, twenty feet high, may gabble out, if\nwe only knew it, a waddling preference for weather when the gateway\ncasts its shadow on the ground.\n\nBe this as it may, there is not much fancy otherwise stirring at\nChesney Wold. If there be a little at any odd moment, it goes, like a\nlittle noise in that old echoing place, a long way and usually leads\noff to ghosts and mystery.\n\nIt has rained so hard and rained so long down in Lincolnshire that\nMrs. Rouncewell, the old housekeeper at Chesney Wold, has several\ntimes taken off her spectacles and cleaned them to make certain that\nthe drops were not upon the glasses. Mrs. Rouncewell might have been\nsufficiently assured by hearing the rain, but that she is rather\ndeaf, which nothing will induce her to believe. She is a fine old\nlady, handsome, stately, wonderfully neat, and has such a back and\nsuch a stomacher that if her stays should turn out when she dies to\nhave been a broad old-fashioned family fire-grate, nobody who knows\nher would have cause to be surprised. Weather affects Mrs. Rouncewell\nlittle. The house is there in all weathers, and the house, as she\nexpresses it, \"is what she looks at.\" She sits in her room (in a side\npassage on the ground floor, with an arched window commanding a\nsmooth quadrangle, adorned at regular intervals with smooth round\ntrees and smooth round blocks of stone, as if the trees were going to\nplay at bowls with the stones), and the whole house reposes on her\nmind. She can open it on occasion and be busy and fluttered, but it\nis shut up now and lies on the breadth of Mrs. Rouncewell's\niron-bound bosom in a majestic sleep.\n\nIt is the next difficult thing to an impossibility to imagine Chesney\nWold without Mrs. Rouncewell, but she has only been here fifty years.\nAsk her how long, this rainy day, and she shall answer \"fifty year,\nthree months, and a fortnight, by the blessing of heaven, if I live\ntill Tuesday.\" Mr. Rouncewell died some time before the decease of\nthe pretty fashion of pig-tails, and modestly hid his own (if he took\nit with him) in a corner of the churchyard in the park near the\nmouldy porch. He was born in the market-town, and so was his young\nwidow. Her progress in the family began in the time of the last Sir\nLeicester and originated in the still-room.\n\nThe present representative of the Dedlocks is an excellent master. He\nsupposes all his dependents to be utterly bereft of individual\ncharacters, intentions, or opinions, and is persuaded that he was\nborn to supersede the necessity of their having any. If he were to\nmake a discovery to the contrary, he would be simply stunned--would\nnever recover himself, most likely, except to gasp and die. But he is\nan excellent master still, holding it a part of his state to be so.\nHe has a great liking for Mrs. Rouncewell; he says she is a most\nrespectable, creditable woman. He always shakes hands with her when\nhe comes down to Chesney Wold and when he goes away; and if he were\nvery ill, or if he were knocked down by accident, or run over, or\nplaced in any situation expressive of a Dedlock at a disadvantage, he\nwould say if he could speak, \"Leave me, and send Mrs. Rouncewell\nhere!\" feeling his dignity, at such a pass, safer with her than with\nanybody else.\n\nMrs. Rouncewell has known trouble. She has had two sons, of whom the\nyounger ran wild, and went for a soldier, and never came back. Even\nto this hour, Mrs. Rouncewell's calm hands lose their composure when\nshe speaks of him, and unfolding themselves from her stomacher, hover\nabout her in an agitated manner as she says what a likely lad, what a\nfine lad, what a gay, good-humoured, clever lad he was! Her second\nson would have been provided for at Chesney Wold and would have been\nmade steward in due season, but he took, when he was a schoolboy, to\nconstructing steam-engines out of saucepans and setting birds to draw\ntheir own water with the least possible amount of labour, so\nassisting them with artful contrivance of hydraulic pressure that a\nthirsty canary had only, in a literal sense, to put his shoulder to\nthe wheel and the job was done. This propensity gave Mrs. Rouncewell\ngreat uneasiness. She felt it with a mother's anguish to be a move in\nthe Wat Tyler direction, well knowing that Sir Leicester had that\ngeneral impression of an aptitude for any art to which smoke and a\ntall chimney might be considered essential. But the doomed young\nrebel (otherwise a mild youth, and very persevering), showing no sign\nof grace as he got older but, on the contrary, constructing a model\nof a power-loom, she was fain, with many tears, to mention his\nbackslidings to the baronet. \"Mrs. Rouncewell,\" said Sir Leicester,\n\"I can never consent to argue, as you know, with any one on any\nsubject. You had better get rid of your boy; you had better get him\ninto some Works. The iron country farther north is, I suppose, the\ncongenial direction for a boy with these tendencies.\" Farther north\nhe went, and farther north he grew up; and if Sir Leicester Dedlock\never saw him when he came to Chesney Wold to visit his mother, or\never thought of him afterwards, it is certain that he only regarded\nhim as one of a body of some odd thousand conspirators, swarthy and\ngrim, who were in the habit of turning out by torchlight two or three\nnights in the week for unlawful purposes.\n\nNevertheless, Mrs. Rouncewell's son has, in the course of nature and\nart, grown up, and established himself, and married, and called unto\nhim Mrs. Rouncewell's grandson, who, being out of his apprenticeship,\nand home from a journey in far countries, whither he was sent to\nenlarge his knowledge and complete his preparations for the venture\nof this life, stands leaning against the chimney-piece this very day\nin Mrs. Rouncewell's room at Chesney Wold.\n\n\"And, again and again, I am glad to see you, Watt! And, once again, I\nam glad to see you, Watt!\" says Mrs. Rouncewell. \"You are a fine\nyoung fellow. You are like your poor uncle George. Ah!\" Mrs.\nRouncewell's hands unquiet, as usual, on this reference.\n\n\"They say I am like my father, grandmother.\"\n\n\"Like him, also, my dear--but most like your poor uncle George! And\nyour dear father.\" Mrs. Rouncewell folds her hands again. \"He is\nwell?\"\n\n\"Thriving, grandmother, in every way.\"\n\n\"I am thankful!\" Mrs. Rouncewell is fond of her son but has a\nplaintive feeling towards him, much as if he were a very honourable\nsoldier who had gone over to the enemy.\n\n\"He is quite happy?\" says she.\n\n\"Quite.\"\n\n\"I am thankful! So he has brought you up to follow in his ways and\nhas sent you into foreign countries and the like? Well, he knows\nbest. There may be a world beyond Chesney Wold that I don't\nunderstand. Though I am not young, either. And I have seen a quantity\nof good company too!\"\n\n\"Grandmother,\" says the young man, changing the subject, \"what a very\npretty girl that was I found with you just now. You called her Rosa?\"\n\n\"Yes, child. She is daughter of a widow in the village. Maids are so\nhard to teach, now-a-days, that I have put her about me young. She's\nan apt scholar and will do well. She shows the house already, very\npretty. She lives with me at my table here.\"\n\n\"I hope I have not driven her away?\"\n\n\"She supposes we have family affairs to speak about, I dare say. She\nis very modest. It is a fine quality in a young woman. And scarcer,\"\nsays Mrs. Rouncewell, expanding her stomacher to its utmost limits,\n\"than it formerly was!\"\n\nThe young man inclines his head in acknowledgment of the precepts of\nexperience. Mrs. Rouncewell listens.\n\n\"Wheels!\" says she. They have long been audible to the younger ears\nof her companion. \"What wheels on such a day as this, for gracious\nsake?\"\n\nAfter a short interval, a tap at the door. \"Come in!\" A dark-eyed,\ndark-haired, shy, village beauty comes in--so fresh in her rosy and\nyet delicate bloom that the drops of rain which have beaten on her\nhair look like the dew upon a flower fresh gathered.\n\n\"What company is this, Rosa?\" says Mrs. Rouncewell.\n\n\"It's two young men in a gig, ma'am, who want to see the house--yes,\nand if you please, I told them so!\" in quick reply to a gesture of\ndissent from the housekeeper. \"I went to the hall-door and told them\nit was the wrong day and the wrong hour, but the young man who was\ndriving took off his hat in the wet and begged me to bring this card\nto you.\"\n\n\"Read it, my dear Watt,\" says the housekeeper.\n\nRosa is so shy as she gives it to him that they drop it between them\nand almost knock their foreheads together as they pick it up. Rosa is\nshyer than before.\n\n\"Mr. Guppy\" is all the information the card yields.\n\n\"Guppy!\" repeats Mrs. Rouncewell, \"MR. Guppy! Nonsense, I never heard\nof him!\"\n\n\"If you please, he told ME that!\" says Rosa. \"But he said that he and\nthe other young gentleman came from London only last night by the\nmail, on business at the magistrates' meeting, ten miles off, this\nmorning, and that as their business was soon over, and they had heard\na great deal said of Chesney Wold, and really didn't know what to do\nwith themselves, they had come through the wet to see it. They are\nlawyers. He says he is not in Mr. Tulkinghorn's office, but he is\nsure he may make use of Mr. Tulkinghorn's name if necessary.\"\nFinding, now she leaves off, that she has been making quite a long\nspeech, Rosa is shyer than ever.\n\nNow, Mr. Tulkinghorn is, in a manner, part and parcel of the place,\nand besides, is supposed to have made Mrs. Rouncewell's will. The old\nlady relaxes, consents to the admission of the visitors as a favour,\nand dismisses Rosa. The grandson, however, being smitten by a sudden\nwish to see the house himself, proposes to join the party. The\ngrandmother, who is pleased that he should have that interest,\naccompanies him--though to do him justice, he is exceedingly\nunwilling to trouble her.\n\n\"Much obliged to you, ma'am!\" says Mr. Guppy, divesting himself of\nhis wet dreadnought in the hall. \"Us London lawyers don't often get\nan out, and when we do, we like to make the most of it, you know.\"\n\nThe old housekeeper, with a gracious severity of deportment, waves\nher hand towards the great staircase. Mr. Guppy and his friend follow\nRosa; Mrs. Rouncewell and her grandson follow them; a young gardener\ngoes before to open the shutters.\n\nAs is usually the case with people who go over houses, Mr. Guppy and\nhis friend are dead beat before they have well begun. They straggle\nabout in wrong places, look at wrong things, don't care for the right\nthings, gape when more rooms are opened, exhibit profound depression\nof spirits, and are clearly knocked up. In each successive chamber\nthat they enter, Mrs. Rouncewell, who is as upright as the house\nitself, rests apart in a window-seat or other such nook and listens\nwith stately approval to Rosa's exposition. Her grandson is so\nattentive to it that Rosa is shyer than ever--and prettier. Thus they\npass on from room to room, raising the pictured Dedlocks for a few\nbrief minutes as the young gardener admits the light, and\nreconsigning them to their graves as he shuts it out again. It\nappears to the afflicted Mr. Guppy and his inconsolable friend that\nthere is no end to the Dedlocks, whose family greatness seems to\nconsist in their never having done anything to distinguish themselves\nfor seven hundred years.\n\nEven the long drawing-room of Chesney Wold cannot revive Mr. Guppy's\nspirits. He is so low that he droops on the threshold and has hardly\nstrength of mind to enter. But a portrait over the chimney-piece,\npainted by the fashionable artist of the day, acts upon him like a\ncharm. He recovers in a moment. He stares at it with uncommon\ninterest; he seems to be fixed and fascinated by it.\n\n\"Dear me!\" says Mr. Guppy. \"Who's that?\"\n\n\"The picture over the fire-place,\" says Rosa, \"is the portrait of the\npresent Lady Dedlock. It is considered a perfect likeness, and the\nbest work of the master.\"\n\n\"Blest,\" says Mr. Guppy, staring in a kind of dismay at his friend,\n\"if I can ever have seen her. Yet I know her! Has the picture been\nengraved, miss?\"\n\n\"The picture has never been engraved. Sir Leicester has always\nrefused permission.\"\n\n\"Well!\" says Mr. Guppy in a low voice. \"I'll be shot if it ain't very\ncurious how well I know that picture! So that's Lady Dedlock, is it!\"\n\n\"The picture on the right is the present Sir Leicester Dedlock. The\npicture on the left is his father, the late Sir Leicester.\"\n\nMr. Guppy has no eyes for either of these magnates. \"It's\nunaccountable to me,\" he says, still staring at the portrait, \"how\nwell I know that picture! I'm dashed,\" adds Mr. Guppy, looking round,\n\"if I don't think I must have had a dream of that picture, you know!\"\n\nAs no one present takes any especial interest in Mr. Guppy's dreams,\nthe probability is not pursued. But he still remains so absorbed by\nthe portrait that he stands immovable before it until the young\ngardener has closed the shutters, when he comes out of the room in a\ndazed state that is an odd though a sufficient substitute for\ninterest and follows into the succeeding rooms with a confused stare,\nas if he were looking everywhere for Lady Dedlock again.\n\nHe sees no more of her. He sees her rooms, which are the last shown,\nas being very elegant, and he looks out of the windows from which she\nlooked out, not long ago, upon the weather that bored her to death.\nAll things have an end, even houses that people take infinite pains\nto see and are tired of before they begin to see them. He has come to\nthe end of the sight, and the fresh village beauty to the end of her\ndescription; which is always this: \"The terrace below is much\nadmired. It is called, from an old story in the family, the Ghost's\nWalk.\"\n\n\"No?\" says Mr. Guppy, greedily curious. \"What's the story, miss? Is\nit anything about a picture?\"\n\n\"Pray tell us the story,\" says Watt in a half whisper.\n\n\"I don't know it, sir.\" Rosa is shyer than ever.\n\n\"It is not related to visitors; it is almost forgotten,\" says the\nhousekeeper, advancing. \"It has never been more than a family\nanecdote.\"\n\n\"You'll excuse my asking again if it has anything to do with a\npicture, ma'am,\" observes Mr. Guppy, \"because I do assure you that\nthe more I think of that picture the better I know it, without\nknowing how I know it!\"\n\nThe story has nothing to do with a picture; the housekeeper can\nguarantee that. Mr. Guppy is obliged to her for the information and\nis, moreover, generally obliged. He retires with his friend, guided\ndown another staircase by the young gardener, and presently is heard\nto drive away. It is now dusk. Mrs. Rouncewell can trust to the\ndiscretion of her two young hearers and may tell THEM how the terrace\ncame to have that ghostly name.\n\nShe seats herself in a large chair by the fast-darkening window and\ntells them: \"In the wicked days, my dears, of King Charles the\nFirst--I mean, of course, in the wicked days of the rebels who\nleagued themselves against that excellent king--Sir Morbury Dedlock\nwas the owner of Chesney Wold. Whether there was any account of a\nghost in the family before those days, I can't say. I should think it\nvery likely indeed.\"\n\nMrs. Rouncewell holds this opinion because she considers that a\nfamily of such antiquity and importance has a right to a ghost. She\nregards a ghost as one of the privileges of the upper classes, a\ngenteel distinction to which the common people have no claim.\n\n\"Sir Morbury Dedlock,\" says Mrs. Rouncewell, \"was, I have no occasion\nto say, on the side of the blessed martyr. But it IS supposed that\nhis Lady, who had none of the family blood in her veins, favoured the\nbad cause. It is said that she had relations among King Charles's\nenemies, that she was in correspondence with them, and that she gave\nthem information. When any of the country gentlemen who followed his\nMajesty's cause met here, it is said that my Lady was always nearer\nto the door of their council-room than they supposed. Do you hear a\nsound like a footstep passing along the terrace, Watt?\"\n\nRosa draws nearer to the housekeeper.\n\n\"I hear the rain-drip on the stones,\" replies the young man, \"and I\nhear a curious echo--I suppose an echo--which is very like a halting\nstep.\"\n\nThe housekeeper gravely nods and continues: \"Partly on account of\nthis division between them, and partly on other accounts, Sir Morbury\nand his Lady led a troubled life. She was a lady of a haughty temper.\nThey were not well suited to each other in age or character, and they\nhad no children to moderate between them. After her favourite\nbrother, a young gentleman, was killed in the civil wars (by Sir\nMorbury's near kinsman), her feeling was so violent that she hated\nthe race into which she had married. When the Dedlocks were about to\nride out from Chesney Wold in the king's cause, she is supposed to\nhave more than once stolen down into the stables in the dead of night\nand lamed their horses; and the story is that once at such an hour,\nher husband saw her gliding down the stairs and followed her into the\nstall where his own favourite horse stood. There he seized her by the\nwrist, and in a struggle or in a fall or through the horse being\nfrightened and lashing out, she was lamed in the hip and from that\nhour began to pine away.\"\n\nThe housekeeper has dropped her voice to a little more than a\nwhisper.\n\n\"She had been a lady of a handsome figure and a noble carriage. She\nnever complained of the change; she never spoke to any one of being\ncrippled or of being in pain, but day by day she tried to walk upon\nthe terrace, and with the help of the stone balustrade, went up and\ndown, up and down, up and down, in sun and shadow, with greater\ndifficulty every day. At last, one afternoon her husband (to whom she\nhad never, on any persuasion, opened her lips since that night),\nstanding at the great south window, saw her drop upon the pavement.\nHe hastened down to raise her, but she repulsed him as he bent over\nher, and looking at him fixedly and coldly, said, 'I will die here\nwhere I have walked. And I will walk here, though I am in my grave. I\nwill walk here until the pride of this house is humbled. And when\ncalamity or when disgrace is coming to it, let the Dedlocks listen\nfor my step!'\"\n\nWatt looks at Rosa. Rosa in the deepening gloom looks down upon the\nground, half frightened and half shy.\n\n\"There and then she died. And from those days,\" says Mrs. Rouncewell,\n\"the name has come down--the Ghost's Walk. If the tread is an echo,\nit is an echo that is only heard after dark, and is often unheard for\na long while together. But it comes back from time to time; and so\nsure as there is sickness or death in the family, it will be heard\nthen.\"\n\n\"And disgrace, grandmother--\" says Watt.\n\n\"Disgrace never comes to Chesney Wold,\" returns the housekeeper.\n\nHer grandson apologizes with \"True. True.\"\n\n\"That is the story. Whatever the sound is, it is a worrying sound,\"\nsays Mrs. Rouncewell, getting up from her chair; \"and what is to be\nnoticed in it is that it MUST BE HEARD. My Lady, who is afraid of\nnothing, admits that when it is there, it must be heard. You cannot\nshut it out. Watt, there is a tall French clock behind you (placed\nthere, 'a purpose) that has a loud beat when it is in motion and can\nplay music. You understand how those things are managed?\"\n\n\"Pretty well, grandmother, I think.\"\n\n\"Set it a-going.\"\n\nWatt sets it a-going--music and all.\n\n\"Now, come hither,\" says the housekeeper. \"Hither, child, towards my\nLady's pillow. I am not sure that it is dark enough yet, but listen!\nCan you hear the sound upon the terrace, through the music, and the\nbeat, and everything?\"\n\n\"I certainly can!\"\n\n\"So my Lady says.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nCovering a Multitude of Sins\n\n\nIt was interesting when I dressed before daylight to peep out of\nwindow, where my candles were reflected in the black panes like\ntwo beacons, and finding all beyond still enshrouded in the\nindistinctness of last night, to watch how it turned out when the day\ncame on. As the prospect gradually revealed itself and disclosed the\nscene over which the wind had wandered in the dark, like my memory\nover my life, I had a pleasure in discovering the unknown objects\nthat had been around me in my sleep. At first they were faintly\ndiscernible in the mist, and above them the later stars still\nglimmered. That pale interval over, the picture began to enlarge and\nfill up so fast that at every new peep I could have found enough\nto look at for an hour. Imperceptibly my candles became the only\nincongruous part of the morning, the dark places in my room all\nmelted away, and the day shone bright upon a cheerful landscape,\nprominent in which the old Abbey Church, with its massive tower,\nthrew a softer train of shadow on the view than seemed compatible\nwith its rugged character. But so from rough outsides (I hope I have\nlearnt), serene and gentle influences often proceed.\n\nEvery part of the house was in such order, and every one was so\nattentive to me, that I had no trouble with my two bunches of keys,\nthough what with trying to remember the contents of each little\nstore-room drawer and cupboard; and what with making notes on a slate\nabout jams, and pickles, and preserves, and bottles, and glass, and\nchina, and a great many other things; and what with being generally a\nmethodical, old-maidish sort of foolish little person, I was so busy\nthat I could not believe it was breakfast-time when I heard the bell\nring. Away I ran, however, and made tea, as I had already been\ninstalled into the responsibility of the tea-pot; and then, as they\nwere all rather late and nobody was down yet, I thought I would take\na peep at the garden and get some knowledge of that too. I found it\nquite a delightful place--in front, the pretty avenue and drive by\nwhich we had approached (and where, by the by, we had cut up the\ngravel so terribly with our wheels that I asked the gardener to roll\nit); at the back, the flower-garden, with my darling at her window up\nthere, throwing it open to smile out at me, as if she would have\nkissed me from that distance. Beyond the flower-garden was a\nkitchen-garden, and then a paddock, and then a snug little rick-yard,\nand then a dear little farm-yard. As to the house itself, with its\nthree peaks in the roof; its various-shaped windows, some so large,\nsome so small, and all so pretty; its trellis-work, against the\nsouth-front for roses and honey-suckle, and its homely, comfortable,\nwelcoming look--it was, as Ada said when she came out to meet me with\nher arm through that of its master, worthy of her cousin John, a bold\nthing to say, though he only pinched her dear cheek for it.\n\nMr. Skimpole was as agreeable at breakfast as he had been overnight.\nThere was honey on the table, and it led him into a discourse about\nbees. He had no objection to honey, he said (and I should think he\nhad not, for he seemed to like it), but he protested against the\noverweening assumptions of bees. He didn't at all see why the busy\nbee should be proposed as a model to him; he supposed the bee liked\nto make honey, or he wouldn't do it--nobody asked him. It was not\nnecessary for the bee to make such a merit of his tastes. If every\nconfectioner went buzzing about the world banging against everything\nthat came in his way and egotistically calling upon everybody to take\nnotice that he was going to his work and must not be interrupted, the\nworld would be quite an unsupportable place. Then, after all, it was\na ridiculous position to be smoked out of your fortune with brimstone\nas soon as you had made it. You would have a very mean opinion of a\nManchester man if he spun cotton for no other purpose. He must say he\nthought a drone the embodiment of a pleasanter and wiser idea. The\ndrone said unaffectedly, \"You will excuse me; I really cannot attend\nto the shop! I find myself in a world in which there is so much to\nsee and so short a time to see it in that I must take the liberty of\nlooking about me and begging to be provided for by somebody who\ndoesn't want to look about him.\" This appeared to Mr. Skimpole to be\nthe drone philosophy, and he thought it a very good philosophy,\nalways supposing the drone to be willing to be on good terms with the\nbee, which, so far as he knew, the easy fellow always was, if the\nconsequential creature would only let him, and not be so conceited\nabout his honey!\n\nHe pursued this fancy with the lightest foot over a variety of ground\nand made us all merry, though again he seemed to have as serious a\nmeaning in what he said as he was capable of having. I left them\nstill listening to him when I withdrew to attend to my new duties.\nThey had occupied me for some time, and I was passing through the\npassages on my return with my basket of keys on my arm when Mr.\nJarndyce called me into a small room next his bed-chamber, which I\nfound to be in part a little library of books and papers and in part\nquite a little museum of his boots and shoes and hat-boxes.\n\n\"Sit down, my dear,\" said Mr. Jarndyce. \"This, you must know, is the\ngrowlery. When I am out of humour, I come and growl here.\"\n\n\"You must be here very seldom, sir,\" said I.\n\n\"Oh, you don't know me!\" he returned. \"When I am deceived or\ndisappointed in--the wind, and it's easterly, I take refuge here. The\ngrowlery is the best-used room in the house. You are not aware of\nhalf my humours yet. My dear, how you are trembling!\"\n\nI could not help it; I tried very hard, but being alone with that\nbenevolent presence, and meeting his kind eyes, and feeling so happy\nand so honoured there, and my heart so full--I kissed his hand. I\ndon't know what I said, or even that I spoke. He was disconcerted and\nwalked to the window; I almost believed with an intention of jumping\nout, until he turned and I was reassured by seeing in his eyes what\nhe had gone there to hide. He gently patted me on the head, and I sat\ndown.\n\n\"There! There!\" he said. \"That's over. Pooh! Don't be foolish.\"\n\n\"It shall not happen again, sir,\" I returned, \"but at first it is\ndifficult--\"\n\n\"Nonsense!\" he said. \"It's easy, easy. Why not? I hear of a good\nlittle orphan girl without a protector, and I take it into my head to\nbe that protector. She grows up, and more than justifies my good\nopinion, and I remain her guardian and her friend. What is there in\nall this? So, so! Now, we have cleared off old scores, and I have\nbefore me thy pleasant, trusting, trusty face again.\"\n\nI said to myself, \"Esther, my dear, you surprise me! This really is\nnot what I expected of you!\" And it had such a good effect that I\nfolded my hands upon my basket and quite recovered myself. Mr.\nJarndyce, expressing his approval in his face, began to talk to me as\nconfidentially as if I had been in the habit of conversing with him\nevery morning for I don't know how long. I almost felt as if I had.\n\n\"Of course, Esther,\" he said, \"you don't understand this Chancery\nbusiness?\"\n\nAnd of course I shook my head.\n\n\"I don't know who does,\" he returned. \"The lawyers have twisted it\ninto such a state of bedevilment that the original merits of the case\nhave long disappeared from the face of the earth. It's about a will\nand the trusts under a will--or it was once. It's about nothing but\ncosts now. We are always appearing, and disappearing, and swearing,\nand interrogating, and filing, and cross-filing, and arguing, and\nsealing, and motioning, and referring, and reporting, and revolving\nabout the Lord Chancellor and all his satellites, and equitably\nwaltzing ourselves off to dusty death, about costs. That's the great\nquestion. All the rest, by some extraordinary means, has melted\naway.\"\n\n\"But it was, sir,\" said I, to bring him back, for he began to rub his\nhead, \"about a will?\"\n\n\"Why, yes, it was about a will when it was about anything,\" he\nreturned. \"A certain Jarndyce, in an evil hour, made a great fortune,\nand made a great will. In the question how the trusts under that will\nare to be administered, the fortune left by the will is squandered\naway; the legatees under the will are reduced to such a miserable\ncondition that they would be sufficiently punished if they had\ncommitted an enormous crime in having money left them, and the will\nitself is made a dead letter. All through the deplorable cause,\neverything that everybody in it, except one man, knows already is\nreferred to that only one man who don't know, it to find out--all\nthrough the deplorable cause, everybody must have copies, over and\nover again, of everything that has accumulated about it in the way of\ncartloads of papers (or must pay for them without having them, which\nis the usual course, for nobody wants them) and must go down the\nmiddle and up again through such an infernal country-dance of costs\nand fees and nonsense and corruption as was never dreamed of in the\nwildest visions of a witch's Sabbath. Equity sends questions to law,\nlaw sends questions back to equity; law finds it can't do this,\nequity finds it can't do that; neither can so much as say it can't\ndo anything, without this solicitor instructing and this counsel\nappearing for A, and that solicitor instructing and that counsel\nappearing for B; and so on through the whole alphabet, like the\nhistory of the apple pie. And thus, through years and years, and\nlives and lives, everything goes on, constantly beginning over and\nover again, and nothing ever ends. And we can't get out of the suit\non any terms, for we are made parties to it, and MUST BE parties to\nit, whether we like it or not. But it won't do to think of it! When\nmy great uncle, poor Tom Jarndyce, began to think of it, it was the\nbeginning of the end!\"\n\n\"The Mr. Jarndyce, sir, whose story I have heard?\"\n\nHe nodded gravely. \"I was his heir, and this was his house, Esther.\nWhen I came here, it was bleak indeed. He had left the signs of his\nmisery upon it.\"\n\n\"How changed it must be now!\" I said.\n\n\"It had been called, before his time, the Peaks. He gave it its\npresent name and lived here shut up, day and night poring over the\nwicked heaps of papers in the suit and hoping against hope to\ndisentangle it from its mystification and bring it to a close. In the\nmeantime, the place became dilapidated, the wind whistled through the\ncracked walls, the rain fell through the broken roof, the weeds\nchoked the passage to the rotting door. When I brought what remained\nof him home here, the brains seemed to me to have been blown out of\nthe house too, it was so shattered and ruined.\"\n\nHe walked a little to and fro after saying this to himself with a\nshudder, and then looked at me, and brightened, and came and sat down\nagain with his hands in his pockets.\n\n\"I told you this was the growlery, my dear. Where was I?\"\n\nI reminded him, at the hopeful change he had made in Bleak House.\n\n\"Bleak House; true. There is, in that city of London there, some\nproperty of ours which is much at this day what Bleak House was then;\nI say property of ours, meaning of the suit's, but I ought to call it\nthe property of costs, for costs is the only power on earth that will\never get anything out of it now or will ever know it for anything but\nan eyesore and a heartsore. It is a street of perishing blind houses,\nwith their eyes stoned out, without a pane of glass, without so much\nas a window-frame, with the bare blank shutters tumbling from their\nhinges and falling asunder, the iron rails peeling away in flakes of\nrust, the chimneys sinking in, the stone steps to every door (and\nevery door might be death's door) turning stagnant green, the very\ncrutches on which the ruins are propped decaying. Although Bleak\nHouse was not in Chancery, its master was, and it was stamped with\nthe same seal. These are the Great Seal's impressions, my dear, all\nover England--the children know them!\"\n\n\"How changed it is!\" I said again.\n\n\"Why, so it is,\" he answered much more cheerfully; \"and it is wisdom\nin you to keep me to the bright side of the picture.\" (The idea of my\nwisdom!) \"These are things I never talk about or even think about,\nexcepting in the growlery here. If you consider it right to mention\nthem to Rick and Ada,\" looking seriously at me, \"you can. I leave it\nto your discretion, Esther.\"\n\n\"I hope, sir--\" said I.\n\n\"I think you had better call me guardian, my dear.\"\n\nI felt that I was choking again--I taxed myself with it, \"Esther,\nnow, you know you are!\"--when he feigned to say this slightly, as if\nit were a whim instead of a thoughtful tenderness. But I gave the\nhousekeeping keys the least shake in the world as a reminder to\nmyself, and folding my hands in a still more determined manner on the\nbasket, looked at him quietly.\n\n\"I hope, guardian,\" said I, \"that you may not trust too much to my\ndiscretion. I hope you may not mistake me. I am afraid it will be a\ndisappointment to you to know that I am not clever, but it really is\nthe truth, and you would soon find it out if I had not the honesty to\nconfess it.\"\n\nHe did not seem at all disappointed; quite the contrary. He told me,\nwith a smile all over his face, that he knew me very well indeed and\nthat I was quite clever enough for him.\n\n\"I hope I may turn out so,\" said I, \"but I am much afraid of it,\nguardian.\"\n\n\"You are clever enough to be the good little woman of our lives here,\nmy dear,\" he returned playfully; \"the little old woman of the child's\n(I don't mean Skimpole's) rhyme:\n\n\n   \"'Little old woman, and whither so high?'\n    'To sweep the cobwebs out of the sky.'\n\n\n\"You will sweep them so neatly out of OUR sky in the course of your\nhousekeeping, Esther, that one of these days we shall have to abandon\nthe growlery and nail up the door.\"\n\nThis was the beginning of my being called Old Woman, and Little Old\nWoman, and Cobweb, and Mrs. Shipton, and Mother Hubbard, and Dame\nDurden, and so many names of that sort that my own name soon became\nquite lost among them.\n\n\"However,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, \"to return to our gossip. Here's Rick,\na fine young fellow full of promise. What's to be done with him?\"\n\nOh, my goodness, the idea of asking my advice on such a point!\n\n\"Here he is, Esther,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, comfortably putting his\nhands into his pockets and stretching out his legs. \"He must have a\nprofession; he must make some choice for himself. There will be a\nworld more wiglomeration about it, I suppose, but it must be done.\"\n\n\"More what, guardian?\" said I.\n\n\"More wiglomeration,\" said he. \"It's the only name I know for the\nthing. He is a ward in Chancery, my dear. Kenge and Carboy will have\nsomething to say about it; Master Somebody--a sort of ridiculous\nsexton, digging graves for the merits of causes in a back room at the\nend of Quality Court, Chancery Lane--will have something to say about\nit; counsel will have something to say about it; the Chancellor will\nhave something to say about it; the satellites will have something to\nsay about it; they will all have to be handsomely feed, all round,\nabout it; the whole thing will be vastly ceremonious, wordy,\nunsatisfactory, and expensive, and I call it, in general,\nwiglomeration. How mankind ever came to be afflicted with\nwiglomeration, or for whose sins these young people ever fell into a\npit of it, I don't know; so it is.\"\n\nHe began to rub his head again and to hint that he felt the wind. But\nit was a delightful instance of his kindness towards me that whether\nhe rubbed his head, or walked about, or did both, his face was sure\nto recover its benignant expression as it looked at mine; and he was\nsure to turn comfortable again and put his hands in his pockets and\nstretch out his legs.\n\n\"Perhaps it would be best, first of all,\" said I, \"to ask Mr. Richard\nwhat he inclines to himself.\"\n\n\"Exactly so,\" he returned. \"That's what I mean! You know, just\naccustom yourself to talk it over, with your tact and in your quiet\nway, with him and Ada, and see what you all make of it. We are sure\nto come at the heart of the matter by your means, little woman.\"\n\nI really was frightened at the thought of the importance I was\nattaining and the number of things that were being confided to me. I\nhad not meant this at all; I had meant that he should speak to\nRichard. But of course I said nothing in reply except that I would do\nmy best, though I feared (I really felt it necessary to repeat this)\nthat he thought me much more sagacious than I was. At which my\nguardian only laughed the pleasantest laugh I ever heard.\n\n\"Come!\" he said, rising and pushing back his chair. \"I think we may\nhave done with the growlery for one day! Only a concluding word.\nEsther, my dear, do you wish to ask me anything?\"\n\nHe looked so attentively at me that I looked attentively at him and\nfelt sure I understood him.\n\n\"About myself, sir?\" said I.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Guardian,\" said I, venturing to put my hand, which was suddenly\ncolder than I could have wished, in his, \"nothing! I am quite sure\nthat if there were anything I ought to know or had any need to know,\nI should not have to ask you to tell it to me. If my whole reliance\nand confidence were not placed in you, I must have a hard heart\nindeed. I have nothing to ask you, nothing in the world.\"\n\nHe drew my hand through his arm and we went away to look for Ada.\nFrom that hour I felt quite easy with him, quite unreserved, quite\ncontent to know no more, quite happy.\n\nWe lived, at first, rather a busy life at Bleak House, for we had to\nbecome acquainted with many residents in and out of the neighbourhood\nwho knew Mr. Jarndyce. It seemed to Ada and me that everybody knew\nhim who wanted to do anything with anybody else's money. It amazed us\nwhen we began to sort his letters and to answer some of them for him\nin the growlery of a morning to find how the great object of the\nlives of nearly all his correspondents appeared to be to form\nthemselves into committees for getting in and laying out money. The\nladies were as desperate as the gentlemen; indeed, I think they were\neven more so. They threw themselves into committees in the most\nimpassioned manner and collected subscriptions with a vehemence quite\nextraordinary. It appeared to us that some of them must pass their\nwhole lives in dealing out subscription-cards to the whole\npost-office directory--shilling cards, half-crown cards,\nhalf-sovereign cards, penny cards. They wanted everything. They\nwanted wearing apparel, they wanted linen rags, they wanted money,\nthey wanted coals, they wanted soup, they wanted interest, they\nwanted autographs, they wanted flannel, they wanted whatever Mr.\nJarndyce had--or had not. Their objects were as various as their\ndemands. They were going to raise new buildings, they were going to\npay off debts on old buildings, they were going to establish in a\npicturesque building (engraving of proposed west elevation attached)\nthe Sisterhood of Mediaeval Marys, they were going to give a\ntestimonial to Mrs. Jellyby, they were going to have their\nsecretary's portrait painted and presented to his mother-in-law,\nwhose deep devotion to him was well known, they were going to get up\neverything, I really believe, from five hundred thousand tracts to an\nannuity and from a marble monument to a silver tea-pot. They took a\nmultitude of titles. They were the Women of England, the Daughters of\nBritain, the Sisters of all the cardinal virtues separately, the\nFemales of America, the Ladies of a hundred denominations. They\nappeared to be always excited about canvassing and electing. They\nseemed to our poor wits, and according to their own accounts, to be\nconstantly polling people by tens of thousands, yet never bringing\ntheir candidates in for anything. It made our heads ache to think, on\nthe whole, what feverish lives they must lead.\n\nAmong the ladies who were most distinguished for this rapacious\nbenevolence (if I may use the expression) was a Mrs. Pardiggle, who\nseemed, as I judged from the number of her letters to Mr. Jarndyce,\nto be almost as powerful a correspondent as Mrs. Jellyby herself. We\nobserved that the wind always changed when Mrs. Pardiggle became the\nsubject of conversation and that it invariably interrupted Mr.\nJarndyce and prevented his going any farther, when he had remarked\nthat there were two classes of charitable people; one, the people who\ndid a little and made a great deal of noise; the other, the people\nwho did a great deal and made no noise at all. We were therefore\ncurious to see Mrs. Pardiggle, suspecting her to be a type of the\nformer class, and were glad when she called one day with her five\nyoung sons.\n\nShe was a formidable style of lady with spectacles, a prominent nose,\nand a loud voice, who had the effect of wanting a great deal of room.\nAnd she really did, for she knocked down little chairs with her\nskirts that were quite a great way off. As only Ada and I were at\nhome, we received her timidly, for she seemed to come in like cold\nweather and to make the little Pardiggles blue as they followed.\n\n\"These, young ladies,\" said Mrs. Pardiggle with great volubility\nafter the first salutations, \"are my five boys. You may have seen\ntheir names in a printed subscription list (perhaps more than one) in\nthe possession of our esteemed friend Mr. Jarndyce. Egbert, my eldest\n(twelve), is the boy who sent out his pocket-money, to the amount of\nfive and threepence, to the Tockahoopo Indians. Oswald, my second\n(ten and a half), is the child who contributed two and nine-pence to\nthe Great National Smithers Testimonial. Francis, my third (nine),\none and sixpence halfpenny; Felix, my fourth (seven), eightpence to\nthe Superannuated Widows; Alfred, my youngest (five), has voluntarily\nenrolled himself in the Infant Bonds of Joy, and is pledged never,\nthrough life, to use tobacco in any form.\"\n\nWe had never seen such dissatisfied children. It was not merely that\nthey were weazened and shrivelled--though they were certainly that\ntoo--but they looked absolutely ferocious with discontent. At the\nmention of the Tockahoopo Indians, I could really have supposed\nEgbert to be one of the most baleful members of that tribe, he gave\nme such a savage frown. The face of each child, as the amount of his\ncontribution was mentioned, darkened in a peculiarly vindictive\nmanner, but his was by far the worst. I must except, however, the\nlittle recruit into the Infant Bonds of Joy, who was stolidly and\nevenly miserable.\n\n\"You have been visiting, I understand,\" said Mrs. Pardiggle, \"at Mrs.\nJellyby's?\"\n\nWe said yes, we had passed one night there.\n\n\"Mrs. Jellyby,\" pursued the lady, always speaking in the same\ndemonstrative, loud, hard tone, so that her voice impressed my fancy\nas if it had a sort of spectacles on too--and I may take the\nopportunity of remarking that her spectacles were made the less\nengaging by her eyes being what Ada called \"choking eyes,\" meaning\nvery prominent--\"Mrs. Jellyby is a benefactor to society and deserves\na helping hand. My boys have contributed to the African\nproject--Egbert, one and six, being the entire allowance of nine\nweeks; Oswald, one and a penny halfpenny, being the same; the rest,\naccording to their little means. Nevertheless, I do not go with Mrs.\nJellyby in all things. I do not go with Mrs. Jellyby in her treatment\nof her young family. It has been noticed. It has been observed that\nher young family are excluded from participation in the objects to\nwhich she is devoted. She may be right, she may be wrong; but, right\nor wrong, this is not my course with MY young family. I take them\neverywhere.\"\n\nI was afterwards convinced (and so was Ada) that from the\nill-conditioned eldest child, these words extorted a sharp yell. He\nturned it off into a yawn, but it began as a yell.\n\n\"They attend matins with me (very prettily done) at half-past six\no'clock in the morning all the year round, including of course the\ndepth of winter,\" said Mrs. Pardiggle rapidly, \"and they are with me\nduring the revolving duties of the day. I am a School lady, I am a\nVisiting lady, I am a Reading lady, I am a Distributing lady; I am on\nthe local Linen Box Committee and many general committees; and my\ncanvassing alone is very extensive--perhaps no one's more so. But\nthey are my companions everywhere; and by these means they acquire\nthat knowledge of the poor, and that capacity of doing charitable\nbusiness in general--in short, that taste for the sort of\nthing--which will render them in after life a service to their\nneighbours and a satisfaction to themselves. My young family are not\nfrivolous; they expend the entire amount of their allowance in\nsubscriptions, under my direction; and they have attended as many\npublic meetings and listened to as many lectures, orations, and\ndiscussions as generally fall to the lot of few grown people. Alfred\n(five), who, as I mentioned, has of his own election joined the\nInfant Bonds of Joy, was one of the very few children who manifested\nconsciousness on that occasion after a fervid address of two hours\nfrom the chairman of the evening.\"\n\nAlfred glowered at us as if he never could, or would, forgive the\ninjury of that night.\n\n\"You may have observed, Miss Summerson,\" said Mrs. Pardiggle, \"in\nsome of the lists to which I have referred, in the possession of our\nesteemed friend Mr. Jarndyce, that the names of my young family are\nconcluded with the name of O. A. Pardiggle, F.R.S., one pound. That\nis their father. We usually observe the same routine. I put down my\nmite first; then my young family enrol their contributions, according\nto their ages and their little means; and then Mr. Pardiggle brings\nup the rear. Mr. Pardiggle is happy to throw in his limited donation,\nunder my direction; and thus things are made not only pleasant to\nourselves, but, we trust, improving to others.\"\n\nSuppose Mr. Pardiggle were to dine with Mr. Jellyby, and suppose Mr.\nJellyby were to relieve his mind after dinner to Mr. Pardiggle, would\nMr. Pardiggle, in return, make any confidential communication to Mr.\nJellyby? I was quite confused to find myself thinking this, but it\ncame into my head.\n\n\"You are very pleasantly situated here!\" said Mrs. Pardiggle.\n\nWe were glad to change the subject, and going to the window, pointed\nout the beauties of the prospect, on which the spectacles appeared to\nme to rest with curious indifference.\n\n\"You know Mr. Gusher?\" said our visitor.\n\nWe were obliged to say that we had not the pleasure of Mr. Gusher's\nacquaintance.\n\n\"The loss is yours, I assure you,\" said Mrs. Pardiggle with her\ncommanding deportment. \"He is a very fervid, impassioned\nspeaker--full of fire! Stationed in a waggon on this lawn, now,\nwhich, from the shape of the land, is naturally adapted to a public\nmeeting, he would improve almost any occasion you could mention for\nhours and hours! By this time, young ladies,\" said Mrs. Pardiggle,\nmoving back to her chair and overturning, as if by invisible agency,\na little round table at a considerable distance with my work-basket\non it, \"by this time you have found me out, I dare say?\"\n\nThis was really such a confusing question that Ada looked at me in\nperfect dismay. As to the guilty nature of my own consciousness after\nwhat I had been thinking, it must have been expressed in the colour\nof my cheeks.\n\n\"Found out, I mean,\" said Mrs. Pardiggle, \"the prominent point in my\ncharacter. I am aware that it is so prominent as to be discoverable\nimmediately. I lay myself open to detection, I know. Well! I freely\nadmit, I am a woman of business. I love hard work; I enjoy hard work.\nThe excitement does me good. I am so accustomed and inured to hard\nwork that I don't know what fatigue is.\"\n\nWe murmured that it was very astonishing and very gratifying, or\nsomething to that effect. I don't think we knew what it was either,\nbut this is what our politeness expressed.\n\n\"I do not understand what it is to be tired; you cannot tire me if\nyou try!\" said Mrs. Pardiggle. \"The quantity of exertion (which is no\nexertion to me), the amount of business (which I regard as nothing),\nthat I go through sometimes astonishes myself. I have seen my young\nfamily, and Mr. Pardiggle, quite worn out with witnessing it, when I\nmay truly say I have been as fresh as a lark!\"\n\nIf that dark-visaged eldest boy could look more malicious than he had\nalready looked, this was the time when he did it. I observed that he\ndoubled his right fist and delivered a secret blow into the crown of\nhis cap, which was under his left arm.\n\n\"This gives me a great advantage when I am making my rounds,\" said\nMrs. Pardiggle. \"If I find a person unwilling to hear what I have to\nsay, I tell that person directly, 'I am incapable of fatigue, my good\nfriend, I am never tired, and I mean to go on until I have done.' It\nanswers admirably! Miss Summerson, I hope I shall have your\nassistance in my visiting rounds immediately, and Miss Clare's very\nsoon.\"\n\nAt first I tried to excuse myself for the present on the general\nground of having occupations to attend to which I must not neglect.\nBut as this was an ineffectual protest, I then said, more\nparticularly, that I was not sure of my qualifications. That I was\ninexperienced in the art of adapting my mind to minds very\ndifferently situated, and addressing them from suitable points of\nview. That I had not that delicate knowledge of the heart which must\nbe essential to such a work. That I had much to learn, myself, before\nI could teach others, and that I could not confide in my good\nintentions alone. For these reasons I thought it best to be as useful\nas I could, and to render what kind services I could to those\nimmediately about me, and to try to let that circle of duty gradually\nand naturally expand itself. All this I said with anything but\nconfidence, because Mrs. Pardiggle was much older than I, and had\ngreat experience, and was so very military in her manners.\n\n\"You are wrong, Miss Summerson,\" said she, \"but perhaps you are not\nequal to hard work or the excitement of it, and that makes a vast\ndifference. If you would like to see how I go through my work, I am\nnow about--with my young family--to visit a brickmaker in the\nneighbourhood (a very bad character) and shall be glad to take you\nwith me. Miss Clare also, if she will do me the favour.\"\n\nAda and I interchanged looks, and as we were going out in any case,\naccepted the offer. When we hastily returned from putting on our\nbonnets, we found the young family languishing in a corner and Mrs.\nPardiggle sweeping about the room, knocking down nearly all the light\nobjects it contained. Mrs. Pardiggle took possession of Ada, and I\nfollowed with the family.\n\nAda told me afterwards that Mrs. Pardiggle talked in the same loud\ntone (that, indeed, I overheard) all the way to the brickmaker's\nabout an exciting contest which she had for two or three years waged\nagainst another lady relative to the bringing in of their rival\ncandidates for a pension somewhere. There had been a quantity of\nprinting, and promising, and proxying, and polling, and it appeared\nto have imparted great liveliness to all concerned, except the\npensioners--who were not elected yet.\n\nI am very fond of being confided in by children and am happy in being\nusually favoured in that respect, but on this occasion it gave me\ngreat uneasiness. As soon as we were out of doors, Egbert, with the\nmanner of a little footpad, demanded a shilling of me on the ground\nthat his pocket-money was \"boned\" from him. On my pointing out the\ngreat impropriety of the word, especially in connexion with his\nparent (for he added sulkily \"By her!\"), he pinched me and said, \"Oh,\nthen! Now! Who are you! YOU wouldn't like it, I think? What does she\nmake a sham for, and pretend to give me money, and take it away\nagain? Why do you call it my allowance, and never let me spend it?\"\nThese exasperating questions so inflamed his mind and the minds of\nOswald and Francis that they all pinched me at once, and in a\ndreadfully expert way--screwing up such little pieces of my arms that\nI could hardly forbear crying out. Felix, at the same time, stamped\nupon my toes. And the Bond of Joy, who on account of always having\nthe whole of his little income anticipated stood in fact pledged to\nabstain from cakes as well as tobacco, so swelled with grief and rage\nwhen we passed a pastry-cook's shop that he terrified me by becoming\npurple. I never underwent so much, both in body and mind, in the\ncourse of a walk with young people as from these unnaturally\nconstrained children when they paid me the compliment of being\nnatural.\n\nI was glad when we came to the brickmaker's house, though it was one\nof a cluster of wretched hovels in a brick-field, with pigsties close\nto the broken windows and miserable little gardens before the doors\ngrowing nothing but stagnant pools. Here and there an old tub was put\nto catch the droppings of rain-water from a roof, or they were banked\nup with mud into a little pond like a large dirt-pie. At the doors\nand windows some men and women lounged or prowled about, and took\nlittle notice of us except to laugh to one another or to say\nsomething as we passed about gentlefolks minding their own business\nand not troubling their heads and muddying their shoes with coming to\nlook after other people's.\n\nMrs. Pardiggle, leading the way with a great show of moral\ndetermination and talking with much volubility about the untidy\nhabits of the people (though I doubted if the best of us could have\nbeen tidy in such a place), conducted us into a cottage at the\nfarthest corner, the ground-floor room of which we nearly filled.\nBesides ourselves, there were in this damp, offensive room a woman\nwith a black eye, nursing a poor little gasping baby by the fire; a\nman, all stained with clay and mud and looking very dissipated, lying\nat full length on the ground, smoking a pipe; a powerful young man\nfastening a collar on a dog; and a bold girl doing some kind of\nwashing in very dirty water. They all looked up at us as we came in,\nand the woman seemed to turn her face towards the fire as if to hide\nher bruised eye; nobody gave us any welcome.\n\n\"Well, my friends,\" said Mrs. Pardiggle, but her voice had not a\nfriendly sound, I thought; it was much too business-like and\nsystematic. \"How do you do, all of you? I am here again. I told you,\nyou couldn't tire me, you know. I am fond of hard work, and am true\nto my word.\"\n\n\"There an't,\" growled the man on the floor, whose head rested on his\nhand as he stared at us, \"any more on you to come in, is there?\"\n\n\"No, my friend,\" said Mrs. Pardiggle, seating herself on one stool\nand knocking down another. \"We are all here.\"\n\n\"Because I thought there warn't enough of you, perhaps?\" said the\nman, with his pipe between his lips as he looked round upon us.\n\nThe young man and the girl both laughed. Two friends of the young\nman, whom we had attracted to the doorway and who stood there with\ntheir hands in their pockets, echoed the laugh noisily.\n\n\"You can't tire me, good people,\" said Mrs. Pardiggle to these\nlatter. \"I enjoy hard work, and the harder you make mine, the better\nI like it.\"\n\n\"Then make it easy for her!\" growled the man upon the floor. \"I wants\nit done, and over. I wants a end of these liberties took with my\nplace. I wants an end of being drawed like a badger. Now you're\na-going to poll-pry and question according to custom--I know what\nyou're a-going to be up to. Well! You haven't got no occasion to be\nup to it. I'll save you the trouble. Is my daughter a-washin? Yes,\nshe IS a-washin. Look at the water. Smell it! That's wot we drinks.\nHow do you like it, and what do you think of gin instead! An't my\nplace dirty? Yes, it is dirty--it's nat'rally dirty, and it's\nnat'rally onwholesome; and we've had five dirty and onwholesome\nchildren, as is all dead infants, and so much the better for them,\nand for us besides. Have I read the little book wot you left? No, I\nan't read the little book wot you left. There an't nobody here as\nknows how to read it; and if there wos, it wouldn't be suitable to\nme. It's a book fit for a babby, and I'm not a babby. If you was to\nleave me a doll, I shouldn't nuss it. How have I been conducting of\nmyself? Why, I've been drunk for three days; and I'da been drunk four\nif I'da had the money. Don't I never mean for to go to church? No, I\ndon't never mean for to go to church. I shouldn't be expected there,\nif I did; the beadle's too gen-teel for me. And how did my wife get\nthat black eye? Why, I give it her; and if she says I didn't, she's a\nlie!\"\n\nHe had pulled his pipe out of his mouth to say all this, and he now\nturned over on his other side and smoked again. Mrs. Pardiggle, who\nhad been regarding him through her spectacles with a forcible\ncomposure, calculated, I could not help thinking, to increase his\nantagonism, pulled out a good book as if it were a constable's staff\nand took the whole family into custody. I mean into religious\ncustody, of course; but she really did it as if she were an\ninexorable moral policeman carrying them all off to a station-house.\n\nAda and I were very uncomfortable. We both felt intrusive and out of\nplace, and we both thought that Mrs. Pardiggle would have got on\ninfinitely better if she had not had such a mechanical way of taking\npossession of people. The children sulked and stared; the family took\nno notice of us whatever, except when the young man made the dog\nbark, which he usually did when Mrs. Pardiggle was most emphatic. We\nboth felt painfully sensible that between us and these people there\nwas an iron barrier which could not be removed by our new friend. By\nwhom or how it could be removed, we did not know, but we knew that.\nEven what she read and said seemed to us to be ill-chosen for such\nauditors, if it had been imparted ever so modestly and with ever so\nmuch tact. As to the little book to which the man on the floor had\nreferred, we acquired a knowledge of it afterwards, and Mr. Jarndyce\nsaid he doubted if Robinson Crusoe could have read it, though he had\nhad no other on his desolate island.\n\nWe were much relieved, under these circumstances, when Mrs. Pardiggle\nleft off.\n\nThe man on the floor, then turning his head round again, said\nmorosely, \"Well! You've done, have you?\"\n\n\"For to-day, I have, my friend. But I am never fatigued. I shall come\nto you again in your regular order,\" returned Mrs. Pardiggle with\ndemonstrative cheerfulness.\n\n\"So long as you goes now,\" said he, folding his arms and shutting his\neyes with an oath, \"you may do wot you like!\"\n\nMrs. Pardiggle accordingly rose and made a little vortex in the\nconfined room from which the pipe itself very narrowly escaped.\nTaking one of her young family in each hand, and telling the others\nto follow closely, and expressing her hope that the brickmaker and\nall his house would be improved when she saw them next, she then\nproceeded to another cottage. I hope it is not unkind in me to say\nthat she certainly did make, in this as in everything else, a show\nthat was not conciliatory of doing charity by wholesale and of\ndealing in it to a large extent.\n\nShe supposed that we were following her, but as soon as the space was\nleft clear, we approached the woman sitting by the fire to ask if the\nbaby were ill.\n\nShe only looked at it as it lay on her lap. We had observed before\nthat when she looked at it she covered her discoloured eye with her\nhand, as though she wished to separate any association with noise and\nviolence and ill treatment from the poor little child.\n\nAda, whose gentle heart was moved by its appearance, bent down to\ntouch its little face. As she did so, I saw what happened and drew\nher back. The child died.\n\n\"Oh, Esther!\" cried Ada, sinking on her knees beside it. \"Look here!\nOh, Esther, my love, the little thing! The suffering, quiet, pretty\nlittle thing! I am so sorry for it. I am so sorry for the mother. I\nnever saw a sight so pitiful as this before! Oh, baby, baby!\"\n\nSuch compassion, such gentleness, as that with which she bent down\nweeping and put her hand upon the mother's might have softened any\nmother's heart that ever beat. The woman at first gazed at her in\nastonishment and then burst into tears.\n\nPresently I took the light burden from her lap, did what I could to\nmake the baby's rest the prettier and gentler, laid it on a shelf,\nand covered it with my own handkerchief. We tried to comfort the\nmother, and we whispered to her what Our Saviour said of children.\nShe answered nothing, but sat weeping--weeping very much.\n\nWhen I turned, I found that the young man had taken out the dog and\nwas standing at the door looking in upon us with dry eyes, but quiet.\nThe girl was quiet too and sat in a corner looking on the ground. The\nman had risen. He still smoked his pipe with an air of defiance, but\nhe was silent.\n\nAn ugly woman, very poorly clothed, hurried in while I was glancing\nat them, and coming straight up to the mother, said, \"Jenny! Jenny!\"\nThe mother rose on being so addressed and fell upon the woman's neck.\n\nShe also had upon her face and arms the marks of ill usage. She had\nno kind of grace about her, but the grace of sympathy; but when she\ncondoled with the woman, and her own tears fell, she wanted no\nbeauty. I say condoled, but her only words were \"Jenny! Jenny!\" All\nthe rest was in the tone in which she said them.\n\nI thought it very touching to see these two women, coarse and shabby\nand beaten, so united; to see what they could be to one another; to\nsee how they felt for one another, how the heart of each to each was\nsoftened by the hard trials of their lives. I think the best side of\nsuch people is almost hidden from us. What the poor are to the poor\nis little known, excepting to themselves and God.\n\nWe felt it better to withdraw and leave them uninterrupted. We stole\nout quietly and without notice from any one except the man. He was\nleaning against the wall near the door, and finding that there was\nscarcely room for us to pass, went out before us. He seemed to want\nto hide that he did this on our account, but we perceived that he\ndid, and thanked him. He made no answer.\n\nAda was so full of grief all the way home, and Richard, whom we found\nat home, was so distressed to see her in tears (though he said to me,\nwhen she was not present, how beautiful it was too!), that we\narranged to return at night with some little comforts and repeat our\nvisit at the brick-maker's house. We said as little as we could to\nMr. Jarndyce, but the wind changed directly.\n\nRichard accompanied us at night to the scene of our morning\nexpedition. On our way there, we had to pass a noisy drinking-house,\nwhere a number of men were flocking about the door. Among them, and\nprominent in some dispute, was the father of the little child. At a\nshort distance, we passed the young man and the dog, in congenial\ncompany. The sister was standing laughing and talking with some other\nyoung women at the corner of the row of cottages, but she seemed\nashamed and turned away as we went by.\n\nWe left our escort within sight of the brickmaker's dwelling and\nproceeded by ourselves. When we came to the door, we found the woman\nwho had brought such consolation with her standing there looking\nanxiously out.\n\n\"It's you, young ladies, is it?\" she said in a whisper. \"I'm\na-watching for my master. My heart's in my mouth. If he was to catch\nme away from home, he'd pretty near murder me.\"\n\n\"Do you mean your husband?\" said I.\n\n\"Yes, miss, my master. Jenny's asleep, quite worn out. She's scarcely\nhad the child off her lap, poor thing, these seven days and nights,\nexcept when I've been able to take it for a minute or two.\"\n\nAs she gave way for us, she went softly in and put what we had\nbrought near the miserable bed on which the mother slept. No effort\nhad been made to clean the room--it seemed in its nature almost\nhopeless of being clean; but the small waxen form from which so much\nsolemnity diffused itself had been composed afresh, and washed, and\nneatly dressed in some fragments of white linen; and on my\nhandkerchief, which still covered the poor baby, a little bunch of\nsweet herbs had been laid by the same rough, scarred hands, so\nlightly, so tenderly!\n\n\"May heaven reward you!\" we said to her. \"You are a good woman.\"\n\n\"Me, young ladies?\" she returned with surprise. \"Hush! Jenny, Jenny!\"\n\nThe mother had moaned in her sleep and moved. The sound of the\nfamiliar voice seemed to calm her again. She was quiet once more.\n\nHow little I thought, when I raised my handkerchief to look upon the\ntiny sleeper underneath and seemed to see a halo shine around the\nchild through Ada's drooping hair as her pity bent her head--how\nlittle I thought in whose unquiet bosom that handkerchief would come\nto lie after covering the motionless and peaceful breast! I only\nthought that perhaps the Angel of the child might not be all\nunconscious of the woman who replaced it with so compassionate a\nhand; not all unconscious of her presently, when we had taken leave,\nand left her at the door, by turns looking, and listening in terror\nfor herself, and saying in her old soothing manner, \"Jenny, Jenny!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nSigns and Tokens\n\n\nI don't know how it is I seem to be always writing about myself. I\nmean all the time to write about other people, and I try to think\nabout myself as little as possible, and I am sure, when I find myself\ncoming into the story again, I am really vexed and say, \"Dear, dear,\nyou tiresome little creature, I wish you wouldn't!\" but it is all of\nno use. I hope any one who may read what I write will understand that\nif these pages contain a great deal about me, I can only suppose it\nmust be because I have really something to do with them and can't be\nkept out.\n\nMy darling and I read together, and worked, and practised, and found\nso much employment for our time that the winter days flew by us like\nbright-winged birds. Generally in the afternoons, and always in the\nevenings, Richard gave us his company. Although he was one of the\nmost restless creatures in the world, he certainly was very fond of\nour society.\n\nHe was very, very, very fond of Ada. I mean it, and I had better say\nit at once. I had never seen any young people falling in love before,\nbut I found them out quite soon. I could not say so, of course, or\nshow that I knew anything about it. On the contrary, I was so demure\nand used to seem so unconscious that sometimes I considered within\nmyself while I was sitting at work whether I was not growing quite\ndeceitful.\n\nBut there was no help for it. All I had to do was to be quiet, and I\nwas as quiet as a mouse. They were as quiet as mice too, so far as\nany words were concerned, but the innocent manner in which they\nrelied more and more upon me as they took more and more to one\nanother was so charming that I had great difficulty in not showing\nhow it interested me.\n\n\"Our dear little old woman is such a capital old woman,\" Richard\nwould say, coming up to meet me in the garden early, with his\npleasant laugh and perhaps the least tinge of a blush, \"that I can't\nget on without her. Before I begin my harum-scarum day--grinding away\nat those books and instruments and then galloping up hill and down\ndale, all the country round, like a highwayman--it does me so much\ngood to come and have a steady walk with our comfortable friend, that\nhere I am again!\"\n\n\"You know, Dame Durden, dear,\" Ada would say at night, with her head\nupon my shoulder and the firelight shining in her thoughtful eyes, \"I\ndon't want to talk when we come upstairs here. Only to sit a little\nwhile thinking, with your dear face for company, and to hear the wind\nand remember the poor sailors at sea--\"\n\nAh! Perhaps Richard was going to be a sailor. We had talked it over\nvery often now, and there was some talk of gratifying the inclination\nof his childhood for the sea. Mr. Jarndyce had written to a relation\nof the family, a great Sir Leicester Dedlock, for his interest in\nRichard's favour, generally; and Sir Leicester had replied in a\ngracious manner that he would be happy to advance the prospects of\nthe young gentleman if it should ever prove to be within his power,\nwhich was not at all probable, and that my Lady sent her compliments\nto the young gentleman (to whom she perfectly remembered that she was\nallied by remote consanguinity) and trusted that he would ever do his\nduty in any honourable profession to which he might devote himself.\n\n\"So I apprehend it's pretty clear,\" said Richard to me, \"that I shall\nhave to work my own way. Never mind! Plenty of people have had to do\nthat before now, and have done it. I only wish I had the command of a\nclipping privateer to begin with and could carry off the Chancellor\nand keep him on short allowance until he gave judgment in our cause.\nHe'd find himself growing thin, if he didn't look sharp!\"\n\nWith a buoyancy and hopefulness and a gaiety that hardly ever\nflagged, Richard had a carelessness in his character that quite\nperplexed me, principally because he mistook it, in such a very odd\nway, for prudence. It entered into all his calculations about money\nin a singular manner which I don't think I can better explain than by\nreverting for a moment to our loan to Mr. Skimpole.\n\nMr. Jarndyce had ascertained the amount, either from Mr. Skimpole\nhimself or from Coavinses, and had placed the money in my hands with\ninstructions to me to retain my own part of it and hand the rest to\nRichard. The number of little acts of thoughtless expenditure which\nRichard justified by the recovery of his ten pounds, and the number\nof times he talked to me as if he had saved or realized that amount,\nwould form a sum in simple addition.\n\n\"My prudent Mother Hubbard, why not?\" he said to me when he wanted,\nwithout the least consideration, to bestow five pounds on the\nbrickmaker. \"I made ten pounds, clear, out of Coavinses' business.\"\n\n\"How was that?\" said I.\n\n\"Why, I got rid of ten pounds which I was quite content to get rid of\nand never expected to see any more. You don't deny that?\"\n\n\"No,\" said I.\n\n\"Very well! Then I came into possession of ten pounds--\"\n\n\"The same ten pounds,\" I hinted.\n\n\"That has nothing to do with it!\" returned Richard. \"I have got ten\npounds more than I expected to have, and consequently I can afford to\nspend it without being particular.\"\n\nIn exactly the same way, when he was persuaded out of the sacrifice\nof these five pounds by being convinced that it would do no good, he\ncarried that sum to his credit and drew upon it.\n\n\"Let me see!\" he would say. \"I saved five pounds out of the\nbrickmaker's affair, so if I have a good rattle to London and back in\na post-chaise and put that down at four pounds, I shall have saved\none. And it's a very good thing to save one, let me tell you: a penny\nsaved is a penny got!\"\n\nI believe Richard's was as frank and generous a nature as there\npossibly can be. He was ardent and brave, and in the midst of all his\nwild restlessness, was so gentle that I knew him like a brother in a\nfew weeks. His gentleness was natural to him and would have shown\nitself abundantly even without Ada's influence; but with it, he\nbecame one of the most winning of companions, always so ready to be\ninterested and always so happy, sanguine, and light-hearted. I am\nsure that I, sitting with them, and walking with them, and talking\nwith them, and noticing from day to day how they went on, falling\ndeeper and deeper in love, and saying nothing about it, and each\nshyly thinking that this love was the greatest of secrets, perhaps\nnot yet suspected even by the other--I am sure that I was scarcely\nless enchanted than they were and scarcely less pleased with the\npretty dream.\n\nWe were going on in this way, when one morning at breakfast Mr.\nJarndyce received a letter, and looking at the superscription, said,\n\"From Boythorn? Aye, aye!\" and opened and read it with evident\npleasure, announcing to us in a parenthesis when he was about\nhalf-way through, that Boythorn was \"coming down\" on a visit. Now who\nwas Boythorn, we all thought. And I dare say we all thought too--I am\nsure I did, for one--would Boythorn at all interfere with what was\ngoing forward?\n\n\"I went to school with this fellow, Lawrence Boythorn,\" said Mr.\nJarndyce, tapping the letter as he laid it on the table, \"more than\nfive and forty years ago. He was then the most impetuous boy in the\nworld, and he is now the most impetuous man. He was then the loudest\nboy in the world, and he is now the loudest man. He was then the\nheartiest and sturdiest boy in the world, and he is now the heartiest\nand sturdiest man. He is a tremendous fellow.\"\n\n\"In stature, sir?\" asked Richard.\n\n\"Pretty well, Rick, in that respect,\" said Mr. Jarndyce; \"being some\nten years older than I and a couple of inches taller, with his head\nthrown back like an old soldier, his stalwart chest squared, his\nhands like a clean blacksmith's, and his lungs! There's no simile for\nhis lungs. Talking, laughing, or snoring, they make the beams of the\nhouse shake.\"\n\nAs Mr. Jarndyce sat enjoying the image of his friend Boythorn, we\nobserved the favourable omen that there was not the least indication\nof any change in the wind.\n\n\"But it's the inside of the man, the warm heart of the man, the\npassion of the man, the fresh blood of the man, Rick--and Ada, and\nlittle Cobweb too, for you are all interested in a visitor--that I\nspeak of,\" he pursued. \"His language is as sounding as his voice. He\nis always in extremes, perpetually in the superlative degree. In his\ncondemnation he is all ferocity. You might suppose him to be an ogre\nfrom what he says, and I believe he has the reputation of one with\nsome people. There! I tell you no more of him beforehand. You must\nnot be surprised to see him take me under his protection, for he has\nnever forgotten that I was a low boy at school and that our\nfriendship began in his knocking two of my head tyrant's teeth out\n(he says six) before breakfast. Boythorn and his man,\" to me, \"will\nbe here this afternoon, my dear.\"\n\nI took care that the necessary preparations were made for Mr.\nBoythorn's reception, and we looked forward to his arrival with some\ncuriosity. The afternoon wore away, however, and he did not appear.\nThe dinner-hour arrived, and still he did not appear. The dinner was\nput back an hour, and we were sitting round the fire with no light\nbut the blaze when the hall-door suddenly burst open and the hall\nresounded with these words, uttered with the greatest vehemence and\nin a stentorian tone: \"We have been misdirected, Jarndyce, by a most\nabandoned ruffian, who told us to take the turning to the right\ninstead of to the left. He is the most intolerable scoundrel on the\nface of the earth. His father must have been a most consummate\nvillain, ever to have such a son. I would have had that fellow shot\nwithout the least remorse!\"\n\n\"Did he do it on purpose?\" Mr. Jarndyce inquired.\n\n\"I have not the slightest doubt that the scoundrel has passed his\nwhole existence in misdirecting travellers!\" returned the other. \"By\nmy soul, I thought him the worst-looking dog I had ever beheld when\nhe was telling me to take the turning to the right. And yet I stood\nbefore that fellow face to face and didn't knock his brains out!\"\n\n\"Teeth, you mean?\" said Mr. Jarndyce.\n\n\"Ha, ha, ha!\" laughed Mr. Lawrence Boythorn, really making the whole\nhouse vibrate. \"What, you have not forgotten it yet! Ha, ha, ha! And\nthat was another most consummate vagabond! By my soul, the\ncountenance of that fellow when he was a boy was the blackest image\nof perfidy, cowardice, and cruelty ever set up as a scarecrow in a\nfield of scoundrels. If I were to meet that most unparalleled despot\nin the streets to-morrow, I would fell him like a rotten tree!\"\n\n\"I have no doubt of it,\" said Mr. Jarndyce. \"Now, will you come\nupstairs?\"\n\n\"By my soul, Jarndyce,\" returned his guest, who seemed to refer to\nhis watch, \"if you had been married, I would have turned back at the\ngarden-gate and gone away to the remotest summits of the Himalaya\nMountains sooner than I would have presented myself at this\nunseasonable hour.\"\n\n\"Not quite so far, I hope?\" said Mr. Jarndyce.\n\n\"By my life and honour, yes!\" cried the visitor. \"I wouldn't be\nguilty of the audacious insolence of keeping a lady of the house\nwaiting all this time for any earthly consideration. I would\ninfinitely rather destroy myself--infinitely rather!\"\n\nTalking thus, they went upstairs, and presently we heard him in his\nbedroom thundering \"Ha, ha, ha!\" and again \"Ha, ha, ha!\" until the\nflattest echo in the neighbourhood seemed to catch the contagion and\nto laugh as enjoyingly as he did or as we did when we heard him\nlaugh.\n\nWe all conceived a prepossession in his favour, for there was a\nsterling quality in this laugh, and in his vigorous, healthy voice,\nand in the roundness and fullness with which he uttered every word he\nspoke, and in the very fury of his superlatives, which seemed to go\noff like blank cannons and hurt nothing. But we were hardly prepared\nto have it so confirmed by his appearance when Mr. Jarndyce presented\nhim. He was not only a very handsome old gentleman--upright and\nstalwart as he had been described to us--with a massive grey head, a\nfine composure of face when silent, a figure that might have become\ncorpulent but for his being so continually in earnest that he gave it\nno rest, and a chin that might have subsided into a double chin but\nfor the vehement emphasis in which it was constantly required to\nassist; but he was such a true gentleman in his manner, so\nchivalrously polite, his face was lighted by a smile of so much\nsweetness and tenderness, and it seemed so plain that he had nothing\nto hide, but showed himself exactly as he was--incapable, as Richard\nsaid, of anything on a limited scale, and firing away with those\nblank great guns because he carried no small arms whatever--that\nreally I could not help looking at him with equal pleasure as he sat\nat dinner, whether he smilingly conversed with Ada and me, or was led\nby Mr. Jarndyce into some great volley of superlatives, or threw up\nhis head like a bloodhound and gave out that tremendous \"Ha, ha, ha!\"\n\n\"You have brought your bird with you, I suppose?\" said Mr. Jarndyce.\n\n\"By heaven, he is the most astonishing bird in Europe!\" replied the\nother. \"He IS the most wonderful creature! I wouldn't take ten\nthousand guineas for that bird. I have left an annuity for his sole\nsupport in case he should outlive me. He is, in sense and attachment,\na phenomenon. And his father before him was one of the most\nastonishing birds that ever lived!\"\n\nThe subject of this laudation was a very little canary, who was so\ntame that he was brought down by Mr. Boythorn's man, on his\nforefinger, and after taking a gentle flight round the room, alighted\non his master's head. To hear Mr. Boythorn presently expressing the\nmost implacable and passionate sentiments, with this fragile mite of\na creature quietly perched on his forehead, was to have a good\nillustration of his character, I thought.\n\n\"By my soul, Jarndyce,\" he said, very gently holding up a bit of\nbread to the canary to peck at, \"if I were in your place I would\nseize every master in Chancery by the throat to-morrow morning and\nshake him until his money rolled out of his pockets and his bones\nrattled in his skin. I would have a settlement out of somebody, by\nfair means or by foul. If you would empower me to do it, I would do\nit for you with the greatest satisfaction!\" (All this time the very\nsmall canary was eating out of his hand.)\n\n\"I thank you, Lawrence, but the suit is hardly at such a point at\npresent,\" returned Mr. Jarndyce, laughing, \"that it would be greatly\nadvanced even by the legal process of shaking the bench and the whole\nbar.\"\n\n\"There never was such an infernal cauldron as that Chancery on the\nface of the earth!\" said Mr. Boythorn. \"Nothing but a mine below it\non a busy day in term time, with all its records, rules, and\nprecedents collected in it and every functionary belonging to it\nalso, high and low, upward and downward, from its son the\nAccountant-General to its father the Devil, and the whole blown to\natoms with ten thousand hundredweight of gunpowder, would reform it\nin the least!\"\n\nIt was impossible not to laugh at the energetic gravity with which he\nrecommended this strong measure of reform. When we laughed, he threw\nup his head and shook his broad chest, and again the whole country\nseemed to echo to his \"Ha, ha, ha!\" It had not the least effect in\ndisturbing the bird, whose sense of security was complete and who\nhopped about the table with its quick head now on this side and now\non that, turning its bright sudden eye on its master as if he were no\nmore than another bird.\n\n\"But how do you and your neighbour get on about the disputed right of\nway?\" said Mr. Jarndyce. \"You are not free from the toils of the law\nyourself!\"\n\n\"The fellow has brought actions against ME for trespass, and I have\nbrought actions against HIM for trespass,\" returned Mr. Boythorn. \"By\nheaven, he is the proudest fellow breathing. It is morally impossible\nthat his name can be Sir Leicester. It must be Sir Lucifer.\"\n\n\"Complimentary to our distant relation!\" said my guardian laughingly\nto Ada and Richard.\n\n\"I would beg Miss Clare's pardon and Mr. Carstone's pardon,\" resumed\nour visitor, \"if I were not reassured by seeing in the fair face of\nthe lady and the smile of the gentleman that it is quite unnecessary\nand that they keep their distant relation at a comfortable distance.\"\n\n\"Or he keeps us,\" suggested Richard.\n\n\"By my soul,\" exclaimed Mr. Boythorn, suddenly firing another volley,\n\"that fellow is, and his father was, and his grandfather was, the\nmost stiff-necked, arrogant imbecile, pig-headed numskull, ever, by\nsome inexplicable mistake of Nature, born in any station of life but\na walking-stick's! The whole of that family are the most solemnly\nconceited and consummate blockheads! But it's no matter; he should\nnot shut up my path if he were fifty baronets melted into one and\nliving in a hundred Chesney Wolds, one within another, like the ivory\nballs in a Chinese carving. The fellow, by his agent, or secretary,\nor somebody, writes to me 'Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, presents\nhis compliments to Mr. Lawrence Boythorn, and has to call his\nattention to the fact that the green pathway by the old\nparsonage-house, now the property of Mr. Lawrence Boythorn, is Sir\nLeicester's right of way, being in fact a portion of the park of\nChesney Wold, and that Sir Leicester finds it convenient to close up\nthe same.' I write to the fellow, 'Mr. Lawrence Boythorn presents his\ncompliments to Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and has to call HIS\nattention to the fact that he totally denies the whole of Sir\nLeicester Dedlock's positions on every possible subject and has to\nadd, in reference to closing up the pathway, that he will be glad to\nsee the man who may undertake to do it.' The fellow sends a most\nabandoned villain with one eye to construct a gateway. I play upon\nthat execrable scoundrel with a fire-engine until the breath is\nnearly driven out of his body. The fellow erects a gate in the night.\nI chop it down and burn it in the morning. He sends his myrmidons to\ncome over the fence and pass and repass. I catch them in humane man\ntraps, fire split peas at their legs, play upon them with the\nengine--resolve to free mankind from the insupportable burden of the\nexistence of those lurking ruffians. He brings actions for trespass;\nI bring actions for trespass. He brings actions for assault and\nbattery; I defend them and continue to assault and batter. Ha, ha,\nha!\"\n\nTo hear him say all this with unimaginable energy, one might have\nthought him the angriest of mankind. To see him at the very same\ntime, looking at the bird now perched upon his thumb and softly\nsmoothing its feathers with his forefinger, one might have thought\nhim the gentlest. To hear him laugh and see the broad good nature of\nhis face then, one might have supposed that he had not a care in the\nworld, or a dispute, or a dislike, but that his whole existence was a\nsummer joke.\n\n\"No, no,\" he said, \"no closing up of my paths by any Dedlock! Though\nI willingly confess,\" here he softened in a moment, \"that Lady\nDedlock is the most accomplished lady in the world, to whom I would\ndo any homage that a plain gentleman, and no baronet with a head\nseven hundred years thick, may. A man who joined his regiment at\ntwenty and within a week challenged the most imperious and\npresumptuous coxcomb of a commanding officer that ever drew the\nbreath of life through a tight waist--and got broke for it--is not\nthe man to be walked over by all the Sir Lucifers, dead or alive,\nlocked or unlocked. Ha, ha, ha!\"\n\n\"Nor the man to allow his junior to be walked over either?\" said my\nguardian.\n\n\"Most assuredly not!\" said Mr. Boythorn, clapping him on the shoulder\nwith an air of protection that had something serious in it, though he\nlaughed. \"He will stand by the low boy, always. Jarndyce, you may\nrely upon him! But speaking of this trespass--with apologies to Miss\nClare and Miss Summerson for the length at which I have pursued so\ndry a subject--is there nothing for me from your men Kenge and\nCarboy?\"\n\n\"I think not, Esther?\" said Mr. Jarndyce.\n\n\"Nothing, guardian.\"\n\n\"Much obliged!\" said Mr. Boythorn. \"Had no need to ask, after even my\nslight experience of Miss Summerson's forethought for every one about\nher.\" (They all encouraged me; they were determined to do it.) \"I\ninquired because, coming from Lincolnshire, I of course have not yet\nbeen in town, and I thought some letters might have been sent down\nhere. I dare say they will report progress to-morrow morning.\"\n\nI saw him so often in the course of the evening, which passed very\npleasantly, contemplate Richard and Ada with an interest and a\nsatisfaction that made his fine face remarkably agreeable as he sat\nat a little distance from the piano listening to the music--and he\nhad small occasion to tell us that he was passionately fond of music,\nfor his face showed it--that I asked my guardian as we sat at the\nbackgammon board whether Mr. Boythorn had ever been married.\n\n\"No,\" said he. \"No.\"\n\n\"But he meant to be!\" said I.\n\n\"How did you find out that?\" he returned with a smile. \"Why,\nguardian,\" I explained, not without reddening a little at hazarding\nwhat was in my thoughts, \"there is something so tender in his manner,\nafter all, and he is so very courtly and gentle to us, and--\"\n\nMr. Jarndyce directed his eyes to where he was sitting as I have just\ndescribed him.\n\nI said no more.\n\n\"You are right, little woman,\" he answered. \"He was all but married\nonce. Long ago. And once.\"\n\n\"Did the lady die?\"\n\n\"No--but she died to him. That time has had its influence on all his\nlater life. Would you suppose him to have a head and a heart full of\nromance yet?\"\n\n\"I think, guardian, I might have supposed so. But it is easy to say\nthat when you have told me so.\"\n\n\"He has never since been what he might have been,\" said Mr. Jarndyce,\n\"and now you see him in his age with no one near him but his servant\nand his little yellow friend. It's your throw, my dear!\"\n\nI felt, from my guardian's manner, that beyond this point I could not\npursue the subject without changing the wind. I therefore forbore to\nask any further questions. I was interested, but not curious. I\nthought a little while about this old love story in the night, when I\nwas awakened by Mr. Boythorn's lusty snoring; and I tried to do that\nvery difficult thing, imagine old people young again and invested\nwith the graces of youth. But I fell asleep before I had succeeded,\nand dreamed of the days when I lived in my godmother's house. I am\nnot sufficiently acquainted with such subjects to know whether it is\nat all remarkable that I almost always dreamed of that period of my\nlife.\n\nWith the morning there came a letter from Messrs. Kenge and Carboy to\nMr. Boythorn informing him that one of their clerks would wait upon\nhim at noon. As it was the day of the week on which I paid the bills,\nand added up my books, and made all the household affairs as compact\nas possible, I remained at home while Mr. Jarndyce, Ada, and Richard\ntook advantage of a very fine day to make a little excursion, Mr.\nBoythorn was to wait for Kenge and Carboy's clerk and then was to go\non foot to meet them on their return.\n\nWell! I was full of business, examining tradesmen's books, adding up\ncolumns, paying money, filing receipts, and I dare say making a great\nbustle about it when Mr. Guppy was announced and shown in. I had had\nsome idea that the clerk who was to be sent down might be the young\ngentleman who had met me at the coach-office, and I was glad to see\nhim, because he was associated with my present happiness.\n\nI scarcely knew him again, he was so uncommonly smart. He had an\nentirely new suit of glossy clothes on, a shining hat, lilac-kid\ngloves, a neckerchief of a variety of colours, a large hot-house\nflower in his button-hole, and a thick gold ring on his little\nfinger. Besides which, he quite scented the dining-room with\nbear's-grease and other perfumery. He looked at me with an attention\nthat quite confused me when I begged him to take a seat until the\nservant should return; and as he sat there crossing and uncrossing\nhis legs in a corner, and I asked him if he had had a pleasant ride,\nand hoped that Mr. Kenge was well, I never looked at him, but I found\nhim looking at me in the same scrutinizing and curious way.\n\nWhen the request was brought to him that he would go upstairs to Mr.\nBoythorn's room, I mentioned that he would find lunch prepared for\nhim when he came down, of which Mr. Jarndyce hoped he would partake.\nHe said with some embarrassment, holding the handle of the door,\n\"Shall I have the honour of finding you here, miss?\" I replied yes, I\nshould be there; and he went out with a bow and another look.\n\nI thought him only awkward and shy, for he was evidently much\nembarrassed; and I fancied that the best thing I could do would be to\nwait until I saw that he had everything he wanted and then to leave\nhim to himself. The lunch was soon brought, but it remained for some\ntime on the table. The interview with Mr. Boythorn was a long one,\nand a stormy one too, I should think, for although his room was at\nsome distance I heard his loud voice rising every now and then like a\nhigh wind, and evidently blowing perfect broadsides of denunciation.\n\nAt last Mr. Guppy came back, looking something the worse for the\nconference. \"My eye, miss,\" he said in a low voice, \"he's a Tartar!\"\n\n\"Pray take some refreshment, sir,\" said I.\n\nMr. Guppy sat down at the table and began nervously sharpening the\ncarving-knife on the carving-fork, still looking at me (as I felt\nquite sure without looking at him) in the same unusual manner. The\nsharpening lasted so long that at last I felt a kind of obligation on\nme to raise my eyes in order that I might break the spell under which\nhe seemed to labour, of not being able to leave off.\n\nHe immediately looked at the dish and began to carve.\n\n\"What will you take yourself, miss? You'll take a morsel of\nsomething?\"\n\n\"No, thank you,\" said I.\n\n\"Shan't I give you a piece of anything at all, miss?\" said Mr. Guppy,\nhurriedly drinking off a glass of wine.\n\n\"Nothing, thank you,\" said I. \"I have only waited to see that you\nhave everything you want. Is there anything I can order for you?\"\n\n\"No, I am much obliged to you, miss, I'm sure. I've everything that I\ncan require to make me comfortable--at least I--not comfortable--I'm\nnever that.\" He drank off two more glasses of wine, one after\nanother.\n\nI thought I had better go.\n\n\"I beg your pardon, miss!\" said Mr. Guppy, rising when he saw me\nrise. \"But would you allow me the favour of a minute's private\nconversation?\"\n\nNot knowing what to say, I sat down again.\n\n\"What follows is without prejudice, miss?\" said Mr. Guppy, anxiously\nbringing a chair towards my table.\n\n\"I don't understand what you mean,\" said I, wondering.\n\n\"It's one of our law terms, miss. You won't make any use of it to my\ndetriment at Kenge and Carboy's or elsewhere. If our conversation\nshouldn't lead to anything, I am to be as I was and am not to be\nprejudiced in my situation or worldly prospects. In short, it's in\ntotal confidence.\"\n\n\"I am at a loss, sir,\" said I, \"to imagine what you can have to\ncommunicate in total confidence to me, whom you have never seen but\nonce; but I should be very sorry to do you any injury.\"\n\n\"Thank you, miss. I'm sure of it--that's quite sufficient.\" All this\ntime Mr. Guppy was either planing his forehead with his handkerchief\nor tightly rubbing the palm of his left hand with the palm of his\nright. \"If you would excuse my taking another glass of wine, miss, I\nthink it might assist me in getting on without a continual choke that\ncannot fail to be mutually unpleasant.\"\n\nHe did so, and came back again. I took the opportunity of moving well\nbehind my table.\n\n\"You wouldn't allow me to offer you one, would you miss?\" said Mr.\nGuppy, apparently refreshed.\n\n\"Not any,\" said I.\n\n\"Not half a glass?\" said Mr. Guppy. \"Quarter? No! Then, to proceed.\nMy present salary, Miss Summerson, at Kenge and Carboy's, is two\npound a week. When I first had the happiness of looking upon you, it\nwas one fifteen, and had stood at that figure for a lengthened\nperiod. A rise of five has since taken place, and a further rise of\nfive is guaranteed at the expiration of a term not exceeding twelve\nmonths from the present date. My mother has a little property, which\ntakes the form of a small life annuity, upon which she lives in an\nindependent though unassuming manner in the Old Street Road. She is\neminently calculated for a mother-in-law. She never interferes, is\nall for peace, and her disposition easy. She has her failings--as who\nhas not?--but I never knew her do it when company was present, at\nwhich time you may freely trust her with wines, spirits, or malt\nliquors. My own abode is lodgings at Penton Place, Pentonville. It is\nlowly, but airy, open at the back, and considered one of the\n'ealthiest outlets. Miss Summerson! In the mildest language, I adore\nyou. Would you be so kind as to allow me (as I may say) to file a\ndeclaration--to make an offer!\"\n\nMr. Guppy went down on his knees. I was well behind my table and not\nmuch frightened. I said, \"Get up from that ridiculous position\nimmediately, sir, or you will oblige me to break my implied promise\nand ring the bell!\"\n\n\"Hear me out, miss!\" said Mr. Guppy, folding his hands.\n\n\"I cannot consent to hear another word, sir,\" I returned, \"Unless you\nget up from the carpet directly and go and sit down at the table as\nyou ought to do if you have any sense at all.\"\n\nHe looked piteously, but slowly rose and did so.\n\n\"Yet what a mockery it is, miss,\" he said with his hand upon his\nheart and shaking his head at me in a melancholy manner over the\ntray, \"to be stationed behind food at such a moment. The soul recoils\nfrom food at such a moment, miss.\"\n\n\"I beg you to conclude,\" said I; \"you have asked me to hear you out,\nand I beg you to conclude.\"\n\n\"I will, miss,\" said Mr. Guppy. \"As I love and honour, so likewise I\nobey. Would that I could make thee the subject of that vow before the\nshrine!\"\n\n\"That is quite impossible,\" said I, \"and entirely out of the\nquestion.\"\n\n\"I am aware,\" said Mr. Guppy, leaning forward over the tray and\nregarding me, as I again strangely felt, though my eyes were not\ndirected to him, with his late intent look, \"I am aware that in a\nworldly point of view, according to all appearances, my offer is a\npoor one. But, Miss Summerson! Angel! No, don't ring--I have been\nbrought up in a sharp school and am accustomed to a variety of\ngeneral practice. Though a young man, I have ferreted out evidence,\ngot up cases, and seen lots of life. Blest with your hand, what means\nmight I not find of advancing your interests and pushing your\nfortunes! What might I not get to know, nearly concerning you? I know\nnothing now, certainly; but what MIGHT I not if I had your\nconfidence, and you set me on?\"\n\nI told him that he addressed my interest or what he supposed to be my\ninterest quite as unsuccessfully as he addressed my inclination, and\nhe would now understand that I requested him, if he pleased, to go\naway immediately.\n\n\"Cruel miss,\" said Mr. Guppy, \"hear but another word! I think you\nmust have seen that I was struck with those charms on the day when I\nwaited at the Whytorseller. I think you must have remarked that I\ncould not forbear a tribute to those charms when I put up the steps\nof the 'ackney-coach. It was a feeble tribute to thee, but it was\nwell meant. Thy image has ever since been fixed in my breast. I have\nwalked up and down of an evening opposite Jellyby's house only to\nlook upon the bricks that once contained thee. This out of to-day,\nquite an unnecessary out so far as the attendance, which was its\npretended object, went, was planned by me alone for thee alone. If I\nspeak of interest, it is only to recommend myself and my respectful\nwretchedness. Love was before it, and is before it.\"\n\n\"I should be pained, Mr. Guppy,\" said I, rising and putting my hand\nupon the bell-rope, \"to do you or any one who was sincere the\ninjustice of slighting any honest feeling, however disagreeably\nexpressed. If you have really meant to give me a proof of your good\nopinion, though ill-timed and misplaced, I feel that I ought to thank\nyou. I have very little reason to be proud, and I am not proud. I\nhope,\" I think I added, without very well knowing what I said, \"that\nyou will now go away as if you had never been so exceedingly foolish\nand attend to Messrs. Kenge and Carboy's business.\"\n\n\"Half a minute, miss!\" cried Mr. Guppy, checking me as I was about to\nring. \"This has been without prejudice?\"\n\n\"I will never mention it,\" said I, \"unless you should give me future\noccasion to do so.\"\n\n\"A quarter of a minute, miss! In case you should think better at any\ntime, however distant--THAT'S no consequence, for my feelings can\nnever alter--of anything I have said, particularly what might I not\ndo, Mr. William Guppy, eighty-seven, Penton Place, or if removed, or\ndead (of blighted hopes or anything of that sort), care of Mrs.\nGuppy, three hundred and two, Old Street Road, will be sufficient.\"\n\nI rang the bell, the servant came, and Mr. Guppy, laying his written\ncard upon the table and making a dejected bow, departed. Raising my\neyes as he went out, I once more saw him looking at me after he had\npassed the door.\n\nI sat there for another hour or more, finishing my books and payments\nand getting through plenty of business. Then I arranged my desk, and\nput everything away, and was so composed and cheerful that I thought\nI had quite dismissed this unexpected incident. But, when I went\nupstairs to my own room, I surprised myself by beginning to laugh\nabout it and then surprised myself still more by beginning to cry\nabout it. In short, I was in a flutter for a little while and felt as\nif an old chord had been more coarsely touched than it ever had been\nsince the days of the dear old doll, long buried in the garden.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nThe Law-Writer\n\n\nOn the eastern borders of Chancery Lane, that is to say, more\nparticularly in Cook's Court, Cursitor Street, Mr. Snagsby,\nlaw-stationer, pursues his lawful calling. In the shade of Cook's\nCourt, at most times a shady place, Mr. Snagsby has dealt in\nall sorts of blank forms of legal process; in skins and rolls\nof parchment; in paper--foolscap, brief, draft, brown, white,\nwhitey-brown, and blotting; in stamps; in office-quills, pens,\nink, India-rubber, pounce, pins, pencils, sealing-wax, and\nwafers; in red tape and green ferret; in pocket-books, almanacs,\ndiaries, and law lists; in string boxes, rulers, inkstands--glass\nand leaden--pen-knives, scissors, bodkins, and other small\noffice-cutlery; in short, in articles too numerous to mention, ever\nsince he was out of his time and went into partnership with Peffer.\nOn that occasion, Cook's Court was in a manner revolutionized by the\nnew inscription in fresh paint, PEFFER AND SNAGSBY, displacing the\ntime-honoured and not easily to be deciphered legend PEFFER only. For\nsmoke, which is the London ivy, had so wreathed itself round Peffer's\nname and clung to his dwelling-place that the affectionate parasite\nquite overpowered the parent tree.\n\nPeffer is never seen in Cook's Court now. He is not expected there,\nfor he has been recumbent this quarter of a century in the churchyard\nof St. Andrews, Holborn, with the waggons and hackney-coaches roaring\npast him all the day and half the night like one great dragon. If he\never steal forth when the dragon is at rest to air himself again in\nCook's Court until admonished to return by the crowing of the\nsanguine cock in the cellar at the little dairy in Cursitor Street,\nwhose ideas of daylight it would be curious to ascertain, since he\nknows from his personal observation next to nothing about it--if\nPeffer ever do revisit the pale glimpses of Cook's Court, which no\nlaw-stationer in the trade can positively deny, he comes invisibly,\nand no one is the worse or wiser.\n\nIn his lifetime, and likewise in the period of Snagsby's \"time\"\nof seven long years, there dwelt with Peffer in the same\nlaw-stationering premises a niece--a short, shrewd niece, something\ntoo violently compressed about the waist, and with a sharp nose like\na sharp autumn evening, inclining to be frosty towards the end. The\nCook's Courtiers had a rumour flying among them that the mother of\nthis niece did, in her daughter's childhood, moved by too jealous a\nsolicitude that her figure should approach perfection, lace her\nup every morning with her maternal foot against the bed-post for\na stronger hold and purchase; and further, that she exhibited\ninternally pints of vinegar and lemon-juice, which acids, they held,\nhad mounted to the nose and temper of the patient. With whichsoever\nof the many tongues of Rumour this frothy report originated, it\neither never reached or never influenced the ears of young Snagsby,\nwho, having wooed and won its fair subject on his arrival at man's\nestate, entered into two partnerships at once. So now, in Cook's\nCourt, Cursitor Street, Mr. Snagsby and the niece are one; and the\nniece still cherishes her figure, which, however tastes may differ,\nis unquestionably so far precious that there is mighty little of it.\n\nMr. and Mrs. Snagsby are not only one bone and one flesh, but, to the\nneighbours' thinking, one voice too. That voice, appearing to proceed\nfrom Mrs. Snagsby alone, is heard in Cook's Court very often. Mr.\nSnagsby, otherwise than as he finds expression through these dulcet\ntones, is rarely heard. He is a mild, bald, timid man with a shining\nhead and a scrubby clump of black hair sticking out at the back. He\ntends to meekness and obesity. As he stands at his door in Cook's\nCourt in his grey shop-coat and black calico sleeves, looking up at\nthe clouds, or stands behind a desk in his dark shop with a heavy\nflat ruler, snipping and slicing at sheepskin in company with his two\n'prentices, he is emphatically a retiring and unassuming man. From\nbeneath his feet, at such times, as from a shrill ghost unquiet in\nits grave, there frequently arise complainings and lamentations in\nthe voice already mentioned; and haply, on some occasions when these\nreach a sharper pitch than usual, Mr. Snagsby mentions to the\n'prentices, \"I think my little woman is a-giving it to Guster!\"\n\nThis proper name, so used by Mr. Snagsby, has before now sharpened\nthe wit of the Cook's Courtiers to remark that it ought to be the\nname of Mrs. Snagsby, seeing that she might with great force and\nexpression be termed a Guster, in compliment to her stormy character.\nIt is, however, the possession, and the only possession except fifty\nshillings per annum and a very small box indifferently filled with\nclothing, of a lean young woman from a workhouse (by some supposed to\nhave been christened Augusta) who, although she was farmed or\ncontracted for during her growing time by an amiable benefactor of\nhis species resident at Tooting, and cannot fail to have been\ndeveloped under the most favourable circumstances, \"has fits,\" which\nthe parish can't account for.\n\nGuster, really aged three or four and twenty, but looking a round ten\nyears older, goes cheap with this unaccountable drawback of fits, and\nis so apprehensive of being returned on the hands of her patron saint\nthat except when she is found with her head in the pail, or the sink,\nor the copper, or the dinner, or anything else that happens to be\nnear her at the time of her seizure, she is always at work. She is a\nsatisfaction to the parents and guardians of the 'prentices, who feel\nthat there is little danger of her inspiring tender emotions in the\nbreast of youth; she is a satisfaction to Mrs. Snagsby, who can\nalways find fault with her; she is a satisfaction to Mr. Snagsby, who\nthinks it a charity to keep her. The law-stationer's establishment\nis, in Guster's eyes, a temple of plenty and splendour. She believes\nthe little drawing-room upstairs, always kept, as one may say, with\nits hair in papers and its pinafore on, to be the most elegant\napartment in Christendom. The view it commands of Cook's Court at one\nend (not to mention a squint into Cursitor Street) and of Coavinses'\nthe sheriff's officer's backyard at the other she regards as a\nprospect of unequalled beauty. The portraits it displays in oil--and\nplenty of it too--of Mr. Snagsby looking at Mrs. Snagsby and of Mrs.\nSnagsby looking at Mr. Snagsby are in her eyes as achievements of\nRaphael or Titian. Guster has some recompenses for her many\nprivations.\n\nMr. Snagsby refers everything not in the practical mysteries of the\nbusiness to Mrs. Snagsby. She manages the money, reproaches the\ntax-gatherers, appoints the times and places of devotion on Sundays,\nlicenses Mr. Snagsby's entertainments, and acknowledges no\nresponsibility as to what she thinks fit to provide for dinner,\ninsomuch that she is the high standard of comparison among the\nneighbouring wives a long way down Chancery Lane on both sides, and\neven out in Holborn, who in any domestic passages of arms habitually\ncall upon their husbands to look at the difference between their (the\nwives') position and Mrs. Snagsby's, and their (the husbands')\nbehaviour and Mr. Snagsby's. Rumour, always flying bat-like about\nCook's Court and skimming in and out at everybody's windows, does say\nthat Mrs. Snagsby is jealous and inquisitive and that Mr. Snagsby is\nsometimes worried out of house and home, and that if he had the\nspirit of a mouse he wouldn't stand it. It is even observed that the\nwives who quote him to their self-willed husbands as a shining\nexample in reality look down upon him and that nobody does so with\ngreater superciliousness than one particular lady whose lord is more\nthan suspected of laying his umbrella on her as an instrument of\ncorrection. But these vague whisperings may arise from Mr. Snagsby's\nbeing in his way rather a meditative and poetical man, loving to walk\nin Staple Inn in the summer-time and to observe how countrified the\nsparrows and the leaves are, also to lounge about the Rolls Yard of a\nSunday afternoon and to remark (if in good spirits) that there were\nold times once and that you'd find a stone coffin or two now under\nthat chapel, he'll be bound, if you was to dig for it. He solaces his\nimagination, too, by thinking of the many Chancellors and Vices, and\nMasters of the Rolls who are deceased; and he gets such a flavour of\nthe country out of telling the two 'prentices how he HAS heard say\nthat a brook \"as clear as crystal\" once ran right down the middle of\nHolborn, when Turnstile really was a turnstile, leading slap away\ninto the meadows--gets such a flavour of the country out of this that\nhe never wants to go there.\n\nThe day is closing in and the gas is lighted, but is not yet fully\neffective, for it is not quite dark. Mr. Snagsby standing at his\nshop-door looking up at the clouds sees a crow who is out late skim\nwestward over the slice of sky belonging to Cook's Court. The crow\nflies straight across Chancery Lane and Lincoln's Inn Garden into\nLincoln's Inn Fields.\n\nHere, in a large house, formerly a house of state, lives Mr.\nTulkinghorn. It is let off in sets of chambers now, and in those\nshrunken fragments of its greatness, lawyers lie like maggots in\nnuts. But its roomy staircases, passages, and antechambers still\nremain; and even its painted ceilings, where Allegory, in Roman\nhelmet and celestial linen, sprawls among balustrades and pillars,\nflowers, clouds, and big-legged boys, and makes the head ache--as\nwould seem to be Allegory's object always, more or less. Here, among\nhis many boxes labelled with transcendent names, lives Mr.\nTulkinghorn, when not speechlessly at home in country-houses where\nthe great ones of the earth are bored to death. Here he is to-day,\nquiet at his table. An oyster of the old school whom nobody can open.\n\nLike as he is to look at, so is his apartment in the dusk of\nthe present afternoon. Rusty, out of date, withdrawing from\nattention, able to afford it. Heavy, broad-backed, old-fashioned,\nmahogany-and-horsehair chairs, not easily lifted; obsolete tables\nwith spindle-legs and dusty baize covers; presentation prints of the\nholders of great titles in the last generation or the last but one,\nenviron him. A thick and dingy Turkey-carpet muffles the floor where\nhe sits, attended by two candles in old-fashioned silver candlesticks\nthat give a very insufficient light to his large room. The titles on\nthe backs of his books have retired into the binding; everything that\ncan have a lock has got one; no key is visible. Very few loose papers\nare about. He has some manuscript near him, but is not referring\nto it. With the round top of an inkstand and two broken bits of\nsealing-wax he is silently and slowly working out whatever train of\nindecision is in his mind. Now the inkstand top is in the middle, now\nthe red bit of sealing-wax, now the black bit. That's not it. Mr.\nTulkinghorn must gather them all up and begin again.\n\nHere, beneath the painted ceiling, with foreshortened Allegory\nstaring down at his intrusion as if it meant to swoop upon him, and\nhe cutting it dead, Mr. Tulkinghorn has at once his house and office.\nHe keeps no staff, only one middle-aged man, usually a little out at\nelbows, who sits in a high pew in the hall and is rarely overburdened\nwith business. Mr. Tulkinghorn is not in a common way. He wants no\nclerks. He is a great reservoir of confidences, not to be so tapped.\nHis clients want HIM; he is all in all. Drafts that he requires to be\ndrawn are drawn by special-pleaders in the temple on mysterious\ninstructions; fair copies that he requires to be made are made at the\nstationers', expense being no consideration. The middle-aged man in\nthe pew knows scarcely more of the affairs of the peerage than any\ncrossing-sweeper in Holborn.\n\nThe red bit, the black bit, the inkstand top, the other inkstand top,\nthe little sand-box. So! You to the middle, you to the right, you to\nthe left. This train of indecision must surely be worked out now or\nnever. Now! Mr. Tulkinghorn gets up, adjusts his spectacles, puts on\nhis hat, puts the manuscript in his pocket, goes out, tells the\nmiddle-aged man out at elbows, \"I shall be back presently.\" Very\nrarely tells him anything more explicit.\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn goes, as the crow came--not quite so straight, but\nnearly--to Cook's Court, Cursitor Street. To Snagsby's,\nLaw-Stationer's, Deeds engrossed and copied, Law-Writing executed in\nall its branches, &c., &c., &c.\n\nIt is somewhere about five or six o'clock in the afternoon, and a\nbalmy fragrance of warm tea hovers in Cook's Court. It hovers about\nSnagsby's door. The hours are early there: dinner at half-past one\nand supper at half-past nine. Mr. Snagsby was about to descend into\nthe subterranean regions to take tea when he looked out of his door\njust now and saw the crow who was out late.\n\n\"Master at home?\"\n\nGuster is minding the shop, for the 'prentices take tea in the\nkitchen with Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby; consequently, the robe-maker's two\ndaughters, combing their curls at the two glasses in the two\nsecond-floor windows of the opposite house, are not driving the two\n'prentices to distraction as they fondly suppose, but are merely\nawakening the unprofitable admiration of Guster, whose hair won't\ngrow, and never would, and it is confidently thought, never will.\n\n\"Master at home?\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn.\n\nMaster is at home, and Guster will fetch him. Guster disappears, glad\nto get out of the shop, which she regards with mingled dread and\nveneration as a storehouse of awful implements of the great torture\nof the law--a place not to be entered after the gas is turned off.\n\nMr. Snagsby appears, greasy, warm, herbaceous, and chewing. Bolts a\nbit of bread and butter. Says, \"Bless my soul, sir! Mr. Tulkinghorn!\"\n\n\"I want half a word with you, Snagsby.\"\n\n\"Certainly, sir! Dear me, sir, why didn't you send your young man\nround for me? Pray walk into the back shop, sir.\" Snagsby has\nbrightened in a moment.\n\nThe confined room, strong of parchment-grease, is warehouse,\ncounting-house, and copying-office. Mr. Tulkinghorn sits, facing\nround, on a stool at the desk.\n\n\"Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Snagsby.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\" Mr. Snagsby turns up the gas and coughs behind his hand,\nmodestly anticipating profit. Mr. Snagsby, as a timid man, is\naccustomed to cough with a variety of expressions, and so to save\nwords.\n\n\"You copied some affidavits in that cause for me lately.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, we did.\"\n\n\"There was one of them,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, carelessly\nfeeling--tight, unopenable oyster of the old school!--in the wrong\ncoat-pocket, \"the handwriting of which is peculiar, and I rather\nlike. As I happened to be passing, and thought I had it about me, I\nlooked in to ask you--but I haven't got it. No matter, any other time\nwill do. Ah! here it is! I looked in to ask you who copied this.\"\n\n\"Who copied this, sir?\" says Mr. Snagsby, taking it, laying it flat\non the desk, and separating all the sheets at once with a twirl and a\ntwist of the left hand peculiar to lawstationers. \"We gave this out,\nsir. We were giving out rather a large quantity of work just at that\ntime. I can tell you in a moment who copied it, sir, by referring to\nmy book.\"\n\nMr. Snagsby takes his book down from the safe, makes another bolt of\nthe bit of bread and butter which seemed to have stopped short, eyes\nthe affidavit aside, and brings his right forefinger travelling down\na page of the book, \"Jewby--Packer--Jarndyce.\"\n\n\"Jarndyce! Here we are, sir,\" says Mr. Snagsby. \"To be sure! I might\nhave remembered it. This was given out, sir, to a writer who lodges\njust over on the opposite side of the lane.\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn has seen the entry, found it before the\nlaw-stationer, read it while the forefinger was coming down the hill.\n\n\"WHAT do you call him? Nemo?\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. \"Nemo, sir. Here\nit is. Forty-two folio. Given out on the Wednesday night at eight\no'clock, brought in on the Thursday morning at half after nine.\"\n\n\"Nemo!\" repeats Mr. Tulkinghorn. \"Nemo is Latin for no one.\"\n\n\"It must be English for some one, sir, I think,\" Mr. Snagsby submits\nwith his deferential cough. \"It is a person's name. Here it is, you\nsee, sir! Forty-two folio. Given out Wednesday night, eight o'clock;\nbrought in Thursday morning, half after nine.\"\n\nThe tail of Mr. Snagsby's eye becomes conscious of the head of Mrs.\nSnagsby looking in at the shop-door to know what he means by\ndeserting his tea. Mr. Snagsby addresses an explanatory cough to Mrs.\nSnagsby, as who should say, \"My dear, a customer!\"\n\n\"Half after nine, sir,\" repeats Mr. Snagsby. \"Our law-writers, who\nlive by job-work, are a queer lot; and this may not be his name, but\nit's the name he goes by. I remember now, sir, that he gives it in a\nwritten advertisement he sticks up down at the Rule Office, and the\nKing's Bench Office, and the Judges' Chambers, and so forth. You know\nthe kind of document, sir--wanting employ?\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn glances through the little window at the back of\nCoavinses', the sheriff's officer's, where lights shine in Coavinses'\nwindows. Coavinses' coffee-room is at the back, and the shadows of\nseveral gentlemen under a cloud loom cloudily upon the blinds. Mr.\nSnagsby takes the opportunity of slightly turning his head to glance\nover his shoulder at his little woman and to make apologetic motions\nwith his mouth to this effect: \"Tul-king-horn--rich--in-flu-en-tial!\"\n\n\"Have you given this man work before?\" asks Mr. Tulkinghorn.\n\n\"Oh, dear, yes, sir! Work of yours.\"\n\n\"Thinking of more important matters, I forget where you said he\nlived?\"\n\n\"Across the lane, sir. In fact, he lodges at a--\" Mr. Snagsby makes\nanother bolt, as if the bit of bread and butter were insurmountable\n\"--at a rag and bottle shop.\"\n\n\"Can you show me the place as I go back?\"\n\n\"With the greatest pleasure, sir!\"\n\nMr. Snagsby pulls off his sleeves and his grey coat, pulls on his\nblack coat, takes his hat from its peg. \"Oh! Here is my little\nwoman!\" he says aloud. \"My dear, will you be so kind as to tell one\nof the lads to look after the shop while I step across the lane with\nMr. Tulkinghorn? Mrs. Snagsby, sir--I shan't be two minutes, my\nlove!\"\n\nMrs. Snagsby bends to the lawyer, retires behind the counter, peeps\nat them through the window-blind, goes softly into the back office,\nrefers to the entries in the book still lying open. Is evidently\ncurious.\n\n\"You will find that the place is rough, sir,\" says Mr. Snagsby,\nwalking deferentially in the road and leaving the narrow pavement to\nthe lawyer; \"and the party is very rough. But they're a wild lot in\ngeneral, sir. The advantage of this particular man is that he never\nwants sleep. He'll go at it right on end if you want him to, as long\nas ever you like.\"\n\nIt is quite dark now, and the gas-lamps have acquired their full\neffect. Jostling against clerks going to post the day's letters, and\nagainst counsel and attorneys going home to dinner, and against\nplaintiffs and defendants and suitors of all sorts, and against the\ngeneral crowd, in whose way the forensic wisdom of ages has\ninterposed a million of obstacles to the transaction of the commonest\nbusiness of life; diving through law and equity, and through that\nkindred mystery, the street mud, which is made of nobody knows what\nand collects about us nobody knows whence or how--we only knowing in\ngeneral that when there is too much of it we find it necessary to\nshovel it away--the lawyer and the law-stationer come to a rag and\nbottle shop and general emporium of much disregarded merchandise,\nlying and being in the shadow of the wall of Lincoln's Inn, and kept,\nas is announced in paint, to all whom it may concern, by one Krook.\n\n\"This is where he lives, sir,\" says the law-stationer.\n\n\"This is where he lives, is it?\" says the lawyer unconcernedly.\n\"Thank you.\"\n\n\"Are you not going in, sir?\"\n\n\"No, thank you, no; I am going on to the Fields at present. Good\nevening. Thank you!\" Mr. Snagsby lifts his hat and returns to his\nlittle woman and his tea.\n\nBut Mr. Tulkinghorn does not go on to the Fields at present. He goes\na short way, turns back, comes again to the shop of Mr. Krook, and\nenters it straight. It is dim enough, with a blot-headed candle or so\nin the windows, and an old man and a cat sitting in the back part by\na fire. The old man rises and comes forward, with another blot-headed\ncandle in his hand.\n\n\"Pray is your lodger within?\"\n\n\"Male or female, sir?\" says Mr. Krook.\n\n\"Male. The person who does copying.\"\n\nMr. Krook has eyed his man narrowly. Knows him by sight. Has an\nindistinct impression of his aristocratic repute.\n\n\"Did you wish to see him, sir?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"It's what I seldom do myself,\" says Mr. Krook with a grin. \"Shall I\ncall him down? But it's a weak chance if he'd come, sir!\"\n\n\"I'll go up to him, then,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn.\n\n\"Second floor, sir. Take the candle. Up there!\" Mr. Krook, with his\ncat beside him, stands at the bottom of the staircase, looking after\nMr. Tulkinghorn. \"Hi-hi!\" he says when Mr. Tulkinghorn has nearly\ndisappeared. The lawyer looks down over the hand-rail. The cat\nexpands her wicked mouth and snarls at him.\n\n\"Order, Lady Jane! Behave yourself to visitors, my lady! You know\nwhat they say of my lodger?\" whispers Krook, going up a step or two.\n\n\"What do they say of him?\"\n\n\"They say he has sold himself to the enemy, but you and I know\nbetter--he don't buy. I'll tell you what, though; my lodger is so\nblack-humoured and gloomy that I believe he'd as soon make that\nbargain as any other. Don't put him out, sir. That's my advice!\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn with a nod goes on his way. He comes to the dark door\non the second floor. He knocks, receives no answer, opens it, and\naccidentally extinguishes his candle in doing so.\n\nThe air of the room is almost bad enough to have extinguished it if\nhe had not. It is a small room, nearly black with soot, and grease,\nand dirt. In the rusty skeleton of a grate, pinched at the middle as\nif poverty had gripped it, a red coke fire burns low. In the corner\nby the chimney stand a deal table and a broken desk, a wilderness\nmarked with a rain of ink. In another corner a ragged old portmanteau\non one of the two chairs serves for cabinet or wardrobe; no larger\none is needed, for it collapses like the cheeks of a starved man. The\nfloor is bare, except that one old mat, trodden to shreds of\nrope-yarn, lies perishing upon the hearth. No curtain veils the\ndarkness of the night, but the discoloured shutters are drawn\ntogether, and through the two gaunt holes pierced in them, famine\nmight be staring in--the banshee of the man upon the bed.\n\nFor, on a low bed opposite the fire, a confusion of dirty patchwork,\nlean-ribbed ticking, and coarse sacking, the lawyer, hesitating just\nwithin the doorway, sees a man. He lies there, dressed in shirt and\ntrousers, with bare feet. He has a yellow look in the spectral\ndarkness of a candle that has guttered down until the whole length of\nits wick (still burning) has doubled over and left a tower of\nwinding-sheet above it. His hair is ragged, mingling with his\nwhiskers and his beard--the latter, ragged too, and grown, like the\nscum and mist around him, in neglect. Foul and filthy as the room is,\nfoul and filthy as the air is, it is not easy to perceive what fumes\nthose are which most oppress the senses in it; but through the\ngeneral sickliness and faintness, and the odour of stale tobacco,\nthere comes into the lawyer's mouth the bitter, vapid taste of opium.\n\n\"Hallo, my friend!\" he cries, and strikes his iron candlestick\nagainst the door.\n\nHe thinks he has awakened his friend. He lies a little turned away,\nbut his eyes are surely open.\n\n\"Hallo, my friend!\" he cries again. \"Hallo! Hallo!\"\n\nAs he rattles on the door, the candle which has drooped so long goes\nout and leaves him in the dark, with the gaunt eyes in the shutters\nstaring down upon the bed.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nOur Dear Brother\n\n\nA touch on the lawyer's wrinkled hand as he stands in the dark room,\nirresolute, makes him start and say, \"What's that?\"\n\n\"It's me,\" returns the old man of the house, whose breath is in his\near. \"Can't you wake him?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"What have you done with your candle?\"\n\n\"It's gone out. Here it is.\"\n\nKrook takes it, goes to the fire, stoops over the red embers, and\ntries to get a light. The dying ashes have no light to spare, and his\nendeavours are vain. Muttering, after an ineffectual call to his\nlodger, that he will go downstairs and bring a lighted candle from\nthe shop, the old man departs. Mr. Tulkinghorn, for some new reason\nthat he has, does not await his return in the room, but on the stairs\noutside.\n\nThe welcome light soon shines upon the wall, as Krook comes slowly up\nwith his green-eyed cat following at his heels. \"Does the man\ngenerally sleep like this?\" inquired the lawyer in a low voice. \"Hi!\nI don't know,\" says Krook, shaking his head and lifting his eyebrows.\n\"I know next to nothing of his habits except that he keeps himself\nvery close.\"\n\nThus whispering, they both go in together. As the light goes in, the\ngreat eyes in the shutters, darkening, seem to close. Not so the eyes\nupon the bed.\n\n\"God save us!\" exclaims Mr. Tulkinghorn. \"He is dead!\" Krook drops\nthe heavy hand he has taken up so suddenly that the arm swings over\nthe bedside.\n\nThey look at one another for a moment.\n\n\"Send for some doctor! Call for Miss Flite up the stairs, sir. Here's\npoison by the bed! Call out for Flite, will you?\" says Krook, with\nhis lean hands spread out above the body like a vampire's wings.\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn hurries to the landing and calls, \"Miss Flite! Flite!\nMake haste, here, whoever you are! Flite!\" Krook follows him with his\neyes, and while he is calling, finds opportunity to steal to the old\nportmanteau and steal back again.\n\n\"Run, Flite, run! The nearest doctor! Run!\" So Mr. Krook addresses a\ncrazy little woman who is his female lodger, who appears and vanishes\nin a breath, who soon returns accompanied by a testy medical man\nbrought from his dinner, with a broad, snuffy upper lip and a broad\nScotch tongue.\n\n\"Ey! Bless the hearts o' ye,\" says the medical man, looking up at\nthem after a moment's examination. \"He's just as dead as Phairy!\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn (standing by the old portmanteau) inquires if he has\nbeen dead any time.\n\n\"Any time, sir?\" says the medical gentleman. \"It's probable he wull\nhave been dead aboot three hours.\"\n\n\"About that time, I should say,\" observes a dark young man on the\nother side of the bed.\n\n\"Air you in the maydickle prayfession yourself, sir?\" inquires the\nfirst.\n\nThe dark young man says yes.\n\n\"Then I'll just tak' my depairture,\" replies the other, \"for I'm nae\ngude here!\" With which remark he finishes his brief attendance and\nreturns to finish his dinner.\n\nThe dark young surgeon passes the candle across and across the face\nand carefully examines the law-writer, who has established his\npretensions to his name by becoming indeed No one.\n\n\"I knew this person by sight very well,\" says he. \"He has purchased\nopium of me for the last year and a half. Was anybody present related\nto him?\" glancing round upon the three bystanders.\n\n\"I was his landlord,\" grimly answers Krook, taking the candle from\nthe surgeon's outstretched hand. \"He told me once I was the nearest\nrelation he had.\"\n\n\"He has died,\" says the surgeon, \"of an over-dose of opium, there is\nno doubt. The room is strongly flavoured with it. There is enough\nhere now,\" taking an old tea-pot from Mr. Krook, \"to kill a dozen\npeople.\"\n\n\"Do you think he did it on purpose?\" asks Krook.\n\n\"Took the over-dose?\"\n\n\"Yes!\" Krook almost smacks his lips with the unction of a horrible\ninterest.\n\n\"I can't say. I should think it unlikely, as he has been in the habit\nof taking so much. But nobody can tell. He was very poor, I suppose?\"\n\n\"I suppose he was. His room--don't look rich,\" says Krook, who might\nhave changed eyes with his cat, as he casts his sharp glance around.\n\"But I have never been in it since he had it, and he was too close to\nname his circumstances to me.\"\n\n\"Did he owe you any rent?\"\n\n\"Six weeks.\"\n\n\"He will never pay it!\" says the young man, resuming his examination.\n\"It is beyond a doubt that he is indeed as dead as Pharaoh; and to\njudge from his appearance and condition, I should think it a happy\nrelease. Yet he must have been a good figure when a youth, and I dare\nsay, good-looking.\" He says this, not unfeelingly, while sitting on\nthe bedstead's edge with his face towards that other face and his\nhand upon the region of the heart. \"I recollect once thinking there\nwas something in his manner, uncouth as it was, that denoted a fall\nin life. Was that so?\" he continues, looking round.\n\nKrook replies, \"You might as well ask me to describe the ladies whose\nheads of hair I have got in sacks downstairs. Than that he was my\nlodger for a year and a half and lived--or didn't live--by\nlaw-writing, I know no more of him.\"\n\nDuring this dialogue Mr. Tulkinghorn has stood aloof by the old\nportmanteau, with his hands behind him, equally removed, to all\nappearance, from all three kinds of interest exhibited near the\nbed--from the young surgeon's professional interest in death,\nnoticeable as being quite apart from his remarks on the deceased as\nan individual; from the old man's unction; and the little crazy\nwoman's awe. His imperturbable face has been as inexpressive as his\nrusty clothes. One could not even say he has been thinking all this\nwhile. He has shown neither patience nor impatience, nor attention\nnor abstraction. He has shown nothing but his shell. As easily might\nthe tone of a delicate musical instrument be inferred from its case,\nas the tone of Mr. Tulkinghorn from his case.\n\nHe now interposes, addressing the young surgeon in his unmoved,\nprofessional way.\n\n\"I looked in here,\" he observes, \"just before you, with the\nintention of giving this deceased man, whom I never saw alive, some\nemployment at his trade of copying. I had heard of him from my\nstationer--Snagsby of Cook's Court. Since no one here knows anything\nabout him, it might be as well to send for Snagsby. Ah!\" to the\nlittle crazy woman, who has often seen him in court, and whom he has\noften seen, and who proposes, in frightened dumb-show, to go for the\nlaw-stationer. \"Suppose you do!\"\n\nWhile she is gone, the surgeon abandons his hopeless investigation\nand covers its subject with the patchwork counterpane. Mr. Krook and\nhe interchange a word or two. Mr. Tulkinghorn says nothing, but\nstands, ever, near the old portmanteau.\n\nMr. Snagsby arrives hastily in his grey coat and his black sleeves.\n\"Dear me, dear me,\" he says; \"and it has come to this, has it! Bless\nmy soul!\"\n\n\"Can you give the person of the house any information about this\nunfortunate creature, Snagsby?\" inquires Mr. Tulkinghorn. \"He was in\narrears with his rent, it seems. And he must be buried, you know.\"\n\n\"Well, sir,\" says Mr. Snagsby, coughing his apologetic cough behind\nhis hand, \"I really don't know what advice I could offer, except\nsending for the beadle.\"\n\n\"I don't speak of advice,\" returns Mr. Tulkinghorn. \"I could\nadvise--\"\n\n\"No one better, sir, I am sure,\" says Mr. Snagsby, with his\ndeferential cough.\n\n\"I speak of affording some clue to his connexions, or to where he\ncame from, or to anything concerning him.\"\n\n\"I assure you, sir,\" says Mr. Snagsby after prefacing his reply with\nhis cough of general propitiation, \"that I no more know where he came\nfrom than I know--\"\n\n\"Where he has gone to, perhaps,\" suggests the surgeon to help him\nout.\n\nA pause. Mr. Tulkinghorn looking at the law-stationer. Mr. Krook,\nwith his mouth open, looking for somebody to speak next.\n\n\"As to his connexions, sir,\" says Mr. Snagsby, \"if a person was to\nsay to me, 'Snagsby, here's twenty thousand pound down, ready for you\nin the Bank of England if you'll only name one of 'em,' I couldn't do\nit, sir! About a year and a half ago--to the best of my belief, at\nthe time when he first came to lodge at the present rag and bottle\nshop--\"\n\n\"That was the time!\" says Krook with a nod.\n\n\"About a year and a half ago,\" says Mr. Snagsby, strengthened, \"he\ncame into our place one morning after breakfast, and finding my\nlittle woman (which I name Mrs. Snagsby when I use that appellation)\nin our shop, produced a specimen of his handwriting and gave her to\nunderstand that he was in want of copying work to do and was, not to\nput too fine a point upon it,\" a favourite apology for plain speaking\nwith Mr. Snagsby, which he always offers with a sort of argumentative\nfrankness, \"hard up! My little woman is not in general partial to\nstrangers, particular--not to put too fine a point upon it--when they\nwant anything. But she was rather took by something about this\nperson, whether by his being unshaved, or by his hair being in want\nof attention, or by what other ladies' reasons, I leave you to judge;\nand she accepted of the specimen, and likewise of the address. My\nlittle woman hasn't a good ear for names,\" proceeds Mr. Snagsby after\nconsulting his cough of consideration behind his hand, \"and she\nconsidered Nemo equally the same as Nimrod. In consequence of which,\nshe got into a habit of saying to me at meals, 'Mr. Snagsby, you\nhaven't found Nimrod any work yet!' or 'Mr. Snagsby, why didn't you\ngive that eight and thirty Chancery folio in Jarndyce to Nimrod?' or\nsuch like. And that is the way he gradually fell into job-work at our\nplace; and that is the most I know of him except that he was a quick\nhand, and a hand not sparing of night-work, and that if you gave him\nout, say, five and forty folio on the Wednesday night, you would have\nit brought in on the Thursday morning. All of which--\" Mr. Snagsby\nconcludes by politely motioning with his hat towards the bed, as much\nas to add, \"I have no doubt my honourable friend would confirm if he\nwere in a condition to do it.\"\n\n\"Hadn't you better see,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn to Krook, \"whether he\nhad any papers that may enlighten you? There will be an inquest, and\nyou will be asked the question. You can read?\"\n\n\"No, I can't,\" returns the old man with a sudden grin.\n\n\"Snagsby,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, \"look over the room for him. He will\nget into some trouble or difficulty otherwise. Being here, I'll wait\nif you make haste, and then I can testify on his behalf, if it should\never be necessary, that all was fair and right. If you will hold the\ncandle for Mr. Snagsby, my friend, he'll soon see whether there is\nanything to help you.\"\n\n\"In the first place, here's an old portmanteau, sir,\" says Snagsby.\n\nAh, to be sure, so there is! Mr. Tulkinghorn does not appear to have\nseen it before, though he is standing so close to it, and though\nthere is very little else, heaven knows.\n\nThe marine-store merchant holds the light, and the law-stationer\nconducts the search. The surgeon leans against the corner of the\nchimney-piece; Miss Flite peeps and trembles just within the door.\nThe apt old scholar of the old school, with his dull black breeches\ntied with ribbons at the knees, his large black waistcoat, his\nlong-sleeved black coat, and his wisp of limp white neckerchief tied\nin the bow the peerage knows so well, stands in exactly the same\nplace and attitude.\n\nThere are some worthless articles of clothing in the old portmanteau;\nthere is a bundle of pawnbrokers' duplicates, those turnpike tickets\non the road of poverty; there is a crumpled paper, smelling of opium,\non which are scrawled rough memoranda--as, took, such a day, so many\ngrains; took, such another day, so many more--begun some time ago, as\nif with the intention of being regularly continued, but soon left\noff. There are a few dirty scraps of newspapers, all referring to\ncoroners' inquests; there is nothing else. They search the cupboard\nand the drawer of the ink-splashed table. There is not a morsel of an\nold letter or of any other writing in either. The young surgeon\nexamines the dress on the law-writer. A knife and some odd halfpence\nare all he finds. Mr. Snagsby's suggestion is the practical\nsuggestion after all, and the beadle must be called in.\n\nSo the little crazy lodger goes for the beadle, and the rest come out\nof the room. \"Don't leave the cat there!\" says the surgeon; \"that\nwon't do!\" Mr. Krook therefore drives her out before him, and she\ngoes furtively downstairs, winding her lithe tail and licking her\nlips.\n\n\"Good night!\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, and goes home to Allegory and\nmeditation.\n\nBy this time the news has got into the court. Groups of its\ninhabitants assemble to discuss the thing, and the outposts of the\narmy of observation (principally boys) are pushed forward to Mr.\nKrook's window, which they closely invest. A policeman has already\nwalked up to the room, and walked down again to the door, where he\nstands like a tower, only condescending to see the boys at his base\noccasionally; but whenever he does see them, they quail and fall\nback. Mrs. Perkins, who has not been for some weeks on speaking terms\nwith Mrs. Piper in consequence for an unpleasantness originating in\nyoung Perkins' having \"fetched\" young Piper \"a crack,\" renews her\nfriendly intercourse on this auspicious occasion. The potboy at the\ncorner, who is a privileged amateur, as possessing official knowledge\nof life and having to deal with drunken men occasionally, exchanges\nconfidential communications with the policeman and has the appearance\nof an impregnable youth, unassailable by truncheons and unconfinable\nin station-houses. People talk across the court out of window, and\nbare-headed scouts come hurrying in from Chancery Lane to know what's\nthe matter. The general feeling seems to be that it's a blessing Mr.\nKrook warn't made away with first, mingled with a little natural\ndisappointment that he was not. In the midst of this sensation, the\nbeadle arrives.\n\nThe beadle, though generally understood in the neighbourhood to be a\nridiculous institution, is not without a certain popularity for the\nmoment, if it were only as a man who is going to see the body. The\npoliceman considers him an imbecile civilian, a remnant of the\nbarbarous watchmen times, but gives him admission as something that\nmust be borne with until government shall abolish him. The sensation\nis heightened as the tidings spread from mouth to mouth that the\nbeadle is on the ground and has gone in.\n\nBy and by the beadle comes out, once more intensifying the sensation,\nwhich has rather languished in the interval. He is understood to be\nin want of witnesses for the inquest to-morrow who can tell the\ncoroner and jury anything whatever respecting the deceased. Is\nimmediately referred to innumerable people who can tell nothing\nwhatever. Is made more imbecile by being constantly informed that\nMrs. Green's son \"was a law-writer his-self and knowed him better\nthan anybody,\" which son of Mrs. Green's appears, on inquiry, to be\nat the present time aboard a vessel bound for China, three months\nout, but considered accessible by telegraph on application to the\nLords of the Admiralty. Beadle goes into various shops and parlours,\nexamining the inhabitants, always shutting the door first, and by\nexclusion, delay, and general idiotcy exasperating the public.\nPoliceman seen to smile to potboy. Public loses interest and\nundergoes reaction. Taunts the beadle in shrill youthful voices with\nhaving boiled a boy, choruses fragments of a popular song to that\neffect and importing that the boy was made into soup for the\nworkhouse. Policeman at last finds it necessary to support the law\nand seize a vocalist, who is released upon the flight of the rest on\ncondition of his getting out of this then, come, and cutting it--a\ncondition he immediately observes. So the sensation dies off for the\ntime; and the unmoved policeman (to whom a little opium, more or\nless, is nothing), with his shining hat, stiff stock, inflexible\ngreat-coat, stout belt and bracelet, and all things fitting, pursues\nhis lounging way with a heavy tread, beating the palms of his white\ngloves one against the other and stopping now and then at a\nstreet-corner to look casually about for anything between a lost\nchild and a murder.\n\nUnder cover of the night, the feeble-minded beadle comes flitting\nabout Chancery Lane with his summonses, in which every juror's name\nis wrongly spelt, and nothing rightly spelt but the beadle's own\nname, which nobody can read or wants to know. The summonses served\nand his witnesses forewarned, the beadle goes to Mr. Krook's to keep\na small appointment he has made with certain paupers, who, presently\narriving, are conducted upstairs, where they leave the great eyes in\nthe shutter something new to stare at, in that last shape which\nearthly lodgings take for No one--and for Every one.\n\nAnd all that night the coffin stands ready by the old portmanteau;\nand the lonely figure on the bed, whose path in life has lain through\nfive and forty years, lies there with no more track behind him that\nany one can trace than a deserted infant.\n\nNext day the court is all alive--is like a fair, as Mrs. Perkins,\nmore than reconciled to Mrs. Piper, says in amicable conversation\nwith that excellent woman. The coroner is to sit in the first-floor\nroom at the Sol's Arms, where the Harmonic Meetings take place twice\na week and where the chair is filled by a gentleman of professional\ncelebrity, faced by Little Swills, the comic vocalist, who hopes\n(according to the bill in the window) that his friends will rally\nround him and support first-rate talent. The Sol's Arms does a brisk\nstroke of business all the morning. Even children so require\nsustaining under the general excitement that a pieman who has\nestablished himself for the occasion at the corner of the court says\nhis brandy-balls go off like smoke. What time the beadle, hovering\nbetween the door of Mr. Krook's establishment and the door of the\nSol's Arms, shows the curiosity in his keeping to a few discreet\nspirits and accepts the compliment of a glass of ale or so in return.\n\nAt the appointed hour arrives the coroner, for whom the jurymen are\nwaiting and who is received with a salute of skittles from the good\ndry skittle-ground attached to the Sol's Arms. The coroner frequents\nmore public-houses than any man alive. The smell of sawdust, beer,\ntobacco-smoke, and spirits is inseparable in his vocation from death\nin its most awful shapes. He is conducted by the beadle and the\nlandlord to the Harmonic Meeting Room, where he puts his hat on the\npiano and takes a Windsor-chair at the head of a long table formed of\nseveral short tables put together and ornamented with glutinous rings\nin endless involutions, made by pots and glasses. As many of the jury\nas can crowd together at the table sit there. The rest get among the\nspittoons and pipes or lean against the piano. Over the coroner's\nhead is a small iron garland, the pendant handle of a bell, which\nrather gives the majesty of the court the appearance of going to be\nhanged presently.\n\nCall over and swear the jury! While the ceremony is in progress,\nsensation is created by the entrance of a chubby little man in a\nlarge shirt-collar, with a moist eye and an inflamed nose, who\nmodestly takes a position near the door as one of the general public,\nbut seems familiar with the room too. A whisper circulates that this\nis Little Swills. It is considered not unlikely that he will get up\nan imitation of the coroner and make it the principal feature of the\nHarmonic Meeting in the evening.\n\n\"Well, gentlemen--\" the coroner begins.\n\n\"Silence there, will you!\" says the beadle. Not to the coroner,\nthough it might appear so.\n\n\"Well, gentlemen,\" resumes the coroner. \"You are impanelled here to\ninquire into the death of a certain man. Evidence will be given\nbefore you as to the circumstances attending that death, and you will\ngive your verdict according to the--skittles; they must be stopped,\nyou know, beadle!--evidence, and not according to anything else. The\nfirst thing to be done is to view the body.\"\n\n\"Make way there!\" cries the beadle.\n\nSo they go out in a loose procession, something after the manner of a\nstraggling funeral, and make their inspection in Mr. Krook's back\nsecond floor, from which a few of the jurymen retire pale and\nprecipitately. The beadle is very careful that two gentlemen not very\nneat about the cuffs and buttons (for whose accommodation he has\nprovided a special little table near the coroner in the Harmonic\nMeeting Room) should see all that is to be seen. For they are the\npublic chroniclers of such inquiries by the line; and he is not\nsuperior to the universal human infirmity, but hopes to read in print\nwhat \"Mooney, the active and intelligent beadle of the district,\"\nsaid and did and even aspires to see the name of Mooney as familiarly\nand patronizingly mentioned as the name of the hangman is, according\nto the latest examples.\n\nLittle Swills is waiting for the coroner and jury on their return.\nMr. Tulkinghorn, also. Mr. Tulkinghorn is received with distinction\nand seated near the coroner between that high judicial officer, a\nbagatelle-board, and the coal-box. The inquiry proceeds. The jury\nlearn how the subject of their inquiry died, and learn no more about\nhim. \"A very eminent solicitor is in attendance, gentlemen,\" says the\ncoroner, \"who, I am informed, was accidentally present when discovery\nof the death was made, but he could only repeat the evidence you have\nalready heard from the surgeon, the landlord, the lodger, and the\nlaw-stationer, and it is not necessary to trouble him. Is anybody in\nattendance who knows anything more?\"\n\nMrs. Piper pushed forward by Mrs. Perkins. Mrs. Piper sworn.\n\nAnastasia Piper, gentlemen. Married woman. Now, Mrs. Piper, what have\nyou got to say about this?\n\nWhy, Mrs. Piper has a good deal to say, chiefly in parentheses and\nwithout punctuation, but not much to tell. Mrs. Piper lives in the\ncourt (which her husband is a cabinet-maker), and it has long been\nwell beknown among the neighbours (counting from the day next but one\nbefore the half-baptizing of Alexander James Piper aged eighteen\nmonths and four days old on accounts of not being expected to live\nsuch was the sufferings gentlemen of that child in his gums) as the\nplaintive--so Mrs. Piper insists on calling the deceased--was\nreported to have sold himself. Thinks it was the plaintive's air in\nwhich that report originatinin. See the plaintive often and\nconsidered as his air was feariocious and not to be allowed to go\nabout some children being timid (and if doubted hoping Mrs. Perkins\nmay be brought forard for she is here and will do credit to her\nhusband and herself and family). Has seen the plaintive wexed and\nworrited by the children (for children they will ever be and you\ncannot expect them specially if of playful dispositions to be\nMethoozellers which you was not yourself). On accounts of this and\nhis dark looks has often dreamed as she see him take a pick-axe from\nhis pocket and split Johnny's head (which the child knows not fear\nand has repeatually called after him close at his eels). Never\nhowever see the plaintive take a pick-axe or any other wepping far\nfrom it. Has seen him hurry away when run and called after as if not\npartial to children and never see him speak to neither child nor\ngrown person at any time (excepting the boy that sweeps the crossing\ndown the lane over the way round the corner which if he was here\nwould tell you that he has been seen a-speaking to him frequent).\n\nSays the coroner, is that boy here? Says the beadle, no, sir, he is\nnot here. Says the coroner, go and fetch him then. In the absence of\nthe active and intelligent, the coroner converses with Mr.\nTulkinghorn.\n\nOh! Here's the boy, gentlemen!\n\nHere he is, very muddy, very hoarse, very ragged. Now, boy! But stop\na minute. Caution. This boy must be put through a few preliminary\npaces.\n\nName, Jo. Nothing else that he knows on. Don't know that everybody\nhas two names. Never heerd of sich a think. Don't know that Jo is\nshort for a longer name. Thinks it long enough for HIM. HE don't find\nno fault with it. Spell it? No. HE can't spell it. No father, no\nmother, no friends. Never been to school. What's home? Knows a\nbroom's a broom, and knows it's wicked to tell a lie. Don't recollect\nwho told him about the broom or about the lie, but knows both. Can't\nexactly say what'll be done to him arter he's dead if he tells a lie\nto the gentlemen here, but believes it'll be something wery bad to\npunish him, and serve him right--and so he'll tell the truth.\n\n\"This won't do, gentlemen!\" says the coroner with a melancholy shake\nof the head.\n\n\"Don't you think you can receive his evidence, sir?\" asks an\nattentive juryman.\n\n\"Out of the question,\" says the coroner. \"You have heard the boy.\n'Can't exactly say' won't do, you know. We can't take THAT in a court\nof justice, gentlemen. It's terrible depravity. Put the boy aside.\"\n\nBoy put aside, to the great edification of the audience, especially\nof Little Swills, the comic vocalist.\n\nNow. Is there any other witness? No other witness.\n\nVery well, gentlemen! Here's a man unknown, proved to have been in\nthe habit of taking opium in large quantities for a year and a half,\nfound dead of too much opium. If you think you have any evidence to\nlead you to the conclusion that he committed suicide, you will come\nto that conclusion. If you think it is a case of accidental death,\nyou will find a verdict accordingly.\n\nVerdict accordingly. Accidental death. No doubt. Gentlemen, you are\ndischarged. Good afternoon.\n\nWhile the coroner buttons his great-coat, Mr. Tulkinghorn and he give\nprivate audience to the rejected witness in a corner.\n\nThat graceless creature only knows that the dead man (whom he\nrecognized just now by his yellow face and black hair) was sometimes\nhooted and pursued about the streets. That one cold winter night when\nhe, the boy, was shivering in a doorway near his crossing, the man\nturned to look at him, and came back, and having questioned him and\nfound that he had not a friend in the world, said, \"Neither have I.\nNot one!\" and gave him the price of a supper and a night's lodging.\nThat the man had often spoken to him since and asked him whether he\nslept sound at night, and how he bore cold and hunger, and whether he\never wished to die, and similar strange questions. That when the man\nhad no money, he would say in passing, \"I am as poor as you to-day,\nJo,\" but that when he had any, he had always (as the boy most\nheartily believes) been glad to give him some.\n\n\"He was wery good to me,\" says the boy, wiping his eyes with his\nwretched sleeve. \"Wen I see him a-layin' so stritched out just now, I\nwished he could have heerd me tell him so. He wos wery good to me, he\nwos!\"\n\nAs he shuffles downstairs, Mr. Snagsby, lying in wait for him, puts a\nhalf-crown in his hand. \"If you ever see me coming past your crossing\nwith my little woman--I mean a lady--\" says Mr. Snagsby with his\nfinger on his nose, \"don't allude to it!\"\n\nFor some little time the jurymen hang about the Sol's Arms\ncolloquially. In the sequel, half-a-dozen are caught up in a cloud of\npipe-smoke that pervades the parlour of the Sol's Arms; two stroll to\nHampstead; and four engage to go half-price to the play at night, and\ntop up with oysters. Little Swills is treated on several hands. Being\nasked what he thinks of the proceedings, characterizes them (his\nstrength lying in a slangular direction) as \"a rummy start.\" The\nlandlord of the Sol's Arms, finding Little Swills so popular,\ncommends him highly to the jurymen and public, observing that for a\nsong in character he don't know his equal and that that man's\ncharacter-wardrobe would fill a cart.\n\nThus, gradually the Sol's Arms melts into the shadowy night and then\nflares out of it strong in gas. The Harmonic Meeting hour arriving,\nthe gentleman of professional celebrity takes the chair, is faced\n(red-faced) by Little Swills; their friends rally round them and\nsupport first-rate talent. In the zenith of the evening, Little\nSwills says, \"Gentlemen, if you'll permit me, I'll attempt a short\ndescription of a scene of real life that came off here to-day.\" Is\nmuch applauded and encouraged; goes out of the room as Swills; comes\nin as the coroner (not the least in the world like him); describes\nthe inquest, with recreative intervals of piano-forte accompaniment,\nto the refrain: With his (the coroner's) tippy tol li doll, tippy tol\nlo doll, tippy tol li doll, Dee!\n\nThe jingling piano at last is silent, and the Harmonic friends rally\nround their pillows. Then there is rest around the lonely figure, now\nlaid in its last earthly habitation; and it is watched by the gaunt\neyes in the shutters through some quiet hours of night. If this\nforlorn man could have been prophetically seen lying here by the\nmother at whose breast he nestled, a little child, with eyes upraised\nto her loving face, and soft hand scarcely knowing how to close upon\nthe neck to which it crept, what an impossibility the vision would\nhave seemed! Oh, if in brighter days the now-extinguished fire within\nhim ever burned for one woman who held him in her heart, where is\nshe, while these ashes are above the ground!\n\nIt is anything but a night of rest at Mr. Snagsby's, in Cook's Court,\nwhere Guster murders sleep by going, as Mr. Snagsby himself\nallows--not to put too fine a point upon it--out of one fit into\ntwenty. The occasion of this seizure is that Guster has a tender\nheart and a susceptible something that possibly might have been\nimagination, but for Tooting and her patron saint. Be it what it may,\nnow, it was so direfully impressed at tea-time by Mr. Snagsby's\naccount of the inquiry at which he had assisted that at supper-time\nshe projected herself into the kitchen, preceded by a flying Dutch\ncheese, and fell into a fit of unusual duration, which she only came\nout of to go into another, and another, and so on through a chain of\nfits, with short intervals between, of which she has pathetically\navailed herself by consuming them in entreaties to Mrs. Snagsby not\nto give her warning \"when she quite comes to,\" and also in appeals to\nthe whole establishment to lay her down on the stones and go to bed.\nHence, Mr. Snagsby, at last hearing the cock at the little dairy in\nCursitor Street go into that disinterested ecstasy of his on the\nsubject of daylight, says, drawing a long breath, though the most\npatient of men, \"I thought you was dead, I am sure!\"\n\nWhat question this enthusiastic fowl supposes he settles when he\nstrains himself to such an extent, or why he should thus crow (so men\ncrow on various triumphant public occasions, however) about what\ncannot be of any moment to him, is his affair. It is enough that\ndaylight comes, morning comes, noon comes.\n\nThen the active and intelligent, who has got into the morning papers\nas such, comes with his pauper company to Mr. Krook's and bears off\nthe body of our dear brother here departed to a hemmed-in churchyard,\npestiferous and obscene, whence malignant diseases are communicated\nto the bodies of our dear brothers and sisters who have not departed,\nwhile our dear brothers and sisters who hang about official\nback-stairs--would to heaven they HAD departed!--are very complacent\nand agreeable. Into a beastly scrap of ground which a Turk would\nreject as a savage abomination and a Caffre would shudder at, they\nbring our dear brother here departed to receive Christian burial.\n\nWith houses looking on, on every side, save where a reeking little\ntunnel of a court gives access to the iron gate--with every villainy\nof life in action close on death, and every poisonous element of\ndeath in action close on life--here they lower our dear brother down\na foot or two, here sow him in corruption, to be raised in\ncorruption: an avenging ghost at many a sick-bedside, a shameful\ntestimony to future ages how civilization and barbarism walked this\nboastful island together.\n\nCome night, come darkness, for you cannot come too soon or stay too\nlong by such a place as this! Come, straggling lights into the\nwindows of the ugly houses; and you who do iniquity therein, do it at\nleast with this dread scene shut out! Come, flame of gas, burning so\nsullenly above the iron gate, on which the poisoned air deposits its\nwitch-ointment slimy to the touch! It is well that you should call to\nevery passerby, \"Look here!\"\n\nWith the night comes a slouching figure through the tunnel-court to\nthe outside of the iron gate. It holds the gate with its hands and\nlooks in between the bars, stands looking in for a little while.\n\nIt then, with an old broom it carries, softly sweeps the step and\nmakes the archway clean. It does so very busily and trimly, looks in\nagain a little while, and so departs.\n\nJo, is it thou? Well, well! Though a rejected witness, who \"can't\nexactly say\" what will be done to him in greater hands than men's,\nthou art not quite in outer darkness. There is something like a\ndistant ray of light in thy muttered reason for this: \"He wos wery\ngood to me, he wos!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nOn the Watch\n\n\nIt has left off raining down in Lincolnshire at last, and Chesney\nWold has taken heart. Mrs. Rouncewell is full of hospitable cares,\nfor Sir Leicester and my Lady are coming home from Paris. The\nfashionable intelligence has found it out and communicates the glad\ntidings to benighted England. It has also found out that they will\nentertain a brilliant and distinguished circle of the ELITE of the\nBEAU MONDE (the fashionable intelligence is weak in English, but a\ngiant refreshed in French) at the ancient and hospitable family seat\nin Lincolnshire.\n\nFor the greater honour of the brilliant and distinguished circle, and\nof Chesney Wold into the bargain, the broken arch of the bridge in\nthe park is mended; and the water, now retired within its proper\nlimits and again spanned gracefully, makes a figure in the prospect\nfrom the house. The clear, cold sunshine glances into the brittle\nwoods and approvingly beholds the sharp wind scattering the leaves\nand drying the moss. It glides over the park after the moving shadows\nof the clouds, and chases them, and never catches them, all day. It\nlooks in at the windows and touches the ancestral portraits with bars\nand patches of brightness never contemplated by the painters. Athwart\nthe picture of my Lady, over the great chimney-piece, it throws a\nbroad bend-sinister of light that strikes down crookedly into the\nhearth and seems to rend it.\n\nThrough the same cold sunshine and the same sharp wind, my Lady and\nSir Leicester, in their travelling chariot (my Lady's woman and Sir\nLeicester's man affectionate in the rumble), start for home. With a\nconsiderable amount of jingling and whip-cracking, and many plunging\ndemonstrations on the part of two bare-backed horses and two centaurs\nwith glazed hats, jack-boots, and flowing manes and tails, they\nrattle out of the yard of the Hotel Bristol in the Place Vendome and\ncanter between the sun-and-shadow-chequered colonnade of the Rue de\nRivoli and the garden of the ill-fated palace of a headless king and\nqueen, off by the Place of Concord, and the Elysian Fields, and the\nGate of the Star, out of Paris.\n\nSooth to say, they cannot go away too fast, for even here my Lady\nDedlock has been bored to death. Concert, assembly, opera, theatre,\ndrive, nothing is new to my Lady under the worn-out heavens. Only\nlast Sunday, when poor wretches were gay--within the walls playing\nwith children among the clipped trees and the statues in the Palace\nGarden; walking, a score abreast, in the Elysian Fields, made more\nElysian by performing dogs and wooden horses; between whiles\nfiltering (a few) through the gloomy Cathedral of Our Lady to say a\nword or two at the base of a pillar within flare of a rusty little\ngridiron-full of gusty little tapers; without the walls encompassing\nParis with dancing, love-making, wine-drinking, tobacco-smoking,\ntomb-visiting, billiard card and domino playing, quack-doctoring, and\nmuch murderous refuse, animate and inanimate--only last Sunday, my\nLady, in the desolation of Boredom and the clutch of Giant Despair,\nalmost hated her own maid for being in spirits.\n\nShe cannot, therefore, go too fast from Paris. Weariness of soul lies\nbefore her, as it lies behind--her Ariel has put a girdle of it round\nthe whole earth, and it cannot be unclasped--but the imperfect remedy\nis always to fly from the last place where it has been experienced.\nFling Paris back into the distance, then, exchanging it for endless\navenues and cross-avenues of wintry trees! And, when next beheld, let\nit be some leagues away, with the Gate of the Star a white speck\nglittering in the sun, and the city a mere mound in a plain--two dark\nsquare towers rising out of it, and light and shadow descending on it\naslant, like the angels in Jacob's dream!\n\nSir Leicester is generally in a complacent state, and rarely bored.\nWhen he has nothing else to do, he can always contemplate his own\ngreatness. It is a considerable advantage to a man to have so\ninexhaustible a subject. After reading his letters, he leans back in\nhis corner of the carriage and generally reviews his importance to\nsociety.\n\n\"You have an unusual amount of correspondence this morning?\" says my\nLady after a long time. She is fatigued with reading. Has almost read\na page in twenty miles.\n\n\"Nothing in it, though. Nothing whatever.\"\n\n\"I saw one of Mr. Tulkinghorn's long effusions, I think?\"\n\n\"You see everything,\" says Sir Leicester with admiration.\n\n\"Ha!\" sighs my Lady. \"He is the most tiresome of men!\"\n\n\"He sends--I really beg your pardon--he sends,\" says Sir Leicester,\nselecting the letter and unfolding it, \"a message to you. Our\nstopping to change horses as I came to his postscript drove it out of\nmy memory. I beg you'll excuse me. He says--\" Sir Leicester is so\nlong in taking out his eye-glass and adjusting it that my Lady looks\na little irritated. \"He says 'In the matter of the right of way--' I\nbeg your pardon, that's not the place. He says--yes! Here I have it!\nHe says, 'I beg my respectful compliments to my Lady, who, I hope,\nhas benefited by the change. Will you do me the favour to mention (as\nit may interest her) that I have something to tell her on her return\nin reference to the person who copied the affidavit in the Chancery\nsuit, which so powerfully stimulated her curiosity. I have seen\nhim.'\"\n\nMy Lady, leaning forward, looks out of her window.\n\n\"That's the message,\" observes Sir Leicester.\n\n\"I should like to walk a little,\" says my Lady, still looking out of\nher window.\n\n\"Walk?\" repeats Sir Leicester in a tone of surprise.\n\n\"I should like to walk a little,\" says my Lady with unmistakable\ndistinctness. \"Please to stop the carriage.\"\n\nThe carriage is stopped, the affectionate man alights from the\nrumble, opens the door, and lets down the steps, obedient to an\nimpatient motion of my Lady's hand. My Lady alights so quickly and\nwalks away so quickly that Sir Leicester, for all his scrupulous\npoliteness, is unable to assist her, and is left behind. A space of a\nminute or two has elapsed before he comes up with her. She smiles,\nlooks very handsome, takes his arm, lounges with him for a quarter of\na mile, is very much bored, and resumes her seat in the carriage.\n\nThe rattle and clatter continue through the greater part of three\ndays, with more or less of bell-jingling and whip-cracking, and more\nor less plunging of centaurs and bare-backed horses. Their courtly\npoliteness to each other at the hotels where they tarry is the theme\nof general admiration. Though my Lord IS a little aged for my Lady,\nsays Madame, the hostess of the Golden Ape, and though he might be\nher amiable father, one can see at a glance that they love each\nother. One observes my Lord with his white hair, standing, hat in\nhand, to help my Lady to and from the carriage. One observes my Lady,\nhow recognisant of my Lord's politeness, with an inclination of her\ngracious head and the concession of her so-genteel fingers! It is\nravishing!\n\nThe sea has no appreciation of great men, but knocks them about like\nthe small fry. It is habitually hard upon Sir Leicester, whose\ncountenance it greenly mottles in the manner of sage-cheese and in\nwhose aristocratic system it effects a dismal revolution. It is the\nRadical of Nature to him. Nevertheless, his dignity gets over it\nafter stopping to refit, and he goes on with my Lady for Chesney\nWold, lying only one night in London on the way to Lincolnshire.\n\nThrough the same cold sunlight, colder as the day declines, and\nthrough the same sharp wind, sharper as the separate shadows of bare\ntrees gloom together in the woods, and as the Ghost's Walk, touched\nat the western corner by a pile of fire in the sky, resigns itself to\ncoming night, they drive into the park. The rooks, swinging in their\nlofty houses in the elm-tree avenue, seem to discuss the question of\nthe occupancy of the carriage as it passes underneath, some agreeing\nthat Sir Leicester and my Lady are come down, some arguing with\nmalcontents who won't admit it, now all consenting to consider the\nquestion disposed of, now all breaking out again in violent debate,\nincited by one obstinate and drowsy bird who will persist in putting\nin a last contradictory croak. Leaving them to swing and caw, the\ntravelling chariot rolls on to the house, where fires gleam warmly\nthrough some of the windows, though not through so many as to give an\ninhabited expression to the darkening mass of front. But the\nbrilliant and distinguished circle will soon do that.\n\nMrs. Rouncewell is in attendance and receives Sir Leicester's\ncustomary shake of the hand with a profound curtsy.\n\n\"How do you do, Mrs. Rouncewell? I am glad to see you.\"\n\n\"I hope I have the honour of welcoming you in good health, Sir\nLeicester?\"\n\n\"In excellent health, Mrs. Rouncewell.\"\n\n\"My Lady is looking charmingly well,\" says Mrs. Rouncewell with\nanother curtsy.\n\nMy Lady signifies, without profuse expenditure of words, that she is\nas wearily well as she can hope to be.\n\nBut Rosa is in the distance, behind the housekeeper; and my Lady, who\nhas not subdued the quickness of her observation, whatever else she\nmay have conquered, asks, \"Who is that girl?\"\n\n\"A young scholar of mine, my Lady. Rosa.\"\n\n\"Come here, Rosa!\" Lady Dedlock beckons her, with even an appearance\nof interest. \"Why, do you know how pretty you are, child?\" she says,\ntouching her shoulder with her two forefingers.\n\nRosa, very much abashed, says, \"No, if you please, my Lady!\" and\nglances up, and glances down, and don't know where to look, but looks\nall the prettier.\n\n\"How old are you?\"\n\n\"Nineteen, my Lady.\"\n\n\"Nineteen,\" repeats my Lady thoughtfully. \"Take care they don't spoil\nyou by flattery.\"\n\n\"Yes, my Lady.\"\n\nMy Lady taps her dimpled cheek with the same delicate gloved fingers\nand goes on to the foot of the oak staircase, where Sir Leicester\npauses for her as her knightly escort. A staring old Dedlock in a\npanel, as large as life and as dull, looks as if he didn't know what\nto make of it, which was probably his general state of mind in the\ndays of Queen Elizabeth.\n\nThat evening, in the housekeeper's room, Rosa can do nothing but\nmurmur Lady Dedlock's praises. She is so affable, so graceful, so\nbeautiful, so elegant; has such a sweet voice and such a thrilling\ntouch that Rosa can feel it yet! Mrs. Rouncewell confirms all this,\nnot without personal pride, reserving only the one point of\naffability. Mrs. Rouncewell is not quite sure as to that. Heaven\nforbid that she should say a syllable in dispraise of any member of\nthat excellent family, above all, of my Lady, whom the whole world\nadmires; but if my Lady would only be \"a little more free,\" not quite\nso cold and distant, Mrs. Rouncewell thinks she would be more\naffable.\n\n\"'Tis almost a pity,\" Mrs. Rouncewell adds--only \"almost\" because it\nborders on impiety to suppose that anything could be better than it\nis, in such an express dispensation as the Dedlock affairs--\"that my\nLady has no family. If she had had a daughter now, a grown young\nlady, to interest her, I think she would have had the only kind of\nexcellence she wants.\"\n\n\"Might not that have made her still more proud, grandmother?\" says\nWatt, who has been home and come back again, he is such a good\ngrandson.\n\n\"More and most, my dear,\" returns the housekeeper with dignity, \"are\nwords it's not my place to use--nor so much as to hear--applied to\nany drawback on my Lady.\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon, grandmother. But she is proud, is she not?\"\n\n\"If she is, she has reason to be. The Dedlock family have always\nreason to be.\"\n\n\"Well,\" says Watt, \"it's to be hoped they line out of their\nprayer-books a certain passage for the common people about pride and\nvainglory. Forgive me, grandmother! Only a joke!\"\n\n\"Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, my dear, are not fit subjects for\njoking.\"\n\n\"Sir Leicester is no joke by any means,\" says Watt, \"and I humbly ask\nhis pardon. I suppose, grandmother, that even with the family and\ntheir guests down here, there is no objection to my prolonging my\nstay at the Dedlock Arms for a day or two, as any other traveller\nmight?\"\n\n\"Surely, none in the world, child.\"\n\n\"I am glad of that,\" says Watt, \"because I have an inexpressible\ndesire to extend my knowledge of this beautiful neighbourhood.\"\n\nHe happens to glance at Rosa, who looks down and is very shy indeed.\nBut according to the old superstition, it should be Rosa's ears that\nburn, and not her fresh bright cheeks, for my Lady's maid is holding\nforth about her at this moment with surpassing energy.\n\nMy Lady's maid is a Frenchwoman of two and thirty, from somewhere in\nthe southern country about Avignon and Marseilles, a large-eyed brown\nwoman with black hair who would be handsome but for a certain feline\nmouth and general uncomfortable tightness of face, rendering the jaws\ntoo eager and the skull too prominent. There is something indefinably\nkeen and wan about her anatomy, and she has a watchful way of looking\nout of the corners of her eyes without turning her head which could\nbe pleasantly dispensed with, especially when she is in an ill humour\nand near knives. Through all the good taste of her dress and little\nadornments, these objections so express themselves that she seems to\ngo about like a very neat she-wolf imperfectly tamed. Besides being\naccomplished in all the knowledge appertaining to her post, she is\nalmost an Englishwoman in her acquaintance with the language;\nconsequently, she is in no want of words to shower upon Rosa for\nhaving attracted my Lady's attention, and she pours them out with\nsuch grim ridicule as she sits at dinner that her companion, the\naffectionate man, is rather relieved when she arrives at the spoon\nstage of that performance.\n\nHa, ha, ha! She, Hortense, been in my Lady's service since five years\nand always kept at the distance, and this doll, this puppet,\ncaressed--absolutely caressed--by my Lady on the moment of her\narriving at the house! Ha, ha, ha! \"And do you know how pretty you\nare, child?\" \"No, my Lady.\" You are right there! \"And how old are\nyou, child! And take care they do not spoil you by flattery, child!\"\nOh, how droll! It is the BEST thing altogether.\n\nIn short, it is such an admirable thing that Mademoiselle Hortense\ncan't forget it; but at meals for days afterwards, even among her\ncountrywomen and others attached in like capacity to the troop of\nvisitors, relapses into silent enjoyment of the joke--an enjoyment\nexpressed, in her own convivial manner, by an additional tightness of\nface, thin elongation of compressed lips, and sidewise look, which\nintense appreciation of humour is frequently reflected in my Lady's\nmirrors when my Lady is not among them.\n\nAll the mirrors in the house are brought into action now, many of\nthem after a long blank. They reflect handsome faces, simpering\nfaces, youthful faces, faces of threescore and ten that will not\nsubmit to be old; the entire collection of faces that have come to\npass a January week or two at Chesney Wold, and which the fashionable\nintelligence, a mighty hunter before the Lord, hunts with a keen\nscent, from their breaking cover at the Court of St. James's to their\nbeing run down to death. The place in Lincolnshire is all alive. By\nday guns and voices are heard ringing in the woods, horsemen and\ncarriages enliven the park roads, servants and hangers-on pervade the\nvillage and the Dedlock Arms. Seen by night from distant openings in\nthe trees, the row of windows in the long drawing-room, where my\nLady's picture hangs over the great chimney-piece, is like a row of\njewels set in a black frame. On Sunday the chill little church is\nalmost warmed by so much gallant company, and the general flavour of\nthe Dedlock dust is quenched in delicate perfumes.\n\nThe brilliant and distinguished circle comprehends within it no\ncontracted amount of education, sense, courage, honour, beauty, and\nvirtue. Yet there is something a little wrong about it in despite of\nits immense advantages. What can it be?\n\nDandyism? There is no King George the Fourth now (more the pity) to\nset the dandy fashion; there are no clear-starched jack-towel\nneckcloths, no short-waisted coats, no false calves, no stays. There\nare no caricatures, now, of effeminate exquisites so arrayed,\nswooning in opera boxes with excess of delight and being revived by\nother dainty creatures poking long-necked scent-bottles at their\nnoses. There is no beau whom it takes four men at once to shake into\nhis buckskins, or who goes to see all the executions, or who is\ntroubled with the self-reproach of having once consumed a pea. But is\nthere dandyism in the brilliant and distinguished circle\nnotwithstanding, dandyism of a more mischievous sort, that has got\nbelow the surface and is doing less harmless things than\njack-towelling itself and stopping its own digestion, to which no\nrational person need particularly object?\n\nWhy, yes. It cannot be disguised. There ARE at Chesney Wold this\nJanuary week some ladies and gentlemen of the newest fashion, who\nhave set up a dandyism--in religion, for instance. Who in mere\nlackadaisical want of an emotion have agreed upon a little dandy talk\nabout the vulgar wanting faith in things in general, meaning in the\nthings that have been tried and found wanting, as though a low fellow\nshould unaccountably lose faith in a bad shilling after finding it\nout! Who would make the vulgar very picturesque and faithful by\nputting back the hands upon the clock of time and cancelling a few\nhundred years of history.\n\nThere are also ladies and gentlemen of another fashion, not so new,\nbut very elegant, who have agreed to put a smooth glaze on the world\nand to keep down all its realities. For whom everything must be\nlanguid and pretty. Who have found out the perpetual stoppage. Who\nare to rejoice at nothing and be sorry for nothing. Who are not to be\ndisturbed by ideas. On whom even the fine arts, attending in powder\nand walking backward like the Lord Chamberlain, must array themselves\nin the milliners' and tailors' patterns of past generations and be\nparticularly careful not to be in earnest or to receive any impress\nfrom the moving age.\n\nThen there is my Lord Boodle, of considerable reputation with his\nparty, who has known what office is and who tells Sir Leicester\nDedlock with much gravity, after dinner, that he really does not see\nto what the present age is tending. A debate is not what a debate\nused to be; the House is not what the House used to be; even a\nCabinet is not what it formerly was. He perceives with astonishment\nthat supposing the present government to be overthrown, the limited\nchoice of the Crown, in the formation of a new ministry, would lie\nbetween Lord Coodle and Sir Thomas Doodle--supposing it to be\nimpossible for the Duke of Foodle to act with Goodle, which may be\nassumed to be the case in consequence of the breach arising out of\nthat affair with Hoodle. Then, giving the Home Department and the\nleadership of the House of Commons to Joodle, the Exchequer to\nKoodle, the Colonies to Loodle, and the Foreign Office to Moodle,\nwhat are you to do with Noodle? You can't offer him the Presidency of\nthe Council; that is reserved for Poodle. You can't put him in the\nWoods and Forests; that is hardly good enough for Quoodle. What\nfollows? That the country is shipwrecked, lost, and gone to pieces\n(as is made manifest to the patriotism of Sir Leicester Dedlock)\nbecause you can't provide for Noodle!\n\nOn the other hand, the Right Honourable William Buffy, M.P., contends\nacross the table with some one else that the shipwreck of the\ncountry--about which there is no doubt; it is only the manner of it\nthat is in question--is attributable to Cuffy. If you had done with\nCuffy what you ought to have done when he first came into Parliament,\nand had prevented him from going over to Duffy, you would have got\nhim into alliance with Fuffy, you would have had with you the weight\nattaching as a smart debater to Guffy, you would have brought to bear\nupon the elections the wealth of Huffy, you would have got in for\nthree counties Juffy, Kuffy, and Luffy, and you would have\nstrengthened your administration by the official knowledge and the\nbusiness habits of Muffy. All this, instead of being as you now are,\ndependent on the mere caprice of Puffy!\n\nAs to this point, and as to some minor topics, there are differences\nof opinion; but it is perfectly clear to the brilliant and\ndistinguished circle, all round, that nobody is in question but\nBoodle and his retinue, and Buffy and HIS retinue. These are the\ngreat actors for whom the stage is reserved. A People there are, no\ndoubt--a certain large number of supernumeraries, who are to be\noccasionally addressed, and relied upon for shouts and choruses, as\non the theatrical stage; but Boodle and Buffy, their followers and\nfamilies, their heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns, are\nthe born first-actors, managers, and leaders, and no others can\nappear upon the scene for ever and ever.\n\nIn this, too, there is perhaps more dandyism at Chesney Wold than the\nbrilliant and distinguished circle will find good for itself in the\nlong run. For it is, even with the stillest and politest circles, as\nwith the circle the necromancer draws around him--very strange\nappearances may be seen in active motion outside. With this\ndifference, that being realities and not phantoms, there is the\ngreater danger of their breaking in.\n\nChesney Wold is quite full anyhow, so full that a burning sense of\ninjury arises in the breasts of ill-lodged ladies'-maids, and is not\nto be extinguished. Only one room is empty. It is a turret chamber of\nthe third order of merit, plainly but comfortably furnished and\nhaving an old-fashioned business air. It is Mr. Tulkinghorn's room,\nand is never bestowed on anybody else, for he may come at any time.\nHe is not come yet. It is his quiet habit to walk across the park\nfrom the village in fine weather, to drop into this room as if he had\nnever been out of it since he was last seen there, to request a\nservant to inform Sir Leicester that he is arrived in case he should\nbe wanted, and to appear ten minutes before dinner in the shadow of\nthe library-door. He sleeps in his turret with a complaining\nflag-staff over his head, and has some leads outside on which, any\nfine morning when he is down here, his black figure may be seen\nwalking before breakfast like a larger species of rook.\n\nEvery day before dinner, my Lady looks for him in the dusk of the\nlibrary, but he is not there. Every day at dinner, my Lady glances\ndown the table for the vacant place that would be waiting to receive\nhim if he had just arrived, but there is no vacant place. Every night\nmy Lady casually asks her maid, \"Is Mr. Tulkinghorn come?\"\n\nEvery night the answer is, \"No, my Lady, not yet.\"\n\nOne night, while having her hair undressed, my Lady loses herself in\ndeep thought after this reply until she sees her own brooding face in\nthe opposite glass, and a pair of black eyes curiously observing her.\n\n\"Be so good as to attend,\" says my Lady then, addressing the\nreflection of Hortense, \"to your business. You can contemplate your\nbeauty at another time.\"\n\n\"Pardon! It was your Ladyship's beauty.\"\n\n\"That,\" says my Lady, \"you needn't contemplate at all.\"\n\nAt length, one afternoon a little before sunset, when the bright\ngroups of figures which have for the last hour or two enlivened the\nGhost's Walk are all dispersed and only Sir Leicester and my Lady\nremain upon the terrace, Mr. Tulkinghorn appears. He comes towards\nthem at his usual methodical pace, which is never quickened, never\nslackened. He wears his usual expressionless mask--if it be a\nmask--and carries family secrets in every limb of his body and every\ncrease of his dress. Whether his whole soul is devoted to the great\nor whether he yields them nothing beyond the services he sells is his\npersonal secret. He keeps it, as he keeps the secrets of his clients;\nhe is his own client in that matter, and will never betray himself.\n\n\"How do you do, Mr. Tulkinghorn?\" says Sir Leicester, giving him his\nhand.\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn is quite well. Sir Leicester is quite well. My Lady\nis quite well. All highly satisfactory. The lawyer, with his hands\nbehind him, walks at Sir Leicester's side along the terrace. My Lady\nwalks upon the other side.\n\n\"We expected you before,\" says Sir Leicester. A gracious observation.\nAs much as to say, \"Mr. Tulkinghorn, we remember your existence when\nyou are not here to remind us of it by your presence. We bestow a\nfragment of our minds upon you, sir, you see!\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn, comprehending it, inclines his head and says he is\nmuch obliged.\n\n\"I should have come down sooner,\" he explains, \"but that I have been\nmuch engaged with those matters in the several suits between yourself\nand Boythorn.\"\n\n\"A man of a very ill-regulated mind,\" observes Sir Leicester with\nseverity. \"An extremely dangerous person in any community. A man of a\nvery low character of mind.\"\n\n\"He is obstinate,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn.\n\n\"It is natural to such a man to be so,\" says Sir Leicester, looking\nmost profoundly obstinate himself. \"I am not at all surprised to hear\nit.\"\n\n\"The only question is,\" pursues the lawyer, \"whether you will give up\nanything.\"\n\n\"No, sir,\" replies Sir Leicester. \"Nothing. I give up?\"\n\n\"I don't mean anything of importance. That, of course, I know you\nwould not abandon. I mean any minor point.\"\n\n\"Mr. Tulkinghorn,\" returns Sir Leicester, \"there can be no minor\npoint between myself and Mr. Boythorn. If I go farther, and observe\nthat I cannot readily conceive how ANY right of mine can be a minor\npoint, I speak not so much in reference to myself as an individual as\nin reference to the family position I have it in charge to maintain.\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn inclines his head again. \"I have now my\ninstructions,\" he says. \"Mr. Boythorn will give us a good deal of\ntrouble--\"\n\n\"It is the character of such a mind, Mr. Tulkinghorn,\" Sir Leicester\ninterrupts him, \"TO give trouble. An exceedingly ill-conditioned,\nlevelling person. A person who, fifty years ago, would probably have\nbeen tried at the Old Bailey for some demagogue proceeding, and\nseverely punished--if not,\" adds Sir Leicester after a moment's\npause, \"if not hanged, drawn, and quartered.\"\n\nSir Leicester appears to discharge his stately breast of a burden in\npassing this capital sentence, as if it were the next satisfactory\nthing to having the sentence executed.\n\n\"But night is coming on,\" says he, \"and my Lady will take cold. My\ndear, let us go in.\"\n\nAs they turn towards the hall-door, Lady Dedlock addresses Mr.\nTulkinghorn for the first time.\n\n\"You sent me a message respecting the person whose writing I happened\nto inquire about. It was like you to remember the circumstance; I had\nquite forgotten it. Your message reminded me of it again. I can't\nimagine what association I had with a hand like that, but I surely\nhad some.\"\n\n\"You had some?\" Mr. Tulkinghorn repeats.\n\n\"Oh, yes!\" returns my Lady carelessly. \"I think I must have had some.\nAnd did you really take the trouble to find out the writer of that\nactual thing--what is it!--affidavit?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"How very odd!\"\n\nThey pass into a sombre breakfast-room on the ground floor, lighted\nin the day by two deep windows. It is now twilight. The fire glows\nbrightly on the panelled wall and palely on the window-glass, where,\nthrough the cold reflection of the blaze, the colder landscape\nshudders in the wind and a grey mist creeps along, the only traveller\nbesides the waste of clouds.\n\nMy Lady lounges in a great chair in the chimney-corner, and Sir\nLeicester takes another great chair opposite. The lawyer stands\nbefore the fire with his hand out at arm's length, shading his face.\nHe looks across his arm at my Lady.\n\n\"Yes,\" he says, \"I inquired about the man, and found him. And, what\nis very strange, I found him--\"\n\n\"Not to be any out-of-the-way person, I am afraid!\" Lady Dedlock\nlanguidly anticipates.\n\n\"I found him dead.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear me!\" remonstrated Sir Leicester. Not so much shocked by the\nfact as by the fact of the fact being mentioned.\n\n\"I was directed to his lodging--a miserable, poverty-stricken\nplace--and I found him dead.\"\n\n\"You will excuse me, Mr. Tulkinghorn,\" observes Sir Leicester. \"I\nthink the less said--\"\n\n\"Pray, Sir Leicester, let me hear the story out\" (it is my Lady\nspeaking). \"It is quite a story for twilight. How very shocking!\nDead?\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn re-asserts it by another inclination of his head.\n\"Whether by his own hand--\"\n\n\"Upon my honour!\" cries Sir Leicester. \"Really!\"\n\n\"Do let me hear the story!\" says my Lady.\n\n\"Whatever you desire, my dear. But, I must say--\"\n\n\"No, you mustn't say! Go on, Mr. Tulkinghorn.\"\n\nSir Leicester's gallantry concedes the point, though he still feels\nthat to bring this sort of squalor among the upper classes is\nreally--really--\n\n\"I was about to say,\" resumes the lawyer with undisturbed calmness,\n\"that whether he had died by his own hand or not, it was beyond my\npower to tell you. I should amend that phrase, however, by saying\nthat he had unquestionably died of his own act, though whether by his\nown deliberate intention or by mischance can never certainly be\nknown. The coroner's jury found that he took the poison\naccidentally.\"\n\n\"And what kind of man,\" my Lady asks, \"was this deplorable creature?\"\n\n\"Very difficult to say,\" returns the lawyer, shaking his head. \"He\nhad lived so wretchedly and was so neglected, with his gipsy colour\nand his wild black hair and beard, that I should have considered him\nthe commonest of the common. The surgeon had a notion that he had\nonce been something better, both in appearance and condition.\"\n\n\"What did they call the wretched being?\"\n\n\"They called him what he had called himself, but no one knew his\nname.\"\n\n\"Not even any one who had attended on him?\"\n\n\"No one had attended on him. He was found dead. In fact, I found\nhim.\"\n\n\"Without any clue to anything more?\"\n\n\"Without any; there was,\" says the lawyer meditatively, \"an old\nportmanteau, but--No, there were no papers.\"\n\nDuring the utterance of every word of this short dialogue, Lady\nDedlock and Mr. Tulkinghorn, without any other alteration in their\ncustomary deportment, have looked very steadily at one another--as\nwas natural, perhaps, in the discussion of so unusual a subject. Sir\nLeicester has looked at the fire, with the general expression of the\nDedlock on the staircase. The story being told, he renews his stately\nprotest, saying that as it is quite clear that no association in my\nLady's mind can possibly be traceable to this poor wretch (unless he\nwas a begging-letter writer), he trusts to hear no more about a\nsubject so far removed from my Lady's station.\n\n\"Certainly, a collection of horrors,\" says my Lady, gathering up her\nmantles and furs, \"but they interest one for the moment! Have the\nkindness, Mr. Tulkinghorn, to open the door for me.\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn does so with deference and holds it open while she\npasses out. She passes close to him, with her usual fatigued manner\nand insolent grace. They meet again at dinner--again, next\nday--again, for many days in succession. Lady Dedlock is always the\nsame exhausted deity, surrounded by worshippers, and terribly liable\nto be bored to death, even while presiding at her own shrine. Mr.\nTulkinghorn is always the same speechless repository of noble\nconfidences, so oddly out of place and yet so perfectly at home. They\nappear to take as little note of one another as any two people\nenclosed within the same walls could. But whether each evermore\nwatches and suspects the other, evermore mistrustful of some great\nreservation; whether each is evermore prepared at all points for the\nother, and never to be taken unawares; what each would give to know\nhow much the other knows--all this is hidden, for the time, in their\nown hearts.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nEsther's Narrative\n\n\nWe held many consultations about what Richard was to be, first\nwithout Mr. Jarndyce, as he had requested, and afterwards with him,\nbut it was a long time before we seemed to make progress. Richard\nsaid he was ready for anything. When Mr. Jarndyce doubted whether he\nmight not already be too old to enter the Navy, Richard said he had\nthought of that, and perhaps he was. When Mr. Jarndyce asked him what\nhe thought of the Army, Richard said he had thought of that, too, and\nit wasn't a bad idea. When Mr. Jarndyce advised him to try and decide\nwithin himself whether his old preference for the sea was an ordinary\nboyish inclination or a strong impulse, Richard answered, Well he\nreally HAD tried very often, and he couldn't make out.\n\n\"How much of this indecision of character,\" Mr. Jarndyce said to me,\n\"is chargeable on that incomprehensible heap of uncertainty and\nprocrastination on which he has been thrown from his birth, I don't\npretend to say; but that Chancery, among its other sins, is\nresponsible for some of it, I can plainly see. It has engendered or\nconfirmed in him a habit of putting off--and trusting to this, that,\nand the other chance, without knowing what chance--and dismissing\neverything as unsettled, uncertain, and confused. The character of\nmuch older and steadier people may be even changed by the\ncircumstances surrounding them. It would be too much to expect that a\nboy's, in its formation, should be the subject of such influences and\nescape them.\"\n\nI felt this to be true; though if I may venture to mention what I\nthought besides, I thought it much to be regretted that Richard's\neducation had not counteracted those influences or directed his\ncharacter. He had been eight years at a public school and had learnt,\nI understood, to make Latin verses of several sorts in the most\nadmirable manner. But I never heard that it had been anybody's\nbusiness to find out what his natural bent was, or where his failings\nlay, or to adapt any kind of knowledge to HIM. HE had been adapted to\nthe verses and had learnt the art of making them to such perfection\nthat if he had remained at school until he was of age, I suppose he\ncould only have gone on making them over and over again unless he had\nenlarged his education by forgetting how to do it. Still, although I\nhad no doubt that they were very beautiful, and very improving, and\nvery sufficient for a great many purposes of life, and always\nremembered all through life, I did doubt whether Richard would not\nhave profited by some one studying him a little, instead of his\nstudying them quite so much.\n\nTo be sure, I knew nothing of the subject and do not even now know\nwhether the young gentlemen of classic Rome or Greece made verses to\nthe same extent--or whether the young gentlemen of any country ever\ndid.\n\n\"I haven't the least idea,\" said Richard, musing, \"what I had better\nbe. Except that I am quite sure I don't want to go into the Church,\nit's a toss-up.\"\n\n\"You have no inclination in Mr. Kenge's way?\" suggested Mr. Jarndyce.\n\n\"I don't know that, sir!\" replied Richard. \"I am fond of boating.\nArticled clerks go a good deal on the water. It's a capital\nprofession!\"\n\n\"Surgeon--\" suggested Mr. Jarndyce.\n\n\"That's the thing, sir!\" cried Richard.\n\nI doubt if he had ever once thought of it before.\n\n\"That's the thing, sir,\" repeated Richard with the greatest\nenthusiasm. \"We have got it at last. M.R.C.S.!\"\n\nHe was not to be laughed out of it, though he laughed at it heartily.\nHe said he had chosen his profession, and the more he thought of it,\nthe more he felt that his destiny was clear; the art of healing was\nthe art of all others for him. Mistrusting that he only came to this\nconclusion because, having never had much chance of finding out for\nhimself what he was fitted for and having never been guided to the\ndiscovery, he was taken by the newest idea and was glad to get rid of\nthe trouble of consideration, I wondered whether the Latin verses\noften ended in this or whether Richard's was a solitary case.\n\nMr. Jarndyce took great pains to talk with him seriously and to put\nit to his good sense not to deceive himself in so important a matter.\nRichard was a little grave after these interviews, but invariably\ntold Ada and me that it was all right, and then began to talk about\nsomething else.\n\n\"By heaven!\" cried Mr. Boythorn, who interested himself strongly in\nthe subject--though I need not say that, for he could do nothing\nweakly; \"I rejoice to find a young gentleman of spirit and gallantry\ndevoting himself to that noble profession! The more spirit there is\nin it, the better for mankind and the worse for those mercenary\ntask-masters and low tricksters who delight in putting that\nillustrious art at a disadvantage in the world. By all that is base\nand despicable,\" cried Mr. Boythorn, \"the treatment of surgeons\naboard ship is such that I would submit the legs--both legs--of every\nmember of the Admiralty Board to a compound fracture and render it a\ntransportable offence in any qualified practitioner to set them if\nthe system were not wholly changed in eight and forty hours!\"\n\n\"Wouldn't you give them a week?\" asked Mr. Jarndyce.\n\n\"No!\" cried Mr. Boythorn firmly. \"Not on any consideration! Eight and\nforty hours! As to corporations, parishes, vestry-boards, and similar\ngatherings of jolter-headed clods who assemble to exchange such\nspeeches that, by heaven, they ought to be worked in quicksilver\nmines for the short remainder of their miserable existence, if it\nwere only to prevent their detestable English from contaminating a\nlanguage spoken in the presence of the sun--as to those fellows, who\nmeanly take advantage of the ardour of gentlemen in the pursuit of\nknowledge to recompense the inestimable services of the best years of\ntheir lives, their long study, and their expensive education with\npittances too small for the acceptance of clerks, I would have the\nnecks of every one of them wrung and their skulls arranged in\nSurgeons' Hall for the contemplation of the whole profession in order\nthat its younger members might understand from actual measurement, in\nearly life, HOW thick skulls may become!\"\n\nHe wound up this vehement declaration by looking round upon us with a\nmost agreeable smile and suddenly thundering, \"Ha, ha, ha!\" over and\nover again, until anybody else might have been expected to be quite\nsubdued by the exertion.\n\nAs Richard still continued to say that he was fixed in his choice\nafter repeated periods for consideration had been recommended by Mr.\nJarndyce and had expired, and he still continued to assure Ada and me\nin the same final manner that it was \"all right,\" it became advisable\nto take Mr. Kenge into council. Mr. Kenge, therefore, came down to\ndinner one day, and leaned back in his chair, and turned his\neye-glasses over and over, and spoke in a sonorous voice, and did\nexactly what I remembered to have seen him do when I was a little\ngirl.\n\n\"Ah!\" said Mr. Kenge. \"Yes. Well! A very good profession, Mr.\nJarndyce, a very good profession.\"\n\n\"The course of study and preparation requires to be diligently\npursued,\" observed my guardian with a glance at Richard.\n\n\"Oh, no doubt,\" said Mr. Kenge. \"Diligently.\"\n\n\"But that being the case, more or less, with all pursuits that are\nworth much,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, \"it is not a special consideration\nwhich another choice would be likely to escape.\"\n\n\"Truly,\" said Mr. Kenge. \"And Mr. Richard Carstone, who has so\nmeritoriously acquitted himself in the--shall I say the classic\nshades?--in which his youth had been passed, will, no doubt, apply\nthe habits, if not the principles and practice, of versification in\nthat tongue in which a poet was said (unless I mistake) to be born,\nnot made, to the more eminently practical field of action on which he\nenters.\"\n\n\"You may rely upon it,\" said Richard in his off-hand manner, \"that I\nshall go at it and do my best.\"\n\n\"Very well, Mr. Jarndyce!\" said Mr. Kenge, gently nodding his head.\n\"Really, when we are assured by Mr. Richard that he means to go at it\nand to do his best,\" nodding feelingly and smoothly over those\nexpressions, \"I would submit to you that we have only to inquire into\nthe best mode of carrying out the object of his ambition. Now, with\nreference to placing Mr. Richard with some sufficiently eminent\npractitioner. Is there any one in view at present?\"\n\n\"No one, Rick, I think?\" said my guardian.\n\n\"No one, sir,\" said Richard.\n\n\"Quite so!\" observed Mr. Kenge. \"As to situation, now. Is there any\nparticular feeling on that head?\"\n\n\"N--no,\" said Richard.\n\n\"Quite so!\" observed Mr. Kenge again.\n\n\"I should like a little variety,\" said Richard; \"I mean a good range\nof experience.\"\n\n\"Very requisite, no doubt,\" returned Mr. Kenge. \"I think this may be\neasily arranged, Mr. Jarndyce? We have only, in the first place, to\ndiscover a sufficiently eligible practitioner; and as soon as we make\nour want--and shall I add, our ability to pay a premium?--known, our\nonly difficulty will be in the selection of one from a large number.\nWe have only, in the second place, to observe those little\nformalities which are rendered necessary by our time of life and our\nbeing under the guardianship of the court. We shall soon be--shall I\nsay, in Mr. Richard's own light-hearted manner, 'going at it'--to our\nheart's content. It is a coincidence,\" said Mr. Kenge with a tinge of\nmelancholy in his smile, \"one of those coincidences which may or may\nnot require an explanation beyond our present limited faculties, that\nI have a cousin in the medical profession. He might be deemed\neligible by you and might be disposed to respond to this proposal. I\ncan answer for him as little as for you, but he MIGHT!\"\n\nAs this was an opening in the prospect, it was arranged that Mr.\nKenge should see his cousin. And as Mr. Jarndyce had before proposed\nto take us to London for a few weeks, it was settled next day that we\nshould make our visit at once and combine Richard's business with it.\n\nMr. Boythorn leaving us within a week, we took up our abode at a\ncheerful lodging near Oxford Street over an upholsterer's shop.\nLondon was a great wonder to us, and we were out for hours and hours\nat a time, seeing the sights, which appeared to be less capable of\nexhaustion than we were. We made the round of the principal theatres,\ntoo, with great delight, and saw all the plays that were worth\nseeing. I mention this because it was at the theatre that I began to\nbe made uncomfortable again by Mr. Guppy.\n\nI was sitting in front of the box one night with Ada, and Richard was\nin the place he liked best, behind Ada's chair, when, happening to\nlook down into the pit, I saw Mr. Guppy, with his hair flattened down\nupon his head and woe depicted in his face, looking up at me. I felt\nall through the performance that he never looked at the actors but\nconstantly looked at me, and always with a carefully prepared\nexpression of the deepest misery and the profoundest dejection.\n\nIt quite spoiled my pleasure for that night because it was so very\nembarrassing and so very ridiculous. But from that time forth, we\nnever went to the play without my seeing Mr. Guppy in the pit, always\nwith his hair straight and flat, his shirt-collar turned down, and a\ngeneral feebleness about him. If he were not there when we went in,\nand I began to hope he would not come and yielded myself for a little\nwhile to the interest of the scene, I was certain to encounter his\nlanguishing eyes when I least expected it and, from that time, to be\nquite sure that they were fixed upon me all the evening.\n\nI really cannot express how uneasy this made me. If he would only\nhave brushed up his hair or turned up his collar, it would have been\nbad enough; but to know that that absurd figure was always gazing at\nme, and always in that demonstrative state of despondency, put such a\nconstraint upon me that I did not like to laugh at the play, or to\ncry at it, or to move, or to speak. I seemed able to do nothing\nnaturally. As to escaping Mr. Guppy by going to the back of the box,\nI could not bear to do that because I knew Richard and Ada relied on\nhaving me next them and that they could never have talked together so\nhappily if anybody else had been in my place. So there I sat, not\nknowing where to look--for wherever I looked, I knew Mr. Guppy's eyes\nwere following me--and thinking of the dreadful expense to which this\nyoung man was putting himself on my account.\n\nSometimes I thought of telling Mr. Jarndyce. Then I feared that the\nyoung man would lose his situation and that I might ruin him.\nSometimes I thought of confiding in Richard, but was deterred by the\npossibility of his fighting Mr. Guppy and giving him black eyes.\nSometimes I thought, should I frown at him or shake my head. Then I\nfelt I could not do it. Sometimes I considered whether I should write\nto his mother, but that ended in my being convinced that to open a\ncorrespondence would be to make the matter worse. I always came to\nthe conclusion, finally, that I could do nothing. Mr. Guppy's\nperseverance, all this time, not only produced him regularly at any\ntheatre to which we went, but caused him to appear in the crowd as we\nwere coming out, and even to get up behind our fly--where I am sure I\nsaw him, two or three times, struggling among the most dreadful\nspikes. After we got home, he haunted a post opposite our house. The\nupholsterer's where we lodged being at the corner of two streets, and\nmy bedroom window being opposite the post, I was afraid to go near\nthe window when I went upstairs, lest I should see him (as I did one\nmoonlight night) leaning against the post and evidently catching\ncold. If Mr. Guppy had not been, fortunately for me, engaged in the\ndaytime, I really should have had no rest from him.\n\nWhile we were making this round of gaieties, in which Mr. Guppy so\nextraordinarily participated, the business which had helped to bring\nus to town was not neglected. Mr. Kenge's cousin was a Mr. Bayham\nBadger, who had a good practice at Chelsea and attended a large\npublic institution besides. He was quite willing to receive Richard\ninto his house and to superintend his studies, and as it seemed that\nthose could be pursued advantageously under Mr. Badger's roof, and\nMr. Badger liked Richard, and as Richard said he liked Mr. Badger\n\"well enough,\" an agreement was made, the Lord Chancellor's consent\nwas obtained, and it was all settled.\n\nOn the day when matters were concluded between Richard and Mr.\nBadger, we were all under engagement to dine at Mr. Badger's house.\nWe were to be \"merely a family party,\" Mrs. Badger's note said; and\nwe found no lady there but Mrs. Badger herself. She was surrounded in\nthe drawing-room by various objects, indicative of her painting a\nlittle, playing the piano a little, playing the guitar a little,\nplaying the harp a little, singing a little, working a little,\nreading a little, writing poetry a little, and botanizing a little.\nShe was a lady of about fifty, I should think, youthfully dressed,\nand of a very fine complexion. If I add to the little list of her\naccomplishments that she rouged a little, I do not mean that there\nwas any harm in it.\n\nMr. Bayham Badger himself was a pink, fresh-faced, crisp-looking\ngentleman with a weak voice, white teeth, light hair, and surprised\neyes, some years younger, I should say, than Mrs. Bayham Badger. He\nadmired her exceedingly, but principally, and to begin with, on the\ncurious ground (as it seemed to us) of her having had three husbands.\nWe had barely taken our seats when he said to Mr. Jarndyce quite\ntriumphantly, \"You would hardly suppose that I am Mrs. Bayham\nBadger's third!\"\n\n\"Indeed?\" said Mr. Jarndyce.\n\n\"Her third!\" said Mr. Badger. \"Mrs. Bayham Badger has not the\nappearance, Miss Summerson, of a lady who has had two former\nhusbands?\"\n\nI said \"Not at all!\"\n\n\"And most remarkable men!\" said Mr. Badger in a tone of confidence.\n\"Captain Swosser of the Royal Navy, who was Mrs. Badger's first\nhusband, was a very distinguished officer indeed. The name of\nProfessor Dingo, my immediate predecessor, is one of European\nreputation.\"\n\nMrs. Badger overheard him and smiled.\n\n\"Yes, my dear!\" Mr. Badger replied to the smile, \"I was observing to\nMr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson that you had had two former\nhusbands--both very distinguished men. And they found it, as people\ngenerally do, difficult to believe.\"\n\n\"I was barely twenty,\" said Mrs. Badger, \"when I married Captain\nSwosser of the Royal Navy. I was in the Mediterranean with him; I am\nquite a sailor. On the twelfth anniversary of my wedding-day, I\nbecame the wife of Professor Dingo.\"\n\n\"Of European reputation,\" added Mr. Badger in an undertone.\n\n\"And when Mr. Badger and myself were married,\" pursued Mrs. Badger,\n\"we were married on the same day of the year. I had become attached\nto the day.\"\n\n\"So that Mrs. Badger has been married to three husbands--two of them\nhighly distinguished men,\" said Mr. Badger, summing up the facts,\n\"and each time upon the twenty-first of March at eleven in the\nforenoon!\"\n\nWe all expressed our admiration.\n\n\"But for Mr. Badger's modesty,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, \"I would take\nleave to correct him and say three distinguished men.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Mr. Jarndyce! What I always tell him!\" observed Mrs.\nBadger.\n\n\"And, my dear,\" said Mr. Badger, \"what do I always tell you? That\nwithout any affectation of disparaging such professional distinction\nas I may have attained (which our friend Mr. Carstone will have many\nopportunities of estimating), I am not so weak--no, really,\" said Mr.\nBadger to us generally, \"so unreasonable--as to put my reputation on\nthe same footing with such first-rate men as Captain Swosser and\nProfessor Dingo. Perhaps you may be interested, Mr. Jarndyce,\"\ncontinued Mr. Bayham Badger, leading the way into the next\ndrawing-room, \"in this portrait of Captain Swosser. It was taken on\nhis return home from the African station, where he had suffered from\nthe fever of the country. Mrs. Badger considers it too yellow. But\nit's a very fine head. A very fine head!\"\n\nWe all echoed, \"A very fine head!\"\n\n\"I feel when I look at it,\" said Mr. Badger, \"'That's a man I should\nlike to have seen!' It strikingly bespeaks the first-class man that\nCaptain Swosser pre-eminently was. On the other side, Professor\nDingo. I knew him well--attended him in his last illness--a speaking\nlikeness! Over the piano, Mrs. Bayham Badger when Mrs. Swosser. Over\nthe sofa, Mrs. Bayham Badger when Mrs. Dingo. Of Mrs. Bayham Badger\nIN ESSE, I possess the original and have no copy.\"\n\nDinner was now announced, and we went downstairs. It was a very\ngenteel entertainment, very handsomely served. But the captain and\nthe professor still ran in Mr. Badger's head, and as Ada and I had\nthe honour of being under his particular care, we had the full\nbenefit of them.\n\n\"Water, Miss Summerson? Allow me! Not in that tumbler, pray. Bring me\nthe professor's goblet, James!\"\n\nAda very much admired some artificial flowers under a glass.\n\n\"Astonishing how they keep!\" said Mr. Badger. \"They were presented to\nMrs. Bayham Badger when she was in the Mediterranean.\"\n\nHe invited Mr. Jarndyce to take a glass of claret.\n\n\"Not that claret!\" he said. \"Excuse me! This is an occasion, and ON\nan occasion I produce some very special claret I happen to have.\n(James, Captain Swosser's wine!) Mr. Jarndyce, this is a wine that\nwas imported by the captain, we will not say how many years ago. You\nwill find it very curious. My dear, I shall be happy to take some of\nthis wine with you. (Captain Swosser's claret to your mistress,\nJames!) My love, your health!\"\n\nAfter dinner, when we ladies retired, we took Mrs. Badger's first and\nsecond husband with us. Mrs. Badger gave us in the drawing-room a\nbiographical sketch of the life and services of Captain Swosser\nbefore his marriage and a more minute account of him dating from the\ntime when he fell in love with her at a ball on board the Crippler,\ngiven to the officers of that ship when she lay in Plymouth Harbour.\n\n\"The dear old Crippler!\" said Mrs. Badger, shaking her head. \"She was\na noble vessel. Trim, ship-shape, all a taunto, as Captain Swosser\nused to say. You must excuse me if I occasionally introduce a\nnautical expression; I was quite a sailor once. Captain Swosser loved\nthat craft for my sake. When she was no longer in commission, he\nfrequently said that if he were rich enough to buy her old hulk, he\nwould have an inscription let into the timbers of the quarter-deck\nwhere we stood as partners in the dance to mark the spot where he\nfell--raked fore and aft (Captain Swosser used to say) by the fire\nfrom my tops. It was his naval way of mentioning my eyes.\"\n\nMrs. Badger shook her head, sighed, and looked in the glass.\n\n\"It was a great change from Captain Swosser to Professor Dingo,\" she\nresumed with a plaintive smile. \"I felt it a good deal at first. Such\nan entire revolution in my mode of life! But custom, combined with\nscience--particularly science--inured me to it. Being the professor's\nsole companion in his botanical excursions, I almost forgot that I\nhad ever been afloat, and became quite learned. It is singular that\nthe professor was the antipodes of Captain Swosser and that Mr.\nBadger is not in the least like either!\"\n\nWe then passed into a narrative of the deaths of Captain Swosser and\nProfessor Dingo, both of whom seem to have had very bad complaints.\nIn the course of it, Mrs. Badger signified to us that she had never\nmadly loved but once and that the object of that wild affection,\nnever to be recalled in its fresh enthusiasm, was Captain Swosser.\nThe professor was yet dying by inches in the most dismal manner, and\nMrs. Badger was giving us imitations of his way of saying, with great\ndifficulty, \"Where is Laura? Let Laura give me my toast and water!\"\nwhen the entrance of the gentlemen consigned him to the tomb.\n\nNow, I observed that evening, as I had observed for some days past,\nthat Ada and Richard were more than ever attached to each other's\nsociety, which was but natural, seeing that they were going to be\nseparated so soon. I was therefore not very much surprised when we\ngot home, and Ada and I retired upstairs, to find Ada more silent\nthan usual, though I was not quite prepared for her coming into my\narms and beginning to speak to me, with her face hidden.\n\n\"My darling Esther!\" murmured Ada. \"I have a great secret to tell\nyou!\"\n\nA mighty secret, my pretty one, no doubt!\n\n\"What is it, Ada?\"\n\n\"Oh, Esther, you would never guess!\"\n\n\"Shall I try to guess?\" said I.\n\n\"Oh, no! Don't! Pray don't!\" cried Ada, very much startled by the\nidea of my doing so.\n\n\"Now, I wonder who it can be about?\" said I, pretending to consider.\n\n\"It's about--\" said Ada in a whisper. \"It's about--my cousin\nRichard!\"\n\n\"Well, my own!\" said I, kissing her bright hair, which was all I\ncould see. \"And what about him?\"\n\n\"Oh, Esther, you would never guess!\"\n\nIt was so pretty to have her clinging to me in that way, hiding her\nface, and to know that she was not crying in sorrow but in a little\nglow of joy, and pride, and hope, that I would not help her just yet.\n\n\"He says--I know it's very foolish, we are both so young--but he\nsays,\" with a burst of tears, \"that he loves me dearly, Esther.\"\n\n\"Does he indeed?\" said I. \"I never heard of such a thing! Why, my pet\nof pets, I could have told you that weeks and weeks ago!\"\n\nTo see Ada lift up her flushed face in joyful surprise, and hold me\nround the neck, and laugh, and cry, and blush, was so pleasant!\n\n\"Why, my darling,\" said I, \"what a goose you must take me for! Your\ncousin Richard has been loving you as plainly as he could for I don't\nknow how long!\"\n\n\"And yet you never said a word about it!\" cried Ada, kissing me.\n\n\"No, my love,\" said I. \"I waited to be told.\"\n\n\"But now I have told you, you don't think it wrong of me, do you?\"\nreturned Ada. She might have coaxed me to say no if I had been the\nhardest-hearted duenna in the world. Not being that yet, I said no\nvery freely.\n\n\"And now,\" said I, \"I know the worst of it.\"\n\n\"Oh, that's not quite the worst of it, Esther dear!\" cried Ada,\nholding me tighter and laying down her face again upon my breast.\n\n\"No?\" said I. \"Not even that?\"\n\n\"No, not even that!\" said Ada, shaking her head.\n\n\"Why, you never mean to say--\" I was beginning in joke.\n\nBut Ada, looking up and smiling through her tears, cried, \"Yes, I do!\nYou know, you know I do!\" And then sobbed out, \"With all my heart I\ndo! With all my whole heart, Esther!\"\n\nI told her, laughing, why I had known that, too, just as well as I\nhad known the other! And we sat before the fire, and I had all the\ntalking to myself for a little while (though there was not much of\nit); and Ada was soon quiet and happy.\n\n\"Do you think my cousin John knows, dear Dame Durden?\" she asked.\n\n\"Unless my cousin John is blind, my pet,\" said I, \"I should think my\ncousin John knows pretty well as much as we know.\"\n\n\"We want to speak to him before Richard goes,\" said Ada timidly, \"and\nwe wanted you to advise us, and to tell him so. Perhaps you wouldn't\nmind Richard's coming in, Dame Durden?\"\n\n\"Oh! Richard is outside, is he, my dear?\" said I.\n\n\"I am not quite certain,\" returned Ada with a bashful simplicity that\nwould have won my heart if she had not won it long before, \"but I\nthink he's waiting at the door.\"\n\nThere he was, of course. They brought a chair on either side of me,\nand put me between them, and really seemed to have fallen in love\nwith me instead of one another, they were so confiding, and so\ntrustful, and so fond of me. They went on in their own wild way for a\nlittle while--I never stopped them; I enjoyed it too much myself--and\nthen we gradually fell to considering how young they were, and how\nthere must be a lapse of several years before this early love could\ncome to anything, and how it could come to happiness only if it were\nreal and lasting and inspired them with a steady resolution to do\ntheir duty to each other, with constancy, fortitude, and\nperseverance, each always for the other's sake. Well! Richard said\nthat he would work his fingers to the bone for Ada, and Ada said that\nshe would work her fingers to the bone for Richard, and they called\nme all sorts of endearing and sensible names, and we sat there,\nadvising and talking, half the night. Finally, before we parted, I\ngave them my promise to speak to their cousin John to-morrow.\n\nSo, when to-morrow came, I went to my guardian after breakfast, in\nthe room that was our town-substitute for the growlery, and told him\nthat I had it in trust to tell him something.\n\n\"Well, little woman,\" said he, shutting up his book, \"if you have\naccepted the trust, there can be no harm in it.\"\n\n\"I hope not, guardian,\" said I. \"I can guarantee that there is no\nsecrecy in it. For it only happened yesterday.\"\n\n\"Aye? And what is it, Esther?\"\n\n\"Guardian,\" said I, \"you remember the happy night when first we came\ndown to Bleak House? When Ada was singing in the dark room?\"\n\nI wished to call to his remembrance the look he had given me then.\nUnless I am much mistaken, I saw that I did so.\n\n\"Because--\" said I with a little hesitation.\n\n\"Yes, my dear!\" said he. \"Don't hurry.\"\n\n\"Because,\" said I, \"Ada and Richard have fallen in love. And have\ntold each other so.\"\n\n\"Already!\" cried my guardian, quite astonished.\n\n\"Yes!\" said I. \"And to tell you the truth, guardian, I rather\nexpected it.\"\n\n\"The deuce you did!\" said he.\n\nHe sat considering for a minute or two, with his smile, at once so\nhandsome and so kind, upon his changing face, and then requested me\nto let them know that he wished to see them. When they came, he\nencircled Ada with one arm in his fatherly way and addressed himself\nto Richard with a cheerful gravity.\n\n\"Rick,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, \"I am glad to have won your confidence. I\nhope to preserve it. When I contemplated these relations between us\nfour which have so brightened my life and so invested it with new\ninterests and pleasures, I certainly did contemplate, afar off, the\npossibility of you and your pretty cousin here (don't be shy, Ada,\ndon't be shy, my dear!) being in a mind to go through life together.\nI saw, and do see, many reasons to make it desirable. But that was\nafar off, Rick, afar off!\"\n\n\"We look afar off, sir,\" returned Richard.\n\n\"Well!\" said Mr. Jarndyce. \"That's rational. Now, hear me, my dears!\nI might tell you that you don't know your own minds yet, that a\nthousand things may happen to divert you from one another, that it is\nwell this chain of flowers you have taken up is very easily broken,\nor it might become a chain of lead. But I will not do that. Such\nwisdom will come soon enough, I dare say, if it is to come at all. I\nwill assume that a few years hence you will be in your hearts to one\nanother what you are to-day. All I say before speaking to you\naccording to that assumption is, if you DO change--if you DO come to\nfind that you are more commonplace cousins to each other as man and\nwoman than you were as boy and girl (your manhood will excuse me,\nRick!)--don't be ashamed still to confide in me, for there will be\nnothing monstrous or uncommon in it. I am only your friend and\ndistant kinsman. I have no power over you whatever. But I wish and\nhope to retain your confidence if I do nothing to forfeit it.\"\n\n\"I am very sure, sir,\" returned Richard, \"that I speak for Ada too\nwhen I say that you have the strongest power over us both--rooted in\nrespect, gratitude, and affection--strengthening every day.\"\n\n\"Dear cousin John,\" said Ada, on his shoulder, \"my father's place can\nnever be empty again. All the love and duty I could ever have\nrendered to him is transferred to you.\"\n\n\"Come!\" said Mr. Jarndyce. \"Now for our assumption. Now we lift our\neyes up and look hopefully at the distance! Rick, the world is before\nyou; and it is most probable that as you enter it, so it will receive\nyou. Trust in nothing but in Providence and your own efforts. Never\nseparate the two, like the heathen waggoner. Constancy in love is a\ngood thing, but it means nothing, and is nothing, without constancy\nin every kind of effort. If you had the abilities of all the great\nmen, past and present, you could do nothing well without sincerely\nmeaning it and setting about it. If you entertain the supposition\nthat any real success, in great things or in small, ever was or could\nbe, ever will or can be, wrested from Fortune by fits and starts,\nleave that wrong idea here or leave your cousin Ada here.\"\n\n\"I will leave IT here, sir,\" replied Richard smiling, \"if I brought\nit here just now (but I hope I did not), and will work my way on to\nmy cousin Ada in the hopeful distance.\"\n\n\"Right!\" said Mr. Jarndyce. \"If you are not to make her happy, why\nshould you pursue her?\"\n\n\"I wouldn't make her unhappy--no, not even for her love,\" retorted\nRichard proudly.\n\n\"Well said!\" cried Mr. Jarndyce. \"That's well said! She remains here,\nin her home with me. Love her, Rick, in your active life, no less\nthan in her home when you revisit it, and all will go well.\nOtherwise, all will go ill. That's the end of my preaching. I think\nyou and Ada had better take a walk.\"\n\nAda tenderly embraced him, and Richard heartily shook hands with him,\nand then the cousins went out of the room, looking back again\ndirectly, though, to say that they would wait for me.\n\nThe door stood open, and we both followed them with our eyes as they\npassed down the adjoining room, on which the sun was shining, and out\nat its farther end. Richard with his head bent, and her hand drawn\nthrough his arm, was talking to her very earnestly; and she looked up\nin his face, listening, and seemed to see nothing else. So young, so\nbeautiful, so full of hope and promise, they went on lightly through\nthe sunlight as their own happy thoughts might then be traversing the\nyears to come and making them all years of brightness. So they passed\naway into the shadow and were gone. It was only a burst of light that\nhad been so radiant. The room darkened as they went out, and the sun\nwas clouded over.\n\n\"Am I right, Esther?\" said my guardian when they were gone.\n\nHe was so good and wise to ask ME whether he was right!\n\n\"Rick may gain, out of this, the quality he wants. Wants, at the core\nof so much that is good!\" said Mr. Jarndyce, shaking his head. \"I\nhave said nothing to Ada, Esther. She has her friend and counsellor\nalways near.\" And he laid his hand lovingly upon my head.\n\nI could not help showing that I was a little moved, though I did all\nI could to conceal it.\n\n\"Tut tut!\" said he. \"But we must take care, too, that our little\nwoman's life is not all consumed in care for others.\"\n\n\"Care? My dear guardian, I believe I am the happiest creature in the\nworld!\"\n\n\"I believe so, too,\" said he. \"But some one may find out what Esther\nnever will--that the little woman is to be held in remembrance above\nall other people!\"\n\nI have omitted to mention in its place that there was some one else\nat the family dinner party. It was not a lady. It was a gentleman. It\nwas a gentleman of a dark complexion--a young surgeon. He was rather\nreserved, but I thought him very sensible and agreeable. At least,\nAda asked me if I did not, and I said yes.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nDeportment\n\n\nRichard left us on the very next evening to begin his new career, and\ncommitted Ada to my charge with great love for her and great trust in\nme. It touched me then to reflect, and it touches me now, more\nnearly, to remember (having what I have to tell) how they both\nthought of me, even at that engrossing time. I was a part of all\ntheir plans, for the present and the future. I was to write Richard\nonce a week, making my faithful report of Ada, who was to write to\nhim every alternate day. I was to be informed, under his own hand, of\nall his labours and successes; I was to observe how resolute and\npersevering he would be; I was to be Ada's bridesmaid when they were\nmarried; I was to live with them afterwards; I was to keep all the\nkeys of their house; I was to be made happy for ever and a day.\n\n\"And if the suit SHOULD make us rich, Esther--which it may, you\nknow!\" said Richard to crown all.\n\nA shade crossed Ada's face.\n\n\"My dearest Ada,\" asked Richard, \"why not?\"\n\n\"It had better declare us poor at once,\" said Ada.\n\n\"Oh! I don't know about that,\" returned Richard, \"but at all events,\nit won't declare anything at once. It hasn't declared anything in\nheaven knows how many years.\"\n\n\"Too true,\" said Ada.\n\n\"Yes, but,\" urged Richard, answering what her look suggested rather\nthan her words, \"the longer it goes on, dear cousin, the nearer it\nmust be to a settlement one way or other. Now, is not that\nreasonable?\"\n\n\"You know best, Richard. But I am afraid if we trust to it, it will\nmake us unhappy.\"\n\n\"But, my Ada, we are not going to trust to it!\" cried Richard gaily.\n\"We know it better than to trust to it. We only say that if it SHOULD\nmake us rich, we have no constitutional objection to being rich. The\ncourt is, by solemn settlement of law, our grim old guardian, and we\nare to suppose that what it gives us (when it gives us anything) is\nour right. It is not necessary to quarrel with our right.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Ada, \"but it may be better to forget all about it.\"\n\n\"Well, well,\" cried Richard, \"then we will forget all about it! We\nconsign the whole thing to oblivion. Dame Durden puts on her\napproving face, and it's done!\"\n\n\"Dame Durden's approving face,\" said I, looking out of the box in\nwhich I was packing his books, \"was not very visible when you called\nit by that name; but it does approve, and she thinks you can't do\nbetter.\"\n\nSo, Richard said there was an end of it, and immediately began, on no\nother foundation, to build as many castles in the air as would man\nthe Great Wall of China. He went away in high spirits. Ada and I,\nprepared to miss him very much, commenced our quieter career.\n\nOn our arrival in London, we had called with Mr. Jarndyce at Mrs.\nJellyby's but had not been so fortunate as to find her at home. It\nappeared that she had gone somewhere to a tea-drinking and had taken\nMiss Jellyby with her. Besides the tea-drinking, there was to be some\nconsiderable speech-making and letter-writing on the general merits\nof the cultivation of coffee, conjointly with natives, at the\nSettlement of Borrioboola-Gha. All this involved, no doubt,\nsufficient active exercise of pen and ink to make her daughter's part\nin the proceedings anything but a holiday.\n\nIt being now beyond the time appointed for Mrs. Jellyby's return, we\ncalled again. She was in town, but not at home, having gone to Mile\nEnd directly after breakfast on some Borrioboolan business, arising\nout of a society called the East London Branch Aid Ramification. As I\nhad not seen Peepy on the occasion of our last call (when he was not\nto be found anywhere, and when the cook rather thought he must have\nstrolled away with the dustman's cart), I now inquired for him again.\nThe oyster shells he had been building a house with were still in the\npassage, but he was nowhere discoverable, and the cook supposed that\nhe had \"gone after the sheep.\" When we repeated, with some surprise,\n\"The sheep?\" she said, Oh, yes, on market days he sometimes followed\nthem quite out of town and came back in such a state as never was!\n\nI was sitting at the window with my guardian on the following\nmorning, and Ada was busy writing--of course to Richard--when Miss\nJellyby was announced, and entered, leading the identical Peepy, whom\nshe had made some endeavours to render presentable by wiping the dirt\ninto corners of his face and hands and making his hair very wet and\nthen violently frizzling it with her fingers. Everything the dear\nchild wore was either too large for him or too small. Among his other\ncontradictory decorations he had the hat of a bishop and the little\ngloves of a baby. His boots were, on a small scale, the boots of a\nploughman, while his legs, so crossed and recrossed with scratches\nthat they looked like maps, were bare below a very short pair of\nplaid drawers finished off with two frills of perfectly different\npatterns. The deficient buttons on his plaid frock had evidently been\nsupplied from one of Mr. Jellyby's coats, they were so extremely\nbrazen and so much too large. Most extraordinary specimens of\nneedlework appeared on several parts of his dress, where it had been\nhastily mended, and I recognized the same hand on Miss Jellyby's. She\nwas, however, unaccountably improved in her appearance and looked\nvery pretty. She was conscious of poor little Peepy being but a\nfailure after all her trouble, and she showed it as she came in by\nthe way in which she glanced first at him and then at us.\n\n\"Oh, dear me!\" said my guardian. \"Due east!\"\n\nAda and I gave her a cordial welcome and presented her to Mr.\nJarndyce, to whom she said as she sat down, \"Ma's compliments, and\nshe hopes you'll excuse her, because she's correcting proofs of the\nplan. She's going to put out five thousand new circulars, and she\nknows you'll be interested to hear that. I have brought one of them\nwith me. Ma's compliments.\" With which she presented it sulkily\nenough.\n\n\"Thank you,\" said my guardian. \"I am much obliged to Mrs. Jellyby.\nOh, dear me! This is a very trying wind!\"\n\nWe were busy with Peepy, taking off his clerical hat, asking him if\nhe remembered us, and so on. Peepy retired behind his elbow at first,\nbut relented at the sight of sponge-cake and allowed me to take him\non my lap, where he sat munching quietly. Mr. Jarndyce then\nwithdrawing into the temporary growlery, Miss Jellyby opened a\nconversation with her usual abruptness.\n\n\"We are going on just as bad as ever in Thavies Inn,\" said she. \"I\nhave no peace of my life. Talk of Africa! I couldn't be worse off if\nI was a what's-his-name--man and a brother!\"\n\nI tried to say something soothing.\n\n\"Oh, it's of no use, Miss Summerson,\" exclaimed Miss Jellyby, \"though\nI thank you for the kind intention all the same. I know how I am\nused, and I am not to be talked over. YOU wouldn't be talked over if\nyou were used so. Peepy, go and play at Wild Beasts under the piano!\"\n\n\"I shan't!\" said Peepy.\n\n\"Very well, you ungrateful, naughty, hard-hearted boy!\" returned Miss\nJellyby with tears in her eyes. \"I'll never take pains to dress you\nany more.\"\n\n\"Yes, I will go, Caddy!\" cried Peepy, who was really a good child and\nwho was so moved by his sister's vexation that he went at once.\n\n\"It seems a little thing to cry about,\" said poor Miss Jellyby\napologetically, \"but I am quite worn out. I was directing the new\ncirculars till two this morning. I detest the whole thing so that\nthat alone makes my head ache till I can't see out of my eyes. And\nlook at that poor unfortunate child! Was there ever such a fright as\nhe is!\"\n\nPeepy, happily unconscious of the defects in his appearance, sat on\nthe carpet behind one of the legs of the piano, looking calmly out of\nhis den at us while he ate his cake.\n\n\"I have sent him to the other end of the room,\" observed Miss\nJellyby, drawing her chair nearer ours, \"because I don't want him to\nhear the conversation. Those little things are so sharp! I was going\nto say, we really are going on worse than ever. Pa will be a bankrupt\nbefore long, and then I hope Ma will be satisfied. There'll he nobody\nbut Ma to thank for it.\"\n\nWe said we hoped Mr. Jellyby's affairs were not in so bad a state as\nthat.\n\n\"It's of no use hoping, though it's very kind of you,\" returned Miss\nJellyby, shaking her head. \"Pa told me only yesterday morning (and\ndreadfully unhappy he is) that he couldn't weather the storm. I\nshould be surprised if he could. When all our tradesmen send into our\nhouse any stuff they like, and the servants do what they like with\nit, and I have no time to improve things if I knew how, and Ma don't\ncare about anything, I should like to make out how Pa is to weather\nthe storm. I declare if I was Pa, I'd run away.\"\n\n\"My dear!\" said I, smiling. \"Your papa, no doubt, considers his\nfamily.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, his family is all very fine, Miss Summerson,\" replied Miss\nJellyby; \"but what comfort is his family to him? His family is\nnothing but bills, dirt, waste, noise, tumbles downstairs, confusion,\nand wretchedness. His scrambling home, from week's end to week's end,\nis like one great washing-day--only nothing's washed!\"\n\nMiss Jellyby tapped her foot upon the floor and wiped her eyes.\n\n\"I am sure I pity Pa to that degree,\" she said, \"and am so angry with\nMa that I can't find words to express myself! However, I am not going\nto bear it, I am determined. I won't be a slave all my life, and I\nwon't submit to be proposed to by Mr. Quale. A pretty thing, indeed,\nto marry a philanthropist. As if I hadn't had enough of THAT!\" said\npoor Miss Jellyby.\n\nI must confess that I could not help feeling rather angry with Mrs.\nJellyby myself, seeing and hearing this neglected girl and knowing\nhow much of bitterly satirical truth there was in what she said.\n\n\"If it wasn't that we had been intimate when you stopped at our\nhouse,\" pursued Miss Jellyby, \"I should have been ashamed to come\nhere to-day, for I know what a figure I must seem to you two. But as\nit is, I made up my mind to call, especially as I am not likely to\nsee you again the next time you come to town.\"\n\nShe said this with such great significance that Ada and I glanced at\none another, foreseeing something more.\n\n\"No!\" said Miss Jellyby, shaking her head. \"Not at all likely! I know\nI may trust you two. I am sure you won't betray me. I am engaged.\"\n\n\"Without their knowledge at home?\" said I.\n\n\"Why, good gracious me, Miss Summerson,\" she returned, justifying\nherself in a fretful but not angry manner, \"how can it be otherwise?\nYou know what Ma is--and I needn't make poor Pa more miserable by\ntelling HIM.\"\n\n\"But would it not be adding to his unhappiness to marry without his\nknowledge or consent, my dear?\" said I.\n\n\"No,\" said Miss Jellyby, softening. \"I hope not. I should try to make\nhim happy and comfortable when he came to see me, and Peepy and the\nothers should take it in turns to come and stay with me, and they\nshould have some care taken of them then.\"\n\nThere was a good deal of affection in poor Caddy. She softened more\nand more while saying this and cried so much over the unwonted little\nhome-picture she had raised in her mind that Peepy, in his cave under\nthe piano, was touched, and turned himself over on his back with loud\nlamentations. It was not until I had brought him to kiss his sister,\nand had restored him to his place on my lap, and had shown him that\nCaddy was laughing (she laughed expressly for the purpose), that we\ncould recall his peace of mind; even then it was for some time\nconditional on his taking us in turns by the chin and smoothing our\nfaces all over with his hand. At last, as his spirits were not equal\nto the piano, we put him on a chair to look out of window; and Miss\nJellyby, holding him by one leg, resumed her confidence.\n\n\"It began in your coming to our house,\" she said.\n\nWe naturally asked how.\n\n\"I felt I was so awkward,\" she replied, \"that I made up my mind to be\nimproved in that respect at all events and to learn to dance. I told\nMa I was ashamed of myself, and I must be taught to dance. Ma looked\nat me in that provoking way of hers as if I wasn't in sight, but I\nwas quite determined to be taught to dance, and so I went to Mr.\nTurveydrop's Academy in Newman Street.\"\n\n\"And was it there, my dear--\" I began.\n\n\"Yes, it was there,\" said Caddy, \"and I am engaged to Mr. Turveydrop.\nThere are two Mr. Turveydrops, father and son. My Mr. Turveydrop is\nthe son, of course. I only wish I had been better brought up and was\nlikely to make him a better wife, for I am very fond of him.\"\n\n\"I am sorry to hear this,\" said I, \"I must confess.\"\n\n\"I don't know why you should be sorry,\" she retorted a little\nanxiously, \"but I am engaged to Mr. Turveydrop, whether or no, and he\nis very fond of me. It's a secret as yet, even on his side, because\nold Mr. Turveydrop has a share in the connexion and it might break\nhis heart or give him some other shock if he was told of it abruptly.\nOld Mr. Turveydrop is a very gentlemanly man indeed--very\ngentlemanly.\"\n\n\"Does his wife know of it?\" asked Ada.\n\n\"Old Mr. Turveydrop's wife, Miss Clare?\" returned Miss Jellyby,\nopening her eyes. \"There's no such person. He is a widower.\"\n\nWe were here interrupted by Peepy, whose leg had undergone so much on\naccount of his sister's unconsciously jerking it like a bell-rope\nwhenever she was emphatic that the afflicted child now bemoaned his\nsufferings with a very low-spirited noise. As he appealed to me for\ncompassion, and as I was only a listener, I undertook to hold him.\nMiss Jellyby proceeded, after begging Peepy's pardon with a kiss and\nassuring him that she hadn't meant to do it.\n\n\"That's the state of the case,\" said Caddy. \"If I ever blame myself,\nI still think it's Ma's fault. We are to be married whenever we can,\nand then I shall go to Pa at the office and write to Ma. It won't\nmuch agitate Ma; I am only pen and ink to HER. One great comfort is,\"\nsaid Caddy with a sob, \"that I shall never hear of Africa after I am\nmarried. Young Mr. Turveydrop hates it for my sake, and if old Mr.\nTurveydrop knows there is such a place, it's as much as he does.\"\n\n\"It was he who was very gentlemanly, I think!\" said I.\n\n\"Very gentlemanly indeed,\" said Caddy. \"He is celebrated almost\neverywhere for his deportment.\"\n\n\"Does he teach?\" asked Ada.\n\n\"No, he don't teach anything in particular,\" replied Caddy. \"But his\ndeportment is beautiful.\"\n\nCaddy went on to say with considerable hesitation and reluctance that\nthere was one thing more she wished us to know, and felt we ought to\nknow, and which she hoped would not offend us. It was that she had\nimproved her acquaintance with Miss Flite, the little crazy old lady,\nand that she frequently went there early in the morning and met her\nlover for a few minutes before breakfast--only for a few minutes. \"I\ngo there at other times,\" said Caddy, \"but Prince does not come then.\nYoung Mr. Turveydrop's name is Prince; I wish it wasn't, because it\nsounds like a dog, but of course he didn't christen himself. Old Mr.\nTurveydrop had him christened Prince in remembrance of the Prince\nRegent. Old Mr. Turveydrop adored the Prince Regent on account of his\ndeportment. I hope you won't think the worse of me for having made\nthese little appointments at Miss Flite's, where I first went with\nyou, because I like the poor thing for her own sake and I believe she\nlikes me. If you could see young Mr. Turveydrop, I am sure you would\nthink well of him--at least, I am sure you couldn't possibly think\nany ill of him. I am going there now for my lesson. I couldn't ask\nyou to go with me, Miss Summerson; but if you would,\" said Caddy, who\nhad said all this earnestly and tremblingly, \"I should be very\nglad--very glad.\"\n\nIt happened that we had arranged with my guardian to go to Miss\nFlite's that day. We had told him of our former visit, and our\naccount had interested him; but something had always happened to\nprevent our going there again. As I trusted that I might have\nsufficient influence with Miss Jellyby to prevent her taking any very\nrash step if I fully accepted the confidence she was so willing to\nplace in me, poor girl, I proposed that she and I and Peepy should go\nto the academy and afterwards meet my guardian and Ada at Miss\nFlite's, whose name I now learnt for the first time. This was on\ncondition that Miss Jellyby and Peepy should come back with us to\ndinner. The last article of the agreement being joyfully acceded to\nby both, we smartened Peepy up a little with the assistance of a few\npins, some soap and water, and a hair-brush, and went out, bending\nour steps towards Newman Street, which was very near.\n\nI found the academy established in a sufficiently dingy house at the\ncorner of an archway, with busts in all the staircase windows. In the\nsame house there were also established, as I gathered from the plates\non the door, a drawing-master, a coal-merchant (there was, certainly,\nno room for his coals), and a lithographic artist. On the plate\nwhich, in size and situation, took precedence of all the rest, I\nread, MR. TURVEYDROP. The door was open, and the hall was blocked up\nby a grand piano, a harp, and several other musical instruments in\ncases, all in progress of removal, and all looking rakish in the\ndaylight. Miss Jellyby informed me that the academy had been lent,\nlast night, for a concert.\n\nWe went upstairs--it had been quite a fine house once, when it was\nanybody's business to keep it clean and fresh, and nobody's business\nto smoke in it all day--and into Mr. Turveydrop's great room, which\nwas built out into a mews at the back and was lighted by a skylight.\nIt was a bare, resounding room smelling of stables, with cane forms\nalong the walls, and the walls ornamented at regular intervals with\npainted lyres and little cut-glass branches for candles, which seemed\nto be shedding their old-fashioned drops as other branches might shed\nautumn leaves. Several young lady pupils, ranging from thirteen or\nfourteen years of age to two or three and twenty, were assembled; and\nI was looking among them for their instructor when Caddy, pinching my\narm, repeated the ceremony of introduction. \"Miss Summerson, Mr.\nPrince Turveydrop!\"\n\nI curtsied to a little blue-eyed fair man of youthful appearance with\nflaxen hair parted in the middle and curling at the ends all round\nhis head. He had a little fiddle, which we used to call at school a\nkit, under his left arm, and its little bow in the same hand. His\nlittle dancing-shoes were particularly diminutive, and he had a\nlittle innocent, feminine manner which not only appealed to me in an\namiable way, but made this singular effect upon me, that I received\nthe impression that he was like his mother and that his mother had\nnot been much considered or well used.\n\n\"I am very happy to see Miss Jellyby's friend,\" he said, bowing low\nto me. \"I began to fear,\" with timid tenderness, \"as it was past the\nusual time, that Miss Jellyby was not coming.\"\n\n\"I beg you will have the goodness to attribute that to me, who have\ndetained her, and to receive my excuses, sir,\" said I.\n\n\"Oh, dear!\" said he.\n\n\"And pray,\" I entreated, \"do not allow me to be the cause of any more\ndelay.\"\n\nWith that apology I withdrew to a seat between Peepy (who, being well\nused to it, had already climbed into a corner place) and an old lady\nof a censorious countenance whose two nieces were in the class and\nwho was very indignant with Peepy's boots. Prince Turveydrop then\ntinkled the strings of his kit with his fingers, and the young ladies\nstood up to dance. Just then there appeared from a side-door old Mr.\nTurveydrop, in the full lustre of his deportment.\n\nHe was a fat old gentleman with a false complexion, false teeth,\nfalse whiskers, and a wig. He had a fur collar, and he had a padded\nbreast to his coat, which only wanted a star or a broad blue ribbon\nto be complete. He was pinched in, and swelled out, and got up, and\nstrapped down, as much as he could possibly bear. He had such a\nneckcloth on (puffing his very eyes out of their natural shape), and\nhis chin and even his ears so sunk into it, that it seemed as though\nhe must inevitably double up if it were cast loose. He had under his\narm a hat of great size and weight, shelving downward from the crown\nto the brim, and in his hand a pair of white gloves with which he\nflapped it as he stood poised on one leg in a high-shouldered,\nround-elbowed state of elegance not to be surpassed. He had a cane,\nhe had an eye-glass, he had a snuff-box, he had rings, he had\nwristbands, he had everything but any touch of nature; he was not\nlike youth, he was not like age, he was not like anything in the\nworld but a model of deportment.\n\n\"Father! A visitor. Miss Jellyby's friend, Miss Summerson.\"\n\n\"Distinguished,\" said Mr. Turveydrop, \"by Miss Summerson's presence.\"\nAs he bowed to me in that tight state, I almost believe I saw creases\ncome into the whites of his eyes.\n\n\"My father,\" said the son, aside, to me with quite an affecting\nbelief in him, \"is a celebrated character. My father is greatly\nadmired.\"\n\n\"Go on, Prince! Go on!\" said Mr. Turveydrop, standing with his back\nto the fire and waving his gloves condescendingly. \"Go on, my son!\"\n\nAt this command, or by this gracious permission, the lesson went on.\nPrince Turveydrop sometimes played the kit, dancing; sometimes played\nthe piano, standing; sometimes hummed the tune with what little\nbreath he could spare, while he set a pupil right; always\nconscientiously moved with the least proficient through every step\nand every part of the figure; and never rested for an instant. His\ndistinguished father did nothing whatever but stand before the fire,\na model of deportment.\n\n\"And he never does anything else,\" said the old lady of the\ncensorious countenance. \"Yet would you believe that it's HIS name on\nthe door-plate?\"\n\n\"His son's name is the same, you know,\" said I.\n\n\"He wouldn't let his son have any name if he could take it from him,\"\nreturned the old lady. \"Look at the son's dress!\" It certainly was\nplain--threadbare--almost shabby. \"Yet the father must be garnished\nand tricked out,\" said the old lady, \"because of his deportment. I'd\ndeport him! Transport him would be better!\"\n\nI felt curious to know more concerning this person. I asked, \"Does he\ngive lessons in deportment now?\"\n\n\"Now!\" returned the old lady shortly. \"Never did.\"\n\nAfter a moment's consideration, I suggested that perhaps fencing had\nbeen his accomplishment.\n\n\"I don't believe he can fence at all, ma'am,\" said the old lady.\n\nI looked surprised and inquisitive. The old lady, becoming more and\nmore incensed against the master of deportment as she dwelt upon the\nsubject, gave me some particulars of his career, with strong\nassurances that they were mildly stated.\n\nHe had married a meek little dancing-mistress, with a tolerable\nconnexion (having never in his life before done anything but deport\nhimself), and had worked her to death, or had, at the best, suffered\nher to work herself to death, to maintain him in those expenses which\nwere indispensable to his position. At once to exhibit his deportment\nto the best models and to keep the best models constantly before\nhimself, he had found it necessary to frequent all public places of\nfashionable and lounging resort, to be seen at Brighton and elsewhere\nat fashionable times, and to lead an idle life in the very best\nclothes. To enable him to do this, the affectionate little\ndancing-mistress had toiled and laboured and would have toiled and\nlaboured to that hour if her strength had lasted so long. For the\nmainspring of the story was that in spite of the man's absorbing\nselfishness, his wife (overpowered by his deportment) had, to the\nlast, believed in him and had, on her death-bed, in the most moving\nterms, confided him to their son as one who had an inextinguishable\nclaim upon him and whom he could never regard with too much pride and\ndeference. The son, inheriting his mother's belief, and having the\ndeportment always before him, had lived and grown in the same faith,\nand now, at thirty years of age, worked for his father twelve hours a\nday and looked up to him with veneration on the old imaginary\npinnacle.\n\n\"The airs the fellow gives himself!\" said my informant, shaking her\nhead at old Mr. Turveydrop with speechless indignation as he drew on\nhis tight gloves, of course unconscious of the homage she was\nrendering. \"He fully believes he is one of the aristocracy! And he is\nso condescending to the son he so egregiously deludes that you might\nsuppose him the most virtuous of parents. Oh!\" said the old lady,\napostrophizing him with infinite vehemence. \"I could bite you!\"\n\nI could not help being amused, though I heard the old lady out with\nfeelings of real concern. It was difficult to doubt her with the\nfather and son before me. What I might have thought of them without\nthe old lady's account, or what I might have thought of the old\nlady's account without them, I cannot say. There was a fitness of\nthings in the whole that carried conviction with it.\n\nMy eyes were yet wandering, from young Mr. Turveydrop working so\nhard, to old Mr. Turveydrop deporting himself so beautifully, when\nthe latter came ambling up to me and entered into conversation.\n\nHe asked me, first of all, whether I conferred a charm and a\ndistinction on London by residing in it? I did not think it necessary\nto reply that I was perfectly aware I should not do that, in any\ncase, but merely told him where I did reside.\n\n\"A lady so graceful and accomplished,\" he said, kissing his\nright glove and afterwards extending it towards the pupils,\n\"will look leniently on the deficiencies here. We do our best to\npolish--polish--polish!\"\n\nHe sat down beside me, taking some pains to sit on the form, I\nthought, in imitation of the print of his illustrious model on the\nsofa. And really he did look very like it.\n\n\"To polish--polish--polish!\" he repeated, taking a pinch of snuff and\ngently fluttering his fingers. \"But we are not, if I may say so to\none formed to be graceful both by Nature and Art--\" with the\nhigh-shouldered bow, which it seemed impossible for him to make\nwithout lifting up his eyebrows and shutting his eyes \"--we are not\nwhat we used to be in point of deportment.\"\n\n\"Are we not, sir?\" said I.\n\n\"We have degenerated,\" he returned, shaking his head, which he could\ndo to a very limited extent in his cravat. \"A levelling age is not\nfavourable to deportment. It develops vulgarity. Perhaps I speak with\nsome little partiality. It may not be for me to say that I have been\ncalled, for some years now, Gentleman Turveydrop, or that his Royal\nHighness the Prince Regent did me the honour to inquire, on my\nremoving my hat as he drove out of the Pavilion at Brighton (that\nfine building), 'Who is he? Who the devil is he? Why don't I know\nhim? Why hasn't he thirty thousand a year?' But these are little\nmatters of anecdote--the general property, ma'am--still repeated\noccasionally among the upper classes.\"\n\n\"Indeed?\" said I.\n\nHe replied with the high-shouldered bow. \"Where what is left among us\nof deportment,\" he added, \"still lingers. England--alas, my\ncountry!--has degenerated very much, and is degenerating every day.\nShe has not many gentlemen left. We are few. I see nothing to succeed\nus but a race of weavers.\"\n\n\"One might hope that the race of gentlemen would be perpetuated\nhere,\" said I.\n\n\"You are very good.\" He smiled with a high-shouldered bow again. \"You\nflatter me. But, no--no! I have never been able to imbue my poor boy\nwith that part of his art. Heaven forbid that I should disparage my\ndear child, but he has--no deportment.\"\n\n\"He appears to be an excellent master,\" I observed.\n\n\"Understand me, my dear madam, he IS an excellent master. All that\ncan be acquired, he has acquired. All that can be imparted, he can\nimpart. But there ARE things--\" He took another pinch of snuff and\nmade the bow again, as if to add, \"This kind of thing, for instance.\"\n\nI glanced towards the centre of the room, where Miss Jellyby's lover,\nnow engaged with single pupils, was undergoing greater drudgery than\never.\n\n\"My amiable child,\" murmured Mr. Turveydrop, adjusting his cravat.\n\n\"Your son is indefatigable,\" said I.\n\n\"It is my reward,\" said Mr. Turveydrop, \"to hear you say so. In some\nrespects, he treads in the footsteps of his sainted mother. She was a\ndevoted creature. But wooman, lovely wooman,\" said Mr. Turveydrop\nwith very disagreeable gallantry, \"what a sex you are!\"\n\nI rose and joined Miss Jellyby, who was by this time putting on her\nbonnet. The time allotted to a lesson having fully elapsed, there was\na general putting on of bonnets. When Miss Jellyby and the\nunfortunate Prince found an opportunity to become betrothed I don't\nknow, but they certainly found none on this occasion to exchange a\ndozen words.\n\n\"My dear,\" said Mr. Turveydrop benignly to his son, \"do you know the\nhour?\"\n\n\"No, father.\" The son had no watch. The father had a handsome gold\none, which he pulled out with an air that was an example to mankind.\n\n\"My son,\" said he, \"it's two o'clock. Recollect your school at\nKensington at three.\"\n\n\"That's time enough for me, father,\" said Prince. \"I can take a\nmorsel of dinner standing and be off.\"\n\n\"My dear boy,\" returned his father, \"you must be very quick. You will\nfind the cold mutton on the table.\"\n\n\"Thank you, father. Are YOU off now, father?\"\n\n\"Yes, my dear. I suppose,\" said Mr. Turveydrop, shutting his eyes and\nlifting up his shoulders with modest consciousness, \"that I must show\nmyself, as usual, about town.\"\n\n\"You had better dine out comfortably somewhere,\" said his son.\n\n\"My dear child, I intend to. I shall take my little meal, I think, at\nthe French house, in the Opera Colonnade.\"\n\n\"That's right. Good-bye, father!\" said Prince, shaking hands.\n\n\"Good-bye, my son. Bless you!\"\n\nMr. Turveydrop said this in quite a pious manner, and it seemed to do\nhis son good, who, in parting from him, was so pleased with him, so\ndutiful to him, and so proud of him that I almost felt as if it were\nan unkindness to the younger man not to be able to believe implicitly\nin the elder. The few moments that were occupied by Prince in taking\nleave of us (and particularly of one of us, as I saw, being in the\nsecret), enhanced my favourable impression of his almost childish\ncharacter. I felt a liking for him and a compassion for him as he put\nhis little kit in his pocket--and with it his desire to stay a little\nwhile with Caddy--and went away good-humouredly to his cold mutton\nand his school at Kensington, that made me scarcely less irate with\nhis father than the censorious old lady.\n\nThe father opened the room door for us and bowed us out in a manner,\nI must acknowledge, worthy of his shining original. In the same style\nhe presently passed us on the other side of the street, on his way to\nthe aristocratic part of the town, where he was going to show himself\namong the few other gentlemen left. For some moments, I was so lost\nin reconsidering what I had heard and seen in Newman Street that I\nwas quite unable to talk to Caddy or even to fix my attention on what\nshe said to me, especially when I began to inquire in my mind whether\nthere were, or ever had been, any other gentlemen, not in the dancing\nprofession, who lived and founded a reputation entirely on their\ndeportment. This became so bewildering and suggested the possibility\nof so many Mr. Turveydrops that I said, \"Esther, you must make up\nyour mind to abandon this subject altogether and attend to Caddy.\" I\naccordingly did so, and we chatted all the rest of the way to\nLincoln's Inn.\n\nCaddy told me that her lover's education had been so neglected that\nit was not always easy to read his notes. She said if he were not so\nanxious about his spelling and took less pains to make it clear, he\nwould do better; but he put so many unnecessary letters into short\nwords that they sometimes quite lost their English appearance. \"He\ndoes it with the best intention,\" observed Caddy, \"but it hasn't the\neffect he means, poor fellow!\" Caddy then went on to reason, how\ncould he be expected to be a scholar when he had passed his whole\nlife in the dancing-school and had done nothing but teach and fag,\nfag and teach, morning, noon, and night! And what did it matter? She\ncould write letters enough for both, as she knew to her cost, and it\nwas far better for him to be amiable than learned. \"Besides, it's not\nas if I was an accomplished girl who had any right to give herself\nairs,\" said Caddy. \"I know little enough, I am sure, thanks to Ma!\n\n\"There's another thing I want to tell you, now we are alone,\"\ncontinued Caddy, \"which I should not have liked to mention unless you\nhad seen Prince, Miss Summerson. You know what a house ours is. It's\nof no use my trying to learn anything that it would be useful for\nPrince's wife to know in OUR house. We live in such a state of muddle\nthat it's impossible, and I have only been more disheartened whenever\nI have tried. So I get a little practice with--who do you think? Poor\nMiss Flite! Early in the morning I help her to tidy her room and\nclean her birds, and I make her cup of coffee for her (of course she\ntaught me), and I have learnt to make it so well that Prince says\nit's the very best coffee he ever tasted, and would quite delight old\nMr. Turveydrop, who is very particular indeed about his coffee. I can\nmake little puddings too; and I know how to buy neck of mutton, and\ntea, and sugar, and butter, and a good many housekeeping things. I am\nnot clever at my needle, yet,\" said Caddy, glancing at the repairs on\nPeepy's frock, \"but perhaps I shall improve, and since I have been\nengaged to Prince and have been doing all this, I have felt\nbetter-tempered, I hope, and more forgiving to Ma. It rather put me\nout at first this morning to see you and Miss Clare looking so neat\nand pretty and to feel ashamed of Peepy and myself too, but on the\nwhole I hope I am better-tempered than I was and more forgiving to\nMa.\"\n\nThe poor girl, trying so hard, said it from her heart, and touched\nmine. \"Caddy, my love,\" I replied, \"I begin to have a great affection\nfor you, and I hope we shall become friends.\"\n\n\"Oh, do you?\" cried Caddy. \"How happy that would make me!\"\n\n\"My dear Caddy,\" said I, \"let us be friends from this time, and let\nus often have a chat about these matters and try to find the right\nway through them.\" Caddy was overjoyed. I said everything I could in\nmy old-fashioned way to comfort and encourage her, and I would not\nhave objected to old Mr. Turveydrop that day for any smaller\nconsideration than a settlement on his daughter-in-law.\n\nBy this time we were come to Mr. Krook's, whose private door stood\nopen. There was a bill, pasted on the door-post, announcing a room to\nlet on the second floor. It reminded Caddy to tell me as we proceeded\nupstairs that there had been a sudden death there and an inquest and\nthat our little friend had been ill of the fright. The door and\nwindow of the vacant room being open, we looked in. It was the room\nwith the dark door to which Miss Flite had secretly directed my\nattention when I was last in the house. A sad and desolate place it\nwas, a gloomy, sorrowful place that gave me a strange sensation of\nmournfulness and even dread. \"You look pale,\" said Caddy when we came\nout, \"and cold!\" I felt as if the room had chilled me.\n\nWe had walked slowly while we were talking, and my guardian and Ada\nwere here before us. We found them in Miss Flite's garret. They were\nlooking at the birds, while a medical gentleman who was so good as to\nattend Miss Flite with much solicitude and compassion spoke with her\ncheerfully by the fire.\n\n\"I have finished my professional visit,\" he said, coming forward.\n\"Miss Flite is much better and may appear in court (as her mind is\nset upon it) to-morrow. She has been greatly missed there, I\nunderstand.\"\n\nMiss Flite received the compliment with complacency and dropped a\ngeneral curtsy to us.\n\n\"Honoured, indeed,\" said she, \"by another visit from the wards in\nJarndyce! Ve-ry happy to receive Jarndyce of Bleak House beneath my\nhumble roof!\" with a special curtsy. \"Fitz-Jarndyce, my dear\"--she\nhad bestowed that name on Caddy, it appeared, and always called her\nby it--\"a double welcome!\"\n\n\"Has she been very ill?\" asked Mr. Jarndyce of the gentleman whom we\nhad found in attendance on her. She answered for herself directly,\nthough he had put the question in a whisper.\n\n\"Oh, decidedly unwell! Oh, very unwell indeed,\" she said\nconfidentially. \"Not pain, you know--trouble. Not bodily so much as\nnervous, nervous! The truth is,\" in a subdued voice and trembling,\n\"we have had death here. There was poison in the house. I am very\nsusceptible to such horrid things. It frightened me. Only Mr.\nWoodcourt knows how much. My physician, Mr. Woodcourt!\" with\ngreat stateliness. \"The wards in Jarndyce--Jarndyce of Bleak\nHouse--Fitz-Jarndyce!\"\n\n\"Miss Flite,\" said Mr. Woodcourt in a grave kind of voice, as if he\nwere appealing to her while speaking to us, and laying his hand\ngently on her arm, \"Miss Flite describes her illness with her usual\naccuracy. She was alarmed by an occurrence in the house which might\nhave alarmed a stronger person, and was made ill by the distress and\nagitation. She brought me here in the first hurry of the discovery,\nthough too late for me to be of any use to the unfortunate man. I\nhave compensated myself for that disappointment by coming here since\nand being of some small use to her.\"\n\n\"The kindest physician in the college,\" whispered Miss Flite to me.\n\"I expect a judgment. On the day of judgment. And shall then confer\nestates.\"\n\n\"She will be as well in a day or two,\" said Mr. Woodcourt, looking at\nher with an observant smile, \"as she ever will be. In other words,\nquite well of course. Have you heard of her good fortune?\"\n\n\"Most extraordinary!\" said Miss Flite, smiling brightly. \"You never\nheard of such a thing, my dear! Every Saturday, Conversation Kenge or\nGuppy (clerk to Conversation K.) places in my hand a paper of\nshillings. Shillings. I assure you! Always the same number in the\npaper. Always one for every day in the week. Now you know, really! So\nwell-timed, is it not? Ye-es! From whence do these papers come, you\nsay? That is the great question. Naturally. Shall I tell you what I\nthink? I think,\" said Miss Flite, drawing herself back with a very\nshrewd look and shaking her right forefinger in a most significant\nmanner, \"that the Lord Chancellor, aware of the length of time during\nwhich the Great Seal has been open (for it has been open a long\ntime!), forwards them. Until the judgment I expect is given. Now\nthat's very creditable, you know. To confess in that way that he IS a\nlittle slow for human life. So delicate! Attending court the other\nday--I attend it regularly, with my documents--I taxed him with it,\nand he almost confessed. That is, I smiled at him from my bench, and\nHE smiled at me from his bench. But it's great good fortune, is it\nnot? And Fitz-Jarndyce lays the money out for me to great advantage.\nOh, I assure you to the greatest advantage!\"\n\nI congratulated her (as she addressed herself to me) upon this\nfortunate addition to her income and wished her a long continuance of\nit. I did not speculate upon the source from which it came or wonder\nwhose humanity was so considerate. My guardian stood before me,\ncontemplating the birds, and I had no need to look beyond him.\n\n\"And what do you call these little fellows, ma'am?\" said he in his\npleasant voice. \"Have they any names?\"\n\n\"I can answer for Miss Flite that they have,\" said I, \"for she\npromised to tell us what they were. Ada remembers?\"\n\nAda remembered very well.\n\n\"Did I?\" said Miss Flite. \"Who's that at my door? What are you\nlistening at my door for, Krook?\"\n\nThe old man of the house, pushing it open before him, appeared there\nwith his fur cap in his hand and his cat at his heels.\n\n\"I warn't listening, Miss Flite,\" he said, \"I was going to give a rap\nwith my knuckles, only you're so quick!\"\n\n\"Make your cat go down. Drive her away!\" the old lady angrily\nexclaimed.\n\n\"Bah, bah! There ain't no danger, gentlefolks,\" said Mr. Krook,\nlooking slowly and sharply from one to another until he had looked at\nall of us; \"she'd never offer at the birds when I was here unless I\ntold her to it.\"\n\n\"You will excuse my landlord,\" said the old lady with a dignified\nair. \"M, quite M! What do you want, Krook, when I have company?\"\n\n\"Hi!\" said the old man. \"You know I am the Chancellor.\"\n\n\"Well?\" returned Miss Flite. \"What of that?\"\n\n\"For the Chancellor,\" said the old man with a chuckle, \"not to be\nacquainted with a Jarndyce is queer, ain't it, Miss Flite? Mightn't I\ntake the liberty? Your servant, sir. I know Jarndyce and Jarndyce\na'most as well as you do, sir. I knowed old Squire Tom, sir. I never\nto my knowledge see you afore though, not even in court. Yet, I go\nthere a mortal sight of times in the course of the year, taking one\nday with another.\"\n\n\"I never go there,\" said Mr. Jarndyce (which he never did on any\nconsideration). \"I would sooner go--somewhere else.\"\n\n\"Would you though?\" returned Krook, grinning. \"You're bearing hard\nupon my noble and learned brother in your meaning, sir, though\nperhaps it is but nat'ral in a Jarndyce. The burnt child, sir! What,\nyou're looking at my lodger's birds, Mr. Jarndyce?\" The old man had\ncome by little and little into the room until he now touched my\nguardian with his elbow and looked close up into his face with his\nspectacled eyes. \"It's one of her strange ways that she'll never tell\nthe names of these birds if she can help it, though she named 'em\nall.\" This was in a whisper. \"Shall I run 'em over, Flite?\" he asked\naloud, winking at us and pointing at her as she turned away,\naffecting to sweep the grate.\n\n\"If you like,\" she answered hurriedly.\n\nThe old man, looking up at the cages after another look at us, went\nthrough the list.\n\n\"Hope, Joy, Youth, Peace, Rest, Life, Dust, Ashes, Waste, Want, Ruin,\nDespair, Madness, Death, Cunning, Folly, Words, Wigs, Rags,\nSheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon, Gammon, and Spinach. That's\nthe whole collection,\" said the old man, \"all cooped up together, by\nmy noble and learned brother.\"\n\n\"This is a bitter wind!\" muttered my guardian.\n\n\"When my noble and learned brother gives his judgment, they're to be\nlet go free,\" said Krook, winking at us again. \"And then,\" he added,\nwhispering and grinning, \"if that ever was to happen--which it\nwon't--the birds that have never been caged would kill 'em.\"\n\n\"If ever the wind was in the east,\" said my guardian, pretending to\nlook out of the window for a weathercock, \"I think it's there\nto-day!\"\n\nWe found it very difficult to get away from the house. It was not\nMiss Flite who detained us; she was as reasonable a little creature\nin consulting the convenience of others as there possibly could be.\nIt was Mr. Krook. He seemed unable to detach himself from Mr.\nJarndyce. If he had been linked to him, he could hardly have attended\nhim more closely. He proposed to show us his Court of Chancery and\nall the strange medley it contained; during the whole of our\ninspection (prolonged by himself) he kept close to Mr. Jarndyce and\nsometimes detained him under one pretence or other until we had\npassed on, as if he were tormented by an inclination to enter upon\nsome secret subject which he could not make up his mind to approach.\nI cannot imagine a countenance and manner more singularly expressive\nof caution and indecision, and a perpetual impulse to do something he\ncould not resolve to venture on, than Mr. Krook's was that day. His\nwatchfulness of my guardian was incessant. He rarely removed his eyes\nfrom his face. If he went on beside him, he observed him with the\nslyness of an old white fox. If he went before, he looked back. When\nwe stood still, he got opposite to him, and drawing his hand across\nand across his open mouth with a curious expression of a sense of\npower, and turning up his eyes, and lowering his grey eyebrows until\nthey appeared to be shut, seemed to scan every lineament of his face.\n\nAt last, having been (always attended by the cat) all over the house\nand having seen the whole stock of miscellaneous lumber, which was\ncertainly curious, we came into the back part of the shop. Here on\nthe head of an empty barrel stood on end were an ink-bottle, some old\nstumps of pens, and some dirty playbills; and against the wall were\npasted several large printed alphabets in several plain hands.\n\n\"What are you doing here?\" asked my guardian.\n\n\"Trying to learn myself to read and write,\" said Krook.\n\n\"And how do you get on?\"\n\n\"Slow. Bad,\" returned the old man impatiently. \"It's hard at my time\nof life.\"\n\n\"It would be easier to be taught by some one,\" said my guardian.\n\n\"Aye, but they might teach me wrong!\" returned the old man with a\nwonderfully suspicious flash of his eye. \"I don't know what I may\nhave lost by not being learned afore. I wouldn't like to lose\nanything by being learned wrong now.\"\n\n\"Wrong?\" said my guardian with his good-humoured smile. \"Who do you\nsuppose would teach you wrong?\"\n\n\"I don't know, Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House!\" replied the old man,\nturning up his spectacles on his forehead and rubbing his hands. \"I\ndon't suppose as anybody would, but I'd rather trust my own self than\nanother!\"\n\nThese answers and his manner were strange enough to cause my guardian\nto inquire of Mr. Woodcourt, as we all walked across Lincoln's Inn\ntogether, whether Mr. Krook were really, as his lodger represented\nhim, deranged. The young surgeon replied, no, he had seen no reason\nto think so. He was exceedingly distrustful, as ignorance usually\nwas, and he was always more or less under the influence of raw gin,\nof which he drank great quantities and of which he and his back-shop,\nas we might have observed, smelt strongly; but he did not think him\nmad as yet.\n\nOn our way home, I so conciliated Peepy's affections by buying him a\nwindmill and two flour-sacks that he would suffer nobody else to take\noff his hat and gloves and would sit nowhere at dinner but at my\nside. Caddy sat upon the other side of me, next to Ada, to whom we\nimparted the whole history of the engagement as soon as we got back.\nWe made much of Caddy, and Peepy too; and Caddy brightened\nexceedingly; and my guardian was as merry as we were; and we were all\nvery happy indeed until Caddy went home at night in a hackney-coach,\nwith Peepy fast asleep, but holding tight to the windmill.\n\nI have forgotten to mention--at least I have not mentioned--that Mr.\nWoodcourt was the same dark young surgeon whom we had met at Mr.\nBadger's. Or that Mr. Jarndyce invited him to dinner that day. Or\nthat he came. Or that when they were all gone and I said to Ada,\n\"Now, my darling, let us have a little talk about Richard!\" Ada\nlaughed and said--\n\nBut I don't think it matters what my darling said. She was always\nmerry.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nBell Yard\n\n\nWhile we were in London Mr. Jarndyce was constantly beset by the\ncrowd of excitable ladies and gentlemen whose proceedings had so much\nastonished us. Mr. Quale, who presented himself soon after our\narrival, was in all such excitements. He seemed to project those two\nshining knobs of temples of his into everything that went on and to\nbrush his hair farther and farther back, until the very roots were\nalmost ready to fly out of his head in inappeasable philanthropy. All\nobjects were alike to him, but he was always particularly ready for\nanything in the way of a testimonial to any one. His great power\nseemed to be his power of indiscriminate admiration. He would sit for\nany length of time, with the utmost enjoyment, bathing his temples in\nthe light of any order of luminary. Having first seen him perfectly\nswallowed up in admiration of Mrs. Jellyby, I had supposed her to be\nthe absorbing object of his devotion. I soon discovered my mistake\nand found him to be train-bearer and organ-blower to a whole\nprocession of people.\n\nMrs. Pardiggle came one day for a subscription to something, and with\nher, Mr. Quale. Whatever Mrs. Pardiggle said, Mr. Quale repeated to\nus; and just as he had drawn Mrs. Jellyby out, he drew Mrs. Pardiggle\nout. Mrs. Pardiggle wrote a letter of introduction to my guardian in\nbehalf of her eloquent friend Mr. Gusher. With Mr. Gusher appeared\nMr. Quale again. Mr. Gusher, being a flabby gentleman with a moist\nsurface and eyes so much too small for his moon of a face that they\nseemed to have been originally made for somebody else, was not at\nfirst sight prepossessing; yet he was scarcely seated before Mr.\nQuale asked Ada and me, not inaudibly, whether he was not a great\ncreature--which he certainly was, flabbily speaking, though Mr. Quale\nmeant in intellectual beauty--and whether we were not struck by his\nmassive configuration of brow. In short, we heard of a great many\nmissions of various sorts among this set of people, but nothing\nrespecting them was half so clear to us as that it was Mr. Quale's\nmission to be in ecstasies with everybody else's mission and that it\nwas the most popular mission of all.\n\nMr. Jarndyce had fallen into this company in the tenderness of his\nheart and his earnest desire to do all the good in his power; but\nthat he felt it to be too often an unsatisfactory company, where\nbenevolence took spasmodic forms, where charity was assumed as a\nregular uniform by loud professors and speculators in cheap\nnotoriety, vehement in profession, restless and vain in action,\nservile in the last degree of meanness to the great, adulatory of one\nanother, and intolerable to those who were anxious quietly to help\nthe weak from failing rather than with a great deal of bluster and\nself-laudation to raise them up a little way when they were down, he\nplainly told us. When a testimonial was originated to Mr. Quale by\nMr. Gusher (who had already got one, originated by Mr. Quale), and\nwhen Mr. Gusher spoke for an hour and a half on the subject to a\nmeeting, including two charity schools of small boys and girls, who\nwere specially reminded of the widow's mite, and requested to come\nforward with halfpence and be acceptable sacrifices, I think the wind\nwas in the east for three whole weeks.\n\nI mention this because I am coming to Mr. Skimpole again. It seemed\nto me that his off-hand professions of childishness and carelessness\nwere a great relief to my guardian, by contrast with such things, and\nwere the more readily believed in since to find one perfectly\nundesigning and candid man among many opposites could not fail to\ngive him pleasure. I should be sorry to imply that Mr. Skimpole\ndivined this and was politic; I really never understood him well\nenough to know. What he was to my guardian, he certainly was to the\nrest of the world.\n\nHe had not been very well; and thus, though he lived in London, we\nhad seen nothing of him until now. He appeared one morning in his\nusual agreeable way and as full of pleasant spirits as ever.\n\nWell, he said, here he was! He had been bilious, but rich men were\noften bilious, and therefore he had been persuading himself that he\nwas a man of property. So he was, in a certain point of view--in his\nexpansive intentions. He had been enriching his medical attendant in\nthe most lavish manner. He had always doubled, and sometimes\nquadrupled, his fees. He had said to the doctor, \"Now, my dear\ndoctor, it is quite a delusion on your part to suppose that you\nattend me for nothing. I am overwhelming you with money--in my\nexpansive intentions--if you only knew it!\" And really (he said) he\nmeant it to that degree that he thought it much the same as doing it.\nIf he had had those bits of metal or thin paper to which mankind\nattached so much importance to put in the doctor's hand, he would\nhave put them in the doctor's hand. Not having them, he substituted\nthe will for the deed. Very well! If he really meant it--if his will\nwere genuine and real, which it was--it appeared to him that it was\nthe same as coin, and cancelled the obligation.\n\n\"It may be, partly, because I know nothing of the value of money,\"\nsaid Mr. Skimpole, \"but I often feel this. It seems so reasonable! My\nbutcher says to me he wants that little bill. It's a part of the\npleasant unconscious poetry of the man's nature that he always calls\nit a 'little' bill--to make the payment appear easy to both of us. I\nreply to the butcher, 'My good friend, if you knew it, you are paid.\nYou haven't had the trouble of coming to ask for the little bill. You\nare paid. I mean it.'\"\n\n\"But, suppose,\" said my guardian, laughing, \"he had meant the meat in\nthe bill, instead of providing it?\"\n\n\"My dear Jarndyce,\" he returned, \"you surprise me. You take the\nbutcher's position. A butcher I once dealt with occupied that very\nground. Says he, 'Sir, why did you eat spring lamb at eighteen pence\na pound?' 'Why did I eat spring lamb at eighteen pence a pound, my\nhonest friend?' said I, naturally amazed by the question. 'I like\nspring lamb!' This was so far convincing. 'Well, sir,' says he, 'I\nwish I had meant the lamb as you mean the money!' 'My good fellow,'\nsaid I, 'pray let us reason like intellectual beings. How could that\nbe? It was impossible. You HAD got the lamb, and I have NOT got the\nmoney. You couldn't really mean the lamb without sending it in,\nwhereas I can, and do, really mean the money without paying it!' He\nhad not a word. There was an end of the subject.\"\n\n\"Did he take no legal proceedings?\" inquired my guardian.\n\n\"Yes, he took legal proceedings,\" said Mr. Skimpole. \"But in that he\nwas influenced by passion, not by reason. Passion reminds me of\nBoythorn. He writes me that you and the ladies have promised him a\nshort visit at his bachelor-house in Lincolnshire.\"\n\n\"He is a great favourite with my girls,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, \"and I\nhave promised for them.\"\n\n\"Nature forgot to shade him off, I think,\" observed Mr. Skimpole to\nAda and me. \"A little too boisterous--like the sea. A little too\nvehement--like a bull who has made up his mind to consider every\ncolour scarlet. But I grant a sledge-hammering sort of merit in him!\"\n\nI should have been surprised if those two could have thought very\nhighly of one another, Mr. Boythorn attaching so much importance to\nmany things and Mr. Skimpole caring so little for anything. Besides\nwhich, I had noticed Mr. Boythorn more than once on the point of\nbreaking out into some strong opinion when Mr. Skimpole was referred\nto. Of course I merely joined Ada in saying that we had been greatly\npleased with him.\n\n\"He has invited me,\" said Mr. Skimpole; \"and if a child may trust\nhimself in such hands--which the present child is encouraged to do,\nwith the united tenderness of two angels to guard him--I shall go. He\nproposes to frank me down and back again. I suppose it will cost\nmoney? Shillings perhaps? Or pounds? Or something of that sort? By\nthe by, Coavinses. You remember our friend Coavinses, Miss\nSummerson?\"\n\nHe asked me as the subject arose in his mind, in his graceful,\nlight-hearted manner and without the least embarrassment.\n\n\"Oh, yes!\" said I.\n\n\"Coavinses has been arrested by the Great Bailiff,\" said Mr.\nSkimpole. \"He will never do violence to the sunshine any more.\"\n\nIt quite shocked me to hear it, for I had already recalled with\nanything but a serious association the image of the man sitting on\nthe sofa that night wiping his head.\n\n\"His successor informed me of it yesterday,\" said Mr. Skimpole. \"His\nsuccessor is in my house now--in possession, I think he calls it. He\ncame yesterday, on my blue-eyed daughter's birthday. I put it to him,\n'This is unreasonable and inconvenient. If you had a blue-eyed\ndaughter you wouldn't like ME to come, uninvited, on HER birthday?'\nBut he stayed.\"\n\nMr. Skimpole laughed at the pleasant absurdity and lightly touched\nthe piano by which he was seated.\n\n\"And he told me,\" he said, playing little chords where I shall put\nfull stops, \"The Coavinses had left. Three children. No mother. And\nthat Coavinses' profession. Being unpopular. The rising Coavinses.\nWere at a considerable disadvantage.\"\n\nMr. Jarndyce got up, rubbing his head, and began to walk about. Mr.\nSkimpole played the melody of one of Ada's favourite songs. Ada and I\nboth looked at Mr. Jarndyce, thinking that we knew what was passing\nin his mind.\n\nAfter walking and stopping, and several times leaving off rubbing his\nhead, and beginning again, my guardian put his hand upon the keys and\nstopped Mr. Skimpole's playing. \"I don't like this, Skimpole,\" he\nsaid thoughtfully.\n\nMr. Skimpole, who had quite forgotten the subject, looked up\nsurprised.\n\n\"The man was necessary,\" pursued my guardian, walking backward and\nforward in the very short space between the piano and the end of the\nroom and rubbing his hair up from the back of his head as if a high\neast wind had blown it into that form. \"If we make such men necessary\nby our faults and follies, or by our want of worldly knowledge, or by\nour misfortunes, we must not revenge ourselves upon them. There was\nno harm in his trade. He maintained his children. One would like to\nknow more about this.\"\n\n\"Oh! Coavinses?\" cried Mr. Skimpole, at length perceiving what he\nmeant. \"Nothing easier. A walk to Coavinses' headquarters, and you\ncan know what you will.\"\n\nMr. Jarndyce nodded to us, who were only waiting for the signal.\n\"Come! We will walk that way, my dears. Why not that way as soon as\nanother!\" We were quickly ready and went out. Mr. Skimpole went with\nus and quite enjoyed the expedition. It was so new and so refreshing,\nhe said, for him to want Coavinses instead of Coavinses wanting him!\n\nHe took us, first, to Cursitor Street, Chancery Lane, where there was\na house with barred windows, which he called Coavinses' Castle. On\nour going into the entry and ringing a bell, a very hideous boy came\nout of a sort of office and looked at us over a spiked wicket.\n\n\"Who did you want?\" said the boy, fitting two of the spikes into his\nchin.\n\n\"There was a follower, or an officer, or something, here,\" said Mr.\nJarndyce, \"who is dead.\"\n\n\"Yes?\" said the boy. \"Well?\"\n\n\"I want to know his name, if you please?\"\n\n\"Name of Neckett,\" said the boy.\n\n\"And his address?\"\n\n\"Bell Yard,\" said the boy. \"Chandler's shop, left hand side, name of\nBlinder.\"\n\n\"Was he--I don't know how to shape the question--\" murmured my\nguardian, \"industrious?\"\n\n\"Was Neckett?\" said the boy. \"Yes, wery much so. He was never tired\nof watching. He'd set upon a post at a street corner eight or ten\nhours at a stretch if he undertook to do it.\"\n\n\"He might have done worse,\" I heard my guardian soliloquize. \"He\nmight have undertaken to do it and not done it. Thank you. That's all\nI want.\"\n\nWe left the boy, with his head on one side and his arms on the gate,\nfondling and sucking the spikes, and went back to Lincoln's Inn,\nwhere Mr. Skimpole, who had not cared to remain nearer Coavinses,\nawaited us. Then we all went to Bell Yard, a narrow alley at a very\nshort distance. We soon found the chandler's shop. In it was a\ngood-natured-looking old woman with a dropsy, or an asthma, or\nperhaps both.\n\n\"Neckett's children?\" said she in reply to my inquiry. \"Yes, Surely,\nmiss. Three pair, if you please. Door right opposite the stairs.\" And\nshe handed me the key across the counter.\n\nI glanced at the key and glanced at her, but she took it for granted\nthat I knew what to do with it. As it could only be intended for the\nchildren's door, I came out without asking any more questions and led\nthe way up the dark stairs. We went as quietly as we could, but four\nof us made some noise on the aged boards, and when we came to the\nsecond story we found we had disturbed a man who was standing there\nlooking out of his room.\n\n\"Is it Gridley that's wanted?\" he said, fixing his eyes on me with an\nangry stare.\n\n\"No, sir,\" said I; \"I am going higher up.\"\n\nHe looked at Ada, and at Mr. Jarndyce, and at Mr. Skimpole, fixing\nthe same angry stare on each in succession as they passed and\nfollowed me. Mr. Jarndyce gave him good day. \"Good day!\" he said\nabruptly and fiercely. He was a tall, sallow man with a careworn head\non which but little hair remained, a deeply lined face, and prominent\neyes. He had a combative look and a chafing, irritable manner which,\nassociated with his figure--still large and powerful, though\nevidently in its decline--rather alarmed me. He had a pen in his\nhand, and in the glimpse I caught of his room in passing, I saw that\nit was covered with a litter of papers.\n\nLeaving him standing there, we went up to the top room. I tapped at\nthe door, and a little shrill voice inside said, \"We are locked in.\nMrs. Blinder's got the key!\"\n\nI applied the key on hearing this and opened the door. In a poor room\nwith a sloping ceiling and containing very little furniture was a\nmite of a boy, some five or six years old, nursing and hushing a\nheavy child of eighteen months. There was no fire, though the weather\nwas cold; both children were wrapped in some poor shawls and tippets\nas a substitute. Their clothing was not so warm, however, but that\ntheir noses looked red and pinched and their small figures shrunken\nas the boy walked up and down nursing and hushing the child with its\nhead on his shoulder.\n\n\"Who has locked you up here alone?\" we naturally asked.\n\n\"Charley,\" said the boy, standing still to gaze at us.\n\n\"Is Charley your brother?\"\n\n\"No. She's my sister, Charlotte. Father called her Charley.\"\n\n\"Are there any more of you besides Charley?\"\n\n\"Me,\" said the boy, \"and Emma,\" patting the limp bonnet of the child\nhe was nursing. \"And Charley.\"\n\n\"Where is Charley now?\"\n\n\"Out a-washing,\" said the boy, beginning to walk up and down again\nand taking the nankeen bonnet much too near the bedstead by trying to\ngaze at us at the same time.\n\nWe were looking at one another and at these two children when there\ncame into the room a very little girl, childish in figure but shrewd\nand older-looking in the face--pretty-faced too--wearing a womanly\nsort of bonnet much too large for her and drying her bare arms on a\nwomanly sort of apron. Her fingers were white and wrinkled with\nwashing, and the soap-suds were yet smoking which she wiped off her\narms. But for this, she might have been a child playing at washing\nand imitating a poor working-woman with a quick observation of the\ntruth.\n\nShe had come running from some place in the neighbourhood and had\nmade all the haste she could. Consequently, though she was very\nlight, she was out of breath and could not speak at first, as she\nstood panting, and wiping her arms, and looking quietly at us.\n\n\"Oh, here's Charley!\" said the boy.\n\nThe child he was nursing stretched forth its arms and cried out to be\ntaken by Charley. The little girl took it, in a womanly sort of\nmanner belonging to the apron and the bonnet, and stood looking at us\nover the burden that clung to her most affectionately.\n\n\"Is it possible,\" whispered my guardian as we put a chair for the\nlittle creature and got her to sit down with her load, the boy\nkeeping close to her, holding to her apron, \"that this child works\nfor the rest? Look at this! For God's sake, look at this!\"\n\nIt was a thing to look at. The three children close together, and two\nof them relying solely on the third, and the third so young and yet\nwith an air of age and steadiness that sat so strangely on the\nchildish figure.\n\n\"Charley, Charley!\" said my guardian. \"How old are you?\"\n\n\"Over thirteen, sir,\" replied the child.\n\n\"Oh! What a great age,\" said my guardian. \"What a great age,\nCharley!\"\n\nI cannot describe the tenderness with which he spoke to her, half\nplayfully yet all the more compassionately and mournfully.\n\n\"And do you live alone here with these babies, Charley?\" said my\nguardian.\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" returned the child, looking up into his face with perfect\nconfidence, \"since father died.\"\n\n\"And how do you live, Charley? Oh! Charley,\" said my guardian,\nturning his face away for a moment, \"how do you live?\"\n\n\"Since father died, sir, I've gone out to work. I'm out washing\nto-day.\"\n\n\"God help you, Charley!\" said my guardian. \"You're not tall enough to\nreach the tub!\"\n\n\"In pattens I am, sir,\" she said quickly. \"I've got a high pair as\nbelonged to mother.\"\n\n\"And when did mother die? Poor mother!\"\n\n\"Mother died just after Emma was born,\" said the child, glancing at\nthe face upon her bosom. \"Then father said I was to be as good a\nmother to her as I could. And so I tried. And so I worked at home and\ndid cleaning and nursing and washing for a long time before I began\nto go out. And that's how I know how; don't you see, sir?\"\n\n\"And do you often go out?\"\n\n\"As often as I can,\" said Charley, opening her eyes and smiling,\n\"because of earning sixpences and shillings!\"\n\n\"And do you always lock the babies up when you go out?\"\n\n\"To keep 'em safe, sir, don't you see?\" said Charley. \"Mrs. Blinder\ncomes up now and then, and Mr. Gridley comes up sometimes, and\nperhaps I can run in sometimes, and they can play you know, and Tom\nan't afraid of being locked up, are you, Tom?\"\n\n\"No-o!\" said Tom stoutly.\n\n\"When it comes on dark, the lamps are lighted down in the court, and\nthey show up here quite bright--almost quite bright. Don't they,\nTom?\"\n\n\"Yes, Charley,\" said Tom, \"almost quite bright.\"\n\n\"Then he's as good as gold,\" said the little creature--Oh, in such a\nmotherly, womanly way! \"And when Emma's tired, he puts her to bed.\nAnd when he's tired he goes to bed himself. And when I come home and\nlight the candle and has a bit of supper, he sits up again and has it\nwith me. Don't you, Tom?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, Charley!\" said Tom. \"That I do!\" And either in this glimpse\nof the great pleasure of his life or in gratitude and love for\nCharley, who was all in all to him, he laid his face among the scanty\nfolds of her frock and passed from laughing into crying.\n\nIt was the first time since our entry that a tear had been shed among\nthese children. The little orphan girl had spoken of their father and\ntheir mother as if all that sorrow were subdued by the necessity of\ntaking courage, and by her childish importance in being able to work,\nand by her bustling busy way. But now, when Tom cried, although she\nsat quite tranquil, looking quietly at us, and did not by any\nmovement disturb a hair of the head of either of her little charges,\nI saw two silent tears fall down her face.\n\nI stood at the window with Ada, pretending to look at the housetops,\nand the blackened stack of chimneys, and the poor plants, and the\nbirds in little cages belonging to the neighbours, when I found that\nMrs. Blinder, from the shop below, had come in (perhaps it had taken\nher all this time to get upstairs) and was talking to my guardian.\n\n\"It's not much to forgive 'em the rent, sir,\" she said; \"who could\ntake it from them!\"\n\n\"Well, well!\" said my guardian to us two. \"It is enough that the time\nwill come when this good woman will find that it WAS much, and that\nforasmuch as she did it unto the least of these--This child,\" he\nadded after a few moments, \"could she possibly continue this?\"\n\n\"Really, sir, I think she might,\" said Mrs. Blinder, getting her\nheavy breath by painful degrees. \"She's as handy as it's possible to\nbe. Bless you, sir, the way she tended them two children after the\nmother died was the talk of the yard! And it was a wonder to see her\nwith him after he was took ill, it really was! 'Mrs. Blinder,' he\nsaid to me the very last he spoke--he was lying there--'Mrs.\nBlinder, whatever my calling may have been, I see a angel sitting in\nthis room last night along with my child, and I trust her to Our\nFather!'\"\n\n\"He had no other calling?\" said my guardian.\n\n\"No, sir,\" returned Mrs. Blinder, \"he was nothing but a follerers.\nWhen he first came to lodge here, I didn't know what he was, and I\nconfess that when I found out I gave him notice. It wasn't liked in\nthe yard. It wasn't approved by the other lodgers. It is NOT a\ngenteel calling,\" said Mrs. Blinder, \"and most people do object to\nit. Mr. Gridley objected to it very strong, and he is a good lodger,\nthough his temper has been hard tried.\"\n\n\"So you gave him notice?\" said my guardian.\n\n\"So I gave him notice,\" said Mrs. Blinder. \"But really when the time\ncame, and I knew no other ill of him, I was in doubts. He was\npunctual and diligent; he did what he had to do, sir,\" said Mrs.\nBlinder, unconsciously fixing Mr. Skimpole with her eye, \"and it's\nsomething in this world even to do that.\"\n\n\"So you kept him after all?\"\n\n\"Why, I said that if he could arrange with Mr. Gridley, I could\narrange it with the other lodgers and should not so much mind its\nbeing liked or disliked in the yard. Mr. Gridley gave his consent\ngruff--but gave it. He was always gruff with him, but he has been\nkind to the children since. A person is never known till a person is\nproved.\"\n\n\"Have many people been kind to the children?\" asked Mr. Jarndyce.\n\n\"Upon the whole, not so bad, sir,\" said Mrs. Blinder; \"but certainly\nnot so many as would have been if their father's calling had been\ndifferent. Mr. Coavins gave a guinea, and the follerers made up a\nlittle purse. Some neighbours in the yard that had always joked and\ntapped their shoulders when he went by came forward with a little\nsubscription, and--in general--not so bad. Similarly with Charlotte.\nSome people won't employ her because she was a follerer's child; some\npeople that do employ her cast it at her; some make a merit of having\nher to work for them, with that and all her draw-backs upon her, and\nperhaps pay her less and put upon her more. But she's patienter than\nothers would be, and is clever too, and always willing, up to the\nfull mark of her strength and over. So I should say, in general, not\nso bad, sir, but might be better.\"\n\nMrs. Blinder sat down to give herself a more favourable opportunity\nof recovering her breath, exhausted anew by so much talking before it\nwas fully restored. Mr. Jarndyce was turning to speak to us when his\nattention was attracted by the abrupt entrance into the room of the\nMr. Gridley who had been mentioned and whom we had seen on our way\nup.\n\n\"I don't know what you may be doing here, ladies and gentlemen,\" he\nsaid, as if he resented our presence, \"but you'll excuse my coming\nin. I don't come in to stare about me. Well, Charley! Well, Tom!\nWell, little one! How is it with us all to-day?\"\n\nHe bent over the group in a caressing way and clearly was regarded as\na friend by the children, though his face retained its stern\ncharacter and his manner to us was as rude as it could be. My\nguardian noticed it and respected it.\n\n\"No one, surely, would come here to stare about him,\" he said mildly.\n\n\"May be so, sir, may be so,\" returned the other, taking Tom upon his\nknee and waving him off impatiently. \"I don't want to argue with\nladies and gentlemen. I have had enough of arguing to last one man\nhis life.\"\n\n\"You have sufficient reason, I dare say,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, \"for\nbeing chafed and irritated--\"\n\n\"There again!\" exclaimed the man, becoming violently angry. \"I am of\na quarrelsome temper. I am irascible. I am not polite!\"\n\n\"Not very, I think.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" said Gridley, putting down the child and going up to him as if\nhe meant to strike him, \"do you know anything of Courts of Equity?\"\n\n\"Perhaps I do, to my sorrow.\"\n\n\"To your sorrow?\" said the man, pausing in his wrath, \"if so, I beg\nyour pardon. I am not polite, I know. I beg your pardon! Sir,\" with\nrenewed violence, \"I have been dragged for five and twenty years over\nburning iron, and I have lost the habit of treading upon velvet. Go\ninto the Court of Chancery yonder and ask what is one of the standing\njokes that brighten up their business sometimes, and they will tell\nyou that the best joke they have is the man from Shropshire. I,\" he\nsaid, beating one hand on the other passionately, \"am the man from\nShropshire.\"\n\n\"I believe I and my family have also had the honour of furnishing\nsome entertainment in the same grave place,\" said my guardian\ncomposedly. \"You may have heard my name--Jarndyce.\"\n\n\"Mr. Jarndyce,\" said Gridley with a rough sort of salutation, \"you\nbear your wrongs more quietly than I can bear mine. More than that, I\ntell you--and I tell this gentleman, and these young ladies, if they\nare friends of yours--that if I took my wrongs in any other way, I\nshould be driven mad! It is only by resenting them, and by revenging\nthem in my mind, and by angrily demanding the justice I never get,\nthat I am able to keep my wits together. It is only that!\" he said,\nspeaking in a homely, rustic way and with great vehemence. \"You may\ntell me that I over-excite myself. I answer that it's in my nature to\ndo it, under wrong, and I must do it. There's nothing between doing\nit, and sinking into the smiling state of the poor little mad woman\nthat haunts the court. If I was once to sit down under it, I should\nbecome imbecile.\"\n\nThe passion and heat in which he was, and the manner in which his\nface worked, and the violent gestures with which he accompanied what\nhe said, were most painful to see.\n\n\"Mr. Jarndyce,\" he said, \"consider my case. As true as there is a\nheaven above us, this is my case. I am one of two brothers. My father\n(a farmer) made a will and left his farm and stock and so forth to my\nmother for her life. After my mother's death, all was to come to me\nexcept a legacy of three hundred pounds that I was then to pay my\nbrother. My mother died. My brother some time afterwards claimed his\nlegacy. I and some of my relations said that he had had a part of it\nalready in board and lodging and some other things. Now mind! That\nwas the question, and nothing else. No one disputed the will; no one\ndisputed anything but whether part of that three hundred pounds had\nbeen already paid or not. To settle that question, my brother filing\na bill, I was obliged to go into this accursed Chancery; I was forced\nthere because the law forced me and would let me go nowhere else.\nSeventeen people were made defendants to that simple suit! It first\ncame on after two years. It was then stopped for another two years\nwhile the master (may his head rot off!) inquired whether I was my\nfather's son, about which there was no dispute at all with any mortal\ncreature. He then found out that there were not defendants\nenough--remember, there were only seventeen as yet!--but that we must\nhave another who had been left out and must begin all over again. The\ncosts at that time--before the thing was begun!--were three times the\nlegacy. My brother would have given up the legacy, and joyful, to\nescape more costs. My whole estate, left to me in that will of my\nfather's, has gone in costs. The suit, still undecided, has fallen\ninto rack, and ruin, and despair, with everything else--and here I\nstand, this day! Now, Mr. Jarndyce, in your suit there are thousands\nand thousands involved, where in mine there are hundreds. Is mine\nless hard to bear or is it harder to bear, when my whole living was\nin it and has been thus shamefully sucked away?\"\n\nMr. Jarndyce said that he condoled with him with all his heart and\nthat he set up no monopoly himself in being unjustly treated by this\nmonstrous system.\n\n\"There again!\" said Mr. Gridley with no diminution of his rage. \"The\nsystem! I am told on all hands, it's the system. I mustn't look to\nindividuals. It's the system. I mustn't go into court and say, 'My\nLord, I beg to know this from you--is this right or wrong? Have you\nthe face to tell me I have received justice and therefore am\ndismissed?' My Lord knows nothing of it. He sits there to administer\nthe system. I mustn't go to Mr. Tulkinghorn, the solicitor in\nLincoln's Inn Fields, and say to him when he makes me furious by\nbeing so cool and satisfied--as they all do, for I know they gain by\nit while I lose, don't I?--I mustn't say to him, 'I will have\nsomething out of some one for my ruin, by fair means or foul!' HE is\nnot responsible. It's the system. But, if I do no violence to any of\nthem, here--I may! I don't know what may happen if I am carried\nbeyond myself at last! I will accuse the individual workers of that\nsystem against me, face to face, before the great eternal bar!\"\n\nHis passion was fearful. I could not have believed in such rage\nwithout seeing it.\n\n\"I have done!\" he said, sitting down and wiping his face. \"Mr.\nJarndyce, I have done! I am violent, I know. I ought to know it. I\nhave been in prison for contempt of court. I have been in prison for\nthreatening the solicitor. I have been in this trouble, and that\ntrouble, and shall be again. I am the man from Shropshire, and I\nsometimes go beyond amusing them, though they have found it amusing,\ntoo, to see me committed into custody and brought up in custody and\nall that. It would be better for me, they tell me, if I restrained\nmyself. I tell them that if I did restrain myself I should become\nimbecile. I was a good-enough-tempered man once, I believe. People in\nmy part of the country say they remember me so, but now I must have\nthis vent under my sense of injury or nothing could hold my wits\ntogether. It would be far better for you, Mr. Gridley,' the Lord\nChancellor told me last week, 'not to waste your time here, and to\nstay, usefully employed, down in Shropshire.' 'My Lord, my Lord, I\nknow it would,' said I to him, 'and it would have been far better for\nme never to have heard the name of your high office, but unhappily\nfor me, I can't undo the past, and the past drives me here!'\nBesides,\" he added, breaking fiercely out, \"I'll shame them. To the\nlast, I'll show myself in that court to its shame. If I knew when I\nwas going to die, and could be carried there, and had a voice to\nspeak with, I would die there, saying, 'You have brought me here and\nsent me from here many and many a time. Now send me out feet\nforemost!'\"\n\nHis countenance had, perhaps for years, become so set in its\ncontentious expression that it did not soften, even now when he was\nquiet.\n\n\"I came to take these babies down to my room for an hour,\" he said,\ngoing to them again, \"and let them play about. I didn't mean to say\nall this, but it don't much signify. You're not afraid of me, Tom,\nare you?\"\n\n\"No!\" said Tom. \"You ain't angry with ME.\"\n\n\"You are right, my child. You're going back, Charley? Aye? Come then,\nlittle one!\" He took the youngest child on his arm, where she was\nwilling enough to be carried. \"I shouldn't wonder if we found a\nginger-bread soldier downstairs. Let's go and look for him!\"\n\nHe made his former rough salutation, which was not deficient in a\ncertain respect, to Mr. Jarndyce, and bowing slightly to us, went\ndownstairs to his room.\n\nUpon that, Mr. Skimpole began to talk, for the first time since our\narrival, in his usual gay strain. He said, Well, it was really very\npleasant to see how things lazily adapted themselves to purposes.\nHere was this Mr. Gridley, a man of a robust will and surprising\nenergy--intellectually speaking, a sort of inharmonious\nblacksmith--and he could easily imagine that there Gridley was, years\nago, wandering about in life for something to expend his superfluous\ncombativeness upon--a sort of Young Love among the thorns--when the\nCourt of Chancery came in his way and accommodated him with the exact\nthing he wanted. There they were, matched, ever afterwards! Otherwise\nhe might have been a great general, blowing up all sorts of towns, or\nhe might have been a great politician, dealing in all sorts of\nparliamentary rhetoric; but as it was, he and the Court of Chancery\nhad fallen upon each other in the pleasantest way, and nobody was\nmuch the worse, and Gridley was, so to speak, from that hour provided\nfor. Then look at Coavinses! How delightfully poor Coavinses (father\nof these charming children) illustrated the same principle! He, Mr.\nSkimpole, himself, had sometimes repined at the existence of\nCoavinses. He had found Coavinses in his way. He could had dispensed\nwith Coavinses. There had been times when, if he had been a sultan,\nand his grand vizier had said one morning, \"What does the Commander\nof the Faithful require at the hands of his slave?\" he might have\neven gone so far as to reply, \"The head of Coavinses!\" But what\nturned out to be the case? That, all that time, he had been giving\nemployment to a most deserving man, that he had been a benefactor to\nCoavinses, that he had actually been enabling Coavinses to bring up\nthese charming children in this agreeable way, developing these\nsocial virtues! Insomuch that his heart had just now swelled and the\ntears had come into his eyes when he had looked round the room and\nthought, \"I was the great patron of Coavinses, and his little\ncomforts were MY work!\"\n\nThere was something so captivating in his light way of touching these\nfantastic strings, and he was such a mirthful child by the side of\nthe graver childhood we had seen, that he made my guardian smile even\nas he turned towards us from a little private talk with Mrs. Blinder.\nWe kissed Charley, and took her downstairs with us, and stopped\noutside the house to see her run away to her work. I don't know where\nshe was going, but we saw her run, such a little, little creature in\nher womanly bonnet and apron, through a covered way at the bottom of\nthe court and melt into the city's strife and sound like a dewdrop in\nan ocean.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nTom-all-Alone's\n\n\nMy Lady Dedlock is restless, very restless. The astonished\nfashionable intelligence hardly knows where to have her. To-day she\nis at Chesney Wold; yesterday she was at her house in town; to-morrow\nshe may be abroad, for anything the fashionable intelligence can with\nconfidence predict. Even Sir Leicester's gallantry has some trouble\nto keep pace with her. It would have more but that his other faithful\nally, for better and for worse--the gout--darts into the old oak\nbed-chamber at Chesney Wold and grips him by both legs.\n\nSir Leicester receives the gout as a troublesome demon, but still a\ndemon of the patrician order. All the Dedlocks, in the direct male\nline, through a course of time during and beyond which the memory of\nman goeth not to the contrary, have had the gout. It can be proved,\nsir. Other men's fathers may have died of the rheumatism or may have\ntaken base contagion from the tainted blood of the sick vulgar, but\nthe Dedlock family have communicated something exclusive even to the\nlevelling process of dying by dying of their own family gout. It has\ncome down through the illustrious line like the plate, or the\npictures, or the place in Lincolnshire. It is among their dignities.\nSir Leicester is perhaps not wholly without an impression, though he\nhas never resolved it into words, that the angel of death in the\ndischarge of his necessary duties may observe to the shades of the\naristocracy, \"My lords and gentlemen, I have the honour to present to\nyou another Dedlock certified to have arrived per the family gout.\"\n\nHence Sir Leicester yields up his family legs to the family disorder\nas if he held his name and fortune on that feudal tenure. He feels\nthat for a Dedlock to be laid upon his back and spasmodically\ntwitched and stabbed in his extremities is a liberty taken somewhere,\nbut he thinks, \"We have all yielded to this; it belongs to us; it has\nfor some hundreds of years been understood that we are not to make\nthe vaults in the park interesting on more ignoble terms; and I\nsubmit myself to the compromise.\"\n\nAnd a goodly show he makes, lying in a flush of crimson and gold in\nthe midst of the great drawing-room before his favourite picture of\nmy Lady, with broad strips of sunlight shining in, down the long\nperspective, through the long line of windows, and alternating with\nsoft reliefs of shadow. Outside, the stately oaks, rooted for ages in\nthe green ground which has never known ploughshare, but was still a\nchase when kings rode to battle with sword and shield and rode\na-hunting with bow and arrow, bear witness to his greatness. Inside,\nhis forefathers, looking on him from the walls, say, \"Each of us was\na passing reality here and left this coloured shadow of himself and\nmelted into remembrance as dreamy as the distant voices of the rooks\nnow lulling you to rest,\" and hear their testimony to his greatness\ntoo. And he is very great this day. And woe to Boythorn or other\ndaring wight who shall presumptuously contest an inch with him!\n\nMy Lady is at present represented, near Sir Leicester, by her\nportrait. She has flitted away to town, with no intention of\nremaining there, and will soon flit hither again, to the confusion of\nthe fashionable intelligence. The house in town is not prepared for\nher reception. It is muffled and dreary. Only one Mercury in powder\ngapes disconsolate at the hall-window; and he mentioned last night to\nanother Mercury of his acquaintance, also accustomed to good society,\nthat if that sort of thing was to last--which it couldn't, for a man\nof his spirits couldn't bear it, and a man of his figure couldn't be\nexpected to bear it--there would be no resource for him, upon his\nhonour, but to cut his throat!\n\nWhat connexion can there be between the place in Lincolnshire, the\nhouse in town, the Mercury in powder, and the whereabout of Jo the\noutlaw with the broom, who had that distant ray of light upon him\nwhen he swept the churchyard-step? What connexion can there have been\nbetween many people in the innumerable histories of this world who\nfrom opposite sides of great gulfs have, nevertheless, been very\ncuriously brought together!\n\nJo sweeps his crossing all day long, unconscious of the link, if any\nlink there be. He sums up his mental condition when asked a question\nby replying that he \"don't know nothink.\" He knows that it's hard to\nkeep the mud off the crossing in dirty weather, and harder still to\nlive by doing it. Nobody taught him even that much; he found it out.\n\nJo lives--that is to say, Jo has not yet died--in a ruinous place\nknown to the like of him by the name of Tom-all-Alone's. It is a\nblack, dilapidated street, avoided by all decent people, where the\ncrazy houses were seized upon, when their decay was far advanced, by\nsome bold vagrants who after establishing their own possession took\nto letting them out in lodgings. Now, these tumbling tenements\ncontain, by night, a swarm of misery. As on the ruined human wretch\nvermin parasites appear, so these ruined shelters have bred a crowd\nof foul existence that crawls in and out of gaps in walls and boards;\nand coils itself to sleep, in maggot numbers, where the rain drips\nin; and comes and goes, fetching and carrying fever and sowing more\nevil in its every footprint than Lord Coodle, and Sir Thomas Doodle,\nand the Duke of Foodle, and all the fine gentlemen in office, down to\nZoodle, shall set right in five hundred years--though born expressly\nto do it.\n\nTwice lately there has been a crash and a cloud of dust, like the\nspringing of a mine, in Tom-all-Alone's; and each time a house has\nfallen. These accidents have made a paragraph in the newspapers and\nhave filled a bed or two in the nearest hospital. The gaps remain,\nand there are not unpopular lodgings among the rubbish. As several\nmore houses are nearly ready to go, the next crash in Tom-all-Alone's\nmay be expected to be a good one.\n\nThis desirable property is in Chancery, of course. It would be an\ninsult to the discernment of any man with half an eye to tell him so.\nWhether \"Tom\" is the popular representative of the original plaintiff\nor defendant in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, or whether Tom lived here when\nthe suit had laid the street waste, all alone, until other settlers\ncame to join him, or whether the traditional title is a comprehensive\nname for a retreat cut off from honest company and put out of the\npale of hope, perhaps nobody knows. Certainly Jo don't know.\n\n\"For I don't,\" says Jo, \"I don't know nothink.\"\n\nIt must be a strange state to be like Jo! To shuffle through the\nstreets, unfamiliar with the shapes, and in utter darkness as to the\nmeaning, of those mysterious symbols, so abundant over the shops, and\nat the corners of streets, and on the doors, and in the windows! To\nsee people read, and to see people write, and to see the postmen\ndeliver letters, and not to have the least idea of all that\nlanguage--to be, to every scrap of it, stone blind and dumb! It must\nbe very puzzling to see the good company going to the churches on\nSundays, with their books in their hands, and to think (for perhaps\nJo DOES think at odd times) what does it all mean, and if it means\nanything to anybody, how comes it that it means nothing to me? To be\nhustled, and jostled, and moved on; and really to feel that it would\nappear to be perfectly true that I have no business here, or there,\nor anywhere; and yet to be perplexed by the consideration that I AM\nhere somehow, too, and everybody overlooked me until I became the\ncreature that I am! It must be a strange state, not merely to be told\nthat I am scarcely human (as in the case of my offering myself for a\nwitness), but to feel it of my own knowledge all my life! To see the\nhorses, dogs, and cattle go by me and to know that in ignorance I\nbelong to them and not to the superior beings in my shape, whose\ndelicacy I offend! Jo's ideas of a criminal trial, or a judge, or a\nbishop, or a government, or that inestimable jewel to him (if he only\nknew it) the Constitution, should be strange! His whole material and\nimmaterial life is wonderfully strange; his death, the strangest\nthing of all.\n\nJo comes out of Tom-all-Alone's, meeting the tardy morning which is\nalways late in getting down there, and munches his dirty bit of bread\nas he comes along. His way lying through many streets, and the houses\nnot yet being open, he sits down to breakfast on the door-step of the\nSociety for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts and gives\nit a brush when he has finished as an acknowledgment of the\naccommodation. He admires the size of the edifice and wonders what\nit's all about. He has no idea, poor wretch, of the spiritual\ndestitution of a coral reef in the Pacific or what it costs to look\nup the precious souls among the coco-nuts and bread-fruit.\n\nHe goes to his crossing and begins to lay it out for the day. The\ntown awakes; the great tee-totum is set up for its daily spin and\nwhirl; all that unaccountable reading and writing, which has been\nsuspended for a few hours, recommences. Jo and the other lower\nanimals get on in the unintelligible mess as they can. It is\nmarket-day. The blinded oxen, over-goaded, over-driven, never guided,\nrun into wrong places and are beaten out, and plunge red-eyed and\nfoaming at stone walls, and often sorely hurt the innocent, and often\nsorely hurt themselves. Very like Jo and his order; very, very like!\n\nA band of music comes and plays. Jo listens to it. So does a dog--a\ndrover's dog, waiting for his master outside a butcher's shop, and\nevidently thinking about those sheep he has had upon his mind for\nsome hours and is happily rid of. He seems perplexed respecting three\nor four, can't remember where he left them, looks up and down the\nstreet as half expecting to see them astray, suddenly pricks up his\nears and remembers all about it. A thoroughly vagabond dog,\naccustomed to low company and public-houses; a terrific dog to sheep,\nready at a whistle to scamper over their backs and tear out mouthfuls\nof their wool; but an educated, improved, developed dog who has been\ntaught his duties and knows how to discharge them. He and Jo listen\nto the music, probably with much the same amount of animal\nsatisfaction; likewise as to awakened association, aspiration, or\nregret, melancholy or joyful reference to things beyond the senses,\nthey are probably upon a par. But, otherwise, how far above the human\nlistener is the brute!\n\nTurn that dog's descendants wild, like Jo, and in a very few years\nthey will so degenerate that they will lose even their bark--but not\ntheir bite.\n\nThe day changes as it wears itself away and becomes dark and drizzly.\nJo fights it out at his crossing among the mud and wheels, the\nhorses, whips, and umbrellas, and gets but a scanty sum to pay for\nthe unsavoury shelter of Tom-all-Alone's. Twilight comes on; gas\nbegins to start up in the shops; the lamplighter, with his ladder,\nruns along the margin of the pavement. A wretched evening is\nbeginning to close in.\n\nIn his chambers Mr. Tulkinghorn sits meditating an application to the\nnearest magistrate to-morrow morning for a warrant. Gridley, a\ndisappointed suitor, has been here to-day and has been alarming. We\nare not to be put in bodily fear, and that ill-conditioned fellow\nshall be held to bail again. From the ceiling, foreshortened\nAllegory, in the person of one impossible Roman upside down, points\nwith the arm of Samson (out of joint, and an odd one) obtrusively\ntoward the window. Why should Mr. Tulkinghorn, for such no reason,\nlook out of window? Is the hand not always pointing there? So he does\nnot look out of window.\n\nAnd if he did, what would it be to see a woman going by? There are\nwomen enough in the world, Mr. Tulkinghorn thinks--too many; they are\nat the bottom of all that goes wrong in it, though, for the matter of\nthat, they create business for lawyers. What would it be to see a\nwoman going by, even though she were going secretly? They are all\nsecret. Mr. Tulkinghorn knows that very well.\n\nBut they are not all like the woman who now leaves him and his house\nbehind, between whose plain dress and her refined manner there is\nsomething exceedingly inconsistent. She should be an upper servant by\nher attire, yet in her air and step, though both are hurried and\nassumed--as far as she can assume in the muddy streets, which she\ntreads with an unaccustomed foot--she is a lady. Her face is veiled,\nand still she sufficiently betrays herself to make more than one of\nthose who pass her look round sharply.\n\nShe never turns her head. Lady or servant, she has a purpose in her\nand can follow it. She never turns her head until she comes to the\ncrossing where Jo plies with his broom. He crosses with her and begs.\nStill, she does not turn her head until she has landed on the other\nside. Then she slightly beckons to him and says, \"Come here!\"\n\nJo follows her a pace or two into a quiet court.\n\n\"Are you the boy I've read of in the papers?\" she asked behind her\nveil.\n\n\"I don't know,\" says Jo, staring moodily at the veil, \"nothink about\nno papers. I don't know nothink about nothink at all.\"\n\n\"Were you examined at an inquest?\"\n\n\"I don't know nothink about no--where I was took by the beadle, do\nyou mean?\" says Jo. \"Was the boy's name at the inkwhich Jo?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"That's me!\" says Jo.\n\n\"Come farther up.\"\n\n\"You mean about the man?\" says Jo, following. \"Him as wos dead?\"\n\n\"Hush! Speak in a whisper! Yes. Did he look, when he was living, so\nvery ill and poor?\"\n\n\"Oh, jist!\" says Jo.\n\n\"Did he look like--not like YOU?\" says the woman with abhorrence.\n\n\"Oh, not so bad as me,\" says Jo. \"I'm a reg'lar one I am! You didn't\nknow him, did you?\"\n\n\"How dare you ask me if I knew him?\"\n\n\"No offence, my lady,\" says Jo with much humility, for even he has\ngot at the suspicion of her being a lady.\n\n\"I am not a lady. I am a servant.\"\n\n\"You are a jolly servant!\" says Jo without the least idea of saying\nanything offensive, merely as a tribute of admiration.\n\n\"Listen and be silent. Don't talk to me, and stand farther from me!\nCan you show me all those places that were spoken of in the account I\nread? The place he wrote for, the place he died at, the place where\nyou were taken to, and the place where he was buried? Do you know the\nplace where he was buried?\"\n\nJo answers with a nod, having also nodded as each other place was\nmentioned.\n\n\"Go before me and show me all those dreadful places. Stop opposite to\neach, and don't speak to me unless I speak to you. Don't look back.\nDo what I want, and I will pay you well.\"\n\nJo attends closely while the words are being spoken; tells them off\non his broom-handle, finding them rather hard; pauses to consider\ntheir meaning; considers it satisfactory; and nods his ragged head.\n\n\"I'm fly,\" says Jo. \"But fen larks, you know. Stow hooking it!\"\n\n\"What does the horrible creature mean?\" exclaims the servant,\nrecoiling from him.\n\n\"Stow cutting away, you know!\" says Jo.\n\n\"I don't understand you. Go on before! I will give you more money\nthan you ever had in your life.\"\n\nJo screws up his mouth into a whistle, gives his ragged head a rub,\ntakes his broom under his arm, and leads the way, passing deftly with\nhis bare feet over the hard stones and through the mud and mire.\n\nCook's Court. Jo stops. A pause.\n\n\"Who lives here?\"\n\n\"Him wot give him his writing and give me half a bull,\" says Jo in a\nwhisper without looking over his shoulder.\n\n\"Go on to the next.\"\n\nKrook's house. Jo stops again. A longer pause.\n\n\"Who lives here?\"\n\n\"HE lived here,\" Jo answers as before.\n\nAfter a silence he is asked, \"In which room?\"\n\n\"In the back room up there. You can see the winder from this corner.\nUp there! That's where I see him stritched out. This is the\npublic-ouse where I was took to.\"\n\n\"Go on to the next!\"\n\nIt is a longer walk to the next, but Jo, relieved of his first\nsuspicions, sticks to the forms imposed upon him and does not look\nround. By many devious ways, reeking with offence of many kinds, they\ncome to the little tunnel of a court, and to the gas-lamp (lighted\nnow), and to the iron gate.\n\n\"He was put there,\" says Jo, holding to the bars and looking in.\n\n\"Where? Oh, what a scene of horror!\"\n\n\"There!\" says Jo, pointing. \"Over yinder. Among them piles of bones,\nand close to that there kitchin winder! They put him wery nigh the\ntop. They was obliged to stamp upon it to git it in. I could unkiver\nit for you with my broom if the gate was open. That's why they locks\nit, I s'pose,\" giving it a shake. \"It's always locked. Look at the\nrat!\" cries Jo, excited. \"Hi! Look! There he goes! Ho! Into the\nground!\"\n\nThe servant shrinks into a corner, into a corner of that hideous\narchway, with its deadly stains contaminating her dress; and putting\nout her two hands and passionately telling him to keep away from her,\nfor he is loathsome to her, so remains for some moments. Jo stands\nstaring and is still staring when she recovers herself.\n\n\"Is this place of abomination consecrated ground?\"\n\n\"I don't know nothink of consequential ground,\" says Jo, still\nstaring.\n\n\"Is it blessed?\"\n\n\"Which?\" says Jo, in the last degree amazed.\n\n\"Is it blessed?\"\n\n\"I'm blest if I know,\" says Jo, staring more than ever; \"but I\nshouldn't think it warn't. Blest?\" repeats Jo, something troubled in\nhis mind. \"It an't done it much good if it is. Blest? I should think\nit was t'othered myself. But I don't know nothink!\"\n\nThe servant takes as little heed of what he says as she seems to take\nof what she has said herself. She draws off her glove to get some\nmoney from her purse. Jo silently notices how white and small her\nhand is and what a jolly servant she must be to wear such sparkling\nrings.\n\nShe drops a piece of money in his hand without touching it, and\nshuddering as their hands approach. \"Now,\" she adds, \"show me the\nspot again!\"\n\nJo thrusts the handle of his broom between the bars of the gate, and\nwith his utmost power of elaboration, points it out. At length,\nlooking aside to see if he has made himself intelligible, he finds\nthat he is alone.\n\nHis first proceeding is to hold the piece of money to the gas-light\nand to be overpowered at finding that it is yellow--gold. His next is\nto give it a one-sided bite at the edge as a test of its quality.\nHis next, to put it in his mouth for safety and to sweep the\nstep and passage with great care. His job done, he sets off for\nTom-all-Alone's, stopping in the light of innumerable gas-lamps to\nproduce the piece of gold and give it another one-sided bite as a\nreassurance of its being genuine.\n\nThe Mercury in powder is in no want of society to-night, for my Lady\ngoes to a grand dinner and three or four balls. Sir Leicester is\nfidgety down at Chesney Wold, with no better company than the gout;\nhe complains to Mrs. Rouncewell that the rain makes such a monotonous\npattering on the terrace that he can't read the paper even by the\nfireside in his own snug dressing-room.\n\n\"Sir Leicester would have done better to try the other side of the\nhouse, my dear,\" says Mrs. Rouncewell to Rosa. \"His dressing-room is\non my Lady's side. And in all these years I never heard the step upon\nthe Ghost's Walk more distinct than it is to-night!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\nEsther's Narrative\n\n\nRichard very often came to see us while we remained in London (though\nhe soon failed in his letter-writing), and with his quick abilities,\nhis good spirits, his good temper, his gaiety and freshness, was\nalways delightful. But though I liked him more and more the better I\nknew him, I still felt more and more how much it was to be regretted\nthat he had been educated in no habits of application and\nconcentration. The system which had addressed him in exactly the same\nmanner as it had addressed hundreds of other boys, all varying in\ncharacter and capacity, had enabled him to dash through his tasks,\nalways with fair credit and often with distinction, but in a fitful,\ndazzling way that had confirmed his reliance on those very qualities\nin himself which it had been most desirable to direct and train. They\nwere good qualities, without which no high place can be meritoriously\nwon, but like fire and water, though excellent servants, they were\nvery bad masters. If they had been under Richard's direction, they\nwould have been his friends; but Richard being under their direction,\nthey became his enemies.\n\nI write down these opinions not because I believe that this or any\nother thing was so because I thought so, but only because I did think\nso and I want to be quite candid about all I thought and did. These\nwere my thoughts about Richard. I thought I often observed besides\nhow right my guardian was in what he had said, and that the\nuncertainties and delays of the Chancery suit had imparted to his\nnature something of the careless spirit of a gamester who felt that\nhe was part of a great gaming system.\n\nMr. and Mrs. Bayham Badger coming one afternoon when my guardian was\nnot at home, in the course of conversation I naturally inquired after\nRichard.\n\n\"Why, Mr. Carstone,\" said Mrs. Badger, \"is very well and is, I assure\nyou, a great acquisition to our society. Captain Swosser used to say\nof me that I was always better than land a-head and a breeze a-starn\nto the midshipmen's mess when the purser's junk had become as tough\nas the fore-topsel weather earings. It was his naval way of\nmentioning generally that I was an acquisition to any society. I may\nrender the same tribute, I am sure, to Mr. Carstone. But I--you won't\nthink me premature if I mention it?\"\n\nI said no, as Mrs. Badger's insinuating tone seemed to require such\nan answer.\n\n\"Nor Miss Clare?\" said Mrs. Bayham Badger sweetly.\n\nAda said no, too, and looked uneasy.\n\n\"Why, you see, my dears,\" said Mrs. Badger, \"--you'll excuse me\ncalling you my dears?\"\n\nWe entreated Mrs. Badger not to mention it.\n\n\"Because you really are, if I may take the liberty of saying so,\"\npursued Mrs. Badger, \"so perfectly charming. You see, my dears, that\nalthough I am still young--or Mr. Bayham Badger pays me the\ncompliment of saying so--\"\n\n\"No,\" Mr. Badger called out like some one contradicting at a public\nmeeting. \"Not at all!\"\n\n\"Very well,\" smiled Mrs. Badger, \"we will say still young.\"\n\n\"Undoubtedly,\" said Mr. Badger.\n\n\"My dears, though still young, I have had many opportunities of\nobserving young men. There were many such on board the dear old\nCrippler, I assure you. After that, when I was with Captain Swosser\nin the Mediterranean, I embraced every opportunity of knowing and\nbefriending the midshipmen under Captain Swosser's command. YOU never\nheard them called the young gentlemen, my dears, and probably would\nnot understand allusions to their pipe-claying their weekly accounts,\nbut it is otherwise with me, for blue water has been a second home to\nme, and I have been quite a sailor. Again, with Professor Dingo.\"\n\n\"A man of European reputation,\" murmured Mr. Badger.\n\n\"When I lost my dear first and became the wife of my dear second,\"\nsaid Mrs. Badger, speaking of her former husbands as if they were\nparts of a charade, \"I still enjoyed opportunities of observing\nyouth. The class attendant on Professor Dingo's lectures was a large\none, and it became my pride, as the wife of an eminent scientific man\nseeking herself in science the utmost consolation it could impart, to\nthrow our house open to the students as a kind of Scientific\nExchange. Every Tuesday evening there was lemonade and a mixed\nbiscuit for all who chose to partake of those refreshments. And there\nwas science to an unlimited extent.\"\n\n\"Remarkable assemblies those, Miss Summerson,\" said Mr. Badger\nreverentially. \"There must have been great intellectual friction\ngoing on there under the auspices of such a man!\"\n\n\"And now,\" pursued Mrs. Badger, \"now that I am the wife of my dear\nthird, Mr. Badger, I still pursue those habits of observation which\nwere formed during the lifetime of Captain Swosser and adapted to new\nand unexpected purposes during the lifetime of Professor Dingo. I\ntherefore have not come to the consideration of Mr. Carstone as a\nneophyte. And yet I am very much of the opinion, my dears, that he\nhas not chosen his profession advisedly.\"\n\nAda looked so very anxious now that I asked Mrs. Badger on what she\nfounded her supposition.\n\n\"My dear Miss Summerson,\" she replied, \"on Mr. Carstone's character\nand conduct. He is of such a very easy disposition that probably he\nwould never think it worth-while to mention how he really feels, but\nhe feels languid about the profession. He has not that positive\ninterest in it which makes it his vocation. If he has any decided\nimpression in reference to it, I should say it was that it is a\ntiresome pursuit. Now, this is not promising. Young men like Mr.\nAllan Woodcourt who take it from a strong interest in all that it can\ndo will find some reward in it through a great deal of work for a\nvery little money and through years of considerable endurance and\ndisappointment. But I am quite convinced that this would never be the\ncase with Mr. Carstone.\"\n\n\"Does Mr. Badger think so too?\" asked Ada timidly.\n\n\"Why,\" said Mr. Badger, \"to tell the truth, Miss Clare, this view of\nthe matter had not occurred to me until Mrs. Badger mentioned it. But\nwhen Mrs. Badger put it in that light, I naturally gave great\nconsideration to it, knowing that Mrs. Badger's mind, in addition to\nits natural advantages, has had the rare advantage of being formed by\ntwo such very distinguished (I will even say illustrious) public men\nas Captain Swosser of the Royal Navy and Professor Dingo. The\nconclusion at which I have arrived is--in short, is Mrs. Badger's\nconclusion.\"\n\n\"It was a maxim of Captain Swosser's,\" said Mrs. Badger, \"speaking in\nhis figurative naval manner, that when you make pitch hot, you cannot\nmake it too hot; and that if you only have to swab a plank, you\nshould swab it as if Davy Jones were after you. It appears to me that\nthis maxim is applicable to the medical as well as to the nautical\nprofession.\n\n\"To all professions,\" observed Mr. Badger. \"It was admirably said by\nCaptain Swosser. Beautifully said.\"\n\n\"People objected to Professor Dingo when we were staying in the north\nof Devon after our marriage,\" said Mrs. Badger, \"that he disfigured\nsome of the houses and other buildings by chipping off fragments of\nthose edifices with his little geological hammer. But the professor\nreplied that he knew of no building save the Temple of Science. The\nprinciple is the same, I think?\"\n\n\"Precisely the same,\" said Mr. Badger. \"Finely expressed! The\nprofessor made the same remark, Miss Summerson, in his last illness,\nwhen (his mind wandering) he insisted on keeping his little hammer\nunder the pillow and chipping at the countenances of the attendants.\nThe ruling passion!\"\n\nAlthough we could have dispensed with the length at which Mr. and\nMrs. Badger pursued the conversation, we both felt that it was\ndisinterested in them to express the opinion they had communicated to\nus and that there was a great probability of its being sound. We\nagreed to say nothing to Mr. Jarndyce until we had spoken to Richard;\nand as he was coming next evening, we resolved to have a very serious\ntalk with him.\n\nSo after he had been a little while with Ada, I went in and found my\ndarling (as I knew she would be) prepared to consider him thoroughly\nright in whatever he said.\n\n\"And how do you get on, Richard?\" said I. I always sat down on the\nother side of him. He made quite a sister of me.\n\n\"Oh! Well enough!\" said Richard.\n\n\"He can't say better than that, Esther, can he?\" cried my pet\ntriumphantly.\n\nI tried to look at my pet in the wisest manner, but of course I\ncouldn't.\n\n\"Well enough?\" I repeated.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Richard, \"well enough. It's rather jog-trotty and\nhumdrum. But it'll do as well as anything else!\"\n\n\"Oh! My dear Richard!\" I remonstrated.\n\n\"What's the matter?\" said Richard.\n\n\"Do as well as anything else!\"\n\n\"I don't think there's any harm in that, Dame Durden,\" said Ada,\nlooking so confidingly at me across him; \"because if it will do as\nwell as anything else, it will do very well, I hope.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, I hope so,\" returned Richard, carelessly tossing his hair\nfrom his forehead. \"After all, it may be only a kind of probation\ntill our suit is--I forgot though. I am not to mention the suit.\nForbidden ground! Oh, yes, it's all right enough. Let us talk about\nsomething else.\"\n\nAda would have done so willingly, and with a full persuasion that we\nhad brought the question to a most satisfactory state. But I thought\nit would be useless to stop there, so I began again.\n\n\"No, but Richard,\" said I, \"and my dear Ada! Consider how important\nit is to you both, and what a point of honour it is towards your\ncousin, that you, Richard, should be quite in earnest without any\nreservation. I think we had better talk about this, really, Ada. It\nwill be too late very soon.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes! We must talk about it!\" said Ada. \"But I think Richard is\nright.\"\n\nWhat was the use of my trying to look wise when she was so pretty,\nand so engaging, and so fond of him!\n\n\"Mr. and Mrs. Badger were here yesterday, Richard,\" said I, \"and they\nseemed disposed to think that you had no great liking for the\nprofession.\"\n\n\"Did they though?\" said Richard. \"Oh! Well, that rather alters the\ncase, because I had no idea that they thought so, and I should not\nhave liked to disappoint or inconvenience them. The fact is, I don't\ncare much about it. But, oh, it don't matter! It'll do as well as\nanything else!\"\n\n\"You hear him, Ada!\" said I.\n\n\"The fact is,\" Richard proceeded, half thoughtfully and half\njocosely, \"it is not quite in my way. I don't take to it. And I get\ntoo much of Mrs. Bayham Badger's first and second.\"\n\n\"I am sure THAT'S very natural!\" cried Ada, quite delighted. \"The\nvery thing we both said yesterday, Esther!\"\n\n\"Then,\" pursued Richard, \"it's monotonous, and to-day is too like\nyesterday, and to-morrow is too like to-day.\"\n\n\"But I am afraid,\" said I, \"this is an objection to all kinds of\napplication--to life itself, except under some very uncommon\ncircumstances.\"\n\n\"Do you think so?\" returned Richard, still considering. \"Perhaps! Ha!\nWhy, then, you know,\" he added, suddenly becoming gay again, \"we\ntravel outside a circle to what I said just now. It'll do as well as\nanything else. Oh, it's all right enough! Let us talk about something\nelse.\"\n\nBut even Ada, with her loving face--and if it had seemed innocent and\ntrusting when I first saw it in that memorable November fog, how much\nmore did it seem now when I knew her innocent and trusting\nheart--even Ada shook her head at this and looked serious. So I\nthought it a good opportunity to hint to Richard that if he were\nsometimes a little careless of himself, I was very sure he never\nmeant to be careless of Ada, and that it was a part of his\naffectionate consideration for her not to slight the importance of a\nstep that might influence both their lives. This made him almost\ngrave.\n\n\"My dear Mother Hubbard,\" he said, \"that's the very thing! I have\nthought of that several times and have been quite angry with myself\nfor meaning to be so much in earnest and--somehow--not exactly being\nso. I don't know how it is; I seem to want something or other to\nstand by. Even you have no idea how fond I am of Ada (my darling\ncousin, I love you, so much!), but I don't settle down to constancy\nin other things. It's such uphill work, and it takes such a time!\"\nsaid Richard with an air of vexation.\n\n\"That may be,\" I suggested, \"because you don't like what you have\nchosen.\"\n\n\"Poor fellow!\" said Ada. \"I am sure I don't wonder at it!\"\n\nNo. It was not of the least use my trying to look wise. I tried\nagain, but how could I do it, or how could it have any effect if I\ncould, while Ada rested her clasped hands upon his shoulder and while\nhe looked at her tender blue eyes, and while they looked at him!\n\n\"You see, my precious girl,\" said Richard, passing her golden curls\nthrough and through his hand, \"I was a little hasty perhaps; or I\nmisunderstood my own inclinations perhaps. They don't seem to lie in\nthat direction. I couldn't tell till I tried. Now the question is\nwhether it's worth-while to undo all that has been done. It seems\nlike making a great disturbance about nothing particular.\"\n\n\"My dear Richard,\" said I, \"how CAN you say about nothing\nparticular?\"\n\n\"I don't mean absolutely that,\" he returned. \"I mean that it MAY be\nnothing particular because I may never want it.\"\n\nBoth Ada and I urged, in reply, not only that it was decidedly\nworth-while to undo what had been done, but that it must be undone. I\nthen asked Richard whether he had thought of any more congenial\npursuit.\n\n\"There, my dear Mrs. Shipton,\" said Richard, \"you touch me home. Yes,\nI have. I have been thinking that the law is the boy for me.\"\n\n\"The law!\" repeated Ada as if she were afraid of the name.\n\n\"If I went into Kenge's office,\" said Richard, \"and if I were placed\nunder articles to Kenge, I should have my eye on the--hum!--the\nforbidden ground--and should be able to study it, and master it, and\nto satisfy myself that it was not neglected and was being properly\nconducted. I should be able to look after Ada's interests and my own\ninterests (the same thing!); and I should peg away at Blackstone and\nall those fellows with the most tremendous ardour.\"\n\nI was not by any means so sure of that, and I saw how his hankering\nafter the vague things yet to come of those long-deferred hopes cast\na shade on Ada's face. But I thought it best to encourage him in any\nproject of continuous exertion, and only advised him to be quite sure\nthat his mind was made up now.\n\n\"My dear Minerva,\" said Richard, \"I am as steady as you are. I made a\nmistake; we are all liable to mistakes; I won't do so any more, and\nI'll become such a lawyer as is not often seen. That is, you know,\"\nsaid Richard, relapsing into doubt, \"if it really is worth-while,\nafter all, to make such a disturbance about nothing particular!\"\n\nThis led to our saying again, with a great deal of gravity, all that\nwe had said already and to our coming to much the same conclusion\nafterwards. But we so strongly advised Richard to be frank and open\nwith Mr. Jarndyce, without a moment's delay, and his disposition was\nnaturally so opposed to concealment that he sought him out at once\n(taking us with him) and made a full avowal. \"Rick,\" said my\nguardian, after hearing him attentively, \"we can retreat with honour,\nand we will. But we must be careful--for our cousin's sake, Rick, for\nour cousin's sake--that we make no more such mistakes. Therefore, in\nthe matter of the law, we will have a good trial before we decide. We\nwill look before we leap, and take plenty of time about it.\"\n\nRichard's energy was of such an impatient and fitful kind that he\nwould have liked nothing better than to have gone to Mr. Kenge's\noffice in that hour and to have entered into articles with him on the\nspot. Submitting, however, with a good grace to the caution that we\nhad shown to be so necessary, he contented himself with sitting down\namong us in his lightest spirits and talking as if his one unvarying\npurpose in life from childhood had been that one which now held\npossession of him. My guardian was very kind and cordial with him,\nbut rather grave, enough so to cause Ada, when he had departed and we\nwere going upstairs to bed, to say, \"Cousin John, I hope you don't\nthink the worse of Richard?\"\n\n\"No, my love,\" said he.\n\n\"Because it was very natural that Richard should be mistaken in such\na difficult case. It is not uncommon.\"\n\n\"No, no, my love,\" said he. \"Don't look unhappy.\"\n\n\"Oh, I am not unhappy, cousin John!\" said Ada, smiling cheerfully,\nwith her hand upon his shoulder, where she had put it in bidding him\ngood night. \"But I should be a little so if you thought at all the\nworse of Richard.\"\n\n\"My dear,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, \"I should think the worse of him only\nif you were ever in the least unhappy through his means. I should be\nmore disposed to quarrel with myself even then, than with poor Rick,\nfor I brought you together. But, tut, all this is nothing! He has\ntime before him, and the race to run. I think the worse of him? Not\nI, my loving cousin! And not you, I swear!\"\n\n\"No, indeed, cousin John,\" said Ada, \"I am sure I could not--I am\nsure I would not--think any ill of Richard if the whole world did. I\ncould, and I would, think better of him then than at any other time!\"\n\nSo quietly and honestly she said it, with her hands upon his\nshoulders--both hands now--and looking up into his face, like the\npicture of truth!\n\n\"I think,\" said my guardian, thoughtfully regarding her, \"I think it\nmust be somewhere written that the virtues of the mothers shall\noccasionally be visited on the children, as well as the sins of the\nfather. Good night, my rosebud. Good night, little woman. Pleasant\nslumbers! Happy dreams!\"\n\nThis was the first time I ever saw him follow Ada with his eyes with\nsomething of a shadow on their benevolent expression. I well\nremembered the look with which he had contemplated her and Richard\nwhen she was singing in the firelight; it was but a very little while\nsince he had watched them passing down the room in which the sun was\nshining, and away into the shade; but his glance was changed, and\neven the silent look of confidence in me which now followed it once\nmore was not quite so hopeful and untroubled as it had originally\nbeen.\n\nAda praised Richard more to me that night than ever she had praised\nhim yet. She went to sleep with a little bracelet he had given her\nclasped upon her arm. I fancied she was dreaming of him when I kissed\nher cheek after she had slept an hour and saw how tranquil and happy\nshe looked.\n\nFor I was so little inclined to sleep myself that night that I sat up\nworking. It would not be worth mentioning for its own sake, but I was\nwakeful and rather low-spirited. I don't know why. At least I don't\nthink I know why. At least, perhaps I do, but I don't think it\nmatters.\n\nAt any rate, I made up my mind to be so dreadfully industrious that I\nwould leave myself not a moment's leisure to be low-spirited. For I\nnaturally said, \"Esther! You to be low-spirited. YOU!\" And it really\nwas time to say so, for I--yes, I really did see myself in the glass,\nalmost crying. \"As if you had anything to make you unhappy, instead\nof everything to make you happy, you ungrateful heart!\" said I.\n\nIf I could have made myself go to sleep, I would have done it\ndirectly, but not being able to do that, I took out of my basket some\nornamental work for our house (I mean Bleak House) that I was busy\nwith at that time and sat down to it with great determination. It was\nnecessary to count all the stitches in that work, and I resolved to\ngo on with it until I couldn't keep my eyes open, and then to go to\nbed.\n\nI soon found myself very busy. But I had left some silk downstairs in\na work-table drawer in the temporary growlery, and coming to a stop\nfor want of it, I took my candle and went softly down to get it. To\nmy great surprise, on going in I found my guardian still there, and\nsitting looking at the ashes. He was lost in thought, his book lay\nunheeded by his side, his silvered iron-grey hair was scattered\nconfusedly upon his forehead as though his hand had been wandering\namong it while his thoughts were elsewhere, and his face looked worn.\nAlmost frightened by coming upon him so unexpectedly, I stood still\nfor a moment and should have retired without speaking had he not, in\nagain passing his hand abstractedly through his hair, seen me and\nstarted.\n\n\"Esther!\"\n\nI told him what I had come for.\n\n\"At work so late, my dear?\"\n\n\"I am working late to-night,\" said I, \"because I couldn't sleep and\nwished to tire myself. But, dear guardian, you are late too, and look\nweary. You have no trouble, I hope, to keep you waking?\"\n\n\"None, little woman, that YOU would readily understand,\" said he.\n\nHe spoke in a regretful tone so new to me that I inwardly repeated,\nas if that would help me to his meaning, \"That I could readily\nunderstand!\"\n\n\"Remain a moment, Esther,\" said he, \"You were in my thoughts.\"\n\n\"I hope I was not the trouble, guardian?\"\n\nHe slightly waved his hand and fell into his usual manner. The change\nwas so remarkable, and he appeared to make it by dint of so much\nself-command, that I found myself again inwardly repeating, \"None\nthat I could understand!\"\n\n\"Little woman,\" said my guardian, \"I was thinking--that is, I have\nbeen thinking since I have been sitting here--that you ought to know\nof your own history all I know. It is very little. Next to nothing.\"\n\n\"Dear guardian,\" I replied, \"when you spoke to me before on that\nsubject--\"\n\n\"But since then,\" he gravely interposed, anticipating what I meant to\nsay, \"I have reflected that your having anything to ask me, and my\nhaving anything to tell you, are different considerations, Esther. It\nis perhaps my duty to impart to you the little I know.\"\n\n\"If you think so, guardian, it is right.\"\n\n\"I think so,\" he returned very gently, and kindly, and very\ndistinctly. \"My dear, I think so now. If any real disadvantage can\nattach to your position in the mind of any man or woman worth a\nthought, it is right that you at least of all the world should not\nmagnify it to yourself by having vague impressions of its nature.\"\n\nI sat down and said after a little effort to be as calm as I ought to\nbe, \"One of my earliest remembrances, guardian, is of these words:\n'Your mother, Esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers. The time\nwill come, and soon enough, when you will understand this better, and\nwill feel it too, as no one save a woman can.'\" I had covered my face\nwith my hands in repeating the words, but I took them away now with a\nbetter kind of shame, I hope, and told him that to him I owed the\nblessing that I had from my childhood to that hour never, never,\nnever felt it. He put up his hand as if to stop me. I well knew that\nhe was never to be thanked, and said no more.\n\n\"Nine years, my dear,\" he said after thinking for a little while,\n\"have passed since I received a letter from a lady living in\nseclusion, written with a stern passion and power that rendered it\nunlike all other letters I have ever read. It was written to me (as\nit told me in so many words), perhaps because it was the writer's\nidiosyncrasy to put that trust in me, perhaps because it was mine to\njustify it. It told me of a child, an orphan girl then twelve years\nold, in some such cruel words as those which live in your\nremembrance. It told me that the writer had bred her in secrecy from\nher birth, had blotted out all trace of her existence, and that if\nthe writer were to die before the child became a woman, she would be\nleft entirely friendless, nameless, and unknown. It asked me to\nconsider if I would, in that case, finish what the writer had begun.\"\n\nI listened in silence and looked attentively at him.\n\n\"Your early recollection, my dear, will supply the gloomy medium\nthrough which all this was seen and expressed by the writer, and the\ndistorted religion which clouded her mind with impressions of the\nneed there was for the child to expiate an offence of which she was\nquite innocent. I felt concerned for the little creature, in her\ndarkened life, and replied to the letter.\"\n\nI took his hand and kissed it.\n\n\"It laid the injunction on me that I should never propose to see the\nwriter, who had long been estranged from all intercourse with the\nworld, but who would see a confidential agent if I would appoint one.\nI accredited Mr. Kenge. The lady said, of her own accord and not of\nhis seeking, that her name was an assumed one. That she was, if there\nwere any ties of blood in such a case, the child's aunt. That more\nthan this she would never (and he was well persuaded of the\nsteadfastness of her resolution) for any human consideration\ndisclose. My dear, I have told you all.\"\n\nI held his hand for a little while in mine.\n\n\"I saw my ward oftener than she saw me,\" he added, cheerily making\nlight of it, \"and I always knew she was beloved, useful, and happy.\nShe repays me twenty-thousandfold, and twenty more to that, every\nhour in every day!\"\n\n\"And oftener still,\" said I, \"she blesses the guardian who is a\nfather to her!\"\n\nAt the word father, I saw his former trouble come into his face. He\nsubdued it as before, and it was gone in an instant; but it had been\nthere and it had come so swiftly upon my words that I felt as if they\nhad given him a shock. I again inwardly repeated, wondering, \"That I\ncould readily understand. None that I could readily understand!\" No,\nit was true. I did not understand it. Not for many and many a day.\n\n\"Take a fatherly good night, my dear,\" said he, kissing me on the\nforehead, \"and so to rest. These are late hours for working and\nthinking. You do that for all of us, all day long, little\nhousekeeper!\"\n\nI neither worked nor thought any more that night. I opened my\ngrateful heart to heaven in thankfulness for its providence to me and\nits care of me, and fell asleep.\n\nWe had a visitor next day. Mr. Allan Woodcourt came. He came to take\nleave of us; he had settled to do so beforehand. He was going to\nChina and to India as a surgeon on board ship. He was to be away a\nlong, long time.\n\nI believe--at least I know--that he was not rich. All his widowed\nmother could spare had been spent in qualifying him for his\nprofession. It was not lucrative to a young practitioner, with very\nlittle influence in London; and although he was, night and day, at\nthe service of numbers of poor people and did wonders of gentleness\nand skill for them, he gained very little by it in money. He was\nseven years older than I. Not that I need mention it, for it hardly\nseems to belong to anything.\n\nI think--I mean, he told us--that he had been in practice three or\nfour years and that if he could have hoped to contend through three\nor four more, he would not have made the voyage on which he was\nbound. But he had no fortune or private means, and so he was going\naway. He had been to see us several times altogether. We thought it a\npity he should go away. Because he was distinguished in his art among\nthose who knew it best, and some of the greatest men belonging to it\nhad a high opinion of him.\n\nWhen he came to bid us good-bye, he brought his mother with him for\nthe first time. She was a pretty old lady, with bright black eyes,\nbut she seemed proud. She came from Wales and had had, a long time\nago, an eminent person for an ancestor, of the name of Morgan\nap-Kerrig--of some place that sounded like Gimlet--who was the most\nillustrious person that ever was known and all of whose relations\nwere a sort of royal family. He appeared to have passed his life\nin always getting up into mountains and fighting somebody; and\na bard whose name sounded like Crumlinwallinwer had sung his\npraises in a piece which was called, as nearly as I could catch it,\nMewlinnwillinwodd.\n\nMrs. Woodcourt, after expatiating to us on the fame of her great\nkinsman, said that no doubt wherever her son Allan went he would\nremember his pedigree and would on no account form an alliance below\nit. She told him that there were many handsome English ladies in\nIndia who went out on speculation, and that there were some to be\npicked up with property, but that neither charms nor wealth would\nsuffice for the descendant from such a line without birth, which must\never be the first consideration. She talked so much about birth that\nfor a moment I half fancied, and with pain--But what an idle fancy to\nsuppose that she could think or care what MINE was!\n\nMr. Woodcourt seemed a little distressed by her prolixity, but he was\ntoo considerate to let her see it and contrived delicately to bring\nthe conversation round to making his acknowledgments to my guardian\nfor his hospitality and for the very happy hours--he called them the\nvery happy hours--he had passed with us. The recollection of them, he\nsaid, would go with him wherever he went and would be always\ntreasured. And so we gave him our hands, one after another--at least,\nthey did--and I did; and so he put his lips to Ada's hand--and to\nmine; and so he went away upon his long, long voyage!\n\nI was very busy indeed all day and wrote directions home to the\nservants, and wrote notes for my guardian, and dusted his books and\npapers, and jingled my housekeeping keys a good deal, one way and\nanother. I was still busy between the lights, singing and working by\nthe window, when who should come in but Caddy, whom I had no\nexpectation of seeing!\n\n\"Why, Caddy, my dear,\" said I, \"what beautiful flowers!\"\n\nShe had such an exquisite little nosegay in her hand.\n\n\"Indeed, I think so, Esther,\" replied Caddy. \"They are the loveliest\nI ever saw.\"\n\n\"Prince, my dear?\" said I in a whisper.\n\n\"No,\" answered Caddy, shaking her head and holding them to me to\nsmell. \"Not Prince.\"\n\n\"Well, to be sure, Caddy!\" said I. \"You must have two lovers!\"\n\n\"What? Do they look like that sort of thing?\" said Caddy.\n\n\"Do they look like that sort of thing?\" I repeated, pinching her\ncheek.\n\nCaddy only laughed in return, and telling me that she had come for\nhalf an hour, at the expiration of which time Prince would be waiting\nfor her at the corner, sat chatting with me and Ada in the window,\nevery now and then handing me the flowers again or trying how they\nlooked against my hair. At last, when she was going, she took me into\nmy room and put them in my dress.\n\n\"For me?\" said I, surprised.\n\n\"For you,\" said Caddy with a kiss. \"They were left behind by\nsomebody.\"\n\n\"Left behind?\"\n\n\"At poor Miss Flite's,\" said Caddy. \"Somebody who has been very good\nto her was hurrying away an hour ago to join a ship and left these\nflowers behind. No, no! Don't take them out. Let the pretty little\nthings lie here,\" said Caddy, adjusting them with a careful hand,\n\"because I was present myself, and I shouldn't wonder if somebody\nleft them on purpose!\"\n\n\"Do they look like that sort of thing?\" said Ada, coming laughingly\nbehind me and clasping me merrily round the waist. \"Oh, yes, indeed\nthey do, Dame Durden! They look very, very like that sort of thing.\nOh, very like it indeed, my dear!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\n\nLady Dedlock\n\n\nIt was not so easy as it had appeared at first to arrange for\nRichard's making a trial of Mr. Kenge's office. Richard himself was\nthe chief impediment. As soon as he had it in his power to leave Mr.\nBadger at any moment, he began to doubt whether he wanted to leave\nhim at all. He didn't know, he said, really. It wasn't a bad\nprofession; he couldn't assert that he disliked it; perhaps he liked\nit as well as he liked any other--suppose he gave it one more chance!\nUpon that, he shut himself up for a few weeks with some books and\nsome bones and seemed to acquire a considerable fund of information\nwith great rapidity. His fervour, after lasting about a month, began\nto cool, and when it was quite cooled, began to grow warm again. His\nvacillations between law and medicine lasted so long that midsummer\narrived before he finally separated from Mr. Badger and entered on an\nexperimental course of Messrs. Kenge and Carboy. For all his\nwaywardness, he took great credit to himself as being determined to\nbe in earnest \"this time.\" And he was so good-natured throughout, and\nin such high spirits, and so fond of Ada, that it was very difficult\nindeed to be otherwise than pleased with him.\n\n\"As to Mr. Jarndyce,\" who, I may mention, found the wind much given,\nduring this period, to stick in the east; \"As to Mr. Jarndyce,\"\nRichard would say to me, \"he is the finest fellow in the world,\nEsther! I must be particularly careful, if it were only for his\nsatisfaction, to take myself well to task and have a regular wind-up\nof this business now.\"\n\nThe idea of his taking himself well to task, with that laughing face\nand heedless manner and with a fancy that everything could catch and\nnothing could hold, was ludicrously anomalous. However, he told us\nbetween-whiles that he was doing it to such an extent that he\nwondered his hair didn't turn grey. His regular wind-up of the\nbusiness was (as I have said) that he went to Mr. Kenge's about\nmidsummer to try how he liked it.\n\nAll this time he was, in money affairs, what I have described him in\na former illustration--generous, profuse, wildly careless, but fully\npersuaded that he was rather calculating and prudent. I happened to\nsay to Ada, in his presence, half jestingly, half seriously, about\nthe time of his going to Mr. Kenge's, that he needed to have\nFortunatus' purse, he made so light of money, which he answered in\nthis way, \"My jewel of a dear cousin, you hear this old woman! Why\ndoes she say that? Because I gave eight pounds odd (or whatever it\nwas) for a certain neat waistcoat and buttons a few days ago. Now, if\nI had stayed at Badger's I should have been obliged to spend twelve\npounds at a blow for some heart-breaking lecture-fees. So I make four\npounds--in a lump--by the transaction!\"\n\nIt was a question much discussed between him and my guardian what\narrangements should be made for his living in London while he\nexperimented on the law, for we had long since gone back to Bleak\nHouse, and it was too far off to admit of his coming there oftener\nthan once a week. My guardian told me that if Richard were to settle\ndown at Mr. Kenge's he would take some apartments or chambers where\nwe too could occasionally stay for a few days at a time; \"but, little\nwoman,\" he added, rubbing his head very significantly, \"he hasn't\nsettled down there yet!\" The discussions ended in our hiring for him,\nby the month, a neat little furnished lodging in a quiet old house\nnear Queen Square. He immediately began to spend all the money he had\nin buying the oddest little ornaments and luxuries for this lodging;\nand so often as Ada and I dissuaded him from making any purchase that\nhe had in contemplation which was particularly unnecessary and\nexpensive, he took credit for what it would have cost and made out\nthat to spend anything less on something else was to save the\ndifference.\n\nWhile these affairs were in abeyance, our visit to Mr. Boythorn's was\npostponed. At length, Richard having taken possession of his lodging,\nthere was nothing to prevent our departure. He could have gone with\nus at that time of the year very well, but he was in the full novelty\nof his new position and was making most energetic attempts to unravel\nthe mysteries of the fatal suit. Consequently we went without him,\nand my darling was delighted to praise him for being so busy.\n\nWe made a pleasant journey down into Lincolnshire by the coach and\nhad an entertaining companion in Mr. Skimpole. His furniture had been\nall cleared off, it appeared, by the person who took possession of it\non his blue-eyed daughter's birthday, but he seemed quite relieved to\nthink that it was gone. Chairs and table, he said, were wearisome\nobjects; they were monotonous ideas, they had no variety of\nexpression, they looked you out of countenance, and you looked them\nout of countenance. How pleasant, then, to be bound to no particular\nchairs and tables, but to sport like a butterfly among all the\nfurniture on hire, and to flit from rosewood to mahogany, and from\nmahogany to walnut, and from this shape to that, as the humour took\none!\n\n\"The oddity of the thing is,\" said Mr. Skimpole with a quickened\nsense of the ludicrous, \"that my chairs and tables were not paid for,\nand yet my landlord walks off with them as composedly as possible.\nNow, that seems droll! There is something grotesque in it. The chair\nand table merchant never engaged to pay my landlord my rent. Why\nshould my landlord quarrel with HIM? If I have a pimple on my nose\nwhich is disagreeable to my landlord's peculiar ideas of beauty, my\nlandlord has no business to scratch my chair and table merchant's\nnose, which has no pimple on it. His reasoning seems defective!\"\n\n\"Well,\" said my guardian good-humouredly, \"it's pretty clear that\nwhoever became security for those chairs and tables will have to pay\nfor them.\"\n\n\"Exactly!\" returned Mr. Skimpole. \"That's the crowning point of\nunreason in the business! I said to my landlord, 'My good man, you\nare not aware that my excellent friend Jarndyce will have to pay for\nthose things that you are sweeping off in that indelicate manner.\nHave you no consideration for HIS property?' He hadn't the least.\"\n\n\"And refused all proposals,\" said my guardian.\n\n\"Refused all proposals,\" returned Mr. Skimpole. \"I made him business\nproposals. I had him into my room. I said, 'You are a man of\nbusiness, I believe?' He replied, 'I am,' 'Very well,' said I, 'now\nlet us be business-like. Here is an inkstand, here are pens and\npaper, here are wafers. What do you want? I have occupied your house\nfor a considerable period, I believe to our mutual satisfaction until\nthis unpleasant misunderstanding arose; let us be at once friendly\nand business-like. What do you want?' In reply to this, he made use\nof the figurative expression--which has something Eastern about\nit--that he had never seen the colour of my money. 'My amiable\nfriend,' said I, 'I never have any money. I never know anything about\nmoney.' 'Well, sir,' said he, 'what do you offer if I give you time?'\n'My good fellow,' said I, 'I have no idea of time; but you say you\nare a man of business, and whatever you can suggest to be done in a\nbusiness-like way with pen, and ink, and paper--and wafers--I am\nready to do. Don't pay yourself at another man's expense (which is\nfoolish), but be business-like!' However, he wouldn't be, and there\nwas an end of it.\"\n\nIf these were some of the inconveniences of Mr. Skimpole's childhood,\nit assuredly possessed its advantages too. On the journey he had a\nvery good appetite for such refreshment as came in our way (including\na basket of choice hothouse peaches), but never thought of paying for\nanything. So when the coachman came round for his fee, he pleasantly\nasked him what he considered a very good fee indeed, now--a liberal\none--and on his replying half a crown for a single passenger, said it\nwas little enough too, all things considered, and left Mr. Jarndyce\nto give it him.\n\nIt was delightful weather. The green corn waved so beautifully, the\nlarks sang so joyfully, the hedges were so full of wild flowers, the\ntrees were so thickly out in leaf, the bean-fields, with a light wind\nblowing over them, filled the air with such a delicious fragrance!\nLate in the afternoon we came to the market-town where we were to\nalight from the coach--a dull little town with a church-spire, and a\nmarketplace, and a market-cross, and one intensely sunny street, and\na pond with an old horse cooling his legs in it, and a very few men\nsleepily lying and standing about in narrow little bits of shade.\nAfter the rustling of the leaves and the waving of the corn all along\nthe road, it looked as still, as hot, as motionless a little town as\nEngland could produce.\n\nAt the inn we found Mr. Boythorn on horseback, waiting with an open\ncarriage to take us to his house, which was a few miles off. He was\noverjoyed to see us and dismounted with great alacrity.\n\n\"By heaven!\" said he after giving us a courteous greeting. \"This a\nmost infamous coach. It is the most flagrant example of an abominable\npublic vehicle that ever encumbered the face of the earth. It is\ntwenty-five minutes after its time this afternoon. The coachman ought\nto be put to death!\"\n\n\"IS he after his time?\" said Mr. Skimpole, to whom he happened to\naddress himself. \"You know my infirmity.\"\n\n\"Twenty-five minutes! Twenty-six minutes!\" replied Mr. Boythorn,\nreferring to his watch. \"With two ladies in the coach, this scoundrel\nhas deliberately delayed his arrival six and twenty minutes.\nDeliberately! It is impossible that it can be accidental! But his\nfather--and his uncle--were the most profligate coachmen that ever\nsat upon a box.\"\n\nWhile he said this in tones of the greatest indignation, he handed us\ninto the little phaeton with the utmost gentleness and was all smiles\nand pleasure.\n\n\"I am sorry, ladies,\" he said, standing bare-headed at the\ncarriage-door when all was ready, \"that I am obliged to conduct you\nnearly two miles out of the way. But our direct road lies through Sir\nLeicester Dedlock's park, and in that fellow's property I have sworn\nnever to set foot of mine, or horse's foot of mine, pending the\npresent relations between us, while I breathe the breath of life!\"\nAnd here, catching my guardian's eye, he broke into one of his\ntremendous laughs, which seemed to shake even the motionless little\nmarket-town.\n\n\"Are the Dedlocks down here, Lawrence?\" said my guardian as we drove\nalong and Mr. Boythorn trotted on the green turf by the roadside.\n\n\"Sir Arrogant Numskull is here,\" replied Mr. Boythorn. \"Ha ha ha! Sir\nArrogant is here, and I am glad to say, has been laid by the heels\nhere. My Lady,\" in naming whom he always made a courtly gesture as if\nparticularly to exclude her from any part in the quarrel, \"is\nexpected, I believe, daily. I am not in the least surprised that she\npostpones her appearance as long as possible. Whatever can have\ninduced that transcendent woman to marry that effigy and figure-head\nof a baronet is one of the most impenetrable mysteries that ever\nbaffled human inquiry. Ha ha ha ha!\"\n\n\"I suppose,\" said my guardian, laughing, \"WE may set foot in the park\nwhile we are here? The prohibition does not extend to us, does it?\"\n\n\"I can lay no prohibition on my guests,\" he said, bending his head to\nAda and me with the smiling politeness which sat so gracefully upon\nhim, \"except in the matter of their departure. I am only sorry that I\ncannot have the happiness of being their escort about Chesney Wold,\nwhich is a very fine place! But by the light of this summer day,\nJarndyce, if you call upon the owner while you stay with me, you are\nlikely to have but a cool reception. He carries himself like an\neight-day clock at all times, like one of a race of eight-day clocks\nin gorgeous cases that never go and never went--Ha ha ha!--but he\nwill have some extra stiffness, I can promise you, for the friends of\nhis friend and neighbour Boythorn!\"\n\n\"I shall not put him to the proof,\" said my guardian. \"He is as\nindifferent to the honour of knowing me, I dare say, as I am to the\nhonour of knowing him. The air of the grounds and perhaps such a view\nof the house as any other sightseer might get are quite enough for\nme.\"\n\n\"Well!\" said Mr. Boythorn. \"I am glad of it on the whole. It's in\nbetter keeping. I am looked upon about here as a second Ajax defying\nthe lightning. Ha ha ha ha! When I go into our little church on a\nSunday, a considerable part of the inconsiderable congregation expect\nto see me drop, scorched and withered, on the pavement under the\nDedlock displeasure. Ha ha ha ha! I have no doubt he is surprised\nthat I don't. For he is, by heaven, the most self-satisfied, and the\nshallowest, and the most coxcombical and utterly brainless ass!\"\n\nOur coming to the ridge of a hill we had been ascending enabled our\nfriend to point out Chesney Wold itself to us and diverted his\nattention from its master.\n\nIt was a picturesque old house in a fine park richly wooded. Among\nthe trees and not far from the residence he pointed out the spire of\nthe little church of which he had spoken. Oh, the solemn woods over\nwhich the light and shadow travelled swiftly, as if heavenly wings\nwere sweeping on benignant errands through the summer air; the smooth\ngreen slopes, the glittering water, the garden where the flowers were\nso symmetrically arranged in clusters of the richest colours, how\nbeautiful they looked! The house, with gable and chimney, and tower,\nand turret, and dark doorway, and broad terrace-walk, twining among\nthe balustrades of which, and lying heaped upon the vases, there was\none great flush of roses, seemed scarcely real in its light solidity\nand in the serene and peaceful hush that rested on all around it. To\nAda and to me, that above all appeared the pervading influence. On\neverything, house, garden, terrace, green slopes, water, old oaks,\nfern, moss, woods again, and far away across the openings in the\nprospect to the distance lying wide before us with a purple bloom\nupon it, there seemed to be such undisturbed repose.\n\nWhen we came into the little village and passed a small inn with the\nsign of the Dedlock Arms swinging over the road in front, Mr.\nBoythorn interchanged greetings with a young gentleman sitting on a\nbench outside the inn-door who had some fishing-tackle lying beside\nhim.\n\n\"That's the housekeeper's grandson, Mr. Rouncewell by name,\" said,\nhe, \"and he is in love with a pretty girl up at the house. Lady\nDedlock has taken a fancy to the pretty girl and is going to keep her\nabout her own fair person--an honour which my young friend himself\ndoes not at all appreciate. However, he can't marry just yet, even if\nhis Rosebud were willing; so he is fain to make the best of it. In\nthe meanwhile, he comes here pretty often for a day or two at a time\nto--fish. Ha ha ha ha!\"\n\n\"Are he and the pretty girl engaged, Mr. Boythorn?\" asked Ada.\n\n\"Why, my dear Miss Clare,\" he returned, \"I think they may perhaps\nunderstand each other; but you will see them soon, I dare say, and I\nmust learn from you on such a point--not you from me.\"\n\nAda blushed, and Mr. Boythorn, trotting forward on his comely grey\nhorse, dismounted at his own door and stood ready with extended arm\nand uncovered head to welcome us when we arrived.\n\nHe lived in a pretty house, formerly the parsonage house, with a lawn\nin front, a bright flower-garden at the side, and a well-stocked\norchard and kitchen-garden in the rear, enclosed with a venerable\nwall that had of itself a ripened ruddy look. But, indeed, everything\nabout the place wore an aspect of maturity and abundance. The old\nlime-tree walk was like green cloisters, the very shadows of the\ncherry-trees and apple-trees were heavy with fruit, the\ngooseberry-bushes were so laden that their branches arched and rested\non the earth, the strawberries and raspberries grew in like\nprofusion, and the peaches basked by the hundred on the wall. Tumbled\nabout among the spread nets and the glass frames sparkling and\nwinking in the sun there were such heaps of drooping pods, and\nmarrows, and cucumbers, that every foot of ground appeared a\nvegetable treasury, while the smell of sweet herbs and all kinds of\nwholesome growth (to say nothing of the neighbouring meadows where\nthe hay was carrying) made the whole air a great nosegay. Such\nstillness and composure reigned within the orderly precincts of the\nold red wall that even the feathers hung in garlands to scare the\nbirds hardly stirred; and the wall had such a ripening influence that\nwhere, here and there high up, a disused nail and scrap of list still\nclung to it, it was easy to fancy that they had mellowed with the\nchanging seasons and that they had rusted and decayed according to\nthe common fate.\n\nThe house, though a little disorderly in comparison with the garden,\nwas a real old house with settles in the chimney of the brick-floored\nkitchen and great beams across the ceilings. On one side of it was\nthe terrible piece of ground in dispute, where Mr. Boythorn\nmaintained a sentry in a smock-frock day and night, whose duty was\nsupposed to be, in cases of aggression, immediately to ring a large\nbell hung up there for the purpose, to unchain a great bull-dog\nestablished in a kennel as his ally, and generally to deal\ndestruction on the enemy. Not content with these precautions, Mr.\nBoythorn had himself composed and posted there, on painted boards to\nwhich his name was attached in large letters, the following solemn\nwarnings: \"Beware of the bull-dog. He is most ferocious. Lawrence\nBoythorn.\" \"The blunderbus is loaded with slugs. Lawrence Boythorn.\"\n\"Man-traps and spring-guns are set here at all times of the day and\nnight. Lawrence Boythorn.\" \"Take notice. That any person or persons\naudaciously presuming to trespass on this property will be punished\nwith the utmost severity of private chastisement and prosecuted with\nthe utmost rigour of the law. Lawrence Boythorn.\" These he showed us\nfrom the drawing-room window, while his bird was hopping about his\nhead, and he laughed, \"Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha!\" to that extent as\nhe pointed them out that I really thought he would have hurt himself.\n\n\"But this is taking a good deal of trouble,\" said Mr. Skimpole in his\nlight way, \"when you are not in earnest after all.\"\n\n\"Not in earnest!\" returned Mr. Boythorn with unspeakable warmth. \"Not\nin earnest! If I could have hoped to train him, I would have bought a\nlion instead of that dog and would have turned him loose upon the\nfirst intolerable robber who should dare to make an encroachment on\nmy rights. Let Sir Leicester Dedlock consent to come out and decide\nthis question by single combat, and I will meet him with any weapon\nknown to mankind in any age or country. I am that much in earnest.\nNot more!\"\n\nWe arrived at his house on a Saturday. On the Sunday morning we all\nset forth to walk to the little church in the park. Entering the\npark, almost immediately by the disputed ground, we pursued a\npleasant footpath winding among the verdant turf and the beautiful\ntrees until it brought us to the church-porch.\n\nThe congregation was extremely small and quite a rustic one with the\nexception of a large muster of servants from the house, some of whom\nwere already in their seats, while others were yet dropping in. There\nwere some stately footmen, and there was a perfect picture of an old\ncoachman, who looked as if he were the official representative of all\nthe pomps and vanities that had ever been put into his coach. There\nwas a very pretty show of young women, and above them, the handsome\nold face and fine responsible portly figure of the housekeeper\ntowered pre-eminent. The pretty girl of whom Mr. Boythorn had told us\nwas close by her. She was so very pretty that I might have known her\nby her beauty even if I had not seen how blushingly conscious she was\nof the eyes of the young fisherman, whom I discovered not far off.\nOne face, and not an agreeable one, though it was handsome, seemed\nmaliciously watchful of this pretty girl, and indeed of every one and\neverything there. It was a Frenchwoman's.\n\nAs the bell was yet ringing and the great people were not yet come, I\nhad leisure to glance over the church, which smelt as earthy as a\ngrave, and to think what a shady, ancient, solemn little church it\nwas. The windows, heavily shaded by trees, admitted a subdued light\nthat made the faces around me pale, and darkened the old brasses in\nthe pavement and the time and damp-worn monuments, and rendered the\nsunshine in the little porch, where a monotonous ringer was working\nat the bell, inestimably bright. But a stir in that direction, a\ngathering of reverential awe in the rustic faces, and a blandly\nferocious assumption on the part of Mr. Boythorn of being resolutely\nunconscious of somebody's existence forewarned me that the great\npeople were come and that the service was going to begin.\n\n\"'Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord, for in thy\nsight--'\"\n\nShall I ever forget the rapid beating at my heart, occasioned by the\nlook I met as I stood up! Shall I ever forget the manner in which\nthose handsome proud eyes seemed to spring out of their languor and\nto hold mine! It was only a moment before I cast mine down--released\nagain, if I may say so--on my book; but I knew the beautiful face\nquite well in that short space of time.\n\nAnd, very strangely, there was something quickened within me,\nassociated with the lonely days at my godmother's; yes, away even to\nthe days when I had stood on tiptoe to dress myself at my little\nglass after dressing my doll. And this, although I had never seen\nthis lady's face before in all my life--I was quite sure of\nit--absolutely certain.\n\nIt was easy to know that the ceremonious, gouty, grey-haired\ngentleman, the only other occupant of the great pew, was Sir\nLeicester Dedlock, and that the lady was Lady Dedlock. But why her\nface should be, in a confused way, like a broken glass to me, in\nwhich I saw scraps of old remembrances, and why I should be so\nfluttered and troubled (for I was still) by having casually met her\neyes, I could not think.\n\nI felt it to be an unmeaning weakness in me and tried to overcome it\nby attending to the words I heard. Then, very strangely, I seemed to\nhear them, not in the reader's voice, but in the well-remembered\nvoice of my godmother. This made me think, did Lady Dedlock's face\naccidentally resemble my godmother's? It might be that it did, a\nlittle; but the expression was so different, and the stern decision\nwhich had worn into my godmother's face, like weather into rocks, was\nso completely wanting in the face before me that it could not be that\nresemblance which had struck me. Neither did I know the loftiness and\nhaughtiness of Lady Dedlock's face, at all, in any one. And yet I--I,\nlittle Esther Summerson, the child who lived a life apart and on\nwhose birthday there was no rejoicing--seemed to arise before my own\neyes, evoked out of the past by some power in this fashionable lady,\nwhom I not only entertained no fancy that I had ever seen, but whom I\nperfectly well knew I had never seen until that hour.\n\nIt made me tremble so to be thrown into this unaccountable agitation\nthat I was conscious of being distressed even by the observation of\nthe French maid, though I knew she had been looking watchfully here,\nand there, and everywhere, from the moment of her coming into the\nchurch. By degrees, though very slowly, I at last overcame my strange\nemotion. After a long time, I looked towards Lady Dedlock again. It\nwas while they were preparing to sing, before the sermon. She took no\nheed of me, and the beating at my heart was gone. Neither did it\nrevive for more than a few moments when she once or twice afterwards\nglanced at Ada or at me through her glass.\n\nThe service being concluded, Sir Leicester gave his arm with much\ntaste and gallantry to Lady Dedlock--though he was obliged to walk by\nthe help of a thick stick--and escorted her out of church to the pony\ncarriage in which they had come. The servants then dispersed, and so\ndid the congregation, whom Sir Leicester had contemplated all along\n(Mr. Skimpole said to Mr. Boythorn's infinite delight) as if he were\na considerable landed proprietor in heaven.\n\n\"He believes he is!\" said Mr. Boythorn. \"He firmly believes it. So\ndid his father, and his grandfather, and his great-grandfather!\"\n\n\"Do you know,\" pursued Mr. Skimpole very unexpectedly to Mr.\nBoythorn, \"it's agreeable to me to see a man of that sort.\"\n\n\"IS it!\" said Mr. Boythorn.\n\n\"Say that he wants to patronize me,\" pursued Mr. Skimpole. \"Very\nwell! I don't object.\"\n\n\"I do,\" said Mr. Boythorn with great vigour.\n\n\"Do you really?\" returned Mr. Skimpole in his easy light vein. \"But\nthat's taking trouble, surely. And why should you take trouble? Here\nam I, content to receive things childishly as they fall out, and I\nnever take trouble! I come down here, for instance, and I find a\nmighty potentate exacting homage. Very well! I say 'Mighty potentate,\nhere IS my homage! It's easier to give it than to withhold it. Here\nit is. If you have anything of an agreeable nature to show me, I\nshall be happy to see it; if you have anything of an agreeable nature\nto give me, I shall be happy to accept it.' Mighty potentate replies\nin effect, 'This is a sensible fellow. I find him accord with my\ndigestion and my bilious system. He doesn't impose upon me the\nnecessity of rolling myself up like a hedgehog with my points\noutward. I expand, I open, I turn my silver lining outward like\nMilton's cloud, and it's more agreeable to both of us.' That's my\nview of such things, speaking as a child!\"\n\n\"But suppose you went down somewhere else to-morrow,\" said Mr.\nBoythorn, \"where there was the opposite of that fellow--or of this\nfellow. How then?\"\n\n\"How then?\" said Mr. Skimpole with an appearance of the utmost\nsimplicity and candour. \"Just the same then! I should say, 'My\nesteemed Boythorn'--to make you the personification of our imaginary\nfriend--'my esteemed Boythorn, you object to the mighty potentate?\nVery good. So do I. I take it that my business in the social system\nis to be agreeable; I take it that everybody's business in the social\nsystem is to be agreeable. It's a system of harmony, in short.\nTherefore if you object, I object. Now, excellent Boythorn, let us go\nto dinner!'\"\n\n\"But excellent Boythorn might say,\" returned our host, swelling and\ngrowing very red, \"I'll be--\"\n\n\"I understand,\" said Mr. Skimpole. \"Very likely he would.\"\n\n\"--if I WILL go to dinner!\" cried Mr. Boythorn in a violent burst and\nstopping to strike his stick upon the ground. \"And he would probably\nadd, 'Is there such a thing as principle, Mr. Harold Skimpole?'\"\n\n\"To which Harold Skimpole would reply, you know,\" he returned in his\ngayest manner and with his most ingenuous smile, \"'Upon my life I\nhave not the least idea! I don't know what it is you call by that\nname, or where it is, or who possesses it. If you possess it and find\nit comfortable, I am quite delighted and congratulate you heartily.\nBut I know nothing about it, I assure you; for I am a mere child, and\nI lay no claim to it, and I don't want it!' So, you see, excellent\nBoythorn and I would go to dinner after all!\"\n\nThis was one of many little dialogues between them which I always\nexpected to end, and which I dare say would have ended under other\ncircumstances, in some violent explosion on the part of our host. But\nhe had so high a sense of his hospitable and responsible position as\nour entertainer, and my guardian laughed so sincerely at and with Mr.\nSkimpole, as a child who blew bubbles and broke them all day long,\nthat matters never went beyond this point. Mr. Skimpole, who always\nseemed quite unconscious of having been on delicate ground, then\nbetook himself to beginning some sketch in the park which he never\nfinished, or to playing fragments of airs on the piano, or to singing\nscraps of songs, or to lying down on his back under a tree and\nlooking at the sky--which he couldn't help thinking, he said, was\nwhat he was meant for; it suited him so exactly.\n\n\"Enterprise and effort,\" he would say to us (on his back), \"are\ndelightful to me. I believe I am truly cosmopolitan. I have the\ndeepest sympathy with them. I lie in a shady place like this and\nthink of adventurous spirits going to the North Pole or penetrating\nto the heart of the Torrid Zone with admiration. Mercenary creatures\nask, 'What is the use of a man's going to the North Pole? What good\ndoes it do?' I can't say; but, for anything I CAN say, he may go for\nthe purpose--though he don't know it--of employing my thoughts as I\nlie here. Take an extreme case. Take the case of the slaves on\nAmerican plantations. I dare say they are worked hard, I dare say\nthey don't altogether like it. I dare say theirs is an unpleasant\nexperience on the whole; but they people the landscape for me, they\ngive it a poetry for me, and perhaps that is one of the pleasanter\nobjects of their existence. I am very sensible of it, if it be, and I\nshouldn't wonder if it were!\"\n\nI always wondered on these occasions whether he ever thought of Mrs.\nSkimpole and the children, and in what point of view they presented\nthemselves to his cosmopolitan mind. So far as I could understand,\nthey rarely presented themselves at all.\n\nThe week had gone round to the Saturday following that beating of my\nheart in the church; and every day had been so bright and blue that\nto ramble in the woods, and to see the light striking down among the\ntransparent leaves and sparkling in the beautiful interlacings of the\nshadows of the trees, while the birds poured out their songs and the\nair was drowsy with the hum of insects, had been most delightful. We\nhad one favourite spot, deep in moss and last year's leaves, where\nthere were some felled trees from which the bark was all stripped\noff. Seated among these, we looked through a green vista supported by\nthousands of natural columns, the whitened stems of trees, upon a\ndistant prospect made so radiant by its contrast with the shade in\nwhich we sat and made so precious by the arched perspective through\nwhich we saw it that it was like a glimpse of the better land. Upon\nthe Saturday we sat here, Mr. Jarndyce, Ada, and I, until we heard\nthunder muttering in the distance and felt the large raindrops rattle\nthrough the leaves.\n\nThe weather had been all the week extremely sultry, but the storm\nbroke so suddenly--upon us, at least, in that sheltered spot--that\nbefore we reached the outskirts of the wood the thunder and lightning\nwere frequent and the rain came plunging through the leaves as if\nevery drop were a great leaden bead. As it was not a time for\nstanding among trees, we ran out of the wood, and up and down the\nmoss-grown steps which crossed the plantation-fence like two\nbroad-staved ladders placed back to back, and made for a keeper's\nlodge which was close at hand. We had often noticed the dark beauty\nof this lodge standing in a deep twilight of trees, and how the ivy\nclustered over it, and how there was a steep hollow near, where we\nhad once seen the keeper's dog dive down into the fern as if it were\nwater.\n\nThe lodge was so dark within, now the sky was overcast, that we only\nclearly saw the man who came to the door when we took shelter there\nand put two chairs for Ada and me. The lattice-windows were all\nthrown open, and we sat just within the doorway watching the storm.\nIt was grand to see how the wind awoke, and bent the trees, and drove\nthe rain before it like a cloud of smoke; and to hear the solemn\nthunder and to see the lightning; and while thinking with awe of the\ntremendous powers by which our little lives are encompassed, to\nconsider how beneficent they are and how upon the smallest flower and\nleaf there was already a freshness poured from all this seeming rage\nwhich seemed to make creation new again.\n\n\"Is it not dangerous to sit in so exposed a place?\"\n\n\"Oh, no, Esther dear!\" said Ada quietly.\n\nAda said it to me, but I had not spoken.\n\nThe beating of my heart came back again. I had never heard the voice,\nas I had never seen the face, but it affected me in the same strange\nway. Again, in a moment, there arose before my mind innumerable\npictures of myself.\n\nLady Dedlock had taken shelter in the lodge before our arrival there\nand had come out of the gloom within. She stood behind my chair with\nher hand upon it. I saw her with her hand close to my shoulder when I\nturned my head.\n\n\"I have frightened you?\" she said.\n\nNo. It was not fright. Why should I be frightened!\n\n\"I believe,\" said Lady Dedlock to my guardian, \"I have the pleasure\nof speaking to Mr. Jarndyce.\"\n\n\"Your remembrance does me more honour than I had supposed it would,\nLady Dedlock,\" he returned.\n\n\"I recognized you in church on Sunday. I am sorry that any local\ndisputes of Sir Leicester's--they are not of his seeking, however, I\nbelieve--should render it a matter of some absurd difficulty to show\nyou any attention here.\"\n\n\"I am aware of the circumstances,\" returned my guardian with a smile,\n\"and am sufficiently obliged.\"\n\nShe had given him her hand in an indifferent way that seemed habitual\nto her and spoke in a correspondingly indifferent manner, though in a\nvery pleasant voice. She was as graceful as she was beautiful,\nperfectly self-possessed, and had the air, I thought, of being able\nto attract and interest any one if she had thought it worth her\nwhile. The keeper had brought her a chair on which she sat in the\nmiddle of the porch between us.\n\n\"Is the young gentleman disposed of whom you wrote to Sir Leicester\nabout and whose wishes Sir Leicester was sorry not to have it in his\npower to advance in any way?\" she said over her shoulder to my\nguardian.\n\n\"I hope so,\" said he.\n\nShe seemed to respect him and even to wish to conciliate him. There\nwas something very winning in her haughty manner, and it became more\nfamiliar--I was going to say more easy, but that could hardly be--as\nshe spoke to him over her shoulder.\n\n\"I presume this is your other ward, Miss Clare?\"\n\nHe presented Ada, in form.\n\n\"You will lose the disinterested part of your Don Quixote character,\"\nsaid Lady Dedlock to Mr. Jarndyce over her shoulder again, \"if you\nonly redress the wrongs of beauty like this. But present me,\" and she\nturned full upon me, \"to this young lady too!\"\n\n\"Miss Summerson really is my ward,\" said Mr. Jarndyce. \"I am\nresponsible to no Lord Chancellor in her case.\"\n\n\"Has Miss Summerson lost both her parents?\" said my Lady.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"She is very fortunate in her guardian.\"\n\nLady Dedlock looked at me, and I looked at her and said I was indeed.\nAll at once she turned from me with a hasty air, almost expressive of\ndispleasure or dislike, and spoke to him over her shoulder again.\n\n\"Ages have passed since we were in the habit of meeting, Mr.\nJarndyce.\"\n\n\"A long time. At least I thought it was a long time, until I saw you\nlast Sunday,\" he returned.\n\n\"What! Even you are a courtier, or think it necessary to become one\nto me!\" she said with some disdain. \"I have achieved that reputation,\nI suppose.\"\n\n\"You have achieved so much, Lady Dedlock,\" said my guardian, \"that\nyou pay some little penalty, I dare say. But none to me.\"\n\n\"So much!\" she repeated, slightly laughing. \"Yes!\"\n\nWith her air of superiority, and power, and fascination, and I know\nnot what, she seemed to regard Ada and me as little more than\nchildren. So, as she slightly laughed and afterwards sat looking at\nthe rain, she was as self-possessed and as free to occupy herself\nwith her own thoughts as if she had been alone.\n\n\"I think you knew my sister when we were abroad together better than\nyou know me?\" she said, looking at him again.\n\n\"Yes, we happened to meet oftener,\" he returned.\n\n\"We went our several ways,\" said Lady Dedlock, \"and had little in\ncommon even before we agreed to differ. It is to be regretted, I\nsuppose, but it could not be helped.\"\n\nLady Dedlock again sat looking at the rain. The storm soon began to\npass upon its way. The shower greatly abated, the lightning ceased,\nthe thunder rolled among the distant hills, and the sun began to\nglisten on the wet leaves and the falling rain. As we sat there,\nsilently, we saw a little pony phaeton coming towards us at a merry\npace.\n\n\"The messenger is coming back, my Lady,\" said the keeper, \"with the\ncarriage.\"\n\nAs it drove up, we saw that there were two people inside. There\nalighted from it, with some cloaks and wrappers, first the\nFrenchwoman whom I had seen in church, and secondly the pretty girl,\nthe Frenchwoman with a defiant confidence, the pretty girl confused\nand hesitating.\n\n\"What now?\" said Lady Dedlock. \"Two!\"\n\n\"I am your maid, my Lady, at the present,\" said the Frenchwoman. \"The\nmessage was for the attendant.\"\n\n\"I was afraid you might mean me, my Lady,\" said the pretty girl.\n\n\"I did mean you, child,\" replied her mistress calmly. \"Put that shawl\non me.\"\n\nShe slightly stooped her shoulders to receive it, and the pretty girl\nlightly dropped it in its place. The Frenchwoman stood unnoticed,\nlooking on with her lips very tightly set.\n\n\"I am sorry,\" said Lady Dedlock to Mr. Jarndyce, \"that we are not\nlikely to renew our former acquaintance. You will allow me to send\nthe carriage back for your two wards. It shall be here directly.\"\n\nBut as he would on no account accept this offer, she took a graceful\nleave of Ada--none of me--and put her hand upon his proffered arm,\nand got into the carriage, which was a little, low, park carriage\nwith a hood.\n\n\"Come in, child,\" she said to the pretty girl; \"I shall want you. Go\non!\"\n\nThe carriage rolled away, and the Frenchwoman, with the wrappers she\nhad brought hanging over her arm, remained standing where she had\nalighted.\n\nI suppose there is nothing pride can so little bear with as pride\nitself, and that she was punished for her imperious manner. Her\nretaliation was the most singular I could have imagined. She remained\nperfectly still until the carriage had turned into the drive, and\nthen, without the least discomposure of countenance, slipped off her\nshoes, left them on the ground, and walked deliberately in the same\ndirection through the wettest of the wet grass.\n\n\"Is that young woman mad?\" said my guardian.\n\n\"Oh, no, sir!\" said the keeper, who, with his wife, was looking after\nher. \"Hortense is not one of that sort. She has as good a head-piece\nas the best. But she's mortal high and passionate--powerful high and\npassionate; and what with having notice to leave, and having others\nput above her, she don't take kindly to it.\"\n\n\"But why should she walk shoeless through all that water?\" said my\nguardian.\n\n\"Why, indeed, sir, unless it is to cool her down!\" said the man.\n\n\"Or unless she fancies it's blood,\" said the woman. \"She'd as soon\nwalk through that as anything else, I think, when her own's up!\"\n\nWe passed not far from the house a few minutes afterwards. Peaceful\nas it had looked when we first saw it, it looked even more so now,\nwith a diamond spray glittering all about it, a light wind blowing,\nthe birds no longer hushed but singing strongly, everything refreshed\nby the late rain, and the little carriage shining at the doorway like\na fairy carriage made of silver. Still, very steadfastly and quietly\nwalking towards it, a peaceful figure too in the landscape, went\nMademoiselle Hortense, shoeless, through the wet grass.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX\n\nMoving On\n\n\nIt is the long vacation in the regions of Chancery Lane. The good\nships Law and Equity, those teak-built, copper-bottomed,\niron-fastened, brazen-faced, and not by any means fast-sailing\nclippers are laid up in ordinary. The Flying Dutchman, with a crew of\nghostly clients imploring all whom they may encounter to peruse their\npapers, has drifted, for the time being, heaven knows where. The\ncourts are all shut up; the public offices lie in a hot sleep.\nWestminster Hall itself is a shady solitude where nightingales might\nsing, and a tenderer class of suitors than is usually found there,\nwalk.\n\nThe Temple, Chancery Lane, Serjeants' Inn, and Lincoln's Inn even\nunto the Fields are like tidal harbours at low water, where stranded\nproceedings, offices at anchor, idle clerks lounging on lop-sided\nstools that will not recover their perpendicular until the current of\nTerm sets in, lie high and dry upon the ooze of the long vacation.\nOuter doors of chambers are shut up by the score, messages and\nparcels are to be left at the Porter's Lodge by the bushel. A crop of\ngrass would grow in the chinks of the stone pavement outside\nLincoln's Inn Hall, but that the ticket-porters, who have nothing to\ndo beyond sitting in the shade there, with their white aprons over\ntheir heads to keep the flies off, grub it up and eat it\nthoughtfully.\n\nThere is only one judge in town. Even he only comes twice a week to\nsit in chambers. If the country folks of those assize towns on his\ncircuit could see him now! No full-bottomed wig, no red petticoats,\nno fur, no javelin-men, no white wands. Merely a close-shaved\ngentleman in white trousers and a white hat, with sea-bronze on the\njudicial countenance, and a strip of bark peeled by the solar rays\nfrom the judicial nose, who calls in at the shell-fish shop as he\ncomes along and drinks iced ginger-beer!\n\nThe bar of England is scattered over the face of the earth. How\nEngland can get on through four long summer months without its\nbar--which is its acknowledged refuge in adversity and its only\nlegitimate triumph in prosperity--is beside the question; assuredly\nthat shield and buckler of Britannia are not in present wear. The\nlearned gentleman who is always so tremendously indignant at the\nunprecedented outrage committed on the feelings of his client by the\nopposite party that he never seems likely to recover it is doing\ninfinitely better than might be expected in Switzerland. The learned\ngentleman who does the withering business and who blights all\nopponents with his gloomy sarcasm is as merry as a grig at a French\nwatering-place. The learned gentleman who weeps by the pint on the\nsmallest provocation has not shed a tear these six weeks. The very\nlearned gentleman who has cooled the natural heat of his gingery\ncomplexion in pools and fountains of law until he has become great in\nknotty arguments for term-time, when he poses the drowsy bench with\nlegal \"chaff,\" inexplicable to the uninitiated and to most of the\ninitiated too, is roaming, with a characteristic delight in aridity\nand dust, about Constantinople. Other dispersed fragments of the same\ngreat palladium are to be found on the canals of Venice, at the\nsecond cataract of the Nile, in the baths of Germany, and sprinkled\non the sea-sand all over the English coast. Scarcely one is to be\nencountered in the deserted region of Chancery Lane. If such a lonely\nmember of the bar do flit across the waste and come upon a prowling\nsuitor who is unable to leave off haunting the scenes of his anxiety,\nthey frighten one another and retreat into opposite shades.\n\nIt is the hottest long vacation known for many years. All the young\nclerks are madly in love, and according to their various degrees,\npine for bliss with the beloved object, at Margate, Ramsgate, or\nGravesend. All the middle-aged clerks think their families too large.\nAll the unowned dogs who stray into the Inns of Court and pant about\nstaircases and other dry places seeking water give short howls of\naggravation. All the blind men's dogs in the streets draw their\nmasters against pumps or trip them over buckets. A shop with a\nsun-blind, and a watered pavement, and a bowl of gold and silver fish\nin the window, is a sanctuary. Temple Bar gets so hot that it is, to\nthe adjacent Strand and Fleet Street, what a heater is in an urn, and\nkeeps them simmering all night.\n\nThere are offices about the Inns of Court in which a man might be\ncool, if any coolness were worth purchasing at such a price in\ndullness; but the little thoroughfares immediately outside those\nretirements seem to blaze. In Mr. Krook's court, it is so hot that\nthe people turn their houses inside out and sit in chairs upon the\npavement--Mr. Krook included, who there pursues his studies, with his\ncat (who never is too hot) by his side. The Sol's Arms has\ndiscontinued the Harmonic Meetings for the season, and Little Swills\nis engaged at the Pastoral Gardens down the river, where he comes out\nin quite an innocent manner and sings comic ditties of a juvenile\ncomplexion calculated (as the bill says) not to wound the feelings of\nthe most fastidious mind.\n\nOver all the legal neighbourhood there hangs, like some great veil of\nrust or gigantic cobweb, the idleness and pensiveness of the long\nvacation. Mr. Snagsby, law-stationer of Cook's Court, Cursitor\nStreet, is sensible of the influence not only in his mind as a\nsympathetic and contemplative man, but also in his business as a\nlaw-stationer aforesaid. He has more leisure for musing in Staple Inn\nand in the Rolls Yard during the long vacation than at other seasons,\nand he says to the two 'prentices, what a thing it is in such hot\nweather to think that you live in an island with the sea a-rolling\nand a-bowling right round you.\n\nGuster is busy in the little drawing-room on this present afternoon\nin the long vacation, when Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby have it in\ncontemplation to receive company. The expected guests are rather\nselect than numerous, being Mr. and Mrs. Chadband and no more. From\nMr. Chadband's being much given to describe himself, both verbally\nand in writing, as a vessel, he is occasionally mistaken by strangers\nfor a gentleman connected with navigation, but he is, as he expresses\nit, \"in the ministry.\" Mr. Chadband is attached to no particular\ndenomination and is considered by his persecutors to have nothing so\nvery remarkable to say on the greatest of subjects as to render his\nvolunteering, on his own account, at all incumbent on his conscience;\nbut he has his followers, and Mrs. Snagsby is of the number. Mrs.\nSnagsby has but recently taken a passage upward by the vessel,\nChadband; and her attention was attracted to that Bark A 1, when she\nwas something flushed by the hot weather.\n\n\"My little woman,\" says Mr. Snagsby to the sparrows in Staple Inn,\n\"likes to have her religion rather sharp, you see!\"\n\nSo Guster, much impressed by regarding herself for the time as the\nhandmaid of Chadband, whom she knows to be endowed with the gift of\nholding forth for four hours at a stretch, prepares the little\ndrawing-room for tea. All the furniture is shaken and dusted, the\nportraits of Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby are touched up with a wet cloth,\nthe best tea-service is set forth, and there is excellent provision\nmade of dainty new bread, crusty twists, cool fresh butter, thin\nslices of ham, tongue, and German sausage, and delicate little rows\nof anchovies nestling in parsley, not to mention new-laid eggs, to be\nbrought up warm in a napkin, and hot buttered toast. For Chadband is\nrather a consuming vessel--the persecutors say a gorging vessel--and\ncan wield such weapons of the flesh as a knife and fork remarkably\nwell.\n\nMr. Snagsby in his best coat, looking at all the preparations when\nthey are completed and coughing his cough of deference behind his\nhand, says to Mrs. Snagsby, \"At what time did you expect Mr. and Mrs.\nChadband, my love?\"\n\n\"At six,\" says Mrs. Snagsby.\n\nMr. Snagsby observes in a mild and casual way that \"it's gone that.\"\n\n\"Perhaps you'd like to begin without them,\" is Mrs. Snagsby's\nreproachful remark.\n\nMr. Snagsby does look as if he would like it very much, but he says,\nwith his cough of mildness, \"No, my dear, no. I merely named the\ntime.\"\n\n\"What's time,\" says Mrs. Snagsby, \"to eternity?\"\n\n\"Very true, my dear,\" says Mr. Snagsby. \"Only when a person lays in\nvictuals for tea, a person does it with a view--perhaps--more to\ntime. And when a time is named for having tea, it's better to come up\nto it.\"\n\n\"To come up to it!\" Mrs. Snagsby repeats with severity. \"Up to it! As\nif Mr. Chadband was a fighter!\"\n\n\"Not at all, my dear,\" says Mr. Snagsby.\n\nHere, Guster, who had been looking out of the bedroom window, comes\nrustling and scratching down the little staircase like a popular\nghost, and falling flushed into the drawing-room, announces that Mr.\nand Mrs. Chadband have appeared in the court. The bell at the inner\ndoor in the passage immediately thereafter tinkling, she is\nadmonished by Mrs. Snagsby, on pain of instant reconsignment to her\npatron saint, not to omit the ceremony of announcement. Much\ndiscomposed in her nerves (which were previously in the best order)\nby this threat, she so fearfully mutilates that point of state as to\nannounce \"Mr. and Mrs. Cheeseming, least which, Imeantersay,\nwhatsername!\" and retires conscience-stricken from the presence.\n\nMr. Chadband is a large yellow man with a fat smile and a general\nappearance of having a good deal of train oil in his system. Mrs.\nChadband is a stern, severe-looking, silent woman. Mr. Chadband moves\nsoftly and cumbrously, not unlike a bear who has been taught to walk\nupright. He is very much embarrassed about the arms, as if they were\ninconvenient to him and he wanted to grovel, is very much in a\nperspiration about the head, and never speaks without first putting\nup his great hand, as delivering a token to his hearers that he is\ngoing to edify them.\n\n\"My friends,\" says Mr. Chadband, \"peace be on this house! On the\nmaster thereof, on the mistress thereof, on the young maidens, and on\nthe young men! My friends, why do I wish for peace? What is peace? Is\nit war? No. Is it strife? No. Is it lovely, and gentle, and\nbeautiful, and pleasant, and serene, and joyful? Oh, yes! Therefore,\nmy friends, I wish for peace, upon you and upon yours.\"\n\nIn consequence of Mrs. Snagsby looking deeply edified, Mr. Snagsby\nthinks it expedient on the whole to say amen, which is well received.\n\n\"Now, my friends,\" proceeds Mr. Chadband, \"since I am upon this\ntheme--\"\n\nGuster presents herself. Mrs. Snagsby, in a spectral bass voice and\nwithout removing her eyes from Chadband, says with dreadful\ndistinctness, \"Go away!\"\n\n\"Now, my friends,\" says Chadband, \"since I am upon this theme, and in\nmy lowly path improving it--\"\n\nGuster is heard unaccountably to murmur \"one thousing seven hundred\nand eighty-two.\" The spectral voice repeats more solemnly, \"Go away!\"\n\n\"Now, my friends,\" says Mr. Chadband, \"we will inquire in a spirit of\nlove--\"\n\nStill Guster reiterates \"one thousing seven hundred and eighty-two.\"\n\nMr. Chadband, pausing with the resignation of a man accustomed to be\npersecuted and languidly folding up his chin into his fat smile,\nsays, \"Let us hear the maiden! Speak, maiden!\"\n\n\"One thousing seven hundred and eighty-two, if you please, sir. Which\nhe wish to know what the shilling ware for,\" says Guster, breathless.\n\n\"For?\" returns Mrs. Chadband. \"For his fare!\"\n\nGuster replied that \"he insistes on one and eightpence or on\nsummonsizzing the party.\" Mrs. Snagsby and Mrs. Chadband are\nproceeding to grow shrill in indignation when Mr. Chadband quiets the\ntumult by lifting up his hand.\n\n\"My friends,\" says he, \"I remember a duty unfulfilled yesterday. It\nis right that I should be chastened in some penalty. I ought not to\nmurmur. Rachael, pay the eightpence!\"\n\nWhile Mrs. Snagsby, drawing her breath, looks hard at Mr. Snagsby, as\nwho should say, \"You hear this apostle!\" and while Mr. Chadband glows\nwith humility and train oil, Mrs. Chadband pays the money. It is Mr.\nChadband's habit--it is the head and front of his pretensions\nindeed--to keep this sort of debtor and creditor account in the\nsmallest items and to post it publicly on the most trivial occasions.\n\n\"My friends,\" says Chadband, \"eightpence is not much; it might justly\nhave been one and fourpence; it might justly have been half a crown.\nO let us be joyful, joyful! O let us be joyful!\"\n\nWith which remark, which appears from its sound to be an extract in\nverse, Mr. Chadband stalks to the table, and before taking a chair,\nlifts up his admonitory hand.\n\n\"My friends,\" says he, \"what is this which we now behold as being\nspread before us? Refreshment. Do we need refreshment then, my\nfriends? We do. And why do we need refreshment, my friends? Because\nwe are but mortal, because we are but sinful, because we are but of\nthe earth, because we are not of the air. Can we fly, my friends? We\ncannot. Why can we not fly, my friends?\"\n\nMr. Snagsby, presuming on the success of his last point, ventures to\nobserve in a cheerful and rather knowing tone, \"No wings.\" But is\nimmediately frowned down by Mrs. Snagsby.\n\n\"I say, my friends,\" pursues Mr. Chadband, utterly rejecting and\nobliterating Mr. Snagsby's suggestion, \"why can we not fly? Is it\nbecause we are calculated to walk? It is. Could we walk, my friends,\nwithout strength? We could not. What should we do without strength,\nmy friends? Our legs would refuse to bear us, our knees would double\nup, our ankles would turn over, and we should come to the ground.\nThen from whence, my friends, in a human point of view, do we derive\nthe strength that is necessary to our limbs? Is it,\" says Chadband,\nglancing over the table, \"from bread in various forms, from butter\nwhich is churned from the milk which is yielded unto us by the cow,\nfrom the eggs which are laid by the fowl, from ham, from tongue, from\nsausage, and from such like? It is. Then let us partake of the good\nthings which are set before us!\"\n\nThe persecutors denied that there was any particular gift in Mr.\nChadband's piling verbose flights of stairs, one upon another, after\nthis fashion. But this can only be received as a proof of their\ndetermination to persecute, since it must be within everybody's\nexperience that the Chadband style of oratory is widely received and\nmuch admired.\n\nMr. Chadband, however, having concluded for the present, sits down at\nMr. Snagsby's table and lays about him prodigiously. The conversion\nof nutriment of any sort into oil of the quality already mentioned\nappears to be a process so inseparable from the constitution of this\nexemplary vessel that in beginning to eat and drink, he may be\ndescribed as always becoming a kind of considerable oil mills or\nother large factory for the production of that article on a wholesale\nscale. On the present evening of the long vacation, in Cook's Court,\nCursitor Street, he does such a powerful stroke of business that the\nwarehouse appears to be quite full when the works cease.\n\nAt this period of the entertainment, Guster, who has never recovered\nher first failure, but has neglected no possible or impossible means\nof bringing the establishment and herself into contempt--among which\nmay be briefly enumerated her unexpectedly performing clashing\nmilitary music on Mr. Chadband's head with plates, and afterwards\ncrowning that gentleman with muffins--at which period of the\nentertainment, Guster whispers Mr. Snagsby that he is wanted.\n\n\"And being wanted in the--not to put too fine a point upon it--in the\nshop,\" says Mr. Snagsby, rising, \"perhaps this good company will\nexcuse me for half a minute.\"\n\nMr. Snagsby descends and finds the two 'prentices intently\ncontemplating a police constable, who holds a ragged boy by the arm.\n\n\"Why, bless my heart,\" says Mr. Snagsby, \"what's the matter!\"\n\n\"This boy,\" says the constable, \"although he's repeatedly told to,\nwon't move on--\"\n\n\"I'm always a-moving on, sar,\" cries the boy, wiping away his grimy\ntears with his arm. \"I've always been a-moving and a-moving on, ever\nsince I was born. Where can I possibly move to, sir, more nor I do\nmove!\"\n\n\"He won't move on,\" says the constable calmly, with a slight\nprofessional hitch of his neck involving its better settlement in his\nstiff stock, \"although he has been repeatedly cautioned, and\ntherefore I am obliged to take him into custody. He's as obstinate a\nyoung gonoph as I know. He WON'T move on.\"\n\n\"Oh, my eye! Where can I move to!\" cries the boy, clutching quite\ndesperately at his hair and beating his bare feet upon the floor of\nMr. Snagsby's passage.\n\n\"Don't you come none of that or I shall make blessed short work of\nyou!\" says the constable, giving him a passionless shake. \"My\ninstructions are that you are to move on. I have told you so five\nhundred times.\"\n\n\"But where?\" cries the boy.\n\n\"Well! Really, constable, you know,\" says Mr. Snagsby wistfully, and\ncoughing behind his hand his cough of great perplexity and doubt,\n\"really, that does seem a question. Where, you know?\"\n\n\"My instructions don't go to that,\" replies the constable. \"My\ninstructions are that this boy is to move on.\"\n\nDo you hear, Jo? It is nothing to you or to any one else that the\ngreat lights of the parliamentary sky have failed for some few years\nin this business to set you the example of moving on. The one grand\nrecipe remains for you--the profound philosophical prescription--the\nbe-all and the end-all of your strange existence upon earth. Move on!\nYou are by no means to move off, Jo, for the great lights can't at\nall agree about that. Move on!\n\nMr. Snagsby says nothing to this effect, says nothing at all indeed,\nbut coughs his forlornest cough, expressive of no thoroughfare in any\ndirection. By this time Mr. and Mrs. Chadband and Mrs. Snagsby,\nhearing the altercation, have appeared upon the stairs. Guster having\nnever left the end of the passage, the whole household are assembled.\n\n\"The simple question is, sir,\" says the constable, \"whether you know\nthis boy. He says you do.\"\n\nMrs. Snagsby, from her elevation, instantly cries out, \"No he don't!\"\n\n\"My lit-tle woman!\" says Mr. Snagsby, looking up the staircase. \"My\nlove, permit me! Pray have a moment's patience, my dear. I do know\nsomething of this lad, and in what I know of him, I can't say that\nthere's any harm; perhaps on the contrary, constable.\" To whom the\nlaw-stationer relates his Joful and woeful experience, suppressing\nthe half-crown fact.\n\n\"Well!\" says the constable, \"so far, it seems, he had grounds for\nwhat he said. When I took him into custody up in Holborn, he said you\nknew him. Upon that, a young man who was in the crowd said he was\nacquainted with you, and you were a respectable housekeeper, and if\nI'd call and make the inquiry, he'd appear. The young man don't seem\ninclined to keep his word, but--Oh! Here IS the young man!\"\n\nEnter Mr. Guppy, who nods to Mr. Snagsby and touches his hat with the\nchivalry of clerkship to the ladies on the stairs.\n\n\"I was strolling away from the office just now when I found this row\ngoing on,\" says Mr. Guppy to the law-stationer, \"and as your name was\nmentioned, I thought it was right the thing should be looked into.\"\n\n\"It was very good-natured of you, sir,\" says Mr. Snagsby, \"and I am\nobliged to you.\" And Mr. Snagsby again relates his experience, again\nsuppressing the half-crown fact.\n\n\"Now, I know where you live,\" says the constable, then, to Jo. \"You\nlive down in Tom-all-Alone's. That's a nice innocent place to live\nin, ain't it?\"\n\n\"I can't go and live in no nicer place, sir,\" replies Jo. \"They\nwouldn't have nothink to say to me if I wos to go to a nice innocent\nplace fur to live. Who ud go and let a nice innocent lodging to such\na reg'lar one as me!\"\n\n\"You are very poor, ain't you?\" says the constable.\n\n\"Yes, I am indeed, sir, wery poor in gin'ral,\" replies Jo. \"I leave\nyou to judge now! I shook these two half-crowns out of him,\" says the\nconstable, producing them to the company, \"in only putting my hand\nupon him!\"\n\n\"They're wot's left, Mr. Snagsby,\" says Jo, \"out of a sov-ring as wos\ngive me by a lady in a wale as sed she wos a servant and as come to\nmy crossin one night and asked to be showd this 'ere ouse and the\nouse wot him as you giv the writin to died at, and the berrin-ground\nwot he's berrid in. She ses to me she ses 'are you the boy at the\ninkwhich?' she ses. I ses 'yes' I ses. She ses to me she ses 'can you\nshow me all them places?' I ses 'yes I can' I ses. And she ses to me\n'do it' and I dun it and she giv me a sov'ring and hooked it. And I\nan't had much of the sov'ring neither,\" says Jo, with dirty tears,\n\"fur I had to pay five bob, down in Tom-all-Alone's, afore they'd\nsquare it fur to give me change, and then a young man he thieved\nanother five while I was asleep and another boy he thieved ninepence\nand the landlord he stood drains round with a lot more on it.\"\n\n\"You don't expect anybody to believe this, about the lady and the\nsovereign, do you?\" says the constable, eyeing him aside with\nineffable disdain.\n\n\"I don't know as I do, sir,\" replies Jo. \"I don't expect nothink at\nall, sir, much, but that's the true hist'ry on it.\"\n\n\"You see what he is!\" the constable observes to the audience. \"Well,\nMr. Snagsby, if I don't lock him up this time, will you engage for\nhis moving on?\"\n\n\"No!\" cries Mrs. Snagsby from the stairs.\n\n\"My little woman!\" pleads her husband. \"Constable, I have no doubt\nhe'll move on. You know you really must do it,\" says Mr. Snagsby.\n\n\"I'm everyways agreeable, sir,\" says the hapless Jo.\n\n\"Do it, then,\" observes the constable. \"You know what you have got to\ndo. Do it! And recollect you won't get off so easy next time. Catch\nhold of your money. Now, the sooner you're five mile off, the better\nfor all parties.\"\n\nWith this farewell hint and pointing generally to the setting sun as\na likely place to move on to, the constable bids his auditors good\nafternoon and makes the echoes of Cook's Court perform slow music for\nhim as he walks away on the shady side, carrying his iron-bound hat\nin his hand for a little ventilation.\n\nNow, Jo's improbable story concerning the lady and the sovereign has\nawakened more or less the curiosity of all the company. Mr. Guppy,\nwho has an inquiring mind in matters of evidence and who has\nbeen suffering severely from the lassitude of the long vacation,\ntakes that interest in the case that he enters on a regular\ncross-examination of the witness, which is found so interesting by\nthe ladies that Mrs. Snagsby politely invites him to step upstairs\nand drink a cup of tea, if he will excuse the disarranged state of\nthe tea-table, consequent on their previous exertions. Mr. Guppy\nyielding his assent to this proposal, Jo is requested to follow into\nthe drawing-room doorway, where Mr. Guppy takes him in hand as a\nwitness, patting him into this shape, that shape, and the other shape\nlike a butterman dealing with so much butter, and worrying him\naccording to the best models. Nor is the examination unlike many such\nmodel displays, both in respect of its eliciting nothing and of its\nbeing lengthy, for Mr. Guppy is sensible of his talent, and Mrs.\nSnagsby feels not only that it gratifies her inquisitive disposition,\nbut that it lifts her husband's establishment higher up in the law.\nDuring the progress of this keen encounter, the vessel Chadband,\nbeing merely engaged in the oil trade, gets aground and waits to be\nfloated off.\n\n\"Well!\" says Mr. Guppy. \"Either this boy sticks to it like\ncobbler's-wax or there is something out of the common here that beats\nanything that ever came into my way at Kenge and Carboy's.\"\n\nMrs. Chadband whispers Mrs. Snagsby, who exclaims, \"You don't say\nso!\"\n\n\"For years!\" replied Mrs. Chadband.\n\n\"Has known Kenge and Carboy's office for years,\" Mrs. Snagsby\ntriumphantly explains to Mr. Guppy. \"Mrs. Chadband--this gentleman's\nwife--Reverend Mr. Chadband.\"\n\n\"Oh, indeed!\" says Mr. Guppy.\n\n\"Before I married my present husband,\" says Mrs. Chadband.\n\n\"Was you a party in anything, ma'am?\" says Mr. Guppy, transferring\nhis cross-examination.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"NOT a party in anything, ma'am?\" says Mr. Guppy.\n\nMrs. Chadband shakes her head.\n\n\"Perhaps you were acquainted with somebody who was a party in\nsomething, ma'am?\" says Mr. Guppy, who likes nothing better than to\nmodel his conversation on forensic principles.\n\n\"Not exactly that, either,\" replies Mrs. Chadband, humouring the joke\nwith a hard-favoured smile.\n\n\"Not exactly that, either!\" repeats Mr. Guppy. \"Very good. Pray,\nma'am, was it a lady of your acquaintance who had some transactions\n(we will not at present say what transactions) with Kenge and\nCarboy's office, or was it a gentleman of your acquaintance? Take\ntime, ma'am. We shall come to it presently. Man or woman, ma'am?\"\n\n\"Neither,\" says Mrs. Chadband as before.\n\n\"Oh! A child!\" says Mr. Guppy, throwing on the admiring Mrs. Snagsby\nthe regular acute professional eye which is thrown on British\njurymen. \"Now, ma'am, perhaps you'll have the kindness to tell us\nWHAT child.\"\n\n\"You have got it at last, sir,\" says Mrs. Chadband with another\nhard-favoured smile. \"Well, sir, it was before your time, most\nlikely, judging from your appearance. I was left in charge of a child\nnamed Esther Summerson, who was put out in life by Messrs. Kenge and\nCarboy.\"\n\n\"Miss Summerson, ma'am!\" cries Mr. Guppy, excited.\n\n\"I call her Esther Summerson,\" says Mrs. Chadband with austerity.\n\"There was no Miss-ing of the girl in my time. It was Esther.\n'Esther, do this! Esther, do that!' and she was made to do it.\"\n\n\"My dear ma'am,\" returns Mr. Guppy, moving across the small\napartment, \"the humble individual who now addresses you received that\nyoung lady in London when she first came here from the establishment\nto which you have alluded. Allow me to have the pleasure of taking\nyou by the hand.\"\n\nMr. Chadband, at last seeing his opportunity, makes his accustomed\nsignal and rises with a smoking head, which he dabs with his\npocket-handkerchief. Mrs. Snagsby whispers \"Hush!\"\n\n\"My friends,\" says Chadband, \"we have partaken in moderation\" (which\nwas certainly not the case so far as he was concerned) \"of the\ncomforts which have been provided for us. May this house live upon\nthe fatness of the land; may corn and wine be plentiful therein; may\nit grow, may it thrive, may it prosper, may it advance, may it\nproceed, may it press forward! But, my friends, have we partaken of\nanything else? We have. My friends, of what else have we partaken? Of\nspiritual profit? Yes. From whence have we derived that spiritual\nprofit? My young friend, stand forth!\"\n\nJo, thus apostrophized, gives a slouch backward, and another slouch\nforward, and another slouch to each side, and confronts the eloquent\nChadband with evident doubts of his intentions.\n\n\"My young friend,\" says Chadband, \"you are to us a pearl, you are to\nus a diamond, you are to us a gem, you are to us a jewel. And why, my\nyoung friend?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" replies Jo. \"I don't know nothink.\"\n\n\"My young friend,\" says Chadband, \"it is because you know nothing\nthat you are to us a gem and jewel. For what are you, my young\nfriend? Are you a beast of the field? No. A bird of the air? No. A\nfish of the sea or river? No. You are a human boy, my young friend. A\nhuman boy. O glorious to be a human boy! And why glorious, my young\nfriend? Because you are capable of receiving the lessons of wisdom,\nbecause you are capable of profiting by this discourse which I now\ndeliver for your good, because you are not a stick, or a staff, or a\nstock, or a stone, or a post, or a pillar.\n\n   O running stream of sparkling joy\n   To be a soaring human boy!\n\nAnd do you cool yourself in that stream now, my young friend? No.\nWhy do you not cool yourself in that stream now? Because you are in a\nstate of darkness, because you are in a state of obscurity, because\nyou are in a state of sinfulness, because you are in a state of\nbondage. My young friend, what is bondage? Let us, in a spirit of\nlove, inquire.\"\n\nAt this threatening stage of the discourse, Jo, who seems to have\nbeen gradually going out of his mind, smears his right arm over his\nface and gives a terrible yawn. Mrs. Snagsby indignantly expresses\nher belief that he is a limb of the arch-fiend.\n\n\"My friends,\" says Mr. Chadband with his persecuted chin folding\nitself into its fat smile again as he looks round, \"it is right that\nI should be humbled, it is right that I should be tried, it is right\nthat I should be mortified, it is right that I should be corrected. I\nstumbled, on Sabbath last, when I thought with pride of my three\nhours' improving. The account is now favourably balanced: my creditor\nhas accepted a composition. O let us be joyful, joyful! O let us be\njoyful!\"\n\nGreat sensation on the part of Mrs. Snagsby.\n\n\"My friends,\" says Chadband, looking round him in conclusion, \"I will\nnot proceed with my young friend now. Will you come to-morrow, my\nyoung friend, and inquire of this good lady where I am to be found to\ndeliver a discourse unto you, and will you come like the thirsty\nswallow upon the next day, and upon the day after that, and upon the\nday after that, and upon many pleasant days, to hear discourses?\"\n(This with a cow-like lightness.)\n\nJo, whose immediate object seems to be to get away on any terms,\ngives a shuffling nod. Mr. Guppy then throws him a penny, and Mrs.\nSnagsby calls to Guster to see him safely out of the house. But\nbefore he goes downstairs, Mr. Snagsby loads him with some broken\nmeats from the table, which he carries away, hugging in his arms.\n\nSo, Mr. Chadband--of whom the persecutors say that it is no wonder he\nshould go on for any length of time uttering such abominable\nnonsense, but that the wonder rather is that he should ever leave\noff, having once the audacity to begin--retires into private life\nuntil he invests a little capital of supper in the oil-trade. Jo\nmoves on, through the long vacation, down to Blackfriars Bridge,\nwhere he finds a baking stony corner wherein to settle to his repast.\n\nAnd there he sits, munching and gnawing, and looking up at the great\ncross on the summit of St. Paul's Cathedral, glittering above a\nred-and-violet-tinted cloud of smoke. From the boy's face one might\nsuppose that sacred emblem to be, in his eyes, the crowning confusion\nof the great, confused city--so golden, so high up, so far out of his\nreach. There he sits, the sun going down, the river running fast, the\ncrowd flowing by him in two streams--everything moving on to some\npurpose and to one end--until he is stirred up and told to \"move on\"\ntoo.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX\n\nA New Lodger\n\n\nThe long vacation saunters on towards term-time like an idle river\nvery leisurely strolling down a flat country to the sea. Mr. Guppy\nsaunters along with it congenially. He has blunted the blade of his\npenknife and broken the point off by sticking that instrument into\nhis desk in every direction. Not that he bears the desk any ill will,\nbut he must do something, and it must be something of an unexciting\nnature, which will lay neither his physical nor his intellectual\nenergies under too heavy contribution. He finds that nothing agrees\nwith him so well as to make little gyrations on one leg of his stool,\nand stab his desk, and gape.\n\nKenge and Carboy are out of town, and the articled clerk has taken\nout a shooting license and gone down to his father's, and Mr. Guppy's\ntwo fellow-stipendiaries are away on leave. Mr. Guppy and Mr. Richard\nCarstone divide the dignity of the office. But Mr. Carstone is for\nthe time being established in Kenge's room, whereat Mr. Guppy chafes.\nSo exceedingly that he with biting sarcasm informs his mother, in the\nconfidential moments when he sups with her off a lobster and lettuce\nin the Old Street Road, that he is afraid the office is hardly good\nenough for swells, and that if he had known there was a swell coming,\nhe would have got it painted.\n\nMr. Guppy suspects everybody who enters on the occupation of a stool\nin Kenge and Carboy's office of entertaining, as a matter of course,\nsinister designs upon him. He is clear that every such person wants\nto depose him. If he be ever asked how, why, when, or wherefore, he\nshuts up one eye and shakes his head. On the strength of these\nprofound views, he in the most ingenious manner takes infinite pains\nto counterplot when there is no plot, and plays the deepest games of\nchess without any adversary.\n\nIt is a source of much gratification to Mr. Guppy, therefore, to find\nthe new-comer constantly poring over the papers in Jarndyce and\nJarndyce, for he well knows that nothing but confusion and failure\ncan come of that. His satisfaction communicates itself to a third\nsaunterer through the long vacation in Kenge and Carboy's office, to\nwit, Young Smallweed.\n\nWhether Young Smallweed (metaphorically called Small and eke Chick\nWeed, as it were jocularly to express a fledgling) was ever a boy is\nmuch doubted in Lincoln's Inn. He is now something under fifteen and\nan old limb of the law. He is facetiously understood to entertain a\npassion for a lady at a cigar-shop in the neighbourhood of Chancery\nLane and for her sake to have broken off a contract with another\nlady, to whom he had been engaged some years. He is a town-made\narticle, of small stature and weazen features, but may be perceived\nfrom a considerable distance by means of his very tall hat. To become\na Guppy is the object of his ambition. He dresses at that gentleman\n(by whom he is patronized), talks at him, walks at him, founds\nhimself entirely on him. He is honoured with Mr. Guppy's particular\nconfidence and occasionally advises him, from the deep wells of his\nexperience, on difficult points in private life.\n\nMr. Guppy has been lolling out of window all the morning after trying\nall the stools in succession and finding none of them easy, and after\nseveral times putting his head into the iron safe with a notion of\ncooling it. Mr. Smallweed has been twice dispatched for effervescent\ndrinks, and has twice mixed them in the two official tumblers and\nstirred them up with the ruler. Mr. Guppy propounds for Mr.\nSmallweed's consideration the paradox that the more you drink the\nthirstier you are and reclines his head upon the window-sill in a\nstate of hopeless languor.\n\nWhile thus looking out into the shade of Old Square, Lincoln's Inn,\nsurveying the intolerable bricks and mortar, Mr. Guppy becomes\nconscious of a manly whisker emerging from the cloistered walk below\nand turning itself up in the direction of his face. At the same time,\na low whistle is wafted through the Inn and a suppressed voice cries,\n\"Hip! Gup-py!\"\n\n\"Why, you don't mean it!\" says Mr. Guppy, aroused. \"Small! Here's\nJobling!\" Small's head looks out of window too and nods to Jobling.\n\n\"Where have you sprung up from?\" inquires Mr. Guppy.\n\n\"From the market-gardens down by Deptford. I can't stand it any\nlonger. I must enlist. I say! I wish you'd lend me half a crown. Upon\nmy soul, I'm hungry.\"\n\nJobling looks hungry and also has the appearance of having run to\nseed in the market-gardens down by Deptford.\n\n\"I say! Just throw out half a crown if you have got one to spare. I\nwant to get some dinner.\"\n\n\"Will you come and dine with me?\" says Mr. Guppy, throwing out the\ncoin, which Mr. Jobling catches neatly.\n\n\"How long should I have to hold out?\" says Jobling.\n\n\"Not half an hour. I am only waiting here till the enemy goes,\nreturns Mr. Guppy, butting inward with his head.\n\n\"What enemy?\"\n\n\"A new one. Going to be articled. Will you wait?\"\n\n\"Can you give a fellow anything to read in the meantime?\" says Mr.\nJobling.\n\nSmallweed suggests the law list. But Mr. Jobling declares with much\nearnestness that he \"can't stand it.\"\n\n\"You shall have the paper,\" says Mr. Guppy. \"He shall bring it down.\nBut you had better not be seen about here. Sit on our staircase and\nread. It's a quiet place.\"\n\nJobling nods intelligence and acquiescence. The sagacious Smallweed\nsupplies him with the newspaper and occasionally drops his eye upon\nhim from the landing as a precaution against his becoming disgusted\nwith waiting and making an untimely departure. At last the enemy\nretreats, and then Smallweed fetches Mr. Jobling up.\n\n\"Well, and how are you?\" says Mr. Guppy, shaking hands with him.\n\n\"So, so. How are you?\"\n\nMr. Guppy replying that he is not much to boast of, Mr. Jobling\nventures on the question, \"How is SHE?\" This Mr. Guppy resents as a\nliberty, retorting, \"Jobling, there ARE chords in the human mind--\"\nJobling begs pardon.\n\n\"Any subject but that!\" says Mr. Guppy with a gloomy enjoyment of his\ninjury. \"For there ARE chords, Jobling--\"\n\nMr. Jobling begs pardon again.\n\nDuring this short colloquy, the active Smallweed, who is of the\ndinner party, has written in legal characters on a slip of paper,\n\"Return immediately.\" This notification to all whom it may concern,\nhe inserts in the letter-box, and then putting on the tall hat at the\nangle of inclination at which Mr. Guppy wears his, informs his patron\nthat they may now make themselves scarce.\n\nAccordingly they betake themselves to a neighbouring dining-house, of\nthe class known among its frequenters by the denomination slap-bang,\nwhere the waitress, a bouncing young female of forty, is supposed to\nhave made some impression on the susceptible Smallweed, of whom it\nmay be remarked that he is a weird changeling to whom years are\nnothing. He stands precociously possessed of centuries of owlish\nwisdom. If he ever lay in a cradle, it seems as if he must have lain\nthere in a tail-coat. He has an old, old eye, has Smallweed; and he\ndrinks and smokes in a monkeyish way; and his neck is stiff in his\ncollar; and he is never to be taken in; and he knows all about it,\nwhatever it is. In short, in his bringing up he has been so nursed by\nLaw and Equity that he has become a kind of fossil imp, to account\nfor whose terrestrial existence it is reported at the public offices\nthat his father was John Doe and his mother the only female member of\nthe Roe family, also that his first long-clothes were made from a\nblue bag.\n\nInto the dining-house, unaffected by the seductive show in the window\nof artificially whitened cauliflowers and poultry, verdant baskets of\npeas, coolly blooming cucumbers, and joints ready for the spit, Mr.\nSmallweed leads the way. They know him there and defer to him. He has\nhis favourite box, he bespeaks all the papers, he is down upon bald\npatriarchs, who keep them more than ten minutes afterwards. It is of\nno use trying him with anything less than a full-sized \"bread\" or\nproposing to him any joint in cut unless it is in the very best cut.\nIn the matter of gravy he is adamant.\n\nConscious of his elfin power and submitting to his dread experience,\nMr. Guppy consults him in the choice of that day's banquet, turning\nan appealing look towards him as the waitress repeats the catalogue\nof viands and saying \"What do YOU take, Chick?\" Chick, out of the\nprofundity of his artfulness, preferring \"veal and ham and French\nbeans--and don't you forget the stuffing, Polly\" (with an unearthly\ncock of his venerable eye), Mr. Guppy and Mr. Jobling give the like\norder. Three pint pots of half-and-half are superadded. Quickly the\nwaitress returns bearing what is apparently a model of the Tower of\nBabel but what is really a pile of plates and flat tin dish-covers.\nMr. Smallweed, approving of what is set before him, conveys\nintelligent benignity into his ancient eye and winks upon her. Then,\namid a constant coming in, and going out, and running about, and a\nclatter of crockery, and a rumbling up and down of the machine which\nbrings the nice cuts from the kitchen, and a shrill crying for more\nnice cuts down the speaking-pipe, and a shrill reckoning of the cost\nof nice cuts that have been disposed of, and a general flush and\nsteam of hot joints, cut and uncut, and a considerably heated\natmosphere in which the soiled knives and tablecloths seem to break\nout spontaneously into eruptions of grease and blotches of beer, the\nlegal triumvirate appease their appetites.\n\nMr. Jobling is buttoned up closer than mere adornment might require.\nHis hat presents at the rims a peculiar appearance of a glistening\nnature, as if it had been a favourite snail-promenade. The same\nphenomenon is visible on some parts of his coat, and particularly at\nthe seams. He has the faded appearance of a gentleman in embarrassed\ncircumstances; even his light whiskers droop with something of a\nshabby air.\n\nHis appetite is so vigorous that it suggests spare living for some\nlittle time back. He makes such a speedy end of his plate of veal and\nham, bringing it to a close while his companions are yet midway in\ntheirs, that Mr. Guppy proposes another. \"Thank you, Guppy,\" says Mr.\nJobling, \"I really don't know but what I WILL take another.\"\n\nAnother being brought, he falls to with great goodwill.\n\nMr. Guppy takes silent notice of him at intervals until he is half\nway through this second plate and stops to take an enjoying pull at\nhis pint pot of half-and-half (also renewed) and stretches out his\nlegs and rubs his hands. Beholding him in which glow of contentment,\nMr. Guppy says, \"You are a man again, Tony!\"\n\n\"Well, not quite yet,\" says Mr. Jobling. \"Say, just born.\"\n\n\"Will you take any other vegetables? Grass? Peas? Summer cabbage?\"\n\n\"Thank you, Guppy,\" says Mr. Jobling. \"I really don't know but what I\nWILL take summer cabbage.\"\n\nOrder given; with the sarcastic addition (from Mr. Smallweed) of\n\"Without slugs, Polly!\" And cabbage produced.\n\n\"I am growing up, Guppy,\" says Mr. Jobling, plying his knife and fork\nwith a relishing steadiness.\n\n\"Glad to hear it.\"\n\n\"In fact, I have just turned into my teens,\" says Mr. Jobling.\n\nHe says no more until he has performed his task, which he achieves as\nMessrs. Guppy and Smallweed finish theirs, thus getting over the\nground in excellent style and beating those two gentlemen easily by a\nveal and ham and a cabbage.\n\n\"Now, Small,\" says Mr. Guppy, \"what would you recommend about\npastry?\"\n\n\"Marrow puddings,\" says Mr. Smallweed instantly.\n\n\"Aye, aye!\" cries Mr. Jobling with an arch look. \"You're there, are\nyou? Thank you, Mr. Guppy, I don't know but what I WILL take a marrow\npudding.\"\n\nThree marrow puddings being produced, Mr. Jobling adds in a pleasant\nhumour that he is coming of age fast. To these succeed, by command of\nMr. Smallweed, \"three Cheshires,\" and to those \"three small rums.\"\nThis apex of the entertainment happily reached, Mr. Jobling puts up\nhis legs on the carpeted seat (having his own side of the box to\nhimself), leans against the wall, and says, \"I am grown up now,\nGuppy. I have arrived at maturity.\"\n\n\"What do you think, now,\" says Mr. Guppy, \"about--you don't mind\nSmallweed?\"\n\n\"Not the least in the world. I have the pleasure of drinking his good\nhealth.\"\n\n\"Sir, to you!\" says Mr. Smallweed.\n\n\"I was saying, what do you think NOW,\" pursues Mr. Guppy, \"of\nenlisting?\"\n\n\"Why, what I may think after dinner,\" returns Mr. Jobling, \"is one\nthing, my dear Guppy, and what I may think before dinner is another\nthing. Still, even after dinner, I ask myself the question, What am I\nto do? How am I to live? Ill fo manger, you know,\" says Mr. Jobling,\npronouncing that word as if he meant a necessary fixture in an\nEnglish stable. \"Ill fo manger. That's the French saying, and\nmangering is as necessary to me as it is to a Frenchman. Or more so.\"\n\nMr. Smallweed is decidedly of opinion \"much more so.\"\n\n\"If any man had told me,\" pursues Jobling, \"even so lately as when\nyou and I had the frisk down in Lincolnshire, Guppy, and drove over\nto see that house at Castle Wold--\"\n\nMr. Smallweed corrects him--Chesney Wold.\n\n\"Chesney Wold. (I thank my honourable friend for that cheer.) If any\nman had told me then that I should be as hard up at the present time\nas I literally find myself, I should have--well, I should have\npitched into him,\" says Mr. Jobling, taking a little rum-and-water\nwith an air of desperate resignation; \"I should have let fly at his\nhead.\"\n\n\"Still, Tony, you were on the wrong side of the post then,\"\nremonstrates Mr. Guppy. \"You were talking about nothing else in the\ngig.\"\n\n\"Guppy,\" says Mr. Jobling, \"I will not deny it. I was on the wrong\nside of the post. But I trusted to things coming round.\"\n\nThat very popular trust in flat things coming round! Not in their\nbeing beaten round, or worked round, but in their \"coming\" round! As\nthough a lunatic should trust in the world's \"coming\" triangular!\n\n\"I had confident expectations that things would come round and be all\nsquare,\" says Mr. Jobling with some vagueness of expression and\nperhaps of meaning too. \"But I was disappointed. They never did. And\nwhen it came to creditors making rows at the office and to people\nthat the office dealt with making complaints about dirty trifles of\nborrowed money, why there was an end of that connexion. And of any\nnew professional connexion too, for if I was to give a reference\nto-morrow, it would be mentioned and would sew me up. Then what's a\nfellow to do? I have been keeping out of the way and living cheap\ndown about the market-gardens, but what's the use of living cheap\nwhen you have got no money? You might as well live dear.\"\n\n\"Better,\" Mr. Smallweed thinks.\n\n\"Certainly. It's the fashionable way; and fashion and whiskers have\nbeen my weaknesses, and I don't care who knows it,\" says Mr. Jobling.\n\"They are great weaknesses--Damme, sir, they are great. Well,\"\nproceeds Mr. Jobling after a defiant visit to his rum-and-water,\n\"what can a fellow do, I ask you, BUT enlist?\"\n\nMr. Guppy comes more fully into the conversation to state what, in\nhis opinion, a fellow can do. His manner is the gravely impressive\nmanner of a man who has not committed himself in life otherwise than\nas he has become the victim of a tender sorrow of the heart.\n\n\"Jobling,\" says Mr. Guppy, \"myself and our mutual friend Smallweed--\"\n\nMr. Smallweed modestly observes, \"Gentlemen both!\" and drinks.\n\n\"--Have had a little conversation on this matter more than once since\nyou--\"\n\n\"Say, got the sack!\" cries Mr. Jobling bitterly. \"Say it, Guppy. You\nmean it.\"\n\n\"No-o-o! Left the Inn,\" Mr. Smallweed delicately suggests.\n\n\"Since you left the Inn, Jobling,\" says Mr. Guppy; \"and I have\nmentioned to our mutual friend Smallweed a plan I have lately thought\nof proposing. You know Snagsby the stationer?\"\n\n\"I know there is such a stationer,\" returns Mr. Jobling. \"He was not\nours, and I am not acquainted with him.\"\n\n\"He IS ours, Jobling, and I AM acquainted with him,\" Mr. Guppy\nretorts. \"Well, sir! I have lately become better acquainted with him\nthrough some accidental circumstances that have made me a visitor of\nhis in private life. Those circumstances it is not necessary to offer\nin argument. They may--or they may not--have some reference to a\nsubject which may--or may not--have cast its shadow on my existence.\"\n\nAs it is Mr. Guppy's perplexing way with boastful misery to tempt his\nparticular friends into this subject, and the moment they touch it,\nto turn on them with that trenchant severity about the chords in the\nhuman mind, both Mr. Jobling and Mr. Smallweed decline the pitfall by\nremaining silent.\n\n\"Such things may be,\" repeats Mr. Guppy, \"or they may not be. They\nare no part of the case. It is enough to mention that both Mr. and\nMrs. Snagsby are very willing to oblige me and that Snagsby has, in\nbusy times, a good deal of copying work to give out. He has all\nTulkinghorn's, and an excellent business besides. I believe if our\nmutual friend Smallweed were put into the box, he could prove this?\"\n\nMr. Smallweed nods and appears greedy to be sworn.\n\n\"Now, gentlemen of the jury,\" says Mr. Guppy, \"--I mean, now,\nJobling--you may say this is a poor prospect of a living. Granted.\nBut it's better than nothing, and better than enlistment. You want\ntime. There must be time for these late affairs to blow over. You\nmight live through it on much worse terms than by writing for\nSnagsby.\"\n\nMr. Jobling is about to interrupt when the sagacious Smallweed checks\nhim with a dry cough and the words, \"Hem! Shakspeare!\"\n\n\"There are two branches to this subject, Jobling,\" says Mr. Guppy.\n\"That is the first. I come to the second. You know Krook, the\nChancellor, across the lane. Come, Jobling,\" says Mr. Guppy in his\nencouraging cross-examination-tone, \"I think you know Krook, the\nChancellor, across the lane?\"\n\n\"I know him by sight,\" says Mr. Jobling.\n\n\"You know him by sight. Very well. And you know little Flite?\"\n\n\"Everybody knows her,\" says Mr. Jobling.\n\n\"Everybody knows her. VERY well. Now it has been one of my duties of\nlate to pay Flite a certain weekly allowance, deducting from it the\namount of her weekly rent, which I have paid (in consequence of\ninstructions I have received) to Krook himself, regularly in her\npresence. This has brought me into communication with Krook and into\na knowledge of his house and his habits. I know he has a room to let.\nYou may live there at a very low charge under any name you like, as\nquietly as if you were a hundred miles off. He'll ask no questions\nand would accept you as a tenant at a word from me--before the clock\nstrikes, if you chose. And I tell you another thing, Jobling,\" says\nMr. Guppy, who has suddenly lowered his voice and become familiar\nagain, \"he's an extraordinary old chap--always rummaging among a\nlitter of papers and grubbing away at teaching himself to read and\nwrite, without getting on a bit, as it seems to me. He is a most\nextraordinary old chap, sir. I don't know but what it might be worth\na fellow's while to look him up a bit.\"\n\n\"You don't mean--\" Mr. Jobling begins.\n\n\"I mean,\" returns Mr. Guppy, shrugging his shoulders with becoming\nmodesty, \"that I can't make him out. I appeal to our mutual friend\nSmallweed whether he has or has not heard me remark that I can't make\nhim out.\"\n\nMr. Smallweed bears the concise testimony, \"A few!\"\n\n\"I have seen something of the profession and something of life,\nTony,\" says Mr. Guppy, \"and it's seldom I can't make a man out, more\nor less. But such an old card as this, so deep, so sly, and secret\n(though I don't believe he is ever sober), I never came across. Now,\nhe must be precious old, you know, and he has not a soul about him,\nand he is reported to be immensely rich; and whether he is a\nsmuggler, or a receiver, or an unlicensed pawnbroker, or a\nmoney-lender--all of which I have thought likely at different\ntimes--it might pay you to knock up a sort of knowledge of him. I\ndon't see why you shouldn't go in for it, when everything else\nsuits.\"\n\nMr. Jobling, Mr. Guppy, and Mr. Smallweed all lean their elbows on\nthe table and their chins upon their hands, and look at the ceiling.\nAfter a time, they all drink, slowly lean back, put their hands in\ntheir pockets, and look at one another.\n\n\"If I had the energy I once possessed, Tony!\" says Mr. Guppy with a\nsigh. \"But there are chords in the human mind--\"\n\nExpressing the remainder of the desolate sentiment in rum-and-water,\nMr. Guppy concludes by resigning the adventure to Tony Jobling and\ninforming him that during the vacation and while things are slack,\nhis purse, \"as far as three or four or even five pound goes,\" will be\nat his disposal. \"For never shall it be said,\" Mr. Guppy adds with\nemphasis, \"that William Guppy turned his back upon his friend!\"\n\nThe latter part of the proposal is so directly to the purpose that\nMr. Jobling says with emotion, \"Guppy, my trump, your fist!\" Mr.\nGuppy presents it, saying, \"Jobling, my boy, there it is!\" Mr.\nJobling returns, \"Guppy, we have been pals now for some years!\" Mr.\nGuppy replies, \"Jobling, we have.\"\n\nThey then shake hands, and Mr. Jobling adds in a feeling manner,\n\"Thank you, Guppy, I don't know but what I WILL take another glass\nfor old acquaintance sake.\"\n\n\"Krook's last lodger died there,\" observes Mr. Guppy in an incidental\nway.\n\n\"Did he though!\" says Mr. Jobling.\n\n\"There was a verdict. Accidental death. You don't mind that?\"\n\n\"No,\" says Mr. Jobling, \"I don't mind it; but he might as well have\ndied somewhere else. It's devilish odd that he need go and die at MY\nplace!\" Mr. Jobling quite resents this liberty, several times\nreturning to it with such remarks as, \"There are places enough to die\nin, I should think!\" or, \"He wouldn't have liked my dying at HIS\nplace, I dare say!\"\n\nHowever, the compact being virtually made, Mr. Guppy proposes to\ndispatch the trusty Smallweed to ascertain if Mr. Krook is at home,\nas in that case they may complete the negotiation without delay. Mr.\nJobling approving, Smallweed puts himself under the tall hat and\nconveys it out of the dining-rooms in the Guppy manner. He soon\nreturns with the intelligence that Mr. Krook is at home and that he\nhas seen him through the shop-door, sitting in the back premises,\nsleeping \"like one o'clock.\"\n\n\"Then I'll pay,\" says Mr. Guppy, \"and we'll go and see him. Small,\nwhat will it be?\"\n\nMr. Smallweed, compelling the attendance of the waitress with one\nhitch of his eyelash, instantly replies as follows: \"Four veals and\nhams is three, and four potatoes is three and four, and one summer\ncabbage is three and six, and three marrows is four and six, and six\nbreads is five, and three Cheshires is five and three, and four\nhalf-pints of half-and-half is six and three, and four small rums is\neight and three, and three Pollys is eight and six. Eight and six in\nhalf a sovereign, Polly, and eighteenpence out!\"\n\nNot at all excited by these stupendous calculations, Smallweed\ndismisses his friends with a cool nod and remains behind to take a\nlittle admiring notice of Polly, as opportunity may serve, and to\nread the daily papers, which are so very large in proportion to\nhimself, shorn of his hat, that when he holds up the Times to run his\neye over the columns, he seems to have retired for the night and to\nhave disappeared under the bedclothes.\n\nMr. Guppy and Mr. Jobling repair to the rag and bottle shop, where\nthey find Krook still sleeping like one o'clock, that is to say,\nbreathing stertorously with his chin upon his breast and quite\ninsensible to any external sounds or even to gentle shaking. On the\ntable beside him, among the usual lumber, stand an empty gin-bottle\nand a glass. The unwholesome air is so stained with this liquor that\neven the green eyes of the cat upon her shelf, as they open and shut\nand glimmer on the visitors, look drunk.\n\n\"Hold up here!\" says Mr. Guppy, giving the relaxed figure of the old\nman another shake. \"Mr. Krook! Halloa, sir!\"\n\nBut it would seem as easy to wake a bundle of old clothes with a\nspirituous heat smouldering in it. \"Did you ever see such a stupor as\nhe falls into, between drink and sleep?\" says Mr. Guppy.\n\n\"If this is his regular sleep,\" returns Jobling, rather alarmed,\n\"it'll last a long time one of these days, I am thinking.\"\n\n\"It's always more like a fit than a nap,\" says Mr. Guppy, shaking him\nagain. \"Halloa, your lordship! Why, he might be robbed fifty times\nover! Open your eyes!\"\n\nAfter much ado, he opens them, but without appearing to see his\nvisitors or any other objects. Though he crosses one leg on another,\nand folds his hands, and several times closes and opens his parched\nlips, he seems to all intents and purposes as insensible as before.\n\n\"He is alive, at any rate,\" says Mr. Guppy. \"How are you, my Lord\nChancellor. I have brought a friend of mine, sir, on a little matter\nof business.\"\n\nThe old man still sits, often smacking his dry lips without the least\nconsciousness. After some minutes he makes an attempt to rise. They\nhelp him up, and he staggers against the wall and stares at them.\n\n\"How do you do, Mr. Krook?\" says Mr. Guppy in some discomfiture. \"How\ndo you do, sir? You are looking charming, Mr. Krook. I hope you are\npretty well?\"\n\nThe old man, in aiming a purposeless blow at Mr. Guppy, or at\nnothing, feebly swings himself round and comes with his face against\nthe wall. So he remains for a minute or two, heaped up against it,\nand then staggers down the shop to the front door. The air, the\nmovement in the court, the lapse of time, or the combination of these\nthings recovers him. He comes back pretty steadily, adjusting his fur\ncap on his head and looking keenly at them.\n\n\"Your servant, gentlemen; I've been dozing. Hi! I am hard to wake,\nodd times.\"\n\n\"Rather so, indeed, sir,\" responds Mr. Guppy.\n\n\"What? You've been a-trying to do it, have you?\" says the suspicious\nKrook.\n\n\"Only a little,\" Mr. Guppy explains.\n\nThe old man's eye resting on the empty bottle, he takes it up,\nexamines it, and slowly tilts it upside down.\n\n\"I say!\" he cries like the hobgoblin in the story. \"Somebody's been\nmaking free here!\"\n\n\"I assure you we found it so,\" says Mr. Guppy. \"Would you allow me to\nget it filled for you?\"\n\n\"Yes, certainly I would!\" cries Krook in high glee. \"Certainly I\nwould! Don't mention it! Get it filled next door--Sol's Arms--the\nLord Chancellor's fourteenpenny. Bless you, they know ME!\"\n\nHe so presses the empty bottle upon Mr. Guppy that that gentleman,\nwith a nod to his friend, accepts the trust and hurries out and\nhurries in again with the bottle filled. The old man receives it in\nhis arms like a beloved grandchild and pats it tenderly.\n\n\"But, I say,\" he whispers, with his eyes screwed up, after tasting\nit, \"this ain't the Lord Chancellor's fourteenpenny. This is\neighteenpenny!\"\n\n\"I thought you might like that better,\" says Mr. Guppy.\n\n\"You're a nobleman, sir,\" returns Krook with another taste, and his\nhot breath seems to come towards them like a flame. \"You're a baron\nof the land.\"\n\nTaking advantage of this auspicious moment, Mr. Guppy presents his\nfriend under the impromptu name of Mr. Weevle and states the object\nof their visit. Krook, with his bottle under his arm (he never gets\nbeyond a certain point of either drunkenness or sobriety), takes time\nto survey his proposed lodger and seems to approve of him. \"You'd\nlike to see the room, young man?\" he says. \"Ah! It's a good room!\nBeen whitewashed. Been cleaned down with soft soap and soda. Hi! It's\nworth twice the rent, letting alone my company when you want it and\nsuch a cat to keep the mice away.\"\n\nCommending the room after this manner, the old man takes them\nupstairs, where indeed they do find it cleaner than it used to be and\nalso containing some old articles of furniture which he has dug up\nfrom his inexhaustible stores. The terms are easily concluded--for\nthe Lord Chancellor cannot be hard on Mr. Guppy, associated as he is\nwith Kenge and Carboy, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, and other famous claims\non his professional consideration--and it is agreed that Mr. Weevle\nshall take possession on the morrow. Mr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy then\nrepair to Cook's Court, Cursitor Street, where the personal\nintroduction of the former to Mr. Snagsby is effected and (more\nimportant) the vote and interest of Mrs. Snagsby are secured. They\nthen report progress to the eminent Smallweed, waiting at the office\nin his tall hat for that purpose, and separate, Mr. Guppy explaining\nthat he would terminate his little entertainment by standing treat at\nthe play but that there are chords in the human mind which would\nrender it a hollow mockery.\n\nOn the morrow, in the dusk of evening, Mr. Weevle modestly appears at\nKrook's, by no means incommoded with luggage, and establishes himself\nin his new lodging, where the two eyes in the shutters stare at him\nin his sleep, as if they were full of wonder. On the following day\nMr. Weevle, who is a handy good-for-nothing kind of young fellow,\nborrows a needle and thread of Miss Flite and a hammer of his\nlandlord and goes to work devising apologies for window-curtains, and\nknocking up apologies for shelves, and hanging up his two teacups,\nmilkpot, and crockery sundries on a pennyworth of little hooks, like\na shipwrecked sailor making the best of it.\n\nBut what Mr. Weevle prizes most of all his few possessions (next\nafter his light whiskers, for which he has an attachment that only\nwhiskers can awaken in the breast of man) is a choice collection of\ncopper-plate impressions from that truly national work The Divinities\nof Albion, or Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty, representing ladies\nof title and fashion in every variety of smirk that art, combined\nwith capital, is capable of producing. With these magnificent\nportraits, unworthily confined in a band-box during his seclusion\namong the market-gardens, he decorates his apartment; and as the\nGalaxy Gallery of British Beauty wears every variety of fancy dress,\nplays every variety of musical instrument, fondles every variety of\ndog, ogles every variety of prospect, and is backed up by every\nvariety of flower-pot and balustrade, the result is very imposing.\n\nBut fashion is Mr. Weevle's, as it was Tony Jobling's, weakness. To\nborrow yesterday's paper from the Sol's Arms of an evening and read\nabout the brilliant and distinguished meteors that are shooting\nacross the fashionable sky in every direction is unspeakable\nconsolation to him. To know what member of what brilliant and\ndistinguished circle accomplished the brilliant and distinguished\nfeat of joining it yesterday or contemplates the no less brilliant\nand distinguished feat of leaving it to-morrow gives him a thrill of\njoy. To be informed what the Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty is\nabout, and means to be about, and what Galaxy marriages are on the\ntapis, and what Galaxy rumours are in circulation, is to become\nacquainted with the most glorious destinies of mankind. Mr. Weevle\nreverts from this intelligence to the Galaxy portraits implicated,\nand seems to know the originals, and to be known of them.\n\nFor the rest he is a quiet lodger, full of handy shifts and devices\nas before mentioned, able to cook and clean for himself as well as to\ncarpenter, and developing social inclinations after the shades of\nevening have fallen on the court. At those times, when he is not\nvisited by Mr. Guppy or by a small light in his likeness quenched in\na dark hat, he comes out of his dull room--where he has inherited the\ndeal wilderness of desk bespattered with a rain of ink--and talks to\nKrook or is \"very free,\" as they call it in the court, commendingly,\nwith any one disposed for conversation. Wherefore, Mrs. Piper, who\nleads the court, is impelled to offer two remarks to Mrs. Perkins:\nfirstly, that if her Johnny was to have whiskers, she could wish 'em\nto be identically like that young man's; and secondly, \"Mark my\nwords, Mrs. Perkins, ma'am, and don't you be surprised, Lord bless\nyou, if that young man comes in at last for old Krook's money!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI\n\nThe Smallweed Family\n\n\nIn a rather ill-favoured and ill-savoured neighbourhood, though one\nof its rising grounds bears the name of Mount Pleasant, the Elfin\nSmallweed, christened Bartholomew and known on the domestic hearth as\nBart, passes that limited portion of his time on which the office and\nits contingencies have no claim. He dwells in a little narrow street,\nalways solitary, shady, and sad, closely bricked in on all sides like\na tomb, but where there yet lingers the stump of an old forest tree\nwhose flavour is about as fresh and natural as the Smallweed smack of\nyouth.\n\nThere has been only one child in the Smallweed family for several\ngenerations. Little old men and women there have been, but no child,\nuntil Mr. Smallweed's grandmother, now living, became weak in her\nintellect and fell (for the first time) into a childish state. With\nsuch infantine graces as a total want of observation, memory,\nunderstanding, and interest, and an eternal disposition to fall\nasleep over the fire and into it, Mr. Smallweed's grandmother has\nundoubtedly brightened the family.\n\nMr. Smallweed's grandfather is likewise of the party. He is in a\nhelpless condition as to his lower, and nearly so as to his upper,\nlimbs, but his mind is unimpaired. It holds, as well as it ever held,\nthe first four rules of arithmetic and a certain small collection of\nthe hardest facts. In respect of ideality, reverence, wonder, and\nother such phrenological attributes, it is no worse off than it used\nto be. Everything that Mr. Smallweed's grandfather ever put away in\nhis mind was a grub at first, and is a grub at last. In all his life\nhe has never bred a single butterfly.\n\nThe father of this pleasant grandfather, of the neighbourhood of\nMount Pleasant, was a horny-skinned, two-legged, money-getting\nspecies of spider who spun webs to catch unwary flies and retired\ninto holes until they were entrapped. The name of this old pagan's\ngod was Compound Interest. He lived for it, married it, died of it.\nMeeting with a heavy loss in an honest little enterprise in which all\nthe loss was intended to have been on the other side, he broke\nsomething--something necessary to his existence, therefore it\ncouldn't have been his heart--and made an end of his career. As his\ncharacter was not good, and he had been bred at a charity school in a\ncomplete course, according to question and answer, of those ancient\npeople the Amorites and Hittites, he was frequently quoted as an\nexample of the failure of education.\n\nHis spirit shone through his son, to whom he had always preached of\n\"going out\" early in life and whom he made a clerk in a sharp\nscrivener's office at twelve years old. There the young gentleman\nimproved his mind, which was of a lean and anxious character, and\ndeveloping the family gifts, gradually elevated himself into the\ndiscounting profession. Going out early in life and marrying late, as\nhis father had done before him, he too begat a lean and\nanxious-minded son, who in his turn, going out early in life and\nmarrying late, became the father of Bartholomew and Judith Smallweed,\ntwins. During the whole time consumed in the slow growth of this\nfamily tree, the house of Smallweed, always early to go out and late\nto marry, has strengthened itself in its practical character, has\ndiscarded all amusements, discountenanced all story-books,\nfairy-tales, fictions, and fables, and banished all levities\nwhatsoever. Hence the gratifying fact that it has had no child born\nto it and that the complete little men and women whom it has produced\nhave been observed to bear a likeness to old monkeys with something\ndepressing on their minds.\n\nAt the present time, in the dark little parlour certain feet below\nthe level of the street--a grim, hard, uncouth parlour, only\nornamented with the coarsest of baize table-covers, and the hardest\nof sheet-iron tea-trays, and offering in its decorative character no\nbad allegorical representation of Grandfather Smallweed's\nmind--seated in two black horsehair porter's chairs, one on each side\nof the fire-place, the superannuated Mr. and Mrs. Smallweed while\naway the rosy hours. On the stove are a couple of trivets for the\npots and kettles which it is Grandfather Smallweed's usual occupation\nto watch, and projecting from the chimney-piece between them is a\nsort of brass gallows for roasting, which he also superintends when\nit is in action. Under the venerable Mr. Smallweed's seat and guarded\nby his spindle legs is a drawer in his chair, reported to contain\nproperty to a fabulous amount. Beside him is a spare cushion with\nwhich he is always provided in order that he may have something to\nthrow at the venerable partner of his respected age whenever she\nmakes an allusion to money--a subject on which he is particularly\nsensitive.\n\n\"And where's Bart?\" Grandfather Smallweed inquires of Judy, Bart's\ntwin sister.\n\n\"He an't come in yet,\" says Judy.\n\n\"It's his tea-time, isn't it?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"How much do you mean to say it wants then?\"\n\n\"Ten minutes.\"\n\n\"Hey?\"\n\n\"Ten minutes.\" (Loud on the part of Judy.)\n\n\"Ho!\" says Grandfather Smallweed. \"Ten minutes.\"\n\nGrandmother Smallweed, who has been mumbling and shaking her head at\nthe trivets, hearing figures mentioned, connects them with money and\nscreeches like a horrible old parrot without any plumage, \"Ten\nten-pound notes!\"\n\nGrandfather Smallweed immediately throws the cushion at her.\n\n\"Drat you, be quiet!\" says the good old man.\n\nThe effect of this act of jaculation is twofold. It not only doubles\nup Mrs. Smallweed's head against the side of her porter's chair and\ncauses her to present, when extricated by her granddaughter, a highly\nunbecoming state of cap, but the necessary exertion recoils on Mr.\nSmallweed himself, whom it throws back into HIS porter's chair like a\nbroken puppet. The excellent old gentleman being at these times a\nmere clothes-bag with a black skull-cap on the top of it, does not\npresent a very animated appearance until he has undergone the two\noperations at the hands of his granddaughter of being shaken up like\na great bottle and poked and punched like a great bolster. Some\nindication of a neck being developed in him by these means, he and\nthe sharer of his life's evening again fronting one another in their\ntwo porter's chairs, like a couple of sentinels long forgotten on\ntheir post by the Black Serjeant, Death.\n\nJudy the twin is worthy company for these associates. She is so\nindubitably sister to Mr. Smallweed the younger that the two kneaded\ninto one would hardly make a young person of average proportions,\nwhile she so happily exemplifies the before-mentioned family likeness\nto the monkey tribe that attired in a spangled robe and cap she might\nwalk about the table-land on the top of a barrel-organ without\nexciting much remark as an unusual specimen. Under existing\ncircumstances, however, she is dressed in a plain, spare gown of\nbrown stuff.\n\nJudy never owned a doll, never heard of Cinderella, never played at\nany game. She once or twice fell into children's company when she was\nabout ten years old, but the children couldn't get on with Judy, and\nJudy couldn't get on with them. She seemed like an animal of another\nspecies, and there was instinctive repugnance on both sides. It is\nvery doubtful whether Judy knows how to laugh. She has so rarely seen\nthe thing done that the probabilities are strong the other way. Of\nanything like a youthful laugh, she certainly can have no conception.\nIf she were to try one, she would find her teeth in her way,\nmodelling that action of her face, as she has unconsciously modelled\nall its other expressions, on her pattern of sordid age. Such is\nJudy.\n\nAnd her twin brother couldn't wind up a top for his life. He knows no\nmore of Jack the Giant Killer or of Sinbad the Sailor than he knows\nof the people in the stars. He could as soon play at leap-frog or at\ncricket as change into a cricket or a frog himself. But he is so much\nthe better off than his sister that on his narrow world of fact an\nopening has dawned into such broader regions as lie within the ken of\nMr. Guppy. Hence his admiration and his emulation of that shining\nenchanter.\n\nJudy, with a gong-like clash and clatter, sets one of the sheet-iron\ntea-trays on the table and arranges cups and saucers. The bread she\nputs on in an iron basket, and the butter (and not much of it) in a\nsmall pewter plate. Grandfather Smallweed looks hard after the tea as\nit is served out and asks Judy where the girl is.\n\n\"Charley, do you mean?\" says Judy.\n\n\"Hey?\" from Grandfather Smallweed.\n\n\"Charley, do you mean?\"\n\nThis touches a spring in Grandmother Smallweed, who, chuckling as\nusual at the trivets, cries, \"Over the water! Charley over the water,\nCharley over the water, over the water to Charley, Charley over the\nwater, over the water to Charley!\" and becomes quite energetic about\nit. Grandfather looks at the cushion but has not sufficiently\nrecovered his late exertion.\n\n\"Ha!\" he says when there is silence. \"If that's her name. She eats a\ndeal. It would be better to allow her for her keep.\"\n\nJudy, with her brother's wink, shakes her head and purses up her\nmouth into no without saying it.\n\n\"No?\" returns the old man. \"Why not?\"\n\n\"She'd want sixpence a day, and we can do it for less,\" says Judy.\n\n\"Sure?\"\n\nJudy answers with a nod of deepest meaning and calls, as she scrapes\nthe butter on the loaf with every precaution against waste and cuts\nit into slices, \"You, Charley, where are you?\" Timidly obedient to\nthe summons, a little girl in a rough apron and a large bonnet, with\nher hands covered with soap and water and a scrubbing brush in one of\nthem, appears, and curtsys.\n\n\"What work are you about now?\" says Judy, making an ancient snap at\nher like a very sharp old beldame.\n\n\"I'm a-cleaning the upstairs back room, miss,\" replies Charley.\n\n\"Mind you do it thoroughly, and don't loiter. Shirking won't do for\nme. Make haste! Go along!\" cries Judy with a stamp upon the ground.\n\"You girls are more trouble than you're worth, by half.\"\n\nOn this severe matron, as she returns to her task of scraping the\nbutter and cutting the bread, falls the shadow of her brother,\nlooking in at the window. For whom, knife and loaf in hand, she opens\nthe street-door.\n\n\"Aye, aye, Bart!\" says Grandfather Smallweed. \"Here you are, hey?\"\n\n\"Here I am,\" says Bart.\n\n\"Been along with your friend again, Bart?\"\n\nSmall nods.\n\n\"Dining at his expense, Bart?\"\n\nSmall nods again.\n\n\"That's right. Live at his expense as much as you can, and take\nwarning by his foolish example. That's the use of such a friend. The\nonly use you can put him to,\" says the venerable sage.\n\nHis grandson, without receiving this good counsel as dutifully as he\nmight, honours it with all such acceptance as may lie in a slight\nwink and a nod and takes a chair at the tea-table. The four old faces\nthen hover over teacups like a company of ghastly cherubim, Mrs.\nSmallweed perpetually twitching her head and chattering at the\ntrivets and Mr. Smallweed requiring to be repeatedly shaken up like a\nlarge black draught.\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" says the good old gentleman, reverting to his lesson of\nwisdom. \"That's such advice as your father would have given you,\nBart. You never saw your father. More's the pity. He was my true\nson.\" Whether it is intended to be conveyed that he was particularly\npleasant to look at, on that account, does not appear.\n\n\"He was my true son,\" repeats the old gentleman, folding his bread\nand butter on his knee, \"a good accountant, and died fifteen years\nago.\"\n\nMrs. Smallweed, following her usual instinct, breaks out with\n\"Fifteen hundred pound. Fifteen hundred pound in a black box, fifteen\nhundred pound locked up, fifteen hundred pound put away and hid!\" Her\nworthy husband, setting aside his bread and butter, immediately\ndischarges the cushion at her, crushes her against the side of her\nchair, and falls back in his own, overpowered. His appearance, after\nvisiting Mrs. Smallweed with one of these admonitions, is\nparticularly impressive and not wholly prepossessing, firstly because\nthe exertion generally twists his black skull-cap over one eye and\ngives him an air of goblin rakishness, secondly because he mutters\nviolent imprecations against Mrs. Smallweed, and thirdly because the\ncontrast between those powerful expressions and his powerless figure\nis suggestive of a baleful old malignant who would be very wicked if\nhe could. All this, however, is so common in the Smallweed family\ncircle that it produces no impression. The old gentleman is merely\nshaken and has his internal feathers beaten up, the cushion is\nrestored to its usual place beside him, and the old lady, perhaps\nwith her cap adjusted and perhaps not, is planted in her chair again,\nready to be bowled down like a ninepin.\n\nSome time elapses in the present instance before the old gentleman is\nsufficiently cool to resume his discourse, and even then he mixes it\nup with several edifying expletives addressed to the unconscious\npartner of his bosom, who holds communication with nothing on earth\nbut the trivets. As thus: \"If your father, Bart, had lived longer, he\nmight have been worth a deal of money--you brimstone chatterer!--but\njust as he was beginning to build up the house that he had been\nmaking the foundations for, through many a year--you jade of a\nmagpie, jackdaw, and poll-parrot, what do you mean!--he took ill and\ndied of a low fever, always being a sparing and a spare man, full of\nbusiness care--I should like to throw a cat at you instead of a\ncushion, and I will too if you make such a confounded fool of\nyourself!--and your mother, who was a prudent woman as dry as a chip,\njust dwindled away like touchwood after you and Judy were born--you\nare an old pig. You are a brimstone pig. You're a head of swine!\"\n\nJudy, not interested in what she has often heard, begins to collect\nin a basin various tributary streams of tea, from the bottoms of cups\nand saucers and from the bottom of the tea-pot for the little\ncharwoman's evening meal. In like manner she gets together, in the\niron bread-basket, as many outside fragments and worn-down heels of\nloaves as the rigid economy of the house has left in existence.\n\n\"But your father and me were partners, Bart,\" says the old gentleman,\n\"and when I am gone, you and Judy will have all there is. It's rare\nfor you both that you went out early in life--Judy to the flower\nbusiness, and you to the law. You won't want to spend it. You'll get\nyour living without it, and put more to it. When I am gone, Judy will\ngo back to the flower business and you'll still stick to the law.\"\n\nOne might infer from Judy's appearance that her business rather lay\nwith the thorns than the flowers, but she has in her time been\napprenticed to the art and mystery of artificial flower-making. A\nclose observer might perhaps detect both in her eye and her\nbrother's, when their venerable grandsire anticipates his being gone,\nsome little impatience to know when he may be going, and some\nresentful opinion that it is time he went.\n\n\"Now, if everybody has done,\" says Judy, completing her preparations,\n\"I'll have that girl in to her tea. She would never leave off if she\ntook it by herself in the kitchen.\"\n\nCharley is accordingly introduced, and under a heavy fire of eyes,\nsits down to her basin and a Druidical ruin of bread and butter. In\nthe active superintendence of this young person, Judy Smallweed\nappears to attain a perfectly geological age and to date from the\nremotest periods. Her systematic manner of flying at her and pouncing\non her, with or without pretence, whether or no, is wonderful,\nevincing an accomplishment in the art of girl-driving seldom reached\nby the oldest practitioners.\n\n\"Now, don't stare about you all the afternoon,\" cries Judy, shaking\nher head and stamping her foot as she happens to catch the glance\nwhich has been previously sounding the basin of tea, \"but take your\nvictuals and get back to your work.\"\n\n\"Yes, miss,\" says Charley.\n\n\"Don't say yes,\" returns Miss Smallweed, \"for I know what you girls\nare. Do it without saying it, and then I may begin to believe you.\"\n\nCharley swallows a great gulp of tea in token of submission and so\ndisperses the Druidical ruins that Miss Smallweed charges her not to\ngormandize, which \"in you girls,\" she observes, is disgusting.\nCharley might find some more difficulty in meeting her views on the\ngeneral subject of girls but for a knock at the door.\n\n\"See who it is, and don't chew when you open it!\" cries Judy.\n\nThe object of her attentions withdrawing for the purpose, Miss\nSmallweed takes that opportunity of jumbling the remainder of the\nbread and butter together and launching two or three dirty tea-cups\ninto the ebb-tide of the basin of tea as a hint that she considers\nthe eating and drinking terminated.\n\n\"Now! Who is it, and what's wanted?\" says the snappish Judy.\n\nIt is one Mr. George, it appears. Without other announcement or\nceremony, Mr. George walks in.\n\n\"Whew!\" says Mr. George. \"You are hot here. Always a fire, eh? Well!\nPerhaps you do right to get used to one.\" Mr. George makes the latter\nremark to himself as he nods to Grandfather Smallweed.\n\n\"Ho! It's you!\" cries the old gentleman. \"How de do? How de do?\"\n\n\"Middling,\" replies Mr. George, taking a chair. \"Your granddaughter I\nhave had the honour of seeing before; my service to you, miss.\"\n\n\"This is my grandson,\" says Grandfather Smallweed. \"You ha'n't seen\nhim before. He is in the law and not much at home.\"\n\n\"My service to him, too! He is like his sister. He is very like his\nsister. He is devilish like his sister,\" says Mr. George, laying a\ngreat and not altogether complimentary stress on his last adjective.\n\n\"And how does the world use you, Mr. George?\" Grandfather Smallweed\ninquires, slowly rubbing his legs.\n\n\"Pretty much as usual. Like a football.\"\n\nHe is a swarthy brown man of fifty, well made, and good looking, with\ncrisp dark hair, bright eyes, and a broad chest. His sinewy and\npowerful hands, as sunburnt as his face, have evidently been used to\na pretty rough life. What is curious about him is that he sits\nforward on his chair as if he were, from long habit, allowing space\nfor some dress or accoutrements that he has altogether laid aside.\nHis step too is measured and heavy and would go well with a weighty\nclash and jingle of spurs. He is close-shaved now, but his mouth is\nset as if his upper lip had been for years familiar with a great\nmoustache; and his manner of occasionally laying the open palm of his\nbroad brown hand upon it is to the same effect. Altogether one might\nguess Mr. George to have been a trooper once upon a time.\n\nA special contrast Mr. George makes to the Smallweed family. Trooper\nwas never yet billeted upon a household more unlike him. It is a\nbroadsword to an oyster-knife. His developed figure and their stunted\nforms, his large manner filling any amount of room and their little\nnarrow pinched ways, his sounding voice and their sharp spare tones,\nare in the strongest and the strangest opposition. As he sits in the\nmiddle of the grim parlour, leaning a little forward, with his hands\nupon his thighs and his elbows squared, he looks as though, if he\nremained there long, he would absorb into himself the whole family\nand the whole four-roomed house, extra little back-kitchen and all.\n\n\"Do you rub your legs to rub life into 'em?\" he asks of Grandfather\nSmallweed after looking round the room.\n\n\"Why, it's partly a habit, Mr. George, and--yes--it partly helps the\ncirculation,\" he replies.\n\n\"The cir-cu-la-tion!\" repeats Mr. George, folding his arms upon his\nchest and seeming to become two sizes larger. \"Not much of that, I\nshould think.\"\n\n\"Truly I'm old, Mr. George,\" says Grandfather Smallweed. \"But I can\ncarry my years. I'm older than HER,\" nodding at his wife, \"and see\nwhat she is? You're a brimstone chatterer!\" with a sudden revival of\nhis late hostility.\n\n\"Unlucky old soul!\" says Mr. George, turning his head in that\ndirection. \"Don't scold the old lady. Look at her here, with her poor\ncap half off her head and her poor hair all in a muddle. Hold up,\nma'am. That's better. There we are! Think of your mother, Mr.\nSmallweed,\" says Mr. George, coming back to his seat from assisting\nher, \"if your wife an't enough.\"\n\n\"I suppose you were an excellent son, Mr. George?\" the old man hints\nwith a leer.\n\nThe colour of Mr. George's face rather deepens as he replies, \"Why\nno. I wasn't.\"\n\n\"I am astonished at it.\"\n\n\"So am I. I ought to have been a good son, and I think I meant to\nhave been one. But I wasn't. I was a thundering bad son, that's the\nlong and the short of it, and never was a credit to anybody.\"\n\n\"Surprising!\" cries the old man.\n\n\"However,\" Mr. George resumes, \"the less said about it, the better\nnow. Come! You know the agreement. Always a pipe out of the two\nmonths' interest! (Bosh! It's all correct. You needn't be afraid to\norder the pipe. Here's the new bill, and here's the two months'\ninterest-money, and a devil-and-all of a scrape it is to get it\ntogether in my business.)\"\n\nMr. George sits, with his arms folded, consuming the family and the\nparlour while Grandfather Smallweed is assisted by Judy to two black\nleathern cases out of a locked bureau, in one of which he secures the\ndocument he has just received, and from the other takes another\nsimilar document which he hands to Mr. George, who twists it up for a\npipelight. As the old man inspects, through his glasses, every\nup-stroke and down-stroke of both documents before he releases them\nfrom their leathern prison, and as he counts the money three times\nover and requires Judy to say every word she utters at least twice,\nand is as tremulously slow of speech and action as it is possible to\nbe, this business is a long time in progress. When it is quite\nconcluded, and not before, he disengages his ravenous eyes and\nfingers from it and answers Mr. George's last remark by saying,\n\"Afraid to order the pipe? We are not so mercenary as that, sir.\nJudy, see directly to the pipe and the glass of cold brandy-and-water\nfor Mr. George.\"\n\nThe sportive twins, who have been looking straight before them all\nthis time except when they have been engrossed by the black leathern\ncases, retire together, generally disdainful of the visitor, but\nleaving him to the old man as two young cubs might leave a traveller\nto the parental bear.\n\n\"And there you sit, I suppose, all the day long, eh?\" says Mr. George\nwith folded arms.\n\n\"Just so, just so,\" the old man nods.\n\n\"And don't you occupy yourself at all?\"\n\n\"I watch the fire--and the boiling and the roasting--\"\n\n\"When there is any,\" says Mr. George with great expression.\n\n\"Just so. When there is any.\"\n\n\"Don't you read or get read to?\"\n\nThe old man shakes his head with sharp sly triumph. \"No, no. We have\nnever been readers in our family. It don't pay. Stuff. Idleness.\nFolly. No, no!\"\n\n\"There's not much to choose between your two states,\" says the\nvisitor in a key too low for the old man's dull hearing as he looks\nfrom him to the old woman and back again. \"I say!\" in a louder voice.\n\n\"I hear you.\"\n\n\"You'll sell me up at last, I suppose, when I am a day in arrear.\"\n\n\"My dear friend!\" cries Grandfather Smallweed, stretching out both\nhands to embrace him. \"Never! Never, my dear friend! But my friend in\nthe city that I got to lend you the money--HE might!\"\n\n\"Oh! You can't answer for him?\" says Mr. George, finishing the\ninquiry in his lower key with the words \"You lying old rascal!\"\n\n\"My dear friend, he is not to be depended on. I wouldn't trust him.\nHe will have his bond, my dear friend.\"\n\n\"Devil doubt him,\" says Mr. George. Charley appearing with a\ntray, on which are the pipe, a small paper of tobacco, and the\nbrandy-and-water, he asks her, \"How do you come here! You haven't got\nthe family face.\"\n\n\"I goes out to work, sir,\" returns Charley.\n\nThe trooper (if trooper he be or have been) takes her bonnet off,\nwith a light touch for so strong a hand, and pats her on the head.\n\"You give the house almost a wholesome look. It wants a bit of youth\nas much as it wants fresh air.\" Then he dismisses her, lights his\npipe, and drinks to Mr. Smallweed's friend in the city--the one\nsolitary flight of that esteemed old gentleman's imagination.\n\n\"So you think he might be hard upon me, eh?\"\n\n\"I think he might--I am afraid he would. I have known him do it,\"\nsays Grandfather Smallweed incautiously, \"twenty times.\"\n\nIncautiously, because his stricken better-half, who has been dozing\nover the fire for some time, is instantly aroused and jabbers \"Twenty\nthousand pounds, twenty twenty-pound notes in a money-box, twenty\nguineas, twenty million twenty per cent, twenty--\" and is then cut\nshort by the flying cushion, which the visitor, to whom this singular\nexperiment appears to be a novelty, snatches from her face as it\ncrushes her in the usual manner.\n\n\"You're a brimstone idiot. You're a scorpion--a brimstone scorpion!\nYou're a sweltering toad. You're a chattering clattering broomstick\nwitch that ought to be burnt!\" gasps the old man, prostrate in his\nchair. \"My dear friend, will you shake me up a little?\"\n\nMr. George, who has been looking first at one of them and then at the\nother, as if he were demented, takes his venerable acquaintance by\nthe throat on receiving this request, and dragging him upright in his\nchair as easily as if he were a doll, appears in two minds whether or\nno to shake all future power of cushioning out of him and shake him\ninto his grave. Resisting the temptation, but agitating him violently\nenough to make his head roll like a harlequin's, he puts him smartly\ndown in his chair again and adjusts his skull-cap with such a rub\nthat the old man winks with both eyes for a minute afterwards.\n\n\"O Lord!\" gasps Mr. Smallweed. \"That'll do. Thank you, my dear\nfriend, that'll do. Oh, dear me, I'm out of breath. O Lord!\" And Mr.\nSmallweed says it not without evident apprehensions of his dear\nfriend, who still stands over him looming larger than ever.\n\nThe alarming presence, however, gradually subsides into its chair and\nfalls to smoking in long puffs, consoling itself with the\nphilosophical reflection, \"The name of your friend in the city begins\nwith a D, comrade, and you're about right respecting the bond.\"\n\n\"Did you speak, Mr. George?\" inquires the old man.\n\nThe trooper shakes his head, and leaning forward with his right elbow\non his right knee and his pipe supported in that hand, while his\nother hand, resting on his left leg, squares his left elbow in a\nmartial manner, continues to smoke. Meanwhile he looks at Mr.\nSmallweed with grave attention and now and then fans the cloud of\nsmoke away in order that he may see him the more clearly.\n\n\"I take it,\" he says, making just as much and as little change in his\nposition as will enable him to reach the glass to his lips with a\nround, full action, \"that I am the only man alive (or dead either)\nthat gets the value of a pipe out of YOU?\"\n\n\"Well,\" returns the old man, \"it's true that I don't see company, Mr.\nGeorge, and that I don't treat. I can't afford to it. But as you, in\nyour pleasant way, made your pipe a condition--\"\n\n\"Why, it's not for the value of it; that's no great thing. It was a\nfancy to get it out of you. To have something in for my money.\"\n\n\"Ha! You're prudent, prudent, sir!\" cries Grandfather Smallweed,\nrubbing his legs.\n\n\"Very. I always was.\" Puff. \"It's a sure sign of my prudence that I\never found the way here.\" Puff. \"Also, that I am what I am.\" Puff. \"I\nam well known to be prudent,\" says Mr. George, composedly smoking. \"I\nrose in life that way.\"\n\n\"Don't be down-hearted, sir. You may rise yet.\"\n\nMr. George laughs and drinks.\n\n\"Ha'n't you no relations, now,\" asks Grandfather Smallweed with a\ntwinkle in his eyes, \"who would pay off this little principal or who\nwould lend you a good name or two that I could persuade my friend in\nthe city to make you a further advance upon? Two good names would be\nsufficient for my friend in the city. Ha'n't you no such relations,\nMr. George?\"\n\nMr. George, still composedly smoking, replies, \"If I had, I shouldn't\ntrouble them. I have been trouble enough to my belongings in my day.\nIt MAY be a very good sort of penitence in a vagabond, who has wasted\nthe best time of his life, to go back then to decent people that he\nnever was a credit to and live upon them, but it's not my sort. The\nbest kind of amends then for having gone away is to keep away, in my\nopinion.\"\n\n\"But natural affection, Mr. George,\" hints Grandfather Smallweed.\n\n\"For two good names, hey?\" says Mr. George, shaking his head and\nstill composedly smoking. \"No. That's not my sort either.\"\n\nGrandfather Smallweed has been gradually sliding down in his chair\nsince his last adjustment and is now a bundle of clothes with a voice\nin it calling for Judy. That houri, appearing, shakes him up in the\nusual manner and is charged by the old gentleman to remain near him.\nFor he seems chary of putting his visitor to the trouble of repeating\nhis late attentions.\n\n\"Ha!\" he observes when he is in trim again. \"If you could have traced\nout the captain, Mr. George, it would have been the making of you. If\nwhen you first came here, in consequence of our advertisement in the\nnewspapers--when I say 'our,' I'm alluding to the advertisements of\nmy friend in the city, and one or two others who embark their capital\nin the same way, and are so friendly towards me as sometimes to give\nme a lift with my little pittance--if at that time you could have\nhelped us, Mr. George, it would have been the making of you.\"\n\n\"I was willing enough to be 'made,' as you call it,\" says Mr. George,\nsmoking not quite so placidly as before, for since the entrance of\nJudy he has been in some measure disturbed by a fascination, not of\nthe admiring kind, which obliges him to look at her as she stands by\nher grandfather's chair, \"but on the whole, I am glad I wasn't now.\"\n\n\"Why, Mr. George? In the name of--of brimstone, why?\" says\nGrandfather Smallweed with a plain appearance of exasperation.\n(Brimstone apparently suggested by his eye lighting on Mrs. Smallweed\nin her slumber.)\n\n\"For two reasons, comrade.\"\n\n\"And what two reasons, Mr. George? In the name of the--\"\n\n\"Of our friend in the city?\" suggests Mr. George, composedly\ndrinking.\n\n\"Aye, if you like. What two reasons?\"\n\n\"In the first place,\" returns Mr. George, but still looking at Judy\nas if she being so old and so like her grandfather it is indifferent\nwhich of the two he addresses, \"you gentlemen took me in. You\nadvertised that Mr. Hawdon (Captain Hawdon, if you hold to the saying\n'Once a captain, always a captain') was to hear of something to his\nadvantage.\"\n\n\"Well?\" returns the old man shrilly and sharply.\n\n\"Well!\" says Mr. George, smoking on. \"It wouldn't have been much to\nhis advantage to have been clapped into prison by the whole bill and\njudgment trade of London.\"\n\n\"How do you know that? Some of his rich relations might have paid his\ndebts or compounded for 'em. Besides, he had taken US in. He owed us\nimmense sums all round. I would sooner have strangled him than had no\nreturn. If I sit here thinking of him,\" snarls the old man, holding\nup his impotent ten fingers, \"I want to strangle him now.\" And in a\nsudden access of fury, he throws the cushion at the unoffending Mrs.\nSmallweed, but it passes harmlessly on one side of her chair.\n\n\"I don't need to be told,\" returns the trooper, taking his pipe from\nhis lips for a moment and carrying his eyes back from following the\nprogress of the cushion to the pipe-bowl which is burning low, \"that\nhe carried on heavily and went to ruin. I have been at his right hand\nmany a day when he was charging upon ruin full-gallop. I was with him\nwhen he was sick and well, rich and poor. I laid this hand upon him\nafter he had run through everything and broken down everything\nbeneath him--when he held a pistol to his head.\"\n\n\"I wish he had let it off,\" says the benevolent old man, \"and blown\nhis head into as many pieces as he owed pounds!\"\n\n\"That would have been a smash indeed,\" returns the trooper coolly;\n\"any way, he had been young, hopeful, and handsome in the days gone\nby, and I am glad I never found him, when he was neither, to lead to\na result so much to his advantage. That's reason number one.\"\n\n\"I hope number two's as good?\" snarls the old man.\n\n\"Why, no. It's more of a selfish reason. If I had found him, I must\nhave gone to the other world to look. He was there.\"\n\n\"How do you know he was there?\"\n\n\"He wasn't here.\"\n\n\"How do you know he wasn't here?\"\n\n\"Don't lose your temper as well as your money,\" says Mr. George,\ncalmly knocking the ashes out of his pipe. \"He was drowned long\nbefore. I am convinced of it. He went over a ship's side. Whether\nintentionally or accidentally, I don't know. Perhaps your friend in\nthe city does. Do you know what that tune is, Mr. Smallweed?\" he adds\nafter breaking off to whistle one, accompanied on the table with the\nempty pipe.\n\n\"Tune!\" replied the old man. \"No. We never have tunes here.\"\n\n\"That's the Dead March in Saul. They bury soldiers to it,\nso it's the natural end of the subject. Now, if your pretty\ngranddaughter--excuse me, miss--will condescend to take care of this\npipe for two months, we shall save the cost of one next time. Good\nevening, Mr. Smallweed!\"\n\n\"My dear friend!\" the old man gives him both his hands.\n\n\"So you think your friend in the city will be hard upon me if I fall\nin a payment?\" says the trooper, looking down upon him like a giant.\n\n\"My dear friend, I am afraid he will,\" returns the old man, looking\nup at him like a pygmy.\n\nMr. George laughs, and with a glance at Mr. Smallweed and a parting\nsalutation to the scornful Judy, strides out of the parlour, clashing\nimaginary sabres and other metallic appurtenances as he goes.\n\n\"You're a damned rogue,\" says the old gentleman, making a hideous\ngrimace at the door as he shuts it. \"But I'll lime you, you dog, I'll\nlime you!\"\n\nAfter this amiable remark, his spirit soars into those enchanting\nregions of reflection which its education and pursuits have opened to\nit, and again he and Mrs. Smallweed while away the rosy hours, two\nunrelieved sentinels forgotten as aforesaid by the Black Serjeant.\n\nWhile the twain are faithful to their post, Mr. George strides\nthrough the streets with a massive kind of swagger and a grave-enough\nface. It is eight o'clock now, and the day is fast drawing in. He\nstops hard by Waterloo Bridge and reads a playbill, decides to go to\nAstley's Theatre. Being there, is much delighted with the horses and\nthe feats of strength; looks at the weapons with a critical eye;\ndisapproves of the combats as giving evidences of unskilful\nswordsmanship; but is touched home by the sentiments. In the last\nscene, when the Emperor of Tartary gets up into a cart and\ncondescends to bless the united lovers by hovering over them with the\nUnion Jack, his eyelashes are moistened with emotion.\n\nThe theatre over, Mr. George comes across the water again and makes\nhis way to that curious region lying about the Haymarket and\nLeicester Square which is a centre of attraction to indifferent\nforeign hotels and indifferent foreigners, racket-courts,\nfighting-men, swordsmen, footguards, old china, gaming-houses,\nexhibitions, and a large medley of shabbiness and shrinking out of\nsight. Penetrating to the heart of this region, he arrives by a court\nand a long whitewashed passage at a great brick building composed of\nbare walls, floors, roof-rafters, and skylights, on the front of\nwhich, if it can be said to have any front, is painted GEORGE'S\nSHOOTING GALLERY, &c.\n\nInto George's Shooting Gallery, &c., he goes; and in it there are\ngaslights (partly turned off now), and two whitened targets for\nrifle-shooting, and archery accommodation, and fencing appliances,\nand all necessaries for the British art of boxing. None of these\nsports or exercises being pursued in George's Shooting Gallery\nto-night, which is so devoid of company that a little grotesque man\nwith a large head has it all to himself and lies asleep upon the\nfloor.\n\nThe little man is dressed something like a gunsmith, in a green-baize\napron and cap; and his face and hands are dirty with gunpowder and\nbegrimed with the loading of guns. As he lies in the light before a\nglaring white target, the black upon him shines again. Not far off is\nthe strong, rough, primitive table with a vice upon it at which he\nhas been working. He is a little man with a face all crushed\ntogether, who appears, from a certain blue and speckled appearance\nthat one of his cheeks presents, to have been blown up, in the way of\nbusiness, at some odd time or times.\n\n\"Phil!\" says the trooper in a quiet voice.\n\n\"All right!\" cries Phil, scrambling to his feet.\n\n\"Anything been doing?\"\n\n\"Flat as ever so much swipes,\" says Phil. \"Five dozen rifle and a\ndozen pistol. As to aim!\" Phil gives a howl at the recollection.\n\n\"Shut up shop, Phil!\"\n\nAs Phil moves about to execute this order, it appears that he is\nlame, though able to move very quickly. On the speckled side of his\nface he has no eyebrow, and on the other side he has a bushy black\none, which want of uniformity gives him a very singular and rather\nsinister appearance. Everything seems to have happened to his hands\nthat could possibly take place consistently with the retention of all\nthe fingers, for they are notched, and seamed, and crumpled all over.\nHe appears to be very strong and lifts heavy benches about as if he\nhad no idea what weight was. He has a curious way of limping round\nthe gallery with his shoulder against the wall and tacking off at\nobjects he wants to lay hold of instead of going straight to them,\nwhich has left a smear all round the four walls, conventionally\ncalled \"Phil's mark.\"\n\nThis custodian of George's Gallery in George's absence concludes his\nproceedings, when he has locked the great doors and turned out all\nthe lights but one, which he leaves to glimmer, by dragging out from\na wooden cabin in a corner two mattresses and bedding. These being\ndrawn to opposite ends of the gallery, the trooper makes his own bed\nand Phil makes his.\n\n\"Phil!\" says the master, walking towards him without his coat and\nwaistcoat, and looking more soldierly than ever in his braces. \"You\nwere found in a doorway, weren't you?\"\n\n\"Gutter,\" says Phil. \"Watchman tumbled over me.\"\n\n\"Then vagabondizing came natural to YOU from the beginning.\"\n\n\"As nat'ral as possible,\" says Phil.\n\n\"Good night!\"\n\n\"Good night, guv'ner.\"\n\nPhil cannot even go straight to bed, but finds it necessary to\nshoulder round two sides of the gallery and then tack off at his\nmattress. The trooper, after taking a turn or two in the\nrifle-distance and looking up at the moon now shining through the\nskylights, strides to his own mattress by a shorter route and goes to\nbed too.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII\n\nMr. Bucket\n\n\nAllegory looks pretty cool in Lincoln's Inn Fields, though the\nevening is hot, for both Mr. Tulkinghorn's windows are wide open, and\nthe room is lofty, gusty, and gloomy. These may not be desirable\ncharacteristics when November comes with fog and sleet or January\nwith ice and snow, but they have their merits in the sultry long\nvacation weather. They enable Allegory, though it has cheeks like\npeaches, and knees like bunches of blossoms, and rosy swellings for\ncalves to its legs and muscles to its arms, to look tolerably cool\nto-night.\n\nPlenty of dust comes in at Mr. Tulkinghorn's windows, and plenty more\nhas generated among his furniture and papers. It lies thick\neverywhere. When a breeze from the country that has lost its way\ntakes fright and makes a blind hurry to rush out again, it flings as\nmuch dust in the eyes of Allegory as the law--or Mr. Tulkinghorn, one\nof its trustiest representatives--may scatter, on occasion, in the\neyes of the laity.\n\nIn his lowering magazine of dust, the universal article into which\nhis papers and himself, and all his clients, and all things of earth,\nanimate and inanimate, are resolving, Mr. Tulkinghorn sits at one of\nthe open windows enjoying a bottle of old port. Though a hard-grained\nman, close, dry, and silent, he can enjoy old wine with the best. He\nhas a priceless bin of port in some artful cellar under the Fields,\nwhich is one of his many secrets. When he dines alone in chambers, as\nhe has dined to-day, and has his bit of fish and his steak or chicken\nbrought in from the coffee-house, he descends with a candle to the\nechoing regions below the deserted mansion, and heralded by a remote\nreverberation of thundering doors, comes gravely back encircled by an\nearthy atmosphere and carrying a bottle from which he pours a radiant\nnectar, two score and ten years old, that blushes in the glass to\nfind itself so famous and fills the whole room with the fragrance of\nsouthern grapes.\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn, sitting in the twilight by the open window, enjoys\nhis wine. As if it whispered to him of its fifty years of silence and\nseclusion, it shuts him up the closer. More impenetrable than ever,\nhe sits, and drinks, and mellows as it were in secrecy, pondering at\nthat twilight hour on all the mysteries he knows, associated with\ndarkening woods in the country, and vast blank shut-up houses in\ntown, and perhaps sparing a thought or two for himself, and his\nfamily history, and his money, and his will--all a mystery to every\none--and that one bachelor friend of his, a man of the same mould and\na lawyer too, who lived the same kind of life until he was\nseventy-five years old, and then suddenly conceiving (as it is\nsupposed) an impression that it was too monotonous, gave his gold\nwatch to his hair-dresser one summer evening and walked leisurely\nhome to the Temple and hanged himself.\n\nBut Mr. Tulkinghorn is not alone to-night to ponder at his usual\nlength. Seated at the same table, though with his chair modestly and\nuncomfortably drawn a little way from it, sits a bald, mild, shining\nman who coughs respectfully behind his hand when the lawyer bids him\nfill his glass.\n\n\"Now, Snagsby,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, \"to go over this odd story\nagain.\"\n\n\"If you please, sir.\"\n\n\"You told me when you were so good as to step round here last\nnight--\"\n\n\"For which I must ask you to excuse me if it was a liberty, sir; but\nI remember that you had taken a sort of an interest in that person,\nand I thought it possible that you might--just--wish--to--\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn is not the man to help him to any conclusion or to\nadmit anything as to any possibility concerning himself. So Mr.\nSnagsby trails off into saying, with an awkward cough, \"I must ask\nyou to excuse the liberty, sir, I am sure.\"\n\n\"Not at all,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. \"You told me, Snagsby, that you\nput on your hat and came round without mentioning your intention to\nyour wife. That was prudent I think, because it's not a matter of\nsuch importance that it requires to be mentioned.\"\n\n\"Well, sir,\" returns Mr. Snagsby, \"you see, my little woman is--not\nto put too fine a point upon it--inquisitive. She's inquisitive. Poor\nlittle thing, she's liable to spasms, and it's good for her to have\nher mind employed. In consequence of which she employs it--I should\nsay upon every individual thing she can lay hold of, whether it\nconcerns her or not--especially not. My little woman has a very\nactive mind, sir.\"\n\nMr. Snagsby drinks and murmurs with an admiring cough behind his\nhand, \"Dear me, very fine wine indeed!\"\n\n\"Therefore you kept your visit to yourself last night?\" says Mr.\nTulkinghorn. \"And to-night too?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, and to-night, too. My little woman is at present in--not\nto put too fine a point on it--in a pious state, or in what she\nconsiders such, and attends the Evening Exertions (which is the name\nthey go by) of a reverend party of the name of Chadband. He has a\ngreat deal of eloquence at his command, undoubtedly, but I am not\nquite favourable to his style myself. That's neither here nor there.\nMy little woman being engaged in that way made it easier for me to\nstep round in a quiet manner.\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn assents. \"Fill your glass, Snagsby.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir, I am sure,\" returns the stationer with his cough of\ndeference. \"This is wonderfully fine wine, sir!\"\n\n\"It is a rare wine now,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. \"It is fifty years\nold.\"\n\n\"Is it indeed, sir? But I am not surprised to hear it, I am sure. It\nmight be--any age almost.\" After rendering this general tribute to\nthe port, Mr. Snagsby in his modesty coughs an apology behind his\nhand for drinking anything so precious.\n\n\"Will you run over, once again, what the boy said?\" asks Mr.\nTulkinghorn, putting his hands into the pockets of his rusty\nsmallclothes and leaning quietly back in his chair.\n\n\"With pleasure, sir.\"\n\nThen, with fidelity, though with some prolixity, the law-stationer\nrepeats Jo's statement made to the assembled guests at his house. On\ncoming to the end of his narrative, he gives a great start and breaks\noff with, \"Dear me, sir, I wasn't aware there was any other gentleman\npresent!\"\n\nMr. Snagsby is dismayed to see, standing with an attentive face\nbetween himself and the lawyer at a little distance from the table, a\nperson with a hat and stick in his hand who was not there when he\nhimself came in and has not since entered by the door or by either of\nthe windows. There is a press in the room, but its hinges have not\ncreaked, nor has a step been audible upon the floor. Yet this third\nperson stands there with his attentive face, and his hat and stick in\nhis hands, and his hands behind him, a composed and quiet listener.\nHe is a stoutly built, steady-looking, sharp-eyed man in black, of\nabout the middle-age. Except that he looks at Mr. Snagsby as if he\nwere going to take his portrait, there is nothing remarkable about\nhim at first sight but his ghostly manner of appearing.\n\n\"Don't mind this gentleman,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn in his quiet way.\n\"This is only Mr. Bucket.\"\n\n\"Oh, indeed, sir?\" returns the stationer, expressing by a cough that\nhe is quite in the dark as to who Mr. Bucket may be.\n\n\"I wanted him to hear this story,\" says the lawyer, \"because I have\nhalf a mind (for a reason) to know more of it, and he is very\nintelligent in such things. What do you say to this, Bucket?\"\n\n\"It's very plain, sir. Since our people have moved this boy on, and\nhe's not to be found on his old lay, if Mr. Snagsby don't object to\ngo down with me to Tom-all-Alone's and point him out, we can have him\nhere in less than a couple of hours' time. I can do it without Mr.\nSnagsby, of course, but this is the shortest way.\"\n\n\"Mr. Bucket is a detective officer, Snagsby,\" says the lawyer in\nexplanation.\n\n\"Is he indeed, sir?\" says Mr. Snagsby with a strong tendency in his\nclump of hair to stand on end.\n\n\"And if you have no real objection to accompany Mr. Bucket to the\nplace in question,\" pursues the lawyer, \"I shall feel obliged to you\nif you will do so.\"\n\nIn a moment's hesitation on the part of Mr. Snagsby, Bucket dips down\nto the bottom of his mind.\n\n\"Don't you be afraid of hurting the boy,\" he says. \"You won't do\nthat. It's all right as far as the boy's concerned. We shall only\nbring him here to ask him a question or so I want to put to him, and\nhe'll be paid for his trouble and sent away again. It'll be a good\njob for him. I promise you, as a man, that you shall see the boy sent\naway all right. Don't you be afraid of hurting him; you an't going to\ndo that.\"\n\n\"Very well, Mr. Tulkinghorn!\" cries Mr. Snagsby cheerfully. And\nreassured, \"Since that's the case--\"\n\n\"Yes! And lookee here, Mr. Snagsby,\" resumes Bucket, taking him aside\nby the arm, tapping him familiarly on the breast, and speaking in a\nconfidential tone. \"You're a man of the world, you know, and a man of\nbusiness, and a man of sense. That's what YOU are.\"\n\n\"I am sure I am much obliged to you for your good opinion,\" returns\nthe stationer with his cough of modesty, \"but--\"\n\n\"That's what YOU are, you know,\" says Bucket. \"Now, it an't necessary\nto say to a man like you, engaged in your business, which is a\nbusiness of trust and requires a person to be wide awake and have his\nsenses about him and his head screwed on tight (I had an uncle in\nyour business once)--it an't necessary to say to a man like you that\nit's the best and wisest way to keep little matters like this quiet.\nDon't you see? Quiet!\"\n\n\"Certainly, certainly,\" returns the other.\n\n\"I don't mind telling YOU,\" says Bucket with an engaging appearance\nof frankness, \"that as far as I can understand it, there seems to be\na doubt whether this dead person wasn't entitled to a little\nproperty, and whether this female hasn't been up to some games\nrespecting that property, don't you see?\"\n\n\"Oh!\" says Mr. Snagsby, but not appearing to see quite distinctly.\n\n\"Now, what YOU want,\" pursues Bucket, again tapping Mr. Snagsby on\nthe breast in a comfortable and soothing manner, \"is that every\nperson should have their rights according to justice. That's what YOU\nwant.\"\n\n\"To be sure,\" returns Mr. Snagsby with a nod.\n\n\"On account of which, and at the same time to oblige a--do you call\nit, in your business, customer or client? I forget how my uncle used\nto call it.\"\n\n\"Why, I generally say customer myself,\" replies Mr. Snagsby.\n\n\"You're right!\" returns Mr. Bucket, shaking hands with him quite\naffectionately. \"--On account of which, and at the same time to\noblige a real good customer, you mean to go down with me, in\nconfidence, to Tom-all-Alone's and to keep the whole thing quiet ever\nafterwards and never mention it to any one. That's about your\nintentions, if I understand you?\"\n\n\"You are right, sir. You are right,\" says Mr. Snagsby.\n\n\"Then here's your hat,\" returns his new friend, quite as intimate\nwith it as if he had made it; \"and if you're ready, I am.\"\n\nThey leave Mr. Tulkinghorn, without a ruffle on the surface of his\nunfathomable depths, drinking his old wine, and go down into the\nstreets.\n\n\"You don't happen to know a very good sort of person of the name of\nGridley, do you?\" says Bucket in friendly converse as they descend\nthe stairs.\n\n\"No,\" says Mr. Snagsby, considering, \"I don't know anybody of that\nname. Why?\"\n\n\"Nothing particular,\" says Bucket; \"only having allowed his temper to\nget a little the better of him and having been threatening some\nrespectable people, he is keeping out of the way of a warrant I have\ngot against him--which it's a pity that a man of sense should do.\"\n\nAs they walk along, Mr. Snagsby observes, as a novelty, that however\nquick their pace may be, his companion still seems in some\nundefinable manner to lurk and lounge; also, that whenever he is\ngoing to turn to the right or left, he pretends to have a fixed\npurpose in his mind of going straight ahead, and wheels off, sharply,\nat the very last moment. Now and then, when they pass a\npolice-constable on his beat, Mr. Snagsby notices that both the\nconstable and his guide fall into a deep abstraction as they come\ntowards each other, and appear entirely to overlook each other, and\nto gaze into space. In a few instances, Mr. Bucket, coming behind\nsome under-sized young man with a shining hat on, and his sleek hair\ntwisted into one flat curl on each side of his head, almost without\nglancing at him touches him with his stick, upon which the young man,\nlooking round, instantly evaporates. For the most part Mr. Bucket\nnotices things in general, with a face as unchanging as the great\nmourning ring on his little finger or the brooch, composed of not\nmuch diamond and a good deal of setting, which he wears in his shirt.\n\nWhen they come at last to Tom-all-Alone's, Mr. Bucket stops for a\nmoment at the corner and takes a lighted bull's-eye from the\nconstable on duty there, who then accompanies him with his own\nparticular bull's-eye at his waist. Between his two conductors, Mr.\nSnagsby passes along the middle of a villainous street, undrained,\nunventilated, deep in black mud and corrupt water--though the roads\nare dry elsewhere--and reeking with such smells and sights that he,\nwho has lived in London all his life, can scarce believe his senses.\nBranching from this street and its heaps of ruins are other streets\nand courts so infamous that Mr. Snagsby sickens in body and mind and\nfeels as if he were going every moment deeper down into the infernal\ngulf.\n\n\"Draw off a bit here, Mr. Snagsby,\" says Bucket as a kind of shabby\npalanquin is borne towards them, surrounded by a noisy crowd. \"Here's\nthe fever coming up the street!\"\n\nAs the unseen wretch goes by, the crowd, leaving that object of\nattraction, hovers round the three visitors like a dream of horrible\nfaces and fades away up alleys and into ruins and behind walls, and\nwith occasional cries and shrill whistles of warning, thenceforth\nflits about them until they leave the place.\n\n\"Are those the fever-houses, Darby?\" Mr. Bucket coolly asks as he\nturns his bull's-eye on a line of stinking ruins.\n\nDarby replies that \"all them are,\" and further that in all, for\nmonths and months, the people \"have been down by dozens\" and have\nbeen carried out dead and dying \"like sheep with the rot.\" Bucket\nobserving to Mr. Snagsby as they go on again that he looks a little\npoorly, Mr. Snagsby answers that he feels as if he couldn't breathe\nthe dreadful air.\n\nThere is inquiry made at various houses for a boy named Jo. As few\npeople are known in Tom-all-Alone's by any Christian sign, there is\nmuch reference to Mr. Snagsby whether he means Carrots, or the\nColonel, or Gallows, or Young Chisel, or Terrier Tip, or Lanky, or\nthe Brick. Mr. Snagsby describes over and over again. There are\nconflicting opinions respecting the original of his picture. Some\nthink it must be Carrots, some say the Brick. The Colonel is\nproduced, but is not at all near the thing. Whenever Mr. Snagsby and\nhis conductors are stationary, the crowd flows round, and from its\nsqualid depths obsequious advice heaves up to Mr. Bucket. Whenever\nthey move, and the angry bull's-eyes glare, it fades away and flits\nabout them up the alleys, and in the ruins, and behind the walls, as\nbefore.\n\nAt last there is a lair found out where Toughy, or the Tough Subject,\nlays him down at night; and it is thought that the Tough Subject may\nbe Jo. Comparison of notes between Mr. Snagsby and the proprietress\nof the house--a drunken face tied up in a black bundle, and flaring\nout of a heap of rags on the floor of a dog-hutch which is her\nprivate apartment--leads to the establishment of this conclusion.\nToughy has gone to the doctor's to get a bottle of stuff for a sick\nwoman but will be here anon.\n\n\"And who have we got here to-night?\" says Mr. Bucket, opening another\ndoor and glaring in with his bull's-eye. \"Two drunken men, eh? And\ntwo women? The men are sound enough,\" turning back each sleeper's arm\nfrom his face to look at him. \"Are these your good men, my dears?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" returns one of the women. \"They are our husbands.\"\n\n\"Brickmakers, eh?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"What are you doing here? You don't belong to London.\"\n\n\"No, sir. We belong to Hertfordshire.\"\n\n\"Whereabouts in Hertfordshire?\"\n\n\"Saint Albans.\"\n\n\"Come up on the tramp?\"\n\n\"We walked up yesterday. There's no work down with us at present, but\nwe have done no good by coming here, and shall do none, I expect.\"\n\n\"That's not the way to do much good,\" says Mr. Bucket, turning his\nhead in the direction of the unconscious figures on the ground.\n\n\"It an't indeed,\" replies the woman with a sigh. \"Jenny and me knows\nit full well.\"\n\nThe room, though two or three feet higher than the door, is so low\nthat the head of the tallest of the visitors would touch the\nblackened ceiling if he stood upright. It is offensive to every\nsense; even the gross candle burns pale and sickly in the polluted\nair. There are a couple of benches and a higher bench by way of\ntable. The men lie asleep where they stumbled down, but the women sit\nby the candle. Lying in the arms of the woman who has spoken is a\nvery young child.\n\n\"Why, what age do you call that little creature?\" says Bucket. \"It\nlooks as if it was born yesterday.\" He is not at all rough about it;\nand as he turns his light gently on the infant, Mr. Snagsby is\nstrangely reminded of another infant, encircled with light, that he\nhas seen in pictures.\n\n\"He is not three weeks old yet, sir,\" says the woman.\n\n\"Is he your child?\"\n\n\"Mine.\"\n\nThe other woman, who was bending over it when they came in, stoops\ndown again and kisses it as it lies asleep.\n\n\"You seem as fond of it as if you were the mother yourself,\" says Mr.\nBucket.\n\n\"I was the mother of one like it, master, and it died.\"\n\n\"Ah, Jenny, Jenny!\" says the other woman to her. \"Better so. Much\nbetter to think of dead than alive, Jenny! Much better!\"\n\n\"Why, you an't such an unnatural woman, I hope,\" returns Bucket\nsternly, \"as to wish your own child dead?\"\n\n\"God knows you are right, master,\" she returns. \"I am not. I'd stand\nbetween it and death with my own life if I could, as true as any\npretty lady.\"\n\n\"Then don't talk in that wrong manner,\" says Mr. Bucket, mollified\nagain. \"Why do you do it?\"\n\n\"It's brought into my head, master,\" returns the woman, her eyes\nfilling with tears, \"when I look down at the child lying so. If it\nwas never to wake no more, you'd think me mad, I should take on so. I\nknow that very well. I was with Jenny when she lost hers--warn't I,\nJenny?--and I know how she grieved. But look around you at this\nplace. Look at them,\" glancing at the sleepers on the ground. \"Look\nat the boy you're waiting for, who's gone out to do me a good turn.\nThink of the children that your business lays with often and often,\nand that YOU see grow up!\"\n\n\"Well, well,\" says Mr. Bucket, \"you train him respectable, and he'll\nbe a comfort to you, and look after you in your old age, you know.\"\n\n\"I mean to try hard,\" she answers, wiping her eyes. \"But I have been\na-thinking, being over-tired to-night and not well with the ague, of\nall the many things that'll come in his way. My master will be\nagainst it, and he'll be beat, and see me beat, and made to fear his\nhome, and perhaps to stray wild. If I work for him ever so much, and\never so hard, there's no one to help me; and if he should be turned\nbad 'spite of all I could do, and the time should come when I should\nsit by him in his sleep, made hard and changed, an't it likely I\nshould think of him as he lies in my lap now and wish he had died as\nJenny's child died!\"\n\n\"There, there!\" says Jenny. \"Liz, you're tired and ill. Let me take\nhim.\"\n\nIn doing so, she displaces the mother's dress, but quickly readjusts\nit over the wounded and bruised bosom where the baby has been lying.\n\n\"It's my dead child,\" says Jenny, walking up and down as she nurses,\n\"that makes me love this child so dear, and it's my dead child that\nmakes her love it so dear too, as even to think of its being taken\naway from her now. While she thinks that, I think what fortune would\nI give to have my darling back. But we mean the same thing, if we\nknew how to say it, us two mothers does in our poor hearts!\"\n\nAs Mr. Snagsby blows his nose and coughs his cough of sympathy, a\nstep is heard without. Mr. Bucket throws his light into the doorway\nand says to Mr. Snagsby, \"Now, what do you say to Toughy? Will HE\ndo?\"\n\n\"That's Jo,\" says Mr. Snagsby.\n\nJo stands amazed in the disk of light, like a ragged figure in a\nmagic-lantern, trembling to think that he has offended against the\nlaw in not having moved on far enough. Mr. Snagsby, however, giving\nhim the consolatory assurance, \"It's only a job you will be paid for,\nJo,\" he recovers; and on being taken outside by Mr. Bucket for a\nlittle private confabulation, tells his tale satisfactorily, though\nout of breath.\n\n\"I have squared it with the lad,\" says Mr. Bucket, returning, \"and\nit's all right. Now, Mr. Snagsby, we're ready for you.\"\n\nFirst, Jo has to complete his errand of good nature by handing over\nthe physic he has been to get, which he delivers with the laconic\nverbal direction that \"it's to be all took d'rectly.\" Secondly, Mr.\nSnagsby has to lay upon the table half a crown, his usual panacea for\nan immense variety of afflictions. Thirdly, Mr. Bucket has to take Jo\nby the arm a little above the elbow and walk him on before him,\nwithout which observance neither the Tough Subject nor any other\nSubject could be professionally conducted to Lincoln's Inn Fields.\nThese arrangements completed, they give the women good night and come\nout once more into black and foul Tom-all-Alone's.\n\nBy the noisome ways through which they descended into that pit, they\ngradually emerge from it, the crowd flitting, and whistling, and\nskulking about them until they come to the verge, where restoration\nof the bull's-eyes is made to Darby. Here the crowd, like a concourse\nof imprisoned demons, turns back, yelling, and is seen no more.\nThrough the clearer and fresher streets, never so clear and fresh to\nMr. Snagsby's mind as now, they walk and ride until they come to Mr.\nTulkinghorn's gate.\n\nAs they ascend the dim stairs (Mr. Tulkinghorn's chambers being on\nthe first floor), Mr. Bucket mentions that he has the key of the\nouter door in his pocket and that there is no need to ring. For a man\nso expert in most things of that kind, Bucket takes time to open the\ndoor and makes some noise too. It may be that he sounds a note of\npreparation.\n\nHowbeit, they come at last into the hall, where a lamp is burning,\nand so into Mr. Tulkinghorn's usual room--the room where he drank his\nold wine to-night. He is not there, but his two old-fashioned\ncandlesticks are, and the room is tolerably light.\n\nMr. Bucket, still having his professional hold of Jo and appearing to\nMr. Snagsby to possess an unlimited number of eyes, makes a little\nway into this room, when Jo starts and stops.\n\n\"What's the matter?\" says Bucket in a whisper.\n\n\"There she is!\" cries Jo.\n\n\"Who!\"\n\n\"The lady!\"\n\nA female figure, closely veiled, stands in the middle of the room,\nwhere the light falls upon it. It is quite still and silent. The\nfront of the figure is towards them, but it takes no notice of their\nentrance and remains like a statue.\n\n\"Now, tell me,\" says Bucket aloud, \"how you know that to be the\nlady.\"\n\n\"I know the wale,\" replies Jo, staring, \"and the bonnet, and the\ngownd.\"\n\n\"Be quite sure of what you say, Tough,\" returns Bucket, narrowly\nobservant of him. \"Look again.\"\n\n\"I am a-looking as hard as ever I can look,\" says Jo with starting\neyes, \"and that there's the wale, the bonnet, and the gownd.\"\n\n\"What about those rings you told me of?\" asks Bucket.\n\n\"A-sparkling all over here,\" says Jo, rubbing the fingers of his left\nhand on the knuckles of his right without taking his eyes from the\nfigure.\n\nThe figure removes the right-hand glove and shows the hand.\n\n\"Now, what do you say to that?\" asks Bucket.\n\nJo shakes his head. \"Not rings a bit like them. Not a hand like\nthat.\"\n\n\"What are you talking of?\" says Bucket, evidently pleased though, and\nwell pleased too.\n\n\"Hand was a deal whiter, a deal delicater, and a deal smaller,\"\nreturns Jo.\n\n\"Why, you'll tell me I'm my own mother next,\" says Mr. Bucket. \"Do\nyou recollect the lady's voice?\"\n\n\"I think I does,\" says Jo.\n\nThe figure speaks. \"Was it at all like this? I will speak as long as\nyou like if you are not sure. Was it this voice, or at all like this\nvoice?\"\n\nJo looks aghast at Mr. Bucket. \"Not a bit!\"\n\n\"Then, what,\" retorts that worthy, pointing to the figure, \"did you\nsay it was the lady for?\"\n\n\"Cos,\" says Jo with a perplexed stare but without being at all shaken\nin his certainty, \"cos that there's the wale, the bonnet, and the\ngownd. It is her and it an't her. It an't her hand, nor yet her\nrings, nor yet her woice. But that there's the wale, the bonnet, and\nthe gownd, and they're wore the same way wot she wore 'em, and it's\nher height wot she wos, and she giv me a sov'ring and hooked it.\"\n\n\"Well!\" says Mr. Bucket slightly, \"we haven't got much good out of\nYOU. But, however, here's five shillings for you. Take care how you\nspend it, and don't get yourself into trouble.\" Bucket stealthily\ntells the coins from one hand into the other like counters--which is\na way he has, his principal use of them being in these games of\nskill--and then puts them, in a little pile, into the boy's hand and\ntakes him out to the door, leaving Mr. Snagsby, not by any means\ncomfortable under these mysterious circumstances, alone with the\nveiled figure. But on Mr. Tulkinghorn's coming into the room, the\nveil is raised and a sufficiently good-looking Frenchwoman is\nrevealed, though her expression is something of the intensest.\n\n\"Thank you, Mademoiselle Hortense,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn with his\nusual equanimity. \"I will give you no further trouble about this\nlittle wager.\"\n\n\"You will do me the kindness to remember, sir, that I am not at\npresent placed?\" says mademoiselle.\n\n\"Certainly, certainly!\"\n\n\"And to confer upon me the favour of your distinguished\nrecommendation?\"\n\n\"By all means, Mademoiselle Hortense.\"\n\n\"A word from Mr. Tulkinghorn is so powerful.\"\n\n\"It shall not be wanting, mademoiselle.\"\n\n\"Receive the assurance of my devoted gratitude, dear sir.\"\n\n\"Good night.\"\n\nMademoiselle goes out with an air of native gentility; and Mr.\nBucket, to whom it is, on an emergency, as natural to be groom of the\nceremonies as it is to be anything else, shows her downstairs, not\nwithout gallantry.\n\n\"Well, Bucket?\" quoth Mr. Tulkinghorn on his return.\n\n\"It's all squared, you see, as I squared it myself, sir. There an't a\ndoubt that it was the other one with this one's dress on. The boy was\nexact respecting colours and everything. Mr. Snagsby, I promised you\nas a man that he should be sent away all right. Don't say it wasn't\ndone!\"\n\n\"You have kept your word, sir,\" returns the stationer; \"and if I can\nbe of no further use, Mr. Tulkinghorn, I think, as my little woman\nwill be getting anxious--\"\n\n\"Thank you, Snagsby, no further use,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. \"I am\nquite indebted to you for the trouble you have taken already.\"\n\n\"Not at all, sir. I wish you good night.\"\n\n\"You see, Mr. Snagsby,\" says Mr. Bucket, accompanying him to the door\nand shaking hands with him over and over again, \"what I like in you\nis that you're a man it's of no use pumping; that's what YOU are.\nWhen you know you have done a right thing, you put it away, and it's\ndone with and gone, and there's an end of it. That's what YOU do.\"\n\n\"That is certainly what I endeavour to do, sir,\" returns Mr. Snagsby.\n\n\"No, you don't do yourself justice. It an't what you endeavour to\ndo,\" says Mr. Bucket, shaking hands with him and blessing him in the\ntenderest manner, \"it's what you DO. That's what I estimate in a man\nin your way of business.\"\n\nMr. Snagsby makes a suitable response and goes homeward so confused\nby the events of the evening that he is doubtful of his being awake\nand out--doubtful of the reality of the streets through which he\ngoes--doubtful of the reality of the moon that shines above him. He\nis presently reassured on these subjects by the unchallengeable\nreality of Mrs. Snagsby, sitting up with her head in a perfect\nbeehive of curl-papers and night-cap, who has dispatched Guster to\nthe police-station with official intelligence of her husband's being\nmade away with, and who within the last two hours has passed through\nevery stage of swooning with the greatest decorum. But as the little\nwoman feelingly says, many thanks she gets for it!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII\n\nEsther's Narrative\n\n\nWe came home from Mr. Boythorn's after six pleasant weeks. We were\noften in the park and in the woods and seldom passed the lodge where\nwe had taken shelter without looking in to speak to the keeper's\nwife; but we saw no more of Lady Dedlock, except at church on\nSundays. There was company at Chesney Wold; and although several\nbeautiful faces surrounded her, her face retained the same influence\non me as at first. I do not quite know even now whether it was\npainful or pleasurable, whether it drew me towards her or made me\nshrink from her. I think I admired her with a kind of fear, and I\nknow that in her presence my thoughts always wandered back, as they\nhad done at first, to that old time of my life.\n\nI had a fancy, on more than one of these Sundays, that what this lady\nso curiously was to me, I was to her--I mean that I disturbed her\nthoughts as she influenced mine, though in some different way. But\nwhen I stole a glance at her and saw her so composed and distant and\nunapproachable, I felt this to be a foolish weakness. Indeed, I felt\nthe whole state of my mind in reference to her to be weak and\nunreasonable, and I remonstrated with myself about it as much as I\ncould.\n\nOne incident that occurred before we quitted Mr. Boythorn's house, I\nhad better mention in this place.\n\nI was walking in the garden with Ada when I was told that some one\nwished to see me. Going into the breakfast-room where this person was\nwaiting, I found it to be the French maid who had cast off her shoes\nand walked through the wet grass on the day when it thundered and\nlightened.\n\n\"Mademoiselle,\" she began, looking fixedly at me with her too-eager\neyes, though otherwise presenting an agreeable appearance and\nspeaking neither with boldness nor servility, \"I have taken a great\nliberty in coming here, but you know how to excuse it, being so\namiable, mademoiselle.\"\n\n\"No excuse is necessary,\" I returned, \"if you wish to speak to me.\"\n\n\"That is my desire, mademoiselle. A thousand thanks for the\npermission. I have your leave to speak. Is it not?\" she said in a\nquick, natural way.\n\n\"Certainly,\" said I.\n\n\"Mademoiselle, you are so amiable! Listen then, if you please. I have\nleft my Lady. We could not agree. My Lady is so high, so very high.\nPardon! Mademoiselle, you are right!\" Her quickness anticipated what\nI might have said presently but as yet had only thought. \"It is not\nfor me to come here to complain of my Lady. But I say she is so high,\nso very high. I will not say a word more. All the world knows that.\"\n\n\"Go on, if you please,\" said I.\n\n\"Assuredly; mademoiselle, I am thankful for your politeness.\nMademoiselle, I have an inexpressible desire to find service with a\nyoung lady who is good, accomplished, beautiful. You are good,\naccomplished, and beautiful as an angel. Ah, could I have the honour\nof being your domestic!\"\n\n\"I am sorry--\" I began.\n\n\"Do not dismiss me so soon, mademoiselle!\" she said with an\ninvoluntary contraction of her fine black eyebrows. \"Let me hope a\nmoment! Mademoiselle, I know this service would be more retired than\nthat which I have quitted. Well! I wish that. I know this service\nwould be less distinguished than that which I have quitted. Well! I\nwish that, I know that I should win less, as to wages here. Good. I\nam content.\"\n\n\"I assure you,\" said I, quite embarrassed by the mere idea of having\nsuch an attendant, \"that I keep no maid--\"\n\n\"Ah, mademoiselle, but why not? Why not, when you can have one so\ndevoted to you! Who would be enchanted to serve you; who would be so\ntrue, so zealous, and so faithful every day! Mademoiselle, I wish\nwith all my heart to serve you. Do not speak of money at present.\nTake me as I am. For nothing!\"\n\nShe was so singularly earnest that I drew back, almost afraid of her.\nWithout appearing to notice it, in her ardour she still pressed\nherself upon me, speaking in a rapid subdued voice, though always\nwith a certain grace and propriety.\n\n\"Mademoiselle, I come from the South country where we are quick and\nwhere we like and dislike very strong. My Lady was too high for me; I\nwas too high for her. It is done--past--finished! Receive me as your\ndomestic, and I will serve you well. I will do more for you than you\nfigure to yourself now. Chut! Mademoiselle, I will--no matter, I will\ndo my utmost possible in all things. If you accept my service, you\nwill not repent it. Mademoiselle, you will not repent it, and I will\nserve you well. You don't know how well!\"\n\nThere was a lowering energy in her face as she stood looking at me\nwhile I explained the impossibility of my engaging her (without\nthinking it necessary to say how very little I desired to do so),\nwhich seemed to bring visibly before me some woman from the streets\nof Paris in the reign of terror.\n\nShe heard me out without interruption and then said with her pretty\naccent and in her mildest voice, \"Hey, mademoiselle, I have received\nmy answer! I am sorry of it. But I must go elsewhere and seek what I\nhave not found here. Will you graciously let me kiss your hand?\"\n\nShe looked at me more intently as she took it, and seemed to take\nnote, with her momentary touch, of every vein in it. \"I fear I\nsurprised you, mademoiselle, on the day of the storm?\" she said with\na parting curtsy.\n\nI confessed that she had surprised us all.\n\n\"I took an oath, mademoiselle,\" she said, smiling, \"and I wanted to\nstamp it on my mind so that I might keep it faithfully. And I will!\nAdieu, mademoiselle!\"\n\nSo ended our conference, which I was very glad to bring to a close. I\nsupposed she went away from the village, for I saw her no more; and\nnothing else occurred to disturb our tranquil summer pleasures until\nsix weeks were out and we returned home as I began just now by\nsaying.\n\nAt that time, and for a good many weeks after that time, Richard was\nconstant in his visits. Besides coming every Saturday or Sunday and\nremaining with us until Monday morning, he sometimes rode out on\nhorseback unexpectedly and passed the evening with us and rode back\nagain early next day. He was as vivacious as ever and told us he was\nvery industrious, but I was not easy in my mind about him. It\nappeared to me that his industry was all misdirected. I could not\nfind that it led to anything but the formation of delusive hopes in\nconnexion with the suit already the pernicious cause of so much\nsorrow and ruin. He had got at the core of that mystery now, he told\nus, and nothing could be plainer than that the will under which he\nand Ada were to take I don't know how many thousands of pounds must\nbe finally established if there were any sense or justice in the\nCourt of Chancery--but oh, what a great IF that sounded in my\nears--and that this happy conclusion could not be much longer\ndelayed. He proved this to himself by all the weary arguments on that\nside he had read, and every one of them sunk him deeper in the\ninfatuation. He had even begun to haunt the court. He told us how he\nsaw Miss Flite there daily, how they talked together, and how he did\nher little kindnesses, and how, while he laughed at her, he pitied\nher from his heart. But he never thought--never, my poor, dear,\nsanguine Richard, capable of so much happiness then, and with such\nbetter things before him--what a fatal link was riveting between his\nfresh youth and her faded age, between his free hopes and her caged\nbirds, and her hungry garret, and her wandering mind.\n\nAda loved him too well to mistrust him much in anything he said or\ndid, and my guardian, though he frequently complained of the east\nwind and read more than usual in the growlery, preserved a strict\nsilence on the subject. So I thought one day when I went to London to\nmeet Caddy Jellyby, at her solicitation, I would ask Richard to be in\nwaiting for me at the coach-office, that we might have a little talk\ntogether. I found him there when I arrived, and we walked away arm in\narm.\n\n\"Well, Richard,\" said I as soon as I could begin to be grave with\nhim, \"are you beginning to feel more settled now?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, my dear!\" returned Richard. \"I'm all right enough.\"\n\n\"But settled?\" said I.\n\n\"How do you mean, settled?\" returned Richard with his gay laugh.\n\n\"Settled in the law,\" said I.\n\n\"Oh, aye,\" replied Richard, \"I'm all right enough.\"\n\n\"You said that before, my dear Richard.\"\n\n\"And you don't think it's an answer, eh? Well! Perhaps it's not.\nSettled? You mean, do I feel as if I were settling down?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Why, no, I can't say I am settling down,\" said Richard, strongly\nemphasizing \"down,\" as if that expressed the difficulty, \"because one\ncan't settle down while this business remains in such an unsettled\nstate. When I say this business, of course I mean the--forbidden\nsubject.\"\n\n\"Do you think it will ever be in a settled state?\" said I.\n\n\"Not the least doubt of it,\" answered Richard.\n\nWe walked a little way without speaking, and presently Richard\naddressed me in his frankest and most feeling manner, thus: \"My dear\nEsther, I understand you, and I wish to heaven I were a more constant\nsort of fellow. I don't mean constant to Ada, for I love her\ndearly--better and better every day--but constant to myself.\n(Somehow, I mean something that I can't very well express, but you'll\nmake it out.) If I were a more constant sort of fellow, I should have\nheld on either to Badger or to Kenge and Carboy like grim death, and\nshould have begun to be steady and systematic by this time, and\nshouldn't be in debt, and--\"\n\n\"ARE you in debt, Richard?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Richard, \"I am a little so, my dear. Also, I have taken\nrather too much to billiards and that sort of thing. Now the murder's\nout; you despise me, Esther, don't you?\"\n\n\"You know I don't,\" said I.\n\n\"You are kinder to me than I often am to myself,\" he returned. \"My\ndear Esther, I am a very unfortunate dog not to be more settled, but\nhow CAN I be more settled? If you lived in an unfinished house, you\ncouldn't settle down in it; if you were condemned to leave everything\nyou undertook unfinished, you would find it hard to apply yourself to\nanything; and yet that's my unhappy case. I was born into this\nunfinished contention with all its chances and changes, and it began\nto unsettle me before I quite knew the difference between a suit at\nlaw and a suit of clothes; and it has gone on unsettling me ever\nsince; and here I am now, conscious sometimes that I am but a\nworthless fellow to love my confiding cousin Ada.\"\n\nWe were in a solitary place, and he put his hands before his eyes and\nsobbed as he said the words.\n\n\"Oh, Richard!\" said I. \"Do not be so moved. You have a noble nature,\nand Ada's love may make you worthier every day.\"\n\n\"I know, my dear,\" he replied, pressing my arm, \"I know all that. You\nmustn't mind my being a little soft now, for I have had all this upon\nmy mind for a long time, and have often meant to speak to you, and\nhave sometimes wanted opportunity and sometimes courage. I know what\nthe thought of Ada ought to do for me, but it doesn't do it. I am too\nunsettled even for that. I love her most devotedly, and yet I do her\nwrong, in doing myself wrong, every day and hour. But it can't last\nfor ever. We shall come on for a final hearing and get judgment in\nour favour, and then you and Ada shall see what I can really be!\"\n\nIt had given me a pang to hear him sob and see the tears start out\nbetween his fingers, but that was infinitely less affecting to me\nthan the hopeful animation with which he said these words.\n\n\"I have looked well into the papers, Esther. I have been deep in them\nfor months,\" he continued, recovering his cheerfulness in a moment,\n\"and you may rely upon it that we shall come out triumphant. As to\nyears of delay, there has been no want of them, heaven knows! And\nthere is the greater probability of our bringing the matter to a\nspeedy close; in fact, it's on the paper now. It will be all right at\nlast, and then you shall see!\"\n\nRecalling how he had just now placed Messrs. Kenge and Carboy in the\nsame category with Mr. Badger, I asked him when he intended to be\narticled in Lincoln's Inn.\n\n\"There again! I think not at all, Esther,\" he returned with an\neffort. \"I fancy I have had enough of it. Having worked at Jarndyce\nand Jarndyce like a galley slave, I have slaked my thirst for the law\nand satisfied myself that I shouldn't like it. Besides, I find it\nunsettles me more and more to be so constantly upon the scene of\naction. So what,\" continued Richard, confident again by this time,\n\"do I naturally turn my thoughts to?\"\n\n\"I can't imagine,\" said I.\n\n\"Don't look so serious,\" returned Richard, \"because it's the best\nthing I can do, my dear Esther, I am certain. It's not as if I wanted\na profession for life. These proceedings will come to a termination,\nand then I am provided for. No. I look upon it as a pursuit which is\nin its nature more or less unsettled, and therefore suited to my\ntemporary condition--I may say, precisely suited. What is it that I\nnaturally turn my thoughts to?\"\n\nI looked at him and shook my head.\n\n\"What,\" said Richard, in a tone of perfect conviction, \"but the\narmy!\"\n\n\"The army?\" said I.\n\n\"The army, of course. What I have to do is to get a commission;\nand--there I am, you know!\" said Richard.\n\nAnd then he showed me, proved by elaborate calculations in his\npocket-book, that supposing he had contracted, say, two hundred\npounds of debt in six months out of the army; and that he contracted\nno debt at all within a corresponding period in the army--as to which\nhe had quite made up his mind; this step must involve a saving of\nfour hundred pounds in a year, or two thousand pounds in five years,\nwhich was a considerable sum. And then he spoke so ingenuously and\nsincerely of the sacrifice he made in withdrawing himself for a time\nfrom Ada, and of the earnestness with which he aspired--as in thought\nhe always did, I know full well--to repay her love, and to ensure her\nhappiness, and to conquer what was amiss in himself, and to acquire\nthe very soul of decision, that he made my heart ache keenly, sorely.\nFor, I thought, how would this end, how could this end, when so soon\nand so surely all his manly qualities were touched by the fatal\nblight that ruined everything it rested on!\n\nI spoke to Richard with all the earnestness I felt, and all the hope\nI could not quite feel then, and implored him for Ada's sake not to\nput any trust in Chancery. To all I said, Richard readily assented,\nriding over the court and everything else in his easy way and drawing\nthe brightest pictures of the character he was to settle into--alas,\nwhen the grievous suit should loose its hold upon him! We had a long\ntalk, but it always came back to that, in substance.\n\nAt last we came to Soho Square, where Caddy Jellyby had appointed to\nwait for me, as a quiet place in the neighbourhood of Newman Street.\nCaddy was in the garden in the centre and hurried out as soon as I\nappeared. After a few cheerful words, Richard left us together.\n\n\"Prince has a pupil over the way, Esther,\" said Caddy, \"and got the\nkey for us. So if you will walk round and round here with me, we can\nlock ourselves in and I can tell you comfortably what I wanted to see\nyour dear good face about.\"\n\n\"Very well, my dear,\" said I. \"Nothing could be better.\" So Caddy,\nafter affectionately squeezing the dear good face as she called it,\nlocked the gate, and took my arm, and we began to walk round the\ngarden very cosily.\n\n\"You see, Esther,\" said Caddy, who thoroughly enjoyed a little\nconfidence, \"after you spoke to me about its being wrong to marry\nwithout Ma's knowledge, or even to keep Ma long in the dark\nrespecting our engagement--though I don't believe Ma cares much for\nme, I must say--I thought it right to mention your opinions to\nPrince. In the first place because I want to profit by everything you\ntell me, and in the second place because I have no secrets from\nPrince.\"\n\n\"I hope he approved, Caddy?\"\n\n\"Oh, my dear! I assure you he would approve of anything you could\nsay. You have no idea what an opinion he has of you!\"\n\n\"Indeed!\"\n\n\"Esther, it's enough to make anybody but me jealous,\" said Caddy,\nlaughing and shaking her head; \"but it only makes me joyful, for you\nare the first friend I ever had, and the best friend I ever can have,\nand nobody can respect and love you too much to please me.\"\n\n\"Upon my word, Caddy,\" said I, \"you are in the general conspiracy to\nkeep me in a good humour. Well, my dear?\"\n\n\"Well! I am going to tell you,\" replied Caddy, crossing her hands\nconfidentially upon my arm. \"So we talked a good deal about it, and\nso I said to Prince, 'Prince, as Miss Summerson--'\"\n\n\"I hope you didn't say 'Miss Summerson'?\"\n\n\"No. I didn't!\" cried Caddy, greatly pleased and with the brightest\nof faces. \"I said, 'Esther.' I said to Prince, 'As Esther is\ndecidedly of that opinion, Prince, and has expressed it to me, and\nalways hints it when she writes those kind notes, which you are so\nfond of hearing me read to you, I am prepared to disclose the truth\nto Ma whenever you think proper. And I think, Prince,' said I, 'that\nEsther thinks that I should be in a better, and truer, and more\nhonourable position altogether if you did the same to your papa.'\"\n\n\"Yes, my dear,\" said I. \"Esther certainly does think so.\"\n\n\"So I was right, you see!\" exclaimed Caddy. \"Well! This troubled\nPrince a good deal, not because he had the least doubt about it, but\nbecause he is so considerate of the feelings of old Mr. Turveydrop;\nand he had his apprehensions that old Mr. Turveydrop might break his\nheart, or faint away, or be very much overcome in some affecting\nmanner or other if he made such an announcement. He feared old Mr.\nTurveydrop might consider it undutiful and might receive too great a\nshock. For old Mr. Turveydrop's deportment is very beautiful, you\nknow, Esther,\" said Caddy, \"and his feelings are extremely\nsensitive.\"\n\n\"Are they, my dear?\"\n\n\"Oh, extremely sensitive. Prince says so. Now, this has caused my\ndarling child--I didn't mean to use the expression to you, Esther,\"\nCaddy apologized, her face suffused with blushes, \"but I generally\ncall Prince my darling child.\"\n\nI laughed; and Caddy laughed and blushed, and went on.\n\n\"This has caused him, Esther--\"\n\n\"Caused whom, my dear?\"\n\n\"Oh, you tiresome thing!\" said Caddy, laughing, with her pretty face\non fire. \"My darling child, if you insist upon it! This has caused\nhim weeks of uneasiness and has made him delay, from day to day, in a\nvery anxious manner. At last he said to me, 'Caddy, if Miss\nSummerson, who is a great favourite with my father, could be\nprevailed upon to be present when I broke the subject, I think I\ncould do it.' So I promised I would ask you. And I made up my mind,\nbesides,\" said Caddy, looking at me hopefully but timidly, \"that if\nyou consented, I would ask you afterwards to come with me to Ma. This\nis what I meant when I said in my note that I had a great favour and\na great assistance to beg of you. And if you thought you could grant\nit, Esther, we should both be very grateful.\"\n\n\"Let me see, Caddy,\" said I, pretending to consider. \"Really, I think\nI could do a greater thing than that if the need were pressing. I am\nat your service and the darling child's, my dear, whenever you like.\"\n\nCaddy was quite transported by this reply of mine, being, I believe,\nas susceptible to the least kindness or encouragement as any tender\nheart that ever beat in this world; and after another turn or two\nround the garden, during which she put on an entirely new pair of\ngloves and made herself as resplendent as possible that she might do\nno avoidable discredit to the Master of Deportment, we went to Newman\nStreet direct.\n\nPrince was teaching, of course. We found him engaged with a not very\nhopeful pupil--a stubborn little girl with a sulky forehead, a deep\nvoice, and an inanimate, dissatisfied mama--whose case was certainly\nnot rendered more hopeful by the confusion into which we threw her\npreceptor. The lesson at last came to an end, after proceeding as\ndiscordantly as possible; and when the little girl had changed her\nshoes and had had her white muslin extinguished in shawls, she was\ntaken away. After a few words of preparation, we then went in search\nof Mr. Turveydrop, whom we found, grouped with his hat and gloves, as\na model of deportment, on the sofa in his private apartment--the only\ncomfortable room in the house. He appeared to have dressed at his\nleisure in the intervals of a light collation, and his dressing-case,\nbrushes, and so forth, all of quite an elegant kind, lay about.\n\n\"Father, Miss Summerson; Miss Jellyby.\"\n\n\"Charmed! Enchanted!\" said Mr. Turveydrop, rising with his\nhigh-shouldered bow. \"Permit me!\" Handing chairs. \"Be seated!\"\nKissing the tips of his left fingers. \"Overjoyed!\" Shutting his eyes\nand rolling. \"My little retreat is made a paradise.\" Recomposing\nhimself on the sofa like the second gentleman in Europe.\n\n\"Again you find us, Miss Summerson,\" said he, \"using our little arts\nto polish, polish! Again the sex stimulates us and rewards us by the\ncondescension of its lovely presence. It is much in these times (and\nwe have made an awfully degenerating business of it since the days of\nhis Royal Highness the Prince Regent--my patron, if I may presume to\nsay so) to experience that deportment is not wholly trodden under\nfoot by mechanics. That it can yet bask in the smile of beauty, my\ndear madam.\"\n\nI said nothing, which I thought a suitable reply; and he took a pinch\nof snuff.\n\n\"My dear son,\" said Mr. Turveydrop, \"you have four schools this\nafternoon. I would recommend a hasty sandwich.\"\n\n\"Thank you, father,\" returned Prince, \"I will be sure to be punctual.\nMy dear father, may I beg you to prepare your mind for what I am\ngoing to say?\"\n\n\"Good heaven!\" exclaimed the model, pale and aghast as Prince and\nCaddy, hand in hand, bent down before him. \"What is this? Is this\nlunacy! Or what is this?\"\n\n\"Father,\" returned Prince with great submission, \"I love this young\nlady, and we are engaged.\"\n\n\"Engaged!\" cried Mr. Turveydrop, reclining on the sofa and shutting\nout the sight with his hand. \"An arrow launched at my brain by my own\nchild!\"\n\n\"We have been engaged for some time, father,\" faltered Prince, \"and\nMiss Summerson, hearing of it, advised that we should declare the\nfact to you and was so very kind as to attend on the present\noccasion. Miss Jellyby is a young lady who deeply respects you,\nfather.\"\n\nMr. Turveydrop uttered a groan.\n\n\"No, pray don't! Pray don't, father,\" urged his son. \"Miss Jellyby is\na young lady who deeply respects you, and our first desire is to\nconsider your comfort.\"\n\nMr. Turveydrop sobbed.\n\n\"No, pray don't, father!\" cried his son.\n\n\"Boy,\" said Mr. Turveydrop, \"it is well that your sainted mother is\nspared this pang. Strike deep, and spare not. Strike home, sir,\nstrike home!\"\n\n\"Pray don't say so, father,\" implored Prince, in tears. \"It goes to\nmy heart. I do assure you, father, that our first wish and intention\nis to consider your comfort. Caroline and I do not forget our\nduty--what is my duty is Caroline's, as we have often said\ntogether--and with your approval and consent, father, we will devote\nourselves to making your life agreeable.\"\n\n\"Strike home,\" murmured Mr. Turveydrop. \"Strike home!\" But he seemed\nto listen, I thought, too.\n\n\"My dear father,\" returned Prince, \"we well know what little comforts\nyou are accustomed to and have a right to, and it will always be our\nstudy and our pride to provide those before anything. If you will\nbless us with your approval and consent, father, we shall not think\nof being married until it is quite agreeable to you; and when we ARE\nmarried, we shall always make you--of course--our first\nconsideration. You must ever be the head and master here, father; and\nwe feel how truly unnatural it would be in us if we failed to know it\nor if we failed to exert ourselves in every possible way to please\nyou.\"\n\nMr. Turveydrop underwent a severe internal struggle and came upright\non the sofa again with his cheeks puffing over his stiff cravat, a\nperfect model of parental deportment.\n\n\"My son!\" said Mr. Turveydrop. \"My children! I cannot resist your\nprayer. Be happy!\"\n\nHis benignity as he raised his future daughter-in-law and stretched\nout his hand to his son (who kissed it with affectionate respect and\ngratitude) was the most confusing sight I ever saw.\n\n\"My children,\" said Mr. Turveydrop, paternally encircling Caddy with\nhis left arm as she sat beside him, and putting his right hand\ngracefully on his hip. \"My son and daughter, your happiness shall be\nmy care. I will watch over you. You shall always live with\nme\"--meaning, of course, I will always live with you--\"this house is\nhenceforth as much yours as mine; consider it your home. May you long\nlive to share it with me!\"\n\nThe power of his deportment was such that they really were as much\novercome with thankfulness as if, instead of quartering himself upon\nthem for the rest of his life, he were making some munificent\nsacrifice in their favour.\n\n\"For myself, my children,\" said Mr. Turveydrop, \"I am falling into\nthe sear and yellow leaf, and it is impossible to say how long the\nlast feeble traces of gentlemanly deportment may linger in this\nweaving and spinning age. But, so long, I will do my duty to society\nand will show myself, as usual, about town. My wants are few and\nsimple. My little apartment here, my few essentials for the toilet,\nmy frugal morning meal, and my little dinner will suffice. I charge\nyour dutiful affection with the supply of these requirements, and I\ncharge myself with all the rest.\"\n\nThey were overpowered afresh by his uncommon generosity.\n\n\"My son,\" said Mr. Turveydrop, \"for those little points in which you\nare deficient--points of deportment, which are born with a man, which\nmay be improved by cultivation, but can never be originated--you may\nstill rely on me. I have been faithful to my post since the days of\nhis Royal Highness the Prince Regent, and I will not desert it now.\nNo, my son. If you have ever contemplated your father's poor position\nwith a feeling of pride, you may rest assured that he will do nothing\nto tarnish it. For yourself, Prince, whose character is different (we\ncannot be all alike, nor is it advisable that we should), work, be\nindustrious, earn money, and extend the connexion as much as\npossible.\"\n\n\"That you may depend I will do, dear father, with all my heart,\"\nreplied Prince.\n\n\"I have no doubt of it,\" said Mr. Turveydrop. \"Your qualities are not\nshining, my dear child, but they are steady and useful. And to both\nof you, my children, I would merely observe, in the spirit of a\nsainted wooman on whose path I had the happiness of casting, I\nbelieve, SOME ray of light, take care of the establishment, take care\nof my simple wants, and bless you both!\"\n\nOld Mr. Turveydrop then became so very gallant, in honour of the\noccasion, that I told Caddy we must really go to Thavies Inn at once\nif we were to go at all that day. So we took our departure after a\nvery loving farewell between Caddy and her betrothed, and during our\nwalk she was so happy and so full of old Mr. Turveydrop's praises\nthat I would not have said a word in his disparagement for any\nconsideration.\n\nThe house in Thavies Inn had bills in the windows announcing that it\nwas to let, and it looked dirtier and gloomier and ghastlier than\never. The name of poor Mr. Jellyby had appeared in the list of\nbankrupts but a day or two before, and he was shut up in the\ndining-room with two gentlemen and a heap of blue bags,\naccount-books, and papers, making the most desperate endeavours to\nunderstand his affairs. They appeared to me to be quite beyond his\ncomprehension, for when Caddy took me into the dining-room by mistake\nand we came upon Mr. Jellyby in his spectacles, forlornly fenced into\na corner by the great dining-table and the two gentlemen, he seemed\nto have given up the whole thing and to be speechless and insensible.\n\nGoing upstairs to Mrs. Jellyby's room (the children were all\nscreaming in the kitchen, and there was no servant to be seen), we\nfound that lady in the midst of a voluminous correspondence, opening,\nreading, and sorting letters, with a great accumulation of torn\ncovers on the floor. She was so preoccupied that at first she did not\nknow me, though she sat looking at me with that curious, bright-eyed,\nfar-off look of hers.\n\n\"Ah! Miss Summerson!\" she said at last. \"I was thinking of something\nso different! I hope you are well. I am happy to see you. Mr.\nJarndyce and Miss Clare quite well?\"\n\nI hoped in return that Mr. Jellyby was quite well.\n\n\"Why, not quite, my dear,\" said Mrs. Jellyby in the calmest manner.\n\"He has been unfortunate in his affairs and is a little out of\nspirits. Happily for me, I am so much engaged that I have no time to\nthink about it. We have, at the present moment, one hundred and\nseventy families, Miss Summerson, averaging five persons in each,\neither gone or going to the left bank of the Niger.\"\n\nI thought of the one family so near us who were neither gone nor\ngoing to the left bank of the Niger, and wondered how she could be so\nplacid.\n\n\"You have brought Caddy back, I see,\" observed Mrs. Jellyby with a\nglance at her daughter. \"It has become quite a novelty to see her\nhere. She has almost deserted her old employment and in fact obliges\nme to employ a boy.\"\n\n\"I am sure, Ma--\" began Caddy.\n\n\"Now you know, Caddy,\" her mother mildly interposed, \"that I DO\nemploy a boy, who is now at his dinner. What is the use of your\ncontradicting?\"\n\n\"I was not going to contradict, Ma,\" returned Caddy. \"I was only\ngoing to say that surely you wouldn't have me be a mere drudge all my\nlife.\"\n\n\"I believe, my dear,\" said Mrs. Jellyby, still opening her letters,\ncasting her bright eyes smilingly over them, and sorting them as she\nspoke, \"that you have a business example before you in your mother.\nBesides. A mere drudge? If you had any sympathy with the destinies of\nthe human race, it would raise you high above any such idea. But you\nhave none. I have often told you, Caddy, you have no such sympathy.\"\n\n\"Not if it's Africa, Ma, I have not.\"\n\n\"Of course you have not. Now, if I were not happily so much engaged,\nMiss Summerson,\" said Mrs. Jellyby, sweetly casting her eyes for a\nmoment on me and considering where to put the particular letter she\nhad just opened, \"this would distress and disappoint me. But I have\nso much to think of, in connexion with Borrioboola-Gha and it is so\nnecessary I should concentrate myself that there is my remedy, you\nsee.\"\n\nAs Caddy gave me a glance of entreaty, and as Mrs. Jellyby was\nlooking far away into Africa straight through my bonnet and head, I\nthought it a good opportunity to come to the subject of my visit and\nto attract Mrs. Jellyby's attention.\n\n\"Perhaps,\" I began, \"you will wonder what has brought me here to\ninterrupt you.\"\n\n\"I am always delighted to see Miss Summerson,\" said Mrs. Jellyby,\npursuing her employment with a placid smile. \"Though I wish,\" and she\nshook her head, \"she was more interested in the Borrioboolan\nproject.\"\n\n\"I have come with Caddy,\" said I, \"because Caddy justly thinks she\nought not to have a secret from her mother and fancies I shall\nencourage and aid her (though I am sure I don't know how) in\nimparting one.\"\n\n\"Caddy,\" said Mrs. Jellyby, pausing for a moment in her occupation\nand then serenely pursuing it after shaking her head, \"you are going\nto tell me some nonsense.\"\n\nCaddy untied the strings of her bonnet, took her bonnet off, and\nletting it dangle on the floor by the strings, and crying heartily,\nsaid, \"Ma, I am engaged.\"\n\n\"Oh, you ridiculous child!\" observed Mrs. Jellyby with an abstracted\nair as she looked over the dispatch last opened; \"what a goose you\nare!\"\n\n\"I am engaged, Ma,\" sobbed Caddy, \"to young Mr. Turveydrop, at the\nacademy; and old Mr. Turveydrop (who is a very gentlemanly man\nindeed) has given his consent, and I beg and pray you'll give us\nyours, Ma, because I never could be happy without it. I never, never\ncould!\" sobbed Caddy, quite forgetful of her general complainings and\nof everything but her natural affection.\n\n\"You see again, Miss Summerson,\" observed Mrs. Jellyby serenely,\n\"what a happiness it is to be so much occupied as I am and to have\nthis necessity for self-concentration that I have. Here is Caddy\nengaged to a dancing-master's son--mixed up with people who have no\nmore sympathy with the destinies of the human race than she has\nherself! This, too, when Mr. Quale, one of the first philanthropists\nof our time, has mentioned to me that he was really disposed to be\ninterested in her!\"\n\n\"Ma, I always hated and detested Mr. Quale!\" sobbed Caddy.\n\n\"Caddy, Caddy!\" returned Mrs. Jellyby, opening another letter with\nthe greatest complacency. \"I have no doubt you did. How could you do\notherwise, being totally destitute of the sympathies with which he\noverflows! Now, if my public duties were not a favourite child to me,\nif I were not occupied with large measures on a vast scale, these\npetty details might grieve me very much, Miss Summerson. But can I\npermit the film of a silly proceeding on the part of Caddy (from whom\nI expect nothing else) to interpose between me and the great African\ncontinent? No. No,\" repeated Mrs. Jellyby in a calm clear voice, and\nwith an agreeable smile, as she opened more letters and sorted them.\n\"No, indeed.\"\n\nI was so unprepared for the perfect coolness of this reception,\nthough I might have expected it, that I did not know what to say.\nCaddy seemed equally at a loss. Mrs. Jellyby continued to open and\nsort letters and to repeat occasionally in quite a charming tone of\nvoice and with a smile of perfect composure, \"No, indeed.\"\n\n\"I hope, Ma,\" sobbed poor Caddy at last, \"you are not angry?\"\n\n\"Oh, Caddy, you really are an absurd girl,\" returned Mrs. Jellyby,\n\"to ask such questions after what I have said of the preoccupation of\nmy mind.\"\n\n\"And I hope, Ma, you give us your consent and wish us well?\" said\nCaddy.\n\n\"You are a nonsensical child to have done anything of this kind,\"\nsaid Mrs. Jellyby; \"and a degenerate child, when you might have\ndevoted yourself to the great public measure. But the step is taken,\nand I have engaged a boy, and there is no more to be said. Now, pray,\nCaddy,\" said Mrs. Jellyby, for Caddy was kissing her, \"don't delay me\nin my work, but let me clear off this heavy batch of papers before\nthe afternoon post comes in!\"\n\nI thought I could not do better than take my leave; I was detained\nfor a moment by Caddy's saying, \"You won't object to my bringing him\nto see you, Ma?\"\n\n\"Oh, dear me, Caddy,\" cried Mrs. Jellyby, who had relapsed into that\ndistant contemplation, \"have you begun again? Bring whom?\"\n\n\"Him, Ma.\"\n\n\"Caddy, Caddy!\" said Mrs. Jellyby, quite weary of such little\nmatters. \"Then you must bring him some evening which is not a Parent\nSociety night, or a Branch night, or a Ramification night. You must\naccommodate the visit to the demands upon my time. My dear Miss\nSummerson, it was very kind of you to come here to help out this\nsilly chit. Good-bye! When I tell you that I have fifty-eight new\nletters from manufacturing families anxious to understand the details\nof the native and coffee-cultivation question this morning, I need\nnot apologize for having very little leisure.\"\n\nI was not surprised by Caddy's being in low spirits when we went\ndownstairs, or by her sobbing afresh on my neck, or by her saying she\nwould far rather have been scolded than treated with such\nindifference, or by her confiding to me that she was so poor in\nclothes that how she was ever to be married creditably she didn't\nknow. I gradually cheered her up by dwelling on the many things she\nwould do for her unfortunate father and for Peepy when she had a home\nof her own; and finally we went downstairs into the damp dark\nkitchen, where Peepy and his little brothers and sisters were\ngrovelling on the stone floor and where we had such a game of play\nwith them that to prevent myself from being quite torn to pieces I\nwas obliged to fall back on my fairy-tales. From time to time I heard\nloud voices in the parlour overhead, and occasionally a violent\ntumbling about of the furniture. The last effect I am afraid was\ncaused by poor Mr. Jellyby's breaking away from the dining-table and\nmaking rushes at the window with the intention of throwing himself\ninto the area whenever he made any new attempt to understand his\naffairs.\n\nAs I rode quietly home at night after the day's bustle, I thought a\ngood deal of Caddy's engagement and felt confirmed in my hopes (in\nspite of the elder Mr. Turveydrop) that she would be the happier and\nbetter for it. And if there seemed to be but a slender chance of her\nand her husband ever finding out what the model of deportment really\nwas, why that was all for the best too, and who would wish them to be\nwiser? I did not wish them to be any wiser and indeed was half\nashamed of not entirely believing in him myself. And I looked up at\nthe stars, and thought about travellers in distant countries and the\nstars THEY saw, and hoped I might always be so blest and happy as to\nbe useful to some one in my small way.\n\nThey were so glad to see me when I got home, as they always were,\nthat I could have sat down and cried for joy if that had not been a\nmethod of making myself disagreeable. Everybody in the house, from\nthe lowest to the highest, showed me such a bright face of welcome,\nand spoke so cheerily, and was so happy to do anything for me, that I\nsuppose there never was such a fortunate little creature in the\nworld.\n\nWe got into such a chatty state that night, through Ada and my\nguardian drawing me out to tell them all about Caddy, that I went on\nprose, prose, prosing for a length of time. At last I got up to my\nown room, quite red to think how I had been holding forth, and then I\nheard a soft tap at my door. So I said, \"Come in!\" and there came in\na pretty little girl, neatly dressed in mourning, who dropped a\ncurtsy.\n\n\"If you please, miss,\" said the little girl in a soft voice, \"I am\nCharley.\"\n\n\"Why, so you are,\" said I, stooping down in astonishment and giving\nher a kiss. \"How glad am I to see you, Charley!\"\n\n\"If you please, miss,\" pursued Charley in the same soft voice, \"I'm\nyour maid.\"\n\n\"Charley?\"\n\n\"If you please, miss, I'm a present to you, with Mr. Jarndyce's\nlove.\"\n\nI sat down with my hand on Charley's neck and looked at Charley.\n\n\"And oh, miss,\" says Charley, clapping her hands, with the tears\nstarting down her dimpled cheeks, \"Tom's at school, if you please,\nand learning so good! And little Emma, she's with Mrs. Blinder, miss,\na-being took such care of! And Tom, he would have been at school--and\nEmma, she would have been left with Mrs. Blinder--and me, I should\nhave been here--all a deal sooner, miss; only Mr. Jarndyce thought\nthat Tom and Emma and me had better get a little used to parting\nfirst, we was so small. Don't cry, if you please, miss!\"\n\n\"I can't help it, Charley.\"\n\n\"No, miss, nor I can't help it,\" says Charley. \"And if you please,\nmiss, Mr. Jarndyce's love, and he thinks you'll like to teach me now\nand then. And if you please, Tom and Emma and me is to see each other\nonce a month. And I'm so happy and so thankful, miss,\" cried Charley\nwith a heaving heart, \"and I'll try to be such a good maid!\"\n\n\"Oh, Charley dear, never forget who did all this!\"\n\n\"No, miss, I never will. Nor Tom won't. Nor yet Emma. It was all you,\nmiss.\"\n\n\"I have known nothing of it. It was Mr. Jarndyce, Charley.\"\n\n\"Yes, miss, but it was all done for the love of you and that you\nmight be my mistress. If you please, miss, I am a little present with\nhis love, and it was all done for the love of you. Me and Tom was to\nbe sure to remember it.\"\n\nCharley dried her eyes and entered on her functions, going in her\nmatronly little way about and about the room and folding up\neverything she could lay her hands upon. Presently Charley came\ncreeping back to my side and said, \"Oh, don't cry, if you please,\nmiss.\"\n\nAnd I said again, \"I can't help it, Charley.\"\n\nAnd Charley said again, \"No, miss, nor I can't help it.\" And so,\nafter all, I did cry for joy indeed, and so did she.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV\n\nAn Appeal Case\n\n\nAs soon as Richard and I had held the conversation of which I have\ngiven an account, Richard communicated the state of his mind to Mr.\nJarndyce. I doubt if my guardian were altogether taken by surprise\nwhen he received the representation, though it caused him much\nuneasiness and disappointment. He and Richard were often closeted\ntogether, late at night and early in the morning, and passed whole\ndays in London, and had innumerable appointments with Mr. Kenge, and\nlaboured through a quantity of disagreeable business. While they were\nthus employed, my guardian, though he underwent considerable\ninconvenience from the state of the wind and rubbed his head so\nconstantly that not a single hair upon it ever rested in its right\nplace, was as genial with Ada and me as at any other time, but\nmaintained a steady reserve on these matters. And as our utmost\nendeavours could only elicit from Richard himself sweeping assurances\nthat everything was going on capitally and that it really was all\nright at last, our anxiety was not much relieved by him.\n\nWe learnt, however, as the time went on, that a new application was\nmade to the Lord Chancellor on Richard's behalf as an infant and a\nward, and I don't know what, and that there was a quantity of\ntalking, and that the Lord Chancellor described him in open court as\na vexatious and capricious infant, and that the matter was adjourned\nand readjourned, and referred, and reported on, and petitioned about\nuntil Richard began to doubt (as he told us) whether, if he entered\nthe army at all, it would not be as a veteran of seventy or eighty\nyears of age. At last an appointment was made for him to see the Lord\nChancellor again in his private room, and there the Lord Chancellor\nvery seriously reproved him for trifling with time and not knowing\nhis mind--\"a pretty good joke, I think,\" said Richard, \"from that\nquarter!\"--and at last it was settled that his application should be\ngranted. His name was entered at the Horse Guards as an applicant for\nan ensign's commission; the purchase-money was deposited at an\nagent's; and Richard, in his usual characteristic way, plunged into a\nviolent course of military study and got up at five o'clock every\nmorning to practise the broadsword exercise.\n\nThus, vacation succeeded term, and term succeeded vacation. We\nsometimes heard of Jarndyce and Jarndyce as being in the paper or out\nof the paper, or as being to be mentioned, or as being to be spoken\nto; and it came on, and it went off. Richard, who was now in a\nprofessor's house in London, was able to be with us less frequently\nthan before; my guardian still maintained the same reserve; and so\ntime passed until the commission was obtained and Richard received\ndirections with it to join a regiment in Ireland.\n\nHe arrived post-haste with the intelligence one evening, and had a\nlong conference with my guardian. Upwards of an hour elapsed before\nmy guardian put his head into the room where Ada and I were sitting\nand said, \"Come in, my dears!\" We went in and found Richard, whom we\nhad last seen in high spirits, leaning on the chimney-piece looking\nmortified and angry.\n\n\"Rick and I, Ada,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, \"are not quite of one mind.\nCome, come, Rick, put a brighter face upon it!\"\n\n\"You are very hard with me, sir,\" said Richard. \"The harder because\nyou have been so considerate to me in all other respects and have\ndone me kindnesses that I can never acknowledge. I never could have\nbeen set right without you, sir.\"\n\n\"Well, well!\" said Mr. Jarndyce. \"I want to set you more right yet. I\nwant to set you more right with yourself.\"\n\n\"I hope you will excuse my saying, sir,\" returned Richard in a fiery\nway, but yet respectfully, \"that I think I am the best judge about\nmyself.\"\n\n\"I hope you will excuse my saying, my dear Rick,\" observed Mr.\nJarndyce with the sweetest cheerfulness and good humour, \"that it's\nquite natural in you to think so, but I don't think so. I must do my\nduty, Rick, or you could never care for me in cool blood; and I hope\nyou will always care for me, cool and hot.\"\n\nAda had turned so pale that he made her sit down in his reading-chair\nand sat beside her.\n\n\"It's nothing, my dear,\" he said, \"it's nothing. Rick and I have only\nhad a friendly difference, which we must state to you, for you are\nthe theme. Now you are afraid of what's coming.\"\n\n\"I am not indeed, cousin John,\" replied Ada with a smile, \"if it is\nto come from you.\"\n\n\"Thank you, my dear. Do you give me a minute's calm attention,\nwithout looking at Rick. And, little woman, do you likewise. My dear\ngirl,\" putting his hand on hers as it lay on the side of the\neasy-chair, \"you recollect the talk we had, we four when the little\nwoman told me of a little love affair?\"\n\n\"It is not likely that either Richard or I can ever forget your\nkindness that day, cousin John.\"\n\n\"I can never forget it,\" said Richard.\n\n\"And I can never forget it,\" said Ada.\n\n\"So much the easier what I have to say, and so much the easier for us\nto agree,\" returned my guardian, his face irradiated by the\ngentleness and honour of his heart. \"Ada, my bird, you should know\nthat Rick has now chosen his profession for the last time. All that\nhe has of certainty will be expended when he is fully equipped. He\nhas exhausted his resources and is bound henceforward to the tree he\nhas planted.\"\n\n\"Quite true that I have exhausted my present resources, and I am\nquite content to know it. But what I have of certainty, sir,\" said\nRichard, \"is not all I have.\"\n\n\"Rick, Rick!\" cried my guardian with a sudden terror in his manner,\nand in an altered voice, and putting up his hands as if he would have\nstopped his ears. \"For the love of God, don't found a hope or\nexpectation on the family curse! Whatever you do on this side the\ngrave, never give one lingering glance towards the horrible phantom\nthat has haunted us so many years. Better to borrow, better to beg,\nbetter to die!\"\n\nWe were all startled by the fervour of this warning. Richard bit his\nlip and held his breath, and glanced at me as if he felt, and knew\nthat I felt too, how much he needed it.\n\n\"Ada, my dear,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, recovering his cheerfulness,\n\"these are strong words of advice, but I live in Bleak House and have\nseen a sight here. Enough of that. All Richard had to start him in\nthe race of life is ventured. I recommend to him and you, for his\nsake and your own, that he should depart from us with the\nunderstanding that there is no sort of contract between you. I must\ngo further. I will be plain with you both. You were to confide freely\nin me, and I will confide freely in you. I ask you wholly to\nrelinquish, for the present, any tie but your relationship.\"\n\n\"Better to say at once, sir,\" returned Richard, \"that you renounce\nall confidence in me and that you advise Ada to do the same.\"\n\n\"Better to say nothing of the sort, Rick, because I don't mean it.\"\n\n\"You think I have begun ill, sir,\" retorted Richard. \"I HAVE, I\nknow.\"\n\n\"How I hoped you would begin, and how go on, I told you when we spoke\nof these things last,\" said Mr. Jarndyce in a cordial and encouraging\nmanner. \"You have not made that beginning yet, but there is a time\nfor all things, and yours is not gone by; rather, it is just now\nfully come. Make a clear beginning altogether. You two (very young,\nmy dears) are cousins. As yet, you are nothing more. What more may\ncome must come of being worked out, Rick, and no sooner.\"\n\n\"You are very hard with me, sir,\" said Richard. \"Harder than I could\nhave supposed you would be.\"\n\n\"My dear boy,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, \"I am harder with myself when I do\nanything that gives you pain. You have your remedy in your own hands.\nAda, it is better for him that he should be free and that there\nshould be no youthful engagement between you. Rick, it is better for\nher, much better; you owe it to her. Come! Each of you will do what\nis best for the other, if not what is best for yourselves.\"\n\n\"Why is it best, sir?\" returned Richard hastily. \"It was not when we\nopened our hearts to you. You did not say so then.\"\n\n\"I have had experience since. I don't blame you, Rick, but I have had\nexperience since.\"\n\n\"You mean of me, sir.\"\n\n\"Well! Yes, of both of you,\" said Mr. Jarndyce kindly. \"The time is\nnot come for your standing pledged to one another. It is not right,\nand I must not recognize it. Come, come, my young cousins, begin\nafresh! Bygones shall be bygones, and a new page turned for you to\nwrite your lives in.\"\n\nRichard gave an anxious glance at Ada but said nothing.\n\n\"I have avoided saying one word to either of you or to Esther,\" said\nMr. Jarndyce, \"until now, in order that we might be open as the day,\nand all on equal terms. I now affectionately advise, I now most\nearnestly entreat, you two to part as you came here. Leave all else\nto time, truth, and steadfastness. If you do otherwise, you will do\nwrong, and you will have made me do wrong in ever bringing you\ntogether.\"\n\nA long silence succeeded.\n\n\"Cousin Richard,\" said Ada then, raising her blue eyes tenderly to\nhis face, \"after what our cousin John has said, I think no choice is\nleft us. Your mind may be quite at ease about me, for you will leave\nme here under his care and will be sure that I can have nothing to\nwish for--quite sure if I guide myself by his advice. I--I don't\ndoubt, cousin Richard,\" said Ada, a little confused, \"that you are\nvery fond of me, and I--I don't think you will fall in love with\nanybody else. But I should like you to consider well about it too, as\nI should like you to be in all things very happy. You may trust in\nme, cousin Richard. I am not at all changeable; but I am not\nunreasonable, and should never blame you. Even cousins may be sorry\nto part; and in truth I am very, very sorry, Richard, though I know\nit's for your welfare. I shall always think of you affectionately,\nand often talk of you with Esther, and--and perhaps you will\nsometimes think a little of me, cousin Richard. So now,\" said Ada,\ngoing up to him and giving him her trembling hand, \"we are only\ncousins again, Richard--for the time perhaps--and I pray for a\nblessing on my dear cousin, wherever he goes!\"\n\nIt was strange to me that Richard should not be able to forgive my\nguardian for entertaining the very same opinion of him which he\nhimself had expressed of himself in much stronger terms to me. But it\nwas certainly the case. I observed with great regret that from this\nhour he never was as free and open with Mr. Jarndyce as he had been\nbefore. He had every reason given him to be so, but he was not; and\nsolely on his side, an estrangement began to arise between them.\n\nIn the business of preparation and equipment he soon lost himself,\nand even his grief at parting from Ada, who remained in Hertfordshire\nwhile he, Mr. Jarndyce, and I went up to London for a week. He\nremembered her by fits and starts, even with bursts of tears, and at\nsuch times would confide to me the heaviest self-reproaches. But in a\nfew minutes he would recklessly conjure up some undefinable means by\nwhich they were both to be made rich and happy for ever, and would\nbecome as gay as possible.\n\nIt was a busy time, and I trotted about with him all day long, buying\na variety of things of which he stood in need. Of the things he would\nhave bought if he had been left to his own ways I say nothing. He was\nperfectly confidential with me, and often talked so sensibly and\nfeelingly about his faults and his vigorous resolutions, and dwelt so\nmuch upon the encouragement he derived from these conversations that\nI could never have been tired if I had tried.\n\nThere used, in that week, to come backward and forward to our lodging\nto fence with Richard a person who had formerly been a cavalry\nsoldier; he was a fine bluff-looking man, of a frank free bearing,\nwith whom Richard had practised for some months. I heard so much\nabout him, not only from Richard, but from my guardian too, that I\nwas purposely in the room with my work one morning after breakfast\nwhen he came.\n\n\"Good morning, Mr. George,\" said my guardian, who happened to be\nalone with me. \"Mr. Carstone will be here directly. Meanwhile, Miss\nSummerson is very happy to see you, I know. Sit down.\"\n\nHe sat down, a little disconcerted by my presence, I thought, and\nwithout looking at me, drew his heavy sunburnt hand across and across\nhis upper lip.\n\n\"You are as punctual as the sun,\" said Mr. Jarndyce.\n\n\"Military time, sir,\" he replied. \"Force of habit. A mere habit in\nme, sir. I am not at all business-like.\"\n\n\"Yet you have a large establishment, too, I am told?\" said Mr.\nJarndyce.\n\n\"Not much of a one, sir. I keep a shooting gallery, but not much of a\none.\"\n\n\"And what kind of a shot and what kind of a swordsman do you make of\nMr. Carstone?\" said my guardian.\n\n\"Pretty good, sir,\" he replied, folding his arms upon his broad chest\nand looking very large. \"If Mr. Carstone was to give his full mind to\nit, he would come out very good.\"\n\n\"But he don't, I suppose?\" said my guardian.\n\n\"He did at first, sir, but not afterwards. Not his full mind. Perhaps\nhe has something else upon it--some young lady, perhaps.\" His bright\ndark eyes glanced at me for the first time.\n\n\"He has not me upon his mind, I assure you, Mr. George,\" said I,\nlaughing, \"though you seem to suspect me.\"\n\nHe reddened a little through his brown and made me a trooper's bow.\n\"No offence, I hope, miss. I am one of the roughs.\"\n\n\"Not at all,\" said I. \"I take it as a compliment.\"\n\nIf he had not looked at me before, he looked at me now in three or\nfour quick successive glances. \"I beg your pardon, sir,\" he said to\nmy guardian with a manly kind of diffidence, \"but you did me the\nhonour to mention the young lady's name--\"\n\n\"Miss Summerson.\"\n\n\"Miss Summerson,\" he repeated, and looked at me again.\n\n\"Do you know the name?\" I asked.\n\n\"No, miss. To my knowledge I never heard it. I thought I had seen you\nsomewhere.\"\n\n\"I think not,\" I returned, raising my head from my work to look at\nhim; and there was something so genuine in his speech and manner that\nI was glad of the opportunity. \"I remember faces very well.\"\n\n\"So do I, miss!\" he returned, meeting my look with the fullness of\nhis dark eyes and broad forehead. \"Humph! What set me off, now, upon\nthat!\"\n\nHis once more reddening through his brown and being disconcerted by\nhis efforts to remember the association brought my guardian to his\nrelief.\n\n\"Have you many pupils, Mr. George?\"\n\n\"They vary in their number, sir. Mostly they're but a small lot to\nlive by.\"\n\n\"And what classes of chance people come to practise at your gallery?\"\n\n\"All sorts, sir. Natives and foreigners. From gentlemen to\n'prentices. I have had Frenchwomen come, before now, and show\nthemselves dabs at pistol-shooting. Mad people out of number, of\ncourse, but THEY go everywhere where the doors stand open.\"\n\n\"People don't come with grudges and schemes of finishing their\npractice with live targets, I hope?\" said my guardian, smiling.\n\n\"Not much of that, sir, though that HAS happened. Mostly they come\nfor skill--or idleness. Six of one, and half-a-dozen of the other. I\nbeg your pardon,\" said Mr. George, sitting stiffly upright and\nsquaring an elbow on each knee, \"but I believe you're a Chancery\nsuitor, if I have heard correct?\"\n\n\"I am sorry to say I am.\"\n\n\"I have had one of YOUR compatriots in my time, sir.\"\n\n\"A Chancery suitor?\" returned my guardian. \"How was that?\"\n\n\"Why, the man was so badgered and worried and tortured by being\nknocked about from post to pillar, and from pillar to post,\" said Mr.\nGeorge, \"that he got out of sorts. I don't believe he had any idea of\ntaking aim at anybody, but he was in that condition of resentment and\nviolence that he would come and pay for fifty shots and fire away\ntill he was red hot. One day I said to him when there was nobody by\nand he had been talking to me angrily about his wrongs, 'If this\npractice is a safety-valve, comrade, well and good; but I don't\naltogether like your being so bent upon it in your present state of\nmind; I'd rather you took to something else.' I was on my guard for a\nblow, he was that passionate; but he received it in very good part\nand left off directly. We shook hands and struck up a sort of\nfriendship.\"\n\n\"What was that man?\" asked my guardian in a new tone of interest.\n\n\"Why, he began by being a small Shropshire farmer before they made a\nbaited bull of him,\" said Mr. George.\n\n\"Was his name Gridley?\"\n\n\"It was, sir.\"\n\nMr. George directed another succession of quick bright glances at me\nas my guardian and I exchanged a word or two of surprise at the\ncoincidence, and I therefore explained to him how we knew the name.\nHe made me another of his soldierly bows in acknowledgment of what he\ncalled my condescension.\n\n\"I don't know,\" he said as he looked at me, \"what it is that sets me\noff again--but--bosh! What's my head running against!\" He passed one\nof his heavy hands over his crisp dark hair as if to sweep the broken\nthoughts out of his mind and sat a little forward, with one arm\nakimbo and the other resting on his leg, looking in a brown study at\nthe ground.\n\n\"I am sorry to learn that the same state of mind has got this Gridley\ninto new troubles and that he is in hiding,\" said my guardian.\n\n\"So I am told, sir,\" returned Mr. George, still musing and looking on\nthe ground. \"So I am told.\"\n\n\"You don't know where?\"\n\n\"No, sir,\" returned the trooper, lifting up his eyes and coming out\nof his reverie. \"I can't say anything about him. He will be worn out\nsoon, I expect. You may file a strong man's heart away for a good\nmany years, but it will tell all of a sudden at last.\"\n\nRichard's entrance stopped the conversation. Mr. George rose, made me\nanother of his soldierly bows, wished my guardian a good day, and\nstrode heavily out of the room.\n\nThis was the morning of the day appointed for Richard's departure. We\nhad no more purchases to make now; I had completed all his packing\nearly in the afternoon; and our time was disengaged until night, when\nhe was to go to Liverpool for Holyhead. Jarndyce and Jarndyce being\nagain expected to come on that day, Richard proposed to me that we\nshould go down to the court and hear what passed. As it was his last\nday, and he was eager to go, and I had never been there, I gave my\nconsent and we walked down to Westminster, where the court was then\nsitting. We beguiled the way with arrangements concerning the letters\nthat Richard was to write to me and the letters that I was to write\nto him and with a great many hopeful projects. My guardian knew where\nwe were going and therefore was not with us.\n\nWhen we came to the court, there was the Lord Chancellor--the same\nwhom I had seen in his private room in Lincoln's Inn--sitting in\ngreat state and gravity on the bench, with the mace and seals on a\nred table below him and an immense flat nosegay, like a little\ngarden, which scented the whole court. Below the table, again, was a\nlong row of solicitors, with bundles of papers on the matting at\ntheir feet; and then there were the gentlemen of the bar in wigs and\ngowns--some awake and some asleep, and one talking, and nobody paying\nmuch attention to what he said. The Lord Chancellor leaned back in\nhis very easy chair with his elbow on the cushioned arm and his\nforehead resting on his hand; some of those who were present dozed;\nsome read the newspapers; some walked about or whispered in groups:\nall seemed perfectly at their ease, by no means in a hurry, very\nunconcerned, and extremely comfortable.\n\nTo see everything going on so smoothly and to think of the roughness\nof the suitors' lives and deaths; to see all that full dress and\nceremony and to think of the waste, and want, and beggared misery it\nrepresented; to consider that while the sickness of hope deferred was\nraging in so many hearts this polite show went calmly on from day to\nday, and year to year, in such good order and composure; to behold\nthe Lord Chancellor and the whole array of practitioners under him\nlooking at one another and at the spectators as if nobody had ever\nheard that all over England the name in which they were assembled was\na bitter jest, was held in universal horror, contempt, and\nindignation, was known for something so flagrant and bad that little\nshort of a miracle could bring any good out of it to any one--this\nwas so curious and self-contradictory to me, who had no experience of\nit, that it was at first incredible, and I could not comprehend it. I\nsat where Richard put me, and tried to listen, and looked about me;\nbut there seemed to be no reality in the whole scene except poor\nlittle Miss Flite, the madwoman, standing on a bench and nodding at\nit.\n\nMiss Flite soon espied us and came to where we sat. She gave me a\ngracious welcome to her domain and indicated, with much gratification\nand pride, its principal attractions. Mr. Kenge also came to speak to\nus and did the honours of the place in much the same way, with the\nbland modesty of a proprietor. It was not a very good day for a\nvisit, he said; he would have preferred the first day of term; but it\nwas imposing, it was imposing.\n\nWhen we had been there half an hour or so, the case in progress--if I\nmay use a phrase so ridiculous in such a connexion--seemed to die out\nof its own vapidity, without coming, or being by anybody expected to\ncome, to any result. The Lord Chancellor then threw down a bundle of\npapers from his desk to the gentlemen below him, and somebody said,\n\"Jarndyce and Jarndyce.\" Upon this there was a buzz, and a laugh, and\na general withdrawal of the bystanders, and a bringing in of great\nheaps, and piles, and bags and bags full of papers.\n\nI think it came on \"for further directions\"--about some bill of\ncosts, to the best of my understanding, which was confused enough.\nBut I counted twenty-three gentlemen in wigs who said they were \"in\nit,\" and none of them appeared to understand it much better than I.\nThey chatted about it with the Lord Chancellor, and contradicted and\nexplained among themselves, and some of them said it was this way,\nand some of them said it was that way, and some of them jocosely\nproposed to read huge volumes of affidavits, and there was more\nbuzzing and laughing, and everybody concerned was in a state of idle\nentertainment, and nothing could be made of it by anybody. After an\nhour or so of this, and a good many speeches being begun and cut\nshort, it was \"referred back for the present,\" as Mr. Kenge said, and\nthe papers were bundled up again before the clerks had finished\nbringing them in.\n\nI glanced at Richard on the termination of these hopeless proceedings\nand was shocked to see the worn look of his handsome young face. \"It\ncan't last for ever, Dame Durden. Better luck next time!\" was all he\nsaid.\n\nI had seen Mr. Guppy bringing in papers and arranging them for Mr.\nKenge; and he had seen me and made me a forlorn bow, which rendered\nme desirous to get out of the court. Richard had given me his arm and\nwas taking me away when Mr. Guppy came up.\n\n\"I beg your pardon, Mr. Carstone,\" said he in a whisper, \"and Miss\nSummerson's also, but there's a lady here, a friend of mine, who\nknows her and wishes to have the pleasure of shaking hands.\" As he\nspoke, I saw before me, as if she had started into bodily shape from\nmy remembrance, Mrs. Rachael of my godmother's house.\n\n\"How do you do, Esther?\" said she. \"Do you recollect me?\"\n\nI gave her my hand and told her yes and that she was very little\naltered.\n\n\"I wonder you remember those times, Esther,\" she returned with her\nold asperity. \"They are changed now. Well! I am glad to see you, and\nglad you are not too proud to know me.\" But indeed she seemed\ndisappointed that I was not.\n\n\"Proud, Mrs. Rachael!\" I remonstrated.\n\n\"I am married, Esther,\" she returned, coldly correcting me, \"and am\nMrs. Chadband. Well! I wish you good day, and I hope you'll do well.\"\n\nMr. Guppy, who had been attentive to this short dialogue, heaved a\nsigh in my ear and elbowed his own and Mrs. Rachael's way through the\nconfused little crowd of people coming in and going out, which we\nwere in the midst of and which the change in the business had brought\ntogether. Richard and I were making our way through it, and I was yet\nin the first chill of the late unexpected recognition when I saw,\ncoming towards us, but not seeing us, no less a person than Mr.\nGeorge. He made nothing of the people about him as he tramped on,\nstaring over their heads into the body of the court.\n\n\"George!\" said Richard as I called his attention to him.\n\n\"You are well met, sir,\" he returned. \"And you, miss. Could you point\na person out for me, I want? I don't understand these places.\"\n\nTurning as he spoke and making an easy way for us, he stopped when we\nwere out of the press in a corner behind a great red curtain.\n\n\"There's a little cracked old woman,\" he began, \"that--\"\n\nI put up my finger, for Miss Flite was close by me, having kept\nbeside me all the time and having called the attention of several of\nher legal acquaintance to me (as I had overheard to my confusion) by\nwhispering in their ears, \"Hush! Fitz Jarndyce on my left!\"\n\n\"Hem!\" said Mr. George. \"You remember, miss, that we passed some\nconversation on a certain man this morning? Gridley,\" in a low\nwhisper behind his hand.\n\n\"Yes,\" said I.\n\n\"He is hiding at my place. I couldn't mention it. Hadn't his\nauthority. He is on his last march, miss, and has a whim to see her.\nHe says they can feel for one another, and she has been almost as\ngood as a friend to him here. I came down to look for her, for when I\nsat by Gridley this afternoon, I seemed to hear the roll of the\nmuffled drums.\"\n\n\"Shall I tell her?\" said I.\n\n\"Would you be so good?\" he returned with a glance of something like\napprehension at Miss Flite. \"It's a providence I met you, miss; I\ndoubt if I should have known how to get on with that lady.\" And he\nput one hand in his breast and stood upright in a martial attitude as\nI informed little Miss Flite, in her ear, of the purport of his kind\nerrand.\n\n\"My angry friend from Shropshire! Almost as celebrated as myself!\"\nshe exclaimed. \"Now really! My dear, I will wait upon him with the\ngreatest pleasure.\"\n\n\"He is living concealed at Mr. George's,\" said I. \"Hush! This is Mr.\nGeorge.\"\n\n\"In--deed!\" returned Miss Flite. \"Very proud to have the honour! A\nmilitary man, my dear. You know, a perfect general!\" she whispered to\nme.\n\nPoor Miss Flite deemed it necessary to be so courtly and polite, as a\nmark of her respect for the army, and to curtsy so very often that it\nwas no easy matter to get her out of the court. When this was at last\ndone, and addressing Mr. George as \"General,\" she gave him her arm,\nto the great entertainment of some idlers who were looking on, he was\nso discomposed and begged me so respectfully \"not to desert him\" that\nI could not make up my mind to do it, especially as Miss Flite was\nalways tractable with me and as she too said, \"Fitz Jarndyce, my\ndear, you will accompany us, of course.\" As Richard seemed quite\nwilling, and even anxious, that we should see them safely to their\ndestination, we agreed to do so. And as Mr. George informed us that\nGridley's mind had run on Mr. Jarndyce all the afternoon after\nhearing of their interview in the morning, I wrote a hasty note in\npencil to my guardian to say where we were gone and why. Mr. George\nsealed it at a coffee-house, that it might lead to no discovery, and\nwe sent it off by a ticket-porter.\n\nWe then took a hackney-coach and drove away to the neighbourhood of\nLeicester Square. We walked through some narrow courts, for which Mr.\nGeorge apologized, and soon came to the shooting gallery, the door of\nwhich was closed. As he pulled a bell-handle which hung by a chain to\nthe door-post, a very respectable old gentleman with grey hair,\nwearing spectacles, and dressed in a black spencer and gaiters and a\nbroad-brimmed hat, and carrying a large gold-beaded cane, addressed\nhim.\n\n\"I ask your pardon, my good friend,\" said he, \"but is this George's\nShooting Gallery?\"\n\n\"It is, sir,\" returned Mr. George, glancing up at the great letters\nin which that inscription was painted on the whitewashed wall.\n\n\"Oh! To be sure!\" said the old gentleman, following his eyes. \"Thank\nyou. Have you rung the bell?\"\n\n\"My name is George, sir, and I have rung the bell.\"\n\n\"Oh, indeed?\" said the old gentleman. \"Your name is George? Then I am\nhere as soon as you, you see. You came for me, no doubt?\"\n\n\"No, sir. You have the advantage of me.\"\n\n\"Oh, indeed?\" said the old gentleman. \"Then it was your young man who\ncame for me. I am a physician and was requested--five minutes ago--to\ncome and visit a sick man at George's Shooting Gallery.\"\n\n\"The muffled drums,\" said Mr. George, turning to Richard and me and\ngravely shaking his head. \"It's quite correct, sir. Will you please\nto walk in.\"\n\nThe door being at that moment opened by a very singular-looking\nlittle man in a green-baize cap and apron, whose face and hands and\ndress were blackened all over, we passed along a dreary passage into\na large building with bare brick walls where there were targets, and\nguns, and swords, and other things of that kind. When we had all\narrived here, the physician stopped, and taking off his hat, appeared\nto vanish by magic and to leave another and quite a different man in\nhis place.\n\n\"Now lookee here, George,\" said the man, turning quickly round upon\nhim and tapping him on the breast with a large forefinger. \"You know\nme, and I know you. You're a man of the world, and I'm a man of the\nworld. My name's Bucket, as you are aware, and I have got a\npeace-warrant against Gridley. You have kept him out of the way a\nlong time, and you have been artful in it, and it does you credit.\"\n\nMr. George, looking hard at him, bit his lip and shook his head.\n\n\"Now, George,\" said the other, keeping close to him, \"you're a\nsensible man and a well-conducted man; that's what YOU are, beyond a\ndoubt. And mind you, I don't talk to you as a common character,\nbecause you have served your country and you know that when duty\ncalls we must obey. Consequently you're very far from wanting to give\ntrouble. If I required assistance, you'd assist me; that's what YOU'D\ndo. Phil Squod, don't you go a-sidling round the gallery like\nthat\"--the dirty little man was shuffling about with his shoulder\nagainst the wall, and his eyes on the intruder, in a manner that\nlooked threatening--\"because I know you and won't have it.\"\n\n\"Phil!\" said Mr. George.\n\n\"Yes, guv'ner.\"\n\n\"Be quiet.\"\n\nThe little man, with a low growl, stood still.\n\n\"Ladies and gentlemen,\" said Mr. Bucket, \"you'll excuse anything that\nmay appear to be disagreeable in this, for my name's Inspector Bucket\nof the Detective, and I have a duty to perform. George, I know where\nmy man is because I was on the roof last night and saw him through\nthe skylight, and you along with him. He is in there, you know,\"\npointing; \"that's where HE is--on a sofy. Now I must see my man, and\nI must tell my man to consider himself in custody; but you know me,\nand you know I don't want to take any uncomfortable measures. You\ngive me your word, as from one man to another (and an old soldier,\nmind you, likewise), that it's honourable between us two, and I'll\naccommodate you to the utmost of my power.\"\n\n\"I give it,\" was the reply. \"But it wasn't handsome in you, Mr.\nBucket.\"\n\n\"Gammon, George! Not handsome?\" said Mr. Bucket, tapping him on his\nbroad breast again and shaking hands with him. \"I don't say it wasn't\nhandsome in you to keep my man so close, do I? Be equally\ngood-tempered to me, old boy! Old William Tell, Old Shaw, the Life\nGuardsman! Why, he's a model of the whole British army in himself,\nladies and gentlemen. I'd give a fifty-pun' note to be such a figure\nof a man!\"\n\nThe affair being brought to this head, Mr. George, after a little\nconsideration, proposed to go in first to his comrade (as he called\nhim), taking Miss Flite with him. Mr. Bucket agreeing, they went away\nto the further end of the gallery, leaving us sitting and standing by\na table covered with guns. Mr. Bucket took this opportunity of\nentering into a little light conversation, asking me if I were afraid\nof fire-arms, as most young ladies were; asking Richard if he were a\ngood shot; asking Phil Squod which he considered the best of those\nrifles and what it might be worth first-hand, telling him in return\nthat it was a pity he ever gave way to his temper, for he was\nnaturally so amiable that he might have been a young woman, and\nmaking himself generally agreeable.\n\nAfter a time he followed us to the further end of the gallery, and\nRichard and I were going quietly away when Mr. George came after us.\nHe said that if we had no objection to see his comrade, he would take\na visit from us very kindly. The words had hardly passed his lips\nwhen the bell was rung and my guardian appeared, \"on the chance,\" he\nslightly observed, \"of being able to do any little thing for a poor\nfellow involved in the same misfortune as himself.\" We all four went\nback together and went into the place where Gridley was.\n\nIt was a bare room, partitioned off from the gallery with unpainted\nwood. As the screening was not more than eight or ten feet high and\nonly enclosed the sides, not the top, the rafters of the high gallery\nroof were overhead, and the skylight through which Mr. Bucket had\nlooked down. The sun was low--near setting--and its light came redly\nin above, without descending to the ground. Upon a plain\ncanvas-covered sofa lay the man from Shropshire, dressed much as we\nhad seen him last, but so changed that at first I recognized no\nlikeness in his colourless face to what I recollected.\n\nHe had been still writing in his hiding-place, and still dwelling on\nhis grievances, hour after hour. A table and some shelves were\ncovered with manuscript papers and with worn pens and a medley of\nsuch tokens. Touchingly and awfully drawn together, he and the little\nmad woman were side by side and, as it were, alone. She sat on a\nchair holding his hand, and none of us went close to them.\n\nHis voice had faded, with the old expression of his face, with his\nstrength, with his anger, with his resistance to the wrongs that had\nat last subdued him. The faintest shadow of an object full of form\nand colour is such a picture of it as he was of the man from\nShropshire whom we had spoken with before.\n\nHe inclined his head to Richard and me and spoke to my guardian.\n\n\"Mr. Jarndyce, it is very kind of you to come to see me. I am not\nlong to be seen, I think. I am very glad to take your hand, sir. You\nare a good man, superior to injustice, and God knows I honour you.\"\n\nThey shook hands earnestly, and my guardian said some words of\ncomfort to him.\n\n\"It may seem strange to you, sir,\" returned Gridley; \"I should not\nhave liked to see you if this had been the first time of our meeting.\nBut you know I made a fight for it, you know I stood up with my\nsingle hand against them all, you know I told them the truth to the\nlast, and told them what they were, and what they had done to me; so\nI don't mind your seeing me, this wreck.\"\n\n\"You have been courageous with them many and many a time,\" returned\nmy guardian.\n\n\"Sir, I have been,\" with a faint smile. \"I told you what would come\nof it when I ceased to be so, and see here! Look at us--look at us!\"\nHe drew the hand Miss Flite held through her arm and brought her\nsomething nearer to him.\n\n\"This ends it. Of all my old associations, of all my old pursuits and\nhopes, of all the living and the dead world, this one poor soul alone\ncomes natural to me, and I am fit for. There is a tie of many\nsuffering years between us two, and it is the only tie I ever had on\nearth that Chancery has not broken.\"\n\n\"Accept my blessing, Gridley,\" said Miss Flite in tears. \"Accept my\nblessing!\"\n\n\"I thought, boastfully, that they never could break my heart, Mr.\nJarndyce. I was resolved that they should not. I did believe that I\ncould, and would, charge them with being the mockery they were until\nI died of some bodily disorder. But I am worn out. How long I have\nbeen wearing out, I don't know; I seemed to break down in an hour. I\nhope they may never come to hear of it. I hope everybody here will\nlead them to believe that I died defying them, consistently and\nperseveringly, as I did through so many years.\"\n\nHere Mr. Bucket, who was sitting in a corner by the door,\ngood-naturedly offered such consolation as he could administer.\n\n\"Come, come!\" he said from his corner. \"Don't go on in that way, Mr.\nGridley. You are only a little low. We are all of us a little low\nsometimes. I am. Hold up, hold up! You'll lose your temper with the\nwhole round of 'em, again and again; and I shall take you on a score\nof warrants yet, if I have luck.\"\n\nHe only shook his head.\n\n\"Don't shake your head,\" said Mr. Bucket. \"Nod it; that's what I want\nto see you do. Why, Lord bless your soul, what times we have had\ntogether! Haven't I seen you in the Fleet over and over again for\ncontempt? Haven't I come into court, twenty afternoons for no other\npurpose than to see you pin the Chancellor like a bull-dog? Don't you\nremember when you first began to threaten the lawyers, and the peace\nwas sworn against you two or three times a week? Ask the little old\nlady there; she has been always present. Hold up, Mr. Gridley, hold\nup, sir!\"\n\n\"What are you going to do about him?\" asked George in a low voice.\n\n\"I don't know yet,\" said Bucket in the same tone. Then resuming his\nencouragement, he pursued aloud: \"Worn out, Mr. Gridley? After\ndodging me for all these weeks and forcing me to climb the roof here\nlike a tom cat and to come to see you as a doctor? That ain't like\nbeing worn out. I should think not! Now I tell you what you want. You\nwant excitement, you know, to keep YOU up; that's what YOU want.\nYou're used to it, and you can't do without it. I couldn't myself.\nVery well, then; here's this warrant got by Mr. Tulkinghorn of\nLincoln's Inn Fields, and backed into half-a-dozen counties since.\nWhat do you say to coming along with me, upon this warrant, and\nhaving a good angry argument before the magistrates? It'll do you\ngood; it'll freshen you up and get you into training for another turn\nat the Chancellor. Give in? Why, I am surprised to hear a man of your\nenergy talk of giving in. You mustn't do that. You're half the fun of\nthe fair in the Court of Chancery. George, you lend Mr. Gridley a\nhand, and let's see now whether he won't be better up than down.\"\n\n\"He is very weak,\" said the trooper in a low voice.\n\n\"Is he?\" returned Bucket anxiously. \"I only want to rouse him. I\ndon't like to see an old acquaintance giving in like this. It would\ncheer him up more than anything if I could make him a little waxy\nwith me. He's welcome to drop into me, right and left, if he likes. I\nshall never take advantage of it.\"\n\nThe roof rang with a scream from Miss Flite, which still rings in my\nears.\n\n\"Oh, no, Gridley!\" she cried as he fell heavily and calmly back from\nbefore her. \"Not without my blessing. After so many years!\"\n\nThe sun was down, the light had gradually stolen from the roof, and\nthe shadow had crept upward. But to me the shadow of that pair, one\nliving and one dead, fell heavier on Richard's departure than the\ndarkness of the darkest night. And through Richard's farewell words I\nheard it echoed: \"Of all my old associations, of all my old pursuits\nand hopes, of all the living and the dead world, this one poor soul\nalone comes natural to me, and I am fit for. There is a tie of many\nsuffering years between us two, and it is the only tie I ever had on\nearth that Chancery has not broken!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV\n\nMrs. Snagsby Sees It All\n\n\nThere is disquietude in Cook's Court, Cursitor Street. Black\nsuspicion hides in that peaceful region. The mass of Cook's Courtiers\nare in their usual state of mind, no better and no worse; but Mr.\nSnagsby is changed, and his little woman knows it.\n\nFor Tom-all-Alone's and Lincoln's Inn Fields persist in harnessing\nthemselves, a pair of ungovernable coursers, to the chariot of Mr.\nSnagsby's imagination; and Mr. Bucket drives; and the passengers are\nJo and Mr. Tulkinghorn; and the complete equipage whirls though the\nlaw-stationery business at wild speed all round the clock. Even in\nthe little front kitchen where the family meals are taken, it rattles\naway at a smoking pace from the dinner-table, when Mr. Snagsby pauses\nin carving the first slice of the leg of mutton baked with potatoes\nand stares at the kitchen wall.\n\nMr. Snagsby cannot make out what it is that he has had to do with.\nSomething is wrong somewhere, but what something, what may come of\nit, to whom, when, and from which unthought of and unheard of quarter\nis the puzzle of his life. His remote impressions of the robes and\ncoronets, the stars and garters, that sparkle through the\nsurface-dust of Mr. Tulkinghorn's chambers; his veneration for the\nmysteries presided over by that best and closest of his customers,\nwhom all the Inns of Court, all Chancery Lane, and all the legal\nneighbourhood agree to hold in awe; his remembrance of Detective Mr.\nBucket with his forefinger and his confidential manner, impossible to\nbe evaded or declined, persuade him that he is a party to some\ndangerous secret without knowing what it is. And it is the fearful\npeculiarity of this condition that, at any hour of his daily life, at\nany opening of the shop-door, at any pull of the bell, at any\nentrance of a messenger, or any delivery of a letter, the secret may\ntake air and fire, explode, and blow up--Mr. Bucket only knows whom.\n\nFor which reason, whenever a man unknown comes into the shop (as many\nmen unknown do) and says, \"Is Mr. Snagsby in?\" or words to that\ninnocent effect, Mr. Snagsby's heart knocks hard at his guilty\nbreast. He undergoes so much from such inquiries that when they are\nmade by boys he revenges himself by flipping at their ears over the\ncounter and asking the young dogs what they mean by it and why they\ncan't speak out at once? More impracticable men and boys persist in\nwalking into Mr. Snagsby's sleep and terrifying him with\nunaccountable questions, so that often when the cock at the little\ndairy in Cursitor Street breaks out in his usual absurd way about the\nmorning, Mr. Snagsby finds himself in a crisis of nightmare, with his\nlittle woman shaking him and saying \"What's the matter with the man!\"\n\nThe little woman herself is not the least item in his difficulty. To\nknow that he is always keeping a secret from her, that he has under\nall circumstances to conceal and hold fast a tender double tooth,\nwhich her sharpness is ever ready to twist out of his head, gives Mr.\nSnagsby, in her dentistical presence, much of the air of a dog who\nhas a reservation from his master and will look anywhere rather than\nmeet his eye.\n\nThese various signs and tokens, marked by the little woman, are not\nlost upon her. They impel her to say, \"Snagsby has something on his\nmind!\" And thus suspicion gets into Cook's Court, Cursitor Street.\nFrom suspicion to jealousy, Mrs. Snagsby finds the road as natural\nand short as from Cook's Court to Chancery Lane. And thus jealousy\ngets into Cook's Court, Cursitor Street. Once there (and it was\nalways lurking thereabout), it is very active and nimble in Mrs.\nSnagsby's breast, prompting her to nocturnal examinations of Mr.\nSnagsby's pockets; to secret perusals of Mr. Snagsby's letters; to\nprivate researches in the day book and ledger, till, cash-box, and\niron safe; to watchings at windows, listenings behind doors, and a\ngeneral putting of this and that together by the wrong end.\n\nMrs. Snagsby is so perpetually on the alert that the house becomes\nghostly with creaking boards and rustling garments. The 'prentices\nthink somebody may have been murdered there in bygone times. Guster\nholds certain loose atoms of an idea (picked up at Tooting, where\nthey were found floating among the orphans) that there is buried\nmoney underneath the cellar, guarded by an old man with a white\nbeard, who cannot get out for seven thousand years because he said\nthe Lord's Prayer backwards.\n\n\"Who was Nimrod?\" Mrs. Snagsby repeatedly inquires of herself. \"Who\nwas that lady--that creature? And who is that boy?\" Now, Nimrod being\nas dead as the mighty hunter whose name Mrs. Snagsby has\nappropriated, and the lady being unproducible, she directs her mental\neye, for the present, with redoubled vigilance to the boy. \"And who,\"\nquoth Mrs. Snagsby for the thousand and first time, \"is that boy? Who\nis that--!\" And there Mrs. Snagsby is seized with an inspiration.\n\nHe has no respect for Mr. Chadband. No, to be sure, and he wouldn't\nhave, of course. Naturally he wouldn't, under those contagious\ncircumstances. He was invited and appointed by Mr. Chadband--why,\nMrs. Snagsby heard it herself with her own ears!--to come back, and\nbe told where he was to go, to be addressed by Mr. Chadband; and he\nnever came! Why did he never come? Because he was told not to come.\nWho told him not to come? Who? Ha, ha! Mrs. Snagsby sees it all.\n\nBut happily (and Mrs. Snagsby tightly shakes her head and tightly\nsmiles) that boy was met by Mr. Chadband yesterday in the streets;\nand that boy, as affording a subject which Mr. Chadband desires to\nimprove for the spiritual delight of a select congregation, was\nseized by Mr. Chadband and threatened with being delivered over to\nthe police unless he showed the reverend gentleman where he lived and\nunless he entered into, and fulfilled, an undertaking to appear in\nCook's Court to-morrow night, \"to--mor--row--night,\" Mrs. Snagsby\nrepeats for mere emphasis with another tight smile and another tight\nshake of her head; and to-morrow night that boy will be here, and\nto-morrow night Mrs. Snagsby will have her eye upon him and upon some\none else; and oh, you may walk a long while in your secret ways (says\nMrs. Snagsby with haughtiness and scorn), but you can't blind ME!\n\nMrs. Snagsby sounds no timbrel in anybody's ears, but holds her\npurpose quietly, and keeps her counsel. To-morrow comes, the savoury\npreparations for the Oil Trade come, the evening comes. Comes Mr.\nSnagsby in his black coat; come the Chadbands; come (when the gorging\nvessel is replete) the 'prentices and Guster, to be edified; comes at\nlast, with his slouching head, and his shuffle backward, and his\nshuffle forward, and his shuffle to the right, and his shuffle to the\nleft, and his bit of fur cap in his muddy hand, which he picks as if\nit were some mangy bird he had caught and was plucking before eating\nraw, Jo, the very, very tough subject Mr. Chadband is to improve.\n\nMrs. Snagsby screws a watchful glance on Jo as he is brought into the\nlittle drawing-room by Guster. He looks at Mr. Snagsby the moment he\ncomes in. Aha! Why does he look at Mr. Snagsby? Mr. Snagsby looks at\nhim. Why should he do that, but that Mrs. Snagsby sees it all? Why\nelse should that look pass between them, why else should Mr. Snagsby\nbe confused and cough a signal cough behind his hand? It is as clear\nas crystal that Mr. Snagsby is that boy's father.\n\n\"Peace, my friends,\" says Chadband, rising and wiping the oily\nexudations from his reverend visage. \"Peace be with us! My friends,\nwhy with us? Because,\" with his fat smile, \"it cannot be against us,\nbecause it must be for us; because it is not hardening, because it is\nsoftening; because it does not make war like the hawk, but comes home\nunto us like the dove. Therefore, my friends, peace be with us! My\nhuman boy, come forward!\"\n\nStretching forth his flabby paw, Mr. Chadband lays the same on Jo's\narm and considers where to station him. Jo, very doubtful of his\nreverend friend's intentions and not at all clear but that something\npractical and painful is going to be done to him, mutters, \"You let\nme alone. I never said nothink to you. You let me alone.\"\n\n\"No, my young friend,\" says Chadband smoothly, \"I will not let you\nalone. And why? Because I am a harvest-labourer, because I am a\ntoiler and a moiler, because you are delivered over unto me and are\nbecome as a precious instrument in my hands. My friends, may I so\nemploy this instrument as to use it to your advantage, to your\nprofit, to your gain, to your welfare, to your enrichment! My young\nfriend, sit upon this stool.\"\n\nJo, apparently possessed by an impression that the reverend gentleman\nwants to cut his hair, shields his head with both arms and is got\ninto the required position with great difficulty and every possible\nmanifestation of reluctance.\n\nWhen he is at last adjusted like a lay-figure, Mr. Chadband, retiring\nbehind the table, holds up his bear's-paw and says, \"My friends!\"\nThis is the signal for a general settlement of the audience. The\n'prentices giggle internally and nudge each other. Guster falls into\na staring and vacant state, compounded of a stunned admiration of Mr.\nChadband and pity for the friendless outcast whose condition touches\nher nearly. Mrs. Snagsby silently lays trains of gunpowder. Mrs.\nChadband composes herself grimly by the fire and warms her knees,\nfinding that sensation favourable to the reception of eloquence.\n\nIt happens that Mr. Chadband has a pulpit habit of fixing some member\nof his congregation with his eye and fatly arguing his points with\nthat particular person, who is understood to be expected to be moved\nto an occasional grunt, groan, gasp, or other audible expression of\ninward working, which expression of inward working, being echoed by\nsome elderly lady in the next pew and so communicated like a game of\nforfeits through a circle of the more fermentable sinners present,\nserves the purpose of parliamentary cheering and gets Mr. Chadband's\nsteam up. From mere force of habit, Mr. Chadband in saying \"My\nfriends!\" has rested his eye on Mr. Snagsby and proceeds to make that\nill-starred stationer, already sufficiently confused, the immediate\nrecipient of his discourse.\n\n\"We have here among us, my friends,\" says Chadband, \"a Gentile and a\nheathen, a dweller in the tents of Tom-all-Alone's and a mover-on\nupon the surface of the earth. We have here among us, my friends,\"\nand Mr. Chadband, untwisting the point with his dirty thumb-nail,\nbestows an oily smile on Mr. Snagsby, signifying that he will throw\nhim an argumentative back-fall presently if he be not already down,\n\"a brother and a boy. Devoid of parents, devoid of relations, devoid\nof flocks and herds, devoid of gold and silver and of precious\nstones. Now, my friends, why do I say he is devoid of these\npossessions? Why? Why is he?\" Mr. Chadband states the question as if\nhe were propounding an entirely new riddle of much ingenuity and\nmerit to Mr. Snagsby and entreating him not to give it up.\n\nMr. Snagsby, greatly perplexed by the mysterious look he received\njust now from his little woman--at about the period when Mr. Chadband\nmentioned the word parents--is tempted into modestly remarking, \"I\ndon't know, I'm sure, sir.\" On which interruption Mrs. Chadband\nglares and Mrs. Snagsby says, \"For shame!\"\n\n\"I hear a voice,\" says Chadband; \"is it a still small voice, my\nfriends? I fear not, though I fain would hope so--\"\n\n\"Ah--h!\" from Mrs. Snagsby.\n\n\"Which says, 'I don't know.' Then I will tell you why. I say this\nbrother present here among us is devoid of parents, devoid of\nrelations, devoid of flocks and herds, devoid of gold, of silver, and\nof precious stones because he is devoid of the light that shines in\nupon some of us. What is that light? What is it? I ask you, what is\nthat light?\"\n\nMr. Chadband draws back his head and pauses, but Mr. Snagsby is not\nto be lured on to his destruction again. Mr. Chadband, leaning\nforward over the table, pierces what he has got to follow directly\ninto Mr. Snagsby with the thumb-nail already mentioned.\n\n\"It is,\" says Chadband, \"the ray of rays, the sun of suns, the moon\nof moons, the star of stars. It is the light of Terewth.\"\n\nMr. Chadband draws himself up again and looks triumphantly at Mr.\nSnagsby as if he would be glad to know how he feels after that.\n\n\"Of Terewth,\" says Mr. Chadband, hitting him again. \"Say not to me\nthat it is NOT the lamp of lamps. I say to you it is. I say to you, a\nmillion of times over, it is. It is! I say to you that I will\nproclaim it to you, whether you like it or not; nay, that the less\nyou like it, the more I will proclaim it to you. With a\nspeaking-trumpet! I say to you that if you rear yourself against it,\nyou shall fall, you shall be bruised, you shall be battered, you\nshall be flawed, you shall be smashed.\"\n\nThe present effect of this flight of oratory--much admired for its\ngeneral power by Mr. Chadband's followers--being not only to make Mr.\nChadband unpleasantly warm, but to represent the innocent Mr. Snagsby\nin the light of a determined enemy to virtue, with a forehead of\nbrass and a heart of adamant, that unfortunate tradesman becomes yet\nmore disconcerted and is in a very advanced state of low spirits and\nfalse position when Mr. Chadband accidentally finishes him.\n\n\"My friends,\" he resumes after dabbing his fat head for some\ntime--and it smokes to such an extent that he seems to light his\npocket-handkerchief at it, which smokes, too, after every dab--\"to\npursue the subject we are endeavouring with our lowly gifts to\nimprove, let us in a spirit of love inquire what is that Terewth to\nwhich I have alluded. For, my young friends,\" suddenly addressing the\n'prentices and Guster, to their consternation, \"if I am told by the\ndoctor that calomel or castor-oil is good for me, I may naturally ask\nwhat is calomel, and what is castor-oil. I may wish to be informed of\nthat before I dose myself with either or with both. Now, my young\nfriends, what is this Terewth then? Firstly (in a spirit of love),\nwhat is the common sort of Terewth--the working clothes--the\nevery-day wear, my young friends? Is it deception?\"\n\n\"Ah--h!\" from Mrs. Snagsby.\n\n\"Is it suppression?\"\n\nA shiver in the negative from Mrs. Snagsby.\n\n\"Is it reservation?\"\n\nA shake of the head from Mrs. Snagsby--very long and very tight.\n\n\"No, my friends, it is neither of these. Neither of these names\nbelongs to it. When this young heathen now among us--who is now, my\nfriends, asleep, the seal of indifference and perdition being set\nupon his eyelids; but do not wake him, for it is right that I should\nhave to wrestle, and to combat and to struggle, and to conquer, for\nhis sake--when this young hardened heathen told us a story of a cock,\nand of a bull, and of a lady, and of a sovereign, was THAT the\nTerewth? No. Or if it was partly, was it wholly and entirely? No, my\nfriends, no!\"\n\nIf Mr. Snagsby could withstand his little woman's look as it enters\nat his eyes, the windows of his soul, and searches the whole\ntenement, he were other than the man he is. He cowers and droops.\n\n\"Or, my juvenile friends,\" says Chadband, descending to the level of\ntheir comprehension with a very obtrusive demonstration in his\ngreasily meek smile of coming a long way downstairs for the purpose,\n\"if the master of this house was to go forth into the city and there\nsee an eel, and was to come back, and was to call unto him the\nmistress of this house, and was to say, 'Sarah, rejoice with me, for\nI have seen an elephant!' would THAT be Terewth?\"\n\nMrs. Snagsby in tears.\n\n\"Or put it, my juvenile friends, that he saw an elephant, and\nreturning said 'Lo, the city is barren, I have seen but an eel,'\nwould THAT be Terewth?\"\n\nMrs. Snagsby sobbing loudly.\n\n\"Or put it, my juvenile friends,\" said Chadband, stimulated by the\nsound, \"that the unnatural parents of this slumbering heathen--for\nparents he had, my juvenile friends, beyond a doubt--after casting\nhim forth to the wolves and the vultures, and the wild dogs and the\nyoung gazelles, and the serpents, went back to their dwellings and\nhad their pipes, and their pots, and their flutings and their\ndancings, and their malt liquors, and their butcher's meat and\npoultry, would THAT be Terewth?\"\n\nMrs. Snagsby replies by delivering herself a prey to spasms, not an\nunresisting prey, but a crying and a tearing one, so that Cook's\nCourt re-echoes with her shrieks. Finally, becoming cataleptic, she\nhas to be carried up the narrow staircase like a grand piano. After\nunspeakable suffering, productive of the utmost consternation, she is\npronounced, by expresses from the bedroom, free from pain, though\nmuch exhausted, in which state of affairs Mr. Snagsby, trampled and\ncrushed in the piano-forte removal, and extremely timid and feeble,\nventures to come out from behind the door in the drawing-room.\n\nAll this time Jo has been standing on the spot where he woke up, ever\npicking his cap and putting bits of fur in his mouth. He spits them\nout with a remorseful air, for he feels that it is in his nature to\nbe an unimprovable reprobate and that it's no good HIS trying to keep\nawake, for HE won't never know nothink. Though it may be, Jo, that\nthere is a history so interesting and affecting even to minds as near\nthe brutes as thine, recording deeds done on this earth for common\nmen, that if the Chadbands, removing their own persons from the\nlight, would but show it thee in simple reverence, would but leave it\nunimproved, would but regard it as being eloquent enough without\ntheir modest aid--it might hold thee awake, and thou might learn from\nit yet!\n\nJo never heard of any such book. Its compilers and the Reverend\nChadband are all one to him, except that he knows the Reverend\nChadband and would rather run away from him for an hour than hear him\ntalk for five minutes. \"It an't no good my waiting here no longer,\"\nthinks Jo. \"Mr. Snagsby an't a-going to say nothink to me to-night.\"\nAnd downstairs he shuffles.\n\nBut downstairs is the charitable Guster, holding by the handrail of\nthe kitchen stairs and warding off a fit, as yet doubtfully, the same\nhaving been induced by Mrs. Snagsby's screaming. She has her own\nsupper of bread and cheese to hand to Jo, with whom she ventures to\ninterchange a word or so for the first time.\n\n\"Here's something to eat, poor boy,\" says Guster.\n\n\"Thank'ee, mum,\" says Jo.\n\n\"Are you hungry?\"\n\n\"Jist!\" says Jo.\n\n\"What's gone of your father and your mother, eh?\"\n\nJo stops in the middle of a bite and looks petrified. For this orphan\ncharge of the Christian saint whose shrine was at Tooting has patted\nhim on the shoulder, and it is the first time in his life that any\ndecent hand has been so laid upon him.\n\n\"I never know'd nothink about 'em,\" says Jo.\n\n\"No more didn't I of mine,\" cries Guster. She is repressing symptoms\nfavourable to the fit when she seems to take alarm at something and\nvanishes down the stairs.\n\n\"Jo,\" whispers the law-stationer softly as the boy lingers on the\nstep.\n\n\"Here I am, Mr. Snagsby!\"\n\n\"I didn't know you were gone--there's another half-crown, Jo. It was\nquite right of you to say nothing about the lady the other night when\nwe were out together. It would breed trouble. You can't be too quiet,\nJo.\"\n\n\"I am fly, master!\"\n\nAnd so, good night.\n\nA ghostly shade, frilled and night-capped, follows the law-stationer\nto the room he came from and glides higher up. And henceforth he\nbegins, go where he will, to be attended by another shadow than his\nown, hardly less constant than his own, hardly less quiet than his\nown. And into whatsoever atmosphere of secrecy his own shadow may\npass, let all concerned in the secrecy beware! For the watchful Mrs.\nSnagsby is there too--bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, shadow of\nhis shadow.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI\n\nSharpshooters\n\n\nWintry morning, looking with dull eyes and sallow face upon the\nneighbourhood of Leicester Square, finds its inhabitants unwilling to\nget out of bed. Many of them are not early risers at the brightest of\ntimes, being birds of night who roost when the sun is high and are\nwide awake and keen for prey when the stars shine out. Behind dingy\nblind and curtain, in upper story and garret, skulking more or less\nunder false names, false hair, false titles, false jewellery, and\nfalse histories, a colony of brigands lie in their first sleep.\nGentlemen of the green-baize road who could discourse from personal\nexperience of foreign galleys and home treadmills; spies of strong\ngovernments that eternally quake with weakness and miserable fear,\nbroken traitors, cowards, bullies, gamesters, shufflers, swindlers,\nand false witnesses; some not unmarked by the branding-iron beneath\ntheir dirty braid; all with more cruelty in them than was in Nero,\nand more crime than is in Newgate. For howsoever bad the devil can be\nin fustian or smock-frock (and he can be very bad in both), he is a\nmore designing, callous, and intolerable devil when he sticks a pin\nin his shirt-front, calls himself a gentleman, backs a card or\ncolour, plays a game or so of billiards, and knows a little about\nbills and promissory notes than in any other form he wears. And in\nsuch form Mr. Bucket shall find him, when he will, still pervading\nthe tributary channels of Leicester Square.\n\nBut the wintry morning wants him not and wakes him not. It wakes Mr.\nGeorge of the shooting gallery and his familiar. They arise, roll up\nand stow away their mattresses. Mr. George, having shaved himself\nbefore a looking-glass of minute proportions, then marches out,\nbare-headed and bare-chested, to the pump in the little yard and anon\ncomes back shining with yellow soap, friction, drifting rain, and\nexceedingly cold water. As he rubs himself upon a large jack-towel,\nblowing like a military sort of diver just come up, his hair curling\ntighter and tighter on his sunburnt temples the more he rubs it so\nthat it looks as if it never could be loosened by any less coercive\ninstrument than an iron rake or a curry-comb--as he rubs, and puffs,\nand polishes, and blows, turning his head from side to side the more\nconveniently to excoriate his throat, and standing with his body well\nbent forward to keep the wet from his martial legs, Phil, on his\nknees lighting a fire, looks round as if it were enough washing for\nhim to see all that done, and sufficient renovation for one day to\ntake in the superfluous health his master throws off.\n\nWhen Mr. George is dry, he goes to work to brush his head with two\nhard brushes at once, to that unmerciful degree that Phil,\nshouldering his way round the gallery in the act of sweeping it,\nwinks with sympathy. This chafing over, the ornamental part of Mr.\nGeorge's toilet is soon performed. He fills his pipe, lights it, and\nmarches up and down smoking, as his custom is, while Phil, raising a\npowerful odour of hot rolls and coffee, prepares breakfast. He smokes\ngravely and marches in slow time. Perhaps this morning's pipe is\ndevoted to the memory of Gridley in his grave.\n\n\"And so, Phil,\" says George of the shooting gallery after several\nturns in silence, \"you were dreaming of the country last night?\"\n\nPhil, by the by, said as much in a tone of surprise as he scrambled\nout of bed.\n\n\"Yes, guv'ner.\"\n\n\"What was it like?\"\n\n\"I hardly know what it was like, guv'ner,\" said Phil, considering.\n\n\"How did you know it was the country?\"\n\n\"On account of the grass, I think. And the swans upon it,\" says Phil\nafter further consideration.\n\n\"What were the swans doing on the grass?\"\n\n\"They was a-eating of it, I expect,\" says Phil.\n\nThe master resumes his march, and the man resumes his preparation of\nbreakfast. It is not necessarily a lengthened preparation, being\nlimited to the setting forth of very simple breakfast requisites for\ntwo and the broiling of a rasher of bacon at the fire in the rusty\ngrate; but as Phil has to sidle round a considerable part of the\ngallery for every object he wants, and never brings two objects at\nonce, it takes time under the circumstances. At length the breakfast\nis ready. Phil announcing it, Mr. George knocks the ashes out of his\npipe on the hob, stands his pipe itself in the chimney corner, and\nsits down to the meal. When he has helped himself, Phil follows suit,\nsitting at the extreme end of the little oblong table and taking his\nplate on his knees. Either in humility, or to hide his blackened\nhands, or because it is his natural manner of eating.\n\n\"The country,\" says Mr. George, plying his knife and fork; \"why, I\nsuppose you never clapped your eyes on the country, Phil?\"\n\n\"I see the marshes once,\" says Phil, contentedly eating his\nbreakfast.\n\n\"What marshes?\"\n\n\"THE marshes, commander,\" returns Phil.\n\n\"Where are they?\"\n\n\"I don't know where they are,\" says Phil; \"but I see 'em, guv'ner.\nThey was flat. And miste.\"\n\nGovernor and commander are interchangeable terms with Phil,\nexpressive of the same respect and deference and applicable to nobody\nbut Mr. George.\n\n\"I was born in the country, Phil.\"\n\n\"Was you indeed, commander?\"\n\n\"Yes. And bred there.\"\n\nPhil elevates his one eyebrow, and after respectfully staring at his\nmaster to express interest, swallows a great gulp of coffee, still\nstaring at him.\n\n\"There's not a bird's note that I don't know,\" says Mr. George. \"Not\nmany an English leaf or berry that I couldn't name. Not many a tree\nthat I couldn't climb yet if I was put to it. I was a real country\nboy, once. My good mother lived in the country.\"\n\n\"She must have been a fine old lady, guv'ner,\" Phil observes.\n\n\"Aye! And not so old either, five and thirty years ago,\" says Mr.\nGeorge. \"But I'll wager that at ninety she would be near as upright\nas me, and near as broad across the shoulders.\"\n\n\"Did she die at ninety, guv'ner?\" inquires Phil.\n\n\"No. Bosh! Let her rest in peace, God bless her!\" says the\ntrooper. \"What set me on about country boys, and runaways, and\ngood-for-nothings? You, to be sure! So you never clapped your eyes\nupon the country--marshes and dreams excepted. Eh?\"\n\nPhil shakes his head.\n\n\"Do you want to see it?\"\n\n\"N-no, I don't know as I do, particular,\" says Phil.\n\n\"The town's enough for you, eh?\"\n\n\"Why, you see, commander,\" says Phil, \"I ain't acquainted with\nanythink else, and I doubt if I ain't a-getting too old to take to\nnovelties.\"\n\n\"How old ARE you, Phil?\" asks the trooper, pausing as he conveys his\nsmoking saucer to his lips.\n\n\"I'm something with a eight in it,\" says Phil. \"It can't be eighty.\nNor yet eighteen. It's betwixt 'em, somewheres.\"\n\nMr. George, slowly putting down his saucer without tasting its\ncontents, is laughingly beginning, \"Why, what the deuce, Phil--\" when\nhe stops, seeing that Phil is counting on his dirty fingers.\n\n\"I was just eight,\" says Phil, \"agreeable to the parish calculation,\nwhen I went with the tinker. I was sent on a errand, and I see him\na-sittin under a old buildin with a fire all to himself wery\ncomfortable, and he says, 'Would you like to come along a me, my\nman?' I says 'Yes,' and him and me and the fire goes home to\nClerkenwell together. That was April Fool Day. I was able to count up\nto ten; and when April Fool Day come round again, I says to myself,\n'Now, old chap, you're one and a eight in it.' April Fool Day after\nthat, I says, 'Now, old chap, you're two and a eight in it.' In\ncourse of time, I come to ten and a eight in it; two tens and a eight\nin it. When it got so high, it got the upper hand of me, but this is\nhow I always know there's a eight in it.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" says Mr. George, resuming his breakfast. \"And where's the\ntinker?\"\n\n\"Drink put him in the hospital, guv'ner, and the hospital put him--in\na glass-case, I HAVE heerd,\" Phil replies mysteriously.\n\n\"By that means you got promotion? Took the business, Phil?\"\n\n\"Yes, commander, I took the business. Such as it was. It wasn't much\nof a beat--round Saffron Hill, Hatton Garden, Clerkenwell, Smiffeld,\nand there--poor neighbourhood, where they uses up the kettles till\nthey're past mending. Most of the tramping tinkers used to come and\nlodge at our place; that was the best part of my master's earnings.\nBut they didn't come to me. I warn't like him. He could sing 'em a\ngood song. I couldn't! He could play 'em a tune on any sort of pot\nyou please, so as it was iron or block tin. I never could do nothing\nwith a pot but mend it or bile it--never had a note of music in me.\nBesides, I was too ill-looking, and their wives complained of me.\"\n\n\"They were mighty particular. You would pass muster in a crowd,\nPhil!\" says the trooper with a pleasant smile.\n\n\"No, guv'ner,\" returns Phil, shaking his head. \"No, I shouldn't. I\nwas passable enough when I went with the tinker, though nothing to\nboast of then; but what with blowing the fire with my mouth when I\nwas young, and spileing my complexion, and singeing my hair off, and\nswallering the smoke, and what with being nat'rally unfort'nate in\nthe way of running against hot metal and marking myself by sich\nmeans, and what with having turn-ups with the tinker as I got older,\nalmost whenever he was too far gone in drink--which was almost\nalways--my beauty was queer, wery queer, even at that time. As to\nsince, what with a dozen years in a dark forge where the men was\ngiven to larking, and what with being scorched in a accident at a\ngas-works, and what with being blowed out of winder case-filling at\nthe firework business, I am ugly enough to be made a show on!\"\n\nResigning himself to which condition with a perfectly satisfied\nmanner, Phil begs the favour of another cup of coffee. While drinking\nit, he says, \"It was after the case-filling blow-up when I first see\nyou, commander. You remember?\"\n\n\"I remember, Phil. You were walking along in the sun.\"\n\n\"Crawling, guv'ner, again a wall--\"\n\n\"True, Phil--shouldering your way on--\"\n\n\"In a night-cap!\" exclaims Phil, excited.\n\n\"In a night-cap--\"\n\n\"And hobbling with a couple of sticks!\" cries Phil, still more\nexcited.\n\n\"With a couple of sticks. When--\"\n\n\"When you stops, you know,\" cries Phil, putting down his cup and\nsaucer and hastily removing his plate from his knees, \"and says to\nme, 'What, comrade! You have been in the wars!' I didn't say much to\nyou, commander, then, for I was took by surprise that a person so\nstrong and healthy and bold as you was should stop to speak to such a\nlimping bag of bones as I was. But you says to me, says you,\ndelivering it out of your chest as hearty as possible, so that it was\nlike a glass of something hot, 'What accident have you met with? You\nhave been badly hurt. What's amiss, old boy? Cheer up, and tell us\nabout it!' Cheer up! I was cheered already! I says as much to you,\nyou says more to me, I says more to you, you says more to me, and\nhere I am, commander! Here I am, commander!\" cries Phil, who has\nstarted from his chair and unaccountably begun to sidle away. \"If a\nmark's wanted, or if it will improve the business, let the customers\ntake aim at me. They can't spoil MY beauty. I'M all right. Come on!\nIf they want a man to box at, let 'em box at me. Let 'em knock me\nwell about the head. I don't mind. If they want a light-weight to be\nthrowed for practice, Cornwall, Devonshire, or Lancashire, let 'em\nthrow me. They won't hurt ME. I have been throwed, all sorts of\nstyles, all my life!\"\n\nWith this unexpected speech, energetically delivered and accompanied\nby action illustrative of the various exercises referred to, Phil\nSquod shoulders his way round three sides of the gallery, and\nabruptly tacking off at his commander, makes a butt at him with his\nhead, intended to express devotion to his service. He then begins to\nclear away the breakfast.\n\nMr. George, after laughing cheerfully and clapping him on the\nshoulder, assists in these arrangements and helps to get the gallery\ninto business order. That done, he takes a turn at the dumb-bells,\nand afterwards weighing himself and opining that he is getting \"too\nfleshy,\" engages with great gravity in solitary broadsword practice.\nMeanwhile Phil has fallen to work at his usual table, where he screws\nand unscrews, and cleans, and files, and whistles into small\napertures, and blackens himself more and more, and seems to do and\nundo everything that can be done and undone about a gun.\n\nMaster and man are at length disturbed by footsteps in the passage,\nwhere they make an unusual sound, denoting the arrival of unusual\ncompany. These steps, advancing nearer and nearer to the gallery,\nbring into it a group at first sight scarcely reconcilable with any\nday in the year but the fifth of November.\n\nIt consists of a limp and ugly figure carried in a chair by two\nbearers and attended by a lean female with a face like a pinched\nmask, who might be expected immediately to recite the popular verses\ncommemorative of the time when they did contrive to blow Old England\nup alive but for her keeping her lips tightly and defiantly closed as\nthe chair is put down. At which point the figure in it gasping, \"O\nLord! Oh, dear me! I am shaken!\" adds, \"How de do, my dear friend,\nhow de do?\" Mr. George then descries, in the procession, the\nvenerable Mr. Smallweed out for an airing, attended by his\ngranddaughter Judy as body-guard.\n\n\"Mr. George, my dear friend,\" says Grandfather Smallweed, removing\nhis right arm from the neck of one of his bearers, whom he has nearly\nthrottled coming along, \"how de do? You're surprised to see me, my\ndear friend.\"\n\n\"I should hardly have been more surprised to have seen your friend in\nthe city,\" returns Mr. George.\n\n\"I am very seldom out,\" pants Mr. Smallweed. \"I haven't been out for\nmany months. It's inconvenient--and it comes expensive. But I longed\nso much to see you, my dear Mr. George. How de do, sir?\"\n\n\"I am well enough,\" says Mr. George. \"I hope you are the same.\"\n\n\"You can't be too well, my dear friend.\" Mr. Smallweed takes him by\nboth hands. \"I have brought my granddaughter Judy. I couldn't keep\nher away. She longed so much to see you.\"\n\n\"Hum! She bears it calmly!\" mutters Mr. George.\n\n\"So we got a hackney-cab, and put a chair in it, and just round the\ncorner they lifted me out of the cab and into the chair, and carried\nme here that I might see my dear friend in his own establishment!\nThis,\" says Grandfather Smallweed, alluding to the bearer, who has\nbeen in danger of strangulation and who withdraws adjusting his\nwindpipe, \"is the driver of the cab. He has nothing extra. It is by\nagreement included in his fare. This person,\" the other bearer, \"we\nengaged in the street outside for a pint of beer. Which is twopence.\nJudy, give the person twopence. I was not sure you had a workman of\nyour own here, my dear friend, or we needn't have employed this\nperson.\"\n\nGrandfather Smallweed refers to Phil with a glance of considerable\nterror and a half-subdued \"O Lord! Oh, dear me!\" Nor in his\napprehension, on the surface of things, without some reason, for\nPhil, who has never beheld the apparition in the black-velvet cap\nbefore, has stopped short with a gun in his hand with much of the air\nof a dead shot intent on picking Mr. Smallweed off as an ugly old\nbird of the crow species.\n\n\"Judy, my child,\" says Grandfather Smallweed, \"give the person his\ntwopence. It's a great deal for what he has done.\"\n\nThe person, who is one of those extraordinary specimens of human\nfungus that spring up spontaneously in the western streets of London,\nready dressed in an old red jacket, with a \"mission\" for holding\nhorses and calling coaches, received his twopence with anything but\ntransport, tosses the money into the air, catches it over-handed, and\nretires.\n\n\"My dear Mr. George,\" says Grandfather Smallweed, \"would you be so\nkind as help to carry me to the fire? I am accustomed to a fire, and\nI am an old man, and I soon chill. Oh, dear me!\"\n\nHis closing exclamation is jerked out of the venerable gentleman by\nthe suddenness with which Mr. Squod, like a genie, catches him up,\nchair and all, and deposits him on the hearth-stone.\n\n\"O Lord!\" says Mr. Smallweed, panting. \"Oh, dear me! Oh, my stars! My\ndear friend, your workman is very strong--and very prompt. O Lord, he\nis very prompt! Judy, draw me back a little. I'm being scorched in\nthe legs,\" which indeed is testified to the noses of all present by\nthe smell of his worsted stockings.\n\nThe gentle Judy, having backed her grandfather a little way from the\nfire, and having shaken him up as usual, and having released his\novershadowed eye from its black-velvet extinguisher, Mr. Smallweed\nagain says, \"Oh, dear me! O Lord!\" and looking about and meeting Mr.\nGeorge's glance, again stretches out both hands.\n\n\"My dear friend! So happy in this meeting! And this is your\nestablishment? It's a delightful place. It's a picture! You never\nfind that anything goes off here accidentally, do you, my dear\nfriend?\" adds Grandfather Smallweed, very ill at ease.\n\n\"No, no. No fear of that.\"\n\n\"And your workman. He--Oh, dear me!--he never lets anything off\nwithout meaning it, does he, my dear friend?\"\n\n\"He has never hurt anybody but himself,\" says Mr. George, smiling.\n\n\"But he might, you know. He seems to have hurt himself a good deal,\nand he might hurt somebody else,\" the old gentleman returns. \"He\nmightn't mean it--or he even might. Mr. George, will you order him to\nleave his infernal fire-arms alone and go away?\"\n\nObedient to a nod from the trooper, Phil retires, empty-handed, to\nthe other end of the gallery. Mr. Smallweed, reassured, falls to\nrubbing his legs.\n\n\"And you're doing well, Mr. George?\" he says to the trooper, squarely\nstanding faced about towards him with his broadsword in his hand.\n\"You are prospering, please the Powers?\"\n\nMr. George answers with a cool nod, adding, \"Go on. You have not come\nto say that, I know.\"\n\n\"You are so sprightly, Mr. George,\" returns the venerable\ngrandfather. \"You are such good company.\"\n\n\"Ha ha! Go on!\" says Mr. George.\n\n\"My dear friend! But that sword looks awful gleaming and sharp. It\nmight cut somebody, by accident. It makes me shiver, Mr. George.\nCurse him!\" says the excellent old gentleman apart to Judy as the\ntrooper takes a step or two away to lay it aside. \"He owes me money,\nand might think of paying off old scores in this murdering place. I\nwish your brimstone grandmother was here, and he'd shave her head\noff.\"\n\nMr. George, returning, folds his arms, and looking down at the old\nman, sliding every moment lower and lower in his chair, says quietly,\n\"Now for it!\"\n\n\"Ho!\" cries Mr. Smallweed, rubbing his hands with an artful chuckle.\n\"Yes. Now for it. Now for what, my dear friend?\"\n\n\"For a pipe,\" says Mr. George, who with great composure sets his\nchair in the chimney-corner, takes his pipe from the grate, fills it\nand lights it, and falls to smoking peacefully.\n\nThis tends to the discomfiture of Mr. Smallweed, who finds it so\ndifficult to resume his object, whatever it may be, that he becomes\nexasperated and secretly claws the air with an impotent\nvindictiveness expressive of an intense desire to tear and rend the\nvisage of Mr. George. As the excellent old gentleman's nails are long\nand leaden, and his hands lean and veinous, and his eyes green and\nwatery; and, over and above this, as he continues, while he claws, to\nslide down in his chair and to collapse into a shapeless bundle, he\nbecomes such a ghastly spectacle, even in the accustomed eyes of\nJudy, that that young virgin pounces at him with something more than\nthe ardour of affection and so shakes him up and pats and pokes him\nin divers parts of his body, but particularly in that part which the\nscience of self-defence would call his wind, that in his grievous\ndistress he utters enforced sounds like a paviour's rammer.\n\nWhen Judy has by these means set him up again in his chair, with a\nwhite face and a frosty nose (but still clawing), she stretches out\nher weazen forefinger and gives Mr. George one poke in the back. The\ntrooper raising his head, she makes another poke at her esteemed\ngrandfather, and having thus brought them together, stares rigidly at\nthe fire.\n\n\"Aye, aye! Ho, ho! U--u--u--ugh!\" chatters Grandfather Smallweed,\nswallowing his rage. \"My dear friend!\" (still clawing).\n\n\"I tell you what,\" says Mr. George. \"If you want to converse with me,\nyou must speak out. I am one of the roughs, and I can't go about and\nabout. I haven't the art to do it. I am not clever enough. It don't\nsuit me. When you go winding round and round me,\" says the trooper,\nputting his pipe between his lips again, \"damme, if I don't feel as\nif I was being smothered!\"\n\nAnd he inflates his broad chest to its utmost extent as if to assure\nhimself that he is not smothered yet.\n\n\"If you have come to give me a friendly call,\" continues Mr. George,\n\"I am obliged to you; how are you? If you have come to see whether\nthere's any property on the premises, look about you; you are\nwelcome. If you want to out with something, out with it!\"\n\nThe blooming Judy, without removing her gaze from the fire, gives her\ngrandfather one ghostly poke.\n\n\"You see! It's her opinion too. And why the devil that young woman\nwon't sit down like a Christian,\" says Mr. George with his eyes\nmusingly fixed on Judy, \"I can't comprehend.\"\n\n\"She keeps at my side to attend to me, sir,\" says Grandfather\nSmallweed. \"I am an old man, my dear Mr. George, and I need some\nattention. I can carry my years; I am not a brimstone poll-parrot\"\n(snarling and looking unconsciously for the cushion), \"but I need\nattention, my dear friend.\"\n\n\"Well!\" returns the trooper, wheeling his chair to face the old man.\n\"Now then?\"\n\n\"My friend in the city, Mr. George, has done a little business with a\npupil of yours.\"\n\n\"Has he?\" says Mr. George. \"I am sorry to hear it.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\" Grandfather Smallweed rubs his legs. \"He is a fine young\nsoldier now, Mr. George, by the name of Carstone. Friends came\nforward and paid it all up, honourable.\"\n\n\"Did they?\" returns Mr. George. \"Do you think your friend in the city\nwould like a piece of advice?\"\n\n\"I think he would, my dear friend. From you.\"\n\n\"I advise him, then, to do no more business in that quarter. There's\nno more to be got by it. The young gentleman, to my knowledge, is\nbrought to a dead halt.\"\n\n\"No, no, my dear friend. No, no, Mr. George. No, no, no, sir,\"\nremonstrates Grandfather Smallweed, cunningly rubbing his spare legs.\n\"Not quite a dead halt, I think. He has good friends, and he is good\nfor his pay, and he is good for the selling price of his commission,\nand he is good for his chance in a lawsuit, and he is good for his\nchance in a wife, and--oh, do you know, Mr. George, I think my friend\nwould consider the young gentleman good for something yet?\" says\nGrandfather Smallweed, turning up his velvet cap and scratching his\near like a monkey.\n\nMr. George, who has put aside his pipe and sits with an arm on his\nchair-back, beats a tattoo on the ground with his right foot as if he\nwere not particularly pleased with the turn the conversation has\ntaken.\n\n\"But to pass from one subject to another,\" resumes Mr. Smallweed.\n\"'To promote the conversation,' as a joker might say. To pass, Mr.\nGeorge, from the ensign to the captain.\"\n\n\"What are you up to, now?\" asks Mr. George, pausing with a frown in\nstroking the recollection of his moustache. \"What captain?\"\n\n\"Our captain. The captain we know of. Captain Hawdon.\"\n\n\"Oh! That's it, is it?\" says Mr. George with a low whistle as he sees\nboth grandfather and granddaughter looking hard at him. \"You are\nthere! Well? What about it? Come, I won't be smothered any more.\nSpeak!\"\n\n\"My dear friend,\" returns the old man, \"I was applied--Judy, shake me\nup a little!--I was applied to yesterday about the captain, and my\nopinion still is that the captain is not dead.\"\n\n\"Bosh!\" observes Mr. George.\n\n\"What was your remark, my dear friend?\" inquires the old man with his\nhand to his ear.\n\n\"Bosh!\"\n\n\"Ho!\" says Grandfather Smallweed. \"Mr. George, of my opinion you can\njudge for yourself according to the questions asked of me and the\nreasons given for asking 'em. Now, what do you think the lawyer\nmaking the inquiries wants?\"\n\n\"A job,\" says Mr. George.\n\n\"Nothing of the kind!\"\n\n\"Can't be a lawyer, then,\" says Mr. George, folding his arms with an\nair of confirmed resolution.\n\n\"My dear friend, he is a lawyer, and a famous one. He wants to see\nsome fragment in Captain Hawdon's writing. He don't want to keep it.\nHe only wants to see it and compare it with a writing in his\npossession.\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"Well, Mr. George. Happening to remember the advertisement concerning\nCaptain Hawdon and any information that could be given respecting\nhim, he looked it up and came to me--just as you did, my dear friend.\nWILL you shake hands? So glad you came that day! I should have missed\nforming such a friendship if you hadn't come!\"\n\n\"Well, Mr. Smallweed?\" says Mr. George again after going through the\nceremony with some stiffness.\n\n\"I had no such thing. I have nothing but his signature. Plague\npestilence and famine, battle murder and sudden death upon him,\" says\nthe old man, making a curse out of one of his few remembrances of a\nprayer and squeezing up his velvet cap between his angry hands, \"I\nhave half a million of his signatures, I think! But you,\"\nbreathlessly recovering his mildness of speech as Judy re-adjusts the\ncap on his skittle-ball of a head, \"you, my dear Mr. George, are\nlikely to have some letter or paper that would suit the purpose.\nAnything would suit the purpose, written in the hand.\"\n\n\"Some writing in that hand,\" says the trooper, pondering; \"may be, I\nhave.\"\n\n\"My dearest friend!\"\n\n\"May be, I have not.\"\n\n\"Ho!\" says Grandfather Smallweed, crest-fallen.\n\n\"But if I had bushels of it, I would not show as much as would make a\ncartridge without knowing why.\"\n\n\"Sir, I have told you why. My dear Mr. George, I have told you why.\"\n\n\"Not enough,\" says the trooper, shaking his head. \"I must know more,\nand approve it.\"\n\n\"Then, will you come to the lawyer? My dear friend, will you come and\nsee the gentleman?\" urges Grandfather Smallweed, pulling out a lean\nold silver watch with hands like the leg of a skeleton. \"I told him\nit was probable I might call upon him between ten and eleven this\nforenoon, and it's now half after ten. Will you come and see the\ngentleman, Mr. George?\"\n\n\"Hum!\" says he gravely. \"I don't mind that. Though why this should\nconcern you so much, I don't know.\"\n\n\"Everything concerns me that has a chance in it of bringing anything\nto light about him. Didn't he take us all in? Didn't he owe us\nimmense sums, all round? Concern me? Who can anything about him\nconcern more than me? Not, my dear friend,\" says Grandfather\nSmallweed, lowering his tone, \"that I want YOU to betray anything.\nFar from it. Are you ready to come, my dear friend?\"\n\n\"Aye! I'll come in a moment. I promise nothing, you know.\"\n\n\"No, my dear Mr. George; no.\"\n\n\"And you mean to say you're going to give me a lift to this place,\nwherever it is, without charging for it?\" Mr. George inquires,\ngetting his hat and thick wash-leather gloves.\n\nThis pleasantry so tickles Mr. Smallweed that he laughs, long and\nlow, before the fire. But ever while he laughs, he glances over his\nparalytic shoulder at Mr. George and eagerly watches him as he\nunlocks the padlock of a homely cupboard at the distant end of the\ngallery, looks here and there upon the higher shelves, and ultimately\ntakes something out with a rustling of paper, folds it, and puts it\nin his breast. Then Judy pokes Mr. Smallweed once, and Mr. Smallweed\npokes Judy once.\n\n\"I am ready,\" says the trooper, coming back. \"Phil, you can carry\nthis old gentleman to his coach, and make nothing of him.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear me! O Lord! Stop a moment!\" says Mr. Smallweed. \"He's so\nvery prompt! Are you sure you can do it carefully, my worthy man?\"\n\nPhil makes no reply, but seizing the chair and its load, sidles away,\ntightly hugged by the now speechless Mr. Smallweed, and bolts along\nthe passage as if he had an acceptable commission to carry the old\ngentleman to the nearest volcano. His shorter trust, however,\nterminating at the cab, he deposits him there; and the fair Judy\ntakes her place beside him, and the chair embellishes the roof, and\nMr. George takes the vacant place upon the box.\n\nMr. George is quite confounded by the spectacle he beholds from time\nto time as he peeps into the cab through the window behind him, where\nthe grim Judy is always motionless, and the old gentleman with his\ncap over one eye is always sliding off the seat into the straw and\nlooking upward at him out of his other eye with a helpless expression\nof being jolted in the back.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVII\n\nMore Old Soldiers Than One\n\n\nMr. George has not far to ride with folded arms upon the box, for\ntheir destination is Lincoln's Inn Fields. When the driver stops his\nhorses, Mr. George alights, and looking in at the window, says,\n\"What, Mr. Tulkinghorn's your man, is he?\"\n\n\"Yes, my dear friend. Do you know him, Mr. George?\"\n\n\"Why, I have heard of him--seen him too, I think. But I don't know\nhim, and he don't know me.\"\n\nThere ensues the carrying of Mr. Smallweed upstairs, which is done to\nperfection with the trooper's help. He is borne into Mr.\nTulkinghorn's great room and deposited on the Turkey rug before the\nfire. Mr. Tulkinghorn is not within at the present moment but will be\nback directly. The occupant of the pew in the hall, having said thus\nmuch, stirs the fire and leaves the triumvirate to warm themselves.\n\nMr. George is mightily curious in respect of the room. He looks up at\nthe painted ceiling, looks round at the old law-books, contemplates\nthe portraits of the great clients, reads aloud the names on the\nboxes.\n\n\"'Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,'\" Mr. George reads thoughtfully.\n\"Ha! 'Manor of Chesney Wold.' Humph!\" Mr. George stands looking at\nthese boxes a long while--as if they were pictures--and comes back to\nthe fire repeating, \"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and Manor of\nChesney Wold, hey?\"\n\n\"Worth a mint of money, Mr. George!\" whispers Grandfather Smallweed,\nrubbing his legs. \"Powerfully rich!\"\n\n\"Who do you mean? This old gentleman, or the Baronet?\"\n\n\"This gentleman, this gentleman.\"\n\n\"So I have heard; and knows a thing or two, I'll hold a wager. Not\nbad quarters, either,\" says Mr. George, looking round again. \"See the\nstrong-box yonder!\"\n\nThis reply is cut short by Mr. Tulkinghorn's arrival. There is no\nchange in him, of course. Rustily drest, with his spectacles in his\nhand, and their very case worn threadbare. In manner, close and dry.\nIn voice, husky and low. In face, watchful behind a blind; habitually\nnot uncensorious and contemptuous perhaps. The peerage may have\nwarmer worshippers and faithfuller believers than Mr. Tulkinghorn,\nafter all, if everything were known.\n\n\"Good morning, Mr. Smallweed, good morning!\" he says as he comes in.\n\"You have brought the sergeant, I see. Sit down, sergeant.\"\n\nAs Mr. Tulkinghorn takes off his gloves and puts them in his hat, he\nlooks with half-closed eyes across the room to where the trooper\nstands and says within himself perchance, \"You'll do, my friend!\"\n\n\"Sit down, sergeant,\" he repeats as he comes to his table, which is\nset on one side of the fire, and takes his easy-chair. \"Cold and raw\nthis morning, cold and raw!\" Mr. Tulkinghorn warms before the bars,\nalternately, the palms and knuckles of his hands and looks (from\nbehind that blind which is always down) at the trio sitting in a\nlittle semicircle before him.\n\n\"Now, I can feel what I am about\" (as perhaps he can in two senses),\n\"Mr. Smallweed.\" The old gentleman is newly shaken up by Judy to bear\nhis part in the conversation. \"You have brought our good friend the\nsergeant, I see.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" returns Mr. Smallweed, very servile to the lawyer's\nwealth and influence.\n\n\"And what does the sergeant say about this business?\"\n\n\"Mr. George,\" says Grandfather Smallweed with a tremulous wave of his\nshrivelled hand, \"this is the gentleman, sir.\"\n\nMr. George salutes the gentleman but otherwise sits bolt upright and\nprofoundly silent--very forward in his chair, as if the full\ncomplement of regulation appendages for a field-day hung about him.\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn proceeds, \"Well, George--I believe your name is\nGeorge?\"\n\n\"It is so, Sir.\"\n\n\"What do you say, George?\"\n\n\"I ask your pardon, sir,\" returns the trooper, \"but I should wish to\nknow what YOU say?\"\n\n\"Do you mean in point of reward?\"\n\n\"I mean in point of everything, sir.\"\n\nThis is so very trying to Mr. Smallweed's temper that he suddenly\nbreaks out with \"You're a brimstone beast!\" and as suddenly asks\npardon of Mr. Tulkinghorn, excusing himself for this slip of the\ntongue by saying to Judy, \"I was thinking of your grandmother, my\ndear.\"\n\n\"I supposed, sergeant,\" Mr. Tulkinghorn resumes as he leans on one\nside of his chair and crosses his legs, \"that Mr. Smallweed might\nhave sufficiently explained the matter. It lies in the smallest\ncompass, however. You served under Captain Hawdon at one time, and\nwere his attendant in illness, and rendered him many little services,\nand were rather in his confidence, I am told. That is so, is it not?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, that is so,\" says Mr. George with military brevity.\n\n\"Therefore you may happen to have in your possession\nsomething--anything, no matter what; accounts, instructions, orders,\na letter, anything--in Captain Hawdon's writing. I wish to compare\nhis writing with some that I have. If you can give me the\nopportunity, you shall be rewarded for your trouble. Three, four,\nfive, guineas, you would consider handsome, I dare say.\"\n\n\"Noble, my dear friend!\" cries Grandfather Smallweed, screwing up his\neyes.\n\n\"If not, say how much more, in your conscience as a soldier, you can\ndemand. There is no need for you to part with the writing, against\nyour inclination--though I should prefer to have it.\"\n\nMr. George sits squared in exactly the same attitude, looks at the\npainted ceiling, and says never a word. The irascible Mr. Smallweed\nscratches the air.\n\n\"The question is,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn in his methodical, subdued,\nuninterested way, \"first, whether you have any of Captain Hawdon's\nwriting?\"\n\n\"First, whether I have any of Captain Hawdon's writing, sir,\" repeats\nMr. George.\n\n\"Secondly, what will satisfy you for the trouble of producing it?\"\n\n\"Secondly, what will satisfy me for the trouble of producing it,\nsir,\" repeats Mr. George.\n\n\"Thirdly, you can judge for yourself whether it is at all like that,\"\nsays Mr. Tulkinghorn, suddenly handing him some sheets of written\npaper tied together.\n\n\"Whether it is at all like that, sir. Just so,\" repeats Mr. George.\n\nAll three repetitions Mr. George pronounces in a mechanical manner,\nlooking straight at Mr. Tulkinghorn; nor does he so much as glance at\nthe affidavit in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, that has been given to him\nfor his inspection (though he still holds it in his hand), but\ncontinues to look at the lawyer with an air of troubled meditation.\n\n\"Well?\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. \"What do you say?\"\n\n\"Well, sir,\" replies Mr. George, rising erect and looking immense, \"I\nwould rather, if you'll excuse me, have nothing to do with this.\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn, outwardly quite undisturbed, demands, \"Why not?\"\n\n\"Why, sir,\" returns the trooper. \"Except on military compulsion, I am\nnot a man of business. Among civilians I am what they call in\nScotland a ne'er-do-weel. I have no head for papers, sir. I can stand\nany fire better than a fire of cross questions. I mentioned to Mr.\nSmallweed, only an hour or so ago, that when I come into things of\nthis kind I feel as if I was being smothered. And that is my\nsensation,\" says Mr. George, looking round upon the company, \"at the\npresent moment.\"\n\nWith that, he takes three strides forward to replace the papers on\nthe lawyer's table and three strides backward to resume his former\nstation, where he stands perfectly upright, now looking at the ground\nand now at the painted ceiling, with his hands behind him as if to\nprevent himself from accepting any other document whatever.\n\nUnder this provocation, Mr. Smallweed's favourite adjective of\ndisparagement is so close to his tongue that he begins the words \"my\ndear friend\" with the monosyllable \"brim,\" thus converting the\npossessive pronoun into brimmy and appearing to have an impediment in\nhis speech. Once past this difficulty, however, he exhorts his dear\nfriend in the tenderest manner not to be rash, but to do what so\neminent a gentleman requires, and to do it with a good grace,\nconfident that it must be unobjectionable as well as profitable. Mr.\nTulkinghorn merely utters an occasional sentence, as, \"You are the\nbest judge of your own interest, sergeant.\" \"Take care you do no harm\nby this.\" \"Please yourself, please yourself.\" \"If you know what you\nmean, that's quite enough.\" These he utters with an appearance of\nperfect indifference as he looks over the papers on his table and\nprepares to write a letter.\n\nMr. George looks distrustfully from the painted ceiling to the\nground, from the ground to Mr. Smallweed, from Mr. Smallweed to Mr.\nTulkinghorn, and from Mr. Tulkinghorn to the painted ceiling again,\noften in his perplexity changing the leg on which he rests.\n\n\"I do assure you, sir,\" says Mr. George, \"not to say it offensively,\nthat between you and Mr. Smallweed here, I really am being smothered\nfifty times over. I really am, sir. I am not a match for you\ngentlemen. Will you allow me to ask why you want to see the captain's\nhand, in the case that I could find any specimen of it?\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn quietly shakes his head. \"No. If you were a man of\nbusiness, sergeant, you would not need to be informed that there are\nconfidential reasons, very harmless in themselves, for many such\nwants in the profession to which I belong. But if you are afraid of\ndoing any injury to Captain Hawdon, you may set your mind at rest\nabout that.\"\n\n\"Aye! He is dead, sir.\"\n\n\"IS he?\" Mr. Tulkinghorn quietly sits down to write.\n\n\"Well, sir,\" says the trooper, looking into his hat after another\ndisconcerted pause, \"I am sorry not to have given you more\nsatisfaction. If it would be any satisfaction to any one that I\nshould be confirmed in my judgment that I would rather have nothing\nto do with this by a friend of mine who has a better head for\nbusiness than I have, and who is an old soldier, I am willing to\nconsult with him. I--I really am so completely smothered myself at\npresent,\" says Mr. George, passing his hand hopelessly across his\nbrow, \"that I don't know but what it might be a satisfaction to me.\"\n\nMr. Smallweed, hearing that this authority is an old soldier, so\nstrongly inculcates the expediency of the trooper's taking counsel\nwith him, and particularly informing him of its being a question of\nfive guineas or more, that Mr. George engages to go and see him. Mr.\nTulkinghorn says nothing either way.\n\n\"I'll consult my friend, then, by your leave, sir,\" says the trooper,\n\"and I'll take the liberty of looking in again with the final answer\nin the course of the day. Mr. Smallweed, if you wish to be carried\ndownstairs--\"\n\n\"In a moment, my dear friend, in a moment. Will you first let me\nspeak half a word with this gentleman in private?\"\n\n\"Certainly, sir. Don't hurry yourself on my account.\" The trooper\nretires to a distant part of the room and resumes his curious\ninspection of the boxes, strong and otherwise.\n\n\"If I wasn't as weak as a brimstone baby, sir,\" whispers Grandfather\nSmallweed, drawing the lawyer down to his level by the lapel of his\ncoat and flashing some half-quenched green fire out of his angry\neyes, \"I'd tear the writing away from him. He's got it buttoned in\nhis breast. I saw him put it there. Judy saw him put it there. Speak\nup, you crabbed image for the sign of a walking-stick shop, and say\nyou saw him put it there!\"\n\nThis vehement conjuration the old gentleman accompanies with such a\nthrust at his granddaughter that it is too much for his strength, and\nhe slips away out of his chair, drawing Mr. Tulkinghorn with him,\nuntil he is arrested by Judy, and well shaken.\n\n\"Violence will not do for me, my friend,\" Mr. Tulkinghorn then\nremarks coolly.\n\n\"No, no, I know, I know, sir. But it's chafing and\ngalling--it's--it's worse than your smattering chattering magpie of a\ngrandmother,\" to the imperturbable Judy, who only looks at the fire,\n\"to know he has got what's wanted and won't give it up. He, not to\ngive it up! HE! A vagabond! But never mind, sir, never mind. At the\nmost, he has only his own way for a little while. I have him\nperiodically in a vice. I'll twist him, sir. I'll screw him, sir. If\nhe won't do it with a good grace, I'll make him do it with a bad one,\nsir! Now, my dear Mr. George,\" says Grandfather Smallweed, winking at\nthe lawyer hideously as he releases him, \"I am ready for your kind\nassistance, my excellent friend!\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn, with some shadowy sign of amusement manifesting\nitself through his self-possession, stands on the hearth-rug with his\nback to the fire, watching the disappearance of Mr. Smallweed and\nacknowledging the trooper's parting salute with one slight nod.\n\nIt is more difficult to get rid of the old gentleman, Mr. George\nfinds, than to bear a hand in carrying him downstairs, for when he is\nreplaced in his conveyance, he is so loquacious on the subject of the\nguineas and retains such an affectionate hold of his button--having,\nin truth, a secret longing to rip his coat open and rob him--that\nsome degree of force is necessary on the trooper's part to effect a\nseparation. It is accomplished at last, and he proceeds alone in\nquest of his adviser.\n\nBy the cloisterly Temple, and by Whitefriars (there, not without a\nglance at Hanging-Sword Alley, which would seem to be something in\nhis way), and by Blackfriars Bridge, and Blackfriars Road, Mr. George\nsedately marches to a street of little shops lying somewhere in that\nganglion of roads from Kent and Surrey, and of streets from the\nbridges of London, centring in the far-famed elephant who has lost\nhis castle formed of a thousand four-horse coaches to a stronger iron\nmonster than he, ready to chop him into mince-meat any day he dares.\nTo one of the little shops in this street, which is a musician's\nshop, having a few fiddles in the window, and some Pan's pipes and a\ntambourine, and a triangle, and certain elongated scraps of music,\nMr. George directs his massive tread. And halting at a few paces from\nit, as he sees a soldierly looking woman, with her outer skirts\ntucked up, come forth with a small wooden tub, and in that tub\ncommence a-whisking and a-splashing on the margin of the pavement,\nMr. George says to himself, \"She's as usual, washing greens. I never\nsaw her, except upon a baggage-waggon, when she wasn't washing\ngreens!\"\n\nThe subject of this reflection is at all events so occupied in\nwashing greens at present that she remains unsuspicious of Mr.\nGeorge's approach until, lifting up herself and her tub together when\nshe has poured the water off into the gutter, she finds him standing\nnear her. Her reception of him is not flattering.\n\n\"George, I never see you but I wish you was a hundred mile away!\"\n\nThe trooper, without remarking on this welcome, follows into the\nmusical-instrument shop, where the lady places her tub of greens upon\nthe counter, and having shaken hands with him, rests her arms upon\nit.\n\n\"I never,\" she says, \"George, consider Matthew Bagnet safe a minute\nwhen you're near him. You are that restless and that roving--\"\n\n\"Yes! I know I am, Mrs. Bagnet. I know I am.\"\n\n\"You know you are!\" says Mrs. Bagnet. \"What's the use of that? WHY\nare you?\"\n\n\"The nature of the animal, I suppose,\" returns the trooper\ngood-humouredly.\n\n\"Ah!\" cries Mrs. Bagnet, something shrilly. \"But what satisfaction\nwill the nature of the animal be to me when the animal shall have\ntempted my Mat away from the musical business to New Zealand or\nAustraley?\"\n\nMrs. Bagnet is not at all an ill-looking woman. Rather large-boned, a\nlittle coarse in the grain, and freckled by the sun and wind which\nhave tanned her hair upon the forehead, but healthy, wholesome, and\nbright-eyed. A strong, busy, active, honest-faced woman of from\nforty-five to fifty. Clean, hardy, and so economically dressed\n(though substantially) that the only article of ornament of which she\nstands possessed appear's to be her wedding-ring, around which her\nfinger has grown to be so large since it was put on that it will\nnever come off again until it shall mingle with Mrs. Bagnet's dust.\n\n\"Mrs. Bagnet,\" says the trooper, \"I am on my parole with you. Mat\nwill get no harm from me. You may trust me so far.\"\n\n\"Well, I think I may. But the very looks of you are unsettling,\" Mrs.\nBagnet rejoins. \"Ah, George, George! If you had only settled down and\nmarried Joe Pouch's widow when he died in North America, SHE'D have\ncombed your hair for you.\"\n\n\"It was a chance for me, certainly,\" returns the trooper half\nlaughingly, half seriously, \"but I shall never settle down into a\nrespectable man now. Joe Pouch's widow might have done me good--there\nwas something in her, and something of her--but I couldn't make up my\nmind to it. If I had had the luck to meet with such a wife as Mat\nfound!\"\n\nMrs. Bagnet, who seems in a virtuous way to be under little reserve\nwith a good sort of fellow, but to be another good sort of fellow\nherself for that matter, receives this compliment by flicking Mr.\nGeorge in the face with a head of greens and taking her tub into the\nlittle room behind the shop.\n\n\"Why, Quebec, my poppet,\" says George, following, on invitation, into\nthat department. \"And little Malta, too! Come and kiss your Bluffy!\"\n\nThese young ladies--not supposed to have been actually christened by\nthe names applied to them, though always so called in the family from\nthe places of their birth in barracks--are respectively employed on\nthree-legged stools, the younger (some five or six years old) in\nlearning her letters out of a penny primer, the elder (eight or nine\nperhaps) in teaching her and sewing with great assiduity. Both hail\nMr. George with acclamations as an old friend and after some kissing\nand romping plant their stools beside him.\n\n\"And how's young Woolwich?\" says Mr. George.\n\n\"Ah! There now!\" cries Mrs. Bagnet, turning about from her saucepans\n(for she is cooking dinner) with a bright flush on her face. \"Would\nyou believe it? Got an engagement at the theayter, with his father,\nto play the fife in a military piece.\"\n\n\"Well done, my godson!\" cries Mr. George, slapping his thigh.\n\n\"I believe you!\" says Mrs. Bagnet. \"He's a Briton. That's what\nWoolwich is. A Briton!\"\n\n\"And Mat blows away at his bassoon, and you're respectable civilians\none and all,\" says Mr. George. \"Family people. Children growing up.\nMat's old mother in Scotland, and your old father somewhere else,\ncorresponded with, and helped a little, and--well, well! To be sure,\nI don't know why I shouldn't be wished a hundred mile away, for I\nhave not much to do with all this!\"\n\nMr. George is becoming thoughtful, sitting before the fire in the\nwhitewashed room, which has a sanded floor and a barrack smell and\ncontains nothing superfluous and has not a visible speck of dirt or\ndust in it, from the faces of Quebec and Malta to the bright tin pots\nand pannikins upon the dresser shelves--Mr. George is becoming\nthoughtful, sitting here while Mrs. Bagnet is busy, when Mr. Bagnet\nand young Woolwich opportunely come home. Mr. Bagnet is an\nex-artilleryman, tall and upright, with shaggy eyebrows and whiskers\nlike the fibres of a coco-nut, not a hair upon his head, and a torrid\ncomplexion. His voice, short, deep, and resonant, is not at all\nunlike the tones of the instrument to which he is devoted. Indeed\nthere may be generally observed in him an unbending, unyielding,\nbrass-bound air, as if he were himself the bassoon of the human\norchestra. Young Woolwich is the type and model of a young drummer.\n\nBoth father and son salute the trooper heartily. He saying, in due\nseason, that he has come to advise with Mr. Bagnet, Mr. Bagnet\nhospitably declares that he will hear of no business until after\ndinner and that his friend shall not partake of his counsel without\nfirst partaking of boiled pork and greens. The trooper yielding to\nthis invitation, he and Mr. Bagnet, not to embarrass the domestic\npreparations, go forth to take a turn up and down the little street,\nwhich they promenade with measured tread and folded arms, as if it\nwere a rampart.\n\n\"George,\" says Mr. Bagnet. \"You know me. It's my old girl that\nadvises. She has the head. But I never own to it before her.\nDiscipline must be maintained. Wait till the greens is off her mind.\nThen we'll consult. Whatever the old girl says, do--do it!\"\n\n\"I intend to, Mat,\" replies the other. \"I would sooner take her\nopinion than that of a college.\"\n\n\"College,\" returns Mr. Bagnet in short sentences, bassoon-like. \"What\ncollege could you leave--in another quarter of the world--with\nnothing but a grey cloak and an umbrella--to make its way home to\nEurope? The old girl would do it to-morrow. Did it once!\"\n\n\"You are right,\" says Mr. George.\n\n\"What college,\" pursues Bagnet, \"could you set up in life--with two\npenn'orth of white lime--a penn'orth of fuller's earth--a ha'porth of\nsand--and the rest of the change out of sixpence in money? That's\nwhat the old girl started on. In the present business.\"\n\n\"I am rejoiced to hear it's thriving, Mat.\"\n\n\"The old girl,\" says Mr. Bagnet, acquiescing, \"saves. Has a stocking\nsomewhere. With money in it. I never saw it. But I know she's got it.\nWait till the greens is off her mind. Then she'll set you up.\"\n\n\"She is a treasure!\" exclaims Mr. George.\n\n\"She's more. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be\nmaintained. It was the old girl that brought out my musical\nabilities. I should have been in the artillery now but for the old\ngirl. Six years I hammered at the fiddle. Ten at the flute. The old\ngirl said it wouldn't do; intention good, but want of flexibility;\ntry the bassoon. The old girl borrowed a bassoon from the bandmaster\nof the Rifle Regiment. I practised in the trenches. Got on, got\nanother, get a living by it!\"\n\nGeorge remarks that she looks as fresh as a rose and as sound as an\napple.\n\n\"The old girl,\" says Mr. Bagnet in reply, \"is a thoroughly fine\nwoman. Consequently she is like a thoroughly fine day. Gets finer as\nshe gets on. I never saw the old girl's equal. But I never own to it\nbefore her. Discipline must be maintained!\"\n\nProceeding to converse on indifferent matters, they walk up and down\nthe little street, keeping step and time, until summoned by Quebec\nand Malta to do justice to the pork and greens, over which Mrs.\nBagnet, like a military chaplain, says a short grace. In the\ndistribution of these comestibles, as in every other household duty,\nMrs. Bagnet developes an exact system, sitting with every dish before\nher, allotting to every portion of pork its own portion of\npot-liquor, greens, potatoes, and even mustard, and serving it out\ncomplete. Having likewise served out the beer from a can and thus\nsupplied the mess with all things necessary, Mrs. Bagnet proceeds to\nsatisfy her own hunger, which is in a healthy state. The kit of the\nmess, if the table furniture may be so denominated, is chiefly\ncomposed of utensils of horn and tin that have done duty in several\nparts of the world. Young Woolwich's knife, in particular, which is\nof the oyster kind, with the additional feature of a strong\nshutting-up movement which frequently balks the appetite of that\nyoung musician, is mentioned as having gone in various hands the\ncomplete round of foreign service.\n\nThe dinner done, Mrs. Bagnet, assisted by the younger branches (who\npolish their own cups and platters, knives and forks), makes all the\ndinner garniture shine as brightly as before and puts it all away,\nfirst sweeping the hearth, to the end that Mr. Bagnet and the visitor\nmay not be retarded in the smoking of their pipes. These household\ncares involve much pattening and counter-pattening in the backyard\nand considerable use of a pail, which is finally so happy as to\nassist in the ablutions of Mrs. Bagnet herself. That old girl\nreappearing by and by, quite fresh, and sitting down to her\nneedlework, then and only then--the greens being only then to be\nconsidered as entirely off her mind--Mr. Bagnet requests the trooper\nto state his case.\n\nThis Mr. George does with great discretion, appearing to address\nhimself to Mr. Bagnet, but having an eye solely on the old girl all\nthe time, as Bagnet has himself. She, equally discreet, busies\nherself with her needlework. The case fully stated, Mr. Bagnet\nresorts to his standard artifice for the maintenance of discipline.\n\n\"That's the whole of it, is it, George?\" says he.\n\n\"That's the whole of it.\"\n\n\"You act according to my opinion?\"\n\n\"I shall be guided,\" replies George, \"entirely by it.\"\n\n\"Old girl,\" says Mr. Bagnet, \"give him my opinion. You know it. Tell\nhim what it is.\"\n\nIt is that he cannot have too little to do with people who are too\ndeep for him and cannot be too careful of interference with matters\nhe does not understand--that the plain rule is to do nothing in the\ndark, to be a party to nothing underhanded or mysterious, and never\nto put his foot where he cannot see the ground. This, in effect, is\nMr. Bagnet's opinion, as delivered through the old girl, and it so\nrelieves Mr. George's mind by confirming his own opinion and\nbanishing his doubts that he composes himself to smoke another pipe\non that exceptional occasion and to have a talk over old times with\nthe whole Bagnet family, according to their various ranges of\nexperience.\n\nThrough these means it comes to pass that Mr. George does not again\nrise to his full height in that parlour until the time is drawing on\nwhen the bassoon and fife are expected by a British public at the\ntheatre; and as it takes time even then for Mr. George, in his\ndomestic character of Bluffy, to take leave of Quebec and Malta and\ninsinuate a sponsorial shilling into the pocket of his godson with\nfelicitations on his success in life, it is dark when Mr. George\nagain turns his face towards Lincoln's Inn Fields.\n\n\"A family home,\" he ruminates as he marches along, \"however small it\nis, makes a man like me look lonely. But it's well I never made that\nevolution of matrimony. I shouldn't have been fit for it. I am such a\nvagabond still, even at my present time of life, that I couldn't hold\nto the gallery a month together if it was a regular pursuit or if I\ndidn't camp there, gipsy fashion. Come! I disgrace nobody and cumber\nnobody; that's something. I have not done that for many a long year!\"\n\nSo he whistles it off and marches on.\n\nArrived in Lincoln's Inn Fields and mounting Mr. Tulkinghorn's stair,\nhe finds the outer door closed and the chambers shut, but the trooper\nnot knowing much about outer doors, and the staircase being dark\nbesides, he is yet fumbling and groping about, hoping to discover a\nbell-handle or to open the door for himself, when Mr. Tulkinghorn\ncomes up the stairs (quietly, of course) and angrily asks, \"Who is\nthat? What are you doing there?\"\n\n\"I ask your pardon, sir. It's George. The sergeant.\"\n\n\"And couldn't George, the sergeant, see that my door was locked?\"\n\n\"Why, no, sir, I couldn't. At any rate, I didn't,\" says the trooper,\nrather nettled.\n\n\"Have you changed your mind? Or are you in the same mind?\" Mr.\nTulkinghorn demands. But he knows well enough at a glance.\n\n\"In the same mind, sir.\"\n\n\"I thought so. That's sufficient. You can go. So you are the man,\"\nsays Mr. Tulkinghorn, opening his door with the key, \"in whose\nhiding-place Mr. Gridley was found?\"\n\n\"Yes, I AM the man,\" says the trooper, stopping two or three stairs\ndown. \"What then, sir?\"\n\n\"What then? I don't like your associates. You should not have seen\nthe inside of my door this morning if I had thought of your being\nthat man. Gridley? A threatening, murderous, dangerous fellow.\"\n\nWith these words, spoken in an unusually high tone for him, the\nlawyer goes into his rooms and shuts the door with a thundering\nnoise.\n\nMr. George takes his dismissal in great dudgeon, the greater because\na clerk coming up the stairs has heard the last words of all and\nevidently applies them to him. \"A pretty character to bear,\" the\ntrooper growls with a hasty oath as he strides downstairs. \"A\nthreatening, murderous, dangerous fellow!\" And looking up, he sees\nthe clerk looking down at him and marking him as he passes a lamp.\nThis so intensifies his dudgeon that for five minutes he is in an ill\nhumour. But he whistles that off like the rest of it and marches home\nto the shooting gallery.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII\n\nThe Ironmaster\n\n\nSir Leicester Dedlock has got the better, for the time being, of the\nfamily gout and is once more, in a literal no less than in a\nfigurative point of view, upon his legs. He is at his place in\nLincolnshire; but the waters are out again on the low-lying grounds,\nand the cold and damp steal into Chesney Wold, though well defended,\nand eke into Sir Leicester's bones. The blazing fires of faggot and\ncoal--Dedlock timber and antediluvian forest--that blaze upon the\nbroad wide hearths and wink in the twilight on the frowning woods,\nsullen to see how trees are sacrificed, do not exclude the enemy. The\nhot-water pipes that trail themselves all over the house, the\ncushioned doors and windows, and the screens and curtains fail to\nsupply the fires' deficiencies and to satisfy Sir Leicester's need.\nHence the fashionable intelligence proclaims one morning to the\nlistening earth that Lady Dedlock is expected shortly to return to\ntown for a few weeks.\n\nIt is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor\nrelations. Indeed great men have often more than their fair share of\npoor relations, inasmuch as very red blood of the superior quality,\nlike inferior blood unlawfully shed, WILL cry aloud and WILL be\nheard. Sir Leicester's cousins, in the remotest degree, are so many\nmurders in the respect that they \"will out.\" Among whom there are\ncousins who are so poor that one might almost dare to think it would\nhave been the happier for them never to have been plated links upon\nthe Dedlock chain of gold, but to have been made of common iron at\nfirst and done base service.\n\nService, however (with a few limited reservations, genteel but not\nprofitable), they may not do, being of the Dedlock dignity. So they\nvisit their richer cousins, and get into debt when they can, and live\nbut shabbily when they can't, and find--the women no husbands, and\nthe men no wives--and ride in borrowed carriages, and sit at feasts\nthat are never of their own making, and so go through high life. The\nrich family sum has been divided by so many figures, and they are the\nsomething over that nobody knows what to do with.\n\nEverybody on Sir Leicester Dedlock's side of the question and of his\nway of thinking would appear to be his cousin more or less. From my\nLord Boodle, through the Duke of Foodle, down to Noodle, Sir\nLeicester, like a glorious spider, stretches his threads of\nrelationship. But while he is stately in the cousinship of the\nEverybodys, he is a kind and generous man, according to his dignified\nway, in the cousinship of the Nobodys; and at the present time, in\ndespite of the damp, he stays out the visit of several such cousins\nat Chesney Wold with the constancy of a martyr.\n\nOf these, foremost in the front rank stands Volumnia Dedlock, a young\nlady (of sixty) who is doubly highly related, having the honour to be\na poor relation, by the mother's side, to another great family. Miss\nVolumnia, displaying in early life a pretty talent for cutting\nornaments out of coloured paper, and also for singing to the guitar\nin the Spanish tongue, and propounding French conundrums in country\nhouses, passed the twenty years of her existence between twenty and\nforty in a sufficiently agreeable manner. Lapsing then out of date\nand being considered to bore mankind by her vocal performances in the\nSpanish language, she retired to Bath, where she lives slenderly on\nan annual present from Sir Leicester and whence she makes occasional\nresurrections in the country houses of her cousins. She has an\nextensive acquaintance at Bath among appalling old gentlemen with\nthin legs and nankeen trousers, and is of high standing in that\ndreary city. But she is a little dreaded elsewhere in consequence of\nan indiscreet profusion in the article of rouge and persistency in an\nobsolete pearl necklace like a rosary of little bird's-eggs.\n\nIn any country in a wholesome state, Volumnia would be a clear case\nfor the pension list. Efforts have been made to get her on it, and\nwhen William Buffy came in, it was fully expected that her name would\nbe put down for a couple of hundred a year. But William Buffy somehow\ndiscovered, contrary to all expectation, that these were not the\ntimes when it could be done, and this was the first clear indication\nSir Leicester Dedlock had conveyed to him that the country was going\nto pieces.\n\nThere is likewise the Honourable Bob Stables, who can make warm\nmashes with the skill of a veterinary surgeon and is a better shot\nthan most gamekeepers. He has been for some time particularly\ndesirous to serve his country in a post of good emoluments,\nunaccompanied by any trouble or responsibility. In a well-regulated\nbody politic this natural desire on the part of a spirited young\ngentleman so highly connected would be speedily recognized, but\nsomehow William Buffy found when he came in that these were not times\nin which he could manage that little matter either, and this was the\nsecond indication Sir Leicester Dedlock had conveyed to him that the\ncountry was going to pieces.\n\nThe rest of the cousins are ladies and gentlemen of various ages and\ncapacities, the major part amiable and sensible and likely to have\ndone well enough in life if they could have overcome their\ncousinship; as it is, they are almost all a little worsted by it, and\nlounge in purposeless and listless paths, and seem to be quite as\nmuch at a loss how to dispose of themselves as anybody else can be\nhow to dispose of them.\n\nIn this society, and where not, my Lady Dedlock reigns supreme.\nBeautiful, elegant, accomplished, and powerful in her little world\n(for the world of fashion does not stretch ALL the way from pole to\npole), her influence in Sir Leicester's house, however haughty and\nindifferent her manner, is greatly to improve it and refine it. The\ncousins, even those older cousins who were paralysed when Sir\nLeicester married her, do her feudal homage; and the Honourable Bob\nStables daily repeats to some chosen person between breakfast and\nlunch his favourite original remark, that she is the best-groomed\nwoman in the whole stud.\n\nSuch the guests in the long drawing-room at Chesney Wold this dismal\nnight when the step on the Ghost's Walk (inaudible here, however)\nmight be the step of a deceased cousin shut out in the cold. It is\nnear bed-time. Bedroom fires blaze brightly all over the house,\nraising ghosts of grim furniture on wall and ceiling. Bedroom\ncandlesticks bristle on the distant table by the door, and cousins\nyawn on ottomans. Cousins at the piano, cousins at the soda-water\ntray, cousins rising from the card-table, cousins gathered round the\nfire. Standing on one side of his own peculiar fire (for there are\ntwo), Sir Leicester. On the opposite side of the broad hearth, my\nLady at her table. Volumnia, as one of the more privileged cousins,\nin a luxurious chair between them. Sir Leicester glancing, with\nmagnificent displeasure, at the rouge and the pearl necklace.\n\n\"I occasionally meet on my staircase here,\" drawls Volumnia, whose\nthoughts perhaps are already hopping up it to bed, after a long\nevening of very desultory talk, \"one of the prettiest girls, I think,\nthat I ever saw in my life.\"\n\n\"A PROTEGEE of my Lady's,\" observes Sir Leicester.\n\n\"I thought so. I felt sure that some uncommon eye must have picked\nthat girl out. She really is a marvel. A dolly sort of beauty\nperhaps,\" says Miss Volumnia, reserving her own sort, \"but in its\nway, perfect; such bloom I never saw!\"\n\nSir Leicester, with his magnificent glance of displeasure at the\nrouge, appears to say so too.\n\n\"Indeed,\" remarks my Lady languidly, \"if there is any uncommon eye in\nthe case, it is Mrs. Rouncewell's, and not mine. Rosa is her\ndiscovery.\"\n\n\"Your maid, I suppose?\"\n\n\"No. My anything; pet--secretary--messenger--I don't know what.\"\n\n\"You like to have her about you, as you would like to have a flower,\nor a bird, or a picture, or a poodle--no, not a poodle, though--or\nanything else that was equally pretty?\" says Volumnia, sympathizing.\n\"Yes, how charming now! And how well that delightful old soul Mrs.\nRouncewell is looking. She must be an immense age, and yet she is as\nactive and handsome! She is the dearest friend I have, positively!\"\n\nSir Leicester feels it to be right and fitting that the housekeeper\nof Chesney Wold should be a remarkable person. Apart from that, he\nhas a real regard for Mrs. Rouncewell and likes to hear her praised.\nSo he says, \"You are right, Volumnia,\" which Volumnia is extremely\nglad to hear.\n\n\"She has no daughter of her own, has she?\"\n\n\"Mrs. Rouncewell? No, Volumnia. She has a son. Indeed, she had two.\"\n\nMy Lady, whose chronic malady of boredom has been sadly aggravated by\nVolumnia this evening, glances wearily towards the candlesticks and\nheaves a noiseless sigh.\n\n\"And it is a remarkable example of the confusion into which the\npresent age has fallen; of the obliteration of landmarks, the opening\nof floodgates, and the uprooting of distinctions,\" says Sir Leicester\nwith stately gloom, \"that I have been informed by Mr. Tulkinghorn\nthat Mrs. Rouncewell's son has been invited to go into Parliament.\"\n\nMiss Volumnia utters a little sharp scream.\n\n\"Yes, indeed,\" repeats Sir Leicester. \"Into Parliament.\"\n\n\"I never heard of such a thing! Good gracious, what is the man?\"\nexclaims Volumnia.\n\n\"He is called, I believe--an--ironmaster.\" Sir Leicester says it\nslowly and with gravity and doubt, as not being sure but that he is\ncalled a lead-mistress or that the right word may be some other word\nexpressive of some other relationship to some other metal.\n\nVolumnia utters another little scream.\n\n\"He has declined the proposal, if my information from Mr. Tulkinghorn\nbe correct, as I have no doubt it is. Mr. Tulkinghorn being always\ncorrect and exact; still that does not,\" says Sir Leicester, \"that\ndoes not lessen the anomaly, which is fraught with strange\nconsiderations--startling considerations, as it appears to me.\"\n\nMiss Volumnia rising with a look candlestick-wards, Sir Leicester\npolitely performs the grand tour of the drawing-room, brings one, and\nlights it at my Lady's shaded lamp.\n\n\"I must beg you, my Lady,\" he says while doing so, \"to remain a few\nmoments, for this individual of whom I speak arrived this evening\nshortly before dinner and requested in a very becoming note\"--Sir\nLeicester, with his habitual regard to truth, dwells upon it--\"I am\nbound to say, in a very becoming and well-expressed note, the favour\nof a short interview with yourself and MYself on the subject of this\nyoung girl. As it appeared that he wished to depart to-night, I\nreplied that we would see him before retiring.\"\n\nMiss Volumnia with a third little scream takes flight, wishing her\nhosts--O Lud!--well rid of the--what is it?--ironmaster!\n\nThe other cousins soon disperse, to the last cousin there. Sir\nLeicester rings the bell, \"Make my compliments to Mr. Rouncewell, in\nthe housekeeper's apartments, and say I can receive him now.\"\n\nMy Lady, who has heard all this with slight attention outwardly,\nlooks towards Mr. Rouncewell as he comes in. He is a little over\nfifty perhaps, of a good figure, like his mother, and has a clear\nvoice, a broad forehead from which his dark hair has retired, and a\nshrewd though open face. He is a responsible-looking gentleman\ndressed in black, portly enough, but strong and active. Has a\nperfectly natural and easy air and is not in the least embarrassed by\nthe great presence into which he comes.\n\n\"Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, as I have already apologized for\nintruding on you, I cannot do better than be very brief. I thank you,\nSir Leicester.\"\n\nThe head of the Dedlocks has motioned towards a sofa between himself\nand my Lady. Mr. Rouncewell quietly takes his seat there.\n\n\"In these busy times, when so many great undertakings are in\nprogress, people like myself have so many workmen in so many places\nthat we are always on the flight.\"\n\nSir Leicester is content enough that the ironmaster should feel that\nthere is no hurry there; there, in that ancient house, rooted in that\nquiet park, where the ivy and the moss have had time to mature, and\nthe gnarled and warted elms and the umbrageous oaks stand deep in the\nfern and leaves of a hundred years; and where the sun-dial on the\nterrace has dumbly recorded for centuries that time which was as much\nthe property of every Dedlock--while he lasted--as the house and\nlands. Sir Leicester sits down in an easy-chair, opposing his repose\nand that of Chesney Wold to the restless flights of ironmasters.\n\n\"Lady Dedlock has been so kind,\" proceeds Mr. Rouncewell with a\nrespectful glance and a bow that way, \"as to place near her a young\nbeauty of the name of Rosa. Now, my son has fallen in love with Rosa\nand has asked my consent to his proposing marriage to her and to\ntheir becoming engaged if she will take him--which I suppose she\nwill. I have never seen Rosa until to-day, but I have some confidence\nin my son's good sense--even in love. I find her what he represents\nher, to the best of my judgment; and my mother speaks of her with\ngreat commendation.\"\n\n\"She in all respects deserves it,\" says my Lady.\n\n\"I am happy, Lady Dedlock, that you say so, and I need not comment on\nthe value to me of your kind opinion of her.\"\n\n\"That,\" observes Sir Leicester with unspeakable grandeur, for he\nthinks the ironmaster a little too glib, \"must be quite unnecessary.\"\n\n\"Quite unnecessary, Sir Leicester. Now, my son is a very young man,\nand Rosa is a very young woman. As I made my way, so my son must make\nhis; and his being married at present is out of the question. But\nsupposing I gave my consent to his engaging himself to this pretty\ngirl, if this pretty girl will engage herself to him, I think it a\npiece of candour to say at once--I am sure, Sir Leicester and Lady\nDedlock, you will understand and excuse me--I should make it a\ncondition that she did not remain at Chesney Wold. Therefore, before\ncommunicating further with my son, I take the liberty of saying that\nif her removal would be in any way inconvenient or objectionable, I\nwill hold the matter over with him for any reasonable time and leave\nit precisely where it is.\"\n\nNot remain at Chesney Wold! Make it a condition! All Sir Leicester's\nold misgivings relative to Wat Tyler and the people in the iron\ndistricts who do nothing but turn out by torchlight come in a shower\nupon his head, the fine grey hair of which, as well as of his\nwhiskers, actually stirs with indignation.\n\n\"Am I to understand, sir,\" says Sir Leicester, \"and is my Lady to\nunderstand\"--he brings her in thus specially, first as a point of\ngallantry, and next as a point of prudence, having great reliance on\nher sense--\"am I to understand, Mr. Rouncewell, and is my Lady to\nunderstand, sir, that you consider this young woman too good for\nChesney Wold or likely to be injured by remaining here?\"\n\n\"Certainly not, Sir Leicester,\"\n\n\"I am glad to hear it.\" Sir Leicester very lofty indeed.\n\n\"Pray, Mr. Rouncewell,\" says my Lady, warning Sir Leicester off with\nthe slightest gesture of her pretty hand, as if he were a fly,\n\"explain to me what you mean.\"\n\n\"Willingly, Lady Dedlock. There is nothing I could desire more.\"\n\nAddressing her composed face, whose intelligence, however, is too\nquick and active to be concealed by any studied impassiveness,\nhowever habitual, to the strong Saxon face of the visitor, a picture\nof resolution and perseverance, my Lady listens with attention,\noccasionally slightly bending her head.\n\n\"I am the son of your housekeeper, Lady Dedlock, and passed my\nchildhood about this house. My mother has lived here half a\ncentury and will die here I have no doubt. She is one of those\nexamples--perhaps as good a one as there is--of love, and attachment,\nand fidelity in such a nation, which England may well be proud of,\nbut of which no order can appropriate the whole pride or the whole\nmerit, because such an instance bespeaks high worth on two sides--on\nthe great side assuredly, on the small one no less assuredly.\"\n\nSir Leicester snorts a little to hear the law laid down in this way,\nbut in his honour and his love of truth, he freely, though silently,\nadmits the justice of the ironmaster's proposition.\n\n\"Pardon me for saying what is so obvious, but I wouldn't have it\nhastily supposed,\" with the least turn of his eyes towards Sir\nLeicester, \"that I am ashamed of my mother's position here, or\nwanting in all just respect for Chesney Wold and the family.\nI certainly may have desired--I certainly have desired, Lady\nDedlock--that my mother should retire after so many years and end\nher days with me. But as I have found that to sever this strong bond\nwould be to break her heart, I have long abandoned that idea.\"\n\nSir Leicester very magnificent again at the notion of Mrs. Rouncewell\nbeing spirited off from her natural home to end her days with an\nironmaster.\n\n\"I have been,\" proceeds the visitor in a modest, clear way, \"an\napprentice and a workman. I have lived on workman's wages, years and\nyears, and beyond a certain point have had to educate myself. My wife\nwas a foreman's daughter, and plainly brought up. We have three\ndaughters besides this son of whom I have spoken, and being\nfortunately able to give them greater advantages than we have had\nourselves, we have educated them well, very well. It has been one of\nour great cares and pleasures to make them worthy of any station.\"\n\nA little boastfulness in his fatherly tone here, as if he added in\nhis heart, \"even of the Chesney Wold station.\" Not a little more\nmagnificence, therefore, on the part of Sir Leicester.\n\n\"All this is so frequent, Lady Dedlock, where I live, and among the\nclass to which I belong, that what would be generally called unequal\nmarriages are not of such rare occurrence with us as elsewhere. A son\nwill sometimes make it known to his father that he has fallen in\nlove, say, with a young woman in the factory. The father, who once\nworked in a factory himself, will be a little disappointed at first\nvery possibly. It may be that he had other views for his son.\nHowever, the chances are that having ascertained the young woman to\nbe of unblemished character, he will say to his son, 'I must be quite\nsure you are in earnest here. This is a serious matter for both of\nyou. Therefore I shall have this girl educated for two years,' or it\nmay be, 'I shall place this girl at the same school with your sisters\nfor such a time, during which you will give me your word and honour\nto see her only so often. If at the expiration of that time, when she\nhas so far profited by her advantages as that you may be upon a fair\nequality, you are both in the same mind, I will do my part to make\nyou happy.' I know of several cases such as I describe, my Lady, and\nI think they indicate to me my own course now.\"\n\nSir Leicester's magnificence explodes. Calmly, but terribly.\n\n\"Mr. Rouncewell,\" says Sir Leicester with his right hand in the\nbreast of his blue coat, the attitude of state in which he is painted\nin the gallery, \"do you draw a parallel between Chesney Wold and a--\"\nHere he resists a disposition to choke, \"a factory?\"\n\n\"I need not reply, Sir Leicester, that the two places are very\ndifferent; but for the purposes of this case, I think a parallel may\nbe justly drawn between them.\"\n\nSir Leicester directs his majestic glance down one side of the long\ndrawing-room and up the other before he can believe that he is awake.\n\n\"Are you aware, sir, that this young woman whom my Lady--my Lady--has\nplaced near her person was brought up at the village school outside\nthe gates?\"\n\n\"Sir Leicester, I am quite aware of it. A very good school it is, and\nhandsomely supported by this family.\"\n\n\"Then, Mr. Rouncewell,\" returns Sir Leicester, \"the application of\nwhat you have said is, to me, incomprehensible.\"\n\n\"Will it be more comprehensible, Sir Leicester, if I say,\" the\nironmaster is reddening a little, \"that I do not regard the village\nschool as teaching everything desirable to be known by my son's\nwife?\"\n\nFrom the village school of Chesney Wold, intact as it is this minute,\nto the whole framework of society; from the whole framework of\nsociety, to the aforesaid framework receiving tremendous cracks in\nconsequence of people (iron-masters, lead-mistresses, and what not)\nnot minding their catechism, and getting out of the station unto\nwhich they are called--necessarily and for ever, according to Sir\nLeicester's rapid logic, the first station in which they happen to\nfind themselves; and from that, to their educating other people out\nof THEIR stations, and so obliterating the landmarks, and opening the\nfloodgates, and all the rest of it; this is the swift progress of the\nDedlock mind.\n\n\"My Lady, I beg your pardon. Permit me, for one moment!\" She has\ngiven a faint indication of intending to speak. \"Mr. Rouncewell, our\nviews of duty, and our views of station, and our views of education,\nand our views of--in short, ALL our views--are so diametrically\nopposed, that to prolong this discussion must be repellent to your\nfeelings and repellent to my own. This young woman is honoured with\nmy Lady's notice and favour. If she wishes to withdraw herself from\nthat notice and favour or if she chooses to place herself under the\ninfluence of any one who may in his peculiar opinions--you will allow\nme to say, in his peculiar opinions, though I readily admit that he\nis not accountable for them to me--who may, in his peculiar opinions,\nwithdraw her from that notice and favour, she is at any time at\nliberty to do so. We are obliged to you for the plainness with which\nyou have spoken. It will have no effect of itself, one way or other,\non the young woman's position here. Beyond this, we can make no\nterms; and here we beg--if you will be so good--to leave the\nsubject.\"\n\nThe visitor pauses a moment to give my Lady an opportunity, but she\nsays nothing. He then rises and replies, \"Sir Leicester and Lady\nDedlock, allow me to thank you for your attention and only to observe\nthat I shall very seriously recommend my son to conquer his present\ninclinations. Good night!\"\n\n\"Mr. Rouncewell,\" says Sir Leicester with all the nature of a\ngentleman shining in him, \"it is late, and the roads are dark. I hope\nyour time is not so precious but that you will allow my Lady and\nmyself to offer you the hospitality of Chesney Wold, for to-night at\nleast.\"\n\n\"I hope so,\" adds my Lady.\n\n\"I am much obliged to you, but I have to travel all night in order to\nreach a distant part of the country punctually at an appointed time\nin the morning.\"\n\nTherewith the ironmaster takes his departure, Sir Leicester ringing\nthe bell and my Lady rising as he leaves the room.\n\nWhen my Lady goes to her boudoir, she sits down thoughtfully by the\nfire, and inattentive to the Ghost's Walk, looks at Rosa, writing in\nan inner room. Presently my Lady calls her.\n\n\"Come to me, child. Tell me the truth. Are you in love?\"\n\n\"Oh! My Lady!\"\n\nMy Lady, looking at the downcast and blushing face, says smiling,\n\"Who is it? Is it Mrs. Rouncewell's grandson?\"\n\n\"Yes, if you please, my Lady. But I don't know that I am in love with\nhim--yet.\"\n\n\"Yet, you silly little thing! Do you know that he loves YOU, yet?\"\n\n\"I think he likes me a little, my Lady.\" And Rosa bursts into tears.\n\nIs this Lady Dedlock standing beside the village beauty, smoothing\nher dark hair with that motherly touch, and watching her with eyes so\nfull of musing interest? Aye, indeed it is!\n\n\"Listen to me, child. You are young and true, and I believe you are\nattached to me.\"\n\n\"Indeed I am, my Lady. Indeed there is nothing in the world I\nwouldn't do to show how much.\"\n\n\"And I don't think you would wish to leave me just yet, Rosa, even\nfor a lover?\"\n\n\"No, my Lady! Oh, no!\" Rosa looks up for the first time, quite\nfrightened at the thought.\n\n\"Confide in me, my child. Don't fear me. I wish you to be happy, and\nwill make you so--if I can make anybody happy on this earth.\"\n\nRosa, with fresh tears, kneels at her feet and kisses her hand. My\nLady takes the hand with which she has caught it, and standing with\nher eyes fixed on the fire, puts it about and about between her own\ntwo hands, and gradually lets it fall. Seeing her so absorbed, Rosa\nsoftly withdraws; but still my Lady's eyes are on the fire.\n\nIn search of what? Of any hand that is no more, of any hand that\nnever was, of any touch that might have magically changed her life?\nOr does she listen to the Ghost's Walk and think what step does it\nmost resemble? A man's? A woman's? The pattering of a little child's\nfeet, ever coming on--on--on? Some melancholy influence is upon her,\nor why should so proud a lady close the doors and sit alone upon the\nhearth so desolate?\n\nVolumnia is away next day, and all the cousins are scattered before\ndinner. Not a cousin of the batch but is amazed to hear from Sir\nLeicester at breakfast-time of the obliteration of landmarks, and\nopening of floodgates, and cracking of the framework of society,\nmanifested through Mrs. Rouncewell's son. Not a cousin of the batch\nbut is really indignant, and connects it with the feebleness of\nWilliam Buffy when in office, and really does feel deprived of a\nstake in the country--or the pension list--or something--by fraud and\nwrong. As to Volumnia, she is handed down the great staircase by Sir\nLeicester, as eloquent upon the theme as if there were a general\nrising in the north of England to obtain her rouge-pot and pearl\nnecklace. And thus, with a clatter of maids and valets--for it is one\nappurtenance of their cousinship that however difficult they may find\nit to keep themselves, they MUST keep maids and valets--the cousins\ndisperse to the four winds of heaven; and the one wintry wind that\nblows to-day shakes a shower from the trees near the deserted house,\nas if all the cousins had been changed into leaves.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIX\n\nThe Young Man\n\n\nChesney Wold is shut up, carpets are rolled into great scrolls in\ncorners of comfortless rooms, bright damask does penance in brown\nholland, carving and gilding puts on mortification, and the Dedlock\nancestors retire from the light of day again. Around and around the\nhouse the leaves fall thick, but never fast, for they come circling\ndown with a dead lightness that is sombre and slow. Let the gardener\nsweep and sweep the turf as he will, and press the leaves into full\nbarrows, and wheel them off, still they lie ankle-deep. Howls the\nshrill wind round Chesney Wold; the sharp rain beats, the windows\nrattle, and the chimneys growl. Mists hide in the avenues, veil the\npoints of view, and move in funeral-wise across the rising grounds.\nOn all the house there is a cold, blank smell like the smell of a\nlittle church, though something dryer, suggesting that the dead and\nburied Dedlocks walk there in the long nights and leave the flavour\nof their graves behind them.\n\nBut the house in town, which is rarely in the same mind as Chesney\nWold at the same time, seldom rejoicing when it rejoices or mourning\nwhen it mourns, excepting when a Dedlock dies--the house in town\nshines out awakened. As warm and bright as so much state may be, as\ndelicately redolent of pleasant scents that bear no trace of winter\nas hothouse flowers can make it, soft and hushed so that the ticking\nof the clocks and the crisp burning of the fires alone disturb the\nstillness in the rooms, it seems to wrap those chilled bones of Sir\nLeicester's in rainbow-coloured wool. And Sir Leicester is glad to\nrepose in dignified contentment before the great fire in the library,\ncondescendingly perusing the backs of his books or honouring the fine\narts with a glance of approbation. For he has his pictures, ancient\nand modern. Some of the Fancy Ball School in which art occasionally\ncondescends to become a master, which would be best catalogued like\nthe miscellaneous articles in a sale. As \"Three high-backed chairs, a\ntable and cover, long-necked bottle (containing wine), one flask, one\nSpanish female's costume, three-quarter face portrait of Miss Jogg\nthe model, and a suit of armour containing Don Quixote.\" Or \"One\nstone terrace (cracked), one gondola in distance, one Venetian\nsenator's dress complete, richly embroidered white satin costume with\nprofile portrait of Miss Jogg the model, one Scimitar superbly\nmounted in gold with jewelled handle, elaborate Moorish dress (very\nrare), and Othello.\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn comes and goes pretty often, there being estate\nbusiness to do, leases to be renewed, and so on. He sees my Lady\npretty often, too; and he and she are as composed, and as\nindifferent, and take as little heed of one another, as ever. Yet it\nmay be that my Lady fears this Mr. Tulkinghorn and that he knows it.\nIt may be that he pursues her doggedly and steadily, with no touch of\ncompunction, remorse, or pity. It may be that her beauty and all the\nstate and brilliancy surrounding her only gives him the greater zest\nfor what he is set upon and makes him the more inflexible in it.\nWhether he be cold and cruel, whether immovable in what he has made\nhis duty, whether absorbed in love of power, whether determined\nto have nothing hidden from him in ground where he has burrowed\namong secrets all his life, whether he in his heart despises the\nsplendour of which he is a distant beam, whether he is always\ntreasuring up slights and offences in the affability of his gorgeous\nclients--whether he be any of this, or all of this, it may be that my\nLady had better have five thousand pairs of fashionable eyes upon\nher, in distrustful vigilance, than the two eyes of this rusty lawyer\nwith his wisp of neckcloth and his dull black breeches tied with\nribbons at the knees.\n\nSir Leicester sits in my Lady's room--that room in which Mr.\nTulkinghorn read the affidavit in Jarndyce and Jarndyce--particularly\ncomplacent. My Lady, as on that day, sits before the fire with her\nscreen in her hand. Sir Leicester is particularly complacent because\nhe has found in his newspaper some congenial remarks bearing directly\non the floodgates and the framework of society. They apply so happily\nto the late case that Sir Leicester has come from the library to my\nLady's room expressly to read them aloud. \"The man who wrote this\narticle,\" he observes by way of preface, nodding at the fire as if he\nwere nodding down at the man from a mount, \"has a well-balanced\nmind.\"\n\nThe man's mind is not so well balanced but that he bores my Lady,\nwho, after a languid effort to listen, or rather a languid\nresignation of herself to a show of listening, becomes distraught and\nfalls into a contemplation of the fire as if it were her fire at\nChesney Wold, and she had never left it. Sir Leicester, quite\nunconscious, reads on through his double eye-glass, occasionally\nstopping to remove his glass and express approval, as \"Very true\nindeed,\" \"Very properly put,\" \"I have frequently made the same remark\nmyself,\" invariably losing his place after each observation, and\ngoing up and down the column to find it again.\n\nSir Leicester is reading with infinite gravity and state when the\ndoor opens, and the Mercury in powder makes this strange\nannouncement, \"The young man, my Lady, of the name of Guppy.\"\n\nSir Leicester pauses, stares, repeats in a killing voice, \"The young\nman of the name of Guppy?\"\n\nLooking round, he beholds the young man of the name of Guppy, much\ndiscomfited and not presenting a very impressive letter of\nintroduction in his manner and appearance.\n\n\"Pray,\" says Sir Leicester to Mercury, \"what do you mean by\nannouncing with this abruptness a young man of the name of Guppy?\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon, Sir Leicester, but my Lady said she would see the\nyoung man whenever he called. I was not aware that you were here, Sir\nLeicester.\"\n\nWith this apology, Mercury directs a scornful and indignant look at\nthe young man of the name of Guppy which plainly says, \"What do you\ncome calling here for and getting ME into a row?\"\n\n\"It's quite right. I gave him those directions,\" says my Lady. \"Let\nthe young man wait.\"\n\n\"By no means, my Lady. Since he has your orders to come, I will not\ninterrupt you.\" Sir Leicester in his gallantry retires, rather\ndeclining to accept a bow from the young man as he goes out and\nmajestically supposing him to be some shoemaker of intrusive\nappearance.\n\nLady Dedlock looks imperiously at her visitor when the servant has\nleft the room, casting her eyes over him from head to foot. She\nsuffers him to stand by the door and asks him what he wants.\n\n\"That your ladyship would have the kindness to oblige me with a\nlittle conversation,\" returns Mr. Guppy, embarrassed.\n\n\"You are, of course, the person who has written me so many letters?\"\n\n\"Several, your ladyship. Several before your ladyship condescended to\nfavour me with an answer.\"\n\n\"And could you not take the same means of rendering a Conversation\nunnecessary? Can you not still?\"\n\nMr. Guppy screws his mouth into a silent \"No!\" and shakes his head.\n\n\"You have been strangely importunate. If it should appear, after all,\nthat what you have to say does not concern me--and I don't know how\nit can, and don't expect that it will--you will allow me to cut you\nshort with but little ceremony. Say what you have to say, if you\nplease.\"\n\nMy Lady, with a careless toss of her screen, turns herself towards\nthe fire again, sitting almost with her back to the young man of the\nname of Guppy.\n\n\"With your ladyship's permission, then,\" says the young man, \"I will\nnow enter on my business. Hem! I am, as I told your ladyship in my\nfirst letter, in the law. Being in the law, I have learnt the habit\nof not committing myself in writing, and therefore I did not mention\nto your ladyship the name of the firm with which I am connected and\nin which my standing--and I may add income--is tolerably good. I may\nnow state to your ladyship, in confidence, that the name of that firm\nis Kenge and Carboy, of Lincoln's Inn, which may not be altogether\nunknown to your ladyship in connexion with the case in Chancery of\nJarndyce and Jarndyce.\"\n\nMy Lady's figure begins to be expressive of some attention. She has\nceased to toss the screen and holds it as if she were listening.\n\n\"Now, I may say to your ladyship at once,\" says Mr. Guppy, a little\nemboldened, \"it is no matter arising out of Jarndyce and Jarndyce\nthat made me so desirous to speak to your ladyship, which conduct I\nhave no doubt did appear, and does appear, obtrusive--in fact, almost\nblackguardly.\"\n\nAfter waiting for a moment to receive some assurance to the contrary,\nand not receiving any, Mr. Guppy proceeds, \"If it had been Jarndyce\nand Jarndyce, I should have gone at once to your ladyship's\nsolicitor, Mr. Tulkinghorn, of the Fields. I have the pleasure of\nbeing acquainted with Mr. Tulkinghorn--at least we move when we meet\none another--and if it had been any business of that sort, I should\nhave gone to him.\"\n\nMy Lady turns a little round and says, \"You had better sit down.\"\n\n\"Thank your ladyship.\" Mr. Guppy does so. \"Now, your ladyship\"--Mr.\nGuppy refers to a little slip of paper on which he has made small\nnotes of his line of argument and which seems to involve him in the\ndensest obscurity whenever he looks at it--\"I--Oh, yes!--I place\nmyself entirely in your ladyship's hands. If your ladyship was to\nmake any complaint to Kenge and Carboy or to Mr. Tulkinghorn of the\npresent visit, I should be placed in a very disagreeable situation.\nThat, I openly admit. Consequently, I rely upon your ladyship's\nhonour.\"\n\nMy Lady, with a disdainful gesture of the hand that holds the screen,\nassures him of his being worth no complaint from her.\n\n\"Thank your ladyship,\" says Mr. Guppy; \"quite satisfactory.\nNow--I--dash it!--The fact is that I put down a head or two here of\nthe order of the points I thought of touching upon, and they're\nwritten short, and I can't quite make out what they mean. If your\nladyship will excuse me taking it to the window half a moment, I--\"\n\nMr. Guppy, going to the window, tumbles into a pair of love-birds, to\nwhom he says in his confusion, \"I beg your pardon, I am sure.\" This\ndoes not tend to the greater legibility of his notes. He murmurs,\ngrowing warm and red and holding the slip of paper now close to his\neyes, now a long way off, \"C.S. What's C.S. for? Oh! C.S.! Oh, I\nknow! Yes, to be sure!\" And comes back enlightened.\n\n\"I am not aware,\" says Mr. Guppy, standing midway between my Lady and\nhis chair, \"whether your ladyship ever happened to hear of, or to\nsee, a young lady of the name of Miss Esther Summerson.\"\n\nMy Lady's eyes look at him full. \"I saw a young lady of that name not\nlong ago. This past autumn.\"\n\n\"Now, did it strike your ladyship that she was like anybody?\" asks\nMr. Guppy, crossing his arms, holding his head on one side, and\nscratching the corner of his mouth with his memoranda.\n\nMy Lady removes her eyes from him no more.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Not like your ladyship's family?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"I think your ladyship,\" says Mr. Guppy, \"can hardly remember Miss\nSummerson's face?\"\n\n\"I remember the young lady very well. What has this to do with me?\"\n\n\"Your ladyship, I do assure you that having Miss Summerson's image\nimprinted on my 'eart--which I mention in confidence--I found, when I\nhad the honour of going over your ladyship's mansion of Chesney Wold\nwhile on a short out in the county of Lincolnshire with a friend,\nsuch a resemblance between Miss Esther Summerson and your ladyship's\nown portrait that it completely knocked me over, so much so that I\ndidn't at the moment even know what it WAS that knocked me over. And\nnow I have the honour of beholding your ladyship near (I have often,\nsince that, taken the liberty of looking at your ladyship in your\ncarriage in the park, when I dare say you was not aware of me, but I\nnever saw your ladyship so near), it's really more surprising than I\nthought it.\"\n\nYoung man of the name of Guppy! There have been times, when ladies\nlived in strongholds and had unscrupulous attendants within call,\nwhen that poor life of yours would NOT have been worth a minute's\npurchase, with those beautiful eyes looking at you as they look at\nthis moment.\n\nMy Lady, slowly using her little hand-screen as a fan, asks him again\nwhat he supposes that his taste for likenesses has to do with her.\n\n\"Your ladyship,\" replies Mr. Guppy, again referring to his paper, \"I\nam coming to that. Dash these notes! Oh! 'Mrs. Chadband.' Yes.\" Mr.\nGuppy draws his chair a little forward and seats himself again. My\nLady reclines in her chair composedly, though with a trifle less of\ngraceful ease than usual perhaps, and never falters in her steady\ngaze. \"A--stop a minute, though!\" Mr. Guppy refers again. \"E.S.\ntwice? Oh, yes! Yes, I see my way now, right on.\"\n\nRolling up the slip of paper as an instrument to point his speech\nwith, Mr. Guppy proceeds.\n\n\"Your ladyship, there is a mystery about Miss Esther Summerson's\nbirth and bringing up. I am informed of that fact because--which I\nmention in confidence--I know it in the way of my profession at Kenge\nand Carboy's. Now, as I have already mentioned to your ladyship, Miss\nSummerson's image is imprinted on my 'eart. If I could clear this\nmystery for her, or prove her to be well related, or find that having\nthe honour to be a remote branch of your ladyship's family she had a\nright to be made a party in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, why, I might make\na sort of a claim upon Miss Summerson to look with an eye of more\ndedicated favour on my proposals than she has exactly done as yet. In\nfact, as yet she hasn't favoured them at all.\"\n\nA kind of angry smile just dawns upon my Lady's face.\n\n\"Now, it's a very singular circumstance, your ladyship,\" says Mr.\nGuppy, \"though one of those circumstances that do fall in the way of\nus professional men--which I may call myself, for though not\nadmitted, yet I have had a present of my articles made to me by Kenge\nand Carboy, on my mother's advancing from the principal of her little\nincome the money for the stamp, which comes heavy--that I have\nencountered the person who lived as servant with the lady who brought\nMiss Summerson up before Mr. Jarndyce took charge of her. That lady\nwas a Miss Barbary, your ladyship.\"\n\nIs the dead colour on my Lady's face reflected from the screen which\nhas a green silk ground and which she holds in her raised hand as if\nshe had forgotten it, or is it a dreadful paleness that has fallen on\nher?\n\n\"Did your ladyship,\" says Mr. Guppy, \"ever happen to hear of Miss\nBarbary?\"\n\n\"I don't know. I think so. Yes.\"\n\n\"Was Miss Barbary at all connected with your ladyship's family?\"\n\nMy Lady's lips move, but they utter nothing. She shakes her head.\n\n\"NOT connected?\" says Mr. Guppy. \"Oh! Not to your ladyship's\nknowledge, perhaps? Ah! But might be? Yes.\" After each of these\ninterrogatories, she has inclined her head. \"Very good! Now, this\nMiss Barbary was extremely close--seems to have been extraordinarily\nclose for a female, females being generally (in common life at least)\nrather given to conversation--and my witness never had an idea\nwhether she possessed a single relative. On one occasion, and only\none, she seems to have been confidential to my witness on a single\npoint, and she then told her that the little girl's real name was not\nEsther Summerson, but Esther Hawdon.\"\n\n\"My God!\"\n\nMr. Guppy stares. Lady Dedlock sits before him looking him through,\nwith the same dark shade upon her face, in the same attitude even to\nthe holding of the screen, with her lips a little apart, her brow a\nlittle contracted, but for the moment dead. He sees her consciousness\nreturn, sees a tremor pass across her frame like a ripple over water,\nsees her lips shake, sees her compose them by a great effort, sees\nher force herself back to the knowledge of his presence and of what\nhe has said. All this, so quickly, that her exclamation and her dead\ncondition seem to have passed away like the features of those\nlong-preserved dead bodies sometimes opened up in tombs, which,\nstruck by the air like lightning, vanish in a breath.\n\n\"Your ladyship is acquainted with the name of Hawdon?\"\n\n\"I have heard it before.\"\n\n\"Name of any collateral or remote branch of your ladyship's family?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Now, your ladyship,\" says Mr. Guppy, \"I come to the last point of\nthe case, so far as I have got it up. It's going on, and I shall\ngather it up closer and closer as it goes on. Your ladyship must\nknow--if your ladyship don't happen, by any chance, to know\nalready--that there was found dead at the house of a person named\nKrook, near Chancery Lane, some time ago, a law-writer in great\ndistress. Upon which law-writer there was an inquest, and which\nlaw-writer was an anonymous character, his name being unknown. But,\nyour ladyship, I have discovered very lately that that law-writer's\nname was Hawdon.\"\n\n\"And what is THAT to me?\"\n\n\"Aye, your ladyship, that's the question! Now, your ladyship, a queer\nthing happened after that man's death. A lady started up, a disguised\nlady, your ladyship, who went to look at the scene of action and went\nto look at his grave. She hired a crossing-sweeping boy to show it\nher. If your ladyship would wish to have the boy produced in\ncorroboration of this statement, I can lay my hand upon him at any\ntime.\"\n\nThe wretched boy is nothing to my Lady, and she does NOT wish to have\nhim produced.\n\n\"Oh, I assure your ladyship it's a very queer start indeed,\" says Mr.\nGuppy. \"If you was to hear him tell about the rings that sparkled on\nher fingers when she took her glove off, you'd think it quite\nromantic.\"\n\nThere are diamonds glittering on the hand that holds the screen. My\nLady trifles with the screen and makes them glitter more, again with\nthat expression which in other times might have been so dangerous to\nthe young man of the name of Guppy.\n\n\"It was supposed, your ladyship, that he left no rag or scrap behind\nhim by which he could be possibly identified. But he did. He left a\nbundle of old letters.\"\n\nThe screen still goes, as before. All this time her eyes never once\nrelease him.\n\n\"They were taken and secreted. And to-morrow night, your ladyship,\nthey will come into my possession.\"\n\n\"Still I ask you, what is this to me?\"\n\n\"Your ladyship, I conclude with that.\" Mr. Guppy rises. \"If you think\nthere's enough in this chain of circumstances put together--in the\nundoubted strong likeness of this young lady to your ladyship, which\nis a positive fact for a jury; in her having been brought up by Miss\nBarbary; in Miss Barbary stating Miss Summerson's real name to be\nHawdon; in your ladyship's knowing both these names VERY WELL; and in\nHawdon's dying as he did--to give your ladyship a family interest in\ngoing further into the case, I will bring these papers here. I don't\nknow what they are, except that they are old letters: I have never\nhad them in my possession yet. I will bring those papers here as soon\nas I get them and go over them for the first time with your ladyship.\nI have told your ladyship my object. I have told your ladyship that I\nshould be placed in a very disagreeable situation if any complaint\nwas made, and all is in strict confidence.\"\n\nIs this the full purpose of the young man of the name of Guppy, or\nhas he any other? Do his words disclose the length, breadth, depth,\nof his object and suspicion in coming here; or if not, what do they\nhide? He is a match for my Lady there. She may look at him, but he\ncan look at the table and keep that witness-box face of his from\ntelling anything.\n\n\"You may bring the letters,\" says my Lady, \"if you choose.\"\n\n\"Your ladyship is not very encouraging, upon my word and honour,\"\nsays Mr. Guppy, a little injured.\n\n\"You may bring the letters,\" she repeats in the same tone, \"if\nyou--please.\"\n\n\"It shall be done. I wish your ladyship good day.\"\n\nOn a table near her is a rich bauble of a casket, barred and clasped\nlike an old strong-chest. She, looking at him still, takes it to her\nand unlocks it.\n\n\"Oh! I assure your ladyship I am not actuated by any motives of that\nsort,\" says Mr. Guppy, \"and I couldn't accept anything of the kind. I\nwish your ladyship good day, and am much obliged to you all the\nsame.\"\n\nSo the young man makes his bow and goes downstairs, where the\nsupercilious Mercury does not consider himself called upon to leave\nhis Olympus by the hall-fire to let the young man out.\n\nAs Sir Leicester basks in his library and dozes over his newspaper,\nis there no influence in the house to startle him, not to say to make\nthe very trees at Chesney Wold fling up their knotted arms, the very\nportraits frown, the very armour stir?\n\nNo. Words, sobs, and cries are but air, and air is so shut in and\nshut out throughout the house in town that sounds need be uttered\ntrumpet-tongued indeed by my Lady in her chamber to carry any faint\nvibration to Sir Leicester's ears; and yet this cry is in the house,\ngoing upward from a wild figure on its knees.\n\n\"O my child, my child! Not dead in the first hours of her life, as my\ncruel sister told me, but sternly nurtured by her, after she had\nrenounced me and my name! O my child, O my child!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXX\n\nEsther's Narrative\n\n\nRichard had been gone away some time when a visitor came to pass a\nfew days with us. It was an elderly lady. It was Mrs. Woodcourt, who,\nhaving come from Wales to stay with Mrs. Bayham Badger and having\nwritten to my guardian, \"by her son Allan's desire,\" to report that\nshe had heard from him and that he was well \"and sent his kind\nremembrances to all of us,\" had been invited by my guardian to make a\nvisit to Bleak House. She stayed with us nearly three weeks. She took\nvery kindly to me and was extremely confidential, so much so that\nsometimes she almost made me uncomfortable. I had no right, I knew\nvery well, to be uncomfortable because she confided in me, and I felt\nit was unreasonable; still, with all I could do, I could not quite\nhelp it.\n\nShe was such a sharp little lady and used to sit with her hands\nfolded in each other looking so very watchful while she talked to me\nthat perhaps I found that rather irksome. Or perhaps it was her being\nso upright and trim, though I don't think it was that, because I\nthought that quaintly pleasant. Nor can it have been the general\nexpression of her face, which was very sparkling and pretty for an\nold lady. I don't know what it was. Or at least if I do now, I\nthought I did not then. Or at least--but it don't matter.\n\nOf a night when I was going upstairs to bed, she would invite me\ninto her room, where she sat before the fire in a great chair;\nand, dear me, she would tell me about Morgan ap-Kerrig until I\nwas quite low-spirited! Sometimes she recited a few verses from\nCrumlinwallinwer and the Mewlinnwillinwodd (if those are the right\nnames, which I dare say they are not), and would become quite fiery\nwith the sentiments they expressed. Though I never knew what they\nwere (being in Welsh), further than that they were highly eulogistic\nof the lineage of Morgan ap-Kerrig.\n\n\"So, Miss Summerson,\" she would say to me with stately triumph,\n\"this, you see, is the fortune inherited by my son. Wherever my son\ngoes, he can claim kindred with Ap-Kerrig. He may not have money, but\nhe always has what is much better--family, my dear.\"\n\nI had my doubts of their caring so very much for Morgan ap-Kerrig in\nIndia and China, but of course I never expressed them. I used to say\nit was a great thing to be so highly connected.\n\n\"It IS, my dear, a great thing,\" Mrs. Woodcourt would reply. \"It has\nits disadvantages; my son's choice of a wife, for instance, is\nlimited by it, but the matrimonial choice of the royal family is\nlimited in much the same manner.\"\n\nThen she would pat me on the arm and smooth my dress, as much as to\nassure me that she had a good opinion of me, the distance between us\nnotwithstanding.\n\n\"Poor Mr. Woodcourt, my dear,\" she would say, and always with some\nemotion, for with her lofty pedigree she had a very affectionate\nheart, \"was descended from a great Highland family, the MacCoorts of\nMacCoort. He served his king and country as an officer in the Royal\nHighlanders, and he died on the field. My son is one of the last\nrepresentatives of two old families. With the blessing of heaven he\nwill set them up again and unite them with another old family.\"\n\nIt was in vain for me to try to change the subject, as I used to try,\nonly for the sake of novelty or perhaps because--but I need not be so\nparticular. Mrs. Woodcourt never would let me change it.\n\n\"My dear,\" she said one night, \"you have so much sense and you look\nat the world in a quiet manner so superior to your time of life that\nit is a comfort to me to talk to you about these family matters of\nmine. You don't know much of my son, my dear; but you know enough of\nhim, I dare say, to recollect him?\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am. I recollect him.\"\n\n\"Yes, my dear. Now, my dear, I think you are a judge of character,\nand I should like to have your opinion of him.\"\n\n\"Oh, Mrs. Woodcourt,\" said I, \"that is so difficult!\"\n\n\"Why is it so difficult, my dear?\" she returned. \"I don't see it\nmyself.\"\n\n\"To give an opinion--\"\n\n\"On so slight an acquaintance, my dear. THAT'S true.\"\n\nI didn't mean that, because Mr. Woodcourt had been at our house a\ngood deal altogether and had become quite intimate with my guardian.\nI said so, and added that he seemed to be very clever in his\nprofession--we thought--and that his kindness and gentleness to Miss\nFlite were above all praise.\n\n\"You do him justice!\" said Mrs. Woodcourt, pressing my hand. \"You\ndefine him exactly. Allan is a dear fellow, and in his profession\nfaultless. I say it, though I am his mother. Still, I must confess he\nis not without faults, love.\"\n\n\"None of us are,\" said I.\n\n\"Ah! But his really are faults that he might correct, and ought to\ncorrect,\" returned the sharp old lady, sharply shaking her head. \"I\nam so much attached to you that I may confide in you, my dear, as a\nthird party wholly disinterested, that he is fickleness itself.\"\n\nI said I should have thought it hardly possible that he could have\nbeen otherwise than constant to his profession and zealous in the\npursuit of it, judging from the reputation he had earned.\n\n\"You are right again, my dear,\" the old lady retorted, \"but I don't\nrefer to his profession, look you.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said I.\n\n\"No,\" said she. \"I refer, my dear, to his social conduct. He is\nalways paying trivial attentions to young ladies, and always has\nbeen, ever since he was eighteen. Now, my dear, he has never really\ncared for any one of them and has never meant in doing this to do any\nharm or to express anything but politeness and good nature. Still,\nit's not right, you know; is it?\"\n\n\"No,\" said I, as she seemed to wait for me.\n\n\"And it might lead to mistaken notions, you see, my dear.\"\n\nI supposed it might.\n\n\"Therefore, I have told him many times that he really should be more\ncareful, both in justice to himself and in justice to others. And he\nhas always said, 'Mother, I will be; but you know me better than\nanybody else does, and you know I mean no harm--in short, mean\nnothing.' All of which is very true, my dear, but is no\njustification. However, as he is now gone so far away and for an\nindefinite time, and as he will have good opportunities and\nintroductions, we may consider this past and gone. And you, my dear,\"\nsaid the old lady, who was now all nods and smiles, \"regarding your\ndear self, my love?\"\n\n\"Me, Mrs. Woodcourt?\"\n\n\"Not to be always selfish, talking of my son, who has gone to seek\nhis fortune and to find a wife--when do you mean to seek YOUR fortune\nand to find a husband, Miss Summerson? Hey, look you! Now you blush!\"\n\nI don't think I did blush--at all events, it was not important if I\ndid--and I said my present fortune perfectly contented me and I had\nno wish to change it.\n\n\"Shall I tell you what I always think of you and the fortune yet to\ncome for you, my love?\" said Mrs. Woodcourt.\n\n\"If you believe you are a good prophet,\" said I.\n\n\"Why, then, it is that you will marry some one very rich and very\nworthy, much older--five and twenty years, perhaps--than yourself.\nAnd you will be an excellent wife, and much beloved, and very happy.\"\n\n\"That is a good fortune,\" said I. \"But why is it to be mine?\"\n\n\"My dear,\" she returned, \"there's suitability in it--you are so busy,\nand so neat, and so peculiarly situated altogether that there's\nsuitability in it, and it will come to pass. And nobody, my love,\nwill congratulate you more sincerely on such a marriage than I\nshall.\"\n\nIt was curious that this should make me uncomfortable, but I think it\ndid. I know it did. It made me for some part of that night\nuncomfortable. I was so ashamed of my folly that I did not like to\nconfess it even to Ada, and that made me more uncomfortable still. I\nwould have given anything not to have been so much in the bright old\nlady's confidence if I could have possibly declined it. It gave me\nthe most inconsistent opinions of her. At one time I thought she was\na story-teller, and at another time that she was the pink of truth.\nNow I suspected that she was very cunning, next moment I believed her\nhonest Welsh heart to be perfectly innocent and simple. And after\nall, what did it matter to me, and why did it matter to me? Why could\nnot I, going up to bed with my basket of keys, stop to sit down by\nher fire and accommodate myself for a little while to her, at least\nas well as to anybody else, and not trouble myself about the harmless\nthings she said to me? Impelled towards her, as I certainly was, for\nI was very anxious that she should like me and was very glad indeed\nthat she did, why should I harp afterwards, with actual distress and\npain, on every word she said and weigh it over and over again in\ntwenty scales? Why was it so worrying to me to have her in our house,\nand confidential to me every night, when I yet felt that it was\nbetter and safer somehow that she should be there than anywhere else?\nThese were perplexities and contradictions that I could not account\nfor. At least, if I could--but I shall come to all that by and by,\nand it is mere idleness to go on about it now.\n\nSo when Mrs. Woodcourt went away, I was sorry to lose her but was\nrelieved too. And then Caddy Jellyby came down, and Caddy brought\nsuch a packet of domestic news that it gave us abundant occupation.\n\nFirst Caddy declared (and would at first declare nothing else) that I\nwas the best adviser that ever was known. This, my pet said, was no\nnews at all; and this, I said, of course, was nonsense. Then Caddy\ntold us that she was going to be married in a month and that if Ada\nand I would be her bridesmaids, she was the happiest girl in the\nworld. To be sure, this was news indeed; and I thought we never\nshould have done talking about it, we had so much to say to Caddy,\nand Caddy had so much to say to us.\n\nIt seemed that Caddy's unfortunate papa had got over his\nbankruptcy--\"gone through the Gazette,\" was the expression Caddy\nused, as if it were a tunnel--with the general clemency and\ncommiseration of his creditors, and had got rid of his affairs in\nsome blessed manner without succeeding in understanding them, and had\ngiven up everything he possessed (which was not worth much, I should\nthink, to judge from the state of the furniture), and had satisfied\nevery one concerned that he could do no more, poor man. So, he had\nbeen honourably dismissed to \"the office\" to begin the world again.\nWhat he did at the office, I never knew; Caddy said he was a\n\"custom-house and general agent,\" and the only thing I ever\nunderstood about that business was that when he wanted money more\nthan usual he went to the docks to look for it, and hardly ever found\nit.\n\nAs soon as her papa had tranquillized his mind by becoming this shorn\nlamb, and they had removed to a furnished lodging in Hatton Garden\n(where I found the children, when I afterwards went there, cutting\nthe horse hair out of the seats of the chairs and choking themselves\nwith it), Caddy had brought about a meeting between him and old Mr.\nTurveydrop; and poor Mr. Jellyby, being very humble and meek, had\ndeferred to Mr. Turveydrop's deportment so submissively that they had\nbecome excellent friends. By degrees, old Mr. Turveydrop, thus\nfamiliarized with the idea of his son's marriage, had worked up his\nparental feelings to the height of contemplating that event as being\nnear at hand and had given his gracious consent to the young couple\ncommencing housekeeping at the academy in Newman Street when they\nwould.\n\n\"And your papa, Caddy. What did he say?\"\n\n\"Oh! Poor Pa,\" said Caddy, \"only cried and said he hoped we might get\non better than he and Ma had got on. He didn't say so before Prince,\nhe only said so to me. And he said, 'My poor girl, you have not been\nvery well taught how to make a home for your husband, but unless you\nmean with all your heart to strive to do it, you had better murder\nhim than marry him--if you really love him.'\"\n\n\"And how did you reassure him, Caddy?\"\n\n\"Why, it was very distressing, you know, to see poor Pa so low and\nhear him say such terrible things, and I couldn't help crying myself.\nBut I told him that I DID mean it with all my heart and that I hoped\nour house would be a place for him to come and find some comfort in\nof an evening and that I hoped and thought I could be a better\ndaughter to him there than at home. Then I mentioned Peepy's coming\nto stay with me, and then Pa began to cry again and said the children\nwere Indians.\"\n\n\"Indians, Caddy?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Caddy, \"wild Indians. And Pa said\"--here she began to\nsob, poor girl, not at all like the happiest girl in the world--\"that\nhe was sensible the best thing that could happen to them was their\nbeing all tomahawked together.\"\n\nAda suggested that it was comfortable to know that Mr. Jellyby did\nnot mean these destructive sentiments.\n\n\"No, of course I know Pa wouldn't like his family to be weltering in\ntheir blood,\" said Caddy, \"but he means that they are very\nunfortunate in being Ma's children and that he is very unfortunate in\nbeing Ma's husband; and I am sure that's true, though it seems\nunnatural to say so.\"\n\nI asked Caddy if Mrs. Jellyby knew that her wedding-day was fixed.\n\n\"Oh! You know what Ma is, Esther,\" she returned. \"It's impossible to\nsay whether she knows it or not. She has been told it often enough;\nand when she IS told it, she only gives me a placid look, as if I was\nI don't know what--a steeple in the distance,\" said Caddy with a\nsudden idea; \"and then she shakes her head and says 'Oh, Caddy,\nCaddy, what a tease you are!' and goes on with the Borrioboola\nletters.\"\n\n\"And about your wardrobe, Caddy?\" said I. For she was under no\nrestraint with us.\n\n\"Well, my dear Esther,\" she returned, drying her eyes, \"I must do the\nbest I can and trust to my dear Prince never to have an unkind\nremembrance of my coming so shabbily to him. If the question\nconcerned an outfit for Borrioboola, Ma would know all about it and\nwould be quite excited. Being what it is, she neither knows nor\ncares.\"\n\nCaddy was not at all deficient in natural affection for her mother,\nbut mentioned this with tears as an undeniable fact, which I am\nafraid it was. We were sorry for the poor dear girl and found so much\nto admire in the good disposition which had survived under such\ndiscouragement that we both at once (I mean Ada and I) proposed a\nlittle scheme that made her perfectly joyful. This was her staying\nwith us for three weeks, my staying with her for one, and our all\nthree contriving and cutting out, and repairing, and sewing, and\nsaving, and doing the very best we could think of to make the most of\nher stock. My guardian being as pleased with the idea as Caddy was,\nwe took her home next day to arrange the matter and brought her out\nagain in triumph with her boxes and all the purchases that could be\nsqueezed out of a ten-pound note, which Mr. Jellyby had found in the\ndocks I suppose, but which he at all events gave her. What my\nguardian would not have given her if we had encouraged him, it would\nbe difficult to say, but we thought it right to compound for no more\nthan her wedding-dress and bonnet. He agreed to this compromise, and\nif Caddy had ever been happy in her life, she was happy when we sat\ndown to work.\n\nShe was clumsy enough with her needle, poor girl, and pricked her\nfingers as much as she had been used to ink them. She could not help\nreddening a little now and then, partly with the smart and partly\nwith vexation at being able to do no better, but she soon got over\nthat and began to improve rapidly. So day after day she, and my\ndarling, and my little maid Charley, and a milliner out of the town,\nand I, sat hard at work, as pleasantly as possible.\n\nOver and above this, Caddy was very anxious \"to learn housekeeping,\"\nas she said. Now, mercy upon us! The idea of her learning\nhousekeeping of a person of my vast experience was such a joke that I\nlaughed, and coloured up, and fell into a comical confusion when she\nproposed it. However, I said, \"Caddy, I am sure you are very welcome\nto learn anything that you can learn of ME, my dear,\" and I showed\nher all my books and methods and all my fidgety ways. You would have\nsupposed that I was showing her some wonderful inventions, by her\nstudy of them; and if you had seen her, whenever I jingled my\nhousekeeping keys, get up and attend me, certainly you might have\nthought that there never was a greater imposter than I with a blinder\nfollower than Caddy Jellyby.\n\nSo what with working and housekeeping, and lessons to Charley, and\nbackgammon in the evening with my guardian, and duets with Ada, the\nthree weeks slipped fast away. Then I went home with Caddy to see\nwhat could be done there, and Ada and Charley remained behind to take\ncare of my guardian.\n\nWhen I say I went home with Caddy, I mean to the furnished lodging in\nHatton Garden. We went to Newman Street two or three times, where\npreparations were in progress too--a good many, I observed, for\nenhancing the comforts of old Mr. Turveydrop, and a few for putting\nthe newly married couple away cheaply at the top of the house--but\nour great point was to make the furnished lodging decent for the\nwedding-breakfast and to imbue Mrs. Jellyby beforehand with some\nfaint sense of the occasion.\n\nThe latter was the more difficult thing of the two because Mrs.\nJellyby and an unwholesome boy occupied the front sitting-room (the\nback one was a mere closet), and it was littered down with\nwaste-paper and Borrioboolan documents, as an untidy stable might be\nlittered with straw. Mrs. Jellyby sat there all day drinking strong\ncoffee, dictating, and holding Borrioboolan interviews by\nappointment. The unwholesome boy, who seemed to me to be going into a\ndecline, took his meals out of the house. When Mr. Jellyby came home,\nhe usually groaned and went down into the kitchen. There he got\nsomething to eat if the servant would give him anything, and then,\nfeeling that he was in the way, went out and walked about Hatton\nGarden in the wet. The poor children scrambled up and tumbled down\nthe house as they had always been accustomed to do.\n\nThe production of these devoted little sacrifices in any presentable\ncondition being quite out of the question at a week's notice, I\nproposed to Caddy that we should make them as happy as we could on\nher marriage morning in the attic where they all slept, and should\nconfine our greatest efforts to her mama and her mama's room, and a\nclean breakfast. In truth Mrs. Jellyby required a good deal of\nattention, the lattice-work up her back having widened considerably\nsince I first knew her and her hair looking like the mane of a\ndustman's horse.\n\nThinking that the display of Caddy's wardrobe would be the best means\nof approaching the subject, I invited Mrs. Jellyby to come and look\nat it spread out on Caddy's bed in the evening after the unwholesome\nboy was gone.\n\n\"My dear Miss Summerson,\" said she, rising from her desk with her\nusual sweetness of temper, \"these are really ridiculous preparations,\nthough your assisting them is a proof of your kindness. There is\nsomething so inexpressibly absurd to me in the idea of Caddy being\nmarried! Oh, Caddy, you silly, silly, silly puss!\"\n\nShe came upstairs with us notwithstanding and looked at the clothes\nin her customary far-off manner. They suggested one distinct idea to\nher, for she said with her placid smile, and shaking her head, \"My\ngood Miss Summerson, at half the cost, this weak child might have\nbeen equipped for Africa!\"\n\nOn our going downstairs again, Mrs. Jellyby asked me whether this\ntroublesome business was really to take place next Wednesday. And on\nmy replying yes, she said, \"Will my room be required, my dear Miss\nSummerson? For it's quite impossible that I can put my papers away.\"\n\nI took the liberty of saying that the room would certainly be wanted\nand that I thought we must put the papers away somewhere. \"Well, my\ndear Miss Summerson,\" said Mrs. Jellyby, \"you know best, I dare say.\nBut by obliging me to employ a boy, Caddy has embarrassed me to that\nextent, overwhelmed as I am with public business, that I don't know\nwhich way to turn. We have a Ramification meeting, too, on Wednesday\nafternoon, and the inconvenience is very serious.\"\n\n\"It is not likely to occur again,\" said I, smiling. \"Caddy will be\nmarried but once, probably.\"\n\n\"That's true,\" Mrs. Jellyby replied; \"that's true, my dear. I suppose\nwe must make the best of it!\"\n\nThe next question was how Mrs. Jellyby should be dressed on the\noccasion. I thought it very curious to see her looking on serenely\nfrom her writing-table while Caddy and I discussed it, occasionally\nshaking her head at us with a half-reproachful smile like a superior\nspirit who could just bear with our trifling.\n\nThe state in which her dresses were, and the extraordinary confusion\nin which she kept them, added not a little to our difficulty; but at\nlength we devised something not very unlike what a common-place\nmother might wear on such an occasion. The abstracted manner in which\nMrs. Jellyby would deliver herself up to having this attire tried on\nby the dressmaker, and the sweetness with which she would then\nobserve to me how sorry she was that I had not turned my thoughts to\nAfrica, were consistent with the rest of her behaviour.\n\nThe lodging was rather confined as to space, but I fancied that if\nMrs. Jellyby's household had been the only lodgers in Saint Paul's or\nSaint Peter's, the sole advantage they would have found in the size\nof the building would have been its affording a great deal of room to\nbe dirty in. I believe that nothing belonging to the family which it\nhad been possible to break was unbroken at the time of those\npreparations for Caddy's marriage, that nothing which it had been\npossible to spoil in any way was unspoilt, and that no domestic\nobject which was capable of collecting dirt, from a dear child's knee\nto the door-plate, was without as much dirt as could well accumulate\nupon it.\n\nPoor Mr. Jellyby, who very seldom spoke and almost always sat when he\nwas at home with his head against the wall, became interested when he\nsaw that Caddy and I were attempting to establish some order among\nall this waste and ruin and took off his coat to help. But such\nwonderful things came tumbling out of the closets when they were\nopened--bits of mouldy pie, sour bottles, Mrs. Jellyby's caps,\nletters, tea, forks, odd boots and shoes of children, firewood,\nwafers, saucepan-lids, damp sugar in odds and ends of paper bags,\nfootstools, blacklead brushes, bread, Mrs. Jellyby's bonnets, books\nwith butter sticking to the binding, guttered candle ends put out\nby being turned upside down in broken candlesticks, nutshells,\nheads and tails of shrimps, dinner-mats, gloves, coffee-grounds,\numbrellas--that he looked frightened, and left off again. But he came\nregularly every evening and sat without his coat, with his head\nagainst the wall, as though he would have helped us if he had known\nhow.\n\n\"Poor Pa!\" said Caddy to me on the night before the great day, when\nwe really had got things a little to rights. \"It seems unkind to\nleave him, Esther. But what could I do if I stayed! Since I first\nknew you, I have tidied and tidied over and over again, but it's\nuseless. Ma and Africa, together, upset the whole house directly. We\nnever have a servant who don't drink. Ma's ruinous to everything.\"\n\nMr. Jellyby could not hear what she said, but he seemed very low\nindeed and shed tears, I thought.\n\n\"My heart aches for him; that it does!\" sobbed Caddy. \"I can't help\nthinking to-night, Esther, how dearly I hope to be happy with Prince,\nand how dearly Pa hoped, I dare say, to be happy with Ma. What a\ndisappointed life!\"\n\n\"My dear Caddy!\" said Mr. Jellyby, looking slowly round from the\nwail. It was the first time, I think, I ever heard him say three\nwords together.\n\n\"Yes, Pa!\" cried Caddy, going to him and embracing him\naffectionately.\n\n\"My dear Caddy,\" said Mr. Jellyby. \"Never have--\"\n\n\"Not Prince, Pa?\" faltered Caddy. \"Not have Prince?\"\n\n\"Yes, my dear,\" said Mr. Jellyby. \"Have him, certainly. But, never\nhave--\"\n\nI mentioned in my account of our first visit in Thavies Inn that\nRichard described Mr. Jellyby as frequently opening his mouth after\ndinner without saying anything. It was a habit of his. He opened his\nmouth now a great many times and shook his head in a melancholy\nmanner.\n\n\"What do you wish me not to have? Don't have what, dear Pa?\" asked\nCaddy, coaxing him, with her arms round his neck.\n\n\"Never have a mission, my dear child.\"\n\nMr. Jellyby groaned and laid his head against the wall again, and\nthis was the only time I ever heard him make any approach to\nexpressing his sentiments on the Borrioboolan question. I suppose he\nhad been more talkative and lively once, but he seemed to have been\ncompletely exhausted long before I knew him.\n\nI thought Mrs. Jellyby never would have left off serenely looking\nover her papers and drinking coffee that night. It was twelve o'clock\nbefore we could obtain possession of the room, and the clearance it\nrequired then was so discouraging that Caddy, who was almost tired\nout, sat down in the middle of the dust and cried. But she soon\ncheered up, and we did wonders with it before we went to bed.\n\nIn the morning it looked, by the aid of a few flowers and a quantity\nof soap and water and a little arrangement, quite gay. The plain\nbreakfast made a cheerful show, and Caddy was perfectly charming. But\nwhen my darling came, I thought--and I think now--that I never had\nseen such a dear face as my beautiful pet's.\n\nWe made a little feast for the children upstairs, and we put Peepy at\nthe head of the table, and we showed them Caddy in her bridal dress,\nand they clapped their hands and hurrahed, and Caddy cried to think\nthat she was going away from them and hugged them over and over again\nuntil we brought Prince up to fetch her away--when, I am sorry to\nsay, Peepy bit him. Then there was old Mr. Turveydrop downstairs, in\na state of deportment not to be expressed, benignly blessing Caddy\nand giving my guardian to understand that his son's happiness was his\nown parental work and that he sacrificed personal considerations to\nensure it. \"My dear sir,\" said Mr. Turveydrop, \"these young people\nwill live with me; my house is large enough for their accommodation,\nand they shall not want the shelter of my roof. I could have\nwished--you will understand the allusion, Mr. Jarndyce, for you\nremember my illustrious patron the Prince Regent--I could have\nwished that my son had married into a family where there was more\ndeportment, but the will of heaven be done!\"\n\nMr. and Mrs. Pardiggle were of the party--Mr. Pardiggle, an\nobstinate-looking man with a large waistcoat and stubbly hair, who\nwas always talking in a loud bass voice about his mite, or Mrs.\nPardiggle's mite, or their five boys' mites. Mr. Quale, with his hair\nbrushed back as usual and his knobs of temples shining very much, was\nalso there, not in the character of a disappointed lover, but as the\naccepted of a young--at least, an unmarried--lady, a Miss Wisk, who\nwas also there. Miss Wisk's mission, my guardian said, was to show\nthe world that woman's mission was man's mission and that the only\ngenuine mission of both man and woman was to be always moving\ndeclaratory resolutions about things in general at public meetings.\nThe guests were few, but were, as one might expect at Mrs. Jellyby's,\nall devoted to public objects only. Besides those I have mentioned,\nthere was an extremely dirty lady with her bonnet all awry and the\nticketed price of her dress still sticking on it, whose neglected\nhome, Caddy told me, was like a filthy wilderness, but whose church\nwas like a fancy fair. A very contentious gentleman, who said it was\nhis mission to be everybody's brother but who appeared to be on terms\nof coolness with the whole of his large family, completed the party.\n\nA party, having less in common with such an occasion, could hardly\nhave been got together by any ingenuity. Such a mean mission as the\ndomestic mission was the very last thing to be endured among them;\nindeed, Miss Wisk informed us, with great indignation, before we sat\ndown to breakfast, that the idea of woman's mission lying chiefly in\nthe narrow sphere of home was an outrageous slander on the part of\nher tyrant, man. One other singularity was that nobody with a\nmission--except Mr. Quale, whose mission, as I think I have formerly\nsaid, was to be in ecstasies with everybody's mission--cared at all\nfor anybody's mission. Mrs. Pardiggle being as clear that the only\none infallible course was her course of pouncing upon the poor and\napplying benevolence to them like a strait-waistcoat; as Miss Wisk\nwas that the only practical thing for the world was the emancipation\nof woman from the thraldom of her tyrant, man. Mrs. Jellyby, all the\nwhile, sat smiling at the limited vision that could see anything but\nBorrioboola-Gha.\n\nBut I am anticipating now the purport of our conversation on the ride\nhome instead of first marrying Caddy. We all went to church, and Mr.\nJellyby gave her away. Of the air with which old Mr. Turveydrop, with\nhis hat under his left arm (the inside presented at the clergyman\nlike a cannon) and his eyes creasing themselves up into his wig,\nstood stiff and high-shouldered behind us bridesmaids during the\nceremony, and afterwards saluted us, I could never say enough to do\nit justice. Miss Wisk, whom I cannot report as prepossessing in\nappearance, and whose manner was grim, listened to the proceedings,\nas part of woman's wrongs, with a disdainful face. Mrs. Jellyby, with\nher calm smile and her bright eyes, looked the least concerned of all\nthe company.\n\nWe duly came back to breakfast, and Mrs. Jellyby sat at the head of\nthe table and Mr. Jellyby at the foot. Caddy had previously stolen\nupstairs to hug the children again and tell them that her name was\nTurveydrop. But this piece of information, instead of being an\nagreeable surprise to Peepy, threw him on his back in such transports\nof kicking grief that I could do nothing on being sent for but accede\nto the proposal that he should be admitted to the breakfast table. So\nhe came down and sat in my lap; and Mrs. Jellyby, after saying, in\nreference to the state of his pinafore, \"Oh, you naughty Peepy, what\na shocking little pig you are!\" was not at all discomposed. He was\nvery good except that he brought down Noah with him (out of an ark I\nhad given him before we went to church) and WOULD dip him head first\ninto the wine-glasses and then put him in his mouth.\n\nMy guardian, with his sweet temper and his quick perception and his\namiable face, made something agreeable even out of the ungenial\ncompany. None of them seemed able to talk about anything but his, or\nher, own one subject, and none of them seemed able to talk about even\nthat as part of a world in which there was anything else; but my\nguardian turned it all to the merry encouragement of Caddy and the\nhonour of the occasion, and brought us through the breakfast nobly.\nWhat we should have done without him, I am afraid to think, for all\nthe company despising the bride and bridegroom and old Mr.\nTurveydrop--and old Mr. Thurveydrop, in virtue of his deportment,\nconsidering himself vastly superior to all the company--it was a very\nunpromising case.\n\nAt last the time came when poor Caddy was to go and when all her\nproperty was packed on the hired coach and pair that was to take her\nand her husband to Gravesend. It affected us to see Caddy clinging,\nthen, to her deplorable home and hanging on her mother's neck with\nthe greatest tenderness.\n\n\"I am very sorry I couldn't go on writing from dictation, Ma,\" sobbed\nCaddy. \"I hope you forgive me now.\"\n\n\"Oh, Caddy, Caddy!\" said Mrs. Jellyby. \"I have told you over and over\nagain that I have engaged a boy, and there's an end of it.\"\n\n\"You are sure you are not the least angry with me, Ma? Say you are\nsure before I go away, Ma?\"\n\n\"You foolish Caddy,\" returned Mrs. Jellyby, \"do I look angry, or have\nI inclination to be angry, or time to be angry? How CAN you?\"\n\n\"Take a little care of Pa while I am gone, Mama!\"\n\nMrs. Jellyby positively laughed at the fancy. \"You romantic child,\"\nsaid she, lightly patting Caddy's back. \"Go along. I am excellent\nfriends with you. Now, good-bye, Caddy, and be very happy!\"\n\nThen Caddy hung upon her father and nursed his cheek against hers as\nif he were some poor dull child in pain. All this took place in the\nhall. Her father released her, took out his pocket handkerchief, and\nsat down on the stairs with his head against the wall. I hope he\nfound some consolation in walls. I almost think he did.\n\nAnd then Prince took her arm in his and turned with great emotion and\nrespect to his father, whose deportment at that moment was\noverwhelming.\n\n\"Thank you over and over again, father!\" said Prince, kissing his\nhand. \"I am very grateful for all your kindness and consideration\nregarding our marriage, and so, I can assure you, is Caddy.\"\n\n\"Very,\" sobbed Caddy. \"Ve-ry!\"\n\n\"My dear son,\" said Mr. Turveydrop, \"and dear daughter, I have done\nmy duty. If the spirit of a sainted wooman hovers above us and looks\ndown on the occasion, that, and your constant affection, will be my\nrecompense. You will not fail in YOUR duty, my son and daughter, I\nbelieve?\"\n\n\"Dear father, never!\" cried Prince.\n\n\"Never, never, dear Mr. Turveydrop!\" said Caddy.\n\n\"This,\" returned Mr. Turveydrop, \"is as it should be. My children, my\nhome is yours, my heart is yours, my all is yours. I will never leave\nyou; nothing but death shall part us. My dear son, you contemplate an\nabsence of a week, I think?\"\n\n\"A week, dear father. We shall return home this day week.\"\n\n\"My dear child,\" said Mr. Turveydrop, \"let me, even under the present\nexceptional circumstances, recommend strict punctuality. It is highly\nimportant to keep the connexion together; and schools, if at all\nneglected, are apt to take offence.\"\n\n\"This day week, father, we shall be sure to be home to dinner.\"\n\n\"Good!\" said Mr. Turveydrop. \"You will find fires, my dear Caroline,\nin your own room, and dinner prepared in my apartment. Yes, yes,\nPrince!\" anticipating some self-denying objection on his son's part\nwith a great air. \"You and our Caroline will be strange in the upper\npart of the premises and will, therefore, dine that day in my\napartment. Now, bless ye!\"\n\nThey drove away, and whether I wondered most at Mrs. Jellyby or at\nMr. Turveydrop, I did not know. Ada and my guardian were in the same\ncondition when we came to talk it over. But before we drove away too,\nI received a most unexpected and eloquent compliment from Mr.\nJellyby. He came up to me in the hall, took both my hands, pressed\nthem earnestly, and opened his mouth twice. I was so sure of his\nmeaning that I said, quite flurried, \"You are very welcome, sir. Pray\ndon't mention it!\"\n\n\"I hope this marriage is for the best, guardian,\" said I when we\nthree were on our road home.\n\n\"I hope it is, little woman. Patience. We shall see.\"\n\n\"Is the wind in the east to-day?\" I ventured to ask him.\n\nHe laughed heartily and answered, \"No.\"\n\n\"But it must have been this morning, I think,\" said I.\n\nHe answered \"No\" again, and this time my dear girl confidently\nanswered \"No\" too and shook the lovely head which, with its blooming\nflowers against the golden hair, was like the very spring. \"Much YOU\nknow of east winds, my ugly darling,\" said I, kissing her in my\nadmiration--I couldn't help it.\n\nWell! It was only their love for me, I know very well, and it is a\nlong time ago. I must write it even if I rub it out again, because it\ngives me so much pleasure. They said there could be no east wind\nwhere Somebody was; they said that wherever Dame Durden went, there\nwas sunshine and summer air.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXI\n\nNurse and Patient\n\n\nI had not been at home again many days when one evening I went\nupstairs into my own room to take a peep over Charley's shoulder and\nsee how she was getting on with her copy-book. Writing was a trying\nbusiness to Charley, who seemed to have no natural power over a pen,\nbut in whose hand every pen appeared to become perversely animated,\nand to go wrong and crooked, and to stop, and splash, and sidle into\ncorners like a saddle-donkey. It was very odd to see what old letters\nCharley's young hand had made, they so wrinkled, and shrivelled, and\ntottering, it so plump and round. Yet Charley was uncommonly expert\nat other things and had as nimble little fingers as I ever watched.\n\n\"Well, Charley,\" said I, looking over a copy of the letter O in which\nit was represented as square, triangular, pear-shaped, and collapsed\nin all kinds of ways, \"we are improving. If we only get to make it\nround, we shall be perfect, Charley.\"\n\nThen I made one, and Charley made one, and the pen wouldn't join\nCharley's neatly, but twisted it up into a knot.\n\n\"Never mind, Charley. We shall do it in time.\"\n\nCharley laid down her pen, the copy being finished, opened and shut\nher cramped little hand, looked gravely at the page, half in pride\nand half in doubt, and got up, and dropped me a curtsy.\n\n\"Thank you, miss. If you please, miss, did you know a poor person of\nthe name of Jenny?\"\n\n\"A brickmaker's wife, Charley? Yes.\"\n\n\"She came and spoke to me when I was out a little while ago, and said\nyou knew her, miss. She asked me if I wasn't the young lady's little\nmaid--meaning you for the young lady, miss--and I said yes, miss.\"\n\n\"I thought she had left this neighbourhood altogether, Charley.\"\n\n\"So she had, miss, but she's come back again to where she used to\nlive--she and Liz. Did you know another poor person of the name of\nLiz, miss?\"\n\n\"I think I do, Charley, though not by name.\"\n\n\"That's what she said!\" returned Charley. \"They have both come back,\nmiss, and have been tramping high and low.\"\n\n\"Tramping high and low, have they, Charley?\"\n\n\"Yes, miss.\" If Charley could only have made the letters in her copy\nas round as the eyes with which she looked into my face, they would\nhave been excellent. \"And this poor person came about the house three\nor four days, hoping to get a glimpse of you, miss--all she wanted,\nshe said--but you were away. That was when she saw me. She saw me\na-going about, miss,\" said Charley with a short laugh of the greatest\ndelight and pride, \"and she thought I looked like your maid!\"\n\n\"Did she though, really, Charley?\"\n\n\"Yes, miss!\" said Charley. \"Really and truly.\" And Charley, with\nanother short laugh of the purest glee, made her eyes very round\nagain and looked as serious as became my maid. I was never tired of\nseeing Charley in the full enjoyment of that great dignity, standing\nbefore me with her youthful face and figure, and her steady manner,\nand her childish exultation breaking through it now and then in the\npleasantest way.\n\n\"And where did you see her, Charley?\" said I.\n\nMy little maid's countenance fell as she replied, \"By the doctor's\nshop, miss.\" For Charley wore her black frock yet.\n\nI asked if the brickmaker's wife were ill, but Charley said no. It\nwas some one else. Some one in her cottage who had tramped down to\nSaint Albans and was tramping he didn't know where. A poor boy,\nCharley said. No father, no mother, no any one. \"Like as Tom might\nhave been, miss, if Emma and me had died after father,\" said Charley,\nher round eyes filling with tears.\n\n\"And she was getting medicine for him, Charley?\"\n\n\"She said, miss,\" returned Charley, \"how that he had once done as\nmuch for her.\"\n\nMy little maid's face was so eager and her quiet hands were folded so\nclosely in one another as she stood looking at me that I had no great\ndifficulty in reading her thoughts. \"Well, Charley,\" said I, \"it\nappears to me that you and I can do no better than go round to\nJenny's and see what's the matter.\"\n\nThe alacrity with which Charley brought my bonnet and veil, and\nhaving dressed me, quaintly pinned herself into her warm shawl and\nmade herself look like a little old woman, sufficiently expressed her\nreadiness. So Charley and I, without saying anything to any one, went\nout.\n\nIt was a cold, wild night, and the trees shuddered in the wind. The\nrain had been thick and heavy all day, and with little intermission\nfor many days. None was falling just then, however. The sky had\npartly cleared, but was very gloomy--even above us, where a few stars\nwere shining. In the north and north-west, where the sun had set\nthree hours before, there was a pale dead light both beautiful and\nawful; and into it long sullen lines of cloud waved up like a sea\nstricken immovable as it was heaving. Towards London a lurid glare\noverhung the whole dark waste, and the contrast between these two\nlights, and the fancy which the redder light engendered of an\nunearthly fire, gleaming on all the unseen buildings of the city and\non all the faces of its many thousands of wondering inhabitants, was\nas solemn as might be.\n\nI had no thought that night--none, I am quite sure--of what was soon\nto happen to me. But I have always remembered since that when we had\nstopped at the garden-gate to look up at the sky, and when we went\nupon our way, I had for a moment an undefinable impression of myself\nas being something different from what I then was. I know it was then\nand there that I had it. I have ever since connected the feeling with\nthat spot and time and with everything associated with that spot and\ntime, to the distant voices in the town, the barking of a dog, and\nthe sound of wheels coming down the miry hill.\n\nIt was Saturday night, and most of the people belonging to the place\nwhere we were going were drinking elsewhere. We found it quieter than\nI had previously seen it, though quite as miserable. The kilns were\nburning, and a stifling vapour set towards us with a pale-blue glare.\n\nWe came to the cottage, where there was a feeble candle in the\npatched window. We tapped at the door and went in. The mother of the\nlittle child who had died was sitting in a chair on one side of the\npoor fire by the bed; and opposite to her, a wretched boy, supported\nby the chimney-piece, was cowering on the floor. He held under his\narm, like a little bundle, a fragment of a fur cap; and as he tried\nto warm himself, he shook until the crazy door and window shook. The\nplace was closer than before and had an unhealthy and a very peculiar\nsmell.\n\nI had not lifted my veil when I first spoke to the woman, which was\nat the moment of our going in. The boy staggered up instantly and\nstared at me with a remarkable expression of surprise and terror.\n\nHis action was so quick and my being the cause of it was so evident\nthat I stood still instead of advancing nearer.\n\n\"I won't go no more to the berryin ground,\" muttered the boy; \"I\nain't a-going there, so I tell you!\"\n\nI lifted my veil and spoke to the woman. She said to me in a low\nvoice, \"Don't mind him, ma'am. He'll soon come back to his head,\" and\nsaid to him, \"Jo, Jo, what's the matter?\"\n\n\"I know wot she's come for!\" cried the boy.\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"The lady there. She's come to get me to go along with her to the\nberryin ground. I won't go to the berryin ground. I don't like the\nname on it. She might go a-berryin ME.\" His shivering came on again,\nand as he leaned against the wall, he shook the hovel.\n\n\"He has been talking off and on about such like all day, ma'am,\" said\nJenny softly. \"Why, how you stare! This is MY lady, Jo.\"\n\n\"Is it?\" returned the boy doubtfully, and surveying me with his arm\nheld out above his burning eyes. \"She looks to me the t'other one. It\nain't the bonnet, nor yet it ain't the gownd, but she looks to me the\nt'other one.\"\n\nMy little Charley, with her premature experience of illness and\ntrouble, had pulled off her bonnet and shawl and now went quietly up\nto him with a chair and sat him down in it like an old sick nurse.\nExcept that no such attendant could have shown him Charley's youthful\nface, which seemed to engage his confidence.\n\n\"I say!\" said the boy. \"YOU tell me. Ain't the lady the t'other\nlady?\"\n\nCharley shook her head as she methodically drew his rags about him\nand made him as warm as she could.\n\n\"Oh!\" the boy muttered. \"Then I s'pose she ain't.\"\n\n\"I came to see if I could do you any good,\" said I. \"What is the\nmatter with you?\"\n\n\"I'm a-being froze,\" returned the boy hoarsely, with his haggard gaze\nwandering about me, \"and then burnt up, and then froze, and then\nburnt up, ever so many times in a hour. And my head's all sleepy, and\nall a-going mad-like--and I'm so dry--and my bones isn't half so much\nbones as pain.\n\n\"When did he come here?\" I asked the woman.\n\n\"This morning, ma'am, I found him at the corner of the town. I had\nknown him up in London yonder. Hadn't I, Jo?\"\n\n\"Tom-all-Alone's,\" the boy replied.\n\nWhenever he fixed his attention or his eyes, it was only for a very\nlittle while. He soon began to droop his head again, and roll it\nheavily, and speak as if he were half awake.\n\n\"When did he come from London?\" I asked.\n\n\"I come from London yes'day,\" said the boy himself, now flushed and\nhot. \"I'm a-going somewheres.\"\n\n\"Where is he going?\" I asked.\n\n\"Somewheres,\" repeated the boy in a louder tone. \"I have been moved\non, and moved on, more nor ever I was afore, since the t'other one\ngive me the sov'ring. Mrs. Snagsby, she's always a-watching, and\na-driving of me--what have I done to her?--and they're all a-watching\nand a-driving of me. Every one of 'em's doing of it, from the time\nwhen I don't get up, to the time when I don't go to bed. And I'm\na-going somewheres. That's where I'm a-going. She told me, down in\nTom-all-Alone's, as she came from Stolbuns, and so I took the\nStolbuns Road. It's as good as another.\"\n\nHe always concluded by addressing Charley.\n\n\"What is to be done with him?\" said I, taking the woman aside. \"He\ncould not travel in this state even if he had a purpose and knew\nwhere he was going!\"\n\n\"I know no more, ma'am, than the dead,\" she replied, glancing\ncompassionately at him. \"Perhaps the dead know better, if they could\nonly tell us. I've kept him here all day for pity's sake, and I've\ngiven him broth and physic, and Liz has gone to try if any one will\ntake him in (here's my pretty in the bed--her child, but I call it\nmine); but I can't keep him long, for if my husband was to come home\nand find him here, he'd be rough in putting him out and might do him\na hurt. Hark! Here comes Liz back!\"\n\nThe other woman came hurriedly in as she spoke, and the boy got up\nwith a half-obscured sense that he was expected to be going. When the\nlittle child awoke, and when and how Charley got at it, took it out\nof bed, and began to walk about hushing it, I don't know. There she\nwas, doing all this in a quiet motherly manner as if she were living\nin Mrs. Blinder's attic with Tom and Emma again.\n\nThe friend had been here and there, and had been played about from\nhand to hand, and had come back as she went. At first it was too\nearly for the boy to be received into the proper refuge, and at last\nit was too late. One official sent her to another, and the other sent\nher back again to the first, and so backward and forward, until it\nappeared to me as if both must have been appointed for their skill in\nevading their duties instead of performing them. And now, after all,\nshe said, breathing quickly, for she had been running and was\nfrightened too, \"Jenny, your master's on the road home, and mine's\nnot far behind, and the Lord help the boy, for we can do no more for\nhim!\" They put a few halfpence together and hurried them into his\nhand, and so, in an oblivious, half-thankful, half-insensible way, he\nshuffled out of the house.\n\n\"Give me the child, my dear,\" said its mother to Charley, \"and thank\nyou kindly too! Jenny, woman dear, good night! Young lady, if my\nmaster don't fall out with me, I'll look down by the kiln by and by,\nwhere the boy will be most like, and again in the morning!\" She\nhurried off, and presently we passed her hushing and singing to her\nchild at her own door and looking anxiously along the road for her\ndrunken husband.\n\nI was afraid of staying then to speak to either woman, lest I should\nbring her into trouble. But I said to Charley that we must not leave\nthe boy to die. Charley, who knew what to do much better than I did,\nand whose quickness equalled her presence of mind, glided on before\nme, and presently we came up with Jo, just short of the brick-kiln.\n\nI think he must have begun his journey with some small bundle under\nhis arm and must have had it stolen or lost it. For he still carried\nhis wretched fragment of fur cap like a bundle, though he went\nbare-headed through the rain, which now fell fast. He stopped when we\ncalled to him and again showed a dread of me when I came up, standing\nwith his lustrous eyes fixed upon me, and even arrested in his\nshivering fit.\n\nI asked him to come with us, and we would take care that he had some\nshelter for the night.\n\n\"I don't want no shelter,\" he said; \"I can lay amongst the warm\nbricks.\"\n\n\"But don't you know that people die there?\" replied Charley.\n\n\"They dies everywheres,\" said the boy. \"They dies in their\nlodgings--she knows where; I showed her--and they dies down in\nTom-all-Alone's in heaps. They dies more than they lives, according\nto what I see.\" Then he hoarsely whispered Charley, \"If she ain't the\nt'other one, she ain't the forrenner. Is there THREE of 'em then?\"\n\nCharley looked at me a little frightened. I felt half frightened at\nmyself when the boy glared on me so.\n\nBut he turned and followed when I beckoned to him, and finding that\nhe acknowledged that influence in me, I led the way straight home. It\nwas not far, only at the summit of the hill. We passed but one man. I\ndoubted if we should have got home without assistance, the boy's\nsteps were so uncertain and tremulous. He made no complaint, however,\nand was strangely unconcerned about himself, if I may say so strange\na thing.\n\nLeaving him in the hall for a moment, shrunk into the corner of the\nwindow-seat and staring with an indifference that scarcely could be\ncalled wonder at the comfort and brightness about him, I went into\nthe drawing-room to speak to my guardian. There I found Mr. Skimpole,\nwho had come down by the coach, as he frequently did without notice,\nand never bringing any clothes with him, but always borrowing\neverything he wanted.\n\nThey came out with me directly to look at the boy. The servants had\ngathered in the hall too, and he shivered in the window-seat with\nCharley standing by him, like some wounded animal that had been found\nin a ditch.\n\n\"This is a sorrowful case,\" said my guardian after asking him a\nquestion or two and touching him and examining his eyes. \"What do you\nsay, Harold?\"\n\n\"You had better turn him out,\" said Mr. Skimpole.\n\n\"What do you mean?\" inquired my guardian, almost sternly.\n\n\"My dear Jarndyce,\" said Mr. Skimpole, \"you know what I am: I am a\nchild. Be cross to me if I deserve it. But I have a constitutional\nobjection to this sort of thing. I always had, when I was a medical\nman. He's not safe, you know. There's a very bad sort of fever about\nhim.\"\n\nMr. Skimpole had retreated from the hall to the drawing-room again\nand said this in his airy way, seated on the music-stool as we stood\nby.\n\n\"You'll say it's childish,\" observed Mr. Skimpole, looking gaily at\nus. \"Well, I dare say it may be; but I AM a child, and I never\npretend to be anything else. If you put him out in the road, you only\nput him where he was before. He will be no worse off than he was, you\nknow. Even make him better off, if you like. Give him sixpence, or\nfive shillings, or five pound ten--you are arithmeticians, and I am\nnot--and get rid of him!\"\n\n\"And what is he to do then?\" asked my guardian.\n\n\"Upon my life,\" said Mr. Skimpole, shrugging his shoulders with his\nengaging smile, \"I have not the least idea what he is to do then. But\nI have no doubt he'll do it.\"\n\n\"Now, is it not a horrible reflection,\" said my guardian, to whom I\nhad hastily explained the unavailing efforts of the two women, \"is it\nnot a horrible reflection,\" walking up and down and rumpling his\nhair, \"that if this wretched creature were a convicted prisoner, his\nhospital would be wide open to him, and he would be as well taken\ncare of as any sick boy in the kingdom?\"\n\n\"My dear Jarndyce,\" returned Mr. Skimpole, \"you'll pardon the\nsimplicity of the question, coming as it does from a creature who is\nperfectly simple in worldly matters, but why ISN'T he a prisoner\nthen?\"\n\nMy guardian stopped and looked at him with a whimsical mixture of\namusement and indignation in his face.\n\n\"Our young friend is not to be suspected of any delicacy, I should\nimagine,\" said Mr. Skimpole, unabashed and candid. \"It seems to me\nthat it would be wiser, as well as in a certain kind of way more\nrespectable, if he showed some misdirected energy that got him into\nprison. There would be more of an adventurous spirit in it, and\nconsequently more of a certain sort of poetry.\"\n\n\"I believe,\" returned my guardian, resuming his uneasy walk, \"that\nthere is not such another child on earth as yourself.\"\n\n\"Do you really?\" said Mr. Skimpole. \"I dare say! But I confess I\ndon't see why our young friend, in his degree, should not seek to\ninvest himself with such poetry as is open to him. He is no doubt\nborn with an appetite--probably, when he is in a safer state of\nhealth, he has an excellent appetite. Very well. At our young\nfriend's natural dinner hour, most likely about noon, our young\nfriend says in effect to society, 'I am hungry; will you have the\ngoodness to produce your spoon and feed me?' Society, which has taken\nupon itself the general arrangement of the whole system of spoons and\nprofesses to have a spoon for our young friend, does NOT produce that\nspoon; and our young friend, therefore, says 'You really must excuse\nme if I seize it.' Now, this appears to me a case of misdirected\nenergy, which has a certain amount of reason in it and a certain\namount of romance; and I don't know but what I should be more\ninterested in our young friend, as an illustration of such a case,\nthan merely as a poor vagabond--which any one can be.\"\n\n\"In the meantime,\" I ventured to observe, \"he is getting worse.\"\n\n\"In the meantime,\" said Mr. Skimpole cheerfully, \"as Miss Summerson,\nwith her practical good sense, observes, he is getting worse.\nTherefore I recommend your turning him out before he gets still\nworse.\"\n\nThe amiable face with which he said it, I think I shall never forget.\n\n\"Of course, little woman,\" observed my guardian, turning to me, \"I\ncan ensure his admission into the proper place by merely going there\nto enforce it, though it's a bad state of things when, in his\ncondition, that is necessary. But it's growing late, and is a very\nbad night, and the boy is worn out already. There is a bed in the\nwholesome loft-room by the stable; we had better keep him there till\nmorning, when he can be wrapped up and removed. We'll do that.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said Mr. Skimpole, with his hands upon the keys of the piano as\nwe moved away. \"Are you going back to our young friend?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said my guardian.\n\n\"How I envy you your constitution, Jarndyce!\" returned Mr. Skimpole\nwith playful admiration. \"You don't mind these things; neither does\nMiss Summerson. You are ready at all times to go anywhere, and do\nanything. Such is will! I have no will at all--and no won't--simply\ncan't.\"\n\n\"You can't recommend anything for the boy, I suppose?\" said my\nguardian, looking back over his shoulder half angrily; only half\nangrily, for he never seemed to consider Mr. Skimpole an accountable\nbeing.\n\n\"My dear Jarndyce, I observed a bottle of cooling medicine in his\npocket, and it's impossible for him to do better than take it. You\ncan tell them to sprinkle a little vinegar about the place where he\nsleeps and to keep it moderately cool and him moderately warm. But it\nis mere impertinence in me to offer any recommendation. Miss\nSummerson has such a knowledge of detail and such a capacity for the\nadministration of detail that she knows all about it.\"\n\nWe went back into the hall and explained to Jo what we proposed to\ndo, which Charley explained to him again and which he received with\nthe languid unconcern I had already noticed, wearily looking on at\nwhat was done as if it were for somebody else. The servants\ncompassionating his miserable state and being very anxious to help,\nwe soon got the loft-room ready; and some of the men about the house\ncarried him across the wet yard, well wrapped up. It was pleasant to\nobserve how kind they were to him and how there appeared to be a\ngeneral impression among them that frequently calling him \"Old Chap\"\nwas likely to revive his spirits. Charley directed the operations and\nwent to and fro between the loft-room and the house with such little\nstimulants and comforts as we thought it safe to give him. My\nguardian himself saw him before he was left for the night and\nreported to me when he returned to the growlery to write a letter on\nthe boy's behalf, which a messenger was charged to deliver at\nday-light in the morning, that he seemed easier and inclined to\nsleep. They had fastened his door on the outside, he said, in case of\nhis being delirious, but had so arranged that he could not make any\nnoise without being heard.\n\nAda being in our room with a cold, Mr. Skimpole was left alone all\nthis time and entertained himself by playing snatches of pathetic\nairs and sometimes singing to them (as we heard at a distance) with\ngreat expression and feeling. When we rejoined him in the\ndrawing-room he said he would give us a little ballad which had come\ninto his head \"apropos of our young friend,\" and he sang one about a\npeasant boy,\n\n   \"Thrown on the wide world, doomed to wander and roam,\n    Bereft of his parents, bereft of a home.\"\n\nquite exquisitely. It was a song that always made him cry, he told\nus.\n\nHe was extremely gay all the rest of the evening, for he absolutely\nchirped--those were his delighted words--when he thought by what a\nhappy talent for business he was surrounded. He gave us, in his glass\nof negus, \"Better health to our young friend!\" and supposed and gaily\npursued the case of his being reserved like Whittington to become\nLord Mayor of London. In that event, no doubt, he would establish the\nJarndyce Institution and the Summerson Almshouses, and a little\nannual Corporation Pilgrimage to St. Albans. He had no doubt, he\nsaid, that our young friend was an excellent boy in his way, but his\nway was not the Harold Skimpole way; what Harold Skimpole was, Harold\nSkimpole had found himself, to his considerable surprise, when he\nfirst made his own acquaintance; he had accepted himself with all his\nfailings and had thought it sound philosophy to make the best of the\nbargain; and he hoped we would do the same.\n\nCharley's last report was that the boy was quiet. I could see, from\nmy window, the lantern they had left him burning quietly; and I went\nto bed very happy to think that he was sheltered.\n\nThere was more movement and more talking than usual a little before\ndaybreak, and it awoke me. As I was dressing, I looked out of my\nwindow and asked one of our men who had been among the active\nsympathizers last night whether there was anything wrong about the\nhouse. The lantern was still burning in the loft-window.\n\n\"It's the boy, miss,\" said he.\n\n\"Is he worse?\" I inquired.\n\n\"Gone, miss.\n\n\"Dead!\"\n\n\"Dead, miss? No. Gone clean off.\"\n\nAt what time of the night he had gone, or how, or why, it seemed\nhopeless ever to divine. The door remaining as it had been left, and\nthe lantern standing in the window, it could only be supposed that he\nhad got out by a trap in the floor which communicated with an empty\ncart-house below. But he had shut it down again, if that were so; and\nit looked as if it had not been raised. Nothing of any kind was\nmissing. On this fact being clearly ascertained, we all yielded to\nthe painful belief that delirium had come upon him in the night and\nthat, allured by some imaginary object or pursued by some imaginary\nhorror, he had strayed away in that worse than helpless state; all of\nus, that is to say, but Mr. Skimpole, who repeatedly suggested, in\nhis usual easy light style, that it had occurred to our young friend\nthat he was not a safe inmate, having a bad kind of fever upon him,\nand that he had with great natural politeness taken himself off.\n\nEvery possible inquiry was made, and every place was searched. The\nbrick-kilns were examined, the cottages were visited, the two women\nwere particularly questioned, but they knew nothing of him, and\nnobody could doubt that their wonder was genuine. The weather had for\nsome time been too wet and the night itself had been too wet to admit\nof any tracing by footsteps. Hedge and ditch, and wall, and rick and\nstack, were examined by our men for a long distance round, lest the\nboy should be lying in such a place insensible or dead; but nothing\nwas seen to indicate that he had ever been near. From the time when\nhe was left in the loft-room, he vanished.\n\nThe search continued for five days. I do not mean that it ceased even\nthen, but that my attention was then diverted into a current very\nmemorable to me.\n\nAs Charley was at her writing again in my room in the evening, and as\nI sat opposite to her at work, I felt the table tremble. Looking up,\nI saw my little maid shivering from head to foot.\n\n\"Charley,\" said I, \"are you so cold?\"\n\n\"I think I am, miss,\" she replied. \"I don't know what it is. I can't\nhold myself still. I felt so yesterday at about this same time, miss.\nDon't be uneasy, I think I'm ill.\"\n\nI heard Ada's voice outside, and I hurried to the door of\ncommunication between my room and our pretty sitting-room, and locked\nit. Just in time, for she tapped at it while my hand was yet upon the\nkey.\n\nAda called to me to let her in, but I said, \"Not now, my dearest. Go\naway. There's nothing the matter; I will come to you presently.\" Ah!\nIt was a long, long time before my darling girl and I were companions\nagain.\n\nCharley fell ill. In twelve hours she was very ill. I moved her to my\nroom, and laid her in my bed, and sat down quietly to nurse her. I\ntold my guardian all about it, and why I felt it was necessary that I\nshould seclude myself, and my reason for not seeing my darling above\nall. At first she came very often to the door, and called to me, and\neven reproached me with sobs and tears; but I wrote her a long letter\nsaying that she made me anxious and unhappy and imploring her, as she\nloved me and wished my mind to be at peace, to come no nearer than\nthe garden. After that she came beneath the window even oftener than\nshe had come to the door, and if I had learnt to love her dear sweet\nvoice before when we were hardly ever apart, how did I learn to love\nit then, when I stood behind the window-curtain listening and\nreplying, but not so much as looking out! How did I learn to love it\nafterwards, when the harder time came!\n\nThey put a bed for me in our sitting-room; and by keeping the door\nwide open, I turned the two rooms into one, now that Ada had vacated\nthat part of the house, and kept them always fresh and airy. There\nwas not a servant in or about the house but was so good that they\nwould all most gladly have come to me at any hour of the day or night\nwithout the least fear or unwillingness, but I thought it best to\nchoose one worthy woman who was never to see Ada and whom I could\ntrust to come and go with all precaution. Through her means I got out\nto take the air with my guardian when there was no fear of meeting\nAda, and wanted for nothing in the way of attendance, any more than\nin any other respect.\n\nAnd thus poor Charley sickened and grew worse, and fell into heavy\ndanger of death, and lay severely ill for many a long round of day\nand night. So patient she was, so uncomplaining, and inspired by such\na gentle fortitude that very often as I sat by Charley holding her\nhead in my arms--repose would come to her, so, when it would come to\nher in no other attitude--I silently prayed to our Father in heaven\nthat I might not forget the lesson which this little sister taught\nme.\n\nI was very sorrowful to think that Charley's pretty looks would\nchange and be disfigured, even if she recovered--she was such a child\nwith her dimpled face--but that thought was, for the greater part,\nlost in her greater peril. When she was at the worst, and her mind\nrambled again to the cares of her father's sick bed and the little\nchildren, she still knew me so far as that she would be quiet in my\narms when she could lie quiet nowhere else, and murmur out the\nwanderings of her mind less restlessly. At those times I used to\nthink, how should I ever tell the two remaining babies that the baby\nwho had learned of her faithful heart to be a mother to them in their\nneed was dead!\n\nThere were other times when Charley knew me well and talked to me,\ntelling me that she sent her love to Tom and Emma and that she was\nsure Tom would grow up to be a good man. At those times Charley would\nspeak to me of what she had read to her father as well as she could\nto comfort him, of that young man carried out to be buried who was\nthe only son of his mother and she was a widow, of the ruler's\ndaughter raised up by the gracious hand upon her bed of death. And\nCharley told me that when her father died she had kneeled down and\nprayed in her first sorrow that he likewise might be raised up and\ngiven back to his poor children, and that if she should never get\nbetter and should die too, she thought it likely that it might come\ninto Tom's mind to offer the same prayer for her. Then would I show\nTom how these people of old days had been brought back to life on\nearth, only that we might know our hope to be restored to heaven!\n\nBut of all the various times there were in Charley's illness, there\nwas not one when she lost the gentle qualities I have spoken of. And\nthere were many, many when I thought in the night of the last high\nbelief in the watching angel, and the last higher trust in God, on\nthe part of her poor despised father.\n\nAnd Charley did not die. She flutteringly and slowly turned the\ndangerous point, after long lingering there, and then began to mend.\nThe hope that never had been given, from the first, of Charley being\nin outward appearance Charley any more soon began to be encouraged;\nand even that prospered, and I saw her growing into her old childish\nlikeness again.\n\nIt was a great morning when I could tell Ada all this as she stood\nout in the garden; and it was a great evening when Charley and I at\nlast took tea together in the next room. But on that same evening, I\nfelt that I was stricken cold.\n\nHappily for both of us, it was not until Charley was safe in bed\nagain and placidly asleep that I began to think the contagion of her\nillness was upon me. I had been able easily to hide what I felt at\ntea-time, but I was past that already now, and I knew that I was\nrapidly following in Charley's steps.\n\nI was well enough, however, to be up early in the morning, and to\nreturn my darling's cheerful blessing from the garden, and to talk\nwith her as long as usual. But I was not free from an impression that\nI had been walking about the two rooms in the night, a little beside\nmyself, though knowing where I was; and I felt confused at\ntimes--with a curious sense of fullness, as if I were becoming too\nlarge altogether.\n\nIn the evening I was so much worse that I resolved to prepare\nCharley, with which view I said, \"You're getting quite strong,\nCharley, are you not?'\n\n\"Oh, quite!\" said Charley.\n\n\"Strong enough to be told a secret, I think, Charley?\"\n\n\"Quite strong enough for that, miss!\" cried Charley. But Charley's\nface fell in the height of her delight, for she saw the secret in MY\nface; and she came out of the great chair, and fell upon my bosom,\nand said \"Oh, miss, it's my doing! It's my doing!\" and a great deal\nmore out of the fullness of her grateful heart.\n\n\"Now, Charley,\" said I after letting her go on for a little while,\n\"if I am to be ill, my great trust, humanly speaking, is in you. And\nunless you are as quiet and composed for me as you always were for\nyourself, you can never fulfil it, Charley.\"\n\n\"If you'll let me cry a little longer, miss,\" said Charley. \"Oh, my\ndear, my dear! If you'll only let me cry a little longer. Oh, my\ndear!\"--how affectionately and devotedly she poured this out as she\nclung to my neck, I never can remember without tears--\"I'll be good.\"\n\nSo I let Charley cry a little longer, and it did us both good.\n\n\"Trust in me now, if you please, miss,\" said Charley quietly. \"I am\nlistening to everything you say.\"\n\n\"It's very little at present, Charley. I shall tell your doctor\nto-night that I don't think I am well and that you are going to nurse\nme.\"\n\nFor that the poor child thanked me with her whole heart. \"And in the\nmorning, when you hear Miss Ada in the garden, if I should not be\nquite able to go to the window-curtain as usual, do you go, Charley,\nand say I am asleep--that I have rather tired myself, and am asleep.\nAt all times keep the room as I have kept it, Charley, and let no one\ncome.\"\n\nCharley promised, and I lay down, for I was very heavy. I saw the\ndoctor that night and asked the favour of him that I wished to ask\nrelative to his saying nothing of my illness in the house as yet. I\nhave a very indistinct remembrance of that night melting into day,\nand of day melting into night again; but I was just able on the first\nmorning to get to the window and speak to my darling.\n\nOn the second morning I heard her dear voice--Oh, how dear\nnow!--outside; and I asked Charley, with some difficulty (speech\nbeing painful to me), to go and say I was asleep. I heard her answer\nsoftly, \"Don't disturb her, Charley, for the world!\"\n\n\"How does my own Pride look, Charley?\" I inquired.\n\n\"Disappointed, miss,\" said Charley, peeping through the curtain.\n\n\"But I know she is very beautiful this morning.\"\n\n\"She is indeed, miss,\" answered Charley, peeping. \"Still looking up\nat the window.\"\n\nWith her blue clear eyes, God bless them, always loveliest when\nraised like that!\n\nI called Charley to me and gave her her last charge.\n\n\"Now, Charley, when she knows I am ill, she will try to make her way\ninto the room. Keep her out, Charley, if you love me truly, to the\nlast! Charley, if you let her in but once, only to look upon me for\none moment as I lie here, I shall die.\"\n\n\"I never will! I never will!\" she promised me.\n\n\"I believe it, my dear Charley. And now come and sit beside me for a\nlittle while, and touch me with your hand. For I cannot see you,\nCharley; I am blind.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXII\n\nThe Appointed Time\n\n\nIt is night in Lincoln's Inn--perplexed and troublous valley of the\nshadow of the law, where suitors generally find but little day--and\nfat candles are snuffed out in offices, and clerks have rattled down\nthe crazy wooden stairs and dispersed. The bell that rings at nine\no'clock has ceased its doleful clangour about nothing; the gates are\nshut; and the night-porter, a solemn warder with a mighty power of\nsleep, keeps guard in his lodge. From tiers of staircase windows\nclogged lamps like the eyes of Equity, bleared Argus with a\nfathomless pocket for every eye and an eye upon it, dimly blink at\nthe stars. In dirty upper casements, here and there, hazy little\npatches of candlelight reveal where some wise draughtsman and\nconveyancer yet toils for the entanglement of real estate in meshes\nof sheep-skin, in the average ratio of about a dozen of sheep to an\nacre of land. Over which bee-like industry these benefactors of their\nspecies linger yet, though office-hours be past, that they may give,\nfor every day, some good account at last.\n\nIn the neighbouring court, where the Lord Chancellor of the rag and\nbottle shop dwells, there is a general tendency towards beer and\nsupper. Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins, whose respective sons, engaged\nwith a circle of acquaintance in the game of hide and seek, have been\nlying in ambush about the by-ways of Chancery Lane for some hours and\nscouring the plain of the same thoroughfare to the confusion of\npassengers--Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins have but now exchanged\ncongratulations on the children being abed, and they still linger on\na door-step over a few parting words. Mr. Krook and his lodger, and\nthe fact of Mr. Krook's being \"continually in liquor,\" and the\ntestamentary prospects of the young man are, as usual, the staple of\ntheir conversation. But they have something to say, likewise, of the\nHarmonic Meeting at the Sol's Arms, where the sound of the piano\nthrough the partly opened windows jingles out into the court, and\nwhere Little Swills, after keeping the lovers of harmony in a roar\nlike a very Yorick, may now be heard taking the gruff line in a\nconcerted piece and sentimentally adjuring his friends and patrons to\n\"Listen, listen, listen, tew the wa-ter fall!\" Mrs. Perkins and Mrs.\nPiper compare opinions on the subject of the young lady of\nprofessional celebrity who assists at the Harmonic Meetings and who\nhas a space to herself in the manuscript announcement in the window,\nMrs. Perkins possessing information that she has been married a year\nand a half, though announced as Miss M. Melvilleson, the noted siren,\nand that her baby is clandestinely conveyed to the Sol's Arms every\nnight to receive its natural nourishment during the entertainments.\n\"Sooner than which, myself,\" says Mrs. Perkins, \"I would get my\nliving by selling lucifers.\" Mrs. Piper, as in duty bound, is of the\nsame opinion, holding that a private station is better than public\napplause, and thanking heaven for her own (and, by implication, Mrs.\nPerkins') respectability. By this time the pot-boy of the Sol's Arms\nappearing with her supper-pint well frothed, Mrs. Piper accepts that\ntankard and retires indoors, first giving a fair good night to Mrs.\nPerkins, who has had her own pint in her hand ever since it was\nfetched from the same hostelry by young Perkins before he was sent to\nbed. Now there is a sound of putting up shop-shutters in the court\nand a smell as of the smoking of pipes; and shooting stars are seen\nin upper windows, further indicating retirement to rest. Now, too,\nthe policeman begins to push at doors; to try fastenings; to be\nsuspicious of bundles; and to administer his beat, on the hypothesis\nthat every one is either robbing or being robbed.\n\nIt is a close night, though the damp cold is searching too, and there\nis a laggard mist a little way up in the air. It is a fine steaming\nnight to turn the slaughter-houses, the unwholesome trades, the\nsewerage, bad water, and burial-grounds to account, and give the\nregistrar of deaths some extra business. It may be something in the\nair--there is plenty in it--or it may be something in himself that is\nin fault; but Mr. Weevle, otherwise Jobling, is very ill at ease. He\ncomes and goes between his own room and the open street door twenty\ntimes an hour. He has been doing so ever since it fell dark. Since\nthe Chancellor shut up his shop, which he did very early to-night,\nMr. Weevle has been down and up, and down and up (with a cheap tight\nvelvet skull-cap on his head, making his whiskers look out of all\nproportion), oftener than before.\n\nIt is no phenomenon that Mr. Snagsby should be ill at ease too, for\nhe always is so, more or less, under the oppressive influence of the\nsecret that is upon him. Impelled by the mystery of which he is a\npartaker and yet in which he is not a sharer, Mr. Snagsby haunts what\nseems to be its fountain-head--the rag and bottle shop in the court.\nIt has an irresistible attraction for him. Even now, coming round by\nthe Sol's Arms with the intention of passing down the court, and out\nat the Chancery Lane end, and so terminating his unpremeditated\nafter-supper stroll of ten minutes' long from his own door and back\nagain, Mr. Snagsby approaches.\n\n\"What, Mr. Weevle?\" says the stationer, stopping to speak. \"Are YOU\nthere?\"\n\n\"Aye!\" says Weevle, \"Here I am, Mr. Snagsby.\"\n\n\"Airing yourself, as I am doing, before you go to bed?\" the stationer\ninquires.\n\n\"Why, there's not much air to be got here; and what there is, is not\nvery freshening,\" Weevle answers, glancing up and down the court.\n\n\"Very true, sir. Don't you observe,\" says Mr. Snagsby, pausing to\nsniff and taste the air a little, \"don't you observe, Mr. Weevle,\nthat you're--not to put too fine a point upon it--that you're rather\ngreasy here, sir?\"\n\n\"Why, I have noticed myself that there is a queer kind of flavour in\nthe place to-night,\" Mr. Weevle rejoins. \"I suppose it's chops at the\nSol's Arms.\"\n\n\"Chops, do you think? Oh! Chops, eh?\" Mr. Snagsby sniffs and tastes\nagain. \"Well, sir, I suppose it is. But I should say their cook at\nthe Sol wanted a little looking after. She has been burning 'em, sir!\nAnd I don't think\"--Mr. Snagsby sniffs and tastes again and then\nspits and wipes his mouth--\"I don't think--not to put too fine a\npoint upon it--that they were quite fresh when they were shown the\ngridiron.\"\n\n\"That's very likely. It's a tainting sort of weather.\"\n\n\"It IS a tainting sort of weather,\" says Mr. Snagsby, \"and I find it\nsinking to the spirits.\"\n\n\"By George! I find it gives me the horrors,\" returns Mr. Weevle.\n\n\"Then, you see, you live in a lonesome way, and in a lonesome room,\nwith a black circumstance hanging over it,\" says Mr. Snagsby, looking\nin past the other's shoulder along the dark passage and then falling\nback a step to look up at the house. \"I couldn't live in that room\nalone, as you do, sir. I should get so fidgety and worried of an\nevening, sometimes, that I should be driven to come to the door and\nstand here sooner than sit there. But then it's very true that you\ndidn't see, in your room, what I saw there. That makes a difference.\"\n\n\"I know quite enough about it,\" returns Tony.\n\n\"It's not agreeable, is it?\" pursues Mr. Snagsby, coughing his cough\nof mild persuasion behind his hand. \"Mr. Krook ought to consider it\nin the rent. I hope he does, I am sure.\"\n\n\"I hope he does,\" says Tony. \"But I doubt it.\"\n\n\"You find the rent too high, do you, sir?\" returns the stationer.\n\"Rents ARE high about here. I don't know how it is exactly, but the\nlaw seems to put things up in price. Not,\" adds Mr. Snagsby with his\napologetic cough, \"that I mean to say a word against the profession I\nget my living by.\"\n\nMr. Weevle again glances up and down the court and then looks at the\nstationer. Mr. Snagsby, blankly catching his eye, looks upward for a\nstar or so and coughs a cough expressive of not exactly seeing his\nway out of this conversation.\n\n\"It's a curious fact, sir,\" he observes, slowly rubbing his hands,\n\"that he should have been--\"\n\n\"Who's he?\" interrupts Mr. Weevle.\n\n\"The deceased, you know,\" says Mr. Snagsby, twitching his head and\nright eyebrow towards the staircase and tapping his acquaintance on\nthe button.\n\n\"Ah, to be sure!\" returns the other as if he were not over-fond of\nthe subject. \"I thought we had done with him.\"\n\n\"I was only going to say it's a curious fact, sir, that he should\nhave come and lived here, and been one of my writers, and then that\nyou should come and live here, and be one of my writers too. Which\nthere is nothing derogatory, but far from it in the appellation,\"\nsays Mr. Snagsby, breaking off with a mistrust that he may have\nunpolitely asserted a kind of proprietorship in Mr. Weevle, \"because\nI have known writers that have gone into brewers' houses and done\nreally very respectable indeed. Eminently respectable, sir,\" adds Mr.\nSnagsby with a misgiving that he has not improved the matter.\n\n\"It's a curious coincidence, as you say,\" answers Weevle, once more\nglancing up and down the court.\n\n\"Seems a fate in it, don't there?\" suggests the stationer.\n\n\"There does.\"\n\n\"Just so,\" observes the stationer with his confirmatory cough. \"Quite\na fate in it. Quite a fate. Well, Mr. Weevle, I am afraid I must bid\nyou good night\"--Mr. Snagsby speaks as if it made him desolate to go,\nthough he has been casting about for any means of escape ever since\nhe stopped to speak--\"my little woman will be looking for me else.\nGood night, sir!\"\n\nIf Mr. Snagsby hastens home to save his little woman the trouble of\nlooking for him, he might set his mind at rest on that score. His\nlittle woman has had her eye upon him round the Sol's Arms all this\ntime and now glides after him with a pocket handkerchief wrapped over\nher head, honouring Mr. Weevle and his doorway with a searching\nglance as she goes past.\n\n\"You'll know me again, ma'am, at all events,\" says Mr. Weevle to\nhimself; \"and I can't compliment you on your appearance, whoever you\nare, with your head tied up in a bundle. Is this fellow NEVER\ncoming!\"\n\nThis fellow approaches as he speaks. Mr. Weevle softly holds up his\nfinger, and draws him into the passage, and closes the street door.\nThen they go upstairs, Mr. Weevle heavily, and Mr. Guppy (for it is\nhe) very lightly indeed. When they are shut into the back room, they\nspeak low.\n\n\"I thought you had gone to Jericho at least instead of coming here,\"\nsays Tony.\n\n\"Why, I said about ten.\"\n\n\"You said about ten,\" Tony repeats. \"Yes, so you did say about ten.\nBut according to my count, it's ten times ten--it's a hundred\no'clock. I never had such a night in my life!\"\n\n\"What has been the matter?\"\n\n\"That's it!\" says Tony. \"Nothing has been the matter. But here have I\nbeen stewing and fuming in this jolly old crib till I have had the\nhorrors falling on me as thick as hail. THERE'S a blessed-looking\ncandle!\" says Tony, pointing to the heavily burning taper on his\ntable with a great cabbage head and a long winding-sheet.\n\n\"That's easily improved,\" Mr. Guppy observes as he takes the snuffers\nin hand.\n\n\"IS it?\" returns his friend. \"Not so easily as you think. It has been\nsmouldering like that ever since it was lighted.\"\n\n\"Why, what's the matter with you, Tony?\" inquires Mr. Guppy, looking\nat him, snuffers in hand, as he sits down with his elbow on the\ntable.\n\n\"William Guppy,\" replies the other, \"I am in the downs. It's this\nunbearably dull, suicidal room--and old Boguey downstairs, I\nsuppose.\" Mr. Weevle moodily pushes the snuffers-tray from him with\nhis elbow, leans his head on his hand, puts his feet on the fender,\nand looks at the fire. Mr. Guppy, observing him, slightly tosses his\nhead and sits down on the other side of the table in an easy\nattitude.\n\n\"Wasn't that Snagsby talking to you, Tony?\"\n\n\"Yes, and he--yes, it was Snagsby,\" said Mr. Weevle, altering the\nconstruction of his sentence.\n\n\"On business?\"\n\n\"No. No business. He was only sauntering by and stopped to prose.\"\n\n\"I thought it was Snagsby,\" says Mr. Guppy, \"and thought it as well\nthat he shouldn't see me, so I waited till he was gone.\"\n\n\"There we go again, William G.!\" cried Tony, looking up for an\ninstant. \"So mysterious and secret! By George, if we were going to\ncommit a murder, we couldn't have more mystery about it!\"\n\nMr. Guppy affects to smile, and with the view of changing the\nconversation, looks with an admiration, real or pretended, round the\nroom at the Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty, terminating his survey\nwith the portrait of Lady Dedlock over the mantelshelf, in which she\nis represented on a terrace, with a pedestal upon the terrace, and a\nvase upon the pedestal, and her shawl upon the vase, and a prodigious\npiece of fur upon the shawl, and her arm on the prodigious piece of\nfur, and a bracelet on her arm.\n\n\"That's very like Lady Dedlock,\" says Mr. Guppy. \"It's a speaking\nlikeness.\"\n\n\"I wish it was,\" growls Tony, without changing his position. \"I\nshould have some fashionable conversation, here, then.\"\n\nFinding by this time that his friend is not to be wheedled into a\nmore sociable humour, Mr. Guppy puts about upon the ill-used tack and\nremonstrates with him.\n\n\"Tony,\" says he, \"I can make allowances for lowness of spirits, for\nno man knows what it is when it does come upon a man better than I\ndo, and no man perhaps has a better right to know it than a man who\nhas an unrequited image imprinted on his 'eart. But there are bounds\nto these things when an unoffending party is in question, and I will\nacknowledge to you, Tony, that I don't think your manner on the\npresent occasion is hospitable or quite gentlemanly.\"\n\n\"This is strong language, William Guppy,\" returns Mr. Weevle.\n\n\"Sir, it may be,\" retorts Mr. William Guppy, \"but I feel strongly\nwhen I use it.\"\n\nMr. Weevle admits that he has been wrong and begs Mr. William Guppy\nto think no more about it. Mr. William Guppy, however, having got the\nadvantage, cannot quite release it without a little more injured\nremonstrance.\n\n\"No! Dash it, Tony,\" says that gentleman, \"you really ought to be\ncareful how you wound the feelings of a man who has an unrequited\nimage imprinted on his 'eart and who is NOT altogether happy in those\nchords which vibrate to the tenderest emotions. You, Tony, possess in\nyourself all that is calculated to charm the eye and allure the\ntaste. It is not--happily for you, perhaps, and I may wish that I\ncould say the same--it is not your character to hover around one\nflower. The ole garden is open to you, and your airy pinions carry\nyou through it. Still, Tony, far be it from me, I am sure, to wound\neven your feelings without a cause!\"\n\nTony again entreats that the subject may be no longer pursued, saying\nemphatically, \"William Guppy, drop it!\" Mr. Guppy acquiesces, with\nthe reply, \"I never should have taken it up, Tony, of my own accord.\"\n\n\"And now,\" says Tony, stirring the fire, \"touching this same bundle\nof letters. Isn't it an extraordinary thing of Krook to have\nappointed twelve o'clock to-night to hand 'em over to me?\"\n\n\"Very. What did he do it for?\"\n\n\"What does he do anything for? HE don't know. Said to-day was his\nbirthday and he'd hand 'em over to-night at twelve o'clock. He'll\nhave drunk himself blind by that time. He has been at it all day.\"\n\n\"He hasn't forgotten the appointment, I hope?\"\n\n\"Forgotten? Trust him for that. He never forgets anything. I saw him\nto-night, about eight--helped him to shut up his shop--and he had got\nthe letters then in his hairy cap. He pulled it off and showed 'em\nme. When the shop was closed, he took them out of his cap, hung his\ncap on the chair-back, and stood turning them over before the fire. I\nheard him a little while afterwards, through the floor here, humming\nlike the wind, the only song he knows--about Bibo, and old Charon,\nand Bibo being drunk when he died, or something or other. He has been\nas quiet since as an old rat asleep in his hole.\"\n\n\"And you are to go down at twelve?\"\n\n\"At twelve. And as I tell you, when you came it seemed to me a\nhundred.\"\n\n\"Tony,\" says Mr. Guppy after considering a little with his legs\ncrossed, \"he can't read yet, can he?\"\n\n\"Read! He'll never read. He can make all the letters separately, and\nhe knows most of them separately when he sees them; he has got on\nthat much, under me; but he can't put them together. He's too old to\nacquire the knack of it now--and too drunk.\"\n\n\"Tony,\" says Mr. Guppy, uncrossing and recrossing his legs, \"how do\nyou suppose he spelt out that name of Hawdon?\"\n\n\"He never spelt it out. You know what a curious power of eye he has\nand how he has been used to employ himself in copying things by eye\nalone. He imitated it, evidently from the direction of a letter, and\nasked me what it meant.\"\n\n\"Tony,\" says Mr. Guppy, uncrossing and recrossing his legs again,\n\"should you say that the original was a man's writing or a woman's?\"\n\n\"A woman's. Fifty to one a lady's--slopes a good deal, and the end of\nthe letter 'n,' long and hasty.\"\n\nMr. Guppy has been biting his thumb-nail during this dialogue,\ngenerally changing the thumb when he has changed the cross leg. As he\nis going to do so again, he happens to look at his coat-sleeve. It\ntakes his attention. He stares at it, aghast.\n\n\"Why, Tony, what on earth is going on in this house to-night? Is\nthere a chimney on fire?\"\n\n\"Chimney on fire!\"\n\n\"Ah!\" returns Mr. Guppy. \"See how the soot's falling. See here, on my\narm! See again, on the table here! Confound the stuff, it won't blow\noff--smears like black fat!\"\n\nThey look at one another, and Tony goes listening to the door, and a\nlittle way upstairs, and a little way downstairs. Comes back and says\nit's all right and all quiet, and quotes the remark he lately made to\nMr. Snagsby about their cooking chops at the Sol's Arms.\n\n\"And it was then,\" resumes Mr. Guppy, still glancing with remarkable\naversion at the coat-sleeve, as they pursue their conversation before\nthe fire, leaning on opposite sides of the table, with their heads\nvery near together, \"that he told you of his having taken the bundle\nof letters from his lodger's portmanteau?\"\n\n\"That was the time, sir,\" answers Tony, faintly adjusting his\nwhiskers. \"Whereupon I wrote a line to my dear boy, the Honourable\nWilliam Guppy, informing him of the appointment for to-night and\nadvising him not to call before, Boguey being a slyboots.\"\n\nThe light vivacious tone of fashionable life which is usually assumed\nby Mr. Weevle sits so ill upon him to-night that he abandons that and\nhis whiskers together, and after looking over his shoulder, appears\nto yield himself up a prey to the horrors again.\n\n\"You are to bring the letters to your room to read and compare, and\nto get yourself into a position to tell him all about them. That's\nthe arrangement, isn't it, Tony?\" asks Mr. Guppy, anxiously biting\nhis thumb-nail.\n\n\"You can't speak too low. Yes. That's what he and I agreed.\"\n\n\"I tell you what, Tony--\"\n\n\"You can't speak too low,\" says Tony once more. Mr. Guppy nods his\nsagacious head, advances it yet closer, and drops into a whisper.\n\n\"I tell you what. The first thing to be done is to make another\npacket like the real one so that if he should ask to see the real one\nwhile it's in my possession, you can show him the dummy.\"\n\n\"And suppose he detects the dummy as soon as he sees it, which with\nhis biting screw of an eye is about five hundred times more likely\nthan not,\" suggests Tony.\n\n\"Then we'll face it out. They don't belong to him, and they never\ndid. You found that, and you placed them in my hands--a legal friend\nof yours--for security. If he forces us to it, they'll be producible,\nwon't they?\"\n\n\"Ye-es,\" is Mr. Weevle's reluctant admission.\n\n\"Why, Tony,\" remonstrates his friend, \"how you look! You don't doubt\nWilliam Guppy? You don't suspect any harm?\"\n\n\"I don't suspect anything more than I know, William,\" returns the\nother gravely.\n\n\"And what do you know?\" urges Mr. Guppy, raising his voice a little;\nbut on his friend's once more warning him, \"I tell you, you can't\nspeak too low,\" he repeats his question without any sound at all,\nforming with his lips only the words, \"What do you know?\"\n\n\"I know three things. First, I know that here we are whispering in\nsecrecy, a pair of conspirators.\"\n\n\"Well!\" says Mr. Guppy. \"And we had better be that than a pair of\nnoodles, which we should be if we were doing anything else, for it's\nthe only way of doing what we want to do. Secondly?\"\n\n\"Secondly, it's not made out to me how it's likely to be profitable,\nafter all.\"\n\nMr. Guppy casts up his eyes at the portrait of Lady Dedlock over the\nmantelshelf and replies, \"Tony, you are asked to leave that to the\nhonour of your friend. Besides its being calculated to serve that\nfriend in those chords of the human mind which--which need not be\ncalled into agonizing vibration on the present occasion--your friend\nis no fool. What's that?\"\n\n\"It's eleven o'clock striking by the bell of Saint Paul's. Listen and\nyou'll hear all the bells in the city jangling.\"\n\nBoth sit silent, listening to the metal voices, near and distant,\nresounding from towers of various heights, in tones more various than\ntheir situations. When these at length cease, all seems more\nmysterious and quiet than before. One disagreeable result of\nwhispering is that it seems to evoke an atmosphere of silence,\nhaunted by the ghosts of sound--strange cracks and tickings, the\nrustling of garments that have no substance in them, and the tread of\ndreadful feet that would leave no mark on the sea-sand or the winter\nsnow. So sensitive the two friends happen to be that the air is full\nof these phantoms, and the two look over their shoulders by one\nconsent to see that the door is shut.\n\n\"Yes, Tony?\" says Mr. Guppy, drawing nearer to the fire and biting\nhis unsteady thumb-nail. \"You were going to say, thirdly?\"\n\n\"It's far from a pleasant thing to be plotting about a dead man in\nthe room where he died, especially when you happen to live in it.\"\n\n\"But we are plotting nothing against him, Tony.\"\n\n\"May be not, still I don't like it. Live here by yourself and see how\nYOU like it.\"\n\n\"As to dead men, Tony,\" proceeds Mr. Guppy, evading this proposal,\n\"there have been dead men in most rooms.\"\n\n\"I know there have, but in most rooms you let them alone, and--and\nthey let you alone,\" Tony answers.\n\nThe two look at each other again. Mr. Guppy makes a hurried remark to\nthe effect that they may be doing the deceased a service, that he\nhopes so. There is an oppressive blank until Mr. Weevle, by stirring\nthe fire suddenly, makes Mr. Guppy start as if his heart had been\nstirred instead.\n\n\"Fah! Here's more of this hateful soot hanging about,\" says he. \"Let\nus open the window a bit and get a mouthful of air. It's too close.\"\n\nHe raises the sash, and they both rest on the window-sill, half in\nand half out of the room. The neighbouring houses are too near to\nadmit of their seeing any sky without craning their necks and looking\nup, but lights in frowsy windows here and there, and the rolling of\ndistant carriages, and the new expression that there is of the stir\nof men, they find to be comfortable. Mr. Guppy, noiselessly tapping\non the window-sill, resumes his whispering in quite a light-comedy\ntone.\n\n\"By the by, Tony, don't forget old Smallweed,\" meaning the younger of\nthat name. \"I have not let him into this, you know. That grandfather\nof his is too keen by half. It runs in the family.\"\n\n\"I remember,\" says Tony. \"I am up to all that.\"\n\n\"And as to Krook,\" resumes Mr. Guppy. \"Now, do you suppose he really\nhas got hold of any other papers of importance, as he has boasted to\nyou, since you have been such allies?\"\n\nTony shakes his head. \"I don't know. Can't Imagine. If we get through\nthis business without rousing his suspicions, I shall be better\ninformed, no doubt. How can I know without seeing them, when he don't\nknow himself? He is always spelling out words from them, and chalking\nthem over the table and the shop-wall, and asking what this is and\nwhat that is; but his whole stock from beginning to end may easily be\nthe waste-paper he bought it as, for anything I can say. It's a\nmonomania with him to think he is possessed of documents. He has been\ngoing to learn to read them this last quarter of a century, I should\njudge, from what he tells me.\"\n\n\"How did he first come by that idea, though? That's the question,\"\nMr. Guppy suggests with one eye shut, after a little forensic\nmeditation. \"He may have found papers in something he bought, where\npapers were not supposed to be, and may have got it into his shrewd\nhead from the manner and place of their concealment that they are\nworth something.\"\n\n\"Or he may have been taken in, in some pretended bargain. Or he may\nhave been muddled altogether by long staring at whatever he HAS got,\nand by drink, and by hanging about the Lord Chancellor's Court and\nhearing of documents for ever,\" returns Mr. Weevle.\n\nMr. Guppy sitting on the window-sill, nodding his head and balancing\nall these possibilities in his mind, continues thoughtfully to tap\nit, and clasp it, and measure it with his hand, until he hastily\ndraws his hand away.\n\n\"What, in the devil's name,\" he says, \"is this! Look at my fingers!\"\n\nA thick, yellow liquor defiles them, which is offensive to the touch\nand sight and more offensive to the smell. A stagnant, sickening oil\nwith some natural repulsion in it that makes them both shudder.\n\n\"What have you been doing here? What have you been pouring out of\nwindow?\"\n\n\"I pouring out of window! Nothing, I swear! Never, since I have been\nhere!\" cries the lodger.\n\nAnd yet look here--and look here! When he brings the candle here,\nfrom the corner of the window-sill, it slowly drips and creeps away\ndown the bricks, here lies in a little thick nauseous pool.\n\n\"This is a horrible house,\" says Mr. Guppy, shutting down the window.\n\"Give me some water or I shall cut my hand off.\"\n\nHe so washes, and rubs, and scrubs, and smells, and washes, that he\nhas not long restored himself with a glass of brandy and stood\nsilently before the fire when Saint Paul's bell strikes twelve and\nall those other bells strike twelve from their towers of various\nheights in the dark air, and in their many tones. When all is quiet\nagain, the lodger says, \"It's the appointed time at last. Shall I\ngo?\"\n\nMr. Guppy nods and gives him a \"lucky touch\" on the back, but not\nwith the washed hand, though it is his right hand.\n\nHe goes downstairs, and Mr. Guppy tries to compose himself before the\nfire for waiting a long time. But in no more than a minute or two the\nstairs creak and Tony comes swiftly back.\n\n\"Have you got them?\"\n\n\"Got them! No. The old man's not there.\"\n\nHe has been so horribly frightened in the short interval that his\nterror seizes the other, who makes a rush at him and asks loudly,\n\"What's the matter?\"\n\n\"I couldn't make him hear, and I softly opened the door and looked\nin. And the burning smell is there--and the soot is there, and the\noil is there--and he is not there!\" Tony ends this with a groan.\n\nMr. Guppy takes the light. They go down, more dead than alive, and\nholding one another, push open the door of the back shop. The cat has\nretreated close to it and stands snarling, not at them, at something\non the ground before the fire. There is a very little fire left in\nthe grate, but there is a smouldering, suffocating vapour in the room\nand a dark, greasy coating on the walls and ceiling. The chairs and\ntable, and the bottle so rarely absent from the table, all stand as\nusual. On one chair-back hang the old man's hairy cap and coat.\n\n\"Look!\" whispers the lodger, pointing his friend's attention to these\nobjects with a trembling finger. \"I told you so. When I saw him last,\nhe took his cap off, took out the little bundle of old letters, hung\nhis cap on the back of the chair--his coat was there already, for he\nhad pulled that off before he went to put the shutters up--and I left\nhim turning the letters over in his hand, standing just where that\ncrumbled black thing is upon the floor.\"\n\nIs he hanging somewhere? They look up. No.\n\n\"See!\" whispers Tony. \"At the foot of the same chair there lies a\ndirty bit of thin red cord that they tie up pens with. That went\nround the letters. He undid it slowly, leering and laughing at me,\nbefore he began to turn them over, and threw it there. I saw it\nfall.\"\n\n\"What's the matter with the cat?\" says Mr. Guppy. \"Look at her!\"\n\n\"Mad, I think. And no wonder in this evil place.\"\n\nThey advance slowly, looking at all these things. The cat remains\nwhere they found her, still snarling at the something on the ground\nbefore the fire and between the two chairs. What is it? Hold up the\nlight.\n\nHere is a small burnt patch of flooring; here is the tinder from a\nlittle bundle of burnt paper, but not so light as usual, seeming to\nbe steeped in something; and here is--is it the cinder of a small\ncharred and broken log of wood sprinkled with white ashes, or is it\ncoal? Oh, horror, he IS here! And this from which we run away,\nstriking out the light and overturning one another into the street,\nis all that represents him.\n\nHelp, help, help! Come into this house for heaven's sake! Plenty will\ncome in, but none can help. The Lord Chancellor of that court, true\nto his title in his last act, has died the death of all lord\nchancellors in all courts and of all authorities in all places under\nall names soever, where false pretences are made, and where injustice\nis done. Call the death by any name your Highness will, attribute\nit to whom you will, or say it might have been prevented how you\nwill, it is the same death eternally--inborn, inbred, engendered\nin the corrupted humours of the vicious body itself, and that\nonly--spontaneous combustion, and none other of all the deaths that\ncan be died.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIII\n\nInterlopers\n\n\nNow do those two gentlemen not very neat about the cuffs and buttons\nwho attended the last coroner's inquest at the Sol's Arms reappear in\nthe precincts with surprising swiftness (being, in fact, breathlessly\nfetched by the active and intelligent beadle), and institute\nperquisitions through the court, and dive into the Sol's parlour, and\nwrite with ravenous little pens on tissue-paper. Now do they note\ndown, in the watches of the night, how the neighbourhood of Chancery\nLane was yesterday, at about midnight, thrown into a state of the\nmost intense agitation and excitement by the following alarming and\nhorrible discovery. Now do they set forth how it will doubtless be\nremembered that some time back a painful sensation was created in the\npublic mind by a case of mysterious death from opium occurring in the\nfirst floor of the house occupied as a rag, bottle, and general\nmarine store shop, by an eccentric individual of intemperate habits,\nfar advanced in life, named Krook; and how, by a remarkable\ncoincidence, Krook was examined at the inquest, which it may be\nrecollected was held on that occasion at the Sol's Arms, a\nwell-conducted tavern immediately adjoining the premises in question\non the west side and licensed to a highly respectable landlord, Mr.\nJames George Bogsby. Now do they show (in as many words as possible)\nhow during some hours of yesterday evening a very peculiar smell was\nobserved by the inhabitants of the court, in which the tragical\noccurrence which forms the subject of that present account\ntranspired; and which odour was at one time so powerful that Mr.\nSwills, a comic vocalist professionally engaged by Mr. J. G. Bogsby,\nhas himself stated to our reporter that he mentioned to Miss M.\nMelvilleson, a lady of some pretensions to musical ability, likewise\nengaged by Mr. J. G. Bogsby to sing at a series of concerts called\nHarmonic Assemblies, or Meetings, which it would appear are held at\nthe Sol's Arms under Mr. Bogsby's direction pursuant to the Act of\nGeorge the Second, that he (Mr. Swills) found his voice seriously\naffected by the impure state of the atmosphere, his jocose expression\nat the time being that he was like an empty post-office, for he\nhadn't a single note in him. How this account of Mr. Swills is\nentirely corroborated by two intelligent married females residing in\nthe same court and known respectively by the names of Mrs. Piper and\nMrs. Perkins, both of whom observed the foetid effluvia and regarded\nthem as being emitted from the premises in the occupation of Krook,\nthe unfortunate deceased. All this and a great deal more the two\ngentlemen who have formed an amicable partnership in the melancholy\ncatastrophe write down on the spot; and the boy population of the\ncourt (out of bed in a moment) swarm up the shutters of the Sol's\nArms parlour, to behold the tops of their heads while they are about\nit.\n\nThe whole court, adult as well as boy, is sleepless for that night,\nand can do nothing but wrap up its many heads, and talk of the\nill-fated house, and look at it. Miss Flite has been bravely rescued\nfrom her chamber, as if it were in flames, and accommodated with a\nbed at the Sol's Arms. The Sol neither turns off its gas nor shuts\nits door all night, for any kind of public excitement makes good for\nthe Sol and causes the court to stand in need of comfort. The house\nhas not done so much in the stomachic article of cloves or in\nbrandy-and-water warm since the inquest. The moment the pot-boy heard\nwhat had happened, he rolled up his shirt-sleeves tight to his\nshoulders and said, \"There'll be a run upon us!\" In the first outcry,\nyoung Piper dashed off for the fire-engines and returned in triumph\nat a jolting gallop perched up aloft on the Phoenix and holding on to\nthat fabulous creature with all his might in the midst of helmets and\ntorches. One helmet remains behind after careful investigation of all\nchinks and crannies and slowly paces up and down before the house in\ncompany with one of the two policemen who have likewise been left in\ncharge thereof. To this trio everybody in the court possessed of\nsixpence has an insatiate desire to exhibit hospitality in a liquid\nform.\n\nMr. Weevle and his friend Mr. Guppy are within the bar at the Sol and\nare worth anything to the Sol that the bar contains if they will only\nstay there. \"This is not a time,\" says Mr. Bogsby, \"to haggle about\nmoney,\" though he looks something sharply after it, over the counter;\n\"give your orders, you two gentlemen, and you're welcome to whatever\nyou put a name to.\"\n\nThus entreated, the two gentlemen (Mr. Weevle especially) put names\nto so many things that in course of time they find it difficult to\nput a name to anything quite distinctly, though they still relate to\nall new-comers some version of the night they have had of it, and of\nwhat they said, and what they thought, and what they saw. Meanwhile,\none or other of the policemen often flits about the door, and pushing\nit open a little way at the full length of his arm, looks in from\nouter gloom. Not that he has any suspicions, but that he may as well\nknow what they are up to in there.\n\nThus night pursues its leaden course, finding the court still out of\nbed through the unwonted hours, still treating and being treated,\nstill conducting itself similarly to a court that has had a little\nmoney left it unexpectedly. Thus night at length with slow-retreating\nsteps departs, and the lamp-lighter going his rounds, like an\nexecutioner to a despotic king, strikes off the little heads of fire\nthat have aspired to lessen the darkness. Thus the day cometh,\nwhether or no.\n\nAnd the day may discern, even with its dim London eye, that the court\nhas been up all night. Over and above the faces that have fallen\ndrowsily on tables and the heels that lie prone on hard floors\ninstead of beds, the brick and mortar physiognomy of the very court\nitself looks worn and jaded. And now the neighbourhood, waking up and\nbeginning to hear of what has happened, comes streaming in, half\ndressed, to ask questions; and the two policemen and the helmet (who\nare far less impressible externally than the court) have enough to do\nto keep the door.\n\n\"Good gracious, gentlemen!\" says Mr. Snagsby, coming up. \"What's this\nI hear!\"\n\n\"Why, it's true,\" returns one of the policemen. \"That's what it is.\nNow move on here, come!\"\n\n\"Why, good gracious, gentlemen,\" says Mr. Snagsby, somewhat promptly\nbacked away, \"I was at this door last night betwixt ten and eleven\no'clock in conversation with the young man who lodges here.\"\n\n\"Indeed?\" returns the policeman. \"You will find the young man next\ndoor then. Now move on here, some of you.\"\n\n\"Not hurt, I hope?\" says Mr. Snagsby.\n\n\"Hurt? No. What's to hurt him!\"\n\nMr. Snagsby, wholly unable to answer this or any question in his\ntroubled mind, repairs to the Sol's Arms and finds Mr. Weevle\nlanguishing over tea and toast with a considerable expression on him\nof exhausted excitement and exhausted tobacco-smoke.\n\n\"And Mr. Guppy likewise!\" quoth Mr. Snagsby. \"Dear, dear, dear! What\na fate there seems in all this! And my lit--\"\n\nMr. Snagsby's power of speech deserts him in the formation of the\nwords \"my little woman.\" For to see that injured female walk into the\nSol's Arms at that hour of the morning and stand before the\nbeer-engine, with her eyes fixed upon him like an accusing spirit,\nstrikes him dumb.\n\n\"My dear,\" says Mr. Snagsby when his tongue is loosened, \"will you\ntake anything? A little--not to put too fine a point upon it--drop of\nshrub?\"\n\n\"No,\" says Mrs. Snagsby.\n\n\"My love, you know these two gentlemen?\"\n\n\"Yes!\" says Mrs. Snagsby, and in a rigid manner acknowledges their\npresence, still fixing Mr. Snagsby with her eye.\n\nThe devoted Mr. Snagsby cannot bear this treatment. He takes Mrs.\nSnagsby by the hand and leads her aside to an adjacent cask.\n\n\"My little woman, why do you look at me in that way? Pray don't do\nit.\"\n\n\"I can't help my looks,\" says Mrs. Snagsby, \"and if I could I\nwouldn't.\"\n\nMr. Snagsby, with his cough of meekness, rejoins, \"Wouldn't you\nreally, my dear?\" and meditates. Then coughs his cough of trouble and\nsays, \"This is a dreadful mystery, my love!\" still fearfully\ndisconcerted by Mrs. Snagsby's eye.\n\n\"It IS,\" returns Mrs. Snagsby, shaking her head, \"a dreadful\nmystery.\"\n\n\"My little woman,\" urges Mr. Snagsby in a piteous manner, \"don't for\ngoodness' sake speak to me with that bitter expression and look at me\nin that searching way! I beg and entreat of you not to do it. Good\nLord, you don't suppose that I would go spontaneously combusting any\nperson, my dear?\"\n\n\"I can't say,\" returns Mrs. Snagsby.\n\nOn a hasty review of his unfortunate position, Mr. Snagsby \"can't\nsay\" either. He is not prepared positively to deny that he may have\nhad something to do with it. He has had something--he don't know\nwhat--to do with so much in this connexion that is mysterious that it\nis possible he may even be implicated, without knowing it, in the\npresent transaction. He faintly wipes his forehead with his\nhandkerchief and gasps.\n\n\"My life,\" says the unhappy stationer, \"would you have any objections\nto mention why, being in general so delicately circumspect in your\nconduct, you come into a wine-vaults before breakfast?\"\n\n\"Why do YOU come here?\" inquires Mrs. Snagsby.\n\n\"My dear, merely to know the rights of the fatal accident which has\nhappened to the venerable party who has been--combusted.\" Mr. Snagsby\nhas made a pause to suppress a groan. \"I should then have related\nthem to you, my love, over your French roll.\"\n\n\"I dare say you would! You relate everything to me, Mr. Snagsby.\"\n\n\"Every--my lit--\"\n\n\"I should be glad,\" says Mrs. Snagsby after contemplating his\nincreased confusion with a severe and sinister smile, \"if you would\ncome home with me; I think you may be safer there, Mr. Snagsby, than\nanywhere else.\"\n\n\"My love, I don't know but what I may be, I am sure. I am ready to\ngo.\"\n\nMr. Snagsby casts his eye forlornly round the bar, gives Messrs.\nWeevle and Guppy good morning, assures them of the satisfaction with\nwhich he sees them uninjured, and accompanies Mrs. Snagsby from the\nSol's Arms. Before night his doubt whether he may not be responsible\nfor some inconceivable part in the catastrophe which is the talk of\nthe whole neighbourhood is almost resolved into certainty by Mrs.\nSnagsby's pertinacity in that fixed gaze. His mental sufferings are\nso great that he entertains wandering ideas of delivering himself up\nto justice and requiring to be cleared if innocent and punished with\nthe utmost rigour of the law if guilty.\n\nMr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy, having taken their breakfast, step into\nLincoln's Inn to take a little walk about the square and clear as\nmany of the dark cobwebs out of their brains as a little walk may.\n\n\"There can be no more favourable time than the present, Tony,\" says\nMr. Guppy after they have broodingly made out the four sides of the\nsquare, \"for a word or two between us upon a point on which we must,\nwith very little delay, come to an understanding.\"\n\n\"Now, I tell you what, William G.!\" returns the other, eyeing his\ncompanion with a bloodshot eye. \"If it's a point of conspiracy, you\nneedn't take the trouble to mention it. I have had enough of that,\nand I ain't going to have any more. We shall have YOU taking fire\nnext or blowing up with a bang.\"\n\nThis supposititious phenomenon is so very disagreeable to Mr. Guppy\nthat his voice quakes as he says in a moral way, \"Tony, I should have\nthought that what we went through last night would have been a lesson\nto you never to be personal any more as long as you lived.\" To which\nMr. Weevle returns, \"William, I should have thought it would have\nbeen a lesson to YOU never to conspire any more as long as you\nlived.\" To which Mr. Guppy says, \"Who's conspiring?\" To which Mr.\nJobling replies, \"Why, YOU are!\" To which Mr. Guppy retorts, \"No, I\nam not.\" To which Mr. Jobling retorts again, \"Yes, you are!\" To which\nMr. Guppy retorts, \"Who says so?\" To which Mr. Jobling retorts, \"I\nsay so!\" To which Mr. Guppy retorts, \"Oh, indeed?\" To which Mr.\nJobling retorts, \"Yes, indeed!\" And both being now in a heated state,\nthey walk on silently for a while to cool down again.\n\n\"Tony,\" says Mr. Guppy then, \"if you heard your friend out instead of\nflying at him, you wouldn't fall into mistakes. But your temper is\nhasty and you are not considerate. Possessing in yourself, Tony, all\nthat is calculated to charm the eye--\"\n\n\"Oh! Blow the eye!\" cries Mr. Weevle, cutting him short. \"Say what\nyou have got to say!\"\n\nFinding his friend in this morose and material condition, Mr. Guppy\nonly expresses the finer feelings of his soul through the tone of\ninjury in which he recommences, \"Tony, when I say there is a point on\nwhich we must come to an understanding pretty soon, I say so quite\napart from any kind of conspiring, however innocent. You know it is\nprofessionally arranged beforehand in all cases that are tried what\nfacts the witnesses are to prove. Is it or is it not desirable that\nwe should know what facts we are to prove on the inquiry into the\ndeath of this unfortunate old mo--gentleman?\" (Mr. Guppy was going to\nsay \"mogul,\" but thinks \"gentleman\" better suited to the\ncircumstances.)\n\n\"What facts? THE facts.\"\n\n\"The facts bearing on that inquiry. Those are\"--Mr. Guppy tells them\noff on his fingers--\"what we knew of his habits, when you saw him\nlast, what his condition was then, the discovery that we made, and\nhow we made it.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" says Mr. Weevle. \"Those are about the facts.\"\n\n\"We made the discovery in consequence of his having, in his eccentric\nway, an appointment with you at twelve o'clock at night, when you\nwere to explain some writing to him as you had often done before on\naccount of his not being able to read. I, spending the evening with\nyou, was called down--and so forth. The inquiry being only into the\ncircumstances touching the death of the deceased, it's not necessary\nto go beyond these facts, I suppose you'll agree?\"\n\n\"No!\" returns Mr. Weevle. \"I suppose not.\"\n\n\"And this is not a conspiracy, perhaps?\" says the injured Guppy.\n\n\"No,\" returns his friend; \"if it's nothing worse than this, I\nwithdraw the observation.\"\n\n\"Now, Tony,\" says Mr. Guppy, taking his arm again and walking him\nslowly on, \"I should like to know, in a friendly way, whether you\nhave yet thought over the many advantages of your continuing to live\nat that place?\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" says Tony, stopping.\n\n\"Whether you have yet thought over the many advantages of your\ncontinuing to live at that place?\" repeats Mr. Guppy, walking him on\nagain.\n\n\"At what place? THAT place?\" pointing in the direction of the rag and\nbottle shop.\n\nMr. Guppy nods.\n\n\"Why, I wouldn't pass another night there for any consideration that\nyou could offer me,\" says Mr. Weevle, haggardly staring.\n\n\"Do you mean it though, Tony?\"\n\n\"Mean it! Do I look as if I mean it? I feel as if I do; I know that,\"\nsays Mr. Weevle with a very genuine shudder.\n\n\"Then the possibility or probability--for such it must be\nconsidered--of your never being disturbed in possession of those\neffects lately belonging to a lone old man who seemed to have no\nrelation in the world, and the certainty of your being able to find\nout what he really had got stored up there, don't weigh with you at\nall against last night, Tony, if I understand you?\" says Mr. Guppy,\nbiting his thumb with the appetite of vexation.\n\n\"Certainly not. Talk in that cool way of a fellow's living there?\"\ncries Mr. Weevle indignantly. \"Go and live there yourself.\"\n\n\"Oh! I, Tony!\" says Mr. Guppy, soothing him. \"I have never lived\nthere and couldn't get a lodging there now, whereas you have got\none.\"\n\n\"You are welcome to it,\" rejoins his friend, \"and--ugh!--you may make\nyourself at home in it.\"\n\n\"Then you really and truly at this point,\" says Mr. Guppy, \"give up\nthe whole thing, if I understand you, Tony?\"\n\n\"You never,\" returns Tony with a most convincing steadfastness, \"said\na truer word in all your life. I do!\"\n\nWhile they are so conversing, a hackney-coach drives into the square,\non the box of which vehicle a very tall hat makes itself manifest to\nthe public. Inside the coach, and consequently not so manifest to the\nmultitude, though sufficiently so to the two friends, for the coach\nstops almost at their feet, are the venerable Mr. Smallweed and Mrs.\nSmallweed, accompanied by their granddaughter Judy.\n\nAn air of haste and excitement pervades the party, and as the tall\nhat (surmounting Mr. Smallweed the younger) alights, Mr. Smallweed\nthe elder pokes his head out of window and bawls to Mr. Guppy, \"How\nde do, sir! How de do!\"\n\n\"What do Chick and his family want here at this time of the morning,\nI wonder!\" says Mr. Guppy, nodding to his familiar.\n\n\"My dear sir,\" cries Grandfather Smallweed, \"would you do me a\nfavour? Would you and your friend be so very obleeging as to carry me\ninto the public-house in the court, while Bart and his sister bring\ntheir grandmother along? Would you do an old man that good turn,\nsir?\"\n\nMr. Guppy looks at his friend, repeating inquiringly, \"The\npublic-house in the court?\" And they prepare to bear the venerable\nburden to the Sol's Arms.\n\n\"There's your fare!\" says the patriarch to the coachman with a fierce\ngrin and shaking his incapable fist at him. \"Ask me for a penny more,\nand I'll have my lawful revenge upon you. My dear young men, be easy\nwith me, if you please. Allow me to catch you round the neck. I won't\nsqueeze you tighter than I can help. Oh, Lord! Oh, dear me! Oh, my\nbones!\"\n\nIt is well that the Sol is not far off, for Mr. Weevle presents an\napoplectic appearance before half the distance is accomplished. With\nno worse aggravation of his symptoms, however, than the utterance of\ndivers croaking sounds expressive of obstructed respiration, he\nfulfils his share of the porterage and the benevolent old gentleman\nis deposited by his own desire in the parlour of the Sol's Arms.\n\n\"Oh, Lord!\" gasps Mr. Smallweed, looking about him, breathless, from\nan arm-chair. \"Oh, dear me! Oh, my bones and back! Oh, my aches and\npains! Sit down, you dancing, prancing, shambling, scrambling\npoll-parrot! Sit down!\"\n\nThis little apostrophe to Mrs. Smallweed is occasioned by a\npropensity on the part of that unlucky old lady whenever she finds\nherself on her feet to amble about and \"set\" to inanimate objects,\naccompanying herself with a chattering noise, as in a witch dance. A\nnervous affection has probably as much to do with these\ndemonstrations as any imbecile intention in the poor old woman, but\non the present occasion they are so particularly lively in connexion\nwith the Windsor arm-chair, fellow to that in which Mr. Smallweed is\nseated, that she only quite desists when her grandchildren have held\nher down in it, her lord in the meanwhile bestowing upon her, with\ngreat volubility, the endearing epithet of \"a pig-headed jackdaw,\"\nrepeated a surprising number of times.\n\n\"My dear sir,\" Grandfather Smallweed then proceeds, addressing Mr.\nGuppy, \"there has been a calamity here. Have you heard of it, either\nof you?\"\n\n\"Heard of it, sir! Why, we discovered it.\"\n\n\"You discovered it. You two discovered it! Bart, THEY discovered it!\"\n\nThe two discoverers stare at the Smallweeds, who return the\ncompliment.\n\n\"My dear friends,\" whines Grandfather Smallweed, putting out both his\nhands, \"I owe you a thousand thanks for discharging the melancholy\noffice of discovering the ashes of Mrs. Smallweed's brother.\"\n\n\"Eh?\" says Mr. Guppy.\n\n\"Mrs. Smallweed's brother, my dear friend--her only relation. We were\nnot on terms, which is to be deplored now, but he never WOULD be on\nterms. He was not fond of us. He was eccentric--he was very\neccentric. Unless he has left a will (which is not at all likely) I\nshall take out letters of administration. I have come down to look\nafter the property; it must be sealed up, it must be protected. I\nhave come down,\" repeats Grandfather Smallweed, hooking the air\ntowards him with all his ten fingers at once, \"to look after the\nproperty.\"\n\n\"I think, Small,\" says the disconsolate Mr. Guppy, \"you might have\nmentioned that the old man was your uncle.\"\n\n\"You two were so close about him that I thought you would like me to\nbe the same,\" returns that old bird with a secretly glistening eye.\n\"Besides, I wasn't proud of him.\"\n\n\"Besides which, it was nothing to you, you know, whether he was or\nnot,\" says Judy. Also with a secretly glistening eye.\n\n\"He never saw me in his life to know me,\" observed Small; \"I don't\nknow why I should introduce HIM, I am sure!\"\n\n\"No, he never communicated with us, which is to be deplored,\" the old\ngentleman strikes in, \"but I have come to look after the property--to\nlook over the papers, and to look after the property. We shall make\ngood our title. It is in the hands of my solicitor. Mr. Tulkinghorn,\nof Lincoln's Inn Fields, over the way there, is so good as to act as\nmy solicitor; and grass don't grow under HIS feet, I can tell ye.\nKrook was Mrs. Smallweed's only brother; she had no relation but\nKrook, and Krook had no relation but Mrs. Smallweed. I am speaking of\nyour brother, you brimstone black-beetle, that was seventy-six years\nof age.\"\n\nMrs. Smallweed instantly begins to shake her head and pipe up,\n\"Seventy-six pound seven and sevenpence! Seventy-six thousand bags of\nmoney! Seventy-six hundred thousand million of parcels of\nbank-notes!\"\n\n\"Will somebody give me a quart pot?\" exclaims her exasperated\nhusband, looking helplessly about him and finding no missile within\nhis reach. \"Will somebody obleege me with a spittoon? Will somebody\nhand me anything hard and bruising to pelt at her? You hag, you cat,\nyou dog, you brimstone barker!\" Here Mr. Smallweed, wrought up to the\nhighest pitch by his own eloquence, actually throws Judy at her\ngrandmother in default of anything else, by butting that young virgin\nat the old lady with such force as he can muster and then dropping\ninto his chair in a heap.\n\n\"Shake me up, somebody, if you'll be so good,\" says the voice from\nwithin the faintly struggling bundle into which he has collapsed. \"I\nhave come to look after the property. Shake me up, and call in the\npolice on duty at the next house to be explained to about the\nproperty. My solicitor will be here presently to protect the\nproperty. Transportation or the gallows for anybody who shall touch\nthe property!\" As his dutiful grandchildren set him up, panting, and\nputting him through the usual restorative process of shaking and\npunching, he still repeats like an echo, \"The--the property! The\nproperty! Property!\"\n\nMr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy look at each other, the former as having\nrelinquished the whole affair, the latter with a discomfited\ncountenance as having entertained some lingering expectations yet.\nBut there is nothing to be done in opposition to the Smallweed\ninterest. Mr. Tulkinghorn's clerk comes down from his official pew in\nthe chambers to mention to the police that Mr. Tulkinghorn is\nanswerable for its being all correct about the next of kin and that\nthe papers and effects will be formally taken possession of in due\ntime and course. Mr. Smallweed is at once permitted so far to assert\nhis supremacy as to be carried on a visit of sentiment into the next\nhouse and upstairs into Miss Flite's deserted room, where he looks\nlike a hideous bird of prey newly added to her aviary.\n\nThe arrival of this unexpected heir soon taking wind in the court\nstill makes good for the Sol and keeps the court upon its mettle.\nMrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins think it hard upon the young man if there\nreally is no will, and consider that a handsome present ought to be\nmade him out of the estate. Young Piper and young Perkins, as members\nof that restless juvenile circle which is the terror of the\nfoot-passengers in Chancery Lane, crumble into ashes behind the pump\nand under the archway all day long, where wild yells and hootings\ntake place over their remains. Little Swills and Miss M. Melvilleson\nenter into affable conversation with their patrons, feeling that\nthese unusual occurrences level the barriers between professionals\nand non-professionals. Mr. Bogsby puts up \"The popular song of King\nDeath, with chorus by the whole strength of the company,\" as the\ngreat Harmonic feature of the week and announces in the bill that \"J.\nG. B. is induced to do so at a considerable extra expense in\nconsequence of a wish which has been very generally expressed at the\nbar by a large body of respectable individuals and in homage to a\nlate melancholy event which has aroused so much sensation.\" There is\none point connected with the deceased upon which the court is\nparticularly anxious, namely, that the fiction of a full-sized coffin\nshould be preserved, though there is so little to put in it. Upon the\nundertaker's stating in the Sol's bar in the course of the day that\nhe has received orders to construct \"a six-footer,\" the general\nsolicitude is much relieved, and it is considered that Mr.\nSmallweed's conduct does him great honour.\n\nOut of the court, and a long way out of it, there is considerable\nexcitement too, for men of science and philosophy come to look, and\ncarriages set down doctors at the corner who arrive with the same\nintent, and there is more learned talk about inflammable gases and\nphosphuretted hydrogen than the court has ever imagined. Some of\nthese authorities (of course the wisest) hold with indignation that\nthe deceased had no business to die in the alleged manner; and being\nreminded by other authorities of a certain inquiry into the evidence\nfor such deaths reprinted in the sixth volume of the Philosophical\nTransactions; and also of a book not quite unknown on English medical\njurisprudence; and likewise of the Italian case of the Countess\nCornelia Baudi as set forth in detail by one Bianchini, prebendary of\nVerona, who wrote a scholarly work or so and was occasionally heard\nof in his time as having gleams of reason in him; and also of the\ntestimony of Messrs. Fodere and Mere, two pestilent Frenchmen who\nWOULD investigate the subject; and further, of the corroborative\ntestimony of Monsieur Le Cat, a rather celebrated French surgeon once\nupon a time, who had the unpoliteness to live in a house where such a\ncase occurred and even to write an account of it--still they regard\nthe late Mr. Krook's obstinacy in going out of the world by any such\nby-way as wholly unjustifiable and personally offensive. The less the\ncourt understands of all this, the more the court likes it, and the\ngreater enjoyment it has in the stock in trade of the Sol's Arms.\nThen there comes the artist of a picture newspaper, with a foreground\nand figures ready drawn for anything from a wreck on the Cornish\ncoast to a review in Hyde Park or a meeting in Manchester, and in\nMrs. Perkins' own room, memorable evermore, he then and there throws\nin upon the block Mr. Krook's house, as large as life; in fact,\nconsiderably larger, making a very temple of it. Similarly, being\npermitted to look in at the door of the fatal chamber, he depicts\nthat apartment as three-quarters of a mile long by fifty yards high,\nat which the court is particularly charmed. All this time the two\ngentlemen before mentioned pop in and out of every house and assist\nat the philosophical disputations--go everywhere and listen to\neverybody--and yet are always diving into the Sol's parlour and\nwriting with the ravenous little pens on the tissue-paper.\n\nAt last come the coroner and his inquiry, like as before, except that\nthe coroner cherishes this case as being out of the common way and\ntells the gentlemen of the jury, in his private capacity, that \"that\nwould seem to be an unlucky house next door, gentlemen, a destined\nhouse; but so we sometimes find it, and these are mysteries we can't\naccount for!\" After which the six-footer comes into action and is\nmuch admired.\n\nIn all these proceedings Mr. Guppy has so slight a part, except when\nhe gives his evidence, that he is moved on like a private individual\nand can only haunt the secret house on the outside, where he has the\nmortification of seeing Mr. Smallweed padlocking the door, and of\nbitterly knowing himself to be shut out. But before these proceedings\ndraw to a close, that is to say, on the night next after the\ncatastrophe, Mr. Guppy has a thing to say that must be said to Lady\nDedlock.\n\nFor which reason, with a sinking heart and with that hang-dog sense\nof guilt upon him which dread and watching enfolded in the Sol's Arms\nhave produced, the young man of the name of Guppy presents himself at\nthe town mansion at about seven o'clock in the evening and requests\nto see her ladyship. Mercury replies that she is going out to dinner;\ndon't he see the carriage at the door? Yes, he does see the carriage\nat the door; but he wants to see my Lady too.\n\nMercury is disposed, as he will presently declare to a\nfellow-gentleman in waiting, \"to pitch into the young man\"; but his\ninstructions are positive. Therefore he sulkily supposes that the\nyoung man must come up into the library. There he leaves the young\nman in a large room, not over-light, while he makes report of him.\n\nMr. Guppy looks into the shade in all directions, discovering\neverywhere a certain charred and whitened little heap of coal or\nwood. Presently he hears a rustling. Is it--? No, it's no ghost, but\nfair flesh and blood, most brilliantly dressed.\n\n\"I have to beg your ladyship's pardon,\" Mr. Guppy stammers, very\ndowncast. \"This is an inconvenient time--\"\n\n\"I told you, you could come at any time.\" She takes a chair, looking\nstraight at him as on the last occasion.\n\n\"Thank your ladyship. Your ladyship is very affable.\"\n\n\"You can sit down.\" There is not much affability in her tone.\n\n\"I don't know, your ladyship, that it's worth while my sitting down\nand detaining you, for I--I have not got the letters that I mentioned\nwhen I had the honour of waiting on your ladyship.\"\n\n\"Have you come merely to say so?\"\n\n\"Merely to say so, your ladyship.\" Mr. Guppy besides being depressed,\ndisappointed, and uneasy, is put at a further disadvantage by the\nsplendour and beauty of her appearance.\n\nShe knows its influence perfectly, has studied it too well to miss a\ngrain of its effect on any one. As she looks at him so steadily and\ncoldly, he not only feels conscious that he has no guide in the least\nperception of what is really the complexion of her thoughts, but also\nthat he is being every moment, as it were, removed further and\nfurther from her.\n\nShe will not speak, it is plain. So he must.\n\n\"In short, your ladyship,\" says Mr. Guppy like a meanly penitent\nthief, \"the person I was to have had the letters of, has come to a\nsudden end, and--\" He stops. Lady Dedlock calmly finishes the\nsentence.\n\n\"And the letters are destroyed with the person?\"\n\nMr. Guppy would say no if he could--as he is unable to hide.\n\n\"I believe so, your ladyship.\"\n\nIf he could see the least sparkle of relief in her face now? No, he\ncould see no such thing, even if that brave outside did not utterly\nput him away, and he were not looking beyond it and about it.\n\nHe falters an awkward excuse or two for his failure.\n\n\"Is this all you have to say?\" inquires Lady Dedlock, having heard\nhim out--or as nearly out as he can stumble.\n\nMr. Guppy thinks that's all.\n\n\"You had better be sure that you wish to say nothing more to me, this\nbeing the last time you will have the opportunity.\"\n\nMr. Guppy is quite sure. And indeed he has no such wish at present,\nby any means.\n\n\"That is enough. I will dispense with excuses. Good evening to you!\"\nAnd she rings for Mercury to show the young man of the name of Guppy\nout.\n\nBut in that house, in that same moment, there happens to be an old\nman of the name of Tulkinghorn. And that old man, coming with his\nquiet footstep to the library, has his hand at that moment on the\nhandle of the door--comes in--and comes face to face with the young\nman as he is leaving the room.\n\nOne glance between the old man and the lady, and for an instant the\nblind that is always down flies up. Suspicion, eager and sharp, looks\nout. Another instant, close again.\n\n\"I beg your pardon, Lady Dedlock. I beg your pardon a thousand times.\nIt is so very unusual to find you here at this hour. I supposed the\nroom was empty. I beg your pardon!\"\n\n\"Stay!\" She negligently calls him back. \"Remain here, I beg. I am\ngoing out to dinner. I have nothing more to say to this young man!\"\n\nThe disconcerted young man bows, as he goes out, and cringingly hopes\nthat Mr. Tulkinghorn of the Fields is well.\n\n\"Aye, aye?\" says the lawyer, looking at him from under his bent\nbrows, though he has no need to look again--not he. \"From Kenge and\nCarboy's, surely?\"\n\n\"Kenge and Carboy's, Mr. Tulkinghorn. Name of Guppy, sir.\"\n\n\"To be sure. Why, thank you, Mr. Guppy, I am very well!\"\n\n\"Happy to hear it, sir. You can't be too well, sir, for the credit of\nthe profession.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Mr. Guppy!\"\n\nMr. Guppy sneaks away. Mr. Tulkinghorn, such a foil in his\nold-fashioned rusty black to Lady Dedlock's brightness, hands her\ndown the staircase to her carriage. He returns rubbing his chin, and\nrubs it a good deal in the course of the evening.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIV\n\nA Turn of the Screw\n\n\n\"Now, what,\" says Mr. George, \"may this be? Is it blank cartridge or\nball? A flash in the pan or a shot?\"\n\nAn open letter is the subject of the trooper's speculations, and it\nseems to perplex him mightily. He looks at it at arm's length, brings\nit close to him, holds it in his right hand, holds it in his left\nhand, reads it with his head on this side, with his head on that\nside, contracts his eyebrows, elevates them, still cannot satisfy\nhimself. He smooths it out upon the table with his heavy palm, and\nthoughtfully walking up and down the gallery, makes a halt before it\nevery now and then to come upon it with a fresh eye. Even that won't\ndo. \"Is it,\" Mr. George still muses, \"blank cartridge or ball?\"\n\nPhil Squod, with the aid of a brush and paint-pot, is employed in the\ndistance whitening the targets, softly whistling in quick-march time\nand in drum-and-fife manner that he must and will go back again to\nthe girl he left behind him.\n\n\"Phil!\" The trooper beckons as he calls him.\n\nPhil approaches in his usual way, sidling off at first as if he were\ngoing anywhere else and then bearing down upon his commander like a\nbayonet-charge. Certain splashes of white show in high relief upon\nhis dirty face, and he scrapes his one eyebrow with the handle of the\nbrush.\n\n\"Attention, Phil! Listen to this.\"\n\n\"Steady, commander, steady.\"\n\n\"'Sir. Allow me to remind you (though there is no legal necessity for\nmy doing so, as you are aware) that the bill at two months' date\ndrawn on yourself by Mr. Matthew Bagnet, and by you accepted, for the\nsum of ninety-seven pounds four shillings and ninepence, will become\ndue to-morrow, when you will please be prepared to take up the same\non presentation. Yours, Joshua Smallweed.' What do you make of that,\nPhil?\"\n\n\"Mischief, guv'ner.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"I think,\" replies Phil after pensively tracing out a cross-wrinkle\nin his forehead with the brush-handle, \"that mischeevious\nconsequences is always meant when money's asked for.\"\n\n\"Lookye, Phil,\" says the trooper, sitting on the table. \"First and\nlast, I have paid, I may say, half as much again as this principal in\ninterest and one thing and another.\"\n\nPhil intimates by sidling back a pace or two, with a very\nunaccountable wrench of his wry face, that he does not regard the\ntransaction as being made more promising by this incident.\n\n\"And lookye further, Phil,\" says the trooper, staying his premature\nconclusions with a wave of his hand. \"There has always been an\nunderstanding that this bill was to be what they call renewed. And it\nhas been renewed no end of times. What do you say now?\"\n\n\"I say that I think the times is come to a end at last.\"\n\n\"You do? Humph! I am much of the same mind myself.\"\n\n\"Joshua Smallweed is him that was brought here in a chair?\"\n\n\"The same.\"\n\n\"Guv'ner,\" says Phil with exceeding gravity, \"he's a leech in his\ndispositions, he's a screw and a wice in his actions, a snake in his\ntwistings, and a lobster in his claws.\"\n\nHaving thus expressively uttered his sentiments, Mr. Squod, after\nwaiting a little to ascertain if any further remark be expected of\nhim, gets back by his usual series of movements to the target he has\nin hand and vigorously signifies through his former musical medium\nthat he must and he will return to that ideal young lady. George,\nhaving folded the letter, walks in that direction.\n\n\"There IS a way, commander,\" says Phil, looking cunningly at him, \"of\nsettling this.\"\n\n\"Paying the money, I suppose? I wish I could.\"\n\nPhil shakes his head. \"No, guv'ner, no; not so bad as that. There IS\na way,\" says Phil with a highly artistic turn of his brush; \"what I'm\na-doing at present.\"\n\n\"Whitewashing.\"\n\nPhil nods.\n\n\"A pretty way that would be! Do you know what would become of the\nBagnets in that case? Do you know they would be ruined to pay off my\nold scores? YOU'RE a moral character,\" says the trooper, eyeing him\nin his large way with no small indignation; \"upon my life you are,\nPhil!\"\n\nPhil, on one knee at the target, is in course of protesting\nearnestly, though not without many allegorical scoops of his brush\nand smoothings of the white surface round the rim with his thumb,\nthat he had forgotten the Bagnet responsibility and would not so much\nas injure a hair of the head of any member of that worthy family when\nsteps are audible in the long passage without, and a cheerful voice\nis heard to wonder whether George is at home. Phil, with a look at\nhis master, hobbles up, saying, \"Here's the guv'ner, Mrs. Bagnet!\nHere he is!\" and the old girl herself, accompanied by Mr. Bagnet,\nappears.\n\nThe old girl never appears in walking trim, in any season of the\nyear, without a grey cloth cloak, coarse and much worn but very\nclean, which is, undoubtedly, the identical garment rendered so\ninteresting to Mr. Bagnet by having made its way home to Europe from\nanother quarter of the globe in company with Mrs. Bagnet and an\numbrella. The latter faithful appendage is also invariably a part of\nthe old girl's presence out of doors. It is of no colour known in\nthis life and has a corrugated wooden crook for a handle, with a\nmetallic object let into its prow, or beak, resembling a little model\nof a fanlight over a street door or one of the oval glasses out of a\npair of spectacles, which ornamental object has not that tenacious\ncapacity of sticking to its post that might be desired in an article\nlong associated with the British army. The old girl's umbrella is of\na flabby habit of waist and seems to be in need of stays--an\nappearance that is possibly referable to its having served through a\nseries of years at home as a cupboard and on journeys as a carpet\nbag. She never puts it up, having the greatest reliance on her\nwell-proved cloak with its capacious hood, but generally uses the\ninstrument as a wand with which to point out joints of meat or\nbunches of greens in marketing or to arrest the attention of\ntradesmen by a friendly poke. Without her market-basket, which is a\nsort of wicker well with two flapping lids, she never stirs abroad.\nAttended by these her trusty companions, therefore, her honest\nsunburnt face looking cheerily out of a rough straw bonnet, Mrs.\nBagnet now arrives, fresh-coloured and bright, in George's Shooting\nGallery.\n\n\"Well, George, old fellow,\" says she, \"and how do YOU do, this\nsunshiny morning?\"\n\nGiving him a friendly shake of the hand, Mrs. Bagnet draws a long\nbreath after her walk and sits down to enjoy a rest. Having a\nfaculty, matured on the tops of baggage-waggons and in other such\npositions, of resting easily anywhere, she perches on a rough bench,\nunties her bonnet-strings, pushes back her bonnet, crosses her arms,\nand looks perfectly comfortable.\n\nMr. Bagnet in the meantime has shaken hands with his old comrade and\nwith Phil, on whom Mrs. Bagnet likewise bestows a good-humoured nod\nand smile.\n\n\"Now, George,\" said Mrs. Bagnet briskly, \"here we are, Lignum and\nmyself\"--she often speaks of her husband by this appellation, on\naccount, as it is supposed, of Lignum Vitae having been his old\nregimental nickname when they first became acquainted, in compliment\nto the extreme hardness and toughness of his physiognomy--\"just\nlooked in, we have, to make it all correct as usual about that\nsecurity. Give him the new bill to sign, George, and he'll sign it\nlike a man.\"\n\n\"I was coming to you this morning,\" observes the trooper reluctantly.\n\n\"Yes, we thought you'd come to us this morning, but we turned out\nearly and left Woolwich, the best of boys, to mind his sisters and\ncame to you instead--as you see! For Lignum, he's tied so close now,\nand gets so little exercise, that a walk does him good. But what's\nthe matter, George?\" asks Mrs. Bagnet, stopping in her cheerful talk.\n\"You don't look yourself.\"\n\n\"I am not quite myself,\" returns the trooper; \"I have been a little\nput out, Mrs. Bagnet.\"\n\nHer bright quick eye catches the truth directly. \"George!\" holding up\nher forefinger. \"Don't tell me there's anything wrong about that\nsecurity of Lignum's! Don't do it, George, on account of the\nchildren!\"\n\nThe trooper looks at her with a troubled visage.\n\n\"George,\" says Mrs. Bagnet, using both her arms for emphasis and\noccasionally bringing down her open hands upon her knees. \"If you\nhave allowed anything wrong to come to that security of Lignum's, and\nif you have let him in for it, and if you have put us in danger of\nbeing sold up--and I see sold up in your face, George, as plain as\nprint--you have done a shameful action and have deceived us cruelly.\nI tell you, cruelly, George. There!\"\n\nMr. Bagnet, otherwise as immovable as a pump or a lamp-post, puts his\nlarge right hand on the top of his bald head as if to defend it from\na shower-bath and looks with great uneasiness at Mrs. Bagnet.\n\n\"George,\" says that old girl, \"I wonder at you! George, I am ashamed\nof you! George, I couldn't have believed you would have done it! I\nalways knew you to be a rolling stone that gathered no moss, but I\nnever thought you would have taken away what little moss there was\nfor Bagnet and the children to lie upon. You know what a\nhard-working, steady-going chap he is. You know what Quebec and Malta\nand Woolwich are, and I never did think you would, or could, have had\nthe heart to serve us so. Oh, George!\" Mrs. Bagnet gathers up her\ncloak to wipe her eyes on in a very genuine manner, \"How could you do\nit?\"\n\nMrs. Bagnet ceasing, Mr. Bagnet removes his hand from his head as if\nthe shower-bath were over and looks disconsolately at Mr. George, who\nhas turned quite white and looks distressfully at the grey cloak and\nstraw bonnet.\n\n\"Mat,\" says the trooper in a subdued voice, addressing him but still\nlooking at his wife, \"I am sorry you take it so much to heart,\nbecause I do hope it's not so bad as that comes to. I certainly have,\nthis morning, received this letter\"--which he reads aloud--\"but I\nhope it may be set right yet. As to a rolling stone, why, what you\nsay is true. I AM a rolling stone, and I never rolled in anybody's\nway, I fully believe, that I rolled the least good to. But it's\nimpossible for an old vagabond comrade to like your wife and family\nbetter than I like 'em, Mat, and I trust you'll look upon me as\nforgivingly as you can. Don't think I've kept anything from you. I\nhaven't had the letter more than a quarter of an hour.\"\n\n\"Old girl,\" murmurs Mr. Bagnet after a short silence, \"will you tell\nhim my opinion?\"\n\n\"Oh! Why didn't he marry,\" Mrs. Bagnet answers, half laughing and\nhalf crying, \"Joe Pouch's widder in North America? Then he wouldn't\nhave got himself into these troubles.\"\n\n\"The old girl,\" says Mr. Bagnet, \"puts it correct--why didn't you?\"\n\n\"Well, she has a better husband by this time, I hope,\" returns the\ntrooper. \"Anyhow, here I stand, this present day, NOT married to Joe\nPouch's widder. What shall I do? You see all I have got about me.\nIt's not mine; it's yours. Give the word, and I'll sell off every\nmorsel. If I could have hoped it would have brought in nearly the sum\nwanted, I'd have sold all long ago. Don't believe that I'll leave you\nor yours in the lurch, Mat. I'd sell myself first. I only wish,\" says\nthe trooper, giving himself a disparaging blow in the chest, \"that I\nknew of any one who'd buy such a second-hand piece of old stores.\"\n\n\"Old girl,\" murmurs Mr. Bagnet, \"give him another bit of my mind.\"\n\n\"George,\" says the old girl, \"you are not so much to be blamed, on\nfull consideration, except for ever taking this business without the\nmeans.\"\n\n\"And that was like me!\" observes the penitent trooper, shaking his\nhead. \"Like me, I know.\"\n\n\"Silence! The old girl,\" says Mr. Bagnet, \"is correct--in her way of\ngiving my opinions--hear me out!\"\n\n\"That was when you never ought to have asked for the security,\nGeorge, and when you never ought to have got it, all things\nconsidered. But what's done can't be undone. You are always an\nhonourable and straightforward fellow, as far as lays in your power,\nthough a little flighty. On the other hand, you can't admit but what\nit's natural in us to be anxious with such a thing hanging over our\nheads. So forget and forgive all round, George. Come! Forget and\nforgive all round!\"\n\nMrs. Bagnet, giving him one of her honest hands and giving her\nhusband the other, Mr. George gives each of them one of his and holds\nthem while he speaks.\n\n\"I do assure you both, there's nothing I wouldn't do to discharge\nthis obligation. But whatever I have been able to scrape together has\ngone every two months in keeping it up. We have lived plainly enough\nhere, Phil and I. But the gallery don't quite do what was expected of\nit, and it's not--in short, it's not the mint. It was wrong in me to\ntake it? Well, so it was. But I was in a manner drawn into that step,\nand I thought it might steady me, and set me up, and you'll try to\noverlook my having such expectations, and upon my soul, I am very\nmuch obliged to you, and very much ashamed of myself.\" With these\nconcluding words, Mr. George gives a shake to each of the hands he\nholds, and relinquishing them, backs a pace or two in a\nbroad-chested, upright attitude, as if he had made a final confession\nand were immediately going to be shot with all military honours.\n\n\"George, hear me out!\" says Mr. Bagnet, glancing at his wife. \"Old\ngirl, go on!\"\n\nMr. Bagnet, being in this singular manner heard out, has merely to\nobserve that the letter must be attended to without any delay, that\nit is advisable that George and he should immediately wait on Mr.\nSmallweed in person, and that the primary object is to save and hold\nharmless Mr. Bagnet, who had none of the money. Mr. George, entirely\nassenting, puts on his hat and prepares to march with Mr. Bagnet to\nthe enemy's camp.\n\n\"Don't you mind a woman's hasty word, George,\" says Mrs. Bagnet,\npatting him on the shoulder. \"I trust my old Lignum to you, and I am\nsure you'll bring him through it.\"\n\nThe trooper returns that this is kindly said and that he WILL bring\nLignum through it somehow. Upon which Mrs. Bagnet, with her cloak,\nbasket, and umbrella, goes home, bright-eyed again, to the rest of\nher family, and the comrades sally forth on the hopeful errand of\nmollifying Mr. Smallweed.\n\nWhether there are two people in England less likely to come\nsatisfactorily out of any negotiation with Mr. Smallweed than Mr.\nGeorge and Mr. Matthew Bagnet may be very reasonably questioned.\nAlso, notwithstanding their martial appearance, broad square\nshoulders, and heavy tread, whether there are within the same limits\ntwo more simple and unaccustomed children in all the Smallweedy\naffairs of life. As they proceed with great gravity through the\nstreets towards the region of Mount Pleasant, Mr. Bagnet, observing\nhis companion to be thoughtful, considers it a friendly part to refer\nto Mrs. Bagnet's late sally.\n\n\"George, you know the old girl--she's as sweet and as mild as milk.\nBut touch her on the children--or myself--and she's off like\ngunpowder.\"\n\n\"It does her credit, Mat!\"\n\n\"George,\" says Mr. Bagnet, looking straight before him, \"the old\ngirl--can't do anything--that don't do her credit. More or less. I\nnever say so. Discipline must be maintained.\"\n\n\"She's worth her weight in gold,\" says the trooper.\n\n\"In gold?\" says Mr. Bagnet. \"I'll tell you what. The old girl's\nweight--is twelve stone six. Would I take that weight--in any\nmetal--for the old girl? No. Why not? Because the old girl's metal is\nfar more precious--than the preciousest metal. And she's ALL metal!\"\n\n\"You are right, Mat!\"\n\n\"When she took me--and accepted of the ring--she 'listed under me and\nthe children--heart and head, for life. She's that earnest,\" says Mr.\nBagnet, \"and true to her colours--that, touch us with a finger--and\nshe turns out--and stands to her arms. If the old girl fires\nwide--once in a way--at the call of duty--look over it, George. For\nshe's loyal!\"\n\n\"Why, bless her, Mat,\" returns the trooper, \"I think the higher of\nher for it!\"\n\n\"You are right!\" says Mr. Bagnet with the warmest enthusiasm, though\nwithout relaxing the rigidity of a single muscle. \"Think as high of\nthe old girl--as the rock of Gibraltar--and still you'll be thinking\nlow--of such merits. But I never own to it before her. Discipline\nmust be maintained.\"\n\nThese encomiums bring them to Mount Pleasant and to Grandfather\nSmallweed's house. The door is opened by the perennial Judy, who,\nhaving surveyed them from top to toe with no particular favour, but\nindeed with a malignant sneer, leaves them standing there while she\nconsults the oracle as to their admission. The oracle may be inferred\nto give consent from the circumstance of her returning with the words\non her honey lips that they can come in if they want to it. Thus\nprivileged, they come in and find Mr. Smallweed with his feet in the\ndrawer of his chair as if it were a paper foot-bath and Mrs.\nSmallweed obscured with the cushion like a bird that is not to sing.\n\n\"My dear friend,\" says Grandfather Smallweed with those two lean\naffectionate arms of his stretched forth. \"How de do? How de do? Who\nis our friend, my dear friend?\"\n\n\"Why this,\" returns George, not able to be very conciliatory at\nfirst, \"is Matthew Bagnet, who has obliged me in that matter of ours,\nyou know.\"\n\n\"Oh! Mr. Bagnet? Surely!\" The old man looks at him under his hand.\n\n\"Hope you're well, Mr. Bagnet? Fine man, Mr. George! Military air,\nsir!\"\n\nNo chairs being offered, Mr. George brings one forward for Bagnet and\none for himself. They sit down, Mr. Bagnet as if he had no power of\nbending himself, except at the hips, for that purpose.\n\n\"Judy,\" says Mr. Smallweed, \"bring the pipe.\"\n\n\"Why, I don't know,\" Mr. George interposes, \"that the young woman\nneed give herself that trouble, for to tell you the truth, I am not\ninclined to smoke it to-day.\"\n\n\"Ain't you?\" returns the old man. \"Judy, bring the pipe.\"\n\n\"The fact is, Mr. Smallweed,\" proceeds George, \"that I find myself in\nrather an unpleasant state of mind. It appears to me, sir, that your\nfriend in the city has been playing tricks.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear no!\" says Grandfather Smallweed. \"He never does that!\"\n\n\"Don't he? Well, I am glad to hear it, because I thought it might be\nHIS doing. This, you know, I am speaking of. This letter.\"\n\nGrandfather Smallweed smiles in a very ugly way in recognition of the\nletter.\n\n\"What does it mean?\" asks Mr. George.\n\n\"Judy,\" says the old man. \"Have you got the pipe? Give it to me. Did\nyou say what does it mean, my good friend?\"\n\n\"Aye! Now, come, come, you know, Mr. Smallweed,\" urges the trooper,\nconstraining himself to speak as smoothly and confidentially as he\ncan, holding the open letter in one hand and resting the broad\nknuckles of the other on his thigh, \"a good lot of money has passed\nbetween us, and we are face to face at the present moment, and are\nboth well aware of the understanding there has always been. I am\nprepared to do the usual thing which I have done regularly and to\nkeep this matter going. I never got a letter like this from you\nbefore, and I have been a little put about by it this morning,\nbecause here's my friend Matthew Bagnet, who, you know, had none of\nthe money--\"\n\n\"I DON'T know it, you know,\" says the old man quietly.\n\n\"Why, con-found you--it, I mean--I tell you so, don't I?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, you tell me so,\" returns Grandfather Smallweed. \"But I\ndon't know it.\"\n\n\"Well!\" says the trooper, swallowing his fire. \"I know it.\"\n\nMr. Smallweed replies with excellent temper, \"Ah! That's quite\nanother thing!\" And adds, \"But it don't matter. Mr. Bagnet's\nsituation is all one, whether or no.\"\n\nThe unfortunate George makes a great effort to arrange the affair\ncomfortably and to propitiate Mr. Smallweed by taking him upon his\nown terms.\n\n\"That's just what I mean. As you say, Mr. Smallweed, here's Matthew\nBagnet liable to be fixed whether or no. Now, you see, that makes his\ngood lady very uneasy in her mind, and me too, for whereas I'm a\nharum-scarum sort of a good-for-nought that more kicks than halfpence\ncome natural to, why he's a steady family man, don't you see? Now,\nMr. Smallweed,\" says the trooper, gaining confidence as he proceeds\nin his soldierly mode of doing business, \"although you and I are good\nfriends enough in a certain sort of a way, I am well aware that I\ncan't ask you to let my friend Bagnet off entirely.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear, you are too modest. You can ASK me anything, Mr. George.\"\n(There is an ogreish kind of jocularity in Grandfather Smallweed\nto-day.)\n\n\"And you can refuse, you mean, eh? Or not you so much, perhaps, as\nyour friend in the city? Ha ha ha!\"\n\n\"Ha ha ha!\" echoes Grandfather Smallweed. In such a very hard manner\nand with eyes so particularly green that Mr. Bagnet's natural gravity\nis much deepened by the contemplation of that venerable man.\n\n\"Come!\" says the sanguine George. \"I am glad to find we can be\npleasant, because I want to arrange this pleasantly. Here's my friend\nBagnet, and here am I. We'll settle the matter on the spot, if you\nplease, Mr. Smallweed, in the usual way. And you'll ease my friend\nBagnet's mind, and his family's mind, a good deal if you'll just\nmention to him what our understanding is.\"\n\nHere some shrill spectre cries out in a mocking manner, \"Oh, good\ngracious! Oh!\" Unless, indeed, it be the sportive Judy, who is found\nto be silent when the startled visitors look round, but whose chin\nhas received a recent toss, expressive of derision and contempt. Mr.\nBagnet's gravity becomes yet more profound.\n\n\"But I think you asked me, Mr. George\"--old Smallweed, who all this\ntime has had the pipe in his hand, is the speaker now--\"I think you\nasked me, what did the letter mean?\"\n\n\"Why, yes, I did,\" returns the trooper in his off-hand way, \"but I\ndon't care to know particularly, if it's all correct and pleasant.\"\n\nMr. Smallweed, purposely balking himself in an aim at the trooper's\nhead, throws the pipe on the ground and breaks it to pieces.\n\n\"That's what it means, my dear friend. I'll smash you. I'll crumble\nyou. I'll powder you. Go to the devil!\"\n\nThe two friends rise and look at one another. Mr. Bagnet's gravity\nhas now attained its profoundest point.\n\n\"Go to the devil!\" repeats the old man. \"I'll have no more of your\npipe-smokings and swaggerings. What? You're an independent dragoon,\ntoo! Go to my lawyer (you remember where; you have been there before)\nand show your independence now, will you? Come, my dear friend,\nthere's a chance for you. Open the street door, Judy; put these\nblusterers out! Call in help if they don't go. Put 'em out!\"\n\nHe vociferates this so loudly that Mr. Bagnet, laying his hands on\nthe shoulders of his comrade before the latter can recover from his\namazement, gets him on the outside of the street door, which is\ninstantly slammed by the triumphant Judy. Utterly confounded, Mr.\nGeorge awhile stands looking at the knocker. Mr. Bagnet, in a perfect\nabyss of gravity, walks up and down before the little parlour window\nlike a sentry and looks in every time he passes, apparently revolving\nsomething in his mind.\n\n\"Come, Mat,\" says Mr. George when he has recovered himself, \"we must\ntry the lawyer. Now, what do you think of this rascal?\"\n\nMr. Bagnet, stopping to take a farewell look into the parlour,\nreplies with one shake of his head directed at the interior, \"If my\nold girl had been here--I'd have told him!\" Having so discharged\nhimself of the subject of his cogitations, he falls into step and\nmarches off with the trooper, shoulder to shoulder.\n\nWhen they present themselves in Lincoln's Inn Fields, Mr. Tulkinghorn\nis engaged and not to be seen. He is not at all willing to see them,\nfor when they have waited a full hour, and the clerk, on his bell\nbeing rung, takes the opportunity of mentioning as much, he brings\nforth no more encouraging message than that Mr. Tulkinghorn has\nnothing to say to them and they had better not wait. They do wait,\nhowever, with the perseverance of military tactics, and at last the\nbell rings again and the client in possession comes out of Mr.\nTulkinghorn's room.\n\nThe client is a handsome old lady, no other than Mrs. Rouncewell,\nhousekeeper at Chesney Wold. She comes out of the sanctuary with a\nfair old-fashioned curtsy and softly shuts the door. She is treated\nwith some distinction there, for the clerk steps out of his pew to\nshow her through the outer office and to let her out. The old lady is\nthanking him for his attention when she observes the comrades in\nwaiting.\n\n\"I beg your pardon, sir, but I think those gentlemen are military?\"\n\nThe clerk referring the question to them with his eye, and Mr. George\nnot turning round from the almanac over the fire-place. Mr. Bagnet\ntakes upon himself to reply, \"Yes, ma'am. Formerly.\"\n\n\"I thought so. I was sure of it. My heart warms, gentlemen, at the\nsight of you. It always does at the sight of such. God bless you,\ngentlemen! You'll excuse an old woman, but I had a son once who went\nfor a soldier. A fine handsome youth he was, and good in his bold\nway, though some people did disparage him to his poor mother. I ask\nyour pardon for troubling you, sir. God bless you, gentlemen!\"\n\n\"Same to you, ma'am!\" returns Mr. Bagnet with right good will.\n\nThere is something very touching in the earnestness of the old lady's\nvoice and in the tremble that goes through her quaint old figure. But\nMr. George is so occupied with the almanac over the fire-place\n(calculating the coming months by it perhaps) that he does not look\nround until she has gone away and the door is closed upon her.\n\n\"George,\" Mr. Bagnet gruffly whispers when he does turn from the\nalmanac at last. \"Don't be cast down! 'Why, soldiers, why--should we\nbe melancholy, boys?' Cheer up, my hearty!\"\n\nThe clerk having now again gone in to say that they are still there\nand Mr. Tulkinghorn being heard to return with some irascibility,\n\"Let 'em come in then!\" they pass into the great room with the\npainted ceiling and find him standing before the fire.\n\n\"Now, you men, what do you want? Sergeant, I told you the last time I\nsaw you that I don't desire your company here.\"\n\nSergeant replies--dashed within the last few minutes as to his usual\nmanner of speech, and even as to his usual carriage--that he has\nreceived this letter, has been to Mr. Smallweed about it, and has\nbeen referred there.\n\n\"I have nothing to say to you,\" rejoins Mr. Tulkinghorn. \"If you get\ninto debt, you must pay your debts or take the consequences. You have\nno occasion to come here to learn that, I suppose?\"\n\nSergeant is sorry to say that he is not prepared with the money.\n\n\"Very well! Then the other man--this man, if this is he--must pay it\nfor you.\"\n\nSergeant is sorry to add that the other man is not prepared with the\nmoney either.\n\n\"Very well! Then you must pay it between you or you must both be sued\nfor it and both suffer. You have had the money and must refund it.\nYou are not to pocket other people's pounds, shillings, and pence and\nescape scot-free.\"\n\nThe lawyer sits down in his easy-chair and stirs the fire. Mr. George\nhopes he will have the goodness to--\"I tell you, sergeant, I have\nnothing to say to you. I don't like your associates and don't want\nyou here. This matter is not at all in my course of practice and is\nnot in my office. Mr. Smallweed is good enough to offer these affairs\nto me, but they are not in my way. You must go to Melchisedech's in\nClifford's Inn.\"\n\n\"I must make an apology to you, sir,\" says Mr. George, \"for pressing\nmyself upon you with so little encouragement--which is almost as\nunpleasant to me as it can be to you--but would you let me say a\nprivate word to you?\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn rises with his hands in his pockets and walks into\none of the window recesses. \"Now! I have no time to waste.\" In the\nmidst of his perfect assumption of indifference, he directs a sharp\nlook at the trooper, taking care to stand with his own back to the\nlight and to have the other with his face towards it.\n\n\"Well, sir,\" says Mr. George, \"this man with me is the other party\nimplicated in this unfortunate affair--nominally, only nominally--and\nmy sole object is to prevent his getting into trouble on my account.\nHe is a most respectable man with a wife and family, formerly in the\nRoyal Artillery--\"\n\n\"My friend, I don't care a pinch of snuff for the whole Royal\nArtillery establishment--officers, men, tumbrils, waggons, horses,\nguns, and ammunition.\"\n\n\"'Tis likely, sir. But I care a good deal for Bagnet and his wife and\nfamily being injured on my account. And if I could bring them through\nthis matter, I should have no help for it but to give up without any\nother consideration what you wanted of me the other day.\"\n\n\"Have you got it here?\"\n\n\"I have got it here, sir.\"\n\n\"Sergeant,\" the lawyer proceeds in his dry passionless manner, far\nmore hopeless in the dealing with than any amount of vehemence, \"make\nup your mind while I speak to you, for this is final. After I have\nfinished speaking I have closed the subject, and I won't re-open it.\nUnderstand that. You can leave here, for a few days, what you say you\nhave brought here if you choose; you can take it away at once if you\nchoose. In case you choose to leave it here, I can do this for you--I\ncan replace this matter on its old footing, and I can go so far\nbesides as to give you a written undertaking that this man Bagnet\nshall never be troubled in any way until you have been proceeded\nagainst to the utmost, that your means shall be exhausted before the\ncreditor looks to his. This is in fact all but freeing him. Have you\ndecided?\"\n\nThe trooper puts his hand into his breast and answers with a long\nbreath, \"I must do it, sir.\"\n\nSo Mr. Tulkinghorn, putting on his spectacles, sits down and writes\nthe undertaking, which he slowly reads and explains to Bagnet, who\nhas all this time been staring at the ceiling and who puts his hand\non his bald head again, under this new verbal shower-bath, and seems\nexceedingly in need of the old girl through whom to express his\nsentiments. The trooper then takes from his breast-pocket a folded\npaper, which he lays with an unwilling hand at the lawyer's elbow.\n\"'Tis only a letter of instructions, sir. The last I ever had from\nhim.\"\n\nLook at a millstone, Mr. George, for some change in its expression,\nand you will find it quite as soon as in the face of Mr. Tulkinghorn\nwhen he opens and reads the letter! He refolds it and lays it in his\ndesk with a countenance as unperturbable as death.\n\nNor has he anything more to say or do but to nod once in the same\nfrigid and discourteous manner and to say briefly, \"You can go. Show\nthese men out, there!\" Being shown out, they repair to Mr. Bagnet's\nresidence to dine.\n\nBoiled beef and greens constitute the day's variety on the former\nrepast of boiled pork and greens, and Mrs. Bagnet serves out the meal\nin the same way and seasons it with the best of temper, being that\nrare sort of old girl that she receives Good to her arms without a\nhint that it might be Better and catches light from any little spot\nof darkness near her. The spot on this occasion is the darkened brow\nof Mr. George; he is unusually thoughtful and depressed. At first\nMrs. Bagnet trusts to the combined endearments of Quebec and Malta to\nrestore him, but finding those young ladies sensible that their\nexisting Bluffy is not the Bluffy of their usual frolicsome\nacquaintance, she winks off the light infantry and leaves him to\ndeploy at leisure on the open ground of the domestic hearth.\n\nBut he does not. He remains in close order, clouded and depressed.\nDuring the lengthy cleaning up and pattening process, when he and Mr.\nBagnet are supplied with their pipes, he is no better than he was at\ndinner. He forgets to smoke, looks at the fire and ponders, lets his\npipe out, fills the breast of Mr. Bagnet with perturbation and dismay\nby showing that he has no enjoyment of tobacco.\n\nTherefore when Mrs. Bagnet at last appears, rosy from the\ninvigorating pail, and sits down to her work, Mr. Bagnet growls, \"Old\ngirl!\" and winks monitions to her to find out what's the matter.\n\n\"Why, George!\" says Mrs. Bagnet, quietly threading her needle. \"How\nlow you are!\"\n\n\"Am I? Not good company? Well, I am afraid I am not.\"\n\n\"He ain't at all like Bluffy, mother!\" cries little Malta.\n\n\"Because he ain't well, I think, mother,\" adds Quebec.\n\n\"Sure that's a bad sign not to be like Bluffy, too!\" returns the\ntrooper, kissing the young damsels. \"But it's true,\" with a sigh,\n\"true, I am afraid. These little ones are always right!\"\n\n\"George,\" says Mrs. Bagnet, working busily, \"if I thought you cross\nenough to think of anything that a shrill old soldier's wife--who\ncould have bitten her tongue off afterwards and ought to have done it\nalmost--said this morning, I don't know what I shouldn't say to you\nnow.\"\n\n\"My kind soul of a darling,\" returns the trooper. \"Not a morsel of\nit.\"\n\n\"Because really and truly, George, what I said and meant to say was\nthat I trusted Lignum to you and was sure you'd bring him through it.\nAnd you HAVE brought him through it, noble!\"\n\n\"Thankee, my dear!\" says George. \"I am glad of your good opinion.\"\n\nIn giving Mrs. Bagnet's hand, with her work in it, a friendly\nshake--for she took her seat beside him--the trooper's attention is\nattracted to her face. After looking at it for a little while as she\nplies her needle, he looks to young Woolwich, sitting on his stool in\nthe corner, and beckons that fifer to him.\n\n\"See there, my boy,\" says George, very gently smoothing the mother's\nhair with his hand, \"there's a good loving forehead for you! All\nbright with love of you, my boy. A little touched by the sun and the\nweather through following your father about and taking care of you,\nbut as fresh and wholesome as a ripe apple on a tree.\"\n\nMr. Bagnet's face expresses, so far as in its wooden material lies,\nthe highest approbation and acquiescence.\n\n\"The time will come, my boy,\" pursues the trooper, \"when this hair of\nyour mother's will be grey, and this forehead all crossed and\nre-crossed with wrinkles, and a fine old lady she'll be then. Take\ncare, while you are young, that you can think in those days, 'I never\nwhitened a hair of her dear head--I never marked a sorrowful line in\nher face!' For of all the many things that you can think of when you\nare a man, you had better have THAT by you, Woolwich!\"\n\nMr. George concludes by rising from his chair, seating the boy beside\nhis mother in it, and saying, with something of a hurry about him,\nthat he'll smoke his pipe in the street a bit.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXV\n\nEsther's Narrative\n\n\nI lay ill through several weeks, and the usual tenor of my life\nbecame like an old remembrance. But this was not the effect of time\nso much as of the change in all my habits made by the helplessness\nand inaction of a sick-room. Before I had been confined to it many\ndays, everything else seemed to have retired into a remote distance\nwhere there was little or no separation between the various stages of\nmy life which had been really divided by years. In falling ill, I\nseemed to have crossed a dark lake and to have left all my\nexperiences, mingled together by the great distance, on the healthy\nshore.\n\nMy housekeeping duties, though at first it caused me great anxiety to\nthink that they were unperformed, were soon as far off as the oldest\nof the old duties at Greenleaf or the summer afternoons when I went\nhome from school with my portfolio under my arm, and my childish\nshadow at my side, to my godmother's house. I had never known before\nhow short life really was and into how small a space the mind could\nput it.\n\nWhile I was very ill, the way in which these divisions of time became\nconfused with one another distressed my mind exceedingly. At once a\nchild, an elder girl, and the little woman I had been so happy as, I\nwas not only oppressed by cares and difficulties adapted to each\nstation, but by the great perplexity of endlessly trying to reconcile\nthem. I suppose that few who have not been in such a condition can\nquite understand what I mean or what painful unrest arose from this\nsource.\n\nFor the same reason I am almost afraid to hint at that time in my\ndisorder--it seemed one long night, but I believe there were both\nnights and days in it--when I laboured up colossal staircases, ever\nstriving to reach the top, and ever turned, as I have seen a worm in\na garden path, by some obstruction, and labouring again. I knew\nperfectly at intervals, and I think vaguely at most times, that I was\nin my bed; and I talked with Charley, and felt her touch, and knew\nher very well; yet I would find myself complaining, \"Oh, more of\nthese never-ending stairs, Charley--more and more--piled up to the\nsky', I think!\" and labouring on again.\n\nDare I hint at that worse time when, strung together somewhere in\ngreat black space, there was a flaming necklace, or ring, or starry\ncircle of some kind, of which I was one of the beads! And when my\nonly prayer was to be taken off from the rest and when it was such\ninexplicable agony and misery to be a part of the dreadful thing?\n\nPerhaps the less I say of these sick experiences, the less tedious\nand the more intelligible I shall be. I do not recall them to make\nothers unhappy or because I am now the least unhappy in remembering\nthem. It may be that if we knew more of such strange afflictions we\nmight be the better able to alleviate their intensity.\n\nThe repose that succeeded, the long delicious sleep, the blissful\nrest, when in my weakness I was too calm to have any care for myself\nand could have heard (or so I think now) that I was dying, with no\nother emotion than with a pitying love for those I left behind--this\nstate can be perhaps more widely understood. I was in this state when\nI first shrunk from the light as it twinkled on me once more, and\nknew with a boundless joy for which no words are rapturous enough\nthat I should see again.\n\nI had heard my Ada crying at the door, day and night; I had heard her\ncalling to me that I was cruel and did not love her; I had heard her\npraying and imploring to be let in to nurse and comfort me and to\nleave my bedside no more; but I had only said, when I could speak,\n\"Never, my sweet girl, never!\" and I had over and over again reminded\nCharley that she was to keep my darling from the room whether I lived\nor died. Charley had been true to me in that time of need, and with\nher little hand and her great heart had kept the door fast.\n\nBut now, my sight strengthening and the glorious light coming every\nday more fully and brightly on me, I could read the letters that my\ndear wrote to me every morning and evening and could put them to my\nlips and lay my cheek upon them with no fear of hurting her. I could\nsee my little maid, so tender and so careful, going about the two\nrooms setting everything in order and speaking cheerfully to Ada from\nthe open window again. I could understand the stillness in the house\nand the thoughtfulness it expressed on the part of all those who had\nalways been so good to me. I could weep in the exquisite felicity of\nmy heart and be as happy in my weakness as ever I had been in my\nstrength.\n\nBy and by my strength began to be restored. Instead of lying, with so\nstrange a calmness, watching what was done for me, as if it were done\nfor some one else whom I was quietly sorry for, I helped it a little,\nand so on to a little more and much more, until I became useful to\nmyself, and interested, and attached to life again.\n\nHow well I remember the pleasant afternoon when I was raised in bed\nwith pillows for the first time to enjoy a great tea-drinking with\nCharley! The little creature--sent into the world, surely, to\nminister to the weak and sick--was so happy, and so busy, and stopped\nso often in her preparations to lay her head upon my bosom, and\nfondle me, and cry with joyful tears she was so glad, she was so\nglad, that I was obliged to say, \"Charley, if you go on in this way,\nI must lie down again, my darling, for I am weaker than I thought I\nwas!\" So Charley became as quiet as a mouse and took her bright face\nhere and there across and across the two rooms, out of the shade into\nthe divine sunshine, and out of the sunshine into the shade, while I\nwatched her peacefully. When all her preparations were concluded and\nthe pretty tea-table with its little delicacies to tempt me, and its\nwhite cloth, and its flowers, and everything so lovingly and\nbeautifully arranged for me by Ada downstairs, was ready at the\nbedside, I felt sure I was steady enough to say something to Charley\nthat was not new to my thoughts.\n\nFirst I complimented Charley on the room, and indeed it was so fresh\nand airy, so spotless and neat, that I could scarce believe I had\nbeen lying there so long. This delighted Charley, and her face was\nbrighter than before.\n\n\"Yet, Charley,\" said I, looking round, \"I miss something, surely,\nthat I am accustomed to?\"\n\nPoor little Charley looked round too and pretended to shake her head\nas if there were nothing absent.\n\n\"Are the pictures all as they used to be?\" I asked her.\n\n\"Every one of them, miss,\" said Charley.\n\n\"And the furniture, Charley?\"\n\n\"Except where I have moved it about to make more room, miss.\"\n\n\"And yet,\" said I, \"I miss some familiar object. Ah, I know what it\nis, Charley! It's the looking-glass.\"\n\nCharley got up from the table, making as if she had forgotten\nsomething, and went into the next room; and I heard her sob there.\n\nI had thought of this very often. I was now certain of it. I could\nthank God that it was not a shock to me now. I called Charley back,\nand when she came--at first pretending to smile, but as she drew\nnearer to me, looking grieved--I took her in my arms and said, \"It\nmatters very little, Charley. I hope I can do without my old face\nvery well.\"\n\nI was presently so far advanced as to be able to sit up in a great\nchair and even giddily to walk into the adjoining room, leaning on\nCharley. The mirror was gone from its usual place in that room too,\nbut what I had to bear was none the harder to bear for that.\n\nMy guardian had throughout been earnest to visit me, and there was\nnow no good reason why I should deny myself that happiness. He came\none morning, and when he first came in, could only hold me in his\nembrace and say, \"My dear, dear girl!\" I had long known--who could\nknow better?--what a deep fountain of affection and generosity his\nheart was; and was it not worth my trivial suffering and change to\nfill such a place in it? \"Oh, yes!\" I thought. \"He has seen me, and\nhe loves me better than he did; he has seen me and is even fonder of\nme than he was before; and what have I to mourn for!\"\n\nHe sat down by me on the sofa, supporting me with his arm. For a\nlittle while he sat with his hand over his face, but when he removed\nit, fell into his usual manner. There never can have been, there\nnever can be, a pleasanter manner.\n\n\"My little woman,\" said he, \"what a sad time this has been. Such an\ninflexible little woman, too, through all!\"\n\n\"Only for the best, guardian,\" said I.\n\n\"For the best?\" he repeated tenderly. \"Of course, for the best. But\nhere have Ada and I been perfectly forlorn and miserable; here has\nyour friend Caddy been coming and going late and early; here has\nevery one about the house been utterly lost and dejected; here has\neven poor Rick been writing--to ME too--in his anxiety for you!\"\n\nI had read of Caddy in Ada's letters, but not of Richard. I told him\nso.\n\n\"Why, no, my dear,\" he replied. \"I have thought it better not to\nmention it to her.\"\n\n\"And you speak of his writing to YOU,\" said I, repeating his\nemphasis. \"As if it were not natural for him to do so, guardian; as\nif he could write to a better friend!\"\n\n\"He thinks he could, my love,\" returned my guardian, \"and to many a\nbetter. The truth is, he wrote to me under a sort of protest while\nunable to write to you with any hope of an answer--wrote coldly,\nhaughtily, distantly, resentfully. Well, dearest little woman, we\nmust look forbearingly on it. He is not to blame. Jarndyce and\nJarndyce has warped him out of himself and perverted me in his eyes.\nI have known it do as bad deeds, and worse, many a time. If two\nangels could be concerned in it, I believe it would change their\nnature.\"\n\n\"It has not changed yours, guardian.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, it has, my dear,\" he said laughingly. \"It has made the\nsouth wind easterly, I don't know how often. Rick mistrusts and\nsuspects me--goes to lawyers, and is taught to mistrust and suspect\nme. Hears I have conflicting interests, claims clashing against his\nand what not. Whereas, heaven knows that if I could get out of the\nmountains of wiglomeration on which my unfortunate name has been so\nlong bestowed (which I can't) or could level them by the extinction\nof my own original right (which I can't either, and no human power\never can, anyhow, I believe, to such a pass have we got), I would do\nit this hour. I would rather restore to poor Rick his proper nature\nthan be endowed with all the money that dead suitors, broken, heart\nand soul, upon the wheel of Chancery, have left unclaimed with the\nAccountant-General--and that's money enough, my dear, to be cast into\na pyramid, in memory of Chancery's transcendent wickedness.\"\n\n\"IS it possible, guardian,\" I asked, amazed, \"that Richard can be\nsuspicious of you?\"\n\n\"Ah, my love, my love,\" he said, \"it is in the subtle poison of such\nabuses to breed such diseases. His blood is infected, and objects\nlose their natural aspects in his sight. It is not HIS fault.\"\n\n\"But it is a terrible misfortune, guardian.\"\n\n\"It is a terrible misfortune, little woman, to be ever drawn within\nthe influences of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. I know none greater. By\nlittle and little he has been induced to trust in that rotten reed,\nand it communicates some portion of its rottenness to everything\naround him. But again I say with all my soul, we must be patient with\npoor Rick and not blame him. What a troop of fine fresh hearts like\nhis have I seen in my time turned by the same means!\"\n\nI could not help expressing something of my wonder and regret that\nhis benevolent, disinterested intentions had prospered so little.\n\n\"We must not say so, Dame Durden,\" he cheerfully replied; \"Ada is the\nhappier, I hope, and that is much. I did think that I and both these\nyoung creatures might be friends instead of distrustful foes and that\nwe might so far counter-act the suit and prove too strong for it. But\nit was too much to expect. Jarndyce and Jarndyce was the curtain of\nRick's cradle.\"\n\n\"But, guardian, may we not hope that a little experience will teach\nhim what a false and wretched thing it is?\"\n\n\"We WILL hope so, my Esther,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, \"and that it may not\nteach him so too late. In any case we must not be hard on him. There\nare not many grown and matured men living while we speak, good men\ntoo, who if they were thrown into this same court as suitors would\nnot be vitally changed and depreciated within three years--within\ntwo--within one. How can we stand amazed at poor Rick? A young man so\nunfortunate,\" here he fell into a lower tone, as if he were thinking\naloud, \"cannot at first believe (who could?) that Chancery is what it\nis. He looks to it, flushed and fitfully, to do something with his\ninterests and bring them to some settlement. It procrastinates,\ndisappoints, tries, tortures him; wears out his sanguine hopes and\npatience, thread by thread; but he still looks to it, and hankers\nafter it, and finds his whole world treacherous and hollow. Well,\nwell, well! Enough of this, my dear!\"\n\nHe had supported me, as at first, all this time, and his tenderness\nwas so precious to me that I leaned my head upon his shoulder and\nloved him as if he had been my father. I resolved in my own mind in\nthis little pause, by some means, to see Richard when I grew strong\nand try to set him right.\n\n\"There are better subjects than these,\" said my guardian, \"for such a\njoyful time as the time of our dear girl's recovery. And I had a\ncommission to broach one of them as soon as I should begin to talk.\nWhen shall Ada come to see you, my love?\"\n\nI had been thinking of that too. A little in connexion with the\nabsent mirrors, but not much, for I knew my loving girl would be\nchanged by no change in my looks.\n\n\"Dear guardian,\" said I, \"as I have shut her out so long--though\nindeed, indeed, she is like the light to me--\"\n\n\"I know it well, Dame Durden, well.\"\n\nHe was so good, his touch expressed such endearing compassion and\naffection, and the tone of his voice carried such comfort into my\nheart that I stopped for a little while, quite unable to go on. \"Yes,\nyes, you are tired,\" said he. \"Rest a little.\"\n\n\"As I have kept Ada out so long,\" I began afresh after a short while,\n\"I think I should like to have my own way a little longer, guardian.\nIt would be best to be away from here before I see her. If Charley\nand I were to go to some country lodging as soon as I can move, and\nif I had a week there in which to grow stronger and to be revived by\nthe sweet air and to look forward to the happiness of having Ada with\nme again, I think it would be better for us.\"\n\nI hope it was not a poor thing in me to wish to be a little more used\nto my altered self before I met the eyes of the dear girl I longed so\nardently to see, but it is the truth. I did. He understood me, I was\nsure; but I was not afraid of that. If it were a poor thing, I knew\nhe would pass it over.\n\n\"Our spoilt little woman,\" said my guardian, \"shall have her own way\neven in her inflexibility, though at the price, I know, of tears\ndownstairs. And see here! Here is Boythorn, heart of chivalry,\nbreathing such ferocious vows as never were breathed on paper before,\nthat if you don't go and occupy his whole house, he having already\nturned out of it expressly for that purpose, by heaven and by earth\nhe'll pull it down and not leave one brick standing on another!\"\n\nAnd my guardian put a letter in my hand, without any ordinary\nbeginning such as \"My dear Jarndyce,\" but rushing at once into the\nwords, \"I swear if Miss Summerson do not come down and take\npossession of my house, which I vacate for her this day at one\no'clock, P.M.,\" and then with the utmost seriousness, and in the most\nemphatic terms, going on to make the extraordinary declaration he had\nquoted. We did not appreciate the writer the less for laughing\nheartily over it, and we settled that I should send him a letter of\nthanks on the morrow and accept his offer. It was a most agreeable\none to me, for all the places I could have thought of, I should have\nliked to go to none so well as Chesney Wold.\n\n\"Now, little housewife,\" said my guardian, looking at his watch, \"I\nwas strictly timed before I came upstairs, for you must not be tired\ntoo soon; and my time has waned away to the last minute. I have one\nother petition. Little Miss Flite, hearing a rumour that you were\nill, made nothing of walking down here--twenty miles, poor soul, in a\npair of dancing shoes--to inquire. It was heaven's mercy we were at\nhome, or she would have walked back again.\"\n\nThe old conspiracy to make me happy! Everybody seemed to be in it!\n\n\"Now, pet,\" said my guardian, \"if it would not be irksome to you to\nadmit the harmless little creature one afternoon before you save\nBoythorn's otherwise devoted house from demolition, I believe you\nwould make her prouder and better pleased with herself than I--though\nmy eminent name is Jarndyce--could do in a lifetime.\"\n\nI have no doubt he knew there would be something in the simple image\nof the poor afflicted creature that would fall like a gentle lesson\non my mind at that time. I felt it as he spoke to me. I could not\ntell him heartily enough how ready I was to receive her. I had always\npitied her, never so much as now. I had always been glad of my little\npower to soothe her under her calamity, but never, never, half so\nglad before.\n\nWe arranged a time for Miss Flite to come out by the coach and share\nmy early dinner. When my guardian left me, I turned my face away upon\nmy couch and prayed to be forgiven if I, surrounded by such\nblessings, had magnified to myself the little trial that I had to\nundergo. The childish prayer of that old birthday when I had aspired\nto be industrious, contented, and true-hearted and to do good to some\none and win some love to myself if I could came back into my mind\nwith a reproachful sense of all the happiness I had since enjoyed and\nall the affectionate hearts that had been turned towards me. If I\nwere weak now, what had I profited by those mercies? I repeated the\nold childish prayer in its old childish words and found that its old\npeace had not departed from it.\n\nMy guardian now came every day. In a week or so more I could walk\nabout our rooms and hold long talks with Ada from behind the\nwindow-curtain. Yet I never saw her, for I had not as yet the courage\nto look at the dear face, though I could have done so easily without\nher seeing me.\n\nOn the appointed day Miss Flite arrived. The poor little creature ran\ninto my room quite forgetful of her usual dignity, and crying from\nher very heart of hearts, \"My dear Fitz Jarndyce!\" fell upon my neck\nand kissed me twenty times.\n\n\"Dear me!\" said she, putting her hand into her reticule, \"I have\nnothing here but documents, my dear Fitz Jarndyce; I must borrow a\npocket handkerchief.\"\n\nCharley gave her one, and the good creature certainly made use of it,\nfor she held it to her eyes with both hands and sat so, shedding\ntears for the next ten minutes.\n\n\"With pleasure, my dear Fitz Jarndyce,\" she was careful to explain.\n\"Not the least pain. Pleasure to see you well again. Pleasure at\nhaving the honour of being admitted to see you. I am so much fonder\nof you, my love, than of the Chancellor. Though I DO attend court\nregularly. By the by, my dear, mentioning pocket handkerchiefs--\"\n\nMiss Flite here looked at Charley, who had been to meet her at the\nplace where the coach stopped. Charley glanced at me and looked\nunwilling to pursue the suggestion.\n\n\"Ve-ry right!\" said Miss Flite, \"Ve-ry correct. Truly! Highly\nindiscreet of me to mention it; but my dear Miss Fitz Jarndyce, I am\nafraid I am at times (between ourselves, you wouldn't think it) a\nlittle--rambling you know,\" said Miss Flite, touching her forehead.\n\"Nothing more.\"\n\n\"What were you going to tell me?\" said I, smiling, for I saw she\nwanted to go on. \"You have roused my curiosity, and now you must\ngratify it.\"\n\nMiss Flite looked at Charley for advice in this important crisis, who\nsaid, \"If you please, ma'am, you had better tell then,\" and therein\ngratified Miss Flite beyond measure.\n\n\"So sagacious, our young friend,\" said she to me in her mysterious\nway. \"Diminutive. But ve-ry sagacious! Well, my dear, it's a pretty\nanecdote. Nothing more. Still I think it charming. Who should follow\nus down the road from the coach, my dear, but a poor person in a very\nungenteel bonnet--\"\n\n\"Jenny, if you please, miss,\" said Charley.\n\n\"Just so!\" Miss Flite acquiesced with the greatest suavity. \"Jenny.\nYe-es! And what does she tell our young friend but that there has\nbeen a lady with a veil inquiring at her cottage after my dear Fitz\nJarndyce's health and taking a handkerchief away with her as a little\nkeepsake merely because it was my amiable Fitz Jarndyce's! Now, you\nknow, so very prepossessing in the lady with the veil!\"\n\n\"If you please, miss,\" said Charley, to whom I looked in some\nastonishment, \"Jenny says that when her baby died, you left a\nhandkerchief there, and that she put it away and kept it with the\nbaby's little things. I think, if you please, partly because it was\nyours, miss, and partly because it had covered the baby.\"\n\n\"Diminutive,\" whispered Miss Flite, making a variety of motions about\nher own forehead to express intellect in Charley. \"But exceedingly\nsagacious! And so dear! My love, she's clearer than any counsel I\never heard!\"\n\n\"Yes, Charley,\" I returned. \"I remember it. Well?\"\n\n\"Well, miss,\" said Charley, \"and that's the handkerchief the lady\ntook. And Jenny wants you to know that she wouldn't have made away\nwith it herself for a heap of money but that the lady took it and\nleft some money instead. Jenny don't know her at all, if you please,\nmiss!\"\n\n\"Why, who can she be?\" said I.\n\n\"My love,\" Miss Flite suggested, advancing her lips to my ear with\nher most mysterious look, \"in MY opinion--don't mention this to our\ndiminutive friend--she's the Lord Chancellor's wife. He's married,\nyou know. And I understand she leads him a terrible life. Throws his\nlordship's papers into the fire, my dear, if he won't pay the\njeweller!\"\n\nI did not think very much about this lady then, for I had an\nimpression that it might be Caddy. Besides, my attention was diverted\nby my visitor, who was cold after her ride and looked hungry and who,\nour dinner being brought in, required some little assistance in\narraying herself with great satisfaction in a pitiable old scarf and\na much-worn and often-mended pair of gloves, which she had brought\ndown in a paper parcel. I had to preside, too, over the\nentertainment, consisting of a dish of fish, a roast fowl, a\nsweetbread, vegetables, pudding, and Madeira; and it was so pleasant\nto see how she enjoyed it, and with what state and ceremony she did\nhonour to it, that I was soon thinking of nothing else.\n\nWhen we had finished and had our little dessert before us,\nembellished by the hands of my dear, who would yield the\nsuperintendence of everything prepared for me to no one, Miss Flite\nwas so very chatty and happy that I thought I would lead her to her\nown history, as she was always pleased to talk about herself. I began\nby saying \"You have attended on the Lord Chancellor many years, Miss\nFlite?\"\n\n\"Oh, many, many, many years, my dear. But I expect a judgment.\nShortly.\"\n\nThere was an anxiety even in her hopefulness that made me doubtful if\nI had done right in approaching the subject. I thought I would say no\nmore about it.\n\n\"My father expected a judgment,\" said Miss Flite. \"My brother. My\nsister. They all expected a judgment. The same that I expect.\"\n\n\"They are all--\"\n\n\"Ye-es. Dead of course, my dear,\" said she.\n\nAs I saw she would go on, I thought it best to try to be serviceable\nto her by meeting the theme rather than avoiding it.\n\n\"Would it not be wiser,\" said I, \"to expect this judgment no more?\"\n\n\"Why, my dear,\" she answered promptly, \"of course it would!\"\n\n\"And to attend the court no more?\"\n\n\"Equally of course,\" said she. \"Very wearing to be always in\nexpectation of what never comes, my dear Fitz Jarndyce! Wearing, I\nassure you, to the bone!\"\n\nShe slightly showed me her arm, and it was fearfully thin indeed.\n\n\"But, my dear,\" she went on in her mysterious way, \"there's a\ndreadful attraction in the place. Hush! Don't mention it to our\ndiminutive friend when she comes in. Or it may frighten her. With\ngood reason. There's a cruel attraction in the place. You CAN'T leave\nit. And you MUST expect.\"\n\nI tried to assure her that this was not so. She heard me patiently\nand smilingly, but was ready with her own answer.\n\n\"Aye, aye, aye! You think so because I am a little rambling. Ve-ry\nabsurd, to be a little rambling, is it not? Ve-ry confusing, too. To\nthe head. I find it so. But, my dear, I have been there many years,\nand I have noticed. It's the mace and seal upon the table.\"\n\nWhat could they do, did she think? I mildly asked her.\n\n\"Draw,\" returned Miss Flite. \"Draw people on, my dear. Draw peace out\nof them. Sense out of them. Good looks out of them. Good qualities\nout of them. I have felt them even drawing my rest away in the night.\nCold and glittering devils!\"\n\nShe tapped me several times upon the arm and nodded good-humouredly\nas if she were anxious I should understand that I had no cause to\nfear her, though she spoke so gloomily, and confided these awful\nsecrets to me.\n\n\"Let me see,\" said she. \"I'll tell you my own case. Before they ever\ndrew me--before I had ever seen them--what was it I used to do?\nTambourine playing? No. Tambour work. I and my sister worked at\ntambour work. Our father and our brother had a builder's business.\nWe all lived together. Ve-ry respectably, my dear! First, our father\nwas drawn--slowly. Home was drawn with him. In a few years he\nwas a fierce, sour, angry bankrupt without a kind word or a kind\nlook for any one. He had been so different, Fitz Jarndyce. He was\ndrawn to a debtors' prison. There he died. Then our brother was\ndrawn--swiftly--to drunkenness. And rags. And death. Then my sister\nwas drawn. Hush! Never ask to what! Then I was ill and in misery, and\nheard, as I had often heard before, that this was all the work of\nChancery. When I got better, I went to look at the monster. And then\nI found out how it was, and I was drawn to stay there.\"\n\nHaving got over her own short narrative, in the delivery of which she\nhad spoken in a low, strained voice, as if the shock were fresh upon\nher, she gradually resumed her usual air of amiable importance.\n\n\"You don't quite credit me, my dear! Well, well! You will, some day.\nI am a little rambling. But I have noticed. I have seen many new\nfaces come, unsuspicious, within the influence of the mace and seal\nin these many years. As my father's came there. As my brother's. As\nmy sister's. As my own. I hear Conversation Kenge and the rest of\nthem say to the new faces, 'Here's little Miss Flite. Oh, you are new\nhere; and you must come and be presented to little Miss Flite!' Ve-ry\ngood. Proud I am sure to have the honour! And we all laugh. But, Fitz\nJarndyce, I know what will happen. I know, far better than they do,\nwhen the attraction has begun. I know the signs, my dear. I saw them\nbegin in Gridley. And I saw them end. Fitz Jarndyce, my love,\"\nspeaking low again, \"I saw them beginning in our friend the ward in\nJarndyce. Let some one hold him back. Or he'll be drawn to ruin.\"\n\nShe looked at me in silence for some moments, with her face gradually\nsoftening into a smile. Seeming to fear that she had been too gloomy,\nand seeming also to lose the connexion in her mind, she said politely\nas she sipped her glass of wine, \"Yes, my dear, as I was saying, I\nexpect a judgment shortly. Then I shall release my birds, you know,\nand confer estates.\"\n\nI was much impressed by her allusion to Richard and by the sad\nmeaning, so sadly illustrated in her poor pinched form, that made its\nway through all her incoherence. But happily for her, she was quite\ncomplacent again now and beamed with nods and smiles.\n\n\"But, my dear,\" she said, gaily, reaching another hand to put it upon\nmine. \"You have not congratulated me on my physician. Positively not\nonce, yet!\"\n\nI was obliged to confess that I did not quite know what she meant.\n\n\"My physician, Mr. Woodcourt, my dear, who was so exceedingly\nattentive to me. Though his services were rendered quite\ngratuitously. Until the Day of Judgment. I mean THE judgment that\nwill dissolve the spell upon me of the mace and seal.\"\n\n\"Mr. Woodcourt is so far away, now,\" said I, \"that I thought the time\nfor such congratulation was past, Miss Flite.\"\n\n\"But, my child,\" she returned, \"is it possible that you don't know\nwhat has happened?\"\n\n\"No,\" said I.\n\n\"Not what everybody has been talking of, my beloved Fitz Jarndyce!\"\n\n\"No,\" said I. \"You forget how long I have been here.\"\n\n\"True! My dear, for the moment--true. I blame myself. But my memory\nhas been drawn out of me, with everything else, by what I mentioned.\nVe-ry strong influence, is it not? Well, my dear, there has been a\nterrible shipwreck over in those East Indian seas.\"\n\n\"Mr. Woodcourt shipwrecked!\"\n\n\"Don't be agitated, my dear. He is safe. An awful scene. Death in all\nshapes. Hundreds of dead and dying. Fire, storm, and darkness.\nNumbers of the drowning thrown upon a rock. There, and through it\nall, my dear physician was a hero. Calm and brave through everything.\nSaved many lives, never complained in hunger and thirst, wrapped\nnaked people in his spare clothes, took the lead, showed them what to\ndo, governed them, tended the sick, buried the dead, and brought the\npoor survivors safely off at last! My dear, the poor emaciated\ncreatures all but worshipped him. They fell down at his feet when\nthey got to the land and blessed him. The whole country rings with\nit. Stay! Where's my bag of documents? I have got it there, and you\nshall read it, you shall read it!\"\n\nAnd I DID read all the noble history, though very slowly and\nimperfectly then, for my eyes were so dimmed that I could not see the\nwords, and I cried so much that I was many times obliged to lay down\nthe long account she had cut out of the newspaper. I felt so\ntriumphant ever to have known the man who had done such generous and\ngallant deeds, I felt such glowing exultation in his renown, I so\nadmired and loved what he had done, that I envied the storm-worn\npeople who had fallen at his feet and blessed him as their preserver.\nI could myself have kneeled down then, so far away, and blessed him\nin my rapture that he should be so truly good and brave. I felt that\nno one--mother, sister, wife--could honour him more than I. I did,\nindeed!\n\nMy poor little visitor made me a present of the account, and when as\nthe evening began to close in she rose to take her leave, lest she\nshould miss the coach by which she was to return, she was still full\nof the shipwreck, which I had not yet sufficiently composed myself to\nunderstand in all its details.\n\n\"My dear,\" said she as she carefully folded up her scarf and gloves,\n\"my brave physician ought to have a title bestowed upon him. And no\ndoubt he will. You are of that opinion?\"\n\nThat he well deserved one, yes. That he would ever have one, no.\n\n\"Why not, Fitz Jarndyce?\" she asked rather sharply.\n\nI said it was not the custom in England to confer titles on men\ndistinguished by peaceful services, however good and great, unless\noccasionally when they consisted of the accumulation of some very\nlarge amount of money.\n\n\"Why, good gracious,\" said Miss Flite, \"how can you say that? Surely\nyou know, my dear, that all the greatest ornaments of England in\nknowledge, imagination, active humanity, and improvement of every\nsort are added to its nobility! Look round you, my dear, and\nconsider. YOU must be rambling a little now, I think, if you don't\nknow that this is the great reason why titles will always last in the\nland!\"\n\nI am afraid she believed what she said, for there were moments when\nshe was very mad indeed.\n\nAnd now I must part with the little secret I have thus far tried to\nkeep. I had thought, sometimes, that Mr. Woodcourt loved me and that\nif he had been richer he would perhaps have told me that he loved me\nbefore he went away. I had thought, sometimes, that if he had done\nso, I should have been glad of it. But how much better it was now\nthat this had never happened! What should I have suffered if I had\nhad to write to him and tell him that the poor face he had known as\nmine was quite gone from me and that I freely released him from his\nbondage to one whom he had never seen!\n\nOh, it was so much better as it was! With a great pang mercifully\nspared me, I could take back to my heart my childish prayer to be all\nhe had so brightly shown himself; and there was nothing to be undone:\nno chain for me to break or for him to drag; and I could go, please\nGod, my lowly way along the path of duty, and he could go his nobler\nway upon its broader road; and though we were apart upon the journey,\nI might aspire to meet him, unselfishly, innocently, better far than\nhe had thought me when I found some favour in his eyes, at the\njourney's end.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVI\n\nChesney Wold\n\n\nCharley and I did not set off alone upon our expedition into\nLincolnshire. My guardian had made up his mind not to lose sight of\nme until I was safe in Mr. Boythorn's house, so he accompanied us,\nand we were two days upon the road. I found every breath of air, and\nevery scent, and every flower and leaf and blade of grass, and every\npassing cloud, and everything in nature, more beautiful and wonderful\nto me than I had ever found it yet. This was my first gain from my\nillness. How little I had lost, when the wide world was so full of\ndelight for me.\n\nMy guardian intending to go back immediately, we appointed, on our\nway down, a day when my dear girl should come. I wrote her a letter,\nof which he took charge, and he left us within half an hour of our\narrival at our destination, on a delightful evening in the early\nsummer-time.\n\nIf a good fairy had built the house for me with a wave of her wand,\nand I had been a princess and her favoured god-child, I could not\nhave been more considered in it. So many preparations were made for\nme and such an endearing remembrance was shown of all my little\ntastes and likings that I could have sat down, overcome, a dozen\ntimes before I had revisited half the rooms. I did better than that,\nhowever, by showing them all to Charley instead. Charley's delight\ncalmed mine; and after we had had a walk in the garden, and Charley\nhad exhausted her whole vocabulary of admiring expressions, I was as\ntranquilly happy as I ought to have been. It was a great comfort to\nbe able to say to myself after tea, \"Esther, my dear, I think you are\nquite sensible enough to sit down now and write a note of thanks to\nyour host.\" He had left a note of welcome for me, as sunny as his own\nface, and had confided his bird to my care, which I knew to be his\nhighest mark of confidence. Accordingly I wrote a little note to him\nin London, telling him how all his favourite plants and trees were\nlooking, and how the most astonishing of birds had chirped the\nhonours of the house to me in the most hospitable manner, and how,\nafter singing on my shoulder, to the inconceivable rapture of my\nlittle maid, he was then at roost in the usual corner of his cage,\nbut whether dreaming or no I could not report. My note finished and\nsent off to the post, I made myself very busy in unpacking and\narranging; and I sent Charley to bed in good time and told her I\nshould want her no more that night.\n\nFor I had not yet looked in the glass and had never asked to have my\nown restored to me. I knew this to be a weakness which must be\novercome, but I had always said to myself that I would begin afresh\nwhen I got to where I now was. Therefore I had wanted to be alone,\nand therefore I said, now alone, in my own room, \"Esther, if you are\nto be happy, if you are to have any right to pray to be true-hearted,\nyou must keep your word, my dear.\" I was quite resolved to keep it,\nbut I sat down for a little while first to reflect upon all my\nblessings. And then I said my prayers and thought a little more.\n\nMy hair had not been cut off, though it had been in danger more than\nonce. It was long and thick. I let it down, and shook it out, and\nwent up to the glass upon the dressing-table. There was a little\nmuslin curtain drawn across it. I drew it back and stood for a moment\nlooking through such a veil of my own hair that I could see nothing\nelse. Then I put my hair aside and looked at the reflection in the\nmirror, encouraged by seeing how placidly it looked at me. I was very\nmuch changed--oh, very, very much. At first my face was so strange to\nme that I think I should have put my hands before it and started back\nbut for the encouragement I have mentioned. Very soon it became more\nfamiliar, and then I knew the extent of the alteration in it better\nthan I had done at first. It was not like what I had expected, but I\nhad expected nothing definite, and I dare say anything definite would\nhave surprised me.\n\nI had never been a beauty and had never thought myself one, but I had\nbeen very different from this. It was all gone now. Heaven was so\ngood to me that I could let it go with a few not bitter tears and\ncould stand there arranging my hair for the night quite thankfully.\n\nOne thing troubled me, and I considered it for a long time before I\nwent to sleep. I had kept Mr. Woodcourt's flowers. When they were\nwithered I had dried them and put them in a book that I was fond of.\nNobody knew this, not even Ada. I was doubtful whether I had a right\nto preserve what he had sent to one so different--whether it was\ngenerous towards him to do it. I wished to be generous to him, even\nin the secret depths of my heart, which he would never know, because\nI could have loved him--could have been devoted to him. At last I\ncame to the conclusion that I might keep them if I treasured them\nonly as a remembrance of what was irrevocably past and gone, never to\nbe looked back on any more, in any other light. I hope this may not\nseem trivial. I was very much in earnest.\n\nI took care to be up early in the morning and to be before the glass\nwhen Charley came in on tiptoe.\n\n\"Dear, dear, miss!\" cried Charley, starting. \"Is that you?\"\n\n\"Yes, Charley,\" said I, quietly putting up my hair. \"And I am very\nwell indeed, and very happy.\"\n\nI saw it was a weight off Charley's mind, but it was a greater weight\noff mine. I knew the worst now and was composed to it. I shall not\nconceal, as I go on, the weaknesses I could not quite conquer, but\nthey always passed from me soon and the happier frame of mind stayed\nby me faithfully.\n\nWishing to be fully re-established in my strength and my good spirits\nbefore Ada came, I now laid down a little series of plans with\nCharley for being in the fresh air all day long. We were to be out\nbefore breakfast, and were to dine early, and were to be out again\nbefore and after dinner, and were to talk in the garden after tea,\nand were to go to rest betimes, and were to climb every hill and\nexplore every road, lane, and field in the neighbourhood. As to\nrestoratives and strengthening delicacies, Mr. Boythorn's good\nhousekeeper was for ever trotting about with something to eat or\ndrink in her hand; I could not even be heard of as resting in the\npark but she would come trotting after me with a basket, her cheerful\nface shining with a lecture on the importance of frequent\nnourishment. Then there was a pony expressly for my riding, a chubby\npony with a short neck and a mane all over his eyes who could\ncanter--when he would--so easily and quietly that he was a treasure.\nIn a very few days he would come to me in the paddock when I called\nhim, and eat out of my hand, and follow me about. We arrived at such\na capital understanding that when he was jogging with me lazily, and\nrather obstinately, down some shady lane, if I patted his neck and\nsaid, \"Stubbs, I am surprised you don't canter when you know how much\nI like it; and I think you might oblige me, for you are only getting\nstupid and going to sleep,\" he would give his head a comical shake or\ntwo and set off directly, while Charley would stand still and laugh\nwith such enjoyment that her laughter was like music. I don't know\nwho had given Stubbs his name, but it seemed to belong to him as\nnaturally as his rough coat. Once we put him in a little chaise and\ndrove him triumphantly through the green lanes for five miles; but\nall at once, as we were extolling him to the skies, he seemed to take\nit ill that he should have been accompanied so far by the circle of\ntantalizing little gnats that had been hovering round and round his\nears the whole way without appearing to advance an inch, and stopped\nto think about it. I suppose he came to the decision that it was not\nto be borne, for he steadily refused to move until I gave the reins\nto Charley and got out and walked, when he followed me with a sturdy\nsort of good humour, putting his head under my arm and rubbing his\near against my sleeve. It was in vain for me to say, \"Now, Stubbs, I\nfeel quite sure from what I know of you that you will go on if I ride\na little while,\" for the moment I left him, he stood stock still\nagain. Consequently I was obliged to lead the way, as before; and in\nthis order we returned home, to the great delight of the village.\n\nCharley and I had reason to call it the most friendly of villages, I\nam sure, for in a week's time the people were so glad to see us go\nby, though ever so frequently in the course of a day, that there were\nfaces of greeting in every cottage. I had known many of the grown\npeople before and almost all the children, but now the very steeple\nbegan to wear a familiar and affectionate look. Among my new friends\nwas an old old woman who lived in such a little thatched and\nwhitewashed dwelling that when the outside shutter was turned up on\nits hinges, it shut up the whole house-front. This old lady had a\ngrandson who was a sailor, and I wrote a letter to him for her and\ndrew at the top of it the chimney-corner in which she had brought him\nup and where his old stool yet occupied its old place. This was\nconsidered by the whole village the most wonderful achievement in the\nworld, but when an answer came back all the way from Plymouth, in\nwhich he mentioned that he was going to take the picture all the way\nto America, and from America would write again, I got all the credit\nthat ought to have been given to the post-office and was invested\nwith the merit of the whole system.\n\nThus, what with being so much in the air, playing with so many\nchildren, gossiping with so many people, sitting on invitation in so\nmany cottages, going on with Charley's education, and writing long\nletters to Ada every day, I had scarcely any time to think about that\nlittle loss of mine and was almost always cheerful. If I did think of\nit at odd moments now and then, I had only to be busy and forget it.\nI felt it more than I had hoped I should once when a child said,\n\"Mother, why is the lady not a pretty lady now like she used to be?\"\nBut when I found the child was not less fond of me, and drew its soft\nhand over my face with a kind of pitying protection in its touch,\nthat soon set me up again. There were many little occurrences which\nsuggested to me, with great consolation, how natural it is to gentle\nhearts to be considerate and delicate towards any inferiority. One of\nthese particularly touched me. I happened to stroll into the little\nchurch when a marriage was just concluded, and the young couple had\nto sign the register.\n\nThe bridegroom, to whom the pen was handed first, made a rude cross\nfor his mark; the bride, who came next, did the same. Now, I had\nknown the bride when I was last there, not only as the prettiest girl\nin the place, but as having quite distinguished herself in the\nschool, and I could not help looking at her with some surprise. She\ncame aside and whispered to me, while tears of honest love and\nadmiration stood in her bright eyes, \"He's a dear good fellow, miss;\nbut he can't write yet--he's going to learn of me--and I wouldn't\nshame him for the world!\" Why, what had I to fear, I thought, when\nthere was this nobility in the soul of a labouring man's daughter!\n\nThe air blew as freshly and revivingly upon me as it had ever blown,\nand the healthy colour came into my new face as it had come into my\nold one. Charley was wonderful to see, she was so radiant and so\nrosy; and we both enjoyed the whole day and slept soundly the whole\nnight.\n\nThere was a favourite spot of mine in the park-woods of Chesney Wold\nwhere a seat had been erected commanding a lovely view. The wood had\nbeen cleared and opened to improve this point of sight, and the\nbright sunny landscape beyond was so beautiful that I rested there at\nleast once every day. A picturesque part of the Hall, called the\nGhost's Walk, was seen to advantage from this higher ground; and the\nstartling name, and the old legend in the Dedlock family which I had\nheard from Mr. Boythorn accounting for it, mingled with the view and\ngave it something of a mysterious interest in addition to its real\ncharms. There was a bank here, too, which was a famous one for\nviolets; and as it was a daily delight of Charley's to gather wild\nflowers, she took as much to the spot as I did.\n\nIt would be idle to inquire now why I never went close to the house\nor never went inside it. The family were not there, I had heard on my\narrival, and were not expected. I was far from being incurious or\nuninterested about the building; on the contrary, I often sat in this\nplace wondering how the rooms ranged and whether any echo like a\nfootstep really did resound at times, as the story said, upon the\nlonely Ghost's Walk. The indefinable feeling with which Lady Dedlock\nhad impressed me may have had some influence in keeping me from the\nhouse even when she was absent. I am not sure. Her face and figure\nwere associated with it, naturally; but I cannot say that they\nrepelled me from it, though something did. For whatever reason or no\nreason, I had never once gone near it, down to the day at which my\nstory now arrives.\n\nI was resting at my favourite point after a long ramble, and Charley\nwas gathering violets at a little distance from me. I had been\nlooking at the Ghost's Walk lying in a deep shade of masonry afar off\nand picturing to myself the female shape that was said to haunt it\nwhen I became aware of a figure approaching through the wood. The\nperspective was so long and so darkened by leaves, and the shadows of\nthe branches on the ground made it so much more intricate to the eye,\nthat at first I could not discern what figure it was. By little and\nlittle it revealed itself to be a woman's--a lady's--Lady Dedlock's.\nShe was alone and coming to where I sat with a much quicker step, I\nobserved to my surprise, than was usual with her.\n\nI was fluttered by her being unexpectedly so near (she was almost\nwithin speaking distance before I knew her) and would have risen to\ncontinue my walk. But I could not. I was rendered motionless. Not so\nmuch by her hurried gesture of entreaty, not so much by her quick\nadvance and outstretched hands, not so much by the great change in\nher manner and the absence of her haughty self-restraint, as by a\nsomething in her face that I had pined for and dreamed of when I was\na little child, something I had never seen in any face, something I\nhad never seen in hers before.\n\nA dread and faintness fell upon me, and I called to Charley. Lady\nDedlock stopped upon the instant and changed back almost to what I\nhad known her.\n\n\"Miss Summerson, I am afraid I have startled you,\" she said, now\nadvancing slowly. \"You can scarcely be strong yet. You have been very\nill, I know. I have been much concerned to hear it.\"\n\nI could no more have removed my eyes from her pale face than I could\nhave stirred from the bench on which I sat. She gave me her hand, and\nits deadly coldness, so at variance with the enforced composure of\nher features, deepened the fascination that overpowered me. I cannot\nsay what was in my whirling thoughts.\n\n\"You are recovering again?\" she asked kindly.\n\n\"I was quite well but a moment ago, Lady Dedlock.\"\n\n\"Is this your young attendant?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Will you send her on before and walk towards your house with me?\"\n\n\"Charley,\" said I, \"take your flowers home, and I will follow you\ndirectly.\"\n\nCharley, with her best curtsy, blushingly tied on her bonnet and went\nher way. When she was gone, Lady Dedlock sat down on the seat beside\nme.\n\nI cannot tell in any words what the state of my mind was when I saw\nin her hand my handkerchief with which I had covered the dead baby.\n\nI looked at her, but I could not see her, I could not hear her, I\ncould not draw my breath. The beating of my heart was so violent and\nwild that I felt as if my life were breaking from me. But when she\ncaught me to her breast, kissed me, wept over me, compassionated me,\nand called me back to myself; when she fell down on her knees and\ncried to me, \"Oh, my child, my child, I am your wicked and unhappy\nmother! Oh, try to forgive me!\"--when I saw her at my feet on the\nbare earth in her great agony of mind, I felt, through all my tumult\nof emotion, a burst of gratitude to the providence of God that I was\nso changed as that I never could disgrace her by any trace of\nlikeness, as that nobody could ever now look at me and look at her\nand remotely think of any near tie between us.\n\nI raised my mother up, praying and beseeching her not to stoop before\nme in such affliction and humiliation. I did so in broken, incoherent\nwords, for besides the trouble I was in, it frightened me to see her\nat MY feet. I told her--or I tried to tell her--that if it were for\nme, her child, under any circumstances to take upon me to forgive\nher, I did it, and had done it, many, many years. I told her that my\nheart overflowed with love for her, that it was natural love which\nnothing in the past had changed or could change. That it was not for\nme, then resting for the first time on my mother's bosom, to take her\nto account for having given me life, but that my duty was to bless\nher and receive her, though the whole world turned from her, and that\nI only asked her leave to do it. I held my mother in my embrace, and\nshe held me in hers, and among the still woods in the silence of the\nsummer day there seemed to be nothing but our two troubled minds that\nwas not at peace.\n\n\"To bless and receive me,\" groaned my mother, \"it is far too late. I\nmust travel my dark road alone, and it will lead me where it will.\nFrom day to day, sometimes from hour to hour, I do not see the way\nbefore my guilty feet. This is the earthly punishment I have brought\nupon myself. I bear it, and I hide it.\"\n\nEven in the thinking of her endurance, she drew her habitual air of\nproud indifference about her like a veil, though she soon cast it off\nagain.\n\n\"I must keep this secret, if by any means it can be kept, not wholly\nfor myself. I have a husband, wretched and dishonouring creature that\nI am!\"\n\nThese words she uttered with a suppressed cry of despair, more\nterrible in its sound than any shriek. Covering her face with her\nhands, she shrank down in my embrace as if she were unwilling that I\nshould touch her; nor could I, by my utmost persuasions or by any\nendearments I could use, prevail upon her to rise. She said, no, no,\nno, she could only speak to me so; she must be proud and disdainful\neverywhere else; she would be humbled and ashamed there, in the only\nnatural moments of her life.\n\nMy unhappy mother told me that in my illness she had been nearly\nfrantic. She had but then known that her child was living. She could\nnot have suspected me to be that child before. She had followed me\ndown here to speak to me but once in all her life. We never could\nassociate, never could communicate, never probably from that time\nforth could interchange another word on earth. She put into my hands\na letter she had written for my reading only and said when I had read\nit and destroyed it--but not so much for her sake, since she asked\nnothing, as for her husband's and my own--I must evermore consider\nher as dead. If I could believe that she loved me, in this agony in\nwhich I saw her, with a mother's love, she asked me to do that, for\nthen I might think of her with a greater pity, imagining what she\nsuffered. She had put herself beyond all hope and beyond all help.\nWhether she preserved her secret until death or it came to be\ndiscovered and she brought dishonour and disgrace upon the name she\nhad taken, it was her solitary struggle always; and no affection\ncould come near her, and no human creature could render her any aid.\n\n\"But is the secret safe so far?\" I asked. \"Is it safe now, dearest\nmother?\"\n\n\"No,\" replied my mother. \"It has been very near discovery. It was\nsaved by an accident. It may be lost by another accident--to-morrow,\nany day.\"\n\n\"Do you dread a particular person?\"\n\n\"Hush! Do not tremble and cry so much for me. I am not worthy of\nthese tears,\" said my mother, kissing my hands. \"I dread one person\nvery much.\"\n\n\"An enemy?\"\n\n\"Not a friend. One who is too passionless to be either. He is Sir\nLeicester Dedlock's lawyer, mechanically faithful without attachment,\nand very jealous of the profit, privilege, and reputation of being\nmaster of the mysteries of great houses.\"\n\n\"Has he any suspicions?\"\n\n\"Many.\"\n\n\"Not of you?\" I said alarmed.\n\n\"Yes! He is always vigilant and always near me. I may keep him at a\nstandstill, but I can never shake him off.\"\n\n\"Has he so little pity or compunction?\"\n\n\"He has none, and no anger. He is indifferent to everything but his\ncalling. His calling is the acquisition of secrets and the holding\npossession of such power as they give him, with no sharer or opponent\nin it.\"\n\n\"Could you trust in him?\"\n\n\"I shall never try. The dark road I have trodden for so many years\nwill end where it will. I follow it alone to the end, whatever the\nend be. It may be near, it may be distant; while the road lasts,\nnothing turns me.\"\n\n\"Dear mother, are you so resolved?\"\n\n\"I AM resolved. I have long outbidden folly with folly, pride with\npride, scorn with scorn, insolence with insolence, and have outlived\nmany vanities with many more. I will outlive this danger, and outdie\nit, if I can. It has closed around me almost as awfully as if these\nwoods of Chesney Wold had closed around the house, but my course\nthrough it is the same. I have but one; I can have but one.\"\n\n\"Mr. Jarndyce--\" I was beginning when my mother hurriedly inquired,\n\"Does HE suspect?\"\n\n\"No,\" said I. \"No, indeed! Be assured that he does not!\" And I told\nher what he had related to me as his knowledge of my story. \"But he\nis so good and sensible,\" said I, \"that perhaps if he knew--\"\n\nMy mother, who until this time had made no change in her position,\nraised her hand up to my lips and stopped me.\n\n\"Confide fully in him,\" she said after a little while. \"You have my\nfree consent--a small gift from such a mother to her injured\nchild!--but do not tell me of it. Some pride is left in me even yet.\"\n\nI explained, as nearly as I could then, or can recall now--for my\nagitation and distress throughout were so great that I scarcely\nunderstood myself, though every word that was uttered in the mother's\nvoice, so unfamiliar and so melancholy to me, which in my childhood I\nhad never learned to love and recognize, had never been sung to sleep\nwith, had never heard a blessing from, had never had a hope inspired\nby, made an enduring impression on my memory--I say I explained, or\ntried to do it, how I had only hoped that Mr. Jarndyce, who had been\nthe best of fathers to me, might be able to afford some counsel and\nsupport to her. But my mother answered no, it was impossible; no one\ncould help her. Through the desert that lay before her, she must go\nalone.\n\n\"My child, my child!\" she said. \"For the last time! These kisses for\nthe last time! These arms upon my neck for the last time! We shall\nmeet no more. To hope to do what I seek to do, I must be what I have\nbeen so long. Such is my reward and doom. If you hear of Lady\nDedlock, brilliant, prosperous, and flattered, think of your wretched\nmother, conscience-stricken, underneath that mask! Think that the\nreality is in her suffering, in her useless remorse, in her murdering\nwithin her breast the only love and truth of which it is capable! And\nthen forgive her if you can, and cry to heaven to forgive her, which\nit never can!\"\n\nWe held one another for a little space yet, but she was so firm that\nshe took my hands away, and put them back against my breast, and with\na last kiss as she held them there, released them, and went from me\ninto the wood. I was alone, and calm and quiet below me in the sun\nand shade lay the old house, with its terraces and turrets, on which\nthere had seemed to me to be such complete repose when I first saw\nit, but which now looked like the obdurate and unpitying watcher of\nmy mother's misery.\n\nStunned as I was, as weak and helpless at first as I had ever been in\nmy sick chamber, the necessity of guarding against the danger of\ndiscovery, or even of the remotest suspicion, did me service. I took\nsuch precautions as I could to hide from Charley that I had been\ncrying, and I constrained myself to think of every sacred obligation\nthat there was upon me to be careful and collected. It was not a\nlittle while before I could succeed or could even restrain bursts of\ngrief, but after an hour or so I was better and felt that I might\nreturn. I went home very slowly and told Charley, whom I found at the\ngate looking for me, that I had been tempted to extend my walk after\nLady Dedlock had left me and that I was over-tired and would lie\ndown. Safe in my own room, I read the letter. I clearly derived from\nit--and that was much then--that I had not been abandoned by my\nmother. Her elder and only sister, the godmother of my childhood,\ndiscovering signs of life in me when I had been laid aside as dead,\nhad in her stern sense of duty, with no desire or willingness that I\nshould live, reared me in rigid secrecy and had never again beheld my\nmother's face from within a few hours of my birth. So strangely did I\nhold my place in this world that until within a short time back I had\nnever, to my own mother's knowledge, breathed--had been buried--had\nnever been endowed with life--had never borne a name. When she had\nfirst seen me in the church she had been startled and had thought of\nwhat would have been like me if it had ever lived, and had lived on,\nbut that was all then.\n\nWhat more the letter told me needs not to be repeated here. It has\nits own times and places in my story.\n\nMy first care was to burn what my mother had written and to consume\neven its ashes. I hope it may not appear very unnatural or bad in me\nthat I then became heavily sorrowful to think I had ever been reared.\nThat I felt as if I knew it would have been better and happier for\nmany people if indeed I had never breathed. That I had a terror of\nmyself as the danger and the possible disgrace of my own mother and\nof a proud family name. That I was so confused and shaken as to be\npossessed by a belief that it was right and had been intended that I\nshould die in my birth, and that it was wrong and not intended that I\nshould be then alive.\n\nThese are the real feelings that I had. I fell asleep worn out, and\nwhen I awoke I cried afresh to think that I was back in the world\nwith my load of trouble for others. I was more than ever frightened\nof myself, thinking anew of her against whom I was a witness, of the\nowner of Chesney Wold, of the new and terrible meaning of the old\nwords now moaning in my ear like a surge upon the shore, \"Your\nmother, Esther, was your disgrace, and you are hers. The time will\ncome--and soon enough--when you will understand this better, and will\nfeel it too, as no one save a woman can.\" With them, those other\nwords returned, \"Pray daily that the sins of others be not visited\nupon your head.\" I could not disentangle all that was about me, and I\nfelt as if the blame and the shame were all in me, and the visitation\nhad come down.\n\nThe day waned into a gloomy evening, overcast and sad, and I still\ncontended with the same distress. I went out alone, and after walking\na little in the park, watching the dark shades falling on the trees\nand the fitful flight of the bats, which sometimes almost touched me,\nwas attracted to the house for the first time. Perhaps I might not\nhave gone near it if I had been in a stronger frame of mind. As it\nwas, I took the path that led close by it.\n\nI did not dare to linger or to look up, but I passed before the\nterrace garden with its fragrant odours, and its broad walks, and its\nwell-kept beds and smooth turf; and I saw how beautiful and grave it\nwas, and how the old stone balustrades and parapets, and wide flights\nof shallow steps, were seamed by time and weather; and how the\ntrained moss and ivy grew about them, and around the old stone\npedestal of the sun-dial; and I heard the fountain falling. Then the\nway went by long lines of dark windows diversified by turreted towers\nand porches of eccentric shapes, where old stone lions and grotesque\nmonsters bristled outside dens of shadow and snarled at the evening\ngloom over the escutcheons they held in their grip. Thence the path\nwound underneath a gateway, and through a court-yard where the\nprincipal entrance was (I hurried quickly on), and by the stables\nwhere none but deep voices seemed to be, whether in the murmuring of\nthe wind through the strong mass of ivy holding to a high red wall,\nor in the low complaining of the weathercock, or in the barking of\nthe dogs, or in the slow striking of a clock. So, encountering\npresently a sweet smell of limes, whose rustling I could hear, I\nturned with the turning of the path to the south front, and there\nabove me were the balustrades of the Ghost's Walk and one lighted\nwindow that might be my mother's.\n\nThe way was paved here, like the terrace overhead, and my footsteps\nfrom being noiseless made an echoing sound upon the flags. Stopping\nto look at nothing, but seeing all I did see as I went, I was passing\nquickly on, and in a few moments should have passed the lighted\nwindow, when my echoing footsteps brought it suddenly into my mind\nthat there was a dreadful truth in the legend of the Ghost's Walk,\nthat it was I who was to bring calamity upon the stately house and\nthat my warning feet were haunting it even then. Seized with an\naugmented terror of myself which turned me cold, I ran from myself\nand everything, retraced the way by which I had come, and never\npaused until I had gained the lodge-gate, and the park lay sullen and\nblack behind me.\n\nNot before I was alone in my own room for the night and had again\nbeen dejected and unhappy there did I begin to know how wrong and\nthankless this state was. But from my darling who was coming on the\nmorrow, I found a joyful letter, full of such loving anticipation\nthat I must have been of marble if it had not moved me; from my\nguardian, too, I found another letter, asking me to tell Dame Durden,\nif I should see that little woman anywhere, that they had moped most\npitiably without her, that the housekeeping was going to rack and\nruin, that nobody else could manage the keys, and that everybody in\nand about the house declared it was not the same house and was\nbecoming rebellious for her return. Two such letters together made me\nthink how far beyond my deserts I was beloved and how happy I ought\nto be. That made me think of all my past life; and that brought me,\nas it ought to have done before, into a better condition.\n\nFor I saw very well that I could not have been intended to die, or I\nshould never have lived; not to say should never have been reserved\nfor such a happy life. I saw very well how many things had worked\ntogether for my welfare, and that if the sins of the fathers were\nsometimes visited upon the children, the phrase did not mean what I\nhad in the morning feared it meant. I knew I was as innocent of my\nbirth as a queen of hers and that before my Heavenly Father I should\nnot be punished for birth nor a queen rewarded for it. I had had\nexperience, in the shock of that very day, that I could, even thus\nsoon, find comforting reconcilements to the change that had fallen on\nme. I renewed my resolutions and prayed to be strengthened in them,\npouring out my heart for myself and for my unhappy mother and feeling\nthat the darkness of the morning was passing away. It was not upon my\nsleep; and when the next day's light awoke me, it was gone.\n\nMy dear girl was to arrive at five o'clock in the afternoon. How to\nhelp myself through the intermediate time better than by taking a\nlong walk along the road by which she was to come, I did not know; so\nCharley and I and Stubbs--Stubbs saddled, for we never drove him\nafter the one great occasion--made a long expedition along that road\nand back. On our return, we held a great review of the house and\ngarden and saw that everything was in its prettiest condition, and\nhad the bird out ready as an important part of the establishment.\n\nThere were more than two full hours yet to elapse before she could\ncome, and in that interval, which seemed a long one, I must confess I\nwas nervously anxious about my altered looks. I loved my darling so\nwell that I was more concerned for their effect on her than on any\none. I was not in this slight distress because I at all repined--I am\nquite certain I did not, that day--but, I thought, would she be\nwholly prepared? When she first saw me, might she not be a little\nshocked and disappointed? Might it not prove a little worse than she\nexpected? Might she not look for her old Esther and not find her?\nMight she not have to grow used to me and to begin all over again?\n\nI knew the various expressions of my sweet girl's face so well, and\nit was such an honest face in its loveliness, that I was sure\nbeforehand she could not hide that first look from me. And I\nconsidered whether, if it should signify any one of these meanings,\nwhich was so very likely, could I quite answer for myself?\n\nWell, I thought I could. After last night, I thought I could. But to\nwait and wait, and expect and expect, and think and think, was such\nbad preparation that I resolved to go along the road again and meet\nher.\n\nSo I said to Charley, \"Charley, I will go by myself and walk along\nthe road until she comes.\" Charley highly approving of anything that\npleased me, I went and left her at home.\n\nBut before I got to the second milestone, I had been in so many\npalpitations from seeing dust in the distance (though I knew it was\nnot, and could not, be the coach yet) that I resolved to turn back\nand go home again. And when I had turned, I was in such fear of the\ncoach coming up behind me (though I still knew that it neither would,\nnor could, do any such thing) that I ran the greater part of the way\nto avoid being overtaken.\n\nThen, I considered, when I had got safe back again, this was a nice\nthing to have done! Now I was hot and had made the worst of it\ninstead of the best.\n\nAt last, when I believed there was at least a quarter of an hour more\nyet, Charley all at once cried out to me as I was trembling in the\ngarden, \"Here she comes, miss! Here she is!\"\n\nI did not mean to do it, but I ran upstairs into my room and hid\nmyself behind the door. There I stood trembling, even when I heard my\ndarling calling as she came upstairs, \"Esther, my dear, my love,\nwhere are you? Little woman, dear Dame Durden!\"\n\nShe ran in, and was running out again when she saw me. Ah, my angel\ngirl! The old dear look, all love, all fondness, all affection.\nNothing else in it--no, nothing, nothing!\n\nOh, how happy I was, down upon the floor, with my sweet beautiful\ngirl down upon the floor too, holding my scarred face to her lovely\ncheek, bathing it with tears and kisses, rocking me to and fro like a\nchild, calling me by every tender name that she could think of, and\npressing me to her faithful heart.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVII\n\nJarndyce and Jarndyce\n\n\nIf the secret I had to keep had been mine, I must have confided it to\nAda before we had been long together. But it was not mine, and I did\nnot feel that I had a right to tell it, even to my guardian, unless\nsome great emergency arose. It was a weight to bear alone; still my\npresent duty appeared to be plain, and blest in the attachment of my\ndear, I did not want an impulse and encouragement to do it. Though\noften when she was asleep and all was quiet, the remembrance of my\nmother kept me waking and made the night sorrowful, I did not yield\nto it at another time; and Ada found me what I used to be--except, of\ncourse, in that particular of which I have said enough and which I\nhave no intention of mentioning any more just now, if I can help it.\n\nThe difficulty that I felt in being quite composed that first evening\nwhen Ada asked me, over our work, if the family were at the house,\nand when I was obliged to answer yes, I believed so, for Lady Dedlock\nhad spoken to me in the woods the day before yesterday, was great.\nGreater still when Ada asked me what she had said, and when I replied\nthat she had been kind and interested, and when Ada, while admitting\nher beauty and elegance, remarked upon her proud manner and her\nimperious chilling air. But Charley helped me through, unconsciously,\nby telling us that Lady Dedlock had only stayed at the house two\nnights on her way from London to visit at some other great house in\nthe next county and that she had left early on the morning after we\nhad seen her at our view, as we called it. Charley verified the adage\nabout little pitchers, I am sure, for she heard of more sayings and\ndoings in a day than would have come to my ears in a month.\n\nWe were to stay a month at Mr. Boythorn's. My pet had scarcely been\nthere a bright week, as I recollect the time, when one evening after\nwe had finished helping the gardener in watering his flowers, and\njust as the candles were lighted, Charley, appearing with a very\nimportant air behind Ada's chair, beckoned me mysteriously out of the\nroom.\n\n\"Oh! If you please, miss,\" said Charley in a whisper, with her eyes\nat their roundest and largest. \"You're wanted at the Dedlock Arms.\"\n\n\"Why, Charley,\" said I, \"who can possibly want me at the\npublic-house?\"\n\n\"I don't know, miss,\" returned Charley, putting her head forward and\nfolding her hands tight upon the band of her little apron, which she\nalways did in the enjoyment of anything mysterious or confidential,\n\"but it's a gentleman, miss, and his compliments, and will you please\nto come without saying anything about it.\"\n\n\"Whose compliments, Charley?\"\n\n\"His'n, miss,\" returned Charley, whose grammatical education was\nadvancing, but not very rapidly.\n\n\"And how do you come to be the messenger, Charley?\"\n\n\"I am not the messenger, if you please, miss,\" returned my little\nmaid. \"It was W. Grubble, miss.\"\n\n\"And who is W. Grubble, Charley?\"\n\n\"Mister Grubble, miss,\" returned Charley. \"Don't you know, miss? The\nDedlock Arms, by W. Grubble,\" which Charley delivered as if she were\nslowly spelling out the sign.\n\n\"Aye? The landlord, Charley?\"\n\n\"Yes, miss. If you please, miss, his wife is a beautiful woman, but\nshe broke her ankle, and it never joined. And her brother's the\nsawyer that was put in the cage, miss, and they expect he'll drink\nhimself to death entirely on beer,\" said Charley.\n\nNot knowing what might be the matter, and being easily apprehensive\nnow, I thought it best to go to this place by myself. I bade Charley\nbe quick with my bonnet and veil and my shawl, and having put them\non, went away down the little hilly street, where I was as much at\nhome as in Mr. Boythorn's garden.\n\nMr. Grubble was standing in his shirt-sleeves at the door of his very\nclean little tavern waiting for me. He lifted off his hat with both\nhands when he saw me coming, and carrying it so, as if it were an\niron vessel (it looked as heavy), preceded me along the sanded\npassage to his best parlour, a neat carpeted room with more plants in\nit than were quite convenient, a coloured print of Queen Caroline,\nseveral shells, a good many tea-trays, two stuffed and dried fish in\nglass cases, and either a curious egg or a curious pumpkin (but I\ndon't know which, and I doubt if many people did) hanging from his\nceiling. I knew Mr. Grubble very well by sight, from his often\nstanding at his door. A pleasant-looking, stoutish, middle-aged man\nwho never seemed to consider himself cozily dressed for his own\nfire-side without his hat and top-boots, but who never wore a coat\nexcept at church.\n\nHe snuffed the candle, and backing away a little to see how it\nlooked, backed out of the room--unexpectedly to me, for I was going\nto ask him by whom he had been sent. The door of the opposite parlour\nbeing then opened, I heard some voices, familiar in my ears I\nthought, which stopped. A quick light step approached the room in\nwhich I was, and who should stand before me but Richard!\n\n\"My dear Esther!\" he said. \"My best friend!\" And he really was so\nwarm-hearted and earnest that in the first surprise and pleasure of\nhis brotherly greeting I could scarcely find breath to tell him that\nAda was well.\n\n\"Answering my very thoughts--always the same dear girl!\" said\nRichard, leading me to a chair and seating himself beside me.\n\nI put my veil up, but not quite.\n\n\"Always the same dear girl!\" said Richard just as heartily as before.\n\nI put up my veil altogether, and laying my hand on Richard's sleeve\nand looking in his face, told him how much I thanked him for his kind\nwelcome and how greatly I rejoiced to see him, the more so because of\nthe determination I had made in my illness, which I now conveyed to\nhim.\n\n\"My love,\" said Richard, \"there is no one with whom I have a greater\nwish to talk than you, for I want you to understand me.\"\n\n\"And I want you, Richard,\" said I, shaking my head, \"to understand\nsome one else.\"\n\n\"Since you refer so immediately to John Jarndyce,\" said Richard, \"--I\nsuppose you mean him?\"\n\n\"Of course I do.\"\n\n\"Then I may say at once that I am glad of it, because it is on that\nsubject that I am anxious to be understood. By you, mind--you, my\ndear! I am not accountable to Mr. Jarndyce or Mr. Anybody.\"\n\nI was pained to find him taking this tone, and he observed it.\n\n\"Well, well, my dear,\" said Richard, \"we won't go into that now. I\nwant to appear quietly in your country-house here, with you under my\narm, and give my charming cousin a surprise. I suppose your loyalty\nto John Jarndyce will allow that?\"\n\n\"My dear Richard,\" I returned, \"you know you would be heartily\nwelcome at his house--your home, if you will but consider it so; and\nyou are as heartily welcome here!\"\n\n\"Spoken like the best of little women!\" cried Richard gaily.\n\nI asked him how he liked his profession.\n\n\"Oh, I like it well enough!\" said Richard. \"It's all right. It does\nas well as anything else, for a time. I don't know that I shall care\nabout it when I come to be settled, but I can sell out then\nand--however, never mind all that botheration at present.\"\n\nSo young and handsome, and in all respects so perfectly the opposite\nof Miss Flite! And yet, in the clouded, eager, seeking look that\npassed over him, so dreadfully like her!\n\n\"I am in town on leave just now,\" said Richard.\n\n\"Indeed?\"\n\n\"Yes. I have run over to look after my--my Chancery interests before\nthe long vacation,\" said Richard, forcing a careless laugh. \"We are\nbeginning to spin along with that old suit at last, I promise you.\"\n\nNo wonder that I shook my head!\n\n\"As you say, it's not a pleasant subject.\" Richard spoke with the\nsame shade crossing his face as before. \"Let it go to the four winds\nfor to-night. Puff! Gone! Who do you suppose is with me?\"\n\n\"Was it Mr. Skimpole's voice I heard?\"\n\n\"That's the man! He does me more good than anybody. What a\nfascinating child it is!\"\n\nI asked Richard if any one knew of their coming down together. He\nanswered, no, nobody. He had been to call upon the dear old\ninfant--so he called Mr. Skimpole--and the dear old infant had told\nhim where we were, and he had told the dear old infant he was bent on\ncoming to see us, and the dear old infant had directly wanted to come\ntoo; and so he had brought him. \"And he is worth--not to say his\nsordid expenses--but thrice his weight in gold,\" said Richard. \"He is\nsuch a cheery fellow. No worldliness about him. Fresh and\ngreen-hearted!\"\n\nI certainly did not see the proof of Mr. Skimpole's worldliness in\nhis having his expenses paid by Richard, but I made no remark about\nthat. Indeed, he came in and turned our conversation. He was charmed\nto see me, said he had been shedding delicious tears of joy and\nsympathy at intervals for six weeks on my account, had never been so\nhappy as in hearing of my progress, began to understand the mixture\nof good and evil in the world now, felt that he appreciated health\nthe more when somebody else was ill, didn't know but what it might be\nin the scheme of things that A should squint to make B happier in\nlooking straight or that C should carry a wooden leg to make D better\nsatisfied with his flesh and blood in a silk stocking.\n\n\"My dear Miss Summerson, here is our friend Richard,\" said Mr.\nSkimpole, \"full of the brightest visions of the future, which he\nevokes out of the darkness of Chancery. Now that's delightful, that's\ninspiriting, that's full of poetry! In old times the woods and\nsolitudes were made joyous to the shepherd by the imaginary piping\nand dancing of Pan and the nymphs. This present shepherd, our\npastoral Richard, brightens the dull Inns of Court by making Fortune\nand her train sport through them to the melodious notes of a judgment\nfrom the bench. That's very pleasant, you know! Some ill-conditioned\ngrowling fellow may say to me, 'What's the use of these legal and\nequitable abuses? How do you defend them?' I reply, 'My growling\nfriend, I DON'T defend them, but they are very agreeable to me. There\nis a shepherd--youth, a friend of mine, who transmutes them into\nsomething highly fascinating to my simplicity. I don't say it is for\nthis that they exist--for I am a child among you worldly grumblers,\nand not called upon to account to you or myself for anything--but it\nmay be so.'\"\n\nI began seriously to think that Richard could scarcely have found a\nworse friend than this. It made me uneasy that at such a time when he\nmost required some right principle and purpose he should have this\ncaptivating looseness and putting-off of everything, this airy\ndispensing with all principle and purpose, at his elbow. I thought I\ncould understand how such a nature as my guardian's, experienced in\nthe world and forced to contemplate the miserable evasions and\ncontentions of the family misfortune, found an immense relief in Mr.\nSkimpole's avowal of his weaknesses and display of guileless candour;\nbut I could not satisfy myself that it was as artless as it seemed or\nthat it did not serve Mr. Skimpole's idle turn quite as well as any\nother part, and with less trouble.\n\nThey both walked back with me, and Mr. Skimpole leaving us at the\ngate, I walked softly in with Richard and said, \"Ada, my love, I have\nbrought a gentleman to visit you.\" It was not difficult to read the\nblushing, startled face. She loved him dearly, and he knew it, and I\nknew it. It was a very transparent business, that meeting as cousins\nonly.\n\nI almost mistrusted myself as growing quite wicked in my suspicions,\nbut I was not so sure that Richard loved her dearly. He admired her\nvery much--any one must have done that--and I dare say would have\nrenewed their youthful engagement with great pride and ardour but\nthat he knew how she would respect her promise to my guardian. Still\nI had a tormenting idea that the influence upon him extended even\nhere, that he was postponing his best truth and earnestness in this\nas in all things until Jarndyce and Jarndyce should be off his mind.\nAh me! What Richard would have been without that blight, I never\nshall know now!\n\nHe told Ada, in his most ingenuous way, that he had not come to make\nany secret inroad on the terms she had accepted (rather too\nimplicitly and confidingly, he thought) from Mr. Jarndyce, that he\nhad come openly to see her and to see me and to justify himself for\nthe present terms on which he stood with Mr. Jarndyce. As the dear\nold infant would be with us directly, he begged that I would make an\nappointment for the morning, when he might set himself right through\nthe means of an unreserved conversation with me. I proposed to walk\nwith him in the park at seven o'clock, and this was arranged. Mr.\nSkimpole soon afterwards appeared and made us merry for an hour. He\nparticularly requested to see little Coavinses (meaning Charley) and\ntold her, with a patriarchal air, that he had given her late father\nall the business in his power and that if one of her little brothers\nwould make haste to get set up in the same profession, he hoped he\nshould still be able to put a good deal of employment in his way.\n\n\"For I am constantly being taken in these nets,\" said Mr. Skimpole,\nlooking beamingly at us over a glass of wine-and-water, \"and am\nconstantly being bailed out--like a boat. Or paid off--like a ship's\ncompany. Somebody always does it for me. I can't do it, you know, for\nI never have any money. But somebody does it. I get out by somebody's\nmeans; I am not like the starling; I get out. If you were to ask me\nwho somebody is, upon my word I couldn't tell you. Let us drink to\nsomebody. God bless him!\"\n\nRichard was a little late in the morning, but I had not to wait for\nhim long, and we turned into the park. The air was bright and dewy\nand the sky without a cloud. The birds sang delightfully; the\nsparkles in the fern, the grass, and trees, were exquisite to see;\nthe richness of the woods seemed to have increased twenty-fold since\nyesterday, as if, in the still night when they had looked so\nmassively hushed in sleep, Nature, through all the minute details of\nevery wonderful leaf, had been more wakeful than usual for the glory\nof that day.\n\n\"This is a lovely place,\" said Richard, looking round. \"None of the\njar and discord of law-suits here!\"\n\nBut there was other trouble.\n\n\"I tell you what, my dear girl,\" said Richard, \"when I get affairs in\ngeneral settled, I shall come down here, I think, and rest.\"\n\n\"Would it not be better to rest now?\" I asked.\n\n\"Oh, as to resting NOW,\" said Richard, \"or as to doing anything very\ndefinite NOW, that's not easy. In short, it can't be done; I can't do\nit at least.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" said I.\n\n\"You know why not, Esther. If you were living in an unfinished house,\nliable to have the roof put on or taken off--to be from top to bottom\npulled down or built up--to-morrow, next day, next week, next month,\nnext year--you would find it hard to rest or settle. So do I. Now?\nThere's no now for us suitors.\"\n\nI could almost have believed in the attraction on which my poor\nlittle wandering friend had expatiated when I saw again the darkened\nlook of last night. Terrible to think it had in it also a shade of\nthat unfortunate man who had died.\n\n\"My dear Richard,\" said I, \"this is a bad beginning of our\nconversation.\"\n\n\"I knew you would tell me so, Dame Durden.\"\n\n\"And not I alone, dear Richard. It was not I who cautioned you once\nnever to found a hope or expectation on the family curse.\"\n\n\"There you come back to John Jarndyce!\" said Richard impatiently.\n\"Well! We must approach him sooner or later, for he is the staple of\nwhat I have to say, and it's as well at once. My dear Esther, how can\nyou be so blind? Don't you see that he is an interested party and\nthat it may be very well for him to wish me to know nothing of the\nsuit, and care nothing about it, but that it may not be quite so well\nfor me?\"\n\n\"Oh, Richard,\" I remonstrated, \"is it possible that you can ever have\nseen him and heard him, that you can ever have lived under his roof\nand known him, and can yet breathe, even to me in this solitary place\nwhere there is no one to hear us, such unworthy suspicions?\"\n\nHe reddened deeply, as if his natural generosity felt a pang of\nreproach. He was silent for a little while before he replied in a\nsubdued voice, \"Esther, I am sure you know that I am not a mean\nfellow and that I have some sense of suspicion and distrust being\npoor qualities in one of my years.\"\n\n\"I know it very well,\" said I. \"I am not more sure of anything.\"\n\n\"That's a dear girl,\" retorted Richard, \"and like you, because it\ngives me comfort. I had need to get some scrap of comfort out of all\nthis business, for it's a bad one at the best, as I have no occasion\nto tell you.\"\n\n\"I know perfectly,\" said I. \"I know as well, Richard--what shall I\nsay? as well as you do--that such misconstructions are foreign to\nyour nature. And I know, as well as you know, what so changes it.\"\n\n\"Come, sister, come,\" said Richard a little more gaily, \"you will be\nfair with me at all events. If I have the misfortune to be under that\ninfluence, so has he. If it has a little twisted me, it may have a\nlittle twisted him too. I don't say that he is not an honourable man,\nout of all this complication and uncertainty; I am sure he is. But it\ntaints everybody. You know it taints everybody. You have heard him\nsay so fifty times. Then why should HE escape?\"\n\n\"Because,\" said I, \"his is an uncommon character, and he has\nresolutely kept himself outside the circle, Richard.\"\n\n\"Oh, because and because!\" replied Richard in his vivacious way. \"I\nam not sure, my dear girl, but that it may be wise and specious to\npreserve that outward indifference. It may cause other parties\ninterested to become lax about their interests; and people may die\noff, and points may drag themselves out of memory, and many things\nmay smoothly happen that are convenient enough.\"\n\nI was so touched with pity for Richard that I could not reproach him\nany more, even by a look. I remembered my guardian's gentleness\ntowards his errors and with what perfect freedom from resentment he\nhad spoken of them.\n\n\"Esther,\" Richard resumed, \"you are not to suppose that I have come\nhere to make underhanded charges against John Jarndyce. I have only\ncome to justify myself. What I say is, it was all very well and we\ngot on very well while I was a boy, utterly regardless of this same\nsuit; but as soon as I began to take an interest in it and to look\ninto it, then it was quite another thing. Then John Jarndyce\ndiscovers that Ada and I must break off and that if I don't amend\nthat very objectionable course, I am not fit for her. Now, Esther, I\ndon't mean to amend that very objectionable course: I will not hold\nJohn Jarndyce's favour on those unfair terms of compromise, which he\nhas no right to dictate. Whether it pleases him or displeases him, I\nmust maintain my rights and Ada's. I have been thinking about it a\ngood deal, and this is the conclusion I have come to.\"\n\nPoor dear Richard! He had indeed been thinking about it a good deal.\nHis face, his voice, his manner, all showed that too plainly.\n\n\"So I tell him honourably (you are to know I have written to him\nabout all this) that we are at issue and that we had better be at\nissue openly than covertly. I thank him for his goodwill and his\nprotection, and he goes his road, and I go mine. The fact is, our\nroads are not the same. Under one of the wills in dispute, I should\ntake much more than he. I don't mean to say that it is the one to be\nestablished, but there it is, and it has its chance.\"\n\n\"I have not to learn from you, my dear Richard,\" said I, \"of your\nletter. I had heard of it already without an offended or angry word.\"\n\n\"Indeed?\" replied Richard, softening. \"I am glad I said he was an\nhonourable man, out of all this wretched affair. But I always say\nthat and have never doubted it. Now, my dear Esther, I know these\nviews of mine appear extremely harsh to you, and will to Ada when you\ntell her what has passed between us. But if you had gone into the\ncase as I have, if you had only applied yourself to the papers as I\ndid when I was at Kenge's, if you only knew what an accumulation of\ncharges and counter-charges, and suspicions and cross-suspicions,\nthey involve, you would think me moderate in comparison.\"\n\n\"Perhaps so,\" said I. \"But do you think that, among those many\npapers, there is much truth and justice, Richard?\"\n\n\"There is truth and justice somewhere in the case, Esther--\"\n\n\"Or was once, long ago,\" said I.\n\n\"Is--is--must be somewhere,\" pursued Richard impetuously, \"and must\nbe brought out. To allow Ada to be made a bribe and hush-money of is\nnot the way to bring it out. You say the suit is changing me; John\nJarndyce says it changes, has changed, and will change everybody who\nhas any share in it. Then the greater right I have on my side when I\nresolve to do all I can to bring it to an end.\"\n\n\"All you can, Richard! Do you think that in these many years no\nothers have done all they could? Has the difficulty grown easier\nbecause of so many failures?\"\n\n\"It can't last for ever,\" returned Richard with a fierceness kindling\nin him which again presented to me that last sad reminder. \"I am\nyoung and earnest, and energy and determination have done wonders\nmany a time. Others have only half thrown themselves into it. I\ndevote myself to it. I make it the object of my life.\"\n\n\"Oh, Richard, my dear, so much the worse, so much the worse!\"\n\n\"No, no, no, don't you be afraid for me,\" he returned affectionately.\n\"You're a dear, good, wise, quiet, blessed girl; but you have your\nprepossessions. So I come round to John Jarndyce. I tell you, my good\nEsther, when he and I were on those terms which he found so\nconvenient, we were not on natural terms.\"\n\n\"Are division and animosity your natural terms, Richard?\"\n\n\"No, I don't say that. I mean that all this business puts us on\nunnatural terms, with which natural relations are incompatible. See\nanother reason for urging it on! I may find out when it's over that I\nhave been mistaken in John Jarndyce. My head may be clearer when I am\nfree of it, and I may then agree with what you say to-day. Very well.\nThen I shall acknowledge it and make him reparation.\"\n\nEverything postponed to that imaginary time! Everything held in\nconfusion and indecision until then!\n\n\"Now, my best of confidantes,\" said Richard, \"I want my cousin Ada to\nunderstand that I am not captious, fickle, and wilful about John\nJarndyce, but that I have this purpose and reason at my back. I wish\nto represent myself to her through you, because she has a great\nesteem and respect for her cousin John; and I know you will soften\nthe course I take, even though you disapprove of it; and--and in\nshort,\" said Richard, who had been hesitating through these words,\n\"I--I don't like to represent myself in this litigious, contentious,\ndoubting character to a confiding girl like Ada.\"\n\nI told him that he was more like himself in those latter words than\nin anything he had said yet.\n\n\"Why,\" acknowledged Richard, \"that may be true enough, my love. I\nrather feel it to be so. But I shall be able to give myself fair-play\nby and by. I shall come all right again, then, don't you be afraid.\"\n\nI asked him if this were all he wished me to tell Ada.\n\n\"Not quite,\" said Richard. \"I am bound not to withhold from her that\nJohn Jarndyce answered my letter in his usual manner, addressing me\nas 'My dear Rick,' trying to argue me out of my opinions, and telling\nme that they should make no difference in him. (All very well of\ncourse, but not altering the case.) I also want Ada to know that if I\nsee her seldom just now, I am looking after her interests as well as\nmy own--we two being in the same boat exactly--and that I hope she\nwill not suppose from any flying rumours she may hear that I am at\nall light-headed or imprudent; on the contrary, I am always looking\nforward to the termination of the suit, and always planning in that\ndirection. Being of age now and having taken the step I have taken, I\nconsider myself free from any accountability to John Jarndyce; but\nAda being still a ward of the court, I don't yet ask her to renew our\nengagement. When she is free to act for herself, I shall be myself\nonce more and we shall both be in very different worldly\ncircumstances, I believe. If you tell her all this with the advantage\nof your considerate way, you will do me a very great and a very kind\nservice, my dear Esther; and I shall knock Jarndyce and Jarndyce on\nthe head with greater vigour. Of course I ask for no secrecy at Bleak\nHouse.\"\n\n\"Richard,\" said I, \"you place great confidence in me, but I fear you\nwill not take advice from me?\"\n\n\"It's impossible that I can on this subject, my dear girl. On any\nother, readily.\"\n\nAs if there were any other in his life! As if his whole career and\ncharacter were not being dyed one colour!\n\n\"But I may ask you a question, Richard?\"\n\n\"I think so,\" said he, laughing. \"I don't know who may not, if you\nmay not.\"\n\n\"You say, yourself, you are not leading a very settled life.\"\n\n\"How can I, my dear Esther, with nothing settled!\"\n\n\"Are you in debt again?\"\n\n\"Why, of course I am,\" said Richard, astonished at my simplicity.\n\n\"Is it of course?\"\n\n\"My dear child, certainly. I can't throw myself into an object so\ncompletely without expense. You forget, or perhaps you don't know,\nthat under either of the wills Ada and I take something. It's only a\nquestion between the larger sum and the smaller. I shall be within\nthe mark any way. Bless your heart, my excellent girl,\" said Richard,\nquite amused with me, \"I shall be all right! I shall pull through, my\ndear!\"\n\nI felt so deeply sensible of the danger in which he stood that I\ntried, in Ada's name, in my guardian's, in my own, by every fervent\nmeans that I could think of, to warn him of it and to show him some\nof his mistakes. He received everything I said with patience and\ngentleness, but it all rebounded from him without taking the least\neffect. I could not wonder at this after the reception his\npreoccupied mind had given to my guardian's letter, but I determined\nto try Ada's influence yet.\n\nSo when our walk brought us round to the village again, and I went\nhome to breakfast, I prepared Ada for the account I was going to give\nher and told her exactly what reason we had to dread that Richard was\nlosing himself and scattering his whole life to the winds. It made\nher very unhappy, of course, though she had a far, far greater\nreliance on his correcting his errors than I could have--which was so\nnatural and loving in my dear!--and she presently wrote him this\nlittle letter:\n\n\n   My dearest cousin,\n\n   Esther has told me all you said to her this morning. I\n   write this to repeat most earnestly for myself all that\n   she said to you and to let you know how sure I am that\n   you will sooner or later find our cousin John a pattern\n   of truth, sincerity, and goodness, when you will deeply,\n   deeply grieve to have done him (without intending it) so\n   much wrong.\n\n   I do not quite know how to write what I wish to say next,\n   but I trust you will understand it as I mean it. I have\n   some fears, my dearest cousin, that it may be partly for\n   my sake you are now laying up so much unhappiness for\n   yourself--and if for yourself, for me. In case this should\n   be so, or in case you should entertain much thought of me\n   in what you are doing, I most earnestly entreat and beg\n   you to desist. You can do nothing for my sake that will\n   make me half so happy as for ever turning your back upon\n   the shadow in which we both were born. Do not be angry\n   with me for saying this. Pray, pray, dear Richard, for my\n   sake, and for your own, and in a natural repugnance for\n   that source of trouble which had its share in making us\n   both orphans when we were very young, pray, pray, let it\n   go for ever. We have reason to know by this time that\n   there is no good in it and no hope, that there is nothing\n   to be got from it but sorrow.\n\n   My dearest cousin, it is needless for me to say that you\n   are quite free and that it is very likely you may find\n   some one whom you will love much better than your first\n   fancy. I am quite sure, if you will let me say so, that\n   the object of your choice would greatly prefer to follow\n   your fortunes far and wide, however moderate or poor, and\n   see you happy, doing your duty and pursuing your chosen\n   way, than to have the hope of being, or even to be, very\n   rich with you (if such a thing were possible) at the cost\n   of dragging years of procrastination and anxiety and of\n   your indifference to other aims. You may wonder at my\n   saying this so confidently with so little knowledge or\n   experience, but I know it for a certainty from my own\n   heart.\n\n   Ever, my dearest cousin, your most affectionate\n\n   Ada\n\n\nThis note brought Richard to us very soon, but it made little change\nin him if any. We would fairly try, he said, who was right and who\nwas wrong--he would show us--we should see! He was animated and\nglowing, as if Ada's tenderness had gratified him; but I could only\nhope, with a sigh, that the letter might have some stronger effect\nupon his mind on re-perusal than it assuredly had then.\n\nAs they were to remain with us that day and had taken their places to\nreturn by the coach next morning, I sought an opportunity of speaking\nto Mr. Skimpole. Our out-of-door life easily threw one in my way, and\nI delicately said that there was a responsibility in encouraging\nRichard.\n\n\"Responsibility, my dear Miss Summerson?\" he repeated, catching at\nthe word with the pleasantest smile. \"I am the last man in the world\nfor such a thing. I never was responsible in my life--I can't be.\"\n\n\"I am afraid everybody is obliged to be,\" said I timidly enough, he\nbeing so much older and more clever than I.\n\n\"No, really?\" said Mr. Skimpole, receiving this new light with a most\nagreeable jocularity of surprise. \"But every man's not obliged to be\nsolvent? I am not. I never was. See, my dear Miss Summerson,\" he took\na handful of loose silver and halfpence from his pocket, \"there's so\nmuch money. I have not an idea how much. I have not the power of\ncounting. Call it four and ninepence--call it four pound nine. They\ntell me I owe more than that. I dare say I do. I dare say I owe as\nmuch as good-natured people will let me owe. If they don't stop, why\nshould I? There you have Harold Skimpole in little. If that's\nresponsibility, I am responsible.\"\n\nThe perfect ease of manner with which he put the money up again and\nlooked at me with a smile on his refined face, as if he had been\nmentioning a curious little fact about somebody else, almost made me\nfeel as if he really had nothing to do with it.\n\n\"Now, when you mention responsibility,\" he resumed, \"I am disposed to\nsay that I never had the happiness of knowing any one whom I should\nconsider so refreshingly responsible as yourself. You appear to me\nto be the very touchstone of responsibility. When I see you, my\ndear Miss Summerson, intent upon the perfect working of the whole\nlittle orderly system of which you are the centre, I feel inclined\nto say to myself--in fact I do say to myself very often--THAT'S\nresponsibility!\"\n\nIt was difficult, after this, to explain what I meant; but I\npersisted so far as to say that we all hoped he would check and not\nconfirm Richard in the sanguine views he entertained just then.\n\n\"Most willingly,\" he retorted, \"if I could. But, my dear Miss\nSummerson, I have no art, no disguise. If he takes me by the hand and\nleads me through Westminster Hall in an airy procession after\nfortune, I must go. If he says, 'Skimpole, join the dance!' I must\njoin it. Common sense wouldn't, I know, but I have NO common sense.\"\n\nIt was very unfortunate for Richard, I said.\n\n\"Do you think so!\" returned Mr. Skimpole. \"Don't say that, don't say\nthat. Let us suppose him keeping company with Common Sense--an\nexcellent man--a good deal wrinkled--dreadfully practical--change for\na ten-pound note in every pocket--ruled account-book in his\nhand--say, upon the whole, resembling a tax-gatherer. Our dear\nRichard, sanguine, ardent, overleaping obstacles, bursting with\npoetry like a young bud, says to this highly respectable companion,\n'I see a golden prospect before me; it's very bright, it's very\nbeautiful, it's very joyous; here I go, bounding over the landscape\nto come at it!' The respectable companion instantly knocks him down\nwith the ruled account-book; tells him in a literal, prosaic way that\nhe sees no such thing; shows him it's nothing but fees, fraud,\nhorsehair wigs, and black gowns. Now you know that's a painful\nchange--sensible in the last degree, I have no doubt, but\ndisagreeable. I can't do it. I haven't got the ruled account-book, I\nhave none of the tax-gathering elements in my composition, I am not\nat all respectable, and I don't want to be. Odd perhaps, but so it\nis!\"\n\nIt was idle to say more, so I proposed that we should join Ada and\nRichard, who were a little in advance, and I gave up Mr. Skimpole in\ndespair. He had been over the Hall in the course of the morning and\nwhimsically described the family pictures as we walked. There were\nsuch portentous shepherdesses among the Ladies Dedlock dead and gone,\nhe told us, that peaceful crooks became weapons of assault in their\nhands. They tended their flocks severely in buckram and powder and\nput their sticking-plaster patches on to terrify commoners as the\nchiefs of some other tribes put on their war-paint. There was a Sir\nSomebody Dedlock, with a battle, a sprung-mine, volumes of smoke,\nflashes of lightning, a town on fire, and a stormed fort, all in full\naction between his horse's two hind legs, showing, he supposed, how\nlittle a Dedlock made of such trifles. The whole race he represented\nas having evidently been, in life, what he called \"stuffed people\"--a\nlarge collection, glassy eyed, set up in the most approved manner on\ntheir various twigs and perches, very correct, perfectly free from\nanimation, and always in glass cases.\n\nI was not so easy now during any reference to the name but that I\nfelt it a relief when Richard, with an exclamation of surprise,\nhurried away to meet a stranger whom he first descried coming slowly\ntowards us.\n\n\"Dear me!\" said Mr. Skimpole. \"Vholes!\"\n\nWe asked if that were a friend of Richard's.\n\n\"Friend and legal adviser,\" said Mr. Skimpole. \"Now, my dear Miss\nSummerson, if you want common sense, responsibility, and\nrespectability, all united--if you want an exemplary man--Vholes is\nTHE man.\"\n\nWe had not known, we said, that Richard was assisted by any gentleman\nof that name.\n\n\"When he emerged from legal infancy,\" returned Mr. Skimpole, \"he\nparted from our conversational friend Kenge and took up, I believe,\nwith Vholes. Indeed, I know he did, because I introduced him to\nVholes.\"\n\n\"Had you known him long?\" asked Ada.\n\n\"Vholes? My dear Miss Clare, I had had that kind of acquaintance with\nhim which I have had with several gentlemen of his profession. He had\ndone something or other in a very agreeable, civil manner--taken\nproceedings, I think, is the expression--which ended in the\nproceeding of his taking ME. Somebody was so good as to step in and\npay the money--something and fourpence was the amount; I forget the\npounds and shillings, but I know it ended with fourpence, because it\nstruck me at the time as being so odd that I could owe anybody\nfourpence--and after that I brought them together. Vholes asked me\nfor the introduction, and I gave it. Now I come to think of it,\" he\nlooked inquiringly at us with his frankest smile as he made the\ndiscovery, \"Vholes bribed me, perhaps? He gave me something and\ncalled it commission. Was it a five-pound note? Do you know, I think\nit MUST have been a five-pound note!\"\n\nHis further consideration of the point was prevented by Richard's\ncoming back to us in an excited state and hastily representing Mr.\nVholes--a sallow man with pinched lips that looked as if they were\ncold, a red eruption here and there upon his face, tall and thin,\nabout fifty years of age, high-shouldered, and stooping. Dressed in\nblack, black-gloved, and buttoned to the chin, there was nothing so\nremarkable in him as a lifeless manner and a slow, fixed way he had\nof looking at Richard.\n\n\"I hope I don't disturb you, ladies,\" said Mr. Vholes, and now I\nobserved that he was further remarkable for an inward manner of\nspeaking. \"I arranged with Mr. Carstone that he should always know\nwhen his cause was in the Chancellor's paper, and being informed by\none of my clerks last night after post time that it stood, rather\nunexpectedly, in the paper for to-morrow, I put myself into the coach\nearly this morning and came down to confer with him.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Richard, flushed, and looking triumphantly at Ada and me,\n\"we don't do these things in the old slow way now. We spin along now!\nMr. Vholes, we must hire something to get over to the post town in,\nand catch the mail to-night, and go up by it!\"\n\n\"Anything you please, sir,\" returned Mr. Vholes. \"I am quite at your\nservice.\"\n\n\"Let me see,\" said Richard, looking at his watch. \"If I run down to\nthe Dedlock, and get my portmanteau fastened up, and order a gig, or\na chaise, or whatever's to be got, we shall have an hour then before\nstarting. I'll come back to tea. Cousin Ada, will you and Esther take\ncare of Mr. Vholes when I am gone?\"\n\nHe was away directly, in his heat and hurry, and was soon lost in the\ndusk of evening. We who were left walked on towards the house.\n\n\"Is Mr. Carstone's presence necessary to-morrow, Sir?\" said I. \"Can\nit do any good?\"\n\n\"No, miss,\" Mr. Vholes replied. \"I am not aware that it can.\"\n\nBoth Ada and I expressed our regret that he should go, then, only to\nbe disappointed.\n\n\"Mr. Carstone has laid down the principle of watching his own\ninterests,\" said Mr. Vholes, \"and when a client lays down his own\nprinciple, and it is not immoral, it devolves upon me to carry it\nout. I wish in business to be exact and open. I am a widower with\nthree daughters--Emma, Jane, and Caroline--and my desire is so to\ndischarge the duties of life as to leave them a good name. This\nappears to be a pleasant spot, miss.\"\n\nThe remark being made to me in consequence of my being next him as we\nwalked, I assented and enumerated its chief attractions.\n\n\"Indeed?\" said Mr. Vholes. \"I have the privilege of supporting an\naged father in the Vale of Taunton--his native place--and I admire\nthat country very much. I had no idea there was anything so\nattractive here.\"\n\nTo keep up the conversation, I asked Mr. Vholes if he would like to\nlive altogether in the country.\n\n\"There, miss,\" said he, \"you touch me on a tender string. My health\nis not good (my digestion being much impaired), and if I had only\nmyself to consider, I should take refuge in rural habits, especially\nas the cares of business have prevented me from ever coming much into\ncontact with general society, and particularly with ladies' society,\nwhich I have most wished to mix in. But with my three daughters,\nEmma, Jane, and Caroline--and my aged father--I cannot afford to be\nselfish. It is true I have no longer to maintain a dear grandmother\nwho died in her hundred and second year, but enough remains to render\nit indispensable that the mill should be always going.\"\n\nIt required some attention to hear him on account of his inward\nspeaking and his lifeless manner.\n\n\"You will excuse my having mentioned my daughters,\" he said. \"They\nare my weak point. I wish to leave the poor girls some little\nindependence, as well as a good name.\"\n\nWe now arrived at Mr. Boythorn's house, where the tea-table, all\nprepared, was awaiting us. Richard came in restless and hurried\nshortly afterwards, and leaning over Mr. Vholes's chair, whispered\nsomething in his ear. Mr. Vholes replied aloud--or as nearly aloud I\nsuppose as he had ever replied to anything--\"You will drive me, will\nyou, sir? It is all the same to me, sir. Anything you please. I am\nquite at your service.\"\n\nWe understood from what followed that Mr. Skimpole was to be left\nuntil the morning to occupy the two places which had been already\npaid for. As Ada and I were both in low spirits concerning Richard\nand very sorry so to part with him, we made it as plain as we\npolitely could that we should leave Mr. Skimpole to the Dedlock Arms\nand retire when the night-travellers were gone.\n\nRichard's high spirits carrying everything before them, we all went\nout together to the top of the hill above the village, where he had\nordered a gig to wait and where we found a man with a lantern\nstanding at the head of the gaunt pale horse that had been harnessed\nto it.\n\nI never shall forget those two seated side by side in the lantern's\nlight, Richard all flush and fire and laughter, with the reins in his\nhand; Mr. Vholes quite still, black-gloved, and buttoned up, looking\nat him as if he were looking at his prey and charming it. I have\nbefore me the whole picture of the warm dark night, the summer\nlightning, the dusty track of road closed in by hedgerows and high\ntrees, the gaunt pale horse with his ears pricked up, and the driving\naway at speed to Jarndyce and Jarndyce.\n\nMy dear girl told me that night how Richard's being thereafter\nprosperous or ruined, befriended or deserted, could only make this\ndifference to her, that the more he needed love from one unchanging\nheart, the more love that unchanging heart would have to give him;\nhow he thought of her through his present errors, and she would think\nof him at all times--never of herself if she could devote herself to\nhim, never of her own delights if she could minister to his.\n\nAnd she kept her word?\n\nI look along the road before me, where the distance already shortens\nand the journey's end is growing visible; and true and good above the\ndead sea of the Chancery suit and all the ashy fruit it cast ashore,\nI think I see my darling.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVIII\n\nA Struggle\n\n\nWhen our time came for returning to Bleak House again, we were\npunctual to the day and were received with an overpowering welcome. I\nwas perfectly restored to health and strength, and finding my\nhousekeeping keys laid ready for me in my room, rang myself in as if\nI had been a new year, with a merry little peal. \"Once more, duty,\nduty, Esther,\" said I; \"and if you are not overjoyed to do it, more\nthan cheerfully and contentedly, through anything and everything, you\nought to be. That's all I have to say to you, my dear!\"\n\nThe first few mornings were mornings of so much bustle and business,\ndevoted to such settlements of accounts, such repeated journeys to\nand fro between the growlery and all other parts of the house, so\nmany rearrangements of drawers and presses, and such a general new\nbeginning altogether, that I had not a moment's leisure. But when\nthese arrangements were completed and everything was in order, I paid\na visit of a few hours to London, which something in the letter I had\ndestroyed at Chesney Wold had induced me to decide upon in my own\nmind.\n\nI made Caddy Jellyby--her maiden name was so natural to me that I\nalways called her by it--the pretext for this visit and wrote her a\nnote previously asking the favour of her company on a little business\nexpedition. Leaving home very early in the morning, I got to London\nby stage-coach in such good time that I got to Newman Street with the\nday before me.\n\nCaddy, who had not seen me since her wedding-day, was so glad and so\naffectionate that I was half inclined to fear I should make her\nhusband jealous. But he was, in his way, just as bad--I mean as good;\nand in short it was the old story, and nobody would leave me any\npossibility of doing anything meritorious.\n\nThe elder Mr. Turveydrop was in bed, I found, and Caddy was\nmilling his chocolate, which a melancholy little boy who was an\napprentice--it seemed such a curious thing to be apprenticed to the\ntrade of dancing--was waiting to carry upstairs. Her father-in-law\nwas extremely kind and considerate, Caddy told me, and they lived\nmost happily together. (When she spoke of their living together, she\nmeant that the old gentleman had all the good things and all the good\nlodging, while she and her husband had what they could get, and were\npoked into two corner rooms over the Mews.)\n\n\"And how is your mama, Caddy?\" said I.\n\n\"Why, I hear of her, Esther,\" replied Caddy, \"through Pa, but I see\nvery little of her. We are good friends, I am glad to say, but Ma\nthinks there is something absurd in my having married a\ndancing-master, and she is rather afraid of its extending to her.\"\n\nIt struck me that if Mrs. Jellyby had discharged her own natural\nduties and obligations before she swept the horizon with a telescope\nin search of others, she would have taken the best precautions\nagainst becoming absurd, but I need scarcely observe that I kept this\nto myself.\n\n\"And your papa, Caddy?\"\n\n\"He comes here every evening,\" returned Caddy, \"and is so fond of\nsitting in the corner there that it's a treat to see him.\"\n\nLooking at the corner, I plainly perceived the mark of Mr. Jellyby's\nhead against the wall. It was consolatory to know that he had found\nsuch a resting-place for it.\n\n\"And you, Caddy,\" said I, \"you are always busy, I'll be bound?\"\n\n\"Well, my dear,\" returned Caddy, \"I am indeed, for to tell you a\ngrand secret, I am qualifying myself to give lessons. Prince's health\nis not strong, and I want to be able to assist him. What with\nschools, and classes here, and private pupils, AND the apprentices,\nhe really has too much to do, poor fellow!\"\n\nThe notion of the apprentices was still so odd to me that I asked\nCaddy if there were many of them.\n\n\"Four,\" said Caddy. \"One in-door, and three out. They are\nvery good children; only when they get together they WILL\nplay--children-like--instead of attending to their work. So the\nlittle boy you saw just now waltzes by himself in the empty kitchen,\nand we distribute the others over the house as well as we can.\"\n\n\"That is only for their steps, of course?\" said I.\n\n\"Only for their steps,\" said Caddy. \"In that way they practise, so\nmany hours at a time, whatever steps they happen to be upon. They\ndance in the academy, and at this time of year we do figures at five\nevery morning.\"\n\n\"Why, what a laborious life!\" I exclaimed.\n\n\"I assure you, my dear,\" returned Caddy, smiling, \"when the out-door\napprentices ring us up in the morning (the bell rings into our room,\nnot to disturb old Mr. Turveydrop), and when I put up the window and\nsee them standing on the door-step with their little pumps under\ntheir arms, I am actually reminded of the Sweeps.\"\n\nAll this presented the art to me in a singular light, to be sure.\nCaddy enjoyed the effect of her communication and cheerfully\nrecounted the particulars of her own studies.\n\n\"You see, my dear, to save expense I ought to know something of the\npiano, and I ought to know something of the kit too, and consequently\nI have to practise those two instruments as well as the details of\nour profession. If Ma had been like anybody else, I might have had\nsome little musical knowledge to begin upon. However, I hadn't any;\nand that part of the work is, at first, a little discouraging, I must\nallow. But I have a very good ear, and I am used to drudgery--I have\nto thank Ma for that, at all events--and where there's a will there's\na way, you know, Esther, the world over.\" Saying these words, Caddy\nlaughingly sat down at a little jingling square piano and really\nrattled off a quadrille with great spirit. Then she good-humouredly\nand blushingly got up again, and while she still laughed herself,\nsaid, \"Don't laugh at me, please; that's a dear girl!\"\n\nI would sooner have cried, but I did neither. I encouraged her and\npraised her with all my heart. For I conscientiously believed,\ndancing-master's wife though she was, and dancing-mistress though in\nher limited ambition she aspired to be, she had struck out a natural,\nwholesome, loving course of industry and perseverance that was quite\nas good as a mission.\n\n\"My dear,\" said Caddy, delighted, \"you can't think how you cheer me.\nI shall owe you, you don't know how much. What changes, Esther, even\nin my small world! You recollect that first night, when I was so\nunpolite and inky? Who would have thought, then, of my ever teaching\npeople to dance, of all other possibilities and impossibilities!\"\n\nHer husband, who had left us while we had this chat, now coming back,\npreparatory to exercising the apprentices in the ball-room, Caddy\ninformed me she was quite at my disposal. But it was not my time yet,\nI was glad to tell her, for I should have been vexed to take her away\nthen. Therefore we three adjourned to the apprentices together, and I\nmade one in the dance.\n\nThe apprentices were the queerest little people. Besides the\nmelancholy boy, who, I hoped, had not been made so by waltzing alone\nin the empty kitchen, there were two other boys and one dirty little\nlimp girl in a gauzy dress. Such a precocious little girl, with such\na dowdy bonnet on (that, too, of a gauzy texture), who brought her\nsandalled shoes in an old threadbare velvet reticule. Such mean\nlittle boys, when they were not dancing, with string, and marbles,\nand cramp-bones in their pockets, and the most untidy legs and\nfeet--and heels particularly.\n\nI asked Caddy what had made their parents choose this profession for\nthem. Caddy said she didn't know; perhaps they were designed for\nteachers, perhaps for the stage. They were all people in humble\ncircumstances, and the melancholy boy's mother kept a ginger-beer\nshop.\n\nWe danced for an hour with great gravity, the melancholy child doing\nwonders with his lower extremities, in which there appeared to be\nsome sense of enjoyment though it never rose above his waist. Caddy,\nwhile she was observant of her husband and was evidently founded upon\nhim, had acquired a grace and self-possession of her own, which,\nunited to her pretty face and figure, was uncommonly agreeable. She\nalready relieved him of much of the instruction of these young\npeople, and he seldom interfered except to walk his part in the\nfigure if he had anything to do in it. He always played the tune. The\naffectation of the gauzy child, and her condescension to the boys,\nwas a sight. And thus we danced an hour by the clock.\n\nWhen the practice was concluded, Caddy's husband made himself ready\nto go out of town to a school, and Caddy ran away to get ready to go\nout with me. I sat in the ball-room in the interval, contemplating\nthe apprentices. The two out-door boys went upon the staircase to put\non their half-boots and pull the in-door boy's hair, as I judged from\nthe nature of his objections. Returning with their jackets buttoned\nand their pumps stuck in them, they then produced packets of cold\nbread and meat and bivouacked under a painted lyre on the wall. The\nlittle gauzy child, having whisked her sandals into the reticule and\nput on a trodden-down pair of shoes, shook her head into the dowdy\nbonnet at one shake, and answering my inquiry whether she liked\ndancing by replying, \"Not with boys,\" tied it across her chin, and\nwent home contemptuous.\n\n\"Old Mr. Turveydrop is so sorry,\" said Caddy, \"that he has not\nfinished dressing yet and cannot have the pleasure of seeing you\nbefore you go. You are such a favourite of his, Esther.\"\n\nI expressed myself much obliged to him, but did not think it\nnecessary to add that I readily dispensed with this attention.\n\n\"It takes him a long time to dress,\" said Caddy, \"because he is very\nmuch looked up to in such things, you know, and has a reputation to\nsupport. You can't think how kind he is to Pa. He talks to Pa of an\nevening about the Prince Regent, and I never saw Pa so interested.\"\n\nThere was something in the picture of Mr. Turveydrop bestowing his\ndeportment on Mr. Jellyby that quite took my fancy. I asked Caddy if\nhe brought her papa out much.\n\n\"No,\" said Caddy, \"I don't know that he does that, but he talks to\nPa, and Pa greatly admires him, and listens, and likes it. Of course\nI am aware that Pa has hardly any claims to deportment, but they get\non together delightfully. You can't think what good companions they\nmake. I never saw Pa take snuff before in my life, but he takes one\npinch out of Mr. Turveydrop's box regularly and keeps putting it to\nhis nose and taking it away again all the evening.\"\n\nThat old Mr. Turveydrop should ever, in the chances and changes of\nlife, have come to the rescue of Mr. Jellyby from Borrioboola-Gha\nappeared to me to be one of the pleasantest of oddities.\n\n\"As to Peepy,\" said Caddy with a little hesitation, \"whom I was most\nafraid of--next to having any family of my own, Esther--as an\ninconvenience to Mr. Turveydrop, the kindness of the old gentleman to\nthat child is beyond everything. He asks to see him, my dear! He lets\nhim take the newspaper up to him in bed; he gives him the crusts of\nhis toast to eat; he sends him on little errands about the house; he\ntells him to come to me for sixpences. In short,\" said Caddy\ncheerily, \"and not to prose, I am a very fortunate girl and ought to\nbe very grateful. Where are we going, Esther?\"\n\n\"To the Old Street Road,\" said I, \"where I have a few words to say to\nthe solicitor's clerk who was sent to meet me at the coach-office on\nthe very day when I came to London and first saw you, my dear. Now I\nthink of it, the gentleman who brought us to your house.\"\n\n\"Then, indeed, I seem to be naturally the person to go with you,\"\nreturned Caddy.\n\nTo the Old Street Road we went and there inquired at Mrs. Guppy's\nresidence for Mrs. Guppy. Mrs. Guppy, occupying the parlours and\nhaving indeed been visibly in danger of cracking herself like a nut\nin the front-parlour door by peeping out before she was asked for,\nimmediately presented herself and requested us to walk in. She was an\nold lady in a large cap, with rather a red nose and rather an\nunsteady eye, but smiling all over. Her close little sitting-room was\nprepared for a visit, and there was a portrait of her son in it\nwhich, I had almost written here, was more like than life: it\ninsisted upon him with such obstinacy, and was so determined not to\nlet him off.\n\nNot only was the portrait there, but we found the original there too.\nHe was dressed in a great many colours and was discovered at a table\nreading law-papers with his forefinger to his forehead.\n\n\"Miss Summerson,\" said Mr. Guppy, rising, \"this is indeed an oasis.\nMother, will you be so good as to put a chair for the other lady and\nget out of the gangway.\"\n\nMrs. Guppy, whose incessant smiling gave her quite a waggish\nappearance, did as her son requested and then sat down in a corner,\nholding her pocket handkerchief to her chest, like a fomentation,\nwith both hands.\n\nI presented Caddy, and Mr. Guppy said that any friend of mine was\nmore than welcome. I then proceeded to the object of my visit.\n\n\"I took the liberty of sending you a note, sir,\" said I.\n\nMr. Guppy acknowledged the receipt by taking it out of his\nbreast-pocket, putting it to his lips, and returning it to his pocket\nwith a bow. Mr. Guppy's mother was so diverted that she rolled her\nhead as she smiled and made a silent appeal to Caddy with her elbow.\n\n\"Could I speak to you alone for a moment?\" said I.\n\nAnything like the jocoseness of Mr. Guppy's mother just now, I think\nI never saw. She made no sound of laughter, but she rolled her head,\nand shook it, and put her handkerchief to her mouth, and appealed to\nCaddy with her elbow, and her hand, and her shoulder, and was so\nunspeakably entertained altogether that it was with some difficulty\nshe could marshal Caddy through the little folding-door into her\nbedroom adjoining.\n\n\"Miss Summerson,\" said Mr. Guppy, \"you will excuse the waywardness of\na parent ever mindful of a son's appiness. My mother, though highly\nexasperating to the feelings, is actuated by maternal dictates.\"\n\nI could hardly have believed that anybody could in a moment have\nturned so red or changed so much as Mr. Guppy did when I now put up\nmy veil.\n\n\"I asked the favour of seeing you for a few moments here,\" said I,\n\"in preference to calling at Mr. Kenge's because, remembering what\nyou said on an occasion when you spoke to me in confidence, I feared\nI might otherwise cause you some embarrassment, Mr. Guppy.\"\n\nI caused him embarrassment enough as it was, I am sure. I never saw\nsuch faltering, such confusion, such amazement and apprehension.\n\n\"Miss Summerson,\" stammered Mr. Guppy, \"I--I--beg your pardon, but in\nour profession--we--we--find it necessary to be explicit. You have\nreferred to an occasion, miss, when I--when I did myself the honour\nof making a declaration which--\"\n\nSomething seemed to rise in his throat that he could not possibly\nswallow. He put his hand there, coughed, made faces, tried again to\nswallow it, coughed again, made faces again, looked all round the\nroom, and fluttered his papers.\n\n\"A kind of giddy sensation has come upon me, miss,\" he explained,\n\"which rather knocks me over. I--er--a little subject to this sort of\nthing--er--by George!\"\n\nI gave him a little time to recover. He consumed it in putting his\nhand to his forehead and taking it away again, and in backing his\nchair into the corner behind him.\n\n\"My intention was to remark, miss,\" said Mr. Guppy, \"dear\nme--something bronchial, I think--hem!--to remark that you was so\ngood on that occasion as to repel and repudiate that declaration.\nYou--you wouldn't perhaps object to admit that? Though no witnesses\nare present, it might be a satisfaction to--to your mind--if you was\nto put in that admission.\"\n\n\"There can be no doubt,\" said I, \"that I declined your proposal\nwithout any reservation or qualification whatever, Mr. Guppy.\"\n\n\"Thank you, miss,\" he returned, measuring the table with his troubled\nhands. \"So far that's satisfactory, and it does you credit. Er--this\nis certainly bronchial!--must be in the tubes--er--you wouldn't\nperhaps be offended if I was to mention--not that it's necessary, for\nyour own good sense or any person's sense must show 'em that--if I\nwas to mention that such declaration on my part was final, and there\nterminated?\"\n\n\"I quite understand that,\" said I.\n\n\"Perhaps--er--it may not be worth the form, but it might be a\nsatisfaction to your mind--perhaps you wouldn't object to admit that,\nmiss?\" said Mr. Guppy.\n\n\"I admit it most fully and freely,\" said I.\n\n\"Thank you,\" returned Mr. Guppy. \"Very honourable, I am sure. I\nregret that my arrangements in life, combined with circumstances over\nwhich I have no control, will put it out of my power ever to fall\nback upon that offer or to renew it in any shape or form whatever,\nbut it will ever be a retrospect entwined--er--with friendship's\nbowers.\" Mr. Guppy's bronchitis came to his relief and stopped his\nmeasurement of the table.\n\n\"I may now perhaps mention what I wished to say to you?\" I began.\n\n\"I shall be honoured, I am sure,\" said Mr. Guppy. \"I am so persuaded\nthat your own good sense and right feeling, miss, will--will keep you\nas square as possible--that I can have nothing but pleasure, I am\nsure, in hearing any observations you may wish to offer.\"\n\n\"You were so good as to imply, on that occasion--\"\n\n\"Excuse me, miss,\" said Mr. Guppy, \"but we had better not travel out\nof the record into implication. I cannot admit that I implied\nanything.\"\n\n\"You said on that occasion,\" I recommenced, \"that you might possibly\nhave the means of advancing my interests and promoting my fortunes by\nmaking discoveries of which I should be the subject. I presume that\nyou founded that belief upon your general knowledge of my being an\norphan girl, indebted for everything to the benevolence of Mr.\nJarndyce. Now, the beginning and the end of what I have come to beg\nof you is, Mr. Guppy, that you will have the kindness to relinquish\nall idea of so serving me. I have thought of this sometimes, and I\nhave thought of it most lately--since I have been ill. At length I\nhave decided, in case you should at any time recall that purpose and\nact upon it in any way, to come to you and assure you that you are\naltogether mistaken. You could make no discovery in reference to me\nthat would do me the least service or give me the least pleasure. I\nam acquainted with my personal history, and I have it in my power to\nassure you that you never can advance my welfare by such means. You\nmay, perhaps, have abandoned this project a long time. If so, excuse\nmy giving you unnecessary trouble. If not, I entreat you, on the\nassurance I have given you, henceforth to lay it aside. I beg you to\ndo this, for my peace.\"\n\n\"I am bound to confess,\" said Mr. Guppy, \"that you express yourself,\nmiss, with that good sense and right feeling for which I gave you\ncredit. Nothing can be more satisfactory than such right feeling, and\nif I mistook any intentions on your part just now, I am prepared to\ntender a full apology. I should wish to be understood, miss, as\nhereby offering that apology--limiting it, as your own good sense and\nright feeling will point out the necessity of, to the present\nproceedings.\"\n\nI must say for Mr. Guppy that the snuffling manner he had had upon\nhim improved very much. He seemed truly glad to be able to do\nsomething I asked, and he looked ashamed.\n\n\"If you will allow me to finish what I have to say at once so that I\nmay have no occasion to resume,\" I went on, seeing him about to\nspeak, \"you will do me a kindness, sir. I come to you as privately as\npossible because you announced this impression of yours to me in a\nconfidence which I have really wished to respect--and which I always\nhave respected, as you remember. I have mentioned my illness. There\nreally is no reason why I should hesitate to say that I know very\nwell that any little delicacy I might have had in making a request to\nyou is quite removed. Therefore I make the entreaty I have now\npreferred, and I hope you will have sufficient consideration for me\nto accede to it.\"\n\nI must do Mr. Guppy the further justice of saying that he had looked\nmore and more ashamed and that he looked most ashamed and very\nearnest when he now replied with a burning face, \"Upon my word and\nhonour, upon my life, upon my soul, Miss Summerson, as I am a living\nman, I'll act according to your wish! I'll never go another step in\nopposition to it. I'll take my oath to it if it will be any\nsatisfaction to you. In what I promise at this present time touching\nthe matters now in question,\" continued Mr. Guppy rapidly, as if he\nwere repeating a familiar form of words, \"I speak the truth, the\nwhole truth, and nothing but the truth, so--\"\n\n\"I am quite satisfied,\" said I, rising at this point, \"and I thank\nyou very much. Caddy, my dear, I am ready!\"\n\nMr. Guppy's mother returned with Caddy (now making me the recipient\nof her silent laughter and her nudges), and we took our leave. Mr.\nGuppy saw us to the door with the air of one who was either\nimperfectly awake or walking in his sleep; and we left him there,\nstaring.\n\nBut in a minute he came after us down the street without any hat, and\nwith his long hair all blown about, and stopped us, saying fervently,\n\"Miss Summerson, upon my honour and soul, you may depend upon me!\"\n\n\"I do,\" said I, \"quite confidently.\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon, miss,\" said Mr. Guppy, going with one leg and\nstaying with the other, \"but this lady being present--your own\nwitness--it might be a satisfaction to your mind (which I should wish\nto set at rest) if you was to repeat those admissions.\"\n\n\"Well, Caddy,\" said I, turning to her, \"perhaps you will not be\nsurprised when I tell you, my dear, that there never has been any\nengagement--\"\n\n\"No proposal or promise of marriage whatsoever,\" suggested Mr. Guppy.\n\n\"No proposal or promise of marriage whatsoever,\" said I, \"between\nthis gentleman--\"\n\n\"William Guppy, of Penton Place, Pentonville, in the county of\nMiddlesex,\" he murmured.\n\n\"Between this gentleman, Mr. William Guppy, of Penton Place,\nPentonville, in the county of Middlesex, and myself.\"\n\n\"Thank you, miss,\" said Mr. Guppy. \"Very full--er--excuse me--lady's\nname, Christian and surname both?\"\n\nI gave them.\n\n\"Married woman, I believe?\" said Mr. Guppy. \"Married woman. Thank\nyou. Formerly Caroline Jellyby, spinster, then of Thavies Inn, within\nthe city of London, but extra-parochial; now of Newman Street, Oxford\nStreet. Much obliged.\"\n\nHe ran home and came running back again.\n\n\"Touching that matter, you know, I really and truly am very sorry\nthat my arrangements in life, combined with circumstances over which\nI have no control, should prevent a renewal of what was wholly\nterminated some time back,\" said Mr. Guppy to me forlornly and\ndespondently, \"but it couldn't be. Now COULD it, you know! I only put\nit to you.\"\n\nI replied it certainly could not. The subject did not admit of a\ndoubt. He thanked me and ran to his mother's again--and back again.\n\n\"It's very honourable of you, miss, I am sure,\" said Mr. Guppy. \"If\nan altar could be erected in the bowers of friendship--but, upon my\nsoul, you may rely upon me in every respect save and except the\ntender passion only!\"\n\nThe struggle in Mr. Guppy's breast and the numerous oscillations it\noccasioned him between his mother's door and us were sufficiently\nconspicuous in the windy street (particularly as his hair wanted\ncutting) to make us hurry away. I did so with a lightened heart; but\nwhen we last looked back, Mr. Guppy was still oscillating in the same\ntroubled state of mind.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIX\n\nAttorney and Client\n\n\nThe name of Mr. Vholes, preceded by the legend Ground-Floor, is\ninscribed upon a door-post in Symond's Inn, Chancery Lane--a little,\npale, wall-eyed, woebegone inn like a large dust-binn of two\ncompartments and a sifter. It looks as if Symond were a sparing man\nin his way and constructed his inn of old building materials which\ntook kindly to the dry rot and to dirt and all things decaying and\ndismal, and perpetuated Symond's memory with congenial shabbiness.\nQuartered in this dingy hatchment commemorative of Symond are the\nlegal bearings of Mr. Vholes.\n\nMr. Vholes's office, in disposition retiring and in situation\nretired, is squeezed up in a corner and blinks at a dead wall. Three\nfeet of knotty-floored dark passage bring the client to Mr. Vholes's\njet-black door, in an angle profoundly dark on the brightest\nmidsummer morning and encumbered by a black bulk-head of cellarage\nstaircase against which belated civilians generally strike their\nbrows. Mr. Vholes's chambers are on so small a scale that one clerk\ncan open the door without getting off his stool, while the other who\nelbows him at the same desk has equal facilities for poking the fire.\nA smell as of unwholesome sheep blending with the smell of must and\ndust is referable to the nightly (and often daily) consumption of\nmutton fat in candles and to the fretting of parchment forms and\nskins in greasy drawers. The atmosphere is otherwise stale and close.\nThe place was last painted or whitewashed beyond the memory of man,\nand the two chimneys smoke, and there is a loose outer surface of\nsoot everywhere, and the dull cracked windows in their heavy frames\nhave but one piece of character in them, which is a determination to\nbe always dirty and always shut unless coerced. This accounts for the\nphenomenon of the weaker of the two usually having a bundle of\nfirewood thrust between its jaws in hot weather.\n\nMr. Vholes is a very respectable man. He has not a large business,\nbut he is a very respectable man. He is allowed by the greater\nattorneys who have made good fortunes or are making them to be a most\nrespectable man. He never misses a chance in his practice, which is a\nmark of respectability. He never takes any pleasure, which is another\nmark of respectability. He is reserved and serious, which is another\nmark of respectability. His digestion is impaired, which is highly\nrespectable. And he is making hay of the grass which is flesh, for\nhis three daughters. And his father is dependent on him in the Vale\nof Taunton.\n\nThe one great principle of the English law is to make business for\nitself. There is no other principle distinctly, certainly, and\nconsistently maintained through all its narrow turnings. Viewed by\nthis light it becomes a coherent scheme and not the monstrous maze\nthe laity are apt to think it. Let them but once clearly perceive\nthat its grand principle is to make business for itself at their\nexpense, and surely they will cease to grumble.\n\nBut not perceiving this quite plainly--only seeing it by halves in a\nconfused way--the laity sometimes suffer in peace and pocket, with a\nbad grace, and DO grumble very much. Then this respectability of Mr.\nVholes is brought into powerful play against them. \"Repeal this\nstatute, my good sir?\" says Mr. Kenge to a smarting client. \"Repeal\nit, my dear sir? Never, with my consent. Alter this law, sir, and\nwhat will be the effect of your rash proceeding on a class of\npractitioners very worthily represented, allow me to say to you, by\nthe opposite attorney in the case, Mr. Vholes? Sir, that class of\npractitioners would be swept from the face of the earth. Now you\ncannot afford--I will say, the social system cannot afford--to lose\nan order of men like Mr. Vholes. Diligent, persevering, steady, acute\nin business. My dear sir, I understand your present feelings against\nthe existing state of things, which I grant to be a little hard in\nyour case; but I can never raise my voice for the demolition of a\nclass of men like Mr. Vholes.\" The respectability of Mr. Vholes has\neven been cited with crushing effect before Parliamentary committees,\nas in the following blue minutes of a distinguished attorney's\nevidence. \"Question (number five hundred and seventeen thousand eight\nhundred and sixty-nine): If I understand you, these forms of practice\nindisputably occasion delay? Answer: Yes, some delay. Question: And\ngreat expense? Answer: Most assuredly they cannot be gone through for\nnothing. Question: And unspeakable vexation? Answer: I am not\nprepared to say that. They have never given ME any vexation; quite\nthe contrary. Question: But you think that their abolition would\ndamage a class of practitioners? Answer: I have no doubt of it.\nQuestion: Can you instance any type of that class? Answer: Yes. I\nwould unhesitatingly mention Mr. Vholes. He would be ruined.\nQuestion: Mr. Vholes is considered, in the profession, a respectable\nman? Answer:\"--which proved fatal to the inquiry for ten years--\"Mr.\nVholes is considered, in the profession, a MOST respectable man.\"\n\nSo in familiar conversation, private authorities no less\ndisinterested will remark that they don't know what this age is\ncoming to, that we are plunging down precipices, that now here is\nsomething else gone, that these changes are death to people like\nVholes--a man of undoubted respectability, with a father in the Vale\nof Taunton, and three daughters at home. Take a few steps more in\nthis direction, say they, and what is to become of Vholes's father?\nIs he to perish? And of Vholes's daughters? Are they to be\nshirt-makers, or governesses? As though, Mr. Vholes and his relations\nbeing minor cannibal chiefs and it being proposed to abolish\ncannibalism, indignant champions were to put the case thus: Make\nman-eating unlawful, and you starve the Vholeses!\n\nIn a word, Mr. Vholes, with his three daughters and his father in the\nVale of Taunton, is continually doing duty, like a piece of timber,\nto shore up some decayed foundation that has become a pitfall and a\nnuisance. And with a great many people in a great many instances, the\nquestion is never one of a change from wrong to right (which is quite\nan extraneous consideration), but is always one of injury or\nadvantage to that eminently respectable legion, Vholes.\n\nThe Chancellor is, within these ten minutes, \"up\" for the long\nvacation. Mr. Vholes, and his young client, and several blue bags\nhastily stuffed out of all regularity of form, as the larger sort of\nserpents are in their first gorged state, have returned to the\nofficial den. Mr. Vholes, quiet and unmoved, as a man of so much\nrespectability ought to be, takes off his close black gloves as if he\nwere skinning his hands, lifts off his tight hat as if he were\nscalping himself, and sits down at his desk. The client throws his\nhat and gloves upon the ground--tosses them anywhere, without looking\nafter them or caring where they go; flings himself into a chair, half\nsighing and half groaning; rests his aching head upon his hand and\nlooks the portrait of young despair.\n\n\"Again nothing done!\" says Richard. \"Nothing, nothing done!\"\n\n\"Don't say nothing done, sir,\" returns the placid Vholes. \"That is\nscarcely fair, sir, scarcely fair!\"\n\n\"Why, what IS done?\" says Richard, turning gloomily upon him.\n\n\"That may not be the whole question,\" returns Vholes, \"The question\nmay branch off into what is doing, what is doing?\"\n\n\"And what is doing?\" asks the moody client.\n\nVholes, sitting with his arms on the desk, quietly bringing the tips\nof his five right fingers to meet the tips of his five left fingers,\nand quietly separating them again, and fixedly and slowly looking at\nhis client, replies, \"A good deal is doing, sir. We have put our\nshoulders to the wheel, Mr. Carstone, and the wheel is going round.\"\n\n\"Yes, with Ixion on it. How am I to get through the next four or five\naccursed months?\" exclaims the young man, rising from his chair and\nwalking about the room.\n\n\"Mr. C.,\" returns Vholes, following him close with his eyes wherever\nhe goes, \"your spirits are hasty, and I am sorry for it on your\naccount. Excuse me if I recommend you not to chafe so much, not to be\nso impetuous, not to wear yourself out so. You should have more\npatience. You should sustain yourself better.\"\n\n\"I ought to imitate you, in fact, Mr. Vholes?\" says Richard, sitting\ndown again with an impatient laugh and beating the devil's tattoo\nwith his boot on the patternless carpet.\n\n\"Sir,\" returns Vholes, always looking at the client as if he were\nmaking a lingering meal of him with his eyes as well as with his\nprofessional appetite. \"Sir,\" returns Vholes with his inward manner\nof speech and his bloodless quietude, \"I should not have had the\npresumption to propose myself as a model for your imitation or any\nman's. Let me but leave the good name to my three daughters, and that\nis enough for me; I am not a self-seeker. But since you mention me so\npointedly, I will acknowledge that I should like to impart to you a\nlittle of my--come, sir, you are disposed to call it insensibility,\nand I am sure I have no objection--say insensibility--a little of my\ninsensibility.\"\n\n\"Mr. Vholes,\" explains the client, somewhat abashed, \"I had no\nintention to accuse you of insensibility.\"\n\n\"I think you had, sir, without knowing it,\" returns the equable\nVholes. \"Very naturally. It is my duty to attend to your interests\nwith a cool head, and I can quite understand that to your excited\nfeelings I may appear, at such times as the present, insensible. My\ndaughters may know me better; my aged father may know me better. But\nthey have known me much longer than you have, and the confiding eye\nof affection is not the distrustful eye of business. Not that I\ncomplain, sir, of the eye of business being distrustful; quite the\ncontrary. In attending to your interests, I wish to have all possible\nchecks upon me; it is right that I should have them; I court inquiry.\nBut your interests demand that I should be cool and methodical, Mr.\nCarstone; and I cannot be otherwise--no, sir, not even to please\nyou.\"\n\nMr. Vholes, after glancing at the official cat who is patiently\nwatching a mouse's hole, fixes his charmed gaze again on his young\nclient and proceeds in his buttoned-up, half-audible voice as if\nthere were an unclean spirit in him that will neither come out nor\nspeak out, \"What are you to do, sir, you inquire, during the\nvacation. I should hope you gentlemen of the army may find many means\nof amusing yourselves if you give your minds to it. If you had asked\nme what I was to do during the vacation, I could have answered you\nmore readily. I am to attend to your interests. I am to be found\nhere, day by day, attending to your interests. That is my duty, Mr.\nC., and term-time or vacation makes no difference to me. If you wish\nto consult me as to your interests, you will find me here at all\ntimes alike. Other professional men go out of town. I don't. Not that\nI blame them for going; I merely say I don't go. This desk is your\nrock, sir!\"\n\nMr. Vholes gives it a rap, and it sounds as hollow as a coffin. Not\nto Richard, though. There is encouragement in the sound to him.\nPerhaps Mr. Vholes knows there is.\n\n\"I am perfectly aware, Mr. Vholes,\" says Richard, more familiarly and\ngood-humouredly, \"that you are the most reliable fellow in the world\nand that to have to do with you is to have to do with a man of\nbusiness who is not to be hoodwinked. But put yourself in my case,\ndragging on this dislocated life, sinking deeper and deeper into\ndifficulty every day, continually hoping and continually\ndisappointed, conscious of change upon change for the worse in\nmyself, and of no change for the better in anything else, and you\nwill find it a dark-looking case sometimes, as I do.\"\n\n\"You know,\" says Mr. Vholes, \"that I never give hopes, sir. I told\nyou from the first, Mr. C., that I never give hopes. Particularly in\na case like this, where the greater part of the costs comes out of\nthe estate, I should not be considerate of my good name if I gave\nhopes. It might seem as if costs were my object. Still, when you say\nthere is no change for the better, I must, as a bare matter of fact,\ndeny that.\"\n\n\"Aye?\" returns Richard, brightening. \"But how do you make it out?\"\n\n\"Mr. Carstone, you are represented by--\"\n\n\"You said just now--a rock.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" says Mr. Vholes, gently shaking his head and rapping the\nhollow desk, with a sound as if ashes were falling on ashes, and dust\non dust, \"a rock. That's something. You are separately represented,\nand no longer hidden and lost in the interests of others. THAT'S\nsomething. The suit does not sleep; we wake it up, we air it, we walk\nit about. THAT'S something. It's not all Jarndyce, in fact as well as\nin name. THAT'S something. Nobody has it all his own way now, sir.\nAnd THAT'S something, surely.\"\n\nRichard, his face flushing suddenly, strikes the desk with his\nclenched hand.\n\n\"Mr. Vholes! If any man had told me when I first went to John\nJarndyce's house that he was anything but the disinterested friend he\nseemed--that he was what he has gradually turned out to be--I could\nhave found no words strong enough to repel the slander; I could not\nhave defended him too ardently. So little did I know of the world!\nWhereas now I do declare to you that he becomes to me the embodiment\nof the suit; that in place of its being an abstraction, it is John\nJarndyce; that the more I suffer, the more indignant I am with him;\nthat every new delay and every new disappointment is only a new\ninjury from John Jarndyce's hand.\"\n\n\"No, no,\" says Vholes. \"Don't say so. We ought to have patience, all\nof us. Besides, I never disparage, sir. I never disparage.\"\n\n\"Mr. Vholes,\" returns the angry client. \"You know as well as I that\nhe would have strangled the suit if he could.\"\n\n\"He was not active in it,\" Mr. Vholes admits with an appearance of\nreluctance. \"He certainly was not active in it. But however, but\nhowever, he might have had amiable intentions. Who can read the\nheart, Mr. C.!\"\n\n\"You can,\" returns Richard.\n\n\"I, Mr. C.?\"\n\n\"Well enough to know what his intentions were. Are or are not our\ninterests conflicting? Tell--me--that!\" says Richard, accompanying\nhis last three words with three raps on his rock of trust.\n\n\"Mr. C.,\" returns Vholes, immovable in attitude and never winking his\nhungry eyes, \"I should be wanting in my duty as your professional\nadviser, I should be departing from my fidelity to your interests, if\nI represented those interests as identical with the interests of Mr.\nJarndyce. They are no such thing, sir. I never impute motives; I both\nhave and am a father, and I never impute motives. But I must not\nshrink from a professional duty, even if it sows dissensions in\nfamilies. I understand you to be now consulting me professionally as\nto your interests? You are so? I reply, then, they are not identical\nwith those of Mr. Jarndyce.\"\n\n\"Of course they are not!\" cries Richard. \"You found that out long\nago.\"\n\n\"Mr. C.,\" returns Vholes, \"I wish to say no more of any third party\nthan is necessary. I wish to leave my good name unsullied, together\nwith any little property of which I may become possessed through\nindustry and perseverance, to my daughters Emma, Jane, and Caroline.\nI also desire to live in amity with my professional brethren. When\nMr. Skimpole did me the honour, sir--I will not say the very high\nhonour, for I never stoop to flattery--of bringing us together in\nthis room, I mentioned to you that I could offer no opinion or advice\nas to your interests while those interests were entrusted to another\nmember of the profession. And I spoke in such terms as I was bound to\nspeak of Kenge and Carboy's office, which stands high. You, sir,\nthought fit to withdraw your interests from that keeping nevertheless\nand to offer them to me. You brought them with clean hands, sir, and\nI accepted them with clean hands. Those interests are now paramount\nin this office. My digestive functions, as you may have heard me\nmention, are not in a good state, and rest might improve them; but I\nshall not rest, sir, while I am your representative. Whenever you\nwant me, you will find me here. Summon me anywhere, and I will come.\nDuring the long vacation, sir, I shall devote my leisure to studying\nyour interests more and more closely and to making arrangements for\nmoving heaven and earth (including, of course, the Chancellor) after\nMichaelmas term; and when I ultimately congratulate you, sir,\" says\nMr. Vholes with the severity of a determined man, \"when I ultimately\ncongratulate you, sir, with all my heart, on your accession to\nfortune--which, but that I never give hopes, I might say something\nfurther about--you will owe me nothing beyond whatever little balance\nmay be then outstanding of the costs as between solicitor and client\nnot included in the taxed costs allowed out of the estate. I pretend\nto no claim upon you, Mr. C., but for the zealous and active\ndischarge--not the languid and routine discharge, sir: that much\ncredit I stipulate for--of my professional duty. My duty prosperously\nended, all between us is ended.\"\n\nVholes finally adds, by way of rider to this declaration of his\nprinciples, that as Mr. Carstone is about to rejoin his regiment,\nperhaps Mr. C. will favour him with an order on his agent for twenty\npounds on account.\n\n\"For there have been many little consultations and attendances of\nlate, sir,\" observes Vholes, turning over the leaves of his diary,\n\"and these things mount up, and I don't profess to be a man of\ncapital. When we first entered on our present relations I stated to\nyou openly--it is a principle of mine that there never can be too\nmuch openness between solicitor and client--that I was not a man of\ncapital and that if capital was your object you had better leave your\npapers in Kenge's office. No, Mr. C., you will find none of the\nadvantages or disadvantages of capital here, sir. This,\" Vholes gives\nthe desk one hollow blow again, \"is your rock; it pretends to be\nnothing more.\"\n\nThe client, with his dejection insensibly relieved and his vague\nhopes rekindled, takes pen and ink and writes the draft, not without\nperplexed consideration and calculation of the date it may bear,\nimplying scant effects in the agent's hands. All the while, Vholes,\nbuttoned up in body and mind, looks at him attentively. All the\nwhile, Vholes's official cat watches the mouse's hole.\n\nLastly, the client, shaking hands, beseeches Mr. Vholes, for heaven's\nsake and earth's sake, to do his utmost to \"pull him through\" the\nCourt of Chancery. Mr. Vholes, who never gives hopes, lays his palm\nupon the client's shoulder and answers with a smile, \"Always here,\nsir. Personally, or by letter, you will always find me here, sir,\nwith my shoulder to the wheel.\" Thus they part, and Vholes, left\nalone, employs himself in carrying sundry little matters out of his\ndiary into his draft bill book for the ultimate behoof of his three\ndaughters. So might an industrious fox or bear make up his account of\nchickens or stray travellers with an eye to his cubs, not to\ndisparage by that word the three raw-visaged, lank, and buttoned-up\nmaidens who dwell with the parent Vholes in an earthy cottage\nsituated in a damp garden at Kennington.\n\nRichard, emerging from the heavy shade of Symond's Inn into the\nsunshine of Chancery Lane--for there happens to be sunshine there\nto-day--walks thoughtfully on, and turns into Lincoln's Inn, and\npasses under the shadow of the Lincoln's Inn trees. On many such\nloungers have the speckled shadows of those trees often fallen; on\nthe like bent head, the bitten nail, the lowering eye, the lingering\nstep, the purposeless and dreamy air, the good consuming and\nconsumed, the life turned sour. This lounger is not shabby yet, but\nthat may come. Chancery, which knows no wisdom but in precedent, is\nvery rich in such precedents; and why should one be different from\nten thousand?\n\nYet the time is so short since his depreciation began that as he\nsaunters away, reluctant to leave the spot for some long months\ntogether, though he hates it, Richard himself may feel his own case\nas if it were a startling one. While his heart is heavy with\ncorroding care, suspense, distrust, and doubt, it may have room for\nsome sorrowful wonder when he recalls how different his first visit\nthere, how different he, how different all the colours of his mind.\nBut injustice breeds injustice; the fighting with shadows and being\ndefeated by them necessitates the setting up of substances to combat;\nfrom the impalpable suit which no man alive can understand, the time\nfor that being long gone by, it has become a gloomy relief to turn to\nthe palpable figure of the friend who would have saved him from this\nruin and make HIM his enemy. Richard has told Vholes the truth. Is he\nin a hardened or a softened mood, he still lays his injuries equally\nat that door; he was thwarted, in that quarter, of a set purpose, and\nthat purpose could only originate in the one subject that is\nresolving his existence into itself; besides, it is a justification\nto him in his own eyes to have an embodied antagonist and oppressor.\n\nIs Richard a monster in all this, or would Chancery be found rich in\nsuch precedents too if they could be got for citation from the\nRecording Angel?\n\nTwo pairs of eyes not unused to such people look after him, as,\nbiting his nails and brooding, he crosses the square and is swallowed\nup by the shadow of the southern gateway. Mr. Guppy and Mr. Weevle\nare the possessors of those eyes, and they have been leaning in\nconversation against the low stone parapet under the trees. He passes\nclose by them, seeing nothing but the ground.\n\n\"William,\" says Mr. Weevle, adjusting his whiskers, \"there's\ncombustion going on there! It's not a case of spontaneous, but it's\nsmouldering combustion it is.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" says Mr. Guppy. \"He wouldn't keep out of Jarndyce, and I\nsuppose he's over head and ears in debt. I never knew much of him. He\nwas as high as the monument when he was on trial at our place. A good\nriddance to me, whether as clerk or client! Well, Tony, that as I was\nmentioning is what they're up to.\"\n\nMr. Guppy, refolding his arms, resettles himself against the parapet,\nas resuming a conversation of interest.\n\n\"They are still up to it, sir,\" says Mr. Guppy, \"still taking stock,\nstill examining papers, still going over the heaps and heaps of\nrubbish. At this rate they'll be at it these seven years.\"\n\n\"And Small is helping?\"\n\n\"Small left us at a week's notice. Told Kenge his grandfather's\nbusiness was too much for the old gentleman and he could better\nhimself by undertaking it. There had been a coolness between myself\nand Small on account of his being so close. But he said you and I\nbegan it, and as he had me there--for we did--I put our acquaintance\non the old footing. That's how I come to know what they're up to.\"\n\n\"You haven't looked in at all?\"\n\n\"Tony,\" says Mr. Guppy, a little disconcerted, \"to be unreserved with\nyou, I don't greatly relish the house, except in your company, and\ntherefore I have not; and therefore I proposed this little\nappointment for our fetching away your things. There goes the hour by\nthe clock! Tony\"--Mr. Guppy becomes mysteriously and tenderly\neloquent--\"it is necessary that I should impress upon your mind once\nmore that circumstances over which I have no control have made a\nmelancholy alteration in my most cherished plans and in that\nunrequited image which I formerly mentioned to you as a friend. That\nimage is shattered, and that idol is laid low. My only wish now in\nconnexion with the objects which I had an idea of carrying out in the\ncourt with your aid as a friend is to let 'em alone and bury 'em in\noblivion. Do you think it possible, do you think it at all likely (I\nput it to you, Tony, as a friend), from your knowledge of that\ncapricious and deep old character who fell a prey to the--spontaneous\nelement, do you, Tony, think it at all likely that on second thoughts\nhe put those letters away anywhere, after you saw him alive, and that\nthey were not destroyed that night?\"\n\nMr. Weevle reflects for some time. Shakes his head. Decidedly thinks\nnot.\n\n\"Tony,\" says Mr. Guppy as they walk towards the court, \"once again\nunderstand me, as a friend. Without entering into further\nexplanations, I may repeat that the idol is down. I have no purpose\nto serve now but burial in oblivion. To that I have pledged myself. I\nowe it to myself, and I owe it to the shattered image, as also to the\ncircumstances over which I have no control. If you was to express to\nme by a gesture, by a wink, that you saw lying anywhere in your late\nlodgings any papers that so much as looked like the papers in\nquestion, I would pitch them into the fire, sir, on my own\nresponsibility.\"\n\nMr. Weevle nods. Mr. Guppy, much elevated in his own opinion by\nhaving delivered these observations, with an air in part forensic and\nin part romantic--this gentleman having a passion for conducting\nanything in the form of an examination, or delivering anything in the\nform of a summing up or a speech--accompanies his friend with dignity\nto the court.\n\nNever since it has been a court has it had such a Fortunatus' purse\nof gossip as in the proceedings at the rag and bottle shop.\nRegularly, every morning at eight, is the elder Mr. Smallweed brought\ndown to the corner and carried in, accompanied by Mrs. Smallweed,\nJudy, and Bart; and regularly, all day, do they all remain there\nuntil nine at night, solaced by gipsy dinners, not abundant in\nquantity, from the cook's shop, rummaging and searching, digging,\ndelving, and diving among the treasures of the late lamented. What\nthose treasures are they keep so secret that the court is maddened.\nIn its delirium it imagines guineas pouring out of tea-pots,\ncrown-pieces overflowing punch-bowls, old chairs and mattresses\nstuffed with Bank of England notes. It possesses itself of the\nsixpenny history (with highly coloured folding frontispiece) of Mr.\nDaniel Dancer and his sister, and also of Mr. Elwes, of Suffolk, and\ntransfers all the facts from those authentic narratives to Mr. Krook.\nTwice when the dustman is called in to carry off a cartload of old\npaper, ashes, and broken bottles, the whole court assembles and pries\ninto the baskets as they come forth. Many times the two gentlemen who\nwrite with the ravenous little pens on the tissue-paper are seen\nprowling in the neighbourhood--shy of each other, their late\npartnership being dissolved. The Sol skilfully carries a vein of the\nprevailing interest through the Harmonic nights. Little Swills, in\nwhat are professionally known as \"patter\" allusions to the subject,\nis received with loud applause; and the same vocalist \"gags\" in the\nregular business like a man inspired. Even Miss M. Melvilleson, in\nthe revived Caledonian melody of \"We're a-Nodding,\" points the\nsentiment that \"the dogs love broo\" (whatever the nature of that\nrefreshment may be) with such archness and such a turn of the head\ntowards next door that she is immediately understood to mean Mr.\nSmallweed loves to find money, and is nightly honoured with a double\nencore. For all this, the court discovers nothing; and as Mrs. Piper\nand Mrs. Perkins now communicate to the late lodger whose appearance\nis the signal for a general rally, it is in one continual ferment to\ndiscover everything, and more.\n\nMr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy, with every eye in the court's head upon\nthem, knock at the closed door of the late lamented's house, in a\nhigh state of popularity. But being contrary to the court's\nexpectation admitted, they immediately become unpopular and are\nconsidered to mean no good.\n\nThe shutters are more or less closed all over the house, and the\nground-floor is sufficiently dark to require candles. Introduced into\nthe back shop by Mr. Smallweed the younger, they, fresh from the\nsunlight, can at first see nothing save darkness and shadows; but\nthey gradually discern the elder Mr. Smallweed seated in his chair\nupon the brink of a well or grave of waste-paper, the virtuous Judy\ngroping therein like a female sexton, and Mrs. Smallweed on the level\nground in the vicinity snowed up in a heap of paper fragments, print,\nand manuscript which would appear to be the accumulated compliments\nthat have been sent flying at her in the course of the day. The whole\nparty, Small included, are blackened with dust and dirt and present a\nfiendish appearance not relieved by the general aspect of the room.\nThere is more litter and lumber in it than of old, and it is dirtier\nif possible; likewise, it is ghostly with traces of its dead\ninhabitant and even with his chalked writing on the wall.\n\nOn the entrance of visitors, Mr. Smallweed and Judy simultaneously\nfold their arms and stop in their researches.\n\n\"Aha!\" croaks the old gentleman. \"How de do, gentlemen, how de do!\nCome to fetch your property, Mr. Weevle? That's well, that's well.\nHa! Ha! We should have been forced to sell you up, sir, to pay your\nwarehouse room if you had left it here much longer. You feel quite at\nhome here again, I dare say? Glad to see you, glad to see you!\"\n\nMr. Weevle, thanking him, casts an eye about. Mr. Guppy's eye follows\nMr. Weevle's eye. Mr. Weevle's eye comes back without any new\nintelligence in it. Mr. Guppy's eye comes back and meets Mr.\nSmallweed's eye. That engaging old gentleman is still murmuring, like\nsome wound-up instrument running down, \"How de do, sir--how\nde--how--\" And then having run down, he lapses into grinning silence,\nas Mr. Guppy starts at seeing Mr. Tulkinghorn standing in the\ndarkness opposite with his hands behind him.\n\n\"Gentleman so kind as to act as my solicitor,\" says Grandfather\nSmallweed. \"I am not the sort of client for a gentleman of such note,\nbut he is so good!\"\n\nMr. Guppy, slightly nudging his friend to take another look, makes a\nshuffling bow to Mr. Tulkinghorn, who returns it with an easy nod.\nMr. Tulkinghorn is looking on as if he had nothing else to do and\nwere rather amused by the novelty.\n\n\"A good deal of property here, sir, I should say,\" Mr. Guppy observes\nto Mr. Smallweed.\n\n\"Principally rags and rubbish, my dear friend! Rags and rubbish! Me\nand Bart and my granddaughter Judy are endeavouring to make out an\ninventory of what's worth anything to sell. But we haven't come to\nmuch as yet; we--haven't--come--to--hah!\"\n\nMr. Smallweed has run down again, while Mr. Weevle's eye, attended by\nMr. Guppy's eye, has again gone round the room and come back.\n\n\"Well, sir,\" says Mr. Weevle. \"We won't intrude any longer if you'll\nallow us to go upstairs.\"\n\n\"Anywhere, my dear sir, anywhere! You're at home. Make yourself so,\npray!\"\n\nAs they go upstairs, Mr. Guppy lifts his eyebrows inquiringly and\nlooks at Tony. Tony shakes his head. They find the old room very dull\nand dismal, with the ashes of the fire that was burning on that\nmemorable night yet in the discoloured grate. They have a great\ndisinclination to touch any object, and carefully blow the dust from\nit first. Nor are they desirous to prolong their visit, packing the\nfew movables with all possible speed and never speaking above a\nwhisper.\n\n\"Look here,\" says Tony, recoiling. \"Here's that horrible cat coming\nin!\"\n\nMr. Guppy retreats behind a chair. \"Small told me of her. She went\nleaping and bounding and tearing about that night like a dragon, and\ngot out on the house-top, and roamed about up there for a fortnight,\nand then came tumbling down the chimney very thin. Did you ever see\nsuch a brute? Looks as if she knew all about it, don't she? Almost\nlooks as if she was Krook. Shoohoo! Get out, you goblin!\"\n\nLady Jane, in the doorway, with her tiger snarl from ear to ear and\nher club of a tail, shows no intention of obeying; but Mr.\nTulkinghorn stumbling over her, she spits at his rusty legs, and\nswearing wrathfully, takes her arched back upstairs. Possibly to roam\nthe house-tops again and return by the chimney.\n\n\"Mr. Guppy,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, \"could I have a word with you?\"\n\nMr. Guppy is engaged in collecting the Galaxy Gallery of British\nBeauty from the wall and depositing those works of art in their old\nignoble band-box. \"Sir,\" he returns, reddening, \"I wish to act with\ncourtesy towards every member of the profession, and especially, I am\nsure, towards a member of it so well known as yourself--I will truly\nadd, sir, so distinguished as yourself. Still, Mr. Tulkinghorn, sir,\nI must stipulate that if you have any word with me, that word is\nspoken in the presence of my friend.\"\n\n\"Oh, indeed?\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn.\n\n\"Yes, sir. My reasons are not of a personal nature at all, but they\nare amply sufficient for myself.\"\n\n\"No doubt, no doubt.\" Mr. Tulkinghorn is as imperturbable as the\nhearthstone to which he has quietly walked. \"The matter is not of\nthat consequence that I need put you to the trouble of making any\nconditions, Mr. Guppy.\" He pauses here to smile, and his smile is as\ndull and rusty as his pantaloons. \"You are to be congratulated, Mr.\nGuppy; you are a fortunate young man, sir.\"\n\n\"Pretty well so, Mr. Tulkinghorn; I don't complain.\"\n\n\"Complain? High friends, free admission to great houses, and access\nto elegant ladies! Why, Mr. Guppy, there are people in London who\nwould give their ears to be you.\"\n\nMr. Guppy, looking as if he would give his own reddening and still\nreddening ears to be one of those people at present instead of\nhimself, replies, \"Sir, if I attend to my profession and do what is\nright by Kenge and Carboy, my friends and acquaintances are of no\nconsequence to them nor to any member of the profession, not\nexcepting Mr. Tulkinghorn of the Fields. I am not under any\nobligation to explain myself further; and with all respect for you,\nsir, and without offence--I repeat, without offence--\"\n\n\"Oh, certainly!\"\n\n\"--I don't intend to do it.\"\n\n\"Quite so,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn with a calm nod. \"Very good; I see\nby these portraits that you take a strong interest in the fashionable\ngreat, sir?\"\n\nHe addresses this to the astounded Tony, who admits the soft\nimpeachment.\n\n\"A virtue in which few Englishmen are deficient,\" observes Mr.\nTulkinghorn. He has been standing on the hearthstone with his back to\nthe smoked chimney-piece, and now turns round with his glasses to his\neyes. \"Who is this? 'Lady Dedlock.' Ha! A very good likeness in its\nway, but it wants force of character. Good day to you, gentlemen;\ngood day!\"\n\nWhen he has walked out, Mr. Guppy, in a great perspiration, nerves\nhimself to the hasty completion of the taking down of the Galaxy\nGallery, concluding with Lady Dedlock.\n\n\"Tony,\" he says hurriedly to his astonished companion, \"let us be\nquick in putting the things together and in getting out of this\nplace. It were in vain longer to conceal from you, Tony, that between\nmyself and one of the members of a swan-like aristocracy whom I now\nhold in my hand, there has been undivulged communication and\nassociation. The time might have been when I might have revealed it\nto you. It never will be more. It is due alike to the oath I have\ntaken, alike to the shattered idol, and alike to circumstances over\nwhich I have no control, that the whole should be buried in oblivion.\nI charge you as a friend, by the interest you have ever testified in\nthe fashionable intelligence, and by any little advances with which I\nmay have been able to accommodate you, so to bury it without a word\nof inquiry!\"\n\nThis charge Mr. Guppy delivers in a state little short of forensic\nlunacy, while his friend shows a dazed mind in his whole head of hair\nand even in his cultivated whiskers.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XL\n\nNational and Domestic\n\n\nEngland has been in a dreadful state for some weeks. Lord Coodle\nwould go out, Sir Thomas Doodle wouldn't come in, and there being\nnobody in Great Britain (to speak of) except Coodle and Doodle, there\nhas been no government. It is a mercy that the hostile meeting\nbetween those two great men, which at one time seemed inevitable, did\nnot come off, because if both pistols had taken effect, and Coodle\nand Doodle had killed each other, it is to be presumed that England\nmust have waited to be governed until young Coodle and young Doodle,\nnow in frocks and long stockings, were grown up. This stupendous\nnational calamity, however, was averted by Lord Coodle's making the\ntimely discovery that if in the heat of debate he had said that he\nscorned and despised the whole ignoble career of Sir Thomas Doodle,\nhe had merely meant to say that party differences should never induce\nhim to withhold from it the tribute of his warmest admiration; while\nit as opportunely turned out, on the other hand, that Sir Thomas\nDoodle had in his own bosom expressly booked Lord Coodle to go down\nto posterity as the mirror of virtue and honour. Still England has\nbeen some weeks in the dismal strait of having no pilot (as was well\nobserved by Sir Leicester Dedlock) to weather the storm; and the\nmarvellous part of the matter is that England has not appeared to\ncare very much about it, but has gone on eating and drinking and\nmarrying and giving in marriage as the old world did in the days\nbefore the flood. But Coodle knew the danger, and Doodle knew the\ndanger, and all their followers and hangers-on had the clearest\npossible perception of the danger. At last Sir Thomas Doodle has not\nonly condescended to come in, but has done it handsomely, bringing in\nwith him all his nephews, all his male cousins, and all his\nbrothers-in-law. So there is hope for the old ship yet.\n\nDoodle has found that he must throw himself upon the country, chiefly\nin the form of sovereigns and beer. In this metamorphosed state he is\navailable in a good many places simultaneously and can throw himself\nupon a considerable portion of the country at one time. Britannia\nbeing much occupied in pocketing Doodle in the form of sovereigns,\nand swallowing Doodle in the form of beer, and in swearing herself\nblack in the face that she does neither--plainly to the advancement\nof her glory and morality--the London season comes to a sudden end,\nthrough all the Doodleites and Coodleites dispersing to assist\nBritannia in those religious exercises.\n\nHence Mrs. Rouncewell, housekeeper at Chesney Wold, foresees, though\nno instructions have yet come down, that the family may shortly be\nexpected, together with a pretty large accession of cousins and\nothers who can in any way assist the great Constitutional work. And\nhence the stately old dame, taking Time by the forelock, leads him up\nand down the staircases, and along the galleries and passages, and\nthrough the rooms, to witness before he grows any older that\neverything is ready, that floors are rubbed bright, carpets spread,\ncurtains shaken out, beds puffed and patted, still-room and kitchen\ncleared for action--all things prepared as beseems the Dedlock\ndignity.\n\nThis present summer evening, as the sun goes down, the preparations\nare complete. Dreary and solemn the old house looks, with so many\nappliances of habitation and with no inhabitants except the pictured\nforms upon the walls. So did these come and go, a Dedlock in\npossession might have ruminated passing along; so did they see this\ngallery hushed and quiet, as I see it now; so think, as I think, of\nthe gap that they would make in this domain when they were gone; so\nfind it, as I find it, difficult to believe that it could be without\nthem; so pass from my world, as I pass from theirs, now closing the\nreverberating door; so leave no blank to miss them, and so die.\n\nThrough some of the fiery windows beautiful from without, and set, at\nthis sunset hour, not in dull-grey stone but in a glorious house of\ngold, the light excluded at other windows pours in rich, lavish,\noverflowing like the summer plenty in the land. Then do the frozen\nDedlocks thaw. Strange movements come upon their features as the\nshadows of leaves play there. A dense justice in a corner is beguiled\ninto a wink. A staring baronet, with a truncheon, gets a dimple in\nhis chin. Down into the bosom of a stony shepherdess there steals a\nfleck of light and warmth that would have done it good a hundred\nyears ago. One ancestress of Volumnia, in high-heeled shoes, very\nlike her--casting the shadow of that virgin event before her full two\ncenturies--shoots out into a halo and becomes a saint. A maid of\nhonour of the court of Charles the Second, with large round eyes (and\nother charms to correspond), seems to bathe in glowing water, and it\nripples as it glows.\n\nBut the fire of the sun is dying. Even now the floor is dusky, and\nshadow slowly mounts the walls, bringing the Dedlocks down like age\nand death. And now, upon my Lady's picture over the great\nchimney-piece, a weird shade falls from some old tree, that turns it\npale, and flutters it, and looks as if a great arm held a veil or\nhood, watching an opportunity to draw it over her. Higher and darker\nrises shadow on the wall--now a red gloom on the ceiling--now the\nfire is out.\n\nAll that prospect, which from the terrace looked so near, has moved\nsolemnly away and changed--not the first nor the last of beautiful\nthings that look so near and will so change--into a distant phantom.\nLight mists arise, and the dew falls, and all the sweet scents in the\ngarden are heavy in the air. Now the woods settle into great masses\nas if they were each one profound tree. And now the moon rises to\nseparate them, and to glimmer here and there in horizontal lines\nbehind their stems, and to make the avenue a pavement of light among\nhigh cathedral arches fantastically broken.\n\nNow the moon is high; and the great house, needing habitation more\nthan ever, is like a body without life. Now it is even awful,\nstealing through it, to think of the live people who have slept in\nthe solitary bedrooms, to say nothing of the dead. Now is the time\nfor shadow, when every corner is a cavern and every downward step a\npit, when the stained glass is reflected in pale and faded hues upon\nthe floors, when anything and everything can be made of the heavy\nstaircase beams excepting their own proper shapes, when the armour\nhas dull lights upon it not easily to be distinguished from stealthy\nmovement, and when barred helmets are frightfully suggestive of heads\ninside. But of all the shadows in Chesney Wold, the shadow in the\nlong drawing-room upon my Lady's picture is the first to come, the\nlast to be disturbed. At this hour and by this light it changes into\nthreatening hands raised up and menacing the handsome face with every\nbreath that stirs.\n\n\"She is not well, ma'am,\" says a groom in Mrs. Rouncewell's\naudience-chamber.\n\n\"My Lady not well! What's the matter?\"\n\n\"Why, my Lady has been but poorly, ma'am, since she was last here--I\ndon't mean with the family, ma'am, but when she was here as a bird of\npassage like. My Lady has not been out much, for her, and has kept\nher room a good deal.\"\n\n\"Chesney Wold, Thomas,\" rejoins the housekeeper with proud\ncomplacency, \"will set my Lady up! There is no finer air and no\nhealthier soil in the world!\"\n\nThomas may have his own personal opinions on this subject, probably\nhints them in his manner of smoothing his sleek head from the nape of\nhis neck to his temples, but he forbears to express them further and\nretires to the servants' hall to regale on cold meat-pie and ale.\n\nThis groom is the pilot-fish before the nobler shark. Next evening,\ndown come Sir Leicester and my Lady with their largest retinue, and\ndown come the cousins and others from all the points of the compass.\nThenceforth for some weeks backward and forward rush mysterious men\nwith no names, who fly about all those particular parts of the\ncountry on which Doodle is at present throwing himself in an\nauriferous and malty shower, but who are merely persons of a restless\ndisposition and never do anything anywhere.\n\nOn these national occasions Sir Leicester finds the cousins useful. A\nbetter man than the Honourable Bob Stables to meet the Hunt at\ndinner, there could not possibly be. Better got up gentlemen than the\nother cousins to ride over to polling-booths and hustings here and\nthere, and show themselves on the side of England, it would be hard\nto find. Volumnia is a little dim, but she is of the true descent;\nand there are many who appreciate her sprightly conversation, her\nFrench conundrums so old as to have become in the cycles of time\nalmost new again, the honour of taking the fair Dedlock in to dinner,\nor even the privilege of her hand in the dance. On these national\noccasions dancing may be a patriotic service, and Volumnia is\nconstantly seen hopping about for the good of an ungrateful and\nunpensioning country.\n\nMy Lady takes no great pains to entertain the numerous guests, and\nbeing still unwell, rarely appears until late in the day. But at all\nthe dismal dinners, leaden lunches, basilisk balls, and other\nmelancholy pageants, her mere appearance is a relief. As to Sir\nLeicester, he conceives it utterly impossible that anything can be\nwanting, in any direction, by any one who has the good fortune to be\nreceived under that roof; and in a state of sublime satisfaction, he\nmoves among the company, a magnificent refrigerator.\n\nDaily the cousins trot through dust and canter over roadside turf,\naway to hustings and polling-booths (with leather gloves and\nhunting-whips for the counties and kid gloves and riding-canes for\nthe boroughs), and daily bring back reports on which Sir Leicester\nholds forth after dinner. Daily the restless men who have no\noccupation in life present the appearance of being rather busy. Daily\nVolumnia has a little cousinly talk with Sir Leicester on the state\nof the nation, from which Sir Leicester is disposed to conclude that\nVolumnia is a more reflecting woman than he had thought her.\n\n\"How are we getting on?\" says Miss Volumnia, clasping her hands. \"ARE\nwe safe?\"\n\nThe mighty business is nearly over by this time, and Doodle will\nthrow himself off the country in a few days more. Sir Leicester has\njust appeared in the long drawing-room after dinner, a bright\nparticular star surrounded by clouds of cousins.\n\n\"Volumnia,\" replies Sir Leicester, who has a list in his hand, \"we\nare doing tolerably.\"\n\n\"Only tolerably!\"\n\nAlthough it is summer weather, Sir Leicester always has his own\nparticular fire in the evening. He takes his usual screened seat near\nit and repeats with much firmness and a little displeasure, as who\nshould say, I am not a common man, and when I say tolerably, it must\nnot be understood as a common expression, \"Volumnia, we are doing\ntolerably.\"\n\n\"At least there is no opposition to YOU,\" Volumnia asserts with\nconfidence.\n\n\"No, Volumnia. This distracted country has lost its senses in many\nrespects, I grieve to say, but--\"\n\n\"It is not so mad as that. I am glad to hear it!\"\n\nVolumnia's finishing the sentence restores her to favour. Sir\nLeicester, with a gracious inclination of his head, seems to say to\nhimself, \"A sensible woman this, on the whole, though occasionally\nprecipitate.\"\n\nIn fact, as to this question of opposition, the fair Dedlock's\nobservation was superfluous, Sir Leicester on these occasions always\ndelivering in his own candidateship, as a kind of handsome wholesale\norder to be promptly executed. Two other little seats that belong to\nhim he treats as retail orders of less importance, merely sending\ndown the men and signifying to the tradespeople, \"You will have the\ngoodness to make these materials into two members of Parliament and\nto send them home when done.\"\n\n\"I regret to say, Volumnia, that in many places the people have shown\na bad spirit, and that this opposition to the government has been of\na most determined and most implacable description.\"\n\n\"W-r-retches!\" says Volumnia.\n\n\"Even,\" proceeds Sir Leicester, glancing at the circumjacent cousins\non sofas and ottomans, \"even in many--in fact, in most--of those\nplaces in which the government has carried it against a faction--\"\n\n(Note, by the way, that the Coodleites are always a faction with the\nDoodleites, and that the Doodleites occupy exactly the same position\ntowards the Coodleites.)\n\n\"--Even in them I am shocked, for the credit of Englishmen, to be\nconstrained to inform you that the party has not triumphed without\nbeing put to an enormous expense. Hundreds,\" says Sir Leicester,\neyeing the cousins with increasing dignity and swelling indignation,\n\"hundreds of thousands of pounds!\"\n\nIf Volumnia have a fault, it is the fault of being a trifle too\ninnocent, seeing that the innocence which would go extremely well\nwith a sash and tucker is a little out of keeping with the rouge and\npearl necklace. Howbeit, impelled by innocence, she asks, \"What for?\"\n\n\"Volumnia,\" remonstrates Sir Leicester with his utmost severity.\n\"Volumnia!\"\n\n\"No, no, I don't mean what for,\" cries Volumnia with her favourite\nlittle scream. \"How stupid I am! I mean what a pity!\"\n\n\"I am glad,\" returns Sir Leicester, \"that you do mean what a pity.\"\n\nVolumnia hastens to express her opinion that the shocking people\nought to be tried as traitors and made to support the party.\n\n\"I am glad, Volumnia,\" repeats Sir Leicester, unmindful of these\nmollifying sentiments, \"that you do mean what a pity. It is\ndisgraceful to the electors. But as you, though inadvertently and\nwithout intending so unreasonable a question, asked me 'what for?'\nlet me reply to you. For necessary expenses. And I trust to your good\nsense, Volumnia, not to pursue the subject, here or elsewhere.\"\n\nSir Leicester feels it incumbent on him to observe a crushing aspect\ntowards Volumnia because it is whispered abroad that these necessary\nexpenses will, in some two hundred election petitions, be\nunpleasantly connected with the word bribery, and because some\ngraceless jokers have consequently suggested the omission from the\nChurch service of the ordinary supplication in behalf of the High\nCourt of Parliament and have recommended instead that the prayers of\nthe congregation be requested for six hundred and fifty-eight\ngentlemen in a very unhealthy state.\n\n\"I suppose,\" observes Volumnia, having taken a little time to recover\nher spirits after her late castigation, \"I suppose Mr. Tulkinghorn\nhas been worked to death.\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" says Sir Leicester, opening his eyes, \"why Mr.\nTulkinghorn should be worked to death. I don't know what Mr.\nTulkinghorn's engagements may be. He is not a candidate.\"\n\nVolumnia had thought he might have been employed. Sir Leicester could\ndesire to know by whom, and what for. Volumnia, abashed again,\nsuggests, by somebody--to advise and make arrangements. Sir Leicester\nis not aware that any client of Mr. Tulkinghorn has been in need of\nhis assistance.\n\nLady Dedlock, seated at an open window with her arm upon its\ncushioned ledge and looking out at the evening shadows falling on the\npark, has seemed to attend since the lawyer's name was mentioned.\n\nA languid cousin with a moustache in a state of extreme debility now\nobserves from his couch that man told him ya'as'dy that Tulkinghorn\nhad gone down t' that iron place t' give legal 'pinion 'bout\nsomething, and that contest being over t' day, 'twould be highly\njawlly thing if Tulkinghorn should 'pear with news that Coodle man\nwas floored.\n\nMercury in attendance with coffee informs Sir Leicester, hereupon,\nthat Mr. Tulkinghorn has arrived and is taking dinner. My Lady turns\nher head inward for the moment, then looks out again as before.\n\nVolumnia is charmed to hear that her delight is come. He is so\noriginal, such a stolid creature, such an immense being for knowing\nall sorts of things and never telling them! Volumnia is persuaded\nthat he must be a Freemason. Is sure he is at the head of a lodge,\nand wears short aprons, and is made a perfect idol of with\ncandlesticks and trowels. These lively remarks the fair Dedlock\ndelivers in her youthful manner, while making a purse.\n\n\"He has not been here once,\" she adds, \"since I came. I really had\nsome thoughts of breaking my heart for the inconstant creature. I had\nalmost made up my mind that he was dead.\"\n\nIt may be the gathering gloom of evening, or it may be the darker\ngloom within herself, but a shade is on my Lady's face, as if she\nthought, \"I would he were!\"\n\n\"Mr. Tulkinghorn,\" says Sir Leicester, \"is always welcome here and\nalways discreet wheresoever he is. A very valuable person, and\ndeservedly respected.\"\n\nThe debilitated cousin supposes he is \"'normously rich fler.\"\n\n\"He has a stake in the country,\" says Sir Leicester, \"I have no\ndoubt. He is, of course, handsomely paid, and he associates almost on\na footing of equality with the highest society.\"\n\nEverybody starts. For a gun is fired close by.\n\n\"Good gracious, what's that?\" cries Volumnia with her little withered\nscream.\n\n\"A rat,\" says my Lady. \"And they have shot him.\"\n\nEnter Mr. Tulkinghorn, followed by Mercuries with lamps and candles.\n\n\"No, no,\" says Sir Leicester, \"I think not. My Lady, do you object to\nthe twilight?\"\n\nOn the contrary, my Lady prefers it.\n\n\"Volumnia?\"\n\nOh! Nothing is so delicious to Volumnia as to sit and talk in the\ndark.\n\n\"Then take them away,\" says Sir Leicester. \"Tulkinghorn, I beg your\npardon. How do you do?\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn with his usual leisurely ease advances, renders his\npassing homage to my Lady, shakes Sir Leicester's hand, and subsides\ninto the chair proper to him when he has anything to communicate, on\nthe opposite side of the Baronet's little newspaper-table. Sir\nLeicester is apprehensive that my Lady, not being very well, will\ntake cold at that open window. My Lady is obliged to him, but would\nrather sit there for the air. Sir Leicester rises, adjusts her scarf\nabout her, and returns to his seat. Mr. Tulkinghorn in the meanwhile\ntakes a pinch of snuff.\n\n\"Now,\" says Sir Leicester. \"How has that contest gone?\"\n\n\"Oh, hollow from the beginning. Not a chance. They have brought in\nboth their people. You are beaten out of all reason. Three to one.\"\n\nIt is a part of Mr. Tulkinghorn's policy and mastery to have no\npolitical opinions; indeed, NO opinions. Therefore he says \"you\" are\nbeaten, and not \"we.\"\n\nSir Leicester is majestically wroth. Volumnia never heard of such a\nthing. 'The debilitated cousin holds that it's sort of thing that's\nsure tapn slongs votes--giv'n--Mob.\n\n\"It's the place, you know,\" Mr. Tulkinghorn goes on to say in the\nfast-increasing darkness when there is silence again, \"where they\nwanted to put up Mrs. Rouncewell's son.\"\n\n\"A proposal which, as you correctly informed me at the time, he had\nthe becoming taste and perception,\" observes Sir Leicester, \"to\ndecline. I cannot say that I by any means approve of the sentiments\nexpressed by Mr. Rouncewell when he was here for some half-hour in\nthis room, but there was a sense of propriety in his decision which I\nam glad to acknowledge.\"\n\n\"Ha!\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. \"It did not prevent him from being very\nactive in this election, though.\"\n\nSir Leicester is distinctly heard to gasp before speaking. \"Did I\nunderstand you? Did you say that Mr. Rouncewell had been very active\nin this election?\"\n\n\"Uncommonly active.\"\n\n\"Against--\"\n\n\"Oh, dear yes, against you. He is a very good speaker. Plain and\nemphatic. He made a damaging effect, and has great influence. In the\nbusiness part of the proceedings he carried all before him.\"\n\nIt is evident to the whole company, though nobody can see him, that\nSir Leicester is staring majestically.\n\n\"And he was much assisted,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn as a wind-up, \"by\nhis son.\"\n\n\"By his son, sir?\" repeats Sir Leicester with awful politeness.\n\n\"By his son.\"\n\n\"The son who wished to marry the young woman in my Lady's service?\"\n\n\"That son. He has but one.\"\n\n\"Then upon my honour,\" says Sir Leicester after a terrific pause\nduring which he has been heard to snort and felt to stare, \"then\nupon my honour, upon my life, upon my reputation and principles,\nthe floodgates of society are burst open, and the waters\nhave--a--obliterated the landmarks of the framework of the cohesion\nby which things are held together!\"\n\nGeneral burst of cousinly indignation. Volumnia thinks it is\nreally high time, you know, for somebody in power to step in\nand do something strong. Debilitated cousin thinks--country's\ngoing--Dayvle--steeple-chase pace.\n\n\"I beg,\" says Sir Leicester in a breathless condition, \"that we may\nnot comment further on this circumstance. Comment is superfluous. My\nLady, let me suggest in reference to that young woman--\"\n\n\"I have no intention,\" observes my Lady from her window in a low but\ndecided tone, \"of parting with her.\"\n\n\"That was not my meaning,\" returns Sir Leicester. \"I am glad to hear\nyou say so. I would suggest that as you think her worthy of your\npatronage, you should exert your influence to keep her from these\ndangerous hands. You might show her what violence would be done in\nsuch association to her duties and principles, and you might preserve\nher for a better fate. You might point out to her that she probably\nwould, in good time, find a husband at Chesney Wold by whom she would\nnot be--\" Sir Leicester adds, after a moment's consideration,\n\"dragged from the altars of her forefathers.\"\n\nThese remarks he offers with his unvarying politeness and deference\nwhen he addresses himself to his wife. She merely moves her head in\nreply. The moon is rising, and where she sits there is a little\nstream of cold pale light, in which her head is seen.\n\n\"It is worthy of remark,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, \"however, that these\npeople are, in their way, very proud.\"\n\n\"Proud?\" Sir Leicester doubts his hearing.\n\n\"I should not be surprised if they all voluntarily abandoned the\ngirl--yes, lover and all--instead of her abandoning them, supposing\nshe remained at Chesney Wold under such circumstances.\"\n\n\"Well!\" says Sir Leicester tremulously. \"Well! You should know, Mr.\nTulkinghorn. You have been among them.\"\n\n\"Really, Sir Leicester,\" returns the lawyer, \"I state the fact. Why,\nI could tell you a story--with Lady Dedlock's permission.\"\n\nHer head concedes it, and Volumnia is enchanted. A story! Oh, he is\ngoing to tell something at last! A ghost in it, Volumnia hopes?\n\n\"No. Real flesh and blood.\" Mr. Tulkinghorn stops for an instant and\nrepeats with some little emphasis grafted upon his usual monotony,\n\"Real flesh and blood, Miss Dedlock. Sir Leicester, these particulars\nhave only lately become known to me. They are very brief. They\nexemplify what I have said. I suppress names for the present. Lady\nDedlock will not think me ill-bred, I hope?\"\n\nBy the light of the fire, which is low, he can be seen looking\ntowards the moonlight. By the light of the moon Lady Dedlock can be\nseen, perfectly still.\n\n\"A townsman of this Mrs. Rouncewell, a man in exactly parallel\ncircumstances as I am told, had the good fortune to have a daughter\nwho attracted the notice of a great lady. I speak of really a great\nlady, not merely great to him, but married to a gentleman of your\ncondition, Sir Leicester.\"\n\nSir Leicester condescendingly says, \"Yes, Mr. Tulkinghorn,\" implying\nthat then she must have appeared of very considerable moral\ndimensions indeed in the eyes of an iron-master.\n\n\"The lady was wealthy and beautiful, and had a liking for the girl,\nand treated her with great kindness, and kept her always near her.\nNow this lady preserved a secret under all her greatness, which she\nhad preserved for many years. In fact, she had in early life been\nengaged to marry a young rake--he was a captain in the army--nothing\nconnected with whom came to any good. She never did marry him, but\nshe gave birth to a child of which he was the father.\"\n\nBy the light of the fire he can be seen looking towards the\nmoonlight. By the moonlight, Lady Dedlock can be seen in profile,\nperfectly still.\n\n\"The captain in the army being dead, she believed herself safe; but a\ntrain of circumstances with which I need not trouble you led to\ndiscovery. As I received the story, they began in an imprudence on\nher own part one day when she was taken by surprise, which shows how\ndifficult it is for the firmest of us (she was very firm) to be\nalways guarded. There was great domestic trouble and amazement, you\nmay suppose; I leave you to imagine, Sir Leicester, the husband's\ngrief. But that is not the present point. When Mr. Rouncewell's\ntownsman heard of the disclosure, he no more allowed the girl to be\npatronized and honoured than he would have suffered her to be trodden\nunderfoot before his eyes. Such was his pride, that he indignantly\ntook her away, as if from reproach and disgrace. He had no sense of\nthe honour done him and his daughter by the lady's condescension; not\nthe least. He resented the girl's position, as if the lady had been\nthe commonest of commoners. That is the story. I hope Lady Dedlock\nwill excuse its painful nature.\"\n\nThere are various opinions on the merits, more or less conflicting\nwith Volumnia's. That fair young creature cannot believe there ever\nwas any such lady and rejects the whole history on the threshold. The\nmajority incline to the debilitated cousin's sentiment, which is in\nfew words--\"no business--Rouncewell's fernal townsman.\" Sir Leicester\ngenerally refers back in his mind to Wat Tyler and arranges a\nsequence of events on a plan of his own.\n\nThere is not much conversation in all, for late hours have been kept\nat Chesney Wold since the necessary expenses elsewhere began, and\nthis is the first night in many on which the family have been alone.\nIt is past ten when Sir Leicester begs Mr. Tulkinghorn to ring for\ncandles. Then the stream of moonlight has swelled into a lake, and\nthen Lady Dedlock for the first time moves, and rises, and comes\nforward to a table for a glass of water. Winking cousins, bat-like in\nthe candle glare, crowd round to give it; Volumnia (always ready for\nsomething better if procurable) takes another, a very mild sip of\nwhich contents her; Lady Dedlock, graceful, self-possessed, looked\nafter by admiring eyes, passes away slowly down the long perspective\nby the side of that nymph, not at all improving her as a question of\ncontrast.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLI\n\nIn Mr. Tulkinghorn's Room\n\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn arrives in his turret-room a little breathed by the\njourney up, though leisurely performed. There is an expression on his\nface as if he had discharged his mind of some grave matter and were,\nin his close way, satisfied. To say of a man so severely and strictly\nself-repressed that he is triumphant would be to do him as great an\ninjustice as to suppose him troubled with love or sentiment or any\nromantic weakness. He is sedately satisfied. Perhaps there is a\nrather increased sense of power upon him as he loosely grasps one of\nhis veinous wrists with his other hand and holding it behind his back\nwalks noiselessly up and down.\n\nThere is a capacious writing-table in the room on which is a pretty\nlarge accumulation of papers. The green lamp is lighted, his\nreading-glasses lie upon the desk, the easy-chair is wheeled up to\nit, and it would seem as though he had intended to bestow an hour or\nso upon these claims on his attention before going to bed. But he\nhappens not to be in a business mind. After a glance at the documents\nawaiting his notice--with his head bent low over the table, the old\nman's sight for print or writing being defective at night--he opens\nthe French window and steps out upon the leads. There he again walks\nslowly up and down in the same attitude, subsiding, if a man so cool\nmay have any need to subside, from the story he has related\ndownstairs.\n\nThe time was once when men as knowing as Mr. Tulkinghorn would walk\non turret-tops in the starlight and look up into the sky to read\ntheir fortunes there. Hosts of stars are visible to-night, though\ntheir brilliancy is eclipsed by the splendour of the moon. If he be\nseeking his own star as he methodically turns and turns upon the\nleads, it should be but a pale one to be so rustily represented\nbelow. If he be tracing out his destiny, that may be written in other\ncharacters nearer to his hand.\n\nAs he paces the leads with his eyes most probably as high above his\nthoughts as they are high above the earth, he is suddenly stopped in\npassing the window by two eyes that meet his own. The ceiling of his\nroom is rather low; and the upper part of the door, which is opposite\nthe window, is of glass. There is an inner baize door, too, but the\nnight being warm he did not close it when he came upstairs. These\neyes that meet his own are looking in through the glass from the\ncorridor outside. He knows them well. The blood has not flushed into\nhis face so suddenly and redly for many a long year as when he\nrecognizes Lady Dedlock.\n\nHe steps into the room, and she comes in too, closing both the doors\nbehind her. There is a wild disturbance--is it fear or anger?--in her\neyes. In her carriage and all else she looks as she looked downstairs\ntwo hours ago.\n\nIs it fear or is it anger now? He cannot be sure. Both might be as\npale, both as intent.\n\n\"Lady Dedlock?\"\n\nShe does not speak at first, nor even when she has slowly dropped\ninto the easy-chair by the table. They look at each other, like two\npictures.\n\n\"Why have you told my story to so many persons?\"\n\n\"Lady Dedlock, it was necessary for me to inform you that I knew it.\"\n\n\"How long have you known it?\"\n\n\"I have suspected it a long while--fully known it a little while.\"\n\n\"Months?\"\n\n\"Days.\"\n\nHe stands before her with one hand on a chair-back and the other in\nhis old-fashioned waistcoat and shirt-frill, exactly as he has stood\nbefore her at any time since her marriage. The same formal\npoliteness, the same composed deference that might as well be\ndefiance; the whole man the same dark, cold object, at the same\ndistance, which nothing has ever diminished.\n\n\"Is this true concerning the poor girl?\"\n\nHe slightly inclines and advances his head as not quite understanding\nthe question.\n\n\"You know what you related. Is it true? Do her friends know my story\nalso? Is it the town-talk yet? Is it chalked upon the walls and cried\nin the streets?\"\n\nSo! Anger, and fear, and shame. All three contending. What power this\nwoman has to keep these raging passions down! Mr. Tulkinghorn's\nthoughts take such form as he looks at her, with his ragged grey\neyebrows a hair's breadth more contracted than usual under her gaze.\n\n\"No, Lady Dedlock. That was a hypothetical case, arising out of Sir\nLeicester's unconsciously carrying the matter with so high a hand.\nBut it would be a real case if they knew--what we know.\"\n\n\"Then they do not know it yet?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Can I save the poor girl from injury before they know it?\"\n\n\"Really, Lady Dedlock,\" Mr. Tulkinghorn replies, \"I cannot give a\nsatisfactory opinion on that point.\"\n\nAnd he thinks, with the interest of attentive curiosity, as he\nwatches the struggle in her breast, \"The power and force of this\nwoman are astonishing!\"\n\n\"Sir,\" she says, for the moment obliged to set her lips with all the\nenergy she has, that she may speak distinctly, \"I will make it\nplainer. I do not dispute your hypothetical case. I anticipated it,\nand felt its truth as strongly as you can do, when I saw Mr.\nRouncewell here. I knew very well that if he could have had the power\nof seeing me as I was, he would consider the poor girl tarnished by\nhaving for a moment been, although most innocently, the subject of my\ngreat and distinguished patronage. But I have an interest in her, or\nI should rather say--no longer belonging to this place--I had, and if\nyou can find so much consideration for the woman under your foot as\nto remember that, she will be very sensible of your mercy.\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn, profoundly attentive, throws this off with a shrug\nof self-depreciation and contracts his eyebrows a little more.\n\n\"You have prepared me for my exposure, and I thank you for that too.\nIs there anything that you require of me? Is there any claim that I\ncan release or any charge or trouble that I can spare my husband in\nobtaining HIS release by certifying to the exactness of your\ndiscovery? I will write anything, here and now, that you will\ndictate. I am ready to do it.\"\n\nAnd she would do it, thinks the lawyer, watchful of the firm hand\nwith which she takes the pen!\n\n\"I will not trouble you, Lady Dedlock. Pray spare yourself.\"\n\n\"I have long expected this, as you know. I neither wish to spare\nmyself nor to be spared. You can do nothing worse to me than you have\ndone. Do what remains now.\"\n\n\"Lady Dedlock, there is nothing to be done. I will take leave to say\na few words when you have finished.\"\n\nTheir need for watching one another should be over now, but they do\nit all this time, and the stars watch them both through the opened\nwindow. Away in the moonlight lie the woodland fields at rest, and\nthe wide house is as quiet as the narrow one. The narrow one! Where\nare the digger and the spade, this peaceful night, destined to add\nthe last great secret to the many secrets of the Tulkinghorn\nexistence? Is the man born yet, is the spade wrought yet? Curious\nquestions to consider, more curious perhaps not to consider, under\nthe watching stars upon a summer night.\n\n\"Of repentance or remorse or any feeling of mine,\" Lady Dedlock\npresently proceeds, \"I say not a word. If I were not dumb, you would\nbe deaf. Let that go by. It is not for your ears.\"\n\nHe makes a feint of offering a protest, but she sweeps it away with\nher disdainful hand.\n\n\"Of other and very different things I come to speak to you. My jewels\nare all in their proper places of keeping. They will be found there.\nSo, my dresses. So, all the valuables I have. Some ready money I had\nwith me, please to say, but no large amount. I did not wear my own\ndress, in order that I might avoid observation. I went to be\nhenceforward lost. Make this known. I leave no other charge with\nyou.\"\n\n\"Excuse me, Lady Dedlock,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, quite unmoved. \"I am\nnot sure that I understand you. You want--\"\n\n\"To be lost to all here. I leave Chesney Wold to-night. I go this\nhour.\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn shakes his head. She rises, but he, without moving\nhand from chair-back or from old-fashioned waistcoat and shirt-frill,\nshakes his head.\n\n\"What? Not go as I have said?\"\n\n\"No, Lady Dedlock,\" he very calmly replies.\n\n\"Do you know the relief that my disappearance will be? Have you\nforgotten the stain and blot upon this place, and where it is, and\nwho it is?\"\n\n\"No, Lady Dedlock, not by any means.\"\n\nWithout deigning to rejoin, she moves to the inner door and has it in\nher hand when he says to her, without himself stirring hand or foot\nor raising his voice, \"Lady Dedlock, have the goodness to stop and\nhear me, or before you reach the staircase I shall ring the\nalarm-bell and rouse the house. And then I must speak out before\nevery guest and servant, every man and woman, in it.\"\n\nHe has conquered her. She falters, trembles, and puts her hand\nconfusedly to her head. Slight tokens these in any one else, but when\nso practised an eye as Mr. Tulkinghorn's sees indecision for a moment\nin such a subject, he thoroughly knows its value.\n\nHe promptly says again, \"Have the goodness to hear me, Lady Dedlock,\"\nand motions to the chair from which she has risen. She hesitates, but\nhe motions again, and she sits down.\n\n\"The relations between us are of an unfortunate description, Lady\nDedlock; but as they are not of my making, I will not apologize for\nthem. The position I hold in reference to Sir Leicester is so well\nknown to you that I can hardly imagine but that I must long have\nappeared in your eyes the natural person to make this discovery.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" she returns without looking up from the ground on which her\neyes are now fixed, \"I had better have gone. It would have been far\nbetter not to have detained me. I have no more to say.\"\n\n\"Excuse me, Lady Dedlock, if I add a little more to hear.\"\n\n\"I wish to hear it at the window, then. I can't breathe where I am.\"\n\nHis jealous glance as she walks that way betrays an instant's\nmisgiving that she may have it in her thoughts to leap over, and\ndashing against ledge and cornice, strike her life out upon the\nterrace below. But a moment's observation of her figure as she stands\nin the window without any support, looking out at the stars--not\nup--gloomily out at those stars which are low in the heavens,\nreassures him. By facing round as she has moved, he stands a little\nbehind her.\n\n\"Lady Dedlock, I have not yet been able to come to a decision\nsatisfactory to myself on the course before me. I am not clear what\nto do or how to act next. I must request you, in the meantime, to\nkeep your secret as you have kept it so long and not to wonder that I\nkeep it too.\"\n\nHe pauses, but she makes no reply.\n\n\"Pardon me, Lady Dedlock. This is an important subject. You are\nhonouring me with your attention?\"\n\n\"I am.\"\n\n\"Thank you. I might have known it from what I have seen of your\nstrength of character. I ought not to have asked the question, but I\nhave the habit of making sure of my ground, step by step, as I go on.\nThe sole consideration in this unhappy case is Sir Leicester.\"\n\n\"Then why,\" she asks in a low voice and without removing her gloomy\nlook from those distant stars, \"do you detain me in his house?\"\n\n\"Because he IS the consideration. Lady Dedlock, I have no occasion to\ntell you that Sir Leicester is a very proud man, that his reliance\nupon you is implicit, that the fall of that moon out of the sky would\nnot amaze him more than your fall from your high position as his\nwife.\"\n\nShe breathes quickly and heavily, but she stands as unflinchingly as\never he has seen her in the midst of her grandest company.\n\n\"I declare to you, Lady Dedlock, that with anything short of this\ncase that I have, I would as soon have hoped to root up by means of\nmy own strength and my own hands the oldest tree on this estate as to\nshake your hold upon Sir Leicester and Sir Leicester's trust and\nconfidence in you. And even now, with this case, I hesitate. Not that\nhe could doubt (that, even with him, is impossible), but that nothing\ncan prepare him for the blow.\"\n\n\"Not my flight?\" she returned. \"Think of it again.\"\n\n\"Your flight, Lady Dedlock, would spread the whole truth, and a\nhundred times the whole truth, far and wide. It would be impossible\nto save the family credit for a day. It is not to be thought of.\"\n\nThere is a quiet decision in his reply which admits of no\nremonstrance.\n\n\"When I speak of Sir Leicester being the sole consideration, he and\nthe family credit are one. Sir Leicester and the baronetcy, Sir\nLeicester and Chesney Wold, Sir Leicester and his ancestors and his\npatrimony\"--Mr. Tulkinghorn very dry here--\"are, I need not say to\nyou, Lady Dedlock, inseparable.\"\n\n\"Go on!\"\n\n\"Therefore,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, pursuing his case in his jog-trot\nstyle, \"I have much to consider. This is to be hushed up if it can\nbe. How can it be, if Sir Leicester is driven out of his wits or laid\nupon a death-bed? If I inflicted this shock upon him to-morrow\nmorning, how could the immediate change in him be accounted for? What\ncould have caused it? What could have divided you? Lady Dedlock, the\nwall-chalking and the street-crying would come on directly, and you\nare to remember that it would not affect you merely (whom I cannot at\nall consider in this business) but your husband, Lady Dedlock, your\nhusband.\"\n\nHe gets plainer as he gets on, but not an atom more emphatic or\nanimated.\n\n\"There is another point of view,\" he continues, \"in which the case\npresents itself. Sir Leicester is devoted to you almost to\ninfatuation. He might not be able to overcome that infatuation, even\nknowing what we know. I am putting an extreme case, but it might be\nso. If so, it were better that he knew nothing. Better for common\nsense, better for him, better for me. I must take all this into\naccount, and it combines to render a decision very difficult.\"\n\nShe stands looking out at the same stars without a word. They are\nbeginning to pale, and she looks as if their coldness froze her.\n\n\"My experience teaches me,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, who has by this\ntime got his hands in his pockets and is going on in his business\nconsideration of the matter like a machine. \"My experience teaches\nme, Lady Dedlock, that most of the people I know would do far better\nto leave marriage alone. It is at the bottom of three fourths of\ntheir troubles. So I thought when Sir Leicester married, and so I\nalways have thought since. No more about that. I must now be guided\nby circumstances. In the meanwhile I must beg you to keep your own\ncounsel, and I will keep mine.\"\n\n\"I am to drag my present life on, holding its pains at your pleasure,\nday by day?\" she asks, still looking at the distant sky.\n\n\"Yes, I am afraid so, Lady Dedlock.\"\n\n\"It is necessary, you think, that I should be so tied to the stake?\"\n\n\"I am sure that what I recommend is necessary.\"\n\n\"I am to remain on this gaudy platform on which my miserable\ndeception has been so long acted, and it is to fall beneath me when\nyou give the signal?\" she said slowly.\n\n\"Not without notice, Lady Dedlock. I shall take no step without\nforewarning you.\"\n\nShe asks all her questions as if she were repeating them from memory\nor calling them over in her sleep.\n\n\"We are to meet as usual?\"\n\n\"Precisely as usual, if you please.\"\n\n\"And I am to hide my guilt, as I have done so many years?\"\n\n\"As you have done so many years. I should not have made that\nreference myself, Lady Dedlock, but I may now remind you that your\nsecret can be no heavier to you than it was, and is no worse and no\nbetter than it was. I know it certainly, but I believe we have never\nwholly trusted each other.\"\n\nShe stands absorbed in the same frozen way for some little time\nbefore asking, \"Is there anything more to be said to-night?\"\n\n\"Why,\" Mr. Tulkinghorn returns methodically as he softly rubs his\nhands, \"I should like to be assured of your acquiescence in my\narrangements, Lady Dedlock.\"\n\n\"You may be assured of it.\"\n\n\"Good. And I would wish in conclusion to remind you, as a business\nprecaution, in case it should be necessary to recall the fact in any\ncommunication with Sir Leicester, that throughout our interview I\nhave expressly stated my sole consideration to be Sir Leicester's\nfeelings and honour and the family reputation. I should have been\nhappy to have made Lady Dedlock a prominent consideration, too, if\nthe case had admitted of it; but unfortunately it does not.\"\n\n\"I can attest your fidelity, sir.\"\n\nBoth before and after saying it she remains absorbed, but at length\nmoves, and turns, unshaken in her natural and acquired presence,\ntowards the door. Mr. Tulkinghorn opens both the doors exactly as he\nwould have done yesterday, or as he would have done ten years ago,\nand makes his old-fashioned bow as she passes out. It is not an\nordinary look that he receives from the handsome face as it goes into\nthe darkness, and it is not an ordinary movement, though a very\nslight one, that acknowledges his courtesy. But as he reflects when\nhe is left alone, the woman has been putting no common constraint\nupon herself.\n\nHe would know it all the better if he saw the woman pacing her own\nrooms with her hair wildly thrown from her flung-back face, her hands\nclasped behind her head, her figure twisted as if by pain. He would\nthink so all the more if he saw the woman thus hurrying up and down\nfor hours, without fatigue, without intermission, followed by the\nfaithful step upon the Ghost's Walk. But he shuts out the now chilled\nair, draws the window-curtain, goes to bed, and falls asleep. And\ntruly when the stars go out and the wan day peeps into the\nturret-chamber, finding him at his oldest, he looks as if the digger\nand the spade were both commissioned and would soon be digging.\n\nThe same wan day peeps in at Sir Leicester pardoning the repentant\ncountry in a majestically condescending dream; and at the cousins\nentering on various public employments, principally receipt of\nsalary; and at the chaste Volumnia, bestowing a dower of fifty\nthousand pounds upon a hideous old general with a mouth of false\nteeth like a pianoforte too full of keys, long the admiration of Bath\nand the terror of every other community. Also into rooms high in the\nroof, and into offices in court-yards, and over stables, where\nhumbler ambition dreams of bliss, in keepers' lodges, and in holy\nmatrimony with Will or Sally. Up comes the bright sun, drawing\neverything up with it--the Wills and Sallys, the latent vapour in the\nearth, the drooping leaves and flowers, the birds and beasts and\ncreeping things, the gardeners to sweep the dewy turf and unfold\nemerald velvet where the roller passes, the smoke of the great\nkitchen fire wreathing itself straight and high into the lightsome\nair. Lastly, up comes the flag over Mr. Tulkinghorn's unconscious\nhead cheerfully proclaiming that Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock are\nin their happy home and that there is hospitality at the place in\nLincolnshire.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLII\n\nIn Mr. Tulkinghorn's Chambers\n\n\nFrom the verdant undulations and the spreading oaks of the Dedlock\nproperty, Mr. Tulkinghorn transfers himself to the stale heat and\ndust of London. His manner of coming and going between the two places\nis one of his impenetrabilities. He walks into Chesney Wold as if it\nwere next door to his chambers and returns to his chambers as if he\nhad never been out of Lincoln's Inn Fields. He neither changes his\ndress before the journey nor talks of it afterwards. He melted out of\nhis turret-room this morning, just as now, in the late twilight, he\nmelts into his own square.\n\nLike a dingy London bird among the birds at roost in these pleasant\nfields, where the sheep are all made into parchment, the goats into\nwigs, and the pasture into chaff, the lawyer, smoke-dried and faded,\ndwelling among mankind but not consorting with them, aged without\nexperience of genial youth, and so long used to make his cramped nest\nin holes and corners of human nature that he has forgotten its\nbroader and better range, comes sauntering home. In the oven made by\nthe hot pavements and hot buildings, he has baked himself dryer than\nusual; and he has in his thirsty mind his mellowed port-wine half a\ncentury old.\n\nThe lamplighter is skipping up and down his ladder on Mr.\nTulkinghorn's side of the Fields when that high-priest of noble\nmysteries arrives at his own dull court-yard. He ascends the\ndoor-steps and is gliding into the dusky hall when he encounters, on\nthe top step, a bowing and propitiatory little man.\n\n\"Is that Snagsby?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. I hope you are well, sir. I was just giving you up, sir,\nand going home.\"\n\n\"Aye? What is it? What do you want with me?\"\n\n\"Well, sir,\" says Mr. Snagsby, holding his hat at the side of his\nhead in his deference towards his best customer, \"I was wishful to\nsay a word to you, sir.\"\n\n\"Can you say it here?\"\n\n\"Perfectly, sir.\"\n\n\"Say it then.\" The lawyer turns, leans his arms on the iron railing\nat the top of the steps, and looks at the lamplighter lighting the\ncourt-yard.\n\n\"It is relating,\" says Mr. Snagsby in a mysterious low voice, \"it is\nrelating--not to put too fine a point upon it--to the foreigner,\nsir!\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn eyes him with some surprise. \"What foreigner?\"\n\n\"The foreign female, sir. French, if I don't mistake? I am not\nacquainted with that language myself, but I should judge from her\nmanners and appearance that she was French; anyways, certainly\nforeign. Her that was upstairs, sir, when Mr. Bucket and me had the\nhonour of waiting upon you with the sweeping-boy that night.\"\n\n\"Oh! Yes, yes. Mademoiselle Hortense.\"\n\n\"Indeed, sir?\" Mr. Snagsby coughs his cough of submission behind his\nhat. \"I am not acquainted myself with the names of foreigners in\ngeneral, but I have no doubt it WOULD be that.\" Mr. Snagsby appears\nto have set out in this reply with some desperate design of repeating\nthe name, but on reflection coughs again to excuse himself.\n\n\"And what can you have to say, Snagsby,\" demands Mr. Tulkinghorn,\n\"about her?\"\n\n\"Well, sir,\" returns the stationer, shading his communication with\nhis hat, \"it falls a little hard upon me. My domestic happiness is\nvery great--at least, it's as great as can be expected, I'm sure--but\nmy little woman is rather given to jealousy. Not to put too fine a\npoint upon it, she is very much given to jealousy. And you see, a\nforeign female of that genteel appearance coming into the shop, and\nhovering--I should be the last to make use of a strong expression if\nI could avoid it, but hovering, sir--in the court--you know it\nis--now ain't it? I only put it to yourself, sir.\"\n\nMr. Snagsby, having said this in a very plaintive manner, throws in a\ncough of general application to fill up all the blanks.\n\n\"Why, what do you mean?\" asks Mr. Tulkinghorn.\n\n\"Just so, sir,\" returns Mr. Snagsby; \"I was sure you would feel it\nyourself and would excuse the reasonableness of MY feelings when\ncoupled with the known excitableness of my little woman. You see, the\nforeign female--which you mentioned her name just now, with quite a\nnative sound I am sure--caught up the word Snagsby that night, being\nuncommon quick, and made inquiry, and got the direction and come at\ndinner-time. Now Guster, our young woman, is timid and has fits, and\nshe, taking fright at the foreigner's looks--which are fierce--and at\na grinding manner that she has of speaking--which is calculated to\nalarm a weak mind--gave way to it, instead of bearing up against it,\nand tumbled down the kitchen stairs out of one into another, such\nfits as I do sometimes think are never gone into, or come out of, in\nany house but ours. Consequently there was by good fortune ample\noccupation for my little woman, and only me to answer the shop. When\nshe DID say that Mr. Tulkinghorn, being always denied to her by his\nemployer (which I had no doubt at the time was a foreign mode of\nviewing a clerk), she would do herself the pleasure of continually\ncalling at my place until she was let in here. Since then she has\nbeen, as I began by saying, hovering, hovering, sir\"--Mr. Snagsby\nrepeats the word with pathetic emphasis--\"in the court. The effects\nof which movement it is impossible to calculate. I shouldn't wonder\nif it might have already given rise to the painfullest mistakes even\nin the neighbours' minds, not mentioning (if such a thing was\npossible) my little woman. Whereas, goodness knows,\" says Mr.\nSnagsby, shaking his head, \"I never had an idea of a foreign female,\nexcept as being formerly connected with a bunch of brooms and a baby,\nor at the present time with a tambourine and earrings. I never had, I\ndo assure you, sir!\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn had listened gravely to this complaint and inquires\nwhen the stationer has finished, \"And that's all, is it, Snagsby?\"\n\n\"Why yes, sir, that's all,\" says Mr. Snagsby, ending with a cough\nthat plainly adds, \"and it's enough too--for me.\"\n\n\"I don't know what Mademoiselle Hortense may want or mean, unless she\nis mad,\" says the lawyer.\n\n\"Even if she was, you know, sir,\" Mr. Snagsby pleads, \"it wouldn't be\na consolation to have some weapon or another in the form of a foreign\ndagger planted in the family.\"\n\n\"No,\" says the other. \"Well, well! This shall be stopped. I am sorry\nyou have been inconvenienced. If she comes again, send her here.\"\n\nMr. Snagsby, with much bowing and short apologetic coughing, takes\nhis leave, lightened in heart. Mr. Tulkinghorn goes upstairs, saying\nto himself, \"These women were created to give trouble the whole earth\nover. The mistress not being enough to deal with, here's the maid\nnow! But I will be short with THIS jade at least!\"\n\nSo saying, he unlocks his door, gropes his way into his murky rooms,\nlights his candles, and looks about him. It is too dark to see much\nof the Allegory overhead there, but that importunate Roman, who is\nfor ever toppling out of the clouds and pointing, is at his old work\npretty distinctly. Not honouring him with much attention, Mr.\nTulkinghorn takes a small key from his pocket, unlocks a drawer in\nwhich there is another key, which unlocks a chest in which there is\nanother, and so comes to the cellar-key, with which he prepares to\ndescend to the regions of old wine. He is going towards the door with\na candle in his hand when a knock comes.\n\n\"Who's this? Aye, aye, mistress, it's you, is it? You appear at a\ngood time. I have just been hearing of you. Now! What do you want?\"\n\nHe stands the candle on the chimney-piece in the clerk's hall and\ntaps his dry cheek with the key as he addresses these words of\nwelcome to Mademoiselle Hortense. That feline personage, with her\nlips tightly shut and her eyes looking out at him sideways, softly\ncloses the door before replying.\n\n\"I have had great deal of trouble to find you, sir.\"\n\n\"HAVE you!\"\n\n\"I have been here very often, sir. It has always been said to me, he\nis not at home, he is engage, he is this and that, he is not for\nyou.\"\n\n\"Quite right, and quite true.\"\n\n\"Not true. Lies!\"\n\nAt times there is a suddenness in the manner of Mademoiselle Hortense\nso like a bodily spring upon the subject of it that such subject\ninvoluntarily starts and fails back. It is Mr. Tulkinghorn's case at\npresent, though Mademoiselle Hortense, with her eyes almost shut up\n(but still looking out sideways), is only smiling contemptuously and\nshaking her head.\n\n\"Now, mistress,\" says the lawyer, tapping the key hastily upon the\nchimney-piece. \"If you have anything to say, say it, say it.\"\n\n\"Sir, you have not use me well. You have been mean and shabby.\"\n\n\"Mean and shabby, eh?\" returns the lawyer, rubbing his nose with the\nkey.\n\n\"Yes. What is it that I tell you? You know you have. You have\nattrapped me--catched me--to give you information; you have asked me\nto show you the dress of mine my Lady must have wore that night, you\nhave prayed me to come in it here to meet that boy. Say! Is it not?\"\nMademoiselle Hortense makes another spring.\n\n\"You are a vixen, a vixen!\" Mr. Tulkinghorn seems to meditate as he\nlooks distrustfully at her, then he replies, \"Well, wench, well. I\npaid you.\"\n\n\"You paid me!\" she repeats with fierce disdain. \"Two sovereign! I\nhave not change them, I re-fuse them, I des-pise them, I throw them\nfrom me!\" Which she literally does, taking them out of her bosom as\nshe speaks and flinging them with such violence on the floor that\nthey jerk up again into the light before they roll away into corners\nand slowly settle down there after spinning vehemently.\n\n\"Now!\" says Mademoiselle Hortense, darkening her large eyes again.\n\"You have paid me? Eh, my God, oh yes!\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn rubs his head with the key while she entertains\nherself with a sarcastic laugh.\n\n\"You must be rich, my fair friend,\" he composedly observes, \"to throw\nmoney about in that way!\"\n\n\"I AM rich,\" she returns. \"I am very rich in hate. I hate my Lady, of\nall my heart. You know that.\"\n\n\"Know it? How should I know it?\"\n\n\"Because you have known it perfectly before you prayed me to give you\nthat information. Because you have known perfectly that I was\nen-r-r-r-raged!\" It appears impossible for mademoiselle to roll the\nletter \"r\" sufficiently in this word, notwithstanding that she\nassists her energetic delivery by clenching both her hands and\nsetting all her teeth.\n\n\"Oh! I knew that, did I?\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, examining the wards\nof the key.\n\n\"Yes, without doubt. I am not blind. You have made sure of me because\nyou knew that. You had reason! I det-est her.\" Mademoiselle Hortense folds her\narms and throws this last remark at him over one of her shoulders.\n\n\"Having said this, have you anything else to say, mademoiselle?\"\n\n\"I am not yet placed. Place me well. Find me a good condition! If you\ncannot, or do not choose to do that, employ me to pursue her, to\nchase her, to disgrace and to dishonour her. I will help you well,\nand with a good will. It is what YOU do. Do I not know that?\"\n\n\"You appear to know a good deal,\" Mr. Tulkinghorn retorts.\n\n\"Do I not? Is it that I am so weak as to believe, like a child, that\nI come here in that dress to rec-eive that boy only to decide a\nlittle bet, a wager? Eh, my God, oh yes!\" In this reply, down to the\nword \"wager\" inclusive, mademoiselle has been ironically polite and\ntender, then as suddenly dashed into the bitterest and most defiant\nscorn, with her black eyes in one and the same moment very nearly\nshut and staringly wide open.\n\n\"Now, let us see,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, tapping his chin with the\nkey and looking imperturbably at her, \"how this matter stands.\"\n\n\"Ah! Let us see,\" mademoiselle assents, with many angry and tight\nnods of her head.\n\n\"You come here to make a remarkably modest demand, which you have\njust stated, and it not being conceded, you will come again.\"\n\n\"And again,\" says mademoiselle with more tight and angry nods. \"And\nyet again. And yet again. And many times again. In effect, for ever!\"\n\n\"And not only here, but you will go to Mr. Snagsby's too, perhaps?\nThat visit not succeeding either, you will go again perhaps?\"\n\n\"And again,\" repeats mademoiselle, cataleptic with determination.\n\"And yet again. And yet again. And many times again. In effect, for\never!\"\n\n\"Very well. Now, Mademoiselle Hortense, let me recommend you to take\nthe candle and pick up that money of yours. I think you will find it\nbehind the clerk's partition in the corner yonder.\"\n\nShe merely throws a laugh over her shoulder and stands her ground\nwith folded arms.\n\n\"You will not, eh?\"\n\n\"No, I will not!\"\n\n\"So much the poorer you; so much the richer I! Look, mistress, this\nis the key of my wine-cellar. It is a large key, but the keys of\nprisons are larger. In this city there are houses of correction\n(where the treadmills are, for women), the gates of which are very\nstrong and heavy, and no doubt the keys too. I am afraid a lady of\nyour spirit and activity would find it an inconvenience to have one\nof those keys turned upon her for any length of time. What do you\nthink?\"\n\n\"I think,\" mademoiselle replies without any action and in a clear,\nobliging voice, \"that you are a miserable wretch.\"\n\n\"Probably,\" returns Mr. Tulkinghorn, quietly blowing his nose. \"But I\ndon't ask what you think of myself; I ask what you think of the\nprison.\"\n\n\"Nothing. What does it matter to me?\"\n\n\"Why, it matters this much, mistress,\" says the lawyer, deliberately\nputting away his handkerchief and adjusting his frill; \"the law is so\ndespotic here that it interferes to prevent any of our good English\ncitizens from being troubled, even by a lady's visits against his\ndesire. And on his complaining that he is so troubled, it takes hold\nof the troublesome lady and shuts her up in prison under hard\ndiscipline. Turns the key upon her, mistress.\" Illustrating with the\ncellar-key.\n\n\"Truly?\" returns mademoiselle in the same pleasant voice. \"That is\ndroll! But--my faith!--still what does it matter to me?\"\n\n\"My fair friend,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, \"make another visit here, or\nat Mr. Snagsby's, and you shall learn.\"\n\n\"In that case you will send me to the prison, perhaps?\"\n\n\"Perhaps.\"\n\nIt would be contradictory for one in mademoiselle's state of\nagreeable jocularity to foam at the mouth, otherwise a tigerish\nexpansion thereabouts might look as if a very little more would make\nher do it.\n\n\"In a word, mistress,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, \"I am sorry to be\nunpolite, but if you ever present yourself uninvited here--or\nthere--again, I will give you over to the police. Their gallantry is\ngreat, but they carry troublesome people through the streets in an\nignominious manner, strapped down on a board, my good wench.\"\n\n\"I will prove you,\" whispers mademoiselle, stretching out her hand,\n\"I will try if you dare to do it!\"\n\n\"And if,\" pursues the lawyer without minding her, \"I place you in\nthat good condition of being locked up in jail, it will be some time\nbefore you find yourself at liberty again.\"\n\n\"I will prove you,\" repeats mademoiselle in her former whisper.\n\n\"And now,\" proceeds the lawyer, still without minding her, \"you had\nbetter go. Think twice before you come here again.\"\n\n\"Think you,\" she answers, \"twice two hundred times!\"\n\n\"You were dismissed by your lady, you know,\" Mr. Tulkinghorn\nobserves, following her out upon the staircase, \"as the most\nimplacable and unmanageable of women. Now turn over a new leaf and\ntake warning by what I say to you. For what I say, I mean; and what I\nthreaten, I will do, mistress.\"\n\nShe goes down without answering or looking behind her. When she is\ngone, he goes down too, and returning with his cobweb-covered bottle,\ndevotes himself to a leisurely enjoyment of its contents, now and\nthen, as he throws his head back in his chair, catching sight of the\npertinacious Roman pointing from the ceiling.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIII\n\nEsther's Narrative\n\n\nIt matters little now how much I thought of my living mother who had\ntold me evermore to consider her dead. I could not venture to\napproach her or to communicate with her in writing, for my sense of\nthe peril in which her life was passed was only to be equalled by my\nfears of increasing it. Knowing that my mere existence as a living\ncreature was an unforeseen danger in her way, I could not always\nconquer that terror of myself which had seized me when I first knew\nthe secret. At no time did I dare to utter her name. I felt as if I\ndid not even dare to hear it. If the conversation anywhere, when I\nwas present, took that direction, as it sometimes naturally did, I\ntried not to hear: I mentally counted, repeated something that I\nknew, or went out of the room. I am conscious now that I often did\nthese things when there can have been no danger of her being spoken\nof, but I did them in the dread I had of hearing anything that might\nlead to her betrayal, and to her betrayal through me.\n\nIt matters little now how often I recalled the tones of my mother's\nvoice, wondered whether I should ever hear it again as I so longed to\ndo, and thought how strange and desolate it was that it should be so\nnew to me. It matters little that I watched for every public mention\nof my mother's name; that I passed and repassed the door of her house\nin town, loving it, but afraid to look at it; that I once sat in the\ntheatre when my mother was there and saw me, and when we were so wide\nasunder before the great company of all degrees that any link or\nconfidence between us seemed a dream. It is all, all over. My lot has\nbeen so blest that I can relate little of myself which is not a story\nof goodness and generosity in others. I may well pass that little and\ngo on.\n\nWhen we were settled at home again, Ada and I had many conversations\nwith my guardian of which Richard was the theme. My dear girl was\ndeeply grieved that he should do their kind cousin so much wrong, but\nshe was so faithful to Richard that she could not bear to blame him\neven for that. My guardian was assured of it, and never coupled his\nname with a word of reproof. \"Rick is mistaken, my dear,\" he would\nsay to her. \"Well, well! We have all been mistaken over and over\nagain. We must trust to you and time to set him right.\"\n\nWe knew afterwards what we suspected then, that he did not trust to\ntime until he had often tried to open Richard's eyes. That he had\nwritten to him, gone to him, talked with him, tried every gentle and\npersuasive art his kindness could devise. Our poor devoted Richard\nwas deaf and blind to all. If he were wrong, he would make amends\nwhen the Chancery suit was over. If he were groping in the dark,\nhe could not do better than do his utmost to clear away those\nclouds in which so much was confused and obscured. Suspicion and\nmisunderstanding were the fault of the suit? Then let him work the\nsuit out and come through it to his right mind. This was his\nunvarying reply. Jarndyce and Jarndyce had obtained such possession\nof his whole nature that it was impossible to place any consideration\nbefore him which he did not, with a distorted kind of reason, make a\nnew argument in favour of his doing what he did. \"So that it is even\nmore mischievous,\" said my guardian once to me, \"to remonstrate with\nthe poor dear fellow than to leave him alone.\"\n\nI took one of these opportunities of mentioning my doubts of Mr.\nSkimpole as a good adviser for Richard.\n\n\"Adviser!\" returned my guardian, laughing, \"My dear, who would advise\nwith Skimpole?\"\n\n\"Encourager would perhaps have been a better word,\" said I.\n\n\"Encourager!\" returned my guardian again. \"Who could be encouraged by\nSkimpole?\"\n\n\"Not Richard?\" I asked.\n\n\"No,\" he replied. \"Such an unworldly, uncalculating, gossamer\ncreature is a relief to him and an amusement. But as to advising or\nencouraging or occupying a serious station towards anybody or\nanything, it is simply not to be thought of in such a child as\nSkimpole.\"\n\n\"Pray, cousin John,\" said Ada, who had just joined us and now looked\nover my shoulder, \"what made him such a child?\"\n\n\"What made him such a child?\" inquired my guardian, rubbing his head,\na little at a loss.\n\n\"Yes, cousin John.\"\n\n\"Why,\" he slowly replied, roughening his head more and more, \"he is\nall sentiment, and--and susceptibility, and--and sensibility,\nand--and imagination. And these qualities are not regulated in him,\nsomehow. I suppose the people who admired him for them in his youth\nattached too much importance to them and too little to any training\nthat would have balanced and adjusted them, and so he became what he\nis. Hey?\" said my guardian, stopping short and looking at us\nhopefully. \"What do you think, you two?\"\n\nAda, glancing at me, said she thought it was a pity he should be an\nexpense to Richard.\n\n\"So it is, so it is,\" returned my guardian hurriedly. \"That must not\nbe. We must arrange that. I must prevent it. That will never do.\"\n\nAnd I said I thought it was to be regretted that he had ever\nintroduced Richard to Mr. Vholes for a present of five pounds.\n\n\"Did he?\" said my guardian with a passing shade of vexation on his\nface. \"But there you have the man. There you have the man! There is\nnothing mercenary in that with him. He has no idea of the value of\nmoney. He introduces Rick, and then he is good friends with Mr.\nVholes and borrows five pounds of him. He means nothing by it and\nthinks nothing of it. He told you himself, I'll be bound, my dear?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes!\" said I.\n\n\"Exactly!\" cried my guardian, quite triumphant. \"There you have the\nman! If he had meant any harm by it or was conscious of any harm in\nit, he wouldn't tell it. He tells it as he does it in mere\nsimplicity. But you shall see him in his own home, and then you'll\nunderstand him better. We must pay a visit to Harold Skimpole and\ncaution him on these points. Lord bless you, my dears, an infant, an\ninfant!\"\n\nIn pursuance of this plan, we went into London on an early day and\npresented ourselves at Mr. Skimpole's door.\n\nHe lived in a place called the Polygon, in Somers Town, where there\nwere at that time a number of poor Spanish refugees walking about in\ncloaks, smoking little paper cigars. Whether he was a better tenant\nthan one might have supposed, in consequence of his friend Somebody\nalways paying his rent at last, or whether his inaptitude for\nbusiness rendered it particularly difficult to turn him out, I don't\nknow; but he had occupied the same house some years. It was in a\nstate of dilapidation quite equal to our expectation. Two or three of\nthe area railings were gone, the water-butt was broken, the knocker\nwas loose, the bell-handle had been pulled off a long time to judge\nfrom the rusty state of the wire, and dirty footprints on the steps\nwere the only signs of its being inhabited.\n\nA slatternly full-blown girl who seemed to be bursting out at the\nrents in her gown and the cracks in her shoes like an over-ripe berry\nanswered our knock by opening the door a very little way and stopping\nup the gap with her figure. As she knew Mr. Jarndyce (indeed Ada and\nI both thought that she evidently associated him with the receipt of\nher wages), she immediately relented and allowed us to pass in. The\nlock of the door being in a disabled condition, she then applied\nherself to securing it with the chain, which was not in good action\neither, and said would we go upstairs?\n\nWe went upstairs to the first floor, still seeing no other furniture\nthan the dirty footprints. Mr. Jarndyce without further ceremony\nentered a room there, and we followed. It was dingy enough and not at\nall clean, but furnished with an odd kind of shabby luxury, with a\nlarge footstool, a sofa, and plenty of cushions, an easy-chair, and\nplenty of pillows, a piano, books, drawing materials, music,\nnewspapers, and a few sketches and pictures. A broken pane of glass\nin one of the dirty windows was papered and wafered over, but there\nwas a little plate of hothouse nectarines on the table, and there was\nanother of grapes, and another of sponge-cakes, and there was a\nbottle of light wine. Mr. Skimpole himself reclined upon the sofa in\na dressing-gown, drinking some fragrant coffee from an old china\ncup--it was then about mid-day--and looking at a collection of\nwallflowers in the balcony.\n\nHe was not in the least disconcerted by our appearance, but rose and\nreceived us in his usual airy manner.\n\n\"Here I am, you see!\" he said when we were seated, not without some\nlittle difficulty, the greater part of the chairs being broken. \"Here\nI am! This is my frugal breakfast. Some men want legs of beef and\nmutton for breakfast; I don't. Give me my peach, my cup of coffee,\nand my claret; I am content. I don't want them for themselves, but\nthey remind me of the sun. There's nothing solar about legs of beef\nand mutton. Mere animal satisfaction!\"\n\n\"This is our friend's consulting-room (or would be, if he ever\nprescribed), his sanctum, his studio,\" said my guardian to us.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mr. Skimpole, turning his bright face about, \"this is the\nbird's cage. This is where the bird lives and sings. They pluck his\nfeathers now and then and clip his wings, but he sings, he sings!\"\n\nHe handed us the grapes, repeating in his radiant way, \"He sings! Not\nan ambitious note, but still he sings.\"\n\n\"These are very fine,\" said my guardian. \"A present?\"\n\n\"No,\" he answered. \"No! Some amiable gardener sells them. His man\nwanted to know, when he brought them last evening, whether he should\nwait for the money. 'Really, my friend,' I said, 'I think not--if\nyour time is of any value to you.' I suppose it was, for he went\naway.\"\n\nMy guardian looked at us with a smile, as though he asked us, \"Is it\npossible to be worldly with this baby?\"\n\n\"This is a day,\" said Mr. Skimpole, gaily taking a little claret in a\ntumbler, \"that will ever be remembered here. We shall call it Saint\nClare and Saint Summerson day. You must see my daughters. I have a\nblue-eyed daughter who is my Beauty daughter, I have a Sentiment\ndaughter, and I have a Comedy daughter. You must see them all.\nThey'll be enchanted.\"\n\nHe was going to summon them when my guardian interposed and asked him\nto pause a moment, as he wished to say a word to him first. \"My dear\nJarndyce,\" he cheerfully replied, going back to his sofa, \"as many\nmoments as you please. Time is no object here. We never know what\no'clock it is, and we never care. Not the way to get on in life,\nyou'll tell me? Certainly. But we DON'T get on in life. We don't\npretend to do it.\"\n\nMy guardian looked at us again, plainly saying, \"You hear him?\"\n\n\"Now, Harold,\" he began, \"the word I have to say relates to Rick.\"\n\n\"The dearest friend I have!\" returned Mr. Skimpole cordially. \"I\nsuppose he ought not to be my dearest friend, as he is not on terms\nwith you. But he is, I can't help it; he is full of youthful poetry,\nand I love him. If you don't like it, I can't help it. I love him.\"\n\nThe engaging frankness with which he made this declaration really had\na disinterested appearance and captivated my guardian, if not, for\nthe moment, Ada too.\n\n\"You are welcome to love him as much as you like,\" returned Mr.\nJarndyce, \"but we must save his pocket, Harold.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said Mr. Skimpole. \"His pocket? Now you are coming to what I\ndon't understand.\" Taking a little more claret and dipping one of the\ncakes in it, he shook his head and smiled at Ada and me with an\ningenuous foreboding that he never could be made to understand.\n\n\"If you go with him here or there,\" said my guardian plainly, \"you\nmust not let him pay for both.\"\n\n\"My dear Jarndyce,\" returned Mr. Skimpole, his genial face irradiated\nby the comicality of this idea, \"what am I to do? If he takes me\nanywhere, I must go. And how can I pay? I never have any money. If I\nhad any money, I don't know anything about it. Suppose I say to a\nman, how much? Suppose the man says to me seven and sixpence? I know\nnothing about seven and sixpence. It is impossible for me to pursue\nthe subject with any consideration for the man. I don't go about\nasking busy people what seven and sixpence is in Moorish--which I\ndon't understand. Why should I go about asking them what seven and\nsixpence is in Money--which I don't understand?\"\n\n\"Well,\" said my guardian, by no means displeased with this artless\nreply, \"if you come to any kind of journeying with Rick, you must\nborrow the money of me (never breathing the least allusion to that\ncircumstance), and leave the calculation to him.\"\n\n\"My dear Jarndyce,\" returned Mr. Skimpole, \"I will do anything to\ngive you pleasure, but it seems an idle form--a superstition.\nBesides, I give you my word, Miss Clare and my dear Miss Summerson, I\nthought Mr. Carstone was immensely rich. I thought he had only to\nmake over something, or to sign a bond, or a draft, or a cheque, or a\nbill, or to put something on a file somewhere, to bring down a shower\nof money.\"\n\n\"Indeed it is not so, sir,\" said Ada. \"He is poor.\"\n\n\"No, really?\" returned Mr. Skimpole with his bright smile. \"You\nsurprise me.\n\n\"And not being the richer for trusting in a rotten reed,\" said my\nguardian, laying his hand emphatically on the sleeve of Mr.\nSkimpole's dressing-gown, \"be you very careful not to encourage him\nin that reliance, Harold.\"\n\n\"My dear good friend,\" returned Mr. Skimpole, \"and my dear Miss\nSimmerson, and my dear Miss Clare, how can I do that? It's business,\nand I don't know business. It is he who encourages me. He emerges\nfrom great feats of business, presents the brightest prospects before\nme as their result, and calls upon me to admire them. I do admire\nthem--as bright prospects. But I know no more about them, and I tell\nhim so.\"\n\nThe helpless kind of candour with which he presented this before us,\nthe light-hearted manner in which he was amused by his innocence, the\nfantastic way in which he took himself under his own protection and\nargued about that curious person, combined with the delightful ease\nof everything he said exactly to make out my guardian's case. The\nmore I saw of him, the more unlikely it seemed to me, when he was\npresent, that he could design, conceal, or influence anything; and\nyet the less likely that appeared when he was not present, and the\nless agreeable it was to think of his having anything to do with any\none for whom I cared.\n\nHearing that his examination (as he called it) was now over, Mr.\nSkimpole left the room with a radiant face to fetch his daughters\n(his sons had run away at various times), leaving my guardian quite\ndelighted by the manner in which he had vindicated his childish\ncharacter. He soon came back, bringing with him the three young\nladies and Mrs. Skimpole, who had once been a beauty but was now a\ndelicate high-nosed invalid suffering under a complication of\ndisorders.\n\n\"This,\" said Mr. Skimpole, \"is my Beauty daughter, Arethusa--plays\nand sings odds and ends like her father. This is my Sentiment\ndaughter, Laura--plays a little but don't sing. This is my Comedy\ndaughter, Kitty--sings a little but don't play. We all draw a little\nand compose a little, and none of us have any idea of time or money.\"\n\nMrs. Skimpole sighed, I thought, as if she would have been glad to\nstrike out this item in the family attainments. I also thought that\nshe rather impressed her sigh upon my guardian and that she took\nevery opportunity of throwing in another.\n\n\"It is pleasant,\" said Mr. Skimpole, turning his sprightly eyes from\none to the other of us, \"and it is whimsically interesting to trace\npeculiarities in families. In this family we are all children, and I\nam the youngest.\"\n\nThe daughters, who appeared to be very fond of him, were amused by\nthis droll fact, particularly the Comedy daughter.\n\n\"My dears, it is true,\" said Mr. Skimpole, \"is it not? So it is, and\nso it must be, because like the dogs in the hymn, 'it is our nature\nto.' Now, here is Miss Summerson with a fine administrative capacity\nand a knowledge of details perfectly surprising. It will sound very\nstrange in Miss Summerson's ears, I dare say, that we know nothing\nabout chops in this house. But we don't, not the least. We can't cook\nanything whatever. A needle and thread we don't know how to use. We\nadmire the people who possess the practical wisdom we want, but we\ndon't quarrel with them. Then why should they quarrel with us? Live\nand let live, we say to them. Live upon your practical wisdom, and\nlet us live upon you!\"\n\nHe laughed, but as usual seemed quite candid and really to mean what\nhe said.\n\n\"We have sympathy, my roses,\" said Mr. Skimpole, \"sympathy for\neverything. Have we not?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, papa!\" cried the three daughters.\n\n\"In fact, that is our family department,\" said Mr. Skimpole, \"in this\nhurly-burly of life. We are capable of looking on and of being\ninterested, and we DO look on, and we ARE interested. What more can\nwe do? Here is my Beauty daughter, married these three years. Now I\ndare say her marrying another child, and having two more, was all\nwrong in point of political economy, but it was very agreeable. We\nhad our little festivities on those occasions and exchanged social\nideas. She brought her young husband home one day, and they and their\nyoung fledglings have their nest upstairs. I dare say at some time or\nother Sentiment and Comedy will bring THEIR husbands home and have\nTHEIR nests upstairs too. So we get on, we don't know how, but\nsomehow.\"\n\nShe looked very young indeed to be the mother of two children, and I\ncould not help pitying both her and them. It was evident that the\nthree daughters had grown up as they could and had had just as little\nhaphazard instruction as qualified them to be their father's\nplaythings in his idlest hours. His pictorial tastes were consulted,\nI observed, in their respective styles of wearing their hair, the\nBeauty daughter being in the classic manner, the Sentiment daughter\nluxuriant and flowing, and the Comedy daughter in the arch style,\nwith a good deal of sprightly forehead, and vivacious little curls\ndotted about the corners of her eyes. They were dressed to\ncorrespond, though in a most untidy and negligent way.\n\nAda and I conversed with these young ladies and found them\nwonderfully like their father. In the meanwhile Mr. Jarndyce (who had\nbeen rubbing his head to a great extent, and hinted at a change in\nthe wind) talked with Mrs. Skimpole in a corner, where we could not\nhelp hearing the chink of money. Mr. Skimpole had previously\nvolunteered to go home with us and had withdrawn to dress himself for\nthe purpose.\n\n\"My roses,\" he said when he came back, \"take care of mama. She is\npoorly to-day. By going home with Mr. Jarndyce for a day or two, I\nshall hear the larks sing and preserve my amiability. It has been\ntried, you know, and would be tried again if I remained at home.\"\n\n\"That bad man!\" said the Comedy daughter.\n\n\"At the very time when he knew papa was lying ill by his wallflowers,\nlooking at the blue sky,\" Laura complained.\n\n\"And when the smell of hay was in the air!\" said Arethusa.\n\n\"It showed a want of poetry in the man,\" Mr. Skimpole assented, but\nwith perfect good humour. \"It was coarse. There was an absence of the\nfiner touches of humanity in it! My daughters have taken great\noffence,\" he explained to us, \"at an honest man--\"\n\n\"Not honest, papa. Impossible!\" they all three protested.\n\n\"At a rough kind of fellow--a sort of human hedgehog rolled up,\" said\nMr. Skimpole, \"who is a baker in this neighbourhood and from whom we\nborrowed a couple of arm-chairs. We wanted a couple of arm-chairs,\nand we hadn't got them, and therefore of course we looked to a man\nwho HAD got them, to lend them. Well! This morose person lent them,\nand we wore them out. When they were worn out, he wanted them back.\nHe had them back. He was contented, you will say. Not at all. He\nobjected to their being worn. I reasoned with him, and pointed out\nhis mistake. I said, 'Can you, at your time of life, be so\nheadstrong, my friend, as to persist that an arm-chair is a thing to\nput upon a shelf and look at? That it is an object to contemplate, to\nsurvey from a distance, to consider from a point of sight? Don't you\nKNOW that these arm-chairs were borrowed to be sat upon?' He was\nunreasonable and unpersuadable and used intemperate language. Being\nas patient as I am at this minute, I addressed another appeal to him.\nI said, 'Now, my good man, however our business capacities may vary,\nwe are all children of one great mother, Nature. On this blooming\nsummer morning here you see me' (I was on the sofa) 'with flowers\nbefore me, fruit upon the table, the cloudless sky above me, the air\nfull of fragrance, contemplating Nature. I entreat you, by our common\nbrotherhood, not to interpose between me and a subject so sublime,\nthe absurd figure of an angry baker!' But he did,\" said Mr. Skimpole,\nraising his laughing eyes in playful astonishment; \"he did interpose\nthat ridiculous figure, and he does, and he will again. And therefore\nI am very glad to get out of his way and to go home with my friend\nJarndyce.\"\n\nIt seemed to escape his consideration that Mrs. Skimpole and the\ndaughters remained behind to encounter the baker, but this was so old\na story to all of them that it had become a matter of course. He took\nleave of his family with a tenderness as airy and graceful as any\nother aspect in which he showed himself and rode away with us in\nperfect harmony of mind. We had an opportunity of seeing through some\nopen doors, as we went downstairs, that his own apartment was a\npalace to the rest of the house.\n\nI could have no anticipation, and I had none, that something very\nstartling to me at the moment, and ever memorable to me in what\nensued from it, was to happen before this day was out. Our guest was\nin such spirits on the way home that I could do nothing but listen to\nhim and wonder at him; nor was I alone in this, for Ada yielded to\nthe same fascination. As to my guardian, the wind, which had\nthreatened to become fixed in the east when we left Somers Town,\nveered completely round before we were a couple of miles from it.\n\nWhether of questionable childishness or not in any other matters, Mr.\nSkimpole had a child's enjoyment of change and bright weather. In no\nway wearied by his sallies on the road, he was in the drawing-room\nbefore any of us; and I heard him at the piano while I was yet\nlooking after my housekeeping, singing refrains of barcaroles and\ndrinking songs, Italian and German, by the score.\n\nWe were all assembled shortly before dinner, and he was still at the\npiano idly picking out in his luxurious way little strains of music,\nand talking between whiles of finishing some sketches of the ruined\nold Verulam wall to-morrow, which he had begun a year or two ago and\nhad got tired of, when a card was brought in and my guardian read\naloud in a surprised voice, \"Sir Leicester Dedlock!\"\n\nThe visitor was in the room while it was yet turning round with me\nand before I had the power to stir. If I had had it, I should have\nhurried away. I had not even the presence of mind, in my giddiness,\nto retire to Ada in the window, or to see the window, or to know\nwhere it was. I heard my name and found that my guardian was\npresenting me before I could move to a chair.\n\n\"Pray be seated, Sir Leicester.\"\n\n\"Mr. Jarndyce,\" said Sir Leicester in reply as he bowed and seated\nhimself, \"I do myself the honour of calling here--\"\n\n\"You do ME the honour, Sir Leicester.\"\n\n\"Thank you--of calling here on my road from Lincolnshire to express\nmy regret that any cause of complaint, however strong, that I may\nhave against a gentleman who--who is known to you and has been your\nhost, and to whom therefore I will make no farther reference, should\nhave prevented you, still more ladies under your escort and charge,\nfrom seeing whatever little there may be to gratify a polite and\nrefined taste at my house, Chesney Wold.\"\n\n\"You are exceedingly obliging, Sir Leicester, and on behalf of those\nladies (who are present) and for myself, I thank you very much.\"\n\n\"It is possible, Mr. Jarndyce, that the gentleman to whom, for the\nreasons I have mentioned, I refrain from making further allusion--it\nis possible, Mr. Jarndyce, that that gentleman may have done me the\nhonour so far to misapprehend my character as to induce you to\nbelieve that you would not have been received by my local\nestablishment in Lincolnshire with that urbanity, that courtesy,\nwhich its members are instructed to show to all ladies and gentlemen\nwho present themselves at that house. I merely beg to observe, sir,\nthat the fact is the reverse.\"\n\nMy guardian delicately dismissed this remark without making any\nverbal answer.\n\n\"It has given me pain, Mr. Jarndyce,\" Sir Leicester weightily\nproceeded. \"I assure you, sir, it has given--me--pain--to learn from\nthe housekeeper at Chesney Wold that a gentleman who was in your\ncompany in that part of the county, and who would appear to possess a\ncultivated taste for the fine arts, was likewise deterred by some\nsuch cause from examining the family pictures with that leisure, that\nattention, that care, which he might have desired to bestow upon them\nand which some of them might possibly have repaid.\" Here he produced\na card and read, with much gravity and a little trouble, through his\neye-glass, \"Mr. Hirrold--Herald--Harold--Skampling--Skumpling--I beg\nyour pardon--Skimpole.\"\n\n\"This is Mr. Harold Skimpole,\" said my guardian, evidently surprised.\n\n\"Oh!\" exclaimed Sir Leicester, \"I am happy to meet Mr. Skimpole and\nto have the opportunity of tendering my personal regrets. I hope,\nsir, that when you again find yourself in my part of the county, you\nwill be under no similar sense of restraint.\"\n\n\"You are very obliging, Sir Leicester Dedlock. So encouraged, I shall\ncertainly give myself the pleasure and advantage of another visit to\nyour beautiful house. The owners of such places as Chesney Wold,\"\nsaid Mr. Skimpole with his usual happy and easy air, \"are public\nbenefactors. They are good enough to maintain a number of delightful\nobjects for the admiration and pleasure of us poor men; and not to\nreap all the admiration and pleasure that they yield is to be\nungrateful to our benefactors.\"\n\nSir Leicester seemed to approve of this sentiment highly. \"An artist,\nsir?\"\n\n\"No,\" returned Mr. Skimpole. \"A perfectly idle man. A mere amateur.\"\n\nSir Leicester seemed to approve of this even more. He hoped he might\nhave the good fortune to be at Chesney Wold when Mr. Skimpole next\ncame down into Lincolnshire. Mr. Skimpole professed himself much\nflattered and honoured.\n\n\"Mr. Skimpole mentioned,\" pursued Sir Leicester, addressing himself\nagain to my guardian, \"mentioned to the housekeeper, who, as he may\nhave observed, is an old and attached retainer of the family--\"\n\n(\"That is, when I walked through the house the other day, on the\noccasion of my going down to visit Miss Summerson and Miss Clare,\"\nMr. Skimpole airily explained to us.)\n\n\"--That the friend with whom he had formerly been staying there was\nMr. Jarndyce.\" Sir Leicester bowed to the bearer of that name. \"And\nhence I became aware of the circumstance for which I have professed\nmy regret. That this should have occurred to any gentleman, Mr.\nJarndyce, but especially a gentleman formerly known to Lady Dedlock,\nand indeed claiming some distant connexion with her, and for whom (as\nI learn from my Lady herself) she entertains a high respect, does, I\nassure you, give--me--pain.\"\n\n\"Pray say no more about it, Sir Leicester,\" returned my guardian. \"I\nam very sensible, as I am sure we all are, of your consideration.\nIndeed the mistake was mine, and I ought to apologize for it.\"\n\nI had not once looked up. I had not seen the visitor and had not even\nappeared to myself to hear the conversation. It surprises me to find\nthat I can recall it, for it seemed to make no impression on me as it\npassed. I heard them speaking, but my mind was so confused and my\ninstinctive avoidance of this gentleman made his presence so\ndistressing to me that I thought I understood nothing, through the\nrushing in my head and the beating of my heart.\n\n\"I mentioned the subject to Lady Dedlock,\" said Sir Leicester,\nrising, \"and my Lady informed me that she had had the pleasure of\nexchanging a few words with Mr. Jarndyce and his wards on the\noccasion of an accidental meeting during their sojourn in the\nvicinity. Permit me, Mr. Jarndyce, to repeat to yourself, and to\nthese ladies, the assurance I have already tendered to Mr. Skimpole.\nCircumstances undoubtedly prevent my saying that it would afford me\nany gratification to hear that Mr. Boythorn had favoured my house\nwith his presence, but those circumstances are confined to that\ngentleman himself and do not extend beyond him.\"\n\n\"You know my old opinion of him,\" said Mr. Skimpole, lightly\nappealing to us. \"An amiable bull who is determined to make every\ncolour scarlet!\"\n\nSir Leicester Dedlock coughed as if he could not possibly hear\nanother word in reference to such an individual and took his leave\nwith great ceremony and politeness. I got to my own room with all\npossible speed and remained there until I had recovered my\nself-command. It had been very much disturbed, but I was thankful to\nfind when I went downstairs again that they only rallied me for\nhaving been shy and mute before the great Lincolnshire baronet.\n\nBy that time I had made up my mind that the period was come when I\nmust tell my guardian what I knew. The possibility of my being\nbrought into contact with my mother, of my being taken to her house,\neven of Mr. Skimpole's, however distantly associated with me,\nreceiving kindnesses and obligations from her husband, was so painful\nthat I felt I could no longer guide myself without his assistance.\n\nWhen we had retired for the night, and Ada and I had had our usual\ntalk in our pretty room, I went out at my door again and sought my\nguardian among his books. I knew he always read at that hour, and as\nI drew near I saw the light shining out into the passage from his\nreading-lamp.\n\n\"May I come in, guardian?\"\n\n\"Surely, little woman. What's the matter?\"\n\n\"Nothing is the matter. I thought I would like to take this quiet\ntime of saying a word to you about myself.\"\n\nHe put a chair for me, shut his book, and put it by, and turned his\nkind attentive face towards me. I could not help observing that it\nwore that curious expression I had observed in it once before--on\nthat night when he had said that he was in no trouble which I could\nreadily understand.\n\n\"What concerns you, my dear Esther,\" said he, \"concerns us all. You\ncannot be more ready to speak than I am to hear.\"\n\n\"I know that, guardian. But I have such need of your advice and\nsupport. Oh! You don't know how much need I have to-night.\"\n\nHe looked unprepared for my being so earnest, and even a little\nalarmed.\n\n\"Or how anxious I have been to speak to you,\" said I, \"ever since the\nvisitor was here to-day.\"\n\n\"The visitor, my dear! Sir Leicester Dedlock?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nHe folded his arms and sat looking at me with an air of the\nprofoundest astonishment, awaiting what I should say next. I did not\nknow how to prepare him.\n\n\"Why, Esther,\" said he, breaking into a smile, \"our visitor and you\nare the two last persons on earth I should have thought of connecting\ntogether!\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, guardian, I know it. And I too, but a little while ago.\"\n\nThe smile passed from his face, and he became graver than before. He\ncrossed to the door to see that it was shut (but I had seen to that)\nand resumed his seat before me.\n\n\"Guardian,\" said I, \"do you remember, when we were overtaken by the\nthunder-storm, Lady Dedlock's speaking to you of her sister?\"\n\n\"Of course. Of course I do.\"\n\n\"And reminding you that she and her sister had differed, had gone\ntheir several ways?\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"Why did they separate, guardian?\"\n\nHis face quite altered as he looked at me. \"My child, what questions\nare these! I never knew. No one but themselves ever did know, I\nbelieve. Who could tell what the secrets of those two handsome and\nproud women were! You have seen Lady Dedlock. If you had ever seen\nher sister, you would know her to have been as resolute and haughty\nas she.\"\n\n\"Oh, guardian, I have seen her many and many a time!\"\n\n\"Seen her?\"\n\nHe paused a little, biting his lip. \"Then, Esther, when you spoke to\nme long ago of Boythorn, and when I told you that he was all but\nmarried once, and that the lady did not die, but died to him, and\nthat that time had had its influence on his later life--did you know\nit all, and know who the lady was?\"\n\n\"No, guardian,\" I returned, fearful of the light that dimly broke\nupon me. \"Nor do I know yet.\"\n\n\"Lady Dedlock's sister.\"\n\n\"And why,\" I could scarcely ask him, \"why, guardian, pray tell me why\nwere THEY parted?\"\n\n\"It was her act, and she kept its motives in her inflexible heart. He\nafterwards did conjecture (but it was mere conjecture) that some\ninjury which her haughty spirit had received in her cause of quarrel\nwith her sister had wounded her beyond all reason, but she wrote him\nthat from the date of that letter she died to him--as in literal\ntruth she did--and that the resolution was exacted from her by her\nknowledge of his proud temper and his strained sense of honour, which\nwere both her nature too. In consideration for those master points in\nhim, and even in consideration for them in herself, she made the\nsacrifice, she said, and would live in it and die in it. She did\nboth, I fear; certainly he never saw her, never heard of her from\nthat hour. Nor did any one.\"\n\n\"Oh, guardian, what have I done!\" I cried, giving way to my grief;\n\"what sorrow have I innocently caused!\"\n\n\"You caused, Esther?\"\n\n\"Yes, guardian. Innocently, but most surely. That secluded sister is\nmy first remembrance.\"\n\n\"No, no!\" he cried, starting.\n\n\"Yes, guardian, yes! And HER sister is my mother!\"\n\nI would have told him all my mother's letter, but he would not hear\nit then. He spoke so tenderly and wisely to me, and he put so plainly\nbefore me all I had myself imperfectly thought and hoped in my better\nstate of mind, that, penetrated as I had been with fervent gratitude\ntowards him through so many years, I believed I had never loved him\nso dearly, never thanked him in my heart so fully, as I did that\nnight. And when he had taken me to my room and kissed me at the door,\nand when at last I lay down to sleep, my thought was how could I ever\nbe busy enough, how could I ever be good enough, how in my little way\ncould I ever hope to be forgetful enough of myself, devoted enough to\nhim, and useful enough to others, to show him how I blessed and\nhonoured him.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIV\n\nThe Letter and the Answer\n\n\nMy guardian called me into his room next morning, and then I told him\nwhat had been left untold on the previous night. There was nothing to\nbe done, he said, but to keep the secret and to avoid another such\nencounter as that of yesterday. He understood my feeling and entirely\nshared it. He charged himself even with restraining Mr. Skimpole from\nimproving his opportunity. One person whom he need not name to me, it\nwas not now possible for him to advise or help. He wished it were,\nbut no such thing could be. If her mistrust of the lawyer whom she\nhad mentioned were well-founded, which he scarcely doubted, he\ndreaded discovery. He knew something of him, both by sight and by\nreputation, and it was certain that he was a dangerous man. Whatever\nhappened, he repeatedly impressed upon me with anxious affection and\nkindness, I was as innocent of as himself and as unable to influence.\n\n\"Nor do I understand,\" said he, \"that any doubts tend towards you, my\ndear. Much suspicion may exist without that connexion.\"\n\n\"With the lawyer,\" I returned. \"But two other persons have come into\nmy mind since I have been anxious. Then I told him all about Mr.\nGuppy, who I feared might have had his vague surmises when I little\nunderstood his meaning, but in whose silence after our last interview\nI expressed perfect confidence.\n\n\"Well,\" said my guardian. \"Then we may dismiss him for the present.\nWho is the other?\"\n\nI called to his recollection the French maid and the eager offer of\nherself she had made to me.\n\n\"Ha!\" he returned thoughtfully. \"That is a more alarming person than\nthe clerk. But after all, my dear, it was but seeking for a new\nservice. She had seen you and Ada a little while before, and it was\nnatural that you should come into her head. She merely proposed\nherself for your maid, you know. She did nothing more.\"\n\n\"Her manner was strange,\" said I.\n\n\"Yes, and her manner was strange when she took her shoes off and\nshowed that cool relish for a walk that might have ended in her\ndeath-bed,\" said my guardian. \"It would be useless self-distress and\ntorment to reckon up such chances and possibilities. There are very\nfew harmless circumstances that would not seem full of perilous\nmeaning, so considered. Be hopeful, little woman. You can be nothing\nbetter than yourself; be that, through this knowledge, as you were\nbefore you had it. It is the best you can do for everybody's sake. I,\nsharing the secret with you--\"\n\n\"And lightening it, guardian, so much,\" said I.\n\n\"--will be attentive to what passes in that family, so far as I can\nobserve it from my distance. And if the time should come when I can\nstretch out a hand to render the least service to one whom it is\nbetter not to name even here, I will not fail to do it for her dear\ndaughter's sake.\"\n\nI thanked him with my whole heart. What could I ever do but thank\nhim! I was going out at the door when he asked me to stay a moment.\nQuickly turning round, I saw that same expression on his face again;\nand all at once, I don't know how, it flashed upon me as a new and\nfar-off possibility that I understood it.\n\n\"My dear Esther,\" said my guardian, \"I have long had something in my\nthoughts that I have wished to say to you.\"\n\n\"Indeed?\"\n\n\"I have had some difficulty in approaching it, and I still have. I\nshould wish it to be so deliberately said, and so deliberately\nconsidered. Would you object to my writing it?\"\n\n\"Dear guardian, how could I object to your writing anything for ME to\nread?\"\n\n\"Then see, my love,\" said he with his cheery smile, \"am I at this\nmoment quite as plain and easy--do I seem as open, as honest and\nold-fashioned--as I am at any time?\"\n\nI answered in all earnestness, \"Quite.\" With the strictest truth, for\nhis momentary hesitation was gone (it had not lasted a minute), and\nhis fine, sensible, cordial, sterling manner was restored.\n\n\"Do I look as if I suppressed anything, meant anything but what I\nsaid, had any reservation at all, no matter what?\" said he with his\nbright clear eyes on mine.\n\nI answered, most assuredly he did not.\n\n\"Can you fully trust me, and thoroughly rely on what I profess,\nEsther?\"\n\n\"Most thoroughly,\" said I with my whole heart.\n\n\"My dear girl,\" returned my guardian, \"give me your hand.\"\n\nHe took it in his, holding me lightly with his arm, and looking down\ninto my face with the same genuine freshness and faithfulness of\nmanner--the old protecting manner which had made that house my home\nin a moment--said, \"You have wrought changes in me, little woman,\nsince the winter day in the stage-coach. First and last you have done\nme a world of good since that time.\"\n\n\"Ah, guardian, what have you done for me since that time!\"\n\n\"But,\" said he, \"that is not to be remembered now.\"\n\n\"It never can be forgotten.\"\n\n\"Yes, Esther,\" said he with a gentle seriousness, \"it is to be\nforgotten now, to be forgotten for a while. You are only to remember\nnow that nothing can change me as you know me. Can you feel quite\nassured of that, my dear?\"\n\n\"I can, and I do,\" I said.\n\n\"That's much,\" he answered. \"That's everything. But I must not take\nthat at a word. I will not write this something in my thoughts until\nyou have quite resolved within yourself that nothing can change me as\nyou know me. If you doubt that in the least degree, I will never\nwrite it. If you are sure of that, on good consideration, send\nCharley to me this night week--'for the letter.' But if you are not\nquite certain, never send. Mind, I trust to your truth, in this thing\nas in everything. If you are not quite certain on that one point,\nnever send!\"\n\n\"Guardian,\" said I, \"I am already certain, I can no more be changed\nin that conviction than you can be changed towards me. I shall send\nCharley for the letter.\"\n\nHe shook my hand and said no more. Nor was any more said in reference\nto this conversation, either by him or me, through the whole week.\nWhen the appointed night came, I said to Charley as soon as I was\nalone, \"Go and knock at Mr. Jarndyce's door, Charley, and say you\nhave come from me--'for the letter.'\" Charley went up the stairs, and\ndown the stairs, and along the passages--the zig-zag way about the\nold-fashioned house seemed very long in my listening ears that\nnight--and so came back, along the passages, and down the stairs, and\nup the stairs, and brought the letter. \"Lay it on the table,\nCharley,\" said I. So Charley laid it on the table and went to bed,\nand I sat looking at it without taking it up, thinking of many\nthings.\n\nI began with my overshadowed childhood, and passed through those\ntimid days to the heavy time when my aunt lay dead, with her resolute\nface so cold and set, and when I was more solitary with Mrs. Rachael\nthan if I had had no one in the world to speak to or to look at. I\npassed to the altered days when I was so blest as to find friends in\nall around me, and to be beloved. I came to the time when I first saw\nmy dear girl and was received into that sisterly affection which was\nthe grace and beauty of my life. I recalled the first bright gleam of\nwelcome which had shone out of those very windows upon our expectant\nfaces on that cold bright night, and which had never paled. I lived\nmy happy life there over again, I went through my illness and\nrecovery, I thought of myself so altered and of those around me so\nunchanged; and all this happiness shone like a light from one central\nfigure, represented before me by the letter on the table.\n\nI opened it and read it. It was so impressive in its love for me, and\nin the unselfish caution it gave me, and the consideration it showed\nfor me in every word, that my eyes were too often blinded to read\nmuch at a time. But I read it through three times before I laid it\ndown. I had thought beforehand that I knew its purport, and I did. It\nasked me, would I be the mistress of Bleak House.\n\nIt was not a love letter, though it expressed so much love, but was\nwritten just as he would at any time have spoken to me. I saw his\nface, and heard his voice, and felt the influence of his kind\nprotecting manner in every line. It addressed me as if our places\nwere reversed, as if all the good deeds had been mine and all the\nfeelings they had awakened his. It dwelt on my being young, and he\npast the prime of life; on his having attained a ripe age, while I\nwas a child; on his writing to me with a silvered head, and knowing\nall this so well as to set it in full before me for mature\ndeliberation. It told me that I would gain nothing by such a marriage\nand lose nothing by rejecting it, for no new relation could enhance\nthe tenderness in which he held me, and whatever my decision was, he\nwas certain it would be right. But he had considered this step anew\nsince our late confidence and had decided on taking it, if it only\nserved to show me through one poor instance that the whole world\nwould readily unite to falsify the stern prediction of my childhood.\nI was the last to know what happiness I could bestow upon him, but of\nthat he said no more, for I was always to remember that I owed him\nnothing and that he was my debtor, and for very much. He had often\nthought of our future, and foreseeing that the time must come, and\nfearing that it might come soon, when Ada (now very nearly of age)\nwould leave us, and when our present mode of life must be broken up,\nhad become accustomed to reflect on this proposal. Thus he made it.\nIf I felt that I could ever give him the best right he could have to\nbe my protector, and if I felt that I could happily and justly become\nthe dear companion of his remaining life, superior to all lighter\nchances and changes than death, even then he could not have me bind\nmyself irrevocably while this letter was yet so new to me, but even\nthen I must have ample time for reconsideration. In that case, or in\nthe opposite case, let him be unchanged in his old relation, in his\nold manner, in the old name by which I called him. And as to his\nbright Dame Durden and little housekeeper, she would ever be the\nsame, he knew.\n\nThis was the substance of the letter, written throughout with a\njustice and a dignity as if he were indeed my responsible guardian\nimpartially representing the proposal of a friend against whom in his\nintegrity he stated the full case.\n\nBut he did not hint to me that when I had been better looking he had\nhad this same proceeding in his thoughts and had refrained from it.\nThat when my old face was gone from me, and I had no attractions, he\ncould love me just as well as in my fairer days. That the discovery\nof my birth gave him no shock. That his generosity rose above my\ndisfigurement and my inheritance of shame. That the more I stood in\nneed of such fidelity, the more firmly I might trust in him to the\nlast.\n\nBut I knew it, I knew it well now. It came upon me as the close of\nthe benignant history I had been pursuing, and I felt that I had but\none thing to do. To devote my life to his happiness was to thank him\npoorly, and what had I wished for the other night but some new means\nof thanking him?\n\nStill I cried very much, not only in the fullness of my heart after\nreading the letter, not only in the strangeness of the prospect--for\nit was strange though I had expected the contents--but as if\nsomething for which there was no name or distinct idea were\nindefinitely lost to me. I was very happy, very thankful, very\nhopeful; but I cried very much.\n\nBy and by I went to my old glass. My eyes were red and swollen, and I\nsaid, \"Oh, Esther, Esther, can that be you!\" I am afraid the face in\nthe glass was going to cry again at this reproach, but I held up my\nfinger at it, and it stopped.\n\n\"That is more like the composed look you comforted me with, my dear,\nwhen you showed me such a change!\" said I, beginning to let down my\nhair. \"When you are mistress of Bleak House, you are to be as\ncheerful as a bird. In fact, you are always to be cheerful; so let us\nbegin for once and for all.\"\n\nI went on with my hair now, quite comfortably. I sobbed a little\nstill, but that was because I had been crying, not because I was\ncrying then.\n\n\"And so Esther, my dear, you are happy for life. Happy with your best\nfriends, happy in your old home, happy in the power of doing a great\ndeal of good, and happy in the undeserved love of the best of men.\"\n\nI thought, all at once, if my guardian had married some one else, how\nshould I have felt, and what should I have done! That would have been\na change indeed. It presented my life in such a new and blank form\nthat I rang my housekeeping keys and gave them a kiss before I laid\nthem down in their basket again.\n\nThen I went on to think, as I dressed my hair before the glass, how\noften had I considered within myself that the deep traces of my\nillness and the circumstances of my birth were only new reasons why I\nshould be busy, busy, busy--useful, amiable, serviceable, in all\nhonest, unpretending ways. This was a good time, to be sure, to sit\ndown morbidly and cry! As to its seeming at all strange to me at\nfirst (if that were any excuse for crying, which it was not) that I\nwas one day to be the mistress of Bleak House, why should it seem\nstrange? Other people had thought of such things, if I had not.\n\"Don't you remember, my plain dear,\" I asked myself, looking at the\nglass, \"what Mrs. Woodcourt said before those scars were there about\nyour marrying--\"\n\nPerhaps the name brought them to my remembrance. The dried remains of\nthe flowers. It would be better not to keep them now. They had only\nbeen preserved in memory of something wholly past and gone, but it\nwould be better not to keep them now.\n\nThey were in a book, and it happened to be in the next room--our\nsitting-room, dividing Ada's chamber from mine. I took a candle and\nwent softly in to fetch it from its shelf. After I had it in my hand,\nI saw my beautiful darling, through the open door, lying asleep, and\nI stole in to kiss her.\n\nIt was weak in me, I know, and I could have no reason for crying; but\nI dropped a tear upon her dear face, and another, and another. Weaker\nthan that, I took the withered flowers out and put them for a moment\nto her lips. I thought about her love for Richard, though, indeed,\nthe flowers had nothing to do with that. Then I took them into my own\nroom and burned them at the candle, and they were dust in an instant.\n\nOn entering the breakfast-room next morning, I found my guardian just\nas usual, quite as frank, as open, and free. There being not the\nleast constraint in his manner, there was none (or I think there was\nnone) in mine. I was with him several times in the course of the\nmorning, in and out, when there was no one there, and I thought it\nnot unlikely that he might speak to me about the letter, but he did\nnot say a word.\n\nSo, on the next morning, and the next, and for at least a week, over\nwhich time Mr. Skimpole prolonged his stay. I expected, every day,\nthat my guardian might speak to me about the letter, but he never\ndid.\n\nI thought then, growing uneasy, that I ought to write an answer. I\ntried over and over again in my own room at night, but I could not\nwrite an answer that at all began like a good answer, so I thought\neach night I would wait one more day. And I waited seven more days,\nand he never said a word.\n\nAt last, Mr. Skimpole having departed, we three were one afternoon\ngoing out for a ride; and I, being dressed before Ada and going down,\ncame upon my guardian, with his back towards me, standing at the\ndrawing-room window looking out.\n\nHe turned on my coming in and said, smiling, \"Aye, it's you, little\nwoman, is it?\" and looked out again.\n\nI had made up my mind to speak to him now. In short, I had come down\non purpose. \"Guardian,\" I said, rather hesitating and trembling,\n\"when would you like to have the answer to the letter Charley came\nfor?\"\n\n\"When it's ready, my dear,\" he replied.\n\n\"I think it is ready,\" said I.\n\n\"Is Charley to bring it?\" he asked pleasantly.\n\n\"No. I have brought it myself, guardian,\" I returned.\n\nI put my two arms round his neck and kissed him, and he said was this\nthe mistress of Bleak House, and I said yes; and it made no\ndifference presently, and we all went out together, and I said\nnothing to my precious pet about it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLV\n\nIn Trust\n\n\nOne morning when I had done jingling about with my baskets of keys,\nas my beauty and I were walking round and round the garden I happened\nto turn my eyes towards the house and saw a long thin shadow going in\nwhich looked like Mr. Vholes. Ada had been telling me only that\nmorning of her hopes that Richard might exhaust his ardour in the\nChancery suit by being so very earnest in it; and therefore, not to\ndamp my dear girl's spirits, I said nothing about Mr. Vholes's\nshadow.\n\nPresently came Charley, lightly winding among the bushes and tripping\nalong the paths, as rosy and pretty as one of Flora's attendants\ninstead of my maid, saying, \"Oh, if you please, miss, would you step\nand speak to Mr. Jarndyce!\"\n\nIt was one of Charley's peculiarities that whenever she was charged\nwith a message she always began to deliver it as soon as she beheld,\nat any distance, the person for whom it was intended. Therefore I saw\nCharley asking me in her usual form of words to \"step and speak\" to\nMr. Jarndyce long before I heard her. And when I did hear her, she\nhad said it so often that she was out of breath.\n\nI told Ada I would make haste back and inquired of Charley as we went\nin whether there was not a gentleman with Mr. Jarndyce. To which\nCharley, whose grammar, I confess to my shame, never did any credit\nto my educational powers, replied, \"Yes, miss. Him as come down in\nthe country with Mr. Richard.\"\n\nA more complete contrast than my guardian and Mr. Vholes I suppose\nthere could not be. I found them looking at one another across a\ntable, the one so open and the other so close, the one so broad and\nupright and the other so narrow and stooping, the one giving out what\nhe had to say in such a rich ringing voice and the other keeping it\nin in such a cold-blooded, gasping, fish-like manner that I thought I\nnever had seen two people so unmatched.\n\n\"You know Mr. Vholes, my dear,\" said my guardian. Not with the\ngreatest urbanity, I must say.\n\nMr. Vholes rose, gloved and buttoned up as usual, and seated himself\nagain, just as he had seated himself beside Richard in the gig. Not\nhaving Richard to look at, he looked straight before him.\n\n\"Mr. Vholes,\" said my guardian, eyeing his black figure as if he were\na bird of ill omen, \"has brought an ugly report of our most\nunfortunate Rick.\" Laying a marked emphasis on \"most unfortunate\" as\nif the words were rather descriptive of his connexion with Mr.\nVholes.\n\nI sat down between them; Mr. Vholes remained immovable, except that\nhe secretly picked at one of the red pimples on his yellow face with\nhis black glove.\n\n\"And as Rick and you are happily good friends, I should like to\nknow,\" said my guardian, \"what you think, my dear. Would you be so\ngood as to--as to speak up, Mr. Vholes?\"\n\nDoing anything but that, Mr. Vholes observed, \"I have been saying\nthat I have reason to know, Miss Summerson, as Mr. C.'s professional\nadviser, that Mr. C.'s circumstances are at the present moment in an\nembarrassed state. Not so much in point of amount as owing to the\npeculiar and pressing nature of liabilities Mr. C. has incurred and\nthe means he has of liquidating or meeting the same. I have staved\noff many little matters for Mr. C., but there is a limit to staving\noff, and we have reached it. I have made some advances out of pocket\nto accommodate these unpleasantnesses, but I necessarily look to\nbeing repaid, for I do not pretend to be a man of capital, and I have\na father to support in the Vale of Taunton, besides striving to\nrealize some little independence for three dear girls at home. My\napprehension is, Mr. C.'s circumstances being such, lest it should\nend in his obtaining leave to part with his commission, which at all\nevents is desirable to be made known to his connexions.\"\n\nMr. Vholes, who had looked at me while speaking, here emerged into\nthe silence he could hardly be said to have broken, so stifled was\nhis tone, and looked before him again.\n\n\"Imagine the poor fellow without even his present resource,\" said my\nguardian to me. \"Yet what can I do? You know him, Esther. He would\nnever accept of help from me now. To offer it or hint at it would be\nto drive him to an extremity, if nothing else did.\"\n\nMr. Vholes hereupon addressed me again.\n\n\"What Mr. Jarndyce remarks, miss, is no doubt the case, and is the\ndifficulty. I do not see that anything is to be done. I do not say\nthat anything is to be done. Far from it. I merely come down here\nunder the seal of confidence and mention it in order that everything\nmay be openly carried on and that it may not be said afterwards that\neverything was not openly carried on. My wish is that everything\nshould be openly carried on. I desire to leave a good name behind me.\nIf I consulted merely my own interests with Mr. C., I should not be\nhere. So insurmountable, as you must well know, would be his\nobjections. This is not a professional attendance. This can he\ncharged to nobody. I have no interest in it except as a member of\nsociety and a father--AND a son,\" said Mr. Vholes, who had nearly\nforgotten that point.\n\nIt appeared to us that Mr. Vholes said neither more nor less than the\ntruth in intimating that he sought to divide the responsibility, such\nas it was, of knowing Richard's situation. I could only suggest that\nI should go down to Deal, where Richard was then stationed, and see\nhim, and try if it were possible to avert the worst. Without\nconsulting Mr. Vholes on this point, I took my guardian aside to\npropose it, while Mr. Vholes gauntly stalked to the fire and warmed\nhis funeral gloves.\n\nThe fatigue of the journey formed an immediate objection on my\nguardian's part, but as I saw he had no other, and as I was only too\nhappy to go, I got his consent. We had then merely to dispose of Mr.\nVholes.\n\n\"Well, sir,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, \"Miss Summerson will communicate with\nMr. Carstone, and you can only hope that his position may be yet\nretrievable. You will allow me to order you lunch after your journey,\nsir.\"\n\n\"I thank you, Mr. Jarndyce,\" said Mr. Vholes, putting out his long\nblack sleeve to check the ringing of the bell, \"not any. I thank you,\nno, not a morsel. My digestion is much impaired, and I am but a poor\nknife and fork at any time. If I was to partake of solid food at this\nperiod of the day, I don't know what the consequences might be.\nEverything having been openly carried on, sir, I will now with your\npermission take my leave.\"\n\n\"And I would that you could take your leave, and we could all take\nour leave, Mr. Vholes,\" returned my guardian bitterly, \"of a cause\nyou know of.\"\n\nMr. Vholes, whose black dye was so deep from head to foot that it had\nquite steamed before the fire, diffusing a very unpleasant perfume,\nmade a short one-sided inclination of his head from the neck and\nslowly shook it.\n\n\"We whose ambition it is to be looked upon in the light of\nrespectable practitioners, sir, can but put our shoulders to the\nwheel. We do it, sir. At least, I do it myself; and I wish to think\nwell of my professional brethren, one and all. You are sensible of an\nobligation not to refer to me, miss, in communicating with Mr. C.?\"\n\nI said I would be careful not to do it.\n\n\"Just so, miss. Good morning. Mr. Jarndyce, good morning, sir.\" Mr.\nVholes put his dead glove, which scarcely seemed to have any hand in\nit, on my fingers, and then on my guardian's fingers, and took his\nlong thin shadow away. I thought of it on the outside of the coach,\npassing over all the sunny landscape between us and London, chilling\nthe seed in the ground as it glided along.\n\nOf course it became necessary to tell Ada where I was going and why I\nwas going, and of course she was anxious and distressed. But she was\ntoo true to Richard to say anything but words of pity and words of\nexcuse, and in a more loving spirit still--my dear devoted girl!--she\nwrote him a long letter, of which I took charge.\n\nCharley was to be my travelling companion, though I am sure I wanted\nnone and would willingly have left her at home. We all went to London\nthat afternoon, and finding two places in the mail, secured them. At\nour usual bed-time, Charley and I were rolling away seaward with the\nKentish letters.\n\nIt was a night's journey in those coach times, but we had the mail to\nourselves and did not find the night very tedious. It passed with me\nas I suppose it would with most people under such circumstances. At\none while my journey looked hopeful, and at another hopeless. Now I\nthought I should do some good, and now I wondered how I could ever\nhave supposed so. Now it seemed one of the most reasonable things in\nthe world that I should have come, and now one of the most\nunreasonable. In what state I should find Richard, what I should say\nto him, and what he would say to me occupied my mind by turns with\nthese two states of feeling; and the wheels seemed to play one tune\n(to which the burden of my guardian's letter set itself) over and\nover again all night.\n\nAt last we came into the narrow streets of Deal, and very gloomy they\nwere upon a raw misty morning. The long flat beach, with its little\nirregular houses, wooden and brick, and its litter of capstans, and\ngreat boats, and sheds, and bare upright poles with tackle and\nblocks, and loose gravelly waste places overgrown with grass and\nweeds, wore as dull an appearance as any place I ever saw. The sea\nwas heaving under a thick white fog; and nothing else was moving but\na few early ropemakers, who, with the yarn twisted round their\nbodies, looked as if, tired of their present state of existence, they\nwere spinning themselves into cordage.\n\nBut when we got into a warm room in an excellent hotel and sat down,\ncomfortably washed and dressed, to an early breakfast (for it was too\nlate to think of going to bed), Deal began to look more cheerful. Our\nlittle room was like a ship's cabin, and that delighted Charley very\nmuch. Then the fog began to rise like a curtain, and numbers of ships\nthat we had had no idea were near appeared. I don't know how many\nsail the waiter told us were then lying in the downs. Some of these\nvessels were of grand size--one was a large Indiaman just come home;\nand when the sun shone through the clouds, making silvery pools in\nthe dark sea, the way in which these ships brightened, and shadowed,\nand changed, amid a bustle of boats pulling off from the shore to\nthem and from them to the shore, and a general life and motion in\nthemselves and everything around them, was most beautiful.\n\nThe large Indiaman was our great attraction because she had come into\nthe downs in the night. She was surrounded by boats, and we said how\nglad the people on board of her must be to come ashore. Charley was\ncurious, too, about the voyage, and about the heat in India, and the\nserpents and the tigers; and as she picked up such information much\nfaster than grammar, I told her what I knew on those points. I told\nher, too, how people in such voyages were sometimes wrecked and cast\non rocks, where they were saved by the intrepidity and humanity of\none man. And Charley asking how that could be, I told her how we knew\nat home of such a case.\n\nI had thought of sending Richard a note saying I was there, but it\nseemed so much better to go to him without preparation. As he lived\nin barracks I was a little doubtful whether this was feasible, but we\nwent out to reconnoitre. Peeping in at the gate of the barrack-yard,\nwe found everything very quiet at that time in the morning, and I\nasked a sergeant standing on the guardhouse-steps where he lived. He\nsent a man before to show me, who went up some bare stairs, and\nknocked with his knuckles at a door, and left us.\n\n\"Now then!\" cried Richard from within. So I left Charley in the\nlittle passage, and going on to the half-open door, said, \"Can I come\nin, Richard? It's only Dame Durden.\"\n\nHe was writing at a table, with a great confusion of clothes, tin\ncases, books, boots, brushes, and portmanteaus strewn all about the\nfloor. He was only half dressed--in plain clothes, I observed, not in\nuniform--and his hair was unbrushed, and he looked as wild as his\nroom. All this I saw after he had heartily welcomed me and I was\nseated near him, for he started upon hearing my voice and caught me\nin his arms in a moment. Dear Richard! He was ever the same to me.\nDown to--ah, poor poor fellow!--to the end, he never received me but\nwith something of his old merry boyish manner.\n\n\"Good heaven, my dear little woman,\" said he, \"how do you come here?\nWho could have thought of seeing you! Nothing the matter? Ada is\nwell?\"\n\n\"Quite well. Lovelier than ever, Richard!\"\n\n\"Ah!\" he said, leaning back in his chair. \"My poor cousin! I was\nwriting to you, Esther.\"\n\nSo worn and haggard as he looked, even in the fullness of his\nhandsome youth, leaning back in his chair and crushing the closely\nwritten sheet of paper in his hand!\n\n\"Have you been at the trouble of writing all that, and am I not to\nread it after all?\" I asked.\n\n\"Oh, my dear,\" he returned with a hopeless gesture. \"You may read it\nin the whole room. It is all over here.\"\n\nI mildly entreated him not to be despondent. I told him that I had\nheard by chance of his being in difficulty and had come to consult\nwith him what could best be done.\n\n\"Like you, Esther, but useless, and so NOT like you!\" said he with a\nmelancholy smile. \"I am away on leave this day--should have been gone\nin another hour--and that is to smooth it over, for my selling out.\nWell! Let bygones be bygones. So this calling follows the rest. I\nonly want to have been in the church to have made the round of all\nthe professions.\"\n\n\"Richard,\" I urged, \"it is not so hopeless as that?\"\n\n\"Esther,\" he returned, \"it is indeed. I am just so near disgrace as\nthat those who are put in authority over me (as the catechism goes)\nwould far rather be without me than with me. And they are right.\nApart from debts and duns and all such drawbacks, I am not fit even\nfor this employment. I have no care, no mind, no heart, no soul, but\nfor one thing. Why, if this bubble hadn't broken now,\" he said,\ntearing the letter he had written into fragments and moodily casting\nthem away, by driblets, \"how could I have gone abroad? I must have\nbeen ordered abroad, but how could I have gone? How could I, with my\nexperience of that thing, trust even Vholes unless I was at his\nback!\"\n\nI suppose he knew by my face what I was about to say, but he caught\nthe hand I had laid upon his arm and touched my own lips with it to\nprevent me from going on.\n\n\"No, Dame Durden! Two subjects I forbid--must forbid. The first is\nJohn Jarndyce. The second, you know what. Call it madness, and I tell\nyou I can't help it now, and can't be sane. But it is no such thing;\nit is the one object I have to pursue. It is a pity I ever was\nprevailed upon to turn out of my road for any other. It would be\nwisdom to abandon it now, after all the time, anxiety, and pains I\nhave bestowed upon it! Oh, yes, true wisdom. It would be very\nagreeable, too, to some people; but I never will.\"\n\nHe was in that mood in which I thought it best not to increase his\ndetermination (if anything could increase it) by opposing him. I took\nout Ada's letter and put it in his hand.\n\n\"Am I to read it now?\" he asked.\n\nAs I told him yes, he laid it on the table, and resting his head upon\nhis hand, began. He had not read far when he rested his head upon his\ntwo hands--to hide his face from me. In a little while he rose as if\nthe light were bad and went to the window. He finished reading it\nthere, with his back towards me, and after he had finished and had\nfolded it up, stood there for some minutes with the letter in his\nhand. When he came back to his chair, I saw tears in his eyes.\n\n\"Of course, Esther, you know what she says here?\" He spoke in a\nsoftened voice and kissed the letter as he asked me.\n\n\"Yes, Richard.\"\n\n\"Offers me,\" he went on, tapping his foot upon the floor, \"the little\ninheritance she is certain of so soon--just as little and as much as\nI have wasted--and begs and prays me to take it, set myself right\nwith it, and remain in the service.\"\n\n\"I know your welfare to be the dearest wish of her heart,\" said I.\n\"And, oh, my dear Richard, Ada's is a noble heart.\"\n\n\"I am sure it is. I--I wish I was dead!\"\n\nHe went back to the window, and laying his arm across it, leaned his\nhead down on his arm. It greatly affected me to see him so, but I\nhoped he might become more yielding, and I remained silent. My\nexperience was very limited; I was not at all prepared for his\nrousing himself out of this emotion to a new sense of injury.\n\n\"And this is the heart that the same John Jarndyce, who is not\notherwise to be mentioned between us, stepped in to estrange from\nme,\" said he indignantly. \"And the dear girl makes me this generous\noffer from under the same John Jarndyce's roof, and with the same\nJohn Jarndyce's gracious consent and connivance, I dare say, as a new\nmeans of buying me off.\"\n\n\"Richard!\" I cried out, rising hastily. \"I will not hear you say such\nshameful words!\" I was very angry with him indeed, for the first time\nin my life, but it only lasted a moment. When I saw his worn young\nface looking at me as if he were sorry, I put my hand on his shoulder\nand said, \"If you please, my dear Richard, do not speak in such a\ntone to me. Consider!\"\n\nHe blamed himself exceedingly and told me in the most generous manner\nthat he had been very wrong and that he begged my pardon a thousand\ntimes. At that I laughed, but trembled a little too, for I was rather\nfluttered after being so fiery.\n\n\"To accept this offer, my dear Esther,\" said he, sitting down beside\nme and resuming our conversation, \"--once more, pray, pray forgive\nme; I am deeply grieved--to accept my dearest cousin's offer is, I\nneed not say, impossible. Besides, I have letters and papers that I\ncould show you which would convince you it is all over here. I have\ndone with the red coat, believe me. But it is some satisfaction, in\nthe midst of my troubles and perplexities, to know that I am pressing\nAda's interests in pressing my own. Vholes has his shoulder to the\nwheel, and he cannot help urging it on as much for her as for me,\nthank God!\"\n\nHis sanguine hopes were rising within him and lighting up his\nfeatures, but they made his face more sad to me than it had been\nbefore.\n\n\"No, no!\" cried Richard exultingly. \"If every farthing of Ada's\nlittle fortune were mine, no part of it should be spent in retaining\nme in what I am not fit for, can take no interest in, and am weary\nof. It should be devoted to what promises a better return, and should\nbe used where she has a larger stake. Don't be uneasy for me! I shall\nnow have only one thing on my mind, and Vholes and I will work it. I\nshall not be without means. Free of my commission, I shall be able to\ncompound with some small usurers who will hear of nothing but their\nbond now--Vholes says so. I should have a balance in my favour\nanyway, but that would swell it. Come, come! You shall carry a letter\nto Ada from me, Esther, and you must both of you be more hopeful of\nme and not believe that I am quite cast away just yet, my dear.\"\n\nI will not repeat what I said to Richard. I know it was tiresome, and\nnobody is to suppose for a moment that it was at all wise. It only\ncame from my heart. He heard it patiently and feelingly, but I saw\nthat on the two subjects he had reserved it was at present hopeless\nto make any representation to him. I saw too, and had experienced in\nthis very interview, the sense of my guardian's remark that it was\neven more mischievous to use persuasion with him than to leave him as\nhe was.\n\nTherefore I was driven at last to asking Richard if he would mind\nconvincing me that it really was all over there, as he had said, and\nthat it was not his mere impression. He showed me without hesitation\na correspondence making it quite plain that his retirement was\narranged. I found, from what he told me, that Mr. Vholes had copies\nof these papers and had been in consultation with him throughout.\nBeyond ascertaining this, and having been the bearer of Ada's letter,\nand being (as I was going to be) Richard's companion back to London,\nI had done no good by coming down. Admitting this to myself with a\nreluctant heart, I said I would return to the hotel and wait until he\njoined me there, so he threw a cloak over his shoulders and saw me to\nthe gate, and Charley and I went back along the beach.\n\nThere was a concourse of people in one spot, surrounding some naval\nofficers who were landing from a boat, and pressing about them with\nunusual interest. I said to Charley this would be one of the great\nIndiaman's boats now, and we stopped to look.\n\nThe gentlemen came slowly up from the waterside, speaking\ngood-humouredly to each other and to the people around and glancing\nabout them as if they were glad to be in England again. \"Charley,\nCharley,\" said I, \"come away!\" And I hurried on so swiftly that my\nlittle maid was surprised.\n\nIt was not until we were shut up in our cabin-room and I had had time\nto take breath that I began to think why I had made such haste. In\none of the sunburnt faces I had recognized Mr. Allan Woodcourt, and I\nhad been afraid of his recognizing me. I had been unwilling that he\nshould see my altered looks. I had been taken by surprise, and my\ncourage had quite failed me.\n\nBut I knew this would not do, and I now said to myself, \"My dear,\nthere is no reason--there is and there can be no reason at all--why\nit should be worse for you now than it ever has been. What you were\nlast month, you are to-day; you are no worse, you are no better. This\nis not your resolution; call it up, Esther, call it up!\" I was in a\ngreat tremble--with running--and at first was quite unable to calm\nmyself; but I got better, and I was very glad to know it.\n\nThe party came to the hotel. I heard them speaking on the staircase.\nI was sure it was the same gentlemen because I knew their voices\nagain--I mean I knew Mr. Woodcourt's. It would still have been a\ngreat relief to me to have gone away without making myself known, but\nI was determined not to do so. \"No, my dear, no. No, no, no!\"\n\nI untied my bonnet and put my veil half up--I think I mean half down,\nbut it matters very little--and wrote on one of my cards that I\nhappened to be there with Mr. Richard Carstone, and I sent it in to\nMr. Woodcourt. He came immediately. I told him I was rejoiced to be\nby chance among the first to welcome him home to England. And I saw\nthat he was very sorry for me.\n\n\"You have been in shipwreck and peril since you left us, Mr.\nWoodcourt,\" said I, \"but we can hardly call that a misfortune which\nenabled you to be so useful and so brave. We read of it with the\ntruest interest. It first came to my knowledge through your old\npatient, poor Miss Flite, when I was recovering from my severe\nillness.\"\n\n\"Ah! Little Miss Flite!\" he said. \"She lives the same life yet?\"\n\n\"Just the same.\"\n\nI was so comfortable with myself now as not to mind the veil and to\nbe able to put it aside.\n\n\"Her gratitude to you, Mr. Woodcourt, is delightful. She is a most\naffectionate creature, as I have reason to say.\"\n\n\"You--you have found her so?\" he returned. \"I--I am glad of that.\" He\nwas so very sorry for me that he could scarcely speak.\n\n\"I assure you,\" said I, \"that I was deeply touched by her sympathy\nand pleasure at the time I have referred to.\"\n\n\"I was grieved to hear that you had been very ill.\"\n\n\"I was very ill.\"\n\n\"But you have quite recovered?\"\n\n\"I have quite recovered my health and my cheerfulness,\" said I. \"You\nknow how good my guardian is and what a happy life we lead, and I\nhave everything to be thankful for and nothing in the world to\ndesire.\"\n\nI felt as if he had greater commiseration for me than I had ever had\nfor myself. It inspired me with new fortitude and new calmness to\nfind that it was I who was under the necessity of reassuring him. I\nspoke to him of his voyage out and home, and of his future plans, and\nof his probable return to India. He said that was very doubtful. He\nhad not found himself more favoured by fortune there than here. He\nhad gone out a poor ship's surgeon and had come home nothing better.\nWhile we were talking, and when I was glad to believe that I had\nalleviated (if I may use such a term) the shock he had had in seeing\nme, Richard came in. He had heard downstairs who was with me, and\nthey met with cordial pleasure.\n\nI saw that after their first greetings were over, and when they spoke\nof Richard's career, Mr. Woodcourt had a perception that all was not\ngoing well with him. He frequently glanced at his face as if there\nwere something in it that gave him pain, and more than once he looked\ntowards me as though he sought to ascertain whether I knew what the\ntruth was. Yet Richard was in one of his sanguine states and in good\nspirits and was thoroughly pleased to see Mr. Woodcourt again, whom\nhe had always liked.\n\nRichard proposed that we all should go to London together; but Mr.\nWoodcourt, having to remain by his ship a little longer, could not\njoin us. He dined with us, however, at an early hour, and became so\nmuch more like what he used to be that I was still more at peace to\nthink I had been able to soften his regrets. Yet his mind was not\nrelieved of Richard. When the coach was almost ready and Richard ran\ndown to look after his luggage, he spoke to me about him.\n\nI was not sure that I had a right to lay his whole story open, but I\nreferred in a few words to his estrangement from Mr Jarndyce and to\nhis being entangled in the ill-fated Chancery suit. Mr. Woodcourt\nlistened with interest and expressed his regret.\n\n\"I saw you observe him rather closely,\" said I, \"Do you think him so\nchanged?\"\n\n\"He is changed,\" he returned, shaking his head.\n\nI felt the blood rush into my face for the first time, but it was\nonly an instantaneous emotion. I turned my head aside, and it was\ngone.\n\n\"It is not,\" said Mr. Woodcourt, \"his being so much younger or older,\nor thinner or fatter, or paler or ruddier, as there being upon his\nface such a singular expression. I never saw so remarkable a look in\na young person. One cannot say that it is all anxiety or all\nweariness; yet it is both, and like ungrown despair.\"\n\n\"You do not think he is ill?\" said I.\n\nNo. He looked robust in body.\n\n\"That he cannot be at peace in mind, we have too much reason to\nknow,\" I proceeded. \"Mr. Woodcourt, you are going to London?\"\n\n\"To-morrow or the next day.\"\n\n\"There is nothing Richard wants so much as a friend. He always liked\nyou. Pray see him when you get there. Pray help him sometimes with\nyour companionship if you can. You do not know of what service it\nmight be. You cannot think how Ada, and Mr. Jarndyce, and even I--how\nwe should all thank you, Mr. Woodcourt!\"\n\n\"Miss Summerson,\" he said, more moved than he had been from the\nfirst, \"before heaven, I will be a true friend to him! I will accept\nhim as a trust, and it shall be a sacred one!\"\n\n\"God bless you!\" said I, with my eyes filling fast; but I thought\nthey might, when it was not for myself. \"Ada loves him--we all love\nhim, but Ada loves him as we cannot. I will tell her what you say.\nThank you, and God bless you, in her name!\"\n\nRichard came back as we finished exchanging these hurried words and\ngave me his arm to take me to the coach.\n\n\"Woodcourt,\" he said, unconscious with what application, \"pray let us\nmeet in London!\"\n\n\"Meet?\" returned the other. \"I have scarcely a friend there now but\nyou. Where shall I find you?\"\n\n\"Why, I must get a lodging of some sort,\" said Richard, pondering.\n\"Say at Vholes's, Symond's Inn.\"\n\n\"Good! Without loss of time.\"\n\nThey shook hands heartily. When I was seated in the coach and Richard\nwas yet standing in the street, Mr. Woodcourt laid his friendly hand\non Richard's shoulder and looked at me. I understood him and waved\nmine in thanks.\n\nAnd in his last look as we drove away, I saw that he was very sorry\nfor me. I was glad to see it. I felt for my old self as the dead may\nfeel if they ever revisit these scenes. I was glad to be tenderly\nremembered, to be gently pitied, not to be quite forgotten.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVI\n\nStop Him!\n\n\nDarkness rests upon Tom-All-Alone's. Dilating and dilating since the\nsun went down last night, it has gradually swelled until it fills\nevery void in the place. For a time there were some dungeon lights\nburning, as the lamp of life hums in Tom-all-Alone's, heavily,\nheavily, in the nauseous air, and winking--as that lamp, too, winks\nin Tom-all-Alone's--at many horrible things. But they are blotted\nout. The moon has eyed Tom with a dull cold stare, as admitting some\npuny emulation of herself in his desert region unfit for life and\nblasted by volcanic fires; but she has passed on and is gone. The\nblackest nightmare in the infernal stables grazes on Tom-all-Alone's,\nand Tom is fast asleep.\n\nMuch mighty speech-making there has been, both in and out of\nParliament, concerning Tom, and much wrathful disputation how Tom\nshall be got right. Whether he shall be put into the main road by\nconstables, or by beadles, or by bell-ringing, or by force of\nfigures, or by correct principles of taste, or by high church, or by\nlow church, or by no church; whether he shall be set to splitting\ntrusses of polemical straws with the crooked knife of his mind or\nwhether he shall be put to stone-breaking instead. In the midst of\nwhich dust and noise there is but one thing perfectly clear, to wit,\nthat Tom only may and can, or shall and will, be reclaimed according\nto somebody's theory but nobody's practice. And in the hopeful\nmeantime, Tom goes to perdition head foremost in his old determined\nspirit.\n\nBut he has his revenge. Even the winds are his messengers, and they\nserve him in these hours of darkness. There is not a drop of Tom's\ncorrupted blood but propagates infection and contagion somewhere. It\nshall pollute, this very night, the choice stream (in which chemists\non analysis would find the genuine nobility) of a Norman house, and\nhis Grace shall not be able to say nay to the infamous alliance.\nThere is not an atom of Tom's slime, not a cubic inch of any\npestilential gas in which he lives, not one obscenity or degradation\nabout him, not an ignorance, not a wickedness, not a brutality of his\ncommitting, but shall work its retribution through every order of\nsociety up to the proudest of the proud and to the highest of the\nhigh. Verily, what with tainting, plundering, and spoiling, Tom has\nhis revenge.\n\nIt is a moot point whether Tom-all-Alone's be uglier by day or by\nnight, but on the argument that the more that is seen of it the more\nshocking it must be, and that no part of it left to the imagination\nis at all likely to be made so bad as the reality, day carries it.\nThe day begins to break now; and in truth it might be better for the\nnational glory even that the sun should sometimes set upon the\nBritish dominions than that it should ever rise upon so vile a wonder\nas Tom.\n\nA brown sunburnt gentleman, who appears in some inaptitude for sleep\nto be wandering abroad rather than counting the hours on a restless\npillow, strolls hitherward at this quiet time. Attracted by\ncuriosity, he often pauses and looks about him, up and down the\nmiserable by-ways. Nor is he merely curious, for in his bright dark\neye there is compassionate interest; and as he looks here and there,\nhe seems to understand such wretchedness and to have studied it\nbefore.\n\nOn the banks of the stagnant channel of mud which is the main street\nof Tom-all-Alone's, nothing is to be seen but the crazy houses, shut\nup and silent. No waking creature save himself appears except in one\ndirection, where he sees the solitary figure of a woman sitting on a\ndoor-step. He walks that way. Approaching, he observes that she has\njourneyed a long distance and is footsore and travel-stained. She\nsits on the door-step in the manner of one who is waiting, with her\nelbow on her knee and her head upon her hand. Beside her is a canvas\nbag, or bundle, she has carried. She is dozing probably, for she\ngives no heed to his steps as he comes toward her.\n\nThe broken footway is so narrow that when Allan Woodcourt comes to\nwhere the woman sits, he has to turn into the road to pass her.\nLooking down at her face, his eye meets hers, and he stops.\n\n\"What is the matter?\"\n\n\"Nothing, sir.\"\n\n\"Can't you make them hear? Do you want to be let in?\"\n\n\"I'm waiting till they get up at another house--a lodging-house--not\nhere,\" the woman patiently returns. \"I'm waiting here because there\nwill be sun here presently to warm me.\"\n\n\"I am afraid you are tired. I am sorry to see you sitting in the\nstreet.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir. It don't matter.\"\n\nA habit in him of speaking to the poor and of avoiding patronage or\ncondescension or childishness (which is the favourite device, many\npeople deeming it quite a subtlety to talk to them like little\nspelling books) has put him on good terms with the woman easily.\n\n\"Let me look at your forehead,\" he says, bending down. \"I am a\ndoctor. Don't be afraid. I wouldn't hurt you for the world.\"\n\nHe knows that by touching her with his skilful and accustomed hand he\ncan soothe her yet more readily. She makes a slight objection,\nsaying, \"It's nothing\"; but he has scarcely laid his fingers on the\nwounded place when she lifts it up to the light.\n\n\"Aye! A bad bruise, and the skin sadly broken. This must be very\nsore.\"\n\n\"It do ache a little, sir,\" returns the woman with a started tear\nupon her cheek.\n\n\"Let me try to make it more comfortable. My handkerchief won't hurt\nyou.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear no, sir, I'm sure of that!\"\n\nHe cleanses the injured place and dries it, and having carefully\nexamined it and gently pressed it with the palm of his hand, takes a\nsmall case from his pocket, dresses it, and binds it up. While he is\nthus employed, he says, after laughing at his establishing a surgery\nin the street, \"And so your husband is a brickmaker?\"\n\n\"How do you know that, sir?\" asks the woman, astonished.\n\n\"Why, I suppose so from the colour of the clay upon your bag and on\nyour dress. And I know brickmakers go about working at piecework in\ndifferent places. And I am sorry to say I have known them cruel to\ntheir wives too.\"\n\nThe woman hastily lifts up her eyes as if she would deny that her\ninjury is referable to such a cause. But feeling the hand upon her\nforehead, and seeing his busy and composed face, she quietly drops\nthem again.\n\n\"Where is he now?\" asks the surgeon.\n\n\"He got into trouble last night, sir; but he'll look for me at the\nlodging-house.\"\n\n\"He will get into worse trouble if he often misuses his large and\nheavy hand as he has misused it here. But you forgive him, brutal as\nhe is, and I say no more of him, except that I wish he deserved it.\nYou have no young child?\"\n\nThe woman shakes her head. \"One as I calls mine, sir, but it's\nLiz's.\"\n\n\"Your own is dead. I see! Poor little thing!\"\n\nBy this time he has finished and is putting up his case. \"I suppose\nyou have some settled home. Is it far from here?\" he asks,\ngood-humouredly making light of what he has done as she gets up and\ncurtsys.\n\n\"It's a good two or three and twenty mile from here, sir. At Saint\nAlbans. You know Saint Albans, sir? I thought you gave a start like,\nas if you did.\"\n\n\"Yes, I know something of it. And now I will ask you a question in\nreturn. Have you money for your lodging?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" she says, \"really and truly.\" And she shows it. He tells\nher, in acknowledgment of her many subdued thanks, that she is very\nwelcome, gives her good day, and walks away. Tom-all-Alone's is still\nasleep, and nothing is astir.\n\nYes, something is! As he retraces his way to the point from which he\ndescried the woman at a distance sitting on the step, he sees a\nragged figure coming very cautiously along, crouching close to the\nsoiled walls--which the wretchedest figure might as well avoid--and\nfurtively thrusting a hand before it. It is the figure of a youth\nwhose face is hollow and whose eyes have an emaciated glare. He is so\nintent on getting along unseen that even the apparition of a stranger\nin whole garments does not tempt him to look back. He shades his face\nwith his ragged elbow as he passes on the other side of the way, and\ngoes shrinking and creeping on with his anxious hand before him and\nhis shapeless clothes hanging in shreds. Clothes made for what\npurpose, or of what material, it would be impossible to say. They\nlook, in colour and in substance, like a bundle of rank leaves of\nswampy growth that rotted long ago.\n\nAllan Woodcourt pauses to look after him and note all this, with a\nshadowy belief that he has seen the boy before. He cannot recall how\nor where, but there is some association in his mind with such a form.\nHe imagines that he must have seen it in some hospital or refuge,\nstill, cannot make out why it comes with any special force on his\nremembrance.\n\nHe is gradually emerging from Tom-all-Alone's in the morning light,\nthinking about it, when he hears running feet behind him, and looking\nround, sees the boy scouring towards him at great speed, followed by\nthe woman.\n\n\"Stop him, stop him!\" cries the woman, almost breathless. \"Stop him,\nsir!\"\n\nHe darts across the road into the boy's path, but the boy is quicker\nthan he, makes a curve, ducks, dives under his hands, comes up\nhalf-a-dozen yards beyond him, and scours away again. Still the woman\nfollows, crying, \"Stop him, sir, pray stop him!\" Allan, not knowing\nbut that he has just robbed her of her money, follows in chase and\nruns so hard that he runs the boy down a dozen times, but each time\nhe repeats the curve, the duck, the dive, and scours away again. To\nstrike at him on any of these occasions would be to fell and disable\nhim, but the pursuer cannot resolve to do that, and so the grimly\nridiculous pursuit continues. At last the fugitive, hard-pressed,\ntakes to a narrow passage and a court which has no thoroughfare.\nHere, against a hoarding of decaying timber, he is brought to bay and\ntumbles down, lying gasping at his pursuer, who stands and gasps at\nhim until the woman comes up.\n\n\"Oh, you, Jo!\" cries the woman. \"What? I have found you at last!\"\n\n\"Jo,\" repeats Allan, looking at him with attention, \"Jo! Stay. To be\nsure! I recollect this lad some time ago being brought before the\ncoroner.\"\n\n\"Yes, I see you once afore at the inkwhich,\" whimpers Jo. \"What of\nthat? Can't you never let such an unfortnet as me alone? An't I\nunfortnet enough for you yet? How unfortnet do you want me fur to be?\nI've been a-chivied and a-chivied, fust by one on you and nixt by\nanother on you, till I'm worritted to skins and bones. The inkwhich\nwarn't MY fault. I done nothink. He wos wery good to me, he wos; he\nwos the only one I knowed to speak to, as ever come across my\ncrossing. It ain't wery likely I should want him to be inkwhiched. I\nonly wish I wos, myself. I don't know why I don't go and make a hole\nin the water, I'm sure I don't.\"\n\nHe says it with such a pitiable air, and his grimy tears appear so\nreal, and he lies in the corner up against the hoarding so like a\ngrowth of fungus or any unwholesome excrescence produced there in\nneglect and impurity, that Allan Woodcourt is softened towards him.\nHe says to the woman, \"Miserable creature, what has he done?\"\n\nTo which she only replies, shaking her head at the prostrate figure\nmore amazedly than angrily, \"Oh, you Jo, you Jo. I have found you at\nlast!\"\n\n\"What has he done?\" says Allan. \"Has he robbed you?\"\n\n\"No, sir, no. Robbed me? He did nothing but what was kind-hearted by\nme, and that's the wonder of it.\"\n\nAllan looks from Jo to the woman, and from the woman to Jo, waiting\nfor one of them to unravel the riddle.\n\n\"But he was along with me, sir,\" says the woman. \"Oh, you Jo! He was\nalong with me, sir, down at Saint Albans, ill, and a young lady, Lord\nbless her for a good friend to me, took pity on him when I durstn't,\nand took him home--\"\n\nAllan shrinks back from him with a sudden horror.\n\n\"Yes, sir, yes. Took him home, and made him comfortable, and like a\nthankless monster he ran away in the night and never has been seen or\nheard of since till I set eyes on him just now. And that young lady\nthat was such a pretty dear caught his illness, lost her beautiful\nlooks, and wouldn't hardly be known for the same young lady now if it\nwasn't for her angel temper, and her pretty shape, and her sweet\nvoice. Do you know it? You ungrateful wretch, do you know that this\nis all along of you and of her goodness to you?\" demands the woman,\nbeginning to rage at him as she recalls it and breaking into\npassionate tears.\n\nThe boy, in rough sort stunned by what he hears, falls to smearing\nhis dirty forehead with his dirty palm, and to staring at the ground,\nand to shaking from head to foot until the crazy hoarding against\nwhich he leans rattles.\n\nAllan restrains the woman, merely by a quiet gesture, but\neffectually.\n\n\"Richard told me--\" He falters. \"I mean, I have heard of this--don't\nmind me for a moment, I will speak presently.\"\n\nHe turns away and stands for a while looking out at the covered\npassage. When he comes back, he has recovered his composure, except\nthat he contends against an avoidance of the boy, which is so very\nremarkable that it absorbs the woman's attention.\n\n\"You hear what she says. But get up, get up!\"\n\nJo, shaking and chattering, slowly rises and stands, after the manner\nof his tribe in a difficulty, sideways against the hoarding, resting\none of his high shoulders against it and covertly rubbing his right\nhand over his left and his left foot over his right.\n\n\"You hear what she says, and I know it's true. Have you been here\never since?\"\n\n\"Wishermaydie if I seen Tom-all-Alone's till this blessed morning,\"\nreplies Jo hoarsely.\n\n\"Why have you come here now?\"\n\nJo looks all round the confined court, looks at his questioner no\nhigher than the knees, and finally answers, \"I don't know how to do\nnothink, and I can't get nothink to do. I'm wery poor and ill, and I\nthought I'd come back here when there warn't nobody about, and lay\ndown and hide somewheres as I knows on till arter dark, and then go\nand beg a trifle of Mr. Snagsby. He wos allus willin fur to give me\nsomethink he wos, though Mrs. Snagsby she was allus a-chivying on\nme--like everybody everywheres.\"\n\n\"Where have you come from?\"\n\nJo looks all round the court again, looks at his questioner's knees\nagain, and concludes by laying his profile against the hoarding in a\nsort of resignation.\n\n\"Did you hear me ask you where you have come from?\"\n\n\"Tramp then,\" says Jo.\n\n\"Now tell me,\" proceeds Allan, making a strong effort to overcome his\nrepugnance, going very near to him, and leaning over him with an\nexpression of confidence, \"tell me how it came about that you left\nthat house when the good young lady had been so unfortunate as to\npity you and take you home.\"\n\nJo suddenly comes out of his resignation and excitedly declares,\naddressing the woman, that he never known about the young lady, that\nhe never heern about it, that he never went fur to hurt her, that he\nwould sooner have hurt his own self, that he'd sooner have had his\nunfortnet ed chopped off than ever gone a-nigh her, and that she wos\nwery good to him, she wos. Conducting himself throughout as if in his\npoor fashion he really meant it, and winding up with some very\nmiserable sobs.\n\nAllan Woodcourt sees that this is not a sham. He constrains himself\nto touch him. \"Come, Jo. Tell me.\"\n\n\"No. I dustn't,\" says Jo, relapsing into the profile state. \"I\ndustn't, or I would.\"\n\n\"But I must know,\" returns the other, \"all the same. Come, Jo.\"\n\nAfter two or three such adjurations, Jo lifts up his head again,\nlooks round the court again, and says in a low voice, \"Well, I'll\ntell you something. I was took away. There!\"\n\n\"Took away? In the night?\"\n\n\"Ah!\" Very apprehensive of being overheard, Jo looks about him and\neven glances up some ten feet at the top of the hoarding and through\nthe cracks in it lest the object of his distrust should be looking\nover or hidden on the other side.\n\n\"Who took you away?\"\n\n\"I dustn't name him,\" says Jo. \"I dustn't do it, sir.\n\n\"But I want, in the young lady's name, to know. You may trust me. No\none else shall hear.\"\n\n\"Ah, but I don't know,\" replies Jo, shaking his head fearfully, \"as\nhe DON'T hear.\"\n\n\"Why, he is not in this place.\"\n\n\"Oh, ain't he though?\" says Jo. \"He's in all manner of places, all at\nwanst.\"\n\nAllan looks at him in perplexity, but discovers some real meaning and\ngood faith at the bottom of this bewildering reply. He patiently\nawaits an explicit answer; and Jo, more baffled by his patience than\nby anything else, at last desperately whispers a name in his ear.\n\n\"Aye!\" says Allan. \"Why, what had you been doing?\"\n\n\"Nothink, sir. Never done nothink to get myself into no trouble,\n'sept in not moving on and the inkwhich. But I'm a-moving on now. I'm\na-moving on to the berryin ground--that's the move as I'm up to.\"\n\n\"No, no, we will try to prevent that. But what did he do with you?\"\n\n\"Put me in a horsepittle,\" replied Jo, whispering, \"till I was\ndischarged, then giv me a little money--four half-bulls, wot you may\ncall half-crowns--and ses 'Hook it! Nobody wants you here,' he ses.\n'You hook it. You go and tramp,' he ses. 'You move on,' he ses.\n'Don't let me ever see you nowheres within forty mile of London, or\nyou'll repent it.' So I shall, if ever he doos see me, and he'll see\nme if I'm above ground,\" concludes Jo, nervously repeating all his\nformer precautions and investigations.\n\nAllan considers a little, then remarks, turning to the woman but\nkeeping an encouraging eye on Jo, \"He is not so ungrateful as you\nsupposed. He had a reason for going away, though it was an\ninsufficient one.\"\n\n\"Thankee, sir, thankee!\" exclaims Jo. \"There now! See how hard you\nwos upon me. But ony you tell the young lady wot the genlmn ses, and\nit's all right. For YOU wos wery good to me too, and I knows it.\"\n\n\"Now, Jo,\" says Allan, keeping his eye upon him, \"come with me and I\nwill find you a better place than this to lie down and hide in. If I\ntake one side of the way and you the other to avoid observation, you\nwill not run away, I know very well, if you make me a promise.\"\n\n\"I won't, not unless I wos to see HIM a-coming, sir.\"\n\n\"Very well. I take your word. Half the town is getting up by this\ntime, and the whole town will be broad awake in another hour. Come\nalong. Good day again, my good woman.\"\n\n\"Good day again, sir, and I thank you kindly many times again.\"\n\nShe has been sitting on her bag, deeply attentive, and now rises and\ntakes it up. Jo, repeating, \"Ony you tell the young lady as I never\nwent fur to hurt her and wot the genlmn ses!\" nods and shambles and\nshivers, and smears and blinks, and half laughs and half cries, a\nfarewell to her, and takes his creeping way along after Allan\nWoodcourt, close to the houses on the opposite side of the street. In\nthis order, the two come up out of Tom-all-Alone's into the broad\nrays of the sunlight and the purer air.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVII\n\nJo's Will\n\n\nAs Allan Woodcourt and Jo proceed along the streets where the high\nchurch spires and the distances are so near and clear in the morning\nlight that the city itself seems renewed by rest, Allan revolves in\nhis mind how and where he shall bestow his companion. \"It surely is a\nstrange fact,\" he considers, \"that in the heart of a civilized world\nthis creature in human form should be more difficult to dispose of\nthan an unowned dog.\" But it is none the less a fact because of its\nstrangeness, and the difficulty remains.\n\nAt first he looks behind him often to assure himself that Jo is still\nreally following. But look where he will, he still beholds him close\nto the opposite houses, making his way with his wary hand from brick\nto brick and from door to door, and often, as he creeps along,\nglancing over at him watchfully. Soon satisfied that the last thing\nin his thoughts is to give him the slip, Allan goes on, considering\nwith a less divided attention what he shall do.\n\nA breakfast-stall at a street-corner suggests the first thing to be\ndone. He stops there, looks round, and beckons Jo. Jo crosses and\ncomes halting and shuffling up, slowly scooping the knuckles of his\nright hand round and round in the hollowed palm of his left, kneading\ndirt with a natural pestle and mortar. What is a dainty repast to Jo\nis then set before him, and he begins to gulp the coffee and to gnaw\nthe bread and butter, looking anxiously about him in all directions\nas he eats and drinks, like a scared animal.\n\nBut he is so sick and miserable that even hunger has abandoned him.\n\"I thought I was amost a-starvin, sir,\" says Jo, soon putting down\nhis food, \"but I don't know nothink--not even that. I don't care for\neating wittles nor yet for drinking on 'em.\" And Jo stands shivering\nand looking at the breakfast wonderingly.\n\nAllan Woodcourt lays his hand upon his pulse and on his chest. \"Draw\nbreath, Jo!\" \"It draws,\" says Jo, \"as heavy as a cart.\" He might add,\n\"And rattles like it,\" but he only mutters, \"I'm a-moving on, sir.\"\n\nAllan looks about for an apothecary's shop. There is none at hand,\nbut a tavern does as well or better. He obtains a little measure of\nwine and gives the lad a portion of it very carefully. He begins to\nrevive almost as soon as it passes his lips. \"We may repeat that\ndose, Jo,\" observes Allan after watching him with his attentive face.\n\"So! Now we will take five minutes' rest, and then go on again.\"\n\nLeaving the boy sitting on the bench of the breakfast-stall, with his\nback against an iron railing, Allan Woodcourt paces up and down in\nthe early sunshine, casting an occasional look towards him without\nappearing to watch him. It requires no discernment to perceive that\nhe is warmed and refreshed. If a face so shaded can brighten, his\nface brightens somewhat; and by little and little he eats the slice\nof bread he had so hopelessly laid down. Observant of these signs of\nimprovement, Allan engages him in conversation and elicits to his no\nsmall wonder the adventure of the lady in the veil, with all its\nconsequences. Jo slowly munches as he slowly tells it. When he has\nfinished his story and his bread, they go on again.\n\nIntending to refer his difficulty in finding a temporary place of\nrefuge for the boy to his old patient, zealous little Miss Flite,\nAllan leads the way to the court where he and Jo first foregathered.\nBut all is changed at the rag and bottle shop; Miss Flite no longer\nlodges there; it is shut up; and a hard-featured female, much\nobscured by dust, whose age is a problem, but who is indeed no other\nthan the interesting Judy, is tart and spare in her replies. These\nsufficing, however, to inform the visitor that Miss Flite and her\nbirds are domiciled with a Mrs. Blinder, in Bell Yard, he repairs to\nthat neighbouring place, where Miss Flite (who rises early that she\nmay be punctual at the divan of justice held by her excellent friend\nthe Chancellor) comes running downstairs with tears of welcome and\nwith open arms.\n\n\"My dear physician!\" cries Miss Flite. \"My meritorious,\ndistinguished, honourable officer!\" She uses some odd expressions,\nbut is as cordial and full of heart as sanity itself can be--more so\nthan it often is. Allan, very patient with her, waits until she has\nno more raptures to express, then points out Jo, trembling in a\ndoorway, and tells her how he comes there.\n\n\"Where can I lodge him hereabouts for the present? Now, you have a\nfund of knowledge and good sense and can advise me.\"\n\nMiss Flite, mighty proud of the compliment, sets herself to consider;\nbut it is long before a bright thought occurs to her. Mrs. Blinder is\nentirely let, and she herself occupies poor Gridley's room.\n\"Gridley!\" exclaims Miss Flite, clapping her hands after a twentieth\nrepetition of this remark. \"Gridley! To be sure! Of course! My dear\nphysician! General George will help us out.\"\n\nIt is hopeless to ask for any information about General George, and\nwould be, though Miss Flite had not already run upstairs to put on\nher pinched bonnet and her poor little shawl and to arm herself with\nher reticule of documents. But as she informs her physician in her\ndisjointed manner on coming down in full array that General George,\nwhom she often calls upon, knows her dear Fitz Jarndyce and takes a\ngreat interest in all connected with her, Allan is induced to think\nthat they may be in the right way. So he tells Jo, for his\nencouragement, that this walking about will soon be over now; and\nthey repair to the general's. Fortunately it is not far.\n\nFrom the exterior of George's Shooting Gallery, and the long entry,\nand the bare perspective beyond it, Allan Woodcourt augurs well. He\nalso descries promise in the figure of Mr. George himself, striding\ntowards them in his morning exercise with his pipe in his mouth, no\nstock on, and his muscular arms, developed by broadsword and\ndumbbell, weightily asserting themselves through his light\nshirt-sleeves.\n\n\"Your servant, sir,\" says Mr. George with a military salute.\nGood-humouredly smiling all over his broad forehead up into his crisp\nhair, he then defers to Miss Flite, as, with great stateliness, and\nat some length, she performs the courtly ceremony of presentation. He\nwinds it up with another \"Your servant, sir!\" and another salute.\n\n\"Excuse me, sir. A sailor, I believe?\" says Mr. George.\n\n\"I am proud to find I have the air of one,\" returns Allan; \"but I am\nonly a sea-going doctor.\"\n\n\"Indeed, sir! I should have thought you was a regular blue-jacket\nmyself.\"\n\nAllan hopes Mr. George will forgive his intrusion the more readily on\nthat account, and particularly that he will not lay aside his pipe,\nwhich, in his politeness, he has testified some intention of doing.\n\"You are very good, sir,\" returns the trooper. \"As I know by\nexperience that it's not disagreeable to Miss Flite, and since it's\nequally agreeable to yourself--\" and finishes the sentence by putting\nit between his lips again. Allan proceeds to tell him all he knows\nabout Jo, unto which the trooper listens with a grave face.\n\n\"And that's the lad, sir, is it?\" he inquires, looking along the\nentry to where Jo stands staring up at the great letters on the\nwhitewashed front, which have no meaning in his eyes.\n\n\"That's he,\" says Allan. \"And, Mr. George, I am in this difficulty\nabout him. I am unwilling to place him in a hospital, even if I could\nprocure him immediate admission, because I foresee that he would not\nstay there many hours if he could be so much as got there. The same\nobjection applies to a workhouse, supposing I had the patience to be\nevaded and shirked, and handed about from post to pillar in trying to\nget him into one, which is a system that I don't take kindly to.\"\n\n\"No man does, sir,\" returns Mr. George.\n\n\"I am convinced that he would not remain in either place, because he\nis possessed by an extraordinary terror of this person who ordered\nhim to keep out of the way; in his ignorance, he believes this person\nto be everywhere, and cognizant of everything.\"\n\n\"I ask your pardon, sir,\" says Mr. George. \"But you have not\nmentioned that party's name. Is it a secret, sir?\"\n\n\"The boy makes it one. But his name is Bucket.\"\n\n\"Bucket the detective, sir?\"\n\n\"The same man.\"\n\n\"The man is known to me, sir,\" returns the trooper after blowing out\na cloud of smoke and squaring his chest, \"and the boy is so far\ncorrect that he undoubtedly is a--rum customer.\" Mr. George smokes\nwith a profound meaning after this and surveys Miss Flite in silence.\n\n\"Now, I wish Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson at least to know that\nthis Jo, who tells so strange a story, has reappeared, and to have it\nin their power to speak with him if they should desire to do so.\nTherefore I want to get him, for the present moment, into any poor\nlodging kept by decent people where he would be admitted. Decent\npeople and Jo, Mr. George,\" says Allan, following the direction of\nthe trooper's eyes along the entry, \"have not been much acquainted,\nas you see. Hence the difficulty. Do you happen to know any one in\nthis neighbourhood who would receive him for a while on my paying for\nhim beforehand?\"\n\nAs he puts the question, he becomes aware of a dirty-faced little man\nstanding at the trooper's elbow and looking up, with an oddly twisted\nfigure and countenance, into the trooper's face. After a few more\npuffs at his pipe, the trooper looks down askant at the little man,\nand the little man winks up at the trooper.\n\n\"Well, sir,\" says Mr. George, \"I can assure you that I would\nwillingly be knocked on the head at any time if it would be at all\nagreeable to Miss Summerson, and consequently I esteem it a privilege\nto do that young lady any service, however small. We are naturally in\nthe vagabond way here, sir, both myself and Phil. You see what the\nplace is. You are welcome to a quiet corner of it for the boy if the\nsame would meet your views. No charge made, except for rations. We\nare not in a flourishing state of circumstances here, sir. We are\nliable to be tumbled out neck and crop at a moment's notice. However,\nsir, such as the place is, and so long as it lasts, here it is at\nyour service.\"\n\nWith a comprehensive wave of his pipe, Mr. George places the whole\nbuilding at his visitor's disposal.\n\n\"I take it for granted, sir,\" he adds, \"you being one of the medical\nstaff, that there is no present infection about this unfortunate\nsubject?\"\n\nAllan is quite sure of it.\n\n\"Because, sir,\" says Mr. George, shaking his head sorrowfully, \"we\nhave had enough of that.\"\n\nHis tone is no less sorrowfully echoed by his new acquaintance.\n\"Still I am bound to tell you,\" observes Allan after repeating his\nformer assurance, \"that the boy is deplorably low and reduced and\nthat he may be--I do not say that he is--too far gone to recover.\"\n\n\"Do you consider him in present danger, sir?\" inquires the trooper.\n\n\"Yes, I fear so.\"\n\n\"Then, sir,\" returns the trooper in a decisive manner, \"it appears to\nme--being naturally in the vagabond way myself--that the sooner he\ncomes out of the street, the better. You, Phil! Bring him in!\"\n\nMr. Squod tacks out, all on one side, to execute the word of command;\nand the trooper, having smoked his pipe, lays it by. Jo is brought\nin. He is not one of Mrs. Pardiggle's Tockahoopo Indians; he is not\none of Mrs. Jellyby's lambs, being wholly unconnected with\nBorrioboola-Gha; he is not softened by distance and unfamiliarity; he\nis not a genuine foreign-grown savage; he is the ordinary home-made\narticle. Dirty, ugly, disagreeable to all the senses, in body a\ncommon creature of the common streets, only in soul a heathen. Homely\nfilth begrimes him, homely parasites devour him, homely sores are in\nhim, homely rags are on him; native ignorance, the growth of English\nsoil and climate, sinks his immortal nature lower than the beasts\nthat perish. Stand forth, Jo, in uncompromising colours! From the\nsole of thy foot to the crown of thy head, there is nothing\ninteresting about thee.\n\nHe shuffles slowly into Mr. George's gallery and stands huddled\ntogether in a bundle, looking all about the floor. He seems to know\nthat they have an inclination to shrink from him, partly for what he\nis and partly for what he has caused. He, too, shrinks from them. He\nis not of the same order of things, not of the same place in\ncreation. He is of no order and no place, neither of the beasts nor\nof humanity.\n\n\"Look here, Jo!\" says Allan. \"This is Mr. George.\"\n\nJo searches the floor for some time longer, then looks up for a\nmoment, and then down again.\n\n\"He is a kind friend to you, for he is going to give you lodging room\nhere.\"\n\nJo makes a scoop with one hand, which is supposed to be a bow. After\na little more consideration and some backing and changing of the foot\non which he rests, he mutters that he is \"wery thankful.\"\n\n\"You are quite safe here. All you have to do at present is to be\nobedient and to get strong. And mind you tell us the truth here,\nwhatever you do, Jo.\"\n\n\"Wishermaydie if I don't, sir,\" says Jo, reverting to his favourite\ndeclaration. \"I never done nothink yit, but wot you knows on, to get\nmyself into no trouble. I never was in no other trouble at all, sir,\n'sept not knowin' nothink and starwation.\"\n\n\"I believe it, now attend to Mr. George. I see he is going to speak\nto you.\"\n\n\"My intention merely was, sir,\" observes Mr. George, amazingly broad\nand upright, \"to point out to him where he can lie down and get a\nthorough good dose of sleep. Now, look here.\" As the trooper speaks,\nhe conducts them to the other end of the gallery and opens one of the\nlittle cabins. \"There you are, you see! Here is a mattress, and here\nyou may rest, on good behaviour, as long as Mr., I ask your pardon,\nsir\"--he refers apologetically to the card Allan has given him--\"Mr.\nWoodcourt pleases. Don't you be alarmed if you hear shots; they'll be\naimed at the target, and not you. Now, there's another thing I would\nrecommend, sir,\" says the trooper, turning to his visitor. \"Phil,\ncome here!\"\n\nPhil bears down upon them according to his usual tactics. \"Here is a\nman, sir, who was found, when a baby, in the gutter. Consequently, it\nis to be expected that he takes a natural interest in this poor\ncreature. You do, don't you, Phil?\"\n\n\"Certainly and surely I do, guv'ner,\" is Phil's reply.\n\n\"Now I was thinking, sir,\" says Mr. George in a martial sort of\nconfidence, as if he were giving his opinion in a council of war at a\ndrum-head, \"that if this man was to take him to a bath and was to lay\nout a few shillings in getting him one or two coarse articles--\"\n\n\"Mr. George, my considerate friend,\" returns Allan, taking out his\npurse, \"it is the very favour I would have asked.\"\n\nPhil Squod and Jo are sent out immediately on this work of\nimprovement. Miss Flite, quite enraptured by her success, makes the\nbest of her way to court, having great fears that otherwise her\nfriend the Chancellor may be uneasy about her or may give the\njudgment she has so long expected in her absence, and observing\n\"which you know, my dear physician, and general, after so many years,\nwould be too absurdly unfortunate!\" Allan takes the opportunity of\ngoing out to procure some restorative medicines, and obtaining them\nnear at hand, soon returns to find the trooper walking up and down\nthe gallery, and to fall into step and walk with him.\n\n\"I take it, sir,\" says Mr. George, \"that you know Miss Summerson\npretty well?\"\n\nYes, it appears.\n\n\"Not related to her, sir?\"\n\nNo, it appears.\n\n\"Excuse the apparent curiosity,\" says Mr. George. \"It seemed to me\nprobable that you might take more than a common interest in this poor\ncreature because Miss Summerson had taken that unfortunate interest\nin him. 'Tis MY case, sir, I assure you.\"\n\n\"And mine, Mr. George.\"\n\nThe trooper looks sideways at Allan's sunburnt cheek and bright dark\neye, rapidly measures his height and build, and seems to approve of\nhim.\n\n\"Since you have been out, sir, I have been thinking that I\nunquestionably know the rooms in Lincoln's Inn Fields, where Bucket\ntook the lad, according to his account. Though he is not acquainted\nwith the name, I can help you to it. It's Tulkinghorn. That's what it\nis.\"\n\nAllan looks at him inquiringly, repeating the name.\n\n\"Tulkinghorn. That's the name, sir. I know the man, and know him to\nhave been in communication with Bucket before, respecting a deceased\nperson who had given him offence. I know the man, sir. To my sorrow.\"\n\nAllan naturally asks what kind of man he is.\n\n\"What kind of man! Do you mean to look at?\"\n\n\"I think I know that much of him. I mean to deal with. Generally,\nwhat kind of man?\"\n\n\"Why, then I'll tell you, sir,\" returns the trooper, stopping short\nand folding his arms on his square chest so angrily that his face\nfires and flushes all over; \"he is a confoundedly bad kind of man. He\nis a slow-torturing kind of man. He is no more like flesh and blood\nthan a rusty old carbine is. He is a kind of man--by George!--that\nhas caused me more restlessness, and more uneasiness, and more\ndissatisfaction with myself than all other men put together. That's\nthe kind of man Mr. Tulkinghorn is!\"\n\n\"I am sorry,\" says Allan, \"to have touched so sore a place.\"\n\n\"Sore?\" The trooper plants his legs wider apart, wets the palm of his\nbroad right hand, and lays it on the imaginary moustache. \"It's no\nfault of yours, sir; but you shall judge. He has got a power over me.\nHe is the man I spoke of just now as being able to tumble me out of\nthis place neck and crop. He keeps me on a constant see-saw. He won't\nhold off, and he won't come on. If I have a payment to make him, or\ntime to ask him for, or anything to go to him about, he don't see me,\ndon't hear me--passes me on to Melchisedech's in Clifford's Inn,\nMelchisedech's in Clifford's Inn passes me back again to him--he\nkeeps me prowling and dangling about him as if I was made of the same\nstone as himself. Why, I spend half my life now, pretty well,\nloitering and dodging about his door. What does he care? Nothing.\nJust as much as the rusty old carbine I have compared him to. He\nchafes and goads me till--Bah! Nonsense! I am forgetting myself. Mr.\nWoodcourt,\" the trooper resumes his march, \"all I say is, he is an\nold man; but I am glad I shall never have the chance of setting spurs\nto my horse and riding at him in a fair field. For if I had that\nchance, in one of the humours he drives me into--he'd go down, sir!\"\n\nMr. George has been so excited that he finds it necessary to wipe his\nforehead on his shirt-sleeve. Even while he whistles his impetuosity\naway with the national anthem, some involuntary shakings of his head\nand heavings of his chest still linger behind, not to mention an\noccasional hasty adjustment with both hands of his open shirt-collar,\nas if it were scarcely open enough to prevent his being troubled by a\nchoking sensation. In short, Allan Woodcourt has not much doubt about\nthe going down of Mr. Tulkinghorn on the field referred to.\n\nJo and his conductor presently return, and Jo is assisted to his\nmattress by the careful Phil, to whom, after due administration of\nmedicine by his own hands, Allan confides all needful means and\ninstructions. The morning is by this time getting on apace. He\nrepairs to his lodgings to dress and breakfast, and then, without\nseeking rest, goes away to Mr. Jarndyce to communicate his discovery.\n\nWith him Mr. Jarndyce returns alone, confidentially telling him that\nthere are reasons for keeping this matter very quiet indeed and\nshowing a serious interest in it. To Mr. Jarndyce, Jo repeats in\nsubstance what he said in the morning, without any material\nvariation. Only that cart of his is heavier to draw, and draws with a\nhollower sound.\n\n\"Let me lay here quiet and not be chivied no more,\" falters Jo, \"and\nbe so kind any person as is a-passin nigh where I used fur to sleep,\nas jist to say to Mr. Sangsby that Jo, wot he known once, is a-moving\non right forards with his duty, and I'll be wery thankful. I'd be\nmore thankful than I am aready if it wos any ways possible for an\nunfortnet to be it.\"\n\nHe makes so many of these references to the law-stationer in the\ncourse of a day or two that Allan, after conferring with Mr.\nJarndyce, good-naturedly resolves to call in Cook's Court, the\nrather, as the cart seems to be breaking down.\n\nTo Cook's Court, therefore, he repairs. Mr. Snagsby is behind his\ncounter in his grey coat and sleeves, inspecting an indenture of\nseveral skins which has just come in from the engrosser's, an immense\ndesert of law-hand and parchment, with here and there a resting-place\nof a few large letters to break the awful monotony and save the\ntraveller from despair. Mr Snagsby puts up at one of these inky wells\nand greets the stranger with his cough of general preparation for\nbusiness.\n\n\"You don't remember me, Mr. Snagsby?\"\n\nThe stationer's heart begins to thump heavily, for his old\napprehensions have never abated. It is as much as he can do to\nanswer, \"No, sir, I can't say I do. I should have considered--not to\nput too fine a point upon it--that I never saw you before, sir.\"\n\n\"Twice before,\" says Allan Woodcourt. \"Once at a poor bedside, and\nonce--\"\n\n\"It's come at last!\" thinks the afflicted stationer, as recollection\nbreaks upon him. \"It's got to a head now and is going to burst!\" But\nhe has sufficient presence of mind to conduct his visitor into the\nlittle counting-house and to shut the door.\n\n\"Are you a married man, sir?\"\n\n\"No, I am not.\"\n\n\"Would you make the attempt, though single,\" says Mr. Snagsby in a\nmelancholy whisper, \"to speak as low as you can? For my little woman\nis a-listening somewheres, or I'll forfeit the business and five\nhundred pound!\"\n\nIn deep dejection Mr. Snagsby sits down on his stool, with his back\nagainst his desk, protesting, \"I never had a secret of my own, sir. I\ncan't charge my memory with ever having once attempted to deceive my\nlittle woman on my own account since she named the day. I wouldn't\nhave done it, sir. Not to put too fine a point upon it, I couldn't\nhave done it, I dursn't have done it. Whereas, and nevertheless, I\nfind myself wrapped round with secrecy and mystery, till my life is a\nburden to me.\"\n\nHis visitor professes his regret to hear it and asks him does he\nremember Jo. Mr. Snagsby answers with a suppressed groan, oh, don't\nhe!\n\n\"You couldn't name an individual human being--except myself--that my\nlittle woman is more set and determined against than Jo,\" says Mr.\nSnagsby.\n\nAllan asks why.\n\n\"Why?\" repeats Mr. Snagsby, in his desperation clutching at the clump\nof hair at the back of his bald head. \"How should I know why? But you\nare a single person, sir, and may you long be spared to ask a married\nperson such a question!\"\n\nWith this beneficent wish, Mr. Snagsby coughs a cough of dismal\nresignation and submits himself to hear what the visitor has to\ncommunicate.\n\n\"There again!\" says Mr. Snagsby, who, between the earnestness of his\nfeelings and the suppressed tones of his voice is discoloured in the\nface. \"At it again, in a new direction! A certain person charges me,\nin the solemnest way, not to talk of Jo to any one, even my little\nwoman. Then comes another certain person, in the person of yourself,\nand charges me, in an equally solemn way, not to mention Jo to that\nother certain person above all other persons. Why, this is a private\nasylum! Why, not to put too fine a point upon it, this is Bedlam,\nsir!\" says Mr. Snagsby.\n\nBut it is better than he expected after all, being no explosion of\nthe mine below him or deepening of the pit into which he has fallen.\nAnd being tender-hearted and affected by the account he hears of Jo's\ncondition, he readily engages to \"look round\" as early in the evening\nas he can manage it quietly. He looks round very quietly when the\nevening comes, but it may turn out that Mrs. Snagsby is as quiet a\nmanager as he.\n\nJo is very glad to see his old friend and says, when they are left\nalone, that he takes it uncommon kind as Mr. Sangsby should come so\nfar out of his way on accounts of sich as him. Mr. Snagsby, touched\nby the spectacle before him, immediately lays upon the table half a\ncrown, that magic balsam of his for all kinds of wounds.\n\n\"And how do you find yourself, my poor lad?\" inquires the stationer\nwith his cough of sympathy.\n\n\"I am in luck, Mr. Sangsby, I am,\" returns Jo, \"and don't want for\nnothink. I'm more cumfbler nor you can't think. Mr. Sangsby! I'm wery\nsorry that I done it, but I didn't go fur to do it, sir.\"\n\nThe stationer softly lays down another half-crown and asks him what\nit is that he is sorry for having done.\n\n\"Mr. Sangsby,\" says Jo, \"I went and giv a illness to the lady as wos\nand yit as warn't the t'other lady, and none of 'em never says\nnothink to me for having done it, on accounts of their being ser good\nand my having been s'unfortnet. The lady come herself and see me\nyesday, and she ses, 'Ah, Jo!' she ses. 'We thought we'd lost you,\nJo!' she ses. And she sits down a-smilin so quiet, and don't pass a\nword nor yit a look upon me for having done it, she don't, and I\nturns agin the wall, I doos, Mr. Sangsby. And Mr. Jarnders, I see him\na-forced to turn away his own self. And Mr. Woodcot, he come fur to\ngiv me somethink fur to ease me, wot he's allus a-doin' on day and\nnight, and wen he come a-bending over me and a-speakin up so bold, I\nsee his tears a-fallin, Mr. Sangsby.\"\n\nThe softened stationer deposits another half-crown on the table.\nNothing less than a repetition of that infallible remedy will relieve\nhis feelings.\n\n\"Wot I was a-thinkin on, Mr. Sangsby,\" proceeds Jo, \"wos, as you wos\nable to write wery large, p'raps?\"\n\n\"Yes, Jo, please God,\" returns the stationer.\n\n\"Uncommon precious large, p'raps?\" says Jo with eagerness.\n\n\"Yes, my poor boy.\"\n\nJo laughs with pleasure. \"Wot I wos a-thinking on then, Mr. Sangsby,\nwos, that when I wos moved on as fur as ever I could go and couldn't\nbe moved no furder, whether you might be so good p'raps as to write\nout, wery large so that any one could see it anywheres, as that I wos\nwery truly hearty sorry that I done it and that I never went fur to\ndo it, and that though I didn't know nothink at all, I knowd as Mr.\nWoodcot once cried over it and wos allus grieved over it, and that I\nhoped as he'd be able to forgive me in his mind. If the writin could\nbe made to say it wery large, he might.\"\n\n\"It shall say it, Jo. Very large.\"\n\nJo laughs again. \"Thankee, Mr. Sangsby. It's wery kind of you, sir,\nand it makes me more cumfbler nor I was afore.\"\n\nThe meek little stationer, with a broken and unfinished cough, slips\ndown his fourth half-crown--he has never been so close to a case\nrequiring so many--and is fain to depart. And Jo and he, upon this\nlittle earth, shall meet no more. No more.\n\nFor the cart so hard to draw is near its journey's end and drags over\nstony ground. All round the clock it labours up the broken steps,\nshattered and worn. Not many times can the sun rise and behold it\nstill upon its weary road.\n\nPhil Squod, with his smoky gunpowder visage, at once acts as nurse\nand works as armourer at his little table in a corner, often looking\nround and saying with a nod of his green-baize cap and an encouraging\nelevation of his one eyebrow, \"Hold up, my boy! Hold up!\" There, too,\nis Mr. Jarndyce many a time, and Allan Woodcourt almost always, both\nthinking, much, how strangely fate has entangled this rough outcast\nin the web of very different lives. There, too, the trooper is a\nfrequent visitor, filling the doorway with his athletic figure and,\nfrom his superfluity of life and strength, seeming to shed down\ntemporary vigour upon Jo, who never fails to speak more robustly in\nanswer to his cheerful words.\n\nJo is in a sleep or in a stupor to-day, and Allan Woodcourt, newly\narrived, stands by him, looking down upon his wasted form. After a\nwhile he softly seats himself upon the bedside with his face towards\nhim--just as he sat in the law-writer's room--and touches his chest\nand heart. The cart had very nearly given up, but labours on a little\nmore.\n\nThe trooper stands in the doorway, still and silent. Phil has stopped\nin a low clinking noise, with his little hammer in his hand. Mr.\nWoodcourt looks round with that grave professional interest and\nattention on his face, and glancing significantly at the trooper,\nsigns to Phil to carry his table out. When the little hammer is next\nused, there will be a speck of rust upon it.\n\n\"Well, Jo! What is the matter? Don't be frightened.\"\n\n\"I thought,\" says Jo, who has started and is looking round, \"I\nthought I was in Tom-all-Alone's agin. Ain't there nobody here but\nyou, Mr. Woodcot?\"\n\n\"Nobody.\"\n\n\"And I ain't took back to Tom-all-Alone's. Am I, sir?\"\n\n\"No.\" Jo closes his eyes, muttering, \"I'm wery thankful.\"\n\nAfter watching him closely a little while, Allan puts his mouth very\nnear his ear and says to him in a low, distinct voice, \"Jo! Did you\never know a prayer?\"\n\n\"Never knowd nothink, sir.\"\n\n\"Not so much as one short prayer?\"\n\n\"No, sir. Nothink at all. Mr. Chadbands he wos a-prayin wunst at Mr.\nSangsby's and I heerd him, but he sounded as if he wos a-speakin to\nhisself, and not to me. He prayed a lot, but I couldn't make out\nnothink on it. Different times there was other genlmen come down\nTom-all-Alone's a-prayin, but they all mostly sed as the t'other\n'wuns prayed wrong, and all mostly sounded to be a-talking to\ntheirselves, or a-passing blame on the t'others, and not a-talkin to\nus. WE never knowd nothink. I never knowd what it wos all about.\"\n\nIt takes him a long time to say this, and few but an experienced and\nattentive listener could hear, or, hearing, understand him. After a\nshort relapse into sleep or stupor, he makes, of a sudden, a strong\neffort to get out of bed.\n\n\"Stay, Jo! What now?\"\n\n\"It's time for me to go to that there berryin ground, sir,\" he\nreturns with a wild look.\n\n\"Lie down, and tell me. What burying ground, Jo?\"\n\n\"Where they laid him as wos wery good to me, wery good to me indeed,\nhe wos. It's time fur me to go down to that there berryin ground,\nsir, and ask to be put along with him. I wants to go there and be\nberried. He used fur to say to me, 'I am as poor as you to-day, Jo,'\nhe ses. I wants to tell him that I am as poor as him now and have\ncome there to be laid along with him.\"\n\n\"By and by, Jo. By and by.\"\n\n\"Ah! P'raps they wouldn't do it if I wos to go myself. But will you\npromise to have me took there, sir, and laid along with him?\"\n\n\"I will, indeed.\"\n\n\"Thankee, sir. Thankee, sir. They'll have to get the key of the gate\nafore they can take me in, for it's allus locked. And there's a step\nthere, as I used for to clean with my broom. It's turned wery dark,\nsir. Is there any light a-comin?\"\n\n\"It is coming fast, Jo.\"\n\nFast. The cart is shaken all to pieces, and the rugged road is very\nnear its end.\n\n\"Jo, my poor fellow!\"\n\n\"I hear you, sir, in the dark, but I'm a-gropin--a-gropin--let me\ncatch hold of your hand.\"\n\n\"Jo, can you say what I say?\"\n\n\"I'll say anythink as you say, sir, for I knows it's good.\"\n\n\"Our Father.\"\n\n\"Our Father! Yes, that's wery good, sir.\"\n\n\"Which art in heaven.\"\n\n\"Art in heaven--is the light a-comin, sir?\"\n\n\"It is close at hand. Hallowed be thy name!\"\n\n\"Hallowed be--thy--\"\n\nThe light is come upon the dark benighted way. Dead!\n\nDead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, right\nreverends and wrong reverends of every order. Dead, men and women,\nborn with heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around\nus every day.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVIII\n\nClosing In\n\n\nThe place in Lincolnshire has shut its many eyes again, and the house\nin town is awake. In Lincolnshire the Dedlocks of the past doze in\ntheir picture-frames, and the low wind murmurs through the long\ndrawing-room as if they were breathing pretty regularly. In town the\nDedlocks of the present rattle in their fire-eyed carriages through\nthe darkness of the night, and the Dedlock Mercuries, with ashes (or\nhair-powder) on their heads, symptomatic of their great humility,\nloll away the drowsy mornings in the little windows of the hall. The\nfashionable world--tremendous orb, nearly five miles round--is in\nfull swing, and the solar system works respectfully at its appointed\ndistances.\n\nWhere the throng is thickest, where the lights are brightest, where\nall the senses are ministered to with the greatest delicacy and\nrefinement, Lady Dedlock is. From the shining heights she has scaled\nand taken, she is never absent. Though the belief she of old reposed\nin herself as one able to reserve whatsoever she would under\nher mantle of pride is beaten down, though she has no assurance\nthat what she is to those around her she will remain another day,\nit is not in her nature when envious eyes are looking on to\nyield or to droop. They say of her that she has lately grown\nmore handsome and more haughty. The debilitated cousin says of\nher that she's beauty nough--tsetup shopofwomen--but rather\nlarming kind--remindingmanfact--inconvenient woman--who WILL\ngetoutofbedandbawthstahlishment--Shakespeare.\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn says nothing, looks nothing. Now, as heretofore, he\nis to be found in doorways of rooms, with his limp white cravat\nloosely twisted into its old-fashioned tie, receiving patronage from\nthe peerage and making no sign. Of all men he is still the last who\nmight be supposed to have any influence upon my Lady. Of all women\nshe is still the last who might be supposed to have any dread of him.\n\nOne thing has been much on her mind since their late interview in his\nturret-room at Chesney Wold. She is now decided, and prepared to\nthrow it off.\n\nIt is morning in the great world, afternoon according to the little\nsun. The Mercuries, exhausted by looking out of window, are reposing\nin the hall and hang their heavy heads, the gorgeous creatures, like\noverblown sunflowers. Like them, too, they seem to run to a deal of\nseed in their tags and trimmings. Sir Leicester, in the library, has\nfallen asleep for the good of the country over the report of a\nParliamentary committee. My Lady sits in the room in which she gave\naudience to the young man of the name of Guppy. Rosa is with her and\nhas been writing for her and reading to her. Rosa is now at work upon\nembroidery or some such pretty thing, and as she bends her head over\nit, my Lady watches her in silence. Not for the first time to-day.\n\n\"Rosa.\"\n\nThe pretty village face looks brightly up. Then, seeing how serious\nmy Lady is, looks puzzled and surprised.\n\n\"See to the door. Is it shut?\"\n\nYes. She goes to it and returns, and looks yet more surprised.\n\n\"I am about to place confidence in you, child, for I know I may trust\nyour attachment, if not your judgment. In what I am going to do, I\nwill not disguise myself to you at least. But I confide in you. Say\nnothing to any one of what passes between us.\"\n\nThe timid little beauty promises in all earnestness to be\ntrustworthy.\n\n\"Do you know,\" Lady Dedlock asks her, signing to her to bring her\nchair nearer, \"do you know, Rosa, that I am different to you from\nwhat I am to any one?\"\n\n\"Yes, my Lady. Much kinder. But then I often think I know you as you\nreally are.\"\n\n\"You often think you know me as I really am? Poor child, poor child!\"\n\nShe says it with a kind of scorn--though not of Rosa--and sits\nbrooding, looking dreamily at her.\n\n\"Do you think, Rosa, you are any relief or comfort to me? Do you\nsuppose your being young and natural, and fond of me and grateful to\nme, makes it any pleasure to me to have you near me?\"\n\n\"I don't know, my Lady; I can scarcely hope so. But with all my\nheart, I wish it was so.\"\n\n\"It is so, little one.\"\n\nThe pretty face is checked in its flush of pleasure by the dark\nexpression on the handsome face before it. It looks timidly for an\nexplanation.\n\n\"And if I were to say to-day, 'Go! Leave me!' I should say what would\ngive me great pain and disquiet, child, and what would leave me very\nsolitary.\"\n\n\"My Lady! Have I offended you?\"\n\n\"In nothing. Come here.\"\n\nRosa bends down on the footstool at my Lady's feet. My Lady, with\nthat motherly touch of the famous ironmaster night, lays her hand\nupon her dark hair and gently keeps it there.\n\n\"I told you, Rosa, that I wished you to be happy and that I would\nmake you so if I could make anybody happy on this earth. I cannot.\nThere are reasons now known to me, reasons in which you have no part,\nrendering it far better for you that you should not remain here. You\nmust not remain here. I have determined that you shall not. I have\nwritten to the father of your lover, and he will be here to-day. All\nthis I have done for your sake.\"\n\nThe weeping girl covers her hand with kisses and says what shall she\ndo, what shall she do, when they are separated! Her mistress kisses\nher on the cheek and makes no other answer.\n\n\"Now, be happy, child, under better circumstances. Be beloved and\nhappy!\"\n\n\"Ah, my Lady, I have sometimes thought--forgive my being so\nfree--that YOU are not happy.\"\n\n\"I!\"\n\n\"Will you be more so when you have sent me away? Pray, pray, think\nagain. Let me stay a little while!\"\n\n\"I have said, my child, that what I do, I do for your sake, not my\nown. It is done. What I am towards you, Rosa, is what I am now--not\nwhat I shall be a little while hence. Remember this, and keep my\nconfidence. Do so much for my sake, and thus all ends between us!\"\n\nShe detaches herself from her simple-hearted companion and leaves the\nroom. Late in the afternoon, when she next appears upon the\nstaircase, she is in her haughtiest and coldest state. As indifferent\nas if all passion, feeling, and interest had been worn out in the\nearlier ages of the world and had perished from its surface with its\nother departed monsters.\n\nMercury has announced Mr. Rouncewell, which is the cause of her\nappearance. Mr. Rouncewell is not in the library, but she repairs to\nthe library. Sir Leicester is there, and she wishes to speak to him\nfirst.\n\n\"Sir Leicester, I am desirous--but you are engaged.\"\n\nOh, dear no! Not at all. Only Mr. Tulkinghorn.\n\nAlways at hand. Haunting every place. No relief or security from him\nfor a moment.\n\n\"I beg your pardon, Lady Dedlock. Will you allow me to retire?\"\n\nWith a look that plainly says, \"You know you have the power to remain\nif you will,\" she tells him it is not necessary and moves towards a\nchair. Mr. Tulkinghorn brings it a little forward for her with his\nclumsy bow and retires into a window opposite. Interposed between her\nand the fading light of day in the now quiet street, his shadow falls\nupon her, and he darkens all before her. Even so does he darken her\nlife.\n\nIt is a dull street under the best conditions, where the two long\nrows of houses stare at each other with that severity that\nhalf-a-dozen of its greatest mansions seem to have been slowly stared\ninto stone rather than originally built in that material. It is a\nstreet of such dismal grandeur, so determined not to condescend to\nliveliness, that the doors and windows hold a gloomy state of their\nown in black paint and dust, and the echoing mews behind have a dry\nand massive appearance, as if they were reserved to stable the stone\nchargers of noble statues. Complicated garnish of iron-work entwines\nitself over the flights of steps in this awful street, and from these\npetrified bowers, extinguishers for obsolete flambeaux gasp at the\nupstart gas. Here and there a weak little iron hoop, through which\nbold boys aspire to throw their friends' caps (its only present use),\nretains its place among the rusty foliage, sacred to the memory of\ndeparted oil. Nay, even oil itself, yet lingering at long intervals\nin a little absurd glass pot, with a knob in the bottom like an\noyster, blinks and sulks at newer lights every night, like its high\nand dry master in the House of Lords.\n\nTherefore there is not much that Lady Dedlock, seated in her chair,\ncould wish to see through the window in which Mr. Tulkinghorn stands.\nAnd yet--and yet--she sends a look in that direction as if it were\nher heart's desire to have that figure moved out of the way.\n\nSir Leicester begs his Lady's pardon. She was about to say?\n\n\"Only that Mr. Rouncewell is here (he has called by my appointment)\nand that we had better make an end of the question of that girl. I am\ntired to death of the matter.\"\n\n\"What can I do--to--assist?\" demands Sir Leicester in some\nconsiderable doubt.\n\n\"Let us see him here and have done with it. Will you tell them to\nsend him up?\"\n\n\"Mr. Tulkinghorn, be so good as to ring. Thank you. Request,\" says\nSir Leicester to Mercury, not immediately remembering the business\nterm, \"request the iron gentleman to walk this way.\"\n\nMercury departs in search of the iron gentleman, finds, and produces\nhim. Sir Leicester receives that ferruginous person graciously.\n\n\"I hope you are well, Mr. Rouncewell. Be seated. (My solicitor, Mr.\nTulkinghorn.) My Lady was desirous, Mr. Rouncewell,\" Sir Leicester\nskilfully transfers him with a solemn wave of his hand, \"was desirous\nto speak with you. Hem!\"\n\n\"I shall be very happy,\" returns the iron gentleman, \"to give my best\nattention to anything Lady Dedlock does me the honour to say.\"\n\nAs he turns towards her, he finds that the impression she makes upon\nhim is less agreeable than on the former occasion. A distant\nsupercilious air makes a cold atmosphere about her, and there is\nnothing in her bearing, as there was before, to encourage openness.\n\n\"Pray, sir,\" says Lady Dedlock listlessly, \"may I be allowed to\ninquire whether anything has passed between you and your son\nrespecting your son's fancy?\"\n\nIt is almost too troublesome to her languid eyes to bestow a look\nupon him as she asks this question.\n\n\"If my memory serves me, Lady Dedlock, I said, when I had the\npleasure of seeing you before, that I should seriously advise my son\nto conquer that--fancy.\" The ironmaster repeats her expression with a\nlittle emphasis.\n\n\"And did you?\"\n\n\"Oh! Of course I did.\"\n\nSir Leicester gives a nod, approving and confirmatory. Very proper.\nThe iron gentleman, having said that he would do it, was bound to do\nit. No difference in this respect between the base metals and the\nprecious. Highly proper.\n\n\"And pray has he done so?\"\n\n\"Really, Lady Dedlock, I cannot make you a definite reply. I fear\nnot. Probably not yet. In our condition of life, we sometimes couple\nan intention with our--our fancies which renders them not altogether\neasy to throw off. I think it is rather our way to be in earnest.\"\n\nSir Leicester has a misgiving that there may be a hidden Wat Tylerish\nmeaning in this expression, and fumes a little. Mr. Rouncewell is\nperfectly good-humoured and polite, but within such limits, evidently\nadapts his tone to his reception.\n\n\"Because,\" proceeds my Lady, \"I have been thinking of the subject,\nwhich is tiresome to me.\"\n\n\"I am very sorry, I am sure.\"\n\n\"And also of what Sir Leicester said upon it, in which I quite\nconcur\"--Sir Leicester flattered--\"and if you cannot give us the\nassurance that this fancy is at an end, I have come to the conclusion\nthat the girl had better leave me.\"\n\n\"I can give no such assurance, Lady Dedlock. Nothing of the kind.\"\n\n\"Then she had better go.\"\n\n\"Excuse me, my Lady,\" Sir Leicester considerately interposes, \"but\nperhaps this may be doing an injury to the young woman which she has\nnot merited. Here is a young woman,\" says Sir Leicester,\nmagnificently laying out the matter with his right hand like a\nservice of plate, \"whose good fortune it is to have attracted the\nnotice and favour of an eminent lady and to live, under the\nprotection of that eminent lady, surrounded by the various advantages\nwhich such a position confers, and which are unquestionably very\ngreat--I believe unquestionably very great, sir--for a young woman in\nthat station of life. The question then arises, should that young\nwoman be deprived of these many advantages and that good fortune\nsimply because she has\"--Sir Leicester, with an apologetic but\ndignified inclination of his head towards the ironmaster, winds up\nhis sentence--\"has attracted the notice of Mr Rouncewell's son? Now,\nhas she deserved this punishment? Is this just towards her? Is this\nour previous understanding?\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon,\" interposes Mr. Rouncewell's son's father. \"Sir\nLeicester, will you allow me? I think I may shorten the subject. Pray\ndismiss that from your consideration. If you remember anything so\nunimportant--which is not to be expected--you would recollect that my\nfirst thought in the affair was directly opposed to her remaining\nhere.\"\n\nDismiss the Dedlock patronage from consideration? Oh! Sir Leicester\nis bound to believe a pair of ears that have been handed down to him\nthrough such a family, or he really might have mistrusted their\nreport of the iron gentleman's observations.\n\n\"It is not necessary,\" observes my Lady in her coldest manner before\nhe can do anything but breathe amazedly, \"to enter into these matters\non either side. The girl is a very good girl; I have nothing whatever\nto say against her, but she is so far insensible to her many\nadvantages and her good fortune that she is in love--or supposes she\nis, poor little fool--and unable to appreciate them.\"\n\nSir Leicester begs to observe that wholly alters the case. He might\nhave been sure that my Lady had the best grounds and reasons in\nsupport of her view. He entirely agrees with my Lady. The young woman\nhad better go.\n\n\"As Sir Leicester observed, Mr. Rouncewell, on the last occasion when\nwe were fatigued by this business,\" Lady Dedlock languidly proceeds,\n\"we cannot make conditions with you. Without conditions, and under\npresent circumstances, the girl is quite misplaced here and had\nbetter go. I have told her so. Would you wish to have her sent back\nto the village, or would you like to take her with you, or what would\nyou prefer?\"\n\n\"Lady Dedlock, if I may speak plainly--\"\n\n\"By all means.\"\n\n\"--I should prefer the course which will the soonest relieve you of\nthe incumbrance and remove her from her present position.\"\n\n\"And to speak as plainly,\" she returns with the same studied\ncarelessness, \"so should I. Do I understand that you will take her\nwith you?\"\n\nThe iron gentleman makes an iron bow.\n\n\"Sir Leicester, will you ring?\" Mr. Tulkinghorn steps forward from\nhis window and pulls the bell. \"I had forgotten you. Thank you.\" He\nmakes his usual bow and goes quietly back again. Mercury,\nswift-responsive, appears, receives instructions whom to produce,\nskims away, produces the aforesaid, and departs.\n\nRosa has been crying and is yet in distress. On her coming in, the\nironmaster leaves his chair, takes her arm in his, and remains with\nher near the door ready to depart.\n\n\"You are taken charge of, you see,\" says my Lady in her weary manner,\n\"and are going away well protected. I have mentioned that you are a\nvery good girl, and you have nothing to cry for.\"\n\n\"She seems after all,\" observes Mr. Tulkinghorn, loitering a little\nforward with his hands behind him, \"as if she were crying at going\naway.\"\n\n\"Why, she is not well-bred, you see,\" returns Mr. Rouncewell with\nsome quickness in his manner, as if he were glad to have the lawyer\nto retort upon, \"and she is an inexperienced little thing and knows\nno better. If she had remained here, sir, she would have improved, no\ndoubt.\"\n\n\"No doubt,\" is Mr. Tulkinghorn's composed reply.\n\nRosa sobs out that she is very sorry to leave my Lady, and that she\nwas happy at Chesney Wold, and has been happy with my Lady, and that\nshe thanks my Lady over and over again. \"Out, you silly little puss!\"\nsays the ironmaster, checking her in a low voice, though not angrily.\n\"Have a spirit, if you're fond of Watt!\" My Lady merely waves her off\nwith indifference, saying, \"There, there, child! You are a good girl.\nGo away!\" Sir Leicester has magnificently disengaged himself from the\nsubject and retired into the sanctuary of his blue coat. Mr.\nTulkinghorn, an indistinct form against the dark street now dotted\nwith lamps, looms in my Lady's view, bigger and blacker than before.\n\n\"Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock,\" says Mr. Rouncewell after a pause\nof a few moments, \"I beg to take my leave, with an apology for having\nagain troubled you, though not of my own act, on this tiresome\nsubject. I can very well understand, I assure you, how tiresome so\nsmall a matter must have become to Lady Dedlock. If I am doubtful of\nmy dealing with it, it is only because I did not at first quietly\nexert my influence to take my young friend here away without\ntroubling you at all. But it appeared to me--I dare say magnifying\nthe importance of the thing--that it was respectful to explain to you\nhow the matter stood and candid to consult your wishes and\nconvenience. I hope you will excuse my want of acquaintance with the\npolite world.\"\n\nSir Leicester considers himself evoked out of the sanctuary by these\nremarks. \"Mr. Rouncewell,\" he returns, \"do not mention it.\nJustifications are unnecessary, I hope, on either side.\"\n\n\"I am glad to hear it, Sir Leicester; and if I may, by way of a last\nword, revert to what I said before of my mother's long connexion with\nthe family and the worth it bespeaks on both sides, I would point out\nthis little instance here on my arm who shows herself so affectionate\nand faithful in parting and in whom my mother, I dare say, has done\nsomething to awaken such feelings--though of course Lady Dedlock, by\nher heartfelt interest and her genial condescension, has done much\nmore.\"\n\nIf he mean this ironically, it may be truer than he thinks. He points\nit, however, by no deviation from his straightforward manner of\nspeech, though in saying it he turns towards that part of the dim\nroom where my Lady sits. Sir Leicester stands to return his parting\nsalutation, Mr. Tulkinghorn again rings, Mercury takes another\nflight, and Mr. Rouncewell and Rosa leave the house.\n\nThen lights are brought in, discovering Mr. Tulkinghorn still\nstanding in his window with his hands behind him and my Lady still\nsitting with his figure before her, closing up her view of the night\nas well as of the day. She is very pale. Mr. Tulkinghorn, observing\nit as she rises to retire, thinks, \"Well she may be! The power of\nthis woman is astonishing. She has been acting a part the whole\ntime.\" But he can act a part too--his one unchanging character--and\nas he holds the door open for this woman, fifty pairs of eyes, each\nfifty times sharper than Sir Leicester's pair, should find no flaw in\nhim.\n\nLady Dedlock dines alone in her own room to-day. Sir Leicester is\nwhipped in to the rescue of the Doodle Party and the discomfiture of\nthe Coodle Faction. Lady Dedlock asks on sitting down to dinner,\nstill deadly pale (and quite an illustration of the debilitated\ncousin's text), whether he is gone out? Yes. Whether Mr. Tulkinghorn\nis gone yet? No. Presently she asks again, is he gone YET? No. What\nis he doing? Mercury thinks he is writing letters in the library.\nWould my Lady wish to see him? Anything but that.\n\nBut he wishes to see my Lady. Within a few more minutes he is\nreported as sending his respects, and could my Lady please to receive\nhim for a word or two after her dinner? My Lady will receive him now.\nHe comes now, apologizing for intruding, even by her permission,\nwhile she is at table. When they are alone, my Lady waves her hand to\ndispense with such mockeries.\n\n\"What do you want, sir?\"\n\n\"Why, Lady Dedlock,\" says the lawyer, taking a chair at a little\ndistance from her and slowly rubbing his rusty legs up and down, up\nand down, up and down, \"I am rather surprised by the course you have\ntaken.\"\n\n\"Indeed?\"\n\n\"Yes, decidedly. I was not prepared for it. I consider it a departure\nfrom our agreement and your promise. It puts us in a new position,\nLady Dedlock. I feel myself under the necessity of saying that I\ndon't approve of it.\"\n\nHe stops in his rubbing and looks at her, with his hands on his\nknees. Imperturbable and unchangeable as he is, there is still an\nindefinable freedom in his manner which is new and which does not\nescape this woman's observation.\n\n\"I do not quite understand you.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes you do, I think. I think you do. Come, come, Lady Dedlock,\nwe must not fence and parry now. You know you like this girl.\"\n\n\"Well, sir?\"\n\n\"And you know--and I know--that you have not sent her away for the\nreasons you have assigned, but for the purpose of separating her as\nmuch as possible from--excuse my mentioning it as a matter of\nbusiness--any reproach and exposure that impend over yourself.\"\n\n\"Well, sir?\"\n\n\"Well, Lady Dedlock,\" returns the lawyer, crossing his legs and\nnursing the uppermost knee. \"I object to that. I consider that a\ndangerous proceeding. I know it to be unnecessary and calculated to\nawaken speculation, doubt, rumour, I don't know what, in the house.\nBesides, it is a violation of our agreement. You were to be exactly\nwhat you were before. Whereas, it must be evident to yourself, as it\nis to me, that you have been this evening very different from what\nyou were before. Why, bless my soul, Lady Dedlock, transparently so!\"\n\n\"If, sir,\" she begins, \"in my knowledge of my secret--\" But he\ninterrupts her.\n\n\"Now, Lady Dedlock, this is a matter of business, and in a matter of\nbusiness the ground cannot be kept too clear. It is no longer your\nsecret. Excuse me. That is just the mistake. It is my secret, in\ntrust for Sir Leicester and the family. If it were your secret, Lady\nDedlock, we should not be here holding this conversation.\"\n\n\"That is very true. If in my knowledge of THE secret I do what I can\nto spare an innocent girl (especially, remembering your own reference\nto her when you told my story to the assembled guests at Chesney\nWold) from the taint of my impending shame, I act upon a resolution I\nhave taken. Nothing in the world, and no one in the world, could\nshake it or could move me.\" This she says with great deliberation and\ndistinctness and with no more outward passion than himself. As for\nhim, he methodically discusses his matter of business as if she were\nany insensible instrument used in business.\n\n\"Really? Then you see, Lady Dedlock,\" he returns, \"you are not to be\ntrusted. You have put the case in a perfectly plain way, and\naccording to the literal fact; and that being the case, you are not\nto be trusted.\"\n\n\"Perhaps you may remember that I expressed some anxiety on this same\npoint when we spoke at night at Chesney Wold?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, coolly getting up and standing on the\nhearth. \"Yes. I recollect, Lady Dedlock, that you certainly referred\nto the girl, but that was before we came to our arrangement, and both\nthe letter and the spirit of our arrangement altogether precluded any\naction on your part founded upon my discovery. There can be no doubt\nabout that. As to sparing the girl, of what importance or value is\nshe? Spare! Lady Dedlock, here is a family name compromised. One\nmight have supposed that the course was straight on--over everything,\nneither to the right nor to the left, regardless of all\nconsiderations in the way, sparing nothing, treading everything under\nfoot.\"\n\nShe has been looking at the table. She lifts up her eyes and looks at\nhim. There is a stern expression on her face and a part of her lower\nlip is compressed under her teeth. \"This woman understands me,\" Mr.\nTulkinghorn thinks as she lets her glance fall again. \"SHE cannot be\nspared. Why should she spare others?\"\n\nFor a little while they are silent. Lady Dedlock has eaten no dinner,\nbut has twice or thrice poured out water with a steady hand and drunk\nit. She rises from table, takes a lounging-chair, and reclines in it,\nshading her face. There is nothing in her manner to express weakness\nor excite compassion. It is thoughtful, gloomy, concentrated. \"This\nwoman,\" thinks Mr. Tulkinghorn, standing on the hearth, again a dark\nobject closing up her view, \"is a study.\"\n\nHe studies her at his leisure, not speaking for a time. She too\nstudies something at her leisure. She is not the first to speak,\nappearing indeed so unlikely to be so, though he stood there until\nmidnight, that even he is driven upon breaking silence.\n\n\"Lady Dedlock, the most disagreeable part of this business interview\nremains, but it is business. Our agreement is broken. A lady of your\nsense and strength of character will be prepared for my now declaring\nit void and taking my own course.\"\n\n\"I am quite prepared.\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn inclines his head. \"That is all I have to trouble you\nwith, Lady Dedlock.\"\n\nShe stops him as he is moving out of the room by asking, \"This is the\nnotice I was to receive? I wish not to misapprehend you.\"\n\n\"Not exactly the notice you were to receive, Lady Dedlock, because\nthe contemplated notice supposed the agreement to have been observed.\nBut virtually the same, virtually the same. The difference is merely\nin a lawyer's mind.\"\n\n\"You intend to give me no other notice?\"\n\n\"You are right. No.\"\n\n\"Do you contemplate undeceiving Sir Leicester to-night?\"\n\n\"A home question!\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn with a slight smile and\ncautiously shaking his head at the shaded face. \"No, not to-night.\"\n\n\"To-morrow?\"\n\n\"All things considered, I had better decline answering that question,\nLady Dedlock. If I were to say I don't know when, exactly, you would\nnot believe me, and it would answer no purpose. It may be to-morrow.\nI would rather say no more. You are prepared, and I hold out no\nexpectations which circumstances might fail to justify. I wish you\ngood evening.\"\n\nShe removes her hand, turns her pale face towards him as he walks\nsilently to the door, and stops him once again as he is about to open\nit.\n\n\"Do you intend to remain in the house any time? I heard you were\nwriting in the library. Are you going to return there?\"\n\n\"Only for my hat. I am going home.\"\n\nShe bows her eyes rather than her head, the movement is so slight and\ncurious, and he withdraws. Clear of the room he looks at his watch\nbut is inclined to doubt it by a minute or thereabouts. There is a\nsplendid clock upon the staircase, famous, as splendid clocks not\noften are, for its accuracy. \"And what do YOU say,\" Mr. Tulkinghorn\ninquires, referring to it. \"What do you say?\"\n\nIf it said now, \"Don't go home!\" What a famous clock, hereafter, if\nit said to-night of all the nights that it has counted off, to this\nold man of all the young and old men who have ever stood before it,\n\"Don't go home!\" With its sharp clear bell it strikes three quarters\nafter seven and ticks on again. \"Why, you are worse than I thought\nyou,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, muttering reproof to his watch. \"Two\nminutes wrong? At this rate you won't last my time.\" What a watch to\nreturn good for evil if it ticked in answer, \"Don't go home!\"\n\nHe passes out into the streets and walks on, with his hands behind\nhim, under the shadow of the lofty houses, many of whose mysteries,\ndifficulties, mortgages, delicate affairs of all kinds, are treasured\nup within his old black satin waistcoat. He is in the confidence of\nthe very bricks and mortar. The high chimney-stacks telegraph family\nsecrets to him. Yet there is not a voice in a mile of them to\nwhisper, \"Don't go home!\"\n\nThrough the stir and motion of the commoner streets; through the roar\nand jar of many vehicles, many feet, many voices; with the blazing\nshop-lights lighting him on, the west wind blowing him on, and the\ncrowd pressing him on, he is pitilessly urged upon his way, and\nnothing meets him murmuring, \"Don't go home!\" Arrived at last in his\ndull room to light his candles, and look round and up, and see the\nRoman pointing from the ceiling, there is no new significance in the\nRoman's hand to-night or in the flutter of the attendant groups to\ngive him the late warning, \"Don't come here!\"\n\nIt is a moonlight night, but the moon, being past the full, is only\nnow rising over the great wilderness of London. The stars are shining\nas they shone above the turret-leads at Chesney Wold. This woman, as\nhe has of late been so accustomed to call her, looks out upon them.\nHer soul is turbulent within her; she is sick at heart and restless.\nThe large rooms are too cramped and close. She cannot endure their\nrestraint and will walk alone in a neighbouring garden.\n\nToo capricious and imperious in all she does to be the cause of much\nsurprise in those about her as to anything she does, this woman,\nloosely muffled, goes out into the moonlight. Mercury attends with\nthe key. Having opened the garden-gate, he delivers the key into his\nLady's hands at her request and is bidden to go back. She will walk\nthere some time to ease her aching head. She may be an hour, she may\nbe more. She needs no further escort. The gate shuts upon its spring\nwith a clash, and he leaves her passing on into the dark shade of\nsome trees.\n\nA fine night, and a bright large moon, and multitudes of stars. Mr.\nTulkinghorn, in repairing to his cellar and in opening and shutting\nthose resounding doors, has to cross a little prison-like yard. He\nlooks up casually, thinking what a fine night, what a bright large\nmoon, what multitudes of stars! A quiet night, too.\n\nA very quiet night. When the moon shines very brilliantly, a solitude\nand stillness seem to proceed from her that influence even crowded\nplaces full of life. Not only is it a still night on dusty high roads\nand on hill-summits, whence a wide expanse of country may be seen in\nrepose, quieter and quieter as it spreads away into a fringe of trees\nagainst the sky with the grey ghost of a bloom upon them; not only is\nit a still night in gardens and in woods, and on the river where the\nwater-meadows are fresh and green, and the stream sparkles on among\npleasant islands, murmuring weirs, and whispering rushes; not only\ndoes the stillness attend it as it flows where houses cluster thick,\nwhere many bridges are reflected in it, where wharves and shipping\nmake it black and awful, where it winds from these disfigurements\nthrough marshes whose grim beacons stand like skeletons washed\nashore, where it expands through the bolder region of rising grounds,\nrich in cornfield wind-mill and steeple, and where it mingles with\nthe ever-heaving sea; not only is it a still night on the deep, and\non the shore where the watcher stands to see the ship with her spread\nwings cross the path of light that appears to be presented to only\nhim; but even on this stranger's wilderness of London there is some\nrest. Its steeples and towers and its one great dome grow more\nethereal; its smoky house-tops lose their grossness in the pale\neffulgence; the noises that arise from the streets are fewer and are\nsoftened, and the footsteps on the pavements pass more tranquilly\naway. In these fields of Mr. Tulkinghorn's inhabiting, where the\nshepherds play on Chancery pipes that have no stop, and keep their\nsheep in the fold by hook and by crook until they have shorn them\nexceeding close, every noise is merged, this moonlight night, into a\ndistant ringing hum, as if the city were a vast glass, vibrating.\n\nWhat's that? Who fired a gun or pistol? Where was it?\n\nThe few foot-passengers start, stop, and stare about them. Some\nwindows and doors are opened, and people come out to look. It was a\nloud report and echoed and rattled heavily. It shook one house, or so\na man says who was passing. It has aroused all the dogs in the\nneighbourhood, who bark vehemently. Terrified cats scamper across the\nroad. While the dogs are yet barking and howling--there is one dog\nhowling like a demon--the church-clocks, as if they were startled\ntoo, begin to strike. The hum from the streets, likewise, seems to\nswell into a shout. But it is soon over. Before the last clock begins\nto strike ten, there is a lull. When it has ceased, the fine night,\nthe bright large moon, and multitudes of stars, are left at peace\nagain.\n\nHas Mr. Tulkinghorn been disturbed? His windows are dark and quiet,\nand his door is shut. It must be something unusual indeed to bring\nhim out of his shell. Nothing is heard of him, nothing is seen of\nhim. What power of cannon might it take to shake that rusty old man\nout of his immovable composure?\n\nFor many years the persistent Roman has been pointing, with no\nparticular meaning, from that ceiling. It is not likely that he has\nany new meaning in him to-night. Once pointing, always pointing--like\nany Roman, or even Briton, with a single idea. There he is, no doubt,\nin his impossible attitude, pointing, unavailingly, all night long.\nMoonlight, darkness, dawn, sunrise, day. There he is still, eagerly\npointing, and no one minds him.\n\nBut a little after the coming of the day come people to clean the\nrooms. And either the Roman has some new meaning in him, not\nexpressed before, or the foremost of them goes wild, for looking up\nat his outstretched hand and looking down at what is below it, that\nperson shrieks and flies. The others, looking in as the first one\nlooked, shriek and fly too, and there is an alarm in the street.\n\nWhat does it mean? No light is admitted into the darkened chamber,\nand people unaccustomed to it enter, and treading softly but heavily,\ncarry a weight into the bedroom and lay it down. There is whispering\nand wondering all day, strict search of every corner, careful tracing\nof steps, and careful noting of the disposition of every article of\nfurniture. All eyes look up at the Roman, and all voices murmur, \"If\nhe could only tell what he saw!\"\n\nHe is pointing at a table with a bottle (nearly full of wine) and a\nglass upon it and two candles that were blown out suddenly soon after\nbeing lighted. He is pointing at an empty chair and at a stain upon\nthe ground before it that might be almost covered with a hand. These\nobjects lie directly within his range. An excited imagination might\nsuppose that there was something in them so terrific as to drive the\nrest of the composition, not only the attendant big-legged boys, but\nthe clouds and flowers and pillars too--in short, the very body and\nsoul of Allegory, and all the brains it has--stark mad. It happens\nsurely that every one who comes into the darkened room and looks at\nthese things looks up at the Roman and that he is invested in all\neyes with mystery and awe, as if he were a paralysed dumb witness.\n\nSo it shall happen surely, through many years to come, that ghostly\nstories shall be told of the stain upon the floor, so easy to be\ncovered, so hard to be got out, and that the Roman, pointing from the\nceiling shall point, so long as dust and damp and spiders spare him,\nwith far greater significance than he ever had in Mr. Tulkinghorn's\ntime, and with a deadly meaning. For Mr. Tulkinghorn's time is over\nfor evermore, and the Roman pointed at the murderous hand uplifted\nagainst his life, and pointed helplessly at him, from night to\nmorning, lying face downward on the floor, shot through the heart.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIX\n\nDutiful Friendship\n\n\nA great annual occasion has come round in the establishment of Mr.\nMatthew Bagnet, otherwise Lignum Vitae, ex-artilleryman and present\nbassoon-player. An occasion of feasting and festival. The celebration\nof a birthday in the family.\n\nIt is not Mr. Bagnet's birthday. Mr. Bagnet merely distinguishes that\nepoch in the musical instrument business by kissing the children with\nan extra smack before breakfast, smoking an additional pipe after\ndinner, and wondering towards evening what his poor old mother is\nthinking about it--a subject of infinite speculation, and rendered so\nby his mother having departed this life twenty years. Some men rarely\nrevert to their father, but seem, in the bank-books of their\nremembrance, to have transferred all the stock of filial affection\ninto their mother's name. Mr. Bagnet is one of these. Perhaps his\nexalted appreciation of the merits of the old girl causes him usually\nto make the noun-substantive \"goodness\" of the feminine gender.\n\nIt is not the birthday of one of the three children. Those occasions\nare kept with some marks of distinction, but they rarely overleap the\nbounds of happy returns and a pudding. On young Woolwich's last\nbirthday, Mr. Bagnet certainly did, after observing on his growth and\ngeneral advancement, proceed, in a moment of profound reflection on\nthe changes wrought by time, to examine him in the catechism,\naccomplishing with extreme accuracy the questions number one and two,\n\"What is your name?\" and \"Who gave you that name?\" but there failing\nin the exact precision of his memory and substituting for number\nthree the question \"And how do you like that name?\" which he\npropounded with a sense of its importance, in itself so edifying and\nimproving as to give it quite an orthodox air. This, however, was a\nspeciality on that particular birthday, and not a general solemnity.\n\nIt is the old girl's birthday, and that is the greatest holiday and\nreddest-letter day in Mr. Bagnet's calendar. The auspicious event is\nalways commemorated according to certain forms settled and prescribed\nby Mr. Bagnet some years since. Mr. Bagnet, being deeply convinced\nthat to have a pair of fowls for dinner is to attain the highest\npitch of imperial luxury, invariably goes forth himself very early in\nthe morning of this day to buy a pair; he is, as invariably, taken in\nby the vendor and installed in the possession of the oldest\ninhabitants of any coop in Europe. Returning with these triumphs of\ntoughness tied up in a clean blue and white cotton handkerchief\n(essential to the arrangements), he in a casual manner invites Mrs.\nBagnet to declare at breakfast what she would like for dinner. Mrs.\nBagnet, by a coincidence never known to fail, replying fowls, Mr.\nBagnet instantly produces his bundle from a place of concealment\namidst general amazement and rejoicing. He further requires that the\nold girl shall do nothing all day long but sit in her very best gown\nand be served by himself and the young people. As he is not\nillustrious for his cookery, this may be supposed to be a matter of\nstate rather than enjoyment on the old girl's part, but she keeps her\nstate with all imaginable cheerfulness.\n\nOn this present birthday, Mr. Bagnet has accomplished the usual\npreliminaries. He has bought two specimens of poultry, which, if\nthere be any truth in adages, were certainly not caught with chaff,\nto be prepared for the spit; he has amazed and rejoiced the family by\ntheir unlooked-for production; he is himself directing the roasting\nof the poultry; and Mrs. Bagnet, with her wholesome brown fingers\nitching to prevent what she sees going wrong, sits in her gown of\nceremony, an honoured guest.\n\nQuebec and Malta lay the cloth for dinner, while Woolwich, serving,\nas beseems him, under his father, keeps the fowls revolving. To these\nyoung scullions Mrs. Bagnet occasionally imparts a wink, or a shake\nof the head, or a crooked face, as they made mistakes.\n\n\"At half after one.\" Says Mr. Bagnet. \"To the minute. They'll be\ndone.\"\n\nMrs. Bagnet, with anguish, beholds one of them at a standstill before\nthe fire and beginning to burn.\n\n\"You shall have a dinner, old girl,\" says Mr. Bagnet. \"Fit for a\nqueen.\"\n\nMrs. Bagnet shows her white teeth cheerfully, but to the perception\nof her son, betrays so much uneasiness of spirit that he is impelled\nby the dictates of affection to ask her, with his eyes, what is the\nmatter, thus standing, with his eyes wide open, more oblivious of the\nfowls than before, and not affording the least hope of a return to\nconsciousness. Fortunately his elder sister perceives the cause of\nthe agitation in Mrs. Bagnet's breast and with an admonitory poke\nrecalls him. The stopped fowls going round again, Mrs. Bagnet closes\nher eyes in the intensity of her relief.\n\n\"George will look us up,\" says Mr. Bagnet. \"At half after four. To\nthe moment. How many years, old girl. Has George looked us up. This\nafternoon?\"\n\n\"Ah, Lignum, Lignum, as many as make an old woman of a young one, I\nbegin to think. Just about that, and no less,\" returns Mrs. Bagnet,\nlaughing and shaking her head.\n\n\"Old girl,\" says Mr. Bagnet, \"never mind. You'd be as young as ever\nyou was. If you wasn't younger. Which you are. As everybody knows.\"\n\nQuebec and Malta here exclaim, with clapping of hands, that Bluffy is\nsure to bring mother something, and begin to speculate on what it\nwill be.\n\n\"Do you know, Lignum,\" says Mrs. Bagnet, casting a glance on the\ntable-cloth, and winking \"salt!\" at Malta with her right eye, and\nshaking the pepper away from Quebec with her head, \"I begin to think\nGeorge is in the roving way again.\n\n\"George,\" returns Mr. Bagnet, \"will never desert. And leave his old\ncomrade. In the lurch. Don't be afraid of it.\"\n\n\"No, Lignum. No. I don't say he will. I don't think he will. But if\nhe could get over this money trouble of his, I believe he would be\noff.\"\n\nMr. Bagnet asks why.\n\n\"Well,\" returns his wife, considering, \"George seems to me to be\ngetting not a little impatient and restless. I don't say but what\nhe's as free as ever. Of course he must be free or he wouldn't be\nGeorge, but he smarts and seems put out.\"\n\n\"He's extra-drilled,\" says Mr. Bagnet. \"By a lawyer. Who would put\nthe devil out.\"\n\n\"There's something in that,\" his wife assents; \"but so it is,\nLignum.\"\n\nFurther conversation is prevented, for the time, by the necessity\nunder which Mr. Bagnet finds himself of directing the whole force of\nhis mind to the dinner, which is a little endangered by the dry\nhumour of the fowls in not yielding any gravy, and also by the made\ngravy acquiring no flavour and turning out of a flaxen complexion.\nWith a similar perverseness, the potatoes crumble off forks in the\nprocess of peeling, upheaving from their centres in every direction,\nas if they were subject to earthquakes. The legs of the fowls, too,\nare longer than could be desired, and extremely scaly. Overcoming\nthese disadvantages to the best of his ability, Mr. Bagnet at last\ndishes and they sit down at table, Mrs. Bagnet occupying the guest's\nplace at his right hand.\n\nIt is well for the old girl that she has but one birthday in a year,\nfor two such indulgences in poultry might be injurious. Every kind of\nfiner tendon and ligament that is in the nature of poultry to possess\nis developed in these specimens in the singular form of\nguitar-strings. Their limbs appear to have struck roots into their\nbreasts and bodies, as aged trees strike roots into the earth. Their\nlegs are so hard as to encourage the idea that they must have devoted\nthe greater part of their long and arduous lives to pedestrian\nexercises and the walking of matches. But Mr. Bagnet, unconscious of\nthese little defects, sets his heart on Mrs. Bagnet eating a most\nsevere quantity of the delicacies before her; and as that good old\ngirl would not cause him a moment's disappointment on any day, least\nof all on such a day, for any consideration, she imperils her\ndigestion fearfully. How young Woolwich cleans the drum-sticks\nwithout being of ostrich descent, his anxious mother is at a loss to\nunderstand.\n\nThe old girl has another trial to undergo after the conclusion of the\nrepast in sitting in state to see the room cleared, the hearth swept,\nand the dinner-service washed up and polished in the backyard. The\ngreat delight and energy with which the two young ladies apply\nthemselves to these duties, turning up their skirts in imitation of\ntheir mother and skating in and out on little scaffolds of pattens,\ninspire the highest hopes for the future, but some anxiety for the\npresent. The same causes lead to confusion of tongues, a clattering\nof crockery, a rattling of tin mugs, a whisking of brooms, and an\nexpenditure of water, all in excess, while the saturation of the\nyoung ladies themselves is almost too moving a spectacle for Mrs.\nBagnet to look upon with the calmness proper to her position. At last\nthe various cleansing processes are triumphantly completed; Quebec\nand Malta appear in fresh attire, smiling and dry; pipes, tobacco,\nand something to drink are placed upon the table; and the old girl\nenjoys the first peace of mind she ever knows on the day of this\ndelightful entertainment.\n\nWhen Mr. Bagnet takes his usual seat, the hands of the clock are very\nnear to half-past four; as they mark it accurately, Mr. Bagnet\nannounces, \"George! Military time.\"\n\nIt is George, and he has hearty congratulations for the old girl\n(whom he kisses on the great occasion), and for the children, and for\nMr. Bagnet. \"Happy returns to all!\" says Mr. George.\n\n\"But, George, old man!\" cries Mrs. Bagnet, looking at him curiously.\n\"What's come to you?\"\n\n\"Come to me?\"\n\n\"Ah! You are so white, George--for you--and look so shocked. Now\ndon't he, Lignum?\"\n\n\"George,\" says Mr. Bagnet, \"tell the old girl. What's the matter.\"\n\n\"I didn't know I looked white,\" says the trooper, passing his hand\nover his brow, \"and I didn't know I looked shocked, and I'm sorry I\ndo. But the truth is, that boy who was taken in at my place died\nyesterday afternoon, and it has rather knocked me over.\"\n\n\"Poor creetur!\" says Mrs. Bagnet with a mother's pity. \"Is he gone?\nDear, dear!\"\n\n\"I didn't mean to say anything about it, for it's not birthday talk,\nbut you have got it out of me, you see, before I sit down. I should\nhave roused up in a minute,\" says the trooper, making himself speak\nmore gaily, \"but you're so quick, Mrs. Bagnet.\"\n\n\"You're right. The old girl,\" says Mr. Bagnet. \"Is as quick. As\npowder.\"\n\n\"And what's more, she's the subject of the day, and we'll stick to\nher,\" cries Mr. George. \"See here, I have brought a little brooch\nalong with me. It's a poor thing, you know, but it's a keepsake.\nThat's all the good it is, Mrs. Bagnet.\"\n\nMr. George produces his present, which is greeted with admiring\nleapings and clappings by the young family, and with a species of\nreverential admiration by Mr. Bagnet. \"Old girl,\" says Mr. Bagnet.\n\"Tell him my opinion of it.\"\n\n\"Why, it's a wonder, George!\" Mrs. Bagnet exclaims. \"It's the\nbeautifullest thing that ever was seen!\"\n\n\"Good!\" says Mr. Bagnet. \"My opinion.\"\n\n\"It's so pretty, George,\" cries Mrs. Bagnet, turning it on all sides\nand holding it out at arm's length, \"that it seems too choice for\nme.\"\n\n\"Bad!\" says Mr. Bagnet. \"Not my opinion.\"\n\n\"But whatever it is, a hundred thousand thanks, old fellow,\" says\nMrs. Bagnet, her eyes sparkling with pleasure and her hand stretched\nout to him; \"and though I have been a crossgrained soldier's wife to\nyou sometimes, George, we are as strong friends, I am sure, in\nreality, as ever can be. Now you shall fasten it on yourself, for\ngood luck, if you will, George.\"\n\nThe children close up to see it done, and Mr. Bagnet looks over young\nWoolwich's head to see it done with an interest so maturely wooden,\nyet pleasantly childish, that Mrs. Bagnet cannot help laughing in her\nairy way and saying, \"Oh, Lignum, Lignum, what a precious old chap\nyou are!\" But the trooper fails to fasten the brooch. His hand\nshakes, he is nervous, and it falls off. \"Would any one believe\nthis?\" says he, catching it as it drops and looking round. \"I am so\nout of sorts that I bungle at an easy job like this!\"\n\nMrs. Bagnet concludes that for such a case there is no remedy like a\npipe, and fastening the brooch herself in a twinkling, causes the\ntrooper to be inducted into his usual snug place and the pipes to be\ngot into action. \"If that don't bring you round, George,\" says she,\n\"just throw your eye across here at your present now and then, and\nthe two together MUST do it.\"\n\n\"You ought to do it of yourself,\" George answers; \"I know that very\nwell, Mrs. Bagnet. I'll tell you how, one way and another, the blues\nhave got to be too many for me. Here was this poor lad. 'Twas dull\nwork to see him dying as he did, and not be able to help him.\"\n\n\"What do you mean, George? You did help him. You took him under your\nroof.\"\n\n\"I helped him so far, but that's little. I mean, Mrs. Bagnet, there\nhe was, dying without ever having been taught much more than to know\nhis right hand from his left. And he was too far gone to be helped\nout of that.\"\n\n\"Ah, poor creetur!\" says Mrs. Bagnet.\n\n\"Then,\" says the trooper, not yet lighting his pipe, and passing his\nheavy hand over his hair, \"that brought up Gridley in a man's mind.\nHis was a bad case too, in a different way. Then the two got mixed up\nin a man's mind with a flinty old rascal who had to do with both. And\nto think of that rusty carbine, stock and barrel, standing up on end\nin his corner, hard, indifferent, taking everything so evenly--it\nmade flesh and blood tingle, I do assure you.\"\n\n\"My advice to you,\" returns Mrs. Bagnet, \"is to light your pipe and\ntingle that way. It's wholesomer and comfortabler, and better for the\nhealth altogether.\"\n\n\"You're right,\" says the trooper, \"and I'll do it.\"\n\nSo he does it, though still with an indignant gravity that impresses\nthe young Bagnets, and even causes Mr. Bagnet to defer the ceremony\nof drinking Mrs. Bagnet's health, always given by himself on these\noccasions in a speech of exemplary terseness. But the young ladies\nhaving composed what Mr. Bagnet is in the habit of calling \"the\nmixtur,\" and George's pipe being now in a glow, Mr. Bagnet considers\nit his duty to proceed to the toast of the evening. He addresses the\nassembled company in the following terms.\n\n\"George. Woolwich. Quebec. Malta. This is her birthday. Take a day's\nmarch. And you won't find such another. Here's towards her!\"\n\nThe toast having been drunk with enthusiasm, Mrs. Bagnet returns\nthanks in a neat address of corresponding brevity. This model\ncomposition is limited to the three words \"And wishing yours!\" which\nthe old girl follows up with a nod at everybody in succession and a\nwell-regulated swig of the mixture. This she again follows up, on the\npresent occasion, by the wholly unexpected exclamation, \"Here's a\nman!\"\n\nHere IS a man, much to the astonishment of the little company,\nlooking in at the parlour-door. He is a sharp-eyed man--a quick keen\nman--and he takes in everybody's look at him, all at once,\nindividually and collectively, in a manner that stamps him a\nremarkable man.\n\n\"George,\" says the man, nodding, \"how do you find yourself?\"\n\n\"Why, it's Bucket!\" cries Mr. George.\n\n\"Yes,\" says the man, coming in and closing the door. \"I was going\ndown the street here when I happened to stop and look in at the\nmusical instruments in the shop-window--a friend of mine is in want\nof a second-hand wiolinceller of a good tone--and I saw a party\nenjoying themselves, and I thought it was you in the corner; I\nthought I couldn't be mistaken. How goes the world with you, George,\nat the present moment? Pretty smooth? And with you, ma'am? And with\nyou, governor? And Lord,\" says Mr. Bucket, opening his arms, \"here's\nchildren too! You may do anything with me if you only show me\nchildren. Give us a kiss, my pets. No occasion to inquire who YOUR\nfather and mother is. Never saw such a likeness in my life!\"\n\nMr. Bucket, not unwelcome, has sat himself down next to Mr. George\nand taken Quebec and Malta on his knees. \"You pretty dears,\" says Mr.\nBucket, \"give us another kiss; it's the only thing I'm greedy in.\nLord bless you, how healthy you look! And what may be the ages of\nthese two, ma'am? I should put 'em down at the figures of about eight\nand ten.\"\n\n\"You're very near, sir,\" says Mrs. Bagnet.\n\n\"I generally am near,\" returns Mr. Bucket, \"being so fond of\nchildren. A friend of mine has had nineteen of 'em, ma'am, all by one\nmother, and she's still as fresh and rosy as the morning. Not so much\nso as yourself, but, upon my soul, she comes near you! And what do\nyou call these, my darling?\" pursues Mr. Bucket, pinching Malta's\ncheeks. \"These are peaches, these are. Bless your heart! And what do\nyou think about father? Do you think father could recommend a\nsecond-hand wiolinceller of a good tone for Mr. Bucket's friend, my\ndear? My name's Bucket. Ain't that a funny name?\"\n\nThese blandishments have entirely won the family heart. Mrs. Bagnet\nforgets the day to the extent of filling a pipe and a glass for Mr.\nBucket and waiting upon him hospitably. She would be glad to receive\nso pleasant a character under any circumstances, but she tells him\nthat as a friend of George's she is particularly glad to see him this\nevening, for George has not been in his usual spirits.\n\n\"Not in his usual spirits?\" exclaims Mr. Bucket. \"Why, I never heard\nof such a thing! What's the matter, George? You don't intend to tell\nme you've been out of spirits. What should you be out of spirits for?\nYou haven't got anything on your mind, you know.\"\n\n\"Nothing particular,\" returns the trooper.\n\n\"I should think not,\" rejoins Mr. Bucket. \"What could you have on\nyour mind, you know! And have these pets got anything on THEIR minds,\neh? Not they, but they'll be upon the minds of some of the young\nfellows, some of these days, and make 'em precious low-spirited. I\nain't much of a prophet, but I can tell you that, ma'am.\"\n\nMrs. Bagnet, quite charmed, hopes Mr. Bucket has a family of his own.\n\n\"There, ma'am!\" says Mr. Bucket. \"Would you believe it? No, I\nhaven't. My wife and a lodger constitute my family. Mrs. Bucket is as\nfond of children as myself and as wishful to have 'em, but no. So it\nis. Worldly goods are divided unequally, and man must not repine.\nWhat a very nice backyard, ma'am! Any way out of that yard, now?\"\n\nThere is no way out of that yard.\n\n\"Ain't there really?\" says Mr. Bucket. \"I should have thought there\nmight have been. Well, I don't know as I ever saw a backyard that\ntook my fancy more. Would you allow me to look at it? Thank you. No,\nI see there's no way out. But what a very good-proportioned yard it\nis!\"\n\nHaving cast his sharp eye all about it, Mr. Bucket returns to his\nchair next his friend Mr. George and pats Mr. George affectionately\non the shoulder.\n\n\"How are your spirits now, George?\"\n\n\"All right now,\" returns the trooper.\n\n\"That's your sort!\" says Mr. Bucket. \"Why should you ever have been\notherwise? A man of your fine figure and constitution has no right to\nbe out of spirits. That ain't a chest to be out of spirits, is it,\nma'am? And you haven't got anything on your mind, you know, George;\nwhat could you have on your mind!\"\n\nSomewhat harping on this phrase, considering the extent and variety\nof his conversational powers, Mr. Bucket twice or thrice repeats it\nto the pipe he lights, and with a listening face that is particularly\nhis own. But the sun of his sociality soon recovers from this brief\neclipse and shines again.\n\n\"And this is brother, is it, my dears?\" says Mr. Bucket, referring to\nQuebec and Malta for information on the subject of young Woolwich.\n\"And a nice brother he is--half-brother I mean to say. For he's too\nold to be your boy, ma'am.\"\n\n\"I can certify at all events that he is not anybody else's,\" returns\nMrs. Bagnet, laughing.\n\n\"Well, you do surprise me! Yet he's like you, there's no denying.\nLord, he's wonderfully like you! But about what you may call the\nbrow, you know, THERE his father comes out!\" Mr. Bucket compares the\nfaces with one eye shut up, while Mr. Bagnet smokes in stolid\nsatisfaction.\n\nThis is an opportunity for Mrs. Bagnet to inform him that the boy is\nGeorge's godson.\n\n\"George's godson, is he?\" rejoins Mr. Bucket with extreme cordiality.\n\"I must shake hands over again with George's godson. Godfather and\ngodson do credit to one another. And what do you intend to make of\nhim, ma'am? Does he show any turn for any musical instrument?\"\n\nMr. Bagnet suddenly interposes, \"Plays the fife. Beautiful.\"\n\n\"Would you believe it, governor,\" says Mr. Bucket, struck by the\ncoincidence, \"that when I was a boy I played the fife myself? Not in\na scientific way, as I expect he does, but by ear. Lord bless you!\n'British Grenadiers'--there's a tune to warm an Englishman up! COULD\nyou give us 'British Grenadiers,' my fine fellow?\"\n\nNothing could be more acceptable to the little circle than this call\nupon young Woolwich, who immediately fetches his fife and performs\nthe stirring melody, during which performance Mr. Bucket, much\nenlivened, beats time and never fails to come in sharp with the\nburden, \"British Gra-a-anadeers!\" In short, he shows so much musical\ntaste that Mr. Bagnet actually takes his pipe from his lips to\nexpress his conviction that he is a singer. Mr. Bucket receives the\nharmonious impeachment so modestly, confessing how that he did once\nchaunt a little, for the expression of the feelings of his own bosom,\nand with no presumptuous idea of entertaining his friends, that he is\nasked to sing. Not to be behindhand in the sociality of the evening,\nhe complies and gives them \"Believe Me, if All Those Endearing Young\nCharms.\" This ballad, he informs Mrs. Bagnet, he considers to have\nbeen his most powerful ally in moving the heart of Mrs. Bucket when a\nmaiden, and inducing her to approach the altar--Mr. Bucket's own\nwords are \"to come up to the scratch.\"\n\nThis sparkling stranger is such a new and agreeable feature in the\nevening that Mr. George, who testified no great emotions of pleasure\non his entrance, begins, in spite of himself, to be rather proud of\nhim. He is so friendly, is a man of so many resources, and so easy to\nget on with, that it is something to have made him known there. Mr.\nBagnet becomes, after another pipe, so sensible of the value of his\nacquaintance that he solicits the honour of his company on the old\ngirl's next birthday. If anything can more closely cement and\nconsolidate the esteem which Mr. Bucket has formed for the family, it\nis the discovery of the nature of the occasion. He drinks to Mrs.\nBagnet with a warmth approaching to rapture, engages himself for that\nday twelvemonth more than thankfully, makes a memorandum of the day\nin a large black pocket-book with a girdle to it, and breathes a hope\nthat Mrs. Bucket and Mrs. Bagnet may before then become, in a manner,\nsisters. As he says himself, what is public life without private\nties? He is in his humble way a public man, but it is not in that\nsphere that he finds happiness. No, it must be sought within the\nconfines of domestic bliss.\n\nIt is natural, under these circumstances, that he, in his turn,\nshould remember the friend to whom he is indebted for so promising an\nacquaintance. And he does. He keeps very close to him. Whatever the\nsubject of the conversation, he keeps a tender eye upon him. He waits\nto walk home with him. He is interested in his very boots and\nobserves even them attentively as Mr. George sits smoking\ncross-legged in the chimney-corner.\n\nAt length Mr. George rises to depart. At the same moment Mr. Bucket,\nwith the secret sympathy of friendship, also rises. He dotes upon the\nchildren to the last and remembers the commission he has undertaken\nfor an absent friend.\n\n\"Respecting that second-hand wiolinceller, governor--could you\nrecommend me such a thing?\"\n\n\"Scores,\" says Mr. Bagnet.\n\n\"I am obliged to you,\" returns Mr. Bucket, squeezing his hand.\n\"You're a friend in need. A good tone, mind you! My friend is a\nregular dab at it. Ecod, he saws away at Mozart and Handel and the\nrest of the big-wigs like a thorough workman. And you needn't,\" says\nMr. Bucket in a considerate and private voice, \"you needn't commit\nyourself to too low a figure, governor. I don't want to pay too large\na price for my friend, but I want you to have your proper percentage\nand be remunerated for your loss of time. That is but fair. Every man\nmust live, and ought to it.\"\n\nMr. Bagnet shakes his head at the old girl to the effect that they\nhave found a jewel of price.\n\n\"Suppose I was to give you a look in, say, at half arter ten\nto-morrow morning. Perhaps you could name the figures of a few\nwiolincellers of a good tone?\" says Mr. Bucket.\n\nNothing easier. Mr. and Mrs. Bagnet both engage to have the requisite\ninformation ready and even hint to each other at the practicability\nof having a small stock collected there for approval.\n\n\"Thank you,\" says Mr. Bucket, \"thank you. Good night, ma'am. Good\nnight, governor. Good night, darlings. I am much obliged to you for\none of the pleasantest evenings I ever spent in my life.\"\n\nThey, on the contrary, are much obliged to him for the pleasure he\nhas given them in his company; and so they part with many expressions\nof goodwill on both sides. \"Now George, old boy,\" says Mr. Bucket,\ntaking his arm at the shop-door, \"come along!\" As they go down the\nlittle street and the Bagnets pause for a minute looking after them,\nMrs. Bagnet remarks to the worthy Lignum that Mr. Bucket \"almost\nclings to George like, and seems to be really fond of him.\"\n\nThe neighbouring streets being narrow and ill-paved, it is a little\ninconvenient to walk there two abreast and arm in arm. Mr. George\ntherefore soon proposes to walk singly. But Mr. Bucket, who cannot\nmake up his mind to relinquish his friendly hold, replies, \"Wait half\na minute, George. I should wish to speak to you first.\" Immediately\nafterwards, he twists him into a public-house and into a parlour,\nwhere he confronts him and claps his own back against the door.\n\n\"Now, George,\" says Mr. Bucket, \"duty is duty, and friendship is\nfriendship. I never want the two to clash if I can help it. I have\nendeavoured to make things pleasant to-night, and I put it to you\nwhether I have done it or not. You must consider yourself in custody,\nGeorge.\"\n\n\"Custody? What for?\" returns the trooper, thunderstruck.\n\n\"Now, George,\" says Mr. Bucket, urging a sensible view of the case\nupon him with his fat forefinger, \"duty, as you know very well, is\none thing, and conversation is another. It's my duty to inform you\nthat any observations you may make will be liable to be used against\nyou. Therefore, George, be careful what you say. You don't happen to\nhave heard of a murder?\"\n\n\"Murder!\"\n\n\"Now, George,\" says Mr. Bucket, keeping his forefinger in an\nimpressive state of action, \"bear in mind what I've said to you. I\nask you nothing. You've been in low spirits this afternoon. I say,\nyou don't happen to have heard of a murder?\"\n\n\"No. Where has there been a murder?\"\n\n\"Now, George,\" says Mr. Bucket, \"don't you go and commit yourself.\nI'm a-going to tell you what I want you for. There has been a murder\nin Lincoln's Inn Fields--gentleman of the name of Tulkinghorn. He was\nshot last night. I want you for that.\"\n\nThe trooper sinks upon a seat behind him, and great drops start out\nupon his forehead, and a deadly pallor overspreads his face.\n\n\"Bucket! It's not possible that Mr. Tulkinghorn has been killed and\nthat you suspect ME?\"\n\n\"George,\" returns Mr. Bucket, keeping his forefinger going, \"it is\ncertainly possible, because it's the case. This deed was done last\nnight at ten o'clock. Now, you know where you were last night at ten\no'clock, and you'll be able to prove it, no doubt.\"\n\n\"Last night! Last night?\" repeats the trooper thoughtfully. Then it\nflashes upon him. \"Why, great heaven, I was there last night!\"\n\n\"So I have understood, George,\" returns Mr. Bucket with great\ndeliberation. \"So I have understood. Likewise you've been very often\nthere. You've been seen hanging about the place, and you've been\nheard more than once in a wrangle with him, and it's possible--I\ndon't say it's certainly so, mind you, but it's possible--that he may\nhave been heard to call you a threatening, murdering, dangerous\nfellow.\"\n\nThe trooper gasps as if he would admit it all if he could speak.\n\n\"Now, George,\" continues Mr. Bucket, putting his hat upon the table\nwith an air of business rather in the upholstery way than otherwise,\n\"my wish is, as it has been all the evening, to make things pleasant.\nI tell you plainly there's a reward out, of a hundred guineas,\noffered by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. You and me have always\nbeen pleasant together; but I have got a duty to discharge; and if\nthat hundred guineas is to be made, it may as well be made by me as\nany other man. On all of which accounts, I should hope it was clear\nto you that I must have you, and that I'm damned if I don't have you.\nAm I to call in any assistance, or is the trick done?\"\n\nMr. George has recovered himself and stands up like a soldier.\n\"Come,\" he says; \"I am ready.\"\n\n\"George,\" continues Mr. Bucket, \"wait a bit!\" With his upholsterer\nmanner, as if the trooper were a window to be fitted up, he takes\nfrom his pocket a pair of handcuffs. \"This is a serious charge,\nGeorge, and such is my duty.\"\n\nThe trooper flushes angrily and hesitates a moment, but holds out his\ntwo hands, clasped together, and says, \"There! Put them on!\"\n\nMr. Bucket adjusts them in a moment. \"How do you find them? Are they\ncomfortable? If not, say so, for I wish to make things as pleasant as\nis consistent with my duty, and I've got another pair in my pocket.\"\nThis remark he offers like a most respectable tradesman anxious to\nexecute an order neatly and to the perfect satisfaction of his\ncustomer. \"They'll do as they are? Very well! Now, you see,\nGeorge\"--he takes a cloak from a corner and begins adjusting it about\nthe trooper's neck--\"I was mindful of your feelings when I come out,\nand brought this on purpose. There! Who's the wiser?\"\n\n\"Only I,\" returns the trooper, \"but as I know it, do me one more good\nturn and pull my hat over my eyes.\"\n\n\"Really, though! Do you mean it? Ain't it a pity? It looks so.\"\n\n\"I can't look chance men in the face with these things on,\" Mr.\nGeorge hurriedly replies. \"Do, for God's sake, pull my hat forward.\"\n\nSo strongly entreated, Mr. Bucket complies, puts his own hat on, and\nconducts his prize into the streets, the trooper marching on as\nsteadily as usual, though with his head less erect, and Mr. Bucket\nsteering him with his elbow over the crossings and up the turnings.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER L\n\nEsther's Narrative\n\n\nIt happened that when I came home from Deal I found a note from Caddy\nJellyby (as we always continued to call her), informing me that her\nhealth, which had been for some time very delicate, was worse and\nthat she would be more glad than she could tell me if I would go to\nsee her. It was a note of a few lines, written from the couch on\nwhich she lay and enclosed to me in another from her husband, in\nwhich he seconded her entreaty with much solicitude. Caddy was now\nthe mother, and I the godmother, of such a poor little baby--such a\ntiny old-faced mite, with a countenance that seemed to be scarcely\nanything but cap-border, and a little lean, long-fingered hand,\nalways clenched under its chin. It would lie in this attitude all\nday, with its bright specks of eyes open, wondering (as I used to\nimagine) how it came to be so small and weak. Whenever it was moved\nit cried, but at all other times it was so patient that the sole\ndesire of its life appeared to be to lie quiet and think. It had\ncurious little dark veins in its face and curious little dark marks\nunder its eyes like faint remembrances of poor Caddy's inky days, and\naltogether, to those who were not used to it, it was quite a piteous\nlittle sight.\n\nBut it was enough for Caddy that SHE was used to it. The projects\nwith which she beguiled her illness, for little Esther's education,\nand little Esther's marriage, and even for her own old age as the\ngrandmother of little Esther's little Esthers, was so prettily\nexpressive of devotion to this pride of her life that I should be\ntempted to recall some of them but for the timely remembrance that I\nam getting on irregularly as it is.\n\nTo return to the letter. Caddy had a superstition about me which had\nbeen strengthening in her mind ever since that night long ago when\nshe had lain asleep with her head in my lap. She almost--I think I\nmust say quite--believed that I did her good whenever I was near her.\nNow although this was such a fancy of the affectionate girl's that I\nam almost ashamed to mention it, still it might have all the force of\na fact when she was really ill. Therefore I set off to Caddy, with my\nguardian's consent, post-haste; and she and Prince made so much of me\nthat there never was anything like it.\n\nNext day I went again to sit with her, and next day I went again. It\nwas a very easy journey, for I had only to rise a little earlier in\nthe morning, and keep my accounts, and attend to housekeeping matters\nbefore leaving home.\n\nBut when I had made these three visits, my guardian said to me, on my\nreturn at night, \"Now, little woman, little woman, this will never\ndo. Constant dropping will wear away a stone, and constant coaching\nwill wear out a Dame Durden. We will go to London for a while and\ntake possession of our old lodgings.\"\n\n\"Not for me, dear guardian,\" said I, \"for I never feel tired,\" which\nwas strictly true. I was only too happy to be in such request.\n\n\"For me then,\" returned my guardian, \"or for Ada, or for both of us.\nIt is somebody's birthday to-morrow, I think.\"\n\n\"Truly I think it is,\" said I, kissing my darling, who would be\ntwenty-one to-morrow.\n\n\"Well,\" observed my guardian, half pleasantly, half seriously,\n\"that's a great occasion and will give my fair cousin some necessary\nbusiness to transact in assertion of her independence, and will make\nLondon a more convenient place for all of us. So to London we will\ngo. That being settled, there is another thing--how have you left\nCaddy?\"\n\n\"Very unwell, guardian. I fear it will be some time before she\nregains her health and strength.\"\n\n\"What do you call some time, now?\" asked my guardian thoughtfully.\n\n\"Some weeks, I am afraid.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" He began to walk about the room with his hands in his pockets,\nshowing that he had been thinking as much. \"Now, what do you say\nabout her doctor? Is he a good doctor, my love?\"\n\nI felt obliged to confess that I knew nothing to the contrary but\nthat Prince and I had agreed only that evening that we would like his\nopinion to be confirmed by some one.\n\n\"Well, you know,\" returned my guardian quickly, \"there's Woodcourt.\"\n\nI had not meant that, and was rather taken by surprise. For a moment\nall that I had had in my mind in connexion with Mr. Woodcourt seemed\nto come back and confuse me.\n\n\"You don't object to him, little woman?\"\n\n\"Object to him, guardian? Oh no!\"\n\n\"And you don't think the patient would object to him?\"\n\nSo far from that, I had no doubt of her being prepared to have a\ngreat reliance on him and to like him very much. I said that he was\nno stranger to her personally, for she had seen him often in his kind\nattendance on Miss Flite.\n\n\"Very good,\" said my guardian. \"He has been here to-day, my dear, and\nI will see him about it to-morrow.\"\n\nI felt in this short conversation--though I did not know how, for she\nwas quiet, and we interchanged no look--that my dear girl well\nremembered how merrily she had clasped me round the waist when no\nother hands than Caddy's had brought me the little parting token.\nThis caused me to feel that I ought to tell her, and Caddy too, that\nI was going to be the mistress of Bleak House and that if I avoided\nthat disclosure any longer I might become less worthy in my own eyes\nof its master's love. Therefore, when we went upstairs and had waited\nlistening until the clock struck twelve in order that only I might be\nthe first to wish my darling all good wishes on her birthday and to\ntake her to my heart, I set before her, just as I had set before\nmyself, the goodness and honour of her cousin John and the happy life\nthat was in store for me. If ever my darling were fonder of me at\none time than another in all our intercourse, she was surely fondest\nof me that night. And I was so rejoiced to know it and so comforted\nby the sense of having done right in casting this last idle\nreservation away that I was ten times happier than I had been before.\nI had scarcely thought it a reservation a few hours ago, but now that\nit was gone I felt as if I understood its nature better.\n\nNext day we went to London. We found our old lodging vacant, and in\nhalf an hour were quietly established there, as if we had never gone\naway. Mr. Woodcourt dined with us to celebrate my darling's birthday,\nand we were as pleasant as we could be with the great blank among us\nthat Richard's absence naturally made on such an occasion. After that\nday I was for some weeks--eight or nine as I remember--very much with\nCaddy, and thus it fell out that I saw less of Ada at this time than\nany other since we had first come together, except the time of my own\nillness. She often came to Caddy's, but our function there was to\namuse and cheer her, and we did not talk in our usual confidential\nmanner. Whenever I went home at night we were together, but Caddy's\nrest was broken by pain, and I often remained to nurse her.\n\nWith her husband and her poor little mite of a baby to love and their\nhome to strive for, what a good creature Caddy was! So self-denying,\nso uncomplaining, so anxious to get well on their account, so afraid\nof giving trouble, and so thoughtful of the unassisted labours of her\nhusband and the comforts of old Mr. Turveydrop; I had never known the\nbest of her until now. And it seemed so curious that her pale face\nand helpless figure should be lying there day after day where dancing\nwas the business of life, where the kit and the apprentices began\nearly every morning in the ball-room, and where the untidy little boy\nwaltzed by himself in the kitchen all the afternoon.\n\nAt Caddy's request I took the supreme direction of her apartment,\ntrimmed it up, and pushed her, couch and all, into a lighter and more\nairy and more cheerful corner than she had yet occupied; then, every\nday, when we were in our neatest array, I used to lay my small small\nnamesake in her arms and sit down to chat or work or read to her. It\nwas at one of the first of these quiet times that I told Caddy about\nBleak House.\n\nWe had other visitors besides Ada. First of all we had Prince, who in\nhis hurried intervals of teaching used to come softly in and sit\nsoftly down, with a face of loving anxiety for Caddy and the very\nlittle child. Whatever Caddy's condition really was, she never failed\nto declare to Prince that she was all but well--which I, heaven\nforgive me, never failed to confirm. This would put Prince in such\ngood spirits that he would sometimes take the kit from his pocket and\nplay a chord or two to astonish the baby, which I never knew it to do\nin the least degree, for my tiny namesake never noticed it at all.\n\nThen there was Mrs. Jellyby. She would come occasionally, with her\nusual distraught manner, and sit calmly looking miles beyond her\ngrandchild as if her attention were absorbed by a young Borrioboolan\non its native shores. As bright-eyed as ever, as serene, and as\nuntidy, she would say, \"Well, Caddy, child, and how do you do\nto-day?\" And then would sit amiably smiling and taking no notice of\nthe reply or would sweetly glide off into a calculation of the number\nof letters she had lately received and answered or of the\ncoffee-bearing power of Borrioboola-Gha. This she would always do\nwith a serene contempt for our limited sphere of action, not to be\ndisguised.\n\nThen there was old Mr. Turveydrop, who was from morning to night and\nfrom night to morning the subject of innumerable precautions. If the\nbaby cried, it was nearly stifled lest the noise should make him\nuncomfortable. If the fire wanted stirring in the night, it was\nsurreptitiously done lest his rest should be broken. If Caddy\nrequired any little comfort that the house contained, she first\ncarefully discussed whether he was likely to require it too. In\nreturn for this consideration he would come into the room once a day,\nall but blessing it--showing a condescension, and a patronage, and a\ngrace of manner in dispensing the light of his high-shouldered\npresence from which I might have supposed him (if I had not known\nbetter) to have been the benefactor of Caddy's life.\n\n\"My Caroline,\" he would say, making the nearest approach that he\ncould to bending over her. \"Tell me that you are better to-day.\"\n\n\"Oh, much better, thank you, Mr. Turveydrop,\" Caddy would reply.\n\n\"Delighted! Enchanted! And our dear Miss Summerson. She is not quite\nprostrated by fatigue?\" Here he would crease up his eyelids and kiss\nhis fingers to me, though I am happy to say he had ceased to be\nparticular in his attentions since I had been so altered.\n\n\"Not at all,\" I would assure him.\n\n\"Charming! We must take care of our dear Caroline, Miss Summerson. We\nmust spare nothing that will restore her. We must nourish her. My\ndear Caroline\"--he would turn to his daughter-in-law with infinite\ngenerosity and protection--\"want for nothing, my love. Frame a wish\nand gratify it, my daughter. Everything this house contains,\neverything my room contains, is at your service, my dear. Do not,\" he\nwould sometimes add in a burst of deportment, \"even allow my simple\nrequirements to be considered if they should at any time interfere\nwith your own, my Caroline. Your necessities are greater than mine.\"\n\nHe had established such a long prescriptive right to this deportment\n(his son's inheritance from his mother) that I several times knew\nboth Caddy and her husband to be melted to tears by these\naffectionate self-sacrifices.\n\n\"Nay, my dears,\" he would remonstrate; and when I saw Caddy's thin\narm about his fat neck as he said it, I would be melted too, though\nnot by the same process. \"Nay, nay! I have promised never to leave\nye. Be dutiful and affectionate towards me, and I ask no other\nreturn. Now, bless ye! I am going to the Park.\"\n\nHe would take the air there presently and get an appetite for his\nhotel dinner. I hope I do old Mr. Turveydrop no wrong, but I never\nsaw any better traits in him than these I faithfully record, except\nthat he certainly conceived a liking for Peepy and would take the\nchild out walking with great pomp, always on those occasions sending\nhim home before he went to dinner himself, and occasionally with a\nhalfpenny in his pocket. But even this disinterestedness was attended\nwith no inconsiderable cost, to my knowledge, for before Peepy was\nsufficiently decorated to walk hand in hand with the professor of\ndeportment, he had to be newly dressed, at the expense of Caddy and\nher husband, from top to toe.\n\nLast of our visitors, there was Mr. Jellyby. Really when he used to\ncome in of an evening, and ask Caddy in his meek voice how she was,\nand then sit down with his head against the wall, and make no attempt\nto say anything more, I liked him very much. If he found me bustling\nabout doing any little thing, he sometimes half took his coat off, as\nif with an intention of helping by a great exertion; but he never got\nany further. His sole occupation was to sit with his head against the\nwall, looking hard at the thoughtful baby; and I could not quite\ndivest my mind of a fancy that they understood one another.\n\nI have not counted Mr. Woodcourt among our visitors because he was\nnow Caddy's regular attendant. She soon began to improve under his\ncare, but he was so gentle, so skilful, so unwearying in the pains he\ntook that it is not to be wondered at, I am sure. I saw a good deal\nof Mr. Woodcourt during this time, though not so much as might be\nsupposed, for knowing Caddy to be safe in his hands, I often slipped\nhome at about the hours when he was expected. We frequently met,\nnotwithstanding. I was quite reconciled to myself now, but I still\nfelt glad to think that he was sorry for me, and he still WAS sorry\nfor me I believed. He helped Mr. Badger in his professional\nengagements, which were numerous, and had as yet no settled projects\nfor the future.\n\nIt was when Caddy began to recover that I began to notice a change in\nmy dear girl. I cannot say how it first presented itself to me,\nbecause I observed it in many slight particulars which were nothing\nin themselves and only became something when they were pieced\ntogether. But I made it out, by putting them together, that Ada was\nnot so frankly cheerful with me as she used to be. Her tenderness for\nme was as loving and true as ever; I did not for a moment doubt that;\nbut there was a quiet sorrow about her which she did not confide to\nme, and in which I traced some hidden regret.\n\nNow, I could not understand this, and I was so anxious for the\nhappiness of my own pet that it caused me some uneasiness and set me\nthinking often. At length, feeling sure that Ada suppressed this\nsomething from me lest it should make me unhappy too, it came into my\nhead that she was a little grieved--for me--by what I had told her\nabout Bleak House.\n\nHow I persuaded myself that this was likely, I don't know. I had no\nidea that there was any selfish reference in my doing so. I was not\ngrieved for myself: I was quite contented and quite happy. Still,\nthat Ada might be thinking--for me, though I had abandoned all such\nthoughts--of what once was, but was now all changed, seemed so easy\nto believe that I believed it.\n\nWhat could I do to reassure my darling (I considered then) and show\nher that I had no such feelings? Well! I could only be as brisk and\nbusy as possible, and that I had tried to be all along. However, as\nCaddy's illness had certainly interfered, more or less, with my home\nduties--though I had always been there in the morning to make my\nguardian's breakfast, and he had a hundred times laughed and said\nthere must be two little women, for his little woman was never\nmissing--I resolved to be doubly diligent and gay. So I went about\nthe house humming all the tunes I knew, and I sat working and working\nin a desperate manner, and I talked and talked, morning, noon, and\nnight.\n\nAnd still there was the same shade between me and my darling.\n\n\"So, Dame Trot,\" observed my guardian, shutting up his book one night\nwhen we were all three together, \"so Woodcourt has restored Caddy\nJellyby to the full enjoyment of life again?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said; \"and to be repaid by such gratitude as hers is to be\nmade rich, guardian.\"\n\n\"I wish it was,\" he returned, \"with all my heart.\"\n\nSo did I too, for that matter. I said so.\n\n\"Aye! We would make him as rich as a Jew if we knew how. Would we\nnot, little woman?\"\n\nI laughed as I worked and replied that I was not sure about that, for\nit might spoil him, and he might not be so useful, and there might be\nmany who could ill spare him. As Miss Flite, and Caddy herself, and\nmany others.\n\n\"True,\" said my guardian. \"I had forgotten that. But we would agree\nto make him rich enough to live, I suppose? Rich enough to work with\ntolerable peace of mind? Rich enough to have his own happy home and\nhis own household gods--and household goddess, too, perhaps?\"\n\nThat was quite another thing, I said. We must all agree in that.\n\n\"To be sure,\" said my guardian. \"All of us. I have a great regard for\nWoodcourt, a high esteem for him; and I have been sounding him\ndelicately about his plans. It is difficult to offer aid to an\nindependent man with that just kind of pride which he possesses. And\nyet I would be glad to do it if I might or if I knew how. He seems\nhalf inclined for another voyage. But that appears like casting such\na man away.\"\n\n\"It might open a new world to him,\" said I.\n\n\"So it might, little woman,\" my guardian assented. \"I doubt if he\nexpects much of the old world. Do you know I have fancied that he\nsometimes feels some particular disappointment or misfortune\nencountered in it. You never heard of anything of that sort?\"\n\nI shook my head.\n\n\"Humph,\" said my guardian. \"I am mistaken, I dare say.\" As there was\na little pause here, which I thought, for my dear girl's\nsatisfaction, had better be filled up, I hummed an air as I worked\nwhich was a favourite with my guardian.\n\n\"And do you think Mr. Woodcourt will make another voyage?\" I asked\nhim when I had hummed it quietly all through.\n\n\"I don't quite know what to think, my dear, but I should say it was\nlikely at present that he will give a long trip to another country.\"\n\n\"I am sure he will take the best wishes of all our hearts with him\nwherever he goes,\" said I; \"and though they are not riches, he will\nnever be the poorer for them, guardian, at least.\"\n\n\"Never, little woman,\" he replied.\n\nI was sitting in my usual place, which was now beside my guardian's\nchair. That had not been my usual place before the letter, but it was\nnow. I looked up to Ada, who was sitting opposite, and I saw, as she\nlooked at me, that her eyes were filled with tears and that tears\nwere falling down her face. I felt that I had only to be placid and\nmerry once for all to undeceive my dear and set her loving heart at\nrest. I really was so, and I had nothing to do but to be myself.\n\nSo I made my sweet girl lean upon my shoulder--how little thinking\nwhat was heavy on her mind!--and I said she was not quite well, and\nput my arm about her, and took her upstairs. When we were in our own\nroom, and when she might perhaps have told me what I was so\nunprepared to hear, I gave her no encouragement to confide in me; I\nnever thought she stood in need of it.\n\n\"Oh, my dear good Esther,\" said Ada, \"if I could only make up my mind\nto speak to you and my cousin John when you are together!\"\n\n\"Why, my love!\" I remonstrated. \"Ada, why should you not speak to\nus!\"\n\nAda only dropped her head and pressed me closer to her heart.\n\n\"You surely don't forget, my beauty,\" said I, smiling, \"what quiet,\nold-fashioned people we are and how I have settled down to be the\ndiscreetest of dames? You don't forget how happily and peacefully my\nlife is all marked out for me, and by whom? I am certain that you\ndon't forget by what a noble character, Ada. That can never be.\"\n\n\"No, never, Esther.\"\n\n\"Why then, my dear,\" said I, \"there can be nothing amiss--and why\nshould you not speak to us?\"\n\n\"Nothing amiss, Esther?\" returned Ada. \"Oh, when I think of all these\nyears, and of his fatherly care and kindness, and of the old\nrelations among us, and of you, what shall I do, what shall I do!\"\n\nI looked at my child in some wonder, but I thought it better not to\nanswer otherwise than by cheering her, and so I turned off into many\nlittle recollections of our life together and prevented her from\nsaying more. When she lay down to sleep, and not before, I returned\nto my guardian to say good night, and then I came back to Ada and sat\nnear her for a little while.\n\nShe was asleep, and I thought as I looked at her that she was a\nlittle changed. I had thought so more than once lately. I could not\ndecide, even looking at her while she was unconscious, how she was\nchanged, but something in the familiar beauty of her face looked\ndifferent to me. My guardian's old hopes of her and Richard arose\nsorrowfully in my mind, and I said to myself, \"She has been anxious\nabout him,\" and I wondered how that love would end.\n\nWhen I had come home from Caddy's while she was ill, I had often\nfound Ada at work, and she had always put her work away, and I had\nnever known what it was. Some of it now lay in a drawer near her,\nwhich was not quite closed. I did not open the drawer, but I still\nrather wondered what the work could be, for it was evidently nothing\nfor herself.\n\nAnd I noticed as I kissed my dear that she lay with one hand under\nher pillow so that it was hidden.\n\nHow much less amiable I must have been than they thought me, how much\nless amiable than I thought myself, to be so preoccupied with my own\ncheerfulness and contentment as to think that it only rested with me\nto put my dear girl right and set her mind at peace!\n\nBut I lay down, self-deceived, in that belief. And I awoke in it next\nday to find that there was still the same shade between me and my\ndarling.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LI\n\nEnlightened\n\n\nWhen Mr. Woodcourt arrived in London, he went, that very same day, to\nMr. Vholes's in Symond's Inn. For he never once, from the moment when\nI entreated him to be a friend to Richard, neglected or forgot his\npromise. He had told me that he accepted the charge as a sacred\ntrust, and he was ever true to it in that spirit.\n\nHe found Mr. Vholes in his office and informed Mr. Vholes of his\nagreement with Richard that he should call there to learn his\naddress.\n\n\"Just so, sir,\" said Mr. Vholes. \"Mr. C.'s address is not a hundred\nmiles from here, sir, Mr. C.'s address is not a hundred miles from\nhere. Would you take a seat, sir?\"\n\nMr. Woodcourt thanked Mr. Vholes, but he had no business with him\nbeyond what he had mentioned.\n\n\"Just so, sir. I believe, sir,\" said Mr. Vholes, still quietly\ninsisting on the seat by not giving the address, \"that you have\ninfluence with Mr. C. Indeed I am aware that you have.\"\n\n\"I was not aware of it myself,\" returned Mr. Woodcourt; \"but I\nsuppose you know best.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" rejoined Mr. Vholes, self-contained as usual, voice and all,\n\"it is a part of my professional duty to know best. It is a part of\nmy professional duty to study and to understand a gentleman who\nconfides his interests to me. In my professional duty I shall not be\nwanting, sir, if I know it. I may, with the best intentions, be\nwanting in it without knowing it; but not if I know it, sir.\"\n\nMr. Woodcourt again mentioned the address.\n\n\"Give me leave, sir,\" said Mr. Vholes. \"Bear with me for a moment.\nSir, Mr. C. is playing for a considerable stake, and cannot play\nwithout--need I say what?\"\n\n\"Money, I presume?\"\n\n\"Sir,\" said Mr. Vholes, \"to be honest with you (honesty being my\ngolden rule, whether I gain by it or lose, and I find that I\ngenerally lose), money is the word. Now, sir, upon the chances of Mr.\nC.'s game I express to you no opinion, NO opinion. It might be highly\nimpolitic in Mr. C., after playing so long and so high, to leave off;\nit might be the reverse; I say nothing. No, sir,\" said Mr. Vholes,\nbringing his hand flat down upon his desk in a positive manner,\n\"nothing.\"\n\n\"You seem to forget,\" returned Mr. Woodcourt, \"that I ask you to say\nnothing and have no interest in anything you say.\"\n\n\"Pardon me, sir!\" retorted Mr. Vholes. \"You do yourself an injustice.\nNo, sir! Pardon me! You shall not--shall not in my office, if I know\nit--do yourself an injustice. You are interested in anything, and in\neverything, that relates to your friend. I know human nature much\nbetter, sir, than to admit for an instant that a gentleman of your\nappearance is not interested in whatever concerns his friend.\"\n\n\"Well,\" replied Mr. Woodcourt, \"that may be. I am particularly\ninterested in his address.\"\n\n\"The number, sir,\" said Mr. Vholes parenthetically, \"I believe I have\nalready mentioned. If Mr. C. is to continue to play for this\nconsiderable stake, sir, he must have funds. Understand me! There are\nfunds in hand at present. I ask for nothing; there are funds in hand.\nBut for the onward play, more funds must be provided, unless Mr. C.\nis to throw away what he has already ventured, which is wholly and\nsolely a point for his consideration. This, sir, I take the\nopportunity of stating openly to you as the friend of Mr. C. Without\nfunds I shall always be happy to appear and act for Mr. C. to the\nextent of all such costs as are safe to be allowed out of the estate,\nnot beyond that. I could not go beyond that, sir, without wronging\nsome one. I must either wrong my three dear girls or my venerable\nfather, who is entirely dependent on me, in the Vale of Taunton; or\nsome one. Whereas, sir, my resolution is (call it weakness or folly\nif you please) to wrong no one.\"\n\nMr. Woodcourt rather sternly rejoined that he was glad to hear it.\n\n\"I wish, sir,\" said Mr. Vholes, \"to leave a good name behind me.\nTherefore I take every opportunity of openly stating to a friend of\nMr. C. how Mr. C. is situated. As to myself, sir, the labourer is\nworthy of his hire. If I undertake to put my shoulder to the wheel, I\ndo it, and I earn what I get. I am here for that purpose. My name is\npainted on the door outside, with that object.\"\n\n\"And Mr. Carstone's address, Mr. Vholes?\"\n\n\"Sir,\" returned Mr. Vholes, \"as I believe I have already mentioned,\nit is next door. On the second story you will find Mr. C.'s\napartments. Mr. C. desires to be near his professional adviser, and I\nam far from objecting, for I court inquiry.\"\n\nUpon this Mr. Woodcourt wished Mr. Vholes good day and went in search\nof Richard, the change in whose appearance he began to understand now\nbut too well.\n\nHe found him in a dull room, fadedly furnished, much as I had found\nhim in his barrack-room but a little while before, except that he was\nnot writing but was sitting with a book before him, from which his\neyes and thoughts were far astray. As the door chanced to be standing\nopen, Mr. Woodcourt was in his presence for some moments without\nbeing perceived, and he told me that he never could forget the\nhaggardness of his face and the dejection of his manner before he was\naroused from his dream.\n\n\"Woodcourt, my dear fellow,\" cried Richard, starting up with extended\nhands, \"you come upon my vision like a ghost.\"\n\n\"A friendly one,\" he replied, \"and only waiting, as they say ghosts\ndo, to be addressed. How does the mortal world go?\" They were seated\nnow, near together.\n\n\"Badly enough, and slowly enough,\" said Richard, \"speaking at least\nfor my part of it.\"\n\n\"What part is that?\"\n\n\"The Chancery part.\"\n\n\"I never heard,\" returned Mr. Woodcourt, shaking his head, \"of its\ngoing well yet.\"\n\n\"Nor I,\" said Richard moodily. \"Who ever did?\" He brightened again in\na moment and said with his natural openness, \"Woodcourt, I should be\nsorry to be misunderstood by you, even if I gained by it in your\nestimation. You must know that I have done no good this long time. I\nhave not intended to do much harm, but I seem to have been capable of\nnothing else. It may be that I should have done better by keeping out\nof the net into which my destiny has worked me, but I think not,\nthough I dare say you will soon hear, if you have not already heard,\na very different opinion. To make short of a long story, I am afraid\nI have wanted an object; but I have an object now--or it has me--and\nit is too late to discuss it. Take me as I am, and make the best of\nme.\"\n\n\"A bargain,\" said Mr. Woodcourt. \"Do as much by me in return.\"\n\n\"Oh! You,\" returned Richard, \"you can pursue your art for its own\nsake, and can put your hand upon the plough and never turn, and can\nstrike a purpose out of anything. You and I are very different\ncreatures.\"\n\nHe spoke regretfully and lapsed for a moment into his weary\ncondition.\n\n\"Well, well!\" he cried, shaking it off. \"Everything has an end. We\nshall see! So you will take me as I am, and make the best of me?\"\n\n\"Aye! Indeed I will.\" They shook hands upon it laughingly, but in\ndeep earnestness. I can answer for one of them with my heart of\nhearts.\n\n\"You come as a godsend,\" said Richard, \"for I have seen nobody here\nyet but Vholes. Woodcourt, there is one subject I should like to\nmention, for once and for all, in the beginning of our treaty. You\ncan hardly make the best of me if I don't. You know, I dare say, that\nI have an attachment to my cousin Ada?\"\n\nMr. Woodcourt replied that I had hinted as much to him. \"Now pray,\"\nreturned Richard, \"don't think me a heap of selfishness. Don't\nsuppose that I am splitting my head and half breaking my heart over\nthis miserable Chancery suit for my own rights and interests alone.\nAda's are bound up with mine; they can't be separated; Vholes works\nfor both of us. Do think of that!\"\n\nHe was so very solicitous on this head that Mr. Woodcourt gave him\nthe strongest assurances that he did him no injustice.\n\n\"You see,\" said Richard, with something pathetic in his manner of\nlingering on the point, though it was off-hand and unstudied, \"to an\nupright fellow like you, bringing a friendly face like yours here, I\ncannot bear the thought of appearing selfish and mean. I want to see\nAda righted, Woodcourt, as well as myself; I want to do my utmost to\nright her, as well as myself; I venture what I can scrape together to\nextricate her, as well as myself. Do, I beseech you, think of that!\"\n\nAfterwards, when Mr. Woodcourt came to reflect on what had passed, he\nwas so very much impressed by the strength of Richard's anxiety on\nthis point that in telling me generally of his first visit to\nSymond's Inn he particularly dwelt upon it. It revived a fear I had\nhad before that my dear girl's little property would be absorbed by\nMr. Vholes and that Richard's justification to himself would be\nsincerely this. It was just as I began to take care of Caddy that the\ninterview took place, and I now return to the time when Caddy had\nrecovered and the shade was still between me and my darling.\n\nI proposed to Ada that morning that we should go and see Richard. It\na little surprised me to find that she hesitated and was not so\nradiantly willing as I had expected.\n\n\"My dear,\" said I, \"you have not had any difference with Richard\nsince I have been so much away?\"\n\n\"No, Esther.\"\n\n\"Not heard of him, perhaps?\" said I.\n\n\"Yes, I have heard of him,\" said Ada.\n\nSuch tears in her eyes, and such love in her face. I could not make\nmy darling out. Should I go to Richard's by myself? I said. No, Ada\nthought I had better not go by myself. Would she go with me? Yes, Ada\nthought she had better go with me. Should we go now? Yes, let us go\nnow. Well, I could not understand my darling, with the tears in her\neyes and the love in her face!\n\nWe were soon equipped and went out. It was a sombre day, and drops of\nchill rain fell at intervals. It was one of those colourless days\nwhen everything looks heavy and harsh. The houses frowned at us, the\ndust rose at us, the smoke swooped at us, nothing made any compromise\nabout itself or wore a softened aspect. I fancied my beautiful girl\nquite out of place in the rugged streets, and I thought there were\nmore funerals passing along the dismal pavements than I had ever seen\nbefore.\n\nWe had first to find out Symond's Inn. We were going to inquire in a\nshop when Ada said she thought it was near Chancery Lane. \"We are not\nlikely to be far out, my love, if we go in that direction,\" said I.\nSo to Chancery Lane we went, and there, sure enough, we saw it\nwritten up. Symond's Inn.\n\nWe had next to find out the number. \"Or Mr. Vholes's office will do,\"\nI recollected, \"for Mr. Vholes's office is next door.\" Upon which Ada\nsaid, perhaps that was Mr. Vholes's office in the corner there. And\nit really was.\n\nThen came the question, which of the two next doors? I was going for\nthe one, and my darling was going for the other; and my darling was\nright again. So up we went to the second story, when we came to\nRichard's name in great white letters on a hearse-like panel.\n\nI should have knocked, but Ada said perhaps we had better turn the\nhandle and go in. Thus we came to Richard, poring over a table\ncovered with dusty bundles of papers which seemed to me like dusty\nmirrors reflecting his own mind. Wherever I looked I saw the ominous\nwords that ran in it repeated. Jarndyce and Jarndyce.\n\nHe received us very affectionately, and we sat down. \"If you had come\na little earlier,\" he said, \"you would have found Woodcourt here.\nThere never was such a good fellow as Woodcourt is. He finds time to\nlook in between-whiles, when anybody else with half his work to do\nwould be thinking about not being able to come. And he is so cheery,\nso fresh, so sensible, so earnest, so--everything that I am not, that\nthe place brightens whenever he comes, and darkens whenever he goes\nagain.\"\n\n\"God bless him,\" I thought, \"for his truth to me!\"\n\n\"He is not so sanguine, Ada,\" continued Richard, casting his dejected\nlook over the bundles of papers, \"as Vholes and I are usually, but he\nis only an outsider and is not in the mysteries. We have gone into\nthem, and he has not. He can't be expected to know much of such a\nlabyrinth.\"\n\nAs his look wandered over the papers again and he passed his two\nhands over his head, I noticed how sunken and how large his eyes\nappeared, how dry his lips were, and how his finger-nails were all\nbitten away.\n\n\"Is this a healthy place to live in, Richard, do you think?\" said I.\n\n\"Why, my dear Minerva,\" answered Richard with his old gay laugh, \"it\nis neither a rural nor a cheerful place; and when the sun shines\nhere, you may lay a pretty heavy wager that it is shining brightly in\nan open spot. But it's well enough for the time. It's near the\noffices and near Vholes.\"\n\n\"Perhaps,\" I hinted, \"a change from both--\"\n\n\"Might do me good?\" said Richard, forcing a laugh as he finished the\nsentence. \"I shouldn't wonder! But it can only come in one way\nnow--in one of two ways, I should rather say. Either the suit must be\nended, Esther, or the suitor. But it shall be the suit, my dear girl,\nthe suit, my dear girl!\"\n\nThese latter words were addressed to Ada, who was sitting nearest to\nhim. Her face being turned away from me and towards him, I could not\nsee it.\n\n\"We are doing very well,\" pursued Richard. \"Vholes will tell you so.\nWe are really spinning along. Ask Vholes. We are giving them no rest.\nVholes knows all their windings and turnings, and we are upon them\neverywhere. We have astonished them already. We shall rouse up that\nnest of sleepers, mark my words!\"\n\nHis hopefulness had long been more painful to me than his\ndespondency; it was so unlike hopefulness, had something so fierce in\nits determination to be it, was so hungry and eager, and yet so\nconscious of being forced and unsustainable that it had long touched\nme to the heart. But the commentary upon it now indelibly written in\nhis handsome face made it far more distressing than it used to be. I\nsay indelibly, for I felt persuaded that if the fatal cause could\nhave been for ever terminated, according to his brightest visions, in\nthat same hour, the traces of the premature anxiety, self-reproach,\nand disappointment it had occasioned him would have remained upon his\nfeatures to the hour of his death.\n\n\"The sight of our dear little woman,\" said Richard, Ada still\nremaining silent and quiet, \"is so natural to me, and her\ncompassionate face is so like the face of old days--\"\n\nAh! No, no. I smiled and shook my head.\n\n\"--So exactly like the face of old days,\" said Richard in his cordial\nvoice, and taking my hand with the brotherly regard which nothing\never changed, \"that I can't make pretences with her. I fluctuate a\nlittle; that's the truth. Sometimes I hope, my dear, and sometimes\nI--don't quite despair, but nearly. I get,\" said Richard,\nrelinquishing my hand gently and walking across the room, \"so tired!\"\n\nHe took a few turns up and down and sunk upon the sofa. \"I get,\" he\nrepeated gloomily, \"so tired. It is such weary, weary work!\"\n\nHe was leaning on his arm saying these words in a meditative voice\nand looking at the ground when my darling rose, put off her bonnet,\nkneeled down beside him with her golden hair falling like sunlight on\nhis head, clasped her two arms round his neck, and turned her face to\nme. Oh, what a loving and devoted face I saw!\n\n\"Esther, dear,\" she said very quietly, \"I am not going home again.\"\n\nA light shone in upon me all at once.\n\n\"Never any more. I am going to stay with my dear husband. We have\nbeen married above two months. Go home without me, my own Esther; I\nshall never go home any more!\" With those words my darling drew his\nhead down on her breast and held it there. And if ever in my life I\nsaw a love that nothing but death could change, I saw it then before\nme.\n\n\"Speak to Esther, my dearest,\" said Richard, breaking the silence\npresently. \"Tell her how it was.\"\n\nI met her before she could come to me and folded her in my arms. We\nneither of us spoke, but with her cheek against my own I wanted to\nhear nothing. \"My pet,\" said I. \"My love. My poor, poor girl!\" I\npitied her so much. I was very fond of Richard, but the impulse that\nI had upon me was to pity her so much.\n\n\"Esther, will you forgive me? Will my cousin John forgive me?\"\n\n\"My dear,\" said I, \"to doubt it for a moment is to do him a great\nwrong. And as to me!\" Why, as to me, what had I to forgive!\n\nI dried my sobbing darling's eyes and sat beside her on the sofa, and\nRichard sat on my other side; and while I was reminded of that so\ndifferent night when they had first taken me into their confidence\nand had gone on in their own wild happy way, they told me between\nthem how it was.\n\n\"All I had was Richard's,\" Ada said; \"and Richard would not take it,\nEsther, and what could I do but be his wife when I loved him dearly!\"\n\n\"And you were so fully and so kindly occupied, excellent Dame\nDurden,\" said Richard, \"that how could we speak to you at such a\ntime! And besides, it was not a long-considered step. We went out one\nmorning and were married.\"\n\n\"And when it was done, Esther,\" said my darling, \"I was always\nthinking how to tell you and what to do for the best. And sometimes I\nthought you ought to know it directly, and sometimes I thought you\nought not to know it and keep it from my cousin John; and I could not\ntell what to do, and I fretted very much.\"\n\nHow selfish I must have been not to have thought of this before! I\ndon't know what I said now. I was so sorry, and yet I was so fond of\nthem and so glad that they were fond of me; I pitied them so much,\nand yet I felt a kind of pride in their loving one another. I never\nhad experienced such painful and pleasurable emotion at one time, and\nin my own heart I did not know which predominated. But I was not\nthere to darken their way; I did not do that.\n\nWhen I was less foolish and more composed, my darling took her\nwedding-ring from her bosom, and kissed it, and put it on. Then I\nremembered last night and told Richard that ever since her marriage\nshe had worn it at night when there was no one to see. Then Ada\nblushingly asked me how did I know that, my dear. Then I told Ada how\nI had seen her hand concealed under her pillow and had little thought\nwhy, my dear. Then they began telling me how it was all over again,\nand I began to be sorry and glad again, and foolish again, and to\nhide my plain old face as much as I could lest I should put them out\nof heart.\n\nThus the time went on until it became necessary for me to think of\nreturning. When that time arrived it was the worst of all, for then\nmy darling completely broke down. She clung round my neck, calling me\nby every dear name she could think of and saying what should she do\nwithout me! Nor was Richard much better; and as for me, I should have\nbeen the worst of the three if I had not severely said to myself,\n\"Now Esther, if you do, I'll never speak to you again!\"\n\n\"Why, I declare,\" said I, \"I never saw such a wife. I don't think she\nloves her husband at all. Here, Richard, take my child, for goodness'\nsake.\" But I held her tight all the while, and could have wept over\nher I don't know how long.\n\n\"I give this dear young couple notice,\" said I, \"that I am only going\naway to come back to-morrow and that I shall be always coming\nbackwards and forwards until Symond's Inn is tired of the sight of\nme. So I shall not say good-bye, Richard. For what would be the use\nof that, you know, when I am coming back so soon!\"\n\nI had given my darling to him now, and I meant to go; but I lingered\nfor one more look of the precious face which it seemed to rive my\nheart to turn from.\n\nSo I said (in a merry, bustling manner) that unless they gave me some\nencouragement to come back, I was not sure that I could take that\nliberty, upon which my dear girl looked up, faintly smiling through\nher tears, and I folded her lovely face between my hands, and gave it\none last kiss, and laughed, and ran away.\n\nAnd when I got downstairs, oh, how I cried! It almost seemed to me\nthat I had lost my Ada for ever. I was so lonely and so blank without\nher, and it was so desolate to be going home with no hope of seeing\nher there, that I could get no comfort for a little while as I walked\nup and down in a dim corner sobbing and crying.\n\nI came to myself by and by, after a little scolding, and took a coach\nhome. The poor boy whom I had found at St. Albans had reappeared a\nshort time before and was lying at the point of death; indeed, was\nthen dead, though I did not know it. My guardian had gone out to\ninquire about him and did not return to dinner. Being quite alone, I\ncried a little again, though on the whole I don't think I behaved so\nvery, very ill.\n\nIt was only natural that I should not be quite accustomed to the loss\nof my darling yet. Three or four hours were not a long time after\nyears. But my mind dwelt so much upon the uncongenial scene in which\nI had left her, and I pictured it as such an overshadowed\nstony-hearted one, and I so longed to be near her and taking some\nsort of care of her, that I determined to go back in the evening only\nto look up at her windows.\n\nIt was foolish, I dare say, but it did not then seem at all so to me,\nand it does not seem quite so even now. I took Charley into my\nconfidence, and we went out at dusk. It was dark when we came to the\nnew strange home of my dear girl, and there was a light behind the\nyellow blinds. We walked past cautiously three or four times, looking\nup, and narrowly missed encountering Mr. Vholes, who came out of his\noffice while we were there and turned his head to look up too before\ngoing home. The sight of his lank black figure and the lonesome air\nof that nook in the dark were favourable to the state of my mind. I\nthought of the youth and love and beauty of my dear girl, shut up in\nsuch an ill-assorted refuge, almost as if it were a cruel place.\n\nIt was very solitary and very dull, and I did not doubt that I might\nsafely steal upstairs. I left Charley below and went up with a light\nfoot, not distressed by any glare from the feeble oil lanterns on the\nway. I listened for a few moments, and in the musty rotting silence\nof the house believed that I could hear the murmur of their young\nvoices. I put my lips to the hearse-like panel of the door as a kiss\nfor my dear and came quietly down again, thinking that one of these\ndays I would confess to the visit.\n\nAnd it really did me good, for though nobody but Charley and I knew\nanything about it, I somehow felt as if it had diminished the\nseparation between Ada and me and had brought us together again for\nthose moments. I went back, not quite accustomed yet to the change,\nbut all the better for that hovering about my darling.\n\nMy guardian had come home and was standing thoughtfully by the dark\nwindow. When I went in, his face cleared and he came to his seat, but\nhe caught the light upon my face as I took mine.\n\n\"Little woman,\" said he, \"You have been crying.\"\n\n\"Why, yes, guardian,\" said I, \"I am afraid I have been, a little. Ada\nhas been in such distress, and is so very sorry, guardian.\"\n\nI put my arm on the back of his chair, and I saw in his glance that\nmy words and my look at her empty place had prepared him.\n\n\"Is she married, my dear?\"\n\nI told him all about it and how her first entreaties had referred to\nhis forgiveness.\n\n\"She has no need of it,\" said he. \"Heaven bless her and her husband!\"\nBut just as my first impulse had been to pity her, so was his. \"Poor\ngirl, poor girl! Poor Rick! Poor Ada!\"\n\nNeither of us spoke after that, until he said with a sigh, \"Well,\nwell, my dear! Bleak House is thinning fast.\"\n\n\"But its mistress remains, guardian.\" Though I was timid about saying\nit, I ventured because of the sorrowful tone in which he had spoken.\n\"She will do all she can to make it happy,\" said I.\n\n\"She will succeed, my love!\"\n\nThe letter had made no difference between us except that the seat by\nhis side had come to be mine; it made none now. He turned his old\nbright fatherly look upon me, laid his hand on my hand in his old\nway, and said again, \"She will succeed, my dear. Nevertheless, Bleak\nHouse is thinning fast, O little woman!\"\n\nI was sorry presently that this was all we said about that. I was\nrather disappointed. I feared I might not quite have been all I had\nmeant to be since the letter and the answer.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LII\n\nObstinacy\n\n\nBut one other day had intervened when, early in the morning as we\nwere going to breakfast, Mr. Woodcourt came in haste with the\nastounding news that a terrible murder had been committed for which\nMr. George had been apprehended and was in custody. When he told us\nthat a large reward was offered by Sir Leicester Dedlock for the\nmurderer's apprehension, I did not in my first consternation\nunderstand why; but a few more words explained to me that the\nmurdered person was Sir Leicester's lawyer, and immediately my\nmother's dread of him rushed into my remembrance.\n\nThis unforeseen and violent removal of one whom she had long watched\nand distrusted and who had long watched and distrusted her, one for\nwhom she could have had few intervals of kindness, always dreading in\nhim a dangerous and secret enemy, appeared so awful that my first\nthoughts were of her. How appalling to hear of such a death and be\nable to feel no pity! How dreadful to remember, perhaps, that she had\nsometimes even wished the old man away who was so swiftly hurried out\nof life!\n\nSuch crowding reflections, increasing the distress and fear I always\nfelt when the name was mentioned, made me so agitated that I could\nscarcely hold my place at the table. I was quite unable to follow the\nconversation until I had had a little time to recover. But when I\ncame to myself and saw how shocked my guardian was and found that\nthey were earnestly speaking of the suspected man and recalling every\nfavourable impression we had formed of him out of the good we had\nknown of him, my interest and my fears were so strongly aroused in\nhis behalf that I was quite set up again.\n\n\"Guardian, you don't think it possible that he is justly accused?\"\n\n\"My dear, I CAN'T think so. This man whom we have seen so\nopen-hearted and compassionate, who with the might of a giant has the\ngentleness of a child, who looks as brave a fellow as ever lived and\nis so simple and quiet with it, this man justly accused of such a\ncrime? I can't believe it. It's not that I don't or I won't. I\ncan't!\"\n\n\"And I can't,\" said Mr. Woodcourt. \"Still, whatever we believe or\nknow of him, we had better not forget that some appearances are\nagainst him. He bore an animosity towards the deceased gentleman. He\nhas openly mentioned it in many places. He is said to have expressed\nhimself violently towards him, and he certainly did about him, to my\nknowledge. He admits that he was alone on the scene of the murder\nwithin a few minutes of its commission. I sincerely believe him to be\nas innocent of any participation in it as I am, but these are all\nreasons for suspicion falling upon him.\"\n\n\"True,\" said my guardian. And he added, turning to me, \"It would be\ndoing him a very bad service, my dear, to shut our eyes to the truth\nin any of these respects.\"\n\nI felt, of course, that we must admit, not only to ourselves but to\nothers, the full force of the circumstances against him. Yet I knew\nwithal (I could not help saying) that their weight would not induce\nus to desert him in his need.\n\n\"Heaven forbid!\" returned my guardian. \"We will stand by him, as he\nhimself stood by the two poor creatures who are gone.\" He meant Mr.\nGridley and the boy, to both of whom Mr. George had given shelter.\n\nMr. Woodcourt then told us that the trooper's man had been with him\nbefore day, after wandering about the streets all night like a\ndistracted creature. That one of the trooper's first anxieties was\nthat we should not suppose him guilty. That he had charged his\nmessenger to represent his perfect innocence with every solemn\nassurance he could send us. That Mr. Woodcourt had only quieted the\nman by undertaking to come to our house very early in the morning\nwith these representations. He added that he was now upon his way to\nsee the prisoner himself.\n\nMy guardian said directly he would go too. Now, besides that I liked\nthe retired soldier very much and that he liked me, I had that secret\ninterest in what had happened which was only known to my guardian. I\nfelt as if it came close and near to me. It seemed to become\npersonally important to myself that the truth should be discovered\nand that no innocent people should be suspected, for suspicion, once\nrun wild, might run wilder.\n\nIn a word, I felt as if it were my duty and obligation to go with\nthem. My guardian did not seek to dissuade me, and I went.\n\nIt was a large prison with many courts and passages so like one\nanother and so uniformly paved that I seemed to gain a new\ncomprehension, as I passed along, of the fondness that solitary\nprisoners, shut up among the same staring walls from year to year,\nhave had--as I have read--for a weed or a stray blade of grass. In an\narched room by himself, like a cellar upstairs, with walls so\nglaringly white that they made the massive iron window-bars and\niron-bound door even more profoundly black than they were, we found\nthe trooper standing in a corner. He had been sitting on a bench\nthere and had risen when he heard the locks and bolts turn.\n\nWhen he saw us, he came forward a step with his usual heavy tread,\nand there stopped and made a slight bow. But as I still advanced,\nputting out my hand to him, he understood us in a moment.\n\n\"This is a load off my mind, I do assure you, miss and gentlemen,\"\nsaid he, saluting us with great heartiness and drawing a long breath.\n\"And now I don't so much care how it ends.\"\n\nHe scarcely seemed to be the prisoner. What with his coolness and his\nsoldierly bearing, he looked far more like the prison guard.\n\n\"This is even a rougher place than my gallery to receive a lady in,\"\nsaid Mr. George, \"but I know Miss Summerson will make the best of\nit.\" As he handed me to the bench on which he had been sitting, I sat\ndown, which seemed to give him great satisfaction.\n\n\"I thank you, miss,\" said he.\n\n\"Now, George,\" observed my guardian, \"as we require no new assurances\non your part, so I believe we need give you none on ours.\"\n\n\"Not at all, sir. I thank you with all my heart. If I was not\ninnocent of this crime, I couldn't look at you and keep my secret to\nmyself under the condescension of the present visit. I feel the\npresent visit very much. I am not one of the eloquent sort, but I\nfeel it, Miss Summerson and gentlemen, deeply.\"\n\nHe laid his hand for a moment on his broad chest and bent his head to\nus. Although he squared himself again directly, he expressed a great\namount of natural emotion by these simple means.\n\n\"First,\" said my guardian, \"can we do anything for your personal\ncomfort, George?\"\n\n\"For which, sir?\" he inquired, clearing his throat.\n\n\"For your personal comfort. Is there anything you want that would\nlessen the hardship of this confinement?\"\n\n\"Well, sir,\" replied George, after a little cogitation, \"I am equally\nobliged to you, but tobacco being against the rules, I can't say that\nthere is.\"\n\n\"You will think of many little things perhaps, by and by. Whenever\nyou do, George, let us know.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir. Howsoever,\" observed Mr. George with one of his\nsunburnt smiles, \"a man who has been knocking about the world in a\nvagabond kind of a way as long as I have gets on well enough in a\nplace like the present, so far as that goes.\"\n\n\"Next, as to your case,\" observed my guardian.\n\n\"Exactly so, sir,\" returned Mr. George, folding his arms upon his\nbreast with perfect self-possession and a little curiosity.\n\n\"How does it stand now?\"\n\n\"Why, sir, it is under remand at present. Bucket gives me to\nunderstand that he will probably apply for a series of remands from\ntime to time until the case is more complete. How it is to be made\nmore complete I don't myself see, but I dare say Bucket will manage\nit somehow.\"\n\n\"Why, heaven save us, man,\" exclaimed my guardian, surprised into his\nold oddity and vehemence, \"you talk of yourself as if you were\nsomebody else!\"\n\n\"No offence, sir,\" said Mr. George. \"I am very sensible of your\nkindness. But I don't see how an innocent man is to make up his mind\nto this kind of thing without knocking his head against the walls\nunless he takes it in that point of view.\n\n\"That is true enough to a certain extent,\" returned my guardian,\nsoftened. \"But my good fellow, even an innocent man must take\nordinary precautions to defend himself.\"\n\n\"Certainly, sir. And I have done so. I have stated to the\nmagistrates, 'Gentlemen, I am as innocent of this charge as\nyourselves; what has been stated against me in the way of facts is\nperfectly true; I know no more about it.' I intend to continue\nstating that, sir. What more can I do? It's the truth.\"\n\n\"But the mere truth won't do,\" rejoined my guardian.\n\n\"Won't it indeed, sir? Rather a bad look-out for me!\" Mr. George\ngood-humouredly observed.\n\n\"You must have a lawyer,\" pursued my guardian. \"We must engage a good\none for you.\"\n\n\"I ask your pardon, sir,\" said Mr. George with a step backward. \"I am\nequally obliged. But I must decidedly beg to be excused from anything\nof that sort.\"\n\n\"You won't have a lawyer?\"\n\n\"No, sir.\" Mr. George shook his head in the most emphatic manner. \"I\nthank you all the same, sir, but--no lawyer!\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"I don't take kindly to the breed,\" said Mr. George. \"Gridley didn't.\nAnd--if you'll excuse my saying so much--I should hardly have thought\nyou did yourself, sir.\"\n\n\"That's equity,\" my guardian explained, a little at a loss; \"that's\nequity, George.\"\n\n\"Is it, indeed, sir?\" returned the trooper in his off-hand manner. \"I\nam not acquainted with those shades of names myself, but in a general\nway I object to the breed.\"\n\nUnfolding his arms and changing his position, he stood with one\nmassive hand upon the table and the other on his hip, as complete a\npicture of a man who was not to be moved from a fixed purpose as ever\nI saw. It was in vain that we all three talked to him and endeavoured\nto persuade him; he listened with that gentleness which went so well\nwith his bluff bearing, but was evidently no more shaken by our\nrepresentations that his place of confinement was.\n\n\"Pray think, once more, Mr. George,\" said I. \"Have you no wish in\nreference to your case?\"\n\n\"I certainly could wish it to be tried, miss,\" he returned, \"by\ncourt-martial; but that is out of the question, as I am well aware.\nIf you will be so good as to favour me with your attention for a\ncouple of minutes, miss, not more, I'll endeavour to explain myself\nas clearly as I can.\"\n\nHe looked at us all three in turn, shook his head a little as if he\nwere adjusting it in the stock and collar of a tight uniform, and\nafter a moment's reflection went on.\n\n\"You see, miss, I have been handcuffed and taken into custody and\nbrought here. I am a marked and disgraced man, and here I am. My\nshooting gallery is rummaged, high and low, by Bucket; such property\nas I have--'tis small--is turned this way and that till it don't know\nitself; and (as aforesaid) here I am! I don't particular complain of\nthat. Though I am in these present quarters through no immediately\npreceding fault of mine, I can very well understand that if I hadn't\ngone into the vagabond way in my youth, this wouldn't have happened.\nIt HAS happened. Then comes the question how to meet it.\"\n\nHe rubbed his swarthy forehead for a moment with a good-humoured look\nand said apologetically, \"I am such a short-winded talker that I must\nthink a bit.\" Having thought a bit, he looked up again and resumed.\n\n\"How to meet it. Now, the unfortunate deceased was himself a lawyer\nand had a pretty tight hold of me. I don't wish to rake up his ashes,\nbut he had, what I should call if he was living, a devil of a tight\nhold of me. I don't like his trade the better for that. If I had kept\nclear of his trade, I should have kept outside this place. But that's\nnot what I mean. Now, suppose I had killed him. Suppose I really had\ndischarged into his body any one of those pistols recently fired off\nthat Bucket has found at my place, and dear me, might have found\nthere any day since it has been my place. What should I have done as\nsoon as I was hard and fast here? Got a lawyer.\"\n\nHe stopped on hearing some one at the locks and bolts and did not\nresume until the door had been opened and was shut again. For what\npurpose opened, I will mention presently.\n\n\"I should have got a lawyer, and he would have said (as I have often\nread in the newspapers), 'My client says nothing, my client reserves\nhis defence': my client this, that, and t'other. Well, 'tis not the\ncustom of that breed to go straight, according to my opinion, or to\nthink that other men do. Say I am innocent and I get a lawyer. He\nwould be as likely to believe me guilty as not; perhaps more. What\nwould he do, whether or not? Act as if I was--shut my mouth up, tell\nme not to commit myself, keep circumstances back, chop the evidence\nsmall, quibble, and get me off perhaps! But, Miss Summerson, do I\ncare for getting off in that way; or would I rather be hanged in my\nown way--if you'll excuse my mentioning anything so disagreeable to a\nlady?\"\n\nHe had warmed into his subject now, and was under no further\nnecessity to wait a bit.\n\n\"I would rather be hanged in my own way. And I mean to be! I don't\nintend to say,\" looking round upon us with his powerful arms akimbo\nand his dark eyebrows raised, \"that I am more partial to being hanged\nthan another man. What I say is, I must come off clear and full or\nnot at all. Therefore, when I hear stated against me what is true, I\nsay it's true; and when they tell me, 'whatever you say will be\nused,' I tell them I don't mind that; I mean it to be used. If they\ncan't make me innocent out of the whole truth, they are not likely to\ndo it out of anything less, or anything else. And if they are, it's\nworth nothing to me.\"\n\nTaking a pace or two over the stone floor, he came back to the table\nand finished what he had to say.\n\n\"I thank you, miss and gentlemen both, many times for your attention,\nand many times more for your interest. That's the plain state of the\nmatter as it points itself out to a mere trooper with a blunt\nbroadsword kind of a mind. I have never done well in life beyond my\nduty as a soldier, and if the worst comes after all, I shall reap\npretty much as I have sown. When I got over the first crash of being\nseized as a murderer--it don't take a rover who has knocked about so\nmuch as myself so very long to recover from a crash--I worked my way\nround to what you find me now. As such I shall remain. No relations\nwill be disgraced by me or made unhappy for me, and--and that's all\nI've got to say.\"\n\nThe door had been opened to admit another soldier-looking man of less\nprepossessing appearance at first sight and a weather-tanned,\nbright-eyed wholesome woman with a basket, who, from her entrance,\nhad been exceedingly attentive to all Mr. George had said. Mr. George\nhad received them with a familiar nod and a friendly look, but\nwithout any more particular greeting in the midst of his address. He\nnow shook them cordially by the hand and said, \"Miss Summerson and\ngentlemen, this is an old comrade of mine, Matthew Bagnet. And this\nis his wife, Mrs. Bagnet.\"\n\nMr. Bagnet made us a stiff military bow, and Mrs. Bagnet dropped us a\ncurtsy.\n\n\"Real good friends of mine, they are,\" sald Mr. George. \"It was at\ntheir house I was taken.\"\n\n\"With a second-hand wiolinceller,\" Mr. Bagnet put in, twitching his\nhead angrily. \"Of a good tone. For a friend. That money was no object\nto.\"\n\n\"Mat,\" said Mr. George, \"you have heard pretty well all I have been\nsaying to this lady and these two gentlemen. I know it meets your\napproval?\"\n\nMr. Bagnet, after considering, referred the point to his wife. \"Old\ngirl,\" said he. \"Tell him. Whether or not. It meets my approval.\"\n\n\"Why, George,\" exclaimed Mrs. Bagnet, who had been unpacking her\nbasket, in which there was a piece of cold pickled pork, a little tea\nand sugar, and a brown loaf, \"you ought to know it don't. You ought\nto know it's enough to drive a person wild to hear you. You won't be\ngot off this way, and you won't be got off that way--what do you mean\nby such picking and choosing? It's stuff and nonsense, George.\"\n\n\"Don't be severe upon me in my misfortunes, Mrs. Bagnet,\" said the\ntrooper lightly.\n\n\"Oh! Bother your misfortunes,\" cried Mrs. Bagnet, \"if they don't make\nyou more reasonable than that comes to. I never was so ashamed in my\nlife to hear a man talk folly as I have been to hear you talk this\nday to the present company. Lawyers? Why, what but too many cooks\nshould hinder you from having a dozen lawyers if the gentleman\nrecommended them to you.\"\n\n\"This is a very sensible woman,\" said my guardian. \"I hope you will\npersuade him, Mrs. Bagnet.\"\n\n\"Persuade him, sir?\" she returned. \"Lord bless you, no. You don't\nknow George. Now, there!\" Mrs. Bagnet left her basket to point him\nout with both her bare brown hands. \"There he stands! As self-willed\nand as determined a man, in the wrong way, as ever put a human\ncreature under heaven out of patience! You could as soon take up and\nshoulder an eight and forty pounder by your own strength as turn that\nman when he has got a thing into his head and fixed it there. Why,\ndon't I know him!\" cried Mrs. Bagnet. \"Don't I know you, George! You\ndon't mean to set up for a new character with ME after all these\nyears, I hope?\"\n\nHer friendly indignation had an exemplary effect upon her husband,\nwho shook his head at the trooper several times as a silent\nrecommendation to him to yield. Between whiles, Mrs. Bagnet looked at\nme; and I understood from the play of her eyes that she wished me to\ndo something, though I did not comprehend what.\n\n\"But I have given up talking to you, old fellow, years and years,\"\nsaid Mrs. Bagnet as she blew a little dust off the pickled pork,\nlooking at me again; \"and when ladies and gentlemen know you as well\nas I do, they'll give up talking to you too. If you are not too\nheadstrong to accept of a bit of dinner, here it is.\"\n\n\"I accept it with many thanks,\" returned the trooper.\n\n\"Do you though, indeed?\" said Mrs. Bagnet, continuing to grumble on\ngood-humouredly. \"I'm sure I'm surprised at that. I wonder you don't\nstarve in your own way also. It would only be like you. Perhaps\nyou'll set your mind upon THAT next.\" Here she again looked at me,\nand I now perceived from her glances at the door and at me, by turns,\nthat she wished us to retire and to await her following us outside\nthe prison. Communicating this by similar means to my guardian and\nMr. Woodcourt, I rose.\n\n\"We hope you will think better of it, Mr. George,\" said I, \"and we\nshall come to see you again, trusting to find you more reasonable.\"\n\n\"More grateful, Miss Summerson, you can't find me,\" he returned.\n\n\"But more persuadable we can, I hope,\" said I. \"And let me entreat\nyou to consider that the clearing up of this mystery and the\ndiscovery of the real perpetrator of this deed may be of the last\nimportance to others besides yourself.\"\n\nHe heard me respectfully but without much heeding these words, which\nI spoke a little turned from him, already on my way to the door; he\nwas observing (this they afterwards told me) my height and figure,\nwhich seemed to catch his attention all at once.\n\n\"'Tis curious,\" said he. \"And yet I thought so at the time!\"\n\nMy guardian asked him what he meant.\n\n\"Why, sir,\" he answered, \"when my ill fortune took me to the dead\nman's staircase on the night of his murder, I saw a shape so like\nMiss Summerson's go by me in the dark that I had half a mind to speak\nto it.\"\n\nFor an instant I felt such a shudder as I never felt before or since\nand hope I shall never feel again.\n\n\"It came downstairs as I went up,\" said the trooper, \"and crossed the\nmoonlighted window with a loose black mantle on; I noticed a deep\nfringe to it. However, it has nothing to do with the present subject,\nexcepting that Miss Summerson looked so like it at the moment that it\ncame into my head.\"\n\nI cannot separate and define the feelings that arose in me after\nthis; it is enough that the vague duty and obligation I had felt upon\nme from the first of following the investigation was, without my\ndistinctly daring to ask myself any question, increased, and that I\nwas indignantly sure of there being no possibility of a reason for my\nbeing afraid.\n\nWe three went out of the prison and walked up and down at some short\ndistance from the gate, which was in a retired place. We had not\nwaited long when Mr. and Mrs. Bagnet came out too and quickly joined\nus.\n\nThere was a tear in each of Mrs. Bagnet's eyes, and her face was\nflushed and hurried. \"I didn't let George see what I thought about\nit, you know, miss,\" was her first remark when she came up, \"but he's\nin a bad way, poor old fellow!\"\n\n\"Not with care and prudence and good help,\" said my guardian.\n\n\"A gentleman like you ought to know best, sir,\" returned Mrs. Bagnet,\nhurriedly drying her eyes on the hem of her grey cloak, \"but I am\nuneasy for him. He has been so careless and said so much that he\nnever meant. The gentlemen of the juries might not understand him as\nLignum and me do. And then such a number of circumstances have\nhappened bad for him, and such a number of people will be brought\nforward to speak against him, and Bucket is so deep.\"\n\n\"With a second-hand wiolinceller. And said he played the fife. When a\nboy,\" Mr. Bagnet added with great solemnity.\n\n\"Now, I tell you, miss,\" said Mrs. Bagnet; \"and when I say miss, I\nmean all! Just come into the corner of the wall and I'll tell you!\"\n\nMrs. Bagnet hurried us into a more secluded place and was at first\ntoo breathless to proceed, occasioning Mr. Bagnet to say, \"Old girl!\nTell 'em!\"\n\n\"Why, then, miss,\" the old girl proceeded, untying the strings of her\nbonnet for more air, \"you could as soon move Dover Castle as move\nGeorge on this point unless you had got a new power to move him with.\nAnd I have got it!\"\n\n\"You are a jewel of a woman,\" said my guardian. \"Go on!\"\n\n\"Now, I tell you, miss,\" she proceeded, clapping her hands in her\nhurry and agitation a dozen times in every sentence, \"that what he\nsays concerning no relations is all bosh. They don't know of him, but\nhe does know of them. He has said more to me at odd times than to\nanybody else, and it warn't for nothing that he once spoke to my\nWoolwich about whitening and wrinkling mothers' heads. For fifty\npounds he had seen his mother that day. She's alive and must be\nbrought here straight!\"\n\nInstantly Mrs. Bagnet put some pins into her mouth and began pinning\nup her skirts all round a little higher than the level of her grey\ncloak, which she accomplished with surpassing dispatch and dexterity.\n\n\"Lignum,\" said Mrs. Bagnet, \"you take care of the children, old man,\nand give me the umbrella! I'm away to Lincolnshire to bring that old\nlady here.\"\n\n\"But, bless the woman,\" cried my guardian with his hand in his\npocket, \"how is she going? What money has she got?\"\n\nMrs. Bagnet made another application to her skirts and brought forth\na leathern purse in which she hastily counted over a few shillings\nand which she then shut up with perfect satisfaction.\n\n\"Never you mind for me, miss. I'm a soldier's wife and accustomed to\ntravel my own way. Lignum, old boy,\" kissing him, \"one for yourself,\nthree for the children. Now I'm away into Lincolnshire after George's\nmother!\"\n\nAnd she actually set off while we three stood looking at one another\nlost in amazement. She actually trudged away in her grey cloak at a\nsturdy pace, and turned the corner, and was gone.\n\n\"Mr. Bagnet,\" said my guardian. \"Do you mean to let her go in that\nway?\"\n\n\"Can't help it,\" he returned. \"Made her way home once from another\nquarter of the world. With the same grey cloak. And same umbrella.\nWhatever the old girl says, do. Do it! Whenever the old girl says,\nI'LL do it. She does it.\"\n\n\"Then she is as honest and genuine as she looks,\" rejoined my\nguardian, \"and it is impossible to say more for her.\"\n\n\"She's Colour-Sergeant of the Nonpareil battalion,\" said Mr. Bagnet,\nlooking at us over his shoulder as he went his way also. \"And there's\nnot such another. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must\nbe maintained.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LIII\n\nThe Track\n\n\nMr. Bucket and his fat forefinger are much in consultation together\nunder existing circumstances. When Mr. Bucket has a matter of this\npressing interest under his consideration, the fat forefinger seems\nto rise, to the dignity of a familiar demon. He puts it to his ears,\nand it whispers information; he puts it to his lips, and it enjoins\nhim to secrecy; he rubs it over his nose, and it sharpens his scent;\nhe shakes it before a guilty man, and it charms him to his\ndestruction. The Augurs of the Detective Temple invariably predict\nthat when Mr. Bucket and that finger are in much conference, a\nterrible avenger will be heard of before long.\n\nOtherwise mildly studious in his observation of human nature, on the\nwhole a benignant philosopher not disposed to be severe upon the\nfollies of mankind, Mr. Bucket pervades a vast number of houses and\nstrolls about an infinity of streets, to outward appearance rather\nlanguishing for want of an object. He is in the friendliest condition\ntowards his species and will drink with most of them. He is free with\nhis money, affable in his manners, innocent in his conversation--but\nthrough the placid stream of his life there glides an under-current\nof forefinger.\n\nTime and place cannot bind Mr. Bucket. Like man in the abstract, he\nis here to-day and gone to-morrow--but, very unlike man indeed, he is\nhere again the next day. This evening he will be casually looking\ninto the iron extinguishers at the door of Sir Leicester Dedlock's\nhouse in town; and to-morrow morning he will be walking on the leads\nat Chesney Wold, where erst the old man walked whose ghost is\npropitiated with a hundred guineas. Drawers, desks, pockets, all\nthings belonging to him, Mr. Bucket examines. A few hours afterwards,\nhe and the Roman will be alone together comparing forefingers.\n\nIt is likely that these occupations are irreconcilable with home\nenjoyment, but it is certain that Mr. Bucket at present does not go\nhome. Though in general he highly appreciates the society of Mrs.\nBucket--a lady of a natural detective genius, which if it had been\nimproved by professional exercise, might have done great things, but\nwhich has paused at the level of a clever amateur--he holds himself\naloof from that dear solace. Mrs. Bucket is dependent on their lodger\n(fortunately an amiable lady in whom she takes an interest) for\ncompanionship and conversation.\n\nA great crowd assembles in Lincoln's Inn Fields on the day of the\nfuneral. Sir Leicester Dedlock attends the ceremony in person;\nstrictly speaking, there are only three other human followers, that\nis to say, Lord Doodle, William Buffy, and the debilitated cousin\n(thrown in as a make-weight), but the amount of inconsolable\ncarriages is immense. The peerage contributes more four-wheeled\naffliction than has ever been seen in that neighbourhood. Such is the\nassemblage of armorial bearings on coach panels that the Herald's\nCollege might be supposed to have lost its father and mother at a\nblow. The Duke of Foodle sends a splendid pile of dust and ashes,\nwith silver wheel-boxes, patent axles, all the last improvements, and\nthree bereaved worms, six feet high, holding on behind, in a bunch of\nwoe. All the state coachmen in London seem plunged into mourning; and\nif that dead old man of the rusty garb be not beyond a taste in\nhorseflesh (which appears impossible), it must be highly gratified\nthis day.\n\nQuiet among the undertakers and the equipages and the calves of so\nmany legs all steeped in grief, Mr. Bucket sits concealed in one of\nthe inconsolable carriages and at his ease surveys the crowd through\nthe lattice blinds. He has a keen eye for a crowd--as for what\nnot?--and looking here and there, now from this side of the carriage,\nnow from the other, now up at the house windows, now along the\npeople's heads, nothing escapes him.\n\n\"And there you are, my partner, eh?\" says Mr. Bucket to himself,\napostrophizing Mrs. Bucket, stationed, by his favour, on the steps of\nthe deceased's house. \"And so you are. And so you are! And very well\nindeed you are looking, Mrs. Bucket!\"\n\nThe procession has not started yet, but is waiting for the cause of\nits assemblage to be brought out. Mr. Bucket, in the foremost\nemblazoned carriage, uses his two fat forefingers to hold the lattice\na hair's breadth open while he looks.\n\nAnd it says a great deal for his attachment, as a husband, that he is\nstill occupied with Mrs. B. \"There you are, my partner, eh?\" he\nmurmuringly repeats. \"And our lodger with you. I'm taking notice of\nyou, Mrs. Bucket; I hope you're all right in your health, my dear!\"\n\nNot another word does Mr. Bucket say, but sits with most attentive\neyes until the sacked depository of noble secrets is brought\ndown--Where are all those secrets now? Does he keep them yet? Did\nthey fly with him on that sudden journey?--and until the procession\nmoves, and Mr. Bucket's view is changed. After which he composes\nhimself for an easy ride and takes note of the fittings of the\ncarriage in case he should ever find such knowledge useful.\n\nContrast enough between Mr. Tulkinghorn shut up in his dark carriage\nand Mr. Bucket shut up in HIS. Between the immeasurable track of\nspace beyond the little wound that has thrown the one into the fixed\nsleep which jolts so heavily over the stones of the streets, and the\nnarrow track of blood which keeps the other in the watchful state\nexpressed in every hair of his head! But it is all one to both;\nneither is troubled about that.\n\nMr. Bucket sits out the procession in his own easy manner and glides\nfrom the carriage when the opportunity he has settled with himself\narrives. He makes for Sir Leicester Dedlock's, which is at present a\nsort of home to him, where he comes and goes as he likes at all\nhours, where he is always welcome and made much of, where he knows\nthe whole establishment, and walks in an atmosphere of mysterious\ngreatness.\n\nNo knocking or ringing for Mr. Bucket. He has caused himself to be\nprovided with a key and can pass in at his pleasure. As he is\ncrossing the hall, Mercury informs him, \"Here's another letter for\nyou, Mr. Bucket, come by post,\" and gives it him.\n\n\"Another one, eh?\" says Mr. Bucket.\n\nIf Mercury should chance to be possessed by any lingering curiosity\nas to Mr. Bucket's letters, that wary person is not the man to\ngratify it. Mr. Bucket looks at him as if his face were a vista of\nsome miles in length and he were leisurely contemplating the same.\n\n\"Do you happen to carry a box?\" says Mr. Bucket.\n\nUnfortunately Mercury is no snuff-taker.\n\n\"Could you fetch me a pinch from anywheres?\" says Mr. Bucket.\n\"Thankee. It don't matter what it is; I'm not particular as to the\nkind. Thankee!\"\n\nHaving leisurely helped himself from a canister borrowed from\nsomebody downstairs for the purpose, and having made a considerable\nshow of tasting it, first with one side of his nose and then with the\nother, Mr. Bucket, with much deliberation, pronounces it of the right\nsort and goes on, letter in hand.\n\nNow although Mr. Bucket walks upstairs to the little library within\nthe larger one with the face of a man who receives some scores of\nletters every day, it happens that much correspondence is not\nincidental to his life. He is no great scribe, rather handling his\npen like the pocket-staff he carries about with him always convenient\nto his grasp, and discourages correspondence with himself in others\nas being too artless and direct a way of doing delicate business.\nFurther, he often sees damaging letters produced in evidence and has\noccasion to reflect that it was a green thing to write them. For\nthese reasons he has very little to do with letters, either as sender\nor receiver. And yet he has received a round half-dozen within the\nlast twenty-four hours.\n\n\"And this,\" says Mr. Bucket, spreading it out on the table, \"is in\nthe same hand, and consists of the same two words.\"\n\nWhat two words?\n\nHe turns the key in the door, ungirdles his black pocket-book (book\nof fate to many), lays another letter by it, and reads, boldly\nwritten in each, \"Lady Dedlock.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" says Mr. Bucket. \"But I could have made the money without\nthis anonymous information.\"\n\nHaving put the letters in his book of fate and girdled it up again,\nhe unlocks the door just in time to admit his dinner, which is\nbrought upon a goodly tray with a decanter of sherry. Mr. Bucket\nfrequently observes, in friendly circles where there is no restraint,\nthat he likes a toothful of your fine old brown East Inder sherry\nbetter than anything you can offer him. Consequently he fills and\nempties his glass with a smack of his lips and is proceeding with his\nrefreshment when an idea enters his mind.\n\nMr. Bucket softly opens the door of communication between that room\nand the next and looks in. The library is deserted, and the fire is\nsinking low. Mr. Bucket's eye, after taking a pigeon-flight round the\nroom, alights upon a table where letters are usually put as they\narrive. Several letters for Sir Leicester are upon it. Mr. Bucket\ndraws near and examines the directions. \"No,\" he says, \"there's none\nin that hand. It's only me as is written to. I can break it to Sir\nLeicester Dedlock, Baronet, to-morrow.\"\n\nWith that he returns to finish his dinner with a good appetite, and\nafter a light nap, is summoned into the drawing-room. Sir Leicester\nhas received him there these several evenings past to know whether he\nhas anything to report. The debilitated cousin (much exhausted by the\nfuneral) and Volumnia are in attendance.\n\nMr. Bucket makes three distinctly different bows to these three\npeople. A bow of homage to Sir Leicester, a bow of gallantry to\nVolumnia, and a bow of recognition to the debilitated Cousin, to whom\nit airily says, \"You are a swell about town, and you know me, and I\nknow you.\" Having distributed these little specimens of his tact, Mr.\nBucket rubs his hands.\n\n\"Have you anything new to communicate, officer?\" inquires Sir\nLeicester. \"Do you wish to hold any conversation with me in private?\"\n\n\"Why--not to-night, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet.\"\n\n\"Because my time,\" pursues Sir Leicester, \"is wholly at your disposal\nwith a view to the vindication of the outraged majesty of the law.\"\n\nMr. Bucket coughs and glances at Volumnia, rouged and necklaced, as\nthough he would respectfully observe, \"I do assure you, you're a\npretty creetur. I've seen hundreds worse looking at your time of\nlife, I have indeed.\"\n\nThe fair Volumnia, not quite unconscious perhaps of the humanizing\ninfluence of her charms, pauses in the writing of cocked-hat notes\nand meditatively adjusts the pearl necklace. Mr. Bucket prices that\ndecoration in his mind and thinks it as likely as not that Volumnia\nis writing poetry.\n\n\"If I have not,\" pursues Sir Leicester, \"in the most emphatic manner,\nadjured you, officer, to exercise your utmost skill in this atrocious\ncase, I particularly desire to take the present opportunity of\nrectifying any omission I may have made. Let no expense be a\nconsideration. I am prepared to defray all charges. You can incur\nnone in pursuit of the object you have undertaken that I shall\nhesitate for a moment to bear.\"\n\nMr. Bucket made Sir Leicester's bow again as a response to this\nliberality.\n\n\"My mind,\" Sir Leicester adds with a generous warmth, \"has not, as\nmay be easily supposed, recovered its tone since the late diabolical\noccurrence. It is not likely ever to recover its tone. But it is full\nof indignation to-night after undergoing the ordeal of consigning to\nthe tomb the remains of a faithful, a zealous, a devoted adherent.\"\n\nSir Leicester's voice trembles and his grey hair stirs upon his head.\nTears are in his eyes; the best part of his nature is aroused.\n\n\"I declare,\" he says, \"I solemnly declare that until this crime is\ndiscovered and, in the course of justice, punished, I almost feel as\nif there were a stain upon my name. A gentleman who has devoted a\nlarge portion of his life to me, a gentleman who has devoted the last\nday of his life to me, a gentleman who has constantly sat at my table\nand slept under my roof, goes from my house to his own, and is struck\ndown within an hour of his leaving my house. I cannot say but that he\nmay have been followed from my house, watched at my house, even first\nmarked because of his association with my house--which may have\nsuggested his possessing greater wealth and being altogether of\ngreater importance than his own retiring demeanour would have\nindicated. If I cannot with my means and influence and my position\nbring all the perpetrators of such a crime to light, I fail in the\nassertion of my respect for that gentleman's memory and of my\nfidelity towards one who was ever faithful to me.\"\n\nWhile he makes this protestation with great emotion and earnestness,\nlooking round the room as if he were addressing an assembly, Mr.\nBucket glances at him with an observant gravity in which there might\nbe, but for the audacity of the thought, a touch of compassion.\n\n\"The ceremony of to-day,\" continues Sir Leicester, \"strikingly\nillustrative of the respect in which my deceased friend\"--he lays a\nstress upon the word, for death levels all distinctions--\"was held by\nthe flower of the land, has, I say, aggravated the shock I have\nreceived from this most horrible and audacious crime. If it were my\nbrother who had committed it, I would not spare him.\"\n\nMr. Bucket looks very grave. Volumnia remarks of the deceased that he\nwas the trustiest and dearest person!\n\n\"You must feel it as a deprivation to you, miss,\" replies Mr. Bucket\nsoothingly, \"no doubt. He was calculated to BE a deprivation, I'm\nsure he was.\"\n\nVolumnia gives Mr. Bucket to understand, in reply, that her sensitive\nmind is fully made up never to get the better of it as long as she\nlives, that her nerves are unstrung for ever, and that she has not\nthe least expectation of ever smiling again. Meanwhile she folds up a\ncocked hat for that redoubtable old general at Bath, descriptive of\nher melancholy condition.\n\n\"It gives a start to a delicate female,\" says Mr. Bucket\nsympathetically, \"but it'll wear off.\"\n\nVolumnia wishes of all things to know what is doing? Whether they are\ngoing to convict, or whatever it is, that dreadful soldier? Whether\nhe had any accomplices, or whatever the thing is called in the law?\nAnd a great deal more to the like artless purpose.\n\n\"Why you see, miss,\" returns Mr. Bucket, bringing the finger into\npersuasive action--and such is his natural gallantry that he had\nalmost said \"my dear\"--\"it ain't easy to answer those questions at\nthe present moment. Not at the present moment. I've kept myself on\nthis case, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,\" whom Mr. Bucket takes\ninto the conversation in right of his importance, \"morning, noon, and\nnight. But for a glass or two of sherry, I don't think I could have\nhad my mind so much upon the stretch as it has been. I COULD answer\nyour questions, miss, but duty forbids it. Sir Leicester Dedlock,\nBaronet, will very soon be made acquainted with all that has been\ntraced. And I hope that he may find it\"--Mr. Bucket again looks\ngrave--\"to his satisfaction.\"\n\nThe debilitated cousin only hopes some fler'll be executed--zample.\nThinks more interest's wanted--get man hanged presentime--than get\nman place ten thousand a year. Hasn't a doubt--zample--far better\nhang wrong fler than no fler.\n\n\"YOU know life, you know, sir,\" says Mr. Bucket with a complimentary\ntwinkle of his eye and crook of his finger, \"and you can confirm what\nI've mentioned to this lady. YOU don't want to be told that from\ninformation I have received I have gone to work. You're up to what a\nlady can't be expected to be up to. Lord! Especially in your elevated\nstation of society, miss,\" says Mr. Bucket, quite reddening at\nanother narrow escape from \"my dear.\"\n\n\"The officer, Volumnia,\" observes Sir Leicester, \"is faithful to his\nduty, and perfectly right.\"\n\nMr. Bucket murmurs, \"Glad to have the honour of your approbation, Sir\nLeicester Dedlock, Baronet.\"\n\n\"In fact, Volumnia,\" proceeds Sir Leicester, \"it is not holding up a\ngood model for imitation to ask the officer any such questions as you\nhave put to him. He is the best judge of his own responsibility; he\nacts upon his responsibility. And it does not become us, who assist\nin making the laws, to impede or interfere with those who carry them\ninto execution. Or,\" says Sir Leicester somewhat sternly, for\nVolumnia was going to cut in before he had rounded his sentence, \"or\nwho vindicate their outraged majesty.\"\n\nVolumnia with all humility explains that she had not merely the plea\nof curiosity to urge (in common with the giddy youth of her sex in\ngeneral) but that she is perfectly dying with regret and interest for\nthe darling man whose loss they all deplore.\n\n\"Very well, Volumnia,\" returns Sir Leicester. \"Then you cannot be too\ndiscreet.\"\n\nMr. Bucket takes the opportunity of a pause to be heard again.\n\n\"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I have no objections to telling this\nlady, with your leave and among ourselves, that I look upon the case\nas pretty well complete. It is a beautiful case--a beautiful\ncase--and what little is wanting to complete it, I expect to be able\nto supply in a few hours.\"\n\n\"I am very glad indeed to hear it,\" says Sir Leicester. \"Highly\ncreditable to you.\"\n\n\"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,\" returns Mr. Bucket very seriously,\n\"I hope it may at one and the same time do me credit and prove\nsatisfactory to all. When I depict it as a beautiful case, you see,\nmiss,\" Mr. Bucket goes on, glancing gravely at Sir Leicester, \"I mean\nfrom my point of view. As considered from other points of view, such\ncases will always involve more or less unpleasantness. Very strange\nthings comes to our knowledge in families, miss; bless your heart,\nwhat you would think to be phenomenons, quite.\"\n\nVolumnia, with her innocent little scream, supposes so.\n\n\"Aye, and even in gen-teel families, in high families, in great\nfamilies,\" says Mr. Bucket, again gravely eyeing Sir Leicester aside.\n\"I have had the honour of being employed in high families before, and\nyou have no idea--come, I'll go so far as to say not even YOU have\nany idea, sir,\" this to the debilitated cousin, \"what games goes on!\"\n\nThe cousin, who has been casting sofa-pillows on his head, in a\nprostration of boredom yawns, \"Vayli,\" being the used-up for \"very\nlikely.\"\n\nSir Leicester, deeming it time to dismiss the officer, here\nmajestically interposes with the words, \"Very good. Thank you!\" and\nalso with a wave of his hand, implying not only that there is an end\nof the discourse, but that if high families fall into low habits they\nmust take the consequences. \"You will not forget, officer,\" he adds\nwith condescension, \"that I am at your disposal when you please.\"\n\nMr. Bucket (still grave) inquires if to-morrow morning, now, would\nsuit, in case he should be as for'ard as he expects to be. Sir\nLeicester replies, \"All times are alike to me.\" Mr. Bucket makes his\nthree bows and is withdrawing when a forgotten point occurs to him.\n\n\"Might I ask, by the by,\" he says in a low voice, cautiously\nreturning, \"who posted the reward-bill on the staircase.\"\n\n\"I ordered it to be put up there,\" replies Sir Leicester.\n\n\"Would it be considered a liberty, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, if\nI was to ask you why?\"\n\n\"Not at all. I chose it as a conspicuous part of the house. I think\nit cannot be too prominently kept before the whole establishment. I\nwish my people to be impressed with the enormity of the crime, the\ndetermination to punish it, and the hopelessness of escape. At the\nsame time, officer, if you in your better knowledge of the subject\nsee any objection--\"\n\nMr. Bucket sees none now; the bill having been put up, had better not\nbe taken down. Repeating his three bows he withdraws, closing the\ndoor on Volumnia's little scream, which is a preliminary to her\nremarking that that charmingly horrible person is a perfect Blue\nChamber.\n\nIn his fondness for society and his adaptability to all grades, Mr.\nBucket is presently standing before the hall-fire--bright and warm on\nthe early winter night--admiring Mercury.\n\n\"Why, you're six foot two, I suppose?\" says Mr. Bucket.\n\n\"Three,\" says Mercury.\n\n\"Are you so much? But then, you see, you're broad in proportion and\ndon't look it. You're not one of the weak-legged ones, you ain't. Was\nyou ever modelled now?\" Mr. Bucket asks, conveying the expression of\nan artist into the turn of his eye and head.\n\nMercury never was modelled.\n\n\"Then you ought to be, you know,\" says Mr. Bucket; \"and a friend of\nmine that you'll hear of one day as a Royal Academy sculptor would\nstand something handsome to make a drawing of your proportions for\nthe marble. My Lady's out, ain't she?\"\n\n\"Out to dinner.\"\n\n\"Goes out pretty well every day, don't she?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Not to be wondered at!\" says Mr. Bucket. \"Such a fine woman as her,\nso handsome and so graceful and so elegant, is like a fresh lemon on\na dinner-table, ornamental wherever she goes. Was your father in the\nsame way of life as yourself?\"\n\nAnswer in the negative.\n\n\"Mine was,\" says Mr. Bucket. \"My father was first a page, then a\nfootman, then a butler, then a steward, then an inn-keeper. Lived\nuniversally respected, and died lamented. Said with his last breath\nthat he considered service the most honourable part of his career,\nand so it was. I've a brother in service, AND a brother-in-law. My\nLady a good temper?\"\n\nMercury replies, \"As good as you can expect.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" says Mr. Bucket. \"A little spoilt? A little capricious? Lord!\nWhat can you anticipate when they're so handsome as that? And we like\n'em all the better for it, don't we?\"\n\nMercury, with his hands in the pockets of his bright peach-blossom\nsmall-clothes, stretches his symmetrical silk legs with the air of a\nman of gallantry and can't deny it. Come the roll of wheels and a\nviolent ringing at the bell. \"Talk of the angels,\" says Mr. Bucket.\n\"Here she is!\"\n\nThe doors are thrown open, and she passes through the hall. Still\nvery pale, she is dressed in slight mourning and wears two beautiful\nbracelets. Either their beauty or the beauty of her arms is\nparticularly attractive to Mr. Bucket. He looks at them with an eager\neye and rattles something in his pocket--halfpence perhaps.\n\nNoticing him at his distance, she turns an inquiring look on the\nother Mercury who has brought her home.\n\n\"Mr. Bucket, my Lady.\"\n\nMr. Bucket makes a leg and comes forward, passing his familiar demon\nover the region of his mouth.\n\n\"Are you waiting to see Sir Leicester?\"\n\n\"No, my Lady, I've seen him!\"\n\n\"Have you anything to say to me?\"\n\n\"Not just at present, my Lady.\"\n\n\"Have you made any new discoveries?\"\n\n\"A few, my Lady.\"\n\nThis is merely in passing. She scarcely makes a stop, and sweeps\nupstairs alone. Mr. Bucket, moving towards the staircase-foot,\nwatches her as she goes up the steps the old man came down to his\ngrave, past murderous groups of statuary repeated with their shadowy\nweapons on the wall, past the printed bill, which she looks at going\nby, out of view.\n\n\"She's a lovely woman, too, she really is,\" says Mr. Bucket, coming\nback to Mercury. \"Don't look quite healthy though.\"\n\nIs not quite healthy, Mercury informs him. Suffers much from\nheadaches.\n\nReally? That's a pity! Walking, Mr. Bucket would recommend for that.\nWell, she tries walking, Mercury rejoins. Walks sometimes for two\nhours when she has them bad. By night, too.\n\n\"Are you sure you're quite so much as six foot three?\" asks Mr.\nBucket. \"Begging your pardon for interrupting you a moment?\"\n\nNot a doubt about it.\n\n\"You're so well put together that I shouldn't have thought it. But\nthe household troops, though considered fine men, are built so\nstraggling. Walks by night, does she? When it's moonlight, though?\"\n\nOh, yes. When it's moonlight! Of course. Oh, of course!\nConversational and acquiescent on both sides.\n\n\"I suppose you ain't in the habit of walking yourself?\" says Mr.\nBucket. \"Not much time for it, I should say?\"\n\nBesides which, Mercury don't like it. Prefers carriage exercise.\n\n\"To be sure,\" says Mr. Bucket. \"That makes a difference. Now I think\nof it,\" says Mr. Bucket, warming his hands and looking pleasantly at\nthe blaze, \"she went out walking the very night of this business.\"\n\n\"To be sure she did! I let her into the garden over the way.\"\n\n\"And left her there. Certainly you did. I saw you doing it.\"\n\n\"I didn't see YOU,\" says Mercury.\n\n\"I was rather in a hurry,\" returns Mr. Bucket, \"for I was going to\nvisit a aunt of mine that lives at Chelsea--next door but two to the\nold original Bun House--ninety year old the old lady is, a single\nwoman, and got a little property. Yes, I chanced to be passing at the\ntime. Let's see. What time might it be? It wasn't ten.\"\n\n\"Half-past nine.\"\n\n\"You're right. So it was. And if I don't deceive myself, my Lady was\nmuffled in a loose black mantle, with a deep fringe to it?\"\n\n\"Of course she was.\"\n\nOf course she was. Mr. Bucket must return to a little work he has to\nget on with upstairs, but he must shake hands with Mercury in\nacknowledgment of his agreeable conversation, and will he--this is\nall he asks--will he, when he has a leisure half-hour, think of\nbestowing it on that Royal Academy sculptor, for the advantage of\nboth parties?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LIV\n\nSpringing a Mine\n\n\nRefreshed by sleep, Mr. Bucket rises betimes in the morning and\nprepares for a field-day. Smartened up by the aid of a clean shirt\nand a wet hairbrush, with which instrument, on occasions of ceremony,\nhe lubricates such thin locks as remain to him after his life of\nsevere study, Mr. Bucket lays in a breakfast of two mutton chops as a\nfoundation to work upon, together with tea, eggs, toast, and\nmarmalade on a corresponding scale. Having much enjoyed these\nstrengthening matters and having held subtle conference with his\nfamiliar demon, he confidently instructs Mercury \"just to mention\nquietly to Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, that whenever he's ready\nfor me, I'm ready for him.\" A gracious message being returned that\nSir Leicester will expedite his dressing and join Mr. Bucket in the\nlibrary within ten minutes, Mr. Bucket repairs to that apartment and\nstands before the fire with his finger on his chin, looking at the\nblazing coals.\n\nThoughtful Mr. Bucket is, as a man may be with weighty work to do,\nbut composed, sure, confident. From the expression of his face he\nmight be a famous whist-player for a large stake--say a hundred\nguineas certain--with the game in his hand, but with a high\nreputation involved in his playing his hand out to the last card in a\nmasterly way. Not in the least anxious or disturbed is Mr. Bucket\nwhen Sir Leicester appears, but he eyes the baronet aside as he comes\nslowly to his easy-chair with that observant gravity of yesterday in\nwhich there might have been yesterday, but for the audacity of the\nidea, a touch of compassion.\n\n\"I am sorry to have kept you waiting, officer, but I am rather later\nthan my usual hour this morning. I am not well. The agitation and the\nindignation from which I have recently suffered have been too much\nfor me. I am subject to--gout\"--Sir Leicester was going to say\nindisposition and would have said it to anybody else, but Mr. Bucket\npalpably knows all about it--\"and recent circumstances have brought\nit on.\"\n\nAs he takes his seat with some difficulty and with an air of pain,\nMr. Bucket draws a little nearer, standing with one of his large\nhands on the library-table.\n\n\"I am not aware, officer,\" Sir Leicester observes; raising his eyes\nto his face, \"whether you wish us to be alone, but that is entirely\nas you please. If you do, well and good. If not, Miss Dedlock would\nbe interested--\"\n\n\"Why, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,\" returns Mr. Bucket with his\nhead persuasively on one side and his forefinger pendant at one ear\nlike an earring, \"we can't be too private just at present. You will\npresently see that we can't be too private. A lady, under the\ncircumstances, and especially in Miss Dedlock's elevated station of\nsociety, can't but be agreeable to me, but speaking without a view to\nmyself, I will take the liberty of assuring you that I know we can't\nbe too private.\"\n\n\"That is enough.\"\n\n\"So much so, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,\" Mr. Bucket resumes,\n\"that I was on the point of asking your permission to turn the key in\nthe door.\"\n\n\"By all means.\" Mr. Bucket skilfully and softly takes that\nprecaution, stooping on his knee for a moment from mere force of\nhabit so to adjust the key in the lock as that no one shall peep in\nfrom the outerside.\n\n\"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I mentioned yesterday evening that I\nwanted but a very little to complete this case. I have now completed\nit and collected proof against the person who did this crime.\"\n\n\"Against the soldier?\"\n\n\"No, Sir Leicester Dedlock; not the soldier.\"\n\nSir Leicester looks astounded and inquires, \"Is the man in custody?\"\n\nMr. Bucket tells him, after a pause, \"It was a woman.\"\n\nSir Leicester leans back in his chair, and breathlessly ejaculates,\n\"Good heaven!\"\n\n\"Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,\" Mr. Bucket begins, standing\nover him with one hand spread out on the library-table and the\nforefinger of the other in impressive use, \"it's my duty to prepare\nyou for a train of circumstances that may, and I go so far as to say\nthat will, give you a shock. But Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, you\nare a gentleman, and I know what a gentleman is and what a gentleman\nis capable of. A gentleman can bear a shock when it must come, boldly\nand steadily. A gentleman can make up his mind to stand up against\nalmost any blow. Why, take yourself, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet.\nIf there's a blow to be inflicted on you, you naturally think of your\nfamily. You ask yourself, how would all them ancestors of yours, away\nto Julius Caesar--not to go beyond him at present--have borne that\nblow; you remember scores of them that would have borne it well; and\nyou bear it well on their accounts, and to maintain the family\ncredit. That's the way you argue, and that's the way you act, Sir\nLeicester Dedlock, Baronet.\"\n\nSir Leicester, leaning back in his chair and grasping the elbows,\nsits looking at him with a stony face.\n\n\"Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock,\" proceeds Mr. Bucket, \"thus preparing\nyou, let me beg of you not to trouble your mind for a moment as to\nanything having come to MY knowledge. I know so much about so many\ncharacters, high and low, that a piece of information more or less\ndon't signify a straw. I don't suppose there's a move on the board\nthat would surprise ME, and as to this or that move having taken\nplace, why my knowing it is no odds at all, any possible move\nwhatever (provided it's in a wrong direction) being a probable move\naccording to my experience. Therefore, what I say to you, Sir\nLeicester Dedlock, Baronet, is, don't you go and let yourself be put\nout of the way because of my knowing anything of your family\naffairs.\"\n\n\"I thank you for your preparation,\" returns Sir Leicester after a\nsilence, without moving hand, foot, or feature, \"which I hope is not\nnecessary; though I give it credit for being well intended. Be so\ngood as to go on. Also\"--Sir Leicester seems to shrink in the shadow\nof his figure--\"also, to take a seat, if you have no objection.\"\n\nNone at all. Mr. Bucket brings a chair and diminishes his shadow.\n\"Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, with this short preface I come\nto the point. Lady Dedlock--\"\n\nSir Leicester raises himself in his seat and stares at him fiercely.\nMr. Bucket brings the finger into play as an emollient.\n\n\"Lady Dedlock, you see she's universally admired. That's what her\nladyship is; she's universally admired,\" says Mr. Bucket.\n\n\"I would greatly prefer, officer,\" Sir Leicester returns stiffly, \"my\nLady's name being entirely omitted from this discussion.\"\n\n\"So would I, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, but--it's impossible.\"\n\n\"Impossible?\"\n\nMr. Bucket shakes his relentless head.\n\n\"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it's altogether impossible. What I\nhave got to say is about her ladyship. She is the pivot it all turns\non.\"\n\n\"Officer,\" retorts Sir Leicester with a fiery eye and a quivering\nlip, \"you know your duty. Do your duty, but be careful not to\noverstep it. I would not suffer it. I would not endure it. You bring\nmy Lady's name into this communication upon your responsibility--upon\nyour responsibility. My Lady's name is not a name for common persons\nto trifle with!\"\n\n\"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I say what I must say, and no more.\"\n\n\"I hope it may prove so. Very well. Go on. Go on, sir!\" Glancing at\nthe angry eyes which now avoid him and at the angry figure trembling\nfrom head to foot, yet striving to be still, Mr. Bucket feels his way\nwith his forefinger and in a low voice proceeds.\n\n\"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it becomes my duty to tell you that\nthe deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn long entertained mistrusts and\nsuspicions of Lady Dedlock.\"\n\n\"If he had dared to breathe them to me, sir--which he never did--I\nwould have killed him myself!\" exclaims Sir Leicester, striking his\nhand upon the table. But in the very heat and fury of the act he\nstops, fixed by the knowing eyes of Mr. Bucket, whose forefinger is\nslowly going and who, with mingled confidence and patience, shakes\nhis head.\n\n\"Sir Leicester Dedlock, the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn was deep and\nclose, and what he fully had in his mind in the very beginning I\ncan't quite take upon myself to say. But I know from his lips that he\nlong ago suspected Lady Dedlock of having discovered, through the\nsight of some handwriting--in this very house, and when you yourself,\nSir Leicester Dedlock, were present--the existence, in great poverty,\nof a certain person who had been her lover before you courted her and\nwho ought to have been her husband.\" Mr. Bucket stops and\ndeliberately repeats, \"Ought to have been her husband, not a doubt\nabout it. I know from his lips that when that person soon afterwards\ndied, he suspected Lady Dedlock of visiting his wretched lodging and\nhis wretched grave, alone and in secret. I know from my own inquiries\nand through my eyes and ears that Lady Dedlock did make such visit in\nthe dress of her own maid, for the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn employed\nme to reckon up her ladyship--if you'll excuse my making use of the\nterm we commonly employ--and I reckoned her up, so far, completely. I\nconfronted the maid in the chambers in Lincoln's Inn Fields with a\nwitness who had been Lady Dedlock's guide, and there couldn't be the\nshadow of a doubt that she had worn the young woman's dress, unknown\nto her. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I did endeavour to pave the\nway a little towards these unpleasant disclosures yesterday by saying\nthat very strange things happened even in high families sometimes.\nAll this, and more, has happened in your own family, and to and\nthrough your own Lady. It's my belief that the deceased Mr.\nTulkinghorn followed up these inquiries to the hour of his death and\nthat he and Lady Dedlock even had bad blood between them upon the\nmatter that very night. Now, only you put that to Lady Dedlock, Sir\nLeicester Dedlock, Baronet, and ask her ladyship whether, even after\nhe had left here, she didn't go down to his chambers with the\nintention of saying something further to him, dressed in a loose\nblack mantle with a deep fringe to it.\"\n\nSir Leicester sits like a statue, gazing at the cruel finger that is\nprobing the life-blood of his heart.\n\n\"You put that to her ladyship, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, from\nme, Inspector Bucket of the Detective. And if her ladyship makes any\ndifficulty about admitting of it, you tell her that it's no use, that\nInspector Bucket knows it and knows that she passed the soldier as\nyou called him (though he's not in the army now) and knows that she\nknows she passed him on the staircase. Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock,\nBaronet, why do I relate all this?\"\n\nSir Leicester, who has covered his face with his hands, uttering a\nsingle groan, requests him to pause for a moment. By and by he takes\nhis hands away, and so preserves his dignity and outward calmness,\nthough there is no more colour in his face than in his white hair,\nthat Mr. Bucket is a little awed by him. Something frozen and fixed\nis upon his manner, over and above its usual shell of haughtiness,\nand Mr. Bucket soon detects an unusual slowness in his speech, with\nnow and then a curious trouble in beginning, which occasions him to\nutter inarticulate sounds. With such sounds he now breaks silence,\nsoon, however, controlling himself to say that he does not comprehend\nwhy a gentleman so faithful and zealous as the late Mr. Tulkinghorn\nshould have communicated to him nothing of this painful, this\ndistressing, this unlooked-for, this overwhelming, this incredible\nintelligence.\n\n\"Again, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,\" returns Mr. Bucket, \"put it\nto her ladyship to clear that up. Put it to her ladyship, if you\nthink it right, from Inspector Bucket of the Detective. You'll find,\nor I'm much mistaken, that the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn had the\nintention of communicating the whole to you as soon as he considered\nit ripe, and further, that he had given her ladyship so to\nunderstand. Why, he might have been going to reveal it the very\nmorning when I examined the body! You don't know what I'm going to\nsay and do five minutes from this present time, Sir Leicester\nDedlock, Baronet; and supposing I was to be picked off now, you might\nwonder why I hadn't done it, don't you see?\"\n\nTrue. Sir Leicester, avoiding, with some trouble those obtrusive\nsounds, says, \"True.\" At this juncture a considerable noise of voices\nis heard in the hall. Mr. Bucket, after listening, goes to the\nlibrary-door, softly unlocks and opens it, and listens again. Then he\ndraws in his head and whispers hurriedly but composedly, \"Sir\nLeicester Dedlock, Baronet, this unfortunate family affair has taken\nair, as I expected it might, the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn being cut\ndown so sudden. The chance to hush it is to let in these people now\nin a wrangle with your footmen. Would you mind sitting quiet--on the\nfamily account--while I reckon 'em up? And would you just throw in a\nnod when I seem to ask you for it?\"\n\nSir Leicester indistinctly answers, \"Officer. The best you can, the\nbest you can!\" and Mr. Bucket, with a nod and a sagacious crook of\nthe forefinger, slips down into the hall, where the voices quickly\ndie away. He is not long in returning; a few paces ahead of Mercury\nand a brother deity also powdered and in peach-blossomed smalls, who\nbear between them a chair in which is an incapable old man. Another\nman and two women come behind. Directing the pitching of the chair in\nan affable and easy manner, Mr. Bucket dismisses the Mercuries and\nlocks the door again. Sir Leicester looks on at this invasion of the\nsacred precincts with an icy stare.\n\n\"Now, perhaps you may know me, ladies and gentlemen,\" says Mr. Bucket\nin a confidential voice. \"I am Inspector Bucket of the Detective, I\nam; and this,\" producing the tip of his convenient little staff from\nhis breast-pocket, \"is my authority. Now, you wanted to see Sir\nLeicester Dedlock, Baronet. Well! You do see him, and mind you, it\nain't every one as is admitted to that honour. Your name, old\ngentleman, is Smallweed; that's what your name is; I know it well.\"\n\n\"Well, and you never heard any harm of it!\" cries Mr. Smallweed in a\nshrill loud voice.\n\n\"You don't happen to know why they killed the pig, do you?\" retorts\nMr. Bucket with a steadfast look, but without loss of temper.\n\n\"No!\"\n\n\"Why, they killed him,\" says Mr. Bucket, \"on account of his having so\nmuch cheek. Don't YOU get into the same position, because it isn't\nworthy of you. You ain't in the habit of conversing with a deaf\nperson, are you?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" snarls Mr. Smallweed, \"my wife's deaf.\"\n\n\"That accounts for your pitching your voice so high. But as she ain't\nhere; just pitch it an octave or two lower, will you, and I'll not\nonly be obliged to you, but it'll do you more credit,\" says Mr.\nBucket. \"This other gentleman is in the preaching line, I think?\"\n\n\"Name of Chadband,\" Mr. Smallweed puts in, speaking henceforth in a\nmuch lower key.\n\n\"Once had a friend and brother serjeant of the same name,\" says Mr.\nBucket, offering his hand, \"and consequently feel a liking for it.\nMrs. Chadband, no doubt?\"\n\n\"And Mrs. Snagsby,\" Mr. Smallweed introduces.\n\n\"Husband a law-stationer and a friend of my own,\" says Mr. Bucket.\n\"Love him like a brother! Now, what's up?\"\n\n\"Do you mean what business have we come upon?\" Mr. Smallweed asks, a\nlittle dashed by the suddenness of this turn.\n\n\"Ah! You know what I mean. Let us hear what it's all about in\npresence of Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. Come.\"\n\nMr. Smallweed, beckoning Mr. Chadband, takes a moment's counsel with\nhim in a whisper. Mr. Chadband, expressing a considerable amount of\noil from the pores of his forehead and the palms of his hands, says\naloud, \"Yes. You first!\" and retires to his former place.\n\n\"I was the client and friend of Mr. Tulkinghorn,\" pipes Grandfather\nSmallweed then; \"I did business with him. I was useful to him, and he\nwas useful to me. Krook, dead and gone, was my brother-in-law. He was\nown brother to a brimstone magpie--leastways Mrs. Smallweed. I come\ninto Krook's property. I examined all his papers and all his effects.\nThey was all dug out under my eyes. There was a bundle of letters\nbelonging to a dead and gone lodger as was hid away at the back of a\nshelf in the side of Lady Jane's bed--his cat's bed. He hid all\nmanner of things away, everywheres. Mr. Tulkinghorn wanted 'em and\ngot 'em, but I looked 'em over first. I'm a man of business, and I\ntook a squint at 'em. They was letters from the lodger's sweetheart,\nand she signed Honoria. Dear me, that's not a common name, Honoria,\nis it? There's no lady in this house that signs Honoria is there? Oh,\nno, I don't think so! Oh, no, I don't think so! And not in the same\nhand, perhaps? Oh, no, I don't think so!\"\n\nHere Mr. Smallweed, seized with a fit of coughing in the midst of his\ntriumph, breaks off to ejaculate, \"Oh, dear me! Oh, Lord! I'm shaken\nall to pieces!\"\n\n\"Now, when you're ready,\" says Mr. Bucket after awaiting his\nrecovery, \"to come to anything that concerns Sir Leicester Dedlock,\nBaronet, here the gentleman sits, you know.\"\n\n\"Haven't I come to it, Mr. Bucket?\" cries Grandfather Smallweed.\n\"Isn't the gentleman concerned yet? Not with Captain Hawdon, and his\never affectionate Honoria, and their child into the bargain? Come,\nthen, I want to know where those letters are. That concerns me, if it\ndon't concern Sir Leicester Dedlock. I will know where they are. I\nwon't have 'em disappear so quietly. I handed 'em over to my friend\nand solicitor, Mr. Tulkinghorn, not to anybody else.\"\n\n\"Why, he paid you for them, you know, and handsome too,\" says Mr.\nBucket.\n\n\"I don't care for that. I want to know who's got 'em. And I tell you\nwhat we want--what we all here want, Mr. Bucket. We want more\npainstaking and search-making into this murder. We know where the\ninterest and the motive was, and you have not done enough. If George\nthe vagabond dragoon had any hand in it, he was only an accomplice,\nand was set on. You know what I mean as well as any man.\"\n\n\"Now I tell you what,\" says Mr. Bucket, instantaneously altering his\nmanner, coming close to him, and communicating an extraordinary\nfascination to the forefinger, \"I am damned if I am a-going to have\nmy case spoilt, or interfered with, or anticipated by so much as half\na second of time by any human being in creation. YOU want more\npainstaking and search-making! YOU do? Do you see this hand, and do\nyou think that I don't know the right time to stretch it out and put\nit on the arm that fired that shot?\"\n\nSuch is the dread power of the man, and so terribly evident it is\nthat he makes no idle boast, that Mr. Smallweed begins to apologize.\nMr. Bucket, dismissing his sudden anger, checks him.\n\n\"The advice I give you is, don't you trouble your head about the\nmurder. That's my affair. You keep half an eye on the newspapers, and\nI shouldn't wonder if you was to read something about it before long,\nif you look sharp. I know my business, and that's all I've got to say\nto you on that subject. Now about those letters. You want to know\nwho's got 'em. I don't mind telling you. I have got 'em. Is that the\npacket?\"\n\nMr. Smallweed looks, with greedy eyes, at the little bundle Mr.\nBucket produces from a mysterious part of his coat, and identifies it\nas the same.\n\n\"What have you got to say next?\" asks Mr. Bucket. \"Now, don't open\nyour mouth too wide, because you don't look handsome when you do it.\"\n\n\"I want five hundred pound.\"\n\n\"No, you don't; you mean fifty,\" says Mr. Bucket humorously.\n\nIt appears, however, that Mr. Smallweed means five hundred.\n\n\"That is, I am deputed by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to consider\n(without admitting or promising anything) this bit of business,\" says\nMr. Bucket--Sir Leicester mechanically bows his head--\"and you ask me\nto consider a proposal of five hundred pounds. Why, it's an\nunreasonable proposal! Two fifty would be bad enough, but better than\nthat. Hadn't you better say two fifty?\"\n\nMr. Smallweed is quite clear that he had better not.\n\n\"Then,\" says Mr. Bucket, \"let's hear Mr. Chadband. Lord! Many a time\nI've heard my old fellow-serjeant of that name; and a moderate man he\nwas in all respects, as ever I come across!\"\n\nThus invited, Mr. Chadband steps forth, and after a little sleek\nsmiling and a little oil-grinding with the palms of his hands,\ndelivers himself as follows, \"My friends, we are now--Rachael, my\nwife, and I--in the mansions of the rich and great. Why are we now in\nthe mansions of the rich and great, my friends? Is it because we are\ninvited? Because we are bidden to feast with them, because we are\nbidden to rejoice with them, because we are bidden to play the lute\nwith them, because we are bidden to dance with them? No. Then why are\nwe here, my friends? Air we in possession of a sinful secret, and do\nwe require corn, and wine, and oil, or what is much the same thing,\nmoney, for the keeping thereof? Probably so, my friends.\"\n\n\"You're a man of business, you are,\" returns Mr. Bucket, very\nattentive, \"and consequently you're going on to mention what the\nnature of your secret is. You are right. You couldn't do better.\"\n\n\"Let us then, my brother, in a spirit of love,\" says Mr. Chadband\nwith a cunning eye, \"proceed unto it. Rachael, my wife, advance!\"\n\nMrs. Chadband, more than ready, so advances as to jostle her husband\ninto the background and confronts Mr. Bucket with a hard, frowning\nsmile.\n\n\"Since you want to know what we know,\" says she, \"I'll tell you. I\nhelped to bring up Miss Hawdon, her ladyship's daughter. I was in the\nservice of her ladyship's sister, who was very sensitive to the\ndisgrace her ladyship brought upon her, and gave out, even to her\nladyship, that the child was dead--she WAS very nearly so--when she\nwas born. But she's alive, and I know her.\" With these words, and a\nlaugh, and laying a bitter stress on the word \"ladyship,\" Mrs.\nChadband folds her arms and looks implacably at Mr. Bucket.\n\n\"I suppose now,\" returns that officer, \"YOU will be expecting a\ntwenty-pound note or a present of about that figure?\"\n\nMrs. Chadband merely laughs and contemptuously tells him he can\n\"offer\" twenty pence.\n\n\"My friend the law-stationer's good lady, over there,\" says Mr.\nBucket, luring Mrs. Snagsby forward with the finger. \"What may YOUR\ngame be, ma'am?\"\n\nMrs. Snagsby is at first prevented, by tears and lamentations, from\nstating the nature of her game, but by degrees it confusedly comes to\nlight that she is a woman overwhelmed with injuries and wrongs, whom\nMr. Snagsby has habitually deceived, abandoned, and sought to keep in\ndarkness, and whose chief comfort, under her afflictions, has been\nthe sympathy of the late Mr. Tulkinghorn, who showed so much\ncommiseration for her on one occasion of his calling in Cook's Court\nin the absence of her perjured husband that she has of late\nhabitually carried to him all her woes. Everybody it appears, the\npresent company excepted, has plotted against Mrs. Snagsby's peace.\nThere is Mr. Guppy, clerk to Kenge and Carboy, who was at first as\nopen as the sun at noon, but who suddenly shut up as close as\nmidnight, under the influence--no doubt--of Mr. Snagsby's suborning\nand tampering. There is Mr. Weevle, friend of Mr. Guppy, who lived\nmysteriously up a court, owing to the like coherent causes. There was\nKrook, deceased; there was Nimrod, deceased; and there was Jo,\ndeceased; and they were \"all in it.\" In what, Mrs. Snagsby does not\nwith particularity express, but she knows that Jo was Mr. Snagsby's\nson, \"as well as if a trumpet had spoken it,\" and she followed Mr.\nSnagsby when he went on his last visit to the boy, and if he was not\nhis son why did he go? The one occupation of her life has been, for\nsome time back, to follow Mr. Snagsby to and fro, and up and down,\nand to piece suspicious circumstances together--and every\ncircumstance that has happened has been most suspicious; and in this\nway she has pursued her object of detecting and confounding her false\nhusband, night and day. Thus did it come to pass that she brought the\nChadbands and Mr. Tulkinghorn together, and conferred with Mr.\nTulkinghorn on the change in Mr. Guppy, and helped to turn up the\ncircumstances in which the present company are interested, casually,\nby the wayside, being still and ever on the great high road that is\nto terminate in Mr. Snagsby's full exposure and a matrimonial\nseparation. All this, Mrs. Snagsby, as an injured woman, and the\nfriend of Mrs. Chadband, and the follower of Mr. Chadband, and the\nmourner of the late Mr. Tulkinghorn, is here to certify under the\nseal of confidence, with every possible confusion and involvement\npossible and impossible, having no pecuniary motive whatever, no\nscheme or project but the one mentioned, and bringing here, and\ntaking everywhere, her own dense atmosphere of dust, arising from the\nceaseless working of her mill of jealousy.\n\nWhile this exordium is in hand--and it takes some time--Mr. Bucket,\nwho has seen through the transparency of Mrs. Snagsby's vinegar at a\nglance, confers with his familiar demon and bestows his shrewd\nattention on the Chadbands and Mr. Smallweed. Sir Leicester Dedlock\nremains immovable, with the same icy surface upon him, except that he\nonce or twice looks towards Mr. Bucket, as relying on that officer\nalone of all mankind.\n\n\"Very good,\" says Mr. Bucket. \"Now I understand you, you know, and\nbeing deputed by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to look into this\nlittle matter,\" again Sir Leicester mechanically bows in confirmation\nof the statement, \"can give it my fair and full attention. Now I\nwon't allude to conspiring to extort money or anything of that sort,\nbecause we are men and women of the world here, and our object is to\nmake things pleasant. But I tell you what I DO wonder at; I am\nsurprised that you should think of making a noise below in the hall.\nIt was so opposed to your interests. That's what I look at.\"\n\n\"We wanted to get in,\" pleads Mr. Smallweed.\n\n\"Why, of course you wanted to get in,\" Mr. Bucket asserts with\ncheerfulness; \"but for a old gentleman at your time of life--what I\ncall truly venerable, mind you!--with his wits sharpened, as I have\nno doubt they are, by the loss of the use of his limbs, which\noccasions all his animation to mount up into his head, not to\nconsider that if he don't keep such a business as the present as\nclose as possible it can't be worth a mag to him, is so curious! You\nsee your temper got the better of you; that's where you lost ground,\"\nsays Mr. Bucket in an argumentative and friendly way.\n\n\"I only said I wouldn't go without one of the servants came up to Sir\nLeicester Dedlock,\" returns Mr. Smallweed.\n\n\"That's it! That's where your temper got the better of you. Now, you\nkeep it under another time and you'll make money by it. Shall I ring\nfor them to carry you down?\"\n\n\"When are we to hear more of this?\" Mrs. Chadband sternly demands.\n\n\"Bless your heart for a true woman! Always curious, your delightful\nsex is!\" replies Mr. Bucket with gallantry. \"I shall have the\npleasure of giving you a call to-morrow or next day--not forgetting\nMr. Smallweed and his proposal of two fifty.\"\n\n\"Five hundred!\" exclaims Mr. Smallweed.\n\n\"All right! Nominally five hundred.\" Mr. Bucket has his hand on the\nbell-rope. \"SHALL I wish you good day for the present on the part of\nmyself and the gentleman of the house?\" he asks in an insinuating\ntone.\n\nNobody having the hardihood to object to his doing so, he does it,\nand the party retire as they came up. Mr. Bucket follows them to the\ndoor, and returning, says with an air of serious business, \"Sir\nLeicester Dedlock, Baronet, it's for you to consider whether or not\nto buy this up. I should recommend, on the whole, it's being bought\nup myself; and I think it may be bought pretty cheap. You see, that\nlittle pickled cowcumber of a Mrs. Snagsby has been used by all sides\nof the speculation and has done a deal more harm in bringing odds and\nends together than if she had meant it. Mr. Tulkinghorn, deceased, he\nheld all these horses in his hand and could have drove 'em his own\nway, I haven't a doubt; but he was fetched off the box head-foremost,\nand now they have got their legs over the traces, and are all\ndragging and pulling their own ways. So it is, and such is life. The\ncat's away, and the mice they play; the frost breaks up, and the\nwater runs. Now, with regard to the party to be apprehended.\"\n\nSir Leicester seems to wake, though his eyes have been wide open, and\nhe looks intently at Mr. Bucket as Mr. Bucket refers to his watch.\n\n\"The party to be apprehended is now in this house,\" proceeds Mr.\nBucket, putting up his watch with a steady hand and with rising\nspirits, \"and I'm about to take her into custody in your presence.\nSir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, don't you say a word nor yet stir.\nThere'll be no noise and no disturbance at all. I'll come back in the\ncourse of the evening, if agreeable to you, and endeavour to meet\nyour wishes respecting this unfortunate family matter and the\nnobbiest way of keeping it quiet. Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock,\nBaronet, don't you be nervous on account of the apprehension at\npresent coming off. You shall see the whole case clear, from first to\nlast.\"\n\nMr. Bucket rings, goes to the door, briefly whispers Mercury, shuts\nthe door, and stands behind it with his arms folded. After a suspense\nof a minute or two the door slowly opens and a Frenchwoman enters.\nMademoiselle Hortense.\n\nThe moment she is in the room Mr. Bucket claps the door to and puts\nhis back against it. The suddenness of the noise occasions her to\nturn, and then for the first time she sees Sir Leicester Dedlock in\nhis chair.\n\n\"I ask you pardon,\" she mutters hurriedly. \"They tell me there was no\none here.\"\n\nHer step towards the door brings her front to front with Mr. Bucket.\nSuddenly a spasm shoots across her face and she turns deadly pale.\n\n\"This is my lodger, Sir Leicester Dedlock,\" says Mr. Bucket, nodding\nat her. \"This foreign young woman has been my lodger for some weeks\nback.\"\n\n\"What do Sir Leicester care for that, you think, my angel?\" returns\nmademoiselle in a jocular strain.\n\n\"Why, my angel,\" returns Mr. Bucket, \"we shall see.\"\n\nMademoiselle Hortense eyes him with a scowl upon her tight face,\nwhich gradually changes into a smile of scorn, \"You are very\nmysterieuse. Are you drunk?\"\n\n\"Tolerable sober, my angel,\" returns Mr. Bucket.\n\n\"I come from arriving at this so detestable house with your wife.\nYour wife have left me since some minutes. They tell me downstairs\nthat your wife is here. I come here, and your wife is not here. What\nis the intention of this fool's play, say then?\" mademoiselle\ndemands, with her arms composedly crossed, but with something in her\ndark cheek beating like a clock.\n\nMr. Bucket merely shakes the finger at her.\n\n\"Ah, my God, you are an unhappy idiot!\" cries mademoiselle with a\ntoss of her head and a laugh. \"Leave me to pass downstairs, great\npig.\" With a stamp of her foot and a menace.\n\n\"Now, mademoiselle,\" says Mr. Bucket in a cool determined way, \"you\ngo and sit down upon that sofy.\"\n\n\"I will not sit down upon nothing,\" she replies with a shower of\nnods.\n\n\"Now, mademoiselle,\" repeats Mr. Bucket, making no demonstration\nexcept with the finger, \"you sit down upon that sofy.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because I take you into custody on a charge of murder, and you don't\nneed to be told it. Now, I want to be polite to one of your sex and a\nforeigner if I can. If I can't, I must be rough, and there's rougher\nones outside. What I am to be depends on you. So I recommend you, as\na friend, afore another half a blessed moment has passed over your\nhead, to go and sit down upon that sofy.\"\n\nMademoiselle complies, saying in a concentrated voice while that\nsomething in her cheek beats fast and hard, \"You are a devil.\"\n\n\"Now, you see,\" Mr. Bucket proceeds approvingly, \"you're comfortable\nand conducting yourself as I should expect a foreign young woman of\nyour sense to do. So I'll give you a piece of advice, and it's this,\ndon't you talk too much. You're not expected to say anything here,\nand you can't keep too quiet a tongue in your head. In short, the\nless you PARLAY, the better, you know.\" Mr. Bucket is very complacent\nover this French explanation.\n\nMademoiselle, with that tigerish expansion of the mouth and her black\neyes darting fire upon him, sits upright on the sofa in a rigid\nstate, with her hands clenched--and her feet too, one might\nsuppose--muttering, \"Oh, you Bucket, you are a devil!\"\n\n\"Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,\" says Mr. Bucket, and from this\ntime forth the finger never rests, \"this young woman, my lodger, was\nher ladyship's maid at the time I have mentioned to you; and this\nyoung woman, besides being extraordinary vehement and passionate\nagainst her ladyship after being discharged--\"\n\n\"Lie!\" cries mademoiselle. \"I discharge myself.\"\n\n\"Now, why don't you take my advice?\" returns Mr. Bucket in an\nimpressive, almost in an imploring, tone. \"I'm surprised at the\nindiscreetness you commit. You'll say something that'll be used\nagainst you, you know. You're sure to come to it. Never you mind what\nI say till it's given in evidence. It is not addressed to you.\"\n\n\"Discharge, too,\" cries mademoiselle furiously, \"by her ladyship! Eh,\nmy faith, a pretty ladyship! Why, I r-r-r-ruin my character by\nremaining with a ladyship so infame!\"\n\n\"Upon my soul I wonder at you!\" Mr. Bucket remonstrates. \"I thought\nthe French were a polite nation, I did, really. Yet to hear a female\ngoing on like that before Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet!\"\n\n\"He is a poor abused!\" cries mademoiselle. \"I spit upon his house,\nupon his name, upon his imbecility,\" all of which she makes the\ncarpet represent. \"Oh, that he is a great man! Oh, yes, superb! Oh,\nheaven! Bah!\"\n\n\"Well, Sir Leicester Dedlock,\" proceeds Mr. Bucket, \"this intemperate\nforeigner also angrily took it into her head that she had established\na claim upon Mr. Tulkinghorn, deceased, by attending on the occasion\nI told you of at his chambers, though she was liberally paid for her\ntime and trouble.\"\n\n\"Lie!\" cries mademoiselle. \"I ref-use his money all togezzer.\"\n\n\"If you WILL PARLAY, you know,\" says Mr. Bucket parenthetically, \"you\nmust take the consequences. Now, whether she became my lodger, Sir\nLeicester Dedlock, with any deliberate intention then of doing this\ndeed and blinding me, I give no opinion on; but she lived in my house\nin that capacity at the time that she was hovering about the chambers\nof the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn with a view to a wrangle, and\nlikewise persecuting and half frightening the life out of an\nunfortunate stationer.\"\n\n\"Lie!\" cries mademoiselle. \"All lie!\"\n\n\"The murder was committed, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and you\nknow under what circumstances. Now, I beg of you to follow me close\nwith your attention for a minute or two. I was sent for, and the case\nwas entrusted to me. I examined the place, and the body, and the\npapers, and everything. From information I received (from a clerk in\nthe same house) I took George into custody as having been seen\nhanging about there on the night, and at very nigh the time of the\nmurder, also as having been overheard in high words with the deceased\non former occasions--even threatening him, as the witness made out.\nIf you ask me, Sir Leicester Dedlock, whether from the first I\nbelieved George to be the murderer, I tell you candidly no, but he\nmight be, notwithstanding, and there was enough against him to make\nit my duty to take him and get him kept under remand. Now, observe!\"\n\nAs Mr. Bucket bends forward in some excitement--for him--and\ninaugurates what he is going to say with one ghostly beat of his\nforefinger in the air, Mademoiselle Hortense fixes her black eyes\nupon him with a dark frown and sets her dry lips closely and firmly\ntogether.\n\n\"I went home, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, at night and found this\nyoung woman having supper with my wife, Mrs. Bucket. She had made a\nmighty show of being fond of Mrs. Bucket from her first offering\nherself as our lodger, but that night she made more than ever--in\nfact, overdid it. Likewise she overdid her respect, and all that, for\nthe lamented memory of the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn. By the living\nLord it flashed upon me, as I sat opposite to her at the table and\nsaw her with a knife in her hand, that she had done it!\"\n\nMademoiselle is hardly audible in straining through her teeth and\nlips the words, \"You are a devil.\"\n\n\"Now where,\" pursues Mr. Bucket, \"had she been on the night of the\nmurder? She had been to the theayter. (She really was there, I have\nsince found, both before the deed and after it.) I knew I had an\nartful customer to deal with and that proof would be very difficult;\nand I laid a trap for her--such a trap as I never laid yet, and such\na venture as I never made yet. I worked it out in my mind while I was\ntalking to her at supper. When I went upstairs to bed, our house\nbeing small and this young woman's ears sharp, I stuffed the sheet\ninto Mrs. Bucket's mouth that she shouldn't say a word of surprise\nand told her all about it. My dear, don't you give your mind to that\nagain, or I shall link your feet together at the ankles.\" Mr. Bucket,\nbreaking off, has made a noiseless descent upon mademoiselle and laid\nhis heavy hand upon her shoulder.\n\n\"What is the matter with you now?\" she asks him.\n\n\"Don't you think any more,\" returns Mr. Bucket with admonitory\nfinger, \"of throwing yourself out of window. That's what's the matter\nwith me. Come! Just take my arm. You needn't get up; I'll sit down by\nyou. Now take my arm, will you? I'm a married man, you know; you're\nacquainted with my wife. Just take my arm.\"\n\nVainly endeavouring to moisten those dry lips, with a painful sound\nshe struggles with herself and complies.\n\n\"Now we're all right again. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, this case\ncould never have been the case it is but for Mrs. Bucket, who is a\nwoman in fifty thousand--in a hundred and fifty thousand! To throw\nthis young woman off her guard, I have never set foot in our house\nsince, though I've communicated with Mrs. Bucket in the baker's\nloaves and in the milk as often as required. My whispered words to\nMrs. Bucket when she had the sheet in her mouth were, 'My dear, can\nyou throw her off continually with natural accounts of my suspicions\nagainst George, and this, and that, and t'other? Can you do without\nrest and keep watch upon her night and day? Can you undertake to say,\n'She shall do nothing without my knowledge, she shall be my prisoner\nwithout suspecting it, she shall no more escape from me than from\ndeath, and her life shall be my life, and her soul my soul, till I\nhave got her, if she did this murder?' Mrs. Bucket says to me, as\nwell as she could speak on account of the sheet, 'Bucket, I can!' And\nshe has acted up to it glorious!\"\n\n\"Lies!\" mademoiselle interposes. \"All lies, my friend!\"\n\n\"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, how did my calculations come out\nunder these circumstances? When I calculated that this impetuous\nyoung woman would overdo it in new directions, was I wrong or right?\nI was right. What does she try to do? Don't let it give you a turn?\nTo throw the murder on her ladyship.\"\n\nSir Leicester rises from his chair and staggers down again.\n\n\"And she got encouragement in it from hearing that I was always here,\nwhich was done a-purpose. Now, open that pocket-book of mine, Sir\nLeicester Dedlock, if I may take the liberty of throwing it towards\nyou, and look at the letters sent to me, each with the two words\n'Lady Dedlock' in it. Open the one directed to yourself, which I\nstopped this very morning, and read the three words 'Lady Dedlock,\nMurderess' in it. These letters have been falling about like a shower\nof lady-birds. What do you say now to Mrs. Bucket, from her spy-place\nhaving seen them all 'written by this young woman? What do you say to\nMrs. Bucket having, within this half-hour, secured the corresponding\nink and paper, fellow half-sheets and what not? What do you say to\nMrs. Bucket having watched the posting of 'em every one by this young\nwoman, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet?\" Mr. Bucket asks, triumphant\nin his admiration of his lady's genius.\n\nTwo things are especially observable as Mr. Bucket proceeds to a\nconclusion. First, that he seems imperceptibly to establish a\ndreadful right of property in mademoiselle. Secondly, that the very\natmosphere she breathes seems to narrow and contract about her as if\na close net or a pall were being drawn nearer and yet nearer around\nher breathless figure.\n\n\"There is no doubt that her ladyship was on the spot at the eventful\nperiod,\" says Mr. Bucket, \"and my foreign friend here saw her, I\nbelieve, from the upper part of the staircase. Her ladyship and\nGeorge and my foreign friend were all pretty close on one another's\nheels. But that don't signify any more, so I'll not go into it. I\nfound the wadding of the pistol with which the deceased Mr.\nTulkinghorn was shot. It was a bit of the printed description of your\nhouse at Chesney Wold. Not much in that, you'll say, Sir Leicester\nDedlock, Baronet. No. But when my foreign friend here is so\nthoroughly off her guard as to think it a safe time to tear up the\nrest of that leaf, and when Mrs. Bucket puts the pieces together and\nfinds the wadding wanting, it begins to look like Queer Street.\"\n\n\"These are very long lies,\" mademoiselle interposes. \"You prose great\ndeal. Is it that you have almost all finished, or are you speaking\nalways?\"\n\n\"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,\" proceeds Mr. Bucket, who delights\nin a full title and does violence to himself when he dispenses with\nany fragment of it, \"the last point in the case which I am now going\nto mention shows the necessity of patience in our business, and never\ndoing a thing in a hurry. I watched this young woman yesterday\nwithout her knowledge when she was looking at the funeral, in company\nwith my wife, who planned to take her there; and I had so much to\nconvict her, and I saw such an expression in her face, and my mind so\nrose against her malice towards her ladyship, and the time was\naltogether such a time for bringing down what you may call\nretribution upon her, that if I had been a younger hand with less\nexperience, I should have taken her, certain. Equally, last night,\nwhen her ladyship, as is so universally admired I am sure, come home\nlooking--why, Lord, a man might almost say like Venus rising from the\nocean--it was so unpleasant and inconsistent to think of her being\ncharged with a murder of which she was innocent that I felt quite to\nwant to put an end to the job. What should I have lost? Sir Leicester\nDedlock, Baronet, I should have lost the weapon. My prisoner here\nproposed to Mrs. Bucket, after the departure of the funeral, that\nthey should go per bus a little ways into the country and take tea at\na very decent house of entertainment. Now, near that house of\nentertainment there's a piece of water. At tea, my prisoner got up to\nfetch her pocket handkercher from the bedroom where the bonnets was;\nshe was rather a long time gone and came back a little out of wind.\nAs soon as they came home this was reported to me by Mrs. Bucket,\nalong with her observations and suspicions. I had the piece of water\ndragged by moonlight, in presence of a couple of our men, and the\npocket pistol was brought up before it had been there half-a-dozen\nhours. Now, my dear, put your arm a little further through mine, and\nhold it steady, and I shan't hurt you!\"\n\nIn a trice Mr. Bucket snaps a handcuff on her wrist. \"That's one,\"\nsays Mr. Bucket. \"Now the other, darling. Two, and all told!\"\n\nHe rises; she rises too. \"Where,\" she asks him, darkening her large\neyes until their drooping lids almost conceal them--and yet they\nstare, \"where is your false, your treacherous, and cursed wife?\"\n\n\"She's gone forrard to the Police Office,\" returns Mr. Bucket.\n\"You'll see her there, my dear.\"\n\n\"I would like to kiss her!\" exclaims Mademoiselle Hortense, panting\ntigress-like.\n\n\"You'd bite her, I suspect,\" says Mr. Bucket.\n\n\"I would!\" making her eyes very large. \"I would love to tear her limb\nfrom limb.\"\n\n\"Bless you, darling,\" says Mr. Bucket with the greatest composure,\n\"I'm fully prepared to hear that. Your sex have such a surprising\nanimosity against one another when you do differ. You don't mind me\nhalf so much, do you?\"\n\n\"No. Though you are a devil still.\"\n\n\"Angel and devil by turns, eh?\" cries Mr. Bucket. \"But I am in my\nregular employment, you must consider. Let me put your shawl tidy.\nI've been lady's maid to a good many before now. Anything wanting to\nthe bonnet? There's a cab at the door.\"\n\nMademoiselle Hortense, casting an indignant eye at the glass, shakes\nherself perfectly neat in one shake and looks, to do her justice,\nuncommonly genteel.\n\n\"Listen then, my angel,\" says she after several sarcastic nods. \"You\nare very spiritual. But can you restore him back to life?\"\n\nMr. Bucket answers, \"Not exactly.\"\n\n\"That is droll. Listen yet one time. You are very spiritual. Can you\nmake a honourable lady of her?\"\n\n\"Don't be so malicious,\" says Mr. Bucket.\n\n\"Or a haughty gentleman of HIM?\" cries mademoiselle, referring to Sir\nLeicester with ineffable disdain. \"Eh! Oh, then regard him! The poor\ninfant! Ha! Ha! Ha!\"\n\n\"Come, come, why this is worse PARLAYING than the other,\" says Mr.\nBucket. \"Come along!\"\n\n\"You cannot do these things? Then you can do as you please with me.\nIt is but the death, it is all the same. Let us go, my angel. Adieu,\nyou old man, grey. I pity you, and I despise you!\"\n\nWith these last words she snaps her teeth together as if her mouth\nclosed with a spring. It is impossible to describe how Mr. Bucket\ngets her out, but he accomplishes that feat in a manner so peculiar\nto himself, enfolding and pervading her like a cloud, and hovering\naway with her as if he were a homely Jupiter and she the object of\nhis affections.\n\nSir Leicester, left alone, remains in the same attitude, as though he\nwere still listening and his attention were still occupied. At length\nhe gazes round the empty room, and finding it deserted, rises\nunsteadily to his feet, pushes back his chair, and walks a few steps,\nsupporting himself by the table. Then he stops, and with more of\nthose inarticulate sounds, lifts up his eyes and seems to stare at\nsomething.\n\nHeaven knows what he sees. The green, green woods of Chesney Wold,\nthe noble house, the pictures of his forefathers, strangers defacing\nthem, officers of police coarsely handling his most precious\nheirlooms, thousands of fingers pointing at him, thousands of faces\nsneering at him. But if such shadows flit before him to his\nbewilderment, there is one other shadow which he can name with\nsomething like distinctness even yet and to which alone he addresses\nhis tearing of his white hair and his extended arms.\n\nIt is she in association with whom, saving that she has been for\nyears a main fibre of the root of his dignity and pride, he has never\nhad a selfish thought. It is she whom he has loved, admired,\nhonoured, and set up for the world to respect. It is she who, at the\ncore of all the constrained formalities and conventionalities of his\nlife, has been a stock of living tenderness and love, susceptible as\nnothing else is of being struck with the agony he feels. He sees her,\nalmost to the exclusion of himself, and cannot bear to look upon her\ncast down from the high place she has graced so well.\n\nAnd even to the point of his sinking on the ground, oblivious of his\nsuffering, he can yet pronounce her name with something like\ndistinctness in the midst of those intrusive sounds, and in a tone of\nmourning and compassion rather than reproach.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LV\n\nFlight\n\n\nInspector Bucket of the Detective has not yet struck his great blow,\nas just now chronicled, but is yet refreshing himself with sleep\npreparatory to his field-day, when through the night and along the\nfreezing wintry roads a chaise and pair comes out of Lincolnshire,\nmaking its way towards London.\n\nRailroads shall soon traverse all this country, and with a rattle and\na glare the engine and train shall shoot like a meteor over the wide\nnight-landscape, turning the moon paler; but as yet such things are\nnon-existent in these parts, though not wholly unexpected.\nPreparations are afoot, measurements are made, ground is staked out.\nBridges are begun, and their not yet united piers desolately look at\none another over roads and streams like brick and mortar couples with\nan obstacle to their union; fragments of embankments are thrown up\nand left as precipices with torrents of rusty carts and barrows\ntumbling over them; tripods of tall poles appear on hilltops, where\nthere are rumours of tunnels; everything looks chaotic and abandoned\nin full hopelessness. Along the freezing roads, and through the\nnight, the post-chaise makes its way without a railroad on its mind.\n\nMrs. Rouncewell, so many years housekeeper at Chesney Wold, sits\nwithin the chaise; and by her side sits Mrs. Bagnet with her grey\ncloak and umbrella. The old girl would prefer the bar in front, as\nbeing exposed to the weather and a primitive sort of perch more in\naccordance with her usual course of travelling, but Mrs. Rouncewell\nis too thoughtful of her comfort to admit of her proposing it. The\nold lady cannot make enough of the old girl. She sits, in her stately\nmanner, holding her hand, and regardless of its roughness, puts it\noften to her lips. \"You are a mother, my dear soul,\" says she many\ntimes, \"and you found out my George's mother!\"\n\n\"Why, George,\" returns Mrs. Bagnet, \"was always free with me, ma'am,\nand when he said at our house to my Woolwich that of all the things\nmy Woolwich could have to think of when he grew to be a man, the\ncomfortablest would be that he had never brought a sorrowful line\ninto his mother's face or turned a hair of her head grey, then I felt\nsure, from his way, that something fresh had brought his own mother\ninto his mind. I had often known him say to me, in past times, that\nhe had behaved bad to her.\"\n\n\"Never, my dear!\" returns Mrs. Rouncewell, bursting into tears. \"My\nblessing on him, never! He was always fond of me, and loving to me,\nwas my George! But he had a bold spirit, and he ran a little wild and\nwent for a soldier. And I know he waited at first, in letting us know\nabout himself, till he should rise to be an officer; and when he\ndidn't rise, I know he considered himself beneath us, and wouldn't be\na disgrace to us. For he had a lion heart, had my George, always from\na baby!\"\n\nThe old lady's hands stray about her as of yore, while she recalls,\nall in a tremble, what a likely lad, what a fine lad, what a gay\ngood-humoured clever lad he was; how they all took to him down at\nChesney Wold; how Sir Leicester took to him when he was a young\ngentleman; how the dogs took to him; how even the people who had been\nangry with him forgave him the moment he was gone, poor boy. And now\nto see him after all, and in a prison too! And the broad stomacher\nheaves, and the quaint upright old-fashioned figure bends under its\nload of affectionate distress.\n\nMrs. Bagnet, with the instinctive skill of a good warm heart, leaves\nthe old housekeeper to her emotions for a little while--not without\npassing the back of her hand across her own motherly eyes--and\npresently chirps up in her cheery manner, \"So I says to George when I\ngoes to call him in to tea (he pretended to be smoking his pipe\noutside), 'What ails you this afternoon, George, for gracious sake? I\nhave seen all sorts, and I have seen you pretty often in season and\nout of season, abroad and at home, and I never see you so melancholy\npenitent.' 'Why, Mrs. Bagnet,' says George, 'it's because I AM\nmelancholy and penitent both, this afternoon, that you see me so.'\n'What have you done, old fellow?' I says. 'Why, Mrs. Bagnet,' says\nGeorge, shaking his head, 'what I have done has been done this many a\nlong year, and is best not tried to be undone now. If I ever get to\nheaven it won't be for being a good son to a widowed mother; I say no\nmore.' Now, ma'am, when George says to me that it's best not tried to\nbe undone now, I have my thoughts as I have often had before, and I\ndraw it out of George how he comes to have such things on him that\nafternoon. Then George tells me that he has seen by chance, at the\nlawyer's office, a fine old lady that has brought his mother plain\nbefore him, and he runs on about that old lady till he quite forgets\nhimself and paints her picture to me as she used to be, years upon\nyears back. So I says to George when he has done, who is this old\nlady he has seen? And George tells me it's Mrs. Rouncewell,\nhousekeeper for more than half a century to the Dedlock family down\nat Chesney Wold in Lincolnshire. George has frequently told me before\nthat he's a Lincolnshire man, and I says to my old Lignum that night,\n'Lignum, that's his mother for five and for-ty pound!'\"\n\nAll this Mrs. Bagnet now relates for the twentieth time at least\nwithin the last four hours. Trilling it out like a kind of bird, with\na pretty high note, that it may be audible to the old lady above the\nhum of the wheels.\n\n\"Bless you, and thank you,\" says Mrs. Rouncewell. \"Bless you, and\nthank you, my worthy soul!\"\n\n\"Dear heart!\" cries Mrs. Bagnet in the most natural manner. \"No\nthanks to me, I am sure. Thanks to yourself, ma'am, for being so\nready to pay 'em! And mind once more, ma'am, what you had best do\non finding George to be your own son is to make him--for your\nsake--have every sort of help to put himself in the right and clear\nhimself of a charge of which he is as innocent as you or me. It won't\ndo to have truth and justice on his side; he must have law and\nlawyers,\" exclaims the old girl, apparently persuaded that the latter\nform a separate establishment and have dissolved partnership with\ntruth and justice for ever and a day.\n\n\"He shall have,\" says Mrs. Rouncewell, \"all the help that can be got\nfor him in the world, my dear. I will spend all I have, and\nthankfully, to procure it. Sir Leicester will do his best, the whole\nfamily will do their best. I--I know something, my dear; and will\nmake my own appeal, as his mother parted from him all these years,\nand finding him in a jail at last.\"\n\nThe extreme disquietude of the old housekeeper's manner in saying\nthis, her broken words, and her wringing of her hands make a powerful\nimpression on Mrs. Bagnet and would astonish her but that she refers\nthem all to her sorrow for her son's condition. And yet Mrs. Bagnet\nwonders too why Mrs. Rouncewell should murmur so distractedly, \"My\nLady, my Lady, my Lady!\" over and over again.\n\nThe frosty night wears away, and the dawn breaks, and the post-chaise\ncomes rolling on through the early mist like the ghost of a chaise\ndeparted. It has plenty of spectral company in ghosts of trees and\nhedges, slowly vanishing and giving place to the realities of day.\nLondon reached, the travellers alight, the old housekeeper in great\ntribulation and confusion, Mrs. Bagnet quite fresh and collected--as\nshe would be if her next point, with no new equipage and outfit, were\nthe Cape of Good Hope, the Island of Ascension, Hong Kong, or any\nother military station.\n\nBut when they set out for the prison where the trooper is\nconfined, the old lady has managed to draw about her, with her\nlavender-coloured dress, much of the staid calmness which is its\nusual accompaniment. A wonderfully grave, precise, and handsome piece\nof old china she looks, though her heart beats fast and her stomacher\nis ruffled more than even the remembrance of this wayward son has\nruffled it these many years.\n\nApproaching the cell, they find the door opening and a warder in the\nact of coming out. The old girl promptly makes a sign of entreaty to\nhim to say nothing; assenting with a nod, he suffers them to enter as\nhe shuts the door.\n\nSo George, who is writing at his table, supposing himself to be\nalone, does not raise his eyes, but remains absorbed. The old\nhousekeeper looks at him, and those wandering hands of hers are quite\nenough for Mrs. Bagnet's confirmation, even if she could see the\nmother and the son together, knowing what she knows, and doubt their\nrelationship.\n\nNot a rustle of the housekeeper's dress, not a gesture, not a word\nbetrays her. She stands looking at him as he writes on, all\nunconscious, and only her fluttering hands give utterance to her\nemotions. But they are very eloquent, very, very eloquent. Mrs.\nBagnet understands them. They speak of gratitude, of joy, of grief,\nof hope; of inextinguishable affection, cherished with no return\nsince this stalwart man was a stripling; of a better son loved less,\nand this son loved so fondly and so proudly; and they speak in such\ntouching language that Mrs. Bagnet's eyes brim up with tears and they\nrun glistening down her sun-brown face.\n\n\"George Rouncewell! Oh, my dear child, turn and look at me!\"\n\nThe trooper starts up, clasps his mother round the neck, and falls\ndown on his knees before her. Whether in a late repentance, whether\nin the first association that comes back upon him, he puts his hands\ntogether as a child does when it says its prayers, and raising them\ntowards her breast, bows down his head, and cries.\n\n\"My George, my dearest son! Always my favourite, and my favourite\nstill, where have you been these cruel years and years? Grown such a\nman too, grown such a fine strong man. Grown so like what I knew he\nmust be, if it pleased God he was alive!\"\n\nShe can ask, and he can answer, nothing connected for a time. All\nthat time the old girl, turned away, leans one arm against the\nwhitened wall, leans her honest forehead upon it, wipes her eyes with\nher serviceable grey cloak, and quite enjoys herself like the best of\nold girls as she is.\n\n\"Mother,\" says the trooper when they are more composed, \"forgive me\nfirst of all, for I know my need of it.\"\n\nForgive him! She does it with all her heart and soul. She always has\ndone it. She tells him how she has had it written in her will, these\nmany years, that he was her beloved son George. She has never\nbelieved any ill of him, never. If she had died without this\nhappiness--and she is an old woman now and can't look to live very\nlong--she would have blessed him with her last breath, if she had had\nher senses, as her beloved son George.\n\n\"Mother, I have been an undutiful trouble to you, and I have my\nreward; but of late years I have had a kind of glimmering of a\npurpose in me too. When I left home I didn't care much, mother--I am\nafraid not a great deal--for leaving; and went away and 'listed,\nharum-scarum, making believe to think that I cared for nobody, no not\nI, and that nobody cared for me.\"\n\nThe trooper has dried his eyes and put away his handkerchief, but\nthere is an extraordinary contrast between his habitual manner of\nexpressing himself and carrying himself and the softened tone in\nwhich he speaks, interrupted occasionally by a half-stifled sob.\n\n\"So I wrote a line home, mother, as you too well know, to say I had\n'listed under another name, and I went abroad. Abroad, at one time I\nthought I would write home next year, when I might be better off; and\nwhen that year was out, I thought I would write home next year, when\nI might be better off; and when that year was out again, perhaps I\ndidn't think much about it. So on, from year to year, through a\nservice of ten years, till I began to get older, and to ask myself\nwhy should I ever write.\"\n\n\"I don't find any fault, child--but not to ease my mind, George? Not\na word to your loving mother, who was growing older too?\"\n\nThis almost overturns the trooper afresh, but he sets himself up with\na great, rough, sounding clearance of his throat.\n\n\"Heaven forgive me, mother, but I thought there would be small\nconsolation then in hearing anything about me. There were you,\nrespected and esteemed. There was my brother, as I read in chance\nNorth Country papers now and then, rising to be prosperous and\nfamous. There was I a dragoon, roving, unsettled, not self-made like\nhim, but self-unmade--all my earlier advantages thrown away, all my\nlittle learning unlearnt, nothing picked up but what unfitted me for\nmost things that I could think of. What business had I to make myself\nknown? After letting all that time go by me, what good could come of\nit? The worst was past with you, mother. I knew by that time (being a\nman) how you had mourned for me, and wept for me, and prayed for me;\nand the pain was over, or was softened down, and I was better in your\nmind as it was.\"\n\nThe old lady sorrowfully shakes her head, and taking one of his\npowerful hands, lays it lovingly upon her shoulder.\n\n\"No, I don't say that it was so, mother, but that I made it out to be\nso. I said just now, what good could come of it? Well, my dear\nmother, some good might have come of it to myself--and there was the\nmeanness of it. You would have sought me out; you would have\npurchased my discharge; you would have taken me down to Chesney Wold;\nyou would have brought me and my brother and my brother's family\ntogether; you would all have considered anxiously how to do something\nfor me and set me up as a respectable civilian. But how could any of\nyou feel sure of me when I couldn't so much as feel sure of myself?\nHow could you help regarding as an incumbrance and a discredit to you\nan idle dragooning chap who was an incumbrance and a discredit to\nhimself, excepting under discipline? How could I look my brother's\nchildren in the face and pretend to set them an example--I, the\nvagabond boy who had run away from home and been the grief and\nunhappiness of my mother's life? 'No, George.' Such were my words,\nmother, when I passed this in review before me: 'You have made your\nbed. Now, lie upon it.'\"\n\nMrs. Rouncewell, drawing up her stately form, shakes her head at the\nold girl with a swelling pride upon her, as much as to say, \"I told\nyou so!\" The old girl relieves her feelings and testifies her\ninterest in the conversation by giving the trooper a great poke\nbetween the shoulders with her umbrella; this action she afterwards\nrepeats, at intervals, in a species of affectionate lunacy, never\nfailing, after the administration of each of these remonstrances, to\nresort to the whitened wall and the grey cloak again.\n\n\"This was the way I brought myself to think, mother, that my best\namends was to lie upon that bed I had made, and die upon it. And I\nshould have done it (though I have been to see you more than once\ndown at Chesney Wold, when you little thought of me) but for my old\ncomrade's wife here, who I find has been too many for me. But I thank\nher for it. I thank you for it, Mrs. Bagnet, with all my heart and\nmight.\"\n\nTo which Mrs. Bagnet responds with two pokes.\n\nAnd now the old lady impresses upon her son George, her own dear\nrecovered boy, her joy and pride, the light of her eyes, the happy\nclose of her life, and every fond name she can think of, that he must\nbe governed by the best advice obtainable by money and influence,\nthat he must yield up his case to the greatest lawyers that can be\ngot, that he must act in this serious plight as he shall be advised\nto act and must not be self-willed, however right, but must promise\nto think only of his poor old mother's anxiety and suffering until he\nis released, or he will break her heart.\n\n\"Mother, 'tis little enough to consent to,\" returns the trooper,\nstopping her with a kiss; \"tell me what I shall do, and I'll make a\nlate beginning and do it. Mrs. Bagnet, you'll take care of my mother,\nI know?\"\n\nA very hard poke from the old girl's umbrella.\n\n\"If you'll bring her acquainted with Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson,\nshe will find them of her way of thinking, and they will give her the\nbest advice and assistance.\"\n\n\"And, George,\" says the old lady, \"we must send with all haste for\nyour brother. He is a sensible sound man as they tell me--out in the\nworld beyond Chesney Wold, my dear, though I don't know much of it\nmyself--and will be of great service.\"\n\n\"Mother,\" returns the trooper, \"is it too soon to ask a favour?\"\n\n\"Surely not, my dear.\"\n\n\"Then grant me this one great favour. Don't let my brother know.\"\n\n\"Not know what, my dear?\"\n\n\"Not know of me. In fact, mother, I can't bear it; I can't make up my\nmind to it. He has proved himself so different from me and has done\nso much to raise himself while I've been soldiering that I haven't\nbrass enough in my composition to see him in this place and under\nthis charge. How could a man like him be expected to have any\npleasure in such a discovery? It's impossible. No, keep my secret\nfrom him, mother; do me a greater kindness than I deserve and keep my\nsecret from my brother, of all men.\"\n\n\"But not always, dear George?\"\n\n\"Why, mother, perhaps not for good and all--though I may come to ask\nthat too--but keep it now, I do entreat you. If it's ever broke to\nhim that his rip of a brother has turned up, I could wish,\" says the\ntrooper, shaking his head very doubtfully, \"to break it myself and be\ngoverned as to advancing or retreating by the way in which he seems\nto take it.\"\n\nAs he evidently has a rooted feeling on this point, and as the depth\nof it is recognized in Mrs. Bagnet's face, his mother yields her\nimplicit assent to what he asks. For this he thanks her kindly.\n\n\"In all other respects, my dear mother, I'll be as tractable and\nobedient as you can wish; on this one alone, I stand out. So now I am\nready even for the lawyers. I have been drawing up,\" he glances at\nhis writing on the table, \"an exact account of what I knew of the\ndeceased and how I came to be involved in this unfortunate affair.\nIt's entered, plain and regular, like an orderly-book; not a word in\nit but what's wanted for the facts. I did intend to read it, straight\non end, whensoever I was called upon to say anything in my defence. I\nhope I may be let to do it still; but I have no longer a will of my\nown in this case, and whatever is said or done, I give my promise not\nto have any.\"\n\nMatters being brought to this so far satisfactory pass, and time\nbeing on the wane, Mrs. Bagnet proposes a departure. Again and again\nthe old lady hangs upon her son's neck, and again and again the\ntrooper holds her to his broad chest.\n\n\"Where are you going to take my mother, Mrs. Bagnet?\"\n\n\"I am going to the town house, my dear, the family house. I have some\nbusiness there that must be looked to directly,\" Mrs. Rouncewell\nanswers.\n\n\"Will you see my mother safe there in a coach, Mrs. Bagnet? But of\ncourse I know you will. Why should I ask it!\"\n\nWhy indeed, Mrs. Bagnet expresses with the umbrella.\n\n\"Take her, my old friend, and take my gratitude along with you.\nKisses to Quebec and Malta, love to my godson, a hearty shake of the\nhand to Lignum, and this for yourself, and I wish it was ten thousand\npound in gold, my dear!\" So saying, the trooper puts his lips to the\nold girl's tanned forehead, and the door shuts upon him in his cell.\n\nNo entreaties on the part of the good old housekeeper will induce\nMrs. Bagnet to retain the coach for her own conveyance home. Jumping\nout cheerfully at the door of the Dedlock mansion and handing Mrs.\nRouncewell up the steps, the old girl shakes hands and trudges off,\narriving soon afterwards in the bosom of the Bagnet family and\nfalling to washing the greens as if nothing had happened.\n\nMy Lady is in that room in which she held her last conference with\nthe murdered man, and is sitting where she sat that night, and is\nlooking at the spot where he stood upon the hearth studying her so\nleisurely, when a tap comes at the door. Who is it? Mrs. Rouncewell.\nWhat has brought Mrs. Rouncewell to town so unexpectedly?\n\n\"Trouble, my Lady. Sad trouble. Oh, my Lady, may I beg a word with\nyou?\"\n\nWhat new occurrence is it that makes this tranquil old woman tremble\nso? Far happier than her Lady, as her Lady has often thought, why\ndoes she falter in this manner and look at her with such strange\nmistrust?\n\n\"What is the matter? Sit down and take your breath.\"\n\n\"Oh, my Lady, my Lady. I have found my son--my youngest, who went\naway for a soldier so long ago. And he is in prison.\"\n\n\"For debt?\"\n\n\"Oh, no, my Lady; I would have paid any debt, and joyful.\"\n\n\"For what is he in prison then?\"\n\n\"Charged with a murder, my Lady, of which he is as innocent as--as I\nam. Accused of the murder of Mr. Tulkinghorn.\"\n\nWhat does she mean by this look and this imploring gesture? Why does\nshe come so close? What is the letter that she holds?\n\n\"Lady Dedlock, my dear Lady, my good Lady, my kind Lady! You must\nhave a heart to feel for me, you must have a heart to forgive me. I\nwas in this family before you were born. I am devoted to it. But\nthink of my dear son wrongfully accused.\"\n\n\"I do not accuse him.\"\n\n\"No, my Lady, no. But others do, and he is in prison and in danger.\nOh, Lady Dedlock, if you can say but a word to help to clear him, say\nit!\"\n\nWhat delusion can this be? What power does she suppose is in the\nperson she petitions to avert this unjust suspicion, if it be unjust?\nHer Lady's handsome eyes regard her with astonishment, almost with\nfear.\n\n\"My Lady, I came away last night from Chesney Wold to find my son in\nmy old age, and the step upon the Ghost's Walk was so constant and so\nsolemn that I never heard the like in all these years. Night after\nnight, as it has fallen dark, the sound has echoed through your\nrooms, but last night it was awfullest. And as it fell dark last\nnight, my Lady, I got this letter.\"\n\n\"What letter is it?\"\n\n\"Hush! Hush!\" The housekeeper looks round and answers in a frightened\nwhisper, \"My Lady, I have not breathed a word of it, I don't believe\nwhat's written in it, I know it can't be true, I am sure and certain\nthat it is not true. But my son is in danger, and you must have a\nheart to pity me. If you know of anything that is not known to\nothers, if you have any suspicion, if you have any clue at all, and\nany reason for keeping it in your own breast, oh, my dear Lady, think\nof me, and conquer that reason, and let it be known! This is the most\nI consider possible. I know you are not a hard lady, but you go your\nown way always without help, and you are not familiar with your\nfriends; and all who admire you--and all do--as a beautiful and\nelegant lady, know you to be one far away from themselves who can't\nbe approached close. My Lady, you may have some proud or angry\nreasons for disdaining to utter something that you know; if so, pray,\noh, pray, think of a faithful servant whose whole life has been\npassed in this family which she dearly loves, and relent, and help to\nclear my son! My Lady, my good Lady,\" the old housekeeper pleads with\ngenuine simplicity, \"I am so humble in my place and you are by nature\nso high and distant that you may not think what I feel for my child,\nbut I feel so much that I have come here to make so bold as to beg\nand pray you not to be scornful of us if you can do us any right or\njustice at this fearful time!\"\n\nLady Dedlock raises her without one word, until she takes the letter\nfrom her hand.\n\n\"Am I to read this?\"\n\n\"When I am gone, my Lady, if you please, and then remembering the\nmost that I consider possible.\"\n\n\"I know of nothing I can do. I know of nothing I reserve that can\naffect your son. I have never accused him.\"\n\n\"My Lady, you may pity him the more under a false accusation after\nreading the letter.\"\n\nThe old housekeeper leaves her with the letter in her hand. In truth\nshe is not a hard lady naturally, and the time has been when the\nsight of the venerable figure suing to her with such strong\nearnestness would have moved her to great compassion. But so long\naccustomed to suppress emotion and keep down reality, so long\nschooled for her own purposes in that destructive school which shuts\nup the natural feelings of the heart like flies in amber and spreads\none uniform and dreary gloss over the good and bad, the feeling and\nthe unfeeling, the sensible and the senseless, she had subdued even\nher wonder until now.\n\nShe opens the letter. Spread out upon the paper is a printed account\nof the discovery of the body as it lay face downward on the floor,\nshot through the heart; and underneath is written her own name, with\nthe word \"murderess\" attached.\n\nIt falls out of her hand. How long it may have lain upon the ground\nshe knows not, but it lies where it fell when a servant stands before\nher announcing the young man of the name of Guppy. The words have\nprobably been repeated several times, for they are ringing in her\nhead before she begins to understand them.\n\n\"Let him come in!\"\n\nHe comes in. Holding the letter in her hand, which she has taken from\nthe floor, she tries to collect her thoughts. In the eyes of Mr.\nGuppy she is the same Lady Dedlock, holding the same prepared, proud,\nchilling state.\n\n\"Your ladyship may not be at first disposed to excuse this visit from\none who has never been welcome to your ladyship\"--which he don't\ncomplain of, for he is bound to confess that there never has been any\nparticular reason on the face of things why he should be--\"but I hope\nwhen I mention my motives to your ladyship you will not find fault\nwith me,\" says Mr. Guppy.\n\n\"Do so.\"\n\n\"Thank your ladyship. I ought first to explain to your ladyship,\" Mr.\nGuppy sits on the edge of a chair and puts his hat on the carpet at\nhis feet, \"that Miss Summerson, whose image, as I formerly mentioned\nto your ladyship, was at one period of my life imprinted on my 'eart\nuntil erased by circumstances over which I had no control,\ncommunicated to me, after I had the pleasure of waiting on your\nladyship last, that she particularly wished me to take no steps\nwhatever in any manner at all relating to her. And Miss Summerson's\nwishes being to me a law (except as connected with circumstances over\nwhich I have no control), I consequently never expected to have the\ndistinguished honour of waiting on your ladyship again.\"\n\nAnd yet he is here now, Lady Dedlock moodily reminds him.\n\n\"And yet I am here now,\" Mr. Guppy admits. \"My object being to\ncommunicate to your ladyship, under the seal of confidence, why I am\nhere.\"\n\nHe cannot do so, she tells him, too plainly or too briefly. \"Nor can\nI,\" Mr. Guppy returns with a sense of injury upon him, \"too\nparticularly request your ladyship to take particular notice that\nit's no personal affair of mine that brings me here. I have no\ninterested views of my own to serve in coming here. If it was not for\nmy promise to Miss Summerson and my keeping of it sacred--I, in point\nof fact, shouldn't have darkened these doors again, but should have\nseen 'em further first.\"\n\nMr. Guppy considers this a favourable moment for sticking up his hair\nwith both hands.\n\n\"Your ladyship will remember when I mention it that the last time I\nwas here I run against a party very eminent in our profession and\nwhose loss we all deplore. That party certainly did from that time\napply himself to cutting in against me in a way that I will call\nsharp practice, and did make it, at every turn and point, extremely\ndifficult for me to be sure that I hadn't inadvertently led up to\nsomething contrary to Miss Summerson's wishes. Self-praise is no\nrecommendation, but I may say for myself that I am not so bad a man\nof business neither.\"\n\nLady Dedlock looks at him in stern inquiry. Mr. Guppy immediately\nwithdraws his eyes from her face and looks anywhere else.\n\n\"Indeed, it has been made so hard,\" he goes on, \"to have any idea\nwhat that party was up to in combination with others that until the\nloss which we all deplore I was gravelled--an expression which your\nladyship, moving in the higher circles, will be so good as to\nconsider tantamount to knocked over. Small likewise--a name by which\nI refer to another party, a friend of mine that your ladyship is not\nacquainted with--got to be so close and double-faced that at times it\nwasn't easy to keep one's hands off his 'ead. However, what with the\nexertion of my humble abilities, and what with the help of a mutual\nfriend by the name of Mr. Tony Weevle (who is of a high aristocratic\nturn and has your ladyship's portrait always hanging up in his room),\nI have now reasons for an apprehension as to which I come to put your\nladyship upon your guard. First, will your ladyship allow me to ask\nyou whether you have had any strange visitors this morning? I don't\nmean fashionable visitors, but such visitors, for instance, as Miss\nBarbary's old servant, or as a person without the use of his lower\nextremities, carried upstairs similarly to a guy?\"\n\n\"No!\"\n\n\"Then I assure your ladyship that such visitors have been here and\nhave been received here. Because I saw them at the door, and waited\nat the corner of the square till they came out, and took half an\nhour's turn afterwards to avoid them.\"\n\n\"What have I to do with that, or what have you? I do not understand\nyou. What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Your ladyship, I come to put you on your guard. There may be no\noccasion for it. Very well. Then I have only done my best to keep my\npromise to Miss Summerson. I strongly suspect (from what Small has\ndropped, and from what we have corkscrewed out of him) that those\nletters I was to have brought to your ladyship were not destroyed\nwhen I supposed they were. That if there was anything to be blown\nupon, it IS blown upon. That the visitors I have alluded to have been\nhere this morning to make money of it. And that the money is made, or\nmaking.\"\n\nMr. Guppy picks up his hat and rises.\n\n\"Your ladyship, you know best whether there's anything in what I say\nor whether there's nothing. Something or nothing, I have acted up to\nMiss Summerson's wishes in letting things alone and in undoing what I\nhad begun to do, as far as possible; that's sufficient for me. In\ncase I should be taking a liberty in putting your ladyship on your\nguard when there's no necessity for it, you will endeavour, I should\nhope, to outlive my presumption, and I shall endeavour to outlive\nyour disapprobation. I now take my farewell of your ladyship, and\nassure you that there's no danger of your ever being waited on by me\nagain.\"\n\nShe scarcely acknowledges these parting words by any look, but when\nhe has been gone a little while, she rings her bell.\n\n\"Where is Sir Leicester?\"\n\nMercury reports that he is at present shut up in the library alone.\n\n\"Has Sir Leicester had any visitors this morning?\"\n\nSeveral, on business. Mercury proceeds to a description of them,\nwhich has been anticipated by Mr. Guppy. Enough; he may go.\n\nSo! All is broken down. Her name is in these many mouths, her husband\nknows his wrongs, her shame will be published--may be spreading while\nshe thinks about it--and in addition to the thunderbolt so long\nforeseen by her, so unforeseen by him, she is denounced by an\ninvisible accuser as the murderess of her enemy.\n\nHer enemy he was, and she has often, often, often wished him dead.\nHer enemy he is, even in his grave. This dreadful accusation comes\nupon her like a new torment at his lifeless hand. And when she\nrecalls how she was secretly at his door that night, and how she may\nbe represented to have sent her favourite girl away so soon before\nmerely to release herself from observation, she shudders as if the\nhangman's hands were at her neck.\n\nShe has thrown herself upon the floor and lies with her hair all\nwildly scattered and her face buried in the cushions of a couch. She\nrises up, hurries to and fro, flings herself down again, and rocks\nand moans. The horror that is upon her is unutterable. If she really\nwere the murderess, it could hardly be, for the moment, more intense.\n\nFor as her murderous perspective, before the doing of the deed,\nhowever subtle the precautions for its commission, would have been\nclosed up by a gigantic dilatation of the hateful figure, preventing\nher from seeing any consequences beyond it; and as those consequences\nwould have rushed in, in an unimagined flood, the moment the figure\nwas laid low--which always happens when a murder is done; so, now she\nsees that when he used to be on the watch before her, and she used to\nthink, \"if some mortal stroke would but fall on this old man and take\nhim from my way!\" it was but wishing that all he held against her in\nhis hand might be flung to the winds and chance-sown in many places.\nSo, too, with the wicked relief she has felt in his death. What was\nhis death but the key-stone of a gloomy arch removed, and now the\narch begins to fall in a thousand fragments, each crushing and\nmangling piecemeal!\n\nThus, a terrible impression steals upon and overshadows her that from\nthis pursuer, living or dead--obdurate and imperturbable before her\nin his well-remembered shape, or not more obdurate and imperturbable\nin his coffin-bed--there is no escape but in death. Hunted, she\nflies. The complication of her shame, her dread, remorse, and misery,\noverwhelms her at its height; and even her strength of self-reliance\nis overturned and whirled away like a leaf before a mighty wind.\n\nShe hurriedly addresses these lines to her husband, seals, and leaves\nthem on her table:\n\n\n   If I am sought for, or accused of, his murder, believe\n   that I am wholly innocent. Believe no other good of me,\n   for I am innocent of nothing else that you have heard,\n   or will hear, laid to my charge. He prepared me, on that\n   fatal night, for his disclosure of my guilt to you. After\n   he had left me, I went out on pretence of walking in the\n   garden where I sometimes walk, but really to follow him\n   and make one last petition that he would not protract the\n   dreadful suspense on which I have been racked by him, you\n   do not know how long, but would mercifully strike next\n   morning.\n\n   I found his house dark and silent. I rang twice at his\n   door, but there was no reply, and I came home.\n\n   I have no home left. I will encumber you no more. May\n   you, in your just resentment, be able to forget the\n   unworthy woman on whom you have wasted a most generous\n   devotion--who avoids you only with a deeper shame than\n   that with which she hurries from herself--and who writes\n   this last adieu.\n\n\nShe veils and dresses quickly, leaves all her jewels and her money,\nlistens, goes downstairs at a moment when the hall is empty, opens\nand shuts the great door, flutters away in the shrill frosty wind.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LVI\n\nPursuit\n\n\nImpassive, as behoves its high breeding, the Dedlock town house\nstares at the other houses in the street of dismal grandeur and gives\nno outward sign of anything going wrong within. Carriages rattle,\ndoors are battered at, the world exchanges calls; ancient charmers\nwith skeleton throats and peachy cheeks that have a rather ghastly\nbloom upon them seen by daylight, when indeed these fascinating\ncreatures look like Death and the Lady fused together, dazzle the\neyes of men. Forth from the frigid mews come easily swinging\ncarriages guided by short-legged coachmen in flaxen wigs, deep sunk\ninto downy hammercloths, and up behind mount luscious Mercuries\nbearing sticks of state and wearing cocked hats broadwise, a\nspectacle for the angels.\n\nThe Dedlock town house changes not externally, and hours pass before\nits exalted dullness is disturbed within. But Volumnia the fair,\nbeing subject to the prevalent complaint of boredom and finding that\ndisorder attacking her spirits with some virulence, ventures at\nlength to repair to the library for change of scene. Her gentle\ntapping at the door producing no response, she opens it and peeps in;\nseeing no one there, takes possession.\n\nThe sprightly Dedlock is reputed, in that grass-grown city of the\nancients, Bath, to be stimulated by an urgent curiosity which impels\nher on all convenient and inconvenient occasions to sidle about with\na golden glass at her eye, peering into objects of every description.\nCertain it is that she avails herself of the present opportunity of\nhovering over her kinsman's letters and papers like a bird, taking a\nshort peck at this document and a blink with her head on one side at\nthat document, and hopping about from table to table with her glass\nat her eye in an inquisitive and restless manner. In the course of\nthese researches she stumbles over something, and turning her glass\nin that direction, sees her kinsman lying on the ground like a felled\ntree.\n\nVolumnia's pet little scream acquires a considerable augmentation of\nreality from this surprise, and the house is quickly in commotion.\nServants tear up and down stairs, bells are violently rung, doctors\nare sent for, and Lady Dedlock is sought in all directions, but not\nfound. Nobody has seen or heard her since she last rang her bell. Her\nletter to Sir Leicester is discovered on her table, but it is\ndoubtful yet whether he has not received another missive from another\nworld requiring to be personally answered, and all the living\nlanguages, and all the dead, are as one to him.\n\nThey lay him down upon his bed, and chafe, and rub, and fan, and put\nice to his head, and try every means of restoration. Howbeit, the day\nhas ebbed away, and it is night in his room before his stertorous\nbreathing lulls or his fixed eyes show any consciousness of the\ncandle that is occasionally passed before them. But when this change\nbegins, it goes on; and by and by he nods or moves his eyes or even\nhis hand in token that he hears and comprehends.\n\nHe fell down, this morning, a handsome stately gentleman, somewhat\ninfirm, but of a fine presence, and with a well-filled face. He lies\nupon his bed, an aged man with sunken cheeks, the decrepit shadow of\nhimself. His voice was rich and mellow and he had so long been\nthoroughly persuaded of the weight and import to mankind of any word\nhe said that his words really had come to sound as if there were\nsomething in them. But now he can only whisper, and what he whispers\nsounds like what it is--mere jumble and jargon.\n\nHis favourite and faithful housekeeper stands at his bedside. It is\nthe first act he notices, and he clearly derives pleasure from it.\nAfter vainly trying to make himself understood in speech, he makes\nsigns for a pencil. So inexpressively that they cannot at first\nunderstand him; it is his old housekeeper who makes out what he wants\nand brings in a slate.\n\nAfter pausing for some time, he slowly scrawls upon it in a hand that\nis not his, \"Chesney Wold?\"\n\nNo, she tells him; he is in London. He was taken ill in the library\nthis morning. Right thankful she is that she happened to come to\nLondon and is able to attend upon him.\n\n\"It is not an illness of any serious consequence, Sir Leicester. You\nwill be much better to-morrow, Sir Leicester. All the gentlemen say\nso.\" This, with the tears coursing down her fair old face.\n\nAfter making a survey of the room and looking with particular\nattention all round the bed where the doctors stand, he writes, \"My\nLady.\"\n\n\"My Lady went out, Sir Leicester, before you were taken ill, and\ndon't know of your illness yet.\"\n\nHe points again, in great agitation, at the two words. They all try\nto quiet him, but he points again with increased agitation. On their\nlooking at one another, not knowing what to say, he takes the slate\nonce more and writes \"My Lady. For God's sake, where?\" And makes an\nimploring moan.\n\nIt is thought better that his old housekeeper should give him Lady\nDedlock's letter, the contents of which no one knows or can surmise.\nShe opens it for him and puts it out for his perusal. Having read it\ntwice by a great effort, he turns it down so that it shall not be\nseen and lies moaning. He passes into a kind of relapse or into a\nswoon, and it is an hour before he opens his eyes, reclining on his\nfaithful and attached old servant's arm. The doctors know that he is\nbest with her, and when not actively engaged about him, stand aloof.\n\nThe slate comes into requisition again, but the word he wants to\nwrite he cannot remember. His anxiety, his eagerness, and affliction\nat this pass are pitiable to behold. It seems as if he must go mad in\nthe necessity he feels for haste and the inability under which he\nlabours of expressing to do what or to fetch whom. He has written the\nletter B, and there stopped. Of a sudden, in the height of his\nmisery, he puts Mr. before it. The old housekeeper suggests Bucket.\nThank heaven! That's his meaning.\n\nMr. Bucket is found to be downstairs, by appointment. Shall he come\nup?\n\nThere is no possibility of misconstruing Sir Leicester's burning wish\nto see him or the desire he signifies to have the room cleared of\nevery one but the housekeeper. It is speedily done, and Mr. Bucket\nappears. Of all men upon earth, Sir Leicester seems fallen from his\nhigh estate to place his sole trust and reliance upon this man.\n\n\"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I'm sorry to see you like this. I\nhope you'll cheer up. I'm sure you will, on account of the family\ncredit.\"\n\nSir Leicester puts her letter in his hands and looks intently in his\nface while he reads it. A new intelligence comes into Mr. Bucket's\neye as he reads on; with one hook of his finger, while that eye is\nstill glancing over the words, he indicates, \"Sir Leicester Dedlock,\nBaronet, I understand you.\"\n\nSir Leicester writes upon the slate. \"Full forgiveness. Find--\" Mr.\nBucket stops his hand.\n\n\"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I'll find her. But my search after\nher must be begun out of hand. Not a minute must be lost.\"\n\nWith the quickness of thought, he follows Sir Leicester Dedlock's\nlook towards a little box upon a table.\n\n\"Bring it here, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet? Certainly. Open it\nwith one of these here keys? Certainly. The littlest key? TO be sure.\nTake the notes out? So I will. Count 'em? That's soon done. Twenty\nand thirty's fifty, and twenty's seventy, and fifty's one twenty, and\nforty's one sixty. Take 'em for expenses? That I'll do, and render an\naccount of course. Don't spare money? No I won't.\"\n\nThe velocity and certainty of Mr. Bucket's interpretation on all\nthese heads is little short of miraculous. Mrs. Rouncewell, who holds\nthe light, is giddy with the swiftness of his eyes and hands as he\nstarts up, furnished for his journey.\n\n\"You're George's mother, old lady; that's about what you are, I\nbelieve?\" says Mr. Bucket aside, with his hat already on and\nbuttoning his coat.\n\n\"Yes, sir, I am his distressed mother.\"\n\n\"So I thought, according to what he mentioned to me just now. Well,\nthen, I'll tell you something. You needn't be distressed no more.\nYour son's all right. Now, don't you begin a-crying, because what\nyou've got to do is to take care of Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,\nand you won't do that by crying. As to your son, he's all right, I\ntell you; and he sends his loving duty, and hoping you're the same.\nHe's discharged honourable; that's about what HE is; with no more\nimputation on his character than there is on yours, and yours is a\ntidy one, I'LL bet a pound. You may trust me, for I took your son. He\nconducted himself in a game way, too, on that occasion; and he's a\nfine-made man, and you're a fine-made old lady, and you're a mother\nand son, the pair of you, as might be showed for models in a caravan.\nSir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, what you've trusted to me I'll go\nthrough with. Don't you be afraid of my turning out of my way, right\nor left, or taking a sleep, or a wash, or a shave till I have found\nwhat I go in search of. Say everything as is kind and forgiving on\nyour part? Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I will. And I wish you\nbetter, and these family affairs smoothed over--as, Lord, many other\nfamily affairs equally has been, and equally will be, to the end of\ntime.\"\n\nWith this peroration, Mr. Bucket, buttoned up, goes quietly out,\nlooking steadily before him as if he were already piercing the night\nin quest of the fugitive.\n\nHis first step is to take himself to Lady Dedlock's rooms and look\nall over them for any trifling indication that may help him. The\nrooms are in darkness now; and to see Mr. Bucket with a wax-light in\nhis hand, holding it above his head and taking a sharp mental\ninventory of the many delicate objects so curiously at variance with\nhimself, would be to see a sight--which nobody DOES see, as he is\nparticular to lock himself in.\n\n\"A spicy boudoir, this,\" says Mr. Bucket, who feels in a manner\nfurbished up in his French by the blow of the morning. \"Must have\ncost a sight of money. Rum articles to cut away from, these; she must\nhave been hard put to it!\"\n\nOpening and shutting table-drawers and looking into caskets and\njewel-cases, he sees the reflection of himself in various mirrors,\nand moralizes thereon.\n\n\"One might suppose I was a-moving in the fashionable circles and\ngetting myself up for almac's,\" says Mr. Bucket. \"I begin to think I\nmust be a swell in the Guards without knowing it.\"\n\nEver looking about, he has opened a dainty little chest in an inner\ndrawer. His great hand, turning over some gloves which it can\nscarcely feel, they are so light and soft within it, comes upon a\nwhite handkerchief.\n\n\"Hum! Let's have a look at YOU,\" says Mr. Bucket, putting down the\nlight. \"What should YOU be kept by yourself for? What's YOUR motive?\nAre you her ladyship's property, or somebody else's? You've got a\nmark upon you somewheres or another, I suppose?\"\n\nHe finds it as he speaks, \"Esther Summerson.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" says Mr. Bucket, pausing, with his finger at his ear. \"Come,\nI'll take YOU.\"\n\nHe completes his observations as quietly and carefully as he has\ncarried them on, leaves everything else precisely as he found it,\nglides away after some five minutes in all, and passes into the\nstreet. With a glance upward at the dimly lighted windows of Sir\nLeicester's room, he sets off, full-swing, to the nearest\ncoach-stand, picks out the horse for his money, and directs to be\ndriven to the shooting gallery. Mr. Bucket does not claim to be a\nscientific judge of horses, but he lays out a little money on the\nprincipal events in that line, and generally sums up his knowledge of\nthe subject in the remark that when he sees a horse as can go, he\nknows him.\n\nHis knowledge is not at fault in the present instance. Clattering\nover the stones at a dangerous pace, yet thoughtfully bringing his\nkeen eyes to bear on every slinking creature whom he passes in the\nmidnight streets, and even on the lights in upper windows where\npeople are going or gone to bed, and on all the turnings that he\nrattles by, and alike on the heavy sky, and on the earth where the\nsnow lies thin--for something may present itself to assist him,\nanywhere--he dashes to his destination at such a speed that when he\nstops the horse half smothers him in a cloud of steam.\n\n\"Unbear him half a moment to freshen him up, and I'll be back.\"\n\nHe runs up the long wooden entry and finds the trooper smoking his\npipe.\n\n\"I thought I should, George, after what you have gone through, my\nlad. I haven't a word to spare. Now, honour! All to save a woman.\nMiss Summerson that was here when Gridley died--that was the name, I\nknow--all right--where does she live?\"\n\nThe trooper has just come from there and gives him the address, near\nOxford Street.\n\n\"You won't repent it, George. Good night!\"\n\nHe is off again, with an impression of having seen Phil sitting by\nthe frosty fire staring at him open-mouthed, and gallops away again,\nand gets out in a cloud of steam again.\n\nMr. Jarndyce, the only person up in the house, is just going to bed,\nrises from his book on hearing the rapid ringing at the bell, and\ncomes down to the door in his dressing-gown.\n\n\"Don't be alarmed, sir.\" In a moment his visitor is confidential with\nhim in the hall, has shut the door, and stands with his hand upon the\nlock. \"I've had the pleasure of seeing you before. Inspector Bucket.\nLook at that handkerchief, sir, Miss Esther Summerson's. Found it\nmyself put away in a drawer of Lady Dedlock's, quarter of an hour\nago. Not a moment to lose. Matter of life or death. You know Lady\nDedlock?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"There has been a discovery there to-day. Family affairs have come\nout. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, has had a fit--apoplexy or\nparalysis--and couldn't be brought to, and precious time has been\nlost. Lady Dedlock disappeared this afternoon and left a letter for\nhim that looks bad. Run your eye over it. Here it is!\"\n\nMr. Jarndyce, having read it, asks him what he thinks.\n\n\"I don't know. It looks like suicide. Anyways, there's more and more\ndanger, every minute, of its drawing to that. I'd give a hundred\npound an hour to have got the start of the present time. Now, Mr.\nJarndyce, I am employed by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to follow\nher and find her, to save her and take her his forgiveness. I have\nmoney and full power, but I want something else. I want Miss\nSummerson.\"\n\nMr. Jarndyce in a troubled voice repeats, \"Miss Summerson?\"\n\n\"Now, Mr. Jarndyce\"--Mr. Bucket has read his face with the greatest\nattention all along--\"I speak to you as a gentleman of a humane\nheart, and under such pressing circumstances as don't often happen.\nIf ever delay was dangerous, it's dangerous now; and if ever you\ncouldn't afterwards forgive yourself for causing it, this is the\ntime. Eight or ten hours, worth, as I tell you, a hundred pound\napiece at least, have been lost since Lady Dedlock disappeared. I am\ncharged to find her. I am Inspector Bucket. Besides all the rest\nthat's heavy on her, she has upon her, as she believes, suspicion of\nmurder. If I follow her alone, she, being in ignorance of what Sir\nLeicester Dedlock, Baronet, has communicated to me, may be driven to\ndesperation. But if I follow her in company with a young lady,\nanswering to the description of a young lady that she has a\ntenderness for--I ask no question, and I say no more than that--she\nwill give me credit for being friendly. Let me come up with her and\nbe able to have the hold upon her of putting that young lady for'ard,\nand I'll save her and prevail with her if she is alive. Let me come\nup with her alone--a hard matter--and I'll do my best, but I don't\nanswer for what the best may be. Time flies; it's getting on for one\no'clock. When one strikes, there's another hour gone, and it's worth\na thousand pound now instead of a hundred.\"\n\nThis is all true, and the pressing nature of the case cannot be\nquestioned. Mr. Jarndyce begs him to remain there while he speaks to\nMiss Summerson. Mr. Bucket says he will, but acting on his usual\nprinciple, does no such thing, following upstairs instead and keeping\nhis man in sight. So he remains, dodging and lurking about in the\ngloom of the staircase while they confer. In a very little time Mr.\nJarndyce comes down and tells him that Miss Summerson will join him\ndirectly and place herself under his protection to accompany him\nwhere he pleases. Mr. Bucket, satisfied, expresses high approval and\nawaits her coming at the door.\n\nThere he mounts a high tower in his mind and looks out far and wide.\nMany solitary figures he perceives creeping through the streets; many\nsolitary figures out on heaths, and roads, and lying under haystacks.\nBut the figure that he seeks is not among them. Other solitaries he\nperceives, in nooks of bridges, looking over; and in shadowed places\ndown by the river's level; and a dark, dark, shapeless object\ndrifting with the tide, more solitary than all, clings with a\ndrowning hold on his attention.\n\nWhere is she? Living or dead, where is she? If, as he folds the\nhandkerchief and carefully puts it up, it were able with an enchanted\npower to bring before him the place where she found it and the\nnight-landscape near the cottage where it covered the little child,\nwould he descry her there? On the waste where the brick-kilns are\nburning with a pale blue flare, where the straw-roofs of the wretched\nhuts in which the bricks are made are being scattered by the wind,\nwhere the clay and water are hard frozen and the mill in which the\ngaunt blind horse goes round all day looks like an instrument of\nhuman torture--traversing this deserted, blighted spot there is a\nlonely figure with the sad world to itself, pelted by the snow and\ndriven by the wind, and cast out, it would seem, from all\ncompanionship. It is the figure of a woman, too; but it is miserably\ndressed, and no such clothes ever came through the hall and out at\nthe great door of the Dedlock mansion.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LVII\n\nEsther's Narrative\n\n\nI had gone to bed and fallen asleep when my guardian knocked at the\ndoor of my room and begged me to get up directly. On my hurrying to\nspeak to him and learn what had happened, he told me, after a word or\ntwo of preparation, that there had been a discovery at Sir Leicester\nDedlock's. That my mother had fled, that a person was now at our door\nwho was empowered to convey to her the fullest assurances of\naffectionate protection and forgiveness if he could possibly find\nher, and that I was sought for to accompany him in the hope that my\nentreaties might prevail upon her if his failed. Something to this\ngeneral purpose I made out, but I was thrown into such a tumult of\nalarm, and hurry and distress, that in spite of every effort I could\nmake to subdue my agitation, I did not seem, to myself, fully to\nrecover my right mind until hours had passed.\n\nBut I dressed and wrapped up expeditiously without waking Charley or\nany one and went down to Mr. Bucket, who was the person entrusted\nwith the secret. In taking me to him my guardian told me this, and\nalso explained how it was that he had come to think of me. Mr.\nBucket, in a low voice, by the light of my guardian's candle, read to\nme in the hall a letter that my mother had left upon her table; and I\nsuppose within ten minutes of my having been aroused I was sitting\nbeside him, rolling swiftly through the streets.\n\nHis manner was very keen, and yet considerate when he explained to me\nthat a great deal might depend on my being able to answer, without\nconfusion, a few questions that he wished to ask me. These were,\nchiefly, whether I had had much communication with my mother (to whom\nhe only referred as Lady Dedlock), when and where I had spoken with\nher last, and how she had become possessed of my handkerchief. When I\nhad satisfied him on these points, he asked me particularly to\nconsider--taking time to think--whether within my knowledge there was\nany one, no matter where, in whom she might be at all likely to\nconfide under circumstances of the last necessity. I could think of\nno one but my guardian. But by and by I mentioned Mr. Boythorn. He\ncame into my mind as connected with his old chivalrous manner of\nmentioning my mother's name and with what my guardian had informed me\nof his engagement to her sister and his unconscious connexion with\nher unhappy story.\n\nMy companion had stopped the driver while we held this conversation,\nthat we might the better hear each other. He now told him to go on\nagain and said to me, after considering within himself for a few\nmoments, that he had made up his mind how to proceed. He was quite\nwilling to tell me what his plan was, but I did not feel clear enough\nto understand it.\n\nWe had not driven very far from our lodgings when we stopped in a\nby-street at a public-looking place lighted up with gas. Mr. Bucket\ntook me in and sat me in an arm-chair by a bright fire. It was now\npast one, as I saw by the clock against the wall. Two police\nofficers, looking in their perfectly neat uniform not at all like\npeople who were up all night, were quietly writing at a desk; and the\nplace seemed very quiet altogether, except for some beating and\ncalling out at distant doors underground, to which nobody paid any\nattention.\n\nA third man in uniform, whom Mr. Bucket called and to whom he\nwhispered his instructions, went out; and then the two others advised\ntogether while one wrote from Mr. Bucket's subdued dictation. It was\na description of my mother that they were busy with, for Mr. Bucket\nbrought it to me when it was done and read it in a whisper. It was\nvery accurate indeed.\n\nThe second officer, who had attended to it closely, then copied it\nout and called in another man in uniform (there were several in an\nouter room), who took it up and went away with it. All this was done\nwith the greatest dispatch and without the waste of a moment; yet\nnobody was at all hurried. As soon as the paper was sent out upon its\ntravels, the two officers resumed their former quiet work of writing\nwith neatness and care. Mr. Bucket thoughtfully came and warmed the\nsoles of his boots, first one and then the other, at the fire.\n\n\"Are you well wrapped up, Miss Summerson?\" he asked me as his eyes\nmet mine. \"It's a desperate sharp night for a young lady to be out\nin.\"\n\nI told him I cared for no weather and was warmly clothed.\n\n\"It may be a long job,\" he observed; \"but so that it ends well, never\nmind, miss.\"\n\n\"I pray to heaven it may end well!\" said I.\n\nHe nodded comfortingly. \"You see, whatever you do, don't you go and\nfret yourself. You keep yourself cool and equal for anything that may\nhappen, and it'll be the better for you, the better for me, the\nbetter for Lady Dedlock, and the better for Sir Leicester Dedlock,\nBaronet.\"\n\nHe was really very kind and gentle, and as he stood before the fire\nwarming his boots and rubbing his face with his forefinger, I felt a\nconfidence in his sagacity which reassured me. It was not yet a\nquarter to two when I heard horses' feet and wheels outside. \"Now,\nMiss Summerson,\" said he, \"we are off, if you please!\"\n\nHe gave me his arm, and the two officers courteously bowed me out,\nand we found at the door a phaeton or barouche with a postilion and\npost horses. Mr. Bucket handed me in and took his own seat on the\nbox. The man in uniform whom he had sent to fetch this equipage then\nhanded him up a dark lantern at his request, and when he had given a\nfew directions to the driver, we rattled away.\n\nI was far from sure that I was not in a dream. We rattled with great\nrapidity through such a labyrinth of streets that I soon lost all\nidea where we were, except that we had crossed and re-crossed the\nriver, and still seemed to be traversing a low-lying, waterside,\ndense neighbourhood of narrow thoroughfares chequered by docks and\nbasins, high piles of warehouses, swing-bridges, and masts of ships.\nAt length we stopped at the corner of a little slimy turning, which\nthe wind from the river, rushing up it, did not purify; and I saw my\ncompanion, by the light of his lantern, in conference with several\nmen who looked like a mixture of police and sailors. Against the\nmouldering wall by which they stood, there was a bill, on which I\ncould discern the words, \"Found Drowned\"; and this and an inscription\nabout drags possessed me with the awful suspicion shadowed forth in\nour visit to that place.\n\nI had no need to remind myself that I was not there by the indulgence\nof any feeling of mine to increase the difficulties of the search, or\nto lessen its hopes, or enhance its delays. I remained quiet, but\nwhat I suffered in that dreadful spot I never can forget. And still\nit was like the horror of a dream. A man yet dark and muddy, in long\nswollen sodden boots and a hat like them, was called out of a boat\nand whispered with Mr. Bucket, who went away with him down some\nslippery steps--as if to look at something secret that he had to\nshow. They came back, wiping their hands upon their coats, after\nturning over something wet; but thank God it was not what I feared!\n\nAfter some further conference, Mr. Bucket (whom everybody seemed to\nknow and defer to) went in with the others at a door and left me in\nthe carriage, while the driver walked up and down by his horses to\nwarm himself. The tide was coming in, as I judged from the sound it\nmade, and I could hear it break at the end of the alley with a little\nrush towards me. It never did so--and I thought it did so, hundreds\nof times, in what can have been at the most a quarter of an hour, and\nprobably was less--but the thought shuddered through me that it would\ncast my mother at the horses' feet.\n\nMr. Bucket came out again, exhorting the others to be vigilant,\ndarkened his lantern, and once more took his seat. \"Don't you be\nalarmed, Miss Summerson, on account of our coming down here,\" he\nsaid, turning to me. \"I only want to have everything in train and to\nknow that it is in train by looking after it myself. Get on, my lad!\"\n\nWe appeared to retrace the way we had come. Not that I had taken note\nof any particular objects in my perturbed state of mind, but judging\nfrom the general character of the streets. We called at another\noffice or station for a minute and crossed the river again. During\nthe whole of this time, and during the whole search, my companion,\nwrapped up on the box, never relaxed in his vigilance a single\nmoment; but when we crossed the bridge he seemed, if possible, to be\nmore on the alert than before. He stood up to look over the parapet,\nhe alighted and went back after a shadowy female figure that flitted\npast us, and he gazed into the profound black pit of water with a\nface that made my heart die within me. The river had a fearful look,\nso overcast and secret, creeping away so fast between the low flat\nlines of shore--so heavy with indistinct and awful shapes, both of\nsubstance and shadow; so death-like and mysterious. I have seen it\nmany times since then, by sunlight and by moonlight, but never free\nfrom the impressions of that journey. In my memory the lights upon\nthe bridge are always burning dim, the cutting wind is eddying round\nthe homeless woman whom we pass, the monotonous wheels are whirling\non, and the light of the carriage-lamps reflected back looks palely\nin upon me--a face rising out of the dreaded water.\n\nClattering and clattering through the empty streets, we came at\nlength from the pavement on to dark smooth roads and began to leave\nthe houses behind us. After a while I recognized the familiar way to\nSaint Albans. At Barnet fresh horses were ready for us, and we\nchanged and went on. It was very cold indeed, and the open country\nwas white with snow, though none was falling then.\n\n\"An old acquaintance of yours, this road, Miss Summerson,\" said Mr.\nBucket cheerfully.\n\n\"Yes,\" I returned. \"Have you gathered any intelligence?\"\n\n\"None that can be quite depended on as yet,\" he answered, \"but it's\nearly times as yet.\"\n\nHe had gone into every late or early public-house where there\nwas a light (they were not a few at that time, the road being\nthen much frequented by drovers) and had got down to talk to the\nturnpike-keepers. I had heard him ordering drink, and chinking money,\nand making himself agreeable and merry everywhere; but whenever he\ntook his seat upon the box again, his face resumed its watchful\nsteady look, and he always said to the driver in the same business\ntone, \"Get on, my lad!\"\n\nWith all these stoppages, it was between five and six o'clock and we\nwere yet a few miles short of Saint Albans when he came out of one of\nthese houses and handed me in a cup of tea.\n\n\"Drink it, Miss Summerson, it'll do you good. You're beginning to get\nmore yourself now, ain't you?\"\n\nI thanked him and said I hoped so.\n\n\"You was what you may call stunned at first,\" he returned; \"and Lord,\nno wonder! Don't speak loud, my dear. It's all right. She's on\nahead.\"\n\nI don't know what joyful exclamation I made or was going to make, but\nhe put up his finger and I stopped myself.\n\n\"Passed through here on foot this evening about eight or nine. I\nheard of her first at the archway toll, over at Highgate, but\ncouldn't make quite sure. Traced her all along, on and off. Picked\nher up at one place, and dropped her at another; but she's before us\nnow, safe. Take hold of this cup and saucer, ostler. Now, if you\nwasn't brought up to the butter trade, look out and see if you can\ncatch half a crown in your t'other hand. One, two, three, and there\nyou are! Now, my lad, try a gallop!\"\n\nWe were soon in Saint Albans and alighted a little before day, when I\nwas just beginning to arrange and comprehend the occurrences of the\nnight and really to believe that they were not a dream. Leaving the\ncarriage at the posting-house and ordering fresh horses to be ready,\nmy companion gave me his arm, and we went towards home.\n\n\"As this is your regular abode, Miss Summerson, you see,\" he\nobserved, \"I should like to know whether you've been asked for by any\nstranger answering the description, or whether Mr. Jarndyce has. I\ndon't much expect it, but it might be.\"\n\nAs we ascended the hill, he looked about him with a sharp eye--the\nday was now breaking--and reminded me that I had come down it one\nnight, as I had reason for remembering, with my little servant and\npoor Jo, whom he called Toughey.\n\nI wondered how he knew that.\n\n\"When you passed a man upon the road, just yonder, you know,\" said\nMr. Bucket.\n\nYes, I remembered that too, very well.\n\n\"That was me,\" said Mr. Bucket.\n\nSeeing my surprise, he went on, \"I drove down in a gig that afternoon\nto look after that boy. You might have heard my wheels when you came\nout to look after him yourself, for I was aware of you and your\nlittle maid going up when I was walking the horse down. Making an\ninquiry or two about him in the town, I soon heard what company he\nwas in and was coming among the brick-fields to look for him when I\nobserved you bringing him home here.\"\n\n\"Had he committed any crime?\" I asked.\n\n\"None was charged against him,\" said Mr. Bucket, coolly lifting off\nhis hat, \"but I suppose he wasn't over-particular. No. What I wanted\nhim for was in connexion with keeping this very matter of Lady\nDedlock quiet. He had been making his tongue more free than welcome\nas to a small accidental service he had been paid for by the deceased\nMr. Tulkinghorn; and it wouldn't do, at any sort of price, to have\nhim playing those games. So having warned him out of London, I made\nan afternoon of it to warn him to keep out of it now he WAS away, and\ngo farther from it, and maintain a bright look-out that I didn't\ncatch him coming back again.\"\n\n\"Poor creature!\" said I.\n\n\"Poor enough,\" assented Mr. Bucket, \"and trouble enough, and well\nenough away from London, or anywhere else. I was regularly turned on\nmy back when I found him taken up by your establishment, I do assure\nyou.\"\n\nI asked him why. \"Why, my dear?\" said Mr. Bucket. \"Naturally there\nwas no end to his tongue then. He might as well have been born with a\nyard and a half of it, and a remnant over.\"\n\nAlthough I remember this conversation now, my head was in confusion\nat the time, and my power of attention hardly did more than enable me\nto understand that he entered into these particulars to divert me.\nWith the same kind intention, manifestly, he often spoke to me of\nindifferent things, while his face was busy with the one object that\nwe had in view. He still pursued this subject as we turned in at the\ngarden-gate.\n\n\"Ah!\" said Mr. Bucket. \"Here we are, and a nice retired place it is.\nPuts a man in mind of the country house in the Woodpecker-tapping,\nthat was known by the smoke which so gracefully curled. They're early\nwith the kitchen fire, and that denotes good servants. But what\nyou've always got to be careful of with servants is who comes to see\n'em; you never know what they're up to if you don't know that. And\nanother thing, my dear. Whenever you find a young man behind the\nkitchen-door, you give that young man in charge on suspicion of being\nsecreted in a dwelling-house with an unlawful purpose.\"\n\nWe were now in front of the house; he looked attentively and closely\nat the gravel for footprints before he raised his eyes to the\nwindows.\n\n\"Do you generally put that elderly young gentleman in the same room\nwhen he's on a visit here, Miss Summerson?\" he inquired, glancing at\nMr. Skimpole's usual chamber.\n\n\"You know Mr. Skimpole!\" said I.\n\n\"What do you call him again?\" returned Mr. Bucket, bending down his\near. \"Skimpole, is it? I've often wondered what his name might be.\nSkimpole. Not John, I should say, nor yet Jacob?\"\n\n\"Harold,\" I told him.\n\n\"Harold. Yes. He's a queer bird is Harold,\" said Mr. Bucket, eyeing\nme with great expression.\n\n\"He is a singular character,\" said I.\n\n\"No idea of money,\" observed Mr. Bucket. \"He takes it, though!\"\n\nI involuntarily returned for answer that I perceived Mr. Bucket knew\nhim.\n\n\"Why, now I'll tell you, Miss Summerson,\" he replied. \"Your mind will\nbe all the better for not running on one point too continually, and\nI'll tell you for a change. It was him as pointed out to me where\nToughey was. I made up my mind that night to come to the door and ask\nfor Toughey, if that was all; but willing to try a move or so first,\nif any such was on the board, I just pitched up a morsel of gravel at\nthat window where I saw a shadow. As soon as Harold opens it and I\nhave had a look at him, thinks I, you're the man for me. So I\nsmoothed him down a bit about not wanting to disturb the family after\nthey was gone to bed and about its being a thing to be regretted that\ncharitable young ladies should harbour vagrants; and then, when I\npretty well understood his ways, I said I should consider a fypunnote\nwell bestowed if I could relieve the premises of Toughey without\ncausing any noise or trouble. Then says he, lifting up his eyebrows\nin the gayest way, 'It's no use mentioning a fypunnote to me, my\nfriend, because I'm a mere child in such matters and have no idea of\nmoney.' Of course I understood what his taking it so easy meant; and\nbeing now quite sure he was the man for me, I wrapped the note round\na little stone and threw it up to him. Well! He laughs and beams, and\nlooks as innocent as you like, and says, 'But I don't know the value\nof these things. What am I to DO with this?' 'Spend it, sir,' says I.\n'But I shall be taken in,' he says, 'they won't give me the right\nchange, I shall lose it, it's no use to me.' Lord, you never saw such\na face as he carried it with! Of course he told me where to find\nToughey, and I found him.\"\n\nI regarded this as very treacherous on the part of Mr. Skimpole\ntowards my guardian and as passing the usual bounds of his childish\ninnocence.\n\n\"Bounds, my dear?\" returned Mr. Bucket. \"Bounds? Now, Miss Summerson,\nI'll give you a piece of advice that your husband will find useful\nwhen you are happily married and have got a family about you.\nWhenever a person says to you that they are as innocent as can be in\nall concerning money, look well after your own money, for they are\ndead certain to collar it if they can. Whenever a person proclaims to\nyou 'In worldly matters I'm a child,' you consider that that person\nis only a-crying off from being held accountable and that you have\ngot that person's number, and it's Number One. Now, I am not a\npoetical man myself, except in a vocal way when it goes round a\ncompany, but I'm a practical one, and that's my experience. So's this\nrule. Fast and loose in one thing, fast and loose in everything. I\nnever knew it fail. No more will you. Nor no one. With which caution\nto the unwary, my dear, I take the liberty of pulling this here bell,\nand so go back to our business.\"\n\nI believe it had not been for a moment out of his mind, any more than\nit had been out of my mind, or out of his face. The whole household\nwere amazed to see me, without any notice, at that time in the\nmorning, and so accompanied; and their surprise was not diminished by\nmy inquiries. No one, however, had been there. It could not be\ndoubted that this was the truth.\n\n\"Then, Miss Summerson,\" said my companion, \"we can't be too soon at\nthe cottage where those brickmakers are to be found. Most inquiries\nthere I leave to you, if you'll be so good as to make 'em. The\nnaturalest way is the best way, and the naturalest way is your own\nway.\"\n\nWe set off again immediately. On arriving at the cottage, we found it\nshut up and apparently deserted, but one of the neighbours who knew\nme and who came out when I was trying to make some one hear informed\nme that the two women and their husbands now lived together in\nanother house, made of loose rough bricks, which stood on the margin\nof the piece of ground where the kilns were and where the long rows\nof bricks were drying. We lost no time in repairing to this place,\nwhich was within a few hundred yards; and as the door stood ajar, I\npushed it open.\n\nThere were only three of them sitting at breakfast, the child lying\nasleep on a bed in the corner. It was Jenny, the mother of the dead\nchild, who was absent. The other woman rose on seeing me; and the\nmen, though they were, as usual, sulky and silent, each gave me a\nmorose nod of recognition. A look passed between them when Mr. Bucket\nfollowed me in, and I was surprised to see that the woman evidently\nknew him.\n\nI had asked leave to enter of course. Liz (the only name by which I\nknew her) rose to give me her own chair, but I sat down on a stool\nnear the fire, and Mr. Bucket took a corner of the bedstead. Now that\nI had to speak and was among people with whom I was not familiar, I\nbecame conscious of being hurried and giddy. It was very difficult to\nbegin, and I could not help bursting into tears.\n\n\"Liz,\" said I, \"I have come a long way in the night and through the\nsnow to inquire after a lady--\"\n\n\"Who has been here, you know,\" Mr. Bucket struck in, addressing the\nwhole group with a composed propitiatory face; \"that's the lady the\nyoung lady means. The lady that was here last night, you know.\"\n\n\"And who told YOU as there was anybody here?\" inquired Jenny's\nhusband, who had made a surly stop in his eating to listen and now\nmeasured him with his eye.\n\n\"A person of the name of Michael Jackson, with a blue welveteen\nwaistcoat with a double row of mother of pearl buttons,\" Mr. Bucket\nimmediately answered.\n\n\"He had as good mind his own business, whoever he is,\" growled the\nman.\n\n\"He's out of employment, I believe,\" said Mr. Bucket apologetically\nfor Michael Jackson, \"and so gets talking.\"\n\nThe woman had not resumed her chair, but stood faltering with her\nhand upon its broken back, looking at me. I thought she would have\nspoken to me privately if she had dared. She was still in this\nattitude of uncertainty when her husband, who was eating with a lump\nof bread and fat in one hand and his clasp-knife in the other, struck\nthe handle of his knife violently on the table and told her with an\noath to mind HER own business at any rate and sit down.\n\n\"I should like to have seen Jenny very much,\" said I, \"for I am sure\nshe would have told me all she could about this lady, whom I am very\nanxious indeed--you cannot think how anxious--to overtake. Will Jenny\nbe here soon? Where is she?\"\n\nThe woman had a great desire to answer, but the man, with another\noath, openly kicked at her foot with his heavy boot. He left it to\nJenny's husband to say what he chose, and after a dogged silence the\nlatter turned his shaggy head towards me.\n\n\"I'm not partial to gentlefolks coming into my place, as you've heerd\nme say afore now, I think, miss. I let their places be, and it's\ncurious they can't let my place be. There'd be a pretty shine made if\nI was to go a-wisitin THEM, I think. Howsoever, I don't so much\ncomplain of you as of some others, and I'm agreeable to make you a\ncivil answer, though I give notice that I'm not a-going to be drawed\nlike a badger. Will Jenny be here soon? No she won't. Where is she?\nShe's gone up to Lunnun.\"\n\n\"Did she go last night?\" I asked.\n\n\"Did she go last night? Ah! She went last night,\" he answered with a\nsulky jerk of his head.\n\n\"But was she here when the lady came? And what did the lady say to\nher? And where is the lady gone? I beg and pray you to be so kind as\nto tell me,\" said I, \"for I am in great distress to know.\"\n\n\"If my master would let me speak, and not say a word of harm--\" the\nwoman timidly began.\n\n\"Your master,\" said her husband, muttering an imprecation with slow\nemphasis, \"will break your neck if you meddle with wot don't concern\nyou.\"\n\nAfter another silence, the husband of the absent woman, turning to me\nagain, answered me with his usual grumbling unwillingness.\n\n\"Wos Jenny here when the lady come? Yes, she wos here when the lady\ncome. Wot did the lady say to her? Well, I'll tell you wot the lady\nsaid to her. She said, 'You remember me as come one time to talk to\nyou about the young lady as had been a-wisiting of you? You remember\nme as give you somethink handsome for a handkercher wot she had\nleft?' Ah, she remembered. So we all did. Well, then, wos that young\nlady up at the house now? No, she warn't up at the house now. Well,\nthen, lookee here. The lady was upon a journey all alone, strange as\nwe might think it, and could she rest herself where you're a setten\nfor a hour or so. Yes she could, and so she did. Then she went--it\nmight be at twenty minutes past eleven, and it might be at twenty\nminutes past twelve; we ain't got no watches here to know the time\nby, nor yet clocks. Where did she go? I don't know where she go'd.\nShe went one way, and Jenny went another; one went right to Lunnun,\nand t'other went right from it. That's all about it. Ask this man. He\nheerd it all, and see it all. He knows.\"\n\nThe other man repeated, \"That's all about it.\"\n\n\"Was the lady crying?\" I inquired.\n\n\"Devil a bit,\" returned the first man. \"Her shoes was the worse, and\nher clothes was the worse, but she warn't--not as I see.\"\n\nThe woman sat with her arms crossed and her eyes upon the ground. Her\nhusband had turned his seat a little so as to face her and kept his\nhammer-like hand upon the table as if it were in readiness to execute\nhis threat if she disobeyed him.\n\n\"I hope you will not object to my asking your wife,\" said I, \"how the\nlady looked.\"\n\n\"Come, then!\" he gruffly cried to her. \"You hear what she says. Cut\nit short and tell her.\"\n\n\"Bad,\" replied the woman. \"Pale and exhausted. Very bad.\"\n\n\"Did she speak much?\"\n\n\"Not much, but her voice was hoarse.\"\n\nShe answered, looking all the while at her husband for leave.\n\n\"Was she faint?\" said I. \"Did she eat or drink here?\"\n\n\"Go on!\" said the husband in answer to her look. \"Tell her and cut it\nshort.\"\n\n\"She had a little water, miss, and Jenny fetched her some bread and\ntea. But she hardly touched it.\"\n\n\"And when she went from here,\" I was proceeding, when Jenny's husband\nimpatiently took me up.\n\n\"When she went from here, she went right away nor'ard by the high\nroad. Ask on the road if you doubt me, and see if it warn't so. Now,\nthere's the end. That's all about it.\"\n\nI glanced at my companion, and finding that he had already risen and\nwas ready to depart, thanked them for what they had told me, and took\nmy leave. The woman looked full at Mr. Bucket as he went out, and he\nlooked full at her.\n\n\"Now, Miss Summerson,\" he said to me as we walked quickly away.\n\"They've got her ladyship's watch among 'em. That's a positive fact.\"\n\n\"You saw it?\" I exclaimed.\n\n\"Just as good as saw it,\" he returned. \"Else why should he talk about\nhis 'twenty minutes past' and about his having no watch to tell the\ntime by? Twenty minutes! He don't usually cut his time so fine as\nthat. If he comes to half-hours, it's as much as HE does. Now, you\nsee, either her ladyship gave him that watch or he took it. I think\nshe gave it him. Now, what should she give it him for? What should\nshe give it him for?\"\n\nHe repeated this question to himself several times as we hurried on,\nappearing to balance between a variety of answers that arose in his\nmind.\n\n\"If time could be spared,\" said Mr. Bucket, \"which is the only thing\nthat can't be spared in this case, I might get it out of that woman;\nbut it's too doubtful a chance to trust to under present\ncircumstances. They are up to keeping a close eye upon her, and any\nfool knows that a poor creetur like her, beaten and kicked and\nscarred and bruised from head to foot, will stand by the husband that\nill uses her through thick and thin. There's something kept back.\nIt's a pity but what we had seen the other woman.\"\n\nI regretted it exceedingly, for she was very grateful, and I felt\nsure would have resisted no entreaty of mine.\n\n\"It's possible, Miss Summerson,\" said Mr. Bucket, pondering on it,\n\"that her ladyship sent her up to London with some word for you, and\nit's possible that her husband got the watch to let her go. It don't\ncome out altogether so plain as to please me, but it's on the cards.\nNow, I don't take kindly to laying out the money of Sir Leicester\nDedlock, Baronet, on these roughs, and I don't see my way to the\nusefulness of it at present. No! So far our road, Miss Summerson, is\nfor'ard--straight ahead--and keeping everything quiet!\"\n\nWe called at home once more that I might send a hasty note to my\nguardian, and then we hurried back to where we had left the carriage.\nThe horses were brought out as soon as we were seen coming, and we\nwere on the road again in a few minutes.\n\nIt had set in snowing at daybreak, and it now snowed hard. The air\nwas so thick with the darkness of the day and the density of the fall\nthat we could see but a very little way in any direction. Although it\nwas extremely cold, the snow was but partially frozen, and it\nchurned--with a sound as if it were a beach of small shells--under\nthe hoofs of the horses into mire and water. They sometimes slipped\nand floundered for a mile together, and we were obliged to come to a\nstandstill to rest them. One horse fell three times in this first\nstage, and trembled so and was so shaken that the driver had to\ndismount from his saddle and lead him at last.\n\nI could eat nothing and could not sleep, and I grew so nervous under\nthose delays and the slow pace at which we travelled that I had an\nunreasonable desire upon me to get out and walk. Yielding to my\ncompanion's better sense, however, I remained where I was. All this\ntime, kept fresh by a certain enjoyment of the work in which he was\nengaged, he was up and down at every house we came to, addressing\npeople whom he had never beheld before as old acquaintances, running\nin to warm himself at every fire he saw, talking and drinking and\nshaking hands at every bar and tap, friendly with every waggoner,\nwheelwright, blacksmith, and toll-taker, yet never seeming to lose\ntime, and always mounting to the box again with his watchful, steady\nface and his business-like \"Get on, my lad!\"\n\nWhen we were changing horses the next time, he came from the\nstable-yard, with the wet snow encrusted upon him and dropping off\nhim--plashing and crashing through it to his wet knees as he had been\ndoing frequently since we left Saint Albans--and spoke to me at the\ncarriage side.\n\n\"Keep up your spirits. It's certainly true that she came on here,\nMiss Summerson. There's not a doubt of the dress by this time, and\nthe dress has been seen here.\"\n\n\"Still on foot?\" said I.\n\n\"Still on foot. I think the gentleman you mentioned must be the point\nshe's aiming at, and yet I don't like his living down in her own part\nof the country neither.\"\n\n\"I know so little,\" said I. \"There may be some one else nearer here,\nof whom I never heard.\"\n\n\"That's true. But whatever you do, don't you fall a-crying, my dear;\nand don't you worry yourself no more than you can help. Get on, my\nlad!\"\n\nThe sleet fell all that day unceasingly, a thick mist came on early,\nand it never rose or lightened for a moment. Such roads I had never\nseen. I sometimes feared we had missed the way and got into the\nploughed grounds or the marshes. If I ever thought of the time I had\nbeen out, it presented itself as an indefinite period of great\nduration, and I seemed, in a strange way, never to have been free\nfrom the anxiety under which I then laboured.\n\nAs we advanced, I began to feel misgivings that my companion lost\nconfidence. He was the same as before with all the roadside people,\nbut he looked graver when he sat by himself on the box. I saw his\nfinger uneasily going across and across his mouth during the whole of\none long weary stage. I overheard that he began to ask the drivers of\ncoaches and other vehicles coming towards us what passengers they had\nseen in other coaches and vehicles that were in advance. Their\nreplies did not encourage him. He always gave me a reassuring beck of\nhis finger and lift of his eyelid as he got upon the box again, but\nhe seemed perplexed now when he said, \"Get on, my lad!\"\n\nAt last, when we were changing, he told me that he had lost the track\nof the dress so long that he began to be surprised. It was nothing,\nhe said, to lose such a track for one while, and to take it up for\nanother while, and so on; but it had disappeared here in an\nunaccountable manner, and we had not come upon it since. This\ncorroborated the apprehensions I had formed, when he began to look at\ndirection-posts, and to leave the carriage at cross roads for a\nquarter of an hour at a time while he explored them. But I was not to\nbe down-hearted, he told me, for it was as likely as not that the\nnext stage might set us right again.\n\nThe next stage, however, ended as that one ended; we had no new clue.\nThere was a spacious inn here, solitary, but a comfortable\nsubstantial building, and as we drove in under a large gateway before\nI knew it, where a landlady and her pretty daughters came to the\ncarriage-door, entreating me to alight and refresh myself while the\nhorses were making ready, I thought it would be uncharitable to\nrefuse. They took me upstairs to a warm room and left me there.\n\nIt was at the corner of the house, I remember, looking two ways. On\none side to a stable-yard open to a by-road, where the ostlers were\nunharnessing the splashed and tired horses from the muddy carriage,\nand beyond that to the by-road itself, across which the sign was\nheavily swinging; on the other side to a wood of dark pine-trees.\nTheir branches were encumbered with snow, and it silently dropped off\nin wet heaps while I stood at the window. Night was setting in, and\nits bleakness was enhanced by the contrast of the pictured fire\nglowing and gleaming in the window-pane. As I looked among the stems\nof the trees and followed the discoloured marks in the snow where the\nthaw was sinking into it and undermining it, I thought of the\nmotherly face brightly set off by daughters that had just now\nwelcomed me and of MY mother lying down in such a wood to die.\n\nI was frightened when I found them all about me, but I remembered\nthat before I fainted I tried very hard not to do it; and that was\nsome little comfort. They cushioned me up on a large sofa by the\nfire, and then the comely landlady told me that I must travel no\nfurther to-night, but must go to bed. But this put me into such a\ntremble lest they should detain me there that she soon recalled her\nwords and compromised for a rest of half an hour.\n\nA good endearing creature she was. She and her three fair girls, all\nso busy about me. I was to take hot soup and broiled fowl, while Mr.\nBucket dried himself and dined elsewhere; but I could not do it when\na snug round table was presently spread by the fireside, though I was\nvery unwilling to disappoint them. However, I could take some toast\nand some hot negus, and as I really enjoyed that refreshment, it made\nsome recompense.\n\nPunctual to the time, at the half-hour's end the carriage came\nrumbling under the gateway, and they took me down, warmed, refreshed,\ncomforted by kindness, and safe (I assured them) not to faint any\nmore. After I had got in and had taken a grateful leave of them all,\nthe youngest daughter--a blooming girl of nineteen, who was to be the\nfirst married, they had told me--got upon the carriage step, reached\nin, and kissed me. I have never seen her, from that hour, but I think\nof her to this hour as my friend.\n\nThe transparent windows with the fire and light, looking so bright\nand warm from the cold darkness out of doors, were soon gone, and\nagain we were crushing and churning the loose snow. We went on with\ntoil enough, but the dismal roads were not much worse than they had\nbeen, and the stage was only nine miles. My companion smoking on the\nbox--I had thought at the last inn of begging him to do so when I saw\nhim standing at a great fire in a comfortable cloud of tobacco--was\nas vigilant as ever and as quickly down and up again when we came to\nany human abode or any human creature. He had lighted his little dark\nlantern, which seemed to be a favourite with him, for we had lamps to\nthe carriage; and every now and then he turned it upon me to see that\nI was doing well. There was a folding-window to the carriage-head,\nbut I never closed it, for it seemed like shutting out hope.\n\nWe came to the end of the stage, and still the lost trace was not\nrecovered. I looked at him anxiously when we stopped to change, but I\nknew by his yet graver face as he stood watching the ostlers that he\nhad heard nothing. Almost in an instant afterwards, as I leaned back\nin my seat, he looked in, with his lighted lantern in his hand, an\nexcited and quite different man.\n\n\"What is it?\" said I, starting. \"Is she here?\"\n\n\"No, no. Don't deceive yourself, my dear. Nobody's here. But I've got\nit!\"\n\nThe crystallized snow was in his eyelashes, in his hair, lying in\nridges on his dress. He had to shake it from his face and get his\nbreath before he spoke to me.\n\n\"Now, Miss Summerson,\" said he, beating his finger on the apron,\n\"don't you be disappointed at what I'm a-going to do. You know me.\nI'm Inspector Bucket, and you can trust me. We've come a long way;\nnever mind. Four horses out there for the next stage up! Quick!\"\n\nThere was a commotion in the yard, and a man came running out of the\nstables to know if he meant up or down.\n\n\"Up, I tell you! Up! Ain't it English? Up!\"\n\n\"Up?\" said I, astonished. \"To London! Are we going back?\"\n\n\"Miss Summerson,\" he answered, \"back. Straight back as a die. You\nknow me. Don't be afraid. I'll follow the other, by G----\"\n\n\"The other?\" I repeated. \"Who?\"\n\n\"You called her Jenny, didn't you? I'll follow her. Bring those two\npair out here for a crown a man. Wake up, some of you!\"\n\n\"You will not desert this lady we are in search of; you will not\nabandon her on such a night and in such a state of mind as I know her\nto be in!\" said I, in an agony, and grasping his hand.\n\n\"You are right, my dear, I won't. But I'll follow the other. Look\nalive here with them horses. Send a man for'ard in the saddle to the\nnext stage, and let him send another for'ard again, and order four\non, up, right through. My darling, don't you be afraid!\"\n\nThese orders and the way in which he ran about the yard urging them\ncaused a general excitement that was scarcely less bewildering to me\nthan the sudden change. But in the height of the confusion, a mounted\nman galloped away to order the relays, and our horses were put to\nwith great speed.\n\n\"My dear,\" said Mr. Bucket, jumping to his seat and looking in again,\n\"--you'll excuse me if I'm too familiar--don't you fret and worry\nyourself no more than you can help. I say nothing else at present;\nbut you know me, my dear; now, don't you?\"\n\nI endeavoured to say that I knew he was far more capable than I of\ndeciding what we ought to do, but was he sure that this was right?\nCould I not go forward by myself in search of--I grasped his hand\nagain in my distress and whispered it to him--of my own mother.\n\n\"My dear,\" he answered, \"I know, I know, and would I put you wrong,\ndo you think? Inspector Bucket. Now you know me, don't you?\"\n\nWhat could I say but yes!\n\n\"Then you keep up as good a heart as you can, and you rely upon me\nfor standing by you, no less than by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet.\nNow, are you right there?\"\n\n\"All right, sir!\"\n\n\"Off she goes, then. And get on, my lads!\"\n\nWe were again upon the melancholy road by which we had come, tearing\nup the miry sleet and thawing snow as if they were torn up by a\nwaterwheel.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LVIII\n\nA Wintry Day and Night\n\n\nStill impassive, as behoves its breeding, the Dedlock town house\ncarries itself as usual towards the street of dismal grandeur. There\nare powdered heads from time to time in the little windows of the\nhall, looking out at the untaxed powder falling all day from the sky;\nand in the same conservatory there is peach blossom turning itself\nexotically to the great hall fire from the nipping weather out of\ndoors. It is given out that my Lady has gone down into Lincolnshire,\nbut is expected to return presently.\n\nRumour, busy overmuch, however, will not go down into Lincolnshire.\nIt persists in flitting and chattering about town. It knows that that\npoor unfortunate man, Sir Leicester, has been sadly used. It hears,\nmy dear child, all sorts of shocking things. It makes the world of\nfive miles round quite merry. Not to know that there is something\nwrong at the Dedlocks' is to augur yourself unknown. One of the\npeachy-cheeked charmers with the skeleton throats is already apprised\nof all the principal circumstances that will come out before the\nLords on Sir Leicester's application for a bill of divorce.\n\nAt Blaze and Sparkle's the jewellers and at Sheen and Gloss's the\nmercers, it is and will be for several hours the topic of the age,\nthe feature of the century. The patronesses of those establishments,\nalbeit so loftily inscrutable, being as nicely weighed and measured\nthere as any other article of the stock-in-trade, are perfectly\nunderstood in this new fashion by the rawest hand behind the counter.\n\"Our people, Mr. Jones,\" said Blaze and Sparkle to the hand in\nquestion on engaging him, \"our people, sir, are sheep--mere sheep.\nWhere two or three marked ones go, all the rest follow. Keep those\ntwo or three in your eye, Mr. Jones, and you have the flock.\" So,\nlikewise, Sheen and Gloss to THEIR Jones, in reference to knowing\nwhere to have the fashionable people and how to bring what they\n(Sheen and Gloss) choose into fashion. On similar unerring\nprinciples, Mr. Sladdery the librarian, and indeed the great farmer\nof gorgeous sheep, admits this very day, \"Why yes, sir, there\ncertainly ARE reports concerning Lady Dedlock, very current indeed\namong my high connexion, sir. You see, my high connexion must talk\nabout something, sir; and it's only to get a subject into vogue with\none or two ladies I could name to make it go down with the whole.\nJust what I should have done with those ladies, sir, in the case of\nany novelty you had left to me to bring in, they have done of\nthemselves in this case through knowing Lady Dedlock and being\nperhaps a little innocently jealous of her too, sir. You'll find,\nsir, that this topic will be very popular among my high connexion. If\nit had been a speculation, sir, it would have brought money. And when\nI say so, you may trust to my being right, sir, for I have made it my\nbusiness to study my high connexion and to be able to wind it up like\na clock, sir.\"\n\nThus rumour thrives in the capital, and will not go down into\nLincolnshire. By half-past five, post meridian, Horse Guards' time,\nit has even elicited a new remark from the Honourable Mr. Stables,\nwhich bids fair to outshine the old one, on which he has so long\nrested his colloquial reputation. This sparkling sally is to the\neffect that although he always knew she was the best-groomed woman in\nthe stud, he had no idea she was a bolter. It is immensely received\nin turf-circles.\n\nAt feasts and festivals also, in firmaments she has often graced, and\namong constellations she outshone but yesterday, she is still the\nprevalent subject. What is it? Who is it? When was it? Where was it?\nHow was it? She is discussed by her dear friends with all the\ngenteelest slang in vogue, with the last new word, the last new\nmanner, the last new drawl, and the perfection of polite\nindifference. A remarkable feature of the theme is that it is found\nto be so inspiring that several people come out upon it who never\ncame out before--positively say things! William Buffy carries one of\nthese smartnesses from the place where he dines down to the House,\nwhere the Whip for his party hands it about with his snuff-box to\nkeep men together who want to be off, with such effect that the\nSpeaker (who has had it privately insinuated into his own ear under\nthe corner of his wig) cries, \"Order at the bar!\" three times without\nmaking an impression.\n\nAnd not the least amazing circumstance connected with her being\nvaguely the town talk is that people hovering on the confines of Mr.\nSladdery's high connexion, people who know nothing and ever did know\nnothing about her, think it essential to their reputation to pretend\nthat she is their topic too, and to retail her at second-hand with\nthe last new word and the last new manner, and the last new drawl,\nand the last new polite indifference, and all the rest of it, all at\nsecond-hand but considered equal to new in inferior systems and to\nfainter stars. If there be any man of letters, art, or science among\nthese little dealers, how noble in him to support the feeble sisters\non such majestic crutches!\n\nSo goes the wintry day outside the Dedlock mansion. How within it?\n\nSir Leicester, lying in his bed, can speak a little, though with\ndifficulty and indistinctness. He is enjoined to silence and to rest,\nand they have given him some opiate to lull his pain, for his old\nenemy is very hard with him. He is never asleep, though sometimes he\nseems to fall into a dull waking doze. He caused his bedstead to be\nmoved out nearer to the window when he heard it was such inclement\nweather, and his head to be so adjusted that he could see the driving\nsnow and sleet. He watches it as it falls, throughout the whole\nwintry day.\n\nUpon the least noise in the house, which is kept hushed, his hand is\nat the pencil. The old housekeeper, sitting by him, knows what he\nwould write and whispers, \"No, he has not come back yet, Sir\nLeicester. It was late last night when he went. He has been but a\nlittle time gone yet.\"\n\nHe withdraws his hand and falls to looking at the sleet and snow\nagain until they seem, by being long looked at, to fall so thick and\nfast that he is obliged to close his eyes for a minute on the giddy\nwhirl of white flakes and icy blots.\n\nHe began to look at them as soon as it was light. The day is not yet\nfar spent when he conceives it to be necessary that her rooms should\nbe prepared for her. It is very cold and wet. Let there be good\nfires. Let them know that she is expected. Please see to it yourself.\nHe writes to this purpose on his slate, and Mrs. Rouncewell with a\nheavy heart obeys.\n\n\"For I dread, George,\" the old lady says to her son, who waits below\nto keep her company when she has a little leisure, \"I dread, my dear,\nthat my Lady will never more set foot within these walls.\"\n\n\"That's a bad presentiment, mother.\"\n\n\"Nor yet within the walls of Chesney Wold, my dear.\"\n\n\"That's worse. But why, mother?\"\n\n\"When I saw my Lady yesterday, George, she looked to me--and I may\nsay at me too--as if the step on the Ghost's Walk had almost walked\nher down.\"\n\n\"Come, come! You alarm yourself with old-story fears, mother.\"\n\n\"No I don't, my dear. No I don't. It's going on for sixty year that I\nhave been in this family, and I never had any fears for it before.\nBut it's breaking up, my dear; the great old Dedlock family is\nbreaking up.\"\n\n\"I hope not, mother.\"\n\n\"I am thankful I have lived long enough to be with Sir Leicester in\nthis illness and trouble, for I know I am not too old nor too useless\nto be a welcomer sight to him than anybody else in my place would be.\nBut the step on the Ghost's Walk will walk my Lady down, George; it\nhas been many a day behind her, and now it will pass her and go on.\"\n\n\"Well, mother dear, I say again, I hope not.\"\n\n\"Ah, so do I, George,\" the old lady returns, shaking her head and\nparting her folded hands. \"But if my fears come true, and he has to\nknow it, who will tell him!\"\n\n\"Are these her rooms?\"\n\n\"These are my Lady's rooms, just as she left them.\"\n\n\"Why, now,\" says the trooper, glancing round him and speaking in a\nlower voice, \"I begin to understand how you come to think as you do\nthink, mother. Rooms get an awful look about them when they are\nfitted up, like these, for one person you are used to see in them,\nand that person is away under any shadow, let alone being God knows\nwhere.\"\n\nHe is not far out. As all partings foreshadow the great final one,\nso, empty rooms, bereft of a familiar presence, mournfully whisper\nwhat your room and what mine must one day be. My Lady's state has a\nhollow look, thus gloomy and abandoned; and in the inner apartment,\nwhere Mr. Bucket last night made his secret perquisition, the traces\nof her dresses and her ornaments, even the mirrors accustomed to\nreflect them when they were a portion of herself, have a desolate and\nvacant air. Dark and cold as the wintry day is, it is darker and\ncolder in these deserted chambers than in many a hut that will barely\nexclude the weather; and though the servants heap fires in the grates\nand set the couches and the chairs within the warm glass screens that\nlet their ruddy light shoot through to the furthest corners, there is\na heavy cloud upon the rooms which no light will dispel.\n\nThe old housekeeper and her son remain until the preparations are\ncomplete, and then she returns upstairs. Volumnia has taken Mrs.\nRouncewell's place in the meantime, though pearl necklaces and rouge\npots, however calculated to embellish Bath, are but indifferent\ncomforts to the invalid under present circumstances. Volumnia, not\nbeing supposed to know (and indeed not knowing) what is the matter,\nhas found it a ticklish task to offer appropriate observations and\nconsequently has supplied their place with distracting smoothings of\nthe bed-linen, elaborate locomotion on tiptoe, vigilant peeping at\nher kinsman's eyes, and one exasperating whisper to herself of, \"He\nis asleep.\" In disproof of which superfluous remark Sir Leicester has\nindignantly written on the slate, \"I am not.\"\n\nYielding, therefore, the chair at the bedside to the quaint old\nhousekeeper, Volumnia sits at a table a little removed,\nsympathetically sighing. Sir Leicester watches the sleet and snow and\nlistens for the returning steps that he expects. In the ears of his\nold servant, looking as if she had stepped out of an old\npicture-frame to attend a summoned Dedlock to another world, the\nsilence is fraught with echoes of her own words, \"Who will tell him!\"\n\nHe has been under his valet's hands this morning to be made\npresentable and is as well got up as the circumstances will allow. He\nis propped with pillows, his grey hair is brushed in its usual\nmanner, his linen is arranged to a nicety, and he is wrapped in a\nresponsible dressing-gown. His eye-glass and his watch are ready to\nhis hand. It is necessary--less to his own dignity now perhaps than\nfor her sake--that he should be seen as little disturbed and as much\nhimself as may be. Women will talk, and Volumnia, though a Dedlock,\nis no exceptional case. He keeps her here, there is little doubt, to\nprevent her talking somewhere else. He is very ill, but he makes his\npresent stand against distress of mind and body most courageously.\n\nThe fair Volumnia, being one of those sprightly girls who cannot long\ncontinue silent without imminent peril of seizure by the dragon\nBoredom, soon indicates the approach of that monster with a series of\nundisguisable yawns. Finding it impossible to suppress those yawns by\nany other process than conversation, she compliments Mrs. Rouncewell\non her son, declaring that he positively is one of the finest figures\nshe ever saw and as soldierly a looking person, she should think, as\nwhat's his name, her favourite Life Guardsman--the man she dotes on,\nthe dearest of creatures--who was killed at Waterloo.\n\nSir Leicester hears this tribute with so much surprise and stares\nabout him in such a confused way that Mrs. Rouncewell feels it\nnecessary to explain.\n\n\"Miss Dedlock don't speak of my eldest son, Sir Leicester, but my\nyoungest. I have found him. He has come home.\"\n\nSir Leicester breaks silence with a harsh cry. \"George? Your son\nGeorge come home, Mrs. Rouncewell?\"\n\nThe old housekeeper wipes her eyes. \"Thank God. Yes, Sir Leicester.\"\n\nDoes this discovery of some one lost, this return of some one so long\ngone, come upon him as a strong confirmation of his hopes? Does he\nthink, \"Shall I not, with the aid I have, recall her safely after\nthis, there being fewer hours in her case than there are years in\nhis?\"\n\nIt is of no use entreating him; he is determined to speak now, and he\ndoes. In a thick crowd of sounds, but still intelligibly enough to be\nunderstood.\n\n\"Why did you not tell me, Mrs. Rouncewell?\"\n\n\"It happened only yesterday, Sir Leicester, and I doubted your being\nwell enough to be talked to of such things.\"\n\nBesides, the giddy Volumnia now remembers with her little scream that\nnobody was to have known of his being Mrs. Rouncewell's son and that\nshe was not to have told. But Mrs. Rouncewell protests, with warmth\nenough to swell the stomacher, that of course she would have told Sir\nLeicester as soon as he got better.\n\n\"Where is your son George, Mrs. Rouncewell?\" asks Sir Leicester,\n\nMrs. Rouncewell, not a little alarmed by his disregard of the\ndoctor's injunctions, replies, in London.\n\n\"Where in London?\"\n\nMrs. Rouncewell is constrained to admit that he is in the house.\n\n\"Bring him here to my room. Bring him directly.\"\n\nThe old lady can do nothing but go in search of him. Sir Leicester,\nwith such power of movement as he has, arranges himself a little to\nreceive him. When he has done so, he looks out again at the falling\nsleet and snow and listens again for the returning steps. A quantity\nof straw has been tumbled down in the street to deaden the noises\nthere, and she might be driven to the door perhaps without his\nhearing wheels.\n\nHe is lying thus, apparently forgetful of his newer and minor\nsurprise, when the housekeeper returns, accompanied by her trooper\nson. Mr. George approaches softly to the bedside, makes his bow,\nsquares his chest, and stands, with his face flushed, very heartily\nashamed of himself.\n\n\"Good heaven, and it is really George Rouncewell!\" exclaims Sir\nLeicester. \"Do you remember me, George?\"\n\nThe trooper needs to look at him and to separate this sound from that\nsound before he knows what he has said, but doing this and being a\nlittle helped by his mother, he replies, \"I must have a very bad\nmemory, indeed, Sir Leicester, if I failed to remember you.\"\n\n\"When I look at you, George Rouncewell,\" Sir Leicester observes with\ndifficulty, \"I see something of a boy at Chesney Wold--I remember\nwell--very well.\"\n\nHe looks at the trooper until tears come into his eyes, and then he\nlooks at the sleet and snow again.\n\n\"I ask your pardon, Sir Leicester,\" says the trooper, \"but would you\naccept of my arms to raise you up? You would lie easier, Sir\nLeicester, if you would allow me to move you.\"\n\n\"If you please, George Rouncewell; if you will be so good.\"\n\nThe trooper takes him in his arms like a child, lightly raises him,\nand turns him with his face more towards the window. \"Thank you. You\nhave your mother's gentleness,\" returns Sir Leicester, \"and your own\nstrength. Thank you.\"\n\nHe signs to him with his hand not to go away. George quietly remains\nat the bedside, waiting to be spoken to.\n\n\"Why did you wish for secrecy?\" It takes Sir Leicester some time to\nask this.\n\n\"Truly I am not much to boast of, Sir Leicester, and I--I should\nstill, Sir Leicester, if you was not so indisposed--which I hope you\nwill not be long--I should still hope for the favour of being allowed\nto remain unknown in general. That involves explanations not very\nhard to be guessed at, not very well timed here, and not very\ncreditable to myself. However opinions may differ on a variety of\nsubjects, I should think it would be universally agreed, Sir\nLeicester, that I am not much to boast of.\"\n\n\"You have been a soldier,\" observes Sir Leicester, \"and a faithful\none.\"\n\nGeorge makes his military bow. \"As far as that goes, Sir Leicester, I\nhave done my duty under discipline, and it was the least I could do.\"\n\n\"You find me,\" says Sir Leicester, whose eyes are much attracted\ntowards him, \"far from well, George Rouncewell.\"\n\n\"I am very sorry both to hear it and to see it, Sir Leicester.\"\n\n\"I am sure you are. No. In addition to my older malady, I have had a\nsudden and bad attack. Something that deadens,\" making an endeavour\nto pass one hand down one side, \"and confuses,\" touching his lips.\n\nGeorge, with a look of assent and sympathy, makes another bow. The\ndifferent times when they were both young men (the trooper much the\nyounger of the two) and looked at one another down at Chesney Wold\narise before them both and soften both.\n\nSir Leicester, evidently with a great determination to say, in his\nown manner, something that is on his mind before relapsing into\nsilence, tries to raise himself among his pillows a little more.\nGeorge, observant of the action, takes him in his arms again and\nplaces him as he desires to be. \"Thank you, George. You are another\nself to me. You have often carried my spare gun at Chesney Wold,\nGeorge. You are familiar to me in these strange circumstances, very\nfamiliar.\" He has put Sir Leicester's sounder arm over his shoulder\nin lifting him up, and Sir Leicester is slow in drawing it away again\nas he says these words.\n\n\"I was about to add,\" he presently goes on, \"I was about to add,\nrespecting this attack, that it was unfortunately simultaneous with a\nslight misunderstanding between my Lady and myself. I do not mean\nthat there was any difference between us (for there has been none),\nbut that there was a misunderstanding of certain circumstances\nimportant only to ourselves, which deprives me, for a little while,\nof my Lady's society. She has found it necessary to make a journey--I\ntrust will shortly return. Volumnia, do I make myself intelligible?\nThe words are not quite under my command in the manner of pronouncing\nthem.\"\n\nVolumnia understands him perfectly, and in truth he delivers himself\nwith far greater plainness than could have been supposed possible a\nminute ago. The effort by which he does so is written in the anxious\nand labouring expression of his face. Nothing but the strength of his\npurpose enables him to make it.\n\n\"Therefore, Volumnia, I desire to say in your presence--and in the\npresence of my old retainer and friend, Mrs. Rouncewell, whose truth\nand fidelity no one can question, and in the presence of her son\nGeorge, who comes back like a familiar recollection of my youth in\nthe home of my ancestors at Chesney Wold--in case I should relapse,\nin case I should not recover, in case I should lose both my speech\nand the power of writing, though I hope for better things--\"\n\nThe old housekeeper weeping silently; Volumnia in the greatest\nagitation, with the freshest bloom on her cheeks; the trooper with\nhis arms folded and his head a little bent, respectfully attentive.\n\n\"Therefore I desire to say, and to call you all to\nwitness--beginning, Volumnia, with yourself, most solemnly--that I am\non unaltered terms with Lady Dedlock. That I assert no cause whatever\nof complaint against her. That I have ever had the strongest\naffection for her, and that I retain it undiminished. Say this to\nherself, and to every one. If you ever say less than this, you will\nbe guilty of deliberate falsehood to me.\"\n\nVolumnia tremblingly protests that she will observe his injunctions\nto the letter.\n\n\"My Lady is too high in position, too handsome, too accomplished, too\nsuperior in most respects to the best of those by whom she is\nsurrounded, not to have her enemies and traducers, I dare say. Let it\nbe known to them, as I make it known to you, that being of sound\nmind, memory, and understanding, I revoke no disposition I have made\nin her favour. I abridge nothing I have ever bestowed upon her. I am\non unaltered terms with her, and I recall--having the full power to\ndo it if I were so disposed, as you see--no act I have done for her\nadvantage and happiness.\"\n\nHis formal array of words might have at any other time, as it has\noften had, something ludicrous in it, but at this time it is serious\nand affecting. His noble earnestness, his fidelity, his gallant\nshielding of her, his generous conquest of his own wrong and his own\npride for her sake, are simply honourable, manly, and true. Nothing\nless worthy can be seen through the lustre of such qualities in the\ncommonest mechanic, nothing less worthy can be seen in the best-born\ngentleman. In such a light both aspire alike, both rise alike, both\nchildren of the dust shine equally.\n\nOverpowered by his exertions, he lays his head back on his pillows\nand closes his eyes for not more than a minute, when he again resumes\nhis watching of the weather and his attention to the muffled sounds.\nIn the rendering of those little services, and in the manner of their\nacceptance, the trooper has become installed as necessary to him.\nNothing has been said, but it is quite understood. He falls a step or\ntwo backward to be out of sight and mounts guard a little behind his\nmother's chair.\n\nThe day is now beginning to decline. The mist and the sleet into\nwhich the snow has all resolved itself are darker, and the blaze\nbegins to tell more vividly upon the room walls and furniture. The\ngloom augments; the bright gas springs up in the streets; and the\npertinacious oil lamps which yet hold their ground there, with their\nsource of life half frozen and half thawed, twinkle gaspingly like\nfiery fish out of water--as they are. The world, which has been\nrumbling over the straw and pulling at the bell, \"to inquire,\" begins\nto go home, begins to dress, to dine, to discuss its dear friend with\nall the last new modes, as already mentioned.\n\nNow does Sir Leicester become worse, restless, uneasy, and in great\npain. Volumnia, lighting a candle (with a predestined aptitude for\ndoing something objectionable), is bidden to put it out again, for it\nis not yet dark enough. Yet it is very dark too, as dark as it will\nbe all night. By and by she tries again. No! Put it out. It is not\ndark enough yet.\n\nHis old housekeeper is the first to understand that he is striving to\nuphold the fiction with himself that it is not growing late.\n\n\"Dear Sir Leicester, my honoured master,\" she softly whispers, \"I\nmust, for your own good, and my duty, take the freedom of begging and\npraying that you will not lie here in the lone darkness watching and\nwaiting and dragging through the time. Let me draw the curtains, and\nlight the candles, and make things more comfortable about you. The\nchurch-clocks will strike the hours just the same, Sir Leicester, and\nthe night will pass away just the same. My Lady will come back, just\nthe same.\"\n\n\"I know it, Mrs. Rouncewell, but I am weak--and she has been so long\ngone.\"\n\n\"Not so very long, Sir Leicester. Not twenty-four hours yet.\"\n\n\"But that is a long time. Oh, it is a long time!\"\n\nHe says it with a groan that wrings her heart.\n\nShe knows that this is not a period for bringing the rough light upon\nhim; she thinks his tears too sacred to be seen, even by her.\nTherefore she sits in the darkness for a while without a word, then\ngently begins to move about, now stirring the fire, now standing at\nthe dark window looking out. Finally he tells her, with recovered\nself-command, \"As you say, Mrs. Rouncewell, it is no worse for being\nconfessed. It is getting late, and they are not come. Light the\nroom!\" When it is lighted and the weather shut out, it is only left\nto him to listen.\n\nBut they find that however dejected and ill he is, he brightens when\na quiet pretence is made of looking at the fires in her rooms and\nbeing sure that everything is ready to receive her. Poor pretence as\nit is, these allusions to her being expected keep up hope within him.\n\nMidnight comes, and with it the same blank. The carriages in the\nstreets are few, and other late sounds in that neighbourhood there\nare none, unless a man so very nomadically drunk as to stray into the\nfrigid zone goes brawling and bellowing along the pavement. Upon this\nwintry night it is so still that listening to the intense silence is\nlike looking at intense darkness. If any distant sound be audible in\nthis case, it departs through the gloom like a feeble light in that,\nand all is heavier than before.\n\nThe corporation of servants are dismissed to bed (not unwilling to\ngo, for they were up all last night), and only Mrs. Rouncewell and\nGeorge keep watch in Sir Leicester's room. As the night lags tardily\non--or rather when it seems to stop altogether, at between two and\nthree o'clock--they find a restless craving on him to know more about\nthe weather, now he cannot see it. Hence George, patrolling regularly\nevery half-hour to the rooms so carefully looked after, extends his\nmarch to the hall-door, looks about him, and brings back the best\nreport he can make of the worst of nights, the sleet still falling\nand even the stone footways lying ankle-deep in icy sludge.\n\nVolumnia, in her room up a retired landing on the staircase--the\nsecond turning past the end of the carving and gilding, a cousinly\nroom containing a fearful abortion of a portrait of Sir Leicester\nbanished for its crimes, and commanding in the day a solemn yard\nplanted with dried-up shrubs like antediluvian specimens of black\ntea--is a prey to horrors of many kinds. Not last nor least among\nthem, possibly, is a horror of what may befall her little income in\nthe event, as she expresses it, \"of anything happening\" to Sir\nLeicester. Anything, in this sense, meaning one thing only; and that\nthe last thing that can happen to the consciousness of any baronet in\nthe known world.\n\nAn effect of these horrors is that Volumnia finds she cannot go to\nbed in her own room or sit by the fire in her own room, but must come\nforth with her fair head tied up in a profusion of shawl, and her\nfair form enrobed in drapery, and parade the mansion like a ghost,\nparticularly haunting the rooms, warm and luxurious, prepared for one\nwho still does not return. Solitude under such circumstances being\nnot to be thought of, Volumnia is attended by her maid, who,\nimpressed from her own bed for that purpose, extremely cold, very\nsleepy, and generally an injured maid as condemned by circumstances\nto take office with a cousin, when she had resolved to be maid to\nnothing less than ten thousand a year, has not a sweet expression of\ncountenance.\n\nThe periodical visits of the trooper to these rooms, however, in the\ncourse of his patrolling is an assurance of protection and company\nboth to mistress and maid, which renders them very acceptable in the\nsmall hours of the night. Whenever he is heard advancing, they both\nmake some little decorative preparation to receive him; at other\ntimes they divide their watches into short scraps of oblivion and\ndialogues not wholly free from acerbity, as to whether Miss Dedlock,\nsitting with her feet upon the fender, was or was not falling into\nthe fire when rescued (to her great displeasure) by her guardian\ngenius the maid.\n\n\"How is Sir Leicester now, Mr. George?\" inquires Volumnia, adjusting\nher cowl over her head.\n\n\"Why, Sir Leicester is much the same, miss. He is very low and ill,\nand he even wanders a little sometimes.\"\n\n\"Has he asked for me?\" inquires Volumnia tenderly.\n\n\"Why, no, I can't say he has, miss. Not within my hearing, that is to\nsay.\"\n\n\"This is a truly sad time, Mr. George.\"\n\n\"It is indeed, miss. Hadn't you better go to bed?\"\n\n\"You had a deal better go to bed, Miss Dedlock,\" quoth the maid\nsharply.\n\nBut Volumnia answers No! No! She may be asked for, she may be wanted\nat a moment's notice. She never should forgive herself \"if anything\nwas to happen\" and she was not on the spot. She declines to enter on\nthe question, mooted by the maid, how the spot comes to be there, and\nnot in her room (which is nearer to Sir Leicester's), but staunchly\ndeclares that on the spot she will remain. Volumnia further makes a\nmerit of not having \"closed an eye\"--as if she had twenty or\nthirty--though it is hard to reconcile this statement with her having\nmost indisputably opened two within five minutes.\n\nBut when it comes to four o'clock, and still the same blank,\nVolumnia's constancy begins to fail her, or rather it begins to\nstrengthen, for she now considers that it is her duty to be ready for\nthe morrow, when much may be expected of her, that, in fact,\nhowsoever anxious to remain upon the spot, it may be required of her,\nas an act of self-devotion, to desert the spot. So when the trooper\nreappears with his, \"Hadn't you better go to bed, miss?\" and when the\nmaid protests, more sharply than before, \"You had a deal better go to\nbed, Miss Dedlock!\" she meekly rises and says, \"Do with me what you\nthink best!\"\n\nMr. George undoubtedly thinks it best to escort her on his arm to the\ndoor of her cousinly chamber, and the maid as undoubtedly thinks it\nbest to hustle her into bed with mighty little ceremony. Accordingly,\nthese steps are taken; and now the trooper, in his rounds, has the\nhouse to himself.\n\nThere is no improvement in the weather. From the portico, from the\neaves, from the parapet, from every ledge and post and pillar, drips\nthe thawed snow. It has crept, as if for shelter, into the lintels of\nthe great door--under it, into the corners of the windows, into every\nchink and crevice of retreat, and there wastes and dies. It is\nfalling still; upon the roof, upon the skylight, even through the\nskylight, and drip, drip, drip, with the regularity of the Ghost's\nWalk, on the stone floor below.\n\nThe trooper, his old recollections awakened by the solitary grandeur\nof a great house--no novelty to him once at Chesney Wold--goes up the\nstairs and through the chief rooms, holding up his light at arm's\nlength. Thinking of his varied fortunes within the last few weeks,\nand of his rustic boyhood, and of the two periods of his life so\nstrangely brought together across the wide intermediate space;\nthinking of the murdered man whose image is fresh in his mind;\nthinking of the lady who has disappeared from these very rooms and\nthe tokens of whose recent presence are all here; thinking of the\nmaster of the house upstairs and of the foreboding, \"Who will tell\nhim!\" he looks here and looks there, and reflects how he MIGHT see\nsomething now, which it would tax his boldness to walk up to, lay his\nhand upon, and prove to be a fancy. But it is all blank, blank as the\ndarkness above and below, while he goes up the great staircase again,\nblank as the oppressive silence.\n\n\"All is still in readiness, George Rouncewell?\"\n\n\"Quite orderly and right, Sir Leicester.\"\n\n\"No word of any kind?\"\n\nThe trooper shakes his head.\n\n\"No letter that can possibly have been overlooked?\"\n\nBut he knows there is no such hope as that and lays his head down\nwithout looking for an answer.\n\nVery familiar to him, as he said himself some hours ago, George\nRouncewell lifts him into easier positions through the long remainder\nof the blank wintry night, and equally familiar with his unexpressed\nwish, extinguishes the light and undraws the curtains at the first\nlate break of day. The day comes like a phantom. Cold, colourless,\nand vague, it sends a warning streak before it of a deathlike hue, as\nif it cried out, \"Look what I am bringing you who watch there! Who\nwill tell him!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LIX\n\nEsther's Narrative\n\n\nIt was three o'clock in the morning when the houses outside London\ndid at last begin to exclude the country and to close us in with\nstreets. We had made our way along roads in a far worse condition\nthan when we had traversed them by daylight, both the fall and the\nthaw having lasted ever since; but the energy of my companion never\nslackened. It had only been, as I thought, of less assistance than\nthe horses in getting us on, and it had often aided them. They had\nstopped exhausted half-way up hills, they had been driven through\nstreams of turbulent water, they had slipped down and become\nentangled with the harness; but he and his little lantern had been\nalways ready, and when the mishap was set right, I had never heard\nany variation in his cool, \"Get on, my lads!\"\n\nThe steadiness and confidence with which he had directed our journey\nback I could not account for. Never wavering, he never even stopped\nto make an inquiry until we were within a few miles of London. A very\nfew words, here and there, were then enough for him; and thus we\ncame, at between three and four o'clock in the morning, into\nIslington.\n\nI will not dwell on the suspense and anxiety with which I reflected\nall this time that we were leaving my mother farther and farther\nbehind every minute. I think I had some strong hope that he must be\nright and could not fail to have a satisfactory object in following\nthis woman, but I tormented myself with questioning it and discussing\nit during the whole journey. What was to ensue when we found her and\nwhat could compensate us for this loss of time were questions also\nthat I could not possibly dismiss; my mind was quite tortured by long\ndwelling on such reflections when we stopped.\n\nWe stopped in a high-street where there was a coach-stand. My\ncompanion paid our two drivers, who were as completely covered with\nsplashes as if they had been dragged along the roads like the\ncarriage itself, and giving them some brief direction where to take\nit, lifted me out of it and into a hackney-coach he had chosen from\nthe rest.\n\n\"Why, my dear!\" he said as he did this. \"How wet you are!\"\n\nI had not been conscious of it. But the melted snow had found its way\ninto the carriage, and I had got out two or three times when a fallen\nhorse was plunging and had to be got up, and the wet had penetrated\nmy dress. I assured him it was no matter, but the driver, who knew\nhim, would not be dissuaded by me from running down the street to his\nstable, whence he brought an armful of clean dry straw. They shook it\nout and strewed it well about me, and I found it warm and\ncomfortable.\n\n\"Now, my dear,\" said Mr. Bucket, with his head in at the window after\nI was shut up. \"We're a-going to mark this person down. It may take a\nlittle time, but you don't mind that. You're pretty sure that I've\ngot a motive. Ain't you?\"\n\nI little thought what it was, little thought in how short a time I\nshould understand it better, but I assured him that I had confidence\nin him.\n\n\"So you may have, my dear,\" he returned. \"And I tell you what! If you\nonly repose half as much confidence in me as I repose in you after\nwhat I've experienced of you, that'll do. Lord! You're no trouble at\nall. I never see a young woman in any station of society--and I've\nseen many elevated ones too--conduct herself like you have conducted\nyourself since you was called out of your bed. You're a pattern, you\nknow, that's what you are,\" said Mr. Bucket warmly; \"you're a\npattern.\"\n\nI told him I was very glad, as indeed I was, to have been no\nhindrance to him, and that I hoped I should be none now.\n\n\"My dear,\" he returned, \"when a young lady is as mild as she's game,\nand as game as she's mild, that's all I ask, and more than I expect.\nShe then becomes a queen, and that's about what you are yourself.\"\n\nWith these encouraging words--they really were encouraging to me\nunder those lonely and anxious circumstances--he got upon the box,\nand we once more drove away. Where we drove I neither knew then nor\nhave ever known since, but we appeared to seek out the narrowest and\nworst streets in London. Whenever I saw him directing the driver, I\nwas prepared for our descending into a deeper complication of such\nstreets, and we never failed to do so.\n\nSometimes we emerged upon a wider thoroughfare or came to a larger\nbuilding than the generality, well lighted. Then we stopped at\noffices like those we had visited when we began our journey, and I\nsaw him in consultation with others. Sometimes he would get down by\nan archway or at a street corner and mysteriously show the light of\nhis little lantern. This would attract similar lights from various\ndark quarters, like so many insects, and a fresh consultation would\nbe held. By degrees we appeared to contract our search within\nnarrower and easier limits. Single police-officers on duty could now\ntell Mr. Bucket what he wanted to know and point to him where to go.\nAt last we stopped for a rather long conversation between him and one\nof these men, which I supposed to be satisfactory from his manner of\nnodding from time to time. When it was finished he came to me looking\nvery busy and very attentive.\n\n\"Now, Miss Summerson,\" he said to me, \"you won't be alarmed whatever\ncomes off, I know. It's not necessary for me to give you any further\ncaution than to tell you that we have marked this person down and\nthat you may be of use to me before I know it myself. I don't like to\nask such a thing, my dear, but would you walk a little way?\"\n\nOf course I got out directly and took his arm.\n\n\"It ain't so easy to keep your feet,\" said Mr. Bucket, \"but take\ntime.\"\n\nAlthough I looked about me confusedly and hurriedly as we crossed the\nstreet, I thought I knew the place. \"Are we in Holborn?\" I asked him.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mr. Bucket. \"Do you know this turning?\"\n\n\"It looks like Chancery Lane.\"\n\n\"And was christened so, my dear,\" said Mr. Bucket.\n\nWe turned down it, and as we went shuffling through the sleet, I\nheard the clocks strike half-past five. We passed on in silence and\nas quickly as we could with such a foot-hold, when some one coming\ntowards us on the narrow pavement, wrapped in a cloak, stopped and\nstood aside to give me room. In the same moment I heard an\nexclamation of wonder and my own name from Mr. Woodcourt. I knew his\nvoice very well.\n\nIt was so unexpected and so--I don't know what to call it, whether\npleasant or painful--to come upon it after my feverish wandering\njourney, and in the midst of the night, that I could not keep back\nthe tears from my eyes. It was like hearing his voice in a strange\ncountry.\n\n\"My dear Miss Summerson, that you should be out at this hour, and in\nsuch weather!\"\n\nHe had heard from my guardian of my having been called away on some\nuncommon business and said so to dispense with any explanation. I\ntold him that we had but just left a coach and were going--but then I\nwas obliged to look at my companion.\n\n\"Why, you see, Mr. Woodcourt\"--he had caught the name from me--\"we\nare a-going at present into the next street. Inspector Bucket.\"\n\nMr. Woodcourt, disregarding my remonstrances, had hurriedly taken off\nhis cloak and was putting it about me. \"That's a good move, too,\"\nsaid Mr. Bucket, assisting, \"a very good move.\"\n\n\"May I go with you?\" said Mr. Woodcourt. I don't know whether to me\nor to my companion.\n\n\"Why, Lord!\" exclaimed Mr. Bucket, taking the answer on himself. \"Of\ncourse you may.\"\n\nIt was all said in a moment, and they took me between them, wrapped\nin the cloak.\n\n\"I have just left Richard,\" said Mr. Woodcourt. \"I have been sitting\nwith him since ten o'clock last night.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear me, he is ill!\"\n\n\"No, no, believe me; not ill, but not quite well. He was depressed\nand faint--you know he gets so worried and so worn sometimes--and Ada\nsent to me of course; and when I came home I found her note and came\nstraight here. Well! Richard revived so much after a little while,\nand Ada was so happy and so convinced of its being my doing, though\nGod knows I had little enough to do with it, that I remained with him\nuntil he had been fast asleep some hours. As fast asleep as she is\nnow, I hope!\"\n\nHis friendly and familiar way of speaking of them, his unaffected\ndevotion to them, the grateful confidence with which I knew he had\ninspired my darling, and the comfort he was to her; could I separate\nall this from his promise to me? How thankless I must have been if it\nhad not recalled the words he said to me when he was so moved by the\nchange in my appearance: \"I will accept him as a trust, and it shall\nbe a sacred one!\"\n\nWe now turned into another narrow street. \"Mr. Woodcourt,\" said Mr.\nBucket, who had eyed him closely as we came along, \"our business\ntakes us to a law-stationer's here, a certain Mr. Snagsby's. What,\nyou know him, do you?\" He was so quick that he saw it in an instant.\n\n\"Yes, I know a little of him and have called upon him at this place.\"\n\n\"Indeed, sir?\" said Mr. Bucket. \"Then you will be so good as to let\nme leave Miss Summerson with you for a moment while I go and have\nhalf a word with him?\"\n\nThe last police-officer with whom he had conferred was standing\nsilently behind us. I was not aware of it until he struck in on my\nsaying I heard some one crying.\n\n\"Don't be alarmed, miss,\" he returned. \"It's Snagsby's servant.\"\n\n\"Why, you see,\" said Mr. Bucket, \"the girl's subject to fits, and has\n'em bad upon her to-night. A most contrary circumstance it is, for I\nwant certain information out of that girl, and she must be brought to\nreason somehow.\"\n\n\"At all events, they wouldn't be up yet if it wasn't for her, Mr.\nBucket,\" said the other man. \"She's been at it pretty well all night,\nsir.\"\n\n\"Well, that's true,\" he returned. \"My light's burnt out. Show yours a\nmoment.\"\n\nAll this passed in a whisper a door or two from the house in which I\ncould faintly hear crying and moaning. In the little round of light\nproduced for the purpose, Mr. Bucket went up to the door and knocked.\nThe door was opened after he had knocked twice, and he went in,\nleaving us standing in the street.\n\n\"Miss Summerson,\" said Mr. Woodcourt, \"if without obtruding myself on\nyour confidence I may remain near you, pray let me do so.\"\n\n\"You are truly kind,\" I answered. \"I need wish to keep no secret of\nmy own from you; if I keep any, it is another's.\"\n\n\"I quite understand. Trust me, I will remain near you only so long as\nI can fully respect it.\"\n\n\"I trust implicitly to you,\" I said. \"I know and deeply feel how\nsacredly you keep your promise.\"\n\nAfter a short time the little round of light shone out again, and Mr.\nBucket advanced towards us in it with his earnest face. \"Please to\ncome in, Miss Summerson,\" he said, \"and sit down by the fire. Mr.\nWoodcourt, from information I have received I understand you are a\nmedical man. Would you look to this girl and see if anything can be\ndone to bring her round. She has a letter somewhere that I\nparticularly want. It's not in her box, and I think it must be about\nher; but she is so twisted and clenched up that she is difficult to\nhandle without hurting.\"\n\nWe all three went into the house together; although it was cold and\nraw, it smelt close too from being up all night. In the passage\nbehind the door stood a scared, sorrowful-looking little man in a\ngrey coat who seemed to have a naturally polite manner and spoke\nmeekly.\n\n\"Downstairs, if you please, Mr. Bucket,\" said he. \"The lady will\nexcuse the front kitchen; we use it as our workaday sitting-room. The\nback is Guster's bedroom, and in it she's a-carrying on, poor thing,\nto a frightful extent!\"\n\nWe went downstairs, followed by Mr. Snagsby, as I soon found the\nlittle man to be. In the front kitchen, sitting by the fire, was Mrs.\nSnagsby, with very red eyes and a very severe expression of face.\n\n\"My little woman,\" said Mr. Snagsby, entering behind us, \"to\nwave--not to put too fine a point upon it, my dear--hostilities for\none single moment in the course of this prolonged night, here is\nInspector Bucket, Mr. Woodcourt, and a lady.\"\n\nShe looked very much astonished, as she had reason for doing, and\nlooked particularly hard at me.\n\n\"My little woman,\" said Mr. Snagsby, sitting down in the remotest\ncorner by the door, as if he were taking a liberty, \"it is not\nunlikely that you may inquire of me why Inspector Bucket, Mr.\nWoodcourt, and a lady call upon us in Cook's Court, Cursitor Street,\nat the present hour. I don't know. I have not the least idea. If I\nwas to be informed, I should despair of understanding, and I'd rather\nnot be told.\"\n\nHe appeared so miserable, sitting with his head upon his hand, and I\nappeared so unwelcome, that I was going to offer an apology when Mr.\nBucket took the matter on himself.\n\n\"Now, Mr. Snagsby,\" said he, \"the best thing you can do is to go\nalong with Mr. Woodcourt to look after your Guster--\"\n\n\"My Guster, Mr. Bucket!\" cried Mr. Snagsby. \"Go on, sir, go on. I\nshall be charged with that next.\"\n\n\"And to hold the candle,\" pursued Mr. Bucket without correcting\nhimself, \"or hold her, or make yourself useful in any way you're\nasked. Which there's not a man alive more ready to do, for you're a\nman of urbanity and suavity, you know, and you've got the sort of\nheart that can feel for another. Mr. Woodcourt, would you be so good\nas see to her, and if you can get that letter from her, to let me\nhave it as soon as ever you can?\"\n\nAs they went out, Mr. Bucket made me sit down in a corner by the fire\nand take off my wet shoes, which he turned up to dry upon the fender,\ntalking all the time.\n\n\"Don't you be at all put out, miss, by the want of a hospitable look\nfrom Mrs. Snagsby there, because she's under a mistake altogether.\nShe'll find that out sooner than will be agreeable to a lady of her\ngenerally correct manner of forming her thoughts, because I'm a-going\nto explain it to her.\" Here, standing on the hearth with his wet hat\nand shawls in his hand, himself a pile of wet, he turned to Mrs.\nSnagsby. \"Now, the first thing that I say to you, as a married woman\npossessing what you may call charms, you know--'Believe Me, if All\nThose Endearing,' and cetrer--you're well acquainted with the song,\nbecause it's in vain for you to tell me that you and good society are\nstrangers--charms--attractions, mind you, that ought to give you\nconfidence in yourself--is, that you've done it.\"\n\nMrs. Snagsby looked rather alarmed, relented a little and faltered,\nwhat did Mr. Bucket mean.\n\n\"What does Mr. Bucket mean?\" he repeated, and I saw by his face that\nall the time he talked he was listening for the discovery of the\nletter, to my own great agitation, for I knew then how important it\nmust be; \"I'll tell you what he means, ma'am. Go and see Othello\nacted. That's the tragedy for you.\"\n\nMrs. Snagsby consciously asked why.\n\n\"Why?\" said Mr. Bucket. \"Because you'll come to that if you don't\nlook out. Why, at the very moment while I speak, I know what your\nmind's not wholly free from respecting this young lady. But shall I\ntell you who this young lady is? Now, come, you're what I call an\nintellectual woman--with your soul too large for your body, if you\ncome to that, and chafing it--and you know me, and you recollect\nwhere you saw me last, and what was talked of in that circle. Don't\nyou? Yes! Very well. This young lady is that young lady.\"\n\nMrs. Snagsby appeared to understand the reference better than I did\nat the time.\n\n\"And Toughey--him as you call Jo--was mixed up in the same business,\nand no other; and the law-writer that you know of was mixed up in the\nsame business, and no other; and your husband, with no more knowledge\nof it than your great grandfather, was mixed up (by Mr. Tulkinghorn,\ndeceased, his best customer) in the same business, and no other; and\nthe whole bileing of people was mixed up in the same business, and no\nother. And yet a married woman, possessing your attractions, shuts\nher eyes (and sparklers too), and goes and runs her delicate-formed\nhead against a wall. Why, I am ashamed of you! (I expected Mr.\nWoodcourt might have got it by this time.)\"\n\nMrs. Snagsby shook her head and put her handkerchief to her eyes.\n\n\"Is that all?\" said Mr. Bucket excitedly. \"No. See what happens.\nAnother person mixed up in that business and no other, a person in a\nwretched state, comes here to-night and is seen a-speaking to your\nmaid-servant; and between her and your maid-servant there passes\na paper that I would give a hundred pound for, down. What do\nyou do? You hide and you watch 'em, and you pounce upon that\nmaid-servant--knowing what she's subject to and what a little thing\nwill bring 'em on--in that surprising manner and with that severity\nthat, by the Lord, she goes off and keeps off, when a life may be\nhanging upon that girl's words!\"\n\nHe so thoroughly meant what he said now that I involuntarily clasped\nmy hands and felt the room turning away from me. But it stopped. Mr.\nWoodcourt came in, put a paper into his hand, and went away again.\n\n\"Now, Mrs. Snagsby, the only amends you can make,\" said Mr. Bucket,\nrapidly glancing at it, \"is to let me speak a word to this young lady\nin private here. And if you know of any help that you can give to\nthat gentleman in the next kitchen there or can think of any one\nthing that's likelier than another to bring the girl round, do your\nswiftest and best!\" In an instant she was gone, and he had shut the\ndoor. \"Now my dear, you're steady and quite sure of yourself?\"\n\n\"Quite,\" said I.\n\n\"Whose writing is that?\"\n\nIt was my mother's. A pencil-writing, on a crushed and torn piece of\npaper, blotted with wet. Folded roughly like a letter, and directed\nto me at my guardian's.\n\n\"You know the hand,\" he said, \"and if you are firm enough to read it\nto me, do! But be particular to a word.\"\n\nIt had been written in portions, at different times. I read what\nfollows:\n\n\n   I came to the cottage with two objects. First, to see the\n   dear one, if I could, once more--but only to see her--not\n   to speak to her or let her know that I was near. The other\n   object, to elude pursuit and to be lost. Do not blame the\n   mother for her share. The assistance that she rendered me,\n   she rendered on my strongest assurance that it was for the\n   dear one's good. You remember her dead child. The men's\n   consent I bought, but her help was freely given.\n\n\n\"'I came.' That was written,\" said my companion, \"when she rested\nthere. It bears out what I made of it. I was right.\"\n\nThe next was written at another time:\n\n\n   I have wandered a long distance, and for many hours, and\n   I know that I must soon die. These streets! I have no\n   purpose but to die. When I left, I had a worse, but I am\n   saved from adding that guilt to the rest. Cold, wet, and\n   fatigue are sufficient causes for my being found dead, but\n   I shall die of others, though I suffer from these. It was\n   right that all that had sustained me should give way at\n   once and that I should die of terror and my conscience.\n\n\n\"Take courage,\" said Mr. Bucket. \"There's only a few words more.\"\n\nThose, too, were written at another time. To all appearance, almost\nin the dark:\n\n\n   I have done all I could do to be lost. I shall be soon\n   forgotten so, and shall disgrace him least. I have nothing\n   about me by which I can be recognized. This paper I part\n   with now. The place where I shall lie down, if I can get\n   so far, has been often in my mind. Farewell. Forgive.\n\n\nMr. Bucket, supporting me with his arm, lowered me gently into my\nchair. \"Cheer up! Don't think me hard with you, my dear, but as soon\nas ever you feel equal to it, get your shoes on and be ready.\"\n\nI did as he required, but I was left there a long time, praying for\nmy unhappy mother. They were all occupied with the poor girl, and I\nheard Mr. Woodcourt directing them and speaking to her often. At\nlength he came in with Mr. Bucket and said that as it was important\nto address her gently, he thought it best that I should ask her for\nwhatever information we desired to obtain. There was no doubt that\nshe could now reply to questions if she were soothed and not alarmed.\nThe questions, Mr. Bucket said, were how she came by the letter, what\npassed between her and the person who gave her the letter, and where\nthe person went. Holding my mind as steadily as I could to these\npoints, I went into the next room with them. Mr. Woodcourt would have\nremained outside, but at my solicitation went in with us.\n\nThe poor girl was sitting on the floor where they had laid her down.\nThey stood around her, though at a little distance, that she might\nhave air. She was not pretty and looked weak and poor, but she had a\nplaintive and a good face, though it was still a little wild. I\nkneeled on the ground beside her and put her poor head upon my\nshoulder, whereupon she drew her arm round my neck and burst into\ntears.\n\n\"My poor girl,\" said I, laying my face against her forehead, for\nindeed I was crying too, and trembling, \"it seems cruel to trouble\nyou now, but more depends on our knowing something about this letter\nthan I could tell you in an hour.\"\n\nShe began piteously declaring that she didn't mean any harm, she\ndidn't mean any harm, Mrs. Snagsby!\n\n\"We are all sure of that,\" said I. \"But pray tell me how you got it.\"\n\n\"Yes, dear lady, I will, and tell you true. I'll tell true, indeed,\nMrs. Snagsby.\"\n\n\"I am sure of that,\" said I. \"And how was it?\"\n\n\"I had been out on an errand, dear lady--long after it was\ndark--quite late; and when I came home, I found a common-looking\nperson, all wet and muddy, looking up at our house. When she saw me\ncoming in at the door, she called me back and said did I live here.\nAnd I said yes, and she said she knew only one or two places about\nhere, but had lost her way and couldn't find them. Oh, what shall I\ndo, what shall I do! They won't believe me! She didn't say any harm\nto me, and I didn't say any harm to her, indeed, Mrs. Snagsby!\"\n\nIt was necessary for her mistress to comfort her--which she did, I\nmust say, with a good deal of contrition--before she could be got\nbeyond this.\n\n\"She could not find those places,\" said I.\n\n\"No!\" cried the girl, shaking her head. \"No! Couldn't find them. And\nshe was so faint, and lame, and miserable, Oh so wretched, that if\nyou had seen her, Mr. Snagsby, you'd have given her half a crown, I\nknow!\"\n\n\"Well, Guster, my girl,\" said he, at first not knowing what to say.\n\"I hope I should.\"\n\n\"And yet she was so well spoken,\" said the girl, looking at me with\nwide open eyes, \"that it made a person's heart bleed. And so she said\nto me, did I know the way to the burying ground? And I asked her\nwhich burying ground. And she said, the poor burying ground. And so I\ntold her I had been a poor child myself, and it was according to\nparishes. But she said she meant a poor burying ground not very far\nfrom here, where there was an archway, and a step, and an iron gate.\"\n\nAs I watched her face and soothed her to go on, I saw that Mr. Bucket\nreceived this with a look which I could not separate from one of\nalarm.\n\n\"Oh, dear, dear!\" cried the girl, pressing her hair back with her\nhands. \"What shall I do, what shall I do! She meant the burying\nground where the man was buried that took the sleeping-stuff--that\nyou came home and told us of, Mr. Snagsby--that frightened me so,\nMrs. Snagsby. Oh, I am frightened again. Hold me!\"\n\n\"You are so much better now,\" sald I. \"Pray, pray tell me more.\"\n\n\"Yes I will, yes I will! But don't be angry with me, that's a dear\nlady, because I have been so ill.\"\n\nAngry with her, poor soul!\n\n\"There! Now I will, now I will. So she said, could I tell her how to\nfind it, and I said yes, and I told her; and she looked at me with\neyes like almost as if she was blind, and herself all waving back.\nAnd so she took out the letter, and showed it me, and said if she was\nto put that in the post-office, it would be rubbed out and not minded\nand never sent; and would I take it from her, and send it, and the\nmessenger would be paid at the house. And so I said yes, if it was no\nharm, and she said no--no harm. And so I took it from her, and she\nsaid she had nothing to give me, and I said I was poor myself and\nconsequently wanted nothing. And so she said God bless you, and\nwent.\"\n\n\"And did she go--\"\n\n\"Yes,\" cried the girl, anticipating the inquiry. \"Yes! She went the\nway I had shown her. Then I came in, and Mrs. Snagsby came behind me\nfrom somewhere and laid hold of me, and I was frightened.\"\n\nMr. Woodcourt took her kindly from me. Mr. Bucket wrapped me up, and\nimmediately we were in the street. Mr. Woodcourt hesitated, but I\nsaid, \"Don't leave me now!\" and Mr. Bucket added, \"You'll be better\nwith us, we may want you; don't lose time!\"\n\nI have the most confused impressions of that walk. I recollect that\nit was neither night nor day, that morning was dawning but the\nstreet-lamps were not yet put out, that the sleet was still falling\nand that all the ways were deep with it. I recollect a few chilled\npeople passing in the streets. I recollect the wet house-tops, the\nclogged and bursting gutters and water-spouts, the mounds of\nblackened ice and snow over which we passed, the narrowness of the\ncourts by which we went. At the same time I remember that the poor\ngirl seemed to be yet telling her story audibly and plainly in my\nhearing, that I could feel her resting on my arm, that the stained\nhouse-fronts put on human shapes and looked at me, that great\nwater-gates seemed to be opening and closing in my head or in the\nair, and that the unreal things were more substantial than the real.\n\nAt last we stood under a dark and miserable covered way, where one\nlamp was burning over an iron gate and where the morning faintly\nstruggled in. The gate was closed. Beyond it was a burial ground--a\ndreadful spot in which the night was very slowly stirring, but where\nI could dimly see heaps of dishonoured graves and stones, hemmed in\nby filthy houses with a few dull lights in their windows and on whose\nwalls a thick humidity broke out like a disease. On the step at the\ngate, drenched in the fearful wet of such a place, which oozed and\nsplashed down everywhere, I saw, with a cry of pity and horror, a\nwoman lying--Jenny, the mother of the dead child.\n\nI ran forward, but they stopped me, and Mr. Woodcourt entreated me\nwith the greatest earnestness, even with tears, before I went up to\nthe figure to listen for an instant to what Mr. Bucket said. I did\nso, as I thought. I did so, as I am sure.\n\n\"Miss Summerson, you'll understand me, if you think a moment. They\nchanged clothes at the cottage.\"\n\nThey changed clothes at the cottage. I could repeat the words in my\nmind, and I knew what they meant of themselves, but I attached no\nmeaning to them in any other connexion.\n\n\"And one returned,\" said Mr. Bucket, \"and one went on. And the one\nthat went on only went on a certain way agreed upon to deceive and\nthen turned across country and went home. Think a moment!\"\n\nI could repeat this in my mind too, but I had not the least idea what\nit meant. I saw before me, lying on the step, the mother of the dead\nchild. She lay there with one arm creeping round a bar of the iron\ngate and seeming to embrace it. She lay there, who had so lately\nspoken to my mother. She lay there, a distressed, unsheltered,\nsenseless creature. She who had brought my mother's letter, who could\ngive me the only clue to where my mother was; she, who was to guide\nus to rescue and save her whom we had sought so far, who had come to\nthis condition by some means connected with my mother that I could\nnot follow, and might be passing beyond our reach and help at that\nmoment; she lay there, and they stopped me! I saw but did not\ncomprehend the solemn and compassionate look in Mr. Woodcourt's face.\nI saw but did not comprehend his touching the other on the breast to\nkeep him back. I saw him stand uncovered in the bitter air, with a\nreverence for something. But my understanding for all this was gone.\n\nI even heard it said between them, \"Shall she go?\"\n\n\"She had better go. Her hands should be the first to touch her. They\nhave a higher right than ours.\"\n\nI passed on to the gate and stooped down. I lifted the heavy head,\nput the long dank hair aside, and turned the face. And it was my\nmother, cold and dead.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LX\n\nPerspective\n\n\nI proceed to other passages of my narrative. From the goodness of all\nabout me I derived such consolation as I can never think of unmoved.\nI have already said so much of myself, and so much still remains,\nthat I will not dwell upon my sorrow. I had an illness, but it was\nnot a long one; and I would avoid even this mention of it if I could\nquite keep down the recollection of their sympathy.\n\nI proceed to other passages of my narrative.\n\nDuring the time of my illness, we were still in London, where Mrs.\nWoodcourt had come, on my guardian's invitation, to stay with us.\nWhen my guardian thought me well and cheerful enough to talk with him\nin our old way--though I could have done that sooner if he would have\nbelieved me--I resumed my work and my chair beside his. He had\nappointed the time himself, and we were alone.\n\n\"Dame Trot,\" said he, receiving me with a kiss, \"welcome to the\ngrowlery again, my dear. I have a scheme to develop, little woman. I\npropose to remain here, perhaps for six months, perhaps for a longer\ntime--as it may be. Quite to settle here for a while, in short.\"\n\n\"And in the meanwhile leave Bleak House?\" said I.\n\n\"Aye, my dear? Bleak House,\" he returned, \"must learn to take care of\nitself.\"\n\nI thought his tone sounded sorrowful, but looking at him, I saw his\nkind face lighted up by its pleasantest smile.\n\n\"Bleak House,\" he repeated--and his tone did NOT sound sorrowful, I\nfound--\"must learn to take care of itself. It is a long way from Ada,\nmy dear, and Ada stands much in need of you.\"\n\n\"It's like you, guardian,\" said I, \"to have been taking that into\nconsideration for a happy surprise to both of us.\"\n\n\"Not so disinterested either, my dear, if you mean to extol me for\nthat virtue, since if you were generally on the road, you could be\nseldom with me. And besides, I wish to hear as much and as often of\nAda as I can in this condition of estrangement from poor Rick. Not of\nher alone, but of him too, poor fellow.\"\n\n\"Have you seen Mr. Woodcourt, this morning, guardian?\"\n\n\"I see Mr. Woodcourt every morning, Dame Durden.\"\n\n\"Does he still say the same of Richard?\"\n\n\"Just the same. He knows of no direct bodily illness that he has; on\nthe contrary, he believes that he has none. Yet he is not easy about\nhim; who CAN be?\"\n\nMy dear girl had been to see us lately every day, some times twice in\na day. But we had foreseen, all along, that this would only last\nuntil I was quite myself. We knew full well that her fervent heart\nwas as full of affection and gratitude towards her cousin John as it\nhad ever been, and we acquitted Richard of laying any injunctions\nupon her to stay away; but we knew on the other hand that she felt it\na part of her duty to him to be sparing of her visits at our house.\nMy guardian's delicacy had soon perceived this and had tried to\nconvey to her that he thought she was right.\n\n\"Dear, unfortunate, mistaken Richard,\" said I. \"When will he awake\nfrom his delusion!\"\n\n\"He is not in the way to do so now, my dear,\" replied my guardian.\n\"The more he suffers, the more averse he will be to me, having made\nme the principal representative of the great occasion of his\nsuffering.\"\n\nI could not help adding, \"So unreasonably!\"\n\n\"Ah, Dame Trot, Dame Trot,\" returned my guardian, \"what shall we find\nreasonable in Jarndyce and Jarndyce! Unreason and injustice at the\ntop, unreason and injustice at the heart and at the bottom, unreason\nand injustice from beginning to end--if it ever has an end--how\nshould poor Rick, always hovering near it, pluck reason out of it? He\nno more gathers grapes from thorns or figs from thistles than older\nmen did in old times.\"\n\nHis gentleness and consideration for Richard whenever we spoke of him\ntouched me so that I was always silent on this subject very soon.\n\n\"I suppose the Lord Chancellor, and the Vice Chancellors, and the\nwhole Chancery battery of great guns would be infinitely astonished\nby such unreason and injustice in one of their suitors,\" pursued my\nguardian. \"When those learned gentlemen begin to raise moss-roses\nfrom the powder they sow in their wigs, I shall begin to be\nastonished too!\"\n\nHe checked himself in glancing towards the window to look where the\nwind was and leaned on the back of my chair instead.\n\n\"Well, well, little woman! To go on, my dear. This rock we must leave\nto time, chance, and hopeful circumstance. We must not shipwreck Ada\nupon it. She cannot afford, and he cannot afford, the remotest chance\nof another separation from a friend. Therefore I have particularly\nbegged of Woodcourt, and I now particularly beg of you, my dear, not\nto move this subject with Rick. Let it rest. Next week, next month,\nnext year, sooner or later, he will see me with clearer eyes. I can\nwait.\"\n\nBut I had already discussed it with him, I confessed; and so, I\nthought, had Mr. Woodcourt.\n\n\"So he tells me,\" returned my guardian. \"Very good. He has made his\nprotest, and Dame Durden has made hers, and there is nothing more to\nbe said about it. Now I come to Mrs. Woodcourt. How do you like her,\nmy dear?\"\n\nIn answer to this question, which was oddly abrupt, I said I liked\nher very much and thought she was more agreeable than she used to be.\n\n\"I think so too,\" said my guardian. \"Less pedigree? Not so much of\nMorgan ap--what's his name?\"\n\nThat was what I meant, I acknowledged, though he was a very harmless\nperson, even when we had had more of him.\n\n\"Still, upon the whole, he is as well in his native mountains,\" said\nmy guardian. \"I agree with you. Then, little woman, can I do better\nfor a time than retain Mrs. Woodcourt here?\"\n\nNo. And yet--\n\nMy guardian looked at me, waiting for what I had to say.\n\nI had nothing to say. At least I had nothing in my mind that I could\nsay. I had an undefined impression that it might have been better if\nwe had had some other inmate, but I could hardly have explained why\neven to myself. Or, if to myself, certainly not to anybody else.\n\n\"You see,\" said my guardian, \"our neighbourhood is in Woodcourt's\nway, and he can come here to see her as often as he likes, which is\nagreeable to them both; and she is familiar to us and fond of you.\"\n\nYes. That was undeniable. I had nothing to say against it. I could\nnot have suggested a better arrangement, but I was not quite easy in\nmy mind. Esther, Esther, why not? Esther, think!\n\n\"It is a very good plan indeed, dear guardian, and we could not do\nbetter.\"\n\n\"Sure, little woman?\"\n\nQuite sure. I had had a moment's time to think, since I had urged\nthat duty on myself, and I was quite sure.\n\n\"Good,\" said my guardian. \"It shall be done. Carried unanimously.\"\n\n\"Carried unanimously,\" I repeated, going on with my work.\n\nIt was a cover for his book-table that I happened to be ornamenting.\nIt had been laid by on the night preceding my sad journey and never\nresumed. I showed it to him now, and he admired it highly. After I\nhad explained the pattern to him and all the great effects that were\nto come out by and by, I thought I would go back to our last theme.\n\n\"You said, dear guardian, when we spoke of Mr. Woodcourt before Ada\nleft us, that you thought he would give a long trial to another\ncountry. Have you been advising him since?\"\n\n\"Yes, little woman, pretty often.\"\n\n\"Has he decided to do so?\"\n\n\"I rather think not.\"\n\n\"Some other prospect has opened to him, perhaps?\" said I.\n\n\"Why--yes--perhaps,\" returned my guardian, beginning his answer in a\nvery deliberate manner. \"About half a year hence or so, there is a\nmedical attendant for the poor to be appointed at a certain place in\nYorkshire. It is a thriving place, pleasantly situated--streams and\nstreets, town and country, mill and moor--and seems to present an\nopening for such a man. I mean a man whose hopes and aims may\nsometimes lie (as most men's sometimes do, I dare say) above the\nordinary level, but to whom the ordinary level will be high enough\nafter all if it should prove to be a way of usefulness and good\nservice leading to no other. All generous spirits are ambitious, I\nsuppose, but the ambition that calmly trusts itself to such a road,\ninstead of spasmodically trying to fly over it, is of the kind I care\nfor. It is Woodcourt's kind.\"\n\n\"And will he get this appointment?\" I asked.\n\n\"Why, little woman,\" returned my guardian, smiling, \"not being an\noracle, I cannot confidently say, but I think so. His reputation\nstands very high; there were people from that part of the country in\nthe shipwreck; and strange to say, I believe the best man has the\nbest chance. You must not suppose it to be a fine endowment. It is a\nvery, very commonplace affair, my dear, an appointment to a great\namount of work and a small amount of pay; but better things will\ngather about it, it may be fairly hoped.\"\n\n\"The poor of that place will have reason to bless the choice if it\nfalls on Mr. Woodcourt, guardian.\"\n\n\"You are right, little woman; that I am sure they will.\"\n\nWe said no more about it, nor did he say a word about the future of\nBleak House. But it was the first time I had taken my seat at his\nside in my mourning dress, and that accounted for it, I considered.\n\nI now began to visit my dear girl every day in the dull dark corner\nwhere she lived. The morning was my usual time, but whenever I found\nI had an hour or so to spare, I put on my bonnet and bustled off to\nChancery Lane. They were both so glad to see me at all hours, and\nused to brighten up so when they heard me opening the door and coming\nin (being quite at home, I never knocked), that I had no fear of\nbecoming troublesome just yet.\n\nOn these occasions I frequently found Richard absent. At other times\nhe would be writing or reading papers in the cause at that table of\nhis, so covered with papers, which was never disturbed. Sometimes I\nwould come upon him lingering at the door of Mr. Vholes's office.\nSometimes I would meet him in the neighbourhood lounging about and\nbiting his nails. I often met him wandering in Lincoln's Inn, near\nthe place where I had first seen him, oh how different, how\ndifferent!\n\nThat the money Ada brought him was melting away with the candles I\nused to see burning after dark in Mr. Vholes's office I knew very\nwell. It was not a large amount in the beginning, he had married in\ndebt, and I could not fail to understand, by this time, what was\nmeant by Mr. Vholes's shoulder being at the wheel--as I still heard\nit was. My dear made the best of housekeepers and tried hard to save,\nbut I knew that they were getting poorer and poorer every day.\n\nShe shone in the miserable corner like a beautiful star. She adorned\nand graced it so that it became another place. Paler than she had\nbeen at home, and a little quieter than I had thought natural when\nshe was yet so cheerful and hopeful, her face was so unshadowed that\nI half believed she was blinded by her love for Richard to his\nruinous career.\n\nI went one day to dine with them while I was under this impression.\nAs I turned into Symond's Inn, I met little Miss Flite coming out.\nShe had been to make a stately call upon the wards in Jarndyce, as\nshe still called them, and had derived the highest gratification from\nthat ceremony. Ada had already told me that she called every Monday\nat five o'clock, with one little extra white bow in her bonnet, which\nnever appeared there at any other time, and with her largest reticule\nof documents on her arm.\n\n\"My dear!\" she began. \"So delighted! How do you do! So glad to see\nyou. And you are going to visit our interesting Jarndyce wards? TO be\nsure! Our beauty is at home, my dear, and will be charmed to see\nyou.\"\n\n\"Then Richard is not come in yet?\" said I. \"I am glad of that, for I\nwas afraid of being a little late.\"\n\n\"No, he is not come in,\" returned Miss Flite. \"He has had a long day\nin court. I left him there with Vholes. You don't like Vholes, I\nhope? DON'T like Vholes. Dan-gerous man!\"\n\n\"I am afraid you see Richard oftener than ever now,\" said I.\n\n\"My dearest,\" returned Miss Flite, \"daily and hourly. You know what I\ntold you of the attraction on the Chancellor's table? My dear, next\nto myself he is the most constant suitor in court. He begins quite to\namuse our little party. Ve-ry friendly little party, are we not?\"\n\nIt was miserable to hear this from her poor mad lips, though it was\nno surprise.\n\n\"In short, my valued friend,\" pursued Miss Flite, advancing her lips\nto my ear with an air of equal patronage and mystery, \"I must tell\nyou a secret. I have made him my executor. Nominated, constituted,\nand appointed him. In my will. Ye-es.\"\n\n\"Indeed?\" said I.\n\n\"Ye-es,\" repeated Miss Flite in her most genteel accents, \"my\nexecutor, administrator, and assign. (Our Chancery phrases, my love.)\nI have reflected that if I should wear out, he will be able to watch\nthat judgment. Being so very regular in his attendance.\"\n\nIt made me sigh to think of him.\n\n\"I did at one time mean,\" said Miss Flite, echoing the sigh, \"to\nnominate, constitute, and appoint poor Gridley. Also very regular, my\ncharming girl. I assure you, most exemplary! But he wore out, poor\nman, so I have appointed his successor. Don't mention it. This is in\nconfidence.\"\n\nShe carefully opened her reticule a little way and showed me a folded\npiece of paper inside as the appointment of which she spoke.\n\n\"Another secret, my dear. I have added to my collection of birds.\"\n\n\"Really, Miss Flite?\" said I, knowing how it pleased her to have her\nconfidence received with an appearance of interest.\n\nShe nodded several times, and her face became overcast and gloomy.\n\"Two more. I call them the Wards in Jarndyce. They are caged up with\nall the others. With Hope, Joy, Youth, Peace, Rest, Life, Dust,\nAshes, Waste, Want, Ruin, Despair, Madness, Death, Cunning, Folly,\nWords, Wigs, Rags, Sheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon, Gammon, and\nSpinach!\"\n\nThe poor soul kissed me with the most troubled look I had ever seen\nin her and went her way. Her manner of running over the names of her\nbirds, as if she were afraid of hearing them even from her own lips,\nquite chilled me.\n\nThis was not a cheering preparation for my visit, and I could have\ndispensed with the company of Mr. Vholes, when Richard (who arrived\nwithin a minute or two after me) brought him to share our dinner.\nAlthough it was a very plain one, Ada and Richard were for some\nminutes both out of the room together helping to get ready what we\nwere to eat and drink. Mr. Vholes took that opportunity of holding a\nlittle conversation in a low voice with me. He came to the window\nwhere I was sitting and began upon Symond's Inn.\n\n\"A dull place, Miss Summerson, for a life that is not an official\none,\" said Mr. Vholes, smearing the glass with his black glove to\nmake it clearer for me.\n\n\"There is not much to see here,\" said I.\n\n\"Nor to hear, miss,\" returned Mr. Vholes. \"A little music does\noccasionally stray in, but we are not musical in the law and soon\neject it. I hope Mr. Jarndyce is as well as his friends could wish\nhim?\"\n\nI thanked Mr. Vholes and said he was quite well.\n\n\"I have not the pleasure to be admitted among the number of his\nfriends myself,\" said Mr. Vholes, \"and I am aware that the gentlemen\nof our profession are sometimes regarded in such quarters with an\nunfavourable eye. Our plain course, however, under good report and\nevil report, and all kinds of prejudice (we are the victims of\nprejudice), is to have everything openly carried on. How do you find\nMr. C. looking, Miss Summerson?\"\n\n\"He looks very ill. Dreadfully anxious.\"\n\n\"Just so,\" said Mr. Vholes.\n\nHe stood behind me with his long black figure reaching nearly to the\nceiling of those low rooms, feeling the pimples on his face as if\nthey were ornaments and speaking inwardly and evenly as though there\nwere not a human passion or emotion in his nature.\n\n\"Mr. Woodcourt is in attendance upon Mr. C., I believe?\" he resumed.\n\n\"Mr. Woodcourt is his disinterested friend,\" I answered.\n\n\"But I mean in professional attendance, medical attendance.\"\n\n\"That can do little for an unhappy mind,\" said I.\n\n\"Just so,\" said Mr. Vholes.\n\nSo slow, so eager, so bloodless and gaunt, I felt as if Richard were\nwasting away beneath the eyes of this adviser and there were\nsomething of the vampire in him.\n\n\"Miss Summerson,\" said Mr. Vholes, very slowly rubbing his gloved\nhands, as if, to his cold sense of touch, they were much the same in\nblack kid or out of it, \"this was an ill-advised marriage of Mr.\nC.'s.\"\n\nI begged he would excuse me from discussing it. They had been engaged\nwhen they were both very young, I told him (a little indignantly) and\nwhen the prospect before them was much fairer and brighter. When\nRichard had not yielded himself to the unhappy influence which now\ndarkened his life.\n\n\"Just so,\" assented Mr. Vholes again. \"Still, with a view to\neverything being openly carried on, I will, with your permission,\nMiss Summerson, observe to you that I consider this a very\nill-advised marriage indeed. I owe the opinion not only to Mr. C.'s\nconnexions, against whom I should naturally wish to protect myself,\nbut also to my own reputation--dear to myself as a professional man\naiming to keep respectable; dear to my three girls at home, for whom\nI am striving to realize some little independence; dear, I will even\nsay, to my aged father, whom it is my privilege to support.\"\n\n\"It would become a very different marriage, a much happier and better\nmarriage, another marriage altogether, Mr. Vholes,\" said I, \"if\nRichard were persuaded to turn his back on the fatal pursuit in which\nyou are engaged with him.\"\n\nMr. Vholes, with a noiseless cough--or rather gasp--into one of his\nblack gloves, inclined his head as if he did not wholly dispute even\nthat.\n\n\"Miss Summerson,\" he said, \"it may be so; and I freely admit that the\nyoung lady who has taken Mr. C.'s name upon herself in so ill-advised\na manner--you will I am sure not quarrel with me for throwing out\nthat remark again, as a duty I owe to Mr. C.'s connexions--is a\nhighly genteel young lady. Business has prevented me from mixing much\nwith general society in any but a professional character; still I\ntrust I am competent to perceive that she is a highly genteel young\nlady. As to beauty, I am not a judge of that myself, and I never did\ngive much attention to it from a boy, but I dare say the young lady\nis equally eligible in that point of view. She is considered so (I\nhave heard) among the clerks in the Inn, and it is a point more in\ntheir way than in mine. In reference to Mr. C.'s pursuit of his\ninterests--\"\n\n\"Oh! His interests, Mr. Vholes!\"\n\n\"Pardon me,\" returned Mr. Vholes, going on in exactly the same inward\nand dispassionate manner. \"Mr. C. takes certain interests under\ncertain wills disputed in the suit. It is a term we use. In reference\nto Mr. C,'s pursuit of his interests, I mentioned to you, Miss\nSummerson, the first time I had the pleasure of seeing you, in my\ndesire that everything should be openly carried on--I used those\nwords, for I happened afterwards to note them in my diary, which is\nproducible at any time--I mentioned to you that Mr. C. had laid down\nthe principle of watching his own interests, and that when a client\nof mine laid down a principle which was not of an immoral (that is to\nsay, unlawful) nature, it devolved upon me to carry it out. I HAVE\ncarried it out; I do carry it out. But I will not smooth things over\nto any connexion of Mr. C.'s on any account. As open as I was to Mr.\nJarndyce, I am to you. I regard it in the light of a professional\nduty to be so, though it can be charged to no one. I openly say,\nunpalatable as it may be, that I consider Mr. C.'s affairs in a very\nbad way, that I consider Mr. C. himself in a very bad way, and that I\nregard this as an exceedingly ill-advised marriage. Am I here, sir?\nYes, I thank you; I am here, Mr. C., and enjoying the pleasure of\nsome agreeable conversation with Miss Summerson, for which I have to\nthank you very much, sir!\"\n\nHe broke off thus in answer to Richard, who addressed him as he came\ninto the room. By this time I too well understood Mr. Vholes's\nscrupulous way of saving himself and his respectability not to feel\nthat our worst fears did but keep pace with his client's progress.\n\nWe sat down to dinner, and I had an opportunity of observing Richard,\nanxiously. I was not disturbed by Mr. Vholes (who took off his gloves\nto dine), though he sat opposite to me at the small table, for I\ndoubt if, looking up at all, he once removed his eyes from his host's\nface. I found Richard thin and languid, slovenly in his dress,\nabstracted in his manner, forcing his spirits now and then, and at\nother intervals relapsing into a dull thoughtfulness. About his large\nbright eyes that used to be so merry there was a wanness and a\nrestlessness that changed them altogether. I cannot use the\nexpression that he looked old. There is a ruin of youth which is not\nlike age, and into such a ruin Richard's youth and youthful beauty\nhad all fallen away.\n\nHe ate little and seemed indifferent what it was, showed himself to\nbe much more impatient than he used to be, and was quick even with\nAda. I thought at first that his old light-hearted manner was all\ngone, but it shone out of him sometimes as I had occasionally known\nlittle momentary glimpses of my own old face to look out upon me from\nthe glass. His laugh had not quite left him either, but it was like\nthe echo of a joyful sound, and that is always sorrowful.\n\nYet he was as glad as ever, in his old affectionate way, to have me\nthere, and we talked of the old times pleasantly. These did not\nappear to be interesting to Mr. Vholes, though he occasionally made a\ngasp which I believe was his smile. He rose shortly after dinner and\nsaid that with the permission of the ladies he would retire to his\noffice.\n\n\"Always devoted to business, Vholes!\" cried Richard.\n\n\"Yes, Mr. C.,\" he returned, \"the interests of clients are never to be\nneglected, sir. They are paramount in the thoughts of a professional\nman like myself, who wishes to preserve a good name among his\nfellow-practitioners and society at large. My denying myself the\npleasure of the present agreeable conversation may not be wholly\nirrespective of your own interests, Mr. C.\"\n\nRichard expressed himself quite sure of that and lighted Mr. Vholes\nout. On his return he told us, more than once, that Vholes was a good\nfellow, a safe fellow, a man who did what he pretended to do, a very\ngood fellow indeed! He was so defiant about it that it struck me he\nhad begun to doubt Mr. Vholes.\n\nThen he threw himself on the sofa, tired out; and Ada and I put\nthings to rights, for they had no other servant than the woman who\nattended to the chambers. My dear girl had a cottage piano there and\nquietly sat down to sing some of Richard's favourites, the lamp being\nfirst removed into the next room, as he complained of its hurting his\neyes.\n\nI sat between them, at my dear girl's side, and felt very melancholy\nlistening to her sweet voice. I think Richard did too; I think he\ndarkened the room for that reason. She had been singing some time,\nrising between whiles to bend over him and speak to him, when Mr.\nWoodcourt came in. Then he sat down by Richard and half playfully,\nhalf earnestly, quite naturally and easily, found out how he felt and\nwhere he had been all day. Presently he proposed to accompany him in\na short walk on one of the bridges, as it was a moonlight airy night;\nand Richard readily consenting, they went out together.\n\nThey left my dear girl still sitting at the piano and me still\nsitting beside her. When they were gone out, I drew my arm round her\nwaist. She put her left hand in mine (I was sitting on that side),\nbut kept her right upon the keys, going over and over them without\nstriking any note.\n\n\"Esther, my dearest,\" she said, breaking silence, \"Richard is never\nso well and I am never so easy about him as when he is with Allan\nWoodcourt. We have to thank you for that.\"\n\nI pointed out to my darling how this could scarcely be, because Mr.\nWoodcourt had come to her cousin John's house and had known us all\nthere, and because he had always liked Richard, and Richard had\nalways liked him, and--and so forth.\n\n\"All true,\" said Ada, \"but that he is such a devoted friend to us we\nowe to you.\"\n\nI thought it best to let my dear girl have her way and to say no more\nabout it. So I said as much. I said it lightly, because I felt her\ntrembling.\n\n\"Esther, my dearest, I want to be a good wife, a very, very good wife\nindeed. You shall teach me.\"\n\nI teach! I said no more, for I noticed the hand that was fluttering\nover the keys, and I knew that it was not I who ought to speak, that\nit was she who had something to say to me.\n\n\"When I married Richard I was not insensible to what was before him.\nI had been perfectly happy for a long time with you, and I had never\nknown any trouble or anxiety, so loved and cared for, but I\nunderstood the danger he was in, dear Esther.\"\n\n\"I know, I know, my darling.\"\n\n\"When we were married I had some little hope that I might be able to\nconvince him of his mistake, that he might come to regard it in a new\nway as my husband and not pursue it all the more desperately for my\nsake--as he does. But if I had not had that hope, I would have\nmarried him just the same, Esther. Just the same!\"\n\nIn the momentary firmness of the hand that was never still--a\nfirmness inspired by the utterance of these last words, and dying\naway with them--I saw the confirmation of her earnest tones.\n\n\"You are not to think, my dearest Esther, that I fail to see what you\nsee and fear what you fear. No one can understand him better than I\ndo. The greatest wisdom that ever lived in the world could scarcely\nknow Richard better than my love does.\"\n\nShe spoke so modestly and softly and her trembling hand expressed\nsuch agitation as it moved to and fro upon the silent notes! My dear,\ndear girl!\n\n\"I see him at his worst every day. I watch him in his sleep. I know\nevery change of his face. But when I married Richard I was quite\ndetermined, Esther, if heaven would help me, never to show him that I\ngrieved for what he did and so to make him more unhappy. I want him,\nwhen he comes home, to find no trouble in my face. I want him, when\nhe looks at me, to see what he loved in me. I married him to do this,\nand this supports me.\"\n\nI felt her trembling more. I waited for what was yet to come, and I\nnow thought I began to know what it was.\n\n\"And something else supports me, Esther.\"\n\nShe stopped a minute. Stopped speaking only; her hand was still in\nmotion.\n\n\"I look forward a little while, and I don't know what great aid may\ncome to me. When Richard turns his eyes upon me then, there may be\nsomething lying on my breast more eloquent than I have been, with\ngreater power than mine to show him his true course and win him\nback.\"\n\nHer hand stopped now. She clasped me in her arms, and I clasped her\nin mine.\n\n\"If that little creature should fail too, Esther, I still look\nforward. I look forward a long while, through years and years, and\nthink that then, when I am growing old, or when I am dead perhaps, a\nbeautiful woman, his daughter, happily married, may be proud of him\nand a blessing to him. Or that a generous brave man, as handsome as\nhe used to be, as hopeful, and far more happy, may walk in the\nsunshine with him, honouring his grey head and saying to himself, 'I\nthank God this is my father! Ruined by a fatal inheritance, and\nrestored through me!'\"\n\nOh, my sweet girl, what a heart was that which beat so fast against\nme!\n\n\"These hopes uphold me, my dear Esther, and I know they will. Though\nsometimes even they depart from me before a dread that arises when I\nlook at Richard.\"\n\nI tried to cheer my darling, and asked her what it was. Sobbing and\nweeping, she replied, \"That he may not live to see his child.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXI\n\nA Discovery\n\n\nThe days when I frequented that miserable corner which my dear girl\nbrightened can never fade in my remembrance. I never see it, and I\nnever wish to see it now; I have been there only once since, but in\nmy memory there is a mournful glory shining on the place which will\nshine for ever.\n\nNot a day passed without my going there, of course. At first I found\nMr. Skimpole there, on two or three occasions, idly playing the piano\nand talking in his usual vivacious strain. Now, besides my very much\nmistrusting the probability of his being there without making Richard\npoorer, I felt as if there were something in his careless gaiety too\ninconsistent with what I knew of the depths of Ada's life. I clearly\nperceived, too, that Ada shared my feelings. I therefore resolved,\nafter much thinking of it, to make a private visit to Mr. Skimpole\nand try delicately to explain myself. My dear girl was the great\nconsideration that made me bold.\n\nI set off one morning, accompanied by Charley, for Somers Town. As I\napproached the house, I was strongly inclined to turn back, for I\nfelt what a desperate attempt it was to make an impression on Mr.\nSkimpole and how extremely likely it was that he would signally\ndefeat me. However, I thought that being there, I would go through\nwith it. I knocked with a trembling hand at Mr. Skimpole's\ndoor--literally with a hand, for the knocker was gone--and after a\nlong parley gained admission from an Irishwoman, who was in the area\nwhen I knocked, breaking up the lid of a water-butt with a poker to\nlight the fire with.\n\nMr. Skimpole, lying on the sofa in his room, playing the flute a\nlittle, was enchanted to see me. Now, who should receive me, he\nasked. Who would I prefer for mistress of the ceremonies? Would I\nhave his Comedy daughter, his Beauty daughter, or his Sentiment\ndaughter? Or would I have all the daughters at once in a perfect\nnosegay?\n\nI replied, half defeated already, that I wished to speak to himself\nonly if he would give me leave.\n\n\"My dear Miss Summerson, most joyfully! Of course,\" he said, bringing\nhis chair nearer mine and breaking into his fascinating smile, \"of\ncourse it's not business. Then it's pleasure!\"\n\nI said it certainly was not business that I came upon, but it was not\nquite a pleasant matter.\n\n\"Then, my dear Miss Summerson,\" said he with the frankest gaiety,\n\"don't allude to it. Why should you allude to anything that is NOT a\npleasant matter? I never do. And you are a much pleasanter creature,\nin every point of view, than I. You are perfectly pleasant; I am\nimperfectly pleasant; then, if I never allude to an unpleasant\nmatter, how much less should you! So that's disposed of, and we will\ntalk of something else.\"\n\nAlthough I was embarrassed, I took courage to intimate that I still\nwished to pursue the subject.\n\n\"I should think it a mistake,\" said Mr. Skimpole with his airy laugh,\n\"if I thought Miss Summerson capable of making one. But I don't!\"\n\n\"Mr. Skimpole,\" said I, raising my eyes to his, \"I have so often\nheard you say that you are unacquainted with the common affairs of\nlife--\"\n\n\"Meaning our three banking-house friends, L, S, and who's the junior\npartner? D?\" said Mr. Skimpole, brightly. \"Not an idea of them!\"\n\n\"--That perhaps,\" I went on, \"you will excuse my boldness on that\naccount. I think you ought most seriously to know that Richard is\npoorer than he was.\"\n\n\"Dear me!\" said Mr. Skimpole. \"So am I, they tell me.\"\n\n\"And in very embarrassed circumstances.\"\n\n\"Parallel case, exactly!\" said Mr. Skimpole with a delighted\ncountenance.\n\n\"This at present naturally causes Ada much secret anxiety, and as I\nthink she is less anxious when no claims are made upon her by\nvisitors, and as Richard has one uneasiness always heavy on his mind,\nit has occurred to me to take the liberty of saying that--if you\nwould--not--\"\n\nI was coming to the point with great difficulty when he took me by\nboth hands and with a radiant face and in the liveliest way\nanticipated it.\n\n\"Not go there? Certainly not, my dear Miss Summerson, most assuredly\nnot. Why SHOULD I go there? When I go anywhere, I go for pleasure. I\ndon't go anywhere for pain, because I was made for pleasure. Pain\ncomes to ME when it wants me. Now, I have had very little pleasure at\nour dear Richard's lately, and your practical sagacity demonstrates\nwhy. Our young friends, losing the youthful poetry which was once so\ncaptivating in them, begin to think, 'This is a man who wants\npounds.' So I am; I always want pounds; not for myself, but because\ntradespeople always want them of me. Next, our young friends begin to\nthink, becoming mercenary, 'This is the man who HAD pounds, who\nborrowed them,' which I did. I always borrow pounds. So our young\nfriends, reduced to prose (which is much to be regretted), degenerate\nin their power of imparting pleasure to me. Why should I go to see\nthem, therefore? Absurd!\"\n\nThrough the beaming smile with which he regarded me as he reasoned\nthus, there now broke forth a look of disinterested benevolence quite\nastonishing.\n\n\"Besides,\" he said, pursuing his argument in his tone of\nlight-hearted conviction, \"if I don't go anywhere for pain--which\nwould be a perversion of the intention of my being, and a monstrous\nthing to do--why should I go anywhere to be the cause of pain? If I\nwent to see our young friends in their present ill-regulated state of\nmind, I should give them pain. The associations with me would be\ndisagreeable. They might say, 'This is the man who had pounds and who\ncan't pay pounds,' which I can't, of course; nothing could be more\nout of the question! Then kindness requires that I shouldn't go near\nthem--and I won't.\"\n\nHe finished by genially kissing my hand and thanking me. Nothing but\nMiss Summerson's fine tact, he said, would have found this out for\nhim.\n\nI was much disconcerted, but I reflected that if the main point were\ngained, it mattered little how strangely he perverted everything\nleading to it. I had determined to mention something else, however,\nand I thought I was not to be put off in that.\n\n\"Mr. Skimpole,\" said I, \"I must take the liberty of saying before I\nconclude my visit that I was much surprised to learn, on the best\nauthority, some little time ago, that you knew with whom that poor\nboy left Bleak House and that you accepted a present on that\noccasion. I have not mentioned it to my guardian, for I fear it would\nhurt him unnecessarily; but I may say to you that I was much\nsurprised.\"\n\n\"No? Really surprised, my dear Miss Summerson?\" he returned\ninquiringly, raising his pleasant eyebrows.\n\n\"Greatly surprised.\"\n\nHe thought about it for a little while with a highly agreeable and\nwhimsical expression of face, then quite gave it up and said in his\nmost engaging manner, \"You know what a child I am. Why surprised?\"\n\nI was reluctant to enter minutely into that question, but as he\nbegged I would, for he was really curious to know, I gave him to\nunderstand in the gentlest words I could use that his conduct seemed\nto involve a disregard of several moral obligations. He was much\namused and interested when he heard this and said, \"No, really?\" with\ningenuous simplicity.\n\n\"You know I don't intend to be responsible. I never could do it.\nResponsibility is a thing that has always been above me--or below\nme,\" said Mr. Skimpole. \"I don't even know which; but as I understand\nthe way in which my dear Miss Summerson (always remarkable for her\npractical good sense and clearness) puts this case, I should imagine\nit was chiefly a question of money, do you know?\"\n\nI incautiously gave a qualified assent to this.\n\n\"Ah! Then you see,\" said Mr. Skimpole, shaking his head, \"I am\nhopeless of understanding it.\"\n\nI suggested, as I rose to go, that it was not right to betray my\nguardian's confidence for a bribe.\n\n\"My dear Miss Summerson,\" he returned with a candid hilarity that was\nall his own, \"I can't be bribed.\"\n\n\"Not by Mr. Bucket?\" said I.\n\n\"No,\" said he. \"Not by anybody. I don't attach any value to money. I\ndon't care about it, I don't know about it, I don't want it, I don't\nkeep it--it goes away from me directly. How can I be bribed?\"\n\nI showed that I was of a different opinion, though I had not the\ncapacity for arguing the question.\n\n\"On the contrary,\" said Mr. Skimpole, \"I am exactly the man to be\nplaced in a superior position in such a case as that. I am above the\nrest of mankind in such a case as that. I can act with philosophy in\nsuch a case as that. I am not warped by prejudices, as an Italian\nbaby is by bandages. I am as free as the air. I feel myself as far\nabove suspicion as Caesar's wife.\"\n\nAnything to equal the lightness of his manner and the playful\nimpartiality with which he seemed to convince himself, as he tossed\nthe matter about like a ball of feathers, was surely never seen in\nanybody else!\n\n\"Observe the case, my dear Miss Summerson. Here is a boy received\ninto the house and put to bed in a state that I strongly object to.\nThe boy being in bed, a man arrives--like the house that Jack built.\nHere is the man who demands the boy who is received into the house\nand put to bed in a state that I strongly object to. Here is a\nbank-note produced by the man who demands the boy who is received\ninto the house and put to bed in a state that I strongly object to.\nHere is the Skimpole who accepts the bank-note produced by the man\nwho demands the boy who is received into the house and put to bed in\na state that I strongly object to. Those are the facts. Very well.\nShould the Skimpole have refused the note? WHY should the Skimpole\nhave refused the note? Skimpole protests to Bucket, 'What's this for?\nI don't understand it, it is of no use to me, take it away.' Bucket\nstill entreats Skimpole to accept it. Are there reasons why Skimpole,\nnot being warped by prejudices, should accept it? Yes. Skimpole\nperceives them. What are they? Skimpole reasons with himself, this is\na tamed lynx, an active police-officer, an intelligent man, a person\nof a peculiarly directed energy and great subtlety both of conception\nand execution, who discovers our friends and enemies for us when they\nrun away, recovers our property for us when we are robbed, avenges us\ncomfortably when we are murdered. This active police-officer and\nintelligent man has acquired, in the exercise of his art, a strong\nfaith in money; he finds it very useful to him, and he makes it very\nuseful to society. Shall I shake that faith in Bucket because I want\nit myself; shall I deliberately blunt one of Bucket's weapons; shall\nI positively paralyse Bucket in his next detective operation? And\nagain. If it is blameable in Skimpole to take the note, it is\nblameable in Bucket to offer the note--much more blameable in Bucket,\nbecause he is the knowing man. Now, Skimpole wishes to think well of\nBucket; Skimpole deems it essential, in its little place, to the\ngeneral cohesion of things, that he SHOULD think well of Bucket. The\nstate expressly asks him to trust to Bucket. And he does. And that's\nall he does!\"\n\nI had nothing to offer in reply to this exposition and therefore took\nmy leave. Mr. Skimpole, however, who was in excellent spirits, would\nnot hear of my returning home attended only by \"Little Coavinses,\"\nand accompanied me himself. He entertained me on the way with a\nvariety of delightful conversation and assured me, at parting, that\nhe should never forget the fine tact with which I had found that out\nfor him about our young friends.\n\nAs it so happened that I never saw Mr. Skimpole again, I may at once\nfinish what I know of his history. A coolness arose between him and\nmy guardian, based principally on the foregoing grounds and on his\nhaving heartlessly disregarded my guardian's entreaties (as we\nafterwards learned from Ada) in reference to Richard. His being\nheavily in my guardian's debt had nothing to do with their\nseparation. He died some five years afterwards and left a diary\nbehind him, with letters and other materials towards his life, which\nwas published and which showed him to have been the victim of a\ncombination on the part of mankind against an amiable child. It was\nconsidered very pleasant reading, but I never read more of it myself\nthan the sentence on which I chanced to light on opening the book. It\nwas this: \"Jarndyce, in common with most other men I have known, is\nthe incarnation of selfishness.\"\n\nAnd now I come to a part of my story touching myself very nearly\nindeed, and for which I was quite unprepared when the circumstance\noccurred. Whatever little lingerings may have now and then revived in\nmy mind associated with my poor old face had only revived as\nbelonging to a part of my life that was gone--gone like my infancy or\nmy childhood. I have suppressed none of my many weaknesses on that\nsubject, but have written them as faithfully as my memory has\nrecalled them. And I hope to do, and mean to do, the same down to the\nlast words of these pages, which I see now not so very far before me.\n\nThe months were gliding away, and my dear girl, sustained by the\nhopes she had confided in me, was the same beautiful star in the\nmiserable corner. Richard, more worn and haggard, haunted the court\nday after day, listlessly sat there the whole day long when he knew\nthere was no remote chance of the suit being mentioned, and became\none of the stock sights of the place. I wonder whether any of the\ngentlemen remembered him as he was when he first went there.\n\nSo completely was he absorbed in his fixed idea that he used to avow\nin his cheerful moments that he should never have breathed the fresh\nair now \"but for Woodcourt.\" It was only Mr. Woodcourt who could\noccasionally divert his attention for a few hours at a time and rouse\nhim, even when he sunk into a lethargy of mind and body that alarmed\nus greatly, and the returns of which became more frequent as the\nmonths went on. My dear girl was right in saying that he only pursued\nhis errors the more desperately for her sake. I have no doubt that\nhis desire to retrieve what he had lost was rendered the more intense\nby his grief for his young wife, and became like the madness of a\ngamester.\n\nI was there, as I have mentioned, at all hours. When I was there at\nnight, I generally went home with Charley in a coach; sometimes my\nguardian would meet me in the neighbourhood, and we would walk home\ntogether. One evening he had arranged to meet me at eight o'clock. I\ncould not leave, as I usually did, quite punctually at the time, for\nI was working for my dear girl and had a few stitches more to do to\nfinish what I was about; but it was within a few minutes of the hour\nwhen I bundled up my little work-basket, gave my darling my last kiss\nfor the night, and hurried downstairs. Mr. Woodcourt went with me, as\nit was dusk.\n\nWhen we came to the usual place of meeting--it was close by, and Mr.\nWoodcourt had often accompanied me before--my guardian was not there.\nWe waited half an hour, walking up and down, but there were no signs\nof him. We agreed that he was either prevented from coming or that he\nhad come and gone away, and Mr. Woodcourt proposed to walk home with\nme.\n\nIt was the first walk we had ever taken together, except that very\nshort one to the usual place of meeting. We spoke of Richard and Ada\nthe whole way. I did not thank him in words for what he had done--my\nappreciation of it had risen above all words then--but I hoped he\nmight not be without some understanding of what I felt so strongly.\n\nArriving at home and going upstairs, we found that my guardian was\nout and that Mrs. Woodcourt was out too. We were in the very same\nroom into which I had brought my blushing girl when her youthful\nlover, now her so altered husband, was the choice of her young heart,\nthe very same room from which my guardian and I had watched them\ngoing away through the sunlight in the fresh bloom of their hope and\npromise.\n\nWe were standing by the opened window looking down into the street\nwhen Mr. Woodcourt spoke to me. I learned in a moment that he loved\nme. I learned in a moment that my scarred face was all unchanged to\nhim. I learned in a moment that what I had thought was pity and\ncompassion was devoted, generous, faithful love. Oh, too late to know\nit now, too late, too late. That was the first ungrateful thought I\nhad. Too late.\n\n\"When I returned,\" he told me, \"when I came back, no richer than when\nI went away, and found you newly risen from a sick bed, yet so\ninspired by sweet consideration for others and so free from a selfish\nthought--\"\n\n\"Oh, Mr. Woodcourt, forbear, forbear!\" I entreated him. \"I do not\ndeserve your high praise. I had many selfish thoughts at that time,\nmany!\"\n\n\"Heaven knows, beloved of my life,\" said he, \"that my praise is not a\nlover's praise, but the truth. You do not know what all around you\nsee in Esther Summerson, how many hearts she touches and awakens,\nwhat sacred admiration and what love she wins.\"\n\n\"Oh, Mr. Woodcourt,\" cried I, \"it is a great thing to win love, it is\na great thing to win love! I am proud of it, and honoured by it; and\nthe hearing of it causes me to shed these tears of mingled joy and\nsorrow--joy that I have won it, sorrow that I have not deserved it\nbetter; but I am not free to think of yours.\"\n\nI said it with a stronger heart, for when he praised me thus and when\nI heard his voice thrill with his belief that what he said was true,\nI aspired to be more worthy of it. It was not too late for that.\nAlthough I closed this unforeseen page in my life to-night, I could\nbe worthier of it all through my life. And it was a comfort to me,\nand an impulse to me, and I felt a dignity rise up within me that was\nderived from him when I thought so.\n\nHe broke the silence.\n\n\"I should poorly show the trust that I have in the dear one who will\nevermore be as dear to me as now\"--and the deep earnestness with\nwhich he said it at once strengthened me and made me weep--\"if, after\nher assurance that she is not free to think of my love, I urged it.\nDear Esther, let me only tell you that the fond idea of you which I\ntook abroad was exalted to the heavens when I came home. I have\nalways hoped, in the first hour when I seemed to stand in any ray of\ngood fortune, to tell you this. I have always feared that I should\ntell it you in vain. My hopes and fears are both fulfilled to-night.\nI distress you. I have said enough.\"\n\nSomething seemed to pass into my place that was like the angel he\nthought me, and I felt so sorrowful for the loss he had sustained! I\nwished to help him in his trouble, as I had wished to do when he\nshowed that first commiseration for me.\n\n\"Dear Mr. Woodcourt,\" said I, \"before we part to-night, something is\nleft for me to say. I never could say it as I wish--I never\nshall--but--\"\n\nI had to think again of being more deserving of his love and his\naffliction before I could go on.\n\n\"--I am deeply sensible of your generosity, and I shall treasure its\nremembrance to my dying hour. I know full well how changed I am, I\nknow you are not unacquainted with my history, and I know what a\nnoble love that is which is so faithful. What you have said to me\ncould have affected me so much from no other lips, for there are none\nthat could give it such a value to me. It shall not be lost. It shall\nmake me better.\"\n\nHe covered his eyes with his hand and turned away his head. How could\nI ever be worthy of those tears?\n\n\"If, in the unchanged intercourse we shall have together--in tending\nRichard and Ada, and I hope in many happier scenes of life--you ever\nfind anything in me which you can honestly think is better than it\nused to be, believe that it will have sprung up from to-night and\nthat I shall owe it to you. And never believe, dear dear Mr.\nWoodcourt, never believe that I forget this night or that while my\nheart beats it can be insensible to the pride and joy of having been\nbeloved by you.\"\n\nHe took my hand and kissed it. He was like himself again, and I felt\nstill more encouraged.\n\n\"I am induced by what you said just now,\" said I, \"to hope that you\nhave succeeded in your endeavour.\"\n\n\"I have,\" he answered. \"With such help from Mr. Jarndyce as you who\nknow him so well can imagine him to have rendered me, I have\nsucceeded.\"\n\n\"Heaven bless him for it,\" said I, giving him my hand; \"and heaven\nbless you in all you do!\"\n\n\"I shall do it better for the wish,\" he answered; \"it will make me\nenter on these new duties as on another sacred trust from you.\"\n\n\"Ah! Richard!\" I exclaimed involuntarily, \"What will he do when you\nare gone!\"\n\n\"I am not required to go yet; I would not desert him, dear Miss\nSummerson, even if I were.\"\n\nOne other thing I felt it needful to touch upon before he left me. I\nknew that I should not be worthier of the love I could not take if I\nreserved it.\n\n\"Mr. Woodcourt,\" said I, \"you will be glad to know from my lips\nbefore I say good night that in the future, which is clear and bright\nbefore me, I am most happy, most fortunate, have nothing to regret or\ndesire.\"\n\nIt was indeed a glad hearing to him, he replied.\n\n\"From my childhood I have been,\" said I, \"the object of the untiring\ngoodness of the best of human beings, to whom I am so bound by every\ntie of attachment, gratitude, and love, that nothing I could do in\nthe compass of a life could express the feelings of a single day.\"\n\n\"I share those feelings,\" he returned. \"You speak of Mr. Jarndyce.\"\n\n\"You know his virtues well,\" said I, \"but few can know the greatness\nof his character as I know it. All its highest and best qualities\nhave been revealed to me in nothing more brightly than in the shaping\nout of that future in which I am so happy. And if your highest homage\nand respect had not been his already--which I know they are--they\nwould have been his, I think, on this assurance and in the feeling it\nwould have awakened in you towards him for my sake.\"\n\nHe fervently replied that indeed indeed they would have been. I gave\nhim my hand again.\n\n\"Good night,\" I said, \"Good-bye.\"\n\n\"The first until we meet to-morrow, the second as a farewell to this\ntheme between us for ever.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Good night; good-bye.\"\n\nHe left me, and I stood at the dark window watching the street. His\nlove, in all its constancy and generosity, had come so suddenly upon\nme that he had not left me a minute when my fortitude gave way again\nand the street was blotted out by my rushing tears.\n\nBut they were not tears of regret and sorrow. No. He had called me\nthe beloved of his life and had said I would be evermore as dear to\nhim as I was then, and I felt as if my heart would not hold the\ntriumph of having heard those words. My first wild thought had died\naway. It was not too late to hear them, for it was not too late to be\nanimated by them to be good, true, grateful, and contented. How easy\nmy path, how much easier than his!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXII\n\nAnother Discovery\n\n\nI had not the courage to see any one that night. I had not even the\ncourage to see myself, for I was afraid that my tears might a little\nreproach me. I went up to my room in the dark, and prayed in the\ndark, and lay down in the dark to sleep. I had no need of any light\nto read my guardian's letter by, for I knew it by heart. I took it\nfrom the place where I kept it, and repeated its contents by its own\nclear light of integrity and love, and went to sleep with it on my\npillow.\n\nI was up very early in the morning and called Charley to come for a\nwalk. We bought flowers for the breakfast-table, and came back and\narranged them, and were as busy as possible. We were so early that I\nhad a good time still for Charley's lesson before breakfast; Charley\n(who was not in the least improved in the old defective article of\ngrammar) came through it with great applause; and we were altogether\nvery notable. When my guardian appeared he said, \"Why, little woman,\nyou look fresher than your flowers!\" And Mrs. Woodcourt repeated and\ntranslated a passage from the Mewlinnwillinwodd expressive of my\nbeing like a mountain with the sun upon it.\n\nThis was all so pleasant that I hope it made me still more like the\nmountain than I had been before. After breakfast I waited my\nopportunity and peeped about a little until I saw my guardian in his\nown room--the room of last night--by himself. Then I made an excuse\nto go in with my housekeeping keys, shutting the door after me.\n\n\"Well, Dame Durden?\" said my guardian; the post had brought him\nseveral letters, and he was writing. \"You want money?\"\n\n\"No, indeed, I have plenty in hand.\"\n\n\"There never was such a Dame Durden,\" said my guardian, \"for making\nmoney last.\"\n\nHe had laid down his pen and leaned back in his chair looking at me.\nI have often spoken of his bright face, but I thought I had never\nseen it look so bright and good. There was a high happiness upon it\nwhich made me think, \"He has been doing some great kindness this\nmorning.\"\n\n\"There never was,\" said my guardian, musing as he smiled upon me,\n\"such a Dame Durden for making money last.\"\n\nHe had never yet altered his old manner. I loved it and him so much\nthat when I now went up to him and took my usual chair, which was\nalways put at his side--for sometimes I read to him, and sometimes I\ntalked to him, and sometimes I silently worked by him--I hardly liked\nto disturb it by laying my hand on his breast. But I found I did not\ndisturb it at all.\n\n\"Dear guardian,\" said I, \"I want to speak to you. Have I been remiss\nin anything?\"\n\n\"Remiss in anything, my dear!\"\n\n\"Have I not been what I have meant to be since--I brought the answer\nto your letter, guardian?\"\n\n\"You have been everything I could desire, my love.\"\n\n\"I am very glad indeed to hear that,\" I returned. \"You know, you said\nto me, was this the mistress of Bleak House. And I said, yes.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said my guardian, nodding his head. He had put his arm about\nme as if there were something to protect me from and looked in my\nface, smiling.\n\n\"Since then,\" said I, \"we have never spoken on the subject except\nonce.\"\n\n\"And then I said Bleak House was thinning fast; and so it was, my\ndear.\"\n\n\"And I said,\" I timidly reminded him, \"but its mistress remained.\"\n\nHe still held me in the same protecting manner and with the same\nbright goodness in his face.\n\n\"Dear guardian,\" said I, \"I know how you have felt all that has\nhappened, and how considerate you have been. As so much time has\npassed, and as you spoke only this morning of my being so well again,\nperhaps you expect me to renew the subject. Perhaps I ought to do so.\nI will be the mistress of Bleak House when you please.\"\n\n\"See,\" he returned gaily, \"what a sympathy there must be between us!\nI have had nothing else, poor Rick excepted--it's a large\nexception--in my mind. When you came in, I was full of it. When shall\nwe give Bleak House its mistress, little woman?\"\n\n\"When you please.\"\n\n\"Next month?\"\n\n\"Next month, dear guardian.\"\n\n\"The day on which I take the happiest and best step of my life--the\nday on which I shall be a man more exulting and more enviable than\nany other man in the world--the day on which I give Bleak House its\nlittle mistress--shall be next month then,\" said my guardian.\n\nI put my arms round his neck and kissed him just as I had done on the\nday when I brought my answer.\n\nA servant came to the door to announce Mr. Bucket, which was quite\nunnecessary, for Mr. Bucket was already looking in over the servant's\nshoulder. \"Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson,\" said he, rather out of\nbreath, \"with all apologies for intruding, WILL you allow me to order\nup a person that's on the stairs and that objects to being left there\nin case of becoming the subject of observations in his absence? Thank\nyou. Be so good as chair that there member in this direction, will\nyou?\" said Mr. Bucket, beckoning over the banisters.\n\nThis singular request produced an old man in a black skull-cap,\nunable to walk, who was carried up by a couple of bearers and\ndeposited in the room near the door. Mr. Bucket immediately got rid\nof the bearers, mysteriously shut the door, and bolted it.\n\n\"Now you see, Mr. Jarndyce,\" he then began, putting down his hat and\nopening his subject with a flourish of his well-remembered finger,\n\"you know me, and Miss Summerson knows me. This gentleman likewise\nknows me, and his name is Smallweed. The discounting line is his line\nprincipally, and he's what you may call a dealer in bills. That's\nabout what YOU are, you know, ain't you?\" said Mr. Bucket, stopping a\nlittle to address the gentleman in question, who was exceedingly\nsuspicious of him.\n\nHe seemed about to dispute this designation of himself when he was\nseized with a violent fit of coughing.\n\n\"Now, moral, you know!\" said Mr. Bucket, improving the accident.\n\"Don't you contradict when there ain't no occasion, and you won't be\ntook in that way. Now, Mr. Jarndyce, I address myself to you. I've\nbeen negotiating with this gentleman on behalf of Sir Leicester\nDedlock, Baronet, and one way and another I've been in and out and\nabout his premises a deal. His premises are the premises formerly\noccupied by Krook, marine store dealer--a relation of this\ngentleman's that you saw in his lifetime if I don't mistake?\"\n\nMy guardian replied, \"Yes.\"\n\n\"Well! You are to understand,\" said Mr. Bucket, \"that this gentleman\nhe come into Krook's property, and a good deal of magpie property\nthere was. Vast lots of waste-paper among the rest. Lord bless you,\nof no use to nobody!\"\n\nThe cunning of Mr. Bucket's eye and the masterly manner in which he\ncontrived, without a look or a word against which his watchful\nauditor could protest, to let us know that he stated the case\naccording to previous agreement and could say much more of Mr.\nSmallweed if he thought it advisable, deprived us of any merit in\nquite understanding him. His difficulty was increased by Mr.\nSmallweed's being deaf as well as suspicious and watching his face\nwith the closest attention.\n\n\"Among them odd heaps of old papers, this gentleman, when he comes\ninto the property, naturally begins to rummage, don't you see?\" said\nMr. Bucket.\n\n\"To which? Say that again,\" cried Mr. Smallweed in a shrill, sharp\nvoice.\n\n\"To rummage,\" repeated Mr. Bucket. \"Being a prudent man and\naccustomed to take care of your own affairs, you begin to rummage\namong the papers as you have come into; don't you?\"\n\n\"Of course I do,\" cried Mr. Smallweed.\n\n\"Of course you do,\" said Mr. Bucket conversationally, \"and much to\nblame you would be if you didn't. And so you chance to find, you\nknow,\" Mr. Bucket went on, stooping over him with an air of cheerful\nraillery which Mr. Smallweed by no means reciprocated, \"and so you\nchance to find, you know, a paper with the signature of Jarndyce to\nit. Don't you?\"\n\nMr. Smallweed glanced with a troubled eye at us and grudgingly nodded\nassent.\n\n\"And coming to look at that paper at your full leisure and\nconvenience--all in good time, for you're not curious to read it, and\nwhy should you be?--what do you find it to be but a will, you see.\nThat's the drollery of it,\" said Mr. Bucket with the same lively air\nof recalling a joke for the enjoyment of Mr. Smallweed, who still had\nthe same crest-fallen appearance of not enjoying it at all; \"what do\nyou find it to be but a will?\"\n\n\"I don't know that it's good as a will or as anything else,\" snarled\nMr. Smallweed.\n\nMr. Bucket eyed the old man for a moment--he had slipped and shrunk\ndown in his chair into a mere bundle--as if he were much disposed to\npounce upon him; nevertheless, he continued to bend over him with the\nsame agreeable air, keeping the corner of one of his eyes upon us.\n\n\"Notwithstanding which,\" said Mr. Bucket, \"you get a little doubtful\nand uncomfortable in your mind about it, having a very tender mind of\nyour own.\"\n\n\"Eh? What do you say I have got of my own?\" asked Mr. Smallweed with\nhis hand to his ear.\n\n\"A very tender mind.\"\n\n\"Ho! Well, go on,\" said Mr. Smallweed.\n\n\"And as you've heard a good deal mentioned regarding a celebrated\nChancery will case of the same name, and as you know what a card\nKrook was for buying all manner of old pieces of furniter, and books,\nand papers, and what not, and never liking to part with 'em, and\nalways a-going to teach himself to read, you begin to think--and you\nnever was more correct in your born days--'Ecod, if I don't look\nabout me, I may get into trouble regarding this will.'\"\n\n\"Now, mind how you put it, Bucket,\" cried the old man anxiously with\nhis hand at his ear. \"Speak up; none of your brimstone tricks. Pick\nme up; I want to hear better. Oh, Lord, I am shaken to bits!\"\n\nMr. Bucket had certainly picked him up at a dart. However, as soon as\nhe could be heard through Mr. Smallweed's coughing and his vicious\nejaculations of \"Oh, my bones! Oh, dear! I've no breath in my body!\nI'm worse than the chattering, clattering, brimstone pig at home!\"\nMr. Bucket proceeded in the same convivial manner as before.\n\n\"So, as I happen to be in the habit of coming about your premises,\nyou take me into your confidence, don't you?\"\n\nI think it would be impossible to make an admission with more ill\nwill and a worse grace than Mr. Smallweed displayed when he admitted\nthis, rendering it perfectly evident that Mr. Bucket was the very\nlast person he would have thought of taking into his confidence if he\ncould by any possibility have kept him out of it.\n\n\"And I go into the business with you--very pleasant we are over it;\nand I confirm you in your well-founded fears that you will get\nyourself into a most precious line if you don't come out with that\nthere will,\" said Mr. Bucket emphatically; \"and accordingly you\narrange with me that it shall be delivered up to this present Mr.\nJarndyce, on no conditions. If it should prove to be valuable, you\ntrusting yourself to him for your reward; that's about where it is,\nain't it?\"\n\n\"That's what was agreed,\" Mr. Smallweed assented with the same bad\ngrace.\n\n\"In consequence of which,\" said Mr. Bucket, dismissing his agreeable\nmanner all at once and becoming strictly business-like, \"you've got\nthat will upon your person at the present time, and the only thing\nthat remains for you to do is just to out with it!\"\n\nHaving given us one glance out of the watching corner of his eye, and\nhaving given his nose one triumphant rub with his forefinger, Mr.\nBucket stood with his eyes fastened on his confidential friend and\nhis hand stretched forth ready to take the paper and present it to my\nguardian. It was not produced without much reluctance and many\ndeclarations on the part of Mr. Smallweed that he was a poor\nindustrious man and that he left it to Mr. Jarndyce's honour not to\nlet him lose by his honesty. Little by little he very slowly took\nfrom a breast-pocket a stained, discoloured paper which was much\nsinged upon the outside and a little burnt at the edges, as if it had\nlong ago been thrown upon a fire and hastily snatched off again. Mr.\nBucket lost no time in transferring this paper, with the dexterity of\na conjuror, from Mr. Smallweed to Mr. Jarndyce. As he gave it to my\nguardian, he whispered behind his fingers, \"Hadn't settled how to\nmake their market of it. Quarrelled and hinted about it. I laid out\ntwenty pound upon it. First the avaricious grandchildren split upon\nhim on account of their objections to his living so unreasonably\nlong, and then they split on one another. Lord! There ain't one of\nthe family that wouldn't sell the other for a pound or two, except\nthe old lady--and she's only out of it because she's too weak in her\nmind to drive a bargain.\"\n\n\"Mr Bucket,\" said my guardian aloud, \"whatever the worth of this\npaper may be to any one, my obligations are great to you; and if it\nbe of any worth, I hold myself bound to see Mr. Smallweed remunerated\naccordingly.\"\n\n\"Not according to your merits, you know,\" said Mr. Bucket in friendly\nexplanation to Mr. Smallweed. \"Don't you be afraid of that. According\nto its value.\"\n\n\"That is what I mean,\" said my guardian. \"You may observe, Mr.\nBucket, that I abstain from examining this paper myself. The plain\ntruth is, I have forsworn and abjured the whole business these many\nyears, and my soul is sick of it. But Miss Summerson and I will\nimmediately place the paper in the hands of my solicitor in the\ncause, and its existence shall be made known without delay to all\nother parties interested.\"\n\n\"Mr. Jarndyce can't say fairer than that, you understand,\" observed\nMr. Bucket to his fellow-visitor. \"And it being now made clear to you\nthat nobody's a-going to be wronged--which must be a great relief to\nYOUR mind--we may proceed with the ceremony of chairing you home\nagain.\"\n\nHe unbolted the door, called in the bearers, wished us good morning,\nand with a look full of meaning and a crook of his finger at parting\nwent his way.\n\nWe went our way too, which was to Lincoln's Inn, as quickly as\npossible. Mr. Kenge was disengaged, and we found him at his table in\nhis dusty room with the inexpressive-looking books and the piles of\npapers. Chairs having been placed for us by Mr. Guppy, Mr. Kenge\nexpressed the surprise and gratification he felt at the unusual sight\nof Mr. Jarndyce in his office. He turned over his double eye-glass as\nhe spoke and was more Conversation Kenge than ever.\n\n\"I hope,\" said Mr. Kenge, \"that the genial influence of Miss\nSummerson,\" he bowed to me, \"may have induced Mr. Jarndyce,\" he bowed\nto him, \"to forego some little of his animosity towards a cause and\ntowards a court which are--shall I say, which take their place in the\nstately vista of the pillars of our profession?\"\n\n\"I am inclined to think,\" returned my guardian, \"that Miss Summerson\nhas seen too much of the effects of the court and the cause to exert\nany influence in their favour. Nevertheless, they are a part of the\noccasion of my being here. Mr. Kenge, before I lay this paper on your\ndesk and have done with it, let me tell you how it has come into my\nhands.\"\n\nHe did so shortly and distinctly.\n\n\"It could not, sir,\" said Mr. Kenge, \"have been stated more plainly\nand to the purpose if it had been a case at law.\"\n\n\"Did you ever know English law, or equity either, plain and to the\npurpose?\" said my guardian.\n\n\"Oh, fie!\" said Mr. Kenge.\n\nAt first he had not seemed to attach much importance to the paper,\nbut when he saw it he appeared more interested, and when he had\nopened and read a little of it through his eye-glass, he became\namazed. \"Mr. Jarndyce,\" he said, looking off it, \"you have perused\nthis?\"\n\n\"Not I!\" returned my guardian.\n\n\"But, my dear sir,\" said Mr. Kenge, \"it is a will of later date than\nany in the suit. It appears to be all in the testator's handwriting.\nIt is duly executed and attested. And even if intended to be\ncancelled, as might possibly be supposed to be denoted by these marks\nof fire, it is NOT cancelled. Here it is, a perfect instrument!\"\n\n\"Well!\" said my guardian. \"What is that to me?\"\n\n\"Mr. Guppy!\" cried Mr. Kenge, raising his voice. \"I beg your pardon,\nMr. Jarndyce.\"\n\n\"Sir.\"\n\n\"Mr. Vholes of Symond's Inn. My compliments. Jarndyce and Jarndyce.\nGlad to speak with him.\"\n\nMr. Guppy disappeared.\n\n\"You ask me what is this to you, Mr. Jarndyce. If you had perused\nthis document, you would have seen that it reduces your interest\nconsiderably, though still leaving it a very handsome one, still\nleaving it a very handsome one,\" said Mr. Kenge, waving his hand\npersuasively and blandly. \"You would further have seen that the\ninterests of Mr. Richard Carstone and of Miss Ada Clare, now Mrs.\nRichard Carstone, are very materially advanced by it.\"\n\n\"Kenge,\" said my guardian, \"if all the flourishing wealth that the\nsuit brought into this vile court of Chancery could fall to my two\nyoung cousins, I should be well contented. But do you ask ME to\nbelieve that any good is to come of Jarndyce and Jarndyce?\"\n\n\"Oh, really, Mr. Jarndyce! Prejudice, prejudice. My dear sir, this is\na very great country, a very great country. Its system of equity is a\nvery great system, a very great system. Really, really!\"\n\nMy guardian said no more, and Mr. Vholes arrived. He was modestly\nimpressed by Mr. Kenge's professional eminence.\n\n\"How do you do, Mr. Vholes? Will you be so good as to take a chair\nhere by me and look over this paper?\"\n\nMr. Vholes did as he was asked and seemed to read it every word. He\nwas not excited by it, but he was not excited by anything. When he\nhad well examined it, he retired with Mr. Kenge into a window, and\nshading his mouth with his black glove, spoke to him at some length.\nI was not surprised to observe Mr. Kenge inclined to dispute what\nhe said before he had said much, for I knew that no two people ever\ndid agree about anything in Jarndyce and Jarndyce. But he seemed\nto get the better of Mr. Kenge too in a conversation that sounded\nas if it were almost composed of the words \"Receiver-General,\"\n\"Accountant-General,\" \"report,\" \"estate,\" and \"costs.\" When they had\nfinished, they came back to Mr. Kenge's table and spoke aloud.\n\n\"Well! But this is a very remarkable document, Mr. Vholes,\" said Mr.\nKenge.\n\nMr. Vholes said, \"Very much so.\"\n\n\"And a very important document, Mr. Vholes,\" said Mr. Kenge.\n\nAgain Mr. Vholes said, \"Very much so.\"\n\n\"And as you say, Mr. Vholes, when the cause is in the paper next\nterm, this document will be an unexpected and interesting feature in\nit,\" said Mr. Kenge, looking loftily at my guardian.\n\nMr. Vholes was gratified, as a smaller practitioner striving to keep\nrespectable, to be confirmed in any opinion of his own by such an\nauthority.\n\n\"And when,\" asked my guardian, rising after a pause, during which Mr.\nKenge had rattled his money and Mr. Vholes had picked his pimples,\n\"when is next term?\"\n\n\"Next term, Mr. Jarndyce, will be next month,\" said Mr. Kenge. \"Of\ncourse we shall at once proceed to do what is necessary with this\ndocument and to collect the necessary evidence concerning it; and of\ncourse you will receive our usual notification of the cause being in\nthe paper.\"\n\n\"To which I shall pay, of course, my usual attention.\"\n\n\"Still bent, my dear sir,\" said Mr. Kenge, showing us through the\nouter office to the door, \"still bent, even with your enlarged mind,\non echoing a popular prejudice? We are a prosperous community, Mr.\nJarndyce, a very prosperous community. We are a great country, Mr.\nJarndyce, we are a very great country. This is a great system, Mr.\nJarndyce, and would you wish a great country to have a little system?\nNow, really, really!\"\n\nHe said this at the stair-head, gently moving his right hand as if it\nwere a silver trowel with which to spread the cement of his words on\nthe structure of the system and consolidate it for a thousand ages.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXIII\n\nSteel and Iron\n\n\nGeorge's Shooting Gallery is to let, and the stock is sold off, and\nGeorge himself is at Chesney Wold attending on Sir Leicester in his\nrides and riding very near his bridle-rein because of the uncertain\nhand with which he guides his horse. But not to-day is George so\noccupied. He is journeying to-day into the iron country farther north\nto look about him.\n\nAs he comes into the iron country farther north, such fresh green\nwoods as those of Chesney Wold are left behind; and coal pits and\nashes, high chimneys and red bricks, blighted verdure, scorching\nfires, and a heavy never-lightening cloud of smoke become the\nfeatures of the scenery. Among such objects rides the trooper,\nlooking about him and always looking for something he has come to\nfind.\n\nAt last, on the black canal bridge of a busy town, with a clang of\niron in it, and more fires and more smoke than he has seen yet, the\ntrooper, swart with the dust of the coal roads, checks his horse and\nasks a workman does he know the name of Rouncewell thereabouts.\n\n\"Why, master,\" quoth the workman, \"do I know my own name?\"\n\n\"'Tis so well known here, is it, comrade?\" asks the trooper.\n\n\"Rouncewell's? Ah! You're right.\"\n\n\"And where might it be now?\" asks the trooper with a glance before\nhim.\n\n\"The bank, the factory, or the house?\" the workman wants to know.\n\n\"Hum! Rouncewell's is so great apparently,\" mutters the trooper,\nstroking his chin, \"that I have as good as half a mind to go back\nagain. Why, I don't know which I want. Should I find Mr. Rouncewell\nat the factory, do you think?\"\n\n\"Tain't easy to say where you'd find him--at this time of the day you\nmight find either him or his son there, if he's in town; but his\ncontracts take him away.\"\n\nAnd which is the factory? Why, he sees those chimneys--the tallest\nones! Yes, he sees THEM. Well! Let him keep his eye on those\nchimneys, going on as straight as ever he can, and presently he'll\nsee 'em down a turning on the left, shut in by a great brick wall\nwhich forms one side of the street. That's Rouncewell's.\n\nThe trooper thanks his informant and rides slowly on, looking about\nhim. He does not turn back, but puts up his horse (and is much\ndisposed to groom him too) at a public-house where some of\nRouncewell's hands are dining, as the ostler tells him. Some of\nRouncewell's hands have just knocked off for dinner-time and seem to\nbe invading the whole town. They are very sinewy and strong, are\nRouncewell's hands--a little sooty too.\n\nHe comes to a gateway in the brick wall, looks in, and sees a great\nperplexity of iron lying about in every stage and in a vast variety\nof shapes--in bars, in wedges, in sheets; in tanks, in boilers, in\naxles, in wheels, in cogs, in cranks, in rails; twisted and wrenched\ninto eccentric and perverse forms as separate parts of machinery;\nmountains of it broken up, and rusty in its age; distant furnaces of\nit glowing and bubbling in its youth; bright fireworks of it\nshowering about under the blows of the steam-hammer; red-hot iron,\nwhite-hot iron, cold-black iron; an iron taste, an iron smell, and a\nBabel of iron sounds.\n\n\"This is a place to make a man's head ache too!\" says the trooper,\nlooking about him for a counting-house. \"Who comes here? This is very\nlike me before I was set up. This ought to be my nephew, if\nlikenesses run in families. Your servant, sir.\"\n\n\"Yours, sir. Are you looking for any one?\"\n\n\"Excuse me. Young Mr. Rouncewell, I believe?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I was looking for your father, sir. I wish to have a word with him.\"\n\nThe young man, telling him he is fortunate in his choice of a time,\nfor his father is there, leads the way to the office where he is to\nbe found. \"Very like me before I was set up--devilish like me!\"\nthinks the trooper as he follows. They come to a building in the yard\nwith an office on an upper floor. At sight of the gentleman in the\noffice, Mr. George turns very red.\n\n\"What name shall I say to my father?\" asks the young man.\n\nGeorge, full of the idea of iron, in desperation answers \"Steel,\" and\nis so presented. He is left alone with the gentleman in the office,\nwho sits at a table with account-books before him and some sheets of\npaper blotted with hosts of figures and drawings of cunning shapes.\nIt is a bare office, with bare windows, looking on the iron view\nbelow. Tumbled together on the table are some pieces of iron,\npurposely broken to be tested at various periods of their service, in\nvarious capacities. There is iron-dust on everything; and the smoke\nis seen through the windows rolling heavily out of the tall chimneys\nto mingle with the smoke from a vaporous Babylon of other chimneys.\n\n\"I am at your service, Mr. Steel,\" says the gentleman when his\nvisitor has taken a rusty chair.\n\n\"Well, Mr. Rouncewell,\" George replies, leaning forward with his left\narm on his knee and his hat in his hand, and very chary of meeting\nhis brother's eye, \"I am not without my expectations that in the\npresent visit I may prove to be more free than welcome. I have served\nas a dragoon in my day, and a comrade of mine that I was once rather\npartial to was, if I don't deceive myself, a brother of yours. I\nbelieve you had a brother who gave his family some trouble, and ran\naway, and never did any good but in keeping away?\"\n\n\"Are you quite sure,\" returns the ironmaster in an altered voice,\n\"that your name is Steel?\"\n\nThe trooper falters and looks at him. His brother starts up, calls\nhim by his name, and grasps him by both hands.\n\n\"You are too quick for me!\" cries the trooper with the tears\nspringing out of his eyes. \"How do you do, my dear old fellow? I\nnever could have thought you would have been half so glad to see me\nas all this. How do you do, my dear old fellow, how do you do!\"\n\nThey shake hands and embrace each other over and over again, the\ntrooper still coupling his \"How do you do, my dear old fellow!\" with\nhis protestation that he never thought his brother would have been\nhalf so glad to see him as all this!\n\n\"So far from it,\" he declares at the end of a full account of what\nhas preceded his arrival there, \"I had very little idea of making\nmyself known. I thought if you took by any means forgivingly to my\nname I might gradually get myself up to the point of writing a\nletter. But I should not have been surprised, brother, if you had\nconsidered it anything but welcome news to hear of me.\"\n\n\"We will show you at home what kind of news we think it, George,\"\nreturns his brother. \"This is a great day at home, and you could not\nhave arrived, you bronzed old soldier, on a better. I make an\nagreement with my son Watt to-day that on this day twelvemonth he\nshall marry as pretty and as good a girl as you have seen in all your\ntravels. She goes to Germany to-morrow with one of your nieces for a\nlittle polishing up in her education. We make a feast of the event,\nand you will be made the hero of it.\"\n\nMr. George is so entirely overcome at first by this prospect that he\nresists the proposed honour with great earnestness. Being overborne,\nhowever, by his brother and his nephew--concerning whom he renews his\nprotestations that he never could have thought they would have been\nhalf so glad to see him--he is taken home to an elegant house in all\nthe arrangements of which there is to be observed a pleasant mixture\nof the originally simple habits of the father and mother with such as\nare suited to their altered station and the higher fortunes of their\nchildren. Here Mr. George is much dismayed by the graces and\naccomplishments of his nieces that are and by the beauty of Rosa, his\nniece that is to be, and by the affectionate salutations of these\nyoung ladies, which he receives in a sort of dream. He is sorely\ntaken aback, too, by the dutiful behaviour of his nephew and has a\nwoeful consciousness upon him of being a scapegrace. However, there\nis great rejoicing and a very hearty company and infinite enjoyment,\nand Mr. George comes bluff and martial through it all, and his pledge\nto be present at the marriage and give away the bride is received\nwith universal favour. A whirling head has Mr. George that night when\nhe lies down in the state-bed of his brother's house to think of all\nthese things and to see the images of his nieces (awful all the\nevening in their floating muslins) waltzing, after the German manner,\nover his counterpane.\n\nThe brothers are closeted next morning in the ironmaster's room,\nwhere the elder is proceeding, in his clear sensible way, to show how\nhe thinks he may best dispose of George in his business, when George\nsqueezes his hand and stops him.\n\n\"Brother, I thank you a million times for your more than brotherly\nwelcome, and a million times more to that for your more than\nbrotherly intentions. But my plans are made. Before I say a word as\nto them, I wish to consult you upon one family point. How,\" says the\ntrooper, folding his arms and looking with indomitable firmness at\nhis brother, \"how is my mother to be got to scratch me?\"\n\n\"I am not sure that I understand you, George,\" replies the\nironmaster.\n\n\"I say, brother, how is my mother to be got to scratch me? She must\nbe got to do it somehow.\"\n\n\"Scratch you out of her will, I think you mean?\"\n\n\"Of course I do. In short,\" says the trooper, folding his arms more\nresolutely yet, \"I mean--TO--scratch me!\"\n\n\"My dear George,\" returns his brother, \"is it so indispensable that\nyou should undergo that process?\"\n\n\"Quite! Absolutely! I couldn't be guilty of the meanness of coming\nback without it. I should never be safe not to be off again. I have\nnot sneaked home to rob your children, if not yourself, brother, of\nyour rights. I, who forfeited mine long ago! If I am to remain and\nhold up my head, I must be scratched. Come. You are a man of\ncelebrated penetration and intelligence, and you can tell me how it's\nto be brought about.\"\n\n\"I can tell you, George,\" replies the ironmaster deliberately, \"how\nit is not to be brought about, which I hope may answer the purpose as\nwell. Look at our mother, think of her, recall her emotion when she\nrecovered you. Do you believe there is a consideration in the world\nthat would induce her to take such a step against her favourite son?\nDo you believe there is any chance of her consent, to balance against\nthe outrage it would be to her (loving dear old lady!) to propose it?\nIf you do, you are wrong. No, George! You must make up your mind to\nremain UNscratched, I think.\" There is an amused smile on the\nironmaster's face as he watches his brother, who is pondering, deeply\ndisappointed. \"I think you may manage almost as well as if the thing\nwere done, though.\"\n\n\"How, brother?\"\n\n\"Being bent upon it, you can dispose by will of anything you have the\nmisfortune to inherit in any way you like, you know.\"\n\n\"That's true!\" says the trooper, pondering again. Then he wistfully\nasks, with his hand on his brother's, \"Would you mind mentioning\nthat, brother, to your wife and family?\"\n\n\"Not at all.\"\n\n\"Thank you. You wouldn't object to say, perhaps, that although an\nundoubted vagabond, I am a vagabond of the harum-scarum order, and\nnot of the mean sort?\"\n\nThe ironmaster, repressing his amused smile, assents.\n\n\"Thank you. Thank you. It's a weight off my mind,\" says the trooper\nwith a heave of his chest as he unfolds his arms and puts a hand on\neach leg, \"though I had set my heart on being scratched, too!\"\n\nThe brothers are very like each other, sitting face to face; but a\ncertain massive simplicity and absence of usage in the ways of the\nworld is all on the trooper's side.\n\n\"Well,\" he proceeds, throwing off his disappointment, \"next and last,\nthose plans of mine. You have been so brotherly as to propose to me\nto fall in here and take my place among the products of your\nperseverance and sense. I thank you heartily. It's more than\nbrotherly, as I said before, and I thank you heartily for it,\"\nshaking him a long time by the hand. \"But the truth is, brother, I am\na--I am a kind of a weed, and it's too late to plant me in a regular\ngarden.\"\n\n\"My dear George,\" returns the elder, concentrating his strong steady\nbrow upon him and smiling confidently, \"leave that to me, and let me\ntry.\"\n\nGeorge shakes his head. \"You could do it, I have not a doubt, if\nanybody could; but it's not to be done. Not to be done, sir! Whereas\nit so falls out, on the other hand, that I am able to be of some\ntrifle of use to Sir Leicester Dedlock since his illness--brought on\nby family sorrows--and that he would rather have that help from our\nmother's son than from anybody else.\"\n\n\"Well, my dear George,\" returns the other with a very slight shade\nupon his open face, \"if you prefer to serve in Sir Leicester\nDedlock's household brigade--\"\n\n\"There it is, brother,\" cries the trooper, checking him, with his\nhand upon his knee again; \"there it is! You don't take kindly to that\nidea; I don't mind it. You are not used to being officered; I am.\nEverything about you is in perfect order and discipline; everything\nabout me requires to be kept so. We are not accustomed to carry\nthings with the same hand or to look at 'em from the same point. I\ndon't say much about my garrison manners because I found myself\npretty well at my ease last night, and they wouldn't be noticed here,\nI dare say, once and away. But I shall get on best at Chesney Wold,\nwhere there's more room for a weed than there is here; and the dear\nold lady will be made happy besides. Therefore I accept of Sir\nLeicester Dedlock's proposals. When I come over next year to give\naway the bride, or whenever I come, I shall have the sense to keep\nthe household brigade in ambuscade and not to manoeuvre it on your\nground. I thank you heartily again and am proud to think of the\nRouncewells as they'll be founded by you.\"\n\n\"You know yourself, George,\" says the elder brother, returning the\ngrip of his hand, \"and perhaps you know me better than I know myself.\nTake your way. So that we don't quite lose one another again, take\nyour way.\"\n\n\"No fear of that!\" returns the trooper. \"Now, before I turn my\nhorse's head homewards, brother, I will ask you--if you'll be so\ngood--to look over a letter for me. I brought it with me to send from\nthese parts, as Chesney Wold might be a painful name just now to the\nperson it's written to. I am not much accustomed to correspondence\nmyself, and I am particular respecting this present letter because I\nwant it to be both straightforward and delicate.\"\n\nHerewith he hands a letter, closely written in somewhat pale ink but\nin a neat round hand, to the ironmaster, who reads as follows:\n\n\n   Miss Esther Summerson,\n\n   A communication having been made to me by Inspector Bucket\n   of a letter to myself being found among the papers of a\n   certain person, I take the liberty to make known to you\n   that it was but a few lines of instruction from abroad,\n   when, where, and how to deliver an enclosed letter to a\n   young and beautiful lady, then unmarried, in England. I\n   duly observed the same.\n\n   I further take the liberty to make known to you that it\n   was got from me as a proof of handwriting only and that\n   otherwise I would not have given it up, as appearing to\n   be the most harmless in my possession, without being\n   previously shot through the heart.\n\n   I further take the liberty to mention that if I could have\n   supposed a certain unfortunate gentleman to have been in\n   existence, I never could and never would have rested until\n   I had discovered his retreat and shared my last farthing\n   with him, as my duty and my inclination would have equally\n   been. But he was (officially) reported drowned, and\n   assuredly went over the side of a transport-ship at night\n   in an Irish harbour within a few hours of her arrival from\n   the West Indies, as I have myself heard both from officers\n   and men on board, and know to have been (officially)\n   confirmed.\n\n   I further take the liberty to state that in my humble\n   quality as one of the rank and file, I am, and shall ever\n   continue to be, your thoroughly devoted and admiring\n   servant and that I esteem the qualities you possess above\n   all others far beyond the limits of the present dispatch.\n\n   I have the honour to be,\n\n   GEORGE\n\n\n\"A little formal,\" observes the elder brother, refolding it with a\npuzzled face.\n\n\"But nothing that might not be sent to a pattern young lady?\" asks\nthe younger.\n\n\"Nothing at all.\"\n\nTherefore it is sealed and deposited for posting among the iron\ncorrespondence of the day. This done, Mr. George takes a hearty\nfarewell of the family party and prepares to saddle and mount. His\nbrother, however, unwilling to part with him so soon, proposes to\nride with him in a light open carriage to the place where he will\nbait for the night, and there remain with him until morning, a\nservant riding for so much of the journey on the thoroughbred old\ngrey from Chesney Wold. The offer, being gladly accepted, is followed\nby a pleasant ride, a pleasant dinner, and a pleasant breakfast, all\nin brotherly communion. Then they once more shake hands long and\nheartily and part, the ironmaster turning his face to the smoke and\nfires, and the trooper to the green country. Early in the afternoon\nthe subdued sound of his heavy military trot is heard on the turf in\nthe avenue as he rides on with imaginary clank and jingle of\naccoutrements under the old elm-trees.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXIV\n\nEsther's Narrative\n\n\nSoon after I had that conversation with my guardian, he put a sealed\npaper in my hand one morning and said, \"This is for next month, my\ndear.\" I found in it two hundred pounds.\n\nI now began very quietly to make such preparations as I thought were\nnecessary. Regulating my purchases by my guardian's taste, which I\nknew very well of course, I arranged my wardrobe to please him and\nhoped I should be highly successful. I did it all so quietly because\nI was not quite free from my old apprehension that Ada would be\nrather sorry and because my guardian was so quiet himself. I had no\ndoubt that under all the circumstances we should be married in the\nmost private and simple manner. Perhaps I should only have to say to\nAda, \"Would you like to come and see me married to-morrow, my pet?\"\nPerhaps our wedding might even be as unpretending as her own, and I\nmight not find it necessary to say anything about it until it was\nover. I thought that if I were to choose, I would like this best.\n\nThe only exception I made was Mrs. Woodcourt. I told her that I was\ngoing to be married to my guardian and that we had been engaged some\ntime. She highly approved. She could never do enough for me and was\nremarkably softened now in comparison with what she had been when we\nfirst knew her. There was no trouble she would not have taken to have\nbeen of use to me, but I need hardly say that I only allowed her to\ntake as little as gratified her kindness without tasking it.\n\nOf course this was not a time to neglect my guardian, and of course\nit was not a time for neglecting my darling. So I had plenty of\noccupation, which I was glad of; and as to Charley, she was\nabsolutely not to be seen for needlework. To surround herself with\ngreat heaps of it--baskets full and tables full--and do a little, and\nspend a great deal of time in staring with her round eyes at what\nthere was to do, and persuade herself that she was going to do it,\nwere Charley's great dignities and delights.\n\nMeanwhile, I must say, I could not agree with my guardian on the\nsubject of the will, and I had some sanguine hopes of Jarndyce and\nJarndyce. Which of us was right will soon appear, but I certainly did\nencourage expectations. In Richard, the discovery gave occasion for a\nburst of business and agitation that buoyed him up for a little time,\nbut he had lost the elasticity even of hope now and seemed to me to\nretain only its feverish anxieties. From something my guardian said\none day when we were talking about this, I understood that my\nmarriage would not take place until after the term-time we had been\ntold to look forward to; and I thought the more, for that, how\nrejoiced I should be if I could be married when Richard and Ada were\na little more prosperous.\n\nThe term was very near indeed when my guardian was called out of town\nand went down into Yorkshire on Mr. Woodcourt's business. He had told\nme beforehand that his presence there would be necessary. I had just\ncome in one night from my dear girl's and was sitting in the midst of\nall my new clothes, looking at them all around me and thinking, when\na letter from my guardian was brought to me. It asked me to join him\nin the country and mentioned by what stage-coach my place was taken\nand at what time in the morning I should have to leave town. It added\nin a postscript that I would not be many hours from Ada.\n\nI expected few things less than a journey at that time, but I was\nready for it in half an hour and set off as appointed early next\nmorning. I travelled all day, wondering all day what I could be\nwanted for at such a distance; now I thought it might be for this\npurpose, and now I thought it might be for that purpose, but I was\nnever, never, never near the truth.\n\nIt was night when I came to my journey's end and found my guardian\nwaiting for me. This was a great relief, for towards evening I had\nbegun to fear (the more so as his letter was a very short one) that\nhe might be ill. However, there he was, as well as it was possible to\nbe; and when I saw his genial face again at its brightest and best, I\nsaid to myself, he has been doing some other great kindness. Not that\nit required much penetration to say that, because I knew that his\nbeing there at all was an act of kindness.\n\nSupper was ready at the hotel, and when we were alone at table he\nsaid, \"Full of curiosity, no doubt, little woman, to know why I have\nbrought you here?\"\n\n\"Well, guardian,\" said I, \"without thinking myself a Fatima or you a\nBlue Beard, I am a little curious about it.\"\n\n\"Then to ensure your night's rest, my love,\" he returned gaily, \"I\nwon't wait until to-morrow to tell you. I have very much wished to\nexpress to Woodcourt, somehow, my sense of his humanity to poor\nunfortunate Jo, his inestimable services to my young cousins, and his\nvalue to us all. When it was decided that he should settle here, it\ncame into my head that I might ask his acceptance of some\nunpretending and suitable little place to lay his own head in. I\ntherefore caused such a place to be looked out for, and such a place\nwas found on very easy terms, and I have been touching it up for him\nand making it habitable. However, when I walked over it the day\nbefore yesterday and it was reported ready, I found that I was not\nhousekeeper enough to know whether things were all as they ought to\nbe. So I sent off for the best little housekeeper that could possibly\nbe got to come and give me her advice and opinion. And here she is,\"\nsaid my guardian, \"laughing and crying both together!\"\n\nBecause he was so dear, so good, so admirable. I tried to tell him\nwhat I thought of him, but I could not articulate a word.\n\n\"Tut, tut!\" said my guardian. \"You make too much of it, little woman.\nWhy, how you sob, Dame Durden, how you sob!\"\n\n\"It is with exquisite pleasure, guardian--with a heart full of\nthanks.\"\n\n\"Well, well,\" said he. \"I am delighted that you approve. I thought\nyou would. I meant it as a pleasant surprise for the little mistress\nof Bleak House.\"\n\nI kissed him and dried my eyes. \"I know now!\" said I. \"I have seen\nthis in your face a long while.\"\n\n\"No; have you really, my dear?\" said he. \"What a Dame Durden it is to\nread a face!\"\n\nHe was so quaintly cheerful that I could not long be otherwise, and\nwas almost ashamed of having been otherwise at all. When I went to\nbed, I cried. I am bound to confess that I cried; but I hope it was\nwith pleasure, though I am not quite sure it was with pleasure. I\nrepeated every word of the letter twice over.\n\nA most beautiful summer morning succeeded, and after breakfast we\nwent out arm in arm to see the house of which I was to give my mighty\nhousekeeping opinion. We entered a flower-garden by a gate in a side\nwall, of which he had the key, and the first thing I saw was that the\nbeds and flowers were all laid out according to the manner of my beds\nand flowers at home.\n\n\"You see, my dear,\" observed my guardian, standing still with a\ndelighted face to watch my looks, \"knowing there could be no better\nplan, I borrowed yours.\"\n\nWe went on by a pretty little orchard, where the cherries were\nnestling among the green leaves and the shadows of the apple-trees\nwere sporting on the grass, to the house itself--a cottage, quite a\nrustic cottage of doll's rooms; but such a lovely place, so tranquil\nand so beautiful, with such a rich and smiling country spread around\nit; with water sparkling away into the distance, here all overhung\nwith summer-growth, there turning a humming mill; at its nearest\npoint glancing through a meadow by the cheerful town, where\ncricket-players were assembling in bright groups and a flag was\nflying from a white tent that rippled in the sweet west wind. And\nstill, as we went through the pretty rooms, out at the little rustic\nverandah doors, and underneath the tiny wooden colonnades garlanded\nwith woodbine, jasmine, and honey-suckle, I saw in the papering on\nthe walls, in the colours of the furniture, in the arrangement of all\nthe pretty objects, MY little tastes and fancies, MY little methods\nand inventions which they used to laugh at while they praised them,\nmy odd ways everywhere.\n\nI could not say enough in admiration of what was all so beautiful,\nbut one secret doubt arose in my mind when I saw this, I thought, oh,\nwould he be the happier for it! Would it not have been better for his\npeace that I should not have been so brought before him? Because\nalthough I was not what he thought me, still he loved me very dearly,\nand it might remind him mournfully of what be believed he had lost. I\ndid not wish him to forget me--perhaps he might not have done so,\nwithout these aids to his memory--but my way was easier than his, and\nI could have reconciled myself even to that so that he had been the\nhappier for it.\n\n\"And now, little woman,\" said my guardian, whom I had never seen so\nproud and joyful as in showing me these things and watching my\nappreciation of them, \"now, last of all, for the name of this house.\"\n\n\"What is it called, dear guardian?\"\n\n\"My child,\" said he, \"come and see,\"\n\nHe took me to the porch, which he had hitherto avoided, and said,\npausing before we went out, \"My dear child, don't you guess the\nname?\"\n\n\"No!\" said I.\n\nWe went out of the porch and he showed me written over it, Bleak\nHouse.\n\nHe led me to a seat among the leaves close by, and sitting down\nbeside me and taking my hand in his, spoke to me thus, \"My darling\ngirl, in what there has been between us, I have, I hope, been really\nsolicitous for your happiness. When I wrote you the letter to which\nyou brought the answer,\" smiling as he referred to it, \"I had my own\ntoo much in view; but I had yours too. Whether, under different\ncircumstances, I might ever have renewed the old dream I sometimes\ndreamed when you were very young, of making you my wife one day, I\nneed not ask myself. I did renew it, and I wrote my letter, and you\nbrought your answer. You are following what I say, my child?\"\n\nI was cold, and I trembled violently, but not a word he uttered was\nlost. As I sat looking fixedly at him and the sun's rays descended,\nsoftly shining through the leaves upon his bare head, I felt as if\nthe brightness on him must be like the brightness of the angels.\n\n\"Hear me, my love, but do not speak. It is for me to speak now. When\nit was that I began to doubt whether what I had done would really\nmake you happy is no matter. Woodcourt came home, and I soon had no\ndoubt at all.\"\n\nI clasped him round the neck and hung my head upon his breast and\nwept. \"Lie lightly, confidently here, my child,\" said he, pressing me\ngently to him. \"I am your guardian and your father now. Rest\nconfidently here.\"\n\nSoothingly, like the gentle rustling of the leaves; and genially,\nlike the ripening weather; and radiantly and beneficently, like the\nsunshine, he went on.\n\n\"Understand me, my dear girl. I had no doubt of your being contented\nand happy with me, being so dutiful and so devoted; but I saw with\nwhom you would be happier. That I penetrated his secret when Dame\nDurden was blind to it is no wonder, for I knew the good that could\nnever change in her better far than she did. Well! I have long been\nin Allan Woodcourt's confidence, although he was not, until\nyesterday, a few hours before you came here, in mine. But I would not\nhave my Esther's bright example lost; I would not have a jot of my\ndear girl's virtues unobserved and unhonoured; I would not have her\nadmitted on sufferance into the line of Morgan ap-Kerrig, no, not for\nthe weight in gold of all the mountains in Wales!\"\n\nHe stopped to kiss me on the forehead, and I sobbed and wept afresh.\nFor I felt as if I could not bear the painful delight of his praise.\n\n\"Hush, little woman! Don't cry; this is to be a day of joy. I have\nlooked forward to it,\" he said exultingly, \"for months on months! A\nfew words more, Dame Trot, and I have said my say. Determined not to\nthrow away one atom of my Esther's worth, I took Mrs. Woodcourt into\na separate confidence. 'Now, madam,' said I, 'I clearly perceive--and\nindeed I know, to boot--that your son loves my ward. I am further\nvery sure that my ward loves your son, but will sacrifice her love to\na sense of duty and affection, and will sacrifice it so completely,\nso entirely, so religiously, that you should never suspect it though\nyou watched her night and day.' Then I told her all our\nstory--ours--yours and mine. 'Now, madam,' said I, 'come you, knowing\nthis, and live with us. Come you, and see my child from hour to hour;\nset what you see against her pedigree, which is this, and this'--for\nI scorned to mince it--'and tell me what is the true legitimacy when\nyou shall have quite made up your mind on that subject.' Why, honour\nto her old Welsh blood, my dear,\" cried my guardian with enthusiasm,\n\"I believe the heart it animates beats no less warmly, no less\nadmiringly, no less lovingly, towards Dame Durden than my own!\"\n\nHe tenderly raised my head, and as I clung to him, kissed me in his\nold fatherly way again and again. What a light, now, on the\nprotecting manner I had thought about!\n\n\"One more last word. When Allan Woodcourt spoke to you, my dear, he\nspoke with my knowledge and consent--but I gave him no encouragement,\nnot I, for these surprises were my great reward, and I was too\nmiserly to part with a scrap of it. He was to come and tell me all\nthat passed, and he did. I have no more to say. My dearest, Allan\nWoodcourt stood beside your father when he lay dead--stood beside\nyour mother. This is Bleak House. This day I give this house its\nlittle mistress; and before God, it is the brightest day in all my\nlife!\"\n\nHe rose and raised me with him. We were no longer alone. My\nhusband--I have called him by that name full seven happy years\nnow--stood at my side.\n\n\"Allan,\" said my guardian, \"take from me a willing gift, the best\nwife that ever man had. What more can I say for you than that I know\nyou deserve her! Take with her the little home she brings you. You\nknow what she will make it, Allan; you know what she has made its\nnamesake. Let me share its felicity sometimes, and what do I\nsacrifice? Nothing, nothing.\"\n\nHe kissed me once again, and now the tears were in his eyes as he\nsaid more softly, \"Esther, my dearest, after so many years, there is\na kind of parting in this too. I know that my mistake has caused you\nsome distress. Forgive your old guardian, in restoring him to his old\nplace in your affections; and blot it out of your memory. Allan, take\nmy dear.\"\n\nHe moved away from under the green roof of leaves, and stopping in\nthe sunlight outside and turning cheerfully towards us, said, \"I\nshall be found about here somewhere. It's a west wind, little woman,\ndue west! Let no one thank me any more, for I am going to revert to\nmy bachelor habits, and if anybody disregards this warning, I'll run\naway and never come back!\"\n\nWhat happiness was ours that day, what joy, what rest, what hope,\nwhat gratitude, what bliss! We were to be married before the month\nwas out, but when we were to come and take possession of our own\nhouse was to depend on Richard and Ada.\n\nWe all three went home together next day. As soon as we arrived in\ntown, Allan went straight to see Richard and to carry our joyful news\nto him and my darling. Late as it was, I meant to go to her for a few\nminutes before lying down to sleep, but I went home with my guardian\nfirst to make his tea for him and to occupy the old chair by his\nside, for I did not like to think of its being empty so soon.\n\nWhen we came home we found that a young man had called three times in\nthe course of that one day to see me and that having been told on the\noccasion of his third call that I was not expected to return before\nten o'clock at night, he had left word that he would call about then.\nHe had left his card three times. Mr. Guppy.\n\nAs I naturally speculated on the object of these visits, and as I\nalways associated something ludicrous with the visitor, it fell out\nthat in laughing about Mr. Guppy I told my guardian of his old\nproposal and his subsequent retraction. \"After that,\" said my\nguardian, \"we will certainly receive this hero.\" So instructions were\ngiven that Mr. Guppy should be shown in when he came again, and they\nwere scarcely given when he did come again.\n\nHe was embarrassed when he found my guardian with me, but recovered\nhimself and said, \"How de do, sir?\"\n\n\"How do you do, sir?\" returned my guardian.\n\n\"Thank you, sir, I am tolerable,\" returned Mr. Guppy. \"Will you allow\nme to introduce my mother, Mrs. Guppy of the Old Street Road, and my\nparticular friend, Mr. Weevle. That is to say, my friend has gone by\nthe name of Weevle, but his name is really and truly Jobling.\"\n\nMy guardian begged them to be seated, and they all sat down.\n\n\"Tony,\" said Mr. Guppy to his friend after an awkward silence. \"Will\nyou open the case?\"\n\n\"Do it yourself,\" returned the friend rather tartly.\n\n\"Well, Mr. Jarndyce, sir,\" Mr. Guppy, after a moment's consideration,\nbegan, to the great diversion of his mother, which she displayed by\nnudging Mr. Jobling with her elbow and winking at me in a most\nremarkable manner, \"I had an idea that I should see Miss Summerson by\nherself and was not quite prepared for your esteemed presence. But\nMiss Summerson has mentioned to you, perhaps, that something has\npassed between us on former occasions?\"\n\n\"Miss Summerson,\" returned my guardian, smiling, \"has made a\ncommunication to that effect to me.\"\n\n\"That,\" said Mr. Guppy, \"makes matters easier. Sir, I have come out\nof my articles at Kenge and Carboy's, and I believe with satisfaction\nto all parties. I am now admitted (after undergoing an examination\nthat's enough to badger a man blue, touching a pack of nonsense that\nhe don't want to know) on the roll of attorneys and have taken out my\ncertificate, if it would be any satisfaction to you to see it.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Mr. Guppy,\" returned my guardian. \"I am quite willing--I\nbelieve I use a legal phrase--to admit the certificate.\"\n\nMr. Guppy therefore desisted from taking something out of his pocket\nand proceeded without it.\n\n\"I have no capital myself, but my mother has a little property which\ntakes the form of an annuity\"--here Mr. Guppy's mother rolled her\nhead as if she never could sufficiently enjoy the observation, and\nput her handkerchief to her mouth, and again winked at me--\"and a few\npounds for expenses out of pocket in conducting business will never\nbe wanting, free of interest, which is an advantage, you know,\" said\nMr. Guppy feelingly.\n\n\"Certainly an advantage,\" returned my guardian.\n\n\"I HAVE some connexion,\" pursued Mr. Guppy, \"and it lays in the\ndirection of Walcot Square, Lambeth. I have therefore taken a 'ouse\nin that locality, which, in the opinion of my friends, is a hollow\nbargain (taxes ridiculous, and use of fixtures included in the rent),\nand intend setting up professionally for myself there forthwith.\"\n\nHere Mr. Guppy's mother fell into an extraordinary passion of rolling\nher head and smiling waggishly at anybody who would look at her.\n\n\"It's a six-roomer, exclusive of kitchens,\" said Mr. Guppy, \"and in\nthe opinion of my friends, a commodious tenement. When I mention my\nfriends, I refer principally to my friend Jobling, who I believe has\nknown me,\" Mr. Guppy looked at him with a sentimental air, \"from\nboyhood's hour.\"\n\nMr. Jobling confirmed this with a sliding movement of his legs.\n\n\"My friend Jobling will render me his assistance in the capacity of\nclerk and will live in the 'ouse,\" said Mr. Guppy. \"My mother will\nlikewise live in the 'ouse when her present quarter in the Old Street\nRoad shall have ceased and expired; and consequently there will be no\nwant of society. My friend Jobling is naturally aristocratic by\ntaste, and besides being acquainted with the movements of the upper\ncircles, fully backs me in the intentions I am now developing.\"\n\nMr. Jobling said \"Certainly\" and withdrew a little from the elbow of\nMr Guppy's mother.\n\n\"Now, I have no occasion to mention to you, sir, you being in the\nconfidence of Miss Summerson,\" said Mr. Guppy, \"(mother, I wish you'd\nbe so good as to keep still), that Miss Summerson's image was\nformerly imprinted on my 'eart and that I made her a proposal of\nmarriage.\"\n\n\"That I have heard,\" returned my guardian.\n\n\"Circumstances,\" pursued Mr. Guppy, \"over which I had no control, but\nquite the contrary, weakened the impression of that image for a time.\nAt which time Miss Summerson's conduct was highly genteel; I may even\nadd, magnanimous.\"\n\nMy guardian patted me on the shoulder and seemed much amused.\n\n\"Now, sir,\" said Mr. Guppy, \"I have got into that state of mind\nmyself that I wish for a reciprocity of magnanimous behaviour. I wish\nto prove to Miss Summerson that I can rise to a heighth of which\nperhaps she hardly thought me capable. I find that the image which I\ndid suppose had been eradicated from my 'eart is NOT eradicated. Its\ninfluence over me is still tremenjous, and yielding to it, I am\nwilling to overlook the circumstances over which none of us have had\nany control and to renew those proposals to Miss Summerson which I\nhad the honour to make at a former period. I beg to lay the 'ouse in\nWalcot Square, the business, and myself before Miss Summerson for her\nacceptance.\"\n\n\"Very magnanimous indeed, sir,\" observed my guardian.\n\n\"Well, sir,\" replied Mr. Guppy with candour, \"my wish is to BE\nmagnanimous. I do not consider that in making this offer to Miss\nSummerson I am by any means throwing myself away; neither is that the\nopinion of my friends. Still, there are circumstances which I submit\nmay be taken into account as a set off against any little drawbacks\nof mine, and so a fair and equitable balance arrived at.\"\n\n\"I take upon myself, sir,\" said my guardian, laughing as he rang the\nbell, \"to reply to your proposals on behalf of Miss Summerson. She is\nvery sensible of your handsome intentions, and wishes you good\nevening, and wishes you well.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said Mr. Guppy with a blank look. \"Is that tantamount, sir, to\nacceptance, or rejection, or consideration?\"\n\n\"To decided rejection, if you please,\" returned my guardian.\n\nMr. Guppy looked incredulously at his friend, and at his mother, who\nsuddenly turned very angry, and at the floor, and at the ceiling.\n\n\"Indeed?\" said he. \"Then, Jobling, if you was the friend you\nrepresent yourself, I should think you might hand my mother out of\nthe gangway instead of allowing her to remain where she ain't\nwanted.\"\n\nBut Mrs. Guppy positively refused to come out of the gangway. She\nwouldn't hear of it. \"Why, get along with you,\" said she to my\nguardian, \"what do you mean? Ain't my son good enough for you? You\nought to be ashamed of yourself. Get out with you!\"\n\n\"My good lady,\" returned my guardian, \"it is hardly reasonable to ask\nme to get out of my own room.\"\n\n\"I don't care for that,\" said Mrs. Guppy. \"Get out with you. If we\nain't good enough for you, go and procure somebody that is good\nenough. Go along and find 'em.\"\n\nI was quite unprepared for the rapid manner in which Mrs. Guppy's\npower of jocularity merged into a power of taking the profoundest\noffence.\n\n\"Go along and find somebody that's good enough for you,\" repeated\nMrs. Guppy. \"Get out!\" Nothing seemed to astonish Mr. Guppy's mother\nso much and to make her so very indignant as our not getting out.\n\"Why don't you get out?\" said Mrs. Guppy. \"What are you stopping here\nfor?\"\n\n\"Mother,\" interposed her son, always getting before her and pushing\nher back with one shoulder as she sidled at my guardian, \"WILL you\nhold your tongue?\"\n\n\"No, William,\" she returned, \"I won't! Not unless he gets out, I\nwon't!\"\n\nHowever, Mr. Guppy and Mr. Jobling together closed on Mr. Guppy's\nmother (who began to be quite abusive) and took her, very much\nagainst her will, downstairs, her voice rising a stair higher every\ntime her figure got a stair lower, and insisting that we should\nimmediately go and find somebody who was good enough for us, and\nabove all things that we should get out.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXV\n\nBeginning the World\n\n\nThe term had commenced, and my guardian found an intimation from Mr.\nKenge that the cause would come on in two days. As I had sufficient\nhopes of the will to be in a flutter about it, Allan and I agreed to\ngo down to the court that morning. Richard was extremely agitated and\nwas so weak and low, though his illness was still of the mind, that\nmy dear girl indeed had sore occasion to be supported. But she looked\nforward--a very little way now--to the help that was to come to her,\nand never drooped.\n\nIt was at Westminster that the cause was to come on. It had come on\nthere, I dare say, a hundred times before, but I could not divest\nmyself of an idea that it MIGHT lead to some result now. We left home\ndirectly after breakfast to be at Westminster Hall in good time and\nwalked down there through the lively streets--so happily and\nstrangely it seemed!--together.\n\nAs we were going along, planning what we should do for Richard and\nAda, I heard somebody calling \"Esther! My dear Esther! Esther!\" And\nthere was Caddy Jellyby, with her head out of the window of a little\ncarriage which she hired now to go about in to her pupils (she had so\nmany), as if she wanted to embrace me at a hundred yards' distance. I\nhad written her a note to tell her of all that my guardian had done,\nbut had not had a moment to go and see her. Of course we turned back,\nand the affectionate girl was in that state of rapture, and was so\noverjoyed to talk about the night when she brought me the flowers,\nand was so determined to squeeze my face (bonnet and all) between her\nhands, and go on in a wild manner altogether, calling me all kinds of\nprecious names, and telling Allan I had done I don't know what for\nher, that I was just obliged to get into the little carriage and calm\nher down by letting her say and do exactly what she liked. Allan,\nstanding at the window, was as pleased as Caddy; and I was as pleased\nas either of them; and I wonder that I got away as I did, rather than\nthat I came off laughing, and red, and anything but tidy, and looking\nafter Caddy, who looked after us out of the coach-window as long as\nshe could see us.\n\nThis made us some quarter of an hour late, and when we came to\nWestminster Hall we found that the day's business was begun. Worse\nthan that, we found such an unusual crowd in the Court of Chancery\nthat it was full to the door, and we could neither see nor hear what\nwas passing within. It appeared to be something droll, for\noccasionally there was a laugh and a cry of \"Silence!\" It appeared to\nbe something interesting, for every one was pushing and striving to\nget nearer. It appeared to be something that made the professional\ngentlemen very merry, for there were several young counsellors in\nwigs and whiskers on the outside of the crowd, and when one of them\ntold the others about it, they put their hands in their pockets, and\nquite doubled themselves up with laughter, and went stamping about\nthe pavement of the Hall.\n\nWe asked a gentleman by us if he knew what cause was on. He told us\nJarndyce and Jarndyce. We asked him if he knew what was doing in it.\nHe said really, no he did not, nobody ever did, but as well as he\ncould make out, it was over. Over for the day? we asked him. No, he\nsaid, over for good.\n\nOver for good!\n\nWhen we heard this unaccountable answer, we looked at one another\nquite lost in amazement. Could it be possible that the will had set\nthings right at last and that Richard and Ada were going to be rich?\nIt seemed too good to be true. Alas it was!\n\nOur suspense was short, for a break-up soon took place in the crowd,\nand the people came streaming out looking flushed and hot and\nbringing a quantity of bad air with them. Still they were all\nexceedingly amused and were more like people coming out from a farce\nor a juggler than from a court of justice. We stood aside, watching\nfor any countenance we knew, and presently great bundles of paper\nbegan to be carried out--bundles in bags, bundles too large to be got\ninto any bags, immense masses of papers of all shapes and no shapes,\nwhich the bearers staggered under, and threw down for the time being,\nanyhow, on the Hall pavement, while they went back to bring out more.\nEven these clerks were laughing. We glanced at the papers, and seeing\nJarndyce and Jarndyce everywhere, asked an official-looking person\nwho was standing in the midst of them whether the cause was over.\nYes, he said, it was all up with it at last, and burst out laughing\ntoo.\n\nAt this juncture we perceived Mr. Kenge coming out of court with an\naffable dignity upon him, listening to Mr. Vholes, who was\ndeferential and carried his own bag. Mr. Vholes was the first to see\nus. \"Here is Miss Summerson, sir,\" he said. \"And Mr. Woodcourt.\"\n\n\"Oh, indeed! Yes. Truly!\" said Mr. Kenge, raising his hat to me with\npolished politeness. \"How do you do? Glad to see you. Mr. Jarndyce is\nnot here?\"\n\nNo. He never came there, I reminded him.\n\n\"Really,\" returned Mr. Kenge, \"it is as well that he is NOT here\nto-day, for his--shall I say, in my good friend's absence, his\nindomitable singularity of opinion?--might have been strengthened,\nperhaps; not reasonably, but might have been strengthened.\"\n\n\"Pray what has been done to-day?\" asked Allan.\n\n\"I beg your pardon?\" said Mr. Kenge with excessive urbanity.\n\n\"What has been done to-day?\"\n\n\"What has been done,\" repeated Mr. Kenge. \"Quite so. Yes. Why, not\nmuch has been done; not much. We have been checked--brought up\nsuddenly, I would say--upon the--shall I term it threshold?\"\n\n\"Is this will considered a genuine document, sir?\" said Allan. \"Will\nyou tell us that?\"\n\n\"Most certainly, if I could,\" said Mr. Kenge; \"but we have not gone\ninto that, we have not gone into that.\"\n\n\"We have not gone into that,\" repeated Mr. Vholes as if his low\ninward voice were an echo.\n\n\"You are to reflect, Mr. Woodcourt,\" observed Mr. Kenge, using his\nsilver trowel persuasively and smoothingly, \"that this has been a\ngreat cause, that this has been a protracted cause, that this has\nbeen a complex cause. Jarndyce and Jarndyce has been termed, not\ninaptly, a monument of Chancery practice.\"\n\n\"And patience has sat upon it a long time,\" said Allan.\n\n\"Very well indeed, sir,\" returned Mr. Kenge with a certain\ncondescending laugh he had. \"Very well! You are further to reflect,\nMr. Woodcourt,\" becoming dignified almost to severity, \"that on the\nnumerous difficulties, contingencies, masterly fictions, and forms of\nprocedure in this great cause, there has been expended study,\nability, eloquence, knowledge, intellect, Mr. Woodcourt, high\nintellect. For many years, the--a--I would say the flower of the bar,\nand the--a--I would presume to add, the matured autumnal fruits of\nthe woolsack--have been lavished upon Jarndyce and Jarndyce. If the\npublic have the benefit, and if the country have the adornment, of\nthis great grasp, it must be paid for in money or money's worth,\nsir.\"\n\n\"Mr. Kenge,\" said Allan, appearing enlightened all in a moment.\n\"Excuse me, our time presses. Do I understand that the whole estate\nis found to have been absorbed in costs?\"\n\n\"Hem! I believe so,\" returned Mr. Kenge. \"Mr. Vholes, what do YOU\nsay?\"\n\n\"I believe so,\" said Mr. Vholes.\n\n\"And that thus the suit lapses and melts away?\"\n\n\"Probably,\" returned Mr. Kenge. \"Mr. Vholes?\"\n\n\"Probably,\" said Mr. Vholes.\n\n\"My dearest life,\" whispered Allan, \"this will break Richard's\nheart!\"\n\nThere was such a shock of apprehension in his face, and he knew\nRichard so perfectly, and I too had seen so much of his gradual\ndecay, that what my dear girl had said to me in the fullness of her\nforeboding love sounded like a knell in my ears.\n\n\"In case you should be wanting Mr. C., sir,\" said Mr. Vholes, coming\nafter us, \"you'll find him in court. I left him there resting himself\na little. Good day, sir; good day, Miss Summerson.\" As he gave me\nthat slowly devouring look of his, while twisting up the strings of\nhis bag before he hastened with it after Mr. Kenge, the benignant\nshadow of whose conversational presence he seemed afraid to leave, he\ngave one gasp as if he had swallowed the last morsel of his client,\nand his black buttoned-up unwholesome figure glided away to the low\ndoor at the end of the Hall.\n\n\"My dear love,\" said Allan, \"leave to me, for a little while, the\ncharge you gave me. Go home with this intelligence and come to Ada's\nby and by!\"\n\nI would not let him take me to a coach, but entreated him to go to\nRichard without a moment's delay and leave me to do as he wished.\nHurrying home, I found my guardian and told him gradually with what\nnews I had returned. \"Little woman,\" said he, quite unmoved for\nhimself, \"to have done with the suit on any terms is a greater\nblessing than I had looked for. But my poor young cousins!\"\n\nWe talked about them all the morning and discussed what it was\npossible to do. In the afternoon my guardian walked with me to\nSymond's Inn and left me at the door. I went upstairs. When my\ndarling heard my footsteps, she came out into the small passage and\nthrew her arms round my neck, but she composed herself directly and\nsaid that Richard had asked for me several times. Allan had found him\nsitting in the corner of the court, she told me, like a stone figure.\nOn being roused, he had broken away and made as if he would have\nspoken in a fierce voice to the judge. He was stopped by his mouth\nbeing full of blood, and Allan had brought him home.\n\nHe was lying on a sofa with his eyes closed when I went in. There\nwere restoratives on the table; the room was made as airy as\npossible, and was darkened, and was very orderly and quiet. Allan\nstood behind him watching him gravely. His face appeared to me to be\nquite destitute of colour, and now that I saw him without his seeing\nme, I fully saw, for the first time, how worn away he was. But he\nlooked handsomer than I had seen him look for many a day.\n\nI sat down by his side in silence. Opening his eyes by and by, he\nsaid in a weak voice, but with his old smile, \"Dame Durden, kiss me,\nmy dear!\"\n\nIt was a great comfort and surprise to me to find him in his low\nstate cheerful and looking forward. He was happier, he said, in our\nintended marriage than he could find words to tell me. My husband had\nbeen a guardian angel to him and Ada, and he blessed us both and\nwished us all the joy that life could yield us. I almost felt as if\nmy own heart would have broken when I saw him take my husband's hand\nand hold it to his breast.\n\nWe spoke of the future as much as possible, and he said several times\nthat he must be present at our marriage if he could stand upon his\nfeet. Ada would contrive to take him, somehow, he said. \"Yes, surely,\ndearest Richard!\" But as my darling answered him thus hopefully, so\nserene and beautiful, with the help that was to come to her so\nnear--I knew--I knew!\n\nIt was not good for him to talk too much, and when he was silent, we\nwere silent too. Sitting beside him, I made a pretence of working for\nmy dear, as he had always been used to joke about my being busy. Ada\nleaned upon his pillow, holding his head upon her arm. He dozed\noften, and whenever he awoke without seeing him, said first of all,\n\"Where is Woodcourt?\"\n\nEvening had come on when I lifted up my eyes and saw my guardian\nstanding in the little hall. \"Who is that, Dame Durden?\" Richard\nasked me. The door was behind him, but he had observed in my face\nthat some one was there.\n\nI looked to Allan for advice, and as he nodded \"Yes,\" bent over\nRichard and told him. My guardian saw what passed, came softly by me\nin a moment, and laid his hand on Richard's. \"Oh, sir,\" said Richard,\n\"you are a good man, you are a good man!\" and burst into tears for\nthe first time.\n\nMy guardian, the picture of a good man, sat down in my place, keeping\nhis hand on Richard's.\n\n\"My dear Rick,\" said he, \"the clouds have cleared away, and it is\nbright now. We can see now. We were all bewildered, Rick, more or\nless. What matters! And how are you, my dear boy?\"\n\n\"I am very weak, sir, but I hope I shall be stronger. I have to begin\nthe world.\"\n\n\"Aye, truly; well said!\" cried my guardian.\n\n\"I will not begin it in the old way now,\" said Richard with a sad\nsmile. \"I have learned a lesson now, sir. It was a hard one, but you\nshall be assured, indeed, that I have learned it.\"\n\n\"Well, well,\" said my guardian, comforting him; \"well, well, well,\ndear boy!\"\n\n\"I was thinking, sir,\" resumed Richard, \"that there is nothing on\nearth I should so much like to see as their house--Dame Durden's and\nWoodcourt's house. If I could be removed there when I begin to\nrecover my strength, I feel as if I should get well there sooner than\nanywhere.\"\n\n\"Why, so have I been thinking too, Rick,\" said my guardian, \"and our\nlittle woman likewise; she and I have been talking of it this very\nday. I dare say her husband won't object. What do you think?\"\n\nRichard smiled and lifted up his arm to touch him as he stood behind\nthe head of the couch.\n\n\"I say nothing of Ada,\" said Richard, \"but I think of her, and have\nthought of her very much. Look at her! See her here, sir, bending\nover this pillow when she has so much need to rest upon it herself,\nmy dear love, my poor girl!\"\n\nHe clasped her in his arms, and none of us spoke. He gradually\nreleased her, and she looked upon us, and looked up to heaven, and\nmoved her lips.\n\n\"When I get down to Bleak House,\" said Richard, \"I shall have much to\ntell you, sir, and you will have much to show me. You will go, won't\nyou?\"\n\n\"Undoubtedly, dear Rick.\"\n\n\"Thank you; like you, like you,\" said Richard. \"But it's all like\nyou. They have been telling me how you planned it and how you\nremembered all Esther's familiar tastes and ways. It will be like\ncoming to the old Bleak House again.\"\n\n\"And you will come there too, I hope, Rick. I am a solitary man now,\nyou know, and it will be a charity to come to me. A charity to come\nto me, my love!\" he repeated to Ada as he gently passed his hand over\nher golden hair and put a lock of it to his lips. (I think he vowed\nwithin himself to cherish her if she were left alone.)\n\n\"It was a troubled dream?\" said Richard, clasping both my guardian's\nhands eagerly.\n\n\"Nothing more, Rick; nothing more.\"\n\n\"And you, being a good man, can pass it as such, and forgive and pity\nthe dreamer, and be lenient and encouraging when he wakes?\"\n\n\"Indeed I can. What am I but another dreamer, Rick?\"\n\n\"I will begin the world!\" said Richard with a light in his eyes.\n\nMy husband drew a little nearer towards Ada, and I saw him solemnly\nlift up his hand to warn my guardian.\n\n\"When shall I go from this place to that pleasant country where the\nold times are, where I shall have strength to tell what Ada has been\nto me, where I shall be able to recall my many faults and\nblindnesses, where I shall prepare myself to be a guide to my unborn\nchild?\" said Richard. \"When shall I go?\"\n\n\"Dear Rick, when you are strong enough,\" returned my guardian.\n\n\"Ada, my darling!\"\n\nHe sought to raise himself a little. Allan raised him so that she\ncould hold him on her bosom, which was what he wanted.\n\n\"I have done you many wrongs, my own. I have fallen like a poor stray\nshadow on your way, I have married you to poverty and trouble, I have\nscattered your means to the winds. You will forgive me all this, my\nAda, before I begin the world?\"\n\nA smile irradiated his face as she bent to kiss him. He slowly laid\nhis face down upon her bosom, drew his arms closer round her neck,\nand with one parting sob began the world. Not this world, oh, not\nthis! The world that sets this right.\n\nWhen all was still, at a late hour, poor crazed Miss Flite came\nweeping to me and told me she had given her birds their liberty.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXVI\n\nDown in Lincolnshire\n\n\nThere is a hush upon Chesney Wold in these altered days, as there is\nupon a portion of the family history. The story goes that Sir\nLeicester paid some who could have spoken out to hold their peace;\nbut it is a lame story, feebly whispering and creeping about, and any\nbrighter spark of life it shows soon dies away. It is known for\ncertain that the handsome Lady Dedlock lies in the mausoleum in the\npark, where the trees arch darkly overhead, and the owl is heard at\nnight making the woods ring; but whence she was brought home to be\nlaid among the echoes of that solitary place, or how she died, is all\nmystery. Some of her old friends, principally to be found among the\npeachy-cheeked charmers with the skeleton throats, did once\noccasionally say, as they toyed in a ghastly manner with large\nfans--like charmers reduced to flirting with grim death, after losing\nall their other beaux--did once occasionally say, when the world\nassembled together, that they wondered the ashes of the Dedlocks,\nentombed in the mausoleum, never rose against the profanation of her\ncompany. But the dead-and-gone Dedlocks take it very calmly and have\nnever been known to object.\n\nUp from among the fern in the hollow, and winding by the bridle-road\namong the trees, comes sometimes to this lonely spot the sound of\nhorses' hoofs. Then may be seen Sir Leicester--invalided, bent, and\nalmost blind, but of worthy presence yet--riding with a stalwart man\nbeside him, constant to his bridle-rein. When they come to a certain\nspot before the mausoleum-door, Sir Leicester's accustomed horse\nstops of his own accord, and Sir Leicester, pulling off his hat, is\nstill for a few moments before they ride away.\n\nWar rages yet with the audacious Boythorn, though at uncertain\nintervals, and now hotly, and now coolly, flickering like an unsteady\nfire. The truth is said to be that when Sir Leicester came down to\nLincolnshire for good, Mr. Boythorn showed a manifest desire to\nabandon his right of way and do whatever Sir Leicester would, which\nSir Leicester, conceiving to be a condescension to his illness or\nmisfortune, took in such high dudgeon, and was so magnificently\naggrieved by, that Mr. Boythorn found himself under the necessity of\ncommitting a flagrant trespass to restore his neighbour to himself.\nSimilarly, Mr. Boythorn continues to post tremendous placards on the\ndisputed thoroughfare and (with his bird upon his head) to hold forth\nvehemently against Sir Leicester in the sanctuary of his own home;\nsimilarly, also, he defies him as of old in the little church by\ntestifying a bland unconsciousness of his existence. But it is\nwhispered that when he is most ferocious towards his old foe, he is\nreally most considerate, and that Sir Leicester, in the dignity of\nbeing implacable, little supposes how much he is humoured. As little\ndoes he think how near together he and his antagonist have suffered\nin the fortunes of two sisters, and his antagonist, who knows it now,\nis not the man to tell him. So the quarrel goes on to the\nsatisfaction of both.\n\nIn one of the lodges of the park--that lodge within sight of the\nhouse where, once upon a time, when the waters were out down in\nLincolnshire, my Lady used to see the keeper's child--the stalwart\nman, the trooper formerly, is housed. Some relics of his old calling\nhang upon the walls, and these it is the chosen recreation of a\nlittle lame man about the stable-yard to keep gleaming bright. A busy\nlittle man he always is, in the polishing at harness-house doors, of\nstirrup-irons, bits, curb-chains, harness bosses, anything in the way\nof a stable-yard that will take a polish, leading a life of friction.\nA shaggy little damaged man, withal, not unlike an old dog of some\nmongrel breed, who has been considerably knocked about. He answers to\nthe name of Phil.\n\nA goodly sight it is to see the grand old housekeeper (harder of\nhearing now) going to church on the arm of her son and to\nobserve--which few do, for the house is scant of company in these\ntimes--the relations of both towards Sir Leicester, and his towards\nthem. They have visitors in the high summer weather, when a grey\ncloak and umbrella, unknown to Chesney Wold at other periods, are\nseen among the leaves; when two young ladies are occasionally found\ngambolling in sequestered saw-pits and such nooks of the park; and\nwhen the smoke of two pipes wreathes away into the fragrant evening\nair from the trooper's door. Then is a fife heard trolling within the\nlodge on the inspiring topic of the \"British Grenadiers\"; and as the\nevening closes in, a gruff inflexible voice is heard to say, while\ntwo men pace together up and down, \"But I never own to it before the\nold girl. Discipline must be maintained.\"\n\nThe greater part of the house is shut up, and it is a show-house no\nlonger; yet Sir Leicester holds his shrunken state in the long\ndrawing-room for all that, and reposes in his old place before my\nLady's picture. Closed in by night with broad screens, and illumined\nonly in that part, the light of the drawing-room seems gradually\ncontracting and dwindling until it shall be no more. A little more,\nin truth, and it will be all extinguished for Sir Leicester; and the\ndamp door in the mausoleum which shuts so tight, and looks so\nobdurate, will have opened and received him.\n\nVolumnia, growing with the flight of time pinker as to the red in her\nface, and yellower as to the white, reads to Sir Leicester in the\nlong evenings and is driven to various artifices to conceal her\nyawns, of which the chief and most efficacious is the insertion of\nthe pearl necklace between her rosy lips. Long-winded treatises on\nthe Buffy and Boodle question, showing how Buffy is immaculate and\nBoodle villainous, and how the country is lost by being all Boodle\nand no Buffy, or saved by being all Buffy and no Boodle (it must be\none of the two, and cannot be anything else), are the staple of her\nreading. Sir Leicester is not particular what it is and does not\nappear to follow it very closely, further than that he always comes\nbroad awake the moment Volumnia ventures to leave off, and sonorously\nrepeating her last words, begs with some displeasure to know if she\nfinds herself fatigued. However, Volumnia, in the course of her\nbird-like hopping about and pecking at papers, has alighted on a\nmemorandum concerning herself in the event of \"anything happening\" to\nher kinsman, which is handsome compensation for an extensive course\nof reading and holds even the dragon Boredom at bay.\n\nThe cousins generally are rather shy of Chesney Wold in its dullness,\nbut take to it a little in the shooting season, when guns are heard\nin the plantations, and a few scattered beaters and keepers wait at\nthe old places of appointment for low-spirited twos and threes of\ncousins. The debilitated cousin, more debilitated by the dreariness\nof the place, gets into a fearful state of depression, groaning under\npenitential sofa-pillows in his gunless hours and protesting that\nsuch fernal old jail's--nough t'sew fler up--frever.\n\nThe only great occasions for Volumnia in this changed aspect of the\nplace in Lincolnshire are those occasions, rare and widely separated,\nwhen something is to be done for the county or the country in the way\nof gracing a public ball. Then, indeed, does the tuckered sylph come\nout in fairy form and proceed with joy under cousinly escort to the\nexhausted old assembly-room, fourteen heavy miles off, which, during\nthree hundred and sixty-four days and nights of every ordinary year,\nis a kind of antipodean lumber-room full of old chairs and tables\nupside down. Then, indeed, does she captivate all hearts by her\ncondescension, by her girlish vivacity, and by her skipping about as\nin the days when the hideous old general with the mouth too full of\nteeth had not cut one of them at two guineas each. Then does she\ntwirl and twine, a pastoral nymph of good family, through the mazes\nof the dance. Then do the swains appear with tea, with lemonade, with\nsandwiches, with homage. Then is she kind and cruel, stately and\nunassuming, various, beautifully wilful. Then is there a singular\nkind of parallel between her and the little glass chandeliers of\nanother age embellishing that assembly-room, which, with their meagre\nstems, their spare little drops, their disappointing knobs where no\ndrops are, their bare little stalks from which knobs and drops have\nboth departed, and their little feeble prismatic twinkling, all seem\nVolumnias.\n\nFor the rest, Lincolnshire life to Volumnia is a vast blank of\novergrown house looking out upon trees, sighing, wringing their\nhands, bowing their heads, and casting their tears upon the\nwindow-panes in monotonous depressions. A labyrinth of grandeur, less\nthe property of an old family of human beings and their ghostly\nlikenesses than of an old family of echoings and thunderings which\nstart out of their hundred graves at every sound and go resounding\nthrough the building. A waste of unused passages and staircases in\nwhich to drop a comb upon a bedroom floor at night is to send a\nstealthy footfall on an errand through the house. A place where few\npeople care to go about alone, where a maid screams if an ash drops\nfrom the fire, takes to crying at all times and seasons, becomes the\nvictim of a low disorder of the spirits, and gives warning and\ndeparts.\n\nThus Chesney Wold. With so much of itself abandoned to darkness and\nvacancy; with so little change under the summer shining or the wintry\nlowering; so sombre and motionless always--no flag flying now by day,\nno rows of lights sparkling by night; with no family to come and go,\nno visitors to be the souls of pale cold shapes of rooms, no stir of\nlife about it--passion and pride, even to the stranger's eye, have\ndied away from the place in Lincolnshire and yielded it to dull\nrepose.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXVII\n\nThe Close of Esther's Narrative\n\n\nFull seven happy years I have been the mistress of Bleak House. The\nfew words that I have to add to what I have written are soon penned;\nthen I and the unknown friend to whom I write will part for ever. Not\nwithout much dear remembrance on my side. Not without some, I hope,\non his or hers.\n\nThey gave my darling into my arms, and through many weeks I never\nleft her. The little child who was to have done so much was born\nbefore the turf was planted on its father's grave. It was a boy; and\nI, my husband, and my guardian gave him his father's name.\n\nThe help that my dear counted on did come to her, though it came, in\nthe eternal wisdom, for another purpose. Though to bless and restore\nhis mother, not his father, was the errand of this baby, its power\nwas mighty to do it. When I saw the strength of the weak little hand\nand how its touch could heal my darling's heart and raised hope\nwithin her, I felt a new sense of the goodness and the tenderness of\nGod.\n\nThey throve, and by degrees I saw my dear girl pass into my country\ngarden and walk there with her infant in her arms. I was married\nthen. I was the happiest of the happy.\n\nIt was at this time that my guardian joined us and asked Ada when she\nwould come home.\n\n\"Both houses are your home, my dear,\" said he, \"but the older Bleak\nHouse claims priority. When you and my boy are strong enough to do\nit, come and take possession of your home.\"\n\nAda called him \"her dearest cousin, John.\" But he said, no, it must\nbe guardian now. He was her guardian henceforth, and the boy's; and\nhe had an old association with the name. So she called him guardian,\nand has called him guardian ever since. The children know him by no\nother name. I say the children; I have two little daughters.\n\nIt is difficult to believe that Charley (round-eyed still, and not at\nall grammatical) is married to a miller in our neighbourhood; yet so\nit is; and even now, looking up from my desk as I write early in the\nmorning at my summer window, I see the very mill beginning to go\nround. I hope the miller will not spoil Charley; but he is very fond\nof her, and Charley is rather vain of such a match, for he is well to\ndo and was in great request. So far as my small maid is concerned, I\nmight suppose time to have stood for seven years as still as the mill\ndid half an hour ago, since little Emma, Charley's sister, is exactly\nwhat Charley used to be. As to Tom, Charley's brother, I am really\nafraid to say what he did at school in ciphering, but I think it was\ndecimals. He is apprenticed to the miller, whatever it was, and is a\ngood bashful fellow, always falling in love with somebody and being\nashamed of it.\n\nCaddy Jellyby passed her very last holidays with us and was a dearer\ncreature than ever, perpetually dancing in and out of the house with\nthe children as if she had never given a dancing-lesson in her life.\nCaddy keeps her own little carriage now instead of hiring one, and\nlives full two miles further westward than Newman Street. She works\nvery hard, her husband (an excellent one) being lame and able to do\nvery little. Still, she is more than contented and does all she has\nto do with all her heart. Mr. Jellyby spends his evenings at her new\nhouse with his head against the wall as he used to do in her old one.\nI have heard that Mrs. Jellyby was understood to suffer great\nmortification from her daughter's ignoble marriage and pursuits, but\nI hope she got over it in time. She has been disappointed in\nBorrioboola-Gha, which turned out a failure in consequence of the\nking of Borrioboola wanting to sell everybody--who survived the\nclimate--for rum, but she has taken up with the rights of women to\nsit in Parliament, and Caddy tells me it is a mission involving more\ncorrespondence than the old one. I had almost forgotten Caddy's poor\nlittle girl. She is not such a mite now, but she is deaf and dumb. I\nbelieve there never was a better mother than Caddy, who learns, in\nher scanty intervals of leisure, innumerable deaf and dumb arts to\nsoften the affliction of her child.\n\nAs if I were never to have done with Caddy, I am reminded here of\nPeepy and old Mr. Turveydrop. Peepy is in the Custom House, and doing\nextremely well. Old Mr. Turveydrop, very apoplectic, still exhibits\nhis deportment about town, still enjoys himself in the old manner, is\nstill believed in in the old way. He is constant in his patronage of\nPeepy and is understood to have bequeathed him a favourite French\nclock in his dressing-room--which is not his property.\n\nWith the first money we saved at home, we added to our pretty house\nby throwing out a little growlery expressly for my guardian, which we\ninaugurated with great splendour the next time he came down to see\nus. I try to write all this lightly, because my heart is full in\ndrawing to an end, but when I write of him, my tears will have their\nway.\n\nI never look at him but I hear our poor dear Richard calling him a\ngood man. To Ada and her pretty boy, he is the fondest father; to me\nhe is what he has ever been, and what name can I give to that? He is\nmy husband's best and dearest friend, he is our children's darling,\nhe is the object of our deepest love and veneration. Yet while I feel\ntowards him as if he were a superior being, I am so familiar with him\nand so easy with him that I almost wonder at myself. I have never\nlost my old names, nor has he lost his; nor do I ever, when he is\nwith us, sit in any other place than in my old chair at his side,\nDame Trot, Dame Durden, Little Woman--all just the same as ever; and\nI answer, \"Yes, dear guardian!\" just the same.\n\nI have never known the wind to be in the east for a single moment\nsince the day when he took me to the porch to read the name. I\nremarked to him once that the wind seemed never in the east now, and\nhe said, no, truly; it had finally departed from that quarter on that\nvery day.\n\nI think my darling girl is more beautiful than ever. The sorrow that\nhas been in her face--for it is not there now--seems to have purified\neven its innocent expression and to have given it a diviner quality.\nSometimes when I raise my eyes and see her in the black dress that\nshe still wears, teaching my Richard, I feel--it is difficult to\nexpress--as if it were so good to know that she remembers her dear\nEsther in her prayers.\n\nI call him my Richard! But he says that he has two mamas, and I am\none.\n\nWe are not rich in the bank, but we have always prospered, and we\nhave quite enough. I never walk out with my husband but I hear the\npeople bless him. I never go into a house of any degree but I hear\nhis praises or see them in grateful eyes. I never lie down at night\nbut I know that in the course of that day he has alleviated pain and\nsoothed some fellow-creature in the time of need. I know that from\nthe beds of those who were past recovery, thanks have often, often\ngone up, in the last hour, for his patient ministration. Is not this\nto be rich?\n\nThe people even praise me as the doctor's wife. The people even like\nme as I go about, and make so much of me that I am quite abashed. I\nowe it all to him, my love, my pride! They like me for his sake, as I\ndo everything I do in life for his sake.\n\nA night or two ago, after bustling about preparing for my darling and\nmy guardian and little Richard, who are coming to-morrow, I was\nsitting out in the porch of all places, that dearly memorable porch,\nwhen Allan came home. So he said, \"My precious little woman, what are\nyou doing here?\" And I said, \"The moon is shining so brightly, Allan,\nand the night is so delicious, that I have been sitting here\nthinking.\"\n\n\"What have you been thinking about, my dear?\" said Allan then.\n\n\"How curious you are!\" said I. \"I am almost ashamed to tell you, but\nI will. I have been thinking about my old looks--such as they were.\"\n\n\"And what have you been thinking about THEM, my busy bee?\" said\nAllan.\n\n\"I have been thinking that I thought it was impossible that you COULD\nhave loved me any better, even if I had retained them.\"\n\n\"'Such as they were'?\" said Allan, laughing.\n\n\"Such as they were, of course.\"\n\n\"My dear Dame Durden,\" said Allan, drawing my arm through his, \"do\nyou ever look in the glass?\"\n\n\"You know I do; you see me do it.\"\n\n\"And don't you know that you are prettier than you ever were?\"\n\n\"I did not know that; I am not certain that I know it now. But I know\nthat my dearest little pets are very pretty, and that my darling is\nvery beautiful, and that my husband is very handsome, and that my\nguardian has the brightest and most benevolent face that ever was\nseen, and that they can very well do without much beauty in me--even\nsupposing--.\"\n\n\n"}
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{"1289":"\n\n\n\n\nThree Ghost Stories by Charles Dickens\n\n\n\nContents:\n\nThe Signal-Man\nThe Haunted-House\nThe Trial For Murder\n\n\n\n\nTHE SIGNAL-MAN\n\n\n\n\n\"Halloa!  Below there!\"\n\nWhen he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was standing at the\ndoor of his box, with a flag in his hand, furled round its short\npole.  One would have thought, considering the nature of the ground,\nthat he could not have doubted from what quarter the voice came; but\ninstead of looking up to where I stood on the top of the steep\ncutting nearly over his head, he turned himself about, and looked\ndown the Line.  There was something remarkable in his manner of\ndoing so, though I could not have said for my life what.  But I know\nit was remarkable enough to attract my notice, even though his\nfigure was foreshortened and shadowed, down in the deep trench, and\nmine was high above him, so steeped in the glow of an angry sunset,\nthat I had shaded my eyes with my hand before I saw him at all.\n\n\"Halloa!  Below!\"\n\nFrom looking down the Line, he turned himself about again, and,\nraising his eyes, saw my figure high above him.\n\n\"Is there any path by which I can come down and speak to you?\"\n\nHe looked up at me without replying, and I looked down at him\nwithout pressing him too soon with a repetition of my idle question.\nJust then there came a vague vibration in the earth and air, quickly\nchanging into a violent pulsation, and an oncoming rush that caused\nme to start back, as though it had force to draw me down.  When such\nvapour as rose to my height from this rapid train had passed me, and\nwas skimming away over the landscape, I looked down again, and saw\nhim refurling the flag he had shown while the train went by.\n\nI repeated my inquiry.  After a pause, during which he seemed to\nregard me with fixed attention, he motioned with his rolled-up flag\ntowards a point on my level, some two or three hundred yards\ndistant.  I called down to him, \"All right!\" and made for that\npoint.  There, by dint of looking closely about me, I found a rough\nzigzag descending path notched out, which I followed.\n\nThe cutting was extremely deep, and unusually precipitate.  It was\nmade through a clammy stone, that became oozier and wetter as I went\ndown.  For these reasons, I found the way long enough to give me\ntime to recall a singular air of reluctance or compulsion with which\nhe had pointed out the path.\n\nWhen I came down low enough upon the zigzag descent to see him\nagain, I saw that he was standing between the rails on the way by\nwhich the train had lately passed, in an attitude as if he were\nwaiting for me to appear.  He had his left hand at his chin, and\nthat left elbow rested on his right hand, crossed over his breast.\nHis attitude was one of such expectation and watchfulness that I\nstopped a moment, wondering at it.\n\nI resumed my downward way, and stepping out upon the level of the\nrailroad, and drawing nearer to him, saw that he was a dark sallow\nman, with a dark beard and rather heavy eyebrows.  His post was in\nas solitary and dismal a place as ever I saw.  On either side, a\ndripping-wet wall of jagged stone, excluding all view but a strip of\nsky; the perspective one way only a crooked prolongation of this\ngreat dungeon; the shorter perspective in the other direction\nterminating in a gloomy red light, and the gloomier entrance to a\nblack tunnel, in whose massive architecture there was a barbarous,\ndepressing, and forbidding air.  So little sunlight ever found its\nway to this spot, that it had an earthy, deadly smell; and so much\ncold wind rushed through it, that it struck chill to me, as if I had\nleft the natural world.\n\nBefore he stirred, I was near enough to him to have touched him.\nNot even then removing his eyes from mine, he stepped back one step,\nand lifted his hand.\n\nThis was a lonesome post to occupy (I said), and it had riveted my\nattention when I looked down from up yonder.  A visitor was a\nrarity, I should suppose; not an unwelcome rarity, I hoped?  In me,\nhe merely saw a man who had been shut up within narrow limits all\nhis life, and who, being at last set free, had a newly-awakened\ninterest in these great works.  To such purpose I spoke to him; but\nI am far from sure of the terms I used; for, besides that I am not\nhappy in opening any conversation, there was something in the man\nthat daunted me.\n\nHe directed a most curious look towards the red light near the\ntunnel's mouth, and looked all about it, as if something were\nmissing from it, and then looked it me.\n\nThat light was part of his charge?  Was it not?\n\nHe answered in a low voice,--\"Don't you know it is?\"\n\nThe monstrous thought came into my mind, as I perused the fixed eyes\nand the saturnine face, that this was a spirit, not a man.  I have\nspeculated since, whether there may have been infection in his mind.\n\nIn my turn, I stepped back.  But in making the action, I detected in\nhis eyes some latent fear of me.  This put the monstrous thought to\nflight.\n\n\"You look at me,\" I said, forcing a smile, \"as if you had a dread of\nme.\"\n\n\"I was doubtful,\" he returned, \"whether I had seen you before.\"\n\n\"Where?\"\n\nHe pointed to the red light he had looked at.\n\n\"There?\" I said.\n\nIntently watchful of me, he replied (but without sound), \"Yes.\"\n\n\"My good fellow, what should I do there?  However, be that as it\nmay, I never was there, you may swear.\"\n\n\"I think I may,\" he rejoined.  \"Yes; I am sure I may.\"\n\nHis manner cleared, like my own.  He replied to my remarks with\nreadiness, and in well-chosen words.  Had he much to do there?  Yes;\nthat was to say, he had enough responsibility to bear; but exactness\nand watchfulness were what was required of him, and of actual work--\nmanual labour--he had next to none.  To change that signal, to trim\nthose lights, and to turn this iron handle now and then, was all he\nhad to do under that head.  Regarding those many long and lonely\nhours of which I seemed to make so much, he could only say that the\nroutine of his life had shaped itself into that form, and he had\ngrown used to it.  He had taught himself a language down here,--if\nonly to know it by sight, and to have formed his own crude ideas of\nits pronunciation, could be called learning it.  He had also worked\nat fractions and decimals, and tried a little algebra; but he was,\nand had been as a boy, a poor hand at figures.  Was it necessary for\nhim when on duty always to remain in that channel of damp air, and\ncould he never rise into the sunshine from between those high stone\nwalls?  Why, that depended upon times and circumstances.  Under some\nconditions there would be less upon the Line than under others, and\nthe same held good as to certain hours of the day and night.  In\nbright weather, he did choose occasions for getting a little above\nthese lower shadows; but, being at all times liable to be called by\nhis electric bell, and at such times listening for it with redoubled\nanxiety, the relief was less than I would suppose.\n\nHe took me into his box, where there was a fire, a desk for an\nofficial book in which he had to make certain entries, a telegraphic\ninstrument with its dial, face, and needles, and the little bell of\nwhich he had spoken.  On my trusting that he would excuse the remark\nthat he had been well educated, and (I hoped I might say without\noffence) perhaps educated above that station, he observed that\ninstances of slight incongruity in such wise would rarely be found\nwanting among large bodies of men; that he had heard it was so in\nworkhouses, in the police force, even in that last desperate\nresource, the army; and that he knew it was so, more or less, in any\ngreat railway staff.  He had been, when young (if I could believe\nit, sitting in that hut,--he scarcely could), a student of natural\nphilosophy, and had attended lectures; but he had run wild, misused\nhis opportunities, gone down, and never risen again.  He had no\ncomplaint to offer about that.  He had made his bed, and he lay upon\nit.  It was far too late to make another.\n\nAll that I have here condensed he said in a quiet manner, with his\ngrave dark regards divided between me and the fire.  He threw in the\nword, \"Sir,\" from time to time, and especially when he referred to\nhis youth,--as though to request me to understand that he claimed to\nbe nothing but what I found him.  He was several times interrupted\nby the little bell, and had to read off messages, and send replies.\nOnce he had to stand without the door, and display a flag as a train\npassed, and make some verbal communication to the driver.  In the\ndischarge of his duties, I observed him to be remarkably exact and\nvigilant, breaking off his discourse at a syllable, and remaining\nsilent until what he had to do was done.\n\nIn a word, I should have set this man down as one of the safest of\nmen to be employed in that capacity, but for the circumstance that\nwhile he was speaking to me he twice broke off with a fallen colour,\nturned his face towards the little bell when it did NOT ring, opened\nthe door of the hut (which was kept shut to exclude the unhealthy\ndamp), and looked out towards the red light near the mouth of the\ntunnel.  On both of those occasions, he came back to the fire with\nthe inexplicable air upon him which I had remarked, without being\nable to define, when we were so far asunder.\n\nSaid I, when I rose to leave him, \"You almost make me think that I\nhave met with a contented man.\"\n\n(I am afraid I must acknowledge that I said it to lead him on.)\n\n\"I believe I used to be so,\" he rejoined, in the low voice in which\nhe had first spoken; \"but I am troubled, sir, I am troubled.\"\n\nHe would have recalled the words if he could.  He had said them,\nhowever, and I took them up quickly.\n\n\"With what?  What is your trouble?\"\n\n\"It is very difficult to impart, sir.  It is very, very difficult to\nspeak of.  If ever you make me another visit, I will try to tell\nyou.\"\n\n\"But I expressly intend to make you another visit.  Say, when shall\nit be?\"\n\n\"I go off early in the morning, and I shall be on again at ten to-\nmorrow night, sir.\"\n\n\"I will come at eleven.\"\n\nHe thanked me, and went out at the door with me.  \"I'll show my\nwhite light, sir,\" he said, in his peculiar low voice, \"till you\nhave found the way up.  When you have found it, don't call out!  And\nwhen you are at the top, don't call out!\"\n\nHis manner seemed to make the place strike colder to me, but I said\nno more than, \"Very well.\"\n\n\"And when you come down to-morrow night, don't call out!  Let me ask\nyou a parting question.  What made you cry, 'Halloa!  Below there!'\nto-night?\"\n\n\"Heaven knows,\" said I.  \"I cried something to that effect--\"\n\n\"Not to that effect, sir.  Those were the very words.  I know them\nwell.\"\n\n\"Admit those were the very words.  I said them, no doubt, because I\nsaw you below.\"\n\n\"For no other reason?\"\n\n\"What other reason could I possibly have?\"\n\n\"You had no feeling that they were conveyed to you in any\nsupernatural way?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nHe wished me good-night, and held up his light.  I walked by the\nside of the down Line of rails (with a very disagreeable sensation\nof a train coming behind me) until I found the path.  It was easier\nto mount than to descend, and I got back to my inn without any\nadventure.\n\nPunctual to my appointment, I placed my foot on the first notch of\nthe zigzag next night, as the distant clocks were striking eleven.\nHe was waiting for me at the bottom, with his white light on.  \"I\nhave not called out,\" I said, when we came close together; \"may I\nspeak now?\"  \"By all means, sir.\"  \"Good-night, then, and here's my\nhand.\"  \"Good-night, sir, and here's mine.\"  With that we walked\nside by side to his box, entered it, closed the door, and sat down\nby the fire.\n\n\"I have made up my mind, sir,\" he began, bending forward as soon as\nwe were seated, and speaking in a tone but a little above a whisper,\n\"that you shall not have to ask me twice what troubles me.  I took\nyou for some one else yesterday evening.  That troubles me.\"\n\n\"That mistake?\"\n\n\"No.  That some one else.\"\n\n\"Who is it?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"Like me?\"\n\n\"I don't know.  I never saw the face.  The left arm is across the\nface, and the right arm is waved,--violently waved.  This way.\"\n\nI followed his action with my eyes, and it was the action of an arm\ngesticulating, with the utmost passion and vehemence, \"For God's\nsake, clear the way!\"\n\n\"One moonlight night,\" said the man, \"I was sitting here, when I\nheard a voice cry, 'Halloa!  Below there!'  I started up, looked\nfrom that door, and saw this Some one else standing by the red light\nnear the tunnel, waving as I just now showed you.  The voice seemed\nhoarse with shouting, and it cried, 'Look out!  Look out!'  And then\nattain, 'Halloa!  Below there!  Look out!'  I caught up my lamp,\nturned it on red, and ran towards the figure, calling, 'What's\nwrong?  What has happened?  Where?'  It stood just outside the\nblackness of the tunnel.  I advanced so close upon it that I\nwondered at its keeping the sleeve across its eyes.  I ran right up\nat it, and had my hand stretched out to pull the sleeve away, when\nit was gone.\"\n\n\"Into the tunnel?\" said I.\n\n\"No.  I ran on into the tunnel, five hundred yards.  I stopped, and\nheld my lamp above my head, and saw the figures of the measured\ndistance, and saw the wet stains stealing down the walls and\ntrickling through the arch.  I ran out again faster than I had run\nin (for I had a mortal abhorrence of the place upon me), and I\nlooked all round the red light with my own red light, and I went up\nthe iron ladder to the gallery atop of it, and I came down again,\nand ran back here.  I telegraphed both ways, 'An alarm has been\ngiven.  Is anything wrong?'  The answer came back, both ways, 'All\nwell.'\"\n\nResisting the slow touch of a frozen finger tracing out my spine, I\nshowed him how that this figure must be a deception of his sense of\nsight; and how that figures, originating in disease of the delicate\nnerves that minister to the functions of the eye, were known to have\noften troubled patients, some of whom had become conscious of the\nnature of their affliction, and had even proved it by experiments\nupon themselves.  \"As to an imaginary cry,\" said I, \"do but listen\nfor a moment to the wind in this unnatural valley while we speak so\nlow, and to the wild harp it makes of the telegraph wires.\"\n\nThat was all very well, he returned, after we had sat listening for\na while, and he ought to know something of the wind and the wires,--\nhe who so often passed long winter nights there, alone and watching.\nBut he would beg to remark that he had not finished.\n\nI asked his pardon, and he slowly added these words, touching my\narm, -\n\n\"Within six hours after the Appearance, the memorable accident on\nthis Line happened, and within ten hours the dead and wounded were\nbrought along through the tunnel over the spot where the figure had\nstood.\"\n\nA disagreeable shudder crept over me, but I did my best against it.\nIt was not to be denied, I rejoined, that this was a remarkable\ncoincidence, calculated deeply to impress his mind.  But it was\nunquestionable that remarkable coincidences did continually occur,\nand they must be taken into account in dealing with such a subject.\nThough to be sure I must admit, I added (for I thought I saw that he\nwas going to bring the objection to bear upon me), men of common\nsense did not allow much for coincidences in making the ordinary\ncalculations of life.\n\nHe again begged to remark that he had not finished.\n\nI again begged his pardon for being betrayed into interruptions.\n\n\"This,\" he said, again laying his hand upon my arm, and glancing\nover his shoulder with hollow eyes, \"was just a year ago.  Six or\nseven months passed, and I had recovered from the surprise and\nshock, when one morning, as the day was breaking, I, standing at the\ndoor, looked towards the red light, and saw the spectre again.\"  He\nstopped, with a fixed look at me.\n\n\"Did it cry out?\"\n\n\"No.  It was silent.\"\n\n\"Did it wave its arm?\"\n\n\"No.  It leaned against the shaft of the light, with both hands\nbefore the face.  Like this.\"\n\nOnce more I followed his action with my eyes.  It was an action of\nmourning.  I have seen such an attitude in stone figures on tombs.\n\n\"Did you go up to it?\"\n\n\"I came in and sat down, partly to collect my thoughts, partly\nbecause it had turned me faint.  When I went to the door again,\ndaylight was above me, and the ghost was gone.\"\n\n\"But nothing followed?  Nothing came of this?\"\n\nHe touched me on the arm with his forefinger twice or thrice giving\na ghastly nod each time:-\n\n\"That very day, as a train came out of the tunnel, I noticed, at a\ncarriage window on my side, what looked like a confusion of hands\nand heads, and something waved.  I saw it just in time to signal the\ndriver, Stop!  He shut off, and put his brake on, but the train\ndrifted past here a hundred and fifty yards or more.  I ran after\nit, and, as I went along, heard terrible screams and cries.  A\nbeautiful young lady had died instantaneously in one of the\ncompartments, and was brought in here, and laid down on this floor\nbetween us.\"\n\nInvoluntarily I pushed my chair back, as I looked from the boards at\nwhich he pointed to himself.\n\n\"True, sir.  True.  Precisely as it happened, so I tell it you.\"\n\nI could think of nothing to say, to any purpose, and my mouth was\nvery dry.  The wind and the wires took up the story with a long\nlamenting wail.\n\nHe resumed.  \"Now, sir, mark this, and judge how my mind is\ntroubled.  The spectre came back a week ago.  Ever since, it has\nbeen there, now and again, by fits and starts.\"\n\n\"At the light?\"\n\n\"At the Danger-light.\"\n\n\"What does it seem to do?\"\n\nHe repeated, if possible with increased passion and vehemence, that\nformer gesticulation of, \"For God's sake, clear the way!\"\n\nThen he went on.  \"I have no peace or rest for it.  It calls to me,\nfor many minutes together, in an agonised manner, 'Below there!\nLook out!  Look out!'  It stands waving to me.  It rings my little\nbell--\"\n\nI caught at that.  \"Did it ring your bell yesterday evening when I\nwas here, and you went to the door?\"\n\n\"Twice.\"\n\n\"Why, see,\" said I, \"how your imagination misleads you.  My eyes\nwere on the bell, and my ears were open to the bell, and if I am a\nliving man, it did NOT ring at those times.  No, nor at any other\ntime, except when it was rung in the natural course of physical\nthings by the station communicating with you.\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"I have never made a mistake as to that yet, sir.\nI have never confused the spectre's ring with the man's.  The\nghost's ring is a strange vibration in the bell that it derives from\nnothing else, and I have not asserted that the bell stirs to the\neye.  I don't wonder that you failed to hear it.  But I heard it.\"\n\n\"And did the spectre seem to be there, when you looked out?\"\n\n\"It WAS there.\"'\n\n\"Both times?\"\n\nHe repeated firmly:  \"Both times.\"\n\n\"Will you come to the door with me, and look for it now?\"\n\nHe bit his under lip as though he were somewhat unwilling, but\narose.  I opened the door, and stood on the step, while he stood in\nthe doorway.  There was the Danger-light.  There was the dismal\nmouth of the tunnel.  There were the high, wet stone walls of the\ncutting.  There were the stars above them.\n\n\"Do you see it?\" I asked him, taking particular note of his face.\nHis eyes were prominent and strained, but not very much more so,\nperhaps, than my own had been when I had directed them earnestly\ntowards the same spot.\n\n\"No,\" he answered.  \"It is not there.\"\n\n\"Agreed,\" said I.\n\nWe went in again, shut the door, and resumed our seats.  I was\nthinking how best to improve this advantage, if it might be called\none, when he took up the conversation in such a matter-of-course\nway, so assuming that there could be no serious question of fact\nbetween us, that I felt myself placed in the weakest of positions.\n\n\"By this time you will fully understand, sir,\" he said, \"that what\ntroubles me so dreadfully is the question, What does the spectre\nmean?\"\n\nI was not sure, I told him, that I did fully understand.\n\n\"What is its warning against?\" he said, ruminating, with his eyes on\nthe fire, and only by times turning them on me.  \"What is the\ndanger?  Where is the danger?  There is danger overhanging somewhere\non the Line.  Some dreadful calamity will happen.  It is not to be\ndoubted this third time, after what has gone before.  But surely\nthis is a cruel haunting of me.  What can I do?\"\n\nHe pulled out his handkerchief, and wiped the drops from his heated\nforehead.\n\n\"If I telegraph Danger, on either side of me, or on both, I can give\nno reason for it,\" he went on, wiping the palms of his hands.  \"I\nshould get into trouble, and do no good.  They would think I was\nmad.  This is the way it would work,--Message:  'Danger!  Take\ncare!'  Answer:  'What Danger?  Where?'  Message:  'Don't know.\nBut, for God's sake, take care!'  They would displace me.  What else\ncould they do?\"\n\nHis pain of mind was most pitiable to see.  It was the mental\ntorture of a conscientious man, oppressed beyond endurance by an\nunintelligible responsibility involving life.\n\n\"When it first stood under the Danger-light,\" he went on, putting\nhis dark hair back from his head, and drawing his hands outward\nacross and across his temples in an extremity of feverish distress,\n\"why not tell me where that accident was to happen,--if it must\nhappen?  Why not tell me how it could be averted,--if it could have\nbeen averted?  When on its second coming it hid its face, why not\ntell me, instead, 'She is going to die.  Let them keep her at home'?\nIf it came, on those two occasions, only to show me that its\nwarnings were true, and so to prepare me for the third, why not warn\nme plainly now?  And I, Lord help me!  A mere poor signal-man on\nthis solitary station!  Why not go to somebody with credit to be\nbelieved, and power to act?\"\n\nWhen I saw him in this state, I saw that for the poor man's sake, as\nwell as for the public safety, what I had to do for the time was to\ncompose his mind.  Therefore, setting aside all question of reality\nor unreality between us, I represented to him that whoever\nthoroughly discharged his duty must do well, and that at least it\nwas his comfort that he understood his duty, though he did not\nunderstand these confounding Appearances.  In this effort I\nsucceeded far better than in the attempt to reason him out of his\nconviction.  He became calm; the occupations incidental to his post\nas the night advanced began to make larger demands on his attention:\nand I left him at two in the morning.  I had offered to stay through\nthe night, but he would not hear of it.\n\nThat I more than once looked back at the red light as I ascended the\npathway, that I did not like the red light, and that I should have\nslept but poorly if my bed had been under it, I see no reason to\nconceal.  Nor did I like the two sequences of the accident and the\ndead girl.  I see no reason to conceal that either.\n\nBut what ran most in my thoughts was the consideration how ought I\nto act, having become the recipient of this disclosure?  I had\nproved the man to be intelligent, vigilant, painstaking, and exact;\nbut how long might he remain so, in his state of mind?  Though in a\nsubordinate position, still he held a most important trust, and\nwould I (for instance) like to stake my own life on the chances of\nhis continuing to execute it with precision?\n\nUnable to overcome a feeling that there would be something\ntreacherous in my communicating what he had told me to his superiors\nin the Company, without first being plain with himself and proposing\na middle course to him, I ultimately resolved to offer to accompany\nhim (otherwise keeping his secret for the present) to the wisest\nmedical practitioner we could hear of in those parts, and to take\nhis opinion.  A change in his time of duty would come round next\nnight, he had apprised me, and he would be off an hour or two after\nsunrise, and on again soon after sunset.  I had appointed to return\naccordingly.\n\nNext evening was a lovely evening, and I walked out early to enjoy\nit.  The sun was not yet quite down when I traversed the field-path\nnear the top of the deep cutting.  I would extend my walk for an\nhour, I said to myself, half an hour on and half an hour back, and\nit would then be time to go to my signal-man's box.\n\nBefore pursuing my stroll, I stepped to the brink, and mechanically\nlooked down, from the point from which I had first seen him.  I\ncannot describe the thrill that seized upon me, when, close at the\nmouth of the tunnel, I saw the appearance of a man, with his left\nsleeve across his eyes, passionately waving his right arm.\n\nThe nameless horror that oppressed me passed in a moment, for in a\nmoment I saw that this appearance of a man was a man indeed, and\nthat there was a little group of other men, standing at a short\ndistance, to whom he seemed to be rehearsing the gesture he made.\nThe Danger-light was not yet lighted.  Against its shaft, a little\nlow hut, entirely new to me, had been made of some wooden supports\nand tarpaulin.  It looked no bigger than a bed.\n\nWith an irresistible sense that something was wrong,--with a\nflashing self-reproachful fear that fatal mischief had come of my\nleaving the man there, and causing no one to be sent to overlook or\ncorrect what he did,--I descended the notched path with all the\nspeed I could make.\n\n\"What is the matter?\" I asked the men.\n\n\"Signal-man killed this morning, sir.\"\n\n\"Not the man belonging to that box?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Not the man I know?\"\n\n\"You will recognise him, sir, if you knew him,\" said the man who\nspoke for the others, solemnly uncovering his own head, and raising\nan end of the tarpaulin, \"for his face is quite composed.\"\n\n\"O, how did this happen, how did this happen?\" I asked, turning from\none to another as the hut closed in again.\n\n\"He was cut down by an engine, sir.  No man in England knew his work\nbetter.  But somehow he was not clear of the outer rail.  It was\njust at broad day.  He had struck the light, and had the lamp in his\nhand.  As the engine came out of the tunnel, his back was towards\nher, and she cut him down.  That man drove her, and was showing how\nit happened.  Show the gentleman, Tom.\"\n\nThe man, who wore a rough dark dress, stepped back to his former\nplace at the mouth of the tunnel.\n\n\"Coming round the curve in the tunnel, sir,\" he said, \"I saw him at\nthe end, like as if I saw him down a perspective-glass.  There was\nno time to check speed, and I knew him to be very careful.  As he\ndidn't seem to take heed of the whistle, I shut it off when we were\nrunning down upon him, and called to him as loud as I could call.\"\n\n\"What did you say?\"\n\n\"I said, 'Below there!  Look out!  Look out!  For God's sake, clear\nthe way!'\"\n\nI started.\n\n\"Ah! it was a dreadful time, sir.  I never left off calling to him.\nI put this arm before my eyes not to see, and I waved this arm to\nthe last; but it was no use.\"\n\n\nWithout prolonging the narrative to dwell on any one of its curious\ncircumstances more than on any other, I may, in closing it, point\nout the coincidence that the warning of the Engine-Driver included,\nnot only the words which the unfortunate Signal-man had repeated to\nme as haunting him, but also the words which I myself--not he--had\nattached, and that only in my own mind, to the gesticulation he had\nimitated.\n\n\n\n\nTHE HAUNTED HOUSE\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I--THE MORTALS IN THE HOUSE\n\n\n\nUnder none of the accredited ghostly circumstances, and environed by\nnone of the conventional ghostly surroundings, did I first make\nacquaintance with the house which is the subject of this Christmas\npiece.  I saw it in the daylight, with the sun upon it.  There was\nno wind, no rain, no lightning, no thunder, no awful or unwonted\ncircumstance, of any kind, to heighten its effect.  More than that:\nI had come to it direct from a railway station:  it was not more\nthan a mile distant from the railway station; and, as I stood\noutside the house, looking back upon the way I had come, I could see\nthe goods train running smoothly along the embankment in the valley.\nI will not say that everything was utterly commonplace, because I\ndoubt if anything can be that, except to utterly commonplace people-\n-and there my vanity steps in; but, I will take it on myself to say\nthat anybody might see the house as I saw it, any fine autumn\nmorning.\n\nThe manner of my lighting on it was this.\n\nI was travelling towards London out of the North, intending to stop\nby the way, to look at the house.  My health required a temporary\nresidence in the country; and a friend of mine who knew that, and\nwho had happened to drive past the house, had written to me to\nsuggest it as a likely place.  I had got into the train at midnight,\nand had fallen asleep, and had woke up and had sat looking out of\nwindow at the brilliant Northern Lights in the sky, and had fallen\nasleep again, and had woke up again to find the night gone, with the\nusual discontented conviction on me that I hadn't been to sleep at\nall;--upon which question, in the first imbecility of that\ncondition, I am ashamed to believe that I would have done wager by\nbattle with the man who sat opposite me.  That opposite man had had,\nthrough the night--as that opposite man always has--several legs too\nmany, and all of them too long.  In addition to this unreasonable\nconduct (which was only to be expected of him), he had had a pencil\nand a pocket-book, and had been perpetually listening and taking\nnotes.  It had appeared to me that these aggravating notes related\nto the jolts and bumps of the carriage, and I should have resigned\nmyself to his taking them, under a general supposition that he was\nin the civil-engineering way of life, if he had not sat staring\nstraight over my head whenever he listened.  He was a goggle-eyed\ngentleman of a perplexed aspect, and his demeanour became\nunbearable.\n\nIt was a cold, dead morning (the sun not being up yet), and when I\nhad out-watched the paling light of the fires of the iron country,\nand the curtain of heavy smoke that hung at once between me and the\nstars and between me and the day, I turned to my fellow-traveller\nand said:\n\n\"I BEG your pardon, sir, but do you observe anything particular in\nme\"?  For, really, he appeared to be taking down, either my\ntravelling-cap or my hair, with a minuteness that was a liberty.\n\nThe goggle-eyed gentleman withdrew his eyes from behind me, as if\nthe back of the carriage were a hundred miles off, and said, with a\nlofty look of compassion for my insignificance:\n\n\"In you, sir?--B.\"\n\n\"B, sir?\" said I, growing warm.\n\n\"I have nothing to do with you, sir,\" returned the gentleman; \"pray\nlet me listen--O.\"\n\nHe enunciated this vowel after a pause, and noted it down.\n\nAt first I was alarmed, for an Express lunatic and no communication\nwith the guard, is a serious position.  The thought came to my\nrelief that the gentleman might be what is popularly called a\nRapper:  one of a sect for (some of) whom I have the highest\nrespect, but whom I don't believe in.  I was going to ask him the\nquestion, when he took the bread out of my mouth.\n\n\"You will excuse me,\" said the gentleman contemptuously, \"if I am\ntoo much in advance of common humanity to trouble myself at all\nabout it.  I have passed the night--as indeed I pass the whole of my\ntime now--in spiritual intercourse.\"\n\n\"O!\" said I, somewhat snappishly.\n\n\"The conferences of the night began,\" continued the gentleman,\nturning several leaves of his note-book, \"with this message:  'Evil\ncommunications corrupt good manners.'\"\n\n\"Sound,\" said I; \"but, absolutely new?\"\n\n\"New from spirits,\" returned the gentleman.\n\nI could only repeat my rather snappish \"O!\" and ask if I might be\nfavoured with the last communication.\n\n\"'A bird in the hand,'\" said the gentleman, reading his last entry\nwith great solemnity, \"'is worth two in the Bosh.'\"\n\n\"Truly I am of the same opinion,\" said I; \"but shouldn't it be\nBush?\"\n\n\"It came to me, Bosh,\" returned the gentleman.\n\nThe gentleman then informed me that the spirit of Socrates had\ndelivered this special revelation in the course of the night.  \"My\nfriend, I hope you are pretty well.  There are two in this railway\ncarriage.  How do you do?  There are seventeen thousand four hundred\nand seventy-nine spirits here, but you cannot see them.  Pythagoras\nis here.  He is not at liberty to mention it, but hopes you like\ntravelling.\"  Galileo likewise had dropped in, with this scientific\nintelligence.  \"I am glad to see you, AMICO. COME STA?  Water will\nfreeze when it is cold enough.  ADDIO!\"  In the course of the night,\nalso, the following phenomena had occurred.  Bishop Butler had\ninsisted on spelling his name, \"Bubler,\" for which offence against\northography and good manners he had been dismissed as out of temper.\nJohn Milton (suspected of wilful mystification) had repudiated the\nauthorship of Paradise Lost, and had introduced, as joint authors of\nthat poem, two Unknown gentlemen, respectively named Grungers and\nScadgingtone.  And Prince Arthur, nephew of King John of England,\nhad described himself as tolerably comfortable in the seventh\ncircle, where he was learning to paint on velvet, under the\ndirection of Mrs. Trimmer and Mary Queen of Scots.\n\nIf this should meet the eye of the gentleman who favoured me with\nthese disclosures, I trust he will excuse my confessing that the\nsight of the rising sun, and the contemplation of the magnificent\nOrder of the vast Universe, made me impatient of them.  In a word, I\nwas so impatient of them, that I was mightily glad to get out at the\nnext station, and to exchange these clouds and vapours for the free\nair of Heaven.\n\nBy that time it was a beautiful morning.  As I walked away among\nsuch leaves as had already fallen from the golden, brown, and russet\ntrees; and as I looked around me on the wonders of Creation, and\nthought of the steady, unchanging, and harmonious laws by which they\nare sustained; the gentleman's spiritual intercourse seemed to me as\npoor a piece of journey-work as ever this world saw.  In which\nheathen state of mind, I came within view of the house, and stopped\nto examine it attentively.\n\nIt was a solitary house, standing in a sadly neglected garden:  a\npretty even square of some two acres.  It was a house of about the\ntime of George the Second; as stiff, as cold, as formal, and in as\nbad taste, as could possibly be desired by the most loyal admirer of\nthe whole quartet of Georges.  It was uninhabited, but had, within a\nyear or two, been cheaply repaired to render it habitable; I say\ncheaply, because the work had been done in a surface manner, and was\nalready decaying as to the paint and plaster, though the colours\nwere fresh.  A lop-sided board drooped over the garden wall,\nannouncing that it was \"to let on very reasonable terms, well\nfurnished.\"  It was much too closely and heavily shadowed by trees,\nand, in particular, there were six tall poplars before the front\nwindows, which were excessively melancholy, and the site of which\nhad been extremely ill chosen.\n\nIt was easy to see that it was an avoided house--a house that was\nshunned by the village, to which my eye was guided by a church spire\nsome half a mile off--a house that nobody would take.  And the\nnatural inference was, that it had the reputation of being a haunted\nhouse.\n\nNo period within the four-and-twenty hours of day and night is so\nsolemn to me, as the early morning.  In the summer-time, I often\nrise very early, and repair to my room to do a day's work before\nbreakfast, and I am always on those occasions deeply impressed by\nthe stillness and solitude around me.  Besides that there is\nsomething awful in the being surrounded by familiar faces asleep--in\nthe knowledge that those who are dearest to us and to whom we are\ndearest, are profoundly unconscious of us, in an impassive state,\nanticipative of that mysterious condition to which we are all\ntending--the stopped life, the broken threads of yesterday, the\ndeserted seat, the closed book, the unfinished but abandoned\noccupation, all are images of Death.  The tranquillity of the hour\nis the tranquillity of Death.  The colour and the chill have the\nsame association.  Even a certain air that familiar household\nobjects take upon them when they first emerge from the shadows of\nthe night into the morning, of being newer, and as they used to be\nlong ago, has its counterpart in the subsidence of the worn face of\nmaturity or age, in death, into the old youthful look.  Moreover, I\nonce saw the apparition of my father, at this hour.  He was alive\nand well, and nothing ever came of it, but I saw him in the\ndaylight, sitting with his back towards me, on a seat that stood\nbeside my bed.  His head was resting on his hand, and whether he was\nslumbering or grieving, I could not discern.  Amazed to see him\nthere, I sat up, moved my position, leaned out of bed, and watched\nhim.  As he did not move, I spoke to him more than once.  As he did\nnot move then, I became alarmed and laid my hand upon his shoulder,\nas I thought--and there was no such thing.\n\nFor all these reasons, and for others less easily and briefly\nstatable, I find the early morning to be my most ghostly time.  Any\nhouse would be more or less haunted, to me, in the early morning;\nand a haunted house could scarcely address me to greater advantage\nthan then.\n\nI walked on into the village, with the desertion of this house upon\nmy mind, and I found the landlord of the little inn, sanding his\ndoor-step.  I bespoke breakfast, and broached the subject of the\nhouse.\n\n\"Is it haunted?\" I asked.\n\nThe landlord looked at me, shook his head, and answered, \"I say\nnothing.\"\n\n\"Then it IS haunted?\"\n\n\"Well!\" cried the landlord, in an outburst of frankness that had the\nappearance of desperation--\"I wouldn't sleep in it.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"If I wanted to have all the bells in a house ring, with nobody to\nring 'em; and all the doors in a house bang, with nobody to bang\n'em; and all sorts of feet treading about, with no feet there; why,\nthen,\" said the landlord, \"I'd sleep in that house.\"\n\n\"Is anything seen there?\"\n\nThe landlord looked at me again, and then, with his former\nappearance of desperation, called down his stable-yard for \"Ikey!\"\n\nThe call produced a high-shouldered young fellow, with a round red\nface, a short crop of sandy hair, a very broad humorous mouth, a\nturned-up nose, and a great sleeved waistcoat of purple bars, with\nmother-of-pearl buttons, that seemed to be growing upon him, and to\nbe in a fair way--if it were not pruned--of covering his head and\noverunning his boots.\n\n\"This gentleman wants to know,\" said the landlord, \"if anything's\nseen at the Poplars.\"\n\n\"'Ooded woman with a howl,\" said Ikey, in a state of great\nfreshness.\n\n\"Do you mean a cry?\"\n\n\"I mean a bird, sir.\"\n\n\"A hooded woman with an owl.  Dear me!  Did you ever see her?\"\n\n\"I seen the howl.\"\n\n\"Never the woman?\"\n\n\"Not so plain as the howl, but they always keeps together.\"\n\n\"Has anybody ever seen the woman as plainly as the owl?\"\n\n\"Lord bless you, sir!  Lots.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"Lord bless you, sir!  Lots.\"\n\n\"The general-dealer opposite, for instance, who is opening his\nshop?\"\n\n\"Perkins?  Bless you, Perkins wouldn't go a-nigh the place.  No!\"\nobserved the young man, with considerable feeling; \"he an't\noverwise, an't Perkins, but he an't such a fool as THAT.\"\n\n(Here, the landlord murmured his confidence in Perkins's knowing\nbetter.)\n\n\"Who is--or who was--the hooded woman with the owl?  Do you know?\"\n\n\"Well!\" said Ikey, holding up his cap with one hand while he\nscratched his head with the other, \"they say, in general, that she\nwas murdered, and the howl he 'ooted the while.\"\n\nThis very concise summary of the facts was all I could learn, except\nthat a young man, as hearty and likely a young man as ever I see,\nhad been took with fits and held down in 'em, after seeing the\nhooded woman.  Also, that a personage, dimly described as \"a hold\nchap, a sort of one-eyed tramp, answering to the name of Joby,\nunless you challenged him as Greenwood, and then he said, 'Why not?\nand even if so, mind your own business,'\" had encountered the hooded\nwoman, a matter of five or six times.  But, I was not materially\nassisted by these witnesses:  inasmuch as the first was in\nCalifornia, and the last was, as Ikey said (and he was confirmed by\nthe landlord), Anywheres.\n\nNow, although I regard with a hushed and solemn fear, the mysteries,\nbetween which and this state of existence is interposed the barrier\nof the great trial and change that fall on all the things that live;\nand although I have not the audacity to pretend that I know anything\nof them; I can no more reconcile the mere banging of doors, ringing\nof bells, creaking of boards, and such-like insignificances, with\nthe majestic beauty and pervading analogy of all the Divine rules\nthat I am permitted to understand, than I had been able, a little\nwhile before, to yoke the spiritual intercourse of my fellow-\ntraveller to the chariot of the rising sun.  Moreover, I had lived\nin two haunted houses--both abroad.  In one of these, an old Italian\npalace, which bore the reputation of being very badly haunted\nindeed, and which had recently been twice abandoned on that account,\nI lived eight months, most tranquilly and pleasantly:\nnotwithstanding that the house had a score of mysterious bedrooms,\nwhich were never used, and possessed, in one large room in which I\nsat reading, times out of number at all hours, and next to which I\nslept, a haunted chamber of the first pretensions.  I gently hinted\nthese considerations to the landlord.  And as to this particular\nhouse having a bad name, I reasoned with him, Why, how many things\nhad bad names undeservedly, and how easy it was to give bad names,\nand did he not think that if he and I were persistently to whisper\nin the village that any weird-looking old drunken tinker of the\nneighbourhood had sold himself to the Devil, he would come in time\nto be suspected of that commercial venture!  All this wise talk was\nperfectly ineffective with the landlord, I am bound to confess, and\nwas as dead a failure as ever I made in my life.\n\nTo cut this part of the story short, I was piqued about the haunted\nhouse, and was already half resolved to take it.  So, after\nbreakfast, I got the keys from Perkins's brother-in-law (a whip and\nharness maker, who keeps the Post Office, and is under submission to\na most rigorous wife of the Doubly Seceding Little Emmanuel\npersuasion), and went up to the house, attended by my landlord and\nby Ikey.\n\nWithin, I found it, as I had expected, transcendently dismal.  The\nslowly changing shadows waved on it from the heavy trees, were\ndoleful in the last degree; the house was ill-placed, ill-built,\nill-planned, and ill-fitted.  It was damp, it was not free from dry\nrot, there was a flavour of rats in it, and it was the gloomy victim\nof that indescribable decay which settles on all the work of man's\nhands whenever it's not turned to man's account.  The kitchens and\noffices were too large, and too remote from each other.  Above\nstairs and below, waste tracts of passage intervened between patches\nof fertility represented by rooms; and there was a mouldy old well\nwith a green growth upon it, hiding like a murderous trap, near the\nbottom of the back-stairs, under the double row of bells.  One of\nthese bells was labelled, on a black ground in faded white letters,\nMASTER B.  This, they told me, was the bell that rang the most.\n\n\"Who was Master B.?\" I asked.  \"Is it known what he did while the\nowl hooted?\"\n\n\"Rang the bell,\" said Ikey.\n\nI was rather struck by the prompt dexterity with which this young\nman pitched his fur cap at the bell, and rang it himself.  It was a\nloud, unpleasant bell, and made a very disagreeable sound.  The\nother bells were inscribed according to the names of the rooms to\nwhich their wires were conducted:  as \"Picture Room,\" \"Double Room,\"\n\"Clock Room,\" and the like.  Following Master B.'s bell to its\nsource I found that young gentleman to have had but indifferent\nthird-class accommodation in a triangular cabin under the cock-loft,\nwith a corner fireplace which Master B. must have been exceedingly\nsmall if he were ever able to warm himself at, and a corner chimney-\npiece like a pyramidal staircase to the ceiling for Tom Thumb.  The\npapering of one side of the room had dropped down bodily, with\nfragments of plaster adhering to it, and almost blocked up the door.\nIt appeared that Master B., in his spiritual condition, always made\na point of pulling the paper down.  Neither the landlord nor Ikey\ncould suggest why he made such a fool of himself.\n\nExcept that the house had an immensely large rambling loft at top, I\nmade no other discoveries.  It was moderately well furnished, but\nsparely.  Some of the furniture--say, a third--was as old as the\nhouse; the rest was of various periods within the last half-century.\nI was referred to a corn-chandler in the market-place of the county\ntown to treat for the house.  I went that day, and I took it for six\nmonths.\n\nIt was just the middle of October when I moved in with my maiden\nsister (I venture to call her eight-and-thirty, she is so very\nhandsome, sensible, and engaging).  We took with us, a deaf stable-\nman, my bloodhound Turk, two women servants, and a young person\ncalled an Odd Girl.  I have reason to record of the attendant last\nenumerated, who was one of the Saint Lawrence's Union Female\nOrphans, that she was a fatal mistake and a disastrous engagement.\n\nThe year was dying early, the leaves were falling fast, it was a raw\ncold day when we took possession, and the gloom of the house was\nmost depressing.  The cook (an amiable woman, but of a weak turn of\nintellect) burst into tears on beholding the kitchen, and requested\nthat her silver watch might be delivered over to her sister (2\nTuppintock's Gardens, Liggs's Walk, Clapham Rise), in the event of\nanything happening to her from the damp.  Streaker, the housemaid,\nfeigned cheerfulness, but was the greater martyr.  The Odd Girl, who\nhad never been in the country, alone was pleased, and made\narrangements for sowing an acorn in the garden outside the scullery\nwindow, and rearing an oak.\n\nWe went, before dark, through all the natural--as opposed to\nsupernatural--miseries incidental to our state.  Dispiriting reports\nascended (like the smoke) from the basement in volumes, and\ndescended from the upper rooms.  There was no rolling-pin, there was\nno salamander (which failed to surprise me, for I don't know what it\nis), there was nothing in the house, what there was, was broken, the\nlast people must have lived like pigs, what could the meaning of the\nlandlord be?  Through these distresses, the Odd Girl was cheerful\nand exemplary.  But within four hours after dark we had got into a\nsupernatural groove, and the Odd Girl had seen \"Eyes,\" and was in\nhysterics.\n\nMy sister and I had agreed to keep the haunting strictly to\nourselves, and my impression was, and still is, that I had not left\nIkey, when he helped to unload the cart, alone with the women, or\nany one of them, for one minute.  Nevertheless, as I say, the Odd\nGirl had \"seen Eyes\" (no other explanation could ever be drawn from\nher), before nine, and by ten o'clock had had as much vinegar\napplied to her as would pickle a handsome salmon.\n\nI leave a discerning public to judge of my feelings, when, under\nthese untoward circumstances, at about half-past ten o'clock Master\nB.'s bell began to ring in a most infuriated manner, and Turk howled\nuntil the house resounded with his lamentations!\n\nI hope I may never again be in a state of mind so unchristian as the\nmental frame in which I lived for some weeks, respecting the memory\nof Master B.  Whether his bell was rung by rats, or mice, or bats,\nor wind, or what other accidental vibration, or sometimes by one\ncause, sometimes another, and sometimes by collusion, I don't know;\nbut, certain it is, that it did ring two nights out of three, until\nI conceived the happy idea of twisting Master B.'s neck--in other\nwords, breaking his bell short off--and silencing that young\ngentleman, as to my experience and belief, for ever.\n\nBut, by that time, the Odd Girl had developed such improving powers\nof catalepsy, that she had become a shining example of that very\ninconvenient disorder.  She would stiffen, like a Guy Fawkes endowed\nwith unreason, on the most irrelevant occasions.  I would address\nthe servants in a lucid manner, pointing out to them that I had\npainted Master B.'s room and balked the paper, and taken Master B.'s\nbell away and balked the ringing, and if they could suppose that\nthat confounded boy had lived and died, to clothe himself with no\nbetter behaviour than would most unquestionably have brought him and\nthe sharpest particles of a birch-broom into close acquaintance in\nthe present imperfect state of existence, could they also suppose a\nmere poor human being, such as I was, capable by those contemptible\nmeans of counteracting and limiting the powers of the disembodied\nspirits of the dead, or of any spirits?--I say I would become\nemphatic and cogent, not to say rather complacent, in such an\naddress, when it would all go for nothing by reason of the Odd\nGirl's suddenly stiffening from the toes upward, and glaring among\nus like a parochial petrifaction.\n\nStreaker, the housemaid, too, had an attribute of a most\ndiscomfiting nature.  I am unable to say whether she was of an\nusually lymphatic temperament, or what else was the matter with her,\nbut this young woman became a mere Distillery for the production of\nthe largest and most transparent tears I ever met with.  Combined\nwith these characteristics, was a peculiar tenacity of hold in those\nspecimens, so that they didn't fall, but hung upon her face and\nnose.  In this condition, and mildly and deplorably shaking her\nhead, her silence would throw me more heavily than the Admirable\nCrichton could have done in a verbal disputation for a purse of\nmoney.  Cook, likewise, always covered me with confusion as with a\ngarment, by neatly winding up the session with the protest that the\nOuse was wearing her out, and by meekly repeating her last wishes\nregarding her silver watch.\n\nAs to our nightly life, the contagion of suspicion and fear was\namong us, and there is no such contagion under the sky.  Hooded\nwoman?  According to the accounts, we were in a perfect Convent of\nhooded women.  Noises?  With that contagion downstairs, I myself\nhave sat in the dismal parlour, listening, until I have heard so\nmany and such strange noises, that they would have chilled my blood\nif I had not warmed it by dashing out to make discoveries.  Try this\nin bed, in the dead of the night:  try this at your own comfortable\nfire-side, in the life of the night.  You can fill any house with\nnoises, if you will, until you have a noise for every nerve in your\nnervous system.\n\nI repeat; the contagion of suspicion and fear was among us, and\nthere is no such contagion under the sky.  The women (their noses in\na chronic state of excoriation from smelling-salts) were always\nprimed and loaded for a swoon, and ready to go off with hair-\ntriggers.  The two elder detached the Odd Girl on all expeditions\nthat were considered doubly hazardous, and she always established\nthe reputation of such adventures by coming back cataleptic.  If\nCook or Streaker went overhead after dark, we knew we should\npresently hear a bump on the ceiling; and this took place so\nconstantly, that it was as if a fighting man were engaged to go\nabout the house, administering a touch of his art which I believe is\ncalled The Auctioneer, to every domestic he met with.\n\nIt was in vain to do anything.  It was in vain to be frightened, for\nthe moment in one's own person, by a real owl, and then to show the\nowl.  It was in vain to discover, by striking an accidental discord\non the piano, that Turk always howled at particular notes and\ncombinations.  It was in vain to be a Rhadamanthus with the bells,\nand if an unfortunate bell rang without leave, to have it down\ninexorably and silence it.  It was in vain to fire up chimneys, let\ntorches down the well, charge furiously into suspected rooms and\nrecesses.  We changed servants, and it was no better.  The new set\nran away, and a third set came, and it was no better.  At last, our\ncomfortable housekeeping got to be so disorganised and wretched,\nthat I one night dejectedly said to my sister:  \"Patty, I begin to\ndespair of our getting people to go on with us here, and I think we\nmust give this up.\"\n\nMy sister, who is a woman of immense spirit, replied, \"No, John,\ndon't give it up.  Don't be beaten, John.  There is another way.\"\n\n\"And what is that?\" said I.\n\n\"John,\" returned my sister, \"if we are not to be driven out of this\nhouse, and that for no reason whatever, that is apparent to you or\nme, we must help ourselves and take the house wholly and solely into\nour own hands.\"\n\n\"But, the servants,\" said I.\n\n\"Have no servants,\" said my sister, boldly.\n\nLike most people in my grade of life, I had never thought of the\npossibility of going on without those faithful obstructions.  The\nnotion was so new to me when suggested, that I looked very doubtful.\n\"We know they come here to be frightened and infect one another, and\nwe know they are frightened and do infect one another,\" said my\nsister.\n\n\"With the exception of Bottles,\" I observed, in a meditative tone.\n\n(The deaf stable-man.  I kept him in my service, and still keep him,\nas a phenomenon of moroseness not to be matched in England.)\n\n\"To be sure, John,\" assented my sister; \"except Bottles.  And what\ndoes that go to prove?  Bottles talks to nobody, and hears nobody\nunless he is absolutely roared at, and what alarm has Bottles ever\ngiven, or taken!  None.\"\n\nThis was perfectly true; the individual in question having retired,\nevery night at ten o'clock, to his bed over the coach-house, with no\nother company than a pitchfork and a pail of water.  That the pail\nof water would have been over me, and the pitchfork through me, if I\nhad put myself without announcement in Bottles's way after that\nminute, I had deposited in my own mind as a fact worth remembering.\nNeither had Bottles ever taken the least notice of any of our many\nuproars.  An imperturbable and speechless man, he had sat at his\nsupper, with Streaker present in a swoon, and the Odd Girl marble,\nand had only put another potato in his cheek, or profited by the\ngeneral misery to help himself to beefsteak pie.\n\n\"And so,\" continued my sister, \"I exempt Bottles.  And considering,\nJohn, that the house is too large, and perhaps too lonely, to be\nkept well in hand by Bottles, you, and me, I propose that we cast\nabout among our friends for a certain selected number of the most\nreliable and willing--form a Society here for three months--wait\nupon ourselves and one another--live cheerfully and socially--and\nsee what happens.\"\n\nI was so charmed with my sister, that I embraced her on the spot,\nand went into her plan with the greatest ardour.\n\nWe were then in the third week of November; but, we took our\nmeasures so vigorously, and were so well seconded by the friends in\nwhom we confided, that there was still a week of the month\nunexpired, when our party all came down together merrily, and\nmustered in the haunted house.\n\nI will mention, in this place, two small changes that I made while\nmy sister and I were yet alone.  It occurring to me as not\nimprobable that Turk howled in the house at night, partly because he\nwanted to get out of it, I stationed him in his kennel outside, but\nunchained; and I seriously warned the village that any man who came\nin his way must not expect to leave him without a rip in his own\nthroat.  I then casually asked Ikey if he were a judge of a gun?  On\nhis saying, \"Yes, sir, I knows a good gun when I sees her,\" I begged\nthe favour of his stepping up to the house and looking at mine.\n\n\"SHE'S a true one, sir,\" said Ikey, after inspecting a double-\nbarrelled rifle that I bought in New York a few years ago.  \"No\nmistake about HER, sir.\"\n\n\"Ikey,\" said I, \"don't mention it; I have seen something in this\nhouse.\"\n\n\"No, sir?\" he whispered, greedily opening his eyes.  \"'Ooded lady,\nsir?\"\n\n\"Don't be frightened,\" said I.  \"It was a figure rather like you.\"\n\n\"Lord, sir?\"\n\n\"Ikey!\" said I, shaking hands with him warmly:  I may say\naffectionately; \"if there is any truth in these ghost-stories, the\ngreatest service I can do you, is, to fire at that figure.  And I\npromise you, by Heaven and earth, I will do it with this gun if I\nsee it again!\"\n\nThe young man thanked me, and took his leave with some little\nprecipitation, after declining a glass of liquor.  I imparted my\nsecret to him, because I had never quite forgotten his throwing his\ncap at the bell; because I had, on another occasion, noticed\nsomething very like a fur cap, lying not far from the bell, one\nnight when it had burst out ringing; and because I had remarked that\nwe were at our ghostliest whenever he came up in the evening to\ncomfort the servants.  Let me do Ikey no injustice.  He was afraid\nof the house, and believed in its being haunted; and yet he would\nplay false on the haunting side, so surely as he got an opportunity.\nThe Odd Girl's case was exactly similar.  She went about the house\nin a state of real terror, and yet lied monstrously and wilfully,\nand invented many of the alarms she spread, and made many of the\nsounds we heard.  I had had my eye on the two, and I know it.  It is\nnot necessary for me, here, to account for this preposterous state\nof mind; I content myself with remarking that it is familiarly known\nto every intelligent man who has had fair medical, legal, or other\nwatchful experience; that it is as well established and as common a\nstate of mind as any with which observers are acquainted; and that\nit is one of the first elements, above all others, rationally to be\nsuspected in, and strictly looked for, and separated from, any\nquestion of this kind.\n\nTo return to our party.  The first thing we did when we were all\nassembled, was, to draw lots for bedrooms.  That done, and every\nbedroom, and, indeed, the whole house, having been minutely examined\nby the whole body, we allotted the various household duties, as if\nwe had been on a gipsy party, or a yachting party, or a hunting\nparty, or were shipwrecked.  I then recounted the floating rumours\nconcerning the hooded lady, the owl, and Master B.:  with others,\nstill more filmy, which had floated about during our occupation,\nrelative to some ridiculous old ghost of the female gender who went\nup and down, carrying the ghost of a round table; and also to an\nimpalpable Jackass, whom nobody was ever able to catch.  Some of\nthese ideas I really believe our people below had communicated to\none another in some diseased way, without conveying them in words.\nWe then gravely called one another to witness, that we were not\nthere to be deceived, or to deceive--which we considered pretty much\nthe same thing--and that, with a serious sense of responsibility, we\nwould be strictly true to one another, and would strictly follow out\nthe truth.  The understanding was established, that any one who\nheard unusual noises in the night, and who wished to trace them,\nshould knock at my door; lastly, that on Twelfth Night, the last\nnight of holy Christmas, all our individual experiences since that\nthen present hour of our coming together in the haunted house,\nshould be brought to light for the good of all; and that we would\nhold our peace on the subject till then, unless on some remarkable\nprovocation to break silence.\n\nWe were, in number and in character, as follows:\n\nFirst--to get my sister and myself out of the way--there were we\ntwo.  In the drawing of lots, my sister drew her own room, and I\ndrew Master B.'s.  Next, there was our first cousin John Herschel,\nso called after the great astronomer:  than whom I suppose a better\nman at a telescope does not breathe.  With him, was his wife:  a\ncharming creature to whom he had been married in the previous\nspring.  I thought it (under the circumstances) rather imprudent to\nbring her, because there is no knowing what even a false alarm may\ndo at such a time; but I suppose he knew his own business best, and\nI must say that if she had been MY wife, I never could have left her\nendearing and bright face behind.  They drew the Clock Room.  Alfred\nStarling, an uncommonly agreeable young fellow of eight-and-twenty\nfor whom I have the greatest liking, was in the Double Room; mine,\nusually, and designated by that name from having a dressing-room\nwithin it, with two large and cumbersome windows, which no wedges I\nwas ever able to make, would keep from shaking, in any weather, wind\nor no wind.  Alfred is a young fellow who pretends to be \"fast\"\n(another word for loose, as I understand the term), but who is much\ntoo good and sensible for that nonsense, and who would have\ndistinguished himself before now, if his father had not\nunfortunately left him a small independence of two hundred a year,\non the strength of which his only occupation in life has been to\nspend six.  I am in hopes, however, that his Banker may break, or\nthat he may enter into some speculation guaranteed to pay twenty per\ncent.; for, I am convinced that if he could only be ruined, his\nfortune is made.  Belinda Bates, bosom friend of my sister, and a\nmost intellectual, amiable, and delightful girl, got the Picture\nRoom.  She has a fine genius for poetry, combined with real business\nearnestness, and \"goes in\"--to use an expression of Alfred's--for\nWoman's mission, Woman's rights, Woman's wrongs, and everything that\nis woman's with a capital W, or is not and ought to be, or is and\nought not to be.  \"Most praiseworthy, my dear, and Heaven prosper\nyou!\" I whispered to her on the first night of my taking leave of\nher at the Picture-Room door, \"but don't overdo it.  And in respect\nof the great necessity there is, my darling, for more employments\nbeing within the reach of Woman than our civilisation has as yet\nassigned to her, don't fly at the unfortunate men, even those men\nwho are at first sight in your way, as if they were the natural\noppressors of your sex; for, trust me, Belinda, they do sometimes\nspend their wages among wives and daughters, sisters, mothers,\naunts, and grandmothers; and the play is, really, not ALL Wolf and\nRed Riding-Hood, but has other parts in it.\"  However, I digress.\n\nBelinda, as I have mentioned, occupied the Picture Room.  We had but\nthree other chambers:  the Corner Room, the Cupboard Room, and the\nGarden Room.  My old friend, Jack Governor, \"slung his hammock,\" as\nhe called it, in the Corner Room.  I have always regarded Jack as\nthe finest-looking sailor that ever sailed.  He is gray now, but as\nhandsome as he was a quarter of a century ago--nay, handsomer.  A\nportly, cheery, well-built figure of a broad-shouldered man, with a\nfrank smile, a brilliant dark eye, and a rich dark eyebrow.  I\nremember those under darker hair, and they look all the better for\ntheir silver setting.  He has been wherever his Union namesake\nflies, has Jack, and I have met old shipmates of his, away in the\nMediterranean and on the other side of the Atlantic, who have beamed\nand brightened at the casual mention of his name, and have cried,\n\"You know Jack Governor?  Then you know a prince of men!\"  That he\nis!  And so unmistakably a naval officer, that if you were to meet\nhim coming out of an Esquimaux snow-hut in seal's skin, you would be\nvaguely persuaded he was in full naval uniform.\n\nJack once had that bright clear eye of his on my sister; but, it\nfell out that he married another lady and took her to South America,\nwhere she died.  This was a dozen years ago or more.  He brought\ndown with him to our haunted house a little cask of salt beef; for,\nhe is always convinced that all salt beef not of his own pickling,\nis mere carrion, and invariably, when he goes to London, packs a\npiece in his portmanteau.  He had also volunteered to bring with him\none \"Nat Beaver,\" an old comrade of his, captain of a merchantman.\nMr. Beaver, with a thick-set wooden face and figure, and apparently\nas hard as a block all over, proved to be an intelligent man, with a\nworld of watery experiences in him, and great practical knowledge.\nAt times, there was a curious nervousness about him, apparently the\nlingering result of some old illness; but, it seldom lasted many\nminutes.  He got the Cupboard Room, and lay there next to Mr.\nUndery, my friend and solicitor:  who came down, in an amateur\ncapacity, \"to go through with it,\" as he said, and who plays whist\nbetter than the whole Law List, from the red cover at the beginning\nto the red cover at the end.\n\nI never was happier in my life, and I believe it was the universal\nfeeling among us.  Jack Governor, always a man of wonderful\nresources, was Chief Cook, and made some of the best dishes I ever\nate, including unapproachable curries.  My sister was pastrycook and\nconfectioner.  Starling and I were Cook's Mate, turn and turn about,\nand on special occasions the chief cook \"pressed\" Mr. Beaver.  We\nhad a great deal of out-door sport and exercise, but nothing was\nneglected within, and there was no ill-humour or misunderstanding\namong us, and our evenings were so delightful that we had at least\none good reason for being reluctant to go to bed.\n\nWe had a few night alarms in the beginning.  On the first night, I\nwas knocked up by Jack with a most wonderful ship's lantern in his\nhand, like the gills of some monster of the deep, who informed me\nthat he \"was going aloft to the main truck,\" to have the weathercock\ndown.  It was a stormy night and I remonstrated; but Jack called my\nattention to its making a sound like a cry of despair, and said\nsomebody would be \"hailing a ghost\" presently, if it wasn't done.\nSo, up to the top of the house, where I could hardly stand for the\nwind, we went, accompanied by Mr. Beaver; and there Jack, lantern\nand all, with Mr. Beaver after him, swarmed up to the top of a\ncupola, some two dozen feet above the chimneys, and stood upon\nnothing particular, coolly knocking the weathercock off, until they\nboth got into such good spirits with the wind and the height, that I\nthought they would never come down.  Another night, they turned out\nagain, and had a chimney-cowl off.  Another night, they cut a\nsobbing and gulping water-pipe away.  Another night, they found out\nsomething else.  On several occasions, they both, in the coolest\nmanner, simultaneously dropped out of their respective bedroom\nwindows, hand over hand by their counterpanes, to \"overhaul\"\nsomething mysterious in the garden.\n\nThe engagement among us was faithfully kept, and nobody revealed\nanything.  All we knew was, if any one's room were haunted, no one\nlooked the worse for it.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II--THE GHOST IN MASTER B.'S ROOM\n\n\n\nWhen I established myself in the triangular garret which had gained\nso distinguished a reputation, my thoughts naturally turned to\nMaster B.  My speculations about him were uneasy and manifold.\nWhether his Christian name was Benjamin, Bissextile (from his having\nbeen born in Leap Year), Bartholomew, or Bill.  Whether the initial\nletter belonged to his family name, and that was Baxter, Black,\nBrown, Barker, Buggins, Baker, or Bird.  Whether he was a foundling,\nand had been baptized B.  Whether he was a lion-hearted boy, and B.\nwas short for Briton, or for Bull.  Whether he could possibly have\nbeen kith and kin to an illustrious lady who brightened my own\nchildhood, and had come of the blood of the brilliant Mother Bunch?\n\nWith these profitless meditations I tormented myself much.  I also\ncarried the mysterious letter into the appearance and pursuits of\nthe deceased; wondering whether he dressed in Blue, wore Boots (he\ncouldn't have been Bald), was a boy of Brains, liked Books, was good\nat Bowling, had any skill as a Boxer, even in his Buoyant Boyhood\nBathed from a Bathing-machine at Bognor, Bangor, Bournemouth,\nBrighton, or Broadstairs, like a Bounding Billiard Ball?\n\nSo, from the first, I was haunted by the letter B.\n\nIt was not long before I remarked that I never by any hazard had a\ndream of Master B., or of anything belonging to him.  But, the\ninstant I awoke from sleep, at whatever hour of the night, my\nthoughts took him up, and roamed away, trying to attach his initial\nletter to something that would fit it and keep it quiet.\n\nFor six nights, I had been worried this in Master B.'s room, when I\nbegan to perceive that things were going wrong.\n\nThe first appearance that presented itself was early in the morning\nwhen it was but just daylight and no more.  I was standing shaving\nat my glass, when I suddenly discovered, to my consternation and\namazement, that I was shaving--not myself--I am fifty--but a boy.\nApparently Master B.!\n\nI trembled and looked over my shoulder; nothing there.  I looked\nagain in the glass, and distinctly saw the features and expression\nof a boy, who was shaving, not to get rid of a beard, but to get\none.  Extremely troubled in my mind, I took a few turns in the room,\nand went back to the looking-glass, resolved to steady my hand and\ncomplete the operation in which I had been disturbed.  Opening my\neyes, which I had shut while recovering my firmness, I now met in\nthe glass, looking straight at me, the eyes of a young man of four\nor five and twenty.  Terrified by this new ghost, I closed my eyes,\nand made a strong effort to recover myself.  Opening them again, I\nsaw, shaving his cheek in the glass, my father, who has long been\ndead.  Nay, I even saw my grandfather too, whom I never did see in\nmy life.\n\nAlthough naturally much affected by these remarkable visitations, I\ndetermined to keep my secret, until the time agreed upon for the\npresent general disclosure.  Agitated by a multitude of curious\nthoughts, I retired to my room, that night, prepared to encounter\nsome new experience of a spectral character.  Nor was my preparation\nneedless, for, waking from an uneasy sleep at exactly two o'clock in\nthe morning, what were my feelings to find that I was sharing my bed\nwith the skeleton of Master B.!\n\nI sprang up, and the skeleton sprang up also.  I then heard a\nplaintive voice saying, \"Where am I?  What is become of me?\" and,\nlooking hard in that direction, perceived the ghost of Master B.\n\nThe young spectre was dressed in an obsolete fashion:  or rather,\nwas not so much dressed as put into a case of inferior pepper-and-\nsalt cloth, made horrible by means of shining buttons.  I observed\nthat these buttons went, in a double row, over each shoulder of the\nyoung ghost, and appeared to descend his back.  He wore a frill\nround his neck.  His right hand (which I distinctly noticed to be\ninky) was laid upon his stomach; connecting this action with some\nfeeble pimples on his countenance, and his general air of nausea, I\nconcluded this ghost to be the ghost of a boy who had habitually\ntaken a great deal too much medicine.\n\n\"Where am I?\" said the little spectre, in a pathetic voice.  \"And\nwhy was I born in the Calomel days, and why did I have all that\nCalomel given me?\"\n\nI replied, with sincere earnestness, that upon my soul I couldn't\ntell him.\n\n\"Where is my little sister,\" said the ghost, \"and where my angelic\nlittle wife, and where is the boy I went to school with?\"\n\nI entreated the phantom to be comforted, and above all things to\ntake heart respecting the loss of the boy he went to school with.  I\nrepresented to him that probably that boy never did, within human\nexperience, come out well, when discovered.  I urged that I myself\nhad, in later life, turned up several boys whom I went to school\nwith, and none of them had at all answered.  I expressed my humble\nbelief that that boy never did answer.  I represented that he was a\nmythic character, a delusion, and a snare.  I recounted how, the\nlast time I found him, I found him at a dinner party behind a wall\nof white cravat, with an inconclusive opinion on every possible\nsubject, and a power of silent boredom absolutely Titanic.  I\nrelated how, on the strength of our having been together at \"Old\nDoylance's,\" he had asked himself to breakfast with me (a social\noffence of the largest magnitude); how, fanning my weak embers of\nbelief in Doylance's boys, I had let him in; and how, he had proved\nto be a fearful wanderer about the earth, pursuing the race of Adam\nwith inexplicable notions concerning the currency, and with a\nproposition that the Bank of England should, on pain of being\nabolished, instantly strike off and circulate, God knows how many\nthousand millions of ten-and-sixpenny notes.\n\nThe ghost heard me in silence, and with a fixed stare.  \"Barber!\" it\napostrophised me when I had finished.\n\n\"Barber?\" I repeated--for I am not of that profession.\n\n\"Condemned,\" said the ghost, \"to shave a constant change of\ncustomers--now, me--now, a young man--now, thyself as thou art--now,\nthy father--now, thy grandfather; condemned, too, to lie down with a\nskeleton every night, and to rise with it every morning--\"\n\n(I shuddered on hearing this dismal announcement.)\n\n\"Barber!  Pursue me!\"\n\nI had felt, even before the words were uttered, that I was under a\nspell to pursue the phantom.  I immediately did so, and was in\nMaster B.'s room no longer.\n\nMost people know what long and fatiguing night journeys had been\nforced upon the witches who used to confess, and who, no doubt, told\nthe exact truth--particularly as they were always assisted with\nleading questions, and the Torture was always ready.  I asseverate\nthat, during my occupation of Master B.'s room, I was taken by the\nghost that haunted it, on expeditions fully as long and wild as any\nof those.  Assuredly, I was presented to no shabby old man with a\ngoat's horns and tail (something between Pan and an old clothesman),\nholding conventional receptions, as stupid as those of real life and\nless decent; but, I came upon other things which appeared to me to\nhave more meaning.\n\nConfident that I speak the truth and shall be believed, I declare\nwithout hesitation that I followed the ghost, in the first instance\non a broom-stick, and afterwards on a rocking-horse.  The very smell\nof the animal's paint--especially when I brought it out, by making\nhim warm--I am ready to swear to.  I followed the ghost, afterwards,\nin a hackney coach; an institution with the peculiar smell of which,\nthe present generation is unacquainted, but to which I am again\nready to swear as a combination of stable, dog with the mange, and\nvery old bellows.  (In this, I appeal to previous generations to\nconfirm or refute me.)  I pursued the phantom, on a headless donkey:\nat least, upon a donkey who was so interested in the state of his\nstomach that his head was always down there, investigating it; on\nponies, expressly born to kick up behind; on roundabouts and swings,\nfrom fairs; in the first cab--another forgotten institution where\nthe fare regularly got into bed, and was tucked up with the driver.\n\nNot to trouble you with a detailed account of all my travels in\npursuit of the ghost of Master B., which were longer and more\nwonderful than those of Sinbad the Sailor, I will confine myself to\none experience from which you may judge of many.\n\nI was marvellously changed.  I was myself, yet not myself.  I was\nconscious of something within me, which has been the same all\nthrough my life, and which I have always recognised under all its\nphases and varieties as never altering, and yet I was not the I who\nhad gone to bed in Master B.'s room.  I had the smoothest of faces\nand the shortest of legs, and I had taken another creature like\nmyself, also with the smoothest of faces and the shortest of legs,\nbehind a door, and was confiding to him a proposition of the most\nastounding nature.\n\nThis proposition was, that we should have a Seraglio.\n\nThe other creature assented warmly.  He had no notion of\nrespectability, neither had I.  It was the custom of the East, it\nwas the way of the good Caliph Haroun Alraschid (let me have the\ncorrupted name again for once, it is so scented with sweet\nmemories!), the usage was highly laudable, and most worthy of\nimitation.  \"O, yes!  Let us,\" said the other creature with a jump,\n\"have a Seraglio.\"\n\nIt was not because we entertained the faintest doubts of the\nmeritorious character of the Oriental establishment we proposed to\nimport, that we perceived it must be kept a secret from Miss\nGriffin.  It was because we knew Miss Griffin to be bereft of human\nsympathies, and incapable of appreciating the greatness of the great\nHaroun.  Mystery impenetrably shrouded from Miss Griffin then, let\nus entrust it to Miss Bule.\n\nWe were ten in Miss Griffin's establishment by Hampstead Ponds;\neight ladies and two gentlemen.  Miss Bule, whom I judge to have\nattained the ripe age of eight or nine, took the lead in society.  I\nopened the subject to her in the course of the day, and proposed\nthat she should become the Favourite.\n\nMiss Bule, after struggling with the diffidence so natural to, and\ncharming in, her adorable sex, expressed herself as flattered by the\nidea, but wished to know how it was proposed to provide for Miss\nPipson?  Miss Bule--who was understood to have vowed towards that\nyoung lady, a friendship, halves, and no secrets, until death, on\nthe Church Service and Lessons complete in two volumes with case and\nlock--Miss Bule said she could not, as the friend of Pipson,\ndisguise from herself, or me, that Pipson was not one of the common.\n\nNow, Miss Pipson, having curly hair and blue eyes (which was my idea\nof anything mortal and feminine that was called Fair), I promptly\nreplied that I regarded Miss Pipson in the light of a Fair\nCircassian.\n\n\"And what then?\" Miss Bule pensively asked.\n\nI replied that she must be inveigled by a Merchant, brought to me\nveiled, and purchased as a slave.\n\n[The other creature had already fallen into the second male place in\nthe State, and was set apart for Grand Vizier.  He afterwards\nresisted this disposal of events, but had his hair pulled until he\nyielded.]\n\n\"Shall I not be jealous?\" Miss Bule inquired, casting down her eyes.\n\n\"Zobeide, no,\" I replied; \"you will ever be the favourite Sultana;\nthe first place in my heart, and on my throne, will be ever yours.\"\n\nMiss Bule, upon that assurance, consented to propound the idea to\nher seven beautiful companions.  It occurring to me, in the course\nof the same day, that we knew we could trust a grinning and good-\nnatured soul called Tabby, who was the serving drudge of the house,\nand had no more figure than one of the beds, and upon whose face\nthere was always more or less black-lead, I slipped into Miss Bule's\nhand after supper, a little note to that effect; dwelling on the\nblack-lead as being in a manner deposited by the finger of\nProvidence, pointing Tabby out for Mesrour, the celebrated chief of\nthe Blacks of the Hareem.\n\nThere were difficulties in the formation of the desired institution,\nas there are in all combinations.  The other creature showed himself\nof a low character, and, when defeated in aspiring to the throne,\npretended to have conscientious scruples about prostrating himself\nbefore the Caliph; wouldn't call him Commander of the Faithful;\nspoke of him slightingly and inconsistently as a mere \"chap;\" said\nhe, the other creature, \"wouldn't play\"--Play!--and was otherwise\ncoarse and offensive.  This meanness of disposition was, however,\nput down by the general indignation of an united Seraglio, and I\nbecame blessed in the smiles of eight of the fairest of the\ndaughters of men.\n\nThe smiles could only be bestowed when Miss Griffin was looking\nanother way, and only then in a very wary manner, for there was a\nlegend among the followers of the Prophet that she saw with a little\nround ornament in the middle of the pattern on the back of her\nshawl.  But every day after dinner, for an hour, we were all\ntogether, and then the Favourite and the rest of the Royal Hareem\ncompeted who should most beguile the leisure of the Serene Haroun\nreposing from the cares of State--which were generally, as in most\naffairs of State, of an arithmetical character, the Commander of the\nFaithful being a fearful boggler at a sum.\n\nOn these occasions, the devoted Mesrour, chief of the Blacks of the\nHareem, was always in attendance (Miss Griffin usually ringing for\nthat officer, at the same time, with great vehemence), but never\nacquitted himself in a manner worthy of his historical reputation.\nIn the first place, his bringing a broom into the Divan of the\nCaliph, even when Haroun wore on his shoulders the red robe of anger\n(Miss Pipson's pelisse), though it might be got over for the moment,\nwas never to be quite satisfactorily accounted for.  In the second\nplace, his breaking out into grinning exclamations of \"Lork you\npretties!\" was neither Eastern nor respectful.  In the third place,\nwhen specially instructed to say \"Bismillah!\" he always said\n\"Hallelujah!\"  This officer, unlike his class, was too good-humoured\naltogether, kept his mouth open far too wide, expressed approbation\nto an incongruous extent, and even once--it was on the occasion of\nthe purchase of the Fair Circassian for five hundred thousand purses\nof gold, and cheap, too--embraced the Slave, the Favourite, and the\nCaliph, all round.  (Parenthetically let me say God bless Mesrour,\nand may there have been sons and daughters on that tender bosom,\nsoftening many a hard day since!)\n\nMiss Griffin was a model of propriety, and I am at a loss to imagine\nwhat the feelings of the virtuous woman would have been, if she had\nknown, when she paraded us down the Hampstead Road two and two, that\nshe was walking with a stately step at the head of Polygamy and\nMahomedanism.  I believe that a mysterious and terrible joy with\nwhich the contemplation of Miss Griffin, in this unconscious state,\ninspired us, and a grim sense prevalent among us that there was a\ndreadful power in our knowledge of what Miss Griffin (who knew all\nthings that could be learnt out of book) didn't know, were the main-\nspring of the preservation of our secret.  It was wonderfully kept,\nbut was once upon the verge of self-betrayal.  The danger and escape\noccurred upon a Sunday.  We were all ten ranged in a conspicuous\npart of the gallery at church, with Miss Griffin at our head--as we\nwere every Sunday--advertising the establishment in an unsecular\nsort of way--when the description of Solomon in his domestic glory\nhappened to be read.  The moment that monarch was thus referred to,\nconscience whispered me, \"Thou, too, Haroun!\"  The officiating\nminister had a cast in his eye, and it assisted conscience by giving\nhim the appearance of reading personally at me.  A crimson blush,\nattended by a fearful perspiration, suffused my features.  The Grand\nVizier became more dead than alive, and the whole Seraglio reddened\nas if the sunset of Bagdad shone direct upon their lovely faces.  At\nthis portentous time the awful Griffin rose, and balefully surveyed\nthe children of Islam.  My own impression was, that Church and State\nhad entered into a conspiracy with Miss Griffin to expose us, and\nthat we should all be put into white sheets, and exhibited in the\ncentre aisle.  But, so Westerly--if I may be allowed the expression\nas opposite to Eastern associations--was Miss Griffin's sense of\nrectitude, that she merely suspected Apples, and we were saved.\n\nI have called the Seraglio, united.  Upon the question, solely,\nwhether the Commander of the Faithful durst exercise a right of\nkissing in that sanctuary of the palace, were its peerless inmates\ndivided.  Zobeide asserted a counter-right in the Favourite to\nscratch, and the fair Circassian put her face, for refuge, into a\ngreen baize bag, originally designed for books.  On the other hand,\na young antelope of transcendent beauty from the fruitful plains of\nCamden Town (whence she had been brought, by traders, in the half-\nyearly caravan that crossed the intermediate desert after the\nholidays), held more liberal opinions, but stipulated for limiting\nthe benefit of them to that dog, and son of a dog, the Grand Vizier-\n-who had no rights, and was not in question.  At length, the\ndifficulty was compromised by the installation of a very youthful\nslave as Deputy.  She, raised upon a stool, officially received upon\nher cheeks the salutes intended by the gracious Haroun for other\nSultanas, and was privately rewarded from the coffers of the Ladies\nof the Hareem.\n\nAnd now it was, at the full height of enjoyment of my bliss, that I\nbecame heavily troubled.  I began to think of my mother, and what\nshe would say to my taking home at Midsummer eight of the most\nbeautiful of the daughters of men, but all unexpected.  I thought of\nthe number of beds we made up at our house, of my father's income,\nand of the baker, and my despondency redoubled.  The Seraglio and\nmalicious Vizier, divining the cause of their Lord's unhappiness,\ndid their utmost to augment it.  They professed unbounded fidelity,\nand declared that they would live and die with him.  Reduced to the\nutmost wretchedness by these protestations of attachment, I lay\nawake, for hours at a time, ruminating on my frightful lot.  In my\ndespair, I think I might have taken an early opportunity of falling\non my knees before Miss Griffin, avowing my resemblance to Solomon,\nand praying to be dealt with according to the outraged laws of my\ncountry, if an unthought-of means of escape had not opened before\nme.\n\nOne day, we were out walking, two and two--on which occasion the\nVizier had his usual instructions to take note of the boy at the\nturn-pike, and if he profanely gazed (which he always did) at the\nbeauties of the Hareem, to have him bowstrung in the course of the\nnight--and it happened that our hearts were veiled in gloom.  An\nunaccountable action on the part of the antelope had plunged the\nState into disgrace.  That charmer, on the representation that the\nprevious day was her birthday, and that vast treasures had been sent\nin a hamper for its celebration (both baseless assertions), had\nsecretly but most pressingly invited thirty-five neighbouring\nprinces and princesses to a ball and supper:  with a special\nstipulation that they were \"not to be fetched till twelve.\"  This\nwandering of the antelope's fancy, led to the surprising arrival at\nMiss Griffin's door, in divers equipages and under various escorts,\nof a great company in full dress, who were deposited on the top step\nin a flush of high expectancy, and who were dismissed in tears.  At\nthe beginning of the double knocks attendant on these ceremonies,\nthe antelope had retired to a back attic, and bolted herself in; and\nat every new arrival, Miss Griffin had gone so much more and more\ndistracted, that at last she had been seen to tear her front.\nUltimate capitulation on the part of the offender, had been followed\nby solitude in the linen-closet, bread and water and a lecture to\nall, of vindictive length, in which Miss Griffin had used\nexpressions:  Firstly, \"I believe you all of you knew of it;\"\nSecondly, \"Every one of you is as wicked as another;\" Thirdly, \"A\npack of little wretches.\"\n\nUnder these circumstances, we were walking drearily along; and I\nespecially, with my.  Moosulmaun responsibilities heavy on me, was\nin a very low state of mind; when a strange man accosted Miss\nGriffin, and, after walking on at her side for a little while and\ntalking with her, looked at me.  Supposing him to be a minion of the\nlaw, and that my hour was come, I instantly ran away, with the\ngeneral purpose of making for Egypt.\n\nThe whole Seraglio cried out, when they saw me making off as fast as\nmy legs would carry me (I had an impression that the first turning\non the left, and round by the public-house, would be the shortest\nway to the Pyramids), Miss Griffin screamed after me, the faithless\nVizier ran after me, and the boy at the turnpike dodged me into a\ncorner, like a sheep, and cut me off.  Nobody scolded me when I was\ntaken and brought back; Miss Griffin only said, with a stunning\ngentleness, This was very curious!  Why had I run away when the\ngentleman looked at me?\n\nIf I had had any breath to answer with, I dare say I should have\nmade no answer; having no breath, I certainly made none.  Miss\nGriffin and the strange man took me between them, and walked me back\nto the palace in a sort of state; but not at all (as I couldn't help\nfeeling, with astonishment) in culprit state.\n\nWhen we got there, we went into a room by ourselves, and Miss\nGriffin called in to her assistance, Mesrour, chief of the dusky\nguards of the Hareem.  Mesrour, on being whispered to, began to shed\ntears.  \"Bless you, my precious!\" said that officer, turning to me;\n\"your Pa's took bitter bad!\"\n\nI asked, with a fluttered heart, \"Is he very ill?\"\n\n\"Lord temper the wind to you, my lamb!\" said the good Mesrour,\nkneeling down, that I might have a comforting shoulder for my head\nto rest on, \"your Pa's dead!\"\n\nHaroun Alraschid took to flight at the words; the Seraglio vanished;\nfrom that moment, I never again saw one of the eight of the fairest\nof the daughters of men.\n\nI was taken home, and there was Debt at home as well as Death, and\nwe had a sale there.  My own little bed was so superciliously looked\nupon by a Power unknown to me, hazily called \"The Trade,\" that a\nbrass coal-scuttle, a roasting-jack, and a birdcage, were obliged to\nbe put into it to make a Lot of it, and then it went for a song.  So\nI heard mentioned, and I wondered what song, and thought what a\ndismal song it must have been to sing!\n\nThen, I was sent to a great, cold, bare, school of big boys; where\neverything to eat and wear was thick and clumpy, without being\nenough; where everybody, largo and small, was cruel; where the boys\nknew all about the sale, before I got there, and asked me what I had\nfetched, and who had bought me, and hooted at me, \"Going, going,\ngone!\"  I never whispered in that wretched place that I had been\nHaroun, or had had a Seraglio:  for, I knew that if I mentioned my\nreverses, I should be so worried, that I should have to drown myself\nin the muddy pond near the playground, which looked like the beer.\n\nAh me, ah me!  No other ghost has haunted the boy's room, my\nfriends, since I have occupied it, than the ghost of my own\nchildhood, the ghost of my own innocence, the ghost of my own airy\nbelief.  Many a time have I pursued the phantom:  never with this\nman's stride of mine to come up with it, never with these man's\nhands of mine to touch it, never more to this man's heart of mine to\nhold it in its purity.  And here you see me working out, as\ncheerfully and thankfully as I may, my doom of shaving in the glass\na constant change of customers, and of lying down and rising up with\nthe skeleton allotted to me for my mortal companion.\n\n\n\n\nTHE TRIAL FOR MURDER.\n\n\n\n\nI have always noticed a prevalent want of courage, even among\npersons of superior intelligence and culture, as to imparting their\nown psychological experiences when those have been of a strange\nsort.  Almost all men are afraid that what they could relate in such\nwise would find no parallel or response in a listener's internal\nlife, and might be suspected or laughed at.  A truthful traveller,\nwho should have seen some extraordinary creature in the likeness of\na sea-serpent, would have no fear of mentioning it; but the same\ntraveller, having had some singular presentiment, impulse, vagary of\nthought, vision (so-called), dream, or other remarkable mental\nimpression, would hesitate considerably before he would own to it.\nTo this reticence I attribute much of the obscurity in which such\nsubjects are involved.  We do not habitually communicate our\nexperiences of these subjective things as we do our experiences of\nobjective creation.  The consequence is, that the general stock of\nexperience in this regard appears exceptional, and really is so, in\nrespect of being miserably imperfect.\n\nIn what I am going to relate, I have no intention of setting up,\nopposing, or supporting, any theory whatever.  I know the history of\nthe Bookseller of Berlin, I have studied the case of the wife of a\nlate Astronomer Royal as related by Sir David Brewster, and I have\nfollowed the minutest details of a much more remarkable case of\nSpectral Illusion occurring within my private circle of friends.  It\nmay be necessary to state as to this last, that the sufferer (a\nlady) was in no degree, however distant, related to me.  A mistaken\nassumption on that head might suggest an explanation of a part of my\nown case,--but only a part,--which would be wholly without\nfoundation.  It cannot be referred to my inheritance of any\ndeveloped peculiarity, nor had I ever before any at all similar\nexperience, nor have I ever had any at all similar experience since.\n\nIt does not signify how many years ago, or how few, a certain murder\nwas committed in England, which attracted great attention.  We hear\nmore than enough of murderers as they rise in succession to their\natrocious eminence, and I would bury the memory of this particular\nbrute, if I could, as his body was buried, in Newgate Jail.  I\npurposely abstain from giving any direct clue to the criminal's\nindividuality.\n\nWhen the murder was first discovered, no suspicion fell--or I ought\nrather to say, for I cannot be too precise in my facts, it was\nnowhere publicly hinted that any suspicion fell--on the man who was\nafterwards brought to trial.  As no reference was at that time made\nto him in the newspapers, it is obviously impossible that any\ndescription of him can at that time have been given in the\nnewspapers.  It is essential that this fact be remembered.\n\nUnfolding at breakfast my morning paper, containing the account of\nthat first discovery, I found it to be deeply interesting, and I\nread it with close attention.  I read it twice, if not three times.\nThe discovery had been made in a bedroom, and, when I laid down the\npaper, I was aware of a flash--rush--flow--I do not know what to\ncall it,--no word I can find is satisfactorily descriptive,--in\nwhich I seemed to see that bedroom passing through my room, like a\npicture impossibly painted on a running river.  Though almost\ninstantaneous in its passing, it was perfectly clear; so clear that\nI distinctly, and with a sense of relief, observed the absence of\nthe dead body from the bed.\n\nIt was in no romantic place that I had this curious sensation, but\nin chambers in Piccadilly, very near to the corner of St. James's\nStreet.  It was entirely new to me.  I was in my easy-chair at the\nmoment, and the sensation was accompanied with a peculiar shiver\nwhich started the chair from its position.  (But it is to be noted\nthat the chair ran easily on castors.)  I went to one of the windows\n(there are two in the room, and the room is on the second floor) to\nrefresh my eyes with the moving objects down in Piccadilly.  It was\na bright autumn morning, and the street was sparkling and cheerful.\nThe wind was high.  As I looked out, it brought down from the Park a\nquantity of fallen leaves, which a gust took, and whirled into a\nspiral pillar.  As the pillar fell and the leaves dispersed, I saw\ntwo men on the opposite side of the way, going from West to East.\nThey were one behind the other.  The foremost man often looked back\nover his shoulder.  The second man followed him, at a distance of\nsome thirty paces, with his right hand menacingly raised.  First,\nthe singularity and steadiness of this threatening gesture in so\npublic a thoroughfare attracted my attention; and next, the more\nremarkable circumstance that nobody heeded it.  Both men threaded\ntheir way among the other passengers with a smoothness hardly\nconsistent even with the action of walking on a pavement; and no\nsingle creature, that I could see, gave them place, touched them, or\nlooked after them.  In passing before my windows, they both stared\nup at me.  I saw their two faces very distinctly, and I knew that I\ncould recognise them anywhere.  Not that I had consciously noticed\nanything very remarkable in either face, except that the man who\nwent first had an unusually lowering appearance, and that the face\nof the man who followed him was of the colour of impure wax.\n\nI am a bachelor, and my valet and his wife constitute my whole\nestablishment.  My occupation is in a certain Branch Bank, and I\nwish that my duties as head of a Department were as light as they\nare popularly supposed to be.  They kept me in town that autumn,\nwhen I stood in need of change.  I was not ill, but I was not well.\nMy reader is to make the most that can be reasonably made of my\nfeeling jaded, having a depressing sense upon me of a monotonous\nlife, and being \"slightly dyspeptic.\"  I am assured by my renowned\ndoctor that my real state of health at that time justifies no\nstronger description, and I quote his own from his written answer to\nmy request for it.\n\nAs the circumstances of the murder, gradually unravelling, took\nstronger and stronger possession of the public mind, I kept them\naway from mine by knowing as little about them as was possible in\nthe midst of the universal excitement.  But I knew that a verdict of\nWilful Murder had been found against the suspected murderer, and\nthat he had been committed to Newgate for trial.  I also knew that\nhis trial had been postponed over one Sessions of the Central\nCriminal Court, on the ground of general prejudice and want of time\nfor the preparation of the defence.  I may further have known, but I\nbelieve I did not, when, or about when, the Sessions to which his\ntrial stood postponed would come on.\n\nMy sitting-room, bedroom, and dressing-room, are all on one floor.\nWith the last there is no communication but through the bedroom.\nTrue, there is a door in it, once communicating with the staircase;\nbut a part of the fitting of my bath has been--and had then been for\nsome years--fixed across it.  At the same period, and as a part of\nthe same arrangement,--the door had been nailed up and canvased\nover.\n\nI was standing in my bedroom late one night, giving some directions\nto my servant before he went to bed.  My face was towards the only\navailable door of communication with the dressing-room, and it was\nclosed.  My servant's back was towards that door.  While I was\nspeaking to him, I saw it open, and a man look in, who very\nearnestly and mysteriously beckoned to me.  That man was the man who\nhad gone second of the two along Piccadilly, and whose face was of\nthe colour of impure wax.\n\nThe figure, having beckoned, drew back, and closed the door.  With\nno longer pause than was made by my crossing the bedroom, I opened\nthe dressing-room door, and looked in.  I had a lighted candle\nalready in my hand.  I felt no inward expectation of seeing the\nfigure in the dressing-room, and I did not see it there.\n\nConscious that my servant stood amazed, I turned round to him, and\nsaid:  \"Derrick, could you believe that in my cool senses I fancied\nI saw a--\"  As I there laid my hand upon his breast, with a sudden\nstart he trembled violently, and said, \"O Lord, yes, sir!  A dead\nman beckoning!\"\n\nNow I do not believe that this John Derrick, my trusty and attached\nservant for more than twenty years, had any impression whatever of\nhaving seen any such figure, until I touched him.  The change in him\nwas so startling, when I touched him, that I fully believe he\nderived his impression in some occult manner from me at that\ninstant.\n\nI bade John Derrick bring some brandy, and I gave him a dram, and\nwas glad to take one myself.  Of what had preceded that night's\nphenomenon, I told him not a single word.  Reflecting on it, I was\nabsolutely certain that I had never seen that face before, except on\nthe one occasion in Piccadilly.  Comparing its expression when\nbeckoning at the door with its expression when it had stared up at\nme as I stood at my window, I came to the conclusion that on the\nfirst occasion it had sought to fasten itself upon my memory, and\nthat on the second occasion it had made sure of being immediately\nremembered.\n\nI was not very comfortable that night, though I felt a certainty,\ndifficult to explain, that the figure would not return.  At daylight\nI fell into a heavy sleep, from which I was awakened by John\nDerrick's coming to my bedside with a paper in his hand.\n\nThis paper, it appeared, had been the subject of an altercation at\nthe door between its bearer and my servant.  It was a summons to me\nto serve upon a Jury at the forthcoming Sessions of the Central\nCriminal Court at the Old Bailey.  I had never before been summoned\non such a Jury, as John Derrick well knew.  He believed--I am not\ncertain at this hour whether with reason or otherwise--that that\nclass of Jurors were customarily chosen on a lower qualification\nthan mine, and he had at first refused to accept the summons.  The\nman who served it had taken the matter very coolly.  He had said\nthat my attendance or non-attendance was nothing to him; there the\nsummons was; and I should deal with it at my own peril, and not at\nhis.\n\nFor a day or two I was undecided whether to respond to this call, or\ntake no notice of it.  I was not conscious of the slightest\nmysterious bias, influence, or attraction, one way or other.  Of\nthat I am as strictly sure as of every other statement that I make\nhere.  Ultimately I decided, as a break in the monotony of my life,\nthat I would go.\n\nThe appointed morning was a raw morning in the month of November.\nThere was a dense brown fog in Piccadilly, and it became positively\nblack and in the last degree oppressive East of Temple Bar.  I found\nthe passages and staircases of the Court-House flaringly lighted\nwith gas, and the Court itself similarly illuminated.  I THINK that,\nuntil I was conducted by officers into the Old Court and saw its\ncrowded state, I did not know that the Murderer was to be tried that\nday.  I THINK that, until I was so helped into the Old Court with\nconsiderable difficulty, I did not know into which of the two Courts\nsitting my summons would take me.  But this must not be received as\na positive assertion, for I am not completely satisfied in my mind\non either point.\n\nI took my seat in the place appropriated to Jurors in waiting, and I\nlooked about the Court as well as I could through the cloud of fog\nand breath that was heavy in it.  I noticed the black vapour hanging\nlike a murky curtain outside the great windows, and I noticed the\nstifled sound of wheels on the straw or tan that was littered in the\nstreet; also, the hum of the people gathered there, which a shrill\nwhistle, or a louder song or hail than the rest, occasionally\npierced.  Soon afterwards the Judges, two in number, entered, and\ntook their seats.  The buzz in the Court was awfully hushed.  The\ndirection was given to put the Murderer to the bar.  He appeared\nthere.  And in that same instant I recognised in him the first of\nthe two men who had gone down Piccadilly.\n\nIf my name had been called then, I doubt if I could have answered to\nit audibly.  But it was called about sixth or eighth in the panel,\nand I was by that time able to say, \"Here!\"  Now, observe.  As I\nstepped into the box, the prisoner, who had been looking on\nattentively, but with no sign of concern, became violently agitated,\nand beckoned to his attorney.  The prisoner's wish to challenge me\nwas so manifest, that it occasioned a pause, during which the\nattorney, with his hand upon the dock, whispered with his client,\nand shook his head.  I afterwards had it from that gentleman, that\nthe prisoner's first affrighted words to him were, \"AT ALL HAZARDS,\nCHALLENGE THAT MAN!\"  But that, as he would give no reason for it,\nand admitted that he had not even known my name until he heard it\ncalled and I appeared, it was not done.\n\nBoth on the ground already explained, that I wish to avoid reviving\nthe unwholesome memory of that Murderer, and also because a detailed\naccount of his long trial is by no means indispensable to my\nnarrative, I shall confine myself closely to such incidents in the\nten days and nights during which we, the Jury, were kept together,\nas directly bear on my own curious personal experience.  It is in\nthat, and not in the Murderer, that I seek to interest my reader.\nIt is to that, and not to a page of the Newgate Calendar, that I beg\nattention.\n\nI was chosen Foreman of the Jury.  On the second morning of the\ntrial, after evidence had been taken for two hours (I heard the\nchurch clocks strike), happening to cast my eyes over my brother\njurymen, I found an inexplicable difficulty in counting them.  I\ncounted them several times, yet always with the same difficulty.  In\nshort, I made them one too many.\n\nI touched the brother jurymen whose place was next me, and I\nwhispered to him, \"Oblige me by counting us.\"  He looked surprised\nby the request, but turned his head and counted. \"Why,\" says he,\nsuddenly, \"we are Thirt-; but no, it's not possible.  No.  We are\ntwelve.\"\n\nAccording to my counting that day, we were always right in detail,\nbut in the gross we were always one too many.  There was no\nappearance--no figure--to account for it; but I had now an inward\nforeshadowing of the figure that was surely coming.\n\nThe Jury were housed at the London Tavern.  We all slept in one\nlarge room on separate tables, and we were constantly in the charge\nand under the eye of the officer sworn to hold us in safe-keeping.\nI see no reason for suppressing the real name of that officer.  He\nwas intelligent, highly polite, and obliging, and (I was glad to\nhear) much respected in the City.  He had an agreeable presence,\ngood eyes, enviable black whiskers, and a fine sonorous voice.  His\nname was Mr. Harker.\n\nWhen we turned into our twelve beds at night, Mr. Harker's bed was\ndrawn across the door.  On the night of the second day, not being\ndisposed to lie down, and seeing Mr. Harker sitting on his bed, I\nwent and sat beside him, and offered him a pinch of snuff.  As Mr.\nHarker's hand touched mine in taking it from my box, a peculiar\nshiver crossed him, and he said, \"Who is this?\"\n\nFollowing Mr. Harker's eyes, and looking along the room, I saw again\nthe figure I expected,--the second of the two men who had gone down\nPiccadilly.  I rose, and advanced a few steps; then stopped, and\nlooked round at Mr. Harker.  He was quite unconcerned, laughed, and\nsaid in a pleasant way, \"I thought for a moment we had a thirteenth\njuryman, without a bed.  But I see it is the moonlight.\"\n\nMaking no revelation to Mr. Harker, but inviting him to take a walk\nwith me to the end of the room, I watched what the figure did.  It\nstood for a few moments by the bedside of each of my eleven brother\njurymen, close to the pillow.  It always went to the right-hand side\nof the bed, and always passed out crossing the foot of the next bed.\nIt seemed, from the action of the head, merely to look down\npensively at each recumbent figure.  It took no notice of me, or of\nmy bed, which was that nearest to Mr. Harker's.  It seemed to go out\nwhere the moonlight came in, through a high window, as by an aerial\nflight of stairs.\n\nNext morning at breakfast, it appeared that everybody present had\ndreamed of the murdered man last night, except myself and Mr.\nHarker.\n\nI now felt as convinced that the second man who had gone down\nPiccadilly was the murdered man (so to speak), as if it had been\nborne into my comprehension by his immediate testimony.  But even\nthis took place, and in a manner for which I was not at all\nprepared.\n\nOn the fifth day of the trial, when the case for the prosecution was\ndrawing to a close, a miniature of the murdered man, missing from\nhis bedroom upon the discovery of the deed, and afterwards found in\na hiding-place where the Murderer had been seen digging, was put in\nevidence.  Having been identified by the witness under examination,\nit was handed up to the Bench, and thence handed down to be\ninspected by the Jury.  As an officer in a black gown was making his\nway with it across to me, the figure of the second man who had gone\ndown Piccadilly impetuously started from the crowd, caught the\nminiature from the officer, and gave it to me with his own hands, at\nthe same time saying, in a low and hollow tone,--before I saw the\nminiature, which was in a locket,--\"I WAS YOUNGER THEN, AND MY FACE\nWAS NOT THEN DRAINED OF BLOOD.\"  It also came between me and the\nbrother juryman to whom I would have given the miniature, and\nbetween him and the brother juryman to whom he would have given it,\nand so passed it on through the whole of our number, and back into\nmy possession.  Not one of them, however, detected this.\n\nAt table, and generally when we were shut up together in Mr.\nHarker's custody, we had from the first naturally discussed the\nday's proceedings a good deal.  On that fifth day, the case for the\nprosecution being closed, and we having that side of the question in\na completed shape before us, our discussion was more animated and\nserious.  Among our number was a vestryman,--the densest idiot I\nhave ever seen at large,--who met the plainest evidence with the\nmost preposterous objections, and who was sided with by two flabby\nparochial parasites; all the three impanelled from a district so\ndelivered over to Fever that they ought to have been upon their own\ntrial for five hundred Murders.  When these mischievous blockheads\nwere at their loudest, which was towards midnight, while some of us\nwere already preparing for bed, I again saw the murdered man.  He\nstood grimly behind them, beckoning to me.  On my going towards\nthem, and striking into the conversation, he immediately retired.\nThis was the beginning of a separate series of appearances, confined\nto that long room in which we were confined.  Whenever a knot of my\nbrother jurymen laid their heads together, I saw the head of the\nmurdered man among theirs.  Whenever their comparison of notes was\ngoing against him, he would solemnly and irresistibly beckon to me.\n\nIt will be borne in mind that down to the production of the\nminiature, on the fifth day of the trial, I had never seen the\nAppearance in Court.  Three changes occurred now that we entered on\nthe case for the defence.  Two of them I will mention together,\nfirst.  The figure was now in Court continually, and it never there\naddressed itself to me, but always to the person who was speaking at\nthe time.  For instance:  the throat of the murdered man had been\ncut straight across.  In the opening speech for the defence, it was\nsuggested that the deceased might have cut his own throat.  At that\nvery moment, the figure, with its throat in the dreadful condition\nreferred to (this it had concealed before), stood at the speaker's\nelbow, motioning across and across its windpipe, now with the right\nhand, now with the left, vigorously suggesting to the speaker\nhimself the impossibility of such a wound having been self-inflicted\nby either hand.  For another instance:  a witness to character, a\nwoman, deposed to the prisoner's being the most amiable of mankind.\nThe figure at that instant stood on the floor before her, looking\nher full in the face, and pointing out the prisoner's evil\ncountenance with an extended arm and an outstretched finger.\n\nThe third change now to be added impressed me strongly as the most\nmarked and striking of all.  I do not theorise upon it; I accurately\nstate it, and there leave it.  Although the Appearance was not\nitself perceived by those whom it addressed, its coming close to\nsuch persons was invariably attended by some trepidation or\ndisturbance on their part.  It seemed to me as if it were prevented,\nby laws to which I was not amenable, from fully revealing itself to\nothers, and yet as if it could invisibly, dumbly, and darkly\novershadow their minds.  When the leading counsel for the defence\nsuggested that hypothesis of suicide, and the figure stood at the\nlearned gentleman's elbow, frightfully sawing at its severed throat,\nit is undeniable that the counsel faltered in his speech, lost for a\nfew seconds the thread of his ingenious discourse, wiped his\nforehead with his handkerchief, and turned extremely pale.  When the\nwitness to character was confronted by the Appearance, her eyes most\ncertainly did follow the direction of its pointed finger, and rest\nin great hesitation and trouble upon the prisoner's face.  Two\nadditional illustrations will suffice.  On the eighth day of the\ntrial, after the pause which was every day made early in the\nafternoon for a few minutes' rest and refreshment, I came back into\nCourt with the rest of the Jury some little time before the return\nof the Judges.  Standing up in the box and looking about me, I\nthought the figure was not there, until, chancing to raise my eyes\nto the gallery, I saw it bending forward, and leaning over a very\ndecent woman, as if to assure itself whether the Judges had resumed\ntheir seats or not.  Immediately afterwards that woman screamed,\nfainted, and was carried out.  So with the venerable, sagacious, and\npatient Judge who conducted the trial.  When the case was over, and\nhe settled himself and his papers to sum up, the murdered man,\nentering by the Judges' door, advanced to his Lordship's desk, and\nlooked eagerly over his shoulder at the pages of his notes which he\nwas turning.  A change came over his Lordship's face; his hand\nstopped; the peculiar shiver, that I knew so well, passed over him;\nhe faltered, \"Excuse me, gentlemen, for a few moments.  I am\nsomewhat oppressed by the vitiated air;\" and did not recover until\nhe had drunk a glass of water.\n\nThrough all the monotony of six of those interminable ten days,--the\nsame Judges and others on the bench, the same Murderer in the dock,\nthe same lawyers at the table, the same tones of question and answer\nrising to the roof of the court, the same scratching of the Judge's\npen, the same ushers going in and out, the same lights kindled at\nthe same hour when there had been any natural light of day, the same\nfoggy curtain outside the great windows when it was foggy, the same\nrain pattering and dripping when it was rainy, the same footmarks of\nturnkeys and prisoner day after day on the same sawdust, the same\nkeys locking and unlocking the same heavy doors,--through all the\nwearisome monotony which made me feel as if I had been Foreman of\nthe Jury for a vast cried of time, and Piccadilly had flourished\ncoevally with Babylon, the murdered man never lost one trace of his\ndistinctness in my eyes, nor was he at any moment less distinct than\nanybody else.  I must not omit, as a matter of fact, that I never\nonce saw the Appearance which I call by the name of the murdered man\nlook at the Murderer.  Again and again I wondered, \"Why does he\nnot?\"  But he never did.\n\nNor did he look at me, after the production of the miniature, until\nthe last closing minutes of the trial arrived.  We retired to\nconsider, at seven minutes before ten at night.  The idiotic\nvestryman and his two parochial parasites gave us so much trouble\nthat we twice returned into Court to beg to have certain extracts\nfrom the Judge's notes re-read.  Nine of us had not the smallest\ndoubt about those passages, neither, I believe, had any one in the\nCourt; the dunder-headed triumvirate, having no idea but\nobstruction, disputed them for that very reason.  At length we\nprevailed, and finally the Jury returned into Court at ten minutes\npast twelve.\n\nThe murdered man at that time stood directly opposite the Jury-box,\non the other side of the Court.  As I took my place, his eyes rested\non me with great attention; he seemed satisfied, and slowly shook a\ngreat gray veil, which he carried on his arm for the first time,\nover his head and whole form.  As I gave in our verdict, \"Guilty,\"\nthe veil collapsed, all was gone, and his place was empty.\n\nThe Murderer, being asked by the Judge, according to usage, whether\nhe had anything to say before sentence of Death should be passed\nupon him, indistinctly muttered something which was described in the\nleading newspapers of the following day as \"a few rambling,\nincoherent, and half-audible words, in which he was understood to\ncomplain that he had not had a fair trial, because the Foreman of\nthe Jury was prepossessed against him.\"  The remarkable declaration\nthat he really made was this:  \"MY LORD, I KNEW I WAS A DOOMED MAN,\nWHEN THE FOREMAN OF MY JURY CAME INTO THE BOX.  MY LORD, I KNEW HE\nWOULD NEVER LET ME OFF, BECAUSE, BEFORE I WAS TAKEN, HE SOMEHOW GOT\nTO MY BEDSIDE IN THE NIGHT, WOKE ME, AND PUT A ROPE ROUND MY NECK.\"\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"13771":"by gallica (Biblioth\u00e8que nationale de France) at\nhttp://gallica.bnf.fr.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHARLES DICKENS\n\nAVENTURES\n\nDE MONSIEUR\n\nPICKWICK\n\nROMAN ANGLAIS\n\n\nTRADUIT AVEC L'AUTORISATION DE L'AUTEUR\n\nSOUS LA DIRECTION DE P. LORAIN\n\nPAR P. GROLIER\n\n\nTOME PREMIER\n\nPARIS\n\nLIBRAIRIE HACHETTE ET Cie 79, BOULEVARD SAINT-GERMAIN, 79\n\n1893\n\n\n\n\nAVENTURES\n\nDE\n\nM. PICKWICK.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE PREMIER.\n\nLes Pickwickiens.\n\n\nLe premier jet de lumi\u00e8re qui convertit en une clart\u00e9 brillante les\nt\u00e9n\u00e8bres dont paraissait envelopp\u00e9e l'apparition de l'immortel Pickwick\nsur l'horizon du monde savant, la premi\u00e8re mention officielle de cet\nhomme prodigieux, se trouve dans les statuts ins\u00e9r\u00e9s parmi les\nproc\u00e8s-verbaux du Pickwick-Club. L'\u00e9diteur du pr\u00e9sent ouvrage est\nheureux de pouvoir les mettre sous les yeux de ses lecteurs, comme une\npreuve de l'attention scrupuleuse, de l'infatigable assiduit\u00e9, de la\nsagacit\u00e9 investigatrice, avec lesquelles il a conduit ses recherches, au\nsein des nombreux documents confi\u00e9s \u00e0 ses soins.\n\n\u00ab_S\u00e9ance du 12 mai 1831, pr\u00e9sid\u00e9e par Joseph Smiggers, Esq.\nV.P.P.M.P.C.[1] a \u00e9t\u00e9 arr\u00eat\u00e9 ce qu'il suit \u00e0 l'unanimit\u00e9._\n\n[Footnote 1: \u00c9cuyer, vice-pr\u00e9sident perp\u00e9tuel, membre du Pickwick-Club.]\n\n\u00abL'ASSOCIATION a entendu lire avec un sentiment de satisfaction sans\nm\u00e9lange et avec une approbation absolue, les papiers communiqu\u00e9s par\nSamuel Pickwick, Esq. P.P.M.P.C.[2], et intitul\u00e9s _Recherches sur les\nsources des \u00e9tangs de Hampstead, suivies de quelques observations sur la\nth\u00e9orie des t\u00eatards_.\n\n[Footnote 2: \u00c9cuyer, pr\u00e9sident perp\u00e9tuel, membre du Pickwick-Club.]\n\n\u00abL'ASSOCIATION en offre ses remerc\u00eements les plus sinc\u00e8res audit Samu\u00ebl\nPickwick, Esq. P.P.M.P.C.\n\n\u00abL'ASSOCIATION, tout en appr\u00e9ciant au plus haut degr\u00e9 les avantages que\nla science doit retirer des ouvrages susmentionn\u00e9s, aussi bien que des\ninfatigables recherches de Samu\u00ebl Pickwick dans Hornsey, Highgate,\nBrixton et Camberwell[3], ne peut s'emp\u00eacher de reconna\u00eetre les\ninappr\u00e9ciables r\u00e9sultats dont on pourrait se flatter pour la diffusion\ndes connaissances utiles, et pour le perfectionnement de l'instruction,\nsi les travaux de cet homme illustre avaient lieu sur une plus vaste\n\u00e9chelle, c'est-\u00e0-dire si ses voyages \u00e9taient plus \u00e9tendus, aussi bien\nque la sph\u00e8re de ses observations.\n\n[Footnote 3: Villages aux environs de Londres.]\n\n\u00abDans ce but, l'ASSOCIATION a pris en s\u00e9rieuse consid\u00e9ration une\nproposition \u00e9manant du susdit Samu\u00ebl Pickwick, Esq. P. P.M.P.C., et de\ntrois autres pickwickiens ci-apr\u00e8s nomm\u00e9s, et tendant \u00e0 former une\nnouvelle branche de pickwickiens-unis, sous le titre de _Soci\u00e9t\u00e9\ncorrespondante_ du Pickwick-Club.\n\n\u00abLadite proposition ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 approuv\u00e9e et sanctionn\u00e9e par\nl'ASSOCIATION,\n\n\u00abLa _Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 correspondante_ du Pickwick-Club est par les pr\u00e9sentes\nconstitu\u00e9e; Samu\u00ebl Pickwick, Esq. P.P.M.P.C., Auguste Snodgrass, Esq.\nM.P.C., Tracy Tupman, Esq. M.P. C., et Nathaniel Winkle, Esq. M.P.C.,\nsont \u00e9galement, par les pr\u00e9sentes, choisis et nomm\u00e9s membres de ladite\n_Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 correspondante_, et charg\u00e9s d'adresser de temps en temps \u00e0\nl'ASSOCIATION DU PICKWICK-CLUB, \u00e0 Londres, des d\u00e9tails authentiques sur\nleurs voyages et leurs investigations; leurs observations sur les\ncaract\u00e8res et sur les moeurs; toutes leurs aventures enfin, aussi bien\nque les r\u00e9cits et autres opuscules auxquels pourraient donner lieu les\nsc\u00e8nes locales, ou les souvenirs qui s'y rattachent.\n\n\u00abL'ASSOCIATION reconna\u00eet cordialement ce principe que les membres de la\n_Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 correspondante_ doivent supporter eux-m\u00eames les d\u00e9penses de\nleurs voyages; et elle ne voit aucun inconv\u00e9nient \u00e0 ce que les membres\nde ladite soci\u00e9t\u00e9 poursuivent leurs recherches pendant tout le temps\nqu'il leur plaira, pourvu que ce soit aux m\u00eames conditions.\n\n\u00abEnfin les membres de la susdite soci\u00e9t\u00e9 sont par les pr\u00e9sentes inform\u00e9s\nque leur proposition de payer le port de leurs lettres et de leurs\nenvois a \u00e9t\u00e9 discut\u00e9e par l'ASSOCIATION; que l'ASSOCIATION consid\u00e8re\ncette offre comme digne des grands esprits dont elle \u00e9mane, et qu'elle\nlui donne sa compl\u00e8te approbation.\u00bb\n\nUn observateur superficiel, ajoute le secr\u00e9taire, dans les notes duquel\nnous puisons le r\u00e9cit suivant; un observateur superficiel n'aurait\npeut-\u00eatre rien trouv\u00e9 d'extraordinaire dans la t\u00eate chauve et dans les\nbesicles circulaires qui \u00e9taient invariablement tourn\u00e9es vers le visage\ndu secr\u00e9taire de l'Association, tandis qu'il lisait les statuts\nci-dessus rapport\u00e9s; mais c'\u00e9tait un spectacle v\u00e9ritablement remarquable\npour quiconque savait que le cerveau gigantesque de Pickwick travaillait\nsous ce front, et que les yeux expressifs de Pickwick \u00e9tincelaient\nderri\u00e8re ces verres de lunettes. En effet l'homme qui avait suivi\njusqu'\u00e0 leurs sources les vastes \u00e9tangs de Hampstead[4], l'homme qui\navait remu\u00e9 le monde scientifique par sa th\u00e9orie des t\u00eatards, \u00e9tait\nassis l\u00e0, aussi calme, aussi immuable que les eaux profondes de ces\n\u00e9tangs, par un jour de gel\u00e9e; ou plut\u00f4t comme un solitaire sp\u00e9cimen de\nces innocents t\u00eatards dans la profondeur caverneuse d'une jarre de\nterre.\n\n[Footnote 4: Hampstead, village tout pr\u00e8s de Londres.]\n\nMais combien ce spectacle devint plus int\u00e9ressant, quand aux cris\nr\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9s de Pickwick! Pickwick! qui s'\u00e9chappaient simultan\u00e9ment de la\nbouche de tous ses disciples, cet homme illustre se leva, plein de vie\net d'animation, monta lentement l'escabeau rustique sur lequel il \u00e9tait\nprimitivement assis, et adressa la parole au club que lui-m\u00eame avait\nfond\u00e9. Quelle \u00e9tude pour un artiste que cette sc\u00e8ne attachante!\nL'\u00e9loquent Pickwick \u00e9tait l\u00e0, une main gracieusement cach\u00e9e sous les\npans de son habit, tandis que l'autre s'agitait dans l'air pour donner\nplus de force \u00e0 sa d\u00e9clamation chaleureuse. Sa position \u00e9lev\u00e9e r\u00e9v\u00e9lait\nson pantalon collant et ses gu\u00eatres, auxquelles on n'aurait peut-\u00eatre\npas accord\u00e9 grande attention si elles avaient rev\u00eatu un autre homme,\nmais qui, par\u00e9es, illustr\u00e9es par le contact de Pickwick, s'il est permis\nd'employer cette expression, remplissaient involontairement les\nspectateurs d'un respect et d'une crainte religieuse. Il \u00e9tait entour\u00e9\npar ces hommes de coeur qui s'\u00e9taient offerts pour partager les p\u00e9rils de\nses voyages, et qui devaient partager aussi la gloire de ses\nd\u00e9couvertes. A sa droite, si\u00e9geait Tracy Tupman, le trop inflammable\nTupman, qui, \u00e0 la sagesse et \u00e0 l'exp\u00e9rience de l'\u00e2ge m\u00fbr, unissait\nl'enthousiasme et l'ardeur d'un jeune homme, dans la plus int\u00e9ressante\net la plus pardonnable des faiblesses humaines, l'amour!--le temps et la\nbonne ch\u00e8re avaient \u00e9paissi sa tournure, jadis si romantique; son gilet\nde soie noire \u00e9tait graduellement devenu plus arrondi, tandis que sa\ncha\u00eene d'or disparaissait pouce par pouce \u00e0 ses propres yeux; son large\nmenton d\u00e9bordait de plus en plus par-dessus sa cravate blanche; mais\nl'\u00e2me de Tupman n'avait point chang\u00e9; l'admiration pour le beau sexe\n\u00e9tait toujours sa passion dominante.--A gauche du ma\u00eetre, on voyait le\npo\u00e9tique Snodgrass, myst\u00e9rieusement envelopp\u00e9 d'un manteau bleu, fourr\u00e9\nd'une peau de chien. Aupr\u00e8s de lui, Winkle, le chasseur, \u00e9talait\ncomplaisamment sa veste de chasse toute neuve, sa cravate \u00e9cossaise, et\nson \u00e9troit pantalon de drap gris.\n\nLe discours de M. Pickwick et les d\u00e9bats qui s'\u00e9lev\u00e8rent \u00e0 cette\noccasion, sont rapport\u00e9s dans les proc\u00e8s-verbaux du club. Ils offrent\n\u00e9galement une ressemblance frappante avec les discussions des assembl\u00e9es\nles plus c\u00e9l\u00e8bres; et comme il est toujours curieux de comparer les\nfaits et gestes des grands hommes, nous allons transcrire le\nproc\u00e8s-verbal de cette s\u00e9ance m\u00e9morable.\n\n\u00abM. Pickwick fait observer, dit le secr\u00e9taire, que la gloire est ch\u00e8re\nau coeur de tous les hommes. La gloire po\u00e9tique est ch\u00e8re au coeur de son\nami Snodgrass; la gloire des conqu\u00eates est \u00e9galement ch\u00e8re \u00e0 son ami\nTupman; et le d\u00e9sir d'acqu\u00e9rir de la renomm\u00e9e dans tous les exercices du\ncorps, existe, au plus haut degr\u00e9 dans le sein de son ami Winkle. Il (M.\nPickwick) ne saurait nier l'influence qu'ont exerc\u00e9e sur lui-m\u00eame les\npassions humaines, les sentiments humains (_applaudissements_);\npeut-\u00eatre m\u00eame les faiblesses humaines (_violents cris de: non! non_).\nMais il dira ceci: que si jamais le feu de l'amour-propre s'alluma dans\nson sein, le d\u00e9sir d'\u00eatre utile \u00e0 l'esp\u00e8ce humaine l'\u00e9teignit\nenti\u00e8rement. Le d\u00e9sir d'obtenir l'estime du genre humain \u00e9tait son dada,\nla philanthropie son paratonnerre (_v\u00e9h\u00e9mente approbation_). Il a senti\nquelque orgueil, il l'avoue librement (et que ses ennemis s'emparent de\ncet aveu s'ils le veulent), il a senti quelque orgueil quand il a\npr\u00e9sent\u00e9 au monde sa th\u00e9orie des t\u00eatards. Cette th\u00e9orie peut \u00eatre\nc\u00e9l\u00e8bre, ou ne l'\u00eatre pas. (Une voix dit: _Elle l'est!--Grands\napplaudissements._) Il accepte l'assertion de l'honorable pickwickien\ndont la voix vient de se faire entendre. Sa th\u00e9orie est c\u00e9l\u00e8bre! Mais si\nla renomm\u00e9e de ce trait\u00e9 devait s'\u00e9tendre aux derni\u00e8res bornes du monde\nconnu, l'orgueil que l'auteur ressentirait de cette production ne serait\nrien aupr\u00e8s de celui qu'il \u00e9prouve en ce moment, le plus glorieux de son\nexistence (_acclamations_). Il n'est qu'un individu bien humble (_Non!\nnon!_); cependant il ne peut se dissimuler qu'il est choisi par\nl'Association pour un service d'une grande importance, et qui offre\nquelques risques, aujourd'hui surtout que le d\u00e9sordre r\u00e8gne sur les\ngrandes routes, et que les cochers sont d\u00e9moralis\u00e9s. Regardez sur le\ncontinent, et contemplez les sc\u00e8nes qui se passent chez toutes les\nnations. Les diligences versent de toutes parts; les chevaux prennent le\nmors aux dents; les bateaux chavirent, les chaudi\u00e8res \u00e9clatent!\n(_applaudissements.--Une voix crie, non!_) Non! (_applaudissements_) que\nl'honorable pickwickien qui a lanc\u00e9 un non si bruyant, s'avance et me\nd\u00e9mente s'il ose! Qui est-ce qui a cri\u00e9 non? (_Bruyantes acclamations._)\nSerait-ce l'amour-propre d\u00e9sappoint\u00e9 d'un homme... il ne veut pas dire\nd'un bonnetier (_vifs applaudissements_) qui, jaloux des louanges qu'on\na accord\u00e9es, peut-\u00eatre sans motif, aux recherches de l'orateur, et piqu\u00e9\npar les censures dont on a accabl\u00e9 les mis\u00e9rables tentatives sugg\u00e9r\u00e9es\npar l'envie, prend maintenant ce moyen vif et calomnieux....\n\n\u00abM. Blotton (d'Algate) se l\u00e8ve pour demander le rappel \u00e0 l'ordre.--Est-ce\n\u00e0 lui que l'honorable pickwickien faisait allusion? (_Cris \u00e0\nl'ordre!--Le pr\u00e9sident[5]:--Oui!--Non!--Continuez!--Assez!_--etc.)\n\n[Footnote 5: C'est par ce cri que les membres du parlement invitent le\npr\u00e9sident \u00e0 r\u00e9tablir l'ordre.]\n\n\u00abM. Pickwick ne se laissera pas intimider par des clameurs. Il a fait\nallusion \u00e0 l'honorable gentleman! (_Vive sensation._)\n\n\u00abDans ce cas, M. Blotton n'a que deux mots \u00e0 dire: il repousse avec un\nprofond m\u00e9pris l'accusation de l'honorable gentleman, comme fausse et\ndiffamatoire (_grands applaudissements_). L'honorable gentleman est un\nblagueur. (_Immense confusion. Grands cris de: Le pr\u00e9sident! \u00e0\nl'ordre!_)\n\n\u00abM. Snodgrass se l\u00e8ve pour demander le rappel \u00e0 l'ordre. Il en appelle\nau pr\u00e9sident. (_\u00c9coutez!_) Il demande si l'on n'arr\u00eatera pas cette\nhonteuse discussion entre deux membres du club. (_\u00c9coutez! \u00e9coutez!_)\n\n\u00abLe pr\u00e9sident est convaincu que l'honorable pickwickien retirera\nl'expression dont il vient de se servir.\n\n\u00abM. Blotton, avec tout le respect possible pour le pr\u00e9sident, affirme\nqu'il n'en fera rien.\n\n\u00abLe pr\u00e9sident regarde comme un devoir imp\u00e9ratif de demander \u00e0\nl'honorable gentleman s'il a employ\u00e9 l'expression qui vient de lui\n\u00e9chapper, suivant le sens qu'on lui donne commun\u00e9ment.\n\n\u00abM. Blotton n'h\u00e9site pas \u00e0 dire que non, et qu'il n'a employ\u00e9 ce mot\nque dans le sens pickwickien. (_\u00c9coutez! \u00c9coutez!_) Il est oblig\u00e9 de\nreconna\u00eetre que, personnellement, il professe la plus grande estime pour\nl'honorable gentleman en question. Il ne l'a consid\u00e9r\u00e9 comme un blagueur\nque sous un point de vue enti\u00e8rement pickwickien. (_\u00c9coutez! \u00e9coutez!_)\n\n\u00abM. Pickwick d\u00e9clare qu'il est compl\u00e9tement satisfait par l'explication\nnoble et candide de son honorable ami. Il d\u00e9sire qu'il soit bien entendu\nque ses propres observations n'ont d\u00fb \u00eatre comprises que dans leur sens\npurement pickwickien (_applaudissements._)\u00bb\n\nIci finit le proc\u00e8s-verbal, et en effet la discussion ne pouvait\ncontinuer, puisqu'on \u00e9tait arriv\u00e9 \u00e0 une conclusion si satisfaisante, si\nclaire. Nous n'avons pas d'autorit\u00e9 officielle pour les faits que le\nlecteur trouvera dans le chapitre suivant, mais ils ont \u00e9t\u00e9 recueillis\nd'apr\u00e8s des lettres et d'autres pi\u00e8ces manuscrites, dont on ne peut\nmettre en question l'authenticit\u00e9.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE II.\n\nLe premier jour de voyage et la premi\u00e8re soir\u00e9e d'aventures, avec leurs\ncons\u00e9quences.\n\n\nLe soleil, ce ponctuel factotum de l'univers, venait de se lever et\ncommen\u00e7ait \u00e0 \u00e9clairer le matin du 13 mai 1831, quand M. Samu\u00ebl Pickwick,\nsemblable \u00e0 cet astre radieux, sortit des bras du sommeil, ouvrit la\ncrois\u00e9e de sa chambre, et laissa tomber ses regards sur le monde, qui\ns'agitait au-dessous de lui. La rue Goswell \u00e9tait \u00e0 ses pieds, la rue\nGoswell \u00e9tait \u00e0 sa droite, la rue Goswell \u00e9tait \u00e0 sa gauche, aussi loin\nque l'oeil pouvait s'\u00e9tendre, et en face de lui se trouvait encore la rue\nGoswell. \u00abTelles, pensa M. Pickwick, telles sont les vues \u00e9troites de\nces philosophes, qui, satisfaits d'examiner la surface des choses, ne\ncherchent point \u00e0 en \u00e9tudier les myst\u00e8res cach\u00e9s. Comme eux, je pourrais\nme contenter de regarder toujours sur la rue Goswell, sans faire aucun\neffort pour p\u00e9n\u00e9trer dans les contr\u00e9es inconnues qui l'environnent.\u00bb\nAyant laiss\u00e9 tomber cette pens\u00e9e sublime, M. Pickwick s'occupe de\ns'habiller et de serrer ses effets dans son portemanteau. Les grands\nhommes sont rarement tr\u00e8s-scrupuleux pour leur costume: aussi la barbe,\nla toilette, le d\u00e9jeuner se succ\u00e9d\u00e8rent-ils rapidement. Au bout d'une\nheure M. Pickwick \u00e9tait arriv\u00e9 \u00e0 la place des voitures de Saint-Martin\nle Grand, ayant son portemanteau sous son bras, son t\u00e9lescope dans la\npoche de sa redingote, et dans celle de son gilet son m\u00e9morandum,\ntoujours pr\u00eat \u00e0 recevoir les d\u00e9couvertes dignes d'\u00eatre not\u00e9es.\n\n\u00abCocher! cria M. Pickwick.\n\n--Voil\u00e0, monsieur! r\u00e9pondit un \u00e9trange sp\u00e9cimen du genre homme, lequel\navec son sarrau et son tablier de toile, portant au cou une plaque de\ncuivre num\u00e9rot\u00e9e, avait l'air d'\u00eatre catalogu\u00e9 dans quelque collection\nd'objets rares. C'\u00e9tait le gar\u00e7on de place. Voil\u00e0, monsieur. H\u00e9!\ncabriolet en t\u00eate!\u00bb Et le cocher \u00e9tant sorti de la taverne o\u00f9 il fumait\nsa pipe, M. Pickwick et son portemanteau furent hiss\u00e9s dans la voiture.\n\n--Golden-Cross, dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Ce n'est qu'une m\u00e9chante course d'un shilling, Tom, cria le cocher\nd'un ton de mauvaise humeur, pour l'\u00e9dification du gar\u00e7on de place,\ncomme la voiture partait.\n\n--Quel \u00e2ge a cette b\u00eate-l\u00e0, mon ami? demanda M. Pickwick en se frottant\nle nez avec le shilling qu'il tenait tout pr\u00eat pour payer sa course.\n\n--Quarante-deux ans, r\u00e9pliqua le cocher, apr\u00e8s avoir lorgn\u00e9 M. Pickwick\ndu coin de l'oeil.\n\n--Quoi! s'\u00e9cria l'homme illustre en mettant la main sur son carnet.\u00bb\n\nLe cocher r\u00e9it\u00e9ra son assertion; M. Pickwick le regarda fixement au\nvisage; mais il ne d\u00e9couvrit aucune h\u00e9sitation dans ses traits, et nota\nle fait imm\u00e9diatement.\n\n\u00abEt combien de temps reste-t-il hors de l'\u00e9curie, continua M. Pickwick,\ncherchant toujours \u00e0 acqu\u00e9rir quelques notions utiles.\n\n--Deux ou trois semaines.\n\n--Deux ou trois semaines hors de l'\u00e9curie! dit le philosophe plein\nd'\u00e9tonnement; et il tira de nouveau son portefeuille.\n\n--Les \u00e9curies, r\u00e9pliqua froidement le cocher, sont \u00e0 Pentonville; mais\nil y entre rarement \u00e0 cause de sa faiblesse.\n\n--A cause de sa faiblesse? r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick avec perplexit\u00e9.\n\n--Il tombe toujours quand on l'\u00f4te du cabriolet. Mais au contraire quand\nil y est bien attel\u00e9, nous tenons les guides courtes et il ne peut pas\nbroncher. Nous avons une paire de fameuses roues; aussi, pour peu qu'il\nbouge, elles roulent apr\u00e8s lui, et il faut bien qu'il marche. Il ne peut\npas s'en emp\u00eacher.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick enregistra chaque parole de ce r\u00e9cit, pour en faire part \u00e0\nson club, comme d'une singuli\u00e8re preuve de la vitalit\u00e9 des chevaux dans\nles circonstances les plus difficiles. Il achevait d'\u00e9crire, lorsque le\ncabriolet atteignit Golden-Cross. Aussit\u00f4t le cocher saute en bas, M.\nPickwick descend avec pr\u00e9caution, et MM. Tupman, Snodgrass et Winkle,\nqui attendaient avec anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 l'arriv\u00e9e de leur illustre chef,\ns'approchent de lui pour le f\u00e9liciter.\n\n\u00abTenez, cocher,\u00bb dit M. Pickwick en tendant le shilling \u00e0 son\nconducteur.\n\nMais quel fut l'\u00e9tonnement du savant personnage lorsque cet homme\ninconcevable, jetant l'argent sur le pav\u00e9, d\u00e9clara, en langage figur\u00e9,\nqu'il ne demandait d'autre payement que le plaisir de boxer avec M.\nPickwick tout son shilling.\n\n\u00abVous \u00eates fou, dit M. Snodgrass.\n\n--Ivre, reprit M. Winkle.\n\n--Tous les deux, ajouta M. Tupman.\n\n--Avancez! disait le cocher, lan\u00e7ant dans l'espace une multitude de\ncoups de poings pr\u00e9paratoires. Avancez tous les quatre!\n\n--En voil\u00e0 une bonne! s'\u00e9cri\u00e8rent une demi-douzaine d'autres cochers: A\nla besogne, John! et ils se rang\u00e8rent en cercle avec une grande\nsatisfaction.\n\n--Qu'est-ce qu'y a, John? demanda un gentleman, porteur de manches de\ncalicot noir.\n\n--Ce qu'y a! r\u00e9pliqua le cocher. Ce vieux a pris mon num\u00e9ro!\n\n--Je n'ai pas pris votre num\u00e9ro, dit M. Pickwick d'un ton indign\u00e9.\n\n--Pourquoi l'avez-vous not\u00e9, alors? demanda le cocher.\n\n--Je ne l'ai pas not\u00e9! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, avec indignation.\n\n--Croiriez-vous, continua le cocher, en s'adressant \u00e0 la foule;\ncroiriez-vous que ce mouchard-l\u00e0 monte dans mon cabriolet, prend mon\nnum\u00e9ro, et couche sur le papier chaque parole que j'ai dite?\u00bb (Le\nm\u00e9morandum revint comme un trait de lumi\u00e8re dans la m\u00e9moire de M.\nPickwick.)\n\n\u00abIl a fait \u00e7a? cria un autre cocher.\n\n--Oui, il a fait \u00e7a. Apr\u00e8s m'avoir induit par ses vexations \u00e0\nl'attaquer, voil\u00e0 qu'il a trois t\u00e9moins tout pr\u00eats pour d\u00e9poser contre\nmoi. Mais il me le payera, quand je devrais en avoir pour six mois!\nAvancez donc.\u00bb Et dans son exasp\u00e9ration, avec un d\u00e9dain superbe pour ses\npropres effets, le cocher lan\u00e7a son chapeau sur le pav\u00e9, fit sauter les\nlunettes de M. Pickwick, envoya un coup de poing sous le nez de M.\nPickwick, un autre coup de poing dans la poitrine de M. Pickwick, un\ntroisi\u00e8me dans l'oeil de M. Snodgrass, un quatri\u00e8me pour varier dans le\ngilet de M. Tupman; puis s'en alla d'un saut au milieu de la rue, puis\nrevint sur le trottoir, et finalement enleva \u00e0 M. Winkle le peu d'air\nrespirable que renfermaient momentan\u00e9ment ses poumons, le tout en une\ndouzaine de secondes.\n\n\u00abO\u00f9 y a-t-il un constable? dit M. Snodgrass.\n\n--Mettez-les sous la pompe, sugg\u00e9ra un marchand de p\u00e2t\u00e9s chauds.\n\n--Vous me le payerez, dit M. Pickwick respirant avec difficult\u00e9.\n\n--Mouchards! cri\u00e8rent quelques voix dans la foule.\n\n--Avancez donc, beugla le cocher, qui pendant ce temps avait continu\u00e9 de\nlancer des coups de poings dans le vide.\u00bb\n\nJusqu'alors la populace avait contempl\u00e9 passivement cette sc\u00e8ne; mais le\nbruit que les pickwickiens \u00e9taient des mouchards s'\u00e9tant r\u00e9pandu de\nproche en proche, les assistants commenc\u00e8rent \u00e0 discuter avec beaucoup\nde chaleur s'il ne conviendrait pas de suivre la proposition de\nl'irascible marchand de p\u00e2t\u00e9s. On ne peut dire \u00e0 quelles voies de fait\nils se seraient port\u00e9s, si l'intervention d'un nouvel arrivant n'avait\ntermin\u00e9 inopin\u00e9ment la bagarre.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce qu'il y a? demanda un grand jeune homme effil\u00e9, rev\u00eatu d'un\nhabit vert, et qui sortait du bureau des voitures.\n\n--Mouchards! hurla de nouveau la foule.\n\n--C'est faux! cria M. Pickwick avec un accent qui devait convaincre tout\nauditeur exempt de pr\u00e9jug\u00e9s.\n\n--Bien vrai? bien vrai?\u00bb demanda le jeune homme, en se faisant passage \u00e0\ntravers la multitude, par l'infaillible proc\u00e9d\u00e9 qui consiste \u00e0 donner\ndes coups de coude \u00e0 droite et \u00e0 gauche.\n\nM. Pickwick, en quelques phrases pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9es, lui expliqua le v\u00e9ritable\n\u00e9tat des choses.\n\n\u00abS'il en est ainsi, venez avec moi, dit l'habit vert, entra\u00eenant l'homme\nillustre et parlant tout le long du chemin. Ici, n\u00b0 924, prenez le prix\nde votre course, et allez vous-en. Respectable gentleman, je r\u00e9ponds de\nlui. Pas de sottises. Par ici, monsieur. O\u00f9 sont vos amis? Erreur \u00e0 ce\nque je vois. N'importe. Des accidents. \u00c7a arrive \u00e0 tout le monde.\nCourage! on n'en meurt pas; il faut faire contre fortune bon coeur.\nCitez-le devant le commissaire; qu'il mette cela dans sa poche si cela\nlui va. Damn\u00e9s coquins! et d\u00e9bitant avec une volubilit\u00e9 extraordinaire\nun long chapelet de sentences semblables, l'\u00e9tranger introduisit M.\nPickwick et ses disciples dans la chambre d'attente des voyageurs.\n\n--Gar\u00e7on! cria l'\u00e9tranger en tirant la sonnette avec une violence\nformidable, des verres pour tout le monde; du grog \u00e0 l'eau-de-vie chaud,\nfort sucr\u00e9, et qu'il y en ait beaucoup. L'oeil endommag\u00e9, monsieur?\nGar\u00e7on, un bifteck cru, pour l'oeil de monsieur. Rien comme le bifteck\ncru pour une contusion, monsieur. Un cand\u00e9labre \u00e0 gaz, excellent, mais\nincommode. Diablement dr\u00f4le de se tenir en pleine rue une demi-heure,\nl'oeil appuy\u00e9 sur un cand\u00e9labre \u00e0 gaz. La bonne plaisanterie, hein! Ha!\nha!\u00bb Et l'\u00e9tranger, sans s'arr\u00eater pour reprendre haleine, avala d'un\nseul trait une demi-pinte de grog br\u00fblant, puis il s'\u00e9tala sur une\nchaise, avec autant d'aisance que si rien de remarquable n'\u00e9tait arriv\u00e9.\n\nM. Pickwick eut le temps d'observer le costume et la tournure de cette\nnouvelle connaissance, tandis que ses trois compagnons \u00e9taient occup\u00e9s \u00e0\nlui offrir leurs remerciements.\n\nC'\u00e9tait un homme d'une taille moyenne; mais comme il avait le corps\nmince et les jambes tr\u00e8s-longues, il paraissait beaucoup plus grand\nqu'il ne l'\u00e9tait en r\u00e9alit\u00e9. Son habit vert avait \u00e9t\u00e9 un v\u00eatement\n\u00e9l\u00e9gant dans les beaux jours des habits \u00e0 queue de morue;\nmalheureusement, dans ce temps-l\u00e0, il avait sans doute \u00e9t\u00e9 fait pour un\nhomme beaucoup plus petit que l'\u00e9tranger, car les manches salies et\nfan\u00e9es lui descendaient \u00e0 peine aux poignets. Sans \u00e9gard pour l'\u00e2ge\nrespectable de cet habit, il l'avait boutonn\u00e9 jusqu'au menton, au hasard\nimminent d'en faire craquer le dos. Son cou \u00e9tait d\u00e9cor\u00e9 d'un vieux col\nnoir, mais on n'y apercevait aucun vestige d'un col de chemise. Son\n\u00e9troit pantalon \u00e9talait \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0 des places luisantes qui indiquaient de\nlongs services; il \u00e9tait fortement tendu par des sous-pieds sur des\nsouliers rapi\u00e9c\u00e9s, afin de cacher, sans doute, des bas, jadis blancs,\nqui se trahissaient encore malgr\u00e9 cette pr\u00e9caution inutile. De chaque\nc\u00f4t\u00e9 d'un chapeau \u00e0 bords retrouss\u00e9s tombaient en boucles n\u00e9glig\u00e9es les\nlongs cheveux noirs du personnage, et l'on entrevoyait la chair de ses\npoignets entre ses gants et les parements de son habit Enfin son visage\n\u00e9tait maigre et p\u00e2le, et dans toute sa personne r\u00e9gnait un air\nind\u00e9finissable d'impudence h\u00e2bleuse et d'aplomb imperturbable.\n\nTel \u00e9tait l'individu que M. Pickwick examinait \u00e0 travers ses lunettes\n(heureusement retrouv\u00e9es), et auquel il offrit, en termes choisis, ses\nremerc\u00eements, apr\u00e8s que ses trois amis eurent \u00e9puis\u00e9 les leurs.\n\n\u00abN'en parlons plus, dit l'\u00e9tranger, coupant court aux compliments, \u00e7a\nsuffit. Fameux gaillard, ce cocher, il jouait bien des poings, mais si\nj'avais \u00e9t\u00e9 votre ami \u00e0 l'habit de chasse vert, Dieu me damne! j'aurais\nbris\u00e9 la t\u00eate du cocher en moins de rien; celle du p\u00e2tissier aussi,\nparole d'honneur!\u00bb\n\nCe discours tout d'une haleine fut interrompu par le cocher de\nRochester, annon\u00e7ant que le _Commodore_ \u00e9tait pr\u00eat \u00e0 partir.\n\n\u00abCommodore! murmura l'\u00e9tranger en se levant: ma voiture, place retenue.\nPlace d'imp\u00e9riale. Payez l'eau-de-vie et l'eau; faudrait changer un\nbillet de cinq livres; il circule beaucoup de pi\u00e8ces fausses, monnaie de\nBirmingham; connu. Et il secoua la t\u00eate d'un air fin.\u00bb\n\nOr, M. Pickwick et ses trois compagnons avaient pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment projet\u00e9 de\nfaire leur premi\u00e8re halte \u00e0 Rochester. Ils d\u00e9clar\u00e8rent donc \u00e0 leur\nnouvelle connaissance qu'ils suivaient la m\u00eame route, et convinrent\nd'occuper le si\u00e9ge de derri\u00e8re de la voiture, o\u00f9 ils pourraient tenir\ntous les cinq.\n\n\u00abAllons! haut! dit l'\u00e9tranger, en aidant M. Pickwick \u00e0 grimper sur\nl'imp\u00e9riale, avec une pr\u00e9cipitation qui d\u00e9rangea mat\u00e9riellement la\ngravit\u00e9 ordinaire du philosophe.\n\n--Aucun bagage, monsieur? demanda le cocher.\n\n--Qui? moi? r\u00e9pliqua l'\u00e9tranger: Paquet de papier gris, voil\u00e0! le reste\nparti par eau; grosses caisses clou\u00e9es, grosses comme des maisons,\nlourdes, lourdes, diablement lourdes!\u00bb Et il enfon\u00e7a dans sa poche, le\nplus qu'il put, le paquet de papier gris, qui, \u00e0 en juger d'apr\u00e8s les\napparences paraissait contenir une chemise et un mouchoir.\n\n\u00abGare! gare les t\u00eates! cria le babillard \u00e9tranger, quand ils arriv\u00e8rent\nsous la vo\u00fbte, par laquelle entraient ou sortaient les voitures;\nterrible endroit, tr\u00e8s-dangereux; l'autre jour; cinq enfants; m\u00e8re;\ngrande femme, mangeant des sandwiches, oublie la vo\u00fbte; crac! les\nenfants se retournent; la t\u00eate de la m\u00e8re enlev\u00e9e! les sandwiches dans\nsa main; pas de bouche pour les mettre, le chef de la famille n'y \u00e9tait\nplus. Horrible! horrible! Vous regardez Whitehall, monsieur? beau\npalais, petite crois\u00e9e; la t\u00eate de quelqu'un tomb\u00e9e l\u00e0[6]... Eh! Il\nn'avait pas pris garde non plus! Eh! monsieur, eh!\n\n[Footnote 6: Charles Ier, d\u00e9capit\u00e9 sur un \u00e9chafaud, dress\u00e9 contre une\ndes fen\u00eatres du palais et par o\u00f9 il sortit.\n\n(_Note du traducteur._)]\n\n--Je ruminais, dit M. Pickwick, sur l'\u00e9trange mutabilit\u00e9 des choses de\nce monde.\n\n--Ah! je devine: on entre par la porte du palais un jour; on en sort par\nla fen\u00eatre le lendemain. Philosophe, monsieur?\n\n--Observateur de la nature humaine, monsieur.\n\n--Moi aussi, comme la plupart des hommes, quand ils n'ont pas\ngrand'chose \u00e0 faire, et encore moins \u00e0 gagner. Po\u00ebte, monsieur?\n\n--Mon ami, M. Snodgrass, a une disposition po\u00e9tique tr\u00e8s-prononc\u00e9e,\nr\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Moi aussi, reprit l'\u00e9tranger, po\u00ebme \u00e9pique; dix mille vers; r\u00e9volution\nde juillet; compos\u00e9 sur place; Mars le jour, Apollon la nuit;\nd\u00e9chargeant la fusil, pin\u00e7ant la lyre.\n\n--Vous \u00e9tiez pr\u00e9sent \u00e0 cette glorieuse sc\u00e8ne? demanda M. Snodgrass.\n\n--Pr\u00e9sent! un peu[7], j'ajustais un Suisse; j'ajustais un vers; j'entre\nchez un marchand de vin et je l'\u00e9cris; je retourne dans la rue, pouf!\npan! une autre id\u00e9e; je rentre dans la boutique, plume et encre; dans la\nrue, d'estoc et de taille. Noble temps, monsieur! Chasseur, monsieur? se\ntournant brusquement vers M. Winkle.\n\n[Footnote 7: Exemple remarquable de la force proph\u00e9tique de\nl'imagination de M. Jingle quand on pense que ce dialogue a lieu en 1827\net que la r\u00e9volution est de 1830.\n\n(_Note de l'auteur._)]\n\n--Un peu, r\u00e9pliqua celui-ci.\n\n--Belle occupation! belle occupation! des chiens?\n\n--Pas dans ce moment.\n\n--Ah! vous devriez en avoir. Noble animal, cr\u00e9ature intelligente! J'en\navais un jadis, chien d'arr\u00eat, instinct surprenant. Je chasse un jour,\nj'entre dans un enclos, je siffle, chien immobile; je siffle encore;\nPonto! Inutile: bouge pas. Ponto! Ponto! il ne remue pas. Chien\np\u00e9trifi\u00e9, en arr\u00eat devant un \u00e9criteau. Une inscription. _Les\ngardes-chasse ont ordre de tuer tous les chiens qu'ils trouveront dans\ncet enclos._ Il ne voulait pas avancer. Chien \u00e9tonnant. Fameuse b\u00eate,\noh! oui, fameuse!\n\n--Singuli\u00e8re circonstance, dit M. Pickwick. Voulez-vous me permettre\nd'en prendre note?\n\n--Certainement, monsieur, certainement; cent autres anecdotes du m\u00eame\nanimal. Jolie fille, monsieur! continua l'\u00e9tranger en s'adressant \u00e0 M.\nTracy Tupman, lequel s'occupait \u00e0 lancer des oeillades antipickwickiennes\n\u00e0 une jeune femme qui passait sur le bord de la route.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-jolie, r\u00e9pondit M. Tupman.\n\n--Les Anglaises ne valent pas les Espagnoles: nobles cr\u00e9atures; cheveux\nde jais, noires prunelles, formes s\u00e9duisantes; douces cr\u00e9atures,\ncharmantes!\n\n--Vous avez \u00e9t\u00e9 en Espagne, monsieur? demanda M. Tracy Tupman.\n\n--J'y ai v\u00e9cu des si\u00e8cles.\n\n--Vous avez fait beaucoup de conqu\u00eates?\n\n--Des conqu\u00eates? par milliers. Don Bolaro Fizzgig, grand d'Espagne;\nfille unique; do\u00f1a Christina, superbe cr\u00e9ature; elle m'aimait \u00e0 la\nfolie. P\u00e8re jaloux; fille passionn\u00e9e; bel Anglais; do\u00f1a Christina au\nd\u00e9sespoir; acide prussique; pompe stomacale dans mon portemanteau; je\npratique l'op\u00e9ration; vieux Bolaro en extase, consent \u00e0 notre union;\njoint nos mains, ruisseaux de pleurs; histoire romantique,\ntr\u00e8s-romantique.\n\n--Cette dame est-elle maintenant en Angleterre? reprit M. Tupman, sur\nlequel la description de tant de charmes avait produit une vive\nimpression.\n\n--Morte! monsieur, morte! r\u00e9pondit l'\u00e9tranger en appliquant \u00e0 son oeil\ndroit les tristes restes d'un mouchoir de batiste. Ne gu\u00e9rit jamais de\nla pompe stomacale, constitution d\u00e9truite, victime de l'amour.\n\n--Et le p\u00e8re? demanda le po\u00e9tique Snodgrass.\n\n--Saisi de remords, disparition subite, conversation de toute la ville.\nRecherches dans tous les coins, sans succ\u00e8s. Jet d'eau de la fontaine\npublique dans la grande place s'arr\u00eate subitement: le temps passe,\ntoujours point d'eau; les ouvriers s'y mettent: mon beau-p\u00e8re dans le\ngros tuyau, une confession compl\u00e8te dans sa botte droite. On le retire,\nla fontaine coule de plus belle.\n\n--Voulez-vous me permettre d'\u00e9crire ce petit roman? dit M. Snodgrass,\nprofond\u00e9ment affect\u00e9.\n\n--Certainement, monsieur, certainement. Cinquante autres \u00e0 votre\nservice. \u00c9trange histoire que la mienne, non pas extraordinaire, mais\ncurieuse.\u00bb\n\nDurant toute la route, l'\u00e9tranger continua \u00e0 parler de la sorte,\ns'interrompant seulement aux relais pour avaler un verre d'ale, en guise\nde ponctuation. Aussi, lorsque la voiture arriva au pont de Rochester,\nles carnets de MM. Pickwick et Snodgrass \u00e9taient compl\u00e9tement remplis\nd'un choix de ses aventures.\n\nLorsqu'on aper\u00e7ut le vieux ch\u00e2teau, M. Auguste Snodgrass s'\u00e9cria avec la\nferveur po\u00e9tique qui le distinguait: \u00abQuelles magnifiques ruines!\n\n--Quelle \u00e9tude pour un antiquaire! furent les propres paroles qui\ns'\u00e9chapp\u00e8rent de la bouche de M. Pickwick, tandis qu'il appliquait son\nt\u00e9lescope \u00e0 son oeil.\n\n--Ah! un bel endroit, r\u00e9pliqua l'\u00e9tranger. Superbe masse, sombres\nmurailles, arcades branlantes, noirs recoins, escaliers cro\u00fblants.\nVieille cath\u00e9drale aussi, odeur terreuse, les marches us\u00e9es par les\npieds des p\u00e8lerins, petites portes saxonnes, confessionnaux comme les\ngu\u00e9rites de ceux qui re\u00e7oivent l'argent au spectacle. Dr\u00f4les de gens que\nces moines, papes et tr\u00e9soriers, et toutes sortes de vieux gaillards,\navec des grosses faces rouges et des nez \u00e9corn\u00e9s, qu'on d\u00e9terre tous les\njours. Des pourpoints de buffle, des arquebuses \u00e0 m\u00e8che, sarcophages.\nBelle place, vieilles l\u00e9gendes, dr\u00f4les d'histoires, \u00e9tonnantes.\u00bb Et\nl'\u00e9tranger continua son soliloque jusqu'au moment o\u00f9 la voiture\ns'arr\u00eata, dans la grande rue, devant l'auberge du _Taureau_.\n\n--Allez-vous rester ici, monsieur, lui demanda M. Nathaniel Winkle.\n\n\u00abIci? non, monsieur. Mais vous ferez bien d'y s\u00e9journer, bonne maison,\nlits propres. L'h\u00f4tel _Wright_, \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9, tr\u00e8s-cher, une demi-couronne de\nplus sur votre compte, si vous regardez seulement le gar\u00e7on; fait payer\nplus cher si vous d\u00eenez en ville que si vous d\u00eeniez \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel: dr\u00f4les de\ngens, vraiment.\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle s'approcha de M. Pickwick et lui dit quelques paroles \u00e0\nl'oreille. Un chuchotement passa de M. Pickwick \u00e0 M. Snodgrass, de M.\nSnodgrass \u00e0 M. Tupman, et des signes d'assentiment ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9chang\u00e9s,\nM. Pickwick s'adressa ainsi \u00e0 l'\u00e9tranger.\n\n\u00abVous nous avez rendu ce matin un important service, monsieur.\nPermettez-moi de vous offrir une l\u00e9g\u00e8re marque de notre reconnaissance,\nen vous priant de nous faire l'honneur de d\u00eener avec nous.\n\n--Grand plaisir. Ne me permettrai pas de dire mon go\u00fbt; volaille r\u00f4tie\net champignons, excellente chose; quelle heure?\n\n--Voyons, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick, en tirant sa montre. Il est maintenant\npr\u00e8s de trois heures. A cinq heures, si vous voulez.\n\n--Convient parfaitement; cinq heures pr\u00e9cises, jusqu'alors prenez soin\nde vous.\u00bb\n\nAinsi parla l'\u00e9tranger, et il souleva de quelques pouces son chapeau \u00e0\nbords retrouss\u00e9s, le repla\u00e7a n\u00e9gligemment sur le coin de l'oreille,\ntraversa la cour d'un air d\u00e9lib\u00e9r\u00e9, et tourna dans la grande rue, ayant\ntoujours hors de sa poche la moiti\u00e9 du paquet de papier gris.\n\n\u00ab\u00c9videmment un grand voyageur dans divers climats et un profond\nobservateur des hommes et des choses, dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--J'aimerais \u00e0 voir son po\u00ebme, reprit M. Snodgrass.\n\n--Et moi je voudrais avoir vu son chien,\u00bb ajouta M. Winkle.\n\nM. Tupman ne parla point, mais il pensa a do\u00f1a Christina, \u00e0 l'acide\nprussique, \u00e0 la fontaine, et ses yeux se remplirent de larmes.\n\nApr\u00e8s avoir retenu une salle \u00e0 manger particuli\u00e8re, examin\u00e9 les lits,\ncommand\u00e9 le d\u00eener, nos voyageurs sortirent pour observer la ville et les\nenvirons.\n\nNous avons lu soigneusement les notes de M. Pickwick sur les quatre\nvilles de Stroud, Rochester, Chatham et Brompton, et nous n'avons pas\ntrouv\u00e9 que ses opinions diff\u00e9rassent mat\u00e9riellement de celles des autres\nsavants qui ont parcouru les m\u00eames lieux. On peut r\u00e9sumer ainsi sa\ndescription.\n\nLes principales productions de ces villes paraissent \u00eatre des soldats,\ndes matelote, des juifs, de la craie, des crevettes, des officiers et\ndes employ\u00e9s de la marine. Les principales marchandises \u00e9tal\u00e9es dans les\nrues sont des denr\u00e9es pour la marine, du caramel, des pommes, des\npoissons plats et des hu\u00eetres. Les rues ont un air vivant et anim\u00e9, qui\nprovient principalement de la bonne humeur des militaires. Quand ces\nvaillants hommes, sous l'influence d'un exc\u00e8s de gaiet\u00e9 et de\nspiritueux, font, en chantant, des zigzags dans les rues, ils offrent un\nspectacle vraiment d\u00e9licieux pour un esprit philanthropique, surtout si\nnous consid\u00e9rons quel amusement innocent et peu cher ils fournissent \u00e0\ntous les enfants de la ville, qui les suivent en plaisantent avec eux.\nRien (ajouta M. Pickwick), rien n'\u00e9gale leur bonne humeur. La veille de\nmon arriv\u00e9e, l'un d'eux avait \u00e9t\u00e9 grossi\u00e8rement insult\u00e9 dans une\nauberge. La fille avait refus\u00e9 de le laisser boire davantage. Sur quoi,\net par pur badinage, le soldat tira sa ba\u00efonnette et blessa la servante\n\u00e0 l'\u00e9paule: cependant, le lendemain, ce brave gar\u00e7on se rendit d\u00e8s le\nmatin \u00e0 l'auberge, et fut le premier \u00e0 promettre de ne conserver aucun\nressentiment, et d'oublier ce qui s'\u00e9tait pass\u00e9.\n\n\u00abLa consommation de tabac doit \u00eatre tr\u00e8s-grande dans cette ville,\ncontinue M. Pickwick; et l'odeur de ce v\u00e9g\u00e9tal, r\u00e9pandue dans toutes les\nrues, doit \u00eatre \u00e9tonnamment d\u00e9licieuse pour ceux qui aiment \u00e0 fumer. Un\nvoyageur superficiel critiquerait peut-\u00eatre les boues qui caract\u00e9risent\nleur viabilit\u00e9, mais elles offrent, au contraire, un v\u00e9ritable sujet de\njouissance \u00e0 ceux qui y d\u00e9couvrent un indice de mouvement et de\nprosp\u00e9rit\u00e9 commerciale.\u00bb\n\nCinq heures pr\u00e9cises amen\u00e8rent \u00e0 la fois le d\u00eener et l'\u00e9tranger. Il\ns'\u00e9tait d\u00e9barrass\u00e9 de son paquet de papier gris, mais il n'avait fait\naucun changement dans son costume et d\u00e9ployait toujours sa loquacit\u00e9\naccoutum\u00e9e.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce que cela? demanda-t-il, comme le gar\u00e7on \u00f4tait une des cloches\nd'argent. Des soles! ha! fameux poisson; toutes soles viennent de\nLondres. Les entrepreneurs de diligences poussent aux d\u00eeners politiques\npour avoir le transport des soles; des paniers par douzaines; ils savent\nbien ce qu'ils font. Eh! eh! Un verre de vin avec moi, monsieur.\n\n--Avec plaisir,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick. Et l'\u00e9tranger prit du vin,\nd'abord avec lui, puis avec M. Snodgrass, puis avec M. Tupman, puis avec\nM. Winkle, puis enfin avec la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 collectivement; et le tout sans\ncesser un seul instant de discourir.\n\n\u00abDiable de bacchanale sur l'escalier! Banquettes qu'on monte,\ncharpentiers qui descendent, lampes, verres, harpe. Qu'y a-t-il donc,\ngar\u00e7on?\n\n--Un bal, monsieur.\n\n--Un bal par souscription?\n\n--Non, monsieur. Monsieur, un bal public au b\u00e9n\u00e9fice des pauvres,\nmonsieur.\n\n--Monsieur, dit M. Tupman avec un vif int\u00e9r\u00eat, savez-vous si les femmes\nsont bien dans cette ville?\n\n--Superbes, magnifiques. Kent, monsieur; tout le monde conna\u00eet le comt\u00e9\nde Kent, c\u00e9l\u00e8bre pour ses pommes, ses cerises, son houblon et ses\nfemmes. Un verre de vin, monsieur?\n\n--Avec grand plaisir, r\u00e9pondit M. Tupman; et l'\u00e9tranger emplit son\nverre, et le vida.\n\n--J'aimerais beaucoup aller \u00e0 ce bal, reprit M. Tupman, beaucoup.\n\n--Nous avons des billets au comptoir, monsieur. Une demi-guin\u00e9e chaque,\nmonsieur, dit le gar\u00e7on.\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman exprima de nouveau le d\u00e9sir d'\u00eatre pr\u00e9sent \u00e0 cette f\u00eate; mais\nne rencontrant aucune r\u00e9ponse dans l'oeil obscurci de M. Snodgrass, ni\ndans le regard distrait de M. Pickwick, il se rejeta, avec un nouvel\nint\u00e9r\u00eat, sur le vin de Porto et sur le dessert qu'on venait d'apporter.\nLe gar\u00e7on se retira, et nos cinq voyageurs continu\u00e8rent \u00e0 savourer les\ndeux heures d'abandon qui suivent le d\u00eener.\n\n\u00abPardon, monsieur, dit l'\u00e9tranger, la bouteille dort, faites-lui faire\nle tour comme le soleil, par la soute au pain, rubis sur l'ongle,\u00bb et il\nvida son verre qu'il avait rempli deux minutes auparavant, et s'en versa\nun autre avec l'aplomb d'un homme accoutum\u00e9 \u00e0 ce man\u00e8ge.\n\nLe vin fut bu, et l'on en demanda d'autre: le visiteur parla, les\npickwickiens \u00e9cout\u00e8rent; M. Tupman se sentait \u00e0 chaque instant plus de\ndisposition pour le bal; la figure de M. Pickwick brillait d'une\nexpression de philanthropie universelle; MM. Winkle et Snodgrass \u00e9taient\ntomb\u00e9s dans un profond sommeil.\n\n\u00abIls commencent l\u00e0 haut, dit l'\u00e9tranger; \u00e9coutez, on accorde les\nviolons, maintenant la harpe; les voil\u00e0 partis.\u00bb\n\nEn effet, les sons vari\u00e9s qui descendaient le long de l'escalier\nannon\u00e7aient le commencement du premier quadrille.\n\n\u00abJ'aimerais beaucoup aller \u00e0 ce bal, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Tupman.\n\n--Moi aussi; maudit bagage; bateau en retard: rien \u00e0 mettre; dr\u00f4le,\nhein?\u00bb\n\nUne bienveillance g\u00e9n\u00e9rale \u00e9tait le trait caract\u00e9ristique des\npickwickiens, et M. Tupman en \u00e9tait dou\u00e9 plus qu'aucun autre. En\nfeuilletant les proc\u00e8s-verbaux du club, on est \u00e9tonn\u00e9 de voir combien de\nfois cet excellent homme envoya chez les autres membres de l'Association\nles infortun\u00e9s qui s'adressaient \u00e0 lui, pour en obtenir de vieux\nv\u00eatements ou des secours p\u00e9cuniaires.\n\n\u00abJe serais heureux de vous pr\u00eater un habit pour cette occasion, dit-il\n\u00e0 l'\u00e9tranger; mais vous \u00eates assez mince, et je suis...\n\n--Assez gros. Bacchus sur le retour, descendu de son tonneau, les\npampres au diable, portant des culottes. Ah! ah! Passez le vin.\u00bb\n\nNous ne saurions dire si M. Tupman fut indign\u00e9 du ton p\u00e9remptoire avec\nlequel l'\u00e9tranger l'engageait \u00e0 passer le vin, qui passait en effet si\nvite par son gosier, ou s'il \u00e9tait justement scandalis\u00e9 de voir un\nmembre influent de Pickwick-Club compar\u00e9 ignominieusement \u00e0 un Bacchus\nd\u00e9mont\u00e9; mais, apr\u00e8s avoir pass\u00e9 le vin, il toussa deux fois et regarda\nl'\u00e9tranger, durant quelques secondes, avec une fixit\u00e9 s\u00e9v\u00e8re. Cependant,\ncet individu \u00e9tant demeur\u00e9 parfaitement calme et serein sous son regard\nscrutateur, il en diminua par degr\u00e9s l'intensit\u00e9 et recommen\u00e7a \u00e0 parler\ndu bal.\n\n\u00abJ'\u00e9tais sur le point d'observer, monsieur, lui dit-il, que si mes\nv\u00eatements doivent vous \u00eatre trop larges, ceux de mon ami, M. Winkle,\npourraient peut-\u00eatre vous aller mieux.\u00bb\n\nL'\u00e9tranger prit d'un coup d'oeil la mesure de M. Winkle et s'\u00e9cria avec\nsatisfaction: \u00abJustement ce qu'il me faut!\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman regarda autour de lui. Le vin, qui avait exerc\u00e9 son influence\nsomnif\u00e8re sur MM. Snodgrass et Winkle, avait aussi appesanti les sens de\nM. Pickwick. Ce gentleman avait parcouru successivement les diverses\nphases qui pr\u00e9c\u00e8dent la l\u00e9thargie produite par le d\u00eener et par le vin.\nIl avait subi les phases ordinaires depuis l'exc\u00e8s de la gaiet\u00e9 jusqu'\u00e0\nl'ab\u00eeme de la tristesse. Comme un bec de gaz, dans une rue, lorsque le\nvent a p\u00e9n\u00e9tr\u00e9 dans le tuyau, il avait d\u00e9ploy\u00e9 par moments, une clart\u00e9\nextraordinaire, puis il \u00e9tait tomb\u00e9 si bas qu'on pouvait \u00e0 peine\nl'apercevoir; apr\u00e8s un court intervalle il avait fait jaillir de nouveau\nune \u00e9blouissante lumi\u00e8re, puis il avait oscill\u00e9 rapidement, et il\ns'\u00e9tait \u00e9teint tout \u00e0 fait. Sa t\u00eate \u00e9tait pench\u00e9e sur sa poitrine, et un\nronflement perp\u00e9tuel, accompagn\u00e9 parfois d'un sourd grognement, \u00e9taient\nles seules preuves auriculaires qui pussent attester encore la pr\u00e9sence\nde ce grand homme.\n\nM. Tupman \u00e9tait violemment tent\u00e9 d'aller au bal, pour porter son\njugement sur les beaut\u00e9s du comt\u00e9 de Kent; il \u00e9tait \u00e9galement tent\u00e9\nd'emmener avec lui l'\u00e9tranger; car il l'entendait parler des habitants\net de la ville comme s'il y avait v\u00e9cu depuis sa naissance, tandis que\nlui-m\u00eame se trouvait enti\u00e8rement d\u00e9pays\u00e9. M. Winkle dormait\nprofond\u00e9ment, et M. Tupman avait assez d'exp\u00e9rience de l'\u00e9tat o\u00f9 il le\nvoyait pour savoir que, suivant le cours ordinaire de la nature, son ami\nne songerait point \u00e0 autre chose, en s'\u00e9veillant, qu'\u00e0 se tra\u00eener\npesamment vers son lit. Cependant il restait encore dans l'ind\u00e9cision.\n\n\u00abRemplissez votre verre, et passez le vin;\u00bb dit l'infatigable visiteur.\n\nM. Tupman fit comme il lui \u00e9tait demand\u00e9, et le stimulant additionnel du\ndernier verre le d\u00e9termina.\n\n\u00abLa chambre \u00e0 coucher de Winkle, dit-il \u00e0 l'\u00e9tranger, ouvre dans la\nmienne; si je l'\u00e9veillais maintenant je ne pourrais pas lui faire\ncomprendre ce que je d\u00e9sire: mais je sais qu'il a un costume complet\ndans son sac de nuit. Supposez que vous le mettiez pour aller au bal et\nque vous l'\u00f4tiez en rentrant, je pourrais le replacer facilement, sans\nd\u00e9ranger notre ami le moins du monde.\n\n--Admirable! r\u00e9pondit l'\u00e9tranger; fameux plan! Damn\u00e9e position, bizarre,\nquatorze habits dans ma malle et oblig\u00e9 de mettre celui d'un autre.\nTr\u00e8s-dr\u00f4le! vraiment.\n\n--Il faut prendre nos billets, dit M. Tupman.\n\n--Pas la peine de changer une guin\u00e9e. Jouons qui payera les deux, jetez\nune pi\u00e8ce en l'air, moi je nomme, allez. Femme, femme, femme\nenchanteresse! et le souverain \u00e9tant tomb\u00e9 laissa voir sur sa face\nsup\u00e9rieure le dragon, appel\u00e9 par courtoisie, une femme. Condamn\u00e9 par le\nsort, M. Tupman tira la sonnette, prit les billets et demanda de la\nlumi\u00e8re. Au bout d'un quart d'heure l'\u00e9tranger \u00e9tait compl\u00e9tement par\u00e9\ndes d\u00e9pouilles de M. Nathaniel Winkle.\n\n--C'est un habit neuf, dit M. Tupman, tandis que l'\u00e9tranger se mirait\navec complaisance: c'est le premier qui soit orn\u00e9 des boutons de notre\nclub;\u00bb et il fit remarquer \u00e0 son compagnon les larges boutons dor\u00e9s, sur\nlesquels on voyait les lettres P.C. de chaque c\u00f4t\u00e9 du buste de M.\nPickwick.\n\n\u00abP.C. r\u00e9p\u00e9ta l'\u00e9tranger; dr\u00f4le de devise, le portrait du vieux bonhomme,\navec P.C. Qu'est-ce que P.C. signifie, portrait curieux, hein?\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman, avec une grande importance et une indignation mal comprim\u00e9e,\nexpliqua le symbole mystique du Pickwick-Club, tandis que l'\u00e9tranger se\ntordait pour apercevoir dans la glace le derri\u00e8re de l'habit dont la\ntaille lui montait au milieu du dos.\n\n\u00abUn peu court de taille, n'est-ce pas? Comme les vestes des facteurs:\ndr\u00f4les d'habits, ceux-l\u00e0, faits \u00e0 l'entreprise, sans mesures: voies\nmyst\u00e9rieuses de la providence, \u00e0 tous les petits hommes, de longs\nhabits; \u00e0 tous les grands, des habits courts.\u00bb\n\nEn babillant de cette mani\u00e8re, le nouveau compagnon de M. Tupman acheva\nd'ajuster son costume, ou plut\u00f4t celui de M. Winkle, et, bient\u00f4t apr\u00e8s,\nles deux amateurs de f\u00eates mont\u00e8rent ensemble l'escalier.\n\n\u00abQuels noms, messieurs? dit l'homme qui se tenait \u00e0 la porte. M. Tupman\ns'avan\u00e7ait pour \u00e9noncer ses titres et qualit\u00e9s, quand l'\u00e9tranger\nl'arr\u00eata en disant:\n\n--Pas de nom du tout; et il murmura \u00e0 l'oreille de M. Tupman: \u00abLes noms\nne valent rien; inconnus, excellents noms dans leur genre, mais pas\nillustres; fameux noms dans une petite r\u00e9union, mais qui ne feraient pas\nd'effet dans une grande assembl\u00e9e. Incognito, voil\u00e0 la chose. Gentlemen\nde Londres, nobles \u00e9trangers, n'importe quoi.\u00bb\n\nLa porte s'ouvrit \u00e0 ces derniers mots prononc\u00e9s \u00e0 voix haute, et M.\nTupman entra dans la salle de bal avec l'\u00e9tranger.\n\nC'\u00e9tait une longue chambre garnie de banquettes cramoisies, et \u00e9clair\u00e9e\npar des bougies, plac\u00e9es dans des lustres de cristal. Les musiciens\n\u00e9taient soigneusement retranch\u00e9s sur une haute estrade, et trois ou\nquatre quadrilles se m\u00ealaient et se d\u00e9m\u00ealaient d'une mani\u00e8re\nscientifique. Dans une pi\u00e8ce voisine on apercevait deux tables \u00e0 jouer,\nsur lesquelles quatre vieilles dames, avec un pareil nombre de gros\nmessieurs, ex\u00e9cutaient gravement leur whist.\n\nLa finale termin\u00e9e, les danseurs se promen\u00e8rent dans la salle, et nos\ndeux compagnons se plant\u00e8rent dans un coin pour observer la compagnie.\n\n\u00abCharmantes femmes! soupira M. Tupman.\n\n--Attendez un instant. Vous allez voir tout \u00e0 l'heure. Les gros bonnets\npas encore venus. Dr\u00f4le d'endroit. Les employ\u00e9s sup\u00e9rieurs de la marine\nne parlent pas aux petits employ\u00e9s, les petits employ\u00e9s ne parlent pas \u00e0\nla bourgeoisie, la bourgeoisie ne parle pas aux marchands, le\ncommissaire du gouvernement ne parle \u00e0 personne.\n\n--Quel est ce petit gar\u00e7on aux cheveux blonds, aux yeux rouges, avec un\nhabit de fantaisie?\n\n--Silence, s'il vous pla\u00eet! yeux rouges, habit de fantaisie, petit\ngar\u00e7on, allons donc! Chut! chut! c'est un enseigne du 97e, l'honorable\nWilmot-B\u00e9casse. Grande famille, les B\u00e9casses, famille nombreuse.\n\n--Sir Thomas Clubber, lady Clubber et Mlles Clubber! cria d'une voix de\nstentor l'homme qui annon\u00e7ait.\u00bb\n\nUne profonde sensation se propagea dans toute la salle, \u00e0 l'entr\u00e9e d'un\n\u00e9norme gentleman, en habit bleu, avec des boutons brillants; d'une vaste\nlady en satin bleu, et de deux jeunes ladies taill\u00e9es sur le m\u00eame patron\net par\u00e9es de robes \u00e9l\u00e9gantes de la m\u00eame couleur.\n\n\u00abCommissaire du gouvernement, chef de la marine, grand homme,\nremarquablement grand! dit tout bas l'\u00e9tranger \u00e0 M. Tupman, pendant que\nles commissaires du bal conduisaient sir Thomas Clubber et sa famille\njusqu'au haut bout de la salle. L'honorable Wilmot-B\u00e9casse et les\nmeneurs de distinction s'empress\u00e8rent de pr\u00e9senter leurs hommages aux\ndemoiselles Clubber, et sir Thomas Clubber, droit comme un i,\ncontemplait majestueusement l'assembl\u00e9e du haut de sa cravate noire.\u00bb\n\nM. Smithie, Mme Smithie et mesdemoiselles Smithie, furent annonc\u00e9s\nimm\u00e9diatement apr\u00e8s.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce que M. Smithie? demanda M. Tupman.\n\n--Quelque chose de la marine,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit l'\u00e9tranger.\n\nM. Smithie s'inclina avec d\u00e9f\u00e9rence devant sir Thomas Clubber, et sir\nThomas Clubber lui rendit son salut avec une condescendance marqu\u00e9e.\nLady Clubber examina \u00e0 travers son lorgnon Mme Smithie et sa famille; et\n\u00e0 son tour Mme Smithie regarda du haut en bas madame je ne sais qui,\ndont le mari n'\u00e9tait pas dans la marine.\n\n\u00abColonel Bulder, Mme Bulder et miss Bulder!\n\n--Chef de la garnison,\u00bb dit l'\u00e9tranger, en r\u00e9ponse \u00e0 un coup d'oeil\ninterrogateur de M. Tupman.\n\nMiss Bulder fut chaudement accueillie par les miss Clubber; les\nsalutations entre Mme Bulder et lady Clubber furent des plus\naffectueuses; le colonel Bulder et sir Thomas s'offrirent mutuellement\nune prise de tabac, et tous deux regard\u00e8rent autour d'eux comme une\npaire d'Alexandre Selkirk, monarques de tout ce qui les entourait.\n\nTandis que l'aristocratie de l'endroit, les Bulder, les Clubber et les\nB\u00e9casse conservaient ainsi leur dignit\u00e9 au haut bout de la salle, les\nautres classes de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 les imitaient, au bas bout, autant qu'il\nleur \u00e9tait possible. Les officiers les moins aristocratiques du 97e se\nd\u00e9vouaient aux familles des fonctionnaires les moins importants de la\nmarine; les femmes des avou\u00e9s et la femme du marchand de vin \u00e9taient \u00e0\nla t\u00eate d'une faction; la femme du brasseur visitait les Bulder; et Mme\nTomlinson, directrice du bureau de poste, semblait avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 choisie par\nun assentiment universel, pour diriger le parti marchand.\n\nUn des personnages les plus populaires dans son propre cercle \u00e9tait un\ngros petit homme, dont le cr\u00e2ne chauve \u00e9tait entour\u00e9 d'une couronne de\ncheveux noirs et roides; c'\u00e9tait le docteur Slammer, chirurgien du 97e.\nLe docteur Slammer prenait du tabac avec tout le monde, riait, dansait,\nplaisantait, jouait au whist, \u00e9tait partout, faisait tout. A ces\noccupations, toutes nombreuses qu'elles fussent d\u00e9j\u00e0, le docteur en\njoignait une autre, plus importante encore: il enveloppait des\nattentions les plus d\u00e9vou\u00e9es, les plus infatigables, une vieille petite\nveuve, dont la riche toilette et les nombreux bijoux annon\u00e7aient une\nfortune qui en faisait un parti fort d\u00e9sirable pour un homme d'un revenu\nlimit\u00e9.\n\nLes yeux de M. Tupman et de son compagnon avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 fix\u00e9s sur le\ndocteur et sur la veuve depuis quelque temps, lorsque l'\u00e9tranger rompit\nle silence.\n\n\u00abUn tas d'argent, vieille fille, le docteur fait sa t\u00eate, excellente\nid\u00e9e, bonne charge.\u00bb\n\nTandis que ces sentences peu intelligibles s'\u00e9chappaient de la bouche de\nl'\u00e9tranger, M. Tupman le regardait d'un air interrogateur.\n\n\u00abJe vais danser avec la veuve.\n\n--Qui est-elle?\n\n--N'en sais rien, jamais vue. Supplanter le docteur. En avant, marche!\u00bb\n\nEn achevant ces mots, l'\u00e9tranger traversa la pi\u00e8ce, s'appuya contre le\nmanteau de la chemin\u00e9e, et attacha ses regards, avec un air d'admiration\nrespectueuse et m\u00e9lancolique, sur la grosse figure de la vieille petite\ndame. M. Tupman regardait muet d'\u00e9tonnement. L'\u00e9tranger faisait\n\u00e9videmment des progr\u00e8s rapides: le docteur dansait avec une autre dame!\nLa veuve laissa tomber son \u00e9ventail; l'\u00e9tranger le releva, et le lui\nrendit avec empressement: un sourire, un salut, une r\u00e9v\u00e9rence, quelques\nparoles de conversation. L'\u00e9tranger retraversa hardiment la salle, pour\nchercher le ma\u00eetre des c\u00e9r\u00e9monies, retourna avec lui pr\u00e8s de la veuve,\net, apr\u00e8s quelques instants de pantomime introductrice, il saisit la\nmain de sa conqu\u00eate et prit place avec elle dans un quadrille.\n\nGrande fut la surprise de M. Tupman \u00e0 ce proc\u00e9d\u00e9 sommaire; mais\nl'\u00e9tonnement du petit docteur paraissait encore plus grand. L'\u00e9tranger\n\u00e9tait jeune; la veuve \u00e9tait flatt\u00e9e; elle ne prenait plus garde aux\nattentions du docteur, et l'indignation de celui-ci ne faisait aucune\nimpression sur son imperturbable rival. Le docteur Slammer resta\nparalys\u00e9. Lui, le docteur Slammer, du 97e, \u00eatre an\u00e9anti en un moment,\npar un homme que personne n'avait jamais vu, que personne ne\nconnaissait! Le docteur Slammer! le docteur Slammer, du 97e! Incroyable!\ncela ne se pouvait pas. Et pourtant cela \u00e9tait. Bon, voil\u00e0 que\nl'\u00e9tranger pr\u00e9sente son ami? Le docteur pouvait-il en croire ses yeux?\nIl regarda de nouveau et il se trouva dans la p\u00e9nible n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 de\nreconna\u00eetre la v\u00e9racit\u00e9 de ses nerfs optiques. Mme Budger dansait avec\nM. Tupman, il n'y avait pas moyen de s'y tromper. Sa veuve elle-m\u00eame est\nl\u00e0 devant lui, en chair et en os, bondissant avec une vigueur\ninaccoutum\u00e9e. L\u00e0 aussi \u00e9tait M. Tupman, sautant \u00e0 droite et \u00e0 gauche,\nd'un air plein de gravit\u00e9, et dansant (ce qui arrive \u00e0 beaucoup de\npersonnes) comme si la contredanse \u00e9tait une \u00e9preuve solennelle, et\nqu'il fall\u00fbt, pour s'en tirer, armer son moral d'une inflexible\nr\u00e9solution.\n\nSilencieusement et patiemment le docteur supporta tout ceci. Il vit\nl'\u00e9tranger offrir du vin chaud, remporter les verres, se pr\u00e9cipiter sur\ndes biscuits; il vit mille coquetteries \u00e9chang\u00e9es, et il ne dit rien:\nmais quelques secondes apr\u00e8s que l'\u00e9tranger eut disparu avec Mme Budger,\npour la conduire \u00e0 sa voiture, il s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a hors de la chambre, et chaque\nparticule de sa col\u00e8re, longtemps contenue, sembla s'\u00e9chapper de son\nvisage en un ruisseau de sueur.\n\nL'\u00e9tranger revenait, il parlait \u00e0 voix basse \u00e0 M. Tupman, il riait, il\n\u00e9tait radieux, il avait triomph\u00e9. Le petit docteur eut soif de sa vie.\n\n\u00abMonsieur! dit-il d'une voix terrible, en montrant sa carte et en se\nretirant dans un angle du passage: mon nom est Slammer! Le docteur\nSlammer, monsieur! 97e r\u00e9giment, caserne de Chatham. Ma carte, monsieur!\nma carte! Il aurait voulu poursuivre, mais son indignation l'\u00e9touffait.\n\n--Ah! r\u00e9pliqua l'\u00e9tranger n\u00e9gligemment, Slammer, bien oblig\u00e9; merci,\nmerci de votre attention d\u00e9licate, pas malade maintenant, Slammer,\nquand je le serai, m'adresserai a vous.\n\n--Vous... vous \u00eates un intrigant... un poltron... un l\u00e2che... un\nmenteur... un... un.... Vous d\u00e9ciderez-vous \u00e0 me donner votre carte,\nmonsieur?\n\n--Ah! je vois, dit l'\u00e9tranger \u00e0 demi-voix, punch trop fort, h\u00f4te\nlib\u00e9ral. La limonade beaucoup meilleure, des chambres trop chaudes,\ngentlemen d'un certain \u00e2ge, s'en ressentent le lendemain, cruelles\nsouffrances.... et il fit quelques pas.\n\n--Vous demeurez dans cette maison, monsieur? cria le petit homme\nfurieux; vous \u00eates ivre maintenant, monsieur! Vous entendrez parler de\nmoi, monsieur! Je vous retrouverai, monsieur! je vous retrouverai!\n\n--Vous ferez bien d'abord de retrouver votre lit,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit l'impassible\n\u00e9tranger.\n\nLe docteur Slammer le regarda avec une f\u00e9rocit\u00e9 inexprimable, et en\ns'\u00e9loignant il enfon\u00e7a son chapeau sur sa t\u00eate d'une mani\u00e8re qui\nindiquait toute son indignation.\n\nCependant l'\u00e9tranger et M. Tupman mont\u00e8rent dans la chambre de celui-ci\npour restituer le plumage qu'ils avaient emprunt\u00e9 \u00e0 l'innocent M.\nWinkle. Ils le trouv\u00e8rent profond\u00e9ment endormi, et la restitution fut\nbient\u00f4t faite. L'\u00e9tranger \u00e9tait extr\u00eamement fac\u00e9tieux, et M. Tupman,\n\u00e9tourdi par le vin, par le punch, par les lumi\u00e8res, par la vue de tant\nde femmes, regardait toute cette affaire comme une excellente\nplaisanterie. Apr\u00e8s le d\u00e9part de son nouvel ami, il \u00e9prouva quelque\ndifficult\u00e9 \u00e0 d\u00e9couvrir l'ouverture de son bonnet de nuit: dans ses\nefforts pour le mettre sur sa t\u00eate, il renversa son flambeau, et ce fut\nseulement par une s\u00e9rie d \u00e9volutions tr\u00e8s-compliqu\u00e9es qu'il parvint \u00e0\nentrer dans son lit. Malgr\u00e9 ces petits accidents il ne tarda pas \u00e0\ntrouver le repos.\n\nLe lendemain matin, sept heures avaient \u00e0 peine cess\u00e9 de sonner, quand\nl'esprit universel de M. Pickwick fut tir\u00e9 de l'\u00e9tat de torpeur o\u00f9\nl'avait plong\u00e9 le sommeil, par des coups violents frapp\u00e9s \u00e0 sa porte.\n\n\u00abQui est la? cria-t-il, se dressant sur son s\u00e9ant.\n\n--Le gar\u00e7on, monsieur.\n\n--Que voulez-vous?\n\n--Pourriez-vous me dire, monsieur, quelle personne de votre soci\u00e9t\u00e9 a un\nhabit bleu \u00e0 boutons dor\u00e9s, avec P.C. dessus?\u00bb\n\nOn le lui aura donn\u00e9 pour le brosser, pensa M. Pickwick, et il a oubli\u00e9\n\u00e0 qui il appartient. \u00abM. Winkle, cria-t-il, la troisi\u00e8me chambre \u00e0\ndroite.\n\n--Merci, monsieur, dit le gar\u00e7on; et il passa.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que c'est? demanda M. Tupman, en entendant frapper\nviolemment \u00e0 sa porte.\n\n--Puis-je parler \u00e0 M. Winkle, monsieur? r\u00e9pliqua le gar\u00e7on du dehors.\n\n--Winkle! Winkle! cria M. Tupman.\n\n--Oh\u00e9! r\u00e9pondit une faible voix qui sortait du lit de la chambre\nint\u00e9rieure.\n\n--On vous demande.... Quelqu'un \u00e0 la porte; et ayant articul\u00e9 avec\neffort ces paroles, M. Tupman se retourna et se rendormit imm\u00e9diatement.\n\n--On me demande? dit M. Winkle en sautant hors de son lit et en\ns'habillant rapidement. A cette distance de Londres, qui diable peut me\ndemander?\n\n--Un gentleman, en bas, au caf\u00e9, monsieur. Il dit qu'il ne vous\nd\u00e9rangera qu'un instant, monsieur; mais il ne veut accepter aucun d\u00e9lai.\n\n--Fort \u00e9trange! r\u00e9pliqua M. Winkle. Dites que je descends.\u00bb\n\nIl s'enveloppa d'une robe de chambre; mit un ch\u00e2le de voyage autour de\nson cou, et descendit. Une vieille femme et une couple de gar\u00e7ons\nbalayaient la salle du caf\u00e9. Aupr\u00e8s de la fen\u00eatre \u00e9tait un officier en\npetite tenue, qui se retourna en entendant entrer M. Winkle, le salua\nd'un air roide, fit retirer les domestiques, ferma soigneusement les\nportes, et dit: \u00abM. Winkle, je pr\u00e9sume.\n\n--Oui, monsieur, mon nom est Winkle.\n\n--Je viens, monsieur, de la part de mon ami, le docteur Slammer, du 97e.\nCela ne doit pas vous surprendre.\n\n--Le docteur Slammer! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Winkle.\n\n--Le docteur Slammer. Il m'a charg\u00e9 de vous dire de sa part que votre\nconduite d'hier au soir n'\u00e9tait pas celle d'un gentleman, et qu'un\ngentleman ne pouvait pas la supporter.\u00bb\n\nL'\u00e9tonnement de M. Winkle \u00e9tait trop r\u00e9el et trop \u00e9vident pour n'\u00eatre\npas remarqu\u00e9 par le d\u00e9put\u00e9 du docteur Slammer, c'est pourquoi il\npoursuivit ainsi: \u00abMon ami, le docteur Slammer, m'a paru fermement\nconvaincu que, pendant une partie de la soir\u00e9e vous \u00e9tiez gris, et\npeut-\u00eatre hors d'\u00e9tat de sentir l'\u00e9tendue de l'insulte dont vous vous\n\u00eates rendu coupable. Il m'a charg\u00e9 de vous dire que si vous plaidiez\ncette raison comme une excuse de votre conduite, il consentirait \u00e0\nrecevoir des excuses, \u00e9crites par vous sous ma dict\u00e9e.\n\n--Des excuses \u00e9crites! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta de nouveau M. Winkle avec le ton de la\nplus grande surprise.\n\n--Autrement, reprit froidement l'officier, vous connaissez\nl'alternative.\n\n--Avez-vous \u00e9t\u00e9 charg\u00e9 de ce message pour moi nominativement? demanda M.\nWinkle, dont l'intelligence \u00e9tait singuli\u00e8rement d\u00e9sorganis\u00e9e par cette\nconversation extraordinaire.\n\n--Je n'\u00e9tais pas pr\u00e9sent \u00e0 la sc\u00e8ne, et, en cons\u00e9quence de votre refus\nobstin\u00e9 de donner votre carte au docteur Slammer, j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 pri\u00e9 par lui\nde rechercher qui \u00e9tait porteur d'un habit tr\u00e8s-remarquable: un habit\nbleu clair avec des boutons dor\u00e9s, portant un buste, et les lettres\nP.C.\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle chancela d'\u00e9tonnement, en entendant d\u00e9crire si minutieusement\nson propre costume. L'ami du docteur Slammer continua:\n\n\u00abJ'ai appris dans la maison que le propri\u00e9taire de l'habit en question\n\u00e9tait arriv\u00e9 ici hier avec trois messieurs. J'ai envoy\u00e9 aupr\u00e8s de celui\nqui paraissait \u00eatre le principal de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9, et c'est lui qui m'a\nadress\u00e9 \u00e0 vous.\u00bb\n\nSi la grosse tour du ch\u00e2teau de Rochester s'\u00e9tait soudainement d\u00e9tach\u00e9e\nde ses fondations, et \u00e9tait venue se placer en face de la fen\u00eatre, la\nsurprise de M. Winkle aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 peu de chose, compar\u00e9e avec celle qu'il\n\u00e9prouva en \u00e9coutant ce discours. Sa premi\u00e8re id\u00e9e fut qu'on avait pu lui\nvoler son habit, et il dit \u00e0 l'officier: \u00abVoulez-vous avoir la bont\u00e9 de\nm'attendre un instant?\n\n--Certainement;\u00bb r\u00e9pondit son h\u00f4te malencontreux.\n\nM. Winkle monta rapidement les escaliers; il ouvrit son sac de nuit\nd'une main tremblante, l'habit bleu s'y trouvait \u00e0 sa place habituelle;\nmais, en l'examinant avec soin, on voyait clairement qu'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9\nport\u00e9 la nuit pr\u00e9c\u00e9dente.\n\n\u00abC'est vrai, dit M. Winkle, en laissant tomber l'habit de ses mains.\nJ'ai bu trop de vin hier, apr\u00e8s d\u00eener, et j'ai une vague id\u00e9e d'avoir\nensuite march\u00e9 dans les rues, et d'avoir fum\u00e9 un cigare. Le fait est que\nj'\u00e9tais tout \u00e0 fait dedans. J'aurai chang\u00e9 d'habit; j'aurai \u00e9t\u00e9 quelque\npart; j'aurai insult\u00e9 quelqu'un: je n'en doute plus, et ce message en\nest le terrible r\u00e9sultat.\u00bb Tourment\u00e9 par ces id\u00e9es, il redescendit au\ncaf\u00e9 avec la sombre r\u00e9solution d'accepter le cartel du vaillant docteur\net d'en subir les cons\u00e9quences les plus funestes.\n\nIl \u00e9tait pouss\u00e9 \u00e0 cette d\u00e9termination par des consid\u00e9rations diverses.\nLa premi\u00e8re de toutes \u00e9tait le soin de sa r\u00e9putation aupr\u00e8s du club. Il\ny avait toujours \u00e9t\u00e9 regard\u00e9 comme une autorit\u00e9 imposante dans tous les\nexercices du corps, soit offensifs, soit d\u00e9fensifs, soit inoffensifs.\nS'il venait \u00e0 reculer, d\u00e8s la premi\u00e8re \u00e9preuve, sous les yeux de son\nchef, sa position dans l'association \u00e9tait perdue pour toujours. En\nsecond lieu, il se souvenait d'avoir entendu dire (par ceux qui ne sont\npoint initi\u00e9s \u00e0 ces myst\u00e8res) que les t\u00e9moins se concertent\nordinairement pour ne point mettre de balles dans les pistolets. Enfin,\nil pensait qu'en choisissant M. Snodgrass pour second et en lui\nd\u00e9peignant avec force le danger, ce gentleman pourrait bien en faire\npart \u00e0 M. Pickwick; lequel, assur\u00e9ment, s'empresserait d'informer les\nautorit\u00e9s locales, dans la crainte de voir tuer ou d\u00e9t\u00e9riorer son\ndisciple.\n\nAyant calcul\u00e9 toutes ces chances, il revint dans la salle du caf\u00e9 et\nd\u00e9clara qu'il acceptait le d\u00e9fi du docteur.\n\n--Voulez-vous m'indiquer un ami, pour r\u00e9gler l'heure et le lieu du\nrendez-vous, dit alors l'obligeant officier.\n\n--C'est tout \u00e0 fait inutile. Veuillez me les nommer, et j'am\u00e8nerai mon\nt\u00e9moin avec moi.\n\n--H\u00e9 bien! reprit l'officier d'un ton indiff\u00e9rent, ce soir, si cela vous\nconvient; au coucher du soleil.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, r\u00e9pliqua M. Winkle, pensant dans son coeur que c'\u00e9tait\ntr\u00e8s-mal.\n\n--Vous connaissez le fort Pitt?\n\n--Oui, je l'ai vu hier.\n\n--Prenez la peine d'entrer dans le champ qui borde le foss\u00e9; suivez le\nsentier \u00e0 gauche quand vous arriverez \u00e0 un angle des fortifications, et\nmarchez droit devant vous jusqu'\u00e0 ce que vous m'aperceviez; vous me\nsuivrez alors et je vous conduirai dans un endroit solitaire o\u00f9\nl'affaire pourra se terminer sans crainte d'interruption.\n\n--Crainte d'interruption! pensa M. Winkle.\n\n--Nous n'avons plus rien, je crois, \u00e0 arranger?\n\n--Pas que je sache.\n\n--Alors je vous salue.\n\n--Je vous salue.\u00bb Et l'officier s'en alla lestement en sifflant un air\nde contredanse.\n\nLe d\u00e9jeuner de ce jour-l\u00e0 se passa tristement pour nos voyageurs. M.\nTupman, apr\u00e8s les d\u00e9bauches inaccoutum\u00e9es de la nuit pr\u00e9c\u00e9dente, n'\u00e9tait\npoint en \u00e9tat de se lever; M. Snodgrass paraissait subir une po\u00e9tique\nd\u00e9pression d'esprit; M. Pickwick lui-m\u00eame montrait un attachement\ninaccoutum\u00e9 \u00e0 l'eau de seltz et au silence; quant \u00e0 M. Winkle il \u00e9piait\nsoigneusement une occasion de retenir son t\u00e9moin. Cette occasion ne\ntarda pas \u00e0 se pr\u00e9senter: M. Snodgrass proposa de visiter le ch\u00e2teau, et\ncomme M. Winkle \u00e9tait le seul membre de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 qui f\u00fbt dispos\u00e9 \u00e0\nfaire une promenade, ils sortirent ensemble.\n\n\u00abSnodgrass, dit M. Winkle, lorsqu'ils eurent tourn\u00e9 le coin de la rue,\nSnodgrass, mon cher ami, puis-je compter sur votre discr\u00e9tion? Et en\nparlant ainsi il d\u00e9sirait ardemment de n'y pouvoir point compter.\n\n--Vous le pouvez, r\u00e9pliqua M. Snodgrass. Je jure....\n\n--Non, non! interrompit M. Winkle, \u00e9pouvant\u00e9 par l'id\u00e9e que son\ncompagnon pouvait innocemment s'engager \u00e0 ne pas le d\u00e9noncer. Ne jurez\npas, ne jurez pas; cela n'est point n\u00e9cessaire.\u00bb\n\nM. Snodgrass laissa retomber la main qu'il avait po\u00e9tiquement lev\u00e9e vers\nles nuages, et prit une attitude attentive.\n\n\u00abMon cher ami, dit alors M. Winkle, j'ai besoin de votre assistance dans\nune affaire d'honneur.\n\n--Vous l'aurez, r\u00e9pliqua M. Snodgrass, en serrant la main de son\ncompagnon.\n\n--Avec un docteur, le docteur Slammer, du 97e, ajouta M. Winkle,\nd\u00e9sirant faire para\u00eetre la chose aussi solennelle que possible. Une\naffaire avec un officier, ayant pour t\u00e9moin un autre officier; ce soir,\nau coucher du soleil, dans un champ solitaire, au del\u00e0 du fort Pitt.\n\n--Comptez sur moi, r\u00e9pondit M. Snodgrass, avec \u00e9tonnement, mais sans\n\u00eatre autrement affect\u00e9. En effet, rien n'est plus remarquable que la\nfroideur avec laquelle on prend ces sortes d'affaires, quand on n'y est\npoint partie principale. M. Winkle avait oubli\u00e9 cela: il avait jug\u00e9 les\nsentiments de son ami d'apr\u00e8s les siens.\n\n--Les cons\u00e9quences peuvent \u00eatre terribles, reprit M. Winkle.\n\n--J'esp\u00e8re que non.\n\n--Le docteur est, je pense, un tr\u00e8s-bon tireur.\n\n--La plupart des militaires le sont, observa M. Snodgrass avec calme;\nmais ne l'\u00eates-vous point aussi?\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle r\u00e9pondit affirmativement, et s'apercevant qu'il n'avait point\nsuffisamment alarm\u00e9 son compagnon, il changea de batterie.\n\n\u00abSnodgrass, dit-il d'une voix tremblante d'\u00e9motion, si je succombe vous\ntrouverez dans mon portefeuille une lettre pour mon... pour mon p\u00e8re.\u00bb\n\nCette attaque ne r\u00e9ussit point davantage. M. Snodgrass fut touch\u00e9, mais\nil s'engagea \u00e0 remettre la lettre aussi facilement que s'il avait fait\ntoute sa vie le m\u00e9tier de facteur.\n\n\u00abSi je meurs, continua M. Winkle, ou si le docteur p\u00e9rit, vous, mon cher\nami, vous serez jug\u00e9 comme complice en pr\u00e9m\u00e9ditation. Faut-il donc que\nj'expose un ami \u00e0 la transportation? peut-\u00eatre pour toute sa vie!\u00bb\n\nPour le coup, M. Snodgrass h\u00e9sita; mais son h\u00e9ro\u00efsme fut invincible.\n\u00abDans la cause de l'amiti\u00e9, s'\u00e9cria-t-il avec ferveur, je braverai tous\nles dangers.\u00bb\n\nDieu sait combien notre duelliste maudit int\u00e9rieurement le d\u00e9vouement de\nson ami. Ils march\u00e8rent pendant quelque temps en silence, ensevelis tous\nles deux dans leurs m\u00e9ditations. La matin\u00e9e s'\u00e9coulait et M. Winkle\nsentait s'enfuir toute chance de salut.\n\n\u00abSnodgrass, dit-il en s'arr\u00eatant tout d'un coup, n'allez point me trahir\naupr\u00e8s des autorit\u00e9s locales; ne demandez point des constables pour\npr\u00e9venir le duel; ne vous assurez pas de ma personne, ou de celle du\ndocteur Slammer, du 97e, actuellement en garnison dans la caserne de\nChatham. Afin d'emp\u00eacher le duel, n'ayez point cette prudence, je vous\nen prie.\u00bb\n\nM. Snodgrass saisit avec chaleur la main de son compagnon et s'\u00e9cria,\nplein d'enthousiasme: \u00abNon! pour rien au monde.\u00bb\n\nUn frisson parcourut le corps de M. Winkle quand il vit qu'il n'avait\nrien \u00e0 esp\u00e9rer des craintes de son ami, et qu'il \u00e9tait irr\u00e9vocablement\ndestin\u00e9 \u00e0 devenir une cible vivante.\n\nLorsqu'il eut racont\u00e9 formellement \u00e0 M. Snodgrass les d\u00e9tails de son\naffaire, ils entr\u00e8rent tous deux chez un armurier; ils lou\u00e8rent une\nbo\u00eete de ces pistolets qui sont destin\u00e9s \u00e0 donner et \u00e0 obtenir\n_satisfaction_, ils y joignirent un assortiment _satisfaisant_ de\npoudre, de capsules et de balles; puis ils retourn\u00e8rent \u00e0 leur auberge,\nM. Winkle pour r\u00e9fl\u00e9chir sur la lutte qu'il avait \u00e0 soutenir; M.\nSnodgrass pour arranger les armes de guerre, et les mettre en \u00e9tat de\nservir imm\u00e9diatement.\n\nLorsqu'ils sortirent de nouveau pour leur d\u00e9sagr\u00e9able entreprise, le\nsoir s'approchait, triste et pesant. M. Winkle, de peur d'\u00eatre observ\u00e9,\ns'\u00e9tait envelopp\u00e9 dans un large manteau: M. Snodgrass portait sous le\nsien les instruments de destruction.\n\n\u00abAvez-vous pris tout ce qu'il faut? demanda M. Winkle, d'un ton agit\u00e9.\n\n--Tout ce qu'il faut. Quantit\u00e9 de munitions, dans le cas o\u00f9 les premiers\ncoups n'auraient point de r\u00e9sultats. Il y a un quarteron de poudre dans\nla botte, et j'ai deux journaux dans ma poche pour servir de bourre.\u00bb\n\nC'\u00e9taient l\u00e0 des preuves d'amiti\u00e9 dont il \u00e9tait impossible de n'\u00eatre\npoint reconnaissant. Il est probable que la gratitude de M. Winkle fut\ntrop vive pour qu'il p\u00fbt l'exprimer, car il ne dit rien, mais il\ncontinua de marcher, assez lentement.\n\n\u00abNous arrivons juste \u00e0 l'heure, dit M. Snodgrass en franchissant la haie\ndu premier champ; voil\u00e0 le soleil qui descend derri\u00e8re l'horizon.\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle regarda le disque qui s'abaissait, et il pensa douloureusement\naux chances qu'il courait de ne jamais le revoir.\n\n\u00abVoici l'officier, s'\u00e9cria-t-il au bout de quelque temps.\n\n--O\u00f9? dit M. Snodgrass.\n\n--L\u00e0. Ce gentleman en manteau bleu.\u00bb\n\nLes yeux de M. Snodgrass suivirent le doigt de son compagnon, et\naper\u00e7urent une longue figure drap\u00e9e, qui fit un l\u00e9ger signe de la main,\net continua de marcher. Nos deux amis s'avanc\u00e8rent silencieusement \u00e0 sa\nsuite.\n\nDe moment en moment la soir\u00e9e devenait plus sombre. Un vent m\u00e9lancolique\nretentissait dans les champs d\u00e9serts: on e\u00fbt dit le sifflement lointain\nd'un g\u00e9ant, appelant son chien. La tristesse de cette sc\u00e8ne communiquait\nune teinte lugubre \u00e0 l'\u00e2me de M. Winkle. En passant l'angle du foss\u00e9, il\ntressaillit, il avait cru voir une tombe colossale.\n\nL'officier quitta tout \u00e0 coup le sentier, et apr\u00e8s avoir escalad\u00e9 une\npalissade et enjamb\u00e9 une haie, il entra dans un champ \u00e9cart\u00e9. Deux\nmessieurs l'y attendaient. L'un \u00e9tait un petit personnage gros et gras,\navec des cheveux noirs; l'autre, grand et bel homme, avec une redingote\ncouverte de brandebourgs, \u00e9tait assis sur un pliant avec une s\u00e9r\u00e9nit\u00e9\nparfaite.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0 nos gens, avec un chirurgien, \u00e0 ce que je suppose dit M.\nSnodgrass. Prenez une goutte d'eau-de-vie.\u00bb M. Winkle saisit avidement\nla bouteille d'osier que lui tendait son compagnon et avala une longue\ngorg\u00e9e de ce liquide fortifiant.\n\n\u00abMon ami, M. Snodgrass,\u00bb dit M. Winkle \u00e0 l'officier qui s'approchait.\n\nLe second du docteur Slammer salua et produisit une bo\u00eete semblable \u00e0\ncelle que M. Snodgrass avait apport\u00e9e. \u00abJe pense que nous n'avons rien\nde plus \u00e0 nous dire, monsieur, remarqua-t-il froidement, en ouvrant sa\nbo\u00eete. Des excuses ont \u00e9t\u00e9 absolument refus\u00e9es.\n\n--Rien du tout, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit M. Snodgrass, qui commen\u00e7ait \u00e0 se\nsentir mal \u00e0 son aise.\n\n--Voulez-vous que nous mesurions le terrain? dit l'officier.\n\n--Certainement,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua M. Snodgrass.\n\nLorsque le terrain eut \u00e9t\u00e9 mesur\u00e9 et les pr\u00e9liminaires arrang\u00e9s,\nl'officier dit \u00e0 M. Snodgrass: \u00abVous trouverez ces pistolets meilleurs\nque les v\u00f4tres, monsieur. Vous me les avez vu charger; vous opposez-vous\n\u00e0 ce qu'on en fasse usage?\n\n--Non, certainement, r\u00e9pondit M. Snodgrass. Cette offre le tirait d'un\ngrand embarras, car ses id\u00e9es sur la mani\u00e8re de charger un pistolet\n\u00e9taient tant soit peu vagues et ind\u00e9finies.\n\n--Alors je pense que nous pouvons placer nos hommes, continua\nl'officier, avec autant d'indiff\u00e9rence que s'il s'\u00e9tait agi d'une partie\nd'\u00e9checs.\n\n--Je pense que nous le pouvons,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua M. Snodgrass, qui aurait\nconsenti \u00e0 toute autre proposition, vu qu'il n'entendait rien \u00e0 ces\nsortes d'affaires.\n\nL'officier alla vers le docteur Slammer, tandis que M. Snodgrass\ns'approchait de M. Winkle.\n\n\u00abTout est pr\u00eat, dit-il, en lui offrant le pistolet. Donnez-moi votre\nmanteau.\n\n--Vous avez mon portefeuille, mon cher ami, dit le pauvre Winkle.\n\n--Tout va bien. Soyez calme et visez tout bonnement \u00e0 l'\u00e9paule.\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle trouva que cet avis ressemblait beaucoup \u00e0 celui que les\nspectateurs donnent invariablement au plus petit gamin dans les duels\ndes rues. \u00abMets-le dessous et tiens-le ferme.\u00bb Admirable conseil, si\nl'on savait seulement comment l'ex\u00e9cuter! Quoi qu'il en soit, il \u00f4ta son\nmanteau en silence (ce manteau \u00e9tait toujours tr\u00e8s-long \u00e0 d\u00e9faire); il\naccepta le pistolet: les seconds se retir\u00e8rent, le monsieur au pliant en\nfit autant, et les bellig\u00e9rants s'avanc\u00e8rent l'un vers l'autre.\n\nM. Winkle a toujours \u00e9t\u00e9 remarquable par son extr\u00eame humanit\u00e9. On\nsuppose que dans cette occasion la r\u00e9pugnance qu'il \u00e9prouvait \u00e0 nuire\nintentionnellement \u00e0 l'un de ses semblables, l'engagea \u00e0 fermer les yeux\nen arrivant \u00e0 l'endroit fatal, et que cette circonstance l'emp\u00eacha de\nremarquer la conduite inexplicable du docteur Slammer. Ce monsieur, en\ns'approchant de M. Winkle, tressaillit, ouvrit de grands yeux, recula,\nfrotta ses paupi\u00e8res, ouvrit de nouveau ses yeux, autant qu'il lui fut\npossible, et finalement s'\u00e9cria: \u00abArr\u00eatez! arr\u00eatez!\n\n--Qu'est-ce que cela veut dire? continua-t-il lorsque son ami et M.\nSnodgrass arriv\u00e8rent en courant. Ce n'est pas l\u00e0 mon homme.\n\n--Ce n'est pas votre homme! s'\u00e9cria le second du docteur Slammer.\n\n--Ce n'est pas son homme! dit M. Snodgrass.\n\n--Ce n'est pas son homme! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta le monsieur qui tenait le pliant dans\nsa main.\n\n--Certainement non, reprit le petit docteur. \u00c7a n'est pas la personne\nqui m'a insult\u00e9 la nuit pass\u00e9e.\n\n--Fort extraordinaire! dit l'officier.\n\n--Fort extraordinaire! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta le gentleman au pliant. Mais maintenant,\najouta-t-il, voici la question. Le monsieur se trouvant actuellement sur\nle terrain, ne doit-il pas \u00eatre consid\u00e9r\u00e9, pour la forme, comme \u00e9tant\nl'individu qui a insult\u00e9 hier soir notre ami, le docteur Slammer?\u00bb Ayant\nsugg\u00e9r\u00e9 cette id\u00e9e nouvelle d'un air sage et myst\u00e9rieux, l'homme au\npliant prit une \u00e9norme pinc\u00e9e de tabac, et regarda autour de lui, avec\nla profondeur de quelqu'un qui est habitu\u00e9 \u00e0 faire autorit\u00e9.\n\nOr, M. Winkle avait ouvert ses yeux et ses oreilles aussi, quand il\navait entendu son adversaire demander une cessation d'hostilit\u00e9s.\nS'apercevant par ce qui avait \u00e9t\u00e9 dit ensuite qu'il y avait quelque\nerreur de personnes, il comprit tout d'un coup combien sa r\u00e9putation\npouvait s'accro\u00eetre s'il cachait les motifs r\u00e9els qui l'avaient\nd\u00e9termin\u00e9 \u00e0 se battre. Il s'avan\u00e7a donc hardiment et dit:\n\n\u00abJe sais bien que je ne suis pas l'adversaire de monsieur.\n\n--Alors, dit l'homme au pliant, ceci est un affront pour le docteur\nSlammer, et un motif suffisant de continuer.\n\n--Tenez-vous tranquille, Payne, interrompit le second du docteur; et\ns'adressant \u00e0 M. Winkle: Pourquoi ne m'avez-vous pas communiqu\u00e9 cela ce\nmatin, monsieur?\n\n--Assur\u00e9ment! assur\u00e9ment! s'\u00e9cria avec indignation l'homme au pliant.\n\n--Je vous supplie de vous tenir tranquille, Payne, reprit l'autre.\nPuis-je r\u00e9p\u00e9ter ma question, monsieur?\n\n--Parce que, r\u00e9pliqua M. Winkle qui avait eu le temps de d\u00e9lib\u00e9rer sa\nr\u00e9ponse: parce que vous m'avez dit, monsieur, que l'individu en question\n\u00e9tait rev\u00eatu d'un habit que j'ai l'honneur, non-seulement de porter,\nmais d'avoir invent\u00e9. C'est l'uniforme projet\u00e9 du Pickwick-Club, \u00e0\nLondres. Je me crois oblig\u00e9 de soutenir l'honneur de cet uniforme, et\ndans cette vue, sans autres informations, j'ai accept\u00e9 le d\u00e9fi que vous\nme faisiez.\n\n--Mon cher monsieur, dit le bon petit docteur, en lui tendant la main,\nj'honore votre courage. Permettez-moi d'ajouter que j'admire extr\u00eamement\nvotre conduite, et que je regrette beaucoup de vous avoir fait d\u00e9ranger\ninutilement.\n\n--Je vous prie de ne point parler de cela, r\u00e9pondit M. Winkle avec\npolitesse.\n\n--Je me trouverai honor\u00e9, monsieur, de faire votre connaissance,\npoursuivit le petit docteur.\n\n--Et moi, monsieur, j'\u00e9prouverai le plus grand plaisir \u00e0 vous\nconna\u00eetre,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua M. Winkle. Et l\u00e0-dessus il donna une poign\u00e9e de\nmain au docteur, une poign\u00e9e de main \u00e0 son second, le lieutenant\nTappleton, une poign\u00e9e de main \u00e0 l'homme qui tenait le pliant, une\npoign\u00e9e de main, enfin, \u00e0 M. Snodgrass, dont l'admiration \u00e9tait\nexcessive pour la noble conduite de son h\u00e9ro\u00efque ami.\n\n\u00abJe pense que nous pouvons nous en retourner maintenant, dit le\nlieutenant Tappleton.\n\n--Certainement, r\u00e9pondit le docteur.\n\n--A moins, sugg\u00e9ra l'homme au pliant, \u00e0 moins que monsieur Winkle ne se\ntrouve offens\u00e9 par la provocation qu'il a re\u00e7ue. Si cela \u00e9tait, je\nconfesse qu'il aurait droit \u00e0 une satisfaction.\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle, avec une grande abn\u00e9gation de son _moi_, d\u00e9clara qu'il \u00e9tait\nenti\u00e8rement satisfait.\n\n\u00abPeut-\u00eatre, reprit l'autre, peut-\u00eatre le t\u00e9moin du gentleman aura-t-il\n\u00e9t\u00e9 personnellement bless\u00e9 de quelques observations que j'ai faites au\ncommencement de cette rencontre. Dans ce cas, je serais heureux de lui\ndonner satisfaction imm\u00e9diatement.\u00bb\n\nM. Snodgrass se h\u00e2ta de d\u00e9clarer qu'il \u00e9tait bien oblig\u00e9 au gentleman de\nl'offre aimable qu'il lui faisait. La seule raison qui l'emp\u00each\u00e2t d'en\nprofiter, c'est qu'il \u00e9tait fort satisfait de la mani\u00e8re dont les choses\ns'\u00e9taient pass\u00e9es.\n\nL'affaire s'\u00e9tant ainsi termin\u00e9e heureusement, les t\u00e9moins arrang\u00e8rent\nleurs bo\u00eetes, et tous quitt\u00e8rent le terrain avec beaucoup plus de gaiet\u00e9\nqu'ils n'en laissaient voir en y arrivant.\n\n\u00abResterez-vous longtemps ici? demanda le docteur Slammer \u00e0 M. Winkle,\ntandis qu'ils marchaient amicalement c\u00f4te \u00e0 c\u00f4te.\n\n--Je crois que nous partirons apr\u00e8s-demain.\n\n--Je serais tr\u00e8s-heureux, apr\u00e8s ce ridicule quiproquo, si vous vouliez\nbien me faire l'honneur de venir ce soir chez moi, avec votre ami.\n\u00cates-vous engag\u00e9?\n\n--Nous avons plusieurs amis \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel du _Taureau_, et je ne voudrais\npoint les quitter aujourd'hui. Mais nous serions enchant\u00e9s si vous\nconsentiez \u00e0 amener ces messieurs pour passer la soir\u00e9e avec nous.\n\n--Avec grand plaisir. Ne sera-t-il point trop tard, \u00e0 dix heures, pour\nvous faire une petite visite d'une demi-heure?\n\n--Non certainement. Je serai fort heureux de vous pr\u00e9senter \u00e0 mes amis,\nM. Pickwick et M. Tupman.\n\n--J'en serai charm\u00e9, r\u00e9pliqua le petit docteur, ne soup\u00e7onnant gu\u00e8re\nqu'il connaissait d\u00e9j\u00e0 M. Tupman.\n\n--Vous viendrez sans faute? demanda M Snodgrass.\n\n--Oh! assur\u00e9ment.\u00bb\n\nEn parlant ainsi, ils \u00e9taient arriv\u00e9s sur la grande route. Les adieux se\nfirent avec cordialit\u00e9, et tandis que le docteur et ses amis se\nrendirent \u00e0 leur caserne, M. Winkle et M. Snodgrass rentr\u00e8rent\njoyeusement \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel.\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE III.\n\nUne nouvelle connaissance. Histoire d'un clown. Une interruption\nd\u00e9sagr\u00e9able et une rencontre f\u00e2cheuse.\n\n\nM. Pickwick avait ressenti quelque inqui\u00e9tude en voyant se prolonger\nl'absence de ses deux amis, et en se rappelant leur conduite myst\u00e9rieuse\npendant toute la matin\u00e9e. Ce fut donc avec un v\u00e9ritable plaisir qu'il se\nleva pour les recevoir, et avec un int\u00e9r\u00eat peu ordinaire qu'il leur\ndemanda ce qui avait pu les retenir si longtemps. En r\u00e9ponse \u00e0 cette\nquestion, M. Snodgrass allait faire l'historique des circonstances que\nnous venons de rapporter, lorsqu'il s'aper\u00e7ut qu'entre M. Tupman et\nleur compagnon de voyage il y avait dans la chambre un nouvel \u00e9tranger,\nd'une apparence \u00e9galement singuli\u00e8re. C'\u00e9tait un homme vieilli par les\nsoucis, dont la face creuse, aux pommettes pro\u00e9minentes, avec des yeux\n\u00e9tincelants quoique profond\u00e9ment encaiss\u00e9s, \u00e9tait rendue plus frappante\nencore par les cheveux noirs et lisses qui pendaient en d\u00e9sordre sur son\ncollet. Sa m\u00e2choire \u00e9tait si longue et si maigre qu'on aurait pu croire\nqu'il faisait expr\u00e8s de retirer ses joues, par une contraction des\nmuscles, si l'expression immobile de ses traits et de sa bouche\nentrouverte n'avait pas fait voir que c'\u00e9tait l\u00e0 sa physionomie\nhabituelle. Son cou \u00e9tait entour\u00e9 d'un ch\u00e2le vert, dont les larges\nbouts, descendant sur sa poitrine, \u00e9taient aper\u00e7us \u00e0 travers les\nboutonni\u00e8res us\u00e9es d'un vieux gilet. Enfin, il avait une longue\nredingote noire, un pantalon de gros drap et des bottes tombant en\nruines.\n\nLes yeux de M. Snodgrass s'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent donc sur ce personnage mal l\u00e9ch\u00e9,\net M. Pickwick, qui s'en aper\u00e7ut, dit en \u00e9tendant la main de son c\u00f4t\u00e9:\n\u00abUn ami de notre nouvel ami. Nous avons d\u00e9couvert ce matin que notre ami\nest engag\u00e9 au th\u00e9\u00e2tre de cet endroit, quoiqu'il d\u00e9sire que cette\ncirconstance ne soit pas g\u00e9n\u00e9ralement connue. Ce gentleman est un membre\nde la m\u00eame profession, et il allait nous r\u00e9galer d'une petite anecdote\nlorsque vous \u00eates entr\u00e9s.\n\n--Masse d'anecdotes, dit l'\u00e9tranger du jour pr\u00e9c\u00e9dent, en s'approchant\nde M. Winkle et lui parlant \u00e0 voix basse: singulier gaillard, pas\nacteur, fait les utilit\u00e9s, homme \u00e9trange, toutes sortes de mis\u00e8res. Nous\nl'appelons Jemmy le Lugubre.\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle et M. Snodgrass firent des politesses au gentleman qui portait\nce nom \u00e9l\u00e9gant, et s'\u00e9tant assis autour de la table demand\u00e8rent de l'eau\net de l'eau-de-vie, en imitation du reste de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, monsieur, dit M. Pickwick, voulez-vous nous faire le\nplaisir de commencer votre r\u00e9cit?\u00bb\n\nL'individu lugubre tira de sa poche un rouleau de papier malpropre, et\nse tournant vers M. Snodgrass qui venait d'aveindre son m\u00e9morandum, il\nlui dit d'une voix creuse, parfaitement en harmonie avec son ext\u00e9rieur:\n\n\u00ab\u00cates-vous le po\u00ebte?\n\n--Je... je m'exerce un peu dans ce genre, r\u00e9pondit M. Snodgrass,\nl\u00e9g\u00e8rement d\u00e9concert\u00e9 par la brusquerie de la question.\n\n--Ah! la po\u00e9sie est dans la vie ce que la lumi\u00e8re et la musique sont au\nth\u00e9\u00e2tre. D\u00e9pouillez celui-ci de ses faux embellissements et celle-l\u00e0 de\nses illusions, que reste-t-il de r\u00e9el et d'int\u00e9ressant dans tous les\ndeux?\n\n--Cela est bien vrai, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua M. Snodgrass.\n\n--Assis devant les quinquets, vous faites partie du cercle royal; vous\nadmirez les v\u00eatements de soie de la foule brillante; vous tenez-vous, au\ncontraire, dans la coulisse, vous \u00eates le peuple qui fabrique ces beaux\nv\u00eatements; gens inconnus et m\u00e9pris\u00e9s qui peuvent tomber et se relever,\nvivre et mourir, comme il pla\u00eet \u00e0 la fortune, sans que personne s'en\ninqui\u00e8te.\n\n--Certainement, r\u00e9pondit M. Snodgrass, car l'oeil profond de l'homme\nlugubre \u00e9tait fix\u00e9 sur lui, et il sentait la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 de dire quelque\nchose.\n\n--Allons, Jemmy, dit le voyageur espagnol, soyons vifs, pas de\ncroassements, ayez l'air sociable.\n\n--Voulez-vous pr\u00e9parer un autre verre avant de commencer?\u00bb dit M.\nPickwick.\n\nL'homme lugubre accepta l'offre, m\u00e9langea un verre d'eau et\nd'eau-de-vie, en avala lentement la moiti\u00e9, d\u00e9veloppa son rouleau de\npapier et commen\u00e7a \u00e0 lire et \u00e0 raconter tour \u00e0 tour les \u00e9v\u00e9nements que\nl'on va lire, et que nous avons trouv\u00e9s inscrits dans les registres du\nclub sous le titre de: HISTOIRE D'UN CLOWN.\n\n\u00abVous ne trouverez rien de merveilleux dans le r\u00e9cit que je vais vous\nfaire. Besoins et maladie, ce sont des choses trop connues, dans\nbeaucoup d'existences, pour m\u00e9riter plus d'attention qu'on n'en accorde\naux vicissitudes journali\u00e8res de la vie humaine. J'ai rassembl\u00e9 ces\nnotes parce que celui qui en fait le sujet m'\u00e9tait connu depuis fort\nlongtemps. J'ai suivi pas \u00e0 pas sa descente dans l'ab\u00eeme, jusqu'au\nmoment o\u00f9 il atteignit le dernier degr\u00e9 de la mis\u00e8re, dont il ne s'est\njamais relev\u00e9 depuis.\n\n\u00abL'homme dont il s'agit \u00e9tait un acteur pantomime, et, comme beaucoup de\ngens de cet \u00e9tat, un ivrogne inv\u00e9t\u00e9r\u00e9. Dans ses beaux jours, avant\nd'\u00eatre affaibli par la d\u00e9bauche, il recevait un bon salaire, et s'il\navait \u00e9t\u00e9 rang\u00e9 et prudent, il aurait pu le toucher encore durant\nquelques ann\u00e9es; quelques ann\u00e9es seulement, car ceux qui font ce m\u00e9tier\nmeurent de bonne heure ou du moins perdent avant le temps l'\u00e9nergie\nphysique dont ils ont abus\u00e9, et qui \u00e9tait leur unique gagne-pain.\nCelui-ci se laissa abrutir si vite qu'il devint impossible de l'employer\ndans les r\u00f4les o\u00f9 il \u00e9tait r\u00e9ellement utile au th\u00e9\u00e2tre. Le cabaret avait\npour lui des charmes auxquels il ne pouvait r\u00e9sister. Les maladies, la\npauvret\u00e9 l'attendaient aussi s\u00fbrement que la mort s'il continuait le\nm\u00eame genre de vie, et cependant il le continua. Vous devinez ce qui dut\nen r\u00e9sulter. Il ne put obtenir d'engagement et il manqua de pain.\n\nTous ceux qui connaissent un peu le th\u00e9\u00e2tre savent quelle nu\u00e9e\nd'individus mis\u00e9rables, r\u00e2p\u00e9s, affam\u00e9s, entourent toujours un vaste\n\u00e9tablissement de ce genre. Ce ne sont pas des acteurs engag\u00e9s\nr\u00e9guli\u00e8rement, mais des comparses passagers, des figurants, des\npaillasses, etc., qui sont employ\u00e9s tant que dure une pantomime ou\nquelque f\u00e9erie de No\u00ebl et qui sont remerci\u00e9s ensuite, jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'une\nnouvelle pi\u00e8ce, exigeant un nombreux personnel, r\u00e9clame de nouveau leurs\nservices. Notre homme fut oblig\u00e9 d'avoir recours \u00e0 ce genre de vie, et\ncomme, en outre, il prit chaque soir le fauteuil dans un de ces caf\u00e9s\nchantants de bas \u00e9tage qui restent ouverts apr\u00e8s la fermeture des\nth\u00e9\u00e2tres, il gagna quelques shillings de plus par semaine, ce qui lui\npermit de se livrer \u00e0 ses vieux penchants. Mais cette ressource m\u00eame lui\nmanqua bient\u00f4t, son ivrognerie l'emp\u00eachant de m\u00e9riter la faible pitance\nqu'il aurait pu se procurer de cette mani\u00e8re. Il se trouva donc r\u00e9duit \u00e0\nla mis\u00e8re la plus absolue; toujours sur le point de mourir de faim, et\nn'\u00e9chappant \u00e0 cette destin\u00e9e qu'en recevant quelques secours d'un ancien\ncamarade, ou en obtenant d'\u00eatre employ\u00e9 par hasard \u00e0 l'un des plus\npetits spectacles. Encore, le peu qu'il attrapait ainsi \u00e9tait-il d\u00e9pens\u00e9\nsuivant le m\u00eame syst\u00e8me.\n\nVers cette \u00e9poque (il y avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 plus d'un an qu'il vivait ainsi, sans\nqu'on s\u00fbt de quelles ressources) je fus engag\u00e9 \u00e0 un des th\u00e9\u00e2tres situ\u00e9s\ndu c\u00f4t\u00e9 sud de la Tamise, et je revis cet homme que j'avais perdu de\nvue, car j'avais parcouru la province pendant qu'il fl\u00e2nait dans les\ncarrefours de Londres. La toile \u00e9tait tomb\u00e9e; je venais de me rhabiller,\net je traversais la sc\u00e8ne, quand il me frappa sur l'\u00e9paule. Non, jamais\nje n'oublierai la figure repoussante qui se pr\u00e9senta \u00e0 mes yeux lorsque\nje me retournai. Les personnages fantastiques de la danse des morts, les\nfigures les plus horribles, trac\u00e9es par les peintres les plus habiles,\nrien n'offrit jamais un aspect aussi s\u00e9pulcral. Il portait le costume\nridicule d'un paillasse; et son corps bouffi, ses jambes de squelette\n\u00e9taient rendus plus horribles encore par cet habit de mascarade. Ses\nyeux vitreux contrastaient affreusement avec la blancheur mate dont\ntoute sa face \u00e9tait couverte. Sa t\u00eate, grotesquement coiff\u00e9e et\ntremblante de paralysie, ses longues mains osseuses, frott\u00e9es de blanc\nd'Espagne, tout contribuait \u00e0 lui donner une apparence hideuse, hors de\nnature, qu'aucune description ne peut rendre, qu'aujourd'hui encore je\nne me rappelle qu'en fr\u00e9missant. Il me prit \u00e0 part, et d'une voix cass\u00e9e\net tremblante, il me raconta un long catalogue de maladies et de\nprivations, qu'il termina comme \u00e0 l'ordinaire en me suppliant de lui\npr\u00eater une bagatelle. Je mis quelque argent dans sa main, et, tandis que\nje m'\u00e9loignais, le rideau se leva et j'entendis les bruyants \u00e9clats de\nrire que causa sa premi\u00e8re culbute sur le th\u00e9\u00e2tre.\n\nQuelques jours apr\u00e8s, un petit gar\u00e7on m'apporta un morceau de papier\nmalpropre, par lequel j'\u00e9tais inform\u00e9 que cet homme \u00e9tait dangereusement\nmalade, et qu'il me priait de l'aller voir apr\u00e8s la com\u00e9die, dans une\nrue dont j'ai oubli\u00e9 le nom, mais qui n'\u00e9tait pas \u00e9loign\u00e9e du th\u00e9\u00e2tre.\nJe promis de m'y rendre aussit\u00f4t que je le pourrais, et quand la toile\nfut baiss\u00e9e je partis pour ce triste office.\n\nIl \u00e9tait tard, car j'avais jou\u00e9 dans la derni\u00e8re pi\u00e8ce, et comme c'\u00e9tait\nune repr\u00e9sentation \u00e0 b\u00e9n\u00e9fice, elle avait dur\u00e9 fort longtemps. La nuit\n\u00e9tait sombre et froide, un vent glacial fouettait violemment la pluie\ncontre les vitres des crois\u00e9es; des mares d'eau s'\u00e9taient amass\u00e9es dans\nces rues \u00e9troites et peu fr\u00e9quent\u00e9es; une partie des r\u00e9verb\u00e8res, assez\nrares en tout temps, avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9teints par la violence de la temp\u00eate,\net je n'\u00e9tais pas s\u00fbr de trouver la demeure qui m'appelait, dans des\ncirconstances bien faites pour attrister. Heureusement je ne m'\u00e9tais pas\ntromp\u00e9 de chemin et je d\u00e9couvris, quoique avec peine, la maison que je\ncherchais. Elle n'avait qu'un seul \u00e9tage, et l'infortun\u00e9 que je venais\nvoir gisait dans une esp\u00e8ce de grenier, au-dessus d'un hangar qui\nservait de magasin de charbon de terre.\n\nUne femme, \u00e0 l'air mis\u00e9rable, la femme du paillasse, me re\u00e7ut sur\nl'escalier, me dit qu'il venait de s'assoupir, et m'ayant introduit\ndoucement, me fit asseoir sur une chaise aupr\u00e8s de son lit. Il avait la\nt\u00eate tourn\u00e9e du c\u00f4t\u00e9 du mur, et, comme il ne s'aper\u00e7ut pas d'abord de ma\npr\u00e9sence, j'eus le temps d'examiner l'endroit o\u00f9 je me trouvais.\n\nAu chevet du grabat pr\u00e8s duquel j'\u00e9tais assis, on avait suspendu des\nlambeaux de couvertures pour pr\u00e9server le malade du vent qui p\u00e9n\u00e9trait,\npar mille crevasses, dans cette chambre d\u00e9sol\u00e9e, et qui, \u00e0 chaque\ninstant, agitait ce lourd rideau. Sur une grille rouill\u00e9e et descell\u00e9e,\nbr\u00fblait lentement du poussier de charbon de terre. A c\u00f4t\u00e9, sur une\nvieille table \u00e0 trois pieds, il y avait plusieurs fioles, un miroir\nbris\u00e9 et quelques autres ustensiles. Un enfant dormait sur un matelas\n\u00e9tendu par terre, et sa m\u00e8re \u00e9tait assise aupr\u00e8s de lui, sur une chaise\n\u00e0 moiti\u00e9 bris\u00e9e. Quelques assiettes, quelques tasses, quelques \u00e9cuelles,\n\u00e9taient plac\u00e9es sur une couple de tablettes: au-dessous on avait\naccroch\u00e9 des fleurets avec une paire de souliers de th\u00e9\u00e2tre, et ces\nobjets composaient seuls l'ameublement de la chambre, si l'on excepte\ndeux ou trois petits paquets de haillons, jet\u00e9s en d\u00e9sordre dans les\ncoins.\n\nTandis que je consid\u00e9rais cette sc\u00e8ne de d\u00e9solation et que je remarquais\nla respiration pesante, les soubresauts fi\u00e9vreux du mis\u00e9rable com\u00e9dien,\nil se tournait et se retournait sans cesse pour trouver une position\nmoins douloureuse. Une de ses mains sortit de son lit et me toucha: il\ntressaillit et me regarda avec des yeux hagards.\n\n\u00abJohn, lui dit sa femme, c'est M. Hutley que vous avez envoy\u00e9 cherch\u00e9 ce\nsoir, vous savez.\n\n--Ha! dit-il en passant sa main sur son front, Hutley! Hutley! voyons.\nPendant quelques secondes il parut s'efforcer de rassembler ses id\u00e9es,\net ensuite, me saisissant fortement par le poignet, il s'\u00e9cria: Oh! ne\nme quittez pas! ne me quittez pas, vieux camarade! Elle m'assassinera.\nJe sais qu'elle en a envie.\n\n--Y a-t-il longtemps qu'il est comme cela? demandai-je \u00e0 cette femme qui\npleurait.\n\n--Depuis hier soir, monsieur. John! John! ne me reconnaissez-vous pas?\u00bb\n\nEn disant ces mots elle se courbait vers son lit, mais il s'\u00e9cria avec\nun frisson d'effroi:\n\n\u00abNe la laissez pas approcher! Repoussez-la! Je ne peux pas la supporter\npr\u00e8s de moi! En parlant ainsi il la regardait d'un air \u00e9gar\u00e9 et plein\nd'une terreur mortelle, puis il me dit \u00e0 l'oreille: Je l'ai battue, Jem.\nJe l'ai battue hier, et bien d'autres fois auparavant. Je l'ai fait\nmourir de faim, et son enfant aussi; et maintenant que je suis faible et\nsans secours, elle va m'assassiner. Je sais qu'elle en a envie. Si comme\nmoi, aussi souvent que moi, vous l'aviez entendue g\u00e9mir et crier, vous\nn'en douteriez pas. \u00c9loignez-la!\u00bb\n\nEn achevant ces mots il l\u00e2cha ma main et retomba \u00e9puis\u00e9 sur son\noreiller.\n\nJe n'entendais que trop ce que cela signifiait. Si j'avais pu en douter\nun seul instant, il m'aurait suffi, pour le comprendre, d'un coup d'oeil\njet\u00e9 sur le visage p\u00e2le, sur les formes amaigries de sa malheureuse\nfemme. \u00abVous feriez mieux de vous retirer, dis-je \u00e0 cette pauvre\ncr\u00e9ature, vous ne pouvez pas lui faire de bien. Peut-\u00eatre sera-t-il plus\ncalme s'il ne vous voit pas.\u00bb Elle se recula hors de sa vue. Au bout de\nquelques secondes, il ouvrit les yeux et regarda avec anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 autour de\nlui, en demandant: \u00abEst-elle partie?\n\n--Oui, oui, lui dis-je, elle ne vous fera pas de mal.\n\n--Je vais vous dire ce qui en est, reprit-il d'une voix caverneuse. Elle\nme fait mal! il y a quelque chose dans ses yeux qui me remplit le coeur\nde crainte et qui me rend fou. Toute la nuit derni\u00e8re ses grands yeux\nfixes et son visage p\u00e2le ont \u00e9t\u00e9 devant moi. O\u00f9 je me tournais, elle se\ntournait. Quand je me r\u00e9veillais en sursaut, elle \u00e9tait-l\u00e0, tout aupr\u00e8s\nde mon lit, \u00e0 me regarder.\u00bb Il s'approcha plus pr\u00e8s de moi et ajouta\nd'une voix basse et tremblante: \u00abJem, il faut qu'elle soit mon mauvais\nange! un d\u00e9mon! Chut! j'en suis s\u00fbr. Si elle n'\u00e9tait qu'une femme, il y\na longtemps qu'elle serait morte. Aucune femme n'aurait pu endurer ce\nqu'elle a endur\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nJe me sentis fr\u00e9mir en pensant \u00e0 la longue s\u00e9rie de m\u00e9pris et de\ncruaut\u00e9s dont un tel homme devait s'\u00eatre rendu coupable, pour en\nconserver une telle impression. Je ne pus rien lui r\u00e9pondre, car quelle\nesp\u00e9rance, quelle consolation \u00e9tait-il possible d'offrir \u00e0 un \u00eatre aussi\nabject?\n\nJe restai l\u00e0 plus de deux heures, pendant lesquelles il se retourna cent\nfois de c\u00f4t\u00e9 et d'autre, jetant ses bras \u00e0 droite et \u00e0 gauche, et\nmurmurant des exclamations de douleur ou d'impatience. A la fin il tomba\ndans cet \u00e9tat d'oubli imparfait, o\u00f9 l'esprit erre p\u00e9niblement de place\nen place, de sc\u00e8ne en sc\u00e8ne, sans \u00eatre contr\u00f4l\u00e9 par la raison, mais sans\npouvoir se d\u00e9barrasser d'un vague sentiment de souffrances pr\u00e9sentes.\nJugeant alors que son mal ne s'aggraverait pas sur-le-champ, je le\nquittai en promettant \u00e0 sa femme que je viendrais le revoir le lendemain\nsoir, et que je passerais la nuit aupr\u00e8s de lui, si cela \u00e9tait\nn\u00e9cessaire.\n\nJe tins ma promesse. Les vingt-quatre heures qui s'\u00e9taient \u00e9coul\u00e9es\navaient produit en lui une alt\u00e9ration affreuse. Ses yeux, profond\u00e9ment\ncreus\u00e9s, brillaient d'un \u00e9clat effrayant; ses l\u00e8vres \u00e9taient dess\u00e9ch\u00e9es\net fendues en plusieurs endroits; sa peau luisait, s\u00e8che et br\u00fblante;\nenfin, on voyait sur son visage une expression d'anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 farouche, qui\nindiquait encore plus fortement les ravages de la maladie, et qui ne\nsemblait d\u00e9j\u00e0 plus appartenir \u00e0 la terre. La fi\u00e8vre le d\u00e9vorait.\n\nJe pris le si\u00e9ge que j'avais occup\u00e9 la nuit pr\u00e9c\u00e9dente. Je savais, par\nce que j'avais entendu dire au m\u00e9decin, qu'il \u00e9tait \u00e0 son lit de mort;\net je restai l\u00e0, durant les longues heures de la nuit, pr\u00eatant l'oreille\n\u00e0 des sons capables d'\u00e9mouvoir les \u00e2mes les plus endurcies; c'\u00e9taient\nles r\u00eaveries myst\u00e9rieuses d'un agonisant.\n\nJe vis ses membres d\u00e9charn\u00e9s, qui peu d'heures auparavant se\ndisloquaient pour amuser une foule rieuse, je les vis se tordre sous les\ntortures d'une fi\u00e8vre ardente. J'entendis le rire aigu du paillasse se\nm\u00ealer aux murmures du moribond.\n\nC'est une chose touchante de suivre les pens\u00e9es qui ram\u00e8nent un malade\nvers les sc\u00e8nes ordinaires, vers les occupations de la vie active,\nlorsque son corps est \u00e9tendu sans force et sans mouvement devant vos\nyeux. Mais cette impression est infiniment plus forte quand ces\noccupations sont enti\u00e8rement oppos\u00e9es \u00e0 toute id\u00e9e grave et religieuse.\nLe th\u00e9\u00e2tre et le cabaret \u00e9taient les principaux sujets de divagation de\nce malheureux. Dans son d\u00e9lire, il s'imaginait qu'il avait un r\u00f4le \u00e0\njouer cette nuit m\u00eame, qu'il \u00e9tait tard et qu'il devait quitter la\nmaison sur-le-champ. Pourquoi le retenait-on? pourquoi l'emp\u00eachait-on de\npartir? Il allait perdre son salaire. Il fallait qu'il part\u00eet! Non; on\nle retenait! Il cachait son visage dans ses mains br\u00fblantes, et il\ng\u00e9missait sur sa faiblesse et sur la cruaut\u00e9 de ses pers\u00e9cuteurs. Une\ncourte pause, et il braillait quelques rimes burlesques, les derni\u00e8res\nqu'il eut apprises: tout d'un coup il se leva dans son lit, \u00e9tendit ses\nmembres de squelette et se posa d'une mani\u00e8re grotesque. Il \u00e9tait sur la\nsc\u00e8ne, il jouait son r\u00f4le. Encore un silence, et il murmura le refrain\nd'une autre chanson. Enfin, il avait regagn\u00e9 son caf\u00e9 chantant! Comme la\nsalle \u00e9tait chaude! Il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 malade, tr\u00e8s-malade; mais maintenant il\nallait bien, il \u00e9tait heureux! Remplissez mon verre! Qui est-ce qui le\nbrise entre mes l\u00e8vres? C'\u00e9tait le m\u00eame pers\u00e9cuteur qui l'avait\npoursuivi. Il retomba sur son oreiller et poussa de sourds g\u00e9missements.\nApr\u00e8s un court intervalle d'oubli, il se retrouva errant dans un\nlabyrinthe inextricable de chambres obscures, dont les vo\u00fbtes \u00e9taient si\nbasses qu'il lui fallait quelquefois se tra\u00eener sur ses mains et sur ses\ngenoux pour pouvoir avancer. Tout \u00e9tait r\u00e9tr\u00e9ci et mena\u00e7ant; et de\nquelque cot\u00e9 qu'il se tourn\u00e2t, un nouvel obstacle s'opposait \u00e0 son\npassage. Des reptiles immondes rampaient autour de lui; leurs yeux\nluisants dardaient des flammes au milieu des t\u00e9n\u00e8bres visibles qui\nl'entouraient; les murailles, les vo\u00fbtes, l'air m\u00eame, \u00e9taient\nempoisonn\u00e9s d'insectes d\u00e9go\u00fbtants. Tout \u00e0 coup les vo\u00fbtes s'agrandirent\net devinrent d'une \u00e9tendue effrayante; des spectres effroyables\nvoltigeaient de toutes parts, et parmi eux il voyait appara\u00eetre des\nvisages qu'il connaissait, et que rendaient difformes des grimaces, des\ncontorsions hideuses. Ces fant\u00f4mes s'empar\u00e8rent de lui; ils br\u00fbl\u00e8rent\nses chairs avec des fers rouges; ils serr\u00e8rent des cordes autour de ses\ntempes, jusqu'\u00e0 en faire jaillir le sang; et il se d\u00e9battit violemment\npour \u00e9chapper \u00e0 la mort qui le saisissait.\n\nA la fin d'un de ces paroxysmes, pendant lequel j'avais eu beaucoup de\npeine \u00e0 le retenir dans son lit, il se laissa retomber \u00e9puis\u00e9, et c\u00e9da\nbient\u00f4t \u00e0 une sorte d'assoupissement. Accabl\u00e9 de veilles et de fatigues,\nj'avais ferm\u00e9 les yeux depuis quelques minutes, lorsque je sentis une\nmain me saisir violemment par l'\u00e9paule: je me r\u00e9veillai aussit\u00f4t. Il\ns'\u00e9tait soulev\u00e9 et s'\u00e9tait assis dans son lit. Son visage \u00e9tait chang\u00e9\nd'une mani\u00e8re effrayante; cependant le d\u00e9lire avait cess\u00e9, car il \u00e9tait\n\u00e9vident qu'il me reconnaissait. L'enfant qui avait \u00e9t\u00e9 si longtemps\ntroubl\u00e9 par les cris de son p\u00e8re, accourut vers lui en criant avec\nterreur, mais sa m\u00e8re le saisit promptement dans ses bras, craignant que\nJohn ne le bless\u00e2t dans la violence de ses transports, puis, en\nremarquant l'alt\u00e9ration de ses traits, elle resta effray\u00e9e et immobile\nau pied du lit. Lui, cependant, serrait convulsivement mon \u00e9paule, et\nfrappant de son autre main sa poitrine, il faisait d'horribles efforts\npour articuler: c'\u00e9tait en vain. Il \u00e9tendit les bras vers sa femme et\nvers son enfant; ses l\u00e8vres blanches s'agit\u00e8rent, mais elles ne purent\nproduire d'autre son qu'un r\u00e2lement sourd, un g\u00e9missement \u00e9touff\u00e9: ses\nyeux brill\u00e8rent un instant; et il retomba en arri\u00e8re, mort!\n\n\n\nNous \u00e9prouverions la satisfaction la plus vive si nous pouvions\ntransmettre au lecteur l'opinion de M. Pickwick sur l'anecdote que nous\nvenons de rapporter, et nous sommes presque certain que cela nous aurait\n\u00e9t\u00e9 possible, sans une circonstance malheureuse.\n\nM. Pickwick venait de replacer sur la table le verre qu'il avait tenu\ndans sa main pendant les derni\u00e8res phrases de ce r\u00e9cit; il s'\u00e9tait\nd\u00e9cid\u00e9 \u00e0 parler, et m\u00eame, si nous en croyons le m\u00e9morandum de M.\nSnodgrass, il avait ouvert la bouche; quand le gar\u00e7on entra dans la\nchambre, et dit: \u00abMonsieur, il y a l\u00e0 plusieurs gentleman.\u00bb\n\nLorsque M. Pickwick fut ainsi interrompu, il \u00e9tait sans doute sur le\npoint de prof\u00e9rer quelque sentence qui aurait illumin\u00e9 le monde, sinon\nla Tamise[8], car il examina le gar\u00e7on d'un air s\u00e9v\u00e8re, puis il regarda\nsuccessivement toute la compagnie, comme pour demander quels pouvaient\n\u00eatre ces interrupteurs.\n\n[Footnote 8: Allusion au proverbe: _Il ne mettra pas le feu \u00e0 la\nTamise_, qui \u00e9quivaut au fran\u00e7ais: _Il n'a pas invent\u00e9 la poudre_.]\n\n\u00abOh! fit M. Winkle, en se levant, ce sont quelques-uns de mes amis.\nFaites-les entrer; et quand le gar\u00e7on se fut retir\u00e9, il ajouta: des gens\nfort agr\u00e9ables, des officiers du 97e, dont j'ai fait tant\u00f4t la\nconnaissance d'une mani\u00e8re assez \u00e9trange; ils vous plairont beaucoup.\u00bb\n\nLa s\u00e9r\u00e9nit\u00e9 de M. Pickwick fut sur-le-champ restaur\u00e9e; le gar\u00e7on revint,\nintroduisant dans la chambre trois gentlemen, et M. Winkle prit la\nparole: \u00abLieutenant Tappleton, dit-il; M. Pickwick. Docteur Payne, M.\nPickwick... vous connaissez d\u00e9j\u00e0 M. Snodgrass... mon ami, M. Tupman.\nDocteur Slammer, M. Pickwick.... M. Tup....\u00bb\n\nIci M. Winkle s'arr\u00eata soudainement en remarquant l'\u00e9motion profonde qui\nse manifestait sur la contenance de M. Tupman et du docteur.\n\n\u00abJ'ai d\u00e9j\u00e0 rencontr\u00e9 ce gentleman dit le docteur avec \u00e9nergie.\n\n--Ha! ha! fit M. Winkle.\n\n--Et cet individu aussi, si je ne me trompe, reprit le docteur Slammer,\nen attachant un regard scrutateur sur l'\u00e9tranger \u00e0 l'habit vert. Je\npense que j'ai fait \u00e0 cet individu, la nuit derni\u00e8re, une invitation\ntr\u00e8s-pressante, qu'il a jug\u00e9 \u00e0 propos de refuser.\u00bb En disant ces mots le\ndocteur lan\u00e7a sur l'\u00e9tranger un regard plein d'indignation, et commen\u00e7a\n\u00e0 parler \u00e0 voix basse et avec chaleur \u00e0 son ami le lieutenant Tappleton.\n\nQuand il eut fini, celui-ci s'\u00e9cria: \u00abBah! vraiment?\u00bb\n\n--Oui, r\u00e9pondit le docteur Slammer.\n\n--Il faut l'assommer sur la place! dit avec le plus grand s\u00e9rieux le\npropri\u00e9taire du pliant.\n\n--Je vous en prie, Payne, tenez-vous tranquille,\u00bb interrompit le\nlieutenant. Puis s'adressant \u00e0 M. Pickwick, qui \u00e9tait singuli\u00e8rement\nintrigu\u00e9 de ces _a parte_ impolis, il continua en ces termes:\n\u00abVoulez-vous me permettre, monsieur, de vous demander si cette personne\nappartient \u00e0 votre soci\u00e9t\u00e9?\n\n--Non, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick. C'est seulement un de nos h\u00f4tes.\n\n--C'est, je pense, un membre de votre club?\n\n--Non, certainement.\n\n--Et il ne porte jamais l'uniforme du club?\n\n--Non, jamais,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick avec \u00e9tonnement.\n\nLe lieutenant Tappleton se retourna vers son ami, le docteur Slammer,\navec un l\u00e9ger mouvement d'\u00e9paules, qui semblait impliquer quelque doute\nde l'exactitude de ses souvenirs.\n\nLe docteur paraissait enrag\u00e9, mais confondu, et M. Payne consid\u00e9rait\navec une expression f\u00e9roce la contenance bienveillante de M. Pickwick.\n\n\u00abMonsieur, vous \u00e9tiez au bal la nuit derni\u00e8re,\u00bb dit tout d'un coup le\ndocteur \u00e0 M. Tupman, d'un ton qui le fit tressaillir aussi visiblement\nque si une \u00e9pingle avait \u00e9t\u00e9 ins\u00e9r\u00e9e m\u00e9chamment dans son mollet. Il\nr\u00e9pondit un faible \u00abOui;\u00bb mais sans cesser de regarder M. Pickwick.\n\n\u00abCette personne \u00e9tait avec vous,\u00bb continua le docteur en montrant\nl'immuable \u00e9tranger.\n\nM. Tupman admit le fait.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, monsieur, dit le docteur \u00e0 l'\u00e9tranger, je vous demande\nencore une fois, en pr\u00e9sence de ces gentlemen, si vous voulez me donner\nvotre carte et vous voir trait\u00e9 en gentleman, ou si vous voulez\nm'imposer la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 de vous ch\u00e2tier personnellement sur la place.\n\n--Arr\u00eatez, monsieur, interrompit M. Pickwick. Je ne puis r\u00e9ellement pas\nlaisser aller plus loin cette affaire sans quelques explications.\nTupman, racontez-en les circonstances.\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman, ainsi adjur\u00e9 solennellement, raconta le fait en peu de\nparoles, passa l\u00e9g\u00e8rement sur l'emprunt de l'habit, s'\u00e9tendit longuement\nsur ce que cela avait \u00e9t\u00e9 fait apr\u00e8s d\u00eener, exprima un peu de repentir\npour son compte, et laissa l'\u00e9tranger se tirer d'affaire comme il\npourrait.\n\nCelui-ci se disposait \u00e0 parler, quand le lieutenant Tappleton, qui\nl'avait examin\u00e9 avec une grande curiosit\u00e9, lui dit d'un ton d\u00e9daigneux:\n\n\u00abNe vous ai-je pas vu au th\u00e9\u00e2tre, monsieur?\n\n--Certainement, r\u00e9pliqua l'\u00e9tranger sans se laisser intimider.\n\n--C'est un com\u00e9dien ambulant, reprit le lieutenant avec m\u00e9pris; et en\nse tournant vers le docteur Slammer, il ajouta: Il joue dans la pi\u00e8ce\nque les officiels du 52e ont mont\u00e9e pour demain sur le th\u00e9\u00e2tre de\nRochester. Vous ne pouvez pas pousser cela plus loin, Slammer,\nimpossible.\n\n--Tout \u00e0 fait impossible! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta le hautain docteur Payne.\n\n--Je suis f\u00e2ch\u00e9 de vous avoir plac\u00e9 dans cette d\u00e9sagr\u00e9able situation,\ndit le lieutenant Tappleton \u00e0 M. Pickwick. Mais permettez-moi d'ajouter\nque le meilleur moyen d'\u00e9viter de semblables sc\u00e8nes, \u00e0 l'avenir, serait\nd'apporter plus de soin dans le choix de vos compagnons. Votre\nserviteur, monsieur. Et en disant ces mots le lieutenant s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a hors\nde la chambre.\n\n--Et permettez-moi de dire, monsieur, ajouta l'irascible docteur Payne,\nque si j'avais \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e0 la place de Tappleton, ou \u00e0 celle de Slammer, je\nvous aurais tir\u00e9 le nez, monsieur, et \u00e0 tous les individus pr\u00e9sents.\nOui, monsieur, \u00e0 tous les individus pr\u00e9sents. Payne est mon nom,\nmonsieur, le docteur Payne, du 43e. Bonsoir, monsieur.\u00bb Ayant termin\u00e9 ce\ndiscours, dont les derniers mots furent prononc\u00e9s d'une voix \u00e9lev\u00e9e, il\nmarcha majestueusement sur les traces de son ami, et fut suivi\nimm\u00e9diatement par le docteur Slammer, qui ne dit rien, mais qui soulagea\nsa bile en \u00e9crasant la compagnie d'un regard m\u00e9prisant.\n\nPendant ces longues provocations, un abasourdissement extr\u00eame, une rage\ntoujours croissante, avaient enfl\u00e9 le noble sein de M. Pickwick jusqu'au\npoint de faire crever son gilet. Il \u00e9tait rest\u00e9 p\u00e9trifi\u00e9, regardant\nencore la place que le docteur Payne avait occup\u00e9e, quand le bruit de la\nporte qui se fermait le rappela \u00e0 lui-m\u00eame. Il se pr\u00e9cipita, la fureur\npeinte sur le visage et lan\u00e7ant des flammes de ses yeux. Sa main \u00e9tait\nsur la serrure. Un instant plus tard elle aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e0 la gorge du\ndocteur Payne, du 43e si M. Snodgrass ne s'\u00e9tait empress\u00e9 de saisir son\nv\u00e9n\u00e9rable mentor par le pan de son habit et de le tirer en arri\u00e8re.\n\n\u00abWinkle, Tupman, s'\u00e9cria-t-il en m\u00eame temps, avec l'accent du d\u00e9sespoir,\nretenez-le! Il ne doit pas risquer sa pr\u00e9cieuse vie dans une cause comme\ncelle-ci.\n\n--Laissez-moi! dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Tenez ferme, cria M. Snodgrass, et par les efforts r\u00e9unis de toute la\ncompagnie M. Pickwick fut assis dans un fauteuil.\n\n--Laissez-le, dit l'\u00e9tranger \u00e0 l'habit vert. Un verre de grog. Quel\nvieux gaillard, plein de courage! Avalez \u00e7a. Hein! fameuse boisson!\u00bb\n\nEn parlant ainsi et apr\u00e8s avoir pr\u00e9alablement go\u00fbt\u00e9 la rasade fumante,\nl'\u00e9tranger appliqua le verre \u00e0 la bouche de M. Pickwick, et le reste de\nce qu'il contenait disparut, en peu de temps, dans le gosier du divin\nphilosophe. Il y eu une courte pause: le grog faisait son effet, et la\ncontenance aimable de M. Pickwick reprit rapidement son expression\naccoutum\u00e9e, tandis que l'\u00e9tranger lui disait: \u00abIls sont indignes de\nvotre attention....\n\n--Vous avez raison, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick. Ils n'en sont pas\ndignes. Je suis honteux de m'\u00eatre laiss\u00e9 entra\u00eener \u00e0 la chaleur de mes\nsentiments. Approchez votre chaise, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nLe com\u00e9dien ne se fit pas prier. On se r\u00e9unit en cercle autour de la\ntable, et l'harmonie r\u00e9gna de nouveau. M. Winkle lui seul paraissait\nconserver encore quelques restes d'irritabilit\u00e9. Cette disposition\n\u00e9tait-elle occasionn\u00e9e par la soustraction temporaire de son habit? Une\ncirconstance aussi futile pouvait-elle allumer un sentiment de col\u00e8re,\nm\u00eame passager dans un coeur pickwickien? Nous l'ignorons, mais \u00e0 cette\nexception pr\u00e8s, la bonne humeur \u00e9tait compl\u00e9tement r\u00e9tablie, et la\nsoir\u00e9e se termina avec toute la jovialit\u00e9 qui en avait signal\u00e9 le\ncommencement.\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE IV.\n\nLa petite guerre.--De nouveaux amis.--Une invitation pour la campagne.\n\n\nBeaucoup d'auteurs \u00e9prouvent une r\u00e9pugnance ridicule et m\u00eame ind\u00e9licate\n\u00e0 r\u00e9v\u00e9ler les sources o\u00f9 ils ont puis\u00e9 leur sujet. Nous ne pensons point\nde la m\u00eame mani\u00e8re, et toujours nos efforts tendront simplement \u00e0 nous\nacquitter d'une fa\u00e7on honorable des devoirs que nous impose notre r\u00f4le\nd'\u00e9diteur. Malgr\u00e9 la juste ambition qui, dans d'autres circonstances,\naurait pu nous porter \u00e0 r\u00e9clamer la gloire d'avoir compos\u00e9 cet ouvrage,\nnos \u00e9gards pour la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 nous emp\u00eachent de pr\u00e9tendre \u00e0 d'autre m\u00e9rite\nqu'\u00e0 celui d'un arrangement judicieux et d'une impartiale narration. Les\npapiers du Pickwick-Club sont comme un immense r\u00e9servoir de faits\nimportants. Ce que nous avons \u00e0 faire, c'est de les distribuer\nsoigneusement \u00e0 l'univers, qui a soif de conna\u00eetre les pickwickiens.\n\nAgissant d'apr\u00e8s ces principes, et toujours d\u00e9termin\u00e9 a avouer nos\nobligations pour les autorit\u00e9s que nous avons consult\u00e9es, nous d\u00e9clarons\nfranchement que c'est au m\u00e9morandum de M. Snodgrass que nous devons les\nparticularit\u00e9s contenues dans ce chapitre et dans le suivant,\nparticularit\u00e9s que nous allons rapporter sans autre commentaire,\nmaintenant que nous avons soulag\u00e9 notre conscience.\n\nLe lendemain, tous les habitants de Rochester et des lieux environnants\nsortirent de leur lit de tr\u00e8s-bonne heure, dans un \u00e9tat d'excitation et\nd'empressement inaccoutum\u00e9s, car il s'agissait pour eux de voir les\ngrandes manoeuvres. Une demi-douzaine de r\u00e9giments devaient \u00eatre\ninspect\u00e9s par le regard d'aigle du commandant en chef; des\nfortifications temporaires avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9lev\u00e9es; la citadelle allait \u00eatre\nattaqu\u00e9e et emport\u00e9e d'assaut; enfin on devait faire jouer une mine.\n\nComme nos lecteurs ont pu le conclure, d'apr\u00e8s les notes de M. Pickwick\nsur la ville de Chatham, il \u00e9tait admirateur enthousiaste de l'arm\u00e9e.\nRien ne pouvait donc \u00eatre plus d\u00e9licieux pour lui et pour ses compagnons\nque la vue d'une petite guerre; aussi furent-ils bient\u00f4t debout. Ils se\ndirig\u00e8rent \u00e0 grands pas vers les fortifications, o\u00f9 se rendaient d\u00e9j\u00e0 de\ntous c\u00f4t\u00e9s une foule de curieux.\n\nTout annon\u00e7ait que la c\u00e9r\u00e9monie devait \u00eatre d'une importance et d'une\ngrandeur peu communes. On avait pos\u00e9 des sentinelles pour maintenir\nlibre le terrain n\u00e9cessaire aux manoeuvres; on avait plac\u00e9 des\ndomestiques dans les batteries afin de retenir des places pour les\ndames. Des sergents couraient de toutes parts, portant sous leurs bras\ndes registres reli\u00e9s en parchemin. Le colonel Bulder, en grand uniforme,\ngalopait d'un c\u00f4t\u00e9; puis, d'un autre, faisait reculer son cheval sur les\ncurieux; lui faisait faire des voltes, des courbettes, et criait avec\ntant de violence, que son visage en \u00e9tait tout rouge, sa voix tout\nenrou\u00e9e, sans que personne p\u00fbt comprendre quelle n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 il y avait \u00e0\ncela. Des officiers s'\u00e9lan\u00e7aient en avant, en arri\u00e8re; parlaient au\ncolonel Bulder, donnaient des ordres aux sergents, puis repartaient au\ngalop et disparaissaient. Enfin, les soldats eux-m\u00eames, sous leurs cols\nde cuir, avaient un air de solennit\u00e9 myst\u00e9rieuse qui indiquait\nsuffisamment la nature sp\u00e9ciale de la r\u00e9union.\n\nM. Pickwick et ses trois compagnons sa plac\u00e8rent sur le premier rang\ndes curieux, et attendirent patiemment la commencement des manoeuvres. La\nfoule augmentait constamment, et les efforts qu'ils \u00e9taient oblig\u00e9s de\nfaire pour conserver leur position, occup\u00e8rent suffisamment les deux\nheures qui s'\u00e9coul\u00e8rent dans l'attente. Quelquefois il se faisait par\nderri\u00e8re une pouss\u00e9e soudaine, et alors M. Pickwick \u00e9tait lanc\u00e9 en avant\navec une vitesse et une \u00e9lasticit\u00e9 peu conformes \u00e0 la gravit\u00e9 ordinaire\nde son maintien. D'autres fois les soldats engageaient les spectateurs \u00e0\nreculer, et laissaient tomber les crosses de leurs fusils sur les pieds\nde M. Pickwick, pour lui rappeler leur consigne, ou lui bourraient\nladite crosse dans la poitrine pour l'engager \u00e0 s'y conformer. Dans un\nautre instant, quelques gentlemen fac\u00e9tieux se pressant autour de M.\nSnodgrass, le r\u00e9duisaient \u00e0 sa plus simple expression, et apr\u00e8s lui\navoir fait endurer les tortures les plus aigu\u00ebs, lui demandaient\npourquoi il avait le toupet de pousser les gens de cette fa\u00e7on-l\u00e0. A\npeine M. Winkle avait-il achev\u00e9 d'exprimer l'indignation excessive que\nlui causait cette insulte non provoqu\u00e9e, et \u00e9puis\u00e9 son courroux, qu'un\nindividu plac\u00e9 par derri\u00e8re lui enfon\u00e7ait son chapeau sur les yeux, en\nle priant d'avoir la complaisance de mettre sa t\u00eate dans sa poche. Ces\nmystifications, jointes \u00e0 l'inqui\u00e9tude que leur causait la disparition\ninexplicable et subite de M. Tupman, rendaient, au total, leur situation\nplus incommode que d\u00e9licieuse.\n\nA la fin on entendit courir parmi la foule ce bruyant murmure qui\nannonce l'arriv\u00e9e de ce qu'elle a attendu pendant longtemps. Tous les\nyeux se tourn\u00e8rent vers le fort, et l'on vit bataillons apr\u00e8s bataillons\nse r\u00e9pandre dans la plaine, les drapeaux flottant gracieusement dans les\nairs, et les armes \u00e9tincelant au soleil. Les troupes firent halte et\nprirent position. Les cris inarticul\u00e9s du commandement coururent sur\ntoute la ligne; les armes furent pr\u00e9sent\u00e9es avec un cliquetis g\u00e9n\u00e9ral;\nle commandant en chef, le colonel Bulder et un nombreux \u00e9tat-major\npass\u00e8rent au petit galop en t\u00eate des troupes. Tout d'un coup la musique\nde tous les r\u00e9giments fit explosion; les chevaux se dress\u00e8rent sur deux\npieds, et recul\u00e8rent en fouettant leurs queues dans toutes les\ndirections; les chiens aboy\u00e8rent; la multitude cria; les troupes\nre\u00e7urent le commandement de fixe; et autant que les yeux pouvaient\ns'\u00e9tendre on ne vit plus rien \u00e0 droite et \u00e0 gauche qu'une longue\nperspective d'habits rouges et de pantalons blancs, immobiles, et comme\np\u00e9trifi\u00e9s.\n\nM. Pickwick avait \u00e9t\u00e9 si absorb\u00e9 par le soin de se reculer et de se\nd\u00e9gager d'entre les pieds des chevaux, qu'il n'avait pas eu le temps de\njouir de la sc\u00e8ne qui se d\u00e9roulait devant lui. Lorsqu'il lui fut enfin\npossible de se tenir d'aplomb sur ses jambes, les troupes avaient pris\nl'apparence inanim\u00e9e que nous venons de d\u00e9crire, et son admiration, ses\njouissances furent inexprimables.\n\n\u00abY a-t-il rien de plus beau, rien de plus d\u00e9licieux? dit-il \u00e0 M. Winkle.\n\n--Rien, assur\u00e9ment, r\u00e9pliqua ce dernier, qui pendant plus d'un quart\nd'heure avait port\u00e9 un petit homme sur chacun de ses pieds.\n\n--Oui! s'\u00e9cria M. Snodgrass, dans le sein duquel s'allumait rapidement\nune flamme po\u00e9tique, oui! c'est un noble et magnifique spectacle de voir\nainsi les vaillants d\u00e9fenseurs de la patrie se d\u00e9ployer en files\nbrillantes devant ses paisibles citoyens. Leur visage est empreint, non\nd'une f\u00e9rocit\u00e9 guerri\u00e8re, mais d'un esprit de civilisation; leurs yeux\nn'\u00e9tincellent pas du feu sauvage de la rapine et de la vengeance, mais\nde la douce lumi\u00e8re de l'intelligence et de l'humanit\u00e9!\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick s'unissait enti\u00e8rement \u00e0 ces \u00e9loges, quant \u00e0 l'esprit qui\nles dictait, mais il ne pouvait pas en approuver aussi compl\u00e9tement les\ntermes. En effet, _la douce lumi\u00e8re de l'intelligence_ brillait assez\nfaiblement, attendu que le commandement de \u00abyeux, front!\u00bb avait \u00e9t\u00e9\ndonn\u00e9, et que les spectateurs n'apercevaient pas autre chose que\nplusieurs milliers de prunelles, regardant directement devant elles, et\nenti\u00e8rement d\u00e9nu\u00e9es de toute expression quelconque.\n\nCependant la foule s'\u00e9tait \u00e9coul\u00e9e peu \u00e0 peu, et nos voyageurs se\ntrouvaient presque seuls dans cet endroit.\n\n\u00abNous sommes maintenant dans une excellente position, dit M. Pickwick,\nen regardant autour de lui.\n\n--Excellente: repartirent \u00e0 la fois MM. Winkle et Snodgrass.\n\n--Que font-ils maintenant? reprit M. Pickwick, en ajustant ses lunettes.\n\n--Il me.... Il me semble..., balbutia M. Winkle en changeant de couleur,\nil me semble qu'ils vont faire feu!\n\n--Allons donc! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick avec pr\u00e9cipitation.\n\n--Je crois.... je crois qu'il a raison, observa M. Snodgrass avec\nquelque alarme.\n\n--Impossible! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick.\u00bb Mais \u00e0 peine avait-il prononc\u00e9 ces\nmots, que les six r\u00e9giments, agissant comme un seul homme, et comme\ns'ils n'avaient eu qu'un seul point de mire, couch\u00e8rent en joue les\nmalheureux pickwickiens, et firent la plus effroyable d\u00e9charge qui ait\njamais \u00e9branl\u00e9 le centre de la terre ou le courage d'un gentleman un peu\nm\u00fbr.\n\nDans cette situation critique, expos\u00e9 \u00e0 un feu continuel de cartouches\nblanches, harrass\u00e9 par les op\u00e9rations des troupes, auxquelles un nouveau\nrenfort venait d'arriver, se d\u00e9veloppant derri\u00e8re M. Pickwick, il montra\ncet admirable sang-froid, compagnon n\u00e9cessaire d'un esprit sup\u00e9rieur.\nSaisissant M. Winkle par le bras, et se pla\u00e7ant entre lui et M.\nSnodgrass, il les engagea instamment a remarquer qu'except\u00e9 le danger\nd'\u00eatre assourdi par le bruit, il n'y avait aucun p\u00e9ril \u00e0 redouter.\n\n\u00abMais.... mais..., dit M. Winkle, en p\u00e2lissant, supposez que les soldats\naient quelques cartouches \u00e0 balles, par erreur? Je viens d'entendre un\nsifflement aigu, juste \u00e0 mon oreille.\n\n--Ne ferions-nous pas mieux de nous jeter \u00e0 plat-ventre? demanda M.\nSnodgrass?\n\n--Non, non, tout est fini maintenant, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick.\u00bb Et en\ndisant ces mots, ses l\u00e8vres pouvaient trembler, ses joues pouvaient\nblanchir, mais aucune expression de crainte ou d'inqui\u00e9tude ne s'\u00e9chappa\nde la bouche de cet homme immortel.\n\nM. Pickwick ne s'\u00e9tait pas tromp\u00e9; la fusillade \u00e9tait termin\u00e9e. Il ne\nsongeait donc plus qu'\u00e0 se f\u00e9liciter de la justesse de son hypoth\u00e8se,\nquand il aper\u00e7ut sur toute la ligne un mouvement rapide. Les cris de\ncommandement retentirent, et avant que nos voyageurs eussent en le temps\nde former une conjecture relativement \u00e0 cette nouvelle manoeuvre, les six\nr\u00e9giments tout entiers firent une charge \u00e0 la ba\u00efonnette au pas de\ncourse sur le lieu m\u00eame o\u00f9 M. Pickwick et ses amis \u00e9taient stationn\u00e9s.\n\nTout homme est mortel, et le courage humain a des bornes. Pendant un\ninstant M. Pickwick regarda \u00e0 travers ses lunettes la masse compacte qui\ns'avan\u00e7ait; puis il lui tourna le dos, et se mit... nous ne dirons pas\n_\u00e0 fuir_, premi\u00e8rement, parce que c'est une expression d\u00e9shonorante;\nsecondement, parce que la personne de M. Pickwick n'\u00e9tait nullement\nappropri\u00e9e \u00e0 ce genre de retraite. Il se mit \u00e0 trotter aussi vite que le\nlui permettaient le peu de longueur de ses jambes et la pesanteur de\nson corps; si vite, en effet, qu'il s'aper\u00e7ut trop tard de tous les\ndangers de sa situation.\n\nLes troupes, dont l'apparition sur ses derri\u00e8res avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 inqui\u00e9t\u00e9 M.\nPickwick quelques secondes auparavant, s'\u00e9taient d\u00e9ploy\u00e9es en bataille\npour repousser la feinte attaque des assi\u00e9geants fictifs de la\ncitadelle; de sorte que les trois amis se trouv\u00e8rent enferm\u00e9s entre deux\nlongues murailles de ba\u00efonnettes, dont l'une s'avan\u00e7ait rapidement,\ntandis que l'autre attendait avec fermet\u00e9 le choc \u00e9pouvantable.\n\n\u00abHoh\u00e9! hoh\u00e9! cri\u00e8rent les officiers de la colonne mouvante.\n\n--Otez-vous de l\u00e0! beugl\u00e8rent les officiers de la colonne stationnaire.\n\n--O\u00f9 pouvons-nous aller? s'\u00e9cri\u00e8rent les pickwickiens pleins de trouble.\n\n--Hoh\u00e9! hoh\u00e9!\u00bb telle fut la seule r\u00e9ponse; puis il y eut un moment\nd'\u00e9garement inou\u00ef, un bruit lourd de pas cadenc\u00e9s, un choc violent, une\nconfusion de rires \u00e9touff\u00e9s, et les troupes se retrouv\u00e8rent \u00e0 cinq cents\ntoises de distance, et les semelles des bottes de M. Pickwick furent\naper\u00e7ues en l'air.\n\nM. Snodgrass et M. Winkle venaient d'ex\u00e9cuter, avec beaucoup de\nprestesse, une culbute oblig\u00e9e. M. Winkle, assis par terre, \u00e9tanchait,\navec un mouchoir de soie jaune, le sang qui s'\u00e9coulait de son nez, quand\nils virent leur v\u00e9n\u00e9rable chef courant, \u00e0 quelque distance, apr\u00e8s son\nchapeau, lequel s'\u00e9loignait en caracolant avec malice.\n\nIl y a peu d'instants dans l'existence d'un homme o\u00f9 il \u00e9prouve plus de\nd\u00e9tresse visible, o\u00f9 il excite moins de commis\u00e9ration que lorsqu'il\ndonne la chasse \u00e0 son propre chapeau. Il faut avoir une grande dose de\nsang-froid, un jugement bien s\u00fbr pour le pouvoir rattraper. Si l'on\ncourt trop vite, on passe par-dessus; si l'on se baisse trop lentement,\nau moment o\u00f9 l'on croit le saisir, il est d\u00e9j\u00e0 bien loin. La meilleure\nm\u00e9thode est de trotter parall\u00e8lement \u00e0 l'objet de votre poursuite,\nd'\u00eatre prudent et attentif, de bien guetter l'occasion, de gagner les\ndevants par degr\u00e9s, puis de plonger rapidement, de prendre votre chapeau\npar la forme, et de le planter solidement sur votre t\u00eate, en souriant\ngracieusement pendant tout ce temps, comme si vous trouviez la\nplaisanterie aussi bonne que tout le monde.\n\nIl faisait un petit vent frais, et le chapeau de M. Pickwick roulait\ncomme en se jouant devant lui. Le vent soufflait et M. Pickwick\ns'essoufflait; et le chapeau roulait, et roulait aussi gaiement qu'un\nmarsouin en belle humeur dans un courant rapide; il roulerait encore,\nbien au del\u00e0 de la port\u00e9e de M. Pickwick, s'il n'e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 arr\u00eat\u00e9 par un\nobstacle providentiel, au moment o\u00f9 notre voyageur allait l'abandonner \u00e0\nson malheureux sort.\n\nM. Pickwick, compl\u00e9tement \u00e9puis\u00e9, allait donc abandonner sa poursuite,\nquand le chapeau s'aplatit contre la roue d'un carrosse qui se trouvait\nrang\u00e9 en ligne avec une douzaine d'autres v\u00e9hicules. Le philosophe,\napercevant son avantage, s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a vivement, s'empara de son couvre-chef,\nle pla\u00e7a sur sa t\u00eate, et s'arr\u00eata pour reprendre haleine. Il y avait une\ndemi-minute environ qu'il \u00e9tait l\u00e0, lorsqu'il entendit son nom\nchaleureusement prononc\u00e9 par une voix amie; il leva les yeux et\nd\u00e9couvrit un spectacle qui le remplit \u00e0 la fois de surprise et de\nplaisir.\n\nDans une cal\u00e8che d\u00e9couverte, dont les chevaux avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 retir\u00e9s \u00e0\ncause de la foule, se tenaient debout les personnes ci-apr\u00e8s d\u00e9sign\u00e9es:\nun vieux gentleman, gros et vigoureux, v\u00eatu d'un habit bleu \u00e0 boutons\nd'or, d'une culotte de velours et de bottes \u00e0 revers; deux jeunes\ndemoiselles, avec des \u00e9charpes et des plumes; un jeune homme,\napparemment amoureux d'une des jeunes demoiselles; une dame, d'un \u00e2ge\ndouteux, probablement tante desdites demoiselles; et enfin M. Tupman,\naussi tranquille, aussi \u00e0 son aise que s'il avait fait partie de la\nfamille depuis son enfance. Derri\u00e8re la voiture \u00e9tait attach\u00e9e une\nbourriche d'une vaste dimension, une de ces bourriches qui, par\nassociation d'id\u00e9es, \u00e9veillent toujours, dans un esprit contemplatif,\ndes pens\u00e9es de volailles froides, de langues fourr\u00e9es et de bouteilles\nde bon vin. Enfin, sur le si\u00e9ge de la cal\u00e8che, dans un \u00e9tat heureux de\nsomnolence, \u00e9tait assis un jeune gar\u00e7on, gros, rougeaud et joufflu,\nqu'un observateur sp\u00e9culatif ne pouvait regarder pendant quelques\nsecondes sans conclure qu'il devait \u00eatre le dispensateur officiel des\ntr\u00e9sors de la bourriche, lorsque le temps convenable pour leur\nconsommation serait arriv\u00e9.\n\nM. Pickwick avait \u00e0 peine jet\u00e9 un coup d'oeil rapide sur ces int\u00e9ressants\nobjets, quand il fut h\u00e9l\u00e9 de nouveau par son fid\u00e8le disciple.\n\n\u00abPickwick! Pickwick! lui disait-il! montez! montez vite!\n\n--Venez, monsieur, venez, je vous en prie, ajouta le vieux gentleman.\nJoe! Que le diable emporte ce gar\u00e7on! Il est encore \u00e0 dormir! Joe!\nabaissez le marchepied.\u00bb\n\nLa gros joufflu se laissa lentement glisser \u00e0 bas du si\u00e9ge, abaissa le\nmarchepied, et, d'une mani\u00e8re engageante, ouvrit la porti\u00e8re du\ncarrosse. M. Snodgrass et M. Winkle arriv\u00e8rent dans ce moment.\n\n\u00abIl y a de la place pour vous tous, messieurs, reprit le propri\u00e9taire de\nla voiture. Deux dedans, un dehors. Joe, faites de la place sur le si\u00e9ge\npour l'un de ces messieurs. Maintenant, monsieur, montez.\u00bb Et le vieux\ngentleman, \u00e9tendant le bras, hissa de vive force dans la cal\u00e8che,\nd'abord M. Pickwick, ensuite M. Snodgrass. M. Winkle monta sur le si\u00e9ge;\nle gros joufflu se percha pr\u00e8s de lui et se rendormit instantan\u00e9ment.\n\n\u00abJe suis charm\u00e9 de vous voir, messieurs, poursuivit le gentleman, je\nvous connais tr\u00e8s-bien, messieurs, quoique vous ne vous souveniez\npeut-\u00eatre pas de moi. J'ai pass\u00e9 plusieurs soir\u00e9es dans votre club,\nl'hiver dernier. Ce matin j'ai rencontr\u00e9 ici mon ami, M. Tupman, et j'ai\n\u00e9t\u00e9 enchant\u00e9 de le voir. H\u00e9 bien! monsieur, comment \u00e7a va-t-il? Tous\navez l'air tout \u00e0 fait bien portant, mais l\u00e0, tr\u00e8s-bien portant!\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick, \u00e0 qui ces derni\u00e8res paroles \u00e9taient adress\u00e9es, r\u00e9torqua le\ncompliment, et donna une vigoureuse poign\u00e9e de mains au vieux gentleman.\n\n\u00abEh bien! monsieur, comment \u00e7a va-t-il? continua celui-ci en regardant\nM. Snodgrass avec une sollicitude paternelle. A merveille, n'est-ce pas?\nAh! tant mieux, tant mieux! Et comment cela va-t-il, monsieur Winkle?\nBien? J'en suis charm\u00e9. Mes filles, messieurs. Et voil\u00e0 ma soeur Rachel\nWardle: c'est une demoiselle, sans que cela paraisse. N'est-ce pas,\nmonsieur? N'est-ce pas? ajouta-t-il en riant \u00e0 gorge d\u00e9ploy\u00e9e, et en\nins\u00e9rant plaisamment son coude entre les c\u00f4tes de M. Pickwick.\n\n--Mon Dieu! fr\u00e8re.... dit miss Wardle, avec un sourire suppliant.\n\n--Vrai, vrai, reprit le vieux gentleman, personne ne peut le nier,\nmessieurs, je vous pr\u00e9sente mon ami, M. Trundle. Et maintenant que vous\nvous connaissez tous, t\u00e2chons d'\u00eatre confortables et heureux, et voyons\nce qui se passe. Voil\u00e0 mon opinion.\u00bb Ayant ainsi parl\u00e9, il mit ses\nlunettes, tandis que M. Pickwick tirait son t\u00e9lescope; et chacun se tint\ndebout dans la voiture pour regarder les \u00e9volutions des militaires.\n\nC'\u00e9taient des manoeuvres \u00e9tonnantes. Un rang tirait par-dessus la t\u00eate\nd'un autre rang et se pr\u00e9cipitait aussit\u00f4t en arri\u00e8re, puis un autre\nrang tirait par-dessus la t\u00eate d'un autre rang et se pr\u00e9cipitait en\narri\u00e8re \u00e0 son tour; ensuite il y avait des formations de carr\u00e9s, avec\nles officiers dans le centre; des descentes dans la tranch\u00e9e avec des\n\u00e9chelles; de l'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9 des ascensions par le m\u00eame moyen; pais on\nabattait des barricades de paniers; et tout cela se faisait avec un\ncourage sans pareil. Dans les batteries, les artilleurs fourraient de\ngros tampons dans les bouches d'effroyables canons, et il fallait tant\nde pr\u00e9paratifs pour les bourrer, et ils faisaient tant de bruit quand on\ny avait mis le feu, que l'air r\u00e9sonnait au loin des cris plaintifs des\nfemmes. Dans le carrosse, les jeunes miss Wardle \u00e9taient si effray\u00e9es\nque M. Trundle fut absolument oblig\u00e9 de soutenir l'une d'elles, tandis\nque M. Snodgrass supportait la seconde: et les nerfs de miss Rachel\nWardle \u00e9taient dans un \u00e9tat d'alarme si terrible que M. Tupman trouva\nindispensable de passer le bras autour de sa taille pour l'emp\u00eacher de\ntomber. Enfin tout le monde \u00e9prouvait une exaltation prodigieuse,\nexcept\u00e9 le groom joufflu, qui dormait au tonnerre du canon aussi\nprofond\u00e9ment que si \u00e7'avait \u00e9t\u00e9 la chanson habituelle de sa nourrice.\n\nLorsque la citadelle fut prise et qu'on servit \u00e0 d\u00eener au assi\u00e9geants et\naux assi\u00e9g\u00e9s, le vieux gentleman s'\u00e9cria: \u00abJoe! Joe! Damn\u00e9 gar\u00e7on, il\nest encore \u00e0 dormir! Soyez assez bon, monsieur, pour lui pincer la\njambe, s'il vous pla\u00eet, c'est le seul moyen de le r\u00e9veiller. Je vous\nremercie. Joe, d\u00e9faites la bourriche.\u00bb\n\nLe gros joufflu, qui avait \u00e9t\u00e9 effectivement \u00e9veill\u00e9 par la compression\nd'une partie de son mollet, entre le pouce et l'index de M. Winkle, se\nlaissa de nouveau glisser \u00e0 bas du si\u00e9ge et s'occupa \u00e0 d\u00e9paqueter la\nbourriche, d'une mani\u00e8re plus exp\u00e9ditive qu'on n'aurait pu l'attendre de\nsa pr\u00e9c\u00e9dente inactivit\u00e9.\n\n\u00abMaintenant il faut nous asseoir serr\u00e9s,\u00bb dit le vieux gentleman. Apr\u00e8s\nbeaucoup de plaisanteries sur le froissement des manches des dames,\napr\u00e8s beaucoup de rougeur occasionn\u00e9e par la joyeuse proposition de les\nfaire asseoir sur les genoux des messieurs, la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 tout enti\u00e8re\nparvint \u00e0 s'empiler dans la cal\u00e8che, et le vieux gentleman s'occupa de\nfaire circuler les objets que le gros joufflu lui tendait de derri\u00e8re la\nvoiture o\u00f9 il \u00e9tait mont\u00e9.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, Joe, les couteaux, les fourchettes.\u00bb Les couteaux et les\nfourchettes furent pass\u00e9s. Les dames et les messieurs de l'int\u00e9rieur, et\nM. Winkle sur son si\u00e9ge, furent fournis de ces ustensiles n\u00e9cessaires.\n\n\u00abDes assiettes, Joe! des assiettes!\u00bb Les assiettes furent distribu\u00e9es\nde la m\u00eame mani\u00e8re.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, Joe, la volaille. Damn\u00e9 gar\u00e7on, il est encore \u00e0 dormir.\nJoe! Joe! Plusieurs coups de canne administr\u00e9s sur la t\u00eate du dormeur le\ntir\u00e8rent enfin de sa l\u00e9thargie. Allons passez-nous les comestibles.\u00bb\n\nIl y avait quelque chose, dans le son de ce dernier mot, qui r\u00e9veilla\nenti\u00e8rement le gros dormeur. Il tressaillit, et ses yeux plomb\u00e9s, \u00e0\nmoiti\u00e9 cach\u00e9s par ses joues bouffies, lorgn\u00e8rent amoureusement les\ncomestibles \u00e0 mesure qu'il les d\u00e9ballait.\n\n\u00abAllons, d\u00e9p\u00eachons,\u00bb dit H. Wardle, car le gros joufflu d\u00e9vorait du\nregard un chapon, dont il paraissait ne pas pouvoir se s\u00e9parer. Il\nsoupira profond\u00e9ment, jeta un coup d'oeil d\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9 sur la volaille\ndodue, et la remit tristement \u00e0 son ma\u00eetre.\n\n\u00abBon! Un peu de vivacit\u00e9! Maintenant la langue. Maintenant le p\u00e2t\u00e9 de\npigeons! Prenez garde au veau et au jambon. Attention aux \u00e9crevisses.\nOtez la salade de la serviette. Passez-moi l'assaisonnement.\u00bb Tout en\ndonnant ces ordres pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9s, M. Wardle distribuait dans l'int\u00e9rieur de\nla voiture les articles qu'il nommait, et pla\u00e7ait des plats sans nombre\ndans les mains et sur les genoux de chacun.\n\nLorsque l'oeuvre de destruction fut commenc\u00e9e, le joyeux h\u00f4te demanda \u00e0\nses convives: \u00abEh bien! n'est-ce pas d\u00e9licieux?\n\n--D\u00e9licieux! r\u00e9pondit M. Winkle, qui d\u00e9coupait une volaille sur le\nsi\u00e9ge.\n\n--Un verre de vin?\n\n--Avec le plus grand plaisir.\n\n--Ne feriez-vous pas mieux d'avoir une bouteille pour vous, l\u00e0-haut?\n\n--Tous \u00eates bien bon.\n\n--Joe!\n\n--Oui, monsieur. (Il n'\u00e9tait point endormi, cette fois, \u00e9tant parvenu \u00e0\nsoustraire un petit p\u00e2t\u00e9 de veau.)\n\n--Une bouteille de vin au gentleman sur le si\u00e9ge. Je suis charm\u00e9 de vous\nvoir, monsieur.\n\n--Bien oblig\u00e9, r\u00e9pondit M. Winkle, en pla\u00e7ant la bouteille \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de\nlui.\n\n--Voulez-vous me permettre de prendre un verre de vin avec vous? dit M.\nTrundle \u00e0 M. Winkle.\n\n--Avec grand plaisir,\u00bb repartit celui-ci; et les deux gentlemen prirent\ndu vin ensemble; et tous les assistants, m\u00eame les dames, suivirent leur\njudicieux exemple.\n\n\u00abComme notre ch\u00e8re \u00c9mily coquette avec ce jeune homme, observa tout bas\n\u00e0 M. Wardle la tante demoiselle, avec toute l'envie convenable \u00e0 une\ntante demoiselle.\n\n--Bah! r\u00e9pliqua le brave homme de p\u00e8re. \u00c7a n'a rien d'extraordinaire.\nC'est fort naturel. M. Pickwick, un verre de vin?\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick, interrompant pour un instant les profondes recherches qu'il\nfaisait dans l'int\u00e9rieur du p\u00e2t\u00e9 de pigeons, accepta en rendant gr\u00e2ce.\n\n\u00ab\u00c9mily, ma ch\u00e8re, dit la tante demoiselle avec un air de chaperon; ne\nparlez pas si haut, mon amour.\n\n--Pla\u00eet-il, ma tante?\n\n--Il para\u00eet que ma tante et le vieux petit monsieur voudraient qu'il n'y\nen e\u00fbt que peur eux, chuchota miss Isabella Wardle \u00e0 sa soeur \u00c9mily. Puis\nles deux jeunes demoiselles se mirent \u00e0 rire de tout leur coeur, et la\nvieille demoiselle s'effor\u00e7a de prendre une physionomie aimable, mais\nelle ne put en venir \u00e0 bout.\n\n\u00abLes jeunes filles ont tant de gaiet\u00e9! observa-t-elle \u00e0 M. Tupman avec\nun air de tendre commis\u00e9ration, comme si la gaiet\u00e9 e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 marchandise\nde contrebande, et comme si c'e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 un crime que d'en porter sur soi\nsans avoir un laissez-passer; mais M. Tupman ne fit pas exactement la\nr\u00e9ponse d\u00e9sir\u00e9e.\n\n--Vous avez bien raison, dit-il; c'est tout \u00e0 fait charmant!\n\n--Hem! fit miss Wardle d'un ton dubitatif.\n\n--Voulez-vous me permettre, reprit M. Tupman, de la mani\u00e8re la plus\ninsinuante, en touchant de la main gauche le poignet de la s\u00e9duisante\nRachel, tandis que de la main droite il levait tout doucement une\nbouteille. Voulez-vous me permettre?...\n\n--Oh! monsieur!\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman prit un air encore plus persuasif, et miss Rachel exprima la\ncrainte qu'on ne tir\u00e2t encore des coups de canon, ce qui aurait\nnaturellement oblig\u00e9 son cavalier \u00e0 la soutenir.\n\n\u00abTrouvez-vous mes ni\u00e8ces jolies? murmura ensuite la tante affectueuse \u00e0\nl'oreille de M. Tupman.\n\n--Je les trouverais jolies si leur tante n'\u00e9tait pas ici, r\u00e9pondit le\ngalant pickwickien, avec un regard passionn\u00e9.\n\n--Oh! le m\u00e9chant homme! Mais r\u00e9ellement, si elles avaient un peu de\nfra\u00eecheur, ne trouvez-vous pas qu'elles feraient de l'effet.... \u00e0 la\nlumi\u00e8re?\n\n--Oui,... je le crois, r\u00e9pliqua M. Tupman d'un air indiff\u00e9rent.\n\n--Oh! moqueur! Je sais ce que vous alliez dire.\n\n--Quoi donc? demanda M. Tupman, qui n'\u00e9tait pas bien d\u00e9cid\u00e9 \u00e0 dire\nquelque chose.\n\n--Vous alliez dire qu'Isabelle est vo\u00fbt\u00e9e. Je sais que vous l'alliez\ndire. Les hommes sont de si bons observateurs! Eh bien! c'est vrai; je\nne puis pas le nier! Et certainement s'il y a quelque chose de vilain\npour une jeune personne, c'est d'\u00eatre vo\u00fbt\u00e9e. Je le lui dis souvent, et\nqu'elle deviendra tout \u00e0 fait effroyable quand elle sera un peu plus\nvieille. Je vois que vous avez l'esprit malin.\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman, charm\u00e9 d'obtenir cette r\u00e9putation \u00e0 si bon march\u00e9, s'effor\u00e7a\nde prendre un air fin, et sourit myst\u00e9rieusement.\n\n\u00abQuel sourire sarcastique! s'\u00e9cria l'inflammable Rachel. Je vous assure\nque vous m'effrayez.\n\n--Je vous effraye?\n\n--Oh! vous ne pouvez rien me cacher. Je sais ce que ce sourire signifie.\n\n--H\u00e9 bien? dit M. Tupman, qui lui-m\u00eame n'en avait pas la plus l\u00e9g\u00e8re\nid\u00e9e.\n\n--Vous voulez dire, poursuivit l'aimable tante, en parlant encore plus\nbas, vous voulez dire que la tournure d'Isabelle vous d\u00e9pla\u00eet encore\nmoins que l'effronterie d'\u00c9mily. C'est vrai, elle est effront\u00e9e. Vous ne\npouvez croire combien cela me rend parfois malheureuse. Je suis s\u00fbre que\nj'en ai pleur\u00e9 pendant des heures enti\u00e8res. Mon cher fr\u00e8re est si bon,\nsi peu soup\u00e7onneux, qu'il n'en voit rien. S'il le voyait, je suis\ncertaine que cela lui briserait le coeur. Je voudrais pouvoir me\npersuader qu'il n'y a pas de mal au fond. Je le d\u00e9sire si vivement! (Ici\nl'affectueuse parente poussa un profond soupir, et secoua tristement la\nt\u00eate.)\n\n--Je suis s\u00fbre que ma tante parle de nous, dit tout bas miss \u00c9mily\nWardle \u00e0 sa soeur. J'en suis tout \u00e0 fait s\u00fbre: elle a pris son air\nmalicieux.\n\n--Tu crois, r\u00e9pondit Isabelle. Hem! tante, ch\u00e8re tante!\n\n--Oui, mon cher amour.\n\n--J'ai bien peur que vous ne vous enrhumiez, ma tante: mettez donc un\nmouchoir de soie autour de votre bonne vieille t\u00eate. Vous devriez\nprendre plus soin de vous, \u00e0 votre \u00e2ge.\u00bb\n\nQuoique cette revanche fut bien motiv\u00e9e, elle \u00e9tait tellement poignante\nqu'il est impossible d'imaginer de quelle mani\u00e8re se serait exhal\u00e9 le\ncourroux de la tante, si M. Wardle n'avait pas fait diversion, sans y\npenser, en criant d'une voix forte:\n\n\u00abJoe! Damn\u00e9 gar\u00e7on! il est encore \u00e0 dormir!\n\n--Voil\u00e0 un jeune homme bien extraordinaire, dit M. Pickwick. Est-ce\nqu'il est toujours assoupi comme cela?\n\n--Assoupi! Il dort toujours. Il fait mes commissions en dormant; et\nquand il sert \u00e0 table, il ronfle.\n\n--Bien extraordinaire! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick.\n\n--Ha! extraordinaire en v\u00e9rit\u00e9, reprit le vieux gentleman. Je suis\norgueilleux de ce gar\u00e7on. Je ne voudrais m'en s\u00e9parer \u00e0 aucun prix, sur\nmon \u00e2me. C'est une curiosit\u00e9 naturelle. H\u00e9! Joe! Joe! \u00f4tez tout cela, et\nd\u00e9bouchez une autre bouteille, m'entendez-vous?\u00bb\n\nLe gros joufflu ouvrit les yeux, avala l'\u00e9norme morceau de p\u00e2t\u00e9 qu'il\n\u00e9tait en train de mastiquer lorsqu'il s'\u00e9tait endormi, et tout en\nex\u00e9cutant les ordres de son ma\u00eetre, il lorgnait languissamment les\nd\u00e9bris de la f\u00eate, \u00e0 mesure qu'il les remettait dans la bourriche. La\nnouvelle bouteille fut d\u00e9bouch\u00e9e et vid\u00e9e rapidement: la bourriche fut\nrattach\u00e9e \u00e0 son ancienne place, le gros joufflu remonta sur le si\u00e9ge;\nles besicles et les lunettes d'approche furent braqu\u00e9es sur nouveaux\nfrais, et les \u00e9volutions des soldats recommenc\u00e8rent. Il y eut encore un\ngrand tapage de canons et de grandes terreurs de femmes; puis on fit\njouer une mine \u00e0 l'immense satisfaction de tout le monde; et quand la\nmine eut parti, les troupes et les spectateurs suivirent son exemple, et\npartirent aussi.\n\nA la fin d'une conversation interrompue par les d\u00e9charges, le vieux\ngentleman dit \u00e0 M. Pickwick, en lui secouant la main:\n\n\u00abSouvenez-vous que vous venez tous nous voir demain matin.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-certainement, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick.\n\n--Vous avez l'adresse?\n\n--Manoir-ferme, Dingley-Dell, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick en consultant son\nm\u00e9morandum.\n\n--C'est cela; et songez bien que je vous garde au moins une semaine. Je\nme charge de vous faire voir tout ce qu'il y a de curieux aux environs,\net puisque vous voulez \u00e9tudier la vie champ\u00eatre, venez chez moi, je vous\nen donnerai, en veux-tu, en voil\u00e0. Joe! Damn\u00e9 gar\u00e7on! il est encore \u00e0\ndormir. Joe, aidez Tom \u00e0 mettre les chevaux.\u00bb\n\nLes chevaux furent mis; le cocher monta sur son si\u00e9ge, le gros joufflu\ngrimpa \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de lui; les adieux furent \u00e9chang\u00e9s, et le carrosse roula.\nAu moment o\u00f9 les pickwickiens se retourn\u00e8rent pour l'apercevoir encore\nune fois, le soleil couchant jetait une teinte chaleureuse sur le visage\nde leur h\u00f4te, et faisait ressortir l'attitude somnolente du gros\njoufflu: il avait laissa tomber sa t\u00eate sur sa poitrine, et il \u00e9tait\nencore \u00e0 dormir!\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE V.\n\nFaisant voir entre autres choses comment M. Pickwick entreprit de\nconduire une voiture, et M. Winkle de monter un cheval; et comment l'un\net l'autre en vinrent \u00e0 bout.\n\n\nLe ciel \u00e9tait brillant et calme; l'air semblait embaum\u00e9; tous les objets\nde la cr\u00e9ation \u00e9taient remplis d'un charme inexprimable, et M. Pickwick,\nappuy\u00e9 sur le parapet du pont de Rochester, contemplait la nature, et\nattendait l'heure du d\u00e9jeuner.\n\nLa sc\u00e8ne qui se d\u00e9roulait \u00e0 ses regards aurait pu charmer un esprit bien\nmoins admirateur des beaut\u00e9s champ\u00eatres. A sa gauche s'\u00e9tendait une\nantique muraille, \u00e9boul\u00e9e dans beaucoup d'endroits, mais qui, dans\nd'autres, dominait de sa masse sombre, les rives verdoyantes de la\nMedway. Des touffes de lierre couronnaient tristement les noirs\ncr\u00e9neaux, tandis que des festons de plantes marines, suspendues aux\npierres dentel\u00e9es, tremblaient au souffle du vent. Derri\u00e8re ces ruines\ns'\u00e9levait le vieux ch\u00e2teau, dont les tours sans toiture, dont les\nmurailles croulantes attestaient encore l'ancienne grandeur, lorsque le\nbruit des armes ou les chants de f\u00eate retentissaient sous ses vo\u00fbtes\nsplendides. De chaque c\u00f4t\u00e9, aussi loin que la vue pouvait s'\u00e9tendre, on\napercevait les bords de la rivi\u00e8re couverts de prairies et de champs de\nbl\u00e9, au milieu desquels se d\u00e9tachaient \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0 des moulins et des\n\u00e9glises; paysage riche et vari\u00e9, que rendaient plus admirable encore les\nombres errantes des l\u00e9gers nuages qui flottaient dans la lumi\u00e8re du\nsoleil matinal. La Medway, r\u00e9fl\u00e9chissant l'azur argent\u00e9 du ciel, coulait\nsilencieusement en nappes brillantes; et parfois, avec un l\u00e9ger\nmurmure, elle \u00e9tincelait sous les rames des p\u00eacheurs, qui suivaient\nlentement le courant, dans leurs bateaux lourds mais pittoresques.\n\nLa vue de ce riant tableau avait plong\u00e9 M. Pickwick dans une agr\u00e9able\nr\u00eaverie. Il en fut tir\u00e9 par un profond soupir qu'il entendit aupr\u00e8s de\nlui, et par un l\u00e9ger coup frapp\u00e9 sur son \u00e9paule. Il se retourna et\nreconnut l'homme lugubre.\n\n\u00abVous contempliez cette sc\u00e8ne? lui dit celui-ci d'une voix grave.\n\n--Oui, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick.\n\n--Et vous vous f\u00e9licitiez d'\u00eatre lev\u00e9 de si bonne heure?\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick fit un signe d'assentiment.\n\n\u00abAh! il faut se lever de bonne heure en effet, pour voir le soleil dans\nsa splendeur, car son \u00e9clat dure rarement pendant toute la journ\u00e9e. Le\ncommencement du jour et le matin de la vie ne sont, h\u00e9las! que trop\nsemblables!\n\n--Vous avez raison, monsieur.\n\n--On dit souvent, continua l'homme lugubre, on dit souvent: le temps est\ntrop beau ce matin, cela ne durera pas. Avec quelle justesse cette\nr\u00e9flexion s'applique \u00e0 notre existence! Que ne donnerais-je pas pour\nrevoir les jours de mon enfance, ou pour les oublier \u00e0 jamais!\n\n--Vous avez eu beaucoup de chagrins? demanda M. Pickwick avec\ncompassion.\n\n--Oui certes, r\u00e9pliqua l'homme lugubre d'une voix saccad\u00e9e; plus qu'on\nne pourrait le croire en me voyant aujourd'hui. Il s'arr\u00eata une minute\net reprit brusquement: Avez-vous jamais pens\u00e9, par une matin\u00e9e comme\ncelle-ci, que ce serait une chose douce et d\u00e9licieuse de se noyer?\n\n--Non! que Dieu me prot\u00e8ge! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, en se reculant un peu,\ndans la crainte que l'\u00e9tranger n'e\u00fbt envie de le pousser par-dessus le\nparapet pour faire une exp\u00e9rience.\n\n--Moi, je l'ai souvent pens\u00e9, poursuivit l'homme lugubre sans avoir\nl'air de remarquer ce mouvement: cette eau froide et tranquille semble\nm'inviter, en murmurant, \u00e0 y chercher le repos et l'oubli. On saute...\npouf!... on se d\u00e9bat un instant... l'onde s'\u00e9l\u00e8ve par-dessus votre\nt\u00eate... le tourbillon s'efface... l'eau redevient claire... et vos\ndouleurs sont \u00e0 jamais termin\u00e9es!\u00bb\n\nL'oeil caverneux de l'homme lugubre lan\u00e7ait des flammes tandis qu'il\nparlait ainsi. Mais cette excitation momentan\u00e9e s'apaisa bient\u00f4t; il se\nd\u00e9tourna d'un air calme, et dit:\n\n\u00abEn voil\u00e0 assez sur ce sujet: je voulais vous parler d'autre chose.\nVous m'avez invit\u00e9 hier soir \u00e0 vous lire une anecdote, et vous l'avez\n\u00e9cout\u00e9e attentivement....\n\n--Oui certainement, dit M. Pickwick, et je pensais....\n\n--Je ne vous ai pas demand\u00e9 votre opinion, interrompit l'homme lugubre,\net je n'en ai pas besoin. Vous voyagez pour vous amuser et pour vous\ninstruire; supposez que je vous adresse un manuscrit curieux.... Faites\nattention;--non pas improbable ni extraordinaire, mais curieux comme une\npage du roman de la vie r\u00e9elle;--le communiqueriez-vous au club dont\nvous m'avez parl\u00e9 si souvent?\n\n--Certainement, si vous le d\u00e9sirez; et nous le ferons ins\u00e9rer dans les\nm\u00e9moires du club.\n\n--Vous l'aurez donc, r\u00e9pliqua l'homme lugubre. Votre adresse?\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick lui ayant communiqu\u00e9 son itin\u00e9raire probable, l'homme\nlugubre le nota soigneusement dans un portefeuille assez gros, ramena le\nsavant gentleman \u00e0 son h\u00f4tel, et refusant le d\u00e9jeuner qu'il lui offrait,\ns'\u00e9loigna d'un pas lent et sombre.\n\nLes trois compagnons de M. Pickwick l'attendaient pour attaquer le\nd\u00e9jeuner qui \u00e9tait d\u00e9j\u00e0 dispos\u00e9 sur la table d'une fa\u00e7on fort\ns\u00e9duisante. Ils s'assirent avec lui, et le jambon grill\u00e9, les oeufs, le\ncaf\u00e9, le th\u00e9 et le reste, commenc\u00e8rent \u00e0 dispara\u00eetre avec une rapidit\u00e9\nqui t\u00e9moignait, \u00e0 la fois, en faveur de la bonne ch\u00e8re et de l'app\u00e9tit\ndes voyageurs.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, dit M. Pickwick, il s'agit de savoir comment nous irons \u00e0\nManoir-ferme.\n\n--Nous ferions peut-\u00eatre bien de consulter le gar\u00e7on, sugg\u00e9ra M. Tupman;\net ce judicieux conseil ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 accueilli comme il le m\u00e9ritait, le\ngar\u00e7on fut appel\u00e9 et consult\u00e9.\n\n--Dingley-Dell, monsieur? Quinze milles, monsieur; chemin de traverse,\nmauvaise route.... Une chaise de poste, monsieur?\n\n--Une chaise de poste ne tient que deux, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick.\n\n--C'est vrai, monsieur, cependant je vous demande pardon, monsieur: nous\navons une tr\u00e8s-jolie chaise \u00e0 quatre roues: deux places au fond, un\nsi\u00e9ge pour le gentleman qui conduit.... Oh! je vous demande pardon,\nmonsieur, elle ne peut tenir que trois.\n\n--Comment donc ferons-nous? dit M. Snodgrass.\n\n--Peut-\u00eatre qu'un de ces messieurs aimerait \u00e0 faire la route \u00e0 cheval,\ndit le gar\u00e7on en regardant M. Winkle. Nous avons de tr\u00e8s-bons chevaux de\nselle, monsieur. Les gens de M. Wardle, en venant \u00e0 Rochester,\npourraient les ramener, monsieur.\n\n--Voil\u00e0 notre affaire, s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, Winkle, voulez-vous faire la\nroute \u00e0 cheval?\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle \u00e9prouvait, dans les plus secrets replis de son coeur, des\ndoutes accablants sur sa science \u00e9questre; mais, comme il n'aurait voulu\nles laisser soup\u00e7onner \u00e0 aucun prix, il r\u00e9pondit sur-le-champ avec une\nnoble hardiesse: \u00abCertainement, j'en serai charm\u00e9!\u00bb Il s'\u00e9tait pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9\nlui-m\u00eame au-devant de sa destin\u00e9e: il n'y avait plus \u00e0 reculer.\n\n\u00abAmenez-les \u00e0 onze heures, dit alors M. Pickwick au gar\u00e7on.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, monsieur,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua celui-ci, et il sortit.\n\nLe d\u00e9jeuner achev\u00e9, les voyageurs mont\u00e8rent dans leurs chambres pour\npr\u00e9parer les effets qu'ils voulaient emporter avec eux.\n\nM. Pickwick avait termin\u00e9 ses arrangements pr\u00e9liminaires, et regardait\ndans la rue par-dessus les stores du caf\u00e9, lorsque le gar\u00e7on entra, et\nannon\u00e7a que la chaise \u00e9tait pr\u00eate, ce qui fut confirm\u00e9 par l'apparition\nde ladite chaise derri\u00e8re les susdits stores.\n\nC'\u00e9tait une petite bo\u00eete verte, pos\u00e9e sur quatre roues; sur le devant\ns'\u00e9levait une esp\u00e8ce de perchoir pour le cocher; sur le derri\u00e8re se\ntrouvait un banc r\u00e9tr\u00e9ci, pour deux patients. Cette curieuse machine\n\u00e9tait mise en mouvement par un immense cheval brun, sur lequel on\npouvait \u00e9tudier l'ost\u00e9ologie avec beaucoup de facilit\u00e9. Un valet\nd'\u00e9curie tenait par la bride, pour M. Winkle, un autre cheval immense,\napparemment parent tr\u00e8s-proche de l'animal du cabriolet.\n\n\u00abDieu nous prot\u00e8ge! dit M. Pickwick, tandis qu'on mettait leurs paquets\ndans la voiture; Dieu nous prot\u00e8ge! Qui est-ce qui va conduire? Je n'y\navais point song\u00e9.\n\n--Vous naturellement, repartit M. Tupman.\n\n--Naturellement, ajouta M. Snodgrass.\n\n--Moi! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick.\n\n--Il n'y a pas le plus petit danger, monsieur, insinua le valet\nd'\u00e9curie. Je vous le garantis pour la douceur: un enfant au maillot le\nconduirait.\n\n--Il n'est pas ombrageux, hein?\n\n--Ombrageux? il ne broncherait pas quand il verrait passer une charret\u00e9e\nde singes, avec la queue en feu.\u00bb\n\nCette derni\u00e8re recommandation \u00e9tait convaincante. M. Tupman et M.\nSnodgrass furent pr\u00e9cieusement enferm\u00e9s dans la caisse. M. Pickwick\nmonta sur son perchoir, et appuya ses pieds sur une planche rev\u00eatue d'un\ntapis de toile cir\u00e9e qu'il supposa \u00eatre destin\u00e9e \u00e0 cet usage.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, brillant William, dit le valet d'\u00e9curie \u00e0 son adjoint;\ndonne les rubans au gentleman.\u00bb\n\nBrillant William, ainsi d\u00e9nomm\u00e9 sans doute \u00e0 cause de ses cheveux gras\net de sa figure huileuse, pla\u00e7a les guides dans la main gauche de M.\nPickwick, tandis que son sup\u00e9rieur insinuait le fouet dans la main\ndroite du philosophe.\n\n\u00abTout beau! cria M. Pickwick, car le grand quadrup\u00e8de t\u00e9moignait une\ninclination d\u00e9cid\u00e9e \u00e0 reculer dans la fen\u00eatre du caf\u00e9.\n\n--Tout beau! r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e8rent MM. Tupman et Snodgrass, de leur caisse.\n\n--Il s'amuse un peu, messieurs, voil\u00e0 tout, dit le premier gar\u00e7on\nd'\u00e9curie d'un ton encourageant. Tenez-le un instant, William.\u00bb\n\nLe substitut restreignit l'imp\u00e9tuosit\u00e9 de l'animal, et l'\u00e9cuyer en chef\ncourut aider M. Winkle \u00e0 monter en selle.\n\n\u00abDe l'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9, monsieur, s'il vous pla\u00eet.\n\n--J'veux et' pendu, si le gentleman n'allait pas monter \u00e0 l'envers!\u00bb dit\nun postillon grima\u00e7ant, au gar\u00e7on de l'h\u00f4tel, qui paraissait go\u00fbter une\nsatisfaction indicible.\n\nM. Winkle ayant re\u00e7u cet avis se hissa sur sa selle, avec autant de\ndifficult\u00e9s, \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s, qu'il en aurait \u00e9prouv\u00e9 pour monter sur un\nvaisseau de guerre.\n\n\u00abTout va-t-il bien? demanda M. Pickwick, tourment\u00e9 par un sentiment\nintuitif que tout allait mal.\n\n--Tout va bien, r\u00e9pondit faiblement M. Winkle.\n\n--En route! cria le valet d'\u00e9curie. Tenez-le bien, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nEt parmi les \u00e9clats de rire de tous les assistants, la voiture et le\ncheval de selle d\u00e9camp\u00e8rent, M. Pickwick sur le si\u00e9ge de l'un, et M.\nWinkle sur le dos de l'autre.\n\n\u00abPourquoi donc va-t-il ainsi de travers? demanda M. Snodgrass, de dedans\nsa bo\u00eete, \u00e0 M. Winkle sur sa selle.\n\n--Je n'y comprends rien du tout,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua le pauvre cavalier, dont le\ncheval, en effet, s'avan\u00e7ait d'une mani\u00e8re excentrique, un de ses flancs\nen avant, la t\u00eate d'un c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la rue, la queue de l'autre.\n\nM. Pickwick n'avait point le loisir d'observer ce qui se passait\nderri\u00e8re lui, car il \u00e9tait oblig\u00e9 de concentrer toutes ses facult\u00e9s\nratiocinantes sur la conduite de l'animal attach\u00e9 \u00e0 la voiture. Celui-ci\nd\u00e9ployait des singularit\u00e9s, fort amusantes pour un spectateur\nd\u00e9sint\u00e9ress\u00e9, mais fort peu rassurantes pour ceux qui se trouvaient\nentra\u00een\u00e9s \u00e0 sa suite. Secouant sans cesse sa t\u00eate d'une mani\u00e8re aussi\nd\u00e9plaisante qu'incommode, il pesait sur les guides avec tant de force\nque M. Pickwick avait beaucoup de peine \u00e0 le soutenir, et pour comble\nd'infortune il \u00e9prouvait un \u00e9trange plaisir \u00e0 se jeter tout d'un coup\nsur un c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la route. L\u00e0 il s'arr\u00eatait court; puis il repartait\npendant quelques minutes avec une v\u00e9locit\u00e9 qu'il \u00e9tait physiquement\nimpossible de mod\u00e9rer.\n\nIl venait d'ex\u00e9cuter cette manoeuvre pour la vingti\u00e8me fois, lorsque M.\nSnodgrass dit \u00e0 son compagnon:\n\n\u00abQu'a donc ce cheval?\n\n--Je n'en sais rien, r\u00e9pondit M. Tupman. N'est-ce pas qu'il serait\nombrageux? Cela m'en a bien l'air.\u00bb\n\nM. Snodgrass allait r\u00e9pliquer, quand il fut interrompu par un cri de M.\nPickwick.\n\n\u00abOh! disait-il. J'ai laiss\u00e9 tomber mon fouet!\u00bb\n\nDans ce moment, M. Winkle, avec son chapeau enfonc\u00e9 sur ses oreilles,\narrivait en trottant sur l'\u00e9norme cheval, qui le secouait avec tant de\nviolence qu'il semblait devoir le mettre en pi\u00e8ces.\n\n\u00abWinkle, lui cria M. Snodgrass. Vous qui \u00eates un bon gar\u00e7on, ramassez\ndonc le fouet.\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle, se penchant en arri\u00e8re, tira la bride avec tant d'efforts que\nson visage en devint tout noir. Lorsqu'il fut parvenu \u00e0 arr\u00eater son\ngrand coursier, il descendit, tendit le fouet \u00e0 M. Pickwick, et,\nsaisissant les r\u00eanes, se pr\u00e9para \u00e0 remonter.\n\nNous ne saurions dire, et on le comprendra facilement, si le grand\ncheval, dans l'innocente gaiet\u00e9 de son coeur, voulut s'amuser un peu avec\nM. Winkle; on s'il s'imagina qu'il trouverait plus de plaisir \u00e0 faire la\nroute sans cavalier; mais, quels que fussent ses motifs d\u00e9terminants, le\nfait est que M. Winkle avait \u00e0 peine touch\u00e9 les r\u00eanes, lorsque l'animal,\nbaissant la t\u00eate, les fit glisser par-dessus, et s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a en arri\u00e8re de\ntoute leur longueur.\n\n\u00abBonne b\u00eate, dit M. Winkle d'une voix insinuante; bon vieux cheval!\u00bb\n\nMais la bonne b\u00eate \u00e9tait \u00e0 l'\u00e9preuve de la flatterie, et plus M. Winkle\ns'effor\u00e7ait de l'approcher, plus elle avait soin de se tenir \u00e0 distance:\ntellement qu'au bout de dix minutes, et malgr\u00e9 toutes sortes de\ncajoleries et de ruses, M. Winkle et le grand cheval, apr\u00e8s avoir\ncontinuellement tourn\u00e9 l'un autour de l'autre se retrouvaient exactement\ndans la m\u00eame position. C'\u00e9tait une situation fort d\u00e9sagr\u00e9able en toutes\ncirconstances, et principalement sur une route d\u00e9serte, o\u00f9 l'on ne\npouvait se procurer aucun secours.\n\nCe man\u00e8ge s'\u00e9tant prolong\u00e9 encore quelque temps, M. Winkle cria \u00e0 ses\ncompagnons:\n\n\u00abComment vais-je faire? Je ne puis pas monter dessus?\n\n--Vous ferez bien de le conduire ainsi jusqu'\u00e0 ce que nous arrivions \u00e0\nune barri\u00e8re; r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick de son si\u00e9ge.\n\n--Mais il ne veut pas avancer! s'\u00e9cria M. Winkle, venez, je vous en\nprie, me le tenir un peu.\n\nM. Pickwick \u00e9tait la personnification de l'obligeance et de l'humanit\u00e9.\nIl jeta les guides sur le dos de son cheval, descendit du si\u00e9ge,\nconduisit soigneusement la voiture le long de la haie, afin de ne point\nembarrasser la route, et retourna vers son compagnon pour soulager sa\nd\u00e9tresse, laissant dans la voiture M. Tupman et M. Snodgrass.\n\nAussit\u00f4t que le cheval vit M. Pickwick s'avancer vers lui avec son grand\nfouet dans sa main, il fit succ\u00e9der au mouvement de rotation dont il\ns'\u00e9tait amus\u00e9 jusqu'alors un mouvement r\u00e9trograde si d\u00e9cid\u00e9, qu'il for\u00e7a\nM. Winkle, qui ne voulait pas l\u00e2cher le bout de la bride, \u00e0 marcher\nd'une vitesse extr\u00eame du c\u00f4t\u00e9 de Rochester. M. Pickwick courut \u00e0 son\nsecours; mais plus M. Pickwick courait en avant, plus le cheval courait\nen arri\u00e8re. Ses pieds sonnaient sur la route; la poussi\u00e8re volait autour\nde lui, et, \u00e0 la fin, M. Winkle, dont les bras \u00e9taient presque\nd\u00e9mantibul\u00e9s, fut oblig\u00e9 de laisser aller la bride. Le cheval s'arr\u00eata,\nregarda autour de lui d'un air \u00e9tonn\u00e9, se retourna, et se mit \u00e0 trotter\ntranquillement vers son \u00e9curie, laissant l\u00e0 M. Winkle et M. Pickwick,\nqui \u00e9chang\u00e8rent entre eux des regards de d\u00e9sappointement. Tout \u00e0 coup le\nroulement d'une voiture \u00e0 peu de distance attira leur attention; ils\ntourn\u00e8rent la t\u00eate: \u00abIl ne manquait plus que cela! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick\navec d\u00e9sespoir; voil\u00e0 l'autre cheval qui s'en va aussi!\u00bb\n\nCela n'\u00e9tait que trop vrai. Le buc\u00e9phale de la chaise avait \u00e9t\u00e9 effray\u00e9\npar le bruit que faisait son compagnon; il avait la bride sur le cou, et\nl'on peut sans peine imaginer le r\u00e9sultat!\n\nIl s'\u00e9chappa, entra\u00eenant avec rapidit\u00e9 MM. Tupman et Snodgrass. H\u00e9las!\nleur carri\u00e8re ne fut pas longue. M. Tupman, hors de lui-m\u00eame, se jeta\ndans la haie, et M. Snodgrass suivit instinctivement son exemple. Le\ncheval brisa la voiture contre un pont de bois, s\u00e9para les roues du\nbrancard, le brancard de la caisse, et, finalement, resta immobile \u00e0\ncontempler les ruines qu'il avait faites.\n\nLe premier soin des deux amis intacts fut d'extraire les deux amis\nnaufrag\u00e9s de leur lit d'\u00e9pines. Quand ils y furent parvenus, ils\ns'aper\u00e7urent avec une satisfaction inexprimable que ceux-ci n'avaient\npas souffert de dommage s\u00e9rieux, et qu'ils en \u00e9taient quittes pour de\nnombreuses d\u00e9chirures dans leurs v\u00eatements et dans leur peau. Tous\nensemble, ils s'occup\u00e8rent alors \u00e0 d\u00e9barrasser le cheval des d\u00e9bris de\nla chaise; et lorsque cette op\u00e9ration compliqu\u00e9e fut termin\u00e9e, ils le\nplac\u00e8rent au milieu d'eux, et poursuivirent lentement leur chemin,\nabandonnant les restes de la voiture \u00e0 leur triste destin\u00e9e.\n\nUne heure de marche amena nos voyageurs aupr\u00e8s d'une petite auberge\nplant\u00e9e entre deux ormes sur le bord de la route. On voyait par-devant\nune grande auge et une \u00e9norme enseigne; par derri\u00e8re, une ou deux meules\nd\u00e9form\u00e9es; sur le c\u00f4t\u00e9, un jardin potager; et tout autour, entass\u00e9s dans\nune \u00e9trange confusion, des hangars ruin\u00e9s et des appentis couverts de\nmousse. Un paysan, porteur d'une t\u00eate rousse, travaillait dans le\njardin. M. Pickwick l'aper\u00e7ut et lui cria: \u00abOh\u00e9, l\u00e0 bas!\u00bb Le paysan se\nreleva lentement, abrita ses yeux avec ses mains, et examina froidement\nM. Pickwick et ses compagnons.\n\n\u00abOh\u00e9, l\u00e0 bas! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick.\n\n--Oh\u00e9, r\u00e9pondit la t\u00eate rousse.\n\n--Combien y a-t-il d'ici \u00e0 Dingley-Dell?\n\n--Sept bons milles.\n\n--La route est-elle bonne?\n\n--Non!\u00bb r\u00e9torqua bri\u00e8vement le paysan. Puis, ayant fait subir \u00e0 nos\nvoyageurs un nouvel examen, il se remit \u00e0 travailler, sans s'occuper\nd'eux davantage.\n\n\u00abNous voudrions laisser ce cheval ici, reprit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Laisser le cheval ici? r\u00e9p\u00e9ta l'homme en s'appuyant sur sa b\u00eache.\n\n--Pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick, qui s'\u00e9tait avanc\u00e9 avec son\ncoursier jusqu'\u00e0 la porte de la palissade du jardin.\n\n--Ma\u00eetresse! beugla l'homme \u00e0 la t\u00eate rousse, en sortant du potager et\nen regardant le cheval d'un air soup\u00e7onneux; ma\u00eetresse!\u00bb\n\nUne grande femme osseuse et toute droite du haut en bas r\u00e9pondit \u00e0 cet\nappel. Elle \u00e9tait couverte d'un gros sarrau bleu, et sa taille se\ntrouvait \u00e0 un pouce ou deux de ses aisselles.\n\n\u00abMa bonne femme, dit M. Pickwick en s'approchant et en faisant usage de\nsa voix la plus insinuante, pouvons-nous laisser ce cheval ici?\u00bb\n\nLe paysan dit quelque chose \u00e0 l'oreille de la grande femme. Celle-ci\nregarda toute la caravane du haut en bas, et, apr\u00e8s un instant de\nr\u00e9flexion, r\u00e9pondit: \u00abNon, je n'en avons pas le coeur!\n\n--Le coeur! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick; qu'est-ce qu'elle parle de son coeur?\n\n--J'avons \u00e9t\u00e9 inqui\u00e9t\u00e9e pour \u00e7a l'autre fois, dit la femme, en rentrant\ndans la maison, et je ne voulons pu rien y voir.\n\n--Voil\u00e0 la chose la plus extraordinaire qui me soit jamais arriv\u00e9e dans\ntous mes voyages, s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, rempli d'\u00e9tonnement.\n\n--Je crois.... je crois r\u00e9ellement, murmura M. Winkle \u00e0 ses amis, je\ncrois qu'ils nous soup\u00e7onnent d'avoir d\u00e9rob\u00e9 ce cheval.\n\n--Comment! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, avec une explosion d'indignation. M.\nWinkle r\u00e9p\u00e9ta modestement l'opinion qu'il venait d'\u00e9mettre.\n\n--Oh\u00e9! l'homme! cria M. Pickwick, irrit\u00e9, pensez-vous donc que nous\navons vol\u00e9 ce cheval?\n\n--Je ne le crois pas, j'en suis s\u00fbr! r\u00e9pondit l'homme \u00e0 la t\u00eate rouge,\navec une esp\u00e8ce de sourire qui agita toute sa physionomie de l'une \u00e0\nl'autre oreille; et en parlant ainsi, il entra dans la maison, dont il\nferma soigneusement la porte.\n\n--C'est comme un r\u00eave! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, un hideux cauchemar! O ciel!\nimaginez-vous un homme marchant toute une journ\u00e9e, poursuivi par un\ncheval \u00e9pouvantable, dont il ne peut pas se d\u00e9barrasser!\n\nLes pickwickiens abattus se remirent tristement en route, l'\u00e9norme\nquadrup\u00e8de, pour qui ils ressentaient le plus profond d\u00e9go\u00fbt, marchant\nlentement sur leurs talons.\n\nL'apr\u00e8s-midi \u00e9tait fort avanc\u00e9e lorsque nos quatre amis, toujours suivis\ndu malencontreux animal, arriv\u00e8rent enfin dans la ruelle qui conduisait\n\u00e0 Manoir-ferme. Mais quoiqu'ils touchassent au terme de leurs fatigues,\nleur satisfaction \u00e9tait prodigieusement amortie par l'absurde\nsingularit\u00e9 de leur apparence; des habits d\u00e9chir\u00e9s, des visages\n\u00e9gratign\u00e9s, des souliers sales, des figures ext\u00e9nu\u00e9es; et par-dessus\ntout, l'affreux cheval. Oh! combien M. Pickwick le maudissait! De temps\nen temps il jetait sur lui des regards o\u00f9 se peignaient la haine et le\nd\u00e9sir d'une \u00e9pouvantable vengeance. Plus d'une fois, il avait calcul\u00e9 le\nmontant probable de ce qu'il faudrait payer pour avoir la satisfaction\nde lui couper la gorge; et maintenant la tentation de l'assassiner ou de\nl'abandonner dans les champs d\u00e9serts se pr\u00e9sentait \u00e0 son esprit avec dix\nfois plus de violence. Cependant il avan\u00e7ait toujours, et \u00e0 l'un des\nd\u00e9tours de la ruelle, il fut distrait de ses horribles pens\u00e9es par\nl'apparition soudaine de deux personnages. C'\u00e9taient M. Wardle et son\nfid\u00e8le serviteur, le gros gar\u00e7on rougeaud.\n\n\u00abEh bien! o\u00f9 donc avez-vous \u00e9t\u00e9? demanda le gentleman hospitalier. Je\nvous ai attendu toute la journ\u00e9e. Vous avez l'air fatigu\u00e9s. Quoi! des\n\u00e9gratignures! pas de blessures, j'esp\u00e8re?... Non... j'en suis bien aise.\nVous avez vers\u00e9? N'y pensez plus, c'est un accident commun dans ce\npays-ci.--Joe, damn\u00e9 gar\u00e7on, il est encore \u00e0 dormir! Joe, prenez ce\ncheval et conduisez-le dans l'\u00e9curie.\u00bb\n\nLe gros joufflu tenant en bride le fatal coursier, se tra\u00eena d'un pas\nparesseux derri\u00e8re la compagnie, tandis que le vieux gentleman\ns'effor\u00e7ait de consoler ses h\u00f4tes de la partie de leurs aventures qu'ils\njug\u00e8rent \u00e0 propos de lui communiquer.\n\nArriv\u00e9s \u00e0 Manoir-ferme, il commen\u00e7a par les faire entrer dans la cuisine\nen leur disant: \u00abNous allons tout r\u00e9parer ici, et ensuite je vous\nintroduirai dans le salon.--Emma, apportez l'eau-de-vie de\ncerises.--Maintenant, Jane, une aiguille et du fil.--Mary, des\nserviettes et de l'eau. Allons vite, mes filles, d\u00e9p\u00eachons.\u00bb\n\nTrois ou quatre grosses r\u00e9jouies se dispers\u00e8rent rapidement pour aller\nchercher les articles demand\u00e9s, tandis qu'un couple de domestiques\nm\u00e2les, aux t\u00eates rondes et aux larges visages, se lev\u00e8rent des si\u00e9ges\nqu'ils occupaient aupr\u00e8s de la chemin\u00e9e comme s'ils avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e0 No\u00ebl,\nse plong\u00e8rent dans l'obscurit\u00e9 de divers recoins, et en ressortirent\nbient\u00f4t, arm\u00e9s d'une bouteille de cirage et d'une demi-douzaine de\nbrosses.\n\n\u00abAllons, vite!\u00bb r\u00e9p\u00e9ta le vieux gentleman. Mais c'\u00e9tait une exhortation\ntout \u00e0 fait inutile, car l'une des servantes versait l'eau-de-vie,\nl'autre apportait les serviettes, et l'un des hommes saisissant\nsoudainement M. Pickwick par la jambe, au hasard imminent de lui faire\nperdre l'\u00e9quilibre, brossait ses bottes avec tant d'ardeur que ses cors\nen rougirent au blanc. Dans le m\u00eame temps, un second domestique frottait\nM. Winkle avec une \u00e9norme brosse, tout en produisant avec sa bouche\ncette esp\u00e8ce de sifflement que les gar\u00e7ons d'\u00e9curie ont l'habitude de\nfaire entendre quand ils \u00e9trillent un cheval.\n\nQuant \u00e0 M. Snodgrass, apr\u00e8s avoir termin\u00e9 ses ablutions, il tourna son\ndos au feu, et savourant avec d\u00e9lices son eau-de-vie, il se mit \u00e0\nexaminer la pi\u00e8ce o\u00f9 il se trouvait.\n\nD'apr\u00e8s la description qu'il en a faite, c'\u00e9tait une vaste chambre pav\u00e9e\nde briques rouges. La chemin\u00e9e paraissait immense; le plafond s'honorait\nd'une garniture de bottes d'oignons, de jambons et de lard; les murs\n\u00e9taient d\u00e9cor\u00e9s de plusieurs cravaches, de deux ou trois brides, d'une\nselle et d'une vieille espingole rouill\u00e9e. Au-dessous de celle-ci, on\nlisait en gros caract\u00e8re: CHARG\u00c9E, et elle devait l'\u00eatre depuis plus\nd'un demi-si\u00e8cle, s'il fallait en croire son apparence et celle de\nl'inscription. Un vieux coucou, au mouvement tranquille et solennel,\ntictaquait gravement dans un coin, tandis qu'une montre d'argent, d'une\n\u00e9gale antiquit\u00e9, se dandinait \u00e0 l'un des nombreux crochets dont la\nmuraille \u00e9tait sem\u00e9e.\n\n\u00ab\u00cates-vous pr\u00eats? demanda le vieux gentleman \u00e0 ses h\u00f4tes, quand il les\nvit bien lav\u00e9s, bien recousus, bien bross\u00e9s, bien restaur\u00e9s.\n\n--Tout \u00e0 fait, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Alors, venez avec moi.\u00bb Trois des voyageurs le suivirent \u00e0 travers\nplusieurs corridors sombres, ils furent rejoints \u00e0 la porte du salon par\nM. Tupman, qui \u00e9tait rest\u00e9 derri\u00e8re pour d\u00e9rober un baiser \u00e0 Emma, mais\nqui n'avait obtenu, pour toute r\u00e9compense, qu'un certain nombre de\nbourrades et d'\u00e9gratignures. Cependant le vieillard les introduisit en\ndisant: \u00abGentlemen, soyez les bienvenus \u00e0 Manoir-ferme.\u00bb\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE VI.\n\nUne soir\u00e9e d'autrefois. Histoire racont\u00e9e par un eccl\u00e9siastique.\n\n\nPlusieurs visites r\u00e9unies dans le salon se lev\u00e8rent pour recevoir les\nnouveaux venus, et pendant qu'on accomplissait les formalit\u00e9s\nc\u00e9r\u00e9monieuses des introductions, M. Pickwick eut le loisir d'examiner la\nfigure des assistants et de sp\u00e9culer sur leur caract\u00e8re et sur leurs\noccupations. C'\u00e9tait un genre d'amusement auquel il se livrait\nvolontiers, ainsi que beaucoup d'autres grands hommes.\n\nUne tr\u00e8s-vieille dame, avec un \u00e9norme bonnet et une robe de soie fan\u00e9e,\noccupait le poste d'honneur \u00e0 l'angle droit de la chemin\u00e9e. Ce n'\u00e9tait\npas un moindre personnage que la m\u00e8re de M. Wardle. Plusieurs\ncertificats, prouvant qu'elle avait \u00e9t\u00e9 bien \u00e9lev\u00e9e et n'avait pas\nquitt\u00e9 la bonne route en vieillissant, \u00e9taient appendus aux murailles,\nsous la forme d'antiques paysages en tapisserie, d'alphabets en point de\nmarque, non moins antiques, et de poign\u00e9es \u00e0 bouilloires en soie\ncramoisie, d'une plus r\u00e9cente p\u00e9riode. La tante demoiselle, les deux\njeunes filles et M. Wardle, group\u00e9s autour de la vieille dame,\nsemblaient disputer \u00e0 qui lui t\u00e9moignerait les attentions les plus\ninfatigables. L'une tenait son cornet acoustique, l'autre une orange, la\ntroisi\u00e8me un flacon d'odeurs, tandis que M. Wardle tamponnait\nsoigneusement les coussins qui la supportaient. De l'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la\nchemin\u00e9e \u00e9tait assis un vieux gentleman, dou\u00e9 d'une contenance\nbienveillante et d'une t\u00eate chauve c'\u00e9tait le vicaire de Dingley-Dell;\naupr\u00e8s de lui se trouvait sa femme, bonne vieille dame dont la\nphysionomie robuste et le teint anim\u00e9 semblaient annoncer que, si elle\n\u00e9tait savante dans la confection de tous les cordiaux fabriqu\u00e9s par une\nbonne m\u00e9nag\u00e8re, elle savait aussi se les administrer \u00e0 propos. Un petit\nhomme, porteur d'une t\u00eate semblable \u00e0 une pomme de reinette, causait\ndans un coin avec un gentleman vieux et gros, tandis que deux ou trois\nautres vieillards et tout autant de vieilles ladies \u00e9taient assis,\nroides et immobiles sur leurs chaises, consid\u00e9rant impitoyablement M.\nPickwick et ses compagnons de voyage.\n\n\u00abMa m\u00e8re!\u00bb dit M. Wardle, de toute l'\u00e9tendue de sa voix, M. Pickwick!\n\n--Oh! fit la vieille lady, en secouant la t\u00eate, je ne vous entends pas.\n\n--M. Pickwick! grand'maman! cri\u00e8rent ensemble les deux jeunes\ndemoiselles.\n\n--Ah! reprit la vieille dame, c'est bon; cela ne fait pas grand'chose.\nIl ne se soucie gu\u00e8re d'une vieille femme comme moi, j'en suis certaine.\n\n--Je vous assure, madame, dit M. Pickwick, en saisissant la main de la\nvieille lady, et en parlant tellement fort, que sa bienveillante figure\nen devint \u00e9carlate, je vous assure, madame, que rien ne me charme autant\nque de voir, \u00e0 la t\u00eate d'une si belle famille, une personne de votre\n\u00e2ge, paraissant aussi jeune et aussi bien portante.\n\n--Ah! reprit la vieille dame, apr\u00e8s une courte pose, tout cela est fort\njoli, j'en suis s\u00fbre; mais je ne peux pas l'entendre.\n\n--Grand'maman est mal dispos\u00e9e maintenant, dit doucement miss Isabella\nWardle, mais elle vous parlera tout \u00e0 l'heure.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick exprima par un signe son empressement \u00e0 se pr\u00eater aux\ninfirmit\u00e9s de l'\u00e2ge; et, se retournant, il prit part \u00e0 la conversation\ng\u00e9n\u00e9rale.\n\n\u00abCharmante habitation! situation d\u00e9licieuse! dit-il.\n\n--D\u00e9licieuse! r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e8rent MM. Snodgrass, Tupman et Winkle.\n\n--Oui, je m'en flatte, repondit M. Wardle.\n\n--Monsieur, dit l'homme \u00e0 la t\u00eate de pomme de reinette, il n'y a pas un\nmeilleur morceau de terre dans tout le comt\u00e9 de Kent; il n'y en a pas,\nen v\u00e9rit\u00e9, monsieur. Je suis s\u00fbr qu'il n'y en a pas!\u00bb Et il regarda\nautour de lui d'un air triomphant, comme s'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 violemment\ncontredit par quelqu'un, et qu'il f\u00fbt parvenu \u00e0 lui imposer silence.\n\n\u00abIl n'y a pas un meilleur morceau de terre dans tout le comt\u00e9 de Kent,\nr\u00e9p\u00e9ta l'homme \u00e0 la t\u00eate de pomme de reinette, apr\u00e8s une pause.\n\n--Except\u00e9 le pr\u00e9 de Mullins, articula solennellement le gros gentleman.\n\n--Le pr\u00e9 de Mullins! s'\u00e9cria l'autre avec un profond m\u00e9pris.\n\n--C'est une excellente terre, insinua un second gros homme.\n\n--Oui, assur\u00e9ment, dit un troisi\u00e8me gros homme.\n\n--Tout le monde sait cela,\u00bb poursuivit l'h\u00f4te corpulent.\n\nL'homme \u00e0 t\u00eate de pomme de reinette regarda dubitativement autour de\nlui; mais, se trouvant d\u00e9cid\u00e9ment en minorit\u00e9, il prit un air de\nsup\u00e9riorit\u00e9 compatissante, et n'ajouta plus rien.\n\n\u00abDe quoi parle-t-on? demanda la vieille dame \u00e0 l'une de ses\npetites-filles d'un son de voix tr\u00e8s-\u00e9lev\u00e9; car, suivant l'usage des\nsourds, elle ne semblait pas imaginer que d'autres pussent entendre ce\nqu'elle-m\u00eame disait.\n\n--On parle de la terre, grand'maman.\n\n--Qu'est-ce qu'on dit de la terre? Est-ce qu'il est arriv\u00e9 quelque\nchose?\n\n--Non, non. M. Miller disait que notre terre est meilleure que le pr\u00e9 de\nMullins.\n\n--Qu'est-ce qu'il en sait? demanda la vieille dame avec indignation.\nMiller est un fat impertinent, et vous pouvez le lui dire de ma part.\u00bb\nAyant prof\u00e9r\u00e9 cette sentence, la vieille dame se redressa, et regarda le\nd\u00e9linquant d'un air s\u00e9v\u00e8re, sans se douter un seul instant qu'elle avait\nparl\u00e9 de mani\u00e8re \u00e0 \u00eatre entendue de tout le monde.\n\n--Allons! allons! fit M. Wardle en s'empressant avec une anxi\u00e9t\u00e9\nnaturelle de changer la conversation; que dites-vous d'un whist,\nmonsieur Pickwick?\n\n--Je l'aimerais par-dessus toute chose; mais, je vous prie, ne le faites\npas \u00e0 cause de moi.\n\n--Oh! je vous assure que ma m\u00e8re aime beaucoup \u00e0 faire son whist.\nN'est-ce pas vrai, ma m\u00e8re?\u00bb\n\nLa vieille dame, qui \u00e9tait beaucoup moins sourde sur ce sujet que sur\ntout autre, r\u00e9pondit affirmativement.\n\n\u00abJoe! Joe! cria le vieux gentleman, Joe! damn\u00e9 gar\u00e7on.... Ah! le voil\u00e0!\nDressez les tables de jeu.\u00bb\n\nLe l\u00e9thargique jeune homme vint \u00e0 bout de dresser, sans autre stimulant,\ndeux tables de jeu: l'une pour faire le whist, l'autre pour jouer \u00e0 la\npapesse Jeanne. Les joueurs de whist \u00e9taient: M. Pickwick et la vieille\nlady, M. Miller et le gros gentleman. L'autre jeu comprenait le reste de\nla soci\u00e9t\u00e9.\n\nLe whist fut conduit avec tout le s\u00e9rieux, avec toute la gravit\u00e9\nqu'exige cet acte solennel, auquel, suivant nous, on a mal \u00e0 propos et\navec irr\u00e9v\u00e9rence donn\u00e9 le nom de jeu. Mais, \u00e0 la table ronde, on faisait\n\u00e9clater une gaiet\u00e9 si bruyante, qu'elle nuisait notablement aux\nr\u00e9flexions de M. Miller. Ce malheureux personnage n'\u00e9tant pas aussi\nabsorb\u00e9 par son jeu qu'il aurait d\u00fb l'\u00eatre, tombait dans des fautes,\ndans des crimes impardonnables, qui excitaient au plus haut degr\u00e9 la\nrage du gros gentleman, et \u00e9veillaient proportionnellement la bonne\nhumeur de la vieille lady.\n\n\u00abAh! ah! fit le criminel Miller d'un ton victorieux en prenant la\nsepti\u00e8me lev\u00e9e. Je ne pouvais pas mieux jouer, j'esp\u00e8re; il \u00e9tait\nimpossible de faire un trick de plus.\u00bb\n\nLa vieille dame ne le laissa pas longtemps dans cette heureuse situation\nd'esprit. \u00abMiller aurait d\u00fb couper le carreau, dit-elle; n'est-il pas\nvrai, monsieur?\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick salua affirmativement.\n\nLe joueur infortun\u00e9 fit un appel \u00e0 la g\u00e9n\u00e9rosit\u00e9 de son partner en\ndisant d'un ton dubitatif: \u00abDevais-je r\u00e9ellement le couper?\n\n--Certainement, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit s\u00e8chement le gros gentleman.\n\n--J'en suis d\u00e9sol\u00e9, r\u00e9pliqua Miller avec abattement.\n\n--Il est bien temps! grommela son partner.\n\n--Deux d'honneurs. Cela nous fait huit,\u00bb dit M. Pickwick.\n\nOn redonna des cartes.\n\n\u00abPouvez-vous en faire encore une? demanda la vieille dame.\n\n--Oui, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick. Double, simple; et le rob.\n\n--On n'a jamais vu une pareille chance! fit observer M. Miller.\n\n--Ni d'aussi vilaines cartes!\u00bb ajouta le gros gentleman.\n\nUn silence solennel s'ensuivit. M. Pickwick \u00e9tait enjou\u00e9, la vieille\ndame attentive, le gros gentleman querelleur, et M. Miller craintif.\n\n\u00abEncore une partie double! s'\u00e9cria la vieille dame triomphante, en\npla\u00e7ant sous le flambeau une pi\u00e8ce de six pence et un demi-penny, sans\nempreinte, comme m\u00e9morandum du fait.\n\n--Encore une partie double, monsieur, dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Je le sais bien, monsieur,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua le gros gentleman avec aigreur.\n\nDans le courant d'une autre partie, dont le r\u00e9sultat fut le m\u00eame, M.\nMiller eut le malheur de faire une renonce. Aussi, le gros gentleman ne\nfut plus ma\u00eetre de contenir son irritation. La vieille dame, au\ncontraire, entendait de mieux en mieux, tandis que l'infortun\u00e9 Miller\nparaissait aussi peu dans son \u00e9l\u00e9ment qu'un dauphin dans une gu\u00e9rite.\nQuand le whist fut termin\u00e9, le gros gentleman se retint dans un coin et\nresta parfaitement muet durant une heure vingt-sept minutes: alors\nseulement, sortant de sa retraite, il offrit \u00e0 M. Pickwick une prise de\ntabac, avec l'air g\u00e9n\u00e9reux d'un homme que la charit\u00e9 chr\u00e9tienne engage \u00e0\npardonner les injures qu'il a re\u00e7ues.\n\nPendant ces \u00e9v\u00e9nements, le jeu de la table ronde continuait avec gaiet\u00e9.\nIsabelle Wardle s'\u00e9tait associ\u00e9e avec M. Trundle, \u00c9mily Wardle avec M.\nSnodgrass, et qui plus est, M. Tupman et la tante demoiselle avaient\naussi form\u00e9 une soci\u00e9t\u00e9 de fiches et de galanteries. Le vieux M. Wardle\n\u00e9tait au comble de la joie; il conduisait une banque avec tant d'astuce,\nles dames montraient tant d'\u00e2pret\u00e9 au gain, qu'un tonnerre d'\u00e9clats de\nrire retentissait continuellement autour de la table. Il y avait une\nvieille lady qui \u00e9tait toujours oblig\u00e9e de payer pour une demi-douzaine\nde cartes. Tout le monde en riait r\u00e9guli\u00e8rement \u00e0 chaque tour, et quand\nla vieille lady avait l'air vex\u00e9 de payer, on riait encore plus fort:\nalors son visage s'\u00e9panouissait par degr\u00e9s, et elle finissait par faire\nchorus avec les autres. Quand la tante demoiselle faisait un _mariage_,\nles jeunes personnes \u00e9clataient de nouveau et la tante demoiselle\ndevenait de tr\u00e8s-mauvaise humeur; mais elle sentait la main de M. Tupman\nqui saisissait la sienne par-dessous la table, et son visage\ns'\u00e9panouissait aussi, puis elle prenait un air \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s malin, comme\nsi le mariage n'avait pas \u00e9t\u00e9 aussi loin de la question qu'on le\nsupposait. Alors tout le monde recommen\u00e7ait \u00e0 rire, surtout le vieux\nWardle qui s'amusait d'une plaisanterie au moins autant que les plus\njeunes. Cependant, M. Snodgrass murmurait continuellement dans l'oreille\nde sa partner des sentiments po\u00e9tiques, qui faisaient faire \u00e0 un vieux\ngentleman sur les associations pour les cartes et sur les associations\npour la vie, des remarques fac\u00e9tieuses et malignes, accompagn\u00e9es de\ncoups d'oeil, de coups de coude et de sourires. L'hilarit\u00e9 de la\ncompagnie en \u00e9tait redoubl\u00e9e, et sp\u00e9cialement celle de l'\u00e9pouse du\nsusdit vieux gentleman. De temps en temps M. Winkle \u00e9ditait des bons\nmots, fort connus dans la ville, mais qui ne l'\u00e9taient pas encore dans\nla province; et comme tout le monde en riait de tr\u00e8s-bon coeur et les\ntrouvait excellente, M. Winkle \u00e9tait resplendissant d'honneur et de\ngloire. Quant au bienveillant eccl\u00e9siastique, il regardait cette sc\u00e8ne\nd'un air satisfait, car le bon vieillard \u00e9tait heureux de voir des\nvisages heureux autour de lui; et, quoique la joie f\u00fbt assez bruyante,\nelle venait du coeur, non des l\u00e8vres, c'est-\u00e0-dire que c'\u00e9tait la\nv\u00e9ritable joie, apr\u00e8s tout.\n\nLa soir\u00e9e s'\u00e9coula rapidement au sein de ces r\u00e9cr\u00e9ations. Apr\u00e8s un\nsouper simple et substantiel, un cercle sociable fut form\u00e9 autour du\nfeu, et M. Pickwick d\u00e9clara que jamais de sa vie il n'avait ressenti\nplus de vrai bonheur et n'avait \u00e9t\u00e9 mieux dispos\u00e9 \u00e0 jouir du pr\u00e9sent\nh\u00e9las! trop fugitif.\n\nLe vieillard hospitalier \u00e9tait assis en c\u00e9r\u00e9monie aupr\u00e8s du fauteuil de\nsa m\u00e8re, et tenait une de ses mains dans les siennes: \u00abVoil\u00e0 pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment\nce que j'aime, disait-il. Les plus heureux instants de mon existence se\nsont pass\u00e9s aupr\u00e8s de ce vieux foyer, et je trouve du plaisir \u00e0 y faire\nflamber du feu jusqu'\u00e0 ce que la chaleur devienne insupportable.\nVoyez-vous... ma pauvre vieille m\u00e8re que voil\u00e0, s'asseyait dans cette\nchemin\u00e9e sur ce petit tabouret, quand elle \u00e9tait enfant. N'est-il pas\nvrai, ma m\u00e8re?\u00bb\n\nLa vieille lady secoua la t\u00eate avec un sourire m\u00e9lancolique, et l'on vit\ncouler lentement sur ses joues ces larmes involontaires qui s'\u00e9veillent\nau souvenir des anciens temps et du bonheur \u00e9coul\u00e9 depuis de longues\nann\u00e9es.\n\n\u00abMonsieur Pickwick, continua leur h\u00f4te apr\u00e8s un court silence, vous\nm'excuserez si je parle souvent de cet endroit, car je l'aime\npassionn\u00e9ment, et je n'en connais pas d'autre. La vieille maison et les\nchamps m\u00eames semblent \u00eatre pour moi d'anciens amis. J'en dis autant de\nnotre petite \u00e9glise garnie d'une \u00e9paisse tenture de lierre, sur lequel,\npar parenth\u00e8se, notre excellent ami que voil\u00e0 a fait une chanson \u00e0 son\narriv\u00e9e ici. Monsieur Snodgrass, il me semble que votre verre est vide.\n\n--Je vous demande pardon, r\u00e9pliqua ce gentleman, dont la curiosit\u00e9\npo\u00e9tique avait \u00e9t\u00e9 grandement excit\u00e9e par la derni\u00e8re phrase de son\nh\u00f4te. Vous parliez ce me semble d'une chanson sur le lierre?\n\n--C'est \u00e0 notre ami qu'il faut vous adresser \u00e0 ce sujet, dit M. Wardle\nen indiquant l'eccl\u00e9siastique par un signe.\n\n--Oserais-je vous prier, monsieur, de nous faire conna\u00eetre cette\ncomposition? dit alors M. Snodgrass.\n\n--V\u00e9ritablement, r\u00e9pondit le v\u00e9n\u00e9rable eccl\u00e9siastique, c'est fort peu de\nchose et ma seule excuse pour m'en \u00eatre rendu coupable, c'est que\nj'\u00e9tais tr\u00e8s-jeune dans ce temps-l\u00e0. Telle qu'elle est, toutefois, vous\nallez l'entendre, si vous le d\u00e9sirez.\u00bb\n\nUn murmure de curiosit\u00e9 fut naturellement la r\u00e9plique, et le vieil\neccl\u00e9siastique, souffl\u00e9 de temps en temps par sa femme, commen\u00e7a \u00e0\nr\u00e9citer la pi\u00e8ce de vers en question. \u00abJe l'appelle,\u00bb dit-il:\n\n    LE LIERRE.\n\n    Oh! quelle plante singuli\u00e8re\n    Que ce vieux gourmand de lierre,\n    Qui rampe sur d'anciens d\u00e9bris!\n    Il lui faut l'antique poussi\u00e8re\n    Que les si\u00e8cles seuls ont pu faire,\n    Pour contenter ses app\u00e9tits.\n    Oh! quelle plante singuli\u00e8re\n    Que ce vieux gourmand de lierre!\n\n    Dans son domaine solitaire,\n    Tant\u00f4t il s'\u00e9tend sur la terre,\n    Rongeant la pierre des tombeaux;\n    Et tant\u00f4t, relevant la t\u00eate,\n    Il grimpe, d'un air de conqu\u00eate,\n    Au sommet des plus grands ormeaux.\n    Oh! quelle plante singuli\u00e8re\n    Que ce vieux gourmand de lierre!\n\n    Par le cours fatal des ann\u00e9es,\n    Les nations sont ruin\u00e9es,\n    Mais lui, rien ne peut le fl\u00e9trir.\n    Les plus grands monuments de l'homme,\n    A quoi donc servent-ils, en somme?\n    A l'abriter, \u00e0 le nourrir.\n    Oh! quelle plante singuli\u00e8re\n    Que ce vieux gourmand de lierre!\n\nTandis que le bienveillant eccl\u00e9siastique r\u00e9p\u00e9tait ses vers une seconde\nfois pour permettre \u00e0 M. Snodgrass d'en prendre note, M. Pickwick\n\u00e9tudiait avec un grand int\u00e9r\u00eat l'expression de sa physionomie. Il prit\nensuite la parole et dit au vicaire:\n\n\u00abVoulez-vous me permettre, monsieur, malgr\u00e9 la nouveaut\u00e9 de notre\nconnaissance, de vous demander si, dans le cours de votre carri\u00e8re,\ncomme ministre de l'\u00e9vangile, vous n'avez pas observ\u00e9 beaucoup\nd'\u00e9v\u00e9nements dignes d'\u00eatre conserv\u00e9s dans la m\u00e9moire des hommes?\n\n--Effectivement, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua le ministre; j'ai observ\u00e9 beaucoup\nd'\u00e9v\u00e9nements, mais dans une sph\u00e8re \u00e9troite; et ils ont toujours \u00e9t\u00e9\nd'une nature simple et ordinaire.\n\n--Vous avez r\u00e9uni, je pense, quelques notes sur John Edmunds?\u00bb reprit\nM. Wardle, qui d\u00e9sirait mettre son ami en \u00e9vidence, pour l'\u00e9dification\nde ses nouveaux h\u00f4tes.\n\nLa vicaire fit un l\u00e9ger signe d'assentiment et se pr\u00e9parait \u00e0 changer le\nsujet de la conversation, lorsque M. Pickwick lui dit: \u00abPardonnez-moi,\nmonsieur; mais je vous serais oblig\u00e9 de m'apprendre qui \u00e9tait ce John\nEdmunds?\n\n--C'est pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment ce que j'allais demander; ajouta M. Snodgrass avec\nvivacit\u00e9.\n\n--Vous \u00eates pris, s'\u00e9cria le joyeux h\u00f4te. Il faudra, t\u00f4t ou tard, que\nvous satisfassiez la curiosit\u00e9 de ces messieurs; ainsi, vous feriez\nmieux de profiter de l'occasion et d'en finir sur-le-champ.\u00bb\n\nLe vieux ministre sourit avec bonhomie et rapprocha sa chaise de la\nchemin\u00e9e. Les autres membres se serr\u00e8rent aussi, principalement M.\nTupman et la tante demoiselle, qui avaient peut-\u00eatre l'ou\u00efe un peu dure.\nLe cornet de la vieille lady fut ajust\u00e9 soigneusement; M. Miller, qui\ns'\u00e9tait endormi, fut r\u00e9veill\u00e9 par son ex-partner, au moyen d'un pin\u00e7on\nmonitoire, administr\u00e9 par-dessous la table, et le ministre, sans autre\npr\u00e9face, commen\u00e7a le r\u00e9cit suivant, auquel nous avons pris la libert\u00e9 de\ndonner pour titre:\n\nLE RETOUR DU CONVICT.\n\n\u00abLorsque je fus nomm\u00e9 vicaire de ce village, il y a juste vingt-cinq\nans, j'y trouvai, parmi mes paroissiens, un certain Edmunds qui tenait \u00e0\nbail une petite ferme du voisinage. C'\u00e9tait un m\u00e9chant homme, paresseux\net dissolu par habitude, morose et f\u00e9roce par disposition. Except\u00e9\nquelques vagabonds abandonn\u00e9s qui fl\u00e2naient avec lui dans les champs ou\nqui s'abrutissaient \u00e0 la taverne, il n'avait pas un seul ami, pas m\u00eame\nune connaissance. En g\u00e9n\u00e9ral on l'\u00e9vitait, car personne ne se souciait\nde parler \u00e0 un individu redout\u00e9 par plusieurs, d\u00e9test\u00e9 par tous.\n\nCet homme avait une femme et un fils \u00e2g\u00e9 d'environ douze ans. Je vous\nattristerais sans n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 en vous d\u00e9peignant les souffrances qu'avait\nendur\u00e9es sa femme, et tout ce que je pourrais vous dire ne suffirait pas\npour appr\u00e9cier suffisamment la douceur et la r\u00e9signation qu'elle\nd\u00e9ployait dans les circonstances les plus d\u00e9licates, ni la sollicitude\npleine de tendresse et de douleur avec laquelle elle \u00e9levait son enfant.\nQue Dieu me pardonne ce que je vais dire, si c'est un soup\u00e7on peu\ncharitable, mais, dans mon \u00e2me et conscience, je crois que son mari\nessaya syst\u00e9matiquement, pendant plusieurs ann\u00e9es, de la faire mourir de\nchagrin. Elle supporta tout, cependant, pour l'amour de son fils; et\nm\u00eame, quoique cela puisse para\u00eetre \u00e9trange \u00e0 bien des gens, pour l'amour\nde son mari. Elle l'avait aim\u00e9 autrefois, et malgr\u00e9 ses brutalit\u00e9s,\nmalgr\u00e9 la cruaut\u00e9 qu'il lui t\u00e9moignait, le souvenir de ce qu'il avait\n\u00e9t\u00e9 pour elle \u00e9veillait encore dans son sein des sentiments de douce\nindulgence, auxquels, except\u00e9 la femme, toutes les autres cr\u00e9atures de\nDieu sont \u00e9trang\u00e8res.\n\nIls \u00e9taient pauvres: la conduite du mari ne permettait pas qu'il en f\u00fbt\nautrement; mais le travail obstin\u00e9, incessant de la femme, les\nmaintenait au-dessus du besoin. Cependant ses efforts \u00e9taient bien mal\nr\u00e9compens\u00e9s. Les gens qui passaient aupr\u00e8s de leur maison, le soir,\nentendaient souvent les pleurs, les g\u00e9missements de la malheureuse\nfemme, et le bruit des coups qu'elle recevait. Plus d'une fois, apr\u00e8s\nminuit, l'enfant vint frapper doucement \u00e0 la porte de quelque maison\nvoisine, o\u00f9 il \u00e9tait envoy\u00e9 par sa m\u00e8re, pour \u00e9chapper \u00e0 l'ivresse\nfurieuse du p\u00e8re d\u00e9natur\u00e9.\n\nPendant tout ce temps, et quoique la pauvre cr\u00e9ature port\u00e2t souvent des\nmarques de mauvais traitements, qu'elle ne pouvait pas enti\u00e8rement\ncacher, elle assistait r\u00e9guli\u00e8rement au service divin. Chaque dimanche,\nmatin et soir, elle occupait avec son fils le m\u00eame banc dans notre\npetite \u00e9glise; et quoique la m\u00e8re et l'enfant fussent tous deux\npauvrement habill\u00e9s (plus pauvrement m\u00eame que beaucoup de leurs voisins\nqui se trouvaient dans une position encore plus pr\u00e9caire), leur toilette\n\u00e9tait toujours d\u00e9cente et propre. Chacun avait un signe amical et une\nparole bienveillante pour cette _pauvre madame Edmunds_, et parfois\nquand, au sortir de l'\u00e9glise, elle s'arr\u00eatait sous les ormes qui\nconduisaient au porche, pour \u00e9changer quelques mots avec un voisin; ou\nquand elle ralentissait le pas pour regarder, avec l'orgueil et la\ntendresse d'une m\u00e8re, son enfant, rose et bien portant, qui jouait\ndevant elle avec quelques petits camarades, sa figure fatigu\u00e9e\ns'\u00e9clairait d'une expression de gratitude profond\u00e9ment ressentie, et\nelle paraissait \u00eatre sinon heureuse ou gaie, du moins r\u00e9sign\u00e9e et\ntranquille.\n\nCinq ou six ans s'\u00e9coul\u00e8rent: l'enfant \u00e9tait devenu un jeune homme\nrobuste et bien b\u00e2ti, mais le temps, qui avait renforc\u00e9 ses membres\nd\u00e9licats, avait courb\u00e9 la taille de sa m\u00e8re et affaibli sa d\u00e9marche; et\ncependant le bras qui aurait d\u00fb la supporter n'\u00e9tait plus encha\u00een\u00e9 sous\nle sien, le visage qui aurait d\u00fb la r\u00e9jouir ne la regardait plus en\nsouriant. Elle occupait toujours le m\u00eame banc, mais il y avait une place\nvacante \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 d'elle; sa bible \u00e9tait toujours tenue avec autant de\nsoin, elle y faisait des signets pour l'ouvrir aux diff\u00e9rentes lectures;\nmais il n'y avait plus personne pour la lire avec elle, et ses larmes\ncoulaient sur son livre, et d\u00e9robaient \u00e0 ses yeux le texte sacr\u00e9. Ses\nvoisins \u00e9taient encore aussi bienveillants qu'autrefois, mais maintenant\nelle d\u00e9tournait la t\u00eate pour \u00e9viter leur salut; elle ne s'arr\u00eatait plus\nsous les vieux ormes, et elle n'enfermait plus dans son coeur des tr\u00e9sors\nde bonheur et d'esp\u00e9rance. Dans sa d\u00e9solation elle enfon\u00e7ait sa coiffe\nsur son visage et elle s'\u00e9loignait d'un pas pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9. Faut-il vous le\ndire? Ce jeune homme qui aurait d\u00fb conserver pieusement dans sa m\u00e9moire\nle souvenir des privations volontaires, des mauvais traitements que sa\nm\u00e8re avait endur\u00e9s pour lui; oubliant au contraire tout ce qu'il lui\ndevait, et m\u00e9prisant cruellement les angoisses de son coeur bris\u00e9,\ns'\u00e9tait li\u00e9 avec les hommes les plus d\u00e9prav\u00e9s, les plus abandonn\u00e9s de\nDieu, et suivait une carri\u00e8re de vices et de crimes, qui devait aboutir\n\u00e0 la mort pour lui, \u00e0 la honte pour elle. H\u00e9las! pauvre nature humaine!\nVous avez d\u00e9j\u00e0 devin\u00e9 cela depuis longtemps.\n\nLa malheureuse femme \u00e9tait sur le point de voir compl\u00e9ter la mesure de\nses infortunes. Des d\u00e9lits nombreux avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 commis dans le\nvoisinage. Les coupables \u00e9taient rest\u00e9s impunis, et leur audace s'en\naugmentait. Un vol nocturne, accompagn\u00e9 de circonstances aggravantes,\noccasionna des poursuites actives, des recherches s\u00e9v\u00e8res, auxquelles il\n\u00e9tait impossible d'\u00e9chapper. Le jeune Edmunds fut soup\u00e7onn\u00e9, ainsi que\ntrois de ses compagnons; il fut arr\u00eat\u00e9, jug\u00e9 et condamn\u00e9 \u00e0 mort.\n\nLe cri per\u00e7ant et \u00e9gar\u00e9, le cri maternel qui effraya l'audience quand le\njugement solennel fut prononc\u00e9, retentit encore \u00e0 mon oreille. Ce cri\nfrappa de terreur le coeur du coupable, que le jugement, la condamnation,\nl'approche de la mort m\u00eame n'avaient pu \u00e9branler. Ses l\u00e8vres,\njusqu'alors comprim\u00e9es avec une sombre obstination, trembl\u00e8rent et se\ns\u00e9par\u00e8rent involontairement. Son visage devint p\u00e2le, une sueur froide\nmouilla son front, ses membres vigoureux frissonn\u00e8rent, et il chancela\nsur son banc.\n\nDans le premier transport de ses angoisses, la m\u00e8re d\u00e9sol\u00e9e se jeta \u00e0\ngenoux, et supplia douloureusement l'\u00catre infini, qui l'avait soutenue\njusqu'alors dans ses \u00e9preuves, de la d\u00e9livrer de ce monde de mis\u00e8re, et\nd'\u00e9pargner la vie de son unique enfant. A cette pri\u00e8re succ\u00e9da une\nexplosion de pleurs, une agonie de d\u00e9sespoir, telles que j'esp\u00e8re bien\nn'en revoir jamais de semblables. D\u00e8s cet instant, je fus convaincu que\nla douleur abr\u00e9gerait sa vie, mais je n'entendis plus une seule plainte,\nun seul murmure s'\u00e9chapper de ses l\u00e8vres.\n\nC'\u00e9tait un d\u00e9chirant spectacle de voir de jour en jour, dans la cour de\nla prison, cette malheureuse m\u00e8re qui s'effor\u00e7ait avec ferveur de\ntoucher par l'affection, par les pri\u00e8res, le coeur p\u00e9trifi\u00e9 de son fils.\nCe fut en vain: il resta sombre, farouche, imp\u00e9nitent. La commutation\ninesp\u00e9r\u00e9e de sa peine, en celle de la transportation pour quatorze ans,\nne put pas m\u00eame adoucir pour un seul instant son endurcissement obstin\u00e9.\n\nL'esprit de r\u00e9signation qui avait si longtemps soutenu sa m\u00e8re ne\npouvait plus lutter contre la faiblesse et la maladie. Pourtant elle\nvoulut revoir son fils encore une fois. Elle d\u00e9roba \u00e0 son lit de\nsouffrances ses membres chancelants; mais ses forces la trahirent, et\nelle tomba presque inanim\u00e9e sur le carreau.\n\nC'est alors que l'indiff\u00e9rence et le sto\u00efcisme tant vant\u00e9s du coupable\nfurent mis \u00e0 une rude \u00e9preuve. Un jour se passa sans qu'il v\u00eet sa m\u00e8re.\nUn second jour s'\u00e9coula, et elle ne vint pas. Un troisi\u00e8me soir arriva,\net sa m\u00e8re n'avait pas paru. Et dans vingt-quatre heures il devait \u00eatre\ns\u00e9par\u00e9 d'elle peut-\u00eatre pour toujours!\n\nCe nouveau ch\u00e2timent, qui tombait si pesamment sur lui, le rendit\npresque fou. Oh! comme les pens\u00e9es longtemps oubli\u00e9es de son enfance\nrevinrent en foule dans son esprit, tandis qu'il arpentait l'\u00e9troite\ncour d'un pas rapide, comme si la rapidit\u00e9 de sa course e\u00fbt pu h\u00e2ter\nl'arriv\u00e9e des nouvelles attendues; comme le sentiment de sa mis\u00e8re et de\nson abandon s'empara am\u00e8rement de lui, lorsqu'il apprit la v\u00e9rit\u00e9\nfatale! Sa m\u00e8re, la seule personne qui l'e\u00fbt jamais aim\u00e9, sa m\u00e8re \u00e9tait\nmalade, peut-\u00eatre mourante, \u00e0 une demi-lieue de lui; quelques minutes\nauraient pu le porter pr\u00e8s de son lit, s'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 libre, mais il ne\ndevait plus la revoir. Il se pr\u00e9cipita sur la grille, et saisissant les\nbarreaux de fer avec l'\u00e9nergie du d\u00e9sespoir, il la secoua et la fit\ntrembler; il s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a contre les murailles \u00e9paisses comme s'il avait\nvoulu les briser. Mais la prison solide bravait ses efforts insens\u00e9s, et\nil se mit \u00e0 pleurer comme un faible enfant, en se tordant les mains.\n\nJe portai au fils emprisonn\u00e9 les paroles de pardon et les b\u00e9n\u00e9dictions\nde sa m\u00e8re, mais sans lui dire jusqu'\u00e0 quel point son \u00e9tat \u00e9tait grave:\nje rapportai au lit de la mourante ses solennelles assurances de\nrepentir et ses supplications ferventes pour obtenir ce pardon.\nJ'\u00e9coutai avec une triste compassion les mille projets que le coupable\nrepentant faisait d\u00e9j\u00e0 pour soutenir sa m\u00e8re, pour la rendre heureuse\nquand il reviendrait de son exil. Et je savais que longtemps avant qu'il\ne\u00fbt atteint le but de son voyage elle ne serait plus de ce monde!\n\nIl fut emmen\u00e9 pendant la nuit. Peu de semaines apr\u00e8s, l'\u00e2me de la pauvre\nfemme prit son vol, et, comme je le crois avec confiance, pour une\nr\u00e9gion de paix et de bonheur \u00e9ternel. J'accomplis moi-m\u00eame le service\nfun\u00e8bre sur ses restes, qui reposent maintenant dans notre petit\ncimeti\u00e8re: il n'y a point de pierre \u00e0 la t\u00eate de sa tombe, \u00e0 quoi bon?\nSes chagrins \u00e9taient connus aux hommes et ses vertus \u00e0 Dieu.\n\nIl avait \u00e9t\u00e9 convenu, avant le d\u00e9part du condamn\u00e9, qu'il \u00e9crirait \u00e0 sa\nm\u00e8re aussit\u00f4t qu'il en pourrait obtenir la permission, et que ses\nlettres me seraient adress\u00e9es, car son p\u00e8re avait positivement refus\u00e9 de\nle voir, depuis le moment de son arrestation, et se souciait peu qu'il\nf\u00fbt mort ou vivant. Nombre d'ann\u00e9es s'\u00e9coul\u00e8rent sans que je re\u00e7usse de\nses nouvelles; et lorsque la moiti\u00e9 de son temps fut pass\u00e9e, j'en\nconclus qu'il n'existait plus, et en v\u00e9rit\u00e9, je le souhaitais presque.\n\nJe me trompais cependant. A son arriv\u00e9e \u00e0 Botany-Bay[9], il avait \u00e9t\u00e9\nenvoy\u00e9 dans l'int\u00e9rieur des terres, et ce fut apparemment pour cela\nqu'aucune de ses lettres ne me parvint. Il resta au m\u00eame endroit pendant\nquatorze ann\u00e9es, pers\u00e9v\u00e9rant constamment dans ses bonnes r\u00e9solutions, et\nfid\u00e8le aux promesses qu'il avait faites \u00e0 sa m\u00e8re. Quand son temps fut\nfini, il surmonta d'\u00e9normes difficult\u00e9s pour regagner l'Angleterre, et\nrevint \u00e0 pied au lieu de sa naissance.\n\n[Footnote 9: Colonie p\u00e9nitentiaire.]\n\nPar une belle soir\u00e9e du mois d'ao\u00fbt, John Edmunds rentra dans le village\ndont il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 honteusement emmen\u00e9 dix-sept ann\u00e9es auparavant. Le\nchemin qu'il suivait passait au milieu du cimeti\u00e8re, et son coeur se\ngonfla en le traversant, les rayons du soleil couchant se jouaient \u00e0\ntravers les branches gigantesques des vieux ormes qui r\u00e9veillaient dans\nl'esprit du lib\u00e9r\u00e9 les souvenirs de son jeune \u00e2ge; il se rappelait le\ntemps o\u00f9, s'attachant \u00e0 la main de sa m\u00e8re, il se rendait gaiement \u00e0\nl'\u00e9glise avec elle; il croyait voir encore son p\u00e2le visage; il croyait\nsentir les larmes br\u00fblantes qui tombaient sur son front lorsqu'elle se\nbaissait pour l'embrasser, et qui le faisaient pleurer aussi, quoiqu'il\nne s\u00fbt gu\u00e8re alors combien ces larmes \u00e9taient remplies d'amertume. Il se\nrappelait encore combien de fois il avait couru joyeusement dans ce m\u00eame\nsentier avec quelques-uns de ses petits camarades, se retournant de\ntemps en temps pour apercevoir le sourire de sa m\u00e8re, ou pour entendre\nsa douce voix; et alors il lui sembla qu'un rideau se tirait dans sa\nm\u00e9moire; et mille souvenirs de tendresse m\u00e9connue et d'avertissements\nm\u00e9pris\u00e9s, de promesses oubli\u00e9es, vinrent se presser dans son cerveau et\nd\u00e9chirer son coeur.\n\nIl entra dans l'\u00e9glise, car c'\u00e9tait un dimanche, et quoique le service\ndu soir f\u00fbt fini et que les assistants fussent dispers\u00e9s, la vieille\nporte de ch\u00eane, aux larges clous, n'\u00e9tait point encore ferm\u00e9e. Les pas\ndu convict retentirent sous la vo\u00fbte, et dans le calme religieux qui\nr\u00e9gnait autour de lui, il se trouva si isol\u00e9 qu'il eut presque peur. Il\nregarda les objets qui l'entouraient: rien n'\u00e9tait chang\u00e9. L'\u00e9glise lui\nparaissait plus petite que dans son enfance, mais elle renfermait\ntoujours les vieux monuments qu'il avait contempl\u00e9s mille fois avec une\ncrainte enfantine. L\u00e0 se trouvait la petite chaire, orn\u00e9e du coussin\nfan\u00e9 o\u00f9 le ministre posait sa bible, et o\u00f9 il avait entendu pr\u00eacher la\nparole de Dieu; ici la table de communion, devant laquelle il avait si\nsouvent r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9, dans son enfance, les commandements qu'il avait oubli\u00e9s\nquand il \u00e9tait devenu homme. Il s'approcha de l'ancien banc de sa m\u00e8re;\nle coussin avait \u00e9t\u00e9 retir\u00e9, la bible n'y \u00e9tait point. Il pensa que\npeut-\u00eatre Mme Edmunds occupait maintenant un si\u00e9ge plus pauvre, ou que\npeut-\u00eatre elle \u00e9tait devenue infirme et ne pouvait plus aller seule\njusqu'\u00e0 l'\u00e9glise. Il n'osait pas arr\u00eater son esprit sur une autre\nsupposition. Une sensation de froid s'empara de lui, et il tremblait de\ntous ses membres en se d\u00e9tournant pour sortir.\n\nComme il arrivait sous le porche, il y vit entrer un homme vieux et\ncass\u00e9. Il tressaillit, car il le reconnaissait: souvent il l'avait vu\ncreuser des fosses dans le cimeti\u00e8re derri\u00e8re l'\u00e9glise: et maintenant\nqu'est-ce que l'honn\u00eate sacristain allait dire au convict lib\u00e9r\u00e9? Le\nvieillard leva les yeux, le regarda un instant, lui souhaita le bonsoir,\net s'\u00e9loigna avec lenteur. Il ne l'avait pas reconnu.\n\nEdmunds descendit la colline et traversa le village. La saison \u00e9tait\nchaude, et les habitants, assis \u00e0 leur porte ou se promenant dans leur\npetit jardin, jouissaient de la fra\u00eecheur du soir et des douceurs du\nrepos, apr\u00e8s les fatigues de la journ\u00e9e. Beaucoup de regards se\ndirig\u00e8rent vers l'\u00e9tranger, et il jeta \u00e0 droite et \u00e0 gauche bien des\ncoups d'oeil inquiets, pour voir si on se souvenait de lui et si on\nl'\u00e9vitait. Il y avait des figures nouvelles dans presque toutes les\nmaisons; \u00e0 la porte de quelques-unes il reconnaissait la physionomie\nd'un camarade d'\u00e9cole, un bambin lorsqu'il l'avait quitt\u00e9, et maintenant\nenvironn\u00e9 de ses joyeux enfants: devant d'autres chaumi\u00e8res il voyait,\nassis dans un fauteuil, un vieillard faible et infirme, qu'il se\nrappelait avoir connu encore jeune et vigoureux. Tous l'avaient oubli\u00e9\net il passa sans que personne lui adress\u00e2t une parole.\n\nLes derniers et doux rayons du soleil avaient jet\u00e9 sur la terre une\nriche teinte de pourpre, donnant un \u00e9clat dor\u00e9 aux \u00e9pis jaunis et\nallongeant l'ombre des arbres, lorsqu'il arriva devant la vieille\nmaison, la maison de son enfance, apr\u00e8s laquelle son coeur avait soupir\u00e9\nsi souvent, si ardemment, durant de longues et p\u00e9nibles ann\u00e9es de\ncaptivit\u00e9 et de douleur. La palissade \u00e9tait basse, quoiqu'il se rappel\u00e2t\nle temps o\u00f9 elle lui paraissait gigantesque; il regarda par-dessus dans\nle jardin. Il y vit beaucoup plus de fleurs qu'il n'y en avait\nautrefois, mais les vieux arbres y \u00e9taient encore. Il reconnut celui\nsous lequel il s'\u00e9tait couch\u00e9 mille fois lorsqu'il \u00e9tait fatigu\u00e9 de\njouer au soleil, laissant doucement aller ses sens au l\u00e9ger sommeil\nd'une enfance heureuse. Il entendit des voix dans l'int\u00e9rieur de la\nmaison, mais elles affect\u00e8rent p\u00e9niblement son oreille, car il ne les\nconnaissait point, et elles exprimaient la gaiet\u00e9. Or il savait bien que\nsa pauvre vieille m\u00e8re ne pouvait pas \u00eatre gaie, lui absent. La porte\ns'ouvrit et il en vit sortir une troupe de petits enfante riant et\ngambadant.\n\nLe p\u00e8re, avec un marmot dans ses bras, parut sur le seuil et les enfants\nse press\u00e8rent autour de lui, frappant joyeusement des mains, et le\ntirant de toutes leurs forces pour lui faire prendre part \u00e0 leurs jeux.\nLe convict se rappela combien de fois, \u00e0 la m\u00eame place, il s'\u00e9tait\nd\u00e9rob\u00e9 aux regards de son p\u00e8re; il se rappela combien de fois il avait\ncach\u00e9 sous ses draps sa t\u00eate tremblante, en entendant les sanglote\n\u00e9touff\u00e9s de sa malheureuse m\u00e8re quand elle avait \u00e9t\u00e9 injuri\u00e9e et battue\npar son mari furieux. Il se d\u00e9tourna, et ses poings \u00e9taient crisp\u00e9s,\nses dents \u00e9taient serr\u00e9es avec rage, lorsqu'il s'\u00e9loigna de la maison\npaternelle.\n\nTel \u00e9tait donc le retour qui avait occup\u00e9 son esprit pendant un si grand\nnombre d'ann\u00e9es p\u00e9nibles, et pour lequel il avait support\u00e9 tant de\nsouffrances! Pas un visage ami, pas un regard de pardon, pas une main\npour l'aider, pas une maison pour l'accueillir; et cela dans le village\no\u00f9 il \u00e9tait n\u00e9! Quel abandon! quelle solitude! plus am\u00e8re mille fois que\ncelle des contr\u00e9es sauvages o\u00f9 il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 exil\u00e9!\n\nIl reconnut alors que, sur la terre lointaine de l'infamie et de la\nservitude, il s'\u00e9tait repr\u00e9sent\u00e9 les lieux de sa naissance tels qu'il\nles avait laiss\u00e9s, non pas tels qu'il devait les retrouver. La triste\nr\u00e9alit\u00e9 se d\u00e9voila tout d'un coup \u00e0 son esprit, et abattit son courage.\nIl n'eut pas la force de prendre des informations ni de se pr\u00e9senter \u00e0\nla seule personne qui devait le recevoir avec compassion. Il marcha\nlentement devant lui, \u00e9vitant la grande route, comme un coupable, entra\ndans une prairie qu'il avait parcourue jadis dans tous les sens, couvrit\nson visage de ses mains, et se laissa tomber sur l'herbe.\n\nUn homme, qu'Edmunds n'avait point aper\u00e7u, \u00e9tait assis tout aupr\u00e8s de\nlui sur la terre. Il se retourna pour regarder le nouveau venu, et\nEdmunds entendant le fr\u00f4lement de ses habits releva la t\u00eate.\n\nCet homme portait le costume du Work-House; son corps \u00e9tait courb\u00e9, sa\nface jaune et rid\u00e9e. Il paraissait tr\u00e8s-vieux, mais plut\u00f4t par l'effet\ndestructeur de l'intemp\u00e9rance et des maladies que par le r\u00e9sultat\ngraduel des ann\u00e9es. Ses yeux \u00e9taient lourds et ternes, mais quand ils\neurent contempl\u00e9 Edmunds pendant quelques instants, ils s'anim\u00e8rent\nd'une \u00e9trange expression d'alarme, et s'ouvrirent si horriblement qu'ils\nsemblaient pr\u00e8s de sortir de leur orbite.\n\nLe convict, se levant peu \u00e0 peu sur ses genoux, examinait avec une\nanxi\u00e9t\u00e9 toujours croissante le visage du vieillard. Ils s'observ\u00e8rent\nainsi en silence durant assez longtemps.\n\nTout \u00e0 coup le vieillard tressaillit, devint affreusement p\u00e2le, se leva\nen chancelant et recula quelques pas, en voyant qu'Edmunds se levait\naussi.\n\n\u00abParlez-moi! que j'entende le son de votre voix! s'\u00e9cria le lib\u00e9r\u00e9\npalpitant d'\u00e9motion.\n\n--N'avance pas!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria le vieillard en blasph\u00e9mant.\n\nMais Edmunds ne l'\u00e9coutait point et continuait \u00e0 s'approcher de lui.\n\n\u00abN'avance pas! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta-t-il en fr\u00e9missant de rage et de terreur; et en\nm\u00eame temps, levant son b\u00e2ton, il en frappa violemment le lib\u00e9r\u00e9 au\nvisage.\n\n--Mon p\u00e8re!... Mis\u00e9rable!...\u00bb murmura celui-ci entre ses dents serr\u00e9es;\npuis, s'\u00e9lan\u00e7ant avec fureur, il saisit le vieillard \u00e0 la gorge; mais il\nse souvint que c'\u00e9tait son p\u00e8re, et ses mains retomb\u00e8rent sans force \u00e0\nses c\u00f4t\u00e9s.\n\nLe vieillard jeta un cri per\u00e7ant, qui retentit \u00e0 travers les champs\nd\u00e9serts comme les hurlements d'un mauvais esprit. Sa face devint livide,\nle sang jaillit de sa bouche et de son nez, il chancela et tomba en\narri\u00e8re. Il s'\u00e9tait rompu un vaisseau, et lorsque son fils le releva de\nla mare de sang noir et \u00e9pais qu'il avait vomie, il \u00e9tait mort.\n\nDans un coin de notre cimeti\u00e8re, repose un homme que j'ai employ\u00e9 \u00e0 mon\nservice pendant trois ann\u00e9es, apr\u00e8s cet \u00e9v\u00e9nement. Il \u00e9tait r\u00e9ellement\nrepentant et corrig\u00e9. Personne n'a su durant sa vie qui il \u00e9tait, ni\nd'o\u00f9 il venait. C'\u00e9tait Edmunds le convict lib\u00e9r\u00e9.\u00bb\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE VII.\n\nComment M. Winkle, au lieu de tirer le pigeon et de tuer la corneille,\ntira la corneille et blessa le pigeon. Comment le club de la Crosse de\nDingley-Dell lutta contre celui de Muggleton, et comment Muggleton d\u00eena\naux d\u00e9pens de Dingley-Dell. Avec diverses autres mati\u00e8res \u00e9galement\ninstructives et int\u00e9ressantes.\n\n\nLes fatigantes aventures de la journ\u00e9e, ou peut-\u00eatre l'influence\nsomnif\u00e8re de l'histoire racont\u00e9e par le ministre, op\u00e9r\u00e8rent si fortement\nsur les nerfs de M. Pickwick qu'il \u00e9tait \u00e0 peine au lit depuis cinq\nminutes, lorsqu'il s'endormit d'un sommeil profond. Il n'en fut tir\u00e9 que\nle lendemain matin par les brillants rayons du soleil levant, qui\np\u00e9n\u00e9traient dans sa chambre, et qui semblaient lui adresser des\nreproches.\n\nM. Pickwick n'\u00e9tait pas paresseux: comme un vaillant guerrier, il\ns'\u00e9lan\u00e7a hors de sa tente... je veux dire \u00e0 bas de son lit.\n\n\u00abQuel d\u00e9licieux pays! s'\u00e9cria-t-il avec enthousiasme en ouvrant sa\njalousie. Ah! lorsqu'on a senti l'influence d'un semblable paysage,\npourrait-on consentir \u00e0 vivre pour n'apercevoir chaque jour que des\nbriques et des ardoises? Pourrait-on continuer d'exister dans un lieu o\u00f9\nl'on ne voit pas de foin, except\u00e9 dans les \u00e9curies; pas de plantes\nfleuries except\u00e9 des joubarbes sur les toits; pas de vaches, except\u00e9\ncelles de l'imp\u00e9riale des voitures? Rien qui rappelle le dieu Pan,\nexcept\u00e9 des pans de muraille. Pourrait-on consentir \u00e0 tra\u00eener sa vie\ndans un tel s\u00e9jour? je le demande, pourrait-on endurer une semblable\nexistence?\u00bb\n\nApr\u00e8s avoir ainsi, durant longtemps, interrog\u00e9 la solitude, suivant\nl'usage des plus grands po\u00ebtes, M. Pickwick allongea la t\u00eate hors de la\ncrois\u00e9e, et regarda autour de lui.\n\nLa douce et p\u00e9n\u00e9trante odeur des foins qu'on venait de faucher montait\njusqu'\u00e0 lui. Les mille parfums des petites fleurs au jardin embaumaient\nl'air d'alentour; la verte prairie brillait sous la ros\u00e9e matinale, et\nchaque brin d'herbe \u00e9tincelait agit\u00e9 par un doux z\u00e9phyr. Enfin les\noiseaux chantaient, comme si chacune des larmes de l'aurore avait \u00e9t\u00e9\npour eux une source d'inspiration. En contemplant ce spectacle, M.\nPickwick tomba dans une douce et myst\u00e9rieuse r\u00eaverie.\n\n\u00abOh\u00e9!\u00bb tels furent les sons qui le rappel\u00e8rent \u00e0 la vie r\u00e9elle.\n\nSa vue se porta rapidement sur la droite; mais il ne d\u00e9couvrit personne.\nSes yeux s'\u00e9gar\u00e8rent vers la gauche et perc\u00e8rent en vain l'\u00e9tendue. Il\nmesura d'un regard audacieux le firmament; mais ce n'\u00e9tait point de l\u00e0\nqu'on l'appelait; enfin il fit ce qu'un esprit vulgaire aurait fait du\npremier coup, il regarda dans le jardin et y vit M. Wardle.\n\n\u00abComment \u00e7a va-t-il? lui demanda son joyeux h\u00f4te. Belle matin\u00e9e,\nn'est-ce pas? Charm\u00e9 de vous voir lev\u00e9 de si bonne heure. D\u00e9p\u00eachez-vous\nde descendre, je vous attendrai ici.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick n'eut pas besoin d'une seconde invitation. Dix minutes lui\nsuffirent pour compl\u00e9ter sa toilette, et \u00e0 l'expiration de ce terme, il\n\u00e9tait \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 du vieux gentleman.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce qu'il y a? demanda M. Pickwick en voyant que son h\u00f4te \u00e9tait\narm\u00e9 d'un fusil et qu'il y en avait un second pr\u00e8s de lui, sur le gazon.\n\n--Votre ami et moi, r\u00e9pliqua M. Wardle, nous allons tirer des corneilles\navant d\u00e9jeuner. Il est tr\u00e8s-bon tireur, n'est-il pas vrai?\n\n--Je le lui ai entendu dire, mais je ne lui ai jamais vu ajuster la\nmoindre chose.\n\n--Je voudrais bien qu'il se d\u00e9p\u00each\u00e2t, murmura M. Wardle; et il appela:\nJoe! Joe!\u00bb\n\nPeu de temps apr\u00e8s on vit sortir de la maison le gros joufflu, qui,\ngr\u00e2ce \u00e0 l'influence excitante de la matin\u00e9e, n'\u00e9tait gu\u00e8re assoupi\nqu'aux trois quarts.\n\n\u00abAllez appeler le gentleman, lui dit son ma\u00eetre, et pr\u00e9venez-le qu'il me\ntrouvera avec M. Pickwick, dans le bois. Vous lui montrerez le chemin,\nentendez-vous?\u00bb\n\nJoe s'\u00e9loigna pour ex\u00e9cuter cette commission, et M. Wardle, portant les\ndeux fusils, conduisit M. Pickwick hors du jardin.\n\n\u00abVoici la place,\u00bb dit-il au bout de quelques minutes en s'arr\u00eatant dans\nune avenue d'arbres. C'\u00e9tait un avertissement inutile, car le\ncroassement continuel des pauvres corneilles indiquait suffisamment leur\ndomicile.\n\nLe vieux gentleman posa l'un des fusils sur la terre et chargea l'autre.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0 nos gens, dit M. Pickwick. Et en effet on aper\u00e7ut au loin M.\nTupman, M. Snodgrass et M. Winkle, car Joe ne sachant pas, au juste,\nlequel de ces messieurs il devait amener, avait jug\u00e9, dans sa sagacit\u00e9\nprofonde, que pour pr\u00e9venir toute erreur, le meilleur moyen \u00e9tait de les\nconvoquer tous les trois.\n\n\u00abArrivez! arrivez! cria le vieux gentleman \u00e0 M. Winkle. Un fameux tireur\ncomme vous aurait d\u00fb \u00eatre pr\u00eat depuis longtemps, m\u00eame pour si peu de\nchose.\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle r\u00e9pondit par un sourire contraint, et ramassa le fusil qui lui\n\u00e9tait destin\u00e9, avec l'expression de physionomie qui aurait pu convenir \u00e0\nune corneille m\u00e9taphysicienne, tourment\u00e9e par le pressentiment d'une\nmort prochaine et violente. C'\u00e9tait peut-\u00eatre de l'indiff\u00e9rence, mais\ncela ressemblait prodigieusement \u00e0 de l'abattement.\n\nLe vieux gentleman fit un signe, et deux gamins d\u00e9guenill\u00e9s commenc\u00e8rent\n\u00e0 grimper lestement sur deux arbres.\n\n\u00abPourquoi faire ces enfants?\u00bb demanda brusquement M. Pickwick.\n\nSon bon coeur s'\u00e9tait alarm\u00e9, car il avait tant entendu parler de la\nd\u00e9tresse des laboureurs, qu'il n'\u00e9tait pas \u00e9loign\u00e9 de croire que leurs\nenfants pussent \u00eatre forc\u00e9s par la mis\u00e8re, \u00e0 s'offrir eux-m\u00eames pour but\naux chasseurs, afin d'assurer ainsi \u00e0 leurs parents une ch\u00e9tive\nsubsistance.\n\n\u00abSeulement pour faire lever le gibier, r\u00e9pondit en riant M. Wardle.\n\n--Pour faire quoi?\n\n--Pour effrayer les corneilles.\n\n--Ah! voil\u00e0 tout?\n\n--Oui. Vous voil\u00e0 enti\u00e8rement tranquille?\n\n--Tout \u00e0 fait.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien! Commencerai-je? ajouta le vieux gentleman en s'adressant \u00e0\nM. Winkle.\n\n--Oui, s'il vous pla\u00eet, r\u00e9pondit celui-ci, enchant\u00e9 d'avoir un moment de\nr\u00e9pit.\n\n--Reculez-vous un peu. Allons! voil\u00e0 le moment!\u00bb\n\nL'un des enfants cria en secouant une branche, sur laquelle \u00e9tait un\nnid, et aussit\u00f4t une douzaine de jeunes corneilles, interrompues au\nmilieu d'une tr\u00e8s-bruyante conversation, s'\u00e9lanc\u00e8rent au dehors pour\ndemander de quoi il s'agissait. Le vieux gentleman fit feu, par mani\u00e8re\nde r\u00e9plique. L'un des oiseaux tomba et les autres s'envol\u00e8rent.\n\n--Ramassez-le Joe,\u00bb dit le vieux gentleman.\n\nLe corpulent jeune homme s'avan\u00e7a, et ses traits s'\u00e9panouirent en guise\nde sourire: des visions indistinctes de p\u00e2t\u00e9s de corneilles flottaient\ndevant son imagination. En emportant l'oiseau, il riait, car la victime\n\u00e9tait grasse et tendre.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, \u00e0 votre tour, monsieur Winkle, dit le vieux gentleman en\nrechargeant son fusil. Allons! tirez!\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle s'avan\u00e7a, et \u00e9paula son fusil. M. Pickwick et ses compagnons\nse recul\u00e8rent involontairement, pour \u00e9viter la pluie de corneilles\nqu'ils \u00e9taient s\u00fbrs de voir tomber sous le plomb d\u00e9vastateur de leur\nami. Il y eut une pose solennelle, un grand cri, un battement d'ailes,\nun l\u00e9ger clic....\n\n\u00abOh! oh! fit le vieux gentleman.\n\n--Il ne veut pas partir? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Il a rat\u00e9, r\u00e9pondit M. Winkle, qui \u00e9tait fort p\u00e2le, probablement de\nd\u00e9sappointement.\n\n--C'est \u00e9trange, dit le vieux gentleman en prenant le fusil. Cela ne lui\nest jamais arriv\u00e9.\n\n--Comment? je ne vois aucun reste de la capsule.\n\n--En v\u00e9rit\u00e9? r\u00e9partit M. Winkle: j'aurai compl\u00e9tement oubli\u00e9 la\ncapsule.\u00bb\n\nCette l\u00e9g\u00e8re omission fut r\u00e9par\u00e9e; M. Pickwick s'abrita de nouveau, et\nM. Tupman se mit derri\u00e8re un arbre. M. Winkle fit un pas en avant, d'un\nair d\u00e9termin\u00e9, en tenant son fusil \u00e0 deux mains. L'enfant cria; quatre\noiseaux s'envol\u00e8rent; M. Winkle leva son arme; on entendit une\nexplosion, puis un cri d'angoisse; mais ce n'\u00e9tait pas le cri d'une\ncorneille. M. Tupman avait sauv\u00e9 la vie \u00e0 beaucoup d'innocents oiseaux,\nen recevant dans son bras gauche une partie de la charge.\n\nIl serait impossible d'exprimer la confusion qui s'en suivit; de dire\ncomment M. Pickwick, dans les premiers transports de son \u00e9motion, appela\nM. Winkle, mis\u00e9rable! comment M. Tupman \u00e9tait \u00e9tendu sur le gazon;\ncomment M. Winkle, frapp\u00e9 d'horreur, s'\u00e9tait agenouill\u00e9 aupr\u00e8s de lui;\ncomment M. Tupman, dans le d\u00e9lire, invoquait plusieurs noms de bapt\u00eame\nf\u00e9minins, puis ouvrait un oeil, puis l'autre, et retombait en arri\u00e8re, en\nles fermant tous les deux. Une telle sc\u00e8ne serait aussi difficile \u00e0\nd\u00e9crire, qu'il le serait de peindre le malheureux bless\u00e9 revenant\ngraduellement \u00e0 lui-m\u00eame, voyant bander ses plaies avec des mouchoirs,\net regagnant lentement la maison, appuy\u00e9 sur ses amis inquiets.\n\nLes dames \u00e9taient sur le seuil de la porte, attendant le retour de ces\nmessieurs pour d\u00e9jeuner. La tante demoiselle brillait entre toutes; elle\nsourit et leur fit signe de venir plus vite. Il \u00e9tait \u00e9vident qu'elle ne\nsavait point l'accident arriv\u00e9. Pauvre cr\u00e9ature! Il y a des moments o\u00f9\nl'ignorance est v\u00e9ritablement un bienfait.\n\nOn approchait de plus en plus.\n\n\u00abQu'est-il donc arriv\u00e9 au vieux petit monsieur? dit \u00e0 demi-voix miss\nIsabella Wardle. La tante demoiselle ne fit pas attention \u00e0 cette\nremarque. Elle crut qu'il s'agissait de M. Pickwick; car \u00e0 ses yeux,\nTracy Tupman \u00e9tait un jeune homme: elle voyait ses ann\u00e9es \u00e0 travers un\nverre rapetissant.\n\n--Ne vous effrayez point! cria M. Wardle \u00e0 ses filles; et la petite\ntroupe \u00e9tait tellement press\u00e9e autour de M. Tupman, qu'on ne pouvait pas\nencore distinguer clairement la nature de l'\u00e9v\u00e9nement.\n\n--Ne vous effrayez point, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Wardle quelques pas plus loin.\n\n--Qu'y a-t-il donc! s'\u00e9cri\u00e8rent les dames horriblement alarm\u00e9es par\ncette pr\u00e9caution.\n\n--IL est arriv\u00e9 un petit accident \u00e0 M. Tupman; voil\u00e0 tout.\u00bb\n\nLa tante demoiselle poussa un cri per\u00e7ant, ferma les yeux et se laissa\ntomber \u00e0 la renverse dans les bras des deux jeunes personnes.\n\n\u00abJetez-lui de l'eau froide au visage, s'\u00e9cria le vieux gentleman.\n\n--Non! Non! murmura la tante demoiselle. Je suis mieux maintenant,\nBella.... \u00c9mily.... Un chirurgien.... Est-il bless\u00e9? est-il mort?\nest-il.... Ah! ah! ah!...\u00bb Et la tante demoiselle, poussant de nouveaux\ncris, eut une attaque de nerfs n\u00b0 2.\n\n\u00abCalmez-vous, dit M. Tupman affect\u00e9 presque jusqu'aux larmes de cette\nexpression de sympathie pour ses souffrances. Ch\u00e8re demoiselle,\ncalmez-vous!\n\n--C'est sa voix! s'\u00e9cria la tante demoiselle; et de violents sympt\u00f4mes\nd'une attaque n\u00b0 3 se manifest\u00e8rent aussit\u00f4t.\n\n--Ne vous tourmentez pas, je vous en supplie, tr\u00e8s-ch\u00e8re demoiselle,\nreprit M. Tupman d'une voix consolante. Je suis fort peu bless\u00e9, je vous\nassure.\n\n--Vous n'\u00eates donc pas mort? s'\u00e9cria la nerveuse personne. Oh! dites que\nvous n'\u00eates pas mort.\n\n--Ne faites pas la folle, Rachel, interrompit M. Wardle, d'une mani\u00e8re\nplus brusque que ne semblait le comporter la nature po\u00e9tique de cette\nsc\u00e8ne. Quelle diable de n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 y a-t-il, qu'il vous dise lui-m\u00eame\nqu'il n'est pas mort?\n\n--Non! je ne le suis pas, reprit M. Tupman; je n'ai pas besoin d'autres\nsecours que les v\u00f4tres. Laissez-moi m'appuyer sur votre bras....\u00bb Et il\najouta \u00e0 son oreille: \u00abO miss Rachel!\u00bb Pleine d'agitation, la dame de\nses pens\u00e9es s'avan\u00e7a et lui offrit son bras. Ils entr\u00e8rent ensemble dans\nle salon. M. Tracy Tupman pressa doucement sur ses l\u00e8vres une main qu'on\nlui abandonna, et se laissa tomber ensuite sur un canap\u00e9.\n\n\u00abVous trouvez-vous mal? demanda Rachel avec anxi\u00e9t\u00e9.\n\n--Non, ce n'est rien; je serai mieux dans un instant, r\u00e9pondit M. Tupman\nen fermant les yeux.\n\n--Il dort! murmura la tante demoiselle (il avait clos ses paupi\u00e8res\ndepuis pr\u00e8s de vingt secondes). Il dort! cher M. Tupman!\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman sauta sur ses pieds. Oh! r\u00e9p\u00e9tez ces paroles! s'\u00e9cria-t-il.\n\nLa dame tressaillit. \u00abS\u00fbrement vous ne les avez pas entendues, dit-elle\navec pudeur.\n\n--Oh! si, je les ai entendues, r\u00e9pliqua chaleureusement M. Tupman.\nR\u00e9p\u00e9tez ces paroles, si vous voulez que je gu\u00e9risse! r\u00e9p\u00e9tez-les.\n\n--Silence! dit la dame! voil\u00e0 mon fr\u00e8re!\u00bb\n\nM. Tracy Tupman reprit sa premi\u00e8re position, et M. Wardle entra dans la\nchambre, accompagn\u00e9 d'un chirurgien.\n\nLe bras fut examin\u00e9; la blessure pans\u00e9e, et d\u00e9clar\u00e9e fort l\u00e9g\u00e8re; et\nl'esprit des assistants se trouvant ainsi rassur\u00e9 ils proc\u00e9d\u00e8rent \u00e0\nsatisfaire leur app\u00e9tit. La gaiet\u00e9 brillait de nouveau sur leurs\nvisages. M. Pickwick seul restait silencieux et r\u00e9serv\u00e9; la doute et la\nm\u00e9fiance se peignaient sur sa physionomie expressive, car sa confiance\nen M. Winkle avait \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9branl\u00e9e, grandement \u00e9branl\u00e9e par les aventures\ndu matin.\n\n\u00abJouez-vous \u00e0 la crosse? demanda M. Wardle au chasseur.\n\nDans tout autre temps M. Winkle aurait r\u00e9pondu d'une mani\u00e8re\naffirmative, mais il sentit la d\u00e9licatesse de sa position, et r\u00e9pliqua\nmodestement: \u00abNon monsieur.\n\n--Et vous, monsieur? demanda M. Snodgrass au joyeux vieillard.\n\n--J'y jouais autrefois, r\u00e9pliqua celui-ci; mais j'y ai renonc\u00e9\nd\u00e9sormais. Cependant je souscris au club, quoique je ne joue plus.\n\n--N'est-ce pas aujourd'hui qu'a lieu la grande partie entre les camps\noppos\u00e9s de Muggleton et de Dingley-Dell? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Oui, r\u00e9pliqua leur h\u00f4te: vous y viendrez, n'est-ce pas?\n\n--Oui, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick: j'ai grand plaisir \u00e0 voir des\nexercices auxquels on peut se livrer sans danger, et dans lesquels la\nmaladresse des gens ne met pas en p\u00e9ril la vie de leurs semblables.\u00bb En\npronon\u00e7ant ces mots M. Pickwick fit une pause expressive, et regarda\nfixement M. Winkle, qui ne put soutenir sans fr\u00e9mir le coup d'oeil\np\u00e9n\u00e9trant de son mentor. Celui-ci ajouta alors: \u00abNe serait-il pas\nconvenable de confier notre ami bless\u00e9 aux soins de ces dames?\n\n--Vous ne pouvez pas me placer dans de meilleures mains, murmura M\nTupman.\n\n--Ce serait impossible,\u00bb ajouta M. Snodgrass.\n\nIl fut donc convenu que M. Tupman resterait \u00e0 la maison sous la\nsurveillance des dames, et que la portion masculine de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9,\nconduite par M. Wardle, irait juger des coups dans ce combat d'habilet\u00e9\nqui avait tir\u00e9 Muggleton de sa torpeur, et inocul\u00e9 \u00e0 Dingley-Dell une\nexcitation f\u00e9brile.\n\nIl n'y avait gu\u00e8re qu'une demi-lieue de distance \u00e0 parcourir, et le\nsentier couvert de mousse passait par des all\u00e9es ombrag\u00e9es. La\nconversation roula principalement sur les d\u00e9licieux paysages qui se\nd\u00e9couvraient tour \u00e0 tour, et M. Pickwick regretta presque d'avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 si\nvite, lorsqu'il se trouva dans la grande rue de Muggleton.\n\nToutes les personnes dont le g\u00e9nie est dou\u00e9 de la moindre propension\ng\u00e9ographique savent, n\u00e9cessairement, que la ville de Muggleton jouit\nd'une corporation, qu'elle poss\u00e8de un maire, des bourgeois, des\n\u00e9lecteurs: et quiconque consultera les Adresses du maire aux _freemen_,\nou celles des _freemen_ au maire, ou celles du maire et des _freemen_ \u00e0\nla corporation, ou celles du maire, des _freemen_ et de la corporation\nau Parlement, apprendra par l\u00e0 ce qu'il aurait d\u00fb conna\u00eetre auparavant:\n\u00e0 savoir, que Muggleton est un _bourg_ ancien et loyal, unissant une\nferveur z\u00e9l\u00e9e pour les principes du christianisme \u00e0 un attachement\nsolide aux droits commerciaux. En preuve de quoi, le maire, la\ncorporation et divers habitants, ont pr\u00e9sent\u00e9 \u00e0 diff\u00e9rentes reprises\nsoixante-huit p\u00e9titions pour qu'on permit la vente des b\u00e9n\u00e9fices dans\nl'\u00e9glise, quatre-vingt-six p\u00e9titions pour qu'on d\u00e9fend\u00eet la vente dans\nles rues le dimanche, mille quatre cent vingt p\u00e9titions contre la traite\ndes noirs en Am\u00e9rique, avec un nombre \u00e9gal de p\u00e9titions contre toute\nesp\u00e8ce d'intervention l\u00e9gislative, au sujet du travail exag\u00e9r\u00e9 des\nenfants, dans les manufactures anglaises.\n\nLorsque M. Pickwick se trouva dans la grande rue de cet illustre bourg,\nil contempla la sc\u00e8ne qui s'offrit \u00e0 ses yeux avec une curiosit\u00e9\nm\u00e9lang\u00e9e d'int\u00e9r\u00eat.\n\nLa place du march\u00e9 avait la forme d'un carr\u00e9 au centre duquel s'\u00e9tait\n\u00e9rig\u00e9e une vaste auberge. Son enseigne \u00e9norme \u00e9talait un objet fort\ncommun dans les arts, mais qu'on rencontre rarement dans la nature,\nc'est-\u00e0-dire un lion bleu, ayant trois pattes en l'air et se balan\u00e7ant\nsur l'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 de l'ongle central de la quatri\u00e8me. On voyait aux\nenvirons un bureau d'assurance contre l'incendie et celui d'un\ncommissaire-priseur, les magasins d'un marchand de bl\u00e9 et d'un marchand\nde toile, les boutiques d'un sellier, d'un distillateur, d'un \u00e9picier et\nd'un cordonnier, lequel cordonnier faisait \u00e9galement servir son local \u00e0\nla diffusion des chapeaux, des bonnets, des hardes de toute esp\u00e8ce, des\nparapluies et des connaissances utiles. Il y avait en outre une petite\nmaison de briques rouges, pr\u00e9c\u00e9d\u00e9e d'une sorte de cour pav\u00e9e, et que\ntout le monde, \u00e0 la premi\u00e8re vue, reconnaissait pour appartenir \u00e0 un\navou\u00e9. Il y avait encore une autre maison en briques rouges sur la porte\nde laquelle s'\u00e9talait une large plaque de cuivre annon\u00e7ant, en\ncaract\u00e8res tr\u00e8s-lisibles, que cette maison appartenait \u00e0 un chirurgien.\nQuelques jeunes gens se dirigeaient vers le jeu de crosse, et deux ou\ntrois boutiquiers, se tenant debout sur le pav\u00e9 de leur porte, avaient\nl'air fort d\u00e9sireux de se rendre au m\u00eame endroit, comme ils auraient pu\nle faire, selon toutes les apparences, sans perdre un grand nombre de\nchalands.\n\nM. Pickwick s'\u00e9tait d\u00e9j\u00e0 arr\u00eat\u00e9 pour faire ces observations qu'il se\nproposait de noter \u00e0 son aise, mais comme ses amis avaient quitt\u00e9 la\ngrande rue, il se h\u00e2ta de les rejoindre et les retrouva en vue du champ\nde bataille.\n\nLes barres que les joueurs doivent conqu\u00e9rir ou d\u00e9fendre \u00e9taient d\u00e9j\u00e0\nplac\u00e9es, aussi bien qu'une couple de tentes pour servir au repos et au\nrafra\u00eechissement des parties bellig\u00e9rantes. Mais le jeu n'\u00e9tait pas\nencore commenc\u00e9. Deux ou trois Dingley-Dellois ou Muggletoniens\ns'amusaient d'un air majestueux \u00e0 jeter n\u00e9gligemment leur balle d'une\nmain dans l'autre. Ils avaient des chapeaux de paille, des jaquettes de\nflanelle et des pantalons blancs, ce qui leur donnait tout \u00e0 fait la\ntournure d'amateurs tailleurs de pierre. Quelques autres gentlemen,\nv\u00eatus de la m\u00eame mani\u00e8re, \u00e9taient \u00e9parpill\u00e9s autour des tentes, vers\nl'une desquelles M. Wardle conduisit sa soci\u00e9t\u00e9.\n\nPlusieurs douzaines de \u00abComment vous portez-vous?\u00bb salu\u00e8rent l'arriv\u00e9e\ndu vieux gentleman, et il y eut un soul\u00e8vement g\u00e9n\u00e9ral de chapeaux de\npaille, avec une inclinaison contagieuse de gilets de flanelle,\nlorsqu'il introduisit ses h\u00f4tes comme des gentlemen de Londres, qui\nd\u00e9siraient vivement assister aux agr\u00e9ables divertissements de la\njourn\u00e9e.\n\n\u00abJe crois, monsieur, que vous feriez mieux d'entrer dans la marquise,\ndit un tr\u00e8s-volumineux gentleman, dont le corps paraissait \u00eatre la\nmoiti\u00e9 d'une gigantesque pi\u00e8ce de flanelle, perch\u00e9e sur une couple de\ntraversins.\n\n--Vous y seriez beaucoup mieux, monsieur, ajouta un autre gentleman\naussi volumineux que le pr\u00e9c\u00e9dent, et qui ressemblait \u00e0 l'autre moiti\u00e9\nde la susdite pi\u00e8ce de flanelle.\n\n--Vous \u00eates bien bon, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Par ici, reprit le premier gentleman; c'est ici que l'on marque, c'est\nla place la meilleure;\u00bb et il les pr\u00e9c\u00e9da en soufflant comme un cheval\npoussif.\n\nJeu superbe,--noble occupation,--bel exercice,--charmant! Telles furent\nles paroles qui frapp\u00e8rent les oreilles de M. Pickwick en entrant dans\nla tente, et le premier objet qui s'offrit \u00e0 ses regards fut son ami de\nla voiture de Rochester. Il \u00e9tait en train de p\u00e9rorer, \u00e0 la grande\nsatisfaction d'un cercle choisi des joueurs \u00e9lus par la ville de\nMuggleton. Son costume s'\u00e9tait l\u00e9g\u00e8rement am\u00e9lior\u00e9. Il avait des bottes\nneuves, mais il \u00e9tait impossible de le m\u00e9conna\u00eetre.\n\nL'\u00e9tranger reconnut imm\u00e9diatement ses amis. Avec son imp\u00e9tuosit\u00e9\nordinaire et en parlant continuellement, il se pr\u00e9cipita vers M.\nPickwick, le saisit par la main et le tira vers un si\u00e9ge, comme si tous\nles arrangements du jeu avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 sp\u00e9cialement sous sa direction.\n\n\u00abPar ici!--par ici!--\u00e7a sera fi\u00e8rement amusant,--muids de\nbi\u00e8re,--monceaux de boeuf,--tonneaux de moutarde,--glorieuse\njourn\u00e9e,--asseyez-vous,--mettez-vous \u00e0 votre aise,--charm\u00e9 de vous voir,\ntr\u00e8s-charm\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick s'assit comme on le lui disait, et MM. Winkle et Snodgrass\nsuivirent \u00e9galement les indications de leur myst\u00e9rieux ami. M. Wardle\nl'examinait avec un \u00e9tonnement silencieux.\n\n--M. Wardle, un de mes amis, dit M. Pickwick \u00e0 l'\u00e9tranger.\n\n--Un de vos amis? s'\u00e9cria celui-ci. Mon cher monsieur, comment vous\nportez-vous?--Les amis de nos amis sont....--Votre main, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nEn enfilant ces phrases, l'\u00e9tranger saisit la main de M. Wardle avec\ntoute la chaleur d'une vieille intimit\u00e9, puis se recula de deux ou trois\npas, comme pour mieux voir son visage et sa tournure, puis secoua sa\nmain de nouveau plus chaudement encore que la premi\u00e8re fois, s'il est\npossible.\n\n\u00abEt comment \u00eates-vous venu ici? demanda M. Pickwick avec un sourire o\u00f9\nla bienveillance luttait contre la surprise.\n\n--Venu?--Je loge \u00e0 l'auberge de la Couronne, \u00e0 Muggleton.--Rencontr\u00e9 une\nsoci\u00e9t\u00e9.--Jaquettes de flanelle,--pantalons blancs,--sandwiches aux\nanchois,--rognons brais\u00e9s,--fameux gaillards,--charmant!\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick connaissait assez le syst\u00e8me st\u00e9nographique de l'\u00e9tranger\npour conclure de cette communication rapide et disloqu\u00e9e que, d'une\nmani\u00e8re ou d'une autre, il avait fait connaissance avec les\nMuggletoniens, et que, par un proc\u00e9d\u00e9 qui lui \u00e9tait particulier, il\n\u00e9tait parvenu \u00e0 en extraire une invitation g\u00e9n\u00e9rale. La curiosit\u00e9 de M.\nPickwick ainsi satisfaite, il ajusta ses lunettes et se pr\u00e9para \u00e0\nconsid\u00e9rer le jeu qui venait de commencer.\n\nLes deux joueurs les plus renomm\u00e9s du fameux club de Muggleton, M.\nDumkins et M. Podder, tenant leurs crosses \u00e0 la main, se port\u00e8rent\nsolennellement vers leurs guichets respectifs. M. Luffey, le plus noble\nornement de Dingley-Dell, fut choisi pour _bouler_ contre le redoutable\nDumkins, et M. Struggles fut \u00e9lu pour rendre le m\u00eame office \u00e0\nl'invincible Podder. Plusieurs joueurs furent plac\u00e9s pour _guetter_ les\nballes en diff\u00e9rents endroits de la plaine, et chacun d'eux se mit dans\nl'attitude convenable, en appuyant une main sur chaque genou et en se\ncourbant, comme s'il avait voulu offrir un dos favorable \u00e0 quelque\napprenti _saute-mouton_. Tous les joueurs classiques se posent ainsi, et\nm\u00eame on pense g\u00e9n\u00e9ralement qu'il serait impossible de bien voir venir\nune balle dans une autre attitude.\n\nLes arbitres se plac\u00e8rent derri\u00e8re les guichets et les compteurs se\npr\u00e9par\u00e8rent \u00e0 noter les points. Il se fit alors un profond silence. M.\nLuffey se retira quelques pas en arri\u00e8re du guichet de l'immuable\nPodder, et, durant quelques secondes, il appliqua sa balle \u00e0 son oeil\ndroit. Dumkins, les yeux fix\u00e9s sur chaque mouvement de Luffey, attendait\nl'arriv\u00e9e de la balle avec une noble confiance.\n\n\u00abAttention, s'\u00e9cria soudain le _bouleur_, et en m\u00eame temps la balle\ns'\u00e9chappe de sa main, rapide comme l'\u00e9clair, et se dirige vers le centre\ndu guichet. Le prudent Dumkins \u00e9tait sur ses gardes; il re\u00e7ut la balle\nsur le bout de sa crosse et la fit voler au loin par-dessus les\n\u00e9claireurs, qui s'\u00e9taient baiss\u00e9s justement assez pour la laisser passer\nau-dessus de leur t\u00eate.\n\n--Courez! courez!--Une autre balle!--Maintenant!\n--Allons!--Jetez-la!--Allons!--Arr\u00eatez-la!--Une autre!\n--Non!--Oui!--Non!--Jetez-la!--Jetez-la.\u00bb Telles furent les acclamations\nqui suivirent ce coup, \u00e0 la conclusion duquel Muggleton avait gagn\u00e9 deux\npoints.\n\nCependant Podder n'\u00e9tait pas moins actif \u00e0 se couvrir de lauriers, dont\nl'\u00e9clat rejaillissait \u00e9galement sur Muggleton. Il bloquait les balles\ndouteuses, laissait passer les mauvaises, prenait les bonnes et les\nfaisait voler dans tous les coins de la plaine. Les coureurs \u00e9taient sur\nles dents. Les _bouleurs_ furent chang\u00e9s et d'autres _boul\u00e8rent_ jusqu'\u00e0\nce que leur bras en devinssent roides; mais Dumkins et Podder rest\u00e8rent\ninvaincus. Vainement la balle \u00e9tait lanc\u00e9e droit au centre du guichet,\nils y arrivaient avant elle et la repoussaient au loin. Un gentleman\nd'un certain \u00e2ge s'effor\u00e7ait-il d'arr\u00eater son mouvement, elle roulait\nentre ses jambes ou glissait entre ses doigts; un mince gentleman\nessayait-il de l'attraper, elle lui choquait le nez et rebondissait\nplaisamment avec une nouvelle force, pendant que les yeux du joueur\nmaladroit se remplissaient de larmes et que son corps se tordait par la\nviolence de ses angoisses. Enfin, quand on fit le compte de Dumkins et\nde Podder, Muggleton avait marqu\u00e9 cinquante-quatre points, tandis que la\nmarque des Dingley-Dellois \u00e9tait aussi blanche que leurs visages.\nL'avantage \u00e9tait trop grand pour \u00eatre reconquis. Vainement l'imp\u00e9tueux\nLuffey, vainement l'enthousiaste Struggles firent-ils tout ce que\nl'exp\u00e9rience et le savoir pouvaient leur sugg\u00e9rer pour regagner le\nterrain perdu par Dingley-Dell, tout fut inutile, et bient\u00f4t\nDingley-Dell fut oblig\u00e9 de reconna\u00eetre Muggleton pour son vainqueur.\n\nCependant l'\u00e9tranger \u00e0 l'habit vert n'avait fait que boire, manger et\nparler \u00e0 la fois et sans interruption. A chaque coup bien jou\u00e9, il\nexprimait son approbation d'une mani\u00e8re pleine de condescendance et qui\nne pouvait manquer d'\u00eatre singuli\u00e8rement flatteuse pour les joueurs qui\nla m\u00e9ritaient. Mais aussi, chaque fois qu'un joueur ne pouvait saisir la\nballe ou l'arr\u00eater, il fulminait contre le maladroit. Ah!\nstupide!--Allons, maladroit!--Imb\u00e9cile!--Cruche! etc. Exclamations au\nmoyen desquelles il se posait aux yeux des assistants, comme un juge\nexcellent, infaillible dans tous les myst\u00e8res du noble jeu de la crosse.\n\n\u00abFameuse partie! bien jou\u00e9e! Certains coups admirables! dit l'\u00e9tranger \u00e0\nla fin du jeu, au moment o\u00f9 les deux partis se pressaient dans la tente.\n\n--Vous y jouez, monsieur? demanda M. Wardle qui avait \u00e9t\u00e9 amus\u00e9 par sa\nloquacit\u00e9.\n\n--Jou\u00e9? parbleu! Mille fois. Pas ici; aux Indes occidentales. Jeu\nentra\u00eenant! chaude besogne, tr\u00e8s-chaude!\n\n--Ce jeu doit \u00eatre bien \u00e9chauffant dans un pareil climat! fit observer\nM. Pickwick.\n\n--\u00c9chauffant? Dites br\u00fblant! grillant! d\u00e9vorant! Un jour, je jouais un\nseul guichet contre mon ami le colonel sir Thomas Blazo, \u00e0 qui ferait le\nplus de points. Jouant \u00e0 pile ou face qui commencera, je gagne: sept\nheures du matin: six indig\u00e8nes pour ramasser les balles. Je commence. Je\nrenvoie toutes les balles du colonel. Chaleur intense! Les indig\u00e8nes se\ntrouvent mal. On les emporte. Une autre demi-douzaine les remplace; ils\nse trouvent mal de m\u00eame. Blazo joue, soutenu par deux indig\u00e8nes. Moi,\ninfatigable, je lui renvoie toujours ses balles. Blazo se trouve mal\naussi. Enfonc\u00e9 le colonel! Moi, je ne veut pas cesser. Quanko Samba\nrestait seul. Le soleil \u00e9tait rouge, les crosses br\u00fblaient comme des\ncharbons ardents, les balles avaient des boutons de chaleur. Cinq cent\nsoixante-dix points! Je n'en pouvais plus. Quanko recueille un reste de\nforce. Sa balle renverse mon guichet; mais je prends un bain, et vais\nd\u00eener.\n\n--Et que devint ce monsieur... Chose? demanda un vieux gentleman.\n\n--Qui? Le colonel Blazo?\n\n--Non, l'autre gentleman.\n\n--Quanko Samba?\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--Pauvre Quanko! n'en releva jamais, quitta le jeu, quitta la vie,\nmourut, monsieur!\u00bb En pronon\u00e7ant ces mots, l'\u00e9tranger ensevelit son\nvisage dans un pot d'ale. Mais \u00e9tait-ce pour en savourer le contenu, ou\npour cacher son \u00e9motion? C'est ce que nous n'avons jamais pu \u00e9claircir.\nNous savons seulement qu'il s'arr\u00eata tout \u00e0 coup, qu'il poussa un long\net profond soupir, et qu'il regarda avec anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 deux des principaux\nmembres du club de Dingley-Dell qui s'approchaient de M. Pickwick, et\nqui lui disaient:\n\n\u00abNous allons faire un modeste repas au _Lion bleu_. Nous esp\u00e9rons,\nmonsieur, que vous voudrez bien y prendre part, avec vos amis.\n\n--Et naturellement, dit M. Wardle, parmi nos amis nous comptons\nmonsieur..., et il se tourna vers l'\u00e9tranger.\n\n--Jingle, r\u00e9pondit cet universel personnage. Alfred Jingle, esquire, de\nSansterre.\n\n--J'accepte avec grand plaisir, dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Et moi aussi, cria M. Alfred Jingle en prenant d'un c\u00f4t\u00e9 le bras de M.\nWardle, et, de l'autre, celui de M. Pickwick, et en murmurant \u00e0\nl'oreille de celui-ci:\n\n--Fameux d\u00eener! froid, mais bon. J'ai lorgn\u00e9 dans la chambre, ce matin:\nvolailles et p\u00e2t\u00e9s, et le reste. Charmantes gens, et polis par-dessus le\nmarch\u00e9, tr\u00e8s-polis.\u00bb\n\nComme il n'y avait point d'autres pr\u00e9liminaires \u00e0 arranger, la compagnie\ntraversa le bourg en petits groupes, et un quart d'heure apr\u00e8s elle\n\u00e9tait tout enti\u00e8re assise dans la grande salle du _Lion bleu_ de\nMuggleton.\n\nM. Dumkins remplit les fonctions de pr\u00e9sident, et M. Luffey celles de\nvice-pr\u00e9sident.\n\nIl y eut un grand cliquetis de paroles et d'assiettes, de fourchettes\net de couteaux. Trois gar\u00e7ons couraient de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s, et les mets\nsubstantiels disparaissaient rapidement. Le fac\u00e9tieux M. Jingle\ncontribuait, au moins comme une demi-douzaine d'hommes ordinaires, \u00e0\nchacune de ces causes de confusion. Lorsque tous les convives eurent\nmang\u00e9 autant qu'ils purent, la nappe fut enlev\u00e9e; des bouteilles, des\nverres et le dessert furent plac\u00e9s sur la table, et les gar\u00e7ons se\nretir\u00e8rent pour d\u00e9barrasser, en d'autres termes pour s'approprier tous\nles restes mangeables ou buvables sur lesquels il leur fut possible de\nmettre la main.\n\nBient\u00f4t on n'entendit plus dans la salle qu'un vaste murmure de\nconversations et d'\u00e9clats de rire. Il se trouvait l\u00e0 un petit homme\nbouffi, qui avait un air de \u00abne-me-dites-rien, ou-je-vous-contredirai,\u00bb\net qui jusqu'alors \u00e9tait demeur\u00e9 fort tranquille. Seulement, lorsque,\npar accident, la conversation se ralentissait, il regardait autour de\nlui, comme s'il avait eu envie de dire quelque chose de remarquable, et\nde temps en temps il faisait entendre une sorte de toux s\u00e8che d'une\ninexprimable dignit\u00e9. A la fin, pendant un instant de silence\ncomparatif, le petit homme s'\u00e9cria d'une voix haute et solennelle:\n\u00abMonsieur Luffey!\u00bb\n\nTout le monde se tut, et l'individu interpell\u00e9 r\u00e9pliqua, au milieu d'un\nprofond silence: \u00abMonsieur?\u00bb\n\n\u00abJe d\u00e9sire vous adresser quelques paroles, monsieur, si vous voulez\nengager ces messieurs \u00e0 remplir leurs verres.\u00bb\n\nM. Jingle, d'un ton protecteur, s'\u00e9cria: \u00ab\u00c9coutez! \u00e9coutez!\u00bb et ces\nparoles furent r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9es en choeur par toute la compagnie. Le\nvice-pr\u00e9sident prit un air de gravit\u00e9 attentive et dit: \u00abMonsieur\nStaple?\u00bb\n\n\u00abMonsieur! dit le petit homme en se levant, je d\u00e9sire adresser ce que\nj'ai \u00e0 dire \u00e0 vous et non pas \u00e0 notre digne pr\u00e9sident, parce que notre\ndigne pr\u00e9sident est en quelque sorte, et je puis dire en grande partie,\nle sujet de ce que j'ai \u00e0 dire, et je puis dire \u00e0... \u00e0...\n\n--A d\u00e9montrer, sugg\u00e9ra M. Jingle.\n\n--Oui, \u00e0 d\u00e9montrer, reprit le petit homme; je remercie mon honorable\nami, s'il veut me permettre de l'appeler ainsi (quatre _\u00e9coutez!_ et un\n_certainement_ de M. Jingle) pour la suggestion. Monsieur, je suis un\nDellois, un Dingley-Dellois. (Applaudissements.) Je ne puis r\u00e9clamer\nl'honneur d'ajouter une unit\u00e9 au chiffre de la population de Muggleton.\nEt je l'avouerai franchement, monsieur, je ne d\u00e9sire point cet honneur.\nJe vous dirai pourquoi, monsieur. (\u00c9coutez!) Je reconna\u00eetrai volontiers\n\u00e0 Muggleton toutes les distinctions, tous les honneurs qu'il peut\nr\u00e9clamer; ils sont trop nombreux et trop bien connus pour qu'il soit\nn\u00e9cessaire que je les r\u00e9capitule. Mais, monsieur, tandis que nous nous\nrappelons que Muggleton a donn\u00e9 naissance \u00e0 un Dumkins, \u00e0 un Podder,\nn'oublions jamais que Dingley-Dell peut se vanter d'avoir produit un\nLuffey et un Struggles! (Applaudissements tumultueux.) Qu'on ne me croie\npas d\u00e9sireux d'obscurcir la gloire des gentlemen que j'ai nomm\u00e9s en\npremier lieu, monsieur, je leur envie les jouissances qu'ils ont d\u00fb\nressentir dans cette m\u00e9morable journ\u00e9e. (Applaudissements.) Vous\nconnaissez tous, messieurs, la r\u00e9plique faite \u00e0 l'empereur Alexandre par\nun individu qui, pour me servir d'une expression vulgaire, faisait sa\nt\u00eate dans un tonneau: _Si je n'\u00e9tais pas Diog\u00e8ne, je voudrais \u00eatre\nAlexandre_. Je m'imagine que ces messieurs doivent dire: Si je n'\u00e9tais\npas Dumkins, je voudrais \u00eatre Luffey; si je n'\u00e9tais pas Podder, je\nvoudrais \u00eatre Struggles! (Enthousiasme.) Mais, gentlemen de Muggleton,\nest-ce seulement \u00e0 la crosse que vos compatriotes sont remarquables?\nN'avez-vous jamais entendu citer Dumkins comme un exemple de\npers\u00e9v\u00e9rance? N'avez-vous jamais appris \u00e0 associer Podder et la\npropri\u00e9t\u00e9? (Grands applaudissements.) En luttant pour vos droits, pour\nvotre libert\u00e9, pour vos privil\u00e8ges, n'avez-vous jamais \u00e9t\u00e9 r\u00e9duits, ne\nf\u00fbt-ce que pour un instant, au doute et au d\u00e9sespoir? et, quand vous\n\u00e9tiez ainsi d\u00e9courag\u00e9s, le nom de Dumkins n'a-t-il pas ranim\u00e9 dans votre\ncoeur le feu de l'esp\u00e9rance? Une seule parole de cet homme colossal ne\nl'a-t-elle pas fait briller avec plus d'\u00e9clat que s'il ne s'\u00e9tait jamais\n\u00e9teint? (Grands applaudissements.) Gentlemen, je vous prie d'entourer\nd'une riche aur\u00e9ole d'applaudissements fr\u00e9n\u00e9tiques les noms unis de\nDumkins et de Podder!\u00bb\n\nIci le petit homme se tut, et la compagnie commen\u00e7a un tapage de cris,\nde coups frapp\u00e9s sur la table, qui dura, avec peu d'interruptions,\npendant le reste de la soir\u00e9e. D'autres toasts furent port\u00e9s. M. Luffey\net M. Struggles, M. Pickwick et M. Jingle, furent, chacun \u00e0 son tour, le\nsujet d'\u00e9loges sans m\u00e9lange; et chacun \u00e0 son tour exprima ses\nremerc\u00eements pour cet honneur.\n\nEnthousiaste comme nous le sommes pour la noble entreprise \u00e0 laquelle\nnous nous sommes d\u00e9vou\u00e9, nous aurions \u00e9prouv\u00e9 une inexprimable sensation\nd'orgueil, nous nous serions cru certain de l'immortalit\u00e9 dont nous\nsommes priv\u00e9 actuellement, si nous avions pu mettre sous les yeux de nos\nardents lecteurs le plus faible compte rendu de ces discours. Comme \u00e0\nl'ordinaire, M. Snodgrass prit une grande quantit\u00e9 de notes, et sans\ndoute nous y aurions puis\u00e9 les renseignements les plus importants, si\nl'\u00e9loquence br\u00fblante des orateurs ou l'influence f\u00e9brile du vin n'avait\npoint fait trembler la main du gentleman, au point de rendre son\n\u00e9criture presque inintelligible et son style compl\u00e9tement obscur. A\nforce de patience, nous sommes parvenu \u00e0 reconna\u00eetre quelques caract\u00e8res\nqui ont une faible ressemblance avec les noms des orateurs. Nous avons\npu distinguer aussi le squelette d'une chanson (probablement chant\u00e9e par\nM. Jingle), dans laquelle les mots _vin_ et _divin_, _rubis_ et _ravis_,\nsont r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9s \u00e0 de courts intervalles. Nous nous imaginons aussi pouvoir\nd\u00e9chiffrer \u00e0 la fin de ces notes quelques allusions \u00e0 des restes de\ngigot ou de volaille brais\u00e9e. Puis ensuite nous distinguons les mots de\ngrog froid et d'ale; mais comme les hypoth\u00e8ses que nous pourrions b\u00e2tir\nsur ces indices n'auraient jamais d'autre fondement que nos conjectures,\nnous ne voulons nous permettre d'exprimer aucune des suppositions\nnombreuses qui se pr\u00e9sentent \u00e0 notre esprit.\n\nC'est pourquoi nous allons retourner \u00e0 M. Tupman, nous contentant\nd'ajouter que, peu de minutes avant minuit, les sommit\u00e9s r\u00e9unies de\nDingley-Dell et de Muggleton furent entendues, chantant avec\nenthousiasme cet air si po\u00e9tique et si national:\n\n    Nous ne rentrerons que demain matin,\n    Nous n'irons coucher qu'au jour!\n    Nous ne rentrerons que demain matin,\n    Nous n'irons coucher qu'au jour!\n    Demain matin au point du jour,\n    Nous n'irons coucher qu'au jour![10]\n\n[Footnote 10: Refrain d'une chanson bachique.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE VIII.\n\nFaisant voir clairement que la route du v\u00e9ritable amour n'est aussi unie\nqu'un chemin de fer.\n\n\nLa tranquille solitude de Dingley-Dell, la pr\u00e9sence de tant de personnes\ndu beau sexe, la sollicitude et l'anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 qu'elles t\u00e9moignaient \u00e0 M.\nTupman, \u00e9taient autant de circonstances favorables \u00e0 la germination et \u00e0\nla croissance des doux sentiments que la nature avait sem\u00e9s dans son\nsein, et qui paraissaient maintenant se concentrer sur un aimable objet.\nLes jeunes demoiselles \u00e9taient jolies, leurs mani\u00e8res engageantes, leur\ncaract\u00e8re aussi aimable que possible, mais \u00e0 leur \u00e2ge elles ne pouvaient\npr\u00e9tendre \u00e0 la dignit\u00e9 de la d\u00e9marche, au _noli me tangere_ (ne me\ntouchez pas) du maintien, \u00e0 la majest\u00e9 du regard, qui, aux yeux de M.\nTupman, distinguaient la tante demoiselle de toutes les femmes qu'il\navait jamais lorgn\u00e9es. Il \u00e9tait \u00e9vident que leurs \u00e2mes \u00e9taient parentes,\nqu'il y avait un je ne sais quoi sympathique dans leur nature, une\nmyst\u00e9rieuse ressemblance dans leurs sentiments. Son nom fut le premier\nqui s'\u00e9chappa des l\u00e8vres de M. Tupman, lorsqu'il \u00e9tait \u00e9tendu bless\u00e9 sur\nla terre; le cri d\u00e9chirant de miss Wardle fut le premier qui frappa\nl'oreille de M. Tupman, lorsqu'il fut rapport\u00e9 \u00e0 la maison. Mais cette\nagitation avait-elle \u00e9t\u00e9 caus\u00e9e par une sensibilit\u00e9 aimable et f\u00e9minine,\nqui se serait \u00e9galement manifest\u00e9e pour tout autre; ou bien avait-elle\n\u00e9t\u00e9 enfant\u00e9e par un sentiment plus passionn\u00e9, plus ardent, que lui seul,\nparmi tous les mortels, pouvait \u00e9veiller dans son coeur? Tels \u00e9taient les\ndoutes qui tourmentaient l'esprit de M. Tupman, tandis qu'il gisait\n\u00e9tendu sur le sofa; tels \u00e9taient les doutes qu'il se d\u00e9cida \u00e0 r\u00e9soudre\nsur-le-champ et pour toujours.\n\nLe soleil venait de terminer sa carri\u00e8re: MM. Pickwick, Winkle et\nSnodgrass \u00e9taient all\u00e9s avec leur joyeux h\u00f4te assister \u00e0 la f\u00eate voisine\nde Muggleton; Isabella et \u00c9mily se promenaient avec M. Trundle; la\nvieille dame sourde s'\u00e9tait endormie dans sa berg\u00e8re; le ronflement du\ngros joufflu arrivait, lent et monotone, de la cuisine lointaine. Les\nservantes r\u00e9jouies, fl\u00e2nant sur le pas de la porte, jouissaient des\ncharmes de la brune, et du plaisir de coqueter, d'une fa\u00e7on toute\nprimitive, avec certains animaux lourds et gauches attach\u00e9s \u00e0 la ferme.\nLe couple int\u00e9ressant \u00e9tait assis dans le salon, n\u00e9glig\u00e9s de tout le\nmonde, ne se souciant de personne, et r\u00eavant seulement d'eux-m\u00eames. Ils\nressemblaient, en un mot, \u00e0 une paire de gants d'agneau, repli\u00e9s l'un\ndans l'autre et soigneusement serr\u00e9s.\n\n\u00abJ'ai oubli\u00e9 mes pauvres fleurs, murmura la tante demoiselle.\n\n--Arrosez-les maintenant, r\u00e9pliqua M. Tupman avec l'accent de la\npersuasion.\n\n--L'air du soir vous refroidirait peut-\u00eatre, chuchota tendrement miss\nRachel.\n\n--Non, non, s'\u00e9cria M. Tupman en se levant, cela me fera du bien au\ncontraire. Laissez-moi vous accompagner.\u00bb\n\nL'int\u00e9ressante lady ajusta soigneusement l'\u00e9charpe qui soutenait le bras\ngauche du jouvenceau, et, prenant son bras droit, elle le conduisit dans\nle jardin.\n\nA l'une des extr\u00e9mit\u00e9s, on voyait un berceau de ch\u00e8vrefeuille, de jasmin\net d'autres plantes odorif\u00e9rantes; une de ces douces retraites que les\npropri\u00e9taires compatissants \u00e9l\u00e8vent pour la satisfaction des araign\u00e9es.\n\nLa tante demoiselle y prit, dans un coin, un grand arrosoir de cuivre\nrouge, et se disposa \u00e0 quitter le berceau. M. Tupman la retint et\nl'attira sur un si\u00e9ge \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de lui.\n\n\u00abMiss Wardle,\u00bb soupira-t-il.\n\nLa tante demoiselle fut saisie d'un tremblement si fort que les\ncailloux, qui se trouvaient par hasard dans l'arrosoir, se heurt\u00e8rent\ncontre les parois de zinc, et produisirent un bruit semblable \u00e0 celui\nque ferait entendre le hochet d'un enfant.\n\n\u00abMiss Wardle, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Tupman, vous \u00eates un ange.\n\n--Monsieur Tupman? s'\u00e9cria Rachel en devenant aussi rouge que son\narrosoir.\n\n--Oui, poursuivit l'\u00e9loquent pickwickien. Je le sais trop... pour mon\nmalheur!\n\n--Toutes les dames sont des anges, \u00e0 ce que disent les messieurs,\nr\u00e9torqua Rachel d'un ton enjou\u00e9.\n\n--Qu'est-ce donc que vous pouvez \u00eatre alors; \u00e0 quoi puis-je vous\ncomparer? O\u00f9 serait-il possible de rencontrer une femme qui vous\nressembl\u00e2t? O\u00f9 pourrais-je trouver une aussi rare combinaison\nd'excellence et de beaut\u00e9? O\u00f9 pourrais-je aller chercher.... Oh!\u00bb Ici\nM. Tupman s'arr\u00eata et serra la blanche main qui tenait l'anse de\nl'heureux arrosoir.\n\nLa timide h\u00e9ro\u00efne d\u00e9tourna un peu la t\u00eate. \u00abLes hommes sont de si grands\ntrompeurs, objecta-t-elle faiblement.\n\n--Oui, vous avez raison, exclama M. Tupman; mais ils ne le sont pas\ntous.... Il existe au moins un \u00eatre qui ne changera jamais! Un \u00eatre qui\nserait heureux de d\u00e9vouer toute son existence \u00e0 votre bonheur! Un \u00eatre\nqui ne vit que dans vos yeux, qui ne respire que dans votre sourire! Un\n\u00eatre qui ne supporte que pour vous seule le pesant fardeau de la vie!\n\n--Si l'on pouvait trouver un \u00eatre semblable....\n\n--Mais il est trouv\u00e9! interrompit l'ardent Tupman. Il est trouv\u00e9! Il est\nici, miss Wardle! Et avant que la dame p\u00fbt deviner ses intentions, il se\nprosterna \u00e0 ses pieds.\n\n--Monsieur Tupman, levez-vous! s'\u00e9cria Rachel.\n\n--Jamais! r\u00e9pliqua-t-il bravement. Oh! Rachel! Il saisit sa main\ncomplaisante, qui laissa tomber l'arrosoir, et il la pressa sur ses\nl\u00e8vres. Oh! Rachel! dites que vous m'aimez!\n\n--Monsieur Tupman, murmura la ci-devant jeune personne en tournant la\nt\u00eate, j'ose \u00e0 peine vous r\u00e9pondre.... mais.... vous ne m'\u00eates pas tout \u00e0\nfait indiff\u00e9rent.\u00bb\n\nAussit\u00f4t que M. Tupman eut entendu ce doux aveu, il s'empressa de faire\nce que lui inspirait son \u00e9motion enthousiaste, et ce que tout le monde\nfait dans les m\u00eames circonstances (\u00e0 ce que nous croyons du moins, car\nnous sommes peu familiaris\u00e9 avec ces sortes de choses), il se leva\npr\u00e9cipitamment, jeta ses bras autour du cou de la tendre demoiselle, et\nimprima sur ses l\u00e8vres de nombreux baisers. Apr\u00e8s une r\u00e9sistance\nconvenable, elle se soumit \u00e0 les recevoir si passivement qu'on ne\nsaurait dire combien M. Tupman lui en aurait donn\u00e9, si elle n'avait pas\ntressailli tout d'un coup, sans aucune affectation, cette fois, et ne\ns'\u00e9tait pas \u00e9cri\u00e9e d'une voix effray\u00e9e: \u00abMonsieur Tupman! on nous voit!\nNous sommes perdus!\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman se retourna. Le gros joufflu \u00e9tait derri\u00e8re lui, parfaitement\nimmobile, braquant sur le berceau ses gros yeux circulaires, nais avec\nun visage si d\u00e9nu\u00e9 d'expression, que le plus habile physionomiste\nn'aurait pu y d\u00e9couvrir de traces d'\u00e9tonnement, de curiosit\u00e9, ni\nd'aucune des passions connues qui agitent le coeur humain. M. Tupman\nregarda le gros joufflu, et le gros joufflu regarda M. Tupman; et plus\nM. Tupman \u00e9tudiait la compl\u00e8te torpeur de sa physionomie, plus il\ndemeurait convaincu que le somnolent jeune homme n'avait pas vu ou\nn'avait pas compris ce qui s'\u00e9tait pass\u00e9. Dans cette persuasion il lui\ndit avec une grande fermet\u00e9: \u00abQue venez-vous faire ici?\n\n--Le souper est pr\u00eat, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Joe sans h\u00e9siter.\n\n--Arrivez-vous \u00e0 l'instant? lui demanda M. Tupman, en le transper\u00e7ant du\nregard.\n\n--A l'instant,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit-il.\n\nM. Tupman le consid\u00e9ra de nouveau tr\u00e8s-fixement, mais ses yeux ne\nclign\u00e8rent pas; il n'y avait pas un pli sur son visage.\n\nM. Tupman prit le bras de la tante demoiselle, et marcha avec elle vers\nla maison; le jeune homme les suivit par derri\u00e8re.\n\n\u00abIl ne sait rien de ce qui vient de se passer, dit tout bas l'heureux\npickwickien.\n\n--Rien,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua la dame.\n\nUn bruit se fit entendre derri\u00e8re eux, semblable \u00e0 un ricanement\n\u00e9touff\u00e9. M. Tupman se retourna vivement. Non... ce ne pouvait pas \u00eatre\nle gros joufflu: on ne distinguait pas sur son visage le moindre rayon\nde gaiet\u00e9; on n'y voyait que de la gloutonnerie.\n\n\u00abIl dormait sans doute tout en marchant, chuchota M. Tupman.\n\n--Je n'en ai pas le moindre doute,\u00bb r\u00e9partit la tante demoiselle; et\nalors ils se mirent \u00e0 rire tous les deux.\n\nIls se trompaient, cependant. Une fois en sa vie le l\u00e9thargique jeune\nhomme n'\u00e9tait pas endormi. Il \u00e9tait \u00e9veill\u00e9, bien \u00e9veill\u00e9, et il avait\ntout remarqu\u00e9.\n\nLe souper se passa sans que personne fit aucun effort pour rendre la\nconversation g\u00e9n\u00e9rale. La vieille lady \u00e9tait all\u00e9e se coucher; Isabella\nWardle se d\u00e9vouait exclusivement \u00e0 M. Trundle; les attentions de sa\ntante \u00e9taient r\u00e9serv\u00e9es pour M. Tupman, et les pens\u00e9es d'\u00c9mily\nparaissaient occup\u00e9es de quelque objet lointain; peut-\u00eatre \u00e9taient-elles\nerrantes autour de M. Snodgrass.\n\nOnze heures, minuit, une heure avaient sonn\u00e9 successivement, et les\ngentlemen n'\u00e9taient pas revenus de Muggleton. La consternation \u00e9tait\npeinte sur tous les visages. Avaient-ils \u00e9t\u00e9 attaqu\u00e9s et vol\u00e9s?\nFallait-il envoyer des hommes et des lanternes sur tous les chemins\nqu'ils avaient pu prendre? Fallait-il.... \u00c9coutez.... Les voil\u00e0!--Qui\npeut les avoir tant attard\u00e9s?--Une voix \u00e9trang\u00e8re? \u00e0 qui peut-elle\nappartenir? Tout le monde se pr\u00e9cipita dans la cuisine o\u00f9 les truands\n\u00e9taient d\u00e9barqu\u00e9s, et l'on reconnut au premier coup d'oeil le v\u00e9ritable\n\u00e9tat des choses.\n\nM. Pickwick, avec ses mains dans ses poches et son chapeau compl\u00e9tement\nenfonc\u00e9 sur un oeil, \u00e9tait appuy\u00e9 contre le buffet, et, balan\u00e7ant sa t\u00eate\nde droite \u00e0 gauche, produisait une constante succession de sourires, les\nplus doux, les plus bienveillants du monde, mais sans aucune cause ou\npr\u00e9texte appr\u00e9ciable. Le vieux M. Wardle, dont le visage \u00e9tait\nprodigieusement enflamm\u00e9, serrait les mains d'un visiteur \u00e9tranger en\nb\u00e9gayant des protestations d'amiti\u00e9 \u00e9ternelle. M. Winkle, se soutenant \u00e0\nla bo\u00eete d'une horloge \u00e0 poids, appelait, d'une voix faible, les\nvengeances du ciel sur tout membre de la famille qui lui conseillerait\nd'aller se coucher. Enfin M. Snodgrass s'\u00e9tait affaiss\u00e9 sur une chaise,\net chaque trait de son visage expressif portait l'empreinte de la mis\u00e8re\nla plus abjecte et la plus profonde que se puisse figurer l'esprit\nhumain.\n\n\u00abEst-il arriv\u00e9 quelque chose? demand\u00e8rent les trois dames.\n\n--Rien du tout, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick. Nous... sommes... tous... en bon\n\u00e9tat.... Dites donc.... Wardle.... nous sommes... tous... en bon\n\u00e9tat.... N'est-ce pas?\n\n--Un peu, r\u00e9pliqua le joyeux h\u00f4te. Mes ch\u00e9ries... voici mon ami, M.\nJingle... l'ami de M. Pickwick.... M. Jingle... venu... pour une petite\nvisite....\n\n--Monsieur, demanda \u00c9mily avec anxi\u00e9t\u00e9, est-il arriv\u00e9 quelque chose \u00e0 M.\nSnodgrass?\n\n--Rien du tout, madame, r\u00e9pliqua l'\u00e9tranger. D\u00eener de Club,--joyeuse\ncompagnie,--chansons admirables,--vieux porto,--vin de\nBordeaux,--bon,--tr\u00e8s-bon.--C'est le vin, madame, le vin.\n\n--Ce n'est pas le vin, b\u00e9gaya M. Snodgrass d'un ton grave. C'est le\nsaumon. (Remarquez qu'en pareille circonstance ce n'est jamais le vin.)\n\n--Ne feraient-ils pas mieux d'aller se coucher, madame? demanda Emma.\nDeux des gens pourraient porter ces messieurs dans leur chambre.\n\n--Je n'irai pas me coucher! s'\u00e9cria M. Winkle avec fermet\u00e9.\n\n--Aucun homme vivant ne me portera! dit intr\u00e9pidement M. Pickwick; et il\ncontinua de sourire comme auparavant.\n\n--Hourra! balbutia faiblement M. Winkle.\n\n--Hourra! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick, et prenant son chapeau il l'aplatit sur la\nterre, saisit ses lunettes et les fit voler \u00e0 travers la cuisine; puis,\nayant accompli cette heureuse plaisanterie, il recommen\u00e7a \u00e0 rire comme\nun insens\u00e9.\n\n--Apportez-nous une... une autre... bouteille! cria M. Winkle en\ncommen\u00e7ant sur un ton tr\u00e8s-\u00e9lev\u00e9 et finissant sur un ton tr\u00e8s-bas. Mais\npeu apr\u00e8s sa t\u00eate tomba sur sa poitrine; il murmura encore son\ninvincible d\u00e9termination de ne pas s'aller coucher, b\u00e9gaya un regret\nsanguinaire de n'avoir pas, dans la matin\u00e9e, _fait l'affaire du vieux\nTupman_, puis il s'endormit profond\u00e9ment. En cet \u00e9tat il fut transport\u00e9\ndans sa chambre par deux jeunes g\u00e9ants, sous la surveillance imm\u00e9diate\ndu gros joufflu. Bient\u00f4t apr\u00e8s M. Snodgrass confia sa personne aux soins\nprotecteurs du jeune somnambule. M. Pickwick accepta le bras de M.\nTupman et disparut tranquillement, en souriant plus que jamais. M.\nWardle fit ses adieux \u00e0 toute sa famille d'une mani\u00e8re aussi tendre,\naussi path\u00e9tique, que s'il l'avait quitt\u00e9e pour monter sur l'\u00e9chafaud,\naccorda \u00e0 M. Trundle l'honneur de lui faire gravir les escaliers, et\ns'\u00e9loigna en faisant d'inutiles efforts pour prendre un air digne et\nsolennel.\n\n\u00abQuelle sc\u00e8ne choquante! s'\u00e9cria la tante demoiselle.\n\n--D\u00e9go\u00fbtante! r\u00e9pondirent les deux jeunes ladies.\n\n--Terrible! terrible! dit M. Jingle d'un air tr\u00e8s-grave. (Il \u00e9tait en\navance sur tous ses compagnons d'au moins une bouteille et demie.)\nHorrible spectacle! Tr\u00e8s-horrible.\n\n--Quel aimable homme! dit tout bas la tante demoiselle \u00e0 M. Tupman.\n\n--Et joli gar\u00e7on par-dessus le march\u00e9, murmura \u00c9mily Wardle.\n\n--Oh! tout \u00e0 fait, observa la tante demoiselle.\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman pensa \u00e0 la petite veuve de Rochester, et son esprit fut\ntroubl\u00e9. La demi-heure de conversation qui suivit n'\u00e9tait pas de nature\n\u00e0 le rassurer. Le nouveau visiteur parla beaucoup, et le nombre de ses\nanecdotes fut pourtant moins grand que celui de ses politesses. M.\nTupman sentit que sa faveur d\u00e9croissait \u00e0 mesure que celle de M. Jingle\ndevenait plus grande. Son rire \u00e9tait forc\u00e9, sa gaiet\u00e9 \u00e9tait feinte, et\nlorsqu'\u00e0 la fin il posa sur son oreiller ses tempes br\u00fblantes, il pensa,\navec une horrible satisfaction, au plaisir qu'il aurait \u00e0 tenir en ce\nmoment la t\u00eate de M. Jingle entre son lit de plumes et son matelas.\n\nL'infatigable \u00e9tranger se leva le lendemain de bonne heure, et tandis\nque ses compagnons demeuraient dans leur lit, accabl\u00e9s par les\nd\u00e9bauches de la nuit pr\u00e9c\u00e9dente, il s'employa avec succ\u00e8s \u00e0 \u00e9gayer le\nd\u00e9jeuner. Ses efforts, \u00e0 cet \u00e9gard, furent tellement heureux que la\nvieille dame sourde se fit r\u00e9p\u00e9ter, \u00e0 travers son cornet, deux ou trois\nde ses meilleures plaisanteries, et poussa m\u00eame la condescendance\njusqu'\u00e0 dire tout haut \u00e0 la tante demoiselle que c'\u00e9tait un charmant\nmauvais sujet. Les autres membres pr\u00e9sents de la famille partageaient\ncompl\u00e9tement cette opinion.\n\nDans les belles matin\u00e9es d'\u00e9t\u00e9, la vieille dame avait l'habitude de se\nrendre sous le berceau o\u00f9 M. Tupman s'\u00e9tait si bien signal\u00e9. Les choses\nse passaient ainsi: d'abord le gros joufflu prenait sur un champignon,\ndans la chambre \u00e0 coucher de la vieille lady, un chapeau ou plut\u00f4t un\ncapuchon de satin noir, un ch\u00e2le de coton bien chaud, puis une solide\ncanne, orn\u00e9e d'une poign\u00e9e commode. Ensuite, la vieille dame ayant mis\npos\u00e9ment le capuchon et le ch\u00e2le, s'appuyait d'une main sur la canne, de\nl'autre sur l'\u00e9paule de son page bouffi, et marchait lentement jusqu'au\nberceau, o\u00f9 Joe la laissait jouir de la fra\u00eecheur de l'air pendant une\ndemi-heure: apr\u00e8s quoi il retournait la chercher et la ramenait \u00e0 la\nmaison.\n\nLa vieille dame aimait la pr\u00e9cision et la r\u00e9gularit\u00e9, et, comme depuis\ntrois \u00e9t\u00e9s successifs cette c\u00e9r\u00e9monie s'\u00e9tait accomplie sans la plus\nl\u00e9g\u00e8re infraction aux r\u00e8gles \u00e9tablies, elle ne fut pas l\u00e9g\u00e8rement\nsurprise, dans la matin\u00e9e en question, lorsqu'elle vit le gros joufflu,\nau lieu de quitter le berceau d'un pas lourd, en faire le tour avec\npr\u00e9caution, regarder soigneusement de tous cot\u00e9s, et se rapprocher\nd'elle sur la pointe du pied, avec l'air du plus profond myst\u00e8re.\n\nLa vieille dame \u00e9tait poltronne;--presque toutes les vieilles dames le\nsont;--sa premi\u00e8re pens\u00e9e fut que l'enfl\u00e9 personnage allait lui faire\nquelque atroce violence pour s'emparer de la menue monnaie qu'elle\npouvait avoir sur elle. Elle aurait voulu crier au secours, mais l'\u00e2ge\net l'infirmit\u00e9 l'avaient depuis longtemps priv\u00e9e de la facult\u00e9 de crier.\nElle se contenta donc d'\u00e9pier les mouvements de son page avec une\nterreur profonde, qui ne fut nullement diminu\u00e9e lorsqu'il s'approcha\ntout pr\u00e8s d'elle, et lui cria dans l'oreille d'une voix agit\u00e9e, et qui\nlui parut mena\u00e7ante: \u00abMa\u00eetresse!\u00bb\n\nOr il arriva par hasard que M. Jingle se promenait dans le jardin pr\u00e8s\ndu berceau, dans ce m\u00eame moment. Lui aussi entendit crier \u00abMa\u00eetresse!\u00bb\net il s'arr\u00eata pour en entendre davantage. Il avait trois raisons pour\nagir ainsi. Premi\u00e8rement, il \u00e9tait inoccup\u00e9 et curieux; secondement, il\nn'avait aucune esp\u00e8ce de scrupule; troisi\u00e8mement, il \u00e9tait cach\u00e9 par\nquelques buissons. Il s'arr\u00eata donc, et \u00e9couta.\n\n\u00abMa\u00eetresse! cria le gros joufflu.\n\n--Eh bien, Joe! dit la vieille dame toute tremblante. Vous savez que\nj'ai toujours \u00e9t\u00e9 une bien bonne ma\u00eetresse pour vous. Vous avez toujours\n\u00e9t\u00e9 bien trait\u00e9, Joe. Vous n'avez jamais eu grand'chose \u00e0 faire, et vous\navez toujours eu suffisamment \u00e0 manger.\u00bb\n\nCet habile discours ayant fait vibrer les cordes les plus intimes du\ngros gar\u00e7on, il r\u00e9pondit avec expression: \u00abJe sais \u00e7a.\n\n--Alors, pourquoi m'effrayer ainsi? Que voulez-vous me faire? continua\nla vieille dame en reprenant courage.\n\n--Je veux vous faire frissonner!\u00bb\n\nC'\u00e9tait l\u00e0 une cruelle mani\u00e8re de prouver sa gratitude, et, comme la\nvieille dame ne comprenait pas bien clairement comment ce r\u00e9sultat\nserait obtenu, elle sentit rena\u00eetre toutes ses terreurs.\n\n\u00abSavez-vous ce que j'ai vu dans ce berceau, hier au soir? demanda le\ngros joufflu.\n\n--Dieu nous b\u00e9nisse! Quoi donc? s'\u00e9cria la vieille lady, alarm\u00e9e par\nl'air solennel du corpulent jeune homme.\n\n--Le gentleman au bras en \u00e9charpe qui embrassait....\n\n--Qui? Joe, qui? aucune des servantes, j'esp\u00e8re?\n\n--Pire que \u00e7a!\u00bb cria le jeune homme dans l'oreille de la vieille dame.\n\n--Aucune de mes petites-filles?\n\n--Pire que \u00e7a!\n\n--Pire que cela, Joe! s'\u00e9cria la vieille dame, qui avait pens\u00e9 que\nc'\u00e9tait l\u00e0 la plus grande des atrocit\u00e9s humaines. Qui \u00e9tait-ce, Joe? Je\nveux absolument le savoir.\u00bb\n\nLe d\u00e9lateur regarda soigneusement autour de lui, et, ayant termin\u00e9 son\ninspection, cria dans l'oreille de la vieille lady:\n\n\u00abMiss Rachel!\n\n--Quoi? dit-elle d'une voix aigu\u00eb. Parlez plus haut!\n\n--Miss Rachel! hurla le gros joufflu.\n\n--Ma fille!\u00bb\n\nJoe r\u00e9pondit par une succession de signes affirmatifs, qui imprim\u00e8rent \u00e0\nses joues un mouvement ondulatoire semblable \u00e0 celui d'un plat de\nblanc-manger.\n\n\u00abEt elle l'a souffert! s'\u00e9cria la vieille dame.\n\n--Elle l'a embrass\u00e9 \u00e0 son tour! Je l'ai vue!\u00bb r\u00e9pondu le gros joufflu\nen ricanant.\n\nSi M. Jingle, de sa cachette, avait pu voir l'expression du visage de la\nvieille dame, \u00e0 cette communication, il est probable qu'un soudain \u00e9clat\nde rire aurait trahi sa pr\u00e9sence aupr\u00e8s du berceau. Mais il recueillit\nseulement des fragments de phrases irrit\u00e9es, telles que:\n\n\u00abSans ma permission!... A son \u00e2ge!... Mis\u00e9rable vieille que je suis!...\nElle aurait pu attendre que je fusse morte!...\u00bb\n\nPuis, ensuite, il entendit les pas pesants du gros gar\u00e7on qui\ns'\u00e9loignait et laissait la vieille lady toute seule.\n\nC'est un fait remarquable, peut-\u00eatre, mais n\u00e9anmoins c'est un fait, que\nM. Jingle, cinq minutes apr\u00e8s son arriv\u00e9e \u00e0 Manoir-ferme, avait r\u00e9solu,\ndans son for int\u00e9rieur, d'assi\u00e9ger sans d\u00e9lai le coeur de la tante\ndemoiselle. Il \u00e9tait assez bon observateur pour avoir remarqu\u00e9 que ses\nmani\u00e8res d\u00e9gag\u00e9es ne d\u00e9plaisaient nullement au bel objet de ses\nattaques, et il la soup\u00e7onnait fortement de poss\u00e9der la plus d\u00e9sirable\nde toutes les perfections: une petite fortune ind\u00e9pendante. L'imp\u00e9rative\nn\u00e9cessit\u00e9 de d\u00e9busquer son rival d'une mani\u00e8re ou d'une autre s'offrit\ndonc imm\u00e9diatement \u00e0 son esprit, et il r\u00e9solut de prendre sans d\u00e9lai des\nmesures \u00e0 cet \u00e9gard. Fielding nous dit quo l'homme est de feu, que la\nfemme est d'\u00e9toupe, et que le prince des t\u00e9n\u00e8bres se pla\u00eet \u00e0 les\nrapprocher. M. Jingle savait que les jeunes gens sont aux tantes\ndemoiselles comme le gaz enflamm\u00e9 \u00e0 la poudre fulminante, et il se\nd\u00e9termina \u00e0 essayer sur-le-champ l'effet d'une explosion.\n\nTout en r\u00e9fl\u00e9chissant aux moyens d'ex\u00e9cuter cette importante r\u00e9solution,\nil se glissa hors de sa cachette, et, prot\u00e9g\u00e9 par les buissons\nsusmentionn\u00e9s, regagna la maison sans \u00eatre aper\u00e7u. La fortune semblait\nd\u00e9termin\u00e9e \u00e0 favoriser ses desseins. Il vit de loin M. Tupman et les\nautres gentlemen s'enfoncer dans le jardin; il savait que les jeunes\ndemoiselles \u00e9taient sorties ensemble apr\u00e8s le d\u00e9jeuner: la c\u00f4te \u00e9tait\ndonc libre.\n\nLa porte du salon se trouvant entr'ouverte, M. Jingle allongea la t\u00eate\net regarda. La tante demoiselle \u00e9tait en train de tricoter. Il toussa,\nelle leva les yeux et sourit. Il n'existait aucune dose d'h\u00e9sitation\ndans le caract\u00e8re de M. Jingle; il posa myst\u00e9rieusement son doigt sur sa\nbouche, entra dans la chambre et ferma la porte.\n\n\u00abMiss Wardle, dit-il avec une chaleur affect\u00e9e, pardonnez cette\nt\u00e9m\u00e9rit\u00e9... courte connaissance... pas de temps pour la c\u00e9r\u00e9monie....\nTout est d\u00e9couvert.\n\n--Monsieur! s'\u00e9cria la tante demoiselle fort \u00e9tonn\u00e9e, et doutant presque\nque M. Jingle f\u00fbt dans son bon sens.\n\n--Silence! dit M. Jingle d'une voix th\u00e9\u00e2trale. Gros enfl\u00e9... face de\npoupard... les yeux ronds... canaille!...\u00bb\n\nIci il secoua la t\u00eate d'une mani\u00e8re expressive, et la tante demoiselle\ndevint toute tremblante d'agitation.\n\n\u00abJe pr\u00e9sume que vous voulez parler de Joseph, monsieur? dit-elle en\nfaisant effort pour para\u00eetre calme.\n\n--Oui, madame. Damnation sur votre Joe!... Chien de tra\u00eetre que ce\nJoe!... A instruit la vieille dame... la vieille dame furieuse...\nenrag\u00e9e... d\u00e9lirante!... Berceau... Tupman... caresses... baisers et\ntout le reste.... Eh! madame, eh!\n\n--M. Jingle, s'\u00e9cria la tante demoiselle, si vous \u00eates venu ici pour\nm'insulter....\n\n--Pas du tout; pas le moins du monde. Entendu l'histoire, venu pour vous\navertir du danger, offrir mes services, pr\u00e9venir les cancans. Tout est\ndit. Vous prenez cela pour une insulte... je quitte la place....\u00bb\n\nEt il tourna sur ses talons comme pour ex\u00e9cuter cette menace.\n\n\u00abQue dois-je faire? s'\u00e9cria la pauvre demoiselle, en fondant en larmes.\nMon fr\u00e8re sera furieux!\n\n--Naturellement. Enrag\u00e9!\n\n--Oh! monsieur Jingle, que puis-je faire?\n\n--Dites qu'il a r\u00eav\u00e9, r\u00e9pliqua M. Jingle avec aplomb.\u00bb\n\nUn rayon de consolation \u00e9claira l'esprit de la tante demoiselle \u00e0 cette\nsuggestion. M. Jingle s'en aper\u00e7ut et poursuivit son avantage.\n\n\u00abBah! bah! rien de plus ais\u00e9: gar\u00e7on mauvais sujet, femme aimable, gros\ngar\u00e7on fustig\u00e9. Vous toujours crue; terminaison de l'affaire... tout\ns'arrange.\u00bb\n\nSoit que la probabilit\u00e9 d'\u00e9chapper aux cons\u00e9quences de cette\nmalencontreuse d\u00e9couverte f\u00fbt d\u00e9licieuse pour les sentiments de la tante\ndemoiselle, soit que l'\u00e2cret\u00e9 de son chagrin f\u00fbt adoucie en s'entendant\nappeler femme aimable, elle tourna vers M. Jingle son visage\nreconnaissant et couvert d'une l\u00e9g\u00e8re rougeur.\n\nL'insinuant gentleman soupira profond\u00e9ment, attacha ses regards pendant\nquelques minutes sur la figure de la tante demoiselle, puis tressaillit\nm\u00e9lodramatiquement, et d\u00e9tourna ses yeux avec pr\u00e9cipitation.\n\n\u00abVous paraissez malheureux, monsieur Jingle, dit la dame d'une voix\nplaintive. Puis-je vous t\u00e9moigner ma reconnaissance en vous demandant la\ncause de vos chagrins, afin de t\u00e2cher de les all\u00e9ger?\n\n--Ah! s'\u00e9cria M. Jingle avec un autre tressaillement, soulager! les\nall\u00e9ger! quand votre amour s'est r\u00e9pandu sur un homme indigne d'une\ntelle b\u00e9n\u00e9diction! qui maintenant m\u00eame a l'inf\u00e2me dessein de captiver la\nni\u00e8ce d'un ange.... Mais non! il est mon ami et je ne veux pas d\u00e9voiler\nses vices. Miss Wardle, adieu!\u00bb\n\nEn terminant ce discours, le plus suivi qu'on lui e\u00fbt jamais entendu\nprof\u00e9rer, M. Jingle appliqua sur ses yeux le reste du mouchoir dont nous\navons d\u00e9j\u00e0 parl\u00e9, et se dirigea vers la porte.\n\n\u00abArr\u00eatez, monsieur Jingle, dit avec force la tante demoiselle. Vous avez\nfait une allusion \u00e0 M. Tupman; expliquez-la.\n\n--Jamais! s'\u00e9cria M. Jingle d'un air th\u00e9\u00e2tral, jamais!\u00bb\n\nEt, pour montrer qu'il ne voulait pas \u00eatre questionn\u00e9 davantage, il prit\nune chaise et s'assit tout aupr\u00e8s de la tante demoiselle.\n\n\u00abM. Jingle, reprit-elle, je vous implore, je vous supplie de me r\u00e9v\u00e9ler\nl'affreux myst\u00e8re qui enveloppe M. Tupman.\n\n--Ah! repartit M. Jingle en fixant ses yeux sur le visage de la tante,\npuis-je voir... charmante cr\u00e9ature... sacrifi\u00e9e \u00e0 l'autel? Avarice\nsordide!\u00bb\n\nIl parut lutter pendant quelques secondes contre des \u00e9motions de toute\nnature; puis il dit d'une voix basse et profonde:\n\n\u00abTupman n'aime que votre argent.\n\n--Le mis\u00e9rable!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria la demoiselle avec une \u00e9nergique indignation.\n\nLes doutes de M. Jingle \u00e9taient r\u00e9solus: elle avait de l'argent.\n\n\u00abBien plus, ajouta-t-il, il en aime une autre....\n\n--Une autre! balbutia la tante. Et qui?\n\n--Petite jeune fille... les yeux noirs... ni\u00e8ce \u00c9mily.\u00bb\n\nIl y eut un silence; car s'il existait dans tout l'univers un individu\nfemelle pour qui Rachel ressentit une jalousie mortelle, inv\u00e9t\u00e9r\u00e9e,\nc'\u00e9tait pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment cette ni\u00e8ce. Le rouge lui monta au visage et au col,\net elle secoua silencieusement sa t\u00eate avec une expression d'ineffable\nd\u00e9dain.\n\nA la fin, mordant sa l\u00e8vre mince et se redressant un peu, elle dit\nd'une voix aigrelette;\n\n\u00abCela ne se peut pas. Je ne veux pas le croire.\n\n--\u00c9piez-les, r\u00e9pliqua M. Jingle.\n\n--Je le ferai.\n\n--\u00c9piez les regards de Tupman.\n\n--Je le ferai.\n\n--Ses chuchotements.\n\n--Je le ferai!\n\n--Il ira s'asseoir aupr\u00e8s d'elle \u00e0 d\u00eener.\n\n--Nous verrons.\n\n--Il lui fera des compliments.\n\n--Nous verrons.\n\n--Et il vous plantera l\u00e0.\n\n--Me planter l\u00e0! cria-t-elle en tremblant de rage. Me planter l\u00e0!\n\n--Avez-vous des yeux pour vous en convaincre? reprit M. Jingle.\n\n--Oui.\n\n--Montrerez-vous du caract\u00e8re?\n\n--Oui.\n\n--L'\u00e9couterez-vous ensuite?\n\n--Jamais!\n\n--Prendrez-vous un autre amant?\n\n--Oui.\n\n--Ce sera moi?\u00bb\n\nEt M. Jingle tomba sur ses genoux et y resta pendant cinq minutes. Quand\nil se releva, il \u00e9tait l'amant accept\u00e9 de la tante demoiselle,\nconditionnellement, toutefois, et pourvu que l'infid\u00e9lit\u00e9 de M. Tupman\nf\u00fbt rendue manifeste.\n\nM. Jingle devait en fournir des preuves, et elles arriv\u00e8rent d\u00e8s le\nd\u00eener. Miss Rachel pouvait \u00e0 peine en croire ses yeux. M. Tracy Tupman\n\u00e9tait assis \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 d'\u00c9mily, lorgnant, souriant, parlant bas, en rivalit\u00e9\navec M. Snodgrass. Pas un mot, pas un regard, pas un signe n'\u00e9taient\ndirig\u00e9s vers celle qui, le soir pr\u00e9c\u00e9dent, \u00e9tait l'orgueil de son coeur.\n\n\u00abDamn\u00e9 gar\u00e7on! pensa le vieux Wardle, qui avait appris de sa m\u00e8re toute\nl'histoire; damn\u00e9 gar\u00e7on! Il \u00e9tait endormi. C'est pure imagination!\n\n--Sc\u00e9l\u00e9rat! pensait la tante demoiselle. Cher monsieur Jingle, vous ne\nme trompiez pas. Oh! que je d\u00e9teste le mis\u00e9rable!\u00bb\n\nL'inexplicable changement que semblait annoncer la conduite de M.\nTupman sera expliqu\u00e9 \u00e0 nos lecteurs par la conversation suivante.\n\nC'\u00e9tait le soir du m\u00eame jour, et la sc\u00e8ne se passait dans le jardin.\nDeux personnages marchaient dans une all\u00e9e \u00e9cart\u00e9e. L'un \u00e9tait assez\ngros et assez court, l'autre assez long et assez gr\u00eale. L'un \u00e9tait M.\nTupman, l'autre, M. Jingle.\n\nLe gros personnage commen\u00e7a le dialogue en demandant:\n\n\u00abM'en suis-je bien tir\u00e9?\n\n--Superbe! fameux! N'aurais pas mieux jou\u00e9 le r\u00f4le moi-m\u00eame. Il faut\nrecommencer demain, tous les jours, jusqu'\u00e0 nouvel ordre.\n\n--Rachel le d\u00e9sire encore?\n\n--Cela ne l'amuse pas, naturellement; mais il le faut bien. Le fr\u00e8re est\nterrible; elle a peur. On ne peut faire autrement. Dans quelques jours,\nles soup\u00e7ons d\u00e9truits, les vieilles gens d\u00e9rout\u00e9s, elle couronnera votre\nbonheur.\n\n--Vous n'avez pas d'autre message?\n\n--L'amour, le plus tendre amour, les plus doux sentiments, une affection\ninalt\u00e9rable. Puis-je dire quelque chose pour vous?\n\n--Mon cher, r\u00e9pondit l'innocent M. Tupman en serrant chaleureusement la\nmain de son ami, portez-lui mes plus vives tendresses. Dites-lui combien\nj'ai de peine \u00e0 dissimuler. Dites tout ce qu'on peut dire d'aimable;\nmais ajoutez que je reconnais la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 du r\u00f4le qu'elle m'a impos\u00e9 ce\nmatin par votre conseil. Dites que j'applaudis \u00e0 sa sagesse et que\nj'admire sa discr\u00e9tion.\n\n--Je le lui dirai. Est-ce tout?\n\n--Oui. Ajoutez seulement que je soupire ardemment apr\u00e8s l'\u00e9poque o\u00f9 elle\nm'appartiendra, o\u00f9 toute dissimulation deviendra inutile.\n\n--Certainement, certainement. Est-ce tout?\n\n--Oh! mon ami! dit le pauvre M. Tupman en pressant de nouveau la main de\nson compagnon, oh! mon ami, recevez mes remerc\u00eements les plus sinc\u00e8res\npour votre bont\u00e9 d\u00e9sint\u00e9ress\u00e9e, et pardonnez-moi si, m\u00eame en\nimagination, je vous ai jamais fait l'injustice de supposer que vous\npourriez me nuire. Mon cher ami, pourrai-je jamais reconna\u00eetre un tel\nservice?\n\n--Ne parlez pas de \u00e7a, r\u00e9pliqua M. Jingle, ne par....\u00bb\n\nEt il s'interrompit, comme s'il s'\u00e9tait rappel\u00e9 tout d'un coup quelque\nchose.\n\n\u00abA propos, reprit-il, vous ne pourriez pas me pr\u00eater dix guin\u00e9es, hein?\nAffaire tr\u00e8s-urgente. Vous rendrai \u00e7a dans trois jours.\n\n--Je crois que je puis vous obliger, r\u00e9pondit M. Tupman dans la\npl\u00e9nitude de son coeur. Dans trois jours, dites-vous?\n\n--Rien que trois jours; tout fini, alors, plus de difficult\u00e9s.\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman compta les dix guin\u00e9es dans la main de son compagnon, et\ncelui-ci les insinua dans son gousset, pi\u00e8ce par pi\u00e8ce, tout en\nregagnant la maison.\n\n\u00abAttention! dit M. Jingle, pas un regard.\n\n--Pas un coup d'oeil, repartit M. Tupman.\n\n--Pas un mot!\n\n--Pas une syllabe.\n\n--Toutes vos cajoleries pour la ni\u00e8ce; plut\u00f4t brutal qu'autre chose\nenvers la tante, seul moyen de tromper les envieux....\n\n--Je ne m'oublierai pas, r\u00e9pondit tout haut M. Tupman.\n\n--Et je ne m'oublierai pas non plus,\u00bb dit tout bas M. Jingle.\n\nIls entraient alors dans la maison.\n\nLa sc\u00e8ne du d\u00eener fut r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9e le soir m\u00eame et pendant trois autres\nd\u00eeners et trois soir\u00e9es subs\u00e9quentes. Le quatri\u00e8me soir, le vieux Wardle\nparaissait fort satisfait, car il s'\u00e9tait convaincu que M. Tupman avait\n\u00e9t\u00e9 faussement accus\u00e9; celui-ci \u00e9tait \u00e9galement joyeux, car M. Jingle\nlui avait dit que son affaire serait bient\u00f4t termin\u00e9e; M. Pickwick se\ntrouvait tr\u00e8s-heureux, car c'\u00e9tait son \u00e9tat habituel; M. Snodgrass ne\nl'\u00e9tait pas, car il devenait jaloux de M. Tupman; la vieille lady \u00e9tait\nde fort bonne humeur, car elle gagnait au whist; enfin M. Jingle et miss\nWardle \u00e9taient enchant\u00e9s, pour des raisons tellement importantes dans\ncette v\u00e9ridiques histoire, qu'elles seront racont\u00e9es dans un autre\nchapitre.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE IX.\n\nLa d\u00e9couverte et la poursuite.\n\n\nLe souper \u00e9tait servi, les chaises \u00e9taient plac\u00e9es autour de la table;\ndes bouteilles, des pots et des verres \u00e9taient rang\u00e9s sur le buffet;\ntout enfin annon\u00e7ait l'approche du moment le plus sociable des\nvingt-quatre heures, c'est-\u00e0-dire le moment du souper.\n\n\u00abO\u00f9 est Rachel? demanda M. Wardle.\n\n--Et Jingle, ajouta M. Pickwick.\n\n--Tiens! reprit son h\u00f4te, comment ne nous sommes-nous pas aper\u00e7us plus\nt\u00f4t de son absence? Il y a au moins deux heures que je n'ai entendu sa\nvoix. \u00c9mily, ma ch\u00e8re, tirez la sonnette.\u00bb\n\nLa sonnette retentit et le gros joufflu parut.\n\n\u00abO\u00f9 est miss Rachel?\u00bb\n\nIl n'en savait rien.\n\n--O\u00f9 est M. Jingle, alors?\u00bb\n\nIl ne pouvait le dire.\n\nTout le monde parut surpris. Il \u00e9tait tard: onze heures pass\u00e9es. M.\nTupman riait dans sa barbe, car ils devaient \u00eatre dans quelque coin \u00e0\nparler de lui.\n\n\u00abDr\u00f4le de farce, ha! ha!\n\n--Cela ne fait rien, dit M. Wardle apr\u00e8s une courte pause. Je suis s\u00fbr\nqu'ils vont revenir \u00e0 l'instant. Je n'attends jamais personne, au\nsouper.\n\n--Excellente r\u00e8gle! repartit M. Pickwick. Admirable!\n\n--Je vous en prie, asseyez-vous, poursuivit son h\u00f4te.\n\n--Certainement,\u00bb dit M. Pickwick.\n\nEt ils s'assirent.\n\nIl y avait sur la table une gigantesque pi\u00e8ce de boeuf froid, et M.\nPickwick en avait re\u00e7u une abondante portion. Il avait port\u00e9 la\nfourchette vers ses l\u00e8vres et \u00e9tait sur le point d'ouvrir la bouche pour\ny introduire un morceau convenable, quand un grand bruit de voix s'\u00e9leva\ntout \u00e0 coup dans la cuisine. M. Pickwick leva la t\u00eate et abaissa sa\nfourchette; M. Wardle cessa de d\u00e9couper, et insensiblement l\u00e2cha le\ncouteau, qui resta ins\u00e9r\u00e9 dans la morceau de boeuf. Il regarda M.\nPickwick, et M. Pickwick le regarda.\n\nDes pas lourds retentirent dans le passage. La porte de la salle \u00e0\nmanger s'ouvrit tout \u00e0 coup, et l'homme qui avait nettoy\u00e9 les bottes de\nM. Pickwick le jour de son arriv\u00e9e, se pr\u00e9cipita dans la chambre, suivi\ndu gros joufflu et de tous les autres domestiques.\n\n\u00abQue diable cela veut-il dire? s'\u00e9cria l'amphytrion.\n\n--Est-ce que le feu est dans la chemin\u00e9e de la cuisine? demanda la\nvieille lady.\n\n--Non! grand'maman! cri\u00e8rent les deux jeunes personnes.\n\n--Qu'est-ce qu'il y a?\u00bb reprit le ma\u00eetre de la maison.\n\nL'homme respira profond\u00e9ment, et dit d'une voix essouffl\u00e9e:\n\n\u00abIls sont partis, monsieur; partis sans tambour, ni trompette,\nmonsieur!\u00bb\n\nDans ce moment, on remarqua que M. Tupman posait sa fourchette et son\ncouteau et devenait excessivement p\u00e2le.\n\n\u00abQui est-ce qui est parti? demanda M. Wardle avec col\u00e8re.\n\n--M. Jingle et miss Rachel, dans une chaise de poste du _Lion Bleu_, \u00e0\nMuggleton! J'\u00e9tais l\u00e0, mais je n'ai pas pu les arr\u00eater; alors, je suis\naccouru pour vous dire....\n\n--J'ai pay\u00e9 ses frais! s'\u00e9cria M. Tupman en se dressant sur ses pieds\nd'un air fr\u00e9n\u00e9tique. Il m'a attrap\u00e9 dix guin\u00e9es! arr\u00eatez-le! Il m'a\nfilout\u00e9! C'est trop fort! Je me vengerai, Pickwick! Je ne le souffrirai\npas!\u00bb\n\nEt, tout en prof\u00e9rant mille exclamations incoh\u00e9rentes de cette nature,\nle malheureux gentleman tournait tout autour de la chambre dans un\ntransport de fureur.\n\n\u00abLe seigneur nous prot\u00e8ge! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick en regardant avec une\nsurprise m\u00eal\u00e9e de crainte les gestes extraordinaires de son ami. Il est\ndevenu fou! qu'allons-nous faire?\n\n--Ce que nous allons faire! repartit le vigoureux vieillard, qui ne\npr\u00eata d'attention qu'aux derniers mots de son convive; mettez le cheval\nau cabriolet; je vais prendre une chaise au _Lion Bleu_, et les\npoursuivre sur-le-champ! O\u00f9 est ce sc\u00e9l\u00e9rat de Joe?\n\n--Me voici, mais je ne suis pas un sc\u00e9l\u00e9rat! r\u00e9pliqua une voix, c'\u00e9tait\ncelle du gros joufflu.\n\n--Laissez-moi l'attraper, Pickwick! cria M. Wardle en se pr\u00e9cipitant\nvers le malencontreux jeune homme. Il a \u00e9t\u00e9 pay\u00e9 par ce fripon de Jingle\npour me faire perdre la trace en me contant des balivernes sur ma soeur\net sur votre ami Tupman. (Ici M. Tupman se laissa tomber sur une\nchaise.) Laissez-moi l'attraper!\n\n--Retenez-le! s'\u00e9cri\u00e8rent toutes les femmes; et par-dessus leurs voix\neffray\u00e9es, on entendait distinctement les sanglots du gros gar\u00e7on.\n\n--Je ne veux pas qu'on me retienne! b\u00e9gayait le col\u00e9rique vieillard. M.\nWinkle, \u00f4tez vos mains! M. Pickwick! L\u00e2chez-moi, monsieur!\u00bb\n\nDans ce moment de tourmente et de confusion, c'\u00e9tait un beau spectacle\nde voir l'attitude calme et philosophique de M. Pickwick. Une\ntranquillit\u00e9 majestueuse r\u00e9gnait sur sa figure quoiqu'elle f\u00fbt un peu\nenflamm\u00e9e par les efforts qu'il faisait pour mod\u00e9rer les passions\nimp\u00e9tueuses de son h\u00f4te, dont il avait fortement embrass\u00e9 la vaste\nceinture. Pendant ce temps, Joe \u00e9tait \u00e9gratign\u00e9, tir\u00e9, bouscul\u00e9, pouss\u00e9\nhors de la chambre par toutes les femmes qui s'y trouvaient rassembl\u00e9es.\nApr\u00e8s sa disparition, M. Wardle fut rel\u00e2ch\u00e9, et dans le m\u00eame instant, on\nvint annoncer que le cabriolet \u00e9tait pr\u00eat.\n\n\u00abNe le laissez pas aller seul, cri\u00e8rent les femmes, il tuera quelqu'un.\n\n--J'irai avec lui, dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Vous \u00eates un bon gar\u00e7on, Pickwick, repartit M. Wardle en lui serrant\nla main. Emma, donnez un ch\u00e2le \u00e0 M. Pickwick pour attacher autour de son\ncou. D\u00e9p\u00eachez! Soignez votre grand-m\u00e8re, enfants, elle se trouve mal.\nAllons, \u00eates-vous pr\u00eat?\u00bb\n\nLa bouche et le menton de M. Pickwick ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 rapidement envelopp\u00e9s\nd'un ch\u00e2le, son chapeau ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 enfonc\u00e9 sur sa t\u00eate, et son pardessus\njet\u00e9 sur son bras, il r\u00e9pliqua affirmativement.\n\nLorsque nos deux amis furent mont\u00e9s dans le cabriolet:\n\n\u00abL\u00e2chez-lui la bride, Tom,\u00bb cria le vieillard. Et la voiture partit \u00e0\ntravers les ruelles \u00e9troites, tombant dans les orni\u00e8res et fr\u00f4lant les\nhaies, au hasard de se briser \u00e0 chaque instant.\n\n\u00abOnt-ils beaucoup d'avance?... cria M. Wardle en arrivant \u00e0 la porte du\n_Lion Bleu_ autour de laquelle, malgr\u00e9 l'heure avanc\u00e9e, il s'\u00e9tait form\u00e9\nun groupe de causeurs.\n\n--Pas plus de trois quarts d'heure; r\u00e9pondirent tous les assistants \u00e0 la\nfois.\n\n--Une chaise et quatre chevaux! sur-le-champ. Allons! Allons! Vous\nrentrerez le cabriolet apr\u00e8s.\n\n--Allons, enfants! cria l'aubergiste, une chaise et quatre chevaux.\nAlerte! Alerte!\u00bb\n\nSans retard s'empress\u00e8rent valets et postillons. Les lanternes\nbrill\u00e8rent, les hommes coururent \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0, les fers des chevaux\nretentirent sur les pav\u00e9s in\u00e9gaux de la cour, le roulement de la chaise\nse fit entendre comme on la tirait de la remise: tout \u00e9tait bruit et\nmouvement.\n\n\u00abAllons donc! cette chaise viendra-t-elle cette nuit? cria M. Wardle.\n\n--La voil\u00e0 dans la cour, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit l'aubergiste.\u00bb\n\nLa chaise sortit en effet; les chevaux y furent attel\u00e9s; les postillons\nmont\u00e8rent sur ceux-ci, les voyageurs dans celle-l\u00e0.\n\n--Postillon! cria M. Wardle, les sept milles de ce relai en moins d'une\ndemi-heure!\n\n--En route!\u00bb\n\nLes postillons appliqu\u00e8rent le fouet et l'\u00e9peron; les gar\u00e7ons salu\u00e8rent;\nles palefreniers cri\u00e8rent, et ils partirent d'un train furieux.\n\n\u00abJolie situation! pensa M. Pickwick quand il eut le loisir de la\nr\u00e9flexion. Jolie situation pour le pr\u00e9sident perp\u00e9tuel du Pickwick-Club!\nUne chaise humide, des chevaux enrag\u00e9s, quinze milles \u00e0 l'heure et\nminuit pass\u00e9!\u00bb\n\nPendant les trois ou quatre premiers milles, les deux amis, ensevelis\ndans leurs r\u00e9flexions, n'\u00e9chang\u00e8rent pas une seule parole, mais lorsque\nles chevaux, qui s'\u00e9taient \u00e9chauff\u00e9s, commenc\u00e8rent \u00e0 d\u00e9vorer le terrain,\nM. Pickwick devint trop anim\u00e9 par la rapidit\u00e9 du mouvement pour\ncontinuer \u00e0 rester enti\u00e8rement muet.\n\n\u00abNous sommes s\u00fbrs de les attraper, je pense? commen\u00e7a-t-il.\n\n--Je l'esp\u00e8re, r\u00e9pliqua son compagnon.\n\n--Une belle nuit! continua M. Pickwick en regardant la lune qui brillait\npaisiblement.\n\n--Tant pis, car ils ont eu l'avantage du clair de lune pour prendre\nl'avance, et nous allons en \u00eatre priv\u00e9s. Elle sera couch\u00e9e dans une\nheure.\n\n--Il sera assez d\u00e9sagr\u00e9able d'aller de ce train-l\u00e0 dans l'obscurit\u00e9,\nn'est-il pas vrai?\n\n--Certainement,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua s\u00e8chement M. Wardle.\n\nL'excitation temporaire de M. Pickwick commen\u00e7a \u00e0 se calmer un peu,\nlorsqu'il r\u00e9fl\u00e9chit aux inconv\u00e9nients et aux dangers de l'exp\u00e9dition\ndans laquelle il s'\u00e9tait embarqu\u00e9 si l\u00e9g\u00e8rement. Il fut tir\u00e9 de ces\npens\u00e9es d\u00e9plaisantes par les clameurs des postillons.\n\n\u00abOh\u00e9! oh\u00e9! oh\u00e9! oh\u00e9! oh\u00e9! cria le premier postillon.\n\n--Oh\u00e9! oh\u00e9! oh\u00e9! oh\u00e9! oh\u00e9! hurla le second postillon.\n\n--Oh\u00e9! oh\u00e9! oh\u00e9! oh\u00e9! oh\u00e9! vocif\u00e9ra le vieux Wardle lui-m\u00eame en mettant\nla moiti\u00e9 de son corps hors de la porti\u00e8re.\n\n--Oh\u00e9! oh\u00e9! oh\u00e9! oh\u00e9! oh\u00e9!\u00bb r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick, en s'unissant au\nrefrain, sans avoir la plus l\u00e9g\u00e8re id\u00e9e de ce qu'il signifiait.\n\nAu milieu de ces cris pouss\u00e9s par tous les quatre \u00e0 la fois, la chaise\ns'arr\u00eata.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce qui nous arrive? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Il y a une barri\u00e8re ici, r\u00e9pondit le vieux Wardle, et nous aurons des\nnouvelles des fugitifs.\u00bb\n\nAu bout de cinq minutes consomm\u00e9es \u00e0 frapper et \u00e0 crier sans rel\u00e2che, un\nvieux bonhomme, n'ayant que sa chemise et son pantalon, sortit de la\nmaison du _Turnpike_ et ouvrit la barri\u00e8re[11].\n\n[Footnote 11: En Angleterre l'entretien des routes se fait au moyen d'un\np\u00e9age, qui est per\u00e7u de distance en distance.\n\n(_Note du traducteur_)]\n\n\u00abCombien y a-t-il qu'une chaise est pass\u00e9e ici? demanda M. Wardle.\n\n--Combien y a?\n\n--Oui.\n\n--Ma foi je n'en sais trop rien. N'y a pas trop longtemps, ni trop peu\nnon plus. Juste entre les deux peut-\u00eatre.\n\n--Est-il pass\u00e9 une chaise, seulement.\n\n--Ah! mais oui, il est pass\u00e9 une chaise.\n\n--Combien y a-t-il de temps, mon ami? dit M. Pickwick en s'interposant.\nUne heure?\n\n--Ah! cela se pourrait bien, r\u00e9pliqua l'homme.\n\n--Ou deux heures? demanda le premier postillon.\n\n--Je n'en serais pas bien \u00e9tonn\u00e9, r\u00e9pondit l'homme d'un air de doute.\n\n--En route, postillons! s'\u00e9cria M. Wardle irrit\u00e9; voil\u00e0 assez de temps\nde perdu avec ce vieil idiot.\n\n--Idiot! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta le vieux, en contemplant avec un ricanement la chaise\nqui diminuait rapidement \u00e0 mesure que la distance augmentait. Non! Pas\nsi idiot que vous croyez. Vous avez perdu dix minutes ici, et vous \u00eates\njuste aussi savant qu'auparavant. Si tous les camarades sur la route\nre\u00e7oivent une guin\u00e9e et la gagnent moiti\u00e9 aussi bien, vous ne\nrattraperez pas l'autre chaise avant la Saint-Michel, mon gros\ncourtaud!\u00bb\n\nAyant fait suivre son discours d'un ricanement prolong\u00e9, le vieux\nbonhomme ferma la barri\u00e8re, rentra dans sa maison, et barricada la porte\napr\u00e8s lui.\n\nCependant nos voyageurs poursuivaient leur route sans aucun\nralentissement. La lune, comme M. Wardle l'avait pr\u00e9dit, d\u00e9clinait avec\nrapidit\u00e9; de sombres et pesants nuages, qui depuis quelques temps\ns'\u00e9taient graduellement \u00e9tendus dans le ciel, venaient de se r\u00e9unir au\nz\u00e9nith en une masse noire et compacte. De larges gouttes de pluie\nfouettaient de temps en temps les glaces de la chaise, et semblaient\navertir les voyageurs de l'approche rapide d'une temp\u00eate. Le vent qui\nsoufflait directement contre eux, s'engouffrait en tourbillon furieux\ndans la route \u00e9troite, et g\u00e9missait tristement \u00e0 travers les arbres. M.\nPickwick resserra plus soigneusement sa redingote, s'\u00e9tablit plus\ncommod\u00e9ment dans son coin, et tomba dans un profond sommeil, dont il fut\ntir\u00e9 bient\u00f4t apr\u00e8s par la cessation de tout mouvement, par le bruit\nd'une sonnette, et par ce cri r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e0 voix haute:\n\n\u00abDes chevaux sur-le-champ!\u00bb\n\nMais ici il arriva un autre d\u00e9lai. Les postillons dormaient d'un sommeil\nsi myst\u00e9rieusement profond, qu'il fallut plus de cinq minutes pour\n\u00e9veiller chacun d'eux. Le palefrenier avait perdu la clef de l'\u00e9curie,\net quand \u00e0 la fin elle fut trouv\u00e9e, deux gar\u00e7ons endormis transpos\u00e8rent\nles harnais des chevaux, et il fallut recommencer toute l'op\u00e9ration du\nharnachement. Si M. Pickwick avait \u00e9t\u00e9 seul, ces obstacles multipli\u00e9s\nauraient bient\u00f4t mis un terme \u00e0 la poursuite; mais le vieux Wardle\nn'\u00e9tait pas d\u00e9mont\u00e9 si ais\u00e9ment. Il s'employa avec tant de bonne\nvolont\u00e9, poussant l'un, bousculant l'autre, prenant une cha\u00eene par-ci,\nattachant une boucle par-l\u00e0, que la chaise fut pr\u00eate \u00e0 rouler en un\nespace de temps beaucoup plus court qu'on n'aurait pu l'esp\u00e9rer\nraisonnablement, sous l'influence de tant de difficult\u00e9s.\n\nIls recommenc\u00e8rent donc leur voyage, et certainement avec une\nperspective fort peu engageante. Le relai \u00e9tait de 15 milles, la nuit\nsombre, le vent violent, la pluie battante. Il \u00e9tait impossible de faire\nbeaucoup de chemin en luttant contre tant d'obstacles, aussi ne\nfallut-il gu\u00e8re moins de deux heures pour arriver au relai suivant. Mais\nici, se pr\u00e9senta \u00e0 leurs yeux un objet qui r\u00e9veilla leur courage et\nranima leurs esprits abattus.\n\n\u00abQuand cette chaise est-elle arriv\u00e9e? s'\u00e9cria le vieux Wardle, en\nsautant hors de sa voiture et montrant une autre chaise couverte d'une\nboue encore humide, qui \u00e9tait rest\u00e9e dans la cour.\n\n--Il n'y a pas un quart d'heure, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua le valet d'\u00e9curie \u00e0\nqui cette question \u00e9tait adress\u00e9e.\n\n--Une dame et un gentleman? demanda Wardle, pantelant d'impatience.\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--Grand homme en habit, longues jambes, le corps mince?\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--Une dame d'un certain \u00e2ge, le visage maigre, rien que la peau sur les\nos, hein?\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--Pardieu! Pickwick, ce sont eux! s'\u00e9cria le vieux gentleman.\n\n--Ils auraient \u00e9t\u00e9 ici plus t\u00f4t, poursuivit le palefrenier; mais un de\nleurs traits s'est cass\u00e9.\n\n--Ce sont eux, reprit Wardle. Ce sont eux, par Jupiter! Une chaise et\nquatre chevaux, \u00e0 l'instant! Nous les attraperons avant l'autre relai.\nAllons, postillons! de l'activit\u00e9. Une guin\u00e9e chacun, postillons!\nVivement; d\u00e9p\u00eachons, mes enfants, en route!\u00bb\n\nTout en prof\u00e9rant ces exhortations, le vieux gentleman courait \u00e0 droite\net \u00e0 gauche, et s'occupait de tous les d\u00e9tails avec une excitation qui\nse communiqua \u00e0 M. Pickwick. Sous cette influence contagieuse, celui-ci\ns'emp\u00eatra les jambes dans les harnais, se fourra au milieu des chevaux,\nse fit comprimer l'abdomen par les roues de la chaise, s'imaginant et\ncroyant fermement qu'en faisant tout cela il acc\u00e9l\u00e9rait mat\u00e9riellement\nles pr\u00e9paratifs de leur d\u00e9part.\n\n\u00abGrimpez, grimpez vite! s'\u00e9cria le vieux Wardle en montant dans la\nchaise, relevant le marchepied, et fermant la porti\u00e8re apr\u00e8s lui. Allons\ndonc! d\u00e9p\u00eachez-vous.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick \u00e9tait de l'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la voiture, et avant qu'il p\u00fbt\nsavoir pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment de quoi il s'agissait, il se sentit soulever par le\nvieux gentleman, pousser par le valet d'\u00e9curie; et en route! ils \u00e9taient\npartis au grand galop.\n\n\u00abAh! voil\u00e0 qui s'appelle marcher maintenant! dit M. Wardle avec\ncomplaisance.\u00bb\n\nEt en effet, ils _marchaient_, comme le t\u00e9moignaient suffisamment \u00e0 M.\nPickwick ses constantes collisions avec les durs panneaux de la voiture\nou avec son compagnon.\n\n\u00abTenez-vous ferme, dit le robuste vieillard au philosophe, qui venait de\npiquer une t\u00eate au beau milieu de l'immense gilet de son compagnon de\nvoyage.\n\n--Je n'ai jamais \u00e9t\u00e9 aussi cahot\u00e9 de ma vie; r\u00e9pondit-il.\n\n--Ne faites pas attention, reprit son camarade. Ce sera bient\u00f4t fini.\nFerme! ferme!\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick se planta dans son coin aussi solidement qu'il le put, et la\nchaise roula plus vite que jamais.\n\nIls avaient br\u00fbl\u00e9 de cette mani\u00e8re environ trois milles, quand M. Wardle\nqui, depuis quelques minutes, tenait sa t\u00eate hors de la porti\u00e8re, la\nretira toute couverte d'\u00e9claboussures, et s'\u00e9cria, haletant\nd'impatience: \u00abLes voil\u00e0!\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick mit aussit\u00f4t la t\u00eate \u00e0 l'autre porti\u00e8re et vit, \u00e0 peu de\ndistance devant eux, une voiture qui d\u00e9talait au grand galop.\n\n\u00abEn avant! en avant!\u00bb vocif\u00e9ra le vieux gentleman. \u00abDeux guin\u00e9es,\npostillons! Rattrapez-les! rattrapez-les!\u00bb\n\nLes chevaux de la premi\u00e8re chaise repartirent de toute leur vitesse, et\nceux de M. Wardle galopp\u00e8rent avec fureur apr\u00e8s eux.\n\n\u00abJe vois sa t\u00eate!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria le col\u00e9rique vieillard. \u00abDieu me damne! je\nvois sa t\u00eate!\n\n--Et moi aussi,\u00bb dit M. Pickwick. \u00abC'est lui-m\u00eame.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick ne se trompait point. On apercevait clairement \u00e0 la porti\u00e8re\nde la chaise la figure de M. Jingle, compl\u00e9tement couverte par la boue\nque lan\u00e7aient les roues de sa voiture. Le mouvement de ses bras qu'il\nagitait violemment vers les postillons d\u00e9notait qu'il les encourageait \u00e0\nredoubler leurs efforts.\n\nL'int\u00e9r\u00eat devint immense. Les champs, les arbres, les haies semblaient\ntourbillonner autour d'eux. Ils arriv\u00e8rent tout aupr\u00e8s de la premi\u00e8re\nchaise; ils entendaient, par-dessus le bruit des roues, la voix de M.\nJingle qui gourmandait ses postillons. Le vieux Wardle \u00e9cumait de rage\net d'excitation; il rugissait par douzaine des \u00abcoquin!\u00bb des \u00absc\u00e9l\u00e9rat!\u00bb\nIl brandissait son poing et en mena\u00e7ait l'objet de son indignation; mais\nM. Jingle ne r\u00e9pondait \u00e0 ces outrages que par un sourire moqueur, puis\npar un cri de triomphe et de d\u00e9rision, lorsque ses chevaux, ob\u00e9issant \u00e0\nl'\u00e9nergie croissante du fouet et de l'\u00e9peron, redoubl\u00e8rent de vitesse et\nlaiss\u00e8rent en arri\u00e8re ceux qui les poursuivaient.\n\nM. Pickwick venait de retirer sa t\u00eate de la porti\u00e8re, et M. Wardle,\nfatigu\u00e9 de crier, en avait fait autant, quand une secousse terrible les\njeta tous les deux sur le devant de la voiture. Un craquement violent se\nfit entendre, une roue se d\u00e9tacha, et la chaise versa sur le flanc.\n\nApr\u00e8s quelques secondes de confusion o\u00f9 l'on ne pouvait rien discerner\nque le tr\u00e9pignement des chevaux et le brisement des glaces, M. Pickwick\nse sentit tirer violemment des d\u00e9combres, et, aussit\u00f4t qu'il fut\nd'aplomb sur ses pieds et qu'il eut d\u00e9gag\u00e9 sa t\u00eate du collet de sa\nredingote, par lequel se trouvaient notablement obstru\u00e9es les fonctions\nde ses besicles, il reconnut toute l'\u00e9tendue de leur d\u00e9sastre. Le jour\nvenait de para\u00eetre, et la sc\u00e8ne \u00e9tait parfaitement \u00e9clair\u00e9e par la grise\nlumi\u00e8re du matin.\n\nLe vieux Wardle \u00e9tait debout, \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de lui, sans chapeau, les habits\nd\u00e9chir\u00e9s. A ses pieds gisaient les d\u00e9bris de la voiture. Les postillons,\nd\u00e9figur\u00e9s par la boue et par une course violente \u00e9taient parvenus \u00e0\ncouper les traits et se tenaient \u00e0 la t\u00eate de leurs chevaux. A une\ncentaine de pas en avant, on voyait l'autre chaise qui s'\u00e9tait arr\u00eat\u00e9e\nen entendant le bruit de leur naufrage. Les postillons, dont la figure\n\u00e9tait contourn\u00e9e par un ricanement f\u00e9roce, contemplaient du haut de leur\nselle leurs adversaires d\u00e9mont\u00e9s, tandis que M. Jingle, \u00e0 la porti\u00e8re,\nexaminait, avec une \u00e9vidente satisfaction la ruine de ses pers\u00e9cuteurs.\n\n--Oh\u00e9? cria l'effront\u00e9 com\u00e9dien; personne d'endommag\u00e9?--Gentlemen d'un\ncertain \u00e2ge,--assez lourds,--dangereux,--tr\u00e8s-dangereux.\n\n--Canaille! vocif\u00e9ra M. Wardle.\n\n--Ah! ah! ah!\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua Jingle; et ensuite il ajouta, en clignant de\nl'oeil d'un air malin, et en d\u00e9signant avec son pouce l'int\u00e9rieur de la\nchaise: \u00abElle va tr\u00e8s-bien,--vous offre ses compliments,--vous prie de\nne pas vous d\u00e9ranger. Des amiti\u00e9s \u00e0 _Tuppy_.--Ne voulez-vous pas monter\nderri\u00e8re?--En route, postillons!\u00bb\n\nLes postillons se remirent en selle; la chaise recommen\u00e7a \u00e0 rouler, et\nM. Jingle, \u00e9tendant son bras hors de la porti\u00e8re, agitait, par d\u00e9rision,\nun mouchoir blanc.\n\nRien, dans toute cette aventure, n'avait pu troubler l'humeur \u00e9gale et\ntranquille de M, Pickwick, pas m\u00eame la culbute de sa voiture et de sa\npersonne. Mais il ne put supporter patiemment l'infamie de celui qui,\napr\u00e8s avoir emprunt\u00e9 de l'argent \u00e0 son fid\u00e8le disciple, se permettait\nd'abr\u00e9ger son nom en celui de Tuppy. Il devint rouge jusqu'au bord de\nses lunettes, et, ayant respir\u00e9 fortement, il dit d'une voix lente et\nemphatique: \u00abSi jamais je rencontre cet homme, je veux....\n\n--Oui, oui, interrompit M. Wardle, tout cela est fort bien, mais, tandis\nque nous restons l\u00e0 \u00e0 parler, ils obtiendront une licence et seront\nmari\u00e9s \u00e0 Londres.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick s'arr\u00eata et renferma sa vengeance au fond de son coeur.\n\n\u00abCombien y a-t-il d'ici au premier relai! demanda M. Wardle \u00e0 l'un des\npostillons.\n\n--Six milles, n'est-ce pas, Tom?\n\n--Un peu plus.\n\n--Un peu plus de six milles, monsieur.\n\n--Il n'y a pas de rem\u00e8de, il faut les faire \u00e0 pied, Pickwick.\n\n--Il n'y a pas de rem\u00e8de,\u00bb r\u00e9p\u00e9ta cet homme vraiment grand.\n\nPar l'ordre de M. Wardle, l'un des postillons partit devant, \u00e0 cheval,\npour faire atteler une nouvelle chaise, et l'autre resta en arri\u00e8re pour\nprendre soin de celle qui \u00e9tait bris\u00e9e. En m\u00eame temps, M. Pickwick et le\nvieux gentleman se mettaient courageusement en marche, apr\u00e8s avoir\nsoigneusement attach\u00e9 leurs ch\u00e2les autour de leur cou et avoir enfonc\u00e9\nleur chapeau sur leurs oreilles, pour \u00e9viter autant que possible le\nd\u00e9luge de pluie qui recommen\u00e7ait \u00e0 tomber.\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE X.\n\nDestin\u00e9 \u00e0 dissiper tous les doutes qui pourraient exister sur le\nd\u00e9sint\u00e9ressement de M. Jingle.\n\n\nIl y a dans Londres plusieurs vieilles auberges qui servaient de\nquartier g\u00e9n\u00e9ral aux coches les plus c\u00e9l\u00e8bres, dans le temps o\u00f9 les\ncoches accomplissaient leurs voyages d'une mani\u00e8re grave et solennelle;\nmais ces auberges ont d\u00e9g\u00e9n\u00e9r\u00e9 peu \u00e0 peu, et n'abritent plus gu\u00e8re que\ndes voitures de roulage. Le lecteur chercherait en vain quelqu'une de\nces anciennes h\u00f4telleries parmi les _Bouches d'or_, les _Croix d'or_,\nles _Taureaux d'or_ qui l\u00e8vent leur front superbe dans les belles rues\nde Londres. S'il veut en \u00e9tudier les restes, il fera bien de diriger ses\npas vers les quartiers les plus obscurs de la ville, et l\u00e0, dans quelque\ncoin retir\u00e9, il en trouvera un certain nombre qui restent encore debout,\navec une sombre obstination, au milieu des innovations modernes.\n\nDans le _Borough_[12] surtout, il reste encore une demi-douzaine de ces\nanciennes maisons, qui ont conserv\u00e9 sans changement leur singuli\u00e8re\nphysionomie, et qui ont \u00e9galement \u00e9chapp\u00e9 \u00e0 la rage des am\u00e9liorations\npubliques et des sp\u00e9culations priv\u00e9es. Ce sont d'\u00e9tranges b\u00e2timents,\navec des galeries, des corridors, des escaliers sans nombre, et assez\nantiques, assez vastes pour fournir des mat\u00e9riaux \u00e0 mille histoires de\nrevenants, si nous sommes jamais r\u00e9duits \u00e0 la lamentable n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 d'en\ninventer quelques-unes, et si le monde dure assez longtemps pour \u00e9puiser\nles innombrables et v\u00e9ridiques l\u00e9gendes qui se rattachent au vieux pont\nde Londres et \u00e0 ses environs.\n\n[Footnote 12: Faubourg de Londres, situ\u00e9 au midi de la Tamise. (_Note du\ntraducteur._)]\n\nDans la cour du _Blanc-Cerf_, l'une des plus c\u00e9l\u00e8bres entre ces auberges\ngothiques, et de bonne heure dans la matin\u00e9e qui suivit les \u00e9v\u00e9nements\nfunestes racont\u00e9s dans le pr\u00e9c\u00e9dent chapitre, un homme s'occupait\nactivement \u00e0 enlever la boue d'une paire de bottes. Cet homme avait un\ngilet ray\u00e9, orn\u00e9 de manches de calicot noir et de boutons de verre bleu,\nune culotte de gros drap et des gu\u00eatres. Autour de son cou s'enroulait\nn\u00e9gligemment un mouchoir d'un rouge \u00e9clatant; un vieux chapeau blanc\n\u00e9tait pos\u00e9 sans fa\u00e7on sur le c\u00f4t\u00e9 gauche de sa t\u00eate. Il y avait devant\nce personnage deux rang\u00e9es de bottes, les unes propres, les autres\ncrott\u00e9es, et, \u00e0 chaque addition qu'il faisait aux bottes nettoy\u00e9es, il\ns'arr\u00eatait un instant pour contempler son ouvrage avec une satisfaction\n\u00e9vidente.\n\nLa cour n'offrait aucun indice de ce tapage, de ce mouvement qui\ncaract\u00e9risent les h\u00f4tels o\u00f9 s'arr\u00eatent les diligences. Deux ou trois\ncabriolets, deux ou trois chaises de poste s'abritaient sous diff\u00e9rents\npetits toits en appentis. Trois ou quatre voitures de roulage, charg\u00e9es\nd'une montagne de marchandises aussi \u00e9lev\u00e9e que le second \u00e9tage d'une\nmaison ordinaire, restaient immobiles \u00e0 l'ombre d'un \u00e9norme hangar\nsuspendu sur un des c\u00f4t\u00e9s de la cour, tandis qu'un autre camion, qui\nprobablement devait commencer son voyage dans la matin\u00e9e, \u00e9tait tir\u00e9\ndans la partie d\u00e9couverte. Les b\u00e2timents qui bordaient deux c\u00f4t\u00e9s du\nparall\u00e9logramme \u00e9taient garnis d'une double rang\u00e9e de galeries, orn\u00e9es\nd'\u00e9normes garde-fous en bois, et sur lesquelles deux files de chambres \u00e0\ncoucher venaient s'ouvrir. Deux lignes de sonnettes, qui leur\ncorrespondaient, se dandinaient au-dessus de la porte d'entr\u00e9e,\nrecouverte par un petit toit en ardoise. Enfin, de temps en temps, le\npi\u00e9tinement pesant d'un cheval de charge, ou le cliquetis d'une cha\u00eene,\nannon\u00e7ait, \u00e0 ceux qui s'en inqui\u00e9taient, que les \u00e9curies \u00e9taient au bout\nde la cour. Si nous ajoutons \u00e0 ce tableau quelques hommes en blouse,\ndormant sur des ballots; quelques sacs de laine et autres articles de ce\ngenre, r\u00e9pandus sur des monceaux de foin, nous aurons d\u00e9crit, autant\nqu'il est n\u00e9cessaire, l'apparence que pr\u00e9sentait, dans la matin\u00e9e dont\nil s'agit, la cour du _Blanc-Cerf_, grande rue du Borough.\n\nLe carillon d'une des sonnettes fut suivi de l'apparition d'une servante\ncoquette, dans l'une des galeries du second \u00e9tage. Elle frappa \u00e0 l'une\ndes portes, et, ayant re\u00e7u une requ\u00eate de l'int\u00e9rieur, elle cria\npar-dessus la balustrade: Sam!\u00bb\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0! r\u00e9pliqua l'homme au chapeau blanc.\n\n--Le n\u00b022 demande ses bottes sur-le-champ.\n\n--Eh bien! demandes-y s'il veut les avoir de suite, ou bien attendre\nqu'on les lui porte cir\u00e9es.\n\n--Allons, Sam! pas de b\u00eatises! reprit la jeune fille d'un air engageant;\nle gentleman a besoin de ses bottes sur-le-champ.\n\n--Parole d'honneur! vous \u00eates bonne l\u00e0! repartit le d\u00e9crotteur.\nRegardez-moi un peu ces bottes. Onze paires de bottes, et un soulier qui\nappartient au n\u00b0 6, avec une jambe de bois. Les bottes doivent \u00eatre\nlivr\u00e9es \u00e0 huit heures et demie, et le soulier \u00e0 neuf. Qu'est-ce que\nc'est que le n\u00b0 22, pour monter sur le dos \u00e0 tous les autres? Non! non!\nchacun son tour! comme disait Jack Ketch \u00e0 des particuliers qu'il avait\n\u00e0 pendre. F\u00e2ch\u00e9 de vous faire attendre, monsieur; mais je ferai vot'\naffaire tout \u00e0 l'heure.\u00bb\n\nParlant ainsi, l'homme au chapeau blanc se remit \u00e0 travailler sur une\nbotte \u00e0 revers, avec une vitesse acc\u00e9l\u00e9r\u00e9e.\n\nOn entendit un autre carillon, et la vieille aubergiste du _Blanc-Cerf_\nparut d'un air affair\u00e9 dans la galerie oppos\u00e9e.\n\n\u00abSam! cria l'h\u00f4tesse. O\u00f9 est-il, ce paresseux, ce fain\u00e9ant, ce.... Oh!\nvous voil\u00e0 donc, Sam! Pourquoi ne r\u00e9pondiez-vous pas?\n\n--\u00c7a serait-y gentil de r\u00e9pondre avant que vous eussiez fini de parler?\nr\u00e9pliqua Sam un peu brusquement.\n\n--Tenez, cirez ces souliers pour le n\u00b0 17, sur-le-champ, et portez-les \u00e0\nla salle \u00e0 manger particuli\u00e8re, n\u00b0 5, au rez-de-chauss\u00e9e. Ayant ainsi\nparl\u00e9, l'aubergiste jeta dans la cour des souliers de femme, et\ns'\u00e9loigna en trottinant.\n\n--N\u00b0 5, dit Sam en ramassant les souliers et tirant un morceau de craie\nde sa poche, pour noter leur destination sous la semelle: Souliers de\nfemme et salle \u00e0 manger particuli\u00e8re, je parie bien qu'elle n'est pas\nvenue en charrette, celle-l\u00e0!\n\n--Elle est venue de bonne heure ce matin, cria la servante, qui \u00e9tait\nencore appuy\u00e9e sur la balustrade de la galerie, dans un fiacre, avec un\ngentleman, et c'est lui qui demande ses bottes, que vous feriez mieux de\nlui donner: voil\u00e0 l'histoire.\n\n--Pourquoi ne m'avez-vous pas dit \u00e7a d'abord? s'\u00e9cria Sam avec une\ngrande indignation, en choisissant les bottes en question parmi toutes\ncelles qui \u00e9taient devant lui. Je croyais que c'\u00e9tait une de nos\npratiques \u00e0 trois pence. Salle \u00e0 manger particuli\u00e8re! et une lady\nencore! S'il y a dans sa peau un peu du v\u00e9ritable gentleman, il me\nvaudra au moins un shilling par jour, sans compter les commissions.\u00bb\n\nStimul\u00e9 par cette r\u00e9flexion consolante, M. Samuel brossa avec tant de\nbonne volont\u00e9, qu'au bout de peu de minutes, il avait donn\u00e9 aux souliers\net aux bottes un luisant qui aurait rempli de jalousie l'\u00e2me de\nl'aimable M. _Warenn_; car, au _Blanc-Cerf_, on employait le cirage de\nMM. Day et Martin.\n\nArriv\u00e9 \u00e0 la porte du n\u00b0 5, Sam frappa respectueusement.\n\n\u00abEntrez!\u00bb r\u00e9pondit une voix d'homme.\n\nSam fit son plus beau salut, et parut en pr\u00e9sence d'une dame et d'un\ngentleman qui \u00e9taient en train de d\u00e9jeuner. Ayant officieusement d\u00e9pos\u00e9\nles bottes de droite et de gauche aux pieds respectifs du gentleman, et\nles souliers de droite et de gauche \u00e0 ceux de la dame, il se retira vers\nla porte.\n\n\u00abGar\u00e7on! dit le gentleman.\n\n--Monsieur! r\u00e9pondit Sam en fermant la porte et tenant la main sur le\nbouton de la serrure.\n\n--Connaissez-vous... comment cela s'appelle-t-il? _Doctors Commons_?\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--O\u00f9 est-ce?\n\n--_Paul's church-yards_, monsieur. Une arcade basse; un libraire d'un\nc\u00f4t\u00e9, un h\u00f4tel de l'autre, et deux commissionnaires qui se chargent\nd'obtenir des permis de mariage pour ceux qui en ont besoin.\n\n--Des permis de mariage? r\u00e9p\u00e9ta le gentleman.\n\n--Oui, des permis de mariage! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta Sam. Deux individus en tablier\nblanc touchent leurs chapeaux quand vous entrez: \u00abUn permis, monsieur,\nun permis?\u00bb Dr\u00f4les de gens, et leurs ma\u00eetres aussi! Ils ne valent pas\nmieux que les procureurs que consultent les plaideurs de la Cour\nd'assises.\n\n--Et que font-ils? demanda le gentleman.\n\n--Ce qu'ils font? Ils vous mettent dedans, monsieur! Et ce n'est pas\ntout: ils fourrent dans la t\u00eate des vieilles gens des choses comme ils\nn'en auraient jamais r\u00eav\u00e9. Mon p\u00e8re, monsieur, \u00e9tait un cocher, un\ncocher veuf, monsieur, et assez gros pour \u00eatre capable de tout;\n\u00e9tonnamment gros, mon p\u00e8re. Sa ch\u00e8re \u00e9pouse d\u00e9c\u00e8de, et lui laisse quatre\ncents guin\u00e9es. Bien! Il s'en va aux _Commons_ pour voir l'homme de loi,\net toucher le quibus. Fameuse tournure, mon p\u00e8re! Bottes \u00e0 revers,\nbouquet \u00e0 la boutonni\u00e8re, chapeau \u00e0 grands bords, ch\u00e2le vert, gentleman\nfini! Il passe sous l'arcade, pensant o\u00f9 il placerait son argent. Bon!\narrive le commissionnaire. Il touche son chapeau: \u00abUn permis,\nmonsieur?--Quoi qu'c'est? dit mon p\u00e8re.--Permis de mariage,\ndit-il.--Dieu me damne! dit mon p\u00e8re, je n'y avais jamais\npens\u00e9.--J'imagine qu'il vous en faut un, monsieur,\u00bb dit le\ncommissionnaire. Mon p\u00e8re s'arr\u00eate et r\u00e9fl\u00e9chit un brin. \u00abNon! dit-il,\ndiable m'emporte! Je suis trop vieux. D'ailleurs, je suis beaucoup trop\ngros, dit-il.--Allons donc, monsieur! dit l'autre.--Vous croyez? dit mon\np\u00e8re.--J'en suis s\u00fbr, qu'il dit. Nous avons mari\u00e9 un gentleman deux fois\nvot' corporence lundi pass\u00e9.--Vrai? dit mon p\u00e8re.--Bien vrai! dit\nl'autre; vous n'\u00eates qu'un gringalet aupr\u00e8s. Par ici, monsieur, par\nici.\u00bb Et ne voil\u00e0-t-il pas mon p\u00e8re qui marche apr\u00e8s lui, comme un singe\napprivois\u00e9 derri\u00e8re un orgue, dans un petit bureau noir, o\u00f9s qu'il y\navait un gaillard avec des papiers crasseux et des bo\u00eetes d'\u00e9tain, qui\ntravaillait \u00e0 faire croire qu'il \u00e9tait bien occup\u00e9. \u00abAsseyez-vous,\nmonsieur, pendant que je vas faire le certificat, dit l'homme de\nloi.--Merci, monsieur!\u00bb dit mon p\u00e8re; et il s'assoit et il examine de\ntous ses yeux, et avec sa bouche ouverte les noms qu'il y avait sur les\nbo\u00eetes. \u00abComment vous appelez-vous, monsieur? dit l'homme de loi.--Tony\nWeller, dit mon p\u00e8re. --Votre paroisse? dit l'autre.--_La\nBelle-Sauvage_, dit mon p\u00e8re, car il s'arr\u00eatait \u00e0 cet h\u00f4tel-l\u00e0 quand il\nconduisait, et il ne connaissait rien aux paroisses.--Et comment\ns'appelle la dame?\u00bb dit l'homme de loi. Voil\u00e0 mon p\u00e8re qui n'y est plus\ndu tout. \u00abDiable m'emporte si j'en sais rien! qu'il dit.--Vous n'en\nsavez rien? dit l'autre.--Pas plus que vous, dit mon p\u00e8re. Pourrais-je\npas ajouter le nom plus tard? dit-il.--Impossible! dit l'autre.--Tr\u00e8s-bien,\ndit mon p\u00e8re, apr\u00e8s avoir r\u00e9fl\u00e9chi un instant. Mettez Mme Clarke.--Clarke\nquoi? dit l'homme de loi en trempant sa plume dans l'encrier.--Suzanne\nClarke, \u00e0 l'enseigne du _Marquis de Granby, Dorking_, dit mon p\u00e8re. Je\ncrois bien qu'elle me prendra, si je la demande. Je n'y en ai jamais\ntouch\u00e9 un mot; mais elle me prendra, je le sais.\u00bb Comme \u00e7a, le permis\nfut enregistr\u00e9. Et bien s\u00fbr qu'elle l'a pris; et ce qu'il y a de pire,\nc'est qu'elle le tient encore au jour d'aujourd'hui, et moi je n'ai pas\nseulement vu la couleur des quatre cents guin\u00e9es. Pas de chance! Je vous\ndemande excuse, monsieur, ajouta Sam, \u00e0 la fin de son r\u00e9cit; mais quand\nje commence sur c'te dol\u00e9ance-l\u00e0, je ne peux pas plus m'arr\u00eater qu'une\nbrouette neuve qui a une roue bien graiss\u00e9e.\u00bb Ayant tout dit, et ayant\nattendu un instant pour voir si l'on n'avait pas besoin de lui, il\nsortit de la chambre.\n\n\u00abNeuf heures et demie! C'est l'heure; en route! dit alors le gentleman\nque nous pouvons nous dispenser d'introduire comme \u00e9tant M. Jingle.\n\n--L'heure de quoi? demanda la tante demoiselle avec coquetterie.\n\n--Du permis, ange ch\u00e9ri; apr\u00e8s, il faudra avertir \u00e0 l'\u00e9glise. Demain\nmatin, vous serez \u00e0 moi, r\u00e9pondit M. Jingle en serrant la main de la\ntante demoiselle.\n\n--Le permis! soupira Rachel en rougissant.\n\n--Le permis, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Jingle:\n\n    _Au galop! au galop! je cours le chercher.\n    Au galop! et flonflon! je reviens pr\u00e8s de vous!_\n\n--Comme vous allez vite! dit Rachel.\n\n--Vite! Vous verrez comme iront les heures, jours, semaines, mois,\nann\u00e9es, quand nous serons unis. Vite! Tonnerre, \u00e9clairs, locomotive,\nforce de mille chevaux, rien n'ira si vite!\n\n--Ne pourrions-nous pas... ne pourrions-nous pas \u00eatre mari\u00e9s avant\ndemain matin? demanda Rachel.\n\n--Impossible! Ne se peut pas! Il faut avertir l'\u00e9glise, laisser le\npermis aujourd'hui, c\u00e9r\u00e9monie demain!\n\n--J'ai une si grande frayeur que mon fr\u00e8re ne nous d\u00e9couvre!\n\n--Nous d\u00e9couvre! Folie! Trop secou\u00e9 par sa culbute! D'ailleurs, extr\u00eame\npr\u00e9caution: quitt\u00e9 la chaise de poste, march\u00e9, pris une voiture, venus\nici, la derni\u00e8re place o\u00f9 il nous cherchera. Eh! eh! fameuse id\u00e9e!\n\n--Ne soyez pas longtemps, dit la tante demoiselle avec affection,\nlorsqu'elle vit M. Jingle enfoncer son chapeau r\u00e2p\u00e9 sur sa t\u00eate.\n\n--Longtemps loin de vous! beaut\u00e9 cruelle! Et M. Jingle s'avan\u00e7a d'un air\nenjou\u00e9 vers Rachel, imprima un chaste baiser sur ses l\u00e8vres, et sortit\nen dansant de la chambre.\n\n--Cher amant! dit la demoiselle, tandis qu'il fermait la porte.\n\n--Dr\u00f4le de vieille folle!\u00bb pensa Jingle en arpentant les corridors.\n\nIl est p\u00e9nible de s'appesantir sur la perfidie de notre esp\u00e8ce, et nous\nne suivrons pas le fil des m\u00e9ditations de M. Jingle pendant son trajet\naux _Doctors' Commons_. Il suffira de dire qu'il \u00e9chappa aux emb\u00fbches\ndes gens en tablier blanc qui gardent la porte de cette r\u00e9gion\nenchant\u00e9e, et qu'il atteignit en s\u00fbret\u00e9 le bureau du vicaire g\u00e9n\u00e9ral.\nL\u00e0, il se procura une gracieuse \u00e9p\u00eetre de l'archev\u00eaque de Cantorb\u00e9ry: \u00abA\nses am\u00e9s et f\u00e9aux Alfred Jingle et Rachel Wardle, salut.\u00bb Il d\u00e9posa\nsoigneusement dans sa poche le document mystique, et retourna au\nBorough, en triomphe.\n\nIl \u00e9tait encore en chemin, lorsque deux gentlemen puissants et un\ngentleman maigre entr\u00e8rent dans la cour du _Blanc-Cerf_, et cherch\u00e8rent\ndes yeux quelque personne \u00e0 laquelle ils pussent adresser un certain\nnombre de questions. M. Samuel Weller, d\u00e9crotteur attitr\u00e9 du\n_Blanc-Cerf_, \u00e9tait en ce moment occup\u00e9 \u00e0 brunir une paire de bottes. Ce\nfut vers lui que se dirigea le gentleman maigre.\n\n\u00abMon ami! dit-il.\n\n--Il para\u00eet que celui-l\u00e0 aime les consultations gratuites; autrement, il\nne serait pas si amoureux de moi du premier coup, pensa le sagace\ngar\u00e7on; mais il se contenta de dire: \u00abEh bien! monsieur?\u00bb\n\n--Mon ami! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta le maigre gentleman avec un _hem!_ conciliateur,\navez-vous beaucoup de voyageurs en ce moment? hein? Bien occup\u00e9,\nn'est-ce pas?\u00bb\n\nSam examina l'interrogateur. C'\u00e9tait un petit homme, \u00e0 l'air affair\u00e9, au\nvisage brun et anguleux, dont les deux petits yeux toujours clignotants\net scintillants de chaque c\u00f4t\u00e9 d'un nez mince et inquisitif, semblaient\nfaire une perp\u00e9tuelle partie de cache-cache au moyen de cet organe. Son\nhabit noir faisait ressortir la blancheur de sa chemise et de son\n\u00e9troite cravate; sur son pantalon noir se d\u00e9tachait une cha\u00eene avec des\nbreloques d'or, et ses bottes \u00e9taient aussi luisantes que ses yeux. Il\ntenait \u00e0 la main ses gants de chevreau noir; et en parlant il fourrait\nses poignets sous les pans de son habit, de l'air d'un homme qui est\nhabitu\u00e9 \u00e0 poser des questions l\u00e9gales.\n\n\u00abBien occup\u00e9, hein? dit le petit homme.\n\n--Pas mal comme \u00e7a, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Sam. Nous ne ferons pas\nbanqueroute, ni fortune non plus. Nous mangeons not' mouton bouilli sans\nc\u00e2pres, et nous nous battons l'oeil du raifort, quand nous pouvons\nattraper du boeuf.\n\n--Ah! dit le petit homme, vous \u00eates un farceur, n'est-ce pas?...\n\n--Mon fr\u00e8re a\u00een\u00e9 \u00e9tait afflig\u00e9 de cette maladie-l\u00e0, r\u00e9pondit Sam. Nous\ncouchions ensemble, et \u00e7a s'attrape peut-\u00eatre....\n\n--Oh! la dr\u00f4le de vieille maison que voil\u00e0! reprit le petit homme en\nregardant autour de lui.\n\n--Fallait faire pr\u00e9venir de votre arriv\u00e9e, on lui aurait fait des\nr\u00e9parations, r\u00e9torqua le d\u00e9crotteur imperturbable.\u00bb\n\nSon interlocuteur parut un peu d\u00e9concert\u00e9 de ces rebuffades successives.\nUne courte consultation eut lieu entre lui et les deux gros gentlemen;\nensuite il prit une prise de tabac dans une \u00e9troite tabati\u00e8re d'argent,\net il paraissait se disposer \u00e0 renouveler la conversation, quand l'un de\nses compagnons, qui, outre une contenance bienveillante, \u00e9tait porteur\nd'une paire de lunettes et d'une paire de gu\u00eatres noires, s'avan\u00e7a et\ndit en montrant l'autre gros gentleman.\n\n\u00abLe fait est que mon ami vous donnera une demi-guin\u00e9e, si vous voulez\nr\u00e9pondre \u00e0 une ou deux....\u00bb\n\n--Eh! mon cher monsieur! mon cher monsieur! interrompit le petit homme.\nPermettez, je vous prie, mon cher monsieur. Le premier principe \u00e0\nobserver dans des cas semblables, est celui-ci: Si vous mettez la chose\nentre les mains d'un homme d'affaires, vous ne devez plus vous en m\u00ealer\naucunement. Vous devez reposer en lui une enti\u00e8re confiance. R\u00e9ellement,\nmonsieur...\u00bb Il se tourna vers l'autre gros gentleman en lui disant:\n\u00abJ'ai oubli\u00e9 le nom de votre ami.\n\n--Pickwick, r\u00e9pondit M. Wardle, car c'\u00e9tait ce joyeux personnage\nlui-m\u00eame.\n\n--Ah! Pickwick. R\u00e9ellement, monsieur Pickwick, mon cher monsieur,\nexcusez-moi: Je serai heureux de recevoir vos avis en particulier, comme\n_amicus curiae_: mais vous devez voir l'inconvenance de votre\nintervention en ce moment, surtout par un argument _ad captandum_, tel\nque l'offre d'une demi-guin\u00e9e. R\u00e9ellement, mon cher monsieur,\nr\u00e9ellement... et le petit homme prit un air profond et une prise de\ntabac argumentative.\n\n--Mon seul d\u00e9sir, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick, \u00e9tait d'amener \u00e0 fin,\naussi vite que possible, cette d\u00e9sagr\u00e9able affaire.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, tr\u00e8s-bien, dit le petit homme.\n\n--C'est pourquoi, continua M. Pickwick, j'ai fait usage de l'argument\nque mon exp\u00e9rience des hommes m'a fait reconna\u00eetre comme le meilleur\ndans tous les cas.\n\n--Oui, oui, dit le petit homme: tr\u00e8s-bon! tr\u00e8s-bon! c'est vrai. Mais\nvous auriez d\u00fb me sugg\u00e9rer cela \u00e0 moi. Vous savez, j'en suis s\u00fbr, quelle\nconfiance sans bornes on doit placer dans son homme d'affaires. S'il\n\u00e9tait besoin d'une autorit\u00e9 \u00e0 ce sujet, permettez-moi, mon cher\nmonsieur, de vous r\u00e9f\u00e9rer \u00e0 un cas bien connu dans Barnwell....\n\n--Ne vous alambiquez pas de George Barnevelt, interrompit Sam, qui \u00e9tait\nrest\u00e9 fort \u00e9tonn\u00e9 de ce dialogue. Tout le monde conna\u00eet son histoire,\net, voyez-vous, j'ai toujours imagin\u00e9 que la jeune femme m\u00e9ritait\nbeaucoup mieux que lui d'\u00eatre pendue[13]. Mais c'est \u00e9gal; \u00e7a n'a rien \u00e0\nvoir ici. Vous voulez que j'accepte une demi-guin\u00e9e. Tr\u00e8s-bien, \u00e7a me\nva; je ne puis pas parler mieux que \u00e7a. Pas vrai, monsieur? (M. Pickwick\nsourit.) Alors il ne s'agit plus que de savoir ce que diable vous me\nvoulez, comme dit c't autre quand il vit le revenant.\n\n[Footnote 13: Allusion \u00e0 une cause c\u00e9l\u00e8bre.]\n\n--Nous voulons savoir.... dit M. Wardle.\n\n--Eh! mon cher monsieur! mon cher monsieur! interrompit le petit homme \u00e0\nl'air affair\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nM. Wardle leva les \u00e9paules, et se tut.\n\n\u00abNous voulons savoir, reprit solennellement le petit homme, et nous vous\nadressons cette question pour ne pas \u00e9veiller d'inutiles appr\u00e9hensions\ndans l'auberge; nous voulons savoir ce qui s'y trouve actuellement.\n\n--Qu'est-ce qu'il y a dans la maison? Il y a une paire de bottes\nhongroises, au n\u00b0 13, r\u00e9pondit Sam, dans l'esprit duquel les logeurs\n\u00e9taient repr\u00e9sent\u00e9s par la partie de leur costume qui se trouvait sous\nsa direction imm\u00e9diate. Il y a une jambe de bois au n\u00b0 6; deux paires de\ndemi-bottes dans la salle du commerce. Il y a ces bottes \u00e0 revers ici,\nau rez-de-chauss\u00e9e, et cinq autres paires dans le caf\u00e9.\n\n--Pas davantage? dit le petit homme.\n\n--Attendez un brin, reprit Sam, en cherchant \u00e0 se rappeler; oui, il y a\nune paire de bottes \u00e0 la Wellington, pas mal us\u00e9es, et des souliers de\ndame, au n\u00b0 5.\n\n--Quelle sorte de souliers? demanda avec empressement M. Wardle, qui,\nainsi que M. Pickwick, s'\u00e9tait perdu dans ce singulier catalogue de\nchalands.\n\n--Souliers de province.\n\n--Y a-t-il le nom du cordonnier?\n\n--Brown.\n\n--D'o\u00f9 cela?\n\n--Muggleton.\n\n--Ce sont eux! s'\u00e9cria Wardle. Par le ciel nous les avons trouv\u00e9s.\n\n--Chut! dit Sam: Les Wellington sont all\u00e9s aux _Doctors' Commons_.\n\n--Bah! fit le petit homme.\n\n--Oui, pour un permis.\n\n--Nous arrivons \u00e0 temps, s'\u00e9cria Wardle. Montrez-nous la chambre; il n'y\na pas un moment \u00e0 perdre.\n\n--Je vous en prie, mon cher monsieur, je vous en prie, dit le petit\nhomme. De la prudence; de la prudence!\u00bb\n\nEn parlant ainsi, il tira de sa poche une bourse de soie rouge, dont il\naveignit un souverain, en regardant fixement Sam. Celui-ci sourit d'une\nmani\u00e8re expressive.\n\n\u00abMontrez-nous la chambre, tout d'un coup, sans nous annoncer, dit le\npetit homme; et il est \u00e0 vous.\u00bb\n\nSam jeta la botte \u00e0 revers dans un coin, et conduisit nos gens \u00e0 travers\nun corridor sombre et un large escalier. Arriv\u00e9 dans un second corridor,\nil fit halte et tendit la main.\n\n\u00abLe voil\u00e0,\u00bb dit tout bas l'avou\u00e9 en d\u00e9posant le souverain dans la main\nde leur guide.\n\nSam fit encore quelques pas, et s'arr\u00eata devant une porte.\n\n\u00abC'est ici? demanda le petit homme.\u00bb\n\nSam fit signe que oui.\n\nLe vieux Wardle ouvrit la porte, et tous les trois p\u00e9n\u00e9tr\u00e8rent dans la\nchambre, juste au moment o\u00f9 M. Jingle, qui venait de rentrer, montrait\nle permis \u00e0 la tante demoiselle.\n\nRachel jeta un grand cri, et se renversant sur une chaise, se couvrit le\nvisage avec les mains. M. Jingle chiffonna le permis, et le fourra dans\nsa poche. Les visiteurs intempestifs s'avanc\u00e8rent au milieu de la\nchambre.\n\n\u00abVous \u00eates un joli coquin! s'\u00e9cria le vieux Wardle, haletant de col\u00e8re.\nVous \u00eates...\n\n--Mon cher monsieur! mon cher monsieur! interrompit le petit homme, en\nposant son chapeau sur la table. Je vous en prie, faites attention.\n_Scandalum magnatum_... diffamation... action pour dommages...\nCalmez-vous, mon cher monsieur, je vous en prie.\n\n--Comment osez-vous enlever ma soeur de ma maison? reprit M. Wardle.\n\n--Oui, tr\u00e8s-bien, dit le petit gentleman. Vous pouvez lui demander cela.\nComment osez-vous enlever sa soeur, eh! monsieur?\n\n--Qui diable \u00eates-vous! s'\u00e9cria M. Jingle d'un ton si violent que le\npetit homme en recula involontairement un pas ou deux.\n\n--Qui il est? coquin! C'est mon avou\u00e9, M. Perker. Perker, je veux\npoursuivre ce gueux-l\u00e0! je veux le faire empoigner! Je veux... Je\nveux... Dieu me damne! je veux le ruiner.--Et vous, continua M. Wardle\nen se tournant brusquement vers sa soeur; vous Rachel, \u00e0 votre \u00e2ge! quand\nvous devriez conna\u00eetre le monde! A quoi pensez-vous de vous enfuir avec\nun vagabond? de d\u00e9shonorer votre famille, de vous rendre vous-m\u00eame\nmis\u00e9rable! Mettez votre chapeau, et venez avec moi.--Faites venir une\nvoiture et apportez la note de cette dame. Entendez-vous? entendez-vous?\n\n--Voil\u00e0, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Sam, en r\u00e9pondant au violent coup de\nsonnette de M. Wardle avec une c\u00e9l\u00e9rit\u00e9 merveilleuse, pour quiconque ne\nsavait pas que son oeil avait \u00e9t\u00e9 appliqu\u00e9 au trou de la serrure, pendant\ntoute l'entrevue.\n\n--Mettez votre chapeau! reprit Wardle.\n\n--N'en faites rien, s'\u00e9cria Jingle. Quittez cette chambre, monsieur! Pas\nd'affaires ici. Dame libre et ma\u00eetresse de ses actions. Plus de vingt et\nun ans.\n\n--Plus de vingt et un ans! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Wardle avec m\u00e9pris. Plus de\n_quarante_ et un ans!\n\n--Ce n'est pas vrai! s'\u00e9cria la tante demoiselle, son indignation\nl'emportant sur son d\u00e9sir de se trouver mal.\n\n--C'est vrai, r\u00e9pliqua M. Wardle. Vous avez cinquante ans, comme un\njour!\u00bb\n\nLa tante demoiselle poussa un cri aigre, et perdit connaissance.\n\nM. Pickwick, avec son am\u00e9nit\u00e9 accoutum\u00e9e appela l'h\u00f4tesse, et lui\ndemanda un verre d'eau.\n\n\u00abUn verre d'eau! repartit le col\u00e9rique vieillard; apportez-en un baquet\net jetez-le sur elle. Cela lui fera du bien, et elle le m\u00e9rite\nrichement.\n\n--Fi! brute que vous \u00eates!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria la compatissante h\u00f4tesse. Puis, avec\ndiverses exclamations de: \u00abpauvre ch\u00e8re dame! Allons, allons, pauvre\nch\u00e9rie! buvez un peu de \u00e7a; \u00e7a vous fera du bien; ne vous laissez pas\nabattre comme \u00e7a; pauvre amour!\u00bb etc., etc. L'h\u00f4tesse, assist\u00e9e par une\nservante commen\u00e7a \u00e0 humecter le front, \u00e0 frapper dans les mains, \u00e0\nchatouiller le nez, \u00e0 d\u00e9lacer le corset de la tante demoiselle, et \u00e0 lui\nadministrer enfin tous les calmants appliqu\u00e9s ordinairement par les\nsensibles matrones aux dames qui s'efforcent de se donner des attaques\nde nerfs.\n\n\u00abLa voiture est pr\u00eate, monsieur, dit Sam, en paraissant \u00e0 la porte.\n\n--Allons! venez, reprit M. Wardle. Je vais la porter dans la voiture.\u00bb\n\nA cette proposition les attaques de nerfs recommenc\u00e8rent avec une\nnouvelle fureur.\n\nL'h\u00f4tesse \u00e9tait sur le point de protester violemment contre ce proc\u00e9d\u00e9,\net avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 demand\u00e9 avec indignation si M. Wardle se croyait seigneur\nde la cr\u00e9ation, lorsque M. Jingle s'interposa.\n\n\u00abGar\u00e7on, dit-il, amenez-moi un constable.\n\n--Attendez! attendez! dit le petit Perker. Consid\u00e9rez, monsieur,\nconsid\u00e9rez.\n\n--Je ne veux rien consid\u00e9rer, r\u00e9pliqua Jingle. Elle est sa ma\u00eetresse.\nVoyons qui osera l'emmener, sans son consentement.\n\n--Je ne veux pas \u00eatre emmen\u00e9e, murmura la dame \u00e9vanouie. Je n'y consens\npas. (Ici il y eut une rechute effrayante.)\n\n--Mon cher monsieur, dit le petit avou\u00e9, en prenant \u00e0 part M. Wardle et\nM. Pickwick; mon cher monsieur, nous sommes dans une situation bien\nembarrassante. C'est un cas d\u00e9solant; je n'en ai jamais connu de plus\nd\u00e9solant, mais, r\u00e9ellement, mon cher monsieur, nous n'avons aucun\npouvoir pour contr\u00f4ler les actions de cette dame. Je vous ai pr\u00e9venu\navant de venir, mon cher monsieur, qu'il n'y avait pas d'autre rem\u00e8de\nqu'un accommodement.\n\n--Quelle esp\u00e8ce d'accommodement voudriez-vous faire? demanda M.\nPickwick.\n\n--Voyez-vous, mon cher monsieur, votre ami est dans une position\ntr\u00e8s-d\u00e9plaisante, excessivement d\u00e9plaisante. Il faut qu'il consente \u00e0\nsubir quelques pertes p\u00e9cuniaires.\n\n--Je d\u00e9penserai tout ce qu'il faudra plut\u00f4t que de supporter ce\nd\u00e9shonneur, plut\u00f4t que de souffrir, toute folle qu'elle est, qu'elle se\nrende mis\u00e9rable pour sa vie enti\u00e8re.\n\n--Je suppose que cela pourra s'arranger, dit le petit homme affair\u00e9. M.\nJingle, voulez-vous venir avec nous, pour un instant, dans la chambre \u00e0\nc\u00f4t\u00e9?\u00bb\n\nM. Jingle y consentit et le quatuor passa dans une pi\u00e8ce voisine.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, monsieur, dit le petit homme en fermant soigneusement la\nporte, n'y a-t-il aucun moyen d'accommoder cette affaire? Venez par ici,\nmonsieur, dans cette embrasure de crois\u00e9e, o\u00f9 nous serons en\nt\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eate. L\u00e0, monsieur, l\u00e0! Asseyez-vous s'il vous pla\u00eet, monsieur.\nMaintenant, mon cher monsieur, entre vous et moi, nous savons tr\u00e8s-bien,\nmon cher monsieur, que vous avez enlev\u00e9 cette dame pour l'amour de son\nargent. Ne froncez pas le sourcil, monsieur, c'est inutile: je vous dis,\nentre vous et moi, que _nous_ savons cela. Nous sommes tous les deux des\nhommes du monde, et _nous_ savons tr\u00e8s-bien que nos amis ici n'en sont\npas. N'est-ce pas, monsieur?\u00bb\n\nLe visage de M. Jingle s'\u00e9claircit graduellement pendant ce discours, et\nquelque chose qui ressemblait \u00e0 un clignement d'oeil trembla, pendant un\ninstant, dans sa paupi\u00e8re gauche.\n\n\u00abTr\u00e8s-bien! tr\u00e8s-bien! poursuivit M. Perker, observant l'impression\nqu'il avait faite. Maintenant, le fait est que la dame n'a rien, ou peu\nde chose, jusqu'\u00e0 la mort de sa m\u00e8re.... Une personne bien constitu\u00e9e,\nmon cher monsieur.\n\n--Vieille! dit M. Jingle laconiquement, mais avec \u00e9nergie.\n\n--Oui, c'est vrai, reprit l'avou\u00e9 avec une l\u00e9g\u00e8re toux; vous avez\nraison, mon cher monsieur, elle est assez vieille. Mais elle vient d'une\nvieille famille, mon cher monsieur; vieille dans toutes les acceptions\ndu mot. Le fondateur de cette famille arriva dans le comt\u00e9 de Kent, lors\nde l'invasion de Jules-C\u00e9sar, et depuis ce temps-l\u00e0 il n'y a qu'un seul\nde ses membres qui n'ait pas v\u00e9cu jusqu'\u00e0 quatre-vingt-cinq ans, encore\na-t-il \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9capit\u00e9 par ordre d'un des Henry. La vieille dame n'a pas\nsoixante-treize ans, mon cher monsieur.\u00bb\n\nLe petit homme s'arr\u00eata et prit une prise de tabac.\n\n\u00abEh bien? fit M. Jingle.\n\n--Eh bien! mon cher monsieur.... Vous ne prenez pas de tabac? Vous avez\nraison, c'est une habitude co\u00fbteuse. Eh bien! mon cher monsieur, vous\n\u00eates un joli gar\u00e7on, un homme du monde, capable de pousser votre\nfortune, si vous aviez un capital, hein?\n\n--Eh bien! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Jingle.\n\n--Vous ne me comprenez pas?\n\n--Pas tout \u00e0 fait.\n\n--Ne pensez-vous pas... Je viens au fait, mon cher monsieur. Ne\npensez-vous pas que cinquante guin\u00e9es et la libert\u00e9 seraient plus\nagr\u00e9ables que miss Wardle et des esp\u00e9rances?\n\n--Impossible! dit M. Jingle en se levant. Pas assez, de moiti\u00e9!\n\n--Non! non! mon cher monsieur, reprit le petit avou\u00e9 en l'arr\u00eatant par\nun bouton. Bonne somme ronde. Un homme comme vous pourrait la tripler en\nun rien de temps. On peut faire bien des choses avec cinquante gain\u00e9es,\nmon cher monsieur.\n\n--Bien plus avec cent cinquante, r\u00e9pliqua Jingle froidement.\n\n--Allons, mon cher monsieur, nous ne perdrons pas notre temps \u00e0 couper\nun cheveu en quatre. Disons... disons quatre-vingts....\n\n--Impossible!\n\n--Restez, mon cher monsieur. Dites-moi ce que vous voulez.\n\n--Affaire co\u00fbteuse, d\u00e9bours\u00e9s, chevaux de poste, neuf guin\u00e9es; licence,\ntrois guin\u00e9es, douze guin\u00e9es; compensation, cent guin\u00e9es, cent douze.\nPerte d'honneur et perte de la dame....\n\n--Allons! mon cher monsieur, allons! interrompit l'homme d'affaires d'un\nair malin. Ne parlons pas des deux derniers articles. Cela fait cent\ndouze guin\u00e9es. Mettons cent, allons!\n\n--Cent vingt[14].\n\n[Footnote 14: 3000 francs.]\n\n--Allons! allons! je vais vous \u00e9crire un mandat, reprit le petit homme\nen s'asseyant pr\u00e8s d'une table, et commen\u00e7ant \u00e0 \u00e9crire. Je le ferai\npayable pour apr\u00e8s demain et nous pouvons emmener la dame d'ici l\u00e0?\u00bb\najouta-t-il en interrogeant M. Wardle du regard.\n\nCelui-ci fit un sombre signe d'assentiment.\n\n\u00abCent, dit le petit homme.\n\n--Et vingt, ajouta Jingle.\n\n--Mon cher monsieur! reprit l'avou\u00e9.\n\n--Donnez-les lui, interrompit M. Wardle. Et qu'il s'en aille au diable\navec!\u00bb\n\nLe mandat fut donc \u00e9crit par le petit gentleman, et empoch\u00e9 par M.\nJingle.\n\n\u00abMaintenant quittez cette maison sur-le-champ! dit M. Wardle, en se\nlevant.\n\n--Mon cher monsieur... observa l'homme d'affaires.\n\n--Et sachez, continua M. Wardle sans s'occuper de l'interrupteur, sachez\nque rien au monde, pas m\u00eame l'honneur de ma famille, n'aurait pu me\nfaire consentir \u00e0 cet arrangement, si je n'\u00e9tais pas convaincu que vous\ndeviendrez la proie du diable d'autant plus vite que vous aurez plus\nd'argent.\n\n--Mon cher monsieur, repr\u00e9senta de nouveau le petit homme.\n\n--Tenez-vous tranquille, Perker, lui r\u00e9pondit son col\u00e8re client. Quittez\ncette chambre, monsieur!\n\n--En route sur-le-champ, r\u00e9pliqua l'impassible Jingle. Adieu Pickwick.\u00bb\n\nSi quelque spectateur d\u00e9sint\u00e9ress\u00e9 avait pu contempler, pendant la fin\nde cette conversation, la contenance de l'homme illustre dont le nom\nd\u00e9core notre titre, il aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9tonn\u00e9 que le feu de l'indignation qui\njaillissait de ses yeux ne fit pas fondre les verres de ses lunettes.\nSes narines s'enfl\u00e8rent, ses poings se ferm\u00e8rent involontairement, quand\nil s'entendit nommer famili\u00e8rement par le mis\u00e9rable. Mais il se contint;\nil ne le pulv\u00e9risa point.\n\n\u00abTenez, continua le sc\u00e9l\u00e9rat endurci, en jetant la licence aux pieds de\nM. Pickwick. Changez les noms, emmenez la dame,--fera l'affaire de\nTuppy.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick \u00e9tait un philosophe. Mais, apr\u00e8s tout, les philosophes ne\nsont que des hommes rev\u00eatus d'une armure de sagesse. Le trait mordant\np\u00e9n\u00e9tra \u00e0 travers le harnais philosophique de notre h\u00e9ros et d\u00e9chira\nprofond\u00e9ment son coeur. Dans un acc\u00e8s de rage il lan\u00e7a, au hasard,\nl'encrier qui avait servi \u00e0 M. Perker, et se pr\u00e9cipita dans la m\u00eame\ndirection. Mais son adversaire \u00e9tait disparu et il se trouva arr\u00eat\u00e9 dans\nles bras de Sam.\n\n\u00abOh\u00e9! dit cet excentrique fonctionnaire. Le mobilier n'est pas cher dans\nvot' pays, vieux gentleman. Voil\u00e0 une encre qui \u00e9crit toute seule, hein?\nElle vient d'\u00e9crire vot' nom sur ce mur. Laissez donc monsieur; \u00e0 quoi\nbon courir apr\u00e8s un homme qui est, \u00e0 pr\u00e9sent, \u00e0 l'autre bout du\nBorough?\u00bb\n\nL'esprit de M. Pickwick, comme celui de tous les hommes vraiment grands,\n\u00e9tait ouvert \u00e0 la persuasion, et comme il raisonnait puissamment et\nrapidement, un seul instant de r\u00e9flexion suffit pour le convaincre de\nl'inutilit\u00e9 de son courroux. Il s'apaisa aussi vite qu'il s'\u00e9tait\nenlev\u00e9, respira fortement, et jeta un regard b\u00e9nin sur ses amis.\n\nRapporterons-nous les lamentations de miss Wardle quand elle apprit de\nquelle mani\u00e8re son infid\u00e8le amant l'abandonnait? Imprimerons-nous les\nd\u00e9tails de cette sc\u00e8ne d\u00e9chirante, si admirablement d\u00e9crite par M.\nPickwick? Son livre de notes est ouvert devant nous; une l\u00e9g\u00e8re\nmoisissure indique encore combien de larmes lui arracha l'humanit\u00e9\nsympathisante. Un seul mot, et ces notes seront entre les mains de\nl'imprimeur. Mais non! nous r\u00e9sisterons \u00e0 cette pens\u00e9e! nous ne\nd\u00e9solerons pas le coeur du publie par la peinture de ces affreuses\nsouffrances.\n\nLe lendemain, la lourde voiture de Muggleton ramena, lentement et\ntristement, les deux amis avec la dame d\u00e9laiss\u00e9e. Les ombres de la nuit\n\u00e9taient tomb\u00e9es depuis bien longtemps sur toute la nature, quand ils\narriv\u00e8rent \u00e0 la porte de Manoir-ferme.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XI.\n\nContenant un autre voyage et une d\u00e9couverte d'antiquit\u00e9: annon\u00e7ant la\nr\u00e9solution de M. Pickwick d'assister \u00e0 une \u00e9lection, et renfermant un\nmanuscrit donn\u00e9 par le vieil eccl\u00e9siastique.\n\n\nUne nuit de repos et de tranquillit\u00e9 dans le profond silence de\nDingley-Dell, et, le lendemain matin, une heure d'immersion dans l'air\nfrais et parfum\u00e9 de la campagne, effac\u00e8rent compl\u00e9tement, chez M.\nPickwick, les traces de la fatigue que son corps avait support\u00e9e et de\nl'anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 qui avait agit\u00e9 son esprit. Depuis deux jours cet homme\nillustre \u00e9tait s\u00e9par\u00e9 de ses amis, de ses sectateurs, et lorsqu'au\nretour de sa promenade matinale il rencontra M. Winkle et M. Snodgrass,\nce fut avec un sentiment de d\u00e9lices qui peut \u00e0 peine \u00eatre compris par\nune imagination vulgaire, qu'il s'avan\u00e7a au-devant d'eux pour leur dire\nbonjour. Le plaisir fut mutuel. Qui pourrait, en effet, contempler, sans\nen \u00e9prouver, le visage rayonnant de M. Pickwick? Et cependant un nuage\nsemblait obscurcir le front de ses disciples. Ils avaient un air\nmyst\u00e9rieux, aussi alarmant qu'extraordinaire. Le grand homme s'en\naper\u00e7ut et ne put en deviner la cause.\n\nApr\u00e8s avoir serr\u00e9 les mains des deux jeunes gens, et prof\u00e9r\u00e9 de chaudes\nexpressions de bienvenue, M. Pickwick leur dit: \u00abComment va Tupman?\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle, \u00e0 qui cette question \u00e9tait plus particuli\u00e8rement adress\u00e9e, ne\nfit point de r\u00e9ponse. Il d\u00e9tourna la t\u00eate et parut absorb\u00e9 dans de\nm\u00e9lancoliques r\u00e9flexions.\n\n\u00abSnodgrass, reprit M. Pickwick avec vivacit\u00e9, comment va notre ami?\nEst-il malade?\n\n--Non! r\u00e9pliqua M. Snodgrass; et une larme trembla sur sa paupi\u00e8re\nsentimentale, comme une goutte de pluie sur le bord d'une crois\u00e9e. Non!\nil n'est pas malade!\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick contempla tour \u00e0 tour chacun de ses amis.\n\n\u00abWinkle! Snodgrass! leur dit-il quand il les eut suffisamment\ncontempl\u00e9s, que signifie cela? O\u00f9 est notre ami? Qu'est-il arriv\u00e9?\nParlez, je vous en supplie, je vous en conjure! Que dis-je? je vous le\ncommande, parlez!\u00bb\n\nIl y avait dans le maintien et dans l'accent de M. Pickwick une dignit\u00e9,\nune solennit\u00e9 \u00e0 laquelle il \u00e9tait impossible de r\u00e9sister. \u00abIl nous a\nquitt\u00e9s, r\u00e9pondit M. Snodgrass.\n\n--Quitt\u00e9s! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick.\n\n--Quitt\u00e9s, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Snodgrass.\n\n--O\u00f9 est-il? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Nous pouvons seulement le soup\u00e7onner d'apr\u00e8s cet \u00e9crit, r\u00e9pliqua M.\nSnodgrass en tirant une lettre de sa poche et la pla\u00e7ant entre les mains\nde son ami. Hier matin, quand nous avons re\u00e7u une lettre de M. Wardle,\nqui nous annon\u00e7ait pour la nuit le retour de sa soeur, nous avons\nremarqu\u00e9 que la m\u00e9lancolie qui assombrissait l'\u00e2me de notre ami,\nsemblait s'accro\u00eetre encore. Peu de temps apr\u00e8s il disparut. Nous le\ncherch\u00e2mes vainement durant tout le jour; et, dans la soir\u00e9e, cette\nlettre nous fut apport\u00e9e par le palefrenier de la _Couronne_, \u00e0\nMuggleton. Notre ami la lui avait laiss\u00e9e d\u00e8s le matin, en lui\nrecommandant bien de ne nous la remettre que lorsque les ombres de la\nnuit auraient obscurci la nature.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick ouvrit la lettre. Elle \u00e9tait de l'\u00e9criture de M. Tupman, et\ncontenait ce qui suit;\n\n     \u00abMon cher Pickwick,\n\n\u00abVous qui \u00eates plac\u00e9s dans une r\u00e9gion sup\u00e9rieure aux faiblesses\nhumaines, vous ignorez quel coup fatal on re\u00e7oit lorsqu'on est abandonn\u00e9\npar une charmante, par une fascinante cr\u00e9ature; et lorsqu'on devient la\nvictime d'un monstre qui cachait la ruse et le vice hideux sous le\nmasque de l'amiti\u00e9. Ah! puissiez-vous ne l'apprendre jamais!\n\n\u00abLes lettres qui me seront adress\u00e9es \u00e0 la _Bouteille de cuir_, \u00e0\nCobham-Kent, me seront transmises, suppos\u00e9 que j'existe encore. Je\nm'\u00e9loigne d'une partie du monde qui m'est devenue odieuse. Si je quitte\nle monde tout entier, plaignez-moi, pardonnez-moi. La vie, mon cher ami,\nm'est devenue insupportable! La flamme qui br\u00fble au dedans de nous est\ncomme les crochets d'un porteur, sur lesquels repose l'\u00e9norme poids des\nsoins et des soucis du monde; quand cette flamme nous manque, le fardeau\ndevient trop pesant pour que nous puissions le supporter et nous tombons\naccabl\u00e9s sur la terre. Vous pouvez dire \u00e0 Rachel.... Ah! ce nom!... Quel\nsouvenir!...\n\n     \u00abTRACY TUPMAN.\u00bb\n\n\u00abNous allons partir sur-le-champ, dit M. Pickwick en refermant cette\nlettre. Nous n'aurions pu, dans aucune circonstance, rester d\u00e9cemment\nici apr\u00e8s les \u00e9v\u00e9nements qui s'y sont pass\u00e9s; mais maintenant, c'est un\ndevoir pour nous d'aller \u00e0 la recherche de notre ami.\u00bb En pronon\u00e7ant ces\nnobles paroles, M. Pickwick prit le chemin de la maison.\n\nSes intentions furent promptement communiqu\u00e9es \u00e0 ses h\u00f4tes. Leurs\npri\u00e8res pour le retenir furent instantes, mais inutiles. \u00abD'importantes\naffaires, leur dit-il, rendent mon d\u00e9part indispensable.\u00bb\n\nLe vieil eccl\u00e9siastique \u00e9tait pr\u00e9sent.\n\n\u00abVous \u00eates donc d\u00e9cid\u00e9 \u00e0 nous quitter?\u00bb dit-il \u00e0 M. Pickwick, en le\nprenant \u00e0 part; et sur sa r\u00e9ponse affirmative, il ajouta: \u00abS'il en est\nainsi, voil\u00e0 un petit manuscrit que j'esp\u00e9rais avoir le plaisir de vous\nlire moi-m\u00eame. Ayant perdu un de mes amis, qui \u00e9tait m\u00e9decin de notre\nh\u00f4pital des fous, j'ai trouv\u00e9 ce manuscrit parmi beaucoup d'autres\npapiers qu'il m'avait charg\u00e9 de br\u00fbler ou de conserver, \u00e0 mon choix. Il\nn'est point de la main de mon ami, et j'ai peine \u00e0 croire qu'il ne soit\npas apocryphe: lisez-le, mon cher monsieur, et jugez par vous-m\u00eame, s'il\na \u00e9t\u00e9 r\u00e9ellement \u00e9crit par un maniaque, ou, ce qui me para\u00eet plus\nprobable, si les r\u00eaveries d'un de ces infortun\u00e9s ont \u00e9t\u00e9 recueillies par\nune autre personne.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick re\u00e7ut le manuscrit, et se s\u00e9para du bienveillant vieillard\navec mille expressions d'estime et d'affection.\n\nC'\u00e9tait une t\u00e2che bien plus difficile de prendre cong\u00e9 des habitants de\nManoir-ferme, o\u00f9 nos voyageurs avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 re\u00e7us avec tant\nd'hospitalit\u00e9, avec des attentions si d\u00e9licates. M. Pickwick embrassa\nles jeunes ladies. Nous allions dire, _comme si elles avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 ses\npropres filles_, mais la comparaison pourrait bien n'\u00eatre pas\nenti\u00e8rement exacte, car peut-\u00eatre y mit-il un peu plus de chaleur. Il\nembrassa la vieille lady avec une tendresse filiale, et en glissant dans\nla main des servantes quelques preuves substantielles de sa\nbienveillance, il tapota leurs joues ros\u00e9es, d'une mani\u00e8re toute\npatriarcale. Ensuite, des protestations bien plus cordiales encore, bien\nplus prolong\u00e9es, furent \u00e9chang\u00e9es avec leur excellent amphytrion et avec\nM. Trundle. Cependant M. Snodgrass \u00e9tait disparu; et il fallut l'appeler\nplusieurs fois avant de le d\u00e9terminer \u00e0 sortir de certains corridors\nsombres.\n\nMiss \u00c9mily rentra bient\u00f4t apr\u00e8s, et ses yeux, ordinairement si\nbrillants, paraissaient ternes et battus. Enfin les trois amis\ns'arrach\u00e8rent des bras de leurs aimables h\u00f4tes, et tout en s'\u00e9loignant\nlentement de la ferme, ils jet\u00e8rent en arri\u00e8re bien des regards\nattendris. On pr\u00e9tend m\u00eame que M. Snodgrass lan\u00e7a d'innombrables baisers\ndans les airs, en reconnaissance de quelque chose de blanch\u00e2tre qui\ncontinua \u00e0 s'agiter \u00e0 une des crois\u00e9es de la maison, jusqu'au moment o\u00f9\nun d\u00e9tour du chemin leur cacha la vieille demeure: ce quelque chose\nressemblait beaucoup \u00e0 un mouchoir de femme.\n\nA Muggleton nos voyageurs prirent la voiture de Rochester, et lorsqu'ils\narriv\u00e8rent dans ce dernier endroit, leur douleur s'\u00e9tait suffisamment\napais\u00e9e pour leur permettre de faire un excellent d\u00eener. Quelque temps\napr\u00e8s, ayant pris les informations n\u00e9cessaires concernant le chemin\nqu'ils devaient suivre, ils se dirig\u00e8rent, en se promenant, vers Cobham.\n\nC'\u00e9tait par une charmante soir\u00e9e du mois de juin. La route, qui\nserpentait \u00e0 l'ombre d'un bois, \u00e9tait \u00e9gay\u00e9e par le chant des oiseaux,\net rafra\u00eechie par l'haleine du z\u00e9phir; le lierre grimpant et les mousses\npendantes ornaient le tronc des vieux arbres; la terre \u00e9tait rev\u00eatue\nd'un vert gazon, aussi d\u00e9licat qu'un tapis de soie. En sortant du bois,\nnos voyageurs se trouv\u00e8rent dans un parc ouvert, au milieu duquel\ns'\u00e9levait un ancien ch\u00e2teau construit dans le style pittoresque et\nsingulier du temps d'\u00c9lisabeth. De longs points de vue s'\u00e9tendaient de\ntous les c\u00f4t\u00e9s, au milieu des ch\u00eanes et des ormes gigantesques; de\nnombreux troupeaux de daims paissaient l'herbe fra\u00eeche, et de temps en\ntemps une biche effray\u00e9e traversait le chemin, l\u00e9g\u00e8re comme l'ombre des\nnuages qui glisse rapidement sur un paysage inond\u00e9 par la chaude lumi\u00e8re\ndu soleil.\n\n\u00abSi tous ceux qui sont attaqu\u00e9s de la maladie de notre ami se retiraient\ndans cette contr\u00e9e, dit M. Pickwick, en regardant autour de lui, je\nm'imagine que leur vieil attachement pour le monde rena\u00eetrait bient\u00f4t.\n\n--Je le pense aussi, dit M. Winkle.\n\n--Et r\u00e9ellement, ajouta M. Pickwick, lorsqu'une demi-heure de marche les\neut amen\u00e9s dans le village, r\u00e9ellement, quoique choisi par un\nmisanthrope, cet endroit me semble le plus joli et le plus s\u00e9duisant que\nj'aie jamais rencontr\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle et M. Snodgrass s'associ\u00e8rent sans restriction \u00e0 ces louanges.\n\nBient\u00f4t apr\u00e8s, ayant demand\u00e9 _la Bouteille de cuir_, nos voyageurs\nfurent dirig\u00e9s vers une auberge d'assez bonne apparence, pour une\nauberge de village, et s'enquirent s'il s'y trouvait un gentleman nomm\u00e9\nTupman.\n\n\u00abTom, dit l'h\u00f4tesse, menez ces messieurs, dans la salle.\u00bb\n\nSous la conduite d'un vigoureux paysan, les trois amis entr\u00e8rent dans\nune chambre longue et basse, dont les murailles \u00e9taient embellies d'une\nribambelle de vieux portraits et d'images grossi\u00e8rement colori\u00e9es, et\ndont le plancher \u00e9tait sem\u00e9 d'une multitude de chaises de cuir, d'une\nforme fantastique, au dos gigantesque. A l'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 de la salle une\ntable se faisait remarquer par la blancheur \u00e9blouissante de sa nappe.\nElle \u00e9tait d\u00e9cor\u00e9e d'une volaille dodue, d'un jambon app\u00e9tissant, d'un\npot d'ale fra\u00eeche, etc. Et c'est \u00e0 cette table s\u00e9duisante qu'\u00e9tait assis\nM. Tupman, n'ayant en aucune fa\u00e7on l'air d'un homme qui a pris cong\u00e9 de\nce monde.\n\nA l'arriv\u00e9e de ses amis, il posa son couteau, sa fourchette, et s'avan\u00e7a\nau-devant d'eux d'un air sombre.\n\n\u00abJe ne m'attendais pas \u00e0 vous voir ici, dit-il en saisissant la main de\nM. Pickwick. C'est bien aimable.\n\n--Ah! fit M. Pickwick, en s'asseyant et en essuyant sur son front la\nsueur caus\u00e9e par sa promenade. Finissez votre d\u00eener et venez dehors avec\nmoi. Je d\u00e9sire vous parler, \u00e0 vous seul.\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman fit comme il lui \u00e9tait enjoint, et M. Pickwick s'\u00e9tant\nrafra\u00eechi d'un copieux coup d'ale, attendit le loisir de son ami. En\nmoins d'une heure le d\u00eener fut d\u00e9p\u00each\u00e9, et ils sortirent ensemble.\n\nPendant une demi-heure on put les voir passer et repasser dans le\ncimeti\u00e8re, tandis que M. Pickwick combattait la r\u00e9solution de M. Tupman.\nIl serait inutile de r\u00e9p\u00e9ter ses arguments, car quel langage pourrait\nrendre l'\u00e9nergie que leur communiquait l'action de ce grand orateur? Il\nn'est pas davantage n\u00e9cessaire de savoir si M. Tupman \u00e9tait d\u00e9j\u00e0 fatigu\u00e9\nde la solitude, ou s'il lui fut impossible de r\u00e9sister \u00e0 l'\u00e9loquent\nappel qui lui fut adress\u00e9. En fait, il n'y r\u00e9sista pas.\n\n\u00abIl lui importait peu, dit-il, o\u00f9 il tra\u00eenerait les mis\u00e9rables restes de\nson existence; et puisque ses amis attachaient tant d'importance \u00e0 son\nhumble coop\u00e9ration, il consentait \u00e0 partager leurs travaux.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick sourit, une poign\u00e9e de main fut \u00e9chang\u00e9e, et ils\nretourn\u00e8rent aupr\u00e8s de leurs compagnons.\n\nC'est en ce moment que M. Pickwick fit l'immortelle d\u00e9couverte qui sera\n\u00e0 jamais un sujet d'orgueil pour ses amis, un sujet d'envie pour tous\nles antiquaires des quatre parties du monde. Ils avaient d\u00e9pass\u00e9 la\nporte de leur auberge, et ne se rappelant pas o\u00f9 elle \u00e9tait situ\u00e9e, ils\navaient \u00e9t\u00e9 un peu plus loin dans le village. Comme ils revenaient sur\nleurs pas, les yeux de M. Pickwick tomb\u00e8rent sur une petite pierre\nbris\u00e9e et \u00e0 moiti\u00e9 ensevelie dans la terre, sur le devant d'une\nchaumine.\n\nM. Pickwick s'arr\u00eata.\n\n\u00abCeci est fort \u00e9trange! dit-il.\n\n--Qu'y a-t-il d'\u00e9trange? demanda M. Tupman, en regardant avec\nempressement tous les objets qui l'entouraient, except\u00e9 celui dont il\n\u00e9tait question. Eh! mais de quoi s'agit-il donc?\u00bb\n\nCette derni\u00e8re exclamation lui \u00e9tait arrach\u00e9e par la vue de M. Pickwick\nqui, dans son enthousiasme pour sa d\u00e9couverte, se jetait \u00e0 genoux devant\nla petite pierre, et en balayait la poussi\u00e8re avec son mouchoir.\n\n\u00abIl y a une inscription ici! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick.\n\n--Est-il possible? dit H. Tupman.\n\n--Je puis distinguer, continua M. Pickwick, en frottant de toutes ses\nforces, et en regardant attentivement \u00e0 travers ses lunettes, je puis\ndistinguer, une croix, et un _B_, et ensuite un _T_. Ceci est\ntr\u00e8s-important! poursuivit M. Pickwick en se relevant. C'est une\ninscription fort ancienne, et qui existait peut-\u00eatre longtemps avant\nles antiques _Alms houses_[15] de cette petite ville. Il ne faut pas\nlaisser \u00e9chapper cette trouvaille.\u00bb\n\n[Footnote 15: Petites maisons o\u00f9 les vieillards pauvres sont log\u00e9s\ngratuitement.]\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, M. Pickwick frappa \u00e0 la porte de la chaumi\u00e8re. Un\nlaboureur l'ouvrit.\n\n\u00abMon ami, lui demanda le philosophe d'un ton bienveillant, savez-vous\ncomment cette pierre est venue ici?\n\n--Nein, m'sieu, j'n'en savons rin, r\u00e9pondit l'homme civilement. All'\n\u00e9tait l\u00e0 ben du temps avant moi, et avant l'pus ancien du village itou.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick regarda son compagnon avec triomphe.\n\n\u00abVous... vous n'y \u00eates pas bien attach\u00e9, j'imagine, poursuivit-il, en\ntremblant d'anxi\u00e9t\u00e9. Vous ne seriez pas f\u00e2ch\u00e9 de la vendre?\n\n--Ah! ben oui! qui voudrait l'acheter? r\u00e9pondit l'homme avec une\nexpression de visage qu'il s'imaginait probablement rendre tr\u00e8s-rus\u00e9e.\n\n--Je vous en donnerai une demi-guin\u00e9e sur-le-champ, reprit M. Pickwick,\nsi vous voulez la retirer de terre.\u00bb\n\nLorsque la petite pierre eut \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9racin\u00e9e, moyennant quelques coups de\nb\u00eache, M. Pickwick l'enleva de ses propres mains, \u00e0 grand'peine, et au\ngrand \u00e9tonnement de tout le village. Il la porta dans l'auberge, et\napr\u00e8s l'avoir soigneusement lav\u00e9e, il la d\u00e9posa sur la table.\n\nLes transports de joie des pickwickiens ne connurent plus de bornes\nquand ils virent couronner de succ\u00e8s leur patience et leur assiduit\u00e9,\nleurs lavages et leurs grattages. La pierre \u00e9tait anguleuse et bris\u00e9e,\nles lettres mal align\u00e9es et peu r\u00e9guli\u00e8res, mais cependant on pouvait\nd\u00e9chiffrer le fragment suivant d'inscription:\n\n[Illustration: Croix]\nBIL\nSTUM\nPS\nSAMA\nRK\n\nLes prunelles de M. Pickwick \u00e9tincel\u00e8rent de d\u00e9lice lorsqu'il s'assit\naupr\u00e8s de la table, en couvant des yeux le tr\u00e9sor qu'il avait d\u00e9terr\u00e9.\nIl avait atteint le plus grand objet de son ambition. Dans un comt\u00e9\nconnu pour \u00eatre couvert par des restes de l'antiquit\u00e9, dans un village\no\u00f9 il existait encore quelques gages des anciens temps, lui, le\npr\u00e9sident du Pickwick-Club, avait d\u00e9couvert une \u00e9trange et curieuse\ninscription, d'une antiquit\u00e9 incontestable, et qui avait enti\u00e8rement\n\u00e9chapp\u00e9 aux observations de tous les savants hommes qui l'avaient\npr\u00e9c\u00e9d\u00e9. Il pouvait \u00e0 peine en croire l'\u00e9vidence de ses sens.\n\n\u00abCeci, dit-il, ceci me d\u00e9termine. Mous retournerons \u00e0 la ville d\u00e8s\ndemain.\n\n--Demain! s'\u00e9cri\u00e8rent ses disciples pleins d'admiration.\n\n--Demain, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick. Ce tr\u00e9sor doit \u00eatre d\u00e9pos\u00e9 sur-le-champ\ndans un endroit o\u00f9 il puisse \u00eatre compl\u00e9tement \u00e9tudi\u00e9 et convenablement\ncompris. J'ai une autre raison pour cette d\u00e9marche. Dans quelques jours\nune \u00e9lection doit avoir lieu pour le bourg d'Eatanswill. Un gentleman\nque j'ai rencontr\u00e9 derni\u00e8rement, M. Perker, est l'agent d'un des\ncandidats. Nous contemplerons, nous \u00e9tudierons minutieusement une sc\u00e8ne\nint\u00e9ressante pour quiconque est Anglais.\n\n--Nous vous suivrons!\u00bb s'\u00e9cri\u00e8rent en m\u00eame temps trois voix, qui\nsemblaient n'en former qu'une.\n\nM. Pickwick promena ses regards autour de lui. L'attachement, la ferveur\nde ses disciples allum\u00e8rent dans son sein le feu de l'enthousiasme. Il\n\u00e9tait leur ma\u00eetre, et il le sentit.\n\n\u00abC\u00e9l\u00e9brons, reprit-il, c\u00e9l\u00e9brons cette r\u00e9union fortun\u00e9e par des\nlibations amicales.\u00bb Cette nouvelle proposition ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9galement\naccueillie par des applaudissements unanimes, M. Pickwick d\u00e9posa\nl'importante pierre dans une petite bo\u00eete de sapin, qu'il eut le bonheur\nd'obtenir de l'h\u00f4tesse; puis il se pla\u00e7a dans un fauteuil au haut bout\nde la table, et la soir\u00e9e tout enti\u00e8re fut consacr\u00e9e \u00e0 la gaiet\u00e9 et \u00e0 la\nconversation.\n\nIl \u00e9tait onze heures pass\u00e9es, heure indue pour le petit village de\nCobham, lorsque M. Pickwick se retira dans la chambre \u00e0 coucher qui lui\navait \u00e9t\u00e9 pr\u00e9par\u00e9e. Il leva la jalousie, et, posant sa lumi\u00e8re sur la\ntable, il se laissa aller \u00e0 de profondes m\u00e9ditations sur les nombreux\n\u00e9v\u00e9nements des deux journ\u00e9es pr\u00e9c\u00e9dentes.\n\nL'heure et l'endroit \u00e9taient favorables \u00e0 la contemplation et M.\nPickwick n'en fut tir\u00e9 que par le bruit de l'horloge de l'\u00e9glise, qui\nfrappait lentement minuit. Le premier coup de la cloche retentit \u00e0 son\noreille d'une mani\u00e8re solennelle et lugubre \u00e0 la fois; mais quand elle\ncessa de tinter, le silence lui parut insupportable. Il lui semblait\nqu'il venait de perdre un compagnon ch\u00e9ri. Son syst\u00e8me nerveux \u00e9tait\nexcit\u00e9 et d\u00e9rang\u00e9; il le sentit et, s'\u00e9tant d\u00e9shabill\u00e9 rapidement, il\npla\u00e7a sa lumi\u00e8re dans la chemin\u00e9e et entra dans son lit.\n\nTout le monde a \u00e9prouv\u00e9 cet \u00e9tat d\u00e9sagr\u00e9able dans lequel une sensation\nde lassitude corporelle lutte vainement contre l'insomnie: telle \u00e9tait\nla situation de M. Pickwick en ce moment. Il se tourna sur un c\u00f4t\u00e9, puis\nsur l'autre; il tint ses yeux ferm\u00e9s avec pers\u00e9v\u00e9rance, comme pour\ns'engager \u00e0 dormir: mais ce fut en vain. Soit que cela provint de la\nfatigue inaccoutum\u00e9e qu'il avait soufferte, ou de la chaleur, ou du\ngrog, ou du changement de lit, le sommeil s'enfuyait loin de ses\npaupi\u00e8res. Ses pens\u00e9es se reportaient malgr\u00e9 lui et avec une obstination\np\u00e9nible sur les peintures effrayantes qu'il avait vues dans la salle\nd'en bas, sur les vieilles l\u00e9gendes qui avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 racont\u00e9es dans le\ncours de la soir\u00e9e. Apr\u00e8s s'\u00eatre vainement agit\u00e9 pendant une demi-heure,\nil arriva \u00e0 la triste conviction qu'il ne pourrait pas parvenir \u00e0\ns'endormir. Il se rhabilla donc en partie, regardant comme la pire des\nsituations d'\u00eatre \u00e9tendu dans son lit \u00e0 imaginer toutes sortes\nd'horreurs. Une fois habill\u00e9, il mit la t\u00eate \u00e0 la fen\u00eatre; le temps\n\u00e9tait affreusement sombre: il se promena dans sa chambre; elle \u00e9tait\nd\u00e9plorablement solitaire.\n\nIl avait fait quelques promenades de la porte \u00e0 la fen\u00eatre et de la\nfen\u00eatre \u00e0 la porte, lorsque le manuscrit du vieux ministre lui revint \u00e0\nla m\u00e9moire. C'\u00e9tait une bonne pens\u00e9e. Si ce manuscrit ne l'int\u00e9ressait\npas, il pourrait toujours l'endormir. Notre philosophe le tira donc de\nla poche de sa redingote, approcha une petite table de son lit, moucha\nla chandelle, mit ses lunettes et s'arrangea pour lire. L'\u00e9criture \u00e9tait\n\u00e9trange; le papier froiss\u00e9 et tach\u00e9. Le titre du manuscrit fit courir un\nfrisson dans tous les membres de M. Pickwick, et il ne put s'emp\u00eacher de\njeter un regard inquiet autour de sa chambre. Cependant, r\u00e9fl\u00e9chissant \u00e0\nl'absurdit\u00e9 de c\u00e9der \u00e0 de semblables id\u00e9es, il moucha de nouveau sa\nchandelle, et lut ce qui suit:\n\nMANUSCRIT D'UN FOU.\n\n\u00abOui, d'un fou!--Comme ces mots m'auraient glac\u00e9 jusqu'au fond du coeur,\nil y a quelques ann\u00e9es! Comme ils auraient r\u00e9veill\u00e9 cet effroi qui\nfaisait bourdonner et bouillonner mon sang dans mes veines, jusqu'\u00e0 ce\nque mon front se couvr\u00eet de larges gouttes d'une sueur froide, jusqu'\u00e0\nce que mes genoux s'entre-choquassent d'\u00e9pouvante! Et pourtant j'aime\nce nom maintenant, c'est un beau nom! Montrez-moi le monarque dont le\nfront courrouc\u00e9 ait jamais caus\u00e9 autant de peur que le regard brillant\nd'un fou; dont la hache et la corde aient fait la besogne aussi s\u00fbrement\nque les serres d'un fou. Oh! oh! c'est une grande chose d'\u00eatre fou,\nd'\u00eatre regard\u00e9 comme un lion sauvage \u00e0 travers des barreaux, de grincer\ndes dents et de hurler pendant les longues nuits silencieuses, et de se\nrouler sur la paille, aux sons joyeux d'une lourde cha\u00eene. Hourra pour\nla maison des fous! C'est un charmant endroit.\n\n\u00abJe me rappelle le temps o\u00f9 j'avais peur de devenir fou; o\u00f9 je\nm'\u00e9veillais en sursaut, pour tomber sur mes genoux, et demander au ciel\nde me d\u00e9livrer du fl\u00e9au de toute ma race; o\u00f9 je fuyais la vue de la\ngaiet\u00e9 et du bonheur pour me cacher dans un coin solitaire, et consumer\nles heures pesantes \u00e0 guetter les progr\u00e8s de la fi\u00e8vre qui devait\nd\u00e9vorer mon cerveau. Je savais que la folie \u00e9tait m\u00eal\u00e9e dans mon sang\nm\u00eame, et jusque dans la moelle de mes os; qu'une g\u00e9n\u00e9ration avait pass\u00e9\nsans qu'elle repar\u00fbt dans ma famille, et que j'\u00e9tais le premier chez qui\nelle devait revivre. Je savais que cela devait \u00eatre ainsi, que cela\navait toujours \u00e9t\u00e9 et devait toujours \u00eatre de m\u00eame; et quand je\nm'isolais dans l'angle d'un salon plein de monde, quand je voyais les\ninvit\u00e9s parler bas et tourner les yeux vers moi, je savais qu'ils\ns'entretenaient du fou pr\u00e9destin\u00e9. Je m'enfuyais alors et j'allais me\nnourrir de mes tristes pens\u00e9es dans la solitude.\n\n\u00abJ'ai fait cela pendant des ann\u00e9es, de longues, de p\u00e9nibles ann\u00e9es. Les\nnuits sont longues ici quelquefois, tr\u00e8s-longues; mais ce n'est rien\naupr\u00e8s des nuits sans repos, des r\u00eaves \u00e9pouvantables, qui me\ntourmentaient dans ce temps-l\u00e0. J'ai froid quand j'y pense. De grandes\nfigures sombres rampaient dans tous les coins de ma chambre; et pendant\nla nuit leurs visages grima\u00e7ants et moqueurs se penchaient sur ma\ncouche, pour me faire perdre l'esprit. Ils me disaient, en murmurant\ntout bas, que le plancher de notre vieille maison \u00e9tait souill\u00e9 du sang\nde mon grand p\u00e8re, vers\u00e9 par ses propres mains, dans un acc\u00e8s de fureur.\nJ'enfon\u00e7ais mes doigts dans mes oreilles, de peur de les entendre, mais\nleurs voix s'\u00e9levaient comme la temp\u00eate, et elles me criaient que la\nfolie avait sommeill\u00e9 pendant une g\u00e9n\u00e9ration avant mon grand-p\u00e8re, et\nque son grand-p\u00e8re, \u00e0 lui, avait v\u00e9cu pendant des ann\u00e9es, avec ses mains\nencha\u00een\u00e9es \u00e0 la terre, pour l'emp\u00eacher de se d\u00e9chirer lui-m\u00eame. Je\nsavais que c'\u00e9tait la v\u00e9rit\u00e9; je le savais bien, je l'avais d\u00e9couvert\nnombre d'ann\u00e9es auparavant, quoiqu'on s'effor\u00e7\u00e2t de me le cacher. Ah!\nah! j'\u00e9tais trop malin pour eux, quoiqu'ils me crussent fou.\n\n\u00abA la fin la folie vint sur moi, et je m'\u00e9tonnai de l'avoir jamais\nredout\u00e9e. Je pouvais aller dans le monde, et rire, et plaisanter, avec\nles plus brillants d'entre eux. Je savais que j'\u00e9tais fou, mais eux ils\nne s'en doutaient pas. Comme je jouissais, en moi-m\u00eame, du tour que je\nleur jouais, apr\u00e8s tous leurs chuchotements et tous leurs airs effray\u00e9s,\nlorsque je n'\u00e9tais pas fou, lorsque je craignais seulement de le\ndevenir! Comme je riais, quand j'\u00e9tais seul, en pensant que je gardais\nsi bien mon secret; en pensant \u00e0 la terreur de mes bons amis, s'ils\navaient seulement soup\u00e7onn\u00e9 la v\u00e9rit\u00e9! Lorsque je d\u00eenais en t\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eate\navec quelque beau gar\u00e7on tapageur, j'aurais pu hurler de d\u00e9lice, en\nsongeant comme il serait devenu p\u00e2le et comme il se serait enfui, s'il\navait su que ce cher ami, assis pr\u00e8s de lui et qui aiguisait un couteau\neffil\u00e9, \u00e9tait un fou, avec la puissance et presque la volont\u00e9 de lui\nplonger sa lame dans le coeur. Oh! c'\u00e9tait une joyeuse vie.\n\n\u00abD'immenses richesses devinrent mon partage, et je m'enivrai de plaisirs\nqui \u00e9taient rehauss\u00e9s mille fois par la conscience du secret que je\ngardais si bien. J'h\u00e9ritai d'un ch\u00e2teau; la loi aux yeux de lynx, la loi\nelle-m\u00eame fut d\u00e9\u00e7ue; elle remit entre les mains d'un fou une fortune\nprodigieuse et contest\u00e9e. O\u00f9 donc \u00e9tait l'esprit des hommes sages et\nclairvoyants? O\u00f9 \u00e9tait la dext\u00e9rit\u00e9 des hommes de loi, si habiles \u00e0\nd\u00e9couvrir le moindre vice de forme? La malice d'un fou les avait tous\nabus\u00e9s.\n\n\u00abJ'avais de l'argent: comme j'\u00e9tais courtis\u00e9! Je le d\u00e9pensais largement:\ncomme j'\u00e9tais lou\u00e9! comme ces trois fr\u00e8res orgueilleux s'humiliaient\ndevant moi! Le vieux p\u00e8re aussi, avec sa t\u00eate blanche! Tant de\nd\u00e9f\u00e9rence, tant de respect, tant d'amiti\u00e9 d\u00e9vou\u00e9e! V\u00e9ritablement ils\nm'idol\u00e2traient. Le vieux homme avait une fille; les jeunes gens avaient\nune soeur; et tous les cinq \u00e9taient pauvres, et j'\u00e9tais riche, et quand\nj'\u00e9pousai la jeune fille, je vis un sourire de triomphe sur le visage de\nses avides parents. Ils pensaient \u00e0 leur plan, si bien conduit, \u00e0 la\nbonne prise qu'ils avaient faite: c'\u00e9tait \u00e0 moi de sourire... de\nsourire?... De rire aux \u00e9clats, et de me rouler sur la terre, en\nm'arrachant les cheveux avec des cris de joie! Ils ne se doutaient gu\u00e8re\nqu'ils l'avaient mari\u00e9e \u00e0 un fou.\n\n\u00abUn moment.... S'ils l'avaient su, aurait-elle \u00e9t\u00e9 sauv\u00e9? La bonheur\nd'une soeur contre l'or de son mari? Le plus l\u00e9ger duvet qui vole dans\nl'air contre la superbe cha\u00eene qui orne mon corps!\n\n\u00abSur un point, cependant, je fus tromp\u00e9, malgr\u00e9 toute ma malice. Si je\nn'avais pas \u00e9t\u00e9 fou... car, nous autres fous, quoique nous soyons assez\nrus\u00e9s, nous nous embrouillons quelquefois... si je n'avais pas \u00e9t\u00e9 fou,\nje me serais aper\u00e7u que la jeune fille aurait mieux aim\u00e9 \u00eatre plac\u00e9e,\nroide et froide, dans un cercueil de plomb, que d'\u00eatre amen\u00e9e, riche et\nnoble mari\u00e9e, dans ma maison fastueuse. J'aurais su que son coeur \u00e9tait\navec le jeune homme aux yeux noirs, dont je lui ai entendu murmurer le\nnom pendant son sommeil agit\u00e9; j'aurais su qu'elle m'\u00e9tait sacrifi\u00e9e\npour secourir la pauvret\u00e9 de son p\u00e8re aux cheveux blancs, et de ses\nfr\u00e8res orgueilleux.\n\n\u00abJe ne me rappelle plus les visages maintenant, mais je sais que la\njeune fille \u00e9tait belle. Je le sais, car pendant les nuits o\u00f9 la lune\nbrille, quand je me r\u00e9veille en sursaut et que tout est tranquille\nautour de moi, je vois dans un coin de cette cellule une figure maigre\net blanche, qui se tient immobile et silencieuse. Ses longs cheveux\nnoirs, \u00e9pars sur ses \u00e9paules, ne sont jamais agit\u00e9s par le vent. Ses\nyeux, qui fixent sur moi leur regard br\u00fblant, ne clignent jamais, et ne\nse ferment jamais.... Silence! mon sang se g\u00e8le dans mon coeur, en\n\u00e9crivant ceci. Cette figure, c'est elle!... Son visage est tr\u00e8s-p\u00e2le et\nses prunelles sont vitreuses; mais je la connais bien.... Cette figure\nne bouge jamais, elle ne fronce point ses sourcils, elle ne grince pas\ndes dents comme les autres fant\u00f4mes qui peuplent souvent ma cellule; et\ncependant elle est bien plus affreuse pour moi que tous les autres; elle\nest plus affreuse que les esprits qui me tentaient jadis; elle sort de\nsa tombe, et la mort est sur son visage.\n\n\u00abPendant pr\u00e8s d'un an je vis les couleurs de ses joues se ternir de jour\nen jour; pendant pr\u00e8s d'un an je vis des larmes silencieuses couler de\nses yeux battus. Je n'en savais pas la cause, mais je la d\u00e9couvris \u00e0 la\nfin. Ils ne purent pas me la cacher plus longtemps. Elle ne m'avait\njamais aim\u00e9; je n'avais pas pens\u00e9 qu'elle m'aim\u00e2t. Elle m\u00e9prisait mes\nrichesses, et d\u00e9testait la splendeur o\u00f9 elle vivait; je ne m'\u00e9tais pas\nattendu \u00e0 cela. Elle en aimait un autre; cette id\u00e9e ne m'\u00e9tait pas\nentr\u00e9e dans la t\u00eate. D'\u00e9tranges sentiments s'empar\u00e8rent de moi; des\npens\u00e9es inspir\u00e9es par quelque pouvoir secret boulevers\u00e8rent ma\ncervelle. Je ne la ha\u00efssais pas, quoique je ha\u00efsse le jeune homme\nqu'elle pleurait encore. J'avais piti\u00e9... oui, j'avais piti\u00e9 de la vie\nmis\u00e9rable \u00e0 laquelle ses \u00e9go\u00efstes parents l'avaient condamn\u00e9e. Je savais\nqu'elle ne vivrait pas longtemps, mais la pens\u00e9e qu'avant sa mort elle\npouvait donner naissance \u00e0 un \u00eatre infortun\u00e9 destin\u00e9 \u00e0 transmettre la\nfolie \u00e0 ses enfants.... Cette pens\u00e9e me d\u00e9termina.... Je r\u00e9solus de la\ntuer.\n\n\u00abPendant plusieurs semaines je voulus la noyer; puis je songeai au\npoison, puis au feu. Quel beau spectacle, de voir la grande maison tout\nen flammes, et la femme du fou r\u00e9duite en cendres! Quelle bonne charge\nde promettre, pour la sauver, une grande r\u00e9compense, et ensuite de faire\npendre, comme incendiaire, quelque homme sage et innocent! et tout cela\npar la malice d'un fou. J'y r\u00eavais souvent, mais j'y renon\u00e7ai \u00e0 la fin.\nOh! quel plaisir de repasser tous les jours le rasoir, d'essayer comme\nil \u00e9tait bien affil\u00e9 et de penser \u00e0 l'entaille que pourrait faire un\nseul coup de cette lame brillante!\n\n\u00abA la fin les esprits qui avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 si souvent avec moi auparavant,\nchuchot\u00e8rent dans mon oreille que le temps \u00e9tait venu. Ils me mirent un\nrasoir tout ouvert dans la main; je le serrai avec force; je me levai\ndoucement du lit et me penchai sur ma femme endormie. Son visage \u00e9tait\ncach\u00e9 dans ses mains; je les \u00e9cartai doucement, et elles tomb\u00e8rent\nnonchalamment sur son sein. Elle avait pleur\u00e9, les traces de ses larmes\n\u00e9taient encore visibles sur ses joues p\u00e2les; cependant son visage \u00e9tait\ncalme et heureux, et tandis que je la regardais, un tranquille sourire\n\u00e9clairait ses traits amaigris. Je posai doucement ma main sur son\n\u00e9paule; elle tressaillit, mais sans entr'ouvrir ses longues paupi\u00e8res.\nJe la touchai de nouveau: elle poussa un cri et s'\u00e9veilla.\n\n\u00abUn mouvement de ma main, et elle n'aurait jamais fait entendre un autre\nson; mais je fus surpris, et je reculai. Ses yeux \u00e9taient fix\u00e9s sur les\nmiens. Je ne sais pas comment cela se fit, ils m'intimid\u00e8rent, j'\u00e9tais\ndompt\u00e9 par ce regard. Elle se leva de son lit, en me regardant fixement\net continuellement. Je tremblai, le rasoir \u00e9tait dans ma main, mais je\nne pouvais faire aucun mouvement. Elle se dirigea vers la porte. Quand\nelle en fut proche elle se d\u00e9tourna, et retira ses yeux de dessus moi.\nLe charme \u00e9tait bris\u00e9: je fis un bond et je la saisis par le bras; elle\ntomba par terre en poussant des cris d\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9s.\n\n\u00abAlors j'aurais pu la tuer sans r\u00e9sistance, mais la maison \u00e9tait\nalarm\u00e9e, j'entendais des pas sur l'escalier; je remis le rasoir \u00e0 sa\nplace, j'ouvris la porte et j'appelai moi-m\u00eame du secours.\n\n\u00abOn vint, on la releva, on la pla\u00e7a sur le lit. Elle resta sans\nconnaissance pendant plusieurs heures, et quand elle recouvra la vie et\nla parole, elle avait perdu l'esprit, elle d\u00e9lirait avec des transports\nfurieux.\n\n\u00abDes m\u00e9decins furent appel\u00e9s, de savants hommes qui roulaient jusqu'\u00e0 ma\nporte dans d'excellents carrosses, avec des domestiques rev\u00eatus d'une\nlivr\u00e9e brillante. Ils rest\u00e8rent pr\u00e8s de son lit pendant des semaines. Il\ny eut une grande consultation, et ils conf\u00e9r\u00e8rent ensemble d'une voix\nsolennelle. J'\u00e9tais dans la pi\u00e8ce voisine; l'un des plus c\u00e9l\u00e8bres, parmi\neux, vint m'y trouver, me prit \u00e0 part, et, me disant de me pr\u00e9parer \u00e0 la\nplus funeste nouvelle, m'apprit \u00e0 moi, le fou! que ma femme \u00e9tait folle.\nLe docteur \u00e9tait seul avec moi, tout aupr\u00e8s d'une fen\u00eatre ouverte, ses\nyeux fix\u00e9s sur mon visage, sa main pos\u00e9e sur mon bras. D'un seul effort\nj'aurais pu le pr\u00e9cipiter dans la rue, \u00e7'aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 une fameuse farce!\nmais mon secret \u00e9tait en jeu et je le laissai partir. Quelques jours\napr\u00e8s, on me dit que je devrais la faire surveiller, lui choisir un\ngardien, _moi!_ Je m'en allai dans la campagne o\u00f9 personne ne pouvait\nm'entendre, et je poussai des \u00e9clats de rire, qui retentissaient au\nloin.\n\n\u00abElle mourut le lendemain. Le vieillard aux cheveux blancs suivit son\ncercueil, et les fr\u00e8res orgueilleux laiss\u00e8rent tomber des larmes sur le\ncorps insensible de celle dont ils avaient contempl\u00e9 la souffrance avec\ndes muscles d'airain. Tout cela nourrissait ma gaiet\u00e9 secr\u00e8te et, en\nretournant \u00e0 la maison, je riais derri\u00e8re le mouchoir blanc que je\ntenais sur mon visage, je riais tant que les larmes m'en venaient aux\nyeux.\n\n\u00abMais quoique j'eusse atteint mon but en la tuant, j'\u00e9tais inquiet et\nagit\u00e9; je sentais que mon secret devait m'\u00e9chapper avant longtemps. Je\nne pouvais cacher la joie sauvage qui bouillonnait dans mon sang; et\nqui, lorsque j'\u00e9tais seul \u00e0 la maison, me faisait sauter et battre des\nmains, et danser, et tourner, et rugir comme un lion. Quand je sortais\net que je voyais la foule affair\u00e9e se presser dans les rues ou au\nth\u00e9\u00e2tre, quand j'entendais les sons de la musique, quand je regardais\nles danseurs, je ressentais des transports si joyeux, que j'\u00e9tais tent\u00e9\nde me pr\u00e9cipiter au milieu d'eux et d'arracher leurs membres pi\u00e8ce \u00e0\npi\u00e8ce, et de hurler avec les instruments. Mais alors, je grin\u00e7ais des\ndents, je frappais du pied sur le plancher, j'enfon\u00e7ais mes ongles aigus\ndans mes mains, je ma\u00eetrisais la folie et personne ne se doutait encore\nque j'\u00e9tais un fou.\n\n\u00abJe me rappelle... quoique ce soit une des derni\u00e8res choses que je\npuisse me rappeler... car maintenant je m\u00eale mes r\u00eaves avec les faits\nr\u00e9els, et j'ai tant de choses \u00e0 faire ici et je sais si press\u00e9 que je\nn'ai pas le temps de mettre un peu d'ordre dans cette \u00e9trange\nconfusion... je me rappelle comment cela \u00e9clata \u00e0 la fin. Ha! ha! il me\nsemble que je vois encore leurs regards effray\u00e9s! Avec quelle facilit\u00e9\nje les rejetai loin de moi; comme je meurtrissais leur visage avec mes\npoings ferm\u00e9s, et comme je m'enfuis avec la vitesse du vent, les\nlaissant huer et crier bien loin derri\u00e8re moi. La force d'un g\u00e9ant\nrena\u00eet en moi, lorsque j'y pense. L\u00e0! voyez comme cette barre de fer\nploie sous mon \u00e9treinte furieuse! Je pourrais la briser comme un roseau;\nmais il y a ici de longues galeries, avec beaucoup de portes, je crois\nque je ne pourrais pas y trouver mon chemin, et m\u00eame si je pouvais le\ntrouver, il y a en bas des grilles de fer qu'ils tiennent soigneusement\nferm\u00e9es, car ils savent quel fou malin j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9, et ils sont fiers de\nm'avoir pour me montrer aux visiteurs.\n\n\u00abVoyons... oui c'est cela... j'\u00e9tais all\u00e9 dehors; la nuit \u00e9tait avanc\u00e9e\nquand je rentrai \u00e0 la maison, et je trouvai le plus orgueilleux des\ntrois orgueilleux fr\u00e8res, qui m'attendait pour me voir. Affaire\npressante disait-il: je me le rappelle bien. Je ha\u00efssais cet homme avec\ntoute la haine d'un fou; souvent, bien souvent, mes mains avaient br\u00fbl\u00e9\nde le mettre en pi\u00e8ces. On m'apprit qu'il \u00e9tait l\u00e0; je montai rapidement\nl'escalier. Il avait un mot \u00e0 me dire; je renvoyai les domestiques.\n\n\u00abIl \u00e9tait tard et nous \u00e9tions seuls ensemble, _pour la premi\u00e8re fois_!\n\n\u00abD'abord je d\u00e9tournai soigneusement les yeux de dessus lui, car je\nsavais, ce qu'il n'imaginait gu\u00e8re, et je me glorifiais de le savoir...\nque le feu de la folie brillait dans mes yeux comme une fournaise.--Nous\nrest\u00e2mes assis en silence pendant quelques minutes. Il parla \u00e0 la fin.\nMes dissipations r\u00e9centes et d'\u00e9tranges remarques, faites aussit\u00f4t apr\u00e8s\nla mort de sa soeur, \u00e9taient une insulte \u00e0 sa m\u00e9moire. Rassemblant\nbeaucoup de circonstances qui avaient d'abord \u00e9chapp\u00e9 \u00e0 ses\nobservations, il pensait que je n'avais pas bien trait\u00e9 la d\u00e9funte, il\nd\u00e9sirait savoir s'il devait en conclura que je voulais jeter quelques\nreproches sur elle, et manquer de respect d\u00fb \u00e0 sa famille. Il devait \u00e0\nl'uniforme qu'il portait de me demander cette explication.\n\n\u00abCet homme avait une commission dans l'arm\u00e9e; une commission achet\u00e9e\navec mon argent, avec la mis\u00e8re de sa soeur! C'\u00e9tait lui qui avait \u00e9t\u00e9 le\nplus acharn\u00e9 dans le complot pour m'enlacer et pour s'approprier ma\nfortune. C'\u00e9tait pour lui surtout, et par lui, que sa soeur avait \u00e9t\u00e9\nforc\u00e9e de m'\u00e9pouser, quoiqu'il sut bien qu'elle avait donn\u00e9 son coeur \u00e0\nce jeune homme sentimental.--_Il devait \u00e0 son uniforme!_--Son uniforme!\nLa livr\u00e9e de sa d\u00e9gradation! Je tournai mes yeux vers lui, je ne pus pas\nm'en emp\u00eacher, mais je ne dis pas un mot.\n\n\u00abJe vis le changement soudain que mon regard produisit dans sa\ncontenance. C'\u00e9tait un homme hardi, et pourtant son visage devint\nblafard. Il recula sa chaise, je rapprochai la mienne plus pr\u00e8s de lui,\net comme je me mis \u00e0 rire (j'\u00e9tais tr\u00e8s-gai alors), je le vis\ntressaillir. Je sentis que la folie s'emparait de moi: lui, il avait\npeur.\n\n\u00abVous aimiez beaucoup votre soeur quand elle vivait, lui dis-je. Vous\nl'aimiez beaucoup?\u00bb\n\n\u00abIl regarda avec inqui\u00e9tude autour de lui, et je vis que sa main droite\nserrait le dos de sa chaise; cependant il ne r\u00e9pondit rien.\n\n\u00abMis\u00e9rable! m'\u00e9criai-je, je vous ai devin\u00e9! J'ai d\u00e9couvert votre complot\ninfernal contre moi. Je sais que son coeur \u00e9tait avec un autre lorsque\nvous l'avez forc\u00e9e de m'\u00e9pouser. Je le sais, je le sais!\u00bb\n\n\u00abIl se leva brusquement, brandit sa chaise devant lui et me cria de\nreculer; car je m'\u00e9tais approch\u00e9 de lui, tout en parlant.\n\n\u00abJe hurlais plut\u00f4t que je ne parlais, et je sentais bouillonner dans mes\nveines le tumulte des passions; j'entendais le vieux chuchotement des\nesprits qui me d\u00e9fiaient d'arracher son coeur.\n\n\u00abDamnation! m'\u00e9criai-je en me pr\u00e9cipitant sur lui. J'ai tu\u00e9 ta soeur! Je\nsuis fou! Mort! Mort! Du sang, du sang! J'aurai ton sang!\u00bb\n\n\u00abJe d\u00e9tournai la chaise, qu'il me lan\u00e7a dans sa terreur; je l'empoignai\ncorps \u00e0 corps, et nous roul\u00e2mes tous les deux sur le plancher.\n\n\u00abCe fut une belle lutte, car il \u00e9tait grand et fort; il combattait pour\nsa vie, et moi j'\u00e9tais un fou puissant, alt\u00e9r\u00e9 de vengeance. Je savais\nqu'aucune force humaine ne pouvait \u00e9galer la mienne, et j'avais raison,\nraison, raison! quoique fou! Sa r\u00e9sistance s'affaiblit; je m'agenouillai\nsur sa poitrine, je serrai fortement avec mes deux mains son cou\nmusculeux; son visage devint violet, les yeux lui sortaient de la t\u00eate,\net il tirait la langue comme s'il voulait se moquer. Je serrais toujours\nplus fort.\n\n\u00abTout \u00e0 coup la porte s'ouvrit avec un grand bruit; beaucoup de gens se\npr\u00e9cipit\u00e8rent dans la chambre en criant: \u00abArr\u00eatez le fou! Mon secret\n\u00e9tait d\u00e9couvert; il fallait lutter maintenant pour la libert\u00e9; je fus\nsur mes pieds avant que personne p\u00fbt me saisir; je m'\u00e9lan\u00e7ai parmi les\nassaillants, et je m'ouvris un passage d'un bras vigoureux. Ils\ntombaient tous devant moi comme si je les avais frapp\u00e9s avec une massue.\nJe gagnai la porte, je sautai par-dessus la rampe; en un instant j'\u00e9tais\ndans la rue.\n\n\u00abJe courus devant moi, droit et roide, et personne n'osait m'arr\u00eater.\nJ'entendais le bruit des pas derri\u00e8re moi, et je redoublais de vitesse.\nCe bruit devenait de plus en plus faible, \u00e0 mesure que je m'\u00e9loignais,\net enfin il s'\u00e9teignit enti\u00e8rement. Moi, je bondissais toujours\npar-dessus les ruisseaux et les mares, par-dessus les murs et les\nfoss\u00e9s, en poussant des cris sauvages, qui d\u00e9chiraient les airs et qui\n\u00e9taient r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9s par les \u00eatres \u00e9tranges dont j'\u00e9tais entour\u00e9. Les d\u00e9mons\nm'emportaient dans leurs bras, au milieu d'un ouragan qui renversait en\npassant les haies et les arbres; ils m'emportaient en tourbillonnant, et\nje ne voyais plus rien autour de moi, tant j'\u00e9tais \u00e9tourdi par la fracas\net la rapidit\u00e9 de leur course. A la fin, ils me lanc\u00e8rent loin d'eux, et\nje tombai pesamment sur la terre.\n\n\u00abQuand je me r\u00e9veillai, je me trouvai ici... ici dans cette gaie\ncellule, ou les rayons du soleil viennent rarement, o\u00f9 les rayons de la\nlune, quand ils s'y glissent, ne servent qu'\u00e0 me faire mieux voir les\nombres mena\u00e7antes qui m'entourent, et cette figure silencieuse, toujours\ndebout dans ce coin. Quand je suis \u00e9veill\u00e9, je puis entendre quelquefois\ndes cris \u00e9tranges, des g\u00e9missements affreux, qui retentissent dans ces\ngrands b\u00e2timents antiques. Ce que c'est, je l'ignore; mais ils ne\nviennent pas de cette p\u00e2le figure et n'ont aucun rapport avec elle, car\ndepuis les premi\u00e8res ombres du cr\u00e9puscule jusqu'aux lueurs matinales de\nl'aurore, elle reste immobile \u00e0 la m\u00eame place, \u00e9coutant l'harmonie de\nmes cha\u00eenes de fer, et contemplant mes gambades sur mon lit de paille.\u00bb\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA la fin du manuscrit la note suivante \u00e9tait \u00e9crite d'une autre main.\n\n\u00abL'infortun\u00e9 dont on vient de lire les r\u00eaveries est un triste exemple du\nr\u00e9sultat que peuvent avoir des passions effr\u00e9n\u00e9es et des exc\u00e8s\nprolong\u00e9s, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que leurs cons\u00e9quences deviennent irr\u00e9parables. La\ndissipation, les d\u00e9bauches r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9es de sa jeunesse, amen\u00e8rent la fi\u00e8vre\net le d\u00e9lire. Le premier effet de celui-ci fut, l'\u00e9trange illusion par\nlaquelle il se persuada qu'une folie h\u00e9r\u00e9ditaire existait dans sa\nfamille. Cette id\u00e9e, fond\u00e9e sur une th\u00e9orie m\u00e9dicale bien connue, mais\ncontest\u00e9e aussi vivement qu'elle est appuy\u00e9e, produisit chez lui une\nhumeur atrabilaire qui, avec le temps, d\u00e9g\u00e9n\u00e9ra en folie, et se termina\nenfin par la fureur. J'ai lieu de croire que les \u00e9v\u00e9nements racont\u00e9s par\nlui sont r\u00e9ellement arriv\u00e9s, quoiqu'ils aient \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9figur\u00e9s par son\nimagination malade. Ce qui doit \u00e9tonner davantage ceux qui ont eu\nconnaissance des vices de sa jeunesse, c'est que ses passions,\nlorsqu'elles n'ont plus \u00e9t\u00e9 contr\u00f4l\u00e9es par la raison, ne l'aient point\npouss\u00e9 \u00e0 commettre des crimes encore plus effroyables.\u00bb\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLa chandelle de M. Pickwick s'enfon\u00e7ait dans la bob\u00e8che, pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment au\nmoment o\u00f9 il achevait de lire le manuscrit du vieil eccl\u00e9siastique; et\ncomme la lumi\u00e8re s'\u00e9teignit tout d'un coup, sans m\u00eame avoir vacill\u00e9,\nl'obscurit\u00e9 soudaine fit une impression profonde sur ses nerfs d\u00e9j\u00e0\nexcit\u00e9s. Il tressaillit et ses dents claqu\u00e8rent de terreur. Otant donc\navec vivacit\u00e9 les v\u00eatements qu'il avait mis pour se relever, il jeta\nautour de la chambre un regard craintif et se fourra promptement entre\nses draps, o\u00f9 il ne tarda pas \u00e0 s'endormir.\n\nLorsqu'il se r\u00e9veilla, le soleil faisait resplendir tous les objets dans\nsa chambre et la matin\u00e9e \u00e9tait d\u00e9j\u00e0 avanc\u00e9e. La tristesse qui l'avait\naccabl\u00e9 le soir pr\u00e9c\u00e9dant s'\u00e9tait dissip\u00e9e avec les ombres qui\nobscurcissaient le paysage; toutes ses pens\u00e9es, toutes ses sensations\n\u00e9taient aussi gaies et aussi gracieuses que le matin lui-m\u00eame. Apr\u00e8s un\nsolide d\u00e9jeuner, les quatre philosophes, suivis par un homme qui portait\nla pierre dans sa bo\u00eete de sapin, se dirig\u00e8rent \u00e0 pied vers Gravesend,\no\u00f9 leur bagage avait \u00e9t\u00e9 exp\u00e9di\u00e9 de Rochester. Ils atteignirent\nGravesend vers une heure, et ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 assez heureux pour trouver des\nplaces sur l'imp\u00e9riale de la voiture de Londres, ils y arriv\u00e8rent, sains\net saufs, dans la soir\u00e9e.\n\nTrois ou quatre jours subs\u00e9quents furent remplis par les pr\u00e9paratifs\nn\u00e9cessaires pour leur voyage au bourg d'Eatanswill; mais comme cette\nimportante entreprise exige un chapitre s\u00e9par\u00e9, nous emploierons le\npetit nombre de lignes qui nous restent \u00e0 raconter, avec une grande\nbri\u00e8vet\u00e9, l'histoire de l'antiquit\u00e9 rapport\u00e9e par M. Pickwick.\n\nIl r\u00e9sulte des m\u00e9moires du club, que M. Pickwick parla sur sa\nd\u00e9couverte, dans une r\u00e9union g\u00e9n\u00e9rale qui eut lieu le lendemain de son\narriv\u00e9e, et promena l'esprit charm\u00e9 de ses auditeurs sur une multitude\nde sp\u00e9culations ing\u00e9nieuses et \u00e9rudites, concernant le sens de\nl'inscription. Il para\u00eet aussi qu'un artiste habile en ex\u00e9cuta le\ndessin, qui fut grav\u00e9 sur pierre et pr\u00e9sent\u00e9 \u00e0 la Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 royale des\nantiquaires de Londres et aux autres soci\u00e9t\u00e9s savantes; que des\njalousies et des rivalit\u00e9s sans nombre naquirent des opinions \u00e9mises \u00e0\nce sujet; que M. Pickwick lui-m\u00eame \u00e9crivit un pamphlet de\nquatre-vingt-seize pages, en tr\u00e8s-petits caract\u00e8res, o\u00f9 l'on trouvait\nvingt-sept versions diff\u00e9rentes de l'inscription; que trois vieux\ngentlemen, dont les fils ain\u00e9s avaient os\u00e9 mettre en doute son\nantiquit\u00e9, les priv\u00e8rent de leur succession, et qu'un individu\nenthousiaste fit ouvrir pr\u00e9matur\u00e9ment la sienne, par d\u00e9sespoir de n'en\navoir pu sonder la profondeur; que M. Pickwick fut \u00e9lu membre de\ndix-sept soci\u00e9t\u00e9s savantes, tant nationales qu'\u00e9trang\u00e8res, pour avoir\nfait cette d\u00e9couverte; qu'aucune des dix-sept soci\u00e9t\u00e9s savantes ne put\nen tirer la moindre chose, mais que toutes les dix-sept s'accord\u00e8rent\npour reconna\u00eetre que rien n'\u00e9tait plus curieux.\n\nIl est vrai que M. Blotton, et son nom sera d\u00e9vou\u00e9 au m\u00e9pris \u00e9ternel de\ntous ceux qui cultivent le myst\u00e9rieux et le sublime; M. Blotton,\ndisons-nous, v\u00e9tilleux et m\u00e9fiant, comme le sont les esprits vulgaires,\nse permit de consid\u00e9rer la chose sous un point de vue aussi d\u00e9gradant\nque ridicule. M. Blotton, dans le vil dessein de ternir le nom \u00e9clatant\nde Pickwick, entreprit en personne le voyage de Cobham. A son retour, il\nd\u00e9clara ironiquement au club, qu'il avait vu l'homme dont la pierre\navait \u00e9t\u00e9 achet\u00e9e; que cet individu la croyait ancienne, mais qu'il\nniait solennellement l'anciennet\u00e9 de l'inscription, et assurait avoir\ngrav\u00e9 lui-m\u00eame, dans un instant de d\u00e9soeuvrement, ces lettres grossi\u00e8res,\nqui signifiaient tout bonnement: _Bill Stumps, sa marque_. M. Blotton\najoutait que M. Stumps ayant peu l'habitude de la composition, et se\nlaissant guider par le son des mots plut\u00f4t que par les r\u00e8gles s\u00e9v\u00e8res de\nl'orthographe, n'avait mis qu'un _l_ \u00e0 la fin de son pr\u00e9nom, et avait\nremplac\u00e9 par un _k_ les lettres _qu_ et _e_ du nom marque.\n\nLes illustres membres du Pickwick-Club, comme on pouvait l'attendre\nd'une soci\u00e9t\u00e9 aussi savante, re\u00e7urent cette histoire avec le m\u00e9pris\nqu'elle m\u00e9ritait, chass\u00e8rent de leur sein l'ignorant et pr\u00e9somptueux\nBlotton, et vot\u00e8rent \u00e0 M. Pickwick une paire de besicles en or, comme un\ngage de leur admiration et de leur confiance. Pour reconna\u00eetre cette\nmarque d'approbation, M. Pickwick se fit peindre en pied, et fit\nsuspendre son portrait dans la salle de r\u00e9union du club, portrait que,\npar parenth\u00e8se, il n'eut aucune envie de voir dispara\u00eetre lorsqu'il fut\nmoins jeune qu'on ne l'y repr\u00e9sentait.\n\nM. Blotton \u00e9tait expuls\u00e9, mais il ne se tenait pas pour battu. Il\nadressa aux dix-sept soci\u00e9t\u00e9s savantes un pamphlet dans lequel il\nr\u00e9p\u00e9tait l'histoire qu'il avait \u00e9mise, et laissait apercevoir assez\nclairement qu'il regardait comme des gobe-mouches les membres des\ndix-sept soci\u00e9t\u00e9s susdites.\n\nA cette proposition malsonnante, les dix-sept soci\u00e9t\u00e9s furent remplies\nd'indignation. Il parut plusieurs pamphlets nouveaux. Les soci\u00e9t\u00e9s\nsavantes \u00e9trang\u00e8res correspondirent avec les soci\u00e9t\u00e9s savantes\nnationales; les soci\u00e9t\u00e9s savantes nationales traduisirent en anglais les\npamphlets des soci\u00e9t\u00e9s savantes \u00e9trang\u00e8res; les soci\u00e9t\u00e9s savantes\n\u00e9trang\u00e8res traduisirent dans toutes sortes de langages les pamphlets des\nsoci\u00e9t\u00e9s savantes nationales, et ainsi, commen\u00e7a cette lutte\nscientifique, si connue de tout l'univers sous le nom de _Controverse\npickwickienne_.\n\nCependant les efforts calomnieux destin\u00e9s \u00e0 perdre M. Pickwick\nretomb\u00e8rent sur la t\u00eate de leur m\u00e9prisable auteur. Les dix-sept soci\u00e9t\u00e9s\nsavantes vot\u00e8rent unanimement que le pr\u00e9somptueux Blotton n'\u00e9tait qu'un\ntatillon ignorant, et \u00e9crivirent contre lui des opuscules sans nombre;\nenfin la pierre elle-m\u00eame subsiste encore aujourd'hui, monument\nillisible de la grandeur de M. Pickwick et de la petitesse de ses\nd\u00e9tracteurs.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XII.\n\nQui contient une tr\u00e8s-importante d\u00e9termination de M. Pickwick, laquelle\nfait \u00e9poque dans sa vie non moins que dans cette v\u00e9ridique histoire.\n\n\nQuoique l'appartement de M. Pickwick dans la rue Goswell f\u00fbt d'une\n\u00e9tendue restreinte, il \u00e9tait propre et confortable, et surtout en\nparfaite harmonie avec son g\u00e9nie observateur. Son parloir \u00e9tait au\nrez-de-chauss\u00e9e sur le devant, sa chambre \u00e0 coucher sur le devant, au\npremier \u00e9tage; et ainsi, soit qu'il f\u00fbt assis \u00e0 son bureau, soit qu'il\nse t\u00eent debout devant son miroir \u00e0 barbe, il pouvait \u00e9galement\ncontempler toutes les phases de la nature humaine dans la rue Goswell,\nqui est presque aussi populeuse que populaire. Son h\u00f4tesse, Mme Bardell,\nveuve et seule ex\u00e9cutrice testamentaire d'un douanier, \u00e9tait une femme\ngrassouillette, aux mani\u00e8res affair\u00e9es, \u00e0 la physionomie avenante. A ces\navantages physiques, elle joignait de pr\u00e9cieuses qualit\u00e9s morales: par\nune heureuse \u00e9tude, par une longue pratique, elle avait converti en un\ntalent exquis le don particulier qu'elle avait re\u00e7u de la nature pour\ntout ce qui concernait la cuisine. Il n'y avait dans la maison ni\nbambins, ni volatiles, ni domestiques. Un grand homme et un petit gar\u00e7on\nen compl\u00e9taient le personnel. Le premier \u00e9tait notre h\u00e9ros, le second\nune production de Mme Bardell. Le grand homme \u00e9tait rentr\u00e9 chaque soir\npr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment \u00e0 dix heures, et peu de temps apr\u00e8s il se condensait dans un\npetit lit fran\u00e7ais, plac\u00e9 dans un \u00e9troit parloir sur le derri\u00e8re. Quant\nau jeune master Bardell, ses yeux enfantins et ses exercices\ngymnastiques \u00e9taient soigneusement restreints aux trottoirs et aux\nruisseaux du voisinage. La propret\u00e9, la tranquillit\u00e9 r\u00e9gnaient donc dans\ntout l'\u00e9difice, et la volont\u00e9 de M. Pickwick y faisait loi.\n\nLa veille du d\u00e9part projet\u00e9 pour Eatanswill, vers le milieu de la\nmatin\u00e9e, la conduite de notre philosophe devait para\u00eetre singuli\u00e8rement\nmyst\u00e9rieuse et inexplicable, pour quiconque connaissait son admirable\n\u00e9galit\u00e9 d'esprit et l'\u00e9conomie domestique de son \u00e9tablissement. Il se\npromenait dans sa chambre d'un pas pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9. De trois minutes en trois\nminutes, il mettait la t\u00eate \u00e0 la fen\u00eatre, il regardait constamment \u00e0 sa\nmontre et laissait \u00e9chapper divers autres sympt\u00f4mes d'impatience, fort\nextraordinaires chez lui. Il \u00e9tait \u00e9vident qu'il y avait en l'air\nquelque chose d'une grande importance; mais ce que ce pouvait \u00eatre, Mme\nBardell elle-m\u00eame n'avait pas \u00e9t\u00e9 capable de le deviner.\n\n\u00abMadame Bardell? dit \u00e0 la fin M. Pickwick, lorsque cette aimable dame\nfut sur le point de terminer l'\u00e9poussetage, longtemps prolong\u00e9, de sa\nchambre.\n\n--Monsieur? r\u00e9pondit Mme Bardell.\n\n--Votre petit gar\u00e7on est bien longtemps dehors.\n\n--Vraiment, monsieur, c'est qu'il y a une bonne course d'ici au Borough.\n\n--Ah! cela est juste,\u00bb repartit M. Pickwick, et il retomba dans le\nsilence.\n\nMme Bardell recommen\u00e7a \u00e0 \u00e9pousseter avec le m\u00eame soin.\n\n\u00abMadame Bardell? reprit M. Pickwick au bout de quelques minutes.\n\n--Monsieur?\n\n--Pensez-vous que la d\u00e9pense soit beaucoup plus grande pour deux\npersonnes que pour une seule?\n\n--L\u00e0! monsieur Pickwick! r\u00e9pliqua Mme Bardell en rougissant jusqu'\u00e0 la\ngarniture de son bonnet, car elle croyait avoir aper\u00e7u dans les yeux de\nson locataire un certain clignotement matrimonial. L\u00e0! monsieur\nPickwick, quelle question!\n\n--H\u00e9 bien! qu'en pensez-vous?\n\n--Cela d\u00e9pend! repartit Mme Bardell en approchant son plumeau pr\u00e8s du\ncoude de M. Pickwick; cela d\u00e9pend beaucoup de la personne, vous savez,\nmonsieur Pickwick; et si c'est une personne soigneuse et \u00e9conome.\n\n--Cela est tr\u00e8s-vrai; mais la personne que j'ai en vue (ici il regarda\nfixement Mme Bardell) poss\u00e8de, je pense, ces qualit\u00e9s. Elle a de plus\nune grande connaissance du monde, et beaucoup de finesse, madame\nBardell. Cela me sera infiniment utile.\n\n--L\u00e0! monsieur Pickwick! murmura Mme Bardell, en rougissant de nouveau.\n\n--J'en suis persuad\u00e9! continua le philosophe avec une \u00e9nergie toujours\ncroissante, comme c'\u00e9tait son habitude quand il pariait sur un sujet\nint\u00e9ressant; j'en suis persuad\u00e9, et pour vous dire la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, madame\nBardell, c'est un parti pris.\n\n--Seigneur Dieu! s'\u00e9cria Mme Bardell.\n\n--Vous trouverez peut-\u00eatre \u00e9trange, poursuivit l'aimable M. Pickwick, en\njetant \u00e0 sa compagne un regard de bonne humeur; vous trouverez peut-\u00eatre\n\u00e9trange que je ne vous aie pas consult\u00e9e \u00e0 ce sujet, et que je ne vous\nen aie m\u00eame jamais parl\u00e9, jusqu'au moment o\u00f9 j'ai envoy\u00e9 votre petit\ngar\u00e7on dehors?\u00bb\n\nMme Bardell ne put r\u00e9pondre que par un regard. Elle avait longtemps\nador\u00e9 M. Pickwick comme une divinit\u00e9 dont il ne lui \u00e9tait pas permis\nd'approcher, et voil\u00e0 que tout d'un coup la divinit\u00e9 descendait de son\npi\u00e9destal et la prenait dans ses bras. M. Pickwick lui faisait des\npropositions directement, par suite d'un plan d\u00e9lib\u00e9r\u00e9, car il avait\nenvoy\u00e9 son petit gar\u00e7on au Borough pour rester seul avec elle. Quelle\nd\u00e9licatesse! quelle attention!\n\n\u00abH\u00e9 bien! dit le philosophe, qu'en pensez-vous?\n\n--Ah! monsieur Pickwick! r\u00e9pondit Mme Bardell toute tremblante\nd'\u00e9motion, vous \u00eates vraiment bien bon, monsieur!\n\n--Cela vous \u00e9pargnera beaucoup de peines, n'est-il pas vrai?\n\n--Oh! je n'ai jamais pens\u00e9 \u00e0 la peine, et naturellement j'en prendrai\nplus que jamais pour vous plaire. Mais vous \u00eates si bon, monsieur\nPickwick, d'avoir song\u00e9 \u00e0 ma solitude.\n\n--Ah! certainement. Je n'avais pas pens\u00e9 \u00e0 cela.... Quand je serai en\nville, vous aurez toujours quelqu'un pour causer avec vous. C'est, ma\nfoi, vrai.\n\n--Il est s\u00fbr que je dois me regarder comme une femme bien heureuse!\n\n--Et votre fils?\n\n--Que Dieu b\u00e9nisse le cher petit! interrompit Mme Bardell avec des\ntransports maternels.\n\n--Lui aussi aura un compagnon, poursuivit M. Pickwick en souriant\ngracieusement; un joyeux compagnon qui, j'en suis s\u00fbr, lui enseignera\nplus de tours, en une semaine, qu'il n'en aurait appris tout seul en un\nan.\n\n--Oh! cher, excellent homme!\u00bb murmura Mme Bardell.\n\nM. Pickwick tressaillit.\n\n\u00abOh! cher et tendre ami!\u00bb Et sans plus de c\u00e9r\u00e9monies, la dame se leva de\nsa chaise et jeta ses bras au cou de M. Pickwick, avec un d\u00e9luge de\npleurs et une temp\u00eate de sanglots.\n\n\u00abLe ciel me prot\u00e8ge! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick plein d'\u00e9tonnement; madame\nBardell! ma bonne dame! Bont\u00e9 divine, quelle situation! Faites\nattention, je vous en prie! Laissez-moi, madame Bardell, si quelqu'un\nvenait!\n\n--Eh! que m'importe? r\u00e9pondit Mme Bardell avec \u00e9garement; je ne vous\nquitterai jamais! Cher homme! excellent coeur! Et en pronon\u00e7ant ces\nparoles elle s'attachait \u00e0 M. Pickwick aussi fortement que la vigne \u00e0\nl'ormeau.\n\n--Le Seigneur ait piti\u00e9 de moi! dit M. Pickwick en se d\u00e9battant de\ntoutes ses forces; j'entends du monde sur l'escalier. Laissez-moi, ma\nbonne dame; je vous en supplie, laissez-moi!\u00bb\n\nMais les pri\u00e8res, les remontrances \u00e9taient \u00e9galement inutiles, car la\ndame s'\u00e9tait \u00e9vanouie dans les bras du philosophe, et avant qu'il e\u00fbt eu\nle temps de la d\u00e9poser sur une chaise, master Bardell introduisit dans\nla chambre MM. Tupman, Winkle et Snodgrass.\n\nM. Pickwick demeura p\u00e9trifi\u00e9. Il \u00e9tait debout, avec son aimable fardeau\ndans ses bras, et il regardait ses amis d'un air h\u00e9b\u00e9t\u00e9, sans leur faire\nun signe d'amiti\u00e9, sans songer \u00e0 leur donner une explication. Eux, \u00e0\nleur tour, le consid\u00e9raient avec \u00e9tonnement, et master Bardell, plein\nd'inqui\u00e9tude, examinait tout le monde, sans savoir ce que cela voulait\ndire.\n\nLa surprise des pickwickiens \u00e9tait si \u00e9tourdissante, et la perplexit\u00e9 de\nM. Pickwick si terrible, qu'ils auraient pu demeurer exactement dans la\nm\u00eame situation relative jusqu'\u00e0 ce que la dame \u00e9vanouie eut repris ses\nsens, si son tendre fils n'avait pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9 le d\u00e9no\u00fbment par une belle et\ntouchante \u00e9bullition d'affection filiale. Ce jeune enfant, v\u00eatu d'un\ncostume de velours ray\u00e9, orn\u00e9 de gros boutons de cuivre, \u00e9tait d'abord\ndemeur\u00e9, incertain et confus, sur le pas de la porte; mais, par degr\u00e9s,\nl'id\u00e9e que sa m\u00e8re avait souffert quelque dommage personnel s'empara de\nson esprit \u00e0 demi-d\u00e9velopp\u00e9. Consid\u00e9rant M. Pickwick comme l'agresseur,\nil poussa un cri sauvage, et se pr\u00e9cipitant t\u00eate baiss\u00e9e, il commen\u00e7a \u00e0\nassaillir cet immortel gentleman aux environs du dos et des jambes, le\npin\u00e7ant et le frappant aussi vigoureusement que le lui permettaient la\nforce de son bras et la violence de son emportement.\n\n\u00abOtez-moi ce petit coquin! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick dans une agonie de\nd\u00e9sespoir; il est enrag\u00e9!\n\n--Qu'est-il donc arriv\u00e9? demand\u00e8rent les trois pickwickiens stup\u00e9faits.\n\n--Je n'en sais rien, r\u00e9pondit le Mentor avec d\u00e9pit; \u00f4tez-moi cet\nenfant!\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle porta \u00e0 l'autre bout de l'appartement l'int\u00e9ressant gar\u00e7on,\nqui criait et se d\u00e9battait de toutes ses forces.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, poursuivit M. Pickwick, aidez-moi \u00e0 faire descendre cette\nfemme.\n\n--Ah! je suis mieux maintenant, soupira faiblement Mme Bardell.\n\n--Permettez-moi de vous offrir mon bras, dit M. Tupman, toujours galant.\n\n--Merci, monsieur, merci!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria la dame d'une voix hyst\u00e9rique, et\nelle fut conduite en bas, accompagn\u00e9e de son affectionn\u00e9 fils.\n\n--Je ne puis concevoir, reprit M. Pickwick quand ses amis furent\nrevenus, je ne puis concevoir ce qui est arriv\u00e9 \u00e0 cette femme. Je venais\nsimplement de lui annoncer que je vais prendre un domestique,\nlorsqu'elle est tomb\u00e9e dans le singulier paroxysme o\u00f9 vous l'avez\ntrouv\u00e9e. C'est fort extraordinaire!\n\n--Il est vrai, dirent ses trois amis.\n\n--Elle m'a plac\u00e9 dans une situation bien embarrassante, continua le\nphilosophe.\n\n--Il est vrai,\u00bb r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e8rent ses disciples, en toussant l\u00e9g\u00e8rement et en\nse regardant l'un l'autre d'un air dubitatif.\n\nCette conduite n'\u00e9chappa pas \u00e0 M. Pickwick. Il remarqua leur\nincr\u00e9dulit\u00e9; son innocence \u00e9tait \u00e9videmment soup\u00e7onn\u00e9e.\n\nApr\u00e8s quelques instants de silence, M. Tupman prit la parole et dit:\n\n\u00abIl y a un homme en bas, dans le vestibule.\n\n--C'est celui dont je vous ai parl\u00e9, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick; je l'ai\nenvoy\u00e9 chercher au bourg. Ayez la bont\u00e9 de le faire monter, Snodgrass.\u00bb\n\nM. Snodgrass ex\u00e9cuta cette commission, et M. Samuel Weller se pr\u00e9senta\nimm\u00e9diatement.\n\n\u00abHa! ha! vous me reconnaissez, je suppose? lui dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Un peu! r\u00e9pliqua Sam avec un clin d'oeil protecteur. Dr\u00f4le de gaillard,\ncelui-l\u00e0! Trop malin pour vous, hein? il vous a l\u00e9g\u00e8rement enfonc\u00e9,\nn'est-ce pas?\n\n--Il ne s'agit point de cela maintenant, reprit vivement le philosophe;\nj'ai \u00e0 vous parler d'autre chose. Asseyez-vous.\n\n--Merci, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit Sam, et il s'assit sans autre c\u00e9r\u00e9monie,\nayant pr\u00e9alablement d\u00e9pos\u00e9 son vieux chapeau blanc sur le carr\u00e9. \u00c7a\nn'est pas fameux, disait-il en parlant de son couvre-chef, et en\nsouriant agr\u00e9ablement aux pickwickiens assembl\u00e9s, mais c'est \u00e9tonnant \u00e0\nl'user. Quand il avait des bords, c'\u00e9tait un beau bolivar; depuis qu'il\nn'en a plus, il est plus l\u00e9ger; c'est quelque chose: et puis chaque trou\nlaisse entrer de l'air; c'est encore quelque chose. J'appelle \u00e7a un\nfeutre ventilateur.\n\n--Maintenant, reprit M. Pickwick, il s'agit de l'affaire pour laquelle\nje vous ai envoy\u00e9 chercher, avec l'assentiment de ces messieurs.\n\n--C'est \u00e7a, monsieur, accouchons, comme dit c't autre \u00e0 son enfant qui\navait aval\u00e9 un liard.\n\n--Nous d\u00e9sirons savoir, en premier lieu, si vous avez quelque raison\nd'\u00eatre m\u00e9content de votre condition pr\u00e9sente.\n\n--Avant de satisfaire cette question ici, je d\u00e9sirerais savoir, en\npremier lieu, si vous en avez une meilleure \u00e0 me donner.\u00bb\n\nUn rayon de calme bienveillance illumina les traits de M. Pickwick\nlorsqu'il r\u00e9pondit: \u00abJ'ai quelque envie de vous prendre \u00e0 mon service.\n\n--Vrai?\u00bb demanda Sam.\n\nM. Pickwick fit un geste affirmatif.\n\n--Gages?\n\n--Douze guin\u00e9es par an.\n\n--Habits?\n\n--Deux habillements.\n\n--L'ouvrage?\n\n--Me servir et voyager avec moi et ces gentlemen.\n\n--Otez l'\u00e9criteau! s'\u00e9cria Sam avec emphase. Je suis lou\u00e9 \u00e0 un gentleman\nseul, et le terme est convenu.\n\n--Vous acceptez ma proposition?\n\n--Certainement. Si les habits me prennent la taille moiti\u00e9 aussi bien\nque la place, \u00e7a ira.\n\n--Naturellement, vous pouvez fournir de bons certificats?\n\n--Demandez \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tesse du _Blanc-Cerf_, elle vous dira \u00e7a, monsieur.\n\n--Pouvez-vous venir ce soir?\n\n--Je vas endosser l'habit \u00e0 l'instant m\u00eame, s'il est ici, s'\u00e9cria Sam\navec une grande all\u00e9gresse.\n\n--Revenez ce soir, \u00e0 huit heures, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick, et si les\nrenseignements sont satisfaisants, nous verrons \u00e0 vous faire habiller.\u00bb\n\nSauf une aimable indiscr\u00e9tion, dont s'\u00e9tait en m\u00eame temps rendue\ncoupable une des servantes de l'h\u00f4tel, la conduite de M. Weller avait\ntoujours \u00e9t\u00e9 tr\u00e8s-m\u00e9ritoire. M. Pickwick n'h\u00e9sita donc pas \u00e0 le prendre\n\u00e0 son service, et avec la promptitude et l'\u00e9nergie qui caract\u00e9risaient\nnon seulement la conduite publique, mais toutes les actions priv\u00e9es de\ncet homme extraordinaire, il conduisit imm\u00e9diatement son nouveau\nserviteur dans un de ces commodes _emporiums_, o\u00f9 l'on peut se procurer\ndes habits confectionn\u00e9s ou d'occasion, et o\u00f9 l'on se dispense de la\nformalit\u00e9 inconnue de prendre mesure. Avant la chute du jour, M. Weller\n\u00e9tait rev\u00eatu d'un habit gris avec des boutons P.C., d'un chapeau noir\navec une cocarde, d'un gilet ray\u00e9, de culottes et de gu\u00eatres, et d'une\nquantit\u00e9 d'autres objets trop nombreux pour que nous prenions la peine\nde les r\u00e9capituler.\n\nLorsque, le lendemain matin, cet individu, si soudainement transform\u00e9,\nprit sa place \u00e0 l'ext\u00e9rieur de la voiture d'Eatanswill: \u00abMa foi, se\ndit-il, je ne sais point si je vas \u00eatre un valet de pied, ou un groom,\nou un garde-chasse; j'ai la philosomie mitoyenne entre tout \u00e7a; mais\nc'est \u00e9gal, \u00e7a va me changer d'air; y'a du pays \u00e0 voir, et pas\ngrand'chose \u00e0 faire, \u00e7a va fameusement \u00e0 ma maladie: ainsi donc vive\nPickwick, que je dis!\u00bb\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XIII.\n\nNotice sur Eatanswill, sur les partis qui le divisent, et sur l'\u00e9lection\nd'un membre du parlement par ce bourg ancien, loyal et patriote.\n\n\nNous confessons franchement que nous n'avions jamais entendu parler\nd'Eatanswill, jusqu'au moment o\u00f9 nous nous sommes plong\u00e9 dans les\nvolumineux papiers du Pickwick-Club. Nous reconnaissons, avec une \u00e9gale\ncandeur, que nous avons cherch\u00e9 en vain des preuves de l'existence\nactuelle de cet endroit. Sachant bien quelle profonde confiance on doit\nplacer dans toutes les notes de M. Pickwick, et ne nous permettant pas\nd'opposer nos souvenirs aux \u00e9nonciations de ce grand homme, nous avons\nconsult\u00e9, relativement \u00e0 ce sujet, toutes les autorit\u00e9s auxquelles il\nnous a \u00e9t\u00e9 possible de recourir. Nous avons examin\u00e9 tous les noms\ncontenus dans les tables A et B[16], sans trouver celui d'Eatanswill;\nnous avons minutieusement collationn\u00e9 toutes les cartes des comt\u00e9s,\npubli\u00e9es, dans l'int\u00e9r\u00eat de la science, par nos plus distingu\u00e9s\n\u00e9diteurs, et le m\u00eame r\u00e9sultat a suivi nos investigations.\n\n[Footnote 16: C'est-\u00e0-dire dans la loi sur les \u00e9lections.\n\n(_Note du traducteur_.)]\n\nNous avons donc \u00e9t\u00e9 conduit \u00e0 supposer que, dans la crainte obligeante\nde blesser quelqu'un, et par un sentiment de d\u00e9licatesse dont M.\nPickwick \u00e9tait si \u00e9minemment dou\u00e9, il avait, de propos d\u00e9lib\u00e9r\u00e9,\nsubstitu\u00e9 un nom fictif au nom r\u00e9el de l'endroit o\u00f9 il avait fait ses\nobservations. Nous sommes confirm\u00e9 dans cette opinion par une\ncirconstance qui peut sembler l\u00e9g\u00e8re et frivole en elle-m\u00eame, mais qui,\nconsid\u00e9r\u00e9e sous ce point de vue, n'est point indigne d'\u00eatre not\u00e9e. Dans\nle m\u00e9morandum de M. Pickwick, nous pouvons encore d\u00e9couvrir que sa place\net celles de ses disciples furent retenues dans la voiture de Norwich;\nmais cette note fut ensuite ray\u00e9e, apparemment pour ne point indiquer\ndans quelle direction est situ\u00e9 le bourg dont il s'agit. Nous ne\nhasarderons donc point de conjectures \u00e0 ce sujet, et nous allons\npoursuivre notre histoire sans autre digression.\n\nIl para\u00eet que les habitants d'Eatanswill, comme ceux de beaucoup\nd'autres petits endroits, se croyaient d'une grande, d'une immense\nimportance dans l'\u00c9tat; et chaque individu ayant la conscience du poids\nattach\u00e9 \u00e0 son exemple, se faisait une obligation de s'unir corps et \u00e2me\n\u00e0 l'un des deux grands partis qui divisaient la cit\u00e9, les _bleus_ et les\n_jaunes_. Or, les bleus ne laissaient \u00e9chapper aucune occasion de\ncontrecarrer les jaunes, et les jaunes ne laissaient \u00e9chapper aucune\noccasion de contrecarrer les bleus; de sorte que quand les jaunes et les\nbleus se trouvaient face \u00e0 face dans quelque r\u00e9union publique, \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel\nde ville, dans une foire, dans un march\u00e9, des gros mots et des disputes\ns'\u00e9levaient entre eux. Il est superflu d'ajouter que dans Eatanswill\ntoutes choses devenaient une question de parti. Si les jaunes\nproposaient de recouvrir la place du march\u00e9, les bleus tenaient des\nassembl\u00e9es publiques o\u00f9 ils d\u00e9molissaient cette mesure. Si les bleus\nproposaient d'\u00e9riger une nouvelle pompe dans la grande rue, les jaunes\nse levaient comme un seul homme et d\u00e9blat\u00e9raient contre une aussi inf\u00e2me\nmotion. Il y avait des boutiques bleues et des boutiques jaunes, des\nauberges bleues et des auberges jaunes; il y avait une aile bleue et une\naile jaune dans l'\u00e9glise elle-m\u00eame.\n\nChacun de ces puissants partis devait n\u00e9cessairement avoir un organe\navou\u00e9, et, en effet, il paraissait deux feuilles publiques dans la\nville, la _Gazette d'Eatanswill_ et l'_Ind\u00e9pendant d'Eatanswill_. La\npremi\u00e8re soutenait les principes bleus, le second se posait sur un\nterrain d\u00e9cid\u00e9ment jaune. C'\u00e9taient d'admirables journaux. Quels beaux\narticles politiques! quelle pol\u00e9mique spirituelle et courageuse. \u00abLa\n_Gazette_, notre ignoble antagoniste....--L'_Ind\u00e9pendant_, ce m\u00e9prisable\net d\u00e9go\u00fbtant journal....--La _Gazette_, cette feuille menteuse et\norduri\u00e8re....--L'_Ind\u00e9pendant_, ce vil et scandaleux calomniateur....\u00bb\nTelles \u00e9taient les r\u00e9criminations int\u00e9ressantes qui assaisonnaient les\ncolonnes de chaque num\u00e9ro, et qui excitaient dans le sein des habitants\nde l'endroit les sentiments les plus chaleureux de plaisir ou\nd'indignation.\n\nM. Pickwick, avec sa pr\u00e9voyance et sa sagacit\u00e9 ordinaires, avait choisi,\npour visiter ce bourg, une \u00e9poque singuli\u00e8rement remarquable. Jamais il\nn'y avait eu une telle lutte. L'honorable Samuel Slumkey, de\nSlumkey-Hall[17], \u00e9tait le candidat bleu; Horatio Fizkin, esquire, de\nFizkin-Loge, pr\u00e8s d'Eatanswill, avait c\u00e9d\u00e9 aux instances de ses amis, et\ns'\u00e9tait laiss\u00e9 porter pour soutenir les int\u00e9r\u00eats jaunes. La _Gazette_\navertit les \u00e9lecteurs d'Eatanswill que les regards, non-seulement de\nl'Angleterre, mais du monde civilis\u00e9 tout entier, \u00e9taient fix\u00e9s sur eux.\nL'_Ind\u00e9pendant_ demanda d'un ton p\u00e9remptoire si les \u00e9lecteurs\nd'Eatanswill m\u00e9ritaient encore la renomm\u00e9e qu'ils avaient acquise d'\u00eatre\nde grands, de g\u00e9n\u00e9reux citoyens, ou s'ils \u00e9taient devenus de serviles\ninstruments du despotisme, indignes \u00e9galement du nom d'Anglais et des\nbienfaits de la libert\u00e9. Jamais une commotion aussi profonde n'avait\nencore \u00e9branl\u00e9 la ville.\n\n[Footnote 17: _Hall, ch\u00e2teau._]\n\nLa soir\u00e9e \u00e9tait avanc\u00e9e quand M. Pickwick et ses compagnons, assist\u00e9s\npar Sam Weller, quitt\u00e8rent l'imp\u00e9riale de la voiture d'Eatanswill. De\ngrands drapeaux bleus flottaient aux fen\u00eatres de l'auberge des _Armes de\nla ville_, et des \u00e9criteaux, plac\u00e9s derri\u00e8re les vitres, indiquaient en\ncaract\u00e8res gigantesques que le comit\u00e9 de l'honorable Samuel Slumkey, y\ntenait ses s\u00e9ances. Un groupe de fl\u00e2neurs, assembl\u00e9s devant la porte de\nl'auberge, regardaient un homme enrou\u00e9, plac\u00e9 sur le balcon de\nl'auberge, et qui paraissait parler en faveur de M. Samuel Slumkey, avec\ntant de chaleur que son visage en devenait tout rouge. Mais la force et\nla beaut\u00e9 de ses arguments \u00e9taient l\u00e9g\u00e8rement infirm\u00e9es par le\nroulement perp\u00e9tuel de quatre \u00e9normes tambours, pos\u00e9s au coin de la rue\npar le comit\u00e9 de M. Fizkin. Quoi qu'il en soit, un petit homme affair\u00e9,\nqui se tenait aupr\u00e8s de l'orateur, \u00f4tait de temps en temps son chapeau\net faisait signe \u00e0 la foule d'applaudir. La foule applaudissait alors\nr\u00e9guli\u00e8rement et avec beaucoup d'enthousiasme; et comme l'homme enrou\u00e9\nallait toujours parlant, quoique son visage devint de plus en plus\nrouge, on pouvait croire que son but \u00e9tait atteint, aussi bien que si\nl'on avait pu l'entendre.\n\nAussit\u00f4t que les pickwickiens furent descendus de leur voiture, ils se\nvirent entour\u00e9s par une partie de la populace, qui, sur-le-champ, poussa\ntrois acclamations assourdissantes. Ces acclamations, r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9es par le\nrassemblement principal (car la foule n'a nullement besoin de savoir\npourquoi elle crie), s'enfl\u00e8rent en un rugissement de triomphe si\neffroyable, que l'homme au rouge visage en resta court sur son balcon.\n\n\u00abHourra! hurla le peuple pour terminer.\n\n--Encore une acclamation! s'\u00e9cria le petit homme affair\u00e9 sur le balcon.\u00bb\nEt la multitude de rugir aussit\u00f4t, comme si elle avait eu un larynx de\nfonte et des poumons d'acier tremp\u00e9.\n\n\u00abVive Slumkey! beugla la multitude.\n\n--Vive Slumkey! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick en \u00f4tant son chapeau.\n\n--A bas Fizkin! vocif\u00e9ra la foule.\n\n--Oui, assur\u00e9ment! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick.\n\n--Hourra!\u00bb Et alors un autre rugissement s'\u00e9leva, semblable \u00e0 celui de\ntoute une m\u00e9nagerie quand l'\u00e9l\u00e9phant a sonn\u00e9 l'heure du repas.\n\n\u00abQuel est ce Slumkey? demanda tout bas M. Tupman.\n\n--Je n'en sais rien, reprit M. Pickwick sur le m\u00eame ton. Silence! ne\nfaites point de question. Dans ces occasions, il faut faire comme la\nfoule.\n\n--Mais supposez qu'il y ait deux partis, fit observer M. Snodgrass.\n\n--Criez avec les plus forts.\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick.\n\nDes volumes n'auraient pu en dire davantage.\n\nIls entr\u00e8rent dans la maison, la populace s'ouvrant \u00e0 droite et \u00e0 gauche\npour les laisser passer et poussant des acclamations bruyantes. Ce qu'il\ny avait \u00e0 faire, en premier lieu, c'\u00e9tait de s'assurer un logement pour\nla nuit.\n\n\u00abPouvons-nous avoir des lits ici? demanda M. Pickwick au gar\u00e7on.\n\n--Je n'en sais rien, m'sieu. J'ai peur qu'ils ne soient tous pris,\nm'sieu. Je vais m'informer, m'sieu.\u00bb\n\nIl s'\u00e9loigna, mais revenant aussit\u00f4t, demanda si les gentlemen \u00e9taient\n_bleus_.\n\nComme M. Pickwick et ses compagnons ne prenaient gu\u00e8re d'int\u00e9r\u00eat \u00e0 la\ncause des candidats, la question \u00e9tait difficile \u00e0 r\u00e9soudre. Dans ce\ndilemme, M. Pickwick pensa \u00e0 son nouvel ami, M. Perker.\n\n--Connaissez-vous, dit-il, un gentleman nomm\u00e9 Perker?\n\n--Certainement, m'sieu; l'agent de l'honorable M. Samuel Slumkey.\n\n--Il est bleu, je pense?\n\n--Oh! oui, m'sieu.\n\n--Alors nous sommes bleus,\u00bb dit M. Pickwick; mais remarquant que le\ngar\u00e7on recevait d'un air dubitatif cette profession de foi accommodante,\nil lui donna sa carte en lui disant de la remettre sur-le-champ \u00e0 M.\nPerker, s'il \u00e9tait dans la maison. Le gar\u00e7on disparut, mais il reparut\nbient\u00f4t, pria M. Pickwick de le suivre, et le conduisit dans une grande\nsalle, o\u00f9 M. Perker \u00e9tait assis \u00e0 une longue table, derri\u00e8re un monceau\nde livres et de papiers.\n\n\u00abHa! ha! mon cher monsieur, dit le petit homme en s'avan\u00e7ant pour\nrecevoir M. Pickwick. Tr\u00e8s-heureux de vous voir, mon cher monsieur.\nAsseyez-vous, je vous prie. Ainsi vous avez ex\u00e9cut\u00e9 votre projet? Vous\n\u00eates venu pour assister \u00e0 l'\u00e9lection, n'est-ce pas?\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick r\u00e9pondit affirmativement.\n\n\u00abUne \u00e9lection bien disput\u00e9e, mon cher monsieur.\n\n--J'en suis charm\u00e9, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick en se frottant les mains.\nJ'aime \u00e0 voir cette chaleur patriotique, n'importe pour quel parti:\nc'est donc une \u00e9lection disput\u00e9e?\n\n--Oh! oui, singuli\u00e8rement. Nous avons retenu toutes les auberges de\nl'endroit et n'avons laiss\u00e9 \u00e0 nos adversaires que les boutiques de\nbi\u00e8re. C'est un coup de ma\u00eetre, mon cher monsieur, qu'en dites-vous?\u00bb\n\nLe petit homme, en parlant ainsi, souriait complaisamment et ins\u00e9rait\ndans ses narines une large prise de tabac.\n\n\u00abEt quel est le r\u00e9sultat probable de l'\u00e9lection?\n\n--Douteux, mon cher monsieur, douteux jusqu'\u00e0 pr\u00e9sent. Les gens de\nFizkin ont trente-trois votante dans les remises du _Blanc-Cerf_.\n\n--Dans les remises! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, singuli\u00e8rement \u00e9tonn\u00e9 par cet\nautre coup de ma\u00eetre.\n\n--Ils les y tiennent enferm\u00e9s jusqu'au moment o\u00f9 ils en auront besoin,\nafin de nous emp\u00eacher, comme vous vous en doutez bien, d'arriver jusqu'\u00e0\neux. Mais quand m\u00eame nous pourrions leur parler, cela ne nous servirait\npas \u00e0 grand'chose, car ils les maintiennent expr\u00e8s constamment gris. Un\nhabile homme, l'agent de Fizkin! Un habile homme, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9!\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick ouvrit de grands yeux, mais il ne dit rien.\n\n\u00abMalgr\u00e9 cela, poursuivit M. Perker en baissant la voix, malgr\u00e9 cela,\nnous avons bonne esp\u00e9rance. Nous avons donn\u00e9 un th\u00e9 ici, la nuit\nderni\u00e8re. Quarante-cinq femmes, mon cher monsieur, et lorsqu'elles sont\nparties, nous avons offert \u00e0 chacune d'elles un parasol vert.\n\n--Un parasol! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick.\n\n--Oui, mon cher monsieur, oui, quarante-cinq parasols verts, \u00e0 sept\nshillings et six pence la pi\u00e8ce. Toutes les femmes sont coquettes: ces\nparasols ont produit un effet incroyable; assur\u00e9 tous les maris et la\nmoiti\u00e9 des fr\u00e8res; enfonc\u00e9 les bas, la flanelle et toutes ces sortes de\nchoses. Id\u00e9e de moi, mon cher monsieur, enti\u00e8rement de moi. Gr\u00eale,\npluie, soleil, vous ne pouvez pas faire quinze pas dans la ville, sans\nrencontrer une demi-douzaine de parasols verts.\u00bb\n\nIci le petit avou\u00e9 se laissa aller \u00e0 des convulsions de gaiet\u00e9 qui ne\nfurent interrompues que par l'entr\u00e9e en sc\u00e8ne d'un troisi\u00e8me\ninterlocuteur.\n\nC'\u00e9tait un homme long et fluet. Sa t\u00eate, d'un roux ardent, paraissait\ninclin\u00e9e \u00e0 devenir chauve; sur son visage se peignaient une importance\nsolennelle, une profondeur incommensurable. Il \u00e9tait rev\u00eatu d'une longue\nredingote brune, d'un gilet et d'un pantalon de drap noir. Un double\nlorgnon se dandinait sur sa poitrine; sur sa t\u00eate il portait un chapeau\ndont la forme \u00e9tait \u00e9tonnamment basse et les bords \u00e9tonnamment larges.\nCe nouveau venu fut pr\u00e9sent\u00e9 \u00e0 M. Pickwick comme M. Pott, \u00e9diteur de la\n_Gazette d'Eatanswill_.\n\nApr\u00e8s quelques remarques pr\u00e9liminaires, M. Pott se tourna vers M.\nPickwick et lui dit avec solennit\u00e9:\n\n\u00abCette \u00e9lection excite un grand int\u00e9r\u00eat dans la m\u00e9tropole, monsieur.\n\n--Je le pense, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Auquel je puis me flatter, continua M. Pott en regardant M. Perker de\nmani\u00e8re \u00e0 faire confirmer ses paroles, auquel je puis me flatter\nd'avoir contribu\u00e9 en quelque chose par mon article de samedi dernier.\n\n--Sans aucun doute, assura le petit homme.\n\n--Monsieur, poursuivit M. Pott, la presse est un puissant engin.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick donna un assentiment complet \u00e0 cette proposition.\n\n\u00abMais je me flatte, monsieur, que je n'ai jamais abus\u00e9 de l'\u00e9norme\npouvoir que je poss\u00e8de. Je me flatte, monsieur, que je n'ai jamais\ndirig\u00e9 le noble instrument plac\u00e9 entre mes mains par la Providence,\ncontre le sanctuaire inviolable de la vie priv\u00e9e, contre la r\u00e9putation\ndes individus, cette fleur tendre et fragile. Je me flatte, monsieur,\nque j'ai d\u00e9vou\u00e9 toute mon \u00e9nergie \u00e0... \u00e0 des efforts... faibles\npeut-\u00eatre, oui, j'en conviens, \u00e0 de faibles efforts, pour inculquer ces\nprincipes que... dont... pour lesquels....\u00bb\n\nL'\u00e9diteur de la _Gazette d'Eatanswill_ paraissant s'embrouiller, M.\nPickwick vint \u00e0 son secours en lui disant:\n\n\u00abCertainement, monsieur.\n\n--Et permettez-moi de vous demander, monsieur, de vous demander comme \u00e0\nun homme impartial ce que le public de Londres pense de ma pol\u00e9mique\navec l'_Ind\u00e9pendant_?\u00bb\n\nM. Perker s'interposa et dit avec un sourire malicieux qui n'\u00e9tait pas\ntout \u00e0 fait accidentel:\n\n\u00abLe public de Londres s'y int\u00e9resse beaucoup, sans aucun doute.\n\n--Cette pol\u00e9mique, poursuivit le journaliste, sera continu\u00e9e aussi\nlongtemps qu'il me restera un peu de sant\u00e9 et de force, un peu de ces\ntalents que j'ai re\u00e7us de la nature. A cette pol\u00e9mique, monsieur,\nquoiqu'elle puisse d\u00e9ranger l'esprit des hommes, exasp\u00e9rer leurs\nopinions et les rendre incapables de s'occuper des devoirs prosa\u00efques de\nla vie ordinaire; \u00e0 cette pol\u00e9mique, monsieur, je consacrerai toute mon\nexistence, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que j'aie broy\u00e9 sous mon pied l'_Ind\u00e9pendant\nd'Eatanswill_. Je d\u00e9sire, monsieur, que le peuple de Londres, que le\npeuple de mon pays sache qu'il peut compter sur moi, que je ne\nl'abandonnerai point, que je suis r\u00e9solu, monsieur, \u00e0 demeurer son\nchampion jusqu'\u00e0 la fin.\n\n--Votre conduite est tr\u00e8s-noble, monsieur, s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, et il\nsecoua chaleureusement la main du magnanime \u00e9diteur.\n\n--Je m'aper\u00e7ois, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit celui-ci, tout essouffl\u00e9 par la\nv\u00e9h\u00e9mence de sa d\u00e9claration patriotique; je m'aper\u00e7ois que vous \u00eates un\nhomme de sens et de talent. Je suis tr\u00e8s-heureux, monsieur, de faire la\nconnaissance d'un tel homme.\n\n--Et moi, monsieur, r\u00e9torqua M, Pickwick, je me sens profond\u00e9ment honor\u00e9\npar cette expression de votre opinion. Permettez-moi, monsieur, de vous\npr\u00e9senter mes compagnons de voyage, les autres membres correspondants du\nclub que je suis orgueilleux d'avoir fond\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nM. Pott ayant d\u00e9clar\u00e9 qu'il en serait enchant\u00e9, M. Pickwick alla\nchercher ses trois amis, et les pr\u00e9senta formellement \u00e0 l'\u00e9diteur de la\n_Gazette d'Eatanswill_.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, mon cher Pott, dit le petit M. Perker, la question est de\nsavoir ce que nous ferons de nos amis ici pr\u00e9sents.\n\n--Nous pouvons rester dans cette maison, je suppose? dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Pas un lit de reste, monsieur, pas un seul lit.\n\n--Extr\u00eamement embarrassant! reprit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Extr\u00eamement, r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e8rent ses acolytes.\n\n--J'ai \u00e0 ce sujet, dit M. Pott, une id\u00e9e qui, je l'esp\u00e8re, peut \u00eatre\nadopt\u00e9e avec beaucoup de succ\u00e8s. Il y a deux lits au _Paon d'argent_, et\nje puis dire hardiment, au nom de Mme Pott, qu'elle sera enchant\u00e9e de\ndonner l'hospitalit\u00e9 \u00e0 M. Pickwick et \u00e0 l'un de ses compagnons, si les\ndeux autres gentlemen et leur domestique consentent \u00e0 s'arranger de leur\nmieux au _Paon d'argent_.\u00bb\n\nApr\u00e8s des instances r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9es de M. Pott, et des protestations nombreuses\nde M. Pickwick, qu'il ne pouvait pas consentir \u00e0 d\u00e9ranger l'aimable\n\u00e9pouse de l'\u00e9diteur, il fut d\u00e9cid\u00e9 que c'\u00e9tait l\u00e0 le seul arrangement\nex\u00e9cutable; aussi fut-il ex\u00e9cut\u00e9. Apr\u00e8s avoir d\u00een\u00e9 ensemble aux _Armes\nde la ville_, et \u00eatre convenus de se r\u00e9unir le lendemain matin dans le\nm\u00eame lieu pour accompagner la procession de l'honorable Samuel Slumkey,\nnos amis se s\u00e9par\u00e8rent, M. Tupman et M. Snodgrass se retirant au _Paon\nd'argent_, M. Pickwick et M. Winkle se r\u00e9fugiant sous le toit\nhospitalier de M. Pott.\n\nLe cercle domestique de M. Pott se composait de lui-m\u00eame et de sa femme.\nTous les hommes qu'un puissant g\u00e9nie a \u00e9lev\u00e9s \u00e0 un poste \u00e9minent dans le\nmonde, ont ordinairement quelque petite faiblesse, qui n'en para\u00eet que\nplus remarquable par le contraste qu'elle forme avec leur caract\u00e8re\npublic. Si M. Pott avait une faiblesse, c'\u00e9tait apparemment d'\u00eatre un\npeu trop soumis \u00e0 la domination l\u00e9g\u00e8rement m\u00e9prisante de son \u00e9pouse.\nCependant noua n'avons pas le droit d'insister sur ce fait, car, dans la\ncirconstance actuelle, toutes les mani\u00e8res les plus engageantes de Mme\nPott furent employ\u00e9es \u00e0 recevoir les deux gentlemen amen\u00e9s par son mari.\n\n\u00abCh\u00e8re amie, dit M. Pott, M. Pickwick, M. Pickwick de Londres.\u00bb\n\nMme Pott re\u00e7ut avec une douceur enchanteresse le serrement de main\npaternel de M. Pickwick, tandis que M. Winkle, qui n'avait pas \u00e9t\u00e9\nannonc\u00e9 du tout, salua et se glissa dans un coin obscur.\n\n\u00abMon cher, dit la dame.\n\n--Ch\u00e8re amie, r\u00e9pondit l'\u00e9diteur.\n\n--Pr\u00e9sentez l'autre gentleman.\n\n--Je vous demande un million de pardons, dit M. Pott. Permettez-moi....\nMadame Pott, monsieur....\n\n--Winkle, dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Winkle, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pott; et la c\u00e9r\u00e9monie de l'introduction fut\ncompl\u00e8te.\n\n--Nous vous devons beaucoup d'excuses, madame, reprit M. Pickwick, pour\navoir ainsi troubl\u00e9 vos arrangements domestiques.\n\n--Je vous prie de n'en point parler, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua avec vivacit\u00e9 la\nmoiti\u00e9 f\u00e9minine de Pott. C'est, je vous assure, un grand plaisir pour\nmoi d'apercevoir de nouveaux visages, vivant comme je le fais de jour en\njour, de semaine en semaine, dans ce triste endroit, et sans voir\npersonne.\n\n--Personne! ma ch\u00e8re? s'\u00e9cria M. Pott, avec finesse.\n\n--Personne que vous, r\u00e9torqua son \u00e9pouse avec asp\u00e9rit\u00e9.\n\n--En effet, monsieur Pickwick, reprit leur h\u00f4te pour expliquer les\nlamentations de sa femme; en effet, nous sommes priv\u00e9s de beaucoup de\nplaisirs que nous devrions partager. Ma position comme \u00e9diteur de la\n_Gazette d'Eatanswill_, le rang que cette feuille occupe dans le pays,\nmon immersion constante dans le tourbillon de la politique....\u00bb\n\nMme Pott interrompit son \u00e9poux. \u00abMon cher, dit-elle.\n\n--Ch\u00e8re amie, r\u00e9pondit l'\u00e9diteur.\n\n--Je d\u00e9sirerais que vous voulussiez bien trouver un autre sujet de\nconversation, afin que ces messieurs puissent y prendre quelque int\u00e9r\u00eat.\n\n--Mais, mon amour, dit M. Pott avec humilit\u00e9, M. Pickwick y prend grand\nint\u00e9r\u00eat.\n\n--C'est fort heureux pour lui! Mais _moi_ je suis lasse, \u00e0 mourir, de\nvotre politique, de vos querelles avec l'_Ind\u00e9pendant_, et de toutes ces\nsottises. Je suis tout \u00e0 fait \u00e9tonn\u00e9e, Pott, que vous donniez ainsi en\nspectacle vos absurdit\u00e9s.\n\n--Mais, ch\u00e8re amie, murmura le malheureux \u00e9poux.\n\n--Sottises! ne me parlez pas. Jouez-vous \u00e0 l'\u00e9cart\u00e9, monsieur?\n\n--Je serai enchant\u00e9, madame, d'apprendre avec vous, r\u00e9pondit galamment\nM. Winkle.\n\n--Eh bien! alors, tirez cette table aupr\u00e8s de la fen\u00eatre, pour que je\nn'entende plus cette \u00e9ternelle politique.\n\n--Jane, dit M. Pott \u00e0 la servante, qui apportait de la lumi\u00e8re,\ndescendez dans le bureau, et montez-moi la collection des gazettes pour\nl'ann\u00e9e 1830. Je vais vous lire, continua-t-il en se tournant vers M.\nPickwick, je vais vous lire quelques-uns des articles de fond que j'ai\n\u00e9crits, \u00e0 cette \u00e9poque, sur la conspiration des jaunes pour faire nommer\nun nouveau p\u00e9ager \u00e0 notre Turnpike. Je me flatte qu'ils vous amuseront.\n\n--Je serai v\u00e9ritablement charm\u00e9 de vous entendre,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick.\n\nSon voeu fut bient\u00f4t exauc\u00e9. La servante revint avec une collection de\ngazettes, et l'\u00e9diteur s'\u00e9tant assis aupr\u00e8s de son h\u00f4te, se mit \u00e0 lire\nimm\u00e9diatement.\n\nNous avons feuillet\u00e9 le m\u00e9morandum de M. Pickwick, dans l'espoir de\nretrouver au moins un sommaire de ces magnifiques compositions; mais ce\nfut vainement. Nous avons cependant des raisons de croire que la vigueur\net la fra\u00eecheur du style le ravirent enti\u00e8rement, car M. Winkle a not\u00e9\nque ses yeux, comme par un exc\u00e8s de plaisir, rest\u00e8rent ferm\u00e9s pendant\ntoute la dur\u00e9e de la lecture.\n\nL'annonce que le souper \u00e9tait servi mit un terme au jeu d'\u00e9cart\u00e9 et \u00e0 la\nr\u00e9capitulation des beaut\u00e9s de la _Gazette_. M. Winkle avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 fait\ndes progr\u00e8s consid\u00e9rables dans les bonnes gr\u00e2ces de Mme Pott. Elle \u00e9tait\nd'une humeur charmante, et n'h\u00e9sita pas \u00e0 l'informer confidentiellement\nque M. Pickwick \u00e9tait un vieux bonhomme tout \u00e0 fait aimable. Il y a dans\nces expressions une familiarit\u00e9 que ne se serait permise aucun de ceux\nqui connaissaient intimement l'esprit colossal de ce philosophe.\nCependant nous les avons conserv\u00e9es parce qu'elles prouvent d'une\nmani\u00e8re touchante et convaincante la facilit\u00e9 avec laquelle il gagnait\ntous les coeurs, et le cas immense que faisaient de lui toutes les\nclasses de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9.\n\nLa nuit \u00e9tait avanc\u00e9e, M. Tupman et M. Snodgrass dormaient depuis\nlongtemps sous l'aile du _Paon d'argent_, lorsque nos deux amis se\nretir\u00e8rent dans leurs chambres. Le sommeil s'empara bient\u00f4t de leurs\nsens, mais, quoiqu'il e\u00fbt rendu M. Winkle insensible \u00e0 tous les objets\nterrestres, le visage et la tournure de l'agr\u00e9able Mme Pott se\npr\u00e9sent\u00e8rent, pendant longtemps encore, \u00e0 sa fantaisie excit\u00e9e.\n\nLe mouvement et le bruit de la matin\u00e9e suivante \u00e9taient suffisants pour\nchasser de l'imagination la plus romantique toute autre id\u00e9e que celle\nde l'\u00e9lection. Le roulement des tambours, le son des cornes et des\ntrompettes, les cris de la populace, le pi\u00e9tinement des chevaux,\nretentissaient dans les rues depuis le point du jour; et de temps en\ntemps une escarmouche entre les enfants perdus des deux partis \u00e9gayait\net diversifiait les pr\u00e9paratifs de la c\u00e9r\u00e9monie.\n\nSam parut \u00e0 la porte de la chambre \u00e0 coucher de M. Pickwick, justement\ncomme il terminait sa toilette. H\u00e9! bien, Sam, lui dit-il, tout le monde\nest en mouvement, aujourd'hui?\n\n\u00abOh! personne ne caponne, monsieur. Nos particuliers sont rassembl\u00e9s aux\n_Armes de la ville_, et ils ont tant cri\u00e9 d\u00e9j\u00e0 qu'ils en sont tout\nenrouill\u00e9s.\n\n--Ah! ont-ils l'air d\u00e9vou\u00e9 \u00e0 leur parti, Sam?\n\n--Je n'ai jamais vu de d\u00e9vouement comme \u00e7a, monsieur.\n\n--\u00c9nergique, n'est-ce pas?\n\n--Je crois bien. Je n'ai jamais vu boire ni b\u00e2frer si \u00e9nergiquement. Il\npourrait bien en crever quelques-uns, voil\u00e0 tout.\n\n--Cela vient de la g\u00e9n\u00e9rosit\u00e9 malentendue des bourgeois de cette ville.\n\n--C'est fort probable, r\u00e9pondit Sam d'un ton bref.\n\n--Ha! dit M. Pickwick, en regardant par la fen\u00eatre, de beaux gaillards,\nbien vigoureux, bien frais.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-frais, pour s\u00fbr. Les deux gar\u00e7ons du _Paon d'argent_ et moi, nous\navons pomp\u00e9 sur tous les \u00e9lecteurs qui y ont soup\u00e9 hier.\n\n--Pomp\u00e9 sur des \u00e9lecteurs ind\u00e9pendants!\n\n--Oui, monsieur. Ils ont ronfl\u00e9 cette nuit o\u00f9s qu'ils \u00e9taient tomb\u00e9s\nivres-morts hier soir. Ce matin, nous les avons insinu\u00e9s, l'un apr\u00e8s\nl'autre, sous la pompe, et voil\u00e0! Ils sont tous en bon \u00e9tat maintenant.\nLe comit\u00e9 nous a donn\u00e9 un shilling par t\u00eate pour ce service-l\u00e0!...\n\n--Est-il possible qu'on fasse des choses semblables! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick\nplein d'\u00e9tonnement.\n\n--Bah! monsieur, \u00e7a n'est rien, rien du tout.\n\n--Rien?\n\n--Rien du tout, monsieur. La nuit d'avant le dernier jour de la derni\u00e8re\n\u00e9lection, ici, l'autre parti a gagn\u00e9 la servante des _Armes de la ville_\npour \u00e9picer le grog de quatorze \u00e9lecteurs qui restaient dans la maison,\net qui n'avaient pas encore vot\u00e9.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que vous entendez par _\u00e9picer_ du grog?\n\n--Mettre de l'eau d'\u00e2non dedans, monsieur. Que le bon Dieu m'emporte si\n\u00e7a ne les a pas fait roupiller douze heures apr\u00e8s l'\u00e9lection. Ils en ont\nport\u00e9 un sur un brancard, tout endormi, pour essayer, mais bernique! le\nmaire n'a pas voulu de son vote; ainsi ils l'ont rapport\u00e9 et replant\u00e9\ndans son lit.\n\n--Quel \u00e9trange exp\u00e9dient! murmura M. Pickwick, moiti\u00e9 pour lui-m\u00eame,\nmoiti\u00e9 pour son domestique.\n\n--Pas si farce qu'une histoire qu'est arriv\u00e9e \u00e0 mon p\u00e8re, en temps\nd'\u00e9lection, \u00e0 ce m\u00eame endroit ici, monsieur.\n\n--Contez-moi cela, Sam.\n\n--Voil\u00e0, monsieur. Il conduisait une mail-coach[18] de Londres ici, dans\nce temps-l\u00e0. L'\u00e9lection arrive, et il est retenu par un parti pour\ncharrier des voteurs de Londres. La veille du jour o\u00f9 il allait se\nmettre en route, le comit\u00e9 de l'autre parti l'envoie chercher tout\ntranquillement. Il s'en va avec le commissionnaire, qui le fait entrer\ndans une grande chambre. Tas de gentlemen, montagnes de papiers, plumes\net le reste. \u00abAh! monsieur Weller, dit le pr\u00e9sident, charm\u00e9 de vous\nvoir. Comment \u00e7a va-t-il? qu'il dit.--Tr\u00e8s-bien, mossieur, merci, dit\nmon p\u00e8re. J'esp\u00e8re que vous ne maigrissez pas, non plus, qu'il\ndit.--Merci, \u00e7a ne va pas mal, dit le gentleman. Asseyez-vous, monsieur,\nje vous en prie.\u00bb Ainsi mon p\u00e8re s'asseoit, et le gentleman et lui se\nregardent fisquement leurs deux boules. \u00abVous ne me reconnaissez pas?\ndit l'autre.--Peux pas dire que je vous aie jamais vu, r\u00e9pond mon\np\u00e8re.--Oh! moi je vous connais, dit l'autre. Je vous ai connu tout\npetit, dit-il.--C'est \u00e9gal, je ne vous remets pas du tout, dit mon\np\u00e8re.--C'est fort dr\u00f4le, dit l'autre.--Joliment, dit mon p\u00e8re.--Faut qu'\nvous ayez une mauvaise m\u00e9moire, monsieur Weller, dit l'autre.--C'est\nvrai qu'a n'est pas fameuse, dit mon p\u00e8re.--Je m'en avais dout\u00e9, dit\nl'autre.\u00bb Comme \u00e7a, il lui verse un verre de vin, et il le chatouille\nsur sa mani\u00e8re de conduire, et il le met dans une bonne humeur soign\u00e9e,\net \u00e0 la fin il lui montre une banknote de vingt livres sterling[19].\n\u00abC'est une mauvaise route d'ici \u00e0 Londres? qu'il lui dit.--Par-ci par-l\u00e0\ny a de vilains endroits, dit mon p\u00e8re.--Et surtout pr\u00e8s du canal, je\ncrois? dit le gentleman.--Pour un vilain endroit, c'est un vilain\nendroit, dit mon p\u00e8re.--H\u00e9 bien! monsieur Weller, dit l'autre, vous \u00eates\nun excellent cocher, et vous pouvez faire tout ce que vous voulez avec\nvos chevaux, on sait \u00e7a. Nous avons tous bien de l'amiti\u00e9 pour vous,\nmonsieur Weller. Ainsi, dans le cas qu'il vous arriverait _par hasard_\nun accident quand vous am\u00e8nerez les \u00e9lecteurs ici, dans le cas que vous\nles verseriez dans le canal, sans leur faire aucun mal, ceci est pour\nvous, qu'il dit.--Mossieur, vous \u00eates extr\u00eamement bon, dit mon p\u00e8re, et\nje vais boire \u00e0 vot' sant\u00e9 un autre verre de vin, dit-il.\u00bb Alors il\nboit, empoche la monnaie, et il salue son monde. H\u00e9 bien! monsieur,\ncontinua Sam en regardant son ma\u00eetre avec un air d'impudence\ninexprimable, croiriez-vous que, justement le jour o\u00f9 il menait ces\nm\u00eames \u00e9lecteurs, sa voiture fut vers\u00e9e pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment dans cet endroit-l\u00e0,\net tous les voyageurs lanc\u00e9s dans le canal?\n\n[Footnote 18: Sorte de diligence.]\n\n[Footnote 19: 500 francs.]\n\n--Et retir\u00e9s sur-le-champ? demanda vivement M. Pickwick.\n\n--Pour \u00e7a, r\u00e9pliqua Sam tr\u00e8s-lentement, on dit qu'il y manquait un vieux\ngentleman. Je sais bien qu'on a rep\u00each\u00e9 son chapeau, mais je ne suis pas\nbien certain si sa boule \u00e9tait dedans, oui-z-ou non. Mais ce que je\nregarde, c'est la hextraordinaire co\u00efncidence que la voiture de mon p\u00e8re\ns'est vers\u00e9e, juste au m\u00eame endroit et le m\u00eame jour, apr\u00e8s ce que le\ngentleman lui avait dit.\n\n--Sans aucun doute, c'est un hasard bien extraordinaire, r\u00e9pondit M.\nPickwick; mais brossez mon chapeau, Sam, car j'entends M. Winkle qui\nm'appelle pour d\u00e9jeuner.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick descendit dans le parloir, o\u00f9 il trouva le d\u00e9jeuner servi et\nla famille d\u00e9j\u00e0 rassembl\u00e9e. Le repas disparut rapidement; les chapeaux\ndes gentlemen furent d\u00e9cor\u00e9s d'\u00e9normes cocardes bleues, faites par les\nbelles mains de Mme Pott elle-m\u00eame; et M. Winkle se chargea\nd'accompagner cette dame sur le toit d'une maison voisine des\n_hustings_, tandis que M. Pickwick se rendrait avec M. Pott aux _Armes\nde la ville_. Un membre du comit\u00e9 de M. Slumkey haranguait, d'une des\nfen\u00eatres de cet h\u00f4tel, six petits gar\u00e7ons et une jeune fille, qu'il\nappelait pompeusement \u00e0 tout bout de champ: _hommes d'Eatanswill_; sur\nquoi les six petits gar\u00e7ons susmentionn\u00e9s applaudissaient\nprodigieusement.\n\nLa cour de l'h\u00f4tel offrait des sympt\u00f4mes moins \u00e9quivoques de la gloire\net de la puissance des bleus d'Eatanswill. Il y avait une arm\u00e9e enti\u00e8re\nde banni\u00e8res et de drapeaux, \u00e9talant des devises appropri\u00e9es \u00e0 la\ncirconstance, en caract\u00e8res d'or, de quatre pieds de haut et d'une\nlargeur proportionn\u00e9e. Il y avait une bande de trompettes, de bassons et\nde tambours, rang\u00e9s sur quatre de front et gagnant leur argent en\nconscience, principalement les tambours, qui \u00e9taient fort musculeux. Il\ny avait des troupes de constables, avec des b\u00e2tons bleus, vingt membres\ndu comit\u00e9 avec des \u00e9charpes bleues, et tout un monde d'\u00e9lecteurs, avec\ndes cocardes bleues. Il y avait des \u00e9lecteurs \u00e0 cheval et des \u00e9lecteurs\n\u00e0 pied. Il y avait un carrosse d\u00e9couvert, \u00e0 quatre chevaux, pour\nl'honorable Samuel Slumkey. Et les drapeaux flottaient, et les musiciens\njouaient, et les constables juraient, et les vingt membres du comit\u00e9\nharanguaient, et la foule braillait, et les chevaux piaffaient et\nreculaient, et les postillons suaient; et toutes les choses, tous les\nindividus r\u00e9unis en cet endroit, s'y trouvaient pour l'avantage, pour\nl'honneur, pour la renomm\u00e9e, pour l'usage sp\u00e9cial de l'honorable Samuel\nSlumkey, de Slumkey-Hall, l'un des candidats pour la repr\u00e9sentation du\nbourg d'Eatanswill, dans la chambre des communes du parlement du\nRoyaume-Uni.\n\nLongues et bruyantes furent les acclamations, et l'un des drapeaux\nbleus, portant ces mots: LIBERT\u00c9 DE LA PRESSE, s'agita convulsivement\nquand la t\u00eate rousse de M. Pott fut aper\u00e7ue par la foule \u00e0 l'une des\nfen\u00eatres. Mais l'enthousiasme fut \u00e9pouvantable quand l'honorable Samuel\nSlumkey lui-m\u00eame, en bottes \u00e0 revers et en cravate bleue, s'avan\u00e7a,\nsaisit la main dudit Pott, et t\u00e9moigna \u00e0 la multitude par des gestes\nm\u00e9lodramatiques, sa reconnaissance ineffa\u00e7able des services que lui\navait rendus la _Gazette d'Eatanswill_.\n\n\u00abTom est-il pr\u00eat? demanda ensuite l'honorable Samuel Slumkey \u00e0 M.\nPerker.\n\n--Oui, mon cher monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua le petit homme.\n\n--On n'a rien oubli\u00e9, j'esp\u00e8re?\n\n--Rien du tout, mon cher monsieur; pas la moindre chose. Il y a vingt\nhommes, bien lav\u00e9s, \u00e0 qui vous donnerez des poign\u00e9es de main, \u00e0 la\nporte; et six enfants, dans les bras de leurs m\u00e8res, que vous caresserez\nsur la t\u00eate et dont vous demanderez l'\u00e2ge. Surtout ne n\u00e9gligez pas les\nenfants, mon cher monsieur. Ces sortes de choses produisent toujours un\nbon effet.\n\n--J'y penserai, dit l'honorable Samuel Slumkey.\n\n--Et, peut-\u00eatre, mon cher monsieur, ajouta le pr\u00e9voyant petit homme, si\nvous pouviez... je ne dis pas que cela soit indispensable... mais si\nvous pouviez prendre sur vous de baiser un des bambins, cela produirait\nune grande impression sur la foule.\n\n--L'effet ne serait-il pas le m\u00eame si vous vous chargiez de la besogne?\ndemanda M. Samuel Slumkey.\n\n--J'ai peur que non, mon cher monsieur. Mais si vous le faisiez\nvous-m\u00eame, je pense que cela vous rendrait tr\u00e8s-populaire.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, dit l'honorable Samuel Slumkey d'un air r\u00e9sign\u00e9, il faut en\npasser par l\u00e0, voil\u00e0 tout.\n\n--Arrangez la procession!\u00bb cri\u00e8rent les vingt membres du comit\u00e9.\n\nAu milieu des acclamations de la multitude, musiciens, constables,\nmembres du comit\u00e9, \u00e9lecteurs, cavaliers, carrosses prirent leurs places.\nChacune des voitures \u00e0 deux chevaux contenait autant de gentlemen\nempil\u00e9s et debout qu'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 possible d'en faire tenir. Celle qui\n\u00e9tait assign\u00e9e \u00e0 M. Perker renfermait M. Pickwick, M. Tupman, M.\nSnodgrass et une demi-douzaine de membres du comit\u00e9.\n\nIl y eut un moment de silence solennel, lorsque la procession attendit\nque l'honorable Samuel Slumkey mont\u00e2t dans son carrosse.\n\nTout d'un coup la foule poussa une acclamation.\n\n\u00abIl est sorti!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria le petit Perker, d'autant plus \u00e9mu que sa\nposition ne lui permettait pas de voir ce qui se passait en avant.\n\nUne autre acclamation, plus forte:\n\n\u00abIl a donn\u00e9 des poign\u00e9es de main aux hommes!\u00bb dit le petit agent.\n\nUne autre acclamation, beaucoup plus violente:\n\n\u00abIl a caress\u00e9 les bambins sur la t\u00eate!\u00bb continua M. Perker tremblant\nd'anxi\u00e9t\u00e9.\n\nUn tonnerre d'applaudissements qui d\u00e9chirent les airs:\n\n\u00abIl en a bais\u00e9 un!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria le petit homme enchant\u00e9.\n\nUn second tonnerre:\n\n\u00abIl en a bais\u00e9 un autre!\u00bb\n\nUn troisi\u00e8me tonnerre, assourdissant:\n\n\u00abIl les baise tous!\u00bb vocif\u00e9ra l'enthousiaste petit gentleman, et au\nm\u00eame instant la procession se mit en marche, salu\u00e9e par les acclamations\nretentissantes de la multitude.\n\nComment et par quelle cause les deux processions se heurt\u00e8rent, et\ncomment la confusion qui s'ensuivit fut enfin termin\u00e9e, c'est ce que\nnous ne pouvons entreprendre de d\u00e9crire: car au commencement de la\nbagarre le chapeau de M. Pickwick fut enfonc\u00e9 sur ses yeux, sur son nez\net sur sa bouche, par l'application d'un drapeau jaune. D'apr\u00e8s ce que\ncet illustre philosophe put conclure du petit nombre de rayons visuels\nqui passaient entre ses joues et son feutre, il se repr\u00e9sente comme\nentour\u00e9 de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s par des physionomies irrit\u00e9es et f\u00e9roces, par un\nvaste nuage de poussi\u00e8re et par une foule \u00e9paisse de combattants. Il\nraconte qu'il fut arrach\u00e9 de sa voiture par un pouvoir invisible, et\nqu'il prit part personnellement \u00e0 des exercices pugilastiques; mais avec\nqui, ou comment, ou pourquoi, c'est ce qu'il lui est absolument\nimpossible d'\u00e9tablir. Ensuite il fut pouss\u00e9 sur des gradins de bois par\nles personnes qui \u00e9taient derri\u00e8re lui, et, en retirant son chapeau, il\nse trouva environn\u00e9 de ses amis, sur le premier rang du c\u00f4t\u00e9 gauche des\n_hustings_. Le c\u00f4t\u00e9 droit \u00e9tait r\u00e9serv\u00e9 pour le parti jaune; le centre\npour le maire et ses assistants. L'un de ceux-ci, le gros crieur\nd'Eatanswill, secouait une \u00e9norme cloche, ing\u00e9nieux moyen de faire faire\nsilence. Cependant M. Horatio Fizkin et l'honorable Samuel Slumkey, leur\nmain droite pos\u00e9e sur leur coeur, s'occupaient \u00e0 saluer, avec la plus\ngrande affabilit\u00e9, la mer orageuse de t\u00eates qui inondait la place et de\nlaquelle s'\u00e9levait une temp\u00eate de g\u00e9missements, d'acclamations, de\nsifflements, de hurlements, qui aurait fait honneur \u00e0 un tremblement de\nterre.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0 Winkle, dit M. Tupman \u00e0 son illustre ami, en le tirant par la\nmanche.\n\n--O\u00f9? demanda M. Pickwick en ajustant sur son nez ses lunettes, qu'il\navait heureusement gard\u00e9es jusque-l\u00e0 dans sa poche.\n\n--L\u00e0, r\u00e9pondit M. Tupman, sur le toit de cette maison.\u00bb\n\nEt en effet, dans une large goutti\u00e8re de plomb, M. Winkle et Mme Pott\n\u00e9taient confortablement assis sur une couple de chaises, agitant leurs\nmouchoirs pour se faire mieux reconna\u00eetre.\n\nM. Pickwick r\u00e9torqua ce compliment en envoyant un baiser de sa main \u00e0 la\ndame.\n\nL'\u00e9lection n'avait pas encore commenc\u00e9, et comme une multitude inactive\nest g\u00e9n\u00e9ralement dispos\u00e9e \u00e0 \u00eatre fac\u00e9tieuse, cette innocente action fut\nsuffisante pour faire na\u00eetre mille plaisanteries.\n\n\u00abOh\u00e9! l\u00e0-haut! vieux renard! C'est-il beau de faire des galanteries aux\nfilles?\n\n--Oh! le v\u00e9n\u00e9rable p\u00e9cheur!\n\n--Il met ses besicles pour lorgner les femmes mari\u00e9es.\n\n--Le sc\u00e9l\u00e9rat! Il lui fait les yeux doux, \u00e0 travers ses carreaux.\n\n--Surveillez votre femme, Pott!\u00bb Et ces lazzis furent suivis de grands\n\u00e9clats de rire.\n\nComme ces brocards \u00e9taient accompagn\u00e9s d'odieuses comparaisons entre M.\nPickwick et un vieux bouc, ainsi que d'autres traits d'esprit du m\u00eame\ngenre, et comme elles tendaient, en outre, \u00e0 entacher l'honneur d'une\ninnocente dame, l'indignation de notre h\u00e9ros fut excessive: mais le\nsilence \u00e9tant proclam\u00e9 dans cet instant, il se contenta de jeter \u00e0 la\npopulace un regard de m\u00e9pris et de piti\u00e9, qui la fit rire plus\nbruyamment que jamais.\n\n\u00abSilence! beugl\u00e8rent les acolytes du maire.\n\n--Whiffin, proclamez le silence! dit le maire d'un air pompeux, qui\nconvenait \u00e0 sa position \u00e9lev\u00e9e. Le crieur, pour ob\u00e9ir \u00e0 cet ordre,\nex\u00e9cuta un autre concerto sur sa sonnette, apr\u00e8s quoi un gentleman de la\nfoule cria, de toutes ses forces, _Fifine!_ ce qui occasiona d'autres\n\u00e9clats de rire.\n\n--Gentlemen! dit le maire, en donnant toute l'\u00e9tendue possible \u00e0 sa\nvoix. Gentlemen, fr\u00e8res \u00e9lecteurs du bourg d'Eatanswill, nous sommes\nassembl\u00e9s aujourd'hui pour \u00e9lire un repr\u00e9sentant \u00e0 la place de notre\ndernier....\u00bb\n\nIci, le maire fut interrompu car une voix qui criait dans la foule:\n\n\u00abBonne chance \u00e0 M. le maire! et qu'il reste toujours dans les clous et\nles casseroles qu'ils y ont fait sa fortune.\u00bb\n\nCette allusion aux entreprises commerciales de l'orateur excita un\nouragan de gaiet\u00e9 qui, avec son accompagnement de sonnette, emp\u00eacha\nd'entendre un seul mot de la harangue du maire, \u00e0 l'exception,\ncependant, de la derni\u00e8re phrase, par laquelle il remerciait ses\nauditeurs de l'attention bienveillante qu'ils lui avaient pr\u00eat\u00e9e. Cette\nexpression de gratitude fut accueillie par une autre explosion de joie,\nqui dura environ un quart d'heure.\n\nUn grand gentleman efflanqu\u00e9, dont le cou \u00e9tait comprim\u00e9 par une\ncravate blanche tr\u00e8s-roide, parut alors en sc\u00e8ne, au milieu des\ninterruptions fr\u00e9quentes de la foule, qui l'engageait \u00e0 envoyer\nquelqu'un chez lui pour voir s'il n'avait pas oubli\u00e9 sa voix sous son\ntraversin. Il demanda la permission de pr\u00e9senter une personne propre et\nconvenable, pour repr\u00e9senter au parlement les \u00e9lecteurs d'Eatanswill, et\nquand il d\u00e9clara que c'\u00e9tait Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, de Fizkin-Loge,\npr\u00e8s Eatanswill, les fizkiniens applaudirent et les slumk\u00e9\u00efens\ngrogn\u00e8rent, si longtemps et si bruyamment, que le parrain du candidat,\nau lieu de parler, aurait pu chanter des chansons bachiques sans que\npersonne s'en f\u00fbt dout\u00e9.\n\nLes amis d'Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, ayant joui de leur primaut\u00e9, un\npetit homme, au visage col\u00e9rique et rouge comme un oeillet, s'avan\u00e7a afin\nde nommer une autre personne propre et convenable, pour repr\u00e9senter au\nparlement les \u00e9lecteurs d'Eatanswill; mais la nature de cet individu\n\u00e9tait trop irritable pour lui permettre de cheminer tranquillement parmi\nles forces de la multitude. Apr\u00e8s quelques sentences d'\u00e9loquence\nfigurative, le gentleman col\u00e9rique se mit \u00e0 tonner contre les\ninterrupteurs; puis il \u00e9changea des provocations avec les gentlemen\nplac\u00e9s sur les hustings. Alors il se leva de toutes parts un tapage qui\nl'obligea d'exprimer ses sentiments par une pantomime s\u00e9rieuse, au bout\nde laquelle il c\u00e9da la place \u00e0 l'orateur charg\u00e9 de seconder sa motion.\nCelui-ci, pendant une bonne demi-heure, psalmodia un discours \u00e9crit,\nqu'aucun tumulte ne put lui faire interrompre; car il l'avait envoy\u00e9\nd'avance \u00e0 la _Gazette d'Eatanswill_, qui devait l'imprimer mot pour\nmot.\n\nEnfin, Fizkin, Esquire de Fizkin-Loge, pr\u00e8s d'Eatanswill, se pr\u00e9senta\npour parler aux \u00e9lecteurs, mais aussit\u00f4t les bandes de musiciens\nemploy\u00e9es par l'honorable Samuel Slumkey, commenc\u00e8rent \u00e0 ex\u00e9cuter une\nfanfare avec une vigueur toute nouvelle. En \u00e9change de cette attention,\nla multitude jaune se mit \u00e0 caresser la t\u00eate et les \u00e9paules de la\nmultitude bleue; la multitude bleue voulut se d\u00e9barrasser de l'incommode\nvoisinage de la multitude jaune, et il s'ensuivit une sc\u00e8ne de\nbousculades, de luttes, de combats, que nous d\u00e9sesp\u00e9rons de pouvoir\nrepr\u00e9senter. Le maire s'effor\u00e7a vainement d'y mettre fin; vainement il\nordonna d'un ton imp\u00e9ratif \u00e0 douze constables de saisir les principaux\nmeneurs, qui pouvaient \u00eatre au nombre de deux cent cinquante; le tumulte\ncontinua. Durant l'\u00e9meute, Horatio Fizkin, Esquire de Fiskin-Loge et ses\namis devinrent de plus en plus furieux; enfin, Horatio Fiskin demanda,\nd'un ton p\u00e9remptoire, \u00e0 son adversaire l'honorable Samuel Slumkey, de\nSlumkey-Hall, si ces musiciens jouaient par son ordre. L'honorable\nSamuel Slumkey, de Slumkey-Hall, refusant de r\u00e9pondre \u00e0 cette question,\nHoratio Fizkin, Esquire, de Fizkin Loge, montra le poing \u00e0 l'honorable\nSamuel Slumkey-Hall: sur quoi, le sang de l'honorable Samuel Slumkey\ns'\u00e9tant \u00e9chauff\u00e9, il provoqua, en combat mortel, Horatio Fizkin,\nEsquire. Quand le maire entendit cette violation de toutes les r\u00e8gles\nconnues et de tous les pr\u00e9c\u00e9dents, il ordonna une nouvelle fantaisie sur\nla sonnette, et d\u00e9clara que son devoir l'obligeait \u00e0 faire compara\u00eetre\ndevant lui, Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, de Fizkin-Loge, et l'honorable\nSamuel Slumkey, de Slumkey-Hall, pour leur faire pr\u00eater serment de ne\npoint troubler la paix de Sa Majest\u00e9. A cette menace terrible, les amis\ndes deux candidats s'interpos\u00e8rent, et lorsque les deux partis se furent\nquerell\u00e9s, deux \u00e0 deux, pendant trois quarts d'heure, Horatio Fizkin,\nEsquire, mit la main \u00e0 son chapeau, en regardant l'honorable Samuel\nSlumkey; l'honorable Samuel Slumkey mit la main \u00e0 son chapeau en\nregardant Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, les musiciens furent interrompus; la\nmultitude s'apaisa en partie, et Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, put continuer\nsa harangue.\n\nLes discours des deux candidats, quoique diff\u00e9rents sous tous les autres\nrapports, s'accordaient pour offrir un tribut touchant au m\u00e9rite et \u00e0 la\nnoblesse d'\u00e2me des \u00e9lecteurs d'Eatanswill. Chacun exprima son intime\nconviction, qu'il n'avait jamais exist\u00e9, sur la terre, une r\u00e9union\nd'hommes plus ind\u00e9pendants, plus \u00e9clair\u00e9s, plus patriotes, plus\nvertueux, plus d\u00e9sint\u00e9ress\u00e9s que ceux qui avaient promis de voter pour\n_lui_: chacun fit entendre obscur\u00e9ment qu'il soup\u00e7onnait les \u00e9lecteurs\nde l'autre parti d'\u00eatre influenc\u00e9s par de honteux motifs, d'\u00eatre adonn\u00e9s\n\u00e0 d'ignobles habitudes d'ivrognerie, qui les rendaient tout \u00e0 fait\nindignes d'exercer les importantes fonctions confi\u00e9es \u00e0 leur honneur\npour le bonheur de la patrie. Fizkin exprima son empressement \u00e0 faire\ntout ce qui lui serait propos\u00e9[20]; Slumkey, sa d\u00e9termination de ne\njamais rien accorder de ce qui lui serait demand\u00e9. L'un et l'autre\nmirent en fait, que l'agriculture, les manufactures, le commerce, la\nprosp\u00e9rit\u00e9 d'Eatanswill, seraient toujours plus chers \u00e0 leur coeur que\ntous les autres objets terrestres. Chacun d'eux, enfin, \u00e9tait heureux\nde pouvoir d\u00e9clarer que, gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 sa confiance dans le discernement des\n\u00e9lecteurs, il \u00e9tait s\u00fbr que c'\u00e9tait lui qui serait nomm\u00e9.\n\n[Footnote 20: Le minist\u00e8re \u00e9tait apparemment lib\u00e9ral.\n\n(_Note du traducteur._)]\n\nA la suite de ce discours, on proc\u00e9da par main lev\u00e9e; le maire d\u00e9cida en\nfaveur de l'honorable Samuel Slumkey, de Slumkey-Hall; Horatio Fizkin,\nEsquire, de Fizkin-Loge, demanda un scrutin: et en cons\u00e9quence un\nscrutin fut d\u00e9cr\u00e9t\u00e9. Ensuite on vota des remerciements au maire, pour\nson admirable fa\u00e7on de pr\u00e9sider, et le maire remercia l'assembl\u00e9e, en\nsouhaitant de tout son coeur que _le fauteuil de la pr\u00e9sidence_ n'e\u00fbt pas\n\u00e9t\u00e9 un vain mot, car il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 debout pendant toute la dur\u00e9e de\nl'op\u00e9ration. Les processions se reform\u00e8rent; les voitures roul\u00e8rent\nlentement \u00e0 travers la foule, et celle-ci applaudit ou siffla, suivant\nce que lui dictaient ses affections ou ses caprices.\n\nPendant toute la dur\u00e9e du scrutin, la ville enti\u00e8re sembla agit\u00e9e d'une\nfi\u00e8vre d'enthousiasme. Tout se passait de la mani\u00e8re la plus lib\u00e9rale et\nla plus d\u00e9licieuse. Les spiritueux \u00e9taient remarquablement bon march\u00e9,\nchez tous les d\u00e9bitants. Des brancards parcouraient les rues pour la\ncommodit\u00e9 des \u00e9lecteurs qui se trouvaient incommod\u00e9s d'\u00e9tourdissements\npassagers; car, durant toute la lutte \u00e9lectorale, cette esp\u00e8ce\nd'indisposition \u00e9pid\u00e9mique s'\u00e9tant d\u00e9velopp\u00e9e chez les votants avec une\nrapidit\u00e9 singuli\u00e8re et tout \u00e0 fait alarmante, on les voyait souvent\n\u00e9tendus sur le pav\u00e9 des rues, dans un \u00e9tat d'insensibilit\u00e9 compl\u00e8te. Le\ndernier jour il y avait encore un petit nombre d'\u00e9lecteurs qui n'avaient\npoint vot\u00e9. C'\u00e9taient des individus r\u00e9fl\u00e9chis, calculateurs, qui\nn'\u00e9taient pas suffisamment convaincus par les raisons de l'un ou l'autre\nparti, quoiqu'ils eussent eu de nombreuses conf\u00e9rences avec tous les\ndeux. Une heure avant la fermeture du scrutin, M. Perker sollicita\nl'honneur d'avoir une entrevue priv\u00e9e avec ces nobles, ces intelligents\npatriotes. Les arguments qu'il employa furent brefs, mais convaincants.\nLes retardataires all\u00e8rent en troupe au scrutin, et quand ils en\nsortirent, l'honorable Samuel Slumkey, de Slumkey-Hall, \u00e9tait sorti d\u00e9j\u00e0\nde l'urne \u00e9lectorale.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XIV.\n\nContenant une courte description de la compagnie assembl\u00e9e au _Paon\nd'argent_, et de plus une histoire racont\u00e9e par un commis-voyageur.\n\n\nC'est avec un plaisir toujours nouveau, qu'apr\u00e8s avoir contempl\u00e9 les\ntourments et les combats de la vie politique, on ram\u00e8ne son attention\nsur la tranquillit\u00e9 de la vie priv\u00e9e. Quoique en r\u00e9alit\u00e9, M. Pickwick ne\ntint pas beaucoup \u00e0 l'un ou \u00e0 l'autre parti, il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 assez enflamm\u00e9\npar l'enthousiasme de Pott, pour appliquer ses immenses facult\u00e9s\nintellectuelles aux op\u00e9rations que nous venons de raconter, d'apr\u00e8s son\nm\u00e9morandum. Pendant qu'il \u00e9tait ainsi occup\u00e9, M. Winkle ne restait pas\noisif, mais il d\u00e9vouait tout son temps \u00e0 d'agr\u00e9ables promenades, \u00e0 de\npetites excursions romantiques avec Mme Pott; car, lorsque l'occasion\ns'en pr\u00e9sentait, cette aimable dame ne manquait jamais de chercher\nquelque soulagement \u00e0 l'ennuyeuse monotonie dont elle se plaignait avec\ntant d'amertume. M. Pickwick et M. Winkle, \u00e9tant ainsi compl\u00e9tement\nacclimat\u00e9s dans la maison de l'\u00e9diteur, M. Tupman et M. Snodgrass, se\ntrouv\u00e8rent en grande partie r\u00e9duits \u00e0 leurs propres ressources. Prenant\npeu d'int\u00e9r\u00eat aux affaires publiques, ils eurent recours, pour charmer\nleurs loisirs, aux amusements que pouvait offrir le _Paon d'argent_. Ces\namusements se composaient d'un jeu de bagatelle, au premier \u00e9tage, et\nd'un solitaire jeu de quilles, dans l'arri\u00e8re-cour. Gr\u00e2ce au d\u00e9vouement\nde Sam, nos voyageurs furent graduellement initi\u00e9s dans les myst\u00e8res de\nces passe-temps, beaucoup plus abstraits que ne le supposent les hommes\nordinaires. C'est ainsi qu'ils parvinrent \u00e0 charmer la lenteur des\nheures paresseuses, quoiqu'ils fussent en grande partie desh\u00e9rit\u00e9s de la\nsoci\u00e9t\u00e9 de M. Pickwick.\n\nC'\u00e9tait principalement le soir que le _Paon d'argent_ offrait, aux deux\namis, des attractions qui leur permettaient de r\u00e9sister aux invitations\npressantes de l'\u00e9loquent, quoique verbeux, journaliste. C'\u00e9tait le soir\nque le caf\u00e9 de l'h\u00f4tel se remplissait d'un cercle d'originaux, dont les\ncaract\u00e8res et les mani\u00e8res pr\u00e9sentaient \u00e0 M. Tupman des observations\nd\u00e9licieuses et dont les discours et les actions \u00e9taient habituellement\nnot\u00e9s par M. Snodgrass.\n\nOn sait ce que sont ordinairement les caf\u00e9s o\u00f9 se rassemblent messieurs\nles commis voyageurs. Celui du _Paon d'argent_ ne sortait point de la\nr\u00e8gle commune. C'\u00e9tait une vaste pi\u00e8ce toute nue, dont le maigre\nameublement avait, sans aucun doute, \u00e9t\u00e9 meilleur lorsqu'il \u00e9tait plus\nneuf. Une curieuse collection de chaises, aux formes grotesques et\nvari\u00e9es, \u00e9tait distribu\u00e9e autour d'une grande table plac\u00e9e au centre de\nla salle, et d'une infinit\u00e9 de petites tables rondes, carr\u00e9es ou\ntriangulaires, qui en occupaient tous les coins. Un vieux tapis de\nTurquie faisait, sur le plancher, l'effet d'un petit mouchoir de femme\nsur le plancher d'une gu\u00e9rite. Les murs \u00e9taient garnis de deux ou trois\ngrandes cartes g\u00e9ographiques, et de plusieurs grosses houppelandes, qui\npendaient \u00e0 une rang\u00e9e de champignons. On voyait, sur la chemin\u00e9e, un\nlivre de poste; une histoire du Comt\u00e9, moins la couverture; les restes\nmortels d'une truite, contenus dans un cercueil de verre; un encrier de\nbois, contenant un tron\u00e7on de plume, avec la moiti\u00e9 d'un pain \u00e0\ncacheter. Le buffet s'honorait de porter une quantit\u00e9 d'objets divers,\nparmi lesquels se faisaient remarquer principalement, une burette fort\nnuageuse; deux ou trois fouets; autant de ch\u00e2les de voyage; un\nassortiment de couteaux et de fourchettes, et surtout la moutarde.\nEnfin, l'atmosph\u00e8re, \u00e9paissie par la fum\u00e9e de tabac, avait communiqu\u00e9\nune teinte de bistre \u00e0 tous les objets, et principalement \u00e0 des rideaux\nrouges et poussi\u00e9reux, qui pendaient tristement aux crois\u00e9es.\n\nC'est l\u00e0 que MM. Tupman et Snodgrass buvaient et fumaient, dans la\nsoir\u00e9e qui suivit l'\u00e9lection, avec plusieurs autres habitants\ntemporaires de l'h\u00f4tel.\n\n\u00abAllons! messieurs, dit _ex abrupto_, un grand et vigoureux personnage,\nqui ne poss\u00e9dait qu'un seul oeil, mais un petit oeil noir \u00e9tincelant,\ncomme quatre, de malice et de bonne humeur. Allons! messieurs, \u00e0 nos\nnobles sant\u00e9s! Je propose toujours ce toast-l\u00e0 \u00e0 la compagnie, mais dans\nmon for int\u00e9rieur je bois \u00e0 la sant\u00e9 de Mary. Pas vrai, Mary?...\n\n--Laissez-moi, monstre! r\u00e9pondit la servante, qui, toutefois, \u00e9tait\n\u00e9videmment flatt\u00e9e du compliment.\n\n--Ne vous en allez pas, Mary, reprit l'homme \u00e0 l'oeil noir.\n\n--Laissez-moi tranquille, impertinent!\n\n--Ne pleurez pas d'\u00eatre oblig\u00e9e de me quitter, Mary, poursuivit le\npersonnage \u00e0 l'oeil unique, tandis que la jeune fille quittait la\nchambre; j'irai vous retrouver tout \u00e0 l'heure, ne vous chagrinez pas, ma\nch\u00e8re! En disant ces mots il cligna son oeil solitaire du c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la\ncompagnie, \u00e0 la grande satisfaction d'un personnage assez fig\u00e9, qui\navait une pipe de terre et un visage \u00e9galement _culott\u00e9s_.\n\n--Les femmes, c'est des dr\u00f4les de cr\u00e9atures, dit l'homme au visage\nculott\u00e9, apr\u00e8s une pause.\n\n--Ah! c'est fameusement vrai!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria, derri\u00e8re son cigare, un second\nmonsieur au visage couperos\u00e9.\n\nApr\u00e8s ce petit bout de philosophie, il y eut une autre pause.\n\n\u00abMalgr\u00e9 cela, voyez-vous, il y a dans ce monde des choses plus dr\u00f4les\nque les femmes, reprit l'homme \u00e0 l'oeil noir, en remplissant gravement\nune pipe hollandaise d'une \u00e9norme dimension.\n\n--\u00cates-vous mari\u00e9? demanda le visage culott\u00e9.\n\n--Pas que je sache.\n\n--Je m'en avais dout\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nEn parlant ainsi, l'homme au visage culott\u00e9 tomba dans une extase de\njoie, occasionn\u00e9e par sa propre r\u00e9partie; ce en quoi il fut imit\u00e9 par un\nindividu \u00e0 la voix douce, au visage pacifique, qui avait pour principe\nd'\u00eatre toujours d'accord avec tout le monde.\n\n\u00abApr\u00e8s tout, gentlemen, dit l'enthousiaste M. Snodgrass, les femmes sont\nle charme et la consolation de notre existence.\n\n--Cela est vrai, r\u00e9pliqua le personnage \u00e0 l'air doucereux.\n\n--Quand elles sont de bonne humeur, ajouta le visage culott\u00e9.\n\n--Oh! cela est tr\u00e8s-vrai, dit le gentleman pacifique.\n\n--Je repousse cette restriction! reprit M. Snodgrass dont la pens\u00e9e\nretournait rapidement vers \u00c9mily Wardle. Je la repousse avec d\u00e9dain.\nMontrez-moi l'homme qui prof\u00e8re quelque chose contre les femmes, en tant\nque femmes, et je d\u00e9clare hardiment qu'il n'est pas un homme. En\npronon\u00e7ant ces mots, M. Snodgrass \u00f4ta son cigare de sa bouche, et frappa\nviolemment sur la table avec son poing ferm\u00e9.\n\n--Voil\u00e0 un bon argument, dit l'homme pacifique.\n\n--Contenant une assertion que je nie, interrompit le visage culott\u00e9.\n\n--Et il y a certainement aussi beaucoup de v\u00e9rit\u00e9 dans ce que vous\nobservez, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua le pacifique.\n\n--Votre sant\u00e9, monsieur, reprit le commis voyageur, \u00e0 l'oeil unique, en\nle dirigeant amicalement vers M. Snodgrass.\n\nLe pickwickien r\u00e9pondit \u00e0 cette politesse comme il convenait.\n\n\u00abJ'aime toujours \u00e0 entendre un bon argument, continua le commis\nvoyageur; un argument frappant comme celui-ci. C'est fort instructif.\nMais cette petite discussion sur les femmes m'a fait souvenir d'une\nhistoire que j'ai entendu raconter \u00e0 mon oncle. C'est ce qui m'a fait\ndire tout \u00e0 l'heure qu'il y a des choses plus dr\u00f4les que les femmes.\n\n--Je voudrais bien entendre cette histoire-l\u00e0, dit l'homme au cigare et\nau visage rouge.\n\n--Votre parole d'honneur? r\u00e9pliqua laconiquement le commis voyageur; et\nil continua \u00e0 fumer avec grande v\u00e9h\u00e9mence.\n\n--Et moi aussi, ajouta M. Tupman, qui parlait pour la premi\u00e8re fois, et\nqui \u00e9tait toujours d\u00e9sireux d'augmenter son bagage d'exp\u00e9rience.\n\n--Et vous aussi? Eh bien! je vais vous la raconter. Pourtant ce n'est\npas trop la peine; je suis s\u00fbr que vous ne la croirez pas.\u00bb\n\nEt pendant que le commis voyageur parlait ainsi, son oeil solitaire\nclignait d'une fa\u00e7on singuli\u00e8rement malicieuse.\n\n\u00abSi vous m'assurez que l'histoire est vraie, je la croirai certainement,\ndit M. Tupman.\n\n--Moyennant cette condition, je vais vous la raconter. Avez-vous entendu\nparler de la maison Bilson et Slum? Au reste, que vous en ayez entendu\nparler ou non, cela ne fait pas grand'chose, puisqu'ils sont retir\u00e9s du\ncommerce depuis longtemps. Il y a quatre-vingts ans que l'histoire en\nquestion arriva \u00e0 un commis voyageur de cette maison; il \u00e9tait ami\nintime avec mon oncle, et mon oncle m'a racont\u00e9 l'histoire \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s\ncomme vous allez l'entendre. Il l'appelait\n\nL'HISTOIRE DE TOM SMART, LE COMMIS VOYAGEUR.\n\nPar une soir\u00e9e d'hiver, au moment o\u00f9 l'obscurit\u00e9 commen\u00e7ait \u00e0 tomber, on\naurait pu voir sur la route qui traverse le plateau de Marlborough, une\ncarriole, et dans cette carriole un homme qui pressait son cheval\nfatigu\u00e9. Je dis _qu'on aurait pu voir_, et je n'ai pas le moindre doute\nqu'on aurait vu, s'il \u00e9tait pass\u00e9 par l\u00e0 quelque personne qui n'e\u00fbt pas\n\u00e9t\u00e9 aveugle. Mais la saison \u00e9tait si froide et la nuit si pluvieuse,\nqu'except\u00e9 l'eau qui tombait il n'y avait pas un chat dehors. Si un\ncommis voyageur de cette \u00e9poque avait rencontr\u00e9 ce casse-cou de petite\ncarriole, avec sa caisse grise, ses roues \u00e9carlates, et sa jument baie \u00e0\nl'allure allong\u00e9e, un caract\u00e8re capricieux, qui avait l'air de descendre\nd'un cheval de boucher et d'une rosse de la petite poste, il aurait\nconclu du premier coup, que le conducteur de la carriole \u00e9tait\nn\u00e9cessairement Tom Smart, de la grande maison Bilson et Slum, de\nCateaton-Street, dans la Cit\u00e9; mais comme il ne se trouvait l\u00e0 aucun\ncommis voyageur, personne ne se doutait de l'affaire, et Tom Smart, sa\ncarriole grise, ses roues \u00e9carlates et sa jument capricieuse, gardaient\nmutuellement leur secret, en cheminant de compagnie.\n\nM\u00eame dans ce triste monde, il y a bien des endroits plus agr\u00e9ables que\nla plaine de Marlborough, quand le vent souffle violemment. Si vous y\njoignez une sombre soir\u00e9e d'hiver, une route d\u00e9fonc\u00e9e et fangeuse, une\npluie froide et battante, et que vous en fassiez l'exp\u00e9rience sur votre\npropre individu, vous comprendrez toute la force de cette observation.\n\nLe vent ne soufflait pas en face, ni par derri\u00e8re, quoique ce soit assez\nmauvais, mais il venait en travers de la route, poussait la pluie\nobliquement, comme les lignes qu'on tra\u00e7ait dans nos cahiers d'\u00e9criture\npour nous apprendre \u00e0 bien pencher nos lettres: il s'apaisait par\ninstants, et le voyageur commen\u00e7ait \u00e0 se flatter qu'\u00e9puis\u00e9 par sa furie,\nil s'\u00e9tait enfin endormi. Mais pfffouh! il recommen\u00e7ait \u00e0 hurler et \u00e0\nsiffler au loin; il arrivait en roulant par-dessus les collines; il\nbalayait la plaine, et s'approchant avec une violence toujours\ncroissante, il tourbillonnait autour de l'homme et du cheval; il\nfouettait dans leurs yeux, dans leurs oreilles, des bouff\u00e9es d'une pluie\nfroide et piquante; il soufflait son haleine humide et glac\u00e9e jusque\ndans la moelle de leurs os; puis, quand il les avait d\u00e9pass\u00e9s il\ntemp\u00eatait au loin avec des mugissements \u00e9tourdissants, comme s'il avait\nvoulu se moquer de leur faiblesse, et se glorifier de sa puissance.\n\nLa jument baie pataugeait dans la boue, les oreilles pendantes, et de\ntemps en temps secouait la t\u00eate, comme pour exprimer le d\u00e9go\u00fbt que lui\ninspirait la conduite inconvenante des \u00e9l\u00e9ments. Cependant elle allait\ntoujours d'un bon pas, quand tout \u00e0 coup, entendant venir un tourbillon,\nplus furieux que tous les autres, elle s'arr\u00eata court, \u00e9carta ses quatre\npieds, et les planta solidement sur la terre. Ce fut par une gr\u00e2ce\nsp\u00e9ciale de la Providence qu'elle agit ainsi, car la carriole \u00e9tait si\nl\u00e9g\u00e8re, Tom-Smart si mince, et la jument capricieuse si efflanqu\u00e9e,\nqu'une fois enlev\u00e9e par l'ouragan, tous les trois auraient\ninfailliblement roul\u00e9, l'un par-dessus l'autre, jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'ils\neussent atteint les bornes de la terre, o\u00f9 jusqu'\u00e0 ce que le vent se f\u00fbt\napais\u00e9. Or, dans l'une comme dans l'autre hypoth\u00e8se, il est probable que\nni la jument capricieuse, ni Tom Smart, ni la carriole grise aux roues\n\u00e9carlates, n'auraient jamais pu \u00eatre remis en \u00e9tat de service.\n\n\u00abPar mes sous-pieds et mes favoris! s'\u00e9cria Tom Smart (Il avait parfois\nla mauvaise habitude de jurer); par mes sous-pieds et mes favoris!\ns'\u00e9cria Tom, voil\u00e0 un temps gracieux, que le diable m'\u00e9vente!\u00bb\n\nOn me demandera probablement pourquoi Tom Smart exprimait le voeu d'\u00eatre\n\u00e9vent\u00e9 sur nouveaux frais, lorsqu'il \u00e9tait soumis \u00e0 ce genre de\ntraitement depuis si longtemps. Je n'en sais rien: seulement je sais que\nTom Smart parla de la sorte, ou du moins raconta \u00e0 mon oncle, qu'il\navait ainsi parl\u00e9; ce qui revient au m\u00eame.\n\n\u00abQue le diable m'\u00e9vente!\u00bb dit Tom Smart; et la jument renifla comme si\nelle avait \u00e9t\u00e9 pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment du m\u00eame avis.\n\n\u00abAllons! ma vieille fille, reprit Tom, en lui caressant le cou avec le\nbout de son fouet; il n'y a pas moyen d'avancer cette nuit. Nous\nresterons \u00e0 la premi\u00e8re auberge. Ainsi plus tu iras vite, plus vite \u00e7a\nsera fini. Oh! oh! bellement! bellement!\u00bb\n\nLa jument capricieuse \u00e9tait-elle assez habitu\u00e9e \u00e0 la voix de son ma\u00eetre\npour comprendre sa pens\u00e9e, ou trouvait-elle qu'il faisait plus froid \u00e0\nrester en place qu'\u00e0 marcher, c'est ce que je ne saurais dire; mais ce\nqu'il y a de s\u00fbr, c'est que Tom avait \u00e0 peine cess\u00e9 de parler, qu'elle\nreleva ses oreilles et recommen\u00e7a \u00e0 trotter. Elle allait grand train et\nsecouait si bien la carriole grise, que Tom s'attendait \u00e0 chaque instant\n\u00e0 voir les rayons rouges de ses roues voler \u00e0 droite et \u00e0 gauche, et\ns'enfoncer dans le sol humide. Tout bon conducteur qu'il \u00e9tait, Tom ne\nput ralentir sa course jusqu'au moment o\u00f9 la courageuse b\u00eate s'arr\u00eata\nd'elle-m\u00eame devant une auberge, \u00e0 main droite de la route, \u00e0 environ\ndeux milles des collines de Marlborough.\n\nLe voyageur d\u00e9posa son fouet, et jeta les r\u00eanes au valet d'\u00e9curie, tout\nen examinant la maison. C'\u00e9tait un dr\u00f4le de vieux b\u00e2timent, construit\navec une sorte de cailloutage et des poutres entre-crois\u00e9es. Les\nfen\u00eatres, surmont\u00e9es d'un petit toit pointu, s'avan\u00e7aient sur la route;\nla porte \u00e9tait basse, et pour entrer dans la maison, il fallait\ndescendre deux marches assez raides, sous un porche obscur, au lieu de\nmonter au perron ext\u00e9rieur, comme c'est l'usage moderne. Cependant\nl'auberge avait l'air confortable; il s'\u00e9chappait de la fen\u00eatre de la\nsalle commune une lumi\u00e8re r\u00e9jouissante, qui rayonnait sur la route et\njusque sur la haie oppos\u00e9e. Une seconde clart\u00e9, tant\u00f4t vacillante et\nfaible, tant\u00f4t vive et ardente, per\u00e7ait \u00e0 travers les rideaux ferm\u00e9s\nd'une crois\u00e9e de la m\u00eame salle, indice flatteur de l'excellent feu qui\nflambait dans l'int\u00e9rieur. Remarquant ces petits sympt\u00f4mes avec l'oeil\nd'un voyageur exp\u00e9riment\u00e9, Tom descendit aussi agilement que le lui\npermirent ses membres \u00e0 moiti\u00e9 gel\u00e9s, et s'empressa d'entrer dans la\nmaison.\n\nEn moins de cinq minutes, il \u00e9tait \u00e9tabli dans la salle (c'\u00e9tait bien\ncelle qu'il avait r\u00eav\u00e9e), en face du comptoir, et non loin d'un feu\nsubstantiel, compos\u00e9 d'\u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s un boisseau de charbon de terre et\nd'assez de broussailles pour former une douzaine de buissons fort\nd\u00e9cents. Ces combustibles \u00e9taient empil\u00e9s jusqu'\u00e0 la moiti\u00e9 de la\nchemin\u00e9e, et ronflaient, en p\u00e9tillant, avec un bruit qui aurait suffi\npour r\u00e9chauffer le coeur de tout homme raisonnable. Cela \u00e9tait\nconfortable, mais ce n'\u00e9tait pas tout; car une piquante jeune fille, \u00e0\nl'oeil brillant, au pied fin, \u00e0 la mise coquette, mettait sur la table\nune nappe parfaitement blanche. De plus, Tom, ses pieds dans ses\npantoufles et ses pantoufles sur le garde-feu, le dos tourn\u00e9 \u00e0 la porte\nouverte, voyait, par r\u00e9flexion dans la glace de la chemin\u00e9e, la\ncharmante perspective du comptoir, avec ses d\u00e9licieuses rang\u00e9es de\nfromages, de jambons bouillis, de boeuf fum\u00e9, de bouteilles portant des\ninscriptions d'or, de pots de marinades et de conserves; le tout dispos\u00e9\nsur des tablettes d'une mani\u00e8re s\u00e9duisante. Eh bien! cela \u00e9tait\nconfortable; mais cela n'\u00e9tait pas encore tout, car dans le comptoir une\nveuve app\u00e9tissante \u00e9tait assise pour prendre le th\u00e9, \u00e0 la plus jolie\npetite table possible, pr\u00e8s du plus brillant petit feu imaginable, et\ncette veuve, qui avait \u00e0 peine quarante-huit ans et dont le visage \u00e9tait\naussi confortable que le comptoir, \u00e9tait \u00e9videmment la dame et ma\u00eetresse\nde l'auberge, l'autocrate supr\u00eame de toutes ces agr\u00e9ables possessions.\nMalheureusement il y avait une vilaine ombre \u00e0 ce charmant tableau:\nc'\u00e9tait un grand homme, un homme tr\u00e8s-grand, en habit brun \u00e0 \u00e9normes\nboutons de m\u00e9tal, avec des moustaches noires et des cheveux noirs\nboucl\u00e9s. Il prenait le th\u00e9 \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la veuve, et, comme on pouvait le\ndeviner sans grande p\u00e9n\u00e9tration, il \u00e9tait en beau chemin de prendre la\nveuve elle-m\u00eame, en lui persuadant de confier \u00e0 Sa Grandeur le\nprivil\u00e8ge de s'asseoir dans ce comptoir, \u00e0 perp\u00e9tuit\u00e9.\n\nLe caract\u00e8re de Tom Smart n'\u00e9tait nullement irritable ni envieux, et\npourtant, d'une mani\u00e8re ou d'une autre, le grand homme \u00e0 l'habit brun\nfit fermenter le peu d'humeur qui entrait dans sa composition. Ce qui le\nvexait surtout, c'\u00e9tait d'observer de temps en temps dans la glace\ncertaines petites familiarit\u00e9s innocentes, mais affectueuses, qui\ns'\u00e9changeaient entre la veuve et le grand homme, et qui le posaient\n\u00e9videmment comme le favori de la dame. Tom aimait le grog chaud--je puis\nm\u00eame dire qu'il l'aimait beaucoup;--aussi, apr\u00e8s s'\u00eatre assur\u00e9 que sa\njument avait de bonne avoine et de bonne liti\u00e8re, apr\u00e8s avoir savour\u00e9,\nsans en laisser une bouch\u00e9e, l'excellent petit d\u00eener que la veuve avait\nappr\u00eat\u00e9 pour lui de ses propres mains, Tom demanda un verre de grog, par\nmani\u00e8re d'essai. Or, s'il y avait une chose que la veuve sut fabriquer\nmieux qu'une autre, parmi toutes les branches de l'art culinaire,\nc'\u00e9tait pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment cet article-l\u00e0. Le premier verre se trouva donc\nadapt\u00e9 si heureusement au go\u00fbt de Tom, qu'il ne tarda pas \u00e0 en ordonner\nun second. Le punch chaud est une chose fort agr\u00e9able, gentlemen, une\nchose fort agr\u00e9able dans toutes les circonstances; mais dans ce vieux\nparloir si propre, devant ce feu si p\u00e9tillant, au bruit du vent qui\nrugissait en dehors \u00e0 faire craquer tous les ais de la vieille maison,\nTom trouva son punch absolument d\u00e9licieux. Il en demanda un troisi\u00e8me\nverre, puis un quatri\u00e8me, puis un cinqui\u00e8me; je ne sais pas trop s'il\nn'en ordonna pas encore un autre apr\u00e8s celui-l\u00e0. Quoi qu'il en soit,\nplus il buvait de punch, plus il s'irritait contre le grand homme.\n\n\u00abLe diable confonde son impudence! pensa Tom Smart en lui-m\u00eame;\nqu'a-t-il \u00e0 faire dans ce charmant comptoir, ce vilain museau? Si la\nveuve avait un peu de go\u00fbt, elle pourrait assur\u00e9ment ramasser un\ngaillard mieux tourn\u00e9 que cela.\u00bb Ici les yeux de Tom quitt\u00e8rent la glace\net tomb\u00e8rent sur son verre de punch. Il le vida, car il devenait\nsentimental, et il en ordonna encore un.\n\nTom Smart, gentlemen, avait toujours ressenti le noble d\u00e9sir de servir\nle public. Il avait longtemps ambitionn\u00e9 d'\u00eatre \u00e9tabli dans un comptoir\nqui lui appart\u00eent, avec une grande redingote verte, en culottes de\nvelours \u00e0 c\u00f4tes et des bottes \u00e0 revers. Il se faisait une haute id\u00e9e de\npr\u00e9sider \u00e0 des repas de corps; il s'imaginait qu'il parlerait joliment\ndans une salle \u00e0 manger qui serait \u00e0 lui, et qu'il donnerait de fameux\nexemples \u00e0 ses pratiques, en buvant avec intr\u00e9pidit\u00e9. Toutes ces choses\npass\u00e8rent rapidement dans l'esprit de Tom, pendant qu'il sirotait son\npunch, aupr\u00e8s du feu jovial, et il se sentit justement indign\u00e9 contre le\ngrand homme, qui paraissait sur le point d'acqu\u00e9rir cette excellente\nmaison, tandis que lui, Tom Smart, en \u00e9tait aussi \u00e9loign\u00e9 que jamais. En\ncons\u00e9quence, apr\u00e8s s'\u00eatre demand\u00e9, pendant ses deux derniers verres,\ns'il n'avait pas le droit de chercher querelle au grand homme pour\ns'\u00eatre insinu\u00e9 dans les bonnes gr\u00e2ces de l'app\u00e9tissante veuve, Tom Smart\narriva finalement \u00e0 cette conclusion peu satisfaisante, qu'il \u00e9tait un\npauvre homme fort maltrait\u00e9, fort pers\u00e9cut\u00e9, et qu'il ferait mieux de\ns'aller jeter sur son lit.\n\nLa jolie fille pr\u00e9c\u00e9da Tom dans un large et vieil escalier: elle\nabritait sa chandelle avec sa main, pour la prot\u00e9ger contre les courants\nd'air qui, dans un vieux b\u00e2timent aussi peu r\u00e9gulier que celui-l\u00e0,\nauraient certainement pu trouver mille recoins pour prendre leurs \u00e9bats,\nsans venir pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment souffler la lumi\u00e8re. Ils la souffl\u00e8rent\ncependant, et donn\u00e8rent ainsi aux ennemis de Tom une occasion d'assurer\nque c'\u00e9tait _lui_, et non pas le vent, qui avait \u00e9teint la chandelle, et\nque, tandis qu'il pr\u00e9tendait souffler dessus pour la rallumer, il\nembrassait effectivement la servante. Quoi qu'il en soit, la chandelle\nfut rallum\u00e9e, et Tom fut conduit, \u00e0 travers un labyrinthe de corridors,\ndans l'appartement qui avait \u00e9t\u00e9 pr\u00e9par\u00e9 pour sa r\u00e9ception. La jeune\nfille lui souhaita une bonne nuit, et le laissa seul.\n\nIl se trouvait dans une grande chambre, accompagn\u00e9e de placards \u00e9normes;\nle lit aurait pu servir pour un bataillon tout entier; les deux\narmoires, en ch\u00eane bruni par le temps, auraient contenu le bagage d'une\npetite arm\u00e9e: mais ce qui frappa le plus l'attention de Tom, ce fut un\n\u00e9trange fauteuil, au dos \u00e9lev\u00e9, \u00e0 l'air refrogn\u00e9, sculpt\u00e9 de la mani\u00e8re\nla plus bizarre, couvert d'un damas \u00e0 grands ramages, et dont les pieds\n\u00e9taient soigneusement envelopp\u00e9s dans de petits sacs rouges, comme s'ils\navaient eu la goutte dans les talons. De tout autre fauteuil singulier,\nTom aurait pens\u00e9 simplement que c'\u00e9tait un singulier fauteuil; mais il y\navait dans ce fauteuil-l\u00e0 quelque chose,--il lui aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 impossible\nde dire quoi,--quelque chose qu'il n'avait jamais remarqu\u00e9 dans aucune\nautre pi\u00e8ce d'ameublement, quelque chose qui semblait le fasciner. Il\ns'assit aupr\u00e8s du feu et il regarda de tous ses yeux le vieux fauteuil,\npendant plus d'une demi-heure. Damnation sur ce fauteuil! C'\u00e9tait une\nvieillerie si \u00e9trange, qu'il n'en pouvait pas d\u00e9tacher ses regards.\n\n\u00abSur ma foi! dit Tom en se d\u00e9shabillant lentement et en consid\u00e9rant\ntoujours le vieux fauteuil, qui se tenait d'un air myst\u00e9rieux aupr\u00e8s du\nlit, je n'ai jamais vu rien de si dr\u00f4le de ma vie ni de mes jours;\nfarcement dr\u00f4le! dit Tom, qui, gr\u00e2ce au punch, \u00e9tait devenu\nsinguli\u00e8rement penseur. Farcement dr\u00f4le!\u00bb Il secoua la t\u00eate avec un air\nde profonde sagesse et regarda le fauteuil sur nouveaux frais; mais il\neut beau regarder, il n'y pouvait rien comprendre. Ainsi, il se fourra\ndans son lit, se couvrit chaudement, et s'endormit.\n\nAu bout d'une demi-heure, Tom s'\u00e9veilla en sursaut au milieu d'un r\u00eave\nconfus de grands hommes et de verres de punch. Le premier objet qui\ns'offrit \u00e0 son imagination engourdie, ce fut l'\u00e9trange fauteuil.\n\n\u00abJe ne veux plus le regarder,\u00bb se dit Tom \u00e0 lui-m\u00eame, en fermant\nsolidement ses paupi\u00e8res; et il t\u00e2cha de se persuader qu'il allait se\nrendormir. Impossible! une quantit\u00e9 de fauteuils bizarres dansaient\ndevant ses yeux, battaient des entrechats avec leurs pieds, jouaient \u00e0\nsaute-mouton et faisaient toutes sortes de bamboches.\n\n\u00abAutant voir un fauteuil r\u00e9el que deux ou trois douzaines de fauteuils\nimaginaires,\u00bb pensa Tom, en sortant sa t\u00eate de dessous la couverture.\n\nL'objet de son \u00e9tonnement \u00e9tait toujours l\u00e0, fantastiquement \u00e9clair\u00e9 par\nla lumi\u00e8re vacillante du feu.\n\nTom le contemplait fixement, lorsque soudain il le vit changer de\nfigure. Les sculptures du dossier prirent graduellement les traits et\nl'expression d'une face humaine, vieillotte et rid\u00e9e; le damas \u00e0 ramages\ndevint un antique gilet flamboyant; les pieds s'allong\u00e8rent, enfonc\u00e9s\ndans des pantoufles rouges; et le fauteuil, enfin, offrit l'apparence\nd'un tr\u00e8s-vieux et tr\u00e8s-vilain bourgeois du si\u00e8cle pr\u00e9c\u00e9dent, qui se\nserait camp\u00e9 l\u00e0, les poings sur les hanches. Tom s'assit sur son lit et\nse frotta les yeux, pour chasser cette illusion. Mais non! le fauteuil\n\u00e9tait bien r\u00e9ellement un vieux gentleman; et qui plus est, il commen\u00e7a \u00e0\ncligner de l'oeil en regardant Tom Smart.\n\nTom \u00e9tait naturellement un gaillard audacieux, et par-dessus le march\u00e9\nil avait dans l'estomac cinq verres de punch. Quoiqu'il e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 d'abord\nun peu d\u00e9moralis\u00e9, il sentit que sa bile s'\u00e9chauffait en voyant\nl'antique gentleman le lorgner ainsi d'un air impudent. A la fin, il\nr\u00e9solut de ne pas le souffrir et comme la vieille face continuait \u00e0\ncligner de l'oeil aussi vite qu'un oeil peut cligner, Tom lui dit d'un ton\ncourrouc\u00e9:\n\n\u00abPourquoi diantre me faites-vous toutes ces grimaces-l\u00e0?\n\n--Parce que cela me pla\u00eet, Tom Smart,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit le fauteuil, ou le vieux\ngentleman, comme vous voudrez l'appeler. Cependant il cessa de cligner\nde l'oeil, mais il se mit \u00e0 ricaner en montrant ses dents, comme un vieux\nsinge d\u00e9cr\u00e9pit.\n\n\u00abComment savez-vous mon nom, vieille face de casse-noisettes? demanda\nTom un peu \u00e9branl\u00e9, quoiqu'il voul\u00fbt avoir l'air de faire bonne\ncontenance.\n\n--Allons! allons! Tom, ce n'est pas comme cela qu'on doit parler \u00e0 de\nl'acajou massif. Dieu me damne! on ne traiterait pas ainsi le plus mince\nplaqu\u00e9.\u00bb En disant ces mots, le vieux gentleman avait l'air si f\u00e9roce,\nque Tom commen\u00e7a \u00e0 s'effrayer.\n\n\u00abJe n'avais pas l'intention de vous manquer de respect, monsieur,\nr\u00e9pondit-il d'un ton beaucoup plus humble.\n\n--Bien! bien! reprit le bonhomme; je le crois, je le crois. Tom?\n\n--Monsieur?\n\n--Je sais toute votre histoire, Tom; toute votre histoire. Vous n'\u00eates\npas riche, Tom.\n\n--C'est vrai; mais comment savez-vous...?\n\n--Cela n'y fait rien. \u00c9coutez-moi, Tom: Vous aimez trop le punch.\u00bb\n\nTom \u00e9tait sur le point de protester qu'il n'en avait pas t\u00e2t\u00e9 une goutte\ndepuis le dernier anniversaire de sa f\u00eate, lorsque ses yeux\nrencontr\u00e8rent ceux du fauteuil. Il avait l'air si malin, que Tom rougit,\net garda le silence.\n\n\u00abTom! la veuve est une belle femme: une femme bien app\u00e9tissante! eh!\nTom?\u00bb En parlant ainsi, le vieil amateur tourna la prunelle, fit claquer\nses l\u00e8vres, et releva une de ses petites jambes gr\u00eales d'un air si rou\u00e9,\nque Tom prit en d\u00e9go\u00fbt la l\u00e9g\u00e8ret\u00e9 de ses mani\u00e8res, \u00e0 son \u00e2ge surtout.\n\n\u00abTom! reprit le vieux gentleman, je suis son tuteur.\n\n--Vraiment?\n\n--J'ai connu sa m\u00e8re, Tom, et sa grand'm\u00e8re aussi. Elle \u00e9tait folle de\nmoi. C'est elle qui m'a fait ce gilet-l\u00e0, Tom.\n\n--Oui-da!\n\n--Et ces pantoufles-l\u00e0, continua le vieux camarade en levant un de ses\n\u00e9chalas. Mais n'en parlez pas, Tom; je ne voudrais pas qu'on s\u00fbt\ncombien elle m'\u00e9tait attach\u00e9e; cela pourrait occasionner quelques\nd\u00e9sagr\u00e9ments dans sa famille.\u00bb En disant ces mots, le vieux d\u00e9bauch\u00e9\navait l'air si impertinent, que Tom a d\u00e9clar\u00e9 depuis qu'il aurait pu\ns'asseoir dessus sans le moindre remords.\n\n\u00abJ'\u00e9tais la coqueluche des femmes dans mon temps. J'ai tenu bien des\njolies femmes sur mes genoux pendant des heures enti\u00e8res! Eh! Tom, qu'en\ndites-vous?\u00bb Le vieux farceur allait poursuivre et raconter sans doute\nquelque exploit de sa jeunesse, lorsqu'il lui prit un si violent acc\u00e8s\nde craquements qu'il lui fut impossible de continuer.\n\n\u00abC'est bien fait, vieux libertin! pensa Tom. Mais il ne dit rien.\n\n--Ah! reprit son \u00e9trange interlocuteur, cette maladie m'incommode\nbeaucoup maintenant. Je deviens vieux, Tom, et j'ai perdu presque tous\nmes b\u00e2tons. On m'a fait derni\u00e8rement une vilaine op\u00e9ration: on m'a mis\ndans le dos une petite pi\u00e8ce. C'\u00e9tait une \u00e9preuve terrible, Tom.\n\n--Je le crois, monsieur.\n\n--Mais il ne s'agit point de cela, Tom; je veux vous marier \u00e0 la veuve.\n\n--Moi! monsieur?\n\n--Vous.\n\n--Que Dieu b\u00e9nisse vos cheveux blancs! (le fauteuil conservait encore\nune partie de ses crins). Elle ne voudrait pas de moi! Et Tom soupira\ninvolontairement, car il songeait au comptoir.\n\n--Allons donc! dit le vieux gentleman avec fermet\u00e9.\n\n--Non, non. Il y a un autre vent qui souffle: un damn\u00e9 coquin, d'une\ntaille superbe, avec des favoris noirs!\n\n--Tom! reprit le vieillard solennellement, il ne l'\u00e9pousera jamais!\n\n--Ah! si vous aviez \u00e9t\u00e9 dans le comptoir, vieux gentleman, vous\nconteriez un autre conte.\n\n--Bah! bah! je sais toute cette histoire-l\u00e0....\n\n--Quelle histoire?\n\n--Les baisers d\u00e9rob\u00e9s derri\u00e8re la porte, et caetera,\u00bb dit le vieillard\navec un regard impudent qui fit bouillonner le sang de Tom; car, je vous\nle demande, messieurs, y a-t-il rien de plus vexant que d'entendre\nparler de la sorte un homme de cet \u00e2ge, qui devrait s'occuper de choses\nplus convenables.\n\n\u00abJe sais tout cela, Tom; j'en ai vu faire autant \u00e0 bien d'autres, que\nje ne veux pas nommer; mais, apr\u00e8s tout, il n'en est rien r\u00e9sult\u00e9.\n\n--Vous devez avoir vu de dr\u00f4les de choses dans votre temps?\u00bb\n\n--Vous pouvez en jurer, Tom, r\u00e9pondit le vieillard avec une grimace fort\ncompliqu\u00e9e. Puis il ajouta en poussant un profond soupir: h\u00e9las! je suis\nle dernier de ma famille.\n\n--\u00c9tait-elle nombreuse?\n\n--Nous \u00e9tions douze gaillards solidement b\u00e2tis, nous tenant droits comme\ndes i. Quelle diff\u00e9rence avec vos avortons modernes! Et nous avions re\u00e7u\nun si beau poli (quoique je ne dusse peut-\u00eatre pas le dire moi-m\u00eame), un\nsi beau poli, qu'il vous aurait r\u00e9joui le coeur.\n\n--Et que sont devenus les autres, monsieur?\u00bb\n\nLe vieux gentleman appliqua son coude \u00e0 son oeil, et r\u00e9pondit tristement:\n\u00abD\u00e9funts! Tom, d\u00e9funts! Nous avons fait un rude service, et ils\nn'avaient pas tous ma constitution. Ils ont attrap\u00e9 des rhumatismes dans\nles pieds et dans les bras, si bien qu'on les a rel\u00e9gu\u00e9s \u00e0 la cuisine et\ndans d'autres h\u00f4pitaux. L'un d'eux, par suite de longs services et de\nmauvais traitements, devint si disloqu\u00e9, si branlant, qu'on prit le\nparti de le mettre au feu. Une fin bien rude, Tom!\n\n--\u00c9pouvantable!\u00bb\n\nLe pauvre vieux bonhomme fit une pause. Il luttait contre la violence de\nses \u00e9motions. Enfin, il continua en ces termes:\n\n\u00abIl ne s'agit point de cela, Tom. Ce grand homme est un coquin\nd'aventurier. Aussit\u00f4t qu'il aurait \u00e9pous\u00e9 la veuve, il vendrait tout le\nmobilier, et il s'en irait. Qu'arriverait-il ensuite? Elle serait\nabandonn\u00e9e, ruin\u00e9e, et moi je mourrais de froid dans la boutique de\nquelque brocanteur.\n\n--Oui, mais....\n\n--Ne m'interrompez pas, Tom. J'ai de vous une opinion bien diff\u00e9rente.\nJe sais que si une fois vous \u00e9tiez \u00e9tabli dans une taverne vous ne la\nquitteriez jamais, tant qu'il y resterait quelque chose \u00e0 boire.\n\n--Je vous suis tr\u00e8s-oblig\u00e9 de votre bonne opinion, monsieur.\n\n--C'est pourquoi, reprit le vieux gentleman d'un ton doctoral, c'est\npourquoi vous l'\u00e9pouserez et il ne l'\u00e9pousera point.\n\n--Et qui l'en emp\u00eachera? demanda Tom avec vivacit\u00e9.\n\n--Une petite circonstance: il est d\u00e9j\u00e0 mari\u00e9.\n\n--Comment pourrai-je le prouver? s'\u00e9cria Tom, en sautant \u00e0 moiti\u00e9 de\nson lit.\n\n--Il ne se doute gu\u00e8re qu'il a laiss\u00e9 dans le gousset droit d'un\npantalon enferm\u00e9 dans cette armoire, une lettre de sa malheureuse femme,\nqui le supplie de revenir pour donner du pain \u00e0 ses six,... remarquez\nbien, Tom, \u00e0 ses six enfants, tous en bas \u00e2ge.\u00bb\n\nLorsque le vieux gentleman eut prononc\u00e9 ces mots avec solennit\u00e9, ses\ntraits devinrent de moins en moins distincts et sa personne plus\nvaporeuse; un voile semblait s'\u00e9tendre sur les yeux de Tom; l'antique\ngilet du vieillard se r\u00e9solut en un coussin de damas; ses pantoufles\nrouges devinrent de petites enveloppes: toute sa personne, enfin, reprit\nl'apparence d'un vieux fauteuil. Alors la lumi\u00e8re du feu s'\u00e9teignit, et\nTom Smart, retombant sur son oreiller, s'endormit profond\u00e9ment.\n\nLe matin le tira du sommeil l\u00e9thargique qui s'\u00e9tait empar\u00e9 de lui, apr\u00e8s\nla disparition du vieil homme. Il s'assit sur son lit, et, pendant\nquelques minutes, il s'effor\u00e7a vainement de se rappeler les \u00e9v\u00e9nements\nde la soir\u00e9e pr\u00e9c\u00e9dente. Tout d'un coup ils lui revinrent \u00e0 la m\u00e9moire.\nIl regarda le fauteuil; c'\u00e9tait certainement un meuble gothique, sombre,\nfantastique, mais il aurait fallu une imagination plus ing\u00e9nieuse que\ncelle de Tom pour y d\u00e9couvrir quelque ressemblance avec un vieillard.\n\n\u00abComment \u00e7a va-t-il, vieux gar\u00e7on?\u00bb dit Tom, car il se trouvait plus\nbrave \u00e0 la lumi\u00e8re, comme il arrive \u00e0 la plupart des hommes.\n\nLe fauteuil resta immobile et ne r\u00e9pondit pas un seul mot.\n\n\u00abVilaine matin\u00e9e!\u00bb continua Tom.\n\nMotus. Le fauteuil ne voulait pas se laisser entra\u00eener \u00e0 causer.\n\n\u00abQuelle armoire m'avez-vous montr\u00e9e? poursuivit Tom. Vous pouvez bien me\ndire cela?\u00bb\n\nM\u00eame rengaine, le fauteuil ne consentait pas \u00e0 souffler un seul mot.\n\n\u00abQuoi qu'il en soit, il n'est pas bien difficile de l'ouvrir\u00bb, pensa\nTom. Il sortit du lit r\u00e9solument et s'approcha d'une des armoires. La\nclef \u00e9tait \u00e0 la serrure; il la tourna et ouvrit la porte. Il y avait\ndans l'armoire un pantalon; Tom fourra sa main dans la poche et en tira\nla lettre m\u00eame, dont le vieux gentleman avait parl\u00e9.\n\n\u00abDr\u00f4le d'histoire, dit Tom en regardant d'abord le fauteuil, ensuite\nl'armoire, puis la lettre, et en revenant enfin au fauteuil. Dr\u00f4le\nd'histoire!\u00bb Mais il avait beau regarder, cela n'en devenait pas plus\nclair et il pensa qu'il ferait aussi bien de s'habiller et de terminer\nl'affaire du grand homme, simplement pour ne pas le laisser en suspens.\n\nEn descendant au parloir il examina les localit\u00e9s avec l'oeil scrutateur\ndu ma\u00eetre, pensant qu'il n'\u00e9tait pas impossible que toutes ces chambres,\navec leur contenu, devinssent avant peu sa propri\u00e9t\u00e9. Le grand homme\n\u00e9tait debout dans le s\u00e9duisant comptoir, ses mains derri\u00e8re son dos,\ncomme chez lui. Il sourit \u00e0 Tom, d'un air distrait. Un observateur\nsuperficiel aurait pu supposer qu'il n'agissait ainsi que pour montrer\nses dents blanches, mais Tom pensa qu'un sentiment de triomphe remuait\nl'endroit o\u00f9 aurait d\u00fb \u00eatre l'esprit du grand homme, si toutefois il en\navait. Tom lui rit au nez et appela l'h\u00f4tesse.\n\n\u00abBonjour, madame, dit Tom Smart, en fermant la porte du petit parloir,\napr\u00e8s que la veuve fut entr\u00e9e.\n\n--Bonjour, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit la veuve, que voulez-vous prendre pour\nd\u00e9jeuner, monsieur?\u00bb\n\nTom ne r\u00e9pondit point, car il cherchait de quelle mani\u00e8re il devait\nentamer l'affaire.\n\n\u00abIl y a un excellent jambon, reprit la veuve, et une excellente volaille\nfroide. Vous les enverrai-je, monsieur?\u00bb\n\nCes mots firent cesser les r\u00e9flexions de Tom, et son admiration pour la\nveuve s'en augmenta. Soigneuse cr\u00e9ature! pr\u00e9voyante! confortable!\n\n\u00abMadame, demanda-t-il, qui est ce monsieur dans le comptoir?\n\n--Il s'appelle Jinkins, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit la veuve en rougissant un\npeu.\n\n--C'est un grand homme.\n\n--C'est un tr\u00e8s-bel homme, monsieur, et un gentleman fort distingu\u00e9.\n\n--Hum! fit le voyageur.\n\n--D\u00e9sirez-vous quelque chose, monsieur, reprit la veuve un peu\nembarrass\u00e9e par les mani\u00e8res de son interlocuteur.\n\n--Mais oui, vraiment, r\u00e9pliqua-t-il. Ma ch\u00e8re dame voulez-vous avoir la\nbont\u00e9 de vous asseoir un instant?\u00bb\n\nLa veuve parut fort \u00e9tonn\u00e9e, mais elle s'assit, et Tom s'assit aupr\u00e8s\nd'elle. Je ne sais pas comment cela se fit, gentlemen, et mon oncle\navait coutume de dire que Tom Smart ne savait pas lui-m\u00eame comment cela\ns'\u00e9tait fait; mais d'une mani\u00e8re ou d'une autre, la paume de sa main\ntomba sur le dos de la main de la veuve et y resta tout le temps de la\nconf\u00e9rence.\n\n\u00abMa ch\u00e8re dame, dit Tom, car il savait fort bien se rendre aimable; ma\nch\u00e8re dame, vous m\u00e9ritez un excellent mari, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9.\n\n--Seigneur! monsieur! s'\u00e9cria la veuve; et elle n'avait pas tort: cette\nmani\u00e8re d'entamer la conversation \u00e9tait assez inusit\u00e9e, pour ne pas dire\nplus, surtout si l'on consid\u00e8re qu'elle n'avait jamais vu Tom avant la\nsoir\u00e9e pr\u00e9c\u00e9dente. Seigneur! monsieur!\n\n--Je ne suis point un flatteur, ma ch\u00e8re dame. Vous m\u00e9ritez un mari\nparfait et ce sera un homme bien heureux.\u00bb\n\nTandis que Tom parlait ainsi, ses yeux s'\u00e9garaient involontairement du\nvisage de la veuve sur les objets confortables qui l'environnaient.\n\nLa veuve eut l'air plus embarrass\u00e9 que jamais; elle fit un mouvement\npour se lever; mais Tom pressa doucement sa main comme pour la retenir\net elle resta sur son si\u00e9ge. Les veuves, messieurs, sont rarement\ncraintives, comme disait mon oncle.\n\n\u00abVraiment, monsieur, je vous suis bien oblig\u00e9e, de votre bonne opinion,\ndit-elle en riant \u00e0 moiti\u00e9; et si jamais je me marie....\n\n--Si? interrompit Tom en la regardant tr\u00e8s-malignement du coin droit de\nson oeil gauche.\n\n--Eh bien! _quand_ je me marierai, j'esp\u00e8re que j'aurai un aussi bon\nmari que vous le dites.\n\n--C'est-\u00e0-dire Jinkins?\n\n--Seigneur! monsieur!\n\n--Allons! ne m'en parlez point, je le connais....\n\n--Je suis s\u00fbre que ceux qui le connaissent ne connaissent pas de mal de\nlui, reprit la dame un peu piqu\u00e9e par l'air myst\u00e9rieux du voyageur.\n\n--Hum!\u00bb fit Tom.\n\nLa veuve commen\u00e7a \u00e0 croire qu'il \u00e9tait temps de pleurer. Elle tira donc\nson mouchoir et elle demanda si Tom voulait l'insulter; s'il croyait que\nc'\u00e9tait l'action d'un gentleman de dire du mal d'un autre gentleman, en\narri\u00e8re; pourquoi, s'il avait quelque chose \u00e0 dire, il ne l'avait pas\ndit \u00e0 son homme, comme un homme, au lieu d'effrayer une pauvre faible\nfemme de cette mani\u00e8re, etc., etc.\n\n\u00abJe ne tarderai pas \u00e0 lui dire deux mots \u00e0 lui-m\u00eame, r\u00e9pondit Tom.\nSeulement je d\u00e9sire que vous m'entendiez auparavant.\n\n--Eh bien! dites, demanda la veuve en le regardant avec attention.\n\n--Je vais vous \u00e9tonner, r\u00e9pliqua-t-il, en mettant la main dans sa poche.\n\n--Si c'est qu'il n'a pas d'argent, je sais cela d\u00e9j\u00e0 et ce n'est pas la\npeine de vous d\u00e9ranger.\n\n--Pouh! cela n'est rien. _Moi non plus_, je n'ai point d'argent! Ce\nn'est pas \u00e7a.\n\n--Oh! mon Dieu! qu'est-ce que c'est donc? s'\u00e9cria la pauvre femme.\n\n--Ne vous effrayez pas, reprit Tom en tirant la lettre. Et ne criez pas:\npoursuivit-il en d\u00e9pliant lentement le papier.\n\n--Non! non! laissez-moi voir.\n\n--Vous n'allez pas vous trouver mal ni vous livrer \u00e0 d'autres\nd\u00e9monstrations de ce genre?\n\n--Non, je vous le promets.\n\n--Ni vous pr\u00e9cipiter vers la salle commune pour lui dire son affaire?\najouta Tom; car, voyez-vous, je ferai tout \u00e7a pour vous: ce n'est donc\npas la peine de vous agiter.\n\n--Allons, allons, fit la veuve, laissez-moi lire.\n\n--Voil\u00e0,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua Tom Smart, qui pla\u00e7a la lettre dans les mains de la\nveuve.\n\nLes lamentations de la pauvre femme, quand elle en eut pris lecture,\nauraient perc\u00e9 un coeur de pierre. Tom avait toujours eu le coeur\ntr\u00e8s-tendre, aussi fut-il perc\u00e9 de part en part. La veuve se roulait sur\nsa chaise en se tordant les mains.\n\n\u00abOh! la trahison! oh! la sc\u00e9l\u00e9ratesse des hommes! s'\u00e9criait-elle.\n\n--Effroyables, ma ch\u00e8re dame; mais calmez-vous.\n\n--Non! Je ne veux pas me calmer! sanglotait la veuve. Je ne trouverai\njamais personne que je puisse aimer comme lui.\n\n--Si, si, oh! si, ma ch\u00e8re dame!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria Tom Smart en laissant tomber\nune pluie d'\u00e9normes larmes sur les infortunes de la veuve. Il avait\npass\u00e9 un bras autour de sa taille, dans l'\u00e9nergie de sa compassion; et\nla veuve, dans son transport de chagrin, avait serr\u00e9 la main de Tom.\nElle regarda le visage du voyageur et elle sourit \u00e0 travers ses larmes:\nTom se pencha vers elle, il contempla ses traits, et il sourit aussi \u00e0\ntravers ses pleurs.\n\nJe n'ai jamais pu d\u00e9couvrir si Tom embrassa la veuve dans ce moment-l\u00e0.\nIl disait souvent \u00e0 mon oncle qu'il n'en avait rien fait, mais j'ai des\ndoutes l\u00e0-dessus. Entre nous, messieurs, je m'imagine qu'il l'embrassa.\n\nQuoi qu'il en soit, Tom jeta le grand homme \u00e0 la porte, et il \u00e9pousa la\nveuve dans le mois. On le voyait souvent se promener aux environs avec\nsa jument capricieuse, qui tra\u00eenait lestement la carriole grise aux\nroues \u00e9carlates. Apr\u00e8s beaucoup d'ann\u00e9es il se retira des affaires et\ns'en alla en France avec sa femme. L'antique maison fut alors abattue.\n\nUn vieux gentleman curieux prit la parole apr\u00e8s le commis voyageur.\n\n\u00abVoulez-vous me permettre, lui dit-il, de vous demander ce que devint le\nfauteuil?\n\n--On remarqua qu'il craquait beaucoup le jour de la noce, mais Tom Smart\nne pouvait pas dire positivement si c'\u00e9tait de plaisir ou par suite de\nsouffrances corporelles. Cependant il pensait plut\u00f4t que c'\u00e9tait pour la\nderni\u00e8re cause, car il ne l'entendit plus parler depuis.\n\n--Et tout le monde crut cette histoire-l\u00e0, hein? demanda le visage\nculott\u00e9 en remplissant sa pipe.\n\n--Tout le monde, except\u00e9 les ennemis de Tom. Ceux-ci disaient que\nc'\u00e9tait une _blague_. D'autres pr\u00e9tendirent qu'il \u00e9tait gris, qu'il\navait r\u00eav\u00e9 tout cela et qu'il s'\u00e9tait tromp\u00e9 de culotte. Mais personne\nne s'arr\u00eata \u00e0 ce qu'ils disaient.\n\n--Tom Smart soutint que tout \u00e9tait vrai?\n\n--Chaque mot.\n\n--Et votre oncle?\n\n--Chaque lettre.\n\n--\u00c7a devait faire deux jolis gaillards tous les deux.\n\n--Oui, deux fameux gaillards, r\u00e9pondit le commis voyageur. Deux fameux\ngaillards, v\u00e9ritablement.\u00bb\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XV.\n\nDans lequel se trouva un portrait fid\u00e8le de deux personnes distingu\u00e9es,\net une description exacte d'un grand d\u00e9jeuner qui eut lieu dans leur\nmaison et domaine. Ledit d\u00e9jeuner am\u00e8ne la rencontre d'une vieille\nconnaissance, et le commencement d'un autre chapitre.\n\n\nLa conscience de M. Pickwick lui reprochait d'avoir un peu n\u00e9glig\u00e9 ses\namis du _Paon d'argent_, et dans la matin\u00e9e du troisi\u00e8me jour apr\u00e8s\nl'\u00e9lection, il allait sortir pour les visiter, lorsque son fid\u00e8le\ndomestique remit entre ses mains une carte de visite, sur laquelle \u00e9tait\ngrav\u00e9e l'inscription suivante, en lettres gothiques.\n\n     MADAME CHASSE-LION.\n\n     _La Caverne. Eatanswill._\n\n--La personne attend, dit Sam.\n\n--C'est bien moi qu'elle demande?\n\n--C'est vous particuli\u00e8rement et sans remplacement, comme dit le\nsecr\u00e9taire priv\u00e9 du diable quand il vint emporter le docteur Faust.\nC'est bien vous qu'il demande.\n\n--_Il?_ c'est donc un gentleman?\n\n--Si \u00e7a n'en est pas un, c'en est une imitation soign\u00e9e.\n\n--Mais c'est la carte d'une dame.\n\n--Je l'ai re\u00e7ue d'un monsieur, malgr\u00e9 \u00e7a. Il attend dans le salon et il\ndit qu'il attendra toute la journ\u00e9e plut\u00f4t que de ne pas vous voir.\u00bb\n\nAyant appris cette d\u00e9termination, M. Pickwick descendit au parloir. Un\nhomme grave y \u00e9tait assis. Il se leva promptement en voyant entrer notre\nphilosophe, et dit avec un air de profond respect:\n\n\u00abMonsieur Pickwick? je pr\u00e9sume.\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--Permettez-moi, monsieur, d'avoir l'honneur de presser votre main.\nPermettez-moi de la secouer.\n\n--Avec plaisir,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick.\n\nL'\u00e9tranger secoua la main qui lui \u00e9tait offerte, et continua ainsi.\n\n\u00abMonsieur la renomm\u00e9e nous a parl\u00e9 de vous comme d'un savant antiquaire.\nLe bruit de vos d\u00e9couvertes a frapp\u00e9 l'oreille de Mme Chasselion, ma\nfemme, monsieur; _moi_, je suis M. Chasselion.\u00bb\n\nIci l'homme grave s'arr\u00eata, comme s'il avait cru que M. Pickwick devait\n\u00eatre \u00e9tourdi par cette communication; mais voyant que le philosophe\ndemeurait parfaitement calme, il poursuivit en ces termes:\n\n--Ma femme, monsieur, mistress Chasselion, est fi\u00e8re de compter parmi\nses connaissances tous ceux qui se sont illustr\u00e9s par leurs ouvrages et\npar leurs talents. Permettez-moi, monsieur, de placer dans cette liste\nle nom de M. Pickwick, et celui de ses confr\u00e8res du club qu'il a fond\u00e9.\n\n--Je serai tr\u00e8s-heureux, monsieur, de faire la connaissance d'une dame\naussi distingu\u00e9e.\n\n--Vous la ferez, monsieur. Demain matin, nous donnons un grand d\u00e9jeuner,\nune f\u00eate champ\u00eatre, \u00e0 un nombre consid\u00e9rable de ceux qui se sont rendus\nc\u00e9l\u00e8bres par leurs ouvrages et par leurs talents. Accordez \u00e0 Mme\nChasselion la satisfaction de vous voir \u00e0 la Caverne.\n\n--Avec grand plaisir.\n\n--Mme Chasselion donne beaucoup de ces d\u00e9jeuners, monsieur; _galas de la\nraison, effluves de l'\u00e2me_[21], comme l'observe avec un sentiment plein\nd'originalit\u00e9 quelqu'un qui a adress\u00e9 un sonnet \u00e0 Mme Chasselion, sur\nces d\u00e9jeuners.\n\n[Footnote 21: _Feast of reason, flow of soul_ est une citation de je ne\nsais quel po\u00ebte, devenue proverbiale pour se moquer des r\u00e9unions o\u00f9 il\nn'y a rien \u00e0 boire ni \u00e0 manger.]\n\n--\u00c9tait-il c\u00e9l\u00e8bre par ses ouvrages et par ses talents? demanda M.\nPickwick.\n\n--Certainement, monsieur. Toutes les connaissances de Mme Chasselion\nsont c\u00e9l\u00e8bres: c'est son ambition, monsieur, de n'avoir pas d'autres\nconnaissances.\n\n--C'est une tr\u00e8s-noble ambition.\n\n--Quand j'informerai Mme Chasselion que cette remarque est tomb\u00e9e de vos\nl\u00e8vres, monsieur, elle en sera fi\u00e8re, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9. Vous avez avec vous,\nmonsieur, un gentleman qui, je crois, a produit quelques petits po\u00ebmes\nd'une grande beaut\u00e9?\n\n--Mon ami, M. Snodgrass, a beaucoup de go\u00fbt pour la po\u00e9sie.\n\n--C'est comme Mme Chasselion, monsieur. Elle adore la po\u00e9sie, monsieur;\nelle en est folle. Je puis dire que toute son \u00e2me et tout son esprit\nsont p\u00e9tris de po\u00e9sie. Elle-m\u00eame a produit quelques pi\u00e8ces d\u00e9licieuses,\nmonsieur. Vous pouvez avoir rencontr\u00e9 son ode _A une grenouille\nexpirante_.\n\n--Je ne le crois pas.\n\n--Vous m'\u00e9tonnez. Elle a fait une immense sensation. Elle a paru\noriginairement dans le _Magasin des dames_, et \u00e9tait sign\u00e9e d'un _C_ et\nde neuf \u00e9toiles. Elle commen\u00e7ait ainsi:\n\n    Puis-je te voir sanglante et pantelante,\n    Sur ton ventre, sans soupirer?\n    Puis-je sans pleurs te contempler mourante,\n    Sur un rocher,\n    Grenouille expirante?\n\n--Charmant! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick.\n\n--Beau, dit l'homme grave. Si simple!\n\n--Sublime!\n\n--La strophe suivante est plus touchante encore. Voulez-vous que je la\nr\u00e9p\u00e8te?\n\n--S'il vous pla\u00eet.\n\n--- La voici, continua l'homme grave, d'un ton encore plus grave.\n\n    Dis-moi si des d\u00e9mons avec leur voix hurlante,\n    Sous la figure de gamins,\n    Loin des marais t'auraient chass\u00e9e, errante,\n    Avec des chiens,\n    Grenouille expirante!\n\n--Joliment exprim\u00e9, dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--C'est un diamant, monsieur. Mais vous entendrez Mme Chasselion vous\nr\u00e9citer cette ode. _Elle_ seule peut la faire valoir. Demain matin,\nmonsieur, elle la r\u00e9citera en costume.\n\n--En costume!\n\n--Sous la figure de Minerve.... Mais j'oubliais... c'est un d\u00e9jeuner\ncostum\u00e9.\n\n--Eh! mais, eh mais! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, en jetant un coup d'oeil sur sa\npersonne: Je ne puis vraiment pas me travestir.\n\n--Pourquoi pas, monsieur? pourquoi pas? Salomon Lucas, le juif, dans la\ngrande rue, a mille habillements de fantaisie. Voyez, monsieur, combien\nde caract\u00e8res convenables vous pouvez choisir: Platon, Z\u00e9non, Epicure,\nPythagore, tous fondateurs de clubs.\n\n--Je le sais bien, mais comme je ne puis me comparer \u00e0 ces grands\nhommes, je ne saurais me permettre de porter leur habit.\u00bb\n\nL'homme grave m\u00e9dita profond\u00e9ment, pendant quelques minutes, et dit\nensuite.\n\n\u00abEn y r\u00e9fl\u00e9chissant, monsieur, je ne sais pas si Mme Chasselion ne sera\npas charm\u00e9e de faire voir \u00e0 ses h\u00f4tes une personne de votre c\u00e9l\u00e9brit\u00e9,\ndans le costume qui lui est habituel, plut\u00f4t que sous une enveloppe\n\u00e9trang\u00e8re. Je crois pouvoir prendre sur moi de vous promettre, au nom de\nmistress Chasselion, qu'elle fera une exception en votre faveur. Oui,\nmonsieur, je suis tout \u00e0 fait certain que je puis me le permettre.\n\n--En ce cas, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick, j'aurai grand plaisir \u00e0 me rendre \u00e0\nvotre invitation.\n\n--Mais je vous fais perdre votre temps, monsieur, dit soudainement\nl'homme grave, d'un ton p\u00e9n\u00e9tr\u00e9. J'en connais la valeur, monsieur, et je\nne veux pas vous retenir plus longtemps. Je dirai donc \u00e0 Mme Chasselion\nqu'elle peut vous attendre avec confiance, ainsi que vos illustres amis.\nAdieu monsieur. Je suis fier d'avoir vu un personnage aussi \u00e9minent. Pas\nun pas, monsieur; pas une parole.\u00bb Et sans donner \u00e0 M. Pickwick le temps\nde lui r\u00e9pondre, M. Chasselion s'\u00e9loigna gravement.\n\nLe philosophe prit son chapeau et se rendit au _Paon d'argent_. M.\nWinkle y avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 parl\u00e9 du bal d\u00e9guis\u00e9.\n\n\u00abMme Pott y va, furent les premi\u00e8res paroles dont il salua son mentor.\n\n--Ah! ah! fit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Sous la figure d'Apollon. Seulement Pott s'oppose \u00e0 la tunique.\n\n--Il a raison! il a parfaitement raison! dit le savant homme avec\nemphase.\n\n--Oui; aussi elle portera une robe de satin blanc, avec des paillettes\nd'or.\n\n--N'aura-t-on pas de la peine \u00e0 reconna\u00eetre son personnage? demanda M.\nSnodgrass.\n\n--Par exemple! riposta M. Winkle avec indignation. Est-ce qu'on ne verra\npas sa lyre?\n\n--C'est vrai: je n'avais pas pens\u00e9 \u00e0 la lyre.\n\n--Et moi, dit alors M. Tupman, j'irai en bandit.\n\n--Quoi? s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick en faisant un soubresaut.\n\n--En bandit, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Tupman avec douceur.\n\n--Vous ne pr\u00e9tendez pas, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick, en examinant son ami avec\nune s\u00e9v\u00e9rit\u00e9 solennelle, vous ne pr\u00e9tendez pas, monsieur Tupman, que\nc'est votre intention de porter une veste de velours vert avec des pans\nlongs de deux doigts?\n\n--C'est pourtant mon intention, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit avec chaleur M.\nTupman; et pourquoi pas s'il vous pla\u00eet?\n\n--Parce que, dit M. Pickwick, consid\u00e9rablement excit\u00e9, parce que vous\n\u00eates trop vieux, monsieur!\n\n--Trop vieux! s'\u00e9cria M. Tupman.\n\n--Et s'il est besoin d'une autre raison, parce que vous \u00eates trop gras,\nmonsieur!...\u00bb\n\nLa figure de M. Tupman devint pourpre.\n\n\u00abMonsieur! cria-t-il, ceci est une insulte....\n\n--Monsieur! r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick, sur le m\u00eame ton, si vous paraissiez\ndevant moi avec une veste de velours vert et des pans longs de deux\ndoigts, ce serait pour moi une insulte beaucoup plus grave.\n\n--Monsieur! vous \u00eates un impertinent!\n\n--Monsieur! vous en \u00eates un autre!\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman s'avan\u00e7a d'un pas ou deux et jeta \u00e0 M. Pickwick un regard de\nd\u00e9fi. M. Pickwick lui renvoya un regard semblable, concentr\u00e9 en un foyer\nd\u00e9vorant par le moyen de ses lunettes. M. Snodgrass et M. Winkle\ndemeuraient immobiles, p\u00e9trifi\u00e9s de voir une telle sc\u00e8ne entre de tels\nhommes.\n\nApr\u00e8s une courte pause, M. Tupman reprit sur un ton plus bas, mais\nprofond\u00e9ment accentu\u00e9: \u00abVous m'avez appel\u00e9 vieux monsieur!\n\n--Oui.\n\n--Et gras.\n\n--Je le r\u00e9p\u00e8te.\n\n--Et impertinent.\n\n--C'est vrai.\u00bb\n\nIl y eut un instant de silence \u00e9pouvantable.\n\n\u00abMon attachement \u00e0 votre personne, monsieur, repartit M. Tupman, en\nparlant d'une voix tremblante d'\u00e9motion, et en relevant en m\u00eame temps\nses manchettes; mon attachement \u00e0 votre personne est grand, tr\u00e8s-grand;\nmais il faut que je prenne sur cette m\u00eame personne une vengeance\nsommaire.\n\n--Avancez, monsieur,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick.\n\nStimul\u00e9 par la nature excitante de ce dialogue, l'homme immortel prit\nimm\u00e9diatement une attitude de paralytique, persuad\u00e9 sans aucun doute,\ncomme le suppos\u00e8rent les deux t\u00e9moins de cette sc\u00e8ne, que c'\u00e9tait une\nposture d\u00e9fensive.\n\nHeureusement que M. Snodgrass se pr\u00e9cipita entre les deux combattants,\nau hasard imminent de recevoir sur les tempes un coup de poing de chacun\nd'eux.\n\n\u00abQuoi! s'\u00e9cria-t-il, recouvrant tout \u00e0 coup le don de la parole, que\nl'exc\u00e8s de son \u00e9tonnement lui avait ravi jusqu'alors. Quoi! monsieur\nPickwick, vous! sur qui les yeux de l'univers sont attach\u00e9s! Monsieur\nTupman! vous qui \u00eates illumin\u00e9, comme nous tous, par l'\u00e9clat divin de\nson nom! Quelle honte, messieurs, quelle honte!\u00bb\n\nDe m\u00eame que les traces de la mine de plomb c\u00e8dent \u00e0 la douce influence\nde la gomme \u00e9lastique, de m\u00eame les sillons inaccoutum\u00e9s imprim\u00e9s par une\ncol\u00e8re passag\u00e8re sur le front lisse et ouvert de M. Pickwick,\ns'effac\u00e8rent graduellement pendant le discours de son jeune ami.\nCelui-ci parlait encore, et d\u00e9j\u00e0 la physionomie du philosophe avait\nrepris son expression habituelle de b\u00e9nignit\u00e9.\n\n\u00abJ'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 trop vif, dit M. Pickwick: beaucoup trop vif. Tupman, votre\nmain.\u00bb\n\nUn nuage sombre qui couvrait la figure de M. Tupman se dissipa \u00e0 ces\nmots, et il pressa chaleureusement la main de son ami en r\u00e9pondant: J'ai\n\u00e9t\u00e9 trop vif aussi.\u00bb\n\n--Non, non, reprit pr\u00e9cipitamment M. Pickwick, c'est moi qui ai tort:\nvous mettrez la veste de velours vert.\n\n--Pas du tout, pas du tout.\n\n--Pour m'obliger, vous la mettrez....\n\n--Eh! bien, eh! bien, je la mettrai donc.\u00bb\n\nIl fut en cons\u00e9quence d\u00e9cid\u00e9 que M. Tupman, M. Winkle et M. Snodgrass\nporteraient des costumes de fantaisie, et c'est ainsi que M. Pickwick\nfut entra\u00een\u00e9, par la chaleur de ses sentiments, \u00e0 approuver une conduite\ndont son excellent jugement l'e\u00fbt d\u00e9tourn\u00e9. On ne pourrait trouver une\npreuve plus frappante de son aimable caract\u00e8re, quand m\u00eame les\n\u00e9v\u00e9nements racont\u00e9s dans ce volume seraient enti\u00e8rement le produit de\nl'imagination.\n\nM. Chasselion n'avait pas exag\u00e9r\u00e9 les ressources de M. Salomon Lucas.\nSes costumes \u00e9taient nombreux, innombrables: non pas strictement\nclassiques, peut-\u00eatre; pas enti\u00e8rement neufs, et ne repr\u00e9sentant\npr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment les modes d'aucun \u00e2ge ni d'aucun pays; mais ils \u00e9taient tous\nplus ou moins paillet\u00e9s; et qu'y a-t-il de plus joli que des paillettes?\nOn peut objecter qu'elles ne font point d'effet \u00e0 la clart\u00e9 du soleil;\nmais tout le monde sait qu'elles \u00e9tincelleraient s'il y avait des\nbougies; or, quand on veut donner des bals d\u00e9guis\u00e9s pendant le jour, si\nles costumes ne brillent pas comme ils auraient brill\u00e9 \u00e0 la lumi\u00e8re, la\nfaute n'en est nullement au paillettes, elle est enti\u00e8rement aux gens\nqui donnent des bals dans la matin\u00e9e. Tels furent les raisonnements\nconvaincants de M. Salomon Lucas, et sous leur influence, MM. Tupman,\nWinkle et Snodgrass s'engag\u00e8rent \u00e0 porter les d\u00e9guisements que son go\u00fbt\net son exp\u00e9rience lui firent recommander comme admirablement appropri\u00e9s\n\u00e0 l'occasion.\n\nUne cal\u00e8che fut lou\u00e9e par les pickwickiens, dans leur h\u00f4tel: un coup\u00e9,\ntir\u00e9 du m\u00eame endroit, devait transporter M. et Mme Pott sur le domaine\nde Mme Chasselion. Comme un remerciement d\u00e9licat de l'invitation qu'il\navait re\u00e7ue, M. Pott avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 pr\u00e9dit avec confiance, dans la _Gazette\nd'Eatanswill_, que la Caverne offrirait une sc\u00e8ne d'enchantement aussi\nvari\u00e9e que d\u00e9licieuse, un \u00e9blouissant foyer de beaut\u00e9s et de talents, un\nspectacle touchant d'hospitalit\u00e9 abondante et prodigue, et surtout un\ndegr\u00e9 de splendeur, adouci par le go\u00fbt le plus d\u00e9licieux; un luxe\nembelli par une parfaite harmonie et par le plus exquis bon ton, et\naupr\u00e8s duquel les merveilles fabuleuses des _Mille et une Nuits_\npara\u00eetraient rev\u00eatues de couleurs aussi lugubres et aussi sombres que\ndoit l'\u00eatre l'esprit de l'\u00eatre atrabilaire et grossier qui oserait\nsouiller du venin de l'envie les pr\u00e9paratifs faits par l'illustre et\nvertueuse dame, \u00e0 l'autel de laquelle est offert cet humble tribut\nd'admiration. Cette derni\u00e8re phrase \u00e9tait un mordant sarcasme dirig\u00e9\ncontre l'_Ind\u00e9pendant_, qui n'ayant pas \u00e9t\u00e9 invit\u00e9 \u00e0 la f\u00eate, avait\naffect\u00e9, dans ses quatre derniers num\u00e9ros, de la tourner en ridicule; et\nqui avait imprim\u00e9 ses plaisanteries \u00e0 ce sujet avec ses plus gros\ncaract\u00e8res, en \u00e9crivant, qui pis est, tous les adjectifs en lettres\nmajuscules.\n\nLe matin arriva. C'\u00e9tait un s\u00e9duisant spectacle de voir M. Tupman, en\ncostume complet de brigand, avec une veste tellement serr\u00e9e qu'elle en\n\u00e9tait pliss\u00e9e sur son dos et sur ses \u00e9paules. La portion sup\u00e9rieure de\nses jambes se trouvait comprim\u00e9e dans une culotte de velours, et la\npartie inf\u00e9rieure \u00e9tait enlac\u00e9e dans les bandages compliqu\u00e9s, pour\nlesquels tous les brigands ont un attachement si inconcevable. C'\u00e9tait\nplaisir de voir ses moustaches retrouss\u00e9es et son col de chemise ouvert,\nd'o\u00f9 sortait un visage plus ouvert encore; c'\u00e9tait plaisir de contempler\nson chapeau en pain de sucre d\u00e9cor\u00e9 de rubans de toutes couleurs, et que\nle brigand \u00e9tait oblig\u00e9 de porter sur ses genoux, car nul mortel ne\nsaurait mettre un semblable chapeau sur sa t\u00eate, dans une voiture\nferm\u00e9e. L'apparence de M. Snodgrass \u00e9tait \u00e9galement agr\u00e9able et\nr\u00e9jouissante: il avait des chausses de satin bleu, des souliers de satin\net de soie; sa t\u00eate \u00e9tait ombrag\u00e9e d'un casque grec; et, comme tout le\nmonde le sait, comme l'affirmait M. Salomon Lucas, il poss\u00e9dait ainsi le\ncostume journalier, authentique, des troubadours, depuis les temps les\nplus recul\u00e9s jusqu'\u00e0 l'\u00e9poque o\u00f9 ils disparurent finalement de la\nsurface de la terre.\n\nLa cal\u00e8che qui transportait le brigand et le troubadour s'arr\u00eata\nderri\u00e8re le coup\u00e9 de M. Pott, lequel coup\u00e9 lui-m\u00eame s'\u00e9tait arr\u00eat\u00e9 \u00e0 la\nporte de M. Pott, laquelle porte s'ouvrit, et parmi les cris de la\npopulace laissa voir le grand journaliste, accoutr\u00e9 comme un officier\nde justice russe, et tenant dans sa main un terrible knout, symbole\n\u00e9l\u00e9gant du redoutable pouvoir que poss\u00e9dait la _Gazette d'Eatanswill_,\net des flagellations effrayantes qu'elle infligeait aux coupables\npolitiques.\n\n\u00abBravo! s'\u00e9cri\u00e8rent M. Tupman et M. Snodgrass en voyant cette all\u00e9gorie\nmarchante.\n\n--Bravo! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta la voix de M. Pickwick du fond du couloir.\n\n--Hou! hou! Pott! oh\u00e9! Pott!\u00bb beugla la populace.\n\nPendant ces salutations, l'\u00e9diteur montait dans le coup\u00e9, tout en\nsouriant avec une sorte de dignit\u00e9 gracieuse, qui t\u00e9moignait\nsuffisamment qu'il sentait son pouvoir et savait comment l'exercer.\n\nApr\u00e8s lui on vit sortir de la maison Mme Pott, qui aurait parfaitement\nressembl\u00e9 \u00e0 Apollon, si elle n'avait pas eu de robe. Elle \u00e9tait conduite\npar M. Winkle, et celui-ci, avec son petit habit rouge, se serait fait\nn\u00e9cessairement reconna\u00eetre pour un chasseur, s'il n'avait point\n\u00e9galement ressembl\u00e9 \u00e0 un facteur de Londres. Enfin parut M. Pickwick, et\nil fut applaudi par les gamins, aussi bruyamment que les autres,\nprobablement parce que sa culotte et ses gu\u00eatres passaient \u00e0 leurs yeux\npour quelque reste de l'antiquit\u00e9.\n\nLes deux voitures se dirig\u00e8rent ensemble vers la demeure de Mme\nChasselion: celle qui contenait M. Pickwick, portait aussi sur le si\u00e9ge\nSam Weller, qui devait aider au service.\n\nTous les individus, hommes et femmes, gar\u00e7ons et filles, bambins et\nvieillards, qui \u00e9taient assembl\u00e9s pour voir les visiteurs dans leurs\ncostumes, se p\u00e2m\u00e8rent de d\u00e9lice quand ils aper\u00e7urent M. Pickwick donnant\nle bras d'un c\u00f4t\u00e9 au brigand, de l'autre au troubadour: mais lorsque M.\nTupman, pour faire son entr\u00e9e dans le bon style, s'effor\u00e7a de fixer sur\nsa t\u00eate son chapeau pointu, des cris tumultueux s'\u00e9lev\u00e8rent, tels qu'on\nn'en avait jamais entendu auparavant.\n\nLes immenses et somptueux pr\u00e9paratifs de la f\u00eate r\u00e9alisaient\ncompl\u00e9tement les proph\u00e9tiques louanges de Pott, _sur les merveilles\nfabuleuses des Mille et une Nuits_, et contredisaient, du m\u00eame coup, les\ninsinuations perfides du venimeux _Ind\u00e9pendant_. Le jardin, qui avait\nplus d'une acre d'\u00e9tendue, \u00e9tait rempli de monde. Jamais on n'avait vu\nun tel foyer de beaut\u00e9, d'\u00e9l\u00e9gance et de litt\u00e9rature. La jeune lady, qui\n_faisait_ la po\u00e9sie dans la _Gazette d'Eatanswill_, s'\u00e9tait rev\u00eatue ou\nplut\u00f4t d\u00e9v\u00eatue d'un costume d'odalisque. Elle s'appuyait sur le bras du\njeune gentleman, qui _faisait_ la critique, et qui portait fort\nconvenablement un uniforme de feld-mar\u00e9chal, moins les bottes. Il y\navait une arm\u00e9e de g\u00e9nies de la m\u00eame force, et toute personne\nraisonnable aurait regard\u00e9 comme un honneur suffisant de se rencontrer\nl\u00e0 avec eux; mais il y avait mieux encore, il y avait une demi-douzaine\nde _lions_ de Londres,--des auteurs, des auteurs r\u00e9els, qui avaient\n\u00e9crit des livres tout entiers, et qui les avaient fait imprimer. On\npouvait les voir, marchant comme des hommes ordinaires, souriant,\nparlant, oui, et disant m\u00eame pas mal de sottises, sans doute dans\nl'intention b\u00e9nigne de se rendre intelligibles aux gens vulgaires qui\nles entouraient. Il y avait en outre une bande de musiciens en chapeaux\nde carton dor\u00e9; quatre chanteurs, soi-disant italiens, dans leur costume\nnational, et une douzaine de domestiques de louage, aussi dans leur\ncostume national, costume fort mal propre, par parenth\u00e8se. Enfin, et\npar-dessus tout, il y avait Mme Chasselion, en Minerve, recevant la\ncompagnie, et laissant d\u00e9border l'orgueil et le plaisir qu'elle\n\u00e9prouvait \u00e0 voir rassembl\u00e9s autour d'elle tant d'individus distingu\u00e9s.\n\n\u00abM. Pickwick, madame,\u00bb dit un domestique; et cet illustre personnage\ns'approcha de la divinit\u00e9 pr\u00e9sidente, ayant ses deux bras pass\u00e9s dans\nceux du brigand et du troubadour, et tenant son chapeau \u00e0 sa main.\n\n\u00abQuoi! o\u00f9? s'\u00e9cria Mme Chasselion, en tressaillant avec un ravissement\nimmense.\n\n--Ici, madame, dit M. Pickwick d'une voix douce.\n\n--Est-il possible que j'aie r\u00e9ellement la satisfaction de voir M.\nPickwick lui-m\u00eame!!!\n\n--En personne, madame, r\u00e9pliqua le philosophe, en saluant tr\u00e8s-bas.\nPermettez-moi de pr\u00e9senter mes amis, M. Tupman, M. Winkle, M. Snodgrass,\n\u00e0 l'auteur de _la Grenouille expirante_.\u00bb\n\nPeu de personnes, \u00e0 moins de l'avoir essay\u00e9 savent combien il est\ndifficile de saluer avec d'\u00e9troites culottes de velours vert, une veste\nserr\u00e9e et un chapeau en pain de sucre; ou bien avec un justaucorps de\nsatin bleu et des bas de soie, o\u00f9 bien avec des jarreti\u00e8res et des\nbottes \u00e0 la russe; surtout quand toutes ces choses n'ont point \u00e9t\u00e9\nfaites pour celui qui les porte, et ont \u00e9t\u00e9 fix\u00e9es sur lui sans la plus\nl\u00e9g\u00e8re attention aux dimensions respectives de l'habillement et de\nl'habill\u00e9. Jamais on ne vit de contorsions semblables \u00e0 celles que\nfaisait M. Tupman pour para\u00eetre \u00e0 son aise et gracieux; jamais on ne vit\nde postures aussi ing\u00e9nieuses que celles de ses compagnons de\nd\u00e9guisement.\n\n\u00abMonsieur Pickwick, dit Mme Chasselion, il faut que vous me promettiez\nde rester aupr\u00e8s de moi durant toute la journ\u00e9e. Il y a ici des\ncentaines de personnes que je dois absolument vous pr\u00e9senter.\n\n--Vous \u00eates bien bonne, madame, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick.\n\n--En premier lieu voici mes fillettes; je les avais presque oubli\u00e9es,\u00bb\ndit Minerve, en montrant d'un air n\u00e9gligent deux demoiselles\nparfaitement d\u00e9velopp\u00e9es, qui pouvaient avoir de vingt \u00e0 vingt-deux ans,\net qui portaient l'une et l'autre des costumes enfantins. \u00c9tait-ce pour\nles faire para\u00eetre plus modestes, o\u00f9 pour faire para\u00eetre leur maman plus\njeune? M. Pickwick ne nous en informe pas clairement.\n\n\u00abElles sont charmantes, dit M. Pickwick, lorsque ces aimables enfants se\nretir\u00e8rent, apr\u00e8s lui avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 pr\u00e9sent\u00e9es.\n\n--Monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pott avec un air de majest\u00e9, c'est qu'elles\nressemblent comme deux gouttes d'eau \u00e0 leur maman.\n\n--Taisez-vous, m\u00e9chant homme! s'\u00e9cria gaiement Mme Chasselion, en\nfrappant de l'\u00e9ventail le bras de l'\u00e9diteur. (Minerve avec un \u00e9ventail!)\n\n--Certainement, ma ch\u00e8re madame Chasselion, reprit M. Pott, qui \u00e9tait le\ntrompette attitr\u00e9 de la Caverne. Vous savez bien que l'ann\u00e9e derni\u00e8re,\nquand votre portrait \u00e9tait \u00e0 l'exposition, tout le monde demandait si\nc'\u00e9tait le v\u00f4tre ou celui de votre plus jeune fille; car vous vous\nressembliez tant qu'il n'y avait pas moyen de faire la diff\u00e9rence.\n\n--Eh bien! quand cela serait, qu'est-ce que vous avez besoin de le\nr\u00e9p\u00e9ter devant des \u00e9trangers? r\u00e9pliqua Minerve en accordant un autre\ncoup d'\u00e9ventail au lion endormi de _la Gazette d'Eatanswill_.\n\n--Comte! comte! cria tout \u00e0 coup Mme Chasselion \u00e0 un individu qui\npassait \u00e0 port\u00e9e de sa voix, et qui avait un uniforme \u00e9tranger, surmont\u00e9\nd'\u00e9normes moustaches.\n\n--Ah! fous fouloir te moi, dit le comte en se retournant.\n\n--Je veux pr\u00e9senter l'un \u00e0 l'autre deux hommes fort spirituels. Monsieur\nPickwick, je suis heureuse de vous pr\u00e9senter le comte Smorltork.\u00bb Mme\nChasselion ajouta \u00e0 l'oreille du philosophe: \u00abLe fameux \u00e9tranger qui\nrassemble des mat\u00e9riaux pour son ouvrage sur l'Angleterre, vous\nsavez?--Le comte Smorltork, monsieur Pickwick.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick salua le comte avec toute la r\u00e9v\u00e9rence due \u00e0 un si grand\nhomme, et le comte tira ses tablettes.\n\n\u00abComment fous tire, madame Ch\u00e2sse-long? demanda le comte en souriant\ngracieusement \u00e0 la dame enchant\u00e9e. Monsieur Pigwig, h\u00e9? ou Bigwig...\nun... avocat, n'est-ce pas? Je vois, c'est \u00e7a, j'inscris monsieur\nBigwig[22].\u00bb\n\n[Footnote 22: _Big-wig_, grosse perruque, sobriquet par lequel on\nd\u00e9signe les avocats.]\n\nLe comte allait enregistrer M. Pickwick sur ses tablettes comme un\ngentleman qui se chargeait de faire les affaires des autres, et dont le\nnom \u00e9tait d\u00e9riv\u00e9 de sa profession, lorsque Mme Chasselion l'arr\u00eata en\ndisant:\n\n\u00abNon, non! comte. Pick-wick.\n\n--Ha! ha! je vois. Pique, nom de bapt\u00eame; Figue, nom de famille.\nTr\u00e8s-fort bien, tr\u00e8s-fort bien. Comment portez-fous, Figue?\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, je vous remercie, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick, avec son affabilit\u00e9\naccoutum\u00e9e. Y a-t-il longtemps que vous \u00eates en Angleterre?\n\n--Long, tr\u00e8s-fort longtemps. Quinzaine... plus....\n\n--Resterez-vous encore longtemps?\n\n--Ein semaine.\n\n--Vous avez beaucoup \u00e0 faire, poursuivit M. Pickwick en souriant, pour\nrassembler en aussi peu de temps tous les mat\u00e9riaux dont vous avez\nbesoin.\n\n--Eh! elles sont rassembler, dit le comte.\n\n--En v\u00e9rit\u00e9! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick.\n\n--Elles sont l\u00e0, ajouta le comte en se frappant le front d'un air\nsignificatif. Dans mon patrie... fort livre... combl\u00e9 de notes...\nmousique, science, po\u00e9sie, politique, tout....\n\n--Le mot _politique_, monsieur, comprend en soi-m\u00eame une \u00e9tude difficile\net d'une immense \u00e9tendue.\n\n--Ah! s'\u00e9cria le comte en tirant ses tablettes; tr\u00e8s-fort bon! Beaux\nparoles pour commencer une capitle. Capitle sept et quarante: _Le mot\npolitique surprend_ en soi-m\u00eame....\u00bb Et la remarque de M. Pickwick fut\nnot\u00e9e dans les tablettes du comte Smorltork, avec les additions et\nvariantes occasionn\u00e9es par son imagination ardente et sa connaissance\nimparfaite de la langue.\n\n\u00abComte! dit Mme Chasselion.\n\n--Madame Ch\u00e2sse? r\u00e9pondit le comte.\n\n--Voici M. Snodgrass, un ami de M. Pickwick, et un po\u00ebte.\n\n--Attendez! s'\u00e9cria le comte en tirant ses tablettes sur nouveaux\nfrais. Lifre, poisie; capitle, amis litt\u00e9raires; nom, l'Homme-grasse.\nTr\u00e8s-fort bien. Pr\u00e9sent\u00e9 \u00e0 l'Homme-grasse, ami de Pique-Figue, par\nmadame Ch\u00e2sse, qui d'autres d\u00e9licats poimes a produits. Comment\ns'appelle? Grenouille.... Grenouille soupirante. Tr\u00e8s-fort bien.\u00bb Et le\ncomte referma ses tablettes, fit mille r\u00e9v\u00e9rences, mille remerc\u00eements,\net s'\u00e9loigna, persuad\u00e9 qu'il venait d'ajouter \u00e0 ses connaissances sur\nl'Angleterre, les plus importantes et les plus utiles observations.\n\n\u00abC'est un homme bien \u00e9tonnant! s'\u00e9cria Minerve.\n\n--Un philosophe profond! ajouta Pott.\n\n--Un esprit fort et p\u00e9n\u00e9trant!\u00bb continua M. Snodgrass.\n\nUn choeur d'invit\u00e9s relev\u00e8rent les louanges du comte Smorltork, en\nsecouant gravement leur t\u00eate et en disant d'une voix unanime:\n\u00ab\u00c9tonnant!!!\u00bb\n\nComme l'enthousiasme en faveur du comte Smorltork s'allumait de plus en\nplus, ses louanges auraient pu \u00eatre c\u00e9l\u00e9br\u00e9es jusqu'\u00e0 la fin de la f\u00eate,\nsi les quatre soi-disant chanteurs italiens, rang\u00e9s autour d'un petit\npommier, pour produire un effet pittoresque, ne s'\u00e9taient pas mis \u00e0\nd\u00e9rouler leurs chansons nationales. Il faut avouer qu'elles ne\nparaissaient point d'une ex\u00e9cution bien difficile, et tout le secret\nsemblait consister \u00e0 ce que trois des soi-disant chanteurs italiens\ngrognaient, tandis que le quatri\u00e8me miaulait. Cet int\u00e9ressant morceau\n\u00e9tant termin\u00e9, aux applaudissements de toute la compagnie, un jeune\ngar\u00e7on commen\u00e7a \u00e0 se faufiler entre les b\u00e2tons d'une chaise, et \u00e0 sauter\npar-dessus, et \u00e0 ramper par-dessous, et \u00e0 se culbuter avec, et \u00e0 en\nfaire toutes les choses imaginables, except\u00e9 de s'asseoir dessus.\nEnsuite il se fit une cravate de ses jambes et les attacha autour de son\ncou; puis il fit voir avec quelle facilit\u00e9 une cr\u00e9ature humaine peut\nprendre l'apparence d'un crapaud. Les nombreux spectateurs \u00e9taient\ntransport\u00e9s de jouissance et d'admiration. Bient\u00f4t apr\u00e8s on entendit\ngazouiller faiblement: c'\u00e9tait la voix de Mme Pott, et ses auditeurs\npleins de courtoisie s'imagin\u00e8rent entendre une chanson parfaitement\nclassique, une vraie chanson de caract\u00e8re, car Apollon \u00e9tait un\ncompositeur, et les compositeurs chantent tr\u00e8s-rarement leurs propres\noeuvres, et pas davantage celles d'autrui. Enfin Mme Chasselion s'avan\u00e7a\net r\u00e9cita son ode immortelle \u00e0 une Grenouille expirante. Des _bravo_,\ndes _brava_, des _bravi_, des _encore_ se firent entendre; et elle la\nr\u00e9cita une seconde fois. Elle allait la r\u00e9citer une troisi\u00e8me, mais la\nmajorit\u00e9 de ses h\u00f4tes, pensant qu'il \u00e9tait bien temps de manger quelque\nchose, s'\u00e9cri\u00e8rent que c'\u00e9tait une honte d'abuser de la complaisance de\nMme Chasselion. Vainement Mme Chasselion protesta qu'elle \u00e9tait tout \u00e0\nfait dispos\u00e9e \u00e0 r\u00e9citer son ode sur nouveaux frais; ses amis \u00e9taient\ntrop polis, trop discrets, trop soigneux de sa sant\u00e9, pour consentir \u00e0\nl'entendre encore, sous aucun pr\u00e9texte. La salle des rafra\u00eechissements\nfut donc ouverte, et tous ceux qui \u00e9taient d\u00e9j\u00e0 venus chez Mme\nChasselion se pr\u00e9cipit\u00e8rent en tumulte, pour y arriver les premiers. Ils\nsavaient, en effet, que l'habitude de cette illustre dame \u00e9tait de faire\nfaire un d\u00e9jeuner pour cinquante et des invitations pour trois cents;\nou, en d'autres termes, de nourrir les _lions_ les plus remarquables, et\nde laisser les petits animaux se tirer d'affaire comme ils pouvaient.\n\n\u00abO\u00f9 donc est monsieur Pott? demanda Mme Chasselion en s'occupant de\nplacer les susdits lions autour d'elle.\n\n--Me voici! s'\u00e9cria l'\u00e9diteur du bout le plus recul\u00e9 de la chambre, hors\nde toute esp\u00e9rance de nourriture, \u00e0 moins que son h\u00f4tesse ne fit quelque\nchose d'extraordinaire pour lui.\n\n--Voulez-vous venir par ici? lui cria-t-elle.\n\n--Oh! je vous en prie, ne vous tourmentez pas pour lui, interrompit Mme\nPott de sa voix la plus obligeante. Vous vous donnez beaucoup trop de\npeine, madame Chasselion. Il est tr\u00e8s-bien l\u00e0-bas. N'est-ce pas, mon\ncher, que vous \u00eates tr\u00e8s-bien l\u00e0-bas?\n\n--Certainement, mon amour,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua l'infortun\u00e9 Pott avec un triste\nsourire. H\u00e9las! \u00e0 quoi lui servait son knout? Le bras nerveux qui le\nfaisait tomber sur les hommes publics avec une vigueur gigantesque,\n\u00e9tait paralys\u00e9 par un coup d'oeil de l'imp\u00e9rieuse Mme Pott.\n\nMme Chasselion regarda autour d'elle avec triomphe. Le comte Smorltork\n\u00e9tait activement occup\u00e9 \u00e0 prendre note de ce que contenaient les plats;\nM. Tupman, avec plus de gr\u00e2ce que n'en avaient jamais d\u00e9ploy\u00e9 tous les\nbrigands de l'Italie, faisait \u00e0 diverses lionnes les honneurs d'une\nsalade de homard; M. Snodgrass, ayant supplant\u00e9 le jeune gentleman\ncharg\u00e9 des _\u00e9reintements_ dans la _Gazette d'Eatanswill_, \u00e9tait enfonc\u00e9\ndans une dissertation passionn\u00e9e avec la jeune lady qui _faisait_ la\npo\u00e9sie; et M. Pickwick, enfin, se rendait universellement agr\u00e9able: rien\nne semblait manquer \u00e0 ce cercle choisi, lorsque M. Chasselion, dont le\nd\u00e9partement, dans ces occasions, \u00e9tait de se tenir debout pr\u00e8s de la\nporte, et de parler aux gens les moins importants, cria de toutes ses\nforces \u00e0 Minerve:\n\n\u00abMa ch\u00e8re, voici M. Charles Fitz-Marshall.\n\n--Enfin! s'\u00e9cria Mme Chasselion. Avec quelle anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 je l'ai attendu!\nMessieurs, je vous prie, laissez passer M. Fitz-Marshall. Mon cher,\ndites \u00e0 M. Fitz-Marshall de venir me trouver sur-le-champ, pour que je\nle gronde d'\u00eatre arriv\u00e9 si tard.\n\n--Voil\u00e0, ma ch\u00e8re dame, dit une voix claire. Aussi vite que\npossible,--foule \u00e9tonnante,--chambre comble,--fort difficile\nd'approcher, tr\u00e8s-difficile.\u00bb\n\nLe couteau et la fourchette de M. Pickwick lui tomb\u00e8rent des mains. Il\nregarda M. Tupman, qui avait aussi laiss\u00e9 tomber sa fourchette et son\ncouteau, et qui paraissait pr\u00eat \u00e0 s'ab\u00eemer sous terre.\n\n\u00abAh!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria la voix, tandis que son possesseur s'ouvrait un passage \u00e0\ntravers une vingtaine de Turcs, d'officiers, de cavaliers et de Charles\nII, qui formaient une derni\u00e8re barricade entre lui et la table.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0 mes v\u00eatements tout cylindr\u00e9s,--brevet d'invention,--pas un pli\ndans mon habit,--joliment press\u00e9!--Pas besoin de faire repasser mon\nlinge, ha! ha!--la bonne id\u00e9e,--dr\u00f4le de chose, malgr\u00e9 \u00e7a, de faire\ncylindrer son linge sur soi,--op\u00e9ration fatigante, tr\u00e8s-fatigante.\u00bb\n\nEn pronon\u00e7ant ces phrases bris\u00e9es, un jeune homme, v\u00eatu en officier de\nmarine, parvint \u00e0 s'approcher de la table, et pr\u00e9senta aux regards\n\u00e9tonn\u00e9s des pickwickiens la tournure et les traits identiques de M.\nAlfred Jingle.\n\nIl avait \u00e0 peine eu le temps de prendre la main que lui tendait Mme\nChasselion, lorsque ses yeux rencontr\u00e8rent les orbes indign\u00e9s de M.\nPickwick.\n\n\u00abTiens! tiens! s'\u00e9cria le coupable; oubli\u00e9,--pas d'ordre aux\npostillons,--j'y vais moi-m\u00eame,--revenu dans un instant.\n\n--Le domestique, ou bien M. Chasselion, donnera vos ordres, monsieur\nFitz-Marshall, dit la ma\u00eetresse de la maison.\n\n--Non! non!--moi-m\u00eame, ne serai pas long,--revenu dans un clin d'oeil,\u00bb\nr\u00e9pliqua Jingle, et il disparut dans la foule.\n\nM. Pickwick se leva plein d'indignation.\n\n\u00abMadame, dit-il, permettez-moi de vous demander qui est ce jeune homme,\net o\u00f9 il r\u00e9side?\n\n--C'est un gentleman d'une grande fortune, monsieur Pickwick, \u00e0 qui je\nmeurs d'envie de vous pr\u00e9senter. Le comte aussi sera enchant\u00e9 de le\nconna\u00eetre.\n\n--Oui, oui, comptez l\u00e0-dessus, dit M. Pickwick avec vivacit\u00e9. Il\ndemeure?\n\n--A Bury, h\u00f4tel de l'Ange.\n\n--A Bury?\n\n--A Bury Saint-Edmunds, \u00e0 quelques milles d'ici.... Mais, mon Dieu!\nmonsieur Pickwick, vous n'allez pas nous quitter. Vous ne pouvez pas,\nmonsieur Pickwick, songer \u00e0 vous en aller sit\u00f4t.\u00bb\n\nLongtemps avant que Mme Chasselion eut prononc\u00e9 ces paroles, M. Pickwick\ns'\u00e9tait plong\u00e9 dans la foule et avait atteint le jardin. Il y fut\nbient\u00f4t rejoint par M. Tupman, qui l'avait suivi de pr\u00e8s et qui lui dit:\n\n\u00abCela est inutile, il est parti.\n\n--Je le sais, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick, avec chaleur, et je le suivrai!\n\n--Vous le suivrez! Ou donc?\n\n--A Bury, h\u00f4tel de l'Ange. Comment savons-nous s'il n'abuse point\nquelqu'un dans cet endroit? Il a tromp\u00e9 une fois un digne homme, et nous\nen \u00e9tions la cause innocente: cela n'arrivera plus, si je puis\nl'emp\u00eacher! Je veux le d\u00e9masquer.--Sam! o\u00f9 est mon domestique?\n\n--Voil\u00e0! ici, monsieur, dit Sam, en sortant d'un endroit \u00e9cart\u00e9, o\u00f9 il\n\u00e9tait occup\u00e9 \u00e0 examiner une bouteille de vin de Mad\u00e8re, qu'il avait\nenlev\u00e9e sur la table une heure ou deux auparavant. Voil\u00e0 vot' serviteur,\nmonsieur, et fier du titre encore, comme disait au public l'esquelette\nvivant qu'on faisait voir pour trois pence.\n\n--Suivez-moi sur-le-champ! reprit M. Pickwick.--Tupman, si je reste \u00e0\nBury, vous pourrez m'y rejoindre quand je vous \u00e9crirai. Jusque-l\u00e0,\nadieu!\u00bb\n\nLes remontrances devenaient inutiles: M. Pickwick \u00e9tait anim\u00e9, et sa\nr\u00e9solution \u00e9tait prise. M. Tupman retourna vers ses compagnons, et, une\nheure apr\u00e8s, il avait noy\u00e9 tout souvenir de M. Alfred Jingle, ou de M.\nCharles Fitz-Marshall, au moyen d'une bouteille de vin de Champagne et\nd'une contredanse, \u00e9galement p\u00e9tillantes.\n\nPendant ce temps, M. Pickwick et Sam Weller, perch\u00e9s \u00e0 l'ext\u00e9rieur d'une\nvoiture publique, voyaient de minute en minute diminuer la distance qui\nles s\u00e9parait de la bonne ville de Bury Saint-Edmunds.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XVI.\n\nTrop plein d'aventures pour qu'on puisse les r\u00e9sumer bri\u00e8vement.\n\n\nIl n'y a pas, dans toute l'ann\u00e9e, de mois o\u00f9 la nature ait un plus joli\nvisage que durant le mois d'ao\u00fbt. Le printemps a bien des charmes, et\nmai, certainement, est frais et joli, et son \u00e9clat est rehauss\u00e9 par le\ncontraste des frimas qui viennent de finir. Ao\u00fbt n'a pas de semblables\navantages: lorsqu'il arrive, nos sens sont accoutum\u00e9s \u00e0 la puret\u00e9 du\nciel, au verdoiement des prairies, au parfum embaum\u00e9 des fleurs; le\nbrouillard, le givre, la neige et les glaces sont effac\u00e9s de notre\nm\u00e9moire, comme de la surface de la terre. Et cependant, quelle saison\ncharmante! Les champs, les vergers, sont anim\u00e9s par la voix, par la\npr\u00e9sence des travailleurs; les arbres, charg\u00e9s de fruits, inclinent\nleurs branches jusqu'\u00e0 terre; les bl\u00e9s, r\u00e9unis en gerbes gracieuses ou\nse balan\u00e7ant au souffle du z\u00e9phir comme pour agacer la faucille,\ncouvrent le paysage d'une teinte dor\u00e9e; une douce langueur semble\nr\u00e9pandue sur toute la nature, et l'on dirait m\u00eame que la molle influence\nde la saison s'\u00e9tend jusque sur les charrettes dont l'oeil aper\u00e7oit le\nmouvement uniforme \u00e0 travers les champs moissonn\u00e9s, sans que l'oreille\nsoit d\u00e9chir\u00e9e par aucun bruit inharmonieux.\n\nPendant que la voiture publique roule rapidement \u00e0 travers les champs et\nles vergers qui bordent la route, des groupes de femmes et d'enfants,\nempilant des fruits dans des corbeilles ou recueillant les \u00e9pis de bl\u00e9\ndispers\u00e9s, suspendent un instant leur travail, abritent leurs visages\nbrunis par le soleil avec une main plus brune encore, et suivent les\nvoyageurs d'un regard curieux; quelque vigoureux bambin, trop jeune pour\ntravailler, mais trop turbulent pour \u00eatre laiss\u00e9 \u00e0 la maison, se hisse\nsur le bord du grand panier o\u00f9 il a \u00e9t\u00e9 emprisonn\u00e9, et gigotte et\nbraille avec d\u00e9lices; le moissonneur arr\u00eate sa faucille, se redresse,\ncroise les bras et contemple la voiture qui passe aupr\u00e8s de lui comme un\ntourbillon; les lourds chevaux de son char rustique suivent l'attelage\nbrillant et anim\u00e9 d'un regard endormi, qui dit aussi clairement que le\npeut dire un regard de cheval: \u00abTout cela est fort joli \u00e0 regarder,\nmais marcher lentement dans une terre pesante vaut encore mieux, apr\u00e8s\ntout, que de galoper si chaudement sur une route pleine de poussi\u00e8re!\u00bb\nCependant les voyageurs volent, et, profitant d'un d\u00e9tour, jettent un\ndernier coup d'oeil derri\u00e8re eux: les femmes et les enfants ont repris\nleur travail; le moissonneur s'est courb\u00e9 de nouveau sur sa faucille;\nles chevaux de labour poursuivent leur marche mesur\u00e9e; et tout se\nmontre, comme tout \u00e0 l'heure, plein de vie et de mouvement.\n\nUne semblable sc\u00e8ne ne pouvait manquer d'influer sur l'esprit d\u00e9licat et\nbien r\u00e9gl\u00e9 de M. Pickwick. Pr\u00e9occup\u00e9 de la r\u00e9solution qu'il avait form\u00e9e\nde d\u00e9masquer le v\u00e9ritable caract\u00e8re de Jingle, en quelque lieu qu'il p\u00fbt\nle d\u00e9couvrir, il \u00e9tait demeur\u00e9 d'abord taciturne et r\u00eaveur,\nr\u00e9fl\u00e9chissant aux moyens qu'il devait employer pour r\u00e9ussir dans son\nprojet; mais peu \u00e0 peu son attention fut attir\u00e9e par les objets\nenvironnants, et \u00e0 la fin il y prit autant de plaisir que s'il avait\nentrepris ce voyage pour la cause la plus agr\u00e9able du monde.\n\n\u00abD\u00e9licieux paysage, Sam! dit-il \u00e0 son domestique.\n\n--Enfonce les toits et les chemin\u00e9es, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit celui-ci en\ntouchant son chapeau.\n\n--En effet, reprit M. Pickwick avec un sourire, je suppose que vous\nn'avez gu\u00e8re vu, toute votre vie, que des toits et des chemin\u00e9es, du\nmortier et des briques.\n\n--Je n'ai pas toujours \u00e9t\u00e9 valet d'auberge, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Sam en\nsecouant la t\u00eate. J'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 autrefois gar\u00e7on de roulier.\n\n--Quand cela?\n\n--Quand j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 jet\u00e9 la t\u00eate la premi\u00e8re dans le monde pour jouer \u00e0\nsaute-mouton avec ses soucis. Donc, pour commencer, j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 gar\u00e7on d'un\ncharretier, et puis ensuite d'un roulier, et puis ensuite\ncommissionnaire, et puis ensuite valet d'auberge. A pr\u00e9sent v'l\u00e0 que je\nsuis domestique d'un gentleman. Je serai peut-\u00eatre un gentleman moi-m\u00eame\nun de ces jours, avec ma pipe dans ma bouche et un berceau dans mon\njardin. Qui sait? je n'en serais pas surpris, moi.\n\n--Vous \u00eates un v\u00e9ritable philosophe, Sam.\n\n--Je crois que \u00e7a court dans la famille, monsieur. Mon p\u00e8re est dans\ncette profession-l\u00e0 maintenant. Quand ma belle-m\u00e8re le tarabuste, il se\nmet \u00e0 siffler; elle s'enl\u00e8ve comme une soupe au lait, et elle lui casse\nsa pipe: il s'en va pacifiquement, et il en rapporte une autre; alors\nelle braille tant qu'elle peut, et elle tombe dans des attaques de\nnerfs: il ne bouge pas, il fume confortablement jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'elle\nrevienne. C'est \u00e7a de la philosophie, monsieur!...\n\n--Ou du moins un tr\u00e8s-bon \u00e9quivalent, r\u00e9pondit en riant M. Pickwick.\nCela doit vous avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 fort utile dans votre vie errante, Sam.\n\n--Utile, monsieur! vous pouvez bien le dire. Apr\u00e8s que je me suis sauv\u00e9\nd'avec le charretier et avant que j'aie rentr\u00e9 avec le roulier, j'ai\ncouch\u00e9 pendant une quinzaine dans un appartement sans meubles.\n\n--Un appartement sans meubles!\n\n--Oui, les arches \u00e0 sec du pont de Waterloo. Jolie chambre \u00e0 coucher; \u00e0\ndix minutes du centre des affaires. Seulement s'il y a quelque chose \u00e0\nlui reprocher, c'est qu'elle est un peu a\u00e9r\u00e9e. J'ai vu l\u00e0 des dr\u00f4les de\nspectacles.\n\n--Ha! je le suppose, dit M. Pickwick d'un air plein d'int\u00e9r\u00eat.\n\n--Des spectacles qui perceraient votre tendre coeur, monsieur, et qui\nressortiraient de l'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9. On n'y trouve pas les mendiants\nr\u00e9guliers; vous pouvez vous fier \u00e0 ceux-l\u00e0 pour savoir se tirer\nd'affaire. De jeunes mendiants, m\u00e2les et femelles, qui n'ont pas encore\nfait leur chemin dans la profession, s'y logent quelquefois; mais c'est\ng\u00e9n\u00e9ralement les pauvres cr\u00e9atures sans asile, \u00e9reint\u00e9es, mourant de\nfaim, qui se roulent dans les coins sombres de ces tristes places; les\npauvres cr\u00e9atures qui ne peuvent pas se repasser la corde de deux pence.\n\n--Dites-moi, Sam, qu'est-ce que c'est que la corde de deux pence?\n\n--C'est une auberge, monsieur, o\u00f9 les lits co\u00fbtent deux pence par\nnuit....\n\n--Pourquoi donnent-ils aux lits le nom de _cordes_?\n\n--Que vous \u00eates donc jeune, monsieur! Quand les ladies et les gentlemen\nqui tiennent ces h\u00f4tels-l\u00e0 ont ouvert leur bazar, ils faisaient les lits\nsur le plancher, mais ils ne faisaient pas leurs affaires. Au lieu de\nprendre un somme raisonnable pour deux pence, les logeurs s'y vautraient\nla moiti\u00e9 de la journ\u00e9e. Aussi, maintenant, ils ont deux cordes,\n\u00e9loign\u00e9es d'\u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s six pieds, et \u00e0 trois pieds du plancher, qui vont\ntout du long de la chambre, et les lits sont faits avec des grosses\ntoiles tendues en travers.\n\n--Eh bien?\n\n--Eh bien! l'avantage du plan est visible. Tous les matins, \u00e0 six\nheures, ils laissent aller une des cordes, et patatra, v'l\u00e0 tous les\nlogeurs par terre. \u00c7a les r\u00e9veille fameusement, ils se rel\u00e8vent de bonne\nhumeur, et ils s'en vont comme des jolis gar\u00e7ons.... Demande pardon,\nmonsieur, dit Sam, en interrompant tout \u00e0 coup son verbeux discours,\nc'est-il Bury Saint-Edmunds qu'est l\u00e0-bas?\n\n--Pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick.\u00bb\n\nBient\u00f4t apr\u00e8s la voiture roula dans les rues propres et bien pav\u00e9es\nd'une jolie petite ville, et s'arr\u00eata devant une auberge situ\u00e9e au\nmilieu de la grande route, presque en face de l'antique abbaye.\n\n\u00abVoici l'Ange, dit M. Pickwick, en regardant l'enseigne. Nous descendons\nici, Sam. Mais il faut prendre quelques pr\u00e9cautions. Demandez une\nchambre particuli\u00e8re et ne mentionnez pas mon nom; vous comprenez.\n\n--Compris! monsieur,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit Sam, avec un clin d'oeil intelligent. Il\ntira le portemanteau du coffre de derri\u00e8re, o\u00f9 il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 jet\u00e9 \u00e0\nEatanswill, et disparut pour faire sa commission. Une chambre\nparticuli\u00e8re fut facilement retenue, et M. Pickwick y fut introduit sans\nd\u00e9lai.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, Sam, dit M. Pickwick, la premi\u00e8re chose \u00e0 faire....\n\n--C'est de commander le d\u00eener, monsieur, sugg\u00e9ra Sam: il est fort tard,\nmonsieur.\n\n--Ah! c'est vrai, r\u00e9pliqua le philosophe en regardant sa montre. Vous\navez raison, Sam.\n\n--Et si c'\u00e9tait moi, monsieur, je voudrais prendre juste une bonne nuit\nde repos avant de demander des renseignements sur ce finaud. Il n'y a\nrien pour rafra\u00eechir l'esprit comme un bon somme, monsieur, comme dit la\nservante avant d'avaler son petit verre de l'eau d'\u00e2non.\n\n--Je crois que vous avez raison, Sam; mais je veux d'abord m'assurer\nqu'il est dans cet h\u00f4tel et qu'il ne m'\u00e9chappera point.\n\n--Laissez-moi c'te affaire-l\u00e0, monsieur. Je vas vous ordonner un joli\npetit d\u00eener et faire une enqu\u00eate en bas, pendant qu'on l'appr\u00eatera. Je\ntirerai tous les secrets du d\u00e9crotteur, en cinq minutes.\n\n--A la bonne heure,\u00bb dit M. Pickwick, et Sam se retira.\n\nAu bout d'une demi-heure M. Pickwick \u00e9tait assis devant un d\u00eener\ntr\u00e8s-satisfaisant, et un quart d'heure plus tard, Sam lui rapportait\nl'assurance que M. Charles Fitz-Marshall avait retenu, jusqu'\u00e0 nouvel\nordre, sa chambre particuli\u00e8re; il \u00e9tait all\u00e9 passer la soir\u00e9e dans une\nmaison du voisinage, avait ordonn\u00e9 au gar\u00e7on de l'attendre et avait\nemmen\u00e9 son domestique avec lui.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, monsieur, continua Sam, apr\u00e8s avoir fait son rapport, si je\npuis causer un brin avec ce domestique ici, il me contera toutes les\naffaires de son ma\u00eetre.\n\n--Comment savez-vous cela? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Que vous \u00eates donc jeune monsieur! Tous les domestiques en font\nautant.\n\n--Oh! oh! fit le philosophe, j'avais oubli\u00e9 cela: c'est bon.\n\n--Alors, vous verrez ce qu'il y a de mieux \u00e0 faire, monsieur, nous\nagirons en cons\u00e9quence.\u00bb\n\nComme cet arrangement paraissait le meilleur possible, il fut finalement\nadopt\u00e9. Sam se retira, avec la permission de son ma\u00eetre, pour passer la\nsoir\u00e9e comme il l'entendrait. Il dirigea ses pas vers la buvette de la\nmaison, et peu de temps apr\u00e8s, fut \u00e9lev\u00e9 au fauteuil par la voix unanime\nde l'assembl\u00e9e. Une fois parvenu \u00e0 ce poste honorable, il fit \u00e9clater\ntant de m\u00e9rite, que les \u00e9clats de rire des gentlemen habitu\u00e9s, et les\nmarques bruyantes de leur satisfaction, parvinrent jusqu'\u00e0 la chambre \u00e0\ncoucher de M. Pickwick, et raccourcirent, de plus de trois heures, la\ndur\u00e9e naturelle de son sommeil.\n\nLe lendemain, d\u00e8s le matin, Sam Weller s'occupa de calmer l'agitation\nfi\u00e9vreuse qui lui restait de la veille, par l'application d'une douche\nd'un penny; c'est-\u00e0-dire que, moyennant cette pi\u00e8ce de monnaie, il\nengagea un jeune gentleman du d\u00e9partement de l'\u00e9curie \u00e0 faire jouer la\npompe sur sa t\u00eate et sur sa face, jusqu'\u00e0 l'enti\u00e8re restauration de ses\nfacult\u00e9s intellectuelles. Tandis qu'il subissait ce traitement m\u00e9dical,\nson attention fut attir\u00e9e par un jeune homme, assis sur un banc, dans la\ncour. Il \u00e9tait v\u00eatu d'une livr\u00e9e violette, et lisait dans un livre\nd'hymnes, avec un air d'abstraction profonde, qui ne l'emp\u00eachait\ncependant pas de jeter de temps en temps un coup d'oeil vers Sam, comme\ns'il avait pris grand int\u00e9r\u00eat \u00e0 l'op\u00e9ration qu'il se faisait faire.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0 un dr\u00f4le de corps, pensa celui-ci, la premi\u00e8re fois que ses yeux\nrencontr\u00e8rent ceux de l'\u00e9tranger en livr\u00e9e violette. Et, en effet, avec\nson p\u00e2le visage, large et plat, avec ses yeux enfonc\u00e9s et sa t\u00eate\n\u00e9norme, d'o\u00f9 pendaient plusieurs m\u00e8ches de cheveux noirs et lisses,\nl'\u00e9tranger pouvait passer pour un dr\u00f4le de corps. \u00abVoil\u00e0 un dr\u00f4le de\ncorps,\u00bb pensa donc Sam Weller, et apr\u00e8s avoir pens\u00e9 cela, il continua de\nse laver, et n'y pensa pas davantage.\n\nCependant l'homme en livr\u00e9e violette continuait \u00e0 regarder Sam et son\nlivre d'hymnes, son livre d'hymnes et Sam, comme s'il avait eu envie\nd'entamer la conversation. A la fin, pour lui en fournir l'occasion, Sam\nlui dit, avec un signe de t\u00eate familier: \u00abComment \u00e7a va-t-il, mon\nbonhomme?\n\n--Je suis heureux de pouvoir dire que je vais assez bien, monsieur,\nr\u00e9pondit l'homme violet d'une voix mesur\u00e9e et en fermant son livre avec\npr\u00e9caution. J'esp\u00e8re que vous allez de m\u00eame, monsieur?\n\n--Eh! eh! je serais plus solide sur mes jambes si je ne me sentais pas\ncomme une bouteille d'eau-de-vie ambulante; mais vous, mon vieux,\nrestez-vous dans cette maison ici?\u00bb\n\nL'homme violet r\u00e9pondit affirmativement.\n\n\u00abComment se fait-il donc que vous n'\u00e9tiez pas avec nous hier soir?\ndemanda Sam, en se frottant la face avec un essuie-mains. Vous me faites\nl'effet d'un bon vivant, l'air aussi gaillard qu'une truite dans un\npanier plein de chaux, ajouta-t-il d'un ton un peu plus bas.\n\n--J'\u00e9tais sorti avec mon ma\u00eetre, r\u00e9pondit l'\u00e9tranger.\n\n--Comment s'appelle-t-il? demanda vivement Sam Weller, dont le visage\ndevint tout rouge par l'effet combin\u00e9 de la surprise et du frottement de\nson essuie-mains.\n\n--Fitz-Marshall, r\u00e9pliqua l'homme violet.\n\n--Donnez-moi la patte, dit Sam en s'avan\u00e7ant vers lui. J'ai envie de\nvous conna\u00eetre, votre philosomie me va, mon fiston.\n\n--Eh bien! voil\u00e0 qui est tr\u00e8s-extraordinaire, r\u00e9torqua l'homme violet,\navec une grande simplicit\u00e9 de mani\u00e8res. La v\u00f4tre m'a plus si fort, que\nj'ai eu envie de vous parler, d\u00e8s le premier moment o\u00f9 je vous ai vu\nsous la pompe.\n\n--C'est-il vrai.\n\n--Sur mon honneur! Cela n'est-il pas curieux, hein?\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-curieux, r\u00e9pondu Sam, en se congratulant int\u00e9rieurement sur la\nbonhomie de l'\u00e9tranger. Comment nous appelons-nous, mon patriarche?\n\n--Job.\n\n--Et c'est un fameux nom. Le seul nom, \u00e0 ma connaissance, qui n'a pas\nre\u00e7u une abr\u00e9viation. Et l'autre nom?\n\n--Trotter, dit l'\u00e9tranger. Et le v\u00f4tre?\u00bb\n\nSam se rappela les ordres de son ma\u00eetre et r\u00e9pondit: \u00abMon nom est\nWalker, le nom de mon ma\u00eetre est Wilkins. Voulez-vous prendre une goutte\nde quelque chose ce matin, M. Trotter?\u00bb\n\nM. Trotter donna son complet assentiment \u00e0 cette agr\u00e9able proposition,\net ayant d\u00e9pos\u00e9 son livre dans la poche de son habit, il accompagna M.\nWalker \u00e0 la buvette. L\u00e0, ils s'occup\u00e8rent \u00e0 discuter le m\u00e9rite d'un\nagr\u00e9able m\u00e9lange, contenu dans un vase d'\u00e9tain et compos\u00e9 de l'essence\nparfum\u00e9e du clou de girofle et d'une certaine quantit\u00e9 de geni\u00e8vre de\nHollande, fabriqu\u00e9 en Angleterre.\n\n\u00abEt c'est-il une bonne place que vous avez? demanda Sam, en remplissant\npour la seconde fois le verre de son compagnon.\n\n--Mauvaise, r\u00e9pondit Job, en se l\u00e9chant les l\u00e8vres, tr\u00e8s-mauvaise.\n\n--Vrai?\n\n--Oui, s\u00fbr; et pire que cela; mon ma\u00eetre va se marier.\n\n--Pas possible!\n\n--Si, et pire que cela. Il va enlever une grosse h\u00e9riti\u00e8re dans une\npension.\n\n--Quel dragon! dit Sam, en remplissant encore le verre de son camarade.\nC'est quelque pension de cette ville, je suppose?\u00bb\n\nCette question fut faite du ton le plus indiff\u00e9rent qu'on puisse\nimaginer. Cependant M. Job Trotter montra clairement, par ses mani\u00e8res,\nqu'il remarquait avec quelle anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 son nouvel ami attendait sa\nr\u00e9ponse. Il vida son verre, regarda myst\u00e9rieusement Sam Weller, cligna\nl'un apr\u00e8s l'autre chacun de ses petits yeux, et finalement fit avec sa\nmain le geste de manier une pompe imaginaire, donnant \u00e0 entendre par l\u00e0\nqu'il consid\u00e9rait son compagnon comme trop d\u00e9sireux de pomper ses\nsecrets.\n\n\u00abNon, non, observa-t-il, en conclusion. Cela ne se dit pas \u00e0 tout le\nmonde. C'est un secret; un grand secret, M. Walker.\u00bb\n\nEn pronon\u00e7ant ces paroles, l'homme violet retourna son verre sens dessus\ndessous, afin de faire remarquer ing\u00e9nieusement \u00e0 son compagnon qu'il\nn'y restait plus rien pour assouvir sa soif. Sam comprit l'apologue; il\nen appr\u00e9cia la d\u00e9licatesse, et ordonna de remplir, sur nouveaux frais,\nle vase d'\u00e9tain. Cet ordre fit briller de plaisir les petits yeux de\nl'homme violet.\n\n\u00abAinsi donc, c'est un secret? reprit Sam.\n\n--Je l'imagine comme cela, r\u00e9pliqua l'autre en sirotant sa liqueur avec\ncomplaisance.\n\n--Je suppose que votre ma\u00eetre est un richard?\u00bb\n\nM. Trotter sourit, et, tenant son verre de la main gauche, il donna,\navec sa main droite, quatre tapes distinctes sur le gousset de sa\nculotte violette, comme pour faire entendre que son ma\u00eetre aurait pu\nagir de m\u00eame sans alarmer personne par le bruit de son argent.\n\n\u00abAh! reprit Sam, voil\u00e0 l'histoire?\u00bb\n\nL'homme violet baissa la t\u00eate d'une mani\u00e8re significative.\n\n\u00abEt est-ce que vous n'imaginez pas, mon vieux, que vous seriez une\nfameuse canaille si vous laissiez votre ma\u00eetre empoigner cette jeune\ndemoiselle?\n\n--Je sais cela, r\u00e9pliqua Job Trotter, en soupirant profond\u00e9ment et en\ntournant vers son interlocuteur un visage plein de contrition. Je sais\ncela, et c'est ce qui p\u00e8se sur mon esprit; mais qu'est-ce que je peux\nfaire?\n\n--Faire? s'\u00e9cria Sam, chanter \u00e0 la ma\u00eetresse et enfoncer votre ma\u00eetre.\n\n--Qui est-ce qui me croirait? La jeune lady est regard\u00e9e comme un mod\u00e8le\nde prudence et de discr\u00e9tion; elle dirait que non, et mon ma\u00eetre aussi.\nQui est-ce qui me croirait? Je perdrais ma place et je me verrais\npoursuivi comme diffamateur ou quelque chose comme \u00e7a. Voil\u00e0 tout ce que\nj'y gagnerais.\n\n--Il y a du vrai, dit Sam en ruminant; il y a du vrai dans ce que vous\ndites l\u00e0.\n\n--Si je connaissais quelque respectable gentleman qui voul\u00fbt se charger\nde l'affaire, je pourrais esp\u00e9rer d'emp\u00eacher l'enl\u00e8vement. Mais il y a\nla m\u00eame difficult\u00e9, monsieur Walker; juste la m\u00eame. Je ne connais pas de\ngentleman respectable en ce pays, et si j'en connaissais un, il y a dix\n\u00e0 parier contre un qu'il ne croirait pas mon r\u00e9cit.\n\n--Venez par ici, cria Sam, en se levant tout d'un coup et en saisissant\nson compagnon par le bras. Mon ma\u00eetre est l'homme qu'il vous faut.\u00bb\n\nApr\u00e8s une l\u00e9g\u00e8re r\u00e9sistance, Job Trotter fut conduit dans l'appartement\nde M. Pickwick, et lui fut pr\u00e9sent\u00e9, avec un court sommaire du dialogue\nque nous venons de rapporter.\n\n\u00abJe suis bien f\u00e2ch\u00e9 de trahir mon ma\u00eetre, monsieur, dit Job Trotter, en\nappliquant \u00e0 son oeil un mouchoir rouge d'environ trois pouces carr\u00e9s.\n\n--Ce sentiment vous fait beaucoup d'honneur, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick.\nMais, cependant, c'est votre devoir....\n\n--Je sais que c'est mon devoir, monsieur, reprit Job avec une grande\n\u00e9motion. Nous devons tous nous efforcer de remplir nos devoirs,\nmonsieur, et je m'efforce humblement de remplir les miens, monsieur.\nMais c'est une dure \u00e9preuve de trahir un ma\u00eetre, monsieur, dont vous\nportez les habits, dont vous mangez le pain, m\u00eame quand c'est un coquin,\nmonsieur.\n\n--Vous \u00eates un brave gar\u00e7on, dit M. Pickwick fort affect\u00e9, un honn\u00eate\ngar\u00e7on.\n\n--Allons! allons! observa Sam, qui avait vu avec beaucoup d'impatience\nles larmes de M. Trotter; assez d'arrosage comme \u00e7a; \u00e7a n'est bon \u00e0\nrien.\n\n--Sam, reprit M. Pickwick d'un ton de reproche, je suis f\u00e2ch\u00e9 de voir\nque vous ayez si peu de respect pour les sentiments de ce jeune homme.\n\n--Ses sentiments sont tr\u00e8s-beaux, monsieur, et m\u00eames si beaux que c'est\nune piti\u00e9 qu'il les perde comme \u00e7a; et je pense qu'il ferait mieux de\nles garder dans son estomac que de les laisser \u00e9vaporiser en eau chaude,\nesp\u00e9cialement comme \u00e7a ne sert \u00e0 rien. Des larmes, \u00e7a n'a jamais servi \u00e0\nremonter une horloge ni \u00e0 faire marcher une machine. La premi\u00e8re fois\nque vous irez dans le monde, fourrez-vous \u00e7a dans la caboche, mon vieux;\net pour le pr\u00e9sent introduisez ce morceau de guingamp rouge dans votre\npoche. Il n'est pas assez beau pour le secouer comme \u00e7a en l'air, comme\nsi vous \u00e9tiez un danseur de corde.\n\n--Sam a raison, remarqua M. Pickwick, en s'adressant \u00e0 Job: Sam a\nraison, quoique sa mani\u00e8re de s'exprimer soit un peu commune et\nquelquefois incompr\u00e9hensible.\n\n--Il a tout \u00e0 fait raison, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua M. Trotter, et je ne\nc\u00e9derai pas davantage \u00e0 cette faiblesse.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, reprit notre sage; et maintenant, o\u00f9 est cette pension de\ndemoiselles?\n\n--C'est une vieille maison de briques rouges, tout juste en dehors de la\nville, monsieur.\n\n--Et quand ce perfide dessein sera-t-il ex\u00e9cut\u00e9? Quand est-ce que\nl'enl\u00e8vement doit avoir lieu?\n\n--Cette nuit, monsieur.\n\n--Cette nuit?\n\n--Cette nuit m\u00eame, monsieur. C'est ce qui me f\u00e2che tant.\n\n--Il faut prendre des mesures instantan\u00e9es. Je vais voir imm\u00e9diatement\nla dame qui dirige l'\u00e9tablissement.\n\n--Je vous demande pardon, monsieur, mais cela ne servira \u00e0 rien.\n\n--Pourquoi donc?\n\n--Mon ma\u00eetre, monsieur, est un homme tr\u00e8s-artificieux.\n\n--Je le sais bien.\n\n--Et il s'est si bien entortill\u00e9 autour du coeur de la vieille dame\nqu'elle ne croirait rien \u00e0 son pr\u00e9judice, quand vous en feriez serment\nsur vos deux genoux. D'ailleurs vous n'avez pas d'autre preuve que la\nparole d'un domestique; mon ma\u00eetre ne manquera pas de dire qu'il m'a\nrenvoy\u00e9 pour quelque chose, et que je fais cela afin de me venger.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que nous pourrions donc faire, alors?\n\n--Rien ne pourra convaincre la vieille dame, monsieur, si elle ne le\nprend pas sur le fait de l'enl\u00e8vement.\n\n--Ces vieilles mules-l\u00e0, interposa Sam, en guise de parenth\u00e8se, ces\nvieilles mules-l\u00e0, s'obstinent \u00e0 prendre des vessies pour des lanternes.\n\n--Mais, fit observer M. Pickwick, j'ai peur qu'il ne soit infiniment\ndifficile de le prendre sur le fait.\n\n--Je ne sais pas, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit Job apr\u00e8s un instant de r\u00e9flexion;\nil me semble que cela pourrait se faire tr\u00e8s-ais\u00e9ment.\n\n--Comment cela?\n\n--Voyez-vous, mon ma\u00eetre a gagn\u00e9 les deux servantes, et elles doivent\nnous introduire dans la cuisine, ce soir, \u00e0 dix heures. Quand toute la\nmaison se sera retir\u00e9e pour dormir, nous sortirons de la cuisine, et\nalors la jeune personne descendra de sa chambre; il y aura une chaise de\nposte, et en route!\n\n--Eh bien? fit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Eh bien! monsieur; je crois que si vous nous attendiez dans le jardin,\ntout seul....\n\n--Tout seul! Pourquoi tout seul?\n\n--Je pensais que la vieille demoiselle n'aimerait pas qu'une d\u00e9couverte\naussi d\u00e9sagr\u00e9able se f\u00eet devant beaucoup de monde; et puis la jeune\nlady, monsieur, consid\u00e9rez sa confusion!...\n\n--Vous avez tout \u00e0 fait raison. Cette r\u00e9flexion montre une grande\nd\u00e9licatesse de sentiments. Poursuivez; vous avez raison....\n\n--Eh bien! monsieur; je pensais donc que si vous attendiez tout seul\ndans le jardin, je pourrais vous introduire dans la maison, \u00e0 onze\nheures et demie pr\u00e9cises, et qu'alors vous vous trouveriez juste \u00e0 temps\npour m'aider \u00e0 d\u00e9monter les projets de ce m\u00e9chant homme, par qui j'ai eu\nle malheur d'\u00eatre s\u00e9duit.\u00bb\n\nIci. M. Trotter soupira profond\u00e9ment.\n\n\u00abNe vous tourmentez pas de cela, dit M. Pickwick; s'il avait un grain de\nla probit\u00e9 qui vous distingue, malgr\u00e9 votre humble condition, je ne\nd\u00e9sesp\u00e9rerais pas de lui.\u00bb\n\nJob salua tr\u00e8s-bas, et, en d\u00e9pit des pr\u00e9c\u00e9dentes remontrances de Sam,\nses yeux se remplirent de larmes.\n\n\u00abJe n'ai jamais vu un pleurard comme \u00e7a, dit Sam. Dieu me pardonne, s'il\nn'a pas un robinet toujours ouvert dans la t\u00eate!\n\n--Sam! dit M. Pickwick avec une grande s\u00e9v\u00e9rit\u00e9, retenez votre langue.\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--Je n'aime pas ce plan, poursuivit notre philosophe apr\u00e8s une profonde\nm\u00e9ditation. Pourquoi ne pas communiquer avec les amis de la jeune\npersonne?\n\n--Parce qu'ils habitent \u00e0 cinquante lieues d'ici, monsieur.\n\n--Il n'y a rien \u00e0 r\u00e9pondre \u00e0 \u00e7a, remarqua Sam, \u00e0 part.\n\n--Ensuite, ce jardin, reprit M. Pickwick, comment y entrerai-je?\n\n--Le mur est tr\u00e8s-bas, monsieur, et votre domestique vous fera la courte\n\u00e9chelle.\n\n--Mon domestique me fera la courte \u00e9chelle, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta machinalement M.\nPickwick, et vous ne manquerez pas de m'ouvrir la porte de la maison?...\n\n--Vous ne pouvez pas vous tromper, monsieur. Il n'y a qu'une porte dans\nle jardin; tapez-y quand vous entendrez sonner l'horloge, et je vous\nouvrirai sur-le-champ.\n\n--Je n'aime pas ce plan, redit M. Pickwick; mais il faut bien l'adopter,\ncar je n'en vois pas d'autre, et il s'agit du bonheur de cette jeune\npersonne, pour toute sa vie. J'y irai, soyez-en s\u00fbr.\u00bb\n\nAinsi, pour la seconde fois, la bont\u00e9 naturelle de M. Pickwick\nl'entra\u00eena dans une entreprise, dont son excellent jugement l'aurait\nd\u00e9tourn\u00e9.\n\n\u00abComment s'appelle la maison? demanda-t-il.\n\n--Westgate-House, monsieur. Vous tournez un peu \u00e0 droite quand vous\narrivez au bout de la ville; la maison est isol\u00e9e, \u00e0 une petite distance\nde la route, et son nom est sur une plaque de cuivre, sur la porte.\n\n--Je le sais r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick; j'avais remarqu\u00e9 cette maison la\npremi\u00e8re fois que j'ai visit\u00e9 cette ville. Vous pouvez compter sur moi.\u00bb\n\nM. Trotter salua et se d\u00e9tourna pour partir. M. Pickwick lui mit une\ngain\u00e9e dans la main.\n\n\u00abVous \u00eates un brave gar\u00e7on, lui dit-il, et j'admire la bont\u00e9 de votre\ncoeur. Pas de remerc\u00eements. Souvenez-vous: onze heures et demie.\n\n--Il n'y a pas de danger que je l'oublie, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit Job\nTrotter, et il quitta la chambre.\n\n--Camarade, lui dit Sam, qui l'avait suivi, ce n'est pas une mauvaise\nchose, cette pleurnicherie. Je voudrais pleurer comme une goutti\u00e8re dans\nune averse, \u00e0 ce prix-l\u00e0. Comment donc que vous faites?\n\n--Cela vient du coeur, monsieur Walker, r\u00e9pondit Job solennellement. Je\nvous souhaite le bonjour.\n\n--Voil\u00e0 un gaillard facile \u00e0 \u00e9mouvoir, pensa Sam Weller en le voyant\ns'\u00e9loigner. C'est \u00e9gal, nous lui avons tir\u00e9 les vers du nez, toujours.\u00bb\n\nNous ne pouvons pas dire pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment quelles \u00e9taient les pens\u00e9es qui\noccupaient l'esprit de M. Trotter, attendu que nous n'en savons rien du\ntout.\n\nCependant le jour s'\u00e9coula, le soir vint, et, un peu avant dix heures,\nSam rapporta \u00e0 son ma\u00eetre que M. Jingle et Job \u00e9taient sortis ensemble,\nque leurs bagages \u00e9taient empaquet\u00e9s, et qu'ils avaient command\u00e9 une\nchaise. Le complot \u00e9tait \u00e9videmment en voie d'ex\u00e9cution, comme M.\nTrotter l'avait pr\u00e9dit.\n\nDix heures et demie arriv\u00e8rent. C'\u00e9tait l'instant o\u00f9 M. Pickwick devait\npartir pour sa d\u00e9licate entreprise. Afin de ne pas \u00eatre embarrass\u00e9 pour\nescalader le mur, il refusa le pardessus que lui offrait Sam, et sortit,\nsuivi de ce fid\u00e8le serviteur.\n\nLa lune \u00e9tait sur l'horizon, mais cach\u00e9e derri\u00e8re des nuages, la nuit\n\u00e9tait belle et s\u00e8che, mais singuli\u00e8rement sombre; les sentiers, les\nhaies, les champs, les maisons et les arbres \u00e9taient envelopp\u00e9s d'une\nombre \u00e9paisse; l'atmosph\u00e8re \u00e9tait lourde et br\u00fblante; des \u00e9clairs de\nchaleur illuminaient de temps en temps les nuages, et c'\u00e9tait la seule\nchose qui anim\u00e2t un peu la triste obscurit\u00e9 dont la terre \u00e9tait\ncouverte; aucun son ne se faisait entendre, except\u00e9 l'aboiement \u00e9loign\u00e9\nde quelque chien inquiet.\n\nNos aventuriers trouv\u00e8rent la maison, reconnurent l'inscription de\ncuivre, firent le tour du mur, et s'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent vers le fond du jardin.\n\n\u00abSam, dit M. Pickwick, vous retournerez \u00e0 l'auberge quand vous m'aurez\naid\u00e9 \u00e0 monter par-dessus le mur.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, monsieur.\n\n--Et vous m'attendrez.\n\n--Certainement, monsieur.\n\n--Prenez ma jambe, et quand je dirai: _haut!_ \u00e9levez-moi doucement.\n\n--Me voil\u00e0 pr\u00eat, monsieur....\u00bb\n\nAyant arrang\u00e9 ces pr\u00e9liminaires, M. Pickwick empoigna le sommet du mur,\net donna la mot _haut!_ qui fut ob\u00e9i tr\u00e8s-litt\u00e9ralement; car, soit que\nson corps particip\u00e2t en quelque degr\u00e9 de l'\u00e9lasticit\u00e9 de son esprit,\nsoit que les id\u00e9es de Sam sur une _douce \u00e9l\u00e9vation_ ne fussent pas\nexactement les m\u00eames que celles de son ma\u00eetre, l'effet imm\u00e9diat de son\nassistance fut de le jeter par-dessus le mur. Apr\u00e8s avoir \u00e9cras\u00e9 trois\nframboisiers et un rosier, cet immortel gentleman descendit enfin de\ntoute sa longueur sur la terre.\n\n\u00abVous ne vous \u00eates pas bless\u00e9, monsieur? demanda Sam, aussit\u00f4t qu'il fut\nrevenu de la surprise que lui avait caus\u00e9e la myst\u00e9rieuse disparition du\nphilosophe.\n\n--Non, certainement, je ne me suis pas bless\u00e9, r\u00e9pondit celui-ci, de\nl'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9 du mur. Je croirais plut\u00f4t que c'est vous qui m'avez\nbless\u00e9, Sam.\n\n--J'esp\u00e8re que non, monsieur!\n\n--Ne vous tourmentez point, reprit notre sage en se relevant; ce n'est\nrien... quelques \u00e9gratignures.... Allez vous-en, car nous serions\nentendus.\n\n--Bonne chance, monsieur.\n\n--Bonsoir.\u00bb\n\nSam s'\u00e9loigna donc doucement, laissant M. Pickwick seul dans le jardin.\n\nDes lumi\u00e8res se montraient de temps en temps aux diff\u00e9rentes fen\u00eatres du\nb\u00e2timent, ou passaient dans les escaliers, comme pour indiquer que les\npensionnaires se retiraient dans leurs chambres. N'ayant nulle envie\nd'approcher de la porte avant l'heure fix\u00e9e, M. Pickwick se blottit dans\nun angle du mur pour attendre qu'elle arriv\u00e2t.\n\nIl \u00e9tait alors dans une position qui aurait abattu l'audace de bien des\nh\u00e9ros, et cependant il ne ressentit ni inqui\u00e9tude ni d\u00e9couragement: il\nsavait que son dessein \u00e9tait honorable, et il se confiait, sans nulle\nh\u00e9sitation, aux nobles sentiments de Job Trotter. La situation \u00e9tait\ntriste certainement, pour ne pas dire accablante; mais un esprit\ncontemplatif peut toujours se distraire par la m\u00e9ditation. A force de\nm\u00e9diter, M. Pickwick \u00e9tait tomb\u00e9 dans une sorte d'assoupissement,\nlorsqu'il en fut tir\u00e9 par l'horloge de l'\u00e9glise voisine, qui sonnaient\nonze heures et demie.\n\n\u00abVoici le moment,\u00bb pensa-t-il, en se mettant avec pr\u00e9caution sur ses\npieds. Il examina la maison: les lumi\u00e8res avaient disparu, les volets\n\u00e9taient ferm\u00e9s; tout le monde \u00e9tait au lit, sans aucun doute. Il\ns'avan\u00e7a \u00e0 pas de loup vers la porte, et frappa doucement. Deux ou trois\nminutes s'\u00e9taient pass\u00e9es sans r\u00e9ponse, il frappa un autre coup plus\nfort, puis un autre plus fort encore.\n\nA la fin, un bruit de pas se fit entendre dans l'escalier; la lumi\u00e8re\nd'une chandelle brilla \u00e0 travers le trou de la serrure; des barres, des\nverrous furent tir\u00e9s, et la porte s'ouvrit lentement.\n\nLa porte s'ouvrit lentement, et \u00e0 mesure qu'elle s'ouvrait de plus en\nplus, M. Pickwick se retirait de plus en plus derri\u00e8re elle. Il allongea\nla t\u00eate avec pr\u00e9caution pour reconna\u00eetre la personne qui s'avan\u00e7ait;\nmais quel fut son \u00e9tonnement lorsqu'il aper\u00e7ut, au lieu de Job Trotter,\nune servante inconnue, qui tenait une chandelle dans sa main. M.\nPickwick retira sa t\u00eate avec la vivacit\u00e9 d\u00e9ploy\u00e9e par Polichinelle, cet\nadmirable com\u00e9dien, quand il craint d'\u00eatre d\u00e9couvert par le commissaire.\n\n\u00abSarah, dit la servante en s'adressant \u00e0 quelqu'un dans la maison, c'est\napparemment le chat. Minet! minet! petit! petit! petit!\u00bb\n\nAucun animal n'ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 attir\u00e9 par ces incantations, la servante\nreferma lentement la porte, et la reverrouilla, laissant M. Pickwick\naplati contre le mur.\n\n\u00abCeci est fort \u00e9trange, pensa-t-il avec tristesse. Elles veillent, \u00e0 ce\nque je suppose, plus tard qu'\u00e0 l'ordinaire. Il est bien malheureux\nqu'elles aient choisi pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment cette nuit-ci, extr\u00eamement\nmalheureux!\u00bb Tout en faisant ces r\u00e9flexions, M. Pickwick se retirait\navec pr\u00e9caution dans l'angle du mur, o\u00f9 il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 originairement\ncach\u00e9, r\u00e9solu d'attendre l\u00e0 assez longtemps pour pouvoir r\u00e9p\u00e9ter, sans\ndanger, son signal.\n\nIl y \u00e9tait \u00e0 peine depuis cinq minutes, lorsque la lueur \u00e9blouissante\nd'un \u00e9clair fut imm\u00e9diatement suivie d'un violent coup de tonnerre, qui\nfit retentir les cieux d'un \u00e9pouvantable roulement puis vint un autre\n\u00e9clair plus \u00e9blouissant que le premier; puis un autre coup de tonnerre,\nplus \u00e9pouvantable que le pr\u00e9c\u00e9dent; puis enfin arriva la pluie, plus\nterrible encore que les uns et les autres.\n\nM. Pickwick savait parfaitement qu'un arbre est un tr\u00e8s-dangereux voisin\npendant un orage: or, il avait un arbre \u00e0 sa droite, un autre \u00e0 sa\ngauche, un troisi\u00e8me devant lui, un quatri\u00e8me derri\u00e8re. S'il restait o\u00f9\nil \u00e9tait, il risquait d'\u00eatre foudroy\u00e9; s'il se montrait au milieu du\njardin, il pouvait \u00eatre saisi et livr\u00e9 aux constables. Une ou deux fois\nil essaya d'escalader le mur; mais, n'ayant alors aucun aide, le seul\nr\u00e9sultat de ses efforts fut de mettre toute sa personne dans un \u00e9tat de\ntranspiration abondante, et d'op\u00e9rer sur ses genoux et sur les os de ses\njambes une infinit\u00e9 d'\u00e9gratignures.\n\n\u00abQuelle \u00e9pouvantable situation!\u00bb se dit-il \u00e0 lui-m\u00eame, en s'arr\u00eatant\napr\u00e8s cet exercice pour essuyer son front et pour frotter ses genoux. En\nm\u00eame temps, il regardait vers la maison, et n'y voyant plus de lumi\u00e8re,\nil se flatta que tout le monde serait couch\u00e9; il r\u00e9solut donc de r\u00e9p\u00e9ter\nson signal.\n\nIl marche sur la pointe du pied, dans le sable humide; il frappe \u00e0 la\nporte; il retient son haleine; il \u00e9coute \u00e0 travers le trou de la\nserrure. Pas de r\u00e9ponse. C'est singulier. Un autre coup. Il \u00e9coute de\nnouveau; un chuchotement se fait entendre dans l'int\u00e9rieur, et une voix\ncrie ensuite:\n\n\u00abQui va l\u00e0?\n\n--Ce n'est pas Job, pensa M. Pickwick en s'aplatissant contre le mur.\nC'est une voix de femme.\u00bb\n\nA peine \u00e9tait-il arriv\u00e9 \u00e0 cette conclusion, qu'une fen\u00eatre du premier\n\u00e9tage s'ouvrit, et trois ou quatre voix de femmes r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e8rent la\nquestion: \u00abQui est l\u00e0?\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick n'osa pas bouger. Il \u00e9tait clair que toute la maison \u00e9tait\nr\u00e9veill\u00e9e. Il r\u00e9solut de rester o\u00f9 il \u00e9tait jusqu'\u00e0 ce que l'alarme f\u00fbt\napais\u00e9e, et ensuite de faire un effort surnaturel, d'escalader le mur,\nou de p\u00e9rir dans cette noble entreprise.\n\nComme toutes les r\u00e9solutions de M. Pickwick, celle-ci \u00e9tait la meilleure\nqu'il p\u00fbt prendre dans les circonstances donn\u00e9es; mais malheureusement\nelle \u00e9tait fond\u00e9e sur l'hypoth\u00e8se que les habitants de la maison\nn'oseraient point rouvrir la porte. Quel fut donc son d\u00e9sappointement\nlorsqu'il entendit tirer barres et verrous, et lorsqu'il vit la porte\ns'entre-b\u00e2iller lentement, mais de plus en plus. Il fit retraite, pas \u00e0\npas, jusqu'aupr\u00e8s des gonds; mais ce fut en vain qu'il s'effa\u00e7a contre\nle mur: l'interposition de sa personne emp\u00eachait la porte de s'ouvrir\ntout \u00e0 fait.\n\n\u00abQui est l\u00e0?\u00bb s'\u00e9cria, de l'escalier, un choeur nombreux de voix de\nsoprano. C'\u00e9taient la vieille demoiselle, ma\u00eetresse de l'\u00e9tablissement,\ntrois sous-ma\u00eetresses, cinq domestiques femelles, et trente\npensionnaires, toutes \u00e0 demi-v\u00eatues, toutes ombrag\u00e9es d'une for\u00eat de\npapillotes.\n\nComme on s'en doute bien, M. Pickwick ne r\u00e9pondit point _qui \u00e9tait l\u00e0_,\net alors le refrain du choeur fut chang\u00e9 en celui-ci: \u00abMon Dieu! mon\nDieu! comme j'ai peur!\n\n--Cuisini\u00e8re, dit la vieille demoiselle, qui avait pris soin de rester\nau haut de l'escalier, la derni\u00e8re du groupe; cuisini\u00e8re, pourquoi\nn'avancez-vous pas dans le jardin?\n\n--Si vous pla\u00eet, ma'ame, je n'en avons pas envie.\n\n--Mon Dieu! mon Dieu! que cette cuisini\u00e8re est stupide! s'\u00e9cri\u00e8rent les\ntrente pensionnaires.\n\n--Cuisini\u00e8re! reprit la vieille demoiselle avec grande dignit\u00e9, ne me\nraisonnez pas, s'il vous pla\u00eet. Je vous ordonne de regarder dans le\njardin, sur-le-champ.\u00bb\n\nIci la cuisini\u00e8re commen\u00e7a \u00e0 pleurer: la servante dit que c'\u00e9tait une\nhonte de la traiter ainsi, et pour cet acte de r\u00e9bellion elle re\u00e7ut son\ncong\u00e9 sur la place.\n\n\u00abCuisini\u00e8re! entendez-vous? cria la vieille demoiselle en frappant du\npied avec col\u00e8re.\n\n--Cuisini\u00e8re! entendez-vous votre ma\u00eetresse? cri\u00e8rent les trois\nsous-ma\u00eetresses.\n\n--Cette cuisini\u00e8re est-elle impudente!\u00bb cri\u00e8rent les trente\npensionnaires.\n\nL'infortun\u00e9e cuisini\u00e8re, ainsi pouss\u00e9e en avant, fit un pas ou deux en\nayant soin de tenir sa chandelle de mani\u00e8re qu'il lui f\u00fbt impossible de\nrien apercevoir. Elle d\u00e9clara donc qu'elle ne voyait rien dans le\njardin, et que ce devait \u00eatre le vent.\n\nLa porte allait se refermer, en cons\u00e9quence, lorsqu'une pensionnaire\ncurieuse s'\u00e9tant hasard\u00e9e \u00e0 regarder entre les gonds, jeta un cri\neffroyable qui fit rentrer en un clin d'oeil la cuisini\u00e8re, la servante\net les plus aventureuses.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce qui est donc arriv\u00e9 \u00e0 miss Smithers? demanda la vieille\ndemoiselle, tandis que ladite miss Smithers tombait dans une attaque de\nnerfs de la puissance de quatre jeunes ladies.\n\n--Mon Dieu! mon Dieu! ch\u00e8re miss Smithers! dirent les vingt-neuf autres\npensionnaires.\n\n--Oh! l'homme! l'homme derri\u00e8re la porte!\u00bb cria miss Smithers d'une\nvoix entrecoup\u00e9e.\n\nAussit\u00f4t que la vieille demoiselle eut entendu ces mots effrayants, elle\nbattit en retraite jusque dans sa chambre \u00e0 coucher, ferma la porta \u00e0\ndouble tour, et se trouva mal tout \u00e0 son aise. Cependant les\npensionnaires, les sous-ma\u00eetresses, les servantes se pr\u00e9cipitaient sur\nl'escalier, les unes par-dessus les autres; et jamais on n'avait vu tant\nde bousculades, tant d'\u00e9vanouissements, tant de cris. Au milieu du\ntumulte, M. Pickwick sortit de sa cachette et se pr\u00e9senta devant ces\ncolombes effarouch\u00e9es.\n\n\u00abLadies! ch\u00e8res ladies! leur dit-il.\n\n--Oh! Il nous appelle _ch\u00e8res_, cria la plus laide et la plus vieille\ndes sous-ma\u00eetresses. Dieux! le mis\u00e9rable!\n\n--Ladies! vocif\u00e9ra M. Pickwick, devenu d\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9 par le danger de sa\nsituation. \u00c9coutez-moi! je ne suis point un voleur! Tout ce que je veux,\nc'est la ma\u00eetresse de la maison!\n\n--Oh! quel monstre f\u00e9roce! s'\u00e9cria une autre sous-ma\u00eetresse. Il en veut\n\u00e0 miss Tomkins!\u00bb\n\nIci les g\u00e9missements devinrent universels.\n\n--Sonnez la cloche d'alarme! dirent une douzaine de voix.\n\n--Non! non! cria M. Pickwick, regardez-moi! ai-je l'air d'un voleur? Mes\nch\u00e8res dames, vous pouvez m'attacher, m'enfermer, pieds et poings li\u00e9s,\ndans un cabinet, si cela vous fait plaisir. Seulement \u00e9coutez ce que\nj'ai \u00e0 dire! seulement \u00e9coutez-moi!\n\n--Comment \u00eates-vous entr\u00e9 dans notre jardin? balbutia la servante.\n\n--Appelez la ma\u00eetresse de la maison, et je lui dirai tout, tout!\ncontinua M. Pickwick de toutes les forces de ses poumons. Appelez-la\ndonc; seulement soyez calmes, et appelez-la: vous entendrez tout!\u00bb\n\n\u00c9tait-ce gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 la figure de M. Pickwick, ou \u00e0 son \u00e9loquence, ou \u00e0 la\ntentation irr\u00e9sistible pour des esprits f\u00e9minins d'entendre quelque\nchose de myst\u00e9rieux? nous l'ignorons; mais les femelles les plus\nraisonnables de l'\u00e9tablissement, au nombre d'environ quatre ou cinq,\nparvinrent enfin \u00e0 recouvrer une tranquillit\u00e9 comparative. Elles\npropos\u00e8rent \u00e0 M. Pickwick de se soumettre imm\u00e9diatement \u00e0 une contrainte\npersonnelle, afin de prouver sa sinc\u00e9rit\u00e9: il y consentit, et, pour\nobtenir de conf\u00e9rer avec miss Tomkins, il entra spontan\u00e9ment dans le\ncabinet o\u00f9 les externes pendaient leurs bonnets et leurs sacs durant\nles classes. Lorsqu'il y fut soigneusement renferm\u00e9, les brebis\neffray\u00e9es commenc\u00e8rent peu \u00e0 peu \u00e0 reprendre courage. Miss Tomkins fut\ntir\u00e9e de son \u00e9vanouissement et de sa chambre; ses acolytes l'apport\u00e8rent\nau rez-de-chauss\u00e9e, et la conf\u00e9rence commen\u00e7a.\n\n\u00abEh bien! l'homme, dit miss Tomkins d'une voix faible, que faisiez-vous\ndans mon jardin?\n\n--Je venais pour vous avertir qu'une de vos jeunes demoiselles doit\ns'\u00e9chapper cette nuit, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick de l'int\u00e9rieur du cabinet.\n\n--S'\u00e9chapper! s'\u00e9cri\u00e8rent miss Tomkins, les trois sous-ma\u00eetresses et les\ntrente pensionnaires. Et avec qui?\n\n--Avec votre ami, M. Charles Fitz-Marshall.\n\n--_Mon_ ami! je ne connais personne de ce nom.\n\n--Eh bien! M. Jingle alors.\n\n--Je n'ai jamais entendu ce nom de ma vie.\n\n--Alors j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 tromp\u00e9! abus\u00e9! dit M. Pickwick; j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 la victime\nd'un complot, d'un l\u00e2che et vil complot! Envoyez \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel de l'Ange, ma\nch\u00e8re madame, si vous ne me croyez pas. Je vous en supplie, madame,\nenvoyez \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel de l'Ange, et faites demander le domestique de M.\nPickwick.\n\n--Il para\u00eet que c'est un homme respectable, puisqu'il garde un\ndomestique! dit miss Tomkins \u00e0 la ma\u00eetresse d'\u00e9criture et de calcul.\n\n--J'imagine plut\u00f4t, r\u00e9pondit celle-ci, que c'est son domestique qui le\ngarde. Je pense qu'il est fou, miss Tomkins, et que l'autre est son\ngardien.\n\n--Je crois que vous avez raison, miss Gwynn, r\u00e9pondit la vieille\ndemoiselle. Il faut que deux des servantes aillent \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel de l'Ange,\net que les autres restent ici pour nous prot\u00e9ger.\u00bb\n\nDeux des servantes furent en cons\u00e9quence d\u00e9p\u00each\u00e9es \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel de l'Ange,\nen qu\u00eate de M. Samuel Weller, tandis que les trois autres rest\u00e8rent pour\nprot\u00e9ger miss Tomkins, les trois sous-ma\u00eetresses et les trente\npensionnaires. M. Pickwick s'assit par terre, dans le cabinet, et\nattendit le retour des deux messagers avec toute la philosophie, tout le\ncourage qu'il put appeler \u00e0 son aide.\n\nUne heure et demie s'\u00e9coul\u00e8rent dans cette p\u00e9nible situation, et lorsque\nles deux servantes revinrent enfin, M. Pickwick reconnut, outre la voix\nde Samuel Weller, deux autres voix dont l'accent paraissait familier \u00e0\nson oreille, mais dont il n'aurait pas pu deviner les propri\u00e9taires,\nquand il se serait agi de sa vie.\n\nUne courte conf\u00e9rence s'ensuivit; la porte fut ouverte; M. Pickwick\nsortit du cabinet et se trouva en pr\u00e9sence de toute la pension, de Sam\nWeller, du vieux M. Wardle et de son futur gendre.\n\n\u00abMon cher ami! dit M. Pickwick en se pr\u00e9cipitant vers M. Wardle et en\nsaisissant ses mains; mon cher ami! au nom du ciel! expliquez \u00e0 ces\ndames la malheureuse, l'horrible situation dans laquelle je me trouve\nplac\u00e9. Vous devez l'avoir apprise de mon domestique. Dites-leur \u00e0 tout\nhasard, mon cher camarade, que je ne suis ni un brigand, ni un fou.\n\n--Je l'ai dit, mon cher ami, je l'ai dit, r\u00e9pliqua M. Wardle en secouant\nla main droite du philosophe, tandis que M. Trundle secouait sa main\ngauche.\n\n--Et ceux qui disent, ou bien qui ont dit qu'il l'\u00e9tait, s'\u00e9cria Sam en\ns'avan\u00e7ant au milieu de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9, ils disent quelque chose qui n'est\npas vrai, mais au contraire qu'est tout \u00e0 fait l'opposite. Et s'il y a\nici des hommes, n'importe combien, qui disent \u00e7a, je leur y donnerai une\npreuve convaincante du contraire, dans cette m\u00eame chambre ici, si ces\ntr\u00e8s-respectables ladies veulent avoir la bont\u00e9 de se retirer et de\nfaire monter leurs hommes, un \u00e0 un.\u00bb Ayant exprim\u00e9 ce d\u00e9fi chevaleresque\navec une grande volubilit\u00e9, Sam Weller frappa \u00e9nergiquement la paume de\nsa main avec son poing ferm\u00e9, et regarda miss Tomkins d'un air gracieux\net en clignant de l'oeil. Mais la galanterie de Sam ne produisit aucun\neffet sur cette vertueuse personne, qui avait entendu avec une horreur\nindicible la supposition, implicitement exprim\u00e9e, qu'il pouvait se\ntrouver _des hommes_ dans l'enceinte d'une pension de demoiselles.\n\nL'apologie de M. Pickwick fut bient\u00f4t termin\u00e9e, mais on ne put tirer de\nlui aucune parole, ni pendant son retour \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel, ni lorsqu'il fut\nassis, avec ses amis, entre un bon feu et le souper dont il avait tant\nbesoin. Il semblait \u00e9tourdi, stup\u00e9fi\u00e9. Une fois, une fois seulement, il\nse tourna vers M. Wardle et lui demanda:\n\n\u00abComment \u00eates-vous venu ici?\n\n--J'avais arrang\u00e9, pour le premier du mois, une partie de chasse avec\nTrundle. Nous sommes arriv\u00e9s cette nuit, et avons \u00e9t\u00e9 fort \u00e9tonn\u00e9s\nd'apprendre que vous \u00e9tiez dans ce pays. Mais je suis charm\u00e9 de vous y\nvoir, continua l'enjou\u00e9 vieillard en frappant M. Pickwick sur le dos; je\nsuis charm\u00e9 de vous y voir; nous aurons une partie de chasse au premier\njour, et nous donnerons \u00e0 Winkle une autre chance. N'est-ce pas, vieux\ncamarade?\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick ne r\u00e9pondit point. Il ne demanda pas m\u00eame des nouvelles de\nses amis de Dingley-Dell; et peu apr\u00e8s il se retira pour la nuit, apr\u00e8s\navoir ordonn\u00e9 \u00e0 Sam de venir prendre sa chandelle lorsqu'il sonnerait.\n\nAu bout d'un certain temps, la sonnette retentit, et Sam Weller se\npr\u00e9senta devant son ma\u00eetre.\n\n\u00abSam! dit M. Pickwick en \u00e9cartant un peu ses draps, pour le regarder.\n\n--Monsieur?\u00bb r\u00e9pondit Sam.\n\nM. Pickwick fit une pause, et Sam moucha la chandelle.\n\n\u00abSam! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick avec un effort d\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9.\n\n--Monsieur? r\u00e9pondit Sam de nouveau.\n\n--O\u00f9 est ce Trotter?\n\n--Job, monsieur?\n\n--Oui.\n\n--Parti, monsieur.\n\n--Avec son ma\u00eetre, je suppose.\n\n--Son ma\u00eetre ou son ami, ou son je ne sais quoi. Ils sont fil\u00e9s\nensemble. \u00c7a fait un joli couple, monsieur.\n\n--Jingle aura soup\u00e7onn\u00e9 mon projet, et vous aura d\u00e9tach\u00e9 ce fripon-l\u00e0,\navec son histoire, reprit M. Pickwick, que ces paroles semblaient\n\u00e9touffer.\n\n--Juste la chose, monsieur.\n\n--N\u00e9cessairement c'\u00e9tait une invention.\n\n--D'un bout \u00e0 l'autre, monsieur. On nous a mis dedans. C'est adroit,\ntout de m\u00eame!\n\n--Je ne pense pas qu'ils nous \u00e9chappent aussi ais\u00e9ment la premi\u00e8re fois,\nSam?\n\n--Je ne le pense pas, monsieur.\n\n--En quelque lieu, en quelque endroit que je rencontre ce Jingle,\ns'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick en se levant sur son lit et en d\u00e9chargeant sur son\noreiller un coup terrible, je ne me contenterai point de le d\u00e9masquer,\ncomme il le m\u00e9rite si richement, mais je lui infligerai un ch\u00e2timent\npersonnel. Oui, je le ferai, ou mon nom n'est pas Pickwick.\n\n--Et quand j'attraperai une patte de ce pleurnichard-l\u00e0, avec sa\ntignasse noire, si je ne lui tire pas de l'eau r\u00e9elle de ses quinquets,\nmon nom n'est pas Weller!--Bonne nuit, monsieur.\u00bb\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XVII.\n\nMontrant qu'une attaque de rhumatisme peut quelquefois servir de\nstimulant \u00e0 un g\u00e9nie inventif.\n\n\nQuoique la constitution de M. Pickwick f\u00fbt capable de soutenir une somme\ntr\u00e8s-consid\u00e9rable de travaux et de fatigues, elle n'\u00e9tait cependant\npoint \u00e0 l'\u00e9preuve d'une combinaison de semblables assauts. Il est aussi\ndangereux que peu ordinaire d'\u00eatre lav\u00e9 \u00e0 l'air de la nuit, et d'\u00eatre\ns\u00e9ch\u00e9 ensuite dans un cabinet ferm\u00e9: M. Pickwick apprit cet aphorisme \u00e0\nses d\u00e9pens, et fut confin\u00e9 dans son lit par une attaque de rhumatisme.\n\nMais si les forces corporelles de ce grand homme \u00e9taient an\u00e9anties, il\nn'en conservait pas moins toute la vigueur, toute l'\u00e9lasticit\u00e9 de son\nesprit, toutes les gr\u00e2ces de sa bonne humeur. La vexation m\u00eame, caus\u00e9e\npar sa derni\u00e8re aventure, s'\u00e9tait enti\u00e8rement \u00e9vanouie, et il se\njoignait sans col\u00e8re et sans embarras au rire joyeux de M. Wardle,\nchaque fois qu'on faisait une allusion \u00e0 ce sujet. Pendant deux jours\nnotre philosophe fut retenu dans son lit et re\u00e7ut de son domestique les\nsoins les plus empress\u00e9s. Le premier jour, Sam s'effor\u00e7a de l'amuser en\nlui racontant une foule d'anecdotes; le second jour, M. Pickwick demanda\nson \u00e9critoire et fut profond\u00e9ment occup\u00e9 jusqu'\u00e0 la nuit. Le troisi\u00e8me\njour, se trouvant assez bien pour rester assis dans sa chambre, il\nd\u00e9p\u00eacha son valet \u00e0 M. Wardle et \u00e0 M. Trundle, pour les engager \u00e0 venir\nle soir prendre un verre de vin chez lui. L'invitation fut avidement\naccept\u00e9e, et lorsque la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 se trouva r\u00e9unie, en cons\u00e9quence, autour\nd'une table charg\u00e9e de verres, M. Pickwick, avec une modeste rougeur,\nproduisit la petite nouvelle suivante, comme ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 _\u00e9dit\u00e9e_ par\nlui-m\u00eame, durant sa r\u00e9cente indisposition, d'apr\u00e8s le r\u00e9cit non\nsophistiqu\u00e9 de Sam Weller.\n\nLE CLERC DE PAROISSE,\n\n_Histoire d'un v\u00e9ritable amour._\n\nIl y avait une fois, dans une toute petite ville de province, \u00e0 une\ndistance consid\u00e9rable de Londres, un petit homme nomm\u00e9 Nathaniel\nPipkin. Il \u00e9tait clerc de la paroisse, et habitait une petite maison,\ndans la petite Grande-Rue, \u00e0 dix minutes de chemin de la petite \u00e9glise.\nTous les jours, depuis neuf heures jusqu'\u00e0 quatre, on le trouvait en\ntrain d'enseigner \u00e0 des petits enfants une petite dose d'instruction.\nNathaniel Pipkin \u00e9tait un \u00eatre doux, bienveillant, inoffensif, avec un\nnez retrouss\u00e9, des jambes tant soit peu cagneuses, des yeux un peu\nlouches et une allure boiteuse. Il partageait son temps entre l'\u00e9glise\net son \u00e9cole, et il croyait fermement qu'il n'y avait pas dans le monde\nun homme aussi savant que le cur\u00e9, un appartement aussi imposant que la\nsacristie, une institution aussi bien tenue que la sienne. Une fois, et\nune fois seulement dans sa vie, Nathaniel Pipkin avait vu un \u00e9v\u00eaque, un\n\u00e9v\u00eaque v\u00e9ritable, avec ses bras dans des manches de linon et sa t\u00eate\ndans une perruque. Il l'avait vu marcher, il l'avait entendu parler,\nlors de la confirmation; et dans cette majestueuse c\u00e9r\u00e9monie, quand\nl'\u00e9v\u00eaque avait pos\u00e9 les mains sur la t\u00eate de Nathaniel Pipkin, celui-ci\navait \u00e9t\u00e9 tellement saisi d'une crainte respectueuse, qu'il avait\nenti\u00e8rement perdu connaissance et avait \u00e9t\u00e9 emport\u00e9, hors de l'\u00e9glise,\ndans les bras du bedeau.\n\nC'\u00e9tait l\u00e0 une \u00e8re importante, un \u00e9v\u00e9nement terrible dans la vie de\nnotre h\u00e9ros, et c'\u00e9tait le seul qui e\u00fbt jamais troubl\u00e9 le cours r\u00e9gulier\nde sa paisible existence, lorsqu'une apr\u00e8s-midi, comme il \u00e9tait occup\u00e9 \u00e0\nposer sur une ardoise un effroyable probl\u00e8me d'addition compos\u00e9e qu'il\nvoulait faire r\u00e9soudre par un coupable gamin, il s'avisa de lever les\nyeux, dans un acc\u00e8s d'abstraction mentale, et aper\u00e7ut \u00e0 une fen\u00eatre, de\nl'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la rue, le visage riant de Maria Lobbs. Maria Lobbs\n\u00e9tait la fille unique du vieux Lobbs, le grand sellier de la Grande-Rue.\nBien des fois d\u00e9j\u00e0, soit \u00e0 l'\u00e9glise, soit ailleurs, les yeux de M.\nPipkin s'\u00e9taient arr\u00eat\u00e9s sur la jolie figure de Maria Lobbs; mais les\nnoires prunelles de Maria Lobbs n'avaient jamais \u00e9t\u00e9 si brillantes, les\njoues de Maria Lobbs n'avaient jamais \u00e9t\u00e9 si fleuries que dans cette\noccasion particuli\u00e8re. Il \u00e9tait donc naturel que le ma\u00eetre d'\u00e9cole n'e\u00fbt\npas la force de d\u00e9tacher ses regards du visage de miss Lobbs; il \u00e9tait\nnaturel que miss Lobbs, en s'apercevant qu'elle \u00e9tait contempl\u00e9e par un\njeune homme, retir\u00e2t sa t\u00eate, ferm\u00e2t la crois\u00e9e et abaiss\u00e2t le store; il\n\u00e9tait naturel enfin que Nathaniel Pipkin, imm\u00e9diatement apr\u00e8s cela,\ntomb\u00e2t sur le coupable moutard et le giffl\u00e2t de tout son coeur. Tout cela\n\u00e9tait parfaitement naturel et n'avait absolument rien d'\u00e9tonnant.\n\nMais ce qu'il y a d'\u00e9tonnant, c'est qu'un homme d'un caract\u00e8re timide\net discret, comme Nathaniel Pipkin, un homme dont le revenu \u00e9tait si\nimperceptible, ait os\u00e9 aspirer, depuis ce jour, \u00e0 la main et au coeur de\nla fille unique de l'orgueilleux Lobbs, du grand sellier qui aurait pu\nacheter tout le village d'un trait de plume, sans se g\u00eaner en aucune\nfa\u00e7on; du vieux Lobbs, qui \u00e9tait connu pour avoir des tr\u00e9sors d\u00e9pos\u00e9s \u00e0\nla banque de la province et qui, suivant la voix publique, avait en\noutre des monceaux d'argent dans un petit coffre-fort de fer, plac\u00e9 sur\nle manteau de la chemin\u00e9e, dans l'arri\u00e8re-parloir; de Lobbs, qui, au vu\net au su de tout le village, garnissait sa table, les jours de f\u00eate,\navec une th\u00e9i\u00e8re, un pot \u00e0 cr\u00e8me et un sucrier de v\u00e9ritable argent,\nlesquels, comme il avait coutume de s'en vanter dans l'orgueil de son\ncoeur, devaient un jour devenir la propri\u00e9t\u00e9 de l'homme assez heureux\npour plaire \u00e0 sa fille. Je le r\u00e9p\u00e8te, on ne saurait suffisamment\ns'\u00e9tonner, s'\u00e9merveiller, que Nathaniel Pipkin jet\u00e2t ses regards dans\ncette direction; mais l'amour est aveugle et Nathaniel \u00e9tait louche: ces\ndeux circonstances r\u00e9unies l'emp\u00each\u00e8rent apparemment de voir les choses\nsous leur v\u00e9ritable point de vue.\n\nOr, si le vieux Lobbs avait pu soup\u00e7onner, le moins du monde, l'\u00e9tat des\naffections de Nathaniel Pipkin, il aurait fait raser l'\u00e9cole jusque dans\nses fondements, ou il aurait extermin\u00e9 le ma\u00eetre de la surface de la\nterre, ou il aurait commis quelque autre atrocit\u00e9 encore plus\nhyperbolique; car c'\u00e9tait un terrible vieillard que ce Lobbs, quand son\norgueil \u00e9tait bless\u00e9, quand sa col\u00e8re \u00e9tait excit\u00e9e; il jurait\nalors!!!--Quelquefois, quand il maudissait la paresse de son apprenti\naux jambes gr\u00eales, on entendait rouler jusque dans la rue un tonnerre\nretentissant de jurons, qui faisaient trembler d'horreur Nathaniel\nPipkin dans ses souliers, tandis que les cheveux de ses disciples\n\u00e9pouvant\u00e9s se dressaient sur leur t\u00eate.\n\nCependant, chaque soir\u00e9e, quand les devoirs \u00e9taient termin\u00e9s, quand les\n\u00e9l\u00e8ves \u00e9taient partis, Nathaniel Pipkin s'asseyait aupr\u00e8s de sa fen\u00eatre,\net faisant semblant de lire, il lan\u00e7ait de c\u00f4t\u00e9 des regards qui\ncherchaient \u00e0 rencontrer les yeux brillants de Maria Lobbs. O bonheur!\nquelques jours \u00e0 peine s'\u00e9taient \u00e9coul\u00e9s, lorsque ces yeux brillants\napparurent \u00e0 une fen\u00eatre du deuxi\u00e8me \u00e9tage, occup\u00e9s aussi, en apparence,\n\u00e0 lire attentivement. Quelle d\u00e9licieuse p\u00e2ture pour le coeur de Nathaniel\nPipkin! Quel plaisir de rester l\u00e0, ensemble, pendant des heures, et de\nconsid\u00e9rer ce joli visage tandis que ces yeux charmants \u00e9taient\nbaiss\u00e9s. Mais lorsque Maria Lobbs commen\u00e7a \u00e0 lever les yeux de son\nlivre, et \u00e0 darder leurs rayons dans la direction de Nathaniel Pipkin,\nses transports et son admiration ne connurent plus de bornes. A la fin,\nun beau jour, sachant que le vieux Lobbs \u00e9tait dehors, le ma\u00eetre d'\u00e9cole\neut la t\u00e9m\u00e9rit\u00e9 d'envoyer un baiser \u00e0 Maria Lobbs, et Maria Lobbs, au\nlieu de fermer la fen\u00eatre et de baisser le rideau, sourit et lui renvoya\nson baiser. Sur cela, et quoiqu'il en p\u00fbt arriver, Nathaniel Pipkin prit\nla r\u00e9solution de d\u00e9velopper \u00e0 Maria Lobbs, sans plus de d\u00e9lai, l'\u00e9tat de\nses sentiments.\n\nUn plus joli pied, un coeur plus gai, un visage plus riant, une taille\nplus gracieuse, ne pass\u00e8rent jamais sur la terre aussi l\u00e9g\u00e8rement que le\npied mignon, que le coeur d'or, que le visage heureux, que la taille\ns\u00e9duisante de Maria Lobbs, la fille du vieux sellier. Il y avait dans\nses yeux brillants une \u00e9tincelle de friponnerie qui aurait enflamm\u00e9 un\ncoeur bien moins susceptible que celui du ma\u00eetre d'\u00e9cole. Il y avait tant\nde gaiet\u00e9 dans le son contagieux de ses \u00e9clats de rire, que le plus\nfarouche misanthrope n'aurait pu s'emp\u00eacher de sourire en les entendant.\nLe vieux Lobbs lui-m\u00eame, au plus haut degr\u00e9 de sa f\u00e9rocit\u00e9, ne savait\npas r\u00e9sister aux c\u00e2lineries de sa jolie fille. Lorsqu'elle se mettait\napr\u00e8s lui (ce qui pour dire la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 arrivait assez souvent), et\nlorsqu'elle \u00e9tait second\u00e9e par sa cousine Kate, petite personne \u00e0 l'air\naga\u00e7ant, effront\u00e9, sc\u00e9l\u00e9rat, le pauvre bonhomme \u00e9tait incapable\nd'articuler un refus, m\u00eame si elles lui avaient demand\u00e9 une partie des\ntr\u00e9sors inou\u00efs entass\u00e9s dans son coffre-fort.\n\nPar une belle soir\u00e9e d'\u00e9t\u00e9, le coeur de Nathaniel Pipkin battit\nviolemment dans sa poitrine d'homme, lorsqu'il vit ce couple s\u00e9duisant\narriver dans le champ m\u00eame o\u00f9 tant de fois il s'\u00e9tait promen\u00e9, \u00e0 la\nbrune, en ruminant sur les beaut\u00e9s de Maria Lobbs. Il avait souvent\npens\u00e9, alors, \u00e0 l'air d\u00e9gag\u00e9 avec lequel il s'approcherait d'elle pour\nlui peindre sa passion, s'il pouvait seulement la rencontrer. Mais\nmaintenant qu'elle se pr\u00e9sentait inopin\u00e9ment devant lui, il sentait que\ntout son sang refluait vers son visage, au d\u00e9triment manifeste de ses\njambes, qui, priv\u00e9es de leur portion habituelle de ce fluide,\ntremblaient et s'entre-choquaient violemment. Quand les deux jeunes\nfilles s'arr\u00eataient pour cueillir une fleur dans la haie, ou pour\n\u00e9couter un oiseau, le ma\u00eetre d'\u00e9cole s'arr\u00eatait aussi, en prenant un air\nprofond\u00e9ment r\u00eaveur; et il n'en avait pas l'air seulement, car il\nsongeait avec \u00e9garement \u00e0 ce qu'il allait devenir, quand les cousines\nreviendraient sur leurs pas, et le rencontreraient face \u00e0 face, comme\ncela devait in\u00e9vitablement arriver au bout d'un certain temps.\nToutefois, quoiqu'il n'os\u00e2t pas les rejoindre, il e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9sol\u00e9 de les\nperdre de vue. Aussi, quand elles couraient, il courait; quand elles\nmarchaient, il marchait; quand elles s'arr\u00eataient, il s'arr\u00eatait; et il\naurait pu continuer ce man\u00e8ge jusqu'\u00e0 ce que la nuit les e\u00fbt surpris, si\nla maligne Kate n'avait regard\u00e9 derri\u00e8re elle, et n'avait fait \u00e0\nNathaniel un signe encourageant, pour le d\u00e9terminer \u00e0 s'approcher. Il y\navait quelque chose d'irr\u00e9sistible dans les mani\u00e8res de Kate, aussi\nNathaniel ob\u00e9it-il \u00e0 son invitation. Puis, avec beaucoup de confusion de\nsa part, et tandis que la m\u00e9chante petite cousine riait de tout son\ncoeur, Nathaniel Pipkin se mit \u00e0 genoux sur l'herbe humide, et d\u00e9clara sa\nferme r\u00e9solution de rester l\u00e0 pour toujours, \u00e0 moins qu'il ne lui f\u00fbt\npermis de se relever comme l'amoureux accept\u00e9 de Maria Lobbs. A cette\nd\u00e9claration, le rire joyeux de Maria Lobbs retentit \u00e0 travers la calme\natmosph\u00e8re du soir, sans la troubler n\u00e9anmoins, tant c'\u00e9tait un son\nharmonieux. La maligne petite cousine \u00e9clata de rire encore plus\nimmod\u00e9r\u00e9ment, et Nathaniel Pipkin rougit plus que jamais. A la fin,\nMaria Lobbs, violemment press\u00e9e par le petit homme rong\u00e9 d'amour,\nd\u00e9tourna la t\u00eate, et murmura \u00e0 sa cousine de dire, ou du moins sa\ncousine dit pour elle: qu'elle se sentait tr\u00e8s-honor\u00e9e de la demande de\nM. Pipkin; que sa main et son coeur \u00e9taient \u00e0 la disposition de son p\u00e8re;\nmais que personne ne pouvait \u00eatre insensible au m\u00e9rite de monsieur\nPipkin. Comme tout cela fut fait avec beaucoup de gravit\u00e9, et comme\nNathaniel Pipkin reconduisit Maria Lobbs et s'effor\u00e7a de lui d\u00e9rober un\nbaiser, en partant, il se mit au lit le plus heureux des petits hommes,\net r\u00eava toute la nuit qu'il amollissait le vieux Lobbs, recevait la clef\ndu coffre-fort, et \u00e9pousait Maria.\n\nLe lendemain, Nathaniel vit le sellier partir sur son vieux bidet gris;\nil vit, \u00e0 la crois\u00e9e, la maligne petite cousine qui lui faisait un grand\nnombre de signes, auxquels il ne pouvait rien comprendre; et enfin il\nvit venir vers lui l'apprenti aux jambes gr\u00eales. Celui-ci dit \u00e0\nNathaniel que son ma\u00eetre ne reviendrait pas avant le lendemain, et que\nces dames attendaient M. Pipkin, pour prendre le th\u00e9, \u00e0 six heures\npr\u00e9cises. Comment les le\u00e7ons furent r\u00e9cit\u00e9es ce jour-l\u00e0, ni Nathaniel\nPipkin, ni ses \u00e9l\u00e8ves ne le savent mieux que vous: mais elles furent\nr\u00e9cit\u00e9es bien ou mal, et lorsque les enfants furent partis, Nathaniel\nPipkin s'occupa, jusqu'\u00e0 six heures sonn\u00e9es, de sa toilette, avant\nd'\u00eatre habill\u00e9 \u00e0 son go\u00fbt. Ce n'est pas qu'il lui fallut beaucoup de\ntemps pour choisir les v\u00eatements qu'il devait porter, attendu qu'il n'y\navait aucun choix \u00e0 faire dans sa garde-robe, mais c'\u00e9tait une t\u00e2che\npleine de difficult\u00e9s et d'importance que de les nettoyer et de les\nmettre de la mani\u00e8re la plus avantageuse.\n\nNathaniel trouva chez le sellier une petite soci\u00e9t\u00e9 choisie, compos\u00e9e de\nMaria Lobbs, de sa cousine Kate et de trois ou quatre jeunes filles\nfol\u00e2tres, r\u00e9jouies, ros\u00e9es. Il eut alors une preuve positive que les\nrumeurs relatives aux tr\u00e9sors du vieux Lobbs n'\u00e9taient pas exag\u00e9r\u00e9es; il\nvit, de ses yeux, la th\u00e9i\u00e8re en v\u00e9ritable argent massif, et les petites\ncuillers en argent pour remuer le th\u00e9, et les tasses en v\u00e9ritable\nporcelaine, pour le boire, et les plats de m\u00eame mati\u00e8re, qui contenaient\nles g\u00e2teaux et les r\u00f4ties. Le seul revers de la m\u00e9daille, c'\u00e9tait un\nfr\u00e8re de Kate, un cousin de Maria Lobbs, qu'elle appelait Henry, et qui\nsemblait garder sa cousine pour lui tout seul, \u00e0 un bout de la table. Il\nest d\u00e9licieux de voir les membres d'une m\u00eame famille avoir de\nl'affection l'un pour l'autre, mais cette affection peut \u00eatre pouss\u00e9e\ntrop loin, et Nathaniel Pipkin ne put s'emp\u00eacher de penser que Maria\nLobbs devait aimer bien particuli\u00e8rement tous ses parents, si elle avait\npour chacun d'eux autant d'attentions que pour le cousin dont il s'agit.\nCe n'est pas tout: apr\u00e8s le th\u00e9, lorsque la maligne petite cousine eut\npropos\u00e9 de jouer au colin-maillard, il arriva, d'une mani\u00e8re ou d'une\nautre, que Nathaniel Pipkin avait presque toujours les yeux band\u00e9s; et\nchaque fois qu'il mettait la main sur le cousin, il ne manquait pas de\ntrouver Maria Lobbs aupr\u00e8s de lui. La petite cousine et les autres\njeunes filles \u00e9taient sans cesse occup\u00e9es \u00e0 le pousser, \u00e0 lui tirer les\ncheveux, \u00e0 lui jeter des chaises dans les jambes, \u00e0 lui faire toutes les\nmis\u00e8res imaginables; mais Maria Lobbs ne semblait jamais l'approcher, et\nune fois Nathaniel Pipkin aurait pu jurer qu'il avait entendu le bruit\nd'un baiser suivi d'une faible remontrance de Maria Lobbs, et des rires\n\u00e0 demi \u00e9touff\u00e9s de ses bonnes amies. Tout cela \u00e9tait singulier, et on ne\nsaurait dire ce que le petit homme aurait pu faire ou ne pas faire, en\ncons\u00e9quence, si ses pens\u00e9es n'avaient pas \u00e9t\u00e9 forc\u00e9es soudainement de\nprendre un autre cours.\n\nLa circonstance qui for\u00e7a ses pens\u00e9es \u00e0 prendre un autre cours, c'est\nqu'il entendit frapper violemment \u00e0 la porte de la rue, et la personne\nqui frappait \u00e0 la porte de la rue n'\u00e9tait autre que le vieux Lobbs\nlui-m\u00eame. Il \u00e9tait revenu inopin\u00e9ment, et il tapait, il tapait, comme un\nfabricant de cercueils, car il n'avait pas encore soup\u00e9. Aussit\u00f4t que\ncette nouvelle alarmante eut \u00e9t\u00e9 communiqu\u00e9e par l'apprenti, les jeunes\nfilles grimp\u00e8rent les escaliers, quatre \u00e0 quatre pour se r\u00e9fugier dans\nla chambre \u00e0 coucher de Maria Lobbs, et, faute d'une meilleure cachette,\nle cousin et Nathaniel furent fourr\u00e9s dans deux cabinets du parloir.\nEnfin quand la maligne petite cousine et Maria Lobbs les eurent enferm\u00e9s\net eurent remis la chambre en ordre, elles ouvrirent la porte de la rue\nau vieux Lobbs, qui n'avait pas cess\u00e9 de frapper un seul instant.\n\nIl arriva malheureusement que le vieux Lobbs avait faim, et qu'il \u00e9tait\nd'une monstrueuse mauvaise humeur. Nathaniel Pipkin l'entendait\ngrommeler comme un vieux dogue enrou\u00e9, et chaque fois que le malheureux\napprenti aux jambes gr\u00eales entrait dans la chambre, le vieux Lobbs se\nmettait \u00e0 jurer apr\u00e8s lui comme un atroce pa\u00efen, sans autre but apparent\nque de soulager sa poitrine par la d\u00e9charge de quelques jurons\nsurabondants. A la fin, le souper qu'on avait fait chauffer fut plac\u00e9\nsur la table; le vieux Lobbs tomba dessus comme la mis\u00e8re sur le pauvre\nmonde, et ayant fait les plats nets en un rien de temps, il baisa sa\nfille et demanda sa pipe.\n\nLa nature avait plac\u00e9 les genoux de Nathaniel Pipkin fort pr\u00e8s l'un de\nl'autre, mais ils s'entre-choqu\u00e8rent \u00e0 se briser lorsqu'il entendit le\nvieux Lobbs demander sa pipe. En effet, depuis cinq ans au moins,\nNathaniel avait vu le vieux sellier fumer r\u00e9guli\u00e8rement, tous les soirs,\ndans la m\u00eame pipe \u00e0 fourneau d'argent, et cette pipe \u00e9tait suspendue\npr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment dans le cabinet o\u00f9 l'infortun\u00e9 ma\u00eetre d'\u00e9cole \u00e9tait\nrenferm\u00e9. Les deux jeunes filles descendirent pour chercher la pipe,\nmont\u00e8rent pour chercher la pipe, et en un mot cherch\u00e8rent la pipe\npartout, except\u00e9 o\u00f9 elles savaient fort bien qu'elle se trouvait.\nPendant ce temps, le vieux Lobbs temp\u00eatait de la mani\u00e8re la plus\n\u00e9pouvantable. Tout d'un coup il pensa au cabinet et se leva pour y\nregarder. Il \u00e9tait compl\u00e9tement inutile qu'un petit homme, comme\nNathaniel Pipkin, cherch\u00e2t \u00e0 retenir la porte en dedans, quand un grand\net vigoureux gaillard, comme le sellier, la tirait en dehors. Elle\ns'ouvrit donc et d\u00e9couvrit Nathaniel Pipkin debout dans le cabinet et\ntremblant comme un voleur. Dieu nous b\u00e9nisse! quel effroyable regard le\nvieux Lobbs lui jeta, en le saisissant par le collet, et en le tenant,\npour le consid\u00e9rer, \u00e0 l'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 de son bras.\n\n\u00abDe par tous les diables! que faites-vous l\u00e0?\u00bb s'\u00e9cria le sellier d'une\nvoix terrible.\n\nNathaniel Pipkin ne put faire de r\u00e9ponse, et le vieux Lobbs le secoua de\ntoutes ses forces, pendant deux ou trois minutes, pour l'aider \u00e0 mettre\nde l'ordre dans ses id\u00e9es.\n\n\u00abQue faites-vous ici? Vous \u00eates venu pour ma fille, apparemment?\u00bb\n\nLe vieux Lobbs ne disait cela qu'en mani\u00e8re de sarcasme, car il ne\ncroyait pas que la pr\u00e9somption d'un mortel p\u00fbt conduire Nathaniel Pipkin\naussi loin. Quelle fut donc son indignation, lorsque le pauvre ma\u00eetre\nd'\u00e9cole r\u00e9pondit:\n\n\u00abC'est vrai, monsieur Lobbs, je suis venu pour votre fille, j'aime votre\nfille, monsieur Lobbs.\n\n--Comment, mis\u00e9rable petit singe! balbutia le vieux Lobbs, paralys\u00e9 par\ncette \u00e9trange confession; qu'est-ce que cela signifie? Me dire cela \u00e0 ma\nbarbe! Dieu me damne! je vais vous \u00e9trangler.\u00bb\n\nIl n'est nullement improbable que le vieux Lobbs, dans l'exc\u00e8s de sa\nrage, e\u00fbt ex\u00e9cut\u00e9 cette menace, s'il n'en avait pas \u00e9t\u00e9 emp\u00each\u00e9 par une\napparition compl\u00e9tement inattendue: \u00e0 savoir le cousin, qui, sortant de\nson cabinet, lui dit en s'approchant:\n\n\u00abJe ne puis laisser cette innocente personne qui a \u00e9t\u00e9 invit\u00e9e ici par\nune plaisanterie de jeune fille, prendre sur elle, d'une mani\u00e8re\ntr\u00e8s-noble, la faute (si faute il y a) dont je suis seul coupable, et\nque je suis pr\u00eat \u00e0 avouer. J'aime votre fille, monsieur, et je suis venu\npour la voir.\u00bb\n\nPendant cette d\u00e9claration impr\u00e9vue, le vieux Lobbs ouvrait de grands\nyeux, mais pas plus grands que Nathaniel. A la fin, lorsqu'il retrouva\nassez de souffle pour parler:\n\n\u00abAh! vous \u00eates venu pour voir ma fille!\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--Et ne vous avais-je pas d\u00e9fendu d'entrer ici?\n\n--Oui, monsieur, et sans cela je ne serais pas venu en cachette.\u00bb\n\nJe suis f\u00e2ch\u00e9 de rapporter cela du vieux Lobbs, mais je crois qu'il\naurait assomm\u00e9 le cousin, si sa jolie fille, dont les yeux brillants\n\u00e9taient noy\u00e9s de larmes, ne s'\u00e9tait point suspendue \u00e0 son bras.\n\n\u00abNe le retenez pas, Maria, dit le jeune homme. S'il a envie de frapper\nle fils de sa soeur, laissez-le faire. Pour toutes les richesses du\nmonde, je ne toucherais pas un de ses cheveux blancs.\u00bb\n\nLes yeux du vieillard s'abaiss\u00e8rent sous ce reproche, et rencontr\u00e8rent\nceux de Maria. J'ai d\u00e9j\u00e0 dit plusieurs fois que c'\u00e9taient des yeux\ntr\u00e8s-brillants, et quoique alors ils fussent pleins de larmes, leur\ninfluence n'en \u00e9tait aucunement diminu\u00e9e. Le vieux Lobbs d\u00e9tourna la\nt\u00eate pour \u00e9viter d'\u00eatre persuad\u00e9 par les regards de sa fille, mais la\nfortune voulut qu'il rencontra ceux de la maligne petite cousine, qui, \u00e0\nmoiti\u00e9 effray\u00e9e pour son fr\u00e8re, \u00e0 moiti\u00e9 riante et moqueuse en pensant \u00e0\nNathaniel Pipkin, avait une physionomie si touchante et si comique \u00e0 la\nfois, qu'elle devait n\u00e9cessairement s\u00e9duire l'homme qui la regardait,\njeune ou vieux. Elle passa son bras d'un air c\u00e2lin dans le bras du\nsellier, et elle lui chuchota quelque chose \u00e0 l'oreille; et il eut beau\nfaire, le vieux Lobbs, il ne put s'emp\u00eacher de sourire, tandis qu'une\nlarme coulait en m\u00eame temps sur sa joue.\n\nCinq minutes apr\u00e8s, les jeunes filles furent tir\u00e9es de la chambre \u00e0\ncoucher de Maria, avec beaucoup de ricanements et de rougeur; puis,\ntandis que les jeunes gens s'arrangeaient pour \u00eatre parfaitement\nheureux, le vieux Lobbs aveignit sa pipe et la fuma: c'est une\ncirconstance remarquable, que cette pipe de tabac fut pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment la\nplus douce et la plus consolante qu'il e\u00fbt jamais fum\u00e9e de sa vie.\n\nNathaniel Pipkin jugea convenable de garder son secret. Par ce moyen il\nse trouva graduellement en grande faveur aupr\u00e8s du riche sellier, qui\nlui apprit \u00e0 fumer en mesure. Pendant un grand nombre d'ann\u00e9es, on put\nles voir tous les deux, assis le soir dans le jardin du vieux Lobbs,\nfumant et buvant en grande pompe. Nathaniel se r\u00e9tablit apparemment\nbient\u00f4t de sa passion, car, dans le registre de la paroisse, nous\ntrouvons son nom parmi ceux des t\u00e9moins du mariage de Maria Lobbs avec\nson cousin. Il para\u00eet en outre, d'apr\u00e8s un autre document, que dans la\nnuit des noces, il fut conduit au violon du village pour avoir, dans un\n\u00e9tat complet d'ivresse, commis dans les rues diff\u00e9rents exc\u00e8s, dont\nl'apprenti aux jambes gr\u00eales s'\u00e9tait rendu fauteur et complice.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XVIII.\n\nQui prouve bri\u00e8vement deux points: savoir, le pouvoir des attaques de\nnerfs et la force des circonstances.\n\n\nPendant deux jours, apr\u00e8s le d\u00e9jeuner de mistress Chasselion et le\nd\u00e9part pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9 de M. Pickwick, les trois disciples de ce savant homme\nrest\u00e8rent \u00e0 Eatanswill, attendant avec anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 quelque nouvelle de leur\nrespectable ami. M. Tupman et M. Snodgrass \u00e9taient de nouveau abandonn\u00e9s\n\u00e0 leurs propres ressources, car M. Winkle, c\u00e9dant aux invitations les\nplus pressantes, continuait de r\u00e9sider chez M. Pott, et de d\u00e9vouer tout\nson temps \u00e0 la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 de son aimable \u00e9pouse. M. Pott lui-m\u00eame, pour\ncompl\u00e9ter leur f\u00e9licit\u00e9, se joignait de temps en temps \u00e0 la\nconversation. Habituellement absorb\u00e9 par la profondeur de ses\nsp\u00e9culations pour le bien public et pour la destruction de\nl'_Ind\u00e9pendant_, ce grand homme n'\u00e9tait pas accoutum\u00e9 \u00e0 s'abaisser des\nhauteurs de l'intelligence dans les humbles vall\u00e9es qu'habitent les\nesprits ordinaires. Toutefois, dans cette occasion et comme pour honorer\nun disciple de M. Pickwick, il se d\u00e9rida, il se courba, il descendit de\nson pi\u00e9destal, il consentit \u00e0 marcher sur la terre, adaptant avec\nb\u00e9nignit\u00e9 ses remarques \u00e0 la compr\u00e9hension du vulgaire et se confondant,\ndu moins quant aux formes ext\u00e9rieures, avec le troupeau des humains.\n\nTelle ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 la conduite de cet illustre publiciste vis-\u00e0-vis de M.\nWinkle, on comprendra facilement la surprise de celui-ci, lorsqu'un\nmatin o\u00f9 il se trouvait seul, assis dans la salle \u00e0 manger, il entendit\nla porte s'ouvrir avec violence et se refermer de m\u00eame, et vit M. Pott\ns'avancer majestueusement, repousser la main qu'il lui tendait avec\namiti\u00e9, grincer des dents comme pour rendre ses paroles plus incisives,\net dire avec une voix semblable au cri aigu d'une scie:\n\n\u00abSerpent!\n\n--Monsieur! s'\u00e9cria M. Winkle en tressaillant et en se levant de sa\nchaise.\n\n--Serpent, monsieur!\u00bb r\u00e9p\u00e9ta Pott en \u00e9levant la voix. Puis, en\nl'abaissant tout \u00e0 coup, il ajouta: \u00abJ'ai dit serpent, monsieur. Vous me\ncomprenez, j'esp\u00e8re?\u00bb\n\nOr, quand on a quitt\u00e9 un homme \u00e0 deux heures du matin, avec des\nexpressions d'int\u00e9r\u00eat, de bienveillance et d'amiti\u00e9 r\u00e9ciproques, et\nquand on le revoit \u00e0 neuf heures et demie et qu'il vous traite de\n_serpent_, il n'est point d\u00e9raisonnable de conclure qu'il doit \u00eatre\narriv\u00e9 dans l'intervalle quelque chose d'une nature d\u00e9plaisante. C'est\naussi ce que pensa M. Winkle. Il renvoya \u00e0 M. Pott son regard glacial,\net, conform\u00e9ment \u00e0 l'espoir exprim\u00e9 par ce gentleman, il fit tous ses\nefforts pour comprendre le _serpent_, mais il n'en put venir \u00e0 bout, et\napr\u00e8s un profond silence, qui dura plusieurs minutes, il dit:\n\n\u00abSerpent, monsieur? Serpent, M. Pott? Qu'est-ce que vous entendez par\nl\u00e0, monsieur? c'est une plaisanterie apparemment?\n\n--Une plaisanterie, monsieur! s'\u00e9cria l'\u00e9diteur avec un mouvement de la\nmain qui indiquait un violent d\u00e9sir de jeter \u00e0 la t\u00eate de son h\u00f4te la\nth\u00e9i\u00e8re de m\u00e9tal anglais; une plaisanterie, monsieur!... Mais, non; je\nserai calme; je veux \u00eatre calme, monsieur!... Et pour prouver qu'il\n\u00e9tait calme, M. Pott se jeta dans un fauteuil en \u00e9cumant de la bouche.\n\n--Mon cher monsieur... lui repr\u00e9senta M. Winkle.\n\n--Cher monsieur! Comment osez-vous m'appeler _cher monsieur_, monsieur?\nComment osez-vous me regarder en face, en m'appelant ainsi?\n\n--Ma foi, monsieur, si nous en venons-l\u00e0, comment osez-vous me regarder\nen face, en m'appelant _serpent_?\n\n--Parce que vous en \u00eates un.\n\n--Prouvez-le, s'\u00e9cria M. Winkle avec chaleur. Prouvez-le!\u00bb\n\nUn nuage sombre et mena\u00e7ant passa sur le visage profond de l'\u00e9diteur. Il\ntira de sa poche _l'Ind\u00e9pendant_, qu'on venait de lui apporter, et le\npassa par-dessus la table \u00e0 M. Winkle, en lui montrant du doigt un\nparagraphe.\n\nLe Pickwickien \u00e9tonn\u00e9 prit le journal et lut tout haut ce qui suit:\n\n\u00abNotre obscur et ignoble contemporain, dans ses observations d\u00e9go\u00fbtantes\nsur les derni\u00e8res \u00e9lections de cette cit\u00e9, a eu l'infamie de violer le\nsanctuaire sacr\u00e9 de la vie priv\u00e9e et de faire des allusions fort claires\naux affaires personnelles de notre dernier candidat; oui, et nous dirons\nm\u00eame, malgr\u00e9 le honteux r\u00e9sultat de l'intrigue, aux affaires\npersonnelles de notre futur repr\u00e9sentant, M. Fizkin, qui, malgr\u00e9 un\n\u00e9chec d\u00fb \u00e0 d'ignobles men\u00e9es, n'en sera pas moins notre repr\u00e9sentant un\njour ou l'autre. A quoi pense donc notre l\u00e2che contemporain? Que\ndirait-il, ce malheureux, si, m\u00e9prisant comme lui les convenances de la\nsoci\u00e9t\u00e9, nous levions le rideau qui, heureusement pour lui, d\u00e9robe les\nturpitudes de sa vie priv\u00e9e au ridicule public, pour ne pas dire \u00e0\nl'ex\u00e9cration publique? Que dirait-il si nous indiquions, si nous\ncommentions des circonstances notoires et aper\u00e7ues par tout le monde,\nexcept\u00e9 par notre aveugle contemporain? Que dirait-il, si nous\nimprimions l'effusion suivante, que nous avons re\u00e7ue au moment de mettre\nsous presse et qui nous est adress\u00e9e par un de nos concitoyens de cette\nville, l'un de nos plus spirituels correspondants?...\n\nVERS ADRESS\u00c9S A UN POT DE CUIVRE.\n\n            O pot, si vous aviez pr\u00e9vu,\n    Ce qui de tout le monde est maintenant connu,\n    Quand les cloches pour vous dans l'\u00e9glise ont fait _tinkle_;\n    Vous auriez fait alors ce qui ne se peut plus,\n    Et, donnant \u00e0 madame un bel et bon refus,\n            Vous l'auriez envoy\u00e9e \u00e0 W....\n\n--Eh bien! dit M. Pott avec solennit\u00e9; eh bien! sc\u00e9l\u00e9rat! qu'est-ce qui\nrime avec _tinkle_?\n\n--Ce qui rime avec _tinkle_? interrompit mistress Pott, qui entrait dans\nla chambre en ce moment et qui n'avait entendu que les derniers mots, ce\nqui rime avec _tinkle_? c'est _Winkle_, j'imagine.\u00bb\n\nEn pronon\u00e7ant ces paroles, mistress Pott sourit gracieusement au\nPickwickien agit\u00e9, en lui tendant la main. Dans sa confusion l'honn\u00eate\njeune homme allait serrer cette main, lorsque M. Pott indign\u00e9 se jeta\nentre eux deux.\n\n\u00abArri\u00e8re, madame! arri\u00e8re! s'\u00e9cria-t-il. Prendre sa main \u00e0 mon nez, \u00e0 ma\nbarbe!\n\n--Monsieur Pott! fit son \u00e9pouse \u00e9tonn\u00e9e.\n\n--Mis\u00e9rable femme! regardez ici! regardez ici, madame! _Vers adress\u00e9s \u00e0\nun Pot_... C'est moi, madame! _Vous l'auriez renvoy\u00e9e \u00e0 Winkle_....\nC'est vous, madame, vous!\u00bb Avec cette \u00e9bullition de rage, accompagn\u00e9e\ncependant d'une sorte de tremblement, occasionn\u00e9 par l'expression du\nvisage de sa femme, M. Pott lan\u00e7a \u00e0 ses pieds le num\u00e9ro de\n_l'Ind\u00e9pendant_.\n\n\u00abEh bien, monsieur? dit mistress Pott en se baissant, tout \u00e9tonn\u00e9e, pour\nramasser le journal; eh bien, monsieur?\u00bb\n\nM. Pott fl\u00e9chit sous le regard m\u00e9prisant de sa femme. Il fit un effort\nd\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9 pour rassembler tout son courage, mais ce fut en vain.\n\nLorsqu'on lit cette courte phrase: \u00abEh bien, monsieur?\u00bb il ne semble pas\nqu'elle contienne rien de bien effrayant. Mais le ton de voix dont elle\nfut prononc\u00e9e, le regard qui l'accompagna, paraissaient annoncer quelque\nfuture vengeance, suspendue par un cheveu sur la t\u00eate de l'\u00e9diteur, et\nqui produisit sur lui un effet magique. L'observateur le plus inhabile\naurait d\u00e9couvert, dans son maintien troubl\u00e9, un singulier empressement \u00e0\nc\u00e9der sa culotte \u00e0 quiconque aurait consenti \u00e0 s'y tenir dans ce moment.\n\nMme Pott lut le paragraphe, poussa un cri d\u00e9chirant, et se jeta tout de\nson long sur le tapis du foyer; l\u00e0, \u00e9tendue sur le dos, elle frappa le\nplancher de ses talons avec une assiduit\u00e9 et une violence qui ne\nlaissaient aucun doute sur la d\u00e9licatesse de ses sentiments, dans cette\noccasion.\n\n\u00abMa ch\u00e8re, balbutia M. Pott, dans sa terreur, ma ch\u00e8re, je n'ai pas dit\nque je croyais cela. Je... je n'ai pas....\u00bb Mais la voix du malheureux\nmari \u00e9tait couverte par les hurlements de sa gracieuse moiti\u00e9.\n\n\u00abMadame Pott, reprit M. Winkle, ma ch\u00e8re dame, permettez-moi de vous\nsupplier de vous tranquilliser un peu.\u00bb Inutile! les cris et les coups\nde talons \u00e9taient plus violents et plus fr\u00e9quents que jamais.\n\n\u00abMa ch\u00e8re, recommen\u00e7a l'\u00e9diteur, je suis bien f\u00e2ch\u00e9.... Si ce n'est pas\npour votre sant\u00e9, que ce soit pour moi.... Vous allez attirer toute la\npopulace autour de notre maison....\u00bb Mais plus M. Pott mettait de\nchaleur dans ses supplications, plus son \u00e9pouse mettait de vigueur dans\nses cris.\n\nTr\u00e8s-heureusement cependant, Mme Pott avait attach\u00e9 \u00e0 sa personne une\nsorte de garde du corps, dans la personne d'une jeune _lady_ dont\nl'emploi ostensible \u00e9tait de pr\u00e9sider \u00e0 la toilette de sa ma\u00eetresse,\nmais qui se rendait utile d'une infinit\u00e9 d'autres mani\u00e8res, et\nprincipalement en aidant cette aimable femme \u00e0 contrecarrer chaque\nd\u00e9sir, chaque inclination du malheureux journaliste. Les hurlements\nhyst\u00e9riques de Mme Pott atteignirent bient\u00f4t les oreilles de ladite\ngarde du corps, et l'amen\u00e8rent dans le parloir, avec une rapidit\u00e9 qui\nmena\u00e7ait de d\u00e9ranger mat\u00e9riellement l'harmonie exquise de son bonnet et\nde sa chevelure.\n\n\u00abO ma ch\u00e8re ma\u00eetresse! ma ch\u00e8re ma\u00eetresse! s'\u00e9cria la jeune personne, en\ns'agenouillant d'un air \u00e9gar\u00e9 \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la gisante Mme Pott; \u00f4 ma ch\u00e8re\nma\u00eetresse! qu'est-ce que vous avez?\n\n--Votre ma\u00eetre!... votre brutal de ma\u00eetre....\u00bb balbutia la malade.\n\nPott faiblissait \u00e9videmment.\n\n\u00abC'est une honte! dit la jeune fille d'un ton de reproche. Je suis s\u00fbre\nqu'il vous fera mourir, madame. Pauvre cher ange!\u00bb\n\nPott faiblit encore plus: l'autre parti continua ses attaques.\n\n\u00abOh! ne m'abandonnez pas! Ne m'abandonnez pas, Goodwin! murmura Mme\nPott, en s'attachant avec une force convulsive au poignet de la jeune\ndemoiselle. Vous \u00eates la seule personne qui m'aimiez, Goodwin!\u00bb\n\nA cette apostrophe touchante, miss Goodwin monta, de son c\u00f4t\u00e9, une\npetite trag\u00e9die, et versa des larmes en abondance.\n\n\u00abJamais! madame, soupira-t-elle. Ah! monsieur, vous devriez prendre\ngarde.... Vous devriez \u00eatre prudent! vous ne savez pas quel mal vous\npouvez faire \u00e0 ma ma\u00eetresse. Vous en seriez f\u00e2ch\u00e9 un jour.... Je le sais\nbien... je l'ai toujours dit!\u00bb\n\nLe malheureux Pott regarda sa moiti\u00e9 d'un air timide, mais il ne dit\nrien.\n\n\u00abGoodwin.... dit Mme Pott, d'une voix douce.\n\n--Madame?\n\n--Si vous saviez combien j'ai aim\u00e9 cet homme-l\u00e0!\n\n--Ne vous tourmentez pas en vous rappelant \u00e7a, madame.\u00bb\n\nPott laissa voir qu'il \u00e9tait effray\u00e9; c'\u00e9tait le moment de frapper un\ncoup d\u00e9cisif.\n\n\u00abEt maintenant! sanglota Mme Pott, maintenant! Apr\u00e8s tant d'amour, \u00eatre\ntrait\u00e9e comme cela! \u00catre m\u00e9connue! \u00eatre insult\u00e9e! en pr\u00e9sence d'un\ntiers, d'un _\u00e9tranger_! Mais je ne me soumettrai pas \u00e0 cela, Goodwin,\ncontinua Mme Pott en se soulevant, dans les bras de sa suivante. Mon\nfr\u00e8re le lieutenant me prot\u00e9gera.... Je veux une s\u00e9paration, Goodwin.\n\n--Certainement, madame. Il le m\u00e9riterait bien.\u00bb\n\nQuelles que fussent les pens\u00e9es qu'une menace de s\u00e9paration p\u00fbt exciter\ndans l'esprit de l'\u00e9diteur, il ne les exprima pas; mais il se contenta\nde dire avec grande humilit\u00e9: \u00abMa ch\u00e8re \u00e2me, voulez-vous m'entendre?\u00bb\n\nUne nouvelle d\u00e9charge de sanglots fut la seule r\u00e9ponse, et Mme Pott,\ndevenue encore plus nerveuse, demanda, d'une voix entrecoup\u00e9e, pourquoi\nelle avait \u00e9t\u00e9 mise au monde, pourquoi elle s'\u00e9tait mari\u00e9e, et voulut\n\u00eatre inform\u00e9e d'une foule d'autres secrets de ce genre.\n\n\u00abMa ch\u00e8re, lui remontra M. Pott, ne vous abandonnez pas \u00e0 ces\nsentiments exalt\u00e9s. Je n'ai jamais cru que ce paragraphe e\u00fbt aucun\nfondement; aucun, ma ch\u00e8re! Impossible! J'\u00e9tais seulement irrit\u00e9, je\npuis dire furieux, ma ch\u00e8re, contre les \u00e9diteurs de l'_Ind\u00e9pendant_ qui\nont eu l'insolence de l'ins\u00e9rer. Voil\u00e0 tout.\u00bb En parlant ainsi, M. Pott\njeta un regard suppliant \u00e0 le cause innocente du grabuge, pour l'engager\n\u00e0 ne point parler du _serpent_.\n\n\u00abEt quelles d\u00e9marches ferez-vous, monsieur, pour obtenir satisfaction?\ndemanda M. Winkle, qui reprenait du courage, en voyant que M. Pott\nperdait le sien.\n\n--O Goodwin, murmura Mme Pott; va-t-il cravacher l'\u00e9diteur de\nl'_Ind\u00e9pendant_? le fera-t-il, Goodwin?\n\n--Chut! chut! madame. Calmez-vous, je vous en prie! Certainement, il le\ncravachera si vous le d\u00e9sirez, madame.\n\n--Assur\u00e9ment, reprit Pott, en voyant que sa moiti\u00e9 \u00e9tait sur le point de\nretomber en faiblesse. N\u00e9cessairement, je le cravacherai....\n\n--Quand? Goodwin, quand? poursuivit Mme Pott, ne sachant pas encore si\nelle devait retomber.\n\n--Sans d\u00e9lai, naturellement, r\u00e9pondit l'\u00e9diteur: avant que le jour soit\ntermin\u00e9.\n\n--O Goodwin! reprit la dame, c'est le seul moyen d'apaiser le scandale,\net de me remettre sur un bon pied dans le monde.\n\n--Certainement, madame; aucun homme, s'il est un homme, ne peut se\nrefuser \u00e0 faire cela.\u00bb\n\nCependant les attaques de nerfs planaient toujours sur l'horizon. M.\nPott r\u00e9p\u00e9ta de nouveau qu'il cravacherait, mais Mme Pott \u00e9tait si\naccabl\u00e9e par la seule id\u00e9e d'avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 soup\u00e7onn\u00e9e, qu'elle fut une\ndouzaine de fois sur le point de retomber; et probablement une rechute\nserait arriv\u00e9e, sans les efforts infatigables de l'attentive Goodwin, et\nsans les supplications repentantes du parti vaincu. A la fin, quand le\nmalheureux Pott fut convenablement mat\u00e9 et compl\u00e9tement remis \u00e0 sa\nplace, Mme Pott se trouva mieux, et nos trois personnages commenc\u00e8rent \u00e0\nd\u00e9jeuner.\n\n\u00abJ'esp\u00e8re, dit Mme Pott avec un sourire qui brillait \u00e0 travers les\ntraces de ses larmes, j'esp\u00e8re, monsieur Winkle, que les basses\ncalomnies de ce journal n'accourciront pas votre s\u00e9jour avec nous.\n\n--J'esp\u00e8re que non, ajouta M. Pott, qui dans son coeur souhaitait\nardemment que son h\u00f4te s'\u00e9touff\u00e2t avec le morceau de r\u00f4tie qu'il portait\ndans ce moment \u00e0 sa bouche, et termin\u00e2t ainsi ses visites. J'esp\u00e8re que\nnon.\n\n--Vous \u00eates bien bon, r\u00e9pondit M. Winkle; mais, ce matin, j'ai trouv\u00e9 \u00e0\nla porte de ma chambre \u00e0 coucher une note de M. Tupman, pour m'annoncer\nque M. Pickwick nous \u00e9crit de le rejoindre aujourd'hui \u00e0 Bury. Nous\ndevons partir par la voiture de midi....\n\n--Mais vous reviendrez? dit mistress Pott.\n\n--Oh! certainement.\n\n--En \u00eates-vous bien s\u00fbr? continua la dame en jetant \u00e0 la d\u00e9rob\u00e9e un\ntendre regard \u00e0 son h\u00f4te.\n\n--Certainement, r\u00e9pondit M. Winkle.\u00bb\n\nLe d\u00e9jeuner se termina en silence, car chacun des assistants ruminait\nsur ses chagrins: mistress Pott regrettait la perte de son cavalier; M.\nPott, son imprudente promesse de cravacher l'Ind\u00e9pendant; M. Winkle, les\ngalanteries qui l'avaient plac\u00e9 dans une si embarrassante situation.\nL'heure de midi approchait, et apr\u00e8s beaucoup d'adieux et de promesses\nde retour, M. Winkle s'arracha de cette famille, o\u00f9 il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 si bien\nre\u00e7u.\n\n\u00abS'il revient jamais, je l'empoisonne! pensa M. Pott en se retirant dans\nle petit bureau o\u00f9 il pr\u00e9parait les foudres de son \u00e9loquence.\n\n--Si jamais je reviens m'emp\u00eatrer parmi ces gens-l\u00e0, pensa M. Winkle en\nse rendant au Paon d'argent, je m\u00e9rite d'\u00eatre cravach\u00e9 moi-m\u00eame; voil\u00e0\ntout.\u00bb\n\nSes amis \u00e9taient pr\u00eats, la voiture arriva bient\u00f4t, et au bout d'une\ndemi-heure les trois pickwickiens accomplissaient leur voyage, par la\nm\u00eame route que M. Pickwick avait si heureusement parcourue avec Sam.\nComme nous en avons d\u00e9j\u00e0 parl\u00e9, nous ne croyons pas devoir extraire la\nbelle et po\u00e9tique description qu'en donne M. Snodgrass.\n\nSam Weller les attendait \u00e0 la porte de l'Ange et les introduisit dans\nl'appartement de M. Pickwick. L\u00e0, \u00e0 la grande surprise de M. Winkle et\nde M. Snodgrass, et \u00e0 l'immense confusion de M. Tupman, ils trouv\u00e8rent\nle vieux Wardle avec M. Trundle.\n\n\u00abComment \u00e7a va-t-il? dit le vieillard en serrant la main de M. Tupman.\nAllons! allons! ne prenez pas un air sentimental. Il n'y a pas de rem\u00e8de\n\u00e0 cela, vieux camarade. Pour l'amour d'elle je voudrais qu'elle vous e\u00fbt\n\u00e9pous\u00e9, mais dans votre int\u00e9r\u00eat je suis bien aise qu'elle ne l'ait pas\nfait. Un jeune gaillard comme vous r\u00e9ussira mieux un de ces jours, eh!\u00bb\nTout en prof\u00e9rant ces consolations, le vieux Wardle tapait sur le dos de\nM. Tupman, et riait de tout son coeur.\n\n\u00abEt vous, mes joyeux compagnons, comment \u00e7a va-t-il? poursuivit le vieux\ngentleman, en secouant \u00e0 la fois la main de M. Winkle, et celle de M.\nSnodgrass. Je viens de dire \u00e0 Pickwick que je voulais vous avoir tous \u00e0\nNo\u00ebl. Nous aurons une noce; une noce r\u00e9elle, cette fois-ci.\n\n--Une noce! s'\u00e9cria M. Snodgrass en p\u00e2lissant.\n\n--Oui, une noce. Mais ne vous effrayez pas, r\u00e9pliqua le bienveillant\nvieillard; c'est seulement Trundle que voici, et Bella.\n\n--Oh! est-ce l\u00e0 tout? reprit M. Snodgrass, soulag\u00e9 d'un doute p\u00e9nible\nqui avait \u00e9treint son coeur comme une main de fer. Je vous fais mon\ncompliment, monsieur. Comment va Joe?\n\n--Lui? tr\u00e8s-bien. Toujours endormi.\n\n--Et madame votre m\u00e8re? et le vicaire? et tout le monde?\n\n--Parfaitement bien.\n\n--Monsieur, dit M. Tupman avec effort; o\u00f9 est... o\u00f9 est-_elle_?\u00bb En\nparlant ainsi il d\u00e9tourna la t\u00eate et couvrit ses yeux de ses mains.\n\n\u00ab_Elle?_ r\u00e9pliqua le vieux gentleman, en secouant la t\u00eate d'un air\nmalin. Voulez-vous dire ma soeur, eh?\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman indiqua par un signe que sa question se rapportait \u00e0 la\ndemoiselle abandonn\u00e9e.\n\n\u00abOh! elle est partie; elle demeure chez une parente, assez loin. Elle ne\npouvait plus soutenir la vue de mes filles, si bien que je l'ai laiss\u00e9e\naller. Mais voici le d\u00eener; vous devez \u00eatre affam\u00e9 apr\u00e8s votre voyage,\net moi je le suis sans cela. Ainsi donc, \u00e0 l'oeuvre!\u00bb\n\nAmple justice fut faite au repas, et lorsque les restes en eurent \u00e9t\u00e9\nenlev\u00e9s, lorsque nos amis furent \u00e9tablis commod\u00e9ment autour de la table,\nM. Pickwick raconta les m\u00e9saventures qu'il avait subies, et le succ\u00e8s\nqui avait couronn\u00e9 la ruse inf\u00e2me du diabolique Jingle. Ses disciples\n\u00e9taient p\u00e9trifi\u00e9s d'indignation et d'horreur.\n\n\u00abEnfin, dit en concluant M. Pickwick, le rhumatisme que j'ai attrap\u00e9\ndans ce jardin me rend encore boiteux.\n\n--Moi aussi, j'ai eu une esp\u00e8ce d'aventure, dit M. Winkle, avec un\nsourire; et \u00e0 la requ\u00eate de M. Pickwick il rapporta le malicieux\nlibelle de l'Ind\u00e9pendant d'Eatanswill, et l'irritation subs\u00e9quente de\nleur ami, l'\u00e9diteur de la Gazette.\n\nLe front de M. Pickwick s'obscurcit pendant ce r\u00e9cit; ses amis s'en\naper\u00e7urent et, lorsque M. Winkle se tut, gard\u00e8rent un profond silence.\nM. Pickwick frappa emphatiquement la table avec son poing ferm\u00e9, et\nparla ainsi qu'il suit:\n\n\u00abN'est-ce pas une circonstance \u00e9tonnante, que nous semblions destin\u00e9s \u00e0\nne pouvoir entrer sous le toit d'un homme que pour y porter le trouble\navec nous. Je vous le demande, ne dois-je pas croire \u00e0 l'indiscr\u00e9tion,\nou, bien pis encore, \u00e0 l'immoralit\u00e9 de mes disciples, lorsque je les\nvois, dans chaque maison o\u00f9 ils p\u00e9n\u00e8trent, d\u00e9truire la paix du coeur, le\nbonheur domestique de quelque femme confiante. N'est-ce pas, je le\ndis....\u00bb\n\nSuivant toutes les probabilit\u00e9s, M. Pickwick aurait continu\u00e9 sur ce ton\npendant un certain temps, si l'entr\u00e9e de Sam avec une lettre n'avait pas\ninterrompu son \u00e9loquent discours. Il passa son mouchoir sur son front,\n\u00f4ta ses lunettes, les essuya et les remit sur son nez: c'\u00e9tait assez; sa\nvoix avait recouvr\u00e9 sa douceur habituelle lorsqu'il demanda: \u00abQu'est-ce\nque vous m'apportez l\u00e0, Sam?\n\n--Je viens de la poste, monsieur, et j'y ai trouv\u00e9 cette lettre ici:\nelle y a attendu deux jours; elle est cachet\u00e9e avec un pain enchant\u00e9 et\nl'adresse est figur\u00e9e en ronde.\n\n--Je ne connais pas cette \u00e9criture-l\u00e0, dit M. Pickwick en ouvrant la\nlettre. Le ciel aie piti\u00e9 de nous! qu'est-ce que ceci? Il faut que ce\nsoit un songe! Cela... cela ne peut pas \u00eatre vrai!\n\n--Qu'est-ce que c'est donc? demand\u00e8rent tous les convives.\n\n--Personne de mort! j'esp\u00e8re?\u00bb dit M. Wardle, alarm\u00e9 par l'expression\nd'horreur qui contractait le visage de M. Pickwick.\n\nLe philosophe ne fit pas de r\u00e9ponse, mais passant la lettre par-dessus\nla table, il pria M. Tupman de la lire tout haut, et se laissa retomber\nsur sa chaise avec un air d'\u00e9tonnement et d'\u00e9garement, qui faisait peine\n\u00e0 voir.\n\nM. Tupman, d'une voix tremblante, lut la lettre ci-dessous rapport\u00e9e.\n\n     \u00abFreeman's-Court, Cornhill, August, 28e, 1831.\n\n     \u00abBARDELL CONTRE PICKWICK.\n\n     \u00abMonsieur,\n\n     \u00abAyant \u00e9t\u00e9 charg\u00e9s par Mme Martha Bardell de commencer une action\n     contre vous pour violation d'une promesse de mariage, pour\n     laquelle la plaignante fixe ses dommages \u00e0 quinze cents guin\u00e9es,\n     nous prenons la libert\u00e9 de vous informer qu'une citation a \u00e9t\u00e9\n     lanc\u00e9e contre vous devant la cour de _Common pleas_; et d\u00e9sirons\n     savoir, courrier pour courrier, le nom de votre avou\u00e9 \u00e0 Londres,\n     qui sera charg\u00e9 de suivre cette affaire.\n\n     \u00abNous sommes, monsieur, vos ob\u00e9issants serviteurs.\n\n     \u00abDODSON et FOGG.\n\n     \u00ab_M. Samuel Pickwick,_\u00bb\n\nLe muet \u00e9tonnement avec lequel cette lecture fut accueillie avait\nquelque chose de tellement solennel, que chacun des assistants\nparaissait craindre de rompre le silence, et regardait tour \u00e0 tour ses\nvoisins et M. Pickwick. A la fin M. Tupman r\u00e9p\u00e9ta machinalement: \u00abDodson\net Fogg!\n\n--Bardell contre Pickwick, chuchota M. Snodgrass d'un air distrait.\n\n--La paix du coeur, le bonheur domestique de quelque femme confiante!\nmurmura M. Winkle avec abstraction.\n\n--C'est un complot! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, recouvrant enfin le pouvoir de\nparler. C'est un inf\u00e2me complot de ces deux avou\u00e9s rapaces. Mme Bardell\nn'aurait jamais fait cela. Elle n'aurait pas le coeur de le faire; elle\nn'en aurait pas le droit. Ridicule! ridicule!\n\n--Quant \u00e0 son coeur, reprit M. Wardle avec un sourire, vous en \u00eates\ncertainement le meilleur juge; mais pour son droit je vous dirai, sans\nvouloir vous d\u00e9courager, que Dodson et Fogg en sont meilleurs juges\nqu'aucun de nous ne peut l'\u00eatre.\n\n--C'est une basse tentative pour m'escroquer de l'argent.\n\n--Je l'esp\u00e8re, r\u00e9pliqua M. Wardle avec une toux s\u00e8che et courte.\n\n--Qui m'a jamais entendu lui parler autrement qu'un locataire doit\nparler \u00e0 sa propri\u00e9taire? continua M. Pickwick avec grande v\u00e9h\u00e9mence.\nQui m'a jamais vu avec elle? Non! pas m\u00eame mes amis ici pr\u00e9sents.\n\n--Except\u00e9 une seule fois, interrompit M. Tupman.\n\nM. Pickwick changea de couleur.\n\n\u00abAh! reprit M. Wardle, ceci est important. Il n'y avait rien de suspect\ncette fois-l\u00e0, je suppose?\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman lan\u00e7a un coup d'oeil timide \u00e0 son mentor. \u00abVraiment, dit-il, il\nn'y avait rien de suspect, mais... je ne sais comment cela \u00e9tait\narriv\u00e9.... Il la tenait certainement dans ses bras.\n\n--Juste ciel! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, le souvenir de la sc\u00e8ne en question\nse retra\u00e7ant avec vivacit\u00e9 \u00e0 son esprit. Cela est vrai! cela est vrai!\nQuelle affreuse preuve du pouvoir des circonstances!\n\n--Et notre ami t\u00e2chait de la consoler, ajouta M. Winkle avec un grain de\nmalice.\n\n--Cela est vrai, dit M. Pickwick. Je ne le nierai point, cela est vrai!\n\n--Ho! ho! cria M. Wardle, pour une affaire dans laquelle il n'y a rien\nde suspect, cela a l'air assez dr\u00f4le. Eh! Pickwick, ah! ah! rus\u00e9\ngarnement! rus\u00e9 garnement!\u00bb Et il \u00e9clata de rire avec tant de force que\nles verres en retentirent sur le buffet.\n\n\u00abQuelle \u00e9pouvantable r\u00e9union d'apparences! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick en\nappuyant son menton sur ses deux mains. Winkle! Tupman! je vous prie de\nme pardonner les observations que je viens de faire \u00e0 l'instant. Nous\nsommes tous les victimes des circonstances, et moi la plus grande des\ntrois!\u00bb\n\nAyant fait cette apologie, M. Pickwick ensevelit sa t\u00eate dans ses mains\net se mit \u00e0 r\u00e9fl\u00e9chir, tandis que M. Wardle adressait aux autres membres\nde la compagnie une collection de clignements d'oeil et de signes de\nt\u00eate.\n\n\u00abQuoi qu'il en soit, dit M. Pickwick en relevant son front indign\u00e9, et\nen frappant sur la table, je veux que tout cela s'explique. Je verrai ce\nDodson et ce Fogg. J'irai \u00e0 Londres, demain.\n\n--Non, pas demain, reprit M. Wardle, vous \u00eates trop boiteux.\n\n--Eh bien! alors, apr\u00e8s-demain.\n\n--Apr\u00e8s-demain est le premier septembre, et vous avez promis de venir\navec nous jusqu'au manoir de sir Geoffrey Manning, pour nous tenir t\u00eate\nau d\u00e9jeuner, si vous ne nous accompagnez pas \u00e0 la chasse.\n\n--Eh bien! alors, le jour suivant, jeudi. Sam!\n\n--Monsieur?\n\n--Retenez deux places d'imp\u00e9riale pour Londres, pour jeudi matin.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nSam Weller partit donc pour ex\u00e9cuter sa commission. Il avait ses mains\ndans ses poches, ses yeux fix\u00e9s sur la terre et il marchait lentement,\nen se parlant \u00e0 lui-m\u00eame.\n\n\u00abDr\u00f4le de corps que mon empereur! Faire la cour \u00e0 cette Mme Bardell,\nune femme qui a un petit moutard! Toujours comme \u00e7a qu'ils sont ces\nvieux gar\u00e7ons qui ont l'air si sage. Quoique \u00e7a, je n'aurais pas cru \u00e7a\nde lui, je n'aurais pas cru \u00e7a de lui!\u00bb Tout en moralisant de la sorte,\nM. Weller \u00e9tait arriv\u00e9 au bureau des voitures.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XIX.\n\nUn jour heureux, termin\u00e9 malheureusement.\n\n\nLes oiseaux salu\u00e8rent la matin\u00e9e du 1er septembre 1831 comme l'une des\nplus agr\u00e9ables de la saison, car ils ignoraient, heureusement pour la\npaix de leur coeur, les immenses pr\u00e9paratifs qu'on faisait pour les\nexterminer. Plus d'une jeune perdrix, qui trottait complaisamment dans\nles pr\u00e9s, avec toute la gracieuse coquetterie de la jeunesse; et plus\nd'une m\u00e8re perdrix, qui, de son petit oeil rond, consid\u00e9rait cette\nl\u00e9g\u00e8ret\u00e9 avec l'air d\u00e9daigneux d'un oiseau plein d'exp\u00e9rience et de\nsagesse, ignorant \u00e9galement le destin qui les attendait, se baignaient\ndans l'air frais du matin, avec un sentiment de bonheur et de gaiet\u00e9.\nQuelques heures plus tard, leurs cadavres devaient \u00eatre \u00e9tendus sur la\nterre! Mais silence! il est temps de terminer cette tirade, car nous\ndevenons trop sentimental.\n\nDonc, pour parler d'une mani\u00e8re simple et pratique, c'\u00e9tait une belle\nmatin\u00e9e, si belle qu'on aurait eu peine \u00e0 croire que les mois rapides\nd'un \u00e9t\u00e9 anglais \u00e9taient d\u00e9j\u00e0 presque \u00e9coul\u00e9s. Les haies, les champs,\nles arbres, les coteaux, les marais, se paraient de mille teintes\nvari\u00e9es. A peine une feuille tomb\u00e9e, \u00e0 peine une nuance de jaune m\u00eal\u00e9e\naux couleurs du printemps, vous avertissaient que l'automne allait\ncommencer. Le ciel \u00e9tait sans nuage; le soleil s'\u00e9tait lev\u00e9, chaud et\nbrillant; l'air retentissait du chant des oiseaux et du bourdonnement\ndes insectes; les jardins \u00e9taient remplis de fleurs odorantes, qui\n\u00e9tincelaient sous la ros\u00e9e comme des lits de joyaux \u00e9blouissants; toutes\nchoses enfin portaient la marque de l'\u00e9t\u00e9, et pas une de ses beaut\u00e9s ne\ns'\u00e9tait encore effac\u00e9e.\n\nMalgr\u00e9 le charme de la saison, M. Snodgrass ayant pr\u00e9f\u00e9r\u00e9 demeurer au\nlogis, les trois autres pickwickiens mont\u00e8rent dans une voiture\nd\u00e9couverte avec M. Wardle et M. Trundle, tandis que Sam Weller se\npla\u00e7ait sur le si\u00e9ge \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 du cocher.\n\nAu bout d'une couple d'heures leur carrosse s'arr\u00eata devant une vieille\nmaison, sur le bord de la route. Ils \u00e9taient attendus, et trouv\u00e8rent \u00e0\nla porte, outre deux chiens d'arr\u00eat, un garde-chasse, grand et sec, avec\nun enfant, dont les jambes \u00e9taient couvertes de gu\u00eatres de cuir. L'un et\nl'autre portaient une carnassi\u00e8re d'une vaste dimension.\n\n\u00abDites-moi donc, murmura M. Winkle \u00e0 M. Wardle, pendant qu'on abaissait\nle marchepied. Est-ce qu'ils supposent que nous allons tuer du gibier\nplein ces deux sacs-l\u00e0.\n\n--Plein ces deux sacs! s'\u00e9cria le vieux Wardle. Que Dieu vous b\u00e9nisse!\nvous en remplirez un et moi l'autre, et quand ils seront pleins, les\npoches de nos vestes en tiendront encore autant.\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle descendit sans rien r\u00e9pondre; mais il ne put s'emp\u00eacher de\npenser que s'ils devaient tous rester en plein air jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'il e\u00fbt\nrempli un de ces sacs, ses amis et lui couraient un danger assez\nconsid\u00e9rable d'attraper des fra\u00eecheurs et des rhumatismes.\n\n\u00abHi! Junon, hi! vieille fille! A bas, Deph! \u00e0 bas! dit M. Wardle en\ncaressant les chiens. Sir Geoffrey est encore en \u00c9cosse, Martin?\u00bb\n\nLe grand garde-chasse r\u00e9pondit affirmativement, en promenant des regards\nsurpris de M. Winkle, qui tenait son fusil comme s'il avait voulu que sa\nveste lui \u00e9pargn\u00e2t la peine de tirer la g\u00e2chette, \u00e0 M. Tupman, qui\nportait le sien comme s'il en avait \u00e9t\u00e9 effray\u00e9; et il y a tout lieu de\ncroire qu'il l'\u00e9tait effectivement.\n\nM. Wardle remarqua l'air inquiet du grand garde-chasse, \u00abMes amis, lui\ndit-il, n'ont pas beaucoup l'habitude de ces sortes de choses. Vous\nsavez... ce n'est qu'en forgeant qu'on devient forgeron.... Ils seront\nbons tireurs un de ces jours.... Je demande pardon \u00e0 mon ami Winkle, il\na d\u00e9j\u00e0 quelque habitude, cependant.\u00bb\n\nPour reconna\u00eetre ce compliment, M. Winkle sourit faiblement par-dessus\nsa cravate bleue, et dans sa modeste confusion il se trouva si\nmyst\u00e9rieusement emm\u00eal\u00e9 avec son fusil, que si celui-ci avait \u00e9t\u00e9 charg\u00e9,\nil se serait infailliblement tu\u00e9 sur la place.\n\n\u00abIl ne faut pas manier votre fusil dans cette imagination ici monsieur,\nquand vous aurez de la charge dedans, dit le grand garde-chasse d'un air\nrechign\u00e9; ou je veux \u00eatre damn\u00e9 si vous ne faites pas de la viande\nfroide avec quelqu'un de nous.\u00bb\n\nAinsi admonest\u00e9, M. Winkle changea brusquement de position, et dans son\nempressement il amena le canon de son fusil en contact assez intime avec\nla t\u00eate de Sam.\n\n\u00abHol\u00e0! cria Sam en ramassant son chapeau et en frottant les tempes.\nHol\u00e0! monsieur, si vous y allez comme \u00e7a, vous remplirez grandement un\nde ces sacs ici, et du premier coup, encore.\u00bb\n\nA ces mots le petit gar\u00e7on aux gu\u00eatres de cuir laissa \u00e9chapper un \u00e9clat\nde rire, et s'effor\u00e7a au m\u00eame instant de reprendre un air grave, comme\nsi ce n'avait pas \u00e9t\u00e9 lui. M. Winkle fron\u00e7a le sourcil majestueusement.\n\n\u00abMartin, demanda M. Wardle, o\u00f9 avez-vous dit au gar\u00e7on de nous retrouver\navec le go\u00fbter?\n\n--Sur le coteau du ch\u00eane, monsieur, \u00e0 midi.\n\n--Est-ce que c'est sur la terre de sir Geoffrey?\n\n--Non, monsieur, c'est tout \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9. C'est sur la terre du capitaine\nBoldwig, mais il ne s'y trouvera personne pour nous d\u00e9ranger, et il y a\nl\u00e0 un joli brin de gazon.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, dit le vieux Wardle. Maintenant, plus t\u00f4t nous partirons,\nmieux cela vaudra. Vous nous rejoindrez \u00e0 midi, Pickwick.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick d\u00e9sirait voir la chasse, principalement parce qu'il avait\nquelques inqui\u00e9tudes pour la vie et l'int\u00e9grit\u00e9 des membres de M.\nWinkle. D'ailleurs, par une si belle matin\u00e9e, il \u00e9tait cruel de voir\npartir ses amis et de rester en arri\u00e8re. C'est donc avec un air fort\npiteux qu'il r\u00e9pondit: \u00abIl le faut bien, je suppose....\n\n--Est-ce que le gentleman ne tire point? demanda le long garde-chasse.\n\n--Non, r\u00e9pondit M. Wardle, et de plus il est boiteux.\n\n--J'aimerais beaucoup \u00e0 aller avec vous, dit M. Pickwick, beaucoup.\u00bb\n\nIl y eut un court silence de commis\u00e9ration. Le petit gar\u00e7on le rompit en\ndisant: \u00abIl y a l\u00e0, de l'aut' c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la haie, une brouette. Si le\ndomestique du gentleman voulait le brouetter dans le sentier, il\npourrait venir avec nous, et nous le ferions passer par-dessus les\nbarri\u00e8res, et tout \u00e7a.\n\n--Voil\u00e0 la chose, s'empressa de dire Sam Weller, qui \u00e9tait partie\nint\u00e9ress\u00e9e, car il d\u00e9sirait ardemment voir la chasse. Voil\u00e0 la chose.\nBien dit, p'tit m\u00f4me. Je vas l'avoir dans un instant.\u00bb\n\nMais ici une autre difficult\u00e9 s'\u00e9leva. Le grand garde-chasse protesta\nr\u00e9solument contre l'introduction d'un gentleman brouett\u00e9 dans une partie\nde chasse, soutenant que c'\u00e9tait une violation flagrante de toutes les\nr\u00e8gles \u00e9tablies et de tous les pr\u00e9c\u00e9dents.\n\nL'objection \u00e9tait forte, mais elle n'\u00e9tait pas insurmontable. On cajola\nle garde-chasse, on lui graissa la patte; lui-m\u00eame se soulagea le coeur\nen ramollissant la t\u00eate inventive du jeune gar\u00e7on qui avait sugg\u00e9r\u00e9\nl'usage de la machine, et enfin la caravane se mit en route. M. Wardle\net le garde-chasse ouvraient la marche; M. Pickwick, dans sa brouette\npouss\u00e9e par Sam, formait l'arri\u00e8re-garde.\n\n\u00abArr\u00eatez, Sam! cria M. Pickwick lorsqu'ils eurent travers\u00e9 le premier\nchamp.\n\n--Qu'est-ce qu'il y a maintenant? demanda M. Wardle.\n\n--Je ne souffrirai pas que cette brouette avance un pas de plus, d\u00e9clara\nM. Pickwick d'un air r\u00e9solu, \u00e0 moins que Winkle ne porte son fusil d'une\nautre mani\u00e8re.\n\n--Et comment dois-je le porter? dit le mis\u00e9rable Winkle.\n\n--Portez-le avec le canon en bas.\n\n--Cela a l'air si peu chasseur, repr\u00e9senta M. Winkle.\n\n--Je ne me soucie pas si cela a l'air chasseur ou non; mais je n'ai pas\nenvie d'\u00eatre fusill\u00e9 dans une brouette pour l'amour des apparences.\n\n--S\u00fbr que le gentleman mettra cette charge ici dans le corps de\nquelqu'un, grommela le grand homme.\n\n--Bien! bien! reprit le malheureux Winkle en renversant son fusil; cela\nm'est \u00e9gal; voil\u00e0....\n\n--C'est les concessions mutuelles qui fait le charme de la vie,\u00bb fit\nobserver Sam, et la caravane se remit en marche.\n\nElle n'avait point fait cent pas lorsque M. Pickwick cria de nouveau:\n\u00abArr\u00eatez!\n\n--Qu'est-ce qu'il y a encore? demanda M. Wardle.\n\n--Le fusil de Tupman est aussi dangereux que l'autre; j'en suis s\u00fbr.\n\n--Eh quoi? dangereux! s'\u00e9cria M. Tupman, fort alarm\u00e9.\n\n--Dangereux si vous le portez comme cela. Je suis tr\u00e8s-f\u00e2ch\u00e9 de faire de\nnouvelles objections, mais je ne puis consentir \u00e0 continuer si vous ne\nl'abaissez point comme Winkle.\n\n--J'imagine que vous feriez mieux, monsieur, ajouta le grand\ngarde-chasse, autrement vous pourriez mettre votre bourre dans votre\ngilet aussi bien que dans celui des autres.\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman, avec l'empressement le plus obligeant, pla\u00e7a son fusil dans\nla position requise, et le convoi repartit encore, les deux amateurs\nmarchant avec leur fusil renvers\u00e9 comme une couple de soldats \u00e0 des\nfun\u00e9railles.\n\nTout d'un coup les chiens s'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent, et leurs ma\u00eetres en firent\nautant.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce qu'ils ont donc dans les jambes? demanda M. Winkle. Comme ils\nont l'air dr\u00f4le.\n\n--Chut! r\u00e9pliqua M. Wardle doucement. Ne voyez-vous pas qu'ils arr\u00eatent!\n\n--Ils s'arr\u00eatent! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Winkle en regardant tout autour de lui,\ncomme pour chercher la cause qui avait interrompu leur progr\u00e8s. Pourquoi\ns'arr\u00eatent-ils?\n\n--Attention! murmura M. Wardle, qui, dans l'int\u00e9r\u00eat du moment, n'avait\npas entendu cette question. Allons maintenant.\u00bb\n\nUn violent battement d'ailes se fit entendre si soudainement que M.\nWinkle en recula comme si lui-m\u00eame avait \u00e9t\u00e9 tir\u00e9. Pan! pan! deux coups\nde fusil retentirent, et la fum\u00e9e s'\u00e9leva tranquillement dans l'air en\nd\u00e9crivant des courbes gracieuses.\n\n\u00abO\u00f9 sont-elles? s'\u00e9cria M. Winkle dans le plus grand enthousiasme et se\nretournant dans toutes les directions. O\u00f9 sont elles? Dites-moi quand il\nfaudra faire feu! O\u00f9 sont-elles? o\u00f9 sont-elles?\n\n--Ma foi! les voil\u00e0, dit M. Wardle en ramassant deux perdrix que les\nchiens avaient d\u00e9pos\u00e9es \u00e0 ses pieds.\n\n--Non! non! je veux dire les autres! reprit M. Winkle encore tout\neffar\u00e9.\n\n--Assez loin, \u00e0 pr\u00e9sent, si elles courent toujours, r\u00e9pliqua froidement\nM. Wardle en rechargeant son fusil.\n\n--J'imagine que nous en trouverons une autre compagnie dans cinq\nminutes, observa le grand garde-chasse. Si le gentleman commence \u00e0 tirer\nmaintenant, son plomb sortira peut-\u00eatre du canon quand nous les ferons\nlever.\n\n--Ah! ah! ah! fit M. Weller.\n\n--Sam! dit M. Pickwick, touch\u00e9 de la confusion de son disciple.\n\n--Monsieur?\n\n--Ne riez pas.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, monsieur,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit Sam. Mais en guise d'indemnit\u00e9 il se\nmit \u00e0 contourner ses traits, derri\u00e8re la brouette, pour l'amusement\nexclusif du jeune Bas de cuir. L'innocent jeune homme laissa \u00e9clater un\nbruyant ricanement, et fut sommairement calott\u00e9 par le grand\ngarde-chasse, qui avait besoin d'un pr\u00e9texte pour se d\u00e9tourner et cacher\nsa propre envie de rire.\n\nPeu de temps apr\u00e8s M. Wardle dit \u00e0 M. Tupman: \u00abBravo! camarade. Vous\navez au moins tir\u00e9 \u00e0 temps cette fois-l\u00e0.\n\n--Oui, r\u00e9pliqua M. Tupman avec un sentiment d'orgueil, j'ai l\u00e2ch\u00e9 mon\ncoup.\n\n--A merveille! vous abattrez quelque chose la premi\u00e8re fois, si vous\nregardez bien. C'est tr\u00e8s-ais\u00e9, n'est-ce pas?\n\n--Oui, c'est tr\u00e8s-ais\u00e9. Mais malgr\u00e9 cela, comme \u00e7a vous ab\u00eeme l'\u00e9paule!\nJ'ai presque cru que j'en tomberais \u00e0 la renverse. Je n'imaginais pas\nque des petites armes \u00e0 feu comme cela repoussaient tant.\n\n--Oh! dit le vieux gentleman en souriant, vous vous y habituerez avec le\ntemps. Maintenant, sommes-nous pr\u00eats? Tout va-t-il bien l\u00e0-bas, dans la\nbrouette?\n\n--Tout va bien, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Sam.\n\n--En route donc.\n\n--Tenez ferme, monsieur, dit Sam en levant la brouette.\n\n--Oui, oui, repartit M. Pickwick;\u00bb et ils chemin\u00e8rent aussi vite que\nbesoin \u00e9tait.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, dit M. Wardle, apr\u00e8s que la brouette e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 pass\u00e9e\npar-dessus une barri\u00e8re, et lorsque M. Pickwick y fut d\u00e9pos\u00e9 de nouveau.\nMaintenant, tenez cette brouette en arri\u00e8re.\n\n--Bien, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit Sam en s'arr\u00eatant.\n\n--A pr\u00e9sent, Winkle, continua le vieux gentleman, suivez-moi doucement\net ne soyez pas en retard, cette fois-ci.\n\n--N'ayez pas peur, dit M. Winkle. Arr\u00eatent-ils?\n\n--Non! non! pas encore. Du silence, maintenant, du silence!\u00bb\n\nEt en effet ils s'avan\u00e7aient silencieusement, lorsque M. Winkle, voulant\nex\u00e9cuter une \u00e9volution fort d\u00e9licate avec son fusil, le fit partir par\naccident, au moment critique, et envoya sa charge juste au-dessus de la\nt\u00eate du petit gar\u00e7on, et \u00e0 l'endroit pr\u00e9cis o\u00f9 aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 la cervelle du\ngrand homme s'il s'\u00e9tait trouv\u00e9 l\u00e0 au lieu de son jeune substitut.\n\n\u00abAu nom du ciel, pourquoi avez-vous fait feu? demanda M. Wardle,\npendant que les oiseaux s'envolaient en toute s\u00fbret\u00e9.\n\n--Je n'ai jamais vu un fusil comme cela dans toute ma vie, r\u00e9pondit le\npauvre Winkle en regardant la batterie, comme si cela avait pu rem\u00e9dier\n\u00e0 quelque chose. Il part de lui-m\u00eame, il veut partir bon gr\u00e9 mal gr\u00e9.\n\n--Ah! il veut partir! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Wardle avec un peu d'irritation. Pl\u00fbt au\nciel qu'il voul\u00fbt aussi tuer quelque chose!\n\n--Il le fera avant peu, monsieur, dit le grand garde-chasse.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que vous entendez par cette observation, monsieur? demanda\naigrement M. Winkle.\n\n--Rien du tout, monsieur, rien du tout. Moi, je n'ai pas de famille, et\nla m\u00e8re de ce gar\u00e7on ici aura quelque chose de sir Geoffrey, si le\nmoutard est tu\u00e9 sur ses terres. Rechargez, monsieur, rechargez votre\narme.\n\n--Otez-lui son fusil! s'\u00e9cria de sa brouette M. Pickwick, frapp\u00e9\nd'horreur par les sombres insinuations du grand homme. Otez-lui son\nfusil! M'entendez-vous, quelqu'un!\u00bb\n\nPersonne cependant ne s'offrit pour ex\u00e9cuter ce commandement, et M.\nWinkle, apr\u00e8s avoir lanc\u00e9 un regard de r\u00e9bellion au philosophe,\nrechargea son fusil et marcha en avant avec les autres chasseurs.\n\nNous sommes oblig\u00e9 de dire, d'apr\u00e8s l'autorit\u00e9 de M. Pickwick, que la\nmani\u00e8re de proc\u00e9der de M. Tupman paraissait beaucoup plus prudente et\nplus rationnelle que celle adopt\u00e9e par M. Winkle. Cependant ceci ne doit\nen aucune mani\u00e8re diminuer la grande autorit\u00e9 de ce dernier dans tous\nles exercices corporels; car, depuis un temps imm\u00e9morial, comme\nl'observe admirablement M. Pickwick, beaucoup de philosophes, et des\nmeilleurs, qui ont \u00e9t\u00e9 de parfaites lumi\u00e8res pour les sciences, en\nmati\u00e8re de th\u00e9orie, n'ont jamais pu parvenir \u00e0 faire quelque chose dans\nla pratique.\n\nComme la plupart des plus sublimes d\u00e9couvertes, la mani\u00e8re d'agir de M.\nTupman paraissait extr\u00eamement simple. Avec la p\u00e9n\u00e9tration intuitive d'un\nhomme de g\u00e9nie, il avait remarqu\u00e9, du premier coup, que les deux grands\npoints \u00e0 obtenir \u00e9taient: 1\u00b0 de d\u00e9charger son fusil sans se nuire; 2\u00b0 de\nle d\u00e9charger sans endommager les assistants. Donc et \u00e9videmment,\nlorsqu'on \u00e9tait parvenu \u00e0 surmonter la difficult\u00e9 de faire feu, la\nmeilleure chose \u00e9tait de fermer les yeux solidement et de tirer en\nl'air. Q.E.D.\n\nUne fois, apr\u00e8s avoir ex\u00e9cut\u00e9 ce tour de force, M. Tupman, en rouvrant\nles yeux, vit une grosse perdrix qui tombait bless\u00e9e sur la terre. Il\nallait congratuler M. Wardle sur ses invariables succ\u00e8s, quand celui-ci\ns'avan\u00e7a vers lui et lui serrant chaudement la main:\n\n\u00abTupman, vous avez choisi cette perdrix-l\u00e0 parmi les autres?\n\n--Non! non!\n\n--Si, je l'ai remarqu\u00e9. Je vous ai vu la choisir. J'ai observ\u00e9 comment\nvous leviez votre fusil pour l'ajuster; et je dirai ceci: que le\nmeilleur tireur du monde n'aurait pas pu l'abattre plus admirablement.\nVous \u00eates moins novice que je ne le croyais, Tupman: vous avez d\u00e9j\u00e0\nchass\u00e9?\u00bb\n\nVainement M. Tupman protesta, avec un sourire de modestie, que cela ne\nlui \u00e9tait jamais arriv\u00e9. Son sourire m\u00eame fut regard\u00e9 comme une preuve\ndu contraire, et depuis cette \u00e9poque sa r\u00e9putation fut \u00e9tablie. Ce n'est\npas la seule r\u00e9putation qui ait \u00e9t\u00e9 acquise aussi ais\u00e9ment, et l'on peut\nadmirer les effets heureux du hasard ailleurs que dans la chasse aux\nperdrix.\n\nPendant ce temps, M. Winkle s'environnait de feu, de bruit et de fum\u00e9e,\nsans produire aucun r\u00e9sultat positif digne d'\u00eatre not\u00e9. Quelquefois il\nenvoyait sa charge au milieu des airs; quelquefois il lui faisait raser\nla surface du globe, de mani\u00e8re \u00e0 rendre excessivement pr\u00e9caire\nl'existence des deux chiens. Sa mani\u00e8re de tirer, consid\u00e9r\u00e9e comme une\noeuvre d'imagination et de fantaisie, \u00e9tait extr\u00eamement curieuse et\nvari\u00e9e; mais mat\u00e9riellement et quant au produit r\u00e9el, c'\u00e9tait peut-\u00eatre,\nau total, un non-succ\u00e8s. C'est un axiome \u00e9tabli que _chaque boulet a son\nadresse_; si on peut l'appliquer \u00e9galement \u00e0 des grains de petit plomb,\nceux de M. Winkle \u00e9taient de malheureux b\u00e2tards, priv\u00e9s de leurs droits\nnaturels, jet\u00e9s au hasard dans le monde, et qui n'\u00e9taient adress\u00e9s nulle\npart.\n\n\u00abEh bien! dit M. Wardle en s'approchant de la brouette et en essuyant la\nsueur de son visage joyeux et rougeaud; une journ\u00e9e un peu chaude, hein?\n\n--C'est vrai, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick. Le soleil est effroyablement\nbr\u00fblant, m\u00eame pour moi. Je ne sais pas comment vous devez le trouver.\n\n--Ma foi! pas mal chaud, mais c'est \u00e9gal. Il est midi pass\u00e9; voyez-vous\nce coteau vert, l\u00e0?\n\n--Certainement.\n\n--C'est l'endroit o\u00f9 nous devons d\u00e9jeuner. De par Jupiter! le gamin y\nest d\u00e9j\u00e0 avec son panier. Exact comme une horloge!\n\n--Je le vois, dit M. Pickwick, dont le visage devint rayonnant. Un bon\ngar\u00e7on! je lui donnerai un shilling pour sa peine. Allons! Sam,\nroulez-moi.\n\n--Tenez-vous ferme, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Sam, ravigot\u00e9 par l'apparition du\nd\u00e9jeuner. Gare de l\u00e0, jeune cuirassier! Si vous appr\u00e9ciez ma pr\u00e9cieuse\nvie, ne me versez pas, comme dit le gentleman au charretier qui le\nconduisait \u00e0 la potence.\u00bb Avec cette heureuse citation, Sam partit au\npas de charge, brouetta habilement son ma\u00eetre jusqu'au sommet du coteau\nvert, et le d\u00e9chargea, avec adresse, \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 du panier de provision,\nqu'il se mit \u00e0 d\u00e9paqueter sans perdre une minute.\n\n--P\u00e2t\u00e9 de veau, disait Sam, tout en arrangeant les comestibles sur le\ngazon. Tr\u00e8s-bonne chose, le p\u00e2t\u00e9 de veau, quand vous connaissez la lady\nqui l'a fait et que vous \u00eates s\u00fbr que ce n'est pas du minet. Et apr\u00e8s\ntout, qu'est-ce que \u00e7a fait encore, puisqu'il ressemble si bien au veau\nque les p\u00e2tissiers eux-m\u00eames n'en font pas la diff\u00e9rence?\n\n--Ils n'en font pas la diff\u00e9rence, Sam?\n\n--Non, monsieur, repartit Sam en touchant son chapeau. J'ai log\u00e9 dans la\nm\u00eame maison avec un vendeur de p\u00e2t\u00e9s, une fois, et un homme bien\nagr\u00e9able, monsieur, et pas b\u00eate du tout. Il savait faire des p\u00e2t\u00e9s,\nn'importe avec quoi. Voil\u00e0 que je lui dis, quand j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 amical avec\nlui: Quel troupeau de chats que vous avez-l\u00e0! monsieur Brook.--Ah!\ndit-il, c'est vrai, j'en ai beaucoup, qu'il dit.--Faut que vous aimiez\nbien les chats, que je dis.--Oui, dit-il, en clignant de l'oeil, y a des\ngens qui les aiment. Malgr\u00e9 \u00e7a, qu'il me dit, c'est pas encore leur\nsaison, faut attendre l'hiver.--C'est pas leur saison?--Non, dit-il.\nQuand le fruit m\u00fbrit, le chat maigrit.--Qu'est-ce que vous me\nchantez-l\u00e0? J'y entends rien, que je dis.--Voyez-vous, dit-il, je ne\nveux pas entrer dans la coalition des bouchers pour augmenter la viande\nau pauvre monde. Mossieu Weller, qu'il me dit, en me serrant la main\ngentiment et en me soufflant dans l'oreille; mossieu Weller, qu'il me\ndit, ne r\u00e9p\u00e9tez pas \u00e7a; mais c'est l'assaisonnement qui fait tout: ils\nsont tous faits avec ces nobles animaux ici, dit-il, en m'indiquant un\njoli petit minet. Et je les assaisonne en beefteak, en veau, en rognon,\nau go\u00fbt de la pratique. Et mieux que \u00e7a, qu'il dit, je peux faire du\nbeefteak avec du veau ou du rognon avec du beefteak, ou du mouton avec\nles deux, en pr\u00e9venant trois minutes d'avance, selon les besoins du\nmarch\u00e9 ou l'app\u00e9tit public, qu'il me dit.\n\n--Ce devait \u00eatre un jeune homme fort ing\u00e9nieux, dit M. Pickwick avec un\nl\u00e9ger frisson.\n\n--Je crois bien, monsieur, et ses p\u00e2t\u00e9s \u00e9taient superbes, r\u00e9pliqua Sam\nen continuant de vider le panier. Langue; bien \u00e7a. C'est une tr\u00e8s-bonne\nchose, quand c'est pas une langue de femme. Pain, jambon, frais comme\nune peinture. Boeuf froid en tranches. Tr\u00e8s-bon. Qu'est-ce qu'il y a dans\nces cruches-l\u00e0, jeune \u00e9vapor\u00e9?\n\n--De la bi\u00e8re dans stelle-ci et du punch froid dans stelle-l\u00e0, r\u00e9pondit\nle jeune paysan en \u00f4tant de dessus ses \u00e9paules deux vastes bouteilles de\ngr\u00e8s, attach\u00e9es ensemble par une courroie.\n\n--Et v'l\u00e0 un petit go\u00fbter bien organis\u00e9, reprit Sam en examinant avec\ngrande satisfaction les pr\u00e9paratifs. Et maintenant, gentlemen,\ncommencez, comme les Anglais dirent aux Fran\u00e7ais, en mettant leurs\nba\u00efonnettes.\u00bb\n\nIl ne fallut pas une seconde invitation pour engager la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e0 rendre\npleine justice au repas, et il ne fallut pas plus d'instances pour\nd\u00e9cider Sam, le grand garde-chasse et les deux gamins \u00e0 s'asseoir sur\nl'herbe, \u00e0 une petite distance, et \u00e0 battre en br\u00e8che une proportion\nd\u00e9cente de la victuaille. Un vieux ch\u00eane accordait son agr\u00e9able ombrage\naux deux groupes de convives, tandis que devant eux se d\u00e9roulait un\nsuperbe paysage, entrecoup\u00e9 de haies verdoyantes et richement orn\u00e9 de\nbois.\n\n\u00abCeci est d\u00e9licieux! tout \u00e0 fait d\u00e9licieux! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, avec un\nvisage rayonnant, dont la peau pelait rapidement sous l'influence\nbr\u00fblante du soleil.\n\n--Oui vraiment, vieux camarade, r\u00e9pliqua M. Wardle, allons, un verre de\npunch?\n\n--Avec grand plaisir, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick; et l'expression radieuse de\nsa physionomie, apr\u00e8s qu'il e\u00fbt bu, t\u00e9moigna de la sinc\u00e9rit\u00e9 de ses\nparoles.\n\n--Bon! dit le philosophe en faisant claquer ses l\u00e8vres; tr\u00e8s-bon! J'en\nvais prendre un autre verre. Frais! tr\u00e8s-frais!... Allons! messieurs,\npoursuivit-il sans l\u00e2cher la bouteille, un toast! Nos amis de\nDingley-Dell!\u00bb\n\nLe toast fut bu avec de bruyantes acclamations.\n\n\u00abJe vais vous apprendre comment je m'y prendrai pour retrouver mon\nadresse \u00e0 la chasse, dit alors M. Winkle, qui mangeait du pain et du\njambon avec un couteau de poche. Je mettrai une perdrix empaill\u00e9e sur\nun poteau, et je m'exercerai \u00e0 tirer dessus, en commen\u00e7ant \u00e0 une petite\ndistance, et en reculant par degr\u00e9s. C'est un excellent moyen.\n\n--Monsieur, dit Sam, je connais un gentleman qui a fait \u00e7a et qui a\ncommenc\u00e9 \u00e0 quatre pieds; mais il n'a jamais continu\u00e9, car du premier\ncoup il avait si bien ajust\u00e9 son oiseau que le diable m'emporte si on en\na jamais revu une plume depuis.\n\n--Sam! dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Monsieur?\n\n--Ayez la bont\u00e9 de garder vos anecdotes jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'on vous les\ndemande.\n\n--Certainement, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nSam se tut, mais il cligna si fac\u00e9tieusement l'oeil qui n'\u00e9tait point\ncach\u00e9 par le pot de bi\u00e8re dont il humectait ses l\u00e8vres, que les deux\npetits paysans tomb\u00e8rent dans des convulsions spontan\u00e9es, et que le\ngrand garde-chasse, lui-m\u00eame, condescendit \u00e0 sourire.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0, ma foi, d'excellent punch froid, dit M. Pickwick en regardant\navec tendresse la bouteille de gr\u00e8s; et le jour est extr\u00eamement chaud,\net... Tupman, mon cher ami, un verre de punch?\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-volontiers,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua M. Tupman.\n\nApr\u00e8s avoir bu ce verre, M. Pickwick en prit un autre, seulement pour\nvoir s'il n'y avait pas de pelure d'orange dans le punch, parce que la\npelure d'orange lui faisait toujours mal. S'\u00e9tant convaincu qu'il n'y en\navait point, M. Pickwick but un autre verre \u00e0 la sant\u00e9 de M. Snodgrass;\npuis il se crut oblig\u00e9, en conscience, de proposer un toast en l'honneur\ndu fabricant de punch anonyme.\n\nCette constante succession de verres de punch produisit un effet\nremarquable sur notre sage. Sa physionomie resplendissait de la plus\ndouce gaiet\u00e9; le sourire se jouait sur ses l\u00e8vres; la bonne humeur la\nplus franche \u00e9tincelait dans ses yeux. C\u00e9dant, par degr\u00e9s, \u00e0 l'influence\ncombin\u00e9e de ce liquide excitant et de la chaleur, il exprima un violent\nd\u00e9sir de se rappeler une chanson qu'il avait entendue dans son enfance;\nmais ses efforts furent inutiles. Il voulut stimuler sa m\u00e9moire par un\nautre verre de punch, qui malheureusement parut produire sur lui un\neffet enti\u00e8rement oppos\u00e9; car, non content d'avoir oubli\u00e9 la chanson, il\nfinit par ne plus pouvoir articuler une seule parole. Ce fut donc en\nvain qu'il se leva sur ses jambes pour adresser \u00e0 la compagnie un\n\u00e9loquent discours, il retomba dans la brouette et s'endormit presque au\nm\u00eame instant.\n\nLe panier fut rempaquet\u00e9, mais on trouva qu'il \u00e9tait tout \u00e0 fait\nimpossible de r\u00e9veiller M. Pickwick de sa torpeur. On discuta s'il\nfallait que Sam recommen\u00e7\u00e2t \u00e0 le brouetter ou s'il valait mieux le\nlaisser o\u00f9 il \u00e9tait, jusqu'au retour de ses amis. Ce dernier parti fut\nadopt\u00e9 \u00e0 la fin, et comme leur exp\u00e9dition ne devait pas durer plus d'une\nheure, comme Sam demandait avec instance \u00e0 les accompagner, ils se\nd\u00e9cid\u00e8rent \u00e0 abandonner M. Pickwick endormi dans sa brouette et \u00e0 le\nprendre au retour. La compagnie s'\u00e9loigna donc, laissant notre\nphilosophe ronfler harmonieusement et paisiblement, \u00e0 l'ombre antique du\nvieux ch\u00eane.\n\nOn peut affirmer avec certitude que M. Pickwick e\u00fbt continu\u00e9 de ronfler\n\u00e0 l'ombre du vieux ch\u00eane jusqu'au retour de ses amis, ou, \u00e0 leur d\u00e9faut,\njusqu'au subs\u00e9quent lever de soleil, s'il lui avait \u00e9t\u00e9 permis de rester\nen paix dans sa brouette; mais cela ne lui fut pas permis, et voici\npourquoi.\n\nLe capitaine Boldwig \u00e9tait un petit homme violent, v\u00eatu d'une redingote\nbleue soigneusement boutonn\u00e9e jusqu'au menton et surmont\u00e9e d'un col noir\nbien roide. Lorsqu'il daignait se promener sur sa propri\u00e9t\u00e9, il le\nfaisait en compagnie d'un gros rotin plomb\u00e9, d'un jardinier et d'un\naide-jardinier, qui luttaient d'humilit\u00e9 en recevant les ordres qu'il\nleur donnait avec toute la grandeur et toute la s\u00e9v\u00e9rit\u00e9 convenables:\ncar la soeur de la femme du capitaine avait \u00e9pous\u00e9 un marquis; et la\nmaison du capitaine \u00e9tait une _villa_, et sa propri\u00e9t\u00e9 une _terre_; et\ntout \u00e9tait chez lui tr\u00e8s-haut, tr\u00e8s-puissant et tr\u00e8s-noble.\n\nM. Pickwick avait \u00e0 peine dormi une demi-heure lorsque le petit\ncapitaine, suivi de son escorte, arriva en faisant des enjamb\u00e9es aussi\ngrandes que le lui permettaient sa taille et son importance. Quand il\nfut aupr\u00e8s du vieux ch\u00eane, il s'arr\u00eata, il enfla ses joues et en chassa\nl'air avec noblesse; il regarda le paysage comme s'il e\u00fbt pens\u00e9 que le\npaysage devait \u00eatre singuli\u00e8rement flatt\u00e9 d'\u00eatre regard\u00e9 par lui; et\nenfin, ayant emphatiquement frapp\u00e9 la terre de son rotin, il convoqua le\nchef jardinier.\n\n--Hunt! dit le capitaine Boldwig.\n\n--Oui, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit le jardinier.\n\n--Cylindrez le gazon de cet endroit demain matin. Entendez-vous, Hunt?\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--Et prenez soin de me tenir cet endroit proprement. Entendez-vous,\nHunt?\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--Et faites-moi penser \u00e0 faire mettre un \u00e9criteau mena\u00e7ant de pi\u00e8ges \u00e0\nloup, de chausse-trapes et tout cela, pour les petites gens qui se\npermettront de se promener sur mes terres. Entendez-vous, Hunt?\nentendez-vous?\n\n--Je ne l'oublierai pas, monsieur.\n\n--Pardon, excuse, monsieur, dit l'autre jardinier en s'avan\u00e7ant avec son\nchapeau \u00e0 la main.\n\n--Eh bien! Wilkins, qu'est-ce qui vous prend?\n\n--Pardon, excuse, monsieur, mais je pense qu'il y a des gens qui sont\nentr\u00e9s ici aujourd'hui.\n\n--Ha! fit le capitaine en jetant autour de lui un regard farouche.\n\n--Oui, monsieur, ils ont d\u00een\u00e9 ici, comme je pense.\n\n--Damnation! c'est vrai, dit le capitaine en voyant les cro\u00fbtes de pain\n\u00e9tendues sur le gazon; ils ont v\u00e9ritablement d\u00e9vor\u00e9 leur nourriture sur\nma terre. Ha! les vagabonds! si je les tenais ici!... dit le capitaine\nen serrant son gros rotin.\n\n--Pardon, excuse, monsieur, mais....\n\n--Mais quoi, eh? vocif\u00e9ra le capitaine; et suivant le timide regard de\nWilkins, ses yeux rencontr\u00e8rent la brouette et M. Pickwick.\n\n--Qui es-tu, coquin? cria le capitaine en donnant plusieurs coups de son\nrotin dans les c\u00f4tes de M. Pickwick. Comment t'appelles-tu?\n\n--Punch! murmura l'homme immortel, et il se rendormit imm\u00e9diatement.\n\n--Quoi?\u00bb demanda le capitaine Boldwig.\n\nPas de r\u00e9ponse.\n\n\u00abComment a-t-il dit qu'il s'appelait?\n\n--Punch[23], monsieur, comme je pense.\n\n[Footnote 23: Le polichinelle anglais s'appelle _Punch_.\n\n(_Note du traducteur._)]\n\n--C'est un impudent, un mis\u00e9rable impudent. Il fait semblant de dormir \u00e0\npr\u00e9sent, dit le capitaine plein de fureur. Il est so\u00fbl, c'est un ivrogne\npl\u00e9b\u00e9ien. Emmenez-le, Wilkins, emmenez-le sur-le-champ.\n\n--O\u00f9 faut-il que je le roule, monsieur, demanda Wilkins avec grande\ntimidit\u00e9.\n\n--Roulez-le \u00e0 tous les diables.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, monsieur.\n\n--Arr\u00eatez, dit le capitaine.\u00bb\n\nWilkins s'arr\u00eata brusquement.\n\n\u00abRoulez-le dans la fourri\u00e8re[24], et voyons s'il s'appellera encore\nPunch, quand il se r\u00e9veillera.... Il ne se _rira_ pas de moi! Il ne se\n_rira_ pas de moi, emmenez-le!\u00bb\n\n[Footnote 24: Esp\u00e8ce de parc commun, o\u00f9 l'on met les animaux errants, en\n_fourri\u00e8re_.\n\n(_Note du traducteur._)]\n\nM. Pickwick fut emmen\u00e9 en cons\u00e9quence de cet imp\u00e9rieux mandat, et le\ngrand capitaine Boldwig, enfl\u00e9 d'indignation, continua sa promenade.\n\nL'\u00e9tonnement de nos chasseurs fut inexprimable quand ils s'aper\u00e7urent, \u00e0\nleur retour, que M. Pickwick \u00e9tait disparu et qu'il avait emmen\u00e9 la\nbrouette avec lui. C'\u00e9tait la chose la plus myst\u00e9rieuse et la plus\ninexplicable. Qu'un boiteux se f\u00fbt tout d'un coup remis sur ses jambes\net s'en f\u00fbt all\u00e9, c'\u00e9tait d\u00e9j\u00e0 passablement extraordinaire: mais qu'en\nmani\u00e8re d'amusement il e\u00fbt roul\u00e9 devant lui une pesante brouette, cela\ndevenait tout \u00e0 fait miraculeux. Ses amis cherch\u00e8rent aux environs, dans\ntous les coins, sous tous les buissons, en compagnie et s\u00e9par\u00e9ment; ils\ncri\u00e8rent, ils siffl\u00e8rent, ils rirent, ils appel\u00e8rent, et tout cela sans\naucun r\u00e9sultat: impossible de trouver M. Pickwick. Enfin, apr\u00e8s\nplusieurs heures de recherches inutiles, ils arriv\u00e8rent \u00e0 la p\u00e9nible\nconclusion qu'il fallait s'en retourner sans lui.\n\nCependant notre philosophe, profond\u00e9ment endormi dans sa brouette, avait\n\u00e9t\u00e9 roul\u00e9 et soigneusement d\u00e9pos\u00e9 dans la fourri\u00e8re du village, en\ncompagnie de divers animaux immondes. Tous les gamins et les trois\nquarts des autres habitants s'\u00e9taient rassembl\u00e9s autour de lui, pour\nattendre qu'il s'\u00e9veill\u00e2t. Si leur satisfaction avait \u00e9t\u00e9 immense en le\nvoyant rouler, elle fut infinie quand, apr\u00e8s avoir pouss\u00e9 quelques cris\nindistincts pour appeler Sam, il s'assit dans sa brouette et contempla,\navec un inexprimable \u00e9tonnement, les visages joyeux qui l'entouraient.\n\nDes hu\u00e9es g\u00e9n\u00e9rales furent, comme on l'imagine, le signal de son r\u00e9veil;\net lorsqu'il demanda machinalement: \u00abQu'est-ce qu'il y a?\u00bb elles\nrecommenc\u00e8rent avec plus de violence, s'il est possible.\n\n\u00abEn voil\u00e0, une bonne histoire! hurlait la populace.\n\n--O\u00f9 suis-je? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Dans la fourri\u00e8re! beugla la canaille.\n\n--Comment sais-je venu ici? O\u00f9 \u00e9tais-je? Qu'est-ce que je faisais?\n\n--Boldwig! capitaine Boldwig! vocif\u00e9ra-t-on de toutes parts; et ce fut\nla seule explication.\n\n--Tirez-moi d'ici! cria M, Pickwick. O\u00f9 est mon domestique? O\u00f9 sont mes\namis?\n\n--Vous n'en avez pas des amis! hurrah!\u00bb et comme corroboration de ce\nfait, M. Pickwick re\u00e7ut dans sa brouette un navet, puis une pomme de\nterre, puis un oeuf et quelques autres l\u00e9gers gages de la disposition\nenjou\u00e9e de la multitude.\n\nPersonne ne saurait dire combien cette sc\u00e8ne aurait dur\u00e9, ni combien M.\nPickwick aurait pu souffrir, si tout \u00e0 coup un carrosse, qui roulait\nrapidement sur la route, ne s'\u00e9tait pas arr\u00eat\u00e9 en face du parc. Le vieux\nWardle et Sam Weller en sortirent. En moins de temps qu'il n'en faut\npour \u00e9crire ces mots et peut-\u00eatre m\u00eame pour les lire, le premier avait\nd\u00e9gag\u00e9 M. Pickwick et l'avait plac\u00e9 dans sa voiture, tandis que le\nsecond terminait la troisi\u00e8me reprise d'un combat singulier avec le\nbedeau de l'endroit.\n\n\u00abCourez chez le magistrat, cri\u00e8rent une douzaine de voix.\n\n--Ah! oui, courez-y, dit Sam en sautant sur le si\u00e9ge de la voiture,\nfaites-lui mes compliments, les compliments de M. Weller. Dites-lui que\nj'ai g\u00e2t\u00e9 son bedeau et que s'il veut en faire un nouveau je reviendrai\ndemain matin pour le lui g\u00e2ter encore. En route, mon vieux!\u00bb\n\nLorsque la voiture fut sortie du village, M. Pickwick respira fortement\net dit: \u00abAussit\u00f4t que je serai arriv\u00e9 \u00e0 Londres j'actionnerai le\ncapitaine Boldwig pour d\u00e9tention ill\u00e9gale.\n\n--Il para\u00eet que nous \u00e9tions en contravention, fit observer M. Wardle.\n\n--Cela m'est \u00e9gal, je l'attaquerai.\n\n--Non, vous ne l'attaquerez pas.\n\n--Si, je l'attaquerai, sur mon....\u00bb M. Pickwick s'interrompit en\nremarquant l'expression goguenarde de la physionomie du vieux Wardle.\n\u00abEt pourquoi ne le ferais-je pas? reprit-il.\n\n--Parce que, dit le vieux Wardle, en \u00e9clatant de rire, parce qu'il\npourrait se retourner sur quelqu'un de nous et dire que nous avions pris\ntrop de punch froid.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick eut beau faire, il ne put s'emp\u00eacher de sourire; par degr\u00e9s,\nson sourire s'agrandit et devint un \u00e9clat de rire; enfin cet \u00e9clat de\nrire contagieux fut r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9 par toute la compagnie. Afin de fomenter\ncette bonne humeur, nos amis s'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent \u00e0 la premi\u00e8re taverne qu'ils\nrencontr\u00e8rent sur la route; chacun d'eux se fit servir un verre d'eau et\nd'eau de vie, mais ils eurent soin de faire administrer \u00e0 M. Samuel\nWeller une dose d'une force _extra_.\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XX.\n\nO\u00f9 l'on voit que Dodson et Fogg \u00e9taient des hommes d'affaires, et leurs\nclercs des hommes de plaisir; qu'une entrevue touchante eut lieu entre\nM. Samuel Weller et le p\u00e8re qu'il avait perdu depuis longtemps; o\u00f9 l'on\nvoit, enfin, quels esprits sup\u00e9rieurs s'assemblaient \u00e0 la _Souche et la\nPie_, et quel excellent chapitre sera le suivant.\n\n\nDans une pi\u00e8ce situ\u00e9e au rez-de-chauss\u00e9e d'une sombre maison, tout au\nfond de Freeman's-Court, quartier de Cornhill, \u00e9taient assis les quatre\nclercs de MM. Dodson et Fogg, solliciteurs pr\u00e8s la haute cour de\nchancellerie et procureurs de Sa Majest\u00e9 pr\u00e8s la cour du banc du roi et\nla cour des communs-plaids, \u00e0 Westminster; les susdits clercs, dans le\ncours de leurs travaux journaliers, ayant \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s autant de chances\nd'apercevoir les rayons du soleil que pourrait en avoir un homme plac\u00e9\nau fond d'un puits, mais sans jouir des avantages de cette situation\nretir\u00e9e, o\u00f9 l'on peut, du moins, d\u00e9couvrir des \u00e9toiles en plein jour.\n\nLa chambre o\u00f9 ils se trouvaient renferm\u00e9s, \u00e9tait obscure, humide, et\nsentait la moisissure; une s\u00e9paration de bois les abritait des regards\ndu vulgaire, et les clients qui attendaient le loisir de MM. Dodson et\nFogg n'apercevaient ainsi, pour toute distraction, qu'une couple de\nvieilles chaises, une horloge au bruyant tic-tac, un almanach, un\nporte-parapluie, une rang\u00e9e de pupitres, et plusieurs tablettes charg\u00e9es\nde liasses de papiers \u00e9tiquet\u00e9s et malpropres, de vieilles bo\u00eetes de\nsapin et de grosses bouteilles d'encre. Une porte vitr\u00e9e ouvrait sur le\npassage qui donnait dans la cour, et c'est en dehors de cette porte\nvitr\u00e9e que se pr\u00e9senta M. Pickwick, deux jours apr\u00e8s les \u00e9v\u00e9nements\nrapport\u00e9s dans le pr\u00e9c\u00e9dent chapitre.\n\n\u00abEst-ce que vous ne pouvez pas entrer? dit une voix criarde en r\u00e9ponse\nau coup modeste frapp\u00e9 par M. Pickwick \u00e0 la susdite porte.\n\nLe philosophe entra, suivi de Sam.\n\n\u00abM. Dodson ou M. Fogg sont-ils chez eux, monsieur? demanda gracieusement\nM. Pickwick, en s'approchant de la cloison, avec son chapeau \u00e0 la main.\n\n--M. Dodson n'est pas chez lui, et M. Fogg est en affaire,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua la\nvoix; et en m\u00eame temps la t\u00eate \u00e0 qui la voix appartenait, se montra\npar-dessus la cloison, avec une plume derri\u00e8re l'oreille, et examina M.\nPickwick.\n\nC'\u00e9tait une t\u00eate malpropre; ses cheveux roux, scrupuleusement s\u00e9par\u00e9s\nsur le c\u00f4t\u00e9 et aplatis avec du cosm\u00e9tique, \u00e9taient tortill\u00e9s en\naccroche-coeurs et garnissaient une face plate orn\u00e9e en outre d'une paire\nde petits yeux, d'un col de chemise fort crasseux et d'une vieille\ncravate noire us\u00e9e.\n\n\u00abM. Dodson n'est pas chez lui, et M. Fogg est en affaire, dit l'homme \u00e0\nqui appartenait cette t\u00eate.\n\n--Quand M. Dodson reviendra-t-il, monsieur?\n\n--Sais pas.\n\n--M. Fogg sera-t-il longtemps occup\u00e9, monsieur?\n\n--Sais pas.\u00bb\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, le jeune homme se mit fort tranquillement \u00e0 tailler\nsa plume, tandis qu'un autre clerc riait d'une mani\u00e8re approbative, tout\nen m\u00ealant de la poudre de Sedlitz dans un verre d'eau.\n\n\u00abPuisqu'il en est ainsi, je vais attendre, dit M. Pickwick, et il\ns'assit, sans y avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 invit\u00e9, \u00e9coutant le tic-tac bruyant de\nl'horloge et le chuchotement des clercs.\n\n--C'\u00e9tait l\u00e0 une bonne farce, hein? dit l'un de ceux-ci, pour conclure\nla relation d'une aventure nocturne qu'il avait racont\u00e9e \u00e0 voix basse.\n\n--Diablement bonne, diablement bonne, r\u00e9pondit l'homme \u00e0 la poudre de\nSedlitz.\n\n--Tom Cummins \u00e9tait au fauteuil, reprit le premier clerc, qui avait un\nhabit brun, avec des boutons de cuivre. Il \u00e9tait quatre heures et demie\nquand je suis arriv\u00e9 \u00e0 Somers-Town, et j'\u00e9tais si joliment dedans que je\nn'ai pas pu trouver le trou de la serrure et que j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 oblig\u00e9 de\nr\u00e9veiller la vieille femme. Je voudrais bien savoir ce que le vieux Fogg\ndirait s'il savait cela. J'aurais mon paquet, je suppose, eh?\u00bb\n\nA cette id\u00e9e plaisante, tous les clercs \u00e9clat\u00e8rent de rire; l'homme \u00e0\nl'habit brun poursuivit:\n\n\u00abIl y a eu une fameuse farce avec Fogg ici ce matin, pendant que Jack\n\u00e9tait en haut \u00e0 arranger les papiers et que vous deux vous \u00e9tiez all\u00e9s\nau timbre. Fogg \u00e9tait en bas \u00e0 ouvrir ses lettres quand voil\u00e0 venir le\ngaillard de Comberwell contre lequel nous avons un mandat. Vous savez\nbien.... comment s'appelle-t-il d\u00e9j\u00e0?\n\n--Ramsey, dit le clerc qui avait parl\u00e9 \u00e0 M. Pickwick.\n\n--Ah! Ramsey.... en voil\u00e0 une pratique qui a l'air r\u00e2p\u00e9!.\n\n--Eh bien, monsieur, dit le vieux Fogg, en le regardant d'un air\nsauvage. Vous savez, sa mani\u00e8re....--Eh bien, monsieur, \u00eates-vous venu\npour terminer?--Oui, monsieur, dit Ramsey, en mettant sa main dans sa\npoche, et en tirant son argent. La dette est de deux livres sterling et\ndix shillings, et les frais de trois livres sterling et cinq shillings;\nles voici ici, monsieur, et il soupira comme un soufflet de forge, en\ntendant sa monnaie dans un petit morceau de papier brouillard. Le vieux\nFogg regarda d'abord l'argent et ensuite l'homme, et ensuite il toussa\nde sa dr\u00f4le de toux, si bien que je me doutais qu'il allait arriver\nquelque chose.--Vous ne savez pas, dit-il, qu'il y a une d\u00e9claration\nenregistr\u00e9e qui augmente notablement les frais.--Qu'est-ce que vous\ndites l\u00e0, monsieur, cria Ramsey, en tressaillant; le d\u00e9lai n'est expir\u00e9\nqu'hier au soir, monsieur. Cela n'emp\u00eache pas, reprit Fogg. Mon clerc\nest justement parti pour la faire enregistrer. M. Jackson n'est-il pas\nall\u00e9 pour faire enregistrer cette d\u00e9claration dans Bullman et Ramsey,\nmonsieur Wicks?--Naturellement je r\u00e9ponds que _oui_, et alors Fogg\ntousse encore et regarde Ramsey.--Mon Dieu! disait Ramsey, je me suis\nrendu presque fou pour ramasser cet argent, et tout cela pour\nrien!--Pour rien du tout, reprit Fogg, froidement; ainsi vous ferez bien\nmieux de vous en retourner, d'en ramasser un peu plus et de l'apporter\nici \u00e0 temps.--Je n'en pourrai pas trouver, sur mon \u00e2me! s'\u00e9cria Ramsey\nen frappant le bureau avec son poing.--Ne me menacez pas, monsieur, dit\nFogg, en se mettant en col\u00e8re \u00e0 froid.--Je n'ai pas eu l'intention de\nvous menacer, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit Ramsey.--Si, monsieur, repartit Fogg;\nsortez d'ici, monsieur! sortez de ce bureau, monsieur, et ne revenez que\nquand vous aurez appris \u00e0 vous conduire, monsieur!--Alors Ramsey a fait\ntout ce qu'il a pu pour se d\u00e9fendre, mais comme Fogg lui coupait la\nparole, il a \u00e9t\u00e9 oblig\u00e9 de remettre son argent dans sa poche et de\nfiler. A peine la porte \u00e9tait-elle ferm\u00e9e, que voil\u00e0 le vieux Fogg qui\nse retourne vers moi, avec on sourire agr\u00e9able, et qui tire la\nd\u00e9claration de sa poche.--Monsieur Wicks, dit-il, prenez un cabriolet et\nallez au Temple, aussi vite que vous le pourrez, pour faire enregistrer\ncela. Les frais sont s\u00fbrs, car c'est un homme laborieux, avec une\nfamille nombreuse, et qui gagne vingt-cinq shillings par semaine. S'il\nnous signe une procuration (et il faudra bien qu'il en vienne l\u00e0), je\nsuis s\u00fbr que ses ma\u00eetres payeront. Ainsi, monsieur Wicks, il faut tirer\nde lui tout ce que nous pourrons. C'est un acte de bon chr\u00e9tien,\nmonsieur Wicks, car avec une grande famille et un petit revenu, il sera\nheureux de recevoir une bonne le\u00e7on, qui lui apprenne \u00e0 ne plus faire de\ndettes. N'est-il pas vrai? n'est-il pas vrai?--Et en s'en allant son\nsourire \u00e9tait si bienveillant que cela vous r\u00e9jouissait le coeur.--C'est\nun fier homme pour les affaires, ajouta Wicks du ton de l'admiration la\nplus profonde, un fier homme, hein?\u00bb\n\nLes trois autres clercs s'unirent cordialement \u00e0 cette admiration et\nparurent charm\u00e9s de l'anecdote.\n\n\u00abJolis gars, ici, monsieur, murmura Sam \u00e0 son ma\u00eetre. Bonne id\u00e9e qu'ils\nont sur les farces, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick fit un signe d'assentiment et toussa, pour attirer\nl'attention des jeunes gentlemen qui \u00e9taient derri\u00e8re la cloison. Ayant\nraffra\u00eechi leurs esprits par cette petite conversation entre eux, ils\neurent la condescendance de s'occuper de l'\u00e9tranger.\n\n\u00abM. Fogg est peut-\u00eatre libre maintenant, dit Jackson.\n\n--Je vais voir, reprit Wicks en se levant avec nonchalance. Quel nom\ndirai-je \u00e0 M. Fogg?\n\n--Pickwick,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua l'illustre sujet de ces m\u00e9moires.\n\nM. Jackson disparut par l'escalier et revint bient\u00f4t annoncer que ma\u00eetre\nFogg recevrait M. Pickwick dans cinq minutes. Ayant fait ce message, il\nretourna derri\u00e8re son bureau.\n\n\u00abQuel nom a-t-il dit? demanda tout bas M. Wicks.\n\n--Pickwick, r\u00e9pliqua Jackson. C'est le d\u00e9fendeur dans Bardell et\nPickwick.\u00bb\n\nUn soudain frottement de pieds, m\u00eal\u00e9 d'\u00e9clats de rires \u00e9touff\u00e9s, se fit\nentendre derri\u00e8re la cloison.\n\n\u00abMonsieur, murmura Sam \u00e0 son ma\u00eetre, voil\u00e0 qu'ils vous m\u00e9canisent.\n\n--Ils me m\u00e9canisent, Sam! Qu'est-ce que vous entendez par me\n_m\u00e9caniser_?\u00bb\n\nPour toute r\u00e9plique, Sam passa son pouce par-dessus son \u00e9paule, et M.\nPickwick, levant la t\u00eate, reconnut la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 de ce fait, \u00e0 savoir: que\nles quatre clercs avaient allong\u00e9 par-dessus la cloison des figures\npleines d'hilarit\u00e9, et examinaient minutieusement la tournure et la\nphysionomie de ce Lovelace pr\u00e9sum\u00e9, de ce grand destructeur du repos des\ncoeurs f\u00e9minins. Au mouvement qu'il fit, la rang\u00e9e de t\u00eates disparut\ncomme par enchantement, et l'on entendit \u00e0 l'instant m\u00eame le bruit de\nquatre plumes voyageant sur le papier avec une furieuse vitesse.\n\nLe tintement d'une sonnette suspendue dans le bureau appela M. Jackson\ndans l'appartement de Me Fogg. Il en revint bient\u00f4t, et annon\u00e7a \u00e0 M.\nPickwick que son patron \u00e9tait pr\u00eat \u00e0 le recevoir.\n\nEn cons\u00e9quence, M. Pickwick monta l'escalier. Au premier \u00e9tage, l'une\ndes portes \u00e9talait, en caract\u00e8res lisibles, ces mots imposants: M. FOGG.\nAyant frapp\u00e9 \u00e0 cette porte et ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 invit\u00e9 \u00e0 entrer, M. Jackson\nintroduisit M. Pickwick en pr\u00e9sence de l'avou\u00e9.\n\n\u00abM. Dodson est-il revenu? demanda Me Fogg.\n\n--A l'instant, monsieur.\n\n--Priez-le de passer ici.\n\n--Oui, monsieur. (Jackson sort.)\n\n--Prenez un si\u00e9ge, monsieur, dit Me Fogg. Voici le journal, monsieur.\nMon partner va \u00eatre ici dans un moment, et nous pourrons causer sur\ncette affaire, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick prit un si\u00e9ge et un journal; mais au lieu de lire ce\ndernier, il dirigea son rayon visuel par-dessus, afin d'examiner l'homme\nd'affaires. C'\u00e9tait un personnage d'un certain \u00e2ge, dont le corps long\net fluet \u00e9tait enga\u00een\u00e9 dans un \u00e9troit habit noir, dans une culotte\nsombre, dans de petites gu\u00eatres noires. Il semblait \u00eatre partie\nessentielle de son bureau et paraissait avoir \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s autant d'esprit\net de sensibilit\u00e9 que lui.\n\nAu bout de quelques minutes arriva Me Dodson, homme gros et gras, \u00e0\nl'air s\u00e9v\u00e8re, \u00e0 la voix bruyante. La conversation commen\u00e7a\nimm\u00e9diatement.\n\n\u00abMonsieur est M. Pickwick, dit Me Fogg.\n\n--Ha! ha! monsieur, vous \u00eates le d\u00e9fendeur dans Bardell et Pickwick?\n\n--Oui, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit le philosophe.\n\n--Eh bien, monsieur, reprit Me Dodson, que nous proposez-vous?\n\n--Ah! dit Me Fogg en fourrant ses mains dans les poches de sa culotte\net s'appuyant sur le dos de sa chaise; qu'est-ce que vous nous proposez,\nmonsieur Pickwick?\n\n--Silence, Fogg! reprit Dodson. Laissez-moi entendre ce que M. Pickwick\nveut dire.\n\n--Je sais venu, messieurs, r\u00e9pliqua notre sage, en regardant avec\ndouceur les deux partners, je suis venu ici, messieurs, pour vous\nexprimer la surprise avec laquelle j'ai re\u00e7u votre lettre de l'autre\njour et pour vous demander quels sujets d'action vous pouvez avoir\ncontre moi?\n\n--Quels sujets!... s'\u00e9criait Me Fogg, lorsqu'il fut arr\u00eat\u00e9 par Me\nDodson.\n\n--Monsieur Fogg, dit celui-ci, je vais parler.\n\n--Je vous demande pardon, monsieur Dodson, r\u00e9pondit Fogg.\n\n--Quant aux sujets d'action, monsieur, reprit Me Dodson, avec un air\nplein d'\u00e9l\u00e9vation morale; quant aux sujets d'action, vous consulterez\nvotre propre conscience et vos propres sentiments. Nous, monsieur, nous\nsommes enti\u00e8rement guid\u00e9s par les assertions de notre client. Ces\nassertions, monsieur, peuvent \u00eatre vraies ou peuvent \u00eatre fausses; elles\npeuvent \u00eatre croyables ou incroyables; mais si elles sont croyables, je\nn'h\u00e9site pas \u00e0 dire, monsieur, que nos sujets d'action sont forts et\ninvincibles. Vous pouvez \u00eatre un homme infortun\u00e9, monsieur, ou vous\npouvez \u00eatre un homme rus\u00e9; mais si j'\u00e9tais appel\u00e9 comme jur\u00e9, monsieur,\net sur mon serment, \u00e0 exprimer mon opinion sur votre conduite, je vous\naffirme, monsieur, que je n'h\u00e9siterais pas un seul instant.\u00bb Ici Me\nDodson se redressa avec l'air d'une vertu offens\u00e9e et regarda Me Fogg,\nqui enfon\u00e7a ses mains plus profond\u00e9ment dans ses poches, et, secouant\nsagement sa t\u00eate ajouta d'un ton convaincu: \u00abTr\u00e8s-certainement!\n\n--Eh bien, monsieur, repartit M. Pickwick d'un air pein\u00e9, je vous assure\nque je suis un homme tr\u00e8s-malheureux, au moins dans cette affaire.\n\n--Je d\u00e9sire qu'il en soit ainsi, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Me Dodson. J'aime \u00e0\ncroire que cela peut \u00eatre, monsieur. Mais si vous \u00eates r\u00e9ellement\ninnocent de ce dont vous \u00eates accus\u00e9, vous \u00eates plus infortun\u00e9 que je ne\ncroyais possible de l'\u00eatre. Qu'en dites-vous monsieur Fogg?\n\n--Je dis absolument comme vous, r\u00e9pondit Me Fogg avec un sourire\nd'incr\u00e9dulit\u00e9.\n\n--L'assignation qui commence l'action, monsieur, continua Me Dodson, a\n\u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9livr\u00e9e r\u00e9guli\u00e8rement. Monsieur Fogg, o\u00f9 est notre registre?\n\n--Le voici, dit Me Fogg en lui passant un volume carr\u00e9 recouvert en\nparchemin.\n\n--Voici l'enregistrement, continua Dodson. _Middlesex, mandat: Veuve\nMartha Bardell versus Samuel Pickwick. Dommages-int\u00e9r\u00eats, 1500 guin\u00e9es.\nDodson et Fogg pour le demandeur, aug. 28, 1831._ Tout est r\u00e9gulier,\nmonsieur, parfaitement r\u00e9gulier.\u00bb\n\nAyant articul\u00e9 ces mots, Me Dodson toussa et regarda Me Fogg. Me Fogg\nr\u00e9p\u00e9ta: \u00abParfaitement,\u00bb et tous les deux regard\u00e8rent M. Pickwick.\n\nCelui-ci dit alors: \u00abVous voulez donc me faire entendre que c'est\nr\u00e9ellement votre intention de poursuivre ce proc\u00e8s?\n\n--Vous faire entendre! monsieur. Oui, apparemment, r\u00e9pondit Me Dodson,\navec quelque chose qui ressemblait \u00e0 un sourire autant que le lui\npermettait sa dignit\u00e9.\n\n--Et que les dommages-int\u00e9r\u00eats demand\u00e9s sont r\u00e9ellement de quinze cents\nguin\u00e9es?\n\n--Vous pouvez ajouter que si notre cliente avait suivi nos conseils,\nelle aurait r\u00e9clam\u00e9 le triple de cette somme.\n\n--Je crois cependant, fit observer Me Fogg, en jetant un coup d'oeil \u00e0 Me\nDodson, je crois que Mme Bardell a d\u00e9clar\u00e9 positivement qu'elle\nn'accepterait pas un liard de moins.\n\n--Sans aucun doute, r\u00e9pliqua Me Dodson d'un ton sec;\u00bb car le proc\u00e8s ne\nfaisait que de commencer, et il ne convenait pas aux avou\u00e9s de le\nterminer par un compromis, quand m\u00eame M. Pickwick y aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 dispos\u00e9.\n\n\u00abComme vous ne nous faites point de propositions, monsieur, continua Me\nDodson, en d\u00e9ployant de sa main droite un morceau de parchemin, et\ntendant gracieusement, de sa gauche, un papier \u00e0 M. Pickwick; comme vous\nne nous faites pas de propositions, monsieur, je vais vous offrir une\ncopie de cet acte, dont voici l'original.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien! monsieur; tr\u00e8s-bien! dit en se levant notre philosophe,\ndont la bile commen\u00e7ait \u00e0 s'\u00e9chauffer. Vous aurez de mes nouvelles par\nmon homme d'affaires.\n\n--Nous en serons charm\u00e9s, r\u00e9pondit Me Fogg en se frottant les mains.\n\n--Tout \u00e0 fait, ajouta Dodson, en ouvrant la porte.\n\n--Et avant de vous quitter, messieurs, reprit M. Pickwick en se\nretournant sur le palier, permettez-moi de vous dire que de toutes les\nmanoeuvres honteuses et d\u00e9go\u00fbtantes....\n\n--Attendez, monsieur, attendez, interrompit Me Dodson avec grande\npolitesse. Monsieur Jackson! monsieur Wicks!\n\n--Monsieur? r\u00e9pondirent les deux clercs, apparaissant au bas de\nl'escalier.\n\n--Faites-moi le plaisir d'\u00e9couter ce que ce gentleman va dire. Allons!\nmonsieur, je vous en prie. Vous parliez, je crois, de manoeuvres\nhonteuses et d\u00e9go\u00fbtantes?\n\n--Oui, monsieur, s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick enti\u00e8rement excit\u00e9, je disais que\nde toutes les manoeuvres honteuses et d\u00e9go\u00fbtantes auxquelles se livrent\nles fripons, celle-ci est la plus d\u00e9go\u00fbtante et la plus honteuse. Je le\nr\u00e9p\u00e8te, monsieur.\n\n--Vous entendez cela, monsieur Wicks? cria Me Dodson.\n\n--Vous n'oublierez pas ces expressions, monsieur Jackson? ajouta Me\nFogg.\n\n--Peut-\u00eatre, monsieur, reprit Dodson, peut-\u00eatre que vous aimeriez \u00e0 nous\nappeler escrocs? Allons, monsieur, si cela vous fait plaisir, dites-le.\n\n--Oui, s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick. Oui, vous \u00eates des escrocs!\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, observa Dodson. J'esp\u00e8re que vous pouvez entendre de\nl\u00e0-bas, monsieur Wicks?\n\n--Oh oui! monsieur.\n\n--Vous devriez monter quelques marches, ajouta Fogg.\n\n--Poursuivez, monsieur, poursuivez. Vous feriez bien de nous appeler\nvoleurs, monsieur. Ou peut-\u00eatre que vous auriez du plaisir \u00e0 nous\nmaltraiter? Vous le pouvez, monsieur, si cela vous fait plaisir. Nous ne\nvous opposerons pas la plus petite r\u00e9sistance. Allons, monsieur!\u00bb\n\nComme M. Fogg se pla\u00e7ait d'une mani\u00e8re fort tentante \u00e0 proximit\u00e9 du\npoing ferm\u00e9 de M. Pickwick, il est fort probable que notre sage aurait\nc\u00e9d\u00e9 \u00e0 ses sollicitations pressantes, s'il n'en avait pas \u00e9t\u00e9 emp\u00each\u00e9.\nMais Sam, en entendant la dispute, \u00e9tait sorti du bureau, avait escalad\u00e9\nl'escalier et saisi son ma\u00eetre par le bras.\n\n\u00abAllons, monsieur! lui dit-il, donnez-vous la peine de venir par ici.\nC'est tr\u00e8s-amusant de jouer au volant, mais pas quand les deux raquettes\nsont des hommes de loi et qu'ils jouent avec vous. C'est trop excitant\npour \u00eatre agr\u00e9able. Si vous voulez vous soulager le coeur en bousculant\nquelqu'un, venez dans la cour et bousculez-moi. Avec ceux-l\u00e0 c'est une\nbesogne un petit peu trop d\u00e9pensi\u00e8re.\u00bb\n\nDisant ces mots et sans plus de c\u00e9r\u00e9monie, Sam emporta son ma\u00eetre \u00e0\ntravers l'escalier, \u00e0 travers la cour, et l'ayant d\u00e9pos\u00e9 en s\u00fbret\u00e9 dans\nCornhill, se retira modestement derri\u00e8re lui, pr\u00eat \u00e0 le suivre en\nquelque lieu qu'il lui pl\u00fbt d'aller.\n\nM. Pickwick marcha tout droit devant lui d'un air d'abstraction,\ntraversa en face de Mansion-house et dirigea ses pas vers Cheapside. Sam\ncommen\u00e7ait \u00e0 s'\u00e9merveiller du chemin que prenait son ma\u00eetre, quand\ncelui-ci se retourna et lui dit:\n\n\u00abSam, je vais aller imm\u00e9diatement chez M. Perker.\n\n--C'est juste l'endroit o\u00f9 vous auriez d\u00fb aller d'abord, monsieur.\n\n--Je le crois, Sam.\n\n--Et moi j'en suis s\u00fbr et certain, monsieur.\n\n--Bien! bien! Sam, j'irai tout \u00e0 l'heure. Mais d'abord, comme j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9\nmis un peu hors de moi-m\u00eame, j'aimerais \u00e0 prendre un verre d'eau-de-vie\net d'eau chaude. O\u00f9 pourrai-je en avoir, Sam?\u00bb\n\nSam connaissait parfaitement Londres, aussi r\u00e9pondit-il sans r\u00e9fl\u00e9chir\nun instant:\n\n\u00abLa seconde cour \u00e0 main droite, monsieur; l'avant-derni\u00e8re maison du\nm\u00eame c\u00f4t\u00e9. Prenez la stalle qui est \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 du po\u00eale, parce qu'il n'y a\npas de pied au milieu de la table, comme il y en a \u00e0 toutes les autres,\nce qui est tr\u00e8s-inconv\u00e9nient.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick observa scrupuleusement les indications de son domestique et\nentra bient\u00f4t dans la taverne qu'il lui avait indiqu\u00e9e. De l'eau-de-vie\net de l'eau chaude furent promptement plac\u00e9es devant lui, et Sam,\ns'asseyant \u00e0 une distance respectueuse de son ma\u00eetre, quoique \u00e0 la m\u00eame\ntable, fut accommod\u00e9 d'une pinte de porter.\n\nLa pi\u00e8ce o\u00f9 ils se trouvaient \u00e9tait fort simple et semblait sous le\npatronage sp\u00e9cial des cochers de diligence, car plusieurs gentlemen qui\nparaissaient appartenir \u00e0 cette savante profession, fumaient et buvaient\ndans leurs stalles respectives. Parmi eux se trouvait un gros homme\nrougeaud, d'un certain \u00e2ge, assis en face de M. Pickwick, et qui attira\nson attention. Le gros homme fumait avec grande v\u00e9h\u00e9mence, mais, \u00e0\nchaque demi-douzaine de bouff\u00e9es, il \u00f4tait sa pipe de sa bouche et\nexaminait d'abord Sam, puis M. Pickwick. Ensuite il ex\u00e9cutait encore une\ndemi-douzaine de bouff\u00e9es, d'un air de m\u00e9ditation profonde, et\nrecommen\u00e7ait \u00e0 consid\u00e9rer notre philosophe et son acolyte. Enfin le gros\nhomme, mettant ses jambes sur une chaise et appuyant son dos contre le\nmur, s'occupa d'achever sa pipe sans interruption, et tout en\ncontemplant, au travers de sa fum\u00e9e, les deux nouveaux venus, comme\ns'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9cid\u00e9 \u00e0 les \u00e9tudier le plus possible.\n\nLes \u00e9volutions du gros homme avaient d'abord \u00e9chapp\u00e9 \u00e0 Sam, mais voyant\nles yeux de M. Pickwick se diriger de temps en temps vers lui, il\ncommen\u00e7a \u00e0 regarder dans la m\u00eame direction, puis il abrita ses yeux avec\nsa main comme si, ayant partiellement reconnu l'objet plac\u00e9 devant lui,\nil d\u00e9sirait s'assurer de son identit\u00e9. Mais ses doutes furent\npromptement r\u00e9solus, car le gros homme, ayant chass\u00e9 un nuage \u00e9pais de\nsa pipe, fit sortir de dessous le ch\u00e2le volumineux qui enveloppait sa\ngorge et sa poitrine une voix enrou\u00e9e, semblable \u00e0 quelque \u00e9trange essai\nde ventriloquisme, et pronon\u00e7a lentement ces mots:\n\n\u00abEh bien! Sammy?\n\n--Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela, Sam? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--H\u00e9 bien! je ne l'aurais pas cru, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit Sam en ouvrant des\nyeux \u00e9tonn\u00e9s. C'est le vieux.\n\n--Le vieux! reprit M. Pickwick, quel vieux?\n\n--Mon p\u00e8re, monsieur. Comment \u00e7a va-t-il, mon ancien?\u00bb\n\nEt avec cette touchante \u00e9bullition d'affection filiale, Sam fit une\nplace sur le si\u00e9ge \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de lui pour le gros homme, qui venait le\ncongratuler, pipe en bouche et pot en main.\n\n\u00abH\u00e9 ben! Sammy? dit le p\u00e8re, je ne t'ai pas vu depuis deux ans et mieux.\n\n--C'est vrai \u00e7a, vieux farceur. Comment va la belle-m\u00e8re?\n\n--H\u00e9 ben! je vas te dire quoi, Sammy, reprit M. Weller _senior_ d'une\nvoix tr\u00e8s-solennelle. I' n'y a jamais \u00e9vu une pus belle veuve que ma\nseconde. Une douce criature que c'\u00e9tait, Sammy, et tout ce que je peux\ndire \u00e0 pr\u00e9sent, c'est \u00e7a: pisqu'elle faisait une si extra-superfine\nveuve, c'est ben dommage qu'elle ait chang\u00e9 de condition. Elle ne\nr\u00e9ussit pas pour une femme, Sammy.\n\n--Bah! vraiment?\u00bb demanda M. Weller _junior_.\n\nM. Weller _senior_ secoua la t\u00eate en r\u00e9pondant avec un soupir:\n\n\u00abJ'ai fait la chose une fois de trop, Sammy, j'ai fait la chose une fois\nde trop. Prenez exemple sur vot' p\u00e8re, mon gar\u00e7on, et prenez ben garde\naux veuves toute vot' vie, esp\u00e9cialement si elles tiennent une auberge,\nSammy.\u00bb\n\nAyant expector\u00e9 cet avis paternel, avec grand pathos, M. Weller\n_senior_ tira de sa poche une bo\u00eete d'\u00e9tain, remplit sa pipe, l'alluma\navec les cendres de la pr\u00e9c\u00e9dente et recommen\u00e7a \u00e0 fumer d'un grand\ntrain.\n\nApr\u00e8s une pause consid\u00e9rable il s'adressa \u00e0 M. Pickwick, en continuant\nle m\u00eame sujet:\n\n\u00abDemande vot' excuse, mossieu; rien de personnel, j'esp\u00e8re, mossieu?\nVous n'avez pas empaum\u00e9 une veuve?\n\n--Non, pas encore, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick en riant;\u00bb et tandis que M.\nPickwick riait, Sam informa son p\u00e8re \u00e0 l'oreille des rapports qui\nexistaient entre lui et ce gentleman.\n\n\u00abDemande vot' excuse, mossieu, dit M. Weller en \u00f4tant son chapeau;\nj'esp\u00e8re que vous n'avez pas de reproches \u00e0 faire \u00e0 Sammy, mossieu?\n\n--Pas le moindre, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick.\n\n--Fort heureux d'apprendre \u00e7a, mossieu. J'ai pris beaucoup de peine pour\nson \u00e9ducation, mossieu. J'y ai laiss\u00e9 rouler les rues tout petiot pour\nqu'il sache se tirer d'affaire tout seul, mossieu: la v\u00e9ritable m\u00e9thode\npour rendre un jeune homme malin.\n\n--J'imaginerais que c'est une m\u00e9thode un peu dangereuse, observa M.\nPickwick avec un sourire.\n\n--Et qui n'est pas pleine de certitude non plus, objecta Sam; j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9\nr\u00e9guli\u00e8rement enfonc\u00e9 l'autre jour.\n\n--Non? dit le p\u00e8re.\n\n--Si,\u00bb reprit le fils; et il raconta aussi bri\u00e8vement que possible\ncomment il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 dupe des stratag\u00e8mes de Job Trotter.\n\nM. Weller \u00e9couta ce r\u00e9cit avec l'attention la plus profonde, et\nlorsqu'il fut termin\u00e9:\n\n\u00abL'un de ces bijoux, dit-il, n'\u00e9tait-ce pas un grand efflanqu\u00e9 avec des\ncheveux noirs comme des chandelles et le don de l'oratoire\ntr\u00e8s-galopant?\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick n'entendait pas parfaitement le dernier item de cette\ndescription, mais comprenant le premier, il r\u00e9pondit: \u00abOui,\u00bb \u00e0 tous\nhasards.\n\n\u00abEt l'aut' gaillard, un toupet noir, en livr\u00e9e violette, avec une\ntr\u00e8s-grosse boule?\n\n--Oui, oui, c'est lui! s'\u00e9cri\u00e8rent vivement le ma\u00eetre et le valet.\n\n--Alors je sais o\u00f9 qu'i' sont remis\u00e9s; i' sont \u00e0 Ipswich, en bon \u00e9tat\ntous les deux.\n\n--Impossible! dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--C'est un fait, r\u00e9pliqua M. Weller, et je vas vous dire comment je\nsais \u00e7a. Je travaille une voiture d'Ipswich de temps en temps, pour un\ncamarade. Je l'ai men\u00e9e juste le jour d'apr\u00e8s la nuit o\u00f9s que vous avez\nattrap\u00e9 le rhumatique, et je les ai ramen\u00e9s juste au _n\u00e9grillon_, \u00e0\nChelmsford, et je les ai dispos\u00e9s droit \u00e0 Ipswich o\u00f9s que le domestique,\ncelui qu'est en violet, m'a dit qu'ils allaient rester pour longtemps.\n\n--Je le suivrai, dit M. Pickwick. Nous pouvons visiter Ipswich aussi\nbien qu'un autre endroit. Je le suivrai.\n\n--Vous \u00eates s\u00fbr et certain que c'\u00e9tait eux, gouverneur? demanda Sam.\n\n--Tout \u00e0 fait, Sammy, tout \u00e0 fait, car leur apparition est fort\nsinguli\u00e8re. Outre \u00e7a, je me confondais de voir un gen'l'm'n si familier\navec son valet. Pus qu' \u00e7a; comme i's \u00e9taient assis derri\u00e8re mon si\u00e9ge,\nje leu's y ai entendu dire qu'ils avaient enfonc\u00e9 le vieux\nBouffe-la-balle.\n\n--Le vieux quoi? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Le vieux Bouffe-la-balle, mossieu, par quoi, ma coloquinte \u00e0 couper,\nqu'ils parlaient de vous, mossieu.\u00bb\n\nIl n'y a rien de positivement vil ni atroce dans l'appellation de _vieux\nBouffe-la-balle_, mais cependant c'est une d\u00e9signation qui n'est\nnullement respectueuse ni agr\u00e9able. Le souvenir de tous les torts qu'il\navait soufferts de Jingle s'\u00e9tait amass\u00e9 dans l'esprit de M. Pickwick,\ndu moment o\u00f9 M. Weller avait commenc\u00e9 \u00e0 parler. Il ne fallait qu'une\nplume pour faire pencher la balance, et _Bouffe-la-balle_ le fit.\n\n\u00abJe le suivrai, s'\u00e9cria le philosophe en donnant sur la table un coup de\npoing emphatique.\n\n--Je conduirai apr\u00e8s-demain \u00e0 Ipswich, mossieu: la voiture part du\n_Taureau_, dans White-Chapel; si vous avez r\u00e9ellement envie d'y\ndescendre, vous feriez mieux d'y descendre avec moi.\n\n--C'est vrai, dit M. Pickwick. Tr\u00e8s-bien. Je puis \u00e9crire \u00e0 Bury et dire\n\u00e0 ces messieurs de venir me retrouver \u00e0 Ipswich. Nous irons avec vous.\nMais ne vous en allez pas si vite, M. Weller, voulez-vous prendre\nquelque chose?\n\n--Vous \u00eates bien bon, mossieu, r\u00e9pondit M. Weller en s'arr\u00eatant court.\nPeut-\u00eatre qu'un petit verre d'eau-de-vie pour boire \u00e0 vot' sant\u00e9 et \u00e0 la\nbonne chance de Sammy, \u00e7a ne ferait pas de mal.\u00bb\n\nL'eau-de-vie fut apport\u00e9e, et M. Weller, apr\u00e8s avoir tir\u00e9 son poil \u00e0 M.\nPickwick et adress\u00e9 un signe gracieux \u00e0 Sam, la fit descendre dans son\nlarge gosier comme s'il y en avait eu plein un d\u00e9.\n\n\u00abBien ex\u00e9cut\u00e9, papa. Mais il faut prendre garde, vieux gaillard, ou bien\nvous vous ferez pincer par la goutte.\n\n--J'ai trouv\u00e9 pour \u00e7a un rem\u00e8de souverain, r\u00e9pliqua M. Weller en\nreposant son verre.\n\n--Un rem\u00e8de souverain pour la goutte, s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick en tirant\npromptement son m\u00e9morandum, qu'est-ce que c'est?\n\n--La goutte, mossieu, la goutte est une maladie qu'elle est naquise de\ntrop d'aises et de conforts. Si vous \u00eates jamais attaqu\u00e9 par la goutte,\nmossieu, vite \u00e9pousez une veuve qu'a une bonne voix forte avec une id\u00e9e\nd\u00e9cente de s'en faire usage, vous n'aurez pus jamais la goutte. C'est\nune proscription capitale, mossieu. Je la consomme r\u00e9guli\u00e8rement et je\nvous r\u00e9ponds qu'elle chasse toutes les maladies qu'est caus\u00e9e par trop\nde joyeuset\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nAyant communiqu\u00e9 ce secret inestimable, M. Weller vida son verre de\nnouveau, cligna de l'oeil d'une mani\u00e8re pr\u00e9tentieuse, soupira\nprofond\u00e9ment, et se retira avec lenteur.\n\n\u00abEh bien! Sam, que pensez-vous de ce qu'a dit votre p\u00e8re? demanda M.\nPickwick en souriant.\n\n--Ce que j'en pense? monsieur; je pense qu'il est victime du\nmatrimonial, comme disait le chapelain de la Barbe-Bleue, en l'enterrant\navec une larme de piti\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nIl n'y avait pas de r\u00e9plique possible \u00e0 l'\u00e0-propos de cette conclusion;\nc'est pourquoi M. Pickwick, apr\u00e8s avoir pay\u00e9 leur \u00e9cot, reprit son\nchemin vers Grey's Inn. Lorsqu'il atteignit ses grottes retir\u00e9es, huit\nheures avaient sonn\u00e9, et le flot incessant de gentlemen en pantalons\ncrott\u00e9s, en chapeaux gris d\u00e9form\u00e9s, en habits r\u00e2p\u00e9s, qui se pr\u00e9cipitait\npar toutes les issues, l'avertit que la majorit\u00e9 des \u00e9tudes \u00e9tait ferm\u00e9e\npour ce jour-l\u00e0.\n\nApr\u00e8s avoir grimp\u00e9 deux \u00e9tages rapides et malpropres, M. Pickwick vit\nr\u00e9aliser ses pr\u00e9visions: la porte de M. Perker \u00e9tait close, et le morne\nsilence qui suivit les coups r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9s frapp\u00e9s par Sam, leur annon\u00e7a\nsuffisamment que les gens d'affaires s'\u00e9taient retir\u00e9s pour la nuit.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0 qui est bien contrariant, Sam. Je ne voudrais pourtant pas perdre\nun moment pour le voir. Je suis s\u00fbr que je ne pourrai pas fermer l'oeil\navant d'avoir confi\u00e9 cette affaire \u00e0 un homme du m\u00e9tier.\n\n--Voici une vieille qui monte les escaliers, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Sam.\nPeut-\u00eatre qu'elle sait o\u00f9 nous pourrons trouver quelqu'un. Oh\u00e9! vieille\nlady, o\u00f9 est les gens de M. Perker?\n\n--Les gens de M. Perker, dit une vieille femme maigre et mis\u00e9rable, en\ns'arr\u00eatant pour respirer apr\u00e8s avoir mont\u00e9 l'escalier; les gens de M.\nPerker est parti et moi je vas pour faire le bureau.\n\n--\u00cates-vous servante de M. Perker? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Je suis sa blanchisseuse.\n\n--Ah! dit M. Pickwick, pour l'\u00e9dification exclusive de son domestique,\nc'est une curieuse circonstance, Sam, que, dans ces _inns[25]_, ils\nappellent les femmes de m\u00e9nage des blanchisseuses. Je ne comprends pas\npourquoi.\n\n[Footnote 25: C'est le nom des maisons garnies, habit\u00e9es ordinairement\npar les hommes de loi ou les \u00e9tudiants. (_Note du traducteur._)]\n\n--Je me figure, monsieur, que c'est parce qu'elles ont une aversion\nmortelle \u00e0 laver quelque chose.\n\n--Cela ne m'\u00e9tonnerait pas,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick en regardant la\nvieille femme. En effet, son apparence, comme la tenue du bureau,\nqu'elle venait d'ouvrir, indiquait une antipathie enracin\u00e9e contre\nl'emploi du savon et de l'eau.\n\n\u00abMa bonne femme, reprit M. Pickwick, savez-vous o\u00f9 je puis trouver M.\nPerker?\n\n--Non, je n'en sais rien, r\u00e9pliqua-t-elle d'une voix aigre; il est hors\nde la ville, maintenant.\n\n--Cela est bien malheureux! Et o\u00f9 est son clerc, savez-vous?\n\n--Oui, je le sais, mais i' me remercierait dr\u00f4lement de vous le dire.\n\n--J'ai des affaires tr\u00e8s-particuli\u00e8res avec lui.\n\n--\u00c7a ne peut pas se faire demain matin?\n\n--Pas aussi bien.\n\n--Eh bien, si c'est quelque chose de tr\u00e8s-particulier, je puis dire o\u00f9\nil est. Ainsi je suppose qu'il n'y a pas de mal \u00e0 le dire. Si vous allez\n\u00e0 _la Souche et la Pie_ et que vous demandiez au comptoir M. Lowten. Ils\nvous introduiront, et c'est le clerc de M. Perker.\u00bb\n\nAvec ces instructions, et ayant appris de plus que l'h\u00f4tellerie en\nquestion \u00e9tait au fond d'une cour, heureusement situ\u00e9e entre\nClare-Market et New Inn, M. Pickwick et Sam descendirent en s\u00fbret\u00e9\nl'escalier raboteux et se mirent en qu\u00eate de _la Souche et la pie_.\n\nCette taverne favorite, consacr\u00e9e aux orgies nocturnes de M. Lowten et\nde ses compagnons, \u00e9tait ce que des gens ordinaires appellent un\n_bouchon_. Une petite \u00e9choppe adoss\u00e9e \u00e0 la muraille et sous-lou\u00e9e \u00e0 un\ncordonnier en vieux, marquait suffisamment que le propri\u00e9taire de _la\nPie_ \u00e9tait un homme dispos\u00e9 \u00e0 gagner de l'argent; en m\u00eame temps que la\nprotection par lui accord\u00e9e a un vendeur de petits p\u00e2t\u00e9s, qui d\u00e9bitait\nses chatteries sans crainte d'interruption sur le pas m\u00eame de la porte,\nd\u00e9montrait \u00e9videmment que ledit propri\u00e9taire poss\u00e9dait un esprit\nphilanthropique. Deux ou trois pancartes imprim\u00e9es, faisant allusion \u00e0\ndu cidre de Devonshire et \u00e0 de l'eau-de-vie de Dantzig, pendaient aux\ncarreaux inf\u00e9rieurs des fen\u00eatres, d\u00e9cor\u00e9es de rideaux safran, tandis\nqu'un large \u00e9criteau noir annon\u00e7ait, en lettres blanches, au public\nsavant, qu'il y avait cinq cent mille barils de double bi\u00e8re dans les\ncelliers de la maison, laissant l'esprit dans un \u00e9tat de doute fort\nagr\u00e9able quant \u00e0 la direction pr\u00e9cise dans laquelle on pouvait supposer\nque cette immense caverne s'\u00e9tendait dans les entrailles de la terre.\nNous aurons d\u00e9crit autant qu'il est n\u00e9cessaire l'ext\u00e9rieur de l'\u00e9difice,\nlorsque nous aurons ajout\u00e9 que l'enseigne antique \u00e9talait la figure \u00e0\nmoiti\u00e9 effac\u00e9e d'une _pie_ contemplant attentivement une ligne tortueuse\nde couleur brune, que les voisins avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 habitu\u00e9s d\u00e8s l'enfance \u00e0\nreconna\u00eetre pour la _souche_.\n\nLorsque M. Pickwick se pr\u00e9senta au comptoir, il fut re\u00e7u par une femme\nd'un certain \u00e2ge qui sortit de derri\u00e8re un paravent.\n\n\u00abM. Lowten est-il ici, madame?\n\n--Oui, monsieur, il y est. Charley, introduisez le gentleman aupr\u00e8s de\nM. Lowten.\n\n--Le gen'l'm'n peut pas entrer \u00e0 c't' heure, r\u00e9pondit un jeune Ganym\u00e8de\n\u00e0 la t\u00eate rousse. M'sieu Lowten i' chante une chanson farce, et \u00e7a\nl'interloquerait. \u00c7a ne sera pas bien long, m'sieu.\u00bb\n\nLe Ganym\u00e8de roux avait \u00e0 peine cess\u00e9 de parler, lorsque le cliquetis des\nverres et le tonnerre des coups frapp\u00e9s sur la table annonc\u00e8rent que la\nchanson \u00e9tait termin\u00e9e. M. Pickwick engagea Sam \u00e0 se d\u00e9lasser dans la\nbuvette, et suivit son introducteur.\n\nSur cette annonce: \u00abUn gen'l'm'n pour vous parler, m'sieu.\u00bb\n\nUn jeune homme bouffi, qui remplissait le fauteuil au sommet de la\ntable, leva la t\u00eate, regarda avec quelque surprise dans la direction\nd'o\u00f9 portait la voix, et sa surprise ne fut aucunement diminu\u00e9e\nlorsqu'il reconnut qu'il ne connaissait nullement l'individu sur lequel\nse reposaient ses yeux.\n\n\u00abJe vous demande pardon, monsieur, dit M. Pickwick, et je suis aussi\ntr\u00e8s-f\u00e2ch\u00e9 de d\u00e9ranger ces messieurs, mais je viens pour une affaire\npressante. Si vous voulez me permettre de vous entretenir au bout de\ncette chambre pendant cinq minutes, je vous serai fort oblig\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nLe jeune homme bouffi se leva, et, tirant une chaise dans un coin obscur\nde la salle, \u00e9couta attentivement le r\u00e9cit des infortunes de M.\nPickwick. Lorsqu'il fut termin\u00e9: \u00abAh! dit-il, Dodson et Fogg! habiles\ndans la pratique! hommes d'affaires, bien malins, monsieur!\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick admit la malice de Dodson et Fogg, et M. Lowten poursuivit:\n\n\u00abPerker n'est pas dans la ville et n'y reviendra pas avant la fin de la\nsemaine prochaine; mais si vous voulez faire d\u00e9fendre \u00e0 l'action, vous\nn'avez qu'\u00e0 me laisser cette copie, je pourrai faire tout ce qui est\nn\u00e9cessaire jusqu'\u00e0 son retour.\n\n--C'est pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment pour cela que je suis venu ici, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick\nen tendant le document. S'il arrive quelque chose de nouveau vous pouvez\nm'\u00e9crire, poste restante, \u00e0 Ipswich.\n\n--C'est fort bien,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit le clerc de Me Perker; et, voyant les\nregards de M. Pickwick se diriger curieusement vers la table, il ajouta:\n\u00abVoulez-vous rester avec nous pour une demi-heure? Nous avons fameuse\ncompagnie ce soir. Il y a Samkin, et le premier clerc de _Green_, et\nSmithers, et la chancellerie de Price, et Pimkins, et Thomas... il\nchante \u00e0 ravir; et Jack Bamber, et beaucoup d'autres. Vous arrivez de la\ncampagne, je suppose: voulez-vous vous joindre \u00e0 nous?\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick ne pouvait laisser \u00e9chapper une occasion si s\u00e9duisante\nd'\u00e9tudier la nature humaine: il se laissa mener vers la table, fut\npr\u00e9sent\u00e9 formellement \u00e0 la compagnie, prit un si\u00e9ge aupr\u00e8s du pr\u00e9sident\net fit venir un verre de son breuvage favori.\n\nUn profond silence s'ensuivit, contrairement \u00e0 l'attente de M. Pickwick.\nEnfin son voisin de droite, gentleman qui \u00e9talait des boutons de\nmosa\u00efque sur une chemise ray\u00e9e, lui dit en \u00f4tant avec deux doigts son\ncigare de sa bouche:\n\n\u00abJ'esp\u00e8re que cela ne vous incommode pas, monsieur?\n\n--Pas le moins du monde, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick. J'en aime beaucoup\nl'odeur, quoique je ne fume pas moi-m\u00eame.\n\n--Je serais bien f\u00e2ch\u00e9 d'en dire autant, observa un autre gentleman du\nc\u00f4t\u00e9 oppos\u00e9 de la table. Ma pipe, c'est pour moi la table et le\nlogement.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick examina celui qui parlait ainsi et ne put s'emp\u00eacher de\npenser que tout aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 pour le mieux, si sa pipe avait aussi \u00e9t\u00e9\npour lui la blanchissage.\n\nIl y eut une autre pause. M. Pickwick \u00e9tait un \u00e9tranger, et son arriv\u00e9e\navait \u00e9videmment refroidi les assistants.\n\n\u00abM. Grundy va r\u00e9galer la compagnie d'une chanson, dit le pr\u00e9sident.\n\n--Non, il ne la r\u00e9galera pas, r\u00e9pliqua M. Grundy.\n\n--Pourquoi? demanda le pr\u00e9sident.\n\n--Parce que je ne peux pas.\n\n--Vous feriez mieux de dire que vous ne voulez pas.\n\n--Eh bien! alors, parce que je ne veux pas.\u00bb\n\nUn autre silence fut occasionn\u00e9 par ce refus positif de r\u00e9galer la\ncompagnie.\n\n\u00abPersonne ne nous mettra-t-il en train? dit le pr\u00e9sident d'un ton\ndubitatif.\n\n--Pourquoi ne nous mettez-vous pas en train vous-m\u00eame, monsieur le\npr\u00e9sident,\u00bb fit observer du bout de la table un jeune gentleman avec des\nmoustaches, un oeil louche et un col de chemise rabattu.\n\n\u00ab\u00c9coutez! \u00e9coutez!\u00bb cria le fumeur aux joyaux de clinquant.\n\nLe pr\u00e9sident r\u00e9pliqua: \u00abParce que je viens de chanter la seule chanson\nque je sache, et que celui qui chante deux fois la m\u00eame chanson dans une\nsoir\u00e9e est \u00e0 l'amende d'une tourn\u00e9e.\u00bb\n\nC'\u00e9tait une raison sans r\u00e9plique, aussi fut-elle suivie d'un nouveau\nsilence.\n\nM. Pickwick, d\u00e9sirant susciter un sujet qui p\u00fbt \u00eatre discut\u00e9 par tout le\nmonde, \u00e9leva la voix et parla en ces termes:\n\n\u00abJ'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 ce soir, gentlemen, dans un endroit que vous tous connaissez\nparfaitement sans aucun doute, mais o\u00f9 je n'avais pas mis le pied depuis\nbien des ann\u00e9es et que je connais fort peu. Je veux parler de _Gray's\nInn_. Ces vieux h\u00f4tels sont de curieux recoins, dans une grande ville\ncomme Londres.\n\n--Par Jupiter, murmura le pr\u00e9sident \u00e0 M. Pickwick, vous \u00eates tomb\u00e9 sur\nun sujet qui fera causer l'un de nous, du moins. Vous allez tirer de sa\ncoquille le vieux Jack Bamber. On ne l'a jamais entendu parler sur autre\nchose que sur les _inns_\u00bb. Il y a v\u00e9cu si longtemps tout seul qu'il en\nest devenu \u00e0 moiti\u00e9 fou.\u00bb\n\nL'individu dont parlait M. Lowten \u00e9tait un vieux petit homme, aux\n\u00e9paules \u00e9lev\u00e9es, qui avait l'habitude de se pencher en avant quand il\n\u00e9tait silencieux, et qui, pour cette raison, n'avait pas \u00e9t\u00e9 remarqu\u00e9 de\nM. Pickwick. Mais lorsque le vieux homme leva sa face jaune et\nd\u00e9charn\u00e9e, et fixa sur lui ses yeux gris pleins de finesse et de\np\u00e9n\u00e9tration, notre illustre observateur s'\u00e9tonna que des traits aussi\nsinguliers eussent pu \u00e9chapper un seul instant \u00e0 son attention. Un\nsourire chagrin contractait perp\u00e9tuellement la figure du vieillard; il\nappuyait son menton sur une grande main maigre, dont les ongles \u00e9taient\nd'une longueur extraordinaire; son regard p\u00e9n\u00e9trant et fixe luisait sous\nd'\u00e9pais sourcils grisonnants; enfin il y avait dans toute l'expression\nde sa physionomie quelque chose d'\u00e9trange, de sauvage, de rus\u00e9, qui\nrendaient son aspect tout \u00e0 fait repoussant.\n\nTelle \u00e9tait la figure qui se redressa tout \u00e0 coup et d'o\u00f9 jaillit un\ntorrent de paroles br\u00fblantes. Cependant comme ce chapitre est d\u00e9j\u00e0 bien\nlong, et comme le vieux homme est un personnage notable, il sera plus\nrespectueux pour lui et plus commode pour nous, de le laisser parler\ndans un nouveau chapitre.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XXI.\n\nDans lequel le vieux homme se lance sur son th\u00e8me favori, et raconte\nl'histoire d'un dr\u00f4le de client.\n\n\n\u00abHa! ha! dit le vieux homme dont nous avons donn\u00e9 une courte description\ndans le pr\u00e9c\u00e9dent chapitre, ha! ha! qui parle des _Inns_?\n\n--C'est moi, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick. Je remarquais que ce sont\nde vieux endroits bien singuliers.\n\n--_Vous_! repartit le vieux homme d'un ton m\u00e9prisant. Que pouvez-vous\nsavoir du temps o\u00f9 les jeunes gens s'enfermaient dans ces chambras\nsolitaires, et lisaient, et lisaient, heure apr\u00e8s heure, nuit apr\u00e8s\nnuit, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que leur raison f\u00fbt alt\u00e9r\u00e9e par leurs \u00e9tudes nocturnes,\njusqu'\u00e0 ce que les forces de leur esprit fussent \u00e9puis\u00e9es, jusqu'\u00e0 ce\nque la lumi\u00e8re du matin ne leur apport\u00e2t plus ni fra\u00eecheur ni sant\u00e9; si\nbien qu'ils finissaient par p\u00e9rir apr\u00e8s avoir d\u00e9vou\u00e9 inutilement leurs\njeunes \u00e9nergies \u00e0 de vieux bouquins dess\u00e9ch\u00e9s. Vous, qui \u00eates venu plus\ntard, \u00e0 une \u00e9poque toute diff\u00e9rente, que savez-vous de cet affaissement\ngraduel par une lente consomption, ou de ces ravages rapides de la\nfi\u00e8vre, r\u00e9sultat de la d\u00e9bauche et de la dissipation, pour les habitants\nde ces chambres sombres? Savez-vous combien de plaideurs, apr\u00e8s avoir\nvainement implor\u00e9 la merci des hommes de loi, s'en sont all\u00e9s, le coeur\nbris\u00e9, chercher du repos dans la Tamise ou un refuge dans la prison? Il\nn'y a pas un panneau, dans les vieilles boiseries, qui ne p\u00fbt faire un\nr\u00e9cit plein d'horreur sur le roman de la vie, de la vie r\u00e9elle,\nmonsieur! Tout prosa\u00efques que ces h\u00f4tels puissent vous sembler\nmaintenant, je vous dis qu'ils sont remplis d'affreux myst\u00e8res; et\nj'aimerais mieux entendre, \u00e0 minuit, bien des l\u00e9gendes orn\u00e9es d'un titre\nterrible, que la v\u00e9ritable histoire d'une de ces chambres antiques.\u00bb\n\nIl y avait quelque chose de si singulier dans l'\u00e9nergie soudaine du\nvieillard et dans le sujet qui l'avait r\u00e9veill\u00e9, que M. Pickwick ne\ntrouva point de paroles pr\u00eates pour lui r\u00e9pondre. Cependant le\nvieillard, r\u00e9primant son imp\u00e9tuosit\u00e9 et reprenant l'air goguenard que\nl'excitation du moment lui avait fait perdre, poursuivit en ces termes:\n\n\u00abRegardez-les sous un autre aspect moins romantique. Quels admirables\ninstruments de lente torture! Pensez au pauvre homme qui a d\u00e9pens\u00e9 tout\nce qu'il poss\u00e9dait, qui s'est r\u00e9duit \u00e0 la mendicit\u00e9, qui a ran\u00e7onn\u00e9 ses\namis pour entrer dans une profession o\u00f9 il ne gagnera jamais un morceau\nde pain. L'attente, l'espoir, le d\u00e9sappointement, la crainte, le\nmalheur, la pauvret\u00e9, les esp\u00e9rances an\u00e9anties, la carri\u00e8re perdue, le\nsuicide, peut-\u00eatre, ou mieux encore, l'ivrognerie en guenilles, en\nsavates! voil\u00e0 ce que l'on trouve dans ces sombres demeures. Ne sont-ce\npas l\u00e0 de dr\u00f4les d'h\u00f4tels, hein?\u00bb\n\nLe vieillard se frottait les mains en ricanant, enchant\u00e9 d'avoir plac\u00e9\nson sujet favori sous un nouveau point de vue; M. Pickwick le\nconsid\u00e9rait avec curiosit\u00e9, et le reste de la compagnie souriait et\nregardait en silence.\n\n\u00abVous parlez de vos universit\u00e9s allemandes, poursuivit le petit\nvieillard, pouh! pouh! Il y a assez de po\u00e9sie ici, \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de nous, sous\nnos yeux; seulement personne n'y pense.\n\n--Certainement, dit en riant M. Pickwick, je n'ai jamais pens\u00e9 \u00e0 la\npo\u00e9sie de ces endroits-l\u00e0.\n\n--Sans doute, vous n'y avez pas pens\u00e9: naturellement. C'est comme un de\nmes amis qui me disait souvent: \u00abQu'est-ce qu'il y a de particulier dans\nces vieilles maisons?--Dr\u00f4les de vieux endroits, r\u00e9pondais-je.--Pas du\ntout, disait-il.--Solitaires, reprenais-je.--Pas le moins du monde,\u00bb\ndisait-il. Un matin, comme il allait ouvrir sa porte pour sortir, il\ntomba frapp\u00e9 d'apoplexie foudroyante. Il est tomb\u00e9 la t\u00eate dans sa\npropre bo\u00eete \u00e0 lettres. Il resta l\u00e0 pendant dix-huit mois. Tout le monde\nle crut parti de la ville.\n\n--Et comment fut-il trouv\u00e9, \u00e0 la fin? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Comme il n'avait pas pay\u00e9 son loyer depuis deux ans, on se d\u00e9termina \u00e0\nentrer d'autorit\u00e9. En effet, la serrure fut forc\u00e9e, et un cadavre\ndess\u00e9ch\u00e9, en habit bleu, en culotte noire, en bas de soie, tomba dans\nles bras du portier qui ouvrait la porte. C'est dr\u00f4le, \u00e7a? assez dr\u00f4le\npeut-\u00eatre? assez dr\u00f4le, eh?\u00bb Et le petit vieillard pencha sa t\u00eate encore\nplus sur son \u00e9paule, en frottant ses mains avec un indicible plaisir.\n\n\u00abJe sais une autre aventure du m\u00eame genre, reprit-il, quand sa joie fut\nun peu calm\u00e9e. Elle arriva dans Clifford's Inn. Un locataire, sous les\ntoits, mauvaise r\u00e9putation, s'enferme dans le cabinet de sa chambre \u00e0\ncoucher et prend une dose d'arsenic. L'intendant croit qu'il est\nd\u00e9camp\u00e9, ouvre sa porte et met \u00e9criteau. Un autre homme arrive, loue la\nchambre, la meuble et vient l'habiter. Mais, d'une mani\u00e8re ou d'une\nautre, il ne peut pas dormir. Toujours agit\u00e9, inconfortable: C'est bien\ndr\u00f4le! se dit-il. Je ferai ma chambre \u00e0 coucher dans l'autre pi\u00e8ce, et\ncelle-ci sera mon cabinet. Il fait l'\u00e9change et dort tr\u00e8s-bien la nuit,\nmais soudainement il devient incapable de lire le soir; il se trouve\nnerveux, inquiet, et ne peut rien faire que de moucher sa chandelle ou\nde regarder autour de soi. \u00abJe n'y comprends rien,\u00bb se dit-il un soir\nqu'il revenait de la com\u00e9die et buvait un verre de grog froid, le dos\nappuy\u00e9 sur le mur, pour ne pas pouvoir s'imaginer qu'il y e\u00fbt quelqu'un\nderri\u00e8re lui. \u00abJe n'y comprends rien,\u00bb se dit-il, et justement ses yeux\ns'arr\u00eatent sur le petit cabinet qui \u00e9tait toujours rest\u00e9 ferm\u00e9 en\ndedans. Un frisson le saisit des pieds \u00e0 la t\u00eate. \u00abJ'ai d\u00e9j\u00e0 \u00e9prouv\u00e9\ncette \u00e9trange sensation, pense-t-il. Je ne puis pas m'emp\u00eacher\nd'imaginer qu'il y a quelque myst\u00e8re dans ce cabinet....\u00bb En m\u00eame temps,\nil fait un effort, rassemble tout son courage, brise la serrure avec le\nfourgon, ouvre la porte, et l\u00e0, ma foi! il d\u00e9couvre, debout dans un\ncoin, le dernier locataire, tenant une petite bouteille dans sa main\ncrisp\u00e9e, et dont le visage portait les traces affreuses d'une mort\nviolente.\u00bb\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, le vieux homme recommen\u00e7a \u00e0 ricaner, en promenant ses\nregards refrogn\u00e9s sur les visages \u00e9tonn\u00e9s et attentifs de ses auditeurs.\n\n\u00abQuelles choses \u00e9tranges vous nous dites l\u00e0, monsieur! s'\u00e9cria M.\nPickwick en observant minutieusement les traits du vieillard, au moyen\nde ses lunettes.\n\n--\u00c9tranges? reprit celui-ci, nullement. Vous les trouvez \u00e9tranges parce\nqu'elles sont nouvelles pour vous. Elles sont farces, mais ordinaires.\n\n--Farces! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick involontairement.\n\n--Oui, farces! n'est-il pas vrai?\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua le petit vieillard avec un\nricanement diabolique; et alors sans attendre une r\u00e9ponse, il continua:\n\n\u00abIl y a une quarantaine d'ann\u00e9es, je connaissais un autre individu qui\nloua, dans un des plus anciens Inns, un appartement vieux, humide,\nmoisi, demeur\u00e9 vacant et ferm\u00e9 depuis des ann\u00e9es, des si\u00e8cles. Il\ncourait une quantit\u00e9 d'histoires de vieilles femmes sur ce logement-l\u00e0,\net certainement il \u00e9tait loin d'\u00eatre gai; mais la pauvret\u00e9 rongeait\nnotre homme, et quand ces chambres auraient \u00e9t\u00e9 dix fois pires, leur bon\nmarch\u00e9 l'aurait d\u00e9cid\u00e9. Il fut oblig\u00e9 de racheter quelques vieux meubles\nqui \u00e9taient scell\u00e9s \u00e0 la muraille, et entre autres une grande armoire \u00e0\npapiers, avec de grandes portes vitr\u00e9es, garnies en dedans de rideaux\nverts. C'\u00e9tait un meuble fort inutile pour lui, car il n'avait pas de\npapiers \u00e0 y mettre, et quant \u00e0 ses v\u00eatements il les portait toujours sur\nson dos, sans se fatiguer, encore. C'est bien. Il fait donc porter tous\nses meubles, et il n'en avait pas la charge d'un brancard; il \u00e9parpille\nses quatre chaises dans la chambre pour leur faire faire, autant que\npossible, la figure d'une douzaine, et, le soir venu, il se met \u00e0 boire\naupr\u00e8s du feu le premier verre d'un gallon d'eau-de-vie qu'il avait\nachet\u00e9 \u00e0 cr\u00e9dit. Tout en buvant, il se demandait \u00e0 lui-m\u00eame si\nl'eau-de-vie serait jamais pay\u00e9e, et dans ce cas, au bout de combien\nd'ann\u00e9es, lorsque ses yeux vinrent \u00e0 tomber sur les portes vitr\u00e9es de\nl'armoire de ch\u00eane. \u00abAh! se dit-il, si je n'avais pas \u00e9t\u00e9 oblig\u00e9 de\nprendre ce vilain bahut \u00e0 l'estimation du vieux brocanteur, j'aurais pu\navoir pour mon argent quelque chose de plus confortable. Je vous dirai\nce qui en est, vieille ganache, ajouta-t-il en parlant tout haut \u00e0\nl'armoire, seulement parce qu'il n'avait personne autre \u00e0 qui parler;\ns'il ne fallait pas plus de peine pour briser votre vilaine carcasse\nqu'elle ne me ferait de profit, vous allumeriez mon feu en moins de\nrien.\u00bb Il avait \u00e0 peine prononc\u00e9 ces paroles qu'un son, ressemblant \u00e0 un\nfaible g\u00e9missement, parut sortir de l'armoire. Notre homme en fut\neffray\u00e9 d'abord, mais r\u00e9fl\u00e9chissant ensuite que ce bruit devait \u00eatre\nproduit par quelque voisin qui rentrait chez lui de bonne humeur, il mit\nses pieds sur le garde-feu et leva le poker pour remuer le charbon de\nterre. En ce moment le m\u00eame son fut r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9, l'une des portes vitr\u00e9es\ns'ouvrit lentement et laissa voir, debout dans l'armoire, la figure d'un\ngrand homme, couvert de v\u00eatements sales et d\u00e9chir\u00e9s. Son visage p\u00e2le et\nmaigre semblait rong\u00e9 de chagrin, et il y avait dans la couleur de sa\npeau, dans ses formes de squelette, dans toute sa contenance, enfin,\nquelque chose qui n'appartenait pas \u00e0 un habitant de ce monde. \u00abQui\n\u00eates-vous? balbutia le nouveau locataire devenu plus blanc que sa\nchemise, et balan\u00e7ant toutefois dans sa main le poker, de mani\u00e8re \u00e0\najuster assez d\u00e9cemment la figure surnaturelle. Qui \u00eates-vous?--Ne me\njetez pas ce poker, r\u00e9pliqua le revenant. Vous auriez beau me viser en\nplein, il passerait au travers de moi sans r\u00e9sistance et ne frapperait\nque le fond de l'armoire. Je suis un esprit.--Et que me voulez-vous,\ns'il vous pla\u00eet? repartit le locataire d'une voix tremblante.--Dans\ncette chambre, r\u00e9pliqua l'apparition, s'est consomm\u00e9e ma ruine\nterrestre. Dans cette chambre, j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 r\u00e9duit \u00e0 la mendicit\u00e9, ainsi que\nmes enfants. Dans cette armoire s'accumul\u00e8rent chaque ann\u00e9e les papiers\nd'un long, d'un \u00e9ternel proc\u00e8s. Dans cette chambre, lorsque je mourus de\nchagrin, de d\u00e9sespoir, deux rus\u00e9s vampires se partag\u00e8rent les richesses\npour lesquelles j'avais empoisonn\u00e9 mon existence, et dont ils ne\nlaiss\u00e8rent pas un liard \u00e0 mes pauvres enfants. Je les ai si bien\n\u00e9pouvant\u00e9s que je les ai fait d\u00e9guerpir de ces lieux; et depuis, afin de\nrevoir le th\u00e9\u00e2tre de mes longues mis\u00e8res, j'y reviens toutes les nuits,\nseule \u00e9poque o\u00f9 je puisse encore visiter votre plan\u00e8te. Cet appartement\nest \u00e0 moi. Laissez-le-moi.--Si vous insistez pour revenir dans cette\nchambre, r\u00e9pondit le locataire, qui avait eu le temps de se recueillir\npendant le prolixe r\u00e9cit du revenant, je vous en quitterai la possession\navec le plus grand plaisir; mais, si vous me le permettez, je d\u00e9sirerais\nvous adresser une question.--Parlez, dit l'esprit d'une voix s\u00e9v\u00e8re.--Eh\nbien! reprit notre homme, je ne veux pas vous appliquer personnellement\nmon observation, puisqu'elle est commune \u00e0 tous les esprits dont j'ai\nentendu parler, mais il me semble un peu... incons\u00e9quent, que vous\nreveniez toujours exactement aux lieux o\u00f9 vous avez \u00e9t\u00e9 le plus\nmalheureux, lorsque vous avez la facilit\u00e9 de visiter les plus beaux pays\nde la terre, puisque l'espace ne doit rien \u00eatre pour vous.--Ma foi! cela\nest vrai! je n'y avais jamais pens\u00e9, r\u00e9pliqua le revenant.--Vous voyez,\nmonsieur, poursuivit le locataire, que cette chambre est bien mis\u00e9rable.\nD'apr\u00e8s l'apparence de cette armoire, j'oserais dire qu'il n'y manque\npoint de punaises; et r\u00e9ellement j'imagine que vous pourriez trouver un\ndomicile beaucoup plus confortable, sans parler du climat de Londres,\nqui est extr\u00eamement peu flatteur.--Vous avez tout \u00e0 fait raison,\nmonsieur, r\u00e9pondit l'esprit avec politesse. Je n'avais jamais pens\u00e9 \u00e0\ncela. Je vais essayer imm\u00e9diatement du changement d'air.\u00bb En effet, tout\nen parlant, il commen\u00e7a \u00e0 s'\u00e9vanouir; ses jambes \u00e9taient d\u00e9j\u00e0\nenti\u00e8rement disparues, lorsque le locataire le rappela. \u00abMonsieur, lui\ncria-t-il, vous rendriez un bien grand service \u00e0 la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 si vous\nvouliez avoir la bont\u00e9 de sugg\u00e9rer aux autres ladies et gentlemen qui\ns'occupent \u00e0 hanter les vieilles maisons, qu'ils pourraient \u00eatre\nbeaucoup plus confortablement ailleurs.--Je n'y manquerai pas, r\u00e9pondit\nle revenant. Il faut en v\u00e9rit\u00e9 que nous soyons bien b\u00eates, nous autres\nesprits, pour n'avoir point trouv\u00e9 cela. Je ne me pardonne point d'avoir\n\u00e9t\u00e9 si stupide!\u00bb En disant ces mots, le revenant disparut, et ce qui est\nremarquable, ajouta le vieux homme en jetant un regard malin autour de\nla table, il ne revint jamais.\n\n\u00abCe n'est pas mauvais, si c'est vrai, dit l'homme aux boutons de\nmosa\u00efque en allumant un nouveau cigare.\n\n--Si! s'\u00e9cria le vieillard d'un air excessivement m\u00e9prisant. Voyez-vous,\ncontinua-t-il en se tournant vers Lowten, je ne serais pas bien \u00e9tonn\u00e9\nqu'il finit par dire que l'histoire du singulier client que nous avions,\nquand j'\u00e9tais chez l'avou\u00e9, n'est pas vraie non plus.\n\n--Oh! cette histoire-l\u00e0, je n'en dirai rien du tout, car je ne l'ai\njamais entendue, r\u00e9pondit l'homme aux bijoux de clinquant.\n\n--Monsieur, dit M. Pickwick, je souhaiterais fort que vous voulussiez\nbien nous la raconter.\n\n--Oh! oui, ajouta Lowten, racontez-la. Personne ici ne l'a entendue,\nexcept\u00e9 moi, et je l'ai presque oubli\u00e9e.\u00bb\n\nLe vieux homme regarda autour de la table et ricana plus horriblement\nque jamais, en remarquant l'attention peinte sur tous les visages.\nEnsuite, frottant son menton avec sa main et contemplant le plafond,\ncomme pour rafra\u00eechir sa m\u00e9moire, il commen\u00e7a ainsi qu'il suit:\n\nHISTOIRE D'UN SINGULIER CLIENT.\n\nIl n'importe gu\u00e8re o\u00f9 ni comment j'ai appris cette courte histoire; si\nje vous la racontais dans l'ordre o\u00f9 je l'ai sue, je commencerais par le\nmilieu, et quand je serais arriv\u00e9 \u00e0 la conclusion, je retournerais en\narri\u00e8re chercher un commencement. Il suffira de vous dire que\nquelques-uns des \u00e9v\u00e9nements se sont pass\u00e9s devant mes yeux. Quant aux\nautres, _je sais_ qu'ils sont arriv\u00e9s, et plusieurs personnes encore\nvivantes ne se les rappellent que trop bien.\n\nDans la grande rue du faubourg de Londres, pr\u00e8s de l'\u00e9glise\nSaint-George, et du m\u00eame c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la rue, se trouve, comme presque tout\nle monde le sait, une petite prison pour dettes, nomm\u00e9e Marshalsea.\nQuoiqu'elle ne ressemble plus gu\u00e8re \u00e0 l'inf\u00e2me cloaque d'autrefois,\ncependant, dans son \u00e9tat am\u00e9lior\u00e9, elle offre encore peu de tentation\npour les extravagants, peu de consolation pour les impr\u00e9voyants.\nL'assassin condamn\u00e9 jouit, dans Newgate, d'une cour plus vaste et plus\na\u00e9r\u00e9e qu'il n'y en a dans la prison de Marshalsea, pour le d\u00e9biteur\ninsolvable.\n\nQue ce soit une id\u00e9e, que ce soit \u00e0 cause des vieux souvenirs que me\nrappelle cette partie de Londres, je ne puis la supporter. La rue est\nlarge; les boutiques sont spacieuses; le bruit des voitures, des\npassants, des industries actives, y r\u00e9sonne depuis le matin jusqu'\u00e0\nminuit; mais les rues d'alentour sont \u00e9troites et sales; la pauvret\u00e9, la\nd\u00e9bauche suppurent de toutes les all\u00e9es; l'infortune et le besoin sont\nrenferm\u00e9s dans la sombre prison; un air de tristesse, de d\u00e9solation,\nsemble, \u00e0 mes yeux du moins, \u00eatre r\u00e9pandu sur les alentours et leur\ncommuniquer une teinte maladive et d\u00e9go\u00fbtante.\n\nBien des gens dont les yeux se sont depuis ferm\u00e9s dans la tombe, ont\ncommenc\u00e9 par contempler assez l\u00e9g\u00e8rement cette sc\u00e8ne, en entrant pour\nla premi\u00e8re fois dans la vieille prison de la Marshalsea; car le\nd\u00e9sespoir vient rarement avec les premi\u00e8res atteintes de l'infortune. Le\nnouveau prisonnier se confie aux amis qu'il n'a pas \u00e9prouv\u00e9s encore; il\nse rappelle les nombreuses offres de services qui lui ont \u00e9t\u00e9 faites,\nlorsqu'il n'en avait pas besoin; dans son inexp\u00e9rience heureuse, il\nconserve l'esp\u00e9rance, fleur salutaire, que le premier vent de\nl'adversit\u00e9 fait courber \u00e0 peine, qui se redresse et fleurit de nouveau\npendant quelque temps, et qui peu \u00e0 peu se fane et se dess\u00e8che sous\nl'influence des d\u00e9sappointements et de l'oubli. Alors les yeux se\ncreusent et deviennent hagards; les joues p\u00e2les et maigres se collent\nsur les os; le manque d'air et d'exercice, la faim plus terrible encore,\nd\u00e9truisent le prisonnier. A l'\u00e9poque dont nous parlons, on pouvait dire,\nsans aucune m\u00e9taphore, que les pauvres d\u00e9biteurs pourrissaient dans la\nprison, sans aucun espoir d'en sortir vivants. De semblables atrocit\u00e9s\nn'existent plus au m\u00eame degr\u00e9, mais il en reste encore suffisamment pour\nenfanter des mis\u00e8res qui font saigner le coeur.\n\nIl y a trente ans environ, une jeune femme, avec son enfant, se\npr\u00e9sentait de jour en jour \u00e0 la porte de la prison, d\u00e8s que le soleil\nparaissait et avec autant de r\u00e9gularit\u00e9 que lui. Elle venait pour voir\nson mari, emprisonn\u00e9 pour dettes; souvent, apr\u00e8s une nuit inqui\u00e8te et\nsans sommeil, elle arrivait \u00e0 cette porte une heure trop t\u00f4t, et alors,\ns'en retournant d'un air doux et r\u00e9sign\u00e9, elle menait son enfant sur le\nvieux pont, l'\u00e9levait dans ses bras sur le parapet, et lui montrait,\npour le distraire, la Tamise \u00e9tincelante sous les rayons du soleil\nlevant, et d\u00e9j\u00e0 anim\u00e9e par mille pr\u00e9paratifs de travail et de plaisir.\nMais bient\u00f4t elle remettait l'enfant par terre et se prenait \u00e0 pleurer\nam\u00e8rement, car nulle expression d'amusement ou d'int\u00e9r\u00eat n'\u00e9tait venu\n\u00e9clairer le visage p\u00e2le et amaigri qu'elle aimait tant \u00e0 contempler.\nH\u00e9las! ce pauvre enfant ne comptait que des souvenirs d'une seule\nesp\u00e8ce, souvenirs qui se rattachaient \u00e0 la pauvret\u00e9, aux malheurs de ses\nparents. Durant de longues heures, il restait assis sur les genoux de sa\nm\u00e8re, et consid\u00e9rait avec une sympathie enfantine les larmes qui\ncoulaient le long de ses joues; puis il se tra\u00eenait silencieusement dans\nun coin sombre, o\u00f9 il s'endormait en pleurant. Les p\u00e9nibles r\u00e9alit\u00e9s du\nmonde, avec ses plus dures privations, la faim, la soif, le froid, tous\nles besoins, \u00e9taient \u00e0 demeure dans sa maison, depuis les premi\u00e8res\nlueurs de son intelligence; et quoiqu'il e\u00fbt encore les formes de\nl'enfance, il n'en avait plus ni le coeur l\u00e9ger, ni le rire joyeux, ni\nles yeux brillants.\n\nSon p\u00e8re et sa m\u00e8re \u00e9tudiaient la p\u00e2leur de son visage, et leurs regards\nse rencontraient ensuite avec des pens\u00e9es de d\u00e9sespoir, qu'ils n'osaient\nexprimer par des paroles. L'homme vigoureux, bien portant, qui aurait pu\nsupporter toutes les fatigues d'une vie active, se consumait dans la\nlongue inaction, dans l'atmosph\u00e8re malsaine d'une prison populeuse. La\nfemme d\u00e9licate et fragile s'affaissait sous les maux combin\u00e9s de\nl'esprit et du corps. Quant au jeune enfant, son coeur \u00e9tait d\u00e9j\u00e0 bris\u00e9.\n\nL'hiver arriva, et avec l'hiver des semaines enti\u00e8res de pluies froides\net tristes. La pauvre femme \u00e9tait venue demeurer dans une mis\u00e9rable\nchambre, pr\u00e8s de la prison de son mari, et quoique leur pauvret\u00e9\ncroissante f\u00fbt la cause de ce changement, elle se trouvait plus heureuse\nalors, car elle \u00e9tait plus pr\u00e8s de lui. Pendant deux mois elle vint\ncomme \u00e0 l'ordinaire attendre, avec son enfant, l'ouverture de la porte.\nUn matin, elle ne vint pas: c'\u00e9tait la premi\u00e8re fois. Un autre matin,\nelle vint seule: l'enfant \u00e9tait mort.\n\nIls savent peu, ceux qui parlent l\u00e9g\u00e8rement des pertes du pauvre comme\nd'une heureuse cessation de douleurs pour celui qui n'est plus, comme\nd'une \u00e9conomie providentielle pour le survivant; ils savent peu quelle\nagonie causent ces pertes. Un regard silencieux d'affection, quand tous\nles autres regards se d\u00e9tournent froidement; la conscience que nous\nposs\u00e9dons la sympathie d'un \u00eatre humain, lorsque tous les autres nous\nont abandonn\u00e9s: c'est l\u00e0 une consolation, un soutien, un appui, que\nnulle richesse ne peut payer, que ne peut donner nul pouvoir. L'enfant\n\u00e9tait rest\u00e9, pendant des heures enti\u00e8res, assis aux pieds de ses\nparents, avec ses petites mains press\u00e9es dans les leurs; avec son visage\nmaigre et p\u00e2le lev\u00e9 vers leur visage. Ils l'avaient vu s'\u00e9tioler de jour\nen jour; mais quoique sa courte existence e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 priv\u00e9e de toute joie,\nquoiqu'il repos\u00e2t maintenant dans cette paix qu'il n'avait jamais connue\nsur la terre, cependant ils \u00e9taient ses parents, et sa perte p\u00e9n\u00e9tra\nprofond\u00e9ment dans leur coeur.\n\nIl \u00e9tait clair pour ceux qui regardaient la figure \u00e9puis\u00e9e de la jeune\nm\u00e8re, qu'elle n'avait plus de longues \u00e9preuves \u00e0 subir. Les camarades de\nprison de son mari craignaient de troubler tant de douleurs et de\nmis\u00e8res, et lui laissaient \u00e0 lui seul la petite chambre qu'il avait\nd'abord partag\u00e9e avec deux compagnons. La jeune femme l'occupait avec\nlui; elle languissait sans souffrances, mais sans espoir, et sa vie\ns'\u00e9teignait doucement.\n\nUn soir elle s'\u00e9tait \u00e9vanouie dans les bras de son mari, et il l'avait\nport\u00e9e \u00e0 la fen\u00eatre ouverte, pour la ranimer par la sensation de l'air.\nLa lumi\u00e8re de la lune, en tombant sur son p\u00e2le visage, lui montra tant\nd'alt\u00e9ration dans ses traits qu'il chancela, comme un faible enfant,\nsous le fardeau qui lui \u00e9tait si cher.\n\n\u00abAsseyez-moi, George,\u00bb dit-elle d'une voix faible. Il ob\u00e9it, et\ns'asseyant aupr\u00e8s d'elle, il couvrit son front de ses mains et fondit en\nlarmes.\n\n\u00abIl est bien dur de vous quitter, George; mais c'est la volont\u00e9 de Dieu,\net vous devez supporter cela pour l'amour de moi. Oh! combien je le\nremercie de nous avoir pris d'abord notre enfant! Il est heureux; il est\ndans le ciel maintenant. Que serait-il devenu ici, sans sa m\u00e8re?\n\n--Vous ne mourrez pas, Mary! non, vous ne mourrez pas!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria le mari\nen se levant. Il fit le tour de la chambre, avec violence, en se\nfrappant le front de ses poings ferm\u00e9s; puis, se rasseyant aupr\u00e8s de sa\nfemme et la supportant dans ses bras, il ajouta avec plus de calme:\n\u00abRemettez-vous, je vous en prie, ma ch\u00e8re enfant. Reprenez courage; vous\nvivrez encore.\n\n--Non, George, non, je le sens bien. Faites-moi mettre pr\u00e8s de mon\npauvre enfant, maintenant; mais promettez-moi que si jamais vous quittez\ncette affreuse demeure, si vous devenez riche, vous nous ferez\ntransporter dans quelque paisible cimeti\u00e8re de village, loin, bien loin\nd'ici, pour que nous puissions nous y reposer en paix. Cher George, me\nle promettez-vous?\n\n--Oui, oui, dit le pauvre homme en se jetant \u00e0 genoux devant elle.\nR\u00e9pondez-moi, Mary! encore un mot! un regard! un seul!\u00bb\n\nIl cessa de parler, car le bras qui serrait son cou \u00e9tait roide et\npesant. Un profond soupir s'\u00e9chappa de la poitrine dess\u00e9ch\u00e9e de la jeune\nfemme, ses l\u00e8vres remu\u00e8rent, un sourire se joua sur son visage, mais les\nl\u00e8vres \u00e9taient blanches, le sourire devint fixe et glac\u00e9: George Heyling\n\u00e9tait seul dans le monde!\n\nCette nuit, dans le silence et la d\u00e9solation de sa chambre lugubre le\nmis\u00e9rable \u00e9poux s'agenouilla aupr\u00e8s de ce qui n'\u00e9tait plus qu'un\ncadavre, et appela Dieu \u00e0 t\u00e9moin du serment effroyable qu'il faisait de\nvenger la mort de sa femme et de son enfant; de d\u00e9vouer le reste de son\nexistence \u00e0 ce seul but; d'obtenir une vengeance prolong\u00e9e et terrible;\nde nourrir une haine \u00e9ternelle, inextinguible, et d'en poursuivre\nl'objet \u00e0 travers le monde entier.\n\nUn d\u00e9sespoir surnaturel, une rage d\u00e9moniaque avaient fait de si affreux\nravages sur sa figure, dans cette seule nuit, que le lendemain matin ses\ncompagnons se reculaient avec effroi lorsqu'il passait aupr\u00e8s d'eux. Ses\nyeux \u00e9taient lourds et sanglants, son visage cadav\u00e9reux, son corps vo\u00fbt\u00e9\ncomme par l'\u00e2ge. Dans la violence de ses angoisses mentales, il avait\nmordu sa l\u00e8vre inf\u00e9rieure, et le sang, coulant de la blessure, avait\nsouill\u00e9 son menton, sa cravate, sa chemise. Pas une larme, pas un\nsoupir, pas une plainte ne lui \u00e9chappait; mais l'\u00e9garement de ses\nregards, l'irr\u00e9gularit\u00e9 de ses pas, tandis qu'il arpentait la cour,\ntoute sa contenance, enfin, r\u00e9v\u00e9lait la fi\u00e8vre qui le d\u00e9vorait\nint\u00e9rieurement.\n\nIl \u00e9tait n\u00e9cessaire que le corps de sa femme f\u00fbt enlev\u00e9 sans d\u00e9lai de la\nprison. Il en re\u00e7ut l'avis avec calme et en reconnut la convenance.\nPresque tous les prisonniers s'\u00e9taient assembl\u00e9s pour voir cet\nenl\u00e8vement. Ils se rang\u00e8rent des deux c\u00f4t\u00e9s lorsque George Heyling\nparut. Il s'avan\u00e7a d'un pas pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9; il se pla\u00e7a dans un petit espace\ngrill\u00e9, aupr\u00e8s de la porte d'entr\u00e9e: la foule s'en retira par un\nsentiment instinctif de d\u00e9licatesse. Bient\u00f4t le cercueil grossier\ndescendit, port\u00e9 lentement sur les \u00e9paules de quatre hommes. Un silence\nde mort l'accueillit, rompu seulement par les lamentations des femmes et\npar le bruit des pieds des porteurs sur le pav\u00e9. Quand ils atteignirent\nle lieu o\u00f9 se tenait l'\u00e9poux d\u00e9laiss\u00e9, ils s'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent. Il \u00e9tendit sa\nmain sur la bi\u00e8re, et arrangeant machinalement le drap qui la couvrait,\nil leur fit signe de continuer. Les guichetiers, sous le portique,\n\u00f4t\u00e8rent leurs chapeaux; le cercueil passa; la porte pesante se referma\npar derri\u00e8re. Heyling regarda d'un air distrait la foule dont il \u00e9tait\nentour\u00e9, et se laissa tomber lourdement sur la terre.\n\nPendant plusieurs semaines, on fut oblig\u00e9 de le veiller nuit et jour;\nmais dans les plus violentes r\u00eaveries de la fi\u00e8vre, il ne perdit pas la\nconscience de ses malheurs, ni le souvenir du voeu qu'il avait fait. Des\nlieux, des sc\u00e8nes, des \u00e9v\u00e9nements divers, se succ\u00e9daient devant ses yeux\navec la rapidit\u00e9 confuse du d\u00e9lire; et pourtant tous ses r\u00eaves \u00e9taient\nli\u00e9s, en quelque mani\u00e8re, au sujet terrible qui remplissait son esprit.\nIl naviguait sur une mer sans bornes. Le ciel br\u00fblant paraissait\nensanglant\u00e9; les vagues furieuses bondissaient, tourbillonnaient de\ntoutes parts. Un autre vaisseau labourait p\u00e9niblement les flots agit\u00e9s:\nses voiles d\u00e9chir\u00e9es flottaient comme des rubans sur ses m\u00e2ts; son pont\n\u00e9tait encombr\u00e9 de cr\u00e9atures humaines, sur lesquelles, \u00e0 chaque instant,\ncrevaient des vagues monstrueuses qui les balayaient dans la mer\n\u00e9cumante. Cependant le vaisseau que montait Heyling s'avan\u00e7ait au milieu\nde la masse mugissante des eaux, avec une force et une vitesse\nirr\u00e9sistibles. Frappant l'autre navire sur le flanc, il l'\u00e9crasa sous sa\nquille. Un cri terrible, le cri de mort de cent mis\u00e9rables, s'\u00e9leva; si\naffreux qu'il retentit par-dessus les clameurs des \u00e9l\u00e9ments; si aigu\nqu'il semblait percer l'air et l'Oc\u00e9an et les cieux.--Mais qu'est-ce que\ncela? Quelle est cette vieille t\u00eate grise, qui s'\u00e9l\u00e8ve au-dessus des\nvagues, qui lutte contre la mort, et dont les cris, le regard plein\nd'agonie, appellent du secours? Un seul coup d'oeil, et George Heyling\ns'est \u00e9lanc\u00e9 dans la mer; il nage vigoureusement vers le vieillard; il\ns'en approche: oui! ce sont bien ses traits! Le vieillard le voit venir\net s'efforce vainement de lui \u00e9chapper. Heyling le saisit, l'\u00e9treint,\nl'entra\u00eene avec lui sous les flots, au fond! au fond! sous des masses\nd'eau t\u00e9n\u00e9breuses. Les efforts du vieillard deviennent de plus en plus\nfaibles et bient\u00f4t cessent enti\u00e8rement: il est mort; Heyling l'a tu\u00e9; il\na tenu son serment!\n\nSeul et les pieds nus, il traversait les plaines br\u00fblantes d'un immense\nd\u00e9sert. Le sable soulev\u00e9 par le simoun l'\u00e9touffait, l'aveuglait. Ses\ngrains imperceptibles p\u00e9n\u00e9traient dans chaque pore de sa peau, et lui\ncausaient une irritation qui allait jusqu'\u00e0 la fureur. Des masses\ngigantesques de la m\u00eame poussi\u00e8re, emport\u00e9es par les vents et rougies\npar le soleil, marchaient autour de lui comme des piliers de feu vivant.\nLes ossements des voyageurs qui avaient p\u00e9ri, dans ces affreux d\u00e9serts,\nblanchissaient \u00e0 ses pieds; une lumi\u00e8re sanglante tombait sur tous les\nobjets environnants; et aussi loin que ses regards pouvaient s'\u00e9tendre,\nil n'apercevait que de nouveaux sujets de crainte et d'horreur. C'est en\nvain qu'il s'efforce de pousser un cri de d\u00e9tresse; sa langue br\u00fblante\nest coll\u00e9e \u00e0 son palais. Il se pr\u00e9cipite en avant comme un d\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9.\nDou\u00e9 d'une force surnaturelle, il fend les sables mouvants: mais \u00e0 la\nfin, \u00e9puis\u00e9 de soif et de fatigue, il tombe sans connaissance sur la\nterre. Quelle fra\u00eecheur enivrante le ravive? D'o\u00f9 vient cet agr\u00e9able\nmurmure? De l'eau, c'est une source; le clair ruisseau coule \u00e0 ses\npieds. Il en boit avec ardeur, et reposant sur la rive ses membres\nendoloris, il tombe dans un assoupissement d\u00e9licieux. Un bruit de pas le\nr\u00e9veille. Un vieux homme \u00e0 la t\u00eate grise s'avance en chancelant pour\napaiser sa soif d\u00e9vorante. C'est encore _lui_! Heyling saisit le\nvieillard d'un bras et l'\u00e9loigne de l'onde bienfaisante. Vainement\ncelui-ci se d\u00e9bat avec d'affreuses convulsions; vainement il demande\navec des cris d\u00e9chirants de l'eau, une seule goutte d'eau pour sauver sa\nvie! Heyling le repousse d'un bras impitoyable; il contemple d'un oeil\navide sa longue agonie, et quand sa t\u00eate grise tombe sans vie sur son\nsein, il laisse aller son cadavre et le repousse du pied.\n\nLorsque la fi\u00e8vre le quitta, lorsque la connaissance lui revint, il\ns'\u00e9veilla pour se trouver libre et riche; pour apprendre que son p\u00e8re,\nqui l'aurait laiss\u00e9 mourir dans une prison, qui avait laiss\u00e9 ceux qui\ndevaient lui \u00eatre plus chers que sa propre existence, p\u00e9rir de besoin et\nde cette tristesse du coeur qu'aucun m\u00e9decin ne peut gu\u00e9rir; que son p\u00e8re\nd\u00e9natur\u00e9 avait \u00e9t\u00e9 trouv\u00e9 mort dans son lit. Il aurait bien eu le\ncourage de faire de son fils un mendiant; mais orgueilleux jusqu'au bout\nde sa sant\u00e9 et de sa force, il avait ajourn\u00e9 les mesures \u00e0 prendre pour\ncela, jusqu'au moment o\u00f9 il \u00e9tait trop tard pour le faire: et maintenant\nil pouvait grincer des dents, dans l'autre monde, \u00e0 la pens\u00e9e de toutes\nles richesses que cette n\u00e9gligence avait fait passer sur la t\u00eate de son\nfils!\n\nGeorge Heyling revint \u00e0 lui pour apprendre sa fortune nouvelle, pour se\nsouvenir du serment terrible qu'il avait fait, pour se rappeler que son\nennemi \u00e9tait le p\u00e8re de sa propre femme, l'homme qui l'avait plong\u00e9 dans\nune prison, et qui, quand sa fille et son petit enfant s'\u00e9taient jet\u00e9s \u00e0\nses pieds, pour lui demander gr\u00e2ce, les avait chass\u00e9s avec m\u00e9pris. Oh!\ncombien le malheureux Heyling d\u00e9plorait la faiblesse qui l'emp\u00eachait de\nse lever et de poursuivre activement sa vengeance!\n\nIl se fit transporter loin des lieux qui avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 t\u00e9moins de sa\nmis\u00e8re et de la double perte qu'il avait faite; il se retira sur le bord\nde la mer, dans une r\u00e9sidence paisible, non avec l'espoir de recouvrer\nle bonheur ou m\u00eame la tranquillit\u00e9, car l'un et l'autre s'\u00e9taient enfuis\npour toujours, mais afin de retrouver son \u00e9nergie abattue et de m\u00e9diter\nsur le projet qu'il nourrissait avec une persistance implacable. Dans\ncet endroit m\u00eame, quelque mauvais esprit, sans doute, lui fournit\nl'occasion de sa premi\u00e8re et de sa plus horrible vengeance.\n\nC'\u00e9tait l'\u00e9t\u00e9: plong\u00e9 dans ses sombres pens\u00e9es, Heyling sortait vers le\nsoir de son logis solitaire, suivait un \u00e9troit sentier, au pied des\nfalaises, jusqu'\u00e0 un site d\u00e9sert et sauvage qu'il avait rencontr\u00e9 dans\nses courses vagabondes et qui avait plu \u00e0 son imagination exalt\u00e9e. L\u00e0,\nil s'asseyait sur des d\u00e9bris de rochers, et, ensevelissant son visage\ndans ses deux mains, il y restait pendant des heures enti\u00e8res, jusqu'\u00e0\nce que les hautes ombres des rocs effroyables qui mena\u00e7aient sa t\u00eate\neussent jet\u00e9 une \u00e9paisse nuit sur tous les objets environnants.\n\nPar une calme soir\u00e9e, il \u00e9tait assis l\u00e0, dans sa posture habituelle,\nlevant de temps en temps les yeux pour suivre le vol d'une mouette, ou\npour contempler la glorieux sillon de lumi\u00e8re qui, commen\u00e7ant au bord de\nl'Oc\u00e9an, semblait conduire jusqu'au point extr\u00eame de l'horizon o\u00f9 le\nsoleil commen\u00e7ait \u00e0 se plonger, lorsque la profonde tranquillit\u00e9 du\npaysage fut troubl\u00e9e par un long cri de d\u00e9tresse. Heyling pr\u00eata\nl'oreille, ne sachant pas d'abord s'il avait bien entendu; puis le cri\n\u00e9tant r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9 d'une mani\u00e8re plus d\u00e9chirante, il se dressa et se h\u00e2ta de\ncourir dans la direction d'o\u00f9 venait le bruit.\n\nLa sc\u00e8ne qui s'offrit \u00e0 ses yeux parlait d'elle-m\u00eame. Des v\u00eatements\n\u00e9taient d\u00e9pos\u00e9s sur la plage; une t\u00eate d'homme s'\u00e9levait \u00e0 peine\nau-dessus des flots, \u00e0 quelque distance du bord, tandis que, sur le\nrivage, un vieillard, tordant ses mains avec d\u00e9sespoir, courait \u00e7\u00e0 et\nl\u00e0, en appelant au secours. Heyling, dont les forces \u00e9taient alors\nsuffisamment r\u00e9tablies, arracha son habit et s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a vers les flots,\navec l'intention de s'y pr\u00e9cipiter et de ramener l'homme qui se noyait.\n\n\u00abH\u00e2tez-vous, monsieur, au nom de Dieu! sauvez-le, sauvez-le, pour\nl'amour du ciel! C'est mon fils, monsieur, mon seul fils! dit le\nvieillard en s'approchant tout tremblant d'\u00e9motion. Mon seul fils,\nmonsieur, et qui meurt l\u00e0, sous les yeux de son p\u00e8re!\u00bb\n\nAux premiers mots que le vieillard avait prononc\u00e9s, celui qu'il\nregardait comme un sauveur s'\u00e9tait arr\u00eat\u00e9 court, et, croisant ses bras\nsur sa poitrine, \u00e9tait demeur\u00e9 compl\u00e9tement immobile.\n\n\u00abGrand Dieu! s'\u00e9cria le vieillard en reculant; Heyling!\u00bb\n\nHeyling sourit et garda le silence.\n\n\u00abHeyling, reprit le vieillard avec \u00e9garement; mon fils, Heyling! mon\nenfant ch\u00e9ri! Voyez... voyez....\u00bb Et pantelant d'angoisse, le mis\u00e9rable\np\u00e8re montrait l'endroit o\u00f9 le jeune homme se d\u00e9battait contre la mort.\n\n\u00ab\u00c9coutez! poursuivit le vieillard, il vient encore de crier! Il est\nencore vivant! Heyling! sauvez-le! sauvez-le!\u00bb\n\nHeyling sourit de nouveau et ne fit aucun mouvement.\n\n\u00abJe vous ai maltrait\u00e9, cria le vieillard en tombant \u00e0 genoux et le\nsuppliant \u00e0 mains jointes. Vengez-vous! prenez tout mon bien! prenez ma\nvie! Jetez-moi dans l'eau \u00e0 vos pieds, et si la nature peut se contenir,\nje mourrai sans me d\u00e9battre! Par piti\u00e9, tuez-moi, Heyling, main sauvez\nmon fils! Il est si jeune! si jeune pour mourir!\n\n--\u00c9coutez, dit Heyling en saisissant fortement le poignet du vieillard,\nje veux avoir vie pour vie, en voici une! Mon enfant, \u00e0 moi, est mort\nsous les yeux de son p\u00e8re! il est mort dans une agonie bien plus\naffreuse que celle de ce jeune calomniateur de sa soeur. Vous avez ri\nalors; vous avez ferm\u00e9 votre porte au visage de votre fille, o\u00f9 la mort\navait d\u00e9j\u00e0 mis son empreinte! Vous avez ri de nos souffrances.... qu'en\npensez-vous maintenant? Regardez l\u00e0! regardez l\u00e0!\u00bb\n\nEn parlant ainsi, Heyling montrait l'Oc\u00e9an. Un faible cri s'y fit\nentendre; les derni\u00e8res, les terribles convulsions d'un noy\u00e9 agit\u00e8rent\nles flots clapotants; et l'instant d'apr\u00e8s leur surface \u00e9tait unie;\nl'oeil ne pouvait plus distinguer l'endroit o\u00f9 le jeune homme avait\ndisparu dans une tombe pr\u00e9matur\u00e9e.\n\nTrois ans s'\u00e9taient \u00e9coul\u00e9s, lorsqu'un gentleman descendit de sa voiture\n\u00e0 la porte d'un avou\u00e9 de Londres, bien connu pour ne pas exag\u00e9rer la\nd\u00e9licatesse. Il demanda une entrevue pour une affaire d'importance. Le\nvisage de l'\u00e9tranger \u00e9tait p\u00e2le, battu, hagard, et il ne fallait pas\ntoute la finesse de l'homme d'affaires pour reconna\u00eetre que les maladies\nou le malheur avaient fait plus de ravages sur sa personne que la main\ndu temps n'aurait pu en accomplir pendant le double de la dur\u00e9e de sa\nvie.\n\n\u00abJe d\u00e9sire, dit l'\u00e9tranger, que vous veuillez bien vous charger d'une\naffaire qui m'int\u00e9resse beaucoup....\u00bb\n\nL'avou\u00e9 salua obs\u00e9quieusement et jeta un coup d'oeil au paquet que le\ngentleman tenait dans sa main. Celui-ci le remarqua et poursuivit:\n\n\u00abCe n'est pas une affaire ordinaire, et ces papiers ne sont pas venus\nentre mes mains sans de longues peines et de grandes d\u00e9penses.\u00bb\n\nL'avou\u00e9 examina le paquet avec plus de curiosit\u00e9 encore, et son nouveau\nclient d\u00e9nouant la corde qui l'attachait, lui fit voir une quantit\u00e9 de\nbillets avec quelque copies d'actes et d'autres documents.\n\n\u00abComme vous le verrez, dit le client, l'homme dont voici la nom a\nemprunt\u00e9, depuis quelques ann\u00e9es, de vastes sommes sur ces papiers. Il\n\u00e9tait convenu tacitement avec ses premiers pr\u00eateurs, dont j'ai par\ndegr\u00e9s achet\u00e9 le tout, pour le triple ou le quadruple de sa valeur; il\n\u00e9tait convenu, dis-je, que ces billets seraient renouvel\u00e9s de temps en\ntemps, jusqu'\u00e0 une certaine \u00e9poque; mais cette convention n'est exprim\u00e9e\nnulle part. L'emprunteur a derni\u00e8rement subi de grandes pertes, et ces\nobligations, en venant sur lui tout d'un coup, le mettraient sur la\npaille.\n\n--Le montant total est de quelque mille livres sterling, dit l'avou\u00e9 en\nregardant les papiers.\n\n--Oui, r\u00e9pondit le client.\n\n--Eh bien! que ferons-nous?\n\n--Ce que vous ferez? s'\u00e9cria le client avec une v\u00e9h\u00e9mence soudaine.\nEmployez, pour sa perte, toutes les ressources de la loi, toutes les\nsubtilit\u00e9s de la chicane, tous les moyens, honn\u00eates ou non, que peuvent\ninventer les plus rus\u00e9s praticiens. Je veux qu'il meure d'une mort\nprolong\u00e9e, harassante! Ruinez-le! saisissez, vendez ses biens, ses\nterres! chassez-le de son domicile! Qu'il mendie dans sa vieillesse et\nqu'il expire en prison!\n\n--Mais les frais, monsieur, les frais de tout ceci, fit observer l'avou\u00e9\nlorsqu'il fut revenu de sa premi\u00e8re surprise. Si le d\u00e9fendant est ruin\u00e9,\nqui payera les frais?...\n\n--Nommez une somme, s'\u00e9cria l'\u00e9tranger, dont les mains tremblaient si\nviolemment qu'il pouvait \u00e0 peine tenir la plume qu'il avait saisie;\nnommez une somme quelconque et elle vous sera remise. N'ayez pas peur de\ndemander! rien ne me semblera trop cher pourvu que j'atteigne mon but.\u00bb\n\nL'avou\u00e9 nomma \u00e0 tous hasards une grosse somme, plut\u00f4t pour savoir\njusqu'o\u00f9 son client avait r\u00e9ellement l'intention d'aller, que dans la\npens\u00e9e qu'il la lui accorderait. L'\u00e9tranger, sans h\u00e9siter, \u00e9crivit une\ntraite sur son banquier, la lui remit, et s'\u00e9loigna.\n\nLa traite fut convenablement honor\u00e9e, et l'avou\u00e9, voyant qu'il pouvait\ncompter sur son \u00e9trange client, se mit s\u00e9rieusement \u00e0 la besogne.\nPendant plus de deux ann\u00e9es, ensuite, M. Heyling vint passer des jours\nentiers dans l'\u00e9tude, courb\u00e9 sur les papiers qui s'accumulaient, \u00e0\nmesure qu'on commen\u00e7ait poursuite apr\u00e8s poursuite, proc\u00e8s apr\u00e8s proc\u00e8s.\nIl relisait, avec des yeux \u00e9tincelants de joie, les demandes de d\u00e9lai,\nles lettres de supplication, les repr\u00e9sentations de la ruine certaine\nque l'autre partie devait subir. A toutes ces pri\u00e8res pour un peu\nd'indulgence, il n'y avait qu'une seule r\u00e9ponse: _Il faut payer_. Les\nterres, les maisons, les meubles furent vendus tour \u00e0 tour, et le\nvieillard lui-m\u00eame aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 claquemur\u00e9 dans une prison, s'il n'\u00e9tait\nparvenu \u00e0 s'enfuir, en trompant la vigilance du garde charg\u00e9 de sa\ncapture.\n\nBien loin d'\u00eatre rassasi\u00e9e par le succ\u00e8s, l'implacable animosit\u00e9 de\nHeyling semblait s'accro\u00eetre avec la ruine qu'il infligeait. Sa furie\nfut sans bornes lorsqu'il apprit la fuite du vieillard. Dans sa rage il\ngrin\u00e7ait des dents, il arrachait ses cheveux, et il chargeait\nd'impr\u00e9cations horribles les hommes \u00e0 qui on avait confi\u00e9 l'ex\u00e9cution de\nla prise de corps. Enfin on ne put lui rendre une esp\u00e8ce de calme que\npar des assurances r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9es que le fugitif serait certainement\nd\u00e9couvert. On envoya des gens dans toutes les directions, on eut recours\n\u00e0 tous les stratag\u00e8mes imaginables, pour apprendre le lieu de sa\nretraite; mais ce fut en vain, et six mois se pass\u00e8rent sans qu'il f\u00fbt\npossible de le retrouver.\n\nUn soir, \u00e0 une heure avanc\u00e9e, Heyling, dont on n'avait pas entendu\nparler depuis plusieurs semaines, se rendit \u00e0 la r\u00e9sidence priv\u00e9e de son\navou\u00e9 et lui fit dire que quelqu'un demandait \u00e0 lui parler sur-le-champ.\nL'avou\u00e9 avait reconnu la voix du haut de l'escalier; mais avant qu'il\ne\u00fbt pu donner l'ordre de l'introduire, Heyling avait franchi les degr\u00e9s\net \u00e9tait entr\u00e9, p\u00e2le, palpitant, dans le salon. Apr\u00e8s avoir ferm\u00e9 la\nporte, de peur d'\u00eatre entendu, il se laissa tomber sur un si\u00e9ge, et dit\nd'une voix basse:\n\n\u00abJe l'ai trouv\u00e9, \u00e0 la fin!\n\n--Bah! fit l'avou\u00e9. Tr\u00e8s-bien, monsieur, tr\u00e8s-bien.\n\n--Il est cach\u00e9 dans un mis\u00e9rable logement \u00e0 Camden. Peut-\u00eatre est-ce\naussi bien que nous l'ayons perdu de vue, car il a v\u00e9cu l\u00e0 tout seul et\ndans la plus abjecte mis\u00e8re. Il est pauvre, tr\u00e8s-pauvre.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, dit l'avou\u00e9. Vous ferez faire sa capture demain,\nnaturellement.\n\n--Oui... attendez... non, le jour d'apr\u00e8s. Vous \u00eates surpris que je\nd\u00e9sire reculer, ajouta le client avec un affreux sourire; mais j'avais\noubli\u00e9.... Apr\u00e8s-demain est un anniversaire dans sa vie. Que ce soit\napr\u00e8s-demain.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien. Voulez-vous \u00e9crire des instructions pour le garde?\n\n--Non; qu'il me prenne ici \u00e0 huit heures du soir, et je l'accompagnerai\nmoi-m\u00eame.\u00bb\n\nEffectivement ils se r\u00e9unirent \u00e0 l'heure convenue, et prenant une\nvoiture de louage, ils dirent au cocher d'arr\u00eater \u00e0 un coin de la\nvieille route, pr\u00e8s du _Work-house_ de Camden. Lorsqu'ils y arriv\u00e8rent\nil faisait nuit. Ils suivirent le mur de l'h\u00f4pital v\u00e9t\u00e9rinaire, et\nentr\u00e8rent dans une petite rue d\u00e9sol\u00e9e, entour\u00e9e de foss\u00e9s et de champs.\n\nApr\u00e8s avoir enfonc\u00e9 son chapeau sur ses yeux et s'\u00eatre envelopp\u00e9 de son\nmanteau, Heyling s'arr\u00eata devant la maison la plus mis\u00e9rable de la rue\net frappa doucement \u00e0 la porte. Elle fut imm\u00e9diatement ouverte par une\nvieille femme qui fit un salut d'intelligence. Heyling dit tout bas au\ngarde de l'attendre, monta l'escalier, ouvrit la porte d'une chambre et\ny entra tout \u00e0 coup.\n\nL'objet de ses recherches implacables, vieillard d\u00e9cr\u00e9pit maintenant,\n\u00e9tait assis pr\u00e8s d'une vieille table de sapin, sur laquelle il n'y avait\nrien qu'une mis\u00e9rable chandelle. A l'entr\u00e9e d'un \u00e9tranger, il\ntressaillit et se leva avec peine.\n\n\u00abQu'y a-t-il encore? qu'y a-t-il encore? demanda-t-il d'une voix cass\u00e9e.\nQuelle nouvelle mis\u00e8re est ceci? Qu'est-ce que vous d\u00e9sirez?\n\n--Un mot avec vous,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit Heyling. En m\u00eame temps il s'assit \u00e0\nl'autre bout de la table, et, rejetant son manteau et son chapeau, il\nd\u00e9couvrit ses traits.\n\nLe vieillard, frapp\u00e9 de surprise, retomba sur sa chaise, et, serrant ses\ndeux mains ensemble, contempla cette apparition avec un regard m\u00eal\u00e9\nd'horreur et de crainte.\n\n--Il y a aujourd'hui six ans, dit Heyling, que j'ai r\u00e9clam\u00e9 de vous la\nvie que vous me deviez pour mon enfant. Vieillard, aupr\u00e8s du cadavre de\nvotre fille, j'ai jur\u00e9 de vivre une vie de vengeance. Depuis ce temps,\nje n'ai pas regrett\u00e9 mon serment une seconde; mais si j'en avais \u00e9t\u00e9\ncapable, le souvenir d'un seul regard de l'innocente cr\u00e9ature,\nlorsqu'elle se mourait sans plainte sous mes yeux; le souvenir du visage\naffam\u00e9 de notre malheureux enfant, m'aurait fortifi\u00e9 pour\nl'accomplissement de ma t\u00e2che. Vous vous rappelez ma premi\u00e8re revanche:\ncelle-ci est la derni\u00e8re.\u00bb\n\nLe vieillard frissonna; ses mains tomb\u00e8rent sans force \u00e0 ses c\u00f4t\u00e9s.\n\n\u00abDemain, je quitte l'Angleterre, poursuivit Heyling apr\u00e8s une pause d'un\ninstant. Cette nuit je vous d\u00e9voue \u00e0 la mort vivante \u00e0 laquelle vous\nm'aviez condamn\u00e9, une prison sans esp\u00e9rance!...\u00bb\n\nEn cet endroit, jetant les yeux sur le vieillard, il cessa de parler; il\napprocha la lumi\u00e8re de son visage d\u00e9charn\u00e9, la remit doucement sur la\ntable, et quitta la chambre.\n\n\u00abVous feriez bien de monter vers le vieux bonhomme, je crois qu'il se\ntrouve mal, a dit-il \u00e0 la femme en ouvrant la porte de la rue et faisant\nsigne au garde de le suivre. La femme referma la porte, monta le plus\nvite qu'elle put l'escalier, et trouva le vieillard... mort!\n\nDans l'une des vall\u00e9es les plus gracieuses du jardin britannique, dans\nun des cimeti\u00e8res les plus tranquilles du comt\u00e9 de Kent, o\u00f9 les fleurs\nsauvages se marient au gazon, o\u00f9 les oiseaux chantent sans cesse, sous\nune pierre simple et polie, reposent en paix la m\u00e8re et l'enfant. Mais\nles cendres du p\u00e8re ne sont pas m\u00eal\u00e9es avec les leurs, et depuis sa\nderni\u00e8re exp\u00e9dition l'avou\u00e9 n'eut plus aucune nouvelle de son singulier\nclient.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLorsque le vieux clerc eut termin\u00e9 son r\u00e9cit, il se leva, s'approcha\nd'une des pat\u00e8res, et d\u00e9crochant son chapeau et sa redingote, il les mit\navec beaucoup de tranquillit\u00e9; ensuite, sans ajouter un seul mot, il\ns'\u00e9loigna lentement. Le gentleman aux boutons de mosa\u00efque s'\u00e9tait\nprofond\u00e9ment endormi; et tandis que la majeure partie des assistants\n\u00e9taient gravement occup\u00e9s \u00e0 faire tomber des gouttes de suif dans leur\ngrog, M. Pickwick se retira sans \u00eatre remarqu\u00e9. Il paya son \u00e9cot, aussi\nbien que celui de Sam, et tous deux quitt\u00e8rent les domaines de _la\nSouche et la Pie_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XXII.\n\nM. Pickwick se rend \u00e0 Ipswich, et rencontre une aventure romantique,\nsous la figure d'une dame d'un certain \u00e2ge, en papillotes de papier\nbrouillard.\n\n\n\u00abC'est \u00e7a le mat\u00e9riel de ton gouverneur, Sammy? demanda M. Weller\n_senior_ \u00e0 son affectionn\u00e9 fils, comme celui-ci entrait, avec un sac de\nvoyage et un petit portemanteau, dans la cour de l'h\u00f4tel du _Taureau_, \u00e0\nWhitechapel.\n\n--Vous avez mis votre nez rouge dessus, vieux, r\u00e9pliqua Sam, en\ns'asseyant sur son fardeau, qu'il avait d\u00e9pos\u00e9 \u00e0 terre. Le gouverneur va\narriver _recta_.\n\n--Il est cabriolant, je suppose.\n\n--Oui; il s'administre deux milles de danger pour huit pence. Comment va\nla belle-m\u00e8re, ce matin?\n\n--Dr\u00f4lement, Sammy, dr\u00f4lement, r\u00e9pliqua M. Weller avec une gravit\u00e9\nimposante. Elle s'est enfonc\u00e9e dans les m\u00e9thodistes derni\u00e8rement et elle\nest diablement pieuse, c'est s\u00fbr. C'est une trop bonne cr\u00e9ature pour\nmoi, Sammy. Je sens que je ne la m\u00e9rite pas.\n\n--H\u00e9! dit Sam, c'est bien de l'abn\u00e9gation de votre part.\n\n--Juste! repartit le p\u00e8re avec un soupir. Elle s'est embourb\u00e9e dans une\nnouvelle invention pour la renaissance morale des gens. La _vie\nnouvelle_, qu'ils appellent \u00e7a, j'crois. J'aimerais ben \u00e0 voir marcher\nc'te invention-l\u00e0, Sammy. J'aimerais ben \u00e0 voir ta belle-m\u00e8re rena\u00eetre.\nComme je la mettrais vite en nourrice!--Sais-tu ce qu'elles ont fait\nl'autre jour, poursuivit M. Weller apr\u00e8s une pause, durant laquelle il\navait frapp\u00e9 une demi-douzaine de fois le c\u00f4t\u00e9 de son nez avec son\nindex, d'une mani\u00e8re tr\u00e8s-significative.\n\n--Sais pas. Qu'est-ce que c'est?\n\n--Elles ont arrang\u00e9 une grande boisson de th\u00e9 pour un gaillard qu'elles\nappellent leur berger. J'm'\u00e9tais arr\u00eat\u00e9 devant l'auberge \u00e0 regarder not'\nenseigne, vl\u00e0 qu' j'aper\u00e7ois \u00e0 la crois\u00e9e un p'tit \u00e9criteau. _Billets,\ndeux shillings. Les demandes doivent \u00eatre faites au comit\u00e9. Secr\u00e9taire,\nmadame Weller._ J'entre \u00e0 la maison. Le comit\u00e9 si\u00e9geait dans\nl'arri\u00e8re-parloir. Quatorze femmes! Je voudrais que tu les eusses\nentendues, Sammy! Elles passaient des r\u00e9solutions, elles votaient des\ncontributions; toutes sortes de farces. Bien. V'l\u00e0 ta belle-m\u00e8re qui m'\ntravaille pour que j'y aille, et pis que j' croyais que j'verrais quelle\nchose de dr\u00f4le si j'y allais. Je souscris mon nom pour un billet. Le\nvendredi soir, \u00e0 six heures, je m'habille tr\u00e8s-galamment, j' m'emballe\navec la vieille femme, et nous arrivons \u00e0 un premier \u00e9tage o\u00f9s qu'il y\navait des tasses \u00e0 th\u00e9 et le reste pour une trentaine, avec une\npacotille de femmes qui commencent \u00e0 chuchoter respectivement en me\nregardant, et comme si elles n'avaient jamais vu auparavant un gentleman\nde cinquante-huit ans, un peu puissant. Comme \u00e7a v'l\u00e0 qu' j'entends un\ngrand remue-m\u00e9nage sur l'escalier, et vl'\u00e0 un grand maigre, avec un nez\nrouge et une cravate blanche, qui caracole dans la chambre et qui\nchante: \u00abV'l\u00e0 l' berger qui vient visiter son fid\u00e8le troupeau!\u00bb et v'l\u00e0\nun gros gras qui vient, avec une grande face blanche, tout en souriant\nautour de lui, comme un s\u00e9ducteur. Polisson de s\u00e9ducteur, Sammy!--\u00abLe\nbaiser de paix,\u00bb dit le berger, et alors i' baise les femmes \u00e0 la ronde,\net quand il a fini v'l\u00e0 le nez rouge qui recommence; et alors j'\u00e9tais\njuste \u00e0 ruminer si je ne ferais pas bien de commencer aussi,\nesp\u00e9cialement comme il y avait une petite lady ben gentille \u00e0 cot\u00e9 de\nmoi, quand v'l\u00e0 le th\u00e9 qu'arriv\u00e9 avec ta belle-m\u00e8re qu'avait rest\u00e9 en\nbas \u00e0 faire bouillir la marmite. Pendant que le th\u00e9 trempait, quelle\nfameuse hymne qu'ils ont braill\u00e9e! quelles _gr\u00e2ces_! et comme i'\nmangeaient! comme i' buvaient. Je voudrais que tu eusses vu l' berger\ntravailler dans le jambon et les tartines, Sammy; j'n'ai jamais vu un\nm\u00f4me com' \u00e7a pour manger et pour boire, jamais! Le nez rouge n'\u00e9tait pas\nnon plus l'individu qu' vous aimeriez \u00e0 nourrir \u00e0 tant par an, mais i'\nn'\u00e9tait rien aupr\u00e8s du berger. Bien. Apr\u00e8s que le th\u00e9 est enfonc\u00e9 i'\ncornent une autre hymne, et puis le berger commence \u00e0 pr\u00eacher; et\nfameusement bien encore, qu'i pr\u00eachait, consid\u00e9rant les tartines qui\ndevaient y \u00eatre lourdes sur l'estomac. Tout d'un coup i' s'arr\u00eate court\net v'l\u00e0 qu'i' braille: \u00abO\u00f9s qu'est le p\u00e9cheur? o\u00f9s qu'est le mis\u00e9rable\np\u00e9cheur!\u00bb Sur quoi v'l\u00e0 toutes les femmes qui me regardent et qui\ncommencent \u00e0 exprimer des g\u00e9missements, comme si elles avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 pour\nmourir l\u00e0. Je pensais que c'\u00e9tait peut-\u00eatre un peu singulier, mais\nmalgr\u00e9 \u00e7a je ne disais rien. Tout d'un coup v'l\u00e0 qu'i' s'arr\u00eate court\nencore, et qu'i' me regarde fisquement, et qu'i dit: \u00abO\u00f9s qu'est le\np\u00e9cheur? o\u00f9 qu'est le mis\u00e9rable p\u00e9cheur?\u00bb Et v'l\u00e0 toutes les femmes qui\ng\u00e9missent dix fois pus fort qu'auparavant. Moi j'deviens un peu sauvage,\nl\u00e0-dessus; ainsi j'fais un pas ou deux en avant et j'lui dis: \u00abMon ami,\nque j'dis, n'est-il \u00e0 moi que vous avez appliqu\u00e9 c'te observation-l\u00e0?\u00bb\nAu lieu de me demander excuse, comme on doit faire entre gen'l'm'n, v'l\u00e0\nqu'i' devient pus outrageux que jamais. I' m'appelle un vase, Sammy, un\nvase de perdition, et toutes sortes de quolibets, si bien que mon sang\nme bouillait, et je lui donne deux ou trois giffles pour lui, et deux ou\ntrois autres pour repasser au nez rouge, et puis j' m'en vas. J'aurais\nvoulu que tu eusses entendu les femelles crier, Sammy, quand elles ont\nramass\u00e9 le berger de dessous la table....--Oh\u00e9! v'l\u00e0 l'gouverneur,\ngrandeur naturelle....\u00bb\n\nEn effet, M. Pickwick descendait de cabriolet et entrait dans la cour,\npendant que M. Weller pronon\u00e7ait ces mots.\n\n\u00abUne belle matin\u00e9e, mossieu, dit-il au philosophe.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-belle, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9, r\u00e9pondit celui-ci.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-belle, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta un homme orn\u00e9 de cheveux roux, d'un nez\ninquisitif, de lunettes bleues, et qui avait d\u00e9barqu\u00e9 d'un autre\ncabriolet en m\u00eame temps que M. Pickwick.\n\n\u00abVous allez \u00e0 Ipswich, monsieur? demanda-t-il \u00e0 notre h\u00e9ros.\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--Co\u00efncidence extraordinaire! j'y vais aussi.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick le salua.\n\n\u00abVous voyagez en dehors? demanda encore l'homme aux cheveux rouges.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick salua de nouveau.\n\n\u00abDieu de Dieu! comme c'est remarquable! Je vais en dehors aussi. Nous\nallons positivement voyager ensemble!\u00bb En pronon\u00e7ant ces mots, d'un air\nmyst\u00e9rieux et important, l'homme aux cheveux rouges se prit \u00e0 sourire,\navec la m\u00eame complaisance que s'il avait fait l'une des d\u00e9couvertes les\nplus \u00e9tranges qui aient jamais r\u00e9compens\u00e9 la sagacit\u00e9 humaine.\n\n\u00abMonsieur, lui dit M. Pickwick, je suis heureux d'avoir votre compagnie.\n\n--Ah! reprit le nouveau venu, qui avait un nez effil\u00e9 et l'habitude de\nsecouer la t\u00eate, comme un oiseau, \u00e0 chaque parole; ah! c'est une bonne\nchose pour tous les deux, n'est-ce pas? La compagnie, voyez-vous, la\ncompagnie est... est une chose fort diff\u00e9rente de la solitude, n'est-ce\npas?\n\n--C'est \u00e7a une v\u00e9rit\u00e9 qu'on ne peut pas nier, dit Sam en se m\u00ealant \u00e0 la\nconversation avec un sourire affable. C'est ce que j'appelle une\nproposition naturellement \u00e9vidente; comme le marchand de mou de veau le\ndisait \u00e0 la cuisini\u00e8re, quand elle lui soutenait qu'il n'\u00e9tait pas un\ngentleman.\n\n--Ah! fit l'homme aux cheveux rouges, en regardant Sam du haut en bas;\nun de vos amis, monsieur?\n\n--Pas exactement, monsieur, repartit M. Pickwick \u00e0 voix basse. Le fait\nest que c'est mon domestique; mais je lui permets beaucoup de libert\u00e9s,\ncar, entre nous, je me flatte que c'est un original, et j'en suis assez\norgueilleux.\n\n--Ha! reprit l'homme aux cheveux roux, cela, c'est une affaire de go\u00fbt.\nMoi, je n'aime rien de ce qui est original. \u00c7a ne me convient pas: je\nn'en vois pas la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9. Quel est votre nom, monsieur?\n\n--Voici ma carte, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick, fort amus\u00e9 par la\nbrusquerie de la question et par les singuli\u00e8res mani\u00e8res de l'\u00e9tranger.\n\n--Ha! dit l'homme aux cheveux rouges en pla\u00e7ant la carte dans son\nportefeuille, Pickwick? Tr\u00e8s-bien. J'aime \u00e0 savoir le nom des gens, cela\nest fort utile. Voici ma carte: Magnus, comme vous voyez, monsieur.\nMagnus est mon nom. C'est un assez beau nom, je pense, monsieur?\n\n--Un tr\u00e8s-beau nom, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick sans pouvoir\nr\u00e9primer un sourire.\n\n--Oui, je le crois. Il y a un beau nom aussi devant, comme vous\nverrez.... Permettez, monsieur.... En tenant la carte un peu inclin\u00e9e,\ncomme ceci, le nom devient visible; voil\u00e0: Peter Magnus. Cela sonne\nbien, je pense, monsieur.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien.\n\n--Curieuse circonstance sur ces initiales, monsieur, comme vous voyez.\nP.M., _post meridiem_. Dans les petits billets avec mes intimes, je\nsigne quelquefois _Apr\u00e8s-midi_. Cela amuse beaucoup mes amis, monsieur\nPickwick.\n\n--En effet, je m'imagine que cela doit leur procurer la plus vive\nsatisfaction, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick, qui enviait en lui-m\u00eame la facilit\u00e9\navec laquelle s'amusaient les amis de M. Magnus.\u00bb\n\nUn valet d'\u00e9curie vint interrompre leur conversation. \u00abGentlemen, leur\ndit-il, la voiture est pr\u00eate, s'il vous pla\u00eet.\n\n--Tout mon bagage est-il dedans? demanda M. Magnus.\n\n--Tout est bien, monsieur.\n\n--Le sac rouge est-il dedans?\n\n--Tout est bien, monsieur.\n\n--Et le sac ray\u00e9?\n\n--Dans le coffre de devant, monsieur.\n\n--Et le paquet de papier gris?\n\n--Sous le si\u00e9ge, monsieur.\n\n--Et le carton \u00e0 chapeau de cuir?\n\n--Tout est dedans, monsieur.\n\n--Maintenant, voulez-vous monter? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Excusez-moi, r\u00e9pondit M. Magnus en restant immobile sur la roue.\nExcusez, M. Pickwick. Je ne puis pas consentir \u00e0 monter dans cet \u00e9tat\nd'incertitude. D'apr\u00e8s les mani\u00e8res de cet homme, je suis convaincu que\nle carton \u00e0 chapeau n'est pas dans la voiture.\u00bb\n\nLes solennelles protestations du valet d'\u00e9curie n'ayant pu tranquilliser\nM. Magnus, il fallut, pour le satisfaire, tirer des plus profondes\ncavit\u00e9s du coffre le carton \u00e0 chapeau de cuir; mais lorsque M. Magnus\neut \u00e9t\u00e9 rassur\u00e9 sur son feutre, il ressentit d'infaillibles\npressentiments, d'abord que le sac rouge \u00e9tait \u00e9gar\u00e9, ensuite que le sac\nray\u00e9 avait \u00e9t\u00e9 vol\u00e9, puis que le paquet de papier gris s'\u00e9tait d\u00e9nou\u00e9. A\nla fin, apr\u00e8s avoir re\u00e7u des d\u00e9monstrations oculaires du peu de\nfondement de chacun de ses soup\u00e7ons, il consentit \u00e0 monter sur\nl'imp\u00e9riale de la voiture, d\u00e9clarant que son esprit \u00e9tait soulag\u00e9 de\ntoute inqui\u00e9tude, et qu'il se trouvait maintenant confortable et\nheureux.\n\n\u00abVous avez vos nerfs susceptibles, mossieu? dit M. Weller, en regardant\nl'\u00e9tranger de travers, tout en montant sur son si\u00e9ge.\n\n--Oui, je suis assez susceptible pour toutes ces petites choses; mais me\nvoil\u00e0 rassur\u00e9, maintenant, tout \u00e0 fait rassur\u00e9.\n\n--Eh ben! c'est une b\u00e9n\u00e9diction, cela.--Sammy, aide ton ma\u00eetre \u00e0 monter.\nL'autre jambe, mossieu. C'est cela. Donnez-moi votre main, mossieu.\nAllons, haut! Vous \u00e9tiez pus l\u00e9ger quand vous \u00e9tiez en nourrice,\nmossieu.\n\n--C'est assez probable, monsieur Weller, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick avec bonne\nhumeur, quoique tout essouffl\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nLorsqu'il eut pris place aupr\u00e8s du corpulent cocher, celui-ci\npoursuivit:\n\n\u00abGrimpe ici, Sammy.--Maintenant, Villam, faites-les sortir. Prenez garde\n\u00e0 l'arcade, gent'l'm'n. Gare les t\u00eates! comme disait le marchand de\np\u00e2t\u00e9s en jouant \u00e0 pile ou face.\n\n--C'est ben comme \u00e7a, Villam; laissez-les aller.\u00bb\n\nWilliam l\u00e2cha la t\u00eate des chevaux, et en route! Voil\u00e0 la voiture lanc\u00e9e\n\u00e0 travers Whitechapel, \u00e0 la grande admiration de toute la populace de ce\nquartier, qui n'est pas d\u00e9sert.\n\n\u00abUn voisinage pas trop beau, dit Sam, avec le mouvement de chapeau qui\npr\u00e9c\u00e9dait toujours son entr\u00e9e en conversation avec son ma\u00eetre.\n\n--Cela est vrai, Sam, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick en examinant les rues\nmalpropres et encombr\u00e9es que traversait la voiture.\n\n--Monsieur, poursuivit Sam, n'est-ce pas une chose bien extra que la\npauvret\u00e9 et les hu\u00eetres marchent toujours ensemble?\n\n--Je ne vous comprends pas, Sam.\n\n--Voil\u00e0 ce que je veux dire, monsieur: c'est que plus un endroit est\nmis\u00e9rable, plus on y mange des hu\u00eetres. Regardez ici, monsieur, il y a\ndes coquilles d'hu\u00eetres \u00e0 presque toutes les portes. Dieu me pardonne si\nje ne crois pas que les gens tr\u00e8s-pauvres sortent de leur appartement\npour manger des hu\u00eetres, par pur d\u00e9sespoir.\n\n--C'est s\u00fbr \u00e7a, observa M. Weller, et c'est juste tout d'm\u00eame pour le\nsaumon sal\u00e9.\n\n--Voil\u00e0 deux faits tr\u00e8s-remarquables qui ne m'avaient jamais frapp\u00e9, dit\nalors M. Pickwick; je les noterai certainement \u00e0 la premi\u00e8re place o\u00f9\nnous arr\u00eaterons.\u00bb\n\nTout en causant ainsi, ils avaient atteint la barri\u00e8re de p\u00e9age de\nMile-End. Un profond silence r\u00e9gnait sur l'imp\u00e9riale; mais deux ou trois\nmilles plus loin, M. Weller, se tournant tout \u00e0 coup vers M. Pickwick,\nlui dit:\n\n\u00abDr\u00f4le de vie, mossieu, que celle de ces gens-l\u00e0.\n\n--Quelles gens? s'\u00e9cria le philosophe.\n\n--Un gardien de pike!\n\n--Qu'est-ce que vous entendez par un gardien de piques? demanda M. Peter\nMagnus.\n\n--L'ancien veut dire un gardien de _turnpike_, gentlemen, fit observer\nSam en mani\u00e8re d'explication.\n\n--Oh! dit M. Pickwick, je comprends. Oui, une vie tr\u00e8s-curieuse,\ntr\u00e8s-peu confortable....\n\n--C'est tous des hommes qu'a eu des d\u00e9sagr\u00e9ments dans la vie, poursuivit\nM. Weller.\n\n--Ah! ah! fit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Oui. En cons\u00e9quence d'quoi, i'se retirent du monde et i' s'enferment\ndans des pikes, partie pour \u00eatre solitude, partie pour se revancher du\ngenre humain en faisant payer les droits.\n\n--Vraiment! dit M. Pickwick, je ne savais pas cela non plus.\n\n--C'est un fait, mossieu. Si i's \u00e9taient des gen'l'men, vous les\nappelleriez misencroupes; mais ces gens-l\u00e0, \u00e7a se nomme simplement des\ngabeloux.\u00bb\n\nC'est par de semblables discours, r\u00e9unissant \u00e0 la fois l'agr\u00e9able et\nl'utile, que M. Weller charmait les ennuis du voyage. Les sujets de\nconversation ne manquaient point; et lorsque, par hasard, la loquacit\u00e9\nde l'honorable cocher semblait diminuer un instant, M. Peter Magnus\nremplissait abondamment l'intervalle par des enqu\u00eates sur l'histoire\npersonnelle de ses compagnons de voyage, et par l'anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 qu'il\nexprimait hautement, \u00e0 chaque relai, concernant la s\u00fbret\u00e9 et le\nbien-\u00eatre des deux sacs, du carton \u00e0 chapeau de cuir et du paquet de\npapier gris.\n\nA gauche, dans la grande rue d'Ipswich, \u00e0 peu de distance apr\u00e8s l'h\u00f4tel\nde ville, se trouve l'auberge au loin connue sous le nom du _Grand\nCheval blanc_. Au-dessus de la principale porte, on remarque une \u00e9norme\nstatue de pierre, repr\u00e9sentant un animal bondissant, avec une queue et\nune crini\u00e8re ondoyantes, et qui ressemble \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s \u00e0 un cheval de\nbrasseur qui aurait perdu l'esprit. L'auberge du _Grand Cheval blanc_\nest fameuse dans le voisinage, au m\u00eame titre qu'un boeuf gras, qu'un\nverrat monstrueux, qu'un navet enregistr\u00e9 dans la feuille de l'endroit,\nc'est \u00e0 savoir pour sa taille gigantesque. Jamais, sous aucun toit, on\nne vit de tels labyrinthes de couloirs sans tapis, un tel amas de\nchambres humides et mal \u00e9clair\u00e9es, enfin un aussi grand nombre de\npetites tani\u00e8res pour manger ou pour dormir.\n\nC'est \u00e0 la porte de cette hydropique taverne que la voiture de Londres\ns'arr\u00eate \u00e0 la m\u00eame heure tous les soirs, et c'est de ladite voiture de\nLondres que descendirent M. Pickwick, Sam Weller et M. Peter Magnus,\ndans la soir\u00e9e \u00e0 laquelle se rapporte ce chapitre de notre histoire.\n\n\u00abRestez-vous ici, monsieur?\u00bb demanda M. Peter Magnus lorsque le sac\nray\u00e9, le sac rouge, le carton \u00e0 chapeau de cuir et le paquet de papier\ngris, eurent \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9pos\u00e9s l'un apr\u00e8s l'autre dans le passage.\n\n\u00abOui, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua H. Pickwick.\n\n--Dieu de Dieu! s'\u00e9cria M. Magnus, je n'ai jamais rien vu d'aussi\nremarquable que cette co\u00efncidence. Eh bien! moi aussi, je reste ici!\nJ'esp\u00e8re que nous d\u00eenerons ensemble?\n\n--Avec plaisir, r\u00e9pondit le philosophe. Cependant il serait possible\nque je trouvasse ici quelques amis. Gar\u00e7on, y a-t-il dans l'h\u00f4tel un\ngentleman nomm\u00e9 Tupman?\u00bb\n\nUn homme corpulent, qui avait sous son bras une serviette \u00e2g\u00e9e d'une\nquinzaine de jours, et sur ses jambes des bas contemporains de la\nserviette, daigna cesser de regarder dans la rue lorsqu'il entendit\ncette question de M. Pickwick; et, apr\u00e8s avoir soigneusement examin\u00e9\nl'apparence du savant homme, depuis son chapeau jusqu'\u00e0 ses gu\u00eatres, lui\nr\u00e9pondit avec emphase: \u00abNon!\n\n--Ni un gentleman nomm\u00e9 Snodgrass? poursuivit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Non.\n\n--Ni un gentleman nomm\u00e9 Winkle?\n\n--Non.\n\n--Mes amis ne sont pas arriv\u00e9s aujourd'hui, et par cons\u00e9quent, monsieur,\nnous d\u00eenerons seuls. Gar\u00e7on! conduisez-nous dans une salle \u00e0 manger\nparticuli\u00e8re.\u00bb\n\nEn vertu de cette requ\u00eate, l'homme corpulent voulut bien ordonner au\ncommissionnaire d'apporter les bagages des gentlemen; puis il leur fit\ntraverser un passage long et sombre, et les introduisit dans une grande\nchambre, \u00e0 peine meubl\u00e9e, o\u00f9 fumait, sur une grille malpropre, un petit\nfeu de charbon de terre qui s'effor\u00e7ait en vain de para\u00eetre joyeux, et\nqui noircissait mis\u00e9rablement sous l'influence attristante du local. Au\nbout d'une heure, un plat de poisson et des c\u00f4telettes furent servis aux\nvoyageurs, et enfin, lorsque ce d\u00eener eut \u00e9t\u00e9 remport\u00e9, M. Pickwick et\nM. Peter Magnus, tirant leurs chaises plus pr\u00e8s du feu, demand\u00e8rent une\nbouteille de vin de Porto, le plus mauvais possible, au prix le plus\n\u00e9lev\u00e9 possible, pour le b\u00e9n\u00e9fice de la maison, et burent, pour le leur,\nde l'eau-de-vie et de l'eau chaude.\n\nM. Peter Magnus \u00e9tait naturellement d'une disposition\ntr\u00e8s-communicative, et le grog op\u00e9ra d'une mani\u00e8re surprenante pour\nfaire \u00e9couler les secrets les plus cach\u00e9s de son coeur. Apr\u00e8s avoir donn\u00e9\nde nombreux renseignements sur lui-m\u00eame, sur sa famille, sur ses\nalliances, sur ses amis, sur ses plaisanteries, sur ses affaires et sur\nses fr\u00e8res (la plupart des bavards ont beaucoup de choses \u00e0 dire sur\nleurs fr\u00e8res), M. Peter Magnus contempla M. Pickwick pendant plusieurs\nminutes, \u00e0 travers ses lunettes bleues, et dit ensuite avec un air de\nmodestie:\n\n--Et maintenant, monsieur Pickwick, que pensez-vous que je sois venu\nfaire ici?\n\n--Sur ma parole, r\u00e9pondit la philosophe, il m'est tout \u00e0 fait impossible\nde le deviner. Pour affaire, peut-\u00eatre?\n\n--Vous avez moiti\u00e9 raison, moiti\u00e9 tort en m\u00eame temps. Essayez encore,\nmonsieur Pickwick.\n\n--R\u00e9ellement j'implore votre merci, et vous me l'apprendrez ou non, \u00e0\nvotre choix; car je ne pourrai jamais deviner, quand j'essayerais toute\nla nuit.\n\n--Eh bien! alors, hi! hi! hi! reprit M. Peter Magnus avec un ricanement\ntimide: que penseriez-vous, monsieur Pickwick, si je vous disais que je\nsuis venu ici pour faire une d\u00e9claration et une demande de mariage? Eh!\nmonsieur? hi! hi! hi!\n\n--Je penserais qu'il est fort probable que vous r\u00e9ussirez, r\u00e9pondit\nnotre aimable ami avec un de ses sourires les plus radieux.\n\n--Ah! monsieur Pickwick, le pensez-vous vraiment? Le pensez-vous?\n\n--Certainement.\n\n--Non! vous plaisantez; j'en suis s\u00fbr.\n\n--Je ne plaisante pas, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9!\n\n--Eh bien! alors, pour vous dire un petit secret, je le pense aussi,\nmoi. Je vous dirai m\u00eame, monsieur Pickwick, quoique je sois jaloux comme\nun tigre, de mon naturel, je vous dirai que la dame est dans cette\nmaison-ci. En pronon\u00e7ant ces derni\u00e8res paroles, M. Magnus \u00f4ta ses\nlunettes bleues pour cligner de l'oeil, et les remit ensuite d'un air\nd\u00e9cid\u00e9.\n\n--C'est donc pour cela, demanda M. Pickwick avec malice, c'est donc pour\ncela que vous sortiez de la chambre \u00e0 chaque instant, avant le d\u00eener.\n\n--Chut! vous avez raison; c'\u00e9tait pour cela. Cependant je n'\u00e9tais pas\nassez fou pour l'aller voir.\n\n--Pourquoi donc?\n\n--Cela ne vaudrait rien, voyez-vous, juste apr\u00e8s un voyage. Il vaut\nmieux attendre jusqu'\u00e0 demain matin; j'aurai bien plus de chances alors.\nMonsieur Pickwick, il y a dans ce sac un habit, et dans cette botte un\nchapeau, qui sont inestimables pour moi, d'apr\u00e8s l'effet que j'en\nattends.\n\n--En v\u00e9rit\u00e9!\n\n--Oui, monsieur. Vous devez avoir observ\u00e9 mon anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e0 leur sujet\naujourd'hui. Je ne crois pas, monsieur Pickwick, qu'on puisse avoir,\npour de l'argent, un autre habit et un autre chapeau comme ceux-l\u00e0.\u00bb\n\nNotre philosophe f\u00e9licita, sur son bonheur, le possesseur du v\u00eatement\nirr\u00e9sistible, et M. Peter Magnus demeura pendant quelque temps absorb\u00e9\ndans la contemplation intellectuelle de ses tr\u00e9sors.\n\n\u00abC'est une belle cr\u00e9ature! s'\u00e9cria-t-il enfin.\n\n--Vraiment?\n\n--Charmante! charmante! Elle habite \u00e0 dix-huit milles d'ici, monsieur\nPickwick. J'ai appris qu'elle serait ici ce soir et toute la matin\u00e9e de\ndemain, et je suis accouru pour saisir l'occasion. Je pense qu'une\nauberge doit \u00eatre un endroit tr\u00e8s favorable pour faire des propositions\n\u00e0 une femme seule; car, lorsqu'elle voyage, elle doit sentir sa solitude\nbien plus que dans sa maison. Qu'en pensez-vous, monsieur Pickwick?\n\n--Cela me para\u00eet en effet fort probable.\n\n--Je vous demande pardon, monsieur Pickwick; mais je suis naturellement\nassez curieux. Pour quelle cause \u00eates-vous ici?\u00bb\n\nLe rouge monta au visage de M. Pickwick au souvenir du sujet de son\nvoyage. \u00abLe motif qui m'am\u00e8ne, r\u00e9pondit-il, n'est nullement agr\u00e9able. Je\nviens ici, monsieur, pour d\u00e9voiler la perfidie et la fausset\u00e9 d'une\npersonne dans l'honneur de laquelle j'avais mis une enti\u00e8re confiance.\n\n--Dieu de Dieu! cela est bien d\u00e9sagr\u00e9able! C'est une dame, je pr\u00e9sume?\nEh! eh! fripon de M. Pickwick! petit fripon! Bien, bien, monsieur\nPickwick!... Monsieur, je ne voudrais pas blesser votre d\u00e9licatesse pour\nle monde entier. P\u00e9nible sujet, monsieur, tr\u00e8s-p\u00e9nible. Que je ne vous\ng\u00eane pas, monsieur Pickwick, si vous voulez donner cours \u00e0 votre\nchagrin. Je sais ce que c'est que d'\u00eatre trahi, monsieur; j'ai endur\u00e9\ncette sorte de chose trois ou quatre fois.\n\n--Je vous suis fort oblig\u00e9 pour votre sympathie sur ce que vous supposez\n\u00eatre mon cas m\u00e9lancolique, repartit M. Pickwick en montant sa montre et\nen la posant sur la table, mais....\n\n--Non! non! interrompit M. Peter Magnus; pas un mot de plus. C'est un\nsujet p\u00e9nible; je le vois; je le vois. Quelle heure est-il, monsieur\nPickwick?\n\n--Minuit pass\u00e9.\n\n--Dieu de Dieu! il est bien temps de s'aller coucher! quelle sottise de\nrester debout si tard! Je serai p\u00e2le demain matin, monsieur Pickwick.\u00bb\n\nContrist\u00e9 par l'id\u00e9e d'une telle calamit\u00e9, M. Peter Magnus tira la\nsonnette. Une servante apparut, et le sac ray\u00e9, le sac rouge, le carton\n\u00e0 chapeau en cuir, et le paquet de papier gris ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 transport\u00e9s\ndans sa chambre \u00e0 coucher, il se retira, avec un chandelier verniss\u00e9,\ndans une des ailes de la maison, tandis que M. Pickwick, avec un autre\nchandelier verniss\u00e9, \u00e9tait conduit dans une autre aile, \u00e0 travers une\nmultitude de passages tortueux.\n\n\u00abVoici votre chambre, monsieur, dit la servante.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick en regardant autour de lui. C'\u00e9tait\nune assez grande pi\u00e8ce \u00e0 deux lits, dans laquelle il y avait du feu, et\nqui paraissait plus confortable, au total, que M. Pickwick n'\u00e9tait\ndispos\u00e9 \u00e0 l'esp\u00e9rer d'apr\u00e8s sa courte exp\u00e9rience de l'am\u00e9nagement du\nGrandi Cheval blanc.\n\n\u00abIl va sans dire que personne ne dort dans l'autre lit? fit-il observer.\n\n--Oh! non, monsieur.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien. Dites \u00e0 mon domestique que je n'ai plus besoin de lui ce\nsoir, et qu'il m'apporte de l'eau chaude demain \u00e0 huit heures et demie.\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\u00bb Et la servante se retira apr\u00e8s avoir souhait\u00e9 une\nbonne nuit \u00e0 notre philosophe.\n\nM. Pickwick, demeur\u00e9 seul, s'assit dans un fauteuil aupr\u00e8s du feu, et se\nlaissa aller \u00e0 une longue suite de m\u00e9ditations. D'abord il songea \u00e0 ses\namis, et se demanda quand ils viendraient le rejoindre. Ensuite son\nesprit retourna vers mistress Martha Bardell, et de cette dame, par une\ntransition naturelle, il se reporta au bureau malpropre de Dodson et\nFogg. De l\u00e0, il s'enfuit, par une tangente, au centre m\u00eame de l'histoire\ndu singulier client; puis il revint dans l'auberge du Grand Cheval\nblanc, \u00e0 Ipswich, avec assez peu de lucidit\u00e9 pour convaincre M. Pickwick\nque le sommeil s'emparait rapidement de lui. Il se secoua donc, et\ncommen\u00e7ait \u00e0 se d\u00e9shabiller lorsqu'il se rappela qu'il avait laiss\u00e9 sa\nmontre sur la table, dans la salle d'en bas.\n\nOr cette montre \u00e9tait un des biens meubles favoris de M. Pickwick, ayant\n\u00e9t\u00e9 transport\u00e9e de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s, \u00e0 l'ombre de son gilet, pendant un nombre\nd'ann\u00e9es plus consid\u00e9rable qu'il ne nous para\u00eet n\u00e9cessaire de le\nd\u00e9clarer actuellement au lecteur. On n'aurait pu faire p\u00e9n\u00e9trer dans le\ncerveau du philosophe la possibilit\u00e9 de s'endormir sans entendre le\ntic-tac r\u00e9gulier de cette montre sous son traversin, ou dans le\nporte-montre accroch\u00e9 au chevet de son lit. En cons\u00e9quence, comme il\n\u00e9tait tard et qu'il ne voulait pas faire retentir sa sonnette, \u00e0 cette\nheure de la nuit, il remit son habit qu'il avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 \u00f4t\u00e9, et prenant le\nchandelier verniss\u00e9, il descendit tranquillement les escaliers.\n\nMais plus M. Pickwick descendait les escaliers, plus il semblait qu'il\nlui rest\u00e2t d'escaliers \u00e0 descendre; et plusieurs fois apr\u00e8s \u00eatre parvenu\ndans un \u00e9troit passage et s'\u00eatre f\u00e9licit\u00e9 d'\u00eatre enfin arriv\u00e9 au\nrez-de-chauss\u00e9e, M. Pickwick vit un autre escalier appara\u00eetre devant ses\nyeux \u00e9tonn\u00e9s. Au bout d'un certain temps, cependant, il atteignit une\nsalle dall\u00e9e qu'il se rappela avoir vue en entrant dans la maison. Avec\nun nouveau courage il explora passage apr\u00e8s passage; il entr'ouvrit\nchambre apr\u00e8s chambre, et \u00e0 la fin, quand il allait abandonner ses\nrecherches de pur d\u00e9sespoir, il se trouva dans la salle m\u00eame o\u00f9 il avait\npass\u00e9 la soir\u00e9e, et il aper\u00e7ut sur la table sa propri\u00e9t\u00e9 manquante.\n\nM. Pickwick saisit la montre d'un air triomphant, et s'occupa ensuite de\nretourner sur ses traces, pour regagner sa chambre \u00e0 coucher; mais si le\ntrajet pour descendre avait \u00e9t\u00e9 environn\u00e9 de difficult\u00e9s et\nd'incertitudes, le voyage pour remonter \u00e9tait infiniment plus\nembarrassant. Dans toutes les directions possibles s'embranchaient des\nrang\u00e9es de portes, garnies de bottes et de souliers. Une douzaine de\nfois, M. Pickwick avait tourn\u00e9 doucement la clef d'une chambre \u00e0\ncoucher, dont la porte ressemblait \u00e0 la sienne, lorsqu'un cri bourru de\nl'int\u00e9rieur: \u00abQui diable est cela?\u00bb ou, \u00abQu'est-ce que vous venez faire\nici?\u00bb l'obligeait \u00e0 se retirer sur la pointe du pied, avec une c\u00e9l\u00e9rit\u00e9\nparfaitement merveilleuse. Il se trouvait de nouveau r\u00e9duit au\nd\u00e9sespoir, lorsqu'une porte entr'ouverte attira son attention. Il\nallongea la t\u00eate et regarda dans la chambre. Bonne chance \u00e0 la fin! Les\ndeux lits \u00e9taient l\u00e0, dans la situation qu'il se rappelait parfaitement,\net le feu br\u00fblait encore. Cependant sa chandelle, qui n'\u00e9tait pas des\nplus longues lorsqu'il l'avait re\u00e7ue, avait coul\u00e9 dans les courants\nd'air qu'il venait de traverser, et s'ab\u00eema dans le chandelier, au\nmoment o\u00f9 il fermait la porte derri\u00e8re lui. \u00abC'est \u00e9gal, pensa M.\nPickwick, je puis me d\u00e9shabiller tout aussi bien \u00e0 la lumi\u00e8re du feu.\u00bb\n\nLes deux lits \u00e9taient plac\u00e9s \u00e0 droite et \u00e0 gauche de la porte. Entre\nchacun d'eux et la muraille il se trouvait une petite ruelle, termin\u00e9e\npar une chaise de canne, et justement assez large pour permettre de\nmonter au lit ou d'en descendre du c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la muraille, si on le\njugeait convenable. Apr\u00e8s avoir exactement ferm\u00e9 les rideaux du lit du\ncot\u00e9 de la chambre, M. Pickwick s'assit dans la ruelle, sur la chaise de\ncanne, et se d\u00e9barrassa tranquillement de ses souliers et de ses\ngu\u00eatres. Ensuite il \u00f4ta et plia son habit, son gilet, sa cravate, et\ntirant lentement son bonnet de nuit de sa poche, il l'attacha solidement\nsur sa t\u00eate, en nouant sous son menton des cordons qui \u00e9taient toujours\nfix\u00e9s \u00e0 cette portion de son ajustement. Pendant cette op\u00e9ration\nl'absurdit\u00e9 de son r\u00e9cent embarras vint frapper plus fortement ses\nfacult\u00e9s risibles, et, se renversant sur sa chaise de canne, il se mit \u00e0\nrire en lui-m\u00eame, de si bon coeur, que \u00e7'aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 un v\u00e9ritable d\u00e9lice,\npour tout esprit bien constitu\u00e9, de contempler le sourire qui\n\u00e9panouissait son aimable physionomie, sous son bonnet de coton orn\u00e9\nd'une vaste m\u00e8che.\n\n\u00abC'est la plus dr\u00f4le de chose, se dit M. Pickwick \u00e0 lui-m\u00eame en riant si\nd\u00e9mesur\u00e9ment qu'il en fit presque craquer les cordons de son bonnet;\nc'est la plus dr\u00f4le de chose dont j'aie jamais entendu parler, que de me\nvoir ainsi perdu dans cette auberge, et errant dans tous ses escaliers.\nDr\u00f4le! dr\u00f4le! tr\u00e8s-dr\u00f4le!\u00bb M. Pickwick, souriant de nouveau, d'un\nsourire plus prononc\u00e9 qu'auparavant, allait continuer \u00e0 se d\u00e9shabiller,\nlorsqu'il fut arr\u00eat\u00e9, tout \u00e0 coup, par l'entr\u00e9e inattendue d'une\npersonne qui tenait une chandelle, et qui, apr\u00e8s avoir ferm\u00e9 la porte,\ns'avan\u00e7a jusqu'aupr\u00e8s de la toilette et y posa sa lumi\u00e8re.\n\nLe sourire qui se jouait sur les traits de M. Pickwick fut\ninstantan\u00e9ment absorb\u00e9 par l'expression de la surprise et de la stupeur\nla plus compl\u00e8te. La personne, quelle qu'elle f\u00fbt, \u00e9tait arriv\u00e9e si\nsoudainement et avec si peu de bruit, que M. Pickwick n'avait pas eu le\ntemps de crier ni de s'opposer \u00e0 son entr\u00e9e. Qui pouvait-ce \u00eatre? un\nvoleur? quelque individu mal intentionn\u00e9, qui peut-\u00eatre l'avait vu\nmonter les escaliers, tenant \u00e0 la main une belle montre. En tout cas que\ndevait-il faire?\n\nLe seul moyen pour M. Pickwick d'observer son myst\u00e9rieux visiteur, sans\ndanger d'\u00eatre vu lui-m\u00eame, \u00e9tait de grimper sur le lit pour lorgner dans\nla chambre, et d'entr'ouvrir les rideaux. Il eut donc recours \u00e0 cette\nmanoeuvre, et les tenant d'une main soigneusement ferm\u00e9s de mani\u00e8re \u00e0 ne\nlaisser passer que sa t\u00eate et son bonnet de coton, il mit sur son nez\nses lunettes, rassembla tout son courage, et regarda.\n\nMais il s'\u00e9vanouit presque d'horreur et de confusion lorsqu'il vit,\ndebout devant la glace, une dame d'un certain \u00e2ge, orn\u00e9e de papillotes\nde papier brouillard, et activement occup\u00e9e \u00e0 brosser ce que les dames\nappellent _leur queue_. De quelque mani\u00e8re qu'elle f\u00fbt venue dans la\nchambre, il \u00e9tait \u00e9vident, \u00e0 son air tranquille et d\u00e9gag\u00e9, qu'elle\ncomptait y passer la nuit tout enti\u00e8re. Elle avait apport\u00e9 avec elle une\nchandelle de jonc garnie de son \u00e9cran, et avec une louable pr\u00e9caution\ncontre les dangers du feu, elle l'avait plac\u00e9e dans une cuvette pleine\nd'eau, sur le plancher, o\u00f9 cette chandelle brillait comme un phare\ngigantesque dans une mer singuli\u00e8rement petite.\n\n\u00abDieu me prot\u00e8ge! pensa M. Pickwick. Quelle chose \u00e9pouvantable!\n\n--Hem! fit la dame; et aussit\u00f4t la t\u00eate du philosophe rentra derri\u00e8re\nles rideaux, avec une rapidit\u00e9 digne d'une marionnette.\n\n--Je n'ai jamais ou\u00ef parler d'une aventure aussi terrible, se dit le\npauvre M. Pickwick, dont le bonnet \u00e9tait tremp\u00e9 d'une sueur froide.\nJamais! Cela est effroyable!\u00bb\n\nCependant, ne pouvant r\u00e9sister au d\u00e9sir de voir ce qui se passait, il\nfit de nouveau sortir sa t\u00eate entre les rideaux.\n\nLa situation s'empirait. La dame d'un certain \u00e2ge ayant fini d'arranger\nses cheveux, les avait soigneusement envelopp\u00e9s dans un bonnet de nuit\nde mousseline orn\u00e9 d'une petite garniture pliss\u00e9e, et contemplait le feu\nd'un air m\u00e9lancolique et r\u00eaveur.\n\n\u00abCette affaire devient alarmante, raisonna M. Pickwick en lui-m\u00eame. Je\nne puis pas laisser aller les choses de cette mani\u00e8re. Il est clair pour\nmoi, d'apr\u00e8s la tranquillit\u00e9 de cette dame, que je serai entr\u00e9 dans une\nchambre qui n'est pas la mienne. Si je parle, elle alarmera la maison;\nmais si je reste ici, les cons\u00e9quences en seront plus effrayantes\nencore.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick, il est inutile de le dire, \u00e9tait un des mortels les plus\nmodestes et les plus d\u00e9licats qui aient jamais exist\u00e9. La seule id\u00e9e de\nse pr\u00e9senter devant une dame en bonnet de nuit, le remplissait de\nconfusion. Mais il avait fait un noeud \u00e0 ses maudits cordons, et malgr\u00e9\ntous ses efforts il ne pouvait parvenir \u00e0 les d\u00e9faire. Il devenait\nindispensable de briser la glace, et il n'y avait pour cela qu'un seul\nmoyen. Il se retira derri\u00e8re les rideaux, et toussa tout haut: \u00abHom!\nhom!\u00bb\n\nA ce bruit inattendu la dame tressaillit \u00e9videmment, car elle renversa\nl'\u00e9cran de sa chandelle. Mais bient\u00f4t elle se persuada qu'elle s'\u00e9tait\nalarm\u00e9e sans raison, et lorsque M. Pickwick, croyant qu'elle \u00e9tait pour\nle moins \u00e9vanouie de terreur, s'aventura \u00e0 regarder \u00e0 travers les\nrideaux, elle s'\u00e9tait remise \u00e0 contempler le feu avec le m\u00eame air\nm\u00e9lancolique et r\u00eaveur.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0 une femme bien extraordinaire, pensa M. Pickwick en rentrant la\nt\u00eate. Hom! hom!\u00bb\n\nCette fois ces deux syllabes \u00e9taient prononc\u00e9es trop distinctement pour\nqu'il f\u00fbt encore possible de les prendre pour une imagination.\n\n\u00abMon Dieu! mon Dieu! s'\u00e9cria la dame; qu'est-ce que cela?\n\n--C'est... c'est seulement un gentleman, madame, dit M. Pickwick\nderri\u00e8re le rideau.\n\n--Un gentleman! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta la dame avec terreur.\n\n--C'en est fait! pensa M. Pickwick.\n\n--Un homme dans ma chambre! s'\u00e9cria la dame, et elle se pr\u00e9cipita vers\nla porte. M. Pickwick entendit le fr\u00f4lement de sa robe. Un instant de\nplus et toute la maison allait \u00eatre alarm\u00e9e.\n\n--Madame, dit-il en montrant sa t\u00eate, dans l'exc\u00e8s de son d\u00e9sespoir;\nmadame....\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick, en mettant sa t\u00eate hors des rideaux, n'avait certainement\npoint de but bien d\u00e9termin\u00e9. Cependant cela produisit instantan\u00e9ment un\nbon effet. La dame, comme nous avons dit, \u00e9tait d\u00e9j\u00e0 pr\u00e8s de la porte.\nIl fallait l'ouvrir pour arriver \u00e0 l'escalier, et elle l'aurait fait\nsans aucun doute en un instant, si l'apparition soudaine du bonnet de\nnuit philosophique ne l'avait pas fait reculer jusqu'au fond de la\nchambre. Elle y resta immobile, consid\u00e9rant d'un air effar\u00e9 M. Pickwick,\nqui \u00e0 son tour la contemplait avec \u00e9garement.\n\n\u00abMis\u00e9rable! dit la dame, couvrant ses yeux de ses mains; que faites-vous\nici?\n\n--Rien, madame... rien du tout, madame... r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick avec feu.\n\n--Rien! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta la dame en levant les yeux.\n\n--Rien, madame, sur mon honneur, reprit M. Pickwick en secouant sa t\u00eate\nd'une mani\u00e8re si \u00e9nergique que la m\u00e8che de son bonnet s'agitait\nconvulsivement. Madame, je me sens accabl\u00e9 de confusion en m'adressant \u00e0\nune lady avec mon bonnet de nuit sur ma t\u00eate (ici la dame arracha\nbrusquement le sien); mais je ne puis l'\u00f4ter, madame. (En disant ces\nmots, M. Pickwick donna \u00e0 son bonnet une secousse prodigieuse pour\npreuve de son all\u00e9gation.) Maintenant, madame, il est \u00e9vident pour moi\nque je me suis tromp\u00e9 de chambre \u00e0 coucher, en prenant celle-ci pour la\nmienne. Je n'y \u00e9tais pas depuis cinq minutes lorsque vous \u00eates entr\u00e9e\ntout d'un coup.\n\n--Si cette histoire improbable est r\u00e9ellement vraie, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua\nla dame en sanglotant violemment, vous quitterez cette chambre\nsur-le-champ.\n\n--Oui, madame, avec le plus grand plaisir.\n\n--Sur-le-champ! monsieur.\n\n--Certainement, madame, certainement. Je... je suis tr\u00e8s-f\u00e2ch\u00e9, madame,\npoursuivit M. Pickwick en faisant son apparition au pied du lit;\ntr\u00e8s-f\u00e2ch\u00e9 d'avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 la cause innocente de cette alarme et de cette\n\u00e9motion; profond\u00e9ment afflig\u00e9, madame....\u00bb\n\nLa dame montra la porte. Dans ce moment critique, dans cette situation\nsi embarrassante, une des excellentes qualit\u00e9s de M. Pickwick se d\u00e9ploya\nencore admirablement. Quoiqu'il e\u00fbt plac\u00e9 \u00e0 la h\u00e2te son chapeau sur son\nbonnet de coton, \u00e0 la mani\u00e8re des patrouilles bourgeoises, quoiqu'il\nport\u00e2t ses souliers et ses gu\u00eatres dans ses mains, et son habit et son\ngilet sur son bras, rien ne put diminuer sa politesse naturelle.\n\n\u00abJe suis excessivement f\u00e2ch\u00e9, madame, dit-il en saluant tr\u00e8s-bas.\n\n--Si vous l'\u00eates, monsieur, vous quitterez cette chambre sur-le-champ.\n\n--Imm\u00e9diatement, madame. A l'instant m\u00eame, madame, dit M. Pickwick en\nouvrant la porte et en laissant tomber ses souliers avec grand fracas.\nJe me flatte, madame, reprit-il en ramassant ses chaussures et en se\nretournant pour saluer encore, je me flatte que mon caract\u00e8re sans tache\net le respect plein de d\u00e9votion que je professe pour votre sexe\nplaideront en ma faveur dans cette circonstance.\u00bb Mais avant qu'il e\u00fbt\npu conclure cette sentence, la dame l'avait pouss\u00e9 dans le passage, et\navait ferm\u00e9 et verrouill\u00e9 la porte derri\u00e8re lui.\n\nQuelque satisfaction que notre philosophe d\u00fbt ressentir d'avoir termin\u00e9\naussi ais\u00e9ment cette \u00e9pouvantable aventure, sa situation pr\u00e9sente\nn'\u00e9tait nullement agr\u00e9able. Il \u00e9tait seul, \u00e0 moiti\u00e9 habill\u00e9, dans un\npassage ouvert, dans une maison inconnue, au milieu de la nuit. Il\nn'\u00e9tait pas supposable qu'il put retrouver, dans une parfaite obscurit\u00e9,\nla chambre qu'il n'avait pu d\u00e9couvrir lorsqu'il \u00e9tait arm\u00e9 d'une\nlumi\u00e8re, et s'il faisait le plus petit bruit, dans ses inutiles\nrecherches, il courait la chance de recevoir un coup de pistolet et\npeut-\u00eatre d'\u00eatre tu\u00e9 par quelque voyageur r\u00e9veill\u00e9 en sursaut. Il\nn'avait donc pas d'autre ressource que de rester o\u00f9 il \u00e9tait, jusqu'\u00e0\nla pointe du jour. Ainsi, apr\u00e8s avoir fait encore quelques pas dans le\ncorridor, en tr\u00e9buchant, \u00e0 sa grande alarme, sur plusieurs paires de\nbottes, il s'accroupit dans un angle du mur, pour attendre le matin\naussi philosophiquement qu'il le pourrait.\n\nCependant il n'\u00e9tait point destin\u00e9 \u00e0 subir cette nouvelle \u00e9preuve de\npatience, car il n'y avait pas longtemps qu'il \u00e9tait retir\u00e9 dans son\ncoin, lorsqu'\u00e0 son horreur inexprimable un homme, portant une lumi\u00e8re,\napparut au bout du corridor. Mais cette horreur fut soudainement\nconvertie en transports de joie lorsqu'il reconnut son fid\u00e8le serviteur.\nC'\u00e9tait en effet M. Samuel Weller qui regagnait son domicile, apr\u00e8s \u00eatre\nrest\u00e9 jusqu'alors en grande conversation avec le gar\u00e7on qui attendait la\ndiligence.\n\n\u00abSam! dit M. Pickwick, en paraissant tout \u00e0 coup devant lui; o\u00f9 est ma\nchambre \u00e0 coucher?\u00bb\n\nSam consid\u00e9ra son ma\u00eetre avec la surprise la plus expressive, et\ncelui-ci avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9 trois fois la m\u00eame question, lorsque son\ndomestique tourna sur son talon et le conduisit \u00e0 la chambre si\nlongtemps cherch\u00e9e.\n\n\u00abSam, dit M. Pickwick en se mettant dans son lit; j'ai fait cette nuit\nun des quiproquos les plus extraordinaires qu'il soit possible de faire.\n\n--\u00c7a ne m'\u00e9tonne pas, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua s\u00e8chement le valet.\n\n--Mais je suis bien d\u00e9termin\u00e9, Sam, quand je devrais rester six mois\ndans cette maison, \u00e0 ne plus jamais me risquer tout seul hors de ma\nchambre.\n\n--C'est la r\u00e9solution la plus prudente que vous pourriez prendre,\nmonsieur. Vous avez besoin de quelqu'un pour vous surveiller quand votre\nraison s'en va en visite.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que vous entendez par l\u00e0? Sam, demanda M. Pickwick, qui, se\nlevant sur son s\u00e9ant, \u00e9tendit la main comme s'il allait faire un\ndiscours; mais tout \u00e0 coup il parut se raviser, se recoucha et dit \u00e0 son\ndomestique: Bonsoir.\n\n--Bonsoir, monsieur,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua Sam, et il sortit de la chambre. Arriv\u00e9\ndans le corridor, il s'arr\u00eata, secoua la t\u00eate, fit quelques pas,\ns'arr\u00eata encore, moucha sa chandelle, secoua la t\u00eate de nouveau, et\nfinalement se dirigea lentement vers sa chambre, enseveli, en apparence,\ndans les plus profondes m\u00e9ditations.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XXIII.\n\nDans lequel Samuel Weller s'occupe \u00e9nergiquement de prendre la revanche\nde M. Trotter.\n\n\nA une heure un peu plus avanc\u00e9e de cette m\u00eame matin\u00e9e dont le\ncommencement avait \u00e9t\u00e9 signal\u00e9 par l'aventure de M. Pickwick avec la\ndame aux papillotes jaunes, dans la petite chambre situ\u00e9e aupr\u00e8s des\n\u00e9curies, M. Weller a\u00een\u00e9 faisait les pr\u00e9paratifs de son retour \u00e0 Londres.\nIl \u00e9tait parfaitement pos\u00e9 pour se faire peindre, et, profitant de\nl'occasion, nous allons esquisser son portrait.\n\nSon profil avait pu pr\u00e9senter dans sa jeunesse des lignes hardies et\nfortement accentu\u00e9es, mais gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 la bonne ch\u00e8re, gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 un caract\u00e8re\nqui se pliait aux circonstances avec une extr\u00eame facilit\u00e9, les courbes\ncharnues de ses joues s'\u00e9taient \u00e9tendues bien au-del\u00e0 des limites qui\nleur avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 originairement assign\u00e9es par la nature; si bien qu'\u00e0\nmoins de le regarder en face, il \u00e9tait difficile de distinguer dans son\nvisage autre chose que le bout d'un nez rubicond. La m\u00eame cause avait\nfait acqu\u00e9rir \u00e0 son menton la forme grave et imposante que l'on d\u00e9crit\ncommun\u00e9ment, en faisant pr\u00e9c\u00e9der de l'\u00e9pith\u00e8te _double_ le nom de ce\ntrait expressif de la physionomie humaine. Enfin, son teint pr\u00e9sentait\ncette combinaison de couleurs qui ne se rencontrent gu\u00e8re que chez les\ngentlemen de sa profession, ou sur un filet de boeuf mal r\u00f4ti. Autour de\nson cou il portait un ch\u00e2le de voyage \u00e9carlate, qui s'adaptait si\nparfaitement \u00e0 son menton qu'il \u00e9tait difficile de distinguer les plis\nde l'un d'avec les plis de l'autre; par-dessus ce ch\u00e2le il mit un long\ngilet d'une grosse \u00e9toffe rouge \u00e0 larges raies roses, et par-dessus ce\ngilet un immense habit vert, orn\u00e9 de gros boutons de cuivre; et parmi\nces boutons ceux qui garnissaient la taille \u00e9taient si \u00e9loign\u00e9s l'un de\nl'autre, que nul mortel ne les avait jamais vus tous les deux \u00e0 la fois.\nLes cheveux de M. Weller \u00e9taient courts, lisses, noirs, et\ns'apercevaient \u00e0 peine sous les bords gigantesques d'un chapeau brun \u00e0\nforme basse. Ses jambes \u00e9taient encaiss\u00e9es dans une culotte de velours\n\u00e0 c\u00f4tes et dans des bottes \u00e0 revers; enfin, une grande cha\u00eene de cuivre,\ntermin\u00e9e par une clef et un cachet du m\u00eame m\u00e9tal, se dandinait\ngracieusement \u00e0 sa vaste ceinture.\n\nNous avons dit que M. Weller faisait les pr\u00e9paratifs de son retour \u00e0\nLondres. Pour \u00eatre plus explicite, il s'occupait de la question des\nvivres. Sur la table, devant lui, se trouvait un pot d'ale, un plat de\nboeuf froid et un pain d'une dimension fort respectable, \u00e0 chacun\ndesquels il distribuait tour \u00e0 tour ses faveurs, avec la plus rigide\nimpartialit\u00e9. Il venait de couper une bonne tranche de pain lorsqu'un\nbruit de pas dans la chambre lui fit lever les yeux. L'espoir de sa\nvieillesse \u00e9tait devant lui.\n\n\u00ab'Jour! Sammy,\u00bb dit le p\u00e8re.\n\nLe fils s'approcha du pot d'ale et prit, en guise de r\u00e9ponse, une longue\ngorg\u00e9e de liquide.\n\n\u00abTu aspires les liquides avec facilit\u00e9, Sammy, dit M. Weller en\nregardant l'int\u00e9rieur du pot, lorsque son premier-n\u00e9 l'eut repos\u00e9, \u00e0\nmoiti\u00e9 vide, sur la table; tu aurais fait une fameuse sangsure si tu\n\u00e9tais n\u00e9 dans cette profession-l\u00e0, Sammy.\n\n--Oui, je me figure que ce talent-l\u00e0 m'aurait permis de vivre \u00e0 mon\naise, r\u00e9pliqua Sam en s'attaquant au boeuf froid avec une vigueur\nconsid\u00e9rable.\n\n--Je suis tr\u00e8s-vex\u00e9, Sammy, reprit M. Weller en d\u00e9crivant de petits\ncercles avec le pot pour secouer son ale avant de la boire, je suis\ntr\u00e8s-vex\u00e9, Sammy, de voir que tu t'es laiss\u00e9 enfoncer par cet homme\nviolet. J'avais toujours pens\u00e9, jusqu'\u00e0 l'autre jour, que les mots de\n_Weller_ et _enfonc\u00e9_ ne viendraient jamais en contract, Sammy....\nJamais.\n\n--Except\u00e9, sans doute, le cas o\u00f9 il serait question d'une veuve, reprit\nSam.\n\n--Les veuves, Sammy, r\u00e9pliqua M. Weller en changeant un peu de couleur,\nles veuves sont des exceptions \u00e0 toutes les r\u00e8gles. J'ai entendu dire\ncombien une veuve vaut de femmes ordinaires, pour vous mettre dedans. Je\ncrois que c'est 25, Sammy; mais \u00e7a pourrait bien \u00eatre davantage.\n\n--Eh mais, c'est d\u00e9j\u00e0 assez gentil.\n\n--D'ailleurs, poursuivit M. Weller, sans faire attention \u00e0\nl'interruption, c'est ben diff\u00e9rent. Tu sais ce que disait l'avocat de\nce gen'lm'n qui battait sa femme \u00e0 coups de pincettes quand il \u00e9tait en\nribotte. \u00abApr\u00e8s tout, m'sieu le pr\u00e9sident, qu'i' dit, \u00abc'n est qu'une\naimable faiblesse.\u00bb J'en dis autant par rapport aux veuves, Sammy; et\ntu en diras autant quand tu auras mon \u00e2ge.\n\n--Je sais bien, confessa Sam, je sais bien que j'aurais d\u00fb en savoir\nplus long.\n\n--En savoir plus long! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Weller, en frappant la table avec son\npoing; en savoir plus long! Mais je connais un jeune moutard, qui n'a\npas eu le quart de ton inducation, qui n'a pas seulement fr\u00e9quent\u00e9 les\nmarch\u00e9s pendant... non pas six mois, et qui aurait rougi de se laisser\nenfoncer comme \u00e7a, rougi jusqu'au blanc des yeux, Sammy!\u00bb L'angoisse que\nr\u00e9veilla cette am\u00e8re r\u00e9flexion obligea M. Weller \u00e0 tirer la sonnette et\n\u00e0 demander une nouvelle pinte d'ale.\n\n\u00abAllons! \u00e0 quoi bon parler de \u00e7a maintenant, fit observer Sam. Ce qui\nest fait est fait, il n'y a plus de rem\u00e8de, et cette pens\u00e9e doit nous\nconsoler, comme disent les Turcs, quand ils ont coup\u00e9 la t\u00eate d'un\nindividu par erreur. Mais chacun son tour, gouverneur, et si je rattrape\nce Trotter, il aura affaire \u00e0 moi.\n\n--Je l'esp\u00e8re, Sammy, je l'esp\u00e8re, r\u00e9pondit gravement M. Weller. A ta\nsant\u00e9, Sammy, et puisses-tu effacer bient\u00f4t la tache dont tu as souli\u00e9\nnotre nom de famille.\u00bb En l'honneur de ce toast, le corpulent cocher\nabsorba, d'un seul trait, les deux tiers au moins de la pinte\nnouvellement arriv\u00e9e: puis il tendit le reste \u00e0 son fils, qui en disposa\ninstantan\u00e9ment.\n\n\u00abEt maintenant, Sammy, reprit M. Weller en consultant l'\u00e9norme montre\nd'argent que soutenait sa cha\u00eene de cuivre; maintenant il est temps que\nj'aille au bureau pour prendre ma feuille de route et pour faire charger\nla voiture; car les voitures, Sammy, c'est comme les canons, i' faut les\ncharger avec beaucoup de soin avant qu'i' partent.\u00bb\n\nSam Weller accueillit avec un sourire filial ce bon mot paternel et\nprofessionnel. Son respectable p\u00e8re continua d'un ton grave et \u00e9mu: \u00abJe\nvas te quitter, Sammy, mon gar\u00e7on, et on ne sait pas quand est-ce que\nnous nous reverrons. Ta belle-m\u00e8re peut avoir fait mon affaire, il peut\narriver un tas d'accidents avant que tu re\u00e7oives de nouvelles nouvelles\ndu c\u00e9l\u00e8bre monsieur Weller de la _Belle Sauvage_. L'honneur de la\nfamille est dans tes mains, Samivel, et j'esp\u00e8re que tu feras ton\ndevoir. Quant au reste, je sais que je peux me fier \u00e0 toi comme \u00e0\nmoi-m\u00eame. Aussi je n'ai qu'un petit conseil \u00e0 te donner. Si tu d\u00e9passes\nla cinquantaine et que l'id\u00e9e te vienne d'\u00e9pouser quelqu'un, n'importe\nqui, vite enferme-toi dans ta chambre, si tu en as une, et\nempoisonne-toi sur-le-champ. C'est commun de se pendre; ainsi pas de\nces b\u00eatises-l\u00e0. Empoisonne-toi, Sammy, mon gar\u00e7on, empoisonne-toi et\nplus tard tu seras bien aise de m'avoir \u00e9cout\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nM. Weller gardait fixement son fils en pronon\u00e7ant ces touchantes\nparoles. Lorsqu'il eut termin\u00e9 il tourna lentement sur le talon et\ndisparut.\n\nLes derniers conseils de son p\u00e8re ayant \u00e9veill\u00e9 dans l'esprit de M.\nSamuel Weller mille id\u00e9es contemplatives et lugubres, il sortit de\nl'auberge du _Cheval blanc_ d\u00e8s que le vieil autom\u00e9don l'eut quitt\u00e9, et\ndirigea ses pas vers l'\u00e9glise de Saint-Cl\u00e9ment, essayant de dissiper sa\nm\u00e9lancolie en se promenant dans les antiques d\u00e9pendances de cet \u00e9difice.\nIl y avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 quelque temps qu'il fl\u00e2nait dans les environs, quand il\nse trouva dans un endroit solitaire, une esp\u00e8ce de cour, d'un aspect\nv\u00e9n\u00e9rable, et qui n'avait pas d'autre issue que le passage par lequel il\n\u00e9tait entr\u00e9. Il allait donc retourner sur ses pas, lorsqu'il fut\np\u00e9trifi\u00e9 sur place par une apparition que nous allons d\u00e9crire\nci-dessous.\n\nM. Samuel Weller, \u00e9tait occup\u00e9 \u00e0 contempler les vieilles maisons de\nbrique rouge, et malgr\u00e9 son abstraction profonde, lan\u00e7ait de temps en\ntemps une oeillade assassine aux fra\u00eeches servantes qui ouvraient une\nfen\u00eatre ou levaient une jalousie, lorsque la porte verte d'un jardin, au\nfond de la cour, s'ouvrit tout \u00e0 coup. Un homme en sortit, qui referma\nsoigneusement, apr\u00e8s lui, ladite porte et s'avan\u00e7a d'un pas rapide vers\nl'endroit o\u00f9 se trouvait Sam.\n\nOr, si l'on prend ce fait isol\u00e9ment, et sans s'occuper des circonstances\nconcomitantes, il n'a rien de fort extraordinaire, car, dans beaucoup de\nparties du monde, un homme peut sortir d'un jardin et fermer derri\u00e8re\nlui une porte verte, il peut m\u00eame s'\u00e9loigner d'un pas rapide, sans\nattirer pour cela l'attention publique. Il est donc clair qu'il devait y\navoir, pour \u00e9veiller l'int\u00e9r\u00eat de Sam, quelque chose de particulier dans\nle costume de l'homme, ou dans l'homme lui-m\u00eame, ou dans l'un et dans\nl'autre. C'est ce que le lecteur pourra facilement conclure, lorsque\nnous lui aurons d\u00e9crit avec pr\u00e9cision la conduite de l'individu dont il\ns'agit.\n\nIl avait donc ferm\u00e9 derri\u00e8re lui la porte verte, il s'avan\u00e7ait dans la\ncour d'un pas rapide, comme nous l'avons d\u00e9j\u00e0 dit deux fois; mais il\nn'eut pas plus t\u00f4t aper\u00e7u M. Weller qu'il h\u00e9sita, s'arr\u00eata et parut ne\npas trop savoir quel parti prendre. Cependant, comme la porte verte\n\u00e9tait ferm\u00e9e derri\u00e8re lui, et comme il n'y avait pas d'autre issue que\ncelle qui \u00e9tait devant lui, il ne fut pas longtemps \u00e0 remarquer que,\npour sortir de l\u00e0, il fallait n\u00e9cessairement passer devant M. Samuel\nWeller. Il reprit donc son pas d\u00e9lib\u00e9r\u00e9 et s'avan\u00e7a en regardant droit\ndevant lui. Ce qu'il y avait de plus extraordinaire dans cet homme,\nc'est la fa\u00e7on hideuse dont il contournait ses traits, faisant les\ngrimaces les plus \u00e9tonnantes et les plus effroyables qu'on ait jamais\nvues. Jamais l'oeuvre de la nature n'avait \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9guis\u00e9e plus artistement\nque ne le fut en un instant le visage en question.\n\n\u00abParole d'honneur, se dit Sam \u00e0 lui-m\u00eame, en voyant approcher le quidam,\nvoil\u00e0 qui est dr\u00f4le! j'aurais jur\u00e9 que c'\u00e9tait lui!\u00bb\n\nL'homme avan\u00e7ait toujours, et \u00e0 mesure qu'il s'approchait, sa figure\ndevenait de plus en plus boulevers\u00e9e.\n\n\u00abJe pourrais pr\u00eater serment, quant \u00e0 ces cheveux noirs et \u00e0 cet habit\nviolet; mais c'est bien s\u00fbr la premi\u00e8re fois que je vois cette\nboule-l\u00e0.\u00bb\n\nPendant ce soliloque, la physionomie de l'\u00e9tranger avait pris un aspect\nsurnaturel et parfaitement hideux. Cependant il fut oblig\u00e9 de passer\ntr\u00e8s-pr\u00e8s de Sam, et un regard scrutateur de celui-ci lui permit de\nd\u00e9couvrir, sous ce masque de contorsions effrayantes, quelque chose qui\nressemblait trop aux petits yeux de M. Job Trotter pour qu'il f\u00fbt\npossible de s'y tromper.\n\n\u00abOh\u00e9! monsieur!\u00bb cria Sam d'une voix irrit\u00e9e.\n\nL'\u00e9tranger s'arr\u00eata.\n\n\u00abOh\u00e9!\u00bb r\u00e9p\u00e9ta Sam d'une voix encore plus f\u00e9roce.\n\nL'homme \u00e0 l'horrible visage regarda avec la plus grande surprise au fond\nde la cour, \u00e0 l'entr\u00e9e de la cour, aux fen\u00eatres de chaque maison,\npartout enfin, except\u00e9 du c\u00f4t\u00e9 de Sam Weller; puis il fit un autre pas\nen avant, mais il fut arr\u00eat\u00e9 par un nouveau hurlement de Sam:\n\n\u00abOh\u00e9! monsieur!\u00bb\n\nIl n'y avait plus moyen de pr\u00e9tendre m\u00e9conna\u00eetre d'o\u00f9 venait la voix, et\nl'\u00e9tranger, n'ayant pas d'autre ressource, regarda Sam en face.\n\n\u00ab\u00c7a ne prend pas, Job Trotter, dit celui-ci. Allons! allons! pas de\nb\u00eatises. Vous n'\u00eates pas assez beau naturellement pour vous permettre de\nvous g\u00e2ter comme \u00e7a la physionomie. Remettez-moi vos petits yeux \u00e0 leur\nplace, ou bien je les enfoncerai dans votre t\u00eate. M'entendez-vous!\u00bb\n\nComme M. Weller paraissait dispos\u00e9 \u00e0 agir suivant la lettre et l'esprit\nde ce discours, M. Trotter permit peu \u00e0 peu \u00e0 son visage de reprendre\nson expression habituelle, et tout \u00e0 coup, tressaillant de joie, il\ns'\u00e9cria:\n\n\u00abQue vois-je? monsieur Walker!\n\n--Ha! reprit Sam, vous \u00eates bien content de me rencontrer, n'est-ce pas?\n\n--Content! s'\u00e9cria Job Trotter enchant\u00e9! Oh! monsieur Walker, si vous\nsaviez combien j'ai d\u00e9sir\u00e9 cette rencontre! Mais c'en est trop pour ma\nsensibilit\u00e9, monsieur Walker; je ne puis pas contenir ma joie; en v\u00e9rit\u00e9\nje ne le puis pas!\u00bb\n\nEn sanglotant ces paroles, M. Trotter r\u00e9pandit un v\u00e9ritable d\u00e9luge de\npleurs, et, jetant ses bras autour de ceux de Sam, il l'embrassa\n\u00e9troitement, avec un transport d'affection.\n\n\u00abA bas les pattes! lui cria Sam, grandement indign\u00e9 de cette conduite,\net s'effor\u00e7ant inutilement de se soustraire aux embrassements de son\nenthousiaste connaissance. A bas les pattes! vous dis-je. Pourquoi me\npleurez-vous comme \u00e7a sur le dos, pompe \u00e0 incendie?\n\n--Parce que je suis si content de vous voir, r\u00e9pliqua Job Trotter, en\nrel\u00e2chant Sam, \u00e0 mesure que les sympt\u00f4mes de son courroux diminuaient.\nAh! monsieur Walker, c'en est trop!\n\n--Trop? Je le crois bien! Voyons, qu'avez-vous \u00e0 me dire, eh?\u00bb\n\nM. Trotter ne fit pas de r\u00e9plique, car le petit mouchoir rouge \u00e9tait en\npleine activit\u00e9.\n\n\u00abQu'avez-vous \u00e0 me dire avant que je vous casse la t\u00eate? r\u00e9p\u00e9ta Sam\nd'une mani\u00e8re mena\u00e7ante.\n\n--Hein? fit M. Trotter d'un ton de vertueuse surprise.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que vous avez \u00e0 me dire?\n\n--Mais, monsieur Walker!...\n\n--Ne m'appelez pas Walker; je me nomme Weller, vous le savez bien.\nQu'est-ce que vous avez \u00e0 me dire?\n\n--Dieu vous b\u00e9nisse, monsieur Walker,... je veux dire Weller.... Bien\ndes choses, si vous voulez venir quelque part o\u00f9 nous puissions parler \u00e0\nnotre aise. Si vous saviez comme je vous ai cherch\u00e9, monsieur Weller!\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-soigneusement je suppose, reprit Sam, s\u00e8chement.\n\n--Oh! oui, monsieur, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9! affirma M. Trotter sans qu'on vit remuer\nun muscle de sa physionomie. Donnez-moi une poign\u00e9e de main, M. Weller.\u00bb\n\nSam consid\u00e9ra pendant quelques secondes son compagnon, et ensuite,\ncomme pouss\u00e9 par un soudain mouvement, il lui tendit la main.\n\n\u00abComment va votre bon cher ma\u00eetre, demanda Job \u00e0 Sam, tout en cheminant\navec lui. Oh! c'est un digne gentleman, monsieur Weller. J'esp\u00e8re qu'il\nn'a pas attrap\u00e9 de fra\u00eecheurs dans cette \u00e9pouvantable nuit.\u00bb\n\nUne expression momentan\u00e9e de malice \u00e9tincela dans l'oeil de Job, pendant\nqu'il pronon\u00e7ait ces paroles. Sam s'en aper\u00e7ut, et ressentit dans son\npoing ferm\u00e9 une violente d\u00e9mangeaison, mais il se contint et r\u00e9pondit\nsimplement que son ma\u00eetre se portait tr\u00e8s-bien.\n\n\u00abOh! que j'en suis content. Est-il ici?\n\n--Et le v\u00f4tre y est-il?\n\n--H\u00e9las! oui, il est ici. Et ce qui me peine \u00e0 dire, monsieur Weller,\nc'est qu'il s'y conduit plus mal que jamais.\n\n--Ah! ah!\n\n--Oh! \u00e7a fait fr\u00e9mir! c'est terrible!\n\n--Dans une pension de demoiselles?\n\n--Non! non! pas dans une pension, r\u00e9pliqua Job avec le m\u00eame regard\nmalicieux que Sam avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 remarqu\u00e9, pas dans une pension.\n\n--Dans la maison avec une porte verte? demanda Sam en regardant\nattentivement son compagnon.\n\n--Non! non! oh! non pas l\u00e0! r\u00e9pondit Job avec une vivacit\u00e9 qui ne lui\n\u00e9tait pas habituelle. Pas l\u00e0!\n\n--Que faisiez-vous l\u00e0 vous-m\u00eame? reprit Sam avec un regard per\u00e7ant. Vous\ny \u00eates entr\u00e9 par accident, peut-\u00eatre?\n\n--Voyez-vous, monsieur Weller, je ne regarde pas \u00e0 vous dire mes petits\nsecrets, parce que, comme vous savez, nous avons eu tant de go\u00fbt l'un\npour l'autre la premi\u00e8re fois que nous nous sommes rencontr\u00e9s. Vous vous\nrappelez la charmante matin\u00e9e que nous avons pass\u00e9e ensemble.\n\n--Eh! oui, r\u00e9pliqua Sam, je m'en souviens. Eh bien!\n\n--Eh bien! poursuivit Job avec grande pr\u00e9cision et du ton peu \u00e9lev\u00e9 d'un\nhomme qui communique un secret important. Dans cette maison \u00e0 la porte\nverte, monsieur Weller, il y a beaucoup de domestiques.\n\n--Je m'en doute bien, interrompit Sam.\n\n--Oui, et il y a une cuisini\u00e8re qui a \u00e9pargn\u00e9 quelque chose, monsieur\nWeller, et qui d\u00e9sire ouvrir une petite boutique d'\u00e9picerie, voyez-vous.\n\n--Oui d\u00e0?\n\n--Oui, monsieur Weller, h\u00e9 bien! monsieur, je l'ai rencontr\u00e9e \u00e0 une\npetite chapelle o\u00f9 je vais. Une bien jolie petite chapelle de cette\nville, monsieur Weller, o\u00f9 on chante ce recueil d'hymnes que je porte\nhabituellement sur moi et que vous avez peut-\u00eatre vu entre mes mains, et\nj'ai fait connaissance avec elle, monsieur Weller; et puis il s'est\n\u00e9tabli une petite intimit\u00e9, et je puis me hasarder \u00e0 dire que je compte\ndevenir l'\u00e9picier.\n\n--Ah! et vous ferez un tr\u00e8s-aimable \u00e9picier, r\u00e9pliqua Sam en examinant\nde c\u00f4t\u00e9 M. Trotter avec un profond d\u00e9go\u00fbt.\n\n--Le grand avantage de ceci, monsieur Weller, continua Job, dont les\nyeux se remplissaient de larmes; le grand avantage de ceci c'est que je\npourrai quitter le service d\u00e9shonorant de ce m\u00e9chant homme, et me\nd\u00e9vouer tout entier \u00e0 une vie meilleure et plus vertueuse. Une vie plus\nconforme \u00e0 la mani\u00e8re dont j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9lev\u00e9, monsieur Weller.\n\n--Vous devez avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 joliment \u00e9duqu\u00e9, hein?\n\n--Oh! avec un soin! avec un soin incroyable, monsieur Weller! et en se\nrappelant la puret\u00e9 de son enfance, M. Trotter tira de nouveau le\nmouchoir rose et pleura copieusement.\n\n--Qu'on devait \u00eatre heureux d'aller \u00e0 l'\u00e9cole avec un enfant aussi pieux\nque vous!\n\n--Je crois bien, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Job en poussant un profond soupir.\nJ'\u00e9tais l'idole de l'\u00e9cole.\n\n--Ah! \u00e7a ne m'\u00e9tonne pas. Quelle consolation vous deviez \u00eatre pour votre\nb\u00e9nite m\u00e8re!\u00bb\n\nEn entendant ces mots Job ins\u00e9ra un bout du mouchoir rose dans le coin\nde chacun de ses yeux, et recommen\u00e7a \u00e0 fondre en larmes.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce qu'il a maintenant, s'\u00e9cria Sam, rempli d'indignation. La\npompe \u00e0 feu n'est rien aupr\u00e8s de lui. Qu'est-ce qui vous fait fondre en\neau maintenant? La conscience de votre coquinerie, pas vrai?\n\n--Je ne puis pas mod\u00e9rer ma sensibilit\u00e9, monsieur Weller reprit Job\napr\u00e8s une courte pause. Quand je songe que mon ma\u00eetre a soup\u00e7onn\u00e9 la\nconversation que j'avais eue avec le v\u00f4tre, et qu'il m'a emmen\u00e9 en\nchaise de poste, apr\u00e8s avoir engag\u00e9 la jeune lady \u00e0 dire qu'elle ne le\nconnaissait pas et apr\u00e8s avoir gagn\u00e9 la ma\u00eetresse de pension! Ah!\nmonsieur Weller, cela me fait frissonner!\n\n--Ah! c'est comme \u00e7a que la chose s'est pass\u00e9e, hein?\n\n--Sans doute, r\u00e9pliqua Job.\u00bb\n\nTout en parlant ainsi les deux amis \u00e9taient arriv\u00e9s pr\u00e8s de l'h\u00f4tel.\nSam dit alors \u00e0 son compagnon: \u00abSi \u00e7a ne vous d\u00e9rangeait pas trop, Job,\nje voudrais bien vous voir au _Grand Cheval blanc_, ce soir, vers les\nhuit heures.\n\n--Je n'y manquerai pas.\n\n--Et vous ferez bien, reprit Sam avec un regard expressif. Autrement je\npourrais aller demander de vos nouvelles de l'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la porte\nverte; et alors \u00e7a pourrait vous nuire, vous voyez.\n\n--Je viendrai, sans faute, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta Job, et il s'\u00e9loigna apr\u00e8s avoir donn\u00e9\n\u00e0 Sam une chaleureuse poign\u00e9e de main.\n\n--Prends garde, Job Trotter, prends garde \u00e0 toi, dit Sam en le regardant\npartir; car je pourrais bien t'enfoncer, cette fois.\u00bb Ayant termin\u00e9 ce\nmonologue et suivi Job des yeux jusqu'au d\u00e9tour de la rue, Sam rentra et\nmonta \u00e0 la chambre de son ma\u00eetre.\n\n\u00abTout est en train, monsieur, lui dit-il.\n\n--Qu'est-ce qui est en train, Sam?...\n\n--Je les ai trouv\u00e9s, monsieur.\n\n--Trouv\u00e9 qui?\n\n--Votre bonne pratique, et le pleurnichard aux cheveux noirs.\n\n--Impossible! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick avec la plus grande \u00e9nergie. O\u00f9\nsont-ils, Sam! o\u00f9 sont-ils?\n\n--Chut! chut!\u00bb r\u00e9p\u00e9ta le fid\u00e8le valet, et tout en aidant son ma\u00eetre \u00e0\ns'habiller, il lui d\u00e9tailla le plan de campagne qu'il avait dress\u00e9.\n\n\u00abMais quand cela se fera-t-il, Sam?\n\n--Au bon moment, monsieur, au bon moment.\u00bb\n\nLe lecteur apprendra dans le subs\u00e9quent chapitre, si cela fut fait au\nbon moment.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XXIV.\n\nDans lequel M. Peter Magnus devient jaloux, et la dame d'un certain \u00e2ge,\ncraintive; ce qui jette les pickwickiens dans les griffes de la justice.\n\n\nQuand M. Pickwick descendit dans la chambre o\u00f9 il avait pass\u00e9 la soir\u00e9e\npr\u00e9c\u00e9dente avec M. Peter Magnus, il le trouva en train de se promener\ndans un \u00e9tat nerveux d'agitation et d'attente, et remarqua que ce\ngentleman avait dispos\u00e9, au plus grand avantage possible de sa personne,\nla majeure partie du contenu des deux sacs, du carton \u00e0 chapeau, et du\npaquet papier gris.\n\n\u00abBonjour, monsieur, dit M. Magnus. Comment trouvez-vous ceci, monsieur?\n\n--Tout \u00e0 fait meurtrier, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick en examinant avec un\nsourire de bonne humeur le costume du pr\u00e9tendant.\n\n--Oui, je pense que cela fera l'affaire, monsieur Pickwick; monsieur,\nj'ai envoy\u00e9 ma carte.\n\n--Vraiment!\n\n--Oui, et le gar\u00e7on est venu me dire qu'elle me recevrait \u00e0 onze heures.\nA onze heures, monsieur, et il ne s'en faut plus que d'un quart d'heure\nmaintenant.\u00bb\n\nAh! c'est bient\u00f4t!\n\n\u00abOui, c'est bient\u00f4t! Trop t\u00f4t, peut-\u00eatre, pour que ce soit agr\u00e9able. Eh!\nmonsieur Pickwick, monsieur.\n\n--La confiance en soi-m\u00eame est une grande chose dans ces cas l\u00e0.\n\n--Je le crois, monsieur. J'ai beaucoup de confiance en moi-m\u00eame.\nR\u00e9ellement, monsieur Pickwick, je ne vois pas pourquoi un homme\nsentirait la moindre crainte dans une circonstance semblable. Quoi de\nplus simple en somme, monsieur? il n'y a rien l\u00e0 de d\u00e9shonorant. C'est\nune affaire de convenances mutuelles, rien de plus. Mari d'un c\u00f4t\u00e9,\nfemme de l'autre. C'est l\u00e0 mon opinion de la mati\u00e8re, monsieur Pickwick.\n\n--Et c'est une opinion tr\u00e8s-philosophique. Mais le d\u00e9jeuner nous attend,\nmonsieur Magnus, allons.\u00bb\n\nIls s'assirent pour d\u00e9jeuner; cependant malgr\u00e9 les vanteries de M.\nMagnus, il \u00e9tait \u00e9vident qu'il se trouvait sous l'influence d'une grande\nagitation, dont les principaux sympt\u00f4mes \u00e9taient des essais lugubres de\nplaisanterie, la perte de l'app\u00e9tit, une propension \u00e0 renverser les\ntasses et la th\u00e9i\u00e8re, et une inclination irr\u00e9sistible \u00e0 regarder la\npendule, toutes les deux secondes.\n\n\u00abHi! hi! hi! balbutia-t-il en affectant de la gaiet\u00e9, mais en tremblant\nd'agitation; il ne s'en faut plus que de deux minutes, monsieur\nPickwick. Suis-je p\u00e2le, monsieur?\n\n--Pas trop.\u00bb\n\nIl y eut un court silence.\n\n\u00abJe vous demande pardon, monsieur Pickwick. Avez-vous jamais fait cette\nsorte de chose, dans votre temps?\n\n--Vous voulez dire une demande en mariage?\n\n--Oui.\n\n--Jamais! r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick avec grande \u00e9nergie, jamais!\n\n--Alors vous n'avez pas d'id\u00e9es sur la meilleure mani\u00e8re d'entrer en\nmati\u00e8re?\n\n--Eh! je puis avoir quelques id\u00e9es \u00e0 ce sujet; mais comme je ne les ai\njamais soumises \u00e0 la pierre de touche de l'exp\u00e9rience, je serais f\u00e2ch\u00e9\nsi vous vous en serviez pour r\u00e9gler votre conduite.\n\nM. Magnus jeta un autre coup d'oeil \u00e0 la pendule: l'aiguille marquait\ncinq minutes apr\u00e8s onze heures. Il se retourna vers M. Pickwick en lui\ndisant: \u00abMalgr\u00e9 cela, monsieur, je vous serai bien oblig\u00e9 de me donner\nun avis.\n\n--Eh bien! monsieur, r\u00e9pondit le savant homme avec la solennit\u00e9 profonde\nqui rendait ses remarques si impressives quand il jugeait qu'elles en\nvalaient la peine; je commencerais, monsieur, par payer un tribut \u00e0 la\nbeaut\u00e9 et aux excellentes qualit\u00e9s de la dame. De l\u00e0, monsieur, je\npasserais \u00e0 ma propre indignit\u00e9.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, s'\u00e9cria M. Magnus.\n\n--Indignit\u00e9, par rapport \u00e0 _elle_ seule, monsieur. Faites bien attention\n\u00e0 cela; car pour montrer que je ne serais pas _absolument_ indigne, je\nferais une courte revue de ma vie pass\u00e9e et de ma condition pr\u00e9sente:\nj'\u00e9tablirais, par analogie, que je serais un objet tr\u00e8s-d\u00e9sirable pour\ntoute autre personne. Ensuite je m'\u00e9tendrais sur la chaleur de mon\namour, et sur la profondeur de mon d\u00e9vouement. Peut-\u00eatre pourrais-je,\nalors, essayer de m'emparer de sa main.\n\n--Oui, je vois. Cela serait un grand point.\n\n--Ensuite, continua M. Pickwick, en s'\u00e9chauffant \u00e0 mesure que son sujet\nse pr\u00e9sentait devant lui sous des couleurs plus brillantes; ensuite j'en\nviendrais \u00e0 cette simple question: Voulez-vous de moi? Je crois pouvoir\nsupposer raisonnablement que la dame d\u00e9tournerait la t\u00eate....\n\n--Pensez-vous qu'on puisse prendre cela pour accord\u00e9? interrompit M.\nMagnus. Parce que, voyez-vous, si elle ne d\u00e9tournait pas la t\u00eate au\nmoment pr\u00e9cis, cela serait embarrassant.\n\n--Je crois qu'elle la d\u00e9tournerait \u00e0 ce moment-l\u00e0, monsieur; et\nl\u00e0-dessus je saisirais sa main, et je pense, _je pense_, monsieur\nMagnus, qu'apr\u00e8s avoir fait cela, supposant qu'elle n'e\u00fbt point prof\u00e9r\u00e9\nde refus, je retirerais doucement le mouchoir qu'elle aurait port\u00e9 \u00e0 ses\nyeux, si ma faible connaissance de la nature humaine ne me trompe point,\net je d\u00e9roberais un baiser respectueux: oui, je pense que je le\nd\u00e9roberais; et je suis convaincu que dans cet instant m\u00eame, si la dame\ndevait m'accepter, elle murmurerait \u00e0 mon oreille un pudique\nconsentement.\u00bb\n\nM. Magnus se leva de sa chaise, regarda pendant quelque temps M.\nPickwick en silence et avec un regard intelligent, puis il lui secoua\nchaleureusement la main et s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a, en d\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9, hors de la porte.\nL'aiguille de la pendule marquait onze heures dix minutes.\n\nM. Pickwick fit quelques tours dans la chambre, et l'aiguille suivant\nson exemple, \u00e9tait arriv\u00e9e \u00e0 la figure qui indique la demi-heure,\nlorsque la porte s'ouvrit soudainement. M. Pickwick se retourna pour\nf\u00e9liciter M. Magnus, mais \u00e0 sa place il aper\u00e7ut la joyeuse physionomie\nde M. Tupman, la figure guerri\u00e8re de M. Winkle, et les traits\nintellectuels de M. Snodgrass.\n\nPendant que M. Pickwick les complimentait, M. Peter Magnus se pr\u00e9cipita\ndans l'appartement.\n\n\u00abMes bons amis, dit le philosophe, voici le gentleman dont je vous\nparlais, M. Magnus.\n\n--Votre serviteur, messieurs, dit M. Magnus qui \u00e9tait \u00e9videmment dans un\n\u00e9tat d'exaltation. Monsieur Pickwick, permettez-moi de vous parler un\nmoment, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nEn pronon\u00e7ant ces mots M. Magnus insinua son index dans une des\nboutonni\u00e8res de M. Pickwick, et l'attirant dans l'ouverture d'une\nfen\u00eatre: \u00abF\u00e9licitez-moi, monsieur Pickwick; j'ai suivi votre avis \u00e0 la\nlettre.\n\n--\u00c9tait-il bon?\n\n--Oui, monsieur, il ne pouvait pas \u00eatre meilleur. Elle est \u00e0 moi,\nmonsieur Pickwick.\n\n--Je vous en f\u00e9licite de tout mon coeur, r\u00e9pondit le philosophe, en\nsecouant cordialement la main de sa nouvelle connaissance.\n\n--Il faut que vous la voyiez, monsieur. Par ici, s'il vous pla\u00eet.\nExcusez-nous pour un instant, messieurs.\u00bb En parlant ainsi l'amant\ntriomphant entra\u00eena rapidement M. Pickwick hors de la chambre, s'arr\u00eata\n\u00e0 la porte voisine dans le corridor, et y tapa doucement.\n\n\u00abEntrez,\u00bb dit une voix de femme.\n\nIls entr\u00e8rent.\n\n\u00abMiss Witherfield[26], dit M. Magnus, permettez-moi de vous pr\u00e9senter un\nde mes meilleurs amis, M. Pickwick.--Monsieur Pickwick, permettez-moi de\nvous pr\u00e9senter \u00e0 miss Witherfield.\u00bb\n\n[Footnote 26: En fran\u00e7ais: De champ sec.]\n\nLa dame \u00e9tait \u00e0 l'autre bout de la chambre. M. Pickwick la salua, et en\nm\u00eame temps, tirant adroitement ses lunettes de sa poche, il les ajusta\nsur son nez; mais \u00e0 peine les y avait-il pos\u00e9es qu'il poussa une\nexclamation de surprise, et recula plusieurs pas. La dame, de son c\u00f4t\u00e9,\njetait un cri involontaire, cachait son visage dans ses mains, et se\nlaissait tomber sur sa chaise; tandis que M. Peter Magnus, qui semblait\np\u00e9trifi\u00e9 sur la place, les contemplait tour \u00e0 tour avec une physionomie\nd\u00e9figur\u00e9e par un exc\u00e8s d'\u00e9tonnement et d'horreur.\n\nUn semblable coup de th\u00e9\u00e2tre para\u00eet inexplicable; mais le fait est que\nM. Pickwick, aussit\u00f4t qu'il avait mis ses lunettes, avait reconnu tout \u00e0\ncoup, dans la future Mme Magnus, la dame chez laquelle il s'\u00e9tait si\nodieusement introduit la nuit pr\u00e9c\u00e9dente; et qu'\u00e0 peine lesdites\nlunettes avaient-elles crois\u00e9 le nez de M. Pickwick, lorsque la dame\ns'aper\u00e7ut de l'identit\u00e9 de sa physionomie avec celle qu'elle avait vue,\nenvironn\u00e9e de toutes les horreurs d'un bonnet de coton. En cons\u00e9quence\nla dame cria et le philosophe tressaillit.\n\n\u00abMonsieur Pickwick, que signifie cela, monsieur? Dites-moi ce que\nsignifie cela, monsieur? s'\u00e9cria M. Magnus d'un ton de voix \u00e9lev\u00e9 et\nmena\u00e7ant.\n\n--Monsieur, je refuse de r\u00e9pondre \u00e0 cette question, r\u00e9pliqua M.\nPickwick, un peu \u00e9chauff\u00e9 par la mani\u00e8re soudaine dont M. Magnus l'avait\ninterrog\u00e9, au mode imp\u00e9ratif.\n\n--Vous le refusez, monsieur?\n\n--Oui, monsieur. Je ne consentirai pas, sans la permission de cette\ndame, \u00e0 dire quelque chose qui puisse la compromettre, ou r\u00e9veiller dans\nson sein de d\u00e9sagr\u00e9ables souvenirs.\n\n--Miss Witherfield, reprit M. Magnus, connaissez-vous monsieur?\n\n--Si je le connais? r\u00e9pondit en h\u00e9sitant la dame d'un certain \u00e2ge.\n\n--Oui, si vous le connaissez! Je demande si vous le connaissez? r\u00e9p\u00e9ta\nM. Magnus avec f\u00e9rocit\u00e9.\n\n--Je l'ai d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu, balbutia la dame.\n\n--O\u00f9? demanda M. Magnus, o\u00f9, madame?\n\n--Voil\u00e0, dit la dame en se levant et d\u00e9tournant la t\u00eate; voil\u00e0 ce que je\nne r\u00e9v\u00e9lerais pas pour un empire....\n\n--Je vous comprends, madame, interrompit M. Pickwick, et je respecte\nvotre d\u00e9licatesse. Cela ne sera jamais divulgu\u00e9 par moi. Vous pouvez y\ncompter.\n\n--Sur ma parole, madame! reprit M. Magnus, avec un amer ricanement, sur\nma parole, madame! vu la situation o\u00f9 je suis plac\u00e9 vis-\u00e0-vis de vous,\nvous vous conduisez, vis-\u00e0-vis de moi, avec assez de sang-froid, assez\nde sang-froid, madame!\n\n--Cruel monsieur Magnus!\u00bb balbutia la dame d'un certain \u00e2ge, et elle se\npr\u00eet \u00e0 pleurer abondamment.\n\nM. Pickwick s'interposa. \u00abAdressez-moi vos observations, monsieur. S'il\ny a quelqu'un de bl\u00e2mable ici, c'est moi seul.\n\n--Ah! c'est vous seul qui \u00eates bl\u00e2mable, monsieur! Je vois, je vois.\nOui, je comprends, monsieur. Vous vous repentez de votre d\u00e9termination,\nmaintenant.\n\n--Ma d\u00e9termination! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick.\n\n--Votre d\u00e9termination, monsieur. Oh! ne me regardez pas comme cela,\nmonsieur. Je me rappelle vos paroles d'hier au soir. Vous \u00eates venu ici\npour d\u00e9masquer la fausset\u00e9 et la trahison d'une personne, dans la bonne\nfoi de laquelle vous aviez plac\u00e9 une enti\u00e8re confiance. Eh! monsieur?\u00bb\nIci M. Peter Magnus se laissa aller \u00e0 un ricanement prolong\u00e9; puis \u00f4tant\nses lunettes bleues, qu'il jugea probablement superflues dans un acc\u00e8s\nde jalousie, il se mit \u00e0 rouler ses petits yeux d'une mani\u00e8re\neffrayante.\n\n\u00abEh? dit-il, sur nouveaux frais en r\u00e9p\u00e9tant son ricanement, avec un\neffet redoubl\u00e9. Mais vous m'en r\u00e9pondrez, monsieur!\n\n--De quoi r\u00e9pondrai-je? demanda M, Pickwick.\n\n--Ne vous inqui\u00e9tez pas, monsieur! vocif\u00e9ra M. Magnus en arpentant la\nchambre; ne vous inqui\u00e9tez pas!\u00bb\n\nIl faut que ces quatre mots aient une signification fort \u00e9tendue, car\nnous ne nous rappelons pas d'avoir jamais observ\u00e9 une querelle dans la\nrue, au spectacle, dans un bal public, ou ailleurs, dans laquelle cette\nphrase ne servit pas de r\u00e9ponse principale \u00e0 toutes les questions\nbelliqueuses. \u00abCroyez-vous \u00eatre un gentleman, monsieur? Ne vous\ninqui\u00e9tez pas, monsieur!--Est-ce que j'ai dit quelque chose \u00e0 la jeune\nfemme, monsieur? Ne vous inqui\u00e9tez pas, monsieur!--Avez-vous envie de\nvous faire casser les reins, monsieur? Ne vous inqui\u00e9tez pas, monsieur!\u00bb\nEn m\u00eame temps il faut observer qu'il semble y avoir une provocation\ncach\u00e9e dans cet universel _ne vous inqui\u00e9tez pas_; car il \u00e9veille dans\nle sein des individus auxquels il s'adresse plus de courroux qu'une\ngrave injure.\n\nNous ne pr\u00e9tendons pas cependant que l'application de cette expression \u00e0\nM. Pickwick remplit son \u00e2me de l'indignation qu'elle aurait\ninfailliblement excit\u00e9e dans un esprit vulgaire. Nous racontons\nsimplement le fait. En entendant ces mots, M. Pickwick ouvrit la porte\nde la chambre, et cria brusquement.\n\n\u00abTupman, venez ici!\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman arriva imm\u00e9diatement avec un air de consid\u00e9rable surprise.\n\n\u00abTupman, dit M. Pickwick, un secret de quelque d\u00e9licatesse et qui\nconcerne cette dame est la cause d'un diff\u00e9rend qui vient de s'\u00e9lever\nentre ce gentleman et moi-m\u00eame. Mais je l'assure, devant vous, que ce\nsecret n'a aucune relation avec lui-m\u00eame, ni aucun rapport avec ses\naffaires. Apr\u00e8s cela je n'ai pas besoin de vous faire remarquer que s'il\ncontinuait \u00e0 en douter, il douterait en m\u00eame temps de ma v\u00e9racit\u00e9, ce\nque je consid\u00e9rerais comme une insulte personnelle.\u00bb\n\nA ces mots, le philosophe lan\u00e7a \u00e0 M.P. Magnus un regard qui renfermait\ntoute une encyclop\u00e9die de menaces.\n\nLa figure honorable et assur\u00e9e de M. Pickwick, jointe \u00e0 la force, \u00e0\nl'\u00e9nergie du langage qui le distinguaient si \u00e9minemment, auraient port\u00e9\nla conviction dans tout esprit raisonnable; mais malheureusement, dans\nl'instant en question, l'esprit de M. Peter Magnus n'\u00e9tait nullement\ndans un \u00e9tat raisonnable. Au lieu donc de recevoir, d'une mani\u00e8re\nconvenable l'explication du philosophe, il proc\u00e9da imm\u00e9diatement \u00e0 se\nmonter sur un diapason d\u00e9vorant de col\u00e8re et de menaces, parlant avec\nrage de ce qui \u00e9tait d\u00fb \u00e0 sa d\u00e9licatesse, \u00e0 sa sensibilit\u00e9, et donnant\nde la force \u00e0 ses d\u00e9clamations en marchant furieusement \u00e0 travers la\nchambre, et en arrachant ses cheveux; amusement qu'il interrompait\nquelquefois pour agiter son poing sous le nez philanthropique de M.\nPickwick.\n\nCependant, fort de sa rectitude et de son innocence, contrari\u00e9 d'avoir\nmalheureusement embarrass\u00e9 la dame d'un certain \u00e2ge, dans une affaire\naussi d\u00e9sagr\u00e9able, M. Pickwick, \u00e0 son tour, \u00e9tait dans une disposition\nmoins paisible qu'\u00e0 son ordinaire. En cons\u00e9quence, on parla plus\nvivement; on se servit de plus gros mots, et \u00e0 la fin, M. Magnus dit \u00e0\nM. Pickwick qu'il aurait bient\u00f4t de ses nouvelles. M. Pickwick, avec une\npolitesse digne de louange, lui r\u00e9pondit que le plus t\u00f4t serait le\nmieux. A ces mots la dame d'un certain \u00e2ge se pr\u00e9cipita en pleurant hors\nde la chambre, et M. Tupman entra\u00eena son savant ami, abandonnant le\npr\u00e9tendu d\u00e9sappoint\u00e9 \u00e0 ses sombres m\u00e9ditations.\n\nSi la dame d'un certain \u00e2ge avait v\u00e9cu dans la soci\u00e9t\u00e9, ou si elle avait\ntant soit peu connu les coutumes et les mani\u00e8res de ceux qui font les\nlois et \u00e9tablissent les modes, elle aurait su que cette esp\u00e8ce de\nf\u00e9rocit\u00e9 est la chose du monde la plus innocente. Mais elle avait\nprincipalement habit\u00e9 la province, n'avait jamais lu les d\u00e9bats\nparlementaires, et \u00e9tait peu vers\u00e9e, par cons\u00e9quent, dans le code\nd'honneur raffin\u00e9 des nations civilis\u00e9es. Aussit\u00f4t donc qu'elle eut\ngagn\u00e9 sa chambre \u00e0 coucher et soigneusement verrouill\u00e9 sa porte, elle\ncommen\u00e7a \u00e0 m\u00e9diter sur les sc\u00e8nes dont elle venait d'\u00eatre t\u00e9moin. Des\nid\u00e9es de massacre et de carnage se pr\u00e9sent\u00e8rent \u00e0 son imagination, et,\ndans cette fantasmagorie, le tableau le moins sanglant repr\u00e9sentait M.\nPeter Magnus, enrichi d'une livre de plomb dans le c\u00f4t\u00e9 gauche, et\nrapport\u00e9 \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel sur un brancard. Plus la dame d'un certain \u00e2ge\nm\u00e9ditait, plus elle \u00e9tait \u00e9pouvant\u00e9e, et \u00e0 la fin elle se d\u00e9termina \u00e0\naller trouver le principal magistrat de la ville, et \u00e0 le requ\u00e9rir de\nfaire empoigner sans d\u00e9lai M. Pickwick et M. Tupman.\n\nLa dame d'un certain \u00e2ge fut pouss\u00e9e \u00e0 prendre ce parti par un grand\nnombre de consid\u00e9rations; mais la principale \u00e9tait la preuve\nincontestable qu'elle donnerait ainsi \u00e0 M. Peter Magnus du d\u00e9vouement\nqu'elle lui avait vou\u00e9, de l'anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 qu'elle ressentait pour le salut\nde sa personne. Elle connaissait trop bien la jalousie de son\ntemp\u00e9rament, pour s'aventurer \u00e0 faire la plus l\u00e9g\u00e8re allusion \u00e0 la cause\nr\u00e9elle de son agitation, en voyant M. Pickwick, et elle se fiait \u00e0 son\ninfluence et \u00e0 ses moyens de persuasion, pour apaiser le petit homme,\npourvu que l'objet de ses soup\u00e7ons f\u00fbt \u00e9loign\u00e9, et qu'il ne s'\u00e9lev\u00e2t\nplus de nouvelles occasions de querelles. La t\u00eate remplie de ces\nr\u00e9flexions, elle ajusta son chapeau et son ch\u00e2le, et se rendit en droite\nligne au domicile du maire.\n\nOr, George Nupkins, esquire, maire de la ville d'Ipswich, \u00e9tait un grand\npersonnage; si grand qu'un bon marcheur pourrait \u00e0 peine en rencontrer\nun semblable entre le lever et le coucher du soleil, m\u00eame le 21 juin,\njour qui lui offrirait naturellement le plus de chances pour cette\nrecherche, puisque, suivant tous les almanachs, c'est le plus long jour\nde l'ann\u00e9e. Dans la matin\u00e9e en question, M. Nupkins se trouvait dans un\n\u00e9tat d'irritation extr\u00eame, car il y avait eu une r\u00e9bellion dans la\nville. Tous les externes de la plus grande \u00e9cole avaient conspir\u00e9 pour\nbriser les carreaux d'une marchande de pommes qui leur d\u00e9plaisait; ils\navaient hu\u00e9 le bedeau; ils avaient jet\u00e9 des pierres \u00e0 la police charg\u00e9e\nde comprimer l'\u00e9meute, et repr\u00e9sent\u00e9e par un bonhomme en bottes \u00e0\nrevers, qui remplissait ses fonctions depuis au moins un quart de\nsi\u00e8cle. M. Nupkins \u00e9tait donc assis dans sa berg\u00e8re, fron\u00e7ant\nmajestueusement ses sourcils et bouillant de rage, lorsqu'une dame fut\nannonc\u00e9e pour une affaire pressante, importante, particuli\u00e8re. M.\nNupkins, prenant un air calme et terrible, donna ordre d'introduire la\ndame, et cet ordre, comme tous ceux des magistrats, des empereurs et des\nautres puissances de la terre, ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 imm\u00e9diatement ex\u00e9cut\u00e9, miss\nWitherfield, dont l'agitation \u00e9tait visible et int\u00e9ressante, se pr\u00e9senta\ndevant le grand homme.\n\n\u00abMuzzle! dit le magistrat.\u00bb\n\nMuzzle \u00e9tait un domestique rabougri, dont le coffre \u00e9tait long, les\njambes courtes.\n\n\u00abMuzzle!\n\n--Oui, Votre Honneur.\n\n--Donnez un fauteuil, et quittez la chambre.\n\n--Oui, Votre V\u00e9n\u00e9ration.\n\n--Maintenant, madame, voulez-vous exposer votre affaire.\n\n--Elle est d'une nature tr\u00e8s-p\u00e9nible, monsieur.\n\n--Je ne dis pas le contraire, madame. Calmez-vous madame, (Ici M.\nNupkins prit un air de douceur.) Et dites-moi quelle affaire l\u00e9gale\nvous am\u00e8ne devant moi, madame. (Ici le magistrat reprit le dessus et M.\nNupkins se donna un air s\u00e9v\u00e8re et grandiose.)\n\n--Il est fort affligeant pour moi, monsieur, de vous faire cette\nd\u00e9nonciation. Mais je crains bien qu'il n'y ait un duel ici.\n\n--Ici, madame?--O\u00f9 madame?\n\n--Dans Ipswich.\n\n--Dans Ipswich! madame. Un duel dans Ipswich! s'\u00e9cria le magistrat\nparfaitement stup\u00e9fait \u00e0 cette seule id\u00e9e. Impossible, madame! Rien de\nla sorte ne peut arriver dans cette ville; j'en suis persuad\u00e9. Dieu du\nciel! madame, connaissez-vous l'activit\u00e9 de notre magistrature locale?\nN'avez-vous pas entendu dire, madame, que le quatre mai pass\u00e9, suivi\nseulement par soixante constables sp\u00e9ciaux, je me pr\u00e9cipitai entre deux\nboxeurs, et qu'au risque d'\u00eatre sacrifi\u00e9 aux passions furieuses d'une\nmultitude irrit\u00e9e, j'emp\u00eachai une rencontre pugilastique entre le\nchampion de Middlesex et celui de Suffolk. Un duel dans Ipswich, madame!\nJe ne le pense pas. Non, je ne pense pas qu'il puisse y avoir deux\nmortels assez audacieux pour projeter un tel attentat dans cette ville.\n\n--Ce que j'ai l'honneur de vous dire n'est malheureusement que trop\nexact, reprit la dame d'un certain \u00e2ge. J'\u00e9tais pr\u00e9sente \u00e0 la querelle.\n\n--C'est la chose la plus extraordinaire! s'\u00e9cria le magistrat \u00e9tonn\u00e9.\nMuzzle!\n\n--Oui, Votre V\u00e9n\u00e9ration.\n\n--Envoyez-moi M. Jinks, sur-le-champ, \u00e0 l'instant m\u00eame.\n\n--Oui, Votre V\u00e9n\u00e9ration.\u00bb\n\nMuzzle se retira, et bient\u00f4t on vit entrer dans la chambre un clerc\nd'\u00e2ge raisonnable, mal v\u00eatu, et \u00e9videmment mal nourri, comme\nl'annon\u00e7aient son visage p\u00e2le et son nez aigu.\n\n--Monsieur Jinks, dit le magistrat, monsieur Jinks.\n\n--Monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Jinks.\n\n--Cette dame est venue ici pour nous informer d'un duel qui doit avoir\nlieu dans cette ville.\u00bb\n\nM. Jinks, ne sachant pas exactement que dire, sourit d'un sourire\nd'inf\u00e9rieur.\n\n\u00abDe quoi riez-vous, monsieur Jinks?\u00bb demanda le magistrat.\n\nM. Jinks prit \u00e0 l'instant un air s\u00e9rieux.\n\n\u00abMonsieur Jinks, poursuivit le magistrat, vous \u00eates un sot, monsieur.\n(M. Jinks regarda humblement le grand homme, et mordit le haut de sa\nplume.) Vous pouvez voir quelque chose de tr\u00e8s-comique dans cette\ninformation, monsieur; mais je vous dirai, monsieur Jinks, que vous avez\ntr\u00e8s-peu de raisons de rire.\u00bb\n\nLe clerc \u00e0 l'air affam\u00e9 soupira, comme un homme convaincu qu'il avait en\neffet fort peu de motifs d'\u00eatre gai. Puis, ayant re\u00e7u l'ordre de noter\nla d\u00e9position de la dame, il se glissa jusqu'\u00e0 son si\u00e9ge, et se mit \u00e0\n\u00e9crire.\n\n\u00abCe Pickwick est le principal, \u00e0 ce que j'entends, dit le magistrat,\nlorsque la d\u00e9claration fut termin\u00e9e.\n\n--Oui, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit la dame d'un certain \u00e2ge.\n\n--Et l'autre perturbateur? Quel est son nom, monsieur Jinks?\n\n--Tupman, monsieur.\n\n--Tupman est le t\u00e9moin, madame?\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--L'autre combattant a quitt\u00e9 la ville, dites-vous, madame?\n\n--Oui, r\u00e9pondit miss Witherfield avec une petite toux.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien. Ce sont deux coupe-jarrets de Londres, qui sont venus ici\npour d\u00e9truire la population de Sa Majest\u00e9, pensant que le bras de la loi\nest faible et paralys\u00e9 \u00e0 cette distance de la capitale. Mais nous en\nferons un exemple. Exp\u00e9diez le mandat d'amener, monsieur Jinks.\nMuzzle!...\n\n--Oui, Votre V\u00e9n\u00e9ration.\n\n--Grummer est-il en bas?\n\n--Oui, Votre V\u00e9n\u00e9ration.\n\n--Envoyez-le ici.\u00bb\n\nL'obs\u00e9quieux Muzzle se retira et revint presque imm\u00e9diatement avec le\nrepr\u00e9sentant de l'autorit\u00e9, constable depuis son enfance, et qui \u00e9tait\nprincipalement remarquable par son nez vineux, sa voix enrou\u00e9e, son\nhabit couleur de tabac, ses bottes \u00e0 revers et son regard errant.\n\n\u00abGrummer! dit le magistrat.\n\n--Votre Vin-\u00e0-ration.\n\n--La ville est-elle tranquille maintenant?\n\n--Pas mal, Votre Vin-\u00e0-ration; la populace s'est apais\u00e9e par cons\u00e9quent\nque les gar\u00e7ons s'en est all\u00e9 jouer \u00e0 la crosse.\n\n--Grummer, reprit le magistrat d'un air d\u00e9termin\u00e9; dans un temps comme\ncelui-ci, il n'y a que des mesures vigoureuses qui puissent r\u00e9ussir. Si\nl'on m\u00e9prise l'autorit\u00e9 des officiers du roi, il faut faire lire le\n_riot-act_[27]. Si le pouvoir civil ne peut pas prot\u00e9ger les fen\u00eatres,\nil faut que le militaire prot\u00e8ge le pouvoir civil et les fen\u00eatres aussi.\nJe pense que c'est une maxime de la constitution, monsieur Jinks?\n\n[Footnote 27: Sommation pour inviter la foule \u00e0 se disperser.]\n\n--Certainement, monsieur.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, dit le magistrat en signant le mandat d'amener. Grummer,\nvous ferez compara\u00eetre ces personnes devant nous cette apr\u00e8s-midi; vous\nles trouverez au _Grand Cheval blanc_. Vous vous rappelez l'affaire des\nchampions de Middlesex et de Suffolk, Grummer?\u00bb\n\nM. Grummer exprima par une secousse de sa t\u00eate qu'il ne l'oublierait\njamais; ce qui, en effet, n'\u00e9tait gu\u00e8re probable, aussi longtemps\nsurtout que cette affaire continuerait \u00e0 lui \u00eatre cit\u00e9e tous les jours.\n\n\u00abCeci, poursuivit le magistrat, est peut-\u00eatre encore plus\ninconstitutionnel. C'est une plus grande violation de la paix; c'est une\nplus grave atteinte aux pr\u00e9rogatives de Sa Majest\u00e9. Je pense que le duel\nest un des privil\u00e8ges les plus incontestables de Sa Majest\u00e9, monsieur\nJinks.\n\n--Express\u00e9ment stipul\u00e9 dans la _magna Charta_, monsieur.\n\n--Un des plus beaux joyaux de la couronne, arrach\u00e9 \u00e0 Sa Majest\u00e9 par\nl'union politique des barons..., n'est-ce pas, monsieur Jinks?\n\n--Justement, monsieur.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, continua le magistrat en se redressant avec orgueil. Cette\npr\u00e9rogative royale ne sera pas viol\u00e9e dans cette portion des domaines de\nSa Majest\u00e9. Grummer, procurez-vous du secours, et ex\u00e9cutez ce mandat\navec le moins de d\u00e9lai possible. Muzzle.\n\n--Oui, Votre V\u00e9n\u00e9ration....\n\n--Reconduisez cette dame.\u00bb\n\nMiss Witherfield se retira, profond\u00e9ment impressionn\u00e9e par la science et\npar la dignit\u00e9 du magistrat. M. Nupkins se retira pour d\u00e9jeuner. M.\nJinks se retira en lui-m\u00eame, car c'\u00e9tait le seul endroit o\u00f9 il p\u00fbt se\nretirer; si l'on excepte le lit-sofa du petit parloir, qui \u00e9tait occup\u00e9\npendant le jour par la famille de son h\u00f4tesse. Enfin M. Grummer se\nretira pour laver, par la mani\u00e8re dont il ex\u00e9cuterait sa pr\u00e9sente\ncommission, l'insulte qui \u00e9tait tomb\u00e9e dans la matin\u00e9e sur lui-m\u00eame et\nsur l'autre repr\u00e9sentant de Sa Majest\u00e9, le bedeau.\n\nTandis que l'on faisait des pr\u00e9paratifs si formidables pour conserver\nla paix du roi, M. Pickwick et ses amis, tout \u00e0 fait ignorants des\nprodigieux \u00e9v\u00e9nements qui se machinaient, \u00e9taient tranquillement assis\nautour d'un excellent d\u00eener. La bonne humeur la plus expansive r\u00e9gnait\ndans leur petite r\u00e9union. M. Pickwick \u00e9tait pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment en train de\nraconter, au grand amusement de ses sectateurs, et principalement de M.\nTupman, ses aventures de la nuit pr\u00e9c\u00e9dente, lorsque la porte s'ouvrit,\net laissa voir une physionomie assez r\u00e9barbative qui s'allongea dans la\nchambre. Les yeux de la physionomie r\u00e9barbative se fix\u00e8rent\nattentivement sur M. Pickwick pendant quelques secondes, et ils furent\napparemment satisfaits de leur investigation, car le corps auquel\nappartenait la physionomie r\u00e9barbative s'introduisit lentement dans\nl'appartement, sous la forme d'un individu en bottes \u00e0 revers. Enfin,\npour ne pas tenir plus longtemps le lecteur en suspens, ces yeux \u00e9taient\nles yeux errants de M. Grummer, et ce corps \u00e9tait le corps du susdit\ngentleman.\n\nM. Grummer proc\u00e9da d'une mani\u00e8re l\u00e9gale, mais particuli\u00e8re. Son premier\nacte fut de verrouiller la porte \u00e0 l'int\u00e9rieur; le second, de polir\ntr\u00e8s-soigneusement sa t\u00eate et son visage avec un mouchoir de coton; le\ntroisi\u00e8me, de placer son mouchoir de coton dans son chapeau, et son\nchapeau sur la chaise la plus proche; et le quatri\u00e8me enfin, de tirer de\nsa poche un gros b\u00e2ton court, surmont\u00e9 d'une couronne de cuivre, avec\nlaquelle il fit signe \u00e0 M. Pickwick aussi gravement que la statue du\ncommandeur.\n\nM. Snodgrass fut le premier \u00e0 rompre le silence d'\u00e9tonnement qui r\u00e9gnait\ndans la chambre. Durant quelques minutes, il regarda fixement M. Grummer\net dit ensuite avec force: \u00abCeci est une chambre particuli\u00e8re, monsieur!\nune chambre particuli\u00e8re!\u00bb\n\nM. Grummer secoua la t\u00eate et r\u00e9pondit: \u00abIl n'y a point de chambres\nparticuli\u00e8res pour Sa Majest\u00e9, quand une fois la porte de la rue est\npass\u00e9e; v'l\u00e0 la loi. Y en a qui disent que la maison d'un Anglais, c'est\nsa forteresse; eh bien! ceux-l\u00e0 disent une b\u00eatise.\u00bb\n\nLes pickwickiens \u00e9chang\u00e8rent entre eux des coups d'oeil \u00e9tonn\u00e9s.\n\n\u00abLequel c'est-il qu'est M. Tupman?\u00bb demanda M. Grummer. Il avait reconnu\nM. Pickwick du premier coup par une perception intuitive.\n\n--Mon nom est Tupman, dit ce gentleman.\n\n--Mon nom est la loi, reprit M. Grummer.\n\n--Quoi? demanda M. Tupman.\n\n--La loi, r\u00e9pliqua M. Grummer. La loi, le pouvoir incivil et \u00e9s\u00e9cutif,\nc'est mon titre, et v'l\u00e0 mon autorit\u00e9. \u00abTupman (nom de bapt\u00eame en\nblanc); Pickwick (idem): contre la paix de notre seigneur le roi, vu les\nestatuts et ordonnances....\u00bb C'est en r\u00e8gle, vous voyez! je vous\nempoigne les susdits Pickwick et Tupman.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que signifie cette insolence? s'\u00e9cria M. Tupman en se\nlevant. Quittez cette chambre! sortez sur-le-champ!\n\n--Oh\u00e9! cria M. Grummer en se retirant rapidement vers la porte et en\nl'entre-b\u00e2illant, Dubbley!\n\n--Voil\u00e0! dit une voix grave dans le corridor.\n\nAu m\u00eame instant, un homme qui avait pr\u00e8s de six pieds de haut et une\ngrosseur proportionn\u00e9e se fourra dans la porte entr'ouverte, avec des\nefforts qui rendirent tout rouge son visage malpropre, et entra dans\nl'appartement.\n\n\u00abDubbley, dit M. Grummer, les autres constables sp\u00e9cial est-il dehors?\u00bb\n\nEn homme laconique, M. Dubbley ne r\u00e9pondit que par un signe affirmatif.\n\n\u00abFaites entrer la division qu'est sous vos ordres, Dubbley.\u00bb\n\nM. Dubbley ob\u00e9it, et une demi-douzaine d'hommes, porteurs de gros b\u00e2tons\ncourts, avec une couronne de cuivre, se pr\u00e9cipit\u00e8rent dans la chambre.\nM. Grummer empocha son b\u00e2ton, et regarda M. Dubbley; M. Dubbley empocha\nson b\u00e2ton, et regarda la division; la division empocha ses b\u00e2tons, et\nregarda MM. Tupman et Pickwick.\n\nLe philosophe et ses partisans se lev\u00e8rent comme un seul homme.\n\n\u00abQue signifie cette violation atroce de mon domicile, s'\u00e9cria M.\nPickwick?\n\n--Qui oserait m'arr\u00eater? demanda M. Tupman.\n\n--Que venez-vous faire ici, coquins? murmura M. Snodgrass.\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle ne dit rien, mais il fixa ses yeux sur Grummer avec un regard\nqui lui aurait perc\u00e9 la cervelle et serait ressorti de l'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9, si\nle constable n'avait pas eu la t\u00eate plus dure que du fer; mais, \u00e0 cause\nde cette circonstance, le regard de M. Winkle n'eut sur lui aucun effet\nvisible quelconque.\n\nQuand les ex\u00e9cutifs s'aper\u00e7urent que M. Pickwick et ses amis \u00e9taient\ndispos\u00e9s \u00e0 r\u00e9sister \u00e0 l'autorit\u00e9 de la loi, ils relev\u00e8rent les manches\nde leurs habits d'une mani\u00e8re tr\u00e8s-significative, comme si c'\u00e9tait une\nchose toute simple, un acte purement professionnel, de jeter les\nd\u00e9linquants par terre, pour les ramasser ensuite et les emporter. Cette\nd\u00e9monstration ne fut pas perdue pour M. Pickwick. Il conf\u00e9ra \u00e0 part\npendant quelques instants avec M. Tupman, et d\u00e9clara ensuite qu'il \u00e9tait\npr\u00eat \u00e0 se rendre \u00e0 la r\u00e9sidence du maire, ajoutant seulement qu'il\nprenait \u00e0 t\u00e9moin tous les citoyens pr\u00e9sents de cette monstrueuse\natteinte aux privil\u00e8ges d'un anglais, et de son engagement solennel de\ns'en faire rendre raison aussit\u00f4t qu'il serait en libert\u00e9. A cette\nd\u00e9claration, tous les _citoyens_ pr\u00e9sents \u00e9clat\u00e8rent de rire, except\u00e9\ncependant M. Grummer, qui paraissait consid\u00e9rer comme une esp\u00e8ce de\nblasph\u00e8me intol\u00e9rable la moindre r\u00e9flexion sur le droit divin des\nmagistrats.\n\nMais lorsque M. Pickwick eut d\u00e9clar\u00e9 qu'il \u00e9tait pr\u00eat \u00e0 ob\u00e9ir aux lois\nde son pays, et justement lorsque les gar\u00e7ons, les palefreniers, les\nservantes et les postillons, que sa r\u00e9sistance avait flatt\u00e9s d'un\ncharmant spectacle, commen\u00e7aient \u00e0 se retirer avec d\u00e9sappointement, une\nautre difficult\u00e9 s'\u00e9leva qui mena\u00e7a le _Grand Cheval blanc_ d'une\nconfusion nouvelle. Malgr\u00e9 ses sentiments de v\u00e9n\u00e9ration pour les\nautorit\u00e9s constitu\u00e9es, M. Pickwick refusa r\u00e9solument de para\u00eetre dans la\nrue, entour\u00e9, comme un malfaiteur, par les officiers de la justice. Dans\nl'\u00e9tat incertain de l'opinion publique (car c'\u00e9tait presque f\u00eate, et les\n\u00e9coliers n'\u00e9taient pas encore rentr\u00e9s chez eux), M. Grummer refusa tout\naussi r\u00e9solument de marcher avec sa suite d'un c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la rue, et\nd'accepter la parole de M. Pickwick qu'il suivrait l'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9 pour se\nrendre directement chez le magistrat. Enfin, M. Pickwick et M. Tupman se\nrefus\u00e8rent vigoureusement \u00e0 faire la d\u00e9pense d'une chaise de poste, ce\nqui \u00e9tait le seul moyen de transport respectable qu'on p\u00fbt se procurer.\nLa dispute dura longtemps et sur une clef tr\u00e8s-haute. Enfin, M.\nPickwick, continuant de refuser de se rendre \u00e0 pied chez le magistrat,\nles ex\u00e9cutifs \u00e9taient sur le point de recourir \u00e0 l'exp\u00e9dient bien simple\nde l'y porter, lorsque quelqu'un se rappela qu'il y avait dans la cour\nune vieille chaise \u00e0 porteurs, construite originairement pour un gros\nrentier goutteux, et qui par cons\u00e9quent devait contenir les deux\ncoupables aussi commod\u00e9ment, pour le moins, qu'un cabriolet moderne. La\nchaise fut donc lou\u00e9e et apport\u00e9e dans la salle d'en bas; M. Pickwick\net M. Tupman s'insinu\u00e8rent dans l'int\u00e9rieur, et baiss\u00e8rent les stores;\nune couple de porteurs fut facilement trouv\u00e9e; enfin, la procession se\nmit en marche dans le plus grand ordre. Les constables sp\u00e9ciaux\nentouraient le char; M. Grummer et M. Dubbley s'avan\u00e7aient\ntriomphalement en t\u00eate; M. Snodgrass et M. Winkle marchaient bras\ndessus, bras dessous, par derri\u00e8re, et les malpeign\u00e9s d'Ipswich\nformaient l'arri\u00e8re-garde.\n\nLes boutiquiers de la ville, quoiqu'ils n'eussent qu'une id\u00e9e fort\nindistincte de la nature de l'offense, ne pouvaient s'emp\u00eacher d'\u00eatre\ntout \u00e0 fait \u00e9difi\u00e9s et r\u00e9jouis par ce spectacle. Ils reconnaissaient le\nbras infatigable de la loi, qui \u00e9tait descendu, avec la force de vingt\npresses hydrauliques, sur deux coupables de la m\u00e9tropole elle-m\u00eame.\nCette puissante machine, mise en mouvement par leur propre magistrat, et\ndirig\u00e9e par leurs propres officiers, avait comprim\u00e9 les deux malfaiteurs\ndans l'\u00e9troite enceinte d'une chaise \u00e0 porteurs. Nombreuses furent les\nexpressions d'admiration qui salu\u00e8rent M. Grummer pendant qu'il\nconduisait le cort\u00e8ge, son b\u00e2ton de commandement \u00e0 la main; bruyantes et\nprolong\u00e9es \u00e9taient les acclamations des malpeign\u00e9s; et parmi ces\nt\u00e9moignages unanimes de l'approbation publique, la procession s'avan\u00e7ait\nlentement et majestueusement.\n\nSam Weller, v\u00eatu de sa jaquette du matin et avec ses manches de calicot\nnoir, s'en revenait d'assez mauvaise humeur, car il avait inutilement\nexamin\u00e9 la myst\u00e9rieuse maison \u00e0 la porte verte, lorsqu'il aper\u00e7ut, en\nlevant les yeux, un flot de populaire qui s'avan\u00e7ait autour d'un objet\nressemblant fort \u00e0 une chaise \u00e0 porteur. Charm\u00e9 de trouver une\ndistraction \u00e0 son d\u00e9sappointement, il se rangea pour laisser passer les\nmalpeign\u00e9s, et voyant qu'ils applaudissaient en chemin, \u00e0 leur grande\nsatisfaction apparente, il commen\u00e7a imm\u00e9diatement (par pur d\u00e9soeuvrement)\n\u00e0 applaudir aussi de toutes ses forces et de tous ses poumons.\n\nM. Grummer passa, et M. Dubbley passa, et la chaise \u00e0 porteurs passa, et\nles gardes du corps sp\u00e9ciaux pass\u00e8rent, et Sam r\u00e9pondait toujours aux\nacclamations enthousiastes de la populace, en agitant son chapeau\nau-dessus de sa t\u00eate, comme s'il e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 entra\u00een\u00e9 par la joie la plus\nvive, quoique, bien entendu, il n'e\u00fbt pas la plus l\u00e9g\u00e8re id\u00e9e de ce\nqu'il applaudissait. Tout \u00e0 coup il resta immobile, en voyant\ninopin\u00e9ment appara\u00eetre MM. Winkle et Snodgrass.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce qu'est arriv\u00e9, gentlemen? demanda Sam. Qu'est-ce qu'ils ont\npinc\u00e9 dans cette gu\u00e9rite en deuil?\u00bb\n\nLes deux amis r\u00e9pondirent ensemble: mais leurs paroles \u00e9taient domin\u00e9es\npar le tumulte.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce qu'est dedans?\u00bb cria Sam de nouveau.\n\nUne seconde r\u00e9plique lui fut donn\u00e9e en commun, et quoiqu'il n'en p\u00fbt\ndistinguer les paroles, il vit par le mouvement des deux paires de\nl\u00e8vres qu'elles avaient prononc\u00e9 le mot magique: _Pickwick_.\n\nC'en est assez; en une minute l'h\u00e9ro\u00efque valet s'ouvre un chemin \u00e0\ntravers la foule, arr\u00eate les porteurs, et vient affronter le majestueux\nGrummer.\n\n\u00abOh\u00e9! vieux gentleman, lui dit-il; qu'est-ce que vous avez coffr\u00e9 dans\ncette bo\u00eete ici?\n\n--Gare de del\u00e0! s'\u00e9cria avec emphase M. Grummer, dont l'importance,\ncomme celle de beaucoup d'autres grands hommes, \u00e9tait singuli\u00e8rement\nenfl\u00e9e par le vent de la popularit\u00e9.\n\n--Faites-y prendre un billet de parterre, cria M. Dubbley.\n\n--Je vous suis fort oblig\u00e9 pour votre politesse, vieux gentleman, reprit\nSam; et je suis encore plus oblig\u00e9 \u00e0 l'autre gentleman qui a l'air\n\u00e9chapp\u00e9 d'une caravane de g\u00e9ants, pour son agr\u00e9able avis; mais\nj'aimerais mieux que vous r\u00e9pondissiez \u00e0 ma question, si \u00e7a vous est\n\u00e9gal.--Comment vous portez-vous, monsieur?\u00bb Cette derni\u00e8re phrase \u00e9tait\nadress\u00e9e, d'un air protecteur, \u00e0 M. Pickwick, dont les lunettes \u00e9taient\nperceptibles entre les stores et le ch\u00e2ssis inf\u00e9rieur de la porti\u00e8re de\nla chaise.\n\nM. Grummer, que l'indignation avait rendu muet, agita devant les yeux de\nSam son gros b\u00e2ton, orn\u00e9 d'une couronne de cuivre.\n\n\u00abAh! dit celui-ci, c'est fort gentil; sp\u00e9cialement la couronne, qui est\nherm\u00e9tiquement pareille \u00e0 la v\u00e9ritable.\n\n--Gare de del\u00e0!\u00bb vocif\u00e9ra de nouveau le fonctionnaire offens\u00e9; et comme\npour donner plus de force \u00e0 cet ordre, il saisit Sam d'une main, tandis\nque de l'autre il introduisait dans sa cravate le m\u00e9tallique embl\u00e8me de\nla royaut\u00e9. Notre h\u00e9ros r\u00e9pondit \u00e0 ce compliment en jetant par terre son\nauteur, apr\u00e8s avoir charitablement renvers\u00e9 le premier porteur, pour lui\nservir de tapis.\n\nM. Winkle fut-il alors saisi d'une attaque temporaire de cette esp\u00e8ce\nd'insanit\u00e9 produite par le sentiment d'une injure, ou fut-il mis en\ntrain par le spectacle de la valeur de Sam? C'est ce qui est incertain.\nMais il est certain qu'\u00e0 peine avait-il vu tomber Grummer, qu'il fit une\nterrible invasion sur un petit gamin qui se trouvait pr\u00e8s de lui.\n\u00c9chauff\u00e9 par cet exemple, M. Snodgrass, dans un esprit v\u00e9ritablement\nchr\u00e9tien, et afin de ne prendre personne en tra\u00eetre, annon\u00e7a hautement\nqu'il allait commencer; aussi fut-il entour\u00e9 et empoign\u00e9 pendant qu'il\n\u00f4tait son habit avec le plus grand soin. Au reste, pour lui rendre\njustice, ainsi qu'\u00e0 M. Winkle, nous devons d\u00e9clarer qu'ils ne firent pas\nla plus l\u00e9g\u00e8re tentative pour se d\u00e9fendre, ni pour d\u00e9livrer Sam; car\ncelui-ci, apr\u00e8s la plus vigoureuse r\u00e9sistance, avait enfin \u00e9t\u00e9 accabl\u00e9\npar le nombre et \u00e9tait demeur\u00e9 prisonnier. La procession se reforma\ndonc, les porteurs firent leur office, et la marche recommen\u00e7a.\n\nPendant toute la dur\u00e9e de ces op\u00e9rations, l'indignation de M. Pickwick\nn'avait pas connu de bornes. Il distinguait confus\u00e9ment que Sam\nrenversait les constables et distribuait des horions autour de lui; mais\nc'\u00e9tait tout ce qu'il pouvait voir, car la porti\u00e8re de la chaise\nrefusait de s'ouvrir, et les stores ne voulaient pas se relever. A la\nfin, avec l'assistance de son compagnon de captivit\u00e9, M. Pickwick\nparvint \u00e0 soulever l'imp\u00e9riale, monta sur la banquette, se haussa le\nplus qu'il put en appuyant ses deux mains sur les \u00e9paules de M. Tupman,\net commen\u00e7a \u00e0 haranguer la multitude. Il la prit \u00e0 t\u00e9moin que son\ndomestique avait \u00e9t\u00e9 assailli le premier. Il s'\u00e9tendit \u00e9loquemment sur\nla brutalit\u00e9 inexcusable avec laquelle lui-m\u00eame avait \u00e9t\u00e9 trait\u00e9, et ce\nfut de cette mani\u00e8re que la caravane atteignit la maison du magistrat;\nles porteurs trottant, les prisonniers suivant, M. Pickwick haranguant,\net la populace vocif\u00e9rant.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XXV.\n\nMontrant combien M. Nupkins \u00e9tait majestueux et impartial, et comment\nSam Weller prit sa revanche de M. Job Trotter; avec d'autres \u00e9v\u00e9nements\nqu'on trouvera \u00e0 leur place.\n\n\nM. Snodgrass et M. Winkle \u00e9coutaient avec un sombre respect le torrent\nd'\u00e9loquence qui d\u00e9coulait des l\u00e8vres de leur mentor, et que ne pouvaient\narr\u00eater ni le mouvement rapide de la chaise \u00e0 porteurs, ni les\nsupplications instantes de M. Tupman pour abaisser le couvercle de la\nvoiture. Mais l'indignation de Sam, tandis qu'on l'emportait, avait un\ncaract\u00e8re plus bruyant. Il faisait de nombreuses allusions \u00e0 la tournure\nde M. Grummer et de ses compagnons, et il exhalait son m\u00e9contentement\npar de courageux d\u00e9fis qu'il lan\u00e7ait indistinctement \u00e0 six des plus\nvaleureux spectateurs. Cependant sa col\u00e8re fit promptement place \u00e0 la\ncuriosit\u00e9, lorsque la procession entra pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment dans la cour o\u00f9 il\navait rencontr\u00e9 le fuyard Job Trotter; et la curiosit\u00e9 fut remplac\u00e9e par\nle sentiment du plus joyeux \u00e9tonnement, lorsque l'important M. Grummer\ns'avan\u00e7a, d'un pas noble, justement vers la porte verte d'o\u00f9 Job Trotter\n\u00e9tait sorti. Au bruit de la sonnette, qu'il fit retentir fortement,\naccourut une jeune servante tr\u00e8s-jolie et tr\u00e8s-pimpante qui, apr\u00e8s avoir\nlev\u00e9 ses mains vers le ciel, \u00e0 l'apparence rebelle des prisonniers et au\nlangage passionn\u00e9 de M. Pickwick, appela M. Muzzle. M. Muzzle ouvrit \u00e0\nmoiti\u00e9 la porte coch\u00e8re pour admettre la chaise \u00e0 porteurs, les captifs\net les sp\u00e9ciaux; puis la referma violemment au nez de la populace.\nJustement indign\u00e9e d'une telle exclusion et vivement d\u00e9sireuse de voir\nce qui arriverait ensuite, la dite populace soulagea son ennui en\nfrappant \u00e0 la porte et en tirant la sonnette pendant une heure ou deux,\namusement auquel prirent part, tour \u00e0 tour, tous les mal peign\u00e9s,\nexcept\u00e9 trois ou quatre qui eurent le bonheur de d\u00e9couvrir dans la porte\nun vasistas grill\u00e9, \u00e0 travers lequel on n'apercevait rien. Ceux-ci\nrest\u00e8rent pendus \u00e0 cette ouverture, avec la pers\u00e9v\u00e9rance infatigable qui\nfait que certaines gens s'aplatissent le nez contre les carreaux d'un\napothicaire, quand un homme saoul, renvers\u00e9 par un dog-cart, subit une\nop\u00e9ration chirurgicale dans l'arri\u00e8re-parloir.\n\nLa chaise \u00e0 porteurs s'arr\u00eata devant un escalier de pierre conduisant \u00e0\nla porte de la maison, et gard\u00e9, de chaque c\u00f4t\u00e9, par un alo\u00e8s am\u00e9ricain,\ndebout dans une caisse verte. D\u00e9pos\u00e9s l\u00e0, M. Pickwick et ses amis furent\nensuite amen\u00e9s dans la grande salle, et, ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 annonc\u00e9s par Muzzle,\nfurent admis en la pr\u00e9sence du vigilant M. Nupkins.\n\nLa sc\u00e8ne \u00e9tait pleine de grandeur et bien calcul\u00e9e pour frapper de\nterreur le coeur des coupables, et pour leur inculquer une haute id\u00e9e de\nla s\u00e9v\u00e8re majest\u00e9 des lois. Devant un \u00e9norme cartonnier, dans un \u00e9norme\nfauteuil, derri\u00e8re une \u00e9norme table, et appuy\u00e9 sur un \u00e9norme volume,\n\u00e9tait assis M. Nupkins, qui paraissait encore plus \u00e9norme que tous ces\nobjets r\u00e9unis. La table \u00e9tait orn\u00e9e de piles de papiers, de l'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9\ndesquels apparaissaient la t\u00eate et les \u00e9paules de M. Jinks, activement\noccup\u00e9 \u00e0 avoir l'air aussi occup\u00e9 que possible. La caravane \u00e9tant\nentr\u00e9e, Muzzle ferma soigneusement la porte et se pla\u00e7a derri\u00e8re le\nfauteuil de son ma\u00eetre, pour attendre ses ordres, tandis que M. Nupkins,\nse penchant en arri\u00e8re avec une solennit\u00e9 importante, scrutait la figure\nde ses h\u00f4tes forc\u00e9s.\n\nM. Pickwick, interpr\u00e8te ordinaire de ses amis, se tenait debout, son\nchapeau \u00e0 la main, et saluait avec la plus respectueuse politesse. \u00abQuel\nest cet individu? dit M. Nupkins, en le montrant du doigt \u00e0 l'homme d'un\n\u00e2ge m\u00fbr.\n\n--Cti-ci, c'est Pickwick, Votre Vin-\u00e0-ration, r\u00e9pondit Grummer.\n\n--Allons, allons, en voil\u00e0 assez, vieux gobe-mouche, interrompit Sam, en\ns'ouvrant, avec les coudes, un passage jusqu'au premier rang. Je vous\ndemande pardon, monsieur, mais cet officier-ci, avec ses bottes \u00e0 revers\nnankin, il ne gagnera jamais sa vie nulle part comme ma\u00eetre des\nc\u00e9r\u00e9monies. Voil\u00e0 ici, continua Sam, en mettant de c\u00f4t\u00e9 M. Grummer et en\ns'adressant au magistrat avec une agr\u00e9able familiarit\u00e9, voil\u00e0 ici Samuel\nPickwick, esquire; voil\u00e0 ici M. Tupman; voil\u00e0 ici M. Snodgrass; et plus\nloin, \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de lui, de l'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9, M. Winkle, tous des gentlemen bien\ngentils, monsieur, et dont vous auriez du plaisir \u00e0 faire la\nconnaissance. Aussi, plus t\u00f4t vous aurez coffr\u00e9 tous ces bedeaux-l\u00e0,\npour un mois ou deux, au _Tread-mill_[28], et plus t\u00f4t nous serons bons\namis. Les affaires d'abord, tes plaisirs apr\u00e8s, comme dit le roi\nRichard quand il poignarda l'autre dans la tour, avant d'\u00e9touffer les\nmoutards.\u00bb\n\n[Footnote 28: Moulin que les condamn\u00e9s font mouvoir en marchant sur un\ncylindre.\n\n(_Note du traducteur._)]\n\nApr\u00e8s avoir d\u00e9bit\u00e9 cette adresse, Sam s'occupa \u00e0 polir son chapeau avec\nson coude droit, et fit d'un air b\u00e9nin un signe de t\u00eate \u00e0 M. Jinks, qui\nl'avait entendu d'un bout \u00e0 l'autre avec une indicible terreur.\n\n\u00abQuel est cet homme, Grummer? balbutia le magistrat.\n\n--Un malfaiteur tr\u00e8s-dangereux, Votre Vin-\u00e0-ration. Il a voulu d\u00e9livrer\nles prisonniers et il a attaqu\u00e9 les agents de l'autorit\u00e9. Com'\u00e7a nous\nl'avons empoign\u00e9.\n\n--Vous avez bien fait, Grummer. C'est \u00e9videmment un bandit audacieux.\n\n--C'est mon domestique, monsieur, dit M. Peckwick, avec un peu\nd'irritation.\n\n--Ah! c'est votre domestique?--Conspiration pour arr\u00eater le cours de la\njustice et pour assassiner ses officiers. Domestique de Pickwick.\n\u00c9crivez cela, monsieur Jinks.\u00bb\n\nM. Jinks \u00e9crivit.\n\n\u00abComment vous appelez-vous, dr\u00f4le? poursuivit le magistrat.\n\n--Weller, r\u00e9pondit Sam.\n\n--Un excellent nom pour le calendrier de Newgate,\u00bb observa M. Nupkins.\n\nC'\u00e9tait une plaisanterie; aussi Grummer, Dubbley, tous les sp\u00e9ciaux, et\nMuzzle \u00e9clat\u00e8rent-ils de rire, avec des convulsions qui dur\u00e8rent pendant\ncinq minutes.\n\n\u00ab\u00c9crivez son nom, monsieur Jinks, reprit le magistrat\n\n--Mettez deux _l_, vieux pigeon, dit Sam.\u00bb\n\nIci, un malheureux sp\u00e9cial se mit \u00e0 rire encore et le magistrat le\nmena\u00e7a de le faire empoigner sur-le-champ. Il est dangereux,\nquelquefois, de rire mal \u00e0 propos.\n\n\u00abO\u00f9 vivez-vous? demanda le magistrat.\n\n--O\u00f9 je me trouve, r\u00e9pondit Sam.\n\n--Notez cela, monsieur Jinks! cria le magistrat, dont la col\u00e8re\ns'augmentait rapidement.\n\n--Et n'oubliez pas de souligner, poursuivit Sam.\n\n--C'est un vagabond, monsieur Jinks! c'est un vagabond d'apr\u00e8s son\npropre aveu. N'est-ce pas vrai, monsieur Jinks, que c'est un vagabond?\n\n--Certainement, monsieur.\n\n--H\u00e9 bien! s'\u00e9cria M. Nupkins en frappant la table de son poing;\n\u00e9crivez sur-le-champ son mandat de d\u00e9p\u00f4t. Il faut lui apprendra \u00e0 vivre!\n\n--Bien oblig\u00e9, mon magistrat, r\u00e9pliqua Sam. Mais vous devriez bien aller\n\u00e0 c'te \u00e9cole-l\u00e0 pendant quelques mois.\u00bb\n\nA cette saillie un autre sp\u00e9cial \u00e9clata de rire, et ensuite prit un air\nde gravit\u00e9 tellement surnaturelle que M. Nupkins le d\u00e9couvrit\nimm\u00e9diatement.\n\n\u00abGrummer! s'\u00e9cria-t-il en rougissant de courroux, comment osez-vous\nchoisir pour constable sp\u00e9cial un \u00eatre aussi nul et aussi inconvenant\nque cet homme! R\u00e9pondez, monsieur!\n\n--J'en suis bien inflig\u00e9, Votre Vin-\u00e0-ration, balbutia Grummer.\n\n--Bien afflig\u00e9! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta le magistrat furieux. Vous avez raison de l'\u00eatre!\nje vous apprendrai \u00e0 n\u00e9gliger ainsi votre devoir, M. Grummer! je ferai\nun exemple sur vous. Otez le b\u00e2ton de ce dr\u00f4le. Il est ivre. Vous \u00eates\nivre, dr\u00f4le!\n\n--Non Fotre F\u00e9n\u00e9ration, r\u00e9pondit l'homme; je ne suis pas ifre.\n\n--Vous \u00eates ivre! r\u00e9pliqua le magistrat. Comment osez-vous dire que nous\nn'\u00eates pas ivre, monsieur, quand je vous dis que vous \u00eates ivre. Est-ce\nqu'il ne sent pas l'eau-de-vie, Grummer?\n\n--Horriblement, Votre Vin-\u00e0-ration, r\u00e9pondit M. Grummer, dont les nerfs\nolfactifs \u00e9prouvaient effectivement une vague impression de rhum.\n\n--J'en \u00e9tais s\u00fbr, reprit M. Nupkins. Quand il est entr\u00e9 dans la chambre,\nj'ai vu \u00e0 son oeil enflamm\u00e9 qu'il \u00e9tait ivre. Avez-vous remarqu\u00e9 son oeil\nenflamm\u00e9, M. Jinks?\n\n--Certainement, monsieur.\n\n--Che n'ai pas touch\u00e9 une koutte d'eau-te-fie t'aujourd'hui, d\u00e9clara\nl'homme, qui \u00e9tait peut-\u00eatre le plus sobre de toute la bande.\n\n--Monsieur Jinks, poursuivit le magistrat, je l'enverrai en prison pour\navoir insult\u00e9 la cour. \u00c9crivez son mandat de d\u00e9p\u00f4t, M. Jinks.\u00bb\n\nCependant M. Jinks, qui \u00e9tait le conseiller de M. Nupkins, et qui avait\neu une \u00e9ducation l\u00e9gale, car il avait pass\u00e9 trois ann\u00e9es dans l'\u00e9tude\nd'un procureur de province; M. Jinks, disons-nous, fit observer tout bas\nau magistrat que cela ne pourrait pas aller ainsi. Le magistrat\nimprovisa donc un discours, dans lequel il d\u00e9clara que par consid\u00e9ration\npour la famille du sp\u00e9cial il se contentait de le r\u00e9primander et de le\ncasser. En cons\u00e9quence, le malheureux coupable fut violemment injuri\u00e9\npendant un quart d'heure, puis renvoy\u00e9 \u00e0 ses affaires; et Grummer,\nDubbley, Muzzle et tous les autres sp\u00e9ciaux murmur\u00e8rent, pendant un\nautre quart d'heure, leur admiration de la conduite magnanime du\nmagistrat.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, monsieur Jinks, reprit celui-ci, faites pr\u00eater serment \u00e0\nGrummer.\u00bb\n\nGrummer pr\u00eata serment imm\u00e9diatement, mais comme il s'\u00e9garait dans sa\nd\u00e9position, et comme le d\u00eener de M. Nupkins \u00e9tait pr\u00eat, le magistrat,\npour couper court, se mit \u00e0 faire des questions \u00e0 M. Grummer, et M.\nGrummer lui r\u00e9pondait affirmativement autant qu'il le pouvait, si bien\nque l'instruction marcha tr\u00e8s-rapidement et tr\u00e8s-confortablement. Sam\nWeller fut convaincu de voies de fait, M. Winkle de menaces, M.\nSnodgrass de r\u00e9sistance; et quand tout ceci fut fait \u00e0 la satisfaction\ndu magistrat, le magistrat et M. Jinks se consult\u00e8rent \u00e0 voix basse.\n\nLa consultation ayant dur\u00e9 environ dix minutes, M. Jinks se retira \u00e0 son\nbout de la table, et le magistrat, apr\u00e8s une toux pr\u00e9paratoire, se\nredressa dans son fauteuil et allait prononcer un discours lorsque M.\nPickwick prit la parole.\n\n\u00abMonsieur, dit-il, je vous demande pardon de vous interrompre; mais\navant que vous exprimiez l'opinion que vous pouvez avoir form\u00e9e, et\navant que vous agissiez en cons\u00e9quence, je dois r\u00e9clamer mon droit\nd'\u00eatre entendu, pour ce qui me regarde personnellement, du moins.\n\n--Taisez-vous, monsieur? s'\u00e9cria le magistrat d'un ton p\u00e9remptoire.\n\n--Il faut bien que je me soumette \u00e0 votre autorit\u00e9, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit\nM. Pickwick.\n\n--Taisez-vous, monsieur! reprit le magistrat, ou je vous ferai emmener\npar un de mes officiers.\n\n--Vous pouvez ordonner \u00e0 vos officiers de faire tout ce qu'il vous\nplaira, monsieur; et d'apr\u00e8s ce que j'ai vu de leur subordination je\nn'ai pas le plus petit doute qu'ils n'ex\u00e9cutent tout ce qu'il vous\nplaira de leur ordonner; mais je prendrai la libert\u00e9 de r\u00e9clamer le\ndroit que j'ai d'\u00eatre entendu, et je le r\u00e9clamerai jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'on\nm'\u00e9loigne d'ici par la violence.\n\n--Pickwick et les principes! s'\u00e9cria Sam d'une voix sonore.\n\n--Sam, tenez-vous tranquille, lui dit son ma\u00eetre.\n\n--Muet comme un tambour trou\u00e9,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua le personnage.\n\nM. Nupkins, frapp\u00e9 d'\u00e9tonnement par une t\u00e9m\u00e9rit\u00e9 si extraordinaire!\nlan\u00e7a \u00e0 M. Pickwick un regard courrouc\u00e9, et allait apparemment lui\nr\u00e9pondre tr\u00e8s-s\u00e9v\u00e8rement, lorsque M. Jinks le tira par la manche et lui\nchuchota quelque chose \u00e0 l'oreille. Le magistrat fit une r\u00e9ponse a demi\nhaut; puis le chuchotement fut renouvel\u00e9. Il \u00e9tait \u00e9vident que M. Jinks\nlui adressait des remontrances.\n\nA la fin, le magistrat, avalant de fort mauvaise gr\u00e2ce le d\u00e9pit qu'il\n\u00e9prouvait d'en entendre plus long, se retourna vers M. Pickwick et lui\ndit brusquement: \u00abQu'est-ce que vous avez \u00e0 dire?\n\n--D'abord, r\u00e9pondit le philosophe, en lan\u00e7ant \u00e0 travers ses lunettes un\nregard qui intimida M. Nupkins sur son si\u00e9ge; d'abord je d\u00e9sire\nconna\u00eetre pourquoi mon ami et moi nous avons \u00e9t\u00e9 amen\u00e9s ici?\n\n--Suis-je tenu de le lui dire? chuchota le magistrat \u00e0 M. Jinks.\n\n--Je pense que oui, monsieur, chuchota M. Jinks au magistrat.\n\n--On a d\u00e9pos\u00e9 devant moi, sous la foi du serment, qu'il y avait lieu de\ncraindre que vous ne voulussiez vous battre en duel; et que cet autre\nhomme, Tupman, devait \u00eatre votre fauteur et votre complice dans le dit\nduel; c'est pourquoi... eh! monsieur Jinks?\n\n--Certainement, monsieur.\n\n--C'est pourquoi, je vous condamne tous les deux \u00e0... Je pense que voil\u00e0\nl'affaire, monsieur Jinks.\n\n--Certainement, monsieur.\n\n--Je vous condamne \u00e0... \u00e0... \u00e0 quoi, monsieur Jinks? demanda le\nmagistrat avec d\u00e9pit.\n\n--A fournir caution, monsieur.\n\n--Oui. C'est pourquoi je vous condamne tous les deux, comme j'allais\ndire lorsque j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 interrompu par mon clerc, \u00e0 fournir caution.\n\n--Bonne caution, chuchota L. Jinks.\n\n--J'exigerai deux bonnes cautions, reprit le magistrat.\n\n--Bourgeois de la ville, chuchota M. Jinks.\n\n--Qui doivent \u00eatre des bourgeois de la ville, poursuivit le magistrat.\n\n--Cinquante guin\u00e9es chacune et des propri\u00e9taires, comme il va sans dire.\n\n--J'exigerai deux cautions de cinquante guin\u00e9es chacune, continua le\nmagistrat \u00e0 voit haute et avec grande dignit\u00e9; et je n'accepterai que\ndes propri\u00e9taires, comme il va sans dire.\n\n--Mais, monsieur, fit observer M. Pickwick, qui, ainsi que M. Tupman,\n\u00e9tait rempli d'\u00e9tonnement et d'indignation, mais monsieur, nous sommes\nparfaitement \u00e9trangers \u00e0 la ville et j'y connais autant de propri\u00e9taires\nque j'ai envie d'y avoir un duel.\n\n--Oui, oui, on conna\u00eet \u00e7a, dit le magistrat. N'est-ce pas, monsieur\nJinks?\n\n--Certainement, monsieur.\n\n--Avez-vous quelque chose a ajouter?\u00bb reprit le magistrat.\n\nM. Pickwick avait bien des choses \u00e0 ajouter, et il les aurait ajout\u00e9es\nsans aucun doute, avec aussi peu de profit pour lui-m\u00eame que de\nsatisfaction pour le magistrat, s'il n'avait pas \u00e9t\u00e9 engag\u00e9 alors avec\nSam, dans une conversation tellement int\u00e9ressante qu'il n'entendit point\nla question qui lui \u00e9tait adress\u00e9e. M. Nupkins n'\u00e9tait point homme \u00e0\ndemander deux fois une chose de cette nature. Il toussa donc de nouveau,\nd'une mani\u00e8re pr\u00e9paratoire, et pronon\u00e7a sa d\u00e9cision au milieu du silence\nadmirateur et respectueux des constables.\n\nIl condamnait Weller \u00e0 deux guin\u00e9es d'amende pour les premi\u00e8res voies de\nfait, et \u00e0 trois guin\u00e9es pour les secondes; il condamnait Winkle \u00e0 deux\nguin\u00e9es; Snodgrass \u00e0 une guin\u00e9e; et les requ\u00e9rait, en outre, de jurer\nqu'ils ne commettraient de violences sur aucun sujet de Sa Majest\u00e9, et\nnotamment sur ses hommes liges, Daniel et Grummer: il avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 requis\nPickwick et Tupman de fournir des cautions.\n\nAussit\u00f4t que le magistrat eut cess\u00e9 de parler, M. Pickwick, dont la\nphysionomie \u00e9tait de nouveau anim\u00e9e par un sourire de bonne humeur, fit\nun pas en avant, et dit:\n\n\u00abJe prie le magistrat de vouloir bien m'accorder quelques minutes de\nconversation en particulier. Il s'agit d'une affaire qui est d'une grave\nimportance pour lui-m\u00eame.\n\n--Quoi!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria M. Nupkins.\n\nM. Pickwick r\u00e9p\u00e9ta sa requ\u00eate.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0 une demande bien extraordinaire! dit le magistrat. Une\nconversation en particulier!\n\n--Une conversation en particulier, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick avec fermet\u00e9.\nSeulement, comme c'est par mon domestique que j'ai appris une partie de\nce que j'ai \u00e0 vous communiquer, je d\u00e9sirerais qu'il f\u00fbt pr\u00e9sent.\u00bb\n\nLe magistrat regarda M. Jinks. M. Jinks regarda le magistrat, et les\nofficiers se regard\u00e8rent l'un l'autre avec \u00e9tonnement. Tout \u00e0 coup M.\nNupkins devint p\u00e2le. Peut-\u00eatre ce Weller, dans un moment de remords,\navait-il confess\u00e9 quelque complot form\u00e9 pour assassiner le magistrat.\nC'\u00e9tait une horrible pens\u00e9e! En effet, M. Nupkins \u00e9tait un homme\npolitique; et il devint encore plus p\u00e2le en songeant \u00e0 Jules C\u00e9sar et \u00e0\nM. Perceval.\n\nIl regarda de nouveau M. Pickwick et fit un signe \u00e0 M. Jinks.\n\n\u00abQue pensez-vous de cette demande, monsieur Jinks,\u00bb murmura-t-il \u00e0 son\noreille.\n\nM. Jinks, qui ne savait pas exactement qu'en penser, et qui avait peur\nd'offenser son patron, sourit faiblement, d'une mani\u00e8re douteuse; puis,\nserrant les coins de sa bouche, secoua lentement sa t\u00eate.\n\n\u00abMonsieur Jinks, dit le magistrat gravement, vous \u00eates un \u00e2ne,\nmonsieur.\u00bb\n\nEn entendant cette petite expression famili\u00e8re, M. Jinks sourit encore,\npeut-\u00eatre plus faiblement que la premi\u00e8re fois, et se retira par degr\u00e9s\ndans son coin.\n\nPendant quelques secondes M. Nupkins d\u00e9battit la question en lui-m\u00eame.\nEnsuite, se levant d'un air r\u00e9solu, il invita M. Pickwick et Sam \u00e0 le\nsuivre, et les conduisit dans une petite chambre qui s'ouvrait sur la\nsalle de justice. L\u00e0, il leur fit signe d'aller jusqu'au fond, et\nlui-m\u00eame resta \u00e0 l'entr\u00e9e, tenant sa main sur la porte \u00e0 demi ferm\u00e9e,\nafin de pouvoir facilement battre en retraite s'il d\u00e9couvrait chez ses\njusticiables la plus l\u00e9g\u00e8re manifestation d'intentions hostiles. Enfin\nil d\u00e9clara qu'il \u00e9tait pr\u00eat \u00e0 entendre leurs communications, quelles\nqu'elles pussent \u00eatre.\n\n\u00abMonsieur, dit M. Pickwick, j'arriverai au fait tout d'un coup, car il\ns'agit d'une chose qui affecte notablement votre personne et votre\nhonneur. J'ai tout lieu de croire, monsieur, que vous recevez dans votre\nmaison un vil imposteur.\n\n--Deux! interrompit Sam; le valet en livr\u00e9e violette enfonce tout le\nmonde, en fait de larmes et de la sc\u00e9l\u00e9ratesse!\n\n--Sam, dit M. Pickwick, je vous prie de vous mod\u00e9rer, afin que je puisse\nme rendre intelligible \u00e0 ce gentleman.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-f\u00e2ch\u00e9, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Sam; mais quand je pensa \u00e0 ce Job ici.\nJe ne peux pas m'emp\u00eacher d'ouvrir un peu la soupape de s\u00fbret\u00e9,\nautrement j'\u00e9claterais.\n\n--En un mot, monsieur, reprit M. Pickwick, mon domestique a-t-il raison\nde supposer qu'un certain capitaine Fitz-Marshall est dans l'habitude de\nvous faire des visites. Je vous demande cela, ajouta M. Pickwick en\nvoyant que M. Nupkins \u00e9tait sur le point de l'interrompre avec\nindignation; je vous demande cela parce que je sais que cet individu est\nun....\n\n--Chut! chut! dit M, Nupkins en fermant la porte. Vous savez qu'il est\nquoi, monsieur?\n\n--Un vagabond sans principes, un mis\u00e9rable aventurier, qui vit aux\nd\u00e9pens de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9; qui prend les gens faciles \u00e0 tromper pour ses\ndupes, monsieur; pour ses absurdes, ses malheureuses, ses ridicules\ndupes, monsieur, s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick surexcit\u00e9.\n\n--Dieu nous assiste! dit M. Nupkins en rougissant jusqu'aux oreilles, et\nen changeant sur-le-champ toutes ses mani\u00e8res. Dieu nous assiste,\nmonsieur....\n\n--Pickwick, souffla Sam.\n\n--Pickwick, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta le magistrat. Dieu nous assiste, monsieur Pickwick.\nAsseyez-vous, je vous en prie. Que me dites-vous l\u00e0! Le capitaine\nFitz-Marshall!\n\n--Ne l'appelez pas capitaine, interrompit Sam; ni Fitz-Marshall non\nplus. Il n'est ni l'un ni l'autre. C'est un cabotin qui s'appelle\nJingle; et si jamais il y a eu un loup en habit violet, c'est ce Job\nTrotter ici.\n\n--Cela est tr\u00e8s-vrai, monsieur, dit M. Pickwick en r\u00e9ponse au regard\nd'\u00e9tonnement du magistrat; et ma seule affaire dans cette ville, \u00e9tait\nde d\u00e9masquer l'individu dont nous parlons.\u00bb\n\nAlors M. Pickwick r\u00e9pandit dans l'oreille \u00e9pouvant\u00e9e du magistrat, un\nr\u00e9cit abr\u00e9g\u00e9 de toutes les atrocit\u00e9s de M. Jingle. Il rapporta comment\nleur connaissance s'\u00e9tait faite; comment Jingle s'\u00e9tait \u00e9chapp\u00e9 avec\nmiss Wardle; comment il avait joyeusement renonc\u00e9 \u00e0 cette demoiselle\npour une somme d'argent; comment il avait attir\u00e9 M. Pickwick, \u00e0 minuit,\ndans une pension de jeunes demoiselles; et comment lui, M. Pickwick,\nregardait comme un devoir de d\u00e9voiler sa pr\u00e9sente usurpation de nom et\nde qualit\u00e9.\n\nA mesure que cette narration s'avan\u00e7ait, tout le sang qui circulait\nhabituellement dans le corps de M. Nupkins, se rassemblait dans les\nveines de son visage et jusqu'aux extr\u00e9mit\u00e9s de ses oreilles. Il avait\nramass\u00e9 le capitaine \u00e0 une course de chevaux du voisinage, et l'avait\npr\u00e9sent\u00e9 \u00e0 mistress Nupkins et \u00e0 miss Nupkins. Celles-ci, charm\u00e9es par\nla longue liste des connaissances aristocratiques du capitaine\nFitz-Marshall, par ses lointains voyages, par sa tournure fashionable,\navaient exhib\u00e9 le capitaine Fitz-Marshall, cit\u00e9 le capitaine\nFitz-Marshall, jet\u00e9 le capitaine Fitz-Marshall au nez de toutes leurs\nconnaissances; tellement que leurs amis de coeur, madame Porkenham, et\nles misses Porkenham, et M. Sidney Porkenham \u00e9taient pr\u00e8s d'en crever de\njalousie et de d\u00e9sespoir; et maintenant, apr\u00e8s tout cela, il se trouvait\nque c'\u00e9tait un pauvre aventurier, un acteur ambulant, et sinon un\nescroc, du moins quelque chose qui y ressemblait tellement qu'il \u00e9tait\nbien difficile d'en faire la diff\u00e9rence! Juste ciel! que diraient les\nPorkenham! quel serait le triomphe de M. Sidney Porkenham quand il\nconna\u00eetrait le rival \u00e0 qui ses galanteries avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 sacrifi\u00e9es!\nComment M. Nupkins oserait-il soutenir les regards du vieux Porkenham\naux prochaines assises? Et si l'histoire se r\u00e9pandait, quel texte pour\nl'opposition magistrale!\n\nIl y eut un long silence.\n\n\u00abMais apr\u00e8s tout, s'\u00e9cria M. Nupkins, en redevenant radieux pour un\ninstant; apr\u00e8s tout, ceci n'est qu'une simple all\u00e9gation. Le capitaine\nFitz-Marshall a des mani\u00e8res fort engageantes, et j'ose dire qu'il s'est\nfait plus d'un ennemi. Quelles preuves avez-vous de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 de cette\naccusation?\n\n--Confrontez-moi avec lui, voil\u00e0 tout ce que je vous demande, tout ce\nque j'exige. Confrontez-le avec moi et avec mes amis. Aurez-vous besoin\nd'autres preuves?\n\n--Vraiment, cela serait tr\u00e8s-facile, car il vient ici ce soir, et alors\nil n'y aurait pas besoin de rendre l'affaire publique, dans l'int\u00e9r\u00eat...\ndans l'int\u00e9r\u00eat du jeune homme seulement; vous voyez... cependant, je...\nje voudrais d'abord consulter Mme Nupkins, sur la convenance de cette\nd\u00e9marche. Mais \u00e0 tous \u00e9v\u00e9nements, monsieur Pickwick, il faut exp\u00e9dier\ncette affaire l\u00e9gale avant de nous occuper d'autre chose. Revenez, je\nvous prie, dans la salle.\n\nLorsqu'on y fut r\u00e9install\u00e9: \u00abGrummer! dit le magistrat, d'une voix\nmajestueuse:\n\n--Votre Vin-\u00e0-ration, r\u00e9pondit Grummer avec le sourire d'un favori.\n\n--Allons, allons, monsieur, reprit le magistrat s\u00e9v\u00e8rement; pas de\nl\u00e9g\u00e8ret\u00e9 ici: c'est fort inconvenant, et je vous assure que vous avez\npeu de raison de sourire. Le r\u00e9cit que vous m'avez fait tout \u00e0 l'heure\n\u00e9tait-il exactement vrai? Faites attention \u00e0 vos r\u00e9ponses, monsieur.\n\n--Votre Vin-\u00e0-ration balbutia Grummer, je....\n\n--Ah! vous vous troublez, monsieur! Monsieur Jinks, remarquez-vous qu'il\nse trouble?\n\n--Certainement, monsieur.\n\n--H\u00e9 bien! voyons, r\u00e9p\u00e9tez votre d\u00e9position, Grummer; et je vous avertis\nencore de prendre garde \u00e0 vous. Monsieur Jinks, \u00e9crivez sa d\u00e9position.\u00bb\n\nL'infortun\u00e9 Grummer commen\u00e7a donc \u00e0 redire sa plainte. Mais gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 ce\nque M. Jinks recueillait ses paroles, tandis que le magistrat les\nrelevait, gr\u00e2ce aussi \u00e0 sa diffusion naturelle et \u00e0 sa confusion\npr\u00e9sente, en moins de trois minutes il parvint \u00e0 s'embarrasser dans un\ntel g\u00e2chis de contradictions, que M. Nupkins d\u00e9clara positivement qu'il\nne le croyait pas. Les amendes furent donc annul\u00e9es; M. Jinks trouva en\nmoins de rien une couple de cautions, et toutes ces op\u00e9rations\nsolennelles ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 termin\u00e9es d'une mani\u00e8re satisfaisante, M. Grummer\nfut ignominieusement renvoy\u00e9: exemple terrible de l'instabilit\u00e9 des\ngrandeurs humaines, et du peu de confiance qu'on doit avoir dans la\nfaveur des grands.\n\nMme Nupkins \u00e9tait une femme d\u00e9daigneuse et s\u00e9v\u00e8re, en turban de gaze\nbleue et en perruque brune. Miss Nupkins poss\u00e9dait toute la hauteur de\nsa m\u00e8re, moins le turban, et toute sa mauvaise humeur, moins la\nperruque. Or, chaque fois que l'exercice de ces deux aimables qualit\u00e9s\nembarrassait la m\u00e8re et la fille dans quelque dilemme d\u00e9sagr\u00e9able, ce\nqui arrivait assez fr\u00e9quemment, elles se r\u00e9unissaient pour jeter tout le\nbl\u00e2me sur les \u00e9paules de M. Nupkins. Ainsi, lorsque celui-ci alla\ntrouver son \u00e9pouse, et lui communiqua les d\u00e9tails qui lui avaient \u00e9t\u00e9\ndonn\u00e9s par M. Pickwick, madame Nupkins se rappela tout \u00e0 coup qu'elle\navait toujours soup\u00e7onn\u00e9 quelque chose de la sorte; qu'elle avait\ntoujours dit que cela devait arriver; qu'on n'avait jamais voulu \u00e9couter\nses avis; que r\u00e9ellement elle ne savait pas pour qui M. Nupkins la\nprenait, etc., etc.\n\n\u00abEst-il possible, s'\u00e9cria miss Nupkins en fabriquant, dans le coin de\nchaque oeil, une larme d'une tr\u00e8s-maigre dimension, est-il possible que\nj'aie \u00e9t\u00e9 ainsi tourn\u00e9e en ridicule!\n\n--Ah! ma ch\u00e8re, dit Mme Nupkins, vous pouvez en remercier votre papa.\nCombien je l'ai suppli\u00e9 de s'informer de la famille du capitaine!\ncombien je l'ai press\u00e9 de prendre un parti d\u00e9cisif. Je suis s\u00fbre que\npersonne ne voudrait le croire \u00e0 pr\u00e9sent.\n\n--Mais ma ch\u00e8re,... fit observer M. Nupkins.\n\n--Ne me parlez pas, \u00eatre insupportable!\n\n--Mon amour, vous aimiez tant le capitaine Fitz-Marshall; vous\nl'invitiez constamment ici, et vous ne perdiez aucune occasion de\nl'introduire chez nos amis.\n\n--Ne le disais-je pas, Henriette! s'\u00e9cria Mme Nupkins en s'adressant \u00e0\nsa fille avec l'air d'une femme injuri\u00e9e; ne vous le disais-je pas, que\nvotre papa se retournerait et mettrait tout cela sur mon dos. Ne le\ndisais-je pas!...\u00bb Ici Mme Nupkins fondit en larmes.\n\n\u00abOh! pa! fit miss Nupkins, d'un ton de reproche;\u00bb et elle se mit\n\u00e9galement \u00e0 pleurer.\n\n\u00abN'est-ce pas trop fort, sanglotait Mme Nupkins, n'est-ce pas trop fort\nde me reprocher que je suis la cause de tout ceci, quand c'est lui-m\u00eame\nqui a attir\u00e9 ce ridicule sur notre famille!\n\n--Comment pourrons-nous jamais nous remontrer dans la soci\u00e9t\u00e9? murmura\nmiss Nupkins.\n\n--Comment pourrons-nous envisager les Porkenham?\n\n--Ou les Grigg?...\n\n--Ou les Slummintowkens? Mais qu'est-ce que cela fait \u00e0 votre papa?\nqu'est-ce que cela lui fait, \u00e0 lui!\u00bb A cette terrible r\u00e9flexion,\nl'angoisse mentale de Mme Nupkins ne connut plus de bornes, et miss\nNupkins poussa des soupirs d\u00e9chirants.\n\nLes pleurs de Mme Nupkins continu\u00e8rent \u00e0 jaillir avec grande vitesse,\njusqu'au moment o\u00f9 elle eut d\u00e9cid\u00e9 dans son esprit que la meilleure\nchose \u00e0 faire, \u00e9tait d'engager M. Pickwick et ses amis \u00e0 rester chez\nelle jusqu'\u00e0 l'arriv\u00e9e du capitaine. Si l'imposture de celui-ci \u00e9tait\nalors av\u00e9r\u00e9e, on l'exclurait de la maison sans divulguer la v\u00e9ritable\ncause de ce renvoi; et l'on dirait aux Porkenham, pour expliquer sa\ndisparition, que le capitaine, gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 l'influence de sa famille, \u00e9tait\nnomm\u00e9 gouverneur g\u00e9n\u00e9ral de Sierra-Leone, ou de Sangur-Point, ou de\nquelque autre de ces pays salubres, dont les Europ\u00e9ens sont\nordinairement si enchant\u00e9s qu'ils n'en reviennent presque jamais.\n\nQuand Mme Nupkins eut s\u00e9ch\u00e9 ses larmes, miss Nupkins s\u00e9cha aussi les\nsiennes, et M. Nupkins s'estima fort heureux de terminer l'affaire comme\nle lui proposait son aimable moiti\u00e9. En cons\u00e9quence, M. Pickwick et ses\namis, ayant lav\u00e9 toutes les traces de leur _rencontre_, furent pr\u00e9sent\u00e9s\naux dames, et peu de temps apr\u00e8s au d\u00eener. Quant \u00e0 Sam Weller, le\nmagistrat, avec sa sagacit\u00e9 particuli\u00e8re, reconnut en un clin d'oeil que\nc'\u00e9tait le meilleur gar\u00e7on du monde, et le consigna aux soins\nhospitaliers de M. Muzzle, avec l'ordre sp\u00e9cial de l'emmener en bas, et\nd'avoir le plus grand soin de lui.\n\n--Comment vous portez-vous, monsieur? dit Muzzle \u00e0 Sam Weller, en le\nconduisant \u00e0 la cuisine.\n\n--H\u00e9! h\u00e9! il n'y a pas grand changement depuis que je vous ai vu si bien\nredress\u00e9 derri\u00e8re la chaise de votre gouverneur, dans la salle.\n\n--Je vous demande excuse de ne pas avoir fait attention \u00e0 vous pour\nlors. Vous voyez que mon patron ne nous avait pas pr\u00e9sent\u00e9s, pour lors.\nDame! il vous aime bien, monsieur Weller!\n\n--Ah! c'est un bien gentil gar\u00e7on.\n\n--N'est-ce pas?\n\n--Si jovial!\n\n--Et un fameux homme pour parler! Comme ses id\u00e9es sont coulantes, hein?\n\n--\u00c9tonnant! elles d\u00e9bondent si vite qu'elles se cognent la t\u00eate l'une\nsur l'autre que c'en est \u00e9tourdissant, et qu'on ne sait pas seulement de\nquoi il s'agit.\n\n--C'est le grand m\u00e9rite de son style d'\u00e9loquence.... Prenez garde au\ndernier pas, monsieur Weller. Voudriez-vous vous laver les mains avant\nde rejoindre les ladies? Voil\u00e0 une fontaine, et il y a un essuie-mains\nblanc accroch\u00e9 derri\u00e8re la porte.\n\n--Je ne serai pas f\u00e2ch\u00e9 de me rincer un brin, r\u00e9pliqua Sam, en\nappliquant force savon noir sur le torchon. Combien y a-t-il de dames?\n\n--Seulement deux dans notre cuisine. Cuisini\u00e8re et bonne. Nous avons un\ngar\u00e7on pour faire les ouvrages sales et une fille de plus; mais \u00e7a d\u00eene\ndans la buanderie.\n\n--Ah! \u00e7a d\u00eene dans la buanderie!\n\n--Oui, nous en avons essay\u00e9 \u00e0 notre table quand c'est arriv\u00e9; mais nous\nn'avons pas pu y tenir; les mani\u00e8res de la fille sont horriblement\nvulgaires, et le gar\u00e7on fait tant de bruit en m\u00e2chant, que nous avons\ntrouv\u00e9 impossible de rester \u00e0 table avec lui.\n\n--Oh! quel jeune popotame!\n\n--C'est d\u00e9go\u00fbtant! voil\u00e0 ce qu'il y a de pire dans le service de\nprovince, monsieur Weller; les jeunes gens sont si tellement mal\n\u00e9lev\u00e9s.... Par ici, monsieur, s'il vous pla\u00eet.\u00bb Tout en parlant ainsi et\nen pr\u00e9c\u00e9dant Sam avec la plus exquise politesse, Muzzle le conduisit\ndans la cuisine.\n\n\u00abMary, dit-il \u00e0 la jolie servante, c'est M. Weller, un gentleman que\nnotre ma\u00eetre a envoy\u00e9 en bas pour \u00eatre fait aussi confortable que\npossible.\n\n--Et votre ma\u00eetre s'y conna\u00eet. Il m'a envoy\u00e9 au bon endroit pour \u00e7a,\najouta Sam en jetant un regard d'admiration \u00e0 la jolie bonne; si j'\u00e9tais\nle ma\u00eetre de cette maison ici, je serais toujours o\u00f9 Mary serait.\n\n--Oh! monsieur Weller! fit Mary en rougissant.\n\n--Eh bien! et moi, donc! s'\u00e9cria la cuisini\u00e8re.\n\n--Ah! cuisini\u00e8re, je vous avais oubli\u00e9e, dit M. Muzzle. Monsieur Weller,\npermettez-moi de vous pr\u00e9senter.\n\n--Comment vous portez-vous, madame? demanda Sam \u00e0 la cuisini\u00e8re.\nTr\u00e8s-enchant\u00e9 de vous voir, et j'esp\u00e8re que notre connaissance durera\nlongtemps, comme dit le gentleman \u00e0 la banknote de cinq guin\u00e9es.\u00bb\n\nApr\u00e8s les c\u00e9r\u00e9monies de l\u00e0 pr\u00e9sentation, la cuisini\u00e8re et Mary se\nretir\u00e8rent dans leur cuisine pour chuchoter pendant dix minutes, et\nlorsqu'elles furent revenues toutes minaudantes et rougissantes, on\ns'assit pour d\u00eener.\n\nLes mani\u00e8res ais\u00e9es de Sam et ses talents de conversation eurent une\ninfluence si irr\u00e9sistible sur ses nouveaux amis, qu'\u00e0 la moiti\u00e9 du d\u00eener\nil \u00e9tait d\u00e9j\u00e0 avec eux sur un pied d'intimit\u00e9 compl\u00e8te, et les avait mis\nen pleine possession des perfidies de Job Trotter.\n\n\u00abJe n'ai jamais pu supporter cet homme-l\u00e0, dit Mary.\n\n--Et vous ne le deviez pas non plus, ma ch\u00e8re, r\u00e9pliqua Sam.\n\n--Pourquoi cela?\n\n--Parce que la laideur et l'hypocrisie ne va jamais d'accord avec\nl'\u00e9l\u00e9gance et la vertu. C'est-il pas vrai, monsieur Muzzle?\n\n--Certainement.\u00bb\n\nA ces mots Mary se prit \u00e0 rire et assura que c'\u00e9tait \u00e0 cause de la\ncuisini\u00e8re, et la cuisini\u00e8re, assurant que non, se prit \u00e0 rire aussi.\n\n\u00abTiens, je n'ai pas de verre, dit Mary.\n\n--Buvez avec moi, ma ch\u00e8re, reprit Sam, mettez vos l\u00e8vres sur ce verre\nici, et alors je pourrai vous embrasser par procuration.\n\n--Fi donc! monsieur Weller!\n\n--Pourquoi fi, ma ch\u00e8re?\n\n--Pour parler comme \u00e7a.\n\n--Bah! il n'y a pas de mal. C'est dans la nature. Pas vrai, cuisini\u00e8re?\n\n--Taisez-vous, impertinent,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua celle-ci avec un visage de\njubilation. Et l\u00e0-dessus la cuisini\u00e8re et Mary se prirent \u00e0 rire encore,\njusqu'\u00e0 ce que le rire et la bi\u00e8re et la viande combin\u00e9s eussent mis la\ncharmante bonne en danger d'\u00e9touffer. Elle ne tut tir\u00e9e de cette crise\nalarmante qu'au moyen de fortes tapes sur le dos et de plusieurs autres\npetites attentions, d\u00e9licatement administr\u00e9es par le galant Sam.\n\nAu milieu de ces joyeuset\u00e9s, on entendit sonner violemment, et le jeune\ngentleman qui prenait ses repas dans la buanderie, alla imm\u00e9diatement\nouvrir la porte du jardin. Sam \u00e9tait dans le feu de ses galanteries\naupr\u00e8s de la jolie bonne; M. Muzzle s'occupait de faire les honneurs de\nla table, et la cuisini\u00e8re ayant cess\u00e9 de rire un instant portait \u00e0 sa\nbouche un \u00e9norme morceau, lorsque la porte de la cuisine s'ouvrit pour\nlaisser entrer M. Job Trotter.\n\nNous avons dit pour laisser _entrer_ M. Job Trotter, mais cette\nexpression n'a pas l'exactitude scrupuleuse dont nous nous piquons. La\nporte s'ouvrit et M. Job Trotter parut. Il serait entr\u00e9, et m\u00eame il\n\u00e9tait en train d'entrer, lorsqu'il aper\u00e7ut Sam. Reculant\ninvolontairement un pas ou deux, il resta muet et immobile \u00e0 contempler\navec \u00e9tonnement et terreur la sc\u00e8ne qui s'offrait \u00e0 ses yeux.\n\n\u00abLe voici! s'\u00e9cria Sam, en se levant plein de joie. Eh bien! je parlais\nde vous dans ce moment ici, comment \u00e7a va-t-il? pourquoi donc \u00eates-vous\nsi rare? Entrez.\u00bb En disant ces mots, il mit la main sur le collet\nviolet de Job, le tira sans r\u00e9sistance dans la cuisine, ferma la porte\net en passa la clef \u00e0 M. Muzzle, qui l'enfon\u00e7a froidement dans une poche\nde c\u00f4t\u00e9, et boutonna son habit par-dessus.\n\n\u00abEh bien! en voil\u00e0 une farce! s'\u00e9cria Sam. Mon ma\u00eetre qui a le plaisir\nde rencontrer votre ma\u00eetre l\u00e0 haut, et moi qui a le plaisir de vous\nrencontrer ici en bas. Comment \u00e7a vous va-t-il? Et notre petit commerce\nd'\u00e9piceries, \u00e7a marche-t-il bien? V\u00e9ritablement, je suis charm\u00e9 de vous\nvoir. Comme vous avez l'air content! C'est charmant. N'est-il pas vrai,\nM. Muzzle?\n\n--Certainement.\n\n--Il est si jovial!\n\n--De si bonne humeur!\n\n--Et si content de nous voir! C'est \u00e7a qui fait le plaisir d'une\nr\u00e9union. Asseyez-vous, asseyez-vous.\u00bb\n\nJob se laissa asseoir sur une chaise, au coin du feu, et dirigea ses\npetits yeux d'abord sur Sam, pois sur Muzzle; mais il ne dit rien.\n\n\u00abEh bien! maintenant, reprit Sam, faites-moi l'amiti\u00e9 de me dire devant\nces dames ici, si vous croyez \u00eatre le gentleman le plus gentil et le\nmieux \u00e9duqu\u00e9 qui a jamais employ\u00e9 un mouchoir rouge et les hymnes n\u00b0 4.\n\n--Et qui a jamais \u00e9t\u00e9 pour \u00eatre mari\u00e9 \u00e0 une cuisini\u00e8re, le mauvais\ngueux! s'\u00e9cria la cuisini\u00e8re avec une sainte indignation.\n\n--Et pour mener une vie plus vertueuse et pour s'\u00e9tablir dans\nl'\u00e9picerie, ajouta la bonne.\n\n--Jeune homme? vocif\u00e9ra Muzzle, enrag\u00e9 par ces deux derni\u00e8res allusions;\n\u00e9coutez-moi-z-un peu maintenant. Cette lady ici (montrant la cuisini\u00e8re)\nest ma bonne amie. Et quand vous avez le toupet de parler de tenir une\nboutique d'\u00e9piceries avec elle, vous me blessez, monsieur, dans\nl'endroit le plus sensible o\u00f9 un homme p\u00fbt en blesser un autre. Me\ncomprenez-vous, monsieur?\u00bb\n\nIci Muzzle, qui, comme son ma\u00eetre, avait une grande id\u00e9e de son\n\u00e9loquence, s'arr\u00eata pour attendre une r\u00e9ponse, mais Job ne paraissant\npas dispos\u00e9 \u00e0 parler, Muzzle poursuivit avec solennit\u00e9.\n\n\u00abIl est tr\u00e8s-probable, monsieur, qu'on n'aura pas besoin de vous l\u00e0-haut\nd'ici \u00e0 quelque temps, parce que mon ma\u00eetre est en train de faire\nl'affaire de votre ma\u00eetre, monsieur: ainsi, vous aurez le temps de me\nparler un petit peu en particulier, monsieur. Me comprenez-vous,\nmonsieur?\u00bb\n\nM. Muzzle se tut encore, attendant toujours une r\u00e9ponse, et M. Trotter\nle d\u00e9sappointa de nouveau.\n\n\u00abEh bien, pour lors, reprit-il, je suis tr\u00e8s-f\u00e2ch\u00e9 d'\u00eatre oblig\u00e9 de\nm'expliquer devant ces dames, mais la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 du cas sera mon excuse.\nL'arri\u00e8re-cuisine est vide, monsieur, si vous voulez y passer, monsieur,\nM. Weller sera t\u00e9moin, et nous aurons une satisfaction mutuelle jusqu'\u00e0\nce que la sonnette sonne. Suivez-moi, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nEn disant ces mots le vaillant domestique fit un pas ou deux vers la\nporte, tout en \u00f4tant son habit afin de ne point perdre de temps.\n\nMais aussit\u00f4t que la cuisini\u00e8re entendit les derni\u00e8res paroles de ce\nd\u00e9fi mortel, aussit\u00f4t qu'elle vit M. Muzzle se pr\u00e9parer pour le combat\nsingulier, elle poussa un cri d\u00e9chirant, et se pr\u00e9cipita sur M. Trotter,\nqui se leva vainement, \u00e0 l'instant m\u00eame; elle souffleta, elle \u00e9gratigna\nson large visage, et entortillant ses mains dans les cheveux plats du\nnouveau Job, elle en arracha de quoi faire cinq ou six douzaines de\nbagues. Ayant accompli cet exploit avec l'ardeur que lui inspirait son\namour d\u00e9vou\u00e9 pour M. Muzzle, elle chancela et tomba \u00e9vanouie sous la\ntable, car c'\u00e9tait une dame dou\u00e9e de sentiments fort d\u00e9licats et fort\nexcitables.\n\nEn ce moment la sonnette retentit.\n\n\u00abC'est pour vous, Job Trotter,\u00bb dit Sam, et avant que celui-ci p\u00fbt\nr\u00e9sister ou faire des remontrances, avant m\u00eame qu'il e\u00fbt \u00e9tanch\u00e9 le sang\nqui coulait de ses blessures, Sam le prit par un bras, Muzzle par\nl'autre, et le premier le tirant, le second le poussant, ils lui firent\nmonter les escaliers et l'introduisirent dans le parloir.\n\nLa sc\u00e8ne qui s'y passait \u00e9tait remplie d'int\u00e9r\u00eat. Alfred Jingle,\nesquire, autrement le capitaine Fitz-Marshall, \u00e9tait debout pr\u00e8s de la\nporte, son chapeau \u00e0 la main, avec un sourire sur son visage, et une\nphysionomie qui n'\u00e9tait nullement \u00e9mue par sa d\u00e9sagr\u00e9able situation. En\nface de lui se trouvait M. Pickwick, qui, \u00e9videmment, lui avait inculqu\u00e9\nquelque le\u00e7on d'une haute morale, car sa main gauche \u00e9tait cach\u00e9e sous\nles pans de son habit, et sa main droite, \u00e9tendue en l'air, comme\nc'\u00e9tait son habitude quand il pronon\u00e7ait un discours destin\u00e9 \u00e0 faire\nimpression. Un peu en arri\u00e8re on voyait M. Tupman, bouillant\nd'indignation, mais soigneusement retenu par ses deux jeunes amis.\nEnfin, \u00e0 l'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 de la chambre se tenaient M. Nupkins, Mme Nupkins\net miss Nupkins, tous avec un air hautain et sombre, plein de menaces et\nde vexations.\n\nAu moment o\u00f9 Job fut amen\u00e9, M. Nupkins d\u00e9clamait avec une dignit\u00e9\nmagistrale:\n\n\u00abQui m'emp\u00eache, disait-il, de faire d\u00e9tenir ces individus comme des\nfripons et des imposteurs? Pourquoi c\u00e9der \u00e0 une folle compassion? Qui\nm'en emp\u00eache?\n\n--L'orgueil, vieux camarade, l'orgueil, r\u00e9pliqua Jingle d'un air calme.\nMauvais effet--attrap\u00e9 un capitaine! Ha! ha!--l'excellente charge!--bon\nparti pour notre fille.--A trompeur trompeur et demi!--Rendre cela\npublic?--Pas pour un empire;--on en dirait trop, beaucoup trop.\n\nMis\u00e9rable! s'\u00e9cria Mme Nupkins, nous m\u00e9prisons vos basses insinuations.\n\n--Je l'ai toujours d\u00e9test\u00e9, ajouta Henriette.\n\n--Oh! n\u00e9cessairement.--Grand jeune homme,--vieux adorateur.--Sidney\nPorkenham,--riche, joli gar\u00e7on.--Pas si riche que le capitaine, malgr\u00e9\n\u00e7a..., eh! son cong\u00e9.--On fait tout au monde pour le capitaine,--le\ncapitaine n'a pas son pareil.--Toutes les demoiselles folles de lui, eh!\nJob, eh?\u00bb\n\nIci M. Jingle se mit \u00e0 rire de tout son coeur, et Job, frottant ses mains\navec d\u00e9lices, laissa \u00e9chapper le premier son qu'il se f\u00fbt encore permis,\ndepuis qu'il \u00e9tait entr\u00e9 dans la maison; c'\u00e9tait un ricanement sans\nbruit, retenu, qui semblait indiquer qu'il en jouissait trop pour en\nlaisser \u00e9vaporer aucune partie en vaines d\u00e9monstrations.\n\n\u00abM. Nupkins, dit l'a\u00een\u00e9e des deux dames, voil\u00e0 une conversation que les\ndomestiques n'ont pas besoin d'entendre. Faites \u00e9loigner ces deux\nmis\u00e9rables.\n\n--Certainement, ma ch\u00e8re.--Muzzle.\n\n--Votre V\u00e9n\u00e9ration...\n\n--Ouvrez la porte.\n\n--Oui, Votre V\u00e9n\u00e9ration...\n\n--Quittez cette maison, mis\u00e9rables! s'\u00e9cria M. Nupkins d'une mani\u00e8re\nemphatique.\u00bb\n\nJingle sourit et se dirigea vers la porte.\n\n\u00abArr\u00eatez,\u00bb dit M. Pickwick.\n\nJingle s'arr\u00eata.\n\n\u00abJ'aurais pu, poursuivit M. Pickwick, j'aurais pu me venger davantage du\ntraitement que vous m'avez fait \u00e9prouver, de concert avec votre ami\nl'hypocrite... (Ici Job salua avec la plus grande politesse, en posant\nla main sur son coeur.) Je dis, continua M. Pickwick, en s'\u00e9chauffant\ngraduellement, je dis que j'aurais pu me venger davantage; mais je me\ncontente de vous d\u00e9masquer, car c'est un devoir envers mes semblables.\nJe me flatte, monsieur, que vous n'oublierez pas cette mod\u00e9ration. (En\ncet endroit Job Trotter, avec une fac\u00e9tieuse gravit\u00e9, appliqua sa main \u00e0\nson oreille comme pour ne pas perdre une syllabe de ce que disait M.\nPickwick.) Je n'ai plus qu'une chose \u00e0 ajouter, continua le philosophe,\ntout \u00e0 fait irrit\u00e9: c'est que je vous regarde comme un fripon... et\nun... un coquin... le plus mauvais coquin que j'aie jamais rencontr\u00e9...\nexcept\u00e9 ce pieux vagabond en livr\u00e9e violette!\n\n--Ha! ha! ha! ricana Jingle. Bon gar\u00e7on,--Pickwick; bon coeur!--vieux\ngaillard solide!--mais il ne faut pas \u00eatre si col\u00e8re,--mauvaise\nchose.--Adieu, adieu; vous reverrai quelque jour.--Ne vous chagrinez\npas.--Job, trotte!\u00bb\n\nEn pronon\u00e7ant ces mots, M. Jingle enfon\u00e7a son chapeau \u00e0 sa mode et\ns'\u00e9loigna d'un pas mesur\u00e9. Job s'arr\u00eata, regarda autour de lui, sourit,\npuis, adressant \u00e0 M. Pickwick un salut s\u00e9rieusement moqueur, et \u00e0 Sam un\ncoup d'oeil dont l'audacieuse malice surpasse toute description, il\nsuivit les pas de son estimable ma\u00eetre.\n\n\u00abSam, dit M. Pickwick, en voyant que son domestique prenait le m\u00eame\nchemin.\n\n--Monsieur.\n\n--Restez ici.\u00bb\n\nSam parut incertain.\n\n\u00abRestez ici, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick.\n\n--Est-ce que je ne pourrais pas rabattre un peu ce Job Trotter dans le\njardin?\n\n--Non certainement.\n\n--Est-ce que je ne peux pas le reconduire \u00e0 coups de pied, monsieur?\n\n--Non, sous aucun pr\u00e9texte.\u00bb\n\nPendant un moment, pour la premi\u00e8re fois depuis son engagement, Sam eut\nl'air m\u00e9content et malheureux. Mais sa contenance s'\u00e9claircit\nimm\u00e9diatement, car le rus\u00e9 Muzzle, qui s'\u00e9tait cach\u00e9 derri\u00e8re la porte,\nen sortit vivement \u00e0 l'instant pr\u00e9cis, et parvint fort habilement \u00e0\nfaire rouler Jingle et son acolyte le long des escaliers, et jusque dans\nles alo\u00e8s am\u00e9ricains, qui les attendaient en bas.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, monsieur, dit M. Pickwick \u00e0 M. Nupkins, maintenant,\nmonsieur, ayant accompli notre dessein, mes amis et moi, nous allons\nvous faire nos adieux, et tout en vous remerciant pour l'hospitalit\u00e9 que\nnous avons re\u00e7ue, permettez-moi de vous assurer, en leur nom comme au\nmien, que nous ne l'aurions pas accept\u00e9e, et que nous n'aurions pas\nconsenti \u00e0 sortir ainsi de la situation o\u00f9 nous nous trouvions, si nous\nn'y avions pas \u00e9t\u00e9 incit\u00e9s par un vif sentiment de devoir. Nous\nretournons \u00e0 Londres demain matin: votre secret est en s\u00fbret\u00e9 avec\nnous.\u00bb\n\nAyant ainsi protest\u00e9 contre ce qui s'\u00e9tait pass\u00e9 dans la matin\u00e9e, M.\nPickwick fit un profond salut aux dames, et malgr\u00e9 les sollicitations de\nla famille, quitta la chambre avec ses amis.\n\n\u00abPrenez votre chapeau, Sam, dit-il \u00e0 son domestique.\n\n--Il est en bas, monsieur,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua Sam, et il courut le qu\u00e9rir dans la\ncuisine.\n\nLe chapeau \u00e9tant \u00e9gar\u00e9, Sam fut oblig\u00e9 de le chercher et Mary, qui se\ntrouvait l\u00e0 toute seule, l'\u00e9claira. Apr\u00e8s avoir regard\u00e9 de tous les\nc\u00f4t\u00e9s, la jolie bonne, dans son anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 pour trouver le chapeau perdu,\nse mit sur ses genoux et retourna tous les objets entass\u00e9s dans un petit\ncoin derri\u00e8re la porte. C'\u00e9tait un petit coin fort incommode. On ne\npouvait y arriver sans commencer par fermer la porte.\n\n\u00abLe voil\u00e0, dit enfin la jolie bonne, n'est-ce pas cela?\n\n--Voyons,\u00bb fit Sam.\n\nMary avait pos\u00e9 la chandelle sur le plancher, et, comme elle \u00e9clairait\nfort peu, Sam fut oblig\u00e9 de se mettre aussi \u00e0 genoux pour voir si\nc'\u00e9tait r\u00e9ellement son chapeau. Le recoin \u00e9tait remarquablement petit,\net ainsi, sans qu'il y e\u00fbt de la faute de personne, except\u00e9 de\nl'architecte qui avait b\u00e2ti la maison Sam et la jolie bonne se\ntrouvaient n\u00e9cessairement fort pr\u00e8s l'un de l'autre.\n\n\u00abC'est bien lui, dit Sam, adieu.\n\n--Adieu, r\u00e9pondit la jolie bonne.\n\n--Adieu, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta Sam, et en disant cela il laissa tomber le chapeau qu'il\navait eu tant de peine \u00e0 trouver.\n\n--Comme vous \u00eates maladroit! dit Mary. Vous le perdrez encore si vous\nn'y prenez pas garde.\u00bb Et pour qu'il ne se perdit plus, elle le lui mit\nsur la t\u00eate.\n\nLe visage de la jolie bonne paraissait plus joli encore, \u00e9tant ainsi\nlev\u00e9 vers Sam: or, soit \u00e0 cause de cela, soit par une simple cons\u00e9quence\nde leur juxtaposition, il arriva que Sam l'embrassa.\n\n\u00abJ'esp\u00e8re que vous ne l'avez pas fait expr\u00e8s! s'\u00e9cria-t-elle en\nrougissant.\n\n--Non, ma ch\u00e8re, mais je vais la faire expr\u00e8s \u00e0 pr\u00e9sent;\u00bb et il\nl'embrassa une seconde fois.\n\n\u00abSam! cria M. Pickwick par-dessus la rampe.\n\n--Voil\u00e0, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit Sam, en montant les marches quatre \u00e0 quatre.\n\n--Vous avez \u00e9t\u00e9 bien longtemps.\n\n--Il y avait quelque chose derri\u00e8re la porte, qui nous a emp\u00each\u00e9s de\nl'ouvrir pendant tout se temps-l\u00e0, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nTel fut le premier chapitre des amours de Sam.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XXVI.\n\nContenant un r\u00e9cit abr\u00e9g\u00e9 des progr\u00e8s de l'action _Bardell contre\nPickwick_.\n\n\nAyant accompli le principal objet de son voyage en d\u00e9masquant l'infamie\nde Jingle, M. Pickwick r\u00e9solut de retourner imm\u00e9diatement \u00e0 Londres,\nafin de savoir quelles mesures Dodson et Fogg avaient prises contre lui.\nEx\u00e9cutant cette r\u00e9solution avec toute l'\u00e9nergie de son caract\u00e8re, il\nmonta \u00e0 l'ext\u00e9rieur de la premi\u00e8re voiture qui quitta Ipswich, le\nlendemain du jour o\u00f9 se pass\u00e8rent les m\u00e9morables \u00e9v\u00e9nements que nous\nvenons de rapporter, et arriva dans la m\u00e9tropole le m\u00eame soir, en\nparfaite sant\u00e9, accompagn\u00e9 de ses trois disciples et de Sam.\n\nL\u00e0, nos amis se s\u00e9par\u00e8rent pour quelque temps. MM. Tupman, Winkle et\nSnodgrass se rendirent \u00e0 leurs domiciles, afin de faire les pr\u00e9paratifs\nn\u00e9cessaires pour leur voyage prochain \u00e0 Dingley-Dell: M. Pickwick et Sam\ns'\u00e9tablirent dans un h\u00f4tel fort bon quoique fort antique, le _George et\nVautour_, George Yard, Lombard-street.\n\nM. Pickwick avait d\u00een\u00e9 et fini sa seconde pinte d'excellent porto; il\navait enfonc\u00e9 son mouchoir de soie sur sa t\u00eate, et pos\u00e9 ses pieds sur le\ngarde-feu; enfin il s'\u00e9tait renvers\u00e9 dans sa berg\u00e8re, lorsque l'entr\u00e9e\nde Sam avec son sac de nuit le tira de sa tranquille m\u00e9ditation.\n\n\u00abSam, dit-il.\n\n--Monsieur?\n\n--Je pensais justement que j'ai laiss\u00e9 beaucoup de choses chez mistress\nBardell, rue Goswell, et qu'il faudra que je les fasse prendre avant de\nrepartir.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, monsieur.\n\n--Je pourrais les envoyer pour le moment chez M. Tupman. Mais avant de\nles faire enlever, il faudrait les mettre en ordre. Je d\u00e9sirerais que\nvous allassiez jusqu'\u00e0 la rue Goswell et que vous arrangeassiez tout\ncela, Sam.\n\n--Tout de suite, monsieur?\n\n--Tout de suite. Et... attendez, Sam, ajouta M. Pickwick en tirant sa\nbourse. Il faut payer le loyer. Le terme n'est d\u00fb qu'\u00e0 No\u00ebl, mais vous\nle payerez pour que tout soit fini. Je puis donner cong\u00e9 en pr\u00e9venant un\nmois d'avance. Voici le cong\u00e9. Donnez-le \u00e0 Mme Bardell. Elle mettra\n\u00e9criteau quand elle voudra.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, monsieur. Rien de plus?\n\n--Rien de plus, Sam.\u00bb\n\nSam se dirigea \u00e0 petits pas vers l'escalier, comme s'il e\u00fbt attendu\nencore quelque chose. Il ouvrit lentement la porte, et \u00e9tant sorti\nlentement, l'avait doucement referm\u00e9e, \u00e0 deux pouces pr\u00e8s, lorsque M.\nPickwick cria:\n\n\u00abSam!\n\n--Oui, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit Sam, en revenant vivement et fermant la porte\napr\u00e8s soi.\n\n--Je ne m'oppose pas \u00e0 ce que vous t\u00e2chiez de savoir comment Mme Bardell\nsemble personnellement dispos\u00e9e envers moi, et s'il est r\u00e9ellement\nprobable que ce proc\u00e8s inf\u00e2me et sans base soit pouss\u00e9 \u00e0 toute\nextr\u00e9mit\u00e9. Je dis que je ne m'oppose pas \u00e0 ce que vous essayiez de\nd\u00e9couvrir cela, si vous le d\u00e9sirez, Sam.\u00bb\n\nSam fit un l\u00e9ger signe d'intelligence et quitta la chambre. M. Pickwick\nenfon\u00e7a de nouveau le mouchoir de soie sur sa t\u00eate et s'arrangea pour\nfaire un somme.\n\nIl \u00e9tait pr\u00e8s de neuf heures lorsque Sam atteignit la rue Goswell. Une\npaire de chandelles br\u00fblaient dans le parloir, et l'ombre d'une couple\nde chapeaux se distinguait sur la jalousie. Mistress Bardell avait du\nmonde.\n\nSam frappa \u00e0 la porte. Apr\u00e8s un assez long intervalle, pendant lequel\nmistress Bardell t\u00e2chait de persuader une chandelle r\u00e9fractaire de se\nlaisser allumer, de petites bottes se firent entendre sur le tapis et\nmaster Bardell se pr\u00e9senta.\n\n\u00abEh bien! jeune homme, dit Sam, comment va c'te m\u00e8re?\n\n--Elle ne va pas mal, ni moi non plus.\n\n--Eh bien! j'en suis charm\u00e9. Dites-lui que j'ai \u00e0 lui parler, mon jeune\nph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne.\u00bb\n\nMaster Bardell, ainsi conjur\u00e9, posa la chandelle r\u00e9fractaire sur la\npremi\u00e8re marche de l'escalier, et disparut, avec son message, derri\u00e8re\nla porte du parloir.\n\nLes deux chapeaux dessin\u00e9s sur les carreaux \u00e9taient ceux des deux amies\nles plus intimes de mistress Bardell. Elles venaient d'arriver pour\nprendre une paisible tasse de th\u00e9 et un petit souper chaud de pommes de\nterre et de fromage r\u00f4ti; et tandis que le fromage bruissait et friait\ndevant le feu, tandis que les pommes de terre cuisaient d\u00e9licieusement\ndans un po\u00ealon, mistress Bardell et ses deux amies se r\u00e9galaient d'une\npetite conversation critique concernant toutes leurs connaissances\nr\u00e9ciproques. Master Bardell interrompit cette int\u00e9ressante revue en\nrapportant le message qui lui avait \u00e9t\u00e9 confi\u00e9 par Sam.\n\n\u00abLe domestique de M. Pickwick! s'\u00e9cria mistress Bardell en p\u00e2lissant.\n\n--Bont\u00e9 divine! fit mistress Cluppins.\n\n--Eh bien! r\u00e9ellement je n'aurais pas cru \u00e7a, si je n'y avais pas\nt'\u00e9t\u00e9,\u00bb d\u00e9clara mistress Sanders.\n\nMistress Cluppins \u00e9tait une petite femme vive et affair\u00e9e; mistress\nSanders une personne grosse, grasse et pesante. Toutes les deux\nformaient la compagnie.\n\nMistress Bardell trouva convenable d'\u00eatre agit\u00e9e, et comme aucune des\ntrois amies ne savait s'il \u00e9tait bon d'avoir des communications avec le\ndomestique de M. Pickwick, autrement que par la minist\u00e8re de Dodson et\nFogg, elles se trouvaient prises au d\u00e9pourvu. Dans cet \u00e9tat\nd'ind\u00e9cision, la premi\u00e8re chose \u00e0 faire \u00e9tait \u00e9videmment de taper le\npetit gar\u00e7on pour avoir trouv\u00e9 M. Weller \u00e0 la porte. La tendre m\u00e8re n'y\nmanqua pas, et il se mit \u00e0 crier fort m\u00e9lodieusement.\n\n\u00abNe m'\u00e9tourdissez pas les oreilles, m\u00e9chante cr\u00e9ature! lui dit mistress\nBardell.\n\n--Ne tourmentez pas votre pauvre ch\u00e8re m\u00e8re! cria mistress Cluppins.\n\n--Elle en a assez des tourments, ajouta mistress Sanders avec une\nr\u00e9signation sympathisante.\n\n--Ah! oui, l'est-elle malheureuse! pauvre agneau!\u00bb reprit mistress\nCluppins.\n\nPendant ces r\u00e9flexions morales, master Bardell hurlait de plus en plus\nfort.\n\n\u00abQu'allons-nous faire maintenant? demanda mistress Bardell \u00e0 mistress\nCluppins.\n\n--Je pense que vous devriez le voir, devant un t\u00e9moin, s'entend.\n\n--Deux t\u00e9moins, serait plus l\u00e9gal, fit observer mistress Sanders, qui,\nainsi que son amie, crevait de curiosit\u00e9.\n\n--Peut-\u00eatre qu'il vaudrait mieux le faire venir ici,\u00bb reprit mistress\nBardell.\n\nMistress Cluppins adopta avidement cette id\u00e9e. \u00abBien s\u00fbr!\ns'\u00e9cria-t-elle. Entrez, jeune homme, et fermez d'abord la porte, s'il\nvous pla\u00eet.\u00bb\n\nSam saisit l'occasion aux cheveux, et se pr\u00e9sentant dans le parloir,\nexposa, ainsi qu'il suit, sa commission \u00e0 mistress Bardell:\n\n\u00abTr\u00e8s-f\u00e2ch\u00e9 de vous d\u00e9ranger, madame, comme disait le chauffeur \u00e0 la\nvieille dame en la mettant sur le gril; mais comme je viens justement\nd'arriver avec mon gouverneur et que nous nous en allons incessamment,\nil n'y a pas moyen d'emp\u00eacher \u00e7a, comme vous voyez.\n\n--Effectivement le jeune homme ne peut pas emp\u00eacher les fautes de son\nma\u00eetre, fit observer mistress Cluppins, sur laquelle l'apparence et la\nconversation de Sam avaient fait beaucoup d'impression.\n\n--Non certainement, r\u00e9pondit mistress Sanders, en jetant un regard\nattendri sur le petit po\u00ealon, et en calculant mentalement la\ndistribution probable des pommes de terre, au cas o\u00f9 Sam serait invit\u00e9 \u00e0\nsouper.\n\n--Ainsi donc, poursuivit l'ambassadeur, sans remarquer l'interruption,\nvoil\u00e0 pourquoi je suis venu ici: primo, d'abord, pour vous donner cong\u00e9:\nle voil\u00e0 ici; secondo, pour payer le loyer: le voil\u00e0 ici; troiso, pour\ndire que vous mettiez toutes nos histoires en ordre, pour donner \u00e0 la\npersonne que nous enverrons pour les prendre; quatro, que vous pouvez\nmettre l'\u00e9criteau aussit\u00f4t que vous voudrez. Et voil\u00e0 tout.\n\n--Malgr\u00e9 ce qui est arriv\u00e9, soupira mistress Bardell, je dirai toujours\net j'ai toujours dit que, sous tous les rapports, except\u00e9 un, M.\nPickwick s'est toujours conduit comme un gentleman parfait; son argent\n\u00e9tait toujours aussi solide que la banque, toujours.\u00bb\n\nEn disant ceci, mistress Bardell appliqua son mouchoir \u00e0 ses yeux... et\nsortit de la chambre pour faire la quittance.\n\nSam savait bien qu'il n'avait qu'\u00e0 rester tranquille et que les deux\ninvit\u00e9es ne manqueraient point de parler; aussi se contenta-t-il de\nregarder alternativement le po\u00ealon, le fromage, le mur et le plancher,\nen gardant le plus profond silence.\n\n\u00abPauvre ch\u00e8re femme! s'\u00e9cria mistress Cluppins.\n\n--Pauvre criature!\u00bb r\u00e9torqua mistress Sanders.\n\nSam ne dit rien; il vit qu'elles arrivaient au sujet.\n\n\u00abRiellement je ne puis pas me contenir, dit mistress Cluppins, quand je\npense \u00e0 une trahison comme \u00e7a. Je ne veux rien dire pour vous vexer,\njeune homme, mais votre ma\u00eetre est une vieille brute, et je d\u00e9sire que\nje l'eusse ici pour lui dire \u00e0 lui-m\u00eame.\n\n--Je d\u00e9sire que vous l'eussiez, r\u00e9pondit Sam.\n\n--C'est terrible de voir comme elle d\u00e9p\u00e9rit et qu'elle ne prend plaisir\n\u00e0 rien, except\u00e9 quand ses amies viennent, par pure charit\u00e9, pour causer\navec elle et la rendre confortable, reprit mistress Cluppins en jetant\nun coup d'oeil au po\u00ealon et au fromage. C'est choquant.\n\n--Barbaresque! ajouta mistress Sanders.\n\n--Et votre ma\u00eetre, qu'est un homme d'argent, qui ne s'apercevrait tant\nseulement pas de la d\u00e9pense d'une femme. Il n'a pas l'ombre d'une\nexcuse. Pourquoi ne l'\u00e9pouse-t-il pas?\n\n--Ah! dit Sam. Bien s\u00fbr, voil\u00e0 la question.\n\n--Certainement, qu'elle lui demanderait la question, si elle avait\nautant de courage que moi, poursuivit mistress Cluppins avec grande\nvolubilit\u00e9. Quoi qu'il en soit, il y a une loi pour nous autres femmes,\nmalgr\u00e9 que les hommes voudraient nous rendre comme des esclaves. Et\nvotre ma\u00eetre saura \u00e7a \u00e0 ses d\u00e9pens, jeune homme, avant qu'il soit plus\nvieux de six mois.\u00bb\n\nA cette consolante r\u00e9flexion, mistress Cluppins se redressa, et sourit \u00e0\nmistress Sanders, qui lui renvoya son sourire.\n\n\u00abL'affaire marche toujours,\u00bb pensa Sam, tandis que mistress Bardell\nrentrait avec le re\u00e7u.\n\n--Voil\u00e0 le re\u00e7u, monsieur Weller, dit l'aimable veuve, et voil\u00e0 votre\nreste. J'esp\u00e8re que vous prendrez quelque chose pour vous tenir\nl'estomac chaud, quand \u00e7a ne serait qu'\u00e0 cause de la vieille\nconnaissance....\u00bb\n\nSam vit l'avantage qu'il pouvait gagner, et accepta sur-le-champ.\nAussit\u00f4t mistress Bardell tira d'une petite armoire une bouteille avec\nun verre; et sa profonde affliction la pr\u00e9occupait tellement qu'apr\u00e8s\navoir rempli le verre de Sam, elle aveignit encore trois autres verres\net les remplit \u00e9galement.\n\n\u00abAh \u00e7a! mistress Bardell, s'\u00e9cria mistress Cluppins, voyez ce que vous\navez fait!\n\n--Eh bien! en voil\u00e0 une bonne! \u00e9jacula mistress Sanders.\n\n--Ah! ma pauvre t\u00eate?\u00bb fit mistress Bardell, avec un faible sourire.\n\nSam, comme on s'en doute bien, comprit tout cela. Aussi s'empressa-t-il\nde dire qu'il ne buvait jamais, avant souper, \u00e0 moins qu'une dame ne b\u00fbt\navec lui. Il s'ensuivit beaucoup d'\u00e9clats de rire, et enfin mistress\nSanders s'engagea \u00e0 le satisfaire et but une petite goutte. Alors Sam\nd\u00e9clara qu'il fallait faire la ronde, et toutes ces dames burent une\npetite goutte. Ensuite la vive mistress Cluppins proposa pour toast:\n_Bonne chance \u00e0 Bardell contre Pickwick_; et les dames vid\u00e8rent leurs\nverres en honneur de ce voeu: apr\u00e8s quoi elles devinrent tr\u00e8s-parlantes.\n\n\u00abJe suppose, dit mistress Bardell, je suppose que vous avez appris ce\nqui se passe, monsieur Weller?\n\n--Un petit brin, r\u00e9pondit Sam.\n\n--C'est une terrible chose, monsieur Weller, que d'\u00eatre tra\u00een\u00e9e comme\ncela devant le public; mais je vois maintenant que c'est la seule\nressource qui me reste, et mon avou\u00e9, M. Dodson et Fogg, me dit que nous\ndevons r\u00e9ussir, avec les t\u00e9moins que nous appellerons. Si je ne\nr\u00e9ussissais pas, je ne sais pas ce que je ferais!\u00bb\n\nLa seule id\u00e9e de voir mistress Bardell perdre son proc\u00e8s affecta si\nprofond\u00e9ment mistress Sanders qu'elle fut oblig\u00e9e de remplir et de vider\nson verre imm\u00e9diatement, sentant, comme elle le dit ensuite, que si elle\nn'avait pas eu la pr\u00e9sence d'esprit d'agir ainsi, elle se serait\ninfailliblement trouv\u00e9e mal.\n\n\u00abQuand pensez-vous que \u00e7a viendra? demanda Sam.\n\n--Au mois de f\u00e9vrier ou de mai, r\u00e9pliqua mistress Bardell.\n\n--Quelle quantit\u00e9 de t\u00e9moins il y aura! dit mistress Cluppins.\n\n--Ah! oui! fit mistress Sanders.\n\n--Et si la plaignante ne gagne pas, MM. Dodson et Fogg seront-ils\nfurieux, eux qui font tout cela par sp\u00e9culation, \u00e0 leurs risques!\ncontinua mistress Cluppins.\n\n--Ah! oui.\n\n--Mais la plaignante doit gagner, ajouta mistress Cluppins.\n\n--Je l'esp\u00e8re, dit mistress Bardell.\n\n--Il n'y a pas le moindre doute, r\u00e9pliqua mistress Sanders.\n\n--Eh bien! dit Sam en se levant et en posant son verre sur la table,\ntout ce que je peux dire c'est que je vous le souhaite.\n\n--Merci, monsieur Weller! s'\u00e9cria mistress Bardell avec ferveur.\n\n--Et tant qu'\u00e0 ce Dodson et Fogg, qui fait ces sortes de choses par\nsp\u00e9culation, poursuivit Sam, et tant qu'aux bons et g\u00e9n\u00e9reux individus\nde la m\u00eame profession qui mettent les gens par les oreilles gratis, pour\nrien, et qui occupent leurs clercs \u00e0 trouver des petites disputes chez\nleurs voisins et connaissances pour les accorder avec des proc\u00e8s, tout\nce que je peux dire d'eux, c'est que je leur souhaite la r\u00e9compense que\nje leur donnerais.\n\n--Ah! s'\u00e9cria mistress Bardell, attendrie, je leur souhaite la\nr\u00e9compense que tous les coeurs g\u00e9n\u00e9reux et compatissants seraient\ndispos\u00e9s \u00e0 leur accorder.\n\n--Amen! r\u00e9pondit Sam. Et ils gagneraient joliment de quoi mener joyeuse\nvie et s'engraisser, s'ils avaient ce que je leur souhaite!--Je vous\noffre le bonsoir, mesdames.\u00bb\n\nAu grand soulagement de mistress Sanders, leur h\u00f4tesse permit \u00e0 Sam de\npartir, sans faire aucune allusion aux pommes de terre ni au fromage\nr\u00f4ti, et peu apr\u00e8s, avec l'assistance juv\u00e9nile qu'on pouvait attendre de\nmaster Bardell, les trois dames rendirent la plus ample justice \u00e0 ces\nmets d\u00e9licieux, qui s'\u00e9vanouirent compl\u00e9tement sous leurs courageux\nefforts.\n\nSam, arriv\u00e9 \u00e0 l'auberge le _George et Vautour_, rapporta fid\u00e8lement \u00e0\nson ma\u00eetre les indices qu'il avait recueillis des manoeuvres de Dodson et\nFogg; et son r\u00e9cit fut compl\u00e9tement confirm\u00e9 le lendemain par M. Perker,\navec qui notre philosophe eut une entrevue. Il fut donc oblig\u00e9 de se\npr\u00e9parer pour sa visite de No\u00ebl \u00e0 Dingley-Dell, avec l'agr\u00e9able\nperspective d'\u00eatre actionn\u00e9 publiquement, deux ou trois mois plus tard,\npar la cour des _Common Pleas_, pour violation d'une promesse de\nmariage; la plaignante ayant tout l'avantage inh\u00e9rent \u00e0 ce genre\nd'action, et r\u00e9sultant de l'excessive habilet\u00e9 de Dodson et Fogg.\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XXVII.\n\nSamuel Weller fait un p\u00e8lerinage \u00e0 Dorking, et voit sa belle-m\u00e8re.\n\n\nComme il restait un intervalle de deux jours avant l'\u00e9poque fix\u00e9e pour\nle d\u00e9part des Pickwickiens pour Dingley-Dell, Sam, apr\u00e8s avoir d\u00een\u00e9 de\nbonne heure, s'assit dans l'arri\u00e8re-salle de l'auberge le _George et\nVautour_, pour r\u00e9fl\u00e9chir au meilleur emploi possible de cet espace de\ntemps. Il faisait un temps superbe, et Samuel n'avait pas rumin\u00e9 pendant\ndix minutes, lorsqu'il sentit tout \u00e0 coup na\u00eetre en lui un sentiment\nfilial et affectueux. Le besoin d'aller voir son p\u00e8re et de rendre ses\ndevoirs \u00e0 sa belle-m\u00e8re se pr\u00e9senta alors si fortement \u00e0 son esprit,\nqu'il fut frapp\u00e9 d'\u00e9tonnement de n'avoir pas song\u00e9 plus t\u00f4t \u00e0 cette\nobligation morale. Impatient de r\u00e9parer ses torts pass\u00e9s, dans le plus\nbref d\u00e9lai possible, il gravit les marches de l'escalier, se pr\u00e9senta\ndirectement devant M. Pickwick, et lui demanda un cong\u00e9 afin d'ex\u00e9cuter\nce louable dessein.\n\n\u00abCertainement, Sam, certainement,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit le philosophe, dont les yeux\nse remplirent de larmes de joie \u00e0 cette manifestation des bons\nsentiments de son domestique.\n\nSam fit une inclination de t\u00eate reconnaissante.\n\n\u00abJe suis charm\u00e9 de voir que vous comprenez si bien vos devoirs de fils.\n\n--Je les ai toujours compris, monsieur.\n\n--C'est une r\u00e9flexion fort consolante, dit M. Pickwick d'un air\napprobateur.\n\n--Tout \u00e0 fait, monsieur. Quand je voulais quelque chose de mon p\u00e8re, je\nle lui demandais d'une mani\u00e8re tr\u00e8s-respectueuse et obligeante; s'il ne\nme le donnait pas, je le prenais, dans la crainte d'\u00eatre enduit \u00e0 mal\nfaire, si je n'avais pas ce que je voulais. Je lui ai \u00e9vit\u00e9 comme \u00e7a une\nfoule d'embarras, monsieur.\n\n--Ce n'est pas pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment ce que j'entendais, Sam, dit M. Pickwick en\nsecouant la t\u00eate avec un l\u00e9ger sourire.\n\n--J'ai agi dans un bon sentiment, monsieur, avec les meilleures\nintentions du monde, comme disait le gentleman qui avait plant\u00e9 l\u00e0 sa\nfemme, parce qu'elle \u00e9tait malheureuse avec lui....\n\n--Vous pouvez aller, Sam.\n\n--Merci, monsieur.\u00bb Et ayant fait son plus beau salut et rev\u00eatu ses plus\nbeaux habits, Sam se percha sur l'imp\u00e9riale de l'Hirondelle et se rendit\n\u00e0 Dorking.\n\n_Le marquis de Granby_, du temps de Mme Weller, pouvait servir de mod\u00e8le\naux meilleures auberges; assez grande pour qu'on y e\u00fbt ses coud\u00e9es\nfranches, assez petite et assez commode pour qu'on s'y cr\u00fbt chez soi. Du\nc\u00f4t\u00e9 oppos\u00e9 de la route, un poteau \u00e9lev\u00e9 supportait une vaste enseigne,\no\u00f9 l'on voyait repr\u00e9sent\u00e9es la t\u00eate et les \u00e9paules d'un gentleman dou\u00e9\nd'un teint apoplectique. Son habit rouge avait des revers bleus, et\nquelques taches de cette derni\u00e8re couleur \u00e9taient plac\u00e9es au-dessus de\nson tricorne pour figurer le ciel. Plus haut encore, il y avait une\npaire de drapeaux, et au-dessous du dernier bouton de l'habit rouge du\ngentleman, une couple de canons. Le tout offrait incontestablement un\nportrait frappant du marquis de Granby, de glorieuse m\u00e9moire. Les\nfen\u00eatres du comptoir laissaient voir une collection de g\u00e9raniums et une\nrang\u00e9e bien \u00e9pousset\u00e9e de bouteilles de liqueur. Les volets verts\n\u00e9talaient en lettres d'or force pan\u00e9gyriques des bons lits et des bons\nvins de la maison; enfin le groupe choisi de paysans et de valets qui\nfl\u00e2naient autour des \u00e9curies, autour des auges, disait beaucoup en\nfaveur de la bonne qualit\u00e9 de la bi\u00e8re et de l'eau-devie qui se\nvendaient \u00e0 l'int\u00e9rieur. En descendant de voiture, Sam s'arr\u00eata pour\nnoter, avec l'oeil d'un voyageur exp\u00e9riment\u00e9, toutes ces petites\nindications d'un commerce prosp\u00e8re, et, quand il entra, il \u00e9tait\ngrandement satisfait du r\u00e9sultat de ses observations.\n\n\u00abEh bien? dit une voix aigrelette lorsque la t\u00eate de Sam se montra \u00e0 la\nporte du comptoir. Qu'est-ce que vous voulez, jeune homme?\u00bb\n\nSam regarda dans la direction de la voix. Elle provenait d'une dame\nd'une encolure assez puissante, confortablement assise aupr\u00e8s de la\nchemin\u00e9e, et qui s'occupait \u00e0 souffler le feu, afin de faire chauffer\nl'eau pour le th\u00e9. La dame n'\u00e9tait pas seule, car de l'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la\nchemin\u00e9e, tout droit dans un antique fauteuil, \u00e9tait assis un homme dont\nle dos \u00e9tait presque aussi long et presque aussi roide que celui du\nfauteuil lui-m\u00eame.\n\nCet individu, qui attira sur-le-champ l'attention sp\u00e9ciale de Sam,\nparaissait long et fluet. Son visage \u00e9tait couperos\u00e9, son nez rouge; ses\nyeux m\u00e9chants et bien \u00e9veill\u00e9s tenaient beaucoup de ceux d'un serpent \u00e0\nsonnettes. Il portait un habit noir r\u00e2p\u00e9, un pantalon tr\u00e8s-court et des\nbas de coton noir qui, comme le reste de son costume, avaient une teinte\nrouill\u00e9e. Son air \u00e9tait empes\u00e9, mais sa cravate blanche ne l'\u00e9tait pas,\net pendait toute chiffonn\u00e9e et d'une mani\u00e8re fort peu pittoresque sur\nson gilet boutonn\u00e9 jusqu'au menton. Sur une chaise, \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de lui,\n\u00e9taient plac\u00e9s une paire de gants de castor, vieux et us\u00e9s; un chapeau \u00e0\nlarges lords; un parapluie fort pass\u00e9, qui laissait voir une quantit\u00e9 de\nbaleines, comme pour contre-balancer l'absence d'une poign\u00e9e: enfin,\ntous ces objets \u00e9taient arrang\u00e9s avec un soin et une sym\u00e9trie qui\nsemblaient indiquer que l'homme au nez rouge, quel qu'il f\u00fbt, n'avait\npas l'intention de s'en aller de sit\u00f4t.\n\nPour lui rendre justice, il faut convenir que s'il avait eu cette\nintention, il e\u00fbt fait preuve de bien peu d'intelligence; car, \u00e0 en\njuger par les apparences, il aurait fallu qu'il poss\u00e9d\u00e2t un cercle de\nconnaissances bien d\u00e9sirable, pour pouvoir raisonnablement esp\u00e9rer\ns'installer ailleurs plus confortablement. Le feu flambait joyeusement\nsous l'influence du soufflet, et la bouilloire chantait gaiement sous\nl'influence de l'un et de l'autre; sur la table \u00e9tait dispos\u00e9 tout\nl'appareil du th\u00e9: un plat de r\u00f4ties beurr\u00e9es chauffait doucement devant\nle foyer, et l'homme au nez rouge, arm\u00e9 d'une longue fourchette,\ns'occupait activement \u00e0 transformer de larges tranches de pain en cet\nagr\u00e9able comestible. Aupr\u00e8s de lui \u00e9tait un verre d'eau et de rhum\nbr\u00fblant, dans lequel nageait une tranche de limon; et chaque fois qu'il\nse baissait pour amener les tartines de pain aupr\u00e8s de son oeil, afin de\njuger comment elles r\u00f4tissaient, il sirotait une goutte ou deux de grog,\net souriait en regardant la dame \u00e0 la puissante encolure, qui soufflait\nle feu.\n\nLa contemplation de cette sc\u00e8ne confortable avait tellement absorb\u00e9 les\nfacult\u00e9s pensantes de Sam, qu'il laissa passer sans y faire attention\nles premi\u00e8res interrogations de l'h\u00f4tesse, qui fut oblig\u00e9e de les\nr\u00e9p\u00e9ter trois fois, sur un ton de plus en plus aigre, avant qu'il\ns'aper\u00e7\u00fbt de l'inconvenance de sa conduite.\n\n\u00abLe gouverneur y est-il? demanda-t-il enfin.\n\n--Non, il n'y est pas, r\u00e9pondit Mme Weller, car la dame n'\u00e9tait autre\nque la ci-devant veuve et la seule et unique ex\u00e9cutrice testamentaire de\nfeu M. Clarke. Non, il n'y est pas, et qui plus est je ne l'attends pas.\n\n--Je suppose qu'il conduit aujourd'hui? reprit Sam.\n\n--Peut-\u00eatre que oui, peut-\u00eatre que non, r\u00e9pliqua Mme Weller en beurrant\nla tartine que l'homme au nez rouge venait de faire r\u00f4tir. Je n'en sais\nrien, et de plus je ne m'en soucie gu\u00e8re.--Dites un _Benedicite_,\nmonsieur Stiggins.\u00bb\n\nL'homme au nez rouge fit ce qui lui \u00e9tait demand\u00e9, et attaqua aussit\u00f4t\nune r\u00f4tie avec une voracit\u00e9 sauvage.\n\nSon apparence, d\u00e8s le premier coup d'oeil, avait induit Sam \u00e0 suspecter\nqu'il voyait en lui le substitut du berger dont lui avait parl\u00e9 son\nestimable p\u00e8re. Aussit\u00f4t qu'il le vit manger, tous ses doutes \u00e0 ce sujet\ns'\u00e9vanouirent, et il reconnut en m\u00eame temps que s'il avait envie de\ns'installer provisoirement dans la maison, il fallait qu'il se m\u00eet sans\nd\u00e9lai sur un bon pied. Commen\u00e7ant donc ses op\u00e9rations, il passa son bras\npar-dessus la demi-porte du comptoir, l'ouvrit, entra d'un pas d\u00e9lib\u00e9r\u00e9,\net dit tranquillement:\n\n\u00abMa belle-m\u00e8re, comment vous va?\n\n--Eh bien! je crois que c'est un Weller! s'\u00e9cria la grosse dame en\nregardant Sam d'un air fort peu satisfait.\n\n--Un peu, que c'en est un! r\u00e9torqua l'imperturbable Sam, et j'esp\u00e8re que\nce r\u00e9v\u00e9rend gentleman m'excusera si je dis que je voudrais bien \u00eatre le\nWeller qui vous poss\u00e8de, belle-m\u00e8re.\u00bb\n\nC'\u00e9tait l\u00e0 un compliment \u00e0 deux tranchants. Il insinuait que Mme Weller\n\u00e9tait une femme fort agr\u00e9able, et en m\u00eame temps que M. Stiggins avait\nune apparence eccl\u00e9siastique. Effectivement, il produisit sur-le-champ\nun effet visible, et Sam poursuivit son avantage en embrassant sa\nbelle-m\u00e8re.\n\n\u00abVoulez-vous bien finir! s'\u00e9cria Mme Weller en le repoussant.\n\n--Fi! jeune homme, fi! dit le gentleman au nez rouge.\n\n--Sans offense, monsieur, sans offense, r\u00e9pliqua Sam. Mais malgr\u00e9 \u00e7a\nvous avez raison. Ces sortes de choses-l\u00e0 sont d\u00e9fendues quand la\nbelle-m\u00e8re est jeune et jolie, n'est-ce pas, monsieur?\n\n--Tout \u00e7a n'est que vanit\u00e9, observa M. Stiggins.\n\n--Oh! c'est bien vrai,\u00bb dit mistress Weller en rajustant son bonnet.\n\nSam pensa la m\u00eame chose, mais il retint sa langue.\n\nLe substitut du berger ne paraissait nullement satisfait de l'arriv\u00e9e de\nSam, et quand la premi\u00e8re effervescence des compliments fut pass\u00e9e, Mme\nWeller elle-m\u00eame prit un air qui semblait dire qu'elle se serait\ntr\u00e8s-volontiers pass\u00e9e de sa visite. Quoi qu'il en soit, Sam \u00e9tait l\u00e0,\net comme on ne pouvait d\u00e9cemment le mettre dehors, on l'invita \u00e0\ns'asseoir et \u00e0 prendre le th\u00e9.\n\n\u00abComment va le p\u00e8re?\u00bb demanda-t-il au bout de quelques instants.\n\nA cette question, Mme Weller leva les mains et tourna les yeux vers le\nplafond, comme si c'\u00e9tait un sujet trop p\u00e9nible pour qu'on os\u00e2t en\nparler.\n\nM. Stiggins fit entendre un g\u00e9missement.\n\n--Qu'est-ce qu'il a donc, ce monsieur? demanda Sam.\n\n--Il est choqu\u00e9 de la mani\u00e8re dont votre p\u00e8re se conduit.\n\n--Comment! C'est \u00e0 ce point l\u00e0?\n\n--Et avec trop de raison,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit Mme Weller gravement.\n\nM. Stiggins prit une nouvelle r\u00f4tie et soupira bruyamment.\n\n\u00abC'est un terrible r\u00e9prouv\u00e9, poursuivit Mme Weller.\n\n--Un vase de perdition!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria M. Stiggins, et il fit dans sa r\u00f4tie un\nlarge segment de cercle et poussa un g\u00e9missement sourd.\n\nSam se sentit violemment enclin \u00e0 donner au r\u00e9v\u00e9rend personnage une\nvol\u00e9e qui permit \u00e0 ce saint homme de g\u00e9mir avec plus de raison, mais il\nr\u00e9prima ce d\u00e9sir et demanda simplement:\n\n\u00abLe vieux fait donc des siennes, hein?\n\n--H\u00e9las! oui, r\u00e9pliqua Mme Weller. Il a un coeur de rocher. Tous les\nsoirs, cet excellent homme... ne froncez pas le sourcil, monsieur\nStiggins, je soutiens que _vous \u00eates_ un excellent homme.... Tous les\nsoirs, cet excellent homme passe ici des heures enti\u00e8res, et cela ne\nproduit point le moindre effet sur votre r\u00e9prouv\u00e9 de p\u00e8re.\n\n--Eh bien! voil\u00e0 qui est dr\u00f4le! r\u00e9torqua Sam. \u00c7a en produirait un\nprodigieux sur moi, si j'\u00e9tais \u00e0 sa place. Je vous en r\u00e9ponds!\n\n--Mon jeune ami, dit solennellement M. Stiggins, le fait est qu'il a un\nesprit endurci. Oh! mon jeune ami, quel autre aurait pu r\u00e9sister aux\nexhortations de seize de nos plus aimables soeurs, et refuser de\nsouscrire \u00e0 notre humble soci\u00e9t\u00e9 pour procurer aux enfants n\u00e8gres, dans\nles Indes occidentales, des gilets de flanelle et des mouchoirs de poche\nmoraux.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que c'est qu'un mouchoir moral? demanda Sam. Je n'ai jamais\nvu ce meuble-l\u00e0.\n\n--C'est un mouchoir qui combine l'amusement et l'instruction, mon jeune\nami; o\u00f9 l'on voit des histoires choisies, illustr\u00e9es de gravures sur\nbois.\n\n--Bon, je sais; j'ai vu \u00e7a aux \u00e9talages des merciers, avec des pi\u00e8ces de\nvers et tout le reste, n'est-ce pas?\u00bb\n\nM. Stiggins fit un signe affirmatif et commen\u00e7a une troisi\u00e8me r\u00f4tie.\n\n\u00abEt il n'a pas voulu se laisser persuader par les dames?\n\n--Il s'est assis, r\u00e9pondit Mme Weller, il a allum\u00e9 sa pipe, et il a dit\nque les enfants n\u00e8gres \u00e9taient.... Qu'est-ce qu'il a dit que les enfants\nn\u00e8gres \u00e9taient, monsieur Stiggins?\n\n--Une blague, soupira le r\u00e9v\u00e9rend, profond\u00e9ment affect\u00e9.\n\n--Il a dit que les enfants n\u00e8gres \u00e9taient une blague!\u00bb r\u00e9p\u00e9ta tristement\nMme Weller; apr\u00e8s quoi, la dame et le r\u00e9v\u00e9rend recommenc\u00e8rent \u00e0 g\u00e9mir\nsur l'atroce conduite de M. Weller.\n\nBeaucoup d'autres iniquit\u00e9s de la m\u00eame nature auraient pu \u00eatre\nracont\u00e9es, mais toutes les r\u00f4ties \u00e9tant mang\u00e9es, le th\u00e9 \u00e9tant devenu\ntr\u00e8s-faible, et Sam ne montrant aucune inclination \u00e0 partir, M. Stiggins\nse rappela soudainement qu'il avait un rendez-vous tr\u00e8s-pressant avec le\nberger, et se retira en cons\u00e9quence.\n\nLe plateau \u00e9tait \u00e0 peine enlev\u00e9, le foyer \u00e0 peine balay\u00e9, lorsque la\nvoiture de Londres d\u00e9posa M. Weller \u00e0 la porte. Peu apr\u00e8s ses jambes le\nd\u00e9pos\u00e8rent dans le comptoir, et ses yeux lui r\u00e9v\u00e9l\u00e8rent la pr\u00e9sence de\nson fils.\n\n\u00abHa! ha! Sammy! s'\u00e9cria le p\u00e8re.\n\n--Ho! ho! vieux farceur!\u00bb cria le fils; et ils se donn\u00e8rent une poign\u00e9e\nde main vigoureuse.\n\n\u00abCharm\u00e9 de te voir, Sammy, dit l'a\u00een\u00e9 des Weller. Comment diantre as-tu\npu venir \u00e0 bout de ta belle-m\u00e8re? \u00c7a me passe. Tu devrais me passer ta\nrecette. Je ne te dis que \u00e7a!\n\n--Chut! fit Sam. Elle est dans la maison, mon vieux gaillard.\n\n--Elle n'est pas \u00e0 port\u00e9e d'oreille. Elle reste toujours en bas, \u00e0\ntracasser le monde pendant une heure ou deux apr\u00e8s le th\u00e9. Ainsi donc,\nnous pouvons nous humecter l'int\u00e9rieur, Sammy.\u00bb\n\nEn parlant ainsi, M. Weller m\u00eala deux verres de grog et aveignit une\ncouple de pipes. Le p\u00e8re et le fils s'assirent en face l'un de l'autre,\nSam d'un c\u00f4t\u00e9 du feu, dans le fauteuil au dos \u00e9lev\u00e9, M. Weller de\nl'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9, dans une berg\u00e8re, et ils commenc\u00e8rent \u00e0 go\u00fbter le double\nplaisir de leur pipe et de leur r\u00e9union inattendue, avec toute la\ngravit\u00e9 convenable.\n\n\u00abVenu quelqu'un, Sammy?\u00bb demanda laconiquement M. Weller, apr\u00e8s un long\nsilence.\n\nSam fit un signe exprimant l'affirmation.\n\n\u00abUn gaillard au nez rouge?\u00bb\n\nSam r\u00e9p\u00e9ta le m\u00eame signe.\n\n\u00abUn bien aimable homme que ce gaillard-l\u00e0! Sammy, fit observer M. Weller\nen fumant avec pr\u00e9cipitation.\n\n--Il en a tout l'air.\n\n--Et joliment fort sur le calcul!\n\n--Vraiment!\n\n--Le lundi, il emprunte dix-huit pence; le mardi, il demande un shilling\npour compl\u00e9ter la demi-couronne; le vendredi, il remprunte une autre\ndemi-couronne pour faire un compte rond de cinq shillings, et il va\ncomme \u00e7a, en doublant, jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'il arrive, en un rien de temps, \u00e0\nempocher une banknote de cinq livres. \u00c7a ressemble \u00e0 ce calcul du livre\nd'arusm\u00e9tique o\u00f9 l'on arrive \u00e0 des sommes folles en doublant les clous\nd'un fer \u00e0 cheval.\u00bb\n\nSam indiqua par un geste qu'il se rappelait le probl\u00e8me auquel son p\u00e8re\nfaisait allusion.\n\n\u00abComme \u00e7a, vous n'avez pas voulu souscrire pour les gilets de flanelle,\ndemanda Sam apr\u00e8s avoir lanc\u00e9 de nouveau quelques bouff\u00e9es de tabac\nsilencieuses.\n\n--Non certainement. A quoi des gilets de flanelle peuvent-ils servir \u00e0\nces n\u00e9grillons? Mais vois-tu, Sammy, ajouta M. Weller en baissant la\nvoix et en se penchant vers son compagnon, je souscrirais bien\nvolontiers une jolie somme s'il s'agissait d'offrir des camisoles de\nforce \u00e0 certains particuliers que nous connaissons.\u00bb\n\nAyant exprim\u00e9 cette opinion, M. Weller reprit lentement sa position\npremi\u00e8re, et cligna de l'oeil d'un air tr\u00e8s-sagace.\n\n\u00abC'est une dr\u00f4le d'id\u00e9e, tout de m\u00eame, de vouloir envoyer des mouchoirs\n\u00e0 des gens qui ne connaissent pas la mani\u00e8re de s'en servir, fit\nremarquer Sam.\n\n--I' sont toujours \u00e0 faire quelque b\u00eatise de ce genre, Sammy. L'autre\ndimanche, je fl\u00e2nais sur la route, qu'est-ce que j'aper\u00e7ois debout \u00e0 la\nporte d'une chapelle? Ta belle-m\u00e8re avec un plat de fa\u00efence bleue \u00e0 la\nmain, o\u00f9s que les patards tombaient comme la gr\u00eale.... Tu n'aurais\njamais cru qu'un plat mortel aurait pu y tenir. Et pour quoi penses-tu\nque c'\u00e9tait, Sammy?\n\n--Pour donner un autre th\u00e9, peut-\u00eatre!\n\n--Tu n'y es pas, c'\u00e9tait pour la rente d'eau du berger\n\n--La rente d'eau du berger!\n\n--Ni plus ni moins. I' y avait trois trimestres que le berger n'avait\npas pay\u00e9 un liard, pas un liard. Au fait il n'a gu\u00e8re besoin d'eau, i'\nne boit que tr\u00e8s-peu de c'te liqueur-l\u00e0, tr\u00e8s-peu, Sammy.... pas si\nchose! Comme \u00e7a, la rente n'\u00e9tait pas pay\u00e9e et le receveur avait arr\u00eat\u00e9\nson filet. V'l\u00e0 donc le berger qui s'en va \u00e0 la chapelle. Il dit qu'il\nest un saint martyris\u00e9, qu'il d\u00e9sire que le tourne-robinet qu'a coup\u00e9\nson filet obtienne son pardon du ciel, mais qu'il a bien peur qu'on ne\nlui ait d\u00e9j\u00e0 retenu dans l'autre monde une place o\u00f9 il ne sera pas \u00e0 son\naise. L\u00e0-dessus les femelles font un meeting, chantent des hymnes,\nnomment ta belle-m\u00e8re pr\u00e9sidente, votent une qu\u00eate pour le dimanche\nsuivant, et repassent tout le quibus au berger. Et si il n'a pas eu de\nquoi payer sa rente d'eau, sa vie durant, dit M. Weller en terminant, je\nne suis qu'un Hollandais et tu en es un autre, voil\u00e0 tout.\u00bb\n\nM. Weller fuma en silence pendant quelques minutes, puis il ajouta:\n\n\u00abLe pire de ces bergers, mon gar\u00e7on, c'est qu'i' tournent la t\u00eate \u00e0\ntoutes les jeunes filles. Dieu b\u00e9nisse leurs petits coeurs! elles\ns'imaginent que c'est tout miel, et elles n'en savent pas plus long.\nElles donnent toutes dans la charge, Sammy, elles y donnent toutes.\n\n--\u00c7a me fait cet effet-l\u00e0, dit Sam.\n\n--Ni pus ni moins, poursuivit M. Weller en secouant gravement la t\u00eate;\net ce qui m'agace le plus, Samivel, c'est de leur voir perdre leur temps\net leur belle jeunesse \u00e0 faire des habits pour des gens cuivr\u00e9s qui n'en\nont pas besoin, sans jamais s'occuper des chr\u00e9tiens qui ont des couleurs\nnaturelles et qui savent mettre un pantalon. Si j'\u00e9tais le ma\u00eetre,\nSammy, j'att\u00e8lerais quelques-uns de ces faignants de bergers \u00e0 une\nbrouette bien charg\u00e9e et je la leur ferais monter et descendre, pendant\nvingt-quatre heures de suite, le long d'une planche de dix-huit pouces\nde large. \u00c7a leur \u00f4terait un peu de leur b\u00eatise, ou rien n'y r\u00e9ussira.\u00bb\n\nM. Weller, ayant d\u00e9bit\u00e9 cette aimable recette, avec beaucoup d'emphase\net une multitude de gestes et de contorsions, vida son verre d'un seul\ntrait, et fit tomber les cendres de sa pipe avec une dignit\u00e9 naturelle.\n\nIl n'avait pas encore termin\u00e9 cette derni\u00e8re op\u00e9ration, lorsqu'une voix\naigre se fit entendre dans le passage.\n\n\u00abVoici ta ch\u00e8re belle-m\u00e8re, Sammy,\u00bb dit-il \u00e0 son fils, et au m\u00eame\ninstant Mme Weller entra, d'un pas affair\u00e9, dans la chambre.\n\n\u00abOh! vous voil\u00e0 donc revenu! s'\u00e9cria-t-elle.\n\n--Oui, ma ch\u00e8re, r\u00e9pliqua M. Weller en bourrant de nouveau sa pipe.\n\n--M. Stiggins est-il de retour? demanda mistress Weller.\n\n--Non, ma ch\u00e8re, r\u00e9pondit M. Weller en allumant ing\u00e9nieusement sa pipe\nau moyen d'un charbon embras\u00e9 qu'il prit avec les pincettes; et qui\nplus est, ma ch\u00e8re, je t\u00e2cherais de ne pas mourir de chagrin s'il ne\nremettait plus les pieds ici.\n\n--Ouh! le r\u00e9prouv\u00e9! s'\u00e9crie Mme Weller.\n\n--Merci, mon amour, dit son \u00e9poux.\n\n--Allons! allons! p\u00e8re, observa Sam; pas de ces petites tendresses\ndevant des \u00e9trangers. Voil\u00e0 le r\u00e9v\u00e9rend gentleman qui revient.\u00bb\n\nA cette annonce, Mme Weller essuya pr\u00e9cipitamment les larmes qu'elle\ns'\u00e9tait efforc\u00e9e de verser, et M. Weller tira, d'un air chagrin, son\nfauteuil dans le coin de la chemin\u00e9e.\n\nM. Stiggins ne se fit pas beaucoup prier pour prendre un autre verre de\ngrog; puis il en accepta un second, puis un troisi\u00e8me, puis il consentit\n\u00e0 accepter sa part d'un l\u00e9ger souper, afin de recommencer sur nouveaux\nfrais. Il \u00e9tait assis du m\u00eame c\u00f4t\u00e9 que M. Weller a\u00een\u00e9; et lorsque\ncelui-ci supposait que sa femme ne pouvait pas le voir, il indiquait \u00e0\nson fils les \u00e9motions intimes dont son \u00e2me \u00e9tait agit\u00e9e, en secouant son\npoing sur la t\u00eate du berger. Cette plaisanterie procurait \u00e0 son\nrespectueux enfant une satisfaction d'autant plus pure, que M. Stiggins\ncontinuait \u00e0 siroter paisiblement son rhum, dans une heureuse ignorance\nde cette pantomime anim\u00e9e.\n\nLa conversation fut soutenue, en grande partie, par Mme Weller et le\nr\u00e9v\u00e9rend M. Stiggins, et les principaux sujets qu'on entama furent les\nvertus du berger, les m\u00e9rites de son troupeau, et les crimes affreux,\nles d\u00e9testables p\u00e9ch\u00e9s de tout le reste du monde. Seulement, M. Weller\ninterrompait parfois ces dissertations par des remarques et des\nallusions indirectes \u00e0 un certain vieux farceur g\u00e9n\u00e9ralement d\u00e9sign\u00e9\nsous le nom de _Walker_[29], et se permit \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0 divers commentaires\nnon moins ironiques et voil\u00e9s.\n\n[Footnote 29: M. Walker est un personnage myst\u00e9rieux qui jouit en\nAngleterre d'une grande r\u00e9putation de hableur. Son nom, employ\u00e9 comme\ninterjection \u00abWalker\u00bb est devenu un terme de m\u00e9pris et d'incr\u00e9dulit\u00e9.\n\n(_Note du traducteur._)]\n\nEnfin, M. Stiggins, qui, \u00e0 en juger par divers sympt\u00f4mes indubitables,\navait emmagasin\u00e9 autant de grog qu'il en pouvait ingurgiter sans trop\ns'incommoder, prit son chapeau et son cong\u00e9, imm\u00e9diatement apr\u00e8s, Sam\nfut conduit par son p\u00e8re dans une chambre \u00e0 coucher. Le respectable\ngentleman, en lui donnant une chaleureuse poign\u00e9e de main, paraissait se\ndisposer \u00e0 lui adresser quelques observations; mais il entendit monter\nMme Weller, et changeant aussit\u00f4t d'intention, il lui dit brusquement\nbonsoir.\n\nLe lendemain, Sam se leva de bonne heure. Ayant d\u00e9jeun\u00e9 \u00e0 la h\u00e2te, il\ns'appr\u00eata \u00e0 retourner \u00e0 Londres, et il sortait de la maison, lorsque son\np\u00e8re se pr\u00e9senta devant lui.\n\n--Tu pars, Sam?\n\n--Tout de g\u00f4.\n\n--Je voudrais bien te voir museler ce Stiggins, et l'emmener avec toi.\n\n--Vraiment? r\u00e9pondit Sam d'un ton de reproche; je rougis de vous avoir\npour auteur, vieux capon. Pourquoi lui laissez-vous montrer son nez\ncramoisi chez le _Marquis de Granby_?\u00bb\n\nM. Weller attacha sur son fils un regard s\u00e9rieux, et r\u00e9pondit:\n\n\u00abParce que je suis un homme mari\u00e9, Sammy, parce que je suis un homme\nmari\u00e9. Quand tu seras mari\u00e9, Sammy, tu comprendras bien des choses que\ntu ne comprends pas maintenant. Mais \u00e7a vaut-il la peine de passer tant\nde vilains quarts d'heure pour apprendre si peu de chose, comme disait\ncet \u00e9colier quand il a-t-\u00e9t\u00e9 arriv\u00e9 \u00e0 savoir son alphabet, voil\u00e0 la\nquestion? C'est une affaire de go\u00fbt. Mais, pour ma part, je suis\ntr\u00e8s-dispos\u00e9 \u00e0 r\u00e9pondre: Non!\n\n--Dans tous les cas, dit Sam, adieu.\n\n--Bonjour, Sammy, bonjour.\n\n--Je n'ai plus qu'un mot \u00e0 vous dire, reprit Sam en s'arr\u00eatant court: Si\nj'\u00e9tais le propri\u00e9taire du _Marquis de Granby_, et si cet animal de\nStiggins venait faire des roties dans mon comptoir, je le....\n\n--Que ferais-tu? interrompit M. Weller avec grande anxi\u00e9t\u00e9, que\nferais-tu?\n\n--J'empoisonnerais son grog.\n\n--Bah! s'\u00e9cria Weller en donnant \u00e0 son fils une poign\u00e9e de main\nreconnaissante, tu ferais cela r\u00e9ellement, Sammy? tu ferais cela?\n\n--Parole! Je ne voudrais pas me montrer trop cruel envers lui tout\nd'abord. Je commencerais par le plonger dans la fontaine, et je\nremettrais le couvercle pour l'emp\u00eacher de s'enrhumer; mais si je voyais\nqu'il n'y avait pas moyen d'en venir \u00e0 bout par la douceur,\nj'emploierais une autre m\u00e9thode de persuasion.\u00bb\n\nM. Weller a\u00een\u00e9 lan\u00e7a \u00e0 son fils un regard d'admiration inexprimable, et,\nlui ayant de nouveau serr\u00e9 la main, s'\u00e9loigna lentement en roulant dans\nson esprit les r\u00e9flexions nombreuses auxquelles cet avis avait donn\u00e9\nlieu.\n\nSam le suivit des yeux jusqu'au d\u00e9tour de la route et s'achemina ensuite\nvers Londres. Il m\u00e9dita d'abord sur les cons\u00e9quences probables de son\nconseil, et sur la vraisemblance ou l'invraisemblance qu'il y avait de\nvoir adopter cet avis par son p\u00e8re; mais bient\u00f4t il \u00e9carta toute\ninqui\u00e9tude de son esprit par cette r\u00e9flexion consolante, qu'il en\nsaurait le r\u00e9sultat avec le temps. C'est un avantage que le lecteur\naura, aussi bien que lui.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XXVIII.\n\nUn joyeux chapitre des f\u00eates de No\u00ebl, contenant le r\u00e9cit d'une noce et\nde quelques autres passe-temps qui sont, dans leur genre, d'aussi bonnes\ncoutumes que le mariage, mais qu'on ne maintient pas aussi\nreligieusement, dans ce si\u00e8cle d\u00e9g\u00e9n\u00e9r\u00e9.\n\n\nAussi diligents que des abeilles, et presque aussi l\u00e9gers que des\npapillons, les quatre Pickwickiens se rassembl\u00e8rent, au matin du 22\nd\u00e9cembre de l'an de gr\u00e2ce 1831. No\u00ebl s'approchait rapidement, dans toute\nsa joyeuse et cordiale hospitalit\u00e9. La vieille ann\u00e9e se pr\u00e9parait, comme\nun gymnosophiste indien, \u00e0 r\u00e9unir ses amis autour de soi, et \u00e0 mourir\ndoucement et tranquillement au milieu des festins et des bombances.\nC'\u00e9tait une \u00e9poque de jubilation, et parmi les nombreux mortels que\nr\u00e9jouissait la m\u00eame cause, nos quatre h\u00e9ros \u00e9taient remarquablement\nenjou\u00e9s et heureux.\n\nCar ils sont nombreux les mortels \u00e0 qui No\u00ebl apporte un court intervalle\nde gaiet\u00e9 et de bonheur! Combien de familles dispers\u00e9es au loin par les\nsoins, par les luttes incessantes de la vie, se r\u00e9unissent alors dans\ncet heureux \u00e9tat de familiarit\u00e9 et de bonne volont\u00e9 mutuelle, qui est la\nsource de tant de pures d\u00e9lices; douce et paisible communion d'esprit\nqui semble si incompatible avec les soucis de l'existence, si au dessus\ndes plaisirs de ce monde, que les nations les plus civilis\u00e9es, comme les\npeuplades les plus sauvages, en font \u00e9galement une des premi\u00e8res\njouissances r\u00e9serv\u00e9es aux \u00e9lus, dans le s\u00e9jour du bonheur \u00e9ternel.\nCombien de vieilles sympathies, combien de souvenirs assoupis se\nr\u00e9veillent au temps de No\u00ebl!\n\nNous \u00e9crivons ces lignes \u00e0 bien des lieues de l'heureux endroit o\u00f9,\npendant de longues ann\u00e9es, nous avons rencontr\u00e9, la veille de No\u00ebl, un\ncercle amical et joyeux. La plupart des coeurs qui palpitaient alors avec\nivresse, ont cess\u00e9 de battre; les mains que nous aimions \u00e0 serrer, sont\ndevenues froides; les visages gracieux qui nous charmaient, sont\nd\u00e9charn\u00e9s; les regards que nous cherchions, ont perdu leur \u00e9clat; et\ncependant la vieille maison, la grande salle, les plaisanteries, les\nrires, les voix joyeuses et les visages souriants, les circonstances les\nplus frivoles de ces heureuses r\u00e9unions, se pressent en foule dans notre\nesprit, \u00e0 chaque retour de cette f\u00eate. Il semble que nous n'ayons cess\u00e9\nde nous voir que d'hier. Heureux, heureux le jour de No\u00ebl, qui redonne\nau vieillard les illusions de sa jeunesse, et qui transporte le marin,\nle voyageur, \u00e9loign\u00e9 de plusieurs milliers de lieues, parmi les joies\ntranquilles de la maison paternelle.\n\nNous nous sommes laiss\u00e9 entra\u00eener par les bonnes qualit\u00e9s de No\u00ebl, qui,\npour le dire en passant, est tout \u00e0 fait un gentilhomme campagnard de la\nvieille \u00e9cole, et nous faisons attendre, au froid, M. Pickwick et ses\namis. Ils viennent d'arriver \u00e0 la voiture de Muggleton, soigneusement\nenvelopp\u00e9s de ch\u00e2les et de grandes redingotes. Les portemanteaux, les\nsacs de nuit sont plac\u00e9s, et Sam s'efforce avec le garde[30] d'insinuer\ndans le coffre de devant une \u00e9norme morue, soigneusement empaquet\u00e9e dans\nun long panier brun garni de paille, et qui doit reposer sur une\ndemi-douzaine de barils d'hu\u00eetres, appartenant, comme elle, \u00e0 M.\nPickwick. La physionomie de celui-ci exprime le plus vif int\u00e9r\u00eat, tandis\nque Sam et le garde font tout ce qu'ils peuvent pour fourrer la morue\ndans le r\u00e9ceptacle, quoiqu'elle soit deux ou trois fois trop grande pour\ny entrer. D'abord ils veulent la mettre la t\u00eate la premi\u00e8re, ensuite la\nqueue la premi\u00e8re, puis le fond du panier en haut, puis l'ouverture en\nhaut, puis sur le c\u00f4t\u00e9, puis diagonalement. Mais l'implacable morue\nr\u00e9siste opini\u00e2trement \u00e0 tous ces artifices. Enfin, cependant, le garde,\nfrappant par hasard sur le milieu du panier, le poisson dispara\u00eet\nsoudainement, et cette condescendance inattendue, faisant perdre\nl'\u00e9quilibre au garde lui-m\u00eame, sa t\u00eate et ses \u00e9paules s'enfoncent en\nm\u00eame temps dans le coffre, \u00e0 la satisfaction inexprimable de tous les\nporteurs et assistants. M. Pickwick sourit avec bonne humeur, tire un\nshilling de son gilet, et lorsque le garde sort de sa bo\u00eete, le prie de\nboire \u00e0 sa sant\u00e9 un verre d'eau-de-vie et d'eau chaude. Sur cela, le\ngarde sourit aussi, et MM. Snodgrass, Winkle et Tupman sourient tous de\ncompagnie. Le garde et Sam Weller disparaissent pendant cinq minutes,\nprobablement pour avaler le grog, car ils sentent l'eau-de-vie en\nrevenant. Le cocher monte sur son si\u00e9ge, Sam saute derri\u00e8re, les\nPickwickiens tirent leurs redingotes sur leurs jambes et leurs ch\u00e2les\nsur leur nez, les valets d'\u00e9curie \u00f4tent les couvertures des chevaux, le\ncocher crie: \u00abEn route!\u00bb et les voil\u00e0 partis.\n\n[Footnote 30: Le conducteur. Cette appellation est un reste du temps o\u00f9\nles routes \u00e9taient si peu s\u00fbres que chaque voiture \u00e9tait accompagn\u00e9e\nd'un v\u00e9ritable garde.\n\n(_Note du traducteur_.)]\n\nIls ont circul\u00e9 \u00e0 travers les rues, ils ont \u00e9t\u00e9 cahot\u00e9s sur le pav\u00e9, et,\n\u00e0 la fin, ils atteignent la campagne. Les roues glissent sur le terrain\ndur et gel\u00e9. Au claquement aigu du fouet, les chevaux partent au petit\ngalop et entra\u00eenent \u00e0 leurs talons voiture, voyageurs, morue, barils\nd'hu\u00eetres, et le reste, comme si ce n'\u00e9tait qu'une plume l\u00e9g\u00e8re. Ils ont\ndescendu une pente douce et se trouvent sur une chauss\u00e9e horizontale, de\ndeux milles de long, aussi s\u00e8che, aussi compacte qu'un bloc de granit.\nUn autre claquement de fouet, et ils s'\u00e9lancent au grand galop, secouant\nleur t\u00eate et leur harnais, sous l'influence excitante de leur mouvement\nrapide. Cependant le cocher, tenant le fouet et les guides d'une main,\n\u00f4te son chapeau avec l'autre, le pose sur ses genoux, tire son mouchoir\net essuie son front; partie parce qu'il a l'habitude d'agir ainsi, et\npartie pour montrer aux voyageurs comme il est \u00e0 son aise, et combien\nc'est une chose facile de conduire quatre chevaux, quand on a autant de\npratique que lui. Ayant fait cela fort tranquillement (car autrement\nl'effet en serait notablement diminu\u00e9), il replace son mouchoir, remet\nson chapeau, ajuste ses gants, \u00e9quarrit ses coudes, fait claquer son\nfouet de nouveau, et au galop! plus gaiement que jamais!\n\nQuelques maisons, \u00e9parpill\u00e9es des deux cot\u00e9s de la route, annoncent\nl'entr\u00e9e d'un village. Le cornet du garde fait vibrer dans l'air pur et\nfrais des notes anim\u00e9es, qui r\u00e9veillent le vieux gentleman de\nl'int\u00e9rieur. Il abaisse la glace \u00e0 moiti\u00e9, regarde un instant au dehors,\net relevant soigneusement la glace, informe l'autre habitant de\nl'int\u00e9rieur que l'on va relayer dans quelques minutes. D'apr\u00e8s cet avis,\ncelui-ci se secoue, et se d\u00e9termine \u00e0 remettre son premier somme\njusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'on soit reparti. Le cornet r\u00e9sonne encore vigoureusement,\net, \u00e0 ce bruit, les femmes et les enfants du village viennent regarder \u00e0\nla porte de leur chaumi\u00e8re, et suivent des yeux la voiture jusqu'\u00e0 ce\nqu'elle tourne le coin, puis ils rentrent s'\u00e9tendre autour d'un feu\nbrillant et y jettent un autre morceau de bois _pour quand le p\u00e8re\nreviendra_. Cependant le p\u00e8re lui-m\u00eame, \u00e0 un mille de l\u00e0, vient\nd'\u00e9changer un signe de t\u00eate amical avec le cocher, et s'est retourn\u00e9\npour examiner longuement la voiture qui s'enfuit loin de lui.\n\nEt maintenant, pendant que les roues retentissent dans les rues mal\npav\u00e9es d'une ville provinciale, le cornet joue un air guilleret. Le\ncocher, d\u00e9faisant la boucle qui r\u00e9unit ses guides, s'appr\u00eate \u00e0 les jeter\nau moment m\u00eame o\u00f9 il arr\u00eatera. M. Pickwick sort du collet de sa\nredingote, et regarde autour de lui avec grande curiosit\u00e9; le cocher,\nqui s'en aper\u00e7oit, l'instruit du nom de la ville, et lui dit que c'\u00e9tait\nhier jour de march\u00e9; double information que M. Pickwick s'empresse de\nfaire passer \u00e0 ses compagnons de voyage, et qui les d\u00e9cide \u00e0 sortir\naussi de leurs collets et \u00e0 regarder autour d'eux. M. Winkle, qui est\nassis \u00e0 l'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 de la banquette, avec une jambe dandinante en l'air,\nest presque pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9 dans la rue lorsque la voiture tourne brusquement\npour entrer dans la place du march\u00e9; et M. Snodgrass, qui se trouve\nassis aupr\u00e8s de lui, n'est point encore remis de son effroi, lorsqu'elle\narr\u00eate dans la cour de l'auberge, o\u00f9 les chevaux frais, avec leurs\ncouvertures, piaffent d\u00e9j\u00e0. Le cocher jette les guides et descend de son\nsi\u00e9ge; les voyageurs ext\u00e9rieurs descendent aussi, except\u00e9 ceux qui n'ont\npas grande confiance dans leur habilet\u00e9 pour remonter. Ceux-l\u00e0 restent\no\u00f9 ils sont, frappent leurs pieds contre la voiture pour se les\nr\u00e9chauffer, et regardent avec un oeil d'envie le feu qui brille dans la\nsalle, et le buis, orn\u00e9 de baies rouges, qui pare les fen\u00eatres de\nl'auberge.\n\nCependant le garde a d\u00e9pos\u00e9, \u00e0 la boutique du gr\u00e8netier, le paquet de\npapier gris qu'il a tir\u00e9 de la petite besace pendue sur son \u00e9paule, \u00e0 un\nbaudrier de cuir. Il a soigneusement examin\u00e9 les nouveaux chevaux; il a\njet\u00e9 sur le pav\u00e9 la selle apport\u00e9e de Londres, sur l'imp\u00e9riale; il a\nassist\u00e9 \u00e0 la conf\u00e9rence tenue par le cocher et par le valet d'\u00e9curie sur\nla jument grise, qui s'est bless\u00e9e \u00e0 la jambe de devant mardi pass\u00e9; il\nest remont\u00e9 derri\u00e8re la voiture avec Sam; le cocher est juch\u00e9 sur son\nsi\u00e9ge; le vieux gentleman du dedans, qui avait tenu la glace baiss\u00e9e de\ndeux doigts, durant tout ce temps, l'a relev\u00e9e, et les couvertures des\nchevaux sont \u00f4t\u00e9es, et tout est pr\u00eat pour partir, except\u00e9 _les deux gros\ngentlemen_, dont le cocher s'enquiert avec grande impatience; puis le\ncocher, et le garde, et Sam, et M. Winkle, et M. Snodgrass, et tous les\npalefreniers, et tous les fl\u00e2neurs, qui sont plus nombreux que tous les\nautres ensemble, se mettent \u00e0 brailler \u00e0 tue-t\u00eate apr\u00e8s les voyageurs\nmanquants. Une r\u00e9ponse lointaine s'entend au fond de la cour; M.\nPickwick et M. Tupman la traversent en courant, tout hors d'haleine, car\nils ont bu chacun un verre d'ale, et les doigts de M. Pickwick sont si\nfroids, qu'il a \u00e9t\u00e9 cinq grandes minutes avant de pouvoir tirer six\npence pour payer. Le cocher vocif\u00e8re d'un air m\u00e9content: \u00abAllons,\ngentlemen, allons!\u00bb Le garde r\u00e9p\u00e8te le m\u00eame cri; le vieux gentleman de\nl'int\u00e9rieur trouve fort extraordinaire qu'on veuille descendre, quand on\nsait qu'on n'en a pas le temps; M. Pickwick s'efforce de grimper d'un\nc\u00f4t\u00e9, M. Tupman de l'autre; M. Winkle crie. _\u00c7a y est_, et les voil\u00e0\nrepartis! Les ch\u00e2les sont remis, les collets d'habits sont rajust\u00e9s, le\npav\u00e9 cesse, les maisons disparaissent, et nos voyageurs s'\u00e9lancent de\nnouveau sur la grande route, et l'air clair et piquant baigne leur\nvisage et les r\u00e9jouit jusqu'au fond du coeur.\n\nC'est ainsi que le _T\u00e9l\u00e9graphe_ de Muggleton transportait M. Pickwick et\nses amis sur le chemin de Dingley-Dell. A trois heures de l'apr\u00e8s-midi,\nils d\u00e9barquaient tous, sains et saufs, sur les marches du _Lion bleu_,\nayant pris sur la route assez d'ale et d'eau-de-vie pour d\u00e9fier la\ngel\u00e9e, qui couvrait, de ses belles dentelles blanches, les arbres et les\nhaies.\n\nM. Pickwick \u00e9tait s\u00e9rieusement occup\u00e9 \u00e0 surveiller l'exhumation de la\nmorue, lorsqu'il se sentit tirer doucement par le pan de son habit. Il\nse retourna et reconnut le page favori de M. Wardle, mieux connu des\nlecteurs de cette v\u00e9ridique histoire sous le nom du gros joufflu.\n\n\u00abHa! ha! fit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Ha! ha! fit le gros joufflu en regardant amoureusement la morue et les\nbarils d'hu\u00eetres. Il \u00e9tait plus gros que jamais.\n\n--Eh bien! mon jeune ami, dit M. Pickwick, vous m'avez l'air assez\nrougeaud.\n\n--J'ai dormi devant le feu de la buvette, r\u00e9pondit le gros joufflu,\nqu'une heure de somme avait mont\u00e9 au ton d'une brique. Ma\u00eetre m'a envoy\u00e9\navec la charrette pour porter votre bagage \u00e0 la maison. Il aurait envoy\u00e9\nquelques chevaux de selle; mais, comme il fait froid, il a pens\u00e9 que\nvous aimeriez mieux marcher.\n\n--Oui! oui! nous aimons mieux marcher, r\u00e9pliqua pr\u00e9cipitamment M.\nPickwick, car il se rappelait la cavalcade qu'il avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 faite sur la\nm\u00eame route. Sam!\n\n--Monsieur!\n\n--Aidez le domestique de M. Wardle \u00e0 mettre les paquets dans la\ncharrette, et montez-y avec lui; nous allons aller en avant.\u00bb\n\nAyant donn\u00e9 ces instructions et termin\u00e9 son compte avec le cocher, M.\nPickwick, suivi de ses amis, prit le sentier de traverse et s'\u00e9loigna\nd'un pas gaillard.\n\nSam, qui se trouvait pour la premi\u00e8re fois confront\u00e9 avec le gros\njoufflu, l'examinait curieusement, mais sans rien dire: quand il l'eut\nbien consid\u00e9r\u00e9, il commen\u00e7a \u00e0 arranger rapidement tous les paquets dans\nla charrette, tandis que Joe le regardait d'un air tranquille, et\nparaissait trouver un immense plaisir \u00e0 voir avec quelle activit\u00e9 Sam\nfaisait cette op\u00e9ration.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0, dit Sam, en jetant le dernier sac dans la charrette: ils y sont\ntous.\n\n--Oui, observa Joe d'un ton satisfait: ils y sont tous....\n\n--Savez-vous, mon petit, que vous auriez bien pu obtenir le prix au\ngrand concours.\n\n--Bien oblig\u00e9.\n\n--Est-ce que vous avez quelque chose dessus votre coeur qui vous affecte?\n\n--Non, je ne crois pas.\n\n--J'aurais pourtant imagin\u00e9, en vous regardant, que vous aviez une\npassion malheureuse.\u00bb\n\nJoe secoua la t\u00eate d'une mani\u00e8re n\u00e9gative.\n\n\u00abEh bien! poursuivit Sam; tant mieux! Buvez-vous?\n\n--J'aime mieux manger.\n\n--Ah! j'aurais imagin\u00e9 \u00e7a. Mais je veux dire, voulez-vous prendre une\ngoutte de quelque chose qui vous r\u00e9chaufferait votre petit estomac? Du\nreste vous \u00eates gentiment rembourr\u00e9 et vous ne devez pas avoir froid\nsouvent.\n\n--Quelquefois, et j'aime bien \u00e0 boire la goutte, quand c'est du bon.\n\n--Ah! c'est-il vrai? H\u00e9 bien, venez par ici alors.\u00bb\n\nNos nouveaux amis furent bient\u00f4t transport\u00e9s \u00e0 la buvette du _Lion\nbleu_, et le gros joufflu avala un verre d'eau-de-vie sans sourciller,\nexploit qui l'avan\u00e7a consid\u00e9rablement dans la bonne opinion de Sam.\nLorsque celui-ci eut op\u00e9r\u00e9 pour son propre compte, ils mont\u00e8rent dans la\ncharrette.\n\n\u00abSavez-vous conduire? demanda le page de M. Wardle.\n\n--Un peu, mon neveu!\n\n--Voil\u00e0 alors, dit le gros joufflu en mettant les guides dans la main de\nSam et en lui montrant une ruelle. Il n'y a qu'\u00e0 aller tout droit, et\nvous ne pouvez pas vous tromper.\u00bb\n\nAyant prononc\u00e9 ces mots, il se coucha affectueusement \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la\nmorue, et pla\u00e7ant un baril d'hu\u00eetres sous sa t\u00eate, en guise de\ntraversin: il s'endormit instantan\u00e9ment.\n\n\u00abEh bien! par exemple, fit Sam: pour un jeune homme sans g\u00eane, voil\u00e0 un\njeune homme sans g\u00eane! Allons, r\u00e9veillez-vous, jeune hydropique.\u00bb\n\nMais comme le jeune _hydropique_ ne montrait aucun sympt\u00f4me d'animation,\nSam s'assit sur le devant du char, et faisant partir le vieux cheval par\nune secousse des guides, le conduisit d'un trot soutenu vers\nManoir-ferme.\n\nCependant M. Pickwick et ses amis, ayant r\u00e9tabli par la marche une\nactive circulation dans leur syst\u00e8me veineux et art\u00e9riel, poursuivaient\ngaiement leur chemin. La terre \u00e9tait durcie, le gazon blanchi par la\ngel\u00e9e; l'air froid et sec \u00e9tait fortifiant, et l'approche rapide du\ncr\u00e9puscule gris\u00e2tre (couleur d'ardoise serait une expression plus\nconvenable dans un temps de gel\u00e9e), rendait plus s\u00e9duisante pour nos\nvoyageurs l'agr\u00e9able perspective des conforts qui les attendaient chez\nleur h\u00f4te. C'\u00e9tait pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment l'esp\u00e8ce d'apr\u00e8s-midi, qui, dans un champ\nsolitaire, pourrait induire un couple de barbons \u00e0 \u00f4ter leurs habits et\n\u00e0 jouer \u00e0 saute-mouton, par pure l\u00e9g\u00e8ret\u00e9 d'esprit. Aussi sommes-nous\nfermement persuad\u00e9s que si dans cet instant M. Tupman s'\u00e9tait courb\u00e9, en\nappuyant les mains sur ses genoux, M. Pickwick aurait profit\u00e9, avec la\nplus grande avidit\u00e9, de cette invitation indirecte.\n\nQuoi qu'il en soit, M. Tupman ne s'\u00e9tant pas pos\u00e9 de cette mani\u00e8re, nos\namis continu\u00e8rent \u00e0 marcher, en conversant joyeusement. Comme ils\nentraient dans une ruelle qu'ils devaient traverser, un bruit confus de\nvoix vint frapper leurs oreilles, et avant d'avoir eu le temps de former\nune conjecture sur les personnes \u00e0 qui ces voix appartenaient, ils se\ntrouv\u00e8rent au milieu d'une soci\u00e9t\u00e9 nombreuse qui attendait leur arriv\u00e9e.\n\nC'\u00e9tait le vieux Wardle, qui poussait de bruyants hourras, et qui, s'il\nest possible, avait l'air encore plus jovial que de coutume; c'\u00e9tait\nBella et son fid\u00e8le Trundle; c'\u00e9tait \u00c9mily enfin, et huit ou dix autres\njeunes demoiselles, qui \u00e9taient venues pour assister aux op\u00e9rations\nmatrimoniales du lendemain, et qui se trouvaient toutes dans cette\ndisposition de gaiet\u00e9 et d'importance ordinaire aux jeunes ladies dans\nces int\u00e9ressantes occasions. Les champs et les ruelles retentissaient au\nloin des \u00e9clats de rire de cette bande joyeuse.\n\nLes c\u00e9r\u00e9monies des pr\u00e9sentations furent bient\u00f4t termin\u00e9es, ou plut\u00f4t les\npr\u00e9sentations furent bient\u00f4t parfaites, sans aucune c\u00e9r\u00e9monie. Au bout\nde deux minutes, M. Pickwick, aussi \u00e0 son aise, aussi peu contraint que\ns'il avait connu toute sa vie ces jeunes demoiselles, plaisantait avec\ncelles qui ne voulaient pas passer par-dessus les barri\u00e8res quand il\nregardait, ou qui ayant de jolis pieds et des chevilles sans reproche,\navaient soin de rester debout sur la balustrade pendant cinq ou six\nminutes, en d\u00e9clarant qu'elles avaient trop peur pour oser faire aucun\nmouvement. Il est digne de remarque que M. Snodgrass offrit \u00e0 \u00c9mily\nWardle beaucoup plus d'assistance que les terreurs de la barri\u00e8re ne\nsemblaient l'exiger, quoiqu'elle e\u00fbt bien trois pieds de haut et qu'il\nfall\u00fbt y monter sur une couple de pierres, servant de marches. Enfin\nl'on observa qu'une jeune demoiselle, qui avait des yeux noirs et de\ntr\u00e8s-jolis petits brodequins garnis de fourrures, poussa de grands cris\nlorsque M. Winkle lui offrit la main pour l'aider \u00e0 descendre.\n\nQuand les difficult\u00e9s des barri\u00e8res furent surmont\u00e9es, quand on se\nretrouva sur un terrain plat, M. Wardle apprit \u00e0 M. Pickwick qu'on\nvenait d'examiner, en corps, l'ameublement de la maison o\u00f9 le jeune\ncouple devait habiter apr\u00e8s les f\u00eates de No\u00ebl. A cette communication,\nBella et Trundle devinrent tous les deux aussi rouges que le gros\njoufflu apr\u00e8s son somme au coin du feu. Cependant la jeune lady aux yeux\nnoirs et aux brodequins garnis de fourrure murmura quelque chose dans\nl'oreille d'\u00c9mily, en regardant malicieusement M. Snodgrass. \u00c9mily lui\nr\u00e9pondit: Vous \u00eates folle; mais elle rougit beaucoup malgr\u00e9 cela: et M.\nSnodgrass, qui \u00e9tait aussi modeste que le sont ordinairement tous les\ngrands g\u00e9nies, sentit le rouge lui monter jusqu'au sommet de la t\u00eate, et\nsouhaita d\u00e9votement, dans le fond de son coeur, que la jeune lady\nsusdite, ses yeux noirs, sa malice et ses brodequins garnis de fourrure,\nfussent tous confortablement d\u00e9pos\u00e9s \u00e0 l'autre bout de l'Angleterre.\n\nSi les Pickwickiens avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 re\u00e7us d'une mani\u00e8re amicale hors de la\nmaison, imaginez quelles furent la chaleur et la cordialit\u00e9 de leur\nr\u00e9ception quand on arriva \u00e0 la ferme. Les domestiques eux-m\u00eames\ngrima\u00e7aient de plaisir en voyant M. Pickwick; et la femme de chambre,\nEmma, lan\u00e7a \u00e0 M. Tupman un regard de reconnaissance, moiti\u00e9 modeste,\nmoiti\u00e9 impudent, et si joli qu'il aurait suffi pour d\u00e9cider la statue de\nBonaparte, situ\u00e9e dans le vestibule, \u00e0 ouvrir ses bras et \u00e0 la presser\nsur son sein.\n\nLa vieille lady \u00e9tait assise dans le parloir, avec sa majest\u00e9\naccoutum\u00e9e. Mais elle \u00e9tait d'assez mauvaise humeur, et par cons\u00e9quent\ntr\u00e8s-compl\u00e9tement sourde. Elle ne sortait jamais, et comme beaucoup\nd'autres vieilles dames de la m\u00eame \u00e9toffe, lorsque d'autres faisaient ce\nqu'elle ne pouvait pas faire elle-m\u00eame, elle croyait que c'\u00e9tait un\ncrime de haute trahison domestique. Aussi se tenait-elle toute droite\ndans son grand fauteuil, et avait-elle l'air aussi s\u00e9v\u00e8re qu'elle le\npouvait. Mais apr\u00e8s tout, que Dieu la b\u00e9nisse! c'\u00e9tait encore un air\nb\u00e9n\u00e9vole.\n\n\u00abMaman, dit M. Wardle, voil\u00e0 M. Pickwick. Vous vous en souvenez.\n\n--C'est bien! c'est bien! r\u00e9pliqua-t-elle avec dignit\u00e9: Ne tourmentez\npas M. Pickwick pour une vieille cr\u00e9ature comme moi. Personne ne se\nsoucie plus de moi, maintenant, et c'est fort naturel. En pronon\u00e7ant ces\nmots elle secouait sa t\u00eate, et d\u00e9tirait d'une main tremblante les plis\nde sa robe de soie.\n\n--Allons! allons! madame, dit M. Pickwick; ne repoussez pas comme cela\nun vieil ami. Je suis venu expr\u00e8s pour avoir une longue conversation\navec vous, et pour faire un autre rob. Et puis nous montrerons \u00e0 ces\nenfants \u00e0 danser un menuet avant qu'ils soient plus vieux de\nquarante-huit heures.\u00bb\n\nLa vieille dame s'adoucissait rapidement, mais elle n'aimait pas avoir\nl'air de c\u00e9der tout \u00e0 coup, aussi se contenta-t-elle de dire: \u00abAh! je ne\npeux pas l'entendre.\n\n--Allons! maman, quel enfantillage! reprit M. Wardle: ne soyez donc pas\nde mauvaise humeur; pensez \u00e0 Bella, pauvre fille; il faut que vous\nl'encouragiez.\u00bb\n\nLa bonne vieille dame entendit ceci, car ses l\u00e8vres trembl\u00e8rent pendant\nque son fils parlait. Mais l'\u00e2ge a ses petites infirmit\u00e9s mentales, et\nelle n'\u00e9tait point encore tout \u00e0 fait apais\u00e9e. Elle recommen\u00e7a donc \u00e0\nd\u00e9tirer sa robe, et se tournant vers M. Pickwick, \u00abAh! monsieur\nPickwick, lui dit-elle, les jeunes gens \u00e9taient bien diff\u00e9rents dans mon\ntemps.\n\n--Sans aucun doute, madame, et c'est pour cela que j'aime tant ceux qui\nont quelques traces de l'ancienne roche.\u00bb En disant ces mots notre\nexcellent ami attira doucement Isabelle, et d\u00e9posant un baiser sur son\nfront, la fit asseoir sur le petit tabouret aux pieds de sa grand'm\u00e8re.\nAlors, soit que l'expression de ce jeune visage, lev\u00e9 vers la vieille\ndame, lui rappel\u00e2t des souvenirs d'autrefois, soit qu'elle f\u00fbt touch\u00e9e\npar la bienveillante bonhomie de M. Pickwick, quelle qu'en f\u00fbt la cause\nenfin, elle s'amollit compl\u00e9tement; elle jeta ses bras au cou de Bella,\net toute cette petite mauvaise humeur s'\u00e9vapora en larmes silencieuses.\n\nCe fut une heureuse soir\u00e9e. Le whist o\u00f9 M. Pickwick et la vieille lady\njouaient ensemble, \u00e9tait grave et solennel, mais la joie de la table\nronde \u00e9tait bruyante et tumultueuse. Longtemps apr\u00e8s que les dames se\nfurent retir\u00e9es, le vin chaud bien assaisonn\u00e9 d'eau-de-vie et d'\u00e9pices,\ncircula \u00e0 la ronde et recircula fr\u00e9quemment. Le sommeil qu'il produisit\nfut profond, et les r\u00eaves qu'il amena furent agr\u00e9ables. C'est un fait\nremarquable que ceux de M. Snodgrass se rapportaient constamment \u00e0 \u00c9mily\nWardle, et que la principale figure des visions de M. Winkle \u00e9tait une\njeune demoiselle, avec des yeux noirs, un sourire malin, et des\nbrodequins remarquablement petits.\n\nM. Pickwick fut r\u00e9veill\u00e9 de bonne heure, le lendemain, par un murmure de\nvoix, par un bruit confus de pas, qui auraient suffi pour tirer le gros\njoufflu lui-m\u00eame de son pesant sommeil. Il se leva sur son s\u00e9ant et\n\u00e9couta. Les domestiques et les h\u00f4tes f\u00e9minins couraient constamment de\ntous c\u00f4t\u00e9s, et il y avait tant et de si instantes demandes d'eau chaude,\ntant de supplications r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9es pour des aiguilles et du fil, tant de:\n\u00abOh! venez m'agrafer ma robe, vous serez bien gentille!\u00bb que M.\nPickwick, dans son innocence, commen\u00e7a \u00e0 s'imaginer qu'il \u00e9tait arriv\u00e9\nquelque chose d'\u00e9pouvantable. Cependant ses id\u00e9es s'\u00e9claircissant de\nplus en plus, il se rappela que c'\u00e9tait le jour des noces. L'occasion\n\u00e9tant importante, il s'habilla avec un soin particulier, et descendit\ndans la chambre o\u00f9 l'on devait d\u00e9jeuner.\n\nToutes les servantes de la maison, v\u00eatues d'un uniforme de mousseline,\ncouraient \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0 dans un \u00e9tat d'agitation et d'inqui\u00e9tude impossible \u00e0\nd\u00e9crire. La vieille lady \u00e9tait par\u00e9e d'une robe de brocart, qui depuis\nvingt ann\u00e9es n'avait pas vu la lumi\u00e8re, except\u00e9 lorsque quelque rayon\nvagabond s'\u00e9tait gliss\u00e9 \u00e0 travers les fentes de la bo\u00eete o\u00f9 elle \u00e9tait\nenferm\u00e9e. M. Trundle resplendissait de satisfaction, mais on voyait\npourtant que ses nerfs n'\u00e9taient pas bien solides. Quant au cordial\namphitryon, il \u00e9chouait compl\u00e9tement dans ses efforts pour para\u00eetre\ntranquille et gai. Except\u00e9 deux ou trois favorites, demeur\u00e9es en haut,\net honor\u00e9es d'une vue particuli\u00e8re de la mari\u00e9e et des demoiselles\nd'honneur, toutes les jeunes personnes \u00e9taient en larmes et en robe de\nmousseline. Les pickwickiens avaient \u00e9galement rev\u00eatu des costumes\nappropri\u00e9s \u00e0 la circonstance. Enfin l'on entendait sur le gazon, devant\nla grande porte, de terribles hurlements, pouss\u00e9s par tous les hommes,\njeunes gars et gamins, d\u00e9pendant de la ferme, et portant chacun une\ncocarde blanche \u00e0 leur boutonni\u00e8re. C'\u00e9tait Sam qui dirigeait leurs\ncris, du pr\u00e9cepte et de l'exemple; car il \u00e9tait d\u00e9j\u00e0 parvenu \u00e0 se rendre\nfort populaire, et se trouvait l\u00e0 aussi \u00e0 son aise que s'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9\ncon\u00e7u et enfant\u00e9 sur les terres de M. Wardle.\n\nUn mariage est un sujet privil\u00e9gi\u00e9 de plaisanteries; et cependant apr\u00e8s\ntout, il n'y a pas grande plaisanterie dans l'affaire. Nous parlons\nsimplement de la c\u00e9r\u00e9monie, et demandons qu'il soit bien entendu que\nnous ne nous permettons aucun sarcasme cach\u00e9 contre la vie maritale. Aux\nplaisirs, aux esp\u00e9rances qu'apporte le mariage, est m\u00eal\u00e9 le regret\nd'abandonner sa maison, sa famille, de laisser derri\u00e8re soi les tendres\namis de la portion la plus heureuse de la vie, pour en affronter les\nsoucis avec une personne qu'on n'a pas encore \u00e9prouv\u00e9e et qu'on conna\u00eet\npeu. Mais en voil\u00e0 assez sur ce sujet: nous ne voulons pas attrister\nnotre chapitre par la description de ces sentiments naturels, et nous\nregretterions encore bien plus de les tourner en ridicule.\n\nNous dirons donc bri\u00e8vement que le mariage fut c\u00e9l\u00e9br\u00e9 par le vieil\neccl\u00e9siastique, dans l'\u00e9glise paroissiale de Dingley-Dell; et que le nom\nde M. Pickwick est inscrit sur le registre, conserv\u00e9 jusqu'\u00e0 ce jour\ndans la sacristie; que la jeune demoiselle aux yeux noirs ne signa pas\nson nom d'une main ferme, coulante et d\u00e9gag\u00e9e; que la signature d'\u00c9mily\net celle de l'autre demoiselle d'honneur sont presque illisibles; que\nd'ailleurs tout se passa tr\u00e8s-bien et d'une mani\u00e8re fort agr\u00e9able; que\nles jeunes demoiselles trouv\u00e8rent, g\u00e9n\u00e9ralement, que la c\u00e9r\u00e9monie \u00e9tait\nbien moins terrible qu'elles ne se l'\u00e9taient imagin\u00e9; et que si la\npropri\u00e9taire des yeux noirs et du sourire malicieux jugea convenable\nd'informer M. Winkle, qu'assur\u00e9ment elle ne pourrait jamais se soumettre\n\u00e0 une chose aussi odieuse, nous avons, d'autre part, les meilleures\nraisons pour supposer qu'elle se trompait. A tout cela nous pouvons\najouter que M. Pickwick fut le premier qui embrassa la mari\u00e9e, et qu'en\nm\u00eame temps il lui jeta autour du cou une riche cha\u00eene d'or, avec une\nmontre du m\u00eame m\u00e9tal, qui n'avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 vues auparavant par les yeux\nd'aucun mortel, except\u00e9 ceux du joaillier. Enfin les cloches de la\nvieille \u00e9glise sonn\u00e8rent aussi gaiement qu'elles le purent, et tout le\nmonde s'en retourna d\u00e9jeuner.\n\n\u00abO\u00f9 les petits p\u00e2t\u00e9s de No\u00ebl se placent-ils, jeune mangeur d'opium?\ndemanda Sam au gros joufflu, en aidant cet int\u00e9ressant fonctionnaire \u00e0\nmettre sur la table les articles de consommation qui n'avaient point \u00e9t\u00e9\narrang\u00e9s le soir pr\u00e9c\u00e9dent.\n\nJoe indiqua la destination des p\u00e2t\u00e9s.\n\n\u00abTr\u00e8s-bien! dit Sam: Mettez un rameau de No\u00ebl dedans. L'autre plat \u00e0\nl'opposite. Maintenant nous avons l'air compact et confortable, comme\nobservait le papa en coupant la t\u00eate de son moutard pour l'emp\u00eacher de\nloucher.\u00bb\n\nEn faisant cette citation savante, Sam recula d'un pas ou deux pour\nexaminer les pr\u00e9paratifs du festin. Il \u00e9tait encore plong\u00e9 dans cette\nd\u00e9licieuse contemplation, lorsque la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 arriva et se mit \u00e0 table.\n\n\u00abWardle, dit M. Pickwick, presque aussit\u00f4t qu'on f\u00fbt assis; un verre de\nvin en honneur de cette heureuse circonstance.\n\n--J'en serai charm\u00e9, mon vieux camarade, r\u00e9pliqua M. Wardle. Joe....\ndamn\u00e9 gar\u00e7on! il est all\u00e9 dormir.\n\n--Non, monsieur, je ne dors pas, r\u00e9pondit le gros joufflu en sortant\nd'un coin de la chambre, o\u00f9, comme l'immortel Jack Horner, patron des\ngros gar\u00e7ons, il s'occupait \u00e0 d\u00e9vorer un p\u00e2t\u00e9 de No\u00ebl, sans toutefois\ns'acquitter de cette besogne avec le sang-froid qui caract\u00e9risait les\nop\u00e9rations gastronomiques de l'illustre h\u00e9ros de la ballade enfantine.\n\n--Remplissez le verre de M. Pickwick.\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nLe gros joufflu emplit le verre de M. Pickwick et se retira ensuite\nderri\u00e8re la chaise de son ma\u00eetre, d'o\u00f9 il observa avec une esp\u00e8ce de\njoie sombre et inqui\u00e8te, le jeu des fourchettes et des couteaux, et le\ntrajet des morceaux choisis depuis les plats jusqu'aux assiettes, et des\nassiettes jusqu'aux bouches des convives.\n\n\u00abQue Dieu vous b\u00e9nisse, mon vieil ami, dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Je vous en dis autant, mon gar\u00e7on, r\u00e9pliqua Wardle, et ils se firent\nraison du fond du coeur.\n\n--Mme Wardle, reprit M. Pickwick, nous autres vieilles gens nous devons\nboire un verre de vin ensemble en honneur de cet heureux \u00e9v\u00e9nement.\u00bb\n\nLa vieille lady \u00e9tait en ce moment dans une posture pleine de grandeur,\ncar elle \u00e9tait assise au haut bout de la table, dans sa robe de brocart,\nayant la nouvelle mari\u00e9e d'un cot\u00e9 et M. Pickwick de l'autre, pour\nd\u00e9couper. M. Pickwick n'avait pas parl\u00e9 tr\u00e8s-haut, mais elle l'entendit\ndu premier coup, et but un verre de vin tout entier \u00e0 sa longue vie et \u00e0\nson bonheur. Ensuite la bonne vieille cr\u00e9ature se lan\u00e7a dans un r\u00e9cit\ncirconstanci\u00e9 de son propre mariage, accompagn\u00e9 d'une dissertation sur\nla mode des talons hauts, et de quelques particularit\u00e9s concernant la\nvie et les aventures de la charmante lady Tollimglower, d\u00e9c\u00e9d\u00e9e. A\nchaque pose de son r\u00e9cit, la vieille dame riait de tout son coeur, et les\njeunes ladies en faisaient autant; puis elles se demandaient entre elles\nde quoi leur grand'maman pouvait parler si longtemps. Or, quand les\njeunes ladies riaient, la vieille dame \u00e9clatait dix fois plus fort, et\nd\u00e9clarait que son histoire avait toujours \u00e9t\u00e9 regard\u00e9e comme excellente;\nce qui faisait rire de nouveau tout le monde, et inspirait \u00e0 la vieille\ndame la meilleure humeur possible.\n\nCependant le fameux _plum-cake_, le g\u00e2teau de noce, fut d\u00e9coup\u00e9 et\ncircula autour de la table. Les jeunes demoiselles en gard\u00e8rent des\nmorceaux, pour mettre sous leur traversin et r\u00eaver de leur futur \u00e9poux,\nce qui occasionna une grande quantit\u00e9 de rougeurs et d'\u00e9clats de rire.\n\n\u00abMonsieur Miller, un verre de vin, dit M. Pickwick \u00e0 sa vieille\nconnaissance, le gentleman dont la t\u00eate ressemblait \u00e0 une pomme de\nreinette.\n\n--Avec grande satisfaction, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit celui-ci d'un air\nsolennel.\n\n--Vous me permettrez d'en \u00eatre, dit le vieil eccl\u00e9siastique b\u00e9n\u00e9vole.\n\n--Et \u00e0 moi aussi, ajouta sa femme.\n\n--Et \u00e0 moi aussi, et \u00e0 moi aussi,\u00bb r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e8rent du bas de la table une\ncouple de parents pauvres, qui avaient bu et mang\u00e9 de tout leur coeur, et\nqui s'empressaient de rire \u00e0 tout ce qui se disait.\n\nM. Pickwick, dont les yeux rayonnaient de bienveillance et de plaisir,\nexprima son intime satisfaction \u00e0 chaque addition nouvelle. Ensuite, se\nlevant tout d'un coup:\n\n\u00abLadies et gentlemen, dit-il.\n\n--\u00c9coutez! \u00e9coutez! \u00e9coutez! \u00e9coutez! \u00e9coutez! \u00e9coutez! cria Sam,\nemport\u00e9 par l'exaltation du moment.\n\n--Faites entrer tous les domestiques, dit le vieux Wardle en\ns'interposant pour pr\u00e9venir la rebuffade publique que Sam aurait\ninfailliblement re\u00e7ue de son ma\u00eetre; et donnez-leur \u00e0 chacun un verre de\nvin pour boire le toast; maintenant, Pickwick....\u00bb\n\nParmi le silence de la compagnie, le chuchotement des domestiques\nfemelles, et l'embarras craintif des m\u00e2les, M. Pickwick poursuivit:\n\n\u00abLadies et gentlemen... non... je ne dirai pas ladies et gentlemen, je\nvous appellerai mes amis, mes chers amis, si les dames veulent\nm'accorder une si grande libert\u00e9....\u00bb Ici M. Pickwick fut interrompu par\nles applaudissements fr\u00e9n\u00e9tiques des dames, r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9s par les gentlemen,\net durant lesquels la propri\u00e9taire des yeux noirs fut entendue d\u00e9clarer\ndistinctement qu'elle embrasserait volontiers ce cher M. Pickwick; M.\nWinkle demanda galamment si cela ne pourrait pas se faire par\nprocuration; mais la jeune lady aux yeux noirs lui r\u00e9pliqua; \u00abpar\nexemple!\u00bb en accompagnant cette r\u00e9ponse d'une oeillade qui disait\nclairement: essayez!\n\n\u00abMes chers amis, reprit M. Pickwick, je vais proposer la sant\u00e9 du mari\u00e9\net de la mari\u00e9e, que Dieu les b\u00e9nisse! (Larmes et applaudissements.) Mon\njeune ami Trundle est, comme je crois, un excellent et brave jeune\nhomme; et je sais que sa femme est une tr\u00e8s-aimable et tr\u00e8s-charmante\nfille, bien capable de transf\u00e9rer dans une autre sph\u00e8re le bonheur\nqu'elle a r\u00e9pandu autour d'elle pendant vingt ann\u00e9es dans la maison\npaternelle\u00bb (Ici le gros joufflu laissa \u00e9clater des pleurnicheries\nstentoriennes, et Sam, le saisissant par le collet, l'entra\u00eena hors de\nla chambre.) \u00abJe voudrais, poursuivit M. Pickwick, je voudrais \u00eatre\nassez jeune pour devenir le mari de sa soeur. (Applaudissements.) Mais\ncela n'\u00e9tant pas, je suis heureux de me trouver assez vieux pour \u00eatre\nson p\u00e8re, afin de ne pas \u00eatre soup\u00e7onn\u00e9 d'avoir quelques projets cach\u00e9s\nsi je dis que je les admire, que je les estime et que je les aime toutes\nles deux. (Applaudissements et sanglots.) Le p\u00e8re de la mari\u00e9e, notre\nbon ami ici pr\u00e9sent, est un noble caract\u00e8re, et je suis orgueilleux de\nle conna\u00eetre. (Grand tapage.) C'est un homme excellent, ind\u00e9pendant,\naffectueux, hospitalier, lib\u00e9ral. (Cris enthousiastes des pauvres\nparents \u00e0 chacun de ces adjectifs, et sp\u00e9cialement aux deux derniers.)\nPuisse sa fille jouir de tout le bonheur que lui-m\u00eame peut lui\nsouhaiter, puisse-t-il trouver dans la contemplation de ce bonheur toute\nla satisfaction de coeur et d'esprit qu'il m\u00e9rite si bien. Tels sont,\nj'en suis bien s\u00fbr, les voeux de chacun de nous. Buvons donc \u00e0 leur\nsant\u00e9, en leur souhaitant une longue vie et toutes sortes de\nprosp\u00e9rit\u00e9s.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick cessa de parler au milieu d'une temp\u00eate d'applaudissements.\nLes poumons des auxiliaires, sous le commandement de Sam, se faisaient\nsurtout distinguer par leur active et solide coop\u00e9ration. Ensuite M.\nWardle proposa la sant\u00e9 de M. Pickwick, et M. Pickwick celle de la\nvieille lady. M. Snodgrass proposa M. Wardle, et M. Wardle proposa M.\nSnodgrass. Un des pauvres parents proposa M. Tupman, l'autre pauvre\nparent proposa M. Winkle, et tout fut bonheur et festoiement, jusqu'au\nmoment o\u00f9 la disparition myst\u00e9rieuse des deux pauvres parents sous la\ntable, avertit la compagnie qu'il \u00e9tait temps de se s\u00e9parer.\n\nSur la recommandation de M. Wardle, la partie masculine de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9\nentreprit une promenade de quatre ou cinq lieues, pour se d\u00e9barrasser\ndes fum\u00e9es du vin et du d\u00e9jeuner. Les pauvres parents seulement\ndemeur\u00e8rent au lit, toute la journ\u00e9e, pour t\u00e2cher d'obtenir le m\u00eame\nr\u00e9sultat; mais n'ayant pu y parvenir ils furent oblig\u00e9s d'en rester l\u00e0.\nCependant Sam entretenait les domestiques dans un \u00e9tat d'hilarit\u00e9\nperp\u00e9tuelle, et le gros joufflu charmait ses loisirs en mangeant et en\ndormant tour \u00e0 tour.\n\nAux larmes pr\u00e8s, le d\u00eener fut aussi affectueux que le d\u00e9jeuner, et tout\naussi bruyant; ensuite vint le dessert et de nouveaux toasts, puis le\nth\u00e9 et le caf\u00e9, puis enfin le bal.\n\nAu bout d'une longue salle, garnie de sombres lambris, \u00e9taient assis,\nsous un berceau de houx et d'arbres verts, les deux meilleurs violons et\nl'unique harpe de Muggleton. Dans toutes esp\u00e8ces de recoins, et sur\ntoutes sortes de supports, luisaient de vieux chandeliers d'argent\nmassif. Le tapis \u00e9tait \u00f4t\u00e9, les bougies brillaient gaiement, le feu\np\u00e9tillait dans l'\u00e9norme chemin\u00e9e, sur le chambranle de laquelle aurait\npu rouler facilement un cabriolet de nos temps d\u00e9g\u00e9n\u00e9r\u00e9s. Des voix\nenjou\u00e9es, des \u00e9clats de rires joyeux retentissaient dans toute la salle:\nenfin c'\u00e9tait justement l'endroit o\u00f9 les anciens _yeomen_ anglais,\ndevenus lutins apr\u00e8s leur mort, auraient aim\u00e9 \u00e0 donner une f\u00eate.\n\nSi quelque chose pouvait ajouter \u00e0 l'int\u00e9r\u00eat de cette agr\u00e9able\nc\u00e9r\u00e9monie, c'\u00e9tait le fait remarquable que M. Pickwick apparut sans ses\ngu\u00eatres, pour la premi\u00e8re fois de sa vie, s'il faut en croire ses plus\nanciens amis.\n\n\u00abVous vous proposez de danser? lui demanda M. Wardle.\n\n--N\u00e9cessairement; ne voyez-vous pas que je suis habill\u00e9 pour cela,\nr\u00e9pondit-il, en faisant remarquer avec complaisance ses bas de soie\nchin\u00e9s et ses fins escarpins.\n\n--Vous, en bas de soie! s'\u00e9cria gaiement M. Tupman.\n\n--Et pourquoi pas, monsieur, pourquoi pas? r\u00e9torqua M. Pickwick avec\nchaleur, en se retournant vers son ami.\n\n--Oh! effectivement, r\u00e9pondit M. Tupman. Il n'y a aucune raison pour que\nvous n'en portiez pas.\n\n--Je le suppose, monsieur, je le suppose, dit M. Pickwick d'un ton\np\u00e9remptoire.\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman avait voulu rire, mais il s'aper\u00e7ut que c'\u00e9tait un sujet\ns\u00e9rieux. Il prit donc un air grave et d\u00e9clara que les bas \u00e9taient d'un\njoli dessin.\n\n--Je l'esp\u00e8re, reprit le philosophe en regardant fixement son\ninterlocuteur. Je me flatte, monsieur, que vous ne voyez rien\nd'extraordinaire dans ces bas, en tant que bas.\n\n--Non certainement. Oh! non certainement! se h\u00e2ta de r\u00e9pondre M. Tupman.\nIl s'\u00e9loigna, et la contenance de M. Pickwick reprit l'expression\nb\u00e9n\u00e9vole qui lui \u00e9tait habituelle.\n\n--Nous sommes tous pr\u00eats, dit M. Pickwick, qui s'\u00e9tait plac\u00e9 avec la\nvieille lady \u00e0 la t\u00eate de la danse, et qui avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 fait trois faux\nd\u00e9parts, dans son excessive impatience de commencer.\n\n--Allons, s'\u00e9cria Wardle, maintenant!\u00bb\n\nSoudain sonn\u00e8rent les deux violons et la harpe, et vite partit M.\nPickwick, les bras entrelac\u00e9s avec sa danseuse; mais il fut interrompu\npar un battement de mains g\u00e9n\u00e9ral et par des cris de \u00abArr\u00eatez! arr\u00eatez!\n\n--Qu'est-ce qu'il y a? demanda le philosophe qui n'avait pu \u00eatre ramen\u00e9\n\u00e0 sa place, que lorsque les deux violons et la harpe eurent fait\nsilence, et qui n'aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 retenu par aucun autre pouvoir sur la\nterre, quand m\u00eame la maison aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 en feu.\n\n--O\u00f9 est Arabella Allen? cri\u00e8rent une douzaine de voix.\n\n--Et Winkle? ajouta M. Tupman.\n\n--Nous voici, s'\u00e9cria M. Winkle, en sortant, avec son aimable compagne,\nd'une embrasure de fen\u00eatre. Pendant qu'il disait ces mots, il aurait \u00e9t\u00e9\ndifficile de d\u00e9cider lequel des deux \u00e9tait le plus rouge, lui ou la\njeune lady aux yeux noirs.\n\n--C'est bien extraordinaire, Winkle, que vous ne puissiez pas prendre\nvotre place! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick avec d\u00e9pit.\n\n--Pas du tout, r\u00e9pondit M. Winkle.\n\n--Oh! vous avez raison, reprit M. Pickwick, en reposant ses yeux sur\nArabella, avec un sourire fort expressif. Vous avez raison; cela n'est\npas extraordinaire, apr\u00e8s tout.\u00bb\n\nQuoi qu'il en soit, on n'eut pas le temps de penser davantage \u00e0 cette\npetite aventure, car les violons et la harpe commenc\u00e8rent pour tout de\nbon. M. Pickwick s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a aussit\u00f4t: Les mains crois\u00e9es, promenade\njusqu'\u00e0 l'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 de la chambre, et au retour, jusqu'au milieu de la\nchemin\u00e9e; pouss\u00e9e, de tous les c\u00f4t\u00e9s, de bruyants frappements de pieds\nsur le plancher. Au tour de l'autre couple. En route sur nouveaux frais.\nToute la figure se r\u00e9p\u00e8te, les frappements de pieds recommencent pour\nmarquer la mesure. Un autre couple, et un autre, et un autre encore!\nJamais on ne vit une danse aussi anim\u00e9e; et enfin, lorsque la vieille\nlady \u00e9puis\u00e9e eut \u00e9t\u00e9 remplac\u00e9e par la femme du b\u00e9n\u00e9vole eccl\u00e9siastique,\nlorsque quatorze couples eurent fait la figure, lorsque M. Pickwick et\nsa nouvelle partner se trouv\u00e8rent \u00e0 la queue des danseurs, on vit cet\nillustre savant, quoiqu'il n'e\u00fbt aucun motif quelconque de faire tant\nd'efforts, continuer de danser perp\u00e9tuellement \u00e0 sa place, en souriant\ntout le temps \u00e0 sa compagne, avec une douceur ang\u00e9lique et qui d\u00e9fie\ntoute description.\n\nLongtemps avant que M. Pickwick f\u00fbt fatigu\u00e9 de danser, les nouveaux\nmari\u00e9s s'\u00e9taient \u00e9clips\u00e9s de la sc\u00e8ne. Il y eut cependant, au\nrez-de-chauss\u00e9e, un glorieux souper, et \u00e0 la suite une longue s\u00e9ance\nautour de la table. Aussi M. Pickwick s'\u00e9veilla-t-il assez tard le\nlendemain. Il lui sembla alors se rappeler, d'une mani\u00e8re confuse, qu'il\navait invit\u00e9 particuli\u00e8rement et confidentiellement environ\nquarante-cinq personnes \u00e0 d\u00eener chez lui, au George et Vautour, la\npremi\u00e8re fois qu'elles viendraient \u00e0 Londres; ce qui, comme lui-m\u00eame le\npensa avec raison, indiquait d'une mani\u00e8re \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s certaine, qu'il ne\ns'\u00e9tait pas content\u00e9 de danser la nuit pr\u00e9c\u00e9dente.\n\nCependant la journ\u00e9e s'\u00e9coula joyeusement, et lorsque le soir fut venu,\n\u00abEh! bien, ma ch\u00e8re, demanda Sam \u00e0 Emma, votre famille a donc des\nhistoires dans la cuisine, \u00e0 cette heure?\n\n--Oui, monsieur Weller, r\u00e9pondit Emma. C'est toujours comme cela la\nveille de No\u00ebl: notre ma\u00eetre ne n\u00e9gligerait pas les vieilles coutumes\npour un empire.\n\n--Votre ma\u00eetre a une id\u00e9e fort judicieuse, ma ch\u00e8re. Je n'ai jamais vu\nun homme aussi judicieux, un si v\u00e9ritable gentleman.\n\n--C'est bien vrai, dit le gros joufflu en se m\u00ealant \u00e0 la conversation.\nN'engraisse-t-il pas de beaux cochons?\u00bb\n\nTandis que l'\u00e9pais jouvenceau parlait ainsi, une \u00e9tincelle\nsemi-cannibale brillait dans ses yeux, au souvenir des pieds r\u00f4tis.\n\n\u00abOh! vous voil\u00e0 r\u00e9veill\u00e9 \u00e0 la fin,\u00bb lui dit Sam.\n\nLe gros joufflu fit un signe affirmatif.\n\n\u00abEh! bien, je vais vous dire, jeune boa constructeur, reprit Sam, d'un\nson de voix imposant: si vous ne dormez pas un petit peu moins, et si\nvous ne faites pas un petit peu plus d'exercice, quand vous arriverez \u00e0\n\u00eatre un homme vous vous exposerez au m\u00eame genre d'inconv\u00e9nient personnel\nqui fut inflig\u00e9 sur le vieux gentleman qui portait une queue de rat.\n\n--Qu'est-ce donc qui lui est arriv\u00e9? demanda Joe d'une voix mal assur\u00e9e.\n\n--C'est ce que je vas vous dire. Il \u00e9tait du plus large patron qui a\njamais \u00e9t\u00e9 invent\u00e9; un v\u00e9ritable homme gras, qui n'avait pas entrevu ses\npropres chaussures depuis quarante et cinq ans.\n\n--Bont\u00e9 divine! s'\u00e9crie Emma.\n\n--Non, ma ch\u00e8re, pas une fois; et si vous aviez mis devant lui un mod\u00e8le\nde ses propres jambes sur la table o\u00f9 il d\u00eenait, il ne les aurait pas\nreconnues. Il allait toujours \u00e0 son bureau avec une tr\u00e8s-belle cha\u00eene\nd'or qui pendait, en dandinant, environ un pied et demi, et une montre\nd'or dans son gousset qui valait bien... j'ai peur de dire trop... mais\nautant qu'une montre peut valoir; une grosse montre ronde, aussi\ncons\u00e9quente dans son esp\u00e8ce comme il \u00e9tait pour un homme. \u00abVous feriez\nmieux de ne pas porter cette montre ici, disaient les amis du gentleman,\nvous en serez vol\u00e9.--Bah! qu'il dit.--Oui, disent-ils, vous le\nserez.--Bien, dit-il; j'aimerais \u00e0 voir le voleur qui pourrait tirer\ncette montre ici, car je veux que Dieu me b\u00e9nisse si je peux jamais la\ntirer moi-m\u00eame, qu'il dit; elle est si serr\u00e9e dans mon gousset que quand\nje veux savoir quelle heure-s-qu'il est, je suis oblig\u00e9 de regarder dans\nla boutique du boulanger, qu'il dit.--Pour lors, en disant \u00e7a il riait\nde si bon coeur qu'on avait peur de le voir \u00e9clater. Il sort avec sa t\u00eate\npoudr\u00e9e et sa queue de rat, vl\u00e0 qu'il roule sa bosse dans le Strand avec\nsa cha\u00eene dandinant plus que jamais, et la grosse montre qui crevait\npresque son pantalon. Il n'y avait pas un filou dans tout Londres qui\nn'e\u00fbt pas tir\u00e9 \u00e0 cette cha\u00eene; mais la cha\u00eene ne voulait jamais se\ncasser et la montre ne voulait pas sortir. Ainsi ils se fatiguaient bien\nvite de tra\u00eener un gros homme comme \u00e7a sur le pav\u00e9, et l'autre s'en\nretournait chez lui, et il riait tant que sa queue de rat se tr\u00e9moussait\ncomme le pendule d'un vieux coucou. A la fin, un jour, il roulait\ntranquillement; vl\u00e0 qu'il voit un filou qu'il connaissait de vue, bras\ndessus, bras dessous avec un petit moutard qui avait une tr\u00e8s-grosse\nt\u00eate.--En voil\u00e0 une farce, que le vieux gentleman se dit en lui-m\u00eame:\nils vont s'essayer encore un coup, mais \u00e7a ne prendra pas. Ainsi il\ncommence \u00e0 ricaner bien joyeusement, quand tout d'un coup le petit\ngar\u00e7on quitte le bras du filou et se jette la t\u00eate la premi\u00e8re droit\ndans l'estomac du vieux gentleman, si fort qu'il le fait doubler en deux\npar la douleur. Il se met \u00e0 crier oh l\u00e0! l\u00e0! mais le filou lui dit tout\nbas \u00e0 l'oreille: Le tour est fait, monsieur, et quand il se redresse la\nmontre et la cha\u00eene avaient fichu le camp, et ce qu'il y a de plus pire,\nla digestion du vieux gentleman a toujours \u00e9t\u00e9 embrouill\u00e9e apr\u00e8s \u00e7a,\npour tout le reste de sa vie naturelle.--Ainsi faites attention \u00e0 vous,\nmon jeune gaillard, et prenez garde que vous ne deveniez pas trop gras.\u00bb\n\nLorsque Sam eut conclu ce r\u00e9cit moral, dont le gros joufflu parut fort\naffect\u00e9, nos trois personnages se rendirent dans la cuisine.\n\nC'\u00e9tait une vaste pi\u00e8ce o\u00f9 se trouvait rassembl\u00e9e toute la famille,\nsuivant la coutume annuellement observ\u00e9e, depuis un temps imm\u00e9morial,\npar les anc\u00eatres de M. Wardle. Il venait de suspendre de ses propres\nmains, au milieu du plafond, une \u00e9norme branche de gui[31], qui donna\ninstantan\u00e9ment naissance \u00e0 une sc\u00e8ne d\u00e9licieuse de luttes et de\nconfusion. Au milieu du d\u00e9sordre, M. Pickwick, avec une galanterie qui\naurait fait honneur \u00e0 un descendant de lady Tollimglower elle-m\u00eame, prit\nla vieille lady par la main, la conduisit sous l'arbuste mystique, et\nl'embrassa avec courtoisie et d\u00e9corum. La vieille dame se soumit \u00e0 cet\nacte de politesse avec la dignit\u00e9 qui convenait \u00e0 une solennit\u00e9 si\nimportante et si s\u00e9rieuse; mais les jeunes ladies, n'\u00e9tant point aussi\nprofond\u00e9ment imbues d'une superstitieuse v\u00e9n\u00e9ration pour cette coutume,\nou s'imaginant que la saveur d'un baiser est singuli\u00e8rement relev\u00e9e\nquand on a un peu de peine \u00e0 l'obtenir, criaient, se d\u00e9battaient,\ncouraient dans tous les coins, faisaient des menaces et des\nremontrances, faisaient tout, enfin, except\u00e9 de quitter la chambre, et\nluttaient ainsi jusqu'au moment o\u00f9 les gentlemen les moins aventureux\nparaissaient sur le point de renoncer \u00e0 leur entreprise. Tout d'un coup,\nalors, elles s'apercevaient qu'il \u00e9tait inutile de r\u00e9sister plus\nlongtemps, et se soumettaient de bonne gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 \u00eatre embrass\u00e9es. M.\nWinkle embrassa la jeune demoiselle aux yeux noirs; M. Snodgrass\nembrassa \u00c9mily; les pauvres parents embrassaient tout le monde, sans en\nexcepter les jeunes ladies les plus laides, qui, dans leur excessive\nconfusion se pr\u00e9cipitaient justement sous le gui, sans le savoir. Quant\n\u00e0 Sam, ne croyant point \u00e0 la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 d'\u00eatre sous l'arbuste sacr\u00e9, il\nembrassait Emma et les autres servantes quand il pouvait les attraper.\nCependant M. Wardle se tenait debout pr\u00e9s de la chemin\u00e9e, le dos au feu,\nconsid\u00e9rant cette sc\u00e8ne avec la plus grande satisfaction, tandis que le\ngros joufflu profitait de l'occasion pour d\u00e9vorer sommairement un\nadmirable petit p\u00e2t\u00e9 de No\u00ebl, qui avait \u00e9t\u00e9 soigneusement mis de c\u00f4t\u00e9\npar quelque autre personne.\n\n[Footnote 31: Aux f\u00eates de No\u00ebl, on a coutume de suspendre une branche\nde houx dans la salle de r\u00e9union, et quiconque peut entra\u00eener une dame\nsous la branche a le droit de l'embrasser.]\n\nEnfin les cris s'\u00e9taient apais\u00e9s, les visages \u00e9taient couverts de\nrougeur, les cheveux pendaient d\u00e9fris\u00e9s, et M. Pickwick, apr\u00e8s avoir\nembrass\u00e9 la vieille dame, comme nous l'avons dit plus haut, \u00e9tait rest\u00e9\ndebout sous le gui, regardant avec une physionomie riante ce qui se\npassait autour de lui. Tout d'un coup, la jeune demoiselle aux yeux\nnoirs, apr\u00e8s quelques chuchotements avec les autres jeunes personnes,\ns'\u00e9lan\u00e7a vers M. Pickwick, lui jeta ses bras autour du cou, et le baisa\ntendrement sur la joue gauche. Aussit\u00f4t toute la troupe des jeunes\nladies entoura le savant philanthrope, et avant qu'il e\u00fbt eu le temps de\nse reconna\u00eetre et de savoir de quoi il s'agissait, il fut bais\u00e9 par\nchacune d'elles.\n\nC'\u00e9tait un gracieux spectacle de voir M. Pickwick au centre de ce\ngroupe, tant\u00f4t tir\u00e9 d'un c\u00f4t\u00e9, tant\u00f4t de l'autre; bais\u00e9, d'abord sur le\nmenton, puis sur le nez, puis sur ses lunettes, et d'entendre les \u00e9clats\nde rire qui retentissaient de toutes parts. Mais bient\u00f4t apr\u00e8s ce fut un\nspectacle plus charmant encore, de voir M. Pickwick, les yeux couverts\nd'un mouchoir de soie, se pr\u00e9cipiter sur les murailles, s'embarraser\ndans les coins, et accomplir, enfin, avec d\u00e9lices, tous les myst\u00e8res de\ncolin-maillard, jusqu'au moment o\u00f9 il attrapa l'un des pauvres parents.\nA son tour, alors, il s'occupa d'\u00e9viter le colin-maillard, et il s'en\nacquitta avec une agilit\u00e9 et une prestesse qui arrach\u00e8rent des\napplaudissements aux assistants. Les pauvres parents attrapaient\npr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment les gens \u00e0 qui ils supposaient que cela serait agr\u00e9able, et\nse laissaient prendre, par hasard, lorsque quelqu'un trimait trop\nlongtemps.\n\nQuand tout le monde fut fatigu\u00e9 de colin-maillard on alluma un grand\n_snap-dragon_[32], et lorsqu'on se fut suffisamment br\u00fbl\u00e9 les doigts, on\ns'assit aupr\u00e8s d'un \u00e9norme feu de troncs enflamm\u00e9s, et autour d'un\nsouper substantiel.\n\n[Footnote 32: Un _snap-dragon_ est un plat de noisettes, de raisins,\netc., plong\u00e9s dans une l\u00e9g\u00e8re quantit\u00e9 d'eau-de-vie allum\u00e9e, dont il\ns'agit de les retirer sans se br\u00fbler.]\n\n\u00abCeci, dit M. Pickwick, en regardant autour de lui, ceci, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9, est\ndu confort.\n\n--C'est notre coutume invariable, r\u00e9pondit M. Wardle. Tout le monde,\ndomestiques et travailleurs, s'assoit \u00e0 notre table la veille de No\u00ebl,\ncomme vous le voyez. Nous restons ici \u00e0 conter de vieilles histoires\njusqu'\u00e0 ce que minuit sonne et nous annonce l'arriv\u00e9e de la\nf\u00eate.--Trundle, mon gar\u00e7on, attisez le feu.\u00bb\n\nDes myriades d'\u00e9tincelles brillantes p\u00e9till\u00e8rent dans les airs, lorsque\nles troncs d'arbre furent remu\u00e9s, et la flamme rouge qui s'en \u00e9leva\nr\u00e9pandit une chaude lumi\u00e8re, qui p\u00e9n\u00e9tra dans les coins les plus\n\u00e9loign\u00e9s de la chambre, et illumina tous les visages.\n\n--Allons, dit Wardle, une chanson; une chanson de No\u00ebl. Je vous en\nchanterai une, \u00e0 d\u00e9faut de meilleure.\n\n--Bravo, s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick.\n\n--Remplissez les verres, reprit Wardle, il se passera bien deux heures\navant que vous voyiez le fond de ce bol. Remplissez \u00e0 la ronde; et\nmaintenant, la chanson.\u00bb\n\nA ces mots le joyeux vieillard entonna, sans plus de c\u00e9r\u00e9monie, d'une\nvoix forte et franche, la chanson que voici:\n\nNO\u00cbL.\n\n    J'aime peu le printemps; sur son aile inconstante.\n    Il apporte, il est vrai, les boutons et les fleurs,\n    Mais ce qu'\u00e9panouit son haleine enivrante,\n    Il le br\u00fble aussit\u00f4t par ses folles rigueurs.\n    Sylphe capricieux, ignorant ce qu'il aime,\n    Il change, en un moment, d'aspect et de vouloir,\n    Il vous sourit, vous berce, et puis \u00e0 l'instant m\u00eame,\n    Il brise, dans sa fleur, votre naissant espoir.\n\n    J'aime peu de l'\u00e9t\u00e9 le soleil magnifique.\n    Quand il darde sur nous ses rayons \u00e9nervants,\n    Il enfante souvent la fi\u00e8vre fr\u00e9n\u00e9tique,\n    La rage, et de l'amour les douloureux tourments.\n    Je pourrais pr\u00e9f\u00e9rer le nuit calme et glac\u00e9e,\n    Qui suit, modestement, un beau jour de moisson;\n    Mais la feuille qui tombe attriste ma pens\u00e9e,\n    Et l'automne n'est point encore ma saison.\n\n    Je pr\u00e9f\u00e8re No\u00ebl, le gentleman antique,\n    Qui ram\u00e8ne l'hiver et les festins joyeux;\n    Vidons en son honneur, dans la salle gothique,\n    D'innombrables flacons de nos vins les plus vieux!\n    No\u00ebl est le gardien des vertus domestiques,\n    Le plus doux souvenir de nos vieilles maisons.\n    Pousses donc avec moi trois hourras sympathiques,\n    Pour saluer le Roi de toutes les saisons!\n\nCette chanson fut accueillie par un tonnerre d'applaudissements. Un\nauditoire compos\u00e9 d'amis et de serviteurs est toujours si b\u00e9n\u00e9vole! Les\nparents pauvres, surtout, tombaient dans de v\u00e9ritables extases de\nravissement.\n\nLe feu fut garni de nouveaux troncs, et le bol accomplit une ronde\nnouvelle.\n\n\u00abComme il neige, dit un des hommes \u00e0 voix basse.\n\n--Comment! il neige? r\u00e9p\u00e9ta Wardle.\n\n--Oui, monsieur, la nuit est noire et froide. Le vent vient de se lever,\net il fouette la neige en tourbillons dans la plaine.\n\n--Qu'est-ce qu'il dit donc? demanda la vieille lady; est-ce qu'il est\narriv\u00e9 quelque chose?\n\n--Non, non, maman. Il dit qu'il neige et que le vent souffle fort; et il\na raison, car on entend un fameux tapage dans la chemin\u00e9e.\n\n--Ha! reprit la vieille dame, il faisait un vent comme cela, et il\ntombait aussi de la neige, il y a bien des ann\u00e9es.... Attendez, que je\nme rappelle.... juste cinq ans avant la mort de votre pauvre p\u00e8re.\nC'\u00e9tait la veille de No\u00ebl aussi, et je me souviens qu'il nous raconta\nl'histoire du vieux Gabriel Grub, qui a \u00e9t\u00e9 enlev\u00e9 par les goblins[33].\n\n[Footnote 33: Esp\u00e8ce de lutins.]\n\n--L'histoire de qui? demanda M. Pickwick avec curiosit\u00e9.\n\n--Oh! rien, r\u00e9pliqua M. Wardle. L'histoire d'un vieux sacristain, que\nles bonnes gens d'ici supposent avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 emport\u00e9 par les goblins.\n\n--Supposent! s'\u00e9cria la vieille lady. Y a-t-il quelqu'un d'assez\nt\u00e9m\u00e9raire pour en douter? Supposent! N'avez-vous pas toujours entendu\ndire, depuis votre enfance, qu'il a \u00e9t\u00e9 emport\u00e9 par les goblins, et ne\nsavez-vous pas que c'est la v\u00e9rit\u00e9?\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, maman, r\u00e9pliqua M. Wardle, en riant, il fut emport\u00e9 si vous\nvoulez.--Il fut emport\u00e9 par les goblins, Pickwick, et voil\u00e0 toute\nl'histoire.\n\n--Non pas, non pas, je vous assure, reprit M. Pickwick. Ce n'est pas\ntoute l'histoire, car il faut que j'apprenne comment il fut enlev\u00e9, et\npourquoi, et les tenants et les aboutissants.\u00bb\n\nM. Wardle sourit, en voyant toutes les t\u00eates se pencher pour l'\u00e9couter.\nAyant donc rempli son verre d'une main lib\u00e9rale, il porta une sant\u00e9 \u00e0 M.\nPickwick, par un geste familier, et commen\u00e7a ainsi qu'il suit....\n\nMais que Dieu b\u00e9nisse notre cerveau d'\u00e9diteur. A quel long chapitre nous\nsommes-nous laiss\u00e9 entra\u00eener! Nous le d\u00e9clarons solennellement, nous\navions compl\u00e9tement oubli\u00e9 toutes ces petites entraves qu'on appelle\n_chapitres_. C'est \u00e9gal: nous allons donner le champ libre aux revenants\nen leur ouvrant un nouveau chapitre. Point de passe-droits \u00e0 leur\npr\u00e9judice, s'il vous pla\u00eet, messieurs et mesdames.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XXIX.\n\nHistoire du sacristain emport\u00e9 par les goblins.\n\n\nDans une vieille ville abbatiale de ce comt\u00e9, vivait, il y a bien\nlongtemps; si longtemps, que l'histoire doit \u00eatre vraie, puisque tous\nnos p\u00e8res, grand-p\u00e8res et arri\u00e8re-grand-p\u00e8res l'ont crue pieusement,\nvivait, dis-je, un certain Gabriel Grub, qui remplissait les fonctions\nde sacristain et de fossoyeur. Parce qu'un homme est sacristain et\nconstamment entour\u00e9 d'embl\u00e8mes de mort, il ne s'ensuit pas du tout qu'il\ndoive \u00eatre morose et m\u00e9lancolique. Les entrepreneurs des pompes fun\u00e8bres\nsont les gens les plus gais du monde, et j'avais autrefois l'honneur\nd'\u00eatre intime avec un _muet_[34], lequel, hors de ses fonctions et dans\nla vie priv\u00e9e, \u00e9tait le plus comique, le plus jovial petit gaillard qui\nait jamais braill\u00e9 une chanson bachique, sans le moindre hoquet de\nm\u00e9moire, ou aval\u00e9 un rude verre de grog, sans s'arr\u00eater pour reprendre\nhaleine. Toutefois il n'en \u00e9tait pas ainsi de Gabriel Grub. C'\u00e9tait une\nesp\u00e8ce de vieux hibou, grognon, rechign\u00e9, hargneux; ne se plaisant avec\npersonne, si ce n'est avec une grosse bouteille d'osier, aussi vieille\nque lui, qu'il portait fid\u00e8lement enfonc\u00e9e dans une large poche. Lorsque\npar hasard les yeux caverneux du sacristain apercevaient une physionomie\nheureuse, son regard se chargeait \u00e0 l'instant m\u00eame d'une expression de\nhaine si malfaisante, qu'on ne pouvait le rencontrer sans en \u00eatre tout\nboulevers\u00e9.\n\n[Footnote 34: _Designator_, l'homme qui dirige les assistants dans les\nc\u00e9r\u00e9monies fun\u00e8bres.\n\n(_Note du traducteur_.)]\n\nUne certaine veille de No\u00ebl, un peu avant le cr\u00e9puscule, Gabriel mit sa\nb\u00eache sur son \u00e9paule, alluma sa lanterne, et se dirigea vers le\ncimeti\u00e8re; il avait une fosse \u00e0 finir pour le lendemain matin, et, se\nsentant mal dispos\u00e9, il esp\u00e9rait se ragaillardir un peu en y\ntravaillant. Pendant qu'il cheminait dans la rue \u00e9troite, il voyait\nbriller, \u00e0 travers la plupart des fen\u00eatres, la lumi\u00e8re joyeuse d'un feu\np\u00e9tillant; il entendait les \u00e9clats de rire et les cris plaisants de ceux\nqui \u00e9taient r\u00e9unis autour du foyer; il remarquait les pr\u00e9paratifs de\nbonne ch\u00e8re qui se faisaient pour le lendemain; enfin il sentait les\nsucculentes odeurs qui s'exhalaient des cuisines en nuages savoureux.\nTout cela \u00e9tait du fiel et de l'absinthe sur le coeur de Gabriel Grub; et\nlorsque des troupes d'enfants, s'\u00e9lan\u00e7ant hors des maisons, bondissaient\n\u00e0 travers les rues pour rejoindre d'autres petits coquins, aux t\u00eates\nboucl\u00e9es, qui chantaient en riant les plaisirs de la veille de No\u00ebl,\nGabriel serrait convulsivement le manche de sa b\u00eache, et ricanait\nsardoniquement, en pensant aux rougeoles, aux coqueluches, aux fi\u00e8vres\nscarlatines, au croup, et encore \u00e0 beaucoup d'autres sources de\nconsolation.\n\nDans cette heureuse disposition d'esprit, Gabriel poursuivait son\nchemin, r\u00e9pondant par un grognement bref et triste au salut cordial des\nvoisins qu'il rencontrait, jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'enfin il tourna dans la sombre\nruelle qui menait au cimeti\u00e8re. Or, il avait attendu avec impatience\nl'instant d'y arriver, parce que c'\u00e9tait un endroit selon son coeur,\ntoujours lugubre et fun\u00e8bre, et dans lequel les gens de la ville\nn'aimaient pas \u00e0 s'aventurer si ce n'est en plein jour, quand le soleil\nbrillait. Gabriel ne fut donc pas l\u00e9g\u00e8rement indign\u00e9 d'entendre une voix\nd'enfant, qui r\u00e9p\u00e9tait un joyeux No\u00ebl, dans cette esp\u00e8ce de sanctuaire,\nappel\u00e9 la ruelle aux bi\u00e8res, depuis le temps de la gothique abbaye et\ndes moines tonsur\u00e9s. Comme le sacristain continuait de marcher, et que\nla voix s'approchait de plus en plus, il reconnut qu'elle provenait d'un\npetit gar\u00e7on, qui se h\u00e2tait de rejoindre les enfants de la grande rue,\net qui, partie pour se donner du courage, partie pour se mettre en\ntrain, chantait \u00e0 gorge d\u00e9ploy\u00e9e une vieille chanson. Gabriel attendit\nque le bambin f\u00fbt pr\u00e8s de lui, et le poussant dans un coin, il lui\nadministra cinq ou six tapes avec sa lanterne, seulement pour lui\napprendre \u00e0 moduler en mesure. L'enfant s'enfuit avec ses mains sur sa\nt\u00eate, chantant sur un ton fort diff\u00e9rent, et Gabriel Grub, en ricanant\nde tout son coeur, entra dans le cimeti\u00e8re, dont il ferma la porte\nderri\u00e8re lui.\n\nIl \u00f4ta son habit, posa par terre sa lanterne, descendit dans la fosse\ncommenc\u00e9e, et travailla vigoureusement pendant une heure environ. Mais\nla terre \u00e9tait durcie par la gel\u00e9e, et il n'\u00e9tait pas facile de la\ncouper, ni de la jeter dehors. D'ailleurs, quoiqu'il y e\u00fbt de la lune,\nc'\u00e9tait une lune fort jeune, et elle n'\u00e9clairait pas la fosse, qui se\ntrouvait \u00e0 l'ombre de l'abbaye. Dans tout autre temps, ces inconv\u00e9nients\nauraient rendu Gabriel tr\u00e8s-chagrin et tr\u00e8s-mis\u00e9rable, mais il \u00e9tait si\nsatisfait d'avoir interrompu la s\u00e9r\u00e9nade du petit gar\u00e7on, qu'il ne\ns'inqui\u00e9ta pas beaucoup du peu de progr\u00e8s qu'il faisait. Lorsqu'il eut\nfini son travail, il examina la fosse avec une sombre satisfaction, et\nen ramassant ses outils, il grommelait entre ses dents:\n\n    C'est un logement fort honn\u00eate\n    Pour un modeste tr\u00e9pass\u00e9;\n    Quelques pieds de terrain glac\u00e9,\n    Avec une pierre \u00e0 la t\u00eate;\n    Pour couverture un beau gazon,\n    Pour matelas la terre humide:\n    Quand on est l\u00e0 tout de son long,\n    On n'y sent jamais aucun vide;\n    On est toujours bien entour\u00e9,\n    Des milliers de vers vous font f\u00eate....\n    C'est un logement fort honn\u00eate\n    Surtout dans un terrain sacr\u00e9.\n\nGabriel riait tout seul en s'asseyant sur une tombe plate, qui \u00e9tait son\nlieu de repos favori. Il tira sa bouteille d'eau-de-vie en grommelant:\n\u00abUne fosse \u00e0 No\u00ebl! En voil\u00e0 une f\u00eate! ho! ho! ho!\n\n--Ho! ho! ho!\u00bb r\u00e9p\u00e9ta une voix derri\u00e8re lui.\n\nGabriel laissa retomber le bras qui portait la bouteille \u00e0 ses l\u00e8vres,\net regarda alentour avec inqui\u00e9tude; mais le silence et le calme de la\ntombe r\u00e9gnaient dans tout le cimeti\u00e8re. Aux p\u00e2les rayons de la lune, la\ngel\u00e9e blanche argentait les pierres tumulaires et brillait, en rang\u00e9es\nde perles, sur les arceaux sculpt\u00e9s de la vieille \u00e9glise; la neige, dure\net craquante, formait sur les monticules press\u00e9s une couverture si\nblanche et si unie, qu'on aurait pu croire que les cadavres \u00e9taient l\u00e0,\nenvelopp\u00e9s seulement dans leur blanc linceul; nul souffle de vent ne\ntroublait le repos de cette sc\u00e8ne solennelle; le son m\u00eame paraissait\ngel\u00e9, tant les objets environnants \u00e9taient froids et tranquilles.\n\n\u00abC'\u00e9tait l'\u00e9cho,\u00bb dit Gabriel en portant de nouveau la bouteille \u00e0 ses\nl\u00e8vres.\n\nUne voix creuse articula pr\u00e8s de lui: \u00abCe n'\u00e9tait pas l'\u00e9cho.\u00bb\n\nGabriel tressaillit et se leva; mais l'\u00e9tonnement et la terreur\nl'encha\u00een\u00e8rent \u00e0 sa place, son sang se figea dans ses veines, car, tout\naupr\u00e8s de lui, se trouvait un \u00eatre d'une apparence \u00e9trange,\nsurnaturelle, et qui venait \u00e9videmment d'un autre monde. Il \u00e9tait assis\nsur une haute pierre lev\u00e9e, et avait crois\u00e9 ses longues jambes gr\u00eales\nd'une mani\u00e8re fantasque, impossible; ses bras nus faisaient anse, et ses\nmains reposaient sur ses genoux. Ses souliers \u00e0 la poulaine se\nrecourbaient en longues pointes; un justaucorps taillad\u00e9 \u00e9tranglait son\npetit corps rond; \u00e0 son dos pendait un court manteau, dont le collet,\ncurieusement d\u00e9coup\u00e9 en \u00e9troites lani\u00e8res, lui servait de fraise ou, si\nl'on veut, de cravate; sur sa t\u00eate, il portait un chapeau pointu, \u00e0\ngrands bords, garni d'une seule plume, et ce chapeau \u00e9tait si bien\ncouvert de gel\u00e9e blanche, l'\u00eatre fantastique \u00e9tait si confortablement\nassis sur cette tombe, qu'il avait l'air d'y \u00eatre install\u00e9 depuis deux\ncents ans, pour le moins. Il se tenait parfaitement immobile; mais il\ntirait la langue d'un demi-pied pour se moquer de Gabriel, et il\nricanait d'un ricanement que des goblins[35] seuls peuvent ex\u00e9cuter.\n\n[Footnote 35: Esp\u00e8ce de lutin anglais.]\n\n\u00abCe n'\u00e9tait pas l'\u00e9cho,\u00bb dit le lutin.\n\nGabriel \u00e9tait paralys\u00e9.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce que vous faites ici, la veille de No\u00ebl? demanda le goblin\ns\u00e9v\u00e8rement.\n\n--Monsieur, balbutia Gabriel, je suis venu ici pour creuser une fosse.\n\n--Qui donc se prom\u00e8ne parmi des tombes dans une nuit comme celle-ci?\ns'\u00e9cria le goblin d'un ton s\u00e9pulcral.\n\n--Gabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!\u00bb r\u00e9pondirent en choeur des voix aigu\u00ebs et\nsauvages qui semblaient remplir le cimeti\u00e8re. Gabriel regarda avec\nterreur autour de lui, mais il ne vit rien.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que vous avez dans cette bouteille? demanda le goblin.\n\n--Du geni\u00e8vre, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua le sacristain en tremblant plus fort\nque jamais, car il l'avait achet\u00e9 des contrebandiers, et il pensait que\nle personnage qui l'interrogeait \u00e9tait peut-\u00eatre dans la douane des\ngoblins.\n\n--Qui donc boit tout seul du geni\u00e8vre au milieu d'un cimeti\u00e8re et dans\nune nuit comme celle-ci? reprit le lutin solennellement.\n\n--Gabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!\u00bb cri\u00e8rent de nouveau les voix sauvages.\n\nLe goblin ricana malicieusement en lorgnant le sacristain \u00e9pouvant\u00e9;\npuis, enflant sa voix comme un ouragan, il s'\u00e9cria: \u00abQui devient ainsi\nnotre proie l\u00e9gitime?\u00bb\n\nLe choeur invisible r\u00e9pondit encore \u00e0 cette demande, et le sacristain\ncrut entendre une multitude d'enfants de choeur m\u00ealer leurs chants aux\naccords majestueux des orgues de la vieille abbaye. C'\u00e9tait une musique\nsurnaturelle qui semblait port\u00e9e par un doux z\u00e9phyr, et qui passait et\nmourait avec lui; mais le refrain de cet air myst\u00e9rieux \u00e9tait toujours\nle m\u00eame, et r\u00e9p\u00e9tait encore: \u00abGabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!\u00bb\n\nLe goblin fendit sa bouche jusqu'\u00e0 ses oreilles en disant: \u00abQue\npensez-vous de ceci, Gabriel?\u00bb\n\nGabriel ne r\u00e9pondit que par un soupir.\n\n\u00abQue pensez-vous de ceci, Gabriel?\u00bb r\u00e9p\u00e9ta le goblin en dressant\nn\u00e9gligemment ses pieds en l'air, de chaque c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la tombe, et en\nexaminant la pointe relev\u00e9e de sa chaussure avec autant de complaisance\nque si \u00e7'avait \u00e9t\u00e9 la paire de bottes la plus fashionable de\nBond-Street.\n\n\u00abC'est.... c'est.... tr\u00e8s-curieux, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit le sacristain, \u00e0\nmoiti\u00e9 mort de peur. Tr\u00e8s-curieux et tr\u00e8s-joli...; mais je pense qu'il\nfaut que j'aille finir mon ouvrage, s'il vous pla\u00eet.\n\n--Quel ouvrage? demanda le goblin.\n\n--Ma fosse, monsieur, la fosse que j'ai commenc\u00e9e, balbutia le\nsacristain.\n\n--Ah! votre fosse, ah! Qui donc s'amuse \u00e0 creuser des fosses dans un\ntemps o\u00f9 tous les autres hommes ne songent qu'\u00e0 se r\u00e9jouir?\u00bb\n\nLes voix myst\u00e9rieuses r\u00e9pliqu\u00e8rent encore: \u00abGabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!\n\n--J'ai peur que mes amis ne puissent pas se s\u00e9parer de vous, Gabriel,\ndit le goblin en fourrant dans sa joue sa langue \u00e9norme! J'ai peur que\nmes amis ne puissent pas se s\u00e9parer de vous, Gabriel!\n\n--Sous votre bon plaisir, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua le sacristain terrifi\u00e9, je\nne le pense pas, monsieur; ils ne me connaissent pas, monsieur. Je ne\ncrois pas que ces illustres gentlemen m'aient jamais vu, monsieur.\n\n--Oh! que si, reprit le goblin, nous le connaissons tous l'homme au\nvisage sombre, au regard sinistre, qui traversait la rue ce soir en\njetant _un mauvais oeil_ aux enfants et en serrant plus fort sa b\u00eache de\nfossoyeur. Nous connaissons l'homme plein d'envie et de malice, qui a\ncass\u00e9 la t\u00eate d'un bambin parce qu'il \u00e9tait heureux, et que cet homme ne\npouvait pas l'\u00eatre. Nous le connaissons! nous le connaissons!\u00bb\n\nIci le lutin fit retentir les \u00e9chos d'un ricanement aigu; puis, jetant\nses jambes en l'air, il se planta au bord de la pierre tumulaire, debout\nsur sa t\u00eate, ou plut\u00f4t sur la pointe de son chapeau; ensuite, faisant la\nculbute avec une incroyable agilit\u00e9, il se retrouva juste aux pieds du\nsacristain, dans l'attitude favorite des tailleurs et des odalisques.\n\n\u00abJe crains.... je crains d'\u00eatre oblig\u00e9 de vous quitter, monsieur,\nmurmura le sacristain en faisant un effort pour se mouvoir.\n\n--Nous quitter! s'\u00e9cria le goblin, Gabriel Grub, nous quitter! oh! oh!\noh!\u00bb\n\nTandis que le goblin riait, le sacristain vit une lumi\u00e8re brillante\nilluminer les fen\u00eatres de la vieille \u00e9glise. Au bout d'un moment, cette\nlumi\u00e8re s'\u00e9teignit; les orgues modul\u00e8rent un air guilleret, et des\nvol\u00e9es de lutins, en tout semblables au premier, s'abattirent dans le\ncimeti\u00e8re et commenc\u00e8rent \u00e0 jouer \u00e0 saute-mouton sur les pierres des\ntombeaux, les franchissant l'une apr\u00e8s l'autre, avec une dext\u00e9rit\u00e9\nmerveilleuse, et sans s'arr\u00eater un seul instant pour prendre haleine.\nMais le premier goblin \u00e9tait le sauteur le plus \u00e9tonnant de tous, et pas\nun des nouveaux venus ne pouvait en approcher. Malgr\u00e9 son extr\u00eame\nfrayeur, le sacristain ne pouvait s'emp\u00eacher de remarquer que les autres\ngoblins se contentaient de sauter par-dessus les pierres ordinaires,\nmais que le premier faisait passer entre ses jambes, grilles, cypr\u00e8s et\ncaveaux de famille, avec autant d'aisance que s'il avait eu affaire \u00e0 de\nsimples bornes.\n\nA la fin l'int\u00e9r\u00eat du jeu devint intense. L'orgue jouait de plus en plus\nvite; les goblins sautaient de plus en plus fort, se tordant, se\nroulant, faisant mille culbutes, en bondissant comme des ballons,\npar-dessus les tombeaux. Les jambes de Gabriel se d\u00e9robaient sous lui,\nla t\u00eate lui tournait rien que de voir le tourbillon de lutins qui\npassaient devant ses yeux; lorsque tout \u00e0 coup le roi des goblins, se\npr\u00e9cipitant sur le pauvre homme, le saisit par le collet et s'enfon\u00e7a\navec lui dans les entrailles de la terre.\n\nQuand Gabriel put respirer, apr\u00e8s une descente rapide, il se trouva dans\nune vaste caverne, entour\u00e9 de toutes parts d'une multitude de goblins\nhorribles et grima\u00e7ants. Dans le milieu de la pi\u00e8ce, sur un tr\u00f4ne \u00e9lev\u00e9,\n\u00e9tait fantastiquement assis son ami du cimeti\u00e8re, et Gabriel Grub\nlui-m\u00eame \u00e9tait plac\u00e9 aupr\u00e8s de lui, mais incapable de faire aucun\nmouvement.\n\n\u00abIl fait froid, cette nuit, dit le roi des lutins. Donnez-nous quelque\nchose de chaud.\u00bb\n\nUne demi-douzaine d'officieux goblins, ayant un perp\u00e9tuel sourire sur\nles l\u00e8vres, et que Gabriel reconnut \u00e0 cela pour des courtisans,\ndisparurent d'un air empress\u00e9 et revinrent un instant apr\u00e8s, avec un\nverre de feu liquide, qu'ils pr\u00e9sent\u00e8rent au roi.\n\n\u00abAh! dit le goblin dont les joues et la gorge \u00e9taient devenues tout \u00e0\nfait transparentes, pendant le passage de la flamme, cela r\u00e9chauffe un\npeu. Apportez-en un verre \u00e0 M. Grub.\u00bb\n\nL'infortun\u00e9 sacristain protesta vainement qu'il ne prenait jamais rien\nde chaud pendant la nuit; l'un des courtisans le tint par le nez et le\nmenton, pendant qu'un autre versait dans son gosier l'ardent liquide, et\ntoute l'assembl\u00e9e se mit \u00e0 rire avec des hurlements, tandis qu'il\nsuffoquait et qu'il essuyait, avec son mouchoir, le ruisseau de larmes\noccasionn\u00e9 par cette boisson br\u00fblante.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, dit le roi fantasque, en fourrant plaisamment la pointe de\nson chapeau dans l'oeil du sacristain, de mani\u00e8re \u00e0 lui causer une\nnouvelle souffrance; maintenant montrez \u00e0 l'homme atrabilaire et\nmisanthrope, quelques peintures de notre mus\u00e9e.\u00bb\n\nLorsque le goblin eut prononc\u00e9 ces paroles, un nuage \u00e9pais qui\nobscurcissait l'un des coins de la caverne, se dissipa graduellement, et\nlaissa apercevoir, apparemment \u00e0 une grande distance, une chambre petite\net mal meubl\u00e9e, o\u00f9 r\u00e9gnait cependant un ordre et une propret\u00e9 charmante.\nAupr\u00e8s d'un bon feu se pr\u00e9lassait un fauteuil vide, tandis que sur la\ntable \u00e9tait arrang\u00e9 un repas frugal. Une jeune m\u00e8re, entour\u00e9e d'enfants\nallait de temps en temps \u00e0 la fen\u00eatre et en soulevait le rideau pour\nd\u00e9couvrir un peu plus t\u00f4t celui qu'elle attendait. Un coup frapp\u00e9 \u00e0 la\nporte se fit entendre; la m\u00e8re alla ouvrir et les enfants pleins de joie\nbattirent des mains lorsque le p\u00e8re entra. Il \u00e9tait mouill\u00e9 et fatigu\u00e9.\nIl secoua la neige de ses v\u00eatements, et les enfants s'empress\u00e8rent de\nl'entourer pour emporter, l'un son chapeau, l'autre son manteau, l'autre\nson b\u00e2ton, l'autre ses gants. Ensuite le p\u00e8re s'assit, pour prendre son\nrepas, aupr\u00e8s du feu; les enfants grimp\u00e8rent sur ses genoux, la m\u00e8re se\npla\u00e7a \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de lui: la paix et le bonheur brillaient sur leur visage.\n\nMais un changement se fit dans le tableau, d'une mani\u00e8re presque\nimperceptible. La sc\u00e8ne repr\u00e9senta une petite chambre \u00e0 coucher, o\u00f9 le\nplus jeune et le plus joli des enfants gisait sur son lit de mort. Les\nroses de ses joues \u00e9taient fl\u00e9tries, la lumi\u00e8re de ses yeux \u00e9tait\n\u00e9teinte, et tandis que le sacristain lui-m\u00eame le consid\u00e9rait avec un\nint\u00e9r\u00eat qu'il n'avait jamais ressenti auparavant, le pauvre enfant\nrendit le dernier soupir. Ses jeunes fr\u00e8res et ses soeurs se press\u00e8rent\nautour de son berceau, et saisirent sa main; mais elle \u00e9tait froide et\nroidie. Ils recul\u00e8rent et regard\u00e8rent, avec une terreur religieuse, son\nvisage enfantin; car, quoique l'expression en f\u00fbt calme et tranquille,\nquoique le bel enfant par\u00fbt dormir en paix, ils voyaient bien que la\nmort \u00e9tait l\u00e0, et ils savaient que maintenant leur petit fr\u00e8re \u00e9tait un\nange dans les cieux, d'o\u00f9 il les contemplait et les b\u00e9nissait.\n\nUn l\u00e9ger nuage passa de nouveau sur la peinture et le sujet en fut\nchang\u00e9. Le p\u00e8re et la m\u00e8re \u00e9taient devenus vieux et infirmes, et le\nnombre de ceux qui les entouraient avait diminu\u00e9 de plus de moiti\u00e9.\nCependant la paix et le contentement r\u00e9gnaient encore sur tous les\nvisages. La famille \u00e9tait r\u00e9unie autour du feu et les parents\nracontaient, les enfants \u00e9coutaient avec d\u00e9lices des histoires des\nanciens temps et des jours \u00e9coul\u00e9s. Doucement et tranquillement le vieux\np\u00e8re descendit dans la tombe, et bient\u00f4t apr\u00e8s, celle qui avait partag\u00e9\ntous ses soins et toutes ses peines, le suivit dans le s\u00e9jour de\nl'\u00e9ternel repos. Les enfants qui leur survivaient s'agenouill\u00e8rent en\npleurant sur le gazon du cimeti\u00e8re; puis ils se relev\u00e8rent et\ns'\u00e9loign\u00e8rent lentement, tristement, mais sans cris amers, sans\nlamentations d\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9es, car ils \u00e9taient s\u00fbrs de les revoir bient\u00f4t\ndans le royaume c\u00e9leste. Ils se m\u00eal\u00e8rent donc de nouveau aux sc\u00e8nes\nactives du monde, et la tranquillit\u00e9, le contentement revinrent habiter\navec eux.\n\nLe nuage descendit alors sur le tableau et le d\u00e9roba aux yeux du\nsacristain.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce que vous pensez de cela?\u00bb demanda le goblin \u00e0 Gabriel en\ntournant vers lui sa large face.\n\nGabriel balbutia que c'\u00e9tait un spectacle fort amusant, mais il\nparaissait honteux et mal \u00e0 l'aise, car le lutin fixait sur lui des yeux\nfarouches.\n\n\u00abMis\u00e9rable \u00e9go\u00efste! s'\u00e9cria celui-ci d'un ton plein de m\u00e9pris. Mis\u00e9rable\n\u00e9go\u00efste!\u00bb Il paraissait dispos\u00e9 \u00e0 ajouter quelque chose, mais\nl'indignation l'emp\u00eachait de prononcer. Il leva une de ses jambes\nflexibles, et l'agitant au-dessus de sa t\u00eate afin de mieux ajuster, il\nla d\u00e9chargea solidement sur le dos de Gabriel. Aussit\u00f4t tous les goblins\nqui faisaient leur cour, suivirent l'exemple du ma\u00eetre; car c'est\nl'usage invariable des courtisans, m\u00eame sur la terre, de flageller ceux\nque le pouvoir flagelle, et de cajoler ceux qu'il cajole.\n\n\u00abMontrez-lui encore quelque chose,\u00bb dit ensuite le roi des lutins.\n\nA ces mots le nuage se dissipa, comme la premi\u00e8re fois, et laissa\napercevoir un riche et beau paysage, semblable \u00e0 celui que l'on d\u00e9couvre\nencore aujourd'hui, \u00e0 un quart de lieue de la vieille abbaye. Le soleil\nresplendissait dans le bleu firmament, l'eau \u00e9tincelait sous ses rayons,\net gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 son influence bienfaisante, les arbres paraissaient plus\nverts et les fleurs plus jolies. L'onde ruisselait avec son agr\u00e9able\nmurmure; un vent ti\u00e8de agitait les feuilles; les oiseaux chantaient dans\nles buissons et l'alouette charmait les airs de ses hymnes matinales;\ncar c'\u00e9tait le matin, le matin \u00e9tincelant et embaum\u00e9 d'un beau jour\nd'\u00e9t\u00e9; et les feuilles les plus menues, les plus petits brins l'herbe\nparaissaient remplis de vie; la fourmi diligente accomplissait son\ntravail journalier; le papillon voltigeait sur les fleurs et se baignait\ndans les chauds rayons du soleil; des myriades d'insectes \u00e9tendaient\nleurs ailes transparentes et jouissaient de leur courte mais heureuse\nexistence: l'homme enfin se montrait, son esprit s'exaltait en voyant la\ngrandeur de la cr\u00e9ation, et tout dans la nature \u00e9tait harmonie et\nsplendeur.\n\nCependant Gabriel Grub ne paraissait point touch\u00e9.\n\n\u00abMis\u00e9rable \u00e9go\u00efste!\u00bb r\u00e9p\u00e9ta le roi des goblins d'un ton plus m\u00e9prisant\nencore, et derechef il agita sa jambe au-dessus de sa t\u00eate, et la fit\ndescendre vivement sur les \u00e9paules du sacristain. Les gens de sa suite\nne manqu\u00e8rent pas d'en faire autant.\n\nBien des fois le nuage s'obscurcit et se dissipa, et de nombreux\ntableaux donn\u00e8rent \u00e0 Gabriel des le\u00e7ons, qu'il consid\u00e9rait avec un\nint\u00e9r\u00eat de plus en plus vif, quoique ses \u00e9paules devinssent br\u00fblantes,\npar l'application r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9e des pieds des lutins. Il vit que les hommes\nqui travaillent p\u00e9niblement et qui gagnent, \u00e0 la sueur de leur front une\nmodique subsistance, sont cependant gais et heureux. Il apprit que, m\u00eame\npour les plus ignorants, le doux aspect de la nature est une source\ntoujours nouvelle de d\u00e9lices et de tranquillit\u00e9. Il vit des femmes,\nnourries d\u00e9licatement et tendrement \u00e9lev\u00e9es, supporter joyeusement des\nprivations, surmonter des souffrances qui auraient \u00e9cras\u00e9 des cr\u00e9atures\nd'une \u00e9toffe plus grossi\u00e8re; et cela parce qu'elles portaient dans leur\nsein une source in\u00e9puisable d'affection et de d\u00e9vouement. Par-dessus\ntout, il vit que les hommes qui s'affligent du bonheur des autres, sont\nsemblables aux plus mauvaises herbes dont la surface de la terre est\ninfect\u00e9e. Enfin balan\u00e7ant ensemble le bien et le mal qu'il observait, il\narriva \u00e0 cette conclusion que le monde, apr\u00e8s tout, est une esp\u00e8ce de\nmonde assez honn\u00eate et assez respectable.\n\nAussit\u00f4t qu'il en fut venu l\u00e0, le nuage qui avait voil\u00e9 le dernier\ntableau sembla s'abaisser sur ses sens et l'inviter au repos. L'un apr\u00e8s\nl'autre les goblins s'effac\u00e8rent, et lorsque le dernier eut disparu,\nGabriel Grub s'endormit profond\u00e9ment.\n\nLa jour \u00e9tait avanc\u00e9, quand le sacristain s'\u00e9veilla. Il se trouva \u00e9tendu\ntout de son long dans le cimeti\u00e8re, sur la tombe plate qu'il\naffectionnait. Sa bouteille d'osier, enti\u00e8rement vide, gisait \u00e0 ses\nc\u00f4t\u00e9s, et son habit, sa b\u00eache, sa lanterne, tout blanchis par la gel\u00e9e\nde la nuit, \u00e9taient \u00e9parpill\u00e9s autour de lui sur la terre. La pierre sur\nlaquelle il avait d'abord vu le goblin, se dressait l\u00e0 tout pr\u00e8s de la\nfosse \u00e0 laquelle il avait travaill\u00e9 le soir pr\u00e9c\u00e9dent. Cependant,\nGabriel commen\u00e7ait \u00e0 douter de la r\u00e9alit\u00e9 de ses aventures, mais les\ndouleurs aigu\u00ebs qu'il ressentit dans ses \u00e9paules, lorsqu'il essaya de se\nlever, l'assur\u00e8rent que les coups de pieds qu'il avait re\u00e7us n'\u00e9taient\npas imaginaires. Il fut \u00e9branl\u00e9 de nouveau en ne voyant pas de traces de\npas sur la neige o\u00f9 les lutins avaient jou\u00e9 \u00e0 saute-mouton avec les\ntombes; mais bient\u00f4t apr\u00e8s il s'expliqua cette circonstance en se\nrappelant que des esprits ne peuvent laisser derri\u00e8re eux aucune\nimpression visible.\n\nQuoi qu'il en soit, Gabriel se mit sur ses jambes aussi bien que le lui\npermettait la roideur de son \u00e9pine dorsale; puis ayant secou\u00e9 la gel\u00e9e\nblanche de dessus son habit, il l'endossa, et se dirigea vers la ville.\n\nMais son esprit \u00e9tait enti\u00e8rement chang\u00e9, et il ne pouvait supporter la\npens\u00e9e de retourner dans un endroit o\u00f9 son repentir serait mis en doute,\nsinon ridiculis\u00e9. Il h\u00e9sita pendant quelques instants, puis il se\ndirigea vers la campagne pour aller gagner son pain dans un nouveau\npays, quel qu'il f\u00fbt.\n\nOn trouva ce jour-l\u00e0 dans le cimeti\u00e8re, sa lanterne, sa b\u00eache et sa\nbouteille d'osier. On fit d'abord beaucoup de suppositions sur sa\ndestin\u00e9e, mais on d\u00e9cida promptement qu'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 enlev\u00e9 par les\ngoblins. Il se trouva m\u00eame des t\u00e9moins tr\u00e8s-v\u00e9ridiques, qui d\u00e9clar\u00e8rent\nl'avoir vu distinctement emport\u00e9 \u00e0 travers les airs, sur le dos d'un\ncheval brun, lequel cheval \u00e9tait borgne, avait la queue d'un ours, et le\ntrain de derri\u00e8re d'un lion. Au bout de quelque temps, cela fut cru\nd\u00e9votement, et le nouveau sacristain avait coutume de montrer aux\ncurieux, pour une bagatelle, un morceau assez consid\u00e9rable du coq de\ncuivre du clocher, d\u00e9tach\u00e9 par un coup de pied du cheval pendant sa\ncourse a\u00e9rienne, et ramass\u00e9 par ledit sacristain, dans le cimeti\u00e8re, un\nan ou deux apr\u00e8s l'\u00e9v\u00e9nement.\n\nMalheureusement, la v\u00e9racit\u00e9 de ce r\u00e9cit fut l\u00e9g\u00e8rement infirm\u00e9e par la\nr\u00e9apparition inattendue de Gabriel Grub lui-m\u00eame, qui revint au bout\nd'une dizaine d'ann\u00e9es, vieillard pauvre et infirme, mais content. Il\nraconta ses aventures au pasteur et au maire, de sorte qu'apr\u00e8s un\ncertain temps, elles pass\u00e8rent dans le domaine de l'histoire, o\u00f9 elles\nsont rest\u00e9es jusqu'\u00e0 ce jour. Seulement ceux qui avaient cru \u00e0 la br\u00e8che\ndu coq de cuivre, s'apercevant qu'ils avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 attrap\u00e9s une fois, ne\nvoulurent plus rien croire du tout. Ils prirent donc un air aussi malin\nqu'ils purent, lev\u00e8rent les \u00e9paules, touch\u00e8rent leur front, et\nmurmur\u00e8rent quelque chose sur ce que Gabriel Grub avait bu toute son\neau-de-vie, et s'\u00e9tait endormi sur la tombe plate. Quant \u00e0 ses\nobservations dans la caverne des goblins, c'\u00e9tait tout simplement qu'il\navait vu le monde et \u00e9tait devenu plus sage. N\u00e9anmoins cette opinion ne\nfut jamais populaire, et s'\u00e9teignit graduellement. Quelle que soit la\nversion v\u00e9ritable, comme Gabriel Grub fut affect\u00e9 de rhumatismes jusqu'\u00e0\nla fin de ses jours, son histoire a tout au moins une moralit\u00e9: c'est\nqu'un homme atrabilaire, qui boit tout seul la veille de No\u00ebl, peut \u00eatre\nbien s\u00fbr de ne pas s'en trouver mieux, quand m\u00eame son eau-de-vie serait\naussi bien rectifi\u00e9e que celle du roi des goblins.\n\nFIN DU PREMIER VOLUME.\n\n\n\n\nTABLE DES MATI\u00c8RES.\n\nCONTENUES DANS LE PREMIER VOLUME.\n\n\n\nI. Les pickwickiens.\n\nII. Le premier jour de voyage et la premi\u00e8re soir\u00e9e d'aventures, avec\nleurs cons\u00e9quences.\n\nIII. Une nouvelle connaissance. Histoire d'un clown. Une interruption\nd\u00e9sagr\u00e9able et une rencontre f\u00e2cheuse.\n\nIV. La petite guerre. De nouveaux amis. Une invitation pour la campagne.\n\nV. Faisant voir entre autres choses comment M. Pickwick entreprit de\nconduire une voiture, et M. Winkle de monter un cheval; et comment l'un\net l'autre en vinrent \u00e0 bout.\n\nVI. Une soir\u00e9e du bon vieux temps. Histoire racont\u00e9e par un\neccl\u00e9siastique.\n\nVII. Comment M. Winkle, au lieu de tirer le pigeon et de tuer la\ncorneille, tira la corneille et blessa le pigeon. Comment le club de la\nCrosse de Dingley-Dell lutta contre celui de Muggleton, et comment\nMuggleton d\u00eena aux d\u00e9pens de Dingley-Dell. Avec diverses autres mati\u00e8res\n\u00e9galement instructives et int\u00e9ressantes.\n\nVIII. Faisant voir clairement que la route du v\u00e9ritable amour n'est pas\naussi unie qu'un chemin de fer.\n\nIX. La d\u00e9couverte et la poursuite.\n\nX. Destin\u00e9 \u00e0 dissiper tous les doutes qui pourraient exister sur le\nd\u00e9sint\u00e9ressement de M. Jingle.\n\nXI. Contenant un autre voyage et une d\u00e9couverte d'antiquit\u00e9: annon\u00e7ant\nla r\u00e9solution de M. Pickwick d'assister \u00e0 une \u00e9lection, et renfermant un\nmanuscrit donn\u00e9 par le vieil eccl\u00e9siastique.\n\nXII. Qui contient une tr\u00e8s-importante d\u00e9termination de M. Pickwick,\nlaquelle fait \u00e9poque dans sa vie non moins que dans cette v\u00e9ridique\nhistoire.\n\nXIII. Notice sur Eatanswill, sur les parties qui le divisent, et sur\nl'\u00e9lection d'un membre du parlement par le bourg ancien, loyal et\npatriote.\n\nXIV. Contenant une courte description de la compagnie assembl\u00e9e au _Paon\nd'argent_, et de plus une histoire racont\u00e9e par un commis-voyageur.\n\nXV. Dans lequel se trouve un portrait fid\u00e8le de deux personnes\ndistingu\u00e9es, et une description exacte d'un grand d\u00e9jeuner qui eut lieu\ndans leur maison et domaine. Ledit d\u00e9jeuner am\u00e8ne la rencontre d'une\nvieille connaissance, et le commencement d'un autre chapitre.\n\nXVI. Trop plein d'aventures pour qu'on puisse les r\u00e9sumer bri\u00e8vement.\n\nXVII. Montrant qu'une attaque de rhumatisme peut quelquefois servir de\nstimulant \u00e0 un g\u00e9nie inventif.\n\nXVIII. Qui prouve bri\u00e8vement deux points, savoir: le pouvoir des\nattaques de nerfs et la force des circonstances.\n\nXIX. Un jour heureux termin\u00e9 malheureusement.\n\nXX. O\u00f9 l'on voit que Dodson et Fogg \u00e9taient des hommes d'affaires, et\nleurs clercs des hommes de plaisir; qu'une entrevue touchante eut lieu\nentre M. Samuel Weller et le p\u00e8re qu'il avait perdu depuis longtemps; o\u00f9\nl'on voit, enfin, quels esprits sup\u00e9rieurs s'assemblaient \u00e0 _la Souche\net la Pie_, et quel excellent chapitre sera le suivant.\n\nXXI. Dans lequel le vieux homme se lance sur son th\u00e8me favori, et\nraconte l'histoire d'un dr\u00f4le de client.\n\nXXII. M. Pickwick se rend \u00e0 Ipswich, et rencontre une aventure\nromantique, sous la figure d'une dame d'un certain \u00e2ge, en papillote de\npapier brouillard.\n\nXXIII. Dans lequel Samuel Weller s'occupe \u00e9nergiquement de prendre la\nrevanche de M. Trotter.\n\nXXIV. Dans lequel M. Peter Magnus devient jaloux, et la dame d'un\ncertain \u00e2ge, craintive; ce qui jette les pickwickiens dans les griffes\nde la justice.\n\nXXV. Montrant combien M. Nupkins \u00e9tait majestueux et impartial, et\ncomment Sam Weller prit sa revanche de M. Joe Trotter, avec d'autres\n\u00e9v\u00e9nement\u00bb qu'on trouvera \u00e0 leur place.\n\nXXVI. Contenant un r\u00e9cit abr\u00e9g\u00e9 des progr\u00e8s de l'action _Bardell contre\nPickwick_.\n\nXXVII. Samuel Weller fait un p\u00e8lerinage \u00e0 Dorking, et voit sa\nbelle-m\u00e8re.\n\nXXVIII. Un joyeux chapitre des f\u00eates de No\u00ebl, contenant le r\u00e9cit d'une\nnoce et de quelques autres passe-temps qui sont, dans leur genre,\nd'aussi bonnes coutumes que le mariage, mais qu'on ne maintient pas\naussi religieusement, dans ce si\u00e8cle d\u00e9g\u00e9n\u00e9r\u00e9.\n\nXXIX. Histoire du sacristain, emport\u00e9 par les goblins.\n\nFIN DE LA TABLE DES MATI\u00c8RES.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"1392":"\n\n\n\n\nTranscribed from the 1894 Chapman and Hall edition of \"Christmas Stories\"\nby David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS--IN THREE CHAPTERS\n\n\nCHAPTER I--IN THE OLD CITY OF ROCHESTER\n\n\nStrictly speaking, there were only six Poor Travellers; but, being a\nTraveller myself, though an idle one, and being withal as poor as I hope\nto be, I brought the number up to seven.  This word of explanation is due\nat once, for what says the inscription over the quaint old door?\n\n   RICHARD WATTS, Esq.\n   by his Will, dated 22 Aug. 1579,\n   founded this Charity\n   for Six poor Travellers,\n   who not being ROGUES, or PROCTORS,\n   May receive gratis for one Night,\n   Lodging, Entertainment,\n   and Fourpence each.\n\nIt was in the ancient little city of Rochester in Kent, of all the good\ndays in the year upon a Christmas-eve, that I stood reading this\ninscription over the quaint old door in question.  I had been wandering\nabout the neighbouring Cathedral, and had seen the tomb of Richard Watts,\nwith the effigy of worthy Master Richard starting out of it like a ship's\nfigure-head; and I had felt that I could do no less, as I gave the Verger\nhis fee, than inquire the way to Watts's Charity.  The way being very\nshort and very plain, I had come prosperously to the inscription and the\nquaint old door.\n\n\"Now,\" said I to myself, as I looked at the knocker, \"I know I am not a\nProctor; I wonder whether I am a Rogue!\"\n\nUpon the whole, though Conscience reproduced two or three pretty faces\nwhich might have had smaller attraction for a moral Goliath than they had\nhad for me, who am but a Tom Thumb in that way, I came to the conclusion\nthat I was not a Rogue.  So, beginning to regard the establishment as in\nsome sort my property, bequeathed to me and divers co-legatees, share and\nshare alike, by the Worshipful Master Richard Watts, I stepped backward\ninto the road to survey my inheritance.\n\nI found it to be a clean white house, of a staid and venerable air, with\nthe quaint old door already three times mentioned (an arched door),\nchoice little long low lattice-windows, and a roof of three gables.  The\nsilent High Street of Rochester is full of gables, with old beams and\ntimbers carved into strange faces.  It is oddly garnished with a queer\nold clock that projects over the pavement out of a grave red-brick\nbuilding, as if Time carried on business there, and hung out his sign.\nSooth to say, he did an active stroke of work in Rochester, in the old\ndays of the Romans, and the Saxons, and the Normans; and down to the\ntimes of King John, when the rugged castle--I will not undertake to say\nhow many hundreds of years old then--was abandoned to the centuries of\nweather which have so defaced the dark apertures in its walls, that the\nruin looks as if the rooks and daws had pecked its eyes out.\n\nI was very well pleased, both with my property and its situation.  While\nI was yet surveying it with growing content, I espied, at one of the\nupper lattices which stood open, a decent body, of a wholesome matronly\nappearance, whose eyes I caught inquiringly addressed to mine.  They said\nso plainly, \"Do you wish to see the house?\" that I answered aloud, \"Yes,\nif you please.\"  And within a minute the old door opened, and I bent my\nhead, and went down two steps into the entry.\n\n\"This,\" said the matronly presence, ushering me into a low room on the\nright, \"is where the Travellers sit by the fire, and cook what bits of\nsuppers they buy with their fourpences.\"\n\n\"O!  Then they have no Entertainment?\" said I.  For the inscription over\nthe outer door was still running in my head, and I was mentally\nrepeating, in a kind of tune, \"Lodging, entertainment, and fourpence\neach.\"\n\n\"They have a fire provided for 'em,\" returned the matron--a mighty civil\nperson, not, as I could make out, overpaid; \"and these cooking utensils.\nAnd this what's painted on a board is the rules for their behaviour.  They\nhave their fourpences when they get their tickets from the steward over\nthe way,--for I don't admit 'em myself, they must get their tickets\nfirst,--and sometimes one buys a rasher of bacon, and another a herring,\nand another a pound of potatoes, or what not.  Sometimes two or three of\n'em will club their fourpences together, and make a supper that way.  But\nnot much of anything is to be got for fourpence, at present, when\nprovisions is so dear.\"\n\n\"True indeed,\" I remarked.  I had been looking about the room, admiring\nits snug fireside at the upper end, its glimpse of the street through the\nlow mullioned window, and its beams overhead.  \"It is very comfortable,\"\nsaid I.\n\n\"Ill-conwenient,\" observed the matronly presence.\n\nI liked to hear her say so; for it showed a commendable anxiety to\nexecute in no niggardly spirit the intentions of Master Richard Watts.\nBut the room was really so well adapted to its purpose that I protested,\nquite enthusiastically, against her disparagement.\n\n\"Nay, ma'am,\" said I, \"I am sure it is warm in winter and cool in summer.\nIt has a look of homely welcome and soothing rest.  It has a remarkably\ncosey fireside, the very blink of which, gleaming out into the street\nupon a winter night, is enough to warm all Rochester's heart.  And as to\nthe convenience of the six Poor Travellers--\"\n\n\"I don't mean them,\" returned the presence.  \"I speak of its being an ill-\nconwenience to myself and my daughter, having no other room to sit in of\na night.\"\n\nThis was true enough, but there was another quaint room of corresponding\ndimensions on the opposite side of the entry: so I stepped across to it,\nthrough the open doors of both rooms, and asked what this chamber was\nfor.\n\n\"This,\" returned the presence, \"is the Board Room.  Where the gentlemen\nmeet when they come here.\"\n\nLet me see.  I had counted from the street six upper windows besides\nthese on the ground-story.  Making a perplexed calculation in my mind, I\nrejoined, \"Then the six Poor Travellers sleep upstairs?\"\n\nMy new friend shook her head.  \"They sleep,\" she answered, \"in two little\nouter galleries at the back, where their beds has always been, ever since\nthe Charity was founded.  It being so very ill-conwenient to me as things\nis at present, the gentlemen are going to take off a bit of the\nback-yard, and make a slip of a room for 'em there, to sit in before they\ngo to bed.\"\n\n\"And then the six Poor Travellers,\" said I, \"will be entirely out of the\nhouse?\"\n\n\"Entirely out of the house,\" assented the presence, comfortably smoothing\nher hands.  \"Which is considered much better for all parties, and much\nmore conwenient.\"\n\nI had been a little startled, in the Cathedral, by the emphasis with\nwhich the effigy of Master Richard Watts was bursting out of his tomb;\nbut I began to think, now, that it might be expected to come across the\nHigh Street some stormy night, and make a disturbance here.\n\nHowbeit, I kept my thoughts to myself, and accompanied the presence to\nthe little galleries at the back.  I found them on a tiny scale, like the\ngalleries in old inn-yards; and they were very clean.\n\nWhile I was looking at them, the matron gave me to understand that the\nprescribed number of Poor Travellers were forthcoming every night from\nyear's end to year's end; and that the beds were always occupied.  My\nquestions upon this, and her replies, brought us back to the Board Room\nso essential to the dignity of \"the gentlemen,\" where she showed me the\nprinted accounts of the Charity hanging up by the window.  From them I\ngathered that the greater part of the property bequeathed by the\nWorshipful Master Richard Watts for the maintenance of this foundation\nwas, at the period of his death, mere marsh-land; but that, in course of\ntime, it had been reclaimed and built upon, and was very considerably\nincreased in value.  I found, too, that about a thirtieth part of the\nannual revenue was now expended on the purposes commemorated in the\ninscription over the door; the rest being handsomely laid out in\nChancery, law expenses, collectorship, receivership, poundage, and other\nappendages of management, highly complimentary to the importance of the\nsix Poor Travellers.  In short, I made the not entirely new discovery\nthat it may be said of an establishment like this, in dear old England,\nas of the fat oyster in the American story, that it takes a good many men\nto swallow it whole.\n\n\"And pray, ma'am,\" said I, sensible that the blankness of my face began\nto brighten as the thought occurred to me, \"could one see these\nTravellers?\"\n\n\"Well!\" she returned dubiously, \"no!\"\n\n\"Not to-night, for instance!\" said I.\n\n\"Well!\" she returned more positively, \"no.  Nobody ever asked to see\nthem, and nobody ever did see them.\"\n\nAs I am not easily balked in a design when I am set upon it, I urged to\nthe good lady that this was Christmas-eve; that Christmas comes but once\na year,--which is unhappily too true, for when it begins to stay with us\nthe whole year round we shall make this earth a very different place;\nthat I was possessed by the desire to treat the Travellers to a supper\nand a temperate glass of hot Wassail; that the voice of Fame had been\nheard in that land, declaring my ability to make hot Wassail; that if I\nwere permitted to hold the feast, I should be found conformable to\nreason, sobriety, and good hours; in a word, that I could be merry and\nwise myself, and had been even known at a pinch to keep others so,\nalthough I was decorated with no badge or medal, and was not a Brother,\nOrator, Apostle, Saint, or Prophet of any denomination whatever.  In the\nend I prevailed, to my great joy.  It was settled that at nine o'clock\nthat night a Turkey and a piece of Roast Beef should smoke upon the\nboard; and that I, faint and unworthy minister for once of Master Richard\nWatts, should preside as the Christmas-supper host of the six Poor\nTravellers.\n\nI went back to my inn to give the necessary directions for the Turkey and\nRoast Beef, and, during the remainder of the day, could settle to nothing\nfor thinking of the Poor Travellers.  When the wind blew hard against the\nwindows,--it was a cold day, with dark gusts of sleet alternating with\nperiods of wild brightness, as if the year were dying fitfully,--I\npictured them advancing towards their resting-place along various cold\nroads, and felt delighted to think how little they foresaw the supper\nthat awaited them.  I painted their portraits in my mind, and indulged in\nlittle heightening touches.  I made them footsore; I made them weary; I\nmade them carry packs and bundles; I made them stop by finger-posts and\nmilestones, leaning on their bent sticks, and looking wistfully at what\nwas written there; I made them lose their way; and filled their five wits\nwith apprehensions of lying out all night, and being frozen to death.  I\ntook up my hat, and went out, climbed to the top of the Old Castle, and\nlooked over the windy hills that slope down to the Medway, almost\nbelieving that I could descry some of my Travellers in the distance.\nAfter it fell dark, and the Cathedral bell was heard in the invisible\nsteeple--quite a bower of frosty rime when I had last seen it--striking\nfive, six, seven, I became so full of my Travellers that I could eat no\ndinner, and felt constrained to watch them still in the red coals of my\nfire.  They were all arrived by this time, I thought, had got their\ntickets, and were gone in.--There my pleasure was dashed by the\nreflection that probably some Travellers had come too late and were shut\nout.\n\nAfter the Cathedral bell had struck eight, I could smell a delicious\nsavour of Turkey and Roast Beef rising to the window of my adjoining\nbedroom, which looked down into the inn-yard just where the lights of the\nkitchen reddened a massive fragment of the Castle Wall.  It was high time\nto make the Wassail now; therefore I had up the materials (which,\ntogether with their proportions and combinations, I must decline to\nimpart, as the only secret of my own I was ever known to keep), and made\na glorious jorum.  Not in a bowl; for a bowl anywhere but on a shelf is a\nlow superstition, fraught with cooling and slopping; but in a brown\nearthenware pitcher, tenderly suffocated, when full, with a coarse cloth.\nIt being now upon the stroke of nine, I set out for Watts's Charity,\ncarrying my brown beauty in my arms.  I would trust Ben, the waiter, with\nuntold gold; but there are strings in the human heart which must never be\nsounded by another, and drinks that I make myself are those strings in\nmine.\n\nThe Travellers were all assembled, the cloth was laid, and Ben had\nbrought a great billet of wood, and had laid it artfully on the top of\nthe fire, so that a touch or two of the poker after supper should make a\nroaring blaze.  Having deposited my brown beauty in a red nook of the\nhearth, inside the fender, where she soon began to sing like an ethereal\ncricket, diffusing at the same time odours as of ripe vineyards, spice\nforests, and orange groves,--I say, having stationed my beauty in a place\nof security and improvement, I introduced myself to my guests by shaking\nhands all round, and giving them a hearty welcome.\n\nI found the party to be thus composed.  Firstly, myself.  Secondly, a\nvery decent man indeed, with his right arm in a sling, who had a certain\nclean agreeable smell of wood about him, from which I judged him to have\nsomething to do with shipbuilding.  Thirdly, a little sailor-boy, a mere\nchild, with a profusion of rich dark brown hair, and deep womanly-looking\neyes.  Fourthly, a shabby-genteel personage in a threadbare black suit,\nand apparently in very bad circumstances, with a dry suspicious look; the\nabsent buttons on his waistcoat eked out with red tape; and a bundle of\nextraordinarily tattered papers sticking out of an inner breast-pocket.\nFifthly, a foreigner by birth, but an Englishman in speech, who carried\nhis pipe in the band of his hat, and lost no time in telling me, in an\neasy, simple, engaging way, that he was a watchmaker from Geneva, and\ntravelled all about the Continent, mostly on foot, working as a\njourneyman, and seeing new countries,--possibly (I thought) also\nsmuggling a watch or so, now and then.  Sixthly, a little widow, who had\nbeen very pretty and was still very young, but whose beauty had been\nwrecked in some great misfortune, and whose manner was remarkably timid,\nscared, and solitary.  Seventhly and lastly, a Traveller of a kind\nfamiliar to my boyhood, but now almost obsolete,--a Book-Pedler, who had\na quantity of Pamphlets and Numbers with him, and who presently boasted\nthat he could repeat more verses in an evening than he could sell in a\ntwelvemonth.\n\nAll these I have mentioned in the order in which they sat at table.  I\npresided, and the matronly presence faced me.  We were not long in taking\nour places, for the supper had arrived with me, in the following\nprocession:\n\n   Myself with the pitcher.\n   Ben with Beer.\n   Inattentive Boy with hot plates.  Inattentive Boy with hot plates.\n   THE TURKEY.\n   Female carrying sauces to be heated on the spot.\n   THE BEEF.\n   Man with Tray on his head, containing Vegetables and Sundries.\n   Volunteer Hostler from Hotel, grinning,\n   And rendering no assistance.\n\nAs we passed along the High Street, comet-like, we left a long tail of\nfragrance behind us which caused the public to stop, sniffing in wonder.\nWe had previously left at the corner of the inn-yard a wall-eyed young\nman connected with the Fly department, and well accustomed to the sound\nof a railway whistle which Ben always carries in his pocket, whose\ninstructions were, so soon as he should hear the whistle blown, to dash\ninto the kitchen, seize the hot plum-pudding and mince-pies, and speed\nwith them to Watts's Charity, where they would be received (he was\nfurther instructed) by the sauce-female, who would be provided with\nbrandy in a blue state of combustion.\n\nAll these arrangements were executed in the most exact and punctual\nmanner.  I never saw a finer turkey, finer beef, or greater prodigality\nof sauce and gravy;--and my Travellers did wonderful justice to\neverything set before them.  It made my heart rejoice to observe how\ntheir wind and frost hardened faces softened in the clatter of plates and\nknives and forks, and mellowed in the fire and supper heat.  While their\nhats and caps and wrappers, hanging up, a few small bundles on the ground\nin a corner, and in another corner three or four old walking-sticks, worn\ndown at the end to mere fringe, linked this smug interior with the bleak\noutside in a golden chain.\n\nWhen supper was done, and my brown beauty had been elevated on the table,\nthere was a general requisition to me to \"take the corner;\" which\nsuggested to me comfortably enough how much my friends here made of a\nfire,--for when had _I_ ever thought so highly of the corner, since the\ndays when I connected it with Jack Horner?  However, as I declined, Ben,\nwhose touch on all convivial instruments is perfect, drew the table\napart, and instructing my Travellers to open right and left on either\nside of me, and form round the fire, closed up the centre with myself and\nmy chair, and preserved the order we had kept at table.  He had already,\nin a tranquil manner, boxed the ears of the inattentive boys until they\nhad been by imperceptible degrees boxed out of the room; and he now\nrapidly skirmished the sauce-female into the High Street, disappeared,\nand softly closed the door.\n\nThis was the time for bringing the poker to bear on the billet of wood.  I\ntapped it three times, like an enchanted talisman, and a brilliant host\nof merry-makers burst out of it, and sported off by the chimney,--rushing\nup the middle in a fiery country dance, and never coming down again.\nMeanwhile, by their sparkling light, which threw our lamp into the shade,\nI filled the glasses, and gave my Travellers, CHRISTMAS!--CHRISTMAS-EVE,\nmy friends, when the shepherds, who were Poor Travellers, too, in their\nway, heard the Angels sing, \"On earth, peace.  Good-will towards men!\"\n\nI don't know who was the first among us to think that we ought to take\nhands as we sat, in deference to the toast, or whether any one of us\nanticipated the others, but at any rate we all did it.  We then drank to\nthe memory of the good Master Richard Watts.  And I wish his Ghost may\nnever have had worse usage under that roof than it had from us.\n\nIt was the witching time for Story-telling.  \"Our whole life,\nTravellers,\" said I, \"is a story more or less intelligible,--generally\nless; but we shall read it by a clearer light when it is ended.  I, for\none, am so divided this night between fact and fiction, that I scarce\nknow which is which.  Shall I beguile the time by telling you a story as\nwe sit here?\"\n\nThey all answered, yes.  I had little to tell them, but I was bound by my\nown proposal.  Therefore, after looking for awhile at the spiral column\nof smoke wreathing up from my brown beauty, through which I could have\nalmost sworn I saw the effigy of Master Richard Watts less startled than\nusual, I fired away.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II--THE STORY OF RICHARD DOUBLEDICK\n\n\nIn the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine, a relative of\nmine came limping down, on foot, to this town of Chatham.  I call it this\ntown, because if anybody present knows to a nicety where Rochester ends\nand Chatham begins, it is more than I do.  He was a poor traveller, with\nnot a farthing in his pocket.  He sat by the fire in this very room, and\nhe slept one night in a bed that will be occupied to-night by some one\nhere.\n\nMy relative came down to Chatham to enlist in a cavalry regiment, if a\ncavalry regiment would have him; if not, to take King George's shilling\nfrom any corporal or sergeant who would put a bunch of ribbons in his\nhat.  His object was to get shot; but he thought he might as well ride to\ndeath as be at the trouble of walking.\n\nMy relative's Christian name was Richard, but he was better known as\nDick.  He dropped his own surname on the road down, and took up that of\nDoubledick.  He was passed as Richard Doubledick; age, twenty-two;\nheight, five foot ten; native place, Exmouth, which he had never been\nnear in his life.  There was no cavalry in Chatham when he limped over\nthe bridge here with half a shoe to his dusty feet, so he enlisted into a\nregiment of the line, and was glad to get drunk and forget all about it.\n\nYou are to know that this relative of mine had gone wrong, and run wild.\nHis heart was in the right place, but it was sealed up.  He had been\nbetrothed to a good and beautiful girl, whom he had loved better than\nshe--or perhaps even he--believed; but in an evil hour he had given her\ncause to say to him solemnly, \"Richard, I will never marry another man.  I\nwill live single for your sake, but Mary Marshall's lips\"--her name was\nMary Marshall--\"never address another word to you on earth.  Go, Richard!\nHeaven forgive you!\"  This finished him.  This brought him down to\nChatham.  This made him Private Richard Doubledick, with a determination\nto be shot.\n\nThere was not a more dissipated and reckless soldier in Chatham barracks,\nin the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine, than Private\nRichard Doubledick.  He associated with the dregs of every regiment; he\nwas as seldom sober as he could be, and was constantly under punishment.\nIt became clear to the whole barracks that Private Richard Doubledick\nwould very soon be flogged.\n\nNow the Captain of Richard Doubledick's company was a young gentleman not\nabove five years his senior, whose eyes had an expression in them which\naffected Private Richard Doubledick in a very remarkable way.  They were\nbright, handsome, dark eyes,--what are called laughing eyes generally,\nand, when serious, rather steady than severe,--but they were the only\neyes now left in his narrowed world that Private Richard Doubledick could\nnot stand.  Unabashed by evil report and punishment, defiant of\neverything else and everybody else, he had but to know that those eyes\nlooked at him for a moment, and he felt ashamed.  He could not so much as\nsalute Captain Taunton in the street like any other officer.  He was\nreproached and confused,--troubled by the mere possibility of the\ncaptain's looking at him.  In his worst moments, he would rather turn\nback, and go any distance out of his way, than encounter those two\nhandsome, dark, bright eyes.\n\nOne day, when Private Richard Doubledick came out of the Black hole,\nwhere he had been passing the last eight-and-forty hours, and in which\nretreat he spent a good deal of his time, he was ordered to betake\nhimself to Captain Taunton's quarters.  In the stale and squalid state of\na man just out of the Black hole, he had less fancy than ever for being\nseen by the captain; but he was not so mad yet as to disobey orders, and\nconsequently went up to the terrace overlooking the parade-ground, where\nthe officers' quarters were; twisting and breaking in his hands, as he\nwent along, a bit of the straw that had formed the decorative furniture\nof the Black hole.\n\n\"Come in!\" cried the Captain, when he had knocked with his knuckles at\nthe door.  Private Richard Doubledick pulled off his cap, took a stride\nforward, and felt very conscious that he stood in the light of the dark,\nbright eyes.\n\nThere was a silent pause.  Private Richard Doubledick had put the straw\nin his mouth, and was gradually doubling it up into his windpipe and\nchoking himself.\n\n\"Doubledick,\" said the Captain, \"do you know where you are going to?\"\n\n\"To the Devil, sir?\" faltered Doubledick.\n\n\"Yes,\" returned the Captain.  \"And very fast.\"\n\nPrivate Richard Doubledick turned the straw of the Black hole in his\nmonth, and made a miserable salute of acquiescence.\n\n\"Doubledick,\" said the Captain, \"since I entered his Majesty's service, a\nboy of seventeen, I have been pained to see many men of promise going\nthat road; but I have never been so pained to see a man make the shameful\njourney as I have been, ever since you joined the regiment, to see you.\"\n\nPrivate Richard Doubledick began to find a film stealing over the floor\nat which he looked; also to find the legs of the Captain's\nbreakfast-table turning crooked, as if he saw them through water.\n\n\"I am only a common soldier, sir,\" said he.  \"It signifies very little\nwhat such a poor brute comes to.\"\n\n\"You are a man,\" returned the Captain, with grave indignation, \"of\neducation and superior advantages; and if you say that, meaning what you\nsay, you have sunk lower than I had believed.  How low that must be, I\nleave you to consider, knowing what I know of your disgrace, and seeing\nwhat I see.\"\n\n\"I hope to get shot soon, sir,\" said Private Richard Doubledick; \"and\nthen the regiment and the world together will be rid of me.\"\n\nThe legs of the table were becoming very crooked.  Doubledick, looking up\nto steady his vision, met the eyes that had so strong an influence over\nhim.  He put his hand before his own eyes, and the breast of his disgrace-\njacket swelled as if it would fly asunder.\n\n\"I would rather,\" said the young Captain, \"see this in you, Doubledick,\nthan I would see five thousand guineas counted out upon this table for a\ngift to my good mother.  Have you a mother?\"\n\n\"I am thankful to say she is dead, sir.\"\n\n\"If your praises,\" returned the Captain, \"were sounded from mouth to\nmouth through the whole regiment, through the whole army, through the\nwhole country, you would wish she had lived to say, with pride and joy,\n'He is my son!'\"\n\n\"Spare me, sir,\" said Doubledick.  \"She would never have heard any good\nof me.  She would never have had any pride and joy in owning herself my\nmother.  Love and compassion she might have had, and would have always\nhad, I know but not--Spare me, sir!  I am a broken wretch, quite at your\nmercy!\"  And he turned his face to the wall, and stretched out his\nimploring hand.\n\n\"My friend--\" began the Captain.\n\n\"God bless you, sir!\" sobbed Private Richard Doubledick.\n\n\"You are at the crisis of your fate.  Hold your course unchanged a little\nlonger, and you know what must happen.  _I_ know even better than you can\nimagine, that, after that has happened, you are lost.  No man who could\nshed those tears could bear those marks.\"\n\n\"I fully believe it, sir,\" in a low, shivering voice said Private Richard\nDoubledick.\n\n\"But a man in any station can do his duty,\" said the young Captain, \"and,\nin doing it, can earn his own respect, even if his case should be so very\nunfortunate and so very rare that he can earn no other man's.  A common\nsoldier, poor brute though you called him just now, has this advantage in\nthe stormy times we live in, that he always does his duty before a host\nof sympathising witnesses.  Do you doubt that he may so do it as to be\nextolled through a whole regiment, through a whole army, through a whole\ncountry?  Turn while you may yet retrieve the past, and try.\"\n\n\"I will!  I ask for only one witness, sir,\" cried Richard, with a\nbursting heart.\n\n\"I understand you.  I will be a watchful and a faithful one.\"\n\nI have heard from Private Richard Doubledick's own lips, that he dropped\ndown upon his knee, kissed that officer's hand, arose, and went out of\nthe light of the dark, bright eyes, an altered man.\n\nIn that year, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine, the French were\nin Egypt, in Italy, in Germany, where not?  Napoleon Bonaparte had\nlikewise begun to stir against us in India, and most men could read the\nsigns of the great troubles that were coming on.  In the very next year,\nwhen we formed an alliance with Austria against him, Captain Taunton's\nregiment was on service in India.  And there was not a finer\nnon-commissioned officer in it,--no, nor in the whole line--than Corporal\nRichard Doubledick.\n\nIn eighteen hundred and one, the Indian army were on the coast of Egypt.\nNext year was the year of the proclamation of the short peace, and they\nwere recalled.  It had then become well known to thousands of men, that\nwherever Captain Taunton, with the dark, bright eyes, led, there, close\nto him, ever at his side, firm as a rock, true as the sun, and brave as\nMars, would be certain to be found, while life beat in their hearts, that\nfamous soldier, Sergeant Richard Doubledick.\n\nEighteen hundred and five, besides being the great year of Trafalgar, was\na year of hard fighting in India.  That year saw such wonders done by a\nSergeant-Major, who cut his way single-handed through a solid mass of\nmen, recovered the colours of his regiment, which had been seized from\nthe hand of a poor boy shot through the heart, and rescued his wounded\nCaptain, who was down, and in a very jungle of horses' hoofs and\nsabres,--saw such wonders done, I say, by this brave Sergeant-Major, that\nhe was specially made the bearer of the colours he had won; and Ensign\nRichard Doubledick had risen from the ranks.\n\nSorely cut up in every battle, but always reinforced by the bravest of\nmen,--for the fame of following the old colours, shot through and\nthrough, which Ensign Richard Doubledick had saved, inspired all\nbreasts,--this regiment fought its way through the Peninsular war, up to\nthe investment of Badajos in eighteen hundred and twelve.  Again and\nagain it had been cheered through the British ranks until the tears had\nsprung into men's eyes at the mere hearing of the mighty British voice,\nso exultant in their valour; and there was not a drummer-boy but knew the\nlegend, that wherever the two friends, Major Taunton, with the dark,\nbright eyes, and Ensign Richard Doubledick, who was devoted to him, were\nseen to go, there the boldest spirits in the English army became wild to\nfollow.\n\nOne day, at Badajos,--not in the great storming, but in repelling a hot\nsally of the besieged upon our men at work in the trenches, who had given\nway,--the two officers found themselves hurrying forward, face to face,\nagainst a party of French infantry, who made a stand.  There was an\nofficer at their head, encouraging his men,--a courageous, handsome,\ngallant officer of five-and-thirty, whom Doubledick saw hurriedly, almost\nmomentarily, but saw well.  He particularly noticed this officer waving\nhis sword, and rallying his men with an eager and excited cry, when they\nfired in obedience to his gesture, and Major Taunton dropped.\n\nIt was over in ten minutes more, and Doubledick returned to the spot\nwhere he had laid the best friend man ever had on a coat spread upon the\nwet clay.  Major Taunton's uniform was opened at the breast, and on his\nshirt were three little spots of blood.\n\n\"Dear Doubledick,\" said he, \"I am dying.\"\n\n\"For the love of Heaven, no!\" exclaimed the other, kneeling down beside\nhim, and passing his arm round his neck to raise his head.  \"Taunton!  My\npreserver, my guardian angel, my witness!  Dearest, truest, kindest of\nhuman beings!  Taunton!  For God's sake!\"\n\nThe bright, dark eyes--so very, very dark now, in the pale face--smiled\nupon him; and the hand he had kissed thirteen years ago laid itself\nfondly on his breast.\n\n\"Write to my mother.  You will see Home again.  Tell her how we became\nfriends.  It will comfort her, as it comforts me.\"\n\nHe spoke no more, but faintly signed for a moment towards his hair as it\nfluttered in the wind.  The Ensign understood him.  He smiled again when\nhe saw that, and, gently turning his face over on the supporting arm as\nif for rest, died, with his hand upon the breast in which he had revived\na soul.\n\nNo dry eye looked on Ensign Richard Doubledick that melancholy day.  He\nburied his friend on the field, and became a lone, bereaved man.  Beyond\nhis duty he appeared to have but two remaining cares in life,--one, to\npreserve the little packet of hair he was to give to Taunton's mother;\nthe other, to encounter that French officer who had rallied the men under\nwhose fire Taunton fell.  A new legend now began to circulate among our\ntroops; and it was, that when he and the French officer came face to face\nonce more, there would be weeping in France.\n\nThe war went on--and through it went the exact picture of the French\nofficer on the one side, and the bodily reality upon the other--until the\nBattle of Toulouse was fought.  In the returns sent home appeared these\nwords: \"Severely wounded, but not dangerously, Lieutenant Richard\nDoubledick.\"\n\nAt Midsummer-time, in the year eighteen hundred and fourteen, Lieutenant\nRichard Doubledick, now a browned soldier, seven-and-thirty years of age,\ncame home to England invalided.  He brought the hair with him, near his\nheart.  Many a French officer had he seen since that day; many a dreadful\nnight, in searching with men and lanterns for his wounded, had he\nrelieved French officers lying disabled; but the mental picture and the\nreality had never come together.\n\nThough he was weak and suffered pain, he lost not an hour in getting down\nto Frome in Somersetshire, where Taunton's mother lived.  In the sweet,\ncompassionate words that naturally present themselves to the mind\nto-night, \"he was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.\"\n\nIt was a Sunday evening, and the lady sat at her quiet garden-window,\nreading the Bible; reading to herself, in a trembling voice, that very\npassage in it, as I have heard him tell.  He heard the words: \"Young man,\nI say unto thee, arise!\"\n\nHe had to pass the window; and the bright, dark eyes of his debased time\nseemed to look at him.  Her heart told her who he was; she came to the\ndoor quickly, and fell upon his neck.\n\n\"He saved me from ruin, made me a human creature, won me from infamy and\nshame.  O, God for ever bless him!  As He will, He Will!\"\n\n\"He will!\" the lady answered.  \"I know he is in heaven!\"  Then she\npiteously cried, \"But O, my darling boy, my darling boy!\"\n\nNever from the hour when Private Richard Doubledick enlisted at Chatham\nhad the Private, Corporal, Sergeant, Sergeant-Major, Ensign, or\nLieutenant breathed his right name, or the name of Mary Marshall, or a\nword of the story of his life, into any ear except his reclaimer's.  That\nprevious scene in his existence was closed.  He had firmly resolved that\nhis expiation should be to live unknown; to disturb no more the peace\nthat had long grown over his old offences; to let it be revealed, when he\nwas dead, that he had striven and suffered, and had never forgotten; and\nthen, if they could forgive him and believe him--well, it would be time\nenough--time enough!\n\nBut that night, remembering the words he had cherished for two years,\n\"Tell her how we became friends.  It will comfort her, as it comforts\nme,\" he related everything.  It gradually seemed to him as if in his\nmaturity he had recovered a mother; it gradually seemed to her as if in\nher bereavement she had found a son.  During his stay in England, the\nquiet garden into which he had slowly and painfully crept, a stranger,\nbecame the boundary of his home; when he was able to rejoin his regiment\nin the spring, he left the garden, thinking was this indeed the first\ntime he had ever turned his face towards the old colours with a woman's\nblessing!\n\nHe followed them--so ragged, so scarred and pierced now, that they would\nscarcely hold together--to Quatre Bras and Ligny.  He stood beside them,\nin an awful stillness of many men, shadowy through the mist and drizzle\nof a wet June forenoon, on the field of Waterloo.  And down to that hour\nthe picture in his mind of the French officer had never been compared\nwith the reality.\n\nThe famous regiment was in action early in the battle, and received its\nfirst check in many an eventful year, when he was seen to fall.  But it\nswept on to avenge him, and left behind it no such creature in the world\nof consciousness as Lieutenant Richard Doubledick.\n\nThrough pits of mire, and pools of rain; along deep ditches, once roads,\nthat were pounded and ploughed to pieces by artillery, heavy waggons,\ntramp of men and horses, and the struggle of every wheeled thing that\ncould carry wounded soldiers; jolted among the dying and the dead, so\ndisfigured by blood and mud as to be hardly recognisable for humanity;\nundisturbed by the moaning of men and the shrieking of horses, which,\nnewly taken from the peaceful pursuits of life, could not endure the\nsight of the stragglers lying by the wayside, never to resume their\ntoilsome journey; dead, as to any sentient life that was in it, and yet\nalive,--the form that had been Lieutenant Richard Doubledick, with whose\npraises England rang, was conveyed to Brussels.  There it was tenderly\nlaid down in hospital; and there it lay, week after week, through the\nlong bright summer days, until the harvest, spared by war, had ripened\nand was gathered in.\n\nOver and over again the sun rose and set upon the crowded city; over and\nover again the moonlight nights were quiet on the plains of Waterloo: and\nall that time was a blank to what had been Lieutenant Richard Doubledick.\nRejoicing troops marched into Brussels, and marched out; brothers and\nfathers, sisters, mothers, and wives, came thronging thither, drew their\nlots of joy or agony, and departed; so many times a day the bells rang;\nso many times the shadows of the great buildings changed; so many lights\nsprang up at dusk; so many feet passed here and there upon the pavements;\nso many hours of sleep and cooler air of night succeeded: indifferent to\nall, a marble face lay on a bed, like the face of a recumbent statue on\nthe tomb of Lieutenant Richard Doubledick.\n\nSlowly labouring, at last, through a long heavy dream of confused time\nand place, presenting faint glimpses of army surgeons whom he knew, and\nof faces that had been familiar to his youth,--dearest and kindest among\nthem, Mary Marshall's, with a solicitude upon it more like reality than\nanything he could discern,--Lieutenant Richard Doubledick came back to\nlife.  To the beautiful life of a calm autumn evening sunset, to the\npeaceful life of a fresh quiet room with a large window standing open; a\nbalcony beyond, in which were moving leaves and sweet-smelling flowers;\nbeyond, again, the clear sky, with the sun full in his sight, pouring its\ngolden radiance on his bed.\n\nIt was so tranquil and so lovely that he thought he had passed into\nanother world.  And he said in a faint voice, \"Taunton, are you near me?\"\n\nA face bent over him.  Not his, his mother's.\n\n\"I came to nurse you.  We have nursed you many weeks.  You were moved\nhere long ago.  Do you remember nothing?\"\n\n\"Nothing.\"\n\nThe lady kissed his cheek, and held his hand, soothing him.\n\n\"Where is the regiment?  What has happened?  Let me call you mother.  What\nhas happened, mother?\"\n\n\"A great victory, dear.  The war is over, and the regiment was the\nbravest in the field.\"\n\nHis eyes kindled, his lips trembled, he sobbed, and the tears ran down\nhis face.  He was very weak, too weak to move his hand.\n\n\"Was it dark just now?\" he asked presently.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"It was only dark to me?  Something passed away, like a black shadow.  But\nas it went, and the sun--O the blessed sun, how beautiful it is!--touched\nmy face, I thought I saw a light white cloud pass out at the door.  Was\nthere nothing that went out?\"\n\nShe shook her head, and in a little while he fell asleep, she still\nholding his hand, and soothing him.\n\nFrom that time, he recovered.  Slowly, for he had been desperately\nwounded in the head, and had been shot in the body, but making some\nlittle advance every day.  When he had gained sufficient strength to\nconverse as he lay in bed, he soon began to remark that Mrs. Taunton\nalways brought him back to his own history.  Then he recalled his\npreserver's dying words, and thought, \"It comforts her.\"\n\nOne day he awoke out of a sleep, refreshed, and asked her to read to him.\nBut the curtain of the bed, softening the light, which she always drew\nback when he awoke, that she might see him from her table at the bedside\nwhere she sat at work, was held undrawn; and a woman's voice spoke, which\nwas not hers.\n\n\"Can you bear to see a stranger?\" it said softly.  \"Will you like to see\na stranger?\"\n\n\"Stranger!\" he repeated.  The voice awoke old memories, before the days\nof Private Richard Doubledick.\n\n\"A stranger now, but not a stranger once,\" it said in tones that thrilled\nhim.  \"Richard, dear Richard, lost through so many years, my name--\"\n\nHe cried out her name, \"Mary,\" and she held him in her arms, and his head\nlay on her bosom.\n\n\"I am not breaking a rash vow, Richard.  These are not Mary Marshall's\nlips that speak.  I have another name.\"\n\nShe was married.\n\n\"I have another name, Richard.  Did you ever hear it?\"\n\n\"Never!\"\n\nHe looked into her face, so pensively beautiful, and wondered at the\nsmile upon it through her tears.\n\n\"Think again, Richard.  Are you sure you never heard my altered name?\"\n\n\"Never!\"\n\n\"Don't move your head to look at me, dear Richard.  Let it lie here,\nwhile I tell my story.  I loved a generous, noble man; loved him with my\nwhole heart; loved him for years and years; loved him faithfully,\ndevotedly; loved him without hope of return; loved him, knowing nothing\nof his highest qualities--not even knowing that he was alive.  He was a\nbrave soldier.  He was honoured and beloved by thousands of thousands,\nwhen the mother of his dear friend found me, and showed me that in all\nhis triumphs he had never forgotten me.  He was wounded in a great\nbattle.  He was brought, dying, here, into Brussels.  I came to watch and\ntend him, as I would have joyfully gone, with such a purpose, to the\ndreariest ends of the earth.  When he knew no one else, he knew me.  When\nhe suffered most, he bore his sufferings barely murmuring, content to\nrest his head where your rests now.  When he lay at the point of death,\nhe married me, that he might call me Wife before he died.  And the name,\nmy dear love, that I took on that forgotten night--\"\n\n\"I know it now!\" he sobbed.  \"The shadowy remembrance strengthens.  It is\ncome back.  I thank Heaven that my mind is quite restored!  My Mary, kiss\nme; lull this weary head to rest, or I shall die of gratitude.  His\nparting words were fulfilled.  I see Home again!\"\n\nWell!  They were happy.  It was a long recovery, but they were happy\nthrough it all.  The snow had melted on the ground, and the birds were\nsinging in the leafless thickets of the early spring, when those three\nwere first able to ride out together, and when people flocked about the\nopen carriage to cheer and congratulate Captain Richard Doubledick.\n\nBut even then it became necessary for the Captain, instead of returning\nto England, to complete his recovery in the climate of Southern France.\nThey found a spot upon the Rhone, within a ride of the old town of\nAvignon, and within view of its broken bridge, which was all they could\ndesire; they lived there, together, six months; then returned to England.\nMrs. Taunton, growing old after three years--though not so old as that\nher bright, dark eyes were dimmed--and remembering that her strength had\nbeen benefited by the change resolved to go back for a year to those\nparts.  So she went with a faithful servant, who had often carried her\nson in his arms; and she was to be rejoined and escorted home, at the\nyear's end, by Captain Richard Doubledick.\n\nShe wrote regularly to her children (as she called them now), and they to\nher.  She went to the neighbourhood of Aix; and there, in their own\nchateau near the farmer's house she rented, she grew into intimacy with a\nfamily belonging to that part of France.  The intimacy began in her often\nmeeting among the vineyards a pretty child, a girl with a most\ncompassionate heart, who was never tired of listening to the solitary\nEnglish lady's stories of her poor son and the cruel wars.  The family\nwere as gentle as the child, and at length she came to know them so well\nthat she accepted their invitation to pass the last month of her\nresidence abroad under their roof.  All this intelligence she wrote home,\npiecemeal as it came about, from time to time; and at last enclosed a\npolite note, from the head of the chateau, soliciting, on the occasion of\nhis approaching mission to that neighbourhood, the honour of the company\nof cet homme si justement celebre, Monsieur le Capitaine Richard\nDoubledick.\n\nCaptain Doubledick, now a hardy, handsome man in the full vigour of life,\nbroader across the chest and shoulders than he had ever been before,\ndispatched a courteous reply, and followed it in person.  Travelling\nthrough all that extent of country after three years of Peace, he blessed\nthe better days on which the world had fallen.  The corn was golden, not\ndrenched in unnatural red; was bound in sheaves for food, not trodden\nunderfoot by men in mortal fight.  The smoke rose up from peaceful\nhearths, not blazing ruins.  The carts were laden with the fair fruits of\nthe earth, not with wounds and death.  To him who had so often seen the\nterrible reverse, these things were beautiful indeed; and they brought\nhim in a softened spirit to the old chateau near Aix upon a deep blue\nevening.\n\nIt was a large chateau of the genuine old ghostly kind, with round\ntowers, and extinguishers, and a high leaden roof, and more windows than\nAladdin's Palace.  The lattice blinds were all thrown open after the heat\nof the day, and there were glimpses of rambling walls and corridors\nwithin.  Then there were immense out-buildings fallen into partial decay,\nmasses of dark trees, terrace-gardens, balustrades; tanks of water, too\nweak to play and too dirty to work; statues, weeds, and thickets of iron\nrailing that seemed to have overgrown themselves like the shrubberies,\nand to have branched out in all manner of wild shapes.  The entrance\ndoors stood open, as doors often do in that country when the heat of the\nday is past; and the Captain saw no bell or knocker, and walked in.\n\nHe walked into a lofty stone hall, refreshingly cool and gloomy after the\nglare of a Southern day's travel.  Extending along the four sides of this\nhall was a gallery, leading to suites of rooms; and it was lighted from\nthe top.  Still no bell was to be seen.\n\n\"Faith,\" said the Captain halting, ashamed of the clanking of his boots,\n\"this is a ghostly beginning!\"\n\nHe started back, and felt his face turn white.  In the gallery, looking\ndown at him, stood the French officer--the officer whose picture he had\ncarried in his mind so long and so far.  Compared with the original, at\nlast--in every lineament how like it was!\n\nHe moved, and disappeared, and Captain Richard Doubledick heard his steps\ncoming quickly down own into the hall.  He entered through an archway.\nThere was a bright, sudden look upon his face, much such a look as it had\nworn in that fatal moment.\n\nMonsieur le Capitaine Richard Doubledick?  Enchanted to receive him!  A\nthousand apologies!  The servants were all out in the air.  There was a\nlittle fete among them in the garden.  In effect, it was the fete day of\nmy daughter, the little cherished and protected of Madame Taunton.\n\nHe was so gracious and so frank that Monsieur le Capitaine Richard\nDoubledick could not withhold his hand.  \"It is the hand of a brave\nEnglishman,\" said the French officer, retaining it while he spoke.  \"I\ncould respect a brave Englishman, even as my foe, how much more as my\nfriend!  I also am a soldier.\"\n\n\"He has not remembered me, as I have remembered him; he did not take such\nnote of my face, that day, as I took of his,\" thought Captain Richard\nDoubledick.  \"How shall I tell him?\"\n\nThe French officer conducted his guest into a garden and presented him to\nhis wife, an engaging and beautiful woman, sitting with Mrs. Taunton in a\nwhimsical old-fashioned pavilion.  His daughter, her fair young face\nbeaming with joy, came running to embrace him; and there was a boy-baby\nto tumble down among the orange trees on the broad steps, in making for\nhis father's legs.  A multitude of children visitors were dancing to\nsprightly music; and all the servants and peasants about the chateau were\ndancing too.  It was a scene of innocent happiness that might have been\ninvented for the climax of the scenes of peace which had soothed the\nCaptain's journey.\n\nHe looked on, greatly troubled in his mind, until a resounding bell rang,\nand the French officer begged to show him his rooms.  They went upstairs\ninto the gallery from which the officer had looked down; and Monsieur le\nCapitaine Richard Doubledick was cordially welcomed to a grand outer\nchamber, and a smaller one within, all clocks and draperies, and hearths,\nand brazen dogs, and tiles, and cool devices, and elegance, and vastness.\n\n\"You were at Waterloo,\" said the French officer.\n\n\"I was,\" said Captain Richard Doubledick.  \"And at Badajos.\"\n\nLeft alone with the sound of his own stern voice in his ears, he sat down\nto consider, What shall I do, and how shall I tell him?  At that time,\nunhappily, many deplorable duels had been fought between English and\nFrench officers, arising out of the recent war; and these duels, and how\nto avoid this officer's hospitality, were the uppermost thought in\nCaptain Richard Doubledick's mind.\n\nHe was thinking, and letting the time run out in which he should have\ndressed for dinner, when Mrs. Taunton spoke to him outside the door,\nasking if he could give her the letter he had brought from Mary.  \"His\nmother, above all,\" the Captain thought.  \"How shall I tell _her_?\"\n\n\"You will form a friendship with your host, I hope,\" said Mrs. Taunton,\nwhom he hurriedly admitted, \"that will last for life.  He is so\ntrue-hearted and so generous, Richard, that you can hardly fail to esteem\none another.  If He had been spared,\" she kissed (not without tears) the\nlocket in which she wore his hair, \"he would have appreciated him with\nhis own magnanimity, and would have been truly happy that the evil days\nwere past which made such a man his enemy.\"\n\nShe left the room; and the Captain walked, first to one window, whence he\ncould see the dancing in the garden, then to another window, whence he\ncould see the smiling prospect and the peaceful vineyards.\n\n\"Spirit of my departed friend,\" said he, \"is it through thee these better\nthoughts are rising in my mind?  Is it thou who hast shown me, all the\nway I have been drawn to meet this man, the blessings of the altered\ntime?  Is it thou who hast sent thy stricken mother to me, to stay my\nangry hand?  Is it from thee the whisper comes, that this man did his\nduty as thou didst,--and as I did, through thy guidance, which has wholly\nsaved me here on earth,--and that he did no more?\"\n\nHe sat down, with his head buried in his hands, and, when he rose up,\nmade the second strong resolution of his life,--that neither to the\nFrench officer, nor to the mother of his departed friend, nor to any\nsoul, while either of the two was living, would he breathe what only he\nknew.  And when he touched that French officer's glass with his own, that\nday at dinner, he secretly forgave him in the name of the Divine Forgiver\nof injuries.\n\n* * * * *\n\nHere I ended my story as the first Poor Traveller.  But, if I had told it\nnow, I could have added that the time has since come when the son of\nMajor Richard Doubledick, and the son of that French officer, friends as\ntheir fathers were before them, fought side by side in one cause, with\ntheir respective nations, like long-divided brothers whom the better\ntimes have brought together, fast united.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III--THE ROAD\n\n\nMy story being finished, and the Wassail too, we broke up as the\nCathedral bell struck Twelve.  I did not take leave of my travellers that\nnight; for it had come into my head to reappear, in conjunction with some\nhot coffee, at seven in the morning.\n\nAs I passed along the High Street, I heard the Waits at a distance, and\nstruck off to find them.  They were playing near one of the old gates of\nthe City, at the corner of a wonderfully quaint row of red-brick\ntenements, which the clarionet obligingly informed me were inhabited by\nthe Minor-Canons.  They had odd little porches over the doors, like\nsounding-boards over old pulpits; and I thought I should like to see one\nof the Minor-Canons come out upon his top stop, and favour us with a\nlittle Christmas discourse about the poor scholars of Rochester; taking\nfor his text the words of his Master relative to the devouring of Widows'\nhouses.\n\nThe clarionet was so communicative, and my inclinations were (as they\ngenerally are) of so vagabond a tendency, that I accompanied the Waits\nacross an open green called the Vines, and assisted--in the French\nsense--at the performance of two waltzes, two polkas, and three Irish\nmelodies, before I thought of my inn any more.  However, I returned to it\nthen, and found a fiddle in the kitchen, and Ben, the wall-eyed young\nman, and two chambermaids, circling round the great deal table with the\nutmost animation.\n\nI had a very bad night.  It cannot have been owing to the turkey or the\nbeef,--and the Wassail is out of the question--but in every endeavour\nthat I made to get to sleep I failed most dismally.  I was never asleep;\nand in whatsoever unreasonable direction my mind rambled, the effigy of\nMaster Richard Watts perpetually embarrassed it.\n\nIn a word, I only got out of the Worshipful Master Richard Watts's way by\ngetting out of bed in the dark at six o'clock, and tumbling, as my custom\nis, into all the cold water that could be accumulated for the purpose.\nThe outer air was dull and cold enough in the street, when I came down\nthere; and the one candle in our supper-room at Watts's Charity looked as\npale in the burning as if it had had a bad night too.  But my Travellers\nhad all slept soundly, and they took to the hot coffee, and the piles of\nbread-and-butter, which Ben had arranged like deals in a timber-yard, as\nkindly as I could desire.\n\nWhile it was yet scarcely daylight, we all came out into the street\ntogether, and there shook hands.  The widow took the little sailor\ntowards Chatham, where he was to find a steamboat for Sheerness; the\nlawyer, with an extremely knowing look, went his own way, without\ncommitting himself by announcing his intentions; two more struck off by\nthe cathedral and old castle for Maidstone; and the book-pedler\naccompanied me over the bridge.  As for me, I was going to walk by Cobham\nWoods, as far upon my way to London as I fancied.\n\nWhen I came to the stile and footpath by which I was to diverge from the\nmain road, I bade farewell to my last remaining Poor Traveller, and\npursued my way alone.  And now the mists began to rise in the most\nbeautiful manner, and the sun to shine; and as I went on through the\nbracing air, seeing the hoarfrost sparkle everywhere, I felt as if all\nNature shared in the joy of the great Birthday.\n\nGoing through the woods, the softness of my tread upon the mossy ground\nand among the brown leaves enhanced the Christmas sacredness by which I\nfelt surrounded.  As the whitened stems environed me, I thought how the\nFounder of the time had never raised his benignant hand, save to bless\nand heal, except in the case of one unconscious tree.  By Cobham Hall, I\ncame to the village, and the churchyard where the dead had been quietly\nburied, \"in the sure and certain hope\" which Christmas time inspired.\nWhat children could I see at play, and not be loving of, recalling who\nhad loved them!  No garden that I passed was out of unison with the day,\nfor I remembered that the tomb was in a garden, and that \"she, supposing\nhim to be the gardener,\" had said, \"Sir, if thou have borne him hence,\ntell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.\"  In time,\nthe distant river with the ships came full in view, and with it pictures\nof the poor fishermen, mending their nets, who arose and followed him,--of\nthe teaching of the people from a ship pushed off a little way from\nshore, by reason of the multitude,--of a majestic figure walking on the\nwater, in the loneliness of night.  My very shadow on the ground was\neloquent of Christmas; for did not the people lay their sick where the\nmore shadows of the men who had heard and seen him might fall as they\npassed along?\n\nThus Christmas begirt me, far and near, until I had come to Blackheath,\nand had walked down the long vista of gnarled old trees in Greenwich\nPark, and was being steam-rattled through the mists now closing in once\nmore, towards the lights of London.  Brightly they shone, but not so\nbrightly as my own fire, and the brighter faces around it, when we came\ntogether to celebrate the day.  And there I told of worthy Master Richard\nWatts, and of my supper with the Six Poor Travellers who were neither\nRogues nor Proctors, and from that hour to this I have never seen one of\nthem again.\n\n\n"}
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{"1394":"\n\n\n\n\nTranscribed from the 1894 Chapman and Hall edition of \"Christmas Stories\"\nby David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE HOLLY-TREE--THREE BRANCHES\n\n\nFIRST BRANCH--MYSELF\n\n\nI have kept one secret in the course of my life.  I am a bashful man.\nNobody would suppose it, nobody ever does suppose it, nobody ever did\nsuppose it, but I am naturally a bashful man.  This is the secret which I\nhave never breathed until now.\n\nI might greatly move the reader by some account of the innumerable places\nI have not been to, the innumerable people I have not called upon or\nreceived, the innumerable social evasions I have been guilty of, solely\nbecause I am by original constitution and character a bashful man.  But I\nwill leave the reader unmoved, and proceed with the object before me.\n\nThat object is to give a plain account of my travels and discoveries in\nthe Holly-Tree Inn; in which place of good entertainment for man and\nbeast I was once snowed up.\n\nIt happened in the memorable year when I parted for ever from Angela\nLeath, whom I was shortly to have married, on making the discovery that\nshe preferred my bosom friend.  From our school-days I had freely\nadmitted Edwin, in my own mind, to be far superior to myself; and, though\nI was grievously wounded at heart, I felt the preference to be natural,\nand tried to forgive them both.  It was under these circumstances that I\nresolved to go to America--on my way to the Devil.\n\nCommunicating my discovery neither to Angela nor to Edwin, but resolving\nto write each of them an affecting letter conveying my blessing and\nforgiveness, which the steam-tender for shore should carry to the post\nwhen I myself should be bound for the New World, far beyond recall,--I\nsay, locking up my grief in my own breast, and consoling myself as I\ncould with the prospect of being generous, I quietly left all I held\ndear, and started on the desolate journey I have mentioned.\n\nThe dead winter-time was in full dreariness when I left my chambers for\never, at five o'clock in the morning.  I had shaved by candle-light, of\ncourse, and was miserably cold, and experienced that general\nall-pervading sensation of getting up to be hanged which I have usually\nfound inseparable from untimely rising under such circumstances.\n\nHow well I remember the forlorn aspect of Fleet Street when I came out of\nthe Temple!  The street-lamps flickering in the gusty north-east wind, as\nif the very gas were contorted with cold; the white-topped houses; the\nbleak, star-lighted sky; the market people and other early stragglers,\ntrotting to circulate their almost frozen blood; the hospitable light and\nwarmth of the few coffee-shops and public-houses that were open for such\ncustomers; the hard, dry, frosty rime with which the air was charged (the\nwind had already beaten it into every crevice), and which lashed my face\nlike a steel whip.\n\nIt wanted nine days to the end of the month, and end of the year.  The\nPost-office packet for the United States was to depart from Liverpool,\nweather permitting, on the first of the ensuing month, and I had the\nintervening time on my hands.  I had taken this into consideration, and\nhad resolved to make a visit to a certain spot (which I need not name) on\nthe farther borders of Yorkshire.  It was endeared to me by my having\nfirst seen Angela at a farmhouse in that place, and my melancholy was\ngratified by the idea of taking a wintry leave of it before my\nexpatriation.  I ought to explain, that, to avoid being sought out before\nmy resolution should have been rendered irrevocable by being carried into\nfull effect, I had written to Angela overnight, in my usual manner,\nlamenting that urgent business, of which she should know all particulars\nby-and-by--took me unexpectedly away from her for a week or ten days.\n\nThere was no Northern Railway at that time, and in its place there were\nstage-coaches; which I occasionally find myself, in common with some\nother people, affecting to lament now, but which everybody dreaded as a\nvery serious penance then.  I had secured the box-seat on the fastest of\nthese, and my business in Fleet Street was to get into a cab with my\nportmanteau, so to make the best of my way to the Peacock at Islington,\nwhere I was to join this coach.  But when one of our Temple watchmen, who\ncarried my portmanteau into Fleet Street for me, told me about the huge\nblocks of ice that had for some days past been floating in the river,\nhaving closed up in the night, and made a walk from the Temple Gardens\nover to the Surrey shore, I began to ask myself the question, whether the\nbox-seat would not be likely to put a sudden and a frosty end to my\nunhappiness.  I was heart-broken, it is true, and yet I was not quite so\nfar gone as to wish to be frozen to death.\n\nWhen I got up to the Peacock,--where I found everybody drinking hot purl,\nin self-preservation,--I asked if there were an inside seat to spare.  I\nthen discovered that, inside or out, I was the only passenger.  This gave\nme a still livelier idea of the great inclemency of the weather, since\nthat coach always loaded particularly well.  However, I took a little\npurl (which I found uncommonly good), and got into the coach.  When I was\nseated, they built me up with straw to the waist, and, conscious of\nmaking a rather ridiculous appearance, I began my journey.\n\nIt was still dark when we left the Peacock.  For a little while, pale,\nuncertain ghosts of houses and trees appeared and vanished, and then it\nwas hard, black, frozen day.  People were lighting their fires; smoke was\nmounting straight up high into the rarified air; and we were rattling for\nHighgate Archway over the hardest ground I have ever heard the ring of\niron shoes on.  As we got into the country, everything seemed to have\ngrown old and gray.  The roads, the trees, thatched roofs of cottages and\nhomesteads, the ricks in farmers' yards.  Out-door work was abandoned,\nhorse-troughs at roadside inns were frozen hard, no stragglers lounged\nabout, doors were close shut, little turnpike houses had blazing fires\ninside, and children (even turnpike people have children, and seem to\nlike them) rubbed the frost from the little panes of glass with their\nchubby arms, that their bright eyes might catch a glimpse of the solitary\ncoach going by.  I don't know when the snow begin to set in; but I know\nthat we were changing horses somewhere when I heard the guard remark,\n\"That the old lady up in the sky was picking her geese pretty hard to-\nday.\"  Then, indeed, I found the white down falling fast and thick.\n\nThe lonely day wore on, and I dozed it out, as a lonely traveller does.  I\nwas warm and valiant after eating and drinking,--particularly after\ndinner; cold and depressed at all other times.  I was always bewildered\nas to time and place, and always more or less out of my senses.  The\ncoach and horses seemed to execute in chorus Auld Lang Syne, without a\nmoment's intermission.  They kept the time and tune with the greatest\nregularity, and rose into the swell at the beginning of the Refrain, with\na precision that worried me to death.  While we changed horses, the guard\nand coachman went stumping up and down the road, printing off their shoes\nin the snow, and poured so much liquid consolation into themselves\nwithout being any the worse for it, that I began to confound them, as it\ndarkened again, with two great white casks standing on end.  Our horses\ntumbled down in solitary places, and we got them up,--which was the\npleasantest variety _I_ had, for it warmed me.  And it snowed and snowed,\nand still it snowed, and never left off snowing.  All night long we went\non in this manner.  Thus we came round the clock, upon the Great North\nRoad, to the performance of Auld Lang Syne by day again.  And it snowed\nand snowed, and still it snowed, and never left off snowing.\n\nI forget now where we were at noon on the second day, and where we ought\nto have been; but I know that we were scores of miles behindhand, and\nthat our case was growing worse every hour.  The drift was becoming\nprodigiously deep; landmarks were getting snowed out; the road and the\nfields were all one; instead of having fences and hedge-rows to guide us,\nwe went crunching on over an unbroken surface of ghastly white that might\nsink beneath us at any moment and drop us down a whole hillside.  Still\nthe coachman and guard--who kept together on the box, always in council,\nand looking well about them--made out the track with astonishing\nsagacity.\n\nWhen we came in sight of a town, it looked, to my fancy, like a large\ndrawing on a slate, with abundance of slate-pencil expended on the\nchurches and houses where the snow lay thickest.  When we came within a\ntown, and found the church clocks all stopped, the dial-faces choked with\nsnow, and the inn-signs blotted out, it seemed as if the whole place were\novergrown with white moss.  As to the coach, it was a mere snowball;\nsimilarly, the men and boys who ran along beside us to the town's end,\nturning our clogged wheels and encouraging our horses, were men and boys\nof snow; and the bleak wild solitude to which they at last dismissed us\nwas a snowy Sahara.  One would have thought this enough: notwithstanding\nwhich, I pledge my word that it snowed and snowed, and still it snowed,\nand never left off snowing.\n\nWe performed Auld Lang Syne the whole day; seeing nothing, out of towns\nand villages, but the track of stoats, hares, and foxes, and sometimes of\nbirds.  At nine o'clock at night, on a Yorkshire moor, a cheerful burst\nfrom our horn, and a welcome sound of talking, with a glimmering and\nmoving about of lanterns, roused me from my drowsy state.  I found that\nwe were going to change.\n\nThey helped me out, and I said to a waiter, whose bare head became as\nwhite as King Lear's in a single minute, \"What Inn is this?\"\n\n\"The Holly-Tree, sir,\" said he.\n\n\"Upon my word, I believe,\" said I, apologetically, to the guard and\ncoachman, \"that I must stop here.\"\n\nNow the landlord, and the landlady, and the ostler, and the post-boy, and\nall the stable authorities, had already asked the coachman, to the wide-\neyed interest of all the rest of the establishment, if he meant to go on.\nThe coachman had already replied, \"Yes, he'd take her through\nit,\"--meaning by Her the coach,--\"if so be as George would stand by him.\"\nGeorge was the guard, and he had already sworn that he would stand by\nhim.  So the helpers were already getting the horses out.\n\nMy declaring myself beaten, after this parley, was not an announcement\nwithout preparation.  Indeed, but for the way to the announcement being\nsmoothed by the parley, I more than doubt whether, as an innately bashful\nman, I should have had the confidence to make it.  As it was, it received\nthe approval even of the guard and coachman.  Therefore, with many\nconfirmations of my inclining, and many remarks from one bystander to\nanother, that the gentleman could go for'ard by the mail to-morrow,\nwhereas to-night he would only be froze, and where was the good of a\ngentleman being froze--ah, let alone buried alive (which latter clause\nwas added by a humorous helper as a joke at my expense, and was extremely\nwell received), I saw my portmanteau got out stiff, like a frozen body;\ndid the handsome thing by the guard and coachman; wished them good-night\nand a prosperous journey; and, a little ashamed of myself, after all, for\nleaving them to fight it out alone, followed the landlord, landlady, and\nwaiter of the Holly-Tree up-stairs.\n\nI thought I had never seen such a large room as that into which they\nshowed me.  It had five windows, with dark red curtains that would have\nabsorbed the light of a general illumination; and there were\ncomplications of drapery at the top of the curtains, that went wandering\nabout the wall in a most extraordinary manner.  I asked for a smaller\nroom, and they told me there was no smaller room.\n\nThey could screen me in, however, the landlord said.  They brought a\ngreat old japanned screen, with natives (Japanese, I suppose) engaged in\na variety of idiotic pursuits all over it; and left me roasting whole\nbefore an immense fire.\n\nMy bedroom was some quarter of a mile off, up a great staircase at the\nend of a long gallery; and nobody knows what a misery this is to a\nbashful man who would rather not meet people on the stairs.  It was the\ngrimmest room I have ever had the nightmare in; and all the furniture,\nfrom the four posts of the bed to the two old silver candle-sticks, was\ntall, high-shouldered, and spindle-waisted.  Below, in my sitting-room,\nif I looked round my screen, the wind rushed at me like a mad bull; if I\nstuck to my arm-chair, the fire scorched me to the colour of a new brick.\nThe chimney-piece was very high, and there was a bad glass--what I may\ncall a wavy glass--above it, which, when I stood up, just showed me my\nanterior phrenological developments,--and these never look well, in any\nsubject, cut short off at the eyebrow.  If I stood with my back to the\nfire, a gloomy vault of darkness above and beyond the screen insisted on\nbeing looked at; and, in its dim remoteness, the drapery of the ten\ncurtains of the five windows went twisting and creeping about, like a\nnest of gigantic worms.\n\nI suppose that what I observe in myself must be observed by some other\nmen of similar character in _themselves_; therefore I am emboldened to\nmention, that, when I travel, I never arrive at a place but I immediately\nwant to go away from it.  Before I had finished my supper of broiled fowl\nand mulled port, I had impressed upon the waiter in detail my\narrangements for departure in the morning.  Breakfast and bill at eight.\nFly at nine.  Two horses, or, if needful, even four.\n\nTired though I was, the night appeared about a week long.  In cases of\nnightmare, I thought of Angela, and felt more depressed than ever by the\nreflection that I was on the shortest road to Gretna Green.  What had _I_\nto do with Gretna Green?  I was not going _that_ way to the Devil, but by\nthe American route, I remarked in my bitterness.\n\nIn the morning I found that it was snowing still, that it had snowed all\nnight, and that I was snowed up.  Nothing could get out of that spot on\nthe moor, or could come at it, until the road had been cut out by\nlabourers from the market-town.  When they might cut their way to the\nHolly-Tree nobody could tell me.\n\nIt was now Christmas-eve.  I should have had a dismal Christmas-time of\nit anywhere, and consequently that did not so much matter; still, being\nsnowed up was like dying of frost, a thing I had not bargained for.  I\nfelt very lonely.  Yet I could no more have proposed to the landlord and\nlandlady to admit me to their society (though I should have liked it--very\nmuch) than I could have asked them to present me with a piece of plate.\nHere my great secret, the real bashfulness of my character, is to be\nobserved.  Like most bashful men, I judge of other people as if they were\nbashful too.  Besides being far too shamefaced to make the proposal\nmyself, I really had a delicate misgiving that it would be in the last\ndegree disconcerting to them.\n\nTrying to settle down, therefore, in my solitude, I first of all asked\nwhat books there were in the house.  The waiter brought me a _Book of\nRoads_, two or three old Newspapers, a little Song-Book, terminating in a\ncollection of Toasts and Sentiments, a little Jest-Book, an odd volume of\n_Peregrine Pickle_, and the _Sentimental Journey_.  I knew every word of\nthe two last already, but I read them through again, then tried to hum\nall the songs (Auld Lang Syne was among them); went entirely through the\njokes,--in which I found a fund of melancholy adapted to my state of\nmind; proposed all the toasts, enunciated all the sentiments, and\nmastered the papers.  The latter had nothing in them but stock\nadvertisements, a meeting about a county rate, and a highway robbery.  As\nI am a greedy reader, I could not make this supply hold out until night;\nit was exhausted by tea-time.  Being then entirely cast upon my own\nresources, I got through an hour in considering what to do next.\nUltimately, it came into my head (from which I was anxious by any means\nto exclude Angela and Edwin), that I would endeavour to recall my\nexperience of Inns, and would try how long it lasted me.  I stirred the\nfire, moved my chair a little to one side of the screen,--not daring to\ngo far, for I knew the wind was waiting to make a rush at me, I could\nhear it growling,--and began.\n\nMy first impressions of an Inn dated from the Nursery; consequently I\nwent back to the Nursery for a starting-point, and found myself at the\nknee of a sallow woman with a fishy eye, an aquiline nose, and a green\ngown, whose specially was a dismal narrative of a landlord by the\nroadside, whose visitors unaccountably disappeared for many years, until\nit was discovered that the pursuit of his life had been to convert them\ninto pies.  For the better devotion of himself to this branch of\nindustry, he had constructed a secret door behind the head of the bed;\nand when the visitor (oppressed with pie) had fallen asleep, this wicked\nlandlord would look softly in with a lamp in one hand and a knife in the\nother, would cut his throat, and would make him into pies; for which\npurpose he had coppers, underneath a trap-door, always boiling; and\nrolled out his pastry in the dead of the night.  Yet even he was not\ninsensible to the stings of conscience, for he never went to sleep\nwithout being heard to mutter, \"Too much pepper!\" which was eventually\nthe cause of his being brought to justice.  I had no sooner disposed of\nthis criminal than there started up another of the same period, whose\nprofession was originally house-breaking; in the pursuit of which art he\nhad had his right ear chopped off one night, as he was burglariously\ngetting in at a window, by a brave and lovely servant-maid (whom the\naquiline-nosed woman, though not at all answering the description, always\nmysteriously implied to be herself).  After several years, this brave and\nlovely servant-maid was married to the landlord of a country Inn; which\nlandlord had this remarkable characteristic, that he always wore a silk\nnightcap, and never would on any consideration take it off.  At last, one\nnight, when he was fast asleep, the brave and lovely woman lifted up his\nsilk nightcap on the right side, and found that he had no ear there; upon\nwhich she sagaciously perceived that he was the clipped housebreaker, who\nhad married her with the intention of putting her to death.  She\nimmediately heated the poker and terminated his career, for which she was\ntaken to King George upon his throne, and received the compliments of\nroyalty on her great discretion and valour.  This same narrator, who had\na Ghoulish pleasure, I have long been persuaded, in terrifying me to the\nutmost confines of my reason, had another authentic anecdote within her\nown experience, founded, I now believe, upon _Raymond and Agnes, or the\nBleeding Nun_.  She said it happened to her brother-in-law, who was\nimmensely rich,--which my father was not; and immensely tall,--which my\nfather was not.  It was always a point with this Ghoul to present my\nclearest relations and friends to my youthful mind under circumstances of\ndisparaging contrast.  The brother-in-law was riding once through a\nforest on a magnificent horse (we had no magnificent horse at our house),\nattended by a favourite and valuable Newfoundland dog (we had no dog),\nwhen he found himself benighted, and came to an Inn.  A dark woman opened\nthe door, and he asked her if he could have a bed there.  She answered\nyes, and put his horse in the stable, and took him into a room where\nthere were two dark men.  While he was at supper, a parrot in the room\nbegan to talk, saying, \"Blood, blood!  Wipe up the blood!\"  Upon which\none of the dark men wrung the parrot's neck, and said he was fond of\nroasted parrots, and he meant to have this one for breakfast in the\nmorning.  After eating and drinking heartily, the immensely rich, tall\nbrother-in-law went up to bed; but he was rather vexed, because they had\nshut his dog in the stable, saying that they never allowed dogs in the\nhouse.  He sat very quiet for more than an hour, thinking and thinking,\nwhen, just as his candle was burning out, he heard a scratch at the door.\nHe opened the door, and there was the Newfoundland dog!  The dog came\nsoftly in, smelt about him, went straight to some straw in the corner\nwhich the dark men had said covered apples, tore the straw away, and\ndisclosed two sheets steeped in blood.  Just at that moment the candle\nwent out, and the brother-in-law, looking through a chink in the door,\nsaw the two dark men stealing up-stairs; one armed with a dagger that\nlong (about five feet); the other carrying a chopper, a sack, and a\nspade.  Having no remembrance of the close of this adventure, I suppose\nmy faculties to have been always so frozen with terror at this stage of\nit, that the power of listening stagnated within me for some quarter of\nan hour.\n\nThese barbarous stories carried me, sitting there on the Holly-Tree\nhearth, to the Roadside Inn, renowned in my time in a sixpenny book with\na folding plate, representing in a central compartment of oval form the\nportrait of Jonathan Bradford, and in four corner compartments four\nincidents of the tragedy with which the name is associated,--coloured\nwith a hand at once so free and economical, that the bloom of Jonathan's\ncomplexion passed without any pause into the breeches of the ostler, and,\nsmearing itself off into the next division, became rum in a bottle.  Then\nI remembered how the landlord was found at the murdered traveller's\nbedside, with his own knife at his feet, and blood upon his hand; how he\nwas hanged for the murder, notwithstanding his protestation that he had\nindeed come there to kill the traveller for his saddle-bags, but had been\nstricken motionless on finding him already slain; and how the ostler,\nyears afterwards, owned the deed.  By this time I had made myself quite\nuncomfortable.  I stirred the fire, and stood with my back to it as long\nas I could bear the heat, looking up at the darkness beyond the screen,\nand at the wormy curtains creeping in and creeping out, like the worms in\nthe ballad of Alonzo the Brave and the Fair Imogene.\n\nThere was an Inn in the cathedral town where I went to school, which had\npleasanter recollections about it than any of these.  I took it next.  It\nwas the Inn where friends used to put up, and where we used to go to see\nparents, and to have salmon and fowls, and be tipped.  It had an\necclesiastical sign,--the Mitre,--and a bar that seemed to be the next\nbest thing to a bishopric, it was so snug.  I loved the landlord's\nyoungest daughter to distraction,--but let that pass.  It was in this Inn\nthat I was cried over by my rosy little sister, because I had acquired a\nblack eye in a fight.  And though she had been, that Holly-Tree night,\nfor many a long year where all tears are dried, the Mitre softened me\nyet.\n\n\"To be continued to-morrow,\" said I, when I took my candle to go to bed.\nBut my bed took it upon itself to continue the train of thought that\nnight.  It carried me away, like the enchanted carpet, to a distant place\n(though still in England), and there, alighting from a stage-coach at\nanother Inn in the snow, as I had actually done some years before, I\nrepeated in my sleep a curious experience I had really had there.  More\nthan a year before I made the journey in the course of which I put up at\nthat Inn, I had lost a very near and dear friend by death.  Every night\nsince, at home or away from home, I had dreamed of that friend; sometimes\nas still living; sometimes as returning from the world of shadows to\ncomfort me; always as being beautiful, placid, and happy, never in\nassociation with any approach to fear or distress.  It was at a lonely\nInn in a wide moorland place, that I halted to pass the night.  When I\nhad looked from my bedroom window over the waste of snow on which the\nmoon was shining, I sat down by my fire to write a letter.  I had always,\nuntil that hour, kept it within my own breast that I dreamed every night\nof the dear lost one.  But in the letter that I wrote I recorded the\ncircumstance, and added that I felt much interested in proving whether\nthe subject of my dream would still be faithful to me, travel-tired, and\nin that remote place.  No.  I lost the beloved figure of my vision in\nparting with the secret.  My sleep has never looked upon it since, in\nsixteen years, but once.  I was in Italy, and awoke (or seemed to awake),\nthe well-remembered voice distinctly in my ears, conversing with it.  I\nentreated it, as it rose above my bed and soared up to the vaulted roof\nof the old room, to answer me a question I had asked touching the Future\nLife.  My hands were still outstretched towards it as it vanished, when I\nheard a bell ringing by the garden wall, and a voice in the deep\nstillness of the night calling on all good Christians to pray for the\nsouls of the dead; it being All Souls' Eve.\n\nTo return to the Holly-Tree.  When I awoke next day, it was freezing\nhard, and the lowering sky threatened more snow.  My breakfast cleared\naway, I drew my chair into its former place, and, with the fire getting\nso much the better of the landscape that I sat in twilight, resumed my\nInn remembrances.\n\nThat was a good Inn down in Wiltshire where I put up once, in the days of\nthe hard Wiltshire ale, and before all beer was bitterness.  It was on\nthe skirts of Salisbury Plain, and the midnight wind that rattled my\nlattice window came moaning at me from Stonehenge.  There was a hanger-on\nat that establishment (a supernaturally preserved Druid I believe him to\nhave been, and to be still), with long white hair, and a flinty blue eye\nalways looking afar off; who claimed to have been a shepherd, and who\nseemed to be ever watching for the reappearance, on the verge of the\nhorizon, of some ghostly flock of sheep that had been mutton for many\nages.  He was a man with a weird belief in him that no one could count\nthe stones of Stonehenge twice, and make the same number of them;\nlikewise, that any one who counted them three times nine times, and then\nstood in the centre and said, \"I dare!\" would behold a tremendous\napparition, and be stricken dead.  He pretended to have seen a bustard (I\nsuspect him to have been familiar with the dodo), in manner following: He\nwas out upon the plain at the close of a late autumn day, when he dimly\ndiscerned, going on before him at a curious fitfully bounding pace, what\nhe at first supposed to be a gig-umbrella that had been blown from some\nconveyance, but what he presently believed to be a lean dwarf man upon a\nlittle pony.  Having followed this object for some distance without\ngaining on it, and having called to it many times without receiving any\nanswer, he pursued it for miles and miles, when, at length coming up with\nit, he discovered it to be the last bustard in Great Britain, degenerated\ninto a wingless state, and running along the ground.  Resolved to capture\nhim or perish in the attempt, he closed with the bustard; but the\nbustard, who had formed a counter-resolution that he should do neither,\nthrew him, stunned him, and was last seen making off due west.  This\nweird main, at that stage of metempsychosis, may have been a sleep-walker\nor an enthusiast or a robber; but I awoke one night to find him in the\ndark at my bedside, repeating the Athanasian Creed in a terrific voice.  I\npaid my bill next day, and retired from the county with all possible\nprecipitation.\n\nThat was not a commonplace story which worked itself out at a little Inn\nin Switzerland, while I was staying there.  It was a very homely place,\nin a village of one narrow zigzag street, among mountains, and you went\nin at the main door through the cow-house, and among the mules and the\ndogs and the fowls, before ascending a great bare staircase to the rooms;\nwhich were all of unpainted wood, without plastering or papering,--like\nrough packing-cases.  Outside there was nothing but the straggling\nstreet, a little toy church with a copper-coloured steeple, a pine\nforest, a torrent, mists, and mountain-sides.  A young man belonging to\nthis Inn had disappeared eight weeks before (it was winter-time), and was\nsupposed to have had some undiscovered love affair, and to have gone for\na soldier.  He had got up in the night, and dropped into the village\nstreet from the loft in which he slept with another man; and he had done\nit so quietly, that his companion and fellow-labourer had heard no\nmovement when he was awakened in the morning, and they said, \"Louis,\nwhere is Henri?\"  They looked for him high and low, in vain, and gave him\nup.  Now, outside this Inn, there stood, as there stood outside every\ndwelling in the village, a stack of firewood; but the stack belonging to\nthe Inn was higher than any of the rest, because the Inn was the richest\nhouse, and burnt the most fuel.  It began to be noticed, while they were\nlooking high and low, that a Bantam cock, part of the live stock of the\nInn, put himself wonderfully out of his way to get to the top of this\nwood-stack; and that he would stay there for hours and hours, crowing,\nuntil he appeared in danger of splitting himself.  Five weeks went\non,--six weeks,--and still this terrible Bantam, neglecting his domestic\naffairs, was always on the top of the wood-stack, crowing the very eyes\nout of his head.  By this time it was perceived that Louis had become\ninspired with a violent animosity towards the terrible Bantam, and one\nmorning he was seen by a woman, who sat nursing her goitre at a little\nwindow in a gleam of sun, to catch up a rough billet of wood, with a\ngreat oath, hurl it at the terrible Bantam crowing on the wood-stack, and\nbring him down dead.  Hereupon the woman, with a sudden light in her\nmind, stole round to the back of the wood-stack, and, being a good\nclimber, as all those women are, climbed up, and soon was seen upon the\nsummit, screaming, looking down the hollow within, and crying, \"Seize\nLouis, the murderer!  Ring the church bell!  Here is the body!\"  I saw\nthe murderer that day, and I saw him as I sat by my fire at the Holly-\nTree Inn, and I see him now, lying shackled with cords on the stable\nlitter, among the mild eyes and the smoking breath of the cows, waiting\nto be taken away by the police, and stared at by the fearful village.  A\nheavy animal,--the dullest animal in the stables,--with a stupid head,\nand a lumpish face devoid of any trace of insensibility, who had been,\nwithin the knowledge of the murdered youth, an embezzler of certain small\nmoneys belonging to his master, and who had taken this hopeful mode of\nputting a possible accuser out of his way.  All of which he confessed\nnext day, like a sulky wretch who couldn't be troubled any more, now that\nthey had got hold of him, and meant to make an end of him.  I saw him\nonce again, on the day of my departure from the Inn.  In that Canton the\nheadsman still does his office with a sword; and I came upon this\nmurderer sitting bound, to a chair, with his eyes bandaged, on a scaffold\nin a little market-place.  In that instant, a great sword (loaded with\nquicksilver in the thick part of the blade) swept round him like a gust\nof wind or fire, and there was no such creature in the world.  My wonder\nwas, not that he was so suddenly dispatched, but that any head was left\nunreaped, within a radius of fifty yards of that tremendous sickle.\n\nThat was a good Inn, too, with the kind, cheerful landlady and the honest\nlandlord, where I lived in the shadow of Mont Blanc, and where one of the\napartments has a zoological papering on the walls, not so accurately\njoined but that the elephant occasionally rejoices in a tiger's hind legs\nand tail, while the lion puts on a trunk and tusks, and the bear,\nmoulting as it were, appears as to portions of himself like a leopard.  I\nmade several American friends at that Inn, who all called Mont Blanc\nMount Blank,--except one good-humoured gentleman, of a very sociable\nnature, who became on such intimate terms with it that he spoke of it\nfamiliarly as \"Blank;\" observing, at breakfast, \"Blank looks pretty tall\nthis morning;\" or considerably doubting in the courtyard in the evening,\nwhether there warn't some go-ahead naters in our country, sir, that would\nmake out the top of Blank in a couple of hours from first start--now!\n\nOnce I passed a fortnight at an Inn in the North of England, where I was\nhaunted by the ghost of a tremendous pie.  It was a Yorkshire pie, like a\nfort,--an abandoned fort with nothing in it; but the waiter had a fixed\nidea that it was a point of ceremony at every meal to put the pie on the\ntable.  After some days I tried to hint, in several delicate ways, that I\nconsidered the pie done with; as, for example, by emptying fag-ends of\nglasses of wine into it; putting cheese-plates and spoons into it, as\ninto a basket; putting wine-bottles into it, as into a cooler; but always\nin vain, the pie being invariably cleaned out again and brought up as\nbefore.  At last, beginning to be doubtful whether I was not the victim\nof a spectral illusion, and whether my health and spirits might not sink\nunder the horrors of an imaginary pie, I cut a triangle out of it, fully\nas large as the musical instrument of that name in a powerful orchestra.\nHuman provision could not have foreseen the result--but the waiter mended\nthe pie.  With some effectual species of cement, he adroitly fitted the\ntriangle in again, and I paid my reckoning and fled.\n\nThe Holly-Tree was getting rather dismal.  I made an overland expedition\nbeyond the screen, and penetrated as far as the fourth window.  Here I\nwas driven back by stress of weather.  Arrived at my winter-quarters once\nmore, I made up the fire, and took another Inn.\n\nIt was in the remotest part of Cornwall.  A great annual Miners' Feast\nwas being holden at the Inn, when I and my travelling companions\npresented ourselves at night among the wild crowd that were dancing\nbefore it by torchlight.  We had had a break-down in the dark, on a stony\nmorass some miles away; and I had the honour of leading one of the\nunharnessed post-horses.  If any lady or gentleman, on perusal of the\npresent lines, will take any very tall post-horse with his traces hanging\nabout his legs, and will conduct him by the bearing-rein into the heart\nof a country dance of a hundred and fifty couples, that lady or gentleman\nwill then, and only then, form an adequate idea of the extent to which\nthat post-horse will tread on his conductor's toes.  Over and above\nwhich, the post-horse, finding three hundred people whirling about him,\nwill probably rear, and also lash out with his hind legs, in a manner\nincompatible with dignity or self-respect on his conductor's part.  With\nsuch little drawbacks on my usually impressive aspect, I appeared at this\nCornish Inn, to the unutterable wonder of the Cornish Miners.  It was\nfull, and twenty times full, and nobody could be received but the post-\nhorse,--though to get rid of that noble animal was something.  While my\nfellow-travellers and I were discussing how to pass the night and so much\nof the next day as must intervene before the jovial blacksmith and the\njovial wheelwright would be in a condition to go out on the morass and\nmend the coach, an honest man stepped forth from the crowd and proposed\nhis unlet floor of two rooms, with supper of eggs and bacon, ale and\npunch.  We joyfully accompanied him home to the strangest of clean\nhouses, where we were well entertained to the satisfaction of all\nparties.  But the novel feature of the entertainment was, that our host\nwas a chair-maker, and that the chairs assigned to us were mere frames,\naltogether without bottoms of any sort; so that we passed the evening on\nperches.  Nor was this the absurdest consequence; for when we unbent at\nsupper, and any one of us gave way to laughter, he forgot the peculiarity\nof his position, and instantly disappeared.  I myself, doubled up into an\nattitude from which self-extrication was impossible, was taken out of my\nframe, like a clown in a comic pantomime who has tumbled into a tub, five\ntimes by the taper's light during the eggs and bacon.\n\nThe Holly-Tree was fast reviving within me a sense of loneliness.  I\nbegan to feel conscious that my subject would never carry on until I was\ndug out.  I might be a week here,--weeks!\n\nThere was a story with a singular idea in it, connected with an Inn I\nonce passed a night at in a picturesque old town on the Welsh border.  In\na large double-bedded room of this Inn there had been a suicide committed\nby poison, in one bed, while a tired traveller slept unconscious in the\nother.  After that time, the suicide bed was never used, but the other\nconstantly was; the disused bedstead remaining in the room empty, though\nas to all other respects in its old state.  The story ran, that whosoever\nslept in this room, though never so entire a stranger, from never so far\noff, was invariably observed to come down in the morning with an\nimpression that he smelt Laudanum, and that his mind always turned upon\nthe subject of suicide; to which, whatever kind of man he might be, he\nwas certain to make some reference if he conversed with any one.  This\nwent on for years, until it at length induced the landlord to take the\ndisused bedstead down, and bodily burn it,--bed, hangings, and all.  The\nstrange influence (this was the story) now changed to a fainter one, but\nnever changed afterwards.  The occupant of that room, with occasional but\nvery rare exceptions, would come down in the morning, trying to recall a\nforgotten dream he had had in the night.  The landlord, on his mentioning\nhis perplexity, would suggest various commonplace subjects, not one of\nwhich, as he very well knew, was the true subject.  But the moment the\nlandlord suggested \"Poison,\" the traveller started, and cried, \"Yes!\"  He\nnever failed to accept that suggestion, and he never recalled any more of\nthe dream.\n\nThis reminiscence brought the Welsh Inns in general before me; with the\nwomen in their round hats, and the harpers with their white beards\n(venerable, but humbugs, I am afraid), playing outside the door while I\ntook my dinner.  The transition was natural to the Highland Inns, with\nthe oatmeal bannocks, the honey, the venison steaks, the trout from the\nloch, the whisky, and perhaps (having the materials so temptingly at\nhand) the Athol brose.  Once was I coming south from the Scottish\nHighlands in hot haste, hoping to change quickly at the station at the\nbottom of a certain wild historical glen, when these eyes did with\nmortification see the landlord come out with a telescope and sweep the\nwhole prospect for the horses; which horses were away picking up their\nown living, and did not heave in sight under four hours.  Having thought\nof the loch-trout, I was taken by quick association to the Anglers' Inns\nof England (I have assisted at innumerable feats of angling by lying in\nthe bottom of the boat, whole summer days, doing nothing with the\ngreatest perseverance; which I have generally found to be as effectual\ntowards the taking of fish as the finest tackle and the utmost science),\nand to the pleasant white, clean, flower-pot-decorated bedrooms of those\ninns, overlooking the river, and the ferry, and the green ait, and the\nchurch-spire, and the country bridge; and to the pearless Emma with the\nbright eyes and the pretty smile, who waited, bless her! with a natural\ngrace that would have converted Blue-Beard.  Casting my eyes upon my\nHolly-Tree fire, I next discerned among the glowing coals the pictures of\na score or more of those wonderful English posting-inns which we are all\nso sorry to have lost, which were so large and so comfortable, and which\nwere such monuments of British submission to rapacity and extortion.  He\nwho would see these houses pining away, let him walk from Basingstoke, or\neven Windsor, to London, by way of Hounslow, and moralise on their\nperishing remains; the stables crumbling to dust; unsettled labourers and\nwanderers bivouacking in the outhouses; grass growing in the yards; the\nrooms, where erst so many hundred beds of down were made up, let off to\nIrish lodgers at eighteenpence a week; a little ill-looking beer-shop\nshrinking in the tap of former days, burning coach-house gates for\nfirewood, having one of its two windows bunged up, as if it had received\npunishment in a fight with the Railroad; a low, bandy-legged,\nbrick-making bulldog standing in the doorway.  What could I next see in\nmy fire so naturally as the new railway-house of these times near the\ndismal country station; with nothing particular on draught but cold air\nand damp, nothing worth mentioning in the larder but new mortar, and no\nbusiness doing beyond a conceited affectation of luggage in the hall?\nThen I came to the Inns of Paris, with the pretty apartment of four\npieces up one hundred and seventy-five waxed stairs, the privilege of\nringing the bell all day long without influencing anybody's mind or body\nbut your own, and the not-too-much-for-dinner, considering the price.\nNext to the provincial Inns of France, with the great church-tower rising\nabove the courtyard, the horse-bells jingling merrily up and down the\nstreet beyond, and the clocks of all descriptions in all the rooms, which\nare never right, unless taken at the precise minute when, by getting\nexactly twelve hours too fast or too slow, they unintentionally become\nso.  Away I went, next, to the lesser roadside Inns of Italy; where all\nthe dirty clothes in the house (not in wear) are always lying in your\nanteroom; where the mosquitoes make a raisin pudding of your face in\nsummer, and the cold bites it blue in winter; where you get what you can,\nand forget what you can't: where I should again like to be boiling my tea\nin a pocket-handkerchief dumpling, for want of a teapot.  So to the old\npalace Inns and old monastery Inns, in towns and cities of the same\nbright country; with their massive quadrangular staircases, whence you\nmay look from among clustering pillars high into the blue vault of\nheaven; with their stately banqueting-rooms, and vast refectories; with\ntheir labyrinths of ghostly bedchambers, and their glimpses into gorgeous\nstreets that have no appearance of reality or possibility.  So to the\nclose little Inns of the Malaria districts, with their pale attendants,\nand their peculiar smell of never letting in the air.  So to the immense\nfantastic Inns of Venice, with the cry of the gondolier below, as he\nskims the corner; the grip of the watery odours on one particular little\nbit of the bridge of your nose (which is never released while you stay\nthere); and the great bell of St. Mark's Cathedral tolling midnight.  Next\nI put up for a minute at the restless Inns upon the Rhine, where your\ngoing to bed, no matter at what hour, appears to be the tocsin for\neverybody else's getting up; and where, in the table-d'hote room at the\nend of the long table (with several Towers of Babel on it at the other\nend, all made of white plates), one knot of stoutish men, entirely\ndressed in jewels and dirt, and having nothing else upon them, _will_\nremain all night, clinking glasses, and singing about the river that\nflows, and the grape that grows, and Rhine wine that beguiles, and Rhine\nwoman that smiles and hi drink drink my friend and ho drink drink my\nbrother, and all the rest of it.  I departed thence, as a matter of\ncourse, to other German Inns, where all the eatables are soddened down to\nthe same flavour, and where the mind is disturbed by the apparition of\nhot puddings, and boiled cherries, sweet and slab, at awfully unexpected\nperiods of the repast.  After a draught of sparkling beer from a foaming\nglass jug, and a glance of recognition through the windows of the student\nbeer-houses at Heidelberg and elsewhere, I put out to sea for the Inns of\nAmerica, with their four hundred beds apiece, and their eight or nine\nhundred ladies and gentlemen at dinner every day.  Again I stood in the\nbar-rooms thereof, taking my evening cobbler, julep, sling, or cocktail.\nAgain I listened to my friend the General,--whom I had known for five\nminutes, in the course of which period he had made me intimate for life\nwith two Majors, who again had made me intimate for life with three\nColonels, who again had made me brother to twenty-two civilians,--again,\nI say, I listened to my friend the General, leisurely expounding the\nresources of the establishment, as to gentlemen's morning-room, sir;\nladies' morning-room, sir; gentlemen's evening-room, sir; ladies' evening-\nroom, sir; ladies' and gentlemen's evening reuniting-room, sir; music-\nroom, sir; reading-room, sir; over four hundred sleeping-rooms, sir; and\nthe entire planned and finited within twelve calendar months from the\nfirst clearing off of the old encumbrances on the plot, at a cost of five\nhundred thousand dollars, sir.  Again I found, as to my individual way of\nthinking, that the greater, the more gorgeous, and the more dollarous the\nestablishment was, the less desirable it was.  Nevertheless, again I\ndrank my cobbler, julep, sling, or cocktail, in all good-will, to my\nfriend the General, and my friends the Majors, Colonels, and civilians\nall; full well knowing that, whatever little motes my beamy eyes may have\ndescried in theirs, they belong to a kind, generous, large-hearted, and\ngreat people.\n\nI had been going on lately at a quick pace to keep my solitude out of my\nmind; but here I broke down for good, and gave up the subject.  What was\nI to do?  What was to become of me?  Into what extremity was I\nsubmissively to sink?  Supposing that, like Baron Trenck, I looked out\nfor a mouse or spider, and found one, and beguiled my imprisonment by\ntraining it?  Even that might be dangerous with a view to the future.  I\nmight be so far gone when the road did come to be cut through the snow,\nthat, on my way forth, I might burst into tears, and beseech, like the\nprisoner who was released in his old age from the Bastille, to be taken\nback again to the five windows, the ten curtains, and the sinuous\ndrapery.\n\nA desperate idea came into my head.  Under any other circumstances I\nshould have rejected it; but, in the strait at which I was, I held it\nfast.  Could I so far overcome the inherent bashfulness which withheld me\nfrom the landlord's table and the company I might find there, as to call\nup the Boots, and ask him to take a chair,--and something in a liquid\nform,--and talk to me?  I could, I would, I did.\n\n\n\n\nSECOND BRANCH--THE BOOTS\n\n\nWhere had he been in his time? he repeated, when I asked him the\nquestion.  Lord, he had been everywhere!  And what had he been?  Bless\nyou, he had been everything you could mention a'most!\n\nSeen a good deal?  Why, of course he had.  I should say so, he could\nassure me, if I only knew about a twentieth part of what had come in his\nway.  Why, it would be easier for him, he expected, to tell what he\nhadn't seen than what he had.  Ah!  A deal, it would.\n\nWhat was the curiousest thing he had seen?  Well!  He didn't know.  He\ncouldn't momently name what was the curiousest thing he had seen--unless\nit was a Unicorn, and he see _him_ once at a Fair.  But supposing a young\ngentleman not eight year old was to run away with a fine young woman of\nseven, might I think _that_ a queer start?  Certainly.  Then that was a\nstart as he himself had had his blessed eyes on, and he had cleaned the\nshoes they run away in--and they was so little that he couldn't get his\nhand into 'em.\n\nMaster Harry Walmers' father, you see, he lived at the Elmses, down away\nby Shooter's Hill there, six or seven miles from Lunnon.  He was a\ngentleman of spirit, and good-looking, and held his head up when he\nwalked, and had what you may call Fire about him.  He wrote poetry, and\nhe rode, and he ran, and he cricketed, and he danced, and he acted, and\nhe done it all equally beautiful.  He was uncommon proud of Master Harry\nas was his only child; but he didn't spoil him neither.  He was a\ngentleman that had a will of his own and a eye of his own, and that would\nbe minded.  Consequently, though he made quite a companion of the fine\nbright boy, and was delighted to see him so fond of reading his fairy\nbooks, and was never tired of hearing him say my name is Norval, or\nhearing him sing his songs about Young May Moons is beaming love, and\nWhen he as adores thee has left but the name, and that; still he kept the\ncommand over the child, and the child _was_ a child, and it's to be\nwished more of 'em was!\n\nHow did Boots happen to know all this?  Why, through being\nunder-gardener.  Of course he couldn't be under-gardener, and be always\nabout, in the summer-time, near the windows on the lawn, a mowing, and\nsweeping, and weeding, and pruning, and this and that, without getting\nacquainted with the ways of the family.  Even supposing Master Harry\nhadn't come to him one morning early, and said, \"Cobbs, how should you\nspell Norah, if you was asked?\" and then began cutting it in print all\nover the fence.\n\nHe couldn't say he had taken particular notice of children before that;\nbut really it was pretty to see them two mites a going about the place\ntogether, deep in love.  And the courage of the boy!  Bless your soul,\nhe'd have throwed off his little hat, and tucked up his little sleeves,\nand gone in at a Lion, he would, if they had happened to meet one, and\nshe had been frightened of him.  One day he stops, along with her, where\nBoots was hoeing weeds in the gravel, and says, speaking up, \"Cobbs,\" he\nsays, \"I like _you_.\"  \"Do you, sir?  I'm proud to hear it.\"  \"Yes, I do,\nCobbs.  Why do I like you, do you think, Cobbs?\"  \"Don't know, Master\nHarry, I am sure.\"  \"Because Norah likes you, Cobbs.\"  \"Indeed, sir?\nThat's very gratifying.\"  \"Gratifying, Cobbs?  It's better than millions\nof the brightest diamonds to be liked by Norah.\"  \"Certainly, sir.\"\n\"You're going away, ain't you, Cobbs?\"  \"Yes, sir.\"  \"Would you like\nanother situation, Cobbs?\"  \"Well, sir, I shouldn't object, if it was a\ngood Inn.\"  \"Then, Cobbs,\" says he, \"you shall be our Head Gardener when\nwe are married.\"  And he tucks her, in her little sky-blue mantle, under\nhis arm, and walks away.\n\nBoots could assure me that it was better than a picter, and equal to a\nplay, to see them babies, with their long, bright, curling hair, their\nsparkling eyes, and their beautiful light tread, a rambling about the\ngarden, deep in love.  Boots was of opinion that the birds believed they\nwas birds, and kept up with 'em, singing to please 'em.  Sometimes they\nwould creep under the Tulip-tree, and would sit there with their arms\nround one another's necks, and their soft cheeks touching, a reading\nabout the Prince and the Dragon, and the good and bad enchanters, and the\nking's fair daughter.  Sometimes he would hear them planning about having\na house in a forest, keeping bees and a cow, and living entirely on milk\nand honey.  Once he came upon them by the pond, and heard Master Harry\nsay, \"Adorable Norah, kiss me, and say you love me to distraction, or\nI'll jump in head-foremost.\"  And Boots made no question he would have\ndone it if she hadn't complied.  On the whole, Boots said it had a\ntendency to make him feel as if he was in love himself--only he didn't\nexactly know who with.\n\n\"Cobbs,\" said Master Harry, one evening, when Cobbs was watering the\nflowers, \"I am going on a visit, this present Midsummer, to my\ngrandmamma's at York.\"\n\n\"Are you indeed, sir?  I hope you'll have a pleasant time.  I am going\ninto Yorkshire, myself, when I leave here.\"\n\n\"Are you going to your grandmamma's, Cobbs?\"\n\n\"No, sir.  I haven't got such a thing.\"\n\n\"Not as a grandmamma, Cobbs?\"\n\n\"No, sir.\"\n\nThe boy looked on at the watering of the flowers for a little while, and\nthen said, \"I shall be very glad indeed to go, Cobbs,--Norah's going.\"\n\n\"You'll be all right then, sir,\" says Cobbs, \"with your beautiful\nsweetheart by your side.\"\n\n\"Cobbs,\" returned the boy, flushing, \"I never let anybody joke about it,\nwhen I can prevent them.\"\n\n\"It wasn't a joke, sir,\" says Cobbs, with humility,--\"wasn't so meant.\"\n\n\"I am glad of that, Cobbs, because I like you, you know, and you're going\nto live with us.--Cobbs!\"\n\n\"Sir.\"\n\n\"What do you think my grandmamma gives me when I go down there?\"\n\n\"I couldn't so much as make a guess, sir.\"\n\n\"A Bank of England five-pound note, Cobbs.\"\n\n\"Whew!\" says Cobbs, \"that's a spanking sum of money, Master Harry.\"\n\n\"A person could do a good deal with such a sum of money as that,--couldn't\na person, Cobbs?\"\n\n\"I believe you, sir!\"\n\n\"Cobbs,\" said the boy, \"I'll tell you a secret.  At Norah's house, they\nhave been joking her about me, and pretending to laugh at our being\nengaged,--pretending to make game of it, Cobbs!\"\n\n\"Such, sir,\" says Cobbs, \"is the depravity of human natur.\"\n\nThe boy, looking exactly like his father, stood for a few minutes with\nhis glowing face towards the sunset, and then departed with, \"Good-night,\nCobbs.  I'm going in.\"\n\nIf I was to ask Boots how it happened that he was a-going to leave that\nplace just at that present time, well, he couldn't rightly answer me.  He\ndid suppose he might have stayed there till now if he had been anyways\ninclined.  But, you see, he was younger then, and he wanted change.\nThat's what he wanted,--change.  Mr. Walmers, he said to him when he gave\nhim notice of his intentions to leave, \"Cobbs,\" he says, \"have you\nanythink to complain of?  I make the inquiry because if I find that any\nof my people really has anythink to complain of, I wish to make it right\nif I can.\"  \"No, sir,\" says Cobbs; \"thanking you, sir, I find myself as\nwell sitiwated here as I could hope to be anywheres.  The truth is, sir,\nthat I'm a-going to seek my fortun'.\"  \"O, indeed, Cobbs!\" he says; \"I\nhope you may find it.\"  And Boots could assure me--which he did, touching\nhis hair with his bootjack, as a salute in the way of his present\ncalling--that he hadn't found it yet.\n\nWell, sir!  Boots left the Elmses when his time was up, and Master Harry,\nhe went down to the old lady's at York, which old lady would have given\nthat child the teeth out of her head (if she had had any), she was so\nwrapped up in him.  What does that Infant do,--for Infant you may call\nhim and be within the mark,--but cut away from that old lady's with his\nNorah, on a expedition to go to Gretna Green and be married!\n\nSir, Boots was at this identical Holly-Tree Inn (having left it several\ntimes since to better himself, but always come back through one thing or\nanother), when, one summer afternoon, the coach drives up, and out of the\ncoach gets them two children.  The Guard says to our Governor, \"I don't\nquite make out these little passengers, but the young gentleman's words\nwas, that they was to be brought here.\"  The young gentleman gets out;\nhands his lady out; gives the Guard something for himself; says to our\nGovernor, \"We're to stop here to-night, please.  Sitting-room and two\nbedrooms will be required.  Chops and cherry-pudding for two!\" and tucks\nher, in her sky-blue mantle, under his arm, and walks into the house much\nbolder than Brass.\n\nBoots leaves me to judge what the amazement of that establishment was,\nwhen these two tiny creatures all alone by themselves was marched into\nthe Angel,--much more so, when he, who had seen them without their seeing\nhim, give the Governor his views of the expedition they was upon.\n\"Cobbs,\" says the Governor, \"if this is so, I must set off myself to\nYork, and quiet their friends' minds.  In which case you must keep your\neye upon 'em, and humour 'em, till I come back.  But before I take these\nmeasures, Cobbs, I should wish you to find from themselves whether your\nopinion is correct.\"  \"Sir, to you,\" says Cobbs, \"that shall be done\ndirectly.\"\n\nSo Boots goes up-stairs to the Angel, and there he finds Master Harry on\na e-normous sofa,--immense at any time, but looking like the Great Bed of\nWare, compared with him,--a drying the eyes of Miss Norah with his pocket-\nhankecher.  Their little legs was entirely off the ground, of course, and\nit really is not possible for Boots to express to me how small them\nchildren looked.\n\n\"It's Cobbs!  It's Cobbs!\" cries Master Harry, and comes running to him,\nand catching hold of his hand.  Miss Norah comes running to him on\nt'other side and catching hold of his t'other hand, and they both jump\nfor joy.\n\n\"I see you a getting out, sir,\" says Cobbs.  \"I thought it was you.  I\nthought I couldn't be mistaken in your height and figure.  What's the\nobject of your journey, sir?--Matrimonial?\"\n\n\"We are going to be married, Cobbs, at Gretna Green,\" returned the boy.\n\"We have run away on purpose.  Norah has been in rather low spirits,\nCobbs; but she'll be happy, now we have found you to be our friend.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir, and thank you, miss,\" says Cobbs, \"for your good\nopinion.  _Did_ you bring any luggage with you, sir?\"\n\nIf I will believe Boots when he gives me his word and honour upon it, the\nlady had got a parasol, a smelling-bottle, a round and a half of cold\nbuttered toast, eight peppermint drops, and a hair-brush,--seemingly a\ndoll's.  The gentleman had got about half a dozen yards of string, a\nknife, three or four sheets of writing-paper folded up surprising small,\na orange, and a Chaney mug with his name upon it.\n\n\"What may be the exact natur of your plans, sir?\" says Cobbs.\n\n\"To go on,\" replied the boy,--which the courage of that boy was something\nwonderful!--\"in the morning, and be married to-morrow.\"\n\n\"Just so, sir,\" says Cobbs.  \"Would it meet your views, sir, if I was to\naccompany you?\"\n\nWhen Cobbs said this, they both jumped for joy again, and cried out, \"Oh,\nyes, yes, Cobbs!  Yes!\"\n\n\"Well, sir,\" says Cobbs.  \"If you will excuse my having the freedom to\ngive an opinion, what I should recommend would be this.  I'm acquainted\nwith a pony, sir, which, put in a pheayton that I could borrow, would\ntake you and Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, (myself driving, if you\napproved,) to the end of your journey in a very short space of time.  I\nam not altogether sure, sir, that this pony will be at liberty to-morrow,\nbut even if you had to wait over to-morrow for him, it might be worth\nyour while.  As to the small account here, sir, in case you was to find\nyourself running at all short, that don't signify; because I'm a part\nproprietor of this inn, and it could stand over.\"\n\nBoots assures me that when they clapped their hands, and jumped for joy\nagain, and called him \"Good Cobbs!\" and \"Dear Cobbs!\" and bent across him\nto kiss one another in the delight of their confiding hearts, he felt\nhimself the meanest rascal for deceiving 'em that ever was born.\n\n\"Is there anything you want just at present, sir?\" says Cobbs, mortally\nashamed of himself.\n\n\"We should like some cakes after dinner,\" answered Master Harry, folding\nhis arms, putting out one leg, and looking straight at him, \"and two\napples,--and jam.  With dinner we should like to have toast-and-water.\nBut Norah has always been accustomed to half a glass of currant wine at\ndessert.  And so have I.\"\n\n\"It shall be ordered at the bar, sir,\" says Cobbs; and away he went.\n\nBoots has the feeling as fresh upon him at this minute of speaking as he\nhad then, that he would far rather have had it out in half-a-dozen rounds\nwith the Governor than have combined with him; and that he wished with\nall his heart there was any impossible place where those two babies could\nmake an impossible marriage, and live impossibly happy ever afterwards.\nHowever, as it couldn't be, he went into the Governor's plans, and the\nGovernor set off for York in half an hour.\n\nThe way in which the women of that house--without exception--every one of\n'em--married _and_ single--took to that boy when they heard the story,\nBoots considers surprising.  It was as much as he could do to keep 'em\nfrom dashing into the room and kissing him.  They climbed up all sorts of\nplaces, at the risk of their lives, to look at him through a pane of\nglass.  They was seven deep at the keyhole.  They was out of their minds\nabout him and his bold spirit.\n\nIn the evening, Boots went into the room to see how the runaway couple\nwas getting on.  The gentleman was on the window-seat, supporting the\nlady in his arms.  She had tears upon her face, and was lying, very tired\nand half asleep, with her head upon his shoulder.\n\n\"Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, fatigued, sir?\" says Cobbs.\n\n\"Yes, she is tired, Cobbs; but she is not used to be away from home, and\nshe has been in low spirits again.  Cobbs, do you think you could bring a\nbiffin, please?\"\n\n\"I ask your pardon, sir,\" says Cobbs.  \"What was it you--?\"\n\n\"I think a Norfolk biffin would rouse her, Cobbs.  She is very fond of\nthem.\"\n\nBoots withdrew in search of the required restorative, and when he brought\nit in, the gentleman handed it to the lady, and fed her with a spoon, and\ntook a little himself; the lady being heavy with sleep, and rather cross.\n\"What should you think, sir,\" says Cobbs, \"of a chamber candlestick?\"  The\ngentleman approved; the chambermaid went first, up the great staircase;\nthe lady, in her sky-blue mantle, followed, gallantly escorted by the\ngentleman; the gentleman embraced her at her door, and retired to his own\napartment, where Boots softly locked him up.\n\nBoots couldn't but feel with increased acuteness what a base deceiver he\nwas, when they consulted him at breakfast (they had ordered sweet milk-\nand-water, and toast and currant jelly, overnight) about the pony.  It\nreally was as much as he could do, he don't mind confessing to me, to\nlook them two young things in the face, and think what a wicked old\nfather of lies he had grown up to be.  Howsomever, he went on a lying\nlike a Trojan about the pony.  He told 'em that it did so unfortunately\nhappen that the pony was half clipped, you see, and that he couldn't be\ntaken out in that state, for fear it should strike to his inside.  But\nthat he'd be finished clipping in the course of the day, and that\nto-morrow morning at eight o'clock the pheayton would be ready.  Boots's\nview of the whole case, looking back on it in my room, is, that Mrs.\nHarry Walmers, Junior, was beginning to give in.  She hadn't had her hair\ncurled when she went to bed, and she didn't seem quite up to brushing it\nherself, and its getting in her eyes put her out.  But nothing put out\nMaster Harry.  He sat behind his breakfast-cup, a tearing away at the\njelly, as if he had been his own father.\n\nAfter breakfast, Boots is inclined to consider that they drawed\nsoldiers,--at least, he knows that many such was found in the fire-place,\nall on horseback.  In the course of the morning, Master Harry rang the\nbell,--it was surprising how that there boy did carry on,--and said, in a\nsprightly way, \"Cobbs, is there any good walks in this neighbourhood?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" says Cobbs.  \"There's Love Lane.\"\n\n\"Get out with you, Cobbs!\"--that was that there boy's expression,--\"you're\njoking.\"\n\n\"Begging your pardon, sir,\" says Cobbs, \"there really is Love Lane.  And\na pleasant walk it is, and proud shall I be to show it to yourself and\nMrs. Harry Walmers, Junior.\"\n\n\"Norah, dear,\" said Master Harry, \"this is curious.  We really ought to\nsee Love Lane.  Put on your bonnet, my sweetest darling, and we will go\nthere with Cobbs.\"\n\nBoots leaves me to judge what a Beast he felt himself to be, when that\nyoung pair told him, as they all three jogged along together, that they\nhad made up their minds to give him two thousand guineas a year as head-\ngardener, on accounts of his being so true a friend to 'em.  Boots could\nhave wished at the moment that the earth would have opened and swallowed\nhim up, he felt so mean, with their beaming eyes a looking at him, and\nbelieving him.  Well, sir, he turned the conversation as well as he\ncould, and he took 'em down Love Lane to the water-meadows, and there\nMaster Harry would have drowned himself in half a moment more, a getting\nout a water-lily for her,--but nothing daunted that boy.  Well, sir, they\nwas tired out.  All being so new and strange to 'em, they was tired as\ntired could be.  And they laid down on a bank of daisies, like the\nchildren in the wood, leastways meadows, and fell asleep.\n\nBoots don't know--perhaps I do,--but never mind, it don't signify either\nway--why it made a man fit to make a fool of himself to see them two\npretty babies a lying there in the clear still sunny day, not dreaming\nhalf so hard when they was asleep as they done when they was awake.  But,\nLord! when you come to think of yourself, you know, and what a game you\nhave been up to ever since you was in your own cradle, and what a poor\nsort of a chap you are, and how it's always either Yesterday with you, or\nelse To-morrow, and never To-day, that's where it is!\n\nWell, sir, they woke up at last, and then one thing was getting pretty\nclear to Boots, namely, that Mrs. Harry Walmerses, Junior's, temper was\non the move.  When Master Harry took her round the waist, she said he\n\"teased her so;\" and when he says, \"Norah, my young May Moon, your Harry\ntease you?\" she tells him, \"Yes; and I want to go home!\"\n\nA biled fowl, and baked bread-and-butter pudding, brought Mrs. Walmers up\na little; but Boots could have wished, he must privately own to me, to\nhave seen her more sensible of the woice of love, and less abandoning of\nherself to currants.  However, Master Harry, he kept up, and his noble\nheart was as fond as ever.  Mrs. Walmers turned very sleepy about dusk,\nand began to cry.  Therefore, Mrs. Walmers went off to bed as per\nyesterday; and Master Harry ditto repeated.\n\nAbout eleven or twelve at night comes back the Governor in a chaise,\nalong with Mr. Walmers and a elderly lady.  Mr. Walmers looks amused and\nvery serious, both at once, and says to our missis, \"We are much indebted\nto you, ma'am, for your kind care of our little children, which we can\nnever sufficiently acknowledge.  Pray, ma'am, where is my boy?\"  Our\nmissis says, \"Cobbs has the dear child in charge, sir.  Cobbs, show\nForty!\"  Then he says to Cobbs, \"Ah, Cobbs, I am glad to see _you_!  I\nunderstood you was here!\"  And Cobbs says, \"Yes, sir.  Your most\nobedient, sir.\"\n\nI may be surprised to hear Boots say it, perhaps; but Boots assures me\nthat his heart beat like a hammer, going up-stairs.  \"I beg your pardon,\nsir,\" says he, while unlocking the door; \"I hope you are not angry with\nMaster Harry.  For Master Harry is a fine boy, sir, and will do you\ncredit and honour.\"  And Boots signifies to me, that, if the fine boy's\nfather had contradicted him in the daring state of mind in which he then\nwas, he thinks he should have \"fetched him a crack,\" and taken the\nconsequences.\n\nBut Mr. Walmers only says, \"No, Cobbs.  No, my good fellow.  Thank you!\"\nAnd, the door being opened, goes in.\n\nBoots goes in too, holding the light, and he sees Mr. Walmers go up to\nthe bedside, bend gently down, and kiss the little sleeping face.  Then\nhe stands looking at it for a minute, looking wonderfully like it (they\ndo say he ran away with Mrs. Walmers); and then he gently shakes the\nlittle shoulder.\n\n\"Harry, my dear boy!  Harry!\"\n\nMaster Harry starts up and looks at him.  Looks at Cobbs too.  Such is\nthe honour of that mite, that he looks at Cobbs, to see whether he has\nbrought him into trouble.\n\n\"I am not angry, my child.  I only want you to dress yourself and come\nhome.\"\n\n\"Yes, pa.\"\n\nMaster Harry dresses himself quickly.  His breast begins to swell when he\nhas nearly finished, and it swells more and more as he stands, at last, a\nlooking at his father: his father standing a looking at him, the quiet\nimage of him.\n\n\"Please may I\"--the spirit of that little creatur, and the way he kept\nhis rising tears down!--\"please, dear pa--may I--kiss Norah before I go?\"\n\n\"You may, my child.\"\n\nSo he takes Master Harry in his hand, and Boots leads the way with the\ncandle, and they come to that other bedroom, where the elderly lady is\nseated by the bed, and poor little Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, is fast\nasleep.  There the father lifts the child up to the pillow, and he lays\nhis little face down for an instant by the little warm face of poor\nunconscious little Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, and gently draws it to\nhim,--a sight so touching to the chambermaids who are peeping through the\ndoor, that one of them calls out, \"It's a shame to part 'em!\"  But this\nchambermaid was always, as Boots informs me, a soft-hearted one.  Not\nthat there was any harm in that girl.  Far from it.\n\nFinally, Boots says, that's all about it.  Mr. Walmers drove away in the\nchaise, having hold of Master Harry's hand.  The elderly lady and Mrs.\nHarry Walmers, Junior, that was never to be (she married a Captain long\nafterwards, and died in India), went off next day.  In conclusion, Boots\nput it to me whether I hold with him in two opinions: firstly, that there\nare not many couples on their way to be married who are half as innocent\nof guile as those two children; secondly, that it would be a jolly good\nthing for a great many couples on their way to be married, if they could\nonly be stopped in time, and brought back separately.\n\n\n\n\nTHIRD BRANCH--THE BILL\n\n\nI had been snowed up a whole week.  The time had hung so lightly on my\nhands, that I should have been in great doubt of the fact but for a piece\nof documentary evidence that lay upon my table.\n\nThe road had been dug out of the snow on the previous day, and the\ndocument in question was my bill.  It testified emphatically to my having\neaten and drunk, and warmed myself, and slept among the sheltering\nbranches of the Holly-Tree, seven days and nights.\n\nI had yesterday allowed the road twenty-four hours to improve itself,\nfinding that I required that additional margin of time for the completion\nof my task.  I had ordered my Bill to be upon the table, and a chaise to\nbe at the door, \"at eight o'clock to-morrow evening.\"  It was eight\no'clock to-morrow evening when I buckled up my travelling writing-desk in\nits leather case, paid my Bill, and got on my warm coats and wrappers.  Of\ncourse, no time now remained for my travelling on to add a frozen tear to\nthe icicles which were doubtless hanging plentifully about the farmhouse\nwhere I had first seen Angela.  What I had to do was to get across to\nLiverpool by the shortest open road, there to meet my heavy baggage and\nembark.  It was quite enough to do, and I had not an hour too much time\nto do it in.\n\nI had taken leave of all my Holly-Tree friends--almost, for the time\nbeing, of my bashfulness too--and was standing for half a minute at the\nInn door watching the ostler as he took another turn at the cord which\ntied my portmanteau on the chaise, when I saw lamps coming down towards\nthe Holly-Tree.  The road was so padded with snow that no wheels were\naudible; but all of us who were standing at the Inn door saw lamps coming\non, and at a lively rate too, between the walls of snow that had been\nheaped up on either side of the track.  The chambermaid instantly divined\nhow the case stood, and called to the ostler, \"Tom, this is a Gretna\njob!\"  The ostler, knowing that her sex instinctively scented a marriage,\nor anything in that direction, rushed up the yard bawling, \"Next four\nout!\" and in a moment the whole establishment was thrown into commotion.\n\nI had a melancholy interest in seeing the happy man who loved and was\nbeloved; and therefore, instead of driving off at once, I remained at the\nInn door when the fugitives drove up.  A bright-eyed fellow, muffled in a\nmantle, jumped out so briskly that he almost overthrew me.  He turned to\napologise, and, by heaven, it was Edwin!\n\n\"Charley!\" said he, recoiling.  \"Gracious powers, what do you do here?\"\n\n\"Edwin,\" said I, recoiling, \"gracious powers, what do _you_ do here?\"  I\nstruck my forehead as I said it, and an insupportable blaze of light\nseemed to shoot before my eyes.\n\nHe hurried me into the little parlour (always kept with a slow fire in it\nand no poker), where posting company waited while their horses were\nputting to, and, shutting the door, said:\n\n\"Charley, forgive me!\"\n\n\"Edwin!\" I returned.  \"Was this well?  When I loved her so dearly!  When\nI had garnered up my heart so long!\"  I could say no more.\n\nHe was shocked when he saw how moved I was, and made the cruel\nobservation, that he had not thought I should have taken it so much to\nheart.\n\nI looked at him.  I reproached him no more.  But I looked at him.  \"My\ndear, dear Charley,\" said he, \"don't think ill of me, I beseech you!  I\nknow you have a right to my utmost confidence, and, believe me, you have\never had it until now.  I abhor secrecy.  Its meanness is intolerable to\nme.  But I and my dear girl have observed it for your sake.\"\n\nHe and his dear girl!  It steeled me.\n\n\"You have observed it for my sake, sir?\" said I, wondering how his frank\nface could face it out so.\n\n\"Yes!--and Angela's,\" said he.\n\nI found the room reeling round in an uncertain way, like a labouring,\nhumming-top.  \"Explain yourself,\" said I, holding on by one hand to an\narm-chair.\n\n\"Dear old darling Charley!\" returned Edwin, in his cordial manner,\n\"consider!  When you were going on so happily with Angela, why should I\ncompromise you with the old gentleman by making you a party to our\nengagement, and (after he had declined my proposals) to our secret\nintention?  Surely it was better that you should be able honourably to\nsay, 'He never took counsel with me, never told me, never breathed a word\nof it.'  If Angela suspected it, and showed me all the favour and support\nshe could--God bless her for a precious creature and a priceless wife!--I\ncouldn't help that.  Neither I nor Emmeline ever told her, any more than\nwe told you.  And for the same good reason, Charley; trust me, for the\nsame good reason, and no other upon earth!\"\n\nEmmeline was Angela's cousin.  Lived with her.  Had been brought up with\nher.  Was her father's ward.  Had property.\n\n\"Emmeline is in the chaise, my dear Edwin!\" said I, embracing him with\nthe greatest affection.\n\n\"My good fellow!\" said he, \"do you suppose I should be going to Gretna\nGreen without her?\"\n\nI ran out with Edwin, I opened the chaise door, I took Emmeline in my\narms, I folded her to my heart.  She was wrapped in soft white fur, like\nthe snowy landscape: but was warm, and young, and lovely.  I put their\nleaders to with my own hands, I gave the boys a five-pound note apiece, I\ncheered them as they drove away, I drove the other way myself as hard as\nI could pelt.\n\nI never went to Liverpool, I never went to America, I went straight back\nto London, and I married Angela.  I have never until this time, even to\nher, disclosed the secret of my character, and the mistrust and the\nmistaken journey into which it led me.  When she, and they, and our eight\nchildren and their seven--I mean Edwin and Emmeline's, whose oldest girl\nis old enough now to wear white for herself, and to look very like her\nmother in it--come to read these pages, as of course they will, I shall\nhardly fail to be found out at last.  Never mind!  I can bear it.  I\nbegan at the Holly-Tree, by idle accident, to associate the Christmas\ntime of year with human interest, and with some inquiry into, and some\ncare for, the lives of those by whom I find myself surrounded.  I hope\nthat I am none the worse for it, and that no one near me or afar off is\nthe worse for it.  And I say, May the green Holly-Tree flourish, striking\nits roots deep into our English ground, and having its germinating\nqualities carried by the birds of Heaven all over the world!\n\n\n"}
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{"1400":"\n\n\n\n\nGREAT EXPECTATIONS\n\n[1867 Edition]\n\nby Charles Dickens\n\n\n[Project Gutenberg Editor's Note: There is also another version of\nthis work etext98/grexp10.txt scanned from a different edition]\n\n\n\n\nChapter I\n\nMy father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my\ninfant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit\nthan Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.\n\nI give Pirrip as my father's family name, on the authority of his\ntombstone and my sister,--Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith.\nAs I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness\nof either of them (for their days were long before the days of\nphotographs), my first fancies regarding what they were like were\nunreasonably derived from their tombstones. The shape of the letters on\nmy father's, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man,\nwith curly black hair. From the character and turn of the inscription,\n\"Also Georgiana Wife of the Above,\" I drew a childish conclusion that\nmy mother was freckled and sickly. To five little stone lozenges, each\nabout a foot and a half long, which were arranged in a neat row beside\ntheir grave, and were sacred to the memory of five little brothers of\nmine,--who gave up trying to get a living, exceedingly early in\nthat universal struggle,--I am indebted for a belief I religiously\nentertained that they had all been born on their backs with their hands\nin their trousers-pockets, and had never taken them out in this state of\nexistence.\n\nOurs was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river\nwound, twenty miles of the sea. My first most vivid and broad impression\nof the identity of things seems to me to have been gained on a memorable\nraw afternoon towards evening. At such a time I found out for certain\nthat this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard; and\nthat Philip Pirrip, late of this parish, and also Georgiana wife of the\nabove, were dead and buried; and that Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham,\nTobias, and Roger, infant children of the aforesaid, were also dead\nand buried; and that the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard,\nintersected with dikes and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle\nfeeding on it, was the marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond\nwas the river; and that the distant savage lair from which the wind was\nrushing was the sea; and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid\nof it all and beginning to cry, was Pip.\n\n\"Hold your noise!\" cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from\namong the graves at the side of the church porch. \"Keep still, you\nlittle devil, or I'll cut your throat!\"\n\nA fearful man, all in coarse gray, with a great iron on his leg. A man\nwith no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his\nhead. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and\nlamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by\nbriars; who limped, and shivered, and glared, and growled; and whose\nteeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin.\n\n\"Oh! Don't cut my throat, sir,\" I pleaded in terror. \"Pray don't do it,\nsir.\"\n\n\"Tell us your name!\" said the man. \"Quick!\"\n\n\"Pip, sir.\"\n\n\"Once more,\" said the man, staring at me. \"Give it mouth!\"\n\n\"Pip. Pip, sir.\"\n\n\"Show us where you live,\" said the man. \"Pint out the place!\"\n\nI pointed to where our village lay, on the flat in-shore among the\nalder-trees and pollards, a mile or more from the church.\n\nThe man, after looking at me for a moment, turned me upside down, and\nemptied my pockets. There was nothing in them but a piece of bread. When\nthe church came to itself,--for he was so sudden and strong that he\nmade it go head over heels before me, and I saw the steeple under my\nfeet,--when the church came to itself, I say, I was seated on a high\ntombstone, trembling while he ate the bread ravenously.\n\n\"You young dog,\" said the man, licking his lips, \"what fat cheeks you\nha' got.\"\n\nI believe they were fat, though I was at that time undersized for my\nyears, and not strong.\n\n\"Darn me if I couldn't eat em,\" said the man, with a threatening shake\nof his head, \"and if I han't half a mind to't!\"\n\nI earnestly expressed my hope that he wouldn't, and held tighter to\nthe tombstone on which he had put me; partly, to keep myself upon it;\npartly, to keep myself from crying.\n\n\"Now lookee here!\" said the man. \"Where's your mother?\"\n\n\"There, sir!\" said I.\n\nHe started, made a short run, and stopped and looked over his shoulder.\n\n\"There, sir!\" I timidly explained. \"Also Georgiana. That's my mother.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said he, coming back. \"And is that your father alonger your\nmother?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" said I; \"him too; late of this parish.\"\n\n\"Ha!\" he muttered then, considering. \"Who d'ye live with,--supposin'\nyou're kindly let to live, which I han't made up my mind about?\"\n\n\"My sister, sir,--Mrs. Joe Gargery,--wife of Joe Gargery, the\nblacksmith, sir.\"\n\n\"Blacksmith, eh?\" said he. And looked down at his leg.\n\nAfter darkly looking at his leg and me several times, he came closer\nto my tombstone, took me by both arms, and tilted me back as far as he\ncould hold me; so that his eyes looked most powerfully down into mine,\nand mine looked most helplessly up into his.\n\n\"Now lookee here,\" he said, \"the question being whether you're to be let\nto live. You know what a file is?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"And you know what wittles is?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nAfter each question he tilted me over a little more, so as to give me a\ngreater sense of helplessness and danger.\n\n\"You get me a file.\" He tilted me again. \"And you get me wittles.\" He\ntilted me again. \"You bring 'em both to me.\" He tilted me again. \"Or\nI'll have your heart and liver out.\" He tilted me again.\n\nI was dreadfully frightened, and so giddy that I clung to him with both\nhands, and said, \"If you would kindly please to let me keep upright,\nsir, perhaps I shouldn't be sick, and perhaps I could attend more.\"\n\nHe gave me a most tremendous dip and roll, so that the church jumped\nover its own weathercock. Then, he held me by the arms, in an upright\nposition on the top of the stone, and went on in these fearful terms:--\n\n\"You bring me, to-morrow morning early, that file and them wittles. You\nbring the lot to me, at that old Battery over yonder. You do it, and you\nnever dare to say a word or dare to make a sign concerning your having\nseen such a person as me, or any person sumever, and you shall be let to\nlive. You fail, or you go from my words in any partickler, no matter how\nsmall it is, and your heart and your liver shall be tore out, roasted,\nand ate. Now, I ain't alone, as you may think I am. There's a young man\nhid with me, in comparison with which young man I am a Angel. That young\nman hears the words I speak. That young man has a secret way pecooliar\nto himself, of getting at a boy, and at his heart, and at his liver. It\nis in wain for a boy to attempt to hide himself from that young man. A\nboy may lock his door, may be warm in bed, may tuck himself up, may draw\nthe clothes over his head, may think himself comfortable and safe, but\nthat young man will softly creep and creep his way to him and tear him\nopen. I am a keeping that young man from harming of you at the present\nmoment, with great difficulty. I find it wery hard to hold that young\nman off of your inside. Now, what do you say?\"\n\nI said that I would get him the file, and I would get him what broken\nbits of food I could, and I would come to him at the Battery, early in\nthe morning.\n\n\"Say Lord strike you dead if you don't!\" said the man.\n\nI said so, and he took me down.\n\n\"Now,\" he pursued, \"you remember what you've undertook, and you remember\nthat young man, and you get home!\"\n\n\"Goo-good night, sir,\" I faltered.\n\n\"Much of that!\" said he, glancing about him over the cold wet flat. \"I\nwish I was a frog. Or a eel!\"\n\nAt the same time, he hugged his shuddering body in both his\narms,--clasping himself, as if to hold himself together,--and limped\ntowards the low church wall. As I saw him go, picking his way among the\nnettles, and among the brambles that bound the green mounds, he looked\nin my young eyes as if he were eluding the hands of the dead people,\nstretching up cautiously out of their graves, to get a twist upon his\nankle and pull him in.\n\nWhen he came to the low church wall, he got over it, like a man whose\nlegs were numbed and stiff, and then turned round to look for me. When I\nsaw him turning, I set my face towards home, and made the best use of\nmy legs. But presently I looked over my shoulder, and saw him going on\nagain towards the river, still hugging himself in both arms, and picking\nhis way with his sore feet among the great stones dropped into the\nmarshes here and there, for stepping-places when the rains were heavy or\nthe tide was in.\n\nThe marshes were just a long black horizontal line then, as I stopped\nto look after him; and the river was just another horizontal line, not\nnearly so broad nor yet so black; and the sky was just a row of long\nangry red lines and dense black lines intermixed. On the edge of the\nriver I could faintly make out the only two black things in all the\nprospect that seemed to be standing upright; one of these was the beacon\nby which the sailors steered,--like an unhooped cask upon a pole,--an\nugly thing when you were near it; the other, a gibbet, with some chains\nhanging to it which had once held a pirate. The man was limping on\ntowards this latter, as if he were the pirate come to life, and come\ndown, and going back to hook himself up again. It gave me a terrible\nturn when I thought so; and as I saw the cattle lifting their heads to\ngaze after him, I wondered whether they thought so too. I looked all\nround for the horrible young man, and could see no signs of him. But now\nI was frightened again, and ran home without stopping.\n\n\n\n\nChapter II\n\nMy sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older than I,\nand had established a great reputation with herself and the neighbors\nbecause she had brought me up \"by hand.\" Having at that time to find out\nfor myself what the expression meant, and knowing her to have a hard and\nheavy hand, and to be much in the habit of laying it upon her husband as\nwell as upon me, I supposed that Joe Gargery and I were both brought up\nby hand.\n\nShe was not a good-looking woman, my sister; and I had a general\nimpression that she must have made Joe Gargery marry her by hand. Joe\nwas a fair man, with curls of flaxen hair on each side of his smooth\nface, and with eyes of such a very undecided blue that they seemed\nto have somehow got mixed with their own whites. He was a mild,\ngood-natured, sweet-tempered, easy-going, foolish, dear fellow,--a sort\nof Hercules in strength, and also in weakness.\n\nMy sister, Mrs. Joe, with black hair and eyes, had such a prevailing\nredness of skin that I sometimes used to wonder whether it was possible\nshe washed herself with a nutmeg-grater instead of soap. She was tall\nand bony, and almost always wore a coarse apron, fastened over her\nfigure behind with two loops, and having a square impregnable bib in\nfront, that was stuck full of pins and needles. She made it a powerful\nmerit in herself, and a strong reproach against Joe, that she wore this\napron so much. Though I really see no reason why she should have worn it\nat all; or why, if she did wear it at all, she should not have taken it\noff, every day of her life.\n\nJoe's forge adjoined our house, which was a wooden house, as many of the\ndwellings in our country were,--most of them, at that time. When I ran\nhome from the churchyard, the forge was shut up, and Joe was sitting\nalone in the kitchen. Joe and I being fellow-sufferers, and having\nconfidences as such, Joe imparted a confidence to me, the moment I\nraised the latch of the door and peeped in at him opposite to it,\nsitting in the chimney corner.\n\n\"Mrs. Joe has been out a dozen times, looking for you, Pip. And she's\nout now, making it a baker's dozen.\"\n\n\"Is she?\"\n\n\"Yes, Pip,\" said Joe; \"and what's worse, she's got Tickler with her.\"\n\nAt this dismal intelligence, I twisted the only button on my waistcoat\nround and round, and looked in great depression at the fire. Tickler\nwas a wax-ended piece of cane, worn smooth by collision with my tickled\nframe.\n\n\"She sot down,\" said Joe, \"and she got up, and she made a grab at\nTickler, and she Ram-paged out. That's what she did,\" said Joe, slowly\nclearing the fire between the lower bars with the poker, and looking at\nit; \"she Ram-paged out, Pip.\"\n\n\"Has she been gone long, Joe?\" I always treated him as a larger species\nof child, and as no more than my equal.\n\n\"Well,\" said Joe, glancing up at the Dutch clock, \"she's been on the\nRam-page, this last spell, about five minutes, Pip. She's a coming! Get\nbehind the door, old chap, and have the jack-towel betwixt you.\"\n\nI took the advice. My sister, Mrs. Joe, throwing the door wide open,\nand finding an obstruction behind it, immediately divined the cause, and\napplied Tickler to its further investigation. She concluded by throwing\nme--I often served as a connubial missile--at Joe, who, glad to get hold\nof me on any terms, passed me on into the chimney and quietly fenced me\nup there with his great leg.\n\n\"Where have you been, you young monkey?\" said Mrs. Joe, stamping her\nfoot. \"Tell me directly what you've been doing to wear me away with fret\nand fright and worrit, or I'd have you out of that corner if you was\nfifty Pips, and he was five hundred Gargerys.\"\n\n\"I have only been to the churchyard,\" said I, from my stool, crying and\nrubbing myself.\n\n\"Churchyard!\" repeated my sister. \"If it warn't for me you'd have been\nto the churchyard long ago, and stayed there. Who brought you up by\nhand?\"\n\n\"You did,\" said I.\n\n\"And why did I do it, I should like to know?\" exclaimed my sister.\n\nI whimpered, \"I don't know.\"\n\n\"I don't!\" said my sister. \"I'd never do it again! I know that. I may\ntruly say I've never had this apron of mine off since born you were.\nIt's bad enough to be a blacksmith's wife (and him a Gargery) without\nbeing your mother.\"\n\nMy thoughts strayed from that question as I looked disconsolately at\nthe fire. For the fugitive out on the marshes with the ironed leg, the\nmysterious young man, the file, the food, and the dreadful pledge I was\nunder to commit a larceny on those sheltering premises, rose before me\nin the avenging coals.\n\n\"Hah!\" said Mrs. Joe, restoring Tickler to his station. \"Churchyard,\nindeed! You may well say churchyard, you two.\" One of us, by the by, had\nnot said it at all. \"You'll drive me to the churchyard betwixt you, one\nof these days, and O, a pr-r-recious pair you'd be without me!\"\n\nAs she applied herself to set the tea-things, Joe peeped down at me\nover his leg, as if he were mentally casting me and himself up, and\ncalculating what kind of pair we practically should make, under the\ngrievous circumstances foreshadowed. After that, he sat feeling his\nright-side flaxen curls and whisker, and following Mrs. Joe about with\nhis blue eyes, as his manner always was at squally times.\n\nMy sister had a trenchant way of cutting our bread and butter for us,\nthat never varied. First, with her left hand she jammed the loaf hard\nand fast against her bib,--where it sometimes got a pin into it, and\nsometimes a needle, which we afterwards got into our mouths. Then she\ntook some butter (not too much) on a knife and spread it on the loaf, in\nan apothecary kind of way, as if she were making a plaster,--using both\nsides of the knife with a slapping dexterity, and trimming and moulding\nthe butter off round the crust. Then, she gave the knife a final smart\nwipe on the edge of the plaster, and then sawed a very thick round off\nthe loaf: which she finally, before separating from the loaf, hewed into\ntwo halves, of which Joe got one, and I the other.\n\nOn the present occasion, though I was hungry, I dared not eat my\nslice. I felt that I must have something in reserve for my dreadful\nacquaintance, and his ally the still more dreadful young man. I knew\nMrs. Joe's housekeeping to be of the strictest kind, and that my\nlarcenous researches might find nothing available in the safe. Therefore\nI resolved to put my hunk of bread and butter down the leg of my\ntrousers.\n\nThe effort of resolution necessary to the achievement of this purpose I\nfound to be quite awful. It was as if I had to make up my mind to leap\nfrom the top of a high house, or plunge into a great depth of water.\nAnd it was made the more difficult by the unconscious Joe. In\nour already-mentioned freemasonry as fellow-sufferers, and in his\ngood-natured companionship with me, it was our evening habit to compare\nthe way we bit through our slices, by silently holding them up to each\nother's admiration now and then,--which stimulated us to new exertions.\nTo-night, Joe several times invited me, by the display of his fast\ndiminishing slice, to enter upon our usual friendly competition; but\nhe found me, each time, with my yellow mug of tea on one knee, and\nmy untouched bread and butter on the other. At last, I desperately\nconsidered that the thing I contemplated must be done, and that it\nhad best be done in the least improbable manner consistent with the\ncircumstances. I took advantage of a moment when Joe had just looked at\nme, and got my bread and butter down my leg.\n\nJoe was evidently made uncomfortable by what he supposed to be my loss\nof appetite, and took a thoughtful bite out of his slice, which he\ndidn't seem to enjoy. He turned it about in his mouth much longer than\nusual, pondering over it a good deal, and after all gulped it down like\na pill. He was about to take another bite, and had just got his head on\none side for a good purchase on it, when his eye fell on me, and he saw\nthat my bread and butter was gone.\n\nThe wonder and consternation with which Joe stopped on the threshold\nof his bite and stared at me, were too evident to escape my sister's\nobservation.\n\n\"What's the matter now?\" said she, smartly, as she put down her cup.\n\n\"I say, you know!\" muttered Joe, shaking his head at me in very serious\nremonstrance. \"Pip, old chap! You'll do yourself a mischief. It'll stick\nsomewhere. You can't have chawed it, Pip.\"\n\n\"What's the matter now?\" repeated my sister, more sharply than before.\n\n\"If you can cough any trifle on it up, Pip, I'd recommend you to do it,\"\nsaid Joe, all aghast. \"Manners is manners, but still your elth's your\nelth.\"\n\nBy this time, my sister was quite desperate, so she pounced on Joe,\nand, taking him by the two whiskers, knocked his head for a little while\nagainst the wall behind him, while I sat in the corner, looking guiltily\non.\n\n\"Now, perhaps you'll mention what's the matter,\" said my sister, out of\nbreath, \"you staring great stuck pig.\"\n\nJoe looked at her in a helpless way, then took a helpless bite, and\nlooked at me again.\n\n\"You know, Pip,\" said Joe, solemnly, with his last bite in his cheek,\nand speaking in a confidential voice, as if we two were quite alone,\n\"you and me is always friends, and I'd be the last to tell upon you,\nany time. But such a--\" he moved his chair and looked about the floor\nbetween us, and then again at me--\"such a most oncommon Bolt as that!\"\n\n\"Been bolting his food, has he?\" cried my sister.\n\n\"You know, old chap,\" said Joe, looking at me, and not at Mrs. Joe,\nwith his bite still in his cheek, \"I Bolted, myself, when I was your\nage--frequent--and as a boy I've been among a many Bolters; but I never\nsee your Bolting equal yet, Pip, and it's a mercy you ain't Bolted\ndead.\"\n\nMy sister made a dive at me, and fished me up by the hair, saying\nnothing more than the awful words, \"You come along and be dosed.\"\n\nSome medical beast had revived Tar-water in those days as a fine\nmedicine, and Mrs. Joe always kept a supply of it in the cupboard;\nhaving a belief in its virtues correspondent to its nastiness. At the\nbest of times, so much of this elixir was administered to me as a choice\nrestorative, that I was conscious of going about, smelling like a new\nfence. On this particular evening the urgency of my case demanded a\npint of this mixture, which was poured down my throat, for my greater\ncomfort, while Mrs. Joe held my head under her arm, as a boot would\nbe held in a bootjack. Joe got off with half a pint; but was made to\nswallow that (much to his disturbance, as he sat slowly munching and\nmeditating before the fire), \"because he had had a turn.\" Judging from\nmyself, I should say he certainly had a turn afterwards, if he had had\nnone before.\n\nConscience is a dreadful thing when it accuses man or boy; but when, in\nthe case of a boy, that secret burden co-operates with another secret\nburden down the leg of his trousers, it is (as I can testify) a great\npunishment. The guilty knowledge that I was going to rob Mrs. Joe--I\nnever thought I was going to rob Joe, for I never thought of any of the\nhousekeeping property as his--united to the necessity of always keeping\none hand on my bread and butter as I sat, or when I was ordered about\nthe kitchen on any small errand, almost drove me out of my mind. Then,\nas the marsh winds made the fire glow and flare, I thought I heard the\nvoice outside, of the man with the iron on his leg who had sworn me to\nsecrecy, declaring that he couldn't and wouldn't starve until to-morrow,\nbut must be fed now. At other times, I thought, What if the young man\nwho was with so much difficulty restrained from imbruing his hands in me\nshould yield to a constitutional impatience, or should mistake the time,\nand should think himself accredited to my heart and liver to-night,\ninstead of to-morrow! If ever anybody's hair stood on end with terror,\nmine must have done so then. But, perhaps, nobody's ever did?\n\nIt was Christmas Eve, and I had to stir the pudding for next day, with\na copper-stick, from seven to eight by the Dutch clock. I tried it with\nthe load upon my leg (and that made me think afresh of the man with the\nload on HIS leg), and found the tendency of exercise to bring the bread\nand butter out at my ankle, quite unmanageable. Happily I slipped away,\nand deposited that part of my conscience in my garret bedroom.\n\n\"Hark!\" said I, when I had done my stirring, and was taking a final warm\nin the chimney corner before being sent up to bed; \"was that great guns,\nJoe?\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said Joe. \"There's another conwict off.\"\n\n\"What does that mean, Joe?\" said I.\n\nMrs. Joe, who always took explanations upon herself, said, snappishly,\n\"Escaped. Escaped.\" Administering the definition like Tar-water.\n\nWhile Mrs. Joe sat with her head bending over her needlework, I put my\nmouth into the forms of saying to Joe, \"What's a convict?\" Joe put his\nmouth into the forms of returning such a highly elaborate answer, that I\ncould make out nothing of it but the single word \"Pip.\"\n\n\"There was a conwict off last night,\" said Joe, aloud, \"after\nsunset-gun. And they fired warning of him. And now it appears they're\nfiring warning of another.\"\n\n\"Who's firing?\" said I.\n\n\"Drat that boy,\" interposed my sister, frowning at me over her work,\n\"what a questioner he is. Ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies.\"\n\nIt was not very polite to herself, I thought, to imply that I should be\ntold lies by her even if I did ask questions. But she never was polite\nunless there was company.\n\nAt this point Joe greatly augmented my curiosity by taking the utmost\npains to open his mouth very wide, and to put it into the form of a word\nthat looked to me like \"sulks.\" Therefore, I naturally pointed to Mrs.\nJoe, and put my mouth into the form of saying, \"her?\" But Joe wouldn't\nhear of that, at all, and again opened his mouth very wide, and shook\nthe form of a most emphatic word out of it. But I could make nothing of\nthe word.\n\n\"Mrs. Joe,\" said I, as a last resort, \"I should like to know--if you\nwouldn't much mind--where the firing comes from?\"\n\n\"Lord bless the boy!\" exclaimed my sister, as if she didn't quite mean\nthat but rather the contrary. \"From the Hulks!\"\n\n\"Oh-h!\" said I, looking at Joe. \"Hulks!\"\n\nJoe gave a reproachful cough, as much as to say, \"Well, I told you so.\"\n\n\"And please, what's Hulks?\" said I.\n\n\"That's the way with this boy!\" exclaimed my sister, pointing me out\nwith her needle and thread, and shaking her head at me. \"Answer him one\nquestion, and he'll ask you a dozen directly. Hulks are prison-ships,\nright 'cross th' meshes.\" We always used that name for marshes, in our\ncountry.\n\n\"I wonder who's put into prison-ships, and why they're put there?\" said\nI, in a general way, and with quiet desperation.\n\nIt was too much for Mrs. Joe, who immediately rose. \"I tell you what,\nyoung fellow,\" said she, \"I didn't bring you up by hand to badger\npeople's lives out. It would be blame to me and not praise, if I had.\nPeople are put in the Hulks because they murder, and because they rob,\nand forge, and do all sorts of bad; and they always begin by asking\nquestions. Now, you get along to bed!\"\n\nI was never allowed a candle to light me to bed, and, as I went upstairs\nin the dark, with my head tingling,--from Mrs. Joe's thimble\nhaving played the tambourine upon it, to accompany her last words,--I\nfelt fearfully sensible of the great convenience that the hulks were\nhandy for me. I was clearly on my way there. I had begun by asking\nquestions, and I was going to rob Mrs. Joe.\n\nSince that time, which is far enough away now, I have often thought\nthat few people know what secrecy there is in the young under terror.\nNo matter how unreasonable the terror, so that it be terror. I was in\nmortal terror of the young man who wanted my heart and liver; I was\nin mortal terror of my interlocutor with the iron leg; I was in mortal\nterror of myself, from whom an awful promise had been extracted; I had\nno hope of deliverance through my all-powerful sister, who repulsed\nme at every turn; I am afraid to think of what I might have done on\nrequirement, in the secrecy of my terror.\n\nIf I slept at all that night, it was only to imagine myself drifting\ndown the river on a strong spring-tide, to the Hulks; a ghostly\npirate calling out to me through a speaking-trumpet, as I passed the\ngibbet-station, that I had better come ashore and be hanged there at\nonce, and not put it off. I was afraid to sleep, even if I had been\ninclined, for I knew that at the first faint dawn of morning I must rob\nthe pantry. There was no doing it in the night, for there was no getting\na light by easy friction then; to have got one I must have struck it out\nof flint and steel, and have made a noise like the very pirate himself\nrattling his chains.\n\nAs soon as the great black velvet pall outside my little window was shot\nwith gray, I got up and went downstairs; every board upon the way, and\nevery crack in every board calling after me, \"Stop thief!\" and \"Get up,\nMrs. Joe!\" In the pantry, which was far more abundantly supplied than\nusual, owing to the season, I was very much alarmed by a hare hanging\nup by the heels, whom I rather thought I caught, when my back was half\nturned, winking. I had no time for verification, no time for selection,\nno time for anything, for I had no time to spare. I stole some bread,\nsome rind of cheese, about half a jar of mincemeat (which I tied up in\nmy pocket-handkerchief with my last night's slice), some brandy from a\nstone bottle (which I decanted into a glass bottle I had secretly used\nfor making that intoxicating fluid, Spanish-liquorice-water, up in my\nroom: diluting the stone bottle from a jug in the kitchen cupboard),\na meat bone with very little on it, and a beautiful round compact pork\npie. I was nearly going away without the pie, but I was tempted to mount\nupon a shelf, to look what it was that was put away so carefully in a\ncovered earthenware dish in a corner, and I found it was the pie, and\nI took it in the hope that it was not intended for early use, and would\nnot be missed for some time.\n\nThere was a door in the kitchen, communicating with the forge; I\nunlocked and unbolted that door, and got a file from among Joe's tools.\nThen I put the fastenings as I had found them, opened the door at which\nI had entered when I ran home last night, shut it, and ran for the misty\nmarshes.\n\n\n\n\nChapter III\n\nIt was a rimy morning, and very damp. I had seen the damp lying on the\noutside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all\nnight, and using the window for a pocket-handkerchief. Now, I saw the\ndamp lying on the bare hedges and spare grass, like a coarser sort of\nspiders' webs; hanging itself from twig to twig and blade to blade. On\nevery rail and gate, wet lay clammy, and the marsh mist was so thick,\nthat the wooden finger on the post directing people to our village--a\ndirection which they never accepted, for they never came there--was\ninvisible to me until I was quite close under it. Then, as I looked up\nat it, while it dripped, it seemed to my oppressed conscience like a\nphantom devoting me to the Hulks.\n\nThe mist was heavier yet when I got out upon the marshes, so that\ninstead of my running at everything, everything seemed to run at me.\nThis was very disagreeable to a guilty mind. The gates and dikes and\nbanks came bursting at me through the mist, as if they cried as plainly\nas could be, \"A boy with somebody else's pork pie! Stop him!\" The\ncattle came upon me with like suddenness, staring out of their eyes,\nand steaming out of their nostrils, \"Halloa, young thief!\" One black\nox, with a white cravat on,--who even had to my awakened conscience\nsomething of a clerical air,--fixed me so obstinately with his eyes,\nand moved his blunt head round in such an accusatory manner as I moved\nround, that I blubbered out to him, \"I couldn't help it, sir! It wasn't\nfor myself I took it!\" Upon which he put down his head, blew a cloud of\nsmoke out of his nose, and vanished with a kick-up of his hind-legs and\na flourish of his tail.\n\nAll this time, I was getting on towards the river; but however fast I\nwent, I couldn't warm my feet, to which the damp cold seemed riveted, as\nthe iron was riveted to the leg of the man I was running to meet. I knew\nmy way to the Battery, pretty straight, for I had been down there on a\nSunday with Joe, and Joe, sitting on an old gun, had told me that when\nI was 'prentice to him, regularly bound, we would have such Larks there!\nHowever, in the confusion of the mist, I found myself at last too far to\nthe right, and consequently had to try back along the river-side, on the\nbank of loose stones above the mud and the stakes that staked the tide\nout. Making my way along here with all despatch, I had just crossed a\nditch which I knew to be very near the Battery, and had just scrambled\nup the mound beyond the ditch, when I saw the man sitting before me.\nHis back was towards me, and he had his arms folded, and was nodding\nforward, heavy with sleep.\n\nI thought he would be more glad if I came upon him with his breakfast,\nin that unexpected manner, so I went forward softly and touched him on\nthe shoulder. He instantly jumped up, and it was not the same man, but\nanother man!\n\nAnd yet this man was dressed in coarse gray, too, and had a great iron\non his leg, and was lame, and hoarse, and cold, and was everything that\nthe other man was; except that he had not the same face, and had a flat\nbroad-brimmed low-crowned felt hat on. All this I saw in a moment, for\nI had only a moment to see it in: he swore an oath at me, made a hit at\nme,--it was a round weak blow that missed me and almost knocked himself\ndown, for it made him stumble,--and then he ran into the mist, stumbling\ntwice as he went, and I lost him.\n\n\"It's the young man!\" I thought, feeling my heart shoot as I identified\nhim. I dare say I should have felt a pain in my liver, too, if I had\nknown where it was.\n\nI was soon at the Battery after that, and there was the right\nman,--hugging himself and limping to and fro, as if he had never all\nnight left off hugging and limping,--waiting for me. He was awfully\ncold, to be sure. I half expected to see him drop down before my face\nand die of deadly cold. His eyes looked so awfully hungry too, that when\nI handed him the file and he laid it down on the grass, it occurred to\nme he would have tried to eat it, if he had not seen my bundle. He did\nnot turn me upside down this time to get at what I had, but left me\nright side upwards while I opened the bundle and emptied my pockets.\n\n\"What's in the bottle, boy?\" said he.\n\n\"Brandy,\" said I.\n\nHe was already handing mincemeat down his throat in the most curious\nmanner,--more like a man who was putting it away somewhere in a violent\nhurry, than a man who was eating it,--but he left off to take some of\nthe liquor. He shivered all the while so violently, that it was quite\nas much as he could do to keep the neck of the bottle between his teeth,\nwithout biting it off.\n\n\"I think you have got the ague,\" said I.\n\n\"I'm much of your opinion, boy,\" said he.\n\n\"It's bad about here,\" I told him. \"You've been lying out on the meshes,\nand they're dreadful aguish. Rheumatic too.\"\n\n\"I'll eat my breakfast afore they're the death of me,\" said he. \"I'd do\nthat, if I was going to be strung up to that there gallows as there is\nover there, directly afterwards. I'll beat the shivers so far, I'll bet\nyou.\"\n\nHe was gobbling mincemeat, meatbone, bread, cheese, and pork pie, all\nat once: staring distrustfully while he did so at the mist all round\nus, and often stopping--even stopping his jaws--to listen. Some real or\nfancied sound, some clink upon the river or breathing of beast upon the\nmarsh, now gave him a start, and he said, suddenly,--\n\n\"You're not a deceiving imp? You brought no one with you?\"\n\n\"No, sir! No!\"\n\n\"Nor giv' no one the office to follow you?\"\n\n\"No!\"\n\n\"Well,\" said he, \"I believe you. You'd be but a fierce young hound\nindeed, if at your time of life you could help to hunt a wretched\nwarmint hunted as near death and dunghill as this poor wretched warmint\nis!\"\n\nSomething clicked in his throat as if he had works in him like a clock,\nand was going to strike. And he smeared his ragged rough sleeve over his\neyes.\n\nPitying his desolation, and watching him as he gradually settled down\nupon the pie, I made bold to say, \"I am glad you enjoy it.\"\n\n\"Did you speak?\"\n\n\"I said I was glad you enjoyed it.\"\n\n\"Thankee, my boy. I do.\"\n\nI had often watched a large dog of ours eating his food; and I now\nnoticed a decided similarity between the dog's way of eating, and the\nman's. The man took strong sharp sudden bites, just like the dog. He\nswallowed, or rather snapped up, every mouthful, too soon and too fast;\nand he looked sideways here and there while he ate, as if he thought\nthere was danger in every direction of somebody's coming to take the pie\naway. He was altogether too unsettled in his mind over it, to appreciate\nit comfortably I thought, or to have anybody to dine with him, without\nmaking a chop with his jaws at the visitor. In all of which particulars\nhe was very like the dog.\n\n\"I am afraid you won't leave any of it for him,\" said I, timidly; after\na silence during which I had hesitated as to the politeness of making\nthe remark. \"There's no more to be got where that came from.\" It was the\ncertainty of this fact that impelled me to offer the hint.\n\n\"Leave any for him? Who's him?\" said my friend, stopping in his\ncrunching of pie-crust.\n\n\"The young man. That you spoke of. That was hid with you.\"\n\n\"Oh ah!\" he returned, with something like a gruff laugh. \"Him? Yes, yes!\nHe don't want no wittles.\"\n\n\"I thought he looked as if he did,\" said I.\n\nThe man stopped eating, and regarded me with the keenest scrutiny and\nthe greatest surprise.\n\n\"Looked? When?\"\n\n\"Just now.\"\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"Yonder,\" said I, pointing; \"over there, where I found him nodding\nasleep, and thought it was you.\"\n\nHe held me by the collar and stared at me so, that I began to think his\nfirst idea about cutting my throat had revived.\n\n\"Dressed like you, you know, only with a hat,\" I explained, trembling;\n\"and--and\"--I was very anxious to put this delicately--\"and with--the\nsame reason for wanting to borrow a file. Didn't you hear the cannon\nlast night?\"\n\n\"Then there was firing!\" he said to himself.\n\n\"I wonder you shouldn't have been sure of that,\" I returned, \"for\nwe heard it up at home, and that's farther away, and we were shut in\nbesides.\"\n\n\"Why, see now!\" said he. \"When a man's alone on these flats, with a\nlight head and a light stomach, perishing of cold and want, he hears\nnothin' all night, but guns firing, and voices calling. Hears? He sees\nthe soldiers, with their red coats lighted up by the torches carried\nafore, closing in round him. Hears his number called, hears himself\nchallenged, hears the rattle of the muskets, hears the orders 'Make\nready! Present! Cover him steady, men!' and is laid hands on--and\nthere's nothin'! Why, if I see one pursuing party last night--coming up\nin order, Damn 'em, with their tramp, tramp--I see a hundred. And as to\nfiring! Why, I see the mist shake with the cannon, arter it was broad\nday,--But this man\"; he had said all the rest, as if he had forgotten my\nbeing there; \"did you notice anything in him?\"\n\n\"He had a badly bruised face,\" said I, recalling what I hardly knew I\nknew.\n\n\"Not here?\" exclaimed the man, striking his left cheek mercilessly, with\nthe flat of his hand.\n\n\"Yes, there!\"\n\n\"Where is he?\" He crammed what little food was left, into the breast of\nhis gray jacket. \"Show me the way he went. I'll pull him down, like a\nbloodhound. Curse this iron on my sore leg! Give us hold of the file,\nboy.\"\n\nI indicated in what direction the mist had shrouded the other man,\nand he looked up at it for an instant. But he was down on the rank wet\ngrass, filing at his iron like a madman, and not minding me or minding\nhis own leg, which had an old chafe upon it and was bloody, but which he\nhandled as roughly as if it had no more feeling in it than the file. I\nwas very much afraid of him again, now that he had worked himself into\nthis fierce hurry, and I was likewise very much afraid of keeping away\nfrom home any longer. I told him I must go, but he took no notice, so\nI thought the best thing I could do was to slip off. The last I saw\nof him, his head was bent over his knee and he was working hard at his\nfetter, muttering impatient imprecations at it and at his leg. The last\nI heard of him, I stopped in the mist to listen, and the file was still\ngoing.\n\n\n\n\nChapter IV\n\nI fully expected to find a Constable in the kitchen, waiting to take me\nup. But not only was there no Constable there, but no discovery had yet\nbeen made of the robbery. Mrs. Joe was prodigiously busy in getting the\nhouse ready for the festivities of the day, and Joe had been put upon\nthe kitchen doorstep to keep him out of the dust-pan,--an article into\nwhich his destiny always led him, sooner or later, when my sister was\nvigorously reaping the floors of her establishment.\n\n\"And where the deuce ha' you been?\" was Mrs. Joe's Christmas salutation,\nwhen I and my conscience showed ourselves.\n\nI said I had been down to hear the Carols. \"Ah! well!\" observed Mrs.\nJoe. \"You might ha' done worse.\" Not a doubt of that I thought.\n\n\"Perhaps if I warn't a blacksmith's wife, and (what's the same thing) a\nslave with her apron never off, I should have been to hear the Carols,\"\nsaid Mrs. Joe. \"I'm rather partial to Carols, myself, and that's the\nbest of reasons for my never hearing any.\"\n\nJoe, who had ventured into the kitchen after me as the dustpan had\nretired before us, drew the back of his hand across his nose with a\nconciliatory air, when Mrs. Joe darted a look at him, and, when her eyes\nwere withdrawn, secretly crossed his two forefingers, and exhibited them\nto me, as our token that Mrs. Joe was in a cross temper. This was so\nmuch her normal state, that Joe and I would often, for weeks together,\nbe, as to our fingers, like monumental Crusaders as to their legs.\n\nWe were to have a superb dinner, consisting of a leg of pickled pork and\ngreens, and a pair of roast stuffed fowls. A handsome mince-pie had\nbeen made yesterday morning (which accounted for the mincemeat not\nbeing missed), and the pudding was already on the boil. These extensive\narrangements occasioned us to be cut off unceremoniously in respect of\nbreakfast; \"for I ain't,\" said Mrs. Joe,--\"I ain't a going to have\nno formal cramming and busting and washing up now, with what I've got\nbefore me, I promise you!\"\n\nSo, we had our slices served out, as if we were two thousand troops on a\nforced march instead of a man and boy at home; and we took gulps of milk\nand water, with apologetic countenances, from a jug on the dresser. In\nthe meantime, Mrs. Joe put clean white curtains up, and tacked a new\nflowered flounce across the wide chimney to replace the old one, and\nuncovered the little state parlor across the passage, which was never\nuncovered at any other time, but passed the rest of the year in a cool\nhaze of silver paper, which even extended to the four little white\ncrockery poodles on the mantel-shelf, each with a black nose and a\nbasket of flowers in his mouth, and each the counterpart of the other.\nMrs. Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of\nmaking her cleanliness more uncomfortable and unacceptable than dirt\nitself. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and some people do the same by\ntheir religion.\n\nMy sister, having so much to do, was going to church vicariously, that\nis to say, Joe and I were going. In his working-clothes, Joe was a\nwell-knit characteristic-looking blacksmith; in his holiday clothes,\nhe was more like a scarecrow in good circumstances, than anything else.\nNothing that he wore then fitted him or seemed to belong to him; and\neverything that he wore then grazed him. On the present festive occasion\nhe emerged from his room, when the blithe bells were going, the picture\nof misery, in a full suit of Sunday penitentials. As to me, I think my\nsister must have had some general idea that I was a young offender whom\nan Accoucheur Policeman had taken up (on my birthday) and delivered over\nto her, to be dealt with according to the outraged majesty of the law.\nI was always treated as if I had insisted on being born in opposition\nto the dictates of reason, religion, and morality, and against the\ndissuading arguments of my best friends. Even when I was taken to have\na new suit of clothes, the tailor had orders to make them like a kind of\nReformatory, and on no account to let me have the free use of my limbs.\n\nJoe and I going to church, therefore, must have been a moving spectacle\nfor compassionate minds. Yet, what I suffered outside was nothing to\nwhat I underwent within. The terrors that had assailed me whenever\nMrs. Joe had gone near the pantry, or out of the room, were only to be\nequalled by the remorse with which my mind dwelt on what my hands had\ndone. Under the weight of my wicked secret, I pondered whether the\nChurch would be powerful enough to shield me from the vengeance of the\nterrible young man, if I divulged to that establishment. I conceived the\nidea that the time when the banns were read and when the clergyman said,\n\"Ye are now to declare it!\" would be the time for me to rise and propose\na private conference in the vestry. I am far from being sure that I\nmight not have astonished our small congregation by resorting to this\nextreme measure, but for its being Christmas Day and no Sunday.\n\nMr. Wopsle, the clerk at church, was to dine with us; and Mr. Hubble\nthe wheelwright and Mrs. Hubble; and Uncle Pumblechook (Joe's uncle,\nbut Mrs. Joe appropriated him), who was a well-to-do cornchandler in\nthe nearest town, and drove his own chaise-cart. The dinner hour was\nhalf-past one. When Joe and I got home, we found the table laid, and\nMrs. Joe dressed, and the dinner dressing, and the front door unlocked\n(it never was at any other time) for the company to enter by, and\neverything most splendid. And still, not a word of the robbery.\n\nThe time came, without bringing with it any relief to my feelings, and\nthe company came. Mr. Wopsle, united to a Roman nose and a large shining\nbald forehead, had a deep voice which he was uncommonly proud of; indeed\nit was understood among his acquaintance that if you could only give him\nhis head, he would read the clergyman into fits; he himself confessed\nthat if the Church was \"thrown open,\" meaning to competition, he would\nnot despair of making his mark in it. The Church not being \"thrown\nopen,\" he was, as I have said, our clerk. But he punished the Amens\ntremendously; and when he gave out the psalm,--always giving the whole\nverse,--he looked all round the congregation first, as much as to say,\n\"You have heard my friend overhead; oblige me with your opinion of this\nstyle!\"\n\nI opened the door to the company,--making believe that it was a habit\nof ours to open that door,--and I opened it first to Mr. Wopsle, next\nto Mr. and Mrs. Hubble, and last of all to Uncle Pumblechook. N.B. I was\nnot allowed to call him uncle, under the severest penalties.\n\n\"Mrs. Joe,\" said Uncle Pumblechook, a large hard-breathing middle-aged\nslow man, with a mouth like a fish, dull staring eyes, and sandy hair\nstanding upright on his head, so that he looked as if he had just been\nall but choked, and had that moment come to, \"I have brought you as the\ncompliments of the season--I have brought you, Mum, a bottle of sherry\nwine--and I have brought you, Mum, a bottle of port wine.\"\n\nEvery Christmas Day he presented himself, as a profound novelty, with\nexactly the same words, and carrying the two bottles like dumb-bells.\nEvery Christmas Day, Mrs. Joe replied, as she now replied, \"O, Un--cle\nPum-ble--chook! This is kind!\" Every Christmas Day, he retorted, as\nhe now retorted, \"It's no more than your merits. And now are you all\nbobbish, and how's Sixpennorth of halfpence?\" meaning me.\n\nWe dined on these occasions in the kitchen, and adjourned, for the nuts\nand oranges and apples to the parlor; which was a change very like\nJoe's change from his working-clothes to his Sunday dress. My sister was\nuncommonly lively on the present occasion, and indeed was generally more\ngracious in the society of Mrs. Hubble than in other company. I remember\nMrs. Hubble as a little curly sharp-edged person in sky-blue, who held a\nconventionally juvenile position, because she had married Mr. Hubble,--I\ndon't know at what remote period,--when she was much younger than he. I\nremember Mr Hubble as a tough, high-shouldered, stooping old man, of a\nsawdusty fragrance, with his legs extraordinarily wide apart: so that in\nmy short days I always saw some miles of open country between them when\nI met him coming up the lane.\n\nAmong this good company I should have felt myself, even if I hadn't\nrobbed the pantry, in a false position. Not because I was squeezed in\nat an acute angle of the tablecloth, with the table in my chest, and the\nPumblechookian elbow in my eye, nor because I was not allowed to speak\n(I didn't want to speak), nor because I was regaled with the scaly tips\nof the drumsticks of the fowls, and with those obscure corners of pork\nof which the pig, when living, had had the least reason to be vain. No;\nI should not have minded that, if they would only have left me alone.\nBut they wouldn't leave me alone. They seemed to think the opportunity\nlost, if they failed to point the conversation at me, every now and\nthen, and stick the point into me. I might have been an unfortunate\nlittle bull in a Spanish arena, I got so smartingly touched up by these\nmoral goads.\n\nIt began the moment we sat down to dinner. Mr. Wopsle said grace with\ntheatrical declamation,--as it now appears to me, something like a\nreligious cross of the Ghost in Hamlet with Richard the Third,--and\nended with the very proper aspiration that we might be truly grateful.\nUpon which my sister fixed me with her eye, and said, in a low\nreproachful voice, \"Do you hear that? Be grateful.\"\n\n\"Especially,\" said Mr. Pumblechook, \"be grateful, boy, to them which\nbrought you up by hand.\"\n\nMrs. Hubble shook her head, and contemplating me with a mournful\npresentiment that I should come to no good, asked, \"Why is it that the\nyoung are never grateful?\" This moral mystery seemed too much for\nthe company until Mr. Hubble tersely solved it by saying, \"Naterally\nwicious.\" Everybody then murmured \"True!\" and looked at me in a\nparticularly unpleasant and personal manner.\n\nJoe's station and influence were something feebler (if possible) when\nthere was company than when there was none. But he always aided and\ncomforted me when he could, in some way of his own, and he always did so\nat dinner-time by giving me gravy, if there were any. There being plenty\nof gravy to-day, Joe spooned into my plate, at this point, about half a\npint.\n\nA little later on in the dinner, Mr. Wopsle reviewed the sermon with\nsome severity, and intimated--in the usual hypothetical case of the\nChurch being \"thrown open\"--what kind of sermon he would have given\nthem. After favoring them with some heads of that discourse, he remarked\nthat he considered the subject of the day's homily, ill chosen; which\nwas the less excusable, he added, when there were so many subjects\n\"going about.\"\n\n\"True again,\" said Uncle Pumblechook. \"You've hit it, sir! Plenty of\nsubjects going about, for them that know how to put salt upon their\ntails. That's what's wanted. A man needn't go far to find a subject,\nif he's ready with his salt-box.\" Mr. Pumblechook added, after a short\ninterval of reflection, \"Look at Pork alone. There's a subject! If you\nwant a subject, look at Pork!\"\n\n\"True, sir. Many a moral for the young,\" returned Mr. Wopsle,--and I\nknew he was going to lug me in, before he said it; \"might be deduced\nfrom that text.\"\n\n(\"You listen to this,\" said my sister to me, in a severe parenthesis.)\n\nJoe gave me some more gravy.\n\n\"Swine,\" pursued Mr. Wopsle, in his deepest voice, and pointing his fork\nat my blushes, as if he were mentioning my Christian name,--\"swine were\nthe companions of the prodigal. The gluttony of Swine is put before us,\nas an example to the young.\" (I thought this pretty well in him who\nhad been praising up the pork for being so plump and juicy.) \"What is\ndetestable in a pig is more detestable in a boy.\"\n\n\"Or girl,\" suggested Mr. Hubble.\n\n\"Of course, or girl, Mr. Hubble,\" assented Mr. Wopsle, rather irritably,\n\"but there is no girl present.\"\n\n\"Besides,\" said Mr. Pumblechook, turning sharp on me, \"think what you've\ngot to be grateful for. If you'd been born a Squeaker--\"\n\n\"He was, if ever a child was,\" said my sister, most emphatically.\n\nJoe gave me some more gravy.\n\n\"Well, but I mean a four-footed Squeaker,\" said Mr. Pumblechook. \"If you\nhad been born such, would you have been here now? Not you--\"\n\n\"Unless in that form,\" said Mr. Wopsle, nodding towards the dish.\n\n\"But I don't mean in that form, sir,\" returned Mr. Pumblechook, who had\nan objection to being interrupted; \"I mean, enjoying himself with his\nelders and betters, and improving himself with their conversation, and\nrolling in the lap of luxury. Would he have been doing that? No, he\nwouldn't. And what would have been your destination?\" turning on me\nagain. \"You would have been disposed of for so many shillings according\nto the market price of the article, and Dunstable the butcher would have\ncome up to you as you lay in your straw, and he would have whipped you\nunder his left arm, and with his right he would have tucked up his frock\nto get a penknife from out of his waistcoat-pocket, and he would have\nshed your blood and had your life. No bringing up by hand then. Not a\nbit of it!\"\n\nJoe offered me more gravy, which I was afraid to take.\n\n\"He was a world of trouble to you, ma'am,\" said Mrs. Hubble,\ncommiserating my sister.\n\n\"Trouble?\" echoed my sister; \"trouble?\" and then entered on a fearful\ncatalogue of all the illnesses I had been guilty of, and all the acts\nof sleeplessness I had committed, and all the high places I had tumbled\nfrom, and all the low places I had tumbled into, and all the injuries I\nhad done myself, and all the times she had wished me in my grave, and I\nhad contumaciously refused to go there.\n\nI think the Romans must have aggravated one another very much, with\ntheir noses. Perhaps, they became the restless people they were, in\nconsequence. Anyhow, Mr. Wopsle's Roman nose so aggravated me, during\nthe recital of my misdemeanours, that I should have liked to pull it\nuntil he howled. But, all I had endured up to this time was nothing in\ncomparison with the awful feelings that took possession of me when the\npause was broken which ensued upon my sister's recital, and in which\npause everybody had looked at me (as I felt painfully conscious) with\nindignation and abhorrence.\n\n\"Yet,\" said Mr. Pumblechook, leading the company gently back to the\ntheme from which they had strayed, \"Pork--regarded as biled--is rich,\ntoo; ain't it?\"\n\n\"Have a little brandy, uncle,\" said my sister.\n\nO Heavens, it had come at last! He would find it was weak, he would say\nit was weak, and I was lost! I held tight to the leg of the table under\nthe cloth, with both hands, and awaited my fate.\n\nMy sister went for the stone bottle, came back with the stone bottle,\nand poured his brandy out: no one else taking any. The wretched man\ntrifled with his glass,--took it up, looked at it through the light,\nput it down,--prolonged my misery. All this time Mrs. Joe and Joe were\nbriskly clearing the table for the pie and pudding.\n\nI couldn't keep my eyes off him. Always holding tight by the leg of the\ntable with my hands and feet, I saw the miserable creature finger his\nglass playfully, take it up, smile, throw his head back, and drink\nthe brandy off. Instantly afterwards, the company were seized with\nunspeakable consternation, owing to his springing to his feet, turning\nround several times in an appalling spasmodic whooping-cough dance,\nand rushing out at the door; he then became visible through the window,\nviolently plunging and expectorating, making the most hideous faces, and\napparently out of his mind.\n\nI held on tight, while Mrs. Joe and Joe ran to him. I didn't know how\nI had done it, but I had no doubt I had murdered him somehow. In my\ndreadful situation, it was a relief when he was brought back, and\nsurveying the company all round as if they had disagreed with him, sank\ndown into his chair with the one significant gasp, \"Tar!\"\n\nI had filled up the bottle from the tar-water jug. I knew he would be\nworse by and by. I moved the table, like a Medium of the present day, by\nthe vigor of my unseen hold upon it.\n\n\"Tar!\" cried my sister, in amazement. \"Why, how ever could Tar come\nthere?\"\n\nBut, Uncle Pumblechook, who was omnipotent in that kitchen, wouldn't\nhear the word, wouldn't hear of the subject, imperiously waved it all\naway with his hand, and asked for hot gin and water. My sister, who had\nbegun to be alarmingly meditative, had to employ herself actively in\ngetting the gin, the hot water, the sugar, and the lemon-peel, and mixing\nthem. For the time being at least, I was saved. I still held on to the\nleg of the table, but clutched it now with the fervor of gratitude.\n\nBy degrees, I became calm enough to release my grasp and partake of\npudding. Mr. Pumblechook partook of pudding. All partook of pudding.\nThe course terminated, and Mr. Pumblechook had begun to beam under the\ngenial influence of gin and water. I began to think I should get over\nthe day, when my sister said to Joe, \"Clean plates,--cold.\"\n\nI clutched the leg of the table again immediately, and pressed it to my\nbosom as if it had been the companion of my youth and friend of my soul.\nI foresaw what was coming, and I felt that this time I really was gone.\n\n\"You must taste,\" said my sister, addressing the guests with her best\ngrace--\"you must taste, to finish with, such a delightful and delicious\npresent of Uncle Pumblechook's!\"\n\nMust they! Let them not hope to taste it!\n\n\"You must know,\" said my sister, rising, \"it's a pie; a savory pork\npie.\"\n\nThe company murmured their compliments. Uncle Pumblechook, sensible of\nhaving deserved well of his fellow-creatures, said,--quite vivaciously,\nall things considered,--\"Well, Mrs. Joe, we'll do our best endeavors;\nlet us have a cut at this same pie.\"\n\nMy sister went out to get it. I heard her steps proceed to the pantry. I\nsaw Mr. Pumblechook balance his knife. I saw reawakening appetite in the\nRoman nostrils of Mr. Wopsle. I heard Mr. Hubble remark that \"a bit of\nsavory pork pie would lay atop of anything you could mention, and do\nno harm,\" and I heard Joe say, \"You shall have some, Pip.\" I have never\nbeen absolutely certain whether I uttered a shrill yell of terror,\nmerely in spirit, or in the bodily hearing of the company. I felt that I\ncould bear no more, and that I must run away. I released the leg of the\ntable, and ran for my life.\n\nBut I ran no farther than the house door, for there I ran head-foremost\ninto a party of soldiers with their muskets, one of whom held out a pair\nof handcuffs to me, saying, \"Here you are, look sharp, come on!\"\n\n\n\n\nChapter V\n\nThe apparition of a file of soldiers ringing down the but-ends of their\nloaded muskets on our door-step, caused the dinner-party to rise\nfrom table in confusion, and caused Mrs. Joe re-entering the kitchen\nempty-handed, to stop short and stare, in her wondering lament of\n\"Gracious goodness gracious me, what's gone--with the--pie!\"\n\nThe sergeant and I were in the kitchen when Mrs. Joe stood staring;\nat which crisis I partially recovered the use of my senses. It was\nthe sergeant who had spoken to me, and he was now looking round at the\ncompany, with his handcuffs invitingly extended towards them in his\nright hand, and his left on my shoulder.\n\n\"Excuse me, ladies and gentleman,\" said the sergeant, \"but as I have\nmentioned at the door to this smart young shaver,\" (which he hadn't), \"I\nam on a chase in the name of the king, and I want the blacksmith.\"\n\n\"And pray what might you want with him?\" retorted my sister, quick to\nresent his being wanted at all.\n\n\"Missis,\" returned the gallant sergeant, \"speaking for myself, I should\nreply, the honor and pleasure of his fine wife's acquaintance; speaking\nfor the king, I answer, a little job done.\"\n\nThis was received as rather neat in the sergeant; insomuch that Mr.\nPumblechook cried audibly, \"Good again!\"\n\n\"You see, blacksmith,\" said the sergeant, who had by this time picked\nout Joe with his eye, \"we have had an accident with these, and I find\nthe lock of one of 'em goes wrong, and the coupling don't act pretty.\nAs they are wanted for immediate service, will you throw your eye over\nthem?\"\n\nJoe threw his eye over them, and pronounced that the job would\nnecessitate the lighting of his forge fire, and would take nearer\ntwo hours than one. \"Will it? Then will you set about it at once,\nblacksmith?\" said the off-hand sergeant, \"as it's on his Majesty's\nservice. And if my men can bear a hand anywhere, they'll make themselves\nuseful.\" With that, he called to his men, who came trooping into the\nkitchen one after another, and piled their arms in a corner. And then\nthey stood about, as soldiers do; now, with their hands loosely clasped\nbefore them; now, resting a knee or a shoulder; now, easing a belt or a\npouch; now, opening the door to spit stiffly over their high stocks, out\ninto the yard.\n\nAll these things I saw without then knowing that I saw them, for I\nwas in an agony of apprehension. But beginning to perceive that the\nhandcuffs were not for me, and that the military had so far got the\nbetter of the pie as to put it in the background, I collected a little\nmore of my scattered wits.\n\n\"Would you give me the time?\" said the sergeant, addressing himself to\nMr. Pumblechook, as to a man whose appreciative powers justified the\ninference that he was equal to the time.\n\n\"It's just gone half past two.\"\n\n\"That's not so bad,\" said the sergeant, reflecting; \"even if I was\nforced to halt here nigh two hours, that'll do. How far might you call\nyourselves from the marshes, hereabouts? Not above a mile, I reckon?\"\n\n\"Just a mile,\" said Mrs. Joe.\n\n\"That'll do. We begin to close in upon 'em about dusk. A little before\ndusk, my orders are. That'll do.\"\n\n\"Convicts, sergeant?\" asked Mr. Wopsle, in a matter-of-course way.\n\n\"Ay!\" returned the sergeant, \"two. They're pretty well known to be out\non the marshes still, and they won't try to get clear of 'em before\ndusk. Anybody here seen anything of any such game?\"\n\nEverybody, myself excepted, said no, with confidence. Nobody thought of\nme.\n\n\"Well!\" said the sergeant, \"they'll find themselves trapped in a circle,\nI expect, sooner than they count on. Now, blacksmith! If you're ready,\nhis Majesty the King is.\"\n\nJoe had got his coat and waistcoat and cravat off, and his leather apron\non, and passed into the forge. One of the soldiers opened its wooden\nwindows, another lighted the fire, another turned to at the bellows, the\nrest stood round the blaze, which was soon roaring. Then Joe began to\nhammer and clink, hammer and clink, and we all looked on.\n\nThe interest of the impending pursuit not only absorbed the general\nattention, but even made my sister liberal. She drew a pitcher of beer\nfrom the cask for the soldiers, and invited the sergeant to take a glass\nof brandy. But Mr. Pumblechook said, sharply, \"Give him wine, Mum. I'll\nengage there's no tar in that:\" so, the sergeant thanked him and said\nthat as he preferred his drink without tar, he would take wine, if it\nwas equally convenient. When it was given him, he drank his Majesty's\nhealth and compliments of the season, and took it all at a mouthful and\nsmacked his lips.\n\n\"Good stuff, eh, sergeant?\" said Mr. Pumblechook.\n\n\"I'll tell you something,\" returned the sergeant; \"I suspect that\nstuff's of your providing.\"\n\nMr. Pumblechook, with a fat sort of laugh, said, \"Ay, ay? Why?\"\n\n\"Because,\" returned the sergeant, clapping him on the shoulder, \"you're\na man that knows what's what.\"\n\n\"D'ye think so?\" said Mr. Pumblechook, with his former laugh. \"Have\nanother glass!\"\n\n\"With you. Hob and nob,\" returned the sergeant. \"The top of mine to the\nfoot of yours,--the foot of yours to the top of mine,--Ring once, ring\ntwice,--the best tune on the Musical Glasses! Your health. May you live\na thousand years, and never be a worse judge of the right sort than you\nare at the present moment of your life!\"\n\nThe sergeant tossed off his glass again and seemed quite ready for\nanother glass. I noticed that Mr. Pumblechook in his hospitality\nappeared to forget that he had made a present of the wine, but took the\nbottle from Mrs. Joe and had all the credit of handing it about in a\ngush of joviality. Even I got some. And he was so very free of the wine\nthat he even called for the other bottle, and handed that about with the\nsame liberality, when the first was gone.\n\nAs I watched them while they all stood clustering about the forge,\nenjoying themselves so much, I thought what terrible good sauce for\na dinner my fugitive friend on the marshes was. They had not enjoyed\nthemselves a quarter so much, before the entertainment was brightened\nwith the excitement he furnished. And now, when they were all in lively\nanticipation of \"the two villains\" being taken, and when the bellows\nseemed to roar for the fugitives, the fire to flare for them, the smoke\nto hurry away in pursuit of them, Joe to hammer and clink for them,\nand all the murky shadows on the wall to shake at them in menace as the\nblaze rose and sank, and the red-hot sparks dropped and died, the pale\nafternoon outside almost seemed in my pitying young fancy to have turned\npale on their account, poor wretches.\n\nAt last, Joe's job was done, and the ringing and roaring stopped. As Joe\ngot on his coat, he mustered courage to propose that some of us should\ngo down with the soldiers and see what came of the hunt. Mr. Pumblechook\nand Mr. Hubble declined, on the plea of a pipe and ladies' society; but\nMr. Wopsle said he would go, if Joe would. Joe said he was agreeable,\nand would take me, if Mrs. Joe approved. We never should have got leave\nto go, I am sure, but for Mrs. Joe's curiosity to know all about it and\nhow it ended. As it was, she merely stipulated, \"If you bring the boy\nback with his head blown to bits by a musket, don't look to me to put it\ntogether again.\"\n\nThe sergeant took a polite leave of the ladies, and parted from Mr.\nPumblechook as from a comrade; though I doubt if he were quite as fully\nsensible of that gentleman's merits under arid conditions, as when\nsomething moist was going. His men resumed their muskets and fell in.\nMr. Wopsle, Joe, and I, received strict charge to keep in the rear, and\nto speak no word after we reached the marshes. When we were all out in\nthe raw air and were steadily moving towards our business, I treasonably\nwhispered to Joe, \"I hope, Joe, we shan't find them.\" and Joe whispered\nto me, \"I'd give a shilling if they had cut and run, Pip.\"\n\nWe were joined by no stragglers from the village, for the weather was\ncold and threatening, the way dreary, the footing bad, darkness coming\non, and the people had good fires in-doors and were keeping the day. A\nfew faces hurried to glowing windows and looked after us, but none came\nout. We passed the finger-post, and held straight on to the churchyard.\nThere we were stopped a few minutes by a signal from the sergeant's\nhand, while two or three of his men dispersed themselves among the\ngraves, and also examined the porch. They came in again without finding\nanything, and then we struck out on the open marshes, through the gate\nat the side of the churchyard. A bitter sleet came rattling against us\nhere on the east wind, and Joe took me on his back.\n\nNow that we were out upon the dismal wilderness where they little\nthought I had been within eight or nine hours and had seen both men\nhiding, I considered for the first time, with great dread, if we should\ncome upon them, would my particular convict suppose that it was I who\nhad brought the soldiers there? He had asked me if I was a deceiving\nimp, and he had said I should be a fierce young hound if I joined the\nhunt against him. Would he believe that I was both imp and hound in\ntreacherous earnest, and had betrayed him?\n\nIt was of no use asking myself this question now. There I was, on Joe's\nback, and there was Joe beneath me, charging at the ditches like a\nhunter, and stimulating Mr. Wopsle not to tumble on his Roman nose, and\nto keep up with us. The soldiers were in front of us, extending into a\npretty wide line with an interval between man and man. We were taking\nthe course I had begun with, and from which I had diverged in the mist.\nEither the mist was not out again yet, or the wind had dispelled it.\nUnder the low red glare of sunset, the beacon, and the gibbet, and the\nmound of the Battery, and the opposite shore of the river, were plain,\nthough all of a watery lead color.\n\nWith my heart thumping like a blacksmith at Joe's broad shoulder, I\nlooked all about for any sign of the convicts. I could see none, I could\nhear none. Mr. Wopsle had greatly alarmed me more than once, by his\nblowing and hard breathing; but I knew the sounds by this time, and\ncould dissociate them from the object of pursuit. I got a dreadful\nstart, when I thought I heard the file still going; but it was only a\nsheep-bell. The sheep stopped in their eating and looked timidly at\nus; and the cattle, their heads turned from the wind and sleet, stared\nangrily as if they held us responsible for both annoyances; but, except\nthese things, and the shudder of the dying day in every blade of grass,\nthere was no break in the bleak stillness of the marshes.\n\nThe soldiers were moving on in the direction of the old Battery, and we\nwere moving on a little way behind them, when, all of a sudden, we all\nstopped. For there had reached us on the wings of the wind and rain, a\nlong shout. It was repeated. It was at a distance towards the east, but\nit was long and loud. Nay, there seemed to be two or more shouts raised\ntogether,--if one might judge from a confusion in the sound.\n\nTo this effect the sergeant and the nearest men were speaking under\ntheir breath, when Joe and I came up. After another moment's listening,\nJoe (who was a good judge) agreed, and Mr. Wopsle (who was a bad judge)\nagreed. The sergeant, a decisive man, ordered that the sound should not\nbe answered, but that the course should be changed, and that his men\nshould make towards it \"at the double.\" So we slanted to the right\n(where the East was), and Joe pounded away so wonderfully, that I had to\nhold on tight to keep my seat.\n\nIt was a run indeed now, and what Joe called, in the only two words he\nspoke all the time, \"a Winder.\" Down banks and up banks, and over gates,\nand splashing into dikes, and breaking among coarse rushes: no man cared\nwhere he went. As we came nearer to the shouting, it became more and\nmore apparent that it was made by more than one voice. Sometimes, it\nseemed to stop altogether, and then the soldiers stopped. When it broke\nout again, the soldiers made for it at a greater rate than ever, and we\nafter them. After a while, we had so run it down, that we could hear one\nvoice calling \"Murder!\" and another voice, \"Convicts! Runaways! Guard!\nThis way for the runaway convicts!\" Then both voices would seem to be\nstifled in a struggle, and then would break out again. And when it had\ncome to this, the soldiers ran like deer, and Joe too.\n\nThe sergeant ran in first, when we had run the noise quite down, and two\nof his men ran in close upon him. Their pieces were cocked and levelled\nwhen we all ran in.\n\n\"Here are both men!\" panted the sergeant, struggling at the bottom of a\nditch. \"Surrender, you two! and confound you for two wild beasts! Come\nasunder!\"\n\nWater was splashing, and mud was flying, and oaths were being sworn, and\nblows were being struck, when some more men went down into the ditch to\nhelp the sergeant, and dragged out, separately, my convict and the other\none. Both were bleeding and panting and execrating and struggling; but\nof course I knew them both directly.\n\n\"Mind!\" said my convict, wiping blood from his face with his ragged\nsleeves, and shaking torn hair from his fingers: \"I took him! I give him\nup to you! Mind that!\"\n\n\"It's not much to be particular about,\" said the sergeant; \"it'll do you\nsmall good, my man, being in the same plight yourself. Handcuffs there!\"\n\n\"I don't expect it to do me any good. I don't want it to do me more good\nthan it does now,\" said my convict, with a greedy laugh. \"I took him. He\nknows it. That's enough for me.\"\n\nThe other convict was livid to look at, and, in addition to the old\nbruised left side of his face, seemed to be bruised and torn all over.\nHe could not so much as get his breath to speak, until they were both\nseparately handcuffed, but leaned upon a soldier to keep himself from\nfalling.\n\n\"Take notice, guard,--he tried to murder me,\" were his first words.\n\n\"Tried to murder him?\" said my convict, disdainfully. \"Try, and not\ndo it? I took him, and giv' him up; that's what I done. I not only\nprevented him getting off the marshes, but I dragged him here,--dragged\nhim this far on his way back. He's a gentleman, if you please, this\nvillain. Now, the Hulks has got its gentleman again, through me. Murder\nhim? Worth my while, too, to murder him, when I could do worse and drag\nhim back!\"\n\nThe other one still gasped, \"He tried--he tried-to--murder me.\nBear--bear witness.\"\n\n\"Lookee here!\" said my convict to the sergeant. \"Single-handed I got\nclear of the prison-ship; I made a dash and I done it. I could ha' got\nclear of these death-cold flats likewise--look at my leg: you won't find\nmuch iron on it--if I hadn't made the discovery that he was here. Let\nhim go free? Let him profit by the means as I found out? Let him make a\ntool of me afresh and again? Once more? No, no, no. If I had died at\nthe bottom there,\" and he made an emphatic swing at the ditch with his\nmanacled hands, \"I'd have held to him with that grip, that you should\nhave been safe to find him in my hold.\"\n\nThe other fugitive, who was evidently in extreme horror of his\ncompanion, repeated, \"He tried to murder me. I should have been a dead\nman if you had not come up.\"\n\n\"He lies!\" said my convict, with fierce energy. \"He's a liar born, and\nhe'll die a liar. Look at his face; ain't it written there? Let him turn\nthose eyes of his on me. I defy him to do it.\"\n\nThe other, with an effort at a scornful smile, which could not, however,\ncollect the nervous working of his mouth into any set expression, looked\nat the soldiers, and looked about at the marshes and at the sky, but\ncertainly did not look at the speaker.\n\n\"Do you see him?\" pursued my convict. \"Do you see what a villain he is?\nDo you see those grovelling and wandering eyes? That's how he looked\nwhen we were tried together. He never looked at me.\"\n\nThe other, always working and working his dry lips and turning his eyes\nrestlessly about him far and near, did at last turn them for a moment on\nthe speaker, with the words, \"You are not much to look at,\" and with\na half-taunting glance at the bound hands. At that point, my convict\nbecame so frantically exasperated, that he would have rushed upon him\nbut for the interposition of the soldiers. \"Didn't I tell you,\" said the\nother convict then, \"that he would murder me, if he could?\" And any one\ncould see that he shook with fear, and that there broke out upon his\nlips curious white flakes, like thin snow.\n\n\"Enough of this parley,\" said the sergeant. \"Light those torches.\"\n\nAs one of the soldiers, who carried a basket in lieu of a gun, went down\non his knee to open it, my convict looked round him for the first time,\nand saw me. I had alighted from Joe's back on the brink of the ditch\nwhen we came up, and had not moved since. I looked at him eagerly when\nhe looked at me, and slightly moved my hands and shook my head. I had\nbeen waiting for him to see me that I might try to assure him of my\ninnocence. It was not at all expressed to me that he even comprehended\nmy intention, for he gave me a look that I did not understand, and it\nall passed in a moment. But if he had looked at me for an hour or for\na day, I could not have remembered his face ever afterwards, as having\nbeen more attentive.\n\nThe soldier with the basket soon got a light, and lighted three or four\ntorches, and took one himself and distributed the others. It had been\nalmost dark before, but now it seemed quite dark, and soon afterwards\nvery dark. Before we departed from that spot, four soldiers standing in\na ring, fired twice into the air. Presently we saw other torches kindled\nat some distance behind us, and others on the marshes on the opposite\nbank of the river. \"All right,\" said the sergeant. \"March.\"\n\nWe had not gone far when three cannon were fired ahead of us with a\nsound that seemed to burst something inside my ear. \"You are expected\non board,\" said the sergeant to my convict; \"they know you are coming.\nDon't straggle, my man. Close up here.\"\n\nThe two were kept apart, and each walked surrounded by a separate guard.\nI had hold of Joe's hand now, and Joe carried one of the torches. Mr.\nWopsle had been for going back, but Joe was resolved to see it out, so\nwe went on with the party. There was a reasonably good path now, mostly\non the edge of the river, with a divergence here and there where a dike\ncame, with a miniature windmill on it and a muddy sluice-gate. When\nI looked round, I could see the other lights coming in after us. The\ntorches we carried dropped great blotches of fire upon the track, and\nI could see those, too, lying smoking and flaring. I could see nothing\nelse but black darkness. Our lights warmed the air about us with their\npitchy blaze, and the two prisoners seemed rather to like that, as they\nlimped along in the midst of the muskets. We could not go fast, because\nof their lameness; and they were so spent, that two or three times we\nhad to halt while they rested.\n\nAfter an hour or so of this travelling, we came to a rough wooden hut\nand a landing-place. There was a guard in the hut, and they challenged,\nand the sergeant answered. Then, we went into the hut, where there was\na smell of tobacco and whitewash, and a bright fire, and a lamp, and\na stand of muskets, and a drum, and a low wooden bedstead, like an\novergrown mangle without the machinery, capable of holding about a dozen\nsoldiers all at once. Three or four soldiers who lay upon it in their\ngreat-coats were not much interested in us, but just lifted their heads\nand took a sleepy stare, and then lay down again. The sergeant made some\nkind of report, and some entry in a book, and then the convict whom I\ncall the other convict was drafted off with his guard, to go on board\nfirst.\n\nMy convict never looked at me, except that once. While we stood in the\nhut, he stood before the fire looking thoughtfully at it, or putting up\nhis feet by turns upon the hob, and looking thoughtfully at them as if\nhe pitied them for their recent adventures. Suddenly, he turned to the\nsergeant, and remarked,--\n\n\"I wish to say something respecting this escape. It may prevent some\npersons laying under suspicion alonger me.\"\n\n\"You can say what you like,\" returned the sergeant, standing coolly\nlooking at him with his arms folded, \"but you have no call to say it\nhere. You'll have opportunity enough to say about it, and hear about it,\nbefore it's done with, you know.\"\n\n\"I know, but this is another pint, a separate matter. A man can't\nstarve; at least I can't. I took some wittles, up at the willage over\nyonder,--where the church stands a'most out on the marshes.\"\n\n\"You mean stole,\" said the sergeant.\n\n\"And I'll tell you where from. From the blacksmith's.\"\n\n\"Halloa!\" said the sergeant, staring at Joe.\n\n\"Halloa, Pip!\" said Joe, staring at me.\n\n\"It was some broken wittles--that's what it was--and a dram of liquor,\nand a pie.\"\n\n\"Have you happened to miss such an article as a pie, blacksmith?\" asked\nthe sergeant, confidentially.\n\n\"My wife did, at the very moment when you came in. Don't you know, Pip?\"\n\n\"So,\" said my convict, turning his eyes on Joe in a moody manner, and\nwithout the least glance at me,--\"so you're the blacksmith, are you?\nThan I'm sorry to say, I've eat your pie.\"\n\n\"God knows you're welcome to it,--so far as it was ever mine,\" returned\nJoe, with a saving remembrance of Mrs. Joe. \"We don't know what you have\ndone, but we wouldn't have you starved to death for it, poor miserable\nfellow-creatur.--Would us, Pip?\"\n\nThe something that I had noticed before, clicked in the man's throat\nagain, and he turned his back. The boat had returned, and his guard were\nready, so we followed him to the landing-place made of rough stakes\nand stones, and saw him put into the boat, which was rowed by a crew of\nconvicts like himself. No one seemed surprised to see him, or interested\nin seeing him, or glad to see him, or sorry to see him, or spoke a word,\nexcept that somebody in the boat growled as if to dogs, \"Give way,\nyou!\" which was the signal for the dip of the oars. By the light of the\ntorches, we saw the black Hulk lying out a little way from the mud of\nthe shore, like a wicked Noah's ark. Cribbed and barred and moored by\nmassive rusty chains, the prison-ship seemed in my young eyes to be\nironed like the prisoners. We saw the boat go alongside, and we saw\nhim taken up the side and disappear. Then, the ends of the torches were\nflung hissing into the water, and went out, as if it were all over with\nhim.\n\n\n\n\nChapter VI\n\nMy state of mind regarding the pilfering from which I had been so\nunexpectedly exonerated did not impel me to frank disclosure; but I hope\nit had some dregs of good at the bottom of it.\n\nI do not recall that I felt any tenderness of conscience in reference\nto Mrs. Joe, when the fear of being found out was lifted off me. But\nI loved Joe,--perhaps for no better reason in those early days than\nbecause the dear fellow let me love him,--and, as to him, my inner self\nwas not so easily composed. It was much upon my mind (particularly when\nI first saw him looking about for his file) that I ought to tell Joe the\nwhole truth. Yet I did not, and for the reason that I mistrusted that\nif I did, he would think me worse than I was. The fear of losing Joe's\nconfidence, and of thenceforth sitting in the chimney corner at night\nstaring drearily at my forever lost companion and friend, tied up my\ntongue. I morbidly represented to myself that if Joe knew it, I never\nafterwards could see him at the fireside feeling his fair whisker,\nwithout thinking that he was meditating on it. That, if Joe knew it, I\nnever afterwards could see him glance, however casually, at yesterday's\nmeat or pudding when it came on to-day's table, without thinking that he\nwas debating whether I had been in the pantry. That, if Joe knew it, and\nat any subsequent period of our joint domestic life remarked that his\nbeer was flat or thick, the conviction that he suspected tar in it,\nwould bring a rush of blood to my face. In a word, I was too cowardly\nto do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing\nwhat I knew to be wrong. I had had no intercourse with the world at\nthat time, and I imitated none of its many inhabitants who act in this\nmanner. Quite an untaught genius, I made the discovery of the line of\naction for myself.\n\nAs I was sleepy before we were far away from the prison-ship, Joe took\nme on his back again and carried me home. He must have had a tiresome\njourney of it, for Mr. Wopsle, being knocked up, was in such a very bad\ntemper that if the Church had been thrown open, he would probably have\nexcommunicated the whole expedition, beginning with Joe and myself. In\nhis lay capacity, he persisted in sitting down in the damp to such\nan insane extent, that when his coat was taken off to be dried at the\nkitchen fire, the circumstantial evidence on his trousers would have\nhanged him, if it had been a capital offence.\n\nBy that time, I was staggering on the kitchen floor like a little\ndrunkard, through having been newly set upon my feet, and through having\nbeen fast asleep, and through waking in the heat and lights and noise of\ntongues. As I came to myself (with the aid of a heavy thump between the\nshoulders, and the restorative exclamation \"Yah! Was there ever such\na boy as this!\" from my sister,) I found Joe telling them about the\nconvict's confession, and all the visitors suggesting different ways\nby which he had got into the pantry. Mr. Pumblechook made out, after\ncarefully surveying the premises, that he had first got upon the roof of\nthe forge, and had then got upon the roof of the house, and had then let\nhimself down the kitchen chimney by a rope made of his bedding cut\ninto strips; and as Mr. Pumblechook was very positive and drove his\nown chaise-cart--over everybody--it was agreed that it must be so. Mr.\nWopsle, indeed, wildly cried out, \"No!\" with the feeble malice of a\ntired man; but, as he had no theory, and no coat on, he was unanimously\nset at naught,--not to mention his smoking hard behind, as he stood\nwith his back to the kitchen fire to draw the damp out: which was not\ncalculated to inspire confidence.\n\nThis was all I heard that night before my sister clutched me, as a\nslumberous offence to the company's eyesight, and assisted me up to bed\nwith such a strong hand that I seemed to have fifty boots on, and to be\ndangling them all against the edges of the stairs. My state of mind, as\nI have described it, began before I was up in the morning, and lasted\nlong after the subject had died out, and had ceased to be mentioned\nsaving on exceptional occasions.\n\n\n\n\nChapter VII\n\nAt the time when I stood in the churchyard reading the family\ntombstones, I had just enough learning to be able to spell them out. My\nconstruction even of their simple meaning was not very correct, for I\nread \"wife of the Above\" as a complimentary reference to my father's\nexaltation to a better world; and if any one of my deceased relations\nhad been referred to as \"Below,\" I have no doubt I should have formed\nthe worst opinions of that member of the family. Neither were my notions\nof the theological positions to which my Catechism bound me, at\nall accurate; for, I have a lively remembrance that I supposed my\ndeclaration that I was to \"walk in the same all the days of my life,\"\nlaid me under an obligation always to go through the village from our\nhouse in one particular direction, and never to vary it by turning down\nby the wheelwright's or up by the mill.\n\nWhen I was old enough, I was to be apprenticed to Joe, and until I could\nassume that dignity I was not to be what Mrs. Joe called \"Pompeyed,\" or\n(as I render it) pampered. Therefore, I was not only odd-boy about the\nforge, but if any neighbor happened to want an extra boy to frighten\nbirds, or pick up stones, or do any such job, I was favored with the\nemployment. In order, however, that our superior position might not be\ncompromised thereby, a money-box was kept on the kitchen mantel-shelf,\ninto which it was publicly made known that all my earnings were\ndropped. I have an impression that they were to be contributed\neventually towards the liquidation of the National Debt, but I know I\nhad no hope of any personal participation in the treasure.\n\nMr. Wopsle's great-aunt kept an evening school in the village; that is\nto say, she was a ridiculous old woman of limited means and unlimited\ninfirmity, who used to go to sleep from six to seven every evening, in\nthe society of youth who paid two pence per week each, for the improving\nopportunity of seeing her do it. She rented a small cottage, and Mr.\nWopsle had the room upstairs, where we students used to overhear him\nreading aloud in a most dignified and terrific manner, and occasionally\nbumping on the ceiling. There was a fiction that Mr. Wopsle \"examined\"\nthe scholars once a quarter. What he did on those occasions was to turn\nup his cuffs, stick up his hair, and give us Mark Antony's oration over\nthe body of Caesar. This was always followed by Collins's Ode on\nthe Passions, wherein I particularly venerated Mr. Wopsle as Revenge\nthrowing his blood-stained sword in thunder down, and taking the\nWar-denouncing trumpet with a withering look. It was not with me then,\nas it was in later life, when I fell into the society of the Passions,\nand compared them with Collins and Wopsle, rather to the disadvantage of\nboth gentlemen.\n\nMr. Wopsle's great-aunt, besides keeping this Educational Institution,\nkept in the same room--a little general shop. She had no idea what stock\nshe had, or what the price of anything in it was; but there was a little\ngreasy memorandum-book kept in a drawer, which served as a Catalogue\nof Prices, and by this oracle Biddy arranged all the shop transactions.\nBiddy was Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's granddaughter; I confess myself\nquite unequal to the working out of the problem, what relation she was\nto Mr. Wopsle. She was an orphan like myself; like me, too, had been\nbrought up by hand. She was most noticeable, I thought, in respect of\nher extremities; for, her hair always wanted brushing, her hands always\nwanted washing, and her shoes always wanted mending and pulling up at\nheel. This description must be received with a week-day limitation. On\nSundays, she went to church elaborated.\n\nMuch of my unassisted self, and more by the help of Biddy than of Mr.\nWopsle's great-aunt, I struggled through the alphabet as if it had been\na bramble-bush; getting considerably worried and scratched by every\nletter. After that I fell among those thieves, the nine figures, who\nseemed every evening to do something new to disguise themselves and\nbaffle recognition. But, at last I began, in a purblind groping way, to\nread, write, and cipher, on the very smallest scale.\n\nOne night I was sitting in the chimney corner with my slate, expending\ngreat efforts on the production of a letter to Joe. I think it must have\nbeen a full year after our hunt upon the marshes, for it was a long\ntime after, and it was winter and a hard frost. With an alphabet on the\nhearth at my feet for reference, I contrived in an hour or two to print\nand smear this epistle:--\n\n\"MI DEER JO i OPE U R KRWITE WELL i OPE i SHAL SON B HABELL 4 2 TEEDGE\nU JO AN THEN WE SHORL B SO GLODD AN WEN i M PRENGTD 2 U JO WOT LARX AN\nBLEVE ME INF XN PIP.\"\n\nThere was no indispensable necessity for my communicating with Joe by\nletter, inasmuch as he sat beside me and we were alone. But I delivered\nthis written communication (slate and all) with my own hand, and Joe\nreceived it as a miracle of erudition.\n\n\"I say, Pip, old chap!\" cried Joe, opening his blue eyes wide, \"what a\nscholar you are! An't you?\"\n\n\"I should like to be,\" said I, glancing at the slate as he held it; with\na misgiving that the writing was rather hilly.\n\n\"Why, here's a J,\" said Joe, \"and a O equal to anythink! Here's a J and\na O, Pip, and a J-O, Joe.\"\n\nI had never heard Joe read aloud to any greater extent than this\nmonosyllable, and I had observed at church last Sunday, when I\naccidentally held our Prayer-Book upside down, that it seemed to suit\nhis convenience quite as well as if it had been all right. Wishing to\nembrace the present occasion of finding out whether in teaching Joe, I\nshould have to begin quite at the beginning, I said, \"Ah! But read the\nrest, Jo.\"\n\n\"The rest, eh, Pip?\" said Joe, looking at it with a slow, searching eye,\n\"One, two, three. Why, here's three Js, and three Os, and three J-O,\nJoes in it, Pip!\"\n\nI leaned over Joe, and, with the aid of my forefinger read him the whole\nletter.\n\n\"Astonishing!\" said Joe, when I had finished. \"You ARE a scholar.\"\n\n\"How do you spell Gargery, Joe?\" I asked him, with a modest patronage.\n\n\"I don't spell it at all,\" said Joe.\n\n\"But supposing you did?\"\n\n\"It can't be supposed,\" said Joe. \"Tho' I'm uncommon fond of reading,\ntoo.\"\n\n\"Are you, Joe?\"\n\n\"On-common. Give me,\" said Joe, \"a good book, or a good newspaper, and\nsit me down afore a good fire, and I ask no better. Lord!\" he continued,\nafter rubbing his knees a little, \"when you do come to a J and a O, and\nsays you, 'Here, at last, is a J-O, Joe,' how interesting reading is!\"\n\nI derived from this, that Joe's education, like Steam, was yet in its\ninfancy. Pursuing the subject, I inquired,--\n\n\"Didn't you ever go to school, Joe, when you were as little as me?\"\n\n\"No, Pip.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you ever go to school, Joe, when you were as little as me?\"\n\n\"Well, Pip,\" said Joe, taking up the poker, and settling himself to\nhis usual occupation when he was thoughtful, of slowly raking the fire\nbetween the lower bars; \"I'll tell you. My father, Pip, he were given\nto drink, and when he were overtook with drink, he hammered away at\nmy mother, most onmerciful. It were a'most the only hammering he did,\nindeed, 'xcepting at myself. And he hammered at me with a wigor only\nto be equalled by the wigor with which he didn't hammer at his\nanwil.--You're a listening and understanding, Pip?\"\n\n\"Yes, Joe.\"\n\n\"'Consequence, my mother and me we ran away from my father several\ntimes; and then my mother she'd go out to work, and she'd say, \"Joe,\"\nshe'd say, \"now, please God, you shall have some schooling, child,\" and\nshe'd put me to school. But my father were that good in his hart that\nhe couldn't abear to be without us. So, he'd come with a most tremenjous\ncrowd and make such a row at the doors of the houses where we was, that\nthey used to be obligated to have no more to do with us and to give us\nup to him. And then he took us home and hammered us. Which, you see,\nPip,\" said Joe, pausing in his meditative raking of the fire, and\nlooking at me, \"were a drawback on my learning.\"\n\n\"Certainly, poor Joe!\"\n\n\"Though mind you, Pip,\" said Joe, with a judicial touch or two of the\npoker on the top bar, \"rendering unto all their doo, and maintaining\nequal justice betwixt man and man, my father were that good in his hart,\ndon't you see?\"\n\nI didn't see; but I didn't say so.\n\n\"Well!\" Joe pursued, \"somebody must keep the pot a biling, Pip, or the\npot won't bile, don't you know?\"\n\nI saw that, and said so.\n\n\"'Consequence, my father didn't make objections to my going to work; so\nI went to work at my present calling, which were his too, if he\nwould have followed it, and I worked tolerable hard, I assure you, Pip.\nIn time I were able to keep him, and I kep him till he went off in a\npurple leptic fit. And it were my intentions to have had put upon his\ntombstone that, Whatsume'er the failings on his part, Remember reader he\nwere that good in his heart.\"\n\nJoe recited this couplet with such manifest pride and careful\nperspicuity, that I asked him if he had made it himself.\n\n\"I made it,\" said Joe, \"my own self. I made it in a moment. It was like\nstriking out a horseshoe complete, in a single blow. I never was so much\nsurprised in all my life,--couldn't credit my own ed,--to tell you the\ntruth, hardly believed it were my own ed. As I was saying, Pip, it were\nmy intentions to have had it cut over him; but poetry costs money, cut\nit how you will, small or large, and it were not done. Not to mention\nbearers, all the money that could be spared were wanted for my mother.\nShe were in poor elth, and quite broke. She weren't long of following,\npoor soul, and her share of peace come round at last.\"\n\nJoe's blue eyes turned a little watery; he rubbed first one of them, and\nthen the other, in a most uncongenial and uncomfortable manner, with the\nround knob on the top of the poker.\n\n\"It were but lonesome then,\" said Joe, \"living here alone, and I got\nacquainted with your sister. Now, Pip,\"--Joe looked firmly at me as\nif he knew I was not going to agree with him;--\"your sister is a fine\nfigure of a woman.\"\n\nI could not help looking at the fire, in an obvious state of doubt.\n\n\"Whatever family opinions, or whatever the world's opinions, on that\nsubject may be, Pip, your sister is,\" Joe tapped the top bar with the\npoker after every word following, \"a-fine-figure--of--a--woman!\"\n\nI could think of nothing better to say than \"I am glad you think so,\nJoe.\"\n\n\"So am I,\" returned Joe, catching me up. \"I am glad I think so, Pip. A\nlittle redness or a little matter of Bone, here or there, what does it\nsignify to Me?\"\n\nI sagaciously observed, if it didn't signify to him, to whom did it\nsignify?\n\n\"Certainly!\" assented Joe. \"That's it. You're right, old chap! When I\ngot acquainted with your sister, it were the talk how she was bringing\nyou up by hand. Very kind of her too, all the folks said, and I said,\nalong with all the folks. As to you,\" Joe pursued with a countenance\nexpressive of seeing something very nasty indeed, \"if you could have\nbeen aware how small and flabby and mean you was, dear me, you'd have\nformed the most contemptible opinion of yourself!\"\n\nNot exactly relishing this, I said, \"Never mind me, Joe.\"\n\n\"But I did mind you, Pip,\" he returned with tender simplicity. \"When\nI offered to your sister to keep company, and to be asked in church at\nsuch times as she was willing and ready to come to the forge, I said to\nher, 'And bring the poor little child. God bless the poor little child,'\nI said to your sister, 'there's room for him at the forge!'\"\n\nI broke out crying and begging pardon, and hugged Joe round the neck:\nwho dropped the poker to hug me, and to say, \"Ever the best of friends;\nan't us, Pip? Don't cry, old chap!\"\n\nWhen this little interruption was over, Joe resumed:--\n\n\"Well, you see, Pip, and here we are! That's about where it lights; here\nwe are! Now, when you take me in hand in my learning, Pip (and I tell\nyou beforehand I am awful dull, most awful dull), Mrs. Joe mustn't see\ntoo much of what we're up to. It must be done, as I may say, on the sly.\nAnd why on the sly? I'll tell you why, Pip.\"\n\nHe had taken up the poker again; without which, I doubt if he could have\nproceeded in his demonstration.\n\n\"Your sister is given to government.\"\n\n\"Given to government, Joe?\" I was startled, for I had some shadowy idea\n(and I am afraid I must add, hope) that Joe had divorced her in a favor\nof the Lords of the Admiralty, or Treasury.\n\n\"Given to government,\" said Joe. \"Which I meantersay the government of\nyou and myself.\"\n\n\"Oh!\"\n\n\"And she an't over partial to having scholars on the premises,\" Joe\ncontinued, \"and in partickler would not be over partial to my being a\nscholar, for fear as I might rise. Like a sort of rebel, don't you see?\"\n\nI was going to retort with an inquiry, and had got as far as \"Why--\"\nwhen Joe stopped me.\n\n\"Stay a bit. I know what you're a going to say, Pip; stay a bit! I don't\ndeny that your sister comes the Mo-gul over us, now and again. I don't\ndeny that she do throw us back-falls, and that she do drop down upon us\nheavy. At such times as when your sister is on the Ram-page, Pip,\" Joe\nsank his voice to a whisper and glanced at the door, \"candor compels fur\nto admit that she is a Buster.\"\n\nJoe pronounced this word, as if it began with at least twelve capital\nBs.\n\n\"Why don't I rise? That were your observation when I broke it off, Pip?\"\n\n\"Yes, Joe.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Joe, passing the poker in to his left hand, that he might\nfeel his whisker; and I had no hope of him whenever he took to that\nplacid occupation; \"your sister's a master-mind. A master-mind.\"\n\n\"What's that?\" I asked, in some hope of bringing him to a stand. But\nJoe was readier with his definition than I had expected, and completely\nstopped me by arguing circularly, and answering with a fixed look,\n\"Her.\"\n\n\"And I ain't a master-mind,\" Joe resumed, when he had unfixed his look,\nand got back to his whisker. \"And last of all, Pip,--and this I want to\nsay very serious to you, old chap,--I see so much in my poor mother,\nof a woman drudging and slaving and breaking her honest hart and never\ngetting no peace in her mortal days, that I'm dead afeerd of going wrong\nin the way of not doing what's right by a woman, and I'd fur rather\nof the two go wrong the t'other way, and be a little ill-conwenienced\nmyself. I wish it was only me that got put out, Pip; I wish there warn't\nno Tickler for you, old chap; I wish I could take it all on myself;\nbut this is the up-and-down-and-straight on it, Pip, and I hope you'll\noverlook shortcomings.\"\n\nYoung as I was, I believe that I dated a new admiration of Joe from that\nnight. We were equals afterwards, as we had been before; but, afterwards\nat quiet times when I sat looking at Joe and thinking about him, I had\na new sensation of feeling conscious that I was looking up to Joe in my\nheart.\n\n\"However,\" said Joe, rising to replenish the fire; \"here's the\nDutch-clock a working himself up to being equal to strike Eight of 'em,\nand she's not come home yet! I hope Uncle Pumblechook's mare mayn't have\nset a forefoot on a piece o' ice, and gone down.\"\n\nMrs. Joe made occasional trips with Uncle Pumblechook on market-days,\nto assist him in buying such household stuffs and goods as required a\nwoman's judgment; Uncle Pumblechook being a bachelor and reposing no\nconfidences in his domestic servant. This was market-day, and Mrs. Joe\nwas out on one of these expeditions.\n\nJoe made the fire and swept the hearth, and then we went to the door to\nlisten for the chaise-cart. It was a dry cold night, and the wind blew\nkeenly, and the frost was white and hard. A man would die to-night of\nlying out on the marshes, I thought. And then I looked at the stars, and\nconsidered how awful it would be for a man to turn his face up to them\nas he froze to death, and see no help or pity in all the glittering\nmultitude.\n\n\"Here comes the mare,\" said Joe, \"ringing like a peal of bells!\"\n\nThe sound of her iron shoes upon the hard road was quite musical, as she\ncame along at a much brisker trot than usual. We got a chair out, ready\nfor Mrs. Joe's alighting, and stirred up the fire that they might see a\nbright window, and took a final survey of the kitchen that nothing might\nbe out of its place. When we had completed these preparations, they\ndrove up, wrapped to the eyes. Mrs. Joe was soon landed, and Uncle\nPumblechook was soon down too, covering the mare with a cloth, and we\nwere soon all in the kitchen, carrying so much cold air in with us that\nit seemed to drive all the heat out of the fire.\n\n\"Now,\" said Mrs. Joe, unwrapping herself with haste and excitement, and\nthrowing her bonnet back on her shoulders where it hung by the strings,\n\"if this boy ain't grateful this night, he never will be!\"\n\nI looked as grateful as any boy possibly could, who was wholly\nuninformed why he ought to assume that expression.\n\n\"It's only to be hoped,\" said my sister, \"that he won't be Pompeyed. But\nI have my fears.\"\n\n\"She ain't in that line, Mum,\" said Mr. Pumblechook. \"She knows better.\"\n\nShe? I looked at Joe, making the motion with my lips and eyebrows,\n\"She?\" Joe looked at me, making the motion with his lips and eyebrows,\n\"She?\" My sister catching him in the act, he drew the back of his hand\nacross his nose with his usual conciliatory air on such occasions, and\nlooked at her.\n\n\"Well?\" said my sister, in her snappish way. \"What are you staring at?\nIs the house afire?\"\n\n\"--Which some individual,\" Joe politely hinted, \"mentioned--she.\"\n\n\"And she is a she, I suppose?\" said my sister. \"Unless you call Miss\nHavisham a he. And I doubt if even you'll go so far as that.\"\n\n\"Miss Havisham, up town?\" said Joe.\n\n\"Is there any Miss Havisham down town?\" returned my sister.\n\n\"She wants this boy to go and play there. And of course he's going. And\nhe had better play there,\" said my sister, shaking her head at me as an\nencouragement to be extremely light and sportive, \"or I'll work him.\"\n\nI had heard of Miss Havisham up town,--everybody for miles round had\nheard of Miss Havisham up town,--as an immensely rich and grim lady who\nlived in a large and dismal house barricaded against robbers, and who\nled a life of seclusion.\n\n\"Well to be sure!\" said Joe, astounded. \"I wonder how she come to know\nPip!\"\n\n\"Noodle!\" cried my sister. \"Who said she knew him?\"\n\n\"--Which some individual,\" Joe again politely hinted, \"mentioned that\nshe wanted him to go and play there.\"\n\n\"And couldn't she ask Uncle Pumblechook if he knew of a boy to go and\nplay there? Isn't it just barely possible that Uncle Pumblechook may be\na tenant of hers, and that he may sometimes--we won't say quarterly\nor half-yearly, for that would be requiring too much of you--but\nsometimes--go there to pay his rent? And couldn't she then ask Uncle\nPumblechook if he knew of a boy to go and play there? And couldn't Uncle\nPumblechook, being always considerate and thoughtful for us--though you\nmay not think it, Joseph,\" in a tone of the deepest reproach, as if\nhe were the most callous of nephews, \"then mention this boy, standing\nPrancing here\"--which I solemnly declare I was not doing--\"that I have\nfor ever been a willing slave to?\"\n\n\"Good again!\" cried Uncle Pumblechook. \"Well put! Prettily pointed! Good\nindeed! Now Joseph, you know the case.\"\n\n\"No, Joseph,\" said my sister, still in a reproachful manner, while Joe\napologetically drew the back of his hand across and across his nose,\n\"you do not yet--though you may not think it--know the case. You may\nconsider that you do, but you do not, Joseph. For you do not know that\nUncle Pumblechook, being sensible that for anything we can tell, this\nboy's fortune may be made by his going to Miss Havisham's, has offered\nto take him into town to-night in his own chaise-cart, and to keep\nhim to-night, and to take him with his own hands to Miss Havisham's\nto-morrow morning. And Lor-a-mussy me!\" cried my sister, casting off her\nbonnet in sudden desperation, \"here I stand talking to mere Mooncalfs,\nwith Uncle Pumblechook waiting, and the mare catching cold at the door,\nand the boy grimed with crock and dirt from the hair of his head to the\nsole of his foot!\"\n\nWith that, she pounced upon me, like an eagle on a lamb, and my face was\nsqueezed into wooden bowls in sinks, and my head was put under taps of\nwater-butts, and I was soaped, and kneaded, and towelled, and thumped,\nand harrowed, and rasped, until I really was quite beside myself. (I\nmay here remark that I suppose myself to be better acquainted than\nany living authority, with the ridgy effect of a wedding-ring, passing\nunsympathetically over the human countenance.)\n\nWhen my ablutions were completed, I was put into clean linen of the\nstiffest character, like a young penitent into sackcloth, and was\ntrussed up in my tightest and fearfullest suit. I was then delivered\nover to Mr. Pumblechook, who formally received me as if he were the\nSheriff, and who let off upon me the speech that I knew he had been\ndying to make all along: \"Boy, be forever grateful to all friends, but\nespecially unto them which brought you up by hand!\"\n\n\"Good-bye, Joe!\"\n\n\"God bless you, Pip, old chap!\"\n\nI had never parted from him before, and what with my feelings and what\nwith soapsuds, I could at first see no stars from the chaise-cart.\nBut they twinkled out one by one, without throwing any light on the\nquestions why on earth I was going to play at Miss Havisham's, and what\non earth I was expected to play at.\n\n\n\n\nChapter VIII\n\nMr. Pumblechook's premises in the High Street of the market town,\nwere of a peppercorny and farinaceous character, as the premises of a\ncornchandler and seedsman should be. It appeared to me that he must be a\nvery happy man indeed, to have so many little drawers in his shop; and\nI wondered when I peeped into one or two on the lower tiers, and saw the\ntied-up brown paper packets inside, whether the flower-seeds and bulbs\never wanted of a fine day to break out of those jails, and bloom.\n\nIt was in the early morning after my arrival that I entertained this\nspeculation. On the previous night, I had been sent straight to bed in\nan attic with a sloping roof, which was so low in the corner where the\nbedstead was, that I calculated the tiles as being within a foot of my\neyebrows. In the same early morning, I discovered a singular affinity\nbetween seeds and corduroys. Mr. Pumblechook wore corduroys, and so did\nhis shopman; and somehow, there was a general air and flavor about the\ncorduroys, so much in the nature of seeds, and a general air and flavor\nabout the seeds, so much in the nature of corduroys, that I hardly knew\nwhich was which. The same opportunity served me for noticing that Mr.\nPumblechook appeared to conduct his business by looking across the\nstreet at the saddler, who appeared to transact his business by keeping\nhis eye on the coachmaker, who appeared to get on in life by putting his\nhands in his pockets and contemplating the baker, who in his turn folded\nhis arms and stared at the grocer, who stood at his door and yawned at\nthe chemist. The watchmaker, always poring over a little desk with\na magnifying-glass at his eye, and always inspected by a group of\nsmock-frocks poring over him through the glass of his shop-window,\nseemed to be about the only person in the High Street whose trade\nengaged his attention.\n\nMr. Pumblechook and I breakfasted at eight o'clock in the parlor behind\nthe shop, while the shopman took his mug of tea and hunch of bread\nand butter on a sack of peas in the front premises. I considered Mr.\nPumblechook wretched company. Besides being possessed by my sister's\nidea that a mortifying and penitential character ought to be imparted\nto my diet,--besides giving me as much crumb as possible in combination\nwith as little butter, and putting such a quantity of warm water into\nmy milk that it would have been more candid to have left the milk out\naltogether,--his conversation consisted of nothing but arithmetic. On\nmy politely bidding him Good morning, he said, pompously, \"Seven times\nnine, boy?\" And how should I be able to answer, dodged in that way, in\na strange place, on an empty stomach! I was hungry, but before I had\nswallowed a morsel, he began a running sum that lasted all through the\nbreakfast. \"Seven?\" \"And four?\" \"And eight?\" \"And six?\" \"And two?\" \"And\nten?\" And so on. And after each figure was disposed of, it was as much\nas I could do to get a bite or a sup, before the next came; while he sat\nat his ease guessing nothing, and eating bacon and hot roll, in (if I\nmay be allowed the expression) a gorging and gormandizing manner.\n\nFor such reasons, I was very glad when ten o'clock came and we started\nfor Miss Havisham's; though I was not at all at my ease regarding the\nmanner in which I should acquit myself under that lady's roof. Within\na quarter of an hour we came to Miss Havisham's house, which was of old\nbrick, and dismal, and had a great many iron bars to it. Some of the\nwindows had been walled up; of those that remained, all the lower were\nrustily barred. There was a courtyard in front, and that was barred; so\nwe had to wait, after ringing the bell, until some one should come\nto open it. While we waited at the gate, I peeped in (even then Mr.\nPumblechook said, \"And fourteen?\" but I pretended not to hear him), and\nsaw that at the side of the house there was a large brewery. No brewing\nwas going on in it, and none seemed to have gone on for a long long\ntime.\n\nA window was raised, and a clear voice demanded \"What name?\" To which my\nconductor replied, \"Pumblechook.\" The voice returned, \"Quite right,\" and\nthe window was shut again, and a young lady came across the court-yard,\nwith keys in her hand.\n\n\"This,\" said Mr. Pumblechook, \"is Pip.\"\n\n\"This is Pip, is it?\" returned the young lady, who was very pretty and\nseemed very proud; \"come in, Pip.\"\n\nMr. Pumblechook was coming in also, when she stopped him with the gate.\n\n\"Oh!\" she said. \"Did you wish to see Miss Havisham?\"\n\n\"If Miss Havisham wished to see me,\" returned Mr. Pumblechook,\ndiscomfited.\n\n\"Ah!\" said the girl; \"but you see she don't.\"\n\nShe said it so finally, and in such an undiscussible way, that Mr.\nPumblechook, though in a condition of ruffled dignity, could not\nprotest. But he eyed me severely,--as if I had done anything to\nhim!--and departed with the words reproachfully delivered: \"Boy! Let\nyour behavior here be a credit unto them which brought you up by hand!\"\nI was not free from apprehension that he would come back to propound\nthrough the gate, \"And sixteen?\" But he didn't.\n\nMy young conductress locked the gate, and we went across the courtyard.\nIt was paved and clean, but grass was growing in every crevice. The\nbrewery buildings had a little lane of communication with it, and the\nwooden gates of that lane stood open, and all the brewery beyond stood\nopen, away to the high enclosing wall; and all was empty and disused.\nThe cold wind seemed to blow colder there than outside the gate; and\nit made a shrill noise in howling in and out at the open sides of the\nbrewery, like the noise of wind in the rigging of a ship at sea.\n\nShe saw me looking at it, and she said, \"You could drink without hurt\nall the strong beer that's brewed there now, boy.\"\n\n\"I should think I could, miss,\" said I, in a shy way.\n\n\"Better not try to brew beer there now, or it would turn out sour, boy;\ndon't you think so?\"\n\n\"It looks like it, miss.\"\n\n\"Not that anybody means to try,\" she added, \"for that's all done with,\nand the place will stand as idle as it is till it falls. As to strong\nbeer, there's enough of it in the cellars already, to drown the Manor\nHouse.\"\n\n\"Is that the name of this house, miss?\"\n\n\"One of its names, boy.\"\n\n\"It has more than one, then, miss?\"\n\n\"One more. Its other name was Satis; which is Greek, or Latin, or\nHebrew, or all three--or all one to me--for enough.\"\n\n\"Enough House,\" said I; \"that's a curious name, miss.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she replied; \"but it meant more than it said. It meant, when it\nwas given, that whoever had this house could want nothing else. They\nmust have been easily satisfied in those days, I should think. But don't\nloiter, boy.\"\n\nThough she called me \"boy\" so often, and with a carelessness that was\nfar from complimentary, she was of about my own age. She seemed much\nolder than I, of course, being a girl, and beautiful and self-possessed;\nand she was as scornful of me as if she had been one-and-twenty, and a\nqueen.\n\nWe went into the house by a side door, the great front entrance had two\nchains across it outside,--and the first thing I noticed was, that the\npassages were all dark, and that she had left a candle burning there.\nShe took it up, and we went through more passages and up a staircase,\nand still it was all dark, and only the candle lighted us.\n\nAt last we came to the door of a room, and she said, \"Go in.\"\n\nI answered, more in shyness than politeness, \"After you, miss.\"\n\nTo this she returned: \"Don't be ridiculous, boy; I am not going in.\" And\nscornfully walked away, and--what was worse--took the candle with her.\n\nThis was very uncomfortable, and I was half afraid. However, the only\nthing to be done being to knock at the door, I knocked, and was told\nfrom within to enter. I entered, therefore, and found myself in a pretty\nlarge room, well lighted with wax candles. No glimpse of daylight was to\nbe seen in it. It was a dressing-room, as I supposed from the furniture,\nthough much of it was of forms and uses then quite unknown to me. But\nprominent in it was a draped table with a gilded looking-glass, and that\nI made out at first sight to be a fine lady's dressing-table.\n\nWhether I should have made out this object so soon if there had been no\nfine lady sitting at it, I cannot say. In an arm-chair, with an\nelbow resting on the table and her head leaning on that hand, sat the\nstrangest lady I have ever seen, or shall ever see.\n\nShe was dressed in rich materials,--satins, and lace, and silks,--all\nof white. Her shoes were white. And she had a long white veil dependent\nfrom her hair, and she had bridal flowers in her hair, but her hair was\nwhite. Some bright jewels sparkled on her neck and on her hands, and\nsome other jewels lay sparkling on the table. Dresses, less splendid\nthan the dress she wore, and half-packed trunks, were scattered about.\nShe had not quite finished dressing, for she had but one shoe on,--the\nother was on the table near her hand,--her veil was but half arranged,\nher watch and chain were not put on, and some lace for her bosom lay\nwith those trinkets, and with her handkerchief, and gloves, and\nsome flowers, and a Prayer-Book all confusedly heaped about the\nlooking-glass.\n\nIt was not in the first few moments that I saw all these things, though\nI saw more of them in the first moments than might be supposed. But I\nsaw that everything within my view which ought to be white, had been\nwhite long ago, and had lost its lustre and was faded and yellow. I saw\nthat the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress, and\nlike the flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness of her\nsunken eyes. I saw that the dress had been put upon the rounded figure\nof a young woman, and that the figure upon which it now hung loose had\nshrunk to skin and bone. Once, I had been taken to see some ghastly\nwaxwork at the Fair, representing I know not what impossible personage\nlying in state. Once, I had been taken to one of our old marsh churches\nto see a skeleton in the ashes of a rich dress that had been dug out of\na vault under the church pavement. Now, waxwork and skeleton seemed to\nhave dark eyes that moved and looked at me. I should have cried out, if\nI could.\n\n\"Who is it?\" said the lady at the table.\n\n\"Pip, ma'am.\"\n\n\"Pip?\"\n\n\"Mr. Pumblechook's boy, ma'am. Come--to play.\"\n\n\"Come nearer; let me look at you. Come close.\"\n\nIt was when I stood before her, avoiding her eyes, that I took note of\nthe surrounding objects in detail, and saw that her watch had stopped\nat twenty minutes to nine, and that a clock in the room had stopped at\ntwenty minutes to nine.\n\n\"Look at me,\" said Miss Havisham. \"You are not afraid of a woman who has\nnever seen the sun since you were born?\"\n\nI regret to state that I was not afraid of telling the enormous lie\ncomprehended in the answer \"No.\"\n\n\"Do you know what I touch here?\" she said, laying her hands, one upon\nthe other, on her left side.\n\n\"Yes, ma'am.\" (It made me think of the young man.)\n\n\"What do I touch?\"\n\n\"Your heart.\"\n\n\"Broken!\"\n\nShe uttered the word with an eager look, and with strong emphasis, and\nwith a weird smile that had a kind of boast in it. Afterwards she kept\nher hands there for a little while, and slowly took them away as if they\nwere heavy.\n\n\"I am tired,\" said Miss Havisham. \"I want diversion, and I have done\nwith men and women. Play.\"\n\nI think it will be conceded by my most disputatious reader, that she\ncould hardly have directed an unfortunate boy to do anything in the wide\nworld more difficult to be done under the circumstances.\n\n\"I sometimes have sick fancies,\" she went on, \"and I have a sick fancy\nthat I want to see some play. There, there!\" with an impatient movement\nof the fingers of her right hand; \"play, play, play!\"\n\nFor a moment, with the fear of my sister's working me before my eyes, I\nhad a desperate idea of starting round the room in the assumed character\nof Mr. Pumblechook's chaise-cart. But I felt myself so unequal to the\nperformance that I gave it up, and stood looking at Miss Havisham in\nwhat I suppose she took for a dogged manner, inasmuch as she said, when\nwe had taken a good look at each other,--\n\n\"Are you sullen and obstinate?\"\n\n\"No, ma'am, I am very sorry for you, and very sorry I can't play just\nnow. If you complain of me I shall get into trouble with my sister, so\nI would do it if I could; but it's so new here, and so strange, and so\nfine,--and melancholy--.\" I stopped, fearing I might say too much, or\nhad already said it, and we took another look at each other.\n\nBefore she spoke again, she turned her eyes from me, and looked at the\ndress she wore, and at the dressing-table, and finally at herself in the\nlooking-glass.\n\n\"So new to him,\" she muttered, \"so old to me; so strange to him, so\nfamiliar to me; so melancholy to both of us! Call Estella.\"\n\nAs she was still looking at the reflection of herself, I thought she was\nstill talking to herself, and kept quiet.\n\n\"Call Estella,\" she repeated, flashing a look at me. \"You can do that.\nCall Estella. At the door.\"\n\nTo stand in the dark in a mysterious passage of an unknown house,\nbawling Estella to a scornful young lady neither visible nor responsive,\nand feeling it a dreadful liberty so to roar out her name, was almost\nas bad as playing to order. But she answered at last, and her light came\nalong the dark passage like a star.\n\nMiss Havisham beckoned her to come close, and took up a jewel from the\ntable, and tried its effect upon her fair young bosom and against her\npretty brown hair. \"Your own, one day, my dear, and you will use it\nwell. Let me see you play cards with this boy.\"\n\n\"With this boy? Why, he is a common laboring boy!\"\n\nI thought I overheard Miss Havisham answer,--only it seemed so\nunlikely,--\"Well? You can break his heart.\"\n\n\"What do you play, boy?\" asked Estella of myself, with the greatest\ndisdain.\n\n\"Nothing but beggar my neighbor, miss.\"\n\n\"Beggar him,\" said Miss Havisham to Estella. So we sat down to cards.\n\nIt was then I began to understand that everything in the room had\nstopped, like the watch and the clock, a long time ago. I noticed that\nMiss Havisham put down the jewel exactly on the spot from which she had\ntaken it up. As Estella dealt the cards, I glanced at the dressing-table\nagain, and saw that the shoe upon it, once white, now yellow, had never\nbeen worn. I glanced down at the foot from which the shoe was absent,\nand saw that the silk stocking on it, once white, now yellow, had been\ntrodden ragged. Without this arrest of everything, this standing still\nof all the pale decayed objects, not even the withered bridal dress on\nthe collapsed form could have looked so like grave-clothes, or the long\nveil so like a shroud.\n\nSo she sat, corpse-like, as we played at cards; the frillings and\ntrimmings on her bridal dress, looking like earthy paper. I knew nothing\nthen of the discoveries that are occasionally made of bodies buried in\nancient times, which fall to powder in the moment of being distinctly\nseen; but, I have often thought since, that she must have looked as if\nthe admission of the natural light of day would have struck her to dust.\n\n\"He calls the knaves Jacks, this boy!\" said Estella with disdain, before\nour first game was out. \"And what coarse hands he has! And what thick\nboots!\"\n\nI had never thought of being ashamed of my hands before; but I began\nto consider them a very indifferent pair. Her contempt for me was so\nstrong, that it became infectious, and I caught it.\n\nShe won the game, and I dealt. I misdealt, as was only natural, when I\nknew she was lying in wait for me to do wrong; and she denounced me for\na stupid, clumsy laboring-boy.\n\n\"You say nothing of her,\" remarked Miss Havisham to me, as she looked\non. \"She says many hard things of you, but you say nothing of her. What\ndo you think of her?\"\n\n\"I don't like to say,\" I stammered.\n\n\"Tell me in my ear,\" said Miss Havisham, bending down.\n\n\"I think she is very proud,\" I replied, in a whisper.\n\n\"Anything else?\"\n\n\"I think she is very pretty.\"\n\n\"Anything else?\"\n\n\"I think she is very insulting.\" (She was looking at me then with a look\nof supreme aversion.)\n\n\"Anything else?\"\n\n\"I think I should like to go home.\"\n\n\"And never see her again, though she is so pretty?\"\n\n\"I am not sure that I shouldn't like to see her again, but I should like\nto go home now.\"\n\n\"You shall go soon,\" said Miss Havisham, aloud. \"Play the game out.\"\n\nSaving for the one weird smile at first, I should have felt almost\nsure that Miss Havisham's face could not smile. It had dropped into a\nwatchful and brooding expression,--most likely when all the things about\nher had become transfixed,--and it looked as if nothing could ever lift\nit up again. Her chest had dropped, so that she stooped; and her voice\nhad dropped, so that she spoke low, and with a dead lull upon her;\naltogether, she had the appearance of having dropped body and soul,\nwithin and without, under the weight of a crushing blow.\n\nI played the game to an end with Estella, and she beggared me. She\nthrew the cards down on the table when she had won them all, as if she\ndespised them for having been won of me.\n\n\"When shall I have you here again?\" said Miss Havisham. \"Let me think.\"\n\nI was beginning to remind her that to-day was Wednesday, when she\nchecked me with her former impatient movement of the fingers of her\nright hand.\n\n\"There, there! I know nothing of days of the week; I know nothing of\nweeks of the year. Come again after six days. You hear?\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am.\"\n\n\"Estella, take him down. Let him have something to eat, and let him roam\nand look about him while he eats. Go, Pip.\"\n\nI followed the candle down, as I had followed the candle up, and she\nstood it in the place where we had found it. Until she opened the\nside entrance, I had fancied, without thinking about it, that it must\nnecessarily be night-time. The rush of the daylight quite confounded me,\nand made me feel as if I had been in the candlelight of the strange room\nmany hours.\n\n\"You are to wait here, you boy,\" said Estella; and disappeared and\nclosed the door.\n\nI took the opportunity of being alone in the courtyard to look at my\ncoarse hands and my common boots. My opinion of those accessories was\nnot favorable. They had never troubled me before, but they troubled\nme now, as vulgar appendages. I determined to ask Joe why he had ever\ntaught me to call those picture-cards Jacks, which ought to be called\nknaves. I wished Joe had been rather more genteelly brought up, and then\nI should have been so too.\n\nShe came back, with some bread and meat and a little mug of beer. She\nput the mug down on the stones of the yard, and gave me the bread\nand meat without looking at me, as insolently as if I were a dog in\ndisgrace. I was so humiliated, hurt, spurned, offended, angry, sorry,--I\ncannot hit upon the right name for the smart--God knows what its name\nwas,--that tears started to my eyes. The moment they sprang there, the\ngirl looked at me with a quick delight in having been the cause of them.\nThis gave me power to keep them back and to look at her: so, she gave a\ncontemptuous toss--but with a sense, I thought, of having made too sure\nthat I was so wounded--and left me.\n\nBut when she was gone, I looked about me for a place to hide my face\nin, and got behind one of the gates in the brewery-lane, and leaned my\nsleeve against the wall there, and leaned my forehead on it and cried.\nAs I cried, I kicked the wall, and took a hard twist at my hair; so\nbitter were my feelings, and so sharp was the smart without a name, that\nneeded counteraction.\n\nMy sister's bringing up had made me sensitive. In the little world in\nwhich children have their existence whosoever brings them up, there is\nnothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice. It may be\nonly small injustice that the child can be exposed to; but the child\nis small, and its world is small, and its rocking-horse stands as many\nhands high, according to scale, as a big-boned Irish hunter. Within\nmyself, I had sustained, from my babyhood, a perpetual conflict with\ninjustice. I had known, from the time when I could speak, that my\nsister, in her capricious and violent coercion, was unjust to me. I had\ncherished a profound conviction that her bringing me up by hand gave her\nno right to bring me up by jerks. Through all my punishments, disgraces,\nfasts, and vigils, and other penitential performances, I had nursed\nthis assurance; and to my communing so much with it, in a solitary and\nunprotected way, I in great part refer the fact that I was morally timid\nand very sensitive.\n\nI got rid of my injured feelings for the time by kicking them into the\nbrewery wall, and twisting them out of my hair, and then I smoothed my\nface with my sleeve, and came from behind the gate. The bread and meat\nwere acceptable, and the beer was warming and tingling, and I was soon\nin spirits to look about me.\n\nTo be sure, it was a deserted place, down to the pigeon-house in the\nbrewery-yard, which had been blown crooked on its pole by some high\nwind, and would have made the pigeons think themselves at sea, if there\nhad been any pigeons there to be rocked by it. But there were no pigeons\nin the dove-cot, no horses in the stable, no pigs in the sty, no malt in\nthe storehouse, no smells of grains and beer in the copper or the vat.\nAll the uses and scents of the brewery might have evaporated with its\nlast reek of smoke. In a by-yard, there was a wilderness of empty casks,\nwhich had a certain sour remembrance of better days lingering about\nthem; but it was too sour to be accepted as a sample of the beer that\nwas gone,--and in this respect I remember those recluses as being like\nmost others.\n\nBehind the furthest end of the brewery, was a rank garden with an old\nwall; not so high but that I could struggle up and hold on long enough\nto look over it, and see that the rank garden was the garden of the\nhouse, and that it was overgrown with tangled weeds, but that there was\na track upon the green and yellow paths, as if some one sometimes walked\nthere, and that Estella was walking away from me even then. But she\nseemed to be everywhere. For when I yielded to the temptation presented\nby the casks, and began to walk on them, I saw her walking on them at\nthe end of the yard of casks. She had her back towards me, and held her\npretty brown hair spread out in her two hands, and never looked round,\nand passed out of my view directly. So, in the brewery itself,--by which\nI mean the large paved lofty place in which they used to make the beer,\nand where the brewing utensils still were. When I first went into it,\nand, rather oppressed by its gloom, stood near the door looking about\nme, I saw her pass among the extinguished fires, and ascend some light\niron stairs, and go out by a gallery high overhead, as if she were going\nout into the sky.\n\nIt was in this place, and at this moment, that a strange thing happened\nto my fancy. I thought it a strange thing then, and I thought it a\nstranger thing long afterwards. I turned my eyes--a little dimmed by\nlooking up at the frosty light--towards a great wooden beam in a low\nnook of the building near me on my right hand, and I saw a figure\nhanging there by the neck. A figure all in yellow white, with but\none shoe to the feet; and it hung so, that I could see that the faded\ntrimmings of the dress were like earthy paper, and that the face was\nMiss Havisham's, with a movement going over the whole countenance as if\nshe were trying to call to me. In the terror of seeing the figure,\nand in the terror of being certain that it had not been there a moment\nbefore, I at first ran from it, and then ran towards it. And my terror\nwas greatest of all when I found no figure there.\n\nNothing less than the frosty light of the cheerful sky, the sight of\npeople passing beyond the bars of the court-yard gate, and the reviving\ninfluence of the rest of the bread and meat and beer, would have brought\nme round. Even with those aids, I might not have come to myself as soon\nas I did, but that I saw Estella approaching with the keys, to let\nme out. She would have some fair reason for looking down upon me, I\nthought, if she saw me frightened; and she would have no fair reason.\n\nShe gave me a triumphant glance in passing me, as if she rejoiced that\nmy hands were so coarse and my boots were so thick, and she opened the\ngate, and stood holding it. I was passing out without looking at her,\nwhen she touched me with a taunting hand.\n\n\"Why don't you cry?\"\n\n\"Because I don't want to.\"\n\n\"You do,\" said she. \"You have been crying till you are half blind, and\nyou are near crying again now.\"\n\nShe laughed contemptuously, pushed me out, and locked the gate upon me.\nI went straight to Mr. Pumblechook's, and was immensely relieved to find\nhim not at home. So, leaving word with the shopman on what day I was\nwanted at Miss Havisham's again, I set off on the four-mile walk to\nour forge; pondering, as I went along, on all I had seen, and deeply\nrevolving that I was a common laboring-boy; that my hands were coarse;\nthat my boots were thick; that I had fallen into a despicable habit\nof calling knaves Jacks; that I was much more ignorant than I had\nconsidered myself last night, and generally that I was in a low-lived\nbad way.\n\n\n\n\nChapter IX\n\nWhen I reached home, my sister was very curious to know all about Miss\nHavisham's, and asked a number of questions. And I soon found myself\ngetting heavily bumped from behind in the nape of the neck and the small\nof the back, and having my face ignominiously shoved against the kitchen\nwall, because I did not answer those questions at sufficient length.\n\nIf a dread of not being understood be hidden in the breasts of other\nyoung people to anything like the extent to which it used to be hidden\nin mine,--which I consider probable, as I have no particular reason\nto suspect myself of having been a monstrosity,--it is the key to many\nreservations. I felt convinced that if I described Miss Havisham's as my\neyes had seen it, I should not be understood. Not only that, but I felt\nconvinced that Miss Havisham too would not be understood; and although\nshe was perfectly incomprehensible to me, I entertained an impression\nthat there would be something coarse and treacherous in my dragging\nher as she really was (to say nothing of Miss Estella) before the\ncontemplation of Mrs. Joe. Consequently, I said as little as I could,\nand had my face shoved against the kitchen wall.\n\nThe worst of it was that that bullying old Pumblechook, preyed upon by\na devouring curiosity to be informed of all I had seen and heard, came\ngaping over in his chaise-cart at tea-time, to have the details divulged\nto him. And the mere sight of the torment, with his fishy eyes and mouth\nopen, his sandy hair inquisitively on end, and his waistcoat heaving\nwith windy arithmetic, made me vicious in my reticence.\n\n\"Well, boy,\" Uncle Pumblechook began, as soon as he was seated in the\nchair of honor by the fire. \"How did you get on up town?\"\n\nI answered, \"Pretty well, sir,\" and my sister shook her fist at me.\n\n\"Pretty well?\" Mr. Pumblechook repeated. \"Pretty well is no answer. Tell\nus what you mean by pretty well, boy?\"\n\nWhitewash on the forehead hardens the brain into a state of obstinacy\nperhaps. Anyhow, with whitewash from the wall on my forehead, my\nobstinacy was adamantine. I reflected for some time, and then answered\nas if I had discovered a new idea, \"I mean pretty well.\"\n\nMy sister with an exclamation of impatience was going to fly at me,--I\nhad no shadow of defence, for Joe was busy in the forge,--when Mr.\nPumblechook interposed with \"No! Don't lose your temper. Leave this\nlad to me, ma'am; leave this lad to me.\" Mr. Pumblechook then turned me\ntowards him, as if he were going to cut my hair, and said,--\n\n\"First (to get our thoughts in order): Forty-three pence?\"\n\nI calculated the consequences of replying \"Four Hundred Pound,\" and\nfinding them against me, went as near the answer as I could--which was\nsomewhere about eightpence off. Mr. Pumblechook then put me through my\npence-table from \"twelve pence make one shilling,\" up to \"forty pence\nmake three and fourpence,\" and then triumphantly demanded, as if he had\ndone for me, \"Now! How much is forty-three pence?\" To which I replied,\nafter a long interval of reflection, \"I don't know.\" And I was so\naggravated that I almost doubt if I did know.\n\nMr. Pumblechook worked his head like a screw to screw it out of me,\nand said, \"Is forty-three pence seven and sixpence three fardens, for\ninstance?\"\n\n\"Yes!\" said I. And although my sister instantly boxed my ears, it was\nhighly gratifying to me to see that the answer spoilt his joke, and\nbrought him to a dead stop.\n\n\"Boy! What like is Miss Havisham?\" Mr. Pumblechook began again when\nhe had recovered; folding his arms tight on his chest and applying the\nscrew.\n\n\"Very tall and dark,\" I told him.\n\n\"Is she, uncle?\" asked my sister.\n\nMr. Pumblechook winked assent; from which I at once inferred that he had\nnever seen Miss Havisham, for she was nothing of the kind.\n\n\"Good!\" said Mr. Pumblechook conceitedly. (\"This is the way to have him!\nWe are beginning to hold our own, I think, Mum?\")\n\n\"I am sure, uncle,\" returned Mrs. Joe, \"I wish you had him always; you\nknow so well how to deal with him.\"\n\n\"Now, boy! What was she a doing of, when you went in today?\" asked Mr.\nPumblechook.\n\n\"She was sitting,\" I answered, \"in a black velvet coach.\"\n\nMr. Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe stared at one another--as they well\nmight--and both repeated, \"In a black velvet coach?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said I. \"And Miss Estella--that's her niece, I think--handed her\nin cake and wine at the coach-window, on a gold plate. And we all had\ncake and wine on gold plates. And I got up behind the coach to eat mine,\nbecause she told me to.\"\n\n\"Was anybody else there?\" asked Mr. Pumblechook.\n\n\"Four dogs,\" said I.\n\n\"Large or small?\"\n\n\"Immense,\" said I. \"And they fought for veal-cutlets out of a silver\nbasket.\"\n\nMr. Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe stared at one another again, in utter\namazement. I was perfectly frantic,--a reckless witness under the\ntorture,--and would have told them anything.\n\n\"Where was this coach, in the name of gracious?\" asked my sister.\n\n\"In Miss Havisham's room.\" They stared again. \"But there weren't any\nhorses to it.\" I added this saving clause, in the moment of rejecting\nfour richly caparisoned coursers which I had had wild thoughts of\nharnessing.\n\n\"Can this be possible, uncle?\" asked Mrs. Joe. \"What can the boy mean?\"\n\n\"I'll tell you, Mum,\" said Mr. Pumblechook. \"My opinion is, it's a\nsedan-chair. She's flighty, you know,--very flighty,--quite flighty\nenough to pass her days in a sedan-chair.\"\n\n\"Did you ever see her in it, uncle?\" asked Mrs. Joe.\n\n\"How could I,\" he returned, forced to the admission, \"when I never see\nher in my life? Never clapped eyes upon her!\"\n\n\"Goodness, uncle! And yet you have spoken to her?\"\n\n\"Why, don't you know,\" said Mr. Pumblechook, testily, \"that when I have\nbeen there, I have been took up to the outside of her door, and the door\nhas stood ajar, and she has spoke to me that way. Don't say you don't\nknow that, Mum. Howsever, the boy went there to play. What did you play\nat, boy?\"\n\n\"We played with flags,\" I said. (I beg to observe that I think of myself\nwith amazement, when I recall the lies I told on this occasion.)\n\n\"Flags!\" echoed my sister.\n\n\"Yes,\" said I. \"Estella waved a blue flag, and I waved a red one, and\nMiss Havisham waved one sprinkled all over with little gold stars, out\nat the coach-window. And then we all waved our swords and hurrahed.\"\n\n\"Swords!\" repeated my sister. \"Where did you get swords from?\"\n\n\"Out of a cupboard,\" said I. \"And I saw pistols in it,--and jam,--and\npills. And there was no daylight in the room, but it was all lighted up\nwith candles.\"\n\n\"That's true, Mum,\" said Mr. Pumblechook, with a grave nod. \"That's the\nstate of the case, for that much I've seen myself.\" And then they\nboth stared at me, and I, with an obtrusive show of artlessness on my\ncountenance, stared at them, and plaited the right leg of my trousers\nwith my right hand.\n\nIf they had asked me any more questions, I should undoubtedly have\nbetrayed myself, for I was even then on the point of mentioning that\nthere was a balloon in the yard, and should have hazarded the statement\nbut for my invention being divided between that phenomenon and a bear\nin the brewery. They were so much occupied, however, in discussing the\nmarvels I had already presented for their consideration, that I escaped.\nThe subject still held them when Joe came in from his work to have a cup\nof tea. To whom my sister, more for the relief of her own mind than for\nthe gratification of his, related my pretended experiences.\n\nNow, when I saw Joe open his blue eyes and roll them all round the\nkitchen in helpless amazement, I was overtaken by penitence; but only as\nregarded him,--not in the least as regarded the other two. Towards\nJoe, and Joe only, I considered myself a young monster, while they sat\ndebating what results would come to me from Miss Havisham's acquaintance\nand favor. They had no doubt that Miss Havisham would \"do something\"\nfor me; their doubts related to the form that something would take.\nMy sister stood out for \"property.\" Mr. Pumblechook was in favor of a\nhandsome premium for binding me apprentice to some genteel trade,--say,\nthe corn and seed trade, for instance. Joe fell into the deepest\ndisgrace with both, for offering the bright suggestion that I might only\nbe presented with one of the dogs who had fought for the veal-cutlets.\n\"If a fool's head can't express better opinions than that,\" said my\nsister, \"and you have got any work to do, you had better go and do it.\"\nSo he went.\n\nAfter Mr. Pumblechook had driven off, and when my sister was washing up,\nI stole into the forge to Joe, and remained by him until he had done for\nthe night. Then I said, \"Before the fire goes out, Joe, I should like to\ntell you something.\"\n\n\"Should you, Pip?\" said Joe, drawing his shoeing-stool near the forge.\n\"Then tell us. What is it, Pip?\"\n\n\"Joe,\" said I, taking hold of his rolled-up shirt sleeve, and twisting\nit between my finger and thumb, \"you remember all that about Miss\nHavisham's?\"\n\n\"Remember?\" said Joe. \"I believe you! Wonderful!\"\n\n\"It's a terrible thing, Joe; it ain't true.\"\n\n\"What are you telling of, Pip?\" cried Joe, falling back in the greatest\namazement. \"You don't mean to say it's--\"\n\n\"Yes I do; it's lies, Joe.\"\n\n\"But not all of it? Why sure you don't mean to say, Pip, that there was\nno black welwet co--eh?\" For, I stood shaking my head. \"But at least\nthere was dogs, Pip? Come, Pip,\" said Joe, persuasively, \"if there\nwarn't no weal-cutlets, at least there was dogs?\"\n\n\"No, Joe.\"\n\n\"A dog?\" said Joe. \"A puppy? Come?\"\n\n\"No, Joe, there was nothing at all of the kind.\"\n\nAs I fixed my eyes hopelessly on Joe, Joe contemplated me in dismay.\n\"Pip, old chap! This won't do, old fellow! I say! Where do you expect to\ngo to?\"\n\n\"It's terrible, Joe; ain't it?\"\n\n\"Terrible?\" cried Joe. \"Awful! What possessed you?\"\n\n\"I don't know what possessed me, Joe,\" I replied, letting his shirt\nsleeve go, and sitting down in the ashes at his feet, hanging my head;\n\"but I wish you hadn't taught me to call Knaves at cards Jacks; and I\nwish my boots weren't so thick nor my hands so coarse.\"\n\nAnd then I told Joe that I felt very miserable, and that I hadn't been\nable to explain myself to Mrs. Joe and Pumblechook, who were so rude to\nme, and that there had been a beautiful young lady at Miss Havisham's\nwho was dreadfully proud, and that she had said I was common, and that I\nknew I was common, and that I wished I was not common, and that the lies\nhad come of it somehow, though I didn't know how.\n\nThis was a case of metaphysics, at least as difficult for Joe to deal\nwith as for me. But Joe took the case altogether out of the region of\nmetaphysics, and by that means vanquished it.\n\n\"There's one thing you may be sure of, Pip,\" said Joe, after some\nrumination, \"namely, that lies is lies. Howsever they come, they didn't\nought to come, and they come from the father of lies, and work round to\nthe same. Don't you tell no more of 'em, Pip. That ain't the way to get\nout of being common, old chap. And as to being common, I don't make\nit out at all clear. You are oncommon in some things. You're oncommon\nsmall. Likewise you're a oncommon scholar.\"\n\n\"No, I am ignorant and backward, Joe.\"\n\n\"Why, see what a letter you wrote last night! Wrote in print even! I've\nseen letters--Ah! and from gentlefolks!--that I'll swear weren't wrote\nin print,\" said Joe.\n\n\"I have learnt next to nothing, Joe. You think much of me. It's only\nthat.\"\n\n\"Well, Pip,\" said Joe, \"be it so or be it son't, you must be a common\nscholar afore you can be a oncommon one, I should hope! The king upon\nhis throne, with his crown upon his ed, can't sit and write his acts\nof Parliament in print, without having begun, when he were a unpromoted\nPrince, with the alphabet.--Ah!\" added Joe, with a shake of the head\nthat was full of meaning, \"and begun at A too, and worked his way to Z.\nAnd I know what that is to do, though I can't say I've exactly done it.\"\n\nThere was some hope in this piece of wisdom, and it rather encouraged\nme.\n\n\"Whether common ones as to callings and earnings,\" pursued Joe,\nreflectively, \"mightn't be the better of continuing for to keep\ncompany with common ones, instead of going out to play with oncommon\nones,--which reminds me to hope that there were a flag, perhaps?\"\n\n\"No, Joe.\"\n\n\"(I'm sorry there weren't a flag, Pip). Whether that might be or\nmightn't be, is a thing as can't be looked into now, without putting\nyour sister on the Rampage; and that's a thing not to be thought of as\nbeing done intentional. Lookee here, Pip, at what is said to you by a\ntrue friend. Which this to you the true friend say. If you can't get to\nbe oncommon through going straight, you'll never get to do it through\ngoing crooked. So don't tell no more on 'em, Pip, and live well and die\nhappy.\"\n\n\"You are not angry with me, Joe?\"\n\n\"No, old chap. But bearing in mind that them were which I meantersay\nof a stunning and outdacious sort,--alluding to them which bordered on\nweal-cutlets and dog-fighting,--a sincere well-wisher would adwise, Pip,\ntheir being dropped into your meditations, when you go upstairs to bed.\nThat's all, old chap, and don't never do it no more.\"\n\nWhen I got up to my little room and said my prayers, I did not forget\nJoe's recommendation, and yet my young mind was in that disturbed and\nunthankful state, that I thought long after I laid me down, how common\nEstella would consider Joe, a mere blacksmith; how thick his boots, and\nhow coarse his hands. I thought how Joe and my sister were then sitting\nin the kitchen, and how I had come up to bed from the kitchen, and how\nMiss Havisham and Estella never sat in a kitchen, but were far above the\nlevel of such common doings. I fell asleep recalling what I \"used to\ndo\" when I was at Miss Havisham's; as though I had been there weeks or\nmonths, instead of hours; and as though it were quite an old subject of\nremembrance, instead of one that had arisen only that day.\n\nThat was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it\nis the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it,\nand think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read\nthis, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold,\nof thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the\nformation of the first link on one memorable day.\n\n\n\n\nChapter X\n\nThe felicitous idea occurred to me a morning or two later when I woke,\nthat the best step I could take towards making myself uncommon was to\nget out of Biddy everything she knew. In pursuance of this luminous\nconception I mentioned to Biddy when I went to Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's\nat night, that I had a particular reason for wishing to get on in life,\nand that I should feel very much obliged to her if she would impart\nall her learning to me. Biddy, who was the most obliging of girls,\nimmediately said she would, and indeed began to carry out her promise\nwithin five minutes.\n\nThe Educational scheme or Course established by Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt\nmay be resolved into the following synopsis. The pupils ate apples\nand put straws down one another's backs, until Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt\ncollected her energies, and made an indiscriminate totter at them with\na birch-rod. After receiving the charge with every mark of derision, the\npupils formed in line and buzzingly passed a ragged book from hand to\nhand. The book had an alphabet in it, some figures and tables, and\na little spelling,--that is to say, it had had once. As soon as this\nvolume began to circulate, Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt fell into a state of\ncoma, arising either from sleep or a rheumatic paroxysm. The pupils then\nentered among themselves upon a competitive examination on the subject\nof Boots, with the view of ascertaining who could tread the hardest upon\nwhose toes. This mental exercise lasted until Biddy made a rush at\nthem and distributed three defaced Bibles (shaped as if they had been\nunskilfully cut off the chump end of something), more illegibly printed\nat the best than any curiosities of literature I have since met with,\nspeckled all over with ironmould, and having various specimens of the\ninsect world smashed between their leaves. This part of the Course was\nusually lightened by several single combats between Biddy and refractory\nstudents. When the fights were over, Biddy gave out the number of a\npage, and then we all read aloud what we could,--or what we couldn't--in\na frightful chorus; Biddy leading with a high, shrill, monotonous voice,\nand none of us having the least notion of, or reverence for, what we\nwere reading about. When this horrible din had lasted a certain time,\nit mechanically awoke Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt, who staggered at a boy\nfortuitously, and pulled his ears. This was understood to terminate\nthe Course for the evening, and we emerged into the air with shrieks of\nintellectual victory. It is fair to remark that there was no prohibition\nagainst any pupil's entertaining himself with a slate or even with the\nink (when there was any), but that it was not easy to pursue that branch\nof study in the winter season, on account of the little general shop\nin which the classes were holden--and which was also Mr. Wopsle's\ngreat-aunt's sitting-room and bedchamber--being but faintly illuminated\nthrough the agency of one low-spirited dip-candle and no snuffers.\n\nIt appeared to me that it would take time to become uncommon, under\nthese circumstances: nevertheless, I resolved to try it, and that\nvery evening Biddy entered on our special agreement, by imparting some\ninformation from her little catalogue of Prices, under the head of moist\nsugar, and lending me, to copy at home, a large old English D which she\nhad imitated from the heading of some newspaper, and which I supposed,\nuntil she told me what it was, to be a design for a buckle.\n\nOf course there was a public-house in the village, and of course Joe\nliked sometimes to smoke his pipe there. I had received strict orders\nfrom my sister to call for him at the Three Jolly Bargemen, that\nevening, on my way from school, and bring him home at my peril. To the\nThree Jolly Bargemen, therefore, I directed my steps.\n\nThere was a bar at the Jolly Bargemen, with some alarmingly long chalk\nscores in it on the wall at the side of the door, which seemed to me to\nbe never paid off. They had been there ever since I could remember, and\nhad grown more than I had. But there was a quantity of chalk about our\ncountry, and perhaps the people neglected no opportunity of turning it\nto account.\n\nIt being Saturday night, I found the landlord looking rather grimly\nat these records; but as my business was with Joe and not with him, I\nmerely wished him good evening, and passed into the common room at the\nend of the passage, where there was a bright large kitchen fire,\nand where Joe was smoking his pipe in company with Mr. Wopsle and a\nstranger. Joe greeted me as usual with \"Halloa, Pip, old chap!\" and the\nmoment he said that, the stranger turned his head and looked at me.\n\nHe was a secret-looking man whom I had never seen before. His head was\nall on one side, and one of his eyes was half shut up, as if he were\ntaking aim at something with an invisible gun. He had a pipe in his\nmouth, and he took it out, and, after slowly blowing all his smoke away\nand looking hard at me all the time, nodded. So, I nodded, and then he\nnodded again, and made room on the settle beside him that I might sit\ndown there.\n\nBut as I was used to sit beside Joe whenever I entered that place of\nresort, I said \"No, thank you, sir,\" and fell into the space Joe made\nfor me on the opposite settle. The strange man, after glancing at Joe,\nand seeing that his attention was otherwise engaged, nodded to me again\nwhen I had taken my seat, and then rubbed his leg--in a very odd way, as\nit struck me.\n\n\"You was saying,\" said the strange man, turning to Joe, \"that you was a\nblacksmith.\"\n\n\"Yes. I said it, you know,\" said Joe.\n\n\"What'll you drink, Mr.--? You didn't mention your name, by the bye.\"\n\nJoe mentioned it now, and the strange man called him by it. \"What'll you\ndrink, Mr. Gargery? At my expense? To top up with?\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Joe, \"to tell you the truth, I ain't much in the habit of\ndrinking at anybody's expense but my own.\"\n\n\"Habit? No,\" returned the stranger, \"but once and away, and on a\nSaturday night too. Come! Put a name to it, Mr. Gargery.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't wish to be stiff company,\" said Joe. \"Rum.\"\n\n\"Rum,\" repeated the stranger. \"And will the other gentleman originate a\nsentiment.\"\n\n\"Rum,\" said Mr. Wopsle.\n\n\"Three Rums!\" cried the stranger, calling to the landlord. \"Glasses\nround!\"\n\n\"This other gentleman,\" observed Joe, by way of introducing Mr. Wopsle,\n\"is a gentleman that you would like to hear give it out. Our clerk at\nchurch.\"\n\n\"Aha!\" said the stranger, quickly, and cocking his eye at me. \"The\nlonely church, right out on the marshes, with graves round it!\"\n\n\"That's it,\" said Joe.\n\nThe stranger, with a comfortable kind of grunt over his pipe, put\nhis legs up on the settle that he had to himself. He wore a flapping\nbroad-brimmed traveller's hat, and under it a handkerchief tied over his\nhead in the manner of a cap: so that he showed no hair. As he looked\nat the fire, I thought I saw a cunning expression, followed by a\nhalf-laugh, come into his face.\n\n\"I am not acquainted with this country, gentlemen, but it seems a\nsolitary country towards the river.\"\n\n\"Most marshes is solitary,\" said Joe.\n\n\"No doubt, no doubt. Do you find any gypsies, now, or tramps, or\nvagrants of any sort, out there?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Joe; \"none but a runaway convict now and then. And we don't\nfind them, easy. Eh, Mr. Wopsle?\"\n\nMr. Wopsle, with a majestic remembrance of old discomfiture, assented;\nbut not warmly.\n\n\"Seems you have been out after such?\" asked the stranger.\n\n\"Once,\" returned Joe. \"Not that we wanted to take them, you understand;\nwe went out as lookers on; me, and Mr. Wopsle, and Pip. Didn't us, Pip?\"\n\n\"Yes, Joe.\"\n\nThe stranger looked at me again,--still cocking his eye, as if he were\nexpressly taking aim at me with his invisible gun,--and said, \"He's a\nlikely young parcel of bones that. What is it you call him?\"\n\n\"Pip,\" said Joe.\n\n\"Christened Pip?\"\n\n\"No, not christened Pip.\"\n\n\"Surname Pip?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Joe, \"it's a kind of family name what he gave himself when a\ninfant, and is called by.\"\n\n\"Son of yours?\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Joe, meditatively, not, of course, that it could be in\nanywise necessary to consider about it, but because it was the way at\nthe Jolly Bargemen to seem to consider deeply about everything that was\ndiscussed over pipes,--\"well--no. No, he ain't.\"\n\n\"Nevvy?\" said the strange man.\n\n\"Well,\" said Joe, with the same appearance of profound cogitation, \"he\nis not--no, not to deceive you, he is not--my nevvy.\"\n\n\"What the Blue Blazes is he?\" asked the stranger. Which appeared to me\nto be an inquiry of unnecessary strength.\n\nMr. Wopsle struck in upon that; as one who knew all about relationships,\nhaving professional occasion to bear in mind what female relations a man\nmight not marry; and expounded the ties between me and Joe. Having\nhis hand in, Mr. Wopsle finished off with a most terrifically snarling\npassage from Richard the Third, and seemed to think he had done quite\nenough to account for it when he added, \"--as the poet says.\"\n\nAnd here I may remark that when Mr. Wopsle referred to me, he considered\nit a necessary part of such reference to rumple my hair and poke it into\nmy eyes. I cannot conceive why everybody of his standing who visited\nat our house should always have put me through the same inflammatory\nprocess under similar circumstances. Yet I do not call to mind that I\nwas ever in my earlier youth the subject of remark in our social family\ncircle, but some large-handed person took some such ophthalmic steps to\npatronize me.\n\nAll this while, the strange man looked at nobody but me, and looked at\nme as if he were determined to have a shot at me at last, and bring me\ndown. But he said nothing after offering his Blue Blazes observation,\nuntil the glasses of rum and water were brought; and then he made his\nshot, and a most extraordinary shot it was.\n\nIt was not a verbal remark, but a proceeding in dumb-show, and was\npointedly addressed to me. He stirred his rum and water pointedly at me,\nand he tasted his rum and water pointedly at me. And he stirred it and\nhe tasted it; not with a spoon that was brought to him, but with a file.\n\nHe did this so that nobody but I saw the file; and when he had done it\nhe wiped the file and put it in a breast-pocket. I knew it to be\nJoe's file, and I knew that he knew my convict, the moment I saw the\ninstrument. I sat gazing at him, spell-bound. But he now reclined on his\nsettle, taking very little notice of me, and talking principally about\nturnips.\n\nThere was a delicious sense of cleaning-up and making a quiet pause\nbefore going on in life afresh, in our village on Saturday nights, which\nstimulated Joe to dare to stay out half an hour longer on Saturdays\nthan at other times. The half-hour and the rum and water running out\ntogether, Joe got up to go, and took me by the hand.\n\n\"Stop half a moment, Mr. Gargery,\" said the strange man. \"I think I've\ngot a bright new shilling somewhere in my pocket, and if I have, the boy\nshall have it.\"\n\nHe looked it out from a handful of small change, folded it in some\ncrumpled paper, and gave it to me. \"Yours!\" said he. \"Mind! Your own.\"\n\nI thanked him, staring at him far beyond the bounds of good manners,\nand holding tight to Joe. He gave Joe good-night, and he gave Mr. Wopsle\ngood-night (who went out with us), and he gave me only a look with his\naiming eye,--no, not a look, for he shut it up, but wonders may be done\nwith an eye by hiding it.\n\nOn the way home, if I had been in a humor for talking, the talk must\nhave been all on my side, for Mr. Wopsle parted from us at the door of\nthe Jolly Bargemen, and Joe went all the way home with his mouth wide\nopen, to rinse the rum out with as much air as possible. But I was in\na manner stupefied by this turning up of my old misdeed and old\nacquaintance, and could think of nothing else.\n\nMy sister was not in a very bad temper when we presented ourselves in\nthe kitchen, and Joe was encouraged by that unusual circumstance to tell\nher about the bright shilling. \"A bad un, I'll be bound,\" said Mrs. Joe\ntriumphantly, \"or he wouldn't have given it to the boy! Let's look at\nit.\"\n\nI took it out of the paper, and it proved to be a good one. \"But what's\nthis?\" said Mrs. Joe, throwing down the shilling and catching up the\npaper. \"Two One-Pound notes?\"\n\nNothing less than two fat sweltering one-pound notes that seemed to have\nbeen on terms of the warmest intimacy with all the cattle-markets in\nthe county. Joe caught up his hat again, and ran with them to the Jolly\nBargemen to restore them to their owner. While he was gone, I sat down\non my usual stool and looked vacantly at my sister, feeling pretty sure\nthat the man would not be there.\n\nPresently, Joe came back, saying that the man was gone, but that he,\nJoe, had left word at the Three Jolly Bargemen concerning the notes.\nThen my sister sealed them up in a piece of paper, and put them under\nsome dried rose-leaves in an ornamental teapot on the top of a press in\nthe state parlor. There they remained, a nightmare to me, many and many\na night and day.\n\nI had sadly broken sleep when I got to bed, through thinking of the\nstrange man taking aim at me with his invisible gun, and of the guiltily\ncoarse and common thing it was, to be on secret terms of conspiracy with\nconvicts,--a feature in my low career that I had previously forgotten.\nI was haunted by the file too. A dread possessed me that when I least\nexpected it, the file would reappear. I coaxed myself to sleep by\nthinking of Miss Havisham's, next Wednesday; and in my sleep I saw\nthe file coming at me out of a door, without seeing who held it, and I\nscreamed myself awake.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XI\n\nAt the appointed time I returned to Miss Havisham's, and my hesitating\nring at the gate brought out Estella. She locked it after admitting\nme, as she had done before, and again preceded me into the dark passage\nwhere her candle stood. She took no notice of me until she had the\ncandle in her hand, when she looked over her shoulder, superciliously\nsaying, \"You are to come this way to-day,\" and took me to quite another\npart of the house.\n\nThe passage was a long one, and seemed to pervade the whole square\nbasement of the Manor House. We traversed but one side of the square,\nhowever, and at the end of it she stopped, and put her candle down and\nopened a door. Here, the daylight reappeared, and I found myself in\na small paved courtyard, the opposite side of which was formed by a\ndetached dwelling-house, that looked as if it had once belonged to the\nmanager or head clerk of the extinct brewery. There was a clock in the\nouter wall of this house. Like the clock in Miss Havisham's room, and\nlike Miss Havisham's watch, it had stopped at twenty minutes to nine.\n\nWe went in at the door, which stood open, and into a gloomy room with a\nlow ceiling, on the ground-floor at the back. There was some company in\nthe room, and Estella said to me as she joined it, \"You are to go and\nstand there boy, till you are wanted.\" \"There\", being the window, I\ncrossed to it, and stood \"there,\" in a very uncomfortable state of mind,\nlooking out.\n\nIt opened to the ground, and looked into a most miserable corner of the\nneglected garden, upon a rank ruin of cabbage-stalks, and one box-tree\nthat had been clipped round long ago, like a pudding, and had a new\ngrowth at the top of it, out of shape and of a different color, as if\nthat part of the pudding had stuck to the saucepan and got burnt. This\nwas my homely thought, as I contemplated the box-tree. There had been\nsome light snow, overnight, and it lay nowhere else to my knowledge;\nbut, it had not quite melted from the cold shadow of this bit of garden,\nand the wind caught it up in little eddies and threw it at the window,\nas if it pelted me for coming there.\n\nI divined that my coming had stopped conversation in the room, and that\nits other occupants were looking at me. I could see nothing of the room\nexcept the shining of the fire in the window-glass, but I stiffened in\nall my joints with the consciousness that I was under close inspection.\n\nThere were three ladies in the room and one gentleman. Before I had been\nstanding at the window five minutes, they somehow conveyed to me that\nthey were all toadies and humbugs, but that each of them pretended not\nto know that the others were toadies and humbugs: because the admission\nthat he or she did know it, would have made him or her out to be a toady\nand humbug.\n\nThey all had a listless and dreary air of waiting somebody's pleasure,\nand the most talkative of the ladies had to speak quite rigidly to\nrepress a yawn. This lady, whose name was Camilla, very much reminded\nme of my sister, with the difference that she was older, and (as I found\nwhen I caught sight of her) of a blunter cast of features. Indeed, when\nI knew her better I began to think it was a Mercy she had any features\nat all, so very blank and high was the dead wall of her face.\n\n\"Poor dear soul!\" said this lady, with an abruptness of manner quite my\nsister's. \"Nobody's enemy but his own!\"\n\n\"It would be much more commendable to be somebody else's enemy,\" said\nthe gentleman; \"far more natural.\"\n\n\"Cousin Raymond,\" observed another lady, \"we are to love our neighbor.\"\n\n\"Sarah Pocket,\" returned Cousin Raymond, \"if a man is not his own\nneighbor, who is?\"\n\nMiss Pocket laughed, and Camilla laughed and said (checking a yawn),\n\"The idea!\" But I thought they seemed to think it rather a good\nidea too. The other lady, who had not spoken yet, said gravely and\nemphatically, \"Very true!\"\n\n\"Poor soul!\" Camilla presently went on (I knew they had all been looking\nat me in the mean time), \"he is so very strange! Would anyone believe\nthat when Tom's wife died, he actually could not be induced to see the\nimportance of the children's having the deepest of trimmings to their\nmourning? 'Good Lord!' says he, 'Camilla, what can it signify so long\nas the poor bereaved little things are in black?' So like Matthew! The\nidea!\"\n\n\"Good points in him, good points in him,\" said Cousin Raymond; \"Heaven\nforbid I should deny good points in him; but he never had, and he never\nwill have, any sense of the proprieties.\"\n\n\"You know I was obliged,\" said Camilla,--\"I was obliged to be firm. I\nsaid, 'It WILL NOT DO, for the credit of the family.' I told him that,\nwithout deep trimmings, the family was disgraced. I cried about it from\nbreakfast till dinner. I injured my digestion. And at last he flung out\nin his violent way, and said, with a D, 'Then do as you like.' Thank\nGoodness it will always be a consolation to me to know that I instantly\nwent out in a pouring rain and bought the things.\"\n\n\"He paid for them, did he not?\" asked Estella.\n\n\"It's not the question, my dear child, who paid for them,\" returned\nCamilla. \"I bought them. And I shall often think of that with peace,\nwhen I wake up in the night.\"\n\nThe ringing of a distant bell, combined with the echoing of some cry or\ncall along the passage by which I had come, interrupted the conversation\nand caused Estella to say to me, \"Now, boy!\" On my turning round, they\nall looked at me with the utmost contempt, and, as I went out, I heard\nSarah Pocket say, \"Well I am sure! What next!\" and Camilla add, with\nindignation, \"Was there ever such a fancy! The i-de-a!\"\n\nAs we were going with our candle along the dark passage, Estella stopped\nall of a sudden, and, facing round, said in her taunting manner, with\nher face quite close to mine,--\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"Well, miss?\" I answered, almost falling over her and checking myself.\n\nShe stood looking at me, and, of course, I stood looking at her.\n\n\"Am I pretty?\"\n\n\"Yes; I think you are very pretty.\"\n\n\"Am I insulting?\"\n\n\"Not so much so as you were last time,\" said I.\n\n\"Not so much so?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nShe fired when she asked the last question, and she slapped my face with\nsuch force as she had, when I answered it.\n\n\"Now?\" said she. \"You little coarse monster, what do you think of me\nnow?\"\n\n\"I shall not tell you.\"\n\n\"Because you are going to tell upstairs. Is that it?\"\n\n\"No,\" said I, \"that's not it.\"\n\n\"Why don't you cry again, you little wretch?\"\n\n\"Because I'll never cry for you again,\" said I. Which was, I suppose, as\nfalse a declaration as ever was made; for I was inwardly crying for her\nthen, and I know what I know of the pain she cost me afterwards.\n\nWe went on our way upstairs after this episode; and, as we were going\nup, we met a gentleman groping his way down.\n\n\"Whom have we here?\" asked the gentleman, stopping and looking at me.\n\n\"A boy,\" said Estella.\n\nHe was a burly man of an exceedingly dark complexion, with an\nexceedingly large head, and a corresponding large hand. He took my chin\nin his large hand and turned up my face to have a look at me by the\nlight of the candle. He was prematurely bald on the top of his head, and\nhad bushy black eyebrows that wouldn't lie down but stood up bristling.\nHis eyes were set very deep in his head, and were disagreeably sharp and\nsuspicious. He had a large watch-chain, and strong black dots where his\nbeard and whiskers would have been if he had let them. He was nothing\nto me, and I could have had no foresight then, that he ever would be\nanything to me, but it happened that I had this opportunity of observing\nhim well.\n\n\"Boy of the neighborhood? Hey?\" said he.\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" said I.\n\n\"How do you come here?\"\n\n\"Miss Havisham sent for me, sir,\" I explained.\n\n\"Well! Behave yourself. I have a pretty large experience of boys, and\nyou're a bad set of fellows. Now mind!\" said he, biting the side of his\ngreat forefinger as he frowned at me, \"you behave yourself!\"\n\nWith those words, he released me--which I was glad of, for his hand\nsmelt of scented soap--and went his way downstairs. I wondered whether\nhe could be a doctor; but no, I thought; he couldn't be a doctor, or he\nwould have a quieter and more persuasive manner. There was not much time\nto consider the subject, for we were soon in Miss Havisham's room, where\nshe and everything else were just as I had left them. Estella left me\nstanding near the door, and I stood there until Miss Havisham cast her\neyes upon me from the dressing-table.\n\n\"So!\" she said, without being startled or surprised: \"the days have worn\naway, have they?\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am. To-day is--\"\n\n\"There, there, there!\" with the impatient movement of her fingers. \"I\ndon't want to know. Are you ready to play?\"\n\nI was obliged to answer in some confusion, \"I don't think I am, ma'am.\"\n\n\"Not at cards again?\" she demanded, with a searching look.\n\n\"Yes, ma'am; I could do that, if I was wanted.\"\n\n\"Since this house strikes you old and grave, boy,\" said Miss Havisham,\nimpatiently, \"and you are unwilling to play, are you willing to work?\"\n\nI could answer this inquiry with a better heart than I had been able to\nfind for the other question, and I said I was quite willing.\n\n\"Then go into that opposite room,\" said she, pointing at the door behind\nme with her withered hand, \"and wait there till I come.\"\n\nI crossed the staircase landing, and entered the room she indicated.\nFrom that room, too, the daylight was completely excluded, and it had an\nairless smell that was oppressive. A fire had been lately kindled in\nthe damp old-fashioned grate, and it was more disposed to go out than\nto burn up, and the reluctant smoke which hung in the room seemed colder\nthan the clearer air,--like our own marsh mist. Certain wintry branches\nof candles on the high chimney-piece faintly lighted the chamber; or it\nwould be more expressive to say, faintly troubled its darkness. It was\nspacious, and I dare say had once been handsome, but every discernible\nthing in it was covered with dust and mould, and dropping to pieces. The\nmost prominent object was a long table with a tablecloth spread on it,\nas if a feast had been in preparation when the house and the clocks all\nstopped together. An epergne or centre-piece of some kind was in the\nmiddle of this cloth; it was so heavily overhung with cobwebs that its\nform was quite undistinguishable; and, as I looked along the yellow\nexpanse out of which I remember its seeming to grow, like a black\nfungus, I saw speckle-legged spiders with blotchy bodies running home\nto it, and running out from it, as if some circumstances of the greatest\npublic importance had just transpired in the spider community.\n\nI heard the mice too, rattling behind the panels, as if the same\noccurrence were important to their interests. But the black beetles took\nno notice of the agitation, and groped about the hearth in a ponderous\nelderly way, as if they were short-sighted and hard of hearing, and not\non terms with one another.\n\nThese crawling things had fascinated my attention, and I was watching\nthem from a distance, when Miss Havisham laid a hand upon my shoulder.\nIn her other hand she had a crutch-headed stick on which she leaned, and\nshe looked like the Witch of the place.\n\n\"This,\" said she, pointing to the long table with her stick, \"is where I\nwill be laid when I am dead. They shall come and look at me here.\"\n\nWith some vague misgiving that she might get upon the table then and\nthere and die at once, the complete realization of the ghastly waxwork\nat the Fair, I shrank under her touch.\n\n\"What do you think that is?\" she asked me, again pointing with her\nstick; \"that, where those cobwebs are?\"\n\n\"I can't guess what it is, ma'am.\"\n\n\"It's a great cake. A bride-cake. Mine!\"\n\nShe looked all round the room in a glaring manner, and then said,\nleaning on me while her hand twitched my shoulder, \"Come, come, come!\nWalk me, walk me!\"\n\nI made out from this, that the work I had to do, was to walk Miss\nHavisham round and round the room. Accordingly, I started at once, and\nshe leaned upon my shoulder, and we went away at a pace that might have\nbeen an imitation (founded on my first impulse under that roof) of Mr.\nPumblechook's chaise-cart.\n\nShe was not physically strong, and after a little time said, \"Slower!\"\nStill, we went at an impatient fitful speed, and as we went, she\ntwitched the hand upon my shoulder, and worked her mouth, and led me to\nbelieve that we were going fast because her thoughts went fast. After a\nwhile she said, \"Call Estella!\" so I went out on the landing and\nroared that name as I had done on the previous occasion. When her light\nappeared, I returned to Miss Havisham, and we started away again round\nand round the room.\n\nIf only Estella had come to be a spectator of our proceedings, I should\nhave felt sufficiently discontented; but as she brought with her the\nthree ladies and the gentleman whom I had seen below, I didn't know\nwhat to do. In my politeness, I would have stopped; but Miss\nHavisham twitched my shoulder, and we posted on,--with a shame-faced\nconsciousness on my part that they would think it was all my doing.\n\n\"Dear Miss Havisham,\" said Miss Sarah Pocket. \"How well you look!\"\n\n\"I do not,\" returned Miss Havisham. \"I am yellow skin and bone.\"\n\nCamilla brightened when Miss Pocket met with this rebuff; and she\nmurmured, as she plaintively contemplated Miss Havisham, \"Poor dear\nsoul! Certainly not to be expected to look well, poor thing. The idea!\"\n\n\"And how are you?\" said Miss Havisham to Camilla. As we were close to\nCamilla then, I would have stopped as a matter of course, only Miss\nHavisham wouldn't stop. We swept on, and I felt that I was highly\nobnoxious to Camilla.\n\n\"Thank you, Miss Havisham,\" she returned, \"I am as well as can be\nexpected.\"\n\n\"Why, what's the matter with you?\" asked Miss Havisham, with exceeding\nsharpness.\n\n\"Nothing worth mentioning,\" replied Camilla. \"I don't wish to make a\ndisplay of my feelings, but I have habitually thought of you more in the\nnight than I am quite equal to.\"\n\n\"Then don't think of me,\" retorted Miss Havisham.\n\n\"Very easily said!\" remarked Camilla, amiably repressing a sob, while a\nhitch came into her upper lip, and her tears overflowed. \"Raymond is a\nwitness what ginger and sal volatile I am obliged to take in the night.\nRaymond is a witness what nervous jerkings I have in my legs. Chokings\nand nervous jerkings, however, are nothing new to me when I think with\nanxiety of those I love. If I could be less affectionate and sensitive,\nI should have a better digestion and an iron set of nerves. I am sure\nI wish it could be so. But as to not thinking of you in the night--The\nidea!\" Here, a burst of tears.\n\nThe Raymond referred to, I understood to be the gentleman present, and\nhim I understood to be Mr. Camilla. He came to the rescue at this point,\nand said in a consolatory and complimentary voice, \"Camilla, my dear, it\nis well known that your family feelings are gradually undermining you to\nthe extent of making one of your legs shorter than the other.\"\n\n\"I am not aware,\" observed the grave lady whose voice I had heard but\nonce, \"that to think of any person is to make a great claim upon that\nperson, my dear.\"\n\nMiss Sarah Pocket, whom I now saw to be a little dry, brown, corrugated\nold woman, with a small face that might have been made of walnut-shells,\nand a large mouth like a cat's without the whiskers, supported this\nposition by saying, \"No, indeed, my dear. Hem!\"\n\n\"Thinking is easy enough,\" said the grave lady.\n\n\"What is easier, you know?\" assented Miss Sarah Pocket.\n\n\"Oh, yes, yes!\" cried Camilla, whose fermenting feelings appeared to\nrise from her legs to her bosom. \"It's all very true! It's a weakness\nto be so affectionate, but I can't help it. No doubt my health would be\nmuch better if it was otherwise, still I wouldn't change my disposition\nif I could. It's the cause of much suffering, but it's a consolation to\nknow I posses it, when I wake up in the night.\" Here another burst of\nfeeling.\n\nMiss Havisham and I had never stopped all this time, but kept going\nround and round the room; now brushing against the skirts of the\nvisitors, now giving them the whole length of the dismal chamber.\n\n\"There's Matthew!\" said Camilla. \"Never mixing with any natural ties,\nnever coming here to see how Miss Havisham is! I have taken to the sofa\nwith my staylace cut, and have lain there hours insensible, with my head\nover the side, and my hair all down, and my feet I don't know where--\"\n\n(\"Much higher than your head, my love,\" said Mr. Camilla.)\n\n\"I have gone off into that state, hours and hours, on account of\nMatthew's strange and inexplicable conduct, and nobody has thanked me.\"\n\n\"Really I must say I should think not!\" interposed the grave lady.\n\n\"You see, my dear,\" added Miss Sarah Pocket (a blandly vicious\npersonage), \"the question to put to yourself is, who did you expect to\nthank you, my love?\"\n\n\"Without expecting any thanks, or anything of the sort,\" resumed\nCamilla, \"I have remained in that state, hours and hours, and Raymond\nis a witness of the extent to which I have choked, and what the total\ninefficacy of ginger has been, and I have been heard at the piano-forte\ntuner's across the street, where the poor mistaken children have even\nsupposed it to be pigeons cooing at a distance,--and now to be told--\"\nHere Camilla put her hand to her throat, and began to be quite chemical\nas to the formation of new combinations there.\n\nWhen this same Matthew was mentioned, Miss Havisham stopped me and\nherself, and stood looking at the speaker. This change had a great\ninfluence in bringing Camilla's chemistry to a sudden end.\n\n\"Matthew will come and see me at last,\" said Miss Havisham, sternly,\n\"when I am laid on that table. That will be his place,--there,\" striking\nthe table with her stick, \"at my head! And yours will be there! And your\nhusband's there! And Sarah Pocket's there! And Georgiana's there! Now\nyou all know where to take your stations when you come to feast upon me.\nAnd now go!\"\n\nAt the mention of each name, she had struck the table with her stick in\na new place. She now said, \"Walk me, walk me!\" and we went on again.\n\n\"I suppose there's nothing to be done,\" exclaimed Camilla, \"but comply\nand depart. It's something to have seen the object of one's love and\nduty for even so short a time. I shall think of it with a melancholy\nsatisfaction when I wake up in the night. I wish Matthew could have\nthat comfort, but he sets it at defiance. I am determined not to make a\ndisplay of my feelings, but it's very hard to be told one wants to feast\non one's relations,--as if one was a Giant,--and to be told to go. The\nbare idea!\"\n\nMr. Camilla interposing, as Mrs. Camilla laid her hand upon her heaving\nbosom, that lady assumed an unnatural fortitude of manner which I\nsupposed to be expressive of an intention to drop and choke when out of\nview, and kissing her hand to Miss Havisham, was escorted forth. Sarah\nPocket and Georgiana contended who should remain last; but Sarah was\ntoo knowing to be outdone, and ambled round Georgiana with that artful\nslipperiness that the latter was obliged to take precedence. Sarah\nPocket then made her separate effect of departing with, \"Bless you, Miss\nHavisham dear!\" and with a smile of forgiving pity on her walnut-shell\ncountenance for the weaknesses of the rest.\n\nWhile Estella was away lighting them down, Miss Havisham still walked\nwith her hand on my shoulder, but more and more slowly. At last she\nstopped before the fire, and said, after muttering and looking at it\nsome seconds,--\n\n\"This is my birthday, Pip.\"\n\nI was going to wish her many happy returns, when she lifted her stick.\n\n\"I don't suffer it to be spoken of. I don't suffer those who were here\njust now, or any one to speak of it. They come here on the day, but they\ndare not refer to it.\"\n\nOf course I made no further effort to refer to it.\n\n\"On this day of the year, long before you were born, this heap of\ndecay,\" stabbing with her crutched stick at the pile of cobwebs on the\ntable, but not touching it, \"was brought here. It and I have worn away\ntogether. The mice have gnawed at it, and sharper teeth than teeth of\nmice have gnawed at me.\"\n\nShe held the head of her stick against her heart as she stood looking\nat the table; she in her once white dress, all yellow and withered; the\nonce white cloth all yellow and withered; everything around in a state\nto crumble under a touch.\n\n\"When the ruin is complete,\" said she, with a ghastly look, \"and when\nthey lay me dead, in my bride's dress on the bride's table,--which shall\nbe done, and which will be the finished curse upon him,--so much the\nbetter if it is done on this day!\"\n\nShe stood looking at the table as if she stood looking at her own figure\nlying there. I remained quiet. Estella returned, and she too remained\nquiet. It seemed to me that we continued thus for a long time. In\nthe heavy air of the room, and the heavy darkness that brooded in its\nremoter corners, I even had an alarming fancy that Estella and I might\npresently begin to decay.\n\nAt length, not coming out of her distraught state by degrees, but in an\ninstant, Miss Havisham said, \"Let me see you two play cards; why have\nyou not begun?\" With that, we returned to her room, and sat down as\nbefore; I was beggared, as before; and again, as before, Miss Havisham\nwatched us all the time, directed my attention to Estella's beauty, and\nmade me notice it the more by trying her jewels on Estella's breast and\nhair.\n\nEstella, for her part, likewise treated me as before, except that she\ndid not condescend to speak. When we had played some half-dozen games,\na day was appointed for my return, and I was taken down into the yard\nto be fed in the former dog-like manner. There, too, I was again left to\nwander about as I liked.\n\nIt is not much to the purpose whether a gate in that garden wall which\nI had scrambled up to peep over on the last occasion was, on that last\noccasion, open or shut. Enough that I saw no gate then, and that I\nsaw one now. As it stood open, and as I knew that Estella had let\nthe visitors out,--for she had returned with the keys in her hand,--I\nstrolled into the garden, and strolled all over it. It was quite a\nwilderness, and there were old melon-frames and cucumber-frames in it,\nwhich seemed in their decline to have produced a spontaneous growth of\nweak attempts at pieces of old hats and boots, with now and then a weedy\noffshoot into the likeness of a battered saucepan.\n\nWhen I had exhausted the garden and a greenhouse with nothing in it but\na fallen-down grape-vine and some bottles, I found myself in the dismal\ncorner upon which I had looked out of the window. Never questioning for\na moment that the house was now empty, I looked in at another window,\nand found myself, to my great surprise, exchanging a broad stare with a\npale young gentleman with red eyelids and light hair.\n\nThis pale young gentleman quickly disappeared, and reappeared beside me.\nHe had been at his books when I had found myself staring at him, and I\nnow saw that he was inky.\n\n\"Halloa!\" said he, \"young fellow!\"\n\nHalloa being a general observation which I had usually observed to\nbe best answered by itself, I said, \"Halloa!\" politely omitting young\nfellow.\n\n\"Who let you in?\" said he.\n\n\"Miss Estella.\"\n\n\"Who gave you leave to prowl about?\"\n\n\"Miss Estella.\"\n\n\"Come and fight,\" said the pale young gentleman.\n\nWhat could I do but follow him? I have often asked myself the question\nsince; but what else could I do? His manner was so final, and I was\nso astonished, that I followed where he led, as if I had been under a\nspell.\n\n\"Stop a minute, though,\" he said, wheeling round before we had gone many\npaces. \"I ought to give you a reason for fighting, too. There it is!\"\nIn a most irritating manner he instantly slapped his hands against one\nanother, daintily flung one of his legs up behind him, pulled my hair,\nslapped his hands again, dipped his head, and butted it into my stomach.\n\nThe bull-like proceeding last mentioned, besides that it was\nunquestionably to be regarded in the light of a liberty, was\nparticularly disagreeable just after bread and meat. I therefore hit out\nat him and was going to hit out again, when he said, \"Aha! Would you?\"\nand began dancing backwards and forwards in a manner quite unparalleled\nwithin my limited experience.\n\n\"Laws of the game!\" said he. Here, he skipped from his left leg on to\nhis right. \"Regular rules!\" Here, he skipped from his right leg on to\nhis left. \"Come to the ground, and go through the preliminaries!\" Here,\nhe dodged backwards and forwards, and did all sorts of things while I\nlooked helplessly at him.\n\nI was secretly afraid of him when I saw him so dexterous; but I felt\nmorally and physically convinced that his light head of hair could have\nhad no business in the pit of my stomach, and that I had a right to\nconsider it irrelevant when so obtruded on my attention. Therefore, I\nfollowed him without a word, to a retired nook of the garden, formed by\nthe junction of two walls and screened by some rubbish. On his asking me\nif I was satisfied with the ground, and on my replying Yes, he begged my\nleave to absent himself for a moment, and quickly returned with a bottle\nof water and a sponge dipped in vinegar. \"Available for both,\" he said,\nplacing these against the wall. And then fell to pulling off, not\nonly his jacket and waistcoat, but his shirt too, in a manner at once\nlight-hearted, business-like, and bloodthirsty.\n\nAlthough he did not look very healthy,--having pimples on his face, and\na breaking out at his mouth,--these dreadful preparations quite appalled\nme. I judged him to be about my own age, but he was much taller, and he\nhad a way of spinning himself about that was full of appearance. For\nthe rest, he was a young gentleman in a gray suit (when not denuded\nfor battle), with his elbows, knees, wrists, and heels considerably in\nadvance of the rest of him as to development.\n\nMy heart failed me when I saw him squaring at me with every\ndemonstration of mechanical nicety, and eyeing my anatomy as if he were\nminutely choosing his bone. I never have been so surprised in my life,\nas I was when I let out the first blow, and saw him lying on his\nback, looking up at me with a bloody nose and his face exceedingly\nfore-shortened.\n\nBut, he was on his feet directly, and after sponging himself with\na great show of dexterity began squaring again. The second greatest\nsurprise I have ever had in my life was seeing him on his back again,\nlooking up at me out of a black eye.\n\nHis spirit inspired me with great respect. He seemed to have no\nstrength, and he never once hit me hard, and he was always knocked down;\nbut he would be up again in a moment, sponging himself or drinking out\nof the water-bottle, with the greatest satisfaction in seconding himself\naccording to form, and then came at me with an air and a show that made\nme believe he really was going to do for me at last. He got heavily\nbruised, for I am sorry to record that the more I hit him, the harder I\nhit him; but he came up again and again and again, until at last he got\na bad fall with the back of his head against the wall. Even after that\ncrisis in our affairs, he got up and turned round and round confusedly a\nfew times, not knowing where I was; but finally went on his knees to his\nsponge and threw it up: at the same time panting out, \"That means you\nhave won.\"\n\nHe seemed so brave and innocent, that although I had not proposed the\ncontest, I felt but a gloomy satisfaction in my victory. Indeed, I go\nso far as to hope that I regarded myself while dressing as a species of\nsavage young wolf or other wild beast. However, I got dressed, darkly\nwiping my sanguinary face at intervals, and I said, \"Can I help you?\"\nand he said \"No thankee,\" and I said \"Good afternoon,\" and he said \"Same\nto you.\"\n\nWhen I got into the courtyard, I found Estella waiting with the keys.\nBut she neither asked me where I had been, nor why I had kept her\nwaiting; and there was a bright flush upon her face, as though something\nhad happened to delight her. Instead of going straight to the gate, too,\nshe stepped back into the passage, and beckoned me.\n\n\"Come here! You may kiss me, if you like.\"\n\nI kissed her cheek as she turned it to me. I think I would have gone\nthrough a great deal to kiss her cheek. But I felt that the kiss was\ngiven to the coarse common boy as a piece of money might have been, and\nthat it was worth nothing.\n\nWhat with the birthday visitors, and what with the cards, and what with\nthe fight, my stay had lasted so long, that when I neared home the light\non the spit of sand off the point on the marshes was gleaming against\na black night-sky, and Joe's furnace was flinging a path of fire across\nthe road.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XII\n\nMy mind grew very uneasy on the subject of the pale young gentleman. The\nmore I thought of the fight, and recalled the pale young gentleman on\nhis back in various stages of puffy and incrimsoned countenance, the\nmore certain it appeared that something would be done to me. I felt that\nthe pale young gentleman's blood was on my head, and that the Law would\navenge it. Without having any definite idea of the penalties I had\nincurred, it was clear to me that village boys could not go stalking\nabout the country, ravaging the houses of gentlefolks and pitching into\nthe studious youth of England, without laying themselves open to severe\npunishment. For some days, I even kept close at home, and looked out at\nthe kitchen door with the greatest caution and trepidation before going\non an errand, lest the officers of the County Jail should pounce upon\nme. The pale young gentleman's nose had stained my trousers, and I tried\nto wash out that evidence of my guilt in the dead of night. I had cut\nmy knuckles against the pale young gentleman's teeth, and I twisted my\nimagination into a thousand tangles, as I devised incredible ways of\naccounting for that damnatory circumstance when I should be haled before\nthe Judges.\n\nWhen the day came round for my return to the scene of the deed of\nviolence, my terrors reached their height. Whether myrmidons of Justice,\nspecially sent down from London, would be lying in ambush behind the\ngate;--whether Miss Havisham, preferring to take personal vengeance for\nan outrage done to her house, might rise in those grave-clothes of hers,\ndraw a pistol, and shoot me dead:--whether suborned boys--a numerous\nband of mercenaries--might be engaged to fall upon me in the brewery,\nand cuff me until I was no more;--it was high testimony to my confidence\nin the spirit of the pale young gentleman, that I never imagined him\naccessory to these retaliations; they always came into my mind as the\nacts of injudicious relatives of his, goaded on by the state of his\nvisage and an indignant sympathy with the family features.\n\nHowever, go to Miss Havisham's I must, and go I did. And behold! nothing\ncame of the late struggle. It was not alluded to in any way, and no pale\nyoung gentleman was to be discovered on the premises. I found the same\ngate open, and I explored the garden, and even looked in at the windows\nof the detached house; but my view was suddenly stopped by the closed\nshutters within, and all was lifeless. Only in the corner where\nthe combat had taken place could I detect any evidence of the young\ngentleman's existence. There were traces of his gore in that spot, and I\ncovered them with garden-mould from the eye of man.\n\nOn the broad landing between Miss Havisham's own room and that other\nroom in which the long table was laid out, I saw a garden-chair,--a\nlight chair on wheels, that you pushed from behind. It had been placed\nthere since my last visit, and I entered, that same day, on a regular\noccupation of pushing Miss Havisham in this chair (when she was tired of\nwalking with her hand upon my shoulder) round her own room, and across\nthe landing, and round the other room. Over and over and over again,\nwe would make these journeys, and sometimes they would last as long as\nthree hours at a stretch. I insensibly fall into a general mention of\nthese journeys as numerous, because it was at once settled that I should\nreturn every alternate day at noon for these purposes, and because I am\nnow going to sum up a period of at least eight or ten months.\n\nAs we began to be more used to one another, Miss Havisham talked more\nto me, and asked me such questions as what had I learnt and what was\nI going to be? I told her I was going to be apprenticed to Joe, I\nbelieved; and I enlarged upon my knowing nothing and wanting to know\neverything, in the hope that she might offer some help towards that\ndesirable end. But she did not; on the contrary, she seemed to prefer my\nbeing ignorant. Neither did she ever give me any money,--or anything\nbut my daily dinner,--nor ever stipulate that I should be paid for my\nservices.\n\nEstella was always about, and always let me in and out, but never told\nme I might kiss her again. Sometimes, she would coldly tolerate me;\nsometimes, she would condescend to me; sometimes, she would be quite\nfamiliar with me; sometimes, she would tell me energetically that she\nhated me. Miss Havisham would often ask me in a whisper, or when we were\nalone, \"Does she grow prettier and prettier, Pip?\" And when I said yes\n(for indeed she did), would seem to enjoy it greedily. Also, when we\nplayed at cards Miss Havisham would look on, with a miserly relish of\nEstella's moods, whatever they were. And sometimes, when her moods were\nso many and so contradictory of one another that I was puzzled what\nto say or do, Miss Havisham would embrace her with lavish fondness,\nmurmuring something in her ear that sounded like \"Break their hearts my\npride and hope, break their hearts and have no mercy!\"\n\nThere was a song Joe used to hum fragments of at the forge, of which the\nburden was Old Clem. This was not a very ceremonious way of rendering\nhomage to a patron saint, but I believe Old Clem stood in that relation\ntowards smiths. It was a song that imitated the measure of beating upon\niron, and was a mere lyrical excuse for the introduction of Old Clem's\nrespected name. Thus, you were to hammer boys round--Old Clem! With a\nthump and a sound--Old Clem! Beat it out, beat it out--Old Clem! With a\nclink for the stout--Old Clem! Blow the fire, blow the fire--Old\nClem! Roaring dryer, soaring higher--Old Clem! One day soon after the\nappearance of the chair, Miss Havisham suddenly saying to me, with the\nimpatient movement of her fingers, \"There, there, there! Sing!\" I was\nsurprised into crooning this ditty as I pushed her over the floor. It\nhappened so to catch her fancy that she took it up in a low brooding\nvoice as if she were singing in her sleep. After that, it became\ncustomary with us to have it as we moved about, and Estella would often\njoin in; though the whole strain was so subdued, even when there were\nthree of us, that it made less noise in the grim old house than the\nlightest breath of wind.\n\nWhat could I become with these surroundings? How could my character fail\nto be influenced by them? Is it to be wondered at if my thoughts were\ndazed, as my eyes were, when I came out into the natural light from the\nmisty yellow rooms?\n\nPerhaps I might have told Joe about the pale young gentleman, if I had\nnot previously been betrayed into those enormous inventions to which\nI had confessed. Under the circumstances, I felt that Joe could hardly\nfail to discern in the pale young gentleman, an appropriate passenger\nto be put into the black velvet coach; therefore, I said nothing of him.\nBesides, that shrinking from having Miss Havisham and Estella discussed,\nwhich had come upon me in the beginning, grew much more potent as time\nwent on. I reposed complete confidence in no one but Biddy; but I told\npoor Biddy everything. Why it came natural to me to do so, and why Biddy\nhad a deep concern in everything I told her, I did not know then, though\nI think I know now.\n\nMeanwhile, councils went on in the kitchen at home, fraught with\nalmost insupportable aggravation to my exasperated spirit. That ass,\nPumblechook, used often to come over of a night for the purpose of\ndiscussing my prospects with my sister; and I really do believe (to\nthis hour with less penitence than I ought to feel), that if these hands\ncould have taken a linchpin out of his chaise-cart, they would have done\nit. The miserable man was a man of that confined stolidity of mind, that\nhe could not discuss my prospects without having me before him,--as it\nwere, to operate upon,--and he would drag me up from my stool (usually\nby the collar) where I was quiet in a corner, and, putting me before the\nfire as if I were going to be cooked, would begin by saying, \"Now, Mum,\nhere is this boy! Here is this boy which you brought up by hand. Hold up\nyour head, boy, and be forever grateful unto them which so did do. Now,\nMum, with respections to this boy!\" And then he would rumple my hair\nthe wrong way,--which from my earliest remembrance, as already hinted,\nI have in my soul denied the right of any fellow-creature to do,--and\nwould hold me before him by the sleeve,--a spectacle of imbecility only\nto be equalled by himself.\n\nThen, he and my sister would pair off in such nonsensical speculations\nabout Miss Havisham, and about what she would do with me and for me,\nthat I used to want--quite painfully--to burst into spiteful tears, fly\nat Pumblechook, and pummel him all over. In these dialogues, my sister\nspoke to me as if she were morally wrenching one of my teeth out at\nevery reference; while Pumblechook himself, self-constituted my patron,\nwould sit supervising me with a depreciatory eye, like the architect of\nmy fortunes who thought himself engaged on a very unremunerative job.\n\nIn these discussions, Joe bore no part. But he was often talked at,\nwhile they were in progress, by reason of Mrs. Joe's perceiving that\nhe was not favorable to my being taken from the forge. I was fully old\nenough now to be apprenticed to Joe; and when Joe sat with the poker on\nhis knees thoughtfully raking out the ashes between the lower bars, my\nsister would so distinctly construe that innocent action into opposition\non his part, that she would dive at him, take the poker out of his\nhands, shake him, and put it away. There was a most irritating end to\nevery one of these debates. All in a moment, with nothing to lead up to\nit, my sister would stop herself in a yawn, and catching sight of me as\nit were incidentally, would swoop upon me with, \"Come! there's enough of\nyou! You get along to bed; you've given trouble enough for one night, I\nhope!\" As if I had besought them as a favor to bother my life out.\n\nWe went on in this way for a long time, and it seemed likely that we\nshould continue to go on in this way for a long time, when one day Miss\nHavisham stopped short as she and I were walking, she leaning on my\nshoulder; and said with some displeasure,--\n\n\"You are growing tall, Pip!\"\n\nI thought it best to hint, through the medium of a meditative look, that\nthis might be occasioned by circumstances over which I had no control.\n\nShe said no more at the time; but she presently stopped and looked at me\nagain; and presently again; and after that, looked frowning and moody.\nOn the next day of my attendance, when our usual exercise was over, and\nI had landed her at her dressing-table, she stayed me with a movement of\nher impatient fingers:--\n\n\"Tell me the name again of that blacksmith of yours.\"\n\n\"Joe Gargery, ma'am.\"\n\n\"Meaning the master you were to be apprenticed to?\"\n\n\"Yes, Miss Havisham.\"\n\n\"You had better be apprenticed at once. Would Gargery come here with\nyou, and bring your indentures, do you think?\"\n\nI signified that I had no doubt he would take it as an honor to be\nasked.\n\n\"Then let him come.\"\n\n\"At any particular time, Miss Havisham?\"\n\n\"There, there! I know nothing about times. Let him come soon, and come\nalong with you.\"\n\nWhen I got home at night, and delivered this message for Joe, my sister\n\"went on the Rampage,\" in a more alarming degree than at any previous\nperiod. She asked me and Joe whether we supposed she was door-mats under\nour feet, and how we dared to use her so, and what company we graciously\nthought she was fit for? When she had exhausted a torrent of such\ninquiries, she threw a candlestick at Joe, burst into a loud sobbing,\ngot out the dustpan,--which was always a very bad sign,--put on her\ncoarse apron, and began cleaning up to a terrible extent. Not satisfied\nwith a dry cleaning, she took to a pail and scrubbing-brush, and cleaned\nus out of house and home, so that we stood shivering in the back-yard.\nIt was ten o'clock at night before we ventured to creep in again, and\nthen she asked Joe why he hadn't married a Negress Slave at once?\nJoe offered no answer, poor fellow, but stood feeling his whisker and\nlooking dejectedly at me, as if he thought it really might have been a\nbetter speculation.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XIII\n\nIt was a trial to my feelings, on the next day but one, to see\nJoe arraying himself in his Sunday clothes to accompany me to Miss\nHavisham's. However, as he thought his court-suit necessary to the\noccasion, it was not for me to tell him that he looked far better in his\nworking-dress; the rather, because I knew he made himself so dreadfully\nuncomfortable, entirely on my account, and that it was for me he pulled\nup his shirt-collar so very high behind, that it made the hair on the\ncrown of his head stand up like a tuft of feathers.\n\nAt breakfast-time my sister declared her intention of going to town with\nus, and being left at Uncle Pumblechook's and called for \"when we had\ndone with our fine ladies\"--a way of putting the case, from which Joe\nappeared inclined to augur the worst. The forge was shut up for the day,\nand Joe inscribed in chalk upon the door (as it was his custom to do on\nthe very rare occasions when he was not at work) the monosyllable\nHOUT, accompanied by a sketch of an arrow supposed to be flying in the\ndirection he had taken.\n\nWe walked to town, my sister leading the way in a very large beaver\nbonnet, and carrying a basket like the Great Seal of England in plaited\nStraw, a pair of pattens, a spare shawl, and an umbrella, though it\nwas a fine bright day. I am not quite clear whether these articles were\ncarried penitentially or ostentatiously; but I rather think they were\ndisplayed as articles of property,--much as Cleopatra or any other\nsovereign lady on the Rampage might exhibit her wealth in a pageant or\nprocession.\n\nWhen we came to Pumblechook's, my sister bounced in and left us. As it\nwas almost noon, Joe and I held straight on to Miss Havisham's house.\nEstella opened the gate as usual, and, the moment she appeared, Joe took\nhis hat off and stood weighing it by the brim in both his hands; as if\nhe had some urgent reason in his mind for being particular to half a\nquarter of an ounce.\n\nEstella took no notice of either of us, but led us the way that I knew\nso well. I followed next to her, and Joe came last. When I looked back\nat Joe in the long passage, he was still weighing his hat with the\ngreatest care, and was coming after us in long strides on the tips of\nhis toes.\n\nEstella told me we were both to go in, so I took Joe by the coat-cuff\nand conducted him into Miss Havisham's presence. She was seated at her\ndressing-table, and looked round at us immediately.\n\n\"Oh!\" said she to Joe. \"You are the husband of the sister of this boy?\"\n\nI could hardly have imagined dear old Joe looking so unlike himself or\nso like some extraordinary bird; standing as he did speechless, with his\ntuft of feathers ruffled, and his mouth open as if he wanted a worm.\n\n\"You are the husband,\" repeated Miss Havisham, \"of the sister of this\nboy?\"\n\nIt was very aggravating; but, throughout the interview, Joe persisted in\naddressing Me instead of Miss Havisham.\n\n\"Which I meantersay, Pip,\" Joe now observed in a manner that was at\nonce expressive of forcible argumentation, strict confidence, and great\npoliteness, \"as I hup and married your sister, and I were at the time\nwhat you might call (if you was anyways inclined) a single man.\"\n\n\"Well!\" said Miss Havisham. \"And you have reared the boy, with the\nintention of taking him for your apprentice; is that so, Mr. Gargery?\"\n\n\"You know, Pip,\" replied Joe, \"as you and me were ever friends, and it\nwere looked for'ard to betwixt us, as being calc'lated to lead to\nlarks. Not but what, Pip, if you had ever made objections to the\nbusiness,--such as its being open to black and sut, or such-like,--not\nbut what they would have been attended to, don't you see?\"\n\n\"Has the boy,\" said Miss Havisham, \"ever made any objection? Does he\nlike the trade?\"\n\n\"Which it is well beknown to yourself, Pip,\" returned Joe, strengthening\nhis former mixture of argumentation, confidence, and politeness, \"that\nit were the wish of your own hart.\" (I saw the idea suddenly break upon\nhim that he would adapt his epitaph to the occasion, before he went on\nto say) \"And there weren't no objection on your part, and Pip it were\nthe great wish of your hart!\"\n\nIt was quite in vain for me to endeavor to make him sensible that he\nought to speak to Miss Havisham. The more I made faces and gestures\nto him to do it, the more confidential, argumentative, and polite, he\npersisted in being to Me.\n\n\"Have you brought his indentures with you?\" asked Miss Havisham.\n\n\"Well, Pip, you know,\" replied Joe, as if that were a little\nunreasonable, \"you yourself see me put 'em in my 'at, and therefore you\nknow as they are here.\" With which he took them out, and gave them, not\nto Miss Havisham, but to me. I am afraid I was ashamed of the dear good\nfellow,--I know I was ashamed of him,--when I saw that Estella stood\nat the back of Miss Havisham's chair, and that her eyes laughed\nmischievously. I took the indentures out of his hand and gave them to\nMiss Havisham.\n\n\"You expected,\" said Miss Havisham, as she looked them over, \"no premium\nwith the boy?\"\n\n\"Joe!\" I remonstrated, for he made no reply at all. \"Why don't you\nanswer--\"\n\n\"Pip,\" returned Joe, cutting me short as if he were hurt, \"which I\nmeantersay that were not a question requiring a answer betwixt yourself\nand me, and which you know the answer to be full well No. You know it to\nbe No, Pip, and wherefore should I say it?\"\n\nMiss Havisham glanced at him as if she understood what he really was\nbetter than I had thought possible, seeing what he was there; and took\nup a little bag from the table beside her.\n\n\"Pip has earned a premium here,\" she said, \"and here it is. There are\nfive-and-twenty guineas in this bag. Give it to your master, Pip.\"\n\nAs if he were absolutely out of his mind with the wonder awakened in\nhim by her strange figure and the strange room, Joe, even at this pass,\npersisted in addressing me.\n\n\"This is wery liberal on your part, Pip,\" said Joe, \"and it is as such\nreceived and grateful welcome, though never looked for, far nor near,\nnor nowheres. And now, old chap,\" said Joe, conveying to me a sensation,\nfirst of burning and then of freezing, for I felt as if that familiar\nexpression were applied to Miss Havisham,--\"and now, old chap, may we\ndo our duty! May you and me do our duty, both on us, by one and another,\nand by them which your liberal present--have-conweyed--to be--for the\nsatisfaction of mind-of--them as never--\" here Joe showed that he felt\nhe had fallen into frightful difficulties, until he triumphantly rescued\nhimself with the words, \"and from myself far be it!\" These words had\nsuch a round and convincing sound for him that he said them twice.\n\n\"Good-bye, Pip!\" said Miss Havisham. \"Let them out, Estella.\"\n\n\"Am I to come again, Miss Havisham?\" I asked.\n\n\"No. Gargery is your master now. Gargery! One word!\"\n\nThus calling him back as I went out of the door, I heard her say to Joe\nin a distinct emphatic voice, \"The boy has been a good boy here, and\nthat is his reward. Of course, as an honest man, you will expect no\nother and no more.\"\n\nHow Joe got out of the room, I have never been able to determine; but\nI know that when he did get out he was steadily proceeding upstairs\ninstead of coming down, and was deaf to all remonstrances until I went\nafter him and laid hold of him. In another minute we were outside the\ngate, and it was locked, and Estella was gone. When we stood in the\ndaylight alone again, Joe backed up against a wall, and said to me,\n\"Astonishing!\" And there he remained so long saying, \"Astonishing\" at\nintervals, so often, that I began to think his senses were never coming\nback. At length he prolonged his remark into \"Pip, I do assure you this\nis as-TON-ishing!\" and so, by degrees, became conversational and able to\nwalk away.\n\nI have reason to think that Joe's intellects were brightened by the\nencounter they had passed through, and that on our way to Pumblechook's\nhe invented a subtle and deep design. My reason is to be found in\nwhat took place in Mr. Pumblechook's parlor: where, on our presenting\nourselves, my sister sat in conference with that detested seedsman.\n\n\"Well?\" cried my sister, addressing us both at once. \"And what's\nhappened to you? I wonder you condescend to come back to such poor\nsociety as this, I am sure I do!\"\n\n\"Miss Havisham,\" said Joe, with a fixed look at me, like an effort of\nremembrance, \"made it wery partick'ler that we should give her--were it\ncompliments or respects, Pip?\"\n\n\"Compliments,\" I said.\n\n\"Which that were my own belief,\" answered Joe; \"her compliments to Mrs.\nJ. Gargery--\"\n\n\"Much good they'll do me!\" observed my sister; but rather gratified too.\n\n\"And wishing,\" pursued Joe, with another fixed look at me, like another\neffort of remembrance, \"that the state of Miss Havisham's elth were\nsitch as would have--allowed, were it, Pip?\"\n\n\"Of her having the pleasure,\" I added.\n\n\"Of ladies' company,\" said Joe. And drew a long breath.\n\n\"Well!\" cried my sister, with a mollified glance at Mr. Pumblechook.\n\"She might have had the politeness to send that message at first, but\nit's better late than never. And what did she give young Rantipole\nhere?\"\n\n\"She giv' him,\" said Joe, \"nothing.\"\n\nMrs. Joe was going to break out, but Joe went on.\n\n\"What she giv',\" said Joe, \"she giv' to his friends. 'And by his\nfriends,' were her explanation, 'I mean into the hands of his sister\nMrs. J. Gargery.' Them were her words; 'Mrs. J. Gargery.' She mayn't\nhave know'd,\" added Joe, with an appearance of reflection, \"whether it\nwere Joe, or Jorge.\"\n\nMy sister looked at Pumblechook: who smoothed the elbows of his wooden\narm-chair, and nodded at her and at the fire, as if he had known all\nabout it beforehand.\n\n\"And how much have you got?\" asked my sister, laughing. Positively\nlaughing!\n\n\"What would present company say to ten pound?\" demanded Joe.\n\n\"They'd say,\" returned my sister, curtly, \"pretty well. Not too much,\nbut pretty well.\"\n\n\"It's more than that, then,\" said Joe.\n\nThat fearful Impostor, Pumblechook, immediately nodded, and said, as he\nrubbed the arms of his chair, \"It's more than that, Mum.\"\n\n\"Why, you don't mean to say--\" began my sister.\n\n\"Yes I do, Mum,\" said Pumblechook; \"but wait a bit. Go on, Joseph. Good\nin you! Go on!\"\n\n\"What would present company say,\" proceeded Joe, \"to twenty pound?\"\n\n\"Handsome would be the word,\" returned my sister.\n\n\"Well, then,\" said Joe, \"It's more than twenty pound.\"\n\nThat abject hypocrite, Pumblechook, nodded again, and said, with a\npatronizing laugh, \"It's more than that, Mum. Good again! Follow her up,\nJoseph!\"\n\n\"Then to make an end of it,\" said Joe, delightedly handing the bag to my\nsister; \"it's five-and-twenty pound.\"\n\n\"It's five-and-twenty pound, Mum,\" echoed that basest of swindlers,\nPumblechook, rising to shake hands with her; \"and it's no more than your\nmerits (as I said when my opinion was asked), and I wish you joy of the\nmoney!\"\n\nIf the villain had stopped here, his case would have been sufficiently\nawful, but he blackened his guilt by proceeding to take me into custody,\nwith a right of patronage that left all his former criminality far\nbehind.\n\n\"Now you see, Joseph and wife,\" said Pumblechook, as he took me by the\narm above the elbow, \"I am one of them that always go right through with\nwhat they've begun. This boy must be bound, out of hand. That's my way.\nBound out of hand.\"\n\n\"Goodness knows, Uncle Pumblechook,\" said my sister (grasping the\nmoney), \"we're deeply beholden to you.\"\n\n\"Never mind me, Mum,\" returned that diabolical cornchandler. \"A\npleasure's a pleasure all the world over. But this boy, you know; we\nmust have him bound. I said I'd see to it--to tell you the truth.\"\n\nThe Justices were sitting in the Town Hall near at hand, and we at\nonce went over to have me bound apprentice to Joe in the Magisterial\npresence. I say we went over, but I was pushed over by Pumblechook,\nexactly as if I had that moment picked a pocket or fired a rick; indeed,\nit was the general impression in Court that I had been taken red-handed;\nfor, as Pumblechook shoved me before him through the crowd, I heard some\npeople say, \"What's he done?\" and others, \"He's a young 'un, too, but\nlooks bad, don't he?\" One person of mild and benevolent aspect even gave\nme a tract ornamented with a woodcut of a malevolent young man fitted\nup with a perfect sausage-shop of fetters, and entitled TO BE READ IN MY\nCELL.\n\nThe Hall was a queer place, I thought, with higher pews in it than a\nchurch,--and with people hanging over the pews looking on,--and with\nmighty Justices (one with a powdered head) leaning back in chairs, with\nfolded arms, or taking snuff, or going to sleep, or writing, or reading\nthe newspapers,--and with some shining black portraits on the walls,\nwhich my unartistic eye regarded as a composition of hardbake and\nsticking-plaster. Here, in a corner my indentures were duly signed and\nattested, and I was \"bound\"; Mr. Pumblechook holding me all the while\nas if we had looked in on our way to the scaffold, to have those little\npreliminaries disposed of.\n\nWhen we had come out again, and had got rid of the boys who had been put\ninto great spirits by the expectation of seeing me publicly tortured,\nand who were much disappointed to find that my friends were merely\nrallying round me, we went back to Pumblechook's. And there my sister\nbecame so excited by the twenty-five guineas, that nothing would serve\nher but we must have a dinner out of that windfall at the Blue Boar, and\nthat Pumblechook must go over in his chaise-cart, and bring the Hubbles\nand Mr. Wopsle.\n\nIt was agreed to be done; and a most melancholy day I passed. For,\nit inscrutably appeared to stand to reason, in the minds of the whole\ncompany, that I was an excrescence on the entertainment. And to make it\nworse, they all asked me from time to time,--in short, whenever they\nhad nothing else to do,--why I didn't enjoy myself? And what could I\npossibly do then, but say I was enjoying myself,--when I wasn't!\n\nHowever, they were grown up and had their own way, and they made the\nmost of it. That swindling Pumblechook, exalted into the beneficent\ncontriver of the whole occasion, actually took the top of the table;\nand, when he addressed them on the subject of my being bound, and had\nfiendishly congratulated them on my being liable to imprisonment if I\nplayed at cards, drank strong liquors, kept late hours or bad company,\nor indulged in other vagaries which the form of my indentures appeared\nto contemplate as next to inevitable, he placed me standing on a chair\nbeside him to illustrate his remarks.\n\nMy only other remembrances of the great festival are, That they wouldn't\nlet me go to sleep, but whenever they saw me dropping off, woke me up\nand told me to enjoy myself. That, rather late in the evening Mr. Wopsle\ngave us Collins's ode, and threw his bloodstained sword in thunder\ndown, with such effect, that a waiter came in and said, \"The Commercials\nunderneath sent up their compliments, and it wasn't the Tumblers' Arms.\"\nThat, they were all in excellent spirits on the road home, and sang, O\nLady Fair! Mr. Wopsle taking the bass, and asserting with a tremendously\nstrong voice (in reply to the inquisitive bore who leads that piece\nof music in a most impertinent manner, by wanting to know all about\neverybody's private affairs) that he was the man with his white locks\nflowing, and that he was upon the whole the weakest pilgrim going.\n\nFinally, I remember that when I got into my little bedroom, I was truly\nwretched, and had a strong conviction on me that I should never like\nJoe's trade. I had liked it once, but once was not now.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XIV\n\nIt is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home. There may be black\ningratitude in the thing, and the punishment may be retributive and well\ndeserved; but that it is a miserable thing, I can testify.\n\nHome had never been a very pleasant place to me, because of my sister's\ntemper. But, Joe had sanctified it, and I had believed in it. I had\nbelieved in the best parlor as a most elegant saloon; I had believed\nin the front door, as a mysterious portal of the Temple of State whose\nsolemn opening was attended with a sacrifice of roast fowls; I had\nbelieved in the kitchen as a chaste though not magnificent apartment;\nI had believed in the forge as the glowing road to manhood and\nindependence. Within a single year all this was changed. Now it was all\ncoarse and common, and I would not have had Miss Havisham and Estella\nsee it on any account.\n\nHow much of my ungracious condition of mind may have been my own fault,\nhow much Miss Havisham's, how much my sister's, is now of no moment to\nme or to any one. The change was made in me; the thing was done. Well or\nill done, excusably or inexcusably, it was done.\n\nOnce, it had seemed to me that when I should at last roll up my\nshirt-sleeves and go into the forge, Joe's 'prentice, I should be\ndistinguished and happy. Now the reality was in my hold, I only felt\nthat I was dusty with the dust of small-coal, and that I had a weight\nupon my daily remembrance to which the anvil was a feather. There have\nbeen occasions in my later life (I suppose as in most lives) when I have\nfelt for a time as if a thick curtain had fallen on all its interest\nand romance, to shut me out from anything save dull endurance any more.\nNever has that curtain dropped so heavy and blank, as when my way in\nlife lay stretched out straight before me through the newly entered road\nof apprenticeship to Joe.\n\nI remember that at a later period of my \"time,\" I used to stand about\nthe churchyard on Sunday evenings when night was falling, comparing my\nown perspective with the windy marsh view, and making out some likeness\nbetween them by thinking how flat and low both were, and how on both\nthere came an unknown way and a dark mist and then the sea. I was quite\nas dejected on the first working-day of my apprenticeship as in that\nafter-time; but I am glad to know that I never breathed a murmur to Joe\nwhile my indentures lasted. It is about the only thing I am glad to know\nof myself in that connection.\n\nFor, though it includes what I proceed to add, all the merit of what I\nproceed to add was Joe's. It was not because I was faithful, but because\nJoe was faithful, that I never ran away and went for a soldier or\na sailor. It was not because I had a strong sense of the virtue of\nindustry, but because Joe had a strong sense of the virtue of industry,\nthat I worked with tolerable zeal against the grain. It is not possible\nto know how far the influence of any amiable honest-hearted duty-doing\nman flies out into the world; but it is very possible to know how it has\ntouched one's self in going by, and I know right well that any good that\nintermixed itself with my apprenticeship came of plain contented Joe,\nand not of restlessly aspiring discontented me.\n\nWhat I wanted, who can say? How can I say, when I never knew? What\nI dreaded was, that in some unlucky hour I, being at my grimiest and\ncommonest, should lift up my eyes and see Estella looking in at one\nof the wooden windows of the forge. I was haunted by the fear that she\nwould, sooner or later, find me out, with a black face and hands, doing\nthe coarsest part of my work, and would exult over me and despise me.\nOften after dark, when I was pulling the bellows for Joe, and we were\nsinging Old Clem, and when the thought how we used to sing it at Miss\nHavisham's would seem to show me Estella's face in the fire, with her\npretty hair fluttering in the wind and her eyes scorning me,--often at\nsuch a time I would look towards those panels of black night in the wall\nwhich the wooden windows then were, and would fancy that I saw her just\ndrawing her face away, and would believe that she had come at last.\n\nAfter that, when we went into supper, the place and the meal would have\na more homely look than ever, and I would feel more ashamed of home than\never, in my own ungracious breast.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XV\n\nAs I was getting too big for Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's room, my\neducation under that preposterous female terminated. Not, however, until\nBiddy had imparted to me everything she knew, from the little catalogue\nof prices, to a comic song she had once bought for a half-penny.\nAlthough the only coherent part of the latter piece of literature were\nthe opening lines.\n\n     When I went to Lunnon town sirs,\n     Too rul loo rul\n     Too rul loo rul\n     Wasn't I done very brown sirs?\n     Too rul loo rul\n     Too rul loo rul\n\n--still, in my desire to be wiser, I got this composition by heart with the utmost gravity; nor do I recollect that I questioned its merit, except that I\nthought (as I still do) the amount of Too rul somewhat in excess of the\npoetry. In my hunger for information, I made proposals to Mr. Wopsle to\nbestow some intellectual crumbs upon me, with which he kindly complied.\nAs it turned out, however, that he only wanted me for a dramatic\nlay-figure, to be contradicted and embraced and wept over and bullied\nand clutched and stabbed and knocked about in a variety of ways, I soon\ndeclined that course of instruction; though not until Mr. Wopsle in his\npoetic fury had severely mauled me.\n\nWhatever I acquired, I tried to impart to Joe. This statement sounds so\nwell, that I cannot in my conscience let it pass unexplained. I wanted\nto make Joe less ignorant and common, that he might be worthier of my\nsociety and less open to Estella's reproach.\n\nThe old Battery out on the marshes was our place of study, and a broken\nslate and a short piece of slate-pencil were our educational implements:\nto which Joe always added a pipe of tobacco. I never knew Joe to\nremember anything from one Sunday to another, or to acquire, under my\ntuition, any piece of information whatever. Yet he would smoke his pipe\nat the Battery with a far more sagacious air than anywhere else,--even\nwith a learned air,--as if he considered himself to be advancing\nimmensely. Dear fellow, I hope he did.\n\nIt was pleasant and quiet, out there with the sails on the river passing\nbeyond the earthwork, and sometimes, when the tide was low, looking\nas if they belonged to sunken ships that were still sailing on at the\nbottom of the water. Whenever I watched the vessels standing out to sea\nwith their white sails spread, I somehow thought of Miss Havisham and\nEstella; and whenever the light struck aslant, afar off, upon a cloud\nor sail or green hillside or water-line, it was just the same.--Miss\nHavisham and Estella and the strange house and the strange life appeared\nto have something to do with everything that was picturesque.\n\nOne Sunday when Joe, greatly enjoying his pipe, had so plumed himself on\nbeing \"most awful dull,\" that I had given him up for the day, I lay on\nthe earthwork for some time with my chin on my hand, descrying traces of\nMiss Havisham and Estella all over the prospect, in the sky and in the\nwater, until at last I resolved to mention a thought concerning them\nthat had been much in my head.\n\n\"Joe,\" said I; \"don't you think I ought to make Miss Havisham a visit?\"\n\n\"Well, Pip,\" returned Joe, slowly considering. \"What for?\"\n\n\"What for, Joe? What is any visit made for?\"\n\n\"There is some wisits p'r'aps,\" said Joe, \"as for ever remains open to\nthe question, Pip. But in regard to wisiting Miss Havisham. She might\nthink you wanted something,--expected something of her.\"\n\n\"Don't you think I might say that I did not, Joe?\"\n\n\"You might, old chap,\" said Joe. \"And she might credit it. Similarly she\nmightn't.\"\n\nJoe felt, as I did, that he had made a point there, and he pulled hard\nat his pipe to keep himself from weakening it by repetition.\n\n\"You see, Pip,\" Joe pursued, as soon as he was past that danger, \"Miss\nHavisham done the handsome thing by you. When Miss Havisham done the\nhandsome thing by you, she called me back to say to me as that were\nall.\"\n\n\"Yes, Joe. I heard her.\"\n\n\"ALL,\" Joe repeated, very emphatically.\n\n\"Yes, Joe. I tell you, I heard her.\"\n\n\"Which I meantersay, Pip, it might be that her meaning were,--Make a\nend on it!--As you was!--Me to the North, and you to the South!--Keep in\nsunders!\"\n\nI had thought of that too, and it was very far from comforting to me\nto find that he had thought of it; for it seemed to render it more\nprobable.\n\n\"But, Joe.\"\n\n\"Yes, old chap.\"\n\n\"Here am I, getting on in the first year of my time, and, since the day\nof my being bound, I have never thanked Miss Havisham, or asked after\nher, or shown that I remember her.\"\n\n\"That's true, Pip; and unless you was to turn her out a set of shoes\nall four round,--and which I meantersay as even a set of shoes all\nfour round might not be acceptable as a present, in a total wacancy of\nhoofs--\"\n\n\"I don't mean that sort of remembrance, Joe; I don't mean a present.\"\n\nBut Joe had got the idea of a present in his head and must harp upon it.\n\"Or even,\" said he, \"if you was helped to knocking her up a new chain\nfor the front door,--or say a gross or two of shark-headed screws for\ngeneral use,--or some light fancy article, such as a toasting-fork\nwhen she took her muffins,--or a gridiron when she took a sprat or such\nlike--\"\n\n\"I don't mean any present at all, Joe,\" I interposed.\n\n\"Well,\" said Joe, still harping on it as though I had particularly\npressed it, \"if I was yourself, Pip, I wouldn't. No, I would not. For\nwhat's a door-chain when she's got one always up? And shark-headers is\nopen to misrepresentations. And if it was a toasting-fork, you'd go into\nbrass and do yourself no credit. And the oncommonest workman can't show\nhimself oncommon in a gridiron,--for a gridiron IS a gridiron,\" said\nJoe, steadfastly impressing it upon me, as if he were endeavouring to\nrouse me from a fixed delusion, \"and you may haim at what you like, but\na gridiron it will come out, either by your leave or again your leave,\nand you can't help yourself--\"\n\n\"My dear Joe,\" I cried, in desperation, taking hold of his coat, \"don't\ngo on in that way. I never thought of making Miss Havisham any present.\"\n\n\"No, Pip,\" Joe assented, as if he had been contending for that, all\nalong; \"and what I say to you is, you are right, Pip.\"\n\n\"Yes, Joe; but what I wanted to say, was, that as we are rather slack\njust now, if you would give me a half-holiday to-morrow, I think I would\ngo uptown and make a call on Miss Est--Havisham.\"\n\n\"Which her name,\" said Joe, gravely, \"ain't Estavisham, Pip, unless she\nhave been rechris'ened.\"\n\n\"I know, Joe, I know. It was a slip of mine. What do you think of it,\nJoe?\"\n\nIn brief, Joe thought that if I thought well of it, he thought well of\nit. But, he was particular in stipulating that if I were not received\nwith cordiality, or if I were not encouraged to repeat my visit as a\nvisit which had no ulterior object but was simply one of gratitude for a\nfavor received, then this experimental trip should have no successor. By\nthese conditions I promised to abide.\n\nNow, Joe kept a journeyman at weekly wages whose name was Orlick.\nHe pretended that his Christian name was Dolge,--a clear\nImpossibility,--but he was a fellow of that obstinate disposition that I\nbelieve him to have been the prey of no delusion in this particular, but\nwilfully to have imposed that name upon the village as an affront to its\nunderstanding. He was a broadshouldered loose-limbed swarthy fellow of\ngreat strength, never in a hurry, and always slouching. He never even\nseemed to come to his work on purpose, but would slouch in as if by mere\naccident; and when he went to the Jolly Bargemen to eat his dinner, or\nwent away at night, he would slouch out, like Cain or the Wandering Jew,\nas if he had no idea where he was going and no intention of ever\ncoming back. He lodged at a sluice-keeper's out on the marshes, and on\nworking-days would come slouching from his hermitage, with his hands in\nhis pockets and his dinner loosely tied in a bundle round his neck\nand dangling on his back. On Sundays he mostly lay all day on the\nsluice-gates, or stood against ricks and barns. He always slouched,\nlocomotively, with his eyes on the ground; and, when accosted or\notherwise required to raise them, he looked up in a half-resentful,\nhalf-puzzled way, as though the only thought he ever had was, that it\nwas rather an odd and injurious fact that he should never be thinking.\n\nThis morose journeyman had no liking for me. When I was very small and\ntimid, he gave me to understand that the Devil lived in a black corner\nof the forge, and that he knew the fiend very well: also that it was\nnecessary to make up the fire, once in seven years, with a live boy, and\nthat I might consider myself fuel. When I became Joe's 'prentice, Orlick\nwas perhaps confirmed in some suspicion that I should displace him;\nhowbeit, he liked me still less. Not that he ever said anything, or did\nanything, openly importing hostility; I only noticed that he always beat\nhis sparks in my direction, and that whenever I sang Old Clem, he came\nin out of time.\n\nDolge Orlick was at work and present, next day, when I reminded Joe of\nmy half-holiday. He said nothing at the moment, for he and Joe had just\ngot a piece of hot iron between them, and I was at the bellows; but by\nand by he said, leaning on his hammer,--\n\n\"Now, master! Sure you're not a going to favor only one of us. If Young\nPip has a half-holiday, do as much for Old Orlick.\" I suppose he was\nabout five-and-twenty, but he usually spoke of himself as an ancient\nperson.\n\n\"Why, what'll you do with a half-holiday, if you get it?\" said Joe.\n\n\"What'll I do with it! What'll he do with it? I'll do as much with it as\nhim,\" said Orlick.\n\n\"As to Pip, he's going up town,\" said Joe.\n\n\"Well then, as to Old Orlick, he's a going up town,\" retorted that\nworthy. \"Two can go up town. Tain't only one wot can go up town.\n\n\"Don't lose your temper,\" said Joe.\n\n\"Shall if I like,\" growled Orlick. \"Some and their uptowning! Now,\nmaster! Come. No favoring in this shop. Be a man!\"\n\nThe master refusing to entertain the subject until the journeyman was in\na better temper, Orlick plunged at the furnace, drew out a red-hot\nbar, made at me with it as if he were going to run it through my body,\nwhisked it round my head, laid it on the anvil, hammered it out,--as\nif it were I, I thought, and the sparks were my spirting blood,--and\nfinally said, when he had hammered himself hot and the iron cold, and he\nagain leaned on his hammer,--\n\n\"Now, master!\"\n\n\"Are you all right now?\" demanded Joe.\n\n\"Ah! I am all right,\" said gruff Old Orlick.\n\n\"Then, as in general you stick to your work as well as most men,\" said\nJoe, \"let it be a half-holiday for all.\"\n\nMy sister had been standing silent in the yard, within hearing,--she was\na most unscrupulous spy and listener,--and she instantly looked in at\none of the windows.\n\n\"Like you, you fool!\" said she to Joe, \"giving holidays to great idle\nhulkers like that. You are a rich man, upon my life, to waste wages in\nthat way. I wish I was his master!\"\n\n\"You'd be everybody's master, if you durst,\" retorted Orlick, with an\nill-favored grin.\n\n(\"Let her alone,\" said Joe.)\n\n\"I'd be a match for all noodles and all rogues,\" returned my sister,\nbeginning to work herself into a mighty rage. \"And I couldn't be a\nmatch for the noodles, without being a match for your master, who's the\ndunder-headed king of the noodles. And I couldn't be a match for the\nrogues, without being a match for you, who are the blackest-looking and\nthe worst rogue between this and France. Now!\"\n\n\"You're a foul shrew, Mother Gargery,\" growled the journeyman. \"If that\nmakes a judge of rogues, you ought to be a good'un.\"\n\n(\"Let her alone, will you?\" said Joe.)\n\n\"What did you say?\" cried my sister, beginning to scream. \"What did you\nsay? What did that fellow Orlick say to me, Pip? What did he call me,\nwith my husband standing by? Oh! oh! oh!\" Each of these exclamations was\na shriek; and I must remark of my sister, what is equally true of all\nthe violent women I have ever seen, that passion was no excuse for\nher, because it is undeniable that instead of lapsing into passion, she\nconsciously and deliberately took extraordinary pains to force herself\ninto it, and became blindly furious by regular stages; \"what was the\nname he gave me before the base man who swore to defend me? Oh! Hold me!\nOh!\"\n\n\"Ah-h-h!\" growled the journeyman, between his teeth, \"I'd hold you, if\nyou was my wife. I'd hold you under the pump, and choke it out of you.\"\n\n(\"I tell you, let her alone,\" said Joe.)\n\n\"Oh! To hear him!\" cried my sister, with a clap of her hands and a\nscream together,--which was her next stage. \"To hear the names he's\ngiving me! That Orlick! In my own house! Me, a married woman! With my\nhusband standing by! Oh! Oh!\" Here my sister, after a fit of clappings\nand screamings, beat her hands upon her bosom and upon her knees, and\nthrew her cap off, and pulled her hair down,--which were the last stages\non her road to frenzy. Being by this time a perfect Fury and a complete\nsuccess, she made a dash at the door which I had fortunately locked.\n\nWhat could the wretched Joe do now, after his disregarded parenthetical\ninterruptions, but stand up to his journeyman, and ask him what he meant\nby interfering betwixt himself and Mrs. Joe; and further whether he was\nman enough to come on? Old Orlick felt that the situation admitted of\nnothing less than coming on, and was on his defence straightway; so,\nwithout so much as pulling off their singed and burnt aprons, they went\nat one another, like two giants. But, if any man in that neighborhood\ncould stand uplong against Joe, I never saw the man. Orlick, as if he\nhad been of no more account than the pale young gentleman, was very\nsoon among the coal-dust, and in no hurry to come out of it. Then Joe\nunlocked the door and picked up my sister, who had dropped insensible\nat the window (but who had seen the fight first, I think), and who was\ncarried into the house and laid down, and who was recommended to revive,\nand would do nothing but struggle and clench her hands in Joe's hair.\nThen, came that singular calm and silence which succeed all uproars; and\nthen, with the vague sensation which I have always connected with such\na lull,--namely, that it was Sunday, and somebody was dead,--I went upstairs\nto dress myself.\n\nWhen I came down again, I found Joe and Orlick sweeping up, without any\nother traces of discomposure than a slit in one of Orlick's nostrils,\nwhich was neither expressive nor ornamental. A pot of beer had appeared\nfrom the Jolly Bargemen, and they were sharing it by turns in a\npeaceable manner. The lull had a sedative and philosophical influence on\nJoe, who followed me out into the road to say, as a parting observation\nthat might do me good, \"On the Rampage, Pip, and off the Rampage,\nPip:--such is Life!\"\n\nWith what absurd emotions (for we think the feelings that are very\nserious in a man quite comical in a boy) I found myself again going to\nMiss Havisham's, matters little here. Nor, how I passed and repassed\nthe gate many times before I could make up my mind to ring. Nor, how\nI debated whether I should go away without ringing; nor, how I should\nundoubtedly have gone, if my time had been my own, to come back.\n\nMiss Sarah Pocket came to the gate. No Estella.\n\n\"How, then? You here again?\" said Miss Pocket. \"What do you want?\"\n\nWhen I said that I only came to see how Miss Havisham was, Sarah\nevidently deliberated whether or no she should send me about my\nbusiness. But unwilling to hazard the responsibility, she let me in, and\npresently brought the sharp message that I was to \"come up.\"\n\nEverything was unchanged, and Miss Havisham was alone.\n\n\"Well?\" said she, fixing her eyes upon me. \"I hope you want nothing?\nYou'll get nothing.\"\n\n\"No indeed, Miss Havisham. I only wanted you to know that I am doing\nvery well in my apprenticeship, and am always much obliged to you.\"\n\n\"There, there!\" with the old restless fingers. \"Come now and then; come\non your birthday.--Ay!\" she cried suddenly, turning herself and her\nchair towards me, \"You are looking round for Estella? Hey?\"\n\nI had been looking round,--in fact, for Estella,--and I stammered that I\nhoped she was well.\n\n\"Abroad,\" said Miss Havisham; \"educating for a lady; far out of reach;\nprettier than ever; admired by all who see her. Do you feel that you\nhave lost her?\"\n\nThere was such a malignant enjoyment in her utterance of the last words,\nand she broke into such a disagreeable laugh, that I was at a loss what\nto say. She spared me the trouble of considering, by dismissing me. When\nthe gate was closed upon me by Sarah of the walnut-shell countenance, I\nfelt more than ever dissatisfied with my home and with my trade and with\neverything; and that was all I took by that motion.\n\nAs I was loitering along the High Street, looking in disconsolately at\nthe shop windows, and thinking what I would buy if I were a gentleman,\nwho should come out of the bookshop but Mr. Wopsle. Mr. Wopsle had in\nhis hand the affecting tragedy of George Barnwell, in which he had that\nmoment invested sixpence, with the view of heaping every word of it on\nthe head of Pumblechook, with whom he was going to drink tea. No sooner\ndid he see me, than he appeared to consider that a special Providence\nhad put a 'prentice in his way to be read at; and he laid hold of me,\nand insisted on my accompanying him to the Pumblechookian parlor. As I\nknew it would be miserable at home, and as the nights were dark and the\nway was dreary, and almost any companionship on the road was better\nthan none, I made no great resistance; consequently, we turned into\nPumblechook's just as the street and the shops were lighting up.\n\nAs I never assisted at any other representation of George Barnwell, I\ndon't know how long it may usually take; but I know very well that it\ntook until half-past nine o' clock that night, and that when Mr. Wopsle\ngot into Newgate, I thought he never would go to the scaffold, he became\nso much slower than at any former period of his disgraceful career. I\nthought it a little too much that he should complain of being cut short\nin his flower after all, as if he had not been running to seed, leaf\nafter leaf, ever since his course began. This, however, was a\nmere question of length and wearisomeness. What stung me, was the\nidentification of the whole affair with my unoffending self. When\nBarnwell began to go wrong, I declare that I felt positively apologetic,\nPumblechook's indignant stare so taxed me with it. Wopsle, too, took\npains to present me in the worst light. At once ferocious and maudlin, I\nwas made to murder my uncle with no extenuating circumstances whatever;\nMillwood put me down in argument, on every occasion; it became sheer\nmonomania in my master's daughter to care a button for me; and all I can\nsay for my gasping and procrastinating conduct on the fatal morning, is,\nthat it was worthy of the general feebleness of my character. Even after\nI was happily hanged and Wopsle had closed the book, Pumblechook sat\nstaring at me, and shaking his head, and saying, \"Take warning, boy,\ntake warning!\" as if it were a well-known fact that I contemplated\nmurdering a near relation, provided I could only induce one to have the\nweakness to become my benefactor.\n\nIt was a very dark night when it was all over, and when I set out with\nMr. Wopsle on the walk home. Beyond town, we found a heavy mist out, and\nit fell wet and thick. The turnpike lamp was a blur, quite out of the\nlamp's usual place apparently, and its rays looked solid substance on\nthe fog. We were noticing this, and saying how that the mist rose with a\nchange of wind from a certain quarter of our marshes, when we came upon\na man, slouching under the lee of the turnpike house.\n\n\"Halloa!\" we said, stopping. \"Orlick there?\"\n\n\"Ah!\" he answered, slouching out. \"I was standing by a minute, on the\nchance of company.\"\n\n\"You are late,\" I remarked.\n\nOrlick not unnaturally answered, \"Well? And you're late.\"\n\n\"We have been,\" said Mr. Wopsle, exalted with his late performance,--\"we\nhave been indulging, Mr. Orlick, in an intellectual evening.\"\n\nOld Orlick growled, as if he had nothing to say about that, and we all\nwent on together. I asked him presently whether he had been spending his\nhalf-holiday up and down town?\n\n\"Yes,\" said he, \"all of it. I come in behind yourself. I didn't see you,\nbut I must have been pretty close behind you. By the by, the guns is\ngoing again.\"\n\n\"At the Hulks?\" said I.\n\n\"Ay! There's some of the birds flown from the cages. The guns have been\ngoing since dark, about. You'll hear one presently.\"\n\nIn effect, we had not walked many yards further, when the\nwell-remembered boom came towards us, deadened by the mist, and heavily\nrolled away along the low grounds by the river, as if it were pursuing\nand threatening the fugitives.\n\n\"A good night for cutting off in,\" said Orlick. \"We'd be puzzled how to\nbring down a jail-bird on the wing, to-night.\"\n\nThe subject was a suggestive one to me, and I thought about it in\nsilence. Mr. Wopsle, as the ill-requited uncle of the evening's tragedy,\nfell to meditating aloud in his garden at Camberwell. Orlick, with his\nhands in his pockets, slouched heavily at my side. It was very dark,\nvery wet, very muddy, and so we splashed along. Now and then, the sound\nof the signal cannon broke upon us again, and again rolled sulkily along\nthe course of the river. I kept myself to myself and my thoughts. Mr.\nWopsle died amiably at Camberwell, and exceedingly game on Bosworth\nField, and in the greatest agonies at Glastonbury. Orlick sometimes\ngrowled, \"Beat it out, beat it out,--Old Clem! With a clink for the\nstout,--Old Clem!\" I thought he had been drinking, but he was not drunk.\n\nThus, we came to the village. The way by which we approached it took us\npast the Three Jolly Bargemen, which we were surprised to find--it being\neleven o'clock--in a state of commotion, with the door wide open, and\nunwonted lights that had been hastily caught up and put down scattered\nabout. Mr. Wopsle dropped into ask what was the matter (surmising that\na convict had been taken), but came running out in a great hurry.\n\n\"There's something wrong,\" said he, without stopping, \"up at your place,\nPip. Run all!\"\n\n\"What is it?\" I asked, keeping up with him. So did Orlick, at my side.\n\n\"I can't quite understand. The house seems to have been violently\nentered when Joe Gargery was out. Supposed by convicts. Somebody has\nbeen attacked and hurt.\"\n\nWe were running too fast to admit of more being said, and we made no\nstop until we got into our kitchen. It was full of people; the whole\nvillage was there, or in the yard; and there was a surgeon, and there\nwas Joe, and there were a group of women, all on the floor in the midst\nof the kitchen. The unemployed bystanders drew back when they saw me,\nand so I became aware of my sister,--lying without sense or movement on\nthe bare boards where she had been knocked down by a tremendous blow\non the back of the head, dealt by some unknown hand when her face was\nturned towards the fire,--destined never to be on the Rampage again,\nwhile she was the wife of Joe.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XVI\n\nWith my head full of George Barnwell, I was at first disposed to believe\nthat I must have had some hand in the attack upon my sister, or at\nall events that as her near relation, popularly known to be under\nobligations to her, I was a more legitimate object of suspicion than\nany one else. But when, in the clearer light of next morning, I began to\nreconsider the matter and to hear it discussed around me on all sides, I\ntook another view of the case, which was more reasonable.\n\nJoe had been at the Three Jolly Bargemen, smoking his pipe, from a\nquarter after eight o'clock to a quarter before ten. While he was there,\nmy sister had been seen standing at the kitchen door, and had exchanged\nGood Night with a farm-laborer going home. The man could not be more\nparticular as to the time at which he saw her (he got into dense\nconfusion when he tried to be), than that it must have been before nine.\nWhen Joe went home at five minutes before ten, he found her struck down\non the floor, and promptly called in assistance. The fire had not then\nburnt unusually low, nor was the snuff of the candle very long; the\ncandle, however, had been blown out.\n\nNothing had been taken away from any part of the house. Neither, beyond\nthe blowing out of the candle,--which stood on a table between the door\nand my sister, and was behind her when she stood facing the fire and was\nstruck,--was there any disarrangement of the kitchen, excepting such\nas she herself had made, in falling and bleeding. But, there was one\nremarkable piece of evidence on the spot. She had been struck with\nsomething blunt and heavy, on the head and spine; after the blows were\ndealt, something heavy had been thrown down at her with considerable\nviolence, as she lay on her face. And on the ground beside her, when Joe\npicked her up, was a convict's leg-iron which had been filed asunder.\n\nNow, Joe, examining this iron with a smith's eye, declared it to have\nbeen filed asunder some time ago. The hue and cry going off to the\nHulks, and people coming thence to examine the iron, Joe's opinion\nwas corroborated. They did not undertake to say when it had left the\nprison-ships to which it undoubtedly had once belonged; but they claimed\nto know for certain that that particular manacle had not been worn by\neither of the two convicts who had escaped last night. Further, one of\nthose two was already retaken, and had not freed himself of his iron.\n\nKnowing what I knew, I set up an inference of my own here. I believed\nthe iron to be my convict's iron,--the iron I had seen and heard him\nfiling at, on the marshes,--but my mind did not accuse him of having put\nit to its latest use. For I believed one of two other persons to have\nbecome possessed of it, and to have turned it to this cruel account.\nEither Orlick, or the strange man who had shown me the file.\n\nNow, as to Orlick; he had gone to town exactly as he told us when we\npicked him up at the turnpike, he had been seen about town all the\nevening, he had been in divers companies in several public-houses, and\nhe had come back with myself and Mr. Wopsle. There was nothing against\nhim, save the quarrel; and my sister had quarrelled with him, and with\neverybody else about her, ten thousand times. As to the strange man; if\nhe had come back for his two bank-notes there could have been no dispute\nabout them, because my sister was fully prepared to restore them.\nBesides, there had been no altercation; the assailant had come in so\nsilently and suddenly, that she had been felled before she could look\nround.\n\nIt was horrible to think that I had provided the weapon, however\nundesignedly, but I could hardly think otherwise. I suffered unspeakable\ntrouble while I considered and reconsidered whether I should at last\ndissolve that spell of my childhood and tell Joe all the story. For\nmonths afterwards, I every day settled the question finally in the\nnegative, and reopened and reargued it next morning. The contention\ncame, after all, to this;--the secret was such an old one now, had so\ngrown into me and become a part of myself, that I could not tear it\naway. In addition to the dread that, having led up to so much mischief,\nit would be now more likely than ever to alienate Joe from me if he\nbelieved it, I had a further restraining dread that he would not believe\nit, but would assort it with the fabulous dogs and veal-cutlets as a\nmonstrous invention. However, I temporized with myself, of course--for,\nwas I not wavering between right and wrong, when the thing is always\ndone?--and resolved to make a full disclosure if I should see any\nsuch new occasion as a new chance of helping in the discovery of the\nassailant.\n\nThe Constables and the Bow Street men from London--for, this happened in\nthe days of the extinct red-waistcoated police--were about the house for\na week or two, and did pretty much what I have heard and read of like\nauthorities doing in other such cases. They took up several obviously\nwrong people, and they ran their heads very hard against wrong ideas,\nand persisted in trying to fit the circumstances to the ideas, instead\nof trying to extract ideas from the circumstances. Also, they stood\nabout the door of the Jolly Bargemen, with knowing and reserved looks\nthat filled the whole neighborhood with admiration; and they had a\nmysterious manner of taking their drink, that was almost as good as\ntaking the culprit. But not quite, for they never did it.\n\nLong after these constitutional powers had dispersed, my sister lay very\nill in bed. Her sight was disturbed, so that she saw objects multiplied,\nand grasped at visionary teacups and wineglasses instead of the\nrealities; her hearing was greatly impaired; her memory also; and her\nspeech was unintelligible. When, at last, she came round so far as to\nbe helped downstairs, it was still necessary to keep my slate always by\nher, that she might indicate in writing what she could not indicate in\nspeech. As she was (very bad handwriting apart) a more than indifferent\nspeller, and as Joe was a more than indifferent reader, extraordinary\ncomplications arose between them which I was always called in to solve.\nThe administration of mutton instead of medicine, the substitution of\nTea for Joe, and the baker for bacon, were among the mildest of my own\nmistakes.\n\nHowever, her temper was greatly improved, and she was patient. A\ntremulous uncertainty of the action of all her limbs soon became a\npart of her regular state, and afterwards, at intervals of two or three\nmonths, she would often put her hands to her head, and would then remain\nfor about a week at a time in some gloomy aberration of mind. We were\nat a loss to find a suitable attendant for her, until a circumstance\nhappened conveniently to relieve us. Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt conquered a\nconfirmed habit of living into which she had fallen, and Biddy became a\npart of our establishment.\n\nIt may have been about a month after my sister's reappearance in the\nkitchen, when Biddy came to us with a small speckled box containing the\nwhole of her worldly effects, and became a blessing to the household.\nAbove all, she was a blessing to Joe, for the dear old fellow was sadly\ncut up by the constant contemplation of the wreck of his wife, and had\nbeen accustomed, while attending on her of an evening, to turn to me\nevery now and then and say, with his blue eyes moistened, \"Such a fine\nfigure of a woman as she once were, Pip!\" Biddy instantly taking the\ncleverest charge of her as though she had studied her from infancy; Joe\nbecame able in some sort to appreciate the greater quiet of his life,\nand to get down to the Jolly Bargemen now and then for a change that did\nhim good. It was characteristic of the police people that they had all\nmore or less suspected poor Joe (though he never knew it), and that they\nhad to a man concurred in regarding him as one of the deepest spirits\nthey had ever encountered.\n\nBiddy's first triumph in her new office, was to solve a difficulty\nthat had completely vanquished me. I had tried hard at it, but had made\nnothing of it. Thus it was:--\n\nAgain and again and again, my sister had traced upon the slate, a\ncharacter that looked like a curious T, and then with the utmost\neagerness had called our attention to it as something she particularly\nwanted. I had in vain tried everything producible that began with a T,\nfrom tar to toast and tub. At length it had come into my head that the\nsign looked like a hammer, and on my lustily calling that word in my\nsister's ear, she had begun to hammer on the table and had expressed a\nqualified assent. Thereupon, I had brought in all our hammers, one after\nanother, but without avail. Then I bethought me of a crutch, the shape\nbeing much the same, and I borrowed one in the village, and displayed\nit to my sister with considerable confidence. But she shook her head to\nthat extent when she was shown it, that we were terrified lest in her\nweak and shattered state she should dislocate her neck.\n\nWhen my sister found that Biddy was very quick to understand her, this\nmysterious sign reappeared on the slate. Biddy looked thoughtfully\nat it, heard my explanation, looked thoughtfully at my sister, looked\nthoughtfully at Joe (who was always represented on the slate by his\ninitial letter), and ran into the forge, followed by Joe and me.\n\n\"Why, of course!\" cried Biddy, with an exultant face. \"Don't you see?\nIt's him!\"\n\nOrlick, without a doubt! She had lost his name, and could only signify\nhim by his hammer. We told him why we wanted him to come into the\nkitchen, and he slowly laid down his hammer, wiped his brow with his\narm, took another wipe at it with his apron, and came slouching\nout, with a curious loose vagabond bend in the knees that strongly\ndistinguished him.\n\nI confess that I expected to see my sister denounce him, and that I\nwas disappointed by the different result. She manifested the greatest\nanxiety to be on good terms with him, was evidently much pleased by his\nbeing at length produced, and motioned that she would have him\ngiven something to drink. She watched his countenance as if she were\nparticularly wishful to be assured that he took kindly to his reception,\nshe showed every possible desire to conciliate him, and there was an air\nof humble propitiation in all she did, such as I have seen pervade the\nbearing of a child towards a hard master. After that day, a day rarely\npassed without her drawing the hammer on her slate, and without Orlick's\nslouching in and standing doggedly before her, as if he knew no more\nthan I did what to make of it.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XVII\n\nI now fell into a regular routine of apprenticeship life, which was\nvaried beyond the limits of the village and the marshes, by no more\nremarkable circumstance than the arrival of my birthday and my paying\nanother visit to Miss Havisham. I found Miss Sarah Pocket still on duty\nat the gate; I found Miss Havisham just as I had left her, and she spoke\nof Estella in the very same way, if not in the very same words. The\ninterview lasted but a few minutes, and she gave me a guinea when I was\ngoing, and told me to come again on my next birthday. I may mention at\nonce that this became an annual custom. I tried to decline taking the\nguinea on the first occasion, but with no better effect than causing her\nto ask me very angrily, if I expected more? Then, and after that, I took\nit.\n\nSo unchanging was the dull old house, the yellow light in the darkened\nroom, the faded spectre in the chair by the dressing-table glass, that\nI felt as if the stopping of the clocks had stopped Time in that\nmysterious place, and, while I and everything else outside it grew\nolder, it stood still. Daylight never entered the house as to my\nthoughts and remembrances of it, any more than as to the actual fact. It\nbewildered me, and under its influence I continued at heart to hate my\ntrade and to be ashamed of home.\n\nImperceptibly I became conscious of a change in Biddy, however. Her\nshoes came up at the heel, her hair grew bright and neat, her hands were\nalways clean. She was not beautiful,--she was common, and could not be\nlike Estella,--but she was pleasant and wholesome and sweet-tempered.\nShe had not been with us more than a year (I remember her being newly\nout of mourning at the time it struck me), when I observed to myself one\nevening that she had curiously thoughtful and attentive eyes; eyes that\nwere very pretty and very good.\n\nIt came of my lifting up my own eyes from a task I was poring\nat--writing some passages from a book, to improve myself in two ways at\nonce by a sort of stratagem--and seeing Biddy observant of what I was\nabout. I laid down my pen, and Biddy stopped in her needlework without\nlaying it down.\n\n\"Biddy,\" said I, \"how do you manage it? Either I am very stupid, or you\nare very clever.\"\n\n\"What is it that I manage? I don't know,\" returned Biddy, smiling.\n\nShe managed our whole domestic life, and wonderfully too; but I did not\nmean that, though that made what I did mean more surprising.\n\n\"How do you manage, Biddy,\" said I, \"to learn everything that I learn,\nand always to keep up with me?\" I was beginning to be rather vain of\nmy knowledge, for I spent my birthday guineas on it, and set aside the\ngreater part of my pocket-money for similar investment; though I have no\ndoubt, now, that the little I knew was extremely dear at the price.\n\n\"I might as well ask you,\" said Biddy, \"how you manage?\"\n\n\"No; because when I come in from the forge of a night, any one can see\nme turning to at it. But you never turn to at it, Biddy.\"\n\n\"I suppose I must catch it like a cough,\" said Biddy, quietly; and went\non with her sewing.\n\nPursuing my idea as I leaned back in my wooden chair, and looked at\nBiddy sewing away with her head on one side, I began to think her rather\nan extraordinary girl. For I called to mind now, that she was equally\naccomplished in the terms of our trade, and the names of our different\nsorts of work, and our various tools. In short, whatever I knew, Biddy\nknew. Theoretically, she was already as good a blacksmith as I, or\nbetter.\n\n\"You are one of those, Biddy,\" said I, \"who make the most of every\nchance. You never had a chance before you came here, and see how\nimproved you are!\"\n\nBiddy looked at me for an instant, and went on with her sewing. \"I was\nyour first teacher though; wasn't I?\" said she, as she sewed.\n\n\"Biddy!\" I exclaimed, in amazement. \"Why, you are crying!\"\n\n\"No I am not,\" said Biddy, looking up and laughing. \"What put that in\nyour head?\"\n\nWhat could have put it in my head but the glistening of a tear as it\ndropped on her work? I sat silent, recalling what a drudge she had been\nuntil Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt successfully overcame that bad habit of\nliving, so highly desirable to be got rid of by some people. I recalled\nthe hopeless circumstances by which she had been surrounded in the\nmiserable little shop and the miserable little noisy evening school,\nwith that miserable old bundle of incompetence always to be dragged and\nshouldered. I reflected that even in those untoward times there must\nhave been latent in Biddy what was now developing, for, in my first\nuneasiness and discontent I had turned to her for help, as a matter of\ncourse. Biddy sat quietly sewing, shedding no more tears, and while I\nlooked at her and thought about it all, it occurred to me that perhaps\nI had not been sufficiently grateful to Biddy. I might have been too\nreserved, and should have patronized her more (though I did not use that\nprecise word in my meditations) with my confidence.\n\n\"Yes, Biddy,\" I observed, when I had done turning it over, \"you were my\nfirst teacher, and that at a time when we little thought of ever being\ntogether like this, in this kitchen.\"\n\n\"Ah, poor thing!\" replied Biddy. It was like her self-forgetfulness to\ntransfer the remark to my sister, and to get up and be busy about her,\nmaking her more comfortable; \"that's sadly true!\"\n\n\"Well!\" said I, \"we must talk together a little more, as we used to do.\nAnd I must consult you a little more, as I used to do. Let us have a\nquiet walk on the marshes next Sunday, Biddy, and a long chat.\"\n\nMy sister was never left alone now; but Joe more than readily undertook\nthe care of her on that Sunday afternoon, and Biddy and I went out\ntogether. It was summer-time, and lovely weather. When we had passed the\nvillage and the church and the churchyard, and were out on the marshes\nand began to see the sails of the ships as they sailed on, I began to\ncombine Miss Havisham and Estella with the prospect, in my usual way.\nWhen we came to the river-side and sat down on the bank, with the water\nrippling at our feet, making it all more quiet than it would have been\nwithout that sound, I resolved that it was a good time and place for the\nadmission of Biddy into my inner confidence.\n\n\"Biddy,\" said I, after binding her to secrecy, \"I want to be a\ngentleman.\"\n\n\"O, I wouldn't, if I was you!\" she returned. \"I don't think it would\nanswer.\"\n\n\"Biddy,\" said I, with some severity, \"I have particular reasons for\nwanting to be a gentleman.\"\n\n\"You know best, Pip; but don't you think you are happier as you are?\"\n\n\"Biddy,\" I exclaimed, impatiently, \"I am not at all happy as I am. I\nam disgusted with my calling and with my life. I have never taken to\neither, since I was bound. Don't be absurd.\"\n\n\"Was I absurd?\" said Biddy, quietly raising her eyebrows; \"I am sorry\nfor that; I didn't mean to be. I only want you to do well, and to be\ncomfortable.\"\n\n\"Well, then, understand once for all that I never shall or can be\ncomfortable--or anything but miserable--there, Biddy!--unless I can lead\na very different sort of life from the life I lead now.\"\n\n\"That's a pity!\" said Biddy, shaking her head with a sorrowful air.\n\nNow, I too had so often thought it a pity, that, in the singular kind of\nquarrel with myself which I was always carrying on, I was half inclined\nto shed tears of vexation and distress when Biddy gave utterance to her\nsentiment and my own. I told her she was right, and I knew it was much\nto be regretted, but still it was not to be helped.\n\n\"If I could have settled down,\" I said to Biddy, plucking up the short\ngrass within reach, much as I had once upon a time pulled my feelings\nout of my hair and kicked them into the brewery wall,--\"if I could have\nsettled down and been but half as fond of the forge as I was when I was\nlittle, I know it would have been much better for me. You and I and Joe\nwould have wanted nothing then, and Joe and I would perhaps have gone\npartners when I was out of my time, and I might even have grown up to\nkeep company with you, and we might have sat on this very bank on a fine\nSunday, quite different people. I should have been good enough for you;\nshouldn't I, Biddy?\"\n\nBiddy sighed as she looked at the ships sailing on, and returned for\nanswer, \"Yes; I am not over-particular.\" It scarcely sounded flattering,\nbut I knew she meant well.\n\n\"Instead of that,\" said I, plucking up more grass and chewing a blade or\ntwo, \"see how I am going on. Dissatisfied, and uncomfortable, and--what\nwould it signify to me, being coarse and common, if nobody had told me\nso!\"\n\nBiddy turned her face suddenly towards mine, and looked far more\nattentively at me than she had looked at the sailing ships.\n\n\"It was neither a very true nor a very polite thing to say,\" she\nremarked, directing her eyes to the ships again. \"Who said it?\"\n\nI was disconcerted, for I had broken away without quite seeing where\nI was going to. It was not to be shuffled off now, however, and I\nanswered, \"The beautiful young lady at Miss Havisham's, and she's more\nbeautiful than anybody ever was, and I admire her dreadfully, and I want\nto be a gentleman on her account.\" Having made this lunatic confession,\nI began to throw my torn-up grass into the river, as if I had some\nthoughts of following it.\n\n\"Do you want to be a gentleman, to spite her or to gain her over?\" Biddy\nquietly asked me, after a pause.\n\n\"I don't know,\" I moodily answered.\n\n\"Because, if it is to spite her,\" Biddy pursued, \"I should think--but\nyou know best--that might be better and more independently done by\ncaring nothing for her words. And if it is to gain her over, I should\nthink--but you know best--she was not worth gaining over.\"\n\nExactly what I myself had thought, many times. Exactly what was\nperfectly manifest to me at the moment. But how could I, a poor dazed\nvillage lad, avoid that wonderful inconsistency into which the best and\nwisest of men fall every day?\n\n\"It may be all quite true,\" said I to Biddy, \"but I admire her\ndreadfully.\"\n\nIn short, I turned over on my face when I came to that, and got a good\ngrasp on the hair on each side of my head, and wrenched it well. All the\nwhile knowing the madness of my heart to be so very mad and misplaced,\nthat I was quite conscious it would have served my face right, if I\nhad lifted it up by my hair, and knocked it against the pebbles as a\npunishment for belonging to such an idiot.\n\nBiddy was the wisest of girls, and she tried to reason no more with me.\nShe put her hand, which was a comfortable hand though roughened by work,\nupon my hands, one after another, and gently took them out of my hair.\nThen she softly patted my shoulder in a soothing way, while with my face\nupon my sleeve I cried a little,--exactly as I had done in the brewery\nyard,--and felt vaguely convinced that I was very much ill-used by\nsomebody, or by everybody; I can't say which.\n\n\"I am glad of one thing,\" said Biddy, \"and that is, that you have felt\nyou could give me your confidence, Pip. And I am glad of another thing,\nand that is, that of course you know you may depend upon my keeping it\nand always so far deserving it. If your first teacher (dear! such a poor\none, and so much in need of being taught herself!) had been your teacher\nat the present time, she thinks she knows what lesson she would set. But\nit would be a hard one to learn, and you have got beyond her, and it's\nof no use now.\" So, with a quiet sigh for me, Biddy rose from the bank,\nand said, with a fresh and pleasant change of voice, \"Shall we walk a\nlittle farther, or go home?\"\n\n\"Biddy,\" I cried, getting up, putting my arm round her neck, and giving\nher a kiss, \"I shall always tell you everything.\"\n\n\"Till you're a gentleman,\" said Biddy.\n\n\"You know I never shall be, so that's always. Not that I have any\noccasion to tell you anything, for you know everything I know,--as I\ntold you at home the other night.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said Biddy, quite in a whisper, as she looked away at the ships.\nAnd then repeated, with her former pleasant change, \"shall we walk a\nlittle farther, or go home?\"\n\nI said to Biddy we would walk a little farther, and we did so, and the\nsummer afternoon toned down into the summer evening, and it was very\nbeautiful. I began to consider whether I was not more naturally and\nwholesomely situated, after all, in these circumstances, than playing\nbeggar my neighbor by candle-light in the room with the stopped clocks,\nand being despised by Estella. I thought it would be very good for me if\nI could get her out of my head, with all the rest of those remembrances\nand fancies, and could go to work determined to relish what I had to do,\nand stick to it, and make the best of it. I asked myself the question\nwhether I did not surely know that if Estella were beside me at that\nmoment instead of Biddy, she would make me miserable? I was obliged to\nadmit that I did know it for a certainty, and I said to myself, \"Pip,\nwhat a fool you are!\"\n\nWe talked a good deal as we walked, and all that Biddy said seemed\nright. Biddy was never insulting, or capricious, or Biddy to-day and\nsomebody else to-morrow; she would have derived only pain, and no\npleasure, from giving me pain; she would far rather have wounded her own\nbreast than mine. How could it be, then, that I did not like her much\nthe better of the two?\n\n\"Biddy,\" said I, when we were walking homeward, \"I wish you could put me\nright.\"\n\n\"I wish I could!\" said Biddy.\n\n\"If I could only get myself to fall in love with you,--you don't mind my\nspeaking so openly to such an old acquaintance?\"\n\n\"Oh dear, not at all!\" said Biddy. \"Don't mind me.\"\n\n\"If I could only get myself to do it, that would be the thing for me.\"\n\n\"But you never will, you see,\" said Biddy.\n\nIt did not appear quite so unlikely to me that evening, as it would have\ndone if we had discussed it a few hours before. I therefore observed\nI was not quite sure of that. But Biddy said she was, and she said it\ndecisively. In my heart I believed her to be right; and yet I took it\nrather ill, too, that she should be so positive on the point.\n\nWhen we came near the churchyard, we had to cross an embankment, and\nget over a stile near a sluice-gate. There started up, from the gate, or\nfrom the rushes, or from the ooze (which was quite in his stagnant way),\nOld Orlick.\n\n\"Halloa!\" he growled, \"where are you two going?\"\n\n\"Where should we be going, but home?\"\n\n\"Well, then,\" said he, \"I'm jiggered if I don't see you home!\"\n\nThis penalty of being jiggered was a favorite supposititious case of\nhis. He attached no definite meaning to the word that I am aware of, but\nused it, like his own pretended Christian name, to affront mankind, and\nconvey an idea of something savagely damaging. When I was younger, I\nhad had a general belief that if he had jiggered me personally, he would\nhave done it with a sharp and twisted hook.\n\nBiddy was much against his going with us, and said to me in a whisper,\n\"Don't let him come; I don't like him.\" As I did not like him either,\nI took the liberty of saying that we thanked him, but we didn't want\nseeing home. He received that piece of information with a yell of\nlaughter, and dropped back, but came slouching after us at a little\ndistance.\n\nCurious to know whether Biddy suspected him of having had a hand in\nthat murderous attack of which my sister had never been able to give any\naccount, I asked her why she did not like him.\n\n\"Oh!\" she replied, glancing over her shoulder as he slouched after us,\n\"because I--I am afraid he likes me.\"\n\n\"Did he ever tell you he liked you?\" I asked indignantly.\n\n\"No,\" said Biddy, glancing over her shoulder again, \"he never told me\nso; but he dances at me, whenever he can catch my eye.\"\n\nHowever novel and peculiar this testimony of attachment, I did not\ndoubt the accuracy of the interpretation. I was very hot indeed upon\nOld Orlick's daring to admire her; as hot as if it were an outrage on\nmyself.\n\n\"But it makes no difference to you, you know,\" said Biddy, calmly.\n\n\"No, Biddy, it makes no difference to me; only I don't like it; I don't\napprove of it.\"\n\n\"Nor I neither,\" said Biddy. \"Though that makes no difference to you.\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" said I; \"but I must tell you I should have no opinion of you,\nBiddy, if he danced at you with your own consent.\"\n\nI kept an eye on Orlick after that night, and, whenever circumstances\nwere favorable to his dancing at Biddy, got before him to obscure that\ndemonstration. He had struck root in Joe's establishment, by reason\nof my sister's sudden fancy for him, or I should have tried to get him\ndismissed. He quite understood and reciprocated my good intentions, as I\nhad reason to know thereafter.\n\nAnd now, because my mind was not confused enough before, I complicated\nits confusion fifty thousand-fold, by having states and seasons when I\nwas clear that Biddy was immeasurably better than Estella, and that the\nplain honest working life to which I was born had nothing in it to\nbe ashamed of, but offered me sufficient means of self-respect\nand happiness. At those times, I would decide conclusively that my\ndisaffection to dear old Joe and the forge was gone, and that I was\ngrowing up in a fair way to be partners with Joe and to keep company\nwith Biddy,--when all in a moment some confounding remembrance of the\nHavisham days would fall upon me like a destructive missile, and scatter\nmy wits again. Scattered wits take a long time picking up; and often\nbefore I had got them well together, they would be dispersed in all\ndirections by one stray thought, that perhaps after all Miss Havisham\nwas going to make my fortune when my time was out.\n\nIf my time had run out, it would have left me still at the height of my\nperplexities, I dare say. It never did run out, however, but was brought\nto a premature end, as I proceed to relate.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XVIII\n\nIt was in the fourth year of my apprenticeship to Joe, and it was a\nSaturday night. There was a group assembled round the fire at the Three\nJolly Bargemen, attentive to Mr. Wopsle as he read the newspaper aloud.\nOf that group I was one.\n\nA highly popular murder had been committed, and Mr. Wopsle was imbrued\nin blood to the eyebrows. He gloated over every abhorrent adjective\nin the description, and identified himself with every witness at the\nInquest. He faintly moaned, \"I am done for,\" as the victim, and he\nbarbarously bellowed, \"I'll serve you out,\" as the murderer. He gave the\nmedical testimony, in pointed imitation of our local practitioner; and\nhe piped and shook, as the aged turnpike-keeper who had heard blows, to\nan extent so very paralytic as to suggest a doubt regarding the mental\ncompetency of that witness. The coroner, in Mr. Wopsle's hands, became\nTimon of Athens; the beadle, Coriolanus. He enjoyed himself thoroughly,\nand we all enjoyed ourselves, and were delightfully comfortable. In this\ncosey state of mind we came to the verdict Wilful Murder.\n\nThen, and not sooner, I became aware of a strange gentleman leaning over\nthe back of the settle opposite me, looking on. There was an expression\nof contempt on his face, and he bit the side of a great forefinger as he\nwatched the group of faces.\n\n\"Well!\" said the stranger to Mr. Wopsle, when the reading was done, \"you\nhave settled it all to your own satisfaction, I have no doubt?\"\n\nEverybody started and looked up, as if it were the murderer. He looked\nat everybody coldly and sarcastically.\n\n\"Guilty, of course?\" said he. \"Out with it. Come!\"\n\n\"Sir,\" returned Mr. Wopsle, \"without having the honor of your\nacquaintance, I do say Guilty.\" Upon this we all took courage to unite\nin a confirmatory murmur.\n\n\"I know you do,\" said the stranger; \"I knew you would. I told you so.\nBut now I'll ask you a question. Do you know, or do you not know,\nthat the law of England supposes every man to be innocent, until he is\nproved--proved--to be guilty?\"\n\n\"Sir,\" Mr. Wopsle began to reply, \"as an Englishman myself, I--\"\n\n\"Come!\" said the stranger, biting his forefinger at him. \"Don't evade\nthe question. Either you know it, or you don't know it. Which is it to\nbe?\"\n\nHe stood with his head on one side and himself on one side, in a\nbullying, interrogative manner, and he threw his forefinger at Mr.\nWopsle,--as it were to mark him out--before biting it again.\n\n\"Now!\" said he. \"Do you know it, or don't you know it?\"\n\n\"Certainly I know it,\" replied Mr. Wopsle.\n\n\"Certainly you know it. Then why didn't you say so at first? Now, I'll\nask you another question,\"--taking possession of Mr. Wopsle, as if he\nhad a right to him,--\"do you know that none of these witnesses have yet\nbeen cross-examined?\"\n\nMr. Wopsle was beginning, \"I can only say--\" when the stranger stopped\nhim.\n\n\"What? You won't answer the question, yes or no? Now, I'll try you\nagain.\" Throwing his finger at him again. \"Attend to me. Are you\naware, or are you not aware, that none of these witnesses have yet been\ncross-examined? Come, I only want one word from you. Yes, or no?\"\n\nMr. Wopsle hesitated, and we all began to conceive rather a poor opinion\nof him.\n\n\"Come!\" said the stranger, \"I'll help you. You don't deserve help, but\nI'll help you. Look at that paper you hold in your hand. What is it?\"\n\n\"What is it?\" repeated Mr. Wopsle, eyeing it, much at a loss.\n\n\"Is it,\" pursued the stranger in his most sarcastic and suspicious\nmanner, \"the printed paper you have just been reading from?\"\n\n\"Undoubtedly.\"\n\n\"Undoubtedly. Now, turn to that paper, and tell me whether it distinctly\nstates that the prisoner expressly said that his legal advisers\ninstructed him altogether to reserve his defence?\"\n\n\"I read that just now,\" Mr. Wopsle pleaded.\n\n\"Never mind what you read just now, sir; I don't ask you what you read\njust now. You may read the Lord's Prayer backwards, if you like,--and,\nperhaps, have done it before to-day. Turn to the paper. No, no, no my\nfriend; not to the top of the column; you know better than that; to\nthe bottom, to the bottom.\" (We all began to think Mr. Wopsle full of\nsubterfuge.) \"Well? Have you found it?\"\n\n\"Here it is,\" said Mr. Wopsle.\n\n\"Now, follow that passage with your eye, and tell me whether it\ndistinctly states that the prisoner expressly said that he was\ninstructed by his legal advisers wholly to reserve his defence? Come! Do\nyou make that of it?\"\n\nMr. Wopsle answered, \"Those are not the exact words.\"\n\n\"Not the exact words!\" repeated the gentleman bitterly. \"Is that the\nexact substance?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mr. Wopsle.\n\n\"Yes,\" repeated the stranger, looking round at the rest of the company\nwith his right hand extended towards the witness, Wopsle. \"And now I ask\nyou what you say to the conscience of that man who, with that passage\nbefore his eyes, can lay his head upon his pillow after having\npronounced a fellow-creature guilty, unheard?\"\n\nWe all began to suspect that Mr. Wopsle was not the man we had thought\nhim, and that he was beginning to be found out.\n\n\"And that same man, remember,\" pursued the gentleman, throwing his\nfinger at Mr. Wopsle heavily,--\"that same man might be summoned as a\njuryman upon this very trial, and, having thus deeply committed himself,\nmight return to the bosom of his family and lay his head upon his\npillow, after deliberately swearing that he would well and truly try the\nissue joined between Our Sovereign Lord the King and the prisoner at the\nbar, and would a true verdict give according to the evidence, so help\nhim God!\"\n\nWe were all deeply persuaded that the unfortunate Wopsle had gone too\nfar, and had better stop in his reckless career while there was yet\ntime.\n\nThe strange gentleman, with an air of authority not to be disputed, and\nwith a manner expressive of knowing something secret about every one of\nus that would effectually do for each individual if he chose to disclose\nit, left the back of the settle, and came into the space between the two\nsettles, in front of the fire, where he remained standing, his left hand\nin his pocket, and he biting the forefinger of his right.\n\n\"From information I have received,\" said he, looking round at us as we\nall quailed before him, \"I have reason to believe there is a blacksmith\namong you, by name Joseph--or Joe--Gargery. Which is the man?\"\n\n\"Here is the man,\" said Joe.\n\nThe strange gentleman beckoned him out of his place, and Joe went.\n\n\"You have an apprentice,\" pursued the stranger, \"commonly known as Pip?\nIs he here?\"\n\n\"I am here!\" I cried.\n\nThe stranger did not recognize me, but I recognized him as the gentleman\nI had met on the stairs, on the occasion of my second visit to Miss\nHavisham. I had known him the moment I saw him looking over the settle,\nand now that I stood confronting him with his hand upon my shoulder,\nI checked off again in detail his large head, his dark complexion, his\ndeep-set eyes, his bushy black eyebrows, his large watch-chain, his\nstrong black dots of beard and whisker, and even the smell of scented\nsoap on his great hand.\n\n\"I wish to have a private conference with you two,\" said he, when he had\nsurveyed me at his leisure. \"It will take a little time. Perhaps we\nhad better go to your place of residence. I prefer not to anticipate my\ncommunication here; you will impart as much or as little of it as you\nplease to your friends afterwards; I have nothing to do with that.\"\n\nAmidst a wondering silence, we three walked out of the Jolly Bargemen,\nand in a wondering silence walked home. While going along, the strange\ngentleman occasionally looked at me, and occasionally bit the side of\nhis finger. As we neared home, Joe vaguely acknowledging the occasion as\nan impressive and ceremonious one, went on ahead to open the front door.\nOur conference was held in the state parlor, which was feebly lighted by\none candle.\n\nIt began with the strange gentleman's sitting down at the table, drawing\nthe candle to him, and looking over some entries in his pocket-book.\nHe then put up the pocket-book and set the candle a little aside, after\npeering round it into the darkness at Joe and me, to ascertain which was\nwhich.\n\n\"My name,\" he said, \"is Jaggers, and I am a lawyer in London. I am\npretty well known. I have unusual business to transact with you, and I\ncommence by explaining that it is not of my originating. If my advice\nhad been asked, I should not have been here. It was not asked, and you\nsee me here. What I have to do as the confidential agent of another, I\ndo. No less, no more.\"\n\nFinding that he could not see us very well from where he sat, he got\nup, and threw one leg over the back of a chair and leaned upon it; thus\nhaving one foot on the seat of the chair, and one foot on the ground.\n\n\"Now, Joseph Gargery, I am the bearer of an offer to relieve you of\nthis young fellow your apprentice. You would not object to cancel his\nindentures at his request and for his good? You would want nothing for\nso doing?\"\n\n\"Lord forbid that I should want anything for not standing in Pip's way,\"\nsaid Joe, staring.\n\n\"Lord forbidding is pious, but not to the purpose,\" returned Mr.\nJaggers. \"The question is, Would you want anything? Do you want\nanything?\"\n\n\"The answer is,\" returned Joe, sternly, \"No.\"\n\nI thought Mr. Jaggers glanced at Joe, as if he considered him a fool for\nhis disinterestedness. But I was too much bewildered between breathless\ncuriosity and surprise, to be sure of it.\n\n\"Very well,\" said Mr. Jaggers. \"Recollect the admission you have made,\nand don't try to go from it presently.\"\n\n\"Who's a going to try?\" retorted Joe.\n\n\"I don't say anybody is. Do you keep a dog?\"\n\n\"Yes, I do keep a dog.\"\n\n\"Bear in mind then, that Brag is a good dog, but Holdfast is a better.\nBear that in mind, will you?\" repeated Mr. Jaggers, shutting his eyes\nand nodding his head at Joe, as if he were forgiving him something.\n\"Now, I return to this young fellow. And the communication I have got to\nmake is, that he has great expectations.\"\n\nJoe and I gasped, and looked at one another.\n\n\"I am instructed to communicate to him,\" said Mr. Jaggers, throwing\nhis finger at me sideways, \"that he will come into a handsome property.\nFurther, that it is the desire of the present possessor of that\nproperty, that he be immediately removed from his present sphere of life\nand from this place, and be brought up as a gentleman,--in a word, as a\nyoung fellow of great expectations.\"\n\nMy dream was out; my wild fancy was surpassed by sober reality; Miss\nHavisham was going to make my fortune on a grand scale.\n\n\"Now, Mr. Pip,\" pursued the lawyer, \"I address the rest of what I have\nto say, to you. You are to understand, first, that it is the request\nof the person from whom I take my instructions that you always bear\nthe name of Pip. You will have no objection, I dare say, to your great\nexpectations being encumbered with that easy condition. But if you have\nany objection, this is the time to mention it.\"\n\nMy heart was beating so fast, and there was such a singing in my ears,\nthat I could scarcely stammer I had no objection.\n\n\"I should think not! Now you are to understand, secondly, Mr. Pip, that\nthe name of the person who is your liberal benefactor remains a profound\nsecret, until the person chooses to reveal it. I am empowered to mention\nthat it is the intention of the person to reveal it at first hand by\nword of mouth to yourself. When or where that intention may be carried\nout, I cannot say; no one can say. It may be years hence. Now, you are\ndistinctly to understand that you are most positively prohibited from\nmaking any inquiry on this head, or any allusion or reference, however\ndistant, to any individual whomsoever as the individual, in all the\ncommunications you may have with me. If you have a suspicion in your own\nbreast, keep that suspicion in your own breast. It is not the least to\nthe purpose what the reasons of this prohibition are; they may be the\nstrongest and gravest reasons, or they may be mere whim. This is not for\nyou to inquire into. The condition is laid down. Your acceptance of it,\nand your observance of it as binding, is the only remaining condition\nthat I am charged with, by the person from whom I take my instructions,\nand for whom I am not otherwise responsible. That person is the person\nfrom whom you derive your expectations, and the secret is solely held by\nthat person and by me. Again, not a very difficult condition with which\nto encumber such a rise in fortune; but if you have any objection to it,\nthis is the time to mention it. Speak out.\"\n\nOnce more, I stammered with difficulty that I had no objection.\n\n\"I should think not! Now, Mr. Pip, I have done with stipulations.\"\nThough he called me Mr. Pip, and began rather to make up to me, he still\ncould not get rid of a certain air of bullying suspicion; and even now\nhe occasionally shut his eyes and threw his finger at me while he\nspoke, as much as to express that he knew all kinds of things to my\ndisparagement, if he only chose to mention them. \"We come next, to mere\ndetails of arrangement. You must know that, although I have used\nthe term 'expectations' more than once, you are not endowed with\nexpectations only. There is already lodged in my hands a sum of money\namply sufficient for your suitable education and maintenance. You will\nplease consider me your guardian. Oh!\" for I was going to thank him, \"I\ntell you at once, I am paid for my services, or I shouldn't render them.\nIt is considered that you must be better educated, in accordance with\nyour altered position, and that you will be alive to the importance and\nnecessity of at once entering on that advantage.\"\n\nI said I had always longed for it.\n\n\"Never mind what you have always longed for, Mr. Pip,\" he retorted;\n\"keep to the record. If you long for it now, that's enough. Am I\nanswered that you are ready to be placed at once under some proper\ntutor? Is that it?\"\n\nI stammered yes, that was it.\n\n\"Good. Now, your inclinations are to be consulted. I don't think that\nwise, mind, but it's my trust. Have you ever heard of any tutor whom you\nwould prefer to another?\"\n\nI had never heard of any tutor but Biddy and Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt;\nso, I replied in the negative.\n\n\"There is a certain tutor, of whom I have some knowledge, who I think\nmight suit the purpose,\" said Mr. Jaggers. \"I don't recommend him,\nobserve; because I never recommend anybody. The gentleman I speak of is\none Mr. Matthew Pocket.\"\n\nAh! I caught at the name directly. Miss Havisham's relation. The Matthew\nwhom Mr. and Mrs. Camilla had spoken of. The Matthew whose place was to\nbe at Miss Havisham's head, when she lay dead, in her bride's dress on\nthe bride's table.\n\n\"You know the name?\" said Mr. Jaggers, looking shrewdly at me, and then\nshutting up his eyes while he waited for my answer.\n\nMy answer was, that I had heard of the name.\n\n\"Oh!\" said he. \"You have heard of the name. But the question is, what do\nyou say of it?\"\n\nI said, or tried to say, that I was much obliged to him for his\nrecommendation--\n\n\"No, my young friend!\" he interrupted, shaking his great head very\nslowly. \"Recollect yourself!\"\n\nNot recollecting myself, I began again that I was much obliged to him\nfor his recommendation--\n\n\"No, my young friend,\" he interrupted, shaking his head and frowning and\nsmiling both at once,--\"no, no, no; it's very well done, but it won't\ndo; you are too young to fix me with it. Recommendation is not the word,\nMr. Pip. Try another.\"\n\nCorrecting myself, I said that I was much obliged to him for his mention\nof Mr. Matthew Pocket--\n\n\"That's more like it!\" cried Mr. Jaggers.--And (I added), I would\ngladly try that gentleman.\n\n\"Good. You had better try him in his own house. The way shall be\nprepared for you, and you can see his son first, who is in London. When\nwill you come to London?\"\n\nI said (glancing at Joe, who stood looking on, motionless), that I\nsupposed I could come directly.\n\n\"First,\" said Mr. Jaggers, \"you should have some new clothes to come in,\nand they should not be working-clothes. Say this day week. You'll want\nsome money. Shall I leave you twenty guineas?\"\n\nHe produced a long purse, with the greatest coolness, and counted them\nout on the table and pushed them over to me. This was the first time he\nhad taken his leg from the chair. He sat astride of the chair when he\nhad pushed the money over, and sat swinging his purse and eyeing Joe.\n\n\"Well, Joseph Gargery? You look dumbfoundered?\"\n\n\"I am!\" said Joe, in a very decided manner.\n\n\"It was understood that you wanted nothing for yourself, remember?\"\n\n\"It were understood,\" said Joe. \"And it are understood. And it ever will\nbe similar according.\"\n\n\"But what,\" said Mr. Jaggers, swinging his purse,--\"what if it was in my\ninstructions to make you a present, as compensation?\"\n\n\"As compensation what for?\" Joe demanded.\n\n\"For the loss of his services.\"\n\nJoe laid his hand upon my shoulder with the touch of a woman. I have\noften thought him since, like the steam-hammer that can crush a man or\npat an egg-shell, in his combination of strength with gentleness. \"Pip\nis that hearty welcome,\" said Joe, \"to go free with his services, to\nhonor and fortun', as no words can tell him. But if you think as Money\ncan make compensation to me for the loss of the little child--what come\nto the forge--and ever the best of friends!--\"\n\nO dear good Joe, whom I was so ready to leave and so unthankful to, I\nsee you again, with your muscular blacksmith's arm before your eyes,\nand your broad chest heaving, and your voice dying away. O dear good\nfaithful tender Joe, I feel the loving tremble of your hand upon my arm,\nas solemnly this day as if it had been the rustle of an angel's wing!\n\nBut I encouraged Joe at the time. I was lost in the mazes of my future\nfortunes, and could not retrace the by-paths we had trodden together. I\nbegged Joe to be comforted, for (as he said) we had ever been the best\nof friends, and (as I said) we ever would be so. Joe scooped his eyes\nwith his disengaged wrist, as if he were bent on gouging himself, but\nsaid not another word.\n\nMr. Jaggers had looked on at this, as one who recognized in Joe the\nvillage idiot, and in me his keeper. When it was over, he said, weighing\nin his hand the purse he had ceased to swing:--\n\n\"Now, Joseph Gargery, I warn you this is your last chance. No half\nmeasures with me. If you mean to take a present that I have it in charge\nto make you, speak out, and you shall have it. If on the contrary you\nmean to say--\" Here, to his great amazement, he was stopped by Joe's\nsuddenly working round him with every demonstration of a fell pugilistic\npurpose.\n\n\"Which I meantersay,\" cried Joe, \"that if you come into my place\nbull-baiting and badgering me, come out! Which I meantersay as sech if\nyou're a man, come on! Which I meantersay that what I say, I meantersay\nand stand or fall by!\"\n\nI drew Joe away, and he immediately became placable; merely stating to\nme, in an obliging manner and as a polite expostulatory notice to any\none whom it might happen to concern, that he were not a going to be\nbull-baited and badgered in his own place. Mr. Jaggers had risen when\nJoe demonstrated, and had backed near the door. Without evincing\nany inclination to come in again, he there delivered his valedictory\nremarks. They were these.\n\n\"Well, Mr. Pip, I think the sooner you leave here--as you are to be a\ngentleman--the better. Let it stand for this day week, and you shall\nreceive my printed address in the meantime. You can take a hackney-coach\nat the stage-coach office in London, and come straight to me.\nUnderstand, that I express no opinion, one way or other, on the trust\nI undertake. I am paid for undertaking it, and I do so. Now, understand\nthat, finally. Understand that!\"\n\nHe was throwing his finger at both of us, and I think would have gone\non, but for his seeming to think Joe dangerous, and going off.\n\nSomething came into my head which induced me to run after him, as he was\ngoing down to the Jolly Bargemen, where he had left a hired carriage.\n\n\"I beg your pardon, Mr. Jaggers.\"\n\n\"Halloa!\" said he, facing round, \"what's the matter?\"\n\n\"I wish to be quite right, Mr. Jaggers, and to keep to your directions;\nso I thought I had better ask. Would there be any objection to my taking\nleave of any one I know, about here, before I go away?\"\n\n\"No,\" said he, looking as if he hardly understood me.\n\n\"I don't mean in the village only, but up town?\"\n\n\"No,\" said he. \"No objection.\"\n\nI thanked him and ran home again, and there I found that Joe had already\nlocked the front door and vacated the state parlor, and was seated\nby the kitchen fire with a hand on each knee, gazing intently at the\nburning coals. I too sat down before the fire and gazed at the coals,\nand nothing was said for a long time.\n\nMy sister was in her cushioned chair in her corner, and Biddy sat at her\nneedle-work before the fire, and Joe sat next Biddy, and I sat next Joe\nin the corner opposite my sister. The more I looked into the glowing\ncoals, the more incapable I became of looking at Joe; the longer the\nsilence lasted, the more unable I felt to speak.\n\nAt length I got out, \"Joe, have you told Biddy?\"\n\n\"No, Pip,\" returned Joe, still looking at the fire, and holding his\nknees tight, as if he had private information that they intended to make\noff somewhere, \"which I left it to yourself, Pip.\"\n\n\"I would rather you told, Joe.\"\n\n\"Pip's a gentleman of fortun' then,\" said Joe, \"and God bless him in\nit!\"\n\nBiddy dropped her work, and looked at me. Joe held his knees and looked\nat me. I looked at both of them. After a pause, they both heartily\ncongratulated me; but there was a certain touch of sadness in their\ncongratulations that I rather resented.\n\nI took it upon myself to impress Biddy (and through Biddy, Joe) with the\ngrave obligation I considered my friends under, to know nothing and say\nnothing about the maker of my fortune. It would all come out in good\ntime, I observed, and in the meanwhile nothing was to be said, save\nthat I had come into great expectations from a mysterious patron. Biddy\nnodded her head thoughtfully at the fire as she took up her work again,\nand said she would be very particular; and Joe, still detaining his\nknees, said, \"Ay, ay, I'll be ekervally partickler, Pip;\" and then they\ncongratulated me again, and went on to express so much wonder at the\nnotion of my being a gentleman that I didn't half like it.\n\nInfinite pains were then taken by Biddy to convey to my sister some idea\nof what had happened. To the best of my belief, those efforts entirely\nfailed. She laughed and nodded her head a great many times, and even\nrepeated after Biddy, the words \"Pip\" and \"Property.\" But I doubt if\nthey had more meaning in them than an election cry, and I cannot suggest\na darker picture of her state of mind.\n\nI never could have believed it without experience, but as Joe and\nBiddy became more at their cheerful ease again, I became quite gloomy.\nDissatisfied with my fortune, of course I could not be; but it is\npossible that I may have been, without quite knowing it, dissatisfied\nwith myself.\n\nAny how, I sat with my elbow on my knee and my face upon my hand,\nlooking into the fire, as those two talked about my going away, and\nabout what they should do without me, and all that. And whenever I\ncaught one of them looking at me, though never so pleasantly (and they\noften looked at me,--particularly Biddy), I felt offended: as if they\nwere expressing some mistrust of me. Though Heaven knows they never did\nby word or sign.\n\nAt those times I would get up and look out at the door; for our kitchen\ndoor opened at once upon the night, and stood open on summer evenings to\nair the room. The very stars to which I then raised my eyes, I am afraid\nI took to be but poor and humble stars for glittering on the rustic\nobjects among which I had passed my life.\n\n\"Saturday night,\" said I, when we sat at our supper of bread and cheese\nand beer. \"Five more days, and then the day before the day! They'll soon\ngo.\"\n\n\"Yes, Pip,\" observed Joe, whose voice sounded hollow in his beer-mug.\n\"They'll soon go.\"\n\n\"Soon, soon go,\" said Biddy.\n\n\"I have been thinking, Joe, that when I go down town on Monday, and\norder my new clothes, I shall tell the tailor that I'll come and put\nthem on there, or that I'll have them sent to Mr. Pumblechook's. It\nwould be very disagreeable to be stared at by all the people here.\"\n\n\"Mr. and Mrs. Hubble might like to see you in your new gen-teel figure\ntoo, Pip,\" said Joe, industriously cutting his bread, with his cheese on\nit, in the palm of his left hand, and glancing at my untasted supper\nas if he thought of the time when we used to compare slices. \"So might\nWopsle. And the Jolly Bargemen might take it as a compliment.\"\n\n\"That's just what I don't want, Joe. They would make such a business of\nit,--such a coarse and common business,--that I couldn't bear myself.\"\n\n\"Ah, that indeed, Pip!\" said Joe. \"If you couldn't abear yourself--\"\n\nBiddy asked me here, as she sat holding my sister's plate, \"Have you\nthought about when you'll show yourself to Mr. Gargery, and your sister\nand me? You will show yourself to us; won't you?\"\n\n\"Biddy,\" I returned with some resentment, \"you are so exceedingly quick\nthat it's difficult to keep up with you.\"\n\n(\"She always were quick,\" observed Joe.)\n\n\"If you had waited another moment, Biddy, you would have heard me say\nthat I shall bring my clothes here in a bundle one evening,--most likely\non the evening before I go away.\"\n\nBiddy said no more. Handsomely forgiving her, I soon exchanged an\naffectionate good night with her and Joe, and went up to bed. When I got\ninto my little room, I sat down and took a long look at it, as a mean\nlittle room that I should soon be parted from and raised above, for\never. It was furnished with fresh young remembrances too, and even at\nthe same moment I fell into much the same confused division of mind\nbetween it and the better rooms to which I was going, as I had been in\nso often between the forge and Miss Havisham's, and Biddy and Estella.\n\nThe sun had been shining brightly all day on the roof of my attic, and\nthe room was warm. As I put the window open and stood looking out, I saw\nJoe come slowly forth at the dark door, below, and take a turn or two\nin the air; and then I saw Biddy come, and bring him a pipe and light\nit for him. He never smoked so late, and it seemed to hint to me that he\nwanted comforting, for some reason or other.\n\nHe presently stood at the door immediately beneath me, smoking his pipe,\nand Biddy stood there too, quietly talking to him, and I knew that they\ntalked of me, for I heard my name mentioned in an endearing tone by both\nof them more than once. I would not have listened for more, if I could\nhave heard more; so I drew away from the window, and sat down in my one\nchair by the bedside, feeling it very sorrowful and strange that this\nfirst night of my bright fortunes should be the loneliest I had ever\nknown.\n\nLooking towards the open window, I saw light wreaths from Joe's pipe\nfloating there, and I fancied it was like a blessing from Joe,--not\nobtruded on me or paraded before me, but pervading the air we shared\ntogether. I put my light out, and crept into bed; and it was an uneasy\nbed now, and I never slept the old sound sleep in it any more.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XIX\n\nMorning made a considerable difference in my general prospect of Life,\nand brightened it so much that it scarcely seemed the same. What lay\nheaviest on my mind was, the consideration that six days intervened\nbetween me and the day of departure; for I could not divest myself of\na misgiving that something might happen to London in the meanwhile, and\nthat, when I got there, it would be either greatly deteriorated or clean\ngone.\n\nJoe and Biddy were very sympathetic and pleasant when I spoke of our\napproaching separation; but they only referred to it when I did. After\nbreakfast, Joe brought out my indentures from the press in the best\nparlor, and we put them in the fire, and I felt that I was free. With\nall the novelty of my emancipation on me, I went to church with Joe, and\nthought perhaps the clergyman wouldn't have read that about the rich man\nand the kingdom of Heaven, if he had known all.\n\nAfter our early dinner, I strolled out alone, purposing to finish off\nthe marshes at once, and get them done with. As I passed the church, I\nfelt (as I had felt during service in the morning) a sublime compassion\nfor the poor creatures who were destined to go there, Sunday after\nSunday, all their lives through, and to lie obscurely at last among the\nlow green mounds. I promised myself that I would do something for them\none of these days, and formed a plan in outline for bestowing a\ndinner of roast-beef and plum-pudding, a pint of ale, and a gallon of\ncondescension, upon everybody in the village.\n\nIf I had often thought before, with something allied to shame, of my\ncompanionship with the fugitive whom I had once seen limping among those\ngraves, what were my thoughts on this Sunday, when the place recalled\nthe wretch, ragged and shivering, with his felon iron and badge! My\ncomfort was, that it happened a long time ago, and that he had doubtless\nbeen transported a long way off, and that he was dead to me, and might\nbe veritably dead into the bargain.\n\nNo more low, wet grounds, no more dikes and sluices, no more of these\ngrazing cattle,--though they seemed, in their dull manner, to wear a\nmore respectful air now, and to face round, in order that they\nmight stare as long as possible at the possessor of such great\nexpectations,--farewell, monotonous acquaintances of my childhood,\nhenceforth I was for London and greatness; not for smith's work in\ngeneral, and for you! I made my exultant way to the old Battery, and,\nlying down there to consider the question whether Miss Havisham intended\nme for Estella, fell asleep.\n\nWhen I awoke, I was much surprised to find Joe sitting beside me,\nsmoking his pipe. He greeted me with a cheerful smile on my opening my\neyes, and said,--\n\n\"As being the last time, Pip, I thought I'd foller.\"\n\n\"And Joe, I am very glad you did so.\"\n\n\"Thankee, Pip.\"\n\n\"You may be sure, dear Joe,\" I went on, after we had shaken hands, \"that\nI shall never forget you.\"\n\n\"No, no, Pip!\" said Joe, in a comfortable tone, \"I'm sure of that. Ay,\nay, old chap! Bless you, it were only necessary to get it well round in\na man's mind, to be certain on it. But it took a bit of time to get it\nwell round, the change come so oncommon plump; didn't it?\"\n\nSomehow, I was not best pleased with Joe's being so mightily secure of\nme. I should have liked him to have betrayed emotion, or to have said,\n\"It does you credit, Pip,\" or something of that sort. Therefore, I made\nno remark on Joe's first head; merely saying as to his second, that the\ntidings had indeed come suddenly, but that I had always wanted to be a\ngentleman, and had often and often speculated on what I would do, if I\nwere one.\n\n\"Have you though?\" said Joe. \"Astonishing!\"\n\n\"It's a pity now, Joe,\" said I, \"that you did not get on a little more,\nwhen we had our lessons here; isn't it?\"\n\n\"Well, I don't know,\" returned Joe. \"I'm so awful dull. I'm only master\nof my own trade. It were always a pity as I was so awful dull; but it's\nno more of a pity now, than it was--this day twelvemonth--don't you\nsee?\"\n\nWhat I had meant was, that when I came into my property and was able to\ndo something for Joe, it would have been much more agreeable if he\nhad been better qualified for a rise in station. He was so perfectly\ninnocent of my meaning, however, that I thought I would mention it to\nBiddy in preference.\n\nSo, when we had walked home and had had tea, I took Biddy into our\nlittle garden by the side of the lane, and, after throwing out in a\ngeneral way for the elevation of her spirits, that I should never forget\nher, said I had a favor to ask of her.\n\n\"And it is, Biddy,\" said I, \"that you will not omit any opportunity of\nhelping Joe on, a little.\"\n\n\"How helping him on?\" asked Biddy, with a steady sort of glance.\n\n\"Well! Joe is a dear good fellow,--in fact, I think he is the dearest\nfellow that ever lived,--but he is rather backward in some things. For\ninstance, Biddy, in his learning and his manners.\"\n\nAlthough I was looking at Biddy as I spoke, and although she opened her\neyes very wide when I had spoken, she did not look at me.\n\n\"O, his manners! won't his manners do then?\" asked Biddy, plucking a\nblack-currant leaf.\n\n\"My dear Biddy, they do very well here--\"\n\n\"O! they do very well here?\" interrupted Biddy, looking closely at the\nleaf in her hand.\n\n\"Hear me out,--but if I were to remove Joe into a higher sphere, as I\nshall hope to remove him when I fully come into my property, they would\nhardly do him justice.\"\n\n\"And don't you think he knows that?\" asked Biddy.\n\nIt was such a very provoking question (for it had never in the most\ndistant manner occurred to me), that I said, snappishly,--\n\n\"Biddy, what do you mean?\"\n\nBiddy, having rubbed the leaf to pieces between her hands,--and the\nsmell of a black-currant bush has ever since recalled to me that evening\nin the little garden by the side of the lane,--said, \"Have you never\nconsidered that he may be proud?\"\n\n\"Proud?\" I repeated, with disdainful emphasis.\n\n\"O! there are many kinds of pride,\" said Biddy, looking full at me and\nshaking her head; \"pride is not all of one kind--\"\n\n\"Well? What are you stopping for?\" said I.\n\n\"Not all of one kind,\" resumed Biddy. \"He may be too proud to let any\none take him out of a place that he is competent to fill, and fills well\nand with respect. To tell you the truth, I think he is; though it sounds\nbold in me to say so, for you must know him far better than I do.\"\n\n\"Now, Biddy,\" said I, \"I am very sorry to see this in you. I did not\nexpect to see this in you. You are envious, Biddy, and grudging. You\nare dissatisfied on account of my rise in fortune, and you can't help\nshowing it.\"\n\n\"If you have the heart to think so,\" returned Biddy, \"say so. Say so\nover and over again, if you have the heart to think so.\"\n\n\"If you have the heart to be so, you mean, Biddy,\" said I, in a virtuous\nand superior tone; \"don't put it off upon me. I am very sorry to see it,\nand it's a--it's a bad side of human nature. I did intend to ask you\nto use any little opportunities you might have after I was gone, of\nimproving dear Joe. But after this I ask you nothing. I am extremely\nsorry to see this in you, Biddy,\" I repeated. \"It's a--it's a bad side\nof human nature.\"\n\n\"Whether you scold me or approve of me,\" returned poor Biddy, \"you may\nequally depend upon my trying to do all that lies in my power, here,\nat all times. And whatever opinion you take away of me, shall make\nno difference in my remembrance of you. Yet a gentleman should not be\nunjust neither,\" said Biddy, turning away her head.\n\nI again warmly repeated that it was a bad side of human nature (in which\nsentiment, waiving its application, I have since seen reason to think I\nwas right), and I walked down the little path away from Biddy, and\nBiddy went into the house, and I went out at the garden gate and took a\ndejected stroll until supper-time; again feeling it very sorrowful and\nstrange that this, the second night of my bright fortunes, should be as\nlonely and unsatisfactory as the first.\n\nBut, morning once more brightened my view, and I extended my clemency to\nBiddy, and we dropped the subject. Putting on the best clothes I had,\nI went into town as early as I could hope to find the shops open,\nand presented myself before Mr. Trabb, the tailor, who was having his\nbreakfast in the parlor behind his shop, and who did not think it worth\nhis while to come out to me, but called me into him.\n\n\"Well!\" said Mr. Trabb, in a hail-fellow-well-met kind of way. \"How are\nyou, and what can I do for you?\"\n\nMr. Trabb had sliced his hot roll into three feather-beds, and was\nslipping butter in between the blankets, and covering it up. He was a\nprosperous old bachelor, and his open window looked into a prosperous\nlittle garden and orchard, and there was a prosperous iron safe let into\nthe wall at the side of his fireplace, and I did not doubt that heaps of\nhis prosperity were put away in it in bags.\n\n\"Mr. Trabb,\" said I, \"it's an unpleasant thing to have to mention,\nbecause it looks like boasting; but I have come into a handsome\nproperty.\"\n\nA change passed over Mr. Trabb. He forgot the butter in bed, got up from\nthe bedside, and wiped his fingers on the tablecloth, exclaiming, \"Lord\nbless my soul!\"\n\n\"I am going up to my guardian in London,\" said I, casually drawing some\nguineas out of my pocket and looking at them; \"and I want a fashionable\nsuit of clothes to go in. I wish to pay for them,\" I added--otherwise I\nthought he might only pretend to make them, \"with ready money.\"\n\n\"My dear sir,\" said Mr. Trabb, as he respectfully bent his body, opened\nhis arms, and took the liberty of touching me on the outside of each\nelbow, \"don't hurt me by mentioning that. May I venture to congratulate\nyou? Would you do me the favor of stepping into the shop?\"\n\nMr. Trabb's boy was the most audacious boy in all that country-side.\nWhen I had entered he was sweeping the shop, and he had sweetened his\nlabors by sweeping over me. He was still sweeping when I came out into\nthe shop with Mr. Trabb, and he knocked the broom against all possible\ncorners and obstacles, to express (as I understood it) equality with any\nblacksmith, alive or dead.\n\n\"Hold that noise,\" said Mr. Trabb, with the greatest sternness, \"or I'll\nknock your head off!--Do me the favor to be seated, sir. Now, this,\"\nsaid Mr. Trabb, taking down a roll of cloth, and tiding it out in a\nflowing manner over the counter, preparatory to getting his hand under\nit to show the gloss, \"is a very sweet article. I can recommend it for\nyour purpose, sir, because it really is extra super. But you shall\nsee some others. Give me Number Four, you!\" (To the boy, and with a\ndreadfully severe stare; foreseeing the danger of that miscreant's\nbrushing me with it, or making some other sign of familiarity.)\n\nMr. Trabb never removed his stern eye from the boy until he had\ndeposited number four on the counter and was at a safe distance again.\nThen he commanded him to bring number five, and number eight. \"And let\nme have none of your tricks here,\" said Mr. Trabb, \"or you shall repent\nit, you young scoundrel, the longest day you have to live.\"\n\nMr. Trabb then bent over number four, and in a sort of deferential\nconfidence recommended it to me as a light article for summer wear, an\narticle much in vogue among the nobility and gentry, an article that\nit would ever be an honor to him to reflect upon a distinguished\nfellow-townsman's (if he might claim me for a fellow-townsman) having\nworn. \"Are you bringing numbers five and eight, you vagabond,\" said Mr.\nTrabb to the boy after that, \"or shall I kick you out of the shop and\nbring them myself?\"\n\nI selected the materials for a suit, with the assistance of Mr. Trabb's\njudgment, and re-entered the parlor to be measured. For although Mr.\nTrabb had my measure already, and had previously been quite contented\nwith it, he said apologetically that it \"wouldn't do under existing\ncircumstances, sir,--wouldn't do at all.\" So, Mr. Trabb measured and\ncalculated me in the parlor, as if I were an estate and he the finest\nspecies of surveyor, and gave himself such a world of trouble that\nI felt that no suit of clothes could possibly remunerate him for his\npains. When he had at last done and had appointed to send the articles\nto Mr. Pumblechook's on the Thursday evening, he said, with his hand\nupon the parlor lock, \"I know, sir, that London gentlemen cannot be\nexpected to patronize local work, as a rule; but if you would give me a\nturn now and then in the quality of a townsman, I should greatly esteem\nit. Good morning, sir, much obliged.--Door!\"\n\nThe last word was flung at the boy, who had not the least notion what\nit meant. But I saw him collapse as his master rubbed me out with his\nhands, and my first decided experience of the stupendous power of money\nwas, that it had morally laid upon his back Trabb's boy.\n\nAfter this memorable event, I went to the hatter's, and the bootmaker's,\nand the hosier's, and felt rather like Mother Hubbard's dog whose outfit\nrequired the services of so many trades. I also went to the coach-office\nand took my place for seven o'clock on Saturday morning. It was\nnot necessary to explain everywhere that I had come into a handsome\nproperty; but whenever I said anything to that effect, it followed that\nthe officiating tradesman ceased to have his attention diverted through\nthe window by the High Street, and concentrated his mind upon me. When\nI had ordered everything I wanted, I directed my steps towards\nPumblechook's, and, as I approached that gentleman's place of business,\nI saw him standing at his door.\n\nHe was waiting for me with great impatience. He had been out early with\nthe chaise-cart, and had called at the forge and heard the news. He had\nprepared a collation for me in the Barnwell parlor, and he too ordered\nhis shopman to \"come out of the gangway\" as my sacred person passed.\n\n\"My dear friend,\" said Mr. Pumblechook, taking me by both hands, when\nhe and I and the collation were alone, \"I give you joy of your good\nfortune. Well deserved, well deserved!\"\n\nThis was coming to the point, and I thought it a sensible way of\nexpressing himself.\n\n\"To think,\" said Mr. Pumblechook, after snorting admiration at me for\nsome moments, \"that I should have been the humble instrument of leading\nup to this, is a proud reward.\"\n\nI begged Mr. Pumblechook to remember that nothing was to be ever said or\nhinted, on that point.\n\n\"My dear young friend,\" said Mr. Pumblechook; \"if you will allow me to\ncall you so--\"\n\nI murmured \"Certainly,\" and Mr. Pumblechook took me by both hands again,\nand communicated a movement to his waistcoat, which had an emotional\nappearance, though it was rather low down, \"My dear young friend, rely\nupon my doing my little all in your absence, by keeping the fact before\nthe mind of Joseph.--Joseph!\" said Mr. Pumblechook, in the way of a\ncompassionate adjuration. \"Joseph!! Joseph!!!\" Thereupon he shook his\nhead and tapped it, expressing his sense of deficiency in Joseph.\n\n\"But my dear young friend,\" said Mr. Pumblechook, \"you must be hungry,\nyou must be exhausted. Be seated. Here is a chicken had round from the\nBoar, here is a tongue had round from the Boar, here's one or two little\nthings had round from the Boar, that I hope you may not despise. But do\nI,\" said Mr. Pumblechook, getting up again the moment after he had sat\ndown, \"see afore me, him as I ever sported with in his times of happy\ninfancy? And may I--may I--?\"\n\nThis May I, meant might he shake hands? I consented, and he was fervent,\nand then sat down again.\n\n\"Here is wine,\" said Mr. Pumblechook. \"Let us drink, Thanks to Fortune,\nand may she ever pick out her favorites with equal judgment! And yet I\ncannot,\" said Mr. Pumblechook, getting up again, \"see afore me One--and\nlikewise drink to One--without again expressing--May I--may I--?\"\n\nI said he might, and he shook hands with me again, and emptied his glass\nand turned it upside down. I did the same; and if I had turned myself\nupside down before drinking, the wine could not have gone more direct to\nmy head.\n\nMr. Pumblechook helped me to the liver wing, and to the best slice of\ntongue (none of those out-of-the-way No Thoroughfares of Pork now), and\ntook, comparatively speaking, no care of himself at all. \"Ah! poultry,\npoultry! You little thought,\" said Mr. Pumblechook, apostrophizing the\nfowl in the dish, \"when you was a young fledgling, what was in store for\nyou. You little thought you was to be refreshment beneath this humble\nroof for one as--Call it a weakness, if you will,\" said Mr. Pumblechook,\ngetting up again, \"but may I? may I--?\"\n\nIt began to be unnecessary to repeat the form of saying he might, so\nhe did it at once. How he ever did it so often without wounding himself\nwith my knife, I don't know.\n\n\"And your sister,\" he resumed, after a little steady eating, \"which had\nthe honor of bringing you up by hand! It's a sad picter, to reflect that\nshe's no longer equal to fully understanding the honor. May--\"\n\nI saw he was about to come at me again, and I stopped him.\n\n\"We'll drink her health,\" said I.\n\n\"Ah!\" cried Mr. Pumblechook, leaning back in his chair, quite flaccid\nwith admiration, \"that's the way you know 'em, sir!\" (I don't know\nwho Sir was, but he certainly was not I, and there was no third person\npresent); \"that's the way you know the noble-minded, sir! Ever forgiving\nand ever affable. It might,\" said the servile Pumblechook, putting down\nhis untasted glass in a hurry and getting up again, \"to a common person,\nhave the appearance of repeating--but may I--?\"\n\nWhen he had done it, he resumed his seat and drank to my sister. \"Let us\nnever be blind,\" said Mr. Pumblechook, \"to her faults of temper, but it\nis to be hoped she meant well.\"\n\nAt about this time, I began to observe that he was getting flushed in\nthe face; as to myself, I felt all face, steeped in wine and smarting.\n\nI mentioned to Mr. Pumblechook that I wished to have my new clothes\nsent to his house, and he was ecstatic on my so distinguishing him. I\nmentioned my reason for desiring to avoid observation in the village,\nand he lauded it to the skies. There was nobody but himself, he\nintimated, worthy of my confidence, and--in short, might he? Then he\nasked me tenderly if I remembered our boyish games at sums, and how we\nhad gone together to have me bound apprentice, and, in effect, how he\nhad ever been my favorite fancy and my chosen friend? If I had taken\nten times as many glasses of wine as I had, I should have known that he\nnever had stood in that relation towards me, and should in my heart of\nhearts have repudiated the idea. Yet for all that, I remember feeling\nconvinced that I had been much mistaken in him, and that he was a\nsensible, practical, good-hearted prime fellow.\n\nBy degrees he fell to reposing such great confidence in me, as to ask my\nadvice in reference to his own affairs. He mentioned that there was an\nopportunity for a great amalgamation and monopoly of the corn and seed\ntrade on those premises, if enlarged, such as had never occurred\nbefore in that or any other neighborhood. What alone was wanting to the\nrealization of a vast fortune, he considered to be More Capital.\nThose were the two little words, more capital. Now it appeared to him\n(Pumblechook) that if that capital were got into the business, through a\nsleeping partner, sir,--which sleeping partner would have nothing to\ndo but walk in, by self or deputy, whenever he pleased, and examine\nthe books,--and walk in twice a year and take his profits away in his\npocket, to the tune of fifty per cent,--it appeared to him that that\nmight be an opening for a young gentleman of spirit combined with\nproperty, which would be worthy of his attention. But what did I think?\nHe had great confidence in my opinion, and what did I think? I gave it\nas my opinion. \"Wait a bit!\" The united vastness and distinctness of\nthis view so struck him, that he no longer asked if he might shake hands\nwith me, but said he really must,--and did.\n\nWe drank all the wine, and Mr. Pumblechook pledged himself over and over\nagain to keep Joseph up to the mark (I don't know what mark), and to\nrender me efficient and constant service (I don't know what service). He\nalso made known to me for the first time in my life, and certainly after\nhaving kept his secret wonderfully well, that he had always said of me,\n\"That boy is no common boy, and mark me, his fortun' will be no common\nfortun'.\" He said with a tearful smile that it was a singular thing to\nthink of now, and I said so too. Finally, I went out into the air, with\na dim perception that there was something unwonted in the conduct of the\nsunshine, and found that I had slumberously got to the turnpike without\nhaving taken any account of the road.\n\nThere, I was roused by Mr. Pumblechook's hailing me. He was a long way\ndown the sunny street, and was making expressive gestures for me to\nstop. I stopped, and he came up breathless.\n\n\"No, my dear friend,\" said he, when he had recovered wind for speech.\n\"Not if I can help it. This occasion shall not entirely pass without\nthat affability on your part.--May I, as an old friend and well-wisher?\nMay I?\"\n\nWe shook hands for the hundredth time at least, and he ordered a young\ncarter out of my way with the greatest indignation. Then, he blessed\nme and stood waving his hand to me until I had passed the crook in the\nroad; and then I turned into a field and had a long nap under a hedge\nbefore I pursued my way home.\n\nI had scant luggage to take with me to London, for little of the little\nI possessed was adapted to my new station. But I began packing that same\nafternoon, and wildly packed up things that I knew I should want next\nmorning, in a fiction that there was not a moment to be lost.\n\nSo, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, passed; and on Friday morning I\nwent to Mr. Pumblechook's, to put on my new clothes and pay my visit to\nMiss Havisham. Mr. Pumblechook's own room was given up to me to dress\nin, and was decorated with clean towels expressly for the event. My\nclothes were rather a disappointment, of course. Probably every new\nand eagerly expected garment ever put on since clothes came in, fell\na trifle short of the wearer's expectation. But after I had had my\nnew suit on some half an hour, and had gone through an immensity of\nposturing with Mr. Pumblechook's very limited dressing-glass, in the\nfutile endeavor to see my legs, it seemed to fit me better. It being\nmarket morning at a neighboring town some ten miles off, Mr. Pumblechook\nwas not at home. I had not told him exactly when I meant to leave, and\nwas not likely to shake hands with him again before departing. This was\nall as it should be, and I went out in my new array, fearfully ashamed\nof having to pass the shopman, and suspicious after all that I was at a\npersonal disadvantage, something like Joe's in his Sunday suit.\n\nI went circuitously to Miss Havisham's by all the back ways, and rang\nat the bell constrainedly, on account of the stiff long fingers of my\ngloves. Sarah Pocket came to the gate, and positively reeled back when\nshe saw me so changed; her walnut-shell countenance likewise turned from\nbrown to green and yellow.\n\n\"You?\" said she. \"You? Good gracious! What do you want?\"\n\n\"I am going to London, Miss Pocket,\" said I, \"and want to say good-bye to\nMiss Havisham.\"\n\nI was not expected, for she left me locked in the yard, while she went\nto ask if I were to be admitted. After a very short delay, she returned\nand took me up, staring at me all the way.\n\nMiss Havisham was taking exercise in the room with the long spread\ntable, leaning on her crutch stick. The room was lighted as of yore, and\nat the sound of our entrance, she stopped and turned. She was then just\nabreast of the rotted bride-cake.\n\n\"Don't go, Sarah,\" she said. \"Well, Pip?\"\n\n\"I start for London, Miss Havisham, to-morrow,\" I was exceedingly\ncareful what I said, \"and I thought you would kindly not mind my taking\nleave of you.\"\n\n\"This is a gay figure, Pip,\" said she, making her crutch stick play\nround me, as if she, the fairy godmother who had changed me, were\nbestowing the finishing gift.\n\n\"I have come into such good fortune since I saw you last, Miss\nHavisham,\" I murmured. \"And I am so grateful for it, Miss Havisham!\"\n\n\"Ay, ay!\" said she, looking at the discomfited and envious Sarah, with\ndelight. \"I have seen Mr. Jaggers. I have heard about it, Pip. So you go\nto-morrow?\"\n\n\"Yes, Miss Havisham.\"\n\n\"And you are adopted by a rich person?\"\n\n\"Yes, Miss Havisham.\"\n\n\"Not named?\"\n\n\"No, Miss Havisham.\"\n\n\"And Mr. Jaggers is made your guardian?\"\n\n\"Yes, Miss Havisham.\"\n\nShe quite gloated on these questions and answers, so keen was her\nenjoyment of Sarah Pocket's jealous dismay. \"Well!\" she went on; \"you\nhave a promising career before you. Be good--deserve it--and abide by\nMr. Jaggers's instructions.\" She looked at me, and looked at Sarah, and\nSarah's countenance wrung out of her watchful face a cruel smile. \"Good-bye,\nPip!--you will always keep the name of Pip, you know.\"\n\n\"Yes, Miss Havisham.\"\n\n\"Good-bye, Pip!\"\n\nShe stretched out her hand, and I went down on my knee and put it to\nmy lips. I had not considered how I should take leave of her; it came\nnaturally to me at the moment to do this. She looked at Sarah Pocket\nwith triumph in her weird eyes, and so I left my fairy godmother, with\nboth her hands on her crutch stick, standing in the midst of the dimly\nlighted room beside the rotten bride-cake that was hidden in cobwebs.\n\nSarah Pocket conducted me down, as if I were a ghost who must be seen\nout. She could not get over my appearance, and was in the last degree\nconfounded. I said \"Good-bye, Miss Pocket;\" but she merely stared, and\ndid not seem collected enough to know that I had spoken. Clear of the\nhouse, I made the best of my way back to Pumblechook's, took off my new\nclothes, made them into a bundle, and went back home in my older dress,\ncarrying it--to speak the truth--much more at my ease too, though I had\nthe bundle to carry.\n\nAnd now, those six days which were to have run out so slowly, had\nrun out fast and were gone, and to-morrow looked me in the face more\nsteadily than I could look at it. As the six evenings had dwindled\naway, to five, to four, to three, to two, I had become more and more\nappreciative of the society of Joe and Biddy. On this last evening, I\ndressed my self out in my new clothes for their delight, and sat in my\nsplendor until bedtime. We had a hot supper on the occasion, graced by\nthe inevitable roast fowl, and we had some flip to finish with. We were\nall very low, and none the higher for pretending to be in spirits.\n\nI was to leave our village at five in the morning, carrying my little\nhand-portmanteau, and I had told Joe that I wished to walk away all\nalone. I am afraid--sore afraid--that this purpose originated in my\nsense of the contrast there would be between me and Joe, if we went to\nthe coach together. I had pretended with myself that there was nothing\nof this taint in the arrangement; but when I went up to my little room\non this last night, I felt compelled to admit that it might be so, and\nhad an impulse upon me to go down again and entreat Joe to walk with me\nin the morning. I did not.\n\nAll night there were coaches in my broken sleep, going to wrong places\ninstead of to London, and having in the traces, now dogs, now cats, now\npigs, now men,--never horses. Fantastic failures of journeys occupied\nme until the day dawned and the birds were singing. Then, I got up and\npartly dressed, and sat at the window to take a last look out, and in\ntaking it fell asleep.\n\nBiddy was astir so early to get my breakfast, that, although I did not\nsleep at the window an hour, I smelt the smoke of the kitchen fire when\nI started up with a terrible idea that it must be late in the afternoon.\nBut long after that, and long after I had heard the clinking of the\nteacups and was quite ready, I wanted the resolution to go downstairs.\nAfter all, I remained up there, repeatedly unlocking and unstrapping\nmy small portmanteau and locking and strapping it up again, until Biddy\ncalled to me that I was late.\n\nIt was a hurried breakfast with no taste in it. I got up from the meal,\nsaying with a sort of briskness, as if it had only just occurred to me,\n\"Well! I suppose I must be off!\" and then I kissed my sister who was\nlaughing and nodding and shaking in her usual chair, and kissed\nBiddy, and threw my arms around Joe's neck. Then I took up my little\nportmanteau and walked out. The last I saw of them was, when I presently\nheard a scuffle behind me, and looking back, saw Joe throwing an old\nshoe after me and Biddy throwing another old shoe. I stopped then, to\nwave my hat, and dear old Joe waved his strong right arm above his head,\ncrying huskily \"Hooroar!\" and Biddy put her apron to her face.\n\nI walked away at a good pace, thinking it was easier to go than I had\nsupposed it would be, and reflecting that it would never have done to\nhave had an old shoe thrown after the coach, in sight of all the High\nStreet. I whistled and made nothing of going. But the village was very\npeaceful and quiet, and the light mists were solemnly rising, as if to\nshow me the world, and I had been so innocent and little there, and all\nbeyond was so unknown and great, that in a moment with a strong heave\nand sob I broke into tears. It was by the finger-post at the end of the\nvillage, and I laid my hand upon it, and said, \"Good-bye, O my dear, dear\nfriend!\"\n\nHeaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain\nupon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was\nbetter after I had cried than before,--more sorry, more aware of my own\ningratitude, more gentle. If I had cried before, I should have had Joe\nwith me then.\n\nSo subdued I was by those tears, and by their breaking out again in the\ncourse of the quiet walk, that when I was on the coach, and it was clear\nof the town, I deliberated with an aching heart whether I would not get\ndown when we changed horses and walk back, and have another evening at\nhome, and a better parting. We changed, and I had not made up my mind,\nand still reflected for my comfort that it would be quite practicable to\nget down and walk back, when we changed again. And while I was occupied\nwith these deliberations, I would fancy an exact resemblance to Joe\nin some man coming along the road towards us, and my heart would beat\nhigh.--As if he could possibly be there!\n\nWe changed again, and yet again, and it was now too late and too far to\ngo back, and I went on. And the mists had all solemnly risen now, and\nthe world lay spread before me.\n\nThis is the end of the first stage of Pip's expectations.\n\nChapter XX\n\nThe journey from our town to the metropolis was a journey of about five\nhours. It was a little past midday when the four-horse stage-coach by\nwhich I was a passenger, got into the ravel of traffic frayed out about\nthe Cross Keys, Wood Street, Cheapside, London.\n\nWe Britons had at that time particularly settled that it was treasonable\nto doubt our having and our being the best of everything: otherwise,\nwhile I was scared by the immensity of London, I think I might have had\nsome faint doubts whether it was not rather ugly, crooked, narrow, and\ndirty.\n\nMr. Jaggers had duly sent me his address; it was, Little Britain, and he\nhad written after it on his card, \"just out of Smithfield, and close by\nthe coach-office.\" Nevertheless, a hackney-coachman, who seemed to have\nas many capes to his greasy great-coat as he was years old, packed me\nup in his coach and hemmed me in with a folding and jingling barrier of\nsteps, as if he were going to take me fifty miles. His getting on his\nbox, which I remember to have been decorated with an old weather-stained\npea-green hammercloth moth-eaten into rags, was quite a work of time.\nIt was a wonderful equipage, with six great coronets outside, and ragged\nthings behind for I don't know how many footmen to hold on by, and\na harrow below them, to prevent amateur footmen from yielding to the\ntemptation.\n\nI had scarcely had time to enjoy the coach and to think how like a\nstraw-yard it was, and yet how like a rag-shop, and to wonder why\nthe horses' nose-bags were kept inside, when I observed the coachman\nbeginning to get down, as if we were going to stop presently. And stop\nwe presently did, in a gloomy street, at certain offices with an open\ndoor, whereon was painted MR. JAGGERS.\n\n\"How much?\" I asked the coachman.\n\nThe coachman answered, \"A shilling--unless you wish to make it more.\"\n\nI naturally said I had no wish to make it more.\n\n\"Then it must be a shilling,\" observed the coachman. \"I don't want to\nget into trouble. I know him!\" He darkly closed an eye at Mr. Jaggers's\nname, and shook his head.\n\nWhen he had got his shilling, and had in course of time completed the\nascent to his box, and had got away (which appeared to relieve his\nmind), I went into the front office with my little portmanteau in my\nhand and asked, Was Mr. Jaggers at home?\n\n\"He is not,\" returned the clerk. \"He is in Court at present. Am I\naddressing Mr. Pip?\"\n\nI signified that he was addressing Mr. Pip.\n\n\"Mr. Jaggers left word, would you wait in his room. He couldn't say how\nlong he might be, having a case on. But it stands to reason, his time\nbeing valuable, that he won't be longer than he can help.\"\n\nWith those words, the clerk opened a door, and ushered me into an inner\nchamber at the back. Here, we found a gentleman with one eye, in a\nvelveteen suit and knee-breeches, who wiped his nose with his sleeve on\nbeing interrupted in the perusal of the newspaper.\n\n\"Go and wait outside, Mike,\" said the clerk.\n\nI began to say that I hoped I was not interrupting, when the clerk\nshoved this gentleman out with as little ceremony as I ever saw used,\nand tossing his fur cap out after him, left me alone.\n\nMr. Jaggers's room was lighted by a skylight only, and was a most dismal\nplace; the skylight, eccentrically pitched like a broken head, and the\ndistorted adjoining houses looking as if they had twisted themselves to\npeep down at me through it. There were not so many papers about, as I\nshould have expected to see; and there were some odd objects about, that\nI should not have expected to see,--such as an old rusty pistol, a\nsword in a scabbard, several strange-looking boxes and packages, and\ntwo dreadful casts on a shelf, of faces peculiarly swollen, and twitchy\nabout the nose. Mr. Jaggers's own high-backed chair was of deadly black\nhorsehair, with rows of brass nails round it, like a coffin; and I\nfancied I could see how he leaned back in it, and bit his forefinger at\nthe clients. The room was but small, and the clients seemed to have had\na habit of backing up against the wall; the wall, especially opposite to\nMr. Jaggers's chair, being greasy with shoulders. I recalled, too, that\nthe one-eyed gentleman had shuffled forth against the wall when I was\nthe innocent cause of his being turned out.\n\nI sat down in the cliental chair placed over against Mr. Jaggers's\nchair, and became fascinated by the dismal atmosphere of the place. I\ncalled to mind that the clerk had the same air of knowing something to\neverybody else's disadvantage, as his master had. I wondered how many\nother clerks there were upstairs, and whether they all claimed to have\nthe same detrimental mastery of their fellow-creatures. I wondered what\nwas the history of all the odd litter about the room, and how it came\nthere. I wondered whether the two swollen faces were of Mr. Jaggers's\nfamily, and, if he were so unfortunate as to have had a pair of such\nill-looking relations, why he stuck them on that dusty perch for the\nblacks and flies to settle on, instead of giving them a place at home.\nOf course I had no experience of a London summer day, and my spirits may\nhave been oppressed by the hot exhausted air, and by the dust and grit\nthat lay thick on everything. But I sat wondering and waiting in Mr.\nJaggers's close room, until I really could not bear the two casts on the\nshelf above Mr. Jaggers's chair, and got up and went out.\n\nWhen I told the clerk that I would take a turn in the air while I\nwaited, he advised me to go round the corner and I should come into\nSmithfield. So I came into Smithfield; and the shameful place, being all\nasmear with filth and fat and blood and foam, seemed to stick to me. So,\nI rubbed it off with all possible speed by turning into a street where\nI saw the great black dome of Saint Paul's bulging at me from behind a\ngrim stone building which a bystander said was Newgate Prison. Following\nthe wall of the jail, I found the roadway covered with straw to deaden\nthe noise of passing vehicles; and from this, and from the quantity of\npeople standing about smelling strongly of spirits and beer, I inferred\nthat the trials were on.\n\nWhile I looked about me here, an exceedingly dirty and partially drunk\nminister of justice asked me if I would like to step in and hear a\ntrial or so: informing me that he could give me a front place for half a\ncrown, whence I should command a full view of the Lord Chief Justice in\nhis wig and robes,--mentioning that awful personage like waxwork, and\npresently offering him at the reduced price of eighteen-pence. As I\ndeclined the proposal on the plea of an appointment, he was so good as\nto take me into a yard and show me where the gallows was kept, and also\nwhere people were publicly whipped, and then he showed me the Debtors'\nDoor, out of which culprits came to be hanged; heightening the interest\nof that dreadful portal by giving me to understand that \"four on 'em\"\nwould come out at that door the day after to-morrow at eight in the\nmorning, to be killed in a row. This was horrible, and gave me a\nsickening idea of London; the more so as the Lord Chief Justice's\nproprietor wore (from his hat down to his boots and up again to his\npocket-handkerchief inclusive) mildewed clothes which had evidently\nnot belonged to him originally, and which I took it into my head he had\nbought cheap of the executioner. Under these circumstances I thought\nmyself well rid of him for a shilling.\n\nI dropped into the office to ask if Mr. Jaggers had come in yet, and I\nfound he had not, and I strolled out again. This time, I made the tour\nof Little Britain, and turned into Bartholomew Close; and now I became\naware that other people were waiting about for Mr. Jaggers, as well\nas I. There were two men of secret appearance lounging in Bartholomew\nClose, and thoughtfully fitting their feet into the cracks of the\npavement as they talked together, one of whom said to the other when\nthey first passed me, that \"Jaggers would do it if it was to be done.\"\nThere was a knot of three men and two women standing at a corner, and\none of the women was crying on her dirty shawl, and the other comforted\nher by saying, as she pulled her own shawl over her shoulders, \"Jaggers\nis for him, 'Melia, and what more could you have?\" There was a red-eyed\nlittle Jew who came into the Close while I was loitering there, in\ncompany with a second little Jew whom he sent upon an errand; and\nwhile the messenger was gone, I remarked this Jew, who was of a highly\nexcitable temperament, performing a jig of anxiety under a lamp-post and\naccompanying himself, in a kind of frenzy, with the words, \"O Jaggerth,\nJaggerth, Jaggerth! all otherth ith Cag-Maggerth, give me Jaggerth!\"\nThese testimonies to the popularity of my guardian made a deep\nimpression on me, and I admired and wondered more than ever.\n\nAt length, as I was looking out at the iron gate of Bartholomew Close\ninto Little Britain, I saw Mr. Jaggers coming across the road towards\nme. All the others who were waiting saw him at the same time, and there\nwas quite a rush at him. Mr. Jaggers, putting a hand on my shoulder\nand walking me on at his side without saying anything to me, addressed\nhimself to his followers.\n\nFirst, he took the two secret men.\n\n\"Now, I have nothing to say to you,\" said Mr. Jaggers, throwing his\nfinger at them. \"I want to know no more than I know. As to the result,\nit's a toss-up. I told you from the first it was a toss-up. Have you\npaid Wemmick?\"\n\n\"We made the money up this morning, sir,\" said one of the men,\nsubmissively, while the other perused Mr. Jaggers's face.\n\n\"I don't ask you when you made it up, or where, or whether you made it\nup at all. Has Wemmick got it?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" said both the men together.\n\n\"Very well; then you may go. Now, I won't have it!\" said Mr Jaggers,\nwaving his hand at them to put them behind him. \"If you say a word to\nme, I'll throw up the case.\"\n\n\"We thought, Mr. Jaggers--\" one of the men began, pulling off his hat.\n\n\"That's what I told you not to do,\" said Mr. Jaggers. \"You thought! I\nthink for you; that's enough for you. If I want you, I know where to\nfind you; I don't want you to find me. Now I won't have it. I won't hear\na word.\"\n\nThe two men looked at one another as Mr. Jaggers waved them behind\nagain, and humbly fell back and were heard no more.\n\n\"And now you!\" said Mr. Jaggers, suddenly stopping, and turning on\nthe two women with the shawls, from whom the three men had meekly\nseparated,--\"Oh! Amelia, is it?\"\n\n\"Yes, Mr. Jaggers.\"\n\n\"And do you remember,\" retorted Mr. Jaggers, \"that but for me you\nwouldn't be here and couldn't be here?\"\n\n\"O yes, sir!\" exclaimed both women together. \"Lord bless you, sir, well\nwe knows that!\"\n\n\"Then why,\" said Mr. Jaggers, \"do you come here?\"\n\n\"My Bill, sir!\" the crying woman pleaded.\n\n\"Now, I tell you what!\" said Mr. Jaggers. \"Once for all. If you don't\nknow that your Bill's in good hands, I know it. And if you come here\nbothering about your Bill, I'll make an example of both your Bill and\nyou, and let him slip through my fingers. Have you paid Wemmick?\"\n\n\"O yes, sir! Every farden.\"\n\n\"Very well. Then you have done all you have got to do. Say another\nword--one single word--and Wemmick shall give you your money back.\"\n\nThis terrible threat caused the two women to fall off immediately.\nNo one remained now but the excitable Jew, who had already raised the\nskirts of Mr. Jaggers's coat to his lips several times.\n\n\"I don't know this man!\" said Mr. Jaggers, in the same devastating\nstrain: \"What does this fellow want?\"\n\n\"Ma thear Mithter Jaggerth. Hown brother to Habraham Latharuth?\"\n\n\"Who's he?\" said Mr. Jaggers. \"Let go of my coat.\"\n\nThe suitor, kissing the hem of the garment again before relinquishing\nit, replied, \"Habraham Latharuth, on thuthpithion of plate.\"\n\n\"You're too late,\" said Mr. Jaggers. \"I am over the way.\"\n\n\"Holy father, Mithter Jaggerth!\" cried my excitable acquaintance,\nturning white, \"don't thay you're again Habraham Latharuth!\"\n\n\"I am,\" said Mr. Jaggers, \"and there's an end of it. Get out of the\nway.\"\n\n\"Mithter Jaggerth! Half a moment! My hown cuthen'th gone to Mithter\nWemmick at thith prethent minute, to hoffer him hany termth. Mithter\nJaggerth! Half a quarter of a moment! If you'd have the condethenthun to\nbe bought off from the t'other thide--at hany thuperior prithe!--money\nno object!--Mithter Jaggerth--Mithter--!\"\n\nMy guardian threw his supplicant off with supreme indifference, and\nleft him dancing on the pavement as if it were red hot. Without further\ninterruption, we reached the front office, where we found the clerk and\nthe man in velveteen with the fur cap.\n\n\"Here's Mike,\" said the clerk, getting down from his stool, and\napproaching Mr. Jaggers confidentially.\n\n\"Oh!\" said Mr. Jaggers, turning to the man, who was pulling a lock of\nhair in the middle of his forehead, like the Bull in Cock Robin pulling\nat the bell-rope; \"your man comes on this afternoon. Well?\"\n\n\"Well, Mas'r Jaggers,\" returned Mike, in the voice of a sufferer from a\nconstitutional cold; \"arter a deal o' trouble, I've found one, sir, as\nmight do.\"\n\n\"What is he prepared to swear?\"\n\n\"Well, Mas'r Jaggers,\" said Mike, wiping his nose on his fur cap this\ntime; \"in a general way, anythink.\"\n\nMr. Jaggers suddenly became most irate. \"Now, I warned you before,\" said\nhe, throwing his forefinger at the terrified client, \"that if you ever\npresumed to talk in that way here, I'd make an example of you. You\ninfernal scoundrel, how dare you tell ME that?\"\n\nThe client looked scared, but bewildered too, as if he were unconscious\nwhat he had done.\n\n\"Spooney!\" said the clerk, in a low voice, giving him a stir with his\nelbow. \"Soft Head! Need you say it face to face?\"\n\n\"Now, I ask you, you blundering booby,\" said my guardian, very sternly,\n\"once more and for the last time, what the man you have brought here is\nprepared to swear?\"\n\nMike looked hard at my guardian, as if he were trying to learn a lesson\nfrom his face, and slowly replied, \"Ayther to character, or to having\nbeen in his company and never left him all the night in question.\"\n\n\"Now, be careful. In what station of life is this man?\"\n\nMike looked at his cap, and looked at the floor, and looked at the\nceiling, and looked at the clerk, and even looked at me, before\nbeginning to reply in a nervous manner, \"We've dressed him up like--\"\nwhen my guardian blustered out,--\n\n\"What? You WILL, will you?\"\n\n(\"Spooney!\" added the clerk again, with another stir.)\n\nAfter some helpless casting about, Mike brightened and began again:--\n\n\"He is dressed like a 'spectable pieman. A sort of a pastry-cook.\"\n\n\"Is he here?\" asked my guardian.\n\n\"I left him,\" said Mike, \"a setting on some doorsteps round the corner.\"\n\n\"Take him past that window, and let me see him.\"\n\nThe window indicated was the office window. We all three went to\nit, behind the wire blind, and presently saw the client go by in an\naccidental manner, with a murderous-looking tall individual, in a short\nsuit of white linen and a paper cap. This guileless confectioner was not\nby any means sober, and had a black eye in the green stage of recovery,\nwhich was painted over.\n\n\"Tell him to take his witness away directly,\" said my guardian to the\nclerk, in extreme disgust, \"and ask him what he means by bringing such a\nfellow as that.\"\n\nMy guardian then took me into his own room, and while he lunched,\nstanding, from a sandwich-box and a pocket-flask of sherry (he seemed to\nbully his very sandwich as he ate it), informed me what arrangements he\nhad made for me. I was to go to \"Barnard's Inn,\" to young Mr. Pocket's\nrooms, where a bed had been sent in for my accommodation; I was to\nremain with young Mr. Pocket until Monday; on Monday I was to go with\nhim to his father's house on a visit, that I might try how I liked it.\nAlso, I was told what my allowance was to be,--it was a very liberal\none,--and had handed to me from one of my guardian's drawers, the cards\nof certain tradesmen with whom I was to deal for all kinds of clothes,\nand such other things as I could in reason want. \"You will find your\ncredit good, Mr. Pip,\" said my guardian, whose flask of sherry smelt\nlike a whole caskful, as he hastily refreshed himself, \"but I shall by\nthis means be able to check your bills, and to pull you up if I find you\noutrunning the constable. Of course you'll go wrong somehow, but that's\nno fault of mine.\"\n\nAfter I had pondered a little over this encouraging sentiment, I asked\nMr. Jaggers if I could send for a coach? He said it was not worth while,\nI was so near my destination; Wemmick should walk round with me, if I\npleased.\n\nI then found that Wemmick was the clerk in the next room. Another clerk\nwas rung down from upstairs to take his place while he was out, and I\naccompanied him into the street, after shaking hands with my guardian.\nWe found a new set of people lingering outside, but Wemmick made a way\namong them by saying coolly yet decisively, \"I tell you it's no use; he\nwon't have a word to say to one of you;\" and we soon got clear of them,\nand went on side by side.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XXI\n\nCasting my eyes on Mr. Wemmick as we went along, to see what he was\nlike in the light of day, I found him to be a dry man, rather short in\nstature, with a square wooden face, whose expression seemed to have been\nimperfectly chipped out with a dull-edged chisel. There were some marks\nin it that might have been dimples, if the material had been softer and\nthe instrument finer, but which, as it was, were only dints. The chisel\nhad made three or four of these attempts at embellishment over his nose,\nbut had given them up without an effort to smooth them off. I judged him\nto be a bachelor from the frayed condition of his linen, and he appeared\nto have sustained a good many bereavements; for he wore at least four\nmourning rings, besides a brooch representing a lady and a weeping\nwillow at a tomb with an urn on it. I noticed, too, that several rings\nand seals hung at his watch-chain, as if he were quite laden with\nremembrances of departed friends. He had glittering eyes,--small, keen,\nand black,--and thin wide mottled lips. He had had them, to the best of\nmy belief, from forty to fifty years.\n\n\"So you were never in London before?\" said Mr. Wemmick to me.\n\n\"No,\" said I.\n\n\"I was new here once,\" said Mr. Wemmick. \"Rum to think of now!\"\n\n\"You are well acquainted with it now?\"\n\n\"Why, yes,\" said Mr. Wemmick. \"I know the moves of it.\"\n\n\"Is it a very wicked place?\" I asked, more for the sake of saying\nsomething than for information.\n\n\"You may get cheated, robbed, and murdered in London. But there are\nplenty of people anywhere, who'll do that for you.\"\n\n\"If there is bad blood between you and them,\" said I, to soften it off a\nlittle.\n\n\"O! I don't know about bad blood,\" returned Mr. Wemmick; \"there's not\nmuch bad blood about. They'll do it, if there's anything to be got by\nit.\"\n\n\"That makes it worse.\"\n\n\"You think so?\" returned Mr. Wemmick. \"Much about the same, I should\nsay.\"\n\nHe wore his hat on the back of his head, and looked straight before him:\nwalking in a self-contained way as if there were nothing in the streets\nto claim his attention. His mouth was such a post-office of a mouth\nthat he had a mechanical appearance of smiling. We had got to the top of\nHolborn Hill before I knew that it was merely a mechanical appearance,\nand that he was not smiling at all.\n\n\"Do you know where Mr. Matthew Pocket lives?\" I asked Mr. Wemmick.\n\n\"Yes,\" said he, nodding in the direction. \"At Hammersmith, west of\nLondon.\"\n\n\"Is that far?\"\n\n\"Well! Say five miles.\"\n\n\"Do you know him?\"\n\n\"Why, you're a regular cross-examiner!\" said Mr. Wemmick, looking at me\nwith an approving air. \"Yes, I know him. I know him!\"\n\nThere was an air of toleration or depreciation about his utterance of\nthese words that rather depressed me; and I was still looking sideways\nat his block of a face in search of any encouraging note to the text,\nwhen he said here we were at Barnard's Inn. My depression was not\nalleviated by the announcement, for, I had supposed that establishment\nto be an hotel kept by Mr. Barnard, to which the Blue Boar in our town\nwas a mere public-house. Whereas I now found Barnard to be a disembodied\nspirit, or a fiction, and his inn the dingiest collection of shabby\nbuildings ever squeezed together in a rank corner as a club for\nTom-cats.\n\nWe entered this haven through a wicket-gate, and were disgorged by an\nintroductory passage into a melancholy little square that looked to me\nlike a flat burying-ground. I thought it had the most dismal trees in\nit, and the most dismal sparrows, and the most dismal cats, and the most\ndismal houses (in number half a dozen or so), that I had ever seen. I\nthought the windows of the sets of chambers into which those houses were\ndivided were in every stage of dilapidated blind and curtain, crippled\nflower-pot, cracked glass, dusty decay, and miserable makeshift; while\nTo Let, To Let, To Let, glared at me from empty rooms, as if no new\nwretches ever came there, and the vengeance of the soul of Barnard were\nbeing slowly appeased by the gradual suicide of the present occupants\nand their unholy interment under the gravel. A frowzy mourning of soot\nand smoke attired this forlorn creation of Barnard, and it had strewn\nashes on its head, and was undergoing penance and humiliation as a mere\ndust-hole. Thus far my sense of sight; while dry rot and wet rot and all\nthe silent rots that rot in neglected roof and cellar,--rot of rat\nand mouse and bug and coaching-stables near at hand besides--addressed\nthemselves faintly to my sense of smell, and moaned, \"Try Barnard's\nMixture.\"\n\nSo imperfect was this realization of the first of my great expectations,\nthat I looked in dismay at Mr. Wemmick. \"Ah!\" said he, mistaking me;\n\"the retirement reminds you of the country. So it does me.\"\n\nHe led me into a corner and conducted me up a flight of stairs,--which\nappeared to me to be slowly collapsing into sawdust, so that one of\nthose days the upper lodgers would look out at their doors and find\nthemselves without the means of coming down,--to a set of chambers on\nthe top floor. MR. POCKET, JUN., was painted on the door, and there was\na label on the letter-box, \"Return shortly.\"\n\n\"He hardly thought you'd come so soon,\" Mr. Wemmick explained. \"You\ndon't want me any more?\"\n\n\"No, thank you,\" said I.\n\n\"As I keep the cash,\" Mr. Wemmick observed, \"we shall most likely meet\npretty often. Good day.\"\n\n\"Good day.\"\n\nI put out my hand, and Mr. Wemmick at first looked at it as if he\nthought I wanted something. Then he looked at me, and said, correcting\nhimself,--\n\n\"To be sure! Yes. You're in the habit of shaking hands?\"\n\nI was rather confused, thinking it must be out of the London fashion,\nbut said yes.\n\n\"I have got so out of it!\" said Mr. Wemmick,--\"except at last. Very\nglad, I'm sure, to make your acquaintance. Good day!\"\n\nWhen we had shaken hands and he was gone, I opened the staircase window\nand had nearly beheaded myself, for, the lines had rotted away, and it\ncame down like the guillotine. Happily it was so quick that I had not\nput my head out. After this escape, I was content to take a foggy view\nof the Inn through the window's encrusting dirt, and to stand dolefully\nlooking out, saying to myself that London was decidedly overrated.\n\nMr. Pocket, Junior's, idea of Shortly was not mine, for I had nearly\nmaddened myself with looking out for half an hour, and had written\nmy name with my finger several times in the dirt of every pane in the\nwindow, before I heard footsteps on the stairs. Gradually there arose\nbefore me the hat, head, neckcloth, waistcoat, trousers, boots, of a\nmember of society of about my own standing. He had a paper-bag under\neach arm and a pottle of strawberries in one hand, and was out of\nbreath.\n\n\"Mr. Pip?\" said he.\n\n\"Mr. Pocket?\" said I.\n\n\"Dear me!\" he exclaimed. \"I am extremely sorry; but I knew there was a\ncoach from your part of the country at midday, and I thought you would\ncome by that one. The fact is, I have been out on your account,--not\nthat that is any excuse,--for I thought, coming from the country, you\nmight like a little fruit after dinner, and I went to Covent Garden\nMarket to get it good.\"\n\nFor a reason that I had, I felt as if my eyes would start out of my\nhead. I acknowledged his attention incoherently, and began to think this\nwas a dream.\n\n\"Dear me!\" said Mr. Pocket, Junior. \"This door sticks so!\"\n\nAs he was fast making jam of his fruit by wrestling with the door while\nthe paper-bags were under his arms, I begged him to allow me to hold\nthem. He relinquished them with an agreeable smile, and combated with\nthe door as if it were a wild beast. It yielded so suddenly at last,\nthat he staggered back upon me, and I staggered back upon the opposite\ndoor, and we both laughed. But still I felt as if my eyes must start out\nof my head, and as if this must be a dream.\n\n\"Pray come in,\" said Mr. Pocket, Junior. \"Allow me to lead the way. I am\nrather bare here, but I hope you'll be able to make out tolerably well\ntill Monday. My father thought you would get on more agreeably through\nto-morrow with me than with him, and might like to take a walk about\nLondon. I am sure I shall be very happy to show London to you. As to our\ntable, you won't find that bad, I hope, for it will be supplied from our\ncoffee-house here, and (it is only right I should add) at your expense,\nsuch being Mr. Jaggers's directions. As to our lodging, it's not by\nany means splendid, because I have my own bread to earn, and my father\nhasn't anything to give me, and I shouldn't be willing to take it, if he\nhad. This is our sitting-room,--just such chairs and tables and carpet\nand so forth, you see, as they could spare from home. You mustn't give\nme credit for the tablecloth and spoons and castors, because they come\nfor you from the coffee-house. This is my little bedroom; rather musty,\nbut Barnard's is musty. This is your bedroom; the furniture's hired for\nthe occasion, but I trust it will answer the purpose; if you should want\nanything, I'll go and fetch it. The chambers are retired, and we shall\nbe alone together, but we shan't fight, I dare say. But dear me, I beg\nyour pardon, you're holding the fruit all this time. Pray let me take\nthese bags from you. I am quite ashamed.\"\n\nAs I stood opposite to Mr. Pocket, Junior, delivering him the bags, One,\nTwo, I saw the starting appearance come into his own eyes that I knew to\nbe in mine, and he said, falling back,--\n\n\"Lord bless me, you're the prowling boy!\"\n\n\"And you,\" said I, \"are the pale young gentleman!\"\n\n\n\n\nChapter XXII\n\nThe pale young gentleman and I stood contemplating one another in\nBarnard's Inn, until we both burst out laughing. \"The idea of its\nbeing you!\" said he. \"The idea of its being you!\" said I. And then we\ncontemplated one another afresh, and laughed again. \"Well!\" said the\npale young gentleman, reaching out his hand good-humoredly, \"it's all\nover now, I hope, and it will be magnanimous in you if you'll forgive me\nfor having knocked you about so.\"\n\nI derived from this speech that Mr. Herbert Pocket (for Herbert was the\npale young gentleman's name) still rather confounded his intention with\nhis execution. But I made a modest reply, and we shook hands warmly.\n\n\"You hadn't come into your good fortune at that time?\" said Herbert\nPocket.\n\n\"No,\" said I.\n\n\"No,\" he acquiesced: \"I heard it had happened very lately. I was rather\non the lookout for good fortune then.\"\n\n\"Indeed?\"\n\n\"Yes. Miss Havisham had sent for me, to see if she could take a fancy to\nme. But she couldn't,--at all events, she didn't.\"\n\nI thought it polite to remark that I was surprised to hear that.\n\n\"Bad taste,\" said Herbert, laughing, \"but a fact. Yes, she had sent for\nme on a trial visit, and if I had come out of it successfully, I\nsuppose I should have been provided for; perhaps I should have been\nwhat-you-may-called it to Estella.\"\n\n\"What's that?\" I asked, with sudden gravity.\n\nHe was arranging his fruit in plates while we talked, which divided his\nattention, and was the cause of his having made this lapse of a word.\n\"Affianced,\" he explained, still busy with the fruit. \"Betrothed.\nEngaged. What's-his-named. Any word of that sort.\"\n\n\"How did you bear your disappointment?\" I asked.\n\n\"Pooh!\" said he, \"I didn't care much for it. She's a Tartar.\"\n\n\"Miss Havisham?\"\n\n\"I don't say no to that, but I meant Estella. That girl's hard and\nhaughty and capricious to the last degree, and has been brought up by\nMiss Havisham to wreak revenge on all the male sex.\"\n\n\"What relation is she to Miss Havisham?\"\n\n\"None,\" said he. \"Only adopted.\"\n\n\"Why should she wreak revenge on all the male sex? What revenge?\"\n\n\"Lord, Mr. Pip!\" said he. \"Don't you know?\"\n\n\"No,\" said I.\n\n\"Dear me! It's quite a story, and shall be saved till dinner-time. And\nnow let me take the liberty of asking you a question. How did you come\nthere, that day?\"\n\nI told him, and he was attentive until I had finished, and then burst\nout laughing again, and asked me if I was sore afterwards? I didn't\nask him if he was, for my conviction on that point was perfectly\nestablished.\n\n\"Mr. Jaggers is your guardian, I understand?\" he went on.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"You know he is Miss Havisham's man of business and solicitor, and has\nher confidence when nobody else has?\"\n\nThis was bringing me (I felt) towards dangerous ground. I answered with\na constraint I made no attempt to disguise, that I had seen Mr. Jaggers\nin Miss Havisham's house on the very day of our combat, but never at any\nother time, and that I believed he had no recollection of having ever\nseen me there.\n\n\"He was so obliging as to suggest my father for your tutor, and he\ncalled on my father to propose it. Of course he knew about my father\nfrom his connection with Miss Havisham. My father is Miss Havisham's\ncousin; not that that implies familiar intercourse between them, for he\nis a bad courtier and will not propitiate her.\"\n\nHerbert Pocket had a frank and easy way with him that was very taking.\nI had never seen any one then, and I have never seen any one since,\nwho more strongly expressed to me, in every look and tone, a natural\nincapacity to do anything secret and mean. There was something\nwonderfully hopeful about his general air, and something that at the\nsame time whispered to me he would never be very successful or rich. I\ndon't know how this was. I became imbued with the notion on that first\noccasion before we sat down to dinner, but I cannot define by what\nmeans.\n\nHe was still a pale young gentleman, and had a certain conquered languor\nabout him in the midst of his spirits and briskness, that did not seem\nindicative of natural strength. He had not a handsome face, but it was\nbetter than handsome: being extremely amiable and cheerful. His figure\nwas a little ungainly, as in the days when my knuckles had taken such\nliberties with it, but it looked as if it would always be light and\nyoung. Whether Mr. Trabb's local work would have sat more gracefully on\nhim than on me, may be a question; but I am conscious that he carried\noff his rather old clothes much better than I carried off my new suit.\n\nAs he was so communicative, I felt that reserve on my part would be a\nbad return unsuited to our years. I therefore told him my small story,\nand laid stress on my being forbidden to inquire who my benefactor was.\nI further mentioned that as I had been brought up a blacksmith in a\ncountry place, and knew very little of the ways of politeness, I would\ntake it as a great kindness in him if he would give me a hint whenever\nhe saw me at a loss or going wrong.\n\n\"With pleasure,\" said he, \"though I venture to prophesy that you'll want\nvery few hints. I dare say we shall be often together, and I should like\nto banish any needless restraint between us. Will you do me the favour\nto begin at once to call me by my Christian name, Herbert?\"\n\nI thanked him and said I would. I informed him in exchange that my\nChristian name was Philip.\n\n\"I don't take to Philip,\" said he, smiling, \"for it sounds like a moral\nboy out of the spelling-book, who was so lazy that he fell into a pond,\nor so fat that he couldn't see out of his eyes, or so avaricious that\nhe locked up his cake till the mice ate it, or so determined to go a\nbird's-nesting that he got himself eaten by bears who lived handy in the\nneighborhood. I tell you what I should like. We are so harmonious, and\nyou have been a blacksmith,---would you mind it?\"\n\n\"I shouldn't mind anything that you propose,\" I answered, \"but I don't\nunderstand you.\"\n\n\"Would you mind Handel for a familiar name? There's a charming piece of\nmusic by Handel, called the Harmonious Blacksmith.\"\n\n\"I should like it very much.\"\n\n\"Then, my dear Handel,\" said he, turning round as the door opened,\n\"here is the dinner, and I must beg of you to take the top of the table,\nbecause the dinner is of your providing.\"\n\nThis I would not hear of, so he took the top, and I faced him. It was a\nnice little dinner,--seemed to me then a very Lord Mayor's Feast,--and\nit acquired additional relish from being eaten under those independent\ncircumstances, with no old people by, and with London all around us.\nThis again was heightened by a certain gypsy character that set the\nbanquet off; for while the table was, as Mr. Pumblechook might have\nsaid, the lap of luxury,--being entirely furnished forth from the\ncoffee-house,--the circumjacent region of sitting-room was of a\ncomparatively pastureless and shifty character; imposing on the waiter\nthe wandering habits of putting the covers on the floor (where he\nfell over them), the melted butter in the arm-chair, the bread on the\nbookshelves, the cheese in the coal-scuttle, and the boiled fowl into my\nbed in the next room,--where I found much of its parsley and butter in\na state of congelation when I retired for the night. All this made the\nfeast delightful, and when the waiter was not there to watch me, my\npleasure was without alloy.\n\nWe had made some progress in the dinner, when I reminded Herbert of his\npromise to tell me about Miss Havisham.\n\n\"True,\" he replied. \"I'll redeem it at once. Let me introduce the topic,\nHandel, by mentioning that in London it is not the custom to put the\nknife in the mouth,--for fear of accidents,--and that while the fork is\nreserved for that use, it is not put further in than necessary. It is\nscarcely worth mentioning, only it's as well to do as other people do.\nAlso, the spoon is not generally used over-hand, but under. This has\ntwo advantages. You get at your mouth better (which after all is the\nobject), and you save a good deal of the attitude of opening oysters, on\nthe part of the right elbow.\"\n\nHe offered these friendly suggestions in such a lively way, that we both\nlaughed and I scarcely blushed.\n\n\"Now,\" he pursued, \"concerning Miss Havisham. Miss Havisham, you must\nknow, was a spoilt child. Her mother died when she was a baby, and her\nfather denied her nothing. Her father was a country gentleman down in\nyour part of the world, and was a brewer. I don't know why it should\nbe a crack thing to be a brewer; but it is indisputable that while you\ncannot possibly be genteel and bake, you may be as genteel as never was\nand brew. You see it every day.\"\n\n\"Yet a gentleman may not keep a public-house; may he?\" said I.\n\n\"Not on any account,\" returned Herbert; \"but a public-house may keep a\ngentleman. Well! Mr. Havisham was very rich and very proud. So was his\ndaughter.\"\n\n\"Miss Havisham was an only child?\" I hazarded.\n\n\"Stop a moment, I am coming to that. No, she was not an only child;\nshe had a half-brother. Her father privately married again--his cook, I\nrather think.\"\n\n\"I thought he was proud,\" said I.\n\n\"My good Handel, so he was. He married his second wife privately,\nbecause he was proud, and in course of time she died. When she was dead,\nI apprehend he first told his daughter what he had done, and then\nthe son became a part of the family, residing in the house you are\nacquainted with. As the son grew a young man, he turned out riotous,\nextravagant, undutiful,--altogether bad. At last his father disinherited\nhim; but he softened when he was dying, and left him well off, though\nnot nearly so well off as Miss Havisham.--Take another glass of wine,\nand excuse my mentioning that society as a body does not expect one\nto be so strictly conscientious in emptying one's glass, as to turn it\nbottom upwards with the rim on one's nose.\"\n\nI had been doing this, in an excess of attention to his recital. I\nthanked him, and apologized. He said, \"Not at all,\" and resumed.\n\n\"Miss Havisham was now an heiress, and you may suppose was looked after\nas a great match. Her half-brother had now ample means again, but what\nwith debts and what with new madness wasted them most fearfully again.\nThere were stronger differences between him and her than there had been\nbetween him and his father, and it is suspected that he cherished a deep\nand mortal grudge against her as having influenced the father's anger.\nNow, I come to the cruel part of the story,--merely breaking off, my\ndear Handel, to remark that a dinner-napkin will not go into a tumbler.\"\n\nWhy I was trying to pack mine into my tumbler, I am wholly unable to\nsay. I only know that I found myself, with a perseverance worthy of a\nmuch better cause, making the most strenuous exertions to compress it\nwithin those limits. Again I thanked him and apologized, and again he\nsaid in the cheerfullest manner, \"Not at all, I am sure!\" and resumed.\n\n\"There appeared upon the scene--say at the races, or the public\nballs, or anywhere else you like--a certain man, who made love to Miss\nHavisham. I never saw him (for this happened five-and-twenty years ago,\nbefore you and I were, Handel), but I have heard my father mention that\nhe was a showy man, and the kind of man for the purpose. But that he was\nnot to be, without ignorance or prejudice, mistaken for a gentleman, my\nfather most strongly asseverates; because it is a principle of his that\nno man who was not a true gentleman at heart ever was, since the world\nbegan, a true gentleman in manner. He says, no varnish can hide the\ngrain of the wood; and that the more varnish you put on, the more the\ngrain will express itself. Well! This man pursued Miss Havisham closely,\nand professed to be devoted to her. I believe she had not shown much\nsusceptibility up to that time; but all the susceptibility she possessed\ncertainly came out then, and she passionately loved him. There is no\ndoubt that she perfectly idolized him. He practised on her affection in\nthat systematic way, that he got great sums of money from her, and he\ninduced her to buy her brother out of a share in the brewery (which had\nbeen weakly left him by his father) at an immense price, on the plea\nthat when he was her husband he must hold and manage it all. Your\nguardian was not at that time in Miss Havisham's counsels, and she was\ntoo haughty and too much in love to be advised by any one. Her relations\nwere poor and scheming, with the exception of my father; he was poor\nenough, but not time-serving or jealous. The only independent one among\nthem, he warned her that she was doing too much for this man, and\nwas placing herself too unreservedly in his power. She took the first\nopportunity of angrily ordering my father out of the house, in his\npresence, and my father has never seen her since.\"\n\nI thought of her having said, \"Matthew will come and see me at last when\nI am laid dead upon that table;\" and I asked Herbert whether his father\nwas so inveterate against her?\n\n\"It's not that,\" said he, \"but she charged him, in the presence of her\nintended husband, with being disappointed in the hope of fawning upon\nher for his own advancement, and, if he were to go to her now, it would\nlook true--even to him--and even to her. To return to the man and make\nan end of him. The marriage day was fixed, the wedding dresses were\nbought, the wedding tour was planned out, the wedding guests were\ninvited. The day came, but not the bridegroom. He wrote her a letter--\"\n\n\"Which she received,\" I struck in, \"when she was dressing for her\nmarriage? At twenty minutes to nine?\"\n\n\"At the hour and minute,\" said Herbert, nodding, \"at which she\nafterwards stopped all the clocks. What was in it, further than that\nit most heartlessly broke the marriage off, I can't tell you, because I\ndon't know. When she recovered from a bad illness that she had, she\nlaid the whole place waste, as you have seen it, and she has never since\nlooked upon the light of day.\"\n\n\"Is that all the story?\" I asked, after considering it.\n\n\"All I know of it; and indeed I only know so much, through piecing it\nout for myself; for my father always avoids it, and, even when Miss\nHavisham invited me to go there, told me no more of it than it was\nabsolutely requisite I should understand. But I have forgotten one\nthing. It has been supposed that the man to whom she gave her misplaced\nconfidence acted throughout in concert with her half-brother; that it\nwas a conspiracy between them; and that they shared the profits.\"\n\n\"I wonder he didn't marry her and get all the property,\" said I.\n\n\"He may have been married already, and her cruel mortification may have\nbeen a part of her half-brother's scheme,\" said Herbert. \"Mind! I don't\nknow that.\"\n\n\"What became of the two men?\" I asked, after again considering the\nsubject.\n\n\"They fell into deeper shame and degradation--if there can be\ndeeper--and ruin.\"\n\n\"Are they alive now?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"You said just now that Estella was not related to Miss Havisham, but\nadopted. When adopted?\"\n\nHerbert shrugged his shoulders. \"There has always been an Estella, since\nI have heard of a Miss Havisham. I know no more. And now, Handel,\" said\nhe, finally throwing off the story as it were, \"there is a perfectly\nopen understanding between us. All that I know about Miss Havisham, you\nknow.\"\n\n\"And all that I know,\" I retorted, \"you know.\"\n\n\"I fully believe it. So there can be no competition or perplexity\nbetween you and me. And as to the condition on which you hold your\nadvancement in life,--namely, that you are not to inquire or discuss to\nwhom you owe it,--you may be very sure that it will never be encroached\nupon, or even approached, by me, or by any one belonging to me.\"\n\nIn truth, he said this with so much delicacy, that I felt the subject\ndone with, even though I should be under his father's roof for years and\nyears to come. Yet he said it with so much meaning, too, that I felt\nhe as perfectly understood Miss Havisham to be my benefactress, as I\nunderstood the fact myself.\n\nIt had not occurred to me before, that he had led up to the theme for\nthe purpose of clearing it out of our way; but we were so much the\nlighter and easier for having broached it, that I now perceived this\nto be the case. We were very gay and sociable, and I asked him, in the\ncourse of conversation, what he was? He replied, \"A capitalist,--an\nInsurer of Ships.\" I suppose he saw me glancing about the room in search\nof some tokens of Shipping, or capital, for he added, \"In the City.\"\n\nI had grand ideas of the wealth and importance of Insurers of Ships in\nthe City, and I began to think with awe of having laid a young Insurer\non his back, blackened his enterprising eye, and cut his responsible\nhead open. But again there came upon me, for my relief, that odd\nimpression that Herbert Pocket would never be very successful or rich.\n\n\"I shall not rest satisfied with merely employing my capital in insuring\nships. I shall buy up some good Life Assurance shares, and cut into the\nDirection. I shall also do a little in the mining way. None of these\nthings will interfere with my chartering a few thousand tons on my own\naccount. I think I shall trade,\" said he, leaning back in his chair, \"to\nthe East Indies, for silks, shawls, spices, dyes, drugs, and precious\nwoods. It's an interesting trade.\"\n\n\"And the profits are large?\" said I.\n\n\"Tremendous!\" said he.\n\nI wavered again, and began to think here were greater expectations than\nmy own.\n\n\"I think I shall trade, also,\" said he, putting his thumbs in his\nwaist-coat pockets, \"to the West Indies, for sugar, tobacco, and rum.\nAlso to Ceylon, specially for elephants' tusks.\"\n\n\"You will want a good many ships,\" said I.\n\n\"A perfect fleet,\" said he.\n\nQuite overpowered by the magnificence of these transactions, I asked him\nwhere the ships he insured mostly traded to at present?\n\n\"I haven't begun insuring yet,\" he replied. \"I am looking about me.\"\n\nSomehow, that pursuit seemed more in keeping with Barnard's Inn. I said\n(in a tone of conviction), \"Ah-h!\"\n\n\"Yes. I am in a counting-house, and looking about me.\"\n\n\"Is a counting-house profitable?\" I asked.\n\n\"To--do you mean to the young fellow who's in it?\" he asked, in reply.\n\n\"Yes; to you.\"\n\n\"Why, n-no; not to me.\" He said this with the air of one carefully\nreckoning up and striking a balance. \"Not directly profitable. That is,\nit doesn't pay me anything, and I have to--keep myself.\"\n\nThis certainly had not a profitable appearance, and I shook my head as\nif I would imply that it would be difficult to lay by much accumulative\ncapital from such a source of income.\n\n\"But the thing is,\" said Herbert Pocket, \"that you look about you.\nThat's the grand thing. You are in a counting-house, you know, and you\nlook about you.\"\n\nIt struck me as a singular implication that you couldn't be out of a\ncounting-house, you know, and look about you; but I silently deferred to\nhis experience.\n\n\"Then the time comes,\" said Herbert, \"when you see your opening. And you\ngo in, and you swoop upon it and you make your capital, and then there\nyou are! When you have once made your capital, you have nothing to do\nbut employ it.\"\n\nThis was very like his way of conducting that encounter in the garden;\nvery like. His manner of bearing his poverty, too, exactly corresponded\nto his manner of bearing that defeat. It seemed to me that he took all\nblows and buffets now with just the same air as he had taken mine\nthen. It was evident that he had nothing around him but the simplest\nnecessaries, for everything that I remarked upon turned out to have been\nsent in on my account from the coffee-house or somewhere else.\n\nYet, having already made his fortune in his own mind, he was so\nunassuming with it that I felt quite grateful to him for not being\npuffed up. It was a pleasant addition to his naturally pleasant ways,\nand we got on famously. In the evening we went out for a walk in the\nstreets, and went half-price to the Theatre; and next day we went to\nchurch at Westminster Abbey, and in the afternoon we walked in the\nParks; and I wondered who shod all the horses there, and wished Joe did.\n\nOn a moderate computation, it was many months, that Sunday, since I had\nleft Joe and Biddy. The space interposed between myself and them partook\nof that expansion, and our marshes were any distance off. That I could\nhave been at our old church in my old church-going clothes, on the very\nlast Sunday that ever was, seemed a combination of impossibilities,\ngeographical and social, solar and lunar. Yet in the London streets so\ncrowded with people and so brilliantly lighted in the dusk of evening,\nthere were depressing hints of reproaches for that I had put the poor\nold kitchen at home so far away; and in the dead of night, the footsteps\nof some incapable impostor of a porter mooning about Barnard's Inn,\nunder pretence of watching it, fell hollow on my heart.\n\nOn the Monday morning at a quarter before nine, Herbert went to\nthe counting-house to report himself,--to look about him, too, I\nsuppose,--and I bore him company. He was to come away in an hour or\ntwo to attend me to Hammersmith, and I was to wait about for him. It\nappeared to me that the eggs from which young Insurers were hatched were\nincubated in dust and heat, like the eggs of ostriches, judging from the\nplaces to which those incipient giants repaired on a Monday morning. Nor\ndid the counting-house where Herbert assisted, show in my eyes as at\nall a good Observatory; being a back second floor up a yard, of a grimy\npresence in all particulars, and with a look into another back second\nfloor, rather than a look out.\n\nI waited about until it was noon, and I went upon 'Change, and I saw\nfluey men sitting there under the bills about shipping, whom I took to\nbe great merchants, though I couldn't understand why they should all be\nout of spirits. When Herbert came, we went and had lunch at a celebrated\nhouse which I then quite venerated, but now believe to have been the\nmost abject superstition in Europe, and where I could not help noticing,\neven then, that there was much more gravy on the tablecloths and knives\nand waiters' clothes, than in the steaks. This collation disposed of at\na moderate price (considering the grease, which was not charged for), we\nwent back to Barnard's Inn and got my little portmanteau, and then took\ncoach for Hammersmith. We arrived there at two or three o'clock in\nthe afternoon, and had very little way to walk to Mr. Pocket's house.\nLifting the latch of a gate, we passed direct into a little garden\noverlooking the river, where Mr. Pocket's children were playing\nabout. And unless I deceive myself on a point where my interests or\nprepossessions are certainly not concerned, I saw that Mr. and Mrs.\nPocket's children were not growing up or being brought up, but were\ntumbling up.\n\nMrs. Pocket was sitting on a garden chair under a tree, reading, with\nher legs upon another garden chair; and Mrs. Pocket's two nurse-maids\nwere looking about them while the children played. \"Mamma,\" said\nHerbert, \"this is young Mr. Pip.\" Upon which Mrs. Pocket received me\nwith an appearance of amiable dignity.\n\n\"Master Alick and Miss Jane,\" cried one of the nurses to two of the\nchildren, \"if you go a bouncing up against them bushes you'll fall over\ninto the river and be drownded, and what'll your pa say then?\"\n\nAt the same time this nurse picked up Mrs. Pocket's handkerchief, and\nsaid, \"If that don't make six times you've dropped it, Mum!\" Upon which\nMrs. Pocket laughed and said, \"Thank you, Flopson,\" and settling herself\nin one chair only, resumed her book. Her countenance immediately assumed\na knitted and intent expression as if she had been reading for a week,\nbut before she could have read half a dozen lines, she fixed her eyes\nupon me, and said, \"I hope your mamma is quite well?\" This unexpected\ninquiry put me into such a difficulty that I began saying in the\nabsurdest way that if there had been any such person I had no doubt she\nwould have been quite well and would have been very much obliged and\nwould have sent her compliments, when the nurse came to my rescue.\n\n\"Well!\" she cried, picking up the pocket-handkerchief, \"if that don't\nmake seven times! What ARE you a doing of this afternoon, Mum!\" Mrs.\nPocket received her property, at first with a look of unutterable\nsurprise as if she had never seen it before, and then with a laugh of\nrecognition, and said, \"Thank you, Flopson,\" and forgot me, and went on\nreading.\n\nI found, now I had leisure to count them, that there were no fewer than\nsix little Pockets present, in various stages of tumbling up. I had\nscarcely arrived at the total when a seventh was heard, as in the region\nof air, wailing dolefully.\n\n\"If there ain't Baby!\" said Flopson, appearing to think it most\nsurprising. \"Make haste up, Millers.\"\n\nMillers, who was the other nurse, retired into the house, and by degrees\nthe child's wailing was hushed and stopped, as if it were a young\nventriloquist with something in its mouth. Mrs. Pocket read all the\ntime, and I was curious to know what the book could be.\n\nWe were waiting, I supposed, for Mr. Pocket to come out to us; at any\nrate we waited there, and so I had an opportunity of observing the\nremarkable family phenomenon that whenever any of the children strayed\nnear Mrs. Pocket in their play, they always tripped themselves up and\ntumbled over her,--always very much to her momentary astonishment, and\ntheir own more enduring lamentation. I was at a loss to account for\nthis surprising circumstance, and could not help giving my mind to\nspeculations about it, until by and by Millers came down with the baby,\nwhich baby was handed to Flopson, which Flopson was handing it to Mrs.\nPocket, when she too went fairly head foremost over Mrs. Pocket, baby\nand all, and was caught by Herbert and myself.\n\n\"Gracious me, Flopson!\" said Mrs. Pocket, looking off her book for a\nmoment, \"everybody's tumbling!\"\n\n\"Gracious you, indeed, Mum!\" returned Flopson, very red in the face;\n\"what have you got there?\"\n\n\"I got here, Flopson?\" asked Mrs. Pocket.\n\n\"Why, if it ain't your footstool!\" cried Flopson. \"And if you keep it\nunder your skirts like that, who's to help tumbling? Here! Take the\nbaby, Mum, and give me your book.\"\n\nMrs. Pocket acted on the advice, and inexpertly danced the infant a\nlittle in her lap, while the other children played about it. This had\nlasted but a very short time, when Mrs. Pocket issued summary orders\nthat they were all to be taken into the house for a nap. Thus I made the\nsecond discovery on that first occasion, that the nurture of the little\nPockets consisted of alternately tumbling up and lying down.\n\nUnder these circumstances, when Flopson and Millers had got the children\ninto the house, like a little flock of sheep, and Mr. Pocket came out\nof it to make my acquaintance, I was not much surprised to find that Mr.\nPocket was a gentleman with a rather perplexed expression of face, and\nwith his very gray hair disordered on his head, as if he didn't quite\nsee his way to putting anything straight.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XXIII\n\nMr. Pocket said he was glad to see me, and he hoped I was not sorry to\nsee him. \"For, I really am not,\" he added, with his son's smile,\n\"an alarming personage.\" He was a young-looking man, in spite of\nhis perplexities and his very gray hair, and his manner seemed quite\nnatural. I use the word natural, in the sense of its being unaffected;\nthere was something comic in his distraught way, as though it would have\nbeen downright ludicrous but for his own perception that it was very\nnear being so. When he had talked with me a little, he said to Mrs.\nPocket, with a rather anxious contraction of his eyebrows, which were\nblack and handsome, \"Belinda, I hope you have welcomed Mr. Pip?\" And she\nlooked up from her book, and said, \"Yes.\" She then smiled upon me in an\nabsent state of mind, and asked me if I liked the taste of orange-flower\nwater? As the question had no bearing, near or remote, on any foregone\nor subsequent transaction, I consider it to have been thrown out, like\nher previous approaches, in general conversational condescension.\n\nI found out within a few hours, and may mention at once, that Mrs.\nPocket was the only daughter of a certain quite accidental deceased\nKnight, who had invented for himself a conviction that his deceased\nfather would have been made a Baronet but for somebody's determined\nopposition arising out of entirely personal motives,--I forget whose,\nif I ever knew,--the Sovereign's, the Prime Minister's, the Lord\nChancellor's, the Archbishop of Canterbury's, anybody's,--and had\ntacked himself on to the nobles of the earth in right of this quite\nsupposititious fact. I believe he had been knighted himself for storming\nthe English grammar at the point of the pen, in a desperate address\nengrossed on vellum, on the occasion of the laying of the first stone of\nsome building or other, and for handing some Royal Personage either the\ntrowel or the mortar. Be that as it may, he had directed Mrs. Pocket to\nbe brought up from her cradle as one who in the nature of things\nmust marry a title, and who was to be guarded from the acquisition of\nplebeian domestic knowledge.\n\nSo successful a watch and ward had been established over the young lady\nby this judicious parent, that she had grown up highly ornamental, but\nperfectly helpless and useless. With her character thus happily formed,\nin the first bloom of her youth she had encountered Mr. Pocket: who was\nalso in the first bloom of youth, and not quite decided whether to mount\nto the Woolsack, or to roof himself in with a mitre. As his doing the\none or the other was a mere question of time, he and Mrs. Pocket had\ntaken Time by the forelock (when, to judge from its length, it would\nseem to have wanted cutting), and had married without the knowledge of\nthe judicious parent. The judicious parent, having nothing to bestow or\nwithhold but his blessing, had handsomely settled that dower upon them\nafter a short struggle, and had informed Mr. Pocket that his wife was \"a\ntreasure for a Prince.\" Mr. Pocket had invested the Prince's treasure\nin the ways of the world ever since, and it was supposed to have brought\nhim in but indifferent interest. Still, Mrs. Pocket was in general the\nobject of a queer sort of respectful pity, because she had not married\na title; while Mr. Pocket was the object of a queer sort of forgiving\nreproach, because he had never got one.\n\nMr. Pocket took me into the house and showed me my room: which was a\npleasant one, and so furnished as that I could use it with comfort for\nmy own private sitting-room. He then knocked at the doors of two other\nsimilar rooms, and introduced me to their occupants, by name Drummle\nand Startop. Drummle, an old-looking young man of a heavy order of\narchitecture, was whistling. Startop, younger in years and appearance,\nwas reading and holding his head, as if he thought himself in danger of\nexploding it with too strong a charge of knowledge.\n\nBoth Mr. and Mrs. Pocket had such a noticeable air of being in somebody\nelse's hands, that I wondered who really was in possession of the house\nand let them live there, until I found this unknown power to be the\nservants. It was a smooth way of going on, perhaps, in respect of saving\ntrouble; but it had the appearance of being expensive, for the servants\nfelt it a duty they owed to themselves to be nice in their eating and\ndrinking, and to keep a deal of company downstairs. They allowed a very\nliberal table to Mr. and Mrs. Pocket, yet it always appeared to me that\nby far the best part of the house to have boarded in would have been\nthe kitchen,--always supposing the boarder capable of self-defence, for,\nbefore I had been there a week, a neighboring lady with whom the family\nwere personally unacquainted, wrote in to say that she had seen Millers\nslapping the baby. This greatly distressed Mrs. Pocket, who burst into\ntears on receiving the note, and said that it was an extraordinary thing\nthat the neighbors couldn't mind their own business.\n\nBy degrees I learnt, and chiefly from Herbert, that Mr. Pocket had been\neducated at Harrow and at Cambridge, where he had distinguished himself;\nbut that when he had had the happiness of marrying Mrs. Pocket very\nearly in life, he had impaired his prospects and taken up the calling\nof a Grinder. After grinding a number of dull blades,--of whom it was\nremarkable that their fathers, when influential, were always going to\nhelp him to preferment, but always forgot to do it when the blades had\nleft the Grindstone,--he had wearied of that poor work and had come to\nLondon. Here, after gradually failing in loftier hopes, he had \"read\"\nwith divers who had lacked opportunities or neglected them, and had\nrefurbished divers others for special occasions, and had turned his\nacquirements to the account of literary compilation and correction,\nand on such means, added to some very moderate private resources, still\nmaintained the house I saw.\n\nMr. and Mrs. Pocket had a toady neighbor; a widow lady of that highly\nsympathetic nature that she agreed with everybody, blessed everybody,\nand shed smiles and tears on everybody, according to circumstances. This\nlady's name was Mrs. Coiler, and I had the honor of taking her down to\ndinner on the day of my installation. She gave me to understand on the\nstairs, that it was a blow to dear Mrs. Pocket that dear Mr. Pocket\nshould be under the necessity of receiving gentlemen to read with him.\nThat did not extend to me, she told me in a gush of love and confidence\n(at that time, I had known her something less than five minutes); if\nthey were all like Me, it would be quite another thing.\n\n\"But dear Mrs. Pocket,\" said Mrs. Coiler, \"after her early\ndisappointment (not that dear Mr. Pocket was to blame in that), requires\nso much luxury and elegance--\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am,\" I said, to stop her, for I was afraid she was going to\ncry.\n\n\"And she is of so aristocratic a disposition--\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am,\" I said again, with the same object as before.\n\n\"--That it is hard,\" said Mrs. Coiler, \"to have dear Mr. Pocket's time\nand attention diverted from dear Mrs. Pocket.\"\n\nI could not help thinking that it might be harder if the butcher's time\nand attention were diverted from dear Mrs. Pocket; but I said nothing,\nand indeed had enough to do in keeping a bashful watch upon my company\nmanners.\n\nIt came to my knowledge, through what passed between Mrs. Pocket and\nDrummle while I was attentive to my knife and fork, spoon, glasses, and\nother instruments of self-destruction, that Drummle, whose Christian\nname was Bentley, was actually the next heir but one to a baronetcy.\nIt further appeared that the book I had seen Mrs. Pocket reading in the\ngarden was all about titles, and that she knew the exact date at which\nher grandpapa would have come into the book, if he ever had come at all.\nDrummle didn't say much, but in his limited way (he struck me as a sulky\nkind of fellow) he spoke as one of the elect, and recognized Mrs. Pocket\nas a woman and a sister. No one but themselves and Mrs. Coiler the toady\nneighbor showed any interest in this part of the conversation, and it\nappeared to me that it was painful to Herbert; but it promised to last\na long time, when the page came in with the announcement of a domestic\naffliction. It was, in effect, that the cook had mislaid the beef. To my\nunutterable amazement, I now, for the first time, saw Mr. Pocket\nrelieve his mind by going through a performance that struck me as very\nextraordinary, but which made no impression on anybody else, and\nwith which I soon became as familiar as the rest. He laid down the\ncarving-knife and fork,--being engaged in carving, at the moment,--put\nhis two hands into his disturbed hair, and appeared to make an\nextraordinary effort to lift himself up by it. When he had done this,\nand had not lifted himself up at all, he quietly went on with what he\nwas about.\n\nMrs. Coiler then changed the subject and began to flatter me. I liked\nit for a few moments, but she flattered me so very grossly that the\npleasure was soon over. She had a serpentine way of coming close at\nme when she pretended to be vitally interested in the friends and\nlocalities I had left, which was altogether snaky and fork-tongued; and\nwhen she made an occasional bounce upon Startop (who said very little to\nher), or upon Drummle (who said less), I rather envied them for being on\nthe opposite side of the table.\n\nAfter dinner the children were introduced, and Mrs. Coiler made admiring\ncomments on their eyes, noses, and legs,--a sagacious way of improving\ntheir minds. There were four little girls, and two little boys, besides\nthe baby who might have been either, and the baby's next successor who\nwas as yet neither. They were brought in by Flopson and Millers, much as\nthough those two non-commissioned officers had been recruiting somewhere\nfor children and had enlisted these, while Mrs. Pocket looked at the\nyoung Nobles that ought to have been as if she rather thought she had\nhad the pleasure of inspecting them before, but didn't quite know what\nto make of them.\n\n\"Here! Give me your fork, Mum, and take the baby,\" said Flopson. \"Don't\ntake it that way, or you'll get its head under the table.\"\n\nThus advised, Mrs. Pocket took it the other way, and got its head\nupon the table; which was announced to all present by a prodigious\nconcussion.\n\n\"Dear, dear! Give it me back, Mum,\" said Flopson; \"and Miss Jane, come\nand dance to baby, do!\"\n\nOne of the little girls, a mere mite who seemed to have prematurely\ntaken upon herself some charge of the others, stepped out of her place\nby me, and danced to and from the baby until it left off crying, and\nlaughed. Then, all the children laughed, and Mr. Pocket (who in the\nmeantime had twice endeavored to lift himself up by the hair) laughed,\nand we all laughed and were glad.\n\nFlopson, by dint of doubling the baby at the joints like a Dutch doll,\nthen got it safely into Mrs. Pocket's lap, and gave it the nut-crackers\nto play with; at the same time recommending Mrs. Pocket to take notice\nthat the handles of that instrument were not likely to agree with its\neyes, and sharply charging Miss Jane to look after the same. Then, the\ntwo nurses left the room, and had a lively scuffle on the staircase with\na dissipated page who had waited at dinner, and who had clearly lost\nhalf his buttons at the gaming-table.\n\nI was made very uneasy in my mind by Mrs. Pocket's falling into a\ndiscussion with Drummle respecting two baronetcies, while she ate a\nsliced orange steeped in sugar and wine, and, forgetting all about the\nbaby on her lap, who did most appalling things with the nut-crackers. At\nlength little Jane, perceiving its young brains to be imperilled, softly\nleft her place, and with many small artifices coaxed the dangerous\nweapon away. Mrs. Pocket finishing her orange at about the same time,\nand not approving of this, said to Jane,--\n\n\"You naughty child, how dare you? Go and sit down this instant!\"\n\n\"Mamma dear,\" lisped the little girl, \"baby ood have put hith eyeth\nout.\"\n\n\"How dare you tell me so?\" retorted Mrs. Pocket. \"Go and sit down in\nyour chair this moment!\"\n\nMrs. Pocket's dignity was so crushing, that I felt quite abashed, as if\nI myself had done something to rouse it.\n\n\"Belinda,\" remonstrated Mr. Pocket, from the other end of the table,\n\"how can you be so unreasonable? Jane only interfered for the protection\nof baby.\"\n\n\"I will not allow anybody to interfere,\" said Mrs. Pocket. \"I am\nsurprised, Matthew, that you should expose me to the affront of\ninterference.\"\n\n\"Good God!\" cried Mr. Pocket, in an outbreak of desolate desperation.\n\"Are infants to be nut-crackered into their tombs, and is nobody to save\nthem?\"\n\n\"I will not be interfered with by Jane,\" said Mrs. Pocket, with a\nmajestic glance at that innocent little offender. \"I hope I know my poor\ngrandpapa's position. Jane, indeed!\"\n\nMr. Pocket got his hands in his hair again, and this time really did\nlift himself some inches out of his chair. \"Hear this!\" he helplessly\nexclaimed to the elements. \"Babies are to be nut-crackered dead, for\npeople's poor grandpapa's positions!\" Then he let himself down again,\nand became silent.\n\nWe all looked awkwardly at the tablecloth while this was going on. A\npause succeeded, during which the honest and irrepressible baby made a\nseries of leaps and crows at little Jane, who appeared to me to be the\nonly member of the family (irrespective of servants) with whom it had\nany decided acquaintance.\n\n\"Mr. Drummle,\" said Mrs. Pocket, \"will you ring for Flopson? Jane, you\nundutiful little thing, go and lie down. Now, baby darling, come with\nma!\"\n\nThe baby was the soul of honor, and protested with all its might. It\ndoubled itself up the wrong way over Mrs. Pocket's arm, exhibited a pair\nof knitted shoes and dimpled ankles to the company in lieu of its soft\nface, and was carried out in the highest state of mutiny. And it gained\nits point after all, for I saw it through the window within a few\nminutes, being nursed by little Jane.\n\nIt happened that the other five children were left behind at the\ndinner-table, through Flopson's having some private engagement, and\ntheir not being anybody else's business. I thus became aware of the\nmutual relations between them and Mr. Pocket, which were exemplified in\nthe following manner. Mr. Pocket, with the normal perplexity of his face\nheightened and his hair rumpled, looked at them for some minutes, as if\nhe couldn't make out how they came to be boarding and lodging in that\nestablishment, and why they hadn't been billeted by Nature on\nsomebody else. Then, in a distant Missionary way he asked them certain\nquestions,--as why little Joe had that hole in his frill, who said, Pa,\nFlopson was going to mend it when she had time,--and how little Fanny\ncame by that whitlow, who said, Pa, Millers was going to poultice it\nwhen she didn't forget. Then, he melted into parental tenderness, and\ngave them a shilling apiece and told them to go and play; and then as\nthey went out, with one very strong effort to lift himself up by the\nhair he dismissed the hopeless subject.\n\nIn the evening there was rowing on the river. As Drummle and Startop had\neach a boat, I resolved to set up mine, and to cut them both out. I was\npretty good at most exercises in which country boys are adepts, but as\nI was conscious of wanting elegance of style for the Thames,--not to say\nfor other waters,--I at once engaged to place myself under the tuition\nof the winner of a prize-wherry who plied at our stairs, and to whom I\nwas introduced by my new allies. This practical authority confused me\nvery much by saying I had the arm of a blacksmith. If he could have\nknown how nearly the compliment lost him his pupil, I doubt if he would\nhave paid it.\n\nThere was a supper-tray after we got home at night, and I think we\nshould all have enjoyed ourselves, but for a rather disagreeable\ndomestic occurrence. Mr. Pocket was in good spirits, when a housemaid\ncame in, and said, \"If you please, sir, I should wish to speak to you.\"\n\n\"Speak to your master?\" said Mrs. Pocket, whose dignity was roused\nagain. \"How can you think of such a thing? Go and speak to Flopson. Or\nspeak to me--at some other time.\"\n\n\"Begging your pardon, ma'am,\" returned the housemaid, \"I should wish to\nspeak at once, and to speak to master.\"\n\nHereupon, Mr. Pocket went out of the room, and we made the best of\nourselves until he came back.\n\n\"This is a pretty thing, Belinda!\" said Mr. Pocket, returning with a\ncountenance expressive of grief and despair. \"Here's the cook lying\ninsensibly drunk on the kitchen floor, with a large bundle of fresh\nbutter made up in the cupboard ready to sell for grease!\"\n\nMrs. Pocket instantly showed much amiable emotion, and said, \"This is\nthat odious Sophia's doing!\"\n\n\"What do you mean, Belinda?\" demanded Mr. Pocket.\n\n\"Sophia has told you,\" said Mrs. Pocket. \"Did I not see her with my own\neyes and hear her with my own ears, come into the room just now and ask\nto speak to you?\"\n\n\"But has she not taken me downstairs, Belinda,\" returned Mr. Pocket,\n\"and shown me the woman, and the bundle too?\"\n\n\"And do you defend her, Matthew,\" said Mrs. Pocket, \"for making\nmischief?\"\n\nMr. Pocket uttered a dismal groan.\n\n\"Am I, grandpapa's granddaughter, to be nothing in the house?\" said Mrs.\nPocket. \"Besides, the cook has always been a very nice respectful woman,\nand said in the most natural manner when she came to look after the\nsituation, that she felt I was born to be a Duchess.\"\n\nThere was a sofa where Mr. Pocket stood, and he dropped upon it in the\nattitude of the Dying Gladiator. Still in that attitude he said, with a\nhollow voice, \"Good night, Mr. Pip,\" when I deemed it advisable to go to\nbed and leave him.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XXIV\n\nAfter two or three days, when I had established myself in my room and\nhad gone backwards and forwards to London several times, and had ordered\nall I wanted of my tradesmen, Mr. Pocket and I had a long talk together.\nHe knew more of my intended career than I knew myself, for he referred\nto his having been told by Mr. Jaggers that I was not designed for any\nprofession, and that I should be well enough educated for my destiny\nif I could \"hold my own\" with the average of young men in prosperous\ncircumstances. I acquiesced, of course, knowing nothing to the contrary.\n\nHe advised my attending certain places in London, for the acquisition of\nsuch mere rudiments as I wanted, and my investing him with the functions\nof explainer and director of all my studies. He hoped that with\nintelligent assistance I should meet with little to discourage me, and\nshould soon be able to dispense with any aid but his. Through his way\nof saying this, and much more to similar purpose, he placed himself on\nconfidential terms with me in an admirable manner; and I may state\nat once that he was always so zealous and honorable in fulfilling his\ncompact with me, that he made me zealous and honorable in fulfilling\nmine with him. If he had shown indifference as a master, I have no doubt\nI should have returned the compliment as a pupil; he gave me no such\nexcuse, and each of us did the other justice. Nor did I ever regard\nhim as having anything ludicrous about him--or anything but what was\nserious, honest, and good--in his tutor communication with me.\n\nWhen these points were settled, and so far carried out as that I had\nbegun to work in earnest, it occurred to me that if I could retain my\nbedroom in Barnard's Inn, my life would be agreeably varied, while my\nmanners would be none the worse for Herbert's society. Mr. Pocket did\nnot object to this arrangement, but urged that before any step could\npossibly be taken in it, it must be submitted to my guardian. I felt\nthat this delicacy arose out of the consideration that the plan would\nsave Herbert some expense, so I went off to Little Britain and imparted\nmy wish to Mr. Jaggers.\n\n\"If I could buy the furniture now hired for me,\" said I, \"and one or two\nother little things, I should be quite at home there.\"\n\n\"Go it!\" said Mr. Jaggers, with a short laugh. \"I told you you'd get on.\nWell! How much do you want?\"\n\nI said I didn't know how much.\n\n\"Come!\" retorted Mr. Jaggers. \"How much? Fifty pounds?\"\n\n\"O, not nearly so much.\"\n\n\"Five pounds?\" said Mr. Jaggers.\n\nThis was such a great fall, that I said in discomfiture, \"O, more than\nthat.\"\n\n\"More than that, eh!\" retorted Mr. Jaggers, lying in wait for me, with\nhis hands in his pockets, his head on one side, and his eyes on the wall\nbehind me; \"how much more?\"\n\n\"It is so difficult to fix a sum,\" said I, hesitating.\n\n\"Come!\" said Mr. Jaggers. \"Let's get at it. Twice five; will that do?\nThree times five; will that do? Four times five; will that do?\"\n\nI said I thought that would do handsomely.\n\n\"Four times five will do handsomely, will it?\" said Mr. Jaggers,\nknitting his brows. \"Now, what do you make of four times five?\"\n\n\"What do I make of it?\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said Mr. Jaggers; \"how much?\"\n\n\"I suppose you make it twenty pounds,\" said I, smiling.\n\n\"Never mind what I make it, my friend,\" observed Mr. Jaggers, with a\nknowing and contradictory toss of his head. \"I want to know what you\nmake it.\"\n\n\"Twenty pounds, of course.\"\n\n\"Wemmick!\" said Mr. Jaggers, opening his office door. \"Take Mr. Pip's\nwritten order, and pay him twenty pounds.\"\n\nThis strongly marked way of doing business made a strongly marked\nimpression on me, and that not of an agreeable kind. Mr. Jaggers never\nlaughed; but he wore great bright creaking boots, and, in poising\nhimself on these boots, with his large head bent down and his eyebrows\njoined together, awaiting an answer, he sometimes caused the boots to\ncreak, as if they laughed in a dry and suspicious way. As he happened\nto go out now, and as Wemmick was brisk and talkative, I said to Wemmick\nthat I hardly knew what to make of Mr. Jaggers's manner.\n\n\"Tell him that, and he'll take it as a compliment,\" answered Wemmick;\n\"he don't mean that you should know what to make of it.--Oh!\" for\nI looked surprised, \"it's not personal; it's professional: only\nprofessional.\"\n\nWemmick was at his desk, lunching--and crunching--on a dry hard biscuit;\npieces of which he threw from time to time into his slit of a mouth, as\nif he were posting them.\n\n\"Always seems to me,\" said Wemmick, \"as if he had set a man-trap and was\nwatching it. Suddenly-click--you're caught!\"\n\nWithout remarking that man-traps were not among the amenities of life, I\nsaid I supposed he was very skilful?\n\n\"Deep,\" said Wemmick, \"as Australia.\" Pointing with his pen at the\noffice floor, to express that Australia was understood, for the purposes\nof the figure, to be symmetrically on the opposite spot of the globe.\n\"If there was anything deeper,\" added Wemmick, bringing his pen to\npaper, \"he'd be it.\"\n\nThen, I said I supposed he had a fine business, and Wemmick said,\n\"Ca-pi-tal!\" Then I asked if there were many clerks? to which he\nreplied,--\n\n\"We don't run much into clerks, because there's only one Jaggers, and\npeople won't have him at second hand. There are only four of us. Would\nyou like to see 'em? You are one of us, as I may say.\"\n\nI accepted the offer. When Mr. Wemmick had put all the biscuit into the\npost, and had paid me my money from a cash-box in a safe, the key\nof which safe he kept somewhere down his back and produced from his\ncoat-collar like an iron-pigtail, we went upstairs. The house was dark\nand shabby, and the greasy shoulders that had left their mark in Mr.\nJaggers's room seemed to have been shuffling up and down the staircase\nfor years. In the front first floor, a clerk who looked something\nbetween a publican and a rat-catcher--a large pale, puffed, swollen\nman--was attentively engaged with three or four people of shabby\nappearance, whom he treated as unceremoniously as everybody seemed to\nbe treated who contributed to Mr. Jaggers's coffers. \"Getting evidence\ntogether,\" said Mr. Wemmick, as we came out, \"for the Bailey.\" In the\nroom over that, a little flabby terrier of a clerk with dangling hair\n(his cropping seemed to have been forgotten when he was a puppy) was\nsimilarly engaged with a man with weak eyes, whom Mr. Wemmick presented\nto me as a smelter who kept his pot always boiling, and who would melt\nme anything I pleased,--and who was in an excessive white-perspiration,\nas if he had been trying his art on himself. In a back room, a\nhigh-shouldered man with a face-ache tied up in dirty flannel, who was\ndressed in old black clothes that bore the appearance of having been\nwaxed, was stooping over his work of making fair copies of the notes of\nthe other two gentlemen, for Mr. Jaggers's own use.\n\nThis was all the establishment. When we went downstairs again, Wemmick\nled me into my guardian's room, and said, \"This you've seen already.\"\n\n\"Pray,\" said I, as the two odious casts with the twitchy leer upon them\ncaught my sight again, \"whose likenesses are those?\"\n\n\"These?\" said Wemmick, getting upon a chair, and blowing the dust off\nthe horrible heads before bringing them down. \"These are two celebrated\nones. Famous clients of ours that got us a world of credit. This chap\n(why you must have come down in the night and been peeping into the\ninkstand, to get this blot upon your eyebrow, you old rascal!) murdered\nhis master, and, considering that he wasn't brought up to evidence,\ndidn't plan it badly.\"\n\n\"Is it like him?\" I asked, recoiling from the brute, as Wemmick spat\nupon his eyebrow and gave it a rub with his sleeve.\n\n\"Like him? It's himself, you know. The cast was made in Newgate,\ndirectly after he was taken down. You had a particular fancy for\nme, hadn't you, Old Artful?\" said Wemmick. He then explained this\naffectionate apostrophe, by touching his brooch representing the lady\nand the weeping willow at the tomb with the urn upon it, and saying,\n\"Had it made for me, express!\"\n\n\"Is the lady anybody?\" said I.\n\n\"No,\" returned Wemmick. \"Only his game. (You liked your bit of game,\ndidn't you?) No; deuce a bit of a lady in the case, Mr. Pip, except\none,--and she wasn't of this slender lady-like sort, and you wouldn't\nhave caught her looking after this urn, unless there was something to\ndrink in it.\" Wemmick's attention being thus directed to his brooch, he\nput down the cast, and polished the brooch with his pocket-handkerchief.\n\n\"Did that other creature come to the same end?\" I asked. \"He has the\nsame look.\"\n\n\"You're right,\" said Wemmick; \"it's the genuine look. Much as if one\nnostril was caught up with a horse-hair and a little fish-hook. Yes,\nhe came to the same end; quite the natural end here, I assure you.\nHe forged wills, this blade did, if he didn't also put the supposed\ntestators to sleep too. You were a gentlemanly Cove, though\" (Mr.\nWemmick was again apostrophizing), \"and you said you could write Greek.\nYah, Bounceable! What a liar you were! I never met such a liar as you!\"\nBefore putting his late friend on his shelf again, Wemmick touched the\nlargest of his mourning rings and said, \"Sent out to buy it for me, only\nthe day before.\"\n\nWhile he was putting up the other cast and coming down from the chair,\nthe thought crossed my mind that all his personal jewelry was derived\nfrom like sources. As he had shown no diffidence on the subject, I\nventured on the liberty of asking him the question, when he stood before\nme, dusting his hands.\n\n\"O yes,\" he returned, \"these are all gifts of that kind. One brings\nanother, you see; that's the way of it. I always take 'em. They're\ncuriosities. And they're property. They may not be worth much, but,\nafter all, they're property and portable. It don't signify to you with\nyour brilliant lookout, but as to myself, my guiding-star always is,\n'Get hold of portable property'.\"\n\nWhen I had rendered homage to this light, he went on to say, in a\nfriendly manner:--\n\n\"If at any odd time when you have nothing better to do, you wouldn't\nmind coming over to see me at Walworth, I could offer you a bed, and I\nshould consider it an honor. I have not much to show you; but such two\nor three curiosities as I have got you might like to look over; and I am\nfond of a bit of garden and a summer-house.\"\n\nI said I should be delighted to accept his hospitality.\n\n\"Thankee,\" said he; \"then we'll consider that it's to come off, when\nconvenient to you. Have you dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?\"\n\n\"Not yet.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Wemmick, \"he'll give you wine, and good wine. I'll give you\npunch, and not bad punch. And now I'll tell you something. When you go\nto dine with Mr. Jaggers, look at his housekeeper.\"\n\n\"Shall I see something very uncommon?\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Wemmick, \"you'll see a wild beast tamed. Not so very\nuncommon, you'll tell me. I reply, that depends on the original wildness\nof the beast, and the amount of taming. It won't lower your opinion of\nMr. Jaggers's powers. Keep your eye on it.\"\n\nI told him I would do so, with all the interest and curiosity that his\npreparation awakened. As I was taking my departure, he asked me if I\nwould like to devote five minutes to seeing Mr. Jaggers \"at it?\"\n\nFor several reasons, and not least because I didn't clearly know what\nMr. Jaggers would be found to be \"at,\" I replied in the affirmative.\nWe dived into the City, and came up in a crowded police-court, where\na blood-relation (in the murderous sense) of the deceased, with the\nfanciful taste in brooches, was standing at the bar, uncomfortably\nchewing something; while my guardian had a woman under examination or\ncross-examination,--I don't know which,--and was striking her, and\nthe bench, and everybody present, with awe. If anybody, of whatsoever\ndegree, said a word that he didn't approve of, he instantly required to\nhave it \"taken down.\" If anybody wouldn't make an admission, he said,\n\"I'll have it out of you!\" and if anybody made an admission, he said,\n\"Now I have got you!\" The magistrates shivered under a single bite of\nhis finger. Thieves and thief-takers hung in dread rapture on his words,\nand shrank when a hair of his eyebrows turned in their direction. Which\nside he was on I couldn't make out, for he seemed to me to be grinding\nthe whole place in a mill; I only know that when I stole out on tiptoe,\nhe was not on the side of the bench; for, he was making the legs of the\nold gentleman who presided, quite convulsive under the table, by his\ndenunciations of his conduct as the representative of British law and\njustice in that chair that day.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XXV\n\nBentley Drummle, who was so sulky a fellow that he even took up a book\nas if its writer had done him an injury, did not take up an\nacquaintance in a more agreeable spirit. Heavy in figure, movement,\nand comprehension,--in the sluggish complexion of his face, and in\nthe large, awkward tongue that seemed to loll about in his mouth as\nhe himself lolled about in a room,--he was idle, proud, niggardly,\nreserved, and suspicious. He came of rich people down in Somersetshire,\nwho had nursed this combination of qualities until they made the\ndiscovery that it was just of age and a blockhead. Thus, Bentley Drummle\nhad come to Mr. Pocket when he was a head taller than that gentleman,\nand half a dozen heads thicker than most gentlemen.\n\nStartop had been spoilt by a weak mother and kept at home when he\nought to have been at school, but he was devotedly attached to her, and\nadmired her beyond measure. He had a woman's delicacy of feature,\nand was--\"as you may see, though you never saw her,\" said Herbert to\nme--\"exactly like his mother.\" It was but natural that I should take to\nhim much more kindly than to Drummle, and that, even in the earliest\nevenings of our boating, he and I should pull homeward abreast of one\nanother, conversing from boat to boat, while Bentley Drummle came up\nin our wake alone, under the overhanging banks and among the rushes. He\nwould always creep in-shore like some uncomfortable amphibious creature,\neven when the tide would have sent him fast upon his way; and I always\nthink of him as coming after us in the dark or by the back-water,\nwhen our own two boats were breaking the sunset or the moonlight in\nmid-stream.\n\nHerbert was my intimate companion and friend. I presented him with a\nhalf-share in my boat, which was the occasion of his often coming down\nto Hammersmith; and my possession of a half-share in his chambers often\ntook me up to London. We used to walk between the two places at all\nhours. I have an affection for the road yet (though it is not so\npleasant a road as it was then), formed in the impressibility of untried\nyouth and hope.\n\nWhen I had been in Mr. Pocket's family a month or two, Mr. and Mrs.\nCamilla turned up. Camilla was Mr. Pocket's sister. Georgiana, whom I\nhad seen at Miss Havisham's on the same occasion, also turned up. She\nwas a cousin,--an indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity\nreligion, and her liver love. These people hated me with the hatred of\ncupidity and disappointment. As a matter of course, they fawned upon\nme in my prosperity with the basest meanness. Towards Mr. Pocket, as\na grown-up infant with no notion of his own interests, they showed the\ncomplacent forbearance I had heard them express. Mrs. Pocket they\nheld in contempt; but they allowed the poor soul to have been heavily\ndisappointed in life, because that shed a feeble reflected light upon\nthemselves.\n\nThese were the surroundings among which I settled down, and applied\nmyself to my education. I soon contracted expensive habits, and began\nto spend an amount of money that within a few short months I should have\nthought almost fabulous; but through good and evil I stuck to my books.\nThere was no other merit in this, than my having sense enough to feel\nmy deficiencies. Between Mr. Pocket and Herbert I got on fast; and, with\none or the other always at my elbow to give me the start I wanted, and\nclear obstructions out of my road, I must have been as great a dolt as\nDrummle if I had done less.\n\nI had not seen Mr. Wemmick for some weeks, when I thought I would write\nhim a note and propose to go home with him on a certain evening. He\nreplied that it would give him much pleasure, and that he would expect\nme at the office at six o'clock. Thither I went, and there I found him,\nputting the key of his safe down his back as the clock struck.\n\n\"Did you think of walking down to Walworth?\" said he.\n\n\"Certainly,\" said I, \"if you approve.\"\n\n\"Very much,\" was Wemmick's reply, \"for I have had my legs under the desk\nall day, and shall be glad to stretch them. Now, I'll tell you what I\nhave got for supper, Mr. Pip. I have got a stewed steak,--which is\nof home preparation,--and a cold roast fowl,--which is from the\ncook's-shop. I think it's tender, because the master of the shop was a\nJuryman in some cases of ours the other day, and we let him down easy.\nI reminded him of it when I bought the fowl, and I said, \"Pick us out\na good one, old Briton, because if we had chosen to keep you in the box\nanother day or two, we could easily have done it.\" He said to that,\n\"Let me make you a present of the best fowl in the shop.\" I let him, of\ncourse. As far as it goes, it's property and portable. You don't object\nto an aged parent, I hope?\"\n\nI really thought he was still speaking of the fowl, until he added,\n\"Because I have got an aged parent at my place.\" I then said what\npoliteness required.\n\n\"So, you haven't dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?\" he pursued, as we walked\nalong.\n\n\"Not yet.\"\n\n\"He told me so this afternoon when he heard you were coming. I expect\nyou'll have an invitation to-morrow. He's going to ask your pals, too.\nThree of 'em; ain't there?\"\n\nAlthough I was not in the habit of counting Drummle as one of my\nintimate associates, I answered, \"Yes.\"\n\n\"Well, he's going to ask the whole gang,\"--I hardly felt complimented by\nthe word,--\"and whatever he gives you, he'll give you good. Don't look\nforward to variety, but you'll have excellence. And there's another rum\nthing in his house,\" proceeded Wemmick, after a moment's pause, as if\nthe remark followed on the housekeeper understood; \"he never lets a door\nor window be fastened at night.\"\n\n\"Is he never robbed?\"\n\n\"That's it!\" returned Wemmick. \"He says, and gives it out publicly, \"I\nwant to see the man who'll rob me.\" Lord bless you, I have heard him, a\nhundred times, if I have heard him once, say to regular cracksmen in our\nfront office, \"You know where I live; now, no bolt is ever drawn there;\nwhy don't you do a stroke of business with me? Come; can't I tempt you?\"\nNot a man of them, sir, would be bold enough to try it on, for love or\nmoney.\"\n\n\"They dread him so much?\" said I.\n\n\"Dread him,\" said Wemmick. \"I believe you they dread him. Not but what\nhe's artful, even in his defiance of them. No silver, sir. Britannia\nmetal, every spoon.\"\n\n\"So they wouldn't have much,\" I observed, \"even if they--\"\n\n\"Ah! But he would have much,\" said Wemmick, cutting me short, \"and they\nknow it. He'd have their lives, and the lives of scores of 'em. He'd\nhave all he could get. And it's impossible to say what he couldn't get,\nif he gave his mind to it.\"\n\nI was falling into meditation on my guardian's greatness, when Wemmick\nremarked:--\n\n\"As to the absence of plate, that's only his natural depth, you know.\nA river's its natural depth, and he's his natural depth. Look at his\nwatch-chain. That's real enough.\"\n\n\"It's very massive,\" said I.\n\n\"Massive?\" repeated Wemmick. \"I think so. And his watch is a gold\nrepeater, and worth a hundred pound if it's worth a penny. Mr. Pip,\nthere are about seven hundred thieves in this town who know all about\nthat watch; there's not a man, a woman, or a child, among them, who\nwouldn't identify the smallest link in that chain, and drop it as if it\nwas red hot, if inveigled into touching it.\"\n\nAt first with such discourse, and afterwards with conversation of a more\ngeneral nature, did Mr. Wemmick and I beguile the time and the road,\nuntil he gave me to understand that we had arrived in the district of\nWalworth.\n\nIt appeared to be a collection of back lanes, ditches, and little\ngardens, and to present the aspect of a rather dull retirement.\nWemmick's house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of\ngarden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted\nwith guns.\n\n\"My own doing,\" said Wemmick. \"Looks pretty; don't it?\"\n\nI highly commended it, I think it was the smallest house I ever saw;\nwith the queerest gothic windows (by far the greater part of them sham),\nand a gothic door almost too small to get in at.\n\n\"That's a real flagstaff, you see,\" said Wemmick, \"and on Sundays I\nrun up a real flag. Then look here. After I have crossed this bridge, I\nhoist it up--so--and cut off the communication.\"\n\nThe bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide\nand two deep. But it was very pleasant to see the pride with which he\nhoisted it up and made it fast; smiling as he did so, with a relish and\nnot merely mechanically.\n\n\"At nine o'clock every night, Greenwich time,\" said Wemmick, \"the gun\nfires. There he is, you see! And when you hear him go, I think you'll\nsay he's a Stinger.\"\n\nThe piece of ordnance referred to, was mounted in a separate fortress,\nconstructed of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by an\ningenious little tarpaulin contrivance in the nature of an umbrella.\n\n\"Then, at the back,\" said Wemmick, \"out of sight, so as not to impede\nthe idea of fortifications,--for it's a principle with me, if you have\nan idea, carry it out and keep it up,--I don't know whether that's your\nopinion--\"\n\nI said, decidedly.\n\n\"--At the back, there's a pig, and there are fowls and rabbits; then,\nI knock together my own little frame, you see, and grow cucumbers; and\nyou'll judge at supper what sort of a salad I can raise. So, sir,\" said\nWemmick, smiling again, but seriously too, as he shook his head, \"if you\ncan suppose the little place besieged, it would hold out a devil of a\ntime in point of provisions.\"\n\nThen, he conducted me to a bower about a dozen yards off, but which was\napproached by such ingenious twists of path that it took quite a long\ntime to get at; and in this retreat our glasses were already set forth.\nOur punch was cooling in an ornamental lake, on whose margin the bower\nwas raised. This piece of water (with an island in the middle which\nmight have been the salad for supper) was of a circular form, and he had\nconstructed a fountain in it, which, when you set a little mill going\nand took a cork out of a pipe, played to that powerful extent that it\nmade the back of your hand quite wet.\n\n\"I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and\nmy own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades,\" said Wemmick, in\nacknowledging my compliments. \"Well; it's a good thing, you know. It\nbrushes the Newgate cobwebs away, and pleases the Aged. You wouldn't\nmind being at once introduced to the Aged, would you? It wouldn't put\nyou out?\"\n\nI expressed the readiness I felt, and we went into the castle. There\nwe found, sitting by a fire, a very old man in a flannel coat: clean,\ncheerful, comfortable, and well cared for, but intensely deaf.\n\n\"Well aged parent,\" said Wemmick, shaking hands with him in a cordial\nand jocose way, \"how am you?\"\n\n\"All right, John; all right!\" replied the old man.\n\n\"Here's Mr. Pip, aged parent,\" said Wemmick, \"and I wish you could hear\nhis name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip; that's what he likes. Nod away at\nhim, if you please, like winking!\"\n\n\"This is a fine place of my son's, sir,\" cried the old man, while I\nnodded as hard as I possibly could. \"This is a pretty pleasure-ground,\nsir. This spot and these beautiful works upon it ought to be kept\ntogether by the Nation, after my son's time, for the people's\nenjoyment.\"\n\n\"You're as proud of it as Punch; ain't you, Aged?\" said Wemmick,\ncontemplating the old man, with his hard face really softened; \"there's\na nod for you;\" giving him a tremendous one; \"there's another for you;\"\ngiving him a still more tremendous one; \"you like that, don't you? If\nyou're not tired, Mr. Pip--though I know it's tiring to strangers--will\nyou tip him one more? You can't think how it pleases him.\"\n\nI tipped him several more, and he was in great spirits. We left him\nbestirring himself to feed the fowls, and we sat down to our punch in\nthe arbor; where Wemmick told me, as he smoked a pipe, that it had taken\nhim a good many years to bring the property up to its present pitch of\nperfection.\n\n\"Is it your own, Mr. Wemmick?\"\n\n\"O yes,\" said Wemmick, \"I have got hold of it, a bit at a time. It's a\nfreehold, by George!\"\n\n\"Is it indeed? I hope Mr. Jaggers admires it?\"\n\n\"Never seen it,\" said Wemmick. \"Never heard of it. Never seen the Aged.\nNever heard of him. No; the office is one thing, and private life is\nanother. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and\nwhen I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me. If it's not\nin any way disagreeable to you, you'll oblige me by doing the same. I\ndon't wish it professionally spoken about.\"\n\nOf course I felt my good faith involved in the observance of his\nrequest. The punch being very nice, we sat there drinking it and\ntalking, until it was almost nine o'clock. \"Getting near gun-fire,\" said\nWemmick then, as he laid down his pipe; \"it's the Aged's treat.\"\n\nProceeding into the Castle again, we found the Aged heating the poker,\nwith expectant eyes, as a preliminary to the performance of this great\nnightly ceremony. Wemmick stood with his watch in his hand until the\nmoment was come for him to take the red-hot poker from the Aged, and\nrepair to the battery. He took it, and went out, and presently the\nStinger went off with a Bang that shook the crazy little box of a\ncottage as if it must fall to pieces, and made every glass and teacup in\nit ring. Upon this, the Aged--who I believe would have been blown out\nof his arm-chair but for holding on by the elbows--cried out exultingly,\n\"He's fired! I heerd him!\" and I nodded at the old gentleman until it is\nno figure of speech to declare that I absolutely could not see him.\n\nThe interval between that time and supper Wemmick devoted to showing\nme his collection of curiosities. They were mostly of a felonious\ncharacter; comprising the pen with which a celebrated forgery had been\ncommitted, a distinguished razor or two, some locks of hair, and several\nmanuscript confessions written under condemnation,--upon which Mr.\nWemmick set particular value as being, to use his own words, \"every one\nof 'em Lies, sir.\" These were agreeably dispersed among small specimens\nof china and glass, various neat trifles made by the proprietor of the\nmuseum, and some tobacco-stoppers carved by the Aged. They were all\ndisplayed in that chamber of the Castle into which I had been first\ninducted, and which served, not only as the general sitting-room but\nas the kitchen too, if I might judge from a saucepan on the hob, and\na brazen bijou over the fireplace designed for the suspension of a\nroasting-jack.\n\nThere was a neat little girl in attendance, who looked after the Aged in\nthe day. When she had laid the supper-cloth, the bridge was lowered to\ngive her means of egress, and she withdrew for the night. The supper was\nexcellent; and though the Castle was rather subject to dry-rot insomuch\nthat it tasted like a bad nut, and though the pig might have been\nfarther off, I was heartily pleased with my whole entertainment. Nor was\nthere any drawback on my little turret bedroom, beyond there being such\na very thin ceiling between me and the flagstaff, that when I lay down\non my back in bed, it seemed as if I had to balance that pole on my\nforehead all night.\n\nWemmick was up early in the morning, and I am afraid I heard him\ncleaning my boots. After that, he fell to gardening, and I saw him from\nmy gothic window pretending to employ the Aged, and nodding at him in\na most devoted manner. Our breakfast was as good as the supper, and at\nhalf-past eight precisely we started for Little Britain. By degrees,\nWemmick got dryer and harder as we went along, and his mouth tightened\ninto a post-office again. At last, when we got to his place of business\nand he pulled out his key from his coat-collar, he looked as unconscious\nof his Walworth property as if the Castle and the drawbridge and the\narbor and the lake and the fountain and the Aged, had all been blown\ninto space together by the last discharge of the Stinger.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XXVI\n\nIt fell out as Wemmick had told me it would, that I had an early\nopportunity of comparing my guardian's establishment with that of his\ncashier and clerk. My guardian was in his room, washing his hands with\nhis scented soap, when I went into the office from Walworth; and he\ncalled me to him, and gave me the invitation for myself and friends\nwhich Wemmick had prepared me to receive. \"No ceremony,\" he stipulated,\n\"and no dinner dress, and say to-morrow.\" I asked him where we should\ncome to (for I had no idea where he lived), and I believe it was in his\ngeneral objection to make anything like an admission, that he replied,\n\"Come here, and I'll take you home with me.\" I embrace this opportunity\nof remarking that he washed his clients off, as if he were a surgeon or\na dentist. He had a closet in his room, fitted up for the purpose, which\nsmelt of the scented soap like a perfumer's shop. It had an unusually\nlarge jack-towel on a roller inside the door, and he would wash his\nhands, and wipe them and dry them all over this towel, whenever he came\nin from a police court or dismissed a client from his room. When I and\nmy friends repaired to him at six o'clock next day, he seemed to have\nbeen engaged on a case of a darker complexion than usual, for we found\nhim with his head butted into this closet, not only washing his hands,\nbut laving his face and gargling his throat. And even when he had\ndone all that, and had gone all round the jack-towel, he took out his\npenknife and scraped the case out of his nails before he put his coat\non.\n\nThere were some people slinking about as usual when we passed out into\nthe street, who were evidently anxious to speak with him; but there was\nsomething so conclusive in the halo of scented soap which encircled\nhis presence, that they gave it up for that day. As we walked along\nwestward, he was recognized ever and again by some face in the crowd of\nthe streets, and whenever that happened he talked louder to me; but\nhe never otherwise recognized anybody, or took notice that anybody\nrecognized him.\n\nHe conducted us to Gerrard Street, Soho, to a house on the south side of\nthat street. Rather a stately house of its kind, but dolefully in want\nof painting, and with dirty windows. He took out his key and opened the\ndoor, and we all went into a stone hall, bare, gloomy, and little used.\nSo, up a dark brown staircase into a series of three dark brown rooms on\nthe first floor. There were carved garlands on the panelled walls, and\nas he stood among them giving us welcome, I know what kind of loops I\nthought they looked like.\n\nDinner was laid in the best of these rooms; the second was his\ndressing-room; the third, his bedroom. He told us that he held the whole\nhouse, but rarely used more of it than we saw. The table was comfortably\nlaid--no silver in the service, of course--and at the side of his chair\nwas a capacious dumb-waiter, with a variety of bottles and decanters on\nit, and four dishes of fruit for dessert. I noticed throughout, that he\nkept everything under his own hand, and distributed everything himself.\n\nThere was a bookcase in the room; I saw from the backs of the books,\nthat they were about evidence, criminal law, criminal biography, trials,\nacts of Parliament, and such things. The furniture was all very solid\nand good, like his watch-chain. It had an official look, however, and\nthere was nothing merely ornamental to be seen. In a corner was a little\ntable of papers with a shaded lamp: so that he seemed to bring the\noffice home with him in that respect too, and to wheel it out of an\nevening and fall to work.\n\nAs he had scarcely seen my three companions until now,--for he and I had\nwalked together,--he stood on the hearth-rug, after ringing the bell,\nand took a searching look at them. To my surprise, he seemed at once to\nbe principally if not solely interested in Drummle.\n\n\"Pip,\" said he, putting his large hand on my shoulder and moving me to\nthe window, \"I don't know one from the other. Who's the Spider?\"\n\n\"The spider?\" said I.\n\n\"The blotchy, sprawly, sulky fellow.\"\n\n\"That's Bentley Drummle,\" I replied; \"the one with the delicate face is\nStartop.\"\n\nNot making the least account of \"the one with the delicate face,\" he\nreturned, \"Bentley Drummle is his name, is it? I like the look of that\nfellow.\"\n\nHe immediately began to talk to Drummle: not at all deterred by his\nreplying in his heavy reticent way, but apparently led on by it to screw\ndiscourse out of him. I was looking at the two, when there came between\nme and them the housekeeper, with the first dish for the table.\n\nShe was a woman of about forty, I supposed,--but I may have thought her\nyounger than she was. Rather tall, of a lithe nimble figure, extremely\npale, with large faded eyes, and a quantity of streaming hair. I cannot\nsay whether any diseased affection of the heart caused her lips to be\nparted as if she were panting, and her face to bear a curious expression\nof suddenness and flutter; but I know that I had been to see Macbeth at\nthe theatre, a night or two before, and that her face looked to me as if\nit were all disturbed by fiery air, like the faces I had seen rise out\nof the Witches' caldron.\n\nShe set the dish on, touched my guardian quietly on the arm with a\nfinger to notify that dinner was ready, and vanished. We took our seats\nat the round table, and my guardian kept Drummle on one side of him,\nwhile Startop sat on the other. It was a noble dish of fish that the\nhousekeeper had put on table, and we had a joint of equally choice\nmutton afterwards, and then an equally choice bird. Sauces, wines, all\nthe accessories we wanted, and all of the best, were given out by our\nhost from his dumb-waiter; and when they had made the circuit of the\ntable, he always put them back again. Similarly, he dealt us clean\nplates and knives and forks, for each course, and dropped those just\ndisused into two baskets on the ground by his chair. No other attendant\nthan the housekeeper appeared. She set on every dish; and I always saw\nin her face, a face rising out of the caldron. Years afterwards, I made\na dreadful likeness of that woman, by causing a face that had no other\nnatural resemblance to it than it derived from flowing hair to pass\nbehind a bowl of flaming spirits in a dark room.\n\nInduced to take particular notice of the housekeeper, both by her\nown striking appearance and by Wemmick's preparation, I observed\nthat whenever she was in the room she kept her eyes attentively on my\nguardian, and that she would remove her hands from any dish she put\nbefore him, hesitatingly, as if she dreaded his calling her back, and\nwanted him to speak when she was nigh, if he had anything to say. I\nfancied that I could detect in his manner a consciousness of this, and a\npurpose of always holding her in suspense.\n\nDinner went off gayly, and although my guardian seemed to follow rather\nthan originate subjects, I knew that he wrenched the weakest part of\nour dispositions out of us. For myself, I found that I was expressing my\ntendency to lavish expenditure, and to patronize Herbert, and to boast\nof my great prospects, before I quite knew that I had opened my lips.\nIt was so with all of us, but with no one more than Drummle: the\ndevelopment of whose inclination to gird in a grudging and suspicious\nway at the rest, was screwed out of him before the fish was taken off.\n\nIt was not then, but when we had got to the cheese, that our\nconversation turned upon our rowing feats, and that Drummle was rallied\nfor coming up behind of a night in that slow amphibious way of his.\nDrummle upon this, informed our host that he much preferred our room to\nour company, and that as to skill he was more than our master, and that\nas to strength he could scatter us like chaff. By some invisible agency,\nmy guardian wound him up to a pitch little short of ferocity about this\ntrifle; and he fell to baring and spanning his arm to show how muscular\nit was, and we all fell to baring and spanning our arms in a ridiculous\nmanner.\n\nNow the housekeeper was at that time clearing the table; my guardian,\ntaking no heed of her, but with the side of his face turned from her,\nwas leaning back in his chair biting the side of his forefinger and\nshowing an interest in Drummle, that, to me, was quite inexplicable.\nSuddenly, he clapped his large hand on the housekeeper's, like a trap,\nas she stretched it across the table. So suddenly and smartly did he do\nthis, that we all stopped in our foolish contention.\n\n\"If you talk of strength,\" said Mr. Jaggers, \"I'll show you a wrist.\nMolly, let them see your wrist.\"\n\nHer entrapped hand was on the table, but she had already put her other\nhand behind her waist. \"Master,\" she said, in a low voice, with her eyes\nattentively and entreatingly fixed upon him. \"Don't.\"\n\n\"I'll show you a wrist,\" repeated Mr. Jaggers, with an immovable\ndetermination to show it. \"Molly, let them see your wrist.\"\n\n\"Master,\" she again murmured. \"Please!\"\n\n\"Molly,\" said Mr. Jaggers, not looking at her, but obstinately looking\nat the opposite side of the room, \"let them see both your wrists. Show\nthem. Come!\"\n\nHe took his hand from hers, and turned that wrist up on the table. She\nbrought her other hand from behind her, and held the two out side by\nside. The last wrist was much disfigured,--deeply scarred and scarred\nacross and across. When she held her hands out she took her eyes from\nMr. Jaggers, and turned them watchfully on every one of the rest of us\nin succession.\n\n\"There's power here,\" said Mr. Jaggers, coolly tracing out the sinews\nwith his forefinger. \"Very few men have the power of wrist that this\nwoman has. It's remarkable what mere force of grip there is in these\nhands. I have had occasion to notice many hands; but I never saw\nstronger in that respect, man's or woman's, than these.\"\n\nWhile he said these words in a leisurely, critical style, she continued\nto look at every one of us in regular succession as we sat. The moment\nhe ceased, she looked at him again. \"That'll do, Molly,\" said Mr.\nJaggers, giving her a slight nod; \"you have been admired, and can\ngo.\" She withdrew her hands and went out of the room, and Mr. Jaggers,\nputting the decanters on from his dumb-waiter, filled his glass and\npassed round the wine.\n\n\"At half-past nine, gentlemen,\" said he, \"we must break up. Pray make\nthe best use of your time. I am glad to see you all. Mr. Drummle, I\ndrink to you.\"\n\nIf his object in singling out Drummle were to bring him out still more,\nit perfectly succeeded. In a sulky triumph, Drummle showed his morose\ndepreciation of the rest of us, in a more and more offensive degree,\nuntil he became downright intolerable. Through all his stages, Mr.\nJaggers followed him with the same strange interest. He actually seemed\nto serve as a zest to Mr. Jaggers's wine.\n\nIn our boyish want of discretion I dare say we took too much to drink,\nand I know we talked too much. We became particularly hot upon some\nboorish sneer of Drummle's, to the effect that we were too free with our\nmoney. It led to my remarking, with more zeal than discretion, that it\ncame with a bad grace from him, to whom Startop had lent money in my\npresence but a week or so before.\n\n\"Well,\" retorted Drummle; \"he'll be paid.\"\n\n\"I don't mean to imply that he won't,\" said I, \"but it might make you\nhold your tongue about us and our money, I should think.\"\n\n\"You should think!\" retorted Drummle. \"Oh Lord!\"\n\n\"I dare say,\" I went on, meaning to be very severe, \"that you wouldn't\nlend money to any of us if we wanted it.\"\n\n\"You are right,\" said Drummle. \"I wouldn't lend one of you a sixpence. I\nwouldn't lend anybody a sixpence.\"\n\n\"Rather mean to borrow under those circumstances, I should say.\"\n\n\"You should say,\" repeated Drummle. \"Oh Lord!\"\n\nThis was so very aggravating--the more especially as I found myself\nmaking no way against his surly obtuseness--that I said, disregarding\nHerbert's efforts to check me,--\n\n\"Come, Mr. Drummle, since we are on the subject, I'll tell you what\npassed between Herbert here and me, when you borrowed that money.\"\n\n\"I don't want to know what passed between Herbert there and you,\"\ngrowled Drummle. And I think he added in a lower growl, that we might\nboth go to the devil and shake ourselves.\n\n\"I'll tell you, however,\" said I, \"whether you want to know or not. We\nsaid that as you put it in your pocket very glad to get it, you seemed\nto be immensely amused at his being so weak as to lend it.\"\n\nDrummle laughed outright, and sat laughing in our faces, with his hands\nin his pockets and his round shoulders raised; plainly signifying that\nit was quite true, and that he despised us as asses all.\n\nHereupon Startop took him in hand, though with a much better grace than\nI had shown, and exhorted him to be a little more agreeable. Startop,\nbeing a lively, bright young fellow, and Drummle being the exact\nopposite, the latter was always disposed to resent him as a direct\npersonal affront. He now retorted in a coarse, lumpish way, and Startop\ntried to turn the discussion aside with some small pleasantry that made\nus all laugh. Resenting this little success more than anything, Drummle,\nwithout any threat or warning, pulled his hands out of his pockets,\ndropped his round shoulders, swore, took up a large glass, and would\nhave flung it at his adversary's head, but for our entertainer's\ndexterously seizing it at the instant when it was raised for that\npurpose.\n\n\"Gentlemen,\" said Mr. Jaggers, deliberately putting down the glass, and\nhauling out his gold repeater by its massive chain, \"I am exceedingly\nsorry to announce that it's half past nine.\"\n\nOn this hint we all rose to depart. Before we got to the street door,\nStartop was cheerily calling Drummle \"old boy,\" as if nothing had\nhappened. But the old boy was so far from responding, that he would not\neven walk to Hammersmith on the same side of the way; so Herbert and I,\nwho remained in town, saw them going down the street on opposite sides;\nStartop leading, and Drummle lagging behind in the shadow of the houses,\nmuch as he was wont to follow in his boat.\n\nAs the door was not yet shut, I thought I would leave Herbert there for\na moment, and run upstairs again to say a word to my guardian. I found\nhim in his dressing-room surrounded by his stock of boots, already hard\nat it, washing his hands of us.\n\nI told him I had come up again to say how sorry I was that anything\ndisagreeable should have occurred, and that I hoped he would not blame\nme much.\n\n\"Pooh!\" said he, sluicing his face, and speaking through the\nwater-drops; \"it's nothing, Pip. I like that Spider though.\"\n\nHe had turned towards me now, and was shaking his head, and blowing, and\ntowelling himself.\n\n\"I am glad you like him, sir,\" said I--\"but I don't.\"\n\n\"No, no,\" my guardian assented; \"don't have too much to do with him.\nKeep as clear of him as you can. But I like the fellow, Pip; he is one\nof the true sort. Why, if I was a fortune-teller--\"\n\nLooking out of the towel, he caught my eye.\n\n\"But I am not a fortune-teller,\" he said, letting his head drop into a\nfestoon of towel, and towelling away at his two ears. \"You know what I\nam, don't you? Good night, Pip.\"\n\n\"Good night, sir.\"\n\nIn about a month after that, the Spider's time with Mr. Pocket was up\nfor good, and, to the great relief of all the house but Mrs. Pocket, he\nwent home to the family hole.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XXVII\n\n\n\"MY DEAR MR PIP:--\n\n\"I write this by request of Mr. Gargery, for to let you know that he\nis going to London in company with Mr. Wopsle and would be glad if\nagreeable to be allowed to see you. He would call at Barnard's Hotel\nTuesday morning at nine o'clock, when if not agreeable please leave\nword. Your poor sister is much the same as when you left. We talk of you\nin the kitchen every night, and wonder what you are saying and doing. If\nnow considered in the light of a liberty, excuse it for the love of\npoor old days. No more, dear Mr. Pip, from your ever obliged, and\naffectionate servant,\n\n\"BIDDY.\"\n\n\"P.S. He wishes me most particular to write what larks. He says you will\nunderstand. I hope and do not doubt it will be agreeable to see him,\neven though a gentleman, for you had ever a good heart, and he is a\nworthy, worthy man. I have read him all, excepting only the last little\nsentence, and he wishes me most particular to write again what larks.\"\n\nI received this letter by the post on Monday morning, and therefore its\nappointment was for next day. Let me confess exactly with what feelings\nI looked forward to Joe's coming.\n\nNot with pleasure, though I was bound to him by so many ties; no;\nwith considerable disturbance, some mortification, and a keen sense of\nincongruity. If I could have kept him away by paying money, I certainly\nwould have paid money. My greatest reassurance was that he was coming\nto Barnard's Inn, not to Hammersmith, and consequently would not fall\nin Bentley Drummle's way. I had little objection to his being seen by\nHerbert or his father, for both of whom I had a respect; but I had the\nsharpest sensitiveness as to his being seen by Drummle, whom I held in\ncontempt. So, throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are\nusually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise.\n\nI had begun to be always decorating the chambers in some quite\nunnecessary and inappropriate way or other, and very expensive those\nwrestles with Barnard proved to be. By this time, the rooms were\nvastly different from what I had found them, and I enjoyed the honor\nof occupying a few prominent pages in the books of a neighboring\nupholsterer. I had got on so fast of late, that I had even started a boy\nin boots,--top boots,--in bondage and slavery to whom I might have been\nsaid to pass my days. For, after I had made the monster (out of the\nrefuse of my washerwoman's family), and had clothed him with a blue\ncoat, canary waistcoat, white cravat, creamy breeches, and the boots\nalready mentioned, I had to find him a little to do and a great deal\nto eat; and with both of those horrible requirements he haunted my\nexistence.\n\nThis avenging phantom was ordered to be on duty at eight on Tuesday\nmorning in the hall, (it was two feet square, as charged for\nfloorcloth,) and Herbert suggested certain things for breakfast that he\nthought Joe would like. While I felt sincerely obliged to him for being\nso interested and considerate, I had an odd half-provoked sense of\nsuspicion upon me, that if Joe had been coming to see him, he wouldn't\nhave been quite so brisk about it.\n\nHowever, I came into town on the Monday night to be ready for Joe, and\nI got up early in the morning, and caused the sitting-room and\nbreakfast-table to assume their most splendid appearance. Unfortunately\nthe morning was drizzly, and an angel could not have concealed the fact\nthat Barnard was shedding sooty tears outside the window, like some weak\ngiant of a Sweep.\n\nAs the time approached I should have liked to run away, but the Avenger\npursuant to orders was in the hall, and presently I heard Joe on\nthe staircase. I knew it was Joe, by his clumsy manner of coming upstairs,\n--his state boots being always too big for him,--and by the time\nit took him to read the names on the other floors in the course of\nhis ascent. When at last he stopped outside our door, I could hear his\nfinger tracing over the painted letters of my name, and I afterwards\ndistinctly heard him breathing in at the keyhole. Finally he gave a\nfaint single rap, and Pepper--such was the compromising name of the\navenging boy--announced \"Mr. Gargery!\" I thought he never would have\ndone wiping his feet, and that I must have gone out to lift him off the\nmat, but at last he came in.\n\n\"Joe, how are you, Joe?\"\n\n\"Pip, how AIR you, Pip?\"\n\nWith his good honest face all glowing and shining, and his hat put\ndown on the floor between us, he caught both my hands and worked them\nstraight up and down, as if I had been the last-patented Pump.\n\n\"I am glad to see you, Joe. Give me your hat.\"\n\nBut Joe, taking it up carefully with both hands, like a bird's-nest with\neggs in it, wouldn't hear of parting with that piece of property, and\npersisted in standing talking over it in a most uncomfortable way.\n\n\"Which you have that growed,\" said Joe, \"and that swelled, and that\ngentle-folked;\" Joe considered a little before he discovered this word;\n\"as to be sure you are a honor to your king and country.\"\n\n\"And you, Joe, look wonderfully well.\"\n\n\"Thank God,\" said Joe, \"I'm ekerval to most. And your sister, she's\nno worse than she were. And Biddy, she's ever right and ready. And all\nfriends is no backerder, if not no forarder. 'Ceptin Wopsle; he's had a\ndrop.\"\n\nAll this time (still with both hands taking great care of the\nbird's-nest), Joe was rolling his eyes round and round the room, and\nround and round the flowered pattern of my dressing-gown.\n\n\"Had a drop, Joe?\"\n\n\"Why yes,\" said Joe, lowering his voice, \"he's left the Church and went\ninto the playacting. Which the playacting have likeways brought him\nto London along with me. And his wish were,\" said Joe, getting the\nbird's-nest under his left arm for the moment, and groping in it for an\negg with his right; \"if no offence, as I would 'and you that.\"\n\nI took what Joe gave me, and found it to be the crumpled play-bill of\na small metropolitan theatre, announcing the first appearance, in that\nvery week, of \"the celebrated Provincial Amateur of Roscian renown,\nwhose unique performance in the highest tragic walk of our National Bard\nhas lately occasioned so great a sensation in local dramatic circles.\"\n\n\"Were you at his performance, Joe?\" I inquired.\n\n\"I were,\" said Joe, with emphasis and solemnity.\n\n\"Was there a great sensation?\"\n\n\"Why,\" said Joe, \"yes, there certainly were a peck of orange-peel.\nPartickler when he see the ghost. Though I put it to yourself, sir,\nwhether it were calc'lated to keep a man up to his work with a good\nhart, to be continiwally cutting in betwixt him and the Ghost with\n\"Amen!\" A man may have had a misfortun' and been in the Church,\" said\nJoe, lowering his voice to an argumentative and feeling tone, \"but\nthat is no reason why you should put him out at such a time. Which I\nmeantersay, if the ghost of a man's own father cannot be allowed to\nclaim his attention, what can, Sir? Still more, when his mourning 'at\nis unfortunately made so small as that the weight of the black feathers\nbrings it off, try to keep it on how you may.\"\n\nA ghost-seeing effect in Joe's own countenance informed me that Herbert\nhad entered the room. So, I presented Joe to Herbert, who held out his\nhand; but Joe backed from it, and held on by the bird's-nest.\n\n\"Your servant, Sir,\" said Joe, \"which I hope as you and Pip\"--here his\neye fell on the Avenger, who was putting some toast on table, and so\nplainly denoted an intention to make that young gentleman one of the\nfamily, that I frowned it down and confused him more--\"I meantersay, you\ntwo gentlemen,--which I hope as you get your elths in this close spot?\nFor the present may be a werry good inn, according to London opinions,\"\nsaid Joe, confidentially, \"and I believe its character do stand it; but I\nwouldn't keep a pig in it myself,--not in the case that I wished him to\nfatten wholesome and to eat with a meller flavor on him.\"\n\nHaving borne this flattering testimony to the merits of our\ndwelling-place, and having incidentally shown this tendency to call me\n\"sir,\" Joe, being invited to sit down to table, looked all round the\nroom for a suitable spot on which to deposit his hat,--as if it were\nonly on some very few rare substances in nature that it could find a\nresting place,--and ultimately stood it on an extreme corner of the\nchimney-piece, from which it ever afterwards fell off at intervals.\n\n\"Do you take tea, or coffee, Mr. Gargery?\" asked Herbert, who always\npresided of a morning.\n\n\"Thankee, Sir,\" said Joe, stiff from head to foot, \"I'll take whichever\nis most agreeable to yourself.\"\n\n\"What do you say to coffee?\"\n\n\"Thankee, Sir,\" returned Joe, evidently dispirited by the proposal,\n\"since you are so kind as make chice of coffee, I will not run contrairy\nto your own opinions. But don't you never find it a little 'eating?\"\n\n\"Say tea then,\" said Herbert, pouring it out.\n\nHere Joe's hat tumbled off the mantel-piece, and he started out of his\nchair and picked it up, and fitted it to the same exact spot. As if it\nwere an absolute point of good breeding that it should tumble off again\nsoon.\n\n\"When did you come to town, Mr. Gargery?\"\n\n\"Were it yesterday afternoon?\" said Joe, after coughing behind his hand,\nas if he had had time to catch the whooping-cough since he came. \"No\nit were not. Yes it were. Yes. It were yesterday afternoon\" (with an\nappearance of mingled wisdom, relief, and strict impartiality).\n\n\"Have you seen anything of London yet?\"\n\n\"Why, yes, Sir,\" said Joe, \"me and Wopsle went off straight to look at\nthe Blacking Ware'us. But we didn't find that it come up to its likeness\nin the red bills at the shop doors; which I meantersay,\" added Joe, in\nan explanatory manner, \"as it is there drawd too architectooralooral.\"\n\nI really believe Joe would have prolonged this word (mightily expressive\nto my mind of some architecture that I know) into a perfect Chorus, but\nfor his attention being providentially attracted by his hat, which\nwas toppling. Indeed, it demanded from him a constant attention, and a\nquickness of eye and hand, very like that exacted by wicket-keeping.\nHe made extraordinary play with it, and showed the greatest skill; now,\nrushing at it and catching it neatly as it dropped; now, merely stopping\nit midway, beating it up, and humoring it in various parts of the room\nand against a good deal of the pattern of the paper on the wall,\nbefore he felt it safe to close with it; finally splashing it into the\nslop-basin, where I took the liberty of laying hands upon it.\n\nAs to his shirt-collar, and his coat-collar, they were perplexing to\nreflect upon,--insoluble mysteries both. Why should a man scrape himself\nto that extent, before he could consider himself full dressed? Why\nshould he suppose it necessary to be purified by suffering for\nhis holiday clothes? Then he fell into such unaccountable fits of\nmeditation, with his fork midway between his plate and his mouth; had\nhis eyes attracted in such strange directions; was afflicted with such\nremarkable coughs; sat so far from the table, and dropped so much\nmore than he ate, and pretended that he hadn't dropped it; that I was\nheartily glad when Herbert left us for the City.\n\nI had neither the good sense nor the good feeling to know that this was\nall my fault, and that if I had been easier with Joe, Joe would have\nbeen easier with me. I felt impatient of him and out of temper with him;\nin which condition he heaped coals of fire on my head.\n\n\"Us two being now alone, sir,\"--began Joe.\n\n\"Joe,\" I interrupted, pettishly, \"how can you call me, sir?\"\n\nJoe looked at me for a single instant with something faintly like\nreproach. Utterly preposterous as his cravat was, and as his collars\nwere, I was conscious of a sort of dignity in the look.\n\n\"Us two being now alone,\" resumed Joe, \"and me having the intentions and\nabilities to stay not many minutes more, I will now conclude--leastways\nbegin--to mention what have led to my having had the present honor. For\nwas it not,\" said Joe, with his old air of lucid exposition, \"that my\nonly wish were to be useful to you, I should not have had the honor of\nbreaking wittles in the company and abode of gentlemen.\"\n\nI was so unwilling to see the look again, that I made no remonstrance\nagainst this tone.\n\n\"Well, sir,\" pursued Joe, \"this is how it were. I were at the Bargemen\nt'other night, Pip;\"--whenever he subsided into affection, he called me\nPip, and whenever he relapsed into politeness he called me sir; \"when\nthere come up in his shay-cart, Pumblechook. Which that same identical,\"\nsaid Joe, going down a new track, \"do comb my 'air the wrong way\nsometimes, awful, by giving out up and down town as it were him which\never had your infant companionation and were looked upon as a playfellow\nby yourself.\"\n\n\"Nonsense. It was you, Joe.\"\n\n\"Which I fully believed it were, Pip,\" said Joe, slightly tossing\nhis head, \"though it signify little now, sir. Well, Pip; this same\nidentical, which his manners is given to blusterous, come to me at\nthe Bargemen (wot a pipe and a pint of beer do give refreshment to the\nworkingman, sir, and do not over stimilate), and his word were, 'Joseph,\nMiss Havisham she wish to speak to you.'\"\n\n\"Miss Havisham, Joe?\"\n\n\"'She wish,' were Pumblechook's word, 'to speak to you.'\" Joe sat and\nrolled his eyes at the ceiling.\n\n\"Yes, Joe? Go on, please.\"\n\n\"Next day, sir,\" said Joe, looking at me as if I were a long way off,\n\"having cleaned myself, I go and I see Miss A.\"\n\n\"Miss A., Joe? Miss Havisham?\"\n\n\"Which I say, sir,\" replied Joe, with an air of legal formality, as if\nhe were making his will, \"Miss A., or otherways Havisham. Her expression\nair then as follering: 'Mr. Gargery. You air in correspondence with Mr.\nPip?' Having had a letter from you, I were able to say 'I am.' (When\nI married your sister, sir, I said 'I will;' and when I answered your\nfriend, Pip, I said 'I am.') 'Would you tell him, then,' said she, 'that\nwhich Estella has come home and would be glad to see him.'\"\n\nI felt my face fire up as I looked at Joe. I hope one remote cause\nof its firing may have been my consciousness that if I had known his\nerrand, I should have given him more encouragement.\n\n\"Biddy,\" pursued Joe, \"when I got home and asked her fur to write the\nmessage to you, a little hung back. Biddy says, 'I know he will be very\nglad to have it by word of mouth, it is holiday time, you want to see\nhim, go!' I have now concluded, sir,\" said Joe, rising from his chair,\n\"and, Pip, I wish you ever well and ever prospering to a greater and a\ngreater height.\"\n\n\"But you are not going now, Joe?\"\n\n\"Yes I am,\" said Joe.\n\n\"But you are coming back to dinner, Joe?\"\n\n\"No I am not,\" said Joe.\n\nOur eyes met, and all the \"Sir\" melted out of that manly heart as he gave\nme his hand.\n\n\"Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings welded\ntogether, as I may say, and one man's a blacksmith, and one's a\nwhitesmith, and one's a goldsmith, and one's a coppersmith. Diwisions\namong such must come, and must be met as they come. If there's been\nany fault at all to-day, it's mine. You and me is not two figures to\nbe together in London; nor yet anywheres else but what is private, and\nbeknown, and understood among friends. It ain't that I am proud, but\nthat I want to be right, as you shall never see me no more in these\nclothes. I'm wrong in these clothes. I'm wrong out of the forge, the\nkitchen, or off th' meshes. You won't find half so much fault in me if\nyou think of me in my forge dress, with my hammer in my hand, or even\nmy pipe. You won't find half so much fault in me if, supposing as you\nshould ever wish to see me, you come and put your head in at the forge\nwindow and see Joe the blacksmith, there, at the old anvil, in the old\nburnt apron, sticking to the old work. I'm awful dull, but I hope I've\nbeat out something nigh the rights of this at last. And so GOD bless\nyou, dear old Pip, old chap, GOD bless you!\"\n\nI had not been mistaken in my fancy that there was a simple dignity\nin him. The fashion of his dress could no more come in its way when he\nspoke these words than it could come in its way in Heaven. He touched me\ngently on the forehead, and went out. As soon as I could recover\nmyself sufficiently, I hurried out after him and looked for him in the\nneighboring streets; but he was gone.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XXVIII\n\nIt was clear that I must repair to our town next day, and in the first\nflow of my repentance, it was equally clear that I must stay at Joe's.\nBut, when I had secured my box-place by to-morrow's coach, and had been\ndown to Mr. Pocket's and back, I was not by any means convinced on the\nlast point, and began to invent reasons and make excuses for putting\nup at the Blue Boar. I should be an inconvenience at Joe's; I was not\nexpected, and my bed would not be ready; I should be too far from\nMiss Havisham's, and she was exacting and mightn't like it. All other\nswindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such\npretences did I cheat myself. Surely a curious thing. That I should\ninnocently take a bad half-crown of somebody else's manufacture is\nreasonable enough; but that I should knowingly reckon the spurious coin\nof my own make as good money! An obliging stranger, under pretence of\ncompactly folding up my bank-notes for security's sake, abstracts the\nnotes and gives me nutshells; but what is his sleight of hand to mine,\nwhen I fold up my own nutshells and pass them on myself as notes!\n\nHaving settled that I must go to the Blue Boar, my mind was much\ndisturbed by indecision whether or not to take the Avenger. It was\ntempting to think of that expensive Mercenary publicly airing his boots\nin the archway of the Blue Boar's posting-yard; it was almost solemn to\nimagine him casually produced in the tailor's shop, and confounding\nthe disrespectful senses of Trabb's boy. On the other hand, Trabb's boy\nmight worm himself into his intimacy and tell him things; or, reckless\nand desperate wretch as I knew he could be, might hoot him in the High\nStreet. My patroness, too, might hear of him, and not approve. On the\nwhole, I resolved to leave the Avenger behind.\n\nIt was the afternoon coach by which I had taken my place, and, as winter\nhad now come round, I should not arrive at my destination until two or\nthree hours after dark. Our time of starting from the Cross Keys was\ntwo o'clock. I arrived on the ground with a quarter of an hour to spare,\nattended by the Avenger,--if I may connect that expression with one who\nnever attended on me if he could possibly help it.\n\nAt that time it was customary to carry Convicts down to the dock-yards\nby stage-coach. As I had often heard of them in the capacity of outside\npassengers, and had more than once seen them on the high road dangling\ntheir ironed legs over the coach roof, I had no cause to be surprised\nwhen Herbert, meeting me in the yard, came up and told me there were two\nconvicts going down with me. But I had a reason that was an old reason\nnow for constitutionally faltering whenever I heard the word \"convict.\"\n\n\"You don't mind them, Handel?\" said Herbert.\n\n\"O no!\"\n\n\"I thought you seemed as if you didn't like them?\"\n\n\"I can't pretend that I do like them, and I suppose you don't\nparticularly. But I don't mind them.\"\n\n\"See! There they are,\" said Herbert, \"coming out of the Tap. What a\ndegraded and vile sight it is!\"\n\nThey had been treating their guard, I suppose, for they had a gaoler\nwith them, and all three came out wiping their mouths on their hands.\nThe two convicts were handcuffed together, and had irons on their\nlegs,--irons of a pattern that I knew well. They wore the dress that I\nlikewise knew well. Their keeper had a brace of pistols, and carried\na thick-knobbed bludgeon under his arm; but he was on terms of good\nunderstanding with them, and stood with them beside him, looking on at\nthe putting-to of the horses, rather with an air as if the convicts were\nan interesting Exhibition not formally open at the moment, and he the\nCurator. One was a taller and stouter man than the other, and appeared\nas a matter of course, according to the mysterious ways of the world,\nboth convict and free, to have had allotted to him the smaller suit of\nclothes. His arms and legs were like great pincushions of those shapes,\nand his attire disguised him absurdly; but I knew his half-closed eye\nat one glance. There stood the man whom I had seen on the settle at the\nThree Jolly Bargemen on a Saturday night, and who had brought me down\nwith his invisible gun!\n\nIt was easy to make sure that as yet he knew me no more than if he had\nnever seen me in his life. He looked across at me, and his eye appraised\nmy watch-chain, and then he incidentally spat and said something to the\nother convict, and they laughed and slued themselves round with a clink\nof their coupling manacle, and looked at something else. The great\nnumbers on their backs, as if they were street doors; their coarse mangy\nungainly outer surface, as if they were lower animals; their ironed\nlegs, apologetically garlanded with pocket-handkerchiefs; and the way\nin which all present looked at them and kept from them; made them (as\nHerbert had said) a most disagreeable and degraded spectacle.\n\nBut this was not the worst of it. It came out that the whole of the back\nof the coach had been taken by a family removing from London, and that\nthere were no places for the two prisoners but on the seat in front\nbehind the coachman. Hereupon, a choleric gentleman, who had taken the\nfourth place on that seat, flew into a most violent passion, and said\nthat it was a breach of contract to mix him up with such villainous\ncompany, and that it was poisonous, and pernicious, and infamous, and\nshameful, and I don't know what else. At this time the coach was ready\nand the coachman impatient, and we were all preparing to get up, and\nthe prisoners had come over with their keeper,--bringing with them that\ncurious flavor of bread-poultice, baize, rope-yarn, and hearthstone,\nwhich attends the convict presence.\n\n\"Don't take it so much amiss, sir,\" pleaded the keeper to the angry\npassenger; \"I'll sit next you myself. I'll put 'em on the outside of\nthe row. They won't interfere with you, sir. You needn't know they're\nthere.\"\n\n\"And don't blame me,\" growled the convict I had recognized. \"I don't\nwant to go. I am quite ready to stay behind. As fur as I am concerned\nany one's welcome to my place.\"\n\n\"Or mine,\" said the other, gruffly. \"I wouldn't have incommoded none\nof you, if I'd had my way.\" Then they both laughed, and began cracking\nnuts, and spitting the shells about.--As I really think I should have\nliked to do myself, if I had been in their place and so despised.\n\nAt length, it was voted that there was no help for the angry gentleman,\nand that he must either go in his chance company or remain behind. So he\ngot into his place, still making complaints, and the keeper got into the\nplace next him, and the convicts hauled themselves up as well as they\ncould, and the convict I had recognized sat behind me with his breath on\nthe hair of my head.\n\n\"Good-bye, Handel!\" Herbert called out as we started. I thought what a\nblessed fortune it was, that he had found another name for me than Pip.\n\nIt is impossible to express with what acuteness I felt the convict's\nbreathing, not only on the back of my head, but all along my spine. The\nsensation was like being touched in the marrow with some pungent and\nsearching acid, it set my very teeth on edge. He seemed to have more\nbreathing business to do than another man, and to make more noise in\ndoing it; and I was conscious of growing high-shouldered on one side, in\nmy shrinking endeavors to fend him off.\n\nThe weather was miserably raw, and the two cursed the cold. It made us\nall lethargic before we had gone far, and when we had left the Half-way\nHouse behind, we habitually dozed and shivered and were silent. I dozed\noff, myself, in considering the question whether I ought to restore a\ncouple of pounds sterling to this creature before losing sight of him,\nand how it could best be done. In the act of dipping forward as if I\nwere going to bathe among the horses, I woke in a fright and took the\nquestion up again.\n\nBut I must have lost it longer than I had thought, since, although\nI could recognize nothing in the darkness and the fitful lights and\nshadows of our lamps, I traced marsh country in the cold damp wind that\nblew at us. Cowering forward for warmth and to make me a screen against\nthe wind, the convicts were closer to me than before. The very first\nwords I heard them interchange as I became conscious, were the words of\nmy own thought, \"Two One Pound notes.\"\n\n\"How did he get 'em?\" said the convict I had never seen.\n\n\"How should I know?\" returned the other. \"He had 'em stowed away\nsomehows. Giv him by friends, I expect.\"\n\n\"I wish,\" said the other, with a bitter curse upon the cold, \"that I had\n'em here.\"\n\n\"Two one pound notes, or friends?\"\n\n\"Two one pound notes. I'd sell all the friends I ever had for one, and\nthink it a blessed good bargain. Well? So he says--?\"\n\n\"So he says,\" resumed the convict I had recognized,--\"it was all\nsaid and done in half a minute, behind a pile of timber in the\nDock-yard,--'You're a going to be discharged?' Yes, I was. Would I find\nout that boy that had fed him and kep his secret, and give him them two\none pound notes? Yes, I would. And I did.\"\n\n\"More fool you,\" growled the other. \"I'd have spent 'em on a Man, in\nwittles and drink. He must have been a green one. Mean to say he knowed\nnothing of you?\"\n\n\"Not a ha'porth. Different gangs and different ships. He was tried again\nfor prison breaking, and got made a Lifer.\"\n\n\"And was that--Honor!--the only time you worked out, in this part of the\ncountry?\"\n\n\"The only time.\"\n\n\"What might have been your opinion of the place?\"\n\n\"A most beastly place. Mudbank, mist, swamp, and work; work, swamp,\nmist, and mudbank.\"\n\nThey both execrated the place in very strong language, and gradually\ngrowled themselves out, and had nothing left to say.\n\nAfter overhearing this dialogue, I should assuredly have got down and\nbeen left in the solitude and darkness of the highway, but for feeling\ncertain that the man had no suspicion of my identity. Indeed, I was not\nonly so changed in the course of nature, but so differently dressed and\nso differently circumstanced, that it was not at all likely he could\nhave known me without accidental help. Still, the coincidence of our\nbeing together on the coach, was sufficiently strange to fill me with a\ndread that some other coincidence might at any moment connect me, in his\nhearing, with my name. For this reason, I resolved to alight as soon as\nwe touched the town, and put myself out of his hearing. This device I\nexecuted successfully. My little portmanteau was in the boot under my\nfeet; I had but to turn a hinge to get it out; I threw it down before\nme, got down after it, and was left at the first lamp on the first\nstones of the town pavement. As to the convicts, they went their way\nwith the coach, and I knew at what point they would be spirited off to\nthe river. In my fancy, I saw the boat with its convict crew waiting for\nthem at the slime-washed stairs,--again heard the gruff \"Give way, you!\"\nlike and order to dogs,--again saw the wicked Noah's Ark lying out on\nthe black water.\n\nI could not have said what I was afraid of, for my fear was altogether\nundefined and vague, but there was great fear upon me. As I walked on to\nthe hotel, I felt that a dread, much exceeding the mere apprehension of\na painful or disagreeable recognition, made me tremble. I am confident\nthat it took no distinctness of shape, and that it was the revival for a\nfew minutes of the terror of childhood.\n\nThe coffee-room at the Blue Boar was empty, and I had not only ordered\nmy dinner there, but had sat down to it, before the waiter knew me. As\nsoon as he had apologized for the remissness of his memory, he asked me\nif he should send Boots for Mr. Pumblechook?\n\n\"No,\" said I, \"certainly not.\"\n\nThe waiter (it was he who had brought up the Great Remonstrance from the\nCommercials, on the day when I was bound) appeared surprised, and\ntook the earliest opportunity of putting a dirty old copy of a local\nnewspaper so directly in my way, that I took it up and read this\nparagraph:--\n\nOur readers will learn, not altogether without interest, in reference to\nthe recent romantic rise in fortune of a young artificer in iron of this\nneighborhood (what a theme, by the way, for the magic pen of our as yet\nnot universally acknowledged townsman TOOBY, the poet of our columns!)\nthat the youth's earliest patron, companion, and friend, was a highly\nrespected individual not entirely unconnected with the corn and seed\ntrade, and whose eminently convenient and commodious business premises\nare situate within a hundred miles of the High Street. It is not wholly\nirrespective of our personal feelings that we record HIM as the Mentor\nof our young Telemachus, for it is good to know that our town produced\nthe founder of the latter's fortunes. Does the thought-contracted brow\nof the local Sage or the lustrous eye of local Beauty inquire whose\nfortunes? We believe that Quintin Matsys was the BLACKSMITH of Antwerp.\nVERB. SAP.\n\nI entertain a conviction, based upon large experience, that if in the\ndays of my prosperity I had gone to the North Pole, I should have met\nsomebody there, wandering Esquimaux or civilized man, who would have\ntold me that Pumblechook was my earliest patron and the founder of my\nfortunes.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XXIX\n\nBetimes in the morning I was up and out. It was too early yet to go to\nMiss Havisham's, so I loitered into the country on Miss Havisham's\nside of town,--which was not Joe's side; I could go there\nto-morrow,--thinking about my patroness, and painting brilliant pictures\nof her plans for me.\n\nShe had adopted Estella, she had as good as adopted me, and it could not\nfail to be her intention to bring us together. She reserved it for me to\nrestore the desolate house, admit the sunshine into the dark rooms,\nset the clocks a-going and the cold hearths a-blazing, tear down the\ncobwebs, destroy the vermin,--in short, do all the shining deeds of the\nyoung Knight of romance, and marry the Princess. I had stopped to\nlook at the house as I passed; and its seared red brick walls, blocked\nwindows, and strong green ivy clasping even the stacks of chimneys with\nits twigs and tendons, as if with sinewy old arms, had made up a rich\nattractive mystery, of which I was the hero. Estella was the inspiration\nof it, and the heart of it, of course. But, though she had taken such\nstrong possession of me, though my fancy and my hope were so set upon\nher, though her influence on my boyish life and character had been\nall-powerful, I did not, even that romantic morning, invest her with any\nattributes save those she possessed. I mention this in this place, of a\nfixed purpose, because it is the clew by which I am to be followed into\nmy poor labyrinth. According to my experience, the conventional notion\nof a lover cannot be always true. The unqualified truth is, that when I\nloved Estella with the love of a man, I loved her simply because I found\nher irresistible. Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often,\nif not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against\npeace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that\ncould be. Once for all; I loved her none the less because I knew it,\nand it had no more influence in restraining me than if I had devoutly\nbelieved her to be human perfection.\n\nI so shaped out my walk as to arrive at the gate at my old time. When\nI had rung at the bell with an unsteady hand, I turned my back upon the\ngate, while I tried to get my breath and keep the beating of my heart\nmoderately quiet. I heard the side-door open, and steps come across the\ncourtyard; but I pretended not to hear, even when the gate swung on its\nrusty hinges.\n\nBeing at last touched on the shoulder, I started and turned. I started\nmuch more naturally then, to find myself confronted by a man in a sober\ngray dress. The last man I should have expected to see in that place of\nporter at Miss Havisham's door.\n\n\"Orlick!\"\n\n\"Ah, young master, there's more changes than yours. But come in, come\nin. It's opposed to my orders to hold the gate open.\"\n\nI entered and he swung it, and locked it, and took the key out. \"Yes!\"\nsaid he, facing round, after doggedly preceding me a few steps towards\nthe house. \"Here I am!\"\n\n\"How did you come here?\"\n\n\"I come her,\" he retorted, \"on my legs. I had my box brought alongside\nme in a barrow.\"\n\n\"Are you here for good?\"\n\n\"I ain't here for harm, young master, I suppose?\"\n\nI was not so sure of that. I had leisure to entertain the retort in my\nmind, while he slowly lifted his heavy glance from the pavement, up my\nlegs and arms, to my face.\n\n\"Then you have left the forge?\" I said.\n\n\"Do this look like a forge?\" replied Orlick, sending his glance all\nround him with an air of injury. \"Now, do it look like it?\"\n\nI asked him how long he had left Gargery's forge?\n\n\"One day is so like another here,\" he replied, \"that I don't know\nwithout casting it up. However, I come here some time since you left.\"\n\n\"I could have told you that, Orlick.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said he, dryly. \"But then you've got to be a scholar.\"\n\nBy this time we had come to the house, where I found his room to be one\njust within the side-door, with a little window in it looking on the\ncourtyard. In its small proportions, it was not unlike the kind of place\nusually assigned to a gate-porter in Paris. Certain keys were hanging on\nthe wall, to which he now added the gate key; and his patchwork-covered\nbed was in a little inner division or recess. The whole had a slovenly,\nconfined, and sleepy look, like a cage for a human dormouse; while he,\nlooming dark and heavy in the shadow of a corner by the window, looked\nlike the human dormouse for whom it was fitted up,--as indeed he was.\n\n\"I never saw this room before,\" I remarked; \"but there used to be no\nPorter here.\"\n\n\"No,\" said he; \"not till it got about that there was no protection on\nthe premises, and it come to be considered dangerous, with convicts and\nTag and Rag and Bobtail going up and down. And then I was recommended to\nthe place as a man who could give another man as good as he brought, and\nI took it. It's easier than bellowsing and hammering.--That's loaded,\nthat is.\"\n\nMy eye had been caught by a gun with a brass-bound stock over the\nchimney-piece, and his eye had followed mine.\n\n\"Well,\" said I, not desirous of more conversation, \"shall I go up to\nMiss Havisham?\"\n\n\"Burn me, if I know!\" he retorted, first stretching himself and then\nshaking himself; \"my orders ends here, young master. I give this here\nbell a rap with this here hammer, and you go on along the passage till\nyou meet somebody.\"\n\n\"I am expected, I believe?\"\n\n\"Burn me twice over, if I can say!\" said he.\n\nUpon that, I turned down the long passage which I had first trodden in\nmy thick boots, and he made his bell sound. At the end of the passage,\nwhile the bell was still reverberating, I found Sarah Pocket, who\nappeared to have now become constitutionally green and yellow by reason\nof me.\n\n\"Oh!\" said she. \"You, is it, Mr. Pip?\"\n\n\"It is, Miss Pocket. I am glad to tell you that Mr. Pocket and family\nare all well.\"\n\n\"Are they any wiser?\" said Sarah, with a dismal shake of the head; \"they\nhad better be wiser, than well. Ah, Matthew, Matthew! You know your way,\nsir?\"\n\nTolerably, for I had gone up the staircase in the dark, many a time. I\nascended it now, in lighter boots than of yore, and tapped in my old\nway at the door of Miss Havisham's room. \"Pip's rap,\" I heard her say,\nimmediately; \"come in, Pip.\"\n\nShe was in her chair near the old table, in the old dress, with her two\nhands crossed on her stick, her chin resting on them, and her eyes on\nthe fire. Sitting near her, with the white shoe, that had never been\nworn, in her hand, and her head bent as she looked at it, was an elegant\nlady whom I had never seen.\n\n\"Come in, Pip,\" Miss Havisham continued to mutter, without looking round\nor up; \"come in, Pip, how do you do, Pip? so you kiss my hand as if I\nwere a queen, eh?--Well?\"\n\nShe looked up at me suddenly, only moving her eyes, and repeated in a\ngrimly playful manner,--\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"I heard, Miss Havisham,\" said I, rather at a loss, \"that you were so\nkind as to wish me to come and see you, and I came directly.\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\nThe lady whom I had never seen before, lifted up her eyes and looked\narchly at me, and then I saw that the eyes were Estella's eyes. But she\nwas so much changed, was so much more beautiful, so much more womanly,\nin all things winning admiration, had made such wonderful advance,\nthat I seemed to have made none. I fancied, as I looked at her, that\nI slipped hopelessly back into the coarse and common boy again. O\nthe sense of distance and disparity that came upon me, and the\ninaccessibility that came about her!\n\nShe gave me her hand. I stammered something about the pleasure I felt in\nseeing her again, and about my having looked forward to it, for a long,\nlong time.\n\n\"Do you find her much changed, Pip?\" asked Miss Havisham, with her\ngreedy look, and striking her stick upon a chair that stood between\nthem, as a sign to me to sit down there.\n\n\"When I came in, Miss Havisham, I thought there was nothing of Estella\nin the face or figure; but now it all settles down so curiously into the\nold--\"\n\n\"What? You are not going to say into the old Estella?\" Miss Havisham\ninterrupted. \"She was proud and insulting, and you wanted to go away\nfrom her. Don't you remember?\"\n\nI said confusedly that that was long ago, and that I knew no better\nthen, and the like. Estella smiled with perfect composure, and said she\nhad no doubt of my having been quite right, and of her having been very\ndisagreeable.\n\n\"Is he changed?\" Miss Havisham asked her.\n\n\"Very much,\" said Estella, looking at me.\n\n\"Less coarse and common?\" said Miss Havisham, playing with Estella's\nhair.\n\nEstella laughed, and looked at the shoe in her hand, and laughed again,\nand looked at me, and put the shoe down. She treated me as a boy still,\nbut she lured me on.\n\nWe sat in the dreamy room among the old strange influences which had\nso wrought upon me, and I learnt that she had but just come home from\nFrance, and that she was going to London. Proud and wilful as of old,\nshe had brought those qualities into such subjection to her beauty that\nit was impossible and out of nature--or I thought so--to separate them\nfrom her beauty. Truly it was impossible to dissociate her presence\nfrom all those wretched hankerings after money and gentility that had\ndisturbed my boyhood,--from all those ill-regulated aspirations that had\nfirst made me ashamed of home and Joe,--from all those visions that had\nraised her face in the glowing fire, struck it out of the iron on the\nanvil, extracted it from the darkness of night to look in at the wooden\nwindow of the forge, and flit away. In a word, it was impossible for me\nto separate her, in the past or in the present, from the innermost life\nof my life.\n\nIt was settled that I should stay there all the rest of the day, and\nreturn to the hotel at night, and to London to-morrow. When we had\nconversed for a while, Miss Havisham sent us two out to walk in the\nneglected garden: on our coming in by and by, she said, I should wheel\nher about a little, as in times of yore.\n\nSo, Estella and I went out into the garden by the gate through which I\nhad strayed to my encounter with the pale young gentleman, now Herbert;\nI, trembling in spirit and worshipping the very hem of her dress; she,\nquite composed and most decidedly not worshipping the hem of mine. As we\ndrew near to the place of encounter, she stopped and said,--\n\n\"I must have been a singular little creature to hide and see that fight\nthat day; but I did, and I enjoyed it very much.\"\n\n\"You rewarded me very much.\"\n\n\"Did I?\" she replied, in an incidental and forgetful way. \"I remember I\nentertained a great objection to your adversary, because I took it ill\nthat he should be brought here to pester me with his company.\"\n\n\"He and I are great friends now.\"\n\n\"Are you? I think I recollect though, that you read with his father?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nI made the admission with reluctance, for it seemed to have a boyish\nlook, and she already treated me more than enough like a boy.\n\n\"Since your change of fortune and prospects, you have changed your\ncompanions,\" said Estella.\n\n\"Naturally,\" said I.\n\n\"And necessarily,\" she added, in a haughty tone; \"what was fit company\nfor you once, would be quite unfit company for you now.\"\n\nIn my conscience, I doubt very much whether I had any lingering\nintention left of going to see Joe; but if I had, this observation put\nit to flight.\n\n\"You had no idea of your impending good fortune, in those times?\" said\nEstella, with a slight wave of her hand, signifying in the fighting\ntimes.\n\n\"Not the least.\"\n\nThe air of completeness and superiority with which she walked at my\nside, and the air of youthfulness and submission with which I walked at\nhers, made a contrast that I strongly felt. It would have rankled in me\nmore than it did, if I had not regarded myself as eliciting it by being\nso set apart for her and assigned to her.\n\nThe garden was too overgrown and rank for walking in with ease, and\nafter we had made the round of it twice or thrice, we came out again\ninto the brewery yard. I showed her to a nicety where I had seen her\nwalking on the casks, that first old day, and she said, with a cold and\ncareless look in that direction, \"Did I?\" I reminded her where she had\ncome out of the house and given me my meat and drink, and she said, \"I\ndon't remember.\" \"Not remember that you made me cry?\" said I. \"No,\" said\nshe, and shook her head and looked about her. I verily believe that\nher not remembering and not minding in the least, made me cry again,\ninwardly,--and that is the sharpest crying of all.\n\n\"You must know,\" said Estella, condescending to me as a brilliant and\nbeautiful woman might, \"that I have no heart,--if that has anything to\ndo with my memory.\"\n\nI got through some jargon to the effect that I took the liberty of\ndoubting that. That I knew better. That there could be no such beauty\nwithout it.\n\n\"Oh! I have a heart to be stabbed in or shot in, I have no doubt,\" said\nEstella, \"and of course if it ceased to beat I should cease\nto be. But you know what I mean. I have no softness there,\nno--sympathy--sentiment--nonsense.\"\n\nWhat was it that was borne in upon my mind when she stood still and\nlooked attentively at me? Anything that I had seen in Miss Havisham? No.\nIn some of her looks and gestures there was that tinge of resemblance\nto Miss Havisham which may often be noticed to have been acquired by\nchildren, from grown person with whom they have been much associated and\nsecluded, and which, when childhood is passed, will produce a remarkable\noccasional likeness of expression between faces that are otherwise quite\ndifferent. And yet I could not trace this to Miss Havisham. I looked\nagain, and though she was still looking at me, the suggestion was gone.\n\nWhat was it?\n\n\"I am serious,\" said Estella, not so much with a frown (for her brow was\nsmooth) as with a darkening of her face; \"if we are to be thrown much\ntogether, you had better believe it at once. No!\" imperiously stopping\nme as I opened my lips. \"I have not bestowed my tenderness anywhere. I\nhave never had any such thing.\"\n\nIn another moment we were in the brewery, so long disused, and she\npointed to the high gallery where I had seen her going out on that same\nfirst day, and told me she remembered to have been up there, and to have\nseen me standing scared below. As my eyes followed her white hand, again\nthe same dim suggestion that I could not possibly grasp crossed me. My\ninvoluntary start occasioned her to lay her hand upon my arm. Instantly\nthe ghost passed once more and was gone.\n\nWhat was it?\n\n\"What is the matter?\" asked Estella. \"Are you scared again?\"\n\n\"I should be, if I believed what you said just now,\" I replied, to turn\nit off.\n\n\"Then you don't? Very well. It is said, at any rate. Miss Havisham will\nsoon be expecting you at your old post, though I think that might be\nlaid aside now, with other old belongings. Let us make one more round\nof the garden, and then go in. Come! You shall not shed tears for my\ncruelty to-day; you shall be my Page, and give me your shoulder.\"\n\nHer handsome dress had trailed upon the ground. She held it in one hand\nnow, and with the other lightly touched my shoulder as we walked. We\nwalked round the ruined garden twice or thrice more, and it was all in\nbloom for me. If the green and yellow growth of weed in the chinks of\nthe old wall had been the most precious flowers that ever blew, it could\nnot have been more cherished in my remembrance.\n\nThere was no discrepancy of years between us to remove her far from me;\nwe were of nearly the same age, though of course the age told for more\nin her case than in mine; but the air of inaccessibility which her\nbeauty and her manner gave her, tormented me in the midst of my delight,\nand at the height of the assurance I felt that our patroness had chosen\nus for one another. Wretched boy!\n\nAt last we went back into the house, and there I heard, with surprise,\nthat my guardian had come down to see Miss Havisham on business, and\nwould come back to dinner. The old wintry branches of chandeliers in\nthe room where the mouldering table was spread had been lighted while we\nwere out, and Miss Havisham was in her chair and waiting for me.\n\nIt was like pushing the chair itself back into the past, when we began\nthe old slow circuit round about the ashes of the bridal feast. But,\nin the funereal room, with that figure of the grave fallen back in the\nchair fixing its eyes upon her, Estella looked more bright and beautiful\nthan before, and I was under stronger enchantment.\n\nThe time so melted away, that our early dinner-hour drew close at hand,\nand Estella left us to prepare herself. We had stopped near the centre\nof the long table, and Miss Havisham, with one of her withered arms\nstretched out of the chair, rested that clenched hand upon the yellow\ncloth. As Estella looked back over her shoulder before going out at the\ndoor, Miss Havisham kissed that hand to her, with a ravenous intensity\nthat was of its kind quite dreadful.\n\nThen, Estella being gone and we two left alone, she turned to me, and\nsaid in a whisper,--\n\n\"Is she beautiful, graceful, well-grown? Do you admire her?\"\n\n\"Everybody must who sees her, Miss Havisham.\"\n\nShe drew an arm round my neck, and drew my head close down to hers as\nshe sat in the chair. \"Love her, love her, love her! How does she use\nyou?\"\n\nBefore I could answer (if I could have answered so difficult a question\nat all) she repeated, \"Love her, love her, love her! If she favors\nyou, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to\npieces,--and as it gets older and stronger it will tear deeper,--love\nher, love her, love her!\"\n\nNever had I seen such passionate eagerness as was joined to her\nutterance of these words. I could feel the muscles of the thin arm round\nmy neck swell with the vehemence that possessed her.\n\n\"Hear me, Pip! I adopted her, to be loved. I bred her and educated her,\nto be loved. I developed her into what she is, that she might be loved.\nLove her!\"\n\nShe said the word often enough, and there could be no doubt that she\nmeant to say it; but if the often repeated word had been hate instead of\nlove--despair--revenge--dire death--it could not have sounded from her\nlips more like a curse.\n\n\"I'll tell you,\" said she, in the same hurried passionate whisper, \"what\nreal love is. It is blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation,\nutter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the\nwhole world, giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter--as I\ndid!\"\n\nWhen she came to that, and to a wild cry that followed that, I caught\nher round the waist. For she rose up in the chair, in her shroud of a\ndress, and struck at the air as if she would as soon have struck herself\nagainst the wall and fallen dead.\n\nAll this passed in a few seconds. As I drew her down into her chair, I\nwas conscious of a scent that I knew, and turning, saw my guardian in\nthe room.\n\nHe always carried (I have not yet mentioned it, I think) a\npocket-handkerchief of rich silk and of imposing proportions, which was\nof great value to him in his profession. I have seen him so terrify a\nclient or a witness by ceremoniously unfolding this pocket-handkerchief\nas if he were immediately going to blow his nose, and then pausing,\nas if he knew he should not have time to do it before such client\nor witness committed himself, that the self-committal has followed\ndirectly, quite as a matter of course. When I saw him in the room he had\nthis expressive pocket-handkerchief in both hands, and was looking at\nus. On meeting my eye, he said plainly, by a momentary and silent pause\nin that attitude, \"Indeed? Singular!\" and then put the handkerchief to\nits right use with wonderful effect.\n\nMiss Havisham had seen him as soon as I, and was (like everybody\nelse) afraid of him. She made a strong attempt to compose herself, and\nstammered that he was as punctual as ever.\n\n\"As punctual as ever,\" he repeated, coming up to us. \"(How do you do,\nPip? Shall I give you a ride, Miss Havisham? Once round?) And so you are\nhere, Pip?\"\n\nI told him when I had arrived, and how Miss Havisham had wished me to\ncome and see Estella. To which he replied, \"Ah! Very fine young lady!\"\nThen he pushed Miss Havisham in her chair before him, with one of his\nlarge hands, and put the other in his trousers-pocket as if the pocket\nwere full of secrets.\n\n\"Well, Pip! How often have you seen Miss Estella before?\" said he, when\nhe came to a stop.\n\n\"How often?\"\n\n\"Ah! How many times? Ten thousand times?\"\n\n\"Oh! Certainly not so many.\"\n\n\"Twice?\"\n\n\"Jaggers,\" interposed Miss Havisham, much to my relief, \"leave my Pip\nalone, and go with him to your dinner.\"\n\nHe complied, and we groped our way down the dark stairs together. While\nwe were still on our way to those detached apartments across the paved\nyard at the back, he asked me how often I had seen Miss Havisham eat\nand drink; offering me a breadth of choice, as usual, between a hundred\ntimes and once.\n\nI considered, and said, \"Never.\"\n\n\"And never will, Pip,\" he retorted, with a frowning smile. \"She has\nnever allowed herself to be seen doing either, since she lived this\npresent life of hers. She wanders about in the night, and then lays\nhands on such food as she takes.\"\n\n\"Pray, sir,\" said I, \"may I ask you a question?\"\n\n\"You may,\" said he, \"and I may decline to answer it. Put your question.\"\n\n\"Estella's name. Is it Havisham or--?\" I had nothing to add.\n\n\"Or what?\" said he.\n\n\"Is it Havisham?\"\n\n\"It is Havisham.\"\n\nThis brought us to the dinner-table, where she and Sarah Pocket awaited\nus. Mr. Jaggers presided, Estella sat opposite to him, I faced my\ngreen and yellow friend. We dined very well, and were waited on by a\nmaid-servant whom I had never seen in all my comings and goings, but\nwho, for anything I know, had been in that mysterious house the whole\ntime. After dinner a bottle of choice old port was placed before my\nguardian (he was evidently well acquainted with the vintage), and the\ntwo ladies left us.\n\nAnything to equal the determined reticence of Mr. Jaggers under that\nroof I never saw elsewhere, even in him. He kept his very looks to\nhimself, and scarcely directed his eyes to Estella's face once during\ndinner. When she spoke to him, he listened, and in due course answered,\nbut never looked at her, that I could see. On the other hand, she often\nlooked at him, with interest and curiosity, if not distrust, but his\nface never showed the least consciousness. Throughout dinner he took\na dry delight in making Sarah Pocket greener and yellower, by often\nreferring in conversation with me to my expectations; but here,\nagain, he showed no consciousness, and even made it appear that he\nextorted--and even did extort, though I don't know how--those references\nout of my innocent self.\n\nAnd when he and I were left alone together, he sat with an air upon him\nof general lying by in consequence of information he possessed, that\nreally was too much for me. He cross-examined his very wine when he had\nnothing else in hand. He held it between himself and the candle, tasted\nthe port, rolled it in his mouth, swallowed it, looked at his\nglass again, smelt the port, tried it, drank it, filled again, and\ncross-examined the glass again, until I was as nervous as if I had known\nthe wine to be telling him something to my disadvantage. Three or four\ntimes I feebly thought I would start conversation; but whenever he saw\nme going to ask him anything, he looked at me with his glass in his\nhand, and rolling his wine about in his mouth, as if requesting me to\ntake notice that it was of no use, for he couldn't answer.\n\nI think Miss Pocket was conscious that the sight of me involved her\nin the danger of being goaded to madness, and perhaps tearing off her\ncap,--which was a very hideous one, in the nature of a muslin mop,--and\nstrewing the ground with her hair,--which assuredly had never grown\non her head. She did not appear when we afterwards went up to Miss\nHavisham's room, and we four played at whist. In the interval, Miss\nHavisham, in a fantastic way, had put some of the most beautiful jewels\nfrom her dressing-table into Estella's hair, and about her bosom and\narms; and I saw even my guardian look at her from under his thick\neyebrows, and raise them a little, when her loveliness was before him,\nwith those rich flushes of glitter and color in it.\n\nOf the manner and extent to which he took our trumps into custody, and\ncame out with mean little cards at the ends of hands, before which the\nglory of our Kings and Queens was utterly abased, I say nothing; nor, of\nthe feeling that I had, respecting his looking upon us personally in the\nlight of three very obvious and poor riddles that he had found out long\nago. What I suffered from, was the incompatibility between his cold\npresence and my feelings towards Estella. It was not that I knew I could\nnever bear to speak to him about her, that I knew I could never bear to\nhear him creak his boots at her, that I knew I could never bear to see\nhim wash his hands of her; it was, that my admiration should be within\na foot or two of him,--it was, that my feelings should be in the same\nplace with him,--that, was the agonizing circumstance.\n\nWe played until nine o'clock, and then it was arranged that when Estella\ncame to London I should be forewarned of her coming and should meet her\nat the coach; and then I took leave of her, and touched her and left\nher.\n\nMy guardian lay at the Boar in the next room to mine. Far into the\nnight, Miss Havisham's words, \"Love her, love her, love her!\" sounded in\nmy ears. I adapted them for my own repetition, and said to my pillow, \"I\nlove her, I love her, I love her!\" hundreds of times. Then, a burst of\ngratitude came upon me, that she should be destined for me, once the\nblacksmith's boy. Then I thought if she were, as I feared, by no means\nrapturously grateful for that destiny yet, when would she begin to be\ninterested in me? When should I awaken the heart within her that was\nmute and sleeping now?\n\nAh me! I thought those were high and great emotions. But I never thought\nthere was anything low and small in my keeping away from Joe, because\nI knew she would be contemptuous of him. It was but a day gone, and Joe\nhad brought the tears into my eyes; they had soon dried, God forgive me!\nsoon dried.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XXX\n\nAfter well considering the matter while I was dressing at the Blue Boar\nin the morning, I resolved to tell my guardian that I doubted Orlick's\nbeing the right sort of man to fill a post of trust at Miss Havisham's.\n\"Why of course he is not the right sort of man, Pip,\" said my guardian,\ncomfortably satisfied beforehand on the general head, \"because the man\nwho fills the post of trust never is the right sort of man.\" It seemed\nquite to put him into spirits to find that this particular post was\nnot exceptionally held by the right sort of man, and he listened in a\nsatisfied manner while I told him what knowledge I had of Orlick. \"Very\ngood, Pip,\" he observed, when I had concluded, \"I'll go round presently,\nand pay our friend off.\" Rather alarmed by this summary action, I was\nfor a little delay, and even hinted that our friend himself might be\ndifficult to deal with. \"Oh no he won't,\" said my guardian, making his\npocket-handkerchief-point, with perfect confidence; \"I should like to\nsee him argue the question with me.\"\n\nAs we were going back together to London by the midday coach, and as I\nbreakfasted under such terrors of Pumblechook that I could scarcely hold\nmy cup, this gave me an opportunity of saying that I wanted a walk, and\nthat I would go on along the London road while Mr. Jaggers was occupied,\nif he would let the coachman know that I would get into my place when\novertaken. I was thus enabled to fly from the Blue Boar immediately\nafter breakfast. By then making a loop of about a couple of miles into\nthe open country at the back of Pumblechook's premises, I got round into\nthe High Street again, a little beyond that pitfall, and felt myself in\ncomparative security.\n\nIt was interesting to be in the quiet old town once more, and it was not\ndisagreeable to be here and there suddenly recognized and stared after.\nOne or two of the tradespeople even darted out of their shops and went\na little way down the street before me, that they might turn, as if they\nhad forgotten something, and pass me face to face,--on which occasions I\ndon't know whether they or I made the worse pretence; they of not doing\nit, or I of not seeing it. Still my position was a distinguished one,\nand I was not at all dissatisfied with it, until Fate threw me in the\nway of that unlimited miscreant, Trabb's boy.\n\nCasting my eyes along the street at a certain point of my progress, I\nbeheld Trabb's boy approaching, lashing himself with an empty blue bag.\nDeeming that a serene and unconscious contemplation of him would best\nbeseem me, and would be most likely to quell his evil mind, I advanced\nwith that expression of countenance, and was rather congratulating\nmyself on my success, when suddenly the knees of Trabb's boy smote\ntogether, his hair uprose, his cap fell off, he trembled violently in\nevery limb, staggered out into the road, and crying to the populace,\n\"Hold me! I'm so frightened!\" feigned to be in a paroxysm of terror and\ncontrition, occasioned by the dignity of my appearance. As I passed him,\nhis teeth loudly chattered in his head, and with every mark of extreme\nhumiliation, he prostrated himself in the dust.\n\nThis was a hard thing to bear, but this was nothing. I had not advanced\nanother two hundred yards when, to my inexpressible terror, amazement,\nand indignation, I again beheld Trabb's boy approaching. He was coming\nround a narrow corner. His blue bag was slung over his shoulder, honest\nindustry beamed in his eyes, a determination to proceed to Trabb's with\ncheerful briskness was indicated in his gait. With a shock he became\naware of me, and was severely visited as before; but this time his\nmotion was rotatory, and he staggered round and round me with knees\nmore afflicted, and with uplifted hands as if beseeching for mercy. His\nsufferings were hailed with the greatest joy by a knot of spectators,\nand I felt utterly confounded.\n\nI had not got as much further down the street as the post-office, when I\nagain beheld Trabb's boy shooting round by a back way. This time, he was\nentirely changed. He wore the blue bag in the manner of my great-coat,\nand was strutting along the pavement towards me on the opposite side of\nthe street, attended by a company of delighted young friends to whom he\nfrom time to time exclaimed, with a wave of his hand, \"Don't know yah!\"\nWords cannot state the amount of aggravation and injury wreaked upon\nme by Trabb's boy, when passing abreast of me, he pulled up his\nshirt-collar, twined his side-hair, stuck an arm akimbo, and smirked\nextravagantly by, wriggling his elbows and body, and drawling to his\nattendants, \"Don't know yah, don't know yah, 'pon my soul don't know\nyah!\" The disgrace attendant on his immediately afterwards taking\nto crowing and pursuing me across the bridge with crows, as from an\nexceedingly dejected fowl who had known me when I was a blacksmith,\nculminated the disgrace with which I left the town, and was, so to\nspeak, ejected by it into the open country.\n\nBut unless I had taken the life of Trabb's boy on that occasion, I\nreally do not even now see what I could have done save endure. To\nhave struggled with him in the street, or to have exacted any lower\nrecompense from him than his heart's best blood, would have been\nfutile and degrading. Moreover, he was a boy whom no man could hurt; an\ninvulnerable and dodging serpent who, when chased into a corner, flew\nout again between his captor's legs, scornfully yelping. I wrote,\nhowever, to Mr. Trabb by next day's post, to say that Mr. Pip must\ndecline to deal further with one who could so far forget what he owed to\nthe best interests of society, as to employ a boy who excited Loathing\nin every respectable mind.\n\nThe coach, with Mr. Jaggers inside, came up in due time, and I took my\nbox-seat again, and arrived in London safe,--but not sound, for my heart\nwas gone. As soon as I arrived, I sent a penitential codfish and barrel\nof oysters to Joe (as reparation for not having gone myself), and then\nwent on to Barnard's Inn.\n\nI found Herbert dining on cold meat, and delighted to welcome me back.\nHaving despatched The Avenger to the coffee-house for an addition to the\ndinner, I felt that I must open my breast that very evening to my friend\nand chum. As confidence was out of the question with The Avenger in the\nhall, which could merely be regarded in the light of an antechamber to\nthe keyhole, I sent him to the Play. A better proof of the severity\nof my bondage to that taskmaster could scarcely be afforded, than\nthe degrading shifts to which I was constantly driven to find him\nemployment. So mean is extremity, that I sometimes sent him to Hyde Park\ncorner to see what o'clock it was.\n\nDinner done and we sitting with our feet upon the fender, I said to\nHerbert, \"My dear Herbert, I have something very particular to tell\nyou.\"\n\n\"My dear Handel,\" he returned, \"I shall esteem and respect your\nconfidence.\"\n\n\"It concerns myself, Herbert,\" said I, \"and one other person.\"\n\nHerbert crossed his feet, looked at the fire with his head on one side,\nand having looked at it in vain for some time, looked at me because I\ndidn't go on.\n\n\"Herbert,\" said I, laying my hand upon his knee, \"I love--I\nadore--Estella.\"\n\nInstead of being transfixed, Herbert replied in an easy matter-of-course\nway, \"Exactly. Well?\"\n\n\"Well, Herbert? Is that all you say? Well?\"\n\n\"What next, I mean?\" said Herbert. \"Of course I know that.\"\n\n\"How do you know it?\" said I.\n\n\"How do I know it, Handel? Why, from you.\"\n\n\"I never told you.\"\n\n\"Told me! You have never told me when you have got your hair cut, but I\nhave had senses to perceive it. You have always adored her, ever since\nI have known you. You brought your adoration and your portmanteau here\ntogether. Told me! Why, you have always told me all day long. When you\ntold me your own story, you told me plainly that you began adoring her\nthe first time you saw her, when you were very young indeed.\"\n\n\"Very well, then,\" said I, to whom this was a new and not unwelcome\nlight, \"I have never left off adoring her. And she has come back, a most\nbeautiful and most elegant creature. And I saw her yesterday. And if I\nadored her before, I now doubly adore her.\"\n\n\"Lucky for you then, Handel,\" said Herbert, \"that you are picked out for\nher and allotted to her. Without encroaching on forbidden ground, we\nmay venture to say that there can be no doubt between ourselves of\nthat fact. Have you any idea yet, of Estella's views on the adoration\nquestion?\"\n\nI shook my head gloomily. \"Oh! She is thousands of miles away, from me,\"\nsaid I.\n\n\"Patience, my dear Handel: time enough, time enough. But you have\nsomething more to say?\"\n\n\"I am ashamed to say it,\" I returned, \"and yet it's no worse to say it\nthan to think it. You call me a lucky fellow. Of course, I am. I was a\nblacksmith's boy but yesterday; I am--what shall I say I am--to-day?\"\n\n\"Say a good fellow, if you want a phrase,\" returned Herbert, smiling,\nand clapping his hand on the back of mine--\"a good fellow, with\nimpetuosity and hesitation, boldness and diffidence, action and\ndreaming, curiously mixed in him.\"\n\nI stopped for a moment to consider whether there really was this mixture\nin my character. On the whole, I by no means recognized the analysis,\nbut thought it not worth disputing.\n\n\"When I ask what I am to call myself to-day, Herbert,\" I went on, \"I\nsuggest what I have in my thoughts. You say I am lucky. I know I have\ndone nothing to raise myself in life, and that Fortune alone has raised\nme; that is being very lucky. And yet, when I think of Estella--\"\n\n(\"And when don't you, you know?\" Herbert threw in, with his eyes on the\nfire; which I thought kind and sympathetic of him.)\n\n\"--Then, my dear Herbert, I cannot tell you how dependent and uncertain\nI feel, and how exposed to hundreds of chances. Avoiding forbidden\nground, as you did just now, I may still say that on the constancy of\none person (naming no person) all my expectations depend. And at the\nbest, how indefinite and unsatisfactory, only to know so vaguely what\nthey are!\" In saying this, I relieved my mind of what had always been\nthere, more or less, though no doubt most since yesterday.\n\n\"Now, Handel,\" Herbert replied, in his gay, hopeful way, \"it seems to me\nthat in the despondency of the tender passion, we are looking into our\ngift-horse's mouth with a magnifying-glass. Likewise, it seems to me\nthat, concentrating our attention on the examination, we altogether\noverlook one of the best points of the animal. Didn't you tell me that\nyour guardian, Mr. Jaggers, told you in the beginning, that you were\nnot endowed with expectations only? And even if he had not told you\nso,--though that is a very large If, I grant,--could you believe that of\nall men in London, Mr. Jaggers is the man to hold his present relations\ntowards you unless he were sure of his ground?\"\n\nI said I could not deny that this was a strong point. I said it (people\noften do so, in such cases) like a rather reluctant concession to truth\nand justice;--as if I wanted to deny it!\n\n\"I should think it was a strong point,\" said Herbert, \"and I should\nthink you would be puzzled to imagine a stronger; as to the rest, you\nmust bide your guardian's time, and he must bide his client's time.\nYou'll be one-and-twenty before you know where you are, and then perhaps\nyou'll get some further enlightenment. At all events, you'll be nearer\ngetting it, for it must come at last.\"\n\n\"What a hopeful disposition you have!\" said I, gratefully admiring his\ncheery ways.\n\n\"I ought to have,\" said Herbert, \"for I have not much else. I must\nacknowledge, by the by, that the good sense of what I have just said is\nnot my own, but my father's. The only remark I ever heard him make on\nyour story, was the final one, \"The thing is settled and done, or Mr.\nJaggers would not be in it.\" And now before I say anything more about my\nfather, or my father's son, and repay confidence with confidence, I want\nto make myself seriously disagreeable to you for a moment,--positively\nrepulsive.\"\n\n\"You won't succeed,\" said I.\n\n\"O yes I shall!\" said he. \"One, two, three, and now I am in for it.\nHandel, my good fellow;\"--though he spoke in this light tone, he was\nvery much in earnest,--\"I have been thinking since we have been talking\nwith our feet on this fender, that Estella surely cannot be a condition\nof your inheritance, if she was never referred to by your guardian. Am\nI right in so understanding what you have told me, as that he never\nreferred to her, directly or indirectly, in any way? Never even hinted,\nfor instance, that your patron might have views as to your marriage\nultimately?\"\n\n\"Never.\"\n\n\"Now, Handel, I am quite free from the flavor of sour grapes, upon my\nsoul and honor! Not being bound to her, can you not detach yourself from\nher?--I told you I should be disagreeable.\"\n\nI turned my head aside, for, with a rush and a sweep, like the old marsh\nwinds coming up from the sea, a feeling like that which had subdued\nme on the morning when I left the forge, when the mists were solemnly\nrising, and when I laid my hand upon the village finger-post, smote upon\nmy heart again. There was silence between us for a little while.\n\n\"Yes; but my dear Handel,\" Herbert went on, as if we had been talking,\ninstead of silent, \"its having been so strongly rooted in the breast of\na boy whom nature and circumstances made so romantic, renders it very\nserious. Think of her bringing-up, and think of Miss Havisham. Think of\nwhat she is herself (now I am repulsive and you abominate me). This may\nlead to miserable things.\"\n\n\"I know it, Herbert,\" said I, with my head still turned away, \"but I\ncan't help it.\"\n\n\"You can't detach yourself?\"\n\n\"No. Impossible!\"\n\n\"You can't try, Handel?\"\n\n\"No. Impossible!\"\n\n\"Well!\" said Herbert, getting up with a lively shake as if he had\nbeen asleep, and stirring the fire, \"now I'll endeavor to make myself\nagreeable again!\"\n\nSo he went round the room and shook the curtains out, put the chairs\nin their places, tidied the books and so forth that were lying about,\nlooked into the hall, peeped into the letter-box, shut the door, and\ncame back to his chair by the fire: where he sat down, nursing his left\nleg in both arms.\n\n\"I was going to say a word or two, Handel, concerning my father and my\nfather's son. I am afraid it is scarcely necessary for my father's son\nto remark that my father's establishment is not particularly brilliant\nin its housekeeping.\"\n\n\"There is always plenty, Herbert,\" said I, to say something encouraging.\n\n\"O yes! and so the dustman says, I believe, with the strongest approval,\nand so does the marine-store shop in the back street. Gravely, Handel,\nfor the subject is grave enough, you know how it is as well as I do. I\nsuppose there was a time once when my father had not given matters up;\nbut if ever there was, the time is gone. May I ask you if you have ever\nhad an opportunity of remarking, down in your part of the country,\nthat the children of not exactly suitable marriages are always most\nparticularly anxious to be married?\"\n\nThis was such a singular question, that I asked him in return, \"Is it\nso?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" said Herbert, \"that's what I want to know. Because it\nis decidedly the case with us. My poor sister Charlotte, who was next me\nand died before she was fourteen, was a striking example. Little Jane\nis the same. In her desire to be matrimonially established, you\nmight suppose her to have passed her short existence in the perpetual\ncontemplation of domestic bliss. Little Alick in a frock has already\nmade arrangements for his union with a suitable young person at Kew. And\nindeed, I think we are all engaged, except the baby.\"\n\n\"Then you are?\" said I.\n\n\"I am,\" said Herbert; \"but it's a secret.\"\n\nI assured him of my keeping the secret, and begged to be favored with\nfurther particulars. He had spoken so sensibly and feelingly of my\nweakness that I wanted to know something about his strength.\n\n\"May I ask the name?\" I said.\n\n\"Name of Clara,\" said Herbert.\n\n\"Live in London?\"\n\n\"Yes, perhaps I ought to mention,\" said Herbert, who had become\ncuriously crestfallen and meek, since we entered on the interesting\ntheme, \"that she is rather below my mother's nonsensical family notions.\nHer father had to do with the victualling of passenger-ships. I think he\nwas a species of purser.\"\n\n\"What is he now?\" said I.\n\n\"He's an invalid now,\" replied Herbert.\n\n\"Living on--?\"\n\n\"On the first floor,\" said Herbert. Which was not at all what I meant,\nfor I had intended my question to apply to his means. \"I have never seen\nhim, for he has always kept his room overhead, since I have known Clara.\nBut I have heard him constantly. He makes tremendous rows,--roars, and\npegs at the floor with some frightful instrument.\" In looking at me and\nthen laughing heartily, Herbert for the time recovered his usual lively\nmanner.\n\n\"Don't you expect to see him?\" said I.\n\n\"O yes, I constantly expect to see him,\" returned Herbert, \"because\nI never hear him, without expecting him to come tumbling through the\nceiling. But I don't know how long the rafters may hold.\"\n\nWhen he had once more laughed heartily, he became meek again, and told\nme that the moment he began to realize Capital, it was his intention\nto marry this young lady. He added as a self-evident proposition,\nengendering low spirits, \"But you can't marry, you know, while you're\nlooking about you.\"\n\nAs we contemplated the fire, and as I thought what a difficult vision to\nrealize this same Capital sometimes was, I put my hands in my pockets.\nA folded piece of paper in one of them attracting my attention, I opened\nit and found it to be the play-bill I had received from Joe, relative\nto the celebrated provincial amateur of Roscian renown. \"And bless my\nheart,\" I involuntarily added aloud, \"it's to-night!\"\n\nThis changed the subject in an instant, and made us hurriedly resolve\nto go to the play. So, when I had pledged myself to comfort and abet\nHerbert in the affair of his heart by all practicable and impracticable\nmeans, and when Herbert had told me that his affianced already knew me\nby reputation and that I should be presented to her, and when we had\nwarmly shaken hands upon our mutual confidence, we blew out our candles,\nmade up our fire, locked our door, and issued forth in quest of Mr.\nWopsle and Denmark.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XXXI\n\nOn our arrival in Denmark, we found the king and queen of that country\nelevated in two arm-chairs on a kitchen-table, holding a Court. The\nwhole of the Danish nobility were in attendance; consisting of a noble\nboy in the wash-leather boots of a gigantic ancestor, a venerable Peer\nwith a dirty face who seemed to have risen from the people late in life,\nand the Danish chivalry with a comb in its hair and a pair of white\nsilk legs, and presenting on the whole a feminine appearance. My gifted\ntownsman stood gloomily apart, with folded arms, and I could have wished\nthat his curls and forehead had been more probable.\n\nSeveral curious little circumstances transpired as the action proceeded.\nThe late king of the country not only appeared to have been troubled\nwith a cough at the time of his decease, but to have taken it with him\nto the tomb, and to have brought it back. The royal phantom also carried\na ghostly manuscript round its truncheon, to which it had the appearance\nof occasionally referring, and that too, with an air of anxiety and a\ntendency to lose the place of reference which were suggestive of a state\nof mortality. It was this, I conceive, which led to the Shade's being\nadvised by the gallery to \"turn over!\"--a recommendation which it took\nextremely ill. It was likewise to be noted of this majestic spirit, that\nwhereas it always appeared with an air of having been out a long time\nand walked an immense distance, it perceptibly came from a closely\ncontiguous wall. This occasioned its terrors to be received derisively.\nThe Queen of Denmark, a very buxom lady, though no doubt historically\nbrazen, was considered by the public to have too much brass about her;\nher chin being attached to her diadem by a broad band of that metal (as\nif she had a gorgeous toothache), her waist being encircled by another,\nand each of her arms by another, so that she was openly mentioned\nas \"the kettle-drum.\" The noble boy in the ancestral boots was\ninconsistent, representing himself, as it were in one breath, as an able\nseaman, a strolling actor, a grave-digger, a clergyman, and a person\nof the utmost importance at a Court fencing-match, on the authority\nof whose practised eye and nice discrimination the finest strokes were\njudged. This gradually led to a want of toleration for him, and even--on\nhis being detected in holy orders, and declining to perform the funeral\nservice--to the general indignation taking the form of nuts. Lastly,\nOphelia was a prey to such slow musical madness, that when, in course of\ntime, she had taken off her white muslin scarf, folded it up, and buried\nit, a sulky man who had been long cooling his impatient nose against an\niron bar in the front row of the gallery, growled, \"Now the baby's put\nto bed let's have supper!\" Which, to say the least of it, was out of\nkeeping.\n\nUpon my unfortunate townsman all these incidents accumulated with\nplayful effect. Whenever that undecided Prince had to ask a question or\nstate a doubt, the public helped him out with it. As for example; on the\nquestion whether 'twas nobler in the mind to suffer, some roared yes,\nand some no, and some inclining to both opinions said \"Toss up for\nit;\" and quite a Debating Society arose. When he asked what should such\nfellows as he do crawling between earth and heaven, he was encouraged\nwith loud cries of \"Hear, hear!\" When he appeared with his stocking\ndisordered (its disorder expressed, according to usage, by one very neat\nfold in the top, which I suppose to be always got up with a flat iron),\na conversation took place in the gallery respecting the paleness of his\nleg, and whether it was occasioned by the turn the ghost had given him.\nOn his taking the recorders,--very like a little black flute that had\njust been played in the orchestra and handed out at the door,--he was\ncalled upon unanimously for Rule Britannia. When he recommended the\nplayer not to saw the air thus, the sulky man said, \"And don't you do\nit, neither; you're a deal worse than him!\" And I grieve to add that\npeals of laughter greeted Mr. Wopsle on every one of these occasions.\n\nBut his greatest trials were in the churchyard, which had the appearance\nof a primeval forest, with a kind of small ecclesiastical wash-house\non one side, and a turnpike gate on the other. Mr. Wopsle in a\ncomprehensive black cloak, being descried entering at the turnpike,\nthe gravedigger was admonished in a friendly way, \"Look out! Here's the\nundertaker a coming, to see how you're a getting on with your work!\"\nI believe it is well known in a constitutional country that Mr. Wopsle\ncould not possibly have returned the skull, after moralizing over it,\nwithout dusting his fingers on a white napkin taken from his breast;\nbut even that innocent and indispensable action did not pass without the\ncomment, \"Wai-ter!\" The arrival of the body for interment (in an empty\nblack box with the lid tumbling open), was the signal for a general\njoy, which was much enhanced by the discovery, among the bearers, of\nan individual obnoxious to identification. The joy attended Mr. Wopsle\nthrough his struggle with Laertes on the brink of the orchestra and\nthe grave, and slackened no more until he had tumbled the king off the\nkitchen-table, and had died by inches from the ankles upward.\n\nWe had made some pale efforts in the beginning to applaud Mr. Wopsle;\nbut they were too hopeless to be persisted in. Therefore we had sat,\nfeeling keenly for him, but laughing, nevertheless, from ear to ear. I\nlaughed in spite of myself all the time, the whole thing was so droll;\nand yet I had a latent impression that there was something decidedly\nfine in Mr. Wopsle's elocution,--not for old associations' sake, I am\nafraid, but because it was very slow, very dreary, very uphill and\ndownhill, and very unlike any way in which any man in any natural\ncircumstances of life or death ever expressed himself about anything.\nWhen the tragedy was over, and he had been called for and hooted, I said\nto Herbert, \"Let us go at once, or perhaps we shall meet him.\"\n\nWe made all the haste we could downstairs, but we were not quick enough\neither. Standing at the door was a Jewish man with an unnatural heavy\nsmear of eyebrow, who caught my eyes as we advanced, and said, when we\ncame up with him,--\n\n\"Mr. Pip and friend?\"\n\nIdentity of Mr. Pip and friend confessed.\n\n\"Mr. Waldengarver,\" said the man, \"would be glad to have the honor.\"\n\n\"Waldengarver?\" I repeated--when Herbert murmured in my ear, \"Probably\nWopsle.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said I. \"Yes. Shall we follow you?\"\n\n\"A few steps, please.\" When we were in a side alley, he turned and\nasked, \"How did you think he looked?--I dressed him.\"\n\nI don't know what he had looked like, except a funeral; with the\naddition of a large Danish sun or star hanging round his neck by a\nblue ribbon, that had given him the appearance of being insured in some\nextraordinary Fire Office. But I said he had looked very nice.\n\n\"When he come to the grave,\" said our conductor, \"he showed his cloak\nbeautiful. But, judging from the wing, it looked to me that when he\nsee the ghost in the queen's apartment, he might have made more of his\nstockings.\"\n\nI modestly assented, and we all fell through a little dirty swing door,\ninto a sort of hot packing-case immediately behind it. Here Mr. Wopsle\nwas divesting himself of his Danish garments, and here there was just\nroom for us to look at him over one another's shoulders, by keeping the\npacking-case door, or lid, wide open.\n\n\"Gentlemen,\" said Mr. Wopsle, \"I am proud to see you. I hope, Mr. Pip,\nyou will excuse my sending round. I had the happiness to know you in\nformer times, and the Drama has ever had a claim which has ever been\nacknowledged, on the noble and the affluent.\"\n\nMeanwhile, Mr. Waldengarver, in a frightful perspiration, was trying to\nget himself out of his princely sables.\n\n\"Skin the stockings off Mr. Waldengarver,\" said the owner of that\nproperty, \"or you'll bust 'em. Bust 'em, and you'll bust five-and-thirty\nshillings. Shakspeare never was complimented with a finer pair. Keep\nquiet in your chair now, and leave 'em to me.\"\n\nWith that, he went upon his knees, and began to flay his victim; who, on\nthe first stocking coming off, would certainly have fallen over backward\nwith his chair, but for there being no room to fall anyhow.\n\nI had been afraid until then to say a word about the play. But then, Mr.\nWaldengarver looked up at us complacently, and said,--\n\n\"Gentlemen, how did it seem to you, to go, in front?\"\n\nHerbert said from behind (at the same time poking me), \"Capitally.\" So I\nsaid \"Capitally.\"\n\n\"How did you like my reading of the character, gentlemen?\" said Mr.\nWaldengarver, almost, if not quite, with patronage.\n\nHerbert said from behind (again poking me), \"Massive and concrete.\" So I\nsaid boldly, as if I had originated it, and must beg to insist upon it,\n\"Massive and concrete.\"\n\n\"I am glad to have your approbation, gentlemen,\" said Mr. Waldengarver,\nwith an air of dignity, in spite of his being ground against the wall at\nthe time, and holding on by the seat of the chair.\n\n\"But I'll tell you one thing, Mr. Waldengarver,\" said the man who was on\nhis knees, \"in which you're out in your reading. Now mind! I don't care\nwho says contrairy; I tell you so. You're out in your reading of Hamlet\nwhen you get your legs in profile. The last Hamlet as I dressed, made\nthe same mistakes in his reading at rehearsal, till I got him to put a\nlarge red wafer on each of his shins, and then at that rehearsal (which\nwas the last) I went in front, sir, to the back of the pit, and whenever\nhis reading brought him into profile, I called out \"I don't see no\nwafers!\" And at night his reading was lovely.\"\n\nMr. Waldengarver smiled at me, as much as to say \"a faithful\nDependent--I overlook his folly;\" and then said aloud, \"My view is a\nlittle classic and thoughtful for them here; but they will improve, they\nwill improve.\"\n\nHerbert and I said together, O, no doubt they would improve.\n\n\"Did you observe, gentlemen,\" said Mr. Waldengarver, \"that there was a\nman in the gallery who endeavored to cast derision on the service,--I\nmean, the representation?\"\n\nWe basely replied that we rather thought we had noticed such a man. I\nadded, \"He was drunk, no doubt.\"\n\n\"O dear no, sir,\" said Mr. Wopsle, \"not drunk. His employer would see to\nthat, sir. His employer would not allow him to be drunk.\"\n\n\"You know his employer?\" said I.\n\nMr. Wopsle shut his eyes, and opened them again; performing both\nceremonies very slowly. \"You must have observed, gentlemen,\" said he,\n\"an ignorant and a blatant ass, with a rasping throat and a countenance\nexpressive of low malignity, who went through--I will not say\nsustained--the r\u00f4le (if I may use a French expression) of Claudius, King\nof Denmark. That is his employer, gentlemen. Such is the profession!\"\n\nWithout distinctly knowing whether I should have been more sorry for Mr.\nWopsle if he had been in despair, I was so sorry for him as it was,\nthat I took the opportunity of his turning round to have his braces\nput on,--which jostled us out at the doorway,--to ask Herbert what he\nthought of having him home to supper? Herbert said he thought it would\nbe kind to do so; therefore I invited him, and he went to Barnard's\nwith us, wrapped up to the eyes, and we did our best for him, and he sat\nuntil two o'clock in the morning, reviewing his success and developing\nhis plans. I forget in detail what they were, but I have a general\nrecollection that he was to begin with reviving the Drama, and to end\nwith crushing it; inasmuch as his decease would leave it utterly bereft\nand without a chance or hope.\n\nMiserably I went to bed after all, and miserably thought of Estella, and\nmiserably dreamed that my expectations were all cancelled, and that I\nhad to give my hand in marriage to Herbert's Clara, or play Hamlet to\nMiss Havisham's Ghost, before twenty thousand people, without knowing\ntwenty words of it.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XXXII\n\nOne day when I was busy with my books and Mr. Pocket, I received a note\nby the post, the mere outside of which threw me into a great flutter;\nfor, though I had never seen the handwriting in which it was addressed,\nI divined whose hand it was. It had no set beginning, as Dear Mr. Pip,\nor Dear Pip, or Dear Sir, or Dear Anything, but ran thus:--\n\n\"I am to come to London the day after to-morrow by the midday coach. I\nbelieve it was settled you should meet me? At all events Miss Havisham\nhas that impression, and I write in obedience to it. She sends you her\nregard.\n\n\"Yours, ESTELLA.\"\n\nIf there had been time, I should probably have ordered several suits\nof clothes for this occasion; but as there was not, I was fain to be\ncontent with those I had. My appetite vanished instantly, and I knew\nno peace or rest until the day arrived. Not that its arrival brought\nme either; for, then I was worse than ever, and began haunting the\ncoach-office in Wood Street, Cheapside, before the coach had left the\nBlue Boar in our town. For all that I knew this perfectly well, I still\nfelt as if it were not safe to let the coach-office be out of my sight\nlonger than five minutes at a time; and in this condition of unreason I\nhad performed the first half-hour of a watch of four or five hours, when\nWemmick ran against me.\n\n\"Halloa, Mr. Pip,\" said he; \"how do you do? I should hardly have thought\nthis was your beat.\"\n\nI explained that I was waiting to meet somebody who was coming up by\ncoach, and I inquired after the Castle and the Aged.\n\n\"Both flourishing thankye,\" said Wemmick, \"and particularly the Aged.\nHe's in wonderful feather. He'll be eighty-two next birthday. I have\na notion of firing eighty-two times, if the neighborhood shouldn't\ncomplain, and that cannon of mine should prove equal to the pressure.\nHowever, this is not London talk. Where do you think I am going to?\"\n\n\"To the office?\" said I, for he was tending in that direction.\n\n\"Next thing to it,\" returned Wemmick, \"I am going to Newgate. We are in\na banker's-parcel case just at present, and I have been down the road\ntaking a squint at the scene of action, and thereupon must have a word\nor two with our client.\"\n\n\"Did your client commit the robbery?\" I asked.\n\n\"Bless your soul and body, no,\" answered Wemmick, very drily. \"But he\nis accused of it. So might you or I be. Either of us might be accused of\nit, you know.\"\n\n\"Only neither of us is,\" I remarked.\n\n\"Yah!\" said Wemmick, touching me on the breast with his forefinger;\n\"you're a deep one, Mr. Pip! Would you like to have a look at Newgate?\nHave you time to spare?\"\n\nI had so much time to spare, that the proposal came as a relief,\nnotwithstanding its irreconcilability with my latent desire to keep my\neye on the coach-office. Muttering that I would make the inquiry whether\nI had time to walk with him, I went into the office, and ascertained\nfrom the clerk with the nicest precision and much to the trying of his\ntemper, the earliest moment at which the coach could be expected,--which\nI knew beforehand, quite as well as he. I then rejoined Mr. Wemmick, and\naffecting to consult my watch, and to be surprised by the information I\nhad received, accepted his offer.\n\nWe were at Newgate in a few minutes, and we passed through the lodge\nwhere some fetters were hanging up on the bare walls among the prison\nrules, into the interior of the jail. At that time jails were much\nneglected, and the period of exaggerated reaction consequent on\nall public wrongdoing--and which is always its heaviest and longest\npunishment--was still far off. So, felons were not lodged and fed better\nthan soldiers (to say nothing of paupers), and seldom set fire to their\nprisons with the excusable object of improving the flavor of their soup.\nIt was visiting time when Wemmick took me in, and a potman was going his\nrounds with beer; and the prisoners, behind bars in yards, were buying\nbeer, and talking to friends; and a frowzy, ugly, disorderly, depressing\nscene it was.\n\nIt struck me that Wemmick walked among the prisoners much as a gardener\nmight walk among his plants. This was first put into my head by his\nseeing a shoot that had come up in the night, and saying, \"What, Captain\nTom? Are you there? Ah, indeed!\" and also, \"Is that Black Bill behind\nthe cistern? Why I didn't look for you these two months; how do you find\nyourself?\" Equally in his stopping at the bars and attending to\nanxious whisperers,--always singly,--Wemmick with his post-office in\nan immovable state, looked at them while in conference, as if he were\ntaking particular notice of the advance they had made, since last\nobserved, towards coming out in full blow at their trial.\n\nHe was highly popular, and I found that he took the familiar department\nof Mr. Jaggers's business; though something of the state of Mr. Jaggers\nhung about him too, forbidding approach beyond certain limits. His\npersonal recognition of each successive client was comprised in a nod,\nand in his settling his hat a little easier on his head with both\nhands, and then tightening the post-office, and putting his hands in his\npockets. In one or two instances there was a difficulty respecting the\nraising of fees, and then Mr. Wemmick, backing as far as possible from\nthe insufficient money produced, said, \"it's no use, my boy. I'm only\na subordinate. I can't take it. Don't go on in that way with a\nsubordinate. If you are unable to make up your quantum, my boy, you had\nbetter address yourself to a principal; there are plenty of principals\nin the profession, you know, and what is not worth the while of one, may\nbe worth the while of another; that's my recommendation to you, speaking\nas a subordinate. Don't try on useless measures. Why should you? Now,\nwho's next?\"\n\nThus, we walked through Wemmick's greenhouse, until he turned to me and\nsaid, \"Notice the man I shall shake hands with.\" I should have done so,\nwithout the preparation, as he had shaken hands with no one yet.\n\nAlmost as soon as he had spoken, a portly upright man (whom I can\nsee now, as I write) in a well-worn olive-colored frock-coat, with a\npeculiar pallor overspreading the red in his complexion, and eyes that\nwent wandering about when he tried to fix them, came up to a corner\nof the bars, and put his hand to his hat--which had a greasy and fatty\nsurface like cold broth--with a half-serious and half-jocose military\nsalute.\n\n\"Colonel, to you!\" said Wemmick; \"how are you, Colonel?\"\n\n\"All right, Mr. Wemmick.\"\n\n\"Everything was done that could be done, but the evidence was too strong\nfor us, Colonel.\"\n\n\"Yes, it was too strong, sir,--but I don't care.\"\n\n\"No, no,\" said Wemmick, coolly, \"you don't care.\" Then, turning to me,\n\"Served His Majesty this man. Was a soldier in the line and bought his\ndischarge.\"\n\nI said, \"Indeed?\" and the man's eyes looked at me, and then looked over\nmy head, and then looked all round me, and then he drew his hand across\nhis lips and laughed.\n\n\"I think I shall be out of this on Monday, sir,\" he said to Wemmick.\n\n\"Perhaps,\" returned my friend, \"but there's no knowing.\"\n\n\"I am glad to have the chance of bidding you good-bye, Mr. Wemmick,\" said\nthe man, stretching out his hand between two bars.\n\n\"Thankye,\" said Wemmick, shaking hands with him. \"Same to you, Colonel.\"\n\n\"If what I had upon me when taken had been real, Mr. Wemmick,\" said the\nman, unwilling to let his hand go, \"I should have asked the favor of\nyour wearing another ring--in acknowledgment of your attentions.\"\n\n\"I'll accept the will for the deed,\" said Wemmick. \"By the by; you were\nquite a pigeon-fancier.\" The man looked up at the sky. \"I am told you\nhad a remarkable breed of tumblers. Could you commission any friend of\nyours to bring me a pair, if you've no further use for 'em?\"\n\n\"It shall be done, sir.\"\n\n\"All right,\" said Wemmick, \"they shall be taken care of. Good afternoon,\nColonel. Good-bye!\" They shook hands again, and as we walked away Wemmick\nsaid to me, \"A Coiner, a very good workman. The Recorder's report is\nmade to-day, and he is sure to be executed on Monday. Still you see, as\nfar as it goes, a pair of pigeons are portable property all the same.\"\nWith that, he looked back, and nodded at this dead plant, and then cast\nhis eyes about him in walking out of the yard, as if he were considering\nwhat other pot would go best in its place.\n\nAs we came out of the prison through the lodge, I found that the great\nimportance of my guardian was appreciated by the turnkeys, no less\nthan by those whom they held in charge. \"Well, Mr. Wemmick,\" said the\nturnkey, who kept us between the two studded and spiked lodge gates,\nand who carefully locked one before he unlocked the other, \"what's Mr.\nJaggers going to do with that water-side murder? Is he going to make it\nmanslaughter, or what's he going to make of it?\"\n\n\"Why don't you ask him?\" returned Wemmick.\n\n\"O yes, I dare say!\" said the turnkey.\n\n\"Now, that's the way with them here, Mr. Pip,\" remarked Wemmick, turning\nto me with his post-office elongated. \"They don't mind what they ask of\nme, the subordinate; but you'll never catch 'em asking any questions of\nmy principal.\"\n\n\"Is this young gentleman one of the 'prentices or articled ones of your\noffice?\" asked the turnkey, with a grin at Mr. Wemmick's humor.\n\n\"There he goes again, you see!\" cried Wemmick, \"I told you so! Asks\nanother question of the subordinate before his first is dry! Well,\nsupposing Mr. Pip is one of them?\"\n\n\"Why then,\" said the turnkey, grinning again, \"he knows what Mr. Jaggers\nis.\"\n\n\"Yah!\" cried Wemmick, suddenly hitting out at the turnkey in a facetious\nway, \"you're dumb as one of your own keys when you have to do with my\nprincipal, you know you are. Let us out, you old fox, or I'll get him to\nbring an action against you for false imprisonment.\"\n\nThe turnkey laughed, and gave us good day, and stood laughing at us over\nthe spikes of the wicket when we descended the steps into the street.\n\n\"Mind you, Mr. Pip,\" said Wemmick, gravely in my ear, as he took my arm\nto be more confidential; \"I don't know that Mr. Jaggers does a better\nthing than the way in which he keeps himself so high. He's always so\nhigh. His constant height is of a piece with his immense abilities. That\nColonel durst no more take leave of him, than that turnkey durst ask him\nhis intentions respecting a case. Then, between his height and them, he\nslips in his subordinate,--don't you see?--and so he has 'em, soul and\nbody.\"\n\nI was very much impressed, and not for the first time, by my guardian's\nsubtlety. To confess the truth, I very heartily wished, and not for the\nfirst time, that I had had some other guardian of minor abilities.\n\nMr. Wemmick and I parted at the office in Little Britain, where\nsuppliants for Mr. Jaggers's notice were lingering about as usual, and I\nreturned to my watch in the street of the coach-office, with some three\nhours on hand. I consumed the whole time in thinking how strange it\nwas that I should be encompassed by all this taint of prison and crime;\nthat, in my childhood out on our lonely marshes on a winter evening, I\nshould have first encountered it; that, it should have reappeared on two\noccasions, starting out like a stain that was faded but not gone; that,\nit should in this new way pervade my fortune and advancement. While my\nmind was thus engaged, I thought of the beautiful young Estella, proud\nand refined, coming towards me, and I thought with absolute abhorrence\nof the contrast between the jail and her. I wished that Wemmick had not\nmet me, or that I had not yielded to him and gone with him, so that,\nof all days in the year on this day, I might not have had Newgate in\nmy breath and on my clothes. I beat the prison dust off my feet as I\nsauntered to and fro, and I shook it out of my dress, and I exhaled\nits air from my lungs. So contaminated did I feel, remembering who was\ncoming, that the coach came quickly after all, and I was not yet free\nfrom the soiling consciousness of Mr. Wemmick's conservatory, when I saw\nher face at the coach window and her hand waving to me.\n\nWhat was the nameless shadow which again in that one instant had passed?\n\n\n\n\nChapter XXXIII\n\nIn her furred travelling-dress, Estella seemed more delicately beautiful\nthan she had ever seemed yet, even in my eyes. Her manner was more\nwinning than she had cared to let it be to me before, and I thought I\nsaw Miss Havisham's influence in the change.\n\nWe stood in the Inn Yard while she pointed out her luggage to me, and\nwhen it was all collected I remembered--having forgotten everything but\nherself in the meanwhile--that I knew nothing of her destination.\n\n\"I am going to Richmond,\" she told me. \"Our lesson is, that there are\ntwo Richmonds, one in Surrey and one in Yorkshire, and that mine is the\nSurrey Richmond. The distance is ten miles. I am to have a carriage, and\nyou are to take me. This is my purse, and you are to pay my charges out\nof it. O, you must take the purse! We have no choice, you and I, but to\nobey our instructions. We are not free to follow our own devices, you\nand I.\"\n\nAs she looked at me in giving me the purse, I hoped there was an\ninner meaning in her words. She said them slightingly, but not with\ndispleasure.\n\n\"A carriage will have to be sent for, Estella. Will you rest here a\nlittle?\"\n\n\"Yes, I am to rest here a little, and I am to drink some tea, and you\nare to take care of me the while.\"\n\nShe drew her arm through mine, as if it must be done, and I requested a\nwaiter who had been staring at the coach like a man who had never seen\nsuch a thing in his life, to show us a private sitting-room. Upon that,\nhe pulled out a napkin, as if it were a magic clew without which he\ncouldn't find the way upstairs, and led us to the black hole of the\nestablishment, fitted up with a diminishing mirror (quite a superfluous\narticle, considering the hole's proportions), an anchovy sauce-cruet,\nand somebody's pattens. On my objecting to this retreat, he took us into\nanother room with a dinner-table for thirty, and in the grate a scorched\nleaf of a copy-book under a bushel of coal-dust. Having looked at this\nextinct conflagration and shaken his head, he took my order; which,\nproving to be merely, \"Some tea for the lady,\" sent him out of the room\nin a very low state of mind.\n\nI was, and I am, sensible that the air of this chamber, in its strong\ncombination of stable with soup-stock, might have led one to infer that\nthe coaching department was not doing well, and that the enterprising\nproprietor was boiling down the horses for the refreshment department.\nYet the room was all in all to me, Estella being in it. I thought that\nwith her I could have been happy there for life. (I was not at all happy\nthere at the time, observe, and I knew it well.)\n\n\"Where are you going to, at Richmond?\" I asked Estella.\n\n\"I am going to live,\" said she, \"at a great expense, with a lady there,\nwho has the power--or says she has--of taking me about, and introducing\nme, and showing people to me and showing me to people.\"\n\n\"I suppose you will be glad of variety and admiration?\"\n\n\"Yes, I suppose so.\"\n\nShe answered so carelessly, that I said, \"You speak of yourself as if\nyou were some one else.\"\n\n\"Where did you learn how I speak of others? Come, come,\" said Estella,\nsmiling delightfully, \"you must not expect me to go to school to you; I\nmust talk in my own way. How do you thrive with Mr. Pocket?\"\n\n\"I live quite pleasantly there; at least--\" It appeared to me that I was\nlosing a chance.\n\n\"At least?\" repeated Estella.\n\n\"As pleasantly as I could anywhere, away from you.\"\n\n\"You silly boy,\" said Estella, quite composedly, \"how can you talk such\nnonsense? Your friend Mr. Matthew, I believe, is superior to the rest of\nhis family?\"\n\n\"Very superior indeed. He is nobody's enemy--\"\n\n\"Don't add but his own,\" interposed Estella, \"for I hate that class of\nman. But he really is disinterested, and above small jealousy and spite,\nI have heard?\"\n\n\"I am sure I have every reason to say so.\"\n\n\"You have not every reason to say so of the rest of his people,\" said\nEstella, nodding at me with an expression of face that was at once\ngrave and rallying, \"for they beset Miss Havisham with reports and\ninsinuations to your disadvantage. They watch you, misrepresent you,\nwrite letters about you (anonymous sometimes), and you are the torment\nand the occupation of their lives. You can scarcely realize to yourself\nthe hatred those people feel for you.\"\n\n\"They do me no harm, I hope?\"\n\nInstead of answering, Estella burst out laughing. This was very singular\nto me, and I looked at her in considerable perplexity. When she left\noff--and she had not laughed languidly, but with real enjoyment--I said,\nin my diffident way with her,--\n\n\"I hope I may suppose that you would not be amused if they did me any\nharm.\"\n\n\"No, no you may be sure of that,\" said Estella. \"You may be certain that\nI laugh because they fail. O, those people with Miss Havisham, and the\ntortures they undergo!\" She laughed again, and even now when she had\ntold me why, her laughter was very singular to me, for I could not\ndoubt its being genuine, and yet it seemed too much for the occasion.\nI thought there must really be something more here than I knew; she saw\nthe thought in my mind, and answered it.\n\n\"It is not easy for even you.\" said Estella, \"to know what satisfaction\nit gives me to see those people thwarted, or what an enjoyable sense of\nthe ridiculous I have when they are made ridiculous. For you were not\nbrought up in that strange house from a mere baby. I was. You had not\nyour little wits sharpened by their intriguing against you, suppressed\nand defenceless, under the mask of sympathy and pity and what not that\nis soft and soothing. I had. You did not gradually open your round\nchildish eyes wider and wider to the discovery of that impostor of a\nwoman who calculates her stores of peace of mind for when she wakes up\nin the night. I did.\"\n\nIt was no laughing matter with Estella now, nor was she summoning these\nremembrances from any shallow place. I would not have been the cause of\nthat look of hers for all my expectations in a heap.\n\n\"Two things I can tell you,\" said Estella. \"First, notwithstanding the\nproverb that constant dropping will wear away a stone, you may set\nyour mind at rest that these people never will--never would, in hundred\nyears--impair your ground with Miss Havisham, in any particular, great\nor small. Second, I am beholden to you as the cause of their being so\nbusy and so mean in vain, and there is my hand upon it.\"\n\nAs she gave it to me playfully,--for her darker mood had been but\nMomentary,--I held it and put it to my lips. \"You ridiculous boy,\" said\nEstella, \"will you never take warning? Or do you kiss my hand in the\nsame spirit in which I once let you kiss my cheek?\"\n\n\"What spirit was that?\" said I.\n\n\"I must think a moment. A spirit of contempt for the fawners and\nplotters.\"\n\n\"If I say yes, may I kiss the cheek again?\"\n\n\"You should have asked before you touched the hand. But, yes, if you\nlike.\"\n\nI leaned down, and her calm face was like a statue's. \"Now,\" said\nEstella, gliding away the instant I touched her cheek, \"you are to take\ncare that I have some tea, and you are to take me to Richmond.\"\n\nHer reverting to this tone as if our association were forced upon\nus, and we were mere puppets, gave me pain; but everything in our\nintercourse did give me pain. Whatever her tone with me happened to be,\nI could put no trust in it, and build no hope on it; and yet I went on\nagainst trust and against hope. Why repeat it a thousand times? So it\nalways was.\n\nI rang for the tea, and the waiter, reappearing with his magic clew,\nbrought in by degrees some fifty adjuncts to that refreshment, but of\ntea not a glimpse. A teaboard, cups and saucers, plates, knives and\nforks (including carvers), spoons (various), saltcellars, a meek little\nmuffin confined with the utmost precaution under a strong iron cover,\nMoses in the bulrushes typified by a soft bit of butter in a quantity of\nparsley, a pale loaf with a powdered head, two proof impressions of\nthe bars of the kitchen fireplace on triangular bits of bread, and\nultimately a fat family urn; which the waiter staggered in with,\nexpressing in his countenance burden and suffering. After a prolonged\nabsence at this stage of the entertainment, he at length came back with\na casket of precious appearance containing twigs. These I steeped in hot\nwater, and so from the whole of these appliances extracted one cup of I\ndon't know what for Estella.\n\nThe bill paid, and the waiter remembered, and the ostler not forgotten,\nand the chambermaid taken into consideration,--in a word, the whole\nhouse bribed into a state of contempt and animosity, and Estella's purse\nmuch lightened,--we got into our post-coach and drove away. Turning into\nCheapside and rattling up Newgate Street, we were soon under the walls\nof which I was so ashamed.\n\n\"What place is that?\" Estella asked me.\n\nI made a foolish pretence of not at first recognizing it, and then\ntold her. As she looked at it, and drew in her head again,\nmurmuring, \"Wretches!\" I would not have confessed to my visit for any\nconsideration.\n\n\"Mr. Jaggers,\" said I, by way of putting it neatly on somebody else,\n\"has the reputation of being more in the secrets of that dismal place\nthan any man in London.\"\n\n\"He is more in the secrets of every place, I think,\" said Estella, in a\nlow voice.\n\n\"You have been accustomed to see him often, I suppose?\"\n\n\"I have been accustomed to see him at uncertain intervals, ever since\nI can remember. But I know him no better now, than I did before I could\nspeak plainly. What is your own experience of him? Do you advance with\nhim?\"\n\n\"Once habituated to his distrustful manner,\" said I, \"I have done very\nwell.\"\n\n\"Are you intimate?\"\n\n\"I have dined with him at his private house.\"\n\n\"I fancy,\" said Estella, shrinking \"that must be a curious place.\"\n\n\"It is a curious place.\"\n\nI should have been chary of discussing my guardian too freely even with\nher; but I should have gone on with the subject so far as to describe\nthe dinner in Gerrard Street, if we had not then come into a sudden\nglare of gas. It seemed, while it lasted, to be all alight and alive\nwith that inexplicable feeling I had had before; and when we were out of\nit, I was as much dazed for a few moments as if I had been in lightning.\n\nSo we fell into other talk, and it was principally about the way by\nwhich we were travelling, and about what parts of London lay on this\nside of it, and what on that. The great city was almost new to her, she\ntold me, for she had never left Miss Havisham's neighborhood until she\nhad gone to France, and she had merely passed through London then in\ngoing and returning. I asked her if my guardian had any charge of her\nwhile she remained here? To that she emphatically said \"God forbid!\" and\nno more.\n\nIt was impossible for me to avoid seeing that she cared to attract me;\nthat she made herself winning, and would have won me even if the task\nhad needed pains. Yet this made me none the happier, for even if she had\nnot taken that tone of our being disposed of by others, I should have\nfelt that she held my heart in her hand because she wilfully chose to do\nit, and not because it would have wrung any tenderness in her to crush\nit and throw it away.\n\nWhen we passed through Hammersmith, I showed her where Mr. Matthew\nPocket lived, and said it was no great way from Richmond, and that I\nhoped I should see her sometimes.\n\n\"O yes, you are to see me; you are to come when you think proper; you\nare to be mentioned to the family; indeed you are already mentioned.\"\n\nI inquired was it a large household she was going to be a member of?\n\n\"No; there are only two; mother and daughter. The mother is a lady of\nsome station, though not averse to increasing her income.\"\n\n\"I wonder Miss Havisham could part with you again so soon.\"\n\n\"It is a part of Miss Havisham's plans for me, Pip,\" said Estella, with\na sigh, as if she were tired; \"I am to write to her constantly and see\nher regularly and report how I go on,--I and the jewels,--for they are\nnearly all mine now.\"\n\nIt was the first time she had ever called me by my name. Of course she\ndid so purposely, and knew that I should treasure it up.\n\nWe came to Richmond all too soon, and our destination there was a house\nby the green,--a staid old house, where hoops and powder and patches,\nembroidered coats, rolled stockings, ruffles and swords, had had their\ncourt days many a time. Some ancient trees before the house were still\ncut into fashions as formal and unnatural as the hoops and wigs and\nstiff skirts; but their own allotted places in the great procession of\nthe dead were not far off, and they would soon drop into them and go the\nsilent way of the rest.\n\nA bell with an old voice--which I dare say in its time had often said\nto the house, Here is the green farthingale, Here is the diamond-hilted\nsword, Here are the shoes with red heels and the blue solitaire--sounded\ngravely in the moonlight, and two cherry-colored maids came fluttering\nout to receive Estella. The doorway soon absorbed her boxes, and she\ngave me her hand and a smile, and said good night, and was absorbed\nlikewise. And still I stood looking at the house, thinking how happy I\nshould be if I lived there with her, and knowing that I never was happy\nwith her, but always miserable.\n\nI got into the carriage to be taken back to Hammersmith, and I got in\nwith a bad heart-ache, and I got out with a worse heart-ache. At our\nown door, I found little Jane Pocket coming home from a little party\nescorted by her little lover; and I envied her little lover, in spite of\nhis being subject to Flopson.\n\nMr. Pocket was out lecturing; for, he was a most delightful lecturer on\ndomestic economy, and his treatises on the management of children and\nservants were considered the very best text-books on those themes. But\nMrs. Pocket was at home, and was in a little difficulty, on account of\nthe baby's having been accommodated with a needle-case to keep him quiet\nduring the unaccountable absence (with a relative in the Foot Guards)\nof Millers. And more needles were missing than it could be regarded\nas quite wholesome for a patient of such tender years either to apply\nexternally or to take as a tonic.\n\nMr. Pocket being justly celebrated for giving most excellent practical\nadvice, and for having a clear and sound perception of things and a\nhighly judicious mind, I had some notion in my heart-ache of begging him\nto accept my confidence. But happening to look up at Mrs. Pocket as she\nsat reading her book of dignities after prescribing Bed as a sovereign\nremedy for baby, I thought--Well--No, I wouldn't.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XXXIV\n\nAs I had grown accustomed to my expectations, I had insensibly begun to\nnotice their effect upon myself and those around me. Their influence on\nmy own character I disguised from my recognition as much as possible,\nbut I knew very well that it was not all good. I lived in a state of\nchronic uneasiness respecting my behavior to Joe. My conscience was not\nby any means comfortable about Biddy. When I woke up in the night,--like\nCamilla,--I used to think, with a weariness on my spirits, that I should\nhave been happier and better if I had never seen Miss Havisham's face,\nand had risen to manhood content to be partners with Joe in the honest\nold forge. Many a time of an evening, when I sat alone looking at the\nfire, I thought, after all there was no fire like the forge fire and the\nkitchen fire at home.\n\nYet Estella was so inseparable from all my restlessness and disquiet of\nmind, that I really fell into confusion as to the limits of my own part\nin its production. That is to say, supposing I had had no expectations,\nand yet had had Estella to think of, I could not make out to my\nsatisfaction that I should have done much better. Now, concerning the\ninfluence of my position on others, I was in no such difficulty, and so\nI perceived--though dimly enough perhaps--that it was not beneficial\nto anybody, and, above all, that it was not beneficial to Herbert.\nMy lavish habits led his easy nature into expenses that he could not\nafford, corrupted the simplicity of his life, and disturbed his peace\nwith anxieties and regrets. I was not at all remorseful for having\nunwittingly set those other branches of the Pocket family to the poor\narts they practised; because such littlenesses were their natural\nbent, and would have been evoked by anybody else, if I had left them\nslumbering. But Herbert's was a very different case, and it often caused\nme a twinge to think that I had done him evil service in crowding his\nsparely furnished chambers with incongruous upholstery work, and placing\nthe Canary-breasted Avenger at his disposal.\n\nSo now, as an infallible way of making little ease great ease, I began\nto contract a quantity of debt. I could hardly begin but Herbert\nmust begin too, so he soon followed. At Startop's suggestion, we put\nourselves down for election into a club called The Finches of the Grove:\nthe object of which institution I have never divined, if it were not\nthat the members should dine expensively once a fortnight, to quarrel\namong themselves as much as possible after dinner, and to cause six\nwaiters to get drunk on the stairs. I know that these gratifying social\nends were so invariably accomplished, that Herbert and I understood\nnothing else to be referred to in the first standing toast of the\nsociety: which ran \"Gentlemen, may the present promotion of good feeling\never reign predominant among the Finches of the Grove.\"\n\nThe Finches spent their money foolishly (the Hotel we dined at was\nin Covent Garden), and the first Finch I saw when I had the honor of\njoining the Grove was Bentley Drummle, at that time floundering about\ntown in a cab of his own, and doing a great deal of damage to the posts\nat the street corners. Occasionally, he shot himself out of his equipage\nheadforemost over the apron; and I saw him on one occasion deliver\nhimself at the door of the Grove in this unintentional way--like coals.\nBut here I anticipate a little, for I was not a Finch, and could not be,\naccording to the sacred laws of the society, until I came of age.\n\nIn my confidence in my own resources, I would willingly have taken\nHerbert's expenses on myself; but Herbert was proud, and I could make\nno such proposal to him. So he got into difficulties in every direction,\nand continued to look about him. When we gradually fell into keeping\nlate hours and late company, I noticed that he looked about him with a\ndesponding eye at breakfast-time; that he began to look about him more\nhopefully about mid-day; that he drooped when he came into dinner;\nthat he seemed to descry Capital in the distance, rather clearly, after\ndinner; that he all but realized Capital towards midnight; and that at\nabout two o'clock in the morning, he became so deeply despondent again\nas to talk of buying a rifle and going to America, with a general\npurpose of compelling buffaloes to make his fortune.\n\nI was usually at Hammersmith about half the week, and when I was at\nHammersmith I haunted Richmond, whereof separately by and by. Herbert\nwould often come to Hammersmith when I was there, and I think at those\nseasons his father would occasionally have some passing perception that\nthe opening he was looking for, had not appeared yet. But in the general\ntumbling up of the family, his tumbling out in life somewhere, was\na thing to transact itself somehow. In the meantime Mr. Pocket grew\ngrayer, and tried oftener to lift himself out of his perplexities by the\nhair. While Mrs. Pocket tripped up the family with her footstool, read\nher book of dignities, lost her pocket-handkerchief, told us about her\ngrandpapa, and taught the young idea how to shoot, by shooting it into\nbed whenever it attracted her notice.\n\nAs I am now generalizing a period of my life with the object of clearing\nmy way before me, I can scarcely do so better than by at once completing\nthe description of our usual manners and customs at Barnard's Inn.\n\nWe spent as much money as we could, and got as little for it as people\ncould make up their minds to give us. We were always more or less\nmiserable, and most of our acquaintance were in the same condition.\nThere was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying\nourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did. To the best of my\nbelief, our case was in the last aspect a rather common one.\n\nEvery morning, with an air ever new, Herbert went into the City to look\nabout him. I often paid him a visit in the dark back-room in which\nhe consorted with an ink-jar, a hat-peg, a coal-box, a string-box, an\nalmanac, a desk and stool, and a ruler; and I do not remember that I\never saw him do anything else but look about him. If we all did what\nwe undertake to do, as faithfully as Herbert did, we might live in a\nRepublic of the Virtues. He had nothing else to do, poor fellow, except\nat a certain hour of every afternoon to \"go to Lloyd's\"--in observance\nof a ceremony of seeing his principal, I think. He never did anything\nelse in connection with Lloyd's that I could find out, except come back\nagain. When he felt his case unusually serious, and that he positively\nmust find an opening, he would go on 'Change at a busy time, and walk in\nand out, in a kind of gloomy country dance figure, among the assembled\nmagnates. \"For,\" says Herbert to me, coming home to dinner on one\nof those special occasions, \"I find the truth to be, Handel, that an\nopening won't come to one, but one must go to it,--so I have been.\"\n\nIf we had been less attached to one another, I think we must have hated\none another regularly every morning. I detested the chambers beyond\nexpression at that period of repentance, and could not endure the\nsight of the Avenger's livery; which had a more expensive and a\nless remunerative appearance then than at any other time in the\nfour-and-twenty hours. As we got more and more into debt, breakfast\nbecame a hollower and hollower form, and, being on one occasion at\nbreakfast-time threatened (by letter) with legal proceedings, \"not\nunwholly unconnected,\" as my local paper might put it, \"with jewelery,\"\nI went so far as to seize the Avenger by his blue collar and shake\nhim off his feet,--so that he was actually in the air, like a booted\nCupid,--for presuming to suppose that we wanted a roll.\n\nAt certain times--meaning at uncertain times, for they depended on our\nhumor--I would say to Herbert, as if it were a remarkable discovery,--\n\n\"My dear Herbert, we are getting on badly.\"\n\n\"My dear Handel,\" Herbert would say to me, in all sincerity, \"if you will\nbelieve me, those very words were on my lips, by a strange coincidence.\"\n\n\"Then, Herbert,\" I would respond, \"let us look into our affairs.\"\n\nWe always derived profound satisfaction from making an appointment for\nthis purpose. I always thought this was business, this was the way to\nconfront the thing, this was the way to take the foe by the throat. And\nI know Herbert thought so too.\n\nWe ordered something rather special for dinner, with a bottle of\nsomething similarly out of the common way, in order that our minds might\nbe fortified for the occasion, and we might come well up to the mark.\nDinner over, we produced a bundle of pens, a copious supply of ink, and\na goodly show of writing and blotting paper. For there was something\nvery comfortable in having plenty of stationery.\n\nI would then take a sheet of paper, and write across the top of it, in a\nneat hand, the heading, \"Memorandum of Pip's debts\"; with Barnard's Inn\nand the date very carefully added. Herbert would also take a sheet of\npaper, and write across it with similar formalities, \"Memorandum of\nHerbert's debts.\"\n\nEach of us would then refer to a confused heap of papers at his side,\nwhich had been thrown into drawers, worn into holes in pockets, half\nburnt in lighting candles, stuck for weeks into the looking-glass, and\notherwise damaged. The sound of our pens going refreshed us exceedingly,\ninsomuch that I sometimes found it difficult to distinguish between this\nedifying business proceeding and actually paying the money. In point of\nmeritorious character, the two things seemed about equal.\n\nWhen we had written a little while, I would ask Herbert how he got on?\nHerbert probably would have been scratching his head in a most rueful\nmanner at the sight of his accumulating figures.\n\n\"They are mounting up, Handel,\" Herbert would say; \"upon my life, they\nare mounting up.\"\n\n\"Be firm, Herbert,\" I would retort, plying my own pen with great\nassiduity. \"Look the thing in the face. Look into your affairs. Stare\nthem out of countenance.\"\n\n\"So I would, Handel, only they are staring me out of countenance.\"\n\nHowever, my determined manner would have its effect, and Herbert would\nfall to work again. After a time he would give up once more, on the plea\nthat he had not got Cobbs's bill, or Lobbs's, or Nobbs's, as the case\nmight be.\n\n\"Then, Herbert, estimate; estimate it in round numbers, and put it\ndown.\"\n\n\"What a fellow of resource you are!\" my friend would reply, with\nadmiration. \"Really your business powers are very remarkable.\"\n\nI thought so too. I established with myself, on these occasions,\nthe reputation of a first-rate man of business,--prompt, decisive,\nenergetic, clear, cool-headed. When I had got all my responsibilities\ndown upon my list, I compared each with the bill, and ticked it off. My\nself-approval when I ticked an entry was quite a luxurious sensation.\nWhen I had no more ticks to make, I folded all my bills up uniformly,\ndocketed each on the back, and tied the whole into a symmetrical\nbundle. Then I did the same for Herbert (who modestly said he had not my\nadministrative genius), and felt that I had brought his affairs into a\nfocus for him.\n\nMy business habits had one other bright feature, which I called \"leaving\na Margin.\" For example; supposing Herbert's debts to be one hundred and\nsixty-four pounds four-and-twopence, I would say, \"Leave a margin, and\nput them down at two hundred.\" Or, supposing my own to be four times as\nmuch, I would leave a margin, and put them down at seven hundred. I had\nthe highest opinion of the wisdom of this same Margin, but I am bound\nto acknowledge that on looking back, I deem it to have been an expensive\ndevice. For, we always ran into new debt immediately, to the full extent\nof the margin, and sometimes, in the sense of freedom and solvency it\nimparted, got pretty far on into another margin.\n\nBut there was a calm, a rest, a virtuous hush, consequent on these\nexaminations of our affairs that gave me, for the time, an admirable\nopinion of myself. Soothed by my exertions, my method, and Herbert's\ncompliments, I would sit with his symmetrical bundle and my own on the\ntable before me among the stationary, and feel like a Bank of some sort,\nrather than a private individual.\n\nWe shut our outer door on these solemn occasions, in order that we might\nnot be interrupted. I had fallen into my serene state one evening, when\nwe heard a letter dropped through the slit in the said door, and fall on\nthe ground. \"It's for you, Handel,\" said Herbert, going out and coming\nback with it, \"and I hope there is nothing the matter.\" This was in\nallusion to its heavy black seal and border.\n\nThe letter was signed Trabb & Co., and its contents were simply, that\nI was an honored sir, and that they begged to inform me that Mrs. J.\nGargery had departed this life on Monday last at twenty minutes past six\nin the evening, and that my attendance was requested at the interment on\nMonday next at three o'clock in the afternoon.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XXXV\n\nIt was the first time that a grave had opened in my road of life, and\nthe gap it made in the smooth ground was wonderful. The figure of my\nsister in her chair by the kitchen fire, haunted me night and day. That\nthe place could possibly be, without her, was something my mind seemed\nunable to compass; and whereas she had seldom or never been in my\nthoughts of late, I had now the strangest ideas that she was coming\ntowards me in the street, or that she would presently knock at the door.\nIn my rooms too, with which she had never been at all associated, there\nwas at once the blankness of death and a perpetual suggestion of the\nsound of her voice or the turn of her face or figure, as if she were\nstill alive and had been often there.\n\nWhatever my fortunes might have been, I could scarcely have recalled my\nsister with much tenderness. But I suppose there is a shock of regret\nwhich may exist without much tenderness. Under its influence (and\nperhaps to make up for the want of the softer feeling) I was seized with\na violent indignation against the assailant from whom she had suffered\nso much; and I felt that on sufficient proof I could have revengefully\npursued Orlick, or any one else, to the last extremity.\n\nHaving written to Joe, to offer him consolation, and to assure him\nthat I would come to the funeral, I passed the intermediate days in\nthe curious state of mind I have glanced at. I went down early in the\nmorning, and alighted at the Blue Boar in good time to walk over to the\nforge.\n\nIt was fine summer weather again, and, as I walked along, the times\nwhen I was a little helpless creature, and my sister did not spare me,\nvividly returned. But they returned with a gentle tone upon them that\nsoftened even the edge of Tickler. For now, the very breath of the beans\nand clover whispered to my heart that the day must come when it would\nbe well for my memory that others walking in the sunshine should be\nsoftened as they thought of me.\n\nAt last I came within sight of the house, and saw that Trabb and Co. had\nput in a funereal execution and taken possession. Two dismally absurd\npersons, each ostentatiously exhibiting a crutch done up in a black\nbandage,--as if that instrument could possibly communicate any comfort\nto anybody,--were posted at the front door; and in one of them I\nrecognized a postboy discharged from the Boar for turning a young couple\ninto a sawpit on their bridal morning, in consequence of intoxication\nrendering it necessary for him to ride his horse clasped round the neck\nwith both arms. All the children of the village, and most of the women,\nwere admiring these sable warders and the closed windows of the house\nand forge; and as I came up, one of the two warders (the postboy)\nknocked at the door,--implying that I was far too much exhausted by\ngrief to have strength remaining to knock for myself.\n\nAnother sable warder (a carpenter, who had once eaten two geese for a\nwager) opened the door, and showed me into the best parlor. Here, Mr.\nTrabb had taken unto himself the best table, and had got all the leaves\nup, and was holding a kind of black Bazaar, with the aid of a quantity\nof black pins. At the moment of my arrival, he had just finished putting\nsomebody's hat into black long-clothes, like an African baby; so he held\nout his hand for mine. But I, misled by the action, and confused by the\noccasion, shook hands with him with every testimony of warm affection.\n\nPoor dear Joe, entangled in a little black cloak tied in a large bow\nunder his chin, was seated apart at the upper end of the room; where,\nas chief mourner, he had evidently been stationed by Trabb. When I bent\ndown and said to him, \"Dear Joe, how are you?\" he said, \"Pip, old chap,\nyou knowed her when she were a fine figure of a--\" and clasped my hand\nand said no more.\n\nBiddy, looking very neat and modest in her black dress, went quietly\nhere and there, and was very helpful. When I had spoken to Biddy, as\nI thought it not a time for talking I went and sat down near Joe, and\nthere began to wonder in what part of the house it--she--my sister--was.\nThe air of the parlor being faint with the smell of sweet-cake, I looked\nabout for the table of refreshments; it was scarcely visible until one\nhad got accustomed to the gloom, but there was a cut-up plum cake upon\nit, and there were cut-up oranges, and sandwiches, and biscuits, and two\ndecanters that I knew very well as ornaments, but had never seen used\nin all my life; one full of port, and one of sherry. Standing at this\ntable, I became conscious of the servile Pumblechook in a black cloak\nand several yards of hatband, who was alternately stuffing himself,\nand making obsequious movements to catch my attention. The moment he\nsucceeded, he came over to me (breathing sherry and crumbs), and said\nin a subdued voice, \"May I, dear sir?\" and did. I then descried Mr. and\nMrs. Hubble; the last-named in a decent speechless paroxysm in a corner.\nWe were all going to \"follow,\" and were all in course of being tied up\nseparately (by Trabb) into ridiculous bundles.\n\n\"Which I meantersay, Pip,\" Joe whispered me, as we were being what Mr.\nTrabb called \"formed\" in the parlor, two and two,--and it was dreadfully\nlike a preparation for some grim kind of dance; \"which I meantersay,\nsir, as I would in preference have carried her to the church myself,\nalong with three or four friendly ones wot come to it with willing harts\nand arms, but it were considered wot the neighbors would look down on\nsuch and would be of opinions as it were wanting in respect.\"\n\n\"Pocket-handkerchiefs out, all!\" cried Mr. Trabb at this point, in a\ndepressed business-like voice. \"Pocket-handkerchiefs out! We are ready!\"\n\nSo we all put our pocket-handkerchiefs to our faces, as if our\nnoses were bleeding, and filed out two and two; Joe and I; Biddy and\nPumblechook; Mr. and Mrs. Hubble. The remains of my poor sister had been\nbrought round by the kitchen door, and, it being a point of Undertaking\nceremony that the six bearers must be stifled and blinded under a\nhorrible black velvet housing with a white border, the whole looked like\na blind monster with twelve human legs, shuffling and blundering along,\nunder the guidance of two keepers,--the postboy and his comrade.\n\nThe neighborhood, however, highly approved of these arrangements, and we\nwere much admired as we went through the village; the more youthful and\nvigorous part of the community making dashes now and then to cut us off,\nand lying in wait to intercept us at points of vantage. At such times\nthe more exuberant among them called out in an excited manner on our\nemergence round some corner of expectancy, \"Here they come!\" \"Here they\nare!\" and we were all but cheered. In this progress I was much annoyed\nby the abject Pumblechook, who, being behind me, persisted all the way\nas a delicate attention in arranging my streaming hatband, and smoothing\nmy cloak. My thoughts were further distracted by the excessive pride of\nMr. and Mrs. Hubble, who were surpassingly conceited and vainglorious in\nbeing members of so distinguished a procession.\n\nAnd now the range of marshes lay clear before us, with the sails of the\nships on the river growing out of it; and we went into the churchyard,\nclose to the graves of my unknown parents, Philip Pirrip, late of this\nparish, and Also Georgiana, Wife of the Above. And there, my sister was\nlaid quietly in the earth, while the larks sang high above it, and the\nlight wind strewed it with beautiful shadows of clouds and trees.\n\nOf the conduct of the worldly minded Pumblechook while this was doing,\nI desire to say no more than it was all addressed to me; and that even\nwhen those noble passages were read which remind humanity how it brought\nnothing into the world and can take nothing out, and how it fleeth like\na shadow and never continueth long in one stay, I heard him cough a\nreservation of the case of a young gentleman who came unexpectedly into\nlarge property. When we got back, he had the hardihood to tell me that\nhe wished my sister could have known I had done her so much honor, and\nto hint that she would have considered it reasonably purchased at the\nprice of her death. After that, he drank all the rest of the sherry,\nand Mr. Hubble drank the port, and the two talked (which I have since\nobserved to be customary in such cases) as if they were of quite another\nrace from the deceased, and were notoriously immortal. Finally, he went\naway with Mr. and Mrs. Hubble,--to make an evening of it, I felt sure,\nand to tell the Jolly Bargemen that he was the founder of my fortunes\nand my earliest benefactor.\n\nWhen they were all gone, and when Trabb and his men--but not his Boy; I\nlooked for him--had crammed their mummery into bags, and were gone too,\nthe house felt wholesomer. Soon afterwards, Biddy, Joe, and I, had a\ncold dinner together; but we dined in the best parlor, not in the old\nkitchen, and Joe was so exceedingly particular what he did with his\nknife and fork and the saltcellar and what not, that there was great\nrestraint upon us. But after dinner, when I made him take his pipe,\nand when I had loitered with him about the forge, and when we sat down\ntogether on the great block of stone outside it, we got on better. I\nnoticed that after the funeral Joe changed his clothes so far, as to\nmake a compromise between his Sunday dress and working dress; in which\nthe dear fellow looked natural, and like the Man he was.\n\nHe was very much pleased by my asking if I might sleep in my own little\nroom, and I was pleased too; for I felt that I had done rather a great\nthing in making the request. When the shadows of evening were closing\nin, I took an opportunity of getting into the garden with Biddy for a\nlittle talk.\n\n\"Biddy,\" said I, \"I think you might have written to me about these sad\nmatters.\"\n\n\"Do you, Mr. Pip?\" said Biddy. \"I should have written if I had thought\nthat.\"\n\n\"Don't suppose that I mean to be unkind, Biddy, when I say I consider\nthat you ought to have thought that.\"\n\n\"Do you, Mr. Pip?\"\n\nShe was so quiet, and had such an orderly, good, and pretty way with\nher, that I did not like the thought of making her cry again. After\nlooking a little at her downcast eyes as she walked beside me, I gave up\nthat point.\n\n\"I suppose it will be difficult for you to remain here now, Biddy dear?\"\n\n\"Oh! I can't do so, Mr. Pip,\" said Biddy, in a tone of regret but still\nof quiet conviction. \"I have been speaking to Mrs. Hubble, and I am\ngoing to her to-morrow. I hope we shall be able to take some care of Mr.\nGargery, together, until he settles down.\"\n\n\"How are you going to live, Biddy? If you want any mo--\"\n\n\"How am I going to live?\" repeated Biddy, striking in, with a momentary\nflush upon her face. \"I'll tell you, Mr. Pip. I am going to try to get\nthe place of mistress in the new school nearly finished here. I can be\nwell recommended by all the neighbors, and I hope I can be industrious\nand patient, and teach myself while I teach others. You know, Mr. Pip,\"\npursued Biddy, with a smile, as she raised her eyes to my face, \"the new\nschools are not like the old, but I learnt a good deal from you after\nthat time, and have had time since then to improve.\"\n\n\"I think you would always improve, Biddy, under any circumstances.\"\n\n\"Ah! Except in my bad side of human nature,\" murmured Biddy.\n\nIt was not so much a reproach as an irresistible thinking aloud. Well!\nI thought I would give up that point too. So, I walked a little further\nwith Biddy, looking silently at her downcast eyes.\n\n\"I have not heard the particulars of my sister's death, Biddy.\"\n\n\"They are very slight, poor thing. She had been in one of her bad\nstates--though they had got better of late, rather than worse--for four\ndays, when she came out of it in the evening, just at tea-time, and said\nquite plainly, 'Joe.' As she had never said any word for a long while, I\nran and fetched in Mr. Gargery from the forge. She made signs to me that\nshe wanted him to sit down close to her, and wanted me to put her arms\nround his neck. So I put them round his neck, and she laid her head down\non his shoulder quite content and satisfied. And so she presently said\n'Joe' again, and once 'Pardon,' and once 'Pip.' And so she never lifted\nher head up any more, and it was just an hour later when we laid it down\non her own bed, because we found she was gone.\"\n\nBiddy cried; the darkening garden, and the lane, and the stars that were\ncoming out, were blurred in my own sight.\n\n\"Nothing was ever discovered, Biddy?\"\n\n\"Nothing.\"\n\n\"Do you know what is become of Orlick?\"\n\n\"I should think from the color of his clothes that he is working in the\nquarries.\"\n\n\"Of course you have seen him then?--Why are you looking at that dark\ntree in the lane?\"\n\n\"I saw him there, on the night she died.\"\n\n\"That was not the last time either, Biddy?\"\n\n\"No; I have seen him there, since we have been walking here.--It is of\nno use,\" said Biddy, laying her hand upon my arm, as I was for running\nout, \"you know I would not deceive you; he was not there a minute, and\nhe is gone.\"\n\nIt revived my utmost indignation to find that she was still pursued by\nthis fellow, and I felt inveterate against him. I told her so, and told\nher that I would spend any money or take any pains to drive him out of\nthat country. By degrees she led me into more temperate talk, and she\ntold me how Joe loved me, and how Joe never complained of anything,--she\ndidn't say, of me; she had no need; I knew what she meant,--but ever did\nhis duty in his way of life, with a strong hand, a quiet tongue, and a\ngentle heart.\n\n\"Indeed, it would be hard to say too much for him,\" said I; \"and Biddy,\nwe must often speak of these things, for of course I shall be often down\nhere now. I am not going to leave poor Joe alone.\"\n\nBiddy said never a single word.\n\n\"Biddy, don't you hear me?\"\n\n\"Yes, Mr. Pip.\"\n\n\"Not to mention your calling me Mr. Pip,--which appears to me to be in\nbad taste, Biddy,--what do you mean?\"\n\n\"What do I mean?\" asked Biddy, timidly.\n\n\"Biddy,\" said I, in a virtuously self-asserting manner, \"I must request\nto know what you mean by this?\"\n\n\"By this?\" said Biddy.\n\n\"Now, don't echo,\" I retorted. \"You used not to echo, Biddy.\"\n\n\"Used not!\" said Biddy. \"O Mr. Pip! Used!\"\n\nWell! I rather thought I would give up that point too. After another\nsilent turn in the garden, I fell back on the main position.\n\n\"Biddy,\" said I, \"I made a remark respecting my coming down here often,\nto see Joe, which you received with a marked silence. Have the goodness,\nBiddy, to tell me why.\"\n\n\"Are you quite sure, then, that you WILL come to see him often?\" asked\nBiddy, stopping in the narrow garden walk, and looking at me under the\nstars with a clear and honest eye.\n\n\"O dear me!\" said I, as if I found myself compelled to give up Biddy in\ndespair. \"This really is a very bad side of human nature! Don't say any\nmore, if you please, Biddy. This shocks me very much.\"\n\nFor which cogent reason I kept Biddy at a distance during supper, and\nwhen I went up to my own old little room, took as stately a leave of her\nas I could, in my murmuring soul, deem reconcilable with the churchyard\nand the event of the day. As often as I was restless in the night, and\nthat was every quarter of an hour, I reflected what an unkindness, what\nan injury, what an injustice, Biddy had done me.\n\nEarly in the morning I was to go. Early in the morning I was out, and\nlooking in, unseen, at one of the wooden windows of the forge. There\nI stood, for minutes, looking at Joe, already at work with a glow of\nhealth and strength upon his face that made it show as if the bright sun\nof the life in store for him were shining on it.\n\n\"Good-bye, dear Joe!--No, don't wipe it off--for God's sake, give me your\nblackened hand!--I shall be down soon and often.\"\n\n\"Never too soon, sir,\" said Joe, \"and never too often, Pip!\"\n\nBiddy was waiting for me at the kitchen door, with a mug of new milk and\na crust of bread. \"Biddy,\" said I, when I gave her my hand at parting,\n\"I am not angry, but I am hurt.\"\n\n\"No, don't be hurt,\" she pleaded quite pathetically; \"let only me be\nhurt, if I have been ungenerous.\"\n\nOnce more, the mists were rising as I walked away. If they disclosed to\nme, as I suspect they did, that I should not come back, and that Biddy\nwas quite right, all I can say is,--they were quite right too.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XXXVI\n\nHerbert and I went on from bad to worse, in the way of increasing our\ndebts, looking into our affairs, leaving Margins, and the like exemplary\ntransactions; and Time went on, whether or no, as he has a way of doing;\nand I came of age,--in fulfilment of Herbert's prediction, that I should\ndo so before I knew where I was.\n\nHerbert himself had come of age eight months before me. As he had\nnothing else than his majority to come into, the event did not make a\nprofound sensation in Barnard's Inn. But we had looked forward to\nmy one-and-twentieth birthday, with a crowd of speculations and\nanticipations, for we had both considered that my guardian could hardly\nhelp saying something definite on that occasion.\n\nI had taken care to have it well understood in Little Britain when my\nbirthday was. On the day before it, I received an official note from\nWemmick, informing me that Mr. Jaggers would be glad if I would call\nupon him at five in the afternoon of the auspicious day. This convinced\nus that something great was to happen, and threw me into an unusual\nflutter when I repaired to my guardian's office, a model of punctuality.\n\nIn the outer office Wemmick offered me his congratulations, and\nincidentally rubbed the side of his nose with a folded piece of\ntissue-paper that I liked the look of. But he said nothing respecting\nit, and motioned me with a nod into my guardian's room. It was November,\nand my guardian was standing before his fire leaning his back against\nthe chimney-piece, with his hands under his coattails.\n\n\"Well, Pip,\" said he, \"I must call you Mr. Pip to-day. Congratulations,\nMr. Pip.\"\n\nWe shook hands,--he was always a remarkably short shaker,--and I thanked\nhim.\n\n\"Take a chair, Mr. Pip,\" said my guardian.\n\nAs I sat down, and he preserved his attitude and bent his brows at his\nboots, I felt at a disadvantage, which reminded me of that old time when\nI had been put upon a tombstone. The two ghastly casts on the shelf\nwere not far from him, and their expression was as if they were making a\nstupid apoplectic attempt to attend to the conversation.\n\n\"Now my young friend,\" my guardian began, as if I were a witness in the\nbox, \"I am going to have a word or two with you.\"\n\n\"If you please, sir.\"\n\n\"What do you suppose,\" said Mr. Jaggers, bending forward to look at the\nground, and then throwing his head back to look at the ceiling,--\"what\ndo you suppose you are living at the rate of?\"\n\n\"At the rate of, sir?\"\n\n\"At,\" repeated Mr. Jaggers, still looking at the ceiling,\n\"the--rate--of?\" And then looked all round the room, and paused with his\npocket-handkerchief in his hand, half-way to his nose.\n\nI had looked into my affairs so often, that I had thoroughly destroyed\nany slight notion I might ever have had of their bearings. Reluctantly,\nI confessed myself quite unable to answer the question. This reply\nseemed agreeable to Mr. Jaggers, who said, \"I thought so!\" and blew his\nnose with an air of satisfaction.\n\n\"Now, I have asked you a question, my friend,\" said Mr. Jaggers. \"Have\nyou anything to ask me?\"\n\n\"Of course it would be a great relief to me to ask you several\nquestions, sir; but I remember your prohibition.\"\n\n\"Ask one,\" said Mr. Jaggers.\n\n\"Is my benefactor to be made known to me to-day?\"\n\n\"No. Ask another.\"\n\n\"Is that confidence to be imparted to me soon?\"\n\n\"Waive that, a moment,\" said Mr. Jaggers, \"and ask another.\"\n\nI looked about me, but there appeared to be now no possible escape from\nthe inquiry, \"Have-I--anything to receive, sir?\" On that, Mr. Jaggers\nsaid, triumphantly, \"I thought we should come to it!\" and called to\nWemmick to give him that piece of paper. Wemmick appeared, handed it in,\nand disappeared.\n\n\"Now, Mr. Pip,\" said Mr. Jaggers, \"attend, if you please. You have been\ndrawing pretty freely here; your name occurs pretty often in Wemmick's\ncash-book; but you are in debt, of course?\"\n\n\"I am afraid I must say yes, sir.\"\n\n\"You know you must say yes; don't you?\" said Mr. Jaggers.\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"I don't ask you what you owe, because you don't know; and if you did\nknow, you wouldn't tell me; you would say less. Yes, yes, my friend,\"\ncried Mr. Jaggers, waving his forefinger to stop me as I made a show\nof protesting: \"it's likely enough that you think you wouldn't, but\nyou would. You'll excuse me, but I know better than you. Now, take this\npiece of paper in your hand. You have got it? Very good. Now, unfold it\nand tell me what it is.\"\n\n\"This is a bank-note,\" said I, \"for five hundred pounds.\"\n\n\"That is a bank-note,\" repeated Mr. Jaggers, \"for five hundred pounds.\nAnd a very handsome sum of money too, I think. You consider it so?\"\n\n\"How could I do otherwise!\"\n\n\"Ah! But answer the question,\" said Mr. Jaggers.\n\n\"Undoubtedly.\"\n\n\"You consider it, undoubtedly, a handsome sum of money. Now, that\nhandsome sum of money, Pip, is your own. It is a present to you on this\nday, in earnest of your expectations. And at the rate of that handsome\nsum of money per annum, and at no higher rate, you are to live until the\ndonor of the whole appears. That is to say, you will now take your money\naffairs entirely into your own hands, and you will draw from Wemmick\none hundred and twenty-five pounds per quarter, until you are in\ncommunication with the fountain-head, and no longer with the mere\nagent. As I have told you before, I am the mere agent. I execute my\ninstructions, and I am paid for doing so. I think them injudicious, but\nI am not paid for giving any opinion on their merits.\"\n\nI was beginning to express my gratitude to my benefactor for the great\nliberality with which I was treated, when Mr. Jaggers stopped me. \"I am\nnot paid, Pip,\" said he, coolly, \"to carry your words to any one;\" and\nthen gathered up his coat-tails, as he had gathered up the subject, and\nstood frowning at his boots as if he suspected them of designs against\nhim.\n\nAfter a pause, I hinted,--\n\n\"There was a question just now, Mr. Jaggers, which you desired me to\nwaive for a moment. I hope I am doing nothing wrong in asking it again?\"\n\n\"What is it?\" said he.\n\nI might have known that he would never help me out; but it took me aback\nto have to shape the question afresh, as if it were quite new. \"Is it\nlikely,\" I said, after hesitating, \"that my patron, the fountain-head\nyou have spoken of, Mr. Jaggers, will soon--\" there I delicately\nstopped.\n\n\"Will soon what?\" asked Mr. Jaggers. \"That's no question as it stands,\nyou know.\"\n\n\"Will soon come to London,\" said I, after casting about for a precise\nform of words, \"or summon me anywhere else?\"\n\n\"Now, here,\" replied Mr. Jaggers, fixing me for the first time with\nhis dark deep-set eyes, \"we must revert to the evening when we first\nencountered one another in your village. What did I tell you then, Pip?\"\n\n\"You told me, Mr. Jaggers, that it might be years hence when that person\nappeared.\"\n\n\"Just so,\" said Mr. Jaggers, \"that's my answer.\"\n\nAs we looked full at one another, I felt my breath come quicker in my\nstrong desire to get something out of him. And as I felt that it came\nquicker, and as I felt that he saw that it came quicker, I felt that I\nhad less chance than ever of getting anything out of him.\n\n\"Do you suppose it will still be years hence, Mr. Jaggers?\"\n\nMr. Jaggers shook his head,--not in negativing the question, but in\naltogether negativing the notion that he could anyhow be got to answer\nit,--and the two horrible casts of the twitched faces looked, when\nmy eyes strayed up to them, as if they had come to a crisis in their\nsuspended attention, and were going to sneeze.\n\n\"Come!\" said Mr. Jaggers, warming the backs of his legs with the backs\nof his warmed hands, \"I'll be plain with you, my friend Pip. That's a\nquestion I must not be asked. You'll understand that better, when I tell\nyou it's a question that might compromise me. Come! I'll go a little\nfurther with you; I'll say something more.\"\n\nHe bent down so low to frown at his boots, that he was able to rub the\ncalves of his legs in the pause he made.\n\n\"When that person discloses,\" said Mr. Jaggers, straightening himself,\n\"you and that person will settle your own affairs. When that person\ndiscloses, my part in this business will cease and determine. When that\nperson discloses, it will not be necessary for me to know anything about\nit. And that's all I have got to say.\"\n\nWe looked at one another until I withdrew my eyes, and looked\nthoughtfully at the floor. From this last speech I derived the notion\nthat Miss Havisham, for some reason or no reason, had not taken him\ninto her confidence as to her designing me for Estella; that he resented\nthis, and felt a jealousy about it; or that he really did object to\nthat scheme, and would have nothing to do with it. When I raised my eyes\nagain, I found that he had been shrewdly looking at me all the time, and\nwas doing so still.\n\n\"If that is all you have to say, sir,\" I remarked, \"there can be nothing\nleft for me to say.\"\n\nHe nodded assent, and pulled out his thief-dreaded watch, and asked me\nwhere I was going to dine? I replied at my own chambers, with Herbert.\nAs a necessary sequence, I asked him if he would favor us with his\ncompany, and he promptly accepted the invitation. But he insisted on\nwalking home with me, in order that I might make no extra preparation\nfor him, and first he had a letter or two to write, and (of course) had\nhis hands to wash. So I said I would go into the outer office and talk\nto Wemmick.\n\nThe fact was, that when the five hundred pounds had come into my pocket,\na thought had come into my head which had been often there before;\nand it appeared to me that Wemmick was a good person to advise with\nconcerning such thought.\n\nHe had already locked up his safe, and made preparations for going home.\nHe had left his desk, brought out his two greasy office candlesticks and\nstood them in line with the snuffers on a slab near the door, ready to\nbe extinguished; he had raked his fire low, put his hat and great-coat\nready, and was beating himself all over the chest with his safe-key, as\nan athletic exercise after business.\n\n\"Mr. Wemmick,\" said I, \"I want to ask your opinion. I am very desirous\nto serve a friend.\"\n\nWemmick tightened his post-office and shook his head, as if his opinion\nwere dead against any fatal weakness of that sort.\n\n\"This friend,\" I pursued, \"is trying to get on in commercial life,\nbut has no money, and finds it difficult and disheartening to make a\nbeginning. Now I want somehow to help him to a beginning.\"\n\n\"With money down?\" said Wemmick, in a tone drier than any sawdust.\n\n\"With some money down,\" I replied, for an uneasy remembrance shot across\nme of that symmetrical bundle of papers at home--\"with some money down,\nand perhaps some anticipation of my expectations.\"\n\n\"Mr. Pip,\" said Wemmick, \"I should like just to run over with you on my\nfingers, if you please, the names of the various bridges up as high\nas Chelsea Reach. Let's see; there's London, one; Southwark, two;\nBlackfriars, three; Waterloo, four; Westminster, five; Vauxhall, six.\"\nHe had checked off each bridge in its turn, with the handle of his\nsafe-key on the palm of his hand. \"There's as many as six, you see, to\nchoose from.\"\n\n\"I don't understand you,\" said I.\n\n\"Choose your bridge, Mr. Pip,\" returned Wemmick, \"and take a walk upon\nyour bridge, and pitch your money into the Thames over the centre arch\nof your bridge, and you know the end of it. Serve a friend with it, and\nyou may know the end of it too,--but it's a less pleasant and profitable\nend.\"\n\nI could have posted a newspaper in his mouth, he made it so wide after\nsaying this.\n\n\"This is very discouraging,\" said I.\n\n\"Meant to be so,\" said Wemmick.\n\n\"Then is it your opinion,\" I inquired, with some little indignation,\n\"that a man should never--\"\n\n\"--Invest portable property in a friend?\" said Wemmick. \"Certainly\nhe should not. Unless he wants to get rid of the friend,--and then it\nbecomes a question how much portable property it may be worth to get rid\nof him.\"\n\n\"And that,\" said I, \"is your deliberate opinion, Mr. Wemmick?\"\n\n\"That,\" he returned, \"is my deliberate opinion in this office.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said I, pressing him, for I thought I saw him near a loophole\nhere; \"but would that be your opinion at Walworth?\"\n\n\"Mr. Pip,\" he replied, with gravity, \"Walworth is one place, and this\noffice is another. Much as the Aged is one person, and Mr. Jaggers is\nanother. They must not be confounded together. My Walworth sentiments\nmust be taken at Walworth; none but my official sentiments can be taken\nin this office.\"\n\n\"Very well,\" said I, much relieved, \"then I shall look you up at\nWalworth, you may depend upon it.\"\n\n\"Mr. Pip,\" he returned, \"you will be welcome there, in a private and\npersonal capacity.\"\n\nWe had held this conversation in a low voice, well knowing my guardian's\nears to be the sharpest of the sharp. As he now appeared in his doorway,\ntowelling his hands, Wemmick got on his great-coat and stood by to snuff\nout the candles. We all three went into the street together, and from\nthe door-step Wemmick turned his way, and Mr. Jaggers and I turned ours.\n\nI could not help wishing more than once that evening, that Mr. Jaggers\nhad had an Aged in Gerrard Street, or a Stinger, or a Something, or\na Somebody, to unbend his brows a little. It was an uncomfortable\nconsideration on a twenty-first birthday, that coming of age at all\nseemed hardly worth while in such a guarded and suspicious world as he\nmade of it. He was a thousand times better informed and cleverer than\nWemmick, and yet I would a thousand times rather have had Wemmick to\ndinner. And Mr. Jaggers made not me alone intensely melancholy, because,\nafter he was gone, Herbert said of himself, with his eyes fixed on the\nfire, that he thought he must have committed a felony and forgotten the\ndetails of it, he felt so dejected and guilty.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XXXVII\n\nDeeming Sunday the best day for taking Mr. Wemmick's Walworth\nsentiments, I devoted the next ensuing Sunday afternoon to a pilgrimage\nto the Castle. On arriving before the battlements, I found the Union\nJack flying and the drawbridge up; but undeterred by this show of\ndefiance and resistance, I rang at the gate, and was admitted in a most\npacific manner by the Aged.\n\n\"My son, sir,\" said the old man, after securing the drawbridge, \"rather\nhad it in his mind that you might happen to drop in, and he left word\nthat he would soon be home from his afternoon's walk. He is very regular\nin his walks, is my son. Very regular in everything, is my son.\"\n\nI nodded at the old gentleman as Wemmick himself might have nodded, and\nwe went in and sat down by the fireside.\n\n\"You made acquaintance with my son, sir,\" said the old man, in his\nchirping way, while he warmed his hands at the blaze, \"at his office, I\nexpect?\" I nodded. \"Hah! I have heerd that my son is a wonderful hand at\nhis business, sir?\" I nodded hard. \"Yes; so they tell me. His business\nis the Law?\" I nodded harder. \"Which makes it more surprising in my\nson,\" said the old man, \"for he was not brought up to the Law, but to\nthe Wine-Coopering.\"\n\nCurious to know how the old gentleman stood informed concerning the\nreputation of Mr. Jaggers, I roared that name at him. He threw me into\nthe greatest confusion by laughing heartily and replying in a very\nsprightly manner, \"No, to be sure; you're right.\" And to this hour I\nhave not the faintest notion what he meant, or what joke he thought I\nhad made.\n\nAs I could not sit there nodding at him perpetually, without making\nsome other attempt to interest him, I shouted at inquiry whether his own\ncalling in life had been \"the Wine-Coopering.\" By dint of straining that\nterm out of myself several times and tapping the old gentleman on the\nchest to associate it with him, I at last succeeded in making my meaning\nunderstood.\n\n\"No,\" said the old gentleman; \"the warehousing, the warehousing. First,\nover yonder;\" he appeared to mean up the chimney, but I believe he\nintended to refer me to Liverpool; \"and then in the City of London here.\nHowever, having an infirmity--for I am hard of hearing, sir--\"\n\nI expressed in pantomime the greatest astonishment.\n\n\"--Yes, hard of hearing; having that infirmity coming upon me, my son he\nwent into the Law, and he took charge of me, and he by little and little\nmade out this elegant and beautiful property. But returning to what you\nsaid, you know,\" pursued the old man, again laughing heartily, \"what I\nsay is, No to be sure; you're right.\"\n\nI was modestly wondering whether my utmost ingenuity would have enabled\nme to say anything that would have amused him half as much as this\nimaginary pleasantry, when I was startled by a sudden click in the wall\non one side of the chimney, and the ghostly tumbling open of a little\nwooden flap with \"JOHN\" upon it. The old man, following my eyes, cried\nwith great triumph, \"My son's come home!\" and we both went out to the\ndrawbridge.\n\nIt was worth any money to see Wemmick waving a salute to me from the\nother side of the moat, when we might have shaken hands across it with\nthe greatest ease. The Aged was so delighted to work the drawbridge,\nthat I made no offer to assist him, but stood quiet until Wemmick had\ncome across, and had presented me to Miss Skiffins; a lady by whom he\nwas accompanied.\n\nMiss Skiffins was of a wooden appearance, and was, like her escort, in\nthe post-office branch of the service. She might have been some two or\nthree years younger than Wemmick, and I judged her to stand possessed\nof portable property. The cut of her dress from the waist upward, both\nbefore and behind, made her figure very like a boy's kite; and I might\nhave pronounced her gown a little too decidedly orange, and her gloves a\nlittle too intensely green. But she seemed to be a good sort of fellow,\nand showed a high regard for the Aged. I was not long in discovering\nthat she was a frequent visitor at the Castle; for, on our going in,\nand my complimenting Wemmick on his ingenious contrivance for announcing\nhimself to the Aged, he begged me to give my attention for a moment to\nthe other side of the chimney, and disappeared. Presently another click\ncame, and another little door tumbled open with \"Miss Skiffins\" on it;\nthen Miss Skiffins shut up and John tumbled open; then Miss Skiffins\nand John both tumbled open together, and finally shut up together. On\nWemmick's return from working these mechanical appliances, I expressed\nthe great admiration with which I regarded them, and he said, \"Well, you\nknow, they're both pleasant and useful to the Aged. And by George, sir,\nit's a thing worth mentioning, that of all the people who come to\nthis gate, the secret of those pulls is only known to the Aged, Miss\nSkiffins, and me!\"\n\n\"And Mr. Wemmick made them,\" added Miss Skiffins, \"with his own hands\nout of his own head.\"\n\nWhile Miss Skiffins was taking off her bonnet (she retained her green\ngloves during the evening as an outward and visible sign that there was\ncompany), Wemmick invited me to take a walk with him round the property,\nand see how the island looked in wintertime. Thinking that he did this\nto give me an opportunity of taking his Walworth sentiments, I seized\nthe opportunity as soon as we were out of the Castle.\n\nHaving thought of the matter with care, I approached my subject as if I\nhad never hinted at it before. I informed Wemmick that I was anxious in\nbehalf of Herbert Pocket, and I told him how we had first met, and how\nwe had fought. I glanced at Herbert's home, and at his character, and\nat his having no means but such as he was dependent on his father for;\nthose, uncertain and unpunctual. I alluded to the advantages I had\nderived in my first rawness and ignorance from his society, and I\nconfessed that I feared I had but ill repaid them, and that he might\nhave done better without me and my expectations. Keeping Miss Havisham\nin the background at a great distance, I still hinted at the possibility\nof my having competed with him in his prospects, and at the certainty of\nhis possessing a generous soul, and being far above any mean distrusts,\nretaliations, or designs. For all these reasons (I told Wemmick),\nand because he was my young companion and friend, and I had a great\naffection for him, I wished my own good fortune to reflect some rays\nupon him, and therefore I sought advice from Wemmick's experience and\nknowledge of men and affairs, how I could best try with my resources to\nhelp Herbert to some present income,--say of a hundred a year, to keep\nhim in good hope and heart,--and gradually to buy him on to some small\npartnership. I begged Wemmick, in conclusion, to understand that my help\nmust always be rendered without Herbert's knowledge or suspicion, and\nthat there was no one else in the world with whom I could advise. I\nwound up by laying my hand upon his shoulder, and saying, \"I can't help\nconfiding in you, though I know it must be troublesome to you; but that\nis your fault, in having ever brought me here.\"\n\nWemmick was silent for a little while, and then said with a kind of\nstart, \"Well you know, Mr. Pip, I must tell you one thing. This is\ndevilish good of you.\"\n\n\"Say you'll help me to be good then,\" said I.\n\n\"Ecod,\" replied Wemmick, shaking his head, \"that's not my trade.\"\n\n\"Nor is this your trading-place,\" said I.\n\n\"You are right,\" he returned. \"You hit the nail on the head. Mr. Pip,\nI'll put on my considering-cap, and I think all you want to do may be\ndone by degrees. Skiffins (that's her brother) is an accountant and\nagent. I'll look him up and go to work for you.\"\n\n\"I thank you ten thousand times.\"\n\n\"On the contrary,\" said he, \"I thank you, for though we are strictly in\nour private and personal capacity, still it may be mentioned that there\nare Newgate cobwebs about, and it brushes them away.\"\n\nAfter a little further conversation to the same effect, we returned into\nthe Castle where we found Miss Skiffins preparing tea. The responsible\nduty of making the toast was delegated to the Aged, and that excellent\nold gentleman was so intent upon it that he seemed to me in some danger\nof melting his eyes. It was no nominal meal that we were going to make,\nbut a vigorous reality. The Aged prepared such a hay-stack of buttered\ntoast, that I could scarcely see him over it as it simmered on an iron\nstand hooked on to the top-bar; while Miss Skiffins brewed such a jorum\nof tea, that the pig in the back premises became strongly excited, and\nrepeatedly expressed his desire to participate in the entertainment.\n\nThe flag had been struck, and the gun had been fired, at the right\nmoment of time, and I felt as snugly cut off from the rest of Walworth\nas if the moat were thirty feet wide by as many deep. Nothing disturbed\nthe tranquillity of the Castle, but the occasional tumbling open of\nJohn and Miss Skiffins: which little doors were a prey to some spasmodic\ninfirmity that made me sympathetically uncomfortable until I got used\nto it. I inferred from the methodical nature of Miss Skiffins's\narrangements that she made tea there every Sunday night; and I rather\nsuspected that a classic brooch she wore, representing the profile of an\nundesirable female with a very straight nose and a very new moon, was a\npiece of portable property that had been given her by Wemmick.\n\nWe ate the whole of the toast, and drank tea in proportion, and it was\ndelightful to see how warm and greasy we all got after it. The Aged\nespecially, might have passed for some clean old chief of a savage\ntribe, just oiled. After a short pause of repose, Miss Skiffins--in the\nabsence of the little servant who, it seemed, retired to the bosom of\nher family on Sunday afternoons--washed up the tea-things, in a trifling\nlady-like amateur manner that compromised none of us. Then, she put on\nher gloves again, and we drew round the fire, and Wemmick said, \"Now,\nAged Parent, tip us the paper.\"\n\nWemmick explained to me while the Aged got his spectacles out, that this\nwas according to custom, and that it gave the old gentleman infinite\nsatisfaction to read the news aloud. \"I won't offer an apology,\" said\nWemmick, \"for he isn't capable of many pleasures--are you, Aged P.?\"\n\n\"All right, John, all right,\" returned the old man, seeing himself\nspoken to.\n\n\"Only tip him a nod every now and then when he looks off his paper,\"\nsaid Wemmick, \"and he'll be as happy as a king. We are all attention,\nAged One.\"\n\n\"All right, John, all right!\" returned the cheerful old man, so busy and\nso pleased, that it really was quite charming.\n\nThe Aged's reading reminded me of the classes at Mr. Wopsle's\ngreat-aunt's, with the pleasanter peculiarity that it seemed to come\nthrough a keyhole. As he wanted the candles close to him, and as he was\nalways on the verge of putting either his head or the newspaper into\nthem, he required as much watching as a powder-mill. But Wemmick was\nequally untiring and gentle in his vigilance, and the Aged read on,\nquite unconscious of his many rescues. Whenever he looked at us, we\nall expressed the greatest interest and amazement, and nodded until he\nresumed again.\n\nAs Wemmick and Miss Skiffins sat side by side, and as I sat in a shadowy\ncorner, I observed a slow and gradual elongation of Mr. Wemmick's mouth,\npowerfully suggestive of his slowly and gradually stealing his arm round\nMiss Skiffins's waist. In course of time I saw his hand appear on the\nother side of Miss Skiffins; but at that moment Miss Skiffins neatly\nstopped him with the green glove, unwound his arm again as if it were\nan article of dress, and with the greatest deliberation laid it on the\ntable before her. Miss Skiffins's composure while she did this was one\nof the most remarkable sights I have ever seen, and if I could have\nthought the act consistent with abstraction of mind, I should have\ndeemed that Miss Skiffins performed it mechanically.\n\nBy and by, I noticed Wemmick's arm beginning to disappear again, and\ngradually fading out of view. Shortly afterwards, his mouth began to\nwiden again. After an interval of suspense on my part that was quite\nenthralling and almost painful, I saw his hand appear on the other side\nof Miss Skiffins. Instantly, Miss Skiffins stopped it with the neatness\nof a placid boxer, took off that girdle or cestus as before, and laid\nit on the table. Taking the table to represent the path of virtue, I am\njustified in stating that during the whole time of the Aged's reading,\nWemmick's arm was straying from the path of virtue and being recalled to\nit by Miss Skiffins.\n\nAt last, the Aged read himself into a light slumber. This was the time\nfor Wemmick to produce a little kettle, a tray of glasses, and a\nblack bottle with a porcelain-topped cork, representing some clerical\ndignitary of a rubicund and social aspect. With the aid of these\nappliances we all had something warm to drink, including the Aged, who\nwas soon awake again. Miss Skiffins mixed, and I observed that she and\nWemmick drank out of one glass. Of course I knew better than to offer to\nsee Miss Skiffins home, and under the circumstances I thought I had best\ngo first; which I did, taking a cordial leave of the Aged, and having\npassed a pleasant evening.\n\nBefore a week was out, I received a note from Wemmick, dated Walworth,\nstating that he hoped he had made some advance in that matter\nappertaining to our private and personal capacities, and that he would\nbe glad if I could come and see him again upon it. So, I went out\nto Walworth again, and yet again, and yet again, and I saw him by\nappointment in the City several times, but never held any communication\nwith him on the subject in or near Little Britain. The upshot was,\nthat we found a worthy young merchant or shipping-broker, not long\nestablished in business, who wanted intelligent help, and who wanted\ncapital, and who in due course of time and receipt would want a partner.\nBetween him and me, secret articles were signed of which Herbert was the\nsubject, and I paid him half of my five hundred pounds down, and engaged\nfor sundry other payments: some, to fall due at certain dates out of my\nincome: some, contingent on my coming into my property. Miss Skiffins's\nbrother conducted the negotiation. Wemmick pervaded it throughout, but\nnever appeared in it.\n\nThe whole business was so cleverly managed, that Herbert had not the\nleast suspicion of my hand being in it. I never shall forget the radiant\nface with which he came home one afternoon, and told me, as a mighty\npiece of news, of his having fallen in with one Clarriker (the young\nmerchant's name), and of Clarriker's having shown an extraordinary\ninclination towards him, and of his belief that the opening had come at\nlast. Day by day as his hopes grew stronger and his face brighter, he\nmust have thought me a more and more affectionate friend, for I had the\ngreatest difficulty in restraining my tears of triumph when I saw him so\nhappy. At length, the thing being done, and he having that day entered\nClarriker's House, and he having talked to me for a whole evening in a\nflush of pleasure and success, I did really cry in good earnest when\nI went to bed, to think that my expectations had done some good to\nsomebody.\n\nA great event in my life, the turning point of my life, now opens on my\nview. But, before I proceed to narrate it, and before I pass on to all\nthe changes it involved, I must give one chapter to Estella. It is not\nmuch to give to the theme that so long filled my heart.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XXXVIII\n\nIf that staid old house near the Green at Richmond should ever come to\nbe haunted when I am dead, it will be haunted, surely, by my ghost. O\nthe many, many nights and days through which the unquiet spirit within\nme haunted that house when Estella lived there! Let my body be where it\nwould, my spirit was always wandering, wandering, wandering, about that\nhouse.\n\nThe lady with whom Estella was placed, Mrs. Brandley by name, was a\nwidow, with one daughter several years older than Estella. The mother\nlooked young, and the daughter looked old; the mother's complexion was\npink, and the daughter's was yellow; the mother set up for frivolity,\nand the daughter for theology. They were in what is called a good\nposition, and visited, and were visited by, numbers of people. Little,\nif any, community of feeling subsisted between them and Estella, but the\nunderstanding was established that they were necessary to her, and\nthat she was necessary to them. Mrs. Brandley had been a friend of Miss\nHavisham's before the time of her seclusion.\n\nIn Mrs. Brandley's house and out of Mrs. Brandley's house, I suffered\nevery kind and degree of torture that Estella could cause me. The\nnature of my relations with her, which placed me on terms of familiarity\nwithout placing me on terms of favor, conduced to my distraction.\nShe made use of me to tease other admirers, and she turned the very\nfamiliarity between herself and me to the account of putting a constant\nslight on my devotion to her. If I had been her secretary, steward,\nhalf-brother, poor relation,--if I had been a younger brother of her\nappointed husband,--I could not have seemed to myself further from my\nhopes when I was nearest to her. The privilege of calling her by her\nname and hearing her call me by mine became, under the circumstances\nan aggravation of my trials; and while I think it likely that it almost\nmaddened her other lovers, I know too certainly that it almost maddened\nme.\n\nShe had admirers without end. No doubt my jealousy made an admirer of\nevery one who went near her; but there were more than enough of them\nwithout that.\n\nI saw her often at Richmond, I heard of her often in town, and I used\noften to take her and the Brandleys on the water; there were picnics,\nf\u00eate days, plays, operas, concerts, parties, all sorts of pleasures,\nthrough which I pursued her,--and they were all miseries to me. I never\nhad one hour's happiness in her society, and yet my mind all round the\nfour-and-twenty hours was harping on the happiness of having her with me\nunto death.\n\nThroughout this part of our intercourse,--and it lasted, as will\npresently be seen, for what I then thought a long time,--she habitually\nreverted to that tone which expressed that our association was forced\nupon us. There were other times when she would come to a sudden check in\nthis tone and in all her many tones, and would seem to pity me.\n\n\"Pip, Pip,\" she said one evening, coming to such a check, when we sat\napart at a darkening window of the house in Richmond; \"will you never\ntake warning?\"\n\n\"Of what?\"\n\n\"Of me.\"\n\n\"Warning not to be attracted by you, do you mean, Estella?\"\n\n\"Do I mean! If you don't know what I mean, you are blind.\"\n\nI should have replied that Love was commonly reputed blind, but for the\nreason that I always was restrained--and this was not the least of my\nmiseries--by a feeling that it was ungenerous to press myself upon her,\nwhen she knew that she could not choose but obey Miss Havisham. My\ndread always was, that this knowledge on her part laid me under a heavy\ndisadvantage with her pride, and made me the subject of a rebellious\nstruggle in her bosom.\n\n\"At any rate,\" said I, \"I have no warning given me just now, for you\nwrote to me to come to you, this time.\"\n\n\"That's true,\" said Estella, with a cold careless smile that always\nchilled me.\n\nAfter looking at the twilight without, for a little while, she went on\nto say:--\n\n\"The time has come round when Miss Havisham wishes to have me for a day\nat Satis. You are to take me there, and bring me back, if you will. She\nwould rather I did not travel alone, and objects to receiving my maid,\nfor she has a sensitive horror of being talked of by such people. Can\nyou take me?\"\n\n\"Can I take you, Estella!\"\n\n\"You can then? The day after to-morrow, if you please. You are to pay\nall charges out of my purse, You hear the condition of your going?\"\n\n\"And must obey,\" said I.\n\nThis was all the preparation I received for that visit, or for others\nlike it; Miss Havisham never wrote to me, nor had I ever so much as seen\nher handwriting. We went down on the next day but one, and we found her\nin the room where I had first beheld her, and it is needless to add that\nthere was no change in Satis House.\n\nShe was even more dreadfully fond of Estella than she had been when\nI last saw them together; I repeat the word advisedly, for there was\nsomething positively dreadful in the energy of her looks and embraces.\nShe hung upon Estella's beauty, hung upon her words, hung upon her\ngestures, and sat mumbling her own trembling fingers while she looked at\nher, as though she were devouring the beautiful creature she had reared.\n\nFrom Estella she looked at me, with a searching glance that seemed to\npry into my heart and probe its wounds. \"How does she use you, Pip; how\ndoes she use you?\" she asked me again, with her witch-like eagerness,\neven in Estella's hearing. But, when we sat by her flickering fire\nat night, she was most weird; for then, keeping Estella's hand drawn\nthrough her arm and clutched in her own hand, she extorted from her,\nby dint of referring back to what Estella had told her in her regular\nletters, the names and conditions of the men whom she had fascinated;\nand as Miss Havisham dwelt upon this roll, with the intensity of a mind\nmortally hurt and diseased, she sat with her other hand on her crutch\nstick, and her chin on that, and her wan bright eyes glaring at me, a\nvery spectre.\n\nI saw in this, wretched though it made me, and bitter the sense of\ndependence and even of degradation that it awakened,--I saw in this that\nEstella was set to wreak Miss Havisham's revenge on men, and that she\nwas not to be given to me until she had gratified it for a term. I saw\nin this, a reason for her being beforehand assigned to me. Sending her\nout to attract and torment and do mischief, Miss Havisham sent her with\nthe malicious assurance that she was beyond the reach of all admirers,\nand that all who staked upon that cast were secured to lose. I saw in\nthis that I, too, was tormented by a perversion of ingenuity, even while\nthe prize was reserved for me. I saw in this the reason for my being\nstaved off so long and the reason for my late guardian's declining to\ncommit himself to the formal knowledge of such a scheme. In a word, I\nsaw in this Miss Havisham as I had her then and there before my eyes,\nand always had had her before my eyes; and I saw in this, the distinct\nshadow of the darkened and unhealthy house in which her life was hidden\nfrom the sun.\n\nThe candles that lighted that room of hers were placed in sconces on\nthe wall. They were high from the ground, and they burnt with the steady\ndulness of artificial light in air that is seldom renewed. As I looked\nround at them, and at the pale gloom they made, and at the stopped\nclock, and at the withered articles of bridal dress upon the table and\nthe ground, and at her own awful figure with its ghostly reflection\nthrown large by the fire upon the ceiling and the wall, I saw in\neverything the construction that my mind had come to, repeated and\nthrown back to me. My thoughts passed into the great room across the\nlanding where the table was spread, and I saw it written, as it were, in\nthe falls of the cobwebs from the centre-piece, in the crawlings of the\nspiders on the cloth, in the tracks of the mice as they betook their\nlittle quickened hearts behind the panels, and in the gropings and\npausings of the beetles on the floor.\n\nIt happened on the occasion of this visit that some sharp words arose\nbetween Estella and Miss Havisham. It was the first time I had ever seen\nthem opposed.\n\nWe were seated by the fire, as just now described, and Miss Havisham\nstill had Estella's arm drawn through her own, and still clutched\nEstella's hand in hers, when Estella gradually began to detach herself.\nShe had shown a proud impatience more than once before, and had rather\nendured that fierce affection than accepted or returned it.\n\n\"What!\" said Miss Havisham, flashing her eyes upon her, \"are you tired\nof me?\"\n\n\"Only a little tired of myself,\" replied Estella, disengaging her arm,\nand moving to the great chimney-piece, where she stood looking down at\nthe fire.\n\n\"Speak the truth, you ingrate!\" cried Miss Havisham, passionately\nstriking her stick upon the floor; \"you are tired of me.\"\n\nEstella looked at her with perfect composure, and again looked down\nat the fire. Her graceful figure and her beautiful face expressed a\nself-possessed indifference to the wild heat of the other, that was\nalmost cruel.\n\n\"You stock and stone!\" exclaimed Miss Havisham. \"You cold, cold heart!\"\n\n\"What?\" said Estella, preserving her attitude of indifference as she\nleaned against the great chimney-piece and only moving her eyes; \"do you\nreproach me for being cold? You?\"\n\n\"Are you not?\" was the fierce retort.\n\n\"You should know,\" said Estella. \"I am what you have made me. Take\nall the praise, take all the blame; take all the success, take all the\nfailure; in short, take me.\"\n\n\"O, look at her, look at her!\" cried Miss Havisham, bitterly; \"Look at\nher so hard and thankless, on the hearth where she was reared! Where I\ntook her into this wretched breast when it was first bleeding from its\nstabs, and where I have lavished years of tenderness upon her!\"\n\n\"At least I was no party to the compact,\" said Estella, \"for if I could\nwalk and speak, when it was made, it was as much as I could do. But what\nwould you have? You have been very good to me, and I owe everything to\nyou. What would you have?\"\n\n\"Love,\" replied the other.\n\n\"You have it.\"\n\n\"I have not,\" said Miss Havisham.\n\n\"Mother by adoption,\" retorted Estella, never departing from the easy\ngrace of her attitude, never raising her voice as the other did, never\nyielding either to anger or tenderness,--\"mother by adoption, I have\nsaid that I owe everything to you. All I possess is freely yours. All\nthat you have given me, is at your command to have again. Beyond that, I\nhave nothing. And if you ask me to give you, what you never gave me, my\ngratitude and duty cannot do impossibilities.\"\n\n\"Did I never give her love!\" cried Miss Havisham, turning wildly to me.\n\"Did I never give her a burning love, inseparable from jealousy at all\ntimes, and from sharp pain, while she speaks thus to me! Let her call me\nmad, let her call me mad!\"\n\n\"Why should I call you mad,\" returned Estella, \"I, of all people? Does\nany one live, who knows what set purposes you have, half as well as I\ndo? Does any one live, who knows what a steady memory you have, half\nas well as I do? I who have sat on this same hearth on the little stool\nthat is even now beside you there, learning your lessons and looking up\ninto your face, when your face was strange and frightened me!\"\n\n\"Soon forgotten!\" moaned Miss Havisham. \"Times soon forgotten!\"\n\n\"No, not forgotten,\" retorted Estella,--\"not forgotten, but treasured up\nin my memory. When have you found me false to your teaching? When have\nyou found me unmindful of your lessons? When have you found me giving\nadmission here,\" she touched her bosom with her hand, \"to anything that\nyou excluded? Be just to me.\"\n\n\"So proud, so proud!\" moaned Miss Havisham, pushing away her gray hair\nwith both her hands.\n\n\"Who taught me to be proud?\" returned Estella. \"Who praised me when I\nlearnt my lesson?\"\n\n\"So hard, so hard!\" moaned Miss Havisham, with her former action.\n\n\"Who taught me to be hard?\" returned Estella. \"Who praised me when I\nlearnt my lesson?\"\n\n\"But to be proud and hard to me!\" Miss Havisham quite shrieked, as she\nstretched out her arms. \"Estella, Estella, Estella, to be proud and hard\nto me!\"\n\nEstella looked at her for a moment with a kind of calm wonder, but was\nnot otherwise disturbed; when the moment was past, she looked down at\nthe fire again.\n\n\"I cannot think,\" said Estella, raising her eyes after a silence \"why\nyou should be so unreasonable when I come to see you after a separation.\nI have never forgotten your wrongs and their causes. I have never been\nunfaithful to you or your schooling. I have never shown any weakness\nthat I can charge myself with.\"\n\n\"Would it be weakness to return my love?\" exclaimed Miss Havisham. \"But\nyes, yes, she would call it so!\"\n\n\"I begin to think,\" said Estella, in a musing way, after another moment\nof calm wonder, \"that I almost understand how this comes about. If you\nhad brought up your adopted daughter wholly in the dark confinement of\nthese rooms, and had never let her know that there was such a thing as\nthe daylight by which she had never once seen your face,--if you had\ndone that, and then, for a purpose had wanted her to understand the\ndaylight and know all about it, you would have been disappointed and\nangry?\"\n\nMiss Havisham, with her head in her hands, sat making a low moaning, and\nswaying herself on her chair, but gave no answer.\n\n\"Or,\" said Estella,--\"which is a nearer case,--if you had taught her,\nfrom the dawn of her intelligence, with your utmost energy and might,\nthat there was such a thing as daylight, but that it was made to be her\nenemy and destroyer, and she must always turn against it, for it had\nblighted you and would else blight her;--if you had done this, and then,\nfor a purpose, had wanted her to take naturally to the daylight and she\ncould not do it, you would have been disappointed and angry?\"\n\nMiss Havisham sat listening (or it seemed so, for I could not see her\nface), but still made no answer.\n\n\"So,\" said Estella, \"I must be taken as I have been made. The success is\nnot mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.\"\n\nMiss Havisham had settled down, I hardly knew how, upon the floor, among\nthe faded bridal relics with which it was strewn. I took advantage of\nthe moment--I had sought one from the first--to leave the room, after\nbeseeching Estella's attention to her, with a movement of my hand. When\nI left, Estella was yet standing by the great chimney-piece, just as she\nhad stood throughout. Miss Havisham's gray hair was all adrift upon the\nground, among the other bridal wrecks, and was a miserable sight to see.\n\nIt was with a depressed heart that I walked in the starlight for an\nhour and more, about the courtyard, and about the brewery, and about\nthe ruined garden. When I at last took courage to return to the room, I\nfound Estella sitting at Miss Havisham's knee, taking up some stitches\nin one of those old articles of dress that were dropping to pieces, and\nof which I have often been reminded since by the faded tatters of old\nbanners that I have seen hanging up in cathedrals. Afterwards, Estella\nand I played at cards, as of yore,--only we were skilful now, and played\nFrench games,--and so the evening wore away, and I went to bed.\n\nI lay in that separate building across the courtyard. It was the first\ntime I had ever lain down to rest in Satis House, and sleep refused to\ncome near me. A thousand Miss Havishams haunted me. She was on this side\nof my pillow, on that, at the head of the bed, at the foot, behind the\nhalf-opened door of the dressing-room, in the dressing-room, in the room\noverhead, in the room beneath,--everywhere. At last, when the night was\nslow to creep on towards two o'clock, I felt that I absolutely could no\nlonger bear the place as a place to lie down in, and that I must get up.\nI therefore got up and put on my clothes, and went out across the yard\ninto the long stone passage, designing to gain the outer courtyard and\nwalk there for the relief of my mind. But I was no sooner in the passage\nthan I extinguished my candle; for I saw Miss Havisham going along it\nin a ghostly manner, making a low cry. I followed her at a distance,\nand saw her go up the staircase. She carried a bare candle in her hand,\nwhich she had probably taken from one of the sconces in her own room,\nand was a most unearthly object by its light. Standing at the bottom\nof the staircase, I felt the mildewed air of the feast-chamber, without\nseeing her open the door, and I heard her walking there, and so across\ninto her own room, and so across again into that, never ceasing the low\ncry. After a time, I tried in the dark both to get out, and to go back,\nbut I could do neither until some streaks of day strayed in and showed\nme where to lay my hands. During the whole interval, whenever I went to\nthe bottom of the staircase, I heard her footstep, saw her light pass\nabove, and heard her ceaseless low cry.\n\nBefore we left next day, there was no revival of the difference between\nher and Estella, nor was it ever revived on any similar occasion; and\nthere were four similar occasions, to the best of my remembrance. Nor,\ndid Miss Havisham's manner towards Estella in anywise change, except\nthat I believed it to have something like fear infused among its former\ncharacteristics.\n\nIt is impossible to turn this leaf of my life, without putting Bentley\nDrummle's name upon it; or I would, very gladly.\n\nOn a certain occasion when the Finches were assembled in force, and when\ngood feeling was being promoted in the usual manner by nobody's agreeing\nwith anybody else, the presiding Finch called the Grove to order,\nforasmuch as Mr. Drummle had not yet toasted a lady; which, according\nto the solemn constitution of the society, it was the brute's turn to\ndo that day. I thought I saw him leer in an ugly way at me while the\ndecanters were going round, but as there was no love lost between us,\nthat might easily be. What was my indignant surprise when he called upon\nthe company to pledge him to \"Estella!\"\n\n\"Estella who?\" said I.\n\n\"Never you mind,\" retorted Drummle.\n\n\"Estella of where?\" said I. \"You are bound to say of where.\" Which he\nwas, as a Finch.\n\n\"Of Richmond, gentlemen,\" said Drummle, putting me out of the question,\n\"and a peerless beauty.\"\n\nMuch he knew about peerless beauties, a mean, miserable idiot! I\nwhispered Herbert.\n\n\"I know that lady,\" said Herbert, across the table, when the toast had\nbeen honored.\n\n\"Do you?\" said Drummle.\n\n\"And so do I,\" I added, with a scarlet face.\n\n\"Do you?\" said Drummle. \"O, Lord!\"\n\nThis was the only retort--except glass or crockery--that the heavy\ncreature was capable of making; but, I became as highly incensed by it\nas if it had been barbed with wit, and I immediately rose in my place\nand said that I could not but regard it as being like the honorable\nFinch's impudence to come down to that Grove,--we always talked\nabout coming down to that Grove, as a neat Parliamentary turn of\nexpression,--down to that Grove, proposing a lady of whom he knew\nnothing. Mr. Drummle, upon this, starting up, demanded what I meant by\nthat? Whereupon I made him the extreme reply that I believed he knew\nwhere I was to be found.\n\nWhether it was possible in a Christian country to get on without blood,\nafter this, was a question on which the Finches were divided. The debate\nupon it grew so lively, indeed, that at least six more honorable members\ntold six more, during the discussion, that they believed they knew where\nthey were to be found. However, it was decided at last (the Grove being\na Court of Honor) that if Mr. Drummle would bring never so slight\na certificate from the lady, importing that he had the honor of her\nacquaintance, Mr. Pip must express his regret, as a gentleman and a\nFinch, for \"having been betrayed into a warmth which.\" Next day was\nappointed for the production (lest our honor should take cold from\ndelay), and next day Drummle appeared with a polite little avowal in\nEstella's hand, that she had had the honor of dancing with him several\ntimes. This left me no course but to regret that I had been \"betrayed\ninto a warmth which,\" and on the whole to repudiate, as untenable, the\nidea that I was to be found anywhere. Drummle and I then sat snorting\nat one another for an hour, while the Grove engaged in indiscriminate\ncontradiction, and finally the promotion of good feeling was declared to\nhave gone ahead at an amazing rate.\n\nI tell this lightly, but it was no light thing to me. For, I cannot\nadequately express what pain it gave me to think that Estella should\nshow any favor to a contemptible, clumsy, sulky booby, so very far below\nthe average. To the present moment, I believe it to have been referable\nto some pure fire of generosity and disinterestedness in my love for\nher, that I could not endure the thought of her stooping to that hound.\nNo doubt I should have been miserable whomsoever she had favored; but\na worthier object would have caused me a different kind and degree of\ndistress.\n\nIt was easy for me to find out, and I did soon find out, that Drummle\nhad begun to follow her closely, and that she allowed him to do it. A\nlittle while, and he was always in pursuit of her, and he and I crossed\none another every day. He held on, in a dull persistent way, and Estella\nheld him on; now with encouragement, now with discouragement, now almost\nflattering him, now openly despising him, now knowing him very well, now\nscarcely remembering who he was.\n\nThe Spider, as Mr. Jaggers had called him, was used to lying in wait,\nhowever, and had the patience of his tribe. Added to that, he had a\nblockhead confidence in his money and in his family greatness,\nwhich sometimes did him good service,--almost taking the place of\nconcentration and determined purpose. So, the Spider, doggedly watching\nEstella, outwatched many brighter insects, and would often uncoil\nhimself and drop at the right nick of time.\n\nAt a certain Assembly Ball at Richmond (there used to be Assembly Balls\nat most places then), where Estella had outshone all other beauties,\nthis blundering Drummle so hung about her, and with so much toleration\non her part, that I resolved to speak to her concerning him. I took the\nnext opportunity; which was when she was waiting for Mrs. Blandley to\ntake her home, and was sitting apart among some flowers, ready to go.\nI was with her, for I almost always accompanied them to and from such\nplaces.\n\n\"Are you tired, Estella?\"\n\n\"Rather, Pip.\"\n\n\"You should be.\"\n\n\"Say rather, I should not be; for I have my letter to Satis House to\nwrite, before I go to sleep.\"\n\n\"Recounting to-night's triumph?\" said I. \"Surely a very poor one,\nEstella.\"\n\n\"What do you mean? I didn't know there had been any.\"\n\n\"Estella,\" said I, \"do look at that fellow in the corner yonder, who is\nlooking over here at us.\"\n\n\"Why should I look at him?\" returned Estella, with her eyes on me\ninstead. \"What is there in that fellow in the corner yonder,--to use\nyour words,--that I need look at?\"\n\n\"Indeed, that is the very question I want to ask you,\" said I. \"For he\nhas been hovering about you all night.\"\n\n\"Moths, and all sorts of ugly creatures,\" replied Estella, with a glance\ntowards him, \"hover about a lighted candle. Can the candle help it?\"\n\n\"No,\" I returned; \"but cannot the Estella help it?\"\n\n\"Well!\" said she, laughing, after a moment, \"perhaps. Yes. Anything you\nlike.\"\n\n\"But, Estella, do hear me speak. It makes me wretched that you should\nencourage a man so generally despised as Drummle. You know he is\ndespised.\"\n\n\"Well?\" said she.\n\n\"You know he is as ungainly within as without. A deficient,\nill-tempered, lowering, stupid fellow.\"\n\n\"Well?\" said she.\n\n\"You know he has nothing to recommend him but money and a ridiculous\nroll of addle-headed predecessors; now, don't you?\"\n\n\"Well?\" said she again; and each time she said it, she opened her lovely\neyes the wider.\n\nTo overcome the difficulty of getting past that monosyllable, I took it\nfrom her, and said, repeating it with emphasis, \"Well! Then, that is why\nit makes me wretched.\"\n\nNow, if I could have believed that she favored Drummle with any idea of\nmaking me-me--wretched, I should have been in better heart about it;\nbut in that habitual way of hers, she put me so entirely out of the\nquestion, that I could believe nothing of the kind.\n\n\"Pip,\" said Estella, casting her glance over the room, \"don't be foolish\nabout its effect on you. It may have its effect on others, and may be\nmeant to have. It's not worth discussing.\"\n\n\"Yes it is,\" said I, \"because I cannot bear that people should say, 'she\nthrows away her graces and attractions on a mere boor, the lowest in the\ncrowd.'\"\n\n\"I can bear it,\" said Estella.\n\n\"Oh! don't be so proud, Estella, and so inflexible.\"\n\n\"Calls me proud and inflexible in this breath!\" said Estella, opening\nher hands. \"And in his last breath reproached me for stooping to a\nboor!\"\n\n\"There is no doubt you do,\" said I, something hurriedly, \"for I have\nseen you give him looks and smiles this very night, such as you never\ngive to--me.\"\n\n\"Do you want me then,\" said Estella, turning suddenly with a fixed and\nserious, if not angry, look, \"to deceive and entrap you?\"\n\n\"Do you deceive and entrap him, Estella?\"\n\n\"Yes, and many others,--all of them but you. Here is Mrs. Brandley. I'll\nsay no more.\"\n\n* *\n\nAnd now that I have given the one chapter to the theme that so filled my\nheart, and so often made it ache and ache again, I pass on unhindered,\nto the event that had impended over me longer yet; the event that had\nbegun to be prepared for, before I knew that the world held Estella,\nand in the days when her baby intelligence was receiving its first\ndistortions from Miss Havisham's wasting hands.\n\nIn the Eastern story, the heavy slab that was to fall on the bed of\nstate in the flush of conquest was slowly wrought out of the quarry, the\ntunnel for the rope to hold it in its place was slowly carried through\nthe leagues of rock, the slab was slowly raised and fitted in the roof,\nthe rope was rove to it and slowly taken through the miles of hollow to\nthe great iron ring. All being made ready with much labor, and the hour\ncome, the sultan was aroused in the dead of the night, and the sharpened\naxe that was to sever the rope from the great iron ring was put into his\nhand, and he struck with it, and the rope parted and rushed away, and\nthe ceiling fell. So, in my case; all the work, near and afar, that\ntended to the end, had been accomplished; and in an instant the blow was\nstruck, and the roof of my stronghold dropped upon me.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XXXIX\n\nI was three-and-twenty years of age. Not another word had I heard to\nenlighten me on the subject of my expectations, and my twenty-third\nbirthday was a week gone. We had left Barnard's Inn more than a year,\nand lived in the Temple. Our chambers were in Garden-court, down by the\nriver.\n\nMr. Pocket and I had for some time parted company as to our original\nrelations, though we continued on the best terms. Notwithstanding my\ninability to settle to anything,--which I hope arose out of the restless\nand incomplete tenure on which I held my means,--I had a taste for\nreading, and read regularly so many hours a day. That matter of\nHerbert's was still progressing, and everything with me was as I have\nbrought it down to the close of the last preceding chapter.\n\nBusiness had taken Herbert on a journey to Marseilles. I was alone, and\nhad a dull sense of being alone. Dispirited and anxious, long hoping\nthat to-morrow or next week would clear my way, and long disappointed, I\nsadly missed the cheerful face and ready response of my friend.\n\nIt was wretched weather; stormy and wet, stormy and wet; and mud, mud,\nmud, deep in all the streets. Day after day, a vast heavy veil had been\ndriving over London from the East, and it drove still, as if in the East\nthere were an Eternity of cloud and wind. So furious had been the gusts,\nthat high buildings in town had had the lead stripped off their roofs;\nand in the country, trees had been torn up, and sails of windmills\ncarried away; and gloomy accounts had come in from the coast, of\nshipwreck and death. Violent blasts of rain had accompanied these rages\nof wind, and the day just closed as I sat down to read had been the\nworst of all.\n\nAlterations have been made in that part of the Temple since that time,\nand it has not now so lonely a character as it had then, nor is it so\nexposed to the river. We lived at the top of the last house, and the\nwind rushing up the river shook the house that night, like discharges\nof cannon, or breakings of a sea. When the rain came with it and dashed\nagainst the windows, I thought, raising my eyes to them as they\nrocked, that I might have fancied myself in a storm-beaten lighthouse.\nOccasionally, the smoke came rolling down the chimney as though it could\nnot bear to go out into such a night; and when I set the doors open and\nlooked down the staircase, the staircase lamps were blown out; and when\nI shaded my face with my hands and looked through the black windows\n(opening them ever so little was out of the question in the teeth of\nsuch wind and rain), I saw that the lamps in the court were blown out,\nand that the lamps on the bridges and the shore were shuddering, and\nthat the coal-fires in barges on the river were being carried away\nbefore the wind like red-hot splashes in the rain.\n\nI read with my watch upon the table, purposing to close my book\nat eleven o'clock. As I shut it, Saint Paul's, and all the many\nchurch-clocks in the City--some leading, some accompanying, some\nfollowing--struck that hour. The sound was curiously flawed by the wind;\nand I was listening, and thinking how the wind assailed and tore it,\nwhen I heard a footstep on the stair.\n\nWhat nervous folly made me start, and awfully connect it with the\nfootstep of my dead sister, matters not. It was past in a moment, and I\nlistened again, and heard the footstep stumble in coming on.\nRemembering then, that the staircase-lights were blown out, I took up\nmy reading-lamp and went out to the stair-head. Whoever was below had\nstopped on seeing my lamp, for all was quiet.\n\n\"There is some one down there, is there not?\" I called out, looking\ndown.\n\n\"Yes,\" said a voice from the darkness beneath.\n\n\"What floor do you want?\"\n\n\"The top. Mr. Pip.\"\n\n\"That is my name.--There is nothing the matter?\"\n\n\"Nothing the matter,\" returned the voice. And the man came on.\n\nI stood with my lamp held out over the stair-rail, and he came slowly\nwithin its light. It was a shaded lamp, to shine upon a book, and its\ncircle of light was very contracted; so that he was in it for a mere\ninstant, and then out of it. In the instant, I had seen a face that was\nstrange to me, looking up with an incomprehensible air of being touched\nand pleased by the sight of me.\n\nMoving the lamp as the man moved, I made out that he was substantially\ndressed, but roughly, like a voyager by sea. That he had long iron-gray\nhair. That his age was about sixty. That he was a muscular man, strong\non his legs, and that he was browned and hardened by exposure to\nweather. As he ascended the last stair or two, and the light of my lamp\nincluded us both, I saw, with a stupid kind of amazement, that he was\nholding out both his hands to me.\n\n\"Pray what is your business?\" I asked him.\n\n\"My business?\" he repeated, pausing. \"Ah! Yes. I will explain my\nbusiness, by your leave.\"\n\n\"Do you wish to come in?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he replied; \"I wish to come in, master.\"\n\nI had asked him the question inhospitably enough, for I resented the\nsort of bright and gratified recognition that still shone in his face.\nI resented it, because it seemed to imply that he expected me to respond\nto it. But I took him into the room I had just left, and, having set the\nlamp on the table, asked him as civilly as I could to explain himself.\n\nHe looked about him with the strangest air,--an air of wondering\npleasure, as if he had some part in the things he admired,--and he\npulled off a rough outer coat, and his hat. Then, I saw that his head\nwas furrowed and bald, and that the long iron-gray hair grew only on\nits sides. But, I saw nothing that in the least explained him. On the\ncontrary, I saw him next moment, once more holding out both his hands to\nme.\n\n\"What do you mean?\" said I, half suspecting him to be mad.\n\nHe stopped in his looking at me, and slowly rubbed his right hand over\nhis head. \"It's disapinting to a man,\" he said, in a coarse broken\nvoice, \"arter having looked for'ard so distant, and come so fur; but\nyou're not to blame for that,--neither on us is to blame for that. I'll\nspeak in half a minute. Give me half a minute, please.\"\n\nHe sat down on a chair that stood before the fire, and covered his\nforehead with his large brown veinous hands. I looked at him attentively\nthen, and recoiled a little from him; but I did not know him.\n\n\"There's no one nigh,\" said he, looking over his shoulder; \"is there?\"\n\n\"Why do you, a stranger coming into my rooms at this time of the night,\nask that question?\" said I.\n\n\"You're a game one,\" he returned, shaking his head at me with a\ndeliberate affection, at once most unintelligible and most exasperating;\n\"I'm glad you've grow'd up, a game one! But don't catch hold of me.\nYou'd be sorry arterwards to have done it.\"\n\nI relinquished the intention he had detected, for I knew him! Even yet\nI could not recall a single feature, but I knew him! If the wind and\nthe rain had driven away the intervening years, had scattered all the\nintervening objects, had swept us to the churchyard where we first stood\nface to face on such different levels, I could not have known my convict\nmore distinctly than I knew him now as he sat in the chair before the\nfire. No need to take a file from his pocket and show it to me; no need\nto take the handkerchief from his neck and twist it round his head; no\nneed to hug himself with both his arms, and take a shivering turn across\nthe room, looking back at me for recognition. I knew him before he gave\nme one of those aids, though, a moment before, I had not been conscious\nof remotely suspecting his identity.\n\nHe came back to where I stood, and again held out both his hands.\nNot knowing what to do,--for, in my astonishment I had lost my\nself-possession,--I reluctantly gave him my hands. He grasped them\nheartily, raised them to his lips, kissed them, and still held them.\n\n\"You acted noble, my boy,\" said he. \"Noble, Pip! And I have never forgot\nit!\"\n\nAt a change in his manner as if he were even going to embrace me, I laid\na hand upon his breast and put him away.\n\n\"Stay!\" said I. \"Keep off! If you are grateful to me for what I did when\nI was a little child, I hope you have shown your gratitude by mending\nyour way of life. If you have come here to thank me, it was not\nnecessary. Still, however you have found me out, there must be something\ngood in the feeling that has brought you here, and I will not repulse\nyou; but surely you must understand that--I--\"\n\nMy attention was so attracted by the singularity of his fixed look at\nme, that the words died away on my tongue.\n\n\"You was a saying,\" he observed, when we had confronted one another\nin silence, \"that surely I must understand. What, surely must I\nunderstand?\"\n\n\"That I cannot wish to renew that chance intercourse with you of long\nago, under these different circumstances. I am glad to believe you have\nrepented and recovered yourself. I am glad to tell you so. I am glad\nthat, thinking I deserve to be thanked, you have come to thank me. But\nour ways are different ways, none the less. You are wet, and you look\nweary. Will you drink something before you go?\"\n\nHe had replaced his neckerchief loosely, and had stood, keenly observant\nof me, biting a long end of it. \"I think,\" he answered, still with the\nend at his mouth and still observant of me, \"that I will drink (I thank\nyou) afore I go.\"\n\nThere was a tray ready on a side-table. I brought it to the table\nnear the fire, and asked him what he would have? He touched one of the\nbottles without looking at it or speaking, and I made him some hot rum\nand water. I tried to keep my hand steady while I did so, but his look\nat me as he leaned back in his chair with the long draggled end of his\nneckerchief between his teeth--evidently forgotten--made my hand very\ndifficult to master. When at last I put the glass to him, I saw with\namazement that his eyes were full of tears.\n\nUp to this time I had remained standing, not to disguise that I wished\nhim gone. But I was softened by the softened aspect of the man, and felt\na touch of reproach. \"I hope,\" said I, hurriedly putting something into\na glass for myself, and drawing a chair to the table, \"that you will not\nthink I spoke harshly to you just now. I had no intention of doing it,\nand I am sorry for it if I did. I wish you well and happy!\"\n\nAs I put my glass to my lips, he glanced with surprise at the end of his\nneckerchief, dropping from his mouth when he opened it, and stretched\nout his hand. I gave him mine, and then he drank, and drew his sleeve\nacross his eyes and forehead.\n\n\"How are you living?\" I asked him.\n\n\"I've been a sheep-farmer, stock-breeder, other trades besides, away in\nthe new world,\" said he; \"many a thousand mile of stormy water off from\nthis.\"\n\n\"I hope you have done well?\"\n\n\"I've done wonderfully well. There's others went out alonger me as has\ndone well too, but no man has done nigh as well as me. I'm famous for\nit.\"\n\n\"I am glad to hear it.\"\n\n\"I hope to hear you say so, my dear boy.\"\n\nWithout stopping to try to understand those words or the tone in which\nthey were spoken, I turned off to a point that had just come into my\nmind.\n\n\"Have you ever seen a messenger you once sent to me,\" I inquired, \"since\nhe undertook that trust?\"\n\n\"Never set eyes upon him. I warn't likely to it.\"\n\n\"He came faithfully, and he brought me the two one-pound notes. I was\na poor boy then, as you know, and to a poor boy they were a little\nfortune. But, like you, I have done well since, and you must let me pay\nthem back. You can put them to some other poor boy's use.\" I took out my\npurse.\n\nHe watched me as I laid my purse upon the table and opened it, and he\nwatched me as I separated two one-pound notes from its contents. They\nwere clean and new, and I spread them out and handed them over to\nhim. Still watching me, he laid them one upon the other, folded them\nlong-wise, gave them a twist, set fire to them at the lamp, and dropped\nthe ashes into the tray.\n\n\"May I make so bold,\" he said then, with a smile that was like a frown,\nand with a frown that was like a smile, \"as ask you how you have done\nwell, since you and me was out on them lone shivering marshes?\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"Ah!\"\n\nHe emptied his glass, got up, and stood at the side of the fire, with\nhis heavy brown hand on the mantel-shelf. He put a foot up to the bars,\nto dry and warm it, and the wet boot began to steam; but, he neither\nlooked at it, nor at the fire, but steadily looked at me. It was only\nnow that I began to tremble.\n\nWhen my lips had parted, and had shaped some words that were\nwithout sound, I forced myself to tell him (though I could not do it\ndistinctly), that I had been chosen to succeed to some property.\n\n\"Might a mere warmint ask what property?\" said he.\n\nI faltered, \"I don't know.\"\n\n\"Might a mere warmint ask whose property?\" said he.\n\nI faltered again, \"I don't know.\"\n\n\"Could I make a guess, I wonder,\" said the Convict, \"at your income\nsince you come of age! As to the first figure now. Five?\"\n\nWith my heart beating like a heavy hammer of disordered action, I rose\nout of my chair, and stood with my hand upon the back of it, looking\nwildly at him.\n\n\"Concerning a guardian,\" he went on. \"There ought to have been some\nguardian, or such-like, whiles you was a minor. Some lawyer, maybe. As\nto the first letter of that lawyer's name now. Would it be J?\"\n\nAll the truth of my position came flashing on me; and its\ndisappointments, dangers, disgraces, consequences of all kinds, rushed\nin in such a multitude that I was borne down by them and had to struggle\nfor every breath I drew.\n\n\"Put it,\" he resumed, \"as the employer of that lawyer whose name begun\nwith a J, and might be Jaggers,--put it as he had come over sea to\nPortsmouth, and had landed there, and had wanted to come on to you.\n'However, you have found me out,' you says just now. Well! However, did\nI find you out? Why, I wrote from Portsmouth to a person in London, for\nparticulars of your address. That person's name? Why, Wemmick.\"\n\nI could not have spoken one word, though it had been to save my life.\nI stood, with a hand on the chair-back and a hand on my breast, where\nI seemed to be suffocating,--I stood so, looking wildly at him, until I\ngrasped at the chair, when the room began to surge and turn. He caught\nme, drew me to the sofa, put me up against the cushions, and bent on one\nknee before me, bringing the face that I now well remembered, and that I\nshuddered at, very near to mine.\n\n\"Yes, Pip, dear boy, I've made a gentleman on you! It's me wot has\ndone it! I swore that time, sure as ever I earned a guinea, that guinea\nshould go to you. I swore arterwards, sure as ever I spec'lated and got\nrich, you should get rich. I lived rough, that you should live smooth;\nI worked hard, that you should be above work. What odds, dear boy? Do I\ntell it, fur you to feel a obligation? Not a bit. I tell it, fur you to\nknow as that there hunted dunghill dog wot you kep life in, got his head\nso high that he could make a gentleman,--and, Pip, you're him!\"\n\nThe abhorrence in which I held the man, the dread I had of him, the\nrepugnance with which I shrank from him, could not have been exceeded if\nhe had been some terrible beast.\n\n\"Look'ee here, Pip. I'm your second father. You're my son,--more to me\nnor any son. I've put away money, only for you to spend. When I was a\nhired-out shepherd in a solitary hut, not seeing no faces but faces of\nsheep till I half forgot wot men's and women's faces wos like, I see\nyourn. I drops my knife many a time in that hut when I was a-eating my\ndinner or my supper, and I says, 'Here's the boy again, a looking at\nme whiles I eats and drinks!' I see you there a many times, as plain as\never I see you on them misty marshes. 'Lord strike me dead!' I says each\ntime,--and I goes out in the air to say it under the open heavens,--'but\nwot, if I gets liberty and money, I'll make that boy a gentleman!' And\nI done it. Why, look at you, dear boy! Look at these here lodgings\no'yourn, fit for a lord! A lord? Ah! You shall show money with lords for\nwagers, and beat 'em!\"\n\nIn his heat and triumph, and in his knowledge that I had been nearly\nfainting, he did not remark on my reception of all this. It was the one\ngrain of relief I had.\n\n\"Look'ee here!\" he went on, taking my watch out of my pocket, and\nturning towards him a ring on my finger, while I recoiled from his\ntouch as if he had been a snake, \"a gold 'un and a beauty: that's a\ngentleman's, I hope! A diamond all set round with rubies; that's a\ngentleman's, I hope! Look at your linen; fine and beautiful! Look at\nyour clothes; better ain't to be got! And your books too,\" turning his\neyes round the room, \"mounting up, on their shelves, by hundreds! And\nyou read 'em; don't you? I see you'd been a reading of 'em when I come\nin. Ha, ha, ha! You shall read 'em to me, dear boy! And if they're in\nforeign languages wot I don't understand, I shall be just as proud as if\nI did.\"\n\nAgain he took both my hands and put them to his lips, while my blood ran\ncold within me.\n\n\"Don't you mind talking, Pip,\" said he, after again drawing his sleeve\nover his eyes and forehead, as the click came in his throat which I well\nremembered,--and he was all the more horrible to me that he was so much\nin earnest; \"you can't do better nor keep quiet, dear boy. You ain't\nlooked slowly forward to this as I have; you wosn't prepared for this as\nI wos. But didn't you never think it might be me?\"\n\n\"O no, no, no,\" I returned, \"Never, never!\"\n\n\"Well, you see it wos me, and single-handed. Never a soul in it but my\nown self and Mr. Jaggers.\"\n\n\"Was there no one else?\" I asked.\n\n\"No,\" said he, with a glance of surprise: \"who else should there be?\nAnd, dear boy, how good looking you have growed! There's bright eyes\nsomewheres--eh? Isn't there bright eyes somewheres, wot you love the\nthoughts on?\"\n\nO Estella, Estella!\n\n\"They shall be yourn, dear boy, if money can buy 'em. Not that a\ngentleman like you, so well set up as you, can't win 'em off of his own\ngame; but money shall back you! Let me finish wot I was a telling you,\ndear boy. From that there hut and that there hiring-out, I got money\nleft me by my master (which died, and had been the same as me), and got\nmy liberty and went for myself. In every single thing I went for, I went\nfor you. 'Lord strike a blight upon it,' I says, wotever it was I went\nfor, 'if it ain't for him!' It all prospered wonderful. As I giv' you\nto understand just now, I'm famous for it. It was the money left me, and\nthe gains of the first few year wot I sent home to Mr. Jaggers--all for\nyou--when he first come arter you, agreeable to my letter.\"\n\nO that he had never come! That he had left me at the forge,--far from\ncontented, yet, by comparison happy!\n\n\"And then, dear boy, it was a recompense to me, look'ee here, to know in\nsecret that I was making a gentleman. The blood horses of them colonists\nmight fling up the dust over me as I was walking; what do I say? I says\nto myself, 'I'm making a better gentleman nor ever you'll be!' When\none of 'em says to another, 'He was a convict, a few year ago, and is a\nignorant common fellow now, for all he's lucky,' what do I say? I says\nto myself, 'If I ain't a gentleman, nor yet ain't got no learning, I'm\nthe owner of such. All on you owns stock and land; which on you owns a\nbrought-up London gentleman?' This way I kep myself a going. And this\nway I held steady afore my mind that I would for certain come one day\nand see my boy, and make myself known to him, on his own ground.\"\n\nHe laid his hand on my shoulder. I shuddered at the thought that for\nanything I knew, his hand might be stained with blood.\n\n\"It warn't easy, Pip, for me to leave them parts, nor yet it warn't\nsafe. But I held to it, and the harder it was, the stronger I held, for\nI was determined, and my mind firm made up. At last I done it. Dear boy,\nI done it!\"\n\nI tried to collect my thoughts, but I was stunned. Throughout, I had\nseemed to myself to attend more to the wind and the rain than to him;\neven now, I could not separate his voice from those voices, though those\nwere loud and his was silent.\n\n\"Where will you put me?\" he asked, presently. \"I must be put somewheres,\ndear boy.\"\n\n\"To sleep?\" said I.\n\n\"Yes. And to sleep long and sound,\" he answered; \"for I've been\nsea-tossed and sea-washed, months and months.\"\n\n\"My friend and companion,\" said I, rising from the sofa, \"is absent; you\nmust have his room.\"\n\n\"He won't come back to-morrow; will he?\"\n\n\"No,\" said I, answering almost mechanically, in spite of my utmost\nefforts; \"not to-morrow.\"\n\n\"Because, look'ee here, dear boy,\" he said, dropping his voice, and\nlaying a long finger on my breast in an impressive manner, \"caution is\nnecessary.\"\n\n\"How do you mean? Caution?\"\n\n\"By G----, it's Death!\"\n\n\"What's death?\"\n\n\"I was sent for life. It's death to come back. There's been overmuch\ncoming back of late years, and I should of a certainty be hanged if\ntook.\"\n\nNothing was needed but this; the wretched man, after loading wretched me\nwith his gold and silver chains for years, had risked his life to come\nto me, and I held it there in my keeping! If I had loved him instead\nof abhorring him; if I had been attracted to him by the strongest\nadmiration and affection, instead of shrinking from him with the\nstrongest repugnance; it could have been no worse. On the contrary, it\nwould have been better, for his preservation would then have naturally\nand tenderly addressed my heart.\n\nMy first care was to close the shutters, so that no light might be seen\nfrom without, and then to close and make fast the doors. While I did so,\nhe stood at the table drinking rum and eating biscuit; and when I saw\nhim thus engaged, I saw my convict on the marshes at his meal again. It\nalmost seemed to me as if he must stoop down presently, to file at his\nleg.\n\nWhen I had gone into Herbert's room, and had shut off any other\ncommunication between it and the staircase than through the room in\nwhich our conversation had been held, I asked him if he would go to bed?\nHe said yes, but asked me for some of my \"gentleman's linen\" to put\non in the morning. I brought it out, and laid it ready for him, and my\nblood again ran cold when he again took me by both hands to give me good\nnight.\n\nI got away from him, without knowing how I did it, and mended the fire\nin the room where we had been together, and sat down by it, afraid to go\nto bed. For an hour or more, I remained too stunned to think; and it\nwas not until I began to think, that I began fully to know how wrecked I\nwas, and how the ship in which I had sailed was gone to pieces.\n\nMiss Havisham's intentions towards me, all a mere dream; Estella not\ndesigned for me; I only suffered in Satis House as a convenience, a\nsting for the greedy relations, a model with a mechanical heart to\npractise on when no other practice was at hand; those were the first\nsmarts I had. But, sharpest and deepest pain of all,--it was for the\nconvict, guilty of I knew not what crimes, and liable to be taken out\nof those rooms where I sat thinking, and hanged at the Old Bailey door,\nthat I had deserted Joe.\n\nI would not have gone back to Joe now, I would not have gone back to\nBiddy now, for any consideration; simply, I suppose, because my sense of\nmy own worthless conduct to them was greater than every consideration.\nNo wisdom on earth could have given me the comfort that I should have\nderived from their simplicity and fidelity; but I could never, never,\nundo what I had done.\n\nIn every rage of wind and rush of rain, I heard pursuers. Twice, I could\nhave sworn there was a knocking and whispering at the outer door. With\nthese fears upon me, I began either to imagine or recall that I had had\nmysterious warnings of this man's approach. That, for weeks gone by, I\nhad passed faces in the streets which I had thought like his. That these\nlikenesses had grown more numerous, as he, coming over the sea, had\ndrawn nearer. That his wicked spirit had somehow sent these messengers\nto mine, and that now on this stormy night he was as good as his word,\nand with me.\n\nCrowding up with these reflections came the reflection that I had seen\nhim with my childish eyes to be a desperately violent man; that I had\nheard that other convict reiterate that he had tried to murder him; that\nI had seen him down in the ditch tearing and fighting like a wild\nbeast. Out of such remembrances I brought into the light of the fire a\nhalf-formed terror that it might not be safe to be shut up there with\nhim in the dead of the wild solitary night. This dilated until it filled\nthe room, and impelled me to take a candle and go in and look at my\ndreadful burden.\n\nHe had rolled a handkerchief round his head, and his face was set and\nlowering in his sleep. But he was asleep, and quietly too, though he had\na pistol lying on the pillow. Assured of this, I softly removed the key\nto the outside of his door, and turned it on him before I again sat down\nby the fire. Gradually I slipped from the chair and lay on the floor.\nWhen I awoke without having parted in my sleep with the perception of\nmy wretchedness, the clocks of the Eastward churches were striking five,\nthe candles were wasted out, the fire was dead, and the wind and rain\nintensified the thick black darkness.\n\nTHIS IS THE END OF THE SECOND STAGE OF PIP'S EXPECTATIONS.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XL\n\nIt was fortunate for me that I had to take precautions to ensure (so far\nas I could) the safety of my dreaded visitor; for, this thought pressing\non me when I awoke, held other thoughts in a confused concourse at a\ndistance.\n\nThe impossibility of keeping him concealed in the chambers was\nself-evident. It could not be done, and the attempt to do it would\ninevitably engender suspicion. True, I had no Avenger in my service now,\nbut I was looked after by an inflammatory old female, assisted by an\nanimated rag-bag whom she called her niece, and to keep a room secret\nfrom them would be to invite curiosity and exaggeration. They both had\nweak eyes, which I had long attributed to their chronically looking in\nat keyholes, and they were always at hand when not wanted; indeed that\nwas their only reliable quality besides larceny. Not to get up a mystery\nwith these people, I resolved to announce in the morning that my uncle\nhad unexpectedly come from the country.\n\nThis course I decided on while I was yet groping about in the darkness\nfor the means of getting a light. Not stumbling on the means after all,\nI was fain to go out to the adjacent Lodge and get the watchman there to\ncome with his lantern. Now, in groping my way down the black staircase I\nfell over something, and that something was a man crouching in a corner.\n\nAs the man made no answer when I asked him what he did there, but eluded\nmy touch in silence, I ran to the Lodge and urged the watchman to come\nquickly; telling him of the incident on the way back. The wind being as\nfierce as ever, we did not care to endanger the light in the lantern by\nrekindling the extinguished lamps on the staircase, but we examined the\nstaircase from the bottom to the top and found no one there. It then\noccurred to me as possible that the man might have slipped into my\nrooms; so, lighting my candle at the watchman's, and leaving him\nstanding at the door, I examined them carefully, including the room in\nwhich my dreaded guest lay asleep. All was quiet, and assuredly no other\nman was in those chambers.\n\nIt troubled me that there should have been a lurker on the stairs, on\nthat night of all nights in the year, and I asked the watchman, on the\nchance of eliciting some hopeful explanation as I handed him a dram\nat the door, whether he had admitted at his gate any gentleman who had\nperceptibly been dining out? Yes, he said; at different times of the\nnight, three. One lived in Fountain Court, and the other two lived in\nthe Lane, and he had seen them all go home. Again, the only other man\nwho dwelt in the house of which my chambers formed a part had been in\nthe country for some weeks, and he certainly had not returned in the\nnight, because we had seen his door with his seal on it as we came\nupstairs.\n\n\"The night being so bad, sir,\" said the watchman, as he gave me back\nmy glass, \"uncommon few have come in at my gate. Besides them three\ngentlemen that I have named, I don't call to mind another since about\neleven o'clock, when a stranger asked for you.\"\n\n\"My uncle,\" I muttered. \"Yes.\"\n\n\"You saw him, sir?\"\n\n\"Yes. Oh yes.\"\n\n\"Likewise the person with him?\"\n\n\"Person with him!\" I repeated.\n\n\"I judged the person to be with him,\" returned the watchman. \"The person\nstopped, when he stopped to make inquiry of me, and the person took this\nway when he took this way.\"\n\n\"What sort of person?\"\n\nThe watchman had not particularly noticed; he should say a working\nperson; to the best of his belief, he had a dust-colored kind of clothes\non, under a dark coat. The watchman made more light of the matter than I\ndid, and naturally; not having my reason for attaching weight to it.\n\nWhen I had got rid of him, which I thought it well to do without\nprolonging explanations, my mind was much troubled by these two\ncircumstances taken together. Whereas they were easy of innocent\nsolution apart,--as, for instance, some diner out or diner at home,\nwho had not gone near this watchman's gate, might have strayed to my\nstaircase and dropped asleep there,--and my nameless visitor might have\nbrought some one with him to show him the way,--still, joined, they had\nan ugly look to one as prone to distrust and fear as the changes of a\nfew hours had made me.\n\nI lighted my fire, which burnt with a raw pale flare at that time of the\nmorning, and fell into a doze before it. I seemed to have been dozing a\nwhole night when the clocks struck six. As there was full an hour and\na half between me and daylight, I dozed again; now, waking up uneasily,\nwith prolix conversations about nothing, in my ears; now, making thunder\nof the wind in the chimney; at length, falling off into a profound sleep\nfrom which the daylight woke me with a start.\n\nAll this time I had never been able to consider my own situation, nor\ncould I do so yet. I had not the power to attend to it. I was greatly\ndejected and distressed, but in an incoherent wholesale sort of way.\nAs to forming any plan for the future, I could as soon have formed an\nelephant. When I opened the shutters and looked out at the wet wild\nmorning, all of a leaden hue; when I walked from room to room; when I\nsat down again shivering, before the fire, waiting for my laundress to\nappear; I thought how miserable I was, but hardly knew why, or how long\nI had been so, or on what day of the week I made the reflection, or even\nwho I was that made it.\n\nAt last, the old woman and the niece came in,--the latter with a head\nnot easily distinguishable from her dusty broom,--and testified surprise\nat sight of me and the fire. To whom I imparted how my uncle had come in\nthe night and was then asleep, and how the breakfast preparations were\nto be modified accordingly. Then I washed and dressed while they knocked\nthe furniture about and made a dust; and so, in a sort of dream\nor sleep-waking, I found myself sitting by the fire again, waiting\nfor--Him--to come to breakfast.\n\nBy and by, his door opened and he came out. I could not bring myself to\nbear the sight of him, and I thought he had a worse look by daylight.\n\n\"I do not even know,\" said I, speaking low as he took his seat at the\ntable, \"by what name to call you. I have given out that you are my\nuncle.\"\n\n\"That's it, dear boy! Call me uncle.\"\n\n\"You assumed some name, I suppose, on board ship?\"\n\n\"Yes, dear boy. I took the name of Provis.\"\n\n\"Do you mean to keep that name?\"\n\n\"Why, yes, dear boy, it's as good as another,--unless you'd like\nanother.\"\n\n\"What is your real name?\" I asked him in a whisper.\n\n\"Magwitch,\" he answered, in the same tone; \"chrisen'd Abel.\"\n\n\"What were you brought up to be?\"\n\n\"A warmint, dear boy.\"\n\nHe answered quite seriously, and used the word as if it denoted some\nprofession.\n\n\"When you came into the Temple last night--\" said I, pausing to wonder\nwhether that could really have been last night, which seemed so long\nago.\n\n\"Yes, dear boy?\"\n\n\"When you came in at the gate and asked the watchman the way here, had\nyou any one with you?\"\n\n\"With me? No, dear boy.\"\n\n\"But there was some one there?\"\n\n\"I didn't take particular notice,\" he said, dubiously, \"not knowing the\nways of the place. But I think there was a person, too, come in alonger\nme.\"\n\n\"Are you known in London?\"\n\n\"I hope not!\" said he, giving his neck a jerk with his forefinger that\nmade me turn hot and sick.\n\n\"Were you known in London, once?\"\n\n\"Not over and above, dear boy. I was in the provinces mostly.\"\n\n\"Were you--tried--in London?\"\n\n\"Which time?\" said he, with a sharp look.\n\n\"The last time.\"\n\nHe nodded. \"First knowed Mr. Jaggers that way. Jaggers was for me.\"\n\nIt was on my lips to ask him what he was tried for, but he took up\na knife, gave it a flourish, and with the words, \"And what I done is\nworked out and paid for!\" fell to at his breakfast.\n\nHe ate in a ravenous way that was very disagreeable, and all his actions\nwere uncouth, noisy, and greedy. Some of his teeth had failed him since\nI saw him eat on the marshes, and as he turned his food in his mouth,\nand turned his head sideways to bring his strongest fangs to bear upon\nit, he looked terribly like a hungry old dog. If I had begun with any\nappetite, he would have taken it away, and I should have sat much as\nI did,--repelled from him by an insurmountable aversion, and gloomily\nlooking at the cloth.\n\n\"I'm a heavy grubber, dear boy,\" he said, as a polite kind of apology\nwhen he made an end of his meal, \"but I always was. If it had been in\nmy constitution to be a lighter grubber, I might ha' got into lighter\ntrouble. Similarly, I must have my smoke. When I was first hired out as\nshepherd t'other side the world, it's my belief I should ha' turned into\na molloncolly-mad sheep myself, if I hadn't a had my smoke.\"\n\nAs he said so, he got up from table, and putting his hand into the\nbreast of the pea-coat he wore, brought out a short black pipe, and a\nhandful of loose tobacco of the kind that is called Negro-head. Having\nfilled his pipe, he put the surplus tobacco back again, as if his pocket\nwere a drawer. Then, he took a live coal from the fire with the tongs,\nand lighted his pipe at it, and then turned round on the hearth-rug with\nhis back to the fire, and went through his favorite action of holding\nout both his hands for mine.\n\n\"And this,\" said he, dandling my hands up and down in his, as he puffed\nat his pipe,--\"and this is the gentleman what I made! The real genuine\nOne! It does me good fur to look at you, Pip. All I stip'late, is, to\nstand by and look at you, dear boy!\"\n\nI released my hands as soon as I could, and found that I was beginning\nslowly to settle down to the contemplation of my condition. What I was\nchained to, and how heavily, became intelligible to me, as I heard his\nhoarse voice, and sat looking up at his furrowed bald head with its iron\ngray hair at the sides.\n\n\"I mustn't see my gentleman a footing it in the mire of the streets;\nthere mustn't be no mud on his boots. My gentleman must have horses,\nPip! Horses to ride, and horses to drive, and horses for his servant\nto ride and drive as well. Shall colonists have their horses (and blood\n'uns, if you please, good Lord!) and not my London gentleman? No, no.\nWe'll show 'em another pair of shoes than that, Pip; won't us?\"\n\nHe took out of his pocket a great thick pocket-book, bursting with\npapers, and tossed it on the table.\n\n\"There's something worth spending in that there book, dear boy. It's\nyourn. All I've got ain't mine; it's yourn. Don't you be afeerd on it.\nThere's more where that come from. I've come to the old country fur\nto see my gentleman spend his money like a gentleman. That'll be my\npleasure. My pleasure 'ull be fur to see him do it. And blast you all!\"\nhe wound up, looking round the room and snapping his fingers once with\na loud snap, \"blast you every one, from the judge in his wig, to the\ncolonist a stirring up the dust, I'll show a better gentleman than the\nwhole kit on you put together!\"\n\n\"Stop!\" said I, almost in a frenzy of fear and dislike, \"I want to speak\nto you. I want to know what is to be done. I want to know how you are to\nbe kept out of danger, how long you are going to stay, what projects you\nhave.\"\n\n\"Look'ee here, Pip,\" said he, laying his hand on my arm in a suddenly\naltered and subdued manner; \"first of all, look'ee here. I forgot myself\nhalf a minute ago. What I said was low; that's what it was; low. Look'ee\nhere, Pip. Look over it. I ain't a going to be low.\"\n\n\"First,\" I resumed, half groaning, \"what precautions can be taken\nagainst your being recognized and seized?\"\n\n\"No, dear boy,\" he said, in the same tone as before, \"that don't\ngo first. Lowness goes first. I ain't took so many year to make a\ngentleman, not without knowing what's due to him. Look'ee here, Pip. I\nwas low; that's what I was; low. Look over it, dear boy.\"\n\nSome sense of the grimly-ludicrous moved me to a fretful laugh, as I\nreplied, \"I have looked over it. In Heaven's name, don't harp upon it!\"\n\n\"Yes, but look'ee here,\" he persisted. \"Dear boy, I ain't come so fur,\nnot fur to be low. Now, go on, dear boy. You was a saying--\"\n\n\"How are you to be guarded from the danger you have incurred?\"\n\n\"Well, dear boy, the danger ain't so great. Without I was informed\nagen, the danger ain't so much to signify. There's Jaggers, and there's\nWemmick, and there's you. Who else is there to inform?\"\n\n\"Is there no chance person who might identify you in the street?\" said\nI.\n\n\"Well,\" he returned, \"there ain't many. Nor yet I don't intend to\nadvertise myself in the newspapers by the name of A.M. come back from\nBotany Bay; and years have rolled away, and who's to gain by it? Still,\nlook'ee here, Pip. If the danger had been fifty times as great, I should\nha' come to see you, mind you, just the same.\"\n\n\"And how long do you remain?\"\n\n\"How long?\" said he, taking his black pipe from his mouth, and dropping\nhis jaw as he stared at me. \"I'm not a going back. I've come for good.\"\n\n\"Where are you to live?\" said I. \"What is to be done with you? Where\nwill you be safe?\"\n\n\"Dear boy,\" he returned, \"there's disguising wigs can be bought\nfor money, and there's hair powder, and spectacles, and black\nclothes,--shorts and what not. Others has done it safe afore, and what\nothers has done afore, others can do agen. As to the where and how of\nliving, dear boy, give me your own opinions on it.\"\n\n\"You take it smoothly now,\" said I, \"but you were very serious last\nnight, when you swore it was Death.\"\n\n\"And so I swear it is Death,\" said he, putting his pipe back in his\nmouth, \"and Death by the rope, in the open street not fur from this, and\nit's serious that you should fully understand it to be so. What then,\nwhen that's once done? Here I am. To go back now 'ud be as bad as to\nstand ground--worse. Besides, Pip, I'm here, because I've meant it by\nyou, years and years. As to what I dare, I'm a old bird now, as has\ndared all manner of traps since first he was fledged, and I'm not afeerd\nto perch upon a scarecrow. If there's Death hid inside of it, there is,\nand let him come out, and I'll face him, and then I'll believe in him\nand not afore. And now let me have a look at my gentleman agen.\"\n\nOnce more, he took me by both hands and surveyed me with an air of\nadmiring proprietorship: smoking with great complacency all the while.\n\nIt appeared to me that I could do no better than secure him some\nquiet lodging hard by, of which he might take possession when Herbert\nreturned: whom I expected in two or three days. That the secret must\nbe confided to Herbert as a matter of unavoidable necessity, even if I\ncould have put the immense relief I should derive from sharing it with\nhim out of the question, was plain to me. But it was by no means so\nplain to Mr. Provis (I resolved to call him by that name), who reserved\nhis consent to Herbert's participation until he should have seen him\nand formed a favorable judgment of his physiognomy. \"And even then, dear\nboy,\" said he, pulling a greasy little clasped black Testament out of\nhis pocket, \"we'll have him on his oath.\"\n\nTo state that my terrible patron carried this little black book about\nthe world solely to swear people on in cases of emergency, would be to\nstate what I never quite established; but this I can say, that I never\nknew him put it to any other use. The book itself had the appearance of\nhaving been stolen from some court of justice, and perhaps his knowledge\nof its antecedents, combined with his own experience in that wise, gave\nhim a reliance on its powers as a sort of legal spell or charm. On this\nfirst occasion of his producing it, I recalled how he had made me swear\nfidelity in the churchyard long ago, and how he had described himself\nlast night as always swearing to his resolutions in his solitude.\n\nAs he was at present dressed in a seafaring slop suit, in which he\nlooked as if he had some parrots and cigars to dispose of, I next\ndiscussed with him what dress he should wear. He cherished an\nextraordinary belief in the virtues of \"shorts\" as a disguise, and had\nin his own mind sketched a dress for himself that would have made\nhim something between a dean and a dentist. It was with considerable\ndifficulty that I won him over to the assumption of a dress more like a\nprosperous farmer's; and we arranged that he should cut his hair close,\nand wear a little powder. Lastly, as he had not yet been seen by the\nlaundress or her niece, he was to keep himself out of their view until\nhis change of dress was made.\n\nIt would seem a simple matter to decide on these precautions; but in my\ndazed, not to say distracted, state, it took so long, that I did not\nget out to further them until two or three in the afternoon. He was to\nremain shut up in the chambers while I was gone, and was on no account\nto open the door.\n\nThere being to my knowledge a respectable lodging-house in Essex Street,\nthe back of which looked into the Temple, and was almost within hail of\nmy windows, I first of all repaired to that house, and was so fortunate\nas to secure the second floor for my uncle, Mr. Provis. I then went from\nshop to shop, making such purchases as were necessary to the change in\nhis appearance. This business transacted, I turned my face, on my own\naccount, to Little Britain. Mr. Jaggers was at his desk, but, seeing me\nenter, got up immediately and stood before his fire.\n\n\"Now, Pip,\" said he, \"be careful.\"\n\n\"I will, sir,\" I returned. For, coming along I had thought well of what\nI was going to say.\n\n\"Don't commit yourself,\" said Mr. Jaggers, \"and don't commit any one.\nYou understand--any one. Don't tell me anything: I don't want to know\nanything; I am not curious.\"\n\nOf course I saw that he knew the man was come.\n\n\"I merely want, Mr. Jaggers,\" said I, \"to assure myself that what I have\nbeen told is true. I have no hope of its being untrue, but at least I\nmay verify it.\"\n\nMr. Jaggers nodded. \"But did you say 'told' or 'informed'?\" he asked\nme, with his head on one side, and not looking at me, but looking in\na listening way at the floor. \"Told would seem to imply verbal\ncommunication. You can't have verbal communication with a man in New\nSouth Wales, you know.\"\n\n\"I will say, informed, Mr. Jaggers.\"\n\n\"Good.\"\n\n\"I have been informed by a person named Abel Magwitch, that he is the\nbenefactor so long unknown to me.\"\n\n\"That is the man,\" said Mr. Jaggers, \"in New South Wales.\"\n\n\"And only he?\" said I.\n\n\"And only he,\" said Mr. Jaggers.\n\n\"I am not so unreasonable, sir, as to think you at all responsible for\nmy mistakes and wrong conclusions; but I always supposed it was Miss\nHavisham.\"\n\n\"As you say, Pip,\" returned Mr. Jaggers, turning his eyes upon\nme coolly, and taking a bite at his forefinger, \"I am not at all\nresponsible for that.\"\n\n\"And yet it looked so like it, sir,\" I pleaded with a downcast heart.\n\n\"Not a particle of evidence, Pip,\" said Mr. Jaggers, shaking his head\nand gathering up his skirts. \"Take nothing on its looks; take everything\non evidence. There's no better rule.\"\n\n\"I have no more to say,\" said I, with a sigh, after standing silent for\na little while. \"I have verified my information, and there's an end.\"\n\n\"And Magwitch--in New South Wales--having at last disclosed himself,\"\nsaid Mr. Jaggers, \"you will comprehend, Pip, how rigidly throughout\nmy communication with you, I have always adhered to the strict line of\nfact. There has never been the least departure from the strict line of\nfact. You are quite aware of that?\"\n\n\"Quite, sir.\"\n\n\"I communicated to Magwitch--in New South Wales--when he first wrote to\nme--from New South Wales--the caution that he must not expect me ever to\ndeviate from the strict line of fact. I also communicated to him another\ncaution. He appeared to me to have obscurely hinted in his letter at\nsome distant idea he had of seeing you in England here. I cautioned\nhim that I must hear no more of that; that he was not at all likely to\nobtain a pardon; that he was expatriated for the term of his natural\nlife; and that his presenting himself in this country would be an act of\nfelony, rendering him liable to the extreme penalty of the law. I gave\nMagwitch that caution,\" said Mr. Jaggers, looking hard at me; \"I wrote\nit to New South Wales. He guided himself by it, no doubt.\"\n\n\"No doubt,\" said I.\n\n\"I have been informed by Wemmick,\" pursued Mr. Jaggers, still looking\nhard at me, \"that he has received a letter, under date Portsmouth, from\na colonist of the name of Purvis, or--\"\n\n\"Or Provis,\" I suggested.\n\n\"Or Provis--thank you, Pip. Perhaps it is Provis? Perhaps you know it's\nProvis?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said I.\n\n\"You know it's Provis. A letter, under date Portsmouth, from a colonist\nof the name of Provis, asking for the particulars of your address, on\nbehalf of Magwitch. Wemmick sent him the particulars, I understand, by\nreturn of post. Probably it is through Provis that you have received the\nexplanation of Magwitch--in New South Wales?\"\n\n\"It came through Provis,\" I replied.\n\n\"Good day, Pip,\" said Mr. Jaggers, offering his hand; \"glad to have\nseen you. In writing by post to Magwitch--in New South Wales--or in\ncommunicating with him through Provis, have the goodness to mention that\nthe particulars and vouchers of our long account shall be sent to you,\ntogether with the balance; for there is still a balance remaining. Good\nday, Pip!\"\n\nWe shook hands, and he looked hard at me as long as he could see me. I\nturned at the door, and he was still looking hard at me, while the two\nvile casts on the shelf seemed to be trying to get their eyelids open,\nand to force out of their swollen throats, \"O, what a man he is!\"\n\nWemmick was out, and though he had been at his desk he could have done\nnothing for me. I went straight back to the Temple, where I found\nthe terrible Provis drinking rum and water and smoking negro-head, in\nsafety.\n\nNext day the clothes I had ordered all came home, and he put them on.\nWhatever he put on, became him less (it dismally seemed to me) than what\nhe had worn before. To my thinking, there was something in him that made\nit hopeless to attempt to disguise him. The more I dressed him and the\nbetter I dressed him, the more he looked like the slouching fugitive on\nthe marshes. This effect on my anxious fancy was partly referable, no\ndoubt, to his old face and manner growing more familiar to me; but I\nbelieve too that he dragged one of his legs as if there were still a\nweight of iron on it, and that from head to foot there was Convict in\nthe very grain of the man.\n\nThe influences of his solitary hut-life were upon him besides, and\ngave him a savage air that no dress could tame; added to these were the\ninfluences of his subsequent branded life among men, and, crowning all,\nhis consciousness that he was dodging and hiding now. In all his ways of\nsitting and standing, and eating and drinking,--of brooding about in a\nhigh-shouldered reluctant style,--of taking out his great horn-handled\njackknife and wiping it on his legs and cutting his food,--of\nlifting light glasses and cups to his lips, as if they were clumsy\npannikins,--of chopping a wedge off his bread, and soaking up with it\nthe last fragments of gravy round and round his plate, as if to make the\nmost of an allowance, and then drying his finger-ends on it, and then\nswallowing it,--in these ways and a thousand other small nameless\ninstances arising every minute in the day, there was Prisoner, Felon,\nBondsman, plain as plain could be.\n\nIt had been his own idea to wear that touch of powder, and I had\nconceded the powder after overcoming the shorts. But I can compare the\neffect of it, when on, to nothing but the probable effect of rouge upon\nthe dead; so awful was the manner in which everything in him that it was\nmost desirable to repress, started through that thin layer of pretence,\nand seemed to come blazing out at the crown of his head. It was\nabandoned as soon as tried, and he wore his grizzled hair cut short.\n\nWords cannot tell what a sense I had, at the same time, of the dreadful\nmystery that he was to me. When he fell asleep of an evening, with his\nknotted hands clenching the sides of the easy-chair, and his bald head\ntattooed with deep wrinkles falling forward on his breast, I would sit\nand look at him, wondering what he had done, and loading him with all\nthe crimes in the Calendar, until the impulse was powerful on me to\nstart up and fly from him. Every hour so increased my abhorrence of\nhim, that I even think I might have yielded to this impulse in the first\nagonies of being so haunted, notwithstanding all he had done for me and\nthe risk he ran, but for the knowledge that Herbert must soon come back.\nOnce, I actually did start out of bed in the night, and begin to dress\nmyself in my worst clothes, hurriedly intending to leave him there with\neverything else I possessed, and enlist for India as a private soldier.\n\nI doubt if a ghost could have been more terrible to me, up in those\nlonely rooms in the long evenings and long nights, with the wind and the\nrain always rushing by. A ghost could not have been taken and hanged on\nmy account, and the consideration that he could be, and the dread that\nhe would be, were no small addition to my horrors. When he was not\nasleep, or playing a complicated kind of Patience with a ragged pack of\ncards of his own,--a game that I never saw before or since, and in which\nhe recorded his winnings by sticking his jackknife into the table,--when\nhe was not engaged in either of these pursuits, he would ask me to\nread to him,--\"Foreign language, dear boy!\" While I complied, he, not\ncomprehending a single word, would stand before the fire surveying me\nwith the air of an Exhibitor, and I would see him, between the fingers\nof the hand with which I shaded my face, appealing in dumb show to\nthe furniture to take notice of my proficiency. The imaginary student\npursued by the misshapen creature he had impiously made, was not more\nwretched than I, pursued by the creature who had made me, and recoiling\nfrom him with a stronger repulsion, the more he admired me and the\nfonder he was of me.\n\nThis is written of, I am sensible, as if it had lasted a year. It lasted\nabout five days. Expecting Herbert all the time, I dared not go out,\nexcept when I took Provis for an airing after dark. At length, one\nevening when dinner was over and I had dropped into a slumber quite\nworn out,--for my nights had been agitated and my rest broken by fearful\ndreams,--I was roused by the welcome footstep on the staircase. Provis,\nwho had been asleep too, staggered up at the noise I made, and in an\ninstant I saw his jackknife shining in his hand.\n\n\"Quiet! It's Herbert!\" I said; and Herbert came bursting in, with the\nairy freshness of six hundred miles of France upon him.\n\n\"Handel, my dear fellow, how are you, and again how are you, and again\nhow are you? I seem to have been gone a twelvemonth! Why, so I must have\nbeen, for you have grown quite thin and pale! Handel, my--Halloa! I beg\nyour pardon.\"\n\nHe was stopped in his running on and in his shaking hands with me, by\nseeing Provis. Provis, regarding him with a fixed attention, was slowly\nputting up his jackknife, and groping in another pocket for something\nelse.\n\n\"Herbert, my dear friend,\" said I, shutting the double doors, while\nHerbert stood staring and wondering, \"something very strange has\nhappened. This is--a visitor of mine.\"\n\n\"It's all right, dear boy!\" said Provis coming forward, with his little\nclasped black book, and then addressing himself to Herbert. \"Take it in\nyour right hand. Lord strike you dead on the spot, if ever you split in\nany way sumever! Kiss it!\"\n\n\"Do so, as he wishes it,\" I said to Herbert. So, Herbert, looking at\nme with a friendly uneasiness and amazement, complied, and Provis\nimmediately shaking hands with him, said, \"Now you're on your oath, you\nknow. And never believe me on mine, if Pip shan't make a gentleman on\nyou!\"\n\n\n\n\nChapter XLI\n\nIn vain should I attempt to describe the astonishment and disquiet\nof Herbert, when he and I and Provis sat down before the fire, and I\nrecounted the whole of the secret. Enough, that I saw my own feelings\nreflected in Herbert's face, and not least among them, my repugnance\ntowards the man who had done so much for me.\n\nWhat would alone have set a division between that man and us, if there\nhad been no other dividing circumstance, was his triumph in my story.\nSaving his troublesome sense of having been \"low\" on one occasion since\nhis return,--on which point he began to hold forth to Herbert, the\nmoment my revelation was finished,--he had no perception of the\npossibility of my finding any fault with my good fortune. His boast that\nhe had made me a gentleman, and that he had come to see me support the\ncharacter on his ample resources, was made for me quite as much as for\nhimself. And that it was a highly agreeable boast to both of us,\nand that we must both be very proud of it, was a conclusion quite\nestablished in his own mind.\n\n\"Though, look'ee here, Pip's comrade,\" he said to Herbert, after having\ndiscoursed for some time, \"I know very well that once since I come\nback--for half a minute--I've been low. I said to Pip, I knowed as I had\nbeen low. But don't you fret yourself on that score. I ain't made Pip a\ngentleman, and Pip ain't a going to make you a gentleman, not fur me not\nto know what's due to ye both. Dear boy, and Pip's comrade, you two may\ncount upon me always having a gen-teel muzzle on. Muzzled I have been\nsince that half a minute when I was betrayed into lowness, muzzled I am\nat the present time, muzzled I ever will be.\"\n\nHerbert said, \"Certainly,\" but looked as if there were no specific\nconsolation in this, and remained perplexed and dismayed. We were\nanxious for the time when he would go to his lodging and leave us\ntogether, but he was evidently jealous of leaving us together, and sat\nlate. It was midnight before I took him round to Essex Street, and\nsaw him safely in at his own dark door. When it closed upon him, I\nexperienced the first moment of relief I had known since the night of\nhis arrival.\n\nNever quite free from an uneasy remembrance of the man on the stairs,\nI had always looked about me in taking my guest out after dark, and in\nbringing him back; and I looked about me now. Difficult as it is in a\nlarge city to avoid the suspicion of being watched, when the mind is\nconscious of danger in that regard, I could not persuade myself that any\nof the people within sight cared about my movements. The few who were\npassing passed on their several ways, and the street was empty when I\nturned back into the Temple. Nobody had come out at the gate with us,\nnobody went in at the gate with me. As I crossed by the fountain, I saw\nhis lighted back windows looking bright and quiet, and, when I stood for\na few moments in the doorway of the building where I lived, before going\nup the stairs, Garden Court was as still and lifeless as the staircase\nwas when I ascended it.\n\nHerbert received me with open arms, and I had never felt before so\nblessedly what it is to have a friend. When he had spoken some sound\nwords of sympathy and encouragement, we sat down to consider the\nquestion, What was to be done?\n\nThe chair that Provis had occupied still remaining where it had\nstood,--for he had a barrack way with him of hanging about one spot, in\none unsettled manner, and going through one round of observances with\nhis pipe and his negro-head and his jackknife and his pack of cards,\nand what not, as if it were all put down for him on a slate,--I say his\nchair remaining where it had stood, Herbert unconsciously took it, but\nnext moment started out of it, pushed it away, and took another. He had\nno occasion to say after that that he had conceived an aversion for my\npatron, neither had I occasion to confess my own. We interchanged that\nconfidence without shaping a syllable.\n\n\"What,\" said I to Herbert, when he was safe in another chair,--\"what is\nto be done?\"\n\n\"My poor dear Handel,\" he replied, holding his head, \"I am too stunned\nto think.\"\n\n\"So was I, Herbert, when the blow first fell. Still, something must be\ndone. He is intent upon various new expenses,--horses, and carriages,\nand lavish appearances of all kinds. He must be stopped somehow.\"\n\n\"You mean that you can't accept--\"\n\n\"How can I?\" I interposed, as Herbert paused. \"Think of him! Look at\nhim!\"\n\nAn involuntary shudder passed over both of us.\n\n\"Yet I am afraid the dreadful truth is, Herbert, that he is attached to\nme, strongly attached to me. Was there ever such a fate!\"\n\n\"My poor dear Handel,\" Herbert repeated.\n\n\"Then,\" said I, \"after all, stopping short here, never taking another\npenny from him, think what I owe him already! Then again: I am heavily\nin debt,--very heavily for me, who have now no expectations,--and I have\nbeen bred to no calling, and I am fit for nothing.\"\n\n\"Well, well, well!\" Herbert remonstrated. \"Don't say fit for nothing.\"\n\n\"What am I fit for? I know only one thing that I am fit for, and that\nis, to go for a soldier. And I might have gone, my dear Herbert, but for\nthe prospect of taking counsel with your friendship and affection.\"\n\nOf course I broke down there: and of course Herbert, beyond seizing a\nwarm grip of my hand, pretended not to know it.\n\n\"Anyhow, my dear Handel,\" said he presently, \"soldiering won't do. If\nyou were to renounce this patronage and these favors, I suppose you\nwould do so with some faint hope of one day repaying what you have\nalready had. Not very strong, that hope, if you went soldiering!\nBesides, it's absurd. You would be infinitely better in Clarriker's\nhouse, small as it is. I am working up towards a partnership, you know.\"\n\nPoor fellow! He little suspected with whose money.\n\n\"But there is another question,\" said Herbert. \"This is an ignorant,\ndetermined man, who has long had one fixed idea. More than that, he\nseems to me (I may misjudge him) to be a man of a desperate and fierce\ncharacter.\"\n\n\"I know he is,\" I returned. \"Let me tell you what evidence I have seen\nof it.\" And I told him what I had not mentioned in my narrative, of that\nencounter with the other convict.\n\n\"See, then,\" said Herbert; \"think of this! He comes here at the peril\nof his life, for the realization of his fixed idea. In the moment of\nrealization, after all his toil and waiting, you cut the ground from\nunder his feet, destroy his idea, and make his gains worthless to him.\nDo you see nothing that he might do, under the disappointment?\"\n\n\"I have seen it, Herbert, and dreamed of it, ever since the fatal night\nof his arrival. Nothing has been in my thoughts so distinctly as his\nputting himself in the way of being taken.\"\n\n\"Then you may rely upon it,\" said Herbert, \"that there would be great\ndanger of his doing it. That is his power over you as long as he remains\nin England, and that would be his reckless course if you forsook him.\"\n\nI was so struck by the horror of this idea, which had weighed upon\nme from the first, and the working out of which would make me regard\nmyself, in some sort, as his murderer, that I could not rest in my\nchair, but began pacing to and fro. I said to Herbert, meanwhile, that\neven if Provis were recognized and taken, in spite of himself, I should\nbe wretched as the cause, however innocently. Yes; even though I was so\nwretched in having him at large and near me, and even though I would\nfar rather have worked at the forge all the days of my life than I would\never have come to this!\n\nBut there was no staving off the question, What was to be done?\n\n\"The first and the main thing to be done,\" said Herbert, \"is to get him\nout of England. You will have to go with him, and then he may be induced\nto go.\"\n\n\"But get him where I will, could I prevent his coming back?\"\n\n\"My good Handel, is it not obvious that with Newgate in the next street,\nthere must be far greater hazard in your breaking your mind to him and\nmaking him reckless, here, than elsewhere? If a pretext to get him away\ncould be made out of that other convict, or out of anything else in his\nlife, now.\"\n\n\"There, again!\" said I, stopping before Herbert, with my open hands held\nout, as if they contained the desperation of the case. \"I know nothing\nof his life. It has almost made me mad to sit here of a night and see\nhim before me, so bound up with my fortunes and misfortunes, and yet so\nunknown to me, except as the miserable wretch who terrified me two days\nin my childhood!\"\n\nHerbert got up, and linked his arm in mine, and we slowly walked to and\nfro together, studying the carpet.\n\n\"Handel,\" said Herbert, stopping, \"you feel convinced that you can take\nno further benefits from him; do you?\"\n\n\"Fully. Surely you would, too, if you were in my place?\"\n\n\"And you feel convinced that you must break with him?\"\n\n\"Herbert, can you ask me?\"\n\n\"And you have, and are bound to have, that tenderness for the life he\nhas risked on your account, that you must save him, if possible, from\nthrowing it away. Then you must get him out of England before you stir a\nfinger to extricate yourself. That done, extricate yourself, in Heaven's\nname, and we'll see it out together, dear old boy.\"\n\nIt was a comfort to shake hands upon it, and walk up and down again,\nwith only that done.\n\n\"Now, Herbert,\" said I, \"with reference to gaining some knowledge of\nhis history. There is but one way that I know of. I must ask him point\nblank.\"\n\n\"Yes. Ask him,\" said Herbert, \"when we sit at breakfast in the morning.\"\nFor he had said, on taking leave of Herbert, that he would come to\nbreakfast with us.\n\nWith this project formed, we went to bed. I had the wildest dreams\nconcerning him, and woke unrefreshed; I woke, too, to recover the fear\nwhich I had lost in the night, of his being found out as a returned\ntransport. Waking, I never lost that fear.\n\nHe came round at the appointed time, took out his jackknife, and sat\ndown to his meal. He was full of plans \"for his gentleman's coming out\nstrong, and like a gentleman,\" and urged me to begin speedily upon\nthe pocket-book which he had left in my possession. He considered the\nchambers and his own lodging as temporary residences, and advised me to\nlook out at once for a \"fashionable crib\" near Hyde Park, in which he\ncould have \"a shake-down.\" When he had made an end of his breakfast,\nand was wiping his knife on his leg, I said to him, without a word of\npreface,--\n\n\"After you were gone last night, I told my friend of the struggle that\nthe soldiers found you engaged in on the marshes, when we came up. You\nremember?\"\n\n\"Remember!\" said he. \"I think so!\"\n\n\"We want to know something about that man--and about you. It is strange\nto know no more about either, and particularly you, than I was able to\ntell last night. Is not this as good a time as another for our knowing\nmore?\"\n\n\"Well!\" he said, after consideration. \"You're on your oath, you know,\nPip's comrade?\"\n\n\"Assuredly,\" replied Herbert.\n\n\"As to anything I say, you know,\" he insisted. \"The oath applies to\nall.\"\n\n\"I understand it to do so.\"\n\n\"And look'ee here! Wotever I done is worked out and paid for,\" he\ninsisted again.\n\n\"So be it.\"\n\nHe took out his black pipe and was going to fill it with negro-head,\nwhen, looking at the tangle of tobacco in his hand, he seemed to think\nit might perplex the thread of his narrative. He put it back again,\nstuck his pipe in a button-hole of his coat, spread a hand on each knee,\nand after turning an angry eye on the fire for a few silent moments,\nlooked round at us and said what follows.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XLII\n\n\"Dear boy and Pip's comrade. I am not a going fur to tell you my life\nlike a song, or a story-book. But to give it you short and handy, I'll\nput it at once into a mouthful of English. In jail and out of jail, in\njail and out of jail, in jail and out of jail. There, you've got it.\nThat's my life pretty much, down to such times as I got shipped off,\narter Pip stood my friend.\n\n\"I've been done everything to, pretty well--except hanged. I've been\nlocked up as much as a silver tea-kittle. I've been carted here and\ncarted there, and put out of this town, and put out of that town, and\nstuck in the stocks, and whipped and worried and drove. I've no more\nnotion where I was born than you have--if so much. I first become aware\nof myself down in Essex, a thieving turnips for my living. Summun had\nrun away from me--a man--a tinker--and he'd took the fire with him, and\nleft me wery cold.\n\n\"I know'd my name to be Magwitch, chrisen'd Abel. How did I know\nit? Much as I know'd the birds' names in the hedges to be chaffinch,\nsparrer, thrush. I might have thought it was all lies together, only as\nthe birds' names come out true, I supposed mine did.\n\n\"So fur as I could find, there warn't a soul that see young Abel\nMagwitch, with us little on him as in him, but wot caught fright at him,\nand either drove him off, or took him up. I was took up, took up, took\nup, to that extent that I reg'larly grow'd up took up.\n\n\"This is the way it was, that when I was a ragged little creetur as much\nto be pitied as ever I see (not that I looked in the glass, for there\nwarn't many insides of furnished houses known to me), I got the name of\nbeing hardened. 'This is a terrible hardened one,' they says to prison\nwisitors, picking out me. 'May be said to live in jails, this boy.' Then\nthey looked at me, and I looked at them, and they measured my head, some\non 'em,--they had better a measured my stomach,--and others on 'em giv\nme tracts what I couldn't read, and made me speeches what I couldn't\nunderstand. They always went on agen me about the Devil. But what\nthe Devil was I to do? I must put something into my stomach, mustn't\nI?--Howsomever, I'm a getting low, and I know what's due. Dear boy and\nPip's comrade, don't you be afeerd of me being low.\n\n\"Tramping, begging, thieving, working sometimes when I could,--though\nthat warn't as often as you may think, till you put the question whether\nyou would ha' been over-ready to give me work yourselves,--a bit of a\npoacher, a bit of a laborer, a bit of a wagoner, a bit of a haymaker,\na bit of a hawker, a bit of most things that don't pay and lead to\ntrouble, I got to be a man. A deserting soldier in a Traveller's Rest,\nwhat lay hid up to the chin under a lot of taturs, learnt me to read;\nand a travelling Giant what signed his name at a penny a time learnt me\nto write. I warn't locked up as often now as formerly, but I wore out my\ngood share of key-metal still.\n\n\"At Epsom races, a matter of over twenty years ago, I got acquainted wi'\na man whose skull I'd crack wi' this poker, like the claw of a lobster,\nif I'd got it on this hob. His right name was Compeyson; and that's the\nman, dear boy, what you see me a pounding in the ditch, according to\nwhat you truly told your comrade arter I was gone last night.\n\n\"He set up fur a gentleman, this Compeyson, and he'd been to a public\nboarding-school and had learning. He was a smooth one to talk, and was\na dab at the ways of gentlefolks. He was good-looking too. It was the\nnight afore the great race, when I found him on the heath, in a booth\nthat I know'd on. Him and some more was a sitting among the tables when\nI went in, and the landlord (which had a knowledge of me, and was a\nsporting one) called him out, and said, 'I think this is a man that\nmight suit you,'--meaning I was.\n\n\"Compeyson, he looks at me very noticing, and I look at him. He has a\nwatch and a chain and a ring and a breast-pin and a handsome suit of\nclothes.\n\n\"'To judge from appearances, you're out of luck,' says Compeyson to me.\n\n\"'Yes, master, and I've never been in it much.' (I had come out of\nKingston Jail last on a vagrancy committal. Not but what it might have\nbeen for something else; but it warn't.)\n\n\"'Luck changes,' says Compeyson; 'perhaps yours is going to change.'\n\n\"I says, 'I hope it may be so. There's room.'\n\n\"'What can you do?' says Compeyson.\n\n\"'Eat and drink,' I says; 'if you'll find the materials.'\n\n\"Compeyson laughed, looked at me again very noticing, giv me five\nshillings, and appointed me for next night. Same place.\n\n\"I went to Compeyson next night, same place, and Compeyson took me on\nto be his man and pardner. And what was Compeyson's business in which we\nwas to go pardners? Compeyson's business was the swindling, handwriting\nforging, stolen bank-note passing, and such-like. All sorts of traps as\nCompeyson could set with his head, and keep his own legs out of and get\nthe profits from and let another man in for, was Compeyson's business.\nHe'd no more heart than a iron file, he was as cold as death, and he had\nthe head of the Devil afore mentioned.\n\n\"There was another in with Compeyson, as was called Arthur,--not as\nbeing so chrisen'd, but as a surname. He was in a Decline, and was a\nshadow to look at. Him and Compeyson had been in a bad thing with a\nrich lady some years afore, and they'd made a pot of money by it; but\nCompeyson betted and gamed, and he'd have run through the king's taxes.\nSo, Arthur was a dying, and a dying poor and with the horrors on him,\nand Compeyson's wife (which Compeyson kicked mostly) was a having pity\non him when she could, and Compeyson was a having pity on nothing and\nnobody.\n\n\"I might a took warning by Arthur, but I didn't; and I won't pretend I\nwas partick'ler--for where 'ud be the good on it, dear boy and comrade?\nSo I begun wi' Compeyson, and a poor tool I was in his hands. Arthur\nlived at the top of Compeyson's house (over nigh Brentford it was), and\nCompeyson kept a careful account agen him for board and lodging, in case\nhe should ever get better to work it out. But Arthur soon settled the\naccount. The second or third time as ever I see him, he come a tearing\ndown into Compeyson's parlor late at night, in only a flannel gown, with\nhis hair all in a sweat, and he says to Compeyson's wife, 'Sally, she\nreally is upstairs alonger me, now, and I can't get rid of her. She's\nall in white,' he says, 'wi' white flowers in her hair, and she's awful\nmad, and she's got a shroud hanging over her arm, and she says she'll\nput it on me at five in the morning.'\n\n\"Says Compeyson: 'Why, you fool, don't you know she's got a living body?\nAnd how should she be up there, without coming through the door, or in\nat the window, and up the stairs?'\n\n\"'I don't know how she's there,' says Arthur, shivering dreadful with\nthe horrors, 'but she's standing in the corner at the foot of the bed,\nawful mad. And over where her heart's broke--you broke it!--there's\ndrops of blood.'\n\n\"Compeyson spoke hardy, but he was always a coward. 'Go up alonger this\ndrivelling sick man,' he says to his wife, 'and Magwitch, lend her a\nhand, will you?' But he never come nigh himself.\n\n\"Compeyson's wife and me took him up to bed agen, and he raved most\ndreadful. 'Why look at her!' he cries out. 'She's a shaking the shroud\nat me! Don't you see her? Look at her eyes! Ain't it awful to see her so\nmad?' Next he cries, 'She'll put it on me, and then I'm done for! Take\nit away from her, take it away!' And then he catched hold of us, and kep\non a talking to her, and answering of her, till I half believed I see\nher myself.\n\n\"Compeyson's wife, being used to him, giv him some liquor to get the\nhorrors off, and by and by he quieted. 'O, she's gone! Has her keeper\nbeen for her?' he says. 'Yes,' says Compeyson's wife. 'Did you tell him\nto lock her and bar her in?' 'Yes.' 'And to take that ugly thing away\nfrom her?' 'Yes, yes, all right.' 'You're a good creetur,' he says,\n'don't leave me, whatever you do, and thank you!'\n\n\"He rested pretty quiet till it might want a few minutes of five, and\nthen he starts up with a scream, and screams out, 'Here she is! She's\ngot the shroud again. She's unfolding it. She's coming out of the\ncorner. She's coming to the bed. Hold me, both on you--one of each\nside--don't let her touch me with it. Hah! she missed me that time.\nDon't let her throw it over my shoulders. Don't let her lift me up to\nget it round me. She's lifting me up. Keep me down!' Then he lifted\nhimself up hard, and was dead.\n\n\"Compeyson took it easy as a good riddance for both sides. Him and\nme was soon busy, and first he swore me (being ever artful) on my own\nbook,--this here little black book, dear boy, what I swore your comrade\non.\n\n\"Not to go into the things that Compeyson planned, and I done--which 'ud\ntake a week--I'll simply say to you, dear boy, and Pip's comrade, that\nthat man got me into such nets as made me his black slave. I was always\nin debt to him, always under his thumb, always a working, always a\ngetting into danger. He was younger than me, but he'd got craft, and\nhe'd got learning, and he overmatched me five hundred times told and\nno mercy. My Missis as I had the hard time wi'--Stop though! I ain't\nbrought her in--\"\n\nHe looked about him in a confused way, as if he had lost his place in\nthe book of his remembrance; and he turned his face to the fire, and\nspread his hands broader on his knees, and lifted them off and put them\non again.\n\n\"There ain't no need to go into it,\" he said, looking round once more.\n\"The time wi' Compeyson was a'most as hard a time as ever I had; that\nsaid, all's said. Did I tell you as I was tried, alone, for misdemeanor,\nwhile with Compeyson?\"\n\nI answered, No.\n\n\"Well!\" he said, \"I was, and got convicted. As to took up on suspicion,\nthat was twice or three times in the four or five year that it lasted;\nbut evidence was wanting. At last, me and Compeyson was both committed\nfor felony,--on a charge of putting stolen notes in circulation,--and\nthere was other charges behind. Compeyson says to me, 'Separate\ndefences, no communication,' and that was all. And I was so miserable\npoor, that I sold all the clothes I had, except what hung on my back,\nafore I could get Jaggers.\n\n\"When we was put in the dock, I noticed first of all what a gentleman\nCompeyson looked, wi' his curly hair and his black clothes and his white\npocket-handkercher, and what a common sort of a wretch I looked. When\nthe prosecution opened and the evidence was put short, aforehand, I\nnoticed how heavy it all bore on me, and how light on him. When the\nevidence was giv in the box, I noticed how it was always me that had\ncome for'ard, and could be swore to, how it was always me that the money\nhad been paid to, how it was always me that had seemed to work the thing\nand get the profit. But when the defence come on, then I see the plan\nplainer; for, says the counsellor for Compeyson, 'My lord and gentlemen,\nhere you has afore you, side by side, two persons as your eyes can\nseparate wide; one, the younger, well brought up, who will be spoke to\nas such; one, the elder, ill brought up, who will be spoke to as such;\none, the younger, seldom if ever seen in these here transactions, and\nonly suspected; t'other, the elder, always seen in 'em and always wi' his\nguilt brought home. Can you doubt, if there is but one in it, which is\nthe one, and, if there is two in it, which is much the worst one?' And\nsuch-like. And when it come to character, warn't it Compeyson as had\nbeen to the school, and warn't it his schoolfellows as was in this\nposition and in that, and warn't it him as had been know'd by witnesses\nin such clubs and societies, and nowt to his disadvantage? And warn't it\nme as had been tried afore, and as had been know'd up hill and down dale\nin Bridewells and Lock-Ups! And when it come to speech-making, warn't it\nCompeyson as could speak to 'em wi' his face dropping every now and then\ninto his white pocket-handkercher,--ah! and wi' verses in his speech,\ntoo,--and warn't it me as could only say, 'Gentlemen, this man at my\nside is a most precious rascal'? And when the verdict come, warn't it\nCompeyson as was recommended to mercy on account of good character and\nbad company, and giving up all the information he could agen me,\nand warn't it me as got never a word but Guilty? And when I says to\nCompeyson, 'Once out of this court, I'll smash that face of yourn!'\nain't it Compeyson as prays the Judge to be protected, and gets two\nturnkeys stood betwixt us? And when we're sentenced, ain't it him as\ngets seven year, and me fourteen, and ain't it him as the Judge is\nsorry for, because he might a done so well, and ain't it me as the Judge\nperceives to be a old offender of wiolent passion, likely to come to\nworse?\"\n\nHe had worked himself into a state of great excitement, but he checked\nit, took two or three short breaths, swallowed as often, and stretching\nout his hand towards me said, in a reassuring manner, \"I ain't a going\nto be low, dear boy!\"\n\nHe had so heated himself that he took out his handkerchief and wiped his\nface and head and neck and hands, before he could go on.\n\n\"I had said to Compeyson that I'd smash that face of his, and I swore\nLord smash mine! to do it. We was in the same prison-ship, but I\ncouldn't get at him for long, though I tried. At last I come behind him\nand hit him on the cheek to turn him round and get a smashing one at\nhim, when I was seen and seized. The black-hole of that ship warn't\na strong one, to a judge of black-holes that could swim and dive. I\nescaped to the shore, and I was a hiding among the graves there, envying\nthem as was in 'em and all over, when I first see my boy!\"\n\nHe regarded me with a look of affection that made him almost abhorrent\nto me again, though I had felt great pity for him.\n\n\"By my boy, I was giv to understand as Compeyson was out on them marshes\ntoo. Upon my soul, I half believe he escaped in his terror, to get quit\nof me, not knowing it was me as had got ashore. I hunted him down. I\nsmashed his face. 'And now,' says I 'as the worst thing I can do, caring\nnothing for myself, I'll drag you back.' And I'd have swum off, towing\nhim by the hair, if it had come to that, and I'd a got him aboard\nwithout the soldiers.\n\n\"Of course he'd much the best of it to the last,--his character was so\ngood. He had escaped when he was made half wild by me and my murderous\nintentions; and his punishment was light. I was put in irons, brought\nto trial again, and sent for life. I didn't stop for life, dear boy and\nPip's comrade, being here.\"\n\nHe wiped himself again, as he had done before, and then slowly took\nhis tangle of tobacco from his pocket, and plucked his pipe from his\nbutton-hole, and slowly filled it, and began to smoke.\n\n\"Is he dead?\" I asked, after a silence.\n\n\"Is who dead, dear boy?\"\n\n\"Compeyson.\"\n\n\"He hopes I am, if he's alive, you may be sure,\" with a fierce look. \"I\nnever heerd no more of him.\"\n\nHerbert had been writing with his pencil in the cover of a book. He\nsoftly pushed the book over to me, as Provis stood smoking with his eyes\non the fire, and I read in it:--\n\n\"Young Havisham's name was Arthur. Compeyson is the man who professed to\nbe Miss Havisham's lover.\"\n\nI shut the book and nodded slightly to Herbert, and put the book by; but\nwe neither of us said anything, and both looked at Provis as he stood\nsmoking by the fire.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XLIII\n\nWhy should I pause to ask how much of my shrinking from Provis might be\ntraced to Estella? Why should I loiter on my road, to compare the state\nof mind in which I had tried to rid myself of the stain of the prison\nbefore meeting her at the coach-office, with the state of mind in which\nI now reflected on the abyss between Estella in her pride and beauty,\nand the returned transport whom I harbored? The road would be none the\nsmoother for it, the end would be none the better for it, he would not\nbe helped, nor I extenuated.\n\nA new fear had been engendered in my mind by his narrative; or rather,\nhis narrative had given form and purpose to the fear that was already\nthere. If Compeyson were alive and should discover his return, I could\nhardly doubt the consequence. That Compeyson stood in mortal fear of\nhim, neither of the two could know much better than I; and that any\nsuch man as that man had been described to be would hesitate to release\nhimself for good from a dreaded enemy by the safe means of becoming an\ninformer was scarcely to be imagined.\n\nNever had I breathed, and never would I breathe--or so I resolved--a\nword of Estella to Provis. But, I said to Herbert that, before I could\ngo abroad, I must see both Estella and Miss Havisham. This was when we\nwere left alone on the night of the day when Provis told us his story. I\nresolved to go out to Richmond next day, and I went.\n\nOn my presenting myself at Mrs. Brandley's, Estella's maid was called to\ntell that Estella had gone into the country. Where? To Satis House, as\nusual. Not as usual, I said, for she had never yet gone there without\nme; when was she coming back? There was an air of reservation in the\nanswer which increased my perplexity, and the answer was, that her maid\nbelieved she was only coming back at all for a little while. I could\nmake nothing of this, except that it was meant that I should make\nnothing of it, and I went home again in complete discomfiture.\n\nAnother night consultation with Herbert after Provis was gone home (I\nalways took him home, and always looked well about me), led us to the\nconclusion that nothing should be said about going abroad until I came\nback from Miss Havisham's. In the mean time, Herbert and I were to\nconsider separately what it would be best to say; whether we should\ndevise any pretence of being afraid that he was under suspicious\nobservation; or whether I, who had never yet been abroad, should propose\nan expedition. We both knew that I had but to propose anything, and he\nwould consent. We agreed that his remaining many days in his present\nhazard was not to be thought of.\n\nNext day I had the meanness to feign that I was under a binding promise\nto go down to Joe; but I was capable of almost any meanness towards Joe\nor his name. Provis was to be strictly careful while I was gone, and\nHerbert was to take the charge of him that I had taken. I was to be\nabsent only one night, and, on my return, the gratification of his\nimpatience for my starting as a gentleman on a greater scale was to\nbe begun. It occurred to me then, and as I afterwards found to\nHerbert also, that he might be best got away across the water, on that\npretence,--as, to make purchases, or the like.\n\nHaving thus cleared the way for my expedition to Miss Havisham's, I set\noff by the early morning coach before it was yet light, and was out\non the open country road when the day came creeping on, halting and\nwhimpering and shivering, and wrapped in patches of cloud and rags of\nmist, like a beggar. When we drove up to the Blue Boar after a drizzly\nride, whom should I see come out under the gateway, toothpick in hand,\nto look at the coach, but Bentley Drummle!\n\nAs he pretended not to see me, I pretended not to see him. It was a very\nlame pretence on both sides; the lamer, because we both went into the\ncoffee-room, where he had just finished his breakfast, and where I\nordered mine. It was poisonous to me to see him in the town, for I very\nwell knew why he had come there.\n\nPretending to read a smeary newspaper long out of date, which had\nnothing half so legible in its local news, as the foreign matter of\ncoffee, pickles, fish sauces, gravy, melted butter, and wine with which\nit was sprinkled all over, as if it had taken the measles in a highly\nirregular form, I sat at my table while he stood before the fire. By\ndegrees it became an enormous injury to me that he stood before the\nfire. And I got up, determined to have my share of it. I had to put my\nhand behind his legs for the poker when I went up to the fireplace to\nstir the fire, but still pretended not to know him.\n\n\"Is this a cut?\" said Mr. Drummle.\n\n\"Oh!\" said I, poker in hand; \"it's you, is it? How do you do? I was\nwondering who it was, who kept the fire off.\"\n\nWith that, I poked tremendously, and having done so, planted myself side\nby side with Mr. Drummle, my shoulders squared and my back to the fire.\n\n\"You have just come down?\" said Mr. Drummle, edging me a little away\nwith his shoulder.\n\n\"Yes,\" said I, edging him a little away with my shoulder.\n\n\"Beastly place,\" said Drummle. \"Your part of the country, I think?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I assented. \"I am told it's very like your Shropshire.\"\n\n\"Not in the least like it,\" said Drummle.\n\nHere Mr. Drummle looked at his boots and I looked at mine, and then Mr.\nDrummle looked at my boots, and I looked at his.\n\n\"Have you been here long?\" I asked, determined not to yield an inch of\nthe fire.\n\n\"Long enough to be tired of it,\" returned Drummle, pretending to yawn,\nbut equally determined.\n\n\"Do you stay here long?\"\n\n\"Can't say,\" answered Mr. Drummle. \"Do you?\"\n\n\"Can't say,\" said I.\n\nI felt here, through a tingling in my blood, that if Mr. Drummle's\nshoulder had claimed another hair's breadth of room, I should have\njerked him into the window; equally, that if my own shoulder had urged a\nsimilar claim, Mr. Drummle would have jerked me into the nearest box. He\nwhistled a little. So did I.\n\n\"Large tract of marshes about here, I believe?\" said Drummle.\n\n\"Yes. What of that?\" said I.\n\nMr. Drummle looked at me, and then at my boots, and then said, \"Oh!\" and\nlaughed.\n\n\"Are you amused, Mr. Drummle?\"\n\n\"No,\" said he, \"not particularly. I am going out for a ride in the\nsaddle. I mean to explore those marshes for amusement. Out-of-the-way\nvillages there, they tell me. Curious little public-houses--and\nsmithies--and that. Waiter!\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Is that horse of mine ready?\"\n\n\"Brought round to the door, sir.\"\n\n\"I say. Look here, you sir. The lady won't ride to-day; the weather\nwon't do.\"\n\n\"Very good, sir.\"\n\n\"And I don't dine, because I'm going to dine at the lady's.\"\n\n\"Very good, sir.\"\n\nThen, Drummle glanced at me, with an insolent triumph on his\ngreat-jowled face that cut me to the heart, dull as he was, and so\nexasperated me, that I felt inclined to take him in my arms (as the\nrobber in the story-book is said to have taken the old lady) and seat\nhim on the fire.\n\nOne thing was manifest to both of us, and that was, that until relief\ncame, neither of us could relinquish the fire. There we stood, well\nsquared up before it, shoulder to shoulder and foot to foot, with our\nhands behind us, not budging an inch. The horse was visible outside in\nthe drizzle at the door, my breakfast was put on the table, Drummle's\nwas cleared away, the waiter invited me to begin, I nodded, we both\nstood our ground.\n\n\"Have you been to the Grove since?\" said Drummle.\n\n\"No,\" said I, \"I had quite enough of the Finches the last time I was\nthere.\"\n\n\"Was that when we had a difference of opinion?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I replied, very shortly.\n\n\"Come, come! They let you off easily enough,\" sneered Drummle. \"You\nshouldn't have lost your temper.\"\n\n\"Mr. Drummle,\" said I, \"you are not competent to give advice on that\nsubject. When I lose my temper (not that I admit having done so on that\noccasion), I don't throw glasses.\"\n\n\"I do,\" said Drummle.\n\nAfter glancing at him once or twice, in an increased state of\nsmouldering ferocity, I said,--\n\n\"Mr. Drummle, I did not seek this conversation, and I don't think it an\nagreeable one.\"\n\n\"I am sure it's not,\" said he, superciliously over his shoulder; \"I\ndon't think anything about it.\"\n\n\"And therefore,\" I went on, \"with your leave, I will suggest that we\nhold no kind of communication in future.\"\n\n\"Quite my opinion,\" said Drummle, \"and what I should have suggested\nmyself, or done--more likely--without suggesting. But don't lose your\ntemper. Haven't you lost enough without that?\"\n\n\"What do you mean, sir?\"\n\n\"Waiter!\" said Drummle, by way of answering me.\n\nThe waiter reappeared.\n\n\"Look here, you sir. You quite understand that the young lady don't ride\nto-day, and that I dine at the young lady's?\"\n\n\"Quite so, sir!\"\n\nWhen the waiter had felt my fast-cooling teapot with the palm of his\nhand, and had looked imploringly at me, and had gone out, Drummle,\ncareful not to move the shoulder next me, took a cigar from his pocket\nand bit the end off, but showed no sign of stirring. Choking and\nboiling as I was, I felt that we could not go a word further, without\nintroducing Estella's name, which I could not endure to hear him utter;\nand therefore I looked stonily at the opposite wall, as if there were\nno one present, and forced myself to silence. How long we might have\nremained in this ridiculous position it is impossible to say, but\nfor the incursion of three thriving farmers--laid on by the waiter, I\nthink--who came into the coffee-room unbuttoning their great-coats and\nrubbing their hands, and before whom, as they charged at the fire, we\nwere obliged to give way.\n\nI saw him through the window, seizing his horse's mane, and mounting in\nhis blundering brutal manner, and sidling and backing away. I thought\nhe was gone, when he came back, calling for a light for the cigar in his\nmouth, which he had forgotten. A man in a dust-colored dress appeared\nwith what was wanted,--I could not have said from where: whether from\nthe inn yard, or the street, or where not,--and as Drummle leaned down\nfrom the saddle and lighted his cigar and laughed, with a jerk of his\nhead towards the coffee-room windows, the slouching shoulders and ragged\nhair of this man whose back was towards me reminded me of Orlick.\n\nToo heavily out of sorts to care much at the time whether it were he or\nno, or after all to touch the breakfast, I washed the weather and the\njourney from my face and hands, and went out to the memorable old house\nthat it would have been so much the better for me never to have entered,\nnever to have seen.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XLIV\n\nIn the room where the dressing-table stood, and where the wax-candles\nburnt on the wall, I found Miss Havisham and Estella; Miss Havisham\nseated on a settee near the fire, and Estella on a cushion at her feet.\nEstella was knitting, and Miss Havisham was looking on. They both raised\ntheir eyes as I went in, and both saw an alteration in me. I derived\nthat, from the look they interchanged.\n\n\"And what wind,\" said Miss Havisham, \"blows you here, Pip?\"\n\nThough she looked steadily at me, I saw that she was rather confused.\nEstella, pausing a moment in her knitting with her eyes upon me, and\nthen going on, I fancied that I read in the action of her fingers, as\nplainly as if she had told me in the dumb alphabet, that she perceived I\nhad discovered my real benefactor.\n\n\"Miss Havisham,\" said I, \"I went to Richmond yesterday, to speak to\nEstella; and finding that some wind had blown her here, I followed.\"\n\nMiss Havisham motioning to me for the third or fourth time to sit down,\nI took the chair by the dressing-table, which I had often seen her\noccupy. With all that ruin at my feet and about me, it seemed a natural\nplace for me, that day.\n\n\"What I had to say to Estella, Miss Havisham, I will say before you,\npresently--in a few moments. It will not surprise you, it will not\ndisplease you. I am as unhappy as you can ever have meant me to be.\"\n\nMiss Havisham continued to look steadily at me. I could see in the\naction of Estella's fingers as they worked that she attended to what I\nsaid; but she did not look up.\n\n\"I have found out who my patron is. It is not a fortunate discovery,\nand is not likely ever to enrich me in reputation, station, fortune,\nanything. There are reasons why I must say no more of that. It is not my\nsecret, but another's.\"\n\nAs I was silent for a while, looking at Estella and considering how to\ngo on, Miss Havisham repeated, \"It is not your secret, but another's.\nWell?\"\n\n\"When you first caused me to be brought here, Miss Havisham, when I\nbelonged to the village over yonder, that I wish I had never left,\nI suppose I did really come here, as any other chance boy might have\ncome,--as a kind of servant, to gratify a want or a whim, and to be paid\nfor it?\"\n\n\"Ay, Pip,\" replied Miss Havisham, steadily nodding her head; \"you did.\"\n\n\"And that Mr. Jaggers--\"\n\n\"Mr. Jaggers,\" said Miss Havisham, taking me up in a firm tone, \"had\nnothing to do with it, and knew nothing of it. His being my lawyer, and\nhis being the lawyer of your patron is a coincidence. He holds the same\nrelation towards numbers of people, and it might easily arise. Be that\nas it may, it did arise, and was not brought about by any one.\"\n\nAny one might have seen in her haggard face that there was no\nsuppression or evasion so far.\n\n\"But when I fell into the mistake I have so long remained in, at least\nyou led me on?\" said I.\n\n\"Yes,\" she returned, again nodding steadily, \"I let you go on.\"\n\n\"Was that kind?\"\n\n\"Who am I,\" cried Miss Havisham, striking her stick upon the floor\nand flashing into wrath so suddenly that Estella glanced up at her in\nsurprise,--\"who am I, for God's sake, that I should be kind?\"\n\nIt was a weak complaint to have made, and I had not meant to make it. I\ntold her so, as she sat brooding after this outburst.\n\n\"Well, well, well!\" she said. \"What else?\"\n\n\"I was liberally paid for my old attendance here,\" I said, to soothe\nher, \"in being apprenticed, and I have asked these questions only for\nmy own information. What follows has another (and I hope more\ndisinterested) purpose. In humoring my mistake, Miss Havisham, you\npunished--practised on--perhaps you will supply whatever term expresses\nyour intention, without offence--your self-seeking relations?\"\n\n\"I did. Why, they would have it so! So would you. What has been my\nhistory, that I should be at the pains of entreating either them or you\nnot to have it so! You made your own snares. I never made them.\"\n\nWaiting until she was quiet again,--for this, too, flashed out of her in\na wild and sudden way,--I went on.\n\n\"I have been thrown among one family of your relations, Miss Havisham,\nand have been constantly among them since I went to London. I know them\nto have been as honestly under my delusion as I myself. And I should be\nfalse and base if I did not tell you, whether it is acceptable to you or\nno, and whether you are inclined to give credence to it or no, that you\ndeeply wrong both Mr. Matthew Pocket and his son Herbert, if you suppose\nthem to be otherwise than generous, upright, open, and incapable of\nanything designing or mean.\"\n\n\"They are your friends,\" said Miss Havisham.\n\n\"They made themselves my friends,\" said I, \"when they supposed me\nto have superseded them; and when Sarah Pocket, Miss Georgiana, and\nMistress Camilla were not my friends, I think.\"\n\nThis contrasting of them with the rest seemed, I was glad to see, to do\nthem good with her. She looked at me keenly for a little while, and then\nsaid quietly,--\n\n\"What do you want for them?\"\n\n\"Only,\" said I, \"that you would not confound them with the others. They\nmay be of the same blood, but, believe me, they are not of the same\nnature.\"\n\nStill looking at me keenly, Miss Havisham repeated,--\n\n\"What do you want for them?\"\n\n\"I am not so cunning, you see,\" I said, in answer, conscious that I\nreddened a little, \"as that I could hide from you, even if I desired,\nthat I do want something. Miss Havisham, if you would spare the money\nto do my friend Herbert a lasting service in life, but which from the\nnature of the case must be done without his knowledge, I could show you\nhow.\"\n\n\"Why must it be done without his knowledge?\" she asked, settling her\nhands upon her stick, that she might regard me the more attentively.\n\n\"Because,\" said I, \"I began the service myself, more than two years ago,\nwithout his knowledge, and I don't want to be betrayed. Why I fail in my\nability to finish it, I cannot explain. It is a part of the secret which\nis another person's and not mine.\"\n\nShe gradually withdrew her eyes from me, and turned them on the fire.\nAfter watching it for what appeared in the silence and by the light\nof the slowly wasting candles to be a long time, she was roused by\nthe collapse of some of the red coals, and looked towards me again--at\nfirst, vacantly--then, with a gradually concentrating attention. All\nthis time Estella knitted on. When Miss Havisham had fixed her\nattention on me, she said, speaking as if there had been no lapse in our\ndialogue,--\n\n\"What else?\"\n\n\"Estella,\" said I, turning to her now, and trying to command my\ntrembling voice, \"you know I love you. You know that I have loved you\nlong and dearly.\"\n\nShe raised her eyes to my face, on being thus addressed, and her fingers\nplied their work, and she looked at me with an unmoved countenance. I\nsaw that Miss Havisham glanced from me to her, and from her to me.\n\n\"I should have said this sooner, but for my long mistake. It induced me\nto hope that Miss Havisham meant us for one another. While I thought you\ncould not help yourself, as it were, I refrained from saying it. But I\nmust say it now.\"\n\nPreserving her unmoved countenance, and with her fingers still going,\nEstella shook her head.\n\n\"I know,\" said I, in answer to that action,--\"I know. I have no hope\nthat I shall ever call you mine, Estella. I am ignorant what may become\nof me very soon, how poor I may be, or where I may go. Still, I love\nyou. I have loved you ever since I first saw you in this house.\"\n\nLooking at me perfectly unmoved and with her fingers busy, she shook her\nhead again.\n\n\"It would have been cruel in Miss Havisham, horribly cruel, to practise\non the susceptibility of a poor boy, and to torture me through all these\nyears with a vain hope and an idle pursuit, if she had reflected on the\ngravity of what she did. But I think she did not. I think that, in the\nendurance of her own trial, she forgot mine, Estella.\"\n\nI saw Miss Havisham put her hand to her heart and hold it there, as she\nsat looking by turns at Estella and at me.\n\n\"It seems,\" said Estella, very calmly, \"that there are sentiments,\nfancies,--I don't know how to call them,--which I am not able to\ncomprehend. When you say you love me, I know what you mean, as a form\nof words; but nothing more. You address nothing in my breast, you touch\nnothing there. I don't care for what you say at all. I have tried to\nwarn you of this; now, have I not?\"\n\nI said in a miserable manner, \"Yes.\"\n\n\"Yes. But you would not be warned, for you thought I did not mean it.\nNow, did you not think so?\"\n\n\"I thought and hoped you could not mean it. You, so young, untried, and\nbeautiful, Estella! Surely it is not in Nature.\"\n\n\"It is in my nature,\" she returned. And then she added, with a stress\nupon the words, \"It is in the nature formed within me. I make a great\ndifference between you and all other people when I say so much. I can do\nno more.\"\n\n\"Is it not true,\" said I, \"that Bentley Drummle is in town here, and\npursuing you?\"\n\n\"It is quite true,\" she replied, referring to him with the indifference\nof utter contempt.\n\n\"That you encourage him, and ride out with him, and that he dines with\nyou this very day?\"\n\nShe seemed a little surprised that I should know it, but again replied,\n\"Quite true.\"\n\n\"You cannot love him, Estella!\"\n\nHer fingers stopped for the first time, as she retorted rather angrily,\n\"What have I told you? Do you still think, in spite of it, that I do not\nmean what I say?\"\n\n\"You would never marry him, Estella?\"\n\nShe looked towards Miss Havisham, and considered for a moment with her\nwork in her hands. Then she said, \"Why not tell you the truth? I am\ngoing to be married to him.\"\n\nI dropped my face into my hands, but was able to control myself better\nthan I could have expected, considering what agony it gave me to hear\nher say those words. When I raised my face again, there was such a\nghastly look upon Miss Havisham's, that it impressed me, even in my\npassionate hurry and grief.\n\n\"Estella, dearest Estella, do not let Miss Havisham lead you into this\nfatal step. Put me aside for ever,--you have done so, I well know,--but\nbestow yourself on some worthier person than Drummle. Miss Havisham\ngives you to him, as the greatest slight and injury that could be done\nto the many far better men who admire you, and to the few who truly\nlove you. Among those few there may be one who loves you even as dearly,\nthough he has not loved you as long, as I. Take him, and I can bear it\nbetter, for your sake!\"\n\nMy earnestness awoke a wonder in her that seemed as if it would have\nbeen touched with compassion, if she could have rendered me at all\nintelligible to her own mind.\n\n\"I am going,\" she said again, in a gentler voice, \"to be married to\nhim. The preparations for my marriage are making, and I shall be\nmarried soon. Why do you injuriously introduce the name of my mother by\nadoption? It is my own act.\"\n\n\"Your own act, Estella, to fling yourself away upon a brute?\"\n\n\"On whom should I fling myself away?\" she retorted, with a smile.\n\"Should I fling myself away upon the man who would the soonest feel (if\npeople do feel such things) that I took nothing to him? There! It is\ndone. I shall do well enough, and so will my husband. As to leading\nme into what you call this fatal step, Miss Havisham would have had me\nwait, and not marry yet; but I am tired of the life I have led, which\nhas very few charms for me, and I am willing enough to change it. Say no\nmore. We shall never understand each other.\"\n\n\"Such a mean brute, such a stupid brute!\" I urged, in despair.\n\n\"Don't be afraid of my being a blessing to him,\" said Estella; \"I shall\nnot be that. Come! Here is my hand. Do we part on this, you visionary\nboy--or man?\"\n\n\"O Estella!\" I answered, as my bitter tears fell fast on her hand, do\nwhat I would to restrain them; \"even if I remained in England and could\nhold my head up with the rest, how could I see you Drummle's wife?\"\n\n\"Nonsense,\" she returned,--\"nonsense. This will pass in no time.\"\n\n\"Never, Estella!\"\n\n\"You will get me out of your thoughts in a week.\"\n\n\"Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You\nhave been in every line I have ever read since I first came here, the\nrough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been\nin every prospect I have ever seen since,--on the river, on the sails of\nthe ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness,\nin the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been\nthe embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become\nacquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings\nare made are not more real, or more impossible to be displaced by your\nhands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and\neverywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you\ncannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good\nin me, part of the evil. But, in this separation, I associate you only\nwith the good; and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you\nmust have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp\ndistress I may. O God bless you, God forgive you!\"\n\nIn what ecstasy of unhappiness I got these broken words out of myself, I\ndon't know. The rhapsody welled up within me, like blood from an\ninward wound, and gushed out. I held her hand to my lips some lingering\nmoments, and so I left her. But ever afterwards, I remembered,--and soon\nafterwards with stronger reason,--that while Estella looked at me merely\nwith incredulous wonder, the spectral figure of Miss Havisham, her hand\nstill covering her heart, seemed all resolved into a ghastly stare of\npity and remorse.\n\nAll done, all gone! So much was done and gone, that when I went out at\nthe gate, the light of the day seemed of a darker color than when I went\nin. For a while, I hid myself among some lanes and by-paths, and then\nstruck off to walk all the way to London. For, I had by that time come\nto myself so far as to consider that I could not go back to the inn and\nsee Drummle there; that I could not bear to sit upon the coach and\nbe spoken to; that I could do nothing half so good for myself as tire\nmyself out.\n\nIt was past midnight when I crossed London Bridge. Pursuing the narrow\nintricacies of the streets which at that time tended westward near the\nMiddlesex shore of the river, my readiest access to the Temple was\nclose by the river-side, through Whitefriars. I was not expected till\nto-morrow; but I had my keys, and, if Herbert were gone to bed, could\nget to bed myself without disturbing him.\n\nAs it seldom happened that I came in at that Whitefriars gate after the\nTemple was closed, and as I was very muddy and weary, I did not take it\nill that the night-porter examined me with much attention as he held the\ngate a little way open for me to pass in. To help his memory I mentioned\nmy name.\n\n\"I was not quite sure, sir, but I thought so. Here's a note, sir. The\nmessenger that brought it, said would you be so good as read it by my\nlantern?\"\n\nMuch surprised by the request, I took the note. It was directed to\nPhilip Pip, Esquire, and on the top of the superscription were the\nwords, \"PLEASE READ THIS, HERE.\" I opened it, the watchman holding up\nhis light, and read inside, in Wemmick's writing,--\n\n\"DON'T GO HOME.\"\n\n\n\n\nChapter XLV\n\nTurning from the Temple gate as soon as I had read the warning, I made\nthe best of my way to Fleet Street, and there got a late hackney chariot\nand drove to the Hummums in Covent Garden. In those times a bed was\nalways to be got there at any hour of the night, and the chamberlain,\nletting me in at his ready wicket, lighted the candle next in order on\nhis shelf, and showed me straight into the bedroom next in order on his\nlist. It was a sort of vault on the ground floor at the back, with a\ndespotic monster of a four-post bedstead in it, straddling over the\nwhole place, putting one of his arbitrary legs into the fireplace\nand another into the doorway, and squeezing the wretched little\nwashing-stand in quite a Divinely Righteous manner.\n\nAs I had asked for a night-light, the chamberlain had brought me in,\nbefore he left me, the good old constitutional rushlight of those\nvirtuous days--an object like the ghost of a walking-cane, which\ninstantly broke its back if it were touched, which nothing could ever be\nlighted at, and which was placed in solitary confinement at the bottom\nof a high tin tower, perforated with round holes that made a staringly\nwide-awake pattern on the walls. When I had got into bed, and lay there\nfootsore, weary, and wretched, I found that I could no more close my own\neyes than I could close the eyes of this foolish Argus. And thus, in the\ngloom and death of the night, we stared at one another.\n\nWhat a doleful night! How anxious, how dismal, how long! There was an\ninhospitable smell in the room, of cold soot and hot dust; and, as I\nlooked up into the corners of the tester over my head, I thought what\na number of blue-bottle flies from the butchers', and earwigs from the\nmarket, and grubs from the country, must be holding on up there, lying\nby for next summer. This led me to speculate whether any of them ever\ntumbled down, and then I fancied that I felt light falls on my face,--a\ndisagreeable turn of thought, suggesting other and more objectionable\napproaches up my back. When I had lain awake a little while, those\nextraordinary voices with which silence teems began to make themselves\naudible. The closet whispered, the fireplace sighed, the little\nwashing-stand ticked, and one guitar-string played occasionally in the\nchest of drawers. At about the same time, the eyes on the wall acquired\na new expression, and in every one of those staring rounds I saw\nwritten, DON'T GO HOME.\n\nWhatever night-fancies and night-noises crowded on me, they never warded\noff this DON'T GO HOME. It plaited itself into whatever I thought of,\nas a bodily pain would have done. Not long before, I had read in the\nnewspapers, how a gentleman unknown had come to the Hummums in the\nnight, and had gone to bed, and had destroyed himself, and had been\nfound in the morning weltering in blood. It came into my head that he\nmust have occupied this very vault of mine, and I got out of bed to\nassure myself that there were no red marks about; then opened the door\nto look out into the passages, and cheer myself with the companionship\nof a distant light, near which I knew the chamberlain to be dozing. But\nall this time, why I was not to go home, and what had happened at home,\nand when I should go home, and whether Provis was safe at home, were\nquestions occupying my mind so busily, that one might have supposed\nthere could be no more room in it for any other theme. Even when I\nthought of Estella, and how we had parted that day forever, and when\nI recalled all the circumstances of our parting, and all her looks and\ntones, and the action of her fingers while she knitted,--even then I\nwas pursuing, here and there and everywhere, the caution, Don't go home.\nWhen at last I dozed, in sheer exhaustion of mind and body, it became\na vast shadowy verb which I had to conjugate. Imperative mood, present\ntense: Do not thou go home, let him not go home, let us not go home, do\nnot ye or you go home, let not them go home. Then potentially: I may not\nand I cannot go home; and I might not, could not, would not, and should\nnot go home; until I felt that I was going distracted, and rolled over\non the pillow, and looked at the staring rounds upon the wall again.\n\nI had left directions that I was to be called at seven; for it was plain\nthat I must see Wemmick before seeing any one else, and equally plain\nthat this was a case in which his Walworth sentiments only could be\ntaken. It was a relief to get out of the room where the night had been\nso miserable, and I needed no second knocking at the door to startle me\nfrom my uneasy bed.\n\nThe Castle battlements arose upon my view at eight o'clock. The little\nservant happening to be entering the fortress with two hot rolls, I\npassed through the postern and crossed the drawbridge in her company,\nand so came without announcement into the presence of Wemmick as he was\nmaking tea for himself and the Aged. An open door afforded a perspective\nview of the Aged in bed.\n\n\"Halloa, Mr. Pip!\" said Wemmick. \"You did come home, then?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I returned; \"but I didn't go home.\"\n\n\"That's all right,\" said he, rubbing his hands. \"I left a note for you\nat each of the Temple gates, on the chance. Which gate did you come to?\"\n\nI told him.\n\n\"I'll go round to the others in the course of the day and destroy the\nnotes,\" said Wemmick; \"it's a good rule never to leave documentary\nevidence if you can help it, because you don't know when it may be put\nin. I'm going to take a liberty with you. Would you mind toasting this\nsausage for the Aged P.?\"\n\nI said I should be delighted to do it.\n\n\"Then you can go about your work, Mary Anne,\" said Wemmick to the little\nservant; \"which leaves us to ourselves, don't you see, Mr. Pip?\" he\nadded, winking, as she disappeared.\n\nI thanked him for his friendship and caution, and our discourse\nproceeded in a low tone, while I toasted the Aged's sausage and he\nbuttered the crumb of the Aged's roll.\n\n\"Now, Mr. Pip, you know,\" said Wemmick, \"you and I understand one\nanother. We are in our private and personal capacities, and we have been\nengaged in a confidential transaction before to-day. Official sentiments\nare one thing. We are extra official.\"\n\nI cordially assented. I was so very nervous, that I had already lighted\nthe Aged's sausage like a torch, and been obliged to blow it out.\n\n\"I accidentally heard, yesterday morning,\" said Wemmick, \"being in a\ncertain place where I once took you,--even between you and me, it's as\nwell not to mention names when avoidable--\"\n\n\"Much better not,\" said I. \"I understand you.\"\n\n\"I heard there by chance, yesterday morning,\" said Wemmick, \"that\na certain person not altogether of uncolonial pursuits, and not\nunpossessed of portable property,--I don't know who it may really\nbe,--we won't name this person--\"\n\n\"Not necessary,\" said I.\n\n\"--Had made some little stir in a certain part of the world where a good\nmany people go, not always in gratification of their own inclinations,\nand not quite irrespective of the government expense--\"\n\nIn watching his face, I made quite a firework of the Aged's sausage,\nand greatly discomposed both my own attention and Wemmick's; for which I\napologized.\n\n\"--By disappearing from such place, and being no more heard of\nthereabouts. From which,\" said Wemmick, \"conjectures had been raised and\ntheories formed. I also heard that you at your chambers in Garden Court,\nTemple, had been watched, and might be watched again.\"\n\n\"By whom?\" said I.\n\n\"I wouldn't go into that,\" said Wemmick, evasively, \"it might clash with\nofficial responsibilities. I heard it, as I have in my time heard other\ncurious things in the same place. I don't tell it you on information\nreceived. I heard it.\"\n\nHe took the toasting-fork and sausage from me as he spoke, and set forth\nthe Aged's breakfast neatly on a little tray. Previous to placing it\nbefore him, he went into the Aged's room with a clean white cloth, and\ntied the same under the old gentleman's chin, and propped him up, and\nput his nightcap on one side, and gave him quite a rakish air. Then he\nplaced his breakfast before him with great care, and said, \"All right,\nain't you, Aged P.?\" To which the cheerful Aged replied, \"All right,\nJohn, my boy, all right!\" As there seemed to be a tacit understanding\nthat the Aged was not in a presentable state, and was therefore to be\nconsidered invisible, I made a pretence of being in complete ignorance\nof these proceedings.\n\n\"This watching of me at my chambers (which I have once had reason to\nsuspect),\" I said to Wemmick when he came back, \"is inseparable from the\nperson to whom you have adverted; is it?\"\n\nWemmick looked very serious. \"I couldn't undertake to say that, of my\nown knowledge. I mean, I couldn't undertake to say it was at first. But\nit either is, or it will be, or it's in great danger of being.\"\n\nAs I saw that he was restrained by fealty to Little Britain from saying\nas much as he could, and as I knew with thankfulness to him how far out\nof his way he went to say what he did, I could not press him. But I told\nhim, after a little meditation over the fire, that I would like to ask\nhim a question, subject to his answering or not answering, as he\ndeemed right, and sure that his course would be right. He paused in his\nbreakfast, and crossing his arms, and pinching his shirt-sleeves (his\nnotion of in-door comfort was to sit without any coat), he nodded to me\nonce, to put my question.\n\n\"You have heard of a man of bad character, whose true name is\nCompeyson?\"\n\nHe answered with one other nod.\n\n\"Is he living?\"\n\nOne other nod.\n\n\"Is he in London?\"\n\nHe gave me one other nod, compressed the post-office exceedingly, gave\nme one last nod, and went on with his breakfast.\n\n\"Now,\" said Wemmick, \"questioning being over,\" which he emphasized and\nrepeated for my guidance, \"I come to what I did, after hearing what I\nheard. I went to Garden Court to find you; not finding you, I went to\nClarriker's to find Mr. Herbert.\"\n\n\"And him you found?\" said I, with great anxiety.\n\n\"And him I found. Without mentioning any names or going into any\ndetails, I gave him to understand that if he was aware of anybody--Tom,\nJack, or Richard--being about the chambers, or about the immediate\nneighborhood, he had better get Tom, Jack, or Richard out of the way\nwhile you were out of the way.\"\n\n\"He would be greatly puzzled what to do?\"\n\n\"He was puzzled what to do; not the less, because I gave him my opinion\nthat it was not safe to try to get Tom, Jack, or Richard too far out\nof the way at present. Mr. Pip, I'll tell you something. Under existing\ncircumstances, there is no place like a great city when you are once\nin it. Don't break cover too soon. Lie close. Wait till things slacken,\nbefore you try the open, even for foreign air.\"\n\nI thanked him for his valuable advice, and asked him what Herbert had\ndone?\n\n\"Mr. Herbert,\" said Wemmick, \"after being all of a heap for half an\nhour, struck out a plan. He mentioned to me as a secret, that he is\ncourting a young lady who has, as no doubt you are aware, a bedridden\nPa. Which Pa, having been in the Purser line of life, lies a-bed in a\nbow-window where he can see the ships sail up and down the river. You\nare acquainted with the young lady, most probably?\"\n\n\"Not personally,\" said I.\n\nThe truth was, that she had objected to me as an expensive companion\nwho did Herbert no good, and that, when Herbert had first proposed to\npresent me to her, she had received the proposal with such very moderate\nwarmth, that Herbert had felt himself obliged to confide the state of\nthe case to me, with a view to the lapse of a little time before I made\nher acquaintance. When I had begun to advance Herbert's prospects by\nstealth, I had been able to bear this with cheerful philosophy: he and\nhis affianced, for their part, had naturally not been very anxious to\nintroduce a third person into their interviews; and thus, although I was\nassured that I had risen in Clara's esteem, and although the young\nlady and I had long regularly interchanged messages and remembrances by\nHerbert, I had never seen her. However, I did not trouble Wemmick with\nthese particulars.\n\n\"The house with the bow-window,\" said Wemmick, \"being by the river-side,\ndown the Pool there between Limehouse and Greenwich, and being kept, it\nseems, by a very respectable widow who has a furnished upper floor to\nlet, Mr. Herbert put it to me, what did I think of that as a temporary\ntenement for Tom, Jack, or Richard? Now, I thought very well of it, for\nthree reasons I'll give you. That is to say: Firstly. It's altogether\nout of all your beats, and is well away from the usual heap of streets\ngreat and small. Secondly. Without going near it yourself, you could\nalways hear of the safety of Tom, Jack, or Richard, through Mr. Herbert.\nThirdly. After a while and when it might be prudent, if you should want\nto slip Tom, Jack, or Richard on board a foreign packet-boat, there he\nis--ready.\"\n\nMuch comforted by these considerations, I thanked Wemmick again and\nagain, and begged him to proceed.\n\n\"Well, sir! Mr. Herbert threw himself into the business with a will, and\nby nine o'clock last night he housed Tom, Jack, or Richard,--whichever\nit may be,--you and I don't want to know,--quite successfully. At the\nold lodgings it was understood that he was summoned to Dover, and, in\nfact, he was taken down the Dover road and cornered out of it. Now,\nanother great advantage of all this is, that it was done without you,\nand when, if any one was concerning himself about your movements, you\nmust be known to be ever so many miles off and quite otherwise engaged.\nThis diverts suspicion and confuses it; and for the same reason I\nrecommended that, even if you came back last night, you should not go\nhome. It brings in more confusion, and you want confusion.\"\n\nWemmick, having finished his breakfast, here looked at his watch, and\nbegan to get his coat on.\n\n\"And now, Mr. Pip,\" said he, with his hands still in the sleeves, \"I\nhave probably done the most I can do; but if I can ever do more,--from\na Walworth point of view, and in a strictly private and personal\ncapacity,--I shall be glad to do it. Here's the address. There can be\nno harm in your going here to-night, and seeing for yourself that all is\nwell with Tom, Jack, or Richard, before you go home,--which is another\nreason for your not going home last night. But, after you have gone\nhome, don't go back here. You are very welcome, I am sure, Mr. Pip\"; his\nhands were now out of his sleeves, and I was shaking them; \"and let me\nfinally impress one important point upon you.\" He laid his hands upon\nmy shoulders, and added in a solemn whisper: \"Avail yourself of this\nevening to lay hold of his portable property. You don't know what may\nhappen to him. Don't let anything happen to the portable property.\"\n\nQuite despairing of making my mind clear to Wemmick on this point, I\nforbore to try.\n\n\"Time's up,\" said Wemmick, \"and I must be off. If you had nothing more\npressing to do than to keep here till dark, that's what I should advise.\nYou look very much worried, and it would do you good to have a perfectly\nquiet day with the Aged,--he'll be up presently,--and a little bit\nof--you remember the pig?\"\n\n\"Of course,\" said I.\n\n\"Well; and a little bit of him. That sausage you toasted was his, and\nhe was in all respects a first-rater. Do try him, if it is only for old\nacquaintance sake. Good-bye, Aged Parent!\" in a cheery shout.\n\n\"All right, John; all right, my boy!\" piped the old man from within.\n\nI soon fell asleep before Wemmick's fire, and the Aged and I enjoyed one\nanother's society by falling asleep before it more or less all day.\nWe had loin of pork for dinner, and greens grown on the estate; and\nI nodded at the Aged with a good intention whenever I failed to do it\ndrowsily. When it was quite dark, I left the Aged preparing the fire for\ntoast; and I inferred from the number of teacups, as well as from his\nglances at the two little doors in the wall, that Miss Skiffins was\nexpected.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XLVI\n\nEight o'clock had struck before I got into the air, that was scented,\nnot disagreeably, by the chips and shavings of the long-shore\nboat-builders, and mast, oar, and block makers. All that water-side\nregion of the upper and lower Pool below Bridge was unknown ground to\nme; and when I struck down by the river, I found that the spot I wanted\nwas not where I had supposed it to be, and was anything but easy to\nfind. It was called Mill Pond Bank, Chinks's Basin; and I had no other\nguide to Chinks's Basin than the Old Green Copper Rope-walk.\n\nIt matters not what stranded ships repairing in dry docks I lost myself\namong, what old hulls of ships in course of being knocked to pieces,\nwhat ooze and slime and other dregs of tide, what yards of ship-builders\nand ship-breakers, what rusty anchors blindly biting into the ground,\nthough for years off duty, what mountainous country of accumulated casks\nand timber, how many rope-walks that were not the Old Green Copper. After\nseveral times falling short of my destination and as often overshooting\nit, I came unexpectedly round a corner, upon Mill Pond Bank. It was a\nfresh kind of place, all circumstances considered, where the wind from\nthe river had room to turn itself round; and there were two or three\ntrees in it, and there was the stump of a ruined windmill, and there\nwas the Old Green Copper Rope-walk,--whose long and narrow vista I could\ntrace in the moonlight, along a series of wooden frames set in the\nground, that looked like superannuated haymaking-rakes which had grown\nold and lost most of their teeth.\n\nSelecting from the few queer houses upon Mill Pond Bank a house with a\nwooden front and three stories of bow-window (not bay-window, which is\nanother thing), I looked at the plate upon the door, and read there,\nMrs. Whimple. That being the name I wanted, I knocked, and an elderly\nwoman of a pleasant and thriving appearance responded. She was\nimmediately deposed, however, by Herbert, who silently led me into\nthe parlor and shut the door. It was an odd sensation to see his very\nfamiliar face established quite at home in that very unfamiliar room\nand region; and I found myself looking at him, much as I looked at\nthe corner-cupboard with the glass and china, the shells upon the\nchimney-piece, and the colored engravings on the wall, representing the\ndeath of Captain Cook, a ship-launch, and his Majesty King George the\nThird in a state coachman's wig, leather-breeches, and top-boots, on the\nterrace at Windsor.\n\n\"All is well, Handel,\" said Herbert, \"and he is quite satisfied, though\neager to see you. My dear girl is with her father; and if you'll wait\ntill she comes down, I'll make you known to her, and then we'll go upstairs.\nThat's her father.\"\n\nI had become aware of an alarming growling overhead, and had probably\nexpressed the fact in my countenance.\n\n\"I am afraid he is a sad old rascal,\" said Herbert, smiling, \"but I have\nnever seen him. Don't you smell rum? He is always at it.\"\n\n\"At rum?\" said I.\n\n\"Yes,\" returned Herbert, \"and you may suppose how mild it makes his\ngout. He persists, too, in keeping all the provisions upstairs in his\nroom, and serving them out. He keeps them on shelves over his head, and\nwill weigh them all. His room must be like a chandler's shop.\"\n\nWhile he thus spoke, the growling noise became a prolonged roar, and\nthen died away.\n\n\"What else can be the consequence,\" said Herbert, in explanation, \"if\nhe will cut the cheese? A man with the gout in his right hand--and\neverywhere else--can't expect to get through a Double Gloucester without\nhurting himself.\"\n\nHe seemed to have hurt himself very much, for he gave another furious\nroar.\n\n\"To have Provis for an upper lodger is quite a godsend to Mrs. Whimple,\"\nsaid Herbert, \"for of course people in general won't stand that noise. A\ncurious place, Handel; isn't it?\"\n\nIt was a curious place, indeed; but remarkably well kept and clean.\n\n\"Mrs. Whimple,\" said Herbert, when I told him so, \"is the best of\nhousewives, and I really do not know what my Clara would do without\nher motherly help. For, Clara has no mother of her own, Handel, and no\nrelation in the world but old Gruffandgrim.\"\n\n\"Surely that's not his name, Herbert?\"\n\n\"No, no,\" said Herbert, \"that's my name for him. His name is Mr. Barley.\nBut what a blessing it is for the son of my father and mother to love a\ngirl who has no relations, and who can never bother herself or anybody\nelse about her family!\"\n\nHerbert had told me on former occasions, and now reminded me, that he\nfirst knew Miss Clara Barley when she was completing her education at\nan establishment at Hammersmith, and that on her being recalled home\nto nurse her father, he and she had confided their affection to the\nmotherly Mrs. Whimple, by whom it had been fostered and regulated\nwith equal kindness and discretion, ever since. It was understood that\nnothing of a tender nature could possibly be confided to old Barley, by\nreason of his being totally unequal to the consideration of any subject\nmore psychological than Gout, Rum, and Purser's stores.\n\nAs we were thus conversing in a low tone while Old Barley's sustained\ngrowl vibrated in the beam that crossed the ceiling, the room door\nopened, and a very pretty, slight, dark-eyed girl of twenty or so came\nin with a basket in her hand: whom Herbert tenderly relieved of the\nbasket, and presented, blushing, as \"Clara.\" She really was a most\ncharming girl, and might have passed for a captive fairy, whom that\ntruculent Ogre, Old Barley, had pressed into his service.\n\n\"Look here,\" said Herbert, showing me the basket, with a compassionate\nand tender smile, after we had talked a little; \"here's poor Clara's\nsupper, served out every night. Here's her allowance of bread, and\nhere's her slice of cheese, and here's her rum,--which I drink. This\nis Mr. Barley's breakfast for to-morrow, served out to be cooked. Two\nmutton-chops, three potatoes, some split peas, a little flour, two\nounces of butter, a pinch of salt, and all this black pepper. It's\nstewed up together, and taken hot, and it's a nice thing for the gout, I\nshould think!\"\n\nThere was something so natural and winning in Clara's resigned way of\nlooking at these stores in detail, as Herbert pointed them out; and\nsomething so confiding, loving, and innocent in her modest manner of\nyielding herself to Herbert's embracing arm; and something so gentle in\nher, so much needing protection on Mill Pond Bank, by Chinks's Basin,\nand the Old Green Copper Rope-walk, with Old Barley growling in the\nbeam,--that I would not have undone the engagement between her and\nHerbert for all the money in the pocket-book I had never opened.\n\nI was looking at her with pleasure and admiration, when suddenly the\ngrowl swelled into a roar again, and a frightful bumping noise was heard\nabove, as if a giant with a wooden leg were trying to bore it through\nthe ceiling to come at us. Upon this Clara said to Herbert, \"Papa wants\nme, darling!\" and ran away.\n\n\"There is an unconscionable old shark for you!\" said Herbert. \"What do\nyou suppose he wants now, Handel?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" said I. \"Something to drink?\"\n\n\"That's it!\" cried Herbert, as if I had made a guess of extraordinary\nmerit. \"He keeps his grog ready mixed in a little tub on the table.\nWait a moment, and you'll hear Clara lift him up to take some. There\nhe goes!\" Another roar, with a prolonged shake at the end. \"Now,\" said\nHerbert, as it was succeeded by silence, \"he's drinking. Now,\" said\nHerbert, as the growl resounded in the beam once more, \"he's down again\non his back!\"\n\nClara returned soon afterwards, and Herbert accompanied me upstairs to\nsee our charge. As we passed Mr. Barley's door, he was heard hoarsely\nmuttering within, in a strain that rose and fell like wind, the\nfollowing Refrain, in which I substitute good wishes for something quite\nthe reverse:--\n\n\"Ahoy! Bless your eyes, here's old Bill Barley. Here's old Bill Barley,\nbless your eyes. Here's old Bill Barley on the flat of his back, by the\nLord. Lying on the flat of his back like a drifting old dead flounder,\nhere's your old Bill Barley, bless your eyes. Ahoy! Bless you.\"\n\nIn this strain of consolation, Herbert informed me the invisible Barley\nwould commune with himself by the day and night together; Often, while\nit was light, having, at the same time, one eye at a telescope which was\nfitted on his bed for the convenience of sweeping the river.\n\nIn his two cabin rooms at the top of the house, which were fresh and\nairy, and in which Mr. Barley was less audible than below, I found\nProvis comfortably settled. He expressed no alarm, and seemed to\nfeel none that was worth mentioning; but it struck me that he was\nsoftened,--indefinably, for I could not have said how, and could never\nafterwards recall how when I tried, but certainly.\n\nThe opportunity that the day's rest had given me for reflection had\nresulted in my fully determining to say nothing to him respecting\nCompeyson. For anything I knew, his animosity towards the man\nmight otherwise lead to his seeking him out and rushing on his own\ndestruction. Therefore, when Herbert and I sat down with him by his\nfire, I asked him first of all whether he relied on Wemmick's judgment\nand sources of information?\n\n\"Ay, ay, dear boy!\" he answered, with a grave nod, \"Jaggers knows.\"\n\n\"Then, I have talked with Wemmick,\" said I, \"and have come to tell you\nwhat caution he gave me and what advice.\"\n\nThis I did accurately, with the reservation just mentioned; and I told\nhim how Wemmick had heard, in Newgate prison (whether from officers or\nprisoners I could not say), that he was under some suspicion, and that\nmy chambers had been watched; how Wemmick had recommended his keeping\nclose for a time, and my keeping away from him; and what Wemmick had\nsaid about getting him abroad. I added, that of course, when the time\ncame, I should go with him, or should follow close upon him, as might\nbe safest in Wemmick's judgment. What was to follow that I did not touch\nupon; neither, indeed, was I at all clear or comfortable about it in my\nown mind, now that I saw him in that softer condition, and in declared\nperil for my sake. As to altering my way of living by enlarging my\nexpenses, I put it to him whether in our present unsettled and difficult\ncircumstances, it would not be simply ridiculous, if it were no worse?\n\nHe could not deny this, and indeed was very reasonable throughout. His\ncoming back was a venture, he said, and he had always known it to be a\nventure. He would do nothing to make it a desperate venture, and he had\nvery little fear of his safety with such good help.\n\nHerbert, who had been looking at the fire and pondering, here said\nthat something had come into his thoughts arising out of Wemmick's\nsuggestion, which it might be worth while to pursue. \"We are both good\nwatermen, Handel, and could take him down the river ourselves when the\nright time comes. No boat would then be hired for the purpose, and no\nboatmen; that would save at least a chance of suspicion, and any chance\nis worth saving. Never mind the season; don't you think it might be a\ngood thing if you began at once to keep a boat at the Temple stairs, and\nwere in the habit of rowing up and down the river? You fall into that\nhabit, and then who notices or minds? Do it twenty or fifty times,\nand there is nothing special in your doing it the twenty-first or\nfifty-first.\"\n\nI liked this scheme, and Provis was quite elated by it. We agreed\nthat it should be carried into execution, and that Provis should never\nrecognize us if we came below Bridge, and rowed past Mill Pond Bank. But\nwe further agreed that he should pull down the blind in that part of his\nwindow which gave upon the east, whenever he saw us and all was right.\n\nOur conference being now ended, and everything arranged, I rose to go;\nremarking to Herbert that he and I had better not go home together, and\nthat I would take half an hour's start of him. \"I don't like to leave\nyou here,\" I said to Provis, \"though I cannot doubt your being safer\nhere than near me. Good-bye!\"\n\n\"Dear boy,\" he answered, clasping my hands, \"I don't know when we may\nmeet again, and I don't like good-bye. Say good night!\"\n\n\"Good night! Herbert will go regularly between us, and when the time\ncomes you may be certain I shall be ready. Good night, good night!\"\n\nWe thought it best that he should stay in his own rooms; and we left him\non the landing outside his door, holding a light over the stair-rail to\nlight us downstairs. Looking back at him, I thought of the first night\nof his return, when our positions were reversed, and when I little\nsupposed my heart could ever be as heavy and anxious at parting from him\nas it was now.\n\nOld Barley was growling and swearing when we repassed his door, with no\nappearance of having ceased or of meaning to cease. When we got to the\nfoot of the stairs, I asked Herbert whether he had preserved the name of\nProvis. He replied, certainly not, and that the lodger was Mr. Campbell.\nHe also explained that the utmost known of Mr. Campbell there was,\nthat he (Herbert) had Mr. Campbell consigned to him, and felt a strong\npersonal interest in his being well cared for, and living a secluded\nlife. So, when we went into the parlor where Mrs. Whimple and Clara were\nseated at work, I said nothing of my own interest in Mr. Campbell, but\nkept it to myself.\n\nWhen I had taken leave of the pretty, gentle, dark-eyed girl, and of the\nmotherly woman who had not outlived her honest sympathy with a little\naffair of true love, I felt as if the Old Green Copper Rope-walk had\ngrown quite a different place. Old Barley might be as old as the hills,\nand might swear like a whole field of troopers, but there were redeeming\nyouth and trust and hope enough in Chinks's Basin to fill it to\noverflowing. And then I thought of Estella, and of our parting, and went\nhome very sadly.\n\nAll things were as quiet in the Temple as ever I had seen them. The\nwindows of the rooms on that side, lately occupied by Provis, were dark\nand still, and there was no lounger in Garden Court. I walked past the\nfountain twice or thrice before I descended the steps that were between\nme and my rooms, but I was quite alone. Herbert, coming to my\nbedside when he came in,--for I went straight to bed, dispirited and\nfatigued,--made the same report. Opening one of the windows after that,\nhe looked out into the moonlight, and told me that the pavement was as\nsolemnly empty as the pavement of any cathedral at that same hour.\n\nNext day I set myself to get the boat. It was soon done, and the boat\nwas brought round to the Temple stairs, and lay where I could reach\nher within a minute or two. Then, I began to go out as for training and\npractice: sometimes alone, sometimes with Herbert. I was often out in\ncold, rain, and sleet, but nobody took much note of me after I had been\nout a few times. At first, I kept above Blackfriars Bridge; but as the\nhours of the tide changed, I took towards London Bridge. It was Old\nLondon Bridge in those days, and at certain states of the tide there\nwas a race and fall of water there which gave it a bad reputation. But I\nknew well enough how to 'shoot' the bridge after seeing it done, and so\nbegan to row about among the shipping in the Pool, and down to Erith.\nThe first time I passed Mill Pond Bank, Herbert and I were pulling a\npair of oars; and, both in going and returning, we saw the blind towards\nthe east come down. Herbert was rarely there less frequently than three\ntimes in a week, and he never brought me a single word of intelligence\nthat was at all alarming. Still, I knew that there was cause for alarm,\nand I could not get rid of the notion of being watched. Once received,\nit is a haunting idea; how many undesigning persons I suspected of\nwatching me, it would be hard to calculate.\n\nIn short, I was always full of fears for the rash man who was in hiding.\nHerbert had sometimes said to me that he found it pleasant to stand at\none of our windows after dark, when the tide was running down, and to\nthink that it was flowing, with everything it bore, towards Clara. But\nI thought with dread that it was flowing towards Magwitch, and that\nany black mark on its surface might be his pursuers, going swiftly,\nsilently, and surely, to take him.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XLVII\n\nSome weeks passed without bringing any change. We waited for Wemmick,\nand he made no sign. If I had never known him out of Little Britain, and\nhad never enjoyed the privilege of being on a familiar footing at the\nCastle, I might have doubted him; not so for a moment, knowing him as I\ndid.\n\nMy worldly affairs began to wear a gloomy appearance, and I was pressed\nfor money by more than one creditor. Even I myself began to know the\nwant of money (I mean of ready money in my own pocket), and to relieve\nit by converting some easily spared articles of jewelery into cash. But\nI had quite determined that it would be a heartless fraud to take more\nmoney from my patron in the existing state of my uncertain thoughts and\nplans. Therefore, I had sent him the unopened pocket-book by Herbert, to\nhold in his own keeping, and I felt a kind of satisfaction--whether it\nwas a false kind or a true, I hardly know--in not having profited by his\ngenerosity since his revelation of himself.\n\nAs the time wore on, an impression settled heavily upon me that Estella\nwas married. Fearful of having it confirmed, though it was all but a\nconviction, I avoided the newspapers, and begged Herbert (to whom I had\nconfided the circumstances of our last interview) never to speak of her\nto me. Why I hoarded up this last wretched little rag of the robe of\nhope that was rent and given to the winds, how do I know? Why did you\nwho read this, commit that not dissimilar inconsistency of your own last\nyear, last month, last week?\n\nIt was an unhappy life that I lived; and its one dominant anxiety,\ntowering over all its other anxieties, like a high mountain above a\nrange of mountains, never disappeared from my view. Still, no new cause\nfor fear arose. Let me start from my bed as I would, with the terror\nfresh upon me that he was discovered; let me sit listening, as I would\nwith dread, for Herbert's returning step at night, lest it should be\nfleeter than ordinary, and winged with evil news,--for all that, and\nmuch more to like purpose, the round of things went on. Condemned to\ninaction and a state of constant restlessness and suspense, I rowed\nabout in my boat, and waited, waited, waited, as I best could.\n\nThere were states of the tide when, having been down the river, I could\nnot get back through the eddy-chafed arches and starlings of old London\nBridge; then, I left my boat at a wharf near the Custom House, to be\nbrought up afterwards to the Temple stairs. I was not averse to doing\nthis, as it served to make me and my boat a commoner incident among the\nwater-side people there. From this slight occasion sprang two meetings\nthat I have now to tell of.\n\nOne afternoon, late in the month of February, I came ashore at the wharf\nat dusk. I had pulled down as far as Greenwich with the ebb tide, and\nhad turned with the tide. It had been a fine bright day, but had become\nfoggy as the sun dropped, and I had had to feel my way back among the\nshipping, pretty carefully. Both in going and returning, I had seen the\nsignal in his window, All well.\n\nAs it was a raw evening, and I was cold, I thought I would comfort\nmyself with dinner at once; and as I had hours of dejection and solitude\nbefore me if I went home to the Temple, I thought I would afterwards go\nto the play. The theatre where Mr. Wopsle had achieved his questionable\ntriumph was in that water-side neighborhood (it is nowhere now), and\nto that theatre I resolved to go. I was aware that Mr. Wopsle had\nnot succeeded in reviving the Drama, but, on the contrary, had rather\npartaken of its decline. He had been ominously heard of, through the\nplay-bills, as a faithful Black, in connection with a little girl of\nnoble birth, and a monkey. And Herbert had seen him as a predatory\nTartar of comic propensities, with a face like a red brick, and an\noutrageous hat all over bells.\n\nI dined at what Herbert and I used to call a geographical chop-house,\nwhere there were maps of the world in porter-pot rims on every half-yard\nof the tablecloths, and charts of gravy on every one of the knives,--to\nthis day there is scarcely a single chop-house within the Lord Mayor's\ndominions which is not geographical,--and wore out the time in dozing\nover crumbs, staring at gas, and baking in a hot blast of dinners. By\nand by, I roused myself, and went to the play.\n\nThere, I found a virtuous boatswain in His Majesty's service,--a most\nexcellent man, though I could have wished his trousers not quite so\ntight in some places, and not quite so loose in others,--who knocked all\nthe little men's hats over their eyes, though he was very generous and\nbrave, and who wouldn't hear of anybody's paying taxes, though he was\nvery patriotic. He had a bag of money in his pocket, like a pudding in\nthe cloth, and on that property married a young person in bed-furniture,\nwith great rejoicings; the whole population of Portsmouth (nine in\nnumber at the last census) turning out on the beach to rub their own\nhands and shake everybody else's, and sing \"Fill, fill!\" A certain\ndark-complexioned Swab, however, who wouldn't fill, or do anything else\nthat was proposed to him, and whose heart was openly stated (by the\nboatswain) to be as black as his figure-head, proposed to two other\nSwabs to get all mankind into difficulties; which was so effectually\ndone (the Swab family having considerable political influence) that it\ntook half the evening to set things right, and then it was only brought\nabout through an honest little grocer with a white hat, black gaiters,\nand red nose, getting into a clock, with a gridiron, and listening, and\ncoming out, and knocking everybody down from behind with the gridiron\nwhom he couldn't confute with what he had overheard. This led to Mr.\nWopsle's (who had never been heard of before) coming in with a star\nand garter on, as a plenipotentiary of great power direct from the\nAdmiralty, to say that the Swabs were all to go to prison on the spot,\nand that he had brought the boatswain down the Union Jack, as a slight\nacknowledgment of his public services. The boatswain, unmanned for the\nfirst time, respectfully dried his eyes on the Jack, and then cheering\nup, and addressing Mr. Wopsle as Your Honor, solicited permission to\ntake him by the fin. Mr. Wopsle, conceding his fin with a gracious\ndignity, was immediately shoved into a dusty corner, while everybody\ndanced a hornpipe; and from that corner, surveying the public with a\ndiscontented eye, became aware of me.\n\nThe second piece was the last new grand comic Christmas pantomime, in\nthe first scene of which, it pained me to suspect that I detected\nMr. Wopsle with red worsted legs under a highly magnified phosphoric\ncountenance and a shock of red curtain-fringe for his hair, engaged\nin the manufacture of thunderbolts in a mine, and displaying great\ncowardice when his gigantic master came home (very hoarse) to dinner.\nBut he presently presented himself under worthier circumstances; for,\nthe Genius of Youthful Love being in want of assistance,--on account of\nthe parental brutality of an ignorant farmer who opposed the choice\nof his daughter's heart, by purposely falling upon the object, in a\nflour-sack, out of the first-floor window,--summoned a sententious\nEnchanter; and he, coming up from the antipodes rather unsteadily, after\nan apparently violent journey, proved to be Mr. Wopsle in a high-crowned\nhat, with a necromantic work in one volume under his arm. The business\nof this enchanter on earth being principally to be talked at, sung at,\nbutted at, danced at, and flashed at with fires of various colors,\nhe had a good deal of time on his hands. And I observed, with great\nsurprise, that he devoted it to staring in my direction as if he were\nlost in amazement.\n\nThere was something so remarkable in the increasing glare of Mr.\nWopsle's eye, and he seemed to be turning so many things over in his\nmind and to grow so confused, that I could not make it out. I sat\nthinking of it long after he had ascended to the clouds in a large\nwatch-case, and still I could not make it out. I was still thinking\nof it when I came out of the theatre an hour afterwards, and found him\nwaiting for me near the door.\n\n\"How do you do?\" said I, shaking hands with him as we turned down the\nstreet together. \"I saw that you saw me.\"\n\n\"Saw you, Mr. Pip!\" he returned. \"Yes, of course I saw you. But who else\nwas there?\"\n\n\"Who else?\"\n\n\"It is the strangest thing,\" said Mr. Wopsle, drifting into his lost\nlook again; \"and yet I could swear to him.\"\n\nBecoming alarmed, I entreated Mr. Wopsle to explain his meaning.\n\n\"Whether I should have noticed him at first but for your being there,\"\nsaid Mr. Wopsle, going on in the same lost way, \"I can't be positive;\nyet I think I should.\"\n\nInvoluntarily I looked round me, as I was accustomed to look round me\nwhen I went home; for these mysterious words gave me a chill.\n\n\"Oh! He can't be in sight,\" said Mr. Wopsle. \"He went out before I went\noff. I saw him go.\"\n\nHaving the reason that I had for being suspicious, I even suspected\nthis poor actor. I mistrusted a design to entrap me into some admission.\nTherefore I glanced at him as we walked on together, but said nothing.\n\n\"I had a ridiculous fancy that he must be with you, Mr. Pip, till I saw\nthat you were quite unconscious of him, sitting behind you there like a\nghost.\"\n\nMy former chill crept over me again, but I was resolved not to speak\nyet, for it was quite consistent with his words that he might be set on\nto induce me to connect these references with Provis. Of course, I was\nperfectly sure and safe that Provis had not been there.\n\n\"I dare say you wonder at me, Mr. Pip; indeed, I see you do. But it is\nso very strange! You'll hardly believe what I am going to tell you. I\ncould hardly believe it myself, if you told me.\"\n\n\"Indeed?\" said I.\n\n\"No, indeed. Mr. Pip, you remember in old times a certain Christmas Day,\nwhen you were quite a child, and I dined at Gargery's, and some soldiers\ncame to the door to get a pair of handcuffs mended?\"\n\n\"I remember it very well.\"\n\n\"And you remember that there was a chase after two convicts, and that we\njoined in it, and that Gargery took you on his back, and that I took the\nlead, and you kept up with me as well as you could?\"\n\n\"I remember it all very well.\" Better than he thought,--except the last\nclause.\n\n\"And you remember that we came up with the two in a ditch, and that\nthere was a scuffle between them, and that one of them had been severely\nhandled and much mauled about the face by the other?\"\n\n\"I see it all before me.\"\n\n\"And that the soldiers lighted torches, and put the two in the centre,\nand that we went on to see the last of them, over the black marshes,\nwith the torchlight shining on their faces,--I am particular about\nthat,--with the torchlight shining on their faces, when there was an\nouter ring of dark night all about us?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said I. \"I remember all that.\"\n\n\"Then, Mr. Pip, one of those two prisoners sat behind you tonight. I saw\nhim over your shoulder.\"\n\n\"Steady!\" I thought. I asked him then, \"Which of the two do you suppose\nyou saw?\"\n\n\"The one who had been mauled,\" he answered readily, \"and I'll swear I\nsaw him! The more I think of him, the more certain I am of him.\"\n\n\"This is very curious!\" said I, with the best assumption I could put on\nof its being nothing more to me. \"Very curious indeed!\"\n\nI cannot exaggerate the enhanced disquiet into which this conversation\nthrew me, or the special and peculiar terror I felt at Compeyson's\nhaving been behind me \"like a ghost.\" For if he had ever been out of my\nthoughts for a few moments together since the hiding had begun, it was\nin those very moments when he was closest to me; and to think that I\nshould be so unconscious and off my guard after all my care was as if\nI had shut an avenue of a hundred doors to keep him out, and then had\nfound him at my elbow. I could not doubt, either, that he was there,\nbecause I was there, and that, however slight an appearance of danger\nthere might be about us, danger was always near and active.\n\nI put such questions to Mr. Wopsle as, When did the man come in? He\ncould not tell me that; he saw me, and over my shoulder he saw the man.\nIt was not until he had seen him for some time that he began to identify\nhim; but he had from the first vaguely associated him with me, and\nknown him as somehow belonging to me in the old village time. How was\nhe dressed? Prosperously, but not noticeably otherwise; he thought, in\nblack. Was his face at all disfigured? No, he believed not. I believed\nnot too, for, although in my brooding state I had taken no especial\nnotice of the people behind me, I thought it likely that a face at all\ndisfigured would have attracted my attention.\n\nWhen Mr. Wopsle had imparted to me all that he could recall or I\nextract, and when I had treated him to a little appropriate refreshment,\nafter the fatigues of the evening, we parted. It was between twelve and\none o'clock when I reached the Temple, and the gates were shut. No one\nwas near me when I went in and went home.\n\nHerbert had come in, and we held a very serious council by the fire. But\nthere was nothing to be done, saving to communicate to Wemmick what I\nhad that night found out, and to remind him that we waited for his hint.\nAs I thought that I might compromise him if I went too often to the\nCastle, I made this communication by letter. I wrote it before I went to\nbed, and went out and posted it; and again no one was near me. Herbert\nand I agreed that we could do nothing else but be very cautious. And\nwe were very cautious indeed,--more cautious than before, if that were\npossible,--and I for my part never went near Chinks's Basin, except\nwhen I rowed by, and then I only looked at Mill Pond Bank as I looked at\nanything else.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XLVIII\n\nThe second of the two meetings referred to in the last chapter occurred\nabout a week after the first. I had again left my boat at the wharf\nbelow Bridge; the time was an hour earlier in the afternoon; and,\nundecided where to dine, I had strolled up into Cheapside, and was\nstrolling along it, surely the most unsettled person in all the busy\nconcourse, when a large hand was laid upon my shoulder by some one\novertaking me. It was Mr. Jaggers's hand, and he passed it through my\narm.\n\n\"As we are going in the same direction, Pip, we may walk together. Where\nare you bound for?\"\n\n\"For the Temple, I think,\" said I.\n\n\"Don't you know?\" said Mr. Jaggers.\n\n\"Well,\" I returned, glad for once to get the better of him in\ncross-examination, \"I do not know, for I have not made up my mind.\"\n\n\"You are going to dine?\" said Mr. Jaggers. \"You don't mind admitting\nthat, I suppose?\"\n\n\"No,\" I returned, \"I don't mind admitting that.\"\n\n\"And are not engaged?\"\n\n\"I don't mind admitting also that I am not engaged.\"\n\n\"Then,\" said Mr. Jaggers, \"come and dine with me.\"\n\nI was going to excuse myself, when he added, \"Wemmick's coming.\" So\nI changed my excuse into an acceptance,--the few words I had uttered,\nserving for the beginning of either,--and we went along Cheapside\nand slanted off to Little Britain, while the lights were springing up\nbrilliantly in the shop windows, and the street lamp-lighters, scarcely\nfinding ground enough to plant their ladders on in the midst of the\nafternoon's bustle, were skipping up and down and running in and out,\nopening more red eyes in the gathering fog than my rushlight tower at\nthe Hummums had opened white eyes in the ghostly wall.\n\nAt the office in Little Britain there was the usual letter-writing,\nhand-washing, candle-snuffing, and safe-locking, that closed the\nbusiness of the day. As I stood idle by Mr. Jaggers's fire, its rising\nand falling flame made the two casts on the shelf look as if they were\nplaying a diabolical game at bo-peep with me; while the pair of coarse,\nfat office candles that dimly lighted Mr. Jaggers as he wrote in a\ncorner were decorated with dirty winding-sheets, as if in remembrance of\na host of hanged clients.\n\nWe went to Gerrard Street, all three together, in a hackney-coach: And,\nas soon as we got there, dinner was served. Although I should not have\nthought of making, in that place, the most distant reference by so much\nas a look to Wemmick's Walworth sentiments, yet I should have had no\nobjection to catching his eye now and then in a friendly way. But it\nwas not to be done. He turned his eyes on Mr. Jaggers whenever he raised\nthem from the table, and was as dry and distant to me as if there were\ntwin Wemmicks, and this was the wrong one.\n\n\"Did you send that note of Miss Havisham's to Mr. Pip, Wemmick?\" Mr.\nJaggers asked, soon after we began dinner.\n\n\"No, sir,\" returned Wemmick; \"it was going by post, when you brought Mr.\nPip into the office. Here it is.\" He handed it to his principal instead\nof to me.\n\n\"It's a note of two lines, Pip,\" said Mr. Jaggers, handing it on, \"sent\nup to me by Miss Havisham on account of her not being sure of your\naddress. She tells me that she wants to see you on a little matter of\nbusiness you mentioned to her. You'll go down?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said I, casting my eyes over the note, which was exactly in those\nterms.\n\n\"When do you think of going down?\"\n\n\"I have an impending engagement,\" said I, glancing at Wemmick, who was\nputting fish into the post-office, \"that renders me rather uncertain of\nmy time. At once, I think.\"\n\n\"If Mr. Pip has the intention of going at once,\" said Wemmick to Mr.\nJaggers, \"he needn't write an answer, you know.\"\n\nReceiving this as an intimation that it was best not to delay, I settled\nthat I would go to-morrow, and said so. Wemmick drank a glass of wine,\nand looked with a grimly satisfied air at Mr. Jaggers, but not at me.\n\n\"So, Pip! Our friend the Spider,\" said Mr. Jaggers, \"has played his\ncards. He has won the pool.\"\n\nIt was as much as I could do to assent.\n\n\"Hah! He is a promising fellow--in his way--but he may not have it all\nhis own way. The stronger will win in the end, but the stronger has to\nbe found out first. If he should turn to, and beat her--\"\n\n\"Surely,\" I interrupted, with a burning face and heart, \"you do not\nseriously think that he is scoundrel enough for that, Mr. Jaggers?\"\n\n\"I didn't say so, Pip. I am putting a case. If he should turn to and\nbeat her, he may possibly get the strength on his side; if it should be\na question of intellect, he certainly will not. It would be chance\nwork to give an opinion how a fellow of that sort will turn out in such\ncircumstances, because it's a toss-up between two results.\"\n\n\"May I ask what they are?\"\n\n\"A fellow like our friend the Spider,\" answered Mr. Jaggers, \"either\nbeats or cringes. He may cringe and growl, or cringe and not growl; but\nhe either beats or cringes. Ask Wemmick his opinion.\"\n\n\"Either beats or cringes,\" said Wemmick, not at all addressing himself\nto me.\n\n\"So here's to Mrs. Bentley Drummle,\" said Mr. Jaggers, taking a decanter\nof choicer wine from his dumb-waiter, and filling for each of us and\nfor himself, \"and may the question of supremacy be settled to the lady's\nsatisfaction! To the satisfaction of the lady and the gentleman,\nit never will be. Now, Molly, Molly, Molly, Molly, how slow you are\nto-day!\"\n\nShe was at his elbow when he addressed her, putting a dish upon the\ntable. As she withdrew her hands from it, she fell back a step or two,\nnervously muttering some excuse. And a certain action of her fingers, as\nshe spoke, arrested my attention.\n\n\"What's the matter?\" said Mr. Jaggers.\n\n\"Nothing. Only the subject we were speaking of,\" said I, \"was rather\npainful to me.\"\n\nThe action of her fingers was like the action of knitting. She stood\nlooking at her master, not understanding whether she was free to go, or\nwhether he had more to say to her and would call her back if she did go.\nHer look was very intent. Surely, I had seen exactly such eyes and such\nhands on a memorable occasion very lately!\n\nHe dismissed her, and she glided out of the room. But she remained\nbefore me as plainly as if she were still there. I looked at those\nhands, I looked at those eyes, I looked at that flowing hair; and I\ncompared them with other hands, other eyes, other hair, that I knew of,\nand with what those might be after twenty years of a brutal husband\nand a stormy life. I looked again at those hands and eyes of the\nhousekeeper, and thought of the inexplicable feeling that had come over\nme when I last walked--not alone--in the ruined garden, and through the\ndeserted brewery. I thought how the same feeling had come back when I\nsaw a face looking at me, and a hand waving to me from a stage-coach\nwindow; and how it had come back again and had flashed about me like\nlightning, when I had passed in a carriage--not alone--through a sudden\nglare of light in a dark street. I thought how one link of association\nhad helped that identification in the theatre, and how such a link,\nwanting before, had been riveted for me now, when I had passed by a\nchance swift from Estella's name to the fingers with their knitting\naction, and the attentive eyes. And I felt absolutely certain that this\nwoman was Estella's mother.\n\nMr. Jaggers had seen me with Estella, and was not likely to have missed\nthe sentiments I had been at no pains to conceal. He nodded when I said\nthe subject was painful to me, clapped me on the back, put round the\nwine again, and went on with his dinner.\n\nOnly twice more did the housekeeper reappear, and then her stay in the\nroom was very short, and Mr. Jaggers was sharp with her. But her hands\nwere Estella's hands, and her eyes were Estella's eyes, and if she had\nreappeared a hundred times I could have been neither more sure nor less\nsure that my conviction was the truth.\n\nIt was a dull evening, for Wemmick drew his wine, when it came round,\nquite as a matter of business,--just as he might have drawn his salary\nwhen that came round,--and with his eyes on his chief, sat in a state of\nperpetual readiness for cross-examination. As to the quantity of wine,\nhis post-office was as indifferent and ready as any other post-office\nfor its quantity of letters. From my point of view, he was the wrong\ntwin all the time, and only externally like the Wemmick of Walworth.\n\nWe took our leave early, and left together. Even when we were groping\namong Mr. Jaggers's stock of boots for our hats, I felt that the right\ntwin was on his way back; and we had not gone half a dozen yards down\nGerrard Street in the Walworth direction, before I found that I was\nwalking arm in arm with the right twin, and that the wrong twin had\nevaporated into the evening air.\n\n\"Well!\" said Wemmick, \"that's over! He's a wonderful man, without his\nliving likeness; but I feel that I have to screw myself up when I dine\nwith him,--and I dine more comfortably unscrewed.\"\n\nI felt that this was a good statement of the case, and told him so.\n\n\"Wouldn't say it to anybody but yourself,\" he answered. \"I know that\nwhat is said between you and me goes no further.\"\n\nI asked him if he had ever seen Miss Havisham's adopted daughter, Mrs.\nBentley Drummle. He said no. To avoid being too abrupt, I then spoke\nof the Aged and of Miss Skiffins. He looked rather sly when I mentioned\nMiss Skiffins, and stopped in the street to blow his nose, with a roll\nof the head, and a flourish not quite free from latent boastfulness.\n\n\"Wemmick,\" said I, \"do you remember telling me, before I first went to\nMr. Jaggers's private house, to notice that housekeeper?\"\n\n\"Did I?\" he replied. \"Ah, I dare say I did. Deuce take me,\" he added,\nsuddenly, \"I know I did. I find I am not quite unscrewed yet.\"\n\n\"A wild beast tamed, you called her.\"\n\n\"And what do you call her?\"\n\n\"The same. How did Mr. Jaggers tame her, Wemmick?\"\n\n\"That's his secret. She has been with him many a long year.\"\n\n\"I wish you would tell me her story. I feel a particular interest in\nbeing acquainted with it. You know that what is said between you and me\ngoes no further.\"\n\n\"Well!\" Wemmick replied, \"I don't know her story,--that is, I don't know\nall of it. But what I do know I'll tell you. We are in our private and\npersonal capacities, of course.\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"A score or so of years ago, that woman was tried at the Old Bailey for\nmurder, and was acquitted. She was a very handsome young woman, and I\nbelieve had some gypsy blood in her. Anyhow, it was hot enough when it\nwas up, as you may suppose.\"\n\n\"But she was acquitted.\"\n\n\"Mr. Jaggers was for her,\" pursued Wemmick, with a look full of meaning,\n\"and worked the case in a way quite astonishing. It was a desperate\ncase, and it was comparatively early days with him then, and he worked\nit to general admiration; in fact, it may almost be said to have made\nhim. He worked it himself at the police-office, day after day for many\ndays, contending against even a committal; and at the trial where he\ncouldn't work it himself, sat under counsel, and--every one knew--put\nin all the salt and pepper. The murdered person was a woman,--a woman a\ngood ten years older, very much larger, and very much stronger. It was\na case of jealousy. They both led tramping lives, and this woman in\nGerrard Street here had been married very young, over the broomstick (as\nwe say), to a tramping man, and was a perfect fury in point of jealousy.\nThe murdered woman,--more a match for the man, certainly, in point of\nyears--was found dead in a barn near Hounslow Heath. There had been a\nviolent struggle, perhaps a fight. She was bruised and scratched and\ntorn, and had been held by the throat, at last, and choked. Now, there\nwas no reasonable evidence to implicate any person but this woman, and\non the improbabilities of her having been able to do it Mr. Jaggers\nprincipally rested his case. You may be sure,\" said Wemmick, touching me\non the sleeve, \"that he never dwelt upon the strength of her hands then,\nthough he sometimes does now.\"\n\nI had told Wemmick of his showing us her wrists, that day of the dinner\nparty.\n\n\"Well, sir!\" Wemmick went on; \"it happened--happened, don't you\nsee?--that this woman was so very artfully dressed from the time of\nher apprehension, that she looked much slighter than she really was; in\nparticular, her sleeves are always remembered to have been so skilfully\ncontrived that her arms had quite a delicate look. She had only a bruise\nor two about her,--nothing for a tramp,--but the backs of her hands\nwere lacerated, and the question was, Was it with finger-nails? Now, Mr.\nJaggers showed that she had struggled through a great lot of brambles\nwhich were not as high as her face; but which she could not have got\nthrough and kept her hands out of; and bits of those brambles were\nactually found in her skin and put in evidence, as well as the fact that\nthe brambles in question were found on examination to have been broken\nthrough, and to have little shreds of her dress and little spots of\nblood upon them here and there. But the boldest point he made was this:\nit was attempted to be set up, in proof of her jealousy, that she was\nunder strong suspicion of having, at about the time of the murder,\nfrantically destroyed her child by this man--some three years old--to\nrevenge herself upon him. Mr. Jaggers worked that in this way: \"We say\nthese are not marks of finger-nails, but marks of brambles, and we show\nyou the brambles. You say they are marks of finger-nails, and you set\nup the hypothesis that she destroyed her child. You must accept all\nconsequences of that hypothesis. For anything we know, she may have\ndestroyed her child, and the child in clinging to her may have scratched\nher hands. What then? You are not trying her for the murder of her\nchild; why don't you? As to this case, if you will have scratches,\nwe say that, for anything we know, you may have accounted for them,\nassuming for the sake of argument that you have not invented them?\" \"To\nsum up, sir,\" said Wemmick, \"Mr. Jaggers was altogether too many for the\njury, and they gave in.\"\n\n\"Has she been in his service ever since?\"\n\n\"Yes; but not only that,\" said Wemmick, \"she went into his service\nimmediately after her acquittal, tamed as she is now. She has since been\ntaught one thing and another in the way of her duties, but she was tamed\nfrom the beginning.\"\n\n\"Do you remember the sex of the child?\"\n\n\"Said to have been a girl.\"\n\n\"You have nothing more to say to me to-night?\"\n\n\"Nothing. I got your letter and destroyed it. Nothing.\"\n\nWe exchanged a cordial good-night, and I went home, with new matter for\nmy thoughts, though with no relief from the old.\n\n\n\n\nChapter XLIX\n\nPutting Miss Havisham's note in my pocket, that it might serve as\nmy credentials for so soon reappearing at Satis House, in case her\nwaywardness should lead her to express any surprise at seeing me, I went\ndown again by the coach next day. But I alighted at the Halfway House,\nand breakfasted there, and walked the rest of the distance; for I sought\nto get into the town quietly by the unfrequented ways, and to leave it\nin the same manner.\n\nThe best light of the day was gone when I passed along the quiet echoing\ncourts behind the High Street. The nooks of ruin where the old monks had\nonce had their refectories and gardens, and where the strong walls were\nnow pressed into the service of humble sheds and stables, were almost\nas silent as the old monks in their graves. The cathedral chimes had at\nonce a sadder and a more remote sound to me, as I hurried on avoiding\nobservation, than they had ever had before; so, the swell of the old\norgan was borne to my ears like funeral music; and the rooks, as they\nhovered about the gray tower and swung in the bare high trees of the\npriory garden, seemed to call to me that the place was changed, and that\nEstella was gone out of it for ever.\n\nAn elderly woman, whom I had seen before as one of the servants who\nlived in the supplementary house across the back courtyard, opened the\ngate. The lighted candle stood in the dark passage within, as of old,\nand I took it up and ascended the staircase alone. Miss Havisham was not\nin her own room, but was in the larger room across the landing. Looking\nin at the door, after knocking in vain, I saw her sitting on the hearth\nin a ragged chair, close before, and lost in the contemplation of, the\nashy fire.\n\nDoing as I had often done, I went in, and stood touching the old\nchimney-piece, where she could see me when she raised her eyes. There\nwas an air of utter loneliness upon her, that would have moved me to\npity though she had wilfully done me a deeper injury than I could charge\nher with. As I stood compassionating her, and thinking how, in the\nprogress of time, I too had come to be a part of the wrecked fortunes of\nthat house, her eyes rested on me. She stared, and said in a low voice,\n\"Is it real?\"\n\n\"It is I, Pip. Mr. Jaggers gave me your note yesterday, and I have lost\nno time.\"\n\n\"Thank you. Thank you.\"\n\nAs I brought another of the ragged chairs to the hearth and sat down, I\nremarked a new expression on her face, as if she were afraid of me.\n\n\"I want,\" she said, \"to pursue that subject you mentioned to me when you\nwere last here, and to show you that I am not all stone. But perhaps you\ncan never believe, now, that there is anything human in my heart?\"\n\nWhen I said some reassuring words, she stretched out her tremulous right\nhand, as though she was going to touch me; but she recalled it again\nbefore I understood the action, or knew how to receive it.\n\n\"You said, speaking for your friend, that you could tell me how to do\nsomething useful and good. Something that you would like done, is it\nnot?\"\n\n\"Something that I would like done very much.\"\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\nI began explaining to her that secret history of the partnership. I had\nnot got far into it, when I judged from her looks that she was thinking\nin a discursive way of me, rather than of what I said. It seemed to be\nso; for, when I stopped speaking, many moments passed before she showed\nthat she was conscious of the fact.\n\n\"Do you break off,\" she asked then, with her former air of being afraid\nof me, \"because you hate me too much to bear to speak to me?\"\n\n\"No, no,\" I answered, \"how can you think so, Miss Havisham! I stopped\nbecause I thought you were not following what I said.\"\n\n\"Perhaps I was not,\" she answered, putting a hand to her head. \"Begin\nagain, and let me look at something else. Stay! Now tell me.\"\n\nShe set her hand upon her stick in the resolute way that sometimes was\nhabitual to her, and looked at the fire with a strong expression of\nforcing herself to attend. I went on with my explanation, and told her\nhow I had hoped to complete the transaction out of my means, but how\nin this I was disappointed. That part of the subject (I reminded her)\ninvolved matters which could form no part of my explanation, for they\nwere the weighty secrets of another.\n\n\"So!\" said she, assenting with her head, but not looking at me. \"And how\nmuch money is wanting to complete the purchase?\"\n\nI was rather afraid of stating it, for it sounded a large sum. \"Nine\nhundred pounds.\"\n\n\"If I give you the money for this purpose, will you keep my secret as\nyou have kept your own?\"\n\n\"Quite as faithfully.\"\n\n\"And your mind will be more at rest?\"\n\n\"Much more at rest.\"\n\n\"Are you very unhappy now?\"\n\nShe asked this question, still without looking at me, but in an unwonted\ntone of sympathy. I could not reply at the moment, for my voice failed\nme. She put her left arm across the head of her stick, and softly laid\nher forehead on it.\n\n\"I am far from happy, Miss Havisham; but I have other causes of disquiet\nthan any you know of. They are the secrets I have mentioned.\"\n\nAfter a little while, she raised her head, and looked at the fire again.\n\n\"It is noble in you to tell me that you have other causes of\nunhappiness. Is it true?\"\n\n\"Too true.\"\n\n\"Can I only serve you, Pip, by serving your friend? Regarding that as\ndone, is there nothing I can do for you yourself?\"\n\n\"Nothing. I thank you for the question. I thank you even more for the\ntone of the question. But there is nothing.\"\n\nShe presently rose from her seat, and looked about the blighted room\nfor the means of writing. There were none there, and she took from her\npocket a yellow set of ivory tablets, mounted in tarnished gold, and\nwrote upon them with a pencil in a case of tarnished gold that hung from\nher neck.\n\n\"You are still on friendly terms with Mr. Jaggers?\"\n\n\"Quite. I dined with him yesterday.\"\n\n\"This is an authority to him to pay you that money, to lay out at your\nirresponsible discretion for your friend. I keep no money here; but if\nyou would rather Mr. Jaggers knew nothing of the matter, I will send it\nto you.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Miss Havisham; I have not the least objection to receiving\nit from him.\"\n\nShe read me what she had written; and it was direct and clear, and\nevidently intended to absolve me from any suspicion of profiting by the\nreceipt of the money. I took the tablets from her hand, and it trembled\nagain, and it trembled more as she took off the chain to which the\npencil was attached, and put it in mine. All this she did without\nlooking at me.\n\n\"My name is on the first leaf. If you can ever write under my name, \"I\nforgive her,\" though ever so long after my broken heart is dust pray do\nit!\"\n\n\"O Miss Havisham,\" said I, \"I can do it now. There have been sore\nmistakes; and my life has been a blind and thankless one; and I want\nforgiveness and direction far too much, to be bitter with you.\"\n\nShe turned her face to me for the first time since she had averted it,\nand, to my amazement, I may even add to my terror, dropped on her knees\nat my feet; with her folded hands raised to me in the manner in which,\nwhen her poor heart was young and fresh and whole, they must often have\nbeen raised to heaven from her mother's side.\n\nTo see her with her white hair and her worn face kneeling at my feet\ngave me a shock through all my frame. I entreated her to rise, and got\nmy arms about her to help her up; but she only pressed that hand of mine\nwhich was nearest to her grasp, and hung her head over it and wept. I\nhad never seen her shed a tear before, and, in the hope that the\nrelief might do her good, I bent over her without speaking. She was not\nkneeling now, but was down upon the ground.\n\n\"O!\" she cried, despairingly. \"What have I done! What have I done!\"\n\n\"If you mean, Miss Havisham, what have you done to injure me, let me\nanswer. Very little. I should have loved her under any circumstances. Is\nshe married?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nIt was a needless question, for a new desolation in the desolate house\nhad told me so.\n\n\"What have I done! What have I done!\" She wrung her hands, and crushed\nher white hair, and returned to this cry over and over again. \"What have\nI done!\"\n\nI knew not how to answer, or how to comfort her. That she had done a\ngrievous thing in taking an impressionable child to mould into the form\nthat her wild resentment, spurned affection, and wounded pride found\nvengeance in, I knew full well. But that, in shutting out the light\nof day, she had shut out infinitely more; that, in seclusion, she had\nsecluded herself from a thousand natural and healing influences; that,\nher mind, brooding solitary, had grown diseased, as all minds do and\nmust and will that reverse the appointed order of their Maker, I knew\nequally well. And could I look upon her without compassion, seeing her\npunishment in the ruin she was, in her profound unfitness for this earth\non which she was placed, in the vanity of sorrow which had become a\nmaster mania, like the vanity of penitence, the vanity of remorse, the\nvanity of unworthiness, and other monstrous vanities that have been\ncurses in this world?\n\n\"Until you spoke to her the other day, and until I saw in you a\nlooking-glass that showed me what I once felt myself, I did not know\nwhat I had done. What have I done! What have I done!\" And so again,\ntwenty, fifty times over, What had she done!\n\n\"Miss Havisham,\" I said, when her cry had died away, \"you may dismiss me\nfrom your mind and conscience. But Estella is a different case, and if\nyou can ever undo any scrap of what you have done amiss in keeping a\npart of her right nature away from her, it will be better to do that\nthan to bemoan the past through a hundred years.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, I know it. But, Pip--my dear!\" There was an earnest womanly\ncompassion for me in her new affection. \"My dear! Believe this: when she\nfirst came to me, I meant to save her from misery like my own. At first,\nI meant no more.\"\n\n\"Well, well!\" said I. \"I hope so.\"\n\n\"But as she grew, and promised to be very beautiful, I gradually did\nworse, and with my praises, and with my jewels, and with my teachings,\nand with this figure of myself always before her, a warning to back and\npoint my lessons, I stole her heart away, and put ice in its place.\"\n\n\"Better,\" I could not help saying, \"to have left her a natural heart,\neven to be bruised or broken.\"\n\nWith that, Miss Havisham looked distractedly at me for a while, and then\nburst out again, What had she done!\n\n\"If you knew all my story,\" she pleaded, \"you would have some compassion\nfor me and a better understanding of me.\"\n\n\"Miss Havisham,\" I answered, as delicately as I could, \"I believe I may\nsay that I do know your story, and have known it ever since I first left\nthis neighborhood. It has inspired me with great commiseration, and I\nhope I understand it and its influences. Does what has passed between us\ngive me any excuse for asking you a question relative to Estella? Not as\nshe is, but as she was when she first came here?\"\n\nShe was seated on the ground, with her arms on the ragged chair, and\nher head leaning on them. She looked full at me when I said this, and\nreplied, \"Go on.\"\n\n\"Whose child was Estella?\"\n\nShe shook her head.\n\n\"You don't know?\"\n\nShe shook her head again.\n\n\"But Mr. Jaggers brought her here, or sent her here?\"\n\n\"Brought her here.\"\n\n\"Will you tell me how that came about?\"\n\nShe answered in a low whisper and with caution: \"I had been shut up in\nthese rooms a long time (I don't know how long; you know what time the\nclocks keep here), when I told him that I wanted a little girl to rear\nand love, and save from my fate. I had first seen him when I sent\nfor him to lay this place waste for me; having read of him in the\nnewspapers, before I and the world parted. He told me that he would\nlook about him for such an orphan child. One night he brought her here\nasleep, and I called her Estella.\"\n\n\"Might I ask her age then?\"\n\n\"Two or three. She herself knows nothing, but that she was left an\norphan and I adopted her.\"\n\nSo convinced I was of that woman's being her mother, that I wanted\nno evidence to establish the fact in my own mind. But, to any mind, I\nthought, the connection here was clear and straight.\n\nWhat more could I hope to do by prolonging the interview? I had\nsucceeded on behalf of Herbert, Miss Havisham had told me all she knew\nof Estella, I had said and done what I could to ease her mind. No matter\nwith what other words we parted; we parted.\n\nTwilight was closing in when I went downstairs into the natural air. I\ncalled to the woman who had opened the gate when I entered, that I would\nnot trouble her just yet, but would walk round the place before leaving.\nFor I had a presentiment that I should never be there again, and I felt\nthat the dying light was suited to my last view of it.\n\nBy the wilderness of casks that I had walked on long ago, and on which\nthe rain of years had fallen since, rotting them in many places, and\nleaving miniature swamps and pools of water upon those that stood on\nend, I made my way to the ruined garden. I went all round it; round by\nthe corner where Herbert and I had fought our battle; round by the paths\nwhere Estella and I had walked. So cold, so lonely, so dreary all!\n\nTaking the brewery on my way back, I raised the rusty latch of a little\ndoor at the garden end of it, and walked through. I was going out at the\nopposite door,--not easy to open now, for the damp wood had started and\nswelled, and the hinges were yielding, and the threshold was encumbered\nwith a growth of fungus,--when I turned my head to look back. A childish\nassociation revived with wonderful force in the moment of the slight\naction, and I fancied that I saw Miss Havisham hanging to the beam. So\nstrong was the impression, that I stood under the beam shuddering from\nhead to foot before I knew it was a fancy,--though to be sure I was\nthere in an instant.\n\nThe mournfulness of the place and time, and the great terror of\nthis illusion, though it was but momentary, caused me to feel an\nindescribable awe as I came out between the open wooden gates where I\nhad once wrung my hair after Estella had wrung my heart. Passing on into\nthe front courtyard, I hesitated whether to call the woman to let me out\nat the locked gate of which she had the key, or first to go upstairs\nand assure myself that Miss Havisham was as safe and well as I had left\nher. I took the latter course and went up.\n\nI looked into the room where I had left her, and I saw her seated in the\nragged chair upon the hearth close to the fire, with her back towards\nme. In the moment when I was withdrawing my head to go quietly away,\nI saw a great flaming light spring up. In the same moment I saw her\nrunning at me, shrieking, with a whirl of fire blazing all about her,\nand soaring at least as many feet above her head as she was high.\n\nI had a double-caped great-coat on, and over my arm another thick coat.\nThat I got them off, closed with her, threw her down, and got them over\nher; that I dragged the great cloth from the table for the same purpose,\nand with it dragged down the heap of rottenness in the midst, and\nall the ugly things that sheltered there; that we were on the ground\nstruggling like desperate enemies, and that the closer I covered her,\nthe more wildly she shrieked and tried to free herself,--that this\noccurred I knew through the result, but not through anything I felt, or\nthought, or knew I did. I knew nothing until I knew that we were on the\nfloor by the great table, and that patches of tinder yet alight were\nfloating in the smoky air, which, a moment ago, had been her faded\nbridal dress.\n\nThen, I looked round and saw the disturbed beetles and spiders running\naway over the floor, and the servants coming in with breathless cries\nat the door. I still held her forcibly down with all my strength, like\na prisoner who might escape; and I doubt if I even knew who she was, or\nwhy we had struggled, or that she had been in flames, or that the flames\nwere out, until I saw the patches of tinder that had been her garments\nno longer alight but falling in a black shower around us.\n\nShe was insensible, and I was afraid to have her moved, or even\ntouched. Assistance was sent for, and I held her until it came, as if\nI unreasonably fancied (I think I did) that, if I let her go, the fire\nwould break out again and consume her. When I got up, on the surgeon's\ncoming to her with other aid, I was astonished to see that both my hands\nwere burnt; for, I had no knowledge of it through the sense of feeling.\n\nOn examination it was pronounced that she had received serious hurts,\nbut that they of themselves were far from hopeless; the danger lay\nmainly in the nervous shock. By the surgeon's directions, her bed was\ncarried into that room and laid upon the great table, which happened to\nbe well suited to the dressing of her injuries. When I saw her again, an\nhour afterwards, she lay, indeed, where I had seen her strike her stick,\nand had heard her say that she would lie one day.\n\nThough every vestige of her dress was burnt, as they told me, she\nstill had something of her old ghastly bridal appearance; for, they had\ncovered her to the throat with white cotton-wool, and as she lay with\na white sheet loosely overlying that, the phantom air of something that\nhad been and was changed was still upon her.\n\nI found, on questioning the servants, that Estella was in Paris, and I\ngot a promise from the surgeon that he would write to her by the\nnext post. Miss Havisham's family I took upon myself; intending to\ncommunicate with Mr. Matthew Pocket only, and leave him to do as he\nliked about informing the rest. This I did next day, through Herbert, as\nsoon as I returned to town.\n\nThere was a stage, that evening, when she spoke collectedly of what had\nhappened, though with a certain terrible vivacity. Towards midnight she\nbegan to wander in her speech; and after that it gradually set in that\nshe said innumerable times in a low solemn voice, \"What have I done!\"\nAnd then, \"When she first came, I meant to save her from misery like\nmine.\" And then, \"Take the pencil and write under my name, 'I forgive\nher!'\" She never changed the order of these three sentences, but she\nsometimes left out a word in one or other of them; never putting in\nanother word, but always leaving a blank and going on to the next word.\n\nAs I could do no service there, and as I had, nearer home, that pressing\nreason for anxiety and fear which even her wanderings could not drive\nout of my mind, I decided, in the course of the night that I would\nreturn by the early morning coach, walking on a mile or so, and being\ntaken up clear of the town. At about six o'clock of the morning,\ntherefore, I leaned over her and touched her lips with mine, just as\nthey said, not stopping for being touched, \"Take the pencil and write\nunder my name, 'I forgive her.'\"\n\n\n\n\nChapter L\n\nMy hands had been dressed twice or thrice in the night, and again in\nthe morning. My left arm was a good deal burned to the elbow, and, less\nseverely, as high as the shoulder; it was very painful, but the flames\nhad set in that direction, and I felt thankful it was no worse. My right\nhand was not so badly burnt but that I could move the fingers. It was\nbandaged, of course, but much less inconveniently than my left hand and\narm; those I carried in a sling; and I could only wear my coat like a\ncloak, loose over my shoulders and fastened at the neck. My hair had\nbeen caught by the fire, but not my head or face.\n\nWhen Herbert had been down to Hammersmith and seen his father, he came\nback to me at our chambers, and devoted the day to attending on me. He\nwas the kindest of nurses, and at stated times took off the bandages,\nand steeped them in the cooling liquid that was kept ready, and put them\non again, with a patient tenderness that I was deeply grateful for.\n\nAt first, as I lay quiet on the sofa, I found it painfully difficult, I\nmight say impossible, to get rid of the impression of the glare of the\nflames, their hurry and noise, and the fierce burning smell. If I\ndozed for a minute, I was awakened by Miss Havisham's cries, and by her\nrunning at me with all that height of fire above her head. This pain\nof the mind was much harder to strive against than any bodily pain I\nsuffered; and Herbert, seeing that, did his utmost to hold my attention\nengaged.\n\nNeither of us spoke of the boat, but we both thought of it. That\nwas made apparent by our avoidance of the subject, and by our\nagreeing--without agreement--to make my recovery of the use of my hands\na question of so many hours, not of so many weeks.\n\nMy first question when I saw Herbert had been of course, whether all\nwas well down the river? As he replied in the affirmative, with perfect\nconfidence and cheerfulness, we did not resume the subject until the day\nwas wearing away. But then, as Herbert changed the bandages, more by\nthe light of the fire than by the outer light, he went back to it\nspontaneously.\n\n\"I sat with Provis last night, Handel, two good hours.\"\n\n\"Where was Clara?\"\n\n\"Dear little thing!\" said Herbert. \"She was up and down with\nGruffandgrim all the evening. He was perpetually pegging at the floor\nthe moment she left his sight. I doubt if he can hold out long, though.\nWhat with rum and pepper,--and pepper and rum,--I should think his\npegging must be nearly over.\"\n\n\"And then you will be married, Herbert?\"\n\n\"How can I take care of the dear child otherwise?--Lay your arm out upon\nthe back of the sofa, my dear boy, and I'll sit down here, and get the\nbandage off so gradually that you shall not know when it comes. I was\nspeaking of Provis. Do you know, Handel, he improves?\"\n\n\"I said to you I thought he was softened when I last saw him.\"\n\n\"So you did. And so he is. He was very communicative last night, and\ntold me more of his life. You remember his breaking off here about some\nwoman that he had had great trouble with.--Did I hurt you?\"\n\nI had started, but not under his touch. His words had given me a start.\n\n\"I had forgotten that, Herbert, but I remember it now you speak of it.\"\n\n\"Well! He went into that part of his life, and a dark wild part it is.\nShall I tell you? Or would it worry you just now?\"\n\n\"Tell me by all means. Every word.\"\n\nHerbert bent forward to look at me more nearly, as if my reply had been\nrather more hurried or more eager than he could quite account for. \"Your\nhead is cool?\" he said, touching it.\n\n\"Quite,\" said I. \"Tell me what Provis said, my dear Herbert.\"\n\n\"It seems,\" said Herbert, \"--there's a bandage off most charmingly, and\nnow comes the cool one,--makes you shrink at first, my poor dear fellow,\ndon't it? but it will be comfortable presently,--it seems that the\nwoman was a young woman, and a jealous woman, and a revengeful woman;\nrevengeful, Handel, to the last degree.\"\n\n\"To what last degree?\"\n\n\"Murder.--Does it strike too cold on that sensitive place?\"\n\n\"I don't feel it. How did she murder? Whom did she murder?\"\n\n\"Why, the deed may not have merited quite so terrible a name,\"\nsaid Herbert, \"but, she was tried for it, and Mr. Jaggers defended\nher, and the reputation of that defence first made his name known\nto Provis. It was another and a stronger woman who was the victim,\nand there had been a struggle--in a barn. Who began it, or how fair\nit was, or how unfair, may be doubtful; but how it ended is\ncertainly not doubtful, for the victim was found throttled.\"\n\n\"Was the woman brought in guilty?\"\n\n\"No; she was acquitted.--My poor Handel, I hurt you!\"\n\n\"It is impossible to be gentler, Herbert. Yes? What else?\"\n\n\"This acquitted young woman and Provis had a little child; a little\nchild of whom Provis was exceedingly fond. On the evening of the very\nnight when the object of her jealousy was strangled as I tell you, the\nyoung woman presented herself before Provis for one moment, and swore\nthat she would destroy the child (which was in her possession), and he\nshould never see it again; then she vanished.--There's the worst arm\ncomfortably in the sling once more, and now there remains but the right\nhand, which is a far easier job. I can do it better by this light\nthan by a stronger, for my hand is steadiest when I don't see the poor\nblistered patches too distinctly.--You don't think your breathing is\naffected, my dear boy? You seem to breathe quickly.\"\n\n\"Perhaps I do, Herbert. Did the woman keep her oath?\"\n\n\"There comes the darkest part of Provis's life. She did.\"\n\n\"That is, he says she did.\"\n\n\"Why, of course, my dear boy,\" returned Herbert, in a tone of surprise,\nand again bending forward to get a nearer look at me. \"He says it all. I\nhave no other information.\"\n\n\"No, to be sure.\"\n\n\"Now, whether,\" pursued Herbert, \"he had used the child's mother ill, or\nwhether he had used the child's mother well, Provis doesn't say; but she\nhad shared some four or five years of the wretched life he described\nto us at this fireside, and he seems to have felt pity for her, and\nforbearance towards her. Therefore, fearing he should be called upon to\ndepose about this destroyed child, and so be the cause of her death, he\nhid himself (much as he grieved for the child), kept himself dark, as he\nsays, out of the way and out of the trial, and was only vaguely talked\nof as a certain man called Abel, out of whom the jealousy arose. After\nthe acquittal she disappeared, and thus he lost the child and the\nchild's mother.\"\n\n\"I want to ask--\"\n\n\"A moment, my dear boy, and I have done. That evil genius, Compeyson,\nthe worst of scoundrels among many scoundrels, knowing of his keeping\nout of the way at that time and of his reasons for doing so, of course\nafterwards held the knowledge over his head as a means of keeping him\npoorer and working him harder. It was clear last night that this barbed\nthe point of Provis's animosity.\"\n\n\"I want to know,\" said I, \"and particularly, Herbert, whether he told\nyou when this happened?\"\n\n\"Particularly? Let me remember, then, what he said as to that. His\nexpression was, 'a round score o' year ago, and a'most directly after I\ntook up wi' Compeyson.' How old were you when you came upon him in the\nlittle churchyard?\"\n\n\"I think in my seventh year.\"\n\n\"Ay. It had happened some three or four years then, he said, and you\nbrought into his mind the little girl so tragically lost, who would have\nbeen about your age.\"\n\n\"Herbert,\" said I, after a short silence, in a hurried way, \"can you see\nme best by the light of the window, or the light of the fire?\"\n\n\"By the firelight,\" answered Herbert, coming close again.\n\n\"Look at me.\"\n\n\"I do look at you, my dear boy.\"\n\n\"Touch me.\"\n\n\"I do touch you, my dear boy.\"\n\n\"You are not afraid that I am in any fever, or that my head is much\ndisordered by the accident of last night?\"\n\n\"N-no, my dear boy,\" said Herbert, after taking time to examine me. \"You\nare rather excited, but you are quite yourself.\"\n\n\"I know I am quite myself. And the man we have in hiding down the river,\nis Estella's Father.\"\n\n\n\n\nChapter LI\n\nWhat purpose I had in view when I was hot on tracing out and proving\nEstella's parentage, I cannot say. It will presently be seen that the\nquestion was not before me in a distinct shape until it was put before\nme by a wiser head than my own.\n\nBut when Herbert and I had held our momentous conversation, I was seized\nwith a feverish conviction that I ought to hunt the matter down,--that I\nought not to let it rest, but that I ought to see Mr. Jaggers, and come\nat the bare truth. I really do not know whether I felt that I did this\nfor Estella's sake, or whether I was glad to transfer to the man in\nwhose preservation I was so much concerned some rays of the romantic\ninterest that had so long surrounded me. Perhaps the latter possibility\nmay be the nearer to the truth.\n\nAny way, I could scarcely be withheld from going out to Gerrard Street\nthat night. Herbert's representations that, if I did, I should probably\nbe laid up and stricken useless, when our fugitive's safety would depend\nupon me, alone restrained my impatience. On the understanding, again\nand again reiterated, that, come what would, I was to go to Mr. Jaggers\nto-morrow, I at length submitted to keep quiet, and to have my hurts\nlooked after, and to stay at home. Early next morning we went out\ntogether, and at the corner of Giltspur Street by Smithfield, I left\nHerbert to go his way into the City, and took my way to Little Britain.\n\nThere were periodical occasions when Mr. Jaggers and Wemmick went over\nthe office accounts, and checked off the vouchers, and put all things\nstraight. On these occasions, Wemmick took his books and papers into Mr.\nJaggers's room, and one of the upstairs clerks came down into the outer\noffice. Finding such clerk on Wemmick's post that morning, I knew\nwhat was going on; but I was not sorry to have Mr. Jaggers and Wemmick\ntogether, as Wemmick would then hear for himself that I said nothing to\ncompromise him.\n\nMy appearance, with my arm bandaged and my coat loose over my shoulders,\nfavored my object. Although I had sent Mr. Jaggers a brief account of\nthe accident as soon as I had arrived in town, yet I had to give him all\nthe details now; and the speciality of the occasion caused our talk\nto be less dry and hard, and less strictly regulated by the rules of\nevidence, than it had been before. While I described the disaster, Mr.\nJaggers stood, according to his wont, before the fire. Wemmick leaned\nback in his chair, staring at me, with his hands in the pockets of his\ntrousers, and his pen put horizontally into the post. The two brutal\ncasts, always inseparable in my mind from the official proceedings,\nseemed to be congestively considering whether they didn't smell fire at\nthe present moment.\n\nMy narrative finished, and their questions exhausted, I then produced\nMiss Havisham's authority to receive the nine hundred pounds for\nHerbert. Mr. Jaggers's eyes retired a little deeper into his head when\nI handed him the tablets, but he presently handed them over to Wemmick,\nwith instructions to draw the check for his signature. While that was\nin course of being done, I looked on at Wemmick as he wrote, and Mr.\nJaggers, poising and swaying himself on his well-polished boots, looked\non at me. \"I am sorry, Pip,\" said he, as I put the check in my pocket,\nwhen he had signed it, \"that we do nothing for you.\"\n\n\"Miss Havisham was good enough to ask me,\" I returned, \"whether she\ncould do nothing for me, and I told her No.\"\n\n\"Everybody should know his own business,\" said Mr. Jaggers. And I saw\nWemmick's lips form the words \"portable property.\"\n\n\"I should not have told her No, if I had been you,\" said Mr Jaggers;\n\"but every man ought to know his own business best.\"\n\n\"Every man's business,\" said Wemmick, rather reproachfully towards me,\n\"is portable property.\"\n\nAs I thought the time was now come for pursuing the theme I had at\nheart, I said, turning on Mr. Jaggers:--\n\n\"I did ask something of Miss Havisham, however, sir. I asked her to give\nme some information relative to her adopted daughter, and she gave me\nall she possessed.\"\n\n\"Did she?\" said Mr. Jaggers, bending forward to look at his boots and\nthen straightening himself. \"Hah! I don't think I should have done so,\nif I had been Miss Havisham. But she ought to know her own business\nbest.\"\n\n\"I know more of the history of Miss Havisham's adopted child than Miss\nHavisham herself does, sir. I know her mother.\"\n\nMr. Jaggers looked at me inquiringly, and repeated \"Mother?\"\n\n\"I have seen her mother within these three days.\"\n\n\"Yes?\" said Mr. Jaggers.\n\n\"And so have you, sir. And you have seen her still more recently.\"\n\n\"Yes?\" said Mr. Jaggers.\n\n\"Perhaps I know more of Estella's history than even you do,\" said I. \"I\nknow her father too.\"\n\nA certain stop that Mr. Jaggers came to in his manner--he was too\nself-possessed to change his manner, but he could not help its being\nbrought to an indefinably attentive stop--assured me that he did not\nknow who her father was. This I had strongly suspected from Provis's\naccount (as Herbert had repeated it) of his having kept himself dark;\nwhich I pieced on to the fact that he himself was not Mr. Jaggers's\nclient until some four years later, and when he could have no reason for\nclaiming his identity. But, I could not be sure of this unconsciousness\non Mr. Jaggers's part before, though I was quite sure of it now.\n\n\"So! You know the young lady's father, Pip?\" said Mr. Jaggers.\n\n\"Yes,\" I replied, \"and his name is Provis--from New South Wales.\"\n\nEven Mr. Jaggers started when I said those words. It was the slightest\nstart that could escape a man, the most carefully repressed and the\nsooner checked, but he did start, though he made it a part of the\naction of taking out his pocket-handkerchief. How Wemmick received the\nannouncement I am unable to say; for I was afraid to look at him just\nthen, lest Mr. Jaggers's sharpness should detect that there had been\nsome communication unknown to him between us.\n\n\"And on what evidence, Pip,\" asked Mr. Jaggers, very coolly, as he\npaused with his handkerchief half way to his nose, \"does Provis make\nthis claim?\"\n\n\"He does not make it,\" said I, \"and has never made it, and has no\nknowledge or belief that his daughter is in existence.\"\n\nFor once, the powerful pocket-handkerchief failed. My reply was so\nunexpected, that Mr. Jaggers put the handkerchief back into his pocket\nwithout completing the usual performance, folded his arms, and looked\nwith stern attention at me, though with an immovable face.\n\nThen I told him all I knew, and how I knew it; with the one reservation\nthat I left him to infer that I knew from Miss Havisham what I in fact\nknew from Wemmick. I was very careful indeed as to that. Nor did I look\ntowards Wemmick until I had finished all I had to tell, and had been for\nsome time silently meeting Mr. Jaggers's look. When I did at last turn\nmy eyes in Wemmick's direction, I found that he had unposted his pen,\nand was intent upon the table before him.\n\n\"Hah!\" said Mr. Jaggers at last, as he moved towards the papers on the\ntable. \"What item was it you were at, Wemmick, when Mr. Pip came in?\"\n\nBut I could not submit to be thrown off in that way, and I made a\npassionate, almost an indignant appeal, to him to be more frank and\nmanly with me. I reminded him of the false hopes into which I had\nlapsed, the length of time they had lasted, and the discovery I had\nmade: and I hinted at the danger that weighed upon my spirits. I\nrepresented myself as being surely worthy of some little confidence from\nhim, in return for the confidence I had just now imparted. I said that\nI did not blame him, or suspect him, or mistrust him, but I wanted\nassurance of the truth from him. And if he asked me why I wanted it,\nand why I thought I had any right to it, I would tell him, little as he\ncared for such poor dreams, that I had loved Estella dearly and long,\nand that although I had lost her, and must live a bereaved life,\nwhatever concerned her was still nearer and dearer to me than anything\nelse in the world. And seeing that Mr. Jaggers stood quite still and\nsilent, and apparently quite obdurate, under this appeal, I turned to\nWemmick, and said, \"Wemmick, I know you to be a man with a gentle\nheart. I have seen your pleasant home, and your old father, and all the\ninnocent, cheerful playful ways with which you refresh your business\nlife. And I entreat you to say a word for me to Mr. Jaggers, and to\nrepresent to him that, all circumstances considered, he ought to be more\nopen with me!\"\n\nI have never seen two men look more oddly at one another than Mr.\nJaggers and Wemmick did after this apostrophe. At first, a misgiving\ncrossed me that Wemmick would be instantly dismissed from his\nemployment; but it melted as I saw Mr. Jaggers relax into something like\na smile, and Wemmick become bolder.\n\n\"What's all this?\" said Mr. Jaggers. \"You with an old father, and you\nwith pleasant and playful ways?\"\n\n\"Well!\" returned Wemmick. \"If I don't bring 'em here, what does it\nmatter?\"\n\n\"Pip,\" said Mr. Jaggers, laying his hand upon my arm, and smiling\nopenly, \"this man must be the most cunning impostor in all London.\"\n\n\"Not a bit of it,\" returned Wemmick, growing bolder and bolder. \"I think\nyou're another.\"\n\nAgain they exchanged their former odd looks, each apparently still\ndistrustful that the other was taking him in.\n\n\"You with a pleasant home?\" said Mr. Jaggers.\n\n\"Since it don't interfere with business,\" returned Wemmick, \"let it be\nso. Now, I look at you, sir, I shouldn't wonder if you might be planning\nand contriving to have a pleasant home of your own one of these days,\nwhen you're tired of all this work.\"\n\nMr. Jaggers nodded his head retrospectively two or three times, and\nactually drew a sigh. \"Pip,\" said he, \"we won't talk about 'poor\ndreams;' you know more about such things than I, having much fresher\nexperience of that kind. But now about this other matter. I'll put a\ncase to you. Mind! I admit nothing.\"\n\nHe waited for me to declare that I quite understood that he expressly\nsaid that he admitted nothing.\n\n\"Now, Pip,\" said Mr. Jaggers, \"put this case. Put the case that a\nwoman, under such circumstances as you have mentioned, held her child\nconcealed, and was obliged to communicate the fact to her legal adviser,\non his representing to her that he must know, with an eye to the\nlatitude of his defence, how the fact stood about that child. Put the\ncase that, at the same time he held a trust to find a child for an\neccentric rich lady to adopt and bring up.\"\n\n\"I follow you, sir.\"\n\n\"Put the case that he lived in an atmosphere of evil, and that all he\nsaw of children was their being generated in great numbers for certain\ndestruction. Put the case that he often saw children solemnly tried at\na criminal bar, where they were held up to be seen; put the case that\nhe habitually knew of their being imprisoned, whipped, transported,\nneglected, cast out, qualified in all ways for the hangman, and growing\nup to be hanged. Put the case that pretty nigh all the children he saw\nin his daily business life he had reason to look upon as so much\nspawn, to develop into the fish that were to come to his net,--to be\nprosecuted, defended, forsworn, made orphans, bedevilled somehow.\"\n\n\"I follow you, sir.\"\n\n\"Put the case, Pip, that here was one pretty little child out of the\nheap who could be saved; whom the father believed dead, and dared make\nno stir about; as to whom, over the mother, the legal adviser had this\npower: \"I know what you did, and how you did it. You came so and so, you\ndid such and such things to divert suspicion. I have tracked you through\nit all, and I tell it you all. Part with the child, unless it should\nbe necessary to produce it to clear you, and then it shall be produced.\nGive the child into my hands, and I will do my best to bring you off. If\nyou are saved, your child is saved too; if you are lost, your child is\nstill saved.\" Put the case that this was done, and that the woman was\ncleared.\"\n\n\"I understand you perfectly.\"\n\n\"But that I make no admissions?\"\n\n\"That you make no admissions.\" And Wemmick repeated, \"No admissions.\"\n\n\"Put the case, Pip, that passion and the terror of death had a little\nshaken the woman's intellects, and that when she was set at liberty,\nshe was scared out of the ways of the world, and went to him to be\nsheltered. Put the case that he took her in, and that he kept down the\nold, wild, violent nature whenever he saw an inkling of its breaking\nout, by asserting his power over her in the old way. Do you comprehend\nthe imaginary case?\"\n\n\"Quite.\"\n\n\"Put the case that the child grew up, and was married for money. That\nthe mother was still living. That the father was still living. That the\nmother and father, unknown to one another, were dwelling within so many\nmiles, furlongs, yards if you like, of one another. That the secret was\nstill a secret, except that you had got wind of it. Put that last case\nto yourself very carefully.\"\n\n\"I do.\"\n\n\"I ask Wemmick to put it to himself very carefully.\"\n\nAnd Wemmick said, \"I do.\"\n\n\"For whose sake would you reveal the secret? For the father's? I think\nhe would not be much the better for the mother. For the mother's? I\nthink if she had done such a deed she would be safer where she was.\nFor the daughter's? I think it would hardly serve her to establish her\nparentage for the information of her husband, and to drag her back to\ndisgrace, after an escape of twenty years, pretty secure to last for\nlife. But add the case that you had loved her, Pip, and had made her the\nsubject of those 'poor dreams' which have, at one time or another, been\nin the heads of more men than you think likely, then I tell you that you\nhad better--and would much sooner when you had thought well of it--chop\noff that bandaged left hand of yours with your bandaged right hand, and\nthen pass the chopper on to Wemmick there, to cut that off too.\"\n\nI looked at Wemmick, whose face was very grave. He gravely touched his\nlips with his forefinger. I did the same. Mr. Jaggers did the same.\n\"Now, Wemmick,\" said the latter then, resuming his usual manner, \"what\nitem was it you were at when Mr. Pip came in?\"\n\nStanding by for a little, while they were at work, I observed that the\nodd looks they had cast at one another were repeated several times: with\nthis difference now, that each of them seemed suspicious, not to say\nconscious, of having shown himself in a weak and unprofessional light to\nthe other. For this reason, I suppose, they were now inflexible with one\nanother; Mr. Jaggers being highly dictatorial, and Wemmick obstinately\njustifying himself whenever there was the smallest point in abeyance for\na moment. I had never seen them on such ill terms; for generally they\ngot on very well indeed together.\n\nBut they were both happily relieved by the opportune appearance of Mike,\nthe client with the fur cap and the habit of wiping his nose on his\nsleeve, whom I had seen on the very first day of my appearance within\nthose walls. This individual, who, either in his own person or in that\nof some member of his family, seemed to be always in trouble (which in\nthat place meant Newgate), called to announce that his eldest daughter\nwas taken up on suspicion of shoplifting. As he imparted this melancholy\ncircumstance to Wemmick, Mr. Jaggers standing magisterially before the\nfire and taking no share in the proceedings, Mike's eye happened to\ntwinkle with a tear.\n\n\"What are you about?\" demanded Wemmick, with the utmost indignation.\n\"What do you come snivelling here for?\"\n\n\"I didn't go to do it, Mr. Wemmick.\"\n\n\"You did,\" said Wemmick. \"How dare you? You're not in a fit state to\ncome here, if you can't come here without spluttering like a bad pen.\nWhat do you mean by it?\"\n\n\"A man can't help his feelings, Mr. Wemmick,\" pleaded Mike.\n\n\"His what?\" demanded Wemmick, quite savagely. \"Say that again!\"\n\n\"Now look here my man,\" said Mr. Jaggers, advancing a step, and pointing\nto the door. \"Get out of this office. I'll have no feelings here. Get\nout.\"\n\n\"It serves you right,\" said Wemmick, \"Get out.\"\n\nSo, the unfortunate Mike very humbly withdrew, and Mr. Jaggers and\nWemmick appeared to have re-established their good understanding, and\nwent to work again with an air of refreshment upon them as if they had\njust had lunch.\n\n\n\n\nChapter LII\n\n\nFrom Little Britain I went, with my check in my pocket, to Miss\nSkiffins's brother, the accountant; and Miss Skiffins's brother, the\naccountant, going straight to Clarriker's and bringing Clarriker to me,\nI had the great satisfaction of concluding that arrangement. It was the\nonly good thing I had done, and the only completed thing I had done,\nsince I was first apprised of my great expectations.\n\nClarriker informing me on that occasion that the affairs of the House\nwere steadily progressing, that he would now be able to establish a\nsmall branch-house in the East which was much wanted for the extension\nof the business, and that Herbert in his new partnership capacity would\ngo out and take charge of it, I found that I must have prepared for\na separation from my friend, even though my own affairs had been more\nsettled. And now, indeed, I felt as if my last anchor were loosening its\nhold, and I should soon be driving with the winds and waves.\n\nBut there was recompense in the joy with which Herbert would come home\nof a night and tell me of these changes, little imagining that he told\nme no news, and would sketch airy pictures of himself conducting Clara\nBarley to the land of the Arabian Nights, and of me going out to join\nthem (with a caravan of camels, I believe), and of our all going up the\nNile and seeing wonders. Without being sanguine as to my own part in\nthose bright plans, I felt that Herbert's way was clearing fast, and\nthat old Bill Barley had but to stick to his pepper and rum, and his\ndaughter would soon be happily provided for.\n\nWe had now got into the month of March. My left arm, though it presented\nno bad symptoms, took, in the natural course, so long to heal that I\nwas still unable to get a coat on. My right arm was tolerably restored;\ndisfigured, but fairly serviceable.\n\nOn a Monday morning, when Herbert and I were at breakfast, I received\nthe following letter from Wemmick by the post.\n\n\"Walworth. Burn this as soon as read. Early in the week, or say\nWednesday, you might do what you know of, if you felt disposed to try\nit. Now burn.\"\n\nWhen I had shown this to Herbert and had put it in the fire--but not\nbefore we had both got it by heart--we considered what to do. For, of\ncourse my being disabled could now be no longer kept out of view.\n\n\"I have thought it over again and again,\" said Herbert, \"and I think I\nknow a better course than taking a Thames waterman. Take Startop. A good\nfellow, a skilled hand, fond of us, and enthusiastic and honorable.\"\n\nI had thought of him more than once.\n\n\"But how much would you tell him, Herbert?\"\n\n\"It is necessary to tell him very little. Let him suppose it a mere\nfreak, but a secret one, until the morning comes: then let him know that\nthere is urgent reason for your getting Provis aboard and away. You go\nwith him?\"\n\n\"No doubt.\"\n\n\"Where?\"\n\nIt had seemed to me, in the many anxious considerations I had given the\npoint, almost indifferent what port we made for,--Hamburg, Rotterdam,\nAntwerp,--the place signified little, so that he was out of England. Any\nforeign steamer that fell in our way and would take us up would do.\nI had always proposed to myself to get him well down the river in the\nboat; certainly well beyond Gravesend, which was a critical place for\nsearch or inquiry if suspicion were afoot. As foreign steamers would\nleave London at about the time of high-water, our plan would be to get\ndown the river by a previous ebb-tide, and lie by in some quiet spot\nuntil we could pull off to one. The time when one would be due where we\nlay, wherever that might be, could be calculated pretty nearly, if we\nmade inquiries beforehand.\n\nHerbert assented to all this, and we went out immediately after\nbreakfast to pursue our investigations. We found that a steamer for\nHamburg was likely to suit our purpose best, and we directed our\nthoughts chiefly to that vessel. But we noted down what other foreign\nsteamers would leave London with the same tide, and we satisfied\nourselves that we knew the build and color of each. We then separated\nfor a few hours: I, to get at once such passports as were necessary;\nHerbert, to see Startop at his lodgings. We both did what we had to do\nwithout any hindrance, and when we met again at one o'clock reported\nit done. I, for my part, was prepared with passports; Herbert had seen\nStartop, and he was more than ready to join.\n\nThose two should pull a pair of oars, we settled, and I would steer; our\ncharge would be sitter, and keep quiet; as speed was not our object, we\nshould make way enough. We arranged that Herbert should not come home to\ndinner before going to Mill Pond Bank that evening; that he should\nnot go there at all to-morrow evening, Tuesday; that he should prepare\nProvis to come down to some stairs hard by the house, on Wednesday, when\nhe saw us approach, and not sooner; that all the arrangements with\nhim should be concluded that Monday night; and that he should be\ncommunicated with no more in any way, until we took him on board.\n\nThese precautions well understood by both of us, I went home.\n\nOn opening the outer door of our chambers with my key, I found a letter\nin the box, directed to me; a very dirty letter, though not ill-written.\nIt had been delivered by hand (of course, since I left home), and its\ncontents were these:--\n\n\"If you are not afraid to come to the old marshes to-night or to-morrow\nnight at nine, and to come to the little sluice-house by the limekiln,\nyou had better come. If you want information regarding your uncle\nProvis, you had much better come and tell no one, and lose no time. You\nmust come alone. Bring this with you.\"\n\nI had had load enough upon my mind before the receipt of this strange\nletter. What to do now, I could not tell. And the worst was, that I must\ndecide quickly, or I should miss the afternoon coach, which would take\nme down in time for to-night. To-morrow night I could not think of\ngoing, for it would be too close upon the time of the flight. And again,\nfor anything I knew, the proffered information might have some important\nbearing on the flight itself.\n\nIf I had had ample time for consideration, I believe I should still have\ngone. Having hardly any time for consideration,--my watch showing me\nthat the coach started within half an hour,--I resolved to go. I should\ncertainly not have gone, but for the reference to my Uncle Provis. That,\ncoming on Wemmick's letter and the morning's busy preparation, turned\nthe scale.\n\nIt is so difficult to become clearly possessed of the contents of almost\nany letter, in a violent hurry, that I had to read this mysterious\nepistle again twice, before its injunction to me to be secret got\nmechanically into my mind. Yielding to it in the same mechanical kind of\nway, I left a note in pencil for Herbert, telling him that as I should\nbe so soon going away, I knew not for how long, I had decided to hurry\ndown and back, to ascertain for myself how Miss Havisham was faring.\nI had then barely time to get my great-coat, lock up the chambers,\nand make for the coach-office by the short by-ways. If I had taken a\nhackney-chariot and gone by the streets, I should have missed my aim;\ngoing as I did, I caught the coach just as it came out of the yard. I\nwas the only inside passenger, jolting away knee-deep in straw, when I\ncame to myself.\n\nFor I really had not been myself since the receipt of the letter; it had\nso bewildered me, ensuing on the hurry of the morning. The morning hurry\nand flutter had been great; for, long and anxiously as I had waited for\nWemmick, his hint had come like a surprise at last. And now I began\nto wonder at myself for being in the coach, and to doubt whether I had\nsufficient reason for being there, and to consider whether I should\nget out presently and go back, and to argue against ever heeding an\nanonymous communication, and, in short, to pass through all those phases\nof contradiction and indecision to which I suppose very few hurried\npeople are strangers. Still, the reference to Provis by name mastered\neverything. I reasoned as I had reasoned already without knowing it,--if\nthat be reasoning,--in case any harm should befall him through my not\ngoing, how could I ever forgive myself!\n\nIt was dark before we got down, and the journey seemed long and dreary\nto me, who could see little of it inside, and who could not go outside\nin my disabled state. Avoiding the Blue Boar, I put up at an inn of\nminor reputation down the town, and ordered some dinner. While it was\npreparing, I went to Satis House and inquired for Miss Havisham; she was\nstill very ill, though considered something better.\n\nMy inn had once been a part of an ancient ecclesiastical house, and I\ndined in a little octagonal common-room, like a font. As I was not able\nto cut my dinner, the old landlord with a shining bald head did it for\nme. This bringing us into conversation, he was so good as to entertain\nme with my own story,--of course with the popular feature that\nPumblechook was my earliest benefactor and the founder of my fortunes.\n\n\"Do you know the young man?\" said I.\n\n\"Know him!\" repeated the landlord. \"Ever since he was--no height at\nall.\"\n\n\"Does he ever come back to this neighborhood?\"\n\n\"Ay, he comes back,\" said the landlord, \"to his great friends, now and\nagain, and gives the cold shoulder to the man that made him.\"\n\n\"What man is that?\"\n\n\"Him that I speak of,\" said the landlord. \"Mr. Pumblechook.\"\n\n\"Is he ungrateful to no one else?\"\n\n\"No doubt he would be, if he could,\" returned the landlord, \"but he\ncan't. And why? Because Pumblechook done everything for him.\"\n\n\"Does Pumblechook say so?\"\n\n\"Say so!\" replied the landlord. \"He han't no call to say so.\"\n\n\"But does he say so?\"\n\n\"It would turn a man's blood to white wine winegar to hear him tell of\nit, sir,\" said the landlord.\n\nI thought, \"Yet Joe, dear Joe, you never tell of it. Long-suffering and\nloving Joe, you never complain. Nor you, sweet-tempered Biddy!\"\n\n\"Your appetite's been touched like by your accident,\" said the landlord,\nglancing at the bandaged arm under my coat. \"Try a tenderer bit.\"\n\n\"No, thank you,\" I replied, turning from the table to brood over the\nfire. \"I can eat no more. Please take it away.\"\n\nI had never been struck at so keenly, for my thanklessness to Joe, as\nthrough the brazen impostor Pumblechook. The falser he, the truer Joe;\nthe meaner he, the nobler Joe.\n\nMy heart was deeply and most deservedly humbled as I mused over the fire\nfor an hour or more. The striking of the clock aroused me, but not from\nmy dejection or remorse, and I got up and had my coat fastened round\nmy neck, and went out. I had previously sought in my pockets for the\nletter, that I might refer to it again; but I could not find it, and\nwas uneasy to think that it must have been dropped in the straw of\nthe coach. I knew very well, however, that the appointed place was the\nlittle sluice-house by the limekiln on the marshes, and the hour nine.\nTowards the marshes I now went straight, having no time to spare.\n\n\n\n\nChapter LIII\n\nIt was a dark night, though the full moon rose as I left the enclosed\nlands, and passed out upon the marshes. Beyond their dark line there was\na ribbon of clear sky, hardly broad enough to hold the red large moon.\nIn a few minutes she had ascended out of that clear field, in among the\npiled mountains of cloud.\n\nThere was a melancholy wind, and the marshes were very dismal. A\nstranger would have found them insupportable, and even to me they were\nso oppressive that I hesitated, half inclined to go back. But I knew\nthem well, and could have found my way on a far darker night, and had\nno excuse for returning, being there. So, having come there against my\ninclination, I went on against it.\n\nThe direction that I took was not that in which my old home lay, nor\nthat in which we had pursued the convicts. My back was turned towards\nthe distant Hulks as I walked on, and, though I could see the old lights\naway on the spits of sand, I saw them over my shoulder. I knew the\nlimekiln as well as I knew the old Battery, but they were miles apart;\nso that, if a light had been burning at each point that night, there\nwould have been a long strip of the blank horizon between the two bright\nspecks.\n\nAt first, I had to shut some gates after me, and now and then to stand\nstill while the cattle that were lying in the banked-up pathway arose\nand blundered down among the grass and reeds. But after a little while I\nseemed to have the whole flats to myself.\n\nIt was another half-hour before I drew near to the kiln. The lime was\nburning with a sluggish stifling smell, but the fires were made up and\nleft, and no workmen were visible. Hard by was a small stone-quarry. It\nlay directly in my way, and had been worked that day, as I saw by the\ntools and barrows that were lying about.\n\nComing up again to the marsh level out of this excavation,--for the rude\npath lay through it,--I saw a light in the old sluice-house. I quickened\nmy pace, and knocked at the door with my hand. Waiting for some reply,\nI looked about me, noticing how the sluice was abandoned and broken, and\nhow the house--of wood with a tiled roof--would not be proof against the\nweather much longer, if it were so even now, and how the mud and ooze\nwere coated with lime, and how the choking vapor of the kiln crept in a\nghostly way towards me. Still there was no answer, and I knocked again.\nNo answer still, and I tried the latch.\n\nIt rose under my hand, and the door yielded. Looking in, I saw a lighted\ncandle on a table, a bench, and a mattress on a truckle bedstead. As\nthere was a loft above, I called, \"Is there any one here?\" but no voice\nanswered. Then I looked at my watch, and, finding that it was past nine,\ncalled again, \"Is there any one here?\" There being still no answer, I\nwent out at the door, irresolute what to do.\n\nIt was beginning to rain fast. Seeing nothing save what I had seen\nalready, I turned back into the house, and stood just within the shelter\nof the doorway, looking out into the night. While I was considering that\nsome one must have been there lately and must soon be coming back, or\nthe candle would not be burning, it came into my head to look if the\nwick were long. I turned round to do so, and had taken up the candle in\nmy hand, when it was extinguished by some violent shock; and the next\nthing I comprehended was, that I had been caught in a strong running\nnoose, thrown over my head from behind.\n\n\"Now,\" said a suppressed voice with an oath, \"I've got you!\"\n\n\"What is this?\" I cried, struggling. \"Who is it? Help, help, help!\"\n\nNot only were my arms pulled close to my sides, but the pressure on\nmy bad arm caused me exquisite pain. Sometimes, a strong man's hand,\nsometimes a strong man's breast, was set against my mouth to deaden\nmy cries, and with a hot breath always close to me, I struggled\nineffectually in the dark, while I was fastened tight to the wall. \"And\nnow,\" said the suppressed voice with another oath, \"call out again, and\nI'll make short work of you!\"\n\nFaint and sick with the pain of my injured arm, bewildered by the\nsurprise, and yet conscious how easily this threat could be put in\nexecution, I desisted, and tried to ease my arm were it ever so little.\nBut, it was bound too tight for that. I felt as if, having been burnt\nbefore, it were now being boiled.\n\nThe sudden exclusion of the night, and the substitution of black\ndarkness in its place, warned me that the man had closed a shutter.\nAfter groping about for a little, he found the flint and steel he\nwanted, and began to strike a light. I strained my sight upon the sparks\nthat fell among the tinder, and upon which he breathed and breathed,\nmatch in hand, but I could only see his lips, and the blue point of\nthe match; even those but fitfully. The tinder was damp,--no wonder\nthere,--and one after another the sparks died out.\n\nThe man was in no hurry, and struck again with the flint and steel. As\nthe sparks fell thick and bright about him, I could see his hands, and\ntouches of his face, and could make out that he was seated and bending\nover the table; but nothing more. Presently I saw his blue lips again,\nbreathing on the tinder, and then a flare of light flashed up, and\nshowed me Orlick.\n\nWhom I had looked for, I don't know. I had not looked for him. Seeing\nhim, I felt that I was in a dangerous strait indeed, and I kept my eyes\nupon him.\n\nHe lighted the candle from the flaring match with great deliberation,\nand dropped the match, and trod it out. Then he put the candle away from\nhim on the table, so that he could see me, and sat with his arms folded\non the table and looked at me. I made out that I was fastened to a stout\nperpendicular ladder a few inches from the wall,--a fixture there,--the\nmeans of ascent to the loft above.\n\n\"Now,\" said he, when we had surveyed one another for some time, \"I've\ngot you.\"\n\n\"Unbind me. Let me go!\"\n\n\"Ah!\" he returned, \"I'll let you go. I'll let you go to the moon, I'll\nlet you go to the stars. All in good time.\"\n\n\"Why have you lured me here?\"\n\n\"Don't you know?\" said he, with a deadly look.\n\n\"Why have you set upon me in the dark?\"\n\n\"Because I mean to do it all myself. One keeps a secret better than two.\nO you enemy, you enemy!\"\n\nHis enjoyment of the spectacle I furnished, as he sat with his arms\nfolded on the table, shaking his head at me and hugging himself, had a\nmalignity in it that made me tremble. As I watched him in silence,\nhe put his hand into the corner at his side, and took up a gun with a\nbrass-bound stock.\n\n\"Do you know this?\" said he, making as if he would take aim at me. \"Do\nyou know where you saw it afore? Speak, wolf!\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I answered.\n\n\"You cost me that place. You did. Speak!\"\n\n\"What else could I do?\"\n\n\"You did that, and that would be enough, without more. How dared you to\ncome betwixt me and a young woman I liked?\"\n\n\"When did I?\"\n\n\"When didn't you? It was you as always give Old Orlick a bad name to\nher.\"\n\n\"You gave it to yourself; you gained it for yourself. I could have done\nyou no harm, if you had done yourself none.\"\n\n\"You're a liar. And you'll take any pains, and spend any money, to drive\nme out of this country, will you?\" said he, repeating my words to Biddy\nin the last interview I had with her. \"Now, I'll tell you a piece of\ninformation. It was never so well worth your while to get me out of this\ncountry as it is to-night. Ah! If it was all your money twenty times\ntold, to the last brass farden!\" As he shook his heavy hand at me, with\nhis mouth snarling like a tiger's, I felt that it was true.\n\n\"What are you going to do to me?\"\n\n\"I'm a going,\" said he, bringing his fist down upon the table with a\nheavy blow, and rising as the blow fell to give it greater force,--\"I'm\na going to have your life!\"\n\nHe leaned forward staring at me, slowly unclenched his hand and drew it\nacross his mouth as if his mouth watered for me, and sat down again.\n\n\"You was always in Old Orlick's way since ever you was a child. You goes\nout of his way this present night. He'll have no more on you. You're\ndead.\"\n\nI felt that I had come to the brink of my grave. For a moment I looked\nwildly round my trap for any chance of escape; but there was none.\n\n\"More than that,\" said he, folding his arms on the table again, \"I won't\nhave a rag of you, I won't have a bone of you, left on earth. I'll put\nyour body in the kiln,--I'd carry two such to it, on my Shoulders,--and,\nlet people suppose what they may of you, they shall never know nothing.\"\n\nMy mind, with inconceivable rapidity followed out all the consequences\nof such a death. Estella's father would believe I had deserted him,\nwould be taken, would die accusing me; even Herbert would doubt me,\nwhen he compared the letter I had left for him with the fact that I had\ncalled at Miss Havisham's gate for only a moment; Joe and Biddy would\nnever know how sorry I had been that night, none would ever know what\nI had suffered, how true I had meant to be, what an agony I had passed\nthrough. The death close before me was terrible, but far more terrible\nthan death was the dread of being misremembered after death. And\nso quick were my thoughts, that I saw myself despised by unborn\ngenerations,--Estella's children, and their children,--while the\nwretch's words were yet on his lips.\n\n\"Now, wolf,\" said he, \"afore I kill you like any other beast,--which is\nwot I mean to do and wot I have tied you up for,--I'll have a good look\nat you and a good goad at you. O you enemy!\"\n\nIt had passed through my thoughts to cry out for help again; though\nfew could know better than I, the solitary nature of the spot, and the\nhopelessness of aid. But as he sat gloating over me, I was supported by\na scornful detestation of him that sealed my lips. Above all things, I\nresolved that I would not entreat him, and that I would die making some\nlast poor resistance to him. Softened as my thoughts of all the rest of\nmen were in that dire extremity; humbly beseeching pardon, as I did, of\nHeaven; melted at heart, as I was, by the thought that I had taken no\nfarewell, and never now could take farewell of those who were dear to\nme, or could explain myself to them, or ask for their compassion on my\nmiserable errors,--still, if I could have killed him, even in dying, I\nwould have done it.\n\nHe had been drinking, and his eyes were red and bloodshot. Around his\nneck was slung a tin bottle, as I had often seen his meat and drink\nslung about him in other days. He brought the bottle to his lips, and\ntook a fiery drink from it; and I smelt the strong spirits that I saw\nflash into his face.\n\n\"Wolf!\" said he, folding his arms again, \"Old Orlick's a going to tell\nyou somethink. It was you as did for your shrew sister.\"\n\nAgain my mind, with its former inconceivable rapidity, had exhausted the\nwhole subject of the attack upon my sister, her illness, and her death,\nbefore his slow and hesitating speech had formed these words.\n\n\"It was you, villain,\" said I.\n\n\"I tell you it was your doing,--I tell you it was done through you,\" he\nretorted, catching up the gun, and making a blow with the stock at the\nvacant air between us. \"I come upon her from behind, as I come upon you\nto-night. I giv' it her! I left her for dead, and if there had been a\nlimekiln as nigh her as there is now nigh you, she shouldn't have come\nto life again. But it warn't Old Orlick as did it; it was you. You was\nfavored, and he was bullied and beat. Old Orlick bullied and beat, eh?\nNow you pays for it. You done it; now you pays for it.\"\n\nHe drank again, and became more ferocious. I saw by his tilting of\nthe bottle that there was no great quantity left in it. I distinctly\nunderstood that he was working himself up with its contents to make an\nend of me. I knew that every drop it held was a drop of my life. I knew\nthat when I was changed into a part of the vapor that had crept towards\nme but a little while before, like my own warning ghost, he would do\nas he had done in my sister's case,--make all haste to the town, and\nbe seen slouching about there drinking at the alehouses. My rapid mind\npursued him to the town, made a picture of the street with him in it,\nand contrasted its lights and life with the lonely marsh and the white\nvapor creeping over it, into which I should have dissolved.\n\nIt was not only that I could have summed up years and years and years\nwhile he said a dozen words, but that what he did say presented pictures\nto me, and not mere words. In the excited and exalted state of my brain,\nI could not think of a place without seeing it, or of persons without\nseeing them. It is impossible to overstate the vividness of these\nimages, and yet I was so intent, all the time, upon him himself,--who\nwould not be intent on the tiger crouching to spring!--that I knew of\nthe slightest action of his fingers.\n\nWhen he had drunk this second time, he rose from the bench on which\nhe sat, and pushed the table aside. Then, he took up the candle, and,\nshading it with his murderous hand so as to throw its light on me, stood\nbefore me, looking at me and enjoying the sight.\n\n\"Wolf, I'll tell you something more. It was Old Orlick as you tumbled\nover on your stairs that night.\"\n\nI saw the staircase with its extinguished lamps. I saw the shadows of\nthe heavy stair-rails, thrown by the watchman's lantern on the wall.\nI saw the rooms that I was never to see again; here, a door half open;\nthere, a door closed; all the articles of furniture around.\n\n\"And why was Old Orlick there? I'll tell you something more, wolf.\nYou and her have pretty well hunted me out of this country, so far as\ngetting a easy living in it goes, and I've took up with new companions,\nand new masters. Some of 'em writes my letters when I wants 'em\nwrote,--do you mind?--writes my letters, wolf! They writes fifty hands;\nthey're not like sneaking you, as writes but one. I've had a firm mind\nand a firm will to have your life, since you was down here at your\nsister's burying. I han't seen a way to get you safe, and I've looked\narter you to know your ins and outs. For, says Old Orlick to himself,\n'Somehow or another I'll have him!' What! When I looks for you, I finds\nyour uncle Provis, eh?\"\n\nMill Pond Bank, and Chinks's Basin, and the Old Green Copper Rope-walk,\nall so clear and plain! Provis in his rooms, the signal whose use was\nover, pretty Clara, the good motherly woman, old Bill Barley on his\nback, all drifting by, as on the swift stream of my life fast running\nout to sea!\n\n\"You with a uncle too! Why, I know'd you at Gargery's when you was so\nsmall a wolf that I could have took your weazen betwixt this finger and\nthumb and chucked you away dead (as I'd thoughts o' doing, odd times,\nwhen I see you loitering amongst the pollards on a Sunday), and you\nhadn't found no uncles then. No, not you! But when Old Orlick come for\nto hear that your uncle Provis had most like wore the leg-iron wot Old\nOrlick had picked up, filed asunder, on these meshes ever so many year\nago, and wot he kep by him till he dropped your sister with it, like\na bullock, as he means to drop you--hey?--when he come for to hear\nthat--hey?\"\n\nIn his savage taunting, he flared the candle so close at me that I\nturned my face aside to save it from the flame.\n\n\"Ah!\" he cried, laughing, after doing it again, \"the burnt child dreads\nthe fire! Old Orlick knowed you was burnt, Old Orlick knowed you was\nsmuggling your uncle Provis away, Old Orlick's a match for you and\nknow'd you'd come to-night! Now I'll tell you something more, wolf, and\nthis ends it. There's them that's as good a match for your uncle Provis\nas Old Orlick has been for you. Let him 'ware them, when he's lost his\nnevvy! Let him 'ware them, when no man can't find a rag of his dear\nrelation's clothes, nor yet a bone of his body. There's them that can't\nand that won't have Magwitch,--yes, I know the name!--alive in the same\nland with them, and that's had such sure information of him when he\nwas alive in another land, as that he couldn't and shouldn't leave it\nunbeknown and put them in danger. P'raps it's them that writes fifty\nhands, and that's not like sneaking you as writes but one. 'Ware\nCompeyson, Magwitch, and the gallows!\"\n\nHe flared the candle at me again, smoking my face and hair, and for an\ninstant blinding me, and turned his powerful back as he replaced the\nlight on the table. I had thought a prayer, and had been with Joe and\nBiddy and Herbert, before he turned towards me again.\n\nThere was a clear space of a few feet between the table and the opposite\nwall. Within this space, he now slouched backwards and forwards. His\ngreat strength seemed to sit stronger upon him than ever before, as he\ndid this with his hands hanging loose and heavy at his sides, and with\nhis eyes scowling at me. I had no grain of hope left. Wild as my inward\nhurry was, and wonderful the force of the pictures that rushed by me\ninstead of thoughts, I could yet clearly understand that, unless he had\nresolved that I was within a few moments of surely perishing out of all\nhuman knowledge, he would never have told me what he had told.\n\nOf a sudden, he stopped, took the cork out of his bottle, and tossed\nit away. Light as it was, I heard it fall like a plummet. He swallowed\nslowly, tilting up the bottle by little and little, and now he looked at\nme no more. The last few drops of liquor he poured into the palm of his\nhand, and licked up. Then, with a sudden hurry of violence and swearing\nhorribly, he threw the bottle from him, and stooped; and I saw in his\nhand a stone-hammer with a long heavy handle.\n\nThe resolution I had made did not desert me, for, without uttering\none vain word of appeal to him, I shouted out with all my might, and\nstruggled with all my might. It was only my head and my legs that I\ncould move, but to that extent I struggled with all the force, until\nthen unknown, that was within me. In the same instant I heard responsive\nshouts, saw figures and a gleam of light dash in at the door, heard\nvoices and tumult, and saw Orlick emerge from a struggle of men, as if\nit were tumbling water, clear the table at a leap, and fly out into the\nnight.\n\nAfter a blank, I found that I was lying unbound, on the floor, in the\nsame place, with my head on some one's knee. My eyes were fixed on the\nladder against the wall, when I came to myself,--had opened on it before\nmy mind saw it,--and thus as I recovered consciousness, I knew that I\nwas in the place where I had lost it.\n\nToo indifferent at first, even to look round and ascertain who supported\nme, I was lying looking at the ladder, when there came between me and it\na face. The face of Trabb's boy!\n\n\"I think he's all right!\" said Trabb's boy, in a sober voice; \"but ain't\nhe just pale though!\"\n\nAt these words, the face of him who supported me looked over into mine,\nand I saw my supporter to be--\n\n\"Herbert! Great Heaven!\"\n\n\"Softly,\" said Herbert. \"Gently, Handel. Don't be too eager.\"\n\n\"And our old comrade, Startop!\" I cried, as he too bent over me.\n\n\"Remember what he is going to assist us in,\" said Herbert, \"and be\ncalm.\"\n\nThe allusion made me spring up; though I dropped again from the pain\nin my arm. \"The time has not gone by, Herbert, has it? What night is\nto-night? How long have I been here?\" For, I had a strange and\nstrong misgiving that I had been lying there a long time--a day and a\nnight,--two days and nights,--more.\n\n\"The time has not gone by. It is still Monday night.\"\n\n\"Thank God!\"\n\n\"And you have all to-morrow, Tuesday, to rest in,\" said Herbert. \"But\nyou can't help groaning, my dear Handel. What hurt have you got? Can you\nstand?\"\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" said I, \"I can walk. I have no hurt but in this throbbing\narm.\"\n\nThey laid it bare, and did what they could. It was violently swollen and\ninflamed, and I could scarcely endure to have it touched. But, they tore\nup their handkerchiefs to make fresh bandages, and carefully replaced\nit in the sling, until we could get to the town and obtain some cooling\nlotion to put upon it. In a little while we had shut the door of the\ndark and empty sluice-house, and were passing through the quarry on our\nway back. Trabb's boy--Trabb's overgrown young man now--went before us\nwith a lantern, which was the light I had seen come in at the door. But,\nthe moon was a good two hours higher than when I had last seen the sky,\nand the night, though rainy, was much lighter. The white vapor of the\nkiln was passing from us as we went by, and as I had thought a prayer\nbefore, I thought a thanksgiving now.\n\nEntreating Herbert to tell me how he had come to my rescue,--which at\nfirst he had flatly refused to do, but had insisted on my remaining\nquiet,--I learnt that I had in my hurry dropped the letter, open, in our\nchambers, where he, coming home to bring with him Startop whom he had\nmet in the street on his way to me, found it, very soon after I\nwas gone. Its tone made him uneasy, and the more so because of the\ninconsistency between it and the hasty letter I had left for him. His\nuneasiness increasing instead of subsiding, after a quarter of an\nhour's consideration, he set off for the coach-office with Startop, who\nvolunteered his company, to make inquiry when the next coach went\ndown. Finding that the afternoon coach was gone, and finding that his\nuneasiness grew into positive alarm, as obstacles came in his way, he\nresolved to follow in a post-chaise. So he and Startop arrived at the\nBlue Boar, fully expecting there to find me, or tidings of me; but,\nfinding neither, went on to Miss Havisham's, where they lost me.\nHereupon they went back to the hotel (doubtless at about the time when\nI was hearing the popular local version of my own story) to refresh\nthemselves and to get some one to guide them out upon the marshes. Among\nthe loungers under the Boar's archway happened to be Trabb's Boy,--true\nto his ancient habit of happening to be everywhere where he had no\nbusiness,--and Trabb's boy had seen me passing from Miss Havisham's in\nthe direction of my dining-place. Thus Trabb's boy became their guide,\nand with him they went out to the sluice-house, though by the town way\nto the marshes, which I had avoided. Now, as they went along, Herbert\nreflected, that I might, after all, have been brought there on some\ngenuine and serviceable errand tending to Provis's safety, and,\nbethinking himself that in that case interruption must be mischievous,\nleft his guide and Startop on the edge of the quarry, and went on by\nhimself, and stole round the house two or three times, endeavouring to\nascertain whether all was right within. As he could hear nothing but\nindistinct sounds of one deep rough voice (this was while my mind was so\nbusy), he even at last began to doubt whether I was there, when suddenly\nI cried out loudly, and he answered the cries, and rushed in, closely\nfollowed by the other two.\n\nWhen I told Herbert what had passed within the house, he was for our\nimmediately going before a magistrate in the town, late at night as it\nwas, and getting out a warrant. But, I had already considered that such\na course, by detaining us there, or binding us to come back, might\nbe fatal to Provis. There was no gainsaying this difficulty, and we\nrelinquished all thoughts of pursuing Orlick at that time. For the\npresent, under the circumstances, we deemed it prudent to make rather\nlight of the matter to Trabb's boy; who, I am convinced, would have been\nmuch affected by disappointment, if he had known that his intervention\nsaved me from the limekiln. Not that Trabb's boy was of a malignant\nnature, but that he had too much spare vivacity, and that it was in his\nconstitution to want variety and excitement at anybody's expense. When\nwe parted, I presented him with two guineas (which seemed to meet his\nviews), and told him that I was sorry ever to have had an ill opinion of\nhim (which made no impression on him at all).\n\nWednesday being so close upon us, we determined to go back to London\nthat night, three in the post-chaise; the rather, as we should then be\nclear away before the night's adventure began to be talked of. Herbert\ngot a large bottle of stuff for my arm; and by dint of having this stuff\ndropped over it all the night through, I was just able to bear its pain\non the journey. It was daylight when we reached the Temple, and I went\nat once to bed, and lay in bed all day.\n\nMy terror, as I lay there, of falling ill, and being unfitted for\nto-morrow, was so besetting, that I wonder it did not disable me of\nitself. It would have done so, pretty surely, in conjunction with the\nmental wear and tear I had suffered, but for the unnatural strain upon\nme that to-morrow was. So anxiously looked forward to, charged with such\nconsequences, its results so impenetrably hidden, though so near.\n\nNo precaution could have been more obvious than our refraining\nfrom communication with him that day; yet this again increased my\nrestlessness. I started at every footstep and every sound, believing\nthat he was discovered and taken, and this was the messenger to tell\nme so. I persuaded myself that I knew he was taken; that there was\nsomething more upon my mind than a fear or a presentiment; that the fact\nhad occurred, and I had a mysterious knowledge of it. As the days wore\non, and no ill news came, as the day closed in and darkness fell,\nmy overshadowing dread of being disabled by illness before to-morrow\nmorning altogether mastered me. My burning arm throbbed, and my burning\nhead throbbed, and I fancied I was beginning to wander. I counted up to\nhigh numbers, to make sure of myself, and repeated passages that I knew\nin prose and verse. It happened sometimes that in the mere escape of a\nfatigued mind, I dozed for some moments or forgot; then I would say to\nmyself with a start, \"Now it has come, and I am turning delirious!\"\n\nThey kept me very quiet all day, and kept my arm constantly dressed, and\ngave me cooling drinks. Whenever I fell asleep, I awoke with the notion\nI had had in the sluice-house, that a long time had elapsed and the\nopportunity to save him was gone. About midnight I got out of bed\nand went to Herbert, with the conviction that I had been asleep for\nfour-and-twenty hours, and that Wednesday was past. It was the last\nself-exhausting effort of my fretfulness, for after that I slept\nsoundly.\n\nWednesday morning was dawning when I looked out of window. The winking\nlights upon the bridges were already pale, the coming sun was like a\nmarsh of fire on the horizon. The river, still dark and mysterious, was\nspanned by bridges that were turning coldly gray, with here and there\nat top a warm touch from the burning in the sky. As I looked along\nthe clustered roofs, with church-towers and spires shooting into the\nunusually clear air, the sun rose up, and a veil seemed to be drawn from\nthe river, and millions of sparkles burst out upon its waters. From me\ntoo, a veil seemed to be drawn, and I felt strong and well.\n\nHerbert lay asleep in his bed, and our old fellow-student lay asleep on\nthe sofa. I could not dress myself without help; but I made up the fire,\nwhich was still burning, and got some coffee ready for them. In good\ntime they too started up strong and well, and we admitted the sharp\nmorning air at the windows, and looked at the tide that was still\nflowing towards us.\n\n\"When it turns at nine o'clock,\" said Herbert, cheerfully, \"look out for\nus, and stand ready, you over there at Mill Pond Bank!\"\n\n\n\n\nChapter LIV\n\nIt was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind\nblows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.\nWe had our pea-coats with us, and I took a bag. Of all my worldly\npossessions I took no more than the few necessaries that filled the\nbag. Where I might go, what I might do, or when I might return, were\nquestions utterly unknown to me; nor did I vex my mind with them, for\nit was wholly set on Provis's safety. I only wondered for the passing\nmoment, as I stopped at the door and looked back, under what altered\ncircumstances I should next see those rooms, if ever.\n\nWe loitered down to the Temple stairs, and stood loitering there, as if\nwe were not quite decided to go upon the water at all. Of course, I had\ntaken care that the boat should be ready and everything in order. After\na little show of indecision, which there were none to see but the two\nor three amphibious creatures belonging to our Temple stairs, we went\non board and cast off; Herbert in the bow, I steering. It was then about\nhigh-water,--half-past eight.\n\nOur plan was this. The tide, beginning to run down at nine, and being\nwith us until three, we intended still to creep on after it had turned,\nand row against it until dark. We should then be well in those long\nreaches below Gravesend, between Kent and Essex, where the river is\nbroad and solitary, where the water-side inhabitants are very few, and\nwhere lone public-houses are scattered here and there, of which we could\nchoose one for a resting-place. There, we meant to lie by all night.\nThe steamer for Hamburg and the steamer for Rotterdam would start from\nLondon at about nine on Thursday morning. We should know at what time\nto expect them, according to where we were, and would hail the first;\nso that, if by any accident we were not taken abroad, we should have\nanother chance. We knew the distinguishing marks of each vessel.\n\nThe relief of being at last engaged in the execution of the purpose\nwas so great to me that I felt it difficult to realize the condition in\nwhich I had been a few hours before. The crisp air, the sunlight, the\nmovement on the river, and the moving river itself,--the road that ran\nwith us, seeming to sympathize with us, animate us, and encourage us\non,--freshened me with new hope. I felt mortified to be of so little use\nin the boat; but, there were few better oarsmen than my two friends, and\nthey rowed with a steady stroke that was to last all day.\n\nAt that time, the steam-traffic on the Thames was far below its present\nextent, and watermen's boats were far more numerous. Of barges, sailing\ncolliers, and coasting-traders, there were perhaps, as many as now;\nbut of steam-ships, great and small, not a tithe or a twentieth part\nso many. Early as it was, there were plenty of scullers going here and\nthere that morning, and plenty of barges dropping down with the tide;\nthe navigation of the river between bridges, in an open boat, was a much\neasier and commoner matter in those days than it is in these; and we\nwent ahead among many skiffs and wherries briskly.\n\nOld London Bridge was soon passed, and old Billingsgate Market with its\noyster-boats and Dutchmen, and the White Tower and Traitor's Gate, and\nwe were in among the tiers of shipping. Here were the Leith, Aberdeen,\nand Glasgow steamers, loading and unloading goods, and looking immensely\nhigh out of the water as we passed alongside; here, were colliers by the\nscore and score, with the coal-whippers plunging off stages on deck, as\ncounterweights to measures of coal swinging up, which were then rattled\nover the side into barges; here, at her moorings was to-morrow's steamer\nfor Rotterdam, of which we took good notice; and here to-morrow's for\nHamburg, under whose bowsprit we crossed. And now I, sitting in the\nstern, could see, with a faster beating heart, Mill Pond Bank and Mill\nPond stairs.\n\n\"Is he there?\" said Herbert.\n\n\"Not yet.\"\n\n\"Right! He was not to come down till he saw us. Can you see his signal?\"\n\n\"Not well from here; but I think I see it.--Now I see him! Pull both.\nEasy, Herbert. Oars!\"\n\nWe touched the stairs lightly for a single moment, and he was on board,\nand we were off again. He had a boat-cloak with him, and a black canvas\nbag; and he looked as like a river-pilot as my heart could have wished.\n\n\"Dear boy!\" he said, putting his arm on my shoulder, as he took his\nseat. \"Faithful dear boy, well done. Thankye, thankye!\"\n\nAgain among the tiers of shipping, in and out, avoiding rusty\nchain-cables frayed hempen hawsers and bobbing buoys, sinking for the\nmoment floating broken baskets, scattering floating chips of wood\nand shaving, cleaving floating scum of coal, in and out, under the\nfigure-head of the John of Sunderland making a speech to the winds (as\nis done by many Johns), and the Betsy of Yarmouth with a firm formality\nof bosom and her knobby eyes starting two inches out of her head; in\nand out, hammers going in ship-builders' yards, saws going at timber,\nclashing engines going at things unknown, pumps going in leaky ships,\ncapstans going, ships going out to sea, and unintelligible sea-creatures\nroaring curses over the bulwarks at respondent lightermen, in and\nout,--out at last upon the clearer river, where the ships' boys might\ntake their fenders in, no longer fishing in troubled waters with them\nover the side, and where the festooned sails might fly out to the wind.\n\nAt the stairs where we had taken him abroad, and ever since, I had\nlooked warily for any token of our being suspected. I had seen none. We\ncertainly had not been, and at that time as certainly we were not either\nattended or followed by any boat. If we had been waited on by any boat,\nI should have run in to shore, and have obliged her to go on, or to\nmake her purpose evident. But we held our own without any appearance of\nmolestation.\n\nHe had his boat-cloak on him, and looked, as I have said, a natural part\nof the scene. It was remarkable (but perhaps the wretched life he had\nled accounted for it) that he was the least anxious of any of us. He\nwas not indifferent, for he told me that he hoped to live to see his\ngentleman one of the best of gentlemen in a foreign country; he was not\ndisposed to be passive or resigned, as I understood it; but he had no\nnotion of meeting danger half way. When it came upon him, he confronted\nit, but it must come before he troubled himself.\n\n\"If you knowed, dear boy,\" he said to me, \"what it is to sit here\nalonger my dear boy and have my smoke, arter having been day by day\nbetwixt four walls, you'd envy me. But you don't know what it is.\"\n\n\"I think I know the delights of freedom,\" I answered.\n\n\"Ah,\" said he, shaking his head gravely. \"But you don't know it equal to\nme. You must have been under lock and key, dear boy, to know it equal to\nme,--but I ain't a going to be low.\"\n\nIt occurred to me as inconsistent, that, for any mastering idea, he\nshould have endangered his freedom, and even his life. But I reflected\nthat perhaps freedom without danger was too much apart from all the\nhabit of his existence to be to him what it would be to another man. I\nwas not far out, since he said, after smoking a little:--\n\n\"You see, dear boy, when I was over yonder, t'other side the world, I\nwas always a looking to this side; and it come flat to be there, for\nall I was a growing rich. Everybody knowed Magwitch, and Magwitch could\ncome, and Magwitch could go, and nobody's head would be troubled about\nhim. They ain't so easy concerning me here, dear boy,--wouldn't be,\nleastwise, if they knowed where I was.\"\n\n\"If all goes well,\" said I, \"you will be perfectly free and safe again\nwithin a few hours.\"\n\n\"Well,\" he returned, drawing a long breath, \"I hope so.\"\n\n\"And think so?\"\n\nHe dipped his hand in the water over the boat's gunwale, and said,\nsmiling with that softened air upon him which was not new to me:--\n\n\"Ay, I s'pose I think so, dear boy. We'd be puzzled to be more quiet\nand easy-going than we are at present. But--it's a flowing so soft\nand pleasant through the water, p'raps, as makes me think it--I was\na thinking through my smoke just then, that we can no more see to the\nbottom of the next few hours than we can see to the bottom of this river\nwhat I catches hold of. Nor yet we can't no more hold their tide than\nI can hold this. And it's run through my fingers and gone, you see!\"\nholding up his dripping hand.\n\n\"But for your face I should think you were a little despondent,\" said I.\n\n\"Not a bit on it, dear boy! It comes of flowing on so quiet, and of that\nthere rippling at the boat's head making a sort of a Sunday tune. Maybe\nI'm a growing a trifle old besides.\"\n\nHe put his pipe back in his mouth with an undisturbed expression of\nface, and sat as composed and contented as if we were already out of\nEngland. Yet he was as submissive to a word of advice as if he had been\nin constant terror; for, when we ran ashore to get some bottles of beer\ninto the boat, and he was stepping out, I hinted that I thought he would\nbe safest where he was, and he said. \"Do you, dear boy?\" and quietly sat\ndown again.\n\nThe air felt cold upon the river, but it was a bright day, and the\nsunshine was very cheering. The tide ran strong, I took care to lose\nnone of it, and our steady stroke carried us on thoroughly well. By\nimperceptible degrees, as the tide ran out, we lost more and more of the\nnearer woods and hills, and dropped lower and lower between the muddy\nbanks, but the tide was yet with us when we were off Gravesend. As our\ncharge was wrapped in his cloak, I purposely passed within a boat or\ntwo's length of the floating Custom House, and so out to catch the\nstream, alongside of two emigrant ships, and under the bows of a large\ntransport with troops on the forecastle looking down at us. And soon\nthe tide began to slacken, and the craft lying at anchor to swing,\nand presently they had all swung round, and the ships that were taking\nadvantage of the new tide to get up to the Pool began to crowd upon us\nin a fleet, and we kept under the shore, as much out of the strength of\nthe tide now as we could, standing carefully off from low shallows and\nmudbanks.\n\nOur oarsmen were so fresh, by dint of having occasionally let her drive\nwith the tide for a minute or two, that a quarter of an hour's rest\nproved full as much as they wanted. We got ashore among some slippery\nstones while we ate and drank what we had with us, and looked about.\nIt was like my own marsh country, flat and monotonous, and with a\ndim horizon; while the winding river turned and turned, and the great\nfloating buoys upon it turned and turned, and everything else seemed\nstranded and still. For now the last of the fleet of ships was round\nthe last low point we had headed; and the last green barge, straw-laden,\nwith a brown sail, had followed; and some ballast-lighters, shaped like\na child's first rude imitation of a boat, lay low in the mud; and a\nlittle squat shoal-lighthouse on open piles stood crippled in the mud\non stilts and crutches; and slimy stakes stuck out of the mud, and slimy\nstones stuck out of the mud, and red landmarks and tidemarks stuck\nout of the mud, and an old landing-stage and an old roofless building\nslipped into the mud, and all about us was stagnation and mud.\n\nWe pushed off again, and made what way we could. It was much harder work\nnow, but Herbert and Startop persevered, and rowed and rowed and rowed\nuntil the sun went down. By that time the river had lifted us a little,\nso that we could see above the bank. There was the red sun, on the low\nlevel of the shore, in a purple haze, fast deepening into black; and\nthere was the solitary flat marsh; and far away there were the rising\ngrounds, between which and us there seemed to be no life, save here and\nthere in the foreground a melancholy gull.\n\nAs the night was fast falling, and as the moon, being past the full,\nwould not rise early, we held a little council; a short one, for clearly\nour course was to lie by at the first lonely tavern we could find. So,\nthey plied their oars once more, and I looked out for anything like a\nhouse. Thus we held on, speaking little, for four or five dull miles. It\nwas very cold, and, a collier coming by us, with her galley-fire smoking\nand flaring, looked like a comfortable home. The night was as dark by\nthis time as it would be until morning; and what light we had, seemed\nto come more from the river than the sky, as the oars in their dipping\nstruck at a few reflected stars.\n\nAt this dismal time we were evidently all possessed by the idea that\nwe were followed. As the tide made, it flapped heavily at irregular\nintervals against the shore; and whenever such a sound came, one or\nother of us was sure to start, and look in that direction. Here and\nthere, the set of the current had worn down the bank into a little\ncreek, and we were all suspicious of such places, and eyed them\nnervously. Sometimes, \"What was that ripple?\" one of us would say in a\nlow voice. Or another, \"Is that a boat yonder?\" And afterwards we would\nfall into a dead silence, and I would sit impatiently thinking with what\nan unusual amount of noise the oars worked in the thowels.\n\nAt length we descried a light and a roof, and presently afterwards ran\nalongside a little causeway made of stones that had been picked up hard\nby. Leaving the rest in the boat, I stepped ashore, and found the light\nto be in a window of a public-house. It was a dirty place enough, and I\ndare say not unknown to smuggling adventurers; but there was a good\nfire in the kitchen, and there were eggs and bacon to eat, and various\nliquors to drink. Also, there were two double-bedded rooms,--\"such as\nthey were,\" the landlord said. No other company was in the house than\nthe landlord, his wife, and a grizzled male creature, the \"Jack\" of the\nlittle causeway, who was as slimy and smeary as if he had been low-water\nmark too.\n\nWith this assistant, I went down to the boat again, and we all came\nashore, and brought out the oars, and rudder and boat-hook, and all\nelse, and hauled her up for the night. We made a very good meal by the\nkitchen fire, and then apportioned the bedrooms: Herbert and Startop\nwere to occupy one; I and our charge the other. We found the air as\ncarefully excluded from both, as if air were fatal to life; and there\nwere more dirty clothes and bandboxes under the beds than I should have\nthought the family possessed. But we considered ourselves well off,\nnotwithstanding, for a more solitary place we could not have found.\n\nWhile we were comforting ourselves by the fire after our meal, the\nJack--who was sitting in a corner, and who had a bloated pair of shoes\non, which he had exhibited while we were eating our eggs and bacon, as\ninteresting relics that he had taken a few days ago from the feet of\na drowned seaman washed ashore--asked me if we had seen a four-oared\ngalley going up with the tide? When I told him No, he said she must have\ngone down then, and yet she \"took up too,\" when she left there.\n\n\"They must ha' thought better on't for some reason or another,\" said the\nJack, \"and gone down.\"\n\n\"A four-oared galley, did you say?\" said I.\n\n\"A four,\" said the Jack, \"and two sitters.\"\n\n\"Did they come ashore here?\"\n\n\"They put in with a stone two-gallon jar for some beer. I'd ha' been\nglad to pison the beer myself,\" said the Jack, \"or put some rattling\nphysic in it.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"I know why,\" said the Jack. He spoke in a slushy voice, as if much mud\nhad washed into his throat.\n\n\"He thinks,\" said the landlord, a weakly meditative man with a pale eye,\nwho seemed to rely greatly on his Jack,--\"he thinks they was, what they\nwasn't.\"\n\n\"I knows what I thinks,\" observed the Jack.\n\n\"You thinks Custum 'Us, Jack?\" said the landlord.\n\n\"I do,\" said the Jack.\n\n\"Then you're wrong, Jack.\"\n\n\"AM I!\"\n\nIn the infinite meaning of his reply and his boundless confidence in\nhis views, the Jack took one of his bloated shoes off, looked into\nit, knocked a few stones out of it on the kitchen floor, and put it on\nagain. He did this with the air of a Jack who was so right that he could\nafford to do anything.\n\n\"Why, what do you make out that they done with their buttons then,\nJack?\" asked the landlord, vacillating weakly.\n\n\"Done with their buttons?\" returned the Jack. \"Chucked 'em overboard.\nSwallered 'em. Sowed 'em, to come up small salad. Done with their\nbuttons!\"\n\n\"Don't be cheeky, Jack,\" remonstrated the landlord, in a melancholy and\npathetic way.\n\n\"A Custum 'Us officer knows what to do with his Buttons,\" said the Jack,\nrepeating the obnoxious word with the greatest contempt, \"when they\ncomes betwixt him and his own light. A four and two sitters don't go\nhanging and hovering, up with one tide and down with another, and both\nwith and against another, without there being Custum 'Us at the bottom\nof it.\" Saying which he went out in disdain; and the landlord, having no\none to reply upon, found it impracticable to pursue the subject.\n\nThis dialogue made us all uneasy, and me very uneasy. The dismal wind\nwas muttering round the house, the tide was flapping at the shore, and\nI had a feeling that we were caged and threatened. A four-oared galley\nhovering about in so unusual a way as to attract this notice was an ugly\ncircumstance that I could not get rid of. When I had induced Provis to\ngo up to bed, I went outside with my two companions (Startop by this\ntime knew the state of the case), and held another council. Whether we\nshould remain at the house until near the steamer's time, which would\nbe about one in the afternoon, or whether we should put off early in the\nmorning, was the question we discussed. On the whole we deemed it the\nbetter course to lie where we were, until within an hour or so of the\nsteamer's time, and then to get out in her track, and drift easily with\nthe tide. Having settled to do this, we returned into the house and went\nto bed.\n\nI lay down with the greater part of my clothes on, and slept well for a\nfew hours. When I awoke, the wind had risen, and the sign of the house\n(the Ship) was creaking and banging about, with noises that startled\nme. Rising softly, for my charge lay fast asleep, I looked out of the\nwindow. It commanded the causeway where we had hauled up our boat, and,\nas my eyes adapted themselves to the light of the clouded moon, I saw\ntwo men looking into her. They passed by under the window, looking at\nnothing else, and they did not go down to the landing-place which I\ncould discern to be empty, but struck across the marsh in the direction\nof the Nore.\n\nMy first impulse was to call up Herbert, and show him the two men going\naway. But reflecting, before I got into his room, which was at the back\nof the house and adjoined mine, that he and Startop had had a harder day\nthan I, and were fatigued, I forbore. Going back to my window, I could\nsee the two men moving over the marsh. In that light, however, I soon\nlost them, and, feeling very cold, lay down to think of the matter, and\nfell asleep again.\n\nWe were up early. As we walked to and fro, all four together, before\nbreakfast, I deemed it right to recount what I had seen. Again our\ncharge was the least anxious of the party. It was very likely that the\nmen belonged to the Custom House, he said quietly, and that they had no\nthought of us. I tried to persuade myself that it was so,--as, indeed,\nit might easily be. However, I proposed that he and I should walk away\ntogether to a distant point we could see, and that the boat should take\nus aboard there, or as near there as might prove feasible, at about\nnoon. This being considered a good precaution, soon after breakfast he\nand I set forth, without saying anything at the tavern.\n\nHe smoked his pipe as we went along, and sometimes stopped to clap me on\nthe shoulder. One would have supposed that it was I who was in danger,\nnot he, and that he was reassuring me. We spoke very little. As we\napproached the point, I begged him to remain in a sheltered place, while\nI went on to reconnoitre; for it was towards it that the men had passed\nin the night. He complied, and I went on alone. There was no boat off\nthe point, nor any boat drawn up anywhere near it, nor were there any\nsigns of the men having embarked there. But, to be sure, the tide was\nhigh, and there might have been some footpints under water.\n\nWhen he looked out from his shelter in the distance, and saw that I\nwaved my hat to him to come up, he rejoined me, and there we waited;\nsometimes lying on the bank, wrapped in our coats, and sometimes moving\nabout to warm ourselves, until we saw our boat coming round. We got\naboard easily, and rowed out into the track of the steamer. By that time\nit wanted but ten minutes of one o'clock, and we began to look out for\nher smoke.\n\nBut, it was half-past one before we saw her smoke, and soon afterwards\nwe saw behind it the smoke of another steamer. As they were coming on\nat full speed, we got the two bags ready, and took that opportunity\nof saying good-bye to Herbert and Startop. We had all shaken hands\ncordially, and neither Herbert's eyes nor mine were quite dry, when I\nsaw a four-oared galley shoot out from under the bank but a little way\nahead of us, and row out into the same track.\n\nA stretch of shore had been as yet between us and the steamer's smoke,\nby reason of the bend and wind of the river; but now she was visible,\ncoming head on. I called to Herbert and Startop to keep before the tide,\nthat she might see us lying by for her, and I adjured Provis to sit\nquite still, wrapped in his cloak. He answered cheerily, \"Trust to me,\ndear boy,\" and sat like a statue. Meantime the galley, which was very\nskilfully handled, had crossed us, let us come up with her, and fallen\nalongside. Leaving just room enough for the play of the oars, she kept\nalongside, drifting when we drifted, and pulling a stroke or two when we\npulled. Of the two sitters one held the rudder-lines, and looked at us\nattentively,--as did all the rowers; the other sitter was wrapped up,\nmuch as Provis was, and seemed to shrink, and whisper some instruction\nto the steerer as he looked at us. Not a word was spoken in either boat.\n\nStartop could make out, after a few minutes, which steamer was first,\nand gave me the word \"Hamburg,\" in a low voice, as we sat face to face.\nShe was nearing us very fast, and the beating of her peddles grew louder\nand louder. I felt as if her shadow were absolutely upon us, when the\ngalley hailed us. I answered.\n\n\"You have a returned Transport there,\" said the man who held the lines.\n\"That's the man, wrapped in the cloak. His name is Abel Magwitch,\notherwise Provis. I apprehend that man, and call upon him to surrender,\nand you to assist.\"\n\nAt the same moment, without giving any audible direction to his crew,\nhe ran the galley abroad of us. They had pulled one sudden stroke ahead,\nhad got their oars in, had run athwart us, and were holding on to\nour gunwale, before we knew what they were doing. This caused great\nconfusion on board the steamer, and I heard them calling to us, and\nheard the order given to stop the paddles, and heard them stop, but felt\nher driving down upon us irresistibly. In the same moment, I saw the\nsteersman of the galley lay his hand on his prisoner's shoulder, and saw\nthat both boats were swinging round with the force of the tide, and\nsaw that all hands on board the steamer were running forward quite\nfrantically. Still, in the same moment, I saw the prisoner start\nup, lean across his captor, and pull the cloak from the neck of the\nshrinking sitter in the galley. Still in the same moment, I saw that the\nface disclosed, was the face of the other convict of long ago. Still, in\nthe same moment, I saw the face tilt backward with a white terror on it\nthat I shall never forget, and heard a great cry on board the steamer,\nand a loud splash in the water, and felt the boat sink from under me.\n\nIt was but for an instant that I seemed to struggle with a thousand\nmill-weirs and a thousand flashes of light; that instant past, I was\ntaken on board the galley. Herbert was there, and Startop was there; but\nour boat was gone, and the two convicts were gone.\n\nWhat with the cries aboard the steamer, and the furious blowing off of\nher steam, and her driving on, and our driving on, I could not at first\ndistinguish sky from water or shore from shore; but the crew of the\ngalley righted her with great speed, and, pulling certain swift strong\nstrokes ahead, lay upon their oars, every man looking silently and\neagerly at the water astern. Presently a dark object was seen in it,\nbearing towards us on the tide. No man spoke, but the steersman held up\nhis hand, and all softly backed water, and kept the boat straight and\ntrue before it. As it came nearer, I saw it to be Magwitch, swimming,\nbut not swimming freely. He was taken on board, and instantly manacled\nat the wrists and ankles.\n\nThe galley was kept steady, and the silent, eager look-out at the water\nwas resumed. But, the Rotterdam steamer now came up, and apparently not\nunderstanding what had happened, came on at speed. By the time she had\nbeen hailed and stopped, both steamers were drifting away from us, and\nwe were rising and falling in a troubled wake of water. The look-out was\nkept, long after all was still again and the two steamers were gone; but\neverybody knew that it was hopeless now.\n\nAt length we gave it up, and pulled under the shore towards the tavern\nwe had lately left, where we were received with no little surprise. Here\nI was able to get some comforts for Magwitch,--Provis no longer,--who\nhad received some very severe injury in the Chest, and a deep cut in the\nhead.\n\nHe told me that he believed himself to have gone under the keel of the\nsteamer, and to have been struck on the head in rising. The injury to\nhis chest (which rendered his breathing extremely painful) he thought\nhe had received against the side of the galley. He added that he did not\npretend to say what he might or might not have done to Compeyson, but\nthat, in the moment of his laying his hand on his cloak to identify him,\nthat villain had staggered up and staggered back, and they had both gone\noverboard together, when the sudden wrenching of him (Magwitch) out of\nour boat, and the endeavor of his captor to keep him in it, had capsized\nus. He told me in a whisper that they had gone down fiercely locked in\neach other's arms, and that there had been a struggle under water, and\nthat he had disengaged himself, struck out, and swum away.\n\nI never had any reason to doubt the exact truth of what he thus told me.\nThe officer who steered the galley gave the same account of their going\noverboard.\n\nWhen I asked this officer's permission to change the prisoner's\nwet clothes by purchasing any spare garments I could get at the\npublic-house, he gave it readily: merely observing that he must take\ncharge of everything his prisoner had about him. So the pocket-book\nwhich had once been in my hands passed into the officer's. He further\ngave me leave to accompany the prisoner to London; but declined to\naccord that grace to my two friends.\n\nThe Jack at the Ship was instructed where the drowned man had gone\ndown, and undertook to search for the body in the places where it was\nlikeliest to come ashore. His interest in its recovery seemed to me to\nbe much heightened when he heard that it had stockings on. Probably, it\ntook about a dozen drowned men to fit him out completely; and that may\nhave been the reason why the different articles of his dress were in\nvarious stages of decay.\n\nWe remained at the public-house until the tide turned, and then Magwitch\nwas carried down to the galley and put on board. Herbert and Startop\nwere to get to London by land, as soon as they could. We had a doleful\nparting, and when I took my place by Magwitch's side, I felt that that\nwas my place henceforth while he lived.\n\nFor now, my repugnance to him had all melted away; and in the hunted,\nwounded, shackled creature who held my hand in his, I only saw a man\nwho had meant to be my benefactor, and who had felt affectionately,\ngratefully, and generously, towards me with great constancy through a\nseries of years. I only saw in him a much better man than I had been to\nJoe.\n\nHis breathing became more difficult and painful as the night drew on,\nand often he could not repress a groan. I tried to rest him on the arm\nI could use, in any easy position; but it was dreadful to think that\nI could not be sorry at heart for his being badly hurt, since it was\nunquestionably best that he should die. That there were, still living,\npeople enough who were able and willing to identify him, I could not\ndoubt. That he would be leniently treated, I could not hope. He who had\nbeen presented in the worst light at his trial, who had since broken\nprison and had been tried again, who had returned from transportation\nunder a life sentence, and who had occasioned the death of the man who\nwas the cause of his arrest.\n\nAs we returned towards the setting sun we had yesterday left behind us,\nand as the stream of our hopes seemed all running back, I told him how\ngrieved I was to think that he had come home for my sake.\n\n\"Dear boy,\" he answered, \"I'm quite content to take my chance. I've seen\nmy boy, and he can be a gentleman without me.\"\n\nNo. I had thought about that, while we had been there side by side. No.\nApart from any inclinations of my own, I understood Wemmick's hint now.\nI foresaw that, being convicted, his possessions would be forfeited to\nthe Crown.\n\n\"Lookee here, dear boy,\" said he \"It's best as a gentleman should not be\nknowed to belong to me now. Only come to see me as if you come by chance\nalonger Wemmick. Sit where I can see you when I am swore to, for the\nlast o' many times, and I don't ask no more.\"\n\n\"I will never stir from your side,\" said I, \"when I am suffered to be\nnear you. Please God, I will be as true to you as you have been to me!\"\n\nI felt his hand tremble as it held mine, and he turned his face away\nas he lay in the bottom of the boat, and I heard that old sound in his\nthroat,--softened now, like all the rest of him. It was a good thing\nthat he had touched this point, for it put into my mind what I might not\notherwise have thought of until too late,--that he need never know how\nhis hopes of enriching me had perished.\n\n\n\n\nChapter LV\n\nHe was taken to the Police Court next day, and would have been\nimmediately committed for trial, but that it was necessary to send down\nfor an old officer of the prison-ship from which he had once escaped, to\nspeak to his identity. Nobody doubted it; but Compeyson, who had meant\nto depose to it, was tumbling on the tides, dead, and it happened that\nthere was not at that time any prison officer in London who could give\nthe required evidence. I had gone direct to Mr. Jaggers at his private\nhouse, on my arrival over night, to retain his assistance, and Mr.\nJaggers on the prisoner's behalf would admit nothing. It was the sole\nresource; for he told me that the case must be over in five minutes\nwhen the witness was there, and that no power on earth could prevent its\ngoing against us.\n\nI imparted to Mr. Jaggers my design of keeping him in ignorance of the\nfate of his wealth. Mr. Jaggers was querulous and angry with me for\nhaving \"let it slip through my fingers,\" and said we must memorialize\nby and by, and try at all events for some of it. But he did not conceal\nfrom me that, although there might be many cases in which the forfeiture\nwould not be exacted, there were no circumstances in this case to make\nit one of them. I understood that very well. I was not related to the\noutlaw, or connected with him by any recognizable tie; he had put his\nhand to no writing or settlement in my favor before his apprehension,\nand to do so now would be idle. I had no claim, and I finally resolved,\nand ever afterwards abided by the resolution, that my heart should never\nbe sickened with the hopeless task of attempting to establish one.\n\nThere appeared to be reason for supposing that the drowned informer\nhad hoped for a reward out of this forfeiture, and had obtained some\naccurate knowledge of Magwitch's affairs. When his body was found, many\nmiles from the scene of his death, and so horribly disfigured that he\nwas only recognizable by the contents of his pockets, notes were still\nlegible, folded in a case he carried. Among these were the name of a\nbanking-house in New South Wales, where a sum of money was, and the\ndesignation of certain lands of considerable value. Both these heads of\ninformation were in a list that Magwitch, while in prison, gave to Mr.\nJaggers, of the possessions he supposed I should inherit. His ignorance,\npoor fellow, at last served him; he never mistrusted but that my\ninheritance was quite safe, with Mr. Jaggers's aid.\n\nAfter three days' delay, during which the crown prosecution stood over\nfor the production of the witness from the prison-ship, the witness\ncame, and completed the easy case. He was committed to take his trial at\nthe next Sessions, which would come on in a month.\n\nIt was at this dark time of my life that Herbert returned home one\nevening, a good deal cast down, and said,--\n\n\"My dear Handel, I fear I shall soon have to leave you.\"\n\nHis partner having prepared me for that, I was less surprised than he\nthought.\n\n\"We shall lose a fine opportunity if I put off going to Cairo, and I am\nvery much afraid I must go, Handel, when you most need me.\"\n\n\"Herbert, I shall always need you, because I shall always love you; but\nmy need is no greater now than at another time.\"\n\n\"You will be so lonely.\"\n\n\"I have not leisure to think of that,\" said I. \"You know that I am\nalways with him to the full extent of the time allowed, and that I\nshould be with him all day long, if I could. And when I come away from\nhim, you know that my thoughts are with him.\"\n\nThe dreadful condition to which he was brought, was so appalling to both\nof us, that we could not refer to it in plainer words.\n\n\"My dear fellow,\" said Herbert, \"let the near prospect of our\nseparation--for, it is very near--be my justification for troubling you\nabout yourself. Have you thought of your future?\"\n\n\"No, for I have been afraid to think of any future.\"\n\n\"But yours cannot be dismissed; indeed, my dear dear Handel, it must not\nbe dismissed. I wish you would enter on it now, as far as a few friendly\nwords go, with me.\"\n\n\"I will,\" said I.\n\n\"In this branch house of ours, Handel, we must have a--\"\n\nI saw that his delicacy was avoiding the right word, so I said, \"A\nclerk.\"\n\n\"A clerk. And I hope it is not at all unlikely that he may expand (as\na clerk of your acquaintance has expanded) into a partner. Now,\nHandel,--in short, my dear boy, will you come to me?\"\n\nThere was something charmingly cordial and engaging in the manner in\nwhich after saying \"Now, Handel,\" as if it were the grave beginning of\na portentous business exordium, he had suddenly given up that tone,\nstretched out his honest hand, and spoken like a schoolboy.\n\n\"Clara and I have talked about it again and again,\" Herbert pursued,\n\"and the dear little thing begged me only this evening, with tears in\nher eyes, to say to you that, if you will live with us when we come\ntogether, she will do her best to make you happy, and to convince her\nhusband's friend that he is her friend too. We should get on so well,\nHandel!\"\n\nI thanked her heartily, and I thanked him heartily, but said I could not\nyet make sure of joining him as he so kindly offered. Firstly, my\nmind was too preoccupied to be able to take in the subject clearly.\nSecondly,--Yes! Secondly, there was a vague something lingering in my\nthoughts that will come out very near the end of this slight narrative.\n\n\"But if you thought, Herbert, that you could, without doing any injury\nto your business, leave the question open for a little while--\"\n\n\"For any while,\" cried Herbert. \"Six months, a year!\"\n\n\"Not so long as that,\" said I. \"Two or three months at most.\"\n\nHerbert was highly delighted when we shook hands on this arrangement,\nand said he could now take courage to tell me that he believed he must\ngo away at the end of the week.\n\n\"And Clara?\" said I.\n\n\"The dear little thing,\" returned Herbert, \"holds dutifully to her\nfather as long as he lasts; but he won't last long. Mrs. Whimple\nconfides to me that he is certainly going.\"\n\n\"Not to say an unfeeling thing,\" said I, \"he cannot do better than go.\"\n\n\"I am afraid that must be admitted,\" said Herbert; \"and then I shall\ncome back for the dear little thing, and the dear little thing and I\nwill walk quietly into the nearest church. Remember! The blessed darling\ncomes of no family, my dear Handel, and never looked into the red book,\nand hasn't a notion about her grandpapa. What a fortune for the son of\nmy mother!\"\n\nOn the Saturday in that same week, I took my leave of Herbert,--full\nof bright hope, but sad and sorry to leave me,--as he sat on one of the\nseaport mail coaches. I went into a coffee-house to write a little note\nto Clara, telling her he had gone off, sending his love to her over and\nover again, and then went to my lonely home,--if it deserved the name;\nfor it was now no home to me, and I had no home anywhere.\n\nOn the stairs I encountered Wemmick, who was coming down, after an\nunsuccessful application of his knuckles to my door. I had not seen him\nalone since the disastrous issue of the attempted flight; and he had\ncome, in his private and personal capacity, to say a few words of\nexplanation in reference to that failure.\n\n\"The late Compeyson,\" said Wemmick, \"had by little and little got at the\nbottom of half of the regular business now transacted; and it was from\nthe talk of some of his people in trouble (some of his people being\nalways in trouble) that I heard what I did. I kept my ears open, seeming\nto have them shut, until I heard that he was absent, and I thought that\nwould be the best time for making the attempt. I can only suppose now,\nthat it was a part of his policy, as a very clever man, habitually to\ndeceive his own instruments. You don't blame me, I hope, Mr. Pip? I am\nsure I tried to serve you, with all my heart.\"\n\n\"I am as sure of that, Wemmick, as you can be, and I thank you most\nearnestly for all your interest and friendship.\"\n\n\"Thank you, thank you very much. It's a bad job,\" said Wemmick,\nscratching his head, \"and I assure you I haven't been so cut up for a\nlong time. What I look at is the sacrifice of so much portable property.\nDear me!\"\n\n\"What I think of, Wemmick, is the poor owner of the property.\"\n\n\"Yes, to be sure,\" said Wemmick. \"Of course, there can be no objection\nto your being sorry for him, and I'd put down a five-pound note myself\nto get him out of it. But what I look at is this. The late Compeyson\nhaving been beforehand with him in intelligence of his return, and being\nso determined to bring him to book, I do not think he could have been\nsaved. Whereas, the portable property certainly could have been saved.\nThat's the difference between the property and the owner, don't you\nsee?\"\n\nI invited Wemmick to come upstairs, and refresh himself with a glass\nof grog before walking to Walworth. He accepted the invitation. While he\nwas drinking his moderate allowance, he said, with nothing to lead up to\nit, and after having appeared rather fidgety,--\n\n\"What do you think of my meaning to take a holiday on Monday, Mr. Pip?\"\n\n\"Why, I suppose you have not done such a thing these twelve months.\"\n\n\"These twelve years, more likely,\" said Wemmick. \"Yes. I'm going to take\na holiday. More than that; I'm going to take a walk. More than that; I'm\ngoing to ask you to take a walk with me.\"\n\nI was about to excuse myself, as being but a bad companion just then,\nwhen Wemmick anticipated me.\n\n\"I know your engagements,\" said he, \"and I know you are out of sorts,\nMr. Pip. But if you could oblige me, I should take it as a kindness.\nIt ain't a long walk, and it's an early one. Say it might occupy you\n(including breakfast on the walk) from eight to twelve. Couldn't you\nstretch a point and manage it?\"\n\nHe had done so much for me at various times, that this was very little\nto do for him. I said I could manage it,--would manage it,--and he was\nso very much pleased by my acquiescence, that I was pleased too. At his\nparticular request, I appointed to call for him at the Castle at half\npast eight on Monday morning, and so we parted for the time.\n\nPunctual to my appointment, I rang at the Castle gate on the Monday\nmorning, and was received by Wemmick himself, who struck me as looking\ntighter than usual, and having a sleeker hat on. Within, there were two\nglasses of rum and milk prepared, and two biscuits. The Aged must have\nbeen stirring with the lark, for, glancing into the perspective of his\nbedroom, I observed that his bed was empty.\n\nWhen we had fortified ourselves with the rum and milk and biscuits, and\nwere going out for the walk with that training preparation on us, I was\nconsiderably surprised to see Wemmick take up a fishing-rod, and put\nit over his shoulder. \"Why, we are not going fishing!\" said I. \"No,\"\nreturned Wemmick, \"but I like to walk with one.\"\n\nI thought this odd; however, I said nothing, and we set off. We went\ntowards Camberwell Green, and when we were thereabouts, Wemmick said\nsuddenly,--\n\n\"Halloa! Here's a church!\"\n\nThere was nothing very surprising in that; but again, I was rather\nsurprised, when he said, as if he were animated by a brilliant idea,--\n\n\"Let's go in!\"\n\nWe went in, Wemmick leaving his fishing-rod in the porch, and looked all\nround. In the mean time, Wemmick was diving into his coat-pockets, and\ngetting something out of paper there.\n\n\"Halloa!\" said he. \"Here's a couple of pair of gloves! Let's put 'em\non!\"\n\nAs the gloves were white kid gloves, and as the post-office was widened\nto its utmost extent, I now began to have my strong suspicions. They\nwere strengthened into certainty when I beheld the Aged enter at a side\ndoor, escorting a lady.\n\n\"Halloa!\" said Wemmick. \"Here's Miss Skiffins! Let's have a wedding.\"\n\nThat discreet damsel was attired as usual, except that she was now\nengaged in substituting for her green kid gloves a pair of white. The\nAged was likewise occupied in preparing a similar sacrifice for\nthe altar of Hymen. The old gentleman, however, experienced so much\ndifficulty in getting his gloves on, that Wemmick found it necessary\nto put him with his back against a pillar, and then to get behind the\npillar himself and pull away at them, while I for my part held the old\ngentleman round the waist, that he might present an equal and safe\nresistance. By dint of this ingenious scheme, his gloves were got on to\nperfection.\n\nThe clerk and clergyman then appearing, we were ranged in order at\nthose fatal rails. True to his notion of seeming to do it all without\npreparation, I heard Wemmick say to himself, as he took something out of\nhis waistcoat-pocket before the service began, \"Halloa! Here's a ring!\"\n\nI acted in the capacity of backer, or best-man, to the bridegroom; while\na little limp pew-opener in a soft bonnet like a baby's, made a feint\nof being the bosom friend of Miss Skiffins. The responsibility of giving\nthe lady away devolved upon the Aged, which led to the clergyman's being\nunintentionally scandalized, and it happened thus. When he said, \"Who\ngiveth this woman to be married to this man?\" the old gentleman, not in\nthe least knowing what point of the ceremony we had arrived at, stood\nmost amiably beaming at the ten commandments. Upon which, the clergyman\nsaid again, \"WHO giveth this woman to be married to this man?\" The old\ngentleman being still in a state of most estimable unconsciousness, the\nbridegroom cried out in his accustomed voice, \"Now Aged P. you know; who\ngiveth?\" To which the Aged replied with great briskness, before saying\nthat he gave, \"All right, John, all right, my boy!\" And the clergyman\ncame to so gloomy a pause upon it, that I had doubts for the moment\nwhether we should get completely married that day.\n\nIt was completely done, however, and when we were going out of church\nWemmick took the cover off the font, and put his white gloves in it, and\nput the cover on again. Mrs. Wemmick, more heedful of the future, put\nher white gloves in her pocket and assumed her green. \"Now, Mr. Pip,\"\nsaid Wemmick, triumphantly shouldering the fishing-rod as we came\nout, \"let me ask you whether anybody would suppose this to be a\nwedding-party!\"\n\nBreakfast had been ordered at a pleasant little tavern, a mile or so\naway upon the rising ground beyond the green; and there was a bagatelle\nboard in the room, in case we should desire to unbend our minds after\nthe solemnity. It was pleasant to observe that Mrs. Wemmick no longer\nunwound Wemmick's arm when it adapted itself to her figure, but sat in a\nhigh-backed chair against the wall, like a violoncello in its case, and\nsubmitted to be embraced as that melodious instrument might have done.\n\nWe had an excellent breakfast, and when any one declined anything on\ntable, Wemmick said, \"Provided by contract, you know; don't be afraid of\nit!\" I drank to the new couple, drank to the Aged, drank to the Castle,\nsaluted the bride at parting, and made myself as agreeable as I could.\n\nWemmick came down to the door with me, and I again shook hands with him,\nand wished him joy.\n\n\"Thankee!\" said Wemmick, rubbing his hands. \"She's such a manager\nof fowls, you have no idea. You shall have some eggs, and judge for\nyourself. I say, Mr. Pip!\" calling me back, and speaking low. \"This is\naltogether a Walworth sentiment, please.\"\n\n\"I understand. Not to be mentioned in Little Britain,\" said I.\n\nWemmick nodded. \"After what you let out the other day, Mr. Jaggers\nmay as well not know of it. He might think my brain was softening, or\nsomething of the kind.\"\n\n\n\n\nChapter LVI\n\nHe lay in prison very ill, during the whole interval between his\ncommittal for trial and the coming round of the Sessions. He had broken\ntwo ribs, they had wounded one of his lungs, and he breathed with great\npain and difficulty, which increased daily. It was a consequence of his\nhurt that he spoke so low as to be scarcely audible; therefore he spoke\nvery little. But he was ever ready to listen to me; and it became the\nfirst duty of my life to say to him, and read to him, what I knew he\nought to hear.\n\nBeing far too ill to remain in the common prison, he was removed, after\nthe first day or so, into the infirmary. This gave me opportunities\nof being with him that I could not otherwise have had. And but for\nhis illness he would have been put in irons, for he was regarded as a\ndetermined prison-breaker, and I know not what else.\n\nAlthough I saw him every day, it was for only a short time; hence, the\nregularly recurring spaces of our separation were long enough to record\non his face any slight changes that occurred in his physical state. I\ndo not recollect that I once saw any change in it for the better; he\nwasted, and became slowly weaker and worse, day by day, from the day\nwhen the prison door closed upon him.\n\nThe kind of submission or resignation that he showed was that of a man\nwho was tired out. I sometimes derived an impression, from his manner\nor from a whispered word or two which escaped him, that he pondered\nover the question whether he might have been a better man under better\ncircumstances. But he never justified himself by a hint tending that\nway, or tried to bend the past out of its eternal shape.\n\nIt happened on two or three occasions in my presence, that his desperate\nreputation was alluded to by one or other of the people in attendance on\nhim. A smile crossed his face then, and he turned his eyes on me with\na trustful look, as if he were confident that I had seen some small\nredeeming touch in him, even so long ago as when I was a little child.\nAs to all the rest, he was humble and contrite, and I never knew him\ncomplain.\n\nWhen the Sessions came round, Mr. Jaggers caused an application to be\nmade for the postponement of his trial until the following Sessions. It\nwas obviously made with the assurance that he could not live so long,\nand was refused. The trial came on at once, and, when he was put to the\nbar, he was seated in a chair. No objection was made to my getting\nclose to the dock, on the outside of it, and holding the hand that he\nstretched forth to me.\n\nThe trial was very short and very clear. Such things as could be said\nfor him were said,--how he had taken to industrious habits, and had\nthriven lawfully and reputably. But nothing could unsay the fact that\nhe had returned, and was there in presence of the Judge and Jury. It was\nimpossible to try him for that, and do otherwise than find him guilty.\n\nAt that time, it was the custom (as I learnt from my terrible experience\nof that Sessions) to devote a concluding day to the passing of\nSentences, and to make a finishing effect with the Sentence of Death.\nBut for the indelible picture that my remembrance now holds before me,\nI could scarcely believe, even as I write these words, that I saw\ntwo-and-thirty men and women put before the Judge to receive that\nsentence together. Foremost among the two-and-thirty was he; seated,\nthat he might get breath enough to keep life in him.\n\nThe whole scene starts out again in the vivid colors of the moment, down\nto the drops of April rain on the windows of the court, glittering in\nthe rays of April sun. Penned in the dock, as I again stood outside it\nat the corner with his hand in mine, were the two-and-thirty men\nand women; some defiant, some stricken with terror, some sobbing and\nweeping, some covering their faces, some staring gloomily about. There\nhad been shrieks from among the women convicts; but they had been\nstilled, and a hush had succeeded. The sheriffs with their great chains\nand nosegays, other civic gewgaws and monsters, criers, ushers, a great\ngallery full of people,--a large theatrical audience,--looked on, as the\ntwo-and-thirty and the Judge were solemnly confronted. Then the Judge\naddressed them. Among the wretched creatures before him whom he must\nsingle out for special address was one who almost from his infancy had\nbeen an offender against the laws; who, after repeated imprisonments and\npunishments, had been at length sentenced to exile for a term of years;\nand who, under circumstances of great violence and daring, had made his\nescape and been re-sentenced to exile for life. That miserable man would\nseem for a time to have become convinced of his errors, when far removed\nfrom the scenes of his old offences, and to have lived a peaceable and\nhonest life. But in a fatal moment, yielding to those propensities and\npassions, the indulgence of which had so long rendered him a scourge to\nsociety, he had quitted his haven of rest and repentance, and had\ncome back to the country where he was proscribed. Being here presently\ndenounced, he had for a time succeeded in evading the officers of\nJustice, but being at length seized while in the act of flight, he had\nresisted them, and had--he best knew whether by express design, or in\nthe blindness of his hardihood--caused the death of his denouncer, to\nwhom his whole career was known. The appointed punishment for his return\nto the land that had cast him out, being Death, and his case being this\naggravated case, he must prepare himself to Die.\n\nThe sun was striking in at the great windows of the court, through the\nglittering drops of rain upon the glass, and it made a broad shaft of\nlight between the two-and-thirty and the Judge, linking both together,\nand perhaps reminding some among the audience how both were passing on,\nwith absolute equality, to the greater Judgment that knoweth all things,\nand cannot err. Rising for a moment, a distinct speck of face in this\nway of light, the prisoner said, \"My Lord, I have received my sentence\nof Death from the Almighty, but I bow to yours,\" and sat down again.\nThere was some hushing, and the Judge went on with what he had to say\nto the rest. Then they were all formally doomed, and some of them were\nsupported out, and some of them sauntered out with a haggard look of\nbravery, and a few nodded to the gallery, and two or three shook hands,\nand others went out chewing the fragments of herb they had taken from\nthe sweet herbs lying about. He went last of all, because of having to\nbe helped from his chair, and to go very slowly; and he held my hand\nwhile all the others were removed, and while the audience got up\n(putting their dresses right, as they might at church or elsewhere), and\npointed down at this criminal or at that, and most of all at him and me.\n\nI earnestly hoped and prayed that he might die before the Recorder's\nReport was made; but, in the dread of his lingering on, I began that\nnight to write out a petition to the Home Secretary of State, setting\nforth my knowledge of him, and how it was that he had come back for my\nsake. I wrote it as fervently and pathetically as I could; and when I\nhad finished it and sent it in, I wrote out other petitions to such men\nin authority as I hoped were the most merciful, and drew up one to the\nCrown itself. For several days and nights after he was sentenced I took\nno rest except when I fell asleep in my chair, but was wholly absorbed\nin these appeals. And after I had sent them in, I could not keep away\nfrom the places where they were, but felt as if they were more\nhopeful and less desperate when I was near them. In this unreasonable\nrestlessness and pain of mind I would roam the streets of an evening,\nwandering by those offices and houses where I had left the petitions. To\nthe present hour, the weary western streets of London on a cold, dusty\nspring night, with their ranges of stern, shut-up mansions, and their\nlong rows of lamps, are melancholy to me from this association.\n\nThe daily visits I could make him were shortened now, and he was more\nstrictly kept. Seeing, or fancying, that I was suspected of an intention\nof carrying poison to him, I asked to be searched before I sat down\nat his bedside, and told the officer who was always there, that I was\nwilling to do anything that would assure him of the singleness of my\ndesigns. Nobody was hard with him or with me. There was duty to be\ndone, and it was done, but not harshly. The officer always gave me the\nassurance that he was worse, and some other sick prisoners in the\nroom, and some other prisoners who attended on them as sick nurses,\n(malefactors, but not incapable of kindness, God be thanked!) always\njoined in the same report.\n\nAs the days went on, I noticed more and more that he would lie placidly\nlooking at the white ceiling, with an absence of light in his face\nuntil some word of mine brightened it for an instant, and then it would\nsubside again. Sometimes he was almost or quite unable to speak, then\nhe would answer me with slight pressures on my hand, and I grew to\nunderstand his meaning very well.\n\nThe number of the days had risen to ten, when I saw a greater change\nin him than I had seen yet. His eyes were turned towards the door, and\nlighted up as I entered.\n\n\"Dear boy,\" he said, as I sat down by his bed: \"I thought you was late.\nBut I knowed you couldn't be that.\"\n\n\"It is just the time,\" said I. \"I waited for it at the gate.\"\n\n\"You always waits at the gate; don't you, dear boy?\"\n\n\"Yes. Not to lose a moment of the time.\"\n\n\"Thank'ee dear boy, thank'ee. God bless you! You've never deserted me,\ndear boy.\"\n\nI pressed his hand in silence, for I could not forget that I had once\nmeant to desert him.\n\n\"And what's the best of all,\" he said, \"you've been more comfortable\nalonger me, since I was under a dark cloud, than when the sun shone.\nThat's best of all.\"\n\nHe lay on his back, breathing with great difficulty. Do what he would,\nand love me though he did, the light left his face ever and again, and a\nfilm came over the placid look at the white ceiling.\n\n\"Are you in much pain to-day?\"\n\n\"I don't complain of none, dear boy.\"\n\n\"You never do complain.\"\n\nHe had spoken his last words. He smiled, and I understood his touch to\nmean that he wished to lift my hand, and lay it on his breast. I laid it\nthere, and he smiled again, and put both his hands upon it.\n\nThe allotted time ran out, while we were thus; but, looking round, I\nfound the governor of the prison standing near me, and he whispered,\n\"You needn't go yet.\" I thanked him gratefully, and asked, \"Might I\nspeak to him, if he can hear me?\"\n\nThe governor stepped aside, and beckoned the officer away. The change,\nthough it was made without noise, drew back the film from the placid\nlook at the white ceiling, and he looked most affectionately at me.\n\n\"Dear Magwitch, I must tell you now, at last. You understand what I\nsay?\"\n\nA gentle pressure on my hand.\n\n\"You had a child once, whom you loved and lost.\"\n\nA stronger pressure on my hand.\n\n\"She lived, and found powerful friends. She is living now. She is a lady\nand very beautiful. And I love her!\"\n\nWith a last faint effort, which would have been powerless but for my\nyielding to it and assisting it, he raised my hand to his lips. Then,\nhe gently let it sink upon his breast again, with his own hands lying on\nit. The placid look at the white ceiling came back, and passed away, and\nhis head dropped quietly on his breast.\n\nMindful, then, of what we had read together, I thought of the two men\nwho went up into the Temple to pray, and I knew there were no better\nwords that I could say beside his bed, than \"O Lord, be merciful to him\na sinner!\"\n\n\n\n\nChapter LVII\n\nNow that I was left wholly to myself, I gave notice of my intention\nto quit the chambers in the Temple as soon as my tenancy could legally\ndetermine, and in the meanwhile to underlet them. At once I put bills\nup in the windows; for, I was in debt, and had scarcely any money, and\nbegan to be seriously alarmed by the state of my affairs. I ought\nrather to write that I should have been alarmed if I had had energy and\nconcentration enough to help me to the clear perception of any truth\nbeyond the fact that I was falling very ill. The late stress upon me had\nenabled me to put off illness, but not to put it away; I knew that it\nwas coming on me now, and I knew very little else, and was even careless\nas to that.\n\nFor a day or two, I lay on the sofa, or on the floor,--anywhere,\naccording as I happened to sink down,--with a heavy head and aching\nlimbs, and no purpose, and no power. Then there came, one night which\nappeared of great duration, and which teemed with anxiety and horror;\nand when in the morning I tried to sit up in my bed and think of it, I\nfound I could not do so.\n\nWhether I really had been down in Garden Court in the dead of the night,\ngroping about for the boat that I supposed to be there; whether I had\ntwo or three times come to myself on the staircase with great terror,\nnot knowing how I had got out of bed; whether I had found myself\nlighting the lamp, possessed by the idea that he was coming up\nthe stairs, and that the lights were blown out; whether I had been\ninexpressibly harassed by the distracted talking, laughing, and groaning\nof some one, and had half suspected those sounds to be of my own making;\nwhether there had been a closed iron furnace in a dark corner of\nthe room, and a voice had called out, over and over again, that Miss\nHavisham was consuming within it,--these were things that I tried to\nsettle with myself and get into some order, as I lay that morning on\nmy bed. But the vapor of a limekiln would come between me and them,\ndisordering them all, and it was through the vapor at last that I saw\ntwo men looking at me.\n\n\"What do you want?\" I asked, starting; \"I don't know you.\"\n\n\"Well, sir,\" returned one of them, bending down and touching me on the\nshoulder, \"this is a matter that you'll soon arrange, I dare say, but\nyou're arrested.\"\n\n\"What is the debt?\"\n\n\"Hundred and twenty-three pound, fifteen, six. Jeweller's account, I\nthink.\"\n\n\"What is to be done?\"\n\n\"You had better come to my house,\" said the man. \"I keep a very nice\nhouse.\"\n\nI made some attempt to get up and dress myself. When I next attended\nto them, they were standing a little off from the bed, looking at me. I\nstill lay there.\n\n\"You see my state,\" said I. \"I would come with you if I could; but\nindeed I am quite unable. If you take me from here, I think I shall die\nby the way.\"\n\nPerhaps they replied, or argued the point, or tried to encourage me to\nbelieve that I was better than I thought. Forasmuch as they hang in\nmy memory by only this one slender thread, I don't know what they did,\nexcept that they forbore to remove me.\n\nThat I had a fever and was avoided, that I suffered greatly, that\nI often lost my reason, that the time seemed interminable, that I\nconfounded impossible existences with my own identity; that I was a\nbrick in the house-wall, and yet entreating to be released from the\ngiddy place where the builders had set me; that I was a steel beam of a\nvast engine, clashing and whirling over a gulf, and yet that I implored\nin my own person to have the engine stopped, and my part in it hammered\noff; that I passed through these phases of disease, I know of my own\nremembrance, and did in some sort know at the time. That I sometimes\nstruggled with real people, in the belief that they were murderers, and\nthat I would all at once comprehend that they meant to do me good, and\nwould then sink exhausted in their arms, and suffer them to lay me\ndown, I also knew at the time. But, above all, I knew that there was a\nconstant tendency in all these people,--who, when I was very ill, would\npresent all kinds of extraordinary transformations of the human face,\nand would be much dilated in size,--above all, I say, I knew that there\nwas an extraordinary tendency in all these people, sooner or later, to\nsettle down into the likeness of Joe.\n\nAfter I had turned the worst point of my illness, I began to notice that\nwhile all its other features changed, this one consistent feature did\nnot change. Whoever came about me, still settled down into Joe. I opened\nmy eyes in the night, and I saw, in the great chair at the bedside, Joe.\nI opened my eyes in the day, and, sitting on the window-seat, smoking\nhis pipe in the shaded open window, still I saw Joe. I asked for cooling\ndrink, and the dear hand that gave it me was Joe's. I sank back on\nmy pillow after drinking, and the face that looked so hopefully and\ntenderly upon me was the face of Joe.\n\nAt last, one day, I took courage, and said, \"Is it Joe?\"\n\nAnd the dear old home-voice answered, \"Which it air, old chap.\"\n\n\"O Joe, you break my heart! Look angry at me, Joe. Strike me, Joe. Tell\nme of my ingratitude. Don't be so good to me!\"\n\nFor Joe had actually laid his head down on the pillow at my side, and\nput his arm round my neck, in his joy that I knew him.\n\n\"Which dear old Pip, old chap,\" said Joe, \"you and me was ever friends.\nAnd when you're well enough to go out for a ride--what larks!\"\n\nAfter which, Joe withdrew to the window, and stood with his back towards\nme, wiping his eyes. And as my extreme weakness prevented me from\ngetting up and going to him, I lay there, penitently whispering, \"O God\nbless him! O God bless this gentle Christian man!\"\n\nJoe's eyes were red when I next found him beside me; but I was holding\nhis hand, and we both felt happy.\n\n\"How long, dear Joe?\"\n\n\"Which you meantersay, Pip, how long have your illness lasted, dear old\nchap?\"\n\n\"Yes, Joe.\"\n\n\"It's the end of May, Pip. To-morrow is the first of June.\"\n\n\"And have you been here all that time, dear Joe?\"\n\n\"Pretty nigh, old chap. For, as I says to Biddy when the news of your\nbeing ill were brought by letter, which it were brought by the post, and\nbeing formerly single he is now married though underpaid for a deal of\nwalking and shoe-leather, but wealth were not a object on his part, and\nmarriage were the great wish of his hart--\"\n\n\"It is so delightful to hear you, Joe! But I interrupt you in what you\nsaid to Biddy.\"\n\n\"Which it were,\" said Joe, \"that how you might be amongst strangers, and\nthat how you and me having been ever friends, a wisit at such a moment\nmight not prove unacceptabobble. And Biddy, her word were, 'Go to him,\nwithout loss of time.' That,\" said Joe, summing up with his judicial\nair, \"were the word of Biddy. 'Go to him,' Biddy say, 'without loss of\ntime.' In short, I shouldn't greatly deceive you,\" Joe added, after a\nlittle grave reflection, \"if I represented to you that the word of that\nyoung woman were, 'without a minute's loss of time.'\"\n\nThere Joe cut himself short, and informed me that I was to be talked\nto in great moderation, and that I was to take a little nourishment at\nstated frequent times, whether I felt inclined for it or not, and that\nI was to submit myself to all his orders. So I kissed his hand, and lay\nquiet, while he proceeded to indite a note to Biddy, with my love in it.\n\nEvidently Biddy had taught Joe to write. As I lay in bed looking at him,\nit made me, in my weak state, cry again with pleasure to see the\npride with which he set about his letter. My bedstead, divested of its\ncurtains, had been removed, with me upon it, into the sitting-room, as\nthe airiest and largest, and the carpet had been taken away, and\nthe room kept always fresh and wholesome night and day. At my own\nwriting-table, pushed into a corner and cumbered with little bottles,\nJoe now sat down to his great work, first choosing a pen from the\npen-tray as if it were a chest of large tools, and tucking up his\nsleeves as if he were going to wield a crow-bar or sledgehammer. It was\nnecessary for Joe to hold on heavily to the table with his left elbow,\nand to get his right leg well out behind him, before he could begin; and\nwhen he did begin he made every downstroke so slowly that it might\nhave been six feet long, while at every upstroke I could hear his pen\nspluttering extensively. He had a curious idea that the inkstand was\non the side of him where it was not, and constantly dipped his pen into\nspace, and seemed quite satisfied with the result. Occasionally, he was\ntripped up by some orthographical stumbling-block; but on the whole\nhe got on very well indeed; and when he had signed his name, and had\nremoved a finishing blot from the paper to the crown of his head with\nhis two forefingers, he got up and hovered about the table, trying the\neffect of his performance from various points of view, as it lay there,\nwith unbounded satisfaction.\n\nNot to make Joe uneasy by talking too much, even if I had been able to\ntalk much, I deferred asking him about Miss Havisham until next day. He\nshook his head when I then asked him if she had recovered.\n\n\"Is she dead, Joe?\"\n\n\"Why you see, old chap,\" said Joe, in a tone of remonstrance, and by way\nof getting at it by degrees, \"I wouldn't go so far as to say that, for\nthat's a deal to say; but she ain't--\"\n\n\"Living, Joe?\"\n\n\"That's nigher where it is,\" said Joe; \"she ain't living.\"\n\n\"Did she linger long, Joe?\"\n\n\"Arter you was took ill, pretty much about what you might call (if you\nwas put to it) a week,\" said Joe; still determined, on my account, to\ncome at everything by degrees.\n\n\"Dear Joe, have you heard what becomes of her property?\"\n\n\"Well, old chap,\" said Joe, \"it do appear that she had settled the most\nof it, which I meantersay tied it up, on Miss Estella. But she had\nwrote out a little coddleshell in her own hand a day or two afore the\naccident, leaving a cool four thousand to Mr. Matthew Pocket. And why,\ndo you suppose, above all things, Pip, she left that cool four thousand\nunto him? 'Because of Pip's account of him, the said Matthew.' I am told\nby Biddy, that air the writing,\" said Joe, repeating the legal turn as\nif it did him infinite good, \"'account of him the said Matthew.' And a\ncool four thousand, Pip!\"\n\nI never discovered from whom Joe derived the conventional temperature of\nthe four thousand pounds; but it appeared to make the sum of money more\nto him, and he had a manifest relish in insisting on its being cool.\n\nThis account gave me great joy, as it perfected the only good thing I\nhad done. I asked Joe whether he had heard if any of the other relations\nhad any legacies?\n\n\"Miss Sarah,\" said Joe, \"she have twenty-five pound perannium fur to\nbuy pills, on account of being bilious. Miss Georgiana, she have twenty\npound down. Mrs.--what's the name of them wild beasts with humps, old\nchap?\"\n\n\"Camels?\" said I, wondering why he could possibly want to know.\n\nJoe nodded. \"Mrs. Camels,\" by which I presently understood he meant\nCamilla, \"she have five pound fur to buy rushlights to put her in\nspirits when she wake up in the night.\"\n\nThe accuracy of these recitals was sufficiently obvious to me, to give\nme great confidence in Joe's information. \"And now,\" said Joe, \"you\nain't that strong yet, old chap, that you can take in more nor one\nadditional shovelful to-day. Old Orlick he's been a bustin' open a\ndwelling-ouse.\"\n\n\"Whose?\" said I.\n\n\"Not, I grant you, but what his manners is given to blusterous,\" said\nJoe, apologetically; \"still, a Englishman's ouse is his Castle, and\ncastles must not be busted 'cept when done in war time. And wotsume'er\nthe failings on his part, he were a corn and seedsman in his hart.\"\n\n\"Is it Pumblechook's house that has been broken into, then?\"\n\n\"That's it, Pip,\" said Joe; \"and they took his till, and they took his\ncash-box, and they drinked his wine, and they partook of his wittles,\nand they slapped his face, and they pulled his nose, and they tied him\nup to his bedpust, and they giv' him a dozen, and they stuffed his\nmouth full of flowering annuals to prewent his crying out. But he knowed\nOrlick, and Orlick's in the county jail.\"\n\nBy these approaches we arrived at unrestricted conversation. I was slow\nto gain strength, but I did slowly and surely become less weak, and Joe\nstayed with me, and I fancied I was little Pip again.\n\nFor the tenderness of Joe was so beautifully proportioned to my need,\nthat I was like a child in his hands. He would sit and talk to me in the\nold confidence, and with the old simplicity, and in the old unassertive\nprotecting way, so that I would half believe that all my life since the\ndays of the old kitchen was one of the mental troubles of the fever that\nwas gone. He did everything for me except the household work, for which\nhe had engaged a very decent woman, after paying off the laundress on\nhis first arrival. \"Which I do assure you, Pip,\" he would often say, in\nexplanation of that liberty; \"I found her a tapping the spare bed, like\na cask of beer, and drawing off the feathers in a bucket, for sale.\nWhich she would have tapped yourn next, and draw'd it off with you a\nlaying on it, and was then a carrying away the coals gradiwally in\nthe soup-tureen and wegetable-dishes, and the wine and spirits in your\nWellington boots.\"\n\nWe looked forward to the day when I should go out for a ride, as we had\nonce looked forward to the day of my apprenticeship. And when the day\ncame, and an open carriage was got into the Lane, Joe wrapped me up,\ntook me in his arms, carried me down to it, and put me in, as if I were\nstill the small helpless creature to whom he had so abundantly given of\nthe wealth of his great nature.\n\nAnd Joe got in beside me, and we drove away together into the country,\nwhere the rich summer growth was already on the trees and on the grass,\nand sweet summer scents filled all the air. The day happened to be\nSunday, and when I looked on the loveliness around me, and thought\nhow it had grown and changed, and how the little wild-flowers had been\nforming, and the voices of the birds had been strengthening, by day and\nby night, under the sun and under the stars, while poor I lay burning\nand tossing on my bed, the mere remembrance of having burned and tossed\nthere came like a check upon my peace. But when I heard the Sunday\nbells, and looked around a little more upon the outspread beauty, I felt\nthat I was not nearly thankful enough,--that I was too weak yet to be\neven that,--and I laid my head on Joe's shoulder, as I had laid it long\nago when he had taken me to the Fair or where not, and it was too much\nfor my young senses.\n\nMore composure came to me after a while, and we talked as we used\nto talk, lying on the grass at the old Battery. There was no change\nwhatever in Joe. Exactly what he had been in my eyes then, he was in my\neyes still; just as simply faithful, and as simply right.\n\nWhen we got back again, and he lifted me out, and carried me--so\neasily!--across the court and up the stairs, I thought of that eventful\nChristmas Day when he had carried me over the marshes. We had not yet\nmade any allusion to my change of fortune, nor did I know how much of\nmy late history he was acquainted with. I was so doubtful of myself now,\nand put so much trust in him, that I could not satisfy myself whether I\nought to refer to it when he did not.\n\n\"Have you heard, Joe,\" I asked him that evening, upon further\nconsideration, as he smoked his pipe at the window, \"who my patron was?\"\n\n\"I heerd,\" returned Joe, \"as it were not Miss Havisham, old chap.\"\n\n\"Did you hear who it was, Joe?\"\n\n\"Well! I heerd as it were a person what sent the person what giv' you\nthe bank-notes at the Jolly Bargemen, Pip.\"\n\n\"So it was.\"\n\n\"Astonishing!\" said Joe, in the placidest way.\n\n\"Did you hear that he was dead, Joe?\" I presently asked, with increasing\ndiffidence.\n\n\"Which? Him as sent the bank-notes, Pip?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I think,\" said Joe, after meditating a long time, and looking rather\nevasively at the window-seat, \"as I did hear tell that how he were\nsomething or another in a general way in that direction.\"\n\n\"Did you hear anything of his circumstances, Joe?\"\n\n\"Not partickler, Pip.\"\n\n\"If you would like to hear, Joe--\" I was beginning, when Joe got up and\ncame to my sofa.\n\n\"Lookee here, old chap,\" said Joe, bending over me. \"Ever the best of\nfriends; ain't us, Pip?\"\n\nI was ashamed to answer him.\n\n\"Wery good, then,\" said Joe, as if I had answered; \"that's all right;\nthat's agreed upon. Then why go into subjects, old chap, which as\nbetwixt two sech must be for ever onnecessary? There's subjects enough\nas betwixt two sech, without onnecessary ones. Lord! To think of your\npoor sister and her Rampages! And don't you remember Tickler?\"\n\n\"I do indeed, Joe.\"\n\n\"Lookee here, old chap,\" said Joe. \"I done what I could to keep you\nand Tickler in sunders, but my power were not always fully equal to my\ninclinations. For when your poor sister had a mind to drop into you, it\nwere not so much,\" said Joe, in his favorite argumentative way, \"that\nshe dropped into me too, if I put myself in opposition to her, but that\nshe dropped into you always heavier for it. I noticed that. It ain't a\ngrab at a man's whisker, not yet a shake or two of a man (to which your\nsister was quite welcome), that 'ud put a man off from getting a little\nchild out of punishment. But when that little child is dropped into\nheavier for that grab of whisker or shaking, then that man naterally up\nand says to himself, 'Where is the good as you are a doing? I grant you\nI see the 'arm,' says the man, 'but I don't see the good. I call upon\nyou, sir, therefore, to pint out the good.'\"\n\n\"The man says?\" I observed, as Joe waited for me to speak.\n\n\"The man says,\" Joe assented. \"Is he right, that man?\"\n\n\"Dear Joe, he is always right.\"\n\n\"Well, old chap,\" said Joe, \"then abide by your words. If he's always\nright (which in general he's more likely wrong), he's right when he says\nthis: Supposing ever you kep any little matter to yourself, when you\nwas a little child, you kep it mostly because you know'd as J. Gargery's\npower to part you and Tickler in sunders were not fully equal to his\ninclinations. Theerfore, think no more of it as betwixt two sech, and do\nnot let us pass remarks upon onnecessary subjects. Biddy giv' herself a\ndeal o' trouble with me afore I left (for I am almost awful dull), as I\nshould view it in this light, and, viewing it in this light, as I should\nso put it. Both of which,\" said Joe, quite charmed with his logical\narrangement, \"being done, now this to you a true friend, say. Namely.\nYou mustn't go a overdoing on it, but you must have your supper and your\nwine and water, and you must be put betwixt the sheets.\"\n\nThe delicacy with which Joe dismissed this theme, and the sweet tact and\nkindness with which Biddy--who with her woman's wit had found me out so\nsoon--had prepared him for it, made a deep impression on my mind. But\nwhether Joe knew how poor I was, and how my great expectations had\nall dissolved, like our own marsh mists before the sun, I could not\nunderstand.\n\nAnother thing in Joe that I could not understand when it first began to\ndevelop itself, but which I soon arrived at a sorrowful comprehension\nof, was this: As I became stronger and better, Joe became a little less\neasy with me. In my weakness and entire dependence on him, the dear\nfellow had fallen into the old tone, and called me by the old names,\nthe dear \"old Pip, old chap,\" that now were music in my ears. I too had\nfallen into the old ways, only happy and thankful that he let me. But,\nimperceptibly, though I held by them fast, Joe's hold upon them began\nto slacken; and whereas I wondered at this, at first, I soon began to\nunderstand that the cause of it was in me, and that the fault of it was\nall mine.\n\nAh! Had I given Joe no reason to doubt my constancy, and to think that\nin prosperity I should grow cold to him and cast him off? Had I given\nJoe's innocent heart no cause to feel instinctively that as I got\nstronger, his hold upon me would be weaker, and that he had better\nloosen it in time and let me go, before I plucked myself away?\n\nIt was on the third or fourth occasion of my going out walking in the\nTemple Gardens leaning on Joe's arm, that I saw this change in him very\nplainly. We had been sitting in the bright warm sunlight, looking at the\nriver, and I chanced to say as we got up,--\n\n\"See, Joe! I can walk quite strongly. Now, you shall see me walk back by\nmyself.\"\n\n\"Which do not overdo it, Pip,\" said Joe; \"but I shall be happy fur to\nsee you able, sir.\"\n\nThe last word grated on me; but how could I remonstrate! I walked no\nfurther than the gate of the gardens, and then pretended to be\nweaker than I was, and asked Joe for his arm. Joe gave it me, but was\nthoughtful.\n\nI, for my part, was thoughtful too; for, how best to check this growing\nchange in Joe was a great perplexity to my remorseful thoughts. That I\nwas ashamed to tell him exactly how I was placed, and what I had come\ndown to, I do not seek to conceal; but I hope my reluctance was not\nquite an unworthy one. He would want to help me out of his little\nsavings, I knew, and I knew that he ought not to help me, and that I\nmust not suffer him to do it.\n\nIt was a thoughtful evening with both of us. But, before we went to\nbed, I had resolved that I would wait over to-morrow,--to-morrow being\nSunday,--and would begin my new course with the new week. On Monday\nmorning I would speak to Joe about this change, I would lay aside this\nlast vestige of reserve, I would tell him what I had in my thoughts\n(that Secondly, not yet arrived at), and why I had not decided to go\nout to Herbert, and then the change would be conquered for ever. As I\ncleared, Joe cleared, and it seemed as though he had sympathetically\narrived at a resolution too.\n\nWe had a quiet day on the Sunday, and we rode out into the country, and\nthen walked in the fields.\n\n\"I feel thankful that I have been ill, Joe,\" I said.\n\n\"Dear old Pip, old chap, you're a'most come round, sir.\"\n\n\"It has been a memorable time for me, Joe.\"\n\n\"Likeways for myself, sir,\" Joe returned.\n\n\"We have had a time together, Joe, that I can never forget. There were\ndays once, I know, that I did for a while forget; but I never shall\nforget these.\"\n\n\"Pip,\" said Joe, appearing a little hurried and troubled, \"there has\nbeen larks. And, dear sir, what have been betwixt us--have been.\"\n\nAt night, when I had gone to bed, Joe came into my room, as he had done\nall through my recovery. He asked me if I felt sure that I was as well\nas in the morning?\n\n\"Yes, dear Joe, quite.\"\n\n\"And are always a getting stronger, old chap?\"\n\n\"Yes, dear Joe, steadily.\"\n\nJoe patted the coverlet on my shoulder with his great good hand, and\nsaid, in what I thought a husky voice, \"Good night!\"\n\nWhen I got up in the morning, refreshed and stronger yet, I was full of\nmy resolution to tell Joe all, without delay. I would tell him before\nbreakfast. I would dress at once and go to his room and surprise him;\nfor, it was the first day I had been up early. I went to his room, and\nhe was not there. Not only was he not there, but his box was gone.\n\nI hurried then to the breakfast-table, and on it found a letter. These\nwere its brief contents:--\n\n\"Not wishful to intrude I have departured fur you are well again dear\nPip and will do better without JO.\n\n\"P.S. Ever the best of friends.\"\n\nEnclosed in the letter was a receipt for the debt and costs on which I\nhad been arrested. Down to that moment, I had vainly supposed that my\ncreditor had withdrawn, or suspended proceedings until I should be quite\nrecovered. I had never dreamed of Joe's having paid the money; but Joe\nhad paid it, and the receipt was in his name.\n\nWhat remained for me now, but to follow him to the dear old forge, and\nthere to have out my disclosure to him, and my penitent remonstrance\nwith him, and there to relieve my mind and heart of that reserved\nSecondly, which had begun as a vague something lingering in my thoughts,\nand had formed into a settled purpose?\n\nThe purpose was, that I would go to Biddy, that I would show her how\nhumbled and repentant I came back, that I would tell her how I had lost\nall I once hoped for, that I would remind her of our old confidences in\nmy first unhappy time. Then I would say to her, \"Biddy, I think you once\nliked me very well, when my errant heart, even while it strayed away\nfrom you, was quieter and better with you than it ever has been since.\nIf you can like me only half as well once more, if you can take me with\nall my faults and disappointments on my head, if you can receive me like\na forgiven child (and indeed I am as sorry, Biddy, and have as much need\nof a hushing voice and a soothing hand), I hope I am a little worthier\nof you that I was,--not much, but a little. And, Biddy, it shall rest\nwith you to say whether I shall work at the forge with Joe, or whether I\nshall try for any different occupation down in this country, or whether\nwe shall go away to a distant place where an opportunity awaits me which\nI set aside, when it was offered, until I knew your answer. And now,\ndear Biddy, if you can tell me that you will go through the world with\nme, you will surely make it a better world for me, and me a better man\nfor it, and I will try hard to make it a better world for you.\"\n\nSuch was my purpose. After three days more of recovery, I went down to\nthe old place to put it in execution. And how I sped in it is all I have\nleft to tell.\n\n\n\n\nChapter LVIII\n\nThe tidings of my high fortunes having had a heavy fall had got down\nto my native place and its neighborhood before I got there. I found the\nBlue Boar in possession of the intelligence, and I found that it made a\ngreat change in the Boar's demeanour. Whereas the Boar had cultivated\nmy good opinion with warm assiduity when I was coming into property,\nthe Boar was exceedingly cool on the subject now that I was going out of\nproperty.\n\nIt was evening when I arrived, much fatigued by the journey I had so\noften made so easily. The Boar could not put me into my usual bedroom,\nwhich was engaged (probably by some one who had expectations), and\ncould only assign me a very indifferent chamber among the pigeons and\npost-chaises up the yard. But I had as sound a sleep in that lodging as\nin the most superior accommodation the Boar could have given me, and the\nquality of my dreams was about the same as in the best bedroom.\n\nEarly in the morning, while my breakfast was getting ready, I strolled\nround by Satis House. There were printed bills on the gate and on bits\nof carpet hanging out of the windows, announcing a sale by auction of\nthe Household Furniture and Effects, next week. The House itself was to\nbe sold as old building materials, and pulled down. LOT 1 was marked in\nwhitewashed knock-knee letters on the brew house; LOT 2 on that part of\nthe main building which had been so long shut up. Other lots were marked\noff on other parts of the structure, and the ivy had been torn down to\nmake room for the inscriptions, and much of it trailed low in the dust\nand was withered already. Stepping in for a moment at the open gate, and\nlooking around me with the uncomfortable air of a stranger who had no\nbusiness there, I saw the auctioneer's clerk walking on the casks and\ntelling them off for the information of a catalogue-compiler, pen in\nhand, who made a temporary desk of the wheeled chair I had so often\npushed along to the tune of Old Clem.\n\nWhen I got back to my breakfast in the Boar's coffee-room, I found Mr.\nPumblechook conversing with the landlord. Mr. Pumblechook (not improved\nin appearance by his late nocturnal adventure) was waiting for me, and\naddressed me in the following terms:--\n\n\"Young man, I am sorry to see you brought low. But what else could be\nexpected! what else could be expected!\"\n\nAs he extended his hand with a magnificently forgiving air, and as I was\nbroken by illness and unfit to quarrel, I took it.\n\n\"William,\" said Mr. Pumblechook to the waiter, \"put a muffin on table.\nAnd has it come to this! Has it come to this!\"\n\nI frowningly sat down to my breakfast. Mr. Pumblechook stood over me and\npoured out my tea--before I could touch the teapot--with the air of a\nbenefactor who was resolved to be true to the last.\n\n\"William,\" said Mr. Pumblechook, mournfully, \"put the salt on. In\nhappier times,\" addressing me, \"I think you took sugar? And did you take\nmilk? You did. Sugar and milk. William, bring a watercress.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" said I, shortly, \"but I don't eat watercresses.\"\n\n\"You don't eat 'em,\" returned Mr. Pumblechook, sighing and nodding\nhis head several times, as if he might have expected that, and as if\nabstinence from watercresses were consistent with my downfall. \"True.\nThe simple fruits of the earth. No. You needn't bring any, William.\"\n\nI went on with my breakfast, and Mr. Pumblechook continued to stand over\nme, staring fishily and breathing noisily, as he always did.\n\n\"Little more than skin and bone!\" mused Mr. Pumblechook, aloud. \"And yet\nwhen he went from here (I may say with my blessing), and I spread afore\nhim my humble store, like the Bee, he was as plump as a Peach!\"\n\nThis reminded me of the wonderful difference between the servile manner\nin which he had offered his hand in my new prosperity, saying, \"May I?\"\nand the ostentatious clemency with which he had just now exhibited the\nsame fat five fingers.\n\n\"Hah!\" he went on, handing me the bread and butter. \"And air you a going\nto Joseph?\"\n\n\"In heaven's name,\" said I, firing in spite of myself, \"what does it\nmatter to you where I am going? Leave that teapot alone.\"\n\nIt was the worst course I could have taken, because it gave Pumblechook\nthe opportunity he wanted.\n\n\"Yes, young man,\" said he, releasing the handle of the article in\nquestion, retiring a step or two from my table, and speaking for the\nbehoof of the landlord and waiter at the door, \"I will leave that teapot\nalone. You are right, young man. For once you are right. I forgit myself\nwhen I take such an interest in your breakfast, as to wish your frame,\nexhausted by the debilitating effects of prodigygality, to be stimilated\nby the 'olesome nourishment of your forefathers. And yet,\" said\nPumblechook, turning to the landlord and waiter, and pointing me out at\narm's length, \"this is him as I ever sported with in his days of happy\ninfancy! Tell me not it cannot be; I tell you this is him!\"\n\nA low murmur from the two replied. The waiter appeared to be\nparticularly affected.\n\n\"This is him,\" said Pumblechook, \"as I have rode in my shay-cart. This\nis him as I have seen brought up by hand. This is him untoe the sister\nof which I was uncle by marriage, as her name was Georgiana M'ria from\nher own mother, let him deny it if he can!\"\n\nThe waiter seemed convinced that I could not deny it, and that it gave\nthe case a black look.\n\n\"Young man,\" said Pumblechook, screwing his head at me in the old\nfashion, \"you air a going to Joseph. What does it matter to me, you\nask me, where you air a going? I say to you, Sir, you air a going to\nJoseph.\"\n\nThe waiter coughed, as if he modestly invited me to get over that.\n\n\"Now,\" said Pumblechook, and all this with a most exasperating air\nof saying in the cause of virtue what was perfectly convincing and\nconclusive, \"I will tell you what to say to Joseph. Here is Squires of\nthe Boar present, known and respected in this town, and here is William,\nwhich his father's name was Potkins if I do not deceive myself.\"\n\n\"You do not, sir,\" said William.\n\n\"In their presence,\" pursued Pumblechook, \"I will tell you, young\nman, what to say to Joseph. Says you, \"Joseph, I have this day seen\nmy earliest benefactor and the founder of my fortun's. I will name no\nnames, Joseph, but so they are pleased to call him up town, and I have\nseen that man.\"\n\n\"I swear I don't see him here,\" said I.\n\n\"Say that likewise,\" retorted Pumblechook. \"Say you said that, and even\nJoseph will probably betray surprise.\"\n\n\"There you quite mistake him,\" said I. \"I know better.\"\n\n\"Says you,\" Pumblechook went on, \"'Joseph, I have seen that man, and\nthat man bears you no malice and bears me no malice. He knows your\ncharacter, Joseph, and is well acquainted with your pig-headedness and\nignorance; and he knows my character, Joseph, and he knows my want of\ngratitoode. Yes, Joseph,' says you,\" here Pumblechook shook his head and\nhand at me, \"'he knows my total deficiency of common human gratitoode.\nHe knows it, Joseph, as none can. You do not know it, Joseph, having no\ncall to know it, but that man do.'\"\n\nWindy donkey as he was, it really amazed me that he could have the face\nto talk thus to mine.\n\n\"Says you, 'Joseph, he gave me a little message, which I will now\nrepeat. It was that, in my being brought low, he saw the finger of\nProvidence. He knowed that finger when he saw Joseph, and he saw it\nplain. It pinted out this writing, Joseph. Reward of ingratitoode to his\nearliest benefactor, and founder of fortun's. But that man said he did\nnot repent of what he had done, Joseph. Not at all. It was right to do\nit, it was kind to do it, it was benevolent to do it, and he would do it\nagain.'\"\n\n\"It's pity,\" said I, scornfully, as I finished my interrupted breakfast,\n\"that the man did not say what he had done and would do again.\"\n\n\"Squires of the Boar!\" Pumblechook was now addressing the landlord, \"and\nWilliam! I have no objections to your mentioning, either up town or down\ntown, if such should be your wishes, that it was right to do it, kind to\ndo it, benevolent to do it, and that I would do it again.\"\n\nWith those words the Impostor shook them both by the hand, with an air,\nand left the house; leaving me much more astonished than delighted by\nthe virtues of that same indefinite \"it.\" I was not long after him in\nleaving the house too, and when I went down the High Street I saw him\nholding forth (no doubt to the same effect) at his shop door to a select\ngroup, who honored me with very unfavorable glances as I passed on the\nopposite side of the way.\n\nBut, it was only the pleasanter to turn to Biddy and to Joe, whose\ngreat forbearance shone more brightly than before, if that could be,\ncontrasted with this brazen pretender. I went towards them slowly, for\nmy limbs were weak, but with a sense of increasing relief as I drew\nnearer to them, and a sense of leaving arrogance and untruthfulness\nfurther and further behind.\n\nThe June weather was delicious. The sky was blue, the larks were soaring\nhigh over the green corn, I thought all that countryside more beautiful\nand peaceful by far than I had ever known it to be yet. Many pleasant\npictures of the life that I would lead there, and of the change for the\nbetter that would come over my character when I had a guiding spirit at\nmy side whose simple faith and clear home wisdom I had proved, beguiled\nmy way. They awakened a tender emotion in me; for my heart was softened\nby my return, and such a change had come to pass, that I felt like one\nwho was toiling home barefoot from distant travel, and whose wanderings\nhad lasted many years.\n\nThe schoolhouse where Biddy was mistress I had never seen; but, the\nlittle roundabout lane by which I entered the village, for quietness'\nsake, took me past it. I was disappointed to find that the day was a\nholiday; no children were there, and Biddy's house was closed. Some\nhopeful notion of seeing her, busily engaged in her daily duties, before\nshe saw me, had been in my mind and was defeated.\n\nBut the forge was a very short distance off, and I went towards it under\nthe sweet green limes, listening for the clink of Joe's hammer. Long\nafter I ought to have heard it, and long after I had fancied I heard it\nand found it but a fancy, all was still. The limes were there, and the\nwhite thorns were there, and the chestnut-trees were there, and their\nleaves rustled harmoniously when I stopped to listen; but, the clink of\nJoe's hammer was not in the midsummer wind.\n\nAlmost fearing, without knowing why, to come in view of the forge, I saw\nit at last, and saw that it was closed. No gleam of fire, no glittering\nshower of sparks, no roar of bellows; all shut up, and still.\n\nBut the house was not deserted, and the best parlor seemed to be in use,\nfor there were white curtains fluttering in its window, and the window\nwas open and gay with flowers. I went softly towards it, meaning to peep\nover the flowers, when Joe and Biddy stood before me, arm in arm.\n\nAt first Biddy gave a cry, as if she thought it was my apparition, but\nin another moment she was in my embrace. I wept to see her, and she wept\nto see me; I, because she looked so fresh and pleasant; she, because I\nlooked so worn and white.\n\n\"But dear Biddy, how smart you are!\"\n\n\"Yes, dear Pip.\"\n\n\"And Joe, how smart you are!\"\n\n\"Yes, dear old Pip, old chap.\"\n\nI looked at both of them, from one to the other, and then--\n\n\"It's my wedding-day!\" cried Biddy, in a burst of happiness, \"and I am\nmarried to Joe!\"\n\nThey had taken me into the kitchen, and I had laid my head down on\nthe old deal table. Biddy held one of my hands to her lips, and Joe's\nrestoring touch was on my shoulder. \"Which he warn't strong enough, my\ndear, fur to be surprised,\" said Joe. And Biddy said, \"I ought to\nhave thought of it, dear Joe, but I was too happy.\" They were both so\noverjoyed to see me, so proud to see me, so touched by my coming to\nthem, so delighted that I should have come by accident to make their day\ncomplete!\n\nMy first thought was one of great thankfulness that I had never breathed\nthis last baffled hope to Joe. How often, while he was with me in my\nillness, had it risen to my lips! How irrevocable would have been his\nknowledge of it, if he had remained with me but another hour!\n\n\"Dear Biddy,\" said I, \"you have the best husband in the whole world,\nand if you could have seen him by my bed you would have--But no, you\ncouldn't love him better than you do.\"\n\n\"No, I couldn't indeed,\" said Biddy.\n\n\"And, dear Joe, you have the best wife in the whole world, and she will\nmake you as happy as even you deserve to be, you dear, good, noble Joe!\"\n\nJoe looked at me with a quivering lip, and fairly put his sleeve before\nhis eyes.\n\n\"And Joe and Biddy both, as you have been to church to-day, and are in\ncharity and love with all mankind, receive my humble thanks for all you\nhave done for me, and all I have so ill repaid! And when I say that I am\ngoing away within the hour, for I am soon going abroad, and that I shall\nnever rest until I have worked for the money with which you have kept me\nout of prison, and have sent it to you, don't think, dear Joe and Biddy,\nthat if I could repay it a thousand times over, I suppose I could cancel\na farthing of the debt I owe you, or that I would do so if I could!\"\n\nThey were both melted by these words, and both entreated me to say no\nmore.\n\n\"But I must say more. Dear Joe, I hope you will have children to love,\nand that some little fellow will sit in this chimney-corner of a winter\nnight, who may remind you of another little fellow gone out of it for\never. Don't tell him, Joe, that I was thankless; don't tell him, Biddy,\nthat I was ungenerous and unjust; only tell him that I honored you both,\nbecause you were both so good and true, and that, as your child, I said\nit would be natural to him to grow up a much better man than I did.\"\n\n\"I ain't a going,\" said Joe, from behind his sleeve, \"to tell him\nnothink o' that natur, Pip. Nor Biddy ain't. Nor yet no one ain't.\"\n\n\"And now, though I know you have already done it in your own kind\nhearts, pray tell me, both, that you forgive me! Pray let me hear you\nsay the words, that I may carry the sound of them away with me, and then\nI shall be able to believe that you can trust me, and think better of\nme, in the time to come!\"\n\n\"O dear old Pip, old chap,\" said Joe. \"God knows as I forgive you, if I\nhave anythink to forgive!\"\n\n\"Amen! And God knows I do!\" echoed Biddy.\n\n\"Now let me go up and look at my old little room, and rest there a few\nminutes by myself. And then, when I have eaten and drunk with you, go\nwith me as far as the finger-post, dear Joe and Biddy, before we say\ngood-bye!\"\n\n***\n\nI sold all I had, and put aside as much as I could, for a composition\nwith my creditors,--who gave me ample time to pay them in full,--and I\nwent out and joined Herbert. Within a month, I had quitted England,\nand within two months I was clerk to Clarriker and Co., and within four\nmonths I assumed my first undivided responsibility. For the beam across\nthe parlor ceiling at Mill Pond Bank had then ceased to tremble under\nold Bill Barley's growls and was at peace, and Herbert had gone away to\nmarry Clara, and I was left in sole charge of the Eastern Branch until\nhe brought her back.\n\nMany a year went round before I was a partner in the House; but I lived\nhappily with Herbert and his wife, and lived frugally, and paid my\ndebts, and maintained a constant correspondence with Biddy and Joe. It\nwas not until I became third in the Firm, that Clarriker betrayed me to\nHerbert; but he then declared that the secret of Herbert's partnership\nhad been long enough upon his conscience, and he must tell it. So he\ntold it, and Herbert was as much moved as amazed, and the dear fellow\nand I were not the worse friends for the long concealment. I must not\nleave it to be supposed that we were ever a great House, or that we made\nmints of money. We were not in a grand way of business, but we had a\ngood name, and worked for our profits, and did very well. We owed so\nmuch to Herbert's ever cheerful industry and readiness, that I often\nwondered how I had conceived that old idea of his inaptitude, until I\nwas one day enlightened by the reflection, that perhaps the inaptitude\nhad never been in him at all, but had been in me.\n\n\n\n\nChapter LIX\n\nFor eleven years, I had not seen Joe nor Biddy with my bodily\neyes,--though they had both been often before my fancy in the\nEast,--when, upon an evening in December, an hour or two after dark, I\nlaid my hand softly on the latch of the old kitchen door. I touched it\nso softly that I was not heard, and looked in unseen. There, smoking his\npipe in the old place by the kitchen firelight, as hale and as strong as\never, though a little gray, sat Joe; and there, fenced into the corner\nwith Joe's leg, and sitting on my own little stool looking at the fire,\nwas--I again!\n\n\"We giv' him the name of Pip for your sake, dear old chap,\" said Joe,\ndelighted, when I took another stool by the child's side (but I did not\nrumple his hair), \"and we hoped he might grow a little bit like you, and\nwe think he do.\"\n\nI thought so too, and I took him out for a walk next morning, and we\ntalked immensely, understanding one another to perfection. And I took\nhim down to the churchyard, and set him on a certain tombstone there,\nand he showed me from that elevation which stone was sacred to the\nmemory of Philip Pirrip, late of this Parish, and Also Georgiana, Wife\nof the Above.\n\n\"Biddy,\" said I, when I talked with her after dinner, as her little girl\nlay sleeping in her lap, \"you must give Pip to me one of these days; or\nlend him, at all events.\"\n\n\"No, no,\" said Biddy, gently. \"You must marry.\"\n\n\"So Herbert and Clara say, but I don't think I shall, Biddy. I have so\nsettled down in their home, that it's not at all likely. I am already\nquite an old bachelor.\"\n\nBiddy looked down at her child, and put its little hand to her lips, and\nthen put the good matronly hand with which she had touched it into mine.\nThere was something in the action, and in the light pressure of Biddy's\nwedding-ring, that had a very pretty eloquence in it.\n\n\"Dear Pip,\" said Biddy, \"you are sure you don't fret for her?\"\n\n\"O no,--I think not, Biddy.\"\n\n\"Tell me as an old, old friend. Have you quite forgotten her?\n\n\"My dear Biddy, I have forgotten nothing in my life that ever had a\nforemost place there, and little that ever had any place there. But that\npoor dream, as I once used to call it, has all gone by, Biddy,--all gone\nby!\"\n\nNevertheless, I knew, while I said those words, that I secretly intended\nto revisit the site of the old house that evening, alone, for her sake.\nYes, even so. For Estella's sake.\n\nI had heard of her as leading a most unhappy life, and as being\nseparated from her husband, who had used her with great cruelty, and who\nhad become quite renowned as a compound of pride, avarice, brutality,\nand meanness. And I had heard of the death of her husband, from an\naccident consequent on his ill-treatment of a horse. This release had\nbefallen her some two years before; for anything I knew, she was married\nagain.\n\nThe early dinner hour at Joe's, left me abundance of time, without\nhurrying my talk with Biddy, to walk over to the old spot before dark.\nBut, what with loitering on the way to look at old objects and to think\nof old times, the day had quite declined when I came to the place.\n\nThere was no house now, no brewery, no building whatever left, but the\nwall of the old garden. The cleared space had been enclosed with a rough\nfence, and looking over it, I saw that some of the old ivy had struck\nroot anew, and was growing green on low quiet mounds of ruin. A gate in\nthe fence standing ajar, I pushed it open, and went in.\n\nA cold silvery mist had veiled the afternoon, and the moon was not yet\nup to scatter it. But, the stars were shining beyond the mist, and the\nmoon was coming, and the evening was not dark. I could trace out where\nevery part of the old house had been, and where the brewery had been,\nand where the gates, and where the casks. I had done so, and was looking\nalong the desolate garden walk, when I beheld a solitary figure in it.\n\nThe figure showed itself aware of me, as I advanced. It had been moving\ntowards me, but it stood still. As I drew nearer, I saw it to be the\nfigure of a woman. As I drew nearer yet, it was about to turn away, when\nit stopped, and let me come up with it. Then, it faltered, as if much\nsurprised, and uttered my name, and I cried out,--\n\n\"Estella!\"\n\n\"I am greatly changed. I wonder you know me.\"\n\nThe freshness of her beauty was indeed gone, but its indescribable\nmajesty and its indescribable charm remained. Those attractions in it,\nI had seen before; what I had never seen before, was the saddened,\nsoftened light of the once proud eyes; what I had never felt before was\nthe friendly touch of the once insensible hand.\n\nWe sat down on a bench that was near, and I said, \"After so many years,\nit is strange that we should thus meet again, Estella, here where our\nfirst meeting was! Do you often come back?\"\n\n\"I have never been here since.\"\n\n\"Nor I.\"\n\nThe moon began to rise, and I thought of the placid look at the white\nceiling, which had passed away. The moon began to rise, and I thought of\nthe pressure on my hand when I had spoken the last words he had heard on\nearth.\n\nEstella was the next to break the silence that ensued between us.\n\n\"I have very often hoped and intended to come back, but have been\nprevented by many circumstances. Poor, poor old place!\"\n\nThe silvery mist was touched with the first rays of the moonlight, and\nthe same rays touched the tears that dropped from her eyes. Not knowing\nthat I saw them, and setting herself to get the better of them, she said\nquietly,--\n\n\"Were you wondering, as you walked along, how it came to be left in this\ncondition?\"\n\n\"Yes, Estella.\"\n\n\"The ground belongs to me. It is the only possession I have not\nrelinquished. Everything else has gone from me, little by little, but I\nhave kept this. It was the subject of the only determined resistance I\nmade in all the wretched years.\"\n\n\"Is it to be built on?\"\n\n\"At last, it is. I came here to take leave of it before its change. And\nyou,\" she said, in a voice of touching interest to a wanderer,--\"you\nlive abroad still?\"\n\n\"Still.\"\n\n\"And do well, I am sure?\"\n\n\"I work pretty hard for a sufficient living, and therefore--yes, I do\nwell.\"\n\n\"I have often thought of you,\" said Estella.\n\n\"Have you?\"\n\n\"Of late, very often. There was a long hard time when I kept far from me\nthe remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant\nof its worth. But since my duty has not been incompatible with the\nadmission of that remembrance, I have given it a place in my heart.\"\n\n\"You have always held your place in my heart,\" I answered.\n\nAnd we were silent again until she spoke.\n\n\"I little thought,\" said Estella, \"that I should take leave of you in\ntaking leave of this spot. I am very glad to do so.\"\n\n\"Glad to part again, Estella? To me, parting is a painful thing. To me,\nthe remembrance of our last parting has been ever mournful and painful.\"\n\n\"But you said to me,\" returned Estella, very earnestly, \"'God bless you,\nGod forgive you!' And if you could say that to me then, you will not\nhesitate to say that to me now,--now, when suffering has been stronger\nthan all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart\nused to be. I have been bent and broken, but--I hope--into a better\nshape. Be as considerate and good to me as you were, and tell me we are\nfriends.\"\n\n\"We are friends,\" said I, rising and bending over her, as she rose from\nthe bench.\n\n\"And will continue friends apart,\" said Estella.\n\nI took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as\nthe morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so the\nevening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil\nlight they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"1406":"PRISONERS***\n\n\n\n\n\nTranscribed from the 1894 Chapman and Hall \"Christmas Stories\" edition by\nDavid Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS\n\n\nCHAPTER I--THE ISLAND OF SILVER-STORE\n\n\nIt was in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and forty-four,\nthat I, Gill Davis to command, His Mark, having then the honour to be a\nprivate in the Royal Marines, stood a-leaning over the bulwarks of the\narmed sloop Christopher Columbus, in the South American waters off the\nMosquito shore.\n\nMy lady remarks to me, before I go any further, that there is no such\nchristian-name as Gill, and that her confident opinion is, that the name\ngiven to me in the baptism wherein I was made, &c., was Gilbert.  She is\ncertain to be right, but I never heard of it.  I was a foundling child,\npicked up somewhere or another, and I always understood my christian-name\nto be Gill.  It is true that I was called Gills when employed at\nSnorridge Bottom betwixt Chatham and Maidstone to frighten birds; but\nthat had nothing to do with the Baptism wherein I was made, &c., and\nwherein a number of things were promised for me by somebody, who let me\nalone ever afterwards as to performing any of them, and who, I consider,\nmust have been the Beadle.  Such name of Gills was entirely owing to my\ncheeks, or gills, which at that time of my life were of a raspy\ndescription.\n\nMy lady stops me again, before I go any further, by laughing exactly in\nher old way and waving the feather of her pen at me.  That action on her\npart, calls to my mind as I look at her hand with the rings on it--Well!\nI won't!  To be sure it will come in, in its own place.  But it's always\nstrange to me, noticing the quiet hand, and noticing it (as I have done,\nyou know, so many times) a-fondling children and grandchildren asleep, to\nthink that when blood and honour were up--there!  I won't! not at\npresent!--Scratch it out.\n\nShe won't scratch it out, and quite honourable; because we have made an\nunderstanding that everything is to be taken down, and that nothing that\nis once taken down shall be scratched out.  I have the great misfortune\nnot to be able to read and write, and I am speaking my true and faithful\naccount of those Adventures, and my lady is writing it, word for word.\n\nI say, there I was, a-leaning over the bulwarks of the sloop Christopher\nColumbus in the South American waters off the Mosquito shore: a subject\nof his Gracious Majesty King George of England, and a private in the\nRoyal Marines.\n\nIn those climates, you don't want to do much.  I was doing nothing.  I\nwas thinking of the shepherd (my father, I wonder?) on the hillsides by\nSnorridge Bottom, with a long staff, and with a rough white coat in all\nweathers all the year round, who used to let me lie in a corner of his\nhut by night, and who used to let me go about with him and his sheep by\nday when I could get nothing else to do, and who used to give me so\nlittle of his victuals and so much of his staff, that I ran away from\nhim--which was what he wanted all along, I expect--to be knocked about\nthe world in preference to Snorridge Bottom.  I had been knocked about\nthe world for nine-and-twenty years in all, when I stood looking along\nthose bright blue South American Waters.  Looking after the shepherd, I\nmay say.  Watching him in a half-waking dream, with my eyes half-shut, as\nhe, and his flock of sheep, and his two dogs, seemed to move away from\nthe ship's side, far away over the blue water, and go right down into the\nsky.\n\n\"It's rising out of the water, steady,\" a voice said close to me.  I had\nbeen thinking on so, that it like woke me with a start, though it was no\nstranger voice than the voice of Harry Charker, my own comrade.\n\n\"What's rising out of the water, steady?\" I asked my comrade.\n\n\"What?\" says he.  \"The Island.\"\n\n\"O!  The Island!\" says I, turning my eyes towards it.  \"True.  I forgot\nthe Island.\"\n\n\"Forgot the port you're going to?  That's odd, ain't it?\"\n\n\"It is odd,\" says I.\n\n\"And odd,\" he said, slowly considering with himself, \"ain't even.  Is it,\nGill?\"\n\nHe had always a remark just like that to make, and seldom another.  As\nsoon as he had brought a thing round to what it was not, he was\nsatisfied.  He was one of the best of men, and, in a certain sort of a\nway, one with the least to say for himself.  I qualify it, because,\nbesides being able to read and write like a Quarter-master, he had always\none most excellent idea in his mind.  That was, Duty.  Upon my soul, I\ndon't believe, though I admire learning beyond everything, that he could\nhave got a better idea out of all the books in the world, if he had\nlearnt them every word, and been the cleverest of scholars.\n\nMy comrade and I had been quartered in Jamaica, and from there we had\nbeen drafted off to the British settlement of Belize, lying away West and\nNorth of the Mosquito coast.  At Belize there had been great alarm of one\ncruel gang of pirates (there were always more pirates than enough in\nthose Caribbean Seas), and as they got the better of our English cruisers\nby running into out-of-the-way creeks and shallows, and taking the land\nwhen they were hotly pressed, the governor of Belize had received orders\nfrom home to keep a sharp look-out for them along shore.  Now, there was\nan armed sloop came once a-year from Port Royal, Jamaica, to the Island,\nladen with all manner of necessaries, to eat, and to drink, and to wear,\nand to use in various ways; and it was aboard of that sloop which had\ntouched at Belize, that I was a-standing, leaning over the bulwarks.\n\nThe Island was occupied by a very small English colony.  It had been\ngiven the name of Silver-Store.  The reason of its being so called, was,\nthat the English colony owned and worked a silver-mine over on the\nmainland, in Honduras, and used this Island as a safe and convenient\nplace to store their silver in, until it was annually fetched away by the\nsloop.  It was brought down from the mine to the coast on the backs of\nmules, attended by friendly Indians and guarded by white men; from thence\nit was conveyed over to Silver-Store, when the weather was fair, in the\ncanoes of that country; from Silver-Store, it was carried to Jamaica by\nthe armed sloop once a-year, as I have already mentioned; from Jamaica,\nit went, of course, all over the world.\n\nHow I came to be aboard the armed sloop, is easily told.  Four-and-twenty\nmarines under command of a lieutenant--that officer's name was\nLinderwood--had been told off at Belize, to proceed to Silver-Store, in\naid of boats and seamen stationed there for the chase of the Pirates.  The\nIsland was considered a good post of observation against the pirates,\nboth by land and sea; neither the pirate ship nor yet her boats had been\nseen by any of us, but they had been so much heard of, that the\nreinforcement was sent.  Of that party, I was one.  It included a\ncorporal and a sergeant.  Charker was corporal, and the sergeant's name\nwas Drooce.  He was the most tyrannical non-commissioned officer in His\nMajesty's service.\n\nThe night came on, soon after I had had the foregoing words with Charker.\nAll the wonderful bright colours went out of the sea and sky in a few\nminutes, and all the stars in the Heavens seemed to shine out together,\nand to look down at themselves in the sea, over one another's shoulders,\nmillions deep.  Next morning, we cast anchor off the Island.  There was a\nsnug harbour within a little reef; there was a sandy beach; there were\ncocoa-nut trees with high straight stems, quite bare, and foliage at the\ntop like plumes of magnificent green feathers; there were all the objects\nthat are usually seen in those parts, and _I_ am not going to describe\nthem, having something else to tell about.\n\nGreat rejoicings, to be sure, were made on our arrival.  All the flags in\nthe place were hoisted, all the guns in the place were fired, and all the\npeople in the place came down to look at us.  One of those Sambo\nfellows--they call those natives Sambos, when they are half-negro and\nhalf-Indian--had come off outside the reef, to pilot us in, and remained\non board after we had let go our anchor.  He was called Christian George\nKing, and was fonder of all hands than anybody else was.  Now, I confess,\nfor myself, that on that first day, if I had been captain of the\nChristopher Columbus, instead of private in the Royal Marines, I should\nhave kicked Christian George King--who was no more a Christian than he\nwas a King or a George--over the side, without exactly knowing why,\nexcept that it was the right thing to do.\n\nBut, I must likewise confess, that I was not in a particularly pleasant\nhumour, when I stood under arms that morning, aboard the Christopher\nColumbus in the harbour of the Island of Silver-Store.  I had had a hard\nlife, and the life of the English on the Island seemed too easy and too\ngay to please me.  \"Here you are,\" I thought to myself, \"good scholars\nand good livers; able to read what you like, able to write what you like,\nable to eat and drink what you like, and spend what you like, and do what\nyou like; and much _you_ care for a poor, ignorant Private in the Royal\nMarines!  Yet it's hard, too, I think, that you should have all the half-\npence, and I all the kicks; you all the smooth, and I all the rough; you\nall the oil, and I all the vinegar.\"  It was as envious a thing to think\nas might be, let alone its being nonsensical; but, I thought it.  I took\nit so much amiss, that, when a very beautiful young English lady came\naboard, I grunted to myself, \"Ah! _you_ have got a lover, I'll be bound!\"\nAs if there was any new offence to me in that, if she had!\n\nShe was sister to the captain of our sloop, who had been in a poor way\nfor some time, and who was so ill then that he was obliged to be carried\nashore.  She was the child of a military officer, and had come out there\nwith her sister, who was married to one of the owners of the silver-mine,\nand who had three children with her.  It was easy to see that she was the\nlight and spirit of the Island.  After I had got a good look at her, I\ngrunted to myself again, in an even worse state of mind than before,\n\"I'll be damned, if I don't hate him, whoever he is!\"\n\nMy officer, Lieutenant Linderwood, was as ill as the captain of the\nsloop, and was carried ashore, too.  They were both young men of about my\nage, who had been delicate in the West India climate.  I even took _that_\nin bad part.  I thought I was much fitter for the work than they were,\nand that if all of us had our deserts, I should be both of them rolled\ninto one.  (It may be imagined what sort of an officer of marines I\nshould have made, without the power of reading a written order.  And as\nto any knowledge how to command the sloop--Lord!  I should have sunk her\nin a quarter of an hour!)\n\nHowever, such were my reflections; and when we men were ashore and\ndismissed, I strolled about the place along with Charker, making my\nobservations in a similar spirit.\n\nIt was a pretty place: in all its arrangements partly South American and\npartly English, and very agreeable to look at on that account, being like\na bit of home that had got chipped off and had floated away to that spot,\naccommodating itself to circumstances as it drifted along.  The huts of\nthe Sambos, to the number of five-and-twenty, perhaps, were down by the\nbeach to the left of the anchorage.  On the right was a sort of barrack,\nwith a South American Flag and the Union Jack, flying from the same\nstaff, where the little English colony could all come together, if they\nsaw occasion.  It was a walled square of building, with a sort of\npleasure-ground inside, and inside that again a sunken block like a\npowder magazine, with a little square trench round it, and steps down to\nthe door.  Charker and I were looking in at the gate, which was not\nguarded; and I had said to Charker, in reference to the bit like a powder\nmagazine, \"That's where they keep the silver you see;\" and Charker had\nsaid to me, after thinking it over, \"And silver ain't gold.  Is it,\nGill?\" when the beautiful young English lady I had been so bilious about,\nlooked out of a door, or a window--at all events looked out, from under a\nbright awning.  She no sooner saw us two in uniform, than she came out so\nquickly that she was still putting on her broad Mexican hat of plaited\nstraw when we saluted.\n\n\"Would you like to come in,\" she said, \"and see the place?  It is rather\na curious place.\"\n\nWe thanked the young lady, and said we didn't wish to be troublesome;\nbut, she said it could be no trouble to an English soldier's daughter, to\nshow English soldiers how their countrymen and country-women fared, so\nfar away from England; and consequently we saluted again, and went in.\nThen, as we stood in the shade, she showed us (being as affable as\nbeautiful), how the different families lived in their separate houses,\nand how there was a general house for stores, and a general reading-room,\nand a general room for music and dancing, and a room for Church; and how\nthere were other houses on the rising ground called the Signal Hill,\nwhere they lived in the hotter weather.\n\n\"Your officer has been carried up there,\" she said, \"and my brother, too,\nfor the better air.  At present, our few residents are dispersed over\nboth spots: deducting, that is to say, such of our number as are always\ngoing to, or coming from, or staying at, the Mine.\"\n\n(\"_He_ is among one of those parties,\" I thought, \"and I wish somebody\nwould knock his head off.\")\n\n\"Some of our married ladies live here,\" she said, \"during at least half\nthe year, as lonely as widows, with their children.\"\n\n\"Many children here, ma'am?\"\n\n\"Seventeen.  There are thirteen married ladies, and there are eight like\nme.\"\n\nThere were not eight like her--there was not one like her--in the world.\nShe meant single.\n\n\"Which, with about thirty Englishmen of various degrees,\" said the young\nlady, \"form the little colony now on the Island.  I don't count the\nsailors, for they don't belong to us.  Nor the soldiers,\" she gave us a\ngracious smile when she spoke of the soldiers, \"for the same reason.\"\n\n\"Nor the Sambos, ma'am,\" said I.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Under your favour, and with your leave, ma'am,\" said I, \"are they\ntrustworthy?\"\n\n\"Perfectly!  We are all very kind to them, and they are very grateful to\nus.\"\n\n\"Indeed, ma'am?  Now--Christian George King?--\"\n\n\"Very much attached to us all.  Would die for us.\"\n\nShe was, as in my uneducated way I have observed, very beautiful women\nalmost always to be, so composed, that her composure gave great weight to\nwhat she said, and I believed it.\n\nThen, she pointed out to us the building like a powder magazine, and\nexplained to us in what manner the silver was brought from the mine, and\nwas brought over from the mainland, and was stored here.  The Christopher\nColumbus would have a rich lading, she said, for there had been a great\nyield that year, a much richer yield than usual, and there was a chest of\njewels besides the silver.\n\nWhen we had looked about us, and were getting sheepish, through fearing\nwe were troublesome, she turned us over to a young woman, English born\nbut West India bred, who served her as her maid.  This young woman was\nthe widow of a non-commissioned officer in a regiment of the line.  She\nhad got married and widowed at St. Vincent, with only a few months\nbetween the two events.  She was a little saucy woman, with a bright pair\nof eyes, rather a neat little foot and figure, and rather a neat little\nturned-up nose.  The sort of young woman, I considered at the time, who\nappeared to invite you to give her a kiss, and who would have slapped\nyour face if you accepted the invitation.\n\nI couldn't make out her name at first; for, when she gave it in answer to\nmy inquiry, it sounded like Beltot, which didn't sound right.  But, when\nwe became better acquainted--which was while Charker and I were drinking\nsugar-cane sangaree, which she made in a most excellent manner--I found\nthat her Christian name was Isabella, which they shortened into Bell, and\nthat the name of the deceased non-commissioned officer was Tott.  Being\nthe kind of neat little woman it was natural to make a toy of--I never\nsaw a woman so like a toy in my life--she had got the plaything name of\nBelltott.  In short, she had no other name on the island.  Even Mr.\nCommissioner Pordage (and _he_ was a grave one!) formally addressed her\nas Mrs. Belltott, but, I shall come to Mr. Commissioner Pordage\npresently.\n\nThe name of the captain of the sloop was Captain Maryon, and therefore it\nwas no news to hear from Mrs. Belltott, that his sister, the beautiful\nunmarried young English lady, was Miss Maryon.  The novelty was, that her\nchristian-name was Marion too.  Marion Maryon.  Many a time I have run\noff those two names in my thoughts, like a bit of verse.  Oh many, and\nmany, and many a time!\n\nWe saw out all the drink that was produced, like good men and true, and\nthen took our leaves, and went down to the beach.  The weather was\nbeautiful; the wind steady, low, and gentle; the island, a picture; the\nsea, a picture; the sky, a picture.  In that country there are two rainy\nseasons in the year.  One sets in at about our English Midsummer; the\nother, about a fortnight after our English Michaelmas.  It was the\nbeginning of August at that time; the first of these rainy seasons was\nwell over; and everything was in its most beautiful growth, and had its\nloveliest look upon it.\n\n\"They enjoy themselves here,\" I says to Charker, turning surly again.\n\"This is better than private-soldiering.\"\n\nWe had come down to the beach, to be friendly with the boat's-crew who\nwere camped and hutted there; and we were approaching towards their\nquarters over the sand, when Christian George King comes up from the\nlanding-place at a wolf's-trot, crying, \"Yup, So-Jeer!\"--which was that\nSambo Pilot's barbarous way of saying, Hallo, Soldier!  I have stated\nmyself to be a man of no learning, and, if I entertain prejudices, I hope\nallowance may be made.  I will now confess to one.  It may be a right one\nor it may be a wrong one; but, I never did like Natives, except in the\nform of oysters.\n\nSo, when Christian George King, who was individually unpleasant to me\nbesides, comes a trotting along the sand, clucking, \"Yup, So-Jeer!\"  I\nhad a thundering good mind to let fly at him with my right.  I certainly\nshould have done it, but that it would have exposed me to reprimand.\n\n\"Yup, So-Jeer!\" says he.  \"Bad job.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" says I.\n\n\"Yup, So-Jeer!\" says he, \"Ship Leakee.\"\n\n\"Ship leaky?\" says I.\n\n\"Iss,\" says he, with a nod that looked as if it was jerked out of him by\na most violent hiccup--which is the way with those savages.\n\nI cast my eyes at Charker, and we both heard the pumps going aboard the\nsloop, and saw the signal run up, \"Come on board; hands wanted from the\nshore.\"  In no time some of the sloop's liberty-men were already running\ndown to the water's edge, and the party of seamen, under orders against\nthe Pirates, were putting off to the Columbus in two boats.\n\n\"O Christian George King sar berry sorry!\" says that Sambo vagabond,\nthen.  \"Christian George King cry, English fashion!\"  His English fashion\nof crying was to screw his black knuckles into his eyes, howl like a dog,\nand roll himself on his back on the sand.  It was trying not to kick him,\nbut I gave Charker the word, \"Double-quick, Harry!\" and we got down to\nthe water's edge, and got on board the sloop.\n\nBy some means or other, she had sprung such a leak, that no pumping would\nkeep her free; and what between the two fears that she would go down in\nthe harbour, and that, even if she did not, all the supplies she had\nbrought for the little colony would be destroyed by the sea-water as it\nrose in her, there was great confusion.  In the midst of it, Captain\nMaryon was heard hailing from the beach.  He had been carried down in his\nhammock, and looked very bad; but he insisted on being stood there on his\nfeet; and I saw him, myself, come off in the boat, sitting upright in the\nstern-sheets, as if nothing was wrong with him.\n\nA quick sort of council was held, and Captain Maryon soon resolved that\nwe must all fall to work to get the cargo out, and that when that was\ndone, the guns and heavy matters must be got out, and that the sloop must\nbe hauled ashore, and careened, and the leak stopped.  We were all\nmustered (the Pirate-Chace party volunteering), and told off into\nparties, with so many hours of spell and so many hours of relief, and we\nall went at it with a will.  Christian George King was entered one of the\nparty in which I worked, at his own request, and he went at it with as\ngood a will as any of the rest.  He went at it with so much heartiness,\nto say the truth, that he rose in my good opinion almost as fast as the\nwater rose in the ship.  Which was fast enough, and faster.\n\nMr. Commissioner Pordage kept in a red-and-black japanned box, like a\nfamily lump-sugar box, some document or other, which some Sambo chief or\nother had got drunk and spilt some ink over (as well as I could\nunderstand the matter), and by that means had given up lawful possession\nof the Island.  Through having hold of this box, Mr. Pordage got his\ntitle of Commissioner.  He was styled Consul too, and spoke of himself as\n\"Government.\"\n\nHe was a stiff-jointed, high-nosed old gentleman, without an ounce of fat\non him, of a very angry temper and a very yellow complexion.  Mrs.\nCommissioner Pordage, making allowance for difference of sex, was much\nthe same.  Mr. Kitten, a small, youngish, bald, botanical and\nmineralogical gentleman, also connected with the mine--but everybody\nthere was that, more or less--was sometimes called by Mr. Commissioner\nPordage, his Vice-commissioner, and sometimes his Deputy-consul.  Or\nsometimes he spoke of Mr. Kitten, merely as being \"under Government.\"\n\nThe beach was beginning to be a lively scene with the preparations for\ncareening the sloop, and with cargo, and spars, and rigging, and water-\ncasks, dotted about it, and with temporary quarters for the men rising up\nthere out of such sails and odds and ends as could be best set on one\nside to make them, when Mr. Commissioner Pordage comes down in a high\nfluster, and asks for Captain Maryon.  The Captain, ill as he was, was\nslung in his hammock betwixt two trees, that he might direct; and he\nraised his head, and answered for himself.\n\n\"Captain Maryon,\" cries Mr. Commissioner Pordage, \"this is not official.\nThis is not regular.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" says the Captain, \"it hath been arranged with the clerk and\nsupercargo, that you should be communicated with, and requested to render\nany little assistance that may lie in your power.  I am quite certain\nthat hath been duly done.\"\n\n\"Captain Maryon,\" replied Mr. Commissioner Pordage, \"there hath been no\nwritten correspondence.  No documents have passed, no memoranda have been\nmade, no minutes have been made, no entries and counter-entries appear in\nthe official muniments.  This is indecent.  I call upon you, sir, to\ndesist, until all is regular, or Government will take this up.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" says Captain Maryon, chafing a little, as he looked out of his\nhammock; \"between the chances of Government taking this up, and my ship\ntaking herself down, I much prefer to trust myself to the former.\"\n\n\"You do, sir?\" cries Mr. Commissioner Pordage.\n\n\"I do, sir,\" says Captain Maryon, lying down again.\n\n\"Then, Mr. Kitten,\" says the Commissioner, \"send up instantly for my\nDiplomatic coat.\"\n\nHe was dressed in a linen suit at that moment; but, Mr. Kitten started\noff himself and brought down the Diplomatic coat, which was a blue cloth\none, gold-laced, and with a crown on the button.\n\n\"Now, Mr. Kitten,\" says Pordage, \"I instruct you, as Vice-commissioner,\nand Deputy-consul of this place, to demand of Captain Maryon, of the\nsloop Christopher Columbus, whether he drives me to the act of putting\nthis coat on?\"\n\n\"Mr. Pordage,\" says Captain Maryon, looking out of his hammock again, \"as\nI can hear what you say, I can answer it without troubling the gentleman.\nI should be sorry that you should be at the pains of putting on too hot a\ncoat on my account; but, otherwise, you may put it on hind-side before,\nor inside-out, or with your legs in the sleeves, or your head in the\nskirts, for any objection that I have to offer to your thoroughly\npleasing yourself.\"\n\n\"Very good, Captain Maryon,\" says Pordage, in a tremendous passion.  \"Very\ngood, sir.  Be the consequences on your own head!  Mr. Kitten, as it has\ncome to this, help me on with it.\"\n\nWhen he had given that order, he walked off in the coat, and all our\nnames were taken, and I was afterwards told that Mr. Kitten wrote from\nhis dictation more than a bushel of large paper on the subject, which\ncost more before it was done with, than ever could be calculated, and\nwhich only got done with after all, by being lost.\n\nOur work went on merrily, nevertheless, and the Christopher Columbus,\nhauled up, lay helpless on her side like a great fish out of water.  While\nshe was in that state, there was a feast, or a ball, or an entertainment,\nor more properly all three together, given us in honour of the ship, and\nthe ship's company, and the other visitors.  At that assembly, I believe,\nI saw all the inhabitants then upon the Island, without any exception.  I\ntook no particular notice of more than a few, but I found it very\nagreeable in that little corner of the world to see the children, who\nwere of all ages, and mostly very pretty--as they mostly are.  There was\none handsome elderly lady, with very dark eyes and gray hair, that I\ninquired about.  I was told that her name was Mrs. Venning; and her\nmarried daughter, a fair slight thing, was pointed out to me by the name\nof Fanny Fisher.  Quite a child she looked, with a little copy of herself\nholding to her dress; and her husband, just come back from the mine,\nexceeding proud of her.  They were a good-looking set of people on the\nwhole, but I didn't like them.  I was out of sorts; in conversation with\nCharker, I found fault with all of them.  I said of Mrs. Venning, she was\nproud; of Mrs. Fisher, she was a delicate little baby-fool.  What did I\nthink of this one?  Why, he was a fine gentleman.  What did I say to that\none?  Why, she was a fine lady.  What could you expect them to be (I\nasked Charker), nursed in that climate, with the tropical night shining\nfor them, musical instruments playing to them, great trees bending over\nthem, soft lamps lighting them, fire-flies sparkling in among them,\nbright flowers and birds brought into existence to please their eyes,\ndelicious drinks to be had for the pouring out, delicious fruits to be\ngot for the picking, and every one dancing and murmuring happily in the\nscented air, with the sea breaking low on the reef for a pleasant chorus.\n\n\"Fine gentlemen and fine ladies, Harry?\" I says to Charker.  \"Yes, I\nthink so!  Dolls!  Dolls!  Not the sort of stuff for wear, that comes of\npoor private soldiering in the Royal Marines!\"\n\nHowever, I could not gainsay that they were very hospitable people, and\nthat they treated us uncommonly well.  Every man of us was at the\nentertainment, and Mrs. Belltott had more partners than she could dance\nwith: though she danced all night, too.  As to Jack (whether of the\nChristopher Columbus, or of the Pirate pursuit party, it made no\ndifference), he danced with his brother Jack, danced with himself, danced\nwith the moon, the stars, the trees, the prospect, anything.  I didn't\ngreatly take to the chief-officer of that party, with his bright eyes,\nbrown face, and easy figure.  I didn't much like his way when he first\nhappened to come where we were, with Miss Maryon on his arm.  \"O, Captain\nCarton,\" she says, \"here are two friends of mine!\"  He says, \"Indeed?\nThese two Marines?\"--meaning Charker and self.  \"Yes,\" says she, \"I\nshowed these two friends of mine when they first came, all the wonders of\nSilver-Store.\"  He gave us a laughing look, and says he, \"You are in\nluck, men.  I would be disrated and go before the mast to-morrow, to be\nshown the way upward again by such a guide.  You are in luck, men.\"  When\nwe had saluted, and he and the lady had waltzed away, I said, \"You are a\npretty follow, too, to talk of luck.  You may go to the Devil!\"\n\nMr. Commissioner Pordage and Mrs. Commissioner, showed among the company\non that occasion like the King and Queen of a much Greater Britain than\nGreat Britain.  Only two other circumstances in that jovial night made\nmuch separate impression on me.  One was this.  A man in our draft of\nmarines, named Tom Packer, a wild unsteady young fellow, but the son of a\nrespectable shipwright in Portsmouth Yard, and a good scholar who had\nbeen well brought up, comes to me after a spell of dancing, and takes me\naside by the elbow, and says, swearing angrily:\n\n\"Gill Davis, I hope I may not be the death of Sergeant Drooce one day!\"\n\nNow, I knew Drooce had always borne particularly hard on this man, and I\nknew this man to be of a very hot temper: so, I said:\n\n\"Tut, nonsense! don't talk so to me!  If there's a man in the corps who\nscorns the name of an assassin, that man and Tom Packer are one.\"\n\nTom wipes his head, being in a mortal sweat, and says he:\n\n\"I hope so, but I can't answer for myself when he lords it over me, as he\nhas just now done, before a woman.  I tell you what, Gill!  Mark my\nwords!  It will go hard with Sergeant Drooce, if ever we are in an\nengagement together, and he has to look to me to save him.  Let him say a\nprayer then, if he knows one, for it's all over with him, and he is on\nhis Death-bed.  Mark my words!\"\n\nI did mark his words, and very soon afterwards, too, as will shortly be\ntaken down.\n\nThe other circumstance that I noticed at that ball, was, the gaiety and\nattachment of Christian George King.  The innocent spirits that Sambo\nPilot was in, and the impossibility he found himself under of showing all\nthe little colony, but especially the ladies and children, how fond he\nwas of them, how devoted to them, and how faithful to them for life and\ndeath, for present, future, and everlasting, made a great impression on\nme.  If ever a man, Sambo or no Sambo, was trustful and trusted, to what\nmay be called quite an infantine and sweetly beautiful extent, surely, I\nthought that morning when I did at last lie down to rest, it was that\nSambo Pilot, Christian George King.\n\nThis may account for my dreaming of him.  He stuck in my sleep,\ncornerwise, and I couldn't get him out.  He was always flitting about me,\ndancing round me, and peeping in over my hammock, though I woke and dozed\noff again fifty times.  At last, when I opened my eyes, there he really\nwas, looking in at the open side of the little dark hut; which was made\nof leaves, and had Charker's hammock slung in it as well as mine.\n\n\"So-Jeer!\" says he, in a sort of a low croak.  \"Yup!\"\n\n\"Hallo!\" says I, starting up.  \"What?  You _are_ there, are you?\"\n\n\"Iss,\" says he.  \"Christian George King got news.\"\n\n\"What news has he got?\"\n\n\"Pirates out!\"\n\nI was on my feet in a second.  So was Charker.  We were both aware that\nCaptain Carton, in command of the boats, constantly watched the mainland\nfor a secret signal, though, of course, it was not known to such as us\nwhat the signal was.\n\nChristian George King had vanished before we touched the ground.  But,\nthe word was already passing from hut to hut to turn out quietly, and we\nknew that the nimble barbarian had got hold of the truth, or something\nnear it.\n\nIn a space among the trees behind the encampment of us visitors, naval\nand military, was a snugly-screened spot, where we kept the stores that\nwere in use, and did our cookery.  The word was passed to assemble here.\nIt was very quickly given, and was given (so far as we were concerned) by\nSergeant Drooce, who was as good in a soldier point of view, as he was\nbad in a tyrannical one.  We were ordered to drop into this space,\nquietly, behind the trees, one by one.  As we assembled here, the seamen\nassembled too.  Within ten minutes, as I should estimate, we were all\nhere, except the usual guard upon the beach.  The beach (we could see it\nthrough the wood) looked as it always had done in the hottest time of the\nday.  The guard were in the shadow of the sloop's hull, and nothing was\nmoving but the sea,--and that moved very faintly.  Work had always been\nknocked off at that hour, until the sun grew less fierce, and the sea-\nbreeze rose; so that its being holiday with us, made no difference, just\nthen, in the look of the place.  But I may mention that it was a holiday,\nand the first we had had since our hard work began.  Last night's ball\nhad been given, on the leak's being repaired, and the careening done.  The\nworst of the work was over, and to-morrow we were to begin to get the\nsloop afloat again.\n\nWe marines were now drawn up here under arms.  The chace-party were drawn\nup separate.  The men of the Columbus were drawn up separate.  The\nofficers stepped out into the midst of the three parties, and spoke so as\nall might hear.  Captain Carton was the officer in command, and he had a\nspy-glass in his hand.  His coxswain stood by him with another spy-glass,\nand with a slate on which he seemed to have been taking down signals.\n\n\"Now, men!\" says Captain Carton; \"I have to let you know, for your\nsatisfaction: Firstly, that there are ten pirate-boats, strongly manned\nand armed, lying hidden up a creek yonder on the coast, under the\noverhanging branches of the dense trees.  Secondly, that they will\ncertainly come out this night when the moon rises, on a pillaging and\nmurdering expedition, of which some part of the mainland is the object.\nThirdly--don't cheer, men!--that we will give chace, and, if we can get\nat them, rid the world of them, please God!\"\n\nNobody spoke, that I heard, and nobody moved, that I saw.  Yet there was\na kind of ring, as if every man answered and approved with the best blood\nthat was inside of him.\n\n\"Sir,\" says Captain Maryon, \"I beg to volunteer on this service, with my\nboats.  My people volunteer, to the ship's boys.\"\n\n\"In His Majesty's name and service,\" the other answers, touching his hat,\n\"I accept your aid with pleasure.  Lieutenant Linderwood, how will you\ndivide your men?\"\n\nI was ashamed--I give it out to be written down as large and plain as\npossible--I was heart and soul ashamed of my thoughts of those two sick\nofficers, Captain Maryon and Lieutenant Linderwood, when I saw them, then\nand there.  The spirit in those two gentlemen beat down their illness\n(and very ill I knew them to be) like Saint George beating down the\nDragon.  Pain and weakness, want of ease and want of rest, had no more\nplace in their minds than fear itself.  Meaning now to express for my\nlady to write down, exactly what I felt then and there, I felt this: \"You\ntwo brave fellows that I had been so grudgeful of, I know that if you\nwere dying you would put it off to get up and do your best, and then you\nwould be so modest that in lying down again to die, you would hardly say,\n'I did it!'\"\n\nIt did me good.  It really did me good.\n\nBut, to go back to where I broke off.  Says Captain Carton to Lieutenant\nLinderwood, \"Sir, how will you divide your men?  There is not room for\nall; and a few men should, in any case, be left here.\"\n\nThere was some debate about it.  At last, it was resolved to leave eight\nMarines and four seamen on the Island, besides the sloop's two boys.  And\nbecause it was considered that the friendly Sambos would only want to be\ncommanded in case of any danger (though none at all was apprehended\nthere), the officers were in favour of leaving the two non-commissioned\nofficers, Drooce and Charker.  It was a heavy disappointment to them,\njust as my being one of the left was a heavy disappointment to me--then,\nbut not soon afterwards.  We men drew lots for it, and I drew \"Island.\"\nSo did Tom Packer.  So of course, did four more of our rank and file.\n\nWhen this was settled, verbal instructions were given to all hands to\nkeep the intended expedition secret, in order that the women and children\nmight not be alarmed, or the expedition put in a difficulty by more\nvolunteers.  The assembly was to be on that same spot at sunset.  Every\nman was to keep up an appearance, meanwhile, of occupying himself in his\nusual way.  That is to say, every man excepting four old trusty seamen,\nwho were appointed, with an officer, to see to the arms and ammunition,\nand to muffle the rullocks of the boats, and to make everything as trim\nand swift and silent as it could be made.\n\nThe Sambo Pilot had been present all the while, in case of his being\nwanted, and had said to the officer in command, five hundred times over\nif he had said it once, that Christian George King would stay with the So-\nJeers, and take care of the booffer ladies and the booffer childs--booffer\nbeing that native's expression for beautiful.  He was now asked a few\nquestions concerning the putting off of the boats, and in particular\nwhether there was any way of embarking at the back of the Island: which\nCaptain Carton would have half liked to do, and then have dropped round\nin its shadow and slanted across to the main.  But, \"No,\" says Christian\nGeorge King.  \"No, no, no!  Told you so, ten time.  No, no, no!  All\nreef, all rock, all swim, all drown!\"  Striking out as he said it, like a\nswimmer gone mad, and turning over on his back on dry land, and\nspluttering himself to death, in a manner that made him quite an\nexhibition.\n\nThe sun went down, after appearing to be a long time about it, and the\nassembly was called.  Every man answered to his name, of course, and was\nat his post.  It was not yet black dark, and the roll was only just gone\nthrough, when up comes Mr. Commissioner Pordage with his Diplomatic coat\non.\n\n\"Captain Carton,\" says he, \"Sir, what is this?\"\n\n\"This, Mr. Commissioner\" (he was very short with him), \"is an expedition\nagainst the Pirates.  It is a secret expedition, so please to keep it a\nsecret.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" says Commissioner Pordage, \"I trust there is going to be no\nunnecessary cruelty committed?\"\n\n\"Sir,\" returns the officer, \"I trust not.\"\n\n\"That is not enough, sir,\" cries Commissioner Pordage, getting wroth.\n\"Captain Carton, I give you notice.  Government requires you to treat the\nenemy with great delicacy, consideration, clemency, and forbearance.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" says Captain Carton, \"I am an English officer, commanding English\nMen, and I hope I am not likely to disappoint the Government's just\nexpectations.  But, I presume you know that these villains under their\nblack flag have despoiled our countrymen of their property, burnt their\nhomes, barbarously murdered them and their little children, and worse\nthan murdered their wives and daughters?\"\n\n\"Perhaps I do, Captain Carton,\" answers Pordage, waving his hand, with\ndignity; \"perhaps I do not.  It is not customary, sir, for Government to\ncommit itself.\"\n\n\"It matters very little, Mr. Pordage, whether or no.  Believing that I\nhold my commission by the allowance of God, and not that I have received\nit direct from the Devil, I shall certainly use it, with all avoidance of\nunnecessary suffering and with all merciful swiftness of execution, to\nexterminate these people from the face of the earth.  Let me recommend\nyou to go home, sir, and to keep out of the night-air.\"\n\nNever another syllable did that officer say to the Commissioner, but\nturned away to his men.  The Commissioner buttoned his Diplomatic coat to\nthe chin, said, \"Mr. Kitten, attend me!\" gasped, half choked himself, and\ntook himself off.\n\nIt now fell very dark, indeed.  I have seldom, if ever, seen it darker,\nnor yet so dark.  The moon was not due until one in the morning, and it\nwas but a little after nine when our men lay down where they were\nmustered.  It was pretended that they were to take a nap, but everybody\nknew that no nap was to be got under the circumstances.  Though all were\nvery quiet, there was a restlessness among the people; much what I have\nseen among the people on a race-course, when the bell has rung for the\nsaddling for a great race with large stakes on it.\n\nAt ten, they put off; only one boat putting off at a time; another\nfollowing in five minutes; both then lying on their oars until another\nfollowed.  Ahead of all, paddling his own outlandish little canoe without\na sound, went the Sambo pilot, to take them safely outside the reef.  No\nlight was shown but once, and that was in the commanding officer's own\nhand.  I lighted the dark lantern for him, and he took it from me when he\nembarked.  They had blue lights and such like with them, but kept\nthemselves as dark as Murder.\n\nThe expedition got away with wonderful quietness, and Christian George\nKing soon came back dancing with joy.\n\n\"Yup, So-Jeer,\" says he to myself in a very objectionable kind of\nconvulsions, \"Christian George King sar berry glad.  Pirates all be blown\na-pieces.  Yup!  Yup!\"\n\nMy reply to that cannibal was, \"However glad you may be, hold your noise,\nand don't dance jigs and slap your knees about it, for I can't abear to\nsee you do it.\"\n\nI was on duty then; we twelve who were left being divided into four\nwatches of three each, three hours' spell.  I was relieved at twelve.  A\nlittle before that time, I had challenged, and Miss Maryon and Mrs.\nBelltott had come in.\n\n\"Good Davis,\" says Miss Maryon, \"what is the matter?  Where is my\nbrother?\"\n\nI told her what was the matter, and where her brother was.\n\n\"O Heaven help him!\" says she, clasping her hands and looking up--she was\nclose in front of me, and she looked most lovely to be sure; \"he is not\nsufficiently recovered, not strong enough for such strife!\"\n\n\"If you had seen him, miss,\" I told her, \"as I saw him when he\nvolunteered, you would have known that his spirit is strong enough for\nany strife.  It will bear his body, miss, to wherever duty calls him.  It\nwill always bear him to an honourable life, or a brave death.\"\n\n\"Heaven bless you!\" says she, touching my arm.  \"I know it.  Heaven bless\nyou!\"\n\nMrs. Belltott surprised me by trembling and saying nothing.  They were\nstill standing looking towards the sea and listening, after the relief\nhad come round.  It continuing very dark, I asked to be allowed to take\nthem back.  Miss Maryon thanked me, and she put her arm in mine, and I\ndid take them back.  I have now got to make a confession that will appear\nsingular.  After I had left them, I laid myself down on my face on the\nbeach, and cried for the first time since I had frightened birds as a boy\nat Snorridge Bottom, to think what a poor, ignorant, low-placed, private\nsoldier I was.\n\nIt was only for half a minute or so.  A man can't at all times be quite\nmaster of himself, and it was only for half a minute or so.  Then I up\nand went to my hut, and turned into my hammock, and fell asleep with wet\neyelashes, and a sore, sore heart.  Just as I had often done when I was a\nchild, and had been worse used than usual.\n\nI slept (as a child under those circumstances might) very sound, and yet\nvery sore at heart all through my sleep.  I was awoke by the words, \"He\nis a determined man.\"  I had sprung out of my hammock, and had seized my\nfirelock, and was standing on the ground, saying the words myself.  \"He\nis a determined man.\"  But, the curiosity of my state was, that I seemed\nto be repeating them after somebody, and to have been wonderfully\nstartled by hearing them.\n\nAs soon as I came to myself, I went out of the hut, and away to where the\nguard was.  Charker challenged:\n\n\"Who goes there?\"\n\n\"A friend.\"\n\n\"Not Gill?\" says he, as he shouldered his piece.\n\n\"Gill,\" says I.\n\n\"Why, what the deuce do you do out of your hammock?\" says he.\n\n\"Too hot for sleep,\" says I; \"is all right?\"\n\n\"Right!\" says Charker, \"yes, yes; all's right enough here; what should be\nwrong here?  It's the boats that we want to know of.  Except for fire-\nflies twinkling about, and the lonesome splashes of great creatures as\nthey drop into the water, there's nothing going on here to ease a man's\nmind from the boats.\"\n\nThe moon was above the sea, and had risen, I should say, some half-an-\nhour.  As Charker spoke, with his face towards the sea, I, looking\nlandward, suddenly laid my right hand on his breast, and said, \"Don't\nmove.  Don't turn.  Don't raise your voice!  You never saw a Maltese face\nhere?\"\n\n\"No.  What do you mean?\" he asks, staring at me.\n\n\"Nor yet, an English face, with one eye and a patch across the nose?\"\n\n\"No.  What ails you?  What do you mean?\"\n\nI had seen both, looking at us round the stem of a cocoa-nut tree, where\nthe moon struck them.  I had seen that Sambo Pilot, with one hand laid on\nthe stem of the tree, drawing them back into the heavy shadow.  I had\nseen their naked cutlasses twinkle and shine, like bits of the moonshine\nin the water that had got blown ashore among the trees by the light wind.\nI had seen it all, in a moment.  And I saw in a moment (as any man\nwould), that the signalled move of the pirates on the mainland was a plot\nand a feint; that the leak had been made to disable the sloop; that the\nboats had been tempted away, to leave the Island unprotected; that the\npirates had landed by some secreted way at the back; and that Christian\nGeorge King was a double-dyed traitor, and a most infernal villain.\n\nI considered, still all in one and the same moment, that Charker was a\nbrave man, but not quick with his head; and that Sergeant Drooce, with a\nmuch better head, was close by.  All I said to Charker was, \"I am afraid\nwe are betrayed.  Turn your back full to the moonlight on the sea, and\ncover the stem of the cocoa-nut tree which will then be right before you,\nat the height of a man's heart.  Are you right?\"\n\n\"I am right,\" says Charker, turning instantly, and falling into the\nposition with a nerve of iron; \"and right ain't left.  Is it, Gill?\"\n\nA few seconds brought me to Sergeant Drooce's hut.  He was fast asleep,\nand being a heavy sleeper, I had to lay my hand upon him to rouse him.\nThe instant I touched him he came rolling out of his hammock, and upon me\nlike a tiger.  And a tiger he was, except that he knew what he was up to,\nin his utmost heat, as well as any man.\n\nI had to struggle with him pretty hard to bring him to his senses,\npanting all the while (for he gave me a breather), \"Sergeant, I am Gill\nDavis!  Treachery!  Pirates on the Island!\"\n\nThe last words brought him round, and he took his hands of.  \"I have seen\ntwo of them within this minute,\" said I.  And so I told him what I had\ntold Harry Charker.\n\nHis soldierly, though tyrannical, head was clear in an instant.  He\ndidn't waste one word, even of surprise.  \"Order the guard,\" says he, \"to\ndraw off quietly into the Fort.\"  (They called the enclosure I have\nbefore mentioned, the Fort, though it was not much of that.)  \"Then get\nyou to the Fort as quick as you can, rouse up every soul there, and\nfasten the gate.  I will bring in all those who are at the Signal Hill.\nIf we are surrounded before we can join you, you must make a sally and\ncut us out if you can.  The word among our men is, 'Women and children!'\"\n\nHe burst away, like fire going before the wind over dry reeds.  He roused\nup the seven men who were off duty, and had them bursting away with him,\nbefore they know they were not asleep.  I reported orders to Charker, and\nran to the Fort, as I have never run at any other time in all my life:\nno, not even in a dream.\n\nThe gate was not fast, and had no good fastening: only a double wooden\nbar, a poor chain, and a bad lock.  Those, I secured as well as they\ncould be secured in a few seconds by one pair of hands, and so ran to\nthat part of the building where Miss Maryon lived.  I called to her\nloudly by her name until she answered.  I then called loudly all the\nnames I knew--Mrs. Macey (Miss Maryon's married sister), Mr. Macey, Mrs.\nVenning, Mr. and Mrs. Fisher, even Mr. and Mrs. Pordage.  Then I called\nout, \"All you gentlemen here, get up and defend the place!  We are caught\nin a trap.  Pirates have landed.  We are attacked!\"\n\nAt the terrible word \"Pirates!\"--for, those villains had done such deeds\nin those seas as never can be told in writing, and can scarcely be so\nmuch as thought of--cries and screams rose up from every part of the\nplace.  Quickly lights moved about from window to window, and the cries\nmoved about with them, and men, women, and children came flying down into\nthe square.  I remarked to myself, even then, what a number of things I\nseemed to see at once.  I noticed Mrs. Macey coming towards me, carrying\nall her three children together.  I noticed Mr. Pordage in the greatest\nterror, in vain trying to get on his Diplomatic coat; and Mr. Kitten\nrespectfully tying his pocket-handkerchief over Mrs. Pordage's nightcap.\nI noticed Mrs. Belltott run out screaming, and shrink upon the ground\nnear me, and cover her face in her hands, and lie all of a bundle,\nshivering.  But, what I noticed with the greatest pleasure was, the\ndetermined eyes with which those men of the Mine that I had thought fine\ngentlemen, came round me with what arms they had: to the full as cool and\nresolute as I could be, for my life--ay, and for my soul, too, into the\nbargain!\n\nThe chief person being Mr. Macey, I told him how the three men of the\nguard would be at the gate directly, if they were not already there, and\nhow Sergeant Drooce and the other seven were gone to bring in the\noutlying part of the people of Silver-Store.  I next urged him, for the\nlove of all who were dear to him, to trust no Sambo, and, above all, if\nhe could got any good chance at Christian George King, not to lose it,\nbut to put him out of the world.\n\n\"I will follow your advice to the letter, Davis,\" says he; \"what next?\"\n\nMy answer was, \"I think, sir, I would recommend you next, to order down\nsuch heavy furniture and lumber as can be moved, and make a barricade\nwithin the gate.\"\n\n\"That's good again,\" says he: \"will you see it done?\"\n\n\"I'll willingly help to do it,\" says I, \"unless or until my superior,\nSergeant Drooce, gives me other orders.\"\n\nHe shook me by the hand, and having told off some of his companions to\nhelp me, bestirred himself to look to the arms and ammunition.  A proper\nquick, brave, steady, ready gentleman!\n\nOne of their three little children was deaf and dumb, Miss Maryon had\nbeen from the first with all the children, soothing them, and dressing\nthem (poor little things, they had been brought out of their beds), and\nmaking them believe that it was a game of play, so that some of them were\nnow even laughing.  I had been working hard with the others at the\nbarricade, and had got up a pretty good breastwork within the gate.\nDrooce and the seven men had come back, bringing in the people from the\nSignal Hill, and had worked along with us: but, I had not so much as\nspoken a word to Drooce, nor had Drooce so much as spoken a word to me,\nfor we were both too busy.  The breastwork was now finished, and I found\nMiss Maryon at my side, with a child in her arms.  Her dark hair was\nfastened round her head with a band.  She had a quantity of it, and it\nlooked even richer and more precious, put up hastily out of her way, than\nI had seen it look when it was carefully arranged.  She was very pale,\nbut extraordinarily quiet and still.\n\n\"Dear good Davis,\" said she, \"I have been waiting to speak one word to\nyou.\"\n\nI turned to her directly.  If I had received a musket-ball in the heart,\nand she had stood there, I almost believe I should have turned to her\nbefore I dropped.\n\n\"This pretty little creature,\" said she, kissing the child in her arms,\nwho was playing with her hair and trying to pull it down, \"cannot hear\nwhat we say--can hear nothing.  I trust you so much, and have such great\nconfidence in you, that I want you to make me a promise.\"\n\n\"What is it, Miss?\"\n\n\"That if we are defeated, and you are absolutely sure of my being taken,\nyou will kill me.\"\n\n\"I shall not be alive to do it, Miss.  I shall have died in your defence\nbefore it comes to that.  They must step across my body to lay a hand on\nyou.\"\n\n\"But, if you are alive, you brave soldier.\"  How she looked at me!  \"And\nif you cannot save me from the Pirates, living, you will save me, dead.\nTell me so.\"\n\nWell!  I told her I would do that at the last, if all else failed.  She\ntook my hand--my rough, coarse hand--and put it to her lips.  She put it\nto the child's lips, and the child kissed it.  I believe I had the\nstrength of half a dozen men in me, from that moment, until the fight was\nover.\n\nAll this time, Mr. Commissioner Pordage had been wanting to make a\nProclamation to the Pirates to lay down their arms and go away; and\neverybody had been hustling him about and tumbling over him, while he was\ncalling for pen and ink to write it with.  Mrs. Pordage, too, had some\ncurious ideas about the British respectability of her nightcap (which had\nas many frills to it, growing in layers one inside another, as if it was\na white vegetable of the artichoke sort), and she wouldn't take the\nnightcap off, and would be angry when it got crushed by the other ladies\nwho were handing things about, and, in short, she gave as much trouble as\nher husband did.  But, as we were now forming for the defence of the\nplace, they were both poked out of the way with no ceremony.  The\nchildren and ladies were got into the little trench which surrounded the\nsilver-house (we were afraid of leaving them in any of the light\nbuildings, lest they should be set on fire), and we made the best\ndisposition we could.  There was a pretty good store, in point of amount,\nof tolerable swords and cutlasses.  Those were issued.  There were, also,\nperhaps a score or so of spare muskets.  Those were brought out.  To my\nastonishment, little Mrs. Fisher that I had taken for a doll and a baby,\nwas not only very active in that service, but volunteered to load the\nspare arms.\n\n\"For, I understand it well,\" says she, cheerfully, without a shake in her\nvoice.\n\n\"I am a soldier's daughter and a sailor's sister, and I understand it\ntoo,\" says Miss Maryon, just in the same way.\n\nSteady and busy behind where I stood, those two beautiful and delicate\nyoung women fell to handling the guns, hammering the flints, looking to\nthe locks, and quietly directing others to pass up powder and bullets\nfrom hand to hand, as unflinching as the best of tried soldiers.\n\nSergeant Drooce had brought in word that the pirates were very strong in\nnumbers--over a hundred was his estimate--and that they were not, even\nthen, all landed; for, he had seen them in a very good position on the\nfurther side of the Signal Hill, evidently waiting for the rest of their\nmen to come up.  In the present pause, the first we had had since the\nalarm, he was telling this over again to Mr. Macey, when Mr. Macey\nsuddenly cried our: \"The signal!  Nobody has thought of the signal!\"\n\nWe knew of no signal, so we could not have thought of it.\n\n\"What signal may you mean, sir?\" says Sergeant Drooce, looking sharp at\nhim.\n\n\"There is a pile of wood upon the Signal Hill.  If it could be\nlighted--which never has been done yet--it would be a signal of distress\nto the mainland.\"\n\nCharker cries, directly: \"Sergeant Drooce, dispatch me on that duty.  Give\nme the two men who were on guard with me to-night, and I'll light the\nfire, if it can be done.\"\n\n\"And if it can't, Corporal--\" Mr. Macey strikes in.\n\n\"Look at these ladies and children, sir!\" says Charker.  \"I'd sooner\n_light myself_, than not try any chance to save them.\"\n\nWe gave him a Hurrah!--it burst from us, come of it what might--and he\ngot his two men, and was let out at the gate, and crept away.  I had no\nsooner come back to my place from being one of the party to handle the\ngate, than Miss Maryon said in a low voice behind me:\n\n\"Davis, will you look at this powder?  This is not right.\"\n\nI turned my head.  Christian George King again, and treachery again!  Sea-\nwater had been conveyed into the magazine, and every grain of powder was\nspoiled!\n\n\"Stay a moment,\" said Sergeant Drooce, when I had told him, without\ncausing a movement in a muscle of his face: \"look to your pouch, my lad.\nYou Tom Packer, look to your pouch, confound you!  Look to your pouches,\nall you Marines.\"\n\nThe same artful savage had got at them, somehow or another, and the\ncartridges were all unserviceable.  \"Hum!\" says the Sergeant.  \"Look to\nyour loading, men.  You are right so far?\"\n\nYes; we were right so far.\n\n\"Well, my lads, and gentlemen all,\" says the Sergeant, \"this will be a\nhand-to-hand affair, and so much the better.\"\n\nHe treated himself to a pinch of snuff, and stood up, square-shouldered\nand broad-chested, in the light of the moon--which was now very bright--as\ncool as if he was waiting for a play to begin.  He stood quiet, and we\nall stood quiet, for a matter of something like half-an-hour.  I took\nnotice from such whispered talk as there was, how little we that the\nsilver did not belong to, thought about it, and how much the people that\nit did belong to, thought about it.  At the end of the half-hour, it was\nreported from the gate that Charker and the two were falling back on us,\npursued by about a dozen.\n\n\"Sally!  Gate-party, under Gill Davis,\" says the Sergeant, \"and bring 'em\nin!  Like men, now!\"\n\nWe were not long about it, and we brought them in.  \"Don't take me,\" says\nCharker, holding me round the neck, and stumbling down at my feet when\nthe gate was fast, \"don't take me near the ladies or the children, Gill.\nThey had better not see Death, till it can't be helped.  They'll see it\nsoon enough.\"\n\n\"Harry!\" I answered, holding up his head.  \"Comrade!\"\n\nHe was cut to pieces.  The signal had been secured by the first pirate\nparty that landed; his hair was all singed off, and his face was\nblackened with the running pitch from a torch.\n\nHe made no complaint of pain, or of anything.  \"Good-bye, old chap,\" was\nall he said, with a smile.  \"I've got my death.  And Death ain't life.  Is\nit, Gill?\"\n\nHaving helped to lay his poor body on one side, I went back to my post.\nSergeant Drooce looked at me, with his eyebrows a little lifted.  I\nnodded.  \"Close up here men, and gentlemen all!\" said the Sergeant.  \"A\nplace too many, in the line.\"\n\nThe Pirates were so close upon us at this time, that the foremost of them\nwere already before the gate.  More and more came up with a great noise,\nand shouting loudly.  When we believed from the sound that they were all\nthere, we gave three English cheers.  The poor little children joined,\nand were so fully convinced of our being at play, that they enjoyed the\nnoise, and were heard clapping their hands in the silence that followed.\n\nOur disposition was this, beginning with the rear.  Mrs. Venning, holding\nher daughter's child in her arms, sat on the steps of the little square\ntrench surrounding the silver-house, encouraging and directing those\nwomen and children as she might have done in the happiest and easiest\ntime of her life.  Then, there was an armed line, under Mr. Macey, across\nthe width of the enclosure, facing that way and having their backs\ntowards the gate, in order that they might watch the walls and prevent\nour being taken by surprise.  Then there was a space of eight or ten feet\ndeep, in which the spare arms were, and in which Miss Maryon and Mrs.\nFisher, their hands and dresses blackened with the spoilt gunpowder,\nworked on their knees, tying such things as knives, old bayonets, and\nspear-heads, to the muzzles of the useless muskets.  Then, there was a\nsecond armed line, under Sergeant Drooce, also across the width of the\nenclosure, but facing to the gate.  Then came the breastwork we had made,\nwith a zigzag way through it for me and my little party to hold good in\nretreating, as long as we could, when we were driven from the gate.  We\nall knew that it was impossible to hold the place long, and that our only\nhope was in the timely discovery of the plot by the boats, and in their\ncoming back.\n\nI and my men were now thrown forward to the gate.  From a spy-hole, I\ncould see the whole crowd of Pirates.  There were Malays among them,\nDutch, Maltese, Greeks, Sambos, Negroes, and Convict Englishmen from the\nWest India Islands; among the last, him with the one eye and the patch\nacross the nose.  There were some Portuguese, too, and a few Spaniards.\nThe captain was a Portuguese; a little man with very large ear-rings\nunder a very broad hat, and a great bright shawl twisted about his\nshoulders.  They were all strongly armed, but like a boarding party, with\npikes, swords, cutlasses, and axes.  I noticed a good many pistols, but\nnot a gun of any kind among them.  This gave me to understand that they\nhad considered that a continued roll of musketry might perhaps have been\nheard on the mainland; also, that for the reason that fire would be seen\nfrom the mainland they would not set the Fort in flames and roast us\nalive; which was one of their favourite ways of carrying on.  I looked\nabout for Christian George King, and if I had seen him I am much mistaken\nif he would not have received my one round of ball-cartridge in his head.\nBut, no Christian George King was visible.\n\nA sort of a wild Portuguese demon, who seemed either fierce-mad or fierce-\ndrunk--but, they all seemed one or the other--came forward with the black\nflag, and gave it a wave or two.  After that, the Portuguese captain\ncalled out in shrill English, \"I say you!  English fools!  Open the gate!\nSurrender!\"\n\nAs we kept close and quiet, he said something to his men which I didn't\nunderstand, and when he had said it, the one-eyed English rascal with the\npatch (who had stepped out when he began), said it again in English.  It\nwas only this.  \"Boys of the black flag, this is to be quickly done.  Take\nall the prisoners you can.  If they don't yield, kill the children to\nmake them.  Forward!\"  Then, they all came on at the gate, and in another\nhalf-minute were smashing and splitting it in.\n\nWe struck at them through the gaps and shivers, and we dropped many of\nthem, too; but, their very weight would have carried such a gate, if they\nhad been unarmed.  I soon found Sergeant Drooce at my side, forming us\nsix remaining marines in line--Tom Packer next to me--and ordering us to\nfall back three paces, and, as they broke in, to give them our one little\nvolley at short distance.  \"Then,\" says he, \"receive them behind your\nbreastwork on the bayonet, and at least let every man of you pin one of\nthe cursed cockchafers through the body.\"\n\nWe checked them by our fire, slight as it was, and we checked them at the\nbreastwork.  However, they broke over it like swarms of devils--they\nwere, really and truly, more devils than men--and then it was hand to\nhand, indeed.\n\nWe clubbed our muskets and laid about us; even then, those two\nladies--always behind me--were steady and ready with the arms.  I had a\nlot of Maltese and Malays upon me, and, but for a broadsword that Miss\nMaryon's own hand put in mine, should have got my end from them.  But,\nwas that all?  No.  I saw a heap of banded dark hair and a white dress\ncome thrice between me and them, under my own raised right arm, which\neach time might have destroyed the wearer of the white dress; and each\ntime one of the lot went down, struck dead.\n\nDrooce was armed with a broadsword, too, and did such things with it,\nthat there was a cry, in half-a-dozen languages, of \"Kill that sergeant!\"\nas I knew, by the cry being raised in English, and taken up in other\ntongues.  I had received a severe cut across the left arm a few moments\nbefore, and should have known nothing of it, except supposing that\nsomebody had struck me a smart blow, if I had not felt weak, and seen\nmyself covered with spouting blood, and, at the same instant of time,\nseen Miss Maryon tearing her dress and binding it with Mrs. Fisher's help\nround the wound.  They called to Tom Packer, who was scouring by, to stop\nand guard me for one minute, while I was bound, or I should bleed to\ndeath in trying to defend myself.  Tom stopped directly, with a good\nsabre in his hand.\n\nIn that same moment--all things seem to happen in that same moment, at\nsuch a time--half-a-dozen had rushed howling at Sergeant Drooce.  The\nSergeant, stepping back against the wall, stopped one howl for ever with\nsuch a terrible blow, and waited for the rest to come on, with such a\nwonderfully unmoved face, that they stopped and looked at him.\n\n\"See him now!\" cried Tom Packer.  \"Now, when I could cut him out!  Gill!\nDid I tell you to mark my words?\"\n\nI implored Tom Packer in the Lord's name, as well as I could in my\nfaintness, to go to the Sergeant's aid.\n\n\"I hate and detest him,\" says Tom, moodily wavering.  \"Still, he is a\nbrave man.\"  Then he calls out, \"Sergeant Drooce, Sergeant Drooce!  Tell\nme you have driven me too hard, and are sorry for it.\"\n\nThe Sergeant, without turning his eyes from his assailants, which would\nhave been instant death to him, answers.\n\n\"No.  I won't.\"\n\n\"Sergeant Drooce!\" cries Tom, in a kind of an agony.  \"I have passed my\nword that I would never save you from Death, if I could, but would leave\nyou to die.  Tell me you have driven me too hard and are sorry for it,\nand that shall go for nothing.\"\n\nOne of the group laid the Sergeant's bald bare head open.  The Sergeant\nlaid him dead.\n\n\"I tell you,\" says the Sergeant, breathing a little short, and waiting\nfor the next attack, \"no.  I won't.  If you are not man enough to strike\nfor a fellow-soldier because he wants help, and because of nothing else,\nI'll go into the other world and look for a better man.\"\n\nTom swept upon them, and cut him out.  Tom and he fought their way\nthrough another knot of them, and sent them flying, and came over to\nwhere I was beginning again to feel, with inexpressible joy, that I had\ngot a sword in my hand.\n\nThey had hardly come to us, when I heard, above all the other noises, a\ntremendous cry of women's voices.  I also saw Miss Maryon, with quite a\nnew face, suddenly clap her two hands over Mrs. Fisher's eyes.  I looked\ntowards the silver-house, and saw Mrs. Venning--standing upright on the\ntop of the steps of the trench, with her gray hair and her dark eyes--hide\nher daughter's child behind her, among the folds of her dress, strike a\npirate with her other hand, and fall, shot by his pistol.\n\nThe cry arose again, and there was a terrible and confusing rush of the\nwomen into the midst of the struggle.  In another moment, something came\ntumbling down upon me that I thought was the wall.  It was a heap of\nSambos who had come over the wall; and of four men who clung to my legs\nlike serpents, one who clung to my right leg was Christian George King.\n\n\"Yup, So-Jeer,\" says he, \"Christian George King sar berry glad So-Jeer a\nprisoner.  Christian George King been waiting for So-Jeer sech long time.\nYup, yup!\"\n\nWhat could I do, with five-and-twenty of them on me, but be tied hand and\nfoot?  So, I was tied hand and foot.  It was all over now--boats not come\nback--all lost!  When I was fast bound and was put up against the wall,\nthe one-eyed English convict came up with the Portuguese Captain, to have\na look at me.\n\n\"See!\" says he.  \"Here's the determined man!  If you had slept sounder,\nlast night, you'd have slept your soundest last night, my determined\nman.\"\n\nThe Portuguese Captain laughed in a cool way, and with the flat of his\ncutlass, hit me crosswise, as if I was the bough of a tree that he played\nwith: first on the face, and then across the chest and the wounded arm.  I\nlooked him steady in the face without tumbling while he looked at me, I\nam happy to say; but, when they went away, I fell, and lay there.\n\nThe sun was up, when I was roused and told to come down to the beach and\nbe embarked.  I was full of aches and pains, and could not at first\nremember; but, I remembered quite soon enough.  The killed were lying\nabout all over the place, and the Pirates were burying their dead, and\ntaking away their wounded on hastily-made litters, to the back of the\nIsland.  As for us prisoners, some of their boats had come round to the\nusual harbour, to carry us off.  We looked a wretched few, I thought,\nwhen I got down there; still, it was another sign that we had fought\nwell, and made the enemy suffer.\n\nThe Portuguese Captain had all the women already embarked in the boat he\nhimself commanded, which was just putting off when I got down.  Miss\nMaryon sat on one side of him, and gave me a moment's look, as full of\nquiet courage, and pity, and confidence, as if it had been an hour long.\nOn the other side of him was poor little Mrs. Fisher, weeping for her\nchild and her mother.  I was shoved into the same boat with Drooce and\nPacker, and the remainder of our party of marines: of whom we had lost\ntwo privates, besides Charker, my poor, brave comrade.  We all made a\nmelancholy passage, under the hot sun over to the mainland.  There, we\nlanded in a solitary place, and were mustered on the sea sand.  Mr. and\nMrs. Macey and their children were amongst us, Mr. and Mrs. Pordage, Mr.\nKitten, Mr. Fisher, and Mrs. Belltott.  We mustered only fourteen men,\nfifteen women, and seven children.  Those were all that remained of the\nEnglish who had lain down to sleep last night, unsuspecting and happy, on\nthe Island of Silver-Store.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III {1}--THE RAFTS ON THE RIVER\n\n\nWe contrived to keep afloat all that night, and, the stream running\nstrong with us, to glide a long way down the river.  But, we found the\nnight to be a dangerous time for such navigation, on account of the\neddies and rapids, and it was therefore settled next day that in future\nwe would bring-to at sunset, and encamp on the shore.  As we knew of no\nboats that the Pirates possessed, up at the Prison in the Woods, we\nsettled always to encamp on the opposite side of the stream, so as to\nhave the breadth of the river between our sleep and them.  Our opinion\nwas, that if they were acquainted with any near way by land to the mouth\nof this river, they would come up it in force, and retake us or kill us,\naccording as they could; but that if that was not the case, and if the\nriver ran by none of their secret stations, we might escape.\n\nWhen I say we settled this or that, I do not mean that we planned\nanything with any confidence as to what might happen an hour hence.  So\nmuch had happened in one night, and such great changes had been violently\nand suddenly made in the fortunes of many among us, that we had got\nbetter used to uncertainty, in a little while, than I dare say most\npeople do in the course of their lives.\n\nThe difficulties we soon got into, through the off-settings and point-\ncurrents of the stream, made the likelihood of our being drowned,\nalone,--to say nothing of our being retaken--as broad and plain as the\nsun at noonday to all of us.  But, we all worked hard at managing the\nrafts, under the direction of the seamen (of our own skill, I think we\nnever could have prevented them from oversetting), and we also worked\nhard at making good the defects in their first hasty construction--which\nthe water soon found out.  While we humbly resigned ourselves to going\ndown, if it was the will of Our Father that was in Heaven, we humbly made\nup our minds, that we would all do the best that was in us.\n\nAnd so we held on, gliding with the stream.  It drove us to this bank,\nand it drove us to that bank, and it turned us, and whirled us; but yet\nit carried us on.  Sometimes much too slowly; sometimes much too fast,\nbut yet it carried us on.\n\nMy little deaf and dumb boy slumbered a good deal now, and that was the\ncase with all the children.  They caused very little trouble to any one.\nThey seemed, in my eyes, to get more like one another, not only in quiet\nmanner, but in the face, too.  The motion of the raft was usually so much\nthe same, the scene was usually so much the same, the sound of the soft\nwash and ripple of the water was usually so much the same, that they were\nmade drowsy, as they might have been by the constant playing of one tune.\nEven on the grown people, who worked hard and felt anxiety, the same\nthings produced something of the same effect.  Every day was so like the\nother, that I soon lost count of the days, myself, and had to ask Miss\nMaryon, for instance, whether this was the third or fourth?  Miss Maryon\nhad a pocket-book and pencil, and she kept the log; that is to say, she\nentered up a clear little journal of the time, and of the distances our\nseamen thought we had made, each night.\n\nSo, as I say, we kept afloat and glided on.  All day long, and every day,\nthe water, and the woods, and sky; all day long, and every day, the\nconstant watching of both sides of the river, and far ahead at every bold\nturn and sweep it made, for any signs of Pirate-boats, or\nPirate-dwellings.  So, as I say, we kept afloat and glided on.  The days\nmelting themselves together to that degree, that I could hardly believe\nmy ears when I asked \"How many now, Miss?\" and she answered \"Seven.\"\n\nTo be sure, poor Mr. Pordage had, by about now, got his Diplomatic coat\ninto such a state as never was seen.  What with the mud of the river,\nwhat with the water of the river, what with the sun, and the dews, and\nthe tearing boughs, and the thickets, it hung about him in discoloured\nshreds like a mop.  The sun had touched him a bit.  He had taken to\nalways polishing one particular button, which just held on to his left\nwrist, and to always calling for stationery.  I suppose that man called\nfor pens, ink, and paper, tape, and scaling-wax, upwards of one thousand\ntimes in four-and-twenty hours.  He had an idea that we should never get\nout of that river unless we were written out of it in a formal\nMemorandum; and the more we laboured at navigating the rafts, the more he\nordered us not to touch them at our peril, and the more he sat and roared\nfor stationery.\n\nMrs. Pordage, similarly, persisted in wearing her nightcap.  I doubt if\nany one but ourselves who had seen the progress of that article of dress,\ncould by this time have told what it was meant for.  It had got so limp\nand ragged that she couldn't see out of her eyes for it.  It was so\ndirty, that whether it was vegetable matter out of a swamp, or weeds out\nof the river, or an old porter's-knot from England, I don't think any new\nspectator could have said.  Yet, this unfortunate old woman had a notion\nthat it was not only vastly genteel, but that it was the correct thing as\nto propriety.  And she really did carry herself over the other ladies who\nhad no nightcaps, and who were forced to tie up their hair how they\ncould, in a superior manner that was perfectly amazing.\n\nI don't know what she looked like, sitting in that blessed nightcap, on a\nlog of wood, outside the hut or cabin upon our raft.  She would have\nrather resembled a fortune-teller in one of the picture-books that used\nto be in the shop windows in my boyhood, except for her stateliness.  But,\nLord bless my heart, the dignity with which she sat and moped, with her\nhead in that bundle of tatters, was like nothing else in the world!  She\nwas not on speaking terms with more than three of the ladies.  Some of\nthem had, what she called, \"taken precedence\" of her--in getting into, or\nout of, that miserable little shelter!--and others had not called to pay\ntheir respects, or something of that kind.  So, there she sat, in her own\nstate and ceremony, while her husband sat on the same log of wood,\nordering us one and all to let the raft go to the bottom, and to bring\nhim stationery.\n\nWhat with this noise on the part of Mr. Commissioner Pordage, and what\nwith the cries of Sergeant Drooce on the raft astern (which were\nsometimes more than Tom Packer could silence), we often made our slow way\ndown the river, anything but quietly.  Yet, that it was of great\nimportance that no ears should be able to hear us from the woods on the\nbanks, could not be doubted.  We were looked for, to a certainty, and we\nmight be retaken at any moment.  It was an anxious time; it was, indeed,\nindeed, an anxious time.\n\nOn the seventh night of our voyage on the rafts, we made fast, as usual,\non the opposite side of the river to that from which we had started, in\nas dark a place as we could pick out.  Our little encampment was soon\nmade, and supper was eaten, and the children fell asleep.  The watch was\nset, and everything made orderly for the night.  Such a starlight night,\nwith such blue in the sky, and such black in the places of heavy shade on\nthe banks of the great stream!\n\nThose two ladies, Miss Maryon and Mrs. Fisher, had always kept near me\nsince the night of the attack.  Mr. Fisher, who was untiring in the work\nof our raft, had said to me:\n\n\"My dear little childless wife has grown so attached to you, Davis, and\nyou are such a gentle fellow, as well as such a determined one;\" our\nparty had adopted that last expression from the one-eyed English pirate,\nand I repeat what Mr. Fisher said, only because he said it; \"that it\ntakes a load off my mind to leave her in your charge.\"\n\nI said to him: \"Your lady is in far better charge than mine, Sir, having\nMiss Maryon to take care of her; but, you may rely upon it, that I will\nguard them both--faithful and true.\"\n\nSays he: \"I do rely upon it, Davis, and I heartily wish all the silver on\nour old Island was yours.\"\n\nThat seventh starlight night, as I have said, we made our camp, and got\nour supper, and set our watch, and the children fell asleep.  It was\nsolemn and beautiful in those wild and solitary parts, to see them, every\nnight before they lay down, kneeling under the bright sky, saying their\nlittle prayers at women's laps.  At that time we men all uncovered, and\nmostly kept at a distance.  When the innocent creatures rose up, we\nmurmured \"Amen!\" all together.  For, though we had not heard what they\nsaid, we know it must be good for us.\n\nAt that time, too, as was only natural, those poor mothers in our\ncompany, whose children had been killed, shed many tears.  I thought the\nsight seemed to console them while it made them cry; but, whether I was\nright or wrong in that, they wept very much.  On this seventh night, Mrs.\nFisher had cried for her lost darling until she cried herself asleep.  She\nwas lying on a little couch of leaves and such-like (I made the best\nlittle couch I could for them every night), and Miss Maryon had covered\nher, and sat by her, holding her hand.  The stars looked down upon them.\nAs for me, I guarded them.\n\n\"Davis!\" says Miss Maryon.  (I am not going to say what a voice she had.\nI couldn't if I tried.)\n\n\"I am here, Miss.\"\n\n\"The river sounds as if it were swollen to-night.\"\n\n\"We all think, Miss, that we are coming near the sea.\"\n\n\"Do you believe now, we shall escape?\"\n\n\"I do now, Miss, really believe it.\"  I had always said I did; but, I had\nin my own mind been doubtful.\n\n\"How glad you will be, my good Davis, to see England again!\"\n\nI have another confession to make that will appear singular.  When she\nsaid these words, something rose in my throat; and the stars I looked\naway at, seemed to break into sparkles that fell down my face and burnt\nit.\n\n\"England is not much to me, Miss, except as a name.\"\n\n\"O, so true an Englishman should not say that!--Are you not well\nto-night, Davis?\"  Very kindly, and with a quick change.\n\n\"Quite well, Miss.\"\n\n\"Are you sure?  Your voice sounds altered in my hearing.\"\n\n\"No, Miss, I am a stronger man than ever.  But, England is nothing to\nme.\"\n\nMiss Maryon sat silent for so long a while, that I believed she had done\nspeaking to me for one time.  However, she had not; for by-and-by she\nsaid in a distinct clear tone:\n\n\"No, good friend; you must not say that England is nothing to you.  It is\nto be much to you, yet--everything to you.  You have to take back to\nEngland the good name you have earned here, and the gratitude and\nattachment and respect you have won here: and you have to make some good\nEnglish girl very happy and proud, by marrying her; and I shall one day\nsee her, I hope, and make her happier and prouder still, by telling her\nwhat noble services her husband's were in South America, and what a noble\nfriend he was to me there.\"\n\nThough she spoke these kind words in a cheering manner, she spoke them\ncompassionately.  I said nothing.  It will appear to be another strange\nconfession, that I paced to and fro, within call, all that night, a most\nunhappy man, reproaching myself all the night long.  \"You are as ignorant\nas any man alive; you are as obscure as any man alive; you are as poor as\nany man alive; you are no better than the mud under your foot.\"  That was\nthe way in which I went on against myself until the morning.\n\nWith the day, came the day's labour.  What I should have done--without\nthe labour, I don't know.  We were afloat again at the usual hour, and\nwere again making our way down the river.  It was broader, and clearer of\nobstructions than it had been, and it seemed to flow faster.  This was\none of Drooce's quiet days; Mr. Pordage, besides being sulky, had almost\nlost his voice; and we made good way, and with little noise.\n\nThere was always a seaman forward on the raft, keeping a bright look-out.\nSuddenly, in the full heat of the day, when the children were slumbering,\nand the very trees and reeds appeared to be slumbering, this man--it was\nShort--holds up his hand, and cries with great caution: \"Avast!  Voices\nahead!\"\n\nWe held on against the stream as soon as we could bring her up, and the\nother raft followed suit.  At first, Mr. Macey, Mr. Fisher, and myself,\ncould hear nothing; though both the seamen aboard of us agreed that they\ncould hear voices and oars.  After a little pause, however, we united in\nthinking that we _could_ hear the sound of voices, and the dip of oars.\nBut, you can hear a long way in those countries, and there was a bend of\nthe river before us, and nothing was to be seen except such waters and\nsuch banks as we were now in the eighth day (and might, for the matter of\nour feelings, have been in the eightieth), of having seen with anxious\neyes.\n\nIt was soon decided to put a man ashore, who should creep through the\nwood, see what was coming, and warn the rafts.  The rafts in the meantime\nto keep the middle of the stream.  The man to be put ashore, and not to\nswim ashore, as the first thing could be more quickly done than the\nsecond.  The raft conveying him, to get back into mid-stream, and to hold\non along with the other, as well is it could, until signalled by the man.\nIn case of danger, the man to shift for himself until it should be safe\nto take him on board again.  I volunteered to be the man.\n\nWe knew that the voices and oars must come up slowly against the stream;\nand our seamen knew, by the set of the stream, under which bank they\nwould come.  I was put ashore accordingly.  The raft got off well, and I\nbroke into the wood.\n\nSteaming hot it was, and a tearing place to get through.  So much the\nbetter for me, since it was something to contend against and do.  I cut\noff the bend of the river, at a great saving of space, came to the\nwater's edge again, and hid myself, and waited.  I could now hear the dip\nof the oars very distinctly; the voices had ceased.\n\nThe sound came on in a regular tune, and as I lay hidden, I fancied the\ntune so played to be, \"Chris'en--George--King!  Chris'en--George--King!\nChris'en--George--King!\" over and over again, always the same, with the\npauses always at the same places.  I had likewise time to make up my mind\nthat if these were the Pirates, I could and would (barring my being shot)\nswim off to my raft, in spite of my wound, the moment I had given the\nalarm, and hold my old post by Miss Maryon.\n\n\"Chris'en--George--King!  Chris'en--George--King!  Chris'en--George--King!\"\ncoming up, now, very near.\n\nI took a look at the branches about me, to see where a shower of bullets\nwould be most likely to do me least hurt; and I took a look back at the\ntrack I had made in forcing my way in; and now I was wholly prepared and\nfully ready for them.\n\n\"Chris'en--George--King!  Chris'en--George--King!  Chris'en--George--King!\"\nHere they are!\n\nWho were they?  The barbarous Pirates, scum of all nations, headed by\nsuch men as the hideous little Portuguese monkey, and the one-eyed\nEnglish convict with the gash across his face, that ought to have gashed\nhis wicked head off?  The worst men in the world picked out from the\nworst, to do the cruellest and most atrocious deeds that ever stained it?\nThe howling, murdering, black-flag waving, mad, and drunken crowd of\ndevils that had overcome us by numbers and by treachery?  No.  These were\nEnglish men in English boats--good blue-jackets and red-coats--marines\nthat I knew myself, and sailors that knew our seamen!  At the helm of the\nfirst boat, Captain Carton, eager and steady.  At the helm of the second\nboat, Captain Maryon, brave and bold.  At the helm of the third boat, an\nold seaman, with determination carved into his watchful face, like the\nfigure-head of a ship.  Every man doubly and trebly armed from head to\nfoot.  Every man lying-to at his work, with a will that had all his heart\nand soul in it.  Every man looking out for any trace of friend or enemy,\nand burning to be the first to do good or avenge evil.  Every man with\nhis face on fire when he saw me, his countryman who had been taken\nprisoner, and hailed me with a cheer, as Captain Carton's boat ran in and\ntook me on board.\n\nI reported, \"All escaped, sir!  All well, all safe, all here!\"\n\nGod bless me--and God bless them--what a cheer!  It turned me weak, as I\nwas passed on from hand to hand to the stern of the boat: every hand\npatting me or grasping me in some way or other, in the moment of my going\nby.\n\n\"Hold up, my brave fellow,\" says Captain Carton, clapping me on the\nshoulder like a friend, and giving me a flask.  \"Put your lips to that,\nand they'll be red again.  Now, boys, give way!\"\n\nThe banks flew by us as if the mightiest stream that ever ran was with\nus; and so it was, I am sure, meaning the stream to those men's ardour\nand spirit.  The banks flew by us, and we came in sight of the rafts--the\nbanks flew by us, and we came alongside of the rafts--the banks stopped;\nand there was a tumult of laughing and crying, and kissing and shaking of\nhands, and catching up of children and setting of them down again, and a\nwild hurry of thankfulness and joy that melted every one and softened all\nhearts.\n\nI had taken notice, in Captain Carton's boat, that there was a curious\nand quite new sort of fitting on board.  It was a kind of a little bower\nmade of flowers, and it was set up behind the captain, and betwixt him\nand the rudder.  Not only was this arbour, so to call it, neatly made of\nflowers, but it was ornamented in a singular way.  Some of the men had\ntaken the ribbons and buckles off their hats, and hung them among the\nflowers; others had made festoons and streamers of their handkerchiefs,\nand hung them there; others had intermixed such trifles as bits of glass\nand shining fragments of lockets and tobacco-boxes with the flowers; so\nthat altogether it was a very bright and lively object in the sunshine.\nBut why there, or what for, I did not understand.\n\nNow, as soon as the first bewilderment was over, Captain Carton gave the\norder to land for the present.  But this boat of his, with two hands left\nin her, immediately put off again when the men were out of her, and kept\noff, some yards from the shore.  As she floated there, with the two hands\ngently backing water to keep her from going down the stream, this pretty\nlittle arbour attracted many eyes.  None of the boat's crew, however, had\nanything to say about it, except that it was the captain's fancy.\n\nThe captain--with the women and children clustering round him, and the\nmen of all ranks grouped outside them, and all listening--stood telling\nhow the Expedition, deceived by its bad intelligence, had chased the\nlight Pirate boats all that fatal night, and had still followed in their\nwake next day, and had never suspected until many hours too late that the\ngreat Pirate body had drawn off in the darkness when the chase began, and\nshot over to the Island.  He stood telling how the Expedition, supposing\nthe whole array of armed boats to be ahead of it, got tempted into\nshallows and went aground; but not without having its revenge upon the\ntwo decoy-boats, both of which it had come up with, overhand, and sent to\nthe bottom with all on board.  He stood telling how the Expedition,\nfearing then that the case stood as it did, got afloat again, by great\nexertion, after the loss of four more tides, and returned to the Island,\nwhere they found the sloop scuttled and the treasure gone.  He stood\ntelling how my officer, Lieutenant Linderwood, was left upon the Island,\nwith as strong a force as could be got together hurriedly from the\nmainland, and how the three boats we saw before us were manned and armed\nand had come away, exploring the coast and inlets, in search of any\ntidings of us.  He stood telling all this, with his face to the river;\nand, as he stood telling it, the little arbour of flowers floated in the\nsunshine before all the faces there.\n\nLeaning on Captain Carton's shoulder, between him and Miss Maryon, was\nMrs. Fisher, her head drooping on her arm.  She asked him, without\nraising it, when he had told so much, whether he had found her mother?\n\n\"Be comforted!  She lies,\" said the Captain gently, \"under the cocoa-nut\ntrees on the beach.\"\n\n\"And my child, Captain Carton, did you find my child, too?  Does my\ndarling rest with my mother?\"\n\n\"No.  Your pretty child sleeps,\" said the Captain, \"under a shade of\nflowers.\"\n\nHis voice shook; but there was something in it that struck all the\nhearers.  At that moment there sprung from the arbour in his boat a\nlittle creature, clapping her hands and stretching out her arms, and\ncrying, \"Dear papa!  Dear mamma!  I am not killed.  I am saved.  I am\ncoming to kiss you.  Take me to them, take me to them, good, kind\nsailors!\"\n\nNobody who saw that scene has ever forgotten it, I am sure, or ever will\nforget it.  The child had kept quite still, where her brave grandmamma\nhad put her (first whispering in her ear, \"Whatever happens to me, do not\nstir, my dear!\"), and had remained quiet until the fort was deserted; she\nhad then crept out of the trench, and gone into her mother's house; and\nthere, alone on the solitary Island, in her mother's room, and asleep on\nher mother's bed, the Captain had found her.  Nothing could induce her to\nbe parted from him after he took her up in his arms, and he had brought\nher away with him, and the men had made the bower for her.  To see those\nmen now, was a sight.  The joy of the women was beautiful; the joy of\nthose women who had lost their own children, was quite sacred and divine;\nbut, the ecstasies of Captain Carton's boat's crew, when their pet was\nrestored to her parents, were wonderful for the tenderness they showed in\nthe midst of roughness.  As the Captain stood with the child in his arms,\nand the child's own little arms now clinging round his neck, now round\nher father's, now round her mother's, now round some one who pressed up\nto kiss her, the boat's crew shook hands with one another, waved their\nhats over their heads, laughed, sang, cried, danced--and all among\nthemselves, without wanting to interfere with anybody--in a manner never\nto be represented.  At last, I saw the coxswain and another, two very\nhard-faced men, with grizzled heads, who had been the heartiest of the\nhearty all along, close with one another, get each of them the other's\nhead under his arm, and pommel away at it with his fist as hard as he\ncould, in his excess of joy.\n\nWhen we had well rested and refreshed ourselves--and very glad we were to\nhave some of the heartening things to eat and drink that had come up in\nthe boats--we recommenced our voyage down the river: rafts, and boats,\nand all.  I said to myself, it was a _very_ different kind of voyage now,\nfrom what it had been; and I fell into my proper place and station among\nmy fellow-soldiers.\n\nBut, when we halted for the night, I found that Miss Maryon had spoken to\nCaptain Carton concerning me.  For, the Captain came straight up to me,\nand says he, \"My brave fellow, you have been Miss Maryon's body-guard all\nalong, and you shall remain so.  Nobody shall supersede you in the\ndistinction and pleasure of protecting that young lady.\"  I thanked his\nhonour in the fittest words I could find, and that night I was placed on\nmy old post of watching the place where she slept.  More than once in the\nnight, I saw Captain Carton come out into the air, and stroll about\nthere, to see that all was well.  I have now this other singular\nconfession to make, that I saw him with a heavy heart.  Yes; I saw him\nwith a heavy, heavy heart.\n\nIn the day-time, I had the like post in Captain Carton's boat.  I had a\nspecial station of my own, behind Miss Maryon, and no hands but hers ever\ntouched my wound.  (It has been healed these many long years; but, no\nother hands have ever touched it.)  Mr. Pordage was kept tolerably quiet\nnow, with pen and ink, and began to pick up his senses a little.  Seated\nin the second boat, he made documents with Mr. Kitten, pretty well all\nday; and he generally handed in a Protest about something whenever we\nstopped.  The Captain, however, made so very light of these papers, that\nit grew into a saying among the men, when one of them wanted a match for\nhis pipe, \"Hand us over a Protest, Jack!\"  As to Mrs. Pordage, she still\nwore the nightcap, and she now had cut all the ladies on account of her\nnot having been formally and separately rescued by Captain Carton before\nanybody else.  The end of Mr. Pordage, to bring to an end all I know\nabout him, was, that he got great compliments at home for his conduct on\nthese trying occasions, and that he died of yellow jaundice, a Governor\nand a K.C.B.\n\nSergeant Drooce had fallen from a high fever into a low one.  Tom\nPacker--the only man who could have pulled the Sergeant through it--kept\nhospital aboard the old raft, and Mrs. Belltott, as brisk as ever again\n(but the spirit of that little woman, when things tried it, was not equal\nto appearances), was head-nurse under his directions.  Before we got down\nto the Mosquito coast, the joke had been made by one of our men, that we\nshould see her gazetted Mrs. Tom Packer, _vice_ Belltott exchanged.\n\nWhen we reached the coast, we got native boats as substitutes for the\nrafts; and we rowed along under the land; and in that beautiful climate,\nand upon that beautiful water, the blooming days were like enchantment.\nAh!  They were running away, faster than any sea or river, and there was\nno tide to bring them back.  We were coming very near the settlement\nwhere the people of Silver-Store were to be left, and from which we\nMarines were under orders to return to Belize.\n\nCaptain Carton had, in the boat by him, a curious long-barrelled Spanish\ngun, and he had said to Miss Maryon one day that it was the best of guns,\nand had turned his head to me, and said:\n\n\"Gill Davis, load her fresh with a couple of slugs, against a chance of\nshowing how good she is.\"\n\nSo, I had discharged the gun over the sea, and had loaded her, according\nto orders, and there it had lain at the Captain's feet, convenient to the\nCaptain's hand.\n\nThe last day but one of our journey was an uncommonly hot day.  We\nstarted very early; but, there was no cool air on the sea as the day got\non, and by noon the heat was really hard to bear, considering that there\nwere women and children to bear it.  Now, we happened to open, just at\nthat time, a very pleasant little cove or bay, where there was a deep\nshade from a great growth of trees.  Now, the Captain, therefore, made\nthe signal to the other boats to follow him in and lie by a while.\n\nThe men who were off duty went ashore, and lay down, but were ordered,\nfor caution's sake, not to stray, and to keep within view.  The others\nrested on their oars, and dozed.  Awnings had been made of one thing and\nanother, in all the boats, and the passengers found it cooler to be under\nthem in the shade, when there was room enough, than to be in the thick\nwoods.  So, the passengers were all afloat, and mostly sleeping.  I kept\nmy post behind Miss Maryon, and she was on Captain Carton's right in the\nboat, and Mrs. Fisher sat on her right again.  The Captain had Mrs.\nFisher's daughter on his knee.  He and the two ladies were talking about\nthe Pirates, and were talking softly; partly, because people do talk\nsoftly under such indolent circumstances, and partly because the little\ngirl had gone off asleep.\n\nI think I have before given it out for my Lady to write down, that\nCaptain Carton had a fine bright eye of his own.  All at once, he darted\nme a side look, as much as to say, \"Steady--don't take on--I see\nsomething!\"--and gave the child into her mother's arms.  That eye of his\nwas so easy to understand, that I obeyed it by not so much as looking\neither to the right or to the left out of a corner of my own, or changing\nmy attitude the least trifle.  The Captain went on talking in the same\nmild and easy way; but began--with his arms resting across his knees, and\nhis head a little hanging forward, as if the heat were rather too much\nfor him--began to play with the Spanish gun.\n\n\"They had laid their plans, you see,\" says the Captain, taking up the\nSpanish gun across his knees, and looking, lazily, at the inlaying on the\nstock, \"with a great deal of art; and the corrupt or blundering local\nauthorities were so easily deceived;\" he ran his left hand idly along the\nbarrel, but I saw, with my breath held, that he covered the action of\ncocking the gun with his right--\"so easily deceived, that they summoned\nus out to come into the trap.  But my intention as to future operations--\"\nIn a flash the Spanish gun was at his bright eye, and he fired.\n\nAll started up; innumerable echoes repeated the sound of the discharge; a\ncloud of bright-coloured birds flew out of the woods screaming; a handful\nof leaves were scattered in the place where the shot had struck; a\ncrackling of branches was heard; and some lithe but heavy creature sprang\ninto the air, and fell forward, head down, over the muddy bank.\n\n\"What is it?\" cries Captain Maryon from his boat.  All silent then, but\nthe echoes rolling away.\n\n\"It is a Traitor and a Spy,\" said Captain Carton, handing me the gun to\nload again.  \"And I think the other name of the animal is Christian\nGeorge King!\"\n\nShot through the heart.  Some of the people ran round to the spot, and\ndrew him out, with the slime and wet trickling down his face; but his\nface itself would never stir any more to the end of time.\n\n\"Leave him hanging to that tree,\" cried Captain Carton; his boat's crew\ngiving way, and he leaping ashore.  \"But first into this wood, every man\nin his place.  And boats!  Out of gunshot!\"\n\nIt was a quick change, well meant and well made, though it ended in\ndisappointment.  No Pirates were there; no one but the Spy was found.  It\nwas supposed that the Pirates, unable to retake us, and expecting a great\nattack upon them to be the consequence of our escape, had made from the\nruins in the Forest, taken to their ship along with the Treasure, and\nleft the Spy to pick up what intelligence he could.  In the evening we\nwent away, and he was left hanging to the tree, all alone, with the red\nsun making a kind of a dead sunset on his black face.\n\nNext day, we gained the settlement on the Mosquito coast for which we\nwere bound.  Having stayed there to refresh seven days, and having been\nmuch commended, and highly spoken of, and finely entertained, we Marines\nstood under orders to march from the Town-Gate (it was neither much of a\ntown nor much of a gate), at five in the morning.\n\nMy officer had joined us before then.  When we turned out at the gate,\nall the people were there; in the front of them all those who had been\nour fellow-prisoners, and all the seamen.\n\n\"Davis,\" says Lieutenant Linderwood.  \"Stand out, my friend!\"\n\nI stood out from the ranks, and Miss Maryon and Captain Carton came up to\nme.\n\n\"Dear Davis,\" says Miss Maryon, while the tears fell fast down her face,\n\"your grateful friends, in most unwillingly taking leave of you, ask the\nfavour that, while you bear away with you their affectionate remembrance,\nwhich nothing can ever impair, you will also take this purse of money--far\nmore valuable to you, we all know, for the deep attachment and\nthankfulness with which it is offered, than for its own contents, though\nwe hope those may prove useful to you, too, in after life.\"\n\nI got out, in answer, that I thankfully accepted the attachment and\naffection, but not the money.  Captain Carton looked at me very\nattentively, and stepped back, and moved away.  I made him my bow as he\nstepped back, to thank him for being so delicate.\n\n\"No, miss,\" said I, \"I think it would break my heart to accept of money.\nBut, if you could condescend to give to a man so ignorant and common as\nmyself, any little thing you have worn--such as a bit of ribbon--\"\n\nShe took a ring from her finger, and put it in my hand.  And she rested\nher hand in mine, while she said these words:\n\n\"The brave gentlemen of old--but not one of them was braver, or had a\nnobler nature than you--took such gifts from ladies, and did all their\ngood actions for the givers' sakes.  If you will do yours for mine, I\nshall think with pride that I continue to have some share in the life of\na gallant and generous man.\"\n\nFor the second time in my life she kissed my hand.  I made so bold, for\nthe first time, as to kiss hers; and I tied the ring at my breast, and I\nfell back to my place.\n\nThen, the horse-litter went out at the gate with Sergeant Drooce in it;\nand the horse-litter went out at the gate with Mrs. Belltott in it; and\nLieutenant Linderwood gave the word of command, \"Quick march!\" and,\ncheered and cried for, we went out of the gate too, marching along the\nlevel plain towards the serene blue sky, as if we were marching straight\nto Heaven.\n\nWhen I have added here that the Pirate scheme was blown to shivers, by\nthe Pirate-ship which had the Treasure on board being so vigorously\nattacked by one of His Majesty's cruisers, among the West India Keys, and\nbeing so swiftly boarded and carried, that nobody suspected anything\nabout the scheme until three-fourths of the Pirates were killed, and the\nother fourth were in irons, and the Treasure was recovered; I come to the\nlast singular confession I have got to make.\n\nIt is this.  I well knew what an immense and hopeless distance there was\nbetween me and Miss Maryon; I well knew that I was no fitter company for\nher than I was for the angels; I well knew, that she was as high above my\nreach as the sky over my head; and yet I loved her.  What put it in my\nlow heart to be so daring, or whether such a thing ever happened before\nor since, as that a man so uninstructed and obscure as myself got his\nunhappy thoughts lifted up to such a height, while knowing very well how\npresumptuous and impossible to be realised they were, I am unable to say;\nstill, the suffering to me was just as great as if I had been a\ngentleman.  I suffered agony--agony.  I suffered hard, and I suffered\nlong.  I thought of her last words to me, however, and I never disgraced\nthem.  If it had not been for those dear words, I think I should have\nlost myself in despair and recklessness.\n\nThe ring will be found lying on my heart, of course, and will be laid\nwith me wherever I am laid.  I am getting on in years now, though I am\nable and hearty.  I was recommended for promotion, and everything was\ndone to reward me that could be done; but my total want of all learning\nstood in my way, and I found myself so completely out of the road to it\nthat I could not conquer any learning, though I tried.  I was long in the\nservice, and I respected it, and was respected in it, and the service is\ndear to me at this present hour.\n\nAt this present hour, when I give this out to my Lady to be written down,\nall my old pain has softened away, and I am as happy as a man can be, at\nthis present fine old country-house of Admiral Sir George Carton,\nBaronet.  It was my Lady Carton who herself sought me out, over a great\nmany miles of the wide world, and found me in Hospital wounded, and\nbrought me here.  It is my Lady Carton who writes down my words.  My Lady\nwas Miss Maryon.  And now, that I conclude what I had to tell, I see my\nLady's honoured gray hair droop over her face, as she leans a little\nlower at her desk; and I fervently thank her for being so tender as I see\nshe is, towards the past pain and trouble of her poor, old, faithful,\nhumble soldier.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n\n{1}   Dicken's didn't write the second chapter and it is omitted in this\nedition.  In it the prisoners are firstly made a ransom of for the\ntreasure left on the Island and then manage to escape from the Pirates.\n\n\n"}
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{"1407":"\n\n\n\n\nTranscribed from the 1894 Chapman and Hall \"Christmas Stories\" edition by\nDavid Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk\n\n\n\n\n\nA MESSAGE FROM THE SEA\n\n\nCHAPTER I--THE VILLAGE\n\n\n\"And a mighty sing'lar and pretty place it is, as ever I saw in all the\ndays of my life!\" said Captain Jorgan, looking up at it.\n\nCaptain Jorgan had to look high to look at it, for the village was built\nsheer up the face of a steep and lofty cliff.  There was no road in it,\nthere was no wheeled vehicle in it, there was not a level yard in it.\nFrom the sea-beach to the cliff-top two irregular rows of white houses,\nplaced opposite to one another, and twisting here and there, and there\nand here, rose, like the sides of a long succession of stages of crooked\nladders, and you climbed up the village or climbed down the village by\nthe staves between, some six feet wide or so, and made of sharp irregular\nstones.  The old pack-saddle, long laid aside in most parts of England as\none of the appendages of its infancy, flourished here intact.  Strings of\npack-horses and pack-donkeys toiled slowly up the staves of the ladders,\nbearing fish, and coal, and such other cargo as was unshipping at the\npier from the dancing fleet of village boats, and from two or three\nlittle coasting traders.  As the beasts of burden ascended laden, or\ndescended light, they got so lost at intervals in the floating clouds of\nvillage smoke, that they seemed to dive down some of the village\nchimneys, and come to the surface again far off, high above others.  No\ntwo houses in the village were alike, in chimney, size, shape, door,\nwindow, gable, roof-tree, anything.  The sides of the ladders were\nmusical with water, running clear and bright.  The staves were musical\nwith the clattering feet of the pack-horses and pack-donkeys, and the\nvoices of the fishermen urging them up, mingled with the voices of the\nfishermen's wives and their many children.  The pier was musical with the\nwash of the sea, the creaking of capstans and windlasses, and the airy\nfluttering of little vanes and sails.  The rough, sea-bleached boulders\nof which the pier was made, and the whiter boulders of the shore, were\nbrown with drying nets.  The red-brown cliffs, richly wooded to their\nextremest verge, had their softened and beautiful forms reflected in the\nbluest water, under the clear North Devonshire sky of a November day\nwithout a cloud.  The village itself was so steeped in autumnal foliage,\nfrom the houses lying on the pier to the topmost round of the topmost\nladder, that one might have fancied it was out a bird's-nesting, and was\n(as indeed it was) a wonderful climber.  And mentioning birds, the place\nwas not without some music from them too; for the rook was very busy on\nthe higher levels, and the gull with his flapping wings was fishing in\nthe bay, and the lusty little robin was hopping among the great stone\nblocks and iron rings of the breakwater, fearless in the faith of his\nancestors, and the Children in the Wood.\n\nThus it came to pass that Captain Jorgan, sitting balancing himself on\nthe pier-wall, struck his leg with his open hand, as some men do when\nthey are pleased--and as he always did when he was pleased--and said,--\n\n\"A mighty sing'lar and pretty place it is, as ever I saw in all the days\nof my life!\"\n\nCaptain Jorgan had not been through the village, but had come down to the\npier by a winding side-road, to have a preliminary look at it from the\nlevel of his own natural element.  He had seen many things and places,\nand had stowed them all away in a shrewd intellect and a vigorous memory.\nHe was an American born, was Captain Jorgan,--a New-Englander,--but he\nwas a citizen of the world, and a combination of most of the best\nqualities of most of its best countries.\n\nFor Captain Jorgan to sit anywhere in his long-skirted blue coat and blue\ntrousers, without holding converse with everybody within speaking\ndistance, was a sheer impossibility.  So the captain fell to talking with\nthe fishermen, and to asking them knowing questions about the fishery,\nand the tides, and the currents, and the race of water off that point\nyonder, and what you kept in your eye, and got into a line with what else\nwhen you ran into the little harbour; and other nautical profundities.\nAmong the men who exchanged ideas with the captain was a young fellow,\nwho exactly hit his fancy,--a young fisherman of two or three and twenty,\nin the rough sea-dress of his craft, with a brown face, dark curling\nhair, and bright, modest eyes under his Sou'wester hat, and with a frank,\nbut simple and retiring manner, which the captain found uncommonly\ntaking.  \"I'd bet a thousand dollars,\" said the captain to himself, \"that\nyour father was an honest man!\"\n\n\"Might you be married now?\" asked the captain, when he had had some talk\nwith this new acquaintance.\n\n\"Not yet.\"\n\n\"Going to be?\" said the captain.\n\n\"I hope so.\"\n\nThe captain's keen glance followed the slightest possible turn of the\ndark eye, and the slightest possible tilt of the Sou'wester hat.  The\ncaptain then slapped both his legs, and said to himself,--\n\n\"Never knew such a good thing in all my life!  There's his sweetheart\nlooking over the wall!\"\n\nThere was a very pretty girl looking over the wall, from a little\nplatform of cottage, vine, and fuchsia; and she certainly dig not look as\nif the presence of this young fisherman in the landscape made it any the\nless sunny and hopeful for her.\n\nCaptain Jorgan, having doubled himself up to laugh with that hearty good-\nnature which is quite exultant in the innocent happiness of other people,\nhad undoubted himself, and was going to start a new subject, when there\nappeared coming down the lower ladders of stones, a man whom he hailed as\n\"Tom Pettifer, Ho!\"  Tom Pettifer, Ho, responded with alacrity, and in\nspeedy course descended on the pier.\n\n\"Afraid of a sun-stroke in England in November, Tom, that you wear your\ntropical hat, strongly paid outside and paper-lined inside, here?\" said\nthe captain, eyeing it.\n\n\"It's as well to be on the safe side, sir,\" replied Tom.\n\n\"Safe side!\" repeated the captain, laughing.  \"You'd guard against a sun-\nstroke, with that old hat, in an Ice Pack.  Wa'al!  What have you made\nout at the Post-office?\"\n\n\"It _is_ the Post-office, sir.\"\n\n\"What's the Post-office?\" said the captain.\n\n\"The name, sir.  The name keeps the Post-office.\"\n\n\"A coincidence!\" said the captain.  \"A lucky bit!  Show me where it is.\nGood-bye, shipmates, for the present!  I shall come and have another look\nat you, afore I leave, this afternoon.\"\n\nThis was addressed to all there, but especially the young fisherman; so\nall there acknowledged it, but especially the young fisherman.  \"_He's_ a\nsailor!\" said one to another, as they looked after the captain moving\naway.  That he was; and so outspeaking was the sailor in him, that\nalthough his dress had nothing nautical about it, with the single\nexception of its colour, but was a suit of a shore-going shape and form,\ntoo long in the sleeves and too short in the legs, and too\nunaccommodating everywhere, terminating earthward in a pair of Wellington\nboots, and surmounted by a tall, stiff hat, which no mortal could have\nworn at sea in any wind under heaven; nevertheless, a glimpse of his\nsagacious, weather-beaten face, or his strong, brown hand, would have\nestablished the captain's calling.  Whereas Mr. Pettifer--a man of a\ncertain plump neatness, with a curly whisker, and elaborately nautical in\na jacket, and shoes, and all things correspondent--looked no more like a\nseaman, beside Captain Jorgan, than he looked like a sea-serpent.\n\nThe two climbed high up the village,--which had the most arbitrary turns\nand twists in it, so that the cobbler's house came dead across the\nladder, and to have held a reasonable course, you must have gone through\nhis house, and through him too, as he sat at his work between two little\nwindows,--with one eye microscopically on the geological formation of\nthat part of Devonshire, and the other telescopically on the open\nsea,--the two climbed high up the village, and stopped before a quaint\nlittle house, on which was painted, \"MRS. RAYBROCK, DRAPER;\" and also\n\"POST-OFFICE.\"  Before it, ran a rill of murmuring water, and access to\nit was gained by a little plank-bridge.\n\n\"Here's the name,\" said Captain Jorgan, \"sure enough.  You can come in if\nyou like, Tom.\"\n\nThe captain opened the door, and passed into an odd little shop, about\nsix feet high, with a great variety of beams and bumps in the ceiling,\nand, besides the principal window giving on the ladder of stones, a\npurblind little window of a single pane of glass, peeping out of an\nabutting corner at the sun-lighted ocean, and winking at its brightness.\n\n\"How do you do, ma'am?\" said the captain.  \"I am very glad to see you.  I\nhave come a long way to see you.\"\n\n\"_Have_ you, sir?  Then I am sure I am very glad to see _you_, though I\ndon't know you from Adam.\"\n\nThus a comely elderly woman, short of stature, plump of form, sparkling\nand dark of eye, who, perfectly clean and neat herself, stood in the\nmidst of her perfectly clean and neat arrangements, and surveyed Captain\nJorgan with smiling curiosity.  \"Ah! but you are a sailor, sir,\" she\nadded, almost immediately, and with a slight movement of her hands, that\nwas not very unlike wringing them; \"then you are heartily welcome.\"\n\n\"Thank'ee, ma'am,\" said the captain, \"I don't know what it is, I am sure;\nthat brings out the salt in me, but everybody seems to see it on the\ncrown of my hat and the collar of my coat.  Yes, ma'am, I am in that way\nof life.\"\n\n\"And the other gentleman, too,\" said Mrs. Raybrock.\n\n\"Well now, ma'am,\" said the captain, glancing shrewdly at the other\ngentleman, \"you are that nigh right, that he goes to sea,--if that makes\nhim a sailor.  This is my steward, ma'am, Tom Pettifer; he's been a'most\nall trades you could name, in the course of his life,--would have bought\nall your chairs and tables once, if you had wished to sell 'em,--but now\nhe's my steward.  My name's Jorgan, and I'm a ship-owner, and I sail my\nown and my partners' ships, and have done so this five-and-twenty year.\nAccording to custom I am called Captain Jorgan, but I am no more a\ncaptain, bless your heart, than you are.\"\n\n\"Perhaps you'll come into my parlour, sir, and take a chair?\" said Mrs.\nRaybrock.\n\n\"Ex-actly what I was going to propose myself, ma'am.  After you.\"\n\nThus replying, and enjoining Tom to give an eye to the shop, Captain\nJorgan followed Mrs. Raybrock into the little, low back-room,--decorated\nwith divers plants in pots, tea-trays, old china teapots, and\npunch-bowls,--which was at once the private sitting-room of the Raybrock\nfamily and the inner cabinet of the post-office of the village of\nSteepways.\n\n\"Now, ma'am,\" said the captain, \"it don't signify a cent to you where I\nwas born, except--\"  But here the shadow of some one entering fell upon\nthe captain's figure, and he broke off to double himself up, slap both\nhis legs, and ejaculate, \"Never knew such a thing in all my life!  Here\nhe is again!  How are you?\"\n\nThese words referred to the young fellow who had so taken Captain\nJorgan's fancy down at the pier.  To make it all quite complete he came\nin accompanied by the sweetheart whom the captain had detected looking\nover the wall.  A prettier sweetheart the sun could not have shone upon\nthat shining day.  As she stood before the captain, with her rosy lips\njust parted in surprise, her brown eyes a little wider open than was\nusual from the same cause, and her breathing a little quickened by the\nascent (and possibly by some mysterious hurry and flurry at the parlour\ndoor, in which the captain had observed her face to be for a moment\ntotally eclipsed by the Sou'wester hat), she looked so charming, that the\ncaptain felt himself under a moral obligation to slap both his legs\nagain.  She was very simply dressed, with no other ornament than an\nautumnal flower in her bosom.  She wore neither hat nor bonnet, but\nmerely a scarf or kerchief, folded squarely back over the head, to keep\nthe sun off,--according to a fashion that may be sometimes seen in the\nmore genial parts of England as well as of Italy, and which is probably\nthe first fashion of head-dress that came into the world when grasses and\nleaves went out.\n\n\"In my country,\" said the captain, rising to give her his chair, and\ndexterously sliding it close to another chair on which the young\nfisherman must necessarily establish himself,--\"in my country we should\ncall Devonshire beauty first-rate!\"\n\nWhenever a frank manner is offensive, it is because it is strained or\nfeigned; for there may be quite as much intolerable affectation in\nplainness as in mincing nicety.  All that the captain said and did was\nhonestly according to his nature; and his nature was open nature and good\nnature; therefore, when he paid this little compliment, and expressed\nwith a sparkle or two of his knowing eye, \"I see how it is, and nothing\ncould be better,\" he had established a delicate confidence on that\nsubject with the family.\n\n\"I was saying to your worthy mother,\" said the captain to the young man,\nafter again introducing himself by name and occupation,--\"I was saying to\nyour mother (and you're very like her) that it didn't signify where I was\nborn, except that I was raised on question-asking ground, where the\nbabies as soon as ever they come into the world, inquire of their\nmothers, 'Neow, how old may _you_ be, and wa'at air you a goin' to name\nme?'--which is a fact.\"  Here he slapped his leg.  \"Such being the case,\nI may be excused for asking you if your name's Alfred?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, my name is Alfred,\" returned the young man.\n\n\"I am not a conjurer,\" pursued the captain, \"and don't think me so, or I\nshall right soon undeceive you.  Likewise don't think, if you please,\nthough I _do_ come from that country of the babies, that I am asking\nquestions for question-asking's sake, for I am not.  Somebody belonging\nto you went to sea?\"\n\n\"My elder brother, Hugh,\" returned the young man.  He said it in an\naltered and lower voice, and glanced at his mother, who raised her hands\nhurriedly, and put them together across her black gown, and looked\neagerly at the visitor.\n\n\"No!  For God's sake, don't think that!\" said the captain, in a solemn\nway; \"I bring no good tidings of him.\"\n\nThere was a silence, and the mother turned her face to the fire and put\nher hand between it and her eyes.  The young fisherman slightly motioned\ntoward the window, and the captain, looking in that direction, saw a\nyoung widow, sitting at a neighbouring window across a little garden,\nengaged in needlework, with a young child sleeping on her bosom.  The\nsilence continued until the captain asked of Alfred,--\n\n\"How long is it since it happened?\"\n\n\"He shipped for his last voyage better than three years ago.\"\n\n\"Ship struck upon some reef or rock, as I take it,\" said the captain,\n\"and all hands lost?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Wa'al!\" said the captain, after a shorter silence, \"Here I sit who may\ncome to the same end, like enough.  He holds the seas in the hollow of\nHis hand.  We must all strike somewhere and go down.  Our comfort, then,\nfor ourselves and one another is to have done our duty.  I'd wager your\nbrother did his!\"\n\n\"He did!\" answered the young fisherman.  \"If ever man strove faithfully\non all occasions to do his duty, my brother did.  My brother was not a\nquick man (anything but that), but he was a faithful, true, and just man.\nWe were the sons of only a small tradesman in this county, sir; yet our\nfather was as watchful of his good name as if he had been a king.\"\n\n\"A precious sight more so, I hope--bearing in mind the general run of\nthat class of crittur,\" said the captain.  \"But I interrupt.\"\n\n\"My brother considered that our father left the good name to us, to keep\nclear and true.\"\n\n\"Your brother considered right,\" said the captain; \"and you couldn't take\ncare of a better legacy.  But again I interrupt.\"\n\n\"No; for I have nothing more to say.  We know that Hugh lived well for\nthe good name, and we feel certain that he died well for the good name.\nAnd now it has come into my keeping.  And that's all.\"\n\n\"Well spoken!\" cried the captain.  \"Well spoken, young man!  Concerning\nthe manner of your brother's death,\"--by this time the captain had\nreleased the hand he had shaken, and sat with his own broad, brown hands\nspread out on his knees, and spoke aside,--\"concerning the manner of your\nbrother's death, it may be that I have some information to give you;\nthough it may not be, for I am far from sure.  Can we have a little talk\nalone?\"\n\nThe young man rose; but not before the captain's quick eye had noticed\nthat, on the pretty sweetheart's turning to the window to greet the young\nwidow with a nod and a wave of the hand, the young widow had held up to\nher the needlework on which she was engaged, with a patient and pleasant\nsmile.  So the captain said, being on his legs,--\n\n\"What might she be making now?\"\n\n\"What is Margaret making, Kitty?\" asked the young fisherman,--with one of\nhis arms apparently mislaid somewhere.\n\nAs Kitty only blushed in reply, the captain doubled himself up as far as\nhe could, standing, and said, with a slap of his leg,--\n\n\"In my country we should call it wedding-clothes.  Fact!  We should, I do\nassure you.\"\n\nBut it seemed to strike the captain in another light too; for his laugh\nwas not a long one, and he added, in quite a gentle tone,--\n\n\"And it's very pretty, my dear, to see her--poor young thing, with her\nfatherless child upon her bosom--giving up her thoughts to your home and\nyour happiness.  It's very pretty, my dear, and it's very good.  May your\nmarriage be more prosperous than hers, and be a comfort to her too.  May\nthe blessed sun see you all happy together, in possession of the good\nname, long after I have done ploughing the great salt field that is never\nsown!\"\n\nKitty answered very earnestly, \"O!  Thank you, sir, with all my heart!\"\nAnd, in her loving little way, kissed her hand to him, and possibly by\nimplication to the young fisherman, too, as the latter held the parlour-\ndoor open for the captain to pass out.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II--THE MONEY\n\n\n\"The stairs are very narrow, sir,\" said Alfred Raybrock to Captain\nJorgan.\n\n\"Like my cabin-stairs,\" returned the captain, \"on many a voyage.\"\n\n\"And they are rather inconvenient for the head.\"\n\n\"If my head can't take care of itself by this time, after all the\nknocking about the world it has had,\" replied the captain, as\nunconcernedly as if he had no connection with it, \"it's not worth looking\nafter.\"\n\nThus they came into the young fisherman's bedroom, which was as perfectly\nneat and clean as the shop and parlour below; though it was but a little\nplace, with a sliding window, and a phrenological ceiling expressive of\nall the peculiarities of the house-roof.  Here the captain sat down on\nthe foot of the bed, and glancing at a dreadful libel on Kitty which\nornamented the wall,--the production of some wandering limner, whom the\ncaptain secretly admired as having studied portraiture from the figure-\nheads of ships,--motioned to the young man to take the rush-chair on the\nother side of the small round table.  That done, the captain put his hand\nin the deep breast-pocket of his long-skirted blue coat, and took out of\nit a strong square case-bottle,--not a large bottle, but such as may be\nseen in any ordinary ship's medicine-chest.  Setting this bottle on the\ntable without removing his hand from it, Captain Jorgan then spake as\nfollows:--\n\n\"In my last voyage homeward-bound,\" said the captain, \"and that's the\nvoyage off of which I now come straight, I encountered such weather off\nthe Horn as is not very often met with, even there.  I have rounded that\nstormy Cape pretty often, and I believe I first beat about there in the\nidentical storms that blew the Devil's horns and tail off, and led to the\nhorns being worked up into tooth-picks for the plantation overseers in my\ncountry, who may be seen (if you travel down South, or away West, fur\nenough) picking their teeth with 'em, while the whips, made of the tail,\nflog hard.  In this last voyage, homeward-bound for Liverpool from South\nAmerica, I say to you, my young friend, it blew.  Whole measures!  No\nhalf measures, nor making believe to blow; it blew!  Now I warn't blown\nclean out of the water into the sky,--though I expected to be even\nthat,--but I was blown clean out of my course; and when at last it fell\ncalm, it fell dead calm, and a strong current set one way, day and night,\nnight and day, and I drifted--drifted--drifted--out of all the ordinary\ntracks and courses of ships, and drifted yet, and yet drifted.  It\nbehooves a man who takes charge of fellow-critturs' lives, never to rest\nfrom making himself master of his calling.  I never did rest, and\nconsequently I knew pretty well ('specially looking over the side in the\ndead calm of that strong current) what dangers to expect, and what\nprecautions to take against 'em.  In short, we were driving head on to an\nisland.  There was no island in the chart, and, therefore, you may say it\nwas ill-manners in the island to be there; I don't dispute its bad\nbreeding, but there it was.  Thanks be to Heaven, I was as ready for the\nisland as the island was ready for me.  I made it out myself from the\nmasthead, and I got enough way upon her in good time to keep her off.  I\nordered a boat to be lowered and manned, and went in that boat myself to\nexplore the island.  There was a reef outside it, and, floating in a\ncorner of the smooth water within the reef, was a heap of sea-weed, and\nentangled in that sea-weed was this bottle.\"\n\nHere the captain took his hand from the bottle for a moment, that the\nyoung fisherman might direct a wondering glance at it; and then replaced\nhis band and went on:--\n\n\"If ever you come--or even if ever you don't come--to a desert place, use\nyou your eyes and your spy-glass well; for the smallest thing you see may\nprove of use to you; and may have some information or some warning in it.\nThat's the principle on which I came to see this bottle.  I picked up the\nbottle and ran the boat alongside the island, and made fast and went\nashore armed, with a part of my boat's crew.  We found that every scrap\nof vegetation on the island (I give it you as my opinion, but scant and\nscrubby at the best of times) had been consumed by fire.  As we were\nmaking our way, cautiously and toilsomely, over the pulverised embers,\none of my people sank into the earth breast-high.  He turned pale, and\n'Haul me out smart, shipmates,' says he, 'for my feet are among bones.'\nWe soon got him on his legs again, and then we dug up the spot, and we\nfound that the man was right, and that his feet had been among bones.\nMore than that, they were human bones; though whether the remains of one\nman, or of two or three men, what with calcination and ashes, and what\nwith a poor practical knowledge of anatomy, I can't undertake to say.  We\nexamined the whole island and made out nothing else, save and except\nthat, from its opposite side, I sighted a considerable tract of land,\nwhich land I was able to identify, and according to the bearings of which\n(not to trouble you with my log) I took a fresh departure.  When I got\naboard again I opened the bottle, which was oilskin-covered as you see,\nand glass-stoppered as you see.  Inside of it,\" pursued the captain,\nsuiting his action to his words, \"I found this little crumpled, folded\npaper, just as you see.  Outside of it was written, as you see, these\nwords: 'Whoever finds this, is solemnly entreated by the dead to convey\nit unread to Alfred Raybrock, Steepways, North Devon, England.'  A sacred\ncharge,\" said the captain, concluding his narrative, \"and, Alfred\nRaybrock, there it is!\"\n\n\"This is my poor brother's writing!\"\n\n\"I suppose so,\" said Captain Jorgan.  \"I'll take a look out of this\nlittle window while you read it.\"\n\n\"Pray no, sir!  I should be hurt.  My brother couldn't know it would fall\ninto such hands as yours.\"\n\nThe captain sat down again on the foot of the bed, and the young man\nopened the folded paper with a trembling hand, and spread it on the\ntable.  The ragged paper, evidently creased and torn both before and\nafter being written on, was much blotted and stained, and the ink had\nfaded and run, and many words were wanting.  What the captain and the\nyoung fisherman made out together, after much re-reading and much\nhumouring of the folds of the paper, is given on the next page.\n\nThe young fisherman had become more and more agitated, as the writing had\nbecome clearer to him.  He now left it lying before the captain, over\nwhose shoulder he had been reading it, and dropping into his former seat,\nleaned forward on the table and laid his face in his hands.\n\n\"What, man,\" urged the captain, \"don't give in!  Be up and doing _like_ a\nman!\"\n\n\"It is selfish, I know,--but doing what, doing what?\" cried the young\nfisherman, in complete despair, and stamping his sea-boot on the ground.\n\n\"Doing what?\" returned the captain.  \"Something!  I'd go down to the\nlittle breakwater below yonder, and take a wrench at one of the\nsalt-rusted iron rings there, and either wrench it up by the roots or\nwrench my teeth out of my head, sooner than I'd do nothing.  Nothing!\"\nejaculated the captain.  \"Any fool or fainting heart can do _that_, and\nnothing can come of nothing,--which was pretended to be found out, I\nbelieve, by one of them Latin critters,\" said the captain with the\ndeepest disdain; \"as if Adam hadn't found it out, afore ever he so much\nas named the beasts!\"\n\nYet the captain saw, in spite of his bold words, that there was some\ngreater reason than he yet understood for the young man's distress.  And\nhe eyed him with a sympathising curiosity.\n\n\"Come, come!\" continued the captain, \"Speak out.  What is it, boy!\"\n\n\"You have seen how beautiful she is, sir,\" said the young man, looking up\nfor the moment, with a flushed face and rumpled hair.\n\n\"Did any man ever say she warn't beautiful?\" retorted the captain.  \"If\nso, go and lick him.\"\n\nThe young man laughed fretfully in spite of himself, and said--\n\n\"It's not that, it's not that.\"\n\n\"Wa'al, then, what is it?\" said the captain in a more soothing tone.\n\nThe young fisherman mournfully composed himself to tell the captain what\nit was, and began: \"We were to have been married next Monday week--\"\n\n\"Were to have been!\" interrupted Captain Jorgan.  \"And are to be?  Hey?\"\n\nYoung Raybrock shook his head, and traced out with his fore-finger the\nwords, \"_poor father's five hundred pounds_,\" in the written paper.\n\n\"Go along,\" said the captain.  \"Five hundred pounds?  Yes?\"\n\n\"That sum of money,\" pursued the young fisherman, entering with the\ngreatest earnestness on his demonstration, while the captain eyed him\nwith equal earnestness, \"was all my late father possessed.  When he died,\nhe owed no man more than he left means to pay, but he had been able to\nlay by only five hundred pounds.\"\n\n\"Five hundred pounds,\" repeated the captain.  \"Yes?\"\n\n\"In his lifetime, years before, he had expressly laid the money aside to\nleave to my mother,--like to settle upon her, if I make myself\nunderstood.\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"He had risked it once--my father put down in writing at that time,\nrespecting the money--and was resolved never to risk it again.\"\n\n\"Not a spectator,\" said the captain.  \"My country wouldn't have suited\nhim.  Yes?\"\n\n\"My mother has never touched the money till now.  And now it was to have\nbeen laid out, this very next week, in buying me a handsome share in our\nneighbouring fishery here, to settle me in life with Kitty.\"\n\nThe captain's face fell, and he passed and repassed his sun-browned right\nhand over his thin hair, in a discomfited manner.\n\n\"Kitty's father has no more than enough to live on, even in the sparing\nway in which we live about here.  He is a kind of bailiff or steward of\nmanor rights here, and they are not much, and it is but a poor little\noffice.  He was better off once, and Kitty must never marry to mere\ndrudgery and hard living.\"\n\nThe captain still sat stroking his thin hair, and looking at the young\nfisherman.\n\n\"I am as certain that my father had no knowledge that any one was wronged\nas to this money, or that any restitution ought to be made, as I am\ncertain that the sun now shines.  But, after this solemn warning from my\nbrother's grave in the sea, that the money is Stolen Money,\" said Young\nRaybrock, forcing himself to the utterance of the words, \"can I doubt it?\nCan I touch it?\"\n\n\"About not doubting, I ain't so sure,\" observed the captain; \"but about\nnot touching--no--I don't think you can.\"\n\n\"See then,\" said Young Raybrock, \"why I am so grieved.  Think of Kitty.\nThink what I have got to tell her!\"\n\nHis heart quite failed him again when he had come round to that, and he\nonce more beat his sea-boot softly on the floor.  But not for long; he\nsoon began again, in a quietly resolute tone.\n\n\"However!  Enough of that!  You spoke some brave words to me just now,\nCaptain Jorgan, and they shall not be spoken in vain.  I have got to do\nsomething.  What I have got to do, before all other things, is to trace\nout the meaning of this paper, for the sake of the Good Name that has no\none else to put it right.  And still for the sake of the Good Name, and\nmy father's memory, not a word of this writing must be breathed to my\nmother, or to Kitty, or to any human creature.  You agree in this?\"\n\n\"I don't know what they'll think of us below,\" said the captain, \"but for\ncertain I can't oppose it.  Now, as to tracing.  How will you do?\"\n\nThey both, as by consent, bent over the paper again, and again carefully\npuzzled out the whole of the writing.\n\n\"I make out that this would stand, if all the writing was here, 'Inquire\namong the old men living there, for'--some one.  Most like, you'll go to\nthis village named here?\" said the captain, musing, with his finger on\nthe name.\n\n\"Yes!  And Mr. Tregarthen is a Cornishman, and--to be sure!--comes from\nLanrean.\"\n\n\"Does he?\" said the captain quietly.  \"As I ain't acquainted with him,\nwho may _he_ be?\"\n\n\"Mr. Tregarthen is Kitty's father.\"\n\n\"Ay, ay!\" cried the captain.  \"Now you speak!  Tregarthen knows this\nvillage of Lanrean, then?\"\n\n\"Beyond all doubt he does.  I have often heard him mention it, as being\nhis native place.  He knows it well.\"\n\n\"Stop half a moment,\" said the captain.  \"We want a name here.  You could\nask Tregarthen (or if you couldn't I could) what names of old men he\nremembers in his time in those diggings?  Hey?\"\n\n\"I can go straight to his cottage, and ask him now.\"\n\n\"Take me with you,\" said the captain, rising in a solid way that had a\nmost comfortable reliability in it, \"and just a word more first.  I have\nknocked about harder than you, and have got along further than you.  I\nhave had, all my sea-going life long, to keep my wits polished bright\nwith acid and friction, like the brass cases of the ship's instruments.\nI'll keep you company on this expedition.  Now you don't live by talking\nany more than I do.  Clench that hand of yours in this hand of mine, and\nthat's a speech on both sides.\"\n\nCaptain Jorgan took command of the expedition with that hearty shake.  He\nat once refolded the paper exactly as before, replaced it in the bottle,\nput the stopper in, put the oilskin over the stopper, confided the whole\nto Young Raybrock's keeping, and led the way down-stairs.\n\nBut it was harder navigation below-stairs than above.  The instant they\nset foot in the parlour the quick, womanly eye detected that there was\nsomething wrong.  Kitty exclaimed, frightened, as she ran to her lover's\nside, \"Alfred!  What's the matter?\"  Mrs. Raybrock cried out to the\ncaptain, \"Gracious! what have you done to my son to change him like this\nall in a minute?\"  And the young widow--who was there with her work upon\nher arm--was at first so agitated that she frightened the little girl she\nheld in her hand, who hid her face in her mother's skirts and screamed.\nThe captain, conscious of being held responsible for this domestic\nchange, contemplated it with quite a guilty expression of countenance,\nand looked to the young fisherman to come to his rescue.\n\n\"Kitty, darling,\" said Young Raybrock, \"Kitty, dearest love, I must go\naway to Lanrean, and I don't know where else or how much further, this\nvery day.  Worse than that--our marriage, Kitty, must be put off, and I\ndon't know for how long.\"\n\nKitty stared at him, in doubt and wonder and in anger, and pushed him\nfrom her with her hand.\n\n\"Put off?\" cried Mrs. Raybrock.  \"The marriage put off?  And you going to\nLanrean!  Why, in the name of the dear Lord?\"\n\n\"Mother dear, I can't say why; I must not say why.  It would be\ndishonourable and undutiful to say why.\"\n\n\"Dishonourable and undutiful?\" returned the dame.  \"And is there nothing\ndishonourable or undutiful in the boy's breaking the heart of his own\nplighted love, and his mother's heart too, for the sake of the dark\nsecrets and counsels of a wicked stranger?  Why did you ever come here?\"\nshe apostrophised the innocent captain.  \"Who wanted you?  Where did you\ncome from?  Why couldn't you rest in your own bad place, wherever it is,\ninstead of disturbing the peace of quiet unoffending folk like us?\"\n\n\"And what,\" sobbed the poor little Kitty, \"have I ever done to you, you\nhard and cruel captain, that you should come and serve me so?\"\n\nAnd then they both began to weep most pitifully, while the captain could\nonly look from the one to the other, and lay hold of himself by the coat\ncollar.\n\n\"Margaret,\" said the poor young fisherman, on his knees at Kitty's feet,\nwhile Kitty kept both her hands before her tearful face, to shut out the\ntraitor from her view,--but kept her fingers wide asunder and looked at\nhim all the time,--\"Margaret, you have suffered so much, so\nuncomplainingly, and are always so careful and considerate!  Do take my\npart, for poor Hugh's sake!\"\n\nThe quiet Margaret was not appealed to in vain.  \"I will, Alfred,\" she\nreturned, \"and I do.  I wish this gentleman had never come near us;\"\nwhereupon the captain laid hold of himself the tighter; \"but I take your\npart for all that.  I am sure you have some strong reason and some\nsufficient reason for what you do, strange as it is, and even for not\nsaying why you do it, strange as that is.  And, Kitty darling, you are\nbound to think so more than any one, for true love believes everything,\nand bears everything, and trusts everything.  And, mother dear, you are\nbound to think so too, for you know you have been blest with good sons,\nwhose word was always as good as their oath, and who were brought up in\nas true a sense of honour as any gentleman in this land.  And I am sure\nyou have no more call, mother, to doubt your living son than to doubt\nyour dead son; and for the sake of the dear dead, I stand up for the dear\nliving.\"\n\n\"Wa'al now,\" the captain struck in, with enthusiasm, \"this I say, That\nwhether your opinions flatter me or not, you are a young woman of sense,\nand spirit, and feeling; and I'd sooner have you by my side in the hour\nof danger, than a good half of the men I've ever fallen in with--or\nfallen out with, ayther.\"\n\nMargaret did not return the captain's compliment, or appear fully to\nreciprocate his good opinion, but she applied herself to the consolation\nof Kitty, and of Kitty's mother-in-law that was to have been next Monday\nweek, and soon restored the parlour to a quiet condition.\n\n\"Kitty, my darling,\" said the young fisherman, \"I must go to your father\nto entreat him still to trust me in spite of this wretched change and\nmystery, and to ask him for some directions concerning Lanrean.  Will you\ncome home?  Will you come with me, Kitty?\"\n\nKitty answered not a word, but rose sobbing, with the end of her simple\nhead-dress at her eyes.  Captain Jorgan followed the lovers out, quite\nsheepishly, pausing in the shop to give an instruction to Mr. Pettifer.\n\n\"Here, Tom!\" said the captain, in a low voice.  \"Here's something in your\nline.  Here's an old lady poorly and low in her spirits.  Cheer her up a\nbit, Tom.  Cheer 'em all up.\"\n\nMr. Pettifer, with a brisk nod of intelligence, immediately assumed his\nsteward face, and went with his quiet, helpful, steward step into the\nparlour, where the captain had the great satisfaction of seeing him,\nthrough the glass door, take the child in his arms (who offered no\nobjection), and bend over Mrs. Raybrock, administering soft words of\nconsolation.\n\n\"Though what he finds to say, unless he's telling her that 't'll soon be\nover, or that most people is so at first, or that it'll do her good\nafterward, I cannot imaginate!\" was the captain's reflection as he\nfollowed the lovers.\n\nHe had not far to follow them, since it was but a short descent down the\nstony ways to the cottage of Kitty's father.  But short as the distance\nwas, it was long enough to enable the captain to observe that he was fast\nbecoming the village Ogre; for there was not a woman standing working at\nher door, or a fisherman coming up or going down, who saw Young Raybrock\nunhappy and little Kitty in tears, but he or she instantly darted a\nsuspicious and indignant glance at the captain, as the foreigner who must\nsomehow be responsible for this unusual spectacle.  Consequently, when\nthey came into Tregarthen's little garden,--which formed the platform\nfrom which the captain had seen Kitty peeping over the wall,--the captain\nbrought to, and stood off and on at the gate, while Kitty hurried to hide\nher tears in her own room, and Alfred spoke with her father, who was\nworking in the garden.  He was a rather infirm man, but could scarcely be\ncalled old yet, with an agreeable face and a promising air of making the\nbest of things.  The conversation began on his side with great\ncheerfulness and good humour, but soon became distrustful, and soon\nangry.  That was the captain's cue for striking both into the\nconversation and the garden.\n\n\"Morning, sir!\" said Captain Jorgan.  \"How do you do?\"\n\n\"The gentleman I am going away with,\" said the young fisherman to\nTregarthen.\n\n\"O!\" returned Kitty's father, surveying the unfortunate captain with a\nlook of extreme disfavour.  \"I confess that I can't say I am glad to see\nyou.\"\n\n\"No,\" said the captain, \"and, to admit the truth, that seems to be the\ngeneral opinion in these parts.  But don't be hasty; you may think better\nof me by-and-by.\"\n\n\"I hope so,\" observed Tregarthen.\n\n\"Wa'al, _I_ hope so,\" observed the captain, quite at his ease; \"more than\nthat, I believe so,--though you don't.  Now, Mr. Tregarthen, you don't\nwant to exchange words of mistrust with me; and if you did, you couldn't,\nbecause I wouldn't.  You and I are old enough to know better than to\njudge against experience from surfaces and appearances; and if you\nhaven't lived to find out the evil and injustice of such judgments, you\nare a lucky man.\"\n\nThe other seemed to shrink under this remark, and replied, \"Sir, I _have_\nlived to feel it deeply.\"\n\n\"Wa'al,\" said the captain, mollified, \"then I've made a good cast without\nknowing it.  Now, Tregarthen, there stands the lover of your only child,\nand here stand I who know his secret.  I warrant it a righteous secret,\nand none of his making, though bound to be of his keeping.  I want to\nhelp him out with it, and tewwards that end we ask you to favour us with\nthe names of two or three old residents in the village of Lanrean.  As I\nam taking out my pocket-book and pencil to put the names down, I may as\nwell observe to you that this, wrote atop of the first page here, is my\nname and address: 'Silas Jonas Jorgan, Salem, Massachusetts, United\nStates.'  If ever you take it in your head to run over any morning, I\nshall be glad to welcome you.  Now, what may be the spelling of these\nsaid names?\"\n\n\"There was an elderly man,\" said Tregarthen, \"named David Polreath.  He\nmay be dead.\"\n\n\"Wa'al,\" said the captain, cheerfully, \"if Polreath's dead and buried,\nand can be made of any service to us, Polreath won't object to our\ndigging of him up.  Polreath's down, anyhow.\"\n\n\"There was another named Penrewen.  I don't know his Christian name.\"\n\n\"Never mind his Chris'en name,\" said the captain; \"Penrewen, for short.\"\n\n\"There was another named John Tredgear.\"\n\n\"And a pleasant-sounding name, too,\" said the captain; \"John Tredgear's\nbooked.\"\n\n\"I can recall no other except old Parvis.\"\n\n\"One of old Parvis's fam'ly I reckon,\" said the captain, \"kept a\ndry-goods store in New York city, and realised a handsome competency by\nburning his house to ashes.  Same name, anyhow.  David Polreath,\nUnchris'en Penrewen, John Tredgear, and old Arson Parvis.\"\n\n\"I cannot recall any others at the moment.\"\n\n\"Thank'ee,\" said the captain.  \"And so, Tregarthen, hoping for your good\nopinion yet, and likewise for the fair Devonshire Flower's, your\ndaughter's, I give you my hand, sir, and wish you good day.\"\n\nYoung Raybrock accompanied him disconsolately; for there was no Kitty at\nthe window when he looked up, no Kitty in the garden when he shut the\ngate, no Kitty gazing after them along the stony ways when they begin to\nclimb back.\n\n\"Now I tell you what,\" said the captain.  \"Not being at present\ncalculated to promote harmony in your family, I won't come in.  You go\nand get your dinner at home, and I'll get mine at the little hotel.  Let\nour hour of meeting be two o'clock, and you'll find me smoking a cigar in\nthe sun afore the hotel door.  Tell Tom Pettifer, my steward, to consider\nhimself on duty, and to look after your people till we come back; you'll\nfind he'll have made himself useful to 'em already, and will be quite\nacceptable.\"\n\nAll was done as Captain Jorgan directed.  Punctually at two o'clock the\nyoung fisherman appeared with his knapsack at his back; and punctually at\ntwo o'clock the captain jerked away the last feather-end of his cigar.\n\n\"Let me carry your baggage, Captain Jorgan; I can easily take it with\nmine.\"\n\n\"Thank'ee,\" said the captain.  \"I'll carry it myself.  It's only a comb.\"\n\nThey climbed out of the village, and paused among the trees and fern on\nthe summit of the hill above, to take breath, and to look down at the\nbeautiful sea.  Suddenly the captain gave his leg a resounding slap, and\ncried, \"Never knew such a right thing in all my life!\"--and ran away.\n\nThe cause of this abrupt retirement on the part of the captain was little\nKitty among the trees.  The captain went out of sight and waited, and\nkept out of sight and waited, until it occurred to him to beguile the\ntime with another cigar.  He lighted it, and smoked it out, and still he\nwas out of sight and waiting.  He stole within sight at last, and saw the\nlovers, with their arms entwined and their bent heads touching, moving\nslowly among the trees.  It was the golden time of the afternoon then,\nand the captain said to himself, \"Golden sun, golden sea, golden sails,\ngolden leaves, golden love, golden youth,--a golden state of things\naltogether!\"\n\nNevertheless the captain found it necessary to hail his young companion\nbefore going out of sight again.  In a few moments more he came up and\nthey began their journey.\n\n\"That still young woman with the fatherless child,\" said Captain Jorgan,\nas they fell into step, \"didn't throw her words away; but good honest\nwords are never thrown away.  And now that I am conveying you off from\nthat tender little thing that loves, and relies, and hopes, I feel just\nas if I was the snarling crittur in the picters, with the tight legs, the\nlong nose, and the feather in his cap, the tips of whose moustaches get\nup nearer to his eyes the wickeder he gets.\"\n\nThe young fisherman knew nothing of Mephistopheles; but he smiled when\nthe captain stopped to double himself up and slap his leg, and they went\nalong in right goodfellowship.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V {1}--THE RESTITUTION\n\n\nCaptain Jorgan, up and out betimes, had put the whole village of Lanrean\nunder an amicable cross-examination, and was returning to the King\nArthur's Arms to breakfast, none the wiser for his trouble, when he\nbeheld the young fisherman advancing to meet him, accompanied by a\nstranger.  A glance at this stranger assured the captain that he could be\nno other than the Seafaring Man; and the captain was about to hail him as\na fellow-craftsman, when the two stood still and silent before the\ncaptain, and the captain stood still, silent, and wondering before them.\n\n\"Why, what's this?\" cried the captain, when at last he broke the silence.\n\"You two are alike.  You two are much alike.  What's this?\"\n\nNot a word was answered on the other side, until after the seafaring\nbrother had got hold of the captain's right hand, and the fisherman\nbrother had got hold of the captain's left hand; and if ever the captain\nhad had his fill of hand-shaking, from his birth to that hour, he had it\nthen.  And presently up and spoke the two brothers, one at a time, two at\na time, two dozen at a time for the bewilderment into which they plunged\nthe captain, until he gradually had Hugh Raybrock's deliverance made\nclear to him, and also unravelled the fact that the person referred to in\nthe half-obliterated paper was Tregarthen himself.\n\n\"Formerly, dear Captain Jorgan,\" said Alfred, \"of Lanrean, you recollect?\nKitty and her father came to live at Steepways after Hugh shipped on his\nlast voyage.\"\n\n\"Ay, ay!\" cried the captain, fetching a breath.  \"_Now_ you have me in\ntow.  Then your brother here don't know his sister-in-law that is to be\nso much as by name?\"\n\n\"Never saw her; never heard of her!\"\n\n\"Ay, ay, ay!\" cried the captain.  \"Why then we every one go back\ntogether--paper, writer, and all--and take Tregarthen into the secret we\nkept from him?\"\n\n\"Surely,\" said Alfred, \"we can't help it now.  We must go through with\nour duty.\"\n\n\"Not a doubt,\" returned the captain.  \"Give me an arm apiece, and let us\nset this ship-shape.\"\n\nSo walking up and down in the shrill wind on the wild moor, while the\nneglected breakfast cooled within, the captain and the brothers settled\ntheir course of action.\n\nIt was that they should all proceed by the quickest means they could\nsecure to Barnstaple, and there look over the father's books and papers\nin the lawyer's keeping; as Hugh had proposed to himself to do if ever he\nreached home.  That, enlightened or unenlightened, they should then\nreturn to Steepways and go straight to Mr. Tregarthen, and tell him all\nthey knew, and see what came of it, and act accordingly.  Lastly, that\nwhen they got there they should enter the village with all precautions\nagainst Hugh's being recognised by any chance; and that to the captain\nshould be consigned the task of preparing his wife and mother for his\nrestoration to this life.\n\n\"For you see,\" quoth Captain Jorgan, touching the last head, \"it requires\ncaution any way, great joys being as dangerous as great griefs, if not\nmore dangerous, as being more uncommon (and therefore less provided\nagainst) in this round world of ours.  And besides, I should like to free\nmy name with the ladies, and take you home again at your brightest and\nluckiest; so don't let's throw away a chance of success.\"\n\nThe captain was highly lauded by the brothers for his kind interest and\nforesight.\n\n\"And now stop!\" said the captain, coming to a standstill, and looking\nfrom one brother to the other, with quite a new rigging of wrinkles about\neach eye; \"you are of opinion,\" to the elder, \"that you are ra'ather\nslow?\"\n\n\"I assure you I am very slow,\" said the honest Hugh.\n\n\"Wa'al,\" replied the captain, \"I assure you that to the best of my belief\nI am ra'ather smart.  Now a slow man ain't good at quick business, is\nhe?\"\n\nThat was clear to both.\n\n\"You,\" said the captain, turning to the younger brother, \"are a little in\nlove; ain't you?\"\n\n\"Not a little, Captain Jorgan.\"\n\n\"Much or little, you're sort preoccupied; ain't you?\"\n\nIt was impossible to be denied.\n\n\"And a sort preoccupied man ain't good at quick business, is he?\" said\nthe captain.\n\nEqually clear on all sides.\n\n\"Now,\" said the captain, \"I ain't in love myself, and I've made many a\nsmart run across the ocean, and I should like to carry on and go ahead\nwith this affair of yours, and make a run slick through it.  Shall I try?\nWill you hand it over to me?\"\n\nThey were both delighted to do so, and thanked him heartily.\n\n\"Good,\" said the captain, taking out his watch.  \"This is half-past eight\na.m., Friday morning.  I'll jot that down, and we'll compute how many\nhours we've been out when we run into your mother's post-office.  There!\nThe entry's made, and now we go ahead.\"\n\nThey went ahead so well that before the Barnstaple lawyer's office was\nopen next morning, the captain was sitting whistling on the step of the\ndoor, waiting for the clerk to come down the street with his key and open\nit.  But instead of the clerk there came the master, with whom the\ncaptain fraternised on the spot to an extent that utterly confounded him.\n\nAs he personally knew both Hugh and Alfred, there was no difficulty in\nobtaining immediate access to such of the father's papers as were in his\nkeeping.  These were chiefly old letters and cash accounts; from which\nthe captain, with a shrewdness and despatch that left the lawyer far\nbehind, established with perfect clearness, by noon, the following\nparticulars:--\n\nThat one Lawrence Clissold had borrowed of the deceased, at a time when\nhe was a thriving young tradesman in the town of Barnstaple, the sum of\nfive hundred pounds.  That he had borrowed it on the written statement\nthat it was to be laid out in furtherance of a speculation which he\nexpected would raise him to independence; he being, at the time of\nwriting that letter, no more than a clerk in the house of Dringworth\nBrothers, America Square, London.  That the money was borrowed for a\nstipulated period; but that, when the term was out, the aforesaid\nspeculation failed, and Clissold was without means of repayment.  That,\nhereupon, he had written to his creditor, in no very persuasive terms,\nvaguely requesting further time.  That the creditor had refused this\nconcession, declaring that he could not afford delay.  That Clissold then\npaid the debt, accompanying the remittance of the money with an angry\nletter describing it as having been advanced by a relative to save him\nfrom ruin.  That, in acknowlodging the receipt, Raybrock had cautioned\nClissold to seek to borrow money of him no more, as he would never so\nrisk money again.\n\nBefore the lawyer the captain said never a word in reference to these\ndiscoveries.  But when the papers had been put back in their box, and he\nand his two companions were well out of the office, his right leg\nsuffered for it, and he said,--\n\n\"So far this run's begun with a fair wind and a prosperous; for don't you\nsee that all this agrees with that dutiful trust in his father maintained\nby the slow member of the Raybrock family?\"\n\nWhether the brothers had seen it before or no, they saw it now.  Not that\nthe captain gave them much time to contemplate the state of things at\ntheir ease, for he instantly whipped them into a chaise again, and bore\nthem off to Steepways.  Although the afternoon was but just beginning to\ndecline when they reached it, and it was broad day-light, still they had\nno difficulty, by dint of muffing the returned sailor up, and ascending\nthe village rather than descending it, in reaching Tregarthen's cottage\nunobserved.  Kitty was not visible, and they surprised Tregarthen sitting\nwriting in the small bay-window of his little room.\n\n\"Sir,\" said the captain, instantly shaking hands with him, pen and all,\n\"I'm glad to see you, sir.  How do you do, sir?  I told you you'd think\nbetter of me by-and-by, and I congratulate you on going to do it.\"\n\nHere the captain's eye fell on Tom Pettifer Ho, engaged in preparing some\ncookery at the fire.\n\n\"That critter,\" said the captain, smiting his leg, \"is a born steward,\nand never ought to have been in any other way of life.  Stop where you\nare, Tom, and make yourself useful.  Now, Tregarthen, I'm going to try a\nchair.\"\n\nAccordingly the captain drew one close to him, and went on:--\n\n\"This loving member of the Raybrock family you know, sir.  This slow\nmember of the same family you don't know, sir.  Wa'al, these two are\nbrothers,--fact!  Hugh's come to life again, and here he stands.  Now see\nhere, my friend!  You don't want to be told that he was cast away, but\nyou do want to be told (for there's a purpose in it) that he was cast\naway with another man.  That man by name was Lawrence Clissold.\"\n\nAt the mention of this name Tregarthen started and changed colour.\n\"What's the matter?\" said the captain.\n\n\"He was a fellow-clerk of mine thirty--five-and-thirty--years ago.\"\n\n\"True,\" said the captain, immediately catching at the clew: \"Dringworth\nBrothers, America Square, London City.\"\n\nThe other started again, nodded, and said, \"That was the house.\"\n\n\"Now,\" pursued the captain, \"between those two men cast away there arose\na mystery concerning the round sum of five hundred pound.\"\n\nAgain Tregarthen started, changing colour.  Again the captain said,\n\"What's the matter?\"\n\nAs Tregarthen only answered, \"Please to go on,\" the captain recounted,\nvery tersely and plainly, the nature of Clissold's wanderings on the\nbarren island, as he had condensed them in his mind from the seafaring\nman.  Tregarthen became greatly agitated during this recital, and at\nlength exclaimed,--\n\n\"Clissold was the man who ruined me!  I have suspected it for many a long\nyear, and now I know it.\"\n\n\"And how,\" said the captain, drawing his chair still closer to\nTregarthen, and clapping his hand upon his shoulder,--\"how may you know\nit?\"\n\n\"When we were fellow-clerks,\" replied Tregarthen, \"in that London house,\nit was one of my duties to enter daily in a certain book an account of\nthe sums received that day by the firm, and afterward paid into the\nbankers'.  One memorable day,--a Wednesday, the black day of my\nlife,--among the sums I so entered was one of five hundred pounds.\"\n\n\"I begin to make it out,\" said the captain.  \"Yes?\"\n\n\"It was one of Clissold's duties to copy from this entry a memorandum of\nthe sums which the clerk employed to go to the bankers' paid in there.  It\nwas my duty to hand the money to Clissold; it was Clissold's to hand it\nto the clerk, with that memorandum of his writing.  On that Wednesday I\nentered a sum of five hundred pounds received.  I handed that sum, as I\nhanded the other sums in the day's entry, to Clissold.  I was absolutely\ncertain of it at the time; I have been absolutely certain of it ever\nsince.  A sum of five hundred pounds was afterward found by the house to\nhave been that day wanting from the bag, from Clissold's memorandum, and\nfrom the entries in my book.  Clissold, being questioned, stood upon his\nperfect clearness in the matter, and emphatically declared that he asked\nno better than to be tested by 'Tregarthen's book.'  My book was\nexamined, and the entry of five hundred pounds was not there.\"\n\n\"How not there,\" said the captain, \"when you made it yourself?\"\n\nTregarthen continued:--\n\n\"I was then questioned.  Had I made the entry?  Certainly I had.  The\nhouse produced my book, and it was not there.  I could not deny my book;\nI could not deny my writing.  I knew there must be forgery by some one;\nbut the writing was wonderfully like mine, and I could impeach no one if\nthe house could not.  I was required to pay the money back.  I did so;\nand I left the house, almost broken-hearted, rather than remain\nthere,--even if I could have done so,--with a dark shadow of suspicion\nalways on me.  I returned to my native place, Lanrean, and remained\nthere, clerk to a mine, until I was appointed to my little post here.\"\n\n\"I well remember,\" said the captain, \"that I told you that if you had no\nexperience of ill judgments on deceiving appearances, you were a lucky\nman.  You went hurt at that, and I see why.  I'm sorry.\"\n\n\"Thus it is,\" said Tregarthen.  \"Of my own innocence I have of course\nbeen sure; it has been at once my comfort and my trial.  Of Clissold I\nhave always had suspicions almost amounting to certainty; but they have\nnever been confirmed until now.  For my daughter's sake and for my own I\nhave carried this subject in my own heart, as the only secret of my life,\nand have long believed that it would die with me.\"\n\n\"Wa'al, my good sir,\" said the captain cordially, \"the present question\nis, and will be long, I hope, concerning living, and not dying.  Now,\nhere are our two honest friends, the loving Raybrock and the slow.  Here\nthey stand, agreed on one point, on which I'd back 'em round the world,\nand right across it from north to south, and then again from east to\nwest, and through it, from your deepest Cornish mine to China.  It is,\nthat they will never use this same so-often-mentioned sum of money, and\nthat restitution of it must be made to you.  These two, the loving member\nand the slow, for the sake of the right and of their father's memory,\nwill have it ready for you to-morrow.  Take it, and ease their minds and\nmine, and end a most unfortunate transaction.\"\n\nTregarthen took the captain by the hand, and gave his hand to each of the\nyoung men, but positively and finally answered No.  He said, they trusted\nto his word, and he was glad of it, and at rest in his mind; but there\nwas no proof, and the money must remain as it was.  All were very earnest\nover this; and earnestness in men, when they are right and true, is so\nimpressive, that Mr. Pettifer deserted his cookery and looked on quite\nmoved.\n\n\"And so,\" said the captain, \"so we come--as that lawyer-crittur over\nyonder where we were this morning might--to mere proof; do we?  We must\nhave it; must we?  How?  From this Clissold's wanderings, and from what\nyou say, it ain't hard to make out that there was a neat forgery of your\nwriting committed by the too smart rowdy that was grease and ashes when I\nmade his acquaintance, and a substitution of a forged leaf in your book\nfor a real and torn leaf torn out.  Now was that real and true leaf then\nand there destroyed?  No,--for says he, in his drunken way, he slipped it\ninto a crack in his own desk, because you came into the office before\nthere was time to burn it, and could never get back to it arterwards.\nWait a bit.  Where is that desk now?  Do you consider it likely to be in\nAmerica Square, London City?\"\n\nTregarthen shook his head.\n\n\"The house has not, for years, transacted business in that place.  I have\nheard of it, and read of it, as removed, enlarged, every way altered.\nThings alter so fast in these times.\"\n\n\"You think so,\" returned the captain, with compassion; \"but you should\ncome over and see _me_ afore you talk about _that_.  Wa'al, now.  This\ndesk, this paper,--this paper, this desk,\" said the captain, ruminating\nand walking about, and looking, in his uneasy abstraction, into Mr.\nPettifer's hat on a table, among other things.  \"This desk, this\npaper,--this paper, this desk,\" the captain continued, musing and roaming\nabout the room, \"I'd give--\"\n\nHowever, he gave nothing, but took up his steward's hat instead, and\nstood looking into it, as if he had just come into church.  After that he\nroamed again, and again said, \"This desk, belonging to this house of\nDringworth Brothers, America Square, London City--\"\n\nMr. Pettifer, still strangely moved, and now more moved than before, cut\nthe captain off as he backed across the room, and bespake him thus:--\n\n\"Captain Jorgan, I have been wishful to engage your attention, but I\ncouldn't do it.  I am unwilling to interrupt Captain Jorgan, but I must\ndo it.  _I_ knew something about that house.\"\n\nThe captain stood stock-still and looked at him,--with his (Mr.\nPettifer's) hat under his arm.\n\n\"You're aware,\" pursued his steward, \"that I was once in the broking\nbusiness, Captain Jorgan?\"\n\n\"I was aware,\" said the captain, \"that you had failed in that calling,\nand in half the businesses going, Tom.\"\n\n\"Not quite so, Captain Jorgan; but I failed in the broking business.  I\nwas partners with my brother, sir.  There was a sale of old office\nfurniture at Dringworth Brothers' when the house was moved from America\nSquare, and me and my brother made what we call in the trade a Deal\nthere, sir.  And I'll make bold to say, sir, that the only thing I ever\nhad from my brother, or from any relation,--for my relations have mostly\ntaken property from me instead of giving me any,--was an old desk we\nbought at that same sale, with a crack in it.  My brother wouldn't have\ngiven me even that, when we broke partnership, if it had been worth\nanything.\"\n\n\"Where is that desk now?\" said the captain.\n\n\"Well, Captain Jorgan,\" replied the steward, \"I couldn't say for certain\nwhere it is now; but when I saw it last,--which was last time we were\noutward bound,--it was at a very nice lady's at Wapping, along with a\nlittle chest of mine which was detained for a small matter of a bill\nowing.\"\n\nThe captain, instead of paying that rapt attention to his steward which\nwas rendered by the other three persons present, went to Church again, in\nrespect of the steward's hat.  And a most especially agitated and\nmemorable face the captain produced from it, after a short pause.\n\n\"Now, Tom,\" said the captain, \"I spoke to you, when we first came here,\nrespecting your constitutional weakness on the subject of sun-stroke.\"\n\n\"You did, sir.\"\n\n\"Will my slow friend,\" said the captain, \"lend me his arm, or I shall\nsink right back'ards into this blessed steward's cookery?  Now, Tom,\"\npursued the captain, when the required assistance was given, \"on your\noath as a steward, didn't you take that desk to pieces to make a better\none of it, and put it together fresh,--or something of the kind?\"\n\n\"On my oath I did, sir,\" replied the steward.\n\n\"And by the blessing of Heaven, my friends, one and all,\" cried the\ncaptain, radiant with joy,--\"of the Heaven that put it into this Tom\nPettifer's head to take so much care of his head against the bright\nsun,--he lined his hat with the original leaf in Tregarthen's\nwriting,--and here it is!\"\n\nWith that the captain, to the utter destruction of Mr. Pettifer's\nfavourite hat, produced the book-leaf, very much worn, but still legible,\nand gave both his legs such tremendous slaps that they were heard far off\nin the bay, and never accounted for.\n\n\"A quarter past five p.m.,\" said the captain, pulling out his watch, \"and\nthat's thirty-three hours and a quarter in all, and a pritty run!\"\n\nHow they were all overpowered with delight and triumph; how the money was\nrestored, then and there, to Tregarthen; how Tregarthen, then and there,\ngave it all to his daughter; how the captain undertook to go to\nDringworth Brothers and re-establish the reputation of their forgotten\nold clerk; how Kitty came in, and was nearly torn to pieces, and the\nmarriage was reappointed, needs not to be told.  Nor how she and the\nyoung fisherman went home to the post-office to prepare the way for the\ncaptain's coming, by declaring him to be the mightiest of men, who had\nmade all their fortunes,--and then dutifully withdrew together, in order\nthat he might have the domestic coast entirely to himself.  How he\navailed himself of it is all that remains to tell.\n\nDeeply delighted with his trust, and putting his heart into it, he raised\nthe latch of the post-office parlour where Mrs. Raybrock and the young\nwidow sat, and said,--\n\n\"May I come in?\"\n\n\"Sure you may, Captain Jorgan!\" replied the old lady.  \"And good reason\nyou have to be free of the house, though you have not been too well used\nin it by some who ought to have known better.  I ask your pardon.\"\n\n\"No you don't, ma'am,\" said the captain, \"for I won't let you.  Wa'al, to\nbe sure!\"\n\nBy this time he had taken a chair on the hearth between them.\n\n\"Never felt such an evil spirit in the whole course of my life!  There!  I\ntell you!  I could a'most have cut my own connection.  Like the dealer in\nmy country, away West, who when he had let himself be outdone in a\nbargain, said to himself, 'Now I tell you what!  I'll never speak to you\nagain.'  And he never did, but joined a settlement of oysters, and\ntranslated the multiplication table into their language,--which is a fact\nthat can be proved.  If you doubt it, mention it to any oyster you come\nacross, and see if he'll have the face to contradict it.\"\n\nHe took the child from her mother's lap and set it on his knee.\n\n\"Not a bit afraid of me now, you see.  Knows I am fond of small people.  I\nhave a child, and she's a girl, and I sing to her sometimes.\"\n\n\"What do you sing?\" asked Margaret.\n\n\"Not a long song, my dear.\n\n   Silas Jorgan\n   Played the organ.\n\nThat's about all.  And sometimes I tell her stories,--stories of sailors\nsupposed to be lost, and recovered after all hope was abandoned.\"  Here\nthe captain musingly went back to his song,--\n\n   Silas Jorgan\n   Played the organ;\n\nrepeating it with his eyes on the fire, as he softly danced the child on\nhis knee.  For he felt that Margaret had stopped working.\n\n\"Yes,\" said the captain, still looking at the fire, \"I make up stories\nand tell 'em to that child.  Stories of shipwreck on desert islands, and\nlong delay in getting back to civilised lauds.  It is to stories the like\nof that, mostly, that\n\n   Silas Jorgan\n   Plays the organ.\"\n\nThere was no light in the room but the light of the fire; for the shades\nof night were on the village, and the stars had begun to peep out of the\nsky one by one, as the houses of the village peeped out from among the\nfoliage when the night departed.  The captain felt that Margaret's eyes\nwere upon him, and thought it discreetest to keep his own eyes on the\nfire.\n\n\"Yes; I make 'em up,\" said the captain.  \"I make up stories of brothers\nbrought together by the good providence of GOD,--of sons brought back to\nmothers, husbands brought back to wives, fathers raised from the deep,\nfor little children like herself.\"\n\nMargaret's touch was on his arm, and he could not choose but look round\nnow.  Next moment her hand moved imploringly to his breast, and she was\non her knees before him,--supporting the mother, who was also kneeling.\n\n\"What's the matter?\" said the captain.  \"What's the matter?\n\n   Silas Jorgan\n   Played the--\n\nTheir looks and tears were too much for him, and he could not finish the\nsong, short as it was.\n\n\"Mistress Margaret, you have borne ill fortune well.  Could you bear good\nfortune equally well, if it was to come?\"\n\n\"I hope so.  I thankfully and humbly and earnestly hope so!\"\n\n\"Wa'al, my dear,\" said the captain, \"p'rhaps it has come.  He's--don't be\nfrightened--shall I say the word--\"\n\n\"Alive?\"\n\n\"Yes!\"\n\nThe thanks they fervently addressed to Heaven were again too much for the\ncaptain, who openly took out his handkerchief and dried his eyes.\n\n\"He's no further off,\" resumed the captain, \"than my country.  Indeed,\nhe's no further off than his own native country.  To tell you the truth,\nhe's no further off than Falmouth.  Indeed, I doubt if he's quite so fur.\nIndeed, if you was sure you could bear it nicely, and I was to do no more\nthan whistle for him--\"\n\nThe captain's trust was discharged.  A rush came, and they were all\ntogether again.\n\nThis was a fine opportunity for Tom Pettifer to appear with a tumbler of\ncold water, and he presently appeared with it, and administered it to the\nladies; at the same time soothing them, and composing their dresses,\nexactly as if they had been passengers crossing the Channel.  The extent\nto which the captain slapped his legs, when Mr. Pettifer acquitted\nhimself of this act of stewardship, could have been thoroughly\nappreciated by no one but himself; inasmuch as he must have slapped them\nblack and blue, and they must have smarted tremendously.\n\nHe couldn't stay for the wedding, having a few appointments to keep at\nthe irreconcilable distance of about four thousand miles.  So next\nmorning all the village cheered him up to the level ground above, and\nthere he shook hands with a complete Census of its population, and\ninvited the whole, without exception, to come and stay several months\nwith him at Salem, Mass., U.S.  And there as he stood on the spot where\nhe had seen that little golden picture of love and parting, and from\nwhich he could that morning contemplate another golden picture with a\nvista of golden years in it, little Kitty put her arms around his neck,\nand kissed him on both his bronzed cheeks, and laid her pretty face upon\nhis storm-beaten breast, in sight of all,--ashamed to have called such a\nnoble captain names.  And there the captain waved his hat over his head\nthree final times; and there he was last seen, going away accompanied by\nTom Pettifer Ho, and carrying his hands in his pockets.  And there,\nbefore that ground was softened with the fallen leaves of three more\nsummers, a rosy little boy took his first unsteady run to a fair young\nmother's breast, and the name of that infant fisherman was Jorgan\nRaybrock.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n\n{1}  Dicken's didn't write chapters three and four and they are omitted\nin this edition.  The story continues with Captain Jorgan and Alfred at\nLanrean.\n\n\n"}
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{"1413":"\n\n\n\n\nTranscribed from the 1894 Chapman and Hall \"Christmas Stories\" edition by\nDavid Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk\n\n\n\n\n\nTOM TIDDLER'S GROUND\n\n\nCHAPTER I--PICKING UP SOOT AND CINDERS\n\n\n\"And why Tom Tiddler's ground?\" said the Traveller.\n\n\"Because he scatters halfpence to Tramps and such-like,\" returned the\nLandlord, \"and of course they pick 'em up.  And this being done on his\nown land (which it _is_ his own land, you observe, and were his family's\nbefore him), why it is but regarding the halfpence as gold and silver,\nand turning the ownership of the property a bit round your finger, and\nthere you have the name of the children's game complete.  And it's\nappropriate too,\" said the Landlord, with his favourite action of\nstooping a little, to look across the table out of window at vacancy,\nunder the window-blind which was half drawn down.  \"Leastwise it has been\nso considered by many gentlemen which have partook of chops and tea in\nthe present humble parlour.\"\n\nThe Traveller was partaking of chops and tea in the present humble\nparlour, and the Landlord's shot was fired obliquely at him.\n\n\"And you call him a Hermit?\" said the Traveller.\n\n\"They call him such,\" returned the Landlord, evading personal\nresponsibility; \"he is in general so considered.\"\n\n\"What _is_ a Hermit?\" asked the Traveller.\n\n\"What is it?\" repeated the Landlord, drawing his hand across his chin.\n\n\"Yes, what is it?\"\n\nThe Landlord stooped again, to get a more comprehensive view of vacancy\nunder the window-blind, and--with an asphyxiated appearance on him as one\nunaccustomed to definition--made no answer.\n\n\"I'll tell you what I suppose it to be,\" said the Traveller.  \"An\nabominably dirty thing.\"\n\n\"Mr. Mopes is dirty, it cannot be denied,\" said the Landlord.\n\n\"Intolerably conceited.\"\n\n\"Mr. Mopes is vain of the life he leads, some do say,\" replied the\nLandlord, as another concession.\n\n\"A slothful, unsavoury, nasty reversal of the laws of human mature,\" said\nthe Traveller; \"and for the sake of GOD'S working world and its\nwholesomeness, both moral and physical, I would put the thing on the\ntreadmill (if I had my way) wherever I found it; whether on a pillar, or\nin a hole; whether on Tom Tiddler's ground, or the Pope of Rome's ground,\nor a Hindoo fakeer's ground, or any other ground.\"\n\n\"I don't know about putting Mr. Mopes on the treadmill,\" said the\nLandlord, shaking his head very seriously.  \"There ain't a doubt but what\nhe has got landed property.\"\n\n\"How far may it be to this said Tom Tiddler's ground?\" asked the\nTraveller.\n\n\"Put it at five mile,\" returned the Landlord.\n\n\"Well!  When I have done my breakfast,\" said the Traveller, \"I'll go\nthere.  I came over here this morning, to find it out and see it.\"\n\n\"Many does,\" observed the Landlord.\n\nThe conversation passed, in the Midsummer weather of no remote year of\ngrace, down among the pleasant dales and trout-streams of a green English\ncounty.  No matter what county.  Enough that you may hunt there, shoot\nthere, fish there, traverse long grass-grown Roman roads there, open\nancient barrows there, see many a square mile of richly cultivated land\nthere, and hold Arcadian talk with a bold peasantry, their country's\npride, who will tell you (if you want to know) how pastoral housekeeping\nis done on nine shillings a week.\n\nMr. Traveller sat at his breakfast in the little sanded parlour of the\nPeal of Bells village alehouse, with the dew and dust of an early walk\nupon his shoes--an early walk by road and meadow and coppice, that had\nsprinkled him bountifully with little blades of grass, and scraps of new\nhay, and with leaves both young and old, and with other such fragrant\ntokens of the freshness and wealth of summer.  The window through which\nthe landlord had concentrated his gaze upon vacancy was shaded, because\nthe morning sun was hot and bright on the village street.  The village\nstreet was like most other village streets: wide for its height, silent\nfor its size, and drowsy in the dullest degree.  The quietest little\ndwellings with the largest of window-shutters (to shut up Nothing as\ncarefully as if it were the Mint, or the Bank of England) had called in\nthe Doctor's house so suddenly, that his brass door-plate and three\nstories stood among them as conspicuous and different as the doctor\nhimself in his broadcloth, among the smock-frocks of his patients.  The\nvillage residences seemed to have gone to law with a similar absence of\nconsideration, for a score of weak little lath-and-plaster cabins clung\nin confusion about the Attorney's red-brick house, which, with glaring\ndoor-steps and a most terrific scraper, seemed to serve all manner of\nejectments upon them.  They were as various as labourers--high-shouldered,\nwry-necked, one-eyed, goggle-eyed, squinting, bow-legged, knock-knee'd,\nrheumatic, crazy.  Some of the small tradesmen's houses, such as the\ncrockery-shop and the harness-maker, had a Cyclops window in the middle\nof the gable, within an inch or two of its apex, suggesting that some\nforlorn rural Prentice must wriggle himself into that apartment\nhorizontally, when he retired to rest, after the manner of the worm.  So\nbountiful in its abundance was the surrounding country, and so lean and\nscant the village, that one might have thought the village had sown and\nplanted everything it once possessed, to convert the same into crops.\nThis would account for the bareness of the little shops, the bareness of\nthe few boards and trestles designed for market purposes in a corner of\nthe street, the bareness of the obsolete Inn and Inn Yard, with the\nominous inscription \"Excise Office\" not yet faded out from the gateway,\nas indicating the very last thing that poverty could get rid of.  This\nwould also account for the determined abandonment of the village by one\nstray dog, fast lessening in the perspective where the white posts and\nthe pond were, and would explain his conduct on the hypothesis that he\nwas going (through the act of suicide) to convert himself into manure,\nand become a part proprietor in turnips or mangold-wurzel.\n\nMr. Traveller having finished his breakfast and paid his moderate score,\nwalked out to the threshold of the Peal of Bells, and, thence directed by\nthe pointing finger of his host, betook himself towards the ruined\nhermitage of Mr. Mopes the hermit.\n\nFor, Mr. Mopes, by suffering everything about him to go to ruin, and by\ndressing himself in a blanket and skewer, and by steeping himself in soot\nand grease and other nastiness, had acquired great renown in all that\ncountry-side--far greater renown than he could ever have won for himself,\nif his career had been that of any ordinary Christian, or decent\nHottentot.  He had even blanketed and skewered and sooted and greased\nhimself, into the London papers.  And it was curious to find, as Mr.\nTraveller found by stopping for a new direction at this farm-house or at\nthat cottage as he went along, with how much accuracy the morbid Mopes\nhad counted on the weakness of his neighbours to embellish him.  A mist\nof home-brewed marvel and romance surrounded Mopes, in which (as in all\nfogs) the real proportions of the real object were extravagantly\nheightened.  He had murdered his beautiful beloved in a fit of jealousy\nand was doing penance; he had made a vow under the influence of grief; he\nhad made a vow under the influence of a fatal accident; he had made a vow\nunder the influence of religion; he had made a vow under the influence of\ndrink; he had made a vow under the influence of disappointment; he had\nnever made any vow, but \"had got led into it\" by the possession of a\nmighty and most awful secret; he was enormously rich, he was stupendously\ncharitable, he was profoundly learned, he saw spectres, he knew and could\ndo all kinds of wonders.  Some said he went out every night, and was met\nby terrified wayfarers stalking along dark roads, others said he never\nwent out, some knew his penance to be nearly expired, others had positive\ninformation that his seclusion was not a penance at all, and would never\nexpire but with himself.  Even, as to the easy facts of how old he was,\nor how long he had held verminous occupation of his blanket and skewer,\nno consistent information was to be got, from those who must know if they\nwould.  He was represented as being all the ages between five-and-twenty\nand sixty, and as having been a hermit seven years, twelve, twenty,\nthirty,--though twenty, on the whole, appeared the favourite term.\n\n\"Well, well!\" said Mr. Traveller.  \"At any rate, let us see what a real\nlive Hermit looks like.\"\n\nSo, Mr. Traveller went on, and on, and on, until he came to Tom Tiddler's\nGround.\n\nIt was a nook in a rustic by-road, which the genius of Mopes had laid\nwaste as completely, as if he had been born an Emperor and a Conqueror.\nIts centre object was a dwelling-house, sufficiently substantial, all the\nwindow-glass of which had been long ago abolished by the surprising\ngenius of Mopes, and all the windows of which were barred across with\nrough-split logs of trees nailed over them on the outside.  A rickyard,\nhip-high in vegetable rankness and ruin, contained outbuildings from\nwhich the thatch had lightly fluttered away, on all the winds of all the\nseasons of the year, and from which the planks and beams had heavily\ndropped and rotted.  The frosts and damps of winter, and the heats of\nsummer, had warped what wreck remained, so that not a post or a board\nretained the position it was meant to hold, but everything was twisted\nfrom its purpose, like its owner, and degraded and debased.  In this\nhomestead of the sluggard, behind the ruined hedge, and sinking away\namong the ruined grass and the nettles, were the last perishing fragments\nof certain ricks: which had gradually mildewed and collapsed, until they\nlooked like mounds of rotten honeycomb, or dirty sponge.  Tom Tiddler's\nground could even show its ruined water; for, there was a slimy pond into\nwhich a tree or two had fallen--one soppy trunk and branches lay across\nit then--which in its accumulation of stagnant weed, and in its black\ndecomposition, and in all its foulness and filth, was almost comforting,\nregarded as the only water that could have reflected the shameful place\nwithout seeming polluted by that low office.\n\nMr. Traveller looked all around him on Tom Tiddler's ground, and his\nglance at last encountered a dusky Tinker lying among the weeds and rank\ngrass, in the shade of the dwelling-house.  A rough walking-staff lay on\nthe ground by his side, and his head rested on a small wallet.  He met\nMr. Traveller's eye without lifting up his head, merely depressing his\nchin a little (for he was lying on his back) to get a better view of him.\n\n\"Good day!\" said Mr. Traveller.\n\n\"Same to you, if you like it,\" returned the Tinker.\n\n\"Don't _you_ like it?  It's a very fine day.\"\n\n\"I ain't partickler in weather,\" returned the Tinker, with a yawn.\n\nMr. Traveller had walked up to where he lay, and was looking down at him.\n\"This is a curious place,\" said Mr. Traveller.\n\n\"Ay, I suppose so!\" returned the Tinker.  \"Tom Tiddler's ground, they\ncall this.\"\n\n\"Are you well acquainted with it?\"\n\n\"Never saw it afore to-day,\" said the Tinker, with another yawn, \"and\ndon't care if I never see it again.  There was a man here just now, told\nme what it was called.  If you want to see Tom himself, you must go in at\nthat gate.\"  He faintly indicated with his chin a little mean ruin of a\nwooden gate at the side of the house.\n\n\"Have you seen Tom?\"\n\n\"No, and I ain't partickler to see him.  I can see a dirty man anywhere.\"\n\n\"He does not live in the house, then?\" said Mr. Traveller, casting his\neyes upon the house anew.\n\n\"The man said,\" returned the Tinker, rather irritably,--\"him as was here\njust now, 'this what you're a laying on, mate, is Tom Tiddler's ground.\nAnd if you want to see Tom,' he says, 'you must go in at that gate.'  The\nman come out at that gate himself, and he ought to know.\"\n\n\"Certainly,\" said Mr. Traveller.\n\n\"Though, perhaps,\" exclaimed the Tinker, so struck by the brightness of\nhis own idea, that it had the electric effect upon him of causing him to\nlift up his head an inch or so, \"perhaps he was a liar!  He told some rum\n'uns--him as was here just now, did about this place of Tom's.  He\nsays--him as was here just now--'When Tom shut up the house, mate, to go\nto rack, the beds was left, all made, like as if somebody was a-going to\nsleep in every bed.  And if you was to walk through the bedrooms now,\nyou'd see the ragged mouldy bedclothes a heaving and a heaving like seas.\nAnd a heaving and a heaving with what?' he says.  'Why, with the rats\nunder 'em.'\"\n\n\"I wish I had seen that man,\" Mr. Traveller remarked.\n\n\"You'd have been welcome to see him instead of me seeing him,\" growled\nthe Tinker; \"for he was a long-winded one.\"\n\nNot without a sense of injury in the remembrance, the Tinker gloomily\nclosed his eyes.  Mr. Traveller, deeming the Tinker a short-winded one,\nfrom whom no further breath of information was to be derived, betook\nhimself to the gate.\n\nSwung upon its rusty hinges, it admitted him into a yard in which there\nwas nothing to be seen but an outhouse attached to the ruined building,\nwith a barred window in it.  As there were traces of many recent\nfootsteps under this window, and as it was a low window, and unglazed,\nMr. Traveller made bold to peep within the bars.  And there to be sure he\nhad a real live Hermit before him, and could judge how the real dead\nHermits used to look.\n\nHe was lying on a bank of soot and cinders, on the floor, in front of a\nrusty fireplace.  There was nothing else in the dark little kitchen, or\nscullery, or whatever his den had been originally used as, but a table\nwith a litter of old bottles on it.  A rat made a clatter among these\nbottles, jumped down, and ran over the real live Hermit on his way to his\nhole, or the man in _his_ hole would not have been so easily discernible.\nTickled in the face by the rat's tail, the owner of Tom Tiddler's ground\nopened his eyes, saw Mr. Traveller, started up, and sprang to the window.\n\n\"Humph!\" thought Mr. Traveller, retiring a pace or two from the bars.  \"A\ncompound of Newgate, Bedlam, a Debtors' Prison in the worst time, a\nchimney-sweep, a mudlark, and the Noble Savage!  A nice old family, the\nHermit family.  Hah!\"\n\nMr. Traveller thought this, as he silently confronted the sooty object in\nthe blanket and skewer (in sober truth it wore nothing else), with the\nmatted hair and the staring eyes.  Further, Mr. Traveller thought, as the\neye surveyed him with a very obvious curiosity in ascertaining the effect\nthey produced, \"Vanity, vanity, vanity!  Verily, all is vanity!\"\n\n\"What is your name, sir, and where do you come from?\" asked Mr. Mopes the\nHermit--with an air of authority, but in the ordinary human speech of one\nwho has been to school.\n\nMr. Traveller answered the inquiries.\n\n\"Did you come here, sir, to see _me_?\"\n\n\"I did.  I heard of you, and I came to see you.--I know you like to be\nseen.\"  Mr. Traveller coolly threw the last words in, as a matter of\ncourse, to forestall an affectation of resentment or objection that he\nsaw rising beneath the grease and grime of the face.  They had their\neffect.\n\n\"So,\" said the Hermit, after a momentary silence, unclasping the bars by\nwhich he had previously held, and seating himself behind them on the\nledge of the window, with his bare legs and feet crouched up, \"you know I\nlike to be seen?\"\n\nMr. Traveller looked about him for something to sit on, and, observing a\nbillet of wood in a corner, brought it near the window.  Deliberately\nseating himself upon it, he answered, \"Just so.\"\n\nEach looked at the other, and each appeared to take some pains to get the\nmeasure of the other.\n\n\"Then you have come to ask me why I lead this life,\" said the Hermit,\nfrowning in a stormy manner.  \"I never tell that to any human being.  I\nwill not be asked that.\"\n\n\"Certainly you will not be asked that by me,\" said Mr. Traveller, \"for I\nhave not the slightest desire to know.\"\n\n\"You are an uncouth man,\" said Mr. Mopes the Hermit.\n\n\"You are another,\" said Mr. Traveller.\n\nThe Hermit, who was plainly in the habit of overawing his visitors with\nthe novelty of his filth and his blanket and skewer, glared at his\npresent visitor in some discomfiture and surprise: as if he had taken aim\nat him with a sure gun, and his piece had missed fire.\n\n\"Why do you come here at all?\" he asked, after a pause.\n\n\"Upon my life,\" said Mr. Traveller, \"I was made to ask myself that very\nquestion only a few minutes ago--by a Tinker too.\"\n\nAs he glanced towards the gate in saying it, the Hermit glanced in that\ndirection likewise.\n\n\"Yes.  He is lying on his back in the sunlight outside,\" said Mr,\nTraveller, as if he had been asked concerning the man, \"and he won't come\nin; for he says--and really very reasonably--'What should I come in for?\nI can see a dirty man anywhere.'\"\n\n\"You are an insolent person.  Go away from my premises.  Go!\" said the\nHermit, in an imperious and angry tone.\n\n\"Come, come!\" returned Mr. Traveller, quite undisturbed.  \"This is a\nlittle too much.  You are not going to call yourself clean?  Look at your\nlegs.  And as to these being your premises:--they are in far too\ndisgraceful a condition to claim any privilege of ownership, or anything\nelse.\"\n\nThe Hermit bounced down from his window-ledge, and cast himself on his\nbed of soot and cinders.\n\n\"I am not going,\" said Mr. Traveller, glancing in after him; \"you won't\nget rid of me in that way.  You had better come and talk.\"\n\n\"I won't talk,\" said the Hermit, flouncing round to get his back towards\nthe window.\n\n\"Then I will,\" said Mr. Traveller.  \"Why should you take it ill that I\nhave no curiosity to know why you live this highly absurd and highly\nindecent life?  When I contemplate a man in a state of disease, surely\nthere is no moral obligation on me to be anxious to know how he took it.\"\n\nAfter a short silence, the Hermit bounced up again, and came back to the\nbarred window.\n\n\"What?  You are not gone?\" he said, affecting to have supposed that he\nwas.\n\n\"Nor going,\" Mr. Traveller replied: \"I design to pass this summer day\nhere.\"\n\n\"How dare you come, sir, upon my promises--\" the Hermit was returning,\nwhen his visitor interrupted him.\n\n\"Really, you know, you must _not_ talk about your premises.  I cannot\nallow such a place as this to be dignified with the name of premises.\"\n\n\"How dare you,\" said the Hermit, shaking his bars, \"come in at my gate,\nto taunt me with being in a diseased state?\"\n\n\"Why, Lord bless my soul,\" returned the other, very composedly, \"you have\nnot the face to say that you are in a wholesome state?  Do allow me again\nto call your attention to your legs.  Scrape yourself anywhere--with\nanything--and then tell me you are in a wholesome state.  The fact is,\nMr. Mopes, that you are not only a Nuisance--\"\n\n\"A Nuisance?\" repeated the Hermit, fiercely.\n\n\"What is a place in this obscene state of dilapidation but a Nuisance?\nWhat is a man in your obscene state of dilapidation but a Nuisance?  Then,\nas you very well know, you cannot do without an audience, and your\naudience is a Nuisance.  You attract all the disreputable vagabonds and\nprowlers within ten miles around, by exhibiting yourself to them in that\nobjectionable blanket, and by throwing copper money among them, and\ngiving them drink out of those very dirty jars and bottles that I see in\nthere (their stomachs need be strong!); and in short,\" said Mr.\nTraveller, summing up in a quietly and comfortably settled manner, \"you\nare a Nuisance, and this kennel is a Nuisance, and the audience that you\ncannot possibly dispense with is a Nuisance, and the Nuisance is not\nmerely a local Nuisance, because it is a general Nuisance to know that\nthere _can be_ such a Nuisance left in civilisation so very long after\nits time.\"\n\n\"Will you go away?  I have a gun in here,\" said the Hermit.\n\n\"Pooh!\"\n\n\"I _have_!\"\n\n\"Now, I put it to you.  Did I say you had not?  And as to going away,\ndidn't I say I am not going away?  You have made me forget where I was.  I\nnow remember that I was remarking on your conduct being a Nuisance.\nMoreover, it is in the last and lowest degree inconsequent foolishness\nand weakness.\"\n\n\"Weakness?\" echoed the Hermit.\n\n\"Weakness,\" said Mr. Traveller, with his former comfortably settled final\nair.\n\n\"I weak, you fool?\" cried the Hermit, \"I, who have held to my purpose,\nand my diet, and my only bed there, all these years?\"\n\n\"The more the years, the weaker you,\" returned Mr. Traveller.  \"Though\nthe years are not so many as folks say, and as you willingly take credit\nfor.  The crust upon your face is thick and dark, Mr. Mopes, but I can\nsee enough of you through it, to see that you are still a young man.\"\n\n\"Inconsequent foolishness is lunacy, I suppose?\" said the Hermit.\n\n\"I suppose it is very like it,\" answered Mr. Traveller.\n\n\"Do I converse like a lunatic?\"\n\n\"One of us two must have a strong presumption against him of being one,\nwhether or no.  Either the clean and decorously clad man, or the dirty\nand indecorously clad man.  I don't say which.\"\n\n\"Why, you self-sufficient bear,\" said the Hermit, \"not a day passes but I\nam justified in my purpose by the conversations I hold here; not a day\npasses but I am shown, by everything I hear and see here, how right and\nstrong I am in holding my purpose.\"\n\nMr. Traveller, lounging easily on his billet of wood, took out a pocket\npipe and began to fill it.  \"Now, that a man,\" he said, appealing to the\nsummer sky as he did so, \"that a man--even behind bars, in a blanket and\nskewer--should tell me that he can see, from day to day, any orders or\nconditions of men, women, or children, who can by any possibility teach\nhim that it is anything but the miserablest drivelling for a human\ncreature to quarrel with his social nature--not to go so far as to say,\nto renounce his common human decency, for that is an extreme case; or who\ncan teach him that he can in any wise separate himself from his kind and\nthe habits of his kind, without becoming a deteriorated spectacle\ncalculated to give the Devil (and perhaps the monkeys) pleasure,--is\nsomething wonderful!  I repeat,\" said Mr. Traveller, beginning to smoke,\n\"the unreasoning hardihood of it is something wonderful--even in a man\nwith the dirt upon him an inch or two thick--behind bars--in a blanket\nand skewer!\"\n\nThe Hermit looked at him irresolutely, and retired to his soot and\ncinders and lay down, and got up again and came to the bars, and again\nlooked at him irresolutely, and finally said with sharpness: \"I don't\nlike tobacco.\"\n\n\"I don't like dirt,\" rejoined Mr. Traveller; \"tobacco is an excellent\ndisinfectant.  We shall both be the better for my pipe.  It is my\nintention to sit here through this summer day, until that blessed summer\nsun sinks low in the west, and to show you what a poor creature you are,\nthrough the lips of every chance wayfarer who may come in at your gate.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" inquired the Hermit, with a furious air.\n\n\"I mean that yonder is your gate, and there are you, and here am I; I\nmean that I know it to be a moral impossibility that any person can stray\nin at that gate from any point of the compass, with any sort of\nexperience, gained at first hand, or derived from another, that can\nconfute me and justify you.\"\n\n\"You are an arrogant and boastful hero,\" said the Hermit.  \"You think\nyourself profoundly wise.\"\n\n\"Bah!\" returned Mr. Traveller, quietly smoking.  \"There is little wisdom\nin knowing that every man must be up and doing, and that all mankind are\nmade dependent on one another.\"\n\n\"You have companions outside,\" said the Hermit.  \"I am not to be imposed\nupon by your assumed confidence in the people who may enter.\"\n\n\"A depraved distrust,\" returned the visitor, compassionately raising his\neyebrows, \"of course belongs to your state, I can't help that.\"\n\n\"Do you mean to tell me you have no confederates?\"\n\n\"I mean to tell you nothing but what I have told you.  What I have told\nyou is, that it is a moral impossibility that any son or daughter of Adam\ncan stand on this ground that I put my foot on, or on any ground that\nmortal treads, and gainsay the healthy tenure on which we hold our\nexistence.\"\n\n\"Which is,\" sneered the Hermit, \"according to you--\"\n\n\"Which is,\" returned the other, \"according to Eternal Providence, that we\nmust arise and wash our faces and do our gregarious work and act and re-\nact on one another, leaving only the idiot and the palsied to sit\nblinking in the corner.  Come!\" apostrophising the gate.  \"Open Sesame!\nShow his eyes and grieve his heart!  I don't care who comes, for I know\nwhat must come of it!\"\n\nWith that, he faced round a little on his billet of wood towards the\ngate; and Mr. Mopes, the Hermit, after two or three ridiculous bounces of\nindecision at his bed and back again, submitted to what he could not help\nhimself against, and coiled himself on his window-ledge, holding to his\nbars and looking out rather anxiously.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI--PICKING UP MISS KIMMEENS {1}\n\n\nThe day was by this time waning, when the gate again opened, and, with\nthe brilliant golden light that streamed from the declining sun and\ntouched the very bars of the sooty creature's den, there passed in a\nlittle child; a little girl with beautiful bright hair.  She wore a plain\nstraw hat, had a door-key in her hand, and tripped towards Mr. Traveller\nas if she were pleased to see him and were going to repose some childish\nconfidence in him, when she caught sight of the figure behind the bars,\nand started back in terror.\n\n\"Don't be alarmed, darling!\" said Mr. Traveller, taking her by the hand.\n\n\"Oh, but I don't like it!\" urged the shrinking child; \"it's dreadful.\"\n\n\"Well!  I don't like it either,\" said Mr. Traveller.\n\n\"Who has put it there?\" asked the little girl.  \"Does it bite?\"\n\n\"No,--only barks.  But can't you make up your mind to see it, my dear?\"\nFor she was covering her eyes.\n\n\"O no no no!\" returned the child.  \"I cannot bear to look at it!\"\n\nMr. Traveller turned his head towards his friend in there, as much as to\nask him how he liked that instance of his success, and then took the\nchild out at the still open gate, and stood talking to her for some half\nan hour in the mellow sunlight.  At length he returned, encouraging her\nas she held his arm with both her hands; and laying his protecting hand\nupon her head and smoothing her pretty hair, he addressed his friend\nbehind the bars as follows:\n\n* * * * *\n\nMiss Pupford's establishment for six young ladies of tender years, is an\nestablishment of a compact nature, an establishment in miniature, quite a\npocket establishment.  Miss Pupford, Miss Pupford's assistant with the\nParisian accent, Miss Pupford's cook, and Miss Pupford's housemaid,\ncomplete what Miss Pupford calls the educational and domestic staff of\nher Lilliputian College.\n\nMiss Pupford is one of the most amiable of her sex; it necessarily\nfollows that she possesses a sweet temper, and would own to the\npossession of a great deal of sentiment if she considered it quite\nreconcilable with her duty to parents.  Deeming it not in the bond, Miss\nPupford keeps it as far out of sight as she can--which (God bless her!)\nis not very far.\n\nMiss Pupford's assistant with the Parisian accent, may be regarded as in\nsome sort an inspired lady, for she never conversed with a Parisian, and\nwas never out of England--except once in the pleasure-boat Lively, in the\nforeign waters that ebb and flow two miles off Margate at high water.\nEven under those geographically favourable circumstances for the\nacquisition of the French language in its utmost politeness and purity,\nMiss Pupford's assistant did not fully profit by the opportunity; for the\npleasure-boat, Lively, so strongly asserted its title to its name on that\noccasion, that she was reduced to the condition of lying in the bottom of\nthe boat pickling in brine--as if she were being salted down for the use\nof the Navy--undergoing at the same time great mental alarm, corporeal\ndistress, and clear-starching derangement.\n\nWhen Miss Pupford and her assistant first foregathered, is not known to\nmen, or pupils.  But, it was long ago.  A belief would have established\nitself among pupils that the two once went to school together, were it\nnot for the difficulty and audacity of imagining Miss Pupford born\nwithout mittens, and without a front, and without a bit of gold wire\namong her front teeth, and without little dabs of powder on her neat\nlittle face and nose.  Indeed, whenever Miss Pupford gives a little\nlecture on the mythology of the misguided heathens (always carefully\nexcluding Cupid from recognition), and tells how Minerva sprang,\nperfectly equipped, from the brain of Jupiter, she is half supposed to\nhint, \"So I myself came into the world, completely up in Pinnock,\nMangnall, Tables, and the use of the Globes.\"\n\nHowbeit, Miss Pupford and Miss Pupford's assistant are old old friends.\nAnd it is thought by pupils that, after pupils are gone to bed, they even\ncall one another by their christian names in the quiet little parlour.\nFor, once upon a time on a thunderous afternoon, when Miss Pupford\nfainted away without notice, Miss Pupford's assistant (never heard,\nbefore or since, to address her otherwise than as Miss Pupford) ran to\nher, crying out, \"My dearest Euphemia!\"  And Euphemia is Miss Pupford's\nchristian name on the sampler (date picked out) hanging up in the College-\nhall, where the two peacocks, terrified to death by some German text that\nis waddling down-hill after them out of a cottage, are scuttling away to\nhide their profiles in two immense bean-stalks growing out of\nflower-pots.\n\nAlso, there is a notion latent among pupils, that Miss Pupford was once\nin love, and that the beloved object still moves upon this ball.  Also,\nthat he is a public character, and a personage of vast consequence.  Also,\nthat Miss Pupford's assistant knows all about it.  For, sometimes of an\nafternoon when Miss Pupford has been reading the paper through her little\ngold eye-glass (it is necessary to read it on the spot, as the boy calls\nfor it, with ill-conditioned punctuality, in an hour), she has become\nagitated, and has said to her assistant \"G!\"  Then Miss Pupford's\nassistant has gone to Miss Pupford, and Miss Pupford has pointed out,\nwith her eye-glass, G in the paper, and then Miss Pupford's assistant has\nread about G, and has shown sympathy.  So stimulated has the pupil-mind\nbeen in its time to curiosity on the subject of G, that once, under\ntemporary circumstances favourable to the bold sally, one fearless pupil\ndid actually obtain possession of the paper, and range all over it in\nsearch of G, who had been discovered therein by Miss Pupford not ten\nminutes before.  But no G could be identified, except one capital\noffender who had been executed in a state of great hardihood, and it was\nnot to be supposed that Miss Pupford could ever have loved _him_.\nBesides, he couldn't be always being executed.  Besides, he got into the\npaper again, alive, within a month.\n\nOn the whole, it is suspected by the pupil-mind that G is a short chubby\nold gentleman, with little black sealing-wax boots up to his knees, whom\na sharply observant pupil, Miss Linx, when she once went to Tunbridge\nWells with Miss Pupford for the holidays, reported on her return\n(privately and confidentially) to have seen come capering up to Miss\nPupford on the Promenade, and to have detected in the act of squeezing\nMiss Pupford's hand, and to have heard pronounce the words, \"Cruel\nEuphemia, ever thine!\"--or something like that.  Miss Linx hazarded a\nguess that he might be House of Commons, or Money Market, or Court\nCircular, or Fashionable Movements; which would account for his getting\ninto the paper so often.  But, it was fatally objected by the pupil-mind,\nthat none of those notabilities could possibly be spelt with a G.\n\nThere are other occasions, closely watched and perfectly comprehended by\nthe pupil-mind, when Miss Pupford imparts with mystery to her assistant\nthat there is special excitement in the morning paper.  These occasions\nare, when Miss Pupford finds an old pupil coming out under the head of\nBirths, or Marriages.  Affectionate tears are invariably seen in Miss\nPupford's meek little eyes when this is the case; and the pupil-mind,\nperceiving that its order has distinguished itself--though the fact is\nnever mentioned by Miss Pupford--becomes elevated, and feels that it\nlikewise is reserved for greatness.\n\nMiss Pupford's assistant with the Parisian accent has a little more bone\nthan Miss Pupford, but is of the same trim orderly diminutive cast, and,\nfrom long contemplation, admiration, and imitation of Miss Pupford, has\ngrown like her.  Being entirely devoted to Miss Pupford, and having a\npretty talent for pencil-drawing, she once made a portrait of that lady:\nwhich was so instantly identified and hailed by the pupils, that it was\ndone on stone at five shillings.  Surely the softest and milkiest stone\nthat ever was quarried, received that likeness of Miss Pupford!  The\nlines of her placid little nose are so undecided in it that strangers to\nthe work of art are observed to be exceedingly perplexed as to where the\nnose goes to, and involuntarily feel their own noses in a disconcerted\nmanner.  Miss Pupford being represented in a state of dejection at an\nopen window, ruminating over a bowl of gold fish, the pupil-mind has\nsettled that the bowl was presented by G, and that he wreathed the bowl\nwith flowers of soul, and that Miss Pupford is depicted as waiting for\nhim on a memorable occasion when he was behind his time.\n\nThe approach of the last Midsummer holidays had a particular interest for\nthe pupil-mind, by reason of its knowing that Miss Pupford was bidden, on\nthe second day of those holidays, to the nuptials of a former pupil.  As\nit was impossible to conceal the fact--so extensive were the dress-making\npreparations--Miss Pupford openly announced it.  But, she held it due to\nparents to make the announcement with an air of gentle melancholy, as if\nmarriage were (as indeed it exceptionally has been) rather a calamity.\nWith an air of softened resignation and pity, therefore, Miss Pupford\nwent on with her preparations: and meanwhile no pupil ever went\nup-stairs, or came down, without peeping in at the door of Miss Pupford's\nbedroom (when Miss Pupford wasn't there), and bringing back some\nsurprising intelligence concerning the bonnet.\n\nThe extensive preparations being completed on the day before the\nholidays, an unanimous entreaty was preferred to Miss Pupford by the\npupil-mind--finding expression through Miss Pupford's assistant--that she\nwould deign to appear in all her splendour.  Miss Pupford consenting,\npresented a lovely spectacle.  And although the oldest pupil was barely\nthirteen, every one of the six became in two minutes perfect in the\nshape, cut, colour, price, and quality, of every article Miss Pupford\nwore.\n\nThus delightfully ushered in, the holidays began.  Five of the six pupils\nkissed little Kitty Kimmeens twenty times over (round total, one hundred\ntimes, for she was very popular), and so went home.  Miss Kitty Kimmeens\nremained behind, for her relations and friends were all in India, far\naway.  A self-helpful steady little child is Miss Kitty Kimmeens: a\ndimpled child too, and a loving.\n\nSo, the great marriage-day came, and Miss Pupford, quite as much\nfluttered as any bride could be (G! thought Miss Kitty Kimmeens), went\naway, splendid to behold, in the carriage that was sent for her.  But not\nMiss Pupford only went away; for Miss Pupford's assistant went away with\nher, on a dutiful visit to an aged uncle--though surely the venerable\ngentleman couldn't live in the gallery of the church where the marriage\nwas to be, thought Miss Kitty Kimmeens--and yet Miss Pupford's assistant\nhad let out that she was going there.  Where the cook was going, didn't\nappear, but she generally conveyed to Miss Kimmeens that she was bound,\nrather against her will, on a pilgrimage to perform some pious office\nthat rendered new ribbons necessary to her best bonnet, and also sandals\nto her shoes.\n\n\"So you see,\" said the housemaid, when they were all gone, \"there's\nnobody left in the house but you and me, Miss Kimmeens.\"\n\n\"Nobody else,\" said Miss Kitty Kimmeens, shaking her curls a little\nsadly.  \"Nobody!\"\n\n\"And you wouldn't like your Bella to go too; would you, Miss Kimmeens?\"\nsaid the housemaid.  (She being Bella.)\n\n\"N-no,\" answered little Miss Kimmeens.\n\n\"Your poor Bella is forced to stay with you, whether she likes it or not;\nain't she, Miss Kimmeens?\"\n\n\"_Don't_ you like it?\" inquired Kitty.\n\n\"Why, you're such a darling, Miss, that it would be unkind of your Bella\nto make objections.  Yet my brother-in-law has been took unexpected bad\nby this morning's post.  And your poor Bella is much attached to him,\nletting alone her favourite sister, Miss Kimmeens.\"\n\n\"Is he very ill?\" asked little Kitty.\n\n\"Your poor Bella has her fears so, Miss Kimmeens,\" returned the\nhousemaid, with her apron at her eyes.  \"It was but his inside, it is\ntrue, but it might mount, and the doctor said that if it mounted he\nwouldn't answer.\"  Here the housemaid was so overcome that Kitty\nadministered the only comfort she had ready: which was a kiss.\n\n\"If it hadn't been for disappointing Cook, dear Miss Kimmeens,\" said the\nhousemaid, \"your Bella would have asked her to stay with you.  For Cook\nis sweet company, Miss Kimmeens, much more so than your own poor Bella.\"\n\n\"But you are very nice, Bella.\"\n\n\"Your Bella could wish to be so, Miss Kimmeens,\" returned the housemaid,\n\"but she knows full well that it do not lay in her power this day.\"\n\nWith which despondent conviction, the housemaid drew a heavy sigh, and\nshook her head, and dropped it on one side.\n\n\"If it had been anyways right to disappoint Cook,\" she pursued, in a\ncontemplative and abstracted manner, \"it might have been so easy done!  I\ncould have got to my brother-in-law's, and had the best part of the day\nthere, and got back, long before our ladies come home at night, and\nneither the one nor the other of them need never have known it.  Not that\nMiss Pupford would at all object, but that it might put her out, being\ntender-hearted.  Hows'ever, your own poor Bella, Miss Kimmeens,\" said the\nhousemaid, rousing herself, \"is forced to stay with you, and you're a\nprecious love, if not a liberty.\"\n\n\"Bella,\" said little Kitty, after a short silence.\n\n\"Call your own poor Bella, your Bella, dear,\" the housemaid besought her.\n\n\"My Bella, then.\"\n\n\"Bless your considerate heart!\" said the housemaid.\n\n\"If you would not mind leaving me, I should not mind being left.  I am\nnot afraid to stay in the house alone.  And you need not be uneasy on my\naccount, for I would be very careful to do no harm.\"\n\n\"O!  As to harm, you more than sweetest, if not a liberty,\" exclaimed the\nhousemaid, in a rapture, \"your Bella could trust you anywhere, being so\nsteady, and so answerable.  The oldest head in this house (me and Cook\nsays), but for its bright hair, is Miss Kimmeens.  But no, I will not\nleave you; for you would think your Bella unkind.\"\n\n\"But if you are my Bella, you _must_ go,\" returned the child.\n\n\"Must I?\" said the housemaid, rising, on the whole with alacrity.  \"What\nmust be, must be, Miss Kimmeens.  Your own poor Bella acts according,\nthough unwilling.  But go or stay, your own poor Bella loves you, Miss\nKimmeens.\"\n\nIt was certainly go, and not stay, for within five minutes Miss\nKimmeens's own poor Bella--so much improved in point of spirits as to\nhave grown almost sanguine on the subject of her brother-in-law--went her\nway, in apparel that seemed to have been expressly prepared for some\nfestive occasion.  Such are the changes of this fleeting world, and so\nshort-sighted are we poor mortals!\n\nWhen the house door closed with a bang and a shake, it seemed to Miss\nKimmeens to be a very heavy house door, shutting her up in a wilderness\nof a house.  But, Miss Kimmeens being, as before stated, of a\nself-reliant and methodical character, presently began to parcel out the\nlong summer-day before her.\n\nAnd first she thought she would go all over the house, to make quite sure\nthat nobody with a great-coat on and a carving-knife in it, had got under\none of the beds or into one of the cupboards.  Not that she had ever\nbefore been troubled by the image of anybody armed with a great-coat and\na carving-knife, but that it seemed to have been shaken into existence by\nthe shake and the bang of the great street-door, reverberating through\nthe solitary house.  So, little Miss Kimmeens looked under the five empty\nbeds of the five departed pupils, and looked, under her own bed, and\nlooked under Miss Pupford's bed, and looked under Miss Pupford's\nassistants bed.  And when she had done this, and was making the tour of\nthe cupboards, the disagreeable thought came into her young head, What a\nvery alarming thing it would be to find somebody with a mask on, like Guy\nFawkes, hiding bolt upright in a corner and pretending not to be alive!\nHowever, Miss Kimmeens having finished her inspection without making any\nsuch uncomfortable discovery, sat down in her tidy little manner to\nneedlework, and began stitching away at a great rate.\n\nThe silence all about her soon grew very oppressive, and the more so\nbecause of the odd inconsistency that the more silent it was, the more\nnoises there were.  The noise of her own needle and thread as she\nstitched, was infinitely louder in her ears than the stitching of all the\nsix pupils, and of Miss Pupford, and of Miss Pupford's assistant, all\nstitching away at once on a highly emulative afternoon.  Then, the\nschoolroom clock conducted itself in a way in which it had never\nconducted itself before--fell lame, somehow, and yet persisted in running\non as hard and as loud as it could: the consequence of which behaviour\nwas, that it staggered among the minutes in a state of the greatest\nconfusion, and knocked them about in all directions without appearing to\nget on with its regular work.  Perhaps this alarmed the stairs; but be\nthat as it might, they began to creak in a most unusual manner, and then\nthe furniture began to crack, and then poor little Miss Kimmeens, not\nliking the furtive aspect of things in general, began to sing as she\nstitched.  But, it was not her own voice that she heard--it was somebody\nelse making believe to be Kitty, and singing excessively flat, without\nany heart--so as that would never mend matters, she left off again.\n\nBy-and-by the stitching became so palpable a failure that Miss Kitty\nKimmeens folded her work neatly, and put it away in its box, and gave it\nup.  Then the question arose about reading.  But no; the book that was so\ndelightful when there was somebody she loved for her eyes to fall on when\nthey rose from the page, had not more heart in it than her own singing\nnow.  The book went to its shelf as the needlework had gone to its box,\nand, since something _must_ be done--thought the child, \"I'll go put my\nroom to rights.\"\n\nShe shared her room with her dearest little friend among the other five\npupils, and why then should she now conceive a lurking dread of the\nlittle friend's bedstead?  But she did.  There was a stealthy air about\nits innocent white curtains, and there were even dark hints of a dead\ngirl lying under the coverlet.  The great want of human company, the\ngreat need of a human face, began now to express itself in the facility\nwith which the furniture put on strange exaggerated resemblances to human\nlooks.  A chair with a menacing frown was horribly out of temper in a\ncorner; a most vicious chest of drawers snarled at her from between the\nwindows.  It was no relief to escape from those monsters to the looking-\nglass, for the reflection said, \"What?  Is that you all alone there?  How\nyou stare!\"  And the background was all a great void stare as well.\n\nThe day dragged on, dragging Kitty with it very slowly by the hair of her\nhead, until it was time to eat.  There were good provisions in the\npantry, but their right flavour and relish had evaporated with the five\npupils, and Miss Pupford, and Miss Pupford's assistant, and the cook and\nhousemaid.  Where was the use of laying the cloth symmetrically for one\nsmall guest, who had gone on ever since the morning growing smaller and\nsmaller, while the empty house had gone on swelling larger and larger?\nThe very Grace came out wrong, for who were \"we\" who were going to\nreceive and be thankful?  So, Miss Kimmeens was _not_ thankful, and found\nherself taking her dinner in very slovenly style--gobbling it up, in\nshort, rather after the manner of the lower animals, not to particularise\nthe pigs.\n\nBut, this was by no means the worst of the change wrought out in the\nnaturally loving and cheery little creature as the solitary day wore on.\nShe began to brood and be suspicious.  She discovered that she was full\nof wrongs and injuries.  All the people she knew, got tainted by her\nlonely thoughts and turned bad.\n\nIt was all very well for Papa, a widower in India, to send her home to be\neducated, and to pay a handsome round sum every year for her to Miss\nPupford, and to write charming letters to his darling little daughter;\nbut what did he care for her being left by herself, when he was (as no\ndoubt he always was) enjoying himself in company from morning till night?\nPerhaps he only sent her here, after all, to get her out of the way.  It\nlooked like it--looked like it to-day, that is, for she had never dreamed\nof such a thing before.\n\nAnd this old pupil who was being married.  It was unsupportably conceited\nand selfish in the old pupil to be married.  She was very vain, and very\nglad to show off; but it was highly probable that she wasn't pretty; and\neven if she were pretty (which Miss Kimmeens now totally denied), she had\nno business to be married; and, even if marriage were conceded, she had\nno business to ask Miss Pupford to her wedding.  As to Miss Pupford, she\nwas too old to go to any wedding.  She ought to know that.  She had much\nbetter attend to her business.  She had thought she looked nice in the\nmorning, but she didn't look nice.  She was a stupid old thing.  G was\nanother stupid old thing.  Miss Pupford's assistant was another.  They\nwere all stupid old things together.\n\nMore than that: it began to be obvious that this was a plot.  They had\nsaid to one another, \"Never mind Kitty; you get off, and I'll get off;\nand we'll leave Kitty to look after herself.  Who cares for her?\"  To be\nsure they were right in that question; for who _did_ care for her, a poor\nlittle lonely thing against whom they all planned and plotted?  Nobody,\nnobody!  Here Kitty sobbed.\n\nAt all other times she was the pet of the whole house, and loved her five\ncompanions in return with a child's tenderest and most ingenuous\nattachment; but now, the five companions put on ugly colours, and\nappeared for the first time under a sullen cloud.  There they were, all\nat their homes that day, being made much of, being taken out, being\nspoilt and made disagreeable, and caring nothing for her.  It was like\ntheir artful selfishness always to tell her when they came back, under\npretence of confidence and friendship, all those details about where they\nhad been, and what they had done and seen, and how often they had said,\n\"O!  If we had only darling little Kitty here!\"  Here indeed!  I dare\nsay!  When they came back after the holidays, they were used to being\nreceived by Kitty, and to saying that coming to Kitty was like coming to\nanother home.  Very well then, why did they go away?  If the meant it,\nwhy did they go away?  Let them answer that.  But they didn't mean it,\nand couldn't answer that, and they didn't tell the truth, and people who\ndidn't tell the truth were hateful.  When they came back next time, they\nshould be received in a new manner; they should be avoided and shunned.\n\nAnd there, the while she sat all alone revolving how ill she was used,\nand how much better she was than the people who were not alone, the\nwedding breakfast was going on: no question of it!  With a nasty great\nbride-cake, and with those ridiculous orange-flowers, and with that\nconceited bride, and that hideous bridegroom, and those heartless\nbridesmaids, and Miss Pupford stuck up at the table!  They thought they\nwere enjoying themselves, but it would come home to them one day to have\nthought so.  They would all be dead in a few years, let them enjoy\nthemselves ever so much.  It was a religious comfort to know that.\n\nIt was such a comfort to know it, that little Miss Kitty Kimmeens\nsuddenly sprang from the chair in which she had been musing in a corner,\nand cried out, \"O those envious thoughts are not mine, O this wicked\ncreature isn't me!  Help me, somebody!  I go wrong, alone by my weak\nself!  Help me, anybody!\"\n\n* * * * *\n\n\"--Miss Kimmeens is not a professed philosopher, sir,\" said Mr.\nTraveller, presenting her at the barred window, and smoothing her shining\nhair, \"but I apprehend there was some tincture of philosophy in her\nwords, and in the prompt action with which she followed them.  That\naction was, to emerge from her unnatural solitude, and look abroad for\nwholesome sympathy, to bestow and to receive.  Her footsteps strayed to\nthis gate, bringing her here by chance, as an apposite contrast to you.\nThe child came out, sir.  If you have the wisdom to learn from a child\n(but I doubt it, for that requires more wisdom than one in your condition\nwould seem to possess), you cannot do better than imitate the child, and\ncome out too--from that very demoralising hutch of yours.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII--PICKING UP THE TINKER\n\n\nIt was now sunset.  The Hermit had betaken himself to his bed of cinders\nhalf an hour ago, and lying on it in his blanket and skewer with his back\nto the window, took not the smallest heed of the appeal addressed to him.\n\nAll that had been said for the last two hours, had been said to a\ntinkling accompaniment performed by the Tinker, who had got to work upon\nsome villager's pot or kettle, and was working briskly outside.  This\nmusic still continuing, seemed to put it into Mr. Traveller's mind to\nhave another word or two with the Tinker.  So, holding Miss Kimmeens\n(with whom he was now on the most friendly terms) by the hand, he went\nout at the gate to where the Tinker was seated at his work on the patch\nof grass on the opposite side of the road, with his wallet of tools open\nbefore him, and his little fire smoking.\n\n\"I am glad to see you employed,\" said Mr. Traveller.\n\n\"I am glad to _be_ employed,\" returned the Tinker, looking up as he put\nthe finishing touches to his job.  \"But why are you glad?\"\n\n\"I thought you were a lazy fellow when I saw you this morning.\"\n\n\"I was only disgusted,\" said the Tinker.\n\n\"Do you mean with the fine weather?\"\n\n\"With the fine weather?\" repeated the Tinker, staring.\n\n\"You told me you were not particular as to weather, and I thought--\"\n\n\"Ha, ha!  How should such as me get on, if we _was_ particular as to\nweather?  We must take it as it comes, and make the best of it.  There's\nsomething good in all weathers.  If it don't happen to be good for my\nwork to-day, it's good for some other man's to-day, and will come round\nto me to-morrow.  We must all live.\"\n\n\"Pray shake hands,\" said Mr. Traveller.\n\n\"Take care, sir,\" was the Tinker's caution, as he reached up his hand in\nsurprise; \"the black comes off.\"\n\n\"I am glad of it,\" said Mr. Traveller.  \"I have been for several hours\namong other black that does not come off.\"\n\n\"You are speaking of Tom in there?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Well now,\" said the Tinker, blowing the dust off his job: which was\nfinished.  \"Ain't it enough to disgust a pig, if he could give his mind\nto it?\"\n\n\"If he could give his mind to it,\" returned the other, smiling, \"the\nprobability is that he wouldn't be a pig.\"\n\n\"There you clench the nail,\" returned the Tinker.  \"Then what's to be\nsaid for Tom?\"\n\n\"Truly, very little.\"\n\n\"Truly nothing you mean, sir,\" said the Tinker, as he put away his tools.\n\n\"A better answer, and (I freely acknowledge) my meaning.  I infer that he\nwas the cause of your disgust?\"\n\n\"Why, look'ee here, sir,\" said the Tinker, rising to his feet, and wiping\nhis face on the corner of his black apron energetically; \"I leave you to\njudge!--I ask you!--Last night I has a job that needs to be done in the\nnight, and I works all night.  Well, there's nothing in that.  But this\nmorning I comes along this road here, looking for a sunny and soft spot\nto sleep in, and I sees this desolation and ruination.  I've lived myself\nin desolation and ruination; I knows many a fellow-creetur that's forced\nto live life long in desolation and ruination; and I sits me down and\ntakes pity on it, as I casts my eyes about.  Then comes up the\nlong-winded one as I told you of, from that gate, and spins himself out\nlike a silkworm concerning the Donkey (if my Donkey at home will excuse\nme) as has made it all--made it of his own choice!  And tells me, if you\nplease, of his likewise choosing to go ragged and naked, and\ngrimy--maskerading, mountebanking, in what is the real hard lot of\nthousands and thousands!  Why, then I say it's a unbearable and\nnonsensical piece of inconsistency, and I'm disgusted.  I'm ashamed and\ndisgusted!\"\n\n\"I wish you would come and look at him,\" said Mr. Traveller, clapping the\nTinker on the shoulder.\n\n\"Not I, sir,\" he rejoined.  \"I ain't a going to flatter him up by looking\nat him!\"\n\n\"But he is asleep.\"\n\n\"Are you sure he is asleep?\" asked the Tinker, with an unwilling air, as\nhe shouldered his wallet.\n\n\"Sure.\"\n\n\"Then I'll look at him for a quarter of a minute,\" said the Tinker,\n\"since you so much wish it; but not a moment longer.\"\n\nThey all three went back across the road; and, through the barred window,\nby the dying glow of the sunset coming in at the gate--which the child\nheld open for its admission--he could be pretty clearly discerned lying\non his bed.\n\n\"You see him?\" asked Mr. Traveller.\n\n\"Yes,\" returned the Tinker, \"and he's worse than I thought him.\"\n\nMr. Traveller then whispered in few words what he had done since morning;\nand asked the Tinker what he thought of that?\n\n\"I think,\" returned the Tinker, as he turned from the window, \"that\nyou've wasted a day on him.\"\n\n\"I think so too; though not, I hope, upon myself.  Do you happen to be\ngoing anywhere near the Peal of Bells?\"\n\n\"That's my direct way, sir,\" said the Tinker.\n\n\"I invite you to supper there.  And as I learn from this young lady that\nshe goes some three-quarters of a mile in the same direction, we will\ndrop her on the road, and we will spare time to keep her company at her\ngarden gate until her own Bella comes home.\"\n\nSo, Mr. Traveller, and the child, and the Tinker, went along very\namicably in the sweet-scented evening; and the moral with which the\nTinker dismissed the subject was, that he said in his trade that metal\nthat rotted for want of use, had better be left to rot, and couldn't rot\ntoo soon, considering how much true metal rotted from over-use and hard\nservice.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n\n{1}  Dickens didn't write chapters 2 to 5 and they are omitted in this\nedition.\n\n\n"}
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{"1414":"\n\n\n\n\nTranscribed from the 1894 Chapman and Hall \"Christmas Stories\" edition by\nDavid Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk\n\n\n\n\n\nSOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE\n\n\nCHAPTER I--HIS LEAVING IT TILL CALLED FOR\n\n\nThe writer of these humble lines being a Waiter, and having come of a\nfamily of Waiters, and owning at the present time five brothers who are\nall Waiters, and likewise an only sister who is a Waitress, would wish to\noffer a few words respecting his calling; first having the pleasure of\nhereby in a friendly manner offering the Dedication of the same unto\n_Joseph_, much respected Head Waiter at the Slamjam Coffee-house, London,\nE.C., than which a individual more eminently deserving of the name of\nman, or a more amenable honour to his own head and heart, whether\nconsidered in the light of a Waiter or regarded as a human being, do not\nexist.\n\nIn case confusion should arise in the public mind (which it is open to\nconfusion on many subjects) respecting what is meant or implied by the\nterm Waiter, the present humble lines would wish to offer an explanation.\nIt may not be generally known that the person as goes out to wait is\n_not_ a Waiter.  It may not be generally known that the hand as is called\nin extra, at the Freemasons' Tavern, or the London, or the Albion, or\notherwise, is _not_ a Waiter.  Such hands may be took on for Public\nDinners by the bushel (and you may know them by their breathing with\ndifficulty when in attendance, and taking away the bottle ere yet it is\nhalf out); but such are _not_ Waiters.  For you cannot lay down the\ntailoring, or the shoemaking, or the brokering, or the green-grocering,\nor the pictorial-periodicalling, or the second-hand wardrobe, or the\nsmall fancy businesses,--you cannot lay down those lines of life at your\nwill and pleasure by the half-day or evening, and take up Waitering.  You\nmay suppose you can, but you cannot; or you may go so far as to say you\ndo, but you do not.  Nor yet can you lay down the gentleman's-service\nwhen stimulated by prolonged incompatibility on the part of Cooks (and\nhere it may be remarked that Cooking and Incompatibility will be mostly\nfound united), and take up Waitering.  It has been ascertained that what\na gentleman will sit meek under, at home, he will not bear out of doors,\nat the Slamjam or any similar establishment.  Then, what is the inference\nto be drawn respecting true Waitering?  You must be bred to it.  You must\nbe born to it.\n\nWould you know how born to it, Fair Reader,--if of the adorable female\nsex?  Then learn from the biographical experience of one that is a Waiter\nin the sixty-first year of his age.\n\nYou were conveyed,--ere yet your dawning powers were otherwise developed\nthan to harbour vacancy in your inside,--you were conveyed, by\nsurreptitious means, into a pantry adjoining the Admiral Nelson, Civic\nand General Dining-Rooms, there to receive by stealth that healthful\nsustenance which is the pride and boast of the British female\nconstitution.  Your mother was married to your father (himself a distant\nWaiter) in the profoundest secrecy; for a Waitress known to be married\nwould ruin the best of businesses,--it is the same as on the stage.  Hence\nyour being smuggled into the pantry, and that--to add to the\ninfliction--by an unwilling grandmother.  Under the combined influence of\nthe smells of roast and boiled, and soup, and gas, and malt liquors, you\npartook of your earliest nourishment; your unwilling grandmother sitting\nprepared to catch you when your mother was called and dropped you; your\ngrandmother's shawl ever ready to stifle your natural complainings; your\ninnocent mind surrounded by uncongenial cruets, dirty plates,\ndish-covers, and cold gravy; your mother calling down the pipe for veals\nand porks, instead of soothing you with nursery rhymes.  Under these\nuntoward circumstances you were early weaned.  Your unwilling\ngrandmother, ever growing more unwilling as your food assimilated less,\nthen contracted habits of shaking you till your system curdled, and your\nfood would not assimilate at all.  At length she was no longer spared,\nand could have been thankfully spared much sooner.  When your brothers\nbegan to appear in succession, your mother retired, left off her smart\ndressing (she had previously been a smart dresser), and her dark ringlets\n(which had previously been flowing), and haunted your father late of\nnights, lying in wait for him, through all weathers, up the shabby court\nwhich led to the back door of the Royal Old Dust-Bin (said to have been\nso named by George the Fourth), where your father was Head.  But the Dust-\nBin was going down then, and your father took but little,--excepting from\na liquid point of view.  Your mother's object in those visits was of a\nhouse-keeping character, and you was set on to whistle your father out.\nSometimes he came out, but generally not.  Come or not come, however, all\nthat part of his existence which was unconnected with open Waitering was\nkept a close secret, and was acknowledged by your mother to be a close\nsecret, and you and your mother flitted about the court, close secrets\nboth of you, and would scarcely have confessed under torture that you\nknow your father, or that your father had any name than Dick (which\nwasn't his name, though he was never known by any other), or that he had\nkith or kin or chick or child.  Perhaps the attraction of this mystery,\ncombined with your father's having a damp compartment, to himself, behind\na leaky cistern, at the Dust-Bin,--a sort of a cellar compartment, with a\nsink in it, and a smell, and a plate-rack, and a bottle-rack, and three\nwindows that didn't match each other or anything else, and no\ndaylight,--caused your young mind to feel convinced that you must grow up\nto be a Waiter too; but you did feel convinced of it, and so did all your\nbrothers, down to your sister.  Every one of you felt convinced that you\nwas born to the Waitering.  At this stage of your career, what was your\nfeelings one day when your father came home to your mother in open broad\ndaylight,--of itself an act of Madness on the part of a Waiter,--and took\nto his bed (leastwise, your mother and family's bed), with the statement\nthat his eyes were devilled kidneys.  Physicians being in vain, your\nfather expired, after repeating at intervals for a day and a night, when\ngleams of reason and old business fitfully illuminated his being, \"Two\nand two is five.  And three is sixpence.\"  Interred in the parochial\ndepartment of the neighbouring churchyard, and accompanied to the grave\nby as many Waiters of long standing as could spare the morning time from\ntheir soiled glasses (namely, one), your bereaved form was attired in a\nwhite neckankecher, and you was took on from motives of benevolence at\nThe George and Gridiron, theatrical and supper.  Here, supporting nature\non what you found in the plates (which was as it happened, and but too\noften thoughtlessly, immersed in mustard), and on what you found in the\nglasses (which rarely went beyond driblets and lemon), by night you\ndropped asleep standing, till you was cuffed awake, and by day was set to\npolishing every individual article in the coffee-room.  Your couch being\nsawdust; your counterpane being ashes of cigars.  Here, frequently hiding\na heavy heart under the smart tie of your white neckankecher (or\ncorrectly speaking lower down and more to the left), you picked up the\nrudiments of knowledge from an extra, by the name of Bishops, and by\ncalling plate-washer, and gradually elevating your mind with chalk on the\nback of the corner-box partition, until such time as you used the\ninkstand when it was out of hand, attained to manhood, and to be the\nWaiter that you find yourself.\n\nI could wish here to offer a few respectful words on behalf of the\ncalling so long the calling of myself and family, and the public interest\nin which is but too often very limited.  We are not generally understood.\nNo, we are not.  Allowance enough is not made for us.  For, say that we\never show a little drooping listlessness of spirits, or what might be\ntermed indifference or apathy.  Put it to yourself what would your own\nstate of mind be, if you was one of an enormous family every member of\nwhich except you was always greedy, and in a hurry.  Put it to yourself\nthat you was regularly replete with animal food at the slack hours of one\nin the day and again at nine p.m., and that the repleter you was, the\nmore voracious all your fellow-creatures came in.  Put it to yourself\nthat it was your business, when your digestion was well on, to take a\npersonal interest and sympathy in a hundred gentlemen fresh and fresh\n(say, for the sake of argument, only a hundred), whose imaginations was\ngiven up to grease and fat and gravy and melted butter, and abandoned to\nquestioning you about cuts of this, and dishes of that,--each of 'em\ngoing on as if him and you and the bill of fare was alone in the world.\nThen look what you are expected to know.  You are never out, but they\nseem to think you regularly attend everywhere.  \"What's this,\nChristopher, that I hear about the smashed Excursion Train?  How are they\ndoing at the Italian Opera, Christopher?\"  \"Christopher, what are the\nreal particulars of this business at the Yorkshire Bank?\"  Similarly a\nministry gives me more trouble than it gives the Queen.  As to Lord\nPalmerston, the constant and wearing connection into which I have been\nbrought with his lordship during the last few years is deserving of a\npension.  Then look at the Hypocrites we are made, and the lies (white, I\nhope) that are forced upon us!  Why must a sedentary-pursuited Waiter be\nconsidered to be a judge of horseflesh, and to have a most tremendous\ninterest in horse-training and racing?  Yet it would be half our little\nincomes out of our pockets if we didn't take on to have those sporting\ntastes.  It is the same (inconceivable why!) with Farming.  Shooting,\nequally so.  I am sure that so regular as the months of August,\nSeptember, and October come round, I am ashamed of myself in my own\nprivate bosom for the way in which I make believe to care whether or not\nthe grouse is strong on the wing (much their wings, or drumsticks either,\nsignifies to me, uncooked!), and whether the partridges is plentiful\namong the turnips, and whether the pheasants is shy or bold, or anything\nelse you please to mention.  Yet you may see me, or any other Waiter of\nmy standing, holding on by the back of the box, and leaning over a\ngentleman with his purse out and his bill before him, discussing these\npoints in a confidential tone of voice, as if my happiness in life\nentirely depended on 'em.\n\nI have mentioned our little incomes.  Look at the most unreasonable point\nof all, and the point on which the greatest injustice is done us!  Whether\nit is owing to our always carrying so much change in our right-hand\ntrousers-pocket, and so many halfpence in our coat-tails, or whether it\nis human nature (which I were loth to believe), what is meant by the\neverlasting fable that Head Waiters is rich?  How did that fable get into\ncirculation?  Who first put it about, and what are the facts to establish\nthe unblushing statement?  Come forth, thou slanderer, and refer the\npublic to the Waiter's will in Doctors' Commons supporting thy malignant\nhiss!  Yet this is so commonly dwelt upon--especially by the screws who\ngive Waiters the least--that denial is vain; and we are obliged, for our\ncredit's sake, to carry our heads as if we were going into a business,\nwhen of the two we are much more likely to go into a union.  There was\nformerly a screw as frequented the Slamjam ere yet the present writer had\nquitted that establishment on a question of tea-ing his assistant staff\nout of his own pocket, which screw carried the taunt to its bitterest\nheight.  Never soaring above threepence, and as often as not grovelling\non the earth a penny lower, he yet represented the present writer as a\nlarge holder of Consols, a lender of money on mortgage, a Capitalist.  He\nhas been overheard to dilate to other customers on the allegation that\nthe present writer put out thousands of pounds at interest in\nDistilleries and Breweries.  \"Well, Christopher,\" he would say (having\ngrovelled his lowest on the earth, half a moment before), \"looking out\nfor a House to open, eh?  Can't find a business to be disposed of on a\nscale as is up to your resources, humph?\"  To such a dizzy precipice of\nfalsehood has this misrepresentation taken wing, that the well-known and\nhighly-respected OLD CHARLES, long eminent at the West Country Hotel, and\nby some considered the Father of the Waitering, found himself under the\nobligation to fall into it through so many years that his own wife (for\nhe had an unbeknown old lady in that capacity towards himself) believed\nit!  And what was the consequence?  When he was borne to his grave on the\nshoulders of six picked Waiters, with six more for change, six more\nacting as pall-bearers, all keeping step in a pouring shower without a\ndry eye visible, and a concourse only inferior to Royalty, his pantry and\nlodgings was equally ransacked high and low for property, and none was\nfound!  How could it be found, when, beyond his last monthly collection\nof walking-sticks, umbrellas, and pocket-handkerchiefs (which happened to\nhave been not yet disposed of, though he had ever been through life\npunctual in clearing off his collections by the month), there was no\nproperty existing?  Such, however, is the force of this universal libel,\nthat the widow of Old Charles, at the present hour an inmate of the\nAlmshouses of the Cork-Cutters' Company, in Blue Anchor Road (identified\nsitting at the door of one of 'em, in a clean cap and a Windsor\narm-chair, only last Monday), expects John's hoarded wealth to be found\nhourly!  Nay, ere yet he had succumbed to the grisly dart, and when his\nportrait was painted in oils life-size, by subscription of the\nfrequenters of the West Country, to hang over the coffee-room chimney-\npiece, there were not wanting those who contended that what is termed the\naccessories of such a portrait ought to be the Bank of England out of\nwindow, and a strong-box on the table.  And but for better-regulated\nminds contending for a bottle and screw and the attitude of drawing,--and\ncarrying their point,--it would have been so handed down to posterity.\n\nI am now brought to the title of the present remarks.  Having, I hope\nwithout offence to any quarter, offered such observations as I felt it my\nduty to offer, in a free country which has ever dominated the seas, on\nthe general subject, I will now proceed to wait on the particular\nquestion.\n\nAt a momentous period of my life, when I was off, so far as concerned\nnotice given, with a House that shall be nameless,--for the question on\nwhich I took my departing stand was a fixed charge for waiters, and no\nHouse as commits itself to that eminently Un-English act of more than\nfoolishness and baseness shall be advertised by me,--I repeat, at a\nmomentous crisis, when I was off with a House too mean for mention, and\nnot yet on with that to which I have ever since had the honour of being\nattached in the capacity of Head, {1} I was casting about what to do\nnext.  Then it were that proposals were made to me on behalf of my\npresent establishment.  Stipulations were necessary on my part,\nemendations were necessary on my part: in the end, ratifications ensued\non both sides, and I entered on a new career.\n\nWe are a bed business, and a coffee-room business.  We are not a general\ndining business, nor do we wish it.  In consequence, when diners drop in,\nwe know what to give 'em as will keep 'em away another time.  We are a\nPrivate Room or Family business also; but Coffee-room principal.  Me and\nthe Directory and the Writing Materials and cetrer occupy a place to\nourselves--a place fended of up a step or two at the end of the Coffee-\nroom, in what I call the good old-fashioned style.  The good\nold-fashioned style is, that whatever you want, down to a wafer, you must\nbe olely and solely dependent on the Head Waiter for.  You must put\nyourself a new-born Child into his hands.  There is no other way in which\na business untinged with Continental Vice can be conducted.  (It were\nbootless to add, that if languages is required to be jabbered and English\nis not good enough, both families and gentlemen had better go somewhere\nelse.)\n\nWhen I began to settle down in this right-principled and well-conducted\nHouse, I noticed, under the bed in No. 24 B (which it is up a angle off\nthe staircase, and usually put off upon the lowly-minded), a heap of\nthings in a corner.  I asked our Head Chambermaid in the course of the\nday,\n\n\"What are them things in 24 B?\"\n\nTo which she answered with a careless air, \"Somebody's Luggage.\"\n\nRegarding her with a eye not free from severity, I says, \"Whose Luggage?\"\n\nEvading my eye, she replied,\n\n\"Lor!  How should _I_ know!\"\n\n--Being, it may be right to mention, a female of some pertness, though\nacquainted with her business.\n\nA Head Waiter must be either Head or Tail.  He must be at one extremity\nor the other of the social scale.  He cannot be at the waist of it, or\nanywhere else but the extremities.  It is for him to decide which of the\nextremities.\n\nOn the eventful occasion under consideration, I give Mrs. Pratchett so\ndistinctly to understand my decision, that I broke her spirit as towards\nmyself, then and there, and for good.  Let not inconsistency be suspected\non account of my mentioning Mrs. Pratchett as \"Mrs.,\" and having formerly\nremarked that a waitress must not be married.  Readers are respectfully\nrequested to notice that Mrs. Pratchett was not a waitress, but a\nchambermaid.  Now a chambermaid _may_ be married; if Head, generally is\nmarried,--or says so.  It comes to the same thing as expressing what is\ncustomary.  (N.B. Mr. Pratchett is in Australia, and his address there is\n\"the Bush.\")\n\nHaving took Mrs. Pratchett down as many pegs as was essential to the\nfuture happiness of all parties, I requested her to explain herself.\n\n\"For instance,\" I says, to give her a little encouragement, \"who is\nSomebody?\"\n\n\"I give you my sacred honour, Mr. Christopher,\" answers Pratchett, \"that\nI haven't the faintest notion.\"\n\nBut for the manner in which she settled her cap-strings, I should have\ndoubted this; but in respect of positiveness it was hardly to be\ndiscriminated from an affidavit.\n\n\"Then you never saw him?\" I followed her up with.\n\n\"Nor yet,\" said Mrs. Pratchett, shutting her eyes and making as if she\nhad just took a pill of unusual circumference,--which gave a remarkable\nforce to her denial,--\"nor yet any servant in this house.  All have been\nchanged, Mr. Christopher, within five year, and Somebody left his Luggage\nhere before then.\"\n\nInquiry of Miss Martin yielded (in the language of the Bard of A.1.)\n\"confirmation strong.\"  So it had really and truly happened.  Miss Martin\nis the young lady at the bar as makes out our bills; and though higher\nthan I could wish considering her station, is perfectly well-behaved.\n\nFarther investigations led to the disclosure that there was a bill\nagainst this Luggage to the amount of two sixteen six.  The Luggage had\nbeen lying under the bedstead of 24 B over six year.  The bedstead is a\nfour-poster, with a deal of old hanging and valance, and is, as I once\nsaid, probably connected with more than 24 Bs,--which I remember my\nhearers was pleased to laugh at, at the time.\n\nI don't know why,--when DO we know why?--but this Luggage laid heavy on\nmy mind.  I fell a wondering about Somebody, and what he had got and been\nup to.  I couldn't satisfy my thoughts why he should leave so much\nLuggage against so small a bill.  For I had the Luggage out within a day\nor two and turned it over, and the following were the items:--A black\nportmanteau, a black bag, a desk, a dressing-case, a brown-paper parcel,\na hat-box, and an umbrella strapped to a walking-stick.  It was all very\ndusty and fluey.  I had our porter up to get under the bed and fetch it\nout; and though he habitually wallows in dust,--swims in it from morning\nto night, and wears a close-fitting waistcoat with black calimanco\nsleeves for the purpose,--it made him sneeze again, and his throat was\nthat hot with it that it was obliged to be cooled with a drink of\nAllsopp's draft.\n\nThe Luggage so got the better of me, that instead of having it put back\nwhen it was well dusted and washed with a wet cloth,--previous to which\nit was so covered with feathers that you might have thought it was\nturning into poultry, and would by-and-by begin to Lay,--I say, instead\nof having it put back, I had it carried into one of my places\ndown-stairs.  There from time to time I stared at it and stared at it,\ntill it seemed to grow big and grow little, and come forward at me and\nretreat again, and go through all manner of performances resembling\nintoxication.  When this had lasted weeks,--I may say months, and not be\nfar out,--I one day thought of asking Miss Martin for the particulars of\nthe Two sixteen six total.  She was so obliging as to extract it from the\nbooks,--it dating before her time,--and here follows a true copy:\n\nCoffee-Room.\n1856.            No. 4.       Pounds  s. d.\nFeb. 2d, Pen and Paper             0  0  6\n         Port Negus                0  2  0\n         Ditto                     0  2  0\n         Pen and paper             0  0  6\n         Tumbler broken            0  2  6\n         Brandy                    0  2  0\n         Pen and paper             0  0  6\n         Anchovy toast             0  2  6\n         Pen and paper             0  0  6\n         Bed                       0  3  0\nFeb. 3d, Pen and paper             0  0  6\n         Breakfast                 0  2  6\n            Broiled ham            0  2  0\n            Eggs                   0  1  0\n            Watercresses           0  1  0\n            Shrimps                0  1  0\n         Pen and paper             0  0  6\n         Blotting-paper            0  0  6\n         Messenger to Paternoster\n             Row and back          0  1  6\n         Again, when No Answer     0  1  6\n         Brandy 2s., Devilled\n             Pork chop 2s.         0  4  0\n         Pens and paper            0  1  0\n         Messenger to Albemarle\n             Street and back       0  1  0\n         Again (detained), when\n             No Answer             0  1  6\n         Salt-cellar broken        0  3  6\n         Large Liquour-glass\n             Orange Brandy         0  1  6\n         Dinner, Soup, Fish,\n             Joint, and bird       0  7  6\n         Bottle old East India\n             Brown                 0  8  0\n         Pen and paper             0  0  6\n                           Pounds  2 16  6\n\nMem.: January 1st, 1857.  He went out after dinner, directing luggage to\nbe ready when he called for it.  Never called.\n\n* * * * *\n\nSo far from throwing a light upon the subject, this bill appeared to me,\nif I may so express my doubts, to involve it in a yet more lurid halo.\nSpeculating it over with the Mistress, she informed me that the luggage\nhad been advertised in the Master's time as being to be sold after such\nand such a day to pay expenses, but no farther steps had been taken.  (I\nmay here remark, that the Mistress is a widow in her fourth year.  The\nMaster was possessed of one of those unfortunate constitutions in which\nSpirits turns to Water, and rises in the ill-starred Victim.)\n\nMy speculating it over, not then only, but repeatedly, sometimes with the\nMistress, sometimes with one, sometimes with another, led up to the\nMistress's saying to me,--whether at first in joke or in earnest, or half\njoke and half earnest, it matters not:\n\n\"Christopher, I am going to make you a handsome offer.\"\n\n(If this should meet her eye,--a lovely blue,--may she not take it ill my\nmentioning that if I had been eight or ten year younger, I would have\ndone as much by her!  That is, I would have made her a offer.  It is for\nothers than me to denominate it a handsome one.)\n\n\"Christopher, I am going to make you a handsome offer.\"\n\n\"Put a name to it, ma'am.\"\n\n\"Look here, Christopher.  Run over the articles of Somebody's Luggage.\nYou've got it all by heart, I know.\"\n\n\"A black portmanteau, ma'am, a black bag, a desk, a dressing-case, a\nbrown-paper parcel, a hat-box, and an umbrella strapped to a\nwalking-stick.\"\n\n\"All just as they were left.  Nothing opened, nothing tampered with.\"\n\n\"You are right, ma'am.  All locked but the brown-paper parcel, and that\nsealed.\"\n\nThe Mistress was leaning on Miss Martin's desk at the bar-window, and she\ntaps the open book that lays upon the desk,--she has a pretty-made hand\nto be sure,--and bobs her head over it and laughs.\n\n\"Come,\" says she, \"Christopher.  Pay me Somebody's bill, and you shall\nhave Somebody's Luggage.\"\n\nI rather took to the idea from the first moment; but,\n\n\"It mayn't be worth the money,\" I objected, seeming to hold back.\n\n\"That's a Lottery,\" says the Mistress, folding her arms upon the book,--it\nain't her hands alone that's pretty made, the observation extends right\nup her arms.  \"Won't you venture two pound sixteen shillings and sixpence\nin the Lottery?  Why, there's no blanks!\" says the Mistress; laughing and\nbobbing her head again, \"you _must_ win.  If you lose, you must win!  All\nprizes in this Lottery!  Draw a blank, and remember, Gentlemen-Sportsmen,\nyou'll still be entitled to a black portmanteau, a black bag, a desk, a\ndressing-case, a sheet of brown paper, a hat-box, and an umbrella\nstrapped to a walking-stick!\"\n\nTo make short of it, Miss Martin come round me, and Mrs. Pratchett come\nround me, and the Mistress she was completely round me already, and all\nthe women in the house come round me, and if it had been Sixteen two\ninstead of Two sixteen, I should have thought myself well out of it.  For\nwhat can you do when they do come round you?\n\nSo I paid the money--down--and such a laughing as there was among 'em!\nBut I turned the tables on 'em regularly, when I said:\n\n\"My family-name is Blue-Beard.  I'm going to open Somebody's Luggage all\nalone in the Secret Chamber, and not a female eye catches sight of the\ncontents!\"\n\nWhether I thought proper to have the firmness to keep to this, don't\nsignify, or whether any female eye, and if any, how many, was really\npresent when the opening of the Luggage came off.  Somebody's Luggage is\nthe question at present: Nobody's eyes, nor yet noses.\n\nWhat I still look at most, in connection with that Luggage, is the\nextraordinary quantity of writing-paper, and all written on!  And not our\npaper neither,--not the paper charged in the bill, for we know our\npaper,--so he must have been always at it.  And he had crumpled up this\nwriting of his, everywhere, in every part and parcel of his luggage.\nThere was writing in his dressing-case, writing in his boots, writing\namong his shaving-tackle, writing in his hat-box, writing folded away\ndown among the very whalebones of his umbrella.\n\nHis clothes wasn't bad, what there was of 'em.  His dressing-case was\npoor,--not a particle of silver stopper,--bottle apertures with nothing\nin 'em, like empty little dog-kennels,--and a most searching description\nof tooth-powder diffusing itself around, as under a deluded mistake that\nall the chinks in the fittings was divisions in teeth.  His clothes I\nparted with, well enough, to a second-hand dealer not far from St.\nClement's Danes, in the Strand,--him as the officers in the Army mostly\ndispose of their uniforms to, when hard pressed with debts of honour, if\nI may judge from their coats and epaulets diversifying the window with\ntheir backs towards the public.  The same party bought in one lot the\nportmanteau, the bag, the desk, the dressing-case, the hat-box, the\numbrella, strap, and walking-stick.  On my remarking that I should have\nthought those articles not quite in his line, he said: \"No more ith a\nman'th grandmother, Mithter Chrithtopher; but if any man will bring hith\ngrandmother here, and offer her at a fair trifle below what the'll feth\nwith good luck when the'th thcoured and turned--I'll buy her!\"\n\nThese transactions brought me home, and, indeed, more than home, for they\nleft a goodish profit on the original investment.  And now there remained\nthe writings; and the writings I particular wish to bring under the\ncandid attention of the reader.\n\nI wish to do so without postponement, for this reason.  That is to say,\nnamely, viz. i.e., as follows, thus:--Before I proceed to recount the\nmental sufferings of which I became the prey in consequence of the\nwritings, and before following up that harrowing tale with a statement of\nthe wonderful and impressive catastrophe, as thrilling in its nature as\nunlooked for in any other capacity, which crowned the ole and filled the\ncup of unexpectedness to overflowing, the writings themselves ought to\nstand forth to view.  Therefore it is that they now come next.  One word\nto introduce them, and I lay down my pen (I hope, my unassuming pen)\nuntil I take it up to trace the gloomy sequel of a mind with something on\nit.\n\nHe was a smeary writer, and wrote a dreadful bad hand.  Utterly\nregardless of ink, he lavished it on every undeserving object--on his\nclothes, his desk, his hat, the handle of his tooth-brush, his umbrella.\nInk was found freely on the coffee-room carpet by No. 4 table, and two\nblots was on his restless couch.  A reference to the document I have\ngiven entire will show that on the morning of the third of February,\neighteen fifty-six, he procured his no less than fifth pen and paper.  To\nwhatever deplorable act of ungovernable composition he immolated those\nmaterials obtained from the bar, there is no doubt that the fatal deed\nwas committed in bed, and that it left its evidences but too plainly,\nlong afterwards, upon the pillow-case.\n\nHe had put no Heading to any of his writings.  Alas!  Was he likely to\nhave a Heading without a Head, and where was _his_ Head when he took such\nthings into it?  In some cases, such as his Boots, he would appear to\nhave hid the writings; thereby involving his style in greater obscurity.\nBut his Boots was at least pairs,--and no two of his writings can put in\nany claim to be so regarded.  Here follows (not to give more specimens)\nwhat was found in\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II--HIS BOOTS\n\n\n\"Eh! well then, Monsieur Mutuel!  What do I know, what can I say?  I\nassure you that he calls himself Monsieur The Englishman.\"\n\n\"Pardon.  But I think it is impossible,\" said Monsieur Mutuel,--a\nspectacled, snuffy, stooping old gentleman in carpet shoes and a cloth\ncap with a peaked shade, a loose blue frock-coat reaching to his heels, a\nlarge limp white shirt-frill, and cravat to correspond,--that is to say,\nwhite was the natural colour of his linen on Sundays, but it toned down\nwith the week.\n\n\"It is,\" repeated Monsieur Mutuel, his amiable old walnut-shell\ncountenance very walnut-shelly indeed as he smiled and blinked in the\nbright morning sunlight,--\"it is, my cherished Madame Bouclet, I think,\nimpossible!\"\n\n\"Hey!\" (with a little vexed cry and a great many tosses of her head.)\n\"But it is not impossible that you are a Pig!\" retorted Madame Bouclet, a\ncompact little woman of thirty-five or so.  \"See then,--look there,--read!\n'On the second floor Monsieur L'Anglais.'  Is it not so?\"\n\n\"It is so,\" said Monsieur Mutuel.\n\n\"Good.  Continue your morning walk.  Get out!\" Madame Bouclet dismissed\nhim with a lively snap of her fingers.\n\nThe morning walk of Monsieur Mutuel was in the brightest patch that the\nsun made in the Grande Place of a dull old fortified French town.  The\nmanner of his morning walk was with his hands crossed behind him; an\numbrella, in figure the express image of himself, always in one hand; a\nsnuffbox in the other.  Thus, with the shuffling gait of the Elephant\n(who really does deal with the very worst trousers-maker employed by the\nZoological world, and who appeared to have recommended him to Monsieur\nMutuel), the old gentleman sunned himself daily when sun was to be had--of\ncourse, at the same time sunning a red ribbon at his button-hole; for was\nhe not an ancient Frenchman?\n\nBeing told by one of the angelic sex to continue his morning walk and get\nout, Monsieur Mutuel laughed a walnut-shell laugh, pulled off his cap at\narm's length with the hand that contained his snuffbox, kept it off for a\nconsiderable period after he had parted from Madame Bouclet, and\ncontinued his morning walk and got out, like a man of gallantry as he\nwas.\n\nThe documentary evidence to which Madame Bouclet had referred Monsieur\nMutuel was the list of her lodgers, sweetly written forth by her own\nNephew and Bookkeeper, who held the pen of an Angel, and posted up at the\nside of her gateway, for the information of the Police: \"Au second, M.\nL'Anglais, Proprietaire.\"  On the second floor, Mr. The Englishman, man\nof property.  So it stood; nothing could be plainer.\n\nMadame Bouclet now traced the line with her forefinger, as it were to\nconfirm and settle herself in her parting snap at Monsieur Mutuel, and so\nplacing her right hand on her hip with a defiant air, as if nothing\nshould ever tempt her to unsnap that snap, strolled out into the Place to\nglance up at the windows of Mr. The Englishman.  That worthy happening to\nbe looking out of window at the moment, Madame Bouclet gave him a\ngraceful salutation with her head, looked to the right and looked to the\nleft to account to him for her being there, considered for a moment, like\none who accounted to herself for somebody she had expected not being\nthere, and reentered her own gateway.  Madame Bouclet let all her house\ngiving on the Place in furnished flats or floors, and lived up the yard\nbehind in company with Monsieur Bouclet her husband (great at billiards),\nan inherited brewing business, several fowls, two carts, a nephew, a\nlittle dog in a big kennel, a grape-vine, a counting-house, four horses,\na married sister (with a share in the brewing business), the husband and\ntwo children of the married sister, a parrot, a drum (performed on by the\nlittle boy of the married sister), two billeted soldiers, a quantity of\npigeons, a fife (played by the nephew in a ravishing manner), several\ndomestics and supernumeraries, a perpetual flavour of coffee and soup, a\nterrific range of artificial rocks and wooden precipices at least four\nfeet high, a small fountain, and half-a-dozen large sunflowers.\n\nNow the Englishman, in taking his Appartement,--or, as one might say on\nour side of the Channel, his set of chambers,--had given his name,\ncorrect to the letter, LANGLEY.  But as he had a British way of not\nopening his mouth very wide on foreign soil, except at meals, the Brewery\nhad been able to make nothing of it but L'Anglais.  So Mr. The Englishman\nhe had become and he remained.\n\n\"Never saw such a people!\" muttered Mr. The Englishman, as he now looked\nout of window.  \"Never did, in my life!\"\n\nThis was true enough, for he had never before been out of his own\ncountry,--a right little island, a tight little island, a bright little\nisland, a show-fight little island, and full of merit of all sorts; but\nnot the whole round world.\n\n\"These chaps,\" said Mr. The Englishman to himself, as his eye rolled over\nthe Place, sprinkled with military here and there, \"are no more like\nsoldiers--\"  Nothing being sufficiently strong for the end of his\nsentence, he left it unended.\n\nThis again (from the point of view of his experience) was strictly\ncorrect; for though there was a great agglomeration of soldiers in the\ntown and neighbouring country, you might have held a grand Review and\nField-day of them every one, and looked in vain among them all for a\nsoldier choking behind his foolish stock, or a soldier lamed by his ill-\nfitting shoes, or a soldier deprived of the use of his limbs by straps\nand buttons, or a soldier elaborately forced to be self-helpless in all\nthe small affairs of life.  A swarm of brisk, bright, active, bustling,\nhandy, odd, skirmishing fellows, able to turn cleverly at anything, from\na siege to soup, from great guns to needles and thread, from the\nbroadsword exercise to slicing an onion, from making war to making\nomelets, was all you would have found.\n\nWhat a swarm!  From the Great Place under the eye of Mr. The Englishman,\nwhere a few awkward squads from the last conscription were doing the\ngoose-step--some members of those squads still as to their bodies, in the\nchrysalis peasant-state of Blouse, and only military butterflies as to\ntheir regimentally-clothed legs--from the Great Place, away outside the\nfortifications, and away for miles along the dusty roads, soldiers\nswarmed.  All day long, upon the grass-grown ramparts of the town,\npractising soldiers trumpeted and bugled; all day long, down in angles of\ndry trenches, practising soldiers drummed and drummed.  Every forenoon,\nsoldiers burst out of the great barracks into the sandy gymnasium-ground\nhard by, and flew over the wooden horse, and hung on to flying ropes, and\ndangled upside-down between parallel bars, and shot themselves off wooden\nplatforms,--splashes, sparks, coruscations, showers of soldiers.  At\nevery corner of the town-wall, every guard-house, every gateway, every\nsentry-box, every drawbridge, every reedy ditch, and rushy dike,\nsoldiers, soldiers, soldiers.  And the town being pretty well all wall,\nguard-house, gateway, sentry-box, drawbridge, reedy ditch, and rushy\ndike, the town was pretty well all soldiers.\n\nWhat would the sleepy old town have been without the soldiers, seeing\nthat even with them it had so overslept itself as to have slept its\nechoes hoarse, its defensive bars and locks and bolts and chains all\nrusty, and its ditches stagnant!  From the days when VAUBAN engineered it\nto that perplexing extent that to look at it was like being knocked on\nthe head with it, the stranger becoming stunned and stertorous under the\nshock of its incomprehensibility,--from the days when VAUBAN made it the\nexpress incorporation of every substantive and adjective in the art of\nmilitary engineering, and not only twisted you into it and twisted you\nout of it, to the right, to the left, opposite, under here, over there,\nin the dark, in the dirt, by the gateway, archway, covered way, dry way,\nwet way, fosse, portcullis, drawbridge, sluice, squat tower, pierced\nwall, and heavy battery, but likewise took a fortifying dive under the\nneighbouring country, and came to the surface three or four miles off,\nblowing out incomprehensible mounds and batteries among the quiet crops\nof chicory and beet-root,--from those days to these the town had been\nasleep, and dust and rust and must had settled on its drowsy Arsenals and\nMagazines, and grass had grown up in its silent streets.\n\nOn market-days alone, its Great Place suddenly leaped out of bed.  On\nmarket-days, some friendly enchanter struck his staff upon the stones of\nthe Great Place, and instantly arose the liveliest booths and stalls, and\nsittings and standings, and a pleasant hum of chaffering and huckstering\nfrom many hundreds of tongues, and a pleasant, though peculiar, blending\nof colours,--white caps, blue blouses, and green vegetables,--and at last\nthe Knight destined for the adventure seemed to have come in earnest, and\nall the Vaubanois sprang up awake.  And now, by long, low-lying avenues\nof trees, jolting in white-hooded donkey-cart, and on donkey-back, and in\ntumbril and wagon, and cart and cabriolet, and afoot with barrow and\nburden,--and along the dikes and ditches and canals, in little\npeak-prowed country boats,--came peasant-men and women in flocks and\ncrowds, bringing articles for sale.  And here you had boots and shoes,\nand sweetmeats and stuffs to wear, and here (in the cool shade of the\nTown-hall) you had milk and cream and butter and cheese, and here you had\nfruits and onions and carrots, and all things needful for your soup, and\nhere you had poultry and flowers and protesting pigs, and here new\nshovels, axes, spades, and bill-hooks for your farming work, and here\nhuge mounds of bread, and here your unground grain in sacks, and here\nyour children's dolls, and here the cake-seller, announcing his wares by\nbeat and roll of drum.  And hark! fanfaronade of trumpets, and here into\nthe Great Place, resplendent in an open carriage, with four gorgeously-\nattired servitors up behind, playing horns, drums, and cymbals, rolled\n\"the Daughter of a Physician\" in massive golden chains and ear-rings, and\nblue-feathered hat, shaded from the admiring sun by two immense umbrellas\nof artificial roses, to dispense (from motives of philanthropy) that\nsmall and pleasant dose which had cured so many thousands!  Toothache,\nearache, headache, heartache, stomach-ache, debility, nervousness, fits,\nfainting, fever, ague, all equally cured by the small and pleasant dose\nof the great Physician's great daughter!  The process was this,--she, the\nDaughter of a Physician, proprietress of the superb equipage you now\nadmired with its confirmatory blasts of trumpet, drum, and cymbal, told\nyou so: On the first day after taking the small and pleasant dose, you\nwould feel no particular influence beyond a most harmonious sensation of\nindescribable and irresistible joy; on the second day you would be so\nastonishingly better that you would think yourself changed into somebody\nelse; on the third day you would be entirely free from disorder, whatever\nits nature and however long you had had it, and would seek out the\nPhysician's Daughter to throw yourself at her feet, kiss the hem of her\ngarment, and buy as many more of the small and pleasant doses as by the\nsale of all your few effects you could obtain; but she would be\ninaccessible,--gone for herbs to the Pyramids of Egypt,--and you would be\n(though cured) reduced to despair!  Thus would the Physician's Daughter\ndrive her trade (and briskly too), and thus would the buying and selling\nand mingling of tongues and colours continue, until the changing\nsunlight, leaving the Physician's Daughter in the shadow of high roofs,\nadmonished her to jolt out westward, with a departing effect of gleam and\nglitter on the splendid equipage and brazen blast.  And now the enchanter\nstruck his staff upon the stones of the Great Place once more, and down\nwent the booths, the sittings and standings, and vanished the\nmerchandise, and with it the barrows, donkeys, donkey-carts, and\ntumbrils, and all other things on wheels and feet, except the slow\nscavengers with unwieldy carts and meagre horses clearing up the rubbish,\nassisted by the sleek town pigeons, better plumped out than on non-market\ndays.  While there was yet an hour or two to wane before the autumn\nsunset, the loiterer outside town-gate and drawbridge, and postern and\ndouble-ditch, would see the last white-hooded cart lessening in the\navenue of lengthening shadows of trees, or the last country boat, paddled\nby the last market-woman on her way home, showing black upon the\nreddening, long, low, narrow dike between him and the mill; and as the\npaddle-parted scum and weed closed over the boat's track, he might be\ncomfortably sure that its sluggish rest would be troubled no more until\nnext market-day.\n\nAs it was not one of the Great Place's days for getting out of bed, when\nMr. The Englishman looked down at the young soldiers practising the goose-\nstep there, his mind was left at liberty to take a military turn.\n\n\"These fellows are billeted everywhere about,\" said he; \"and to see them\nlighting the people's fires, boiling the people's pots, minding the\npeople's babies, rocking the people's cradles, washing the people's\ngreens, and making themselves generally useful, in every sort of\nunmilitary way, is most ridiculous!  Never saw such a set of\nfellows,--never did in my life!\"\n\nAll perfectly true again.  Was there not Private Valentine in that very\nhouse, acting as sole housemaid, valet, cook, steward, and nurse, in the\nfamily of his captain, Monsieur le Capitaine de la Cour,--cleaning the\nfloors, making the beds, doing the marketing, dressing the captain,\ndressing the dinners, dressing the salads, and dressing the baby, all\nwith equal readiness?  Or, to put him aside, he being in loyal attendance\non his Chief, was there not Private Hyppolite, billeted at the Perfumer's\ntwo hundred yards off, who, when not on duty, volunteered to keep shop\nwhile the fair Perfumeress stepped out to speak to a neighbour or so, and\nlaughingly sold soap with his war-sword girded on him?  Was there not\nEmile, billeted at the Clock-maker's, perpetually turning to of an\nevening, with his coat off, winding up the stock?  Was there not Eugene,\nbilleted at the Tinman's, cultivating, pipe in mouth, a garden four feet\nsquare, for the Tinman, in the little court, behind the shop, and\nextorting the fruits of the earth from the same, on his knees, with the\nsweat of his brow?  Not to multiply examples, was there not Baptiste,\nbilleted on the poor Water-carrier, at that very instant sitting on the\npavement in the sunlight, with his martial legs asunder, and one of the\nWater-carrier's spare pails between them, which (to the delight and glory\nof the heart of the Water-carrier coming across the Place from the\nfountain, yoked and burdened) he was painting bright-green outside and\nbright-red within?  Or, to go no farther than the Barber's at the very\nnext door, was there not Corporal Theophile--\n\n\"No,\" said Mr. The Englishman, glancing down at the Barber's, \"he is not\nthere at present.  There's the child, though.\"\n\nA mere mite of a girl stood on the steps of the Barber's shop, looking\nacross the Place.  A mere baby, one might call her, dressed in the close\nwhite linen cap which small French country children wear (like the\nchildren in Dutch pictures), and in a frock of homespun blue, that had no\nshape except where it was tied round her little fat throat.  So that,\nbeing naturally short and round all over, she looked, behind, as if she\nhad been cut off at her natural waist, and had had her head neatly fitted\non it.\n\n\"There's the child, though.\"\n\nTo judge from the way in which the dimpled hand was rubbing the eyes, the\neyes had been closed in a nap, and were newly opened.  But they seemed to\nbe looking so intently across the Place, that the Englishman looked in\nthe same direction.\n\n\"O!\" said he presently.  \"I thought as much.  The Corporal's there.\"\n\nThe Corporal, a smart figure of a man of thirty, perhaps a thought under\nthe middle size, but very neatly made,--a sunburnt Corporal with a brown\npeaked beard,--faced about at the moment, addressing voluble words of\ninstruction to the squad in hand.  Nothing was amiss or awry about the\nCorporal.  A lithe and nimble Corporal, quite complete, from the\nsparkling dark eyes under his knowing uniform cap to his sparkling white\ngaiters.  The very image and presentment of a Corporal of his country's\narmy, in the line of his shoulders, the line of his waist, the broadest\nline of his Bloomer trousers, and their narrowest line at the calf of his\nleg.\n\nMr. The Englishman looked on, and the child looked on, and the Corporal\nlooked on (but the last-named at his men), until the drill ended a few\nminutes afterwards, and the military sprinkling dried up directly, and\nwas gone.  Then said Mr. The Englishman to himself, \"Look here!  By\nGeorge!\"  And the Corporal, dancing towards the Barber's with his arms\nwide open, caught up the child, held her over his head in a flying\nattitude, caught her down again, kissed her, and made off with her into\nthe Barber's house.\n\nNow Mr. The Englishman had had a quarrel with his erring and disobedient\nand disowned daughter, and there was a child in that case too.  Had not\nhis daughter been a child, and had she not taken angel-flights above his\nhead as this child had flown above the Corporal's?\n\n\"He's a \"--National Participled--\"fool!\" said the Englishman, and shut\nhis window.\n\nBut the windows of the house of Memory, and the windows of the house of\nMercy, are not so easily closed as windows of glass and wood.  They fly\nopen unexpectedly; they rattle in the night; they must be nailed up.  Mr.\nThe Englishman had tried nailing them, but had not driven the nails quite\nhome.  So he passed but a disturbed evening and a worse night.\n\nBy nature a good-tempered man?  No; very little gentleness, confounding\nthe quality with weakness.  Fierce and wrathful when crossed?  Very, and\nstupendously unreasonable.  Moody?  Exceedingly so.  Vindictive?  Well;\nhe had had scowling thoughts that he would formally curse his daughter,\nas he had seen it done on the stage.  But remembering that the real\nHeaven is some paces removed from the mock one in the great chandelier of\nthe Theatre, he had given that up.\n\nAnd he had come abroad to be rid of his repudiated daughter for the rest\nof his life.  And here he was.\n\nAt bottom, it was for this reason, more than for any other, that Mr. The\nEnglishman took it extremely ill that Corporal Theophile should be so\ndevoted to little Bebelle, the child at the Barber's shop.  In an unlucky\nmoment he had chanced to say to himself, \"Why, confound the fellow, he is\nnot her father!\"  There was a sharp sting in the speech which ran into\nhim suddenly, and put him in a worse mood.  So he had National\nParticipled the unconscious Corporal with most hearty emphasis, and had\nmade up his mind to think no more about such a mountebank.\n\nBut it came to pass that the Corporal was not to be dismissed.  If he had\nknown the most delicate fibres of the Englishman's mind, instead of\nknowing nothing on earth about him, and if he had been the most obstinate\nCorporal in the Grand Army of France, instead of being the most obliging,\nhe could not have planted himself with more determined immovability plump\nin the midst of all the Englishman's thoughts.  Not only so, but he\nseemed to be always in his view.  Mr. The Englishman had but to look out\nof window, to look upon the Corporal with little Bebelle.  He had but to\ngo for a walk, and there was the Corporal walking with Bebelle.  He had\nbut to come home again, disgusted, and the Corporal and Bebelle were at\nhome before him.  If he looked out at his back windows early in the\nmorning, the Corporal was in the Barber's back yard, washing and dressing\nand brushing Bebelle.  If he took refuge at his front windows, the\nCorporal brought his breakfast out into the Place, and shared it there\nwith Bebelle.  Always Corporal and always Bebelle.  Never Corporal\nwithout Bebelle.  Never Bebelle without Corporal.\n\nMr. The Englishman was not particularly strong in the French language as\na means of oral communication, though he read it very well.  It is with\nlanguages as with people,--when you only know them by sight, you are apt\nto mistake them; you must be on speaking terms before you can be said to\nhave established an acquaintance.\n\nFor this reason, Mr. The Englishman had to gird up his loins considerably\nbefore he could bring himself to the point of exchanging ideas with\nMadame Bouclet on the subject of this Corporal and this Bebelle.  But\nMadame Bouclet looking in apologetically one morning to remark, that, O\nHeaven! she was in a state of desolation because the lamp-maker had not\nsent home that lamp confided to him to repair, but that truly he was a\nlamp-maker against whom the whole world shrieked out, Mr. The Englishman\nseized the occasion.\n\n\"Madame, that baby--\"\n\n\"Pardon, monsieur.  That lamp.\"\n\n\"No, no, that little girl.\"\n\n\"But, pardon!\" said Madame Bonclet, angling for a clew, \"one cannot light\na little girl, or send her to be repaired?\"\n\n\"The little girl--at the house of the barber.\"\n\n\"Ah-h-h!\" cried Madame Bouclet, suddenly catching the idea with her\ndelicate little line and rod.  \"Little Bebelle?  Yes, yes, yes!  And her\nfriend the Corporal?  Yes, yes, yes, yes!  So genteel of him,--is it\nnot?\"\n\n\"He is not--?\"\n\n\"Not at all; not at all!  He is not one of her relations.  Not at all!\"\n\n\"Why, then, he--\"\n\n\"Perfectly!\" cried Madame Bouclet, \"you are right, monsieur.  It is so\ngenteel of him.  The less relation, the more genteel.  As you say.\"\n\n\"Is she--?\"\n\n\"The child of the barber?\" Madame Bouclet whisked up her skilful little\nline and rod again.  \"Not at all, not at all!  She is the child of--in a\nword, of no one.\"\n\n\"The wife of the barber, then--?\"\n\n\"Indubitably.  As you say.  The wife of the barber receives a small\nstipend to take care of her.  So much by the month.  Eh, then!  It is\nwithout doubt very little, for we are all poor here.\"\n\n\"You are not poor, madame.\"\n\n\"As to my lodgers,\" replied Madame Bouclet, with a smiling and a gracious\nbend of her head, \"no.  As to all things else, so-so.\"\n\n\"You flatter me, madame.\"\n\n\"Monsieur, it is you who flatter me in living here.\"\n\nCertain fishy gasps on Mr. The Englishman's part, denoting that he was\nabout to resume his subject under difficulties, Madame Bouclet observed\nhim closely, and whisked up her delicate line and rod again with\ntriumphant success.\n\n\"O no, monsieur, certainly not.  The wife of the barber is not cruel to\nthe poor child, but she is careless.  Her health is delicate, and she\nsits all day, looking out at window.  Consequently, when the Corporal\nfirst came, the poor little Bebelle was much neglected.\"\n\n\"It is a curious--\" began Mr. The Englishman.\n\n\"Name?  That Bebelle?  Again you are right, monsieur.  But it is a\nplayful name for Gabrielle.\"\n\n\"And so the child is a mere fancy of the Corporal's?\" said Mr. The\nEnglishman, in a gruffly disparaging tone of voice.\n\n\"Eh, well!\" returned Madame Bouclet, with a pleading shrug: \"one must\nlove something.  Human nature is weak.\"\n\n(\"Devilish weak,\" muttered the Englishman, in his own language.)\n\n\"And the Corporal,\" pursued Madame Bouclet, \"being billeted at the\nbarber's,--where he will probably remain a long time, for he is attached\nto the General,--and finding the poor unowned child in need of being\nloved, and finding himself in need of loving,--why, there you have it\nall, you see!\"\n\nMr. The Englishman accepted this interpretation of the matter with an\nindifferent grace, and observed to himself, in an injured manner, when he\nwas again alone: \"I shouldn't mind it so much, if these people were not\nsuch a\"--National Participled--\"sentimental people!\"\n\nThere was a Cemetery outside the town, and it happened ill for the\nreputation of the Vaubanois, in this sentimental connection, that he took\na walk there that same afternoon.  To be sure there were some wonderful\nthings in it (from the Englishman's point of view), and of a certainty in\nall Britain you would have found nothing like it.  Not to mention the\nfanciful flourishes of hearts and crosses in wood and iron, that were\nplanted all over the place, making it look very like a Firework-ground,\nwhere a most splendid pyrotechnic display might be expected after dark,\nthere were so many wreaths upon the graves, embroidered, as it might be,\n\"To my mother,\" \"To my daughter,\" \"To my father,\" \"To my brother,\" \"To my\nsister,\" \"To my friend,\" and those many wreaths were in so many stages of\nelaboration and decay, from the wreath of yesterday, all fresh colour and\nbright beads, to the wreath of last year, a poor mouldering wisp of\nstraw!  There were so many little gardens and grottos made upon graves,\nin so many tastes, with plants and shells and plaster figures and\nporcelain pitchers, and so many odds and ends!  There were so many\ntributes of remembrance hanging up, not to be discriminated by the\nclosest inspection from little round waiters, whereon were depicted in\nglowing lines either a lady or a gentleman with a white\npocket-handkerchief out of all proportion, leaning, in a state of the\nmost faultless mourning and most profound affliction, on the most\narchitectural and gorgeous urn!  There were so many surviving wives who\nhad put their names on the tombs of their deceased husbands, with a blank\nfor the date of their own departure from this weary world; and there were\nso many surviving husbands who had rendered the same homage to their\ndeceased wives; and out of the number there must have been so many who\nhad long ago married again!  In fine, there was so much in the place that\nwould have seemed more frippery to a stranger, save for the consideration\nthat the lightest paper flower that lay upon the poorest heap of earth\nwas never touched by a rude hand, but perished there, a sacred thing!\n\n\"Nothing of the solemnity of Death here,\" Mr. The Englishman had been\ngoing to say, when this last consideration touched him with a mild\nappeal, and on the whole he walked out without saying it.  \"But these\npeople are,\" he insisted, by way of compensation, when he was well\noutside the gate, \"they are so\"--Participled--\"sentimental!\"\n\nHis way back lay by the military gymnasium-ground.  And there he passed\nthe Corporal glibly instructing young soldiers how to swing themselves\nover rapid and deep watercourses on their way to Glory, by means of a\nrope, and himself deftly plunging off a platform, and flying a hundred\nfeet or two, as an encouragement to them to begin.  And there he also\npassed, perched on a crowning eminence (probably the Corporal's careful\nhands), the small Bebelle, with her round eyes wide open, surveying the\nproceeding like a wondering sort of blue and white bird.\n\n\"If that child was to die,\" this was his reflection as he turned his back\nand went his way,--\"and it would almost serve the fellow right for making\nsuch a fool of himself,--I suppose we should have him sticking up a\nwreath and a waiter in that fantastic burying-ground.\"\n\nNevertheless, after another early morning or two of looking out of\nwindow, he strolled down into the Place, when the Corporal and Bebelle\nwere walking there, and touching his hat to the Corporal (an immense\nachievement), wished him Good-day.\n\n\"Good-day, monsieur.\"\n\n\"This is a rather pretty child you have here,\" said Mr. The Englishman,\ntaking her chin in his hand, and looking down into her astonished blue\neyes.\n\n\"Monsieur, she is a very pretty child,\" returned the Corporal, with a\nstress on his polite correction of the phrase.\n\n\"And good?\" said the Englishman.\n\n\"And very good.  Poor little thing!\"\n\n\"Hah!\"  The Englishman stooped down and patted her cheek, not without\nawkwardness, as if he were going too far in his conciliation.  \"And what\nis this medal round your neck, my little one?\"\n\nBebelle having no other reply on her lips than her chubby right fist, the\nCorporal offered his services as interpreter.\n\n\"Monsieur demands, what is this, Bebelle?\"\n\n\"It is the Holy Virgin,\" said Bebelle.\n\n\"And who gave it you?\" asked the Englishman.\n\n\"Theophile.\"\n\n\"And who is Theophile?\"\n\nBebelle broke into a laugh, laughed merrily and heartily, clapped her\nchubby hands, and beat her little feet on the stone pavement of the\nPlace.\n\n\"He doesn't know Theophile!  Why, he doesn't know any one!  He doesn't\nknow anything!\"  Then, sensible of a small solecism in her manners,\nBebelle twisted her right hand in a leg of the Corporal's Bloomer\ntrousers, and, laying her cheek against the place, kissed it.\n\n\"Monsieur Theophile, I believe?\" said the Englishman to the Corporal.\n\n\"It is I, monsieur.\"\n\n\"Permit me.\"  Mr. The Englishman shook him heartily by the hand and\nturned away.  But he took it mighty ill that old Monsieur Mutuel in his\npatch of sunlight, upon whom he came as he turned, should pull off his\ncap to him with a look of pleased approval.  And he muttered, in his own\ntongue, as he returned the salutation, \"Well, walnut-shell!  And what\nbusiness is it of _yours_?\"\n\nMr. The Englishman went on for many weeks passing but disturbed evenings\nand worse nights, and constantly experiencing that those aforesaid\nwindows in the houses of Memory and Mercy rattled after dark, and that he\nhad very imperfectly nailed them up.  Likewise, he went on for many weeks\ndaily improving the acquaintance of the Corporal and Bebelle.  That is to\nsay, he took Bebelle by the chin, and the Corporal by the hand, and\noffered Bebelle sous and the Corporal cigars, and even got the length of\nchanging pipes with the Corporal and kissing Bebelle.  But he did it all\nin a shamefaced way, and always took it extremely ill that Monsieur\nMutuel in his patch of sunlight should note what he did.  Whenever that\nseemed to be the case, he always growled in his own tongue, \"There you\nare again, walnut-shell!  What business is it of yours?\"\n\nIn a word, it had become the occupation of Mr. The Englishman's life to\nlook after the Corporal and little Bebelle, and to resent old Monsieur\nMutuel's looking after _him_.  An occupation only varied by a fire in the\ntown one windy night, and much passing of water-buckets from hand to hand\n(in which the Englishman rendered good service), and much beating of\ndrums,--when all of a sudden the Corporal disappeared.\n\nNext, all of a sudden, Bebelle disappeared.\n\nShe had been visible a few days later than the Corporal,--sadly\ndeteriorated as to washing and brushing,--but she had not spoken when\naddressed by Mr. The Englishman, and had looked scared and had run away.\nAnd now it would seem that she had run away for good.  And there lay the\nGreat Place under the windows, bare and barren.\n\nIn his shamefaced and constrained way, Mr. The Englishman asked no\nquestion of any one, but watched from his front windows and watched from\nhis back windows, and lingered about the Place, and peeped in at the\nBarber's shop, and did all this and much more with a whistling and tune-\nhumming pretence of not missing anything, until one afternoon when\nMonsieur Mutuel's patch of sunlight was in shadow, and when, according to\nall rule and precedent, he had no right whatever to bring his red ribbon\nout of doors, behold here he was, advancing with his cap already in his\nhand twelve paces off!\n\nMr. The Englishman had got as far into his usual objurgation as, \"What bu-\nsi--\" when he checked himself.\n\n\"Ah, it is sad, it is sad!  Helas, it is unhappy, it is sad!\"  Thus old\nMonsieur Mutuel, shaking his gray head.\n\n\"What busin--at least, I would say, what do you mean, Monsieur Mutuel?\"\n\n\"Our Corporal.  Helas, our dear Corporal!\"\n\n\"What has happened to him?\"\n\n\"You have not heard?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"At the fire.  But he was so brave, so ready.  Ah, too brave, too ready!\"\n\n\"May the Devil carry you away!\" the Englishman broke in impatiently; \"I\nbeg your pardon,--I mean me,--I am not accustomed to speak French,--go\non, will you?\"\n\n\"And a falling beam--\"\n\n\"Good God!\" exclaimed the Englishman.  \"It was a private soldier who was\nkilled?\"\n\n\"No.  A Corporal, the same Corporal, our dear Corporal.  Beloved by all\nhis comrades.  The funeral ceremony was touching,--penetrating.  Monsieur\nThe Englishman, your eyes fill with tears.\"\n\n\"What bu-si--\"\n\n\"Monsieur The Englishman, I honour those emotions.  I salute you with\nprofound respect.  I will not obtrude myself upon your noble heart.\"\n\nMonsieur Mutuel,--a gentleman in every thread of his cloudy linen, under\nwhose wrinkled hand every grain in the quarter of an ounce of poor snuff\nin his poor little tin box became a gentleman's property,--Monsieur\nMutuel passed on, with his cap in his hand.\n\n\"I little thought,\" said the Englishman, after walking for several\nminutes, and more than once blowing his nose, \"when I was looking round\nthat cemetery--I'll go there!\"\n\nStraight he went there, and when he came within the gate he paused,\nconsidering whether he should ask at the lodge for some direction to the\ngrave.  But he was less than ever in a mood for asking questions, and he\nthought, \"I shall see something on it to know it by.\"\n\nIn search of the Corporal's grave he went softly on, up this walk and\ndown that, peering in, among the crosses and hearts and columns and\nobelisks and tombstones, for a recently disturbed spot.  It troubled him\nnow to think how many dead there were in the cemetery,--he had not\nthought them a tenth part so numerous before,--and after he had walked\nand sought for some time, he said to himself, as he struck down a new\nvista of tombs, \"I might suppose that every one was dead but I.\"\n\nNot every one.  A live child was lying on the ground asleep.  Truly he\nhad found something on the Corporal's grave to know it by, and the\nsomething was Bebelle.\n\nWith such a loving will had the dead soldier's comrades worked at his\nresting-place, that it was already a neat garden.  On the green turf of\nthe garden Bebelle lay sleeping, with her cheek touching it.  A plain,\nunpainted little wooden Cross was planted in the turf, and her short arm\nembraced this little Cross, as it had many a time embraced the Corporal's\nneck.  They had put a tiny flag (the flag of France) at his head, and a\nlaurel garland.\n\nMr. The Englishman took off his hat, and stood for a while silent.  Then,\ncovering his head again, he bent down on one knee, and softly roused the\nchild.\n\n\"Bebelle!  My little one!\"\n\nOpening her eyes, on which the tears were still wet, Bebelle was at first\nfrightened; but seeing who it was, she suffered him to take her in his\narms, looking steadfastly at him.\n\n\"You must not lie here, my little one.  You must come with me.\"\n\n\"No, no.  I can't leave Theophile.  I want the good dear Theophile.\"\n\n\"We will go and seek him, Bebelle.  We will go and look for him in\nEngland.  We will go and look for him at my daughter's, Bebelle.\"\n\n\"Shall we find him there?\"\n\n\"We shall find the best part of him there.  Come with me, poor forlorn\nlittle one.  Heaven is my witness,\" said the Englishman, in a low voice,\nas, before he rose, he touched the turf above the gentle Corporal's\nbreast, \"that I thankfully accept this trust!\"\n\nIt was a long way for the child to have come unaided.  She was soon\nasleep again, with her embrace transferred to the Englishman's neck.  He\nlooked at her worn shoes, and her galled feet, and her tired face, and\nbelieved that she had come there every day.\n\nHe was leaving the grave with the slumbering Bebelle in his arms, when he\nstopped, looked wistfully down at it, and looked wistfully at the other\ngraves around.  \"It is the innocent custom of the people,\" said Mr. The\nEnglishman, with hesitation.  \"I think I should like to do it.  No one\nsees.\"\n\nCareful not to wake Bebelle as he went, he repaired to the lodge where\nsuch little tokens of remembrance were sold, and bought two wreaths.  One,\nblue and white and glistening silver, \"To my friend;\" one of a soberer\nred and black and yellow, \"To my friend.\"  With these he went back to the\ngrave, and so down on one knee again.  Touching the child's lips with the\nbrighter wreath, he guided her hand to hang it on the Cross; then hung\nhis own wreath there.  After all, the wreaths were not far out of keeping\nwith the little garden.  To my friend.  To my friend.\n\nMr. The Englishman took it very ill when he looked round a street corner\ninto the Great Place, carrying Bebelle in his arms, that old Mutuel\nshould be there airing his red ribbon.  He took a world of pains to dodge\nthe worthy Mutuel, and devoted a surprising amount of time and trouble to\nskulking into his own lodging like a man pursued by Justice.  Safely\narrived there at last, he made Bebelle's toilet with as accurate a\nremembrance as he could bring to bear upon that work of the way in which\nhe had often seen the poor Corporal make it, and having given her to eat\nand drink, laid her down on his own bed.  Then he slipped out into the\nbarber's shop, and after a brief interview with the barber's wife, and a\nbrief recourse to his purse and card-case, came back again with the whole\nof Bebelle's personal property in such a very little bundle that it was\nquite lost under his arm.\n\nAs it was irreconcilable with his whole course and character that he\nshould carry Bebelle off in state, or receive any compliments or\ncongratulations on that feat, he devoted the next day to getting his two\nportmanteaus out of the house by artfulness and stealth, and to\ncomporting himself in every particular as if he were going to run\naway,--except, indeed, that he paid his few debts in the town, and\nprepared a letter to leave for Madame Bouclet, enclosing a sufficient sum\nof money in lieu of notice.  A railway train would come through at\nmidnight, and by that train he would take away Bebelle to look for\nTheophile in England and at his forgiven daughter's.\n\nAt midnight, on a moonlight night, Mr. The Englishman came creeping forth\nlike a harmless assassin, with Bebelle on his breast instead of a dagger.\nQuiet the Great Place, and quiet the never-stirring streets; closed the\ncafes; huddled together motionless their billiard-balls; drowsy the guard\nor sentinel on duty here and there; lulled for the time, by sleep, even\nthe insatiate appetite of the Office of Town-dues.\n\nMr. The Englishman left the Place behind, and left the streets behind,\nand left the civilian-inhabited town behind, and descended down among the\nmilitary works of Vauban, hemming all in.  As the shadow of the first\nheavy arch and postern fell upon him and was left behind, as the shadow\nof the second heavy arch and postern fell upon him and was left behind,\nas his hollow tramp over the first drawbridge was succeeded by a gentler\nsound, as his hollow tramp over the second drawbridge was succeeded by a\ngentler sound, as he overcame the stagnant ditches one by one, and passed\nout where the flowing waters were and where the moonlight, so the dark\nshades and the hollow sounds and the unwholesomely locked currents of his\nsoul were vanquished and set free.  See to it, Vaubans of your own\nhearts, who gird them in with triple walls and ditches, and with bolt and\nchain and bar and lifted bridge,--raze those fortifications, and lay them\nlevel with the all-absorbing dust, before the night cometh when no hand\ncan work!\n\nAll went prosperously, and he got into an empty carriage in the train,\nwhere he could lay Bebelle on the seat over against him, as on a couch,\nand cover her from head to foot with his mantle.  He had just drawn\nhimself up from perfecting this arrangement, and had just leaned back in\nhis own seat contemplating it with great satisfaction, when he became\naware of a curious appearance at the open carriage window,--a ghostly\nlittle tin box floating up in the moonlight, and hovering there.\n\nHe leaned forward, and put out his head.  Down among the rails and wheels\nand ashes, Monsieur Mutuel, red ribbon and all!\n\n\"Excuse me, Monsieur The Englishman,\" said Monsieur Mutuel, holding up\nhis box at arm's length, the carriage being so high and he so low; \"but I\nshall reverence the little box for ever, if your so generous hand will\ntake a pinch from it at parting.\"\n\nMr. The Englishman reached out of the window before complying,\nand--without asking the old fellow what business it was of his--shook\nhands and said, \"Adieu!  God bless you!\"\n\n\"And, Mr. The Englishman, God bless _you_!\" cried Madame Bouclet, who was\nalso there among the rails and wheels and ashes.  \"And God will bless you\nin the happiness of the protected child now with you.  And God will bless\nyou in your own child at home.  And God will bless you in your own\nremembrances.  And this from me!\"\n\nHe had barely time to catch a bouquet from her hand, when the train was\nflying through the night.  Round the paper that enfolded it was bravely\nwritten (doubtless by the nephew who held the pen of an Angel), \"Homage\nto the friend of the friendless.\"\n\n\"Not bad people, Bebelle!\" said Mr. The Englishman, softly drawing the\nmantle a little from her sleeping face, that he might kiss it, \"though\nthey are so--\"\n\nToo \"sentimental\" himself at the moment to be able to get out that word,\nhe added nothing but a sob, and travelled for some miles, through the\nmoonlight, with his hand before his eyes.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III--HIS BROWN-PAPER PARCEL\n\n\nMy works are well known.  I am a young man in the Art line.  You have\nseen my works many a time, though it's fifty thousand to one if you have\nseen me.  You say you don't want to see me?  You say your interest is in\nmy works, and not in me?  Don't be too sure about that.  Stop a bit.\n\nLet us have it down in black and white at the first go off, so that there\nmay be no unpleasantness or wrangling afterwards.  And this is looked\nover by a friend of mine, a ticket writer, that is up to literature.  I\nam a young man in the Art line--in the Fine-Art line.  You have seen my\nworks over and over again, and you have been curious about me, and you\nthink you have seen me.  Now, as a safe rule, you never have seen me, and\nyou never do see me, and you never will see me.  I think that's plainly\nput--and it's what knocks me over.\n\nIf there's a blighted public character going, I am the party.\n\nIt has been remarked by a certain (or an uncertain,) philosopher, that\nthe world knows nothing of its greatest men.  He might have put it\nplainer if he had thrown his eye in my direction.  He might have put it,\nthat while the world knows something of them that apparently go in and\nwin, it knows nothing of them that really go in and don't win.  There it\nis again in another form--and that's what knocks me over.\n\nNot that it's only myself that suffers from injustice, but that I am more\nalive to my own injuries than to any other man's.  Being, as I have\nmentioned, in the Fine-Art line, and not the Philanthropic line, I openly\nadmit it.  As to company in injury, I have company enough.  Who are you\npassing every day at your Competitive Excruciations?  The fortunate\ncandidates whose heads and livers you have turned upside down for life?\nNot you.  You are really passing the Crammers and Coaches.  If your\nprinciple is right, why don't you turn out to-morrow morning with the\nkeys of your cities on velvet cushions, your musicians playing, and your\nflags flying, and read addresses to the Crammers and Coaches on your\nbended knees, beseeching them to come out and govern you?  Then, again,\nas to your public business of all sorts, your Financial statements and\nyour Budgets; the Public knows much, truly, about the real doers of all\nthat!  Your Nobles and Right Honourables are first-rate men?  Yes, and so\nis a goose a first-rate bird.  But I'll tell you this about the\ngoose;--you'll find his natural flavour disappointing, without stuffing.\n\nPerhaps I am soured by not being popular?  But suppose I AM popular.\nSuppose my works never fail to attract.  Suppose that, whether they are\nexhibited by natural light or by artificial, they invariably draw the\npublic.  Then no doubt they are preserved in some Collection?  No, they\nare not; they are not preserved in any Collection.  Copyright?  No, nor\nyet copyright.  Anyhow they must be somewhere?  Wrong again, for they are\noften nowhere.\n\nSays you, \"At all events, you are in a moody state of mind, my friend.\"\nMy answer is, I have described myself as a public character with a blight\nupon him--which fully accounts for the curdling of the milk in _that_\ncocoa-nut.\n\nThose that are acquainted with London are aware of a locality on the\nSurrey side of the river Thames, called the Obelisk, or, more generally,\nthe Obstacle.  Those that are not acquainted with London will also be\naware of it, now that I have named it.  My lodging is not far from that\nlocality.  I am a young man of that easy disposition, that I lie abed\ntill it's absolutely necessary to get up and earn something, and then I\nlie abed again till I have spent it.\n\nIt was on an occasion when I had had to turn to with a view to victuals,\nthat I found myself walking along the Waterloo Road, one evening after\ndark, accompanied by an acquaintance and fellow-lodger in the gas-fitting\nway of life.  He is very good company, having worked at the theatres,\nand, indeed, he has a theatrical turn himself, and wishes to be brought\nout in the character of Othello; but whether on account of his regular\nwork always blacking his face and hands more or less, I cannot say.\n\n\"Tom,\" he says, \"what a mystery hangs over you!\"\n\n\"Yes, Mr. Click\"--the rest of the house generally give him his name, as\nbeing first, front, carpeted all over, his own furniture, and if not\nmahogany, an out-and-out imitation--\"yes, Mr. Click, a mystery does hang\nover me.\"\n\n\"Makes you low, you see, don't it?\" says he, eyeing me sideways.\n\n\"Why, yes, Mr. Click, there are circumstances connected with it that\nhave,\" I yielded to a sigh, \"a lowering effect.\"\n\n\"Gives you a touch of the misanthrope too, don't it?\" says he.  \"Well,\nI'll tell you what.  If I was you, I'd shake it of.\"\n\n\"If I was you, I would, Mr. Click; but, if you was me, you wouldn't.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" says he, \"there's something in that.\"\n\nWhen we had walked a little further, he took it up again by touching me\non the chest.\n\n\"You see, Tom, it seems to me as if, in the words of the poet who wrote\nthe domestic drama of The Stranger, you had a silent sorrow there.\"\n\n\"I have, Mr. Click.\"\n\n\"I hope, Tom,\" lowering his voice in a friendly way, \"it isn't coining,\nor smashing?\"\n\n\"No, Mr. Click.  Don't be uneasy.\"\n\n\"Nor yet forg--\"  Mr. Click checked himself, and added, \"counterfeiting\nanything, for instance?\"\n\n\"No, Mr. Click.  I am lawfully in the Art line--Fine-Art line--but I can\nsay no more.\"\n\n\"Ah!  Under a species of star?  A kind of malignant spell?  A sort of a\ngloomy destiny?  A cankerworm pegging away at your vitals in secret, as\nwell as I make it out?\" said Mr. Click, eyeing me with some admiration.\n\nI told Mr. Click that was about it, if we came to particulars; and I\nthought he appeared rather proud of me.\n\nOur conversation had brought us to a crowd of people, the greater part\nstruggling for a front place from which to see something on the pavement,\nwhich proved to be various designs executed in coloured chalks on the\npavement stones, lighted by two candles stuck in mud sconces.  The\nsubjects consisted of a fine fresh salmon's head and shoulders, supposed\nto have been recently sent home from the fishmonger's; a moonlight night\nat sea (in a circle); dead game; scroll-work; the head of a hoary hermit\nengaged in devout contemplation; the head of a pointer smoking a pipe;\nand a cherubim, his flesh creased as in infancy, going on a horizontal\nerrand against the wind.  All these subjects appeared to me to be\nexquisitely done.\n\nOn his knees on one side of this gallery, a shabby person of modest\nappearance who shivered dreadfully (though it wasn't at all cold), was\nengaged in blowing the chalk-dust off the moon, toning the outline of the\nback of the hermit's head with a bit of leather, and fattening the down-\nstroke of a letter or two in the writing.  I have forgotten to mention\nthat writing formed a part of the composition, and that it also--as it\nappeared to me--was exquisitely done.  It ran as follows, in fine round\ncharacters: \"An honest man is the noblest work of God.  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9\n0.  Pounds s. d.  Employment in an office is humbly requested.  Honour\nthe Queen.  Hunger is a 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 sharp thorn.  Chip chop,\ncherry chop, fol de rol de ri do.  Astronomy and mathematics.  I do this\nto support my family.\"\n\nMurmurs of admiration at the exceeding beauty of this performance went\nabout among the crowd.  The artist, having finished his touching (and\nhaving spoilt those places), took his seat on the pavement, with his\nknees crouched up very nigh his chin; and halfpence began to rattle in.\n\n\"A pity to see a man of that talent brought so low; ain't it?\" said one\nof the crowd to me.\n\n\"What he might have done in the coach-painting, or house-decorating!\"\nsaid another man, who took up the first speaker because I did not.\n\n\"Why, he writes--alone--like the Lord Chancellor!\" said another man.\n\n\"Better,\" said another.  \"I know his writing.  He couldn't support his\nfamily this way.\"\n\nThen, a woman noticed the natural fluffiness of the hermit's hair, and\nanother woman, her friend, mentioned of the salmon's gills that you could\nalmost see him gasp.  Then, an elderly country gentleman stepped forward\nand asked the modest man how he executed his work?  And the modest man\ntook some scraps of brown paper with colours in 'em out of his pockets,\nand showed them.  Then a fair-complexioned donkey, with sandy hair and\nspectacles, asked if the hermit was a portrait?  To which the modest man,\ncasting a sorrowful glance upon it, replied that it was, to a certain\nextent, a recollection of his father.  This caused a boy to yelp out, \"Is\nthe Pinter a smoking the pipe your mother?\" who was immediately shoved\nout of view by a sympathetic carpenter with his basket of tools at his\nback.\n\nAt every fresh question or remark the crowd leaned forward more eagerly,\nand dropped the halfpence more freely, and the modest man gathered them\nup more meekly.  At last, another elderly gentleman came to the front,\nand gave the artist his card, to come to his office to-morrow, and get\nsome copying to do.  The card was accompanied by sixpence, and the artist\nwas profoundly grateful, and, before he put the card in his hat, read it\nseveral times by the light of his candles to fix the address well in his\nmind, in case he should lose it.  The crowd was deeply interested by this\nlast incident, and a man in the second row with a gruff voice growled to\nthe artist, \"You've got a chance in life now, ain't you?\"  The artist\nanswered (sniffing in a very low-spirited way, however), \"I'm thankful to\nhope so.\"  Upon which there was a general chorus of \"You are all right,\"\nand the halfpence slackened very decidedly.\n\nI felt myself pulled away by the arm, and Mr. Click and I stood alone at\nthe corner of the next crossing.\n\n\"Why, Tom,\" said Mr. Click, \"what a horrid expression of face you've\ngot!\"\n\n\"Have I?\" says I.\n\n\"Have you?\" says Mr. Click.  \"Why, you looked as if you would have his\nblood.\"\n\n\"Whose blood?\"\n\n\"The artist's.\"\n\n\"The artist's?\" I repeated.  And I laughed, frantically, wildly,\ngloomily, incoherently, disagreeably.  I am sensible that I did.  I know\nI did.\n\nMr. Click stared at me in a scared sort of a way, but said nothing until\nwe had walked a street's length.  He then stopped short, and said, with\nexcitement on the part of his forefinger:\n\n\"Thomas, I find it necessary to be plain with you.  I don't like the\nenvious man.  I have identified the cankerworm that's pegging away at\n_your_ vitals, and it's envy, Thomas.\"\n\n\"Is it?\" says I.\n\n\"Yes, it is,\" says be.  \"Thomas, beware of envy.  It is the green-eyed\nmonster which never did and never will improve each shining hour, but\nquite the reverse.  I dread the envious man, Thomas.  I confess that I am\nafraid of the envious man, when he is so envious as you are.  Whilst you\ncontemplated the works of a gifted rival, and whilst you heard that\nrival's praises, and especially whilst you met his humble glance as he\nput that card away, your countenance was so malevolent as to be terrific.\nThomas, I have heard of the envy of them that follows the Fine-Art line,\nbut I never believed it could be what yours is.  I wish you well, but I\ntake my leave of you.  And if you should ever got into trouble through\nknifeing--or say, garotting--a brother artist, as I believe you will,\ndon't call me to character, Thomas, or I shall be forced to injure your\ncase.\"\n\nMr. Click parted from me with those words, and we broke off our\nacquaintance.\n\nI became enamoured.  Her name was Henrietta.  Contending with my easy\ndisposition, I frequently got up to go after her.  She also dwelt in the\nneighbourhood of the Obstacle, and I did fondly hope that no other would\ninterpose in the way of our union.\n\nTo say that Henrietta was volatile is but to say that she was woman.  To\nsay that she was in the bonnet-trimming is feebly to express the taste\nwhich reigned predominant in her own.\n\nShe consented to walk with me.  Let me do her the justice to say that she\ndid so upon trial.  \"I am not,\" said Henrietta, \"as yet prepared to\nregard you, Thomas, in any other light than as a friend; but as a friend\nI am willing to walk with you, on the understanding that softer\nsentiments may flow.\"\n\nWe walked.\n\nUnder the influence of Henrietta's beguilements, I now got out of bed\ndaily.  I pursued my calling with an industry before unknown, and it\ncannot fail to have been observed at that period, by those most familiar\nwith the streets of London, that there was a larger supply.  But hold!\nThe time is not yet come!\n\nOne evening in October I was walking with Henrietta, enjoying the cool\nbreezes wafted over Vauxhall Bridge.  After several slow turns, Henrietta\ngaped frequently (so inseparable from woman is the love of excitement),\nand said, \"Let's go home by Grosvenor Place, Piccadilly, and\nWaterloo\"--localities, I may state for the information of the stranger\nand the foreigner, well known in London, and the last a Bridge.\n\n\"No.  Not by Piccadilly, Henrietta,\" said I.\n\n\"And why not Piccadilly, for goodness' sake?\" said Henrietta.\n\nCould I tell her?  Could I confess to the gloomy presentiment that\novershadowed me?  Could I make myself intelligible to her?  No.\n\n\"I don't like Piccadilly, Henrietta.\"\n\n\"But I do,\" said she.  \"It's dark now, and the long rows of lamps in\nPiccadilly after dark are beautiful.  I _will_ go to Piccadilly!\"\n\nOf course we went.  It was a pleasant night, and there were numbers of\npeople in the streets.  It was a brisk night, but not too cold, and not\ndamp.  Let me darkly observe, it was the best of all nights--FOR THE\nPURPOSE.\n\nAs we passed the garden wall of the Royal Palace, going up Grosvenor\nPlace, Henrietta murmured:\n\n\"I wish I was a Queen!\"\n\n\"Why so, Henrietta?\"\n\n\"I would make _you_ Something,\" said she, and crossed her two hands on my\narm, and turned away her head.\n\nJudging from this that the softer sentiments alluded to above had begun\nto flow, I adapted my conduct to that belief.  Thus happily we passed on\ninto the detested thoroughfare of Piccadilly.  On the right of that\nthoroughfare is a row of trees, the railing of the Green Park, and a fine\nbroad eligible piece of pavement.\n\n\"Oh my!\" cried Henrietta presently.  \"There's been an accident!\"\n\nI looked to the left, and said, \"Where, Henrietta?\"\n\n\"Not there, stupid!\" said she.  \"Over by the Park railings.  Where the\ncrowd is.  Oh no, it's not an accident, it's something else to look at!\nWhat's them lights?\"\n\nShe referred to two lights twinkling low amongst the legs of the\nassemblage: two candles on the pavement.\n\n\"Oh, do come along!\" cried Henrietta, skipping across the road with me.  I\nhung back, but in vain.  \"Do let's look!\"\n\nAgain, designs upon the pavement.  Centre compartment, Mount Vesuvius\ngoing it (in a circle), supported by four oval compartments, severally\nrepresenting a ship in heavy weather, a shoulder of mutton attended by\ntwo cucumbers, a golden harvest with distant cottage of proprietor, and a\nknife and fork after nature; above the centre compartment a bunch of\ngrapes, and over the whole a rainbow.  The whole, as it appeared to me,\nexquisitely done.\n\nThe person in attendance on these works of art was in all respects,\nshabbiness excepted, unlike the former personage.  His whole appearance\nand manner denoted briskness.  Though threadbare, he expressed to the\ncrowd that poverty had not subdued his spirit, or tinged with any sense\nof shame this honest effort to turn his talents to some account.  The\nwriting which formed a part of his composition was conceived in a\nsimilarly cheerful tone.  It breathed the following sentiments: \"The\nwriter is poor, but not despondent.  To a British 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0\nPublic he Pounds s. d. appeals.  Honour to our brave Army!  And also 0 9\n8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 to our gallant Navy.  BRITONS STRIKE the A B C D E F G\nwriter in common chalks would be grateful for any suitable employment\nHOME!  HURRAH!\"  The whole of this writing appeared to me to be\nexquisitely done.\n\nBut this man, in one respect like the last, though seemingly hard at it\nwith a great show of brown paper and rubbers, was only really fattening\nthe down-stroke of a letter here and there, or blowing the loose chalk\noff the rainbow, or toning the outside edge of the shoulder of mutton.\nThough he did this with the greatest confidence, he did it (as it struck\nme) in so ignorant a manner, and so spoilt everything he touched, that\nwhen he began upon the purple smoke from the chimney of the distant\ncottage of the proprietor of the golden harvest (which smoke was\nbeautifully soft), I found myself saying aloud, without considering of\nit:\n\n\"Let that alone, will you?\"\n\n\"Halloa!\" said the man next me in the crowd, jerking me roughly from him\nwith his elbow, \"why didn't you send a telegram?  If we had known you was\ncoming, we'd have provided something better for you.  You understand the\nman's work better than he does himself, don't you?  Have you made your\nwill?  You're too clever to live long.\"\n\n\"Don't be hard upon the gentleman, sir,\" said the person in attendance on\nthe works of art, with a twinkle in his eye as he looked at me; \"he may\nchance to be an artist himself.  If so, sir, he will have a\nfellow-feeling with me, sir, when I\"--he adapted his action to his words\nas he went on, and gave a smart slap of his hands between each touch,\nworking himself all the time about and about the composition--\"when I\nlighten the bloom of my grapes--shade off the orange in my rainbow--dot\nthe i of my Britons--throw a yellow light into my cow-cum-_ber_--insinuate\nanother morsel of fat into my shoulder of mutton--dart another zigzag\nflash of lightning at my ship in distress!\"\n\nHe seemed to do this so neatly, and was so nimble about it, that the\nhalfpence came flying in.\n\n\"Thanks, generous public, thanks!\" said the professor.  \"You will\nstimulate me to further exertions.  My name will be found in the list of\nBritish Painters yet.  I shall do better than this, with encouragement.  I\nshall indeed.\"\n\n\"You never can do better than that bunch of grapes,\" said Henrietta.  \"Oh,\nThomas, them grapes!\"\n\n\"Not better than _that_, lady?  I hope for the time when I shall paint\nanything but your own bright eyes and lips equal to life.\"\n\n\"(Thomas, did you ever?)  But it must take a long time, sir,\" said\nHenrietta, blushing, \"to paint equal to that.\"\n\n\"I was prenticed to it, miss,\" said the young man, smartly touching up\nthe composition--\"prenticed to it in the caves of Spain and Portingale,\never so long and two year over.\"\n\nThere was a laugh from the crowd; and a new man who had worked himself in\nnext me, said, \"He's a smart chap, too; ain't he?\"\n\n\"And what a eye!\" exclaimed Henrietta softly.\n\n\"Ah!  He need have a eye,\" said the man.\n\n\"Ah!  He just need,\" was murmured among the crowd.\n\n\"He couldn't come that 'ere burning mountain without a eye,\" said the\nman.  He had got himself accepted as an authority, somehow, and everybody\nlooked at his finger as it pointed out Vesuvius.  \"To come that effect in\na general illumination would require a eye; but to come it with two\ndips--why, it's enough to blind him!\"\n\nThat impostor, pretending not to have heard what was said, now winked to\nany extent with both eyes at once, as if the strain upon his sight was\ntoo much, and threw back his long hair--it was very long--as if to cool\nhis fevered brow.  I was watching him doing it, when Henrietta suddenly\nwhispered, \"Oh, Thomas, how horrid you look!\" and pulled me out by the\narm.\n\nRemembering Mr. Click's words, I was confused when I retorted, \"What do\nyou mean by horrid?\"\n\n\"Oh gracious!  Why, you looked,\" said Henrietta, \"as if you would have\nhis blood.\"\n\nI was going to answer, \"So I would, for twopence--from his nose,\" when I\nchecked myself and remained silent.\n\nWe returned home in silence.  Every step of the way, the softer\nsentiments that had flowed, ebbed twenty mile an hour.  Adapting my\nconduct to the ebbing, as I had done to the flowing, I let my arm drop\nlimp, so as she could scarcely keep hold of it, and I wished her such a\ncold good-night at parting, that I keep within the bounds of truth when I\ncharacterise it as a Rasper.\n\nIn the course of the next day I received the following document:\n\n   \"Henrietta informs Thomas that my eyes are open to you.  I must ever\n   wish you well, but walking and us is separated by an unfarmable abyss.\n   One so malignant to superiority--Oh that look at him!--can never never\n   conduct\n\n   HENRIETTA\n\n   P.S.--To the altar.\"\n\nYielding to the easiness of my disposition, I went to bed for a week,\nafter receiving this letter.  During the whole of such time, London was\nbereft of the usual fruits of my labour.  When I resumed it, I found that\nHenrietta was married to the artist of Piccadilly.\n\nDid I say to the artist?  What fell words were those, expressive of what\na galling hollowness, of what a bitter mockery!  I--I--I--am the artist.\nI was the real artist of Piccadilly, I was the real artist of the\nWaterloo Road, I am the only artist of all those pavement-subjects which\ndaily and nightly arouse your admiration.  I do 'em, and I let 'em out.\nThe man you behold with the papers of chalks and the rubbers, touching up\nthe down-strokes of the writing and shading off the salmon, the man you\ngive the credit to, the man you give the money to, hires--yes! and I live\nto tell it!--hires those works of art of me, and brings nothing to 'em\nbut the candles.\n\nSuch is genius in a commercial country.  I am not up to the shivering, I\nam not up to the liveliness, I am not up to the wanting-employment-in-an-\noffice move; I am only up to originating and executing the work.  In\nconsequence of which you never see me; you think you see me when you see\nsomebody else, and that somebody else is a mere Commercial character.  The\none seen by self and Mr. Click in the Waterloo Road can only write a\nsingle word, and that I taught him, and it's MULTIPLICATION--which you\nmay see him execute upside down, because he can't do it the natural way.\nThe one seen by self and Henrietta by the Green Park railings can just\nsmear into existence the two ends of a rainbow, with his cuff and a\nrubber--if very hard put upon making a show--but he could no more come\nthe arch of the rainbow, to save his life, than he could come the\nmoonlight, fish, volcano, shipwreck, mutton, hermit, or any of my most\ncelebrated effects.\n\nTo conclude as I began: if there's a blighted public character going, I\nam the party.  And often as you have seen, do see, and will see, my\nWorks, it's fifty thousand to one if you'll ever see me, unless, when the\ncandles are burnt down and the Commercial character is gone, you should\nhappen to notice a neglected young man perseveringly rubbing out the last\ntraces of the pictures, so that nobody can renew the same.  That's me.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV--HIS WONDERFUL END\n\n\nIt will have been, ere now, perceived that I sold the foregoing writings.\nFrom the fact of their being printed in these pages, the inference will,\nere now, have been drawn by the reader (may I add, the gentle reader?)\nthat I sold them to One who never yet--{2}\n\nHaving parted with the writings on most satisfactory terms,--for, in\nopening negotiations with the present Journal, was I not placing myself\nin the hands of One of whom it may be said, in the words of Another,\n{2,}--resumed my usual functions.  But I too soon discovered that peace\nof mind had fled from a brow which, up to that time, Time had merely took\nthe hair off, leaving an unruffled expanse within.\n\nIt were superfluous to veil it,--the brow to which I allude is my own.\n\nYes, over that brow uneasiness gathered like the sable wing of the fabled\nbird, as--as no doubt will be easily identified by all right-minded\nindividuals.  If not, I am unable, on the spur of the moment, to enter\ninto particulars of him.  The reflection that the writings must now\ninevitably get into print, and that He might yet live and meet with them,\nsat like the Hag of Night upon my jaded form.  The elasticity of my\nspirits departed.  Fruitless was the Bottle, whether Wine or Medicine.  I\nhad recourse to both, and the effect of both upon my system was\nwitheringly lowering.\n\nIn this state of depression, into which I subsided when I first began to\nrevolve what could I ever say if He--the unknown--was to appear in the\nCoffee-room and demand reparation, I one forenoon in this last November\nreceived a turn that appeared to be given me by the finger of Fate and\nConscience, hand in hand.  I was alone in the Coffee-room, and had just\npoked the fire into a blaze, and was standing with my back to it, trying\nwhether heat would penetrate with soothing influence to the Voice within,\nwhen a young man in a cap, of an intelligent countenance, though\nrequiring his hair cut, stood before me.\n\n\"Mr. Christopher, the Head Waiter?\"\n\n\"The same.\"\n\nThe young man shook his hair out of his vision,--which it impeded,--to a\npacket from his breast, and handing it over to me, said, with his eye (or\ndid I dream?) fixed with a lambent meaning on me, \"THE PROOFS.\"\n\nAlthough I smelt my coat-tails singeing at the fire, I had not the power\nto withdraw them.  The young man put the packet in my faltering grasp,\nand repeated,--let me do him the justice to add, with civility:\n\n\"THE PROOFS.  A. Y. R.\"\n\nWith those words he departed.\n\nA. Y. R.?  And You Remember.  Was that his meaning?  At Your Risk.  Were\nthe letters short for _that_ reminder?  Anticipate Your Retribution.  Did\nthey stand for _that_ warning?  Out-dacious Youth Repent?  But no; for\nthat, a O was happily wanting, and the vowel here was a A.\n\nI opened the packet, and found that its contents were the foregoing\nwritings printed just as the reader (may I add the discerning reader?)\nperuses them.  In vain was the reassuring whisper,--A.Y.R., All the Year\nRound,--it could not cancel the Proofs.  Too appropriate name.  The\nProofs of my having sold the Writings.\n\nMy wretchedness daily increased.  I had not thought of the risk I ran,\nand the defying publicity I put my head into, until all was done, and all\nwas in print.  Give up the money to be off the bargain and prevent the\npublication, I could not.  My family was down in the world, Christmas was\ncoming on, a brother in the hospital and a sister in the rheumatics could\nnot be entirely neglected.  And it was not only ins in the family that\nhad told on the resources of one unaided Waitering; outs were not\nwanting.  A brother out of a situation, and another brother out of money\nto meet an acceptance, and another brother out of his mind, and another\nbrother out at New York (not the same, though it might appear so), had\nreally and truly brought me to a stand till I could turn myself round.  I\ngot worse and worse in my meditations, constantly reflecting \"The\nProofs,\" and reflecting that when Christmas drew nearer, and the Proofs\nwere published, there could be no safety from hour to hour but that He\nmight confront me in the Coffee-room, and in the face of day and his\ncountry demand his rights.\n\nThe impressive and unlooked-for catastrophe towards which I dimly pointed\nthe reader (shall I add, the highly intellectual reader?) in my first\nremarks now rapidly approaches.\n\nIt was November still, but the last echoes of the Guy Foxes had long\nceased to reverberate.  We was slack,--several joints under our average\nmark, and wine, of course, proportionate.  So slack had we become at\nlast, that Beds Nos. 26, 27, 28, and 31, having took their six o'clock\ndinners, and dozed over their respective pints, had drove away in their\nrespective Hansoms for their respective Night Mail-trains and left us\nempty.\n\nI had took the evening paper to No. 6 table,--which is warm and most to\nbe preferred,--and, lost in the all-absorbing topics of the day, had\ndropped into a slumber.  I was recalled to consciousness by the\nwell-known intimation, \"Waiter!\" and replying, \"Sir!\" found a gentleman\nstanding at No. 4 table.  The reader (shall I add, the observant reader?)\nwill please to notice the locality of the gentleman,--_at No. 4 table_.\n\nHe had one of the newfangled uncollapsable bags in his hand (which I am\nagainst, for I don't see why you shouldn't collapse, while you are about\nit, as your fathers collapsed before you), and he said:\n\n\"I want to dine, waiter.  I shall sleep here to-night.\"\n\n\"Very good, sir.  What will you take for dinner, sir?\"\n\n\"Soup, bit of codfish, oyster sauce, and the joint.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir.\"\n\nI rang the chambermaid's bell; and Mrs. Pratchett marched in, according\nto custom, demurely carrying a lighted flat candle before her, as if she\nwas one of a long public procession, all the other members of which was\ninvisible.\n\nIn the meanwhile the gentleman had gone up to the mantelpiece, right in\nfront of the fire, and had laid his forehead against the mantelpiece\n(which it is a low one, and brought him into the attitude of leap-frog),\nand had heaved a tremenjous sigh.  His hair was long and lightish; and\nwhen he laid his forehead against the mantelpiece, his hair all fell in a\ndusty fluff together over his eyes; and when he now turned round and\nlifted up his head again, it all fell in a dusty fluff together over his\nears.  This give him a wild appearance, similar to a blasted heath.\n\n\"O!  The chambermaid.  Ah!\"  He was turning something in his mind.  \"To\nbe sure.  Yes.  I won't go up-stairs now, if you will take my bag.  It\nwill be enough for the present to know my number.--Can you give me 24 B?\"\n\n(O Conscience, what a Adder art thou!)\n\nMrs. Pratchett allotted him the room, and took his bag to it.  He then\nwent back before the fire, and fell a biting his nails.\n\n\"Waiter!\" biting between the words, \"give me,\" bite, \"pen and paper; and\nin five minutes,\" bite, \"let me have, if you please,\" bite, \"a\", bite,\n\"Messenger.\"\n\nUnmindful of his waning soup, he wrote and sent off six notes before he\ntouched his dinner.  Three were City; three West-End.  The City letters\nwere to Cornhill, Ludgate-hill, and Farringdon Street.  The West-End\nletters were to Great Marlborough Street, New Burlington Street, and\nPiccadilly.  Everybody was systematically denied at every one of the six\nplaces, and there was not a vestige of any answer.  Our light porter\nwhispered to me, when he came back with that report, \"All Booksellers.\"\n\nBut before then he had cleared off his dinner, and his bottle of wine.  He\nnow--mark the concurrence with the document formerly given in\nfull!--knocked a plate of biscuits off the table with his agitated elber\n(but without breakage), and demanded boiling brandy-and-water.\n\nNow fully convinced that it was Himself, I perspired with the utmost\nfreedom.  When he became flushed with the heated stimulant referred to,\nhe again demanded pen and paper, and passed the succeeding two hours in\nproducing a manuscript which he put in the fire when completed.  He then\nwent up to bed, attended by Mrs. Pratchett.  Mrs. Pratchett (who was\naware of my emotions) told me, on coming down, that she had noticed his\neye rolling into every corner of the passages and staircase, as if in\nsearch of his Luggage, and that, looking back as she shut the door of 24\nB, she perceived him with his coat already thrown off immersing himself\nbodily under the bedstead, like a chimley-sweep before the application of\nmachinery.\n\nThe next day--I forbear the horrors of that night--was a very foggy day\nin our part of London, insomuch that it was necessary to light the Coffee-\nroom gas.  We was still alone, and no feverish words of mine can do\njustice to the fitfulness of his appearance as he sat at No. 4 table,\nincreased by there being something wrong with the meter.\n\nHaving again ordered his dinner, he went out, and was out for the best\npart of two hours.  Inquiring on his return whether any of the answers\nhad arrived, and receiving an unqualified negative, his instant call was\nfor mulligatawny, the cayenne pepper, and orange brandy.\n\nFeeling that the mortal struggle was now at hand, I also felt that I must\nbe equal to him, and with that view resolved that whatever he took I\nwould take.  Behind my partition, but keeping my eye on him over the\ncurtain, I therefore operated on Mulligatawny, Cayenne Pepper, and Orange\nBrandy.  And at a later period of the day, when he again said, \"Orange\nBrandy,\" I said so too, in a lower tone, to George, my Second Lieutenant\n(my First was absent on leave), who acts between me and the bar.\n\nThroughout that awful day he walked about the Coffee-room continually.\nOften he came close up to my partition, and then his eye rolled within,\ntoo evidently in search of any signs of his Luggage.  Half-past six came,\nand I laid his cloth.  He ordered a bottle of old Brown.  I likewise\nordered a bottle of old Brown.  He drank his.  I drank mine (as nearly as\nmy duties would permit) glass for glass against his.  He topped with\ncoffee and a small glass.  I topped with coffee and a small glass.  He\ndozed.  I dozed.  At last, \"Waiter!\"--and he ordered his bill.  The\nmoment was now at hand when we two must be locked in the deadly grapple.\n\nSwift as the arrow from the bow, I had formed my resolution; in other\nwords, I had hammered it out between nine and nine.  It was, that I would\nbe the first to open up the subject with a full acknowledgment, and would\noffer any gradual settlement within my power.  He paid his bill (doing\nwhat was right by attendance) with his eye rolling about him to the last\nfor any tokens of his Luggage.  One only time our gaze then met, with the\nlustrous fixedness (I believe I am correct in imputing that character to\nit?) of the well-known Basilisk.  The decisive moment had arrived.\n\nWith a tolerable steady hand, though with humility, I laid The Proofs\nbefore him.\n\n\"Gracious Heavens!\" he cries out, leaping up, and catching hold of his\nhair.  \"What's this?  Print!\"\n\n\"Sir,\" I replied, in a calming voice, and bending forward, \"I humbly\nacknowledge to being the unfortunate cause of it.  But I hope, sir, that\nwhen you have heard the circumstances explained, and the innocence of my\nintentions--\"\n\nTo my amazement, I was stopped short by his catching me in both his arms,\nand pressing me to his breast-bone; where I must confess to my face (and\nparticular, nose) having undergone some temporary vexation from his\nwearing his coat buttoned high up, and his buttons being uncommon hard.\n\n\"Ha, ha, ha!\" he cries, releasing me with a wild laugh, and grasping my\nhand.  \"What is your name, my Benefactor?\"\n\n\"My name, sir\" (I was crumpled, and puzzled to make him out), \"is\nChristopher; and I hope, sir, that, as such, when you've heard my ex--\"\n\n\"In print!\" he exclaims again, dashing the proofs over and over as if he\nwas bathing in them.--\"In print!!  O Christopher!  Philanthropist!\nNothing can recompense you,--but what sum of money would be acceptable to\nyou?\"\n\nI had drawn a step back from him, or I should have suffered from his\nbuttons again.\n\n\"Sir, I assure you, I have been already well paid, and--\"\n\n\"No, no, Christopher!  Don't talk like that!  What sum of money would be\nacceptable to you, Christopher?  Would you find twenty pounds acceptable,\nChristopher?\"\n\nHowever great my surprise, I naturally found words to say, \"Sir, I am not\naware that the man was ever yet born without more than the average amount\nof water on the brain as would not find twenty pounds acceptable.\nBut--extremely obliged to you, sir, I'm sure;\" for he had tumbled it out\nof his purse and crammed it in my hand in two bank-notes; \"but I could\nwish to know, sir, if not intruding, how I have merited this liberality?\"\n\n\"Know then, my Christopher,\" he says, \"that from boyhood's hour I have\nunremittingly and unavailingly endeavoured to get into print.  Know,\nChristopher, that all the Booksellers alive--and several dead--have\nrefused to put me into print.  Know, Christopher, that I have written\nunprinted Reams.  But they shall be read to you, my friend and brother.\nYou sometimes have a holiday?\"\n\nSeeing the great danger I was in, I had the presence of mind to answer,\n\"Never!\"  To make it more final, I added, \"Never!  Not from the cradle to\nthe grave.\"\n\n\"Well,\" says he, thinking no more about that, and chuckling at his proofs\nagain.  \"But I am in print!  The first flight of ambition emanating from\nmy father's lowly cot is realised at length!  The golden bow\"--he was\ngetting on,--\"struck by the magic hand, has emitted a complete and\nperfect sound!  When did this happen, my Christopher?\"\n\n\"Which happen, sir?\"\n\n\"This,\" he held it out at arms length to admire it,--\"this Per-rint.\"\n\nWhen I had given him my detailed account of it, he grasped me by the hand\nagain, and said:\n\n\"Dear Christopher, it should be gratifying to you to know that you are an\ninstrument in the hands of Destiny.  Because you _are_.\"\n\nA passing Something of a melancholy cast put it into my head to shake it,\nand to say, \"Perhaps we all are.\"\n\n\"I don't mean that,\" he answered; \"I don't take that wide range; I\nconfine myself to the special case.  Observe me well, my Christopher!\nHopeless of getting rid, through any effort of my own, of any of the\nmanuscripts among my Luggage,--all of which, send them where I would,\nwere always coming back to me,--it is now some seven years since I left\nthat Luggage here, on the desperate chance, either that the too, too\nfaithful manuscripts would come back to me no more, or that some one less\naccursed than I might give them to the world.  You follow me, my\nChristopher?\"\n\n\"Pretty well, sir.\"  I followed him so far as to judge that he had a weak\nhead, and that the Orange, the Boiling, and Old Brown combined was\nbeginning to tell.  (The Old Brown, being heady, is best adapted to\nseasoned cases.)\n\n\"Years elapsed, and those compositions slumbered in dust.  At length,\nDestiny, choosing her agent from all mankind, sent You here, Christopher,\nand lo! the Casket was burst asunder, and the Giant was free!\"\n\nHe made hay of his hair after he said this, and he stood a-tiptoe.\n\n\"But,\" he reminded himself in a state of excitement, \"we must sit up all\nnight, my Christopher.  I must correct these Proofs for the press.  Fill\nall the inkstands, and bring me several new pens.\"\n\nHe smeared himself and he smeared the Proofs, the night through, to that\ndegree that when Sol gave him warning to depart (in a four-wheeler), few\ncould have said which was them, and which was him, and which was blots.\nHis last instructions was, that I should instantly run and take his\ncorrections to the office of the present Journal.  I did so.  They most\nlikely will not appear in print, for I noticed a message being brought\nround from Beauford Printing House, while I was a throwing this\nconcluding statement on paper, that the ole resources of that\nestablishment was unable to make out what they meant.  Upon which a\ncertain gentleman in company, as I will not more particularly name,--but\nof whom it will be sufficient to remark, standing on the broad basis of a\nwave-girt isle, that whether we regard him in the light of,--{3} laughed,\nand put the corrections in the fire.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n\n{1}  Its name and address at length, with other full particulars, all\neditorially struck out.\n\n{2}  The remainder of this complimentary sentence editorially struck out.\n\n{3}  The remainder of this complimentary parenthesis editorially struck\nout.\n\n\n"}
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{"1415":"\n\n\n\n\nTranscribed from the 1894 Chapman and Hall \"Christmas Stories\" edition by\nDavid Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk\n\n\n\n\n\nDOCTOR MARIGOLD\n\n\nI am a Cheap Jack, and my own father's name was Willum Marigold.  It was\nin his lifetime supposed by some that his name was William, but my own\nfather always consistently said, No, it was Willum.  On which point I\ncontent myself with looking at the argument this way: If a man is not\nallowed to know his own name in a free country, how much is he allowed to\nknow in a land of slavery?  As to looking at the argument through the\nmedium of the Register, Willum Marigold come into the world before\nRegisters come up much,--and went out of it too.  They wouldn't have been\ngreatly in his line neither, if they had chanced to come up before him.\n\nI was born on the Queen's highway, but it was the King's at that time.  A\ndoctor was fetched to my own mother by my own father, when it took place\non a common; and in consequence of his being a very kind gentleman, and\naccepting no fee but a tea-tray, I was named Doctor, out of gratitude and\ncompliment to him.  There you have me.  Doctor Marigold.\n\nI am at present a middle-aged man of a broadish build, in cords,\nleggings, and a sleeved waistcoat the strings of which is always gone\nbehind.  Repair them how you will, they go like fiddle-strings.  You have\nbeen to the theatre, and you have seen one of the wiolin-players screw up\nhis wiolin, after listening to it as if it had been whispering the secret\nto him that it feared it was out of order, and then you have heard it\nsnap.  That's as exactly similar to my waistcoat as a waistcoat and a\nwiolin can be like one another.\n\nI am partial to a white hat, and I like a shawl round my neck wore loose\nand easy.  Sitting down is my favourite posture.  If I have a taste in\npoint of personal jewelry, it is mother-of-pearl buttons.  There you have\nme again, as large as life.\n\nThe doctor having accepted a tea-tray, you'll guess that my father was a\nCheap Jack before me.  You are right.  He was.  It was a pretty tray.  It\nrepresented a large lady going along a serpentining up-hill gravel-walk,\nto attend a little church.  Two swans had likewise come astray with the\nsame intentions.  When I call her a large lady, I don't mean in point of\nbreadth, for there she fell below my views, but she more than made it up\nin heighth; her heighth and slimness was--in short THE heighth of both.\n\nI often saw that tray, after I was the innocently smiling cause (or more\nlikely screeching one) of the doctor's standing it up on a table against\nthe wall in his consulting-room.  Whenever my own father and mother were\nin that part of the country, I used to put my head (I have heard my own\nmother say it was flaxen curls at that time, though you wouldn't know an\nold hearth-broom from it now till you come to the handle, and found it\nwasn't me) in at the doctor's door, and the doctor was always glad to see\nme, and said, \"Aha, my brother practitioner!  Come in, little M.D.  How\nare your inclinations as to sixpence?\"\n\nYou can't go on for ever, you'll find, nor yet could my father nor yet my\nmother.  If you don't go off as a whole when you are about due, you're\nliable to go off in part, and two to one your head's the part.  Gradually\nmy father went off his, and my mother went off hers.  It was in a\nharmless way, but it put out the family where I boarded them.  The old\ncouple, though retired, got to be wholly and solely devoted to the Cheap\nJack business, and were always selling the family off.  Whenever the\ncloth was laid for dinner, my father began rattling the plates and\ndishes, as we do in our line when we put up crockery for a bid, only he\nhad lost the trick of it, and mostly let 'em drop and broke 'em.  As the\nold lady had been used to sit in the cart, and hand the articles out one\nby one to the old gentleman on the footboard to sell, just in the same\nway she handed him every item of the family's property, and they disposed\nof it in their own imaginations from morning to night.  At last the old\ngentleman, lying bedridden in the same room with the old lady, cries out\nin the old patter, fluent, after having been silent for two days and\nnights: \"Now here, my jolly companions every one,--which the Nightingale\nclub in a village was held, At the sign of the Cabbage and Shears, Where\nthe singers no doubt would have greatly excelled, But for want of taste,\nvoices and ears,--now, here, my jolly companions, every one, is a working\nmodel of a used-up old Cheap Jack, without a tooth in his head, and with\na pain in every bone: so like life that it would be just as good if it\nwasn't better, just as bad if it wasn't worse, and just as new if it\nwasn't worn out.  Bid for the working model of the old Cheap Jack, who\nhas drunk more gunpowder-tea with the ladies in his time than would blow\nthe lid off a washerwoman's copper, and carry it as many thousands of\nmiles higher than the moon as naught nix naught, divided by the national\ndebt, carry nothing to the poor-rates, three under, and two over.  Now,\nmy hearts of oak and men of straw, what do you say for the lot?  Two\nshillings, a shilling, tenpence, eightpence, sixpence, fourpence.\nTwopence?  Who said twopence?  The gentleman in the scarecrow's hat?  I\nam ashamed of the gentleman in the scarecrow's hat.  I really am ashamed\nof him for his want of public spirit.  Now I'll tell you what I'll do\nwith you.  Come!  I'll throw you in a working model of a old woman that\nwas married to the old Cheap Jack so long ago that upon my word and\nhonour it took place in Noah's Ark, before the Unicorn could get in to\nforbid the banns by blowing a tune upon his horn.  There now!  Come!  What\ndo you say for both?  I'll tell you what I'll do with you.  I don't bear\nyou malice for being so backward.  Here!  If you make me a bid that'll\nonly reflect a little credit on your town, I'll throw you in a warming-\npan for nothing, and lend you a toasting-fork for life.  Now come; what\ndo you say after that splendid offer?  Say two pound, say thirty\nshillings, say a pound, say ten shillings, say five, say two and six.  You\ndon't say even two and six?  You say two and three?  No.  You shan't have\nthe lot for two and three.  I'd sooner give it to you, if you was good-\nlooking enough.  Here!  Missis!  Chuck the old man and woman into the\ncart, put the horse to, and drive 'em away and bury 'em!\"  Such were the\nlast words of Willum Marigold, my own father, and they were carried out,\nby him and by his wife, my own mother, on one and the same day, as I\nought to know, having followed as mourner.\n\nMy father had been a lovely one in his time at the Cheap Jack work, as\nhis dying observations went to prove.  But I top him.  I don't say it\nbecause it's myself, but because it has been universally acknowledged by\nall that has had the means of comparison.  I have worked at it.  I have\nmeasured myself against other public speakers,--Members of Parliament,\nPlatforms, Pulpits, Counsel learned in the law,--and where I have found\n'em good, I have took a bit of imagination from 'em, and where I have\nfound 'em bad, I have let 'em alone.  Now I'll tell you what.  I mean to\ngo down into my grave declaring that of all the callings ill used in\nGreat Britain, the Cheap Jack calling is the worst used.  Why ain't we a\nprofession?  Why ain't we endowed with privileges?  Why are we forced to\ntake out a hawker's license, when no such thing is expected of the\npolitical hawkers?  Where's the difference betwixt us?  Except that we\nare Cheap Jacks and they are Dear Jacks, _I_ don't see any difference but\nwhat's in our favour.\n\nFor look here!  Say it's election time.  I am on the footboard of my cart\nin the market-place, on a Saturday night.  I put up a general\nmiscellaneous lot.  I say: \"Now here, my free and independent woters, I'm\na going to give you such a chance as you never had in all your born days,\nnor yet the days preceding.  Now I'll show you what I am a going to do\nwith you.  Here's a pair of razors that'll shave you closer than the\nBoard of Guardians; here's a flat-iron worth its weight in gold; here's a\nfrying-pan artificially flavoured with essence of beefsteaks to that\ndegree that you've only got for the rest of your lives to fry bread and\ndripping in it and there you are replete with animal food; here's a\ngenuine chronometer watch in such a solid silver case that you may knock\nat the door with it when you come home late from a social meeting, and\nrouse your wife and family, and save up your knocker for the postman; and\nhere's half-a-dozen dinner plates that you may play the cymbals with to\ncharm baby when it's fractious.  Stop!  I'll throw in another article,\nand I'll give you that, and it's a rolling-pin; and if the baby can only\nget it well into its mouth when its teeth is coming and rub the gums once\nwith it, they'll come through double, in a fit of laughter equal to being\ntickled.  Stop again!  I'll throw you in another article, because I don't\nlike the looks of you, for you haven't the appearance of buyers unless I\nlose by you, and because I'd rather lose than not take money to-night,\nand that's a looking-glass in which you may see how ugly you look when\nyou don't bid.  What do you say now?  Come!  Do you say a pound?  Not\nyou, for you haven't got it.  Do you say ten shillings?  Not you, for you\nowe more to the tallyman.  Well then, I'll tell you what I'll do with\nyou.  I'll heap 'em all on the footboard of the cart,--there they are!\nrazors, flat watch, dinner plates, rolling-pin, and away for four\nshillings, and I'll give you sixpence for your trouble!\"  This is me, the\nCheap Jack.  But on the Monday morning, in the same market-place, comes\nthe Dear Jack on the hustings--_his_ cart--and, what does _he_ say?  \"Now\nmy free and independent woters, I am a going to give you such a chance\"\n(he begins just like me) \"as you never had in all your born days, and\nthat's the chance of sending Myself to Parliament.  Now I'll tell you\nwhat I am a going to do for you.  Here's the interests of this\nmagnificent town promoted above all the rest of the civilised and\nuncivilised earth.  Here's your railways carried, and your neighbours'\nrailways jockeyed.  Here's all your sons in the Post-office.  Here's\nBritannia smiling on you.  Here's the eyes of Europe on you.  Here's\nuniwersal prosperity for you, repletion of animal food, golden\ncornfields, gladsome homesteads, and rounds of applause from your own\nhearts, all in one lot, and that's myself.  Will you take me as I stand?\nYou won't?  Well, then, I'll tell you what I'll do with you.  Come now!\nI'll throw you in anything you ask for.  There!  Church-rates, abolition\nof more malt tax, no malt tax, universal education to the highest mark,\nor uniwersal ignorance to the lowest, total abolition of flogging in the\narmy or a dozen for every private once a month all round, Wrongs of Men\nor Rights of Women--only say which it shall be, take 'em or leave 'em,\nand I'm of your opinion altogether, and the lot's your own on your own\nterms.  There!  You won't take it yet!  Well, then, I'll tell you what\nI'll do with you.  Come!  You _are_ such free and independent woters, and\nI am so proud of you,--you _are_ such a noble and enlightened\nconstituency, and I _am_ so ambitious of the honour and dignity of being\nyour member, which is by far the highest level to which the wings of the\nhuman mind can soar,--that I'll tell you what I'll do with you.  I'll\nthrow you in all the public-houses in your magnificent town for nothing.\nWill that content you?  It won't?  You won't take the lot yet?  Well,\nthen, before I put the horse in and drive away, and make the offer to the\nnext most magnificent town that can be discovered, I'll tell you what\nI'll do.  Take the lot, and I'll drop two thousand pound in the streets\nof your magnificent town for them to pick up that can.  Not enough?  Now\nlook here.  This is the very furthest that I'm a going to.  I'll make it\ntwo thousand five hundred.  And still you won't?  Here, missis!  Put the\nhorse--no, stop half a moment, I shouldn't like to turn my back upon you\nneither for a trifle, I'll make it two thousand seven hundred and fifty\npound.  There!  Take the lot on your own terms, and I'll count out two\nthousand seven hundred and fifty pound on the footboard of the cart, to\nbe dropped in the streets of your magnificent town for them to pick up\nthat can.  What do you say?  Come now!  You won't do better, and you may\ndo worse.  You take it?  Hooray!  Sold again, and got the seat!\"\n\nThese Dear Jacks soap the people shameful, but we Cheap Jacks don't.  We\ntell 'em the truth about themselves to their faces, and scorn to court\n'em.  As to wenturesomeness in the way of puffing up the lots, the Dear\nJacks beat us hollow.  It is considered in the Cheap Jack calling, that\nbetter patter can be made out of a gun than any article we put up from\nthe cart, except a pair of spectacles.  I often hold forth about a gun\nfor a quarter of an hour, and feel as if I need never leave off.  But\nwhen I tell 'em what the gun can do, and what the gun has brought down, I\nnever go half so far as the Dear Jacks do when they make speeches in\npraise of _their_ guns--their great guns that set 'em on to do it.\nBesides, I'm in business for myself: I ain't sent down into the market-\nplace to order, as they are.  Besides, again, my guns don't know what I\nsay in their laudation, and their guns do, and the whole concern of 'em\nhave reason to be sick and ashamed all round.  These are some of my\narguments for declaring that the Cheap Jack calling is treated ill in\nGreat Britain, and for turning warm when I think of the other Jacks in\nquestion setting themselves up to pretend to look down upon it.\n\nI courted my wife from the footboard of the cart.  I did indeed.  She was\na Suffolk young woman, and it was in Ipswich market-place right opposite\nthe corn-chandler's shop.  I had noticed her up at a window last Saturday\nthat was, appreciating highly.  I had took to her, and I had said to\nmyself, \"If not already disposed of, I'll have that lot.\"  Next Saturday\nthat come, I pitched the cart on the same pitch, and I was in very high\nfeather indeed, keeping 'em laughing the whole of the time, and getting\noff the goods briskly.  At last I took out of my waistcoat-pocket a small\nlot wrapped in soft paper, and I put it this way (looking up at the\nwindow where she was).  \"Now here, my blooming English maidens, is an\narticle, the last article of the present evening's sale, which I offer to\nonly you, the lovely Suffolk Dumplings biling over with beauty, and I\nwon't take a bid of a thousand pounds for from any man alive.  Now what\nis it?  Why, I'll tell you what it is.  It's made of fine gold, and it's\nnot broke, though there's a hole in the middle of it, and it's stronger\nthan any fetter that ever was forged, though it's smaller than any finger\nin my set of ten.  Why ten?  Because, when my parents made over my\nproperty to me, I tell you true, there was twelve sheets, twelve towels,\ntwelve table-cloths, twelve knives, twelve forks, twelve tablespoons, and\ntwelve teaspoons, but my set of fingers was two short of a dozen, and\ncould never since be matched.  Now what else is it?  Come, I'll tell you.\nIt's a hoop of solid gold, wrapped in a silver curl-paper, that I myself\ntook off the shining locks of the ever beautiful old lady in Threadneedle\nStreet, London city; I wouldn't tell you so if I hadn't the paper to\nshow, or you mightn't believe it even of me.  Now what else is it?  It's\na man-trap and a handcuff, the parish stocks and a leg-lock, all in gold\nand all in one.  Now what else is it?  It's a wedding-ring.  Now I'll\ntell you what I'm a going to do with it.  I'm not a going to offer this\nlot for money; but I mean to give it to the next of you beauties that\nlaughs, and I'll pay her a visit to-morrow morning at exactly half after\nnine o'clock as the chimes go, and I'll take her out for a walk to put up\nthe banns.\"  She laughed, and got the ring handed up to her.  When I\ncalled in the morning, she says, \"O dear!  It's never you, and you never\nmean it?\"  \"It's ever me,\" says I, \"and I am ever yours, and I ever mean\nit.\"  So we got married, after being put up three times--which, by the\nbye, is quite in the Cheap Jack way again, and shows once more how the\nCheap Jack customs pervade society.\n\nShe wasn't a bad wife, but she had a temper.  If she could have parted\nwith that one article at a sacrifice, I wouldn't have swopped her away in\nexchange for any other woman in England.  Not that I ever did swop her\naway, for we lived together till she died, and that was thirteen year.\nNow, my lords and ladies and gentlefolks all, I'll let you into a secret,\nthough you won't believe it.  Thirteen year of temper in a Palace would\ntry the worst of you, but thirteen year of temper in a Cart would try the\nbest of you.  You are kept so very close to it in a cart, you see.\nThere's thousands of couples among you getting on like sweet ile upon a\nwhetstone in houses five and six pairs of stairs high, that would go to\nthe Divorce Court in a cart.  Whether the jolting makes it worse, I don't\nundertake to decide; but in a cart it does come home to you, and stick to\nyou.  Wiolence in a cart is _so_ wiolent, and aggrawation in a cart is\n_so_ aggrawating.\n\nWe might have had such a pleasant life!  A roomy cart, with the large\ngoods hung outside, and the bed slung underneath it when on the road, an\niron pot and a kettle, a fireplace for the cold weather, a chimney for\nthe smoke, a hanging-shelf and a cupboard, a dog and a horse.  What more\ndo you want?  You draw off upon a bit of turf in a green lane or by the\nroadside, you hobble your old horse and turn him grazing, you light your\nfire upon the ashes of the last visitors, you cook your stew, and you\nwouldn't call the Emperor of France your father.  But have a temper in\nthe cart, flinging language and the hardest goods in stock at you, and\nwhere are you then?  Put a name to your feelings.\n\nMy dog knew as well when she was on the turn as I did.  Before she broke\nout, he would give a howl, and bolt.  How he knew it, was a mystery to\nme; but the sure and certain knowledge of it would wake him up out of his\nsoundest sleep, and he would give a howl, and bolt.  At such times I\nwished I was him.\n\nThe worst of it was, we had a daughter born to us, and I love children\nwith all my heart.  When she was in her furies she beat the child.  This\ngot to be so shocking, as the child got to be four or five year old, that\nI have many a time gone on with my whip over my shoulder, at the old\nhorse's head, sobbing and crying worse than ever little Sophy did.  For\nhow could I prevent it?  Such a thing is not to be tried with such a\ntemper--in a cart--without coming to a fight.  It's in the natural size\nand formation of a cart to bring it to a fight.  And then the poor child\ngot worse terrified than before, as well as worse hurt generally, and her\nmother made complaints to the next people we lighted on, and the word\nwent round, \"Here's a wretch of a Cheap Jack been a beating his wife.\"\n\nLittle Sophy was such a brave child!  She grew to be quite devoted to her\npoor father, though he could do so little to help her.  She had a\nwonderful quantity of shining dark hair, all curling natural about her.\nIt is quite astonishing to me now, that I didn't go tearing mad when I\nused to see her run from her mother before the cart, and her mother catch\nher by this hair, and pull her down by it, and beat her.\n\nSuch a brave child I said she was!  Ah! with reason.\n\n\"Don't you mind next time, father dear,\" she would whisper to me, with\nher little face still flushed, and her bright eyes still wet; \"if I don't\ncry out, you may know I am not much hurt.  And even if I do cry out, it\nwill only be to get mother to let go and leave off.\"  What I have seen\nthe little spirit bear--for me--without crying out!\n\nYet in other respects her mother took great care of her.  Her clothes\nwere always clean and neat, and her mother was never tired of working at\n'em.  Such is the inconsistency in things.  Our being down in the marsh\ncountry in unhealthy weather, I consider the cause of Sophy's taking bad\nlow fever; but however she took it, once she got it she turned away from\nher mother for evermore, and nothing would persuade her to be touched by\nher mother's hand.  She would shiver and say, \"No, no, no,\" when it was\noffered at, and would hide her face on my shoulder, and hold me tighter\nround the neck.\n\nThe Cheap Jack business had been worse than ever I had known it, what\nwith one thing and what with another (and not least with railroads, which\nwill cut it all to pieces, I expect, at last), and I was run dry of\nmoney.  For which reason, one night at that period of little Sophy's\nbeing so bad, either we must have come to a dead-lock for victuals and\ndrink, or I must have pitched the cart as I did.\n\nI couldn't get the dear child to lie down or leave go of me, and indeed I\nhadn't the heart to try, so I stepped out on the footboard with her\nholding round my neck.  They all set up a laugh when they see us, and one\nchuckle-headed Joskin (that I hated for it) made the bidding, \"Tuppence\nfor her!\"\n\n\"Now, you country boobies,\" says I, feeling as if my heart was a heavy\nweight at the end of a broken sashline, \"I give you notice that I am a\ngoing to charm the money out of your pockets, and to give you so much\nmore than your money's worth that you'll only persuade yourselves to draw\nyour Saturday night's wages ever again arterwards by the hopes of meeting\nme to lay 'em out with, which you never will, and why not?  Because I've\nmade my fortunes by selling my goods on a large scale for seventy-five\nper cent. less than I give for 'em, and I am consequently to be elevated\nto the House of Peers next week, by the title of the Duke of Cheap and\nMarkis Jackaloorul.  Now let's know what you want to-night, and you shall\nhave it.  But first of all, shall I tell you why I have got this little\ngirl round my neck?  You don't want to know?  Then you shall.  She\nbelongs to the Fairies.  She's a fortune-teller.  She can tell me all\nabout you in a whisper, and can put me up to whether you're going to buy\na lot or leave it.  Now do you want a saw?  No, she says you don't,\nbecause you're too clumsy to use one.  Else here's a saw which would be a\nlifelong blessing to a handy man, at four shillings, at three and six, at\nthree, at two and six, at two, at eighteen-pence.  But none of you shall\nhave it at any price, on account of your well-known awkwardness, which\nwould make it manslaughter.  The same objection applies to this set of\nthree planes which I won't let you have neither, so don't bid for 'em.\nNow I am a going to ask her what you do want.\"  (Then I whispered, \"Your\nhead burns so, that I am afraid it hurts you bad, my pet,\" and she\nanswered, without opening her heavy eyes, \"Just a little, father.\")  \"O!\nThis little fortune-teller says it's a memorandum-book you want.  Then\nwhy didn't you mention it?  Here it is.  Look at it.  Two hundred\nsuperfine hot-pressed wire-wove pages--if you don't believe me, count\n'em--ready ruled for your expenses, an everlastingly pointed pencil to\nput 'em down with, a double-bladed penknife to scratch 'em out with, a\nbook of printed tables to calculate your income with, and a camp-stool to\nsit down upon while you give your mind to it!  Stop!  And an umbrella to\nkeep the moon off when you give your mind to it on a pitch-dark night.\nNow I won't ask you how much for the lot, but how little?  How little are\nyou thinking of?  Don't be ashamed to mention it, because my\nfortune-teller knows already.\"  (Then making believe to whisper, I kissed\nher,--and she kissed me.)  \"Why, she says you are thinking of as little\nas three and threepence!  I couldn't have believed it, even of you,\nunless she told me.  Three and threepence!  And a set of printed tables\nin the lot that'll calculate your income up to forty thousand a year!\nWith an income of forty thousand a year, you grudge three and sixpence.\nWell then, I'll tell you my opinion.  I so despise the threepence, that\nI'd sooner take three shillings.  There.  For three shillings, three\nshillings, three shillings!  Gone.  Hand 'em over to the lucky man.\"\n\nAs there had been no bid at all, everybody looked about and grinned at\neverybody, while I touched little Sophy's face and asked her if she felt\nfaint, or giddy.  \"Not very, father.  It will soon be over.\"  Then\nturning from the pretty patient eyes, which were opened now, and seeing\nnothing but grins across my lighted grease-pot, I went on again in my\nCheap Jack style.  \"Where's the butcher?\"  (My sorrowful eye had just\ncaught sight of a fat young butcher on the outside of the crowd.)  \"She\nsays the good luck is the butcher's.  Where is he?\"  Everybody handed on\nthe blushing butcher to the front, and there was a roar, and the butcher\nfelt himself obliged to put his hand in his pocket, and take the lot.  The\nparty so picked out, in general, does feel obliged to take the lot--good\nfour times out of six.  Then we had another lot, the counterpart of that\none, and sold it sixpence cheaper, which is always wery much enjoyed.\nThen we had the spectacles.  It ain't a special profitable lot, but I put\n'em on, and I see what the Chancellor of the Exchequer is going to take\noff the taxes, and I see what the sweetheart of the young woman in the\nshawl is doing at home, and I see what the Bishops has got for dinner,\nand a deal more that seldom fails to fetch 'em 'up in their spirits; and\nthe better their spirits, the better their bids.  Then we had the ladies'\nlot--the teapot, tea-caddy, glass sugar-basin, half-a-dozen spoons, and\ncaudle-cup--and all the time I was making similar excuses to give a look\nor two and say a word or two to my poor child.  It was while the second\nladies' lot was holding 'em enchained that I felt her lift herself a\nlittle on my shoulder, to look across the dark street.  \"What troubles\nyou, darling?\"  \"Nothing troubles me, father.  I am not at all troubled.\nBut don't I see a pretty churchyard over there?\"  \"Yes, my dear.\"  \"Kiss\nme twice, dear father, and lay me down to rest upon that churchyard grass\nso soft and green.\"  I staggered back into the cart with her head dropped\non my shoulder, and I says to her mother, \"Quick.  Shut the door!  Don't\nlet those laughing people see!\"  \"What's the matter?\" she cries.  \"O\nwoman, woman,\" I tells her, \"you'll never catch my little Sophy by her\nhair again, for she has flown away from you!\"\n\nMaybe those were harder words than I meant 'em; but from that time forth\nmy wife took to brooding, and would sit in the cart or walk beside it,\nhours at a stretch, with her arms crossed, and her eyes looking on the\nground.  When her furies took her (which was rather seldomer than before)\nthey took her in a new way, and she banged herself about to that extent\nthat I was forced to hold her.  She got none the better for a little\ndrink now and then, and through some years I used to wonder, as I plodded\nalong at the old horse's head, whether there was many carts upon the road\nthat held so much dreariness as mine, for all my being looked up to as\nthe King of the Cheap Jacks.  So sad our lives went on till one summer\nevening, when, as we were coming into Exeter, out of the farther West of\nEngland, we saw a woman beating a child in a cruel manner, who screamed,\n\"Don't beat me!  O mother, mother, mother!\"  Then my wife stopped her\nears, and ran away like a wild thing, and next day she was found in the\nriver.\n\nMe and my dog were all the company left in the cart now; and the dog\nlearned to give a short bark when they wouldn't bid, and to give another\nand a nod of his head when I asked him, \"Who said half a crown?  Are you\nthe gentleman, sir, that offered half a crown?\"  He attained to an\nimmense height of popularity, and I shall always believe taught himself\nentirely out of his own head to growl at any person in the crowd that bid\nas low as sixpence.  But he got to be well on in years, and one night\nwhen I was conwulsing York with the spectacles, he took a conwulsion on\nhis own account upon the very footboard by me, and it finished him.\n\nBeing naturally of a tender turn, I had dreadful lonely feelings on me\narter this.  I conquered 'em at selling times, having a reputation to\nkeep (not to mention keeping myself), but they got me down in private,\nand rolled upon me.  That's often the way with us public characters.  See\nus on the footboard, and you'd give pretty well anything you possess to\nbe us.  See us off the footboard, and you'd add a trifle to be off your\nbargain.  It was under those circumstances that I come acquainted with a\ngiant.  I might have been too high to fall into conversation with him,\nhad it not been for my lonely feelings.  For the general rule is, going\nround the country, to draw the line at dressing up.  When a man can't\ntrust his getting a living to his undisguised abilities, you consider him\nbelow your sort.  And this giant when on view figured as a Roman.\n\nHe was a languid young man, which I attribute to the distance betwixt his\nextremities.  He had a little head and less in it, he had weak eyes and\nweak knees, and altogether you couldn't look at him without feeling that\nthere was greatly too much of him both for his joints and his mind.  But\nhe was an amiable though timid young man (his mother let him out, and\nspent the money), and we come acquainted when he was walking to ease the\nhorse betwixt two fairs.  He was called Rinaldo di Velasco, his name\nbeing Pickleson.\n\nThis giant, otherwise Pickleson, mentioned to me under the seal of\nconfidence that, beyond his being a burden to himself, his life was made\na burden to him by the cruelty of his master towards a step-daughter who\nwas deaf and dumb.  Her mother was dead, and she had no living soul to\ntake her part, and was used most hard.  She travelled with his master's\ncaravan only because there was nowhere to leave her, and this giant,\notherwise Pickleson, did go so far as to believe that his master often\ntried to lose her.  He was such a very languid young man, that I don't\nknow how long it didn't take him to get this story out, but it passed\nthrough his defective circulation to his top extremity in course of time.\n\nWhen I heard this account from the giant, otherwise Pickleson, and\nlikewise that the poor girl had beautiful long dark hair, and was often\npulled down by it and beaten, I couldn't see the giant through what stood\nin my eyes.  Having wiped 'em, I give him sixpence (for he was kept as\nshort as he was long), and he laid it out in two three-penn'orths of gin-\nand-water, which so brisked him up, that he sang the Favourite Comic of\nShivery Shakey, ain't it cold?--a popular effect which his master had\ntried every other means to get out of him as a Roman wholly in vain.\n\nHis master's name was Mim, a wery hoarse man, and I knew him to speak to.\nI went to that Fair as a mere civilian, leaving the cart outside the\ntown, and I looked about the back of the Vans while the performing was\ngoing on, and at last, sitting dozing against a muddy cart-wheel, I come\nupon the poor girl who was deaf and dumb.  At the first look I might\nalmost have judged that she had escaped from the Wild Beast Show; but at\nthe second I thought better of her, and thought that if she was more\ncared for and more kindly used she would be like my child.  She was just\nthe same age that my own daughter would have been, if her pretty head had\nnot fell down upon my shoulder that unfortunate night.\n\nTo cut it short, I spoke confidential to Mim while he was beating the\ngong outside betwixt two lots of Pickleson's publics, and I put it to\nhim, \"She lies heavy on your own hands; what'll you take for her?\"  Mim\nwas a most ferocious swearer.  Suppressing that part of his reply which\nwas much the longest part, his reply was, \"A pair of braces.\"  \"Now I'll\ntell you,\" says I, \"what I'm a going to do with you.  I'm a going to\nfetch you half-a-dozen pair of the primest braces in the cart, and then\nto take her away with me.\"  Says Mim (again ferocious), \"I'll believe it\nwhen I've got the goods, and no sooner.\"  I made all the haste I could,\nlest he should think twice of it, and the bargain was completed, which\nPickleson he was thereby so relieved in his mind that he come out at his\nlittle back door, longways like a serpent, and give us Shivery Shakey in\na whisper among the wheels at parting.\n\nIt was happy days for both of us when Sophy and me began to travel in the\ncart.  I at once give her the name of Sophy, to put her ever towards me\nin the attitude of my own daughter.  We soon made out to begin to\nunderstand one another, through the goodness of the Heavens, when she\nknowed that I meant true and kind by her.  In a very little time she was\nwonderful fond of me.  You have no idea what it is to have anybody\nwonderful fond of you, unless you have been got down and rolled upon by\nthe lonely feelings that I have mentioned as having once got the better\nof me.\n\nYou'd have laughed--or the rewerse--it's according to your disposition--if\nyou could have seen me trying to teach Sophy.  At first I was\nhelped--you'd never guess by what--milestones.  I got some large\nalphabets in a box, all the letters separate on bits of bone, and saying\nwe was going to WINDSOR, I give her those letters in that order, and then\nat every milestone I showed her those same letters in that same order\nagain, and pointed towards the abode of royalty.  Another time I give her\nCART, and then chalked the same upon the cart.  Another time I give her\nDOCTOR MARIGOLD, and hung a corresponding inscription outside my\nwaistcoat.  People that met us might stare a bit and laugh, but what did\n_I_ care, if she caught the idea?  She caught it after long patience and\ntrouble, and then we did begin to get on swimmingly, I believe you!  At\nfirst she was a little given to consider me the cart, and the cart the\nabode of royalty, but that soon wore off.\n\nWe had our signs, too, and they was hundreds in number.  Sometimes she\nwould sit looking at me and considering hard how to communicate with me\nabout something fresh,--how to ask me what she wanted explained,--and\nthen she was (or I thought she was; what does it signify?) so like my\nchild with those years added to her, that I half-believed it was herself,\ntrying to tell me where she had been to up in the skies, and what she had\nseen since that unhappy night when she flied away.  She had a pretty\nface, and now that there was no one to drag at her bright dark hair, and\nit was all in order, there was a something touching in her looks that\nmade the cart most peaceful and most quiet, though not at all melancholy.\n[N.B.  In the Cheap Jack patter, we generally sound it lemonjolly, and it\ngets a laugh.]\n\nThe way she learnt to understand any look of mine was truly surprising.\nWhen I sold of a night, she would sit in the cart unseen by them outside,\nand would give a eager look into my eyes when I looked in, and would hand\nme straight the precise article or articles I wanted.  And then she would\nclap her hands, and laugh for joy.  And as for me, seeing her so bright,\nand remembering what she was when I first lighted on her, starved and\nbeaten and ragged, leaning asleep against the muddy cart-wheel, it give\nme such heart that I gained a greater heighth of reputation than ever,\nand I put Pickleson down (by the name of Mim's Travelling Giant otherwise\nPickleson) for a fypunnote in my will.\n\nThis happiness went on in the cart till she was sixteen year old.  By\nwhich time I began to feel not satisfied that I had done my whole duty by\nher, and to consider that she ought to have better teaching than I could\ngive her.  It drew a many tears on both sides when I commenced explaining\nmy views to her; but what's right is right, and you can't neither by\ntears nor laughter do away with its character.\n\nSo I took her hand in mine, and I went with her one day to the Deaf and\nDumb Establishment in London, and when the gentleman come to speak to us,\nI says to him: \"Now I'll tell you what I'll do with you, sir.  I am\nnothing but a Cheap Jack, but of late years I have laid by for a rainy\nday notwithstanding.  This is my only daughter (adopted), and you can't\nproduce a deafer nor a dumber.  Teach her the most that can be taught her\nin the shortest separation that can be named,--state the figure for\nit,--and I am game to put the money down.  I won't bate you a single\nfarthing, sir, but I'll put down the money here and now, and I'll\nthankfully throw you in a pound to take it.  There!\"  The gentleman\nsmiled, and then, \"Well, well,\" says he, \"I must first know what she has\nlearned already.  How do you communicate with her?\"  Then I showed him,\nand she wrote in printed writing many names of things and so forth; and\nwe held some sprightly conversation, Sophy and me, about a little story\nin a book which the gentleman showed her, and which she was able to read.\n\"This is most extraordinary,\" says the gentleman; \"is it possible that\nyou have been her only teacher?\"  \"I have been her only teacher, sir,\" I\nsays, \"besides herself.\"  \"Then,\" says the gentleman, and more acceptable\nwords was never spoke to me, \"you're a clever fellow, and a good fellow.\"\nThis he makes known to Sophy, who kisses his hands, claps her own, and\nlaughs and cries upon it.\n\nWe saw the gentleman four times in all, and when he took down my name and\nasked how in the world it ever chanced to be Doctor, it come out that he\nwas own nephew by the sister's side, if you'll believe me, to the very\nDoctor that I was called after.  This made our footing still easier, and\nhe says to me:\n\n\"Now, Marigold, tell me what more do you want your adopted daughter to\nknow?\"\n\n\"I want her, sir, to be cut off from the world as little as can be,\nconsidering her deprivations, and therefore to be able to read whatever\nis wrote with perfect ease and pleasure.\"\n\n\"My good fellow,\" urges the gentleman, opening his eyes wide, \"why _I_\ncan't do that myself!\"\n\nI took his joke, and gave him a laugh (knowing by experience how flat you\nfall without it), and I mended my words accordingly.\n\n\"What do you mean to do with her afterwards?\" asks the gentleman, with a\nsort of a doubtful eye.  \"To take her about the country?\"\n\n\"In the cart, sir, but only in the cart.  She will live a private life,\nyou understand, in the cart.  I should never think of bringing her\ninfirmities before the public.  I wouldn't make a show of her for any\nmoney.\"\n\nThe gentleman nodded, and seemed to approve.\n\n\"Well,\" says he, \"can you part with her for two years?\"\n\n\"To do her that good,--yes, sir.\"\n\n\"There's another question,\" says the gentleman, looking towards her,--\"can\nshe part with you for two years?\"\n\nI don't know that it was a harder matter of itself (for the other was\nhard enough to me), but it was harder to get over.  However, she was\npacified to it at last, and the separation betwixt us was settled.  How\nit cut up both of us when it took place, and when I left her at the door\nin the dark of an evening, I don't tell.  But I know this; remembering\nthat night, I shall never pass that same establishment without a\nheartache and a swelling in the throat; and I couldn't put you up the\nbest of lots in sight of it with my usual spirit,--no, not even the gun,\nnor the pair of spectacles,--for five hundred pound reward from the\nSecretary of State for the Home Department, and throw in the honour of\nputting my legs under his mahogany arterwards.\n\nStill, the loneliness that followed in the cart was not the old\nloneliness, because there was a term put to it, however long to look\nforward to; and because I could think, when I was anyways down, that she\nbelonged to me and I belonged to her.  Always planning for her coming\nback, I bought in a few months' time another cart, and what do you think\nI planned to do with it?  I'll tell you.  I planned to fit it up with\nshelves and books for her reading, and to have a seat in it where I could\nsit and see her read, and think that I had been her first teacher.  Not\nhurrying over the job, I had the fittings knocked together in contriving\nways under my own inspection, and here was her bed in a berth with\ncurtains, and there was her reading-table, and here was her writing-desk,\nand elsewhere was her books in rows upon rows, picters and no picters,\nbindings and no bindings, gilt-edged and plain, just as I could pick 'em\nup for her in lots up and down the country, North and South and West and\nEast, Winds liked best and winds liked least, Here and there and gone\nastray, Over the hills and far away.  And when I had got together pretty\nwell as many books as the cart would neatly hold, a new scheme come into\nmy head, which, as it turned out, kept my time and attention a good deal\nemployed, and helped me over the two years' stile.\n\nWithout being of an awaricious temper, I like to be the owner of things.\nI shouldn't wish, for instance, to go partners with yourself in the Cheap\nJack cart.  It's not that I mistrust you, but that I'd rather know it was\nmine.  Similarly, very likely you'd rather know it was yours.  Well!  A\nkind of a jealousy began to creep into my mind when I reflected that all\nthose books would have been read by other people long before they was\nread by her.  It seemed to take away from her being the owner of 'em\nlike.  In this way, the question got into my head: Couldn't I have a book\nnew-made express for her, which she should be the first to read?\n\nIt pleased me, that thought did; and as I never was a man to let a\nthought sleep (you must wake up all the whole family of thoughts you've\ngot and burn their nightcaps, or you won't do in the Cheap Jack line), I\nset to work at it.  Considering that I was in the habit of changing so\nmuch about the country, and that I should have to find out a literary\ncharacter here to make a deal with, and another literary character there\nto make a deal with, as opportunities presented, I hit on the plan that\nthis same book should be a general miscellaneous lot,--like the razors,\nflat-iron, chronometer watch, dinner plates, rolling-pin, and looking-\nglass,--and shouldn't be offered as a single indiwidual article, like the\nspectacles or the gun.  When I had come to that conclusion, I come to\nanother, which shall likewise be yours.\n\nOften had I regretted that she never had heard me on the footboard, and\nthat she never could hear me.  It ain't that _I_ am vain, but that _you_\ndon't like to put your own light under a bushel.  What's the worth of\nyour reputation, if you can't convey the reason for it to the person you\nmost wish to value it?  Now I'll put it to you.  Is it worth sixpence,\nfippence, fourpence, threepence, twopence, a penny, a halfpenny, a\nfarthing?  No, it ain't.  Not worth a farthing.  Very well, then.  My\nconclusion was that I would begin her book with some account of myself.\nSo that, through reading a specimen or two of me on the footboard, she\nmight form an idea of my merits there.  I was aware that I couldn't do\nmyself justice.  A man can't write his eye (at least _I_ don't know how\nto), nor yet can a man write his voice, nor the rate of his talk, nor the\nquickness of his action, nor his general spicy way.  But he can write his\nturns of speech, when he is a public speaker,--and indeed I have heard\nthat he very often does, before he speaks 'em.\n\nWell!  Having formed that resolution, then come the question of a name.\nHow did I hammer that hot iron into shape?  This way.  The most difficult\nexplanation I had ever had with her was, how I come to be called Doctor,\nand yet was no Doctor.  After all, I felt that I had failed of getting it\ncorrectly into her mind, with my utmost pains.  But trusting to her\nimprovement in the two years, I thought that I might trust to her\nunderstanding it when she should come to read it as put down by my own\nhand.  Then I thought I would try a joke with her and watch how it took,\nby which of itself I might fully judge of her understanding it.  We had\nfirst discovered the mistake we had dropped into, through her having\nasked me to prescribe for her when she had supposed me to be a Doctor in\na medical point of view; so thinks I, \"Now, if I give this book the name\nof my Prescriptions, and if she catches the idea that my only\nPrescriptions are for her amusement and interest,--to make her laugh in a\npleasant way, or to make her cry in a pleasant way,--it will be a\ndelightful proof to both of us that we have got over our difficulty.\"  It\nfell out to absolute perfection.  For when she saw the book, as I had it\ngot up,--the printed and pressed book,--lying on her desk in her cart,\nand saw the title, DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS, she looked at me for\na moment with astonishment, then fluttered the leaves, then broke out a\nlaughing in the charmingest way, then felt her pulse and shook her head,\nthen turned the pages pretending to read them most attentive, then kissed\nthe book to me, and put it to her bosom with both her hands.  I never was\nbetter pleased in all my life!\n\nBut let me not anticipate.  (I take that expression out of a lot of\nromances I bought for her.  I never opened a single one of 'em--and I\nhave opened many--but I found the romancer saying \"let me not\nanticipate.\"  Which being so, I wonder why he did anticipate, or who\nasked him to it.)  Let me not, I say, anticipate.  This same book took up\nall my spare time.  It was no play to get the other articles together in\nthe general miscellaneous lot, but when it come to my own article!  There!\nI couldn't have believed the blotting, nor yet the buckling to at it, nor\nthe patience over it.  Which again is like the footboard.  The public\nhave no idea.\n\nAt last it was done, and the two years' time was gone after all the other\ntime before it, and where it's all gone to, who knows?  The new cart was\nfinished,--yellow outside, relieved with wermilion and brass\nfittings,--the old horse was put in it, a new 'un and a boy being laid on\nfor the Cheap Jack cart,--and I cleaned myself up to go and fetch her.\nBright cold weather it was, cart-chimneys smoking, carts pitched private\non a piece of waste ground over at Wandsworth, where you may see 'em from\nthe Sou'western Railway when not upon the road.  (Look out of the right-\nhand window going down.)\n\n\"Marigold,\" says the gentleman, giving his hand hearty, \"I am very glad\nto see you.\"\n\n\"Yet I have my doubts, sir,\" says I, \"if you can be half as glad to see\nme as I am to see you.\"\n\n\"The time has appeared so long,--has it, Marigold?\"\n\n\"I won't say that, sir, considering its real length; but--\"\n\n\"What a start, my good fellow!\"\n\nAh!  I should think it was!  Grown such a woman, so pretty, so\nintelligent, so expressive!  I knew then that she must be really like my\nchild, or I could never have known her, standing quiet by the door.\n\n\"You are affected,\" says the gentleman in a kindly manner.\n\n\"I feel, sir,\" says I, \"that I am but a rough chap in a sleeved\nwaistcoat.\"\n\n\"I feel,\" says the gentleman, \"that it was you who raised her from misery\nand degradation, and brought her into communication with her kind.  But\nwhy do we converse alone together, when we can converse so well with her?\nAddress her in your own way.\"\n\n\"I am such a rough chap in a sleeved waistcoat, sir,\" says I, \"and she is\nsuch a graceful woman, and she stands so quiet at the door!\"\n\n\"_Try_ if she moves at the old sign,\" says the gentleman.\n\nThey had got it up together o' purpose to please me!  For when I give her\nthe old sign, she rushed to my feet, and dropped upon her knees, holding\nup her hands to me with pouring tears of love and joy; and when I took\nher hands and lifted her, she clasped me round the neck, and lay there;\nand I don't know what a fool I didn't make of myself, until we all three\nsettled down into talking without sound, as if there was a something soft\nand pleasant spread over the whole world for us.\n\n* * * * *\n\n[A portion is here omitted from the text, having reference to the\nsketches contributed by other writers; but the reader will be pleased to\nhave what follows retained in a note:\n\n\"Now I'll tell you what I am a-going to do with you.  I am a-going to\noffer you the general miscellaneous lot, her own book, never read by\nanybody else but me, added to and completed by me after her first reading\nof it, eight-and-forty printed pages, six-and-ninety columns, Whiting's\nown work, Beaufort House to wit, thrown off by the steam-ingine, best of\npaper, beautiful green wrapper, folded like clean linen come home from\nthe clear-starcher's, and so exquisitely stitched that, regarded as a\npiece of needlework alone, it's better than the sampler of a seamstress\nundergoing a Competitive examination for Starvation before the Civil\nService Commissioners--and I offer the lot for what?  For eight pound?\nNot so much.  For six pound?  Less.  For four pound.  Why, I hardly\nexpect you to believe me, but that's the sum.  Four pound!  The stitching\nalone cost half as much again.  Here's forty-eight original pages, ninety-\nsix original columns, for four pound.  You want more for the money?  Take\nit.  Three whole pages of advertisements of thrilling interest thrown in\nfor nothing.  Read 'em and believe 'em.  More?  My best of wishes for\nyour merry Christmases and your happy New Years, your long lives and your\ntrue prosperities.  Worth twenty pound good if they are delivered as I\nsend them.  Remember!  Here's a final prescription added, \"To be taken\nfor life,\" which will tell you how the cart broke down, and where the\njourney ended.  You think Four Pound too much?  And still you think so?\nCome!  I'll tell you what then.  Say Four Pence, and keep the secret.\"]\n\n* * * * *\n\nSo every item of my plan was crowned with success.  Our reunited life was\nmore than all that we had looked forward to.  Content and joy went with\nus as the wheels of the two carts went round, and the same stopped with\nus when the two carts stopped.  I was as pleased and as proud as a Pug-\nDog with his muzzle black-leaded for a evening party, and his tail extra\ncurled by machinery.\n\nBut I had left something out of my calculations.  Now, what had I left\nout?  To help you to guess I'll say, a figure.  Come.  Make a guess and\nguess right.  Nought?  No.  Nine?  No.  Eight?  No.  Seven?  No.  Six?\nNo.  Five?  No.  Four?  No.  Three?  No.  Two?  No.  One?  No.  Now I'll\ntell you what I'll do with you.  I'll say it's another sort of figure\naltogether.  There.  Why then, says you, it's a mortal figure.  No, nor\nyet a mortal figure.  By such means you got yourself penned into a\ncorner, and you can't help guessing a _im_mortal figure.  That's about\nit.  Why didn't you say so sooner?\n\nYes.  It was a immortal figure that I had altogether left out of my\nCalculations.  Neither man's, nor woman's, but a child's.  Girl's or\nboy's?  Boy's.  \"I, says the sparrow with my bow and arrow.\"  Now you\nhave got it.\n\nWe were down at Lancaster, and I had done two nights more than fair\naverage business (though I cannot in honour recommend them as a quick\naudience) in the open square there, near the end of the street where Mr.\nSly's King's Arms and Royal Hotel stands.  Mim's travelling giant,\notherwise Pickleson, happened at the self-same time to be trying it on in\nthe town.  The genteel lay was adopted with him.  No hint of a van.  Green\nbaize alcove leading up to Pickleson in a Auction Room.  Printed poster,\n\"Free list suspended, with the exception of that proud boast of an\nenlightened country, a free press.  Schools admitted by private\narrangement.  Nothing to raise a blush in the cheek of youth or shock the\nmost fastidious.\"  Mim swearing most horrible and terrific, in a pink\ncalico pay-place, at the slackness of the public.  Serious handbill in\nthe shops, importing that it was all but impossible to come to a right\nunderstanding of the history of David without seeing Pickleson.\n\nI went to the Auction Room in question, and I found it entirely empty of\neverything but echoes and mouldiness, with the single exception of\nPickleson on a piece of red drugget.  This suited my purpose, as I wanted\na private and confidential word with him, which was: \"Pickleson.  Owing\nmuch happiness to you, I put you in my will for a fypunnote; but, to save\ntrouble, here's fourpunten down, which may equally suit your views, and\nlet us so conclude the transaction.\"  Pickleson, who up to that remark\nhad had the dejected appearance of a long Roman rushlight that couldn't\nanyhow get lighted, brightened up at his top extremity, and made his\nacknowledgments in a way which (for him) was parliamentary eloquence.  He\nlikewise did add, that, having ceased to draw as a Roman, Mim had made\nproposals for his going in as a conwerted Indian Giant worked upon by The\nDairyman's Daughter.  This, Pickleson, having no acquaintance with the\ntract named after that young woman, and not being willing to couple gag\nwith his serious views, had declined to do, thereby leading to words and\nthe total stoppage of the unfortunate young man's beer.  All of which,\nduring the whole of the interview, was confirmed by the ferocious\ngrowling of Mim down below in the pay-place, which shook the giant like a\nleaf.\n\nBut what was to the present point in the remarks of the travelling giant,\notherwise Pickleson, was this: \"Doctor Marigold,\"--I give his words\nwithout a hope of conweying their feebleness,--\"who is the strange young\nman that hangs about your carts?\"--\"The strange young _man_?\"  I gives\nhim back, thinking that he meant her, and his languid circulation had\ndropped a syllable.  \"Doctor,\" he returns, with a pathos calculated to\ndraw a tear from even a manly eye, \"I am weak, but not so weak yet as\nthat I don't know my words.  I repeat them, Doctor.  The strange young\nman.\"  It then appeared that Pickleson, being forced to stretch his legs\n(not that they wanted it) only at times when he couldn't be seen for\nnothing, to wit in the dead of the night and towards daybreak, had twice\nseen hanging about my carts, in that same town of Lancaster where I had\nbeen only two nights, this same unknown young man.\n\nIt put me rather out of sorts.  What it meant as to particulars I no more\nforeboded then than you forebode now, but it put me rather out of sorts.\nHowsoever, I made light of it to Pickleson, and I took leave of\nPickleson, advising him to spend his legacy in getting up his stamina,\nand to continue to stand by his religion.  Towards morning I kept a look\nout for the strange young man, and--what was more--I saw the strange\nyoung man.  He was well dressed and well looking.  He loitered very nigh\nmy carts, watching them like as if he was taking care of them, and soon\nafter daybreak turned and went away.  I sent a hail after him, but he\nnever started or looked round, or took the smallest notice.\n\nWe left Lancaster within an hour or two, on our way towards Carlisle.\nNext morning, at daybreak, I looked out again for the strange young man.\nI did not see him.  But next morning I looked out again, and there he was\nonce more.  I sent another hail after him, but as before he gave not the\nslightest sign of being anyways disturbed.  This put a thought into my\nhead.  Acting on it I watched him in different manners and at different\ntimes not necessary to enter into, till I found that this strange young\nman was deaf and dumb.\n\nThe discovery turned me over, because I knew that a part of that\nestablishment where she had been was allotted to young men (some of them\nwell off), and I thought to myself, \"If she favours him, where am I? and\nwhere is all that I have worked and planned for?\"  Hoping--I must confess\nto the selfishness--that she might _not_ favour him, I set myself to find\nout.  At last I was by accident present at a meeting between them in the\nopen air, looking on leaning behind a fir-tree without their knowing of\nit.  It was a moving meeting for all the three parties concerned.  I knew\nevery syllable that passed between them as well as they did.  I listened\nwith my eyes, which had come to be as quick and true with deaf and dumb\nconversation as my ears with the talk of people that can speak.  He was a-\ngoing out to China as clerk in a merchant's house, which his father had\nbeen before him.  He was in circumstances to keep a wife, and he wanted\nher to marry him and go along with him.  She persisted, no.  He asked if\nshe didn't love him.  Yes, she loved him dearly, dearly; but she could\nnever disappoint her beloved, good, noble, generous, and I-don't-know-\nwhat-all father (meaning me, the Cheap Jack in the sleeved waistcoat) and\nshe would stay with him, Heaven bless him! though it was to break her\nheart.  Then she cried most bitterly, and that made up my mind.\n\nWhile my mind had been in an unsettled state about her favouring this\nyoung man, I had felt that unreasonable towards Pickleson, that it was\nwell for him he had got his legacy down.  For I often thought, \"If it\nhadn't been for this same weak-minded giant, I might never have come to\ntrouble my head and wex my soul about the young man.\"  But, once that I\nknew she loved him,--once that I had seen her weep for him,--it was a\ndifferent thing.  I made it right in my mind with Pickleson on the spot,\nand I shook myself together to do what was right by all.\n\nShe had left the young man by that time (for it took a few minutes to get\nme thoroughly well shook together), and the young man was leaning against\nanother of the fir-trees,--of which there was a cluster,--with his face\nupon his arm.  I touched him on the back.  Looking up and seeing me, he\nsays, in our deaf-and-dumb talk, \"Do not be angry.\"\n\n\"I am not angry, good boy.  I am your friend.  Come with me.\"\n\nI left him at the foot of the steps of the Library Cart, and I went up\nalone.  She was drying her eyes.\n\n\"You have been crying, my dear.\"\n\n\"Yes, father.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"A headache.\"\n\n\"Not a heartache?\"\n\n\"I said a headache, father.\"\n\n\"Doctor Marigold must prescribe for that headache.\"\n\nShe took up the book of my Prescriptions, and held it up with a forced\nsmile; but seeing me keep still and look earnest, she softly laid it down\nagain, and her eyes were very attentive.\n\n\"The Prescription is not there, Sophy.\"\n\n\"Where is it?\"\n\n\"Here, my dear.\"\n\nI brought her young husband in, and I put her hand in his, and my only\nfarther words to both of them were these: \"Doctor Marigold's last\nPrescription.  To be taken for life.\"  After which I bolted.\n\nWhen the wedding come off, I mounted a coat (blue, and bright buttons),\nfor the first and last time in all my days, and I give Sophy away with my\nown hand.  There were only us three and the gentleman who had had charge\nof her for those two years.  I give the wedding dinner of four in the\nLibrary Cart.  Pigeon-pie, a leg of pickled pork, a pair of fowls, and\nsuitable garden stuff.  The best of drinks.  I give them a speech, and\nthe gentleman give us a speech, and all our jokes told, and the whole\nwent off like a sky-rocket.  In the course of the entertainment I\nexplained to Sophy that I should keep the Library Cart as my living-cart\nwhen not upon the road, and that I should keep all her books for her just\nas they stood, till she come back to claim them.  So she went to China\nwith her young husband, and it was a parting sorrowful and heavy, and I\ngot the boy I had another service; and so as of old, when my child and\nwife were gone, I went plodding along alone, with my whip over my\nshoulder, at the old horse's head.\n\nSophy wrote me many letters, and I wrote her many letters.  About the end\nof the first year she sent me one in an unsteady hand: \"Dearest father,\nnot a week ago I had a darling little daughter, but I am so well that\nthey let me write these words to you.  Dearest and best father, I hope my\nchild may not be deaf and dumb, but I do not yet know.\"  When I wrote\nback, I hinted the question; but as Sophy never answered that question, I\nfelt it to be a sad one, and I never repeated it.  For a long time our\nletters were regular, but then they got irregular, through Sophy's\nhusband being moved to another station, and through my being always on\nthe move.  But we were in one another's thoughts, I was equally sure,\nletters or no letters.\n\nFive years, odd months, had gone since Sophy went away.  I was still the\nKing of the Cheap Jacks, and at a greater height of popularity than ever.\nI had had a first-rate autumn of it, and on the twenty-third of December,\none thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, I found myself at Uxbridge,\nMiddlesex, clean sold out.  So I jogged up to London with the old horse,\nlight and easy, to have my Christmas-eve and Christmas-day alone by the\nfire in the Library Cart, and then to buy a regular new stock of goods\nall round, to sell 'em again and get the money.\n\nI am a neat hand at cookery, and I'll tell you what I knocked up for my\nChristmas-eve dinner in the Library Cart.  I knocked up a\nbeefsteak-pudding for one, with two kidneys, a dozen oysters, and a\ncouple of mushrooms thrown in.  It's a pudding to put a man in good\nhumour with everything, except the two bottom buttons of his waistcoat.\nHaving relished that pudding and cleared away, I turned the lamp low, and\nsat down by the light of the fire, watching it as it shone upon the backs\nof Sophy's books.\n\nSophy's books so brought Sophy's self, that I saw her touching face quite\nplainly, before I dropped off dozing by the fire.  This may be a reason\nwhy Sophy, with her deaf-and-dumb child in her arms, seemed to stand\nsilent by me all through my nap.  I was on the road, off the road, in all\nsorts of places, North and South and West and East, Winds liked best and\nwinds liked least, Here and there and gone astray, Over the hills and far\naway, and still she stood silent by me, with her silent child in her\narms.  Even when I woke with a start, she seemed to vanish, as if she had\nstood by me in that very place only a single instant before.\n\nI had started at a real sound, and the sound was on the steps of the\ncart.  It was the light hurried tread of a child, coming clambering up.\nThat tread of a child had once been so familiar to me, that for half a\nmoment I believed I was a-going to see a little ghost.\n\nBut the touch of a real child was laid upon the outer handle of the door,\nand the handle turned, and the door opened a little way, and a real child\npeeped in.  A bright little comely girl with large dark eyes.\n\nLooking full at me, the tiny creature took off her mite of a straw hat,\nand a quantity of dark curls fell about her face.  Then she opened her\nlips, and said in a pretty voice,\n\n\"Grandfather!\"\n\n\"Ah, my God!\" I cries out.  \"She can speak!\"\n\n\"Yes, dear grandfather.  And I am to ask you whether there was ever any\none that I remind you of?\"\n\nIn a moment Sophy was round my neck, as well as the child, and her\nhusband was a-wringing my hand with his face hid, and we all had to shake\nourselves together before we could get over it.  And when we did begin to\nget over it, and I saw the pretty child a-talking, pleased and quick and\neager and busy, to her mother, in the signs that I had first taught her\nmother, the happy and yet pitying tears fell rolling down my face.\n\n\n"}
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{"1416":"\n\n\n\n\nTranscribed from the 1894 Chapman and Hall \"Christmas Stories\" edition by\nDavid Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk\n\n\n\n\n\nMRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS\n\n\nCHAPTER I--HOW MRS. LIRRIPER CARRIED ON THE BUSINESS\n\n\nWhoever would begin to be worried with letting Lodgings that wasn't a\nlone woman with a living to get is a thing inconceivable to me, my dear;\nexcuse the familiarity, but it comes natural to me in my own little room,\nwhen wishing to open my mind to those that I can trust, and I should be\ntruly thankful if they were all mankind, but such is not so, for have but\na Furnished bill in the window and your watch on the mantelpiece, and\nfarewell to it if you turn your back for but a second, however\ngentlemanly the manners; nor is being of your own sex any safeguard, as I\nhave reason, in the form of sugar-tongs to know, for that lady (and a\nfine woman she was) got me to run for a glass of water, on the plea of\ngoing to be confined, which certainly turned out true, but it was in the\nStation-house.\n\nNumber Eighty-one Norfolk Street, Strand--situated midway between the\nCity and St. James's, and within five minutes' walk of the principal\nplaces of public amusement--is my address.  I have rented this house many\nyears, as the parish rate-books will testify; and I could wish my\nlandlord was as alive to the fact as I am myself; but no, bless you, not\na half a pound of paint to save his life, nor so much, my dear, as a tile\nupon the roof, though on your bended knees.\n\nMy dear, you never have found Number Eighty-one Norfolk Street Strand\nadvertised in Bradshaw's _Railway Guide_, and with the blessing of Heaven\nyou never will or shall so find it.  Some there are who do not think it\nlowering themselves to make their names that cheap, and even going the\nlengths of a portrait of the house not like it with a blot in every\nwindow and a coach and four at the door, but what will suit Wozenham's\nlower down on the other side of the way will not suit me, Miss Wozenham\nhaving her opinions and me having mine, though when it comes to\nsystematic underbidding capable of being proved on oath in a court of\njustice and taking the form of \"If Mrs. Lirriper names eighteen shillings\na week, I name fifteen and six,\" it then comes to a settlement between\nyourself and your conscience, supposing for the sake of argument your\nname to be Wozenham, which I am well aware it is not or my opinion of you\nwould be greatly lowered, and as to airy bedrooms and a night-porter in\nconstant attendance the less said the better, the bedrooms being stuffy\nand the porter stuff.\n\nIt is forty years ago since me and my poor Lirriper got married at St.\nClement's Danes, where I now have a sitting in a very pleasant pew with\ngenteel company and my own hassock, and being partial to evening service\nnot too crowded.  My poor Lirriper was a handsome figure of a man, with a\nbeaming eye and a voice as mellow as a musical instrument made of honey\nand steel, but he had ever been a free liver being in the commercial\ntravelling line and travelling what he called a limekiln road--\"a dry\nroad, Emma my dear,\" my poor Lirriper says to me, \"where I have to lay\nthe dust with one drink or another all day long and half the night, and\nit wears me Emma\"--and this led to his running through a good deal and\nmight have run through the turnpike too when that dreadful horse that\nnever would stand still for a single instant set off, but for its being\nnight and the gate shut and consequently took his wheel, my poor Lirriper\nand the gig smashed to atoms and never spoke afterwards.  He was a\nhandsome figure of a man, and a man with a jovial heart and a sweet\ntemper; but if they had come up then they never could have given you the\nmellowness of his voice, and indeed I consider photographs wanting in\nmellowness as a general rule and making you look like a new-ploughed\nfield.\n\nMy poor Lirriper being behindhand with the world and being buried at\nHatfield church in Hertfordshire, not that it was his native place but\nthat he had a liking for the Salisbury Arms where we went upon our\nwedding-day and passed as happy a fortnight as ever happy was, I went\nround to the creditors and I says \"Gentlemen I am acquainted with the\nfact that I am not answerable for my late husband's debts but I wish to\npay them for I am his lawful wife and his good name is dear to me.  I am\ngoing into the Lodgings gentlemen as a business and if I prosper every\nfarthing that my late husband owed shall be paid for the sake of the love\nI bore him, by this right hand.\"  It took a long time to do but it was\ndone, and the silver cream-jug which is between ourselves and the bed and\nthe mattress in my room up-stairs (or it would have found legs so sure as\never the Furnished bill was up) being presented by the gentlemen engraved\n\"To Mrs. Lirriper a mark of grateful respect for her honourable conduct\"\ngave me a turn which was too much for my feelings, till Mr. Betley which\nat that time had the parlours and loved his joke says \"Cheer up Mrs.\nLirriper, you should feel as if it was only your christening and they\nwere your godfathers and godmothers which did promise for you.\"  And it\nbrought me round, and I don't mind confessing to you my dear that I then\nput a sandwich and a drop of sherry in a little basket and went down to\nHatfield church-yard outside the coach and kissed my hand and laid it\nwith a kind of proud and swelling love on my husband's grave, though\nbless you it had taken me so long to clear his name that my wedding-ring\nwas worn quite fine and smooth when I laid it on the green green waving\ngrass.\n\nI am an old woman now and my good looks are gone but that's me my dear\nover the plate-warmer and considered like in the times when you used to\npay two guineas on ivory and took your chance pretty much how you came\nout, which made you very careful how you left it about afterwards because\npeople were turned so red and uncomfortable by mostly guessing it was\nsomebody else quite different, and there was once a certain person that\nhad put his money in a hop business that came in one morning to pay his\nrent and his respects being the second floor that would have taken it\ndown from its hook and put it in his breast-pocket--you understand my\ndear--for the L, he says of the original--only there was no mellowness in\n_his_ voice and I wouldn't let him, but his opinion of it you may gather\nfrom his saying to it \"Speak to me Emma!\" which was far from a rational\nobservation no doubt but still a tribute to its being a likeness, and I\nthink myself it _was_ like me when I was young and wore that sort of\nstays.\n\nBut it was about the Lodgings that I was intending to hold forth and\ncertainly I ought to know something of the business having been in it so\nlong, for it was early in the second year of my married life that I lost\nmy poor Lirriper and I set up at Islington directly afterwards and\nafterwards came here, being two houses and eight-and-thirty years and\nsome losses and a deal of experience.\n\nGirls are your first trial after fixtures and they try you even worse\nthan what I call the Wandering Christians, though why _they_ should roam\nthe earth looking for bills and then coming in and viewing the apartments\nand stickling about terms and never at all wanting them or dreaming of\ntaking them being already provided, is, a mystery I should be thankful to\nhave explained if by any miracle it could be.  It's wonderful they live\nso long and thrive so on it but I suppose the exercise makes it healthy,\nknocking so much and going from house to house and up and down-stairs all\nday, and then their pretending to be so particular and punctual is a most\nastonishing thing, looking at their watches and saying \"Could you give me\nthe refusal of the rooms till twenty minutes past eleven the day after to-\nmorrow in the forenoon, and supposing it to be considered essential by my\nfriend from the country could there be a small iron bedstead put in the\nlittle room upon the stairs?\"  Why when I was new to it my dear I used to\nconsider before I promised and to make my mind anxious with calculations\nand to get quite wearied out with disappointments, but now I says\n\"Certainly by all means\" well knowing it's a Wandering Christian and I\nshall hear no more about it, indeed by this time I know most of the\nWandering Christians by sight as well as they know me, it being the habit\nof each individual revolving round London in that capacity to come back\nabout twice a year, and it's very remarkable that it runs in families and\nthe children grow up to it, but even were it otherwise I should no sooner\nhear of the friend from the country which is a certain sign than I should\nnod and say to myself You're a Wandering Christian, though whether they\nare (as I _have_ heard) persons of small property with a taste for\nregular employment and frequent change of scene I cannot undertake to\ntell you.\n\nGirls as I was beginning to remark are one of your first and your lasting\ntroubles, being like your teeth which begin with convulsions and never\ncease tormenting you from the time you cut them till they cut you, and\nthen you don't want to part with them which seems hard but we must all\nsuccumb or buy artificial, and even where you get a will nine times out\nof ten you'll get a dirty face with it and naturally lodgers do not like\ngood society to be shown in with a smear of black across the nose or a\nsmudgy eyebrow.  Where they pick the black up is a mystery I cannot\nsolve, as in the case of the willingest girl that ever came into a house\nhalf-starved poor thing, a girl so willing that I called her Willing\nSophy down upon her knees scrubbing early and late and ever cheerful but\nalways smiling with a black face.  And I says to Sophy, \"Now Sophy my\ngood girl have a regular day for your stoves and keep the width of the\nAiry between yourself and the blacking and do not brush your hair with\nthe bottoms of the saucepans and do not meddle with the snuffs of the\ncandles and it stands to reason that it can no longer be\" yet there it\nwas and always on her nose, which turning up and being broad at the end\nseemed to boast of it and caused warning from a steady gentleman and\nexcellent lodger with breakfast by the week but a little irritable and\nuse of a sitting-room when required, his words being \"Mrs. Lirriper I\nhave arrived at the point of admitting that the Black is a man and a\nbrother, but only in a natural form and when it can't be got off.\"  Well\nconsequently I put poor Sophy on to other work and forbid her answering\nthe door or answering a bell on any account but she was so unfortunately\nwilling that nothing would stop her flying up the kitchen-stairs whenever\na bell was heard to tingle.  I put it to her \"O Sophy Sophy for goodness'\ngoodness' sake where does it come from?\"  To which that poor unlucky\nwilling mortal--bursting out crying to see me so vexed replied \"I took a\ndeal of black into me ma'am when I was a small child being much neglected\nand I think it must be, that it works out,\" so it continuing to work out\nof that poor thing and not having another fault to find with her I says\n\"Sophy what do you seriously think of my helping you away to New South\nWales where it might not be noticed?\"  Nor did I ever repent the money\nwhich was well spent, for she married the ship's cook on the voyage\n(himself a Mulotter) and did well and lived happy, and so far as ever I\nheard it was _not_ noticed in a new state of society to her dying day.\n\nIn what way Miss Wozenham lower down on the other side of the way\nreconciled it to her feelings as a lady (which she is not) to entice Mary\nAnne Perkinsop from my service is best known to herself, I do not know\nand I do not wish to know how opinions are formed at Wozenham's on any\npoint.  But Mary Anne Perkinsop although I behaved handsomely to her and\nshe behaved unhandsomely to me was worth her weight in gold as overawing\nlodgers without driving them away, for lodgers would be far more sparing\nof their bells with Mary Anne than I ever knew them to be with Maid or\nMistress, which is a great triumph especially when accompanied with a\ncast in the eye and a bag of bones, but it was the steadiness of her way\nwith them through her father's having failed in Pork.  It was Mary Anne's\nlooking so respectable in her person and being so strict in her spirits\nthat conquered the tea-and-sugarest gentleman (for he weighed them both\nin a pair of scales every morning) that I have ever had to deal with and\nno lamb grew meeker, still it afterwards came round to me that Miss\nWozenham happening to pass and seeing Mary Anne take in the milk of a\nmilkman that made free in a rosy-faced way (I think no worse of him) with\nevery girl in the street but was quite frozen up like the statue at\nCharing-cross by her, saw Mary Anne's value in the lodging business and\nwent as high as one pound per quarter more, consequently Mary Anne with\nnot a word betwixt us says \"If you will provide yourself Mrs. Lirriper in\na month from this day I have already done the same,\" which hurt me and I\nsaid so, and she then hurt me more by insinuating that her father having\nfailed in Pork had laid her open to it.\n\nMy dear I do assure you it's a harassing thing to know what kind of girls\nto give the preference to, for if they are lively they get bell'd off\ntheir legs and if they are sluggish you suffer from it yourself in\ncomplaints and if they are sparkling-eyed they get made love to, and if\nthey are smart in their persons they try on your Lodgers' bonnets and if\nthey are musical I defy you to keep them away from bands and organs, and\nallowing for any difference you like in their heads their heads will be\nalways out of window just the same.  And then what the gentlemen like in\ngirls the ladies don't, which is fruitful hot water for all parties, and\nthen there's temper though such a temper as Caroline Maxey's I hope not\noften.  A good-looking black-eyed girl was Caroline and a comely-made\ngirl to your cost when she did break out and laid about her, as took\nplace first and last through a new-married couple come to see London in\nthe first floor and the lady very high and it _was_ supposed not liking\nthe good looks of Caroline having none of her own to spare, but anyhow\nshe did try Caroline though that was no excuse.  So one afternoon\nCaroline comes down into the kitchen flushed and flashing, and she says\nto me \"Mrs. Lirriper that woman in the first has aggravated me past\nbearing,\" I says \"Caroline keep your temper,\" Caroline says with a\ncurdling laugh \"Keep my temper?  You're right Mrs. Lirriper, so I will.\nCapital D her!\" bursts out Caroline (you might have struck me into the\ncentre of the earth with a feather when she said it) \"I'll give her a\ntouch of the temper that _I_ keep!\"  Caroline downs with her hair my\ndear, screeches and rushes up-stairs, I following as fast as my trembling\nlegs could bear me, but before I got into the room the dinner-cloth and\npink-and-white service all dragged off upon the floor with a crash and\nthe new-married couple on their backs in the firegrate, him with the\nshovel and tongs and a dish of cucumber across him and a mercy it was\nsummer-time.  \"Caroline\" I says \"be calm,\" but she catches off my cap and\ntears it in her teeth as she passes me, then pounces on the new-married\nlady makes her a bundle of ribbons takes her by the two ears and knocks\nthe back of her head upon the carpet Murder screaming all the time\nPolicemen running down the street and Wozenham's windows (judge of my\nfeelings when I came to know it) thrown up and Miss Wozenham calling out\nfrom the balcony with crocodile's tears \"It's Mrs. Lirriper been\novercharging somebody to madness--she'll be murdered--I always thought\nso--Pleeseman save her!\"  My dear four of them and Caroline behind the\nchiffoniere attacking with the poker and when disarmed prize-fighting\nwith her double fists, and down and up and up and down and dreadful!  But\nI couldn't bear to see the poor young creature roughly handled and her\nhair torn when they got the better of her, and I says \"Gentlemen\nPolicemen pray remember that her sex is the sex of your mothers and\nsisters and your sweethearts, and God bless them and you!\"  And there she\nwas sitting down on the ground handcuffed, taking breath against the\nskirting-board and them cool with their coats in strips, and all she says\nwas \"Mrs. Lirriper I'm sorry as ever I touched you, for you're a kind\nmotherly old thing,\" and it made me think that I had often wished I had\nbeen a mother indeed and how would my heart have felt if I had been the\nmother of that girl!  Well you know it turned out at the Police-office\nthat she had done it before, and she had her clothes away and was sent to\nprison, and when she was to come out I trotted off to the gate in the\nevening with just a morsel of jelly in that little basket of mine to give\nher a mite of strength to face the world again, and there I met with a\nvery decent mother waiting for her son through bad company and a stubborn\none he was with his half-boots not laced.  So out came Caroline and I\nsays \"Caroline come along with me and sit down under the wall where it's\nretired and eat a little trifle that I have brought with me to do you\ngood,\" and she throws her arms round my neck and says sobbing \"O why were\nyou never a mother when there are such mothers as there are!\" she says,\nand in half a minute more she begins to laugh and says \"Did I really tear\nyour cap to shreds?\" and when I told her \"You certainly did so Caroline\"\nshe laughed again and said while she patted my face \"Then why do you wear\nsuch queer old caps you dear old thing? if you hadn't worn such queer old\ncaps I don't think I should have done it even then.\"  Fancy the girl!\nNothing could get out of her what she was going to do except O she would\ndo well enough, and we parted she being very thankful and kissing my\nhands, and I nevermore saw or heard of that girl, except that I shall\nalways believe that a very genteel cap which was brought anonymous to me\none Saturday night in an oilskin basket by a most impertinent young\nsparrow of a monkey whistling with dirty shoes on the clean steps and\nplaying the harp on the Airy railings with a hoop-stick came from\nCaroline.\n\nWhat you lay yourself open to my dear in the way of being the object of\nuncharitable suspicions when you go into the Lodging business I have not\nthe words to tell you, but never was I so dishonourable as to have two\nkeys nor would I willingly think it even of Miss Wozenham lower down on\nthe other side of the way sincerely hoping that it may not be, though\ndoubtless at the same time money cannot come from nowhere and it is not\nreason to suppose that Bradshaws put it in for love be it blotty as it\nmay.  It _is_ a hardship hurting to the feelings that Lodgers open their\nminds so wide to the idea that you are trying to get the better of them\nand shut their minds so close to the idea that they are trying to get the\nbetter of you, but as Major Jackman says to me, \"I know the ways of this\ncircular world Mrs. Lirriper, and that's one of 'em all round it\" and\nmany is the little ruffle in my mind that the Major has smoothed, for he\nis a clever man who has seen much.  Dear dear, thirteen years have passed\nthough it seems but yesterday since I was sitting with my glasses on at\nthe open front parlour window one evening in August (the parlours being\nthen vacant) reading yesterday's paper my eyes for print being poor\nthough still I am thankful to say a long sight at a distance, when I hear\na gentleman come posting across the road and up the street in a dreadful\nrage talking to himself in a fury and d'ing and c'ing somebody.  \"By\nGeorge!\" says he out loud and clutching his walking-stick, \"I'll go to\nMrs. Lirriper's.  Which is Mrs. Lirriper's?\"  Then looking round and\nseeing me he flourishes his hat right off his head as if I had been the\nqueen and he says, \"Excuse the intrusion Madam, but pray Madam can you\ntell me at what number in this street there resides a well-known and much-\nrespected lady by the name of Lirriper?\"  A little flustered though I\nmust say gratified I took off my glasses and courtesied and said \"Sir,\nMrs. Lirriper is your humble servant.\"  \"Astonishing!\" says he.  \"A\nmillion pardons!  Madam, may I ask you to have the kindness to direct one\nof your domestics to open the door to a gentleman in search of\napartments, by the name of Jackman?\"  I had never heard the name but a\npoliter gentleman I never hope to see, for says he, \"Madam I am shocked\nat your opening the door yourself to no worthier a fellow than Jemmy\nJackman.  After you Madam.  I never precede a lady.\"  Then he comes into\nthe parlours and he sniffs, and he says \"Hah!  These are parlours!  Not\nmusty cupboards\" he says \"but parlours, and no smell of coal-sacks.\"  Now\nmy dear it having been remarked by some inimical to the whole\nneighbourhood that it always smells of coal-sacks which might prove a\ndrawback to Lodgers if encouraged, I says to the Major gently though\nfirmly that I think he is referring to Arundel or Surrey or Howard but\nnot Norfolk.  \"Madam\" says he \"I refer to Wozenham's lower down over the\nway--Madam you can form no notion what Wozenham's is--Madam it is a vast\ncoal-sack, and Miss Wozenham has the principles and manners of a female\nheaver--Madam from the manner in which I have heard her mention you I\nknow she has no appreciation of a lady, and from the manner in which she\nhas conducted herself towards me I know she has no appreciation of a\ngentleman--Madam my name is Jackman--should you require any other\nreference than what I have already said, I name the Bank of\nEngland--perhaps you know it!\"  Such was the beginning of the Major's\noccupying the parlours and from that hour to this the same and a most\nobliging Lodger and punctual in all respects except one irregular which I\nneed not particularly specify, but made up for by his being a protection\nand at all times ready to fill in the papers of the Assessed Taxes and\nJuries and that, and once collared a young man with the drawing-room\nclock under his coat, and once on the parapets with his own hands and\nblankets put out the kitchen chimney and afterwards attending the summons\nmade a most eloquent speech against the Parish before the magistrates and\nsaved the engine, and ever quite the gentleman though passionate.  And\ncertainly Miss Wozenham's detaining the trunks and umbrella was not in a\nliberal spirit though it may have been according to her rights in law or\nan act _I_ would myself have stooped to, the Major being so much the\ngentleman that though he is far from tall he seems almost so when he has\nhis shirt-frill out and his frock-coat on and his hat with the curly\nbrims, and in what service he was I cannot truly tell you my dear whether\nMilitia or Foreign, for I never heard him even name himself as Major but\nalways simple \"Jemmy Jackman\" and once soon after he came when I felt it\nmy duty to let him know that Miss Wozenham had put it about that he was\nno Major and I took the liberty of adding \"which you are sir\" his words\nwere \"Madam at any rate I am not a Minor, and sufficient for the day is\nthe evil thereof\" which cannot be denied to be the sacred truth, nor yet\nhis military ways of having his boots with only the dirt brushed off\ntaken to him in the front parlour every morning on a clean plate and\nvarnishing them himself with a little sponge and a saucer and a whistle\nin a whisper so sure as ever his breakfast is ended, and so neat his ways\nthat it never soils his linen which is scrupulous though more in quality\nthan quantity, neither that nor his mustachios which to the best of my\nbelief are done at the same time and which are as black and shining as\nhis boots, his head of hair being a lovely white.\n\nIt was the third year nearly up of the Major's being in the parlours that\nearly one morning in the month of February when Parliament was coming on\nand you may therefore suppose a number of impostors were about ready to\ntake hold of anything they could get, a gentleman and a lady from the\ncountry came in to view the Second, and I well remember that I had been\nlooking out of window and had watched them and the heavy sleet driving\ndown the street together looking for bills.  I did not quite take to the\nface of the gentleman though he was good-looking too but the lady was a\nvery pretty young thing and delicate, and it seemed too rough for her to\nbe out at all though she had only come from the Adelphi Hotel which would\nnot have been much above a quarter of a mile if the weather had been less\nsevere.  Now it did so happen my dear that I had been forced to put five\nshillings weekly additional on the second in consequence of a loss from\nrunning away full dressed as if going out to a dinner-party, which was\nvery artful and had made me rather suspicious taking it along with\nParliament, so when the gentleman proposed three months certain and the\nmoney in advance and leave then reserved to renew on the same terms for\nsix months more, I says I was not quite certain but that I might have\nengaged myself to another party but would step down-stairs and look into\nit if they would take a seat.  They took a seat and I went down to the\nhandle of the Major's door that I had already began to consult finding it\na great blessing, and I knew by his whistling in a whisper that he was\nvarnishing his boots which was generally considered private, however he\nkindly calls out \"If it's you, Madam, come in,\" and I went in and told\nhim.\n\n\"Well, Madam,\" says the Major rubbing his nose--as I did fear at the\nmoment with the black sponge but it was only his knuckle, he being always\nneat and dexterous with his fingers--\"well, Madam, I suppose you would be\nglad of the money?\"\n\nI was delicate of saying \"Yes\" too out, for a little extra colour rose\ninto the Major's cheeks and there was irregularity which I will not\nparticularly specify in a quarter which I will not name.\n\n\"I am of opinion, Madam,\" says the Major, \"that when money is ready for\nyou--when it is ready for you, Mrs. Lirriper--you ought to take it.  What\nis there against it, Madam, in this case up-stairs?\"\n\n\"I really cannot say there is anything against it, sir, still I thought I\nwould consult you.\"\n\n\"You said a newly-married couple, I think, Madam?\" says the Major.\n\nI says \"Ye-es.  Evidently.  And indeed the young lady mentioned to me in\na casual way that she had not been married many months.\"\n\nThe Major rubbed his nose again and stirred the varnish round and round\nin its little saucer with his piece of sponge and took to his whistling\nin a whisper for a few moments.  Then he says \"You would call it a Good\nLet, Madam?\"\n\n\"O certainly a Good Let sir.\"\n\n\"Say they renew for the additional six months.  Would it put you about\nvery much Madam if--if the worst was to come to the worst?\" said the\nMajor.\n\n\"Well I hardly know,\" I says to the Major.  \"It depends upon\ncircumstances.  Would _you_ object Sir for instance?\"\n\n\"I?\" says the Major.  \"Object?  Jemmy Jackman?  Mrs. Lirriper close with\nthe proposal.\"\n\nSo I went up-stairs and accepted, and they came in next day which was\nSaturday and the Major was so good as to draw up a Memorandum of an\nagreement in a beautiful round hand and expressions that sounded to me\nequally legal and military, and Mr. Edson signed it on the Monday morning\nand the Major called upon Mr. Edson on the Tuesday and Mr. Edson called\nupon the Major on the Wednesday and the Second and the parlours were as\nfriendly as could be wished.\n\nThe three months paid for had run out and we had got without any fresh\novertures as to payment into May my dear, when there came an obligation\nupon Mr. Edson to go a business expedition right across the Isle of Man,\nwhich fell quite unexpected upon that pretty little thing and is not a\nplace that according to my views is particularly in the way to anywhere\nat any time but that may be a matter of opinion.  So short a notice was\nit that he was to go next day, and dreadfully she cried poor pretty, and\nI am sure I cried too when I saw her on the cold pavement in the sharp\neast wind--it being a very backward spring that year--taking a last leave\nof him with her pretty bright hair blowing this way and that and her arms\nclinging round his neck and him saying \"There there there.  Now let me go\nPeggy.\"  And by that time it was plain that what the Major had been so\naccommodating as to say he would not object to happening in the house,\nwould happen in it, and I told her as much when he was gone while I\ncomforted her with my arm up the staircase, for I says \"You will soon\nhave others to keep up for my pretty and you must think of that.\"\n\nHis letter never came when it ought to have come and what she went\nthrough morning after morning when the postman brought none for her the\nvery postman himself compassionated when she ran down to the door, and\nyet we cannot wonder at its being calculated to blunt the feelings to\nhave all the trouble of other people's letters and none of the pleasure\nand doing it oftener in the mud and mizzle than not and at a rate of\nwages more resembling Little Britain than Great.  But at last one morning\nwhen she was too poorly to come running down-stairs he says to me with a\npleased look in his face that made me next to love the man in his uniform\ncoat though he was dripping wet \"I have taken you first in the street\nthis morning Mrs. Lirriper, for here's the one for Mrs. Edson.\"  I went\nup to her bedroom with it as fast as ever I could go, and she sat up in\nbed when she saw it and kissed it and tore it open and then a blank stare\ncame upon her.  \"It's very short!\" she says lifting her large eyes to my\nface.  \"O Mrs. Lirriper it's very short!\"  I says \"My dear Mrs. Edson no\ndoubt that's because your husband hadn't time to write more just at that\ntime.\"  \"No doubt, no doubt,\" says she, and puts her two hands on her\nface and turns round in her bed.\n\nI shut her softly in and I crept down-stairs and I tapped at the Major's\ndoor, and when the Major having his thin slices of bacon in his own Dutch\noven saw me he came out of his chair and put me down on the sofa.  \"Hush!\"\nsays he, \"I see something's the matter.  Don't speak--take time.\"  I says\n\"O Major I'm afraid there's cruel work up-stairs.\"  \"Yes yes\" says he \"I\nhad begun to be afraid of it--take time.\"  And then in opposition to his\nown words he rages out frightfully, and says \"I shall never forgive\nmyself Madam, that I, Jemmy Jackman, didn't see it all that\nmorning--didn't go straight up-stairs when my boot-sponge was in my\nhand--didn't force it down his throat--and choke him dead with it on the\nspot!\"\n\nThe Major and me agreed when we came to ourselves that just at present we\ncould do no more than take on to suspect nothing and use our best\nendeavours to keep that poor young creature quiet, and what I ever should\nhave done without the Major when it got about among the organ-men that\nquiet was our object is unknown, for he made lion and tiger war upon them\nto that degree that without seeing it I could not have believed it was in\nany gentleman to have such a power of bursting out with fire-irons\nwalking-sticks water-jugs coals potatoes off his table the very hat off\nhis head, and at the same time so furious in foreign languages that they\nwould stand with their handles half-turned fixed like the Sleeping\nUgly--for I cannot say Beauty.\n\nEver to see the postman come near the house now gave me such I fear that\nit was a reprieve when he went by, but in about another ten days or a\nfortnight he says again, \"Here's one for Mrs. Edson.--Is she pretty\nwell?\"  \"She is pretty well postman, but not well enough to rise so early\nas she used\" which was so far gospel-truth.\n\nI carried the letter in to the Major at his breakfast and I says\ntottering \"Major I have not the courage to take it up to her.\"\n\n\"It's an ill-looking villain of a letter,\" says the Major.\n\n\"I have not the courage Major\" I says again in a tremble \"to take it up\nto her.\"\n\nAfter seeming lost in consideration for some moments the Major says,\nraising his head as if something new and useful had occurred to his mind\n\"Mrs. Lirriper, I shall never forgive myself that I, Jemmy Jackman,\ndidn't go straight up-stairs that morning when my boot-sponge was in my\nhand--and force it down his throat--and choke him dead with it.\"\n\n\"Major\" I says a little hasty \"you didn't do it which is a blessing, for\nit would have done no good and I think your sponge was better employed on\nyour own honourable boots.\"\n\nSo we got to be rational, and planned that I should tap at her bedroom\ndoor and lay the letter on the mat outside and wait on the upper landing\nfor what might happen, and never was gunpowder cannon-balls or shells or\nrockets more dreaded than that dreadful letter was by me as I took it to\nthe second floor.\n\nA terrible loud scream sounded through the house the minute after she had\nopened it, and I found her on the floor lying as if her life was gone.  My\ndear I never looked at the face of the letter which was lying, open by\nher, for there was no occasion.\n\nEverything I needed to bring her round the Major brought up with his own\nhands, besides running out to the chemist's for what was not in the house\nand likewise having the fiercest of all his many skirmishes with a\nmusical instrument representing a ball-room I do not know in what\nparticular country and company waltzing in and out at folding-doors with\nrolling eyes.  When after a long time I saw her coming to, I slipped on\nthe landing till I heard her cry, and then I went in and says cheerily\n\"Mrs. Edson you're not well my dear and it's not to be wondered at,\" as\nif I had not been in before.  Whether she believed or disbelieved I\ncannot say and it would signify nothing if I could, but I stayed by her\nfor hours and then she God ever blesses me! and says she will try to rest\nfor her head is bad.\n\n\"Major,\" I whispers, looking in at the parlours, \"I beg and pray of you\ndon't go out.\"\n\nThe Major whispers, \"Madam, trust me I will do no such a thing.  How is\nshe?\"\n\nI says \"Major the good Lord above us only knows what burns and rages in\nher poor mind.  I left her sitting at her window.  I am going to sit at\nmine.\"\n\nIt came on afternoon and it came on evening.  Norfolk is a delightful\nstreet to lodge in--provided you don't go lower down--but of a summer\nevening when the dust and waste paper lie in it and stray children play\nin it and a kind of a gritty calm and bake settles on it and a peal of\nchurch-bells is practising in the neighbourhood it is a trifle dull, and\nnever have I seen it since at such a time and never shall I see it\nevermore at such a time without seeing the dull June evening when that\nforlorn young creature sat at her open corner window on the second and me\nat my open corner window (the other corner) on the third.  Something\nmerciful, something wiser and better far than my own self, had moved me\nwhile it was yet light to sit in my bonnet and shawl, and as the shadows\nfell and the tide rose I could sometimes--when I put out my head and\nlooked at her window below--see that she leaned out a little looking down\nthe street.  It was just settling dark when I saw _her_ in the street.\n\nSo fearful of losing sight of her that it almost stops my breath while I\ntell it, I went down-stairs faster than I ever moved in all my life and\nonly tapped with my hand at the Major's door in passing it and slipping\nout.  She was gone already.  I made the same speed down the street and\nwhen I came to the corner of Howard Street I saw that she had turned it\nand was there plain before me going towards the west.  O with what a\nthankful heart I saw her going along!\n\nShe was quite unacquainted with London and had very seldom been out for\nmore than an airing in our own street where she knew two or three little\nchildren belonging to neighbours and had sometimes stood among them at\nthe street looking at the water.  She must be going at hazard I knew,\nstill she kept the by-streets quite correctly as long as they would serve\nher, and then turned up into the Strand.  But at every corner I could see\nher head turned one way, and that way was always the river way.\n\nIt may have been only the darkness and quiet of the Adelphi that caused\nher to strike into it but she struck into it much as readily as if she\nhad set out to go there, which perhaps was the case.  She went straight\ndown to the Terrace and along it and looked over the iron rail, and I\noften woke afterwards in my own bed with the horror of seeing her do it.\nThe desertion of the wharf below and the flowing of the high water there\nseemed to settle her purpose.  She looked about as if to make out the way\ndown, and she struck out the right way or the wrong way--I don't know\nwhich, for I don't know the place before or since--and I followed her the\nway she went.\n\nIt was noticeable that all this time she never once looked back.  But\nthere was now a great change in the manner of her going, and instead of\ngoing at a steady quick walk with her arms folded before her,--among the\ndark dismal arches she went in a wild way with her arms opened wide, as\nif they were wings and she was flying to her death.\n\nWe were on the wharf and she stopped.  I stopped.  I saw her hands at her\nbonnet-strings, and I rushed between her and the brink and took her round\nthe waist with both my arms.  She might have drowned me, I felt then, but\nshe could never have got quit of me.\n\nDown to that moment my mind had been all in a maze and not half an idea\nhad I had in it what I should say to her, but the instant I touched her\nit came to me like magic and I had my natural voice and my senses and\neven almost my breath.\n\n\"Mrs. Edson!\" I says \"My dear!  Take care.  How ever did you lose your\nway and stumble on a dangerous place like this?  Why you must have come\nhere by the most perplexing streets in all London.  No wonder you are\nlost, I'm sure.  And this place too!  Why I thought nobody ever got here,\nexcept me to order my coals and the Major in the parlours to smoke his\ncigar!\"--for I saw that blessed man close by, pretending to it.\n\n\"Hah--Hah--Hum!\" coughs the Major.\n\n\"And good gracious me\" I says, \"why here he is!\"\n\n\"Halloa! who goes there?\" says the Major in a military manner.\n\n\"Well!\" I says, \"if this don't beat everything!  Don't you know us Major\nJackman?\"\n\n\"Halloa!\" says the Major.  \"Who calls on Jemmy Jackman?\" (and more out of\nbreath he was, and did it less like life than I should have expected.)\n\n\"Why here's Mrs. Edson Major\" I says, \"strolling out to cool her poor\nhead which has been very bad, has missed her way and got lost, and\nGoodness knows where she might have got to but for me coming here to drop\nan order into my coal merchant's letter-box and you coming here to smoke\nyour cigar!--And you really are not well enough my dear\" I says to her\n\"to be half so far from home without me.  And your arm will be very\nacceptable I am sure Major\" I says to him \"and I know she may lean upon\nit as heavy as she likes.\"  And now we had both got her--thanks be\nAbove!--one on each side.\n\nShe was all in a cold shiver and she so continued till I laid her on her\nown bed, and up to the early morning she held me by the hand and moaned\nand moaned \"O wicked, wicked, wicked!\"  But when at last I made believe\nto droop my head and be overpowered with a dead sleep, I heard that poor\nyoung creature give such touching and such humble thanks for being\npreserved from taking her own life in her madness that I thought I should\nhave cried my eyes out on the counterpane and I knew she was safe.\n\nBeing well enough to do and able to afford it, me and the Major laid our\nlittle plans next day while she was asleep worn out, and so I says to her\nas soon as I could do it nicely:\n\n\"Mrs. Edson my dear, when Mr. Edson paid me the rent for these farther\nsix months--\"\n\nShe gave a start and I felt her large eyes look at me, but I went on with\nit and with my needlework.\n\n\"--I can't say that I am quite sure I dated the receipt right.  Could you\nlet me look at it?\"\n\nShe laid her frozen cold hand upon mine and she looked through me when I\nwas forced to look up from my needlework, but I had taken the precaution\nof having on my spectacles.\n\n\"I have no receipt\" says she.\n\n\"Ah!  Then he has got it\" I says in a careless way.  \"It's of no great\nconsequence.  A receipt's a receipt.\"\n\nFrom that time she always had hold of my hand when I could spare it which\nwas generally only when I read to her, for of course she and me had our\nbits of needlework to plod at and neither of us was very handy at those\nlittle things, though I am still rather proud of my share in them too\nconsidering.  And though she took to all I read to her, I used to fancy\nthat next to what was taught upon the Mount she took most of all to His\ngentle compassion for us poor women and to His young life and to how His\nmother was proud of Him and treasured His sayings in her heart.  She had\na grateful look in her eyes that never never never will be out of mine\nuntil they are closed in my last sleep, and when I chanced to look at her\nwithout thinking of it I would always meet that look, and she would often\noffer me her trembling lip to kiss, much more like a little affectionate\nhalf broken-hearted child than ever I can imagine any grown person.\n\nOne time the trembling of this poor lip was so strong and her tears ran\ndown so fast that I thought she was going to tell me all her woe, so I\ntakes her two hands in mine and I says:\n\n\"No my dear not now, you had best not try to do it now.  Wait for better\ntimes when you have got over this and are strong, and then you shall tell\nme whatever you will.  Shall it be agreed?\"\n\nWith our hands still joined she nodded her head many times, and she\nlifted my hands and put them to her lips and to her bosom.  \"Only one\nword now my dear\" I says.  \"Is there any one?\"\n\nShe looked inquiringly \"Any one?\"\n\n\"That I can go to?\"\n\nShe shook her head.\n\n\"No one that I can bring?\"\n\nShe shook her head.\n\n\"No one is wanted by _me_ my dear.  Now that may be considered past and\ngone.\"\n\nNot much more than a week afterwards--for this was far on in the time of\nour being so together--I was bending over at her bedside with my ear down\nto her lips, by turns listening for her breath and looking for a sign of\nlife in her face.  At last it came in a solemn way--not in a flash but\nlike a kind of pale faint light brought very slow to the face.\n\nShe said something to me that had no sound in it, but I saw she asked me:\n\n\"Is this death?\"\n\nAnd I says:\n\n\"Poor dear poor dear, I think it is.\"\n\nKnowing somehow that she wanted me to move her weak right hand, I took it\nand laid it on her breast and then folded her other hand upon it, and she\nprayed a good good prayer and I joined in it poor me though there were no\nwords spoke.  Then I brought the baby in its wrappers from where it lay,\nand I says:\n\n\"My dear this is sent to a childless old woman.  This is for me to take\ncare of.\"\n\nThe trembling lip was put up towards my face for the last time, and I\ndearly kissed it.\n\n\"Yes my dear,\" I says.  \"Please God!  Me and the Major.\"\n\nI don't know how to tell it right, but I saw her soul brighten and leap\nup, and get free and fly away in the grateful look.\n\n* * * * *\n\nSo this is the why and wherefore of its coming to pass my dear that we\ncalled him Jemmy, being after the Major his own godfather with Lirriper\nfor a surname being after myself, and never was a dear child such a\nbrightening thing in a Lodgings or such a playmate to his grandmother as\nJemmy to this house and me, and always good and minding what he was told\n(upon the whole) and soothing for the temper and making everything\npleasanter except when he grew old enough to drop his cap down Wozenham's\nAiry and they wouldn't hand it up to him, and being worked into a state I\nput on my best bonnet and gloves and parasol with the child in my hand\nand I says \"Miss Wozenham I little thought ever to have entered your\nhouse but unless my grandson's cap is instantly restored, the laws of\nthis country regulating the property of the Subject shall at length\ndecide betwixt yourself and me, cost what it may.\"  With a sneer upon her\nface which did strike me I must say as being expressive of two keys but\nit may have been a mistake and if there is any doubt let Miss Wozenham\nhave the full benefit of it as is but right, she rang the bell and she\nsays \"Jane, is there a street-child's old cap down our Airy?\"  I says\n\"Miss Wozenham before your housemaid answers that question you must allow\nme to inform you to your face that my grandson is _not_ a street-child\nand is _not_ in the habit of wearing old caps.  In fact\" I says \"Miss\nWozenham I am far from sure that my grandson's cap may not be newer than\nyour own\" which was perfectly savage in me, her lace being the commonest\nmachine-make washed and torn besides, but I had been put into a state to\nbegin with fomented by impertinence.  Miss Wozenham says red in the face\n\"Jane you heard my question, is there any child's cap down our Airy?\"\n\"Yes Ma'am\" says Jane, \"I think I did see some such rubbish a-lying\nthere.\"  \"Then\" says Miss Wozenham \"let these visitors out, and then\nthrow up that worthless article out of my premises.\"  But here the child\nwho had been staring at Miss Wozenham with all his eyes and more, frowns\ndown his little eyebrows purses up his little mouth puts his chubby legs\nfar apart turns his little dimpled fists round and round slowly over one\nanother like a little coffee-mill, and says to her \"Oo impdent to mi\nGran, me tut oor hi!\"  \"O!\" says Miss Wozenham looking down scornfully at\nthe Mite \"this is not a street-child is it not!  Really!\" I bursts out\nlaughing and I says \"Miss Wozenham if this ain't a pretty sight to you I\ndon't envy your feelings and I wish you good-day.  Jemmy come along with\nGran.\"  And I was still in the best of humours though his cap came flying\nup into the street as if it had been just turned on out of the\nwater-plug, and I went home laughing all the way, all owing to that dear\nboy.\n\nThe miles and miles that me and the Major have travelled with Jemmy in\nthe dusk between the lights are not to be calculated, Jemmy driving on\nthe coach-box which is the Major's brass-bound writing desk on the table,\nme inside in the easy-chair and the Major Guard up behind with a brown-\npaper horn doing it really wonderful.  I do assure you my dear that\nsometimes when I have taken a few winks in my place inside the coach and\nhave come half awake by the flashing light of the fire and have heard\nthat precious pet driving and the Major blowing up behind to have the\nchange of horses ready when we got to the Inn, I have half believed we\nwere on the old North Road that my poor Lirriper knew so well.  Then to\nsee that child and the Major both wrapped up getting down to warm their\nfeet and going stamping about and having glasses of ale out of the paper\nmatchboxes on the chimney-piece is to see the Major enjoying it fully as\nmuch as the child I am very sure, and it's equal to any play when Coachee\nopens the coach-door to look in at me inside and say \"Wery 'past that\n'tage.--'Prightened old lady?\"\n\nBut what my inexpressible feelings were when we lost that child can only\nbe compared to the Major's which were not a shade better, through his\nstraying out at five years old and eleven o'clock in the forenoon and\nnever heard of by word or sign or deed till half-past nine at night, when\nthe Major had gone to the Editor of the _Times_ newspaper to put in an\nadvertisement, which came out next day four-and-twenty hours after he was\nfound, and which I mean always carefully to keep in my lavender drawer as\nthe first printed account of him.  The more the day got on, the more I\ngot distracted and the Major too and both of us made worse by the\ncomposed ways of the police though very civil and obliging and what I\nmust call their obstinacy in not entertaining the idea that he was\nstolen.  \"We mostly find Mum\" says the sergeant who came round to comfort\nme, which he didn't at all and he had been one of the private constables\nin Caroline's time to which he referred in his opening words when he said\n\"Don't give way to uneasiness in your mind Mum, it'll all come as right\nas my nose did when I got the same barked by that young woman in your\nsecond floor\"--says this sergeant \"we mostly find Mum as people ain't\nover-anxious to have what I may call second-hand children.  _You'll_ get\nhim back Mum.\"  \"O but my dear good sir\" I says clasping my hands and\nwringing them and clasping them again \"he is such an uncommon child!\"\n\"Yes Mum\" says the sergeant, \"we mostly find that too Mum.  The question\nis what his clothes were worth.\"  \"His clothes\" I says \"were not worth\nmuch sir for he had only got his playing-dress on, but the dear child!--\"\n\"All right Mum\" says the sergeant.  \"You'll get him back Mum.  And even\nif he'd had his best clothes on, it wouldn't come to worse than his being\nfound wrapped up in a cabbage-leaf, a shivering in a lane.\"  His words\npierced my heart like daggers and daggers, and me and the Major ran in\nand out like wild things all day long till the Major returning from his\ninterview with the Editor of the _Times_ at night rushes into my little\nroom hysterical and squeezes my hand and wipes his eyes and says \"Joy\njoy--officer in plain clothes came up on the steps as I was letting\nmyself in--compose your feelings--Jemmy's found.\"  Consequently I fainted\naway and when I came to, embraced the legs of the officer in plain\nclothes who seemed to be taking a kind of a quiet inventory in his mind\nof the property in my little room with brown whiskers, and I says\n\"Blessings on you sir where is the Darling!\" and he says \"In Kennington\nStation House.\"  I was dropping at his feet Stone at the image of that\nInnocence in cells with murderers when he adds \"He followed the Monkey.\"\nI says deeming it slang language \"O sir explain for a loving grandmother\nwhat Monkey!\"  He says \"Him in the spangled cap with the strap under the\nchin, as won't keep on--him as sweeps the crossings on a round table and\ndon't want to draw his sabre more than he can help.\"  Then I understood\nit all and most thankfully thanked him, and me and the Major and him\ndrove over to Kennington and there we found our boy lying quite\ncomfortable before a blazing fire having sweetly played himself to sleep\nupon a small accordion nothing like so big as a flat-iron which they had\nbeen so kind as to lend him for the purpose and which it appeared had\nbeen stopped upon a very young person.\n\nMy dear the system upon which the Major commenced and as I may say\nperfected Jemmy's learning when he was so small that if the dear was on\nthe other side of the table you had to look under it instead of over it\nto see him with his mother's own bright hair in beautiful curls, is a\nthing that ought to be known to the Throne and Lords and Commons and then\nmight obtain some promotion for the Major which he well deserves and\nwould be none the worse for (speaking between friends) L. S. D.-ically.\nWhen the Major first undertook his learning he says to me:\n\n\"I'm going Madam,\" he says \"to make our child a Calculating Boy.\n\n\"Major,\" I says, \"you terrify me and may do the pet a permanent injury\nyou would never forgive yourself.\"\n\n\"Madam,\" says the Major, \"next to my regret that when I had my\nboot-sponge in my hand, I didn't choke that scoundrel with it--on the\nspot--\"\n\n\"There!  For Gracious' sake,\" I interrupts, \"let his conscience find him\nwithout sponges.\"\n\n\"--I say next to that regret, Madam,\" says the Major \"would be the regret\nwith which my breast,\" which he tapped, \"would be surcharged if this fine\nmind was not early cultivated.  But mark me Madam,\" says the Major\nholding up his forefinger \"cultivated on a principle that will make it a\ndelight.\"\n\n\"Major\" I says \"I will be candid with you and tell you openly that if\never I find the dear child fall off in his appetite I shall know it is\nhis calculations and shall put a stop to them at two minutes' notice.  Or\nif I find them mounting to his head\" I says, \"or striking anyways cold to\nhis stomach or leading to anything approaching flabbiness in his legs,\nthe result will be the same, but Major you are a clever man and have seen\nmuch and you love the child and are his own godfather, and if you feel a\nconfidence in trying try.\"\n\n\"Spoken Madam\" says the Major \"like Emma Lirriper.  All I have to ask,\nMadam, is that you will leave my godson and myself to make a week or\ntwo's preparations for surprising you, and that you will give me leave to\nhave up and down any small articles not actually in use that I may\nrequire from the kitchen.\"\n\n\"From the kitchen Major?\" I says half feeling as if he had a mind to cook\nthe child.\n\n\"From the kitchen\" says the Major, and smiles and swells, and at the same\ntime looks taller.\n\nSo I passed my word and the Major and the dear boy were shut up together\nfor half an hour at a time through a certain while, and never could I\nhear anything going on betwixt them but talking and laughing and Jemmy\nclapping his hands and screaming out numbers, so I says to myself \"it has\nnot harmed him yet\" nor could I on examining the dear find any signs of\nit anywhere about him which was likewise a great relief.  At last one day\nJemmy brings me a card in joke in the Major's neat writing \"The Messrs.\nJemmy Jackman\" for we had given him the Major's other name too \"request\nthe honour of Mrs. Lirriper's company at the Jackman Institution in the\nfront parlour this evening at five, military time, to witness a few\nslight feats of elementary arithmetic.\"  And if you'll believe me there\nin the front parlour at five punctual to the moment was the Major behind\nthe Pembroke table with both leaves up and a lot of things from the\nkitchen tidily set out on old newspapers spread atop of it, and there was\nthe Mite stood upon a chair with his rosy cheeks flushing and his eyes\nsparkling clusters of diamonds.\n\n\"Now Gran\" says he, \"oo tit down and don't oo touch ler people\"--for he\nsaw with every one of those diamonds of his that I was going to give him\na squeeze.\n\n\"Very well sir\" I says \"I am obedient in this good company I am sure.\"\nAnd I sits down in the easy-chair that was put for me, shaking my sides.\n\nBut picture my admiration when the Major going on almost as quick as if\nhe was conjuring sets out all the articles he names, and says \"Three\nsaucepans, an Italian iron, a hand-bell, a toasting-fork, a\nnutmeg-grater, four potlids, a spice-box, two egg-cups, and a chopping-\nboard--how many?\" and when that Mite instantly cries \"Tifteen, tut down\ntive and carry ler 'toppin-board\" and then claps his hands draws up his\nlegs and dances on his chair.\n\nMy dear with the same astonishing ease and correctness him and the Major\nadded up the tables chairs and sofy, the picters fenders and fire-irons\ntheir own selves me and the cat and the eyes in Miss Wozenham's head, and\nwhenever the sum was done Young Roses and Diamonds claps his hands and\ndraws up his legs and dances on his chair.\n\nThe pride of the Major!  (\"_Here's_ a mind Ma'am!\" he says to me behind\nhis hand.)\n\nThen he says aloud, \"We now come to the next elementary rule,--which is\ncalled--\"\n\n\"Umtraction!\" cries Jemmy.\n\n\"Right,\" says the Major.  \"We have here a toasting-fork, a potato in its\nnatural state, two potlids, one egg-cup, a wooden spoon, and two skewers,\nfrom which it is necessary for commercial purposes to subtract a sprat-\ngridiron, a small pickle-jar, two lemons, one pepper-castor, a\nblackbeetle-trap, and a knob of the dresser-drawer--what remains?\"\n\n\"Toatin-fork!\" cries Jemmy.\n\n\"In numbers how many?\" says the Major.\n\n\"One!\" cries Jemmy.\n\n(\"_Here's_ a boy, Ma'am!\" says the Major to me behind his hand.)  Then\nthe Major goes on:\n\n\"We now approach the next elementary rule,--which is entitled--\"\n\n\"Tickleication\" cries Jemmy.\n\n\"Correct\" says the Major.\n\nBut my dear to relate to you in detail the way in which they multiplied\nfourteen sticks of firewood by two bits of ginger and a larding needle,\nor divided pretty well everything else there was on the table by the\nheater of the Italian iron and a chamber candlestick, and got a lemon\nover, would make my head spin round and round and round as it did at the\ntime.  So I says \"if you'll excuse my addressing the chair Professor\nJackman I think the period of the lecture has now arrived when it becomes\nnecessary that I should take a good hug of this young scholar.\"  Upon\nwhich Jemmy calls out from his station on the chair, \"Gran oo open oor\narms and me'll make a 'pring into 'em.\"  So I opened my arms to him as I\nhad opened my sorrowful heart when his poor young mother lay a dying, and\nhe had his jump and we had a good long hug together and the Major prouder\nthan any peacock says to me behind his hand, \"You need not let him know\nit Madam\" (which I certainly need not for the Major was quite audible)\n\"but he _is_ a boy!\"\n\nIn this way Jemmy grew and grew and went to day-school and continued\nunder the Major too, and in summer we were as happy as the days were\nlong, and in winter we were as happy as the days were short and there\nseemed to rest a Blessing on the Lodgings for they as good as Let\nthemselves and would have done it if there had been twice the\naccommodation, when sore and hard against my will I one day says to the\nMajor.\n\n\"Major you know what I am going to break to you.  Our boy must go to\nboarding-school.\"\n\nIt was a sad sight to see the Major's countenance drop, and I pitied the\ngood soul with all my heart.\n\n\"Yes Major\" I says, \"though he is as popular with the Lodgers as you are\nyourself and though he is to you and me what only you and me know, still\nit is in the course of things and Life is made of partings and we must\npart with our Pet.\"\n\nBold as I spoke, I saw two Majors and half-a-dozen fireplaces, and when\nthe poor Major put one of his neat bright-varnished boots upon the fender\nand his elbow on his knee and his head upon his hand and rocked himself a\nlittle to and fro, I was dreadfully cut up.\n\n\"But\" says I clearing my throat \"you have so well prepared him Major--he\nhas had such a Tutor in you--that he will have none of the first drudgery\nto go through.  And he is so clever besides that he'll soon make his way\nto the front rank.\"\n\n\"He is a boy\" says the Major--having sniffed--\"that has not his like on\nthe face of the earth.\"\n\n\"True as you say Major, and it is not for us merely for our own sakes to\ndo anything to keep him back from being a credit and an ornament wherever\nhe goes and perhaps even rising to be a great man, is it Major?  He will\nhave all my little savings when my work is done (being all the world to\nme) and we must try to make him a wise man and a good man, mustn't we\nMajor?\"\n\n\"Madam\" says the Major rising \"Jemmy Jackman is becoming an older file\nthan I was aware of, and you put him to shame.  You are thoroughly right\nMadam.  You are simply and undeniably right.--And if you'll excuse me,\nI'll take a walk.\"\n\nSo the Major being gone out and Jemmy being at home, I got the child into\nmy little room here and I stood him by my chair and I took his mother's\nown curls in my hand and I spoke to him loving and serious.  And when I\nhad reminded the darling how that he was now in his tenth year and when I\nhad said to him about his getting on in life pretty much what I had said\nto the Major I broke to him how that we must have this same parting, and\nthere I was forced to stop for there I saw of a sudden the\nwell-remembered lip with its tremble, and it so brought back that time!\nBut with the spirit that was in him he controlled it soon and he says\ngravely nodding through his tears, \"I understand Gran--I know it _must_\nbe, Gran--go on Gran, don't be afraid of _me_.\"  And when I had said all\nthat ever I could think of, he turned his bright steady face to mine and\nhe says just a little broken here and there \"You shall see Gran that I\ncan be a man and that I can do anything that is grateful and loving to\nyou--and if I don't grow up to be what you would like to have me--I hope\nit will be--because I shall die.\"  And with that he sat down by me and I\nwent on to tell him of the school of which I had excellent\nrecommendations and where it was and how many scholars and what games\nthey played as I had heard and what length of holidays, to all of which\nhe listened bright and clear.  And so it came that at last he says \"And\nnow dear Gran let me kneel down here where I have been used to say my\nprayers and let me fold my face for just a minute in your gown and let me\ncry, for you have been more than father--more than mother--more than\nbrothers sisters friends--to me!\"  And so he did cry and I too and we\nwere both much the better for it.\n\nFrom that time forth he was true to his word and ever blithe and ready,\nand even when me and the Major took him down into Lincolnshire he was far\nthe gayest of the party though for sure and certain he might easily have\nbeen that, but he really was and put life into us only when it came to\nthe last Good-bye, he says with a wistful look, \"You wouldn't have me not\nreally sorry would you Gran?\" and when I says \"No dear, Lord forbid!\" he\nsays \"I am glad of that!\" and ran in out of sight.\n\nBut now that the child was gone out of the Lodgings the Major fell into a\nregularly moping state.  It was taken notice of by all the Lodgers that\nthe Major moped.  He hadn't even the same air of being rather tall than\nhe used to have, and if he varnished his boots with a single gleam of\ninterest it was as much as he did.\n\nOne evening the Major came into my little room to take a cup of tea and a\nmorsel of buttered toast and to read Jemmy's newest letter which had\narrived that afternoon (by the very same postman more than middle-aged\nupon the Beat now), and the letter raising him up a little I says to the\nMajor:\n\n\"Major you mustn't get into a moping way.\"\n\nThe Major shook his head.  \"Jemmy Jackman Madam,\" he says with a deep\nsigh, \"is an older file than I thought him.\"\n\n\"Moping is not the way to grow younger Major.\"\n\n\"My dear Madam,\" says the Major, \"is there _any_ way of growing younger?\"\n\nFeeling that the Major was getting rather the best of that point I made a\ndiversion to another.\n\n\"Thirteen years!  Thir-teen years!  Many Lodgers have come and gone, in\nthe thirteen years that you have lived in the parlours Major.\"\n\n\"Hah!\" says the Major warming.  \"Many Madam, many.\"\n\n\"And I should say you have been familiar with them all?\"\n\n\"As a rule (with its exceptions like all rules) my dear Madam\" says the\nMajor, \"they have honoured me with their acquaintance, and not\nunfrequently with their confidence.\"\n\nWatching the Major as he drooped his white head and stroked his black\nmustachios and moped again, a thought which I think must have been going\nabout looking for an owner somewhere dropped into my old noddle if you\nwill excuse the expression.\n\n\"The walls of my Lodgings\" I says in a casual way--for my dear it is of\nno use going straight at a man who mopes--\"might have something to tell\nif they could tell it.\"\n\nThe Major neither moved nor said anything but I saw he was attending with\nhis shoulders my dear--attending with his shoulders to what I said.  In\nfact I saw that his shoulders were struck by it.\n\n\"The dear boy was always fond of story-books\" I went on, like as if I was\ntalking to myself.  \"I am sure this house--his own home--might write a\nstory or two for his reading one day or another.\"\n\nThe Major's shoulders gave a dip and a curve and his head came up in his\nshirt-collar.  The Major's head came up in his shirt-collar as I hadn't\nseen it come up since Jemmy went to school.\n\n\"It is unquestionable that in intervals of cribbage and a friendly\nrubber, my dear Madam,\" says the Major, \"and also over what used to be\ncalled in my young times--in the salad days of Jemmy Jackman--the social\nglass, I have exchanged many a reminiscence with your Lodgers.\"\n\nMy remark was--I confess I made it with the deepest and artfullest of\nintentions--\"I wish our dear boy had heard them!\"\n\n\"Are you serious Madam?\" asked the Major starting and turning full round.\n\n\"Why not Major?\"\n\n\"Madam\" says the Major, turning up one of his cuffs, \"they shall be\nwritten for him.\"\n\n\"Ah!  Now you speak\" I says giving my hands a pleased clap.  \"Now you are\nin a way out of moping Major!\"\n\n\"Between this and my holidays--I mean the dear boy's\" says the Major\nturning up his other cuff, \"a good deal may be done towards it.\"\n\n\"Major you are a clever man and you have seen much and not a doubt of\nit.\"\n\n\"I'll begin,\" says the Major looking as tall as ever he did, \"to-morrow.\"\n\nMy dear the Major was another man in three days and he was himself again\nin a week and he wrote and wrote and wrote with his pen scratching like\nrats behind the wainscot, and whether he had many grounds to go upon or\nwhether he did at all romance I cannot tell you, but what he has written\nis in the left-hand glass closet of the little bookcase close behind you.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II--HOW THE PARLOURS ADDED A FEW WORDS\n\n\nI have the honour of presenting myself by the name of Jackman.  I esteem\nit a proud privilege to go down to posterity through the instrumentality\nof the most remarkable boy that ever lived,--by the name of JEMMY JACKMAN\nLIRRIPER,--and of my most worthy and most highly respected friend, Mrs.\nEmma Lirriper, of Eighty-one, Norfolk Street, Strand, in the County of\nMiddlesex, in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.\n\nIt is not for me to express the rapture with which we received that dear\nand eminently remarkable boy, on the occurrence of his first Christmas\nholidays.  Suffice it to observe that when he came flying into the house\nwith two splendid prizes (Arithmetic, and Exemplary Conduct), Mrs.\nLirriper and myself embraced with emotion, and instantly took him to the\nPlay, where we were all three admirably entertained.\n\nNor is it to render homage to the virtues of the best of her good and\nhonoured sex--whom, in deference to her unassuming worth, I will only\nhere designate by the initials E. L.--that I add this record to the\nbundle of papers with which our, in a most distinguished degree,\nremarkable boy has expressed himself delighted, before re-consigning the\nsame to the left-hand glass closet of Mrs. Lirriper's little bookcase.\n\nNeither is it to obtrude the name of the old original superannuated\nobscure Jemmy Jackman, once (to his degradation) of Wozenham's, long (to\nhis elevation) of Lirriper's.  If I could be consciously guilty of that\npiece of bad taste, it would indeed be a work of supererogation, now that\nthe name is borne by JEMMY JACKMAN LIRRIPER.\n\nNo, I take up my humble pen to register a little record of our strikingly\nremarkable boy, which my poor capacity regards as presenting a pleasant\nlittle picture of the dear boy's mind.  The picture may be interesting to\nhimself when he is a man.\n\nOur first reunited Christmas-day was the most delightful one we have ever\npassed together.  Jemmy was never silent for five minutes, except in\nchurch-time.  He talked as we sat by the fire, he talked when we were out\nwalking, he talked as we sat by the fire again, he talked incessantly at\ndinner, though he made a dinner almost as remarkable as himself.  It was\nthe spring of happiness in his fresh young heart flowing and flowing, and\nit fertilised (if I may be allowed so bold a figure) my much-esteemed\nfriend, and J. J. the present writer.\n\nThere were only we three.  We dined in my esteemed friend's little room,\nand our entertainment was perfect.  But everything in the establishment\nis, in neatness, order, and comfort, always perfect.  After dinner our\nboy slipped away to his old stool at my esteemed friend's knee, and\nthere, with his hot chestnuts and his glass of brown sherry (really, a\nmost excellent wine!) on a chair for a table, his face outshone the\napples in the dish.\n\nWe talked of these jottings of mine, which Jemmy had read through and\nthrough by that time; and so it came about that my esteemed friend\nremarked, as she sat smoothing Jemmy's curls:\n\n\"And as you belong to the house too, Jemmy,--and so much more than the\nLodgers, having been born in it,--why, your story ought to be added to\nthe rest, I think, one of these days.\"\n\nJemmy's eyes sparkled at this, and he said, \"So _I_ think, Gran.\"\n\nThen he sat looking at the fire, and then he began to laugh in a sort of\nconfidence with the fire, and then he said, folding his arms across my\nesteemed friend's lap, and raising his bright face to hers.  \"Would you\nlike to hear a boy's story, Gran?\"\n\n\"Of all things,\" replied my esteemed friend.\n\n\"Would you, godfather?\"\n\n\"Of all things,\" I too replied.\n\n\"Well, then,\" said Jemmy, \"I'll tell you one.\"\n\nHere our indisputably remarkable boy gave himself a hug, and laughed\nagain, musically, at the idea of his coming out in that new line.  Then\nhe once more took the fire into the same sort of confidence as before,\nand began:\n\n\"Once upon a time, When pigs drank wine, And monkeys chewed tobaccer,\n'Twas neither in your time nor mine, But that's no macker--\"\n\n\"Bless the child!\" cried my esteemed friend, \"what's amiss with his\nbrain?\"\n\n\"It's poetry, Gran,\" returned Jemmy, shouting with laughter.  \"We always\nbegin stories that way at school.\"\n\n\"Gave me quite a turn, Major,\" said my esteemed friend, fanning herself\nwith a plate.  \"Thought he was light-headed!\"\n\n\"In those remarkable times, Gran and godfather, there was once a boy,--not\nme, you know.\"\n\n\"No, no,\" says my respected friend, \"not you.  Not him, Major, you\nunderstand?\"\n\n\"No, no,\" says I.\n\n\"And he went to school in Rutlandshire--\"\n\n\"Why not Lincolnshire?\" says my respected friend.\n\n\"Why not, you dear old Gran?  Because _I_ go to school in Lincolnshire,\ndon't I?\"\n\n\"Ah, to be sure!\" says my respected friend.  \"And it's not Jemmy, you\nunderstand, Major?\"\n\n\"No, no,\" says I.\n\n\"Well!\" our boy proceeded, hugging himself comfortably, and laughing\nmerrily (again in confidence with the fire), before he again looked up in\nMrs. Lirriper's face, \"and so he was tremendously in love with his\nschoolmaster's daughter, and she was the most beautiful creature that\never was seen, and she had brown eyes, and she had brown hair all curling\nbeautifully, and she had a delicious voice, and she was delicious\naltogether, and her name was Seraphina.\"\n\n\"What's the name of _your_ schoolmaster's daughter, Jemmy?\" asks my\nrespected friend.\n\n\"Polly!\" replied Jemmy, pointing his forefinger at her.  \"There now!\nCaught you!  Ha, ha, ha!\"\n\nWhen he and my respected friend had had a laugh and a hug together, our\nadmittedly remarkable boy resumed with a great relish:\n\n\"Well!  And so he loved her.  And so he thought about her, and dreamed\nabout her, and made her presents of oranges and nuts, and would have made\nher presents of pearls and diamonds if he could have afforded it out of\nhis pocket-money, but he couldn't.  And so her father--O, he WAS a\nTartar!  Keeping the boys up to the mark, holding examinations once a\nmonth, lecturing upon all sorts of subjects at all sorts of times, and\nknowing everything in the world out of book.  And so this boy--\"\n\n\"Had he any name?\" asks my respected friend.\n\n\"No, he hadn't, Gran.  Ha, ha!  There now!  Caught you again!\"\n\nAfter this, they had another laugh and another hug, and then our boy went\non.\n\n\"Well!  And so this boy, he had a friend about as old as himself at the\nsame school, and his name (for He _had_ a name, as it happened) was--let\nme remember--was Bobbo.\"\n\n\"Not Bob,\" says my respected friend.\n\n\"Of course not,\" says Jemmy.  \"What made you think it was, Gran?  Well!\nAnd so this friend was the cleverest and bravest and best-looking and\nmost generous of all the friends that ever were, and so he was in love\nwith Seraphina's sister, and so Seraphina's sister was in love with him,\nand so they all grew up.\"\n\n\"Bless us!\" says my respected friend.  \"They were very sudden about it.\"\n\n\"So they all grew up,\" our boy repeated, laughing heartily, \"and Bobbo\nand this boy went away together on horseback to seek their fortunes, and\nthey partly got their horses by favour, and partly in a bargain; that is\nto say, they had saved up between them seven and fourpence, and the two\nhorses, being Arabs, were worth more, only the man said he would take\nthat, to favour them.  Well!  And so they made their fortunes and came\nprancing back to the school, with their pockets full of gold, enough to\nlast for ever.  And so they rang at the parents' and visitors' bell (not\nthe back gate), and when the bell was answered they proclaimed 'The same\nas if it was scarlet fever!  Every boy goes home for an indefinite\nperiod!'  And then there was great hurrahing, and then they kissed\nSeraphina and her sister,--each his own love, and not the other's on any\naccount,--and then they ordered the Tartar into instant confinement.\"\n\n\"Poor man!\" said my respected friend.\n\n\"Into instant confinement, Gran,\" repeated Jemmy, trying to look severe\nand roaring with laughter; \"and he was to have nothing to eat but the\nboys' dinners, and was to drink half a cask of their beer every day.  And\nso then the preparations were made for the two weddings, and there were\nhampers, and potted things, and sweet things, and nuts, and\npostage-stamps, and all manner of things.  And so they were so jolly,\nthat they let the Tartar out, and he was jolly too.\"\n\n\"I am glad they let him out,\" says my respected friend, \"because he had\nonly done his duty.\"\n\n\"O, but hadn't he overdone it, though!\" cried Jemmy.  \"Well!  And so then\nthis boy mounted his horse, with his bride in his arms, and cantered\naway, and cantered on and on till he came to a certain place where he had\na certain Gran and a certain godfather,--not you two, you know.\"\n\n\"No, no,\" we both said.\n\n\"And there he was received with great rejoicings, and he filled the\ncupboard and the bookcase with gold, and he showered it out on his Gran\nand his godfather because they were the two kindest and dearest people\nthat ever lived in this world.  And so while they were sitting up to\ntheir knees in gold, a knocking was heard at the street door, and who\nshould it be but Bobbo, also on horseback with his bride in his arms, and\nwhat had he come to say but that he would take (at double rent) all the\nLodgings for ever, that were not wanted by this a boy and this Gran and\nthis godfather, and that they would all live together, and all be happy!\nAnd so they were, and so it never ended!\"\n\n\"And was there no quarrelling?\" asked my respected friend, as Jemmy sat\nupon her lap and hugged her.\n\n\"No!  Nobody ever quarrelled.\"\n\n\"And did the money never melt away?\"\n\n\"No!  Nobody could ever spend it all.\"\n\n\"And did none of them ever grow older?\"\n\n\"No!  Nobody ever grew older after that.\"\n\n\"And did none of them ever die?\"\n\n\"O, no, no, no, Gran!\" exclaimed our dear boy, laying his cheek upon her\nbreast, and drawing her closer to him.  \"Nobody ever died.\"\n\n\"Ah, Major, Major!\" says my respected friend, smiling benignly upon me,\n\"this beats our stories.  Let us end with the Boy's story, Major, for the\nBoy's story is the best that is ever told!\"\n\nIn submission to which request on the part of the best of women, I have\nhere noted it down as faithfully as my best abilities, coupled with my\nbest intentions, would admit, subscribing it with my name,\n\nJ. JACKMAN.\nTHE PARLOURS.\nMRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS.\n\n\n"}
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{"1419":"\n\n\n\n\nTranscribed from the 1894 Chapman and Hall \"Christmas Stories\" edition by\nDavid Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk\n\n\n\n\n\nMUGBY JUNCTION\n\n\nCHAPTER I--BARBOX BROTHERS\n\n\nI.\n\n\n\"Guard!  What place is this?\"\n\n\"Mugby Junction, sir.\"\n\n\"A windy place!\"\n\n\"Yes, it mostly is, sir.\"\n\n\"And looks comfortless indeed!\"\n\n\"Yes, it generally does, sir.\"\n\n\"Is it a rainy night still?\"\n\n\"Pours, sir.\"\n\n\"Open the door.  I'll get out.\"\n\n\"You'll have, sir,\" said the guard, glistening with drops of wet, and\nlooking at the tearful face of his watch by the light of his lantern as\nthe traveller descended, \"three minutes here.\"\n\n\"More, I think.--For I am not going on.\"\n\n\"Thought you had a through ticket, sir?\"\n\n\"So I have, but I shall sacrifice the rest of it.  I want my luggage.\"\n\n\"Please to come to the van and point it out, sir.  Be good enough to look\nvery sharp, sir.  Not a moment to spare.\"\n\nThe guard hurried to the luggage van, and the traveller hurried after\nhim.  The guard got into it, and the traveller looked into it.\n\n\"Those two large black portmanteaus in the corner where your light\nshines.  Those are mine.\"\n\n\"Name upon 'em, sir?\"\n\n\"Barbox Brothers.\"\n\n\"Stand clear, sir, if you please.  One.  Two.  Right!\"\n\nLamp waved.  Signal lights ahead already changing.  Shriek from engine.\nTrain gone.\n\n\"Mugby Junction!\" said the traveller, pulling up the woollen muffler\nround his throat with both hands.  \"At past three o'clock of a\ntempestuous morning!  So!\"\n\nHe spoke to himself.  There was no one else to speak to.  Perhaps, though\nthere had been any one else to speak to, he would have preferred to speak\nto himself.  Speaking to himself he spoke to a man within five years of\nfifty either way, who had turned grey too soon, like a neglected fire; a\nman of pondering habit, brooding carriage of the head, and suppressed\ninternal voice; a man with many indications on him of having been much\nalone.\n\nHe stood unnoticed on the dreary platform, except by the rain and by the\nwind.  Those two vigilant assailants made a rush at him.  \"Very well,\"\nsaid he, yielding.  \"It signifies nothing to me to what quarter I turn my\nface.\"\n\nThus, at Mugby Junction, at past three o'clock of a tempestuous morning,\nthe traveller went where the weather drove him.\n\nNot but what he could make a stand when he was so minded, for, coming to\nthe end of the roofed shelter (it is of considerable extent at Mugby\nJunction), and looking out upon the dark night, with a yet darker spirit-\nwing of storm beating its wild way through it, he faced about, and held\nhis own as ruggedly in the difficult direction as he had held it in the\neasier one.  Thus, with a steady step, the traveller went up and down, up\nand down, up and down, seeking nothing and finding it.\n\nA place replete with shadowy shapes, this Mugby Junction in the black\nhours of the four-and-twenty.  Mysterious goods trains, covered with\npalls and gliding on like vast weird funerals, conveying themselves\nguiltily away from the presence of the few lighted lamps, as if their\nfreight had come to a secret and unlawful end.  Half-miles of coal\npursuing in a Detective manner, following when they lead, stopping when\nthey stop, backing when they back.  Red-hot embers showering out upon the\nground, down this dark avenue, and down the other, as if torturing fires\nwere being raked clear; concurrently, shrieks and groans and grinds\ninvading the ear, as if the tortured were at the height of their\nsuffering.  Iron-barred cages full of cattle jangling by midway, the\ndrooping beasts with horns entangled, eyes frozen with terror, and mouths\ntoo: at least they have long icicles (or what seem so) hanging from their\nlips.  Unknown languages in the air, conspiring in red, green, and white\ncharacters.  An earthquake, accompanied with thunder and lightning, going\nup express to London.  Now, all quiet, all rusty, wind and rain in\npossession, lamps extinguished, Mugby Junction dead and indistinct, with\nits robe drawn over its head, like Caesar.\n\nNow, too, as the belated traveller plodded up and down, a shadowy train\nwent by him in the gloom which was no other than the train of a life.\nFrom whatsoever intangible deep cutting or dark tunnel it emerged, here\nit came, unsummoned and unannounced, stealing upon him, and passing away\ninto obscurity.  Here mournfully went by a child who had never had a\nchildhood or known a parent, inseparable from a youth with a bitter sense\nof his namelessness, coupled to a man the enforced business of whose best\nyears had been distasteful and oppressive, linked to an ungrateful\nfriend, dragging after him a woman once beloved.  Attendant, with many a\nclank and wrench, were lumbering cares, dark meditations, huge dim\ndisappointments, monotonous years, a long jarring line of the discords of\na solitary and unhappy existence.\n\n\"--Yours, sir?\"\n\nThe traveller recalled his eyes from the waste into which they had been\nstaring, and fell back a step or so under the abruptness, and perhaps the\nchance appropriateness, of the question.\n\n\"Oh!  My thoughts were not here for the moment.  Yes.  Yes.  Those two\nportmanteaus are mine.  Are you a Porter?\"\n\n\"On Porter's wages, sir.  But I am Lamps.\"\n\nThe traveller looked a little confused.\n\n\"Who did you say you are?\"\n\n\"Lamps, sir,\" showing an oily cloth in his hand, as farther explanation.\n\n\"Surely, surely.  Is there any hotel or tavern here?\"\n\n\"Not exactly here, sir.  There is a Refreshment Room here, but--\"  Lamps,\nwith a mighty serious look, gave his head a warning roll that plainly\nadded--\"but it's a blessed circumstance for you that it's not open.\"\n\n\"You couldn't recommend it, I see, if it was available?\"\n\n\"Ask your pardon, sir.  If it was--?\"\n\n\"Open?\"\n\n\"It ain't my place, as a paid servant of the company, to give my opinion\non any of the company's toepics,\"--he pronounced it more like\ntoothpicks,--\"beyond lamp-ile and cottons,\" returned Lamps in a\nconfidential tone; \"but, speaking as a man, I wouldn't recommend my\nfather (if he was to come to life again) to go and try how he'd be\ntreated at the Refreshment Room.  Not speaking as a man, no, I would\n_not_.\"\n\nThe traveller nodded conviction.  \"I suppose I can put up in the town?\nThere is a town here?\"  For the traveller (though a stay-at-home compared\nwith most travellers) had been, like many others, carried on the steam\nwinds and the iron tides through that Junction before, without having\never, as one might say, gone ashore there.\n\n\"Oh yes, there's a town, sir!  Anyways, there's town enough to put up in.\nBut,\" following the glance of the other at his luggage, \"this is a very\ndead time of the night with us, sir.  The deadest time.  I might a'most\ncall it our deadest and buriedest time.\"\n\n\"No porters about?\"\n\n\"Well, sir, you see,\" returned Lamps, confidential again, \"they in\ngeneral goes off with the gas.  That's how it is.  And they seem to have\noverlooked you, through your walking to the furder end of the platform.\nBut, in about twelve minutes or so, she may be up.\"\n\n\"Who may be up?\"\n\n\"The three forty-two, sir.  She goes off in a sidin' till the Up X\npasses, and then she\"--here an air of hopeful vagueness pervaded\nLamps--\"does all as lays in her power.\"\n\n\"I doubt if I comprehend the arrangement.\"\n\n\"I doubt if anybody do, sir.  She's a Parliamentary, sir.  And, you see,\na Parliamentary, or a Skirmishun--\"\n\n\"Do you mean an Excursion?\"\n\n\"That's it, sir.--A Parliamentary or a Skirmishun, she mostly _does_ go\noff into a sidin'.  But, when she _can_ get a chance, she's whistled out\nof it, and she's whistled up into doin' all as,\"--Lamps again wore the\nair of a highly sanguine man who hoped for the best,--\"all as lays in her\npower.\"\n\nHe then explained that the porters on duty, being required to be in\nattendance on the Parliamentary matron in question, would doubtless turn\nup with the gas.  In the meantime, if the gentleman would not very much\nobject to the smell of lamp-oil, and would accept the warmth of his\nlittle room--The gentleman, being by this time very cold, instantly\nclosed with the proposal.\n\nA greasy little cabin it was, suggestive, to the sense of smell, of a\ncabin in a Whaler.  But there was a bright fire burning in its rusty\ngrate, and on the floor there stood a wooden stand of newly trimmed and\nlighted lamps, ready for carriage service.  They made a bright show, and\ntheir light, and the warmth, accounted for the popularity of the room, as\nborne witness to by many impressions of velveteen trousers on a form by\nthe fire, and many rounded smears and smudges of stooping velveteen\nshoulders on the adjacent wall.  Various untidy shelves accommodated a\nquantity of lamps and oil-cans, and also a fragrant collection of what\nlooked like the pocket-handkerchiefs of the whole lamp family.\n\nAs Barbox Brothers (so to call the traveller on the warranty of his\nluggage) took his seat upon the form, and warmed his now ungloved hands\nat the fire, he glanced aside at a little deal desk, much blotched with\nink, which his elbow touched.  Upon it were some scraps of coarse paper,\nand a superannuated steel pen in very reduced and gritty circumstances.\n\nFrom glancing at the scraps of paper, he turned involuntarily to his\nhost, and said, with some roughness:\n\n\"Why, you are never a poet, man?\"\n\nLamps had certainly not the conventional appearance of one, as he stood\nmodestly rubbing his squab nose with a handkerchief so exceedingly oily,\nthat he might have been in the act of mistaking himself for one of his\ncharges.  He was a spare man of about the Barbox Brothers time of life,\nwith his features whimsically drawn upward as if they were attracted by\nthe roots of his hair.  He had a peculiarly shining transparent\ncomplexion, probably occasioned by constant oleaginous application; and\nhis attractive hair, being cut short, and being grizzled, and standing\nstraight up on end as if it in its turn were attracted by some invisible\nmagnet above it, the top of his head was not very unlike a lamp-wick.\n\n\"But, to be sure, it's no business of mine,\" said Barbox Brothers.  \"That\nwas an impertinent observation on my part.  Be what you like.\"\n\n\"Some people, sir,\" remarked Lamps in a tone of apology, \"are sometimes\nwhat they don't like.\"\n\n\"Nobody knows that better than I do,\" sighed the other.  \"I have been\nwhat I don't like, all my life.\"\n\n\"When I first took, sir,\" resumed Lamps, \"to composing little\nComic-Songs--like--\"\n\nBarbox Brothers eyed him with great disfavour.\n\n\"--To composing little Comic-Songs-like--and what was more hard--to\nsinging 'em afterwards,\" said Lamps, \"it went against the grain at that\ntime, it did indeed.\"\n\nSomething that was not all oil here shining in Lamps's eye, Barbox\nBrothers withdrew his own a little disconcerted, looked at the fire, and\nput a foot on the top bar.  \"Why did you do it, then?\" he asked after a\nshort pause; abruptly enough, but in a softer tone.  \"If you didn't want\nto do it, why did you do it?  Where did you sing them?  Public-house?\"\n\nTo which Mr. Lamps returned the curious reply: \"Bedside.\"\n\nAt this moment, while the traveller looked at him for elucidation, Mugby\nJunction started suddenly, trembled violently, and opened its gas eyes.\n\"She's got up!\" Lamps announced, excited.  \"What lays in her power is\nsometimes more, and sometimes less; but it's laid in her power to get up\nto-night, by George!\"\n\nThe legend \"Barbox Brothers,\" in large white letters on two black\nsurfaces, was very soon afterwards trundling on a truck through a silent\nstreet, and, when the owner of the legend had shivered on the pavement\nhalf an hour, what time the porter's knocks at the Inn Door knocked up\nthe whole town first, and the Inn last, he groped his way into the close\nair of a shut-up house, and so groped between the sheets of a shut-up bed\nthat seemed to have been expressly refrigerated for him when last made.\n\n\n\nII.\n\n\n\"You remember me, Young Jackson?\"\n\n\"What do I remember if not you?  You are my first remembrance.  It was\nyou who told me that was my name.  It was you who told me that on every\ntwentieth of December my life had a penitential anniversary in it called\na birthday.  I suppose the last communication was truer than the first!\"\n\n\"What am I like, Young Jackson?\"\n\n\"You are like a blight all through the year to me.  You hard-lined, thin-\nlipped, repressive, changeless woman with a wax mask on.  You are like\nthe Devil to me; most of all when you teach me religious things, for you\nmake me abhor them.\"\n\n\"You remember me, Mr. Young Jackson?\"  In another voice from another\nquarter.\n\n\"Most gratefully, sir.  You were the ray of hope and prospering ambition\nin my life.  When I attended your course, I believed that I should come\nto be a great healer, and I felt almost happy--even though I was still\nthe one boarder in the house with that horrible mask, and ate and drank\nin silence and constraint with the mask before me, every day.  As I had\ndone every, every, every day, through my school-time and from my earliest\nrecollection.\"\n\n\"What am I like, Mr. Young Jackson?\"\n\n\"You are like a Superior Being to me.  You are like Nature beginning to\nreveal herself to me.  I hear you again, as one of the hushed crowd of\nyoung men kindling under the power of your presence and knowledge, and\nyou bring into my eyes the only exultant tears that ever stood in them.\"\n\n\"You remember Me, Mr. Young Jackson?\"  In a grating voice from quite\nanother quarter.\n\n\"Too well.  You made your ghostly appearance in my life one day, and\nannounced that its course was to be suddenly and wholly changed.  You\nshowed me which was my wearisome seat in the Galley of Barbox Brothers.\n(When _they_ were, if they ever were, is unknown to me; there was nothing\nof them but the name when I bent to the oar.)  You told me what I was to\ndo, and what to be paid; you told me afterwards, at intervals of years,\nwhen I was to sign for the Firm, when I became a partner, when I became\nthe Firm.  I know no more of it, or of myself.\"\n\n\"What am I like, Mr. Young Jackson?\"\n\n\"You are like my father, I sometimes think.  You are hard enough and cold\nenough so to have brought up an acknowledged son.  I see your scanty\nfigure, your close brown suit, and your tight brown wig; but you, too,\nwear a wax mask to your death.  You never by a chance remove it--it never\nby a chance falls off--and I know no more of you.\"\n\nThroughout this dialogue, the traveller spoke to himself at his window in\nthe morning, as he had spoken to himself at the Junction overnight.  And\nas he had then looked in the darkness, a man who had turned grey too\nsoon, like a neglected fire: so he now looked in the sun-light, an ashier\ngrey, like a fire which the brightness of the sun put out.\n\nThe firm of Barbox Brothers had been some offshoot or irregular branch of\nthe Public Notary and bill-broking tree.  It had gained for itself a\ngriping reputation before the days of Young Jackson, and the reputation\nhad stuck to it and to him.  As he had imperceptibly come into possession\nof the dim den up in the corner of a court off Lombard Street, on whose\ngrimy windows the inscription Barbox Brothers had for many long years\ndaily interposed itself between him and the sky, so he had insensibly\nfound himself a personage held in chronic distrust, whom it was essential\nto screw tight to every transaction in which he engaged, whose word was\nnever to be taken without his attested bond, whom all dealers with openly\nset up guards and wards against.  This character had come upon him\nthrough no act of his own.  It was as if the original Barbox had\nstretched himself down upon the office floor, and had thither caused to\nbe conveyed Young Jackson in his sleep, and had there effected a\nmetempsychosis and exchange of persons with him.  The discovery--aided in\nits turn by the deceit of the only woman he had ever loved, and the\ndeceit of the only friend he had ever made: who eloped from him to be\nmarried together--the discovery, so followed up, completed what his\nearliest rearing had begun.  He shrank, abashed, within the form of\nBarbox, and lifted up his head and heart no more.\n\nBut he did at last effect one great release in his condition.  He broke\nthe oar he had plied so long, and he scuttled and sank the galley.  He\nprevented the gradual retirement of an old conventional business from\nhim, by taking the initiative and retiring from it.  With enough to live\non (though, after all, with not too much), he obliterated the firm of\nBarbox Brothers from the pages of the Post-Office Directory and the face\nof the earth, leaving nothing of it but its name on two portmanteaus.\n\n\"For one must have some name in going about, for people to pick up,\" he\nexplained to Mugby High Street, through the Inn window, \"and that name at\nleast was real once.  Whereas, Young Jackson!--Not to mention its being a\nsadly satirical misnomer for Old Jackson.\"\n\nHe took up his hat and walked out, just in time to see, passing along on\nthe opposite side of the way, a velveteen man, carrying his day's dinner\nin a small bundle that might have been larger without suspicion of\ngluttony, and pelting away towards the Junction at a great pace.\n\n\"There's Lamps!\" said Barbox Brothers.  \"And by the bye--\"\n\nRidiculous, surely, that a man so serious, so self-contained, and not yet\nthree days emancipated from a routine of drudgery, should stand rubbing\nhis chin in the street, in a brown study about Comic Songs.\n\n\"Bedside?\" said Barbox Brothers testily.  \"Sings them at the bedside?  Why\nat the bedside, unless he goes to bed drunk?  Does, I shouldn't wonder.\nBut it's no business of mine.  Let me see.  Mugby Junction, Mugby\nJunction.  Where shall I go next?  As it came into my head last night\nwhen I woke from an uneasy sleep in the carriage and found myself here, I\ncan go anywhere from here.  Where shall I go?  I'll go and look at the\nJunction by daylight.  There's no hurry, and I may like the look of one\nLine better than another.\"\n\nBut there were so many Lines.  Gazing down upon them from a bridge at the\nJunction, it was as if the concentrating Companies formed a great\nIndustrial Exhibition of the works of extraordinary ground spiders that\nspun iron.  And then so many of the Lines went such wonderful ways, so\ncrossing and curving among one another, that the eye lost them.  And then\nsome of them appeared to start with the fixed intention of going five\nhundred miles, and all of a sudden gave it up at an insignificant\nbarrier, or turned off into a workshop.  And then others, like\nintoxicated men, went a little way very straight, and surprisingly slued\nround and came back again.  And then others were so chock-full of trucks\nof coal, others were so blocked with trucks of casks, others were so\ngorged with trucks of ballast, others were so set apart for wheeled\nobjects like immense iron cotton-reels: while others were so bright and\nclear, and others were so delivered over to rust and ashes and idle\nwheelbarrows out of work, with their legs in the air (looking much like\ntheir masters on strike), that there was no beginning, middle, or end to\nthe bewilderment.\n\nBarbox Brothers stood puzzled on the bridge, passing his right hand\nacross the lines on his forehead, which multiplied while he looked down,\nas if the railway Lines were getting themselves photographed on that\nsensitive plate.  Then was heard a distant ringing of bells and blowing\nof whistles.  Then, puppet-looking heads of men popped out of boxes in\nperspective, and popped in again.  Then, prodigious wooden razors, set up\non end, began shaving the atmosphere.  Then, several locomotive engines\nin several directions began to scream and be agitated.  Then, along one\navenue a train came in.  Then, along another two trains appeared that\ndidn't come in, but stopped without.  Then, bits of trains broke off.\nThen, a struggling horse became involved with them.  Then, the\nlocomotives shared the bits of trains, and ran away with the whole.\n\n\"I have not made my next move much clearer by this.  No hurry.  No need\nto make up my mind to-day, or to-morrow, nor yet the day after.  I'll\ntake a walk.\"\n\nIt fell out somehow (perhaps he meant it should) that the walk tended to\nthe platform at which he had alighted, and to Lamps's room.  But Lamps\nwas not in his room.  A pair of velveteen shoulders were adapting\nthemselves to one of the impressions on the wall by Lamps's fireplace,\nbut otherwise the room was void.  In passing back to get out of the\nstation again, he learnt the cause of this vacancy, by catching sight of\nLamps on the opposite line of railway, skipping along the top of a train,\nfrom carriage to carriage, and catching lighted namesakes thrown up to\nhim by a coadjutor.\n\n\"He is busy.  He has not much time for composing or singing Comic Songs\nthis morning, I take it.\"\n\nThe direction he pursued now was into the country, keeping very near to\nthe side of one great Line of railway, and within easy view of others.  \"I\nhave half a mind,\"' he said, glancing around, \"to settle the question\nfrom this point, by saying, 'I'll take this set of rails, or that, or\nt'other, and stick to it.'  They separate themselves from the confusion,\nout here, and go their ways.\"\n\nAscending a gentle hill of some extent, he came to a few cottages.  There,\nlooking about him as a very reserved man might who had never looked about\nhim in his life before, he saw some six or eight young children come\nmerrily trooping and whooping from one of the cottages, and disperse.  But\nnot until they had all turned at the little garden-gate, and kissed their\nhands to a face at the upper window: a low window enough, although the\nupper, for the cottage had but a story of one room above the ground.\n\nNow, that the children should do this was nothing; but that they should\ndo this to a face lying on the sill of the open window, turned towards\nthem in a horizontal position, and apparently only a face, was something\nnoticeable.  He looked up at the window again.  Could only see a very\nfragile, though a very bright face, lying on one cheek on the\nwindow-sill.  The delicate smiling face of a girl or woman.  Framed in\nlong bright brown hair, round which was tied a light blue band or fillet,\npassing under the chin.\n\nHe walked on, turned back, passed the window again, shyly glanced up\nagain.  No change.  He struck off by a winding branch-road at the top of\nthe hill--which he must otherwise have descended--kept the cottages in\nview, worked his way round at a distance so as to come out once more into\nthe main road, and be obliged to pass the cottages again.  The face still\nlay on the window-sill, but not so much inclined towards him.  And now\nthere were a pair of delicate hands too.  They had the action of\nperforming on some musical instrument, and yet it produced no sound that\nreached his ears.\n\n\"Mugby Junction must be the maddest place in England,\" said Barbox\nBrothers, pursuing his way down the hill.  \"The first thing I find here\nis a Railway Porter who composes comic songs to sing at his bedside.  The\nsecond thing I find here is a face, and a pair of hands playing a musical\ninstrument that _don't_ play!\"\n\nThe day was a fine bright day in the early beginning of November, the air\nwas clear and inspiriting, and the landscape was rich in beautiful\ncolours.  The prevailing colours in the court off Lombard Street, London\ncity, had been few and sombre.  Sometimes, when the weather elsewhere was\nvery bright indeed, the dwellers in those tents enjoyed a pepper-and-salt-\ncoloured day or two, but their atmosphere's usual wear was slate or snuff\ncoloured.\n\nHe relished his walk so well that he repeated it next day.  He was a\nlittle earlier at the cottage than on the day before, and he could hear\nthe children upstairs singing to a regular measure, and clapping out the\ntime with their hands.\n\n\"Still, there is no sound of any musical instrument,\" he said, listening\nat the corner, \"and yet I saw the performing hands again as I came by.\nWhat are the children singing?  Why, good Lord, they can never be singing\nthe multiplication table?\"\n\nThey were, though, and with infinite enjoyment.  The mysterious face had\na voice attached to it, which occasionally led or set the children right.\nIts musical cheerfulness was delightful.  The measure at length stopped,\nand was succeeded by a murmuring of young voices, and then by a short\nsong which he made out to be about the current month of the year, and\nabout what work it yielded to the labourers in the fields and farmyards.\nThen there was a stir of little feet, and the children came trooping and\nwhooping out, as on the previous day.  And again, as on the previous day,\nthey all turned at the garden-gate, and kissed their hands--evidently to\nthe face on the window-sill, though Barbox Brothers from his retired post\nof disadvantage at the corner could not see it.\n\nBut, as the children dispersed, he cut off one small straggler--a brown-\nfaced boy with flaxen hair--and said to him:\n\n\"Come here, little one.  Tell me, whose house is that?\"\n\nThe child, with one swarthy arm held up across his eyes, half in shyness,\nand half ready for defence, said from behind the inside of his elbow:\n\n\"Phoebe's.\"\n\n\"And who,\" said Barbox Brothers, quite as much embarrassed by his part in\nthe dialogue as the child could possibly be by his, \"is Phoebe?\"\n\nTo which the child made answer: \"Why, Phoebe, of course.\"\n\nThe small but sharp observer had eyed his questioner closely, and had\ntaken his moral measure.  He lowered his guard, and rather assumed a tone\nwith him: as having discovered him to be an unaccustomed person in the\nart of polite conversation.\n\n\"Phoebe,\" said the child, \"can't be anybobby else but Phoebe.  Can she?\"\n\n\"No, I suppose not.\"\n\n\"Well,\" returned the child, \"then why did you ask me?\"\n\nDeeming it prudent to shift his ground, Barbox Brothers took up a new\nposition.\n\n\"What do you do there?  Up there in that room where the open window is.\nWhat do you do there?\"\n\n\"Cool,\" said the child.\n\n\"Eh?\"\n\n\"Co-o-ol,\" the child repeated in a louder voice, lengthening out the word\nwith a fixed look and great emphasis, as much as to say: \"What's the use\nof your having grown up, if you're such a donkey as not to understand\nme?\"\n\n\"Ah!  School, school,\" said Barbox Brothers.  \"Yes, yes, yes.  And Phoebe\nteaches you?\"\n\nThe child nodded.\n\n\"Good boy.\"\n\n\"Tound it out, have you?\" said the child.\n\n\"Yes, I have found it out.  What would you do with twopence, if I gave it\nyou?\"\n\n\"Pend it.\"\n\nThe knock-down promptitude of this reply leaving him not a leg to stand\nupon, Barbox Brothers produced the twopence with great lameness, and\nwithdrew in a state of humiliation.\n\nBut, seeing the face on the window-sill as he passed the cottage, he\nacknowledged its presence there with a gesture, which was not a nod, not\na bow, not a removal of his hat from his head, but was a diffident\ncompromise between or struggle with all three.  The eyes in the face\nseemed amused, or cheered, or both, and the lips modestly said: \"Good-day\nto you, sir.\"\n\n\"I find I must stick for a time to Mugby Junction,\" said Barbox Brothers\nwith much gravity, after once more stopping on his return road to look at\nthe Lines where they went their several ways so quietly.  \"I can't make\nup my mind yet which iron road to take.  In fact, I must get a little\naccustomed to the Junction before I can decide.\"\n\nSo, he announced at the Inn that he was \"going to stay on for the\npresent,\" and improved his acquaintance with the Junction that night, and\nagain next morning, and again next night and morning: going down to the\nstation, mingling with the people there, looking about him down all the\navenues of railway, and beginning to take an interest in the incomings\nand outgoings of the trains.  At first, he often put his head into\nLamps's little room, but he never found Lamps there.  A pair or two of\nvelveteen shoulders he usually found there, stooping over the fire,\nsometimes in connection with a clasped knife and a piece of bread and\nmeat; but the answer to his inquiry, \"Where's Lamps?\" was, either that he\nwas \"t'other side the line,\" or, that it was his off-time, or (in the\nlatter case) his own personal introduction to another Lamps who was not\nhis Lamps.  However, he was not so desperately set upon seeing Lamps now,\nbut he bore the disappointment.  Nor did he so wholly devote himself to\nhis severe application to the study of Mugby Junction as to neglect\nexercise.  On the contrary, he took a walk every day, and always the same\nwalk.  But the weather turned cold and wet again, and the window was\nnever open.\n\n\n\nIII.\n\n\nAt length, after a lapse of some days, there came another streak of fine\nbright hardy autumn weather.  It was a Saturday.  The window was open,\nand the children were gone.  Not surprising, this, for he had patiently\nwatched and waited at the corner until they _were_ gone.\n\n\"Good-day,\" he said to the face; absolutely getting his hat clear off his\nhead this time.\n\n\"Good-day to you, sir.\"\n\n\"I am glad you have a fine sky again to look at.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir.  It is kind if you.\"\n\n\"You are an invalid, I fear?\"\n\n\"No, sir.  I have very good health.\"\n\n\"But are you not always lying down?\"\n\n\"Oh yes, I am always lying down, because I cannot sit up!  But I am not\nan invalid.\"\n\nThe laughing eyes seemed highly to enjoy his great mistake.\n\n\"Would you mind taking the trouble to come in, sir?  There is a beautiful\nview from this window.  And you would see that I am not at all ill--being\nso good as to care.\"\n\nIt was said to help him, as he stood irresolute, but evidently desiring\nto enter, with his diffident hand on the latch of the garden-gate.  It\ndid help him, and he went in.\n\nThe room upstairs was a very clean white room with a low roof.  Its only\ninmate lay on a couch that brought her face to a level with the window.\nThe couch was white too; and her simple dress or wrapper being light\nblue, like the band around her hair, she had an ethereal look, and a\nfanciful appearance of lying among clouds.  He felt that she\ninstinctively perceived him to be by habit a downcast taciturn man; it\nwas another help to him to have established that understanding so easily,\nand got it over.\n\nThere was an awkward constraint upon him, nevertheless, as he touched her\nhand, and took a chair at the side of her couch.\n\n\"I see now,\" he began, not at all fluently, \"how you occupy your hand.\nOnly seeing you from the path outside, I thought you were playing upon\nsomething.\"\n\nShe was engaged in very nimbly and dexterously making lace.  A\nlace-pillow lay upon her breast; and the quick movements and changes of\nher hands upon it, as she worked, had given them the action he had\nmisinterpreted.\n\n\"That is curious,\" she answered with a bright smile.  \"For I often fancy,\nmyself, that I play tunes while I am at work.\"\n\n\"Have you any musical knowledge?\"\n\nShe shook her head.\n\n\"I think I could pick out tunes, if I had any instrument, which could be\nmade as handy to me as my lace-pillow.  But I dare say I deceive myself.\nAt all events, I shall never know.\"\n\n\"You have a musical voice.  Excuse me; I have heard you sing.\"\n\n\"With the children?\" she answered, slightly colouring.  \"Oh yes.  I sing\nwith the dear children, if it can be called singing.\"\n\nBarbox Brothers glanced at the two small forms in the room, and hazarded\nthe speculation that she was fond of children, and that she was learned\nin new systems of teaching them?\n\n\"Very fond of them,\" she said, shaking her head again; \"but I know\nnothing of teaching, beyond the interest I have in it, and the pleasure\nit gives me when they learn.  Perhaps your overhearing my little scholars\nsing some of their lessons has led you so far astray as to think me a\ngrand teacher?  Ah!  I thought so!  No, I have only read and been told\nabout that system.  It seemed so pretty and pleasant, and to treat them\nso like the merry Robins they are, that I took up with it in my little\nway.  You don't need to be told what a very little way mine is, sir,\" she\nadded with a glance at the small forms and round the room.\n\nAll this time her hands were busy at her lace-pillow.  As they still\ncontinued so, and as there was a kind of substitute for conversation in\nthe click and play of its pegs, Barbox Brothers took the opportunity of\nobserving her.  He guessed her to be thirty.  The charm of her\ntransparent face and large bright brown eyes was, not that they were\npassively resigned, but that they were actively and thoroughly cheerful.\nEven her busy hands, which of their own thinness alone might have\nbesought compassion, plied their task with a gay courage that made mere\ncompassion an unjustifiable assumption of superiority, and an\nimpertinence.\n\nHe saw her eyes in the act of rising towards his, and he directed his\ntowards the prospect, saying: \"Beautiful, indeed!\"\n\n\"Most beautiful, sir.  I have sometimes had a fancy that I would like to\nsit up, for once, only to try how it looks to an erect head.  But what a\nfoolish fancy that would be to encourage!  It cannot look more lovely to\nany one than it does to me.\"\n\nHer eyes were turned to it, as she spoke, with most delighted admiration\nand enjoyment.  There was not a trace in it of any sense of deprivation.\n\n\"And those threads of railway, with their puffs of smoke and steam\nchanging places so fast, make it so lively for me,\" she went on.  \"I\nthink of the number of people who can go where they wish, on their\nbusiness, or their pleasure; I remember that the puffs make signs to me\nthat they are actually going while I look; and that enlivens the prospect\nwith abundance of company, if I want company.  There is the great\nJunction, too.  I don't see it under the foot of the hill, but I can very\noften hear it, and I always know it is there.  It seems to join me, in a\nway, to I don't know how many places and things that I shall never see.\"\n\nWith an abashed kind of idea that it might have already joined himself to\nsomething he had never seen, he said constrainedly: \"Just so.\"\n\n\"And so you see, sir,\" pursued Phoebe, \"I am not the invalid you thought\nme, and I am very well off indeed.\"\n\n\"You have a happy disposition,\" said Barbox Brothers: perhaps with a\nslight excusatory touch for his own disposition.\n\n\"Ah!  But you should know my father,\" she replied.  \"His is the happy\ndisposition!--Don't mind, sir!\"  For his reserve took the alarm at a step\nupon the stairs, and he distrusted that he would be set down for a\ntroublesome intruder.  \"This is my father coming.\"\n\nThe door opened, and the father paused there.\n\n\"Why, Lamps!\" exclaimed Barbox Brothers, starting from his chair.  \"How\ndo you do, Lamps?\"\n\nTo which Lamps responded: \"The gentleman for Nowhere!  How do you DO,\nsir?\"\n\nAnd they shook hands, to the greatest admiration and surprise of Lamp's\ndaughter.\n\n\"I have looked you up half-a-dozen times since that night,\" said Barbox\nBrothers, \"but have never found you.\"\n\n\"So I've heerd on, sir, so I've heerd on,\" returned Lamps.  \"It's your\nbeing noticed so often down at the Junction, without taking any train,\nthat has begun to get you the name among us of the gentleman for Nowhere.\nNo offence in my having called you by it when took by surprise, I hope,\nsir?\"\n\n\"None at all.  It's as good a name for me as any other you could call me\nby.  But may I ask you a question in the corner here?\"\n\nLamps suffered himself to be led aside from his daughter's couch by one\nof the buttons of his velveteen jacket.\n\n\"Is this the bedside where you sing your songs?\"\n\nLamps nodded.\n\nThe gentleman for Nowhere clapped him on the shoulder, and they faced\nabout again.\n\n\"Upon my word, my dear,\" said Lamps then to his daughter, looking from\nher to her visitor, \"it is such an amaze to me, to find you brought\nacquainted with this gentleman, that I must (if this gentleman will\nexcuse me) take a rounder.\"\n\nMr. Lamps demonstrated in action what this meant, by pulling out his oily\nhandkerchief rolled up in the form of a ball, and giving himself an\nelaborate smear, from behind the right ear, up the cheek, across the\nforehead, and down the other cheek to behind his left ear.  After this\noperation he shone exceedingly.\n\n\"It's according to my custom when particular warmed up by any agitation,\nsir,\" he offered by way of apology.  \"And really, I am throwed into that\nstate of amaze by finding you brought acquainted with Phoebe, that I--that\nI think I will, if you'll excuse me, take another rounder.\"  Which he\ndid, seeming to be greatly restored by it.\n\nThey were now both standing by the side of her couch, and she was working\nat her lace-pillow.  \"Your daughter tells me,\" said Barbox Brothers,\nstill in a half-reluctant shamefaced way, \"that she never sits up.\"\n\n\"No, sir, nor never has done.  You see, her mother (who died when she was\na year and two months old) was subject to very bad fits, and as she had\nnever mentioned to me that she _was_ subject to fits, they couldn't be\nguarded against.  Consequently, she dropped the baby when took, and this\nhappened.\"\n\n\"It was very wrong of her,\" said Barbox Brothers with a knitted brow, \"to\nmarry you, making a secret of her infirmity.'\n\n\"Well, sir!\" pleaded Lamps in behalf of the long-deceased.  \"You see,\nPhoebe and me, we have talked that over too.  And Lord bless us!  Such a\nnumber on us has our infirmities, what with fits, and what with misfits,\nof one sort and another, that if we confessed to 'em all before we got\nmarried, most of us might never get married.\"\n\n\"Might not that be for the better?\"\n\n\"Not in this case, sir,\" said Phoebe, giving her hand to her father.\n\n\"No, not in this case, sir,\" said her father, patting it between his own.\n\n\"You correct me,\" returned Barbox Brothers with a blush; \"and I must look\nso like a Brute, that at all events it would be superfluous in me to\nconfess to _that_ infirmity.  I wish you would tell me a little more\nabout yourselves.  I hardly knew how to ask it of you, for I am conscious\nthat I have a bad stiff manner, a dull discouraging way with me, but I\nwish you would.\"\n\n\"With all our hearts, sir,\" returned Lamps gaily for both.  \"And first of\nall, that you may know my name--\"\n\n\"Stay!\" interposed the visitor with a slight flush.  \"What signifies your\nname?  Lamps is name enough for me.  I like it.  It is bright and\nexpressive.  What do I want more?\"\n\n\"Why, to be sure, sir,\" returned Lamps.  \"I have in general no other name\ndown at the Junction; but I thought, on account of your being here as a\nfirst-class single, in a private character, that you might--\"\n\nThe visitor waved the thought away with his hand, and Lamps acknowledged\nthe mark of confidence by taking another rounder.\n\n\"You are hard-worked, I take for granted?\" said Barbox Brothers, when the\nsubject of the rounder came out of it much dirtier than be went into it.\n\nLamps was beginning, \"Not particular so\"--when his daughter took him up.\n\n\"Oh yes, sir, he is very hard-worked.  Fourteen, fifteen, eighteen hours\na day.  Sometimes twenty-four hours at a time.\"\n\n\"And you,\" said Barbox Brothers, \"what with your school, Phoebe, and what\nwith your lace-making--\"\n\n\"But my school is a pleasure to me,\" she interrupted, opening her brown\neyes wider, as if surprised to find him so obtuse.  \"I began it when I\nwas but a child, because it brought me and other children into company,\ndon't you see?  _That_ was not work.  I carry it on still, because it\nkeeps children about me.  _That_ is not work.  I do it as love, not as\nwork.  Then my lace-pillow;\" her busy hands had stopped, as if her\nargument required all her cheerful earnestness, but now went on again at\nthe name; \"it goes with my thoughts when I think, and it goes with my\ntunes when I hum any, and _that's_ not work.  Why, you yourself thought\nit was music, you know, sir.  And so it is to me.\"\n\n\"Everything is!\" cried Lamps radiantly.  \"Everything is music to her,\nsir.\"\n\n\"My father is, at any rate,\" said Phoebe, exultingly pointing her thin\nforefinger at him.  \"There is more music in my father than there is in a\nbrass band.\"\n\n\"I say!  My dear!  It's very fillyillially done, you know; but you are\nflattering your father,\" he protested, sparkling.\n\n\"No, I am not, sir, I assure you.  No, I am not.  If you could hear my\nfather sing, you would know I am not.  But you never will hear him sing,\nbecause he never sings to any one but me.  However tired he is, he always\nsings to me when he comes home.  When I lay here long ago, quite a poor\nlittle broken doll, he used to sing to me.  More than that, he used to\nmake songs, bringing in whatever little jokes we had between us.  More\nthan that, he often does so to this day.  Oh!  I'll tell of you, father,\nas the gentleman has asked about you.  He is a poet, sir.\"\n\n\"I shouldn't wish the gentleman, my dear,\" observed Lamps, for the moment\nturning grave, \"to carry away that opinion of your father, because it\nmight look as if I was given to asking the stars in a molloncolly manner\nwhat they was up to.  Which I wouldn't at once waste the time, and take\nthe liberty, my dear.\"\n\n\"My father,\" resumed Phoebe, amending her text, \"is always on the bright\nside, and the good side.  You told me, just now, I had a happy\ndisposition.  How can I help it?\"\n\n\"Well; but, my dear,\" returned Lamps argumentatively, \"how can I help it?\nPut it to yourself sir.  Look at her.  Always as you see her now.  Always\nworking--and after all, sir, for but a very few shillings a week--always\ncontented, always lively, always interested in others, of all sorts.  I\nsaid, this moment, she was always as you see her now.  So she is, with a\ndifference that comes to much the same.  For, when it is my Sunday off\nand the morning bells have done ringing, I hear the prayers and thanks\nread in the touchingest way, and I have the hymns sung to me--so soft,\nsir, that you couldn't hear 'em out of this room--in notes that seem to\nme, I am sure, to come from Heaven and go back to it.\"\n\nIt might have been merely through the association of these words with\ntheir sacredly quiet time, or it might have been through the larger\nassociation of the words with the Redeemer's presence beside the\nbedridden; but here her dexterous fingers came to a stop on the\nlace-pillow, and clasped themselves around his neck as he bent down.\nThere was great natural sensibility in both father and daughter, the\nvisitor could easily see; but each made it, for the other's sake,\nretiring, not demonstrative; and perfect cheerfulness, intuitive or\nacquired, was either the first or second nature of both.  In a very few\nmoments Lamps was taking another rounder with his comical features\nbeaming, while Phoebe's laughing eyes (just a glistening speck or so upon\ntheir lashes) were again directed by turns to him, and to her work, and\nto Barbox Brothers.\n\n\"When my father, sir,\" she said brightly, \"tells you about my being\ninterested in other people, even though they know nothing about me--which,\nby the bye, I told you myself--you ought to know how that comes about.\nThat's my father's doing.\"\n\n\"No, it isn't!\" he protested.\n\n\"Don't you believe him, sir; yes, it is.  He tells me of everything he\nsees down at his work.  You would be surprised what a quantity he gets\ntogether for me every day.  He looks into the carriages, and tells me how\nthe ladies are dressed--so that I know all the fashions!  He looks into\nthe carriages, and tells me what pairs of lovers he sees, and what new-\nmarried couples on their wedding trip--so that I know all about that!  He\ncollects chance newspapers and books--so that I have plenty to read!  He\ntells me about the sick people who are travelling to try to get better--so\nthat I know all about them!  In short, as I began by saying, he tells me\neverything he sees and makes out down at his work, and you can't think\nwhat a quantity he does see and make out.\"\n\n\"As to collecting newspapers and books, my dear,\" said Lamps, \"it's clear\nI can have no merit in that, because they're not my perquisites.  You\nsee, sir, it's this way: A Guard, he'll say to me, 'Hallo, here you are,\nLamps.  I've saved this paper for your daughter.  How is she a-going on?'\nA Head-Porter, he'll say to me, 'Here!  Catch hold, Lamps.  Here's a\ncouple of wollumes for your daughter.  Is she pretty much where she\nwere?'  And that's what makes it double welcome, you see.  If she had a\nthousand pound in a box, they wouldn't trouble themselves about her; but\nbeing what she is--that is, you understand,\" Lamps added, somewhat\nhurriedly, \"not having a thousand pound in a box--they take thought for\nher.  And as concerning the young pairs, married and unmarried, it's only\nnatural I should bring home what little I can about _them_, seeing that\nthere's not a Couple of either sort in the neighbourhood that don't come\nof their own accord to confide in Phoebe.\"\n\nShe raised her eyes triumphantly to Barbox Brothers as she said:\n\n\"Indeed, sir, that is true.  If I could have got up and gone to church, I\ndon't know how often I should have been a bridesmaid.  But, if I could\nhave done that, some girls in love might have been jealous of me, and, as\nit is, no girl is jealous of me.  And my pillow would not have been half\nas ready to put the piece of cake under, as I always find it,\" she added,\nturning her face on it with a light sigh, and a smile at her father.\n\nThe arrival of a little girl, the biggest of the scholars, now led to an\nunderstanding on the part of Barbox Brothers, that she was the domestic\nof the cottage, and had come to take active measures in it, attended by a\npail that might have extinguished her, and a broom three times her\nheight.  He therefore rose to take his leave, and took it; saying that,\nif Phoebe had no objection, he would come again.\n\nHe had muttered that he would come \"in the course of his walks.\"  The\ncourse of his walks must have been highly favourable to his return, for\nhe returned after an interval of a single day.\n\n\"You thought you would never see me any more, I suppose?\" he said to\nPhoebe as he touched her hand, and sat down by her couch.\n\n\"Why should I think so?\" was her surprised rejoinder.\n\n\"I took it for granted you would mistrust me.\"\n\n\"For granted, sir?  Have you been so much mistrusted?\"\n\n\"I think I am justified in answering yes.  But I may have mistrusted,\ntoo, on my part.  No matter just now.  We were speaking of the Junction\nlast time.  I have passed hours there since the day before yesterday.\"\n\n\"Are you now the gentleman for Somewhere?\" she asked with a smile.\n\n\"Certainly for Somewhere; but I don't yet know Where.  You would never\nguess what I am travelling from.  Shall I tell you?  I am travelling from\nmy birthday.\"\n\nHer hands stopped in her work, and she looked at him with incredulous\nastonishment.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Barbox Brothers, not quite easy in his chair, \"from my\nbirthday.  I am, to myself, an unintelligible book with the earlier\nchapters all torn out, and thrown away.  My childhood had no grace of\nchildhood, my youth had no charm of youth, and what can be expected from\nsuch a lost beginning?\"  His eyes meeting hers as they were addressed\nintently to him, something seemed to stir within his breast, whispering:\n\"Was this bed a place for the graces of childhood and the charms of youth\nto take to kindly?  Oh, shame, shame!\"\n\n\"It is a disease with me,\" said Barbox Brothers, checking himself, and\nmaking as though he had a difficulty in swallowing something, \"to go\nwrong about that.  I don't know how I came to speak of that.  I hope it\nis because of an old misplaced confidence in one of your sex involving an\nold bitter treachery.  I don't know.  I am all wrong together.\"\n\nHer hands quietly and slowly resumed their work.  Glancing at her, he saw\nthat her eyes were thoughtfully following them.\n\n\"I am travelling from my birthday,\" he resumed, \"because it has always\nbeen a dreary day to me.  My first free birthday coming round some five\nor six weeks hence, I am travelling to put its predecessors far behind\nme, and to try to crush the day--or, at all events, put it out of my\nsight--by heaping new objects on it.\"\n\nAs he paused, she looked at him; but only shook her head as being quite\nat a loss.\n\n\"This is unintelligible to your happy disposition,\" he pursued, abiding\nby his former phrase as if there were some lingering virtue of\nself-defence in it.  \"I knew it would be, and am glad it is.  However, on\nthis travel of mine (in which I mean to pass the rest of my days, having\nabandoned all thought of a fixed home), I stopped, as you have heard from\nyour father, at the Junction here.  The extent of its ramifications quite\nconfused me as to whither I should go, _from_ here.  I have not yet\nsettled, being still perplexed among so many roads.  What do you think I\nmean to do?  How many of the branching roads can you see from your\nwindow?\"\n\nLooking out, full of interest, she answered, \"Seven.\"\n\n\"Seven,\" said Barbox Brothers, watching her with a grave smile.  \"Well!  I\npropose to myself at once to reduce the gross number to those very seven,\nand gradually to fine them down to one--the most promising for me--and to\ntake that.\"\n\n\"But how will you know, sir, which _is_ the most promising?\" she asked,\nwith her brightened eyes roving over the view.\n\n\"Ah!\" said Barbox Brothers with another grave smile, and considerably\nimproving in his ease of speech.  \"To be sure.  In this way.  Where your\nfather can pick up so much every day for a good purpose, I may once and\nagain pick up a little for an indifferent purpose.  The gentleman for\nNowhere must become still better known at the Junction.  He shall\ncontinue to explore it, until he attaches something that he has seen,\nheard, or found out, at the head of each of the seven roads, to the road\nitself.  And so his choice of a road shall be determined by his choice\namong his discoveries.\"\n\nHer hands still busy, she again glanced at the prospect, as if it\ncomprehended something that had not been in it before, and laughed as if\nit yielded her new pleasure.\n\n\"But I must not forget,\" said Barbox Brothers, \"(having got so far) to\nask a favour.  I want your help in this expedient of mine.  I want to\nbring you what I pick up at the heads of the seven roads that you lie\nhere looking out at, and to compare notes with you about it.  May I?  They\nsay two heads are better than one.  I should say myself that probably\ndepends upon the heads concerned.  But I am quite sure, though we are so\nnewly acquainted, that your head and your father's have found out better\nthings, Phoebe, than ever mine of itself discovered.\"\n\nShe gave him her sympathetic right hand, in perfect rapture with his\nproposal, and eagerly and gratefully thanked him.\n\n\"That's well!\" said Barbox Brothers.  \"Again I must not forget (having\ngot so far) to ask a favour.  Will you shut your eyes?\"\n\nLaughing playfully at the strange nature of the request, she did so.\n\n\"Keep them shut,\" said Barbox Brothers, going softly to the door, and\ncoming back.  \"You are on your honour, mind, not to open you eyes until I\ntell you that you may?\"\n\n\"Yes!  On my honour.\"\n\n\"Good.  May I take your lace-pillow from you for a minute?\"\n\nStill laughing and wondering, she removed her hands from it, and he put\nit aside.\n\n\"Tell me.  Did you see the puffs of smoke and steam made by the morning\nfast-train yesterday on road number seven from here?\"\n\n\"Behind the elm-trees and the spire?\"\n\n\"That's the road,\" said Barbox Brothers, directing his eyes towards it.\n\n\"Yes.  I watched them melt away.\"\n\n\"Anything unusual in what they expressed?\"\n\n\"No!\" she answered merrily.\n\n\"Not complimentary to me, for I was in that train.  I went--don't open\nyour eyes--to fetch you this, from the great ingenious town.  It is not\nhalf so large as your lace-pillow, and lies easily and lightly in its\nplace.  These little keys are like the keys of a miniature piano, and you\nsupply the air required with your left hand.  May you pick out delightful\nmusic from it, my dear!  For the present--you can open your eyes now--good-\nbye!\"\n\nIn his embarrassed way, he closed the door upon himself, and only saw, in\ndoing so, that she ecstatically took the present to her bosom and\ncaressed it.  The glimpse gladdened his heart, and yet saddened it; for\nso might she, if her youth had flourished in its natural course, having\ntaken to her breast that day the slumbering music of her own child's\nvoice.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II--BARBOX BROTHERS AND CO.\n\n\nWith good-will and earnest purpose, the gentleman for Nowhere began, on\nthe very next day, his researches at the heads of the seven roads.  The\nresults of his researches, as he and Phoebe afterwards set them down in\nfair writing, hold their due places in this veracious chronicle.  But\nthey occupied a much longer time in the getting together than they ever\nwill in the perusal.  And this is probably the case with most reading\nmatter, except when it is of that highly beneficial kind (for Posterity)\nwhich is \"thrown off in a few moments of leisure\" by the superior poetic\ngeniuses who scorn to take prose pains.\n\nIt must be admitted, however, that Barbox by no means hurried himself.\nHis heart being in his work of good-nature, he revelled in it.  There was\nthe joy, too (it was a true joy to him), of sometimes sitting by,\nlistening to Phoebe as she picked out more and more discourse from her\nmusical instrument, and as her natural taste and ear refined daily upon\nher first discoveries.  Besides being a pleasure, this was an occupation,\nand in the course of weeks it consumed hours.  It resulted that his\ndreaded birthday was close upon him before he had troubled himself any\nmore about it.\n\nThe matter was made more pressing by the unforeseen circumstance that the\ncouncils held (at which Mr. Lamps, beaming most brilliantly, on a few\nrare occasions assisted) respecting the road to be selected were, after\nall, in nowise assisted by his investigations.  For, he had connected\nthis interest with this road, or that interest with the other, but could\ndeduce no reason from it for giving any road the preference.\nConsequently, when the last council was holden, that part of the business\nstood, in the end, exactly where it had stood in the beginning.\n\n\"But, sir,\" remarked Phoebe, \"we have only six roads after all.  Is the\nseventh road dumb?\"\n\n\"The seventh road?  Oh!\" said Barbox Brothers, rubbing his chin.  \"That\nis the road I took, you know, when I went to get your little present.\nThat is _its_ story.  Phoebe.\"\n\n\"Would you mind taking that road again, sir?\" she asked with hesitation.\n\n\"Not in the least; it is a great high-road after all.\"\n\n\"I should like you to take it,\" returned Phoebe with a persuasive smile,\n\"for the love of that little present which must ever be so dear to me.  I\nshould like you to take it, because that road can never be again like any\nother road to me.  I should like you to take it, in remembrance of your\nhaving done me so much good: of your having made me so much happier!  If\nyou leave me by the road you travelled when you went to do me this great\nkindness,\" sounding a faint chord as she spoke, \"I shall feel, lying here\nwatching at my window, as if it must conduct you to a prosperous end, and\nbring you back some day.\"\n\n\"It shall be done, my dear; it shall be done.\"\n\nSo at last the gentleman for Nowhere took a ticket for Somewhere, and his\ndestination was the great ingenious town.\n\nHe had loitered so long about the Junction that it was the eighteenth of\nDecember when he left it.  \"High time,\" he reflected, as he seated\nhimself in the train, \"that I started in earnest!  Only one clear day\nremains between me and the day I am running away from.  I'll push onward\nfor the hill-country to-morrow.  I'll go to Wales.\"\n\nIt was with some pains that he placed before himself the undeniable\nadvantages to be gained in the way of novel occupation for his senses\nfrom misty mountains, swollen streams, rain, cold, a wild seashore, and\nrugged roads.  And yet he scarcely made them out as distinctly as he\ncould have wished.  Whether the poor girl, in spite of her new resource,\nher music, would have any feeling of loneliness upon her now--just at\nfirst--that she had not had before; whether she saw those very puffs of\nsteam and smoke that he saw, as he sat in the train thinking of her;\nwhether her face would have any pensive shadow on it as they died out of\nthe distant view from her window; whether, in telling him he had done her\nso much good, she had not unconsciously corrected his old moody bemoaning\nof his station in life, by setting him thinking that a man might be a\ngreat healer, if he would, and yet not be a great doctor; these and other\nsimilar meditations got between him and his Welsh picture.  There was\nwithin him, too, that dull sense of vacuity which follows separation from\nan object of interest, and cessation of a pleasant pursuit; and this\nsense, being quite new to him, made him restless.  Further, in losing\nMugby Junction, he had found himself again; and he was not the more\nenamoured of himself for having lately passed his time in better company.\n\nBut surely here, not far ahead, must be the great ingenious town.  This\ncrashing and clashing that the train was undergoing, and this coupling on\nto it of a multitude of new echoes, could mean nothing less than approach\nto the great station.  It did mean nothing less.  After some stormy\nflashes of town lightning, in the way of swift revelations of red brick\nblocks of houses, high red brick chimney-shafts, vistas of red brick\nrailway arches, tongues of fire, blocks of smoke, valleys of canal, and\nhills if coal, there came the thundering in at the journey's end.\n\nHaving seen his portmanteaus safely housed in the hotel he chose, and\nhaving appointed his dinner hour, Barbox Brothers went out for a walk in\nthe busy streets.  And now it began to be suspected by him that Mugby\nJunction was a Junction of many branches, invisible as well as visible,\nand had joined him to an endless number of by-ways.  For, whereas he\nwould, but a little while ago, have walked these streets blindly\nbrooding, he now had eyes and thoughts for a new external world.  How the\nmany toiling people lived, and loved, and died; how wonderful it was to\nconsider the various trainings of eye and hand, the nice distinctions of\nsight and touch, that separated them into classes of workers, and even\ninto classes of workers at subdivisions of one complete whole which\ncombined their many intelligences and forces, though of itself but some\ncheap object of use or ornament in common life; how good it was to know\nthat such assembling in a multitude on their part, and such contribution\nof their several dexterities towards a civilising end, did not\ndeteriorate them as it was the fashion of the supercilious Mayflies of\nhumanity to pretend, but engendered among them a self-respect, and yet a\nmodest desire to be much wiser than they were (the first evinced in their\nwell-balanced bearing and manner of speech when he stopped to ask a\nquestion; the second, in the announcements of their popular studies and\namusements on the public walls); these considerations, and a host of\nsuch, made his walk a memorable one.  \"I too am but a little part of a\ngreat whole,\" he began to think; \"and to be serviceable to myself and\nothers, or to be happy, I must cast my interest into, and draw it out of,\nthe common stock.\"\n\nAlthough he had arrived at his journey's end for the day by noon, he had\nsince insensibly walked about the town so far and so long that the lamp-\nlighters were now at their work in the streets, and the shops were\nsparkling up brilliantly.  Thus reminded to turn towards his quarters, he\nwas in the act of doing so, when a very little hand crept into his, and a\nvery little voice said:\n\n\"Oh! if you please, I am lost!\"\n\nHe looked down, and saw a very little fair-haired girl.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said, confirming her words with a serious nod.  \"I am indeed.\nI am lost!\"\n\nGreatly perplexed, he stopped, looked about him for help, descried none,\nand said, bending low.\n\n\"Where do you live, my child?\"\n\n\"I don't know where I live,\" she returned.  \"I am lost.\"\n\n\"What is your name?\"\n\n\"Polly.\"\n\n\"What is your other name?\"\n\nThe reply was prompt, but unintelligible.\n\nImitating the sound as he caught it, he hazarded the guess, \"Trivits.\"\n\n\"Oh no!\" said the child, shaking her head.  \"Nothing like that.\"\n\n\"Say it again, little one.\"\n\nAn unpromising business.  For this time it had quite a different sound.\n\nHe made the venture, \"Paddens?\"\n\n\"Oh no!\" said the child.  \"Nothing like that.\"\n\n\"Once more.  Let us try it again, dear.\"\n\nA most hopeless business.  This time it swelled into four syllables.  \"It\ncan't be Tappitarver?\" said Barbox Brothers, rubbing his head with his\nhat in discomfiture.\n\n\"No!  It ain't,\" the child quietly assented.\n\nOn her trying this unfortunate name once more, with extraordinary efforts\nat distinctness, it swelled into eight syllables at least.\n\n\"Ah!  I think,\" said Barbox Brothers with a desperate air of resignation,\n\"that we had better give it up.\"\n\n\"But I am lost,\" said the child, nestling her little hand more closely in\nhis, \"and you'll take care of me, won't you?\"\n\nIf ever a man were disconcerted by division between compassion on the one\nhand, and the very imbecility of irresolution on the other, here the man\nwas.  \"Lost!\" he repeated, looking down at the child.  \"I am sure _I_ am.\nWhat is to be done?\"\n\n\"Where do you live?\" asked the child, looking up at him wistfully.\n\n\"Over there,\" he answered, pointing vaguely in the direction of his\nhotel.\n\n\"Hadn't we better go there?\" said the child.\n\n\"Really,\" he replied, \"I don't know but what we had.\"\n\nSo they set off, hand-in-hand.  He, through comparison of himself against\nhis little companion, with a clumsy feeling on him as if he had just\ndeveloped into a foolish giant.  She, clearly elevated in her own tiny\nopinion by having got him so neatly out of his embarrassment.\n\n\"We are going to have dinner when we get there, I suppose?\" said Polly.\n\n\"Well,\" he rejoined, \"I--Yes, I suppose we are.\"\n\n\"Do you like your dinner?\" asked the child.\n\n\"Why, on the whole,\" said Barbox Brothers, \"yes, I think I do.\"\n\n\"I do mine,\" said Polly.  \"Have you any brothers and sisters?\"\n\n\"No.  Have you?\"\n\n\"Mine are dead.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said Barbox Brothers.  With that absurd sense of unwieldiness of\nmind and body weighing him down, he would have not known how to pursue\nthe conversation beyond this curt rejoinder, but that the child was\nalways ready for him.\n\n\"What,\" she asked, turning her soft hand coaxingly in his, \"are you going\nto do to amuse me after dinner?\"\n\n\"Upon my soul, Polly,\" exclaimed Barbox Brothers, very much at a loss, \"I\nhave not the slightest idea!\"\n\n\"Then I tell you what,\" said Polly.  \"Have you got any cards at your\nhouse?\"\n\n\"Plenty,\" said Barbox Brothers in a boastful vein.\n\n\"Very well.  Then I'll build houses, and you shall look at me.  You\nmustn't blow, you know.\"\n\n\"Oh no,\" said Barbox Brothers.  \"No, no, no.  No blowing.  Blowing's not\nfair.\"\n\nHe flattered himself that he had said this pretty well for an idiotic\nmonster; but the child, instantly perceiving the awkwardness of his\nattempt to adapt himself to her level, utterly destroyed his hopeful\nopinion of himself by saying compassionately: \"What a funny man you are!\"\n\nFeeling, after this melancholy failure, as if he every minute grew bigger\nand heavier in person, and weaker in mind, Barbox gave himself up for a\nbad job.  No giant ever submitted more meekly to be led in triumph by all-\nconquering Jack than he to be bound in slavery to Polly.\n\n\"Do you know any stories?\" she asked him.\n\nHe was reduced to the humiliating confession: \"No.\"\n\n\"What a dunce you must be, mustn't you?\" said Polly.\n\nHe was reduced to the humiliating confession: \"Yes.\"\n\n\"Would you like me to teach you a story?  But you must remember it, you\nknow, and be able to tell it right to somebody else afterwards.\"\n\nHe professed that it would afford him the highest mental gratification to\nbe taught a story, and that he would humbly endeavour to retain it in his\nmind.  Whereupon Polly, giving her hand a new little turn in his,\nexpressive of settling down for enjoyment, commenced a long romance, of\nwhich every relishing clause began with the words: \"So this,\" or, \"And so\nthis.\"  As, \"So this boy;\" or, \"So this fairy;\" or, \"And so this pie was\nfour yards round, and two yards and a quarter deep.\"  The interest of the\nromance was derived from the intervention of this fairy to punish this\nboy for having a greedy appetite.  To achieve which purpose, this fairy\nmade this pie, and this boy ate and ate and ate, and his cheeks swelled\nand swelled and swelled.  There were many tributary circumstances, but\nthe forcible interest culminated in the total consumption of this pie,\nand the bursting of this boy.  Truly he was a fine sight, Barbox\nBrothers, with serious attentive face, and ear bent down, much jostled on\nthe pavements of the busy town, but afraid of losing a single incident of\nthe epic, lest he should be examined in it by-and-by, and found\ndeficient.\n\nThus they arrived at the hotel.  And there he had to say at the bar, and\nsaid awkwardly enough; \"I have found a little girl!\"\n\nThe whole establishment turned out to look at the little girl.  Nobody\nknew her; nobody could make out her name, as she set it forth--except one\nchamber-maid, who said it was Constantinople--which it wasn't.\n\n\"I will dine with my young friend in a private room,\" said Barbox\nBrothers to the hotel authorities, \"and perhaps you will be so good as to\nlet the police know that the pretty baby is here.  I suppose she is sure\nto be inquired for soon, if she has not been already.  Come along,\nPolly.\"\n\nPerfectly at ease and peace, Polly came along, but, finding the stairs\nrather stiff work, was carried up by Barbox Brothers.  The dinner was a\nmost transcendant success, and the Barbox sheepishness, under Polly's\ndirections how to mince her meat for her, and how to diffuse gravy over\nthe plate with a liberal and equal hand, was another fine sight.\n\n\"And now,\" said Polly, \"while we are at dinner, you be good, and tell me\nthat story I taught you.\"\n\nWith the tremors of a Civil Service examination upon him, and very\nuncertain indeed, not only as to the epoch at which the pie appeared in\nhistory, but also as to the measurements of that indispensable fact,\nBarbox Brothers made a shaky beginning, but under encouragement did very\nfairly.  There was a want of breadth observable in his rendering of the\ncheeks, as well as the appetite, of the boy; and there was a certain\ntameness in his fairy, referable to an under-current of desire to account\nfor her.  Still, as the first lumbering performance of a good-humoured\nmonster, it passed muster.\n\n\"I told you to be good,\" said Polly, \"and you are good, ain't you?\"\n\n\"I hope so,\" replied Barbox Brothers.\n\nSuch was his deference that Polly, elevated on a platform of sofa\ncushions in a chair at his right hand, encouraged him with a pat or two\non the face from the greasy bowl of her spoon, and even with a gracious\nkiss.  In getting on her feet upon her chair, however, to give him this\nlast reward, she toppled forward among the dishes, and caused him to\nexclaim, as he effected her rescue: \"Gracious Angels!  Whew!  I thought\nwe were in the fire, Polly!\"\n\n\"What a coward you are, ain't you?\" said Polly when replaced.\n\n\"Yes, I am rather nervous,\" he replied.  \"Whew!  Don't, Polly!  Don't\nflourish your spoon, or you'll go over sideways.  Don't tilt up your legs\nwhen you laugh, Polly, or you'll go over backwards.  Whew!  Polly, Polly,\nPolly,\" said Barbox Brothers, nearly succumbing to despair, \"we are\nenvironed with dangers!\"\n\nIndeed, he could descry no security from the pitfalls that were yawning\nfor Polly, but in proposing to her, after dinner, to sit upon a low\nstool.  \"I will, if you will,\" said Polly.  So, as peace of mind should\ngo before all, he begged the waiter to wheel aside the table, bring a\npack of cards, a couple of footstools, and a screen, and close in Polly\nand himself before the fire, as it were in a snug room within the room.\nThen, finest sight of all, was Barbox Brothers on his footstool, with a\npint decanter on the rug, contemplating Polly as she built successfully,\nand growing blue in the face with holding his breath, lest he should blow\nthe house down.\n\n\"How you stare, don't you?\" said Polly in a houseless pause.\n\nDetected in the ignoble fact, he felt obliged to admit, apologetically:\n\n\"I am afraid I was looking rather hard at you, Polly.\"\n\n\"Why do you stare?\" asked Polly.\n\n\"I cannot,\" he murmured to himself, \"recall why.--I don't know, Polly.\"\n\n\"You must be a simpleton to do things and not know why, mustn't you?\"\nsaid Polly.\n\nIn spite of which reproof, he looked at the child again intently, as she\nbent her head over her card structure, her rich curls shading her face.\n\"It is impossible,\" he thought, \"that I can ever have seen this pretty\nbaby before.  Can I have dreamed of her?  In some sorrowful dream?\"\n\nHe could make nothing of it.  So he went into the building trade as a\njourneyman under Polly, and they built three stories high, four stories\nhigh; even five.\n\n\"I say!  Who do you think is coming?\" asked Polly, rubbing her eyes after\ntea.\n\nHe guessed: \"The waiter?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Polly, \"the dustman.  I am getting sleepy.\"\n\nA new embarrassment for Barbox Brothers!\n\n\"I don't think I am going to be fetched to-night,\" said Polly.  \"What do\nyou think?\"\n\nHe thought not, either.  After another quarter of an hour, the dustman\nnot merely impending, but actually arriving, recourse was had to the\nConstantinopolitan chamber-maid: who cheerily undertook that the child\nshould sleep in a comfortable and wholesome room, which she herself would\nshare.\n\n\"And I know you will be careful, won't you,\" said Barbox Brothers, as a\nnew fear dawned upon him, \"that she don't fall out of bed?\"\n\nPolly found this so highly entertaining that she was under the necessity\nof clutching him round the neck with both arms as he sat on his footstool\npicking up the cards, and rocking him to and fro, with her dimpled chin\non his shoulder.\n\n\"Oh, what a coward you are, ain't you?\" said Polly.  \"Do you fall out of\nbed?\"\n\n\"N--not generally, Polly.\"\n\n\"No more do I.\"\n\nWith that, Polly gave him a reassuring hug or two to keep him going, and\nthen giving that confiding mite of a hand of hers to be swallowed up in\nthe hand of the Constantinopolitan chamber-maid, trotted off, chattering,\nwithout a vestige of anxiety.\n\nHe looked after her, had the screen removed and the table and chairs\nreplaced, and still looked after her.  He paced the room for half an\nhour.  \"A most engaging little creature, but it's not that.  A most\nwinning little voice, but it's not that.  That has much to do with it,\nbut there is something more.  How can it be that I seem to know this\nchild?  What was it she imperfectly recalled to me when I felt her touch\nin the street, and, looking down at her, saw her looking up at me?\"\n\n\"Mr. Jackson!\"\n\nWith a start he turned towards the sound of the subdued voice, and saw\nhis answer standing at the door.\n\n\"Oh, Mr. Jackson, do not be severe with me!  Speak a word of\nencouragement to me, I beseech you.\"\n\n\"You are Polly's mother.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nYes.  Polly herself might come to this, one day.  As you see what the\nrose was in its faded leaves; as you see what the summer growth of the\nwoods was in their wintry branches; so Polly might be traced, one day, in\na careworn woman like this, with her hair turned grey.  Before him were\nthe ashes of a dead fire that had once burned bright.  This was the woman\nhe had loved.  This was the woman he had lost.  Such had been the\nconstancy of his imagination to her, so had Time spared her under its\nwithholding, that now, seeing how roughly the inexorable hand had struck\nher, his soul was filled with pity and amazement.\n\nHe led her to a chair, and stood leaning on a corner of the\nchimney-piece, with his head resting on his hand, and his face half\naverted.\n\n\"Did you see me in the street, and show me to your child?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Is the little creature, then, a party to deceit?\"\n\n\"I hope there is no deceit.  I said to her, 'We have lost our way, and I\nmust try to find mine by myself.  Go to that gentleman, and tell him you\nare lost.  You shall be fetched by-and-by.'  Perhaps you have not thought\nhow very young she is?\"\n\n\"She is very self-reliant.\"\n\n\"Perhaps because she is so young.\"\n\nHe asked, after a short pause, \"Why did you do this?\"\n\n\"Oh, Mr. Jackson, do you ask me?  In the hope that you might see\nsomething in my innocent child to soften your heart towards me.  Not only\ntowards me, but towards my husband.\"\n\nHe suddenly turned about, and walked to the opposite end of the room.  He\ncame back again with a slower step, and resumed his former attitude,\nsaying:\n\n\"I thought you had emigrated to America?\"\n\n\"We did.  But life went ill with us there, and we came back.\"\n\n\"Do you live in this town?\"\n\n\"Yes.  I am a daily teacher of music here.  My husband is a book-keeper.\"\n\n\"Are you--forgive my asking--poor?\"\n\n\"We earn enough for our wants.  That is not our distress.  My husband is\nvery, very ill of a lingering disorder.  He will never recover--\"\n\n\"You check yourself.  If it is for want of the encouraging word you spoke\nof, take it from me.  I cannot forget the old time, Beatrice.\"\n\n\"God bless you!\" she replied with a burst of tears, and gave him her\ntrembling hand.\n\n\"Compose yourself.  I cannot be composed if you are not, for to see you\nweep distresses me beyond expression.  Speak freely to me.  Trust me.\"\n\nShe shaded her face with her veil, and after a little while spoke calmly.\nHer voice had the ring of Polly's.\n\n\"It is not that my husband's mind is at all impaired by his bodily\nsuffering, for I assure you that is not the case.  But in his weakness,\nand in his knowledge that he is incurably ill, he cannot overcome the\nascendancy of one idea.  It preys upon him, embitters every moment of his\npainful life, and will shorten it.\"\n\nShe stopping, he said again: \"Speak freely to me.  Trust me.\"\n\n\"We have had five children before this darling, and they all lie in their\nlittle graves.  He believes that they have withered away under a curse,\nand that it will blight this child like the rest.\"\n\n\"Under what curse?\"\n\n\"Both I and he have it on our conscience that we tried you very heavily,\nand I do not know but that, if I were as ill as he, I might suffer in my\nmind as he does.  This is the constant burden:--'I believe, Beatrice, I\nwas the only friend that Mr. Jackson ever cared to make, though I was so\nmuch his junior.  The more influence he acquired in the business, the\nhigher he advanced me, and I was alone in his private confidence.  I came\nbetween him and you, and I took you from him.  We were both secret, and\nthe blow fell when he was wholly unprepared.  The anguish it caused a man\nso compressed must have been terrible; the wrath it awakened\ninappeasable.  So, a curse came to be invoked on our poor, pretty little\nflowers, and they fall.'\"\n\n\"And you, Beatrice,\" he asked, when she had ceased to speak, and there\nhad been a silence afterwards, \"how say you?\"\n\n\"Until within these few weeks I was afraid of you, and I believed that\nyou would never, never forgive.\"\n\n\"Until within these few weeks,\" he repeated.  \"Have you changed your\nopinion of me within these few weeks?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"For what reason?\"\n\n\"I was getting some pieces of music in a shop in this town, when, to my\nterror, you came in.  As I veiled my face and stood in the dark end of\nthe shop, I heard you explain that you wanted a musical instrument for a\nbedridden girl.  Your voice and manner were so softened, you showed such\ninterest in its selection, you took it away yourself with so much\ntenderness of care and pleasure, that I knew you were a man with a most\ngentle heart.  Oh, Mr. Jackson, Mr. Jackson, if you could have felt the\nrefreshing rain of tears that followed for me!\"\n\nWas Phoebe playing at that moment on her distant couch?  He seemed to\nhear her.\n\n\"I inquired in the shop where you lived, but could get no information.  As\nI had heard you say that you were going back by the next train (but you\ndid not say where), I resolved to visit the station at about that time of\nday, as often as I could, between my lessons, on the chance of seeing you\nagain.  I have been there very often, but saw you no more until to-day.\nYou were meditating as you walked the street, but the calm expression of\nyour face emboldened me to send my child to you.  And when I saw you bend\nyour head to speak tenderly to her, I prayed to GOD to forgive me for\nhaving ever brought a sorrow on it.  I now pray to you to forgive me, and\nto forgive my husband.  I was very young, he was young too, and, in the\nignorant hardihood of such a time of life, we don't know what we do to\nthose who have undergone more discipline.  You generous man!  You good\nman!  So to raise me up and make nothing of my crime against you!\"--for\nhe would not see her on her knees, and soothed her as a kind father might\nhave soothed an erring daughter--\"thank you, bless you, thank you!\"\n\nWhen he next spoke, it was after having drawn aside the window curtain\nand looked out awhile.  Then he only said:\n\n\"Is Polly asleep?\"\n\n\"Yes.  As I came in, I met her going away upstairs, and put her to bed\nmyself.\"\n\n\"Leave her with me for to-morrow, Beatrice, and write me your address on\nthis leaf of my pocket-book.  In the evening I will bring her home to\nyou--and to her father.\"\n\n* * *\n\n\"Hallo!\" cried Polly, putting her saucy sunny face in at the door next\nmorning when breakfast was ready: \"I thought I was fetched last night?\"\n\n\"So you were, Polly, but I asked leave to keep you here for the day, and\nto take you home in the evening.\"\n\n\"Upon my word!\" said Polly.  \"You are very cool, ain't you?\"\n\nHowever, Polly seemed to think it a good idea, and added: \"I suppose I\nmust give you a kiss, though you _are_ cool.\"\n\nThe kiss given and taken, they sat down to breakfast in a highly\nconversational tone.\n\n\"Of course, you are going to amuse me?\" said Polly.\n\n\"Oh, of course!\" said Barbox Brothers.\n\nIn the pleasurable height of her anticipations, Polly found it\nindispensable to put down her piece of toast, cross one of her little fat\nknees over the other, and bring her little fat right hand down into her\nleft hand with a business-like slap.  After this gathering of herself\ntogether, Polly, by that time a mere heap of dimples, asked in a\nwheedling manner:\n\n\"What are we going to do, you dear old thing?\"\n\n\"Why, I was thinking,\" said Barbox Brothers, \"--but are you fond of\nhorses, Polly?\"\n\n\"Ponies, I am,\" said Polly, \"especially when their tails are long.  But\nhorses--n-no--too big, you know.\"\n\n\"Well,\" pursued Barbox Brothers, in a spirit of grave mysterious\nconfidence adapted to the importance of the consultation, \"I did see\nyesterday, Polly, on the walls, pictures of two long-tailed ponies,\nspeckled all over--\"\n\n\"No, no, NO!\" cried Polly, in an ecstatic desire to linger on the\ncharming details.  \"Not speckled all over!\"\n\n\"Speckled all over.  Which ponies jump through hoops--\"\n\n\"No, no, NO!\" cried Polly as before.  \"They never jump through hoops!\"\n\n\"Yes, they do.  Oh, I assure you they do!  And eat pie in pinafores--\"\n\n\"Ponies eating pie in pinafores!\" said Polly.  \"What a story-teller you\nare, ain't you?\"\n\n\"Upon my honour.--And fire off guns.\"\n\n(Polly hardly seemed to see the force of the ponies resorting to fire-\narms.)\n\n\"And I was thinking,\" pursued the exemplary Barbox, \"that if you and I\nwere to go to the Circus where these ponies are, it would do our\nconstitutions good.\"\n\n\"Does that mean amuse us?\" inquired Polly.  \"What long words you do use,\ndon't you?\"\n\nApologetic for having wandered out of his depth, he replied:\n\n\"That means amuse us.  That is exactly what it means.  There are many\nother wonders besides the ponies, and we shall see them all.  Ladies and\ngentlemen in spangled dresses, and elephants and lions and tigers.\"\n\nPolly became observant of the teapot, with a curled-up nose indicating\nsome uneasiness of mind.\n\n\"They never get out, of course,\" she remarked as a mere truism.\n\n\"The elephants and lions and tigers?  Oh, dear no!\"\n\n\"Oh, dear no!\" said Polly.  \"And of course nobody's afraid of the ponies\nshooting anybody.\"\n\n\"Not the least in the world.\"\n\n\"No, no, not the least in the world,\" said Polly.\n\n\"I was also thinking,\" proceeded Barbox, \"that if we were to look in at\nthe toy-shop, to choose a doll--\"\n\n\"Not dressed!\" cried Polly with a clap of her hands.  \"No, no, NO, not\ndressed!\"\n\n\"Full-dressed.  Together with a house, and all things necessary for\nhousekeeping--\"\n\nPolly gave a little scream, and seemed in danger of falling into a swoon\nof bliss.\n\n\"What a darling you are!\" she languidly exclaimed, leaning back in her\nchair.  \"Come and be hugged, or I must come and hug you.\"\n\nThis resplendent programme was carried into execution with the utmost\nrigour of the law.  It being essential to make the purchase of the doll\nits first feature--or that lady would have lost the ponies--the toy-shop\nexpedition took precedence.  Polly in the magic warehouse, with a doll as\nlarge as herself under each arm, and a neat assortment of some twenty\nmore on view upon the counter, did indeed present a spectacle of\nindecision not quite compatible with unalloyed happiness, but the light\ncloud passed.  The lovely specimen oftenest chosen, oftenest rejected,\nand finally abided by, was of Circassian descent, possessing as much\nboldness of beauty as was reconcilable with extreme feebleness of mouth,\nand combining a sky-blue silk pelisse with rose-coloured satin trousers,\nand a black velvet hat: which this fair stranger to our northern shores\nwould seem to have founded on the portraits of the late Duchess of Kent.\nThe name this distinguished foreigner brought with her from beneath the\nglowing skies of a sunny clime was (on Polly's authority) Miss Melluka,\nand the costly nature of her outfit as a housekeeper, from the Barbox\ncoffers, may be inferred from the two facts that her silver tea-spoons\nwere as large as her kitchen poker, and that the proportions of her watch\nexceeded those of her frying-pan.  Miss Melluka was graciously pleased to\nexpress her entire approbation of the Circus, and so was Polly; for the\nponies were speckled, and brought down nobody when they fired, and the\nsavagery of the wild beasts appeared to be mere smoke--which article, in\nfact, they did produce in large quantities from their insides.  The\nBarbox absorption in the general subject throughout the realisation of\nthese delights was again a sight to see, nor was it less worthy to behold\nat dinner, when he drank to Miss Melluka, tied stiff in a chair opposite\nto Polly (the fair Circassian possessing an unbendable spine), and even\ninduced the waiter to assist in carrying out with due decorum the\nprevailing glorious idea.  To wind up, there came the agreeable fever of\ngetting Miss Melluka and all her wardrobe and rich possessions into a fly\nwith Polly, to be taken home.  But, by that time, Polly had become unable\nto look upon such accumulated joys with waking eyes, and had withdrawn\nher consciousness into the wonderful Paradise of a child's sleep.  \"Sleep,\nPolly, sleep,\" said Barbox Brothers, as her head dropped on his shoulder;\n\"you shall not fall out of this bed easily, at any rate!\"\n\nWhat rustling piece of paper he took from his pocket, and carefully\nfolded into the bosom of Polly's frock, shall not be mentioned.  He said\nnothing about it, and nothing shall be said about it.  They drove to a\nmodest suburb of the great ingenious town, and stopped at the fore-court\nof a small house.  \"Do not wake the child,\" said Barbox Brothers softly\nto the driver; \"I will carry her in as she is.\"\n\nGreeting the light at the opened door which was held by Polly's mother,\nPolly's bearer passed on with mother and child in to a ground-floor room.\nThere, stretched on a sofa, lay a sick man, sorely wasted, who covered\nhis eyes with his emaciated hand.\n\n\"Tresham,\" said Barbox in a kindly voice, \"I have brought you back your\nPolly, fast asleep.  Give me your hand, and tell me you are better.\"\n\nThe sick man reached forth his right hand, and bowed his head over the\nhand into which it was taken, and kissed it.  \"Thank you, thank you!  I\nmay say that I am well and happy.\"\n\n\"That's brave,\" said Barbox.  \"Tresham, I have a fancy--Can you make room\nfor me beside you here?\"\n\nHe sat down on the sofa as he said the words, cherishing the plump\npeachey cheek that lay uppermost on his shoulder.\n\n\"I have a fancy, Tresham (I am getting quite an old fellow now, you know,\nand old fellows may take fancies into their heads sometimes), to give up\nPolly, having found her, to no one but you.  Will you take her from me?\"\n\nAs the father held out his arms for the child, each of the two men looked\nsteadily at the other.\n\n\"She is very dear to you, Tresham?\"\n\n\"Unutterably dear.\"\n\n\"God bless her!  It is not much, Polly,\" he continued, turning his eyes\nupon her peaceful face as he apostrophized her, \"it is not much, Polly,\nfor a blind and sinful man to invoke a blessing on something so far\nbetter than himself as a little child is; but it would be much--much upon\nhis cruel head, and much upon his guilty soul--if he could be so wicked\nas to invoke a curse.  He had better have a millstone round his neck, and\nbe cast into the deepest sea.  Live and thrive, my pretty baby!\"  Here he\nkissed her.  \"Live and prosper, and become in time the mother of other\nlittle children, like the Angels who behold The Father's face!\"\n\nHe kissed her again, gave her up gently to both her parents, and went\nout.\n\nBut he went not to Wales.  No, he never went to Wales.  He went\nstraightway for another stroll about the town, and he looked in upon the\npeople at their work, and at their play, here, there, every-there, and\nwhere not.  For he was Barbox Brothers and Co. now, and had taken\nthousands of partners into the solitary firm.\n\nHe had at length got back to his hotel room, and was standing before his\nfire refreshing himself with a glass of hot drink which he had stood upon\nthe chimney-piece, when he heard the town clocks striking, and, referring\nto his watch, found the evening to have so slipped away, that they were\nstriking twelve.  As he put up his watch again, his eyes met those of his\nreflection in the chimney-glass.\n\n\"Why, it's your birthday already,\" he said, smiling.  \"You are looking\nvery well.  I wish you many happy returns of the day.\"\n\nHe had never before bestowed that wish upon himself.  \"By Jupiter!\" he\ndiscovered, \"it alters the whole case of running away from one's\nbirthday!  It's a thing to explain to Phoebe.  Besides, here is quite a\nlong story to tell her, that has sprung out of the road with no story.\nI'll go back, instead of going on.  I'll go back by my friend Lamps's Up\nX presently.\"\n\nHe went back to Mugby Junction, and, in point of fact, he established\nhimself at Mugby Junction.  It was the convenient place to live in, for\nbrightening Phoebe's life.  It was the convenient place to live in, for\nhaving her taught music by Beatrice.  It was the convenient place to live\nin, for occasionally borrowing Polly.  It was the convenient place to\nlive in, for being joined at will to all sorts of agreeable places and\npersons.  So, he became settled there, and, his house standing in an\nelevated situation, it is noteworthy of him in conclusion, as Polly\nherself might (not irreverently) have put it:\n\n   \"There was an Old Barbox who lived on a hill,\n   And if he ain't gone, he lives there still.\"\n\nHere follows the substance of what was seen, heard, or otherwise picked\nup, by the gentleman for Nowhere, in his careful study of the Junction.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III--THE BOY AT MUGBY\n\n\nI am the boy at Mugby.  That's about what _I_ am.\n\nYou don't know what I mean?  What a pity!  But I think you do.  I think\nyou must.  Look here.  I am the boy at what is called The Refreshment\nRoom at Mugby Junction, and what's proudest boast is, that it never yet\nrefreshed a mortal being.\n\nUp in a corner of the Down Refreshment Room at Mugby Junction, in the\nheight of twenty-seven cross draughts (I've often counted 'em while they\nbrush the First-Class hair twenty-seven ways), behind the bottles, among\nthe glasses, bounded on the nor'west by the beer, stood pretty far to the\nright of a metallic object that's at times the tea-urn and at times the\nsoup-tureen, according to the nature of the last twang imparted to its\ncontents which are the same groundwork, fended off from the traveller by\na barrier of stale sponge-cakes erected atop of the counter, and lastly\nexposed sideways to the glare of Our Missis's eye--you ask a Boy so\nsitiwated, next time you stop in a hurry at Mugby, for anything to drink;\nyou take particular notice that he'll try to seem not to hear you, that\nhe'll appear in a absent manner to survey the Line through a transparent\nmedium composed of your head and body, and that he won't serve you as\nlong as you can possibly bear it.  That's me.\n\nWhat a lark it is!  We are the Model Establishment, we are, at Mugby.\nOther Refreshment Rooms send their imperfect young ladies up to be\nfinished off by our Missis.  For some of the young ladies, when they're\nnew to the business, come into it mild!  Ah!  Our Missis, she soon takes\nthat out of 'em.  Why, I originally come into the business meek myself.\nBut Our Missis, she soon took that out of _me_.\n\nWhat a delightful lark it is!  I look upon us Refreshmenters as ockipying\nthe only proudly independent footing on the Line.  There's Papers, for\ninstance,--my honourable friend, if he will allow me to call him so,--him\nas belongs to Smith's bookstall.  Why, he no more dares to be up to our\nRefreshmenting games than he dares to jump a top of a locomotive with her\nsteam at full pressure, and cut away upon her alone, driving himself, at\nlimited-mail speed.  Papers, he'd get his head punched at every\ncompartment, first, second, and third, the whole length of a train, if he\nwas to ventur to imitate my demeanour.  It's the same with the porters,\nthe same with the guards, the same with the ticket clerks, the same the\nwhole way up to the secretary, traffic-manager, or very chairman.  There\nain't a one among 'em on the nobly independent footing we are.  Did you\never catch one of them, when you wanted anything of him, making a system\nof surveying the Line through a transparent medium composed of your head\nand body?  I should hope not.\n\nYou should see our Bandolining Room at Mugby Junction.  It's led to by\nthe door behind the counter, which you'll notice usually stands ajar, and\nit's the room where Our Missis and our young ladies Bandolines their\nhair.  You should see 'em at it, betwixt trains, Bandolining away, as if\nthey was anointing themselves for the combat.  When you're telegraphed,\nyou should see their noses all a-going up with scorn, as if it was a part\nof the working of the same Cooke and Wheatstone electrical machinery.  You\nshould hear Our Missis give the word, \"Here comes the Beast to be Fed!\"\nand then you should see 'em indignantly skipping across the Line, from\nthe Up to the Down, or Wicer Warsaw, and begin to pitch the stale pastry\ninto the plates, and chuck the sawdust sangwiches under the glass covers,\nand get out the--ha, ha, ha!--the sherry,--O my eye, my eye!--for your\nRefreshment.\n\nIt's only in the Isle of the Brave and Land of the Free (by which, of\ncourse, I mean to say Britannia) that Refreshmenting is so effective, so\n'olesome, so constitutional a check upon the public.  There was a\nForeigner, which having politely, with his hat off, beseeched our young\nladies and Our Missis for \"a leetel gloss host prarndee,\" and having had\nthe Line surveyed through him by all and no other acknowledgment, was a-\nproceeding at last to help himself, as seems to be the custom in his own\ncountry, when Our Missis, with her hair almost a-coming un-Bandolined\nwith rage, and her eyes omitting sparks, flew at him, cotched the\ndecanter out of his hand, and said, \"Put it down!  I won't allow that!\"\nThe foreigner turned pale, stepped back with his arms stretched out in\nfront of him, his hands clasped, and his shoulders riz, and exclaimed:\n\"Ah!  Is it possible, this!  That these disdaineous females and this\nferocious old woman are placed here by the administration, not only to\nempoison the voyagers, but to affront them!  Great Heaven!  How arrives\nit?  The English people.  Or is he then a slave?  Or idiot?\"  Another\ntime, a merry, wideawake American gent had tried the sawdust and spit it\nout, and had tried the Sherry and spit that out, and had tried in vain to\nsustain exhausted natur upon Butter-Scotch, and had been rather extra\nBandolined and Line-surveyed through, when, as the bell was ringing and\nhe paid Our Missis, he says, very loud and good-tempered: \"I tell Yew\nwhat 'tis, ma'arm.  I la'af.  Theer!  I la'af.  I Dew.  I oughter ha'\nseen most things, for I hail from the Onlimited side of the Atlantic\nOcean, and I haive travelled right slick over the Limited, head on\nthrough Jeerusalemm and the East, and likeways France and Italy, Europe\nOld World, and am now upon the track to the Chief Europian Village; but\nsuch an Institution as Yew, and Yewer young ladies, and Yewer fixin's\nsolid and liquid, afore the glorious Tarnal I never did see yet!  And if\nI hain't found the eighth wonder of monarchical Creation, in finding Yew\nand Yewer young ladies, and Yewer fixin's solid and liquid, all as\naforesaid, established in a country where the people air not absolute Loo-\nnaticks, I am Extra Double Darned with a Nip and Frizzle to the\ninnermostest grit!  Wheerfur--Theer!--I la'af!  I Dew, ma'arm.  I la'af!\"\nAnd so he went, stamping and shaking his sides, along the platform all\nthe way to his own compartment.\n\nI think it was her standing up agin the Foreigner as giv' Our Missis the\nidea of going over to France, and droring a comparison betwixt\nRefreshmenting as followed among the frog-eaters, and Refreshmenting as\ntriumphant in the Isle of the Brave and Land of the Free (by which, of\ncourse, I mean to say agin, Britannia).  Our young ladies, Miss Whiff,\nMiss Piff, and Mrs. Sniff, was unanimous opposed to her going; for, as\nthey says to Our Missis one and all, it is well beknown to the hends of\nthe herth as no other nation except Britain has a idea of anythink, but\nabove all of business.  Why then should you tire yourself to prove what\nis already proved?  Our Missis, however (being a teazer at all pints)\nstood out grim obstinate, and got a return pass by Southeastern Tidal, to\ngo right through, if such should be her dispositions, to Marseilles.\n\nSniff is husband to Mrs. Sniff, and is a regular insignificant cove.  He\nlooks arter the sawdust department in a back room, and is sometimes, when\nwe are very hard put to it, let behind the counter with a corkscrew; but\nnever when it can be helped, his demeanour towards the public being\ndisgusting servile.  How Mrs. Sniff ever come so far to lower herself as\nto marry him, I don't know; but I suppose he does, and I should think he\nwished he didn't, for he leads a awful life.  Mrs. Sniff couldn't be much\nharder with him if he was public.  Similarly, Miss Whiff and Miss Piff,\ntaking the tone of Mrs. Sniff, they shoulder Sniff about when he _is_ let\nin with a corkscrew, and they whisk things out of his hands when in his\nservility he is a-going to let the public have 'em, and they snap him up\nwhen in the crawling baseness of his spirit he is a-going to answer a\npublic question, and they drore more tears into his eyes than ever the\nmustard does which he all day long lays on to the sawdust.  (But it ain't\nstrong.)  Once, when Sniff had the repulsiveness to reach across to get\nthe milk-pot to hand over for a baby, I see Our Missis in her rage catch\nhim by both his shoulders, and spin him out into the Bandolining Room.\n\nBut Mrs. Sniff,--how different!  She's the one!  She's the one as you'll\nnotice to be always looking another way from you, when you look at her.\nShe's the one with the small waist buckled in tight in front, and with\nthe lace cuffs at her wrists, which she puts on the edge of the counter\nbefore her, and stands a smoothing while the public foams.  This\nsmoothing the cuffs and looking another way while the public foams is the\nlast accomplishment taught to the young ladies as come to Mugby to be\nfinished by Our Missis; and it's always taught by Mrs. Sniff.\n\nWhen Our Missis went away upon her journey, Mrs. Sniff was left in\ncharge.  She did hold the public in check most beautiful!  In all my\ntime, I never see half so many cups of tea given without milk to people\nas wanted it with, nor half so many cups of tea with milk given to people\nas wanted it without.  When foaming ensued, Mrs. Sniff would say: \"Then\nyou'd better settle it among yourselves, and change with one another.\"  It\nwas a most highly delicious lark.  I enjoyed the Refreshmenting business\nmore than ever, and was so glad I had took to it when young.\n\nOur Missis returned.  It got circulated among the young ladies, and it as\nit might be penetrated to me through the crevices of the Bandolining\nRoom, that she had Orrors to reveal, if revelations so contemptible could\nbe dignified with the name.  Agitation become awakened.  Excitement was\nup in the stirrups.  Expectation stood a-tiptoe.  At length it was put\nforth that on our slacked evening in the week, and at our slackest time\nof that evening betwixt trains, Our Missis would give her views of\nforeign Refreshmenting, in the Bandolining Room.\n\nIt was arranged tasteful for the purpose.  The Bandolining table and\nglass was hid in a corner, a arm-chair was elevated on a packing-case for\nOur Missis's ockypation, a table and a tumbler of water (no sherry in it,\nthankee) was placed beside it.  Two of the pupils, the season being\nautumn, and hollyhocks and dahlias being in, ornamented the wall with\nthree devices in those flowers.  On one might be read, \"MAY ALBION NEVER\nLEARN;\" on another \"KEEP THE PUBLIC DOWN;\" on another, \"OUR\nREFRESHMENTING CHARTER.\"  The whole had a beautiful appearance, with\nwhich the beauty of the sentiments corresponded.\n\nOn Our Missis's brow was wrote Severity, as she ascended the fatal\nplatform.  (Not that that was anythink new.)  Miss Whiff and Miss Piff\nsat at her feet.  Three chairs from the Waiting Room might have been\nperceived by a average eye, in front of her, on which the pupils was\naccommodated.  Behind them a very close observer might have discerned a\nBoy.  Myself.\n\n\"Where,\" said Our Missis, glancing gloomily around, \"is Sniff?\"\n\n\"I thought it better,\" answered Mrs. Sniff, \"that he should not be let to\ncome in.  He is such an Ass.\"\n\n\"No doubt,\" assented Our Missis.  \"But for that reason is it not\ndesirable to improve his mind?\"\n\n\"Oh, nothing will ever improve _him_,\" said Mrs. Sniff.\n\n\"However,\" pursued Our Missis, \"call him in, Ezekiel.\"\n\nI called him in.  The appearance of the low-minded cove was hailed with\ndisapprobation from all sides, on account of his having brought his\ncorkscrew with him.  He pleaded \"the force of habit.\"\n\n\"The force!\" said Mrs. Sniff.  \"Don't let us have you talking about\nforce, for Gracious' sake.  There!  Do stand still where you are, with\nyour back against the wall.\"\n\nHe is a smiling piece of vacancy, and he smiled in the mean way in which\nhe will even smile at the public if he gets a chance (language can say no\nmeaner of him), and he stood upright near the door with the back of his\nhead agin the wall, as if he was a waiting for somebody to come and\nmeasure his heighth for the Army.\n\n\"I should not enter, ladies,\" says Our Missis, \"on the revolting\ndisclosures I am about to make, if it was not in the hope that they will\ncause you to be yet more implacable in the exercise of the power you\nwield in a constitutional country, and yet more devoted to the\nconstitutional motto which I see before me,\"--it was behind her, but the\nwords sounded better so,--\"'May Albion never learn!'\"\n\nHere the pupils as had made the motto admired it, and cried, \"Hear!  Hear!\nHear!\"  Sniff, showing an inclination to join in chorus, got himself\nfrowned down by every brow.\n\n\"The baseness of the French,\" pursued Our Missis, \"as displayed in the\nfawning nature of their Refreshmenting, equals, if not surpasses,\nanythink as was ever heard of the baseness of the celebrated Bonaparte.\"\n\nMiss Whiff, Miss Piff, and me, we drored a heavy breath, equal to saying,\n\"We thought as much!\"  Miss Whiff and Miss Piff seeming to object to my\ndroring mine along with theirs, I drored another to aggravate 'em.\n\n\"Shall I be believed,\" says Our Missis, with flashing eyes, \"when I tell\nyou that no sooner had I set my foot upon that treacherous shore--\"\n\nHere Sniff, either bursting out mad, or thinking aloud, says, in a low\nvoice: \"Feet.  Plural, you know.\"\n\nThe cowering that come upon him when he was spurned by all eyes, added to\nhis being beneath contempt, was sufficient punishment for a cove so\ngrovelling.  In the midst of a silence rendered more impressive by the\nturned-up female noses with which it was pervaded, Our Missis went on:\n\n\"Shall I be believed when I tell you, that no sooner had I landed,\" this\nword with a killing look at Sniff, \"on that treacherous shore, than I was\nushered into a Refreshment Room where there were--I do not\nexaggerate--actually eatable things to eat?\"\n\nA groan burst from the ladies.  I not only did myself the honour of\njining, but also of lengthening it out.\n\n\"Where there were,\" Our Missis added, \"not only eatable things to eat,\nbut also drinkable things to drink?\"\n\nA murmur, swelling almost into a scream, ariz.  Miss Piff, trembling with\nindignation, called out, \"Name?\"\n\n\"I _will_ name,\" said Our Missis.  \"There was roast fowls, hot and cold;\nthere was smoking roast veal surrounded with browned potatoes; there was\nhot soup with (again I ask shall I be credited?) nothing bitter in it,\nand no flour to choke off the consumer; there was a variety of cold\ndishes set off with jelly; there was salad; there was--mark me! _fresh_\npastry, and that of a light construction; there was a luscious show of\nfruit; there was bottles and decanters of sound small wine, of every\nsize, and adapted to every pocket; the same odious statement will apply\nto brandy; and these were set out upon the counter so that all could help\nthemselves.\"\n\nOur Missis's lips so quivered, that Mrs. Sniff, though scarcely less\nconvulsed than she were, got up and held the tumbler to them.\n\n\"This,\" proceeds Our Missis, \"was my first unconstitutional experience.\nWell would it have been if it had been my last and worst.  But no.  As I\nproceeded farther into that enslaved and ignorant land, its aspect became\nmore hideous.  I need not explain to this assembly the ingredients and\nformation of the British Refreshment sangwich?\"\n\nUniversal laughter,--except from Sniff, who, as sangwich-cutter, shook\nhis head in a state of the utmost dejection as he stood with it agin the\nwall.\n\n\"Well!\" said Our Missis, with dilated nostrils.  \"Take a fresh, crisp,\nlong, crusty penny loaf made of the whitest and best flour.  Cut it\nlongwise through the middle.  Insert a fair and nicely fitting slice of\nham.  Tie a smart piece of ribbon round the middle of the whole to bind\nit together.  Add at one end a neat wrapper of clean white paper by which\nto hold it.  And the universal French Refreshment sangwich busts on your\ndisgusted vision.\"\n\nA cry of \"Shame!\" from all--except Sniff, which rubbed his stomach with a\nsoothing hand.\n\n\"I need not,\" said Our Missis, \"explain to this assembly the usual\nformation and fitting of the British Refreshment Room?\"\n\nNo, no, and laughter.  Sniff agin shaking his head in low spirits agin\nthe wall.\n\n\"Well,\" said Our Missis, \"what would you say to a general decoration of\neverythink, to hangings (sometimes elegant), to easy velvet furniture, to\nabundance of little tables, to abundance of little seats, to brisk bright\nwaiters, to great convenience, to a pervading cleanliness and\ntastefulness positively addressing the public, and making the Beast\nthinking itself worth the pains?\"\n\nContemptuous fury on the part of all the ladies.  Mrs. Sniff looking as\nif she wanted somebody to hold her, and everbody else looking as if\nthey'd rayther not.\n\n\"Three times,\" said Our Missis, working herself into a truly\nterrimenjious state,--\"three times did I see these shameful things, only\nbetween the coast and Paris, and not counting either: at Hazebroucke, at\nArras, at Amiens.  But worse remains.  Tell me, what would you call a\nperson who should propose in England that there should be kept, say at\nour own model Mugby Junction, pretty baskets, each holding an assorted\ncold lunch and dessert for one, each at a certain fixed price, and each\nwithin a passenger's power to take away, to empty in the carriage at\nperfect leisure, and to return at another station fifty or a hundred\nmiles farther on?\"\n\nThere was disagreement what such a person should be called.  Whether\nrevolutionise, atheist, Bright (_I_ said him), or Un-English.  Miss Piff\nscreeched her shrill opinion last, in the words: \"A malignant maniac!\"\n\n\"I adopt,\" says Our Missis, \"the brand set upon such a person by the\nrighteous indignation of my friend Miss Piff.  A malignant maniac.  Know,\nthen, that that malignant maniac has sprung from the congenial soil of\nFrance, and that his malignant madness was in unchecked action on this\nsame part of my journey.\"\n\nI noticed that Sniff was a-rubbing his hands, and that Mrs. Sniff had got\nher eye upon him.  But I did not take more particular notice, owing to\nthe excited state in which the young ladies was, and to feeling myself\ncalled upon to keep it up with a howl.\n\n\"On my experience south of Paris,\" said Our Missis, in a deep tone, \"I\nwill not expatiate.  Too loathsome were the task!  But fancy this.  Fancy\na guard coming round, with the train at full speed, to inquire how many\nfor dinner.  Fancy his telegraphing forward the number of dinners.  Fancy\nevery one expected, and the table elegantly laid for the complete party.\nFancy a charming dinner, in a charming room, and the head-cook, concerned\nfor the honour of every dish, superintending in his clean white jacket\nand cap.  Fancy the Beast travelling six hundred miles on end, very fast,\nand with great punctuality, yet being taught to expect all this to be\ndone for it!\"\n\nA spirited chorus of \"The Beast!\"\n\nI noticed that Sniff was agin a-rubbing his stomach with a soothing hand,\nand that he had drored up one leg.  But agin I didn't take particular\nnotice, looking on myself as called upon to stimulate public feeling.  It\nbeing a lark besides.\n\n\"Putting everything together,\" said Our Missis, \"French Refreshmenting\ncomes to this, and oh, it comes to a nice total!  First: eatable things\nto eat, and drinkable things to drink.\"\n\nA groan from the young ladies, kep' up by me.\n\n\"Second: convenience, and even elegance.\"\n\nAnother groan from the young ladies, kep' up by me.\n\n\"Third: moderate charges.\"\n\nThis time a groan from me, kep' up by the young ladies.\n\n\"Fourth:--and here,\" says Our Missis, \"I claim your angriest\nsympathy,--attention, common civility, nay, even politeness!\"\n\nMe and the young ladies regularly raging mad all together.\n\n\"And I cannot in conclusion,\" says Our Missis, with her spitefullest\nsneer, \"give you a completer pictur of that despicable nation (after what\nI have related), than assuring you that they wouldn't bear our\nconstitutional ways and noble independence at Mugby Junction, for a\nsingle month, and that they would turn us to the right-about and put\nanother system in our places, as soon as look at us; perhaps sooner, for\nI do not believe they have the good taste to care to look at us twice.\"\n\nThe swelling tumult was arrested in its rise.  Sniff, bore away by his\nservile disposition, had drored up his leg with a higher and a higher\nrelish, and was now discovered to be waving his corkscrew over his head.\nIt was at this moment that Mrs. Sniff, who had kep' her eye upon him like\nthe fabled obelisk, descended on her victim.  Our Missis followed them\nboth out, and cries was heard in the sawdust department.\n\nYou come into the Down Refreshment Room, at the Junction, making believe\nyou don't know me, and I'll pint you out with my right thumb over my\nshoulder which is Our Missis, and which is Miss Whiff, and which is Miss\nPiff, and which is Mrs. Sniff.  But you won't get a chance to see Sniff,\nbecause he disappeared that night.  Whether he perished, tore to pieces,\nI cannot say; but his corkscrew alone remains, to bear witness to the\nservility of his disposition.\n\n\n"}
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{"1421":"\n\n\n\n\nTranscribed from the 1894 Chapman and Hall \"Christmas Stories\" edition by\nDavid Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk\n\n\n\n\n\nMRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY\n\n\nCHAPTER I--MRS. LIRRIPER RELATES HOW SHE WENT ON, AND WENT OVER\n\n\nAh!  It's pleasant to drop into my own easy-chair my dear though a little\npalpitating what with trotting up-stairs and what with trotting down, and\nwhy kitchen stairs should all be corner stairs is for the builders to\njustify though I do not think they fully understand their trade and never\ndid, else why the sameness and why not more conveniences and fewer\ndraughts and likewise making a practice of laying the plaster on too\nthick I am well convinced which holds the damp, and as to chimney-pots\nputting them on by guess-work like hats at a party and no more knowing\nwhat their effect will be upon the smoke bless you than I do if so much,\nexcept that it will mostly be either to send it down your throat in a\nstraight form or give it a twist before it goes there.  And what I says\nspeaking as I find of those new metal chimneys all manner of shapes\n(there's a row of 'em at Miss Wozenham's lodging-house lower down on the\nother side of the way) is that they only work your smoke into artificial\npatterns for you before you swallow it and that I'd quite as soon swallow\nmine plain, the flavour being the same, not to mention the conceit of\nputting up signs on the top of your house to show the forms in which you\ntake your smoke into your inside.\n\nBeing here before your eyes my dear in my own easy-chair in my own quiet\nroom in my own Lodging-House Number Eighty-one Norfolk Street Strand\nLondon situated midway between the City and St. James's--if anything is\nwhere it used to be with these hotels calling themselves Limited but\ncalled unlimited by Major Jackman rising up everywhere and rising up into\nflagstaffs where they can't go any higher, but my mind of those monsters\nis give me a landlord's or landlady's wholesome face when I come off a\njourney and not a brass plate with an electrified number clicking out of\nit which it's not in nature can be glad to see me and to which I don't\nwant to be hoisted like molasses at the Docks and left there telegraphing\nfor help with the most ingenious instruments but quite in vain--being\nhere my dear I have no call to mention that I am still in the Lodgings as\na business hoping to die in the same and if agreeable to the clergy\npartly read over at Saint Clement's Danes and concluded in Hatfield\nchurchyard when lying once again by my poor Lirriper ashes to ashes and\ndust to dust.\n\nNeither should I tell you any news my dear in telling you that the Major\nis still a fixture in the Parlours quite as much so as the roof of the\nhouse, and that Jemmy is of boys the best and brightest and has ever had\nkept from him the cruel story of his poor pretty young mother Mrs. Edson\nbeing deserted in the second floor and dying in my arms, fully believing\nthat I am his born Gran and him an orphan, though what with engineering\nsince he took a taste for it and him and the Major making Locomotives out\nof parasols broken iron pots and cotton-reels and them absolutely a\ngetting off the line and falling over the table and injuring the\npassengers almost equal to the originals it really is quite wonderful.\nAnd when I says to the Major, \"Major can't you by _any_ means give us a\ncommunication with the guard?\" the Major says quite huffy, \"No madam it's\nnot to be done,\" and when I says \"Why not?\" the Major says, \"That is\nbetween us who are in the Railway Interest madam and our friend the Right\nHonourable Vice-President of the Board of Trade\" and if you'll believe me\nmy dear the Major wrote to Jemmy at school to consult him on the answer I\nshould have before I could get even that amount of unsatisfactoriness out\nof the man, the reason being that when we first began with the little\nmodel and the working signals beautiful and perfect (being in general as\nwrong as the real) and when I says laughing \"What appointment am I to\nhold in this undertaking gentlemen?\" Jemmy hugs me round the neck and\ntells me dancing, \"You shall be the Public Gran\" and consequently they\nput upon me just as much as ever they like and I sit a growling in my\neasy-chair.\n\nMy dear whether it is that a grown man as clever as the Major cannot give\nhalf his heart and mind to anything--even a plaything--but must get into\nright down earnest with it, whether it is so or whether it is not so I do\nnot undertake to say, but Jemmy is far out-done by the serious and\nbelieving ways of the Major in the management of the United Grand\nJunction Lirriper and Jackman Great Norfolk Parlour Line, \"For\" says my\nJemmy with the sparkling eyes when it was christened, \"we must have a\nwhole mouthful of name Gran or our dear old Public\" and there the young\nrogue kissed me, \"won't stump up.\"  So the Public took the shares--ten at\nninepence, and immediately when that was spent twelve Preference at one\nand sixpence--and they were all signed by Jemmy and countersigned by the\nMajor, and between ourselves much better worth the money than some shares\nI have paid for in my time.  In the same holidays the line was made and\nworked and opened and ran excursions and had collisions and burst its\nboilers and all sorts of accidents and offences all most regular correct\nand pretty.  The sense of responsibility entertained by the Major as a\nmilitary style of station-master my dear starting the down train behind\ntime and ringing one of those little bells that you buy with the little\ncoal-scuttles off the tray round the man's neck in the street did him\nhonour, but noticing the Major of a night when he is writing out his\nmonthly report to Jemmy at school of the state of the Rolling Stock and\nthe Permanent Way and all the rest of it (the whole kept upon the Major's\nsideboard and dusted with his own hands every morning before varnishing\nhis boots) I notice him as full of thought and care as full can be and\nfrowning in a fearful manner, but indeed the Major does nothing by halves\nas witness his great delight in going out surveying with Jemmy when he\nhas Jemmy to go with, carrying a chain and a measuring-tape and driving I\ndon't know what improvements right through Westminster Abbey and fully\nbelieved in the streets to be knocking everything upside down by Act of\nParliament.  As please Heaven will come to pass when Jemmy takes to that\nas a profession!\n\nMentioning my poor Lirriper brings into my head his own youngest brother\nthe Doctor though Doctor of what I am sure it would be hard to say unless\nLiquor, for neither Physic nor Music nor yet Law does Joshua Lirriper\nknow a morsel of except continually being summoned to the County Court\nand having orders made upon him which he runs away from, and once was\ntaken in the passage of this very house with an umbrella up and the\nMajor's hat on, giving his name with the door-mat round him as Sir\nJohnson Jones, K.C.B. in spectacles residing at the Horse Guards.  On\nwhich occasion he had got into the house not a minute before, through the\ngirl letting him on the mat when he sent in a piece of paper twisted more\nlike one of those spills for lighting candles than a note, offering me\nthe choice between thirty shillings in hand and his brains on the\npremises marked immediate and waiting for an answer.  My dear it gave me\nsuch a dreadful turn to think of the brains of my poor dear Lirriper's\nown flesh and blood flying about the new oilcloth however unworthy to be\nso assisted, that I went out of my room here to ask him what he would\ntake once for all not to do it for life when I found him in the custody\nof two gentlemen that I should have judged to be in the feather-bed trade\nif they had not announced the law, so fluffy were their personal\nappearance.  \"Bring your chains, sir,\" says Joshua to the littlest of the\ntwo in the biggest hat, \"rivet on my fetters!\"  Imagine my feelings when\nI pictered him clanking up Norfolk Street in irons and Miss Wozenham\nlooking out of window!  \"Gentlemen,\" I says all of a tremble and ready to\ndrop \"please to bring him into Major Jackman's apartments.\"  So they\nbrought him into the Parlours, and when the Major spies his own curly-\nbrimmed hat on him which Joshua Lirriper had whipped off its peg in the\npassage for a military disguise he goes into such a tearing passion that\nhe tips it off his head with his hand and kicks it up to the ceiling with\nhis foot where it grazed long afterwards.  \"Major\" I says \"be cool and\nadvise me what to do with Joshua my dead and gone Lirriper's own youngest\nbrother.\"  \"Madam\" says the Major \"my advice is that you board and lodge\nhim in a Powder Mill, with a handsome gratuity to the proprietor when\nexploded.\"  \"Major\" I says \"as a Christian you cannot mean your words.\"\n\"Madam\" says the Major \"by the Lord I do!\" and indeed the Major besides\nbeing with all his merits a very passionate man for his size had a bad\nopinion of Joshua on account of former troubles even unattended by\nliberties taken with his apparel.  When Joshua Lirriper hears this\nconversation betwixt us he turns upon the littlest one with the biggest\nhat and says \"Come sir!  Remove me to my vile dungeon.  Where is my\nmouldy straw?\"  My dear at the picter of him rising in my mind dressed\nalmost entirely in padlocks like Baron Trenck in Jemmy's book I was so\novercome that I burst into tears and I says to the Major, \"Major take my\nkeys and settle with these gentlemen or I shall never know a happy minute\nmore,\" which was done several times both before and since, but still I\nmust remember that Joshua Lirriper has his good feelings and shows them\nin being always so troubled in his mind when he cannot wear mourning for\nhis brother.  Many a long year have I left off my widow's mourning not\nbeing wishful to intrude, but the tender point in Joshua that I cannot\nhelp a little yielding to is when he writes \"One single sovereign would\nenable me to wear a decent suit of mourning for my much-loved brother.  I\nvowed at the time of his lamented death that I would ever wear sables in\nmemory of him but Alas how short-sighted is man, How keep that vow when\npenniless!\"  It says a good deal for the strength of his feelings that he\ncouldn't have been seven year old when my poor Lirriper died and to have\nkept to it ever since is highly creditable.  But we know there's good in\nall of us,--if we only knew where it was in some of us,--and though it\nwas far from delicate in Joshua to work upon the dear child's feelings\nwhen first sent to school and write down into Lincolnshire for his pocket-\nmoney by return of post and got it, still he is my poor Lirriper's own\nyoungest brother and mightn't have meant not paying his bill at the\nSalisbury Arms when his affection took him down to stay a fortnight at\nHatfield churchyard and might have meant to keep sober but for bad\ncompany.  Consequently if the Major _had_ played on him with the garden-\nengine which he got privately into his room without my knowing of it, I\nthink that much as I should have regretted it there would have been words\nbetwixt the Major and me.  Therefore my dear though he played on Mr.\nBuffle by mistake being hot in his head, and though it might have been\nmisrepresented down at Wozenham's into not being ready for Mr. Buffle in\nother respects he being the Assessed Taxes, still I do not so much regret\nit as perhaps I ought.  And whether Joshua Lirriper will yet do well in\nlife I cannot say, but I did hear of his coming, out at a Private Theatre\nin the character of a Bandit without receiving any offers afterwards from\nthe regular managers.\n\nMentioning Mr. Baffle gives an instance of there being good in persons\nwhere good is not expected, for it cannot be denied that Mr. Buffle's\nmanners when engaged in his business were not agreeable.  To collect is\none thing, and to look about as if suspicious of the goods being\ngradually removing in the dead of the night by a back door is another,\nover taxing you have no control but suspecting is voluntary.  Allowances\ntoo must ever be made for a gentleman of the Major's warmth not relishing\nbeing spoke to with a pen in the mouth, and while I do not know that it\nis more irritable to my own feelings to have a low-crowned hat with a\nbroad brim kept on in doors than any other hat still I can appreciate the\nMajor's, besides which without bearing malice or vengeance the Major is a\nman that scores up arrears as his habit always was with Joshua Lirriper.\nSo at last my dear the Major lay in wait for Mr. Buffle, and it worrited\nme a good deal.  Mr. Buffle gives his rap of two sharp knocks one day and\nthe Major bounces to the door.  \"Collector has called for two quarters'\nAssessed Taxes\" says Mr. Buffle.  \"They are ready for him\" says the Major\nand brings him in here.  But on the way Mr. Buffle looks about him in his\nusual suspicious manner and the Major fires and asks him \"Do you see a\nGhost sir?\"  \"No sir\" says Mr. Buffle.  \"Because I have before noticed\nyou\" says the Major \"apparently looking for a spectre very hard beneath\nthe roof of my respected friend.  When you find that supernatural agent,\nbe so good as point him out sir.\"  Mr. Buffle stares at the Major and\nthen nods at me.  \"Mrs. Lirriper sir\" says the Major going off into a\nperfect steam and introducing me with his hand.  \"Pleasure of knowing\nher\" says Mr. Buffle.  \"A--hum!--Jemmy Jackman sir!\" says the Major\nintroducing himself.  \"Honour of knowing you by sight\" says Mr. Buffle.\n\"Jemmy Jackman sir\" says the Major wagging his head sideways in a sort of\nobstinate fury \"presents to you his esteemed friend that lady Mrs. Emma\nLirriper of Eighty-one Norfolk Street Strand London in the County of\nMiddlesex in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.  Upon which\noccasion sir,\" says the Major, \"Jemmy Jackman takes your hat off.\"  Mr.\nBuffle looks at his hat where the Major drops it on the floor, and he\npicks it up and puts it on again.  \"Sir\" says the Major very red and\nlooking him full in the face \"there are two quarters of the Gallantry\nTaxes due and the Collector has called.\"  Upon which if you can believe\nmy words my dear the Major drops Mr. Buffle's hat off again.  \"This--\"\nMr. Buffle begins very angry with his pen in his mouth, when the Major\nsteaming more and more says \"Take your bit out sir!  Or by the whole\ninfernal system of Taxation of this country and every individual figure\nin the National Debt, I'll get upon your back and ride you like a horse!\"\nwhich it's my belief he would have done and even actually jerking his\nneat little legs ready for a spring as it was.  \"This,\" says Mr. Buffle\nwithout his pen \"is an assault and I'll have the law of you.\"  \"Sir\"\nreplies the Major \"if you are a man of honour, your Collector of whatever\nmay be due on the Honourable Assessment by applying to Major Jackman at\nthe Parlours Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings, may obtain what he wants in full\nat any moment.\"\n\nWhen the Major glared at Mr. Buffle with those meaning words my dear I\nliterally gasped for a teaspoonful of salvolatile in a wine-glass of\nwater, and I says \"Pray let it go no farther gentlemen I beg and beseech\nof you!\"  But the Major could be got to do nothing else but snort long\nafter Mr. Buffle was gone, and the effect it had upon my whole mass of\nblood when on the next day of Mr. Buffle's rounds the Major spruced\nhimself up and went humming a tune up and down the street with one eye\nalmost obliterated by his hat there are not expressions in Johnson's\nDictionary to state.  But I safely put the street door on the jar and got\nbehind the Major's blinds with my shawl on and my mind made up the moment\nI saw danger to rush out screeching till my voice failed me and catch the\nMajor round the neck till my strength went and have all parties bound.  I\nhad not been behind the blinds a quarter of an hour when I saw Mr. Buffle\napproaching with his Collecting-books in his hand.  The Major likewise\nsaw him approaching and hummed louder and himself approached.  They met\nbefore the Airy railings.  The Major takes off his hat at arm's length\nand says \"Mr. Buffle I believe?\"  Mr. Buffle takes off _his_ hat at arm's\nlength and says \"That is my name sir.\"  Says the Major \"Have you any\ncommands for me, Mr. Buffle?\"  Says Mr. Buffle \"Not any sir.\"  Then my\ndear both of 'em bowed very low and haughty and parted, and whenever Mr.\nBuffle made his rounds in future him and the Major always met and bowed\nbefore the Airy railings, putting me much in mind of Hamlet and the other\ngentleman in mourning before killing one another, though I could have\nwished the other gentleman had done it fairer and even if less polite no\npoison.\n\nMr. Buffle's family were not liked in this neighbourhood, for when you\nare a householder my dear you'll find it does not come by nature to like\nthe Assessed, and it was considered besides that a one-horse pheayton\nought not to have elevated Mrs. Buffle to that height especially when\npurloined from the Taxes which I myself did consider uncharitable.  But\nthey were _not_ liked and there was that domestic unhappiness in the\nfamily in consequence of their both being very hard with Miss Buffle and\none another on account of Miss Buffle's favouring Mr. Buffle's articled\nyoung gentleman, that it _was_ whispered that Miss Buffle would go either\ninto a consumption or a convent she being so very thin and off her\nappetite and two close-shaved gentlemen with white bands round their\nnecks peeping round the corner whenever she went out in waistcoats\nresembling black pinafores.  So things stood towards Mr. Buffle when one\nnight I was woke by a frightful noise and a smell of burning, and going\nto my bedroom window saw the whole street in a glow.  Fortunately we had\ntwo sets empty just then and before I could hurry on some clothes I heard\nthe Major hammering at the attics' doors and calling out \"Dress\nyourselves!--Fire!  Don't be frightened!--Fire!  Collect your presence of\nmind!--Fire!  All right--Fire!\" most tremenjously.  As I opened my\nbedroom door the Major came tumbling in over himself and me, and caught\nme in his arms.  \"Major\" I says breathless \"where is it?\"  \"I don't know\ndearest madam\" says the Major--\"Fire!  Jemmy Jackman will defend you to\nthe last drop of his blood--Fire!  If the dear boy was at home what a\ntreat this would be for him--Fire!\" and altogether very collected and\nbold except that he couldn't say a single sentence without shaking me to\nthe very centre with roaring Fire.  We ran down to the drawing-room and\nput our heads out of window, and the Major calls to an unfeeling young\nmonkey, scampering by be joyful and ready to split \"Where is it?--Fire!\"\nThe monkey answers without stopping \"O here's a lark!  Old Buffle's been\nsetting his house alight to prevent its being found out that he boned the\nTaxes.  Hurrah!  Fire!\"  And then the sparks came flying up and the smoke\ncame pouring down and the crackling of flames and spatting of water and\nbanging of engines and hacking of axes and breaking of glass and knocking\nat doors and the shouting and crying and hurrying and the heat and\naltogether gave me a dreadful palpitation.  \"Don't be frightened dearest\nmadam,\" says the Major, \"--Fire!  There's nothing to be alarmed at--Fire!\nDon't open the street door till I come back--Fire!  I'll go and see if I\ncan be of any service--Fire!  You're quite composed and comfortable ain't\nyou?--Fire, Fire, Fire!\"  It was in vain for me to hold the man and tell\nhim he'd be galloped to death by the engines--pumped to death by his over-\nexertions--wet-feeted to death by the slop and mess--flattened to death\nwhen the roofs fell in--his spirit was up and he went scampering off\nafter the young monkey with all the breath he had and none to spare, and\nme and the girls huddled together at the parlour windows looking at the\ndreadful flames above the houses over the way, Mr. Buffle's being round\nthe corner.  Presently what should we see but some people running down\nthe street straight to our door, and then the Major directing operations\nin the busiest way, and then some more people and then--carried in a\nchair similar to Guy Fawkes--Mr. Buffle in a blanket!\n\nMy dear the Major has Mr. Buffle brought up our steps and whisked into\nthe parlour and carted out on the sofy, and then he and all the rest of\nthem without so much as a word burst away again full speed leaving the\nimpression of a vision except for Mr. Buffle awful in his blanket with\nhis eyes a rolling.  In a twinkling they all burst back again with Mrs.\nBuffle in another blanket, which whisked in and carted out on the sofy\nthey all burst off again and all burst back again with Miss Buffle in\nanother blanket, which again whisked in and carted out they all burst off\nagain and all burst back again with Mr. Buffle's articled young gentleman\nin another blanket--him a holding round the necks of two men carrying him\nby the legs, similar to the picter of the disgraceful creetur who has\nlost the fight (but where the chair I do not know) and his hair having\nthe appearance of newly played upon.  When all four of a row, the Major\nrubs his hands and whispers me with what little hoarseness he can get\ntogether, \"If our dear remarkable boy was only at home what a delightful\ntreat this would be for him!\"\n\nMy dear we made them some hot tea and toast and some hot brandy-and-water\nwith a little comfortable nutmeg in it, and at first they were scared and\nlow in their spirits but being fully insured got sociable.  And the first\nuse Mr. Buffle made of his tongue was to call the Major his Preserver and\nhis best of friends and to say \"My for ever dearest sir let me make you\nknown to Mrs. Buffle\" which also addressed him as her Preserver and her\nbest of friends and was fully as cordial as the blanket would admit of.\nAlso Miss Buffle.  The articled young gentleman's head was a little light\nand he sat a moaning \"Robina is reduced to cinders, Robina is reduced to\ncinders!\"  Which went more to the heart on account of his having got\nwrapped in his blanket as if he was looking out of a violinceller case,\nuntil Mr. Buffle says \"Robina speak to him!\"  Miss Buffle says \"Dear\nGeorge!\" and but for the Major's pouring down brandy-and-water on the\ninstant which caused a catching in his throat owing to the nutmeg and a\nviolent fit of coughing it might have proved too much for his strength.\nWhen the articled young gentleman got the better of it Mr. Buffle leaned\nup against Mrs. Buffle being two bundles, a little while in confidence,\nand then says with tears in his eyes which the Major noticing wiped, \"We\nhave not been an united family, let us after this danger become so, take\nher George.\"  The young gentleman could not put his arm out far to do it,\nbut his spoken expressions were very beautiful though of a wandering\nclass.  And I do not know that I ever had a much pleasanter meal than the\nbreakfast we took together after we had all dozed, when Miss Buffle made\ntea very sweetly in quite the Roman style as depicted formerly at Covent\nGarden Theatre and when the whole family was most agreeable, as they have\never proved since that night when the Major stood at the foot of the Fire-\nEscape and claimed them as they came down--the young gentleman\nhead-foremost, which accounts.  And though I do not say that we should be\nless liable to think ill of one another if strictly limited to blankets,\nstill I do say that we might most of us come to a better understanding if\nwe kept one another less at a distance.\n\nWhy there's Wozenham's lower down on the other side of the street.  I had\na feeling of much soreness several years respecting what I must still\never call Miss Wozenham's systematic underbidding and the likeness of the\nhouse in Bradshaw having far too many windows and a most umbrageous and\noutrageous Oak which never yet was seen in Norfolk Street nor yet a\ncarriage and four at Wozenham's door, which it would have been far more\nto Bradshaw's credit to have drawn a cab.  This frame of mind continued\nbitter down to the very afternoon in January last when one of my girls,\nSally Rairyganoo which I still suspect of Irish extraction though family\nrepresented Cambridge, else why abscond with a bricklayer of the Limerick\npersuasion and be married in pattens not waiting till his black eye was\ndecently got round with all the company fourteen in number and one horse\nfighting outside on the roof of the vehicle,--I repeat my dear my ill-\nregulated state of mind towards Miss Wozenham continued down to the very\nafternoon of January last past when Sally Rairyganoo came banging (I can\nuse no milder expression) into my room with a jump which may be Cambridge\nand may not, and said \"Hurroo Missis!  Miss Wozenham's sold up!\"  My dear\nwhen I had it thrown in my face and conscience that the girl Sally had\nreason to think I could be glad of the ruin of a fellow-creeter, I burst\ninto tears and dropped back in my chair and I says \"I am ashamed of\nmyself!\"\n\nWell!  I tried to settle to my tea but I could not do it what with\nthinking of Miss Wozenham and her distresses.  It was a wretched night\nand I went up to a front window and looked over at Wozenham's and as well\nas I could make it out down the street in the fog it was the dismallest\nof the dismal and not a light to be seen.  So at last I save to myself\n\"This will not do,\" and I puts on my oldest bonnet and shawl not wishing\nMiss Wozenham to be reminded of my best at such a time, and lo and behold\nyou I goes over to Wozenham's and knocks.  \"Miss Wozenham at home?\" I\nsays turning my head when I heard the door go.  And then I saw it was\nMiss Wozenham herself who had opened it and sadly worn she was poor thing\nand her eyes all swelled and swelled with crying.  \"Miss Wozenham\" I says\n\"it is several years since there was a little unpleasantness betwixt us\non the subject of my grandson's cap being down your Airy.  I have\noverlooked it and I hope you have done the same.\"  \"Yes Mrs. Lirriper\"\nshe says in a surprise, \"I have.\"  \"Then my dear\" I says \"I should be\nglad to come in and speak a word to you.\"  Upon my calling her my dear\nMiss Wozenham breaks out a crying most pitiful, and a not unfeeling\nelderly person that might have been better shaved in a nightcap with a\nhat over it offering a polite apology for the mumps having worked\nthemselves into his constitution, and also for sending home to his wife\non the bellows which was in his hand as a writing-desk, looks out of the\nback parlour and says \"The lady wants a word of comfort\" and goes in\nagain.  So I was able to say quite natural \"Wants a word of comfort does\nshe sir?  Then please the pigs she shall have it!\"  And Miss Wozenham and\nme we go into the front room with a wretched light that seemed to have\nbeen crying too and was sputtering out, and I says \"Now my dear, tell me\nall,\" and she wrings her hands and says \"O Mrs. Lirriper that man is in\npossession here, and I have not a friend in the world who is able to help\nme with a shilling.\"\n\nIt doesn't signify a bit what a talkative old body like me said to Miss\nWozenham when she said that, and so I'll tell you instead my dear that\nI'd have given thirty shillings to have taken her over to tea, only I\ndurstn't on account of the Major.  Not you see but what I knew I could\ndraw the Major out like thread and wind him round my finger on most\nsubjects and perhaps even on that if I was to set myself to it, but him\nand me had so often belied Miss Wozenham to one another that I was\nshamefaced, and I knew she had offended his pride and never mine, and\nlikewise I felt timid that that Rairyganoo girl might make things\nawkward.  So I says \"My dear if you could give me a cup of tea to clear\nmy muddle of a head I should better understand your affairs.\"  And we had\nthe tea and the affairs too and after all it was but forty pound,\nand--There! she's as industrious and straight a creeter as ever lived and\nhas paid back half of it already, and where's the use of saying more,\nparticularly when it ain't the point?  For the point is that when she was\na kissing my hands and holding them in hers and kissing them again and\nblessing blessing blessing, I cheered up at last and I says \"Why what a\nwaddling old goose I have been my dear to take you for something so very\ndifferent!\"  \"Ah but I too\" says she \"how have _I_ mistaken _you_!\"  \"Come\nfor goodness' sake tell me\" I says \"what you thought of me?\"  \"O\" says\nshe \"I thought you had no feeling for such a hard hand-to-mouth life as\nmine, and were rolling in affluence.\"  I says shaking my sides (and very\nglad to do it for I had been a choking quite long enough) \"Only look at\nmy figure my dear and give me your opinion whether if I was in affluence\nI should be likely to roll in it?\"  That did it?  We got as merry as\ngrigs (whatever _they_ are, if you happen to know my dear--_I_ don't) and\nI went home to my blessed home as happy and as thankful as could be.  But\nbefore I make an end of it, think even of my having misunderstood the\nMajor!  Yes!  For next forenoon the Major came into my little room with\nhis brushed hat in his hand and he begins \"My dearest madam--\" and then\nput his face in his hat as if he had just come into church.  As I sat all\nin a maze he came out of his hat and began again.  \"My esteemed and\nbeloved friend--\" and then went into his hat again.  \"Major,\" I cries out\nfrightened \"has anything happened to our darling boy?\"  \"No, no, no\" says\nthe Major \"but Miss Wozenham has been here this morning to make her\nexcuses to me, and by the Lord I can't get over what she told me.\"  \"Hoity\ntoity, Major,\" I says \"you don't know yet that I was afraid of you last\nnight and didn't think half as well of you as I ought!  So come out of\nchurch Major and forgive me like a dear old friend and I'll never do so\nany more.\"  And I leave you to judge my dear whether I ever did or will.\nAnd how affecting to think of Miss Wozenham out of her small income and\nher losses doing so much for her poor old father, and keeping a brother\nthat had had the misfortune to soften his brain against the hard\nmathematics as neat as a new pin in the three back represented to lodgers\nas a lumber-room and consuming a whole shoulder of mutton whenever\nprovided!\n\nAnd now my dear I really am a going to tell you about my Legacy if you're\ninclined to favour me with your attention, and I did fully intend to have\ncome straight to it only one thing does so bring up another.  It was the\nmonth of June and the day before Midsummer Day when my girl Winifred\nMadgers--she was what is termed a Plymouth Sister, and the Plymouth\nBrother that made away with her was quite right, for a tidier young woman\nfor a wife never came into a house and afterwards called with the\nbeautifullest Plymouth Twins--it was the day before Midsummer Day when\nWinifred Madgers comes and says to me \"A gentleman from the Consul's\nwishes particular to speak to Mrs. Lirriper.\"  If you'll believe me my\ndear the Consols at the bank where I have a little matter for Jemmy got\ninto my head, and I says \"Good gracious I hope he ain't had any dreadful\nfall!\"  Says Winifred \"He don't look as if he had ma'am.\"  And I says\n\"Show him in.\"\n\nThe gentleman came in dark and with his hair cropped what I should\nconsider too close, and he says very polite \"Madame Lirrwiper!\"  I says,\n\"Yes sir.  Take a chair.\"  \"I come,\" says he \"frrwom the Frrwench\nConsul's.\"  So I saw at once that it wasn't the Bank of England.   \"We\nhave rrweceived,\" says the gentleman turning his r's very curious and\nskilful, \"frrwom the Mairrwie at Sens, a communication which I will have\nthe honour to rrwead.  Madame Lirrwiper understands Frrwench?\"  \"O dear\nno sir!\" says I.  \"Madame Lirriper don't understand anything of the\nsort.\"  \"It matters not,\" says the gentleman, \"I will trrwanslate.\"\n\nWith that my dear the gentleman after reading something about a\nDepartment and a Marie (which Lord forgive me I supposed till the Major\ncame home was Mary, and never was I more puzzled than to think how that\nyoung woman came to have so much to do with it) translated a lot with the\nmost obliging pains, and it came to this:--That in the town of Sons in\nFrance an unknown Englishman lay a dying.  That he was speechless and\nwithout motion.  That in his lodging there was a gold watch and a purse\ncontaining such and such money and a trunk containing such and such\nclothes, but no passport and no papers, except that on his table was a\npack of cards and that he had written in pencil on the back of the ace of\nhearts: \"To the authorities.  When I am dead, pray send what is left, as\na last Legacy, to Mrs. Lirriper Eighty-one Norfolk Street Strand London.\"\nWhen the gentleman had explained all this, which seemed to be drawn up\nmuch more methodical than I should have given the French credit for, not\nat that time knowing the nation, he put the document into my hand.  And\nmuch the wiser I was for that you may be sure, except that it had the\nlook of being made out upon grocery paper and was stamped all over with\neagles.\n\n\"Does Madame Lirrwiper\" says the gentleman \"believe she rrwecognises her\nunfortunate compatrrwiot?\"\n\nYou may imagine the flurry it put me into my dear to be talked to about\nmy compatriots.\n\nI says \"Excuse me.  Would you have the kindness sir to make your language\nas simple as you can?\"\n\n\"This Englishman unhappy, at the point of death.  This compatrrwiot\nafflicted,\" says the gentleman.\n\n\"Thank you sir\" I says \"I understand you now.  No sir I have not the\nleast idea who this can be.\"\n\n\"Has Madame Lirrwiper no son, no nephew, no godson, no frrwiend, no\nacquaintance of any kind in Frrwance?\"\n\n\"To my certain knowledge\" says I \"no relation or friend, and to the best\nof my belief no acquaintance.\"\n\n\"Pardon me.  You take Locataires?\" says the gentleman.\n\nMy dear fully believing he was offering me something with his obliging\nforeign manners,--snuff for anything I knew,--I gave a little bend of my\nhead and I says if you'll credit it, \"No I thank you.  I have not\ncontracted the habit.\"\n\nThe gentleman looks perplexed and says \"Lodgers!\"\n\n\"Oh!\" says I laughing.  \"Bless the man!  Why yes to be sure!\"\n\n\"May it not be a former lodger?\" says the gentleman.  \"Some lodger that\nyou pardoned some rrwent?  You have pardoned lodgers some rrwent?\"\n\n\"Hem!  It has happened sir\" says I, \"but I assure you I can call to mind\nno gentleman of that description that this is at all likely to be.\"\n\nIn short my dear, we could make nothing of it, and the gentleman noted\ndown what I said and went away.  But he left me the paper of which he had\ntwo with him, and when the Major came in I says to the Major as I put it\nin his hand \"Major here's Old Moore's Almanac with the hieroglyphic\ncomplete, for your opinion.\"\n\nIt took the Major a little longer to read than I should have thought,\njudging from the copious flow with which he seemed to be gifted when\nattacking the organ-men, but at last he got through it, and stood a\ngazing at me in amazement.\n\n\"Major\" I says \"you're paralysed.\"\n\n\"Madam\" says the Major, \"Jemmy Jackman is doubled up.\"\n\nNow it did so happen that the Major had been out to get a little\ninformation about railroads and steamboats, as our boy was coming home\nfor his Midsummer holidays next day and we were going to take him\nsomewhere for a treat and a change.  So while the Major stood a gazing it\ncame into my head to say to him \"Major I wish you'd go and look at some\nof your books and maps, and see whereabouts this same town of Sens is in\nFrance.\"\n\nThe Major he roused himself and he went into the Parlours and he poked\nabout a little, and he came back to me and he says, \"Sens my dearest\nmadam is seventy-odd miles south of Paris.\"\n\nWith what I may truly call a desperate effort \"Major,\" I says \"we'll go\nthere with our blessed boy.\"\n\nIf ever the Major was beside himself it was at the thoughts of that\njourney.  All day long he was like the wild man of the woods after\nmeeting with an advertisement in the papers telling him something to his\nadvantage, and early next morning hours before Jemmy could possibly come\nhome he was outside in the street ready to call out to him that we was\nall a going to France.  Young Rosycheeks you may believe was as wild as\nthe Major, and they did carry on to that degree that I says \"If you two\nchildren ain't more orderly I'll pack you both off to bed.\"  And then\nthey fell to cleaning up the Major's telescope to see France with, and\nwent out and bought a leather bag with a snap to hang round Jemmy, and\nhim to carry the money like a little Fortunatus with his purse.\n\nIf I hadn't passed my word and raised their hopes, I doubt if I could\nhave gone through with the undertaking but it was too late to go back\nnow.  So on the second day after Midsummer Day we went off by the morning\nmail.  And when we came to the sea which I had never seen but once in my\nlife and that when my poor Lirriper was courting me, the freshness of it\nand the deepness and the airiness and to think that it had been rolling\never since and that it was always a rolling and so few of us minding,\nmade me feel quite serious.  But I felt happy too and so did Jemmy and\nthe Major and not much motion on the whole, though me with a swimming in\nthe head and a sinking but able to take notice that the foreign insides\nappear to be constructed hollower than the English, leading to much more\ntremenjous noises when bad sailors.\n\nBut my dear the blueness and the lightness and the coloured look of\neverything and the very sentry-boxes striped and the shining rattling\ndrums and the little soldiers with their waists and tidy gaiters, when we\ngot across to the Continent--it made me feel as if I don't know what--as\nif the atmosphere had been lifted off me.  And as to lunch why bless you\nif I kept a man-cook and two kitchen-maids I couldn't got it done for\ntwice the money, and no injured young woman a glaring at you and grudging\nyou and acknowledging your patronage by wishing that your food might\nchoke you, but so civil and so hot and attentive and every way\ncomfortable except Jemmy pouring wine down his throat by tumblers-full\nand me expecting to see him drop under the table.\n\nAnd the way in which Jemmy spoke his French was a real charm.  It was\noften wanted of him, for whenever anybody spoke a syllable to me I says\n\"Non-comprenny, you're very kind, but it's no use--Now Jemmy!\" and then\nJemmy he fires away at 'em lovely, the only thing wanting in Jemmy's\nFrench being as it appeared to me that he hardly ever understood a word\nof what they said to him which made it scarcely of the use it might have\nbeen though in other respects a perfect Native, and regarding the Major's\nfluency I should have been of the opinion judging French by English that\nthere might have been a greater choice of words in the language though\nstill I must admit that if I hadn't known him when he asked a military\ngentleman in a gray cloak what o'clock it was I should have took him for\na Frenchman born.\n\nBefore going on to look after my Legacy we were to make one regular day\nin Paris, and I leave you to judge my dear what a day _that_ was with\nJemmy and the Major and the telescope and me and the prowling young man\nat the inn door (but very civil too) that went along with us to show the\nsights.  All along the railway to Paris Jemmy and the Major had been\nfrightening me to death by stooping down on the platforms at stations to\ninspect the engines underneath their mechanical stomachs, and by creeping\nin and out I don't know where all, to find improvements for the United\nGrand Junction Parlour, but when we got out into the brilliant streets on\na bright morning they gave up all their London improvements as a bad job\nand gave their minds to Paris.  Says the prowling young man to me \"Will I\nspeak Inglis No?\"  So I says \"If you can young man I shall take it as a\nfavour,\" but after half-an-hour of it when I fully believed the man had\ngone mad and me too I says \"Be so good as fall back on your French sir,\"\nknowing that then I shouldn't have the agonies of trying to understand\nhim, which was a happy release.  Not that I lost much more than the rest\neither, for I generally noticed that when he had described something very\nlong indeed and I says to Jemmy \"What does he say Jemmy?\"  Jemmy says\nlooking with vengeance in his eye \"He is so jolly indistinct!\" and that\nwhen he had described it longer all over again and I says to Jemmy \"Well\nJemmy what's it all about?\" Jemmy says \"He says the building was repaired\nin seventeen hundred and four, Gran.\"\n\nWherever that prowling young man formed his prowling habits I cannot be\nexpected to know, but the way in which he went round the corner while we\nhad our breakfasts and was there again when we swallowed the last crumb\nwas most marvellous, and just the same at dinner and at night, prowling\nequally at the theatre and the inn gateway and the shop doors when we\nbought a trifle or two and everywhere else but troubled with a tendency\nto spit.  And of Paris I can tell you no more my dear than that it's town\nand country both in one, and carved stone and long streets of high houses\nand gardens and fountains and statues and trees and gold, and immensely\nbig soldiers and immensely little soldiers and the pleasantest nurses\nwith the whitest caps a playing at skipping-rope with the bunchiest\nbabies in the flattest caps, and clean table-cloths spread everywhere for\ndinner and people sitting out of doors smoking and sipping all day long\nand little plays being acted in the open air for little people and every\nshop a complete and elegant room, and everybody seeming to play at\neverything in this world.  And as to the sparkling lights my dear after\ndark, glittering high up and low down and on before and on behind and all\nround, and the crowd of theatres and the crowd of people and the crowd of\nall sorts, it's pure enchantment.  And pretty well the only thing that\ngrated on me was that whether you pay your fare at the railway or whether\nyou change your money at a money-dealer's or whether you take your ticket\nat the theatre, the lady or gentleman is caged up (I suppose by\ngovernment) behind the strongest iron bars having more of a Zoological\nappearance than a free country.\n\nWell to be sure when I did after all get my precious bones to bed that\nnight, and my Young Rogue came in to kiss me and asks \"What do you think\nof this lovely lovely Paris, Gran?\"  I says \"Jemmy I feel as if it was\nbeautiful fireworks being let off in my head.\"  And very cool and\nrefreshing the pleasant country was next day when we went on to look\nafter my Legacy, and rested me much and did me a deal of good.\n\nSo at length and at last my dear we come to Sens, a pretty little town\nwith a great two-towered cathedral and the rooks flying in and out of the\nloopholes and another tower atop of one of the towers like a sort of a\nstone pulpit.  In which pulpit with the birds skimming below him if\nyou'll believe me, I saw a speck while I was resting at the inn before\ndinner which they made signs to me was Jemmy and which really was.  I had\nbeen a fancying as I sat in the balcony of the hotel that an Angel might\nlight there and call down to the people to be good, but I little thought\nwhat Jemmy all unknown to himself was a calling down from that high place\nto some one in the town.\n\nThe pleasantest-situated inn my dear!  Right under the two towers, with\ntheir shadows a changing upon it all day like a kind of a sundial, and\ncountry people driving in and out of the courtyard in carts and hooded\ncabriolets and such like, and a market outside in front of the cathedral,\nand all so quaint and like a picter.  The Major and me agreed that\nwhatever came of my Legacy this was the place to stay in for our holiday,\nand we also agreed that our dear boy had best not be checked in his joy\nthat night by the sight of the Englishman if he was still alive, but that\nwe would go together and alone.  For you are to understand that the Major\nnot feeling himself quite equal in his wind to the height to which Jemmy\nhad climbed, had come back to me and left him with the Guide.\n\nSo after dinner when Jemmy had set off to see the river, the Major went\ndown to the Mairie, and presently came back with a military character in\na sword and spurs and a cocked hat and a yellow shoulder-belt and long\ntags about him that he must have found inconvenient.  And the Major says\n\"The Englishman still lies in the same state dearest madam.  This\ngentleman will conduct us to his lodging.\"  Upon which the military\ncharacter pulled off his cocked hat to me, and I took notice that he had\nshaved his forehead in imitation of Napoleon Bonaparte but not like.\n\nWe wont out at the courtyard gate and past the great doors of the\ncathedral and down a narrow High Street where the people were sitting\nchatting at their shop doors and the children were at play.  The military\ncharacter went in front and he stopped at a pork-shop with a little\nstatue of a pig sitting up, in the window, and a private door that a\ndonkey was looking out of.\n\nWhen the donkey saw the military character he came slipping out on the\npavement to turn round and then clattered along the passage into a back\nyard.  So the coast being clear, the Major and me were conducted up the\ncommon stair and into the front room on the second, a bare room with a\nred tiled floor and the outside lattice blinds pulled close to darken it.\nAs the military character opened the blinds I saw the tower where I had\nseen Jemmy, darkening as the sun got low, and I turned to the bed by the\nwall and saw the Englishman.\n\nIt was some kind of brain fever he had had, and his hair was all gone,\nand some wetted folded linen lay upon his head.  I looked at him very\nattentive as he lay there all wasted away with his eyes closed, and I\nsays to the Major--\n\n\"_I_ never saw this face before.\"\n\nThe Major looked at him very attentive too, and he says \"I never saw this\nface before.\"\n\nWhen the Major explained our words to the military character, that\ngentleman shrugged his shoulders and showed the Major the card on which\nit was written about the Legacy for me.  It had been written with a weak\nand trembling hand in bed, and I knew no more of the writing than of the\nface.  Neither did the Major.\n\nThough lying there alone, the poor creetur was as well taken care of as\ncould be hoped, and would have been quite unconscious of any one's\nsitting by him then.  I got the Major to say that we were not going away\nat present and that I would come back to-morrow and watch a bit by the\nbedside.  But I got him to add--and I shook my head hard to make it\nstronger--\"We agree that we never saw this face before.\"\n\nOur boy was greatly surprised when we told him sitting out in the balcony\nin the starlight, and he ran over some of those stories of former\nLodgers, of the Major's putting down, and asked wasn't it possible that\nit might be this lodger or that lodger.  It was not possible, and we went\nto bed.\n\nIn the morning just at breakfast-time the military character came\njingling round, and said that the doctor thought from the signs he saw\nthere might be some rally before the end.  So I says to the Major and\nJemmy, \"You two boys go and enjoy yourselves, and I'll take my Prayer\nBook and go sit by the bed.\"  So I went, and I sat there some hours,\nreading a prayer for him poor soul now and then, and it was quite on in\nthe day when he moved his hand.\n\nHe had been so still, that the moment he moved I knew of it, and I pulled\noff my spectacles and laid down my book and rose and looked at him.  From\nmoving one hand he began to move both, and then his action was the action\nof a person groping in the dark.  Long after his eyes had opened, there\nwas a film over them and he still felt for his way out into light.  But\nby slow degrees his sight cleared and his hands stopped.  He saw the\nceiling, he saw the wall, he saw me.  As his sight cleared, mine cleared\ntoo, and when at last we looked in one another's faces, I started back,\nand I cries passionately:\n\n\"O you wicked wicked man!  Your sin has found you out!\"\n\nFor I knew him, the moment life looked out of his eyes, to be Mr. Edson,\nJemmy's father who had so cruelly deserted Jemmy's young unmarried mother\nwho had died in my arms, poor tender creetur, and left Jemmy to me.\n\n\"You cruel wicked man!  You bad black traitor!\"\n\nWith the little strength he had, he made an attempt to turn over on his\nwretched face to hide it.  His arm dropped out of the bed and his head\nwith it, and there he lay before me crushed in body and in mind.  Surely\nthe miserablest sight under the summer sun!\n\n\"O blessed Heaven,\" I says a crying, \"teach me what to say to this broken\nmortal!  I am a poor sinful creetur, and the Judgment is not mine.\"\n\nAs I lifted my eyes up to the clear bright sky, I saw the high tower\nwhere Jemmy had stood above the birds, seeing that very window; and the\nlast look of that poor pretty young mother when her soul brightened and\ngot free, seemed to shine down from it.\n\n\"O man, man, man!\" I says, and I went on my knees beside the bed; \"if\nyour heart is rent asunder and you are truly penitent for what you did,\nOur Saviour will have mercy on you yet!\"\n\nAs I leaned my face against the bed, his feeble hand could just move\nitself enough to touch me.  I hope the touch was penitent.  It tried to\nhold my dress and keep hold, but the fingers were too weak to close.\n\nI lifted him back upon the pillows and I says to him:\n\n\"Can you hear me?\"\n\nHe looked yes.\n\n\"Do you know me?\"\n\nHe looked yes, even yet more plainly.\n\n\"I am not here alone.  The Major is with me.  You recollect the Major?\"\n\nYes.  That is to say he made out yes, in the same way as before.\n\n\"And even the Major and I are not alone.  My grandson--his godson--is\nwith us.  Do you hear?  My grandson.\"\n\nThe fingers made another trial to catch my sleeve, but could only creep\nnear it and fall.\n\n\"Do you know who my grandson is?\"\n\nYes.\n\n\"I pitied and loved his lonely mother.  When his mother lay a dying I\nsaid to her, 'My dear, this baby is sent to a childless old woman.'  He\nhas been my pride and joy ever since.  I love him as dearly as if he had\ndrunk from my breast.  Do you ask to see my grandson before you die?\"\n\nYes.\n\n\"Show me, when I leave off speaking, if you correctly understand what I\nsay.  He has been kept unacquainted with the story of his birth.  He has\nno knowledge of it.  No suspicion of it.  If I bring him here to the side\nof this bed, he will suppose you to be a perfect stranger.  It is more\nthan I can do to keep from him the knowledge that there is such wrong and\nmisery in the world; but that it was ever so near him in his innocent\ncradle I have kept from him, and I do keep from him, and I ever will keep\nfrom him, for his mother's sake, and for his own.\"\n\nHe showed me that he distinctly understood, and the tears fell from his\neyes.\n\n\"Now rest, and you shall see him.\"\n\nSo I got him a little wine and some brandy, and I put things straight\nabout his bed.  But I began to be troubled in my mind lest Jemmy and the\nMajor might be too long of coming back.  What with this occupation for my\nthoughts and hands, I didn't hear a foot upon the stairs, and was\nstartled when I saw the Major stopped short in the middle of the room by\nthe eyes of the man upon the bed, and knowing him then, as I had known\nhim a little while ago.\n\nThere was anger in the Major's face, and there was horror and repugnance\nand I don't know what.  So I went up to him and I led him to the bedside,\nand when I clasped my hands and lifted of them up, the Major did the\nlike.\n\n\"O Lord\" I says \"Thou knowest what we two saw together of the sufferings\nand sorrows of that young creetur now with Thee.  If this dying man is\ntruly penitent, we two together humbly pray Thee to have mercy on him!\"\n\nThe Major says \"Amen!\" and then after a little stop I whispers him, \"Dear\nold friend fetch our beloved boy.\"  And the Major, so clever as to have\ngot to understand it all without being told a word, went away and brought\nhim.\n\nNever never never shall I forget the fair bright face of our boy when he\nstood at the foot of the bed, looking at his unknown father.  And O so\nlike his dear young mother then!\n\n\"Jemmy\" I says, \"I have found out all about this poor gentleman who is so\nill, and he did lodge in the old house once.  And as he wants to see all\nbelonging to it, now that he is passing away, I sent for you.\"\n\n\"Ah poor man!\" says Jemmy stepping forward and touching one of his hands\nwith great gentleness.  \"My heart melts for him.  Poor, poor man!\"\n\nThe eyes that were so soon to close for ever turned to me, and I was not\nthat strong in the pride of my strength that I could resist them.\n\n\"My darling boy, there is a reason in the secret history of this fellow-\ncreetur lying as the best and worst of us must all lie one day, which I\nthink would ease his spirit in his last hour if you would lay your cheek\nagainst his forehead and say, 'May God forgive you!'\"\n\n\"O Gran,\" says Jemmy with a full heart, \"I am not worthy!\"  But he leaned\ndown and did it.  Then the faltering fingers made out to catch hold of my\nsleeve at last, and I believe he was a-trying to kiss me when he died.\n\n* * * * *\n\nThere my dear!  There you have the story of my Legacy in full, and it's\nworth ten times the trouble I have spent upon it if you are pleased to\nlike it.\n\nYou might suppose that it set us against the little French town of Sens,\nbut no we didn't find that.  I found myself that I never looked up at the\nhigh tower atop of the other tower, but the days came back again when\nthat fair young creetur with her pretty bright hair trusted in me like a\nmother, and the recollection made the place so peaceful to me as I can't\nexpress.  And every soul about the hotel down to the pigeons in the\ncourtyard made friends with Jemmy and the Major, and went lumbering away\nwith them on all sorts of expeditions in all sorts of vehicles drawn by\nrampagious cart-horses,--with heads and without,--mud for paint and ropes\nfor harness,--and every new friend dressed in blue like a butcher, and\nevery new horse standing on his hind legs wanting to devour and consume\nevery other horse, and every man that had a whip to crack crack-crack-\ncrack-crack-cracking it as if it was a schoolboy with his first.  As to\nthe Major my dear that man lived the greater part of his time with a\nlittle tumbler in one hand and a bottle of small wine in the other, and\nwhenever he saw anybody else with a little tumbler, no matter who it\nwas,--the military character with the tags, or the inn-servants at their\nsupper in the courtyard, or townspeople a chatting on a bench, or country\npeople a starting home after market,--down rushes the Major to clink his\nglass against their glasses and cry,--Hola!  Vive Somebody! or Vive\nSomething! as if he was beside himself.  And though I could not quite\napprove of the Major's doing it, still the ways of the world are the ways\nof the world varying according to the different parts of it, and dancing\nat all in the open Square with a lady that kept a barber's shop my\nopinion is that the Major was right to dance his best and to lead off\nwith a power that I did not think was in him, though I was a little\nuneasy at the Barricading sound of the cries that were set up by the\nother dancers and the rest of the company, until when I says \"What are\nthey ever calling out Jemmy?\" Jemmy says, \"They're calling out Gran,\nBravo the Military English!  Bravo the Military English!\" which was very\ngratifying to my feelings as a Briton and became the name the Major was\nknown by.\n\nBut every evening at a regular time we all three sat out in the balcony\nof the hotel at the end of the courtyard, looking up at the golden and\nrosy light as it changed on the great towers, and looking at the shadows\nof the towers as they changed on all about us ourselves included, and\nwhat do you think we did there?  My dear, if Jemmy hadn't brought some\nother of those stories of the Major's taking down from the telling of\nformer lodgers at Eighty-one Norfolk Street, and if he didn't bring 'em\nout with this speech:\n\n\"Here you are Gran!  Here you are godfather!  More of 'em!  I'll read.\nAnd though you wrote 'em for me, godfather, I know you won't disapprove\nof my making 'em over to Gran; will you?\"\n\n\"No, my dear boy,\" says the Major.  \"Everything we have is hers, and we\nare hers.\"\n\n\"Hers ever affectionately and devotedly J. Jackman, and J. Jackman\nLirriper,\" cries the Young Rogue giving me a close hug.  \"Very well then\ngodfather.  Look here.  As Gran is in the Legacy way just now, I shall\nmake these stories a part of Gran's Legacy.  I'll leave 'em to her.  What\ndo you say godfather?\"\n\n\"Hip hip Hurrah!\" says the Major.\n\n\"Very well then,\" cries Jemmy all in a bustle.  \"Vive the Military\nEnglish!  Vive the Lady Lirriper!  Vive the Jemmy Jackman Ditto!  Vive\nthe Legacy!  Now, you look out, Gran.  And you look out, godfather.\n_I'll_ read!  And I'll tell you what I'll do besides.  On the last night\nof our holiday here when we are all packed and going away, I'll top up\nwith something of my own.\"\n\n\"Mind you do sir\" says I.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II--MRS. LIRRIPER RELATES HOW JEMMY TOPPED UP\n\n\nWell my dear and so the evening readings of those jottings of the Major's\nbrought us round at last to the evening when we were all packed and going\naway next day, and I do assure you that by that time though it was\ndeliciously comfortable to look forward to the dear old house in Norfolk\nStreet again, I had formed quite a high opinion of the French nation and\nhad noticed them to be much more homely and domestic in their families\nand far more simple and amiable in their lives than I had ever been led\nto expect, and it did strike me between ourselves that in one particular\nthey might be imitated to advantage by another nation which I will not\nmention, and that is in the courage with which they take their little\nenjoyments on little means and with little things and don't let solemn\nbig-wigs stare them out of countenance or speechify them dull, of which\nsaid solemn big-wigs I have ever had the one opinion that I wish they\nwere all made comfortable separately in coppers with the lids on and\nnever let out any more.\n\n\"Now young man,\" I says to Jemmy when we brought our chairs into the\nbalcony that last evening, \"you please to remember who was to 'top up.'\"\n\n\"All right Gran\" says Jemmy.  \"I am the illustrious personage.\"\n\nBut he looked so serious after he had made me that light answer, that the\nMajor raised his eyebrows at me and I raised mine at the Major.\n\n\"Gran and godfather,\" says Jemmy, \"you can hardly think how much my mind\nhas run on Mr. Edson's death.\"\n\nIt gave me a little check.  \"Ah! it was a sad scene my love\" I says, \"and\nsad remembrances come back stronger than merry.  But this\" I says after a\nlittle silence, to rouse myself and the Major and Jemmy all together, \"is\nnot topping up.  Tell us your story my dear.\"\n\n\"I will\" says Jemmy.\n\n\"What is the date sir?\" says I.  \"Once upon a time when pigs drank wine?\"\n\n\"No Gran,\" says Jemmy, still serious; \"once upon a time when the French\ndrank wine.\"\n\nAgain I glanced at the Major, and the Major glanced at me.\n\n\"In short, Gran and godfather,\" says Jemmy, looking up, \"the date is this\ntime, and I'm going to tell you Mr. Edson's story.\"\n\nThe flutter that it threw me into.  The change of colour on the part of\nthe Major!\n\n\"That is to say, you understand,\" our bright-eyed boy says, \"I am going\nto give you my version of it.  I shall not ask whether it's right or not,\nfirstly because you said you knew very little about it, Gran, and\nsecondly because what little you did know was a secret.\"\n\nI folded my hands in my lap and I never took my eyes off Jemmy as he went\nrunning on.\n\n\"The unfortunate gentleman\" Jemmy commences, \"who is the subject of our\npresent narrative was the son of Somebody, and was born Somewhere, and\nchose a profession Somehow.  It is not with those parts of his career\nthat we have to deal; but with his early attachment to a young and\nbeautiful lady.\"\n\nI thought I should have dropped.  I durstn't look at the Major; but I\nknow what his state was, without looking at him.\n\n\"The father of our ill-starred hero\" says Jemmy, copying as it seemed to\nme the style of some of his story-books, \"was a worldly man who\nentertained ambitious views for his only son and who firmly set his face\nagainst the contemplated alliance with a virtuous but penniless orphan.\nIndeed he went so far as roundly to assure our hero that unless he weaned\nhis thoughts from the object of his devoted affection, he would\ndisinherit him.  At the same time, he proposed as a suitable match the\ndaughter of a neighbouring gentleman of a good estate, who was neither\nill-favoured nor unamiable, and whose eligibility in a pecuniary point of\nview could not be disputed.  But young Mr. Edson, true to the first and\nonly love that had inflamed his breast, rejected all considerations of\nself-advancement, and, deprecating his father's anger in a respectful\nletter, ran away with her.\"\n\nMy dear I had begun to take a turn for the better, but when it come to\nrunning away I began to take another turn for the worse.\n\n\"The lovers\" says Jemmy \"fled to London and were united at the altar of\nSaint Clement's Danes.  And it is at this period of their simple but\ntouching story that we find them inmates of the dwelling of a\nhighly-respected and beloved lady of the name of Gran, residing within a\nhundred miles of Norfolk Street.\"\n\nI felt that we were almost safe now, I felt that the dear boy had no\nsuspicion of the bitter truth, and I looked at the Major for the first\ntime and drew a long breath.  The Major gave me a nod.\n\n\"Our hero's father\" Jemmy goes on \"proving implacable and carrying his\nthreat into unrelenting execution, the struggles of the young couple in\nLondon were severe, and would have been far more so, but for their good\nangel's having conducted them to the abode of Mrs. Gran; who, divining\ntheir poverty (in spite of their endeavours to conceal it from her), by a\nthousand delicate arts smoothed their rough way, and alleviated the\nsharpness of their first distress.\"\n\nHere Jemmy took one of my hands in one of his, and began a marking the\nturns of his story by making me give a beat from time to time upon his\nother hand.\n\n\"After a while, they left the house of Mrs. Gran, and pursued their\nfortunes through a variety of successes and failures elsewhere.  But in\nall reverses, whether for good or evil, the words of Mr. Edson to the\nfair young partner of his life were, 'Unchanging Love and Truth will\ncarry us through all!'\"\n\nMy hand trembled in the dear boy's, those words were so wofully unlike\nthe fact.\n\n\"Unchanging Love and Truth\" says Jemmy over again, as if he had a proud\nkind of a noble pleasure in it, \"will carry us through all!  Those were\nhis words.  And so they fought their way, poor but gallant and happy,\nuntil Mrs. Edson gave birth to a child.\"\n\n\"A daughter,\" I says.\n\n\"No,\" says Jemmy, \"a son.  And the father was so proud of it that he\ncould hardly bear it out of his sight.  But a dark cloud overspread the\nscene.  Mrs. Edson sickened, drooped, and died.\"\n\n\"Ah!  Sickened, drooped, and died!\" I says.\n\n\"And so Mr. Edson's only comfort, only hope on earth, and only stimulus\nto action, was his darling boy.  As the child grew older, he grew so like\nhis mother that he was her living picture.  It used to make him wonder\nwhy his father cried when he kissed him.  But unhappily he was like his\nmother in constitution as well as in face, and lo, died too before he had\ngrown out of childhood.  Then Mr. Edson, who had good abilities, in his\nforlornness and despair, threw them all to the winds.  He became\napathetic, reckless, lost.  Little by little he sank down, down, down,\ndown, until at last he almost lived (I think) by gaming.  And so sickness\novertook him in the town of Sens in France, and he lay down to die.  But\nnow that he laid him down when all was done, and looked back upon the\ngreen Past beyond the time when he had covered it with ashes, he thought\ngratefully of the good Mrs. Gran long lost sight of, who had been so kind\nto him and his young wife in the early days of their marriage, and he\nleft the little that he had as a last Legacy to her.  And she, being\nbrought to see him, at first no more knew him than she would know from\nseeing the ruin of a Greek or Roman Temple, what it used to be before it\nfell; but at length she remembered him.  And then he told her, with\ntears, of his regret for the misspent part of his life, and besought her\nto think as mildly of it as she could, because it was the poor fallen\nAngel of his unchanging Love and Constancy after all.  And because she\nhad her grandson with her, and he fancied that his own boy, if he had\nlived, might have grown to be something like him, he asked her to let him\ntouch his forehead with his cheek and say certain parting words.\"\n\nJemmy's voice sank low when it got to that, and tears filled my eyes, and\nfilled the Major's.\n\n\"You little Conjurer\" I says, \"how did you ever make it all out?  Go in\nand write it every word down, for it's a wonder.\"\n\nWhich Jemmy did, and I have repeated it to you my dear from his writing.\n\nThen the Major took my hand and kissed it, and said, \"Dearest madam all\nhas prospered with us.\"\n\n\"Ah Major\" I says drying my eyes, \"we needn't have been afraid.  We might\nhave known it.  Treachery don't come natural to beaming youth; but trust\nand pity, love and constancy,--they do, thank God!\"\n\n\n"}
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{"1422":"\n\n\n\n\nTranscribed from the 1894 Chapman and Hall edition of \"Christmas Stories\"\nby David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk\n\n\n\n\n\nGOING INTO SOCIETY\n\n\nAt one period of its reverses, the House fell into the occupation of a\nShowman.  He was found registered as its occupier, on the parish books of\nthe time when he rented the House, and there was therefore no need of any\nclue to his name.  But, he himself was less easy to be found; for, he had\nled a wandering life, and settled people had lost sight of him, and\npeople who plumed themselves on being respectable were shy of admitting\nthat they had ever known anything of him.  At last, among the marsh lands\nnear the river's level, that lie about Deptford and the neighbouring\nmarket-gardens, a Grizzled Personage in velveteen, with a face so cut up\nby varieties of weather that he looked as if he had been tattooed, was\nfound smoking a pipe at the door of a wooden house on wheels.  The wooden\nhouse was laid up in ordinary for the winter, near the mouth of a muddy\ncreek; and everything near it, the foggy river, the misty marshes, and\nthe steaming market-gardens, smoked in company with the grizzled man.  In\nthe midst of this smoking party, the funnel-chimney of the wooden house\non wheels was not remiss, but took its pipe with the rest in a\ncompanionable manner.\n\nOn being asked if it were he who had once rented the House to Let,\nGrizzled Velveteen looked surprised, and said yes.  Then his name was\nMagsman?  That was it, Toby Magsman--which lawfully christened Robert;\nbut called in the line, from a infant, Toby.  There was nothing agin Toby\nMagsman, he believed?  If there was suspicion of such--mention it!\n\nThere was no suspicion of such, he might rest assured.  But, some\ninquiries were making about that House, and would he object to say why he\nleft it?\n\nNot at all; why should he?  He left it, along of a Dwarf.\n\nAlong of a Dwarf?\n\nMr. Magsman repeated, deliberately and emphatically, Along of a Dwarf.\n\nMight it be compatible with Mr. Magsman's inclination and convenience to\nenter, as a favour, into a few particulars?\n\nMr. Magsman entered into the following particulars.\n\nIt was a long time ago, to begin with;--afore lotteries and a deal more\nwas done away with.  Mr. Magsman was looking about for a good pitch, and\nhe see that house, and he says to himself, \"I'll have you, if you're to\nbe had.  If money'll get you, I'll have you.\"\n\nThe neighbours cut up rough, and made complaints; but Mr. Magsman don't\nknow what they _would_ have had.  It was a lovely thing.  First of all,\nthere was the canvass, representin the picter of the Giant, in Spanish\ntrunks and a ruff, who was himself half the heighth of the house, and was\nrun up with a line and pulley to a pole on the roof, so that his Ed was\ncoeval with the parapet.  Then, there was the canvass, representin the\npicter of the Albina lady, showing her white air to the Army and Navy in\ncorrect uniform.  Then, there was the canvass, representin the picter of\nthe Wild Indian a scalpin a member of some foreign nation.  Then, there\nwas the canvass, representin the picter of a child of a British Planter,\nseized by two Boa Constrictors--not that _we_ never had no child, nor no\nConstrictors neither.  Similarly, there was the canvass, representin the\npicter of the Wild Ass of the Prairies--not that _we_ never had no wild\nasses, nor wouldn't have had 'em at a gift.  Last, there was the canvass,\nrepresentin the picter of the Dwarf, and like him too (considerin), with\nGeorge the Fourth in such a state of astonishment at him as His Majesty\ncouldn't with his utmost politeness and stoutness express.  The front of\nthe House was so covered with canvasses, that there wasn't a spark of\ndaylight ever visible on that side.  \"MAGSMAN'S AMUSEMENTS,\" fifteen foot\nlong by two foot high, ran over the front door and parlour winders.  The\npassage was a Arbour of green baize and gardenstuff.  A barrel-organ\nperformed there unceasing.  And as to respectability,--if threepence\nain't respectable, what is?\n\nBut, the Dwarf is the principal article at present, and he was worth the\nmoney.  He was wrote up as MAJOR TPSCHOFFKI, OF THE IMPERIAL BULGRADERIAN\nBRIGADE.  Nobody couldn't pronounce the name, and it never was intended\nanybody should.  The public always turned it, as a regular rule, into\nChopski.  In the line he was called Chops; partly on that account, and\npartly because his real name, if he ever had any real name (which was\nvery dubious), was Stakes.\n\nHe was a uncommon small man, he really was.  Certainly not so small as he\nwas made out to be, but where _is_ your Dwarf as is?  He was a most\nuncommon small man, with a most uncommon large Ed; and what he had inside\nthat Ed, nobody ever knowed but himself: even supposin himself to have\never took stock of it, which it would have been a stiff job for even him\nto do.\n\nThe kindest little man as never growed!  Spirited, but not proud.  When\nhe travelled with the Spotted Baby--though he knowed himself to be a\nnat'ral Dwarf, and knowed the Baby's spots to be put upon him artificial,\nhe nursed that Baby like a mother.  You never heerd him give a ill-name\nto a Giant.  He _did_ allow himself to break out into strong language\nrespectin the Fat Lady from Norfolk; but that was an affair of the 'art;\nand when a man's 'art has been trifled with by a lady, and the preference\ngiv to a Indian, he ain't master of his actions.\n\nHe was always in love, of course; every human nat'ral phenomenon is.  And\nhe was always in love with a large woman; I never knowed the Dwarf as\ncould be got to love a small one.  Which helps to keep 'em the\nCuriosities they are.\n\nOne sing'ler idea he had in that Ed of his, which must have meant\nsomething, or it wouldn't have been there.  It was always his opinion\nthat he was entitled to property.  He never would put his name to\nanything.  He had been taught to write, by the young man without arms,\nwho got his living with his toes (quite a writing master _he_ was, and\ntaught scores in the line), but Chops would have starved to death, afore\nhe'd have gained a bit of bread by putting his hand to a paper.  This is\nthe more curious to bear in mind, because HE had no property, nor hope of\nproperty, except his house and a sarser.  When I say his house, I mean\nthe box, painted and got up outside like a reg'lar six-roomer, that he\nused to creep into, with a diamond ring (or quite as good to look at) on\nhis forefinger, and ring a little bell out of what the Public believed to\nbe the Drawing-room winder.  And when I say a sarser, I mean a Chaney\nsarser in which he made a collection for himself at the end of every\nEntertainment.  His cue for that, he took from me: \"Ladies and gentlemen,\nthe little man will now walk three times round the Cairawan, and retire\nbehind the curtain.\"  When he said anything important, in private life,\nhe mostly wound it up with this form of words, and they was generally the\nlast thing he said to me at night afore he went to bed.\n\nHe had what I consider a fine mind--a poetic mind.  His ideas respectin\nhis property never come upon him so strong as when he sat upon a barrel-\norgan and had the handle turned.  Arter the wibration had run through him\na little time, he would screech out, \"Toby, I feel my property\ncoming--grind away!  I'm counting my guineas by thousands, Toby--grind\naway!  Toby, I shall be a man of fortun!  I feel the Mint a jingling in\nme, Toby, and I'm swelling out into the Bank of England!\"  Such is the\ninfluence of music on a poetic mind.  Not that he was partial to any\nother music but a barrel-organ; on the contrary, hated it.\n\nHe had a kind of a everlasting grudge agin the Public: which is a thing\nyou may notice in many phenomenons that get their living out of it.  What\nriled him most in the nater of his occupation was, that it kep him out of\nSociety.  He was continiwally saying, \"Toby, my ambition is, to go into\nSociety.  The curse of my position towards the Public is, that it keeps\nme hout of Society.  This don't signify to a low beast of a Indian; he\nan't formed for Society.  This don't signify to a Spotted Baby; _he_ an't\nformed for Society.--I am.\"\n\nNobody never could make out what Chops done with his money.  He had a\ngood salary, down on the drum every Saturday as the day came round,\nbesides having the run of his teeth--and he was a Woodpecker to eat--but\nall Dwarfs are.  The sarser was a little income, bringing him in so many\nhalfpence that he'd carry 'em for a week together, tied up in a pocket-\nhandkercher.  And yet he never had money.  And it couldn't be the Fat\nLady from Norfolk, as was once supposed; because it stands to reason that\nwhen you have a animosity towards a Indian, which makes you grind your\nteeth at him to his face, and which can hardly hold you from Goosing him\naudible when he's going through his War-Dance--it stands to reason you\nwouldn't under them circumstances deprive yourself, to support that\nIndian in the lap of luxury.\n\nMost unexpected, the mystery come out one day at Egham Races.  The Public\nwas shy of bein pulled in, and Chops was ringin his little bell out of\nhis drawing-room winder, and was snarlin to me over his shoulder as he\nkneeled down with his legs out at the back-door--for he couldn't be\nshoved into his house without kneeling down, and the premises wouldn't\naccommodate his legs--was snarlin, \"Here's a precious Public for you; why\nthe Devil don't they tumble up?\" when a man in the crowd holds up a\ncarrier-pigeon, and cries out, \"If there's any person here as has got a\nticket, the Lottery's just drawed, and the number as has come up for the\ngreat prize is three, seven, forty-two!  Three, seven, forty-two!\"  I was\ngivin the man to the Furies myself, for calling off the Public's\nattention--for the Public will turn away, at any time, to look at\nanything in preference to the thing showed 'em; and if you doubt it, get\n'em together for any indiwidual purpose on the face of the earth, and\nsend only two people in late, and see if the whole company an't far more\ninterested in takin particular notice of them two than of you--I say, I\nwasn't best pleased with the man for callin out, and wasn't blessin him\nin my own mind, when I see Chops's little bell fly out of winder at a old\nlady, and he gets up and kicks his box over, exposin the whole secret,\nand he catches hold of the calves of my legs and he says to me, \"Carry me\ninto the wan, Toby, and throw a pail of water over me or I'm a dead man,\nfor I've come into my property!\"\n\nTwelve thousand odd hundred pound, was Chops's winnins.  He had bought a\nhalf-ticket for the twenty-five thousand prize, and it had come up.  The\nfirst use he made of his property, was, to offer to fight the Wild Indian\nfor five hundred pound a side, him with a poisoned darnin-needle and the\nIndian with a club; but the Indian being in want of backers to that\namount, it went no further.\n\nArter he had been mad for a week--in a state of mind, in short, in which,\nif I had let him sit on the organ for only two minutes, I believe he\nwould have bust--but we kep the organ from him--Mr. Chops come round, and\nbehaved liberal and beautiful to all.  He then sent for a young man he\nknowed, as had a wery genteel appearance and was a Bonnet at a gaming-\nbooth (most respectable brought up, father havin been imminent in the\nlivery stable line but unfort'nate in a commercial crisis, through\npaintin a old gray, ginger-bay, and sellin him with a Pedigree), and Mr.\nChops said to this Bonnet, who said his name was Normandy, which it\nwasn't:\n\n\"Normandy, I'm a goin into Society.  Will you go with me?\"\n\nSays Normandy: \"Do I understand you, Mr. Chops, to hintimate that the\n'ole of the expenses of that move will be borne by yourself?\"\n\n\"Correct,\" says Mr. Chops.  \"And you shall have a Princely allowance\ntoo.\"\n\nThe Bonnet lifted Mr. Chops upon a chair, to shake hands with him, and\nreplied in poetry, with his eyes seemingly full of tears:\n\n   \"My boat is on the shore,\n   And my bark is on the sea,\n   And I do not ask for more,\n   But I'll Go:--along with thee.\"\n\nThey went into Society, in a chay and four grays with silk jackets.  They\ntook lodgings in Pall Mall, London, and they blazed away.\n\nIn consequence of a note that was brought to Bartlemy Fair in the autumn\nof next year by a servant, most wonderful got up in milk-white cords and\ntops, I cleaned myself and went to Pall Mall, one evening appinted.  The\ngentlemen was at their wine arter dinner, and Mr. Chops's eyes was more\nfixed in that Ed of his than I thought good for him.  There was three of\n'em (in company, I mean), and I knowed the third well.  When last met, he\nhad on a white Roman shirt, and a bishop's mitre covered with leopard-\nskin, and played the clarionet all wrong, in a band at a Wild Beast Show.\n\nThis gent took on not to know me, and Mr. Chops said: \"Gentlemen, this is\na old friend of former days:\" and Normandy looked at me through a eye-\nglass, and said, \"Magsman, glad to see you!\"--which I'll take my oath he\nwasn't.  Mr. Chops, to git him convenient to the table, had his chair on\na throne (much of the form of George the Fourth's in the canvass), but he\nhardly appeared to me to be King there in any other pint of view, for his\ntwo gentlemen ordered about like Emperors.  They was all dressed like May-\nDay--gorgeous!--And as to Wine, they swam in all sorts.\n\nI made the round of the bottles, first separate (to say I had done it),\nand then mixed 'em all together (to say I had done it), and then tried\ntwo of 'em as half-and-half, and then t'other two.  Altogether, I passed\na pleasin evenin, but with a tendency to feel muddled, until I considered\nit good manners to get up and say, \"Mr. Chops, the best of friends must\npart, I thank you for the wariety of foreign drains you have stood so\n'ansome, I looks towards you in red wine, and I takes my leave.\"  Mr.\nChops replied, \"If you'll just hitch me out of this over your right arm,\nMagsman, and carry me down-stairs, I'll see you out.\"  I said I couldn't\nthink of such a thing, but he would have it, so I lifted him off his\nthrone.  He smelt strong of Maideary, and I couldn't help thinking as I\ncarried him down that it was like carrying a large bottle full of wine,\nwith a rayther ugly stopper, a good deal out of proportion.\n\nWhen I set him on the door-mat in the hall, he kep me close to him by\nholding on to my coat-collar, and he whispers:\n\n\"I ain't 'appy, Magsman.\"\n\n\"What's on your mind, Mr. Chops?\"\n\n\"They don't use me well.  They an't grateful to me.  They puts me on the\nmantel-piece when I won't have in more Champagne-wine, and they locks me\nin the sideboard when I won't give up my property.\"\n\n\"Get rid of 'em, Mr. Chops.\"\n\n\"I can't.  We're in Society together, and what would Society say?\"\n\n\"Come out of Society!\" says I.\n\n\"I can't.  You don't know what you're talking about.  When you have once\ngone into Society, you mustn't come out of it.\"\n\n\"Then if you'll excuse the freedom, Mr. Chops,\" were my remark, shaking\nmy head grave, \"I think it's a pity you ever went in.\"\n\nMr. Chops shook that deep Ed of his, to a surprisin extent, and slapped\nit half a dozen times with his hand, and with more Wice than I thought\nwere in him.  Then, he says, \"You're a good fellow, but you don't\nunderstand.  Good-night, go along.  Magsman, the little man will now walk\nthree times round the Cairawan, and retire behind the curtain.\"  The last\nI see of him on that occasion was his tryin, on the extremest werge of\ninsensibility, to climb up the stairs, one by one, with his hands and\nknees.  They'd have been much too steep for him, if he had been sober;\nbut he wouldn't be helped.\n\nIt warn't long after that, that I read in the newspaper of Mr. Chops's\nbeing presented at court.  It was printed, \"It will be recollected\"--and\nI've noticed in my life, that it is sure to be printed that it _will_ be\nrecollected, whenever it won't--\"that Mr. Chops is the individual of\nsmall stature, whose brilliant success in the last State Lottery\nattracted so much attention.\"  Well, I says to myself, Such is Life!  He\nhas been and done it in earnest at last.  He has astonished George the\nFourth!\n\n(On account of which, I had that canvass new-painted, him with a bag of\nmoney in his hand, a presentin it to George the Fourth, and a lady in\nOstrich Feathers fallin in love with him in a bag-wig, sword, and buckles\ncorrect.)\n\nI took the House as is the subject of present inquiries--though not the\nhonour of bein acquainted--and I run Magsman's Amusements in it thirteen\nmonths--sometimes one thing, sometimes another, sometimes nothin\nparticular, but always all the canvasses outside.  One night, when we had\nplayed the last company out, which was a shy company, through its raining\nHeavens hard, I was takin a pipe in the one pair back along with the\nyoung man with the toes, which I had taken on for a month (though he\nnever drawed--except on paper), and I heard a kickin at the street door.\n\"Halloa!\" I says to the young man, \"what's up!\"  He rubs his eyebrows\nwith his toes, and he says, \"I can't imagine, Mr. Magsman\"--which he\nnever could imagine nothin, and was monotonous company.\n\nThe noise not leavin off, I laid down my pipe, and I took up a candle,\nand I went down and opened the door.  I looked out into the street; but\nnothin could I see, and nothin was I aware of, until I turned round\nquick, because some creetur run between my legs into the passage.  There\nwas Mr. Chops!\n\n\"Magsman,\" he says, \"take me, on the old terms, and you've got me; if\nit's done, say done!\"\n\nI was all of a maze, but I said, \"Done, sir.\"\n\n\"Done to your done, and double done!\" says he.  \"Have you got a bit of\nsupper in the house?\"\n\nBearin in mind them sparklin warieties of foreign drains as we'd guzzled\naway at in Pall Mall, I was ashamed to offer him cold sassages and gin-\nand-water; but he took 'em both and took 'em free; havin a chair for his\ntable, and sittin down at it on a stool, like hold times.  I, all of a\nmaze all the while.\n\nIt was arter he had made a clean sweep of the sassages (beef, and to the\nbest of my calculations two pound and a quarter), that the wisdom as was\nin that little man began to come out of him like prespiration.\n\n\"Magsman,\" he says, \"look upon me!  You see afore you, One as has both\ngone into Society and come out.\"\n\n\"O!  You _are_ out of it, Mr. Chops?  How did you get out, sir?\"\n\n\"SOLD OUT!\" says he.  You never saw the like of the wisdom as his Ed\nexpressed, when he made use of them two words.\n\n\"My friend Magsman, I'll impart to you a discovery I've made.  It's\nwallable; it's cost twelve thousand five hundred pound; it may do you\ngood in life--The secret of this matter is, that it ain't so much that a\nperson goes into Society, as that Society goes into a person.\"\n\nNot exactly keepin up with his meanin, I shook my head, put on a deep\nlook, and said, \"You're right there, Mr. Chops.\"\n\n\"Magsman,\" he says, twitchin me by the leg, \"Society has gone into me, to\nthe tune of every penny of my property.\"\n\nI felt that I went pale, and though nat'rally a bold speaker, I couldn't\nhardly say, \"Where's Normandy?\"\n\n\"Bolted.  With the plate,\" said Mr. Chops.\n\n\"And t'other one?\" meaning him as formerly wore the bishop's mitre.\n\n\"Bolted.  With the jewels,\" said Mr. Chops.\n\nI sat down and looked at him, and he stood up and looked at me.\n\n\"Magsman,\" he says, and he seemed to myself to get wiser as he got\nhoarser; \"Society, taken in the lump, is all dwarfs.  At the court of St.\nJames's, they was all a doing my old business--all a goin three times\nround the Cairawan, in the hold court-suits and properties.  Elsewheres,\nthey was most of 'em ringin their little bells out of make-believes.\nEverywheres, the sarser was a goin round.  Magsman, the sarser is the\nuniwersal Institution!\"\n\nI perceived, you understand, that he was soured by his misfortunes, and I\nfelt for Mr. Chops.\n\n\"As to Fat Ladies,\" he says, giving his head a tremendious one agin the\nwall, \"there's lots of _them_ in Society, and worse than the original.\n_Hers_ was a outrage upon Taste--simply a outrage upon Taste--awakenin\ncontempt--carryin its own punishment in the form of a Indian.\"  Here he\ngiv himself another tremendious one.  \"But _theirs_, Magsman, _theirs_ is\nmercenary outrages.  Lay in Cashmeer shawls, buy bracelets, strew 'em and\na lot of 'andsome fans and things about your rooms, let it be known that\nyou give away like water to all as come to admire, and the Fat Ladies\nthat don't exhibit for so much down upon the drum, will come from all the\npints of the compass to flock about you, whatever you are.  They'll drill\nholes in your 'art, Magsman, like a Cullender.  And when you've no more\nleft to give, they'll laugh at you to your face, and leave you to have\nyour bones picked dry by Wulturs, like the dead Wild Ass of the Prairies\nthat you deserve to be!\"  Here he giv himself the most tremendious one of\nall, and dropped.\n\nI thought he was gone.  His Ed was so heavy, and he knocked it so hard,\nand he fell so stoney, and the sassagerial disturbance in him must have\nbeen so immense, that I thought he was gone.  But, he soon come round\nwith care, and he sat up on the floor, and he said to me, with wisdom\ncomin out of his eyes, if ever it come:\n\n\"Magsman!  The most material difference between the two states of\nexistence through which your unhappy friend has passed;\" he reached out\nhis poor little hand, and his tears dropped down on the moustachio which\nit was a credit to him to have done his best to grow, but it is not in\nmortals to command success,--\"the difference this.  When I was out of\nSociety, I was paid light for being seen.  When I went into Society, I\npaid heavy for being seen.  I prefer the former, even if I wasn't forced\nupon it.  Give me out through the trumpet, in the hold way, to-morrow.\"\n\nArter that, he slid into the line again as easy as if he had been iled\nall over.  But the organ was kep from him, and no allusions was ever\nmade, when a company was in, to his property.  He got wiser every day;\nhis views of Society and the Public was luminous, bewilderin, awful; and\nhis Ed got bigger and bigger as his Wisdom expanded it.\n\nHe took well, and pulled 'em in most excellent for nine weeks.  At the\nexpiration of that period, when his Ed was a sight, he expressed one\nevenin, the last Company havin been turned out, and the door shut, a wish\nto have a little music.\n\n\"Mr. Chops,\" I said (I never dropped the \"Mr.\" with him; the world might\ndo it, but not me); \"Mr. Chops, are you sure as you are in a state of\nmind and body to sit upon the organ?\"\n\nHis answer was this: \"Toby, when next met with on the tramp, I forgive\nher and the Indian.  And I am.\"\n\nIt was with fear and trembling that I began to turn the handle; but he\nsat like a lamb.  I will be my belief to my dying day, that I see his Ed\nexpand as he sat; you may therefore judge how great his thoughts was.  He\nsat out all the changes, and then he come off.\n\n\"Toby,\" he says, with a quiet smile, \"the little man will now walk three\ntimes round the Cairawan, and retire behind the curtain.\"\n\nWhen we called him in the morning, we found him gone into a much better\nSociety than mine or Pall Mall's.  I giv Mr. Chops as comfortable a\nfuneral as lay in my power, followed myself as Chief, and had the George\nthe Fourth canvass carried first, in the form of a banner.  But, the\nHouse was so dismal arterwards, that I giv it up, and took to the Wan\nagain.\n\n* * * * *\n\n\"I don't triumph,\" said Jarber, folding up the second manuscript, and\nlooking hard at Trottle.  \"I don't triumph over this worthy creature.  I\nmerely ask him if he is satisfied now?\"\n\n\"How can he be anything else?\" I said, answering for Trottle, who sat\nobstinately silent.  \"This time, Jarber, you have not only read us a\ndelightfully amusing story, but you have also answered the question about\nthe House.  Of course it stands empty now.  Who would think of taking it\nafter it had been turned into a caravan?\"  I looked at Trottle, as I said\nthose last words, and Jarber waved his hand indulgently in the same\ndirection.\n\n\"Let this excellent person speak,\" said Jarber.  \"You were about to say,\nmy good man?\"--\n\n\"I only wished to ask, sir,\" said Trottle doggedly, \"if you could kindly\noblige me with a date or two in connection with that last story?\"\n\n\"A date!\" repeated Jarber.  \"What does the man want with dates!\"\n\n\"I should be glad to know, with great respect,\" persisted Trottle, \"if\nthe person named Magsman was the last tenant who lived in the House.  It's\nmy opinion--if I may be excused for giving it--that he most decidedly was\nnot.\"\n\nWith those words, Trottle made a low bow, and quietly left the room.\n\nThere is no denying that Jarber, when we were left together, looked sadly\ndiscomposed.  He had evidently forgotten to inquire about dates; and, in\nspite of his magnificent talk about his series of discoveries, it was\nquite as plain that the two stories he had just read, had really and\ntruly exhausted his present stock.  I thought myself bound, in common\ngratitude, to help him out of his embarrassment by a timely suggestion.\nSo I proposed that he should come to tea again, on the next Monday\nevening, the thirteenth, and should make such inquiries in the meantime,\nas might enable him to dispose triumphantly of Trottle's objection.\n\nHe gallantly kissed my hand, made a neat little speech of acknowledgment,\nand took his leave.  For the rest of the week I would not encourage\nTrottle by allowing him to refer to the House at all.  I suspected he was\nmaking his own inquiries about dates, but I put no questions to him.\n\nOn Monday evening, the thirteenth, that dear unfortunate Jarber came,\npunctual to the appointed time.  He looked so terribly harassed, that he\nwas really quite a spectacle of feebleness and fatigue.  I saw, at a\nglance, that the question of dates had gone against him, that Mr. Magsman\nhad not been the last tenant of the House, and that the reason of its\nemptiness was still to seek.\n\n\"What I have gone through,\" said Jarber, \"words are not eloquent enough\nto tell.  O Sophonisba, I have begun another series of discoveries!\nAccept the last two as stories laid on your shrine; and wait to blame me\nfor leaving your curiosity unappeased, until you have heard Number\nThree.\"\n\nNumber Three looked like a very short manuscript, and I said as much.\nJarber explained to me that we were to have some poetry this time.  In\nthe course of his investigations he had stepped into the Circulating\nLibrary, to seek for information on the one important subject.  All the\nLibrary-people knew about the House was, that a female relative of the\nlast tenant, as they believed, had, just after that tenant left, sent a\nlittle manuscript poem to them which she described as referring to events\nthat had actually passed in the House; and which she wanted the\nproprietor of the Library to publish.  She had written no address on her\nletter; and the proprietor had kept the manuscript ready to be given back\nto her (the publishing of poems not being in his line) when she might\ncall for it.  She had never called for it; and the poem had been lent to\nJarber, at his express request, to read to me.\n\nBefore he began, I rang the bell for Trottle; being determined to have\nhim present at the new reading, as a wholesome check on his obstinacy.  To\nmy surprise Peggy answered the bell, and told me, that Trottle had\nstepped out without saying where.  I instantly felt the strongest\npossible conviction that he was at his old tricks: and that his stepping\nout in the evening, without leave, meant--Philandering.\n\nControlling myself on my visitor's account, I dismissed Peggy, stifled my\nindignation, and prepared, as politely as might be, to listen to Jarber.\n\n\n"}
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{"1423":"\n\n\n\nNO THOROUGHFARE\n\n\nTHE OVERTURE.\n\n\nDay of the month and year, November the thirtieth, one thousand eight\nhundred and thirty-five.  London Time by the great clock of Saint Paul's,\nten at night.  All the lesser London churches strain their metallic\nthroats.  Some, flippantly begin before the heavy bell of the great\ncathedral; some, tardily begin three, four, half a dozen, strokes behind\nit; all are in sufficiently near accord, to leave a resonance in the air,\nas if the winged father who devours his children, had made a sounding\nsweep with his gigantic scythe in flying over the city.\n\nWhat is this clock lower than most of the rest, and nearer to the ear,\nthat lags so far behind to-night as to strike into the vibration alone?\nThis is the clock of the Hospital for Foundling Children.  Time was, when\nthe Foundlings were received without question in a cradle at the gate.\nTime is, when inquiries are made respecting them, and they are taken as\nby favour from the mothers who relinquish all natural knowledge of them\nand claim to them for evermore.\n\nThe moon is at the full, and the night is fair with light clouds.  The\nday has been otherwise than fair, for slush and mud, thickened with the\ndroppings of heavy fog, lie black in the streets.  The veiled lady who\nflutters up and down near the postern-gate of the Hospital for Foundling\nChildren has need to be well shod to-night.\n\nShe flutters to and fro, avoiding the stand of hackney-coaches, and often\npausing in the shadow of the western end of the great quadrangle wall,\nwith her face turned towards the gate.  As above her there is the purity\nof the moonlit sky, and below her there are the defilements of the\npavement, so may she, haply, be divided in her mind between two vistas of\nreflection or experience.  As her footprints crossing and recrossing one\nanother have made a labyrinth in the mire, so may her track in life have\ninvolved itself in an intricate and unravellable tangle.\n\nThe postern-gate of the Hospital for Foundling Children opens, and a\nyoung woman comes out.  The lady stands aside, observes closely, sees\nthat the gate is quietly closed again from within, and follows the young\nwoman.\n\nTwo or three streets have been traversed in silence before she, following\nclose behind the object of her attention, stretches out her hand and\ntouches her.  Then the young woman stops and looks round, startled.\n\n\"You touched me last night, and, when I turned my head, you would not\nspeak.  Why do you follow me like a silent ghost?\"\n\n\"It was not,\" returned the lady, in a low voice, \"that I would not speak,\nbut that I could not when I tried.\"\n\n\"What do you want of me?  I have never done you any harm?\"\n\n\"Never.\"\n\n\"Do I know you?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Then what can you want of me?\"\n\n\"Here are two guineas in this paper.  Take my poor little present, and I\nwill tell you.\"\n\nInto the young woman's face, which is honest and comely, comes a flush as\nshe replies: \"There is neither grown person nor child in all the large\nestablishment that I belong to, who hasn't a good word for Sally.  I am\nSally.  Could I be so well thought of, if I was to be bought?\"\n\n\"I do not mean to buy you; I mean only to reward you very slightly.\"\n\nSally firmly, but not ungently, closes and puts back the offering hand.\n\"If there is anything I can do for you, ma'am, that I will not do for its\nown sake, you are much mistaken in me if you think that I will do it for\nmoney.  What is it you want?\"\n\n\"You are one of the nurses or attendants at the Hospital; I saw you leave\nto-night and last night.\"\n\n\"Yes, I am.  I am Sally.\"\n\n\"There is a pleasant patience in your face which makes me believe that\nvery young children would take readily to you.\"\n\n\"God bless 'em!  So they do.\"\n\nThe lady lifts her veil, and shows a face no older than the nurse's.  A\nface far more refined and capable than hers, but wild and worn with\nsorrow.\n\n\"I am the miserable mother of a baby lately received under your care.  I\nhave a prayer to make to you.\"\n\nInstinctively respecting the confidence which has drawn aside the veil,\nSally--whose ways are all ways of simplicity and spontaneity--replaces\nit, and begins to cry.\n\n\"You will listen to my prayer?\" the lady urges.  \"You will not be deaf to\nthe agonised entreaty of such a broken suppliant as I am?\"\n\n\"O dear, dear, dear!\" cries Sally.  \"What shall I say, or can say!  Don't\ntalk of prayers.  Prayers are to be put up to the Good Father of All, and\nnot to nurses and such.  And there!  I am only to hold my place for half\na year longer, till another young woman can be trained up to it.  I am\ngoing to be married.  I shouldn't have been out last night, and I\nshouldn't have been out to-night, but that my Dick (he is the young man I\nam going to be married to) lies ill, and I help his mother and sister to\nwatch him.  Don't take on so, don't take on so!\"\n\n\"O good Sally, dear Sally,\" moans the lady, catching at her dress\nentreatingly.  \"As you are hopeful, and I am hopeless; as a fair way in\nlife is before you, which can never, never, be before me; as you can\naspire to become a respected wife, and as you can aspire to become a\nproud mother, as you are a living loving woman, and must die; for GOD'S\nsake hear my distracted petition!\"\n\n\"Deary, deary, deary ME!\" cries Sally, her desperation culminating in the\npronoun, \"what am I ever to do?  And there!  See how you turn my own\nwords back upon me.  I tell you I am going to be married, on purpose to\nmake it clearer to you that I am going to leave, and therefore couldn't\nhelp you if I would, Poor Thing, and you make it seem to my own self as\nif I was cruel in going to be married and not helping you.  It ain't\nkind.  Now, is it kind, Poor Thing?\"\n\n\"Sally!  Hear me, my dear.  My entreaty is for no help in the future.  It\napplies to what is past.  It is only to be told in two words.\"\n\n\"There!  This is worse and worse,\" cries Sally, \"supposing that I\nunderstand what two words you mean.\"\n\n\"You do understand.  What are the names they have given my poor baby?  I\nask no more than that.  I have read of the customs of the place.  He has\nbeen christened in the chapel, and registered by some surname in the\nbook.  He was received last Monday evening.  What have they called him?\"\n\nDown upon her knees in the foul mud of the by-way into which they have\nstrayed--an empty street without a thoroughfare giving on the dark\ngardens of the Hospital--the lady would drop in her passionate entreaty,\nbut that Sally prevents her.\n\n\"Don't!  Don't!  You make me feel as if I was setting myself up to be\ngood.  Let me look in your pretty face again.  Put your two hands in\nmine.  Now, promise.  You will never ask me anything more than the two\nwords?\"\n\n\"Never!  Never!\"\n\n\"You will never put them to a bad use, if I say them?\"\n\n\"Never!  Never!\"\n\n\"Walter Wilding.\"\n\nThe lady lays her face upon the nurse's breast, draws her close in her\nembrace with both arms, murmurs a blessing and the words, \"Kiss him for\nme!\" and is gone.\n\n* * * * *\n\nDay of the month and year, the first Sunday in October, one thousand\neight hundred and forty-seven.  London Time by the great clock of Saint\nPaul's, half-past one in the afternoon.  The clock of the Hospital for\nFoundling Children is well up with the Cathedral to-day.  Service in the\nchapel is over, and the Foundling children are at dinner.\n\nThere are numerous lookers-on at the dinner, as the custom is.  There are\ntwo or three governors, whole families from the congregation, smaller\ngroups of both sexes, individual stragglers of various degrees.  The\nbright autumnal sun strikes freshly into the wards; and the heavy-framed\nwindows through which it shines, and the panelled walls on which it\nstrikes, are such windows and such walls as pervade Hogarth's pictures.\nThe girls' refectory (including that of the younger children) is the\nprincipal attraction.  Neat attendants silently glide about the orderly\nand silent tables; the lookers-on move or stop as the fancy takes them;\ncomments in whispers on face such a number from such a window are not\nunfrequent; many of the faces are of a character to fix attention.  Some\nof the visitors from the outside public are accustomed visitors.  They\nhave established a speaking acquaintance with the occupants of particular\nseats at the tables, and halt at those points to bend down and say a word\nor two.  It is no disparagement to their kindness that those points are\ngenerally points where personal attractions are.  The monotony of the\nlong spacious rooms and the double lines of faces is agreeably relieved\nby these incidents, although so slight.\n\nA veiled lady, who has no companion, goes among the company.  It would\nseem that curiosity and opportunity have never brought her there before.\nShe has the air of being a little troubled by the sight, and, as she goes\nthe length of the tables, it is with a hesitating step and an uneasy\nmanner.  At length she comes to the refectory of the boys.  They are so\nmuch less popular than the girls that it is bare of visitors when she\nlooks in at the doorway.\n\nBut just within the doorway, chances to stand, inspecting, an elderly\nfemale attendant: some order of matron or housekeeper.  To whom the lady\naddresses natural questions: As, how many boys?  At what age are they\nusually put out in life?  Do they often take a fancy to the sea?  So,\nlower and lower in tone until the lady puts the question: \"Which is\nWalter Wilding?\"\n\nAttendant's head shaken.  Against the rules.\n\n\"You know which is Walter Wilding?\"\n\nSo keenly does the attendant feel the closeness with which the lady's\neyes examine her face, that she keeps her own eyes fast upon the floor,\nlest by wandering in the right direction they should betray her.\n\n\"I know which is Walter Wilding, but it is not my place, ma'am, to tell\nnames to visitors.\"\n\n\"But you can show me without telling me.\"\n\nThe lady's hand moves quietly to the attendant's hand.  Pause and\nsilence.\n\n\"I am going to pass round the tables,\" says the lady's interlocutor,\nwithout seeming to address her.  \"Follow me with your eyes.  The boy that\nI stop at and speak to, will not matter to you.  But the boy that I\ntouch, will be Walter Wilding.  Say nothing more to me, and move a little\naway.\"\n\nQuickly acting on the hint, the lady passes on into the room, and looks\nabout her.  After a few moments, the attendant, in a staid official way,\nwalks down outside the line of tables commencing on her left hand.  She\ngoes the whole length of the line, turns, and comes back on the inside.\nVery slightly glancing in the lady's direction, she stops, bends forward,\nand speaks.  The boy whom she addresses, lifts his head and replies.  Good\nhumouredly and easily, as she listens to what he says, she lays her hand\nupon the shoulder of the next boy on his right.  That the action may be\nwell noted, she keeps her hand on the shoulder while speaking in return,\nand pats it twice or thrice before moving away.  She completes her tour\nof the tables, touching no one else, and passes out by a door at the\nopposite end of the long room.\n\nDinner is done, and the lady, too, walks down outside the line of tables\ncommencing on her left hand, goes the whole length of the line, turns,\nand comes back on the inside.  Other people have strolled in, fortunately\nfor her, and stand sprinkled about.  She lifts her veil, and, stopping at\nthe touched boy, asks how old he is?\n\n\"I am twelve, ma'am,\" he answers, with his bright eyes fixed on hers.\n\n\"Are you well and happy?\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am.\"\n\n\"May you take these sweetmeats from my hand?\"\n\n\"If you please to give them to me.\"\n\nIn stooping low for the purpose, the lady touches the boy's face with her\nforehead and with her hair.  Then, lowering her veil again, she passes\non, and passes out without looking back.\n\n\n\n\nACT I.\n\n\nTHE CURTAIN RISES\n\n\nIn a court-yard in the City of London, which was No Thoroughfare either\nfor vehicles or foot-passengers; a court-yard diverging from a steep, a\nslippery, and a winding street connecting Tower Street with the Middlesex\nshore of the Thames; stood the place of business of Wilding & Co., Wine\nMerchants.  Probably as a jocose acknowledgment of the obstructive\ncharacter of this main approach, the point nearest to its base at which\none could take the river (if so inodorously minded) bore the appellation\nBreak-Neck-Stairs.  The court-yard itself had likewise been descriptively\nentitled in old time, Cripple Corner.\n\nYears before the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, people\nhad left off taking boat at Break-Neck-Stairs, and watermen had ceased to\nply there.  The slimy little causeway had dropped into the river by a\nslow process of suicide, and two or three stumps of piles and a rusty\niron mooring-ring were all that remained of the departed Break-Neck\nglories.  Sometimes, indeed, a laden coal barge would bump itself into\nthe place, and certain laborious heavers, seemingly mud-engendered, would\narise, deliver the cargo in the neighbourhood, shove off, and vanish; but\nat most times the only commerce of Break-Neck-Stairs arose out of the\nconveyance of casks and bottles, both full and empty, both to and from\nthe cellars of Wilding & Co., Wine Merchants.  Even that commerce was but\noccasional, and through three-fourths of its rising tides the dirty\nindecorous drab of a river would come solitarily oozing and lapping at\nthe rusty ring, as if it had heard of the Doge and the Adriatic, and\nwanted to be married to the great conserver of its filthiness, the Right\nHonourable the Lord Mayor.\n\nSome two hundred and fifty yards on the right, up the opposite hill\n(approaching it from the low ground of Break-Neck-Stairs) was Cripple\nCorner.  There was a pump in Cripple Corner, there was a tree in Cripple\nCorner.  All Cripple Corner belonged to Wilding and Co., Wine Merchants.\nTheir cellars burrowed under it, their mansion towered over it.  It\nreally had been a mansion in the days when merchants inhabited the City,\nand had a ceremonious shelter to the doorway without visible support,\nlike the sounding-board over an old pulpit.  It had also a number of long\nnarrow strips of window, so disposed in its grave brick front as to\nrender it symmetrically ugly.  It had also, on its roof, a cupola with a\nbell in it.\n\n\"When a man at five-and-twenty can put his hat on, and can say 'this hat\ncovers the owner of this property and of the business which is transacted\non this property,' I consider, Mr. Bintrey, that, without being boastful,\nhe may be allowed to be deeply thankful.  I don't know how it may appear\nto you, but so it appears to me.\"\n\nThus Mr. Walter Wilding to his man of law, in his own counting-house;\ntaking his hat down from its peg to suit the action to the word, and\nhanging it up again when he had done so, not to overstep the modesty of\nnature.\n\nAn innocent, open-speaking, unused-looking man, Mr. Walter Wilding, with\na remarkably pink and white complexion, and a figure much too bulky for\nso young a man, though of a good stature.  With crispy curling brown\nhair, and amiable bright blue eyes.  An extremely communicative man: a\nman with whom loquacity was the irrestrainable outpouring of contentment\nand gratitude.  Mr. Bintrey, on the other hand, a cautious man, with\ntwinkling beads of eyes in a large overhanging bald head, who inwardly\nbut intensely enjoyed the comicality of openness of speech, or hand, or\nheart.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mr. Bintrey.  \"Yes.  Ha, ha!\"\n\nA decanter, two wine-glasses, and a plate of biscuits, stood on the desk.\n\n\"You like this forty-five year old port-wine?\" said Mr. Wilding.\n\n\"Like it?\" repeated Mr. Bintrey.  \"Rather, sir!\"\n\n\"It's from the best corner of our best forty-five year old bin,\" said Mr.\nWilding.\n\n\"Thank you, sir,\" said Mr. Bintrey.  \"It's most excellent.\"\n\nHe laughed again, as he held up his glass and ogled it, at the highly\nludicrous idea of giving away such wine.\n\n\"And now,\" said Wilding, with a childish enjoyment in the discussion of\naffairs, \"I think we have got everything straight, Mr. Bintrey.\"\n\n\"Everything straight,\" said Bintrey.\n\n\"A partner secured--\"\n\n\"Partner secured,\" said Bintrey.\n\n\"A housekeeper advertised for--\"\n\n\"Housekeeper advertised for,\" said Bintrey, \"'apply personally at Cripple\nCorner, Great Tower Street, from ten to twelve'--to-morrow, by the bye.\"\n\n\"My late dear mother's affairs wound up--\"\n\n\"Wound up,\" said Bintrey.\n\n\"And all charges paid.\"\n\n\"And all charges paid,\" said Bintrey, with a chuckle: probably occasioned\nby the droll circumstance that they had been paid without a haggle.\n\n\"The mention of my late dear mother,\" Mr. Wilding continued, his eyes\nfilling with tears and his pocket-handkerchief drying them, \"unmans me\nstill, Mr. Bintrey.  You know how I loved her; you (her lawyer) know how\nshe loved me.  The utmost love of mother and child was cherished between\nus, and we never experienced one moment's division or unhappiness from\nthe time when she took me under her care.  Thirteen years in all!\nThirteen years under my late dear mother's care, Mr. Bintrey, and eight\nof them her confidentially acknowledged son!  You know the story, Mr.\nBintrey, who but you, sir!\"  Mr. Wilding sobbed and dried his eyes,\nwithout attempt at concealment, during these remarks.\n\nMr. Bintrey enjoyed his comical port, and said, after rolling it in his\nmouth: \"I know the story.\"\n\n\"My late dear mother, Mr. Bintrey,\" pursued the wine-merchant, \"had been\ndeeply deceived, and had cruelly suffered.  But on that subject my late\ndear mother's lips were for ever sealed.  By whom deceived, or under what\ncircumstances, Heaven only knows.  My late dear mother never betrayed her\nbetrayer.\"\n\n\"She had made up her mind,\" said Mr. Bintrey, again turning his wine on\nhis palate, \"and she could hold her peace.\"  An amused twinkle in his\neyes pretty plainly added--\"A devilish deal better than _you_ ever will!\"\n\n\"'Honour,'\" said Mr. Wilding, sobbing as he quoted from the Commandments,\n\"'thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land.'  When\nI was in the Foundling, Mr. Bintrey, I was at such a loss how to do it,\nthat I apprehended my days would be short in the land.  But I afterwards\ncame to honour my mother deeply, profoundly.  And I honour and revere her\nmemory.  For seven happy years, Mr. Bintrey,\" pursued Wilding, still with\nthe same innocent catching in his breath, and the same unabashed tears,\n\"did my excellent mother article me to my predecessors in this business,\nPebbleson Nephew.  Her affectionate forethought likewise apprenticed me\nto the Vintners' Company, and made me in time a free Vintner,\nand--and--everything else that the best of mothers could desire.  When I\ncame of age, she bestowed her inherited share in this business upon me;\nit was her money that afterwards bought out Pebbleson Nephew, and painted\nin Wilding and Co.; it was she who left me everything she possessed, but\nthe mourning ring you wear.  And yet, Mr. Bintrey,\" with a fresh burst of\nhonest affection, \"she is no more.  It is little over half a year since\nshe came into the Corner to read on that door-post with her own eyes,\nWILDING AND CO., WINE MERCHANTS.  And yet she is no more!\"\n\n\"Sad.  But the common lot, Mr. Wilding,\" observed Bintrey.  \"At some time\nor other we must all be no more.\"  He placed the forty-five year old port-\nwine in the universal condition, with a relishing sigh.\n\n\"So now, Mr. Bintrey,\" pursued Wilding, putting away his\npocket-handkerchief, and smoothing his eyelids with his fingers, \"now\nthat I can no longer show my love and honour for the dear parent to whom\nmy heart was mysteriously turned by Nature when she first spoke to me, a\nstrange lady, I sitting at our Sunday dinner-table in the Foundling, I\ncan at least show that I am not ashamed of having been a Foundling, and\nthat I, who never knew a father of my own, wish to be a father to all in\nmy employment.  Therefore,\" continued Wilding, becoming enthusiastic in\nhis loquacity, \"therefore, I want a thoroughly good housekeeper to\nundertake this dwelling-house of Wilding and Co., Wine Merchants, Cripple\nCorner, so that I may restore in it some of the old relations betwixt\nemployer and employed!  So that I may live in it on the spot where my\nmoney is made!  So that I may daily sit at the head of the table at which\nthe people in my employment eat together, and may eat of the same roast\nand boiled, and drink of the same beer!  So that the people in my\nemployment may lodge under the same roof with me!  So that we may one and\nall--I beg your pardon, Mr. Bintrey, but that old singing in my head has\nsuddenly come on, and I shall feel obliged if you will lead me to the\npump.\"\n\nAlarmed by the excessive pinkness of his client, Mr. Bintrey lost not a\nmoment in leading him forth into the court-yard.  It was easily done; for\nthe counting-house in which they talked together opened on to it, at one\nside of the dwelling-house.  There the attorney pumped with a will,\nobedient to a sign from the client, and the client laved his head and\nface with both hands, and took a hearty drink.  After these remedies, he\ndeclared himself much better.\n\n\"Don't let your good feelings excite you,\" said Bintrey, as they returned\nto the counting-house, and Mr. Wilding dried himself on a jack-towel\nbehind an inner door.\n\n\"No, no.  I won't,\" he returned, looking out of the towel.  \"I won't.  I\nhave not been confused, have I?\"\n\n\"Not at all.  Perfectly clear.\"\n\n\"Where did I leave off, Mr. Bintrey?\"\n\n\"Well, you left off--but I wouldn't excite myself, if I was you, by\ntaking it up again just yet.\"\n\n\"I'll take care.  I'll take care.  The singing in my head came on at\nwhere, Mr. Bintrey?\"\n\n\"At roast, and boiled, and beer,\" answered the lawyer,--\"prompting\nlodging under the same roof--and one and all--\"\n\n\"Ah!  And one and all singing in the head together--\"\n\n\"Do you know, I really _would not_ let my good feelings excite me, if I\nwas you,\" hinted the lawyer again, anxiously.  \"Try some more pump.\"\n\n\"No occasion, no occasion.  All right, Mr. Bintrey.  And one and all\nforming a kind of family!  You see, Mr. Bintrey, I was not used in my\nchildhood to that sort of individual existence which most individuals\nhave led, more or less, in their childhood.  After that time I became\nabsorbed in my late dear mother.  Having lost her, I find that I am more\nfit for being one of a body than one by myself one.  To be that, and at\nthe same time to do my duty to those dependent on me, and attach them to\nme, has a patriarchal and pleasant air about it.  I don't know how it may\nappear to you, Mr Bintrey, but so it appears to me.\"\n\n\"It is not I who am all-important in the case, but you,\" returned\nBintrey.  \"Consequently, how it may appear to me is of very small\nimportance.\"\n\n\"It appears to me,\" said Mr. Wilding, in a glow, \"hopeful, useful,\ndelightful!\"\n\n\"Do you know,\" hinted the lawyer again, \"I really would not ex--\"\n\n\"I am not going to.  Then there's Handel.\"\n\n\"There's who?\" asked Bintrey.\n\n\"Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Kent, Purcell, Doctor Arne, Greene, Mendelssohn.\nI know the choruses to those anthems by heart.  Foundling Chapel\nCollection.  Why shouldn't we learn them together?\"\n\n\"Who learn them together?\" asked the lawyer, rather shortly.\n\n\"Employer and employed.\"\n\n\"Ay, ay,\" returned Bintrey, mollified; as if he had half expected the\nanswer to be, Lawyer and client.  \"That's another thing.\"\n\n\"Not another thing, Mr. Bintrey!  The same thing.  A part of the bond\namong us.  We will form a Choir in some quiet church near the Corner\nhere, and, having sung together of a Sunday with a relish, we will come\nhome and take an early dinner together with a relish.  The object that I\nhave at heart now is, to get this system well in action without delay, so\nthat my new partner may find it founded when he enters on his\npartnership.\"\n\n\"All good be with it!\" exclaimed Bintrey, rising.  \"May it prosper!  Is\nJoey Ladle to take a share in Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Kent, Purcell,\nDoctor Arne, Greene, and Mendelssohn?\n\n\"I hope so.\"\n\n\"I wish them all well out of it,\" returned Bintrey, with much heartiness.\n\"Good-bye, sir.\"\n\nThey shook hands and parted.  Then (first knocking with his knuckles for\nleave) entered to Mr. Wilding from a door of communication between his\nprivate counting-house and that in which his clerks sat, the Head\nCellarman of the cellars of Wilding and Co., Wine Merchants, and erst\nHead Cellarman of the cellars of Pebbleson Nephew.  The Joey Ladle in\nquestion.  A slow and ponderous man, of the drayman order of human\narchitecture, dressed in a corrugated suit and bibbed apron, apparently a\ncomposite of door-mat and rhinoceros-hide.\n\n\"Respecting this same boarding and lodging, Young Master Wilding,\" said\nhe.\n\n\"Yes, Joey?\"\n\n\"Speaking for myself, Young Master Wilding--and I never did speak and I\nnever do speak for no one else--_I_ don't want no boarding nor yet no\nlodging.  But if you wish to board me and to lodge me, take me.  I can\npeck as well as most men.  Where I peck ain't so high a object with me as\nWhat I peck.  Nor even so high a object with me as How Much I peck.  Is\nall to live in the house, Young Master Wilding?  The two other cellarmen,\nthe three porters, the two 'prentices, and the odd men?\"\n\n\"Yes.  I hope we shall all be an united family, Joey.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said Joey.  \"I hope they may be.\"\n\n\"They?  Rather say we, Joey.\"\n\nJoey Ladle shook his held.  \"Don't look to me to make we on it, Young\nMaster Wilding, not at my time of life and under the circumstances which\nhas formed my disposition.  I have said to Pebbleson Nephew many a time,\nwhen they have said to me, 'Put a livelier face upon it, Joey'--I have\nsaid to them, 'Gentlemen, it is all wery well for you that has been\naccustomed to take your wine into your systems by the conwivial channel\nof your throttles, to put a lively face upon it; but,' I says, 'I have\nbeen accustomed to take _my_ wine in at the pores of the skin, and, took\nthat way, it acts different.  It acts depressing.  It's one thing,\ngentlemen,' I says to Pebbleson Nephew, 'to charge your glasses in a\ndining-room with a Hip Hurrah and a Jolly Companions Every One, and it's\nanother thing to be charged yourself, through the pores, in a low dark\ncellar and a mouldy atmosphere.  It makes all the difference betwixt\nbubbles and wapours,' I tells Pebbleson Nephew.  And so it do.  I've been\na cellarman my life through, with my mind fully given to the business.\nWhat's the consequence?  I'm as muddled a man as lives--you won't find a\nmuddleder man than me--nor yet you won't find my equal in molloncolly.\nSing of Filling the bumper fair, Every drop you sprinkle, O'er the brow\nof care, Smooths away a wrinkle?  Yes.  P'raps so.  But try filling\nyourself through the pores, underground, when you don't want to it!\"\n\n\"I am sorry to hear this, Joey.  I had even thought that you might join a\nsinging-class in the house.\"\n\n\"Me, sir?  No, no, Young Master Wilding, you won't catch Joey Ladle\nmuddling the Armony.  A pecking-machine, sir, is all that I am capable of\nproving myself, out of my cellars; but that you're welcome to, if you\nthink it is worth your while to keep such a thing on your premises.\"\n\n\"I do, Joey.\"\n\n\"Say no more, sir.  The Business's word is my law.  And you're a going to\ntake Young Master George Vendale partner into the old Business?\"\n\n\"I am, Joey.\"\n\n\"More changes, you see!  But don't change the name of the Firm again.\nDon't do it, Young Master Wilding.  It was bad luck enough to make it\nYourself and Co.  Better by far have left it Pebbleson Nephew that good\nluck always stuck to.  You should never change luck when it's good, sir.\"\n\n\"At all events, I have no intention of changing the name of the House\nagain, Joey.\"\n\n\"Glad to hear it, and wish you good-day, Young Master Wilding.  But you\nhad better by half,\" muttered Joey Ladle inaudibly, as he closed the door\nand shook his head, \"have let the name alone from the first.  You had\nbetter by half have followed the luck instead of crossing it.\"\n\n\n\nENTER THE HOUSEKEEPER\n\n\nThe wine merchant sat in his dining-room next morning, to receive the\npersonal applicants for the vacant post in his establishment.  It was an\nold-fashioned wainscoted room; the panels ornamented with festoons of\nflowers carved in wood; with an oaken floor, a well-worn Turkey carpet,\nand dark mahogany furniture, all of which had seen service and polish\nunder Pebbleson Nephew.  The great sideboard had assisted at many\nbusiness-dinners given by Pebbleson Nephew to their connection, on the\nprinciple of throwing sprats overboard to catch whales; and Pebbleson\nNephew's comprehensive three-sided plate-warmer, made to fit the whole\nfront of the large fireplace, kept watch beneath it over a sarcophagus-\nshaped cellaret that had in its time held many a dozen of Pebbleson\nNephew's wine.  But the little rubicund old bachelor with a pigtail,\nwhose portrait was over the sideboard (and who could easily be identified\nas decidedly Pebbleson and decidedly not Nephew), had retired into\nanother sarcophagus, and the plate-warmer had grown as cold as he.  So,\nthe golden and black griffins that supported the candelabra, with black\nballs in their mouths at the end of gilded chains, looked as if in their\nold age they had lost all heart for playing at ball, and were dolefully\nexhibiting their chains in the Missionary line of inquiry, whether they\nhad not earned emancipation by this time, and were not griffins and\nbrothers.\n\nSuch a Columbus of a morning was the summer morning, that it discovered\nCripple Corner.  The light and warmth pierced in at the open windows, and\nirradiated the picture of a lady hanging over the chimney-piece, the only\nother decoration of the walls.\n\n\"My mother at five-and-twenty,\" said Mr. Wilding to himself, as his eyes\nenthusiastically followed the light to the portrait's face, \"I hang up\nhere, in order that visitors may admire my mother in the bloom of her\nyouth and beauty.  My mother at fifty I hang in the seclusion of my own\nchamber, as a remembrance sacred to me.  O!  It's you, Jarvis!\"\n\nThese latter words he addressed to a clerk who had tapped at the door,\nand now looked in.\n\n\"Yes, sir.  I merely wished to mention that it's gone ten, sir, and that\nthere are several females in the Counting-house.\"\n\n\"Dear me!\" said the wine-merchant, deepening in the pink of his\ncomplexion and whitening in the white, \"are there several?  So many as\nseveral?  I had better begin before there are more.  I'll see them one by\none, Jarvis, in the order of their arrival.\"\n\nHastily entrenching himself in his easy-chair at the table behind a great\ninkstand, having first placed a chair on the other side of the table\nopposite his own seat, Mr. Wilding entered on his task with considerable\ntrepidation.\n\nHe ran the gauntlet that must be run on any such occasion.  There were\nthe usual species of profoundly unsympathetic women, and the usual\nspecies of much too sympathetic women.  There were buccaneering widows\nwho came to seize him, and who griped umbrellas under their arms, as if\neach umbrella were he, and each griper had got him.  There were towering\nmaiden ladies who had seen better days, and who came armed with clerical\ntestimonials to their theology, as if he were Saint Peter with his keys.\nThere were gentle maiden ladies who came to marry him.  There were\nprofessional housekeepers, like non-commissioned officers, who put him\nthrough his domestic exercise, instead of submitting themselves to\ncatechism.  There were languid invalids, to whom salary was not so much\nan object as the comforts of a private hospital.  There were sensitive\ncreatures who burst into tears on being addressed, and had to be restored\nwith glasses of cold water.  There were some respondents who came two\ntogether, a highly promising one and a wholly unpromising one: of whom\nthe promising one answered all questions charmingly, until it would at\nlast appear that she was not a candidate at all, but only the friend of\nthe unpromising one, who had glowered in absolute silence and apparent\ninjury.\n\nAt last, when the good wine-merchant's simple heart was failing him,\nthere entered an applicant quite different from all the rest.  A woman,\nperhaps fifty, but looking younger, with a face remarkable for placid\ncheerfulness, and a manner no less remarkable for its quiet expression of\nequability of temper.  Nothing in her dress could have been changed to\nher advantage.  Nothing in the noiseless self-possession of her manner\ncould have been changed to her advantage.  Nothing could have been in\nbetter unison with both, than her voice when she answered the question:\n\"What name shall I have the pleasure of noting down?\" with the words, \"My\nname is Sarah Goldstraw.  Mrs. Goldstraw.  My husband has been dead many\nyears, and we had no family.\"\n\nHalf-a-dozen questions had scarcely extracted as much to the purpose from\nany one else.  The voice dwelt so agreeably on Mr. Wilding's ear as he\nmade his note, that he was rather long about it.  When he looked up\nagain, Mrs. Goldstraw's glance had naturally gone round the room, and now\nreturned to him from the chimney-piece.  Its expression was one of frank\nreadiness to be questioned, and to answer straight.\n\n\"You will excuse my asking you a few questions?\" said the modest wine-\nmerchant.\n\n\"O, surely, sir.  Or I should have no business here.\"\n\n\"Have you filled the station of housekeeper before?\"\n\n\"Only once.  I have lived with the same widow lady for twelve years.  Ever\nsince I lost my husband.  She was an invalid, and is lately dead: which\nis the occasion of my now wearing black.\"\n\n\"I do not doubt that she has left you the best credentials?\" said Mr.\nWilding.\n\n\"I hope I may say, the very best.  I thought it would save trouble, sir,\nif I wrote down the name and address of her representatives, and brought\nit with me.\"  Laying a card on the table.\n\n\"You singularly remind me, Mrs. Goldstraw,\" said Wilding, taking the card\nbeside him, \"of a manner and tone of voice that I was once acquainted\nwith.  Not of an individual--I feel sure of that, though I cannot recall\nwhat it is I have in my mind--but of a general bearing.  I ought to add,\nit was a kind and pleasant one.\"\n\nShe smiled, as she rejoined: \"At least, I am very glad of that, sir.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said the wine-merchant, thoughtfully repeating his last phrase,\nwith a momentary glance at his future housekeeper, \"it was a kind and\npleasant one.  But that is the most I can make of it.  Memory is\nsometimes like a half-forgotten dream.  I don't know how it may appear to\nyou, Mrs. Goldstraw, but so it appears to me.\"\n\nProbably it appeared to Mrs. Goldstraw in a similar light, for she\nquietly assented to the proposition.  Mr. Wilding then offered to put\nhimself at once in communication with the gentlemen named upon the card:\na firm of proctors in Doctors' Commons.  To this, Mrs. Goldstraw\nthankfully assented.  Doctors' Commons not being far off, Mr. Wilding\nsuggested the feasibility of Mrs. Goldstraw's looking in again, say in\nthree hours' time.  Mrs. Goldstraw readily undertook to do so.  In fine,\nthe result of Mr. Wilding's inquiries being eminently satisfactory, Mrs.\nGoldstraw was that afternoon engaged (on her own perfectly fair terms) to\ncome to-morrow and set up her rest as housekeeper in Cripple Corner.\n\n\n\nTHE HOUSEKEEPER SPEAKS\n\n\nOn the next day Mrs. Goldstraw arrived, to enter on her domestic duties.\n\nHaving settled herself in her own room, without troubling the servants,\nand without wasting time, the new housekeeper announced herself as\nwaiting to be favoured with any instructions which her master might wish\nto give her.  The wine-merchant received Mrs. Goldstraw in the dining-\nroom, in which he had seen her on the previous day; and, the usual\npreliminary civilities having passed on either side, the two sat down to\ntake counsel together on the affairs of the house.\n\n\"About the meals, sir?\" said Mrs. Goldstraw.  \"Have I a large, or a\nsmall, number to provide for?\"\n\n\"If I can carry out a certain old-fashioned plan of mine,\" replied Mr.\nWilding, \"you will have a large number to provide for.  I am a lonely\nsingle man, Mrs. Goldstraw; and I hope to live with all the persons in my\nemployment as if they were members of my family.  Until that time comes,\nyou will only have me, and the new partner whom I expect immediately, to\nprovide for.  What my partner's habits may be, I cannot yet say.  But I\nmay describe myself as a man of regular hours, with an invariable\nappetite that you may depend upon to an ounce.\"\n\n\"About breakfast, sir?\" asked Mrs. Goldstraw.  \"Is there anything\nparticular--?\"\n\nShe hesitated, and left the sentence unfinished.  Her eyes turned slowly\naway from her master, and looked towards the chimney-piece.  If she had\nbeen a less excellent and experienced housekeeper, Mr. Wilding might have\nfancied that her attention was beginning to wander at the very outset of\nthe interview.\n\n\"Eight o'clock is my breakfast-hour,\" he resumed.  \"It is one of my\nvirtues to be never tired of broiled bacon, and it is one of my vices to\nbe habitually suspicious of the freshness of eggs.\"  Mrs. Goldstraw\nlooked back at him, still a little divided between her master's chimney-\npiece and her master.  \"I take tea,\" Mr. Wilding went on; \"and I am\nperhaps rather nervous and fidgety about drinking it, within a certain\ntime after it is made.  If my tea stands too long--\"\n\nHe hesitated, on his side, and left the sentence unfinished.  If he had\nnot been engaged in discussing a subject of such paramount interest to\nhimself as his breakfast, Mrs. Goldstraw might have fancied that his\nattention was beginning to wander at the very outset of the interview.\n\n\"If your tea stands too long, sir--?\" said the housekeeper, politely\ntaking up her master's lost thread.\n\n\"If my tea stands too long,\" repeated the wine-merchant mechanically, his\nmind getting farther and farther away from his breakfast, and his eyes\nfixing themselves more and more inquiringly on his housekeeper's face.\n\"If my tea--Dear, dear me, Mrs. Goldstraw! what _is_ the manner and tone\nof voice that you remind me of?  It strikes me even more strongly to-day,\nthan it did when I saw you yesterday.  What can it be?\"\n\n\"What can it be?\" repeated Mrs. Goldstraw.\n\nShe said the words, evidently thinking while she spoke them of something\nelse.  The wine-merchant, still looking at her inquiringly, observed that\nher eyes wandered towards the chimney-piece once more.  They fixed on the\nportrait of his mother, which hung there, and looked at it with that\nslight contraction of the brow which accompanies a scarcely conscious\neffort of memory.  Mr. Wilding remarked.\n\n\"My late dear mother, when she was five-and-twenty.\"\n\nMrs. Goldstraw thanked him with a movement of the head for being at the\npains to explain the picture, and said, with a cleared brow, that it was\nthe portrait of a very beautiful lady.\n\nMr. Wilding, falling back into his former perplexity, tried once more to\nrecover that lost recollection, associated so closely, and yet so\nundiscoverably, with his new housekeeper's voice and manner.\n\n\"Excuse my asking you a question which has nothing to do with me or my\nbreakfast,\" he said.  \"May I inquire if you have ever occupied any other\nsituation than the situation of housekeeper?\"\n\n\"O yes, sir.  I began life as one of the nurses at the Foundling.\"\n\n\"Why, that's it!\" cried the wine-merchant, pushing back his chair.  \"By\nheaven!  Their manner is the manner you remind me of!\"\n\nIn an astonished look at him, Mrs. Goldstraw changed colour, checked\nherself, turned her eyes upon the ground, and sat still and silent.\n\n\"What is the matter?\" asked Mr. Wilding.\n\n\"Do I understand that you were in the Foundling, sir?\"\n\n\"Certainly.  I am not ashamed to own it.\"\n\n\"Under the name you now bear?\"\n\n\"Under the name of Walter Wilding.\"\n\n\"And the lady--?\" Mrs. Goldstraw stopped short with a look at the\nportrait which was now unmistakably a look of alarm.\n\n\"You mean my mother,\" interrupted Mr. Wilding.\n\n\"Your--mother,\" repeated the housekeeper, a little constrainedly,\n\"removed you from the Foundling?  At what age, sir?\"\n\n\"At between eleven and twelve years old.  It's quite a romantic\nadventure, Mrs. Goldstraw.\"\n\nHe told the story of the lady having spoken to him, while he sat at\ndinner with the other boys in the Foundling, and of all that had followed\nin his innocently communicative way.  \"My poor mother could never have\ndiscovered me,\" he added, \"if she had not met with one of the matrons who\npitied her.  The matron consented to touch the boy whose name was 'Walter\nWilding' as she went round the dinner-tables--and so my mother discovered\nme again, after having parted from me as an infant at the Foundling\ndoors.\"\n\nAt those words Mrs. Goldstraw's hand, resting on the table, dropped\nhelplessly into her lap.  She sat, looking at her new master, with a face\nthat had turned deadly pale, and with eyes that expressed an unutterable\ndismay.\n\n\"What does this mean?\" asked the wine-merchant.  \"Stop!\" he cried.  \"Is\nthere something else in the past time which I ought to associate with\nyou?  I remember my mother telling me of another person at the Foundling,\nto whose kindness she owed a debt of gratitude.  When she first parted\nwith me, as an infant, one of the nurses informed her of the name that\nhad been given to me in the institution.  You were that nurse?\"\n\n\"God forgive me, sir--I was that nurse!\"\n\n\"God forgive you?\"\n\n\"We had better get back, sir (if I may make so bold as to say so), to my\nduties in the house,\" said Mrs. Goldstraw.  \"Your breakfast-hour is\neight.  Do you lunch, or dine, in the middle of the day?\"\n\nThe excessive pinkness which Mr. Bintrey had noticed in his client's face\nbegan to appear there once more.  Mr. Wilding put his hand to his head,\nand mastered some momentary confusion in that quarter, before he spoke\nagain.\n\n\"Mrs. Goldstraw,\" he said, \"you are concealing something from me!\"\n\nThe housekeeper obstinately repeated, \"Please to favour me, sir, by\nsaying whether you lunch, or dine, in the middle of the day?\"\n\n\"I don't know what I do in the middle of the day.  I can't enter into my\nhousehold affairs, Mrs. Goldstraw, till I know why you regret an act of\nkindness to my mother, which she always spoke of gratefully to the end of\nher life.  You are not doing me a service by your silence.  You are\nagitating me, you are alarming me, you are bringing on the singing in my\nhead.\"\n\nHis hand went up to his head again, and the pink in his face deepened by\na shade or two.\n\n\"It's hard, sir, on just entering your service,\" said the housekeeper,\n\"to say what may cost me the loss of your good will.  Please to remember,\nend how it may, that I only speak because you have insisted on my\nspeaking, and because I see that I am alarming you by my silence.  When I\ntold the poor lady, whose portrait you have got there, the name by which\nher infant was christened in the Foundling, I allowed myself to forget my\nduty, and dreadful consequences, I am afraid, have followed from it.  I'll\ntell you the truth, as plainly as I can.  A few months from the time when\nI had informed the lady of her baby's name, there came to our institution\nin the country another lady (a stranger), whose object was to adopt one\nof our children.  She brought the needful permission with her, and after\nlooking at a great many of the children, without being able to make up\nher mind, she took a sudden fancy to one of the babies--a boy--under my\ncare.  Try, pray try, to compose yourself, sir!  It's no use disguising\nit any longer.  The child the stranger took away was the child of that\nlady whose portrait hangs there!\"\n\nMr. Wilding started to his feet.  \"Impossible!\" he cried out, vehemently.\n\"What are you talking about?  What absurd story are you telling me now?\nThere's her portrait!  Haven't I told you so already?  The portrait of my\nmother!\"\n\n\"When that unhappy lady removed you from the Foundling, in after years,\"\nsaid Mrs. Goldstraw, gently, \"she was the victim, and you were the\nvictim, sir, of a dreadful mistake.\"\n\nHe dropped back into his chair.  \"The room goes round with me,\" he said.\n\"My head! my head!\"  The housekeeper rose in alarm, and opened the\nwindows.  Before she could get to the door to call for help, a sudden\nburst of tears relieved the oppression which had at first almost appeared\nto threaten his life.  He signed entreatingly to Mrs. Goldstraw not to\nleave him.  She waited until the paroxysm of weeping had worn itself out.\nHe raised his head as he recovered himself, and looked at her with the\nangry unreasoning suspicion of a weak man.\n\n\"Mistake?\" he said, wildly repeating her last word.  \"How do I know you\nare not mistaken yourself?\"\n\n\"There is no hope that I am mistaken, sir.  I will tell you why, when you\nare better fit to hear it.\"\n\n\"Now! now!\"\n\nThe tone in which he spoke warned Mrs. Goldstraw that it would be cruel\nkindness to let him comfort himself a moment longer with the vain hope\nthat she might be wrong.  A few words more would end it, and those few\nwords she determined to speak.\n\n\"I have told you,\" she said, \"that the child of the lady whose portrait\nhangs there, was adopted in its infancy, and taken away by a stranger.  I\nam as certain of what I say as that I am now sitting here, obliged to\ndistress you, sir, sorely against my will.  Please to carry your mind on,\nnow, to about three months after that time.  I was then at the Foundling,\nin London, waiting to take some children to our institution in the\ncountry.  There was a question that day about naming an infant--a boy--who\nhad just been received.  We generally named them out of the Directory.  On\nthis occasion, one of the gentlemen who managed the Hospital happened to\nbe looking over the Register.  He noticed that the name of the baby who\nhad been adopted ('Walter Wilding') was scratched out--for the reason, of\ncourse, that the child had been removed for good from our care.  'Here's\na name to let,' he said.  'Give it to the new foundling who has been\nreceived to-day.'  The name was given, and the child was christened.  You,\nsir, were that child.\"\n\nThe wine-merchant's head dropped on his breast.  \"I was that child!\" he\nsaid to himself, trying helplessly to fix the idea in his mind.  \"I was\nthat child!\"\n\n\"Not very long after you had been received into the Institution, sir,\"\npursued Mrs. Goldstraw, \"I left my situation there, to be married.  If\nyou will remember that, and if you can give your mind to it, you will see\nfor yourself how the mistake happened.  Between eleven and twelve years\npassed before the lady, whom you have believed to be your mother,\nreturned to the Foundling, to find her son, and to remove him to her own\nhome.  The lady only knew that her infant had been called 'Walter\nWilding.'  The matron who took pity on her, could but point out the only\n'Walter Wilding' known in the Institution.  I, who might have set the\nmatter right, was far away from the Foundling and all that belonged to\nit.  There was nothing--there was really nothing that could prevent this\nterrible mistake from taking place.  I feel for you--I do indeed, sir!\nYou must think--and with reason--that it was in an evil hour that I came\nhere (innocently enough, I'm sure), to apply for your housekeeper's\nplace.  I feel as if I was to blame--I feel as if I ought to have had\nmore self-command.  If I had only been able to keep my face from showing\nyou what that portrait and what your own words put into my mind, you need\nnever, to your dying day, have known what you know now.\"\n\nMr. Wilding looked up suddenly.  The inbred honesty of the man rose in\nprotest against the housekeeper's last words.  His mind seemed to steady\nitself, for the moment, under the shock that had fallen on it.\n\n\"Do you mean to say that you would have concealed this from me if you\ncould?\" he exclaimed.\n\n\"I hope I should always tell the truth, sir, if I was asked,\" said Mrs.\nGoldstraw.  \"And I know it is better for _me_ that I should not have a\nsecret of this sort weighing on my mind.  But is it better for _you_?\nWhat use can it serve now--?\"\n\n\"What use?  Why, good Lord! if your story is true--\"\n\n\"Should I have told it, sir, as I am now situated, if it had not been\ntrue?\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon,\" said the wine-merchant.  \"You must make allowance\nfor me.  This dreadful discovery is something I can't realise even yet.\nWe loved each other so dearly--I felt so fondly that I was her son.  She\ndied, Mrs. Goldstraw, in my arms--she died blessing me as only a mother\n_could_ have blessed me.  And now, after all these years, to be told she\nwas _not_ my mother!  O me, O me!  I don't know what I am saying!\" he\ncried, as the impulse of self-control under which he had spoken a moment\nsince, flickered, and died out.  \"It was not this dreadful grief--it was\nsomething else that I had it in my mind to speak of.  Yes, yes.  You\nsurprised me--you wounded me just now.  You talked as if you would have\nhidden this from me, if you could.  Don't talk in that way again.  It\nwould have been a crime to have hidden it.  You mean well, I know.  I\ndon't want to distress you--you are a kind-hearted woman.  But you don't\nremember what my position is.  She left me all that I possess, in the\nfirm persuasion that I was her son.  I am not her son.  I have taken the\nplace, I have innocently got the inheritance of another man.  He must be\nfound!  How do I know he is not at this moment in misery, without bread\nto eat?  He must be found!  My only hope of bearing up against the shock\nthat has fallen on me, is the hope of doing something which _she_ would\nhave approved.  You must know more, Mrs. Goldstraw, than you have told me\nyet.  Who was the stranger who adopted the child?  You must have heard\nthe lady's name?\"\n\n\"I never heard it, sir.  I have never seen her, or heard of her, since.\"\n\n\"Did she say nothing when she took the child away?  Search your memory.\nShe must have said something.\"\n\n\"Only one thing, sir, that I can remember.  It was a miserably bad\nseason, that year; and many of the children were suffering from it.  When\nshe took the baby away, the lady said to me, laughing, 'Don't be alarmed\nabout his health.  He will be brought up in a better climate than this--I\nam going to take him to Switzerland.'\"\n\n\"To Switzerland?  What part of Switzerland?\"\n\n\"She didn't say, sir.\"\n\n\"Only that faint clue!\" said Mr. Wilding.  \"And a quarter of a century\nhas passed since the child was taken away!  What am I to do?\"\n\n\"I hope you won't take offence at my freedom, sir,\" said Mrs. Goldstraw;\n\"but why should you distress yourself about what is to be done?  He may\nnot be alive now, for anything you know.  And, if he is alive, it's not\nlikely he can be in any distress.  The, lady who adopted him was a bred\nand born lady--it was easy to see that.  And she must have satisfied them\nat the Foundling that she could provide for the child, or they would\nnever have let her take him away.  If I was in your place, sir--please to\nexcuse my saying so--I should comfort myself with remembering that I had\nloved that poor lady whose portrait you have got there--truly loved her\nas my mother, and that she had truly loved me as her son.  All she gave\nto you, she gave for the sake of that love.  It never altered while she\nlived; and it won't alter, I'm sure, as long as _you_ live.  How can you\nhave a better right, sir, to keep what you have got than that?\"\n\nMr. Wilding's immovable honesty saw the fallacy in his housekeeper's\npoint of view at a glance.\n\n\"You don't understand me,\" he said.  \"It's _because_ I loved her that I\nfeel it a duty--a sacred duty--to do justice to her son.  If he is a\nliving man, I must find him: for my own sake, as well as for his.  I\nshall break down under this dreadful trial, unless I employ\nmyself--actively, instantly employ myself--in doing what my conscience\ntells me ought to be done.  I must speak to my lawyer; I must set my\nlawyer at work before I sleep to-night.\"  He approached a tube in the\nwall of the room, and called down through it to the office below.  \"Leave\nme for a little, Mrs. Goldstraw,\" he resumed; \"I shall be more composed,\nI shall be better able to speak to you later in the day.  We shall get on\nwell--I hope we shall get on well together--in spite of what has\nhappened.  It isn't your fault; I know it isn't your fault.  There!\nthere! shake hands; and--and do the best you can in the house--I can't\ntalk about it now.\"\n\nThe door opened as Mrs. Goldstraw advanced towards it; and Mr. Jarvis\nappeared.\n\n\"Send for Mr. Bintrey,\" said the wine-merchant.  \"Say I want to see him\ndirectly.\"\n\nThe clerk unconsciously suspended the execution of the order, by\nannouncing \"Mr. Vendale,\" and showing in the new partner in the firm of\nWilding and Co.\n\n\"Pray excuse me for one moment, George Vendale,\" said Wilding.  \"I have a\nword to say to Jarvis.  Send for Mr. Bintrey,\" he repeated--\"send at\nonce.\"\n\nMr. Jarvis laid a letter on the table before he left the room.\n\n\"From our correspondents at Neuchatel, I think, sir.  The letter has got\nthe Swiss postmark.\"\n\n\n\nNEW CHARACTERS ON THE SCENE\n\n\nThe words, \"The Swiss Postmark,\" following so soon upon the housekeeper's\nreference to Switzerland, wrought Mr. Wilding's agitation to such a\nremarkable height, that his new partner could not decently make a\npretence of letting it pass unnoticed.\n\n\"Wilding,\" he asked hurriedly, and yet stopping short and glancing around\nas if for some visible cause of his state of mind: \"what is the matter?\"\n\n\"My good George Vendale,\" returned the wine-merchant, giving his hand\nwith an appealing look, rather as if he wanted help to get over some\nobstacle, than as if he gave it in welcome or salutation: \"my good George\nVendale, so much is the matter, that I shall never be myself again.  It\nis impossible that I can ever be myself again.  For, in fact, I am not\nmyself.\"\n\nThe new partner, a brown-cheeked handsome fellow, of about his own age,\nwith a quick determined eye and an impulsive manner, retorted with\nnatural astonishment: \"Not yourself?\"\n\n\"Not what I supposed myself to be,\" said Wilding.\n\n\"What, in the name of wonder, _did_ you suppose yourself to be that you\nare not?\" was the rejoinder, delivered with a cheerful frankness,\ninviting confidence from a more reticent man.  \"I may ask without\nimpertinence, now that we are partners.\"\n\n\"There again!\" cried Wilding, leaning back in his chair, with a lost look\nat the other.  \"Partners!  I had no right to come into this business.  It\nwas never meant for me.  My mother never meant it should be mine.  I\nmean, his mother meant it should be his--if I mean anything--or if I am\nanybody.\"\n\n\"Come, come,\" urged his partner, after a moment's pause, and taking\npossession of him with that calm confidence which inspires a strong\nnature when it honestly desires to aid a weak one.  \"Whatever has gone\nwrong, has gone wrong through no fault of yours, I am very sure.  I was\nnot in this counting-house with you, under the old _regime_, for three\nyears, to doubt you, Wilding.  We were not younger men than we are,\ntogether, for that.  Let me begin our partnership by being a serviceable\npartner, and setting right whatever is wrong.  Has that letter anything\nto do with it?\"\n\n\"Hah!\" said Wilding, with his hand to his temple.  \"There again!  My\nhead!  I was forgetting the coincidence.  The Swiss postmark.\"\n\n\"At a second glance I see that the letter is unopened, so it is not very\nlikely to have much to do with the matter,\" said Vendale, with comforting\ncomposure.  \"Is it for you, or for us?\"\n\n\"For us,\" said Wilding.\n\n\"Suppose I open it and read it aloud, to get it out of our way?\"\n\n\"Thank you, thank you.\"\n\n\"The letter is only from our champagne-making friends, the house at\nNeuchatel.  'Dear Sir.  We are in receipt of yours of the 28th ult.,\ninforming us that you have taken your Mr. Vendale into partnership,\nwhereon we beg you to receive the assurance of our felicitations.  Permit\nus to embrace the occasion of specially commanding to you M. Jules\nObenreizer.'  Impossible!\"\n\nWilding looked up in quick apprehension, and cried, \"Eh?\"\n\n\"Impossible sort of name,\" returned his partner, slightly--\"Obenreizer.\n'--Of specially commanding to you M. Jules Obenreizer, of Soho Square,\nLondon (north side), henceforth fully accredited as our agent, and who\nhas already had the honour of making the acquaintance of your Mr.\nVendale, in his (said M. Obenreizer's) native country, Switzerland.'  To\nbe sure! pooh pooh, what have I been thinking of!  I remember now; 'when\ntravelling with his niece.'\"\n\n\"With his--?\"  Vendale had so slurred the last word, that Wilding had not\nheard it.\n\n\"When travelling with his Niece.  Obenreizer's Niece,\" said Vendale, in a\nsomewhat superfluously lucid manner.  \"Niece of Obenreizer.  (I met them\nin my first Swiss tour, travelled a little with them, and lost them for\ntwo years; met them again, my Swiss tour before last, and have lost them\never since.)  Obenreizer.  Niece of Obenreizer.  To be sure!  Possible\nsort of name, after all!  'M. Obenreizer is in possession of our absolute\nconfidence, and we do not doubt you will esteem his merits.'  Duly signed\nby the House, 'Defresnier et Cie.'  Very well.  I undertake to see M.\nObenreizer presently, and clear him out of the way.  That clears the\nSwiss postmark out of the way.  So now, my dear Wilding, tell me what I\ncan clear out of _your_ way, and I'll find a way to clear it.\"\n\nMore than ready and grateful to be thus taken charge of, the honest wine-\nmerchant wrung his partner's hand, and, beginning his tale by\npathetically declaring himself an Impostor, told it.\n\n\"It was on this matter, no doubt, that you were sending for Bintrey when\nI came in?\" said his partner, after reflecting.\n\n\"It was.\"\n\n\"He has experience and a shrewd head; I shall be anxious to know his\nopinion.  It is bold and hazardous in me to give you mine before I know\nhis, but I am not good at holding back.  Plainly, then, I do not see\nthese circumstances as you see them.  I do not see your position as you\nsee it.  As to your being an Impostor, my dear Wilding, that is simply\nabsurd, because no man can be that without being a consenting party to an\nimposition.  Clearly you never were so.  As to your enrichment by the\nlady who believed you to be her son, and whom you were forced to believe,\non her showing, to be your mother, consider whether that did not arise\nout of the personal relations between you.  You gradually became much\nattached to her; she gradually became much attached to you.  It was on\nyou, personally you, as I see the case, that she conferred these worldly\nadvantages; it was from her, personally her, that you took them.\"\n\n\"She supposed me,\" objected Wilding, shaking his head, \"to have a natural\nclaim upon her, which I had not.\"\n\n\"I must admit that,\" replied his partner, \"to be true.  But if she had\nmade the discovery that you have made, six months before she died, do you\nthink it would have cancelled the years you were together, and the\ntenderness that each of you had conceived for the other, each on\nincreasing knowledge of the other?\"\n\n\"What I think,\" said Wilding, simply but stoutly holding to the bare\nfact, \"can no more change the truth than it can bring down the sky.  The\ntruth is that I stand possessed of what was meant for another man.\"\n\n\"He may be dead,\" said Vendale.\n\n\"He may be alive,\" said Wilding.  \"And if he is alive, have I\nnot--innocently, I grant you innocently--robbed him of enough?  Have I\nnot robbed him of all the happy time that I enjoyed in his stead?  Have I\nnot robbed him of the exquisite delight that filled my soul when that\ndear lady,\" stretching his hand towards the picture, \"told me she was my\nmother?  Have I not robbed him of all the care she lavished on me?  Have\nI not even robbed him of all the devotion and duty that I so proudly gave\nto her?  Therefore it is that I ask myself, George Vendale, and I ask\nyou, where is he?  What has become of him?\"\n\n\"Who can tell!\"\n\n\"I must try to find out who can tell.  I must institute inquiries.  I\nmust never desist from prosecuting inquiries.  I will live upon the\ninterest of my share--I ought to say his share--in this business, and\nwill lay up the rest for him.  When I find him, I may perhaps throw\nmyself upon his generosity; but I will yield up all to him.  I will, I\nswear.  As I loved and honoured her,\" said Wilding, reverently kissing\nhis hand towards the picture, and then covering his eyes with it.  \"As I\nloved and honoured her, and have a world of reasons to be grateful to\nher!\"  And so broke down again.\n\nHis partner rose from the chair he had occupied, and stood beside him\nwith a hand softly laid upon his shoulder.  \"Walter, I knew you before to-\nday to be an upright man, with a pure conscience and a fine heart.  It is\nvery fortunate for me that I have the privilege to travel on in life so\nnear to so trustworthy a man.  I am thankful for it.  Use me as your\nright hand, and rely upon me to the death.  Don't think the worse of me\nif I protest to you that my uppermost feeling at present is a confused,\nyou may call it an unreasonable, one.  I feel far more pity for the lady\nand for you, because you did not stand in your supposed relations, than I\ncan feel for the unknown man (if he ever became a man), because he was\nunconsciously displaced.  You have done well in sending for Mr. Bintrey.\nWhat I think will be a part of his advice, I know is the whole of mine.\nDo not move a step in this serious matter precipitately.  The secret must\nbe kept among us with great strictness, for to part with it lightly would\nbe to invite fraudulent claims, to encourage a host of knaves, to let\nloose a flood of perjury and plotting.  I have no more to say now,\nWalter, than to remind you that you sold me a share in your business,\nexpressly to save yourself from more work than your present health is fit\nfor, and that I bought it expressly to do work, and mean to do it.\"\n\nWith these words, and a parting grip of his partner's shoulder that gave\nthem the best emphasis they could have had, George Vendale betook himself\npresently to the counting-house, and presently afterwards to the address\nof M. Jules Obenreizer.\n\nAs he turned into Soho Square, and directed his steps towards its north\nside, a deepened colour shot across his sun-browned face, which Wilding,\nif he had been a better observer, or had been less occupied with his own\ntrouble, might have noticed when his partner read aloud a certain passage\nin their Swiss correspondent's letter, which he had not read so\ndistinctly as the rest.\n\nA curious colony of mountaineers has long been enclosed within that small\nflat London district of Soho.  Swiss watchmakers, Swiss silver-chasers,\nSwiss jewellers, Swiss importers of Swiss musical boxes and Swiss toys of\nvarious kinds, draw close together there.  Swiss professors of music,\npainting, and languages; Swiss artificers in steady work; Swiss couriers,\nand other Swiss servants chronically out of place; industrious Swiss\nlaundresses and clear-starchers; mysteriously existing Swiss of both\nsexes; Swiss creditable and Swiss discreditable; Swiss to be trusted by\nall means, and Swiss to be trusted by no means; these diverse Swiss\nparticles are attracted to a centre in the district of Soho.  Shabby\nSwiss eating-houses, coffee-houses, and lodging-houses, Swiss drinks and\ndishes, Swiss service for Sundays, and Swiss schools for week-days, are\nall to be found there.  Even the native-born English taverns drive a sort\nof broken-English trade; announcing in their windows Swiss whets and\ndrams, and sheltering in their bars Swiss skirmishes of love and\nanimosity on most nights in the year.\n\nWhen the new partner in Wilding and Co. rang the bell of a door bearing\nthe blunt inscription OBENREIZER on a brass plate--the inner door of a\nsubstantial house, whose ground story was devoted to the sale of Swiss\nclocks--he passed at once into domestic Switzerland.  A white-tiled stove\nfor winter-time filled the fireplace of the room into which he was shown,\nthe room's bare floor was laid together in a neat pattern of several\nordinary woods, the room had a prevalent air of surface bareness and much\nscrubbing; and the little square of flowery carpet by the sofa, and the\nvelvet chimney-board with its capacious clock and vases of artificial\nflowers, contended with that tone, as if, in bringing out the whole\neffect, a Parisian had adapted a dairy to domestic purposes.\n\nMimic water was dropping off a mill-wheel under the clock.  The visitor\nhad not stood before it, following it with his eyes, a minute, when M.\nObenreizer, at his elbow, startled him by saying, in very good English,\nvery slightly clipped: \"How do you do?  So glad!\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon.  I didn't hear you come in.\"\n\n\"Not at all!  Sit, please.\"\n\nReleasing his visitor's two arms, which he had lightly pinioned at the\nelbows by way of embrace, M. Obenreizer also sat, remarking, with a\nsmile: \"You are well?  So glad!\" and touching his elbows again.\n\n\"I don't know,\" said Vendale, after exchange of salutations, \"whether you\nmay yet have heard of me from your House at Neuchatel?\"\n\n\"Ah, yes!\"\n\n\"In connection with Wilding and Co.?\"\n\n\"Ah, surely!\"\n\n\"Is it not odd that I should come to you, in London here, as one of the\nFirm of Wilding and Co., to pay the Firm's respects?\"\n\n\"Not at all!  What did I always observe when we were on the mountains?  We\ncall them vast; but the world is so little.  So little is the world, that\none cannot keep away from persons.  There are so few persons in the\nworld, that they continually cross and re-cross.  So very little is the\nworld, that one cannot get rid of a person.  Not,\" touching his elbows\nagain, with an ingratiatory smile, \"that one would desire to get rid of\nyou.\"\n\n\"I hope not, M. Obenreizer.\"\n\n\"Please call me, in your country, Mr.  I call myself so, for I love your\ncountry.  If I _could_ be English!  But I am born.  And you?  Though\ndescended from so fine a family, you have had the condescension to come\ninto trade?  Stop though.  Wines?  Is it trade in England or profession?\nNot fine art?\"\n\n\"Mr. Obenreizer,\" returned Vendale, somewhat out of countenance, \"I was\nbut a silly young fellow, just of age, when I first had the pleasure of\ntravelling with you, and when you and I and Mademoiselle your niece--who\nis well?\"\n\n\"Thank you.  Who is well.\"\n\n\"--Shared some slight glacier dangers together.  If, with a boy's vanity,\nI rather vaunted my family, I hope I did so as a kind of introduction of\nmyself.  It was very weak, and in very bad taste; but perhaps you know\nour English proverb, 'Live and Learn.'\"\n\n\"You make too much of it,\" returned the Swiss.  \"And what the devil!\nAfter all, yours _was_ a fine family.\"\n\nGeorge Vendale's laugh betrayed a little vexation as he rejoined: \"Well!\nI was strongly attached to my parents, and when we first travelled\ntogether, Mr. Obenreizer, I was in the first flush of coming into what my\nfather and mother left me.  So I hope it may have been, after all, more\nyouthful openness of speech and heart than boastfulness.\"\n\n\"All openness of speech and heart!  No boastfulness!\" cried Obenreizer.\n\"You tax yourself too heavily.  You tax yourself, my faith! as if you was\nyour Government taxing you!  Besides, it commenced with me.  I remember,\nthat evening in the boat upon the lake, floating among the reflections of\nthe mountains and valleys, the crags and pine woods, which were my\nearliest remembrance, I drew a word-picture of my sordid childhood.  Of\nour poor hut, by the waterfall which my mother showed to travellers; of\nthe cow-shed where I slept with the cow; of my idiot half-brother always\nsitting at the door, or limping down the Pass to beg; of my half-sister\nalways spinning, and resting her enormous goitre on a great stone; of my\nbeing a famished naked little wretch of two or three years, when they\nwere men and women with hard hands to beat me, I, the only child of my\nfather's second marriage--if it even was a marriage.  What more natural\nthan for you to compare notes with me, and say, 'We are as one by age; at\nthat same time I sat upon my mother's lap in my father's carriage,\nrolling through the rich English streets, all luxury surrounding me, all\nsqualid poverty kept far from me.  Such is _my_ earliest remembrance as\nopposed to yours!'\"\n\nMr. Obenreizer was a black-haired young man of a dark complexion, through\nwhose swarthy skin no red glow ever shone.  When colour would have come\ninto another cheek, a hardly discernible beat would come into his, as if\nthe machinery for bringing up the ardent blood were there, but the\nmachinery were dry.  He was robustly made, well proportioned, and had\nhandsome features.  Many would have perceived that some surface change in\nhim would have set them more at their ease with him, without being able\nto define what change.  If his lips could have been made much thicker,\nand his neck much thinner, they would have found their want supplied.\n\nBut the great Obenreizer peculiarity was, that a certain nameless film\nwould come over his eyes--apparently by the action of his own will--which\nwould impenetrably veil, not only from those tellers of tales, but from\nhis face at large, every expression save one of attention.  It by no\nmeans followed that his attention should be wholly given to the person\nwith whom he spoke, or even wholly bestowed on present sounds and\nobjects.  Rather, it was a comprehensive watchfulness of everything he\nhad in his own mind, and everything that he knew to be, or suspected to\nbe, in the minds of other men.\n\nAt this stage of the conversation, Mr. Obenreizer's film came over him.\n\n\"The object of my present visit,\" said Vendale, \"is, I need hardly say,\nto assure you of the friendliness of Wilding and Co., and of the goodness\nof your credit with us, and of our desire to be of service to you.  We\nhope shortly to offer you our hospitality.  Things are not quite in train\nwith us yet, for my partner, Mr. Wilding, is reorganising the domestic\npart of our establishment, and is interrupted by some private affairs.\nYou don't know Mr. Wilding, I believe?\"\n\nMr. Obenreizer did not.\n\n\"You must come together soon.  He will be glad to have made your\nacquaintance, and I think I may predict that you will be glad to have\nmade his.  You have not been long established in London, I suppose, Mr.\nObenreizer?\"\n\n\"It is only now that I have undertaken this agency.\"\n\n\"Mademoiselle your niece--is--not married?\"\n\n\"Not married.\"\n\nGeorge Vendale glanced about him, as if for any tokens of her.\n\n\"She has been in London?\"\n\n\"She _is_ in London.\"\n\n\"When, and where, might I have the honour of recalling myself to her\nremembrance?\"\n\nMr. Obenreizer, discarding his film and touching his visitor's elbows as\nbefore, said lightly: \"Come up-stairs.\"\n\nFluttered enough by the suddenness with which the interview he had sought\nwas coming upon him after all, George Vendale followed up-stairs.  In a\nroom over the chamber he had just quitted--a room also Swiss-appointed--a\nyoung lady sat near one of three windows, working at an embroidery-frame;\nand an older lady sat with her face turned close to another white-tiled\nstove (though it was summer, and the stove was not lighted), cleaning\ngloves.  The young lady wore an unusual quantity of fair bright hair,\nvery prettily braided about a rather rounder white forehead than the\naverage English type, and so her face might have been a shade--or say a\nlight--rounder than the average English face, and her figure slightly\nrounder than the figure of the average English girl at nineteen.  A\nremarkable indication of freedom and grace of limb, in her quiet\nattitude, and a wonderful purity and freshness of colour in her dimpled\nface and bright gray eyes, seemed fraught with mountain air.  Switzerland\ntoo, though the general fashion of her dress was English, peeped out of\nthe fanciful bodice she wore, and lurked in the curious clocked red\nstocking, and in its little silver-buckled shoe.  As to the elder lady,\nsitting with her feet apart upon the lower brass ledge of the stove,\nsupporting a lap-full of gloves while she cleaned one stretched on her\nleft hand, she was a true Swiss impersonation of another kind; from the\nbreadth of her cushion-like back, and the ponderosity of her respectable\nlegs (if the word be admissible), to the black velvet band tied tightly\nround her throat for the repression of a rising tendency to goitre; or,\nhigher still, to her great copper-coloured gold ear-rings; or, higher\nstill, to her head-dress of black gauze stretched on wire.\n\n\"Miss Marguerite,\" said Obenreizer to the young lady, \"do you recollect\nthis gentleman?\"\n\n\"I think,\" she answered, rising from her seat, surprised and a little\nconfused: \"it is Mr. Vendale?\"\n\n\"I think it is,\" said Obenreizer, dryly.  \"Permit me, Mr. Vendale.  Madame\nDor.\"\n\nThe elder lady by the stove, with the glove stretched on her left hand,\nlike a glover's sign, half got up, half looked over her broad shoulder,\nand wholly plumped down again and rubbed away.\n\n\"Madame Dor,\" said Obenreizer, smiling, \"is so kind as to keep me free\nfrom stain or tear.  Madame Dor humours my weakness for being always\nneat, and devotes her time to removing every one of my specks and spots.\"\n\nMadame Dor, with the stretched glove in the air, and her eyes closely\nscrutinizing its palm, discovered a tough spot in Mr. Obenreizer at that\ninstant, and rubbed hard at him.  George Vendale took his seat by the\nembroidery-frame (having first taken the fair right hand that his\nentrance had checked), and glanced at the gold cross that dipped into the\nbodice, with something of the devotion of a pilgrim who had reached his\nshrine at last.  Obenreizer stood in the middle of the room with his\nthumbs in his waistcoat-pockets, and became filmy.\n\n\"He was saying down-stairs, Miss Obenreizer,\" observed Vendale, \"that the\nworld is so small a place, that people cannot escape one another.  I have\nfound it much too large for me since I saw you last.\"\n\n\"Have you travelled so far, then?\" she inquired.\n\n\"Not so far, for I have only gone back to Switzerland each year; but I\ncould have wished--and indeed I have wished very often--that the little\nworld did not afford such opportunities for long escapes as it does.  If\nit had been less, I might have found my follow-travellers sooner, you\nknow.\"\n\nThe pretty Marguerite coloured, and very slightly glanced in the\ndirection of Madame Dor.\n\n\"You find us at length, Mr. Vendale.  Perhaps you may lose us again.\"\n\n\"I trust not.  The curious coincidence that has enabled me to find you,\nencourages me to hope not.\"\n\n\"What is that coincidence, sir, if you please?\"  A dainty little native\ntouch in this turn of speech, and in its tone, made it perfectly\ncaptivating, thought George Vendale, when again he noticed an\ninstantaneous glance towards Madame Dor.  A caution seemed to be conveyed\nin it, rapid flash though it was; so he quietly took heed of Madame Dor\nfrom that time forth.\n\n\"It is that I happen to have become a partner in a House of business in\nLondon, to which Mr. Obenreizer happens this very day to be expressly\nrecommended: and that, too, by another house of business in Switzerland,\nin which (as it turns out) we both have a commercial interest.  He has\nnot told you?\"\n\n\"Ah!\" cried Obenreizer, striking in, filmless.  \"No.  I had not told Miss\nMarguerite.  The world is so small and so monotonous that a surprise is\nworth having in such a little jog-trot place.  It is as he tells you,\nMiss Marguerite.  He, of so fine a family, and so proudly bred, has\ncondescended to trade.  To trade!  Like us poor peasants who have risen\nfrom ditches!\"\n\nA cloud crept over the fair brow, and she cast down her eyes.\n\n\"Why, it is good for trade!\" pursued Obenreizer, enthusiastically.  \"It\nennobles trade!  It is the misfortune of trade, it is its vulgarity, that\nany low people--for example, we poor peasants--may take to it and climb\nby it.  See you, my dear Vendale!\"  He spoke with great energy.  \"The\nfather of Miss Marguerite, my eldest half-brother, more than two times\nyour age or mine, if living now, wandered without shoes, almost without\nrags, from that wretched Pass--wandered--wandered--got to be fed with the\nmules and dogs at an Inn in the main valley far away--got to be Boy\nthere--got to be Ostler--got to be Waiter--got to be Cook--got to be\nLandlord.  As Landlord, he took me (could he take the idiot beggar his\nbrother, or the spinning monstrosity his sister?) to put as pupil to the\nfamous watchmaker, his neighbour and friend.  His wife dies when Miss\nMarguerite is born.  What is his will, and what are his words to me, when\nhe dies, she being between girl and woman?  'All for Marguerite, except\nso much by the year for you.  You are young, but I make her your ward,\nfor you were of the obscurest and the poorest peasantry, and so was I,\nand so was her mother; we were abject peasants all, and you will remember\nit.'  The thing is equally true of most of my countrymen, now in trade in\nthis your London quarter of Soho.  Peasants once; low-born drudging Swiss\nPeasants.  Then how good and great for trade:\" here, from having been\nwarm, he became playfully jubilant, and touched the young wine-merchant's\nelbows again with his light embrace: \"to be exalted by gentlemen.\"\n\n\"I do not think so,\" said Marguerite, with a flushed cheek, and a look\naway from the visitor, that was almost defiant.  \"I think it is as much\nexalted by us peasants.\"\n\n\"Fie, fie, Miss Marguerite,\" said Obenreizer.  \"You speak in proud\nEngland.\"\n\n\"I speak in proud earnest,\" she answered, quietly resuming her work, \"and\nI am not English, but a Swiss peasant's daughter.\"\n\nThere was a dismissal of the subject in her words, which Vendale could\nnot contend against.  He only said in an earnest manner, \"I most heartily\nagree with you, Miss Obenreizer, and I have already said so, as Mr.\nObenreizer will bear witness,\" which he by no means did, \"in this house.\"\n\nNow, Vendale's eyes were quick eyes, and sharply watching Madame Dor by\ntimes, noted something in the broad back view of that lady.  There was\nconsiderable pantomimic expression in her glove-cleaning.  It had been\nvery softly done when he spoke with Marguerite, or it had altogether\nstopped, like the action of a listener.  When Obenreizer's peasant-speech\ncame to an end, she rubbed most vigorously, as if applauding it.  And\nonce or twice, as the glove (which she always held before her a little\nabove her face) turned in the air, or as this finger went down, or that\nwent up, he even fancied that it made some telegraphic communication to\nObenreizer: whose back was certainly never turned upon it, though he did\nnot seem at all to heed it.\n\nVendale observed too, that in Marguerite's dismissal of the subject twice\nforced upon him to his misrepresentation, there was an indignant\ntreatment of her guardian which she tried to cheek: as though she would\nhave flamed out against him, but for the influence of fear.  He also\nobserved--though this was not much--that he never advanced within the\ndistance of her at which he first placed himself: as though there were\nlimits fixed between them.  Neither had he ever spoken of her without the\nprefix \"Miss,\" though whenever he uttered it, it was with the faintest\ntrace of an air of mockery.  And now it occurred to Vendale for the first\ntime that something curious in the man, which he had never before been\nable to define, was definable as a certain subtle essence of mockery that\neluded touch or analysis.  He felt convinced that Marguerite was in some\nsort a prisoner as to her freewill--though she held her own against those\ntwo combined, by the force of her character, which was nevertheless\ninadequate to her release.  To feel convinced of this, was not to feel\nless disposed to love her than he had always been.  In a word, he was\ndesperately in love with her, and thoroughly determined to pursue the\nopportunity which had opened at last.\n\nFor the present, he merely touched upon the pleasure that Wilding and Co.\nwould soon have in entreating Miss Obenreizer to honour their\nestablishment with her presence--a curious old place, though a bachelor\nhouse withal--and so did not protract his visit beyond such a visit's\nordinary length.  Going down-stairs, conducted by his host, he found the\nObenreizer counting-house at the back of the entrance-hall, and several\nshabby men in outlandish garments hanging about, whom Obenreizer put\naside that he might pass, with a few words in _patois_.\n\n\"Countrymen,\" he explained, as he attended Vendale to the door.  \"Poor\ncompatriots.  Grateful and attached, like dogs!  Good-bye.  To meet\nagain.  So glad!\"\n\nTwo more light touches on his elbows dismissed him into the street.\n\nSweet Marguerite at her frame, and Madame Dor's broad back at her\ntelegraph, floated before him to Cripple Corner.  On his arrival there,\nWilding was closeted with Bintrey.  The cellar doors happening to be\nopen, Vendale lighted a candle in a cleft stick, and went down for a\ncellarous stroll.  Graceful Marguerite floated before him faithfully, but\nMadame Dor's broad back remained outside.\n\nThe vaults were very spacious, and very old.  There had been a stone\ncrypt down there, when bygones were not bygones; some said, part of a\nmonkish refectory; some said, of a chapel; some said, of a Pagan temple.\nIt was all one now.  Let who would make what he liked of a crumbled\npillar and a broken arch or so.  Old Time had made what _he_ liked of it,\nand was quite indifferent to contradiction.\n\nThe close air, the musty smell, and the thunderous rumbling in the\nstreets above, as being, out of the routine of ordinary life, went well\nenough with the picture of pretty Marguerite holding her own against\nthose two.  So Vendale went on until, at a turning in the vaults, he saw\na light like the light he carried.\n\n\"O!  You are here, are you, Joey?\"\n\n\"Oughtn't it rather to go, 'O!  _You're_ here, are you, Master George?'\nFor it's my business to be here.  But it ain't yourn.\"\n\n\"Don't grumble, Joey.\"\n\n\"O!  _I_ don't grumble,\" returned the Cellarman.  \"If anything grumbles,\nit's what I've took in through the pores; it ain't me.  Have a care as\nsomething in you don't begin a grumbling, Master George.  Stop here long\nenough for the wapours to work, and they'll be at it.\"\n\nHis present occupation consisted of poking his head into the bins, making\nmeasurements and mental calculations, and entering them in a rhinoceros-\nhide-looking note-book, like a piece of himself.\n\n\"They'll be at it,\" he resumed, laying the wooden rod that he measured\nwith across two casks, entering his last calculation, and straightening\nhis back, \"trust 'em!  And so you've regularly come into the business,\nMaster George?\"\n\n\"Regularly.  I hope you don't object, Joey?\"\n\n\"_I_ don't, bless you.  But Wapours objects that you're too young.  You're\nboth on you too young.\"\n\n\"We shall got over that objection day by day, Joey.\"\n\n\"Ay, Master George; but I shall day by day get over the objection that\nI'm too old, and so I shan't be capable of seeing much improvement in\nyou.\"\n\nThe retort so tickled Joey Ladle that he grunted forth a laugh and\ndelivered it again, grunting forth another laugh after the second edition\nof \"improvement in you.\"\n\n\"But what's no laughing matter, Master George,\" he resumed, straightening\nhis back once more, \"is, that young Master Wilding has gone and changed\nthe luck.  Mark my words.  He has changed the luck, and he'll find it\nout.  _I_ ain't been down here all my life for nothing!  _I_ know by what\nI notices down here, when it's a-going to rain, when it's a-going to hold\nup, when it's a-going to blow, when it's a-going to be calm.  _I_ know,\nby what I notices down here, when the luck's changed, quite as well.\"\n\n\"Has this growth on the roof anything to do with your divination?\" asked\nVendale, holding his light towards a gloomy ragged growth of dark fungus,\npendent from the arches with a very disagreeable and repellent effect.\n\"We are famous for this growth in this vault, aren't we?\"\n\n\"We are Master George,\" replied Joey Ladle, moving a step or two away,\n\"and if you'll be advised by me, you'll let it alone.\"\n\nTaking up the rod just now laid across the two casks, and faintly moving\nthe languid fungus with it, Vendale asked, \"Ay, indeed?  Why so?\"\n\n\"Why, not so much because it rises from the casks of wine, and may leave\nyou to judge what sort of stuff a Cellarman takes into himself when he\nwalks in the same all the days of his life, nor yet so much because at a\nstage of its growth it's maggots, and you'll fetch 'em down upon you,\"\nreturned Joey Ladle, still keeping away, \"as for another reason, Master\nGeorge.\"\n\n\"What other reason?\"\n\n\"(I wouldn't keep on touchin' it, if I was you, sir.)  I'll tell you if\nyou'll come out of the place.  First, take a look at its colour, Master\nGeorge.\"\n\n\"I am doing so.\"\n\n\"Done, sir.  Now, come out of the place.\"\n\nHe moved away with his light, and Vendale followed with his.  When\nVendale came up with him, and they were going back together, Vendale,\neyeing him as they walked through the arches, said: \"Well, Joey?  The\ncolour.\"\n\n\"Is it like clotted blood, Master George?\"\n\n\"Like enough, perhaps.\"\n\n\"More than enough, I think,\" muttered Joey Ladle, shaking his head\nsolemnly.\n\n\"Well, say it is like; say it is exactly like.  What then?\"\n\n\"Master George, they do say--\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"How should I know who?\" rejoined the Cellarman, apparently much\nexasperated by the unreasonable nature of the question.  \"Them!  Them as\nsays pretty well everything, you know.  How should I know who They are,\nif you don't?\"\n\n\"True.  Go on.\"\n\n\"They do say that the man that gets by any accident a piece of that dark\ngrowth right upon his breast, will, for sure and certain, die by murder.\"\n\nAs Vendale laughingly stopped to meet the Cellarman's eyes, which he had\nfastened on his light while dreamily saying those words, he suddenly\nbecame conscious of being struck upon his own breast by a heavy hand.\nInstantly following with his eyes the action of the hand that struck\nhim--which was his companion's--he saw that it had beaten off his breast\na web or clot of the fungus even then floating to the ground.\n\nFor a moment he turned upon the Cellarman almost as scared a look as the\nCellarman turned upon him.  But in another moment they had reached the\ndaylight at the foot of the cellar-steps, and before he cheerfully sprang\nup them, he blew out his candle and the superstition together.\n\n\n\nEXIT WILDING\n\n\nOn the morning of the next day, Wilding went out alone, after leaving a\nmessage with his clerk.  \"If Mr. Vendale should ask for me,\" he said, \"or\nif Mr. Bintrey should call, tell them I am gone to the Foundling.\"  All\nthat his partner had said to him, all that his lawyer, following on the\nsame side, could urge, had left him persisting unshaken in his own point\nof view.  To find the lost man, whose place he had usurped, was now the\nparamount interest of his life, and to inquire at the Foundling was\nplainly to take the first step in the direction of discovery.  To the\nFoundling, accordingly, the wine-merchant now went.\n\nThe once familiar aspect of the building was altered to him, as the look\nof the portrait over the chimney-piece was altered to him.  His one\ndearest association with the place which had sheltered his childhood had\nbeen broken away from it for ever.  A strange reluctance possessed him,\nwhen he stated his business at the door.  His heart ached as he sat alone\nin the waiting-room while the Treasurer of the institution was being sent\nfor to see him.  When the interview began, it was only by a painful\neffort that he could compose himself sufficiently to mention the nature\nof his errand.\n\nThe Treasurer listened with a face which promised all needful attention,\nand promised nothing more.\n\n\"We are obliged to be cautious,\" he said, when it came to his turn to\nspeak, \"about all inquiries which are made by strangers.\"\n\n\"You can hardly consider me a stranger,\" answered Wilding, simply.  \"I\nwas one of your poor lost children here, in the bygone time.\"\n\nThe Treasurer politely rejoined that this circumstance inspired him with\na special interest in his visitor.  But he pressed, nevertheless for that\nvisitor's motive in making his inquiry.  Without further preface, Wilding\ntold him his motive, suppressing nothing.  The Treasurer rose, and led\nthe way into the room in which the registers of the institution were\nkept.  \"All the information which our books can give is heartily at your\nservice,\" he said.  \"After the time that has elapsed, I am afraid it is\nthe only information we have to offer you.\"\n\nThe books were consulted, and the entry was found expressed as follows:\n\n\"3d March, 1836.  Adopted, and removed from the Foundling Hospital, a\nmale infant, named Walter Wilding.  Name and condition of the person\nadopting the child--Mrs. Jane Ann Miller, widow.  Address--Lime-Tree\nLodge, Groombridge Wells.  References--the Reverend John Harker,\nGroombridge Wells; and Messrs. Giles, Jeremie, and Giles, bankers,\nLombard Street.\"\n\n\"Is that all?\" asked the wine-merchant.  \"Had you no after-communication\nwith Mrs. Miller?\"\n\n\"None--or some reference to it must have appeared in this book.\"\n\n\"May I take a copy of the entry?\"\n\n\"Certainly!  You are a little agitated.  Let me make a copy for you.\"\n\n\"My only chance, I suppose,\" said Wilding, looking sadly at the copy, \"is\nto inquire at Mrs. Miller's residence, and to try if her references can\nhelp me?\"\n\n\"That is the only chance I see at present,\" answered the Treasurer.  \"I\nheartily wish I could have been of some further assistance to you.\"\n\nWith those farewell words to comfort him Wilding set forth on the journey\nof investigation which began from the Foundling doors.  The first stage\nto make for, was plainly the house of business of the bankers in Lombard\nStreet.  Two of the partners in the firm were inaccessible to\nchance-visitors when he asked for them.  The third, after raising certain\ninevitable difficulties, consented to let a clerk examine the ledger\nmarked with the initial letter \"M.\"  The account of Mrs. Miller, widow,\nof Groombridge Wells, was found.  Two long lines, in faded ink, were\ndrawn across it; and at the bottom of the page there appeared this note:\n\"Account closed, September 30th, 1837.\"\n\nSo the first stage of the journey was reached--and so it ended in No\nThoroughfare!  After sending a note to Cripple Corner to inform his\npartner that his absence might be prolonged for some hours, Wilding took\nhis place in the train, and started for the second stage on the\njourney--Mrs. Miller's residence at Groombridge Wells.\n\nMothers and children travelled with him; mothers and children met each\nother at the station; mothers and children were in the shops when he\nentered them to inquire for Lime-Tree Lodge.  Everywhere, the nearest and\ndearest of human relations showed itself happily in the happy light of\nday.  Everywhere, he was reminded of the treasured delusion from which he\nhad been awakened so cruelly--of the lost memory which had passed from\nhim like a reflection from a glass.\n\nInquiring here, inquiring there, he could hear of no such place as Lime-\nTree Lodge.  Passing a house-agent's office, he went in wearily, and put\nthe question for the last time.  The house-agent pointed across the\nstreet to a dreary mansion of many windows, which might have been a\nmanufactory, but which was an hotel.  \"That's where Lime-Tree Lodge\nstood, sir,\" said the man, \"ten years ago.\"\n\nThe second stage reached, and No Thoroughfare again!\n\nBut one chance was left.  The clerical reference, Mr. Harker, still\nremained to be found.  Customers coming in at the moment to occupy the\nhouse-agent's attention, Wilding went down the street, and entering a\nbookseller's shop, asked if he could be informed of the Reverend John\nHarker's present address.\n\nThe bookseller looked unaffectedly shocked and astonished, and made no\nanswer.\n\nWilding repeated his question.\n\nThe bookseller took up from his counter a prim little volume in a binding\nof sober gray.  He handed it to his visitor, open at the title-page.\nWilding read:\n\n\"The martyrdom of the Reverend John Harker in New Zealand.  Related by a\nformer member of his flock.\"\n\nWilding put the book down on the counter.  \"I beg your pardon,\" he said\nthinking a little, perhaps, of his own present martyrdom while he spoke.\nThe silent bookseller acknowledged the apology by a bow.  Wilding went\nout.\n\nThird and last stage, and No Thoroughfare for the third and last time.\n\nThere was nothing more to be done; there was absolutely no choice but to\ngo back to London, defeated at all points.  From time to time on the\nreturn journey, the wine-merchant looked at his copy of the entry in the\nFoundling Register.  There is one among the many forms of despair--perhaps\nthe most pitiable of all--which persists in disguising itself as Hope.\nWilding checked himself in the act of throwing the useless morsel of\npaper out of the carriage window.  \"It may lead to something yet,\" he\nthought.  \"While I live, I won't part with it.  When I die, my executors\nshall find it sealed up with my will.\"\n\nNow, the mention of his will set the good wine-merchant on a new track of\nthought, without diverting his mind from its engrossing subject.  He must\nmake his will immediately.\n\nThe application of the phrase No Thoroughfare to the case had originated\nwith Mr. Bintrey.  In their first long conference following the\ndiscovery, that sagacious personage had a hundred times repeated, with an\nobstructive shake of the head, \"No Thoroughfare, Sir, No Thoroughfare.  My\nbelief is that there is no way out of this at this time of day, and my\nadvice is, make yourself comfortable where you are.\"\n\nIn the course of the protracted consultation, a magnum of the forty-five\nyear old port-wine had been produced for the wetting of Mr. Bintrey's\nlegal whistle; but the more clearly he saw his way through the wine, the\nmore emphatically he did not see his way through the case; repeating as\noften as he set his glass down empty.  \"Mr. Wilding, No Thoroughfare.\nRest and be thankful.\"\n\nIt is certain that the honest wine-merchant's anxiety to make a will\noriginated in profound conscientiousness; though it is possible (and\nquite consistent with his rectitude) that he may unconsciously have\nderived some feeling of relief from the prospect of delegating his own\ndifficulty to two other men who were to come after him.  Be that as it\nmay, he pursued his new track of thought with great ardour, and lost no\ntime in begging George Vendale and Mr. Bintrey to meet him in Cripple\nCorner and share his confidence.\n\n\"Being all three assembled with closed doors,\" said Mr. Bintrey,\naddressing the new partner on the occasion, \"I wish to observe, before\nour friend (and my client) entrusts us with his further views, that I\nhave endorsed what I understand from him to have been your advice, Mr.\nVendale, and what would be the advice of every sensible man.  I have told\nhim that he positively must keep his secret.  I have spoken with Mrs.\nGoldstraw, both in his presence and in his absence; and if anybody is to\nbe trusted (which is a very large IF), I think she is to be trusted to\nthat extent.  I have pointed out to our friend (and my client), that to\nset on foot random inquiries would not only be to raise the Devil, in the\nlikeness of all the swindlers in the kingdom, but would also be to waste\nthe estate.  Now, you see, Mr. Vendale, our friend (and my client) does\nnot desire to waste the estate, but, on the contrary, desires to husband\nit for what he considers--but I can't say I do--the rightful owner, if\nsuch rightful owner should ever be found.  I am very much mistaken if he\never will be, but never mind that.  Mr. Wilding and I are, at least,\nagreed that the estate is not to be wasted.  Now, I have yielded to Mr.\nWilding's desire to keep an advertisement at intervals flowing through\nthe newspapers, cautiously inviting any person who may know anything\nabout that adopted infant, taken from the Foundling Hospital, to come to\nmy office; and I have pledged myself that such advertisement shall\nregularly appear.  I have gathered from our friend (and my client) that I\nmeet you here to-day to take his instructions, not to give him advice.  I\nam prepared to receive his instructions, and to respect his wishes; but\nyou will please observe that this does not imply my approval of either as\na matter of professional opinion.\"\n\nThus Mr. Bintrey; talking quite is much _at_ Wilding as _to_ Vendale.  And\nyet, in spite of his care for his client, he was so amused by his\nclient's Quixotic conduct, as to eye him from time to time with twinkling\neyes, in the light of a highly comical curiosity.\n\n\"Nothing,\" observed Wilding, \"can be clearer.  I only wish my head were\nas clear as yours, Mr. Bintrey.\"\n\n\"If you feel that singing in it coming on,\" hinted the lawyer, with an\nalarmed glance, \"put it off.--I mean the interview.\"\n\n\"Not at all, I thank you,\" said Wilding.  \"What was I going to--\"\n\n\"Don't excite yourself, Mr. Wilding,\" urged the lawyer.\n\n\"No; I _wasn't_ going to,\" said the wine-merchant.  \"Mr. Bintrey and\nGeorge Vendale, would you have any hesitation or objection to become my\njoint trustees and executors, or can you at once consent?\"\n\n\"_I_ consent,\" replied George Vendale, readily.\n\n\"_I_ consent,\" said Bintrey, not so readily.\n\n\"Thank you both.  Mr. Bintrey, my instructions for my last will and\ntestament are short and plain.  Perhaps you will now have the goodness to\ntake them down.  I leave the whole of my real and personal estate,\nwithout any exception or reservation whatsoever, to you two, my joint\ntrustees and executors, in trust to pay over the whole to the true Walter\nWilding, if he shall be found and identified within two years after the\nday of my death.  Failing that, in trust to you two to pay over the whole\nas a benefaction and legacy to the Foundling Hospital.\"\n\n\"Those are all your instructions, are they, Mr. Wilding?\" demanded\nBintrey, after a blank silence, during which nobody had looked at\nanybody.\n\n\"The whole.\"\n\n\"And as to those instructions, you have absolutely made up your mind, Mr.\nWilding?\"\n\n\"Absolutely, decidedly, finally.\"\n\n\"It only remains,\" said the lawyer, with one shrug of his shoulders, \"to\nget them into technical and binding form, and to execute and attest.  Now,\ndoes that press?  Is there any hurry about it?  You are not going to die\nyet, sir.\"\n\n\"Mr. Bintrey,\" answered Wilding, gravely, \"when I am going to die is\nwithin other knowledge than yours or mine.  I shall be glad to have this\nmatter off my mind, if you please.\"\n\n\"We are lawyer and client again,\" rejoined Bintrey, who, for the nonce,\nhad become almost sympathetic.  \"If this day week--here, at the same\nhour--will suit Mr. Vendale and yourself, I will enter in my Diary that I\nattend you accordingly.\"\n\nThe appointment was made, and in due sequence, kept.  The will was\nformally signed, sealed, delivered, and witnessed, and was carried off by\nMr. Bintrey for safe storage among the papers of his clients, ranged in\ntheir respective iron boxes, with their respective owners' names outside,\non iron tiers in his consulting-room, as if that legal sanctuary were a\ncondensed Family Vault of Clients.\n\nWith more heart than he had lately had for former subjects of interest,\nWilding then set about completing his patriarchal establishment, being\nmuch assisted not only by Mrs. Goldstraw but by Vendale too: who,\nperhaps, had in his mind the giving of an Obenreizer dinner as soon as\npossible.  Anyhow, the establishment being reported in sound working\norder, the Obenreizers, Guardian and Ward, were asked to dinner, and\nMadame Dor was included in the invitation.  If Vendale had been over head\nand ears in love before--a phrase not to be taken as implying the\nfaintest doubt about it--this dinner plunged him down in love ten\nthousand fathoms deep.  Yet, for the life of him, he could not get one\nword alone with charming Marguerite.  So surely as a blessed moment\nseemed to come, Obenreizer, in his filmy state, would stand at Vendale's\nelbow, or the broad back of Madame Dor would appear before his eyes.  That\nspeechless matron was never seen in a front view, from the moment of her\narrival to that of her departure--except at dinner.  And from the instant\nof her retirement to the drawing-room, after a hearty participation in\nthat meal, she turned her face to the wall again.\n\nYet, through four or five delightful though distracting hours, Marguerite\nwas to be seen, Marguerite was to be heard, Marguerite was to be\noccasionally touched.  When they made the round of the old dark cellars,\nVendale led her by the hand; when she sang to him in the lighted room at\nnight, Vendale, standing by her, held her relinquished gloves, and would\nhave bartered against them every drop of the forty-five year old, though\nit had been forty-five times forty-five years old, and its nett price\nforty-five times forty-five pounds per dozen.  And still, when she was\ngone, and a great gap of an extinguisher was clapped on Cripple Corner,\nhe tormented himself by wondering, Did she think that he admired her!  Did\nshe think that he adored her!  Did she suspect that she had won him,\nheart and soul!  Did she care to think at all about it!  And so, Did she\nand Didn't she, up and down the gamut, and above the line and below the\nline, dear, dear!  Poor restless heart of humanity!  To think that the\nmen who were mummies thousands of years ago, did the same, and ever found\nthe secret how to be quiet after it!\n\n\"What do you think, George,\" Wilding asked him next day, \"of Mr.\nObenreizer?  (I won't ask you what you think of Miss Obenreizer.)\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" said Vendale, \"and I never did know, what to think of\nhim.\"\n\n\"He is well informed and clever,\" said Wilding.\n\n\"Certainly clever.\"\n\n\"A good musician.\"  (He had played very well, and sung very well,\novernight.)\n\n\"Unquestionably a good musician.\"\n\n\"And talks well.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said George Vendale, ruminating, \"and talks well.  Do you know,\nWilding, it oddly occurs to me, as I think about him, that he doesn't\nkeep silence well!\"\n\n\"How do you mean?  He is not obtrusively talkative.\"\n\n\"No, and I don't mean that.  But when he is silent, you can hardly help\nvaguely, though perhaps most unjustly, mistrusting him.  Take people whom\nyou know and like.  Take any one you know and like.\"\n\n\"Soon done, my good fellow,\" said Wilding.  \"I take you.\"\n\n\"I didn't bargain for that, or foresee it,\" returned Vendale, laughing.\n\"However, take me.  Reflect for a moment.  Is your approving knowledge of\nmy interesting face mainly founded (however various the momentary\nexpressions it may include) on my face when I am silent?\"\n\n\"I think it is,\" said Wilding.\n\n\"I think so too.  Now, you see, when Obenreizer speaks--in other words,\nwhen he is allowed to explain himself away--he comes out right enough;\nbut when he has not the opportunity of explaining himself away, he comes\nout rather wrong.  Therefore it is, that I say he does not keep silence\nwell.  And passing hastily in review such faces as I know, and don't\ntrust, I am inclined to think, now I give my mind to it, that none of\nthem keep silence well.\"\n\nThis proposition in Physiognomy being new to Wilding, he was at first\nslow to admit it, until asking himself the question whether Mrs.\nGoldstraw kept silence well, and remembering that her face in repose\ndecidedly invited trustfulness, he was as glad as men usually are to\nbelieve what they desire to believe.\n\nBut, as he was very slow to regain his spirits or his health, his\npartner, as another means of setting him up--and perhaps also with\ncontingent Obenreizer views--reminded him of those musical schemes of his\nin connection with his family, and how a singing-class was to be formed\nin the house, and a Choir in a neighbouring church.  The class was\nestablished speedily, and, two or three of the people having already some\nmusical knowledge, and singing tolerably, the Choir soon followed.  The\nlatter was led, and chiefly taught, by Wilding himself: who had hopes of\nconverting his dependents into so many Foundlings, in respect of their\ncapacity to sing sacred choruses.\n\nNow, the Obenreizers being skilled musicians, it was easily brought to\npass that they should be asked to join these musical unions.  Guardian\nand Ward consenting, or Guardian consenting for both, it was necessarily\nbrought to pass that Vendale's life became a life of absolute thraldom\nand enchantment.  For, in the mouldy Christopher-Wren church on Sundays,\nwith its dearly beloved brethren assembled and met together, five-and-\ntwenty strong, was not that Her voice that shot like light into the\ndarkest places, thrilling the walls and pillars as though they were\npieces of his heart!  What time, too, Madame Dor in a corner of the high\npew, turning her back upon everybody and everything, could not fail to be\nRitualistically right at some moment of the service; like the man whom\nthe doctors recommended to get drunk once a month, and who, that he might\nnot overlook it, got drunk every day.\n\nBut, even those seraphic Sundays were surpassed by the Wednesday concerts\nestablished for the patriarchal family.  At those concerts she would sit\ndown to the piano and sing them, in her own tongue, songs of her own\nland, songs calling from the mountain-tops to Vendale, \"Rise above the\ngrovelling level country; come far away from the crowd; pursue me as I\nmount higher; higher, higher, melting into the azure distance; rise to my\nsupremest height of all, and love me here!\"  Then would the pretty\nbodice, the clocked stocking, and the silver-buckled shoe be, like the\nbroad forehead and the bright eyes, fraught with the spring of a very\nchamois, until the strain was over.\n\nNot even over Vendale himself did these songs of hers cast a more potent\nspell than over Joey Ladle in his different way.  Steadily refusing to\nmuddle the harmony by taking any share in it, and evincing the supremest\ncontempt for scales and such-like rudiments of music--which, indeed,\nseldom captivate mere listeners--Joey did at first give up the whole\nbusiness for a bad job, and the whole of the performers for a set of\nhowling Dervishes.  But, descrying traces of unmuddled harmony in a part-\nsong one day, he gave his two under cellarmen faint hopes of getting on\ntowards something in course of time.  An anthem of Handel's led to\nfurther encouragement from him: though he objected that that great\nmusician must have been down in some of them foreign cellars pretty much,\nfor to go and say the same thing so many times over; which, took it in\nhow you might, he considered a certain sign of your having took it in\nsomehow.  On a third occasion, the public appearance of Mr. Jarvis with a\nflute, and of an odd man with a violin, and the performance of a duet by\nthe two, did so astonish him that, solely of his own impulse and motion,\nhe became inspired with the words, \"Ann Koar!\" repeatedly pronouncing\nthem as if calling in a familiar manner for some lady who had\ndistinguished herself in the orchestra.  But this was his final testimony\nto the merits of his mates, for, the instrumental duet being performed at\nthe first Wednesday concert, and being presently followed by the voice of\nMarguerite Obenreizer, he sat with his mouth wide open, entranced, until\nshe had finished; when, rising in his place with much solemnity, and\nprefacing what he was about to say with a bow that specially included Mr.\nWilding in it, he delivered himself of the gratifying sentiment: \"Arter\nthat, ye may all on ye get to bed!\"  And ever afterwards declined to\nrender homage in any other words to the musical powers of the family.\n\nThus began a separate personal acquaintance between Marguerite Obenreizer\nand Joey Ladle.  She laughed so heartily at his compliment, and yet was\nso abashed by it, that Joey made bold to say to her, after the concert\nwas over, he hoped he wasn't so muddled in his head as to have took a\nliberty?  She made him a gracious reply, and Joey ducked in return.\n\n\"You'll change the luck time about, Miss,\" said Joey, ducking again.\n\"It's such as you in the place that can bring round the luck of the\nplace.\"\n\n\"Can I?  Round the luck?\" she answered, in her pretty English, and with a\npretty wonder.  \"I fear I do not understand.  I am so stupid.\"\n\n\"Young Master Wilding, Miss,\" Joey explained confidentially, though not\nmuch to her enlightenment, \"changed the luck, afore he took in young\nMaster George.  So I say, and so they'll find.  Lord!  Only come into the\nplace and sing over the luck a few times, Miss, and it won't be able to\nhelp itself!\"\n\nWith this, and with a whole brood of ducks, Joey backed out of the\npresence.  But Joey being a privileged person, and even an involuntary\nconquest being pleasant to youth and beauty, Marguerite merrily looked\nout for him next time.\n\n\"Where is my Mr. Joey, please?\" she asked Vendale.\n\nSo Joey was produced, and shaken hands with, and that became an\nInstitution.\n\nAnother Institution arose in this wise.  Joey was a little hard of\nhearing.  He himself said it was \"Wapours,\" and perhaps it might have\nbeen; but whatever the cause of the effect, there the effect was, upon\nhim.  On this first occasion he had been seen to sidle along the wall,\nwith his left hand to his left ear, until he had sidled himself into a\nseat pretty near the singer, in which place and position he had remained,\nuntil addressing to his friends the amateurs the compliment before\nmentioned.  It was observed on the following Wednesday that Joey's action\nas a Pecking Machine was impaired at dinner, and it was rumoured about\nthe table that this was explainable by his high-strung expectations of\nMiss Obenreizer's singing, and his fears of not getting a place where he\ncould hear every note and syllable.  The rumour reaching Wilding's ears,\nhe in his good nature called Joey to the front at night before Marguerite\nbegan.  Thus the Institution came into being that on succeeding nights,\nMarguerite, running her hands over the keys before singing, always said\nto Vendale, \"Where is my Mr. Joey, please?\" and that Vendale always\nbrought him forth, and stationed him near by.  That he should then, when\nall eyes were upon him, express in his face the utmost contempt for the\nexertions of his friends and confidence in Marguerite alone, whom he\nwould stand contemplating, not unlike the rhinocerous out of the spelling-\nbook, tamed and on his hind legs, was a part of the Institution.  Also\nthat when he remained after the singing in his most ecstatic state, some\nbold spirit from the back should say, \"What do you think of it, Joey?\"\nand he should be goaded to reply, as having that instant conceived the\nretort, \"Arter that ye may all on ye get to bed!\"  These were other parts\nof the Institution.\n\nBut, the simple pleasures and small jests of Cripple Corner were not\ndestined to have a long life.  Underlying them from the first was a\nserious matter, which every member of the patriarchal family knew of, but\nwhich, by tacit agreement, all forbore to speak of.  Mr. Wilding's health\nwas in a bad way.\n\nHe might have overcome the shock he had sustained in the one great\naffection of his life, or he might have overcome his consciousness of\nbeing in the enjoyment of another man's property; but the two together\nwere too much for him.  A man haunted by twin ghosts, he became deeply\ndepressed.  The inseparable spectres sat at the board with him, ate from\nhis platter, drank from his cup, and stood by his bedside at night.  When\nhe recalled his supposed mother's love, he felt as though he had stolen\nit.  When he rallied a little under the respect and attachment of his\ndependants, he felt as though he were even fraudulent in making them\nhappy, for that should have been the unknown man's duty and\ngratification.\n\nGradually, under the pressure of his brooding mind, his body stooped, his\nstep lost its elasticity, his eyes were seldom lifted from the ground.  He\nknew he could not help the deplorable mistake that had been made, but he\nknew he could not mend it; for the days and weeks went by, and no one\nclaimed his name or his possessions.  And now there began to creep over\nhim a cloudy consciousness of often-recurring confusion in his head.  He\nwould unaccountably lose, sometimes whole hours, sometimes a whole day\nand night.  Once, his remembrance stopped as he sat at the head of the\ndinner-table, and was blank until daybreak.  Another time, it stopped as\nhe was beating time to their singing, and went on again when he and his\npartner were walking in the court-yard by the light of the moon, half the\nnight later.  He asked Vendale (always full of consideration, work, and\nhelp) how this was?  Vendale only replied, \"You have not been quite well;\nthat's all.\"  He looked for explanation into the faces of his people.  But\nthey would put it off with \"Glad to see you looking so much better, sir;\"\nor \"Hope you're doing nicely now, sir;\" in which was no information at\nall.\n\nAt length, when the partnership was but five months old, Walter Wilding\ntook to his bed, and his housekeeper became his nurse.\n\n\"Lying here, perhaps you will not mind my calling you Sally, Mrs.\nGoldstraw?\" said the poor wine-merchant.\n\n\"It sounds more natural to me, sir, than any other name, and I like it\nbetter.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Sally.  I think, Sally, I must of late have been subject to\nfits.  Is that so, Sally?  Don't mind telling me now.\"\n\n\"It has happened, sir.\"\n\n\"Ah!  That is the explanation!\" he quietly remarked.  \"Mr. Obenreizer,\nSally, talks of the world being so small that it is not strange how often\nthe same people come together, and come together at various places, and\nin various stages of life.  But it does seem strange, Sally, that I\nshould, as I may say, come round to the Foundling to die.\"\n\nHe extended his hand to her, and she gently took it.\n\n\"You are not going to die, dear Mr. Wilding.\"\n\n\"So Mr. Bintrey said, but I think he was wrong.  The old child-feeling is\ncoming back upon me, Sally.  The old hush and rest, as I used to fall\nasleep.\"\n\nAfter an interval he said, in a placid voice, \"Please kiss me, Nurse,\"\nand, it was evident, believed himself to be lying in the old Dormitory.\n\nAs she had been used to bend over the fatherless and motherless children,\nSally bent over the fatherless and motherless man, and put her lips to\nhis forehead, murmuring:\n\n\"God bless you!\"\n\n\"God bless you!\" he replied, in the same tone.\n\nAfter another interval, he opened his eyes in his own character, and\nsaid: \"Don't move me, Sally, because of what I am going to say; I lie\nquite easily.  I think my time is come, I don't know how it may appear to\nyou, Sally, but--\"\n\nInsensibility fell upon him for a few minutes; he emerged from it once\nmore.\n\n\"--I don't know how it may appear to you, Sally, but so it appears to\nme.\"\n\nWhen he had thus conscientiously finished his favourite sentence, his\ntime came, and he died.\n\n\n\n\nACT II.\n\n\nVENDALE MAKES LOVE\n\n\nThe summer and the autumn passed.  Christmas and the New Year were at\nhand.\n\nAs executors honestly bent on performing their duty towards the dead,\nVendale and Bintrey had held more than one anxious consultation on the\nsubject of Wilding's will.  The lawyer had declared, from the first, that\nit was simply impossible to take any useful action in the matter at all.\nThe only obvious inquiries to make, in relation to the lost man, had been\nmade already by Wilding himself; with this result, that time and death\ntogether had not left a trace of him discoverable.  To advertise for the\nclaimant to the property, it would be necessary to mention particulars--a\ncourse of proceeding which would invite half the impostors in England to\npresent themselves in the character of the true Walter Wilding.  \"If we\nfind a chance of tracing the lost man, we will take it.  If we don't, let\nus meet for another consultation on the first anniversary of Wilding's\ndeath.\"  So Bintrey advised.  And so, with the most earnest desire to\nfulfil his dead friend's wishes, Vendale was fain to let the matter rest\nfor the present.\n\nTurning from his interest in the past to his interest in the future,\nVendale still found himself confronting a doubtful prospect.  Months on\nmonths had passed since his first visit to Soho Square--and through all\nthat time, the one language in which he had told Marguerite that he loved\nher was the language of the eyes, assisted, at convenient opportunities,\nby the language of the hand.\n\nWhat was the obstacle in his way?  The one immovable obstacle which had\nbeen in his way from the first.  No matter how fairly the opportunities\nlooked, Vendale's efforts to speak with Marguerite alone ended invariably\nin one and the same result.  Under the most accidental circumstances, in\nthe most innocent manner possible, Obenreizer was always in the way.\n\nWith the last days of the old year came an unexpected chance of spending\nan evening with Marguerite, which Vendale resolved should be a chance of\nspeaking privately to her as well.  A cordial note from Obenreizer\ninvited him, on New Year's Day, to a little family dinner in Soho Square.\n\"We shall be only four,\" the note said.  \"We shall be only two,\" Vendale\ndetermined, \"before the evening is out!\"\n\nNew Year's Day, among the English, is associated with the giving and\nreceiving of dinners, and with nothing more.  New Year's Day, among the\nforeigners, is the grand opportunity of the year for the giving and\nreceiving of presents.  It is occasionally possible to acclimatise a\nforeign custom.  In this instance Vendale felt no hesitation about making\nthe attempt.  His one difficulty was to decide what his New Year's gift\nto Marguerite should be.  The defensive pride of the peasant's\ndaughter--morbidly sensitive to the inequality between her social\nposition and his--would be secretly roused against him if he ventured on\na rich offering.  A gift, which a poor man's purse might purchase, was\nthe one gift that could be trusted to find its way to her heart, for the\ngiver's sake.  Stoutly resisting temptation, in the form of diamonds and\nrubies, Vendale bought a brooch of the filagree-work of Genoa--the\nsimplest and most unpretending ornament that he could find in the\njeweller's shop.\n\nHe slipped his gift into Marguerite's hand as she held it out to welcome\nhim on the day of the dinner.\n\n\"This is your first New Year's Day in England,\" he said.  \"Will you let\nme help to make it like a New Year's Day at home?\"\n\nShe thanked him, a little constrainedly, as she looked at the jeweller's\nbox, uncertain what it might contain.  Opening the box, and discovering\nthe studiously simple form under which Vendale's little keepsake offered\nitself to her, she penetrated his motive on the spot.  Her face turned on\nhim brightly, with a look which said, \"I own you have pleased and\nflattered me.\"  Never had she been so charming, in Vendale's eyes, as she\nwas at that moment.  Her winter dress--a petticoat of dark silk, with a\nbodice of black velvet rising to her neck, and enclosing it softly in a\nlittle circle of swansdown--heightened, by all the force of contrast, the\ndazzling fairness of her hair and her complexion.  It was only when she\nturned aside from him to the glass, and, taking out the brooch that she\nwore, put his New Year's gift in its place, that Vendale's attention\nwandered far enough away from her to discover the presence of other\npersons in the room.  He now became conscious that the hands of\nObenreizer were affectionately in possession of his elbows.  He now heard\nthe voice of Obenreizer thanking him for his attention to Marguerite,\nwith the faintest possible ring of mockery in its tone.  (\"Such a simple\npresent, dear sir! and showing such nice tact!\")  He now discovered, for\nthe first time, that there was one other guest, and but one, besides\nhimself, whom Obenreizer presented as a compatriot and friend.  The\nfriend's face was mouldy, and the friend's figure was fat.  His age was\nsuggestive of the autumnal period of human life.  In the course of the\nevening he developed two extraordinary capacities.  One was a capacity\nfor silence; the other was a capacity for emptying bottles.\n\nMadame Dor was not in the room.  Neither was there any visible place\nreserved for her when they sat down to table.  Obenreizer explained that\nit was \"the good Dor's simple habit to dine always in the middle of the\nday.  She would make her excuses later in the evening.\"  Vendale wondered\nwhether the good Dor had, on this occasion, varied her domestic\nemployment from cleaning Obenreizer's gloves to cooking Obenreizer's\ndinner.  This at least was certain--the dishes served were, one and all,\nas achievements in cookery, high above the reach of the rude elementary\nart of England.  The dinner was unobtrusively perfect.  As for the wine,\nthe eyes of the speechless friend rolled over it, as in solemn ecstasy.\nSometimes he said \"Good!\" when a bottle came in full; and sometimes he\nsaid \"Ah!\" when a bottle went out empty--and there his contributions to\nthe gaiety of the evening ended.\n\nSilence is occasionally infectious.  Oppressed by private anxieties of\ntheir own, Marguerite and Vendale appeared to feel the influence of the\nspeechless friend.  The whole responsibility of keeping the talk going\nrested on Obenreizer's shoulders, and manfully did Obenreizer sustain it.\nHe opened his heart in the character of an enlightened foreigner, and\nsang the praises of England.  When other topics ran dry, he returned to\nthis inexhaustible source, and always set the stream running again as\ncopiously as ever.  Obenreizer would have given an arm, an eye, or a leg\nto have been born an Englishman.  Out of England there was no such\ninstitution as a home, no such thing as a fireside, no such object as a\nbeautiful woman.  His dear Miss Marguerite would excuse him, if he\naccounted for _her_ attractions on the theory that English blood must\nhave mixed at some former time with their obscure and unknown ancestry.\nSurvey this English nation, and behold a tall, clean, plump, and solid\npeople!  Look at their cities!  What magnificence in their public\nbuildings!  What admirable order and propriety in their streets!  Admire\ntheir laws, combining the eternal principle of justice with the other\neternal principle of pounds, shillings, and pence; and applying the\nproduct to all civil injuries, from an injury to a man's honour, to an\ninjury to a man's nose!  You have ruined my daughter--pounds, shillings,\nand pence!  You have knocked me down with a blow in my face--pounds,\nshillings, and pence!  Where was the material prosperity of such a\ncountry as _that_ to stop?  Obenreizer, projecting himself into the\nfuture, failed to see the end of it.  Obenreizer's enthusiasm entreated\npermission to exhale itself, English fashion, in a toast.  Here is our\nmodest little dinner over, here is our frugal dessert on the table, and\nhere is the admirer of England conforming to national customs, and making\na speech!  A toast to your white cliffs of Albion, Mr. Vendale! to your\nnational virtues, your charming climate, and your fascinating women! to\nyour Hearths, to your Homes, to your Habeas Corpus, and to all your other\ninstitutions!  In one word--to England!  Heep-heep-heep! hooray!\n\nObenreizer's voice had barely chanted the last note of the English cheer,\nthe speechless friend had barely drained the last drop out of his glass,\nwhen the festive proceedings were interrupted by a modest tap at the\ndoor.  A woman-servant came in, and approached her master with a little\nnote in her hand.  Obenreizer opened the note with a frown; and, after\nreading it with an expression of genuine annoyance, passed it on to his\ncompatriot and friend.  Vendale's spirits rose as he watched these\nproceedings.  Had he found an ally in the annoying little note?  Was the\nlong-looked-for chance actually coming at last?\n\n\"I am afraid there is no help for it?\" said Obenreizer, addressing his\nfellow-countryman.  \"I am afraid we must go.\"\n\nThe speechless friend handed back the letter, shrugged his heavy\nshoulders, and poured himself out a last glass of wine.  His fat fingers\nlingered fondly round the neck of the bottle.  They pressed it with a\nlittle amatory squeeze at parting.  His globular eyes looked dimly, as\nthrough an intervening haze, at Vendale and Marguerite.  His heavy\narticulation laboured, and brought forth a whole sentence at a birth.  \"I\nthink,\" he said, \"I should have liked a little more wine.\"  His breath\nfailed him after that effort; he gasped, and walked to the door.\n\nObenreizer addressed himself to Vendale with an appearance of the deepest\ndistress.\n\n\"I am so shocked, so confused, so distressed,\" he began.  \"A misfortune\nhas happened to one of my compatriots.  He is alone, he is ignorant of\nyour language--I and my good friend, here, have no choice but to go and\nhelp him.  What can I say in my excuse?  How can I describe my affliction\nat depriving myself in this way of the honour of your company?\"\n\nHe paused, evidently expecting to see Vendale take up his hat and retire.\nDiscerning his opportunity at last, Vendale determined to do nothing of\nthe kind.  He met Obenreizer dexterously, with Obenreizer's own weapons.\n\n\"Pray don't distress yourself,\" he said.  \"I'll wait here with the\ngreatest pleasure till you come back.\"\n\nMarguerite blushed deeply, and turned away to her embroidery-frame in a\ncorner by the window.  The film showed itself in Obenreizer's eyes, and\nthe smile came something sourly to Obenreizer's lips.  To have told\nVendale that there was no reasonable prospect of his coming back in good\ntime, would have been to risk offending a man whose favourable opinion\nwas of solid commercial importance to him.  Accepting his defeat with the\nbest possible grace, he declared himself to be equally honoured and\ndelighted by Vendale's proposal.  \"So frank, so friendly, so English!\"  He\nbustled about, apparently looking for something he wanted, disappeared\nfor a moment through the folding-doors communicating with the next room,\ncame back with his hat and coat, and protesting that he would return at\nthe earliest possible moment, embraced Vendale's elbows, and vanished\nfrom the scene in company with the speechless friend.\n\nVendale turned to the corner by the window, in which Marguerite had\nplaced herself with her work.  There, as if she had dropped from the\nceiling, or come up through the floor--there, in the old attitude, with\nher face to the stove--sat an Obstacle that had not been foreseen, in the\nperson of Madame Dor!  She half got up, half looked over her broad\nshoulder at Vendale, and plumped down again.  Was she at work?  Yes.\nCleaning Obenreizer's gloves, as before?  No; darning Obenreizer's\nstockings.\n\nThe case was now desperate.  Two serious considerations presented\nthemselves to Vendale.  Was it possible to put Madame Dor into the stove?\nThe stove wouldn't hold her.  Was it possible to treat Madame Dor, not as\na living woman, but as an article of furniture?  Could the mind be\nbrought to contemplate this respectable matron purely in the light of a\nchest of drawers, with a black gauze held-dress accidentally left on the\ntop of it?  Yes, the mind could be brought to do that.  With a\ncomparatively trifling effort, Vendale's mind did it.  As he took his\nplace on the old-fashioned window-seat, close by Marguerite and her\nembroidery, a slight movement appeared in the chest of drawers, but no\nremark issued from it.  Let it be remembered that solid furniture is not\neasy to move, and that it has this advantage in consequence--there is no\nfear of upsetting it.\n\nUnusually silent and unusually constrained--with the bright colour fast\nfading from her face, with a feverish energy possessing her fingers--the\npretty Marguerite bent over her embroidery, and worked as if her life\ndepended on it.  Hardly less agitated himself, Vendale felt the\nimportance of leading her very gently to the avowal which he was eager to\nmake--to the other sweeter avowal still, which he was longing to hear.  A\nwoman's love is never to be taken by storm; it yields insensibly to a\nsystem of gradual approach.  It ventures by the roundabout way, and\nlistens to the low voice.  Vendale led her memory back to their past\nmeetings when they were travelling together in Switzerland.  They revived\nthe impressions, they recalled the events, of the happy bygone time.\nLittle by little, Marguerite's constraint vanished.  She smiled, she was\ninterested, she looked at Vendale, she grew idle with her needle, she\nmade false stitches in her work.  Their voices sank lower and lower;\ntheir faces bent nearer and nearer to each other as they spoke.  And\nMadame Dor?  Madame Dor behaved like an angel.  She never looked round;\nshe never said a word; she went on with Obenreizer's stockings.  Pulling\neach stocking up tight over her left arm, and holding that arm aloft from\ntime to time, to catch the light on her work, there were moments--delicate\nand indescribable moments--when Madame Dor appeared to be sitting upside\ndown, and contemplating one of her own respectable legs, elevated in the\nair.  As the minutes wore on, these elevations followed each other at\nlonger and longer intervals.  Now and again, the black gauze head-dress\nnodded, dropped forward, recovered itself.  A little heap of stockings\nslid softly from Madame Dor's lap, and remained unnoticed on the floor.  A\nprodigious ball of worsted followed the stockings, and rolled lazily\nunder the table.  The black gauze head-dress nodded, dropped forward,\nrecovered itself, nodded again, dropped forward again, and recovered\nitself no more.  A composite sound, partly as of the purring of an\nimmense cat, partly as of the planing of a soft board, rose over the\nhushed voices of the lovers, and hummed at regular intervals through the\nroom.  Nature and Madame Dor had combined together in Vendale's\ninterests.  The best of women was asleep.\n\nMarguerite rose to stop--not the snoring--let us say, the audible repose\nof Madame Dor.  Vendale laid his hand on her arm, and pressed her back\ngently into her chair.\n\n\"Don't disturb her,\" he whispered.  \"I have been waiting to tell you a\nsecret.  Let me tell it now.\"\n\nMarguerite resumed her seat.  She tried to resume her needle.  It was\nuseless; her eyes failed her; her hand failed her; she could find\nnothing.\n\n\"We have been talking,\" said Vendale, \"of the happy time when we first\nmet, and first travelled together.  I have a confession to make.  I have\nbeen concealing something.  When we spoke of my first visit to\nSwitzerland, I told you of all the impressions I had brought back with me\nto England--except one.  Can you guess what that one is?\"\n\nHer eyes looked stedfastly at the embroidery, and her face turned a\nlittle away from him.  Signs of disturbance began to appear in her neat\nvelvet bodice, round the region of the brooch.  She made no reply.\nVendale pressed the question without mercy.\n\n\"Can you guess what the one Swiss impression is which I have not told you\nyet?\"\n\nHer face turned back towards him, and a faint smile trembled on her lips.\n\n\"An impression of the mountains, perhaps?\" she said slyly.\n\n\"No; a much more precious impression than that.\"\n\n\"Of the lakes?\"\n\n\"No.  The lakes have not grown dearer and dearer in remembrance to me\nevery day.  The lakes are not associated with my happiness in the\npresent, and my hopes in the future.  Marguerite! all that makes life\nworth having hangs, for me, on a word from your lips.  Marguerite!  I\nlove you!\"\n\nHer head drooped as he took her hand.  He drew her to him, and looked at\nher.  The tears escaped from her downcast eyes, and fell slowly over her\ncheeks.\n\n\"O, Mr. Vendale,\" she said sadly, \"it would have been kinder to have kept\nyour secret.  Have you forgotten the distance between us?  It can never,\nnever be!\"\n\n\"There can be but one distance between us, Marguerite--a distance of your\nmaking.  My love, my darling, there is no higher rank in goodness, there\nis no higher rank in beauty, than yours!  Come! whisper the one little\nword which tells me you will be my wife!\"\n\nShe sighed bitterly.  \"Think of your family,\" she murmured; \"and think of\nmine!\"\n\nVendale drew her a little nearer to him.\n\n\"If you dwell on such an obstacle as that,\" he said, \"I shall think but\none thought--I shall think I have offended you.\"\n\nShe started, and looked up.  \"O, no!\" she exclaimed innocently.  The\ninstant the words passed her lips, she saw the construction that might be\nplaced on them.  Her confession had escaped her in spite of herself.  A\nlovely flush of colour overspread her face.  She made a momentary effort\nto disengage herself from her lover's embrace.  She looked up at him\nentreatingly.  She tried to speak.  The words died on her lips in the\nkiss that Vendale pressed on them.  \"Let me go, Mr. Vendale!\" she said\nfaintly.\n\n\"Call me George.\"\n\nShe laid her head on his bosom.  All her heart went out to him at last.\n\"George!\" she whispered.\n\n\"Say you love me!\"\n\nHer arms twined themselves gently round his neck.  Her lips, timidly\ntouching his cheek, murmured the delicious words--\"I love you!\"\n\nIn the moment of silence that followed, the sound of the opening and\nclosing of the house-door came clear to them through the wintry stillness\nof the street.\n\nMarguerite started to her feet.\n\n\"Let me go!\" she said.  \"He has come back!\"\n\nShe hurried from the room, and touched Madame Dor's shoulder in passing.\nMadame Dor woke up with a loud snort, looked first over one shoulder and\nthen over the other, peered down into her lap, and discovered neither\nstockings, worsted, nor darning-needle in it.  At the same moment,\nfootsteps became audible ascending the stairs.  \"Mon Dieu!\" said Madame\nDor, addressing herself to the stove, and trembling violently.  Vendale\npicked up the stockings and the ball, and huddled them all back in a heap\nover her shoulder.  \"Mon Dieu!\" said Madame Dor, for the second time, as\nthe avalanche of worsted poured into her capacious lap.\n\nThe door opened, and Obenreizer came in.  His first glance round the room\nshowed him that Marguerite was absent.\n\n\"What!\" he exclaimed, \"my niece is away?  My niece is not here to\nentertain you in my absence?  This is unpardonable.  I shall bring her\nback instantly.\"\n\nVendale stopped him.\n\n\"I beg you will not disturb Miss Obenreizer,\" he said.  \"You have\nreturned, I see, without your friend?\"\n\n\"My friend remains, and consoles our afflicted compatriot.  A\nheart-rending scene, Mr. Vendale!  The household gods at the\npawnbroker's--the family immersed in tears.  We all embraced in silence.\nMy admirable friend alone possessed his composure.  He sent out, on the\nspot, for a bottle of wine.\"\n\n\"Can I say a word to you in private, Mr. Obenreizer?\"\n\n\"Assuredly.\"  He turned to Madame Dor.  \"My good creature, you are\nsinking for want of repose.  Mr. Vendale will excuse you.\"\n\nMadame Dor rose, and set forth sideways on her journey from the stove to\nbed.  She dropped a stocking.  Vendale picked it up for her, and opened\none of the folding-doors.  She advanced a step, and dropped three more\nstockings.  Vendale stooping to recover them as before, Obenreizer\ninterfered with profuse apologies, and with a warning look at Madame Dor.\nMadame Dor acknowledged the look by dropping the whole of the stockings\nin a heap, and then shuffling away panic-stricken from the scene of\ndisaster.  Obenreizer swept up the complete collection fiercely in both\nhands.  \"Go!\" he cried, giving his prodigious handful a preparatory swing\nin the air.  Madame Dor said, \"Mon Dieu,\" and vanished into the next\nroom, pursued by a shower of stockings.\n\n\"What must you think, Mr. Vendale,\" said Obenreizer, closing the door,\n\"of this deplorable intrusion of domestic details?  For myself, I blush\nat it.  We are beginning the New Year as badly as possible; everything\nhas gone wrong to-night.  Be seated, pray--and say, what may I offer you?\nShall we pay our best respects to another of your noble English\ninstitutions?  It is my study to be, what you call, jolly.  I propose a\ngrog.\"\n\nVendale declined the grog with all needful respect for that noble\ninstitution.\n\n\"I wish to speak to you on a subject in which I am deeply interested,\" he\nsaid.  \"You must have observed, Mr. Obenreizer, that I have, from the\nfirst, felt no ordinary admiration for your charming niece?\"\n\n\"You are very good.  In my niece's name, I thank you.\"\n\n\"Perhaps you may have noticed, latterly, that my admiration for Miss\nObenreizer has grown into a tenderer and deeper feeling--?\"\n\n\"Shall we say friendship, Mr. Vendale?\"\n\n\"Say love--and we shall be nearer to the truth.\"\n\nObenreizer started out of his chair.  The faintly discernible beat, which\nwas his nearest approach to a change of colour, showed itself suddenly in\nhis cheeks.\n\n\"You are Miss Obenreizer's guardian,\" pursued Vendale.  \"I ask you to\nconfer upon me the greatest of all favours--I ask you to give me her hand\nin marriage.\"\n\nObenreizer dropped back into his chair.  \"Mr. Vendale,\" he said, \"you\npetrify me.\"\n\n\"I will wait,\" rejoined Vendale, \"until you have recovered yourself.\"\n\n\"One word before I recover myself.  You have said nothing about this to\nmy niece?\"\n\n\"I have opened my whole heart to your niece.  And I have reason to hope--\"\n\n\"What!\" interposed Obenreizer.  \"You have made a proposal to my niece,\nwithout first asking for my authority to pay your addresses to her?\"  He\nstruck his hand on the table, and lost his hold over himself for the\nfirst time in Vendale's experience of him.  \"Sir!\" he exclaimed,\nindignantly, \"what sort of conduct is this?  As a man of honour, speaking\nto a man of honour, how can you justify it?\"\n\n\"I can only justify it as one of our English institutions,\" said Vendale\nquietly.  \"You admire our English institutions.  I can't honestly tell\nyou, Mr. Obenreizer, that I regret what I have done.  I can only assure\nyou that I have not acted in the matter with any intentional disrespect\ntowards yourself.  This said, may I ask you to tell me plainly what\nobjection you see to favouring my suit?\"\n\n\"I see this immense objection,\" answered Obenreizer, \"that my niece and\nyou are not on a social equality together.  My niece is the daughter of a\npoor peasant; and you are the son of a gentleman.  You do us an honour,\"\nhe added, lowering himself again gradually to his customary polite level,\n\"which deserves, and has, our most grateful acknowledgments.  But the\ninequality is too glaring; the sacrifice is too great.  You English are a\nproud people, Mr. Vendale.  I have observed enough of this country to see\nthat such a marriage as you propose would be a scandal here.  Not a hand\nwould be held out to your peasant-wife; and all your best friends would\ndesert you.\"\n\n\"One moment,\" said Vendale, interposing on his side.  \"I may claim,\nwithout any great arrogance, to know more of my country people in\ngeneral, and of my own friends in particular, than you do.  In the\nestimation of everybody whose opinion is worth having, my wife herself\nwould be the one sufficient justification of my marriage.  If I did not\nfeel certain--observe, I say certain--that I am offering her a position\nwhich she can accept without so much as the shadow of a humiliation--I\nwould never (cost me what it might) have asked her to be my wife.  Is\nthere any other obstacle that you see?  Have you any personal objection\nto me?\"\n\nObenreizer spread out both his hands in courteous protest.  \"Personal\nobjection!\" he exclaimed.  \"Dear sir, the bare question is painful to\nme.\"\n\n\"We are both men of business,\" pursued Vendale, \"and you naturally expect\nme to satisfy you that I have the means of supporting a wife.  I can\nexplain my pecuniary position in two words.  I inherit from my parents a\nfortune of twenty thousand pounds.  In half of that sum I have only a\nlife-interest, to which, if I die, leaving a widow, my widow succeeds.  If\nI die, leaving children, the money itself is divided among them, as they\ncome of age.  The other half of my fortune is at my own disposal, and is\ninvested in the wine-business.  I see my way to greatly improving that\nbusiness.  As it stands at present, I cannot state my return from my\ncapital embarked at more than twelve hundred a year.  Add the yearly\nvalue of my life-interest--and the total reaches a present annual income\nof fifteen hundred pounds.  I have the fairest prospect of soon making it\nmore.  In the meantime, do you object to me on pecuniary grounds?\"\n\nDriven back to his last entrenchment, Obenreizer rose, and took a turn\nbackwards and forwards in the room.  For the moment, he was plainly at a\nloss what to say or do next.\n\n\"Before I answer that last question,\" he said, after a little close\nconsideration with himself, \"I beg leave to revert for a moment to Miss\nMarguerite.  You said something just now which seemed to imply that she\nreturns the sentiment with which you are pleased to regard her?\"\n\n\"I have the inestimable happiness,\" said Vendale, \"of knowing that she\nloves me.\"\n\nObenreizer stood silent for a moment, with the film over his eyes, and\nthe faintly perceptible beat becoming visible again in his cheeks.\n\n\"If you will excuse me for a few minutes,\" he said, with ceremonious\npoliteness, \"I should like to have the opportunity of speaking to my\nniece.\"  With those words, he bowed, and quitted the room.\n\nLeft by himself, Vendale's thoughts (as a necessary result of the\ninterview, thus far) turned instinctively to the consideration of\nObenreizer's motives.  He had put obstacles in the way of the courtship;\nhe was now putting obstacles in the way of the marriage--a marriage\noffering advantages which even his ingenuity could not dispute.  On the\nface of it, his conduct was incomprehensible.  What did it mean?\n\nSeeking, under the surface, for the answer to that question--and\nremembering that Obenreizer was a man of about his own age; also, that\nMarguerite was, strictly speaking, his half-niece only--Vendale asked\nhimself, with a lover's ready jealousy, whether he had a rival to fear,\nas well as a guardian to conciliate.  The thought just crossed his mind,\nand no more.  The sense of Marguerite's kiss still lingering on his cheek\nreminded him gently that even the jealousy of a moment was now a treason\nto _her_.\n\nOn reflection, it seemed most likely that a personal motive of another\nkind might suggest the true explanation of Obenreizer's conduct.\nMarguerite's grace and beauty were precious ornaments in that little\nhousehold.  They gave it a special social attraction and a special social\nimportance.  They armed Obenreizer with a certain influence in reserve,\nwhich he could always depend upon to make his house attractive, and which\nhe might always bring more or less to bear on the forwarding of his own\nprivate ends.  Was he the sort of man to resign such advantages as were\nhere implied, without obtaining the fullest possible compensation for the\nloss?  A connection by marriage with Vendale offered him solid\nadvantages, beyond all doubt.  But there were hundreds of men in London\nwith far greater power and far wider influence than Vendale possessed.\nWas it possible that this man's ambition secretly looked higher than the\nhighest prospects that could be offered to him by the alliance now\nproposed for his niece?  As the question passed through Vendale's mind,\nthe man himself reappeared--to answer it, or not to answer it, as the\nevent might prove.\n\nA marked change was visible in Obenreizer when he resumed his place.  His\nmanner was less assured, and there were plain traces about his mouth of\nrecent agitation which had not been successfully composed.  Had he said\nsomething, referring either to Vendale or to himself, which had raised\nMarguerite's spirit, and which had placed him, for the first time, face\nto face with a resolute assertion of his niece's will?  It might or might\nnot be.  This only was certain--he looked like a man who had met with a\nrepulse.\n\n\"I have spoken to my niece,\" he began.  \"I find, Mr. Vendale, that even\nyour influence has not entirely blinded her to the social objections to\nyour proposal.\"\n\n\"May I ask,\" returned Vendale, \"if that is the only result of your\ninterview with Miss Obenreizer?\"\n\nA momentary flash leapt out through the Obenreizer film.\n\n\"You are master of the situation,\" he answered, in a tone of sardonic\nsubmission.  \"If you insist on my admitting it, I do admit it in those\nwords.  My niece's will and mine used to be one, Mr. Vendale.  You have\ncome between us, and her will is now yours.  In my country, we know when\nwe are beaten, and we submit with our best grace.  I submit, with my best\ngrace, on certain conditions.  Let us revert to the statement of your\npecuniary position.  I have an objection to you, my dear sir--a most\namazing, a most audacious objection, from a man in my position to a man\nin yours.\"\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"You have honoured me by making a proposal for my niece's hand.  For the\npresent (with best thanks and respects), I beg to decline it.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because you are not rich enough.\"\n\nThe objection, as the speaker had foreseen, took Vendale completely by\nsurprise.  For the moment he was speechless.\n\n\"Your income is fifteen hundred a year,\" pursued Obenreizer.  \"In my\nmiserable country I should fall on my knees before your income, and say,\n'What a princely fortune!'  In wealthy England, I sit as I am, and say,\n'A modest independence, dear sir; nothing more.  Enough, perhaps, for a\nwife in your own rank of life who has no social prejudices to conquer.\nNot more than half enough for a wife who is a meanly born foreigner, and\nwho has all your social prejudices against her.'  Sir! if my niece is\never to marry you, she will have what you call uphill work of it in\ntaking her place at starting.  Yes, yes; this is not your view, but it\nremains, immovably remains, my view for all that.  For my niece's sake, I\nclaim that this uphill work shall be made as smooth as possible.  Whatever\nmaterial advantages she can have to help her, ought, in common justice,\nto be hers.  Now, tell me, Mr. Vendale, on your fifteen hundred a year\ncan your wife have a house in a fashionable quarter, a footman to open\nher door, a butler to wait at her table, and a carriage and horses to\ndrive about in?  I see the answer in your face--your face says, No.  Very\ngood.  Tell me one more thing, and I have done.  Take the mass of your\neducated, accomplished, and lovely country-women, is it, or is it not,\nthe fact that a lady who has a house in a fashionable quarter, a footman\nto open her door, a butler to wait at her table, and a carriage and\nhorses to drive about in, is a lady who has gained four steps, in female\nestimation, at starting?  Yes? or No?\"\n\n\"Come to the point,\" said Vendale.  \"You view this question as a question\nof terms.  What are your terms?\"\n\n\"The lowest terms, dear sir, on which you can provide your wife with\nthose four steps at starting.  Double your present income--the most rigid\neconomy cannot do it in England on less.  You said just now that you\nexpected greatly to increase the value of your business.  To work--and\nincrease it!  I am a good devil after all!  On the day when you satisfy\nme, by plain proofs, that your income has risen to three thousand a year,\nask me for my niece's hand, and it is yours.\"\n\n\"May I inquire if you have mentioned this arrangement to Miss\nObenreizer?\"\n\n\"Certainly.  She has a last little morsel of regard still left for me,\nMr. Vendale, which is not yours yet; and she accepts my terms.  In other\nwords, she submits to be guided by her guardian's regard for her welfare,\nand by her guardian's superior knowledge of the world.\"  He threw himself\nback in his chair, in firm reliance on his position, and in full\npossession of his excellent temper.\n\nAny open assertion of his own interests, in the situation in which\nVendale was now placed, seemed to be (for the present at least) hopeless.\nHe found himself literally left with no ground to stand on.  Whether\nObenreizer's objections were the genuine product of Obenreizer's own view\nof the case, or whether he was simply delaying the marriage in the hope\nof ultimately breaking it off altogether--in either of these events, any\npresent resistance on Vendale's part would be equally useless.  There was\nno help for it but to yield, making the best terms that he could on his\nown side.\n\n\"I protest against the conditions you impose on me,\" he began.\n\n\"Naturally,\" said Obenreizer; \"I dare say I should protest, myself, in\nyour place.\"\n\n\"Say, however,\" pursued Vendale, \"that I accept your terms.  In that\ncase, I must be permitted to make two stipulations on my part.  In the\nfirst place, I shall expect to be allowed to see your niece.\"\n\n\"Aha! to see my niece? and to make her in as great a hurry to be married\nas you are yourself?  Suppose I say, No? you would see her perhaps\nwithout my permission?\"\n\n\"Decidedly!\"\n\n\"How delightfully frank!  How exquisitely English!  You shall see her,\nMr. Vendale, on certain days, which we will appoint together.  What\nnext?\"\n\n\"Your objection to my income,\" proceeded Vendale, \"has taken me\ncompletely by surprise.  I wish to be assured against any repetition of\nthat surprise.  Your present views of my qualification for marriage\nrequire me to have an income of three thousand a year.  Can I be certain,\nin the future, as your experience of England enlarges, that your estimate\nwill rise no higher?\"\n\n\"In plain English,\" said Obenreizer, \"you doubt my word?\"\n\n\"Do you purpose to take _my_ word for it when I inform you that I have\ndoubled my income?\" asked Vendale.  \"If my memory does not deceive me,\nyou stipulated, a minute since, for plain proofs?\"\n\n\"Well played, Mr. Vendale!  You combine the foreign quickness with the\nEnglish solidity.  Accept my best congratulations.  Accept, also, my\nwritten guarantee.\"\n\nHe rose; seated himself at a writing-desk at a side-table, wrote a few\nlines, and presented them to Vendale with a low bow.  The engagement was\nperfectly explicit, and was signed and dated with scrupulous care.\n\n\"Are you satisfied with your guarantee?\"\n\n\"I am satisfied.\"\n\n\"Charmed to hear it, I am sure.  We have had our little skirmish--we have\nreally been wonderfully clever on both sides.  For the present our\naffairs are settled.  I bear no malice.  You bear no malice.  Come, Mr.\nVendale, a good English shake hands.\"\n\nVendale gave his hand, a little bewildered by Obenreizer's sudden\ntransitions from one humour to another.\n\n\"When may I expect to see Miss Obenreizer again?\" he asked, as he rose to\ngo.\n\n\"Honour me with a visit to-morrow,\" said Obenreizer, \"and we will settle\nit then.  Do have a grog before you go!  No?  Well! well! we will reserve\nthe grog till you have your three thousand a year, and are ready to be\nmarried.  Aha!  When will that be?\"\n\n\"I made an estimate, some months since, of the capacities of my\nbusiness,\" said Vendale.  \"If that estimate is correct, I shall double my\npresent income--\"\n\n\"And be married!\" added Obenreizer.\n\n\"And be married,\" repeated Vendale, \"within a year from this time.  Good-\nnight.\"\n\n\n\nVENDALE MAKES MISCHIEF\n\n\nWhen Vendale entered his office the next morning, the dull commercial\nroutine at Cripple Corner met him with a new face.  Marguerite had an\ninterest in it now!  The whole machinery which Wilding's death had set in\nmotion, to realise the value of the business--the balancing of ledgers,\nthe estimating of debts, the taking of stock, and the rest of it--was now\ntransformed into machinery which indicated the chances for and against a\nspeedy marriage.  After looking over results, as presented by his\naccountant, and checking additions and subtractions, as rendered by the\nclerks, Vendale turned his attention to the stock-taking department next,\nand sent a message to the cellars, desiring to see the report.\n\nThe Cellarman's appearance, the moment he put his head in at the door of\nhis master's private room, suggested that something very extraordinary\nmust have happened that morning.  There was an approach to alacrity in\nJoey Ladle's movements!  There was something which actually simulated\ncheerfulness in Joey Ladle's face\n\n\"What's the matter?\" asked Vendale.  \"Anything wrong?\"\n\n\"I should wish to mention one thing,\" answered Joey.  \"Young Mr. Vendale,\nI have never set myself up for a prophet.\"\n\n\"Who ever said you did?\"\n\n\"No prophet, as far as I've heard I tell of that profession,\" proceeded\nJoey, \"ever lived principally underground.  No prophet, whatever else he\nmight take in at the pores, ever took in wine from morning to night, for\na number of years together.  When I said to young Master Wilding,\nrespecting his changing the name of the firm, that one of these days he\nmight find he'd changed the luck of the firm--did I put myself forward as\na prophet?  No, I didn't.  Has what I said to him come true?  Yes, it\nhas.  In the time of Pebbleson Nephew, Young Mr. Vendale, no such thing\nwas ever known as a mistake made in a consignment delivered at these\ndoors.  There's a mistake been made now.  Please to remark that it\nhappened before Miss Margaret came here.  For which reason it don't go\nagainst what I've said respecting Miss Margaret singing round the luck.\nRead that, sir,\" concluded Joey, pointing attention to a special passage\nin the report, with a forefinger which appeared to be in process of\ntaking in through the pores nothing more remarkable than dirt.  \"It's\nforeign to my nature to crow over the house I serve, but I feel it a kind\nof solemn duty to ask you to read that.\"\n\nVendale read as follows:--\"Note, respecting the Swiss champagne.  An\nirregularity has been discovered in the last consignment received from\nthe firm of Defresnier and Co.\"  Vendale stopped, and referred to a\nmemorandum-book by his side.  \"That was in Mr. Wilding's time,\" he said.\n\"The vintage was a particularly good one, and he took the whole of it.\nThe Swiss champagne has done very well, hasn't it?\"\n\n\"I don't say it's done badly,\" answered the Cellarman.  \"It may have got\nsick in our customers' bins, or it may have bust in our customers' hands.\nBut I don't say it's done badly with us.\"\n\nVendale resumed the reading of the note: \"We find the number of the cases\nto be quite correct by the books.  But six of them, which present a\nslight difference from the rest in the brand, have been opened, and have\nbeen found to contain a red wine instead of champagne.  The similarity in\nthe brands, we suppose, caused a mistake to be made in sending the\nconsignment from Neuchatel.  The error has not been found to extend\nbeyond six cases.\"\n\n\"Is that all!\" exclaimed Vendale, tossing the note away from him.\n\nJoey Ladle's eye followed the flying morsel of paper drearily.\n\n\"I'm glad to see you take it easy, sir,\" he said.  \"Whatever happens, it\nwill be always a comfort to you to remember that you took it easy at\nfirst.  Sometimes one mistake leads to another.  A man drops a bit of\norange-peel on the pavement by mistake, and another man treads on it by\nmistake, and there's a job at the hospital, and a party crippled for\nlife.  I'm glad you take it easy, sir.  In Pebbleson Nephew's time we\nshouldn't have taken it easy till we had seen the end of it.  Without\ndesiring to crow over the house, young Mr. Vendale, I wish you well\nthrough it.  No offence, sir,\" said the Cellarman, opening the door to go\nout, and looking in again ominously before he shut it.  \"I'm muddled and\nmolloncolly, I grant you.  But I'm an old servant of Pebbleson Nephew,\nand I wish you well through them six cases of red wine.\"\n\nLeft by himself, Vendale laughed, and took up his pen.  \"I may as well\nsend a line to Defresnier and Company,\" he thought, \"before I forget it.\"\nHe wrote at once in these terms:\n\n   \"Dear Sirs.  We are taking stock, and a trifling mistake has been\n   discovered in the last consignment of champagne sent by your house to\n   ours.  Six of the cases contain red wine--which we hereby return to\n   you.  The matter can easily be set right, either by your sending us\n   six cases of the champagne, if they can be produced, or, if not, by\n   your crediting us with the value of six cases on the amount last paid\n   (five hundred pounds) by our firm to yours.  Your faithful servants,\n\n   \"WILDING AND CO.\"\n\nThis letter despatched to the post, the subject dropped at once out of\nVendale's mind.  He had other and far more interesting matters to think\nof.  Later in the day he paid the visit to Obenreizer which had been\nagreed on between them.  Certain evenings in the week were set apart\nwhich he was privileged to spend with Marguerite--always, however, in the\npresence of a third person.  On this stipulation Obenreizer politely but\npositively insisted.  The one concession he made was to give Vendale his\nchoice of who the third person should be.  Confiding in past experience,\nhis choice fell unhesitatingly upon the excellent woman who mended\nObenreizer's stockings.  On hearing of the responsibility entrusted to\nher, Madame Dor's intellectual nature burst suddenly into a new stage of\ndevelopment.  She waited till Obenreizer's eye was off her--and then she\nlooked at Vendale, and dimly winked.\n\nThe time passed--the happy evenings with Marguerite came and went.  It\nwas the tenth morning since Vendale had written to the Swiss firm, when\nthe answer appeared, on his desk, with the other letters of the day:\n\n   \"Dear Sirs.  We beg to offer our excuses for the little mistake which\n   has happened.  At the same time, we regret to add that the statement\n   of our error, with which you have favoured us, has led to a very\n   unexpected discovery.  The affair is a most serious one for you and\n   for us.  The particulars are as follows:\n\n   \"Having no more champagne of the vintage last sent to you, we made\n   arrangements to credit your firm to the value of six cases, as\n   suggested by yourself.  On taking this step, certain forms observed in\n   our mode of doing business necessitated a reference to our bankers'\n   book, as well as to our ledger.  The result is a moral certainty that\n   no such remittance as you mention can have reached our house, and a\n   literal certainty that no such remittance has been paid to our account\n   at the bank.\n\n   \"It is needless, at this stage of the proceedings, to trouble you with\n   details.  The money has unquestionably been stolen in the course of\n   its transit from you to us.  Certain peculiarities which we observe,\n   relating to the manner in which the fraud has been perpetrated, lead\n   us to conclude that the thief may have calculated on being able to pay\n   the missing sum to our bankers, before an inevitable discovery\n   followed the annual striking of our balance.  This would not have\n   happened, in the usual course, for another three months.  During that\n   period, but for your letter, we might have remained perfectly\n   unconscious of the robbery that has been committed.\n\n   \"We mention this last circumstance, as it may help to show you that we\n   have to do, in this case, with no ordinary thief.  Thus far we have\n   not even a suspicion of who that thief is.  But we believe you will\n   assist us in making some advance towards discovery, by examining the\n   receipt (forged, of course) which has no doubt purported to come to\n   you from our house.  Be pleased to look and see whether it is a\n   receipt entirely in manuscript, or whether it is a numbered and\n   printed form which merely requires the filling in of the amount.  The\n   settlement of this apparently trivial question is, we assure you, a\n   matter of vital importance.  Anxiously awaiting your reply, we remain,\n   with high esteem and consideration,\n\n   \"DEFRESNIER & CIE.\"\n\nVendale had the letter on his desk, and waited a moment to steady his\nmind under the shock that had fallen on it.  At the time of all others\nwhen it was most important to him to increase the value of his business,\nthat business was threatened with a loss of five hundred pounds.  He\nthought of Marguerite, as he took the key from his pocket and opened the\niron chamber in the wall in which the books and papers of the firm were\nkept.\n\nHe was still in the chamber, searching for the forged receipt, when he\nwas startled by a voice speaking close behind him.\n\n\"A thousand pardons,\" said the voice; \"I am afraid I disturb you.\"\n\nHe turned, and found himself face to face with Marguerite's guardian.\n\n\"I have called,\" pursued Obenreizer, \"to know if I can be of any use.\nBusiness of my own takes me away for some days to Manchester and\nLiverpool.  Can I combine any business of yours with it?  I am entirely\nat your disposal, in the character of commercial traveller for the firm\nof Wilding and Co.\"\n\n\"Excuse me for one moment,\" said Vendale; \"I will speak to you directly.\"\nHe turned round again, and continued his search among the papers.  \"You\ncome at a time when friendly offers are more than usually precious to\nme,\" he resumed.  \"I have had very bad news this morning from Neuchatel.\"\n\n\"Bad news,\" exclaimed Obenreizer.  \"From Defresnier and Company?\"\n\n\"Yes.  A remittance we sent to them has been stolen.  I am threatened\nwith a loss of five hundred pounds.  What's that?\"\n\nTurning sharply, and looking into the room for the second time, Vendale\ndiscovered his envelope case overthrown on the floor, and Obenreizer on\nhis knees picking up the contents.\n\n\"All my awkwardness,\" said Obenreizer.  \"This dreadful news of yours\nstartled me; I stepped back--\"  He became too deeply interested in\ncollecting the scattered envelopes to finish the sentence.\n\n\"Don't trouble yourself,\" said Vendale.  \"The clerk will pick the things\nup.\"\n\n\"This dreadful news!\" repeated Obenreizer, persisting in collecting the\nenvelopes.  \"This dreadful news!\"\n\n\"If you will read the letter,\" said Vendale, \"you will find I have\nexaggerated nothing.  There it is, open on my desk.\"\n\nHe resumed his search, and in a moment more discovered the forged\nreceipt.  It was on the numbered and printed form, described by the Swiss\nfirm.  Vendale made a memorandum of the number and the date.  Having\nreplaced the receipt and locked up the iron chamber, he had leisure to\nnotice Obenreizer, reading the letter in the recess of a window at the\nfar end of the room.\n\n\"Come to the fire,\" said Vendale.  \"You look perished with the cold out\nthere.  I will ring for some more coals.\"\n\nObenreizer rose, and came slowly back to the desk.  \"Marguerite will be\nas sorry to hear of this as I am,\" he said, kindly.  \"What do you mean to\ndo?\"\n\n\"I am in the hands of Defresnier and Company,\" answered Vendale.  \"In my\ntotal ignorance of the circumstances, I can only do what they recommend.\nThe receipt which I have just found, turns out to be the numbered and\nprinted form.  They seem to attach some special importance to its\ndiscovery.  You have had experience, when you were in the Swiss house, of\ntheir way of doing business.  Can you guess what object they have in\nview?\"\n\nObenreizer offered a suggestion.\n\n\"Suppose I examine the receipt?\" he said.\n\n\"Are you ill?\" asked Vendale, startled by the change in his face, which\nnow showed itself plainly for the first time.  \"Pray go to the fire.  You\nseem to be shivering--I hope you are not going to be ill?\"\n\n\"Not I!\" said Obenreizer.  \"Perhaps I have caught cold.  Your English\nclimate might have spared an admirer of your English institutions.  Let\nme look at the receipt.\"\n\nVendale opened the iron chamber.  Obenreizer took a chair, and drew it\nclose to the fire.  He held both hands over the flames.  \"Let me look at\nthe receipt,\" he repeated, eagerly, as Vendale reappeared with the paper\nin his hand.  At the same moment a porter entered the room with a fresh\nsupply of coals.  Vendale told him to make a good fire.  The man obeyed\nthe order with a disastrous alacrity.  As he stepped forward and raised\nthe scuttle, his foot caught in a fold of the rug, and he discharged his\nentire cargo of coals into the grate.  The result was an instant\nsmothering of the flame, and the production of a stream of yellow smoke,\nwithout a visible morsel of fire to account for it.\n\n\"Imbecile!\" whispered Obenreizer to himself, with a look at the man which\nthe man remembered for many a long day afterwards.\n\n\"Will you come into the clerks' room?\" asked Vendale.  \"They have a stove\nthere.\"\n\n\"No, no.  No matter.\"\n\nVendale handed him the receipt.  Obenreizer's interest in examining it\nappeared to have been quenched as suddenly and as effectually as the fire\nitself.  He just glanced over the document, and said, \"No; I don't\nunderstand it!  I am sorry to be of no use.\"\n\n\"I will write to Neuchatel by to-night's post,\" said Vendale, putting\naway the receipt for the second time.  \"We must wait, and see what comes\nof it.\"\n\n\"By to-night's post,\" repeated Obenreizer.  \"Let me see.  You will get\nthe answer in eight or nine days' time.  I shall be back before that.  If\nI can be of any service, as commercial traveller, perhaps you will let me\nknow between this and then.  You will send me written instructions?  My\nbest thanks.  I shall be most anxious for your answer from Neuchatel.  Who\nknows?  It may be a mistake, my dear friend, after all.  Courage!\ncourage! courage!\"  He had entered the room with no appearance of being\npressed for time.  He now snatched up his hat, and took his leave with\nthe air of a man who had not another moment to lose.\n\nLeft by himself, Vendale took a turn thoughtfully in the room.\n\nHis previous impression of Obenreizer was shaken by what he had heard and\nseen at the interview which had just taken place.  He was disposed, for\nthe first time, to doubt whether, in this case, he had not been a little\nhasty and hard in his judgment on another man.  Obenreizer's surprise and\nregret, on hearing the news from Neuchatel, bore the plainest marks of\nbeing honestly felt--not politely assumed for the occasion.  With\ntroubles of his own to encounter, suffering, to all appearance, from the\nfirst insidious attack of a serious illness, he had looked and spoken\nlike a man who really deplored the disaster that had fallen on his\nfriend.  Hitherto Vendale had tried vainly to alter his first opinion of\nMarguerite's guardian, for Marguerite's sake.  All the generous instincts\nin his nature now combined together and shook the evidence which had\nseemed unanswerable up to this time.  \"Who knows?\" he thought.  \"I may\nhave read that man's face wrongly, after all.\"\n\nThe time passed--the happy evenings with Marguerite came and went.  It\nwas again the tenth morning since Vendale had written to the Swiss firm;\nand again the answer appeared on his desk with the other letters of the\nday:\n\n   \"Dear Sir.  My senior partner, M. Defresnier, has been called away, by\n   urgent business, to Milan.  In his absence (and with his full\n   concurrence and authority), I now write to you again on the subject of\n   the missing five hundred pounds.\n\n   \"Your discovery that the forged receipt is executed upon one of our\n   numbered and printed forms has caused inexpressible surprise and\n   distress to my partner and to myself.  At the time when your\n   remittance was stolen, but three keys were in existence opening the\n   strong-box in which our receipt-forms are invariably kept.  My partner\n   had one key; I had the other.  The third was in the possession of a\n   gentleman who, at that period, occupied a position of trust in our\n   house.  We should as soon have thought of suspecting one of ourselves\n   as of suspecting this person.  Suspicion now points at him,\n   nevertheless.  I cannot prevail on myself to inform you who the person\n   is, so long as there is the shadow of a chance that he may come\n   innocently out of the inquiry which must now be instituted.  Forgive\n   my silence; the motive of it is good.\n\n   \"The form our investigation must now take is simple enough.  The\n   handwriting of your receipt must be compared, by competent persons\n   whom we have at our disposal, with certain specimens of handwriting in\n   our possession.  I cannot send you the specimens for business reasons,\n   which, when you hear them, you are sure to approve.  I must beg you to\n   send me the receipt to Neuchatel--and, in making this request, I must\n   accompany it by a word of necessary warning.\n\n   \"If the person, at whom suspicion now points, really proves to be the\n   person who has committed this forger and theft, I have reason to fear\n   that circumstances may have already put him on his guard.  The only\n   evidence against him is the evidence in your hands, and he will move\n   heaven and earth to obtain and destroy it.  I strongly urge you not to\n   trust the receipt to the post.  Send it to me, without loss of time,\n   by a private hand, and choose nobody for your messenger but a person\n   long established in your own employment, accustomed to travelling,\n   capable of speaking French; a man of courage, a man of honesty, and,\n   above all things, a man who can be trusted to let no stranger scrape\n   acquaintance with him on the route.  Tell no one--absolutely no\n   one--but your messenger of the turn this matter has now taken.  The\n   safe transit of the receipt may depend on your interpreting\n   _literally_ the advice which I give you at the end of this letter.\n\n   \"I have only to add that every possible saving of time is now of the\n   last importance.  More than one of our receipt-forms is missing--and\n   it is impossible to say what new frauds may not be committed if we\n   fail to lay our hands on the thief.\n\n   Your faithful servant\n   ROLLAND,\n   (Signing for Defresnier and Cie.)\n\nWho was the suspected man?  In Vendale's position, it seemed useless to\ninquire.\n\nWho was to be sent to Neuchatel with the receipt?  Men of courage and men\nof honesty were to be had at Cripple Corner for the asking.  But where\nwas the man who was accustomed to foreign travelling, who could speak the\nFrench language, and who could be really relied on to let no stranger\nscrape acquaintance with him on his route?  There was but one man at hand\nwho combined all those requisites in his own person, and that man was\nVendale himself.\n\nIt was a sacrifice to leave his business; it was a greater sacrifice to\nleave Marguerite.  But a matter of five hundred pounds was involved in\nthe pending inquiry; and a literal interpretation of M. Rolland's advice\nwas insisted on in terms which there was no trifling with.  The more\nVendale thought of it, the more plainly the necessity faced him, and\nsaid, \"Go!\"\n\nAs he locked up the letter with the receipt, the association of ideas\nreminded him of Obenreizer.  A guess at the identity of the suspected man\nlooked more possible now.  Obenreizer might know.\n\nThe thought had barely passed through his mind, when the door opened, and\nObenreizer entered the room.\n\n\"They told me at Soho Square you were expected back last night,\" said\nVendale, greeting him.  \"Have you done well in the country?  Are you\nbetter?\"\n\nA thousand thanks.  Obenreizer had done admirably well; Obenreizer was\ninfinitely better.  And now, what news?  Any letter from Neuchatel?\n\n\"A very strange letter,\" answered Vendale.  \"The matter has taken a new\nturn, and the letter insists--without excepting anybody--on my keeping\nour next proceedings a profound secret.\"\n\n\"Without excepting anybody?\" repeated Obenreizer.  As he said the words,\nhe walked away again, thoughtfully, to the window at the other end of the\nroom, looked out for a moment, and suddenly came back to Vendale.  \"Surely\nthey must have forgotten?\" he resumed, \"or they would have excepted me?\"\n\n\"It is Monsieur Rolland who writes,\" said Vendale.  \"And, as you say, he\nmust certainly have forgotten.  That view of the matter quite escaped me.\nI was just wishing I had you to consult, when you came into the room.  And\nhere I am tried by a formal prohibition, which cannot possibly have been\nintended to include you.  How very annoying!\"\n\nObenreizer's filmy eyes fixed on Vendale attentively.\n\n\"Perhaps it is more than annoying!\" he said.  \"I came this morning not\nonly to hear the news, but to offer myself as messenger, negotiator--what\nyou will.  Would you believe it?  I have letters which oblige me to go to\nSwitzerland immediately.  Messages, documents, anything--I could have\ntaken them all to Defresnier and Rolland for you.\"\n\n\"You are the very man I wanted,\" returned Vendale.  \"I had decided, most\nunwillingly, on going to Neuchatel myself, not five minutes since,\nbecause I could find no one here capable of taking my place.  Let me look\nat the letter again.\"\n\nHe opened the strong room to get at the letter.  Obenreizer, after first\nglancing round him to make sure that they were alone, followed a step or\ntwo and waited, measuring Vendale with his eye.  Vendale was the tallest\nman, and unmistakably the strongest man also of the two.  Obenreizer\nturned away, and warmed himself at the fire.\n\nMeanwhile, Vendale read the last paragraph in the letter for the third\ntime.  There was the plain warning--there was the closing sentence, which\ninsisted on a literal interpretation of it.  The hand, which was leading\nVendale in the dark, led him on that condition only.  A large sum was at\nstake: a terrible suspicion remained to be verified.  If he acted on his\nown responsibility, and if anything happened to defeat the object in\nview, who would be blamed?  As a man of business, Vendale had but one\ncourse to follow.  He locked the letter up again.\n\n\"It is most annoying,\" he said to Obenreizer--\"it is a piece of\nforgetfulness on Monsieur Rolland's part which puts me to serious\ninconvenience, and places me in an absurdly false position towards you.\nWhat am I to do?  I am acting in a very serious matter, and acting\nentirely in the dark.  I have no choice but to be guided, not by the\nspirit, but by the letter of my instructions.  You understand me, I am\nsure?  You know, if I had not been fettered in this way, how gladly I\nshould have accepted your services?\"\n\n\"Say no more!\" returned Obenreizer.  \"In your place I should have done\nthe same.  My good friend, I take no offence.  I thank you for your\ncompliment.  We shall be travelling companions, at any rate,\" added\nObenreizer.  \"You go, as I go, at once?\"\n\n\"At once.  I must speak to Marguerite first, of course!\"\n\n\"Surely! surely!  Speak to her this evening.  Come, and pick me up on the\nway to the station.  We go together by the mail train to-night?\"\n\n\"By the mail train to-night.\"\n\n* * * * *\n\nIt was later than Vendale had anticipated when he drove up to the house\nin Soho Square.  Business difficulties, occasioned by his sudden\ndeparture, had presented themselves by dozens.  A cruelly large share of\nthe time which he had hoped to devote to Marguerite had been claimed by\nduties at his office which it was impossible to neglect.\n\nTo his surprise and delight, she was alone in the drawing-room when he\nentered it.\n\n\"We have only a few minutes, George,\" she said.  \"But Madame Dor has been\ngood to me--and we can have those few minutes alone.\"  She threw her arms\nround his neck, and whispered eagerly, \"Have you done anything to offend\nMr. Obenreizer?\"\n\n\"I!\" exclaimed Vendale, in amazement.\n\n\"Hush!\" she said, \"I want to whisper it.  You know the little photograph\nI have got of you.  This afternoon it happened to be on the\nchimney-piece.  He took it up and looked at it--and I saw his face in the\nglass.  I know you have offended him!  He is merciless; he is revengeful;\nhe is as secret as the grave.  Don't go with him, George--don't go with\nhim!\"\n\n\"My own love,\" returned Vendale, \"you are letting your fancy frighten\nyou!  Obenreizer and I were never better friends than we are at this\nmoment.\"\n\nBefore a word more could be said, the sudden movement of some ponderous\nbody shook the floor of the next room.  The shock was followed by the\nappearance of Madame Dor.  \"Obenreizer\" exclaimed this excellent person\nin a whisper, and plumped down instantly in her regular place by the\nstove.\n\nObenreizer came in with a courier's big strapped over his shoulder.  \"Are\nyou ready?\" he asked, addressing Vendale.  \"Can I take anything for you?\nYou have no travelling-bag.  I have got one.  Here is the compartment for\npapers, open at your service.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" said Vendale.  \"I have only one paper of importance with me;\nand that paper I am bound to take charge of myself.  Here it is,\" he\nadded, touching the breast-pocket of his coat, \"and here it must remain\ntill we get to Neuchatel.\"\n\nAs he said those words, Marguerite's hand caught his, and pressed it\nsignificantly.  She was looking towards Obenreizer.  Before Vendale could\nlook, in his turn, Obenreizer had wheeled round, and was taking leave of\nMadame Dor.\n\n\"Adieu, my charming niece!\" he said, turning to Marguerite next.  \"En\nroute, my friend, for Neuchatel!\"  He tapped Vendale lightly over the\nbreast-pocket of his coat and led the way to the door.\n\nVendale's last look was for Marguerite.  Marguerite's last words to him\nwere, \"Don't go!\"\n\n\n\n\nACT III.\n\n\nIN THE VALLEY\n\n\nIt was about the middle of the month of February when Vendale and\nObenreizer set forth on their expedition.  The winter being a hard one,\nthe time was bad for travellers.  So bad was it that these two\ntravellers, coming to Strasbourg, found its great inns almost empty.  And\neven the few people they did encounter in that city, who had started from\nEngland or from Paris on business journeys towards the interior of\nSwitzerland, were turning back.\n\nMany of the railroads in Switzerland that tourists pass easily enough\nnow, were almost or quite impracticable then.  Some were not begun; more\nwere not completed.  On such as were open, there were still large gaps of\nold road where communication in the winter season was often stopped; on\nothers, there were weak points where the new work was not safe, either\nunder conditions of severe frost, or of rapid thaw.  The running of\ntrains on this last class was not to be counted on in the worst time of\nthe year, was contingent upon weather, or was wholly abandoned through\nthe months considered the most dangerous.\n\nAt Strasbourg there were more travellers' stories afloat, respecting the\ndifficulties of the way further on, than there were travellers to relate\nthem.  Many of these tales were as wild as usual; but the more modestly\nmarvellous did derive some colour from the circumstance that people were\nindisputably turning back.  However, as the road to Basle was open,\nVendale's resolution to push on was in no wise disturbed.  Obenreizer's\nresolution was necessarily Vendale's, seeing that he stood at bay thus\ndesperately: He must be ruined, or must destroy the evidence that Vendale\ncarried about him, even if he destroyed Vendale with it.\n\nThe state of mind of each of these two fellow-travellers towards the\nother was this.  Obenreizer, encircled by impending ruin through\nVendale's quickness of action, and seeing the circle narrowed every hour\nby Vendale's energy, hated him with the animosity of a fierce cunning\nlower animal.  He had always had instinctive movements in his breast\nagainst him; perhaps, because of that old sore of gentleman and peasant;\nperhaps, because of the openness of his nature, perhaps, because of his\nbetter looks; perhaps, because of his success with Marguerite; perhaps,\non all those grounds, the two last not the least.  And now he saw in him,\nbesides, the hunter who was tracking him down.  Vendale, on the other\nhand, always contending generously against his first vague mistrust, now\nfelt bound to contend against it more than ever: reminding himself, \"He\nis Marguerite's guardian.  We are on perfectly friendly terms; he is my\ncompanion of his own proposal, and can have no interested motive in\nsharing this undesirable journey.\"  To which pleas in behalf of\nObenreizer, chance added one consideration more, when they came to Basle\nafter a journey of more than twice the average duration.\n\nThey had had a late dinner, and were alone in an inn room there,\noverhanging the Rhine: at that place rapid and deep, swollen and loud.\nVendale lounged upon a couch, and Obenreizer walked to and fro: now,\nstopping at the window, looking at the crooked reflection of the town\nlights in the dark water (and peradventure thinking, \"If I could fling\nhim into it!\"); now, resuming his walk with his eyes upon the floor.\n\n\"Where shall I rob him, if I can?  Where shall I murder him, if I must?\"\nSo, as he paced the room, ran the river, ran the river, ran the river.\n\nThe burden seemed to him, at last, to be growing so plain, that he\nstopped; thinking it as well to suggest another burden to his companion.\n\n\"The Rhine sounds to-night,\" he said with a smile, \"like the old\nwaterfall at home.  That waterfall which my mother showed to travellers\n(I told you of it once).  The sound of it changed with the weather, as\ndoes the sound of all falling waters and flowing waters.  When I was\npupil of the watchmaker, I remembered it as sometimes saying to me for\nwhole days, 'Who are you, my little wretch?  Who are you, my little\nwretch?'  I remembered it as saying, other times, when its sound was\nhollow, and storm was coming up the Pass: 'Boom, boom, boom.  Beat him,\nbeat him, beat him.'  Like my mother enraged--if she was my mother.\"\n\n\"If she was?\" said Vendale, gradually changing his attitude to a sitting\none.  \"If she was?  Why do you say 'if'?\"\n\n\"What do I know?\" replied the other negligently, throwing up his hands\nand letting them fall as they would.  \"What would you have?  I am so\nobscurely born, that how can I say?  I was very young, and all the rest\nof the family were men and women, and my so-called parents were old.\nAnything is possible of a case like that.\"\n\n\"Did you ever doubt--\"\n\n\"I told you once, I doubt the marriage of those two,\" he replied,\nthrowing up his hands again, as if he were throwing the unprofitable\nsubject away.  \"But here I am in Creation.  _I_ come of no fine family.\nWhat does it matter?\"\n\n\"At least you are Swiss,\" said Vendale, after following him with his eyes\nto and fro.\n\n\"How do I know?\" he retorted abruptly, and stopping to look back over his\nshoulder.  \"I say to you, at least you are English.  How do you know?\"\n\n\"By what I have been told from infancy.\"\n\n\"Ah!  I know of myself that way.\"\n\n\"And,\" added Vendale, pursuing the thought that he could not drive back,\n\"by my earliest recollections.\"\n\n\"I also.  I know of myself that way--if that way satisfies.\"\n\n\"Does it not satisfy you?\"\n\n\"It must.  There is nothing like 'it must' in this little world.  It\nmust.  Two short words those, but stronger than long proof or reasoning.\"\n\n\"You and poor Wilding were born in the same year.  You were nearly of an\nage,\" said Vendale, again thoughtfully looking after him as he resumed\nhis pacing up and down.\n\n\"Yes.  Very nearly.\"\n\nCould Obenreizer be the missing man?  In the unknown associations of\nthings, was there a subtler meaning than he himself thought, in that\ntheory so often on his lips about the smallness of the world?  Had the\nSwiss letter presenting him followed so close on Mrs. Goldstraw's\nrevelation concerning the infant who had been taken away to Switzerland,\nbecause he was that infant grown a man?  In a world where so many depths\nlie unsounded, it might be.  The chances, or the laws--call them\neither--that had wrought out the revival of Vendale's own acquaintance\nwith Obenreizer, and had ripened it into intimacy, and had brought them\nhere together this present winter night, were hardly less curious; while\nread by such a light, they were seen to cohere towards the furtherance of\na continuous and an intelligible purpose.\n\nVendale's awakened thoughts ran high while his eyes musingly followed\nObenreizer pacing up and down the room, the river ever running to the\ntune: \"Where shall I rob him, if I can?  Where shall I murder him, if I\nmust?\"  The secret of his dead friend was in no hazard from Vendale's\nlips; but just as his friend had died of its weight, so did he in his\nlighter succession feel the burden of the trust, and the obligation to\nfollow any clue, however obscure.  He rapidly asked himself, would he\nlike this man to be the real Wilding?  No.  Argue down his mistrust as he\nmight, he was unwilling to put such a substitute in the place of his late\nguileless, outspoken childlike partner.  He rapidly asked himself, would\nhe like this man to be rich?  No.  He had more power than enough over\nMarguerite as it was, and wealth might invest him with more.  Would he\nlike this man to be Marguerite's Guardian, and yet proved to stand in no\ndegree of relationship towards her, however disconnected and distant?  No.\nBut these were not considerations to come between him and fidelity to the\ndead.  Let him see to it that they passed him with no other notice than\nthe knowledge that they _had_ passed him, and left him bent on the\ndischarge of a solemn duty.  And he did see to it, so soon that he\nfollowed his companion with ungrudging eyes, while he still paced the\nroom; that companion, whom he supposed to be moodily reflecting on his\nown birth, and not on another man's--least of all what man's--violent\nDeath.\n\nThe road in advance from Basle to Neuchatel was better than had been\nrepresented.  The latest weather had done it good.  Drivers, both of\nhorses and mules, had come in that evening after dark, and had reported\nnothing more difficult to be overcome than trials of patience, harness,\nwheels, axles, and whipcord.  A bargain was soon struck for a carriage\nand horses, to take them on in the morning, and to start before daylight.\n\n\"Do you lock your door at night when travelling?\" asked Obenreizer,\nstanding warming his hands by the wood fire in Vendale's chamber, before\ngoing to his own.\n\n\"Not I.  I sleep too soundly.\"\n\n\"You are so sound a sleeper?\" he retorted, with an admiring look.  \"What\na blessing!\"\n\n\"Anything but a blessing to the rest of the house,\" rejoined Vendale, \"if\nI had to be knocked up in the morning from the outside of my bedroom\ndoor.\"\n\n\"I, too,\" said Obenreizer, \"leave open my room.  But let me advise you,\nas a Swiss who knows: always, when you travel in my country, put your\npapers--and, of course, your money--under your pillow.  Always the same\nplace.\"\n\n\"You are not complimentary to your countrymen,\" laughed Vendale.\n\n\"My countrymen,\" said Obenreizer, with that light touch of his friend's\nelbows by way of Good-Night and benediction, \"I suppose are like the\nmajority of men.  And the majority of men will take what they can get.\nAdieu!  At four in the morning.\"\n\n\"Adieu!  At four.\"\n\nLeft to himself, Vendale raked the logs together, sprinkled over them the\nwhite wood-ashes lying on the hearth, and sat down to compose his\nthoughts.  But they still ran high on their latest theme, and the running\nof the river tended to agitate rather than to quiet them.  As he sat\nthinking, what little disposition he had had to sleep departed.  He felt\nit hopeless to lie down yet, and sat dressed by the fire.  Marguerite,\nWilding, Obenreizer, the business he was then upon, and a thousand hopes\nand doubts that had nothing to do with it, occupied his mind at once.\nEverything seemed to have power over him but slumber.  The departed\ndisposition to sleep kept far away.\n\nHe had sat for a long time thinking, on the hearth, when his candle\nburned down and its light went out.  It was of little moment; there was\nlight enough in the fire.  He changed his attitude, and, leaning his arm\non the chair-back, and his chin upon that hand, sat thinking still.\n\nBut he sat between the fire and the bed, and, as the fire flickered in\nthe play of air from the fast-flowing river, his enlarged shadow\nfluttered on the white wall by the bedside.  His attitude gave it an air,\nhalf of mourning and half of bending over the bed imploring.  His eyes\nwere observant of it, when he became troubled by the disagreeable fancy\nthat it was like Wilding's shadow, and not his own.\n\nA slight change of place would cause it to disappear.  He made the\nchange, and the apparition of his disturbed fancy vanished.  He now sat\nin the shade of a little nook beside the fire, and the door of the room\nwas before him.\n\nIt had a long cumbrous iron latch.  He saw the latch slowly and softly\nrise.  The door opened a very little, and came to again, as though only\nthe air had moved it.  But he saw that the latch was out of the hasp.\n\nThe door opened again very slowly, until it opened wide enough to admit\nsome one.  It afterwards remained still for a while, as though cautiously\nheld open on the other side.  The figure of a man then entered, with its\nface turned towards the bed, and stood quiet just within the door.  Until\nit said, in a low half-whisper, at the same time taking one stop forward:\n\"Vendale!\"\n\n\"What now?\" he answered, springing from his seat; \"who is it?\"\n\nIt was Obenreizer, and he uttered a cry of surprise as Vendale came upon\nhim from that unexpected direction.  \"Not in bed?\" he said, catching him\nby both shoulders with an instinctive tendency to a struggle.  \"Then\nsomething _is_ wrong!\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" said Vendale, releasing himself.\n\n\"First tell me; you are not ill?\"\n\n\"Ill?  No.\"\n\n\"I have had a bad dream about you.  How is it that I see you up and\ndressed?\"\n\n\"My good fellow, I may as well ask you how it is that I see _you_ up and\nundressed?\"\n\n\"I have told you why.  I have had a bad dream about you.  I tried to rest\nafter it, but it was impossible.  I could not make up my mind to stay\nwhere I was without knowing you were safe; and yet I could not make up my\nmind to come in here.  I have been minutes hesitating at the door.  It is\nso easy to laugh at a dream that you have not dreamed.  Where is your\ncandle?\"\n\n\"Burnt out.\"\n\n\"I have a whole one in my room.  Shall I fetch it?\"\n\n\"Do so.\"\n\nHis room was very near, and he was absent for but a few seconds.  Coming\nback with the candle in his hand, he kneeled down on the hearth and\nlighted it.  As he blew with his breath a charred billet into flame for\nthe purpose, Vendale, looking down at him, saw that his lips were white\nand not easy of control.\n\n\"Yes!\" said Obenreizer, setting the lighted candle on the table, \"it was\na bad dream.  Only look at me!\"\n\nHis feet were bare; his red-flannel shirt was thrown back at the throat,\nand its sleeves were rolled above the elbows; his only other garment, a\npair of under pantaloons or drawers, reaching to the ankles, fitted him\nclose and tight.  A certain lithe and savage appearance was on his\nfigure, and his eyes were very bright.\n\n\"If there had been a wrestle with a robber, as I dreamed,\" said\nObenreizer, \"you see, I was stripped for it.\"\n\n\"And armed too,\" said Vendale, glancing at his girdle.\n\n\"A traveller's dagger, that I always carry on the road,\" he answered\ncarelessly, half drawing it from its sheath with his left hand, and\nputting it back again.  \"Do you carry no such thing?\"\n\n\"Nothing of the kind.\"\n\n\"No pistols?\" said Obenreizer, glancing at the table, and from it to the\nuntouched pillow.\n\n\"Nothing of the sort.\"\n\n\"You Englishmen are so confident!  You wish to sleep?\"\n\n\"I have wished to sleep this long time, but I can't do it.\"\n\n\"I neither, after the bad dream.  My fire has gone the way of your\ncandle.  May I come and sit by yours?  Two o'clock!  It will so soon be\nfour, that it is not worth the trouble to go to bed again.\"\n\n\"I shall not take the trouble to go to bed at all, now,\" said Vendale;\n\"sit here and keep me company, and welcome.\"\n\nGoing back to his room to arrange his dress, Obenreizer soon returned in\na loose cloak and slippers, and they sat down on opposite sides of the\nhearth.  In the interval Vendale had replenished the fire from the wood-\nbasket in his room, and Obenreizer had put upon the table a flask and cup\nfrom his.\n\n\"Common cabaret brandy, I am afraid,\" he said, pouring out; \"bought upon\nthe road, and not like yours from Cripple Corner.  But yours is\nexhausted; so much the worse.  A cold night, a cold time of night, a cold\ncountry, and a cold house.  This may be better than nothing; try it.\"\n\nVendale took the cup, and did so.\n\n\"How do you find it?\"\n\n\"It has a coarse after-flavour,\" said Vendale, giving back the cup with a\nslight shudder, \"and I don't like it.\"\n\n\"You are right,\" said Obenreizer, tasting, and smacking his lips; \"it\n_has_ a coarse after-flavour, and _I_ don't like it.  Booh!  It burns,\nthough!\"  He had flung what remained in the cup upon the fire.\n\nEach of them leaned an elbow on the table, reclined his head upon his\nhand, and sat looking at the flaring logs.  Obenreizer remained watchful\nand still; but Vendale, after certain nervous twitches and starts, in one\nof which he rose to his feet and looked wildly about him, fell into the\nstrangest confusion of dreams.  He carried his papers in a leather case\nor pocket-book, in an inner breast-pocket of his buttoned\ntravelling-coat; and whatever he dreamed of, in the lethargy that got\npossession of him, something importunate in those papers called him out\nof that dream, though he could not wake from it.  He was berated on the\nsteppes of Russia (some shadowy person gave that name to the place) with\nMarguerite; and yet the sensation of a hand at his breast, softly feeling\nthe outline of the packet-book as he lay asleep before the fire, was\npresent to him.  He was ship-wrecked in an open boat at sea, and having\nlost his clothes, had no other covering than an old sail; and yet a\ncreeping hand, tracing outside all the other pockets of the dress he\nactually wore, for papers, and finding none answer its touch, warned him\nto rouse himself.  He was in the ancient vault at Cripple Corner, to\nwhich was transferred the very bed substantial and present in that very\nroom at Basle; and Wilding (not dead, as he had supposed, and yet he did\nnot wonder much) shook him, and whispered, \"Look at that man!  Don't you\nsee he has risen, and is turning the pillow?  Why should he turn the\npillow, if not to seek those papers that are in your breast?  Awake!\"  And\nyet he slept, and wandered off into other dreams.\n\nWatchful and still, with his elbow on the table, and his head upon that\nhand, his companion at length said: \"Vendale!  We are called.  Past\nFour!\"  Then, opening his eyes, he saw, turned sideways on him, the filmy\nface of Obenreizer.\n\n\"You have been in a heavy sleep,\" he said.  \"The fatigue of constant\ntravelling and the cold!\"\n\n\"I am broad awake now,\" cried Vendale, springing up, but with an unsteady\nfooting.  \"Haven't you slept at all?\"\n\n\"I may have dozed, but I seem to have been patiently looking at the fire.\nWhether or no, we must wash, and breakfast, and turn out.  Past four,\nVendale; past four!\"\n\nIt was said in a tone to rouse him, for already he was half asleep again.\nIn his preparation for the day, too, and at his breakfast, he was often\nvirtually asleep while in mechanical action.  It was not until the cold\ndark day was closing in, that he had any distincter impressions of the\nride than jingling bells, bitter weather, slipping horses, frowning hill-\nsides, bleak woods, and a stoppage at some wayside house of\nentertainment, where they had passed through a cow-house to reach the\ntravellers' room above.  He had been conscious of little more, except of\nObenreizer sitting thoughtful at his side all day, and eyeing him much.\n\nBut when he shook off his stupor, Obenreizer was not at his side.  The\ncarriage was stopping to bait at another wayside house; and a line of\nlong narrow carts, laden with casks of wine, and drawn by horses with a\nquantity of blue collar and head-gear, were baiting too.  These came from\nthe direction in which the travellers were going, and Obenreizer (not\nthoughtful now, but cheerful and alert) was talking with the foremost\ndriver.  As Vendale stretched his limbs, circulated his blood, and\ncleared off the lees of his lethargy, with a sharp run to and fro in the\nbracing air, the line of carts moved on: the drivers all saluting\nObenreizer as they passed him.\n\n\"Who are those?\" asked Vendale.\n\n\"They are our carriers--Defresnier and Company's,\" replied Obenreizer.\n\"Those are our casks of wine.\"  He was singing to himself, and lighting a\ncigar.\n\n\"I have been drearily dull company to-day,\" said Vendale.  \"I don't know\nwhat has been the matter with me.\"\n\n\"You had no sleep last night; and a kind of brain-congestion frequently\ncomes, at first, of such cold,\" said Obenreizer.  \"I have seen it often.\nAfter all, we shall have our journey for nothing, it seems.\"\n\n\"How for nothing?\"\n\n\"The House is at Milan.  You know, we are a Wine House at Neuchatel, and\na Silk House at Milan?  Well, Silk happening to press of a sudden, more\nthan Wine, Defresnier was summoned to Milan.  Rolland, the other partner,\nhas been taken ill since his departure, and the doctors will allow him to\nsee no one.  A letter awaits you at Neuchatel to tell you so.  I have it\nfrom our chief carrier whom you saw me talking with.  He was surprised to\nsee me, and said he had that word for you if he met you.  What do you do?\nGo back?\"\n\n\"Go on,\" said Vendale.\n\n\"On?\"\n\n\"On?  Yes.  Across the Alps, and down to Milan.\"\n\nObenreizer stopped in his smoking to look at Vendale, and then smoked\nheavily, looked up the road, looked down the road, looked down at the\nstones in the road at his feet.\n\n\"I have a very serious matter in charge,\" said Vendale; \"more of these\nmissing forms may be turned to as bad account, or worse: I am urged to\nlose no time in helping the House to take the thief; and nothing shall\nturn me back.\"\n\n\"No?\" cried Obenreizer, taking out his cigar to smile, and giving his\nhand to his fellow-traveller.  \"Then nothing shall turn _me_ back.  Ho,\ndriver!  Despatch.  Quick there!  Let us push on!\"\n\nThey travelled through the night.  There had been snow, and there was a\npartial thaw, and they mostly travelled at a foot-pace, and always with\nmany stoppages to breathe the splashed and floundering horses.  After an\nhour's broad daylight, they drew rein at the inn-door at Neuchatel,\nhaving been some eight-and-twenty hours in conquering some eighty English\nmiles.\n\nWhen they had hurriedly refreshed and changed, they went together to the\nhouse of business of Defresnier and Company.  There they found the letter\nwhich the wine-carrier had described, enclosing the tests and comparisons\nof handwriting essential to the discovery of the Forger.  Vendale's\ndetermination to press forward, without resting, being already taken, the\nonly question to delay them was by what Pass could they cross the Alps?\nRespecting the state of the two Passes of the St. Gotthard and the\nSimplon, the guides and mule-drivers differed greatly; and both passes\nwere still far enough off, to prevent the travellers from having the\nbenefit of any recent experience of either.  Besides which, they well\nknew that a fall of snow might altogether change the described conditions\nin a single hour, even if they were correctly stated.  But, on the whole,\nthe Simplon appearing to be the hopefuller route, Vendale decided to take\nit.  Obenreizer bore little or no part in the discussion, and scarcely\nspoke.\n\nTo Geneva, to Lausanne, along the level margin of the lake to Vevay, so\ninto the winding valley between the spurs of the mountains, and into the\nvalley of the Rhone.  The sound of the carriage-wheels, as they rattled\non, through the day, through the night, became as the wheels of a great\nclock, recording the hours.  No change of weather varied the journey,\nafter it had hardened into a sullen frost.  In a sombre-yellow sky, they\nsaw the Alpine ranges; and they saw enough of snow on nearer and much\nlower hill-tops and hill-sides, to sully, by contrast, the purity of\nlake, torrent, and waterfall, and make the villages look discoloured and\ndirty.  But no snow fell, nor was there any snow-drift on the road.  The\nstalking along the valley of more or less of white mist, changing on\ntheir hair and dress into icicles, was the only variety between them and\nthe gloomy sky.  And still by day, and still by night, the wheels.  And\nstill they rolled, in the hearing of one of them, to the burden, altered\nfrom the burden of the Rhine: \"The time is gone for robbing him alive,\nand I must murder him.\"\n\nThey came, at length, to the poor little town of Brieg, at the foot of\nthe Simplon.  They came there after dark, but yet could see how dwarfed\nmen's works and men became with the immense mountains towering over them.\nHere they must lie for the night; and here was warmth of fire, and lamp,\nand dinner, and wine, and after-conference resounding, with guides and\ndrivers.  No human creature had come across the Pass for four days.  The\nsnow above the snow-line was too soft for wheeled carriage, and not hard\nenough for sledge.  There was snow in the sky.  There had been snow in\nthe sky for days past, and the marvel was that it had not fallen, and the\ncertainty was that it must fall.  No vehicle could cross.  The journey\nmight be tried on mules, or it might be tried on foot; but the best\nguides must be paid danger-price in either case, and that, too, whether\nthey succeeded in taking the two travellers across, or turned for safety\nand brought them back.\n\nIn this discussion, Obenreizer bore no part whatever.  He sat silently\nsmoking by the fire until the room was cleared and Vendale referred to\nhim.\n\n\"Bah!  I am weary of these poor devils and their trade,\" he said, in\nreply.  \"Always the same story.  It is the story of their trade to-day,\nas it was the story of their trade when I was a ragged boy.  What do you\nand I want?  We want a knapsack each, and a mountain-staff each.  We want\nno guide; we should guide him; he would not guide us.  We leave our\nportmanteaus here, and we cross together.  We have been on the mountains\ntogether before now, and I am mountain-born, and I know this\nPass--Pass!--rather High Road!--by heart.  We will leave these poor\ndevils, in pity, to trade with others; but they must not delay us to make\na pretence of earning money.  Which is all they mean.\"\n\nVendale, glad to be quit of the dispute, and to cut the knot: active,\nadventurous, bent on getting forward, and therefore very susceptible to\nthe last hint: readily assented.  Within two hours, they had purchased\nwhat they wanted for the expedition, had packed their knapsacks, and lay\ndown to sleep.\n\nAt break of day, they found half the town collected in the narrow street\nto see them depart.  The people talked together in groups; the guides and\ndrivers whispered apart, and looked up at the sky; no one wished them a\ngood journey.\n\nAs they began the ascent, a gleam of sun shone from the otherwise\nunaltered sky, and for a moment turned the tin spires of the town to\nsilver.\n\n\"A good omen!\" said Vendale (though it died out while he spoke).  \"Perhaps\nour example will open the Pass on this side.\"\n\n\"No; we shall not be followed,\" returned Obenreizer, looking up at the\nsky and back at the valley.  \"We shall be alone up yonder.\"\n\n\n\nON THE MOUNTAIN\n\n\nThe road was fair enough for stout walkers, and the air grew lighter and\neasier to breathe as the two ascended.  But the settled gloom remained as\nit had remained for days back.  Nature seemed to have come to a pause.\nThe sense of hearing, no less than the sense of sight, was troubled by\nhaving to wait so long for the change, whatever it might be, that\nimpended.  The silence was as palpable and heavy as the lowering\nclouds--or rather cloud, for there seemed to be but one in all the sky,\nand that one covering the whole of it.\n\nAlthough the light was thus dismally shrouded, the prospect was not\nobscured.  Down in the valley of the Rhone behind them, the stream could\nbe traced through all its many windings, oppressively sombre and solemn\nin its one leaden hue, a colourless waste.  Far and high above them,\nglaciers and suspended avalanches overhung the spots where they must\npass, by-and-by; deep and dark below them on their right, were awful\nprecipice and roaring torrent; tremendous mountains arose in every vista.\nThe gigantic landscape, uncheered by a touch of changing light or a\nsolitary ray of sun, was yet terribly distinct in its ferocity.  The\nhearts of two lonely men might shrink a little, if they had to win their\nway for miles and hours among a legion of silent and motionless men--mere\nmen like themselves--all looking at them with fixed and frowning front.\nBut how much more, when the legion is of Nature's mightiest works, and\nthe frown may turn to fury in an instant!\n\nAs they ascended, the road became gradually more rugged and difficult.\nBut the spirits of Vendale rose as they mounted higher, leaving so much\nmore of the road behind them conquered.  Obenreizer spoke little, and\nheld on with a determined purpose.  Both, in respect of agility and\nendurance, were well qualified for the expedition.  Whatever the born\nmountaineer read in the weather-tokens that was illegible to the other,\nhe kept to himself.\n\n\"Shall we get across to-day?\" asked Vendale.\n\n\"No,\" replied the other.  \"You see how much deeper the snow lies here\nthan it lay half a league lower.  The higher we mount the deeper the snow\nwill lie.  Walking is half wading even now.  And the days are so short!\nIf we get as high as the fifth Refuge, and lie to-night at the Hospice,\nwe shall do well.\"\n\n\"Is there no danger of the weather rising in the night,\" asked Vendale,\nanxiously, \"and snowing us up?\"\n\n\"There is danger enough about us,\" said Obenreizer, with a cautious\nglance onward and upward, \"to render silence our best policy.  You have\nheard of the Bridge of the Ganther?\"\n\n\"I have crossed it once.\"\n\n\"In the summer?\"\n\n\"Yes; in the travelling season.\"\n\n\"Yes; but it is another thing at this season;\" with a sneer, as though he\nwere out of temper.  \"This is not a time of year, or a state of things,\non an Alpine Pass, that you gentlemen holiday-travellers know much\nabout.\"\n\n\"You are my Guide,\" said Vendale, good humouredly.  \"I trust to you.\"\n\n\"I am your Guide,\" said Obenreizer, \"and I will guide you to your\njourney's end.  There is the Bridge before us.\"\n\nThey had made a turn into a desolate and dismal ravine, where the snow\nlay deep below them, deep above them, deep on every side.  While\nspeaking, Obenreizer stood pointing at the Bridge, and observing\nVendale's face, with a very singular expression on his own.\n\n\"If I, as Guide, had sent you over there, in advance, and encouraged you\nto give a shout or two, you might have brought down upon yourself tons\nand tons and tons of snow, that would not only have struck you dead, but\nburied you deep, at a blow.\"\n\n\"No doubt,\" said Vendale.\n\n\"No doubt.  But that is not what I have to do, as Guide.  So pass\nsilently.  Or, going as we go, our indiscretion might else crush and bury\n_me_.  Let us get on!\"\n\nThere was a great accumulation of snow on the Bridge; and such enormous\naccumulations of snow overhung them from protecting masses of rock, that\nthey might have been making their way through a stormy sky of white\nclouds.  Using his staff skilfully, sounding as he went, and looking\nupward, with bent shoulders, as it were to resist the mere idea of a fall\nfrom above, Obenreizer softly led.  Vendale closely followed.  They were\nyet in the midst of their dangerous way, when there came a mighty rush,\nfollowed by a sound as of thunder.  Obenreizer clapped his hand on\nVendale's mouth and pointed to the track behind them.  Its aspect had\nbeen wholly changed in a moment.  An avalanche had swept over it, and\nplunged into the torrent at the bottom of the gulf below.\n\nTheir appearance at the solitary Inn not far beyond this terrible Bridge,\nelicited many expressions of astonishment from the people shut up in the\nhouse.  \"We stay but to rest,\" said Obenreizer, shaking the snow from his\ndress at the fire.  \"This gentleman has very pressing occasion to get\nacross; tell them, Vendale.\"\n\n\"Assuredly, I have very pressing occasion.  I must cross.\"\n\n\"You hear, all of you.  My friend has very pressing occasion to get\nacross, and we want no advice and no help.  I am as good a guide, my\nfellow-countrymen, as any of you.  Now, give us to eat and drink.\"\n\nIn exactly the same way, and in nearly the same words, when it was coming\non dark and they had struggled through the greatly increased difficulties\nof the road, and had at last reached their destination for the night,\nObenreizer said to the astonished people of the Hospice, gathering about\nthem at the fire, while they were yet in the act of getting their wet\nshoes off, and shaking the snow from their clothes:\n\n\"It is well to understand one another, friends all.  This gentleman--\"\n\n\"--Has,\" said Vendale, readily taking him up with a smile, \"very pressing\noccasion to get across.  Must cross.\"\n\n\"You hear?--has very pressing occasion to get across, must cross.  We\nwant no advice and no help.  I am mountain-born, and act as Guide.  Do\nnot worry us by talking about it, but let us have supper, and wine, and\nbed.\"\n\nAll through the intense cold of the night, the same awful stillness.\nAgain at sunrise, no sunny tinge to gild or redden the snow.  The same\ninterminable waste of deathly white; the same immovable air; the same\nmonotonous gloom in the sky.\n\n\"Travellers!\" a friendly voice called to them from the door, after they\nwere afoot, knapsack on back and staff in hand, as yesterday; \"recollect!\nThere are five places of shelter, near together, on the dangerous road\nbefore you; and there is the wooden cross, and there is the next Hospice.\nDo not stray from the track.  If the _Tourmente_ comes on, take shelter\ninstantly!\"\n\n\"The trade of these poor devils!\" said Obenreizer to his friend, with a\ncontemptuous backward wave of his hand towards the voice.  \"How they\nstick to their trade!  You Englishmen say we Swiss are mercenary.  Truly,\nit does look like it.\"\n\nThey had divided between the two knapsacks such refreshments as they had\nbeen able to obtain that morning, and as they deemed it prudent to take.\nObenreizer carried the wine as his share of the burden; Vendale, the\nbread and meat and cheese, and the flask of brandy.\n\nThey had for some time laboured upward and onward through the snow--which\nwas now above their knees in the track, and of unknown depth\nelsewhere--and they were still labouring upward and onward through the\nmost frightful part of that tremendous desolation, when snow begin to\nfall.  At first, but a few flakes descended slowly and steadily.  After a\nlittle while the fall grew much denser, and suddenly it began without\napparent cause to whirl itself into spiral shapes.  Instantly ensuing\nupon this last change, an icy blast came roaring at them, and every sound\nand force imprisoned until now was let loose.\n\nOne of the dismal galleries through which the road is carried at that\nperilous point, a cave eked out by arches of great strength, was near at\nhand.  They struggled into it, and the storm raged wildly.  The noise of\nthe wind, the noise of the water, the thundering down of displaced masses\nof rock and snow, the awful voices with which not only that gorge but\nevery gorge in the whole monstrous range seemed to be suddenly endowed,\nthe darkness as of night, the violent revolving of the snow which beat\nand broke it into spray and blinded them, the madness of everything\naround insatiate for destruction, the rapid substitution of furious\nviolence for unnatural calm, and hosts of appalling sounds for silence:\nthese were things, on the edge of a deep abyss, to chill the blood,\nthough the fierce wind, made actually solid by ice and snow, had failed\nto chill it.\n\nObenreizer, walking to and fro in the gallery without ceasing, signed to\nVendale to help him unbuckle his knapsack.  They could see each other,\nbut could not have heard each other speak.  Vendale complying, Obenreizer\nproduced his bottle of wine, and poured some out, motioning Vendale to\ntake that for warmth's sake, and not brandy.  Vendale again complying,\nObenreizer seemed to drink after him, and the two walked backwards and\nforwards side by side; both well knowing that to rest or sleep would be\nto die.\n\nThe snow came driving heavily into the gallery by the upper end at which\nthey would pass out of it, if they ever passed out; for greater dangers\nlay on the road behind them than before.  The snow soon began to choke\nthe arch.  An hour more, and it lay so high as to block out half the\nreturning daylight.  But it froze hard now, as it fell, and could be\nclambered through or over.  The violence of the mountain storm was\ngradually yielding to steady snowfall.  The wind still raged at\nintervals, but not incessantly; and when it paused, the snow fell in\nheavy flakes.\n\nThey might have been two hours in their frightful prison, when\nObenreizer, now crunching into the mound, now creeping over it with his\nhead bowed down and his body touching the top of the arch, made his way\nout.  Vendale followed close upon him, but followed without clear motive\nor calculation.  For the lethargy of Basle was creeping over him again,\nand mastering his senses.\n\nHow far he had followed out of the gallery, or with what obstacles he had\nsince contended, he knew not.  He became roused to the knowledge that\nObenreizer had set upon him, and that they were struggling desperately in\nthe snow.  He became roused to the remembrance of what his assailant\ncarried in a girdle.  He felt for it, drew it, struck at him, struggled\nagain, struck at him again, cast him off, and stood face to face with\nhim.\n\n\"I promised to guide you to your journey's end,\" said Obenreizer, \"and I\nhave kept my promise.  The journey of your life ends here.  Nothing can\nprolong it.  You are sleeping as you stand.\"\n\n\"You are a villain.  What have you done to me?\"\n\n\"You are a fool.  I have drugged you.  You are doubly a fool, for I\ndrugged you once before upon the journey, to try you.  You are trebly a\nfool, for I am the thief and forger, and in a few moments I shall take\nthose proofs against the thief and forger from your insensible body.\"\n\nThe entrapped man tried to throw off the lethargy, but its fatal hold\nupon him was so sure that, even while he heard those words, he stupidly\nwondered which of them had been wounded, and whose blood it was that he\nsaw sprinkled on the snow.\n\n\"What have I done to you,\" he asked, heavily and thickly, \"that you\nshould be--so base--a murderer?\"\n\n\"Done to me?  You would have destroyed me, but that you have come to your\njourney's end.  Your cursed activity interposed between me, and the time\nI had counted on in which I might have replaced the money.  Done to me?\nYou have come in my way--not once, not twice, but again and again and\nagain.  Did I try to shake you off in the beginning, or no?  You were not\nto be shaken off.  Therefore you die here.\"\n\nVendale tried to think coherently, tried to speak coherently, tried to\npick up the iron-shod staff he had let fall; failing to touch it, tried\nto stagger on without its aid.  All in vain, all in vain!  He stumbled,\nand fell heavily forward on the brink of the deep chasm.\n\nStupefied, dozing, unable to stand upon his feet, a veil before his eyes,\nhis sense of hearing deadened, he made such a vigorous rally that,\nsupporting himself on his hands, he saw his enemy standing calmly over\nhim, and heard him speak.  \"You call me murderer,\" said Obenreizer, with\na grim laugh.  \"The name matters very little.  But at least I have set my\nlife against yours, for I am surrounded by dangers, and may never make my\nway out of this place.  The _Tourmente_ is rising again.  The snow is on\nthe whirl.  I must have the papers now.  Every moment has my life in it.\"\n\n\"Stop!\" cried Vendale, in a terrible voice, staggering up with a last\nflash of fire breaking out of him, and clutching the thievish hands at\nhis breast, in both of his.  \"Stop!  Stand away from me!  God bless my\nMarguerite!  Happily she will never know how I died.  Stand off from me,\nand let me look at your murderous face.  Let it remind me--of\nsomething--left to say.\"\n\nThe sight of him fighting so hard for his senses, and the doubt whether\nhe might not for the instant be possessed by the strength of a dozen men,\nkept his opponent still.  Wildly glaring at him, Vendale faltered out the\nbroken words:\n\n\"It shall not be--the trust--of the dead--betrayed by me--reputed\nparents--misinherited fortune--see to it!\"\n\nAs his head dropped on his breast, and he stumbled on the brink of the\nchasm as before, the thievish hands went once more, quick and busy, to\nhis breast.  He made a convulsive attempt to cry \"No!\" desperately rolled\nhimself over into the gulf; and sank away from his enemy's touch, like a\nphantom in a dreadful dream.\n\n* * * * *\n\nThe mountain storm raged again, and passed again.  The awful mountain-\nvoices died away, the moon rose, and the soft and silent snow fell.\n\nTwo men and two large dogs came out at the door of the Hospice.  The men\nlooked carefully around them, and up at the sky.  The dogs rolled in the\nsnow, and took it into their mouths, and cast it up with their paws.\n\nOne of the men said to the other: \"We may venture now.  We may find them\nin one of the five Refuges.\"  Each fastened on his back a basket; each\ntook in his hand a strong spiked pole; each girded under his arms a\nlooped end of a stout rope, so that they were tied together.\n\nSuddenly the dogs desisted from their gambols in the snow, stood looking\ndown the ascent, put their noses up, put their noses down, became greatly\nexcited, and broke into a deep loud bay together.\n\nThe two men looked in the faces of the two dogs.  The two dogs looked,\nwith at least equal intelligence, in the faces of the two men.\n\n\"Au secours, then!  Help!  To the rescue!\" cried the two men.  The two\ndogs, with a glad, deep, generous bark, bounded away.\n\n\"Two more mad ones!\" said the men, stricken motionless, and looking away\nin the moonlight.  \"Is it possible in such weather!  And one of them a\nwoman!\"\n\nEach of the dogs had the corner of a woman's dress in its mouth, and drew\nher along.  She fondled their heads as she came up, and she came up\nthrough the snow with an accustomed tread.  Not so the large man with\nher, who was spent and winded.\n\n\"Dear guides, dear friends of travellers!  I am of your country.  We seek\ntwo gentlemen crossing the Pass, who should have reached the Hospice this\nevening.\"\n\n\"They have reached it, ma'amselle.\"\n\n\"Thank Heaven!  O thank Heaven!\"\n\n\"But, unhappily, they have gone on again.  We are setting forth to seek\nthem even now.  We had to wait until the _Tourmente_ passed.  It has been\nfearful up here.\"\n\n\"Dear guides, dear friends of travellers!  Let me go with you.  Let me go\nwith you for the love of GOD!  One of those gentlemen is to be my\nhusband.  I love him, O, so dearly.  O so dearly!  You see I am not\nfaint, you see I am not tired.  I am born a peasant girl.  I will show\nyou that I know well how to fasten myself to your ropes.  I will do it\nwith my own hands.  I will swear to be brave and good.  But let me go\nwith you, let me go with you!  If any mischance should have befallen him,\nmy love would find him, when nothing else could.  On my knees, dear\nfriends of travellers!  By the love your dear mothers had for your\nfathers!\"\n\nThe good rough fellows were moved.  \"After all,\" they murmured to one\nanother, \"she speaks but the truth.  She knows the ways of the mountains.\nSee how marvellously she has come here.  But as to Monsieur there,\nma'amselle?\"\n\n\"Dear Mr. Joey,\" said Marguerite, addressing him in his own tongue, \"you\nwill remain at the house, and wait for me; will you not?\"\n\n\"If I know'd which o' you two recommended it,\" growled Joey Ladle, eyeing\nthe two men with great indignation, \"I'd fight you for sixpence, and give\nyou half-a-crown towards your expenses.  No, Miss.  I'll stick by you as\nlong as there's any sticking left in me, and I'll die for you when I\ncan't do better.\"\n\nThe state of the moon rendering it highly important that no time should\nbe lost, and the dogs showing signs of great uneasiness, the two men\nquickly took their resolution.  The rope that yoked them together was\nexchanged for a longer one; the party were secured, Marguerite second,\nand the Cellarman last; and they set out for the Refuges.  The actual\ndistance of those places was nothing: the whole five, and the next\nHospice to boot, being within two miles; but the ghastly way was whitened\nout and sheeted over.\n\nThey made no miss in reaching the Gallery where the two had taken\nshelter.  The second storm of wind and snow had so wildly swept over it\nsince, that their tracks were gone.  But the dogs went to and fro with\ntheir noses down, and were confident.  The party stopping, however, at\nthe further arch, where the second storm had been especially furious, and\nwhere the drift was deep, the dogs became troubled, and went about and\nabout, in quest of a lost purpose.\n\nThe great abyss being known to lie on the right, they wandered too much\nto the left, and had to regain the way with infinite labour through a\ndeep field of snow.  The leader of the line had stopped it, and was\ntaking note of the landmarks, when one of the dogs fell to tearing up the\nsnow a little before them.  Advancing and stooping to look at it,\nthinking that some one might be overwhelmed there, they saw that it was\nstained, and that the stain was red.\n\nThe other dog was now seen to look over the brink of the gulf, with his\nfore legs straightened out, lest he should fall into it, and to tremble\nin every limb.  Then the dog who had found the stained snow joined him,\nand then they ran to and fro, distressed and whining.  Finally, they both\nstopped on the brink together, and setting up their heads, howled\ndolefully.\n\n\"There is some one lying below,\" said Marguerite.\n\n\"I think so,\" said the foremost man.  \"Stand well inward, the two last,\nand let us look over.\"\n\nThe last man kindled two torches from his basket, and handed them\nforward.  The leader taking one, and Marguerite the other, they looked\ndown; now shading the torches, now moving them to the right or left, now\nraising them, now depressing them, as moonlight far below contended with\nblack shadows.  A piercing cry from Marguerite broke a long silence.\n\n\"My God!  On a projecting point, where a wall of ice stretches forward\nover the torrent, I see a human form!\"\n\n\"Where, ma'amselle, where?\"\n\n\"See, there!  On the shelf of ice below the dogs!\"\n\nThe leader, with a sickened aspect, drew inward, and they were all\nsilent.  But they were not all inactive, for Marguerite, with swift and\nskilful fingers, had detached both herself and him from the rope in a few\nseconds.\n\n\"Show me the baskets.  These two are the only ropes?\"\n\n\"The only ropes here, ma'amselle; but at the Hospice--\"\n\n\"If he is alive--I know it is my lover--he will be dead before you can\nreturn.  Dear Guides!  Blessed friends of travellers!  Look at me.  Watch\nmy hands.  If they falter or go wrong, make me your prisoner by force.  If\nthey are steady and go right, help me to save him!\"\n\nShe girded herself with a cord under the breast and arms, she formed it\ninto a kind of jacket, she drew it into knots, she laid its end side by\nside with the end of the other cord, she twisted and twined the two\ntogether, she knotted them together, she set her foot upon the knots, she\nstrained them, she held them for the two men to strain at.\n\n\"She is inspired,\" they said to one another.\n\n\"By the Almighty's mercy!\" she exclaimed.  \"You both know that I am by\nfar the lightest here.  Give me the brandy and the wine, and lower me\ndown to him.  Then go for assistance and a stronger rope.  You see that\nwhen it is lowered to me--look at this about me now--I can make it fast\nand safe to his body.  Alive or dead, I will bring him up, or die with\nhim.  I love him passionately.  Can I say more?\"\n\nThey turned to her companion, but he was lying senseless on the snow.\n\n\"Lower me down to him,\" she said, taking two little kegs they had\nbrought, and hanging them about her, \"or I will dash myself to pieces!  I\nam a peasant, and I know no giddiness or fear; and this is nothing to me,\nand I passionately love him.  Lower me down!\"\n\n\"Ma'amselle, ma'amselle, he must be dying or dead.\"\n\n\"Dying or dead, my husband's head shall lie upon my breast, or I will\ndash myself to pieces.\"\n\nThey yielded, overborne.  With such precautions as their skill and the\ncircumstances admitted, they let her slip from the summit, guiding\nherself down the precipitous icy wall with her hand, and they lowered\ndown, and lowered down, and lowered down, until the cry came up:\n\"Enough!\"\n\n\"Is it really he, and is he dead?\" they called down, looking over.\n\nThe cry came up: \"He is insensible; but his heart beats.  It beats\nagainst mine.\"\n\n\"How does he lie?\"\n\nThe cry came up: \"Upon a ledge of ice.  It has thawed beneath him, and it\nwill thaw beneath me.  Hasten.  If we die, I am content.\"\n\nOne of the two men hurried off with the dogs at such topmost speed as he\ncould make; the other set up the lighted torches in the snow, and applied\nhimself to recovering the Englishman.  Much snow-chafing and some brandy\ngot him on his legs, but delirious and quite unconscious where he was.\n\nThe watch remained upon the brink, and his cry went down continually:\n\"Courage!  They will soon be here.  How goes it?\"  And the cry came up:\n\"His heart still beats against mine.  I warm him in my arms.  I have cast\noff the rope, for the ice melts under us, and the rope would separate me\nfrom him; but I am not afraid.\"\n\nThe moon went down behind the mountain tops, and all the abyss lay in\ndarkness.  The cry went down: \"How goes it?\"  The cry came up: \"We are\nsinking lower, but his heart still beats against mine.\"\n\nAt length the eager barking of the dogs, and a flare of light upon the\nsnow, proclaimed that help was coming on.  Twenty or thirty men, lamps,\ntorches, litters, ropes, blankets, wood to kindle a great fire,\nrestoratives and stimulants, came in fast.  The dogs ran from one man to\nanother, and from this thing to that, and ran to the edge of the abyss,\ndumbly entreating Speed, speed, speed!\n\nThe cry went down: \"Thanks to God, all is ready.  How goes it?\"\n\nThe cry came up: \"We are sinking still, and we are deadly cold.  His\nheart no longer beats against mine.  Let no one come down, to add to our\nweight.  Lower the rope only.\"\n\nThe fire was kindled high, a great glare of torches lighted the sides of\nthe precipice, lamps were lowered, a strong rope was lowered.  She could\nbe seen passing it round him, and making it secure.\n\nThe cry came up into a deathly silence: \"Raise!  Softly!\"  They could see\nher diminished figure shrink, as he was swung into the air.\n\nThey gave no shout when some of them laid him on a litter, and others\nlowered another strong rope.  The cry again came up into a deathly\nsilence: \"Raise!  Softly!\"  But when they caught her at the brink, then\nthey shouted, then they wept, then they gave thanks to Heaven, then they\nkissed her feet, then they kissed her dress, then the dogs caressed her,\nlicked her icy hands, and with their honest faces warmed her frozen\nbosom!\n\nShe broke from them all, and sank over him on his litter, with both her\nloving hands upon the heart that stood still.\n\n\n\n\nACT IV.\n\n\nTHE CLOCK-LOCK\n\n\nThe pleasant scene was Neuchatel; the pleasant month was April; the\npleasant place was a notary's office; the pleasant person in it was the\nnotary: a rosy, hearty, handsome old man, chief notary of Neuchatel,\nknown far and wide in the canton as Maitre Voigt.  Professionally and\npersonally, the notary was a popular citizen.  His innumerable kindnesses\nand his innumerable oddities had for years made him one of the recognised\npublic characters of the pleasant Swiss town.  His long brown frock-coat\nand his black skull-cap, were among the institutions of the place: and he\ncarried a snuff-box which, in point of size, was popularly believed to be\nwithout a parallel in Europe.\n\nThere was another person in the notary's office, not so pleasant as the\nnotary.  This was Obenreizer.\n\nAn oddly pastoral kind of office it was, and one that would never have\nanswered in England.  It stood in a neat back yard, fenced off from a\npretty flower-garden.  Goats browsed in the doorway, and a cow was within\nhalf-a-dozen feet of keeping company with the clerk.  Maitre Voigt's room\nwas a bright and varnished little room, with panelled walls, like a toy-\nchamber.  According to the seasons of the year, roses, sunflowers,\nhollyhocks, peeped in at the windows.  Maitre Voigt's bees hummed through\nthe office all the summer, in at this window and out at that, taking it\nfrequently in their day's work, as if honey were to be made from Maitre\nVoigt's sweet disposition.  A large musical box on the chimney-piece\noften trilled away at the Overture to Fra Diavolo, or a Selection from\nWilliam Tell, with a chirruping liveliness that had to be stopped by\nforce on the entrance of a client, and irrepressibly broke out again the\nmoment his back was turned.\n\n\"Courage, courage, my good fellow!\" said Maitre Voigt, patting Obenreizer\non the knee, in a fatherly and comforting way.  \"You will begin a new\nlife to-morrow morning in my office here.\"\n\nObenreizer--dressed in mourning, and subdued in manner--lifted his hand,\nwith a white handkerchief in it, to the region of his heart.  \"The\ngratitude is here,\" he said.  \"But the words to express it are not here.\"\n\n\"Ta-ta-ta!  Don't talk to me about gratitude!\" said Maitre Voigt.  \"I\nhate to see a man oppressed.  I see you oppressed, and I hold out my hand\nto you by instinct.  Besides, I am not too old yet, to remember my young\ndays.  Your father sent me my first client.  (It was on a question of\nhalf an acre of vineyard that seldom bore any grapes.)  Do I owe nothing\nto your father's son?  I owe him a debt of friendly obligation, and I pay\nit to you.  That's rather neatly expressed, I think,\" added Maitre Voigt,\nin high good humour with himself.  \"Permit me to reward my own merit with\na pinch of snuff!\"\n\nObenreizer dropped his eyes to the ground, as though he were not even\nworthy to see the notary take snuff.\n\n\"Do me one last favour, sir,\" he said, when he raised his eyes.  \"Do not\nact on impulse.  Thus far, you have only a general knowledge of my\nposition.  Hear the case for and against me, in its details, before you\ntake me into your office.  Let my claim on your benevolence be recognised\nby your sound reason as well as by your excellent heart.  In _that_ case,\nI may hold up my head against the bitterest of my enemies, and build\nmyself a new reputation on the ruins of the character I have lost.\"\n\n\"As you will,\" said Maitre Voigt.  \"You speak well, my son.  You will be\na fine lawyer one of these days.\"\n\n\"The details are not many,\" pursued Obenreizer.  \"My troubles begin with\nthe accidental death of my late travelling companion, my lost dear friend\nMr. Vendale.\"\n\n\"Mr. Vendale,\" repeated the notary.  \"Just so.  I have heard and read of\nthe name, several times within these two months.  The name of the\nunfortunate English gentleman who was killed on the Simplon.  When you\ngot that scar upon your cheek and neck.\"\n\n\"--From my own knife,\" said Obenreizer, touching what must have been an\nugly gash at the time of its infliction.\n\n\"From your own knife,\" assented the notary, \"and in trying to save him.\nGood, good, good.  That was very good.  Vendale.  Yes.  I have several\ntimes, lately, thought it droll that I should once have had a client of\nthat name.\"\n\n\"But the world, sir,\" returned Obenreizer, \"is _so_ small!\"  Nevertheless\nhe made a mental note that the notary had once had a client of that name.\n\n\"As I was saying, sir, the death of that dear travelling comrade begins\nmy troubles.  What follows?  I save myself.  I go down to Milan.  I am\nreceived with coldness by Defresnier and Company.  Shortly afterwards, I\nam discharged by Defresnier and Company.  Why?  They give no reason why.\nI ask, do they assail my honour?  No answer.  I ask, what is the\nimputation against me?  No answer.  I ask, where are their proofs against\nme?  No answer.  I ask, what am I to think?  The reply is, 'M. Obenreizer\nis free to think what he will.  What M. Obenreizer thinks, is of no\nimportance to Defresnier and Company.'  And that is all.\"\n\n\"Perfectly.  That is all,\" asserted the notary, taking a large pinch of\nsnuff.\n\n\"But is that enough, sir?\"\n\n\"That is not enough,\" said Maitre Voigt.  \"The House of Defresnier are my\nfellow townsmen--much respected, much esteemed--but the House of\nDefresnier must not silently destroy a man's character.  You can rebut\nassertion.  But how can you rebut silence?\"\n\n\"Your sense of justice, my dear patron,\" answered Obenreizer, \"states in\na word the cruelty of the case.  Does it stop there?  No.  For, what\nfollows upon that?\"\n\n\"True, my poor boy,\" said the notary, with a comforting nod or two; \"your\nward rebels upon that.\"\n\n\"Rebels is too soft a word,\" retorted Obenreizer.  \"My ward revolts from\nme with horror.  My ward defies me.  My ward withdraws herself from my\nauthority, and takes shelter (Madame Dor with her) in the house of that\nEnglish lawyer, Mr. Bintrey, who replies to your summons to her to submit\nherself to my authority, that she will not do so.\"\n\n\"--And who afterwards writes,\" said the notary, moving his large snuff-\nbox to look among the papers underneath it for the letter, \"that he is\ncoming to confer with me.\"\n\n\"Indeed?\" replied Obenreizer, rather checked.  \"Well, sir.  Have I no\nlegal rights?\"\n\n\"Assuredly, my poor boy,\" returned the notary.  \"All but felons have\ntheir legal rights.\"\n\n\"And who calls me felon?\" said Obenreizer, fiercely.\n\n\"No one.  Be calm under your wrongs.  If the House of Defresnier would\ncall you felon, indeed, we should know how to deal with them.\"\n\nWhile saying these words, he had handed Bintrey's very short letter to\nObenreizer, who now read it and gave it back.\n\n\"In saying,\" observed Obenreizer, with recovered composure, \"that he is\ncoming to confer with you, this English lawyer means that he is coming to\ndeny my authority over my ward.\"\n\n\"You think so?\"\n\n\"I am sure of it.  I know him.  He is obstinate and contentious.  You\nwill tell me, my dear sir, whether my authority is unassailable, until my\nward is of age?\"\n\n\"Absolutely unassailable.\"\n\n\"I will enforce it.  I will make her submit herself to it.  For,\" said\nObenreizer, changing his angry tone to one of grateful submission, \"I owe\nit to you, sir; to you, who have so confidingly taken an injured man\nunder your protection, and into your employment.\"\n\n\"Make your mind easy,\" said Maitre Voigt.  \"No more of this now, and no\nthanks!  Be here to-morrow morning, before the other clerk comes--between\nseven and eight.  You will find me in this room; and I will myself\ninitiate you in your work.  Go away! go away!  I have letters to write.  I\nwon't hear a word more.\"\n\nDismissed with this generous abruptness, and satisfied with the\nfavourable impression he had left on the old man's mind, Obenreizer was\nat leisure to revert to the mental note he had made that Maitre Voigt\nonce had a client whose name was Vendale.\n\n\"I ought to know England well enough by this time;\" so his meditations\nran, as he sat on a bench in the yard; \"and it is not a name I ever\nencountered there, except--\" he looked involuntarily over his\nshoulder--\"as _his_ name.  Is the world so small that I cannot get away\nfrom him, even now when he is dead?  He confessed at the last that he had\nbetrayed the trust of the dead, and misinherited a fortune.  And I was to\nsee to it.  And I was to stand off, that my face might remind him of it.\nWhy _my_ face, unless it concerned _me_?  I am sure of his words, for\nthey have been in my ears ever since.  Can there be anything bearing on\nthem, in the keeping of this old idiot?  Anything to repair my fortunes,\nand blacken his memory?  He dwelt upon my earliest remembrances, that\nnight at Basle.  Why, unless he had a purpose in it?\"\n\nMaitre Voigt's two largest he-goats were butting at him to butt him out\nof the place, as if for that disrespectful mention of their master.  So\nhe got up and left the place.  But he walked alone for a long time on the\nborder of the lake, with his head drooped in deep thought.\n\nBetween seven and eight next morning, he presented himself again at the\noffice.  He found the notary ready for him, at work on some papers which\nhad come in on the previous evening.  In a few clear words, Maitre Voigt\nexplained the routine of the office, and the duties Obenreizer would be\nexpected to perform.  It still wanted five minutes to eight, when the\npreliminary instructions were declared to be complete.\n\n\"I will show you over the house and the offices,\" said Maitre Voigt, \"but\nI must put away these papers first.  They come from the municipal\nauthorities, and they must be taken special care of.\"\n\nObenreizer saw his chance, here, of finding out the repository in which\nhis employer's private papers were kept.\n\n\"Can't I save you the trouble, sir?\" he asked.  \"Can't I put those\ndocuments away under your directions?\"\n\nMaitre Voigt laughed softly to himself; closed the portfolio in which the\npapers had been sent to him; handed it to Obenreizer.\n\n\"Suppose you try,\" he said.  \"All my papers of importance are kept\nyonder.\"\n\nHe pointed to a heavy oaken door, thickly studded with nails, at the\nlower end of the room.  Approaching the door, with the portfolio,\nObenreizer discovered, to his astonishment, that there were no means\nwhatever of opening it from the outside.  There was no handle, no bolt,\nno key, and (climax of passive obstruction!) no keyhole.\n\n\"There is a second door to this room?\" said Obenreizer, appealing to the\nnotary.\n\n\"No,\" said Maitre Voigt.  \"Guess again.\"\n\n\"There is a window?\"\n\n\"Nothing of the sort.  The window has been bricked up.  The only way in,\nis the way by that door.  Do you give it up?\" cried Maitre Voigt, in high\ntriumph.  \"Listen, my good fellow, and tell me if you hear nothing\ninside?\"\n\nObenreizer listened for a moment, and started back from the door.\n\n\"I know!\" he exclaimed.  \"I heard of this when I was apprenticed here at\nthe watchmaker's.  Perrin Brothers have finished their famous clock-lock\nat last--and you have got it?\"\n\n\"Bravo!\" said Maitre Voigt.  \"The clock-lock it is!  There, my son!  There\nyou have one more of what the good people of this town call, 'Daddy\nVoigt's follies.'  With all my heart!  Let those laugh who win.  No thief\ncan steal _my_ keys.  No burglar can pick _my_ lock.  No power on earth,\nshort of a battering-ram or a barrel of gunpowder, can move that door,\ntill my little sentinel inside--my worthy friend who goes 'Tick, Tick,'\nas I tell him--says, 'Open!'  The big door obeys the little Tick, Tick,\nand the little Tick, Tick, obeys _me_.  That!\" cried Daddy Voigt,\nsnapping his fingers, \"for all the thieves in Christendom!\"\n\n\"May I see it in action?\" asked Obenreizer.  \"Pardon my curiosity, dear\nsir!  You know that I was once a tolerable worker in the clock trade.\"\n\n\"Certainly you shall see it in action,\" said Maitre Voigt.  \"What is the\ntime now?  One minute to eight.  Watch, and in one minute you will see\nthe door open of itself.\"\n\nIn one minute, smoothly and slowly and silently, as if invisible hands\nhad set it free, the heavy door opened inward, and disclosed a dark\nchamber beyond.  On three sides, shelves filled the walls, from floor to\nceiling.  Arranged on the shelves, were rows upon rows of boxes made in\nthe pretty inlaid woodwork of Switzerland, and bearing inscribed on their\nfronts (for the most part in fanciful coloured letters) the names of the\nnotary's clients.\n\nMaitre Voigt lighted a taper, and led the way into the room.\n\n\"You shall see the clock,\" he said proudly.  \"I possess the greatest\ncuriosity in Europe.  It is only a privileged few whose eyes can look at\nit.  I give the privilege to your good father's son--you shall be one of\nthe favoured few who enter the room with me.  See! here it is, on the\nright-hand wall at the side of the door.\"\n\n\"An ordinary clock,\" exclaimed Obenreizer.  \"No!  Not an ordinary clock.\nIt has only one hand.\"\n\n\"Aha!\" said Maitre Voigt.  \"Not an ordinary clock, my friend.  No, no.\nThat one hand goes round the dial.  As I put it, so it regulates the hour\nat which the door shall open.  See!  The hand points to eight.  At eight\nthe door opened, as you saw for yourself.\"\n\n\"Does it open more than once in the four-and-twenty hours?\" asked\nObenreizer.\n\n\"More than once?\" repeated the notary, with great scorn.  \"You don't know\nmy good friend, Tick-Tick!  He will open the door as often as I ask him.\nAll he wants is his directions, and he gets them here.  Look below the\ndial.  Here is a half-circle of steel let into the wall, and here is a\nhand (called the regulator) that travels round it, just as _my_ hand\nchooses.  Notice, if you please, that there are figures to guide me on\nthe half-circle of steel.  Figure I. means: Open once in the four-and-\ntwenty hours.  Figure II. means: Open twice; and so on to the end.  I set\nthe regulator every morning, after I have read my letters, and when I\nknow what my day's work is to be.  Would you like to see me set it now?\nWhat is to-day?  Wednesday.  Good!  This is the day of our rifle-club;\nthere is little business to do; I grant a half-holiday.  No work here to-\nday, after three o'clock.  Let us first put away this portfolio of\nmunicipal papers.  There!  No need to trouble Tick-Tick to open the door\nuntil eight to-morrow.  Good!  I leave the dial-hand at eight; I put back\nthe regulator to I.; I close the door; and closed the door remains, past\nall opening by anybody, till to-morrow morning at eight.\"\n\nObenreizer's quickness instantly saw the means by which he might make the\nclock-lock betray its master's confidence, and place its master's papers\nat his disposal.\n\n\"Stop, sir!\" he cried, at the moment when the notary was closing the\ndoor.  \"Don't I see something moving among the boxes--on the floor\nthere?\"\n\n(Maitre Voigt turned his back for a moment to look.  In that moment,\nObenreizer's ready hand put the regulator on, from the figure \"I.\" to the\nfigure \"II.\"  Unless the notary looked again at the half-circle of steel,\nthe door would open at eight that evening, as well as at eight next\nmorning, and nobody but Obenreizer would know it.)\n\n\"There is nothing!\" said Maitre Voigt.  \"Your troubles have shaken your\nnerves, my son.  Some shadow thrown by my taper; or some poor little\nbeetle, who lives among the old lawyer's secrets, running away from the\nlight.  Hark!  I hear your fellow-clerk in the office.  To work! to work!\nand build to-day the first step that leads to your new fortunes!\"\n\nHe good-humouredly pushed Obenreizer out before him; extinguished the\ntaper, with a last fond glance at his clock which passed harmlessly over\nthe regulator beneath; and closed the oaken door.\n\nAt three, the office was shut up.  The notary and everybody in the\nnotary's employment, with one exception, went to see the rifle-shooting.\nObenreizer had pleaded that he was not in spirits for a public festival.\nNobody knew what had become of him.  It was believed that he had slipped\naway for a solitary walk.\n\nThe house and offices had been closed but a few minutes, when the door of\na shining wardrobe in the notary's shining room opened, and Obenreizer\nstopped out.  He walked to a window, unclosed the shutters, satisfied\nhimself that he could escape unseen by way of the garden, turned back\ninto the room, and took his place in the notary's easy-chair.  He was\nlocked up in the house, and there were five hours to wait before eight\no'clock came.\n\nHe wore his way through the five hours: sometimes reading the books and\nnewspapers that lay on the table: sometimes thinking: sometimes walking\nto and fro.  Sunset came on.  He closed the window-shutters before he\nkindled a light.  The candle lighted, and the time drawing nearer and\nnearer, he sat, watch in hand, with his eyes on the oaken door.\n\nAt eight, smoothly and softly and silently the door opened.\n\nOne after another, he read the names on the outer rows of boxes.  No such\nname as Vendale!  He removed the outer row, and looked at the row behind.\nThese were older boxes, and shabbier boxes.  The four first that he\nexamined, were inscribed with French and German names.  The fifth bore a\nname which was almost illegible.  He brought it out into the room, and\nexamined it closely.  There, covered thickly with time-stains and dust,\nwas the name: \"Vendale.\"\n\nThe key hung to the box by a string.  He unlocked the box, took out four\nloose papers that were in it, spread them open on the table, and began to\nread them.  He had not so occupied a minute, when his face fell from its\nexpression of eagerness and avidity, to one of haggard astonishment and\ndisappointment.  But, after a little consideration, he copied the papers.\nHe then replaced the papers, replaced the box, closed the door,\nextinguished the candle, and stole away.\n\nAs his murderous and thievish footfall passed out of the garden, the\nsteps of the notary and some one accompanying him stopped at the front\ndoor of the house.  The lamps were lighted in the little street, and the\nnotary had his door-key in his hand.\n\n\"Pray do not pass my house, Mr. Bintrey,\" he said.  \"Do me the honour to\ncome in.  It is one of our town half-holidays--our Tir--but my people\nwill be back directly.  It is droll that you should ask your way to the\nHotel of me.  Let us eat and drink before you go there.\"\n\n\"Thank you; not to-night,\" said Bintrey.  \"Shall I come to you at ten to-\nmorrow?\"\n\n\"I shall be enchanted, sir, to take so early an opportunity of redressing\nthe wrongs of my injured client,\" returned the good notary.\n\n\"Yes,\" retorted Bintrey; \"your injured client is all very well--but--a\nword in your ear.\"\n\nHe whispered to the notary and walked off.  When the notary's housekeeper\ncame home, she found him standing at his door motionless, with the key\nstill in his hand, and the door unopened.\n\n\n\nOBENREIZER'S VICTORY\n\n\nThe scene shifts again--to the foot of the Simplon, on the Swiss side.\n\nIn one of the dreary rooms of the dreary little inn at Brieg, Mr. Bintrey\nand Maitre Voigt sat together at a professional council of two.  Mr.\nBintrey was searching in his despatch-box.  Maitre Voigt was looking\ntowards a closed door, painted brown to imitate mahogany, and\ncommunicating with an inner room.\n\n\"Isn't it time he was here?\" asked the notary, shifting his position, and\nglancing at a second door at the other end of the room, painted yellow to\nimitate deal.\n\n\"He _is_ here,\" answered Bintrey, after listening for a moment.\n\nThe yellow door was opened by a waiter, and Obenreizer walked in.\n\nAfter greeting Maitre Voigt with a cordiality which appeared to cause the\nnotary no little embarrassment, Obenreizer bowed with grave and distant\npoliteness to Bintrey.  \"For what reason have I been brought from\nNeuchatel to the foot of the mountain?\" he inquired, taking the seat\nwhich the English lawyer had indicated to him.\n\n\"You shall be quite satisfied on that head before our interview is over,\"\nreturned Bintrey.  \"For the present, permit me to suggest proceeding at\nonce to business.  There has been a correspondence, Mr. Obenreizer,\nbetween you and your niece.  I am here to represent your niece.\"\n\n\"In other words, you, a lawyer, are here to represent an infraction of\nthe law.\"\n\n\"Admirably put!\" said Bintrey.  \"If all the people I have to deal with\nwere only like you, what an easy profession mine would be!  I am here to\nrepresent an infraction of the law--that is your point of view.  I am\nhere to make a compromise between you and your niece--that is my point of\nview.\"\n\n\"There must be two parties to a compromise,\" rejoined Obenreizer.  \"I\ndecline, in this case, to be one of them.  The law gives me authority to\ncontrol my niece's actions, until she comes of age.  She is not yet of\nage; and I claim my authority.\"\n\nAt this point Maitre attempted to speak.  Bintrey silenced him with a\ncompassionate indulgence of tone and manner, as if he was silencing a\nfavourite child.\n\n\"No, my worthy friend, not a word.  Don't excite yourself unnecessarily;\nleave it to me.\"  He turned, and addressed himself again to Obenreizer.\n\"I can think of nothing comparable to you, Mr. Obenreizer, but\ngranite--and even that wears out in course of time.  In the interests of\npeace and quietness--for the sake of your own dignity--relax a little.  If\nyou will only delegate your authority to another person whom I know of,\nthat person may be trusted never to lose sight of your niece, night or\nday!\"\n\n\"You are wasting your time and mine,\" returned Obenreizer.  \"If my niece\nis not rendered up to my authority within one week from this day, I\ninvoke the law.  If you resist the law, I take her by force.\"\n\nHe rose to his feet as he said the last word.  Maitre Voigt looked round\nagain towards the brown door which led into the inner room.\n\n\"Have some pity on the poor girl,\" pleaded Bintrey.  \"Remember how lately\nshe lost her lover by a dreadful death!  Will nothing move you?\"\n\n\"Nothing.\"\n\nBintrey, in his turn, rose to his feet, and looked at Maitre Voigt.\nMaitre Voigt's hand, resting on the table, began to tremble.  Maitre\nVoigt's eyes remained fixed, as if by irresistible fascination, on the\nbrown door.  Obenreizer, suspiciously observing him, looked that way too.\n\n\"There is somebody listening in there!\" he exclaimed, with a sharp\nbackward glance at Bintrey.\n\n\"There are two people listening,\" answered Bintrey.\n\n\"Who are they?\"\n\n\"You shall see.\"\n\nWith this answer, he raised his voice and spoke the next words--the two\ncommon words which are on everybody's lips, at every hour of the day:\n\"Come in!\"\n\nThe brown door opened.  Supported on Marguerite's arm--his sun-burnt\ncolour gone, his right arm bandaged and clung over his breast--Vendale\nstood before the murderer, a man risen from the dead.\n\nIn the moment of silence that followed, the singing of a caged bird in\nthe court-yard outside was the one sound stirring in the room.  Maitre\nVoigt touched Bintrey, and pointed to Obenreizer.  \"Look at him!\" said\nthe notary, in a whisper.\n\nThe shock had paralysed every movement in the villain's body, but the\nmovement of the blood.  His face was like the face of a corpse.  The one\nvestige of colour left in it was a livid purple streak which marked the\ncourse of the scar where his victim had wounded him on the cheek and\nneck.  Speechless, breathless, motionless alike in eye and limb, it\nseemed as if, at the sight of Vendale, the death to which he had doomed\nVendale had struck him where he stood.\n\n\"Somebody ought to speak to him,\" said Maitre Voigt.  \"Shall I?\"\n\nEven at that moment Bintrey persisted in silencing the notary, and in\nkeeping the lead in the proceedings to himself.  Checking Maitre Voigt by\na gesture, he dismissed Marguerite and Vendale in these words:--\"The\nobject of your appearance here is answered,\" he said.  \"If you will\nwithdraw for the present, it may help Mr. Obenreizer to recover himself.\"\n\nIt did help him.  As the two passed through the door and closed it behind\nthem, he drew a deep breath of relief.  He looked round him for the chair\nfrom which he had risen, and dropped into it.\n\n\"Give him time!\" pleaded Maitre Voigt.\n\n\"No,\" said Bintrey.  \"I don't know what use he may make of it if I do.\"\nHe turned once more to Obenreizer, and went on.  \"I owe it to myself,\" he\nsaid--\"I don't admit, mind, that I owe it to you--to account for my\nappearance in these proceedings, and to state what has been done under my\nadvice, and on my sole responsibility.  Can you listen to me?\"\n\n\"I can listen to you.\"\n\n\"Recall the time when you started for Switzerland with Mr. Vendale,\"\nBintrey begin.  \"You had not left England four-and-twenty hours before\nyour niece committed an act of imprudence which not even your penetration\ncould foresee.  She followed her promised husband on his journey, without\nasking anybody's advice or permission, and without any better companion\nto protect her than a Cellarman in Mr. Vendale's employment.\"\n\n\"Why did she follow me on the journey? and how came the Cellarman to be\nthe person who accompanied her?\"\n\n\"She followed you on the journey,\" answered Bintrey, \"because she\nsuspected there had been some serious collision between you and Mr.\nVendale, which had been kept secret from her; and because she rightly\nbelieved you to be capable of serving your interests, or of satisfying\nyour enmity, at the price of a crime.  As for the Cellarman, he was one,\namong the other people in Mr. Vendale's establishment, to whom she had\napplied (the moment your back was turned) to know if anything had\nhappened between their master and you.  The Cellarman alone had something\nto tell her.  A senseless superstition, and a common accident which had\nhappened to his master, in his master's cellar, had connected Mr. Vendale\nin this man's mind with the idea of danger by murder.  Your niece\nsurprised him into a confession, which aggravated tenfold the terrors\nthat possessed her.  Aroused to a sense of the mischief he had done, the\nman, of his own accord, made the one atonement in his power.  'If my\nmaster is in danger, miss,' he said, 'it's my duty to follow him, too;\nand it's more than my duty to take care of _you_.'  The two set forth\ntogether--and, for once, a superstition has had its use.  It decided your\nniece on taking the journey; and it led the way to saving a man's life.\nDo you understand me, so far?\"\n\n\"I understand you, so far.\"\n\n\"My first knowledge of the crime that you had committed,\" pursued\nBintrey, \"came to me in the form of a letter from your niece.  All you\nneed know is that her love and her courage recovered the body of your\nvictim, and aided the after-efforts which brought him back to life.  While\nhe lay helpless at Brieg, under her care, she wrote to me to come out to\nhim.  Before starting, I informed Madame Dor that I knew Miss Obenreizer\nto be safe, and knew where she was.  Madame Dor informed me, in return,\nthat a letter had come for your niece, which she knew to be in your\nhandwriting.  I took possession of it, and arranged for the forwarding of\nany other letters which might follow.  Arrived at Brieg, I found Mr.\nVendale out of danger, and at once devoted myself to hastening the day of\nreckoning with you.  Defresnier and Company turned you off on suspicion;\nacting on information privately supplied by me.  Having stripped you of\nyour false character, the next thing to do was to strip you of your\nauthority over your niece.  To reach this end, I not only had no scruple\nin digging the pitfall under your feet in the dark--I felt a certain\nprofessional pleasure in fighting you with your own weapons.  By my\nadvice the truth has been carefully concealed from you up to this day.  By\nmy advice the trap into which you have walked was set for you (you know\nwhy, now, as well as I do) in this place.  There was but one certain way\nof shaking the devilish self-control which has hitherto made you a\nformidable man.  That way has been tried, and (look at me as you may)\nthat way has succeeded.  The last thing that remains to be done,\"\nconcluded Bintrey, producing two little slips of manuscript from his\ndespatch-box, \"is to set your niece free.  You have attempted murder, and\nyou have committed forgery and theft.  We have the evidence ready against\nyou in both cases.  If you are convicted as a felon, you know as well as\nI do what becomes of your authority over your niece.  Personally, I\nshould have preferred taking that way out of it.  But considerations are\npressed on me which I am not able to resist, and this interview must end,\nas I have told you already, in a compromise.  Sign those lines, resigning\nall authority over Miss Obenreizer, and pledging yourself never to be\nseen in England or in Switzerland again; and I will sign an indemnity\nwhich secures you against further proceedings on our part.\"\n\nObenreizer took the pen in silence, and signed his niece's release.  On\nreceiving the indemnity in return, he rose, but made no movement to leave\nthe room.  He stood looking at Maitre Voigt with a strange smile\ngathering at his lips, and a strange light flashing in his filmy eyes.\n\n\"What are you waiting for?\" asked Bintrey.\n\nObenreizer pointed to the brown door.  \"Call them back,\" he answered.  \"I\nhave something to say in their presence before I go.\"\n\n\"Say it in my presence,\" retorted Bintrey.  \"I decline to call them\nback.\"\n\nObenreizer turned to Maitre Voigt.  \"Do you remember telling me that you\nonce had an English client named Vendale?\" he asked.\n\n\"Well,\" answered the notary.  \"And what of that?\"\n\n\"Maitre Voigt, your clock-lock has betrayed you.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"I have read the letters and certificates in your client's box.  I have\ntaken copies of them.  I have got the copies here.  Is there, or is there\nnot, a reason for calling them back?\"\n\nFor a moment the notary looked to and fro, between Obenreizer and\nBintrey, in helpless astonishment.  Recovering himself, he drew his\nbrother-lawyer aside, and hurriedly spoke a few words close at his ear.\nThe face of Bintrey--after first faithfully reflecting the astonishment\non the face of Maitre Voigt--suddenly altered its expression.  He sprang,\nwith the activity of a young man, to the door of the inner room, entered\nit, remained inside for a minute, and returned followed by Marguerite and\nVendale.  \"Now, Mr. Obenreizer,\" said Bintrey, \"the last move in the game\nis yours.  Play it.\"\n\n\"Before I resign my position as that young lady's guardian,\" said\nObenreizer, \"I have a secret to reveal in which she is interested.  In\nmaking my disclosure, I am not claiming her attention for a narrative\nwhich she, or any other person present, is expected to take on trust.  I\nam possessed of written proofs, copies of originals, the authenticity of\nwhich Maitre Voigt himself can attest.  Bear that in mind, and permit me\nto refer you, at starting, to a date long past--the month of February, in\nthe year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-six.\"\n\n\"Mark the date, Mr. Vendale,\" said Bintrey.\n\n\"My first proof,\" said Obenreizer, taking a paper from his pocket-book.\n\"Copy of a letter, written by an English lady (married) to her sister, a\nwidow.  The name of the person writing the letter I shall keep suppressed\nuntil I have done.  The name of the person to whom the letter is written\nI am willing to reveal.  It is addressed to 'Mrs. Jane Anne Miller, of\nGroombridge Wells, England.'\"\n\nVendale started, and opened his lips to speak.  Bintrey instantly stopped\nhim, as he had stopped Maitre Voigt.  \"No,\" said the pertinacious lawyer.\n\"Leave it to me.\"\n\nObenreizer went on:\n\n\"It is needless to trouble you with the first half of the letter,\" he\nsaid.  \"I can give the substance of it in two words.  The writer's\nposition at the time is this.  She has been long living in Switzerland\nwith her husband--obliged to live there for the sake of her husband's\nhealth.  They are about to move to a new residence on the Lake of\nNeuchatel in a week, and they will be ready to receive Mrs. Miller as\nvisitor in a fortnight from that time.  This said, the writer next enters\ninto an important domestic detail.  She has been childless for years--she\nand her husband have now no hope of children; they are lonely; they want\nan interest in life; they have decided on adopting a child.  Here the\nimportant part of the letter begins; and here, therefore, I read it to\nyou word for word.\"\n\nHe folded back the first page of the letter and read as follows.\n\n   \"* * * Will you help us, my dear sister, to realise our new project?\n   As English people, we wish to adopt an English child.  This may be\n   done, I believe, at the Foundling: my husband's lawyers in London will\n   tell you how.  I leave the choice to you, with only these conditions\n   attached to it--that the child is to be an infant under a year old,\n   and is to be a boy.  Will you pardon the trouble I am giving you, for\n   my sake; and will you bring our adopted child to us, with your own\n   children, when you come to Neuchatel?\n\n   \"I must add a word as to my husband's wishes in this matter.  He is\n   resolved to spare the child whom we make our own any future\n   mortification and loss of self-respect which might be caused by a\n   discovery of his true origin.  He will bear my husband's name, and he\n   will be brought up in the belief that he is really our son.  His\n   inheritance of what we have to leave will be secured to him--not only\n   according to the laws of England in such cases, but according to the\n   laws of Switzerland also; for we have lived so long in this country,\n   that there is a doubt whether we may not be considered as I domiciled,\n   in Switzerland.  The one precaution left to take is to prevent any\n   after-discovery at the Foundling.  Now, our name is a very uncommon\n   one; and if we appear on the Register of the Institution as the\n   persons adopting the child, there is just a chance that something\n   might result from it.  Your name, my dear, is the name of thousands of\n   other people; and if you will consent to appear on the Register, there\n   need be no fear of any discoveries in that quarter.  We are moving, by\n   the doctor's orders, to a part of Switzerland in which our\n   circumstances are quite unknown; and you, as I understand, are about\n   to engage a new nurse for the journey when you come to see us.  Under\n   these circumstances, the child may appear as my child, brought back to\n   me under my sister's care.  The only servant we take with us from our\n   old home is my own maid, who can be safely trusted.  As for the\n   lawyers in England and in Switzerland, it is their profession to keep\n   secrets--and we may feel quite easy in that direction.  So there you\n   have our harmless little conspiracy!  Write by return of post, my\n   love, and tell me you will join it.\" * * *\n\n\"Do you still conceal the name of the writer of that letter?\" asked\nVendale.\n\n\"I keep the name of the writer till the last,\" answered Obenreizer, \"and\nI proceed to my second proof--a mere slip of paper this time, as you see.\nMemorandum given to the Swiss lawyer, who drew the documents referred to\nin the letter I have just read, expressed as follows:--'Adopted from the\nFoundling Hospital of England, 3d March, 1836, a male infant, called, in\nthe Institution, Walter Wilding.  Person appearing on the register, as\nadopting the child, Mrs. Jane Anne Miller, widow, acting in this matter\nfor her married sister, domiciled in Switzerland.'  Patience!\" resumed\nObenreizer, as Vendale, breaking loose from Bintrey, started to his feet.\n\"I shall not keep the name concealed much longer.  Two more little slips\nof paper, and I have done.  Third proof!  Certificate of Doctor Ganz,\nstill living in practice at Neuchatel, dated July, 1838.  The doctor\ncertifies (you shall read it for yourselves directly), first, that he\nattended the adopted child in its infant maladies; second, that, three\nmonths before the date of the certificate, the gentleman adopting the\nchild as his son died; third, that on the date of the certificate, his\nwidow and her maid, taking the adopted child with them, left Neuchatel on\ntheir return to England.  One more link now added to this, and my chain\nof evidence is complete.  The maid remained with her mistress till her\nmistress's death, only a few years since.  The maid can swear to the\nidentity of the adopted infant, from his childhood to his youth--from his\nyouth to his manhood, as he is now.  There is her address in England--and\nthere, Mr. Vendale, is the fourth, and final proof!\"\n\n\"Why do you address yourself to _me_?\" said Vendale, as Obenreizer threw\nthe written address on the table.\n\nObenreizer turned on him, in a sudden frenzy of triumph.\n\n\"_Because you are the man_!  If my niece marries you, she marries a\nbastard, brought up by public charity.  If my niece marries you, she\nmarries an impostor, without name or lineage, disguised in the character\nof a gentleman of rank and family.\"\n\n\"Bravo!\" cried Bintrey.  \"Admirably put, Mr. Obenreizer!  It only wants\none word more to complete it.  She marries--thanks entirely to your\nexertions--a man who inherits a handsome fortune, and a man whose origin\nwill make him prouder than ever of his peasant-wife.  George Vendale, as\nbrother-executors, let us congratulate each other!  Our dear dead\nfriend's last wish on earth is accomplished.  We have found the lost\nWalter Wilding.  As Mr. Obenreizer said just now--you are the man!\"\n\nThe words passed by Vendale unheeded.  For the moment he was conscious of\nbut one sensation; he heard but one voice.  Marguerite's hand was\nclasping his.  Marguerite's voice was whispering to him:\n\n\"I never loved you, George, as I love you now!\"\n\n\n\nTHE CURTAIN FALLS\n\n\nMay-day.  There is merry-making in Cripple Corner, the chimneys smoke,\nthe patriarchal dining-hall is hung with garlands, and Mrs. Goldstraw,\nthe respected housekeeper, is very busy.  For, on this bright morning the\nyoung master of Cripple Corner is married to its young mistress, far\naway: to wit, in the little town of Brieg, in Switzerland, lying at the\nfoot of the Simplon Pass where she saved his life.\n\nThe bells ring gaily in the little town of Brieg, and flags are stretched\nacross the street, and rifle shots are heard, and sounding music from\nbrass instruments.  Streamer-decorated casks of wine have been rolled out\nunder a gay awning in the public way before the Inn, and there will be\nfree feasting and revelry.  What with bells and banners, draperies\nhanging from windows, explosion of gunpowder, and reverberation of brass\nmusic, the little town of Brieg is all in a flutter, like the hearts of\nits simple people.\n\nIt was a stormy night last night, and the mountains are covered with\nsnow.  But the sun is bright to-day, the sweet air is fresh, the tin\nspires of the little town of Brieg are burnished silver, and the Alps are\nranges of far-off white cloud in a deep blue sky.\n\nThe primitive people of the little town of Brieg have built a greenwood\narch across the street, under which the newly married pair shall pass in\ntriumph from the church.  It is inscribed, on that side, \"HONOUR AND LOVE\nTO MARGUERITE VENDALE!\" for the people are proud of her to enthusiasm.\nThis greeting of the bride under her new name is affectionately meant as\na surprise, and therefore the arrangement has been made that she,\nunconscious why, shall be taken to the church by a tortuous back way.  A\nscheme not difficult to carry into execution in the crooked little town\nof Brieg.\n\nSo, all things are in readiness, and they are to go and come on foot.\nAssembled in the Inn's best chamber, festively adorned, are the bride and\nbridegroom, the Neuchatel notary, the London lawyer, Madame Dor, and a\ncertain large mysterious Englishman, popularly known as Monsieur Zhoe-\nLadelle.  And behold Madame Dor, arrayed in a spotless pair of gloves of\nher own, with no hand in the air, but both hands clasped round the neck\nof the bride; to embrace whom Madame Dor has turned her broad back on the\ncompany, consistent to the last.\n\n\"Forgive me, my beautiful,\" pleads Madame Dor, \"for that I ever was his\nshe-cat!\"\n\n\"She-cat, Madame Dor?\n\n\"Engaged to sit watching my so charming mouse,\" are the explanatory words\nof Madame Dor, delivered with a penitential sob.\n\n\"Why, you were our best friend!  George, dearest, tell Madame Dor.  Was\nshe not our best friend?\"\n\n\"Undoubtedly, darling.  What should we have done without her?\"\n\n\"You are both so generous,\" cries Madame Dor, accepting consolation, and\nimmediately relapsing.  \"But I commenced as a she-cat.\"\n\n\"Ah!  But like the cat in the fairy-story, good Madame Dor,\" says\nVendale, saluting her cheek, \"you were a true woman.  And, being a true\nwoman, the sympathy of your heart was with true love.\"\n\n\"I don't wish to deprive Madame Dor of her share in the embraces that are\ngoing on,\" Mr. Bintrey puts in, watch in hand, \"and I don't presume to\noffer any objection to your having got yourselves mixed together, in the\ncorner there, like the three Graces.  I merely remark that I think it's\ntime we were moving.  What are _your_ sentiments on that subject, Mr.\nLadle?\"\n\n\"Clear, sir,\" replies Joey, with a gracious grin.  \"I'm clearer\naltogether, sir, for having lived so many weeks upon the surface.  I\nnever was half so long upon the surface afore, and it's done me a power\nof good.  At Cripple Corner, I was too much below it.  Atop of the\nSimpleton, I was a deal too high above it.  I've found the medium here,\nsir.  And if ever I take it in convivial, in all the rest of my days, I\nmean to do it this day, to the toast of 'Bless 'em both.'\"\n\n\"I, too!\" says Bintrey.  \"And now, Monsieur Voigt, let you and me be two\nmen of Marseilles, and allons, marchons, arm-in-arm!\"\n\nThey go down to the door, where others are waiting for them, and they go\nquietly to the church, and the happy marriage takes place.  While the\nceremony is yet in progress, the notary is called out.  When it is\nfinished, he has returned, is standing behind Vendale, and touches him on\nthe shoulder.\n\n\"Go to the side door, one moment, Monsieur Vendale.  Alone.  Leave Madame\nto me.\"\n\nAt the side door of the church, are the same two men from the Hospice.\nThey are snow-stained and travel-worn.  They wish him joy, and then each\nlays his broad hand upon Vendale's breast, and one says in a low voice,\nwhile the other steadfastly regards him:\n\n\"It is here, Monsieur.  Your litter.  The very same.\"\n\n\"My litter is here?  Why?\"\n\n\"Hush!  For the sake of Madame.  Your companion of that day--\"\n\n\"What of him?\"\n\nThe man looks at his comrade, and his comrade takes him up.  Each keeps\nhis hand laid earnestly on Vendale's breast.\n\n\"He had been living at the first Refuge, monsieur, for some days.  The\nweather was now good, now bad.\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"He arrived at our Hospice the day before yesterday, and, having\nrefreshed himself with sleep on the floor before the fire, wrapped in his\ncloak, was resolute to go on, before dark, to the next Hospice.  He had a\ngreat fear of that part of the way, and thought it would be worse\nto-morrow.\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"He went on alone.  He had passed the gallery when an avalanche--like\nthat which fell behind you near the Bridge of the Ganther--\"\n\n\"Killed him?\"\n\n\"We dug him out, suffocated and broken all to pieces!  But, monsieur, as\nto Madame.  We have brought him here on the litter, to be buried.  We\nmust ascend the street outside.  Madame must not see.  It would be an\naccursed thing to bring the litter through the arch across the street,\nuntil Madame has passed through.  As you descend, we who accompany the\nlitter will set it down on the stones of the street the second to the\nright, and will stand before it.  But do not let Madame turn her head\ntowards the street the second to the right.  There is no time to lose.\nMadame will be alarmed by your absence.  Adieu!\"\n\nVendale returns to his bride, and draws her hand through his unmaimed\narm.  A pretty procession awaits them at the main door of the church.\nThey take their station in it, and descend the street amidst the ringing\nof the bells, the firing of the guns, the waving of the flags, the\nplaying of the music, the shouts, the smiles, and tears, of the excited\ntown.  Heads are uncovered as she passes, hands are kissed to her, all\nthe people bless her.  \"Heaven's benediction on the dear girl!  See where\nshe goes in her youth and beauty; she who so nobly saved his life!\"\n\nNear the corner of the street the second to the right, he speaks to her,\nand calls her attention to the windows on the opposite side.  The corner\nwell passed, he says: \"Do not look round, my darling, for a reason that I\nhave,\" and turns his head.  Then, looking back along the street, he sees\nthe litter and its bearers passing up alone under the arch, as he and she\nand their marriage train go down towards the shining valley.\n\n\n\n"}
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{"1435":"\n\n\n\n\nThis etext was prepared from the 1912 Gresham Publishing Company\nedition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk\n\n\n\n\n\nMISCELLANEOUS PAPERS BY CHARLES DICKENS\n\n\n\n\nContents:\n\nThe Agricultural Interest\nThreatening Letter to Thomas Hood from an Ancient Gentleman\nCrime and Education\nCapital Punishment\nThe Spirit of Chivalry in Westminster Hall\nIn Memoriam--W. M. Thackeray\nAdelaide Anne Procter\nChauncey Hare Townshend\nOn Mr. Fechter's Acting\n\n\n\n\nTHE AGRICULTURAL INTEREST\n\n\n\nThe present Government, having shown itself to be particularly\nclever in its management of Indictments for Conspiracy, cannot do\nbetter, we think (keeping in its administrative eye the pacification\nof some of its most influential and most unruly supporters), than\nindict the whole manufacturing interest of the country for a\nconspiracy against the agricultural interest.  As the jury ought to\nbe beyond impeachment, the panel might be chosen among the Duke of\nBuckingham's tenants, with the Duke of Buckingham himself as\nforeman; and, to the end that the country might be quite satisfied\nwith the judge, and have ample security beforehand for his\nmoderation and impartiality, it would be desirable, perhaps, to make\nsuch a slight change in the working of the law (a mere nothing to a\nConservative Government, bent upon its end), as would enable the\nquestion to be tried before an Ecclesiastical Court, with the Bishop\nof Exeter presiding.  The Attorney-General for Ireland, turning his\nsword into a ploughshare, might conduct the prosecution; and Mr.\nCobden and the other traversers might adopt any ground of defence\nthey chose, or prove or disprove anything they pleased, without\nbeing embarrassed by the least anxiety or doubt in reference to the\nverdict.\n\nThat the country in general is in a conspiracy against this sacred\nbut unhappy agricultural interest, there can be no doubt.  It is not\nalone within the walls of Covent Garden Theatre, or the Free Trade\nHall at Manchester, or the Town Hall at Birmingham, that the cry\n\"Repeal the Corn-laws!\" is raised.  It may be heard, moaning at\nnight, through the straw-littered wards of Refuges for the\nDestitute; it may be read in the gaunt and famished faces which make\nour streets terrible; it is muttered in the thankful grace\npronounced by haggard wretches over their felon fare in gaols; it is\ninscribed in dreadful characters upon the walls of Fever Hospitals;\nand may be plainly traced in every record of mortality.  All of\nwhich proves, that there is a vast conspiracy afoot, against the\nunfortunate agricultural interest.\n\nThey who run, even upon railroads, may read of this conspiracy.  The\nold stage-coachman was a farmer's friend.  He wore top-boots,\nunderstood cattle, fed his horses upon corn, and had a lively\npersonal interest in malt.  The engine-driver's garb, and\nsympathies, and tastes belong to the factory.  His fustian dress,\nbesmeared with coal-dust and begrimed with soot; his oily hands, his\ndirty face, his knowledge of machinery; all point him out as one\ndevoted to the manufacturing interest.  Fire and smoke, and red-hot\ncinders follow in his wake.  He has no attachment to the soil, but\ntravels on a road of iron, furnace wrought.  His warning is not\nconveyed in the fine old Saxon dialect of our glorious forefathers,\nbut in a fiendish yell.  He never cries \"ya-hip\", with agricultural\nlungs; but jerks forth a manufactured shriek from a brazen throat.\n\nWhere is the agricultural interest represented?  From what phase of\nour social life has it not been driven, to the undue setting up of\nits false rival?\n\nAre the police agricultural?  The watchmen were.  They wore woollen\nnightcaps to a man; they encouraged the growth of timber, by\npatriotically adhering to staves and rattles of immense size; they\nslept every night in boxes, which were but another form of the\ncelebrated wooden walls of Old England; they never woke up till it\nwas too late--in which respect you might have thought them very\nfarmers.  How is it with the police?  Their buttons are made at\nBirmingham; a dozen of their truncheons would poorly furnish forth a\nwatchman's staff; they have no wooden walls to repose between; and\nthe crowns of their hats are plated with cast-iron.\n\nAre the doctors agricultural?  Let Messrs. Morison and Moat, of the\nHygeian establishment at King's Cross, London, reply.  Is it not,\nupon the constant showing of those gentlemen, an ascertained fact\nthat the whole medical profession have united to depreciate the\nworth of the Universal Vegetable Medicines?  And is this opposition\nto vegetables, and exaltation of steel and iron instead, on the part\nof the regular practitioners, capable of any interpretation but one?\nIs it not a distinct renouncement of the agricultural interest, and\na setting up of the manufacturing interest instead?\n\nDo the professors of the law at all fail in their truth to the\nbeautiful maid whom they ought to adore?  Inquire of the Attorney-\nGeneral for Ireland.  Inquire of that honourable and learned\ngentleman, whose last public act was to cast aside the grey goose-\nquill, an article of agricultural produce, and take up the pistol,\nwhich, under the system of percussion locks, has not even a flint to\nconnect it with farming.  Or put the question to a still higher\nlegal functionary, who, on the same occasion, when he should have\nbeen a reed, inclining here and there, as adverse gales of evidence\ndisposed him, was seen to be a manufactured image on the seat of\nJustice, cast by Power, in most impenetrable brass.\n\nThe world is too much with us in this manufacturing interest, early\nand late; that is the great complaint and the great truth.  It is\nnot so with the agricultural interest, or what passes by that name.\nIt never thinks of the suffering world, or sees it, or cares to\nextend its knowledge of it; or, so long as it remains a world, cares\nanything about it.  All those whom Dante placed in the first pit or\ncircle of the doleful regions, might have represented the\nagricultural interest in the present Parliament, or at quarter\nsessions, or at meetings of the farmers' friends, or anywhere else.\n\nBut that is not the question now.  It is conspired against; and we\nhave given a few proofs of the conspiracy, as they shine out of\nvarious classes engaged in it.  An indictment against the whole\nmanufacturing interest need not be longer, surely, than the\nindictment in the case of the Crown against O'Connell and others.\nMr. Cobden may be taken as its representative--as indeed he is, by\none consent already.  There may be no evidence; but that is not\nrequired.  A judge and jury are all that is needed.  And the\nGovernment know where to find them, or they gain experience to\nlittle purpose.\n\n\n\nTHREATENING LETTER\nTO THOMAS HOOD\nFROM AN ANCIENT GENTLEMAN\n\n\n\nMR. HOOD.  SIR,--The Constitution is going at last!  You needn't\nlaugh, Mr. Hood.  I am aware that it has been going, two or three\ntimes before; perhaps four times; but it is on the move now, sir,\nand no mistake.\n\nI beg to say, that I use those last expressions advisedly, sir, and\nnot in the sense in which they are now used by Jackanapeses.  There\nwere no Jackanapeses when I was a boy, Mr. Hood.  England was Old\nEngland when I was young.  I little thought it would ever come to be\nYoung England when I was old.  But everything is going backward.\n\nAh! governments were governments, and judges were judges, in my day,\nMr. Hood.  There was no nonsense then.  Any of your seditious\ncomplainings, and we were ready with the military on the shortest\nnotice.  We should have charged Covent Garden Theatre, sir, on a\nWednesday night:  at the point of the bayonet.  Then, the judges\nwere full of dignity and firmness, and knew how to administer the\nlaw.  There is only one judge who knows how to do his duty, now.  He\ntried that revolutionary female the other day, who, though she was\nin full work (making shirts at three-halfpence a piece), had no\npride in her country, but treasonably took it in her head, in the\ndistraction of having been robbed of her easy earnings, to attempt\nto drown herself and her young child; and the glorious man went out\nof his way, sir--out of his way--to call her up for instant sentence\nof Death; and to tell her she had no hope of mercy in this world--as\nyou may see yourself if you look in the papers of Wednesday the 17th\nof April.  He won't be supported, sir, I know he won't; but it is\nworth remembering that his words were carried into every\nmanufacturing town of this kingdom, and read aloud to crowds in\nevery political parlour, beer-shop, news-room, and secret or open\nplace of assembly, frequented by the discontented working-men; and\nthat no milk-and-water weakness on the part of the executive can\never blot them out.  Great things like that, are caught up, and\nstored up, in these times, and are not forgotten, Mr. Hood.  The\npublic at large (especially those who wish for peace and\nconciliation) are universally obliged to him.  If it is reserved for\nany man to set the Thames on fire, it is reserved for him; and\nindeed I am told he very nearly did it, once.\n\nBut even he won't save the constitution, sir:  it is mauled beyond\nthe power of preservation.  Do you know in what foul weather it will\nbe sacrificed and shipwrecked, Mr. Hood?  Do you know on what rock\nit will strike, sir?  You don't, I am certain; for nobody does know\nas yet but myself.  I will tell you.\n\nThe constitution will go down, sir (nautically speaking), in the\ndegeneration of the human species in England, and its reduction into\na mingled race of savages and pigmies.\n\nThat is my proposition.  That is my prediction.  That is the event\nof which I give you warning.  I am now going to prove it, sir.\n\nYou are a literary man, Mr. Hood, and have written, I am told, some\nthings worth reading.  I say I am told, because I never read what is\nwritten in these days.  You'll excuse me; but my principle is, that\nno man ought to know anything about his own time, except that it is\nthe worst time that ever was, or is ever likely to be.  That is the\nonly way, sir, to be truly wise and happy.\n\nIn your station, as a literary man, Mr. Hood, you are frequently at\nthe Court of Her Gracious Majesty the Queen.  God bless her!  You\nhave reason to know that the three great keys to the royal palace\n(after rank and politics) are Science, Literature, Art.  I don't\napprove of this myself.  I think it ungenteel and barbarous, and\nquite un-English; the custom having been a foreign one, ever since\nthe reigns of the uncivilised sultans in the Arabian Nights, who\nalways called the wise men of their time about them.  But so it is.\nAnd when you don't dine at the royal table, there is always a knife\nand fork for you at the equerries' table:  where, I understand, all\ngifted men are made particularly welcome.\n\nBut all men can't be gifted, Mr. Hood.  Neither scientific,\nliterary, nor artistical powers are any more to be inherited than\nthe property arising from scientific, literary, or artistic\nproductions, which the law, with a beautiful imitation of nature,\ndeclines to protect in the second generation.  Very good, sir.\nThen, people are naturally very prone to cast about in their minds\nfor other means of getting at Court Favour; and, watching the signs\nof the times, to hew out for themselves, or their descendants, the\nlikeliest roads to that distinguished goal.\n\nMr. Hood, it is pretty clear, from recent records in the Court\nCircular, that if a father wish to train up his son in the way he\nshould go, to go to Court:  and cannot indenture him to be a\nscientific man, an author, or an artist, three courses are open to\nhim.  He must endeavour by artificial means to make him a dwarf, a\nwild man, or a Boy Jones.\n\nNow, sir, this is the shoal and quicksand on which the constitution\nwill go to pieces.\n\nI have made inquiry, Mr. Hood, and find that in my neighbourhood two\nfamilies and a fraction out of every four, in the lower and middle\nclasses of society, are studying and practising all conceivable arts\nto keep their infant children down.  Understand me.  I do not mean\ndown in their numbers, or down in their precocity, but down in their\ngrowth, sir.  A destructive and subduing drink, compounded of gin\nand milk in equal quantities, such as is given to puppies to retard\ntheir growth:  not something short, but something shortening:  is\nadministered to these young creatures many times a day.  An\nunnatural and artificial thirst is first awakened in these infants\nby meals of salt beef, bacon, anchovies, sardines, red herrings,\nshrimps, olives, pea-soup, and that description of diet; and when\nthey screech for drink, in accents that might melt a heart of stone,\nwhich they do constantly (I allude to screeching, not to melting),\nthis liquid is introduced into their too confiding stomachs.  At\nsuch an early age, and to so great an extent, is this custom of\nprovoking thirst, then quenching it with a stunting drink, observed,\nthat brine pap has already superseded the use of tops-and-bottoms;\nand wet-nurses, previously free from any kind of reproach, have been\nseen to stagger in the streets:  owing, sir, to the quantity of gin\nintroduced into their systems, with a view to its gradual and\nnatural conversion into the fluid I have already mentioned.\n\nUpon the best calculation I can make, this is going on, as I have\nsaid, in the proportion of about two families and a fraction in\nfour.  In one more family and a fraction out of the same number,\nefforts are being made to reduce the children to a state of nature;\nand to inculcate, at a tender age, the love of raw flesh, train oil,\nnew rum, and the acquisition of scalps.  Wild and outlandish dances\nare also in vogue (you will have observed the prevailing rage for\nthe Polka); and savage cries and whoops are much indulged in (as you\nmay discover, if you doubt it, in the House of Commons any night).\nNay, some persons, Mr. Hood; and persons of some figure and\ndistinction too; have already succeeded in breeding wild sons; who\nhave been publicly shown in the Courts of Bankruptcy, and in police-\noffices, and in other commodious exhibition-rooms, with great\neffect, but who have not yet found favour at court; in consequence,\nas I infer, of the impression made by Mr. Rankin's wild men being\ntoo fresh and recent, to say nothing of Mr. Rankin's wild men being\nforeigners.\n\nI need not refer you, sir, to the late instance of the Ojibbeway\nBride.  But I am credibly informed, that she is on the eve of\nretiring into a savage fastness, where she may bring forth and\neducate a wild family, who shall in course of time, by the dexterous\nuse of the popularity they are certain to acquire at Windsor and St.\nJames's, divide with dwarfs the principal offices of state, of\npatronage, and power, in the United Kingdom.\n\nConsider the deplorable consequences, Mr. Hood, which must result\nfrom these proceedings, and the encouragement they receive in the\nhighest quarters.\n\nThe dwarf being the favourite, sir, it is certain that the public\nmind will run in a great and eminent degree upon the production of\ndwarfs.  Perhaps the failures only will be brought up, wild.  The\nimagination goes a long way in these cases; and all that the\nimagination can do, will be done, and is doing.  You may convince\nyourself of this, by observing the condition of those ladies who\ntake particular notice of General Tom Thumb at the Egyptian Hall,\nduring his hours of performance.\n\nThe rapid increase of dwarfs, will be first felt in her Majesty's\nrecruiting department.  The standard will, of necessity, be lowered;\nthe dwarfs will grow smaller and smaller; the vulgar expression \"a\nman of his inches\" will become a figure of fact, instead of a figure\nof speech; crack regiments, household-troops especially, will pick\nthe smallest men from all parts of the country; and in the two\nlittle porticoes at the Horse Guards, two Tom Thumbs will be daily\nseen, doing duty, mounted on a pair of Shetland ponies.  Each of\nthem will be relieved (as Tom Thumb is at this moment, in the\nintervals of his performance) by a wild man; and a British Grenadier\nwill either go into a quart pot, or be an Old Boy, or Blue Gull, or\nFlying Bull, or some other savage chief of that nature.\n\nI will not expatiate upon the number of dwarfs who will be found\nrepresenting Grecian statues in all parts of the metropolis; because\nI am inclined to think that this will be a change for the better;\nand that the engagement of two or three in Trafalgar Square will\ntend to the improvement of the public taste.\n\nThe various genteel employments at Court being held by dwarfs, sir,\nit will be necessary to alter, in some respects, the present\nregulations.  It is quite clear that not even General Tom Thumb\nhimself could preserve a becoming dignity on state occasions, if\nrequired to walk about with a scaffolding-pole under his arm;\ntherefore the gold and silver sticks at present used, must be cut\ndown into skewers of those precious metals; a twig of the black rod\nwill be quite as much as can be conveniently preserved; the coral\nand bells of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, will be used in\nlieu of the mace at present in existence; and that bauble (as Oliver\nCromwell called it, Mr. Hood), its value being first calculated by\nMr. Finlayson, the government actuary, will be placed to the credit\nof the National Debt.\n\nAll this, sir, will be the death of the constitution.  But this is\nnot all.  The constitution dies hard, perhaps; but there is enough\ndisease impending, Mr. Hood, to kill it three times over.\n\nWild men will get into the House of Commons.  Imagine that, sir!\nImagine Strong Wind in the House of Commons!  It is not an easy\nmatter to get through a debate now; but I say, imagine Strong Wind,\nspeaking for the benefit of his constituents, upon the floor of the\nHouse of Commons! or imagine (which is pregnant with more awful\nconsequences still) the ministry having an interpreter in the House\nof Commons, to tell the country, in English, what it really means!\n\nWhy, sir, that in itself would be blowing the constitution out of\nthe mortar in St. James's Park, and leaving nothing of it to be seen\nbut smoke.\n\nBut this, I repeat it, is the state of things to which we are fast\ntending, Mr. Hood; and I enclose my card for your private eye, that\nyou may be quite certain of it.  What the condition of this country\nwill be, when its standing army is composed of dwarfs, with here and\nthere a wild man to throw its ranks into confusion, like the\nelephants employed in war in former times, I leave you to imagine,\nsir.  It may be objected by some hopeful jackanapeses, that the\nnumber of impressments in the navy, consequent upon the seizure of\nthe Boy-Joneses, or remaining portion of the population ambitious of\nCourt Favour, will be in itself sufficient to defend our Island from\nforeign invasion.  But I tell those jackanapeses, sir, that while I\nadmit the wisdom of the Boy Jones precedent, of kidnapping such\nyouths after the expiration of their several terms of imprisonment\nas vagabonds; hurrying them on board ship; and packing them off to\nsea again whenever they venture to take the air on shore; I deny the\njustice of the inference; inasmuch as it appears to me, that the\ninquiring minds of those young outlaws must naturally lead to their\nbeing hanged by the enemy as spies, early in their career; and\nbefore they shall have been rated on the books of our fleet as able\nseamen.\n\nSuch, Mr. Hood, sir, is the prospect before us!  And unless you, and\nsome of your friends who have influence at Court, can get up a giant\nas a forlorn hope, it is all over with this ill-fated land.\n\nIn reference to your own affairs, sir, you will take whatever course\nmay seem to you most prudent and advisable after this warning.  It\nis not a warning to be slighted:  that I happen to know.  I am\ninformed by the gentleman who favours this, that you have recently\nbeen making some changes and improvements in your Magazine, and are,\nin point of fact, starting afresh.  If I be well informed, and this\nbe really so, rely upon it that you cannot start too small, sir.\nCome down to the duodecimo size instantly, Mr. Hood.  Take time by\nthe forelock; and, reducing the stature of your Magazine every\nmonth, bring it at last to the dimensions of the little almanack no\nlonger issued, I regret to say, by the ingenious Mr. Schloss:  which\nwas invisible to the naked eye until examined through a little eye-\nglass.\n\nYou project, I am told, the publication of a new novel, by yourself,\nin the pages of your Magazine.  A word in your ear.  I am not a\nyoung man, sir, and have had some experience.  Don't put your own\nname on the title-page; it would be suicide and madness.  Treat with\nGeneral Tom Thumb, Mr. Hood, for the use of his name on any terms.\nIf the gallant general should decline to treat with you, get Mr.\nBarnum's name, which is the next best in the market.  And when,\nthrough this politic course, you shall have received, in presents, a\nrichly jewelled set of tablets from Buckingham Palace, and a gold\nwatch and appendages from Marlborough House; and when those valuable\ntrinkets shall be left under a glass case at your publisher's for\ninspection by your friends and the public in general;--then, sir,\nyou will do me the justice of remembering this communication.\n\nIt is unnecessary for me to add, after what I have observed in the\ncourse of this letter, that I am not,--sir, ever your\n\nCONSTANT READER.\n\nTUESDAY, 23rd April 1844.\n\nP.S.--Impress it upon your contributors that they cannot be too\nshort; and that if not dwarfish, they must be wild--or at all events\nnot tame.\n\n\n\nCRIME AND EDUCATION\n\n\n\nI offer no apology for entreating the attention of the readers of\nThe Daily News to an effort which has been making for some three\nyears and a half, and which is making now, to introduce among the\nmost miserable and neglected outcasts in London, some knowledge of\nthe commonest principles of morality and religion; to commence their\nrecognition as immortal human creatures, before the Gaol Chaplain\nbecomes their only schoolmaster; to suggest to Society that its duty\nto this wretched throng, foredoomed to crime and punishment,\nrightfully begins at some distance from the police office; and that\nthe careless maintenance from year to year, in this, the capital\ncity of the world, of a vast hopeless nursery of ignorance, misery\nand vice; a breeding place for the hulks and jails:  is horrible to\ncontemplate.\n\nThis attempt is being made in certain of the most obscure and\nsqualid parts of the Metropolis, where rooms are opened, at night,\nfor the gratuitous instruction of all comers, children or adults,\nunder the title of RAGGED SCHOOLS.  The name implies the purpose.\nThey who are too ragged, wretched, filthy, and forlorn, to enter any\nother place:  who could gain admission into no charity school, and\nwho would be driven from any church door; are invited to come in\nhere, and find some people not depraved, willing to teach them\nsomething, and show them some sympathy, and stretch a hand out,\nwhich is not the iron hand of Law, for their correction.\n\nBefore I describe a visit of my own to a Ragged School, and urge the\nreaders of this letter for God's sake to visit one themselves, and\nthink of it (which is my main object), let me say, that I know the\nprisons of London well; that I have visited the largest of them more\ntimes than I could count; and that the children in them are enough\nto break the heart and hope of any man.  I have never taken a\nforeigner or a stranger of any kind to one of these establishments\nbut I have seen him so moved at sight of the child offenders, and so\naffected by the contemplation of their utter renouncement and\ndesolation outside the prison walls, that he has been as little able\nto disguise his emotion, as if some great grief had suddenly burst\nupon him.  Mr. Chesterton and Lieutenant Tracey (than whom more\nintelligent and humane Governors of Prisons it would be hard, if not\nimpossible, to find) know perfectly well that these children pass\nand repass through the prisons all their lives; that they are never\ntaught; that the first distinctions between right and wrong are,\nfrom their cradles, perfectly confounded and perverted in their\nminds; that they come of untaught parents, and will give birth to\nanother untaught generation; that in exact proportion to their\nnatural abilities, is the extent and scope of their depravity; and\nthat there is no escape or chance for them in any ordinary\nrevolution of human affairs.  Happily, there are schools in these\nprisons now.  If any readers doubt how ignorant the children are,\nlet them visit those schools and see them at their tasks, and hear\nhow much they knew when they were sent there.  If they would know\nthe produce of this seed, let them see a class of men and boys\ntogether, at their books (as I have seen them in the House of\nCorrection for this county of Middlesex), and mark how painfully the\nfull grown felons toil at the very shape and form of letters; their\nignorance being so confirmed and solid.  The contrast of this labour\nin the men, with the less blunted quickness of the boys; the latent\nshame and sense of degradation struggling through their dull\nattempts at infant lessons; and the universal eagerness to learn,\nimpress me, in this passing retrospect, more painfully than I can\ntell.\n\nFor the instruction, and as a first step in the reformation, of such\nunhappy beings, the Ragged Schools were founded.  I was first\nattracted to the subject, and indeed was first made conscious of\ntheir existence, about two years ago, or more, by seeing an\nadvertisement in the papers dated from West Street, Saffron Hill,\nstating \"That a room had been opened and supported in that wretched\nneighbourhood for upwards of twelve months, where religious\ninstruction had been imparted to the poor\", and explaining in a few\nwords what was meant by Ragged Schools as a generic term, including,\nthen, four or five similar places of instruction.  I wrote to the\nmasters of this particular school to make some further inquiries,\nand went myself soon afterwards.\n\nIt was a hot summer night; and the air of Field Lane and Saffron\nHill was not improved by such weather, nor were the people in those\nstreets very sober or honest company.  Being unacquainted with the\nexact locality of the school, I was fain to make some inquiries\nabout it.  These were very jocosely received in general; but\neverybody knew where it was, and gave the right direction to it.\nThe prevailing idea among the loungers (the greater part of them the\nvery sweepings of the streets and station houses) seemed to be, that\nthe teachers were quixotic, and the school upon the whole \"a lark\".\nBut there was certainly a kind of rough respect for the intention,\nand (as I have said) nobody denied the school or its whereabouts, or\nrefused assistance in directing to it.\n\nIt consisted at that time of either two or three--I forget which--\nmiserable rooms, upstairs in a miserable house.  In the best of\nthese, the pupils in the female school were being taught to read and\nwrite; and though there were among the number, many wretched\ncreatures steeped in degradation to the lips, they were tolerably\nquiet, and listened with apparent earnestness and patience to their\ninstructors.  The appearance of this room was sad and melancholy, of\ncourse--how could it be otherwise!--but, on the whole, encouraging.\n\nThe close, low chamber at the back, in which the boys were crowded,\nwas so foul and stifling as to be, at first, almost insupportable.\nBut its moral aspect was so far worse than its physical, that this\nwas soon forgotten.  Huddled together on a bench about the room, and\nshown out by some flaring candles stuck against the walls, were a\ncrowd of boys, varying from mere infants to young men; sellers of\nfruit, herbs, lucifer-matches, flints; sleepers under the dry arches\nof bridges; young thieves and beggars--with nothing natural to youth\nabout them:  with nothing frank, ingenuous, or pleasant in their\nfaces; low-browed, vicious, cunning, wicked; abandoned of all help\nbut this; speeding downward to destruction; and UNUTTERABLY\nIGNORANT.\n\nThis, Reader, was one room as full as it could hold; but these were\nonly grains in sample of a Multitude that are perpetually sifting\nthrough these schools; in sample of a Multitude who had within them\nonce, and perhaps have now, the elements of men as good as you or I,\nand maybe infinitely better; in sample of a Multitude among whose\ndoomed and sinful ranks (oh, think of this, and think of them!) the\nchild of any man upon this earth, however lofty his degree, must, as\nby Destiny and Fate, be found, if, at its birth, it were consigned\nto such an infancy and nurture, as these fallen creatures had!\n\nThis was the Class I saw at the Ragged School.  They could not be\ntrusted with books; they could only be instructed orally; they were\ndifficult of reduction to anything like attention, obedience, or\ndecent behaviour; their benighted ignorance in reference to the\nDeity, or to any social duty (how could they guess at any social\nduty, being so discarded by all social teachers but the gaoler and\nthe hangman!) was terrible to see.  Yet, even here, and among these,\nsomething had been done already.  The Ragged School was of recent\ndate and very poor; but he had inculcated some association with the\nname of the Almighty, which was not an oath, and had taught them to\nlook forward in a hymn (they sang it) to another life, which would\ncorrect the miseries and woes of this.\n\nThe new exposition I found in this Ragged School, of the frightful\nneglect by the State of those whom it punishes so constantly, and\nwhom it might, as easily and less expensively, instruct and save;\ntogether with the sight I had seen there, in the heart of London;\nhaunted me, and finally impelled me to an endeavour to bring these\nInstitutions under the notice of the Government; with some faint\nhope that the vastness of the question would supersede the Theology\nof the schools, and that the Bench of Bishops might adjust the\nlatter question, after some small grant had been conceded.  I made\nthe attempt; and have heard no more of the subject from that hour.\n\nThe perusal of an advertisement in yesterday's paper, announcing a\nlecture on the Ragged Schools last night, has led me into these\nremarks.  I might easily have given them another form; but I address\nthis letter to you, in the hope that some few readers in whom I have\nawakened an interest, as a writer of fiction, may be, by that means,\nattracted to the subject, who might otherwise, unintentionally, pass\nit over.\n\nI have no desire to praise the system pursued in the Ragged Schools;\nwhich is necessarily very imperfect, if indeed there be one.  So far\nas I have any means of judging of what is taught there, I should\nindividually object to it, as not being sufficiently secular, and as\npresenting too many religious mysteries and difficulties, to minds\nnot sufficiently prepared for their reception.  But I should very\nimperfectly discharge in myself the duty I wish to urge and impress\non others, if I allowed any such doubt of mine to interfere with my\nappreciation of the efforts of these teachers, or my true wish to\npromote them by any slight means in my power.  Irritating topics, of\nall kinds, are equally far removed from my purpose and intention.\nBut, I adjure those excellent persons who aid, munificently, in the\nbuilding of New Churches, to think of these Ragged Schools; to\nreflect whether some portion of their rich endowments might not be\nspared for such a purpose; to contemplate, calmly, the necessity of\nbeginning at the beginning; to consider for themselves where the\nChristian Religion most needs and most suggests immediate help and\nillustration; and not to decide on any theory or hearsay, but to go\nthemselves into the Prisons and the Ragged Schools, and form their\nown conclusions.  They will be shocked, pained, and repelled, by\nmuch that they learn there; but nothing they can learn will be one-\nthousandth part so shocking, painful, and repulsive, as the\ncontinuance for one year more of these things as they have been for\ntoo many years already.\n\nAnticipating that some of the more prominent facts connected with\nthe history of the Ragged Schools, may become known to the readers\nof The Daily News through your account of the lecture in question, I\nabstain (though in possession of some such information) from\npursuing the question further, at this time.  But if I should see\noccasion, I will take leave to return to it.\n\n\n\nCAPITAL PUNISHMENT\n\n\n\nI will take for the subject of this letter, the effect of Capital\nPunishment on the commission of crime, or rather of murder; the only\ncrime with one exception (and that a rare one) to which it is now\napplied.  Its effect in preventing crime, I will reserve for another\nletter:  and a few of the more striking illustrations of each aspect\nof the subject, for a concluding one.\n\nThe effect of Capital Punishment on the commission of Murder.\n\nSome murders are committed in hot blood and furious rage; some, in\ndeliberate revenge; some, in terrible despair; some (but not many)\nfor mere gain; some, for the removal of an object dangerous to the\nmurderer's peace or good name; some, to win a monstrous notoriety.\n\nOn murders committed in rage, in the despair of strong affection (as\nwhen a starving child is murdered by its parent) or for gain, I\nbelieve the punishment of death to have no effect in the least.  In\nthe two first cases, the impulse is a blind and wild one, infinitely\nbeyond the reach of any reference to the punishment.  In the last,\nthere is little calculation beyond the absorbing greed of the money\nto be got.  Courvoisier, for example, might have robbed his master\nwith greater safety, and with fewer chances of detection, if he had\nnot murdered him.  But, his calculations going to the gain and not\nto the loss, he had no balance for the consequences of what he did.\nSo, it would have been more safe and prudent in the woman who was\nhanged a few weeks since, for the murder in Westminster, to have\nsimply robbed her old companion in an unguarded moment, as in her\nsleep.  But, her calculation going to the gain of what she took to\nbe a Bank note; and the poor old woman living between her and the\ngain; she murdered her.\n\nOn murders committed in deliberate revenge, or to remove a stumbling\nblock in the murderer's path, or in an insatiate craving for\nnotoriety, is there reason to suppose that the punishment of death\nhas the direct effect of an incentive and an impulse?\n\nA murder is committed in deliberate revenge.  The murderer is at no\ntrouble to prepare his train of circumstances, takes little or no\npains to escape, is quite cool and collected, perfectly content to\ndeliver himself up to the Police, makes no secret of his guilt, but\nboldly says, \"I killed him.  I'm glad of it.  I meant to do it.  I\nam ready to die.\"  There was such a case the other day.  There was\nsuch another case not long ago.  There are such cases frequently.\nIt is the commonest first exclamation on being seized.  Now, what is\nthis but a false arguing of the question, announcing a foregone\nconclusion, expressly leading to the crime, and inseparably arising\nout of the Punishment of Death?  \"I took his life.  I give up mine\nto pay for it.  Life for life; blood for blood.  I have done the\ncrime.  I am ready with the atonement.  I know all about it; it's a\nfair bargain between me and the law.  Here am I to execute my part\nof it; and what more is to be said or done?\"  It is the very essence\nof the maintenance of this punishment for murder, that it does set\nlife against life.  It is in the essence of a stupid, weak, or\notherwise ill-regulated mind (of such a murderer's mind, in short),\nto recognise in this set off, a something that diminishes the base\nand coward character of murder.  \"In a pitched battle, I, a common\nman, may kill my adversary, but he may kill me.  In a duel, a\ngentleman may shoot his opponent through the head, but the opponent\nmay shoot him too, and this makes it fair.  Very well.  I take this\nman's life for a reason I have, or choose to think I have, and the\nlaw takes mine.  The law says, and the clergyman says, there must be\nblood for blood and life for life.  Here it is.  I pay the penalty.\"\n\nA mind incapable, or confounded in its perceptions--and you must\nargue with reference to such a mind, or you could not have such a\nmurder--may not only establish on these grounds an idea of strict\njustice and fair reparation, but a stubborn and dogged fortitude and\nforesight that satisfy it hugely.  Whether the fact be really so, or\nnot, is a question I would be content to rest, alone, on the number\nof cases of revengeful murder in which this is well known, without\ndispute, to have been the prevailing demeanour of the criminal:  and\nin which such speeches and such absurd reasoning have been\nconstantly uppermost with him.  \"Blood for blood\", and \"life for\nlife\", and such like balanced jingles, have passed current in\npeople's mouths, from legislators downwards, until they have been\ncorrupted into \"tit for tat\", and acted on.\n\nNext, come the murders done, to sweep out of the way a dreaded or\ndetested object.  At the bottom of this class of crimes, there is a\nslow, corroding, growing hate.  Violent quarrels are commonly found\nto have taken place between the murdered person and the murderer:\nusually of opposite sexes.  There are witnesses to old scenes of\nreproach and recrimination, in which they were the actors; and the\nmurderer has been heard to say, in this or that coarse phrase, \"that\nhe wouldn't mind killing her, though he should be hanged for it\"--in\nthese cases, the commonest avowal.\n\nIt seems to me, that in this well-known scrap of evidence, there is\na deeper meaning than is usually attached to it.  I do not know, but\nit may be--I have a strong suspicion that it is--a clue to the slow\ngrowth of the crime, and its gradual development in the mind.  More\nthan this; a clue to the mental connection of the deed, with the\npunishment to which the doer of that deed is liable, until the two,\nconjoined, give birth to monstrous and misshapen Murder.\n\nThe idea of murder, in such a case, like that of self-destruction in\nthe great majority of instances, is not a new one.  It may have\npresented itself to the disturbed mind in a dim shape and afar off;\nbut it has been there.  After a quarrel, or with some strong sense\nupon him of irritation or discomfort arising out of the continuance\nof this life in his path, the man has brooded over the unformed\ndesire to take it.  \"Though he should be hanged for it.\"  With the\nentrance of the Punishment into his thoughts, the shadow of the\nfatal beam begins to attend--not on himself, but on the object of\nhis hate.  At every new temptation, it is there, stronger and\nblacker yet, trying to terrify him.  When she defies or threatens\nhim, the scaffold seems to be her strength and \"vantage ground\".\nLet her not be too sure of that; \"though he should be hanged for\nit\".\n\nThus, he begins to raise up, in the contemplation of this death by\nhanging, a new and violent enemy to brave.  The prospect of a slow\nand solitary expiation would have no congeniality with his wicked\nthoughts, but this throttling and strangling has.  There is always\nbefore him, an ugly, bloody, scarecrow phantom, that champions her,\nas it were, and yet shows him, in a ghastly way, the example of\nmurder.  Is she very weak, or very trustful in him, or infirm, or\nold?  It gives a hideous courage to what would be mere slaughter\notherwise; for there it is, a presence always about her, darkly\nmenacing him with that penalty whose murky secret has a fascination\nfor all secret and unwholesome thoughts.  And when he struggles with\nhis victim at the last, \"though he should be hanged for it\", it is a\nmerciless wrestle, not with one weak life only, but with that ever-\nhaunting, ever-beckoning shadow of the gallows, too; and with a\nfierce defiance to it, after their long survey of each other, to\ncome on and do its worst.\n\nPresent this black idea of violence to a bad mind contemplating\nviolence; hold up before a man remotely compassing the death of\nanother person, the spectacle of his own ghastly and untimely death\nby man's hands; and out of the depths of his own nature you shall\nassuredly raise up that which lures and tempts him on.  The laws\nwhich regulate those mysteries have not been studied or cared for,\nby the maintainers of this law; but they are paramount and will\nalways assert their power.\n\nOut of one hundred and sixty-seven persons under sentence of Death\nin England, questioned at different times, in the course of years,\nby an English clergyman in the performance of his duty, there were\nonly three who had not been spectators of executions.\n\nWe come, now, to the consideration of those murders which are\ncommitted, or attempted, with no other object than the attainment of\nan infamous notoriety.  That this class of crimes has its origin in\nthe Punishment of Death, we cannot question; because (as we have\nalready seen, and shall presently establish by another proof) great\nnotoriety and interest attach, and are generally understood to\nattach, only to those criminals who are in danger of being executed.\n\nOne of the most remarkable instances of murder originating in mad\nself-conceit; and of the murderer's part in the repulsive drama, in\nwhich the law appears at such great disadvantage to itself and to\nsociety, being acted almost to the last with a self-complacency that\nwould be horribly ludicrous if it were not utterly revolting; is\npresented in the case of Hocker.\n\nHere is an insolent, flippant, dissolute youth:  aping the man of\nintrigue and levity:  over-dressed, over-confident, inordinately\nvain of his personal appearance:  distinguished as to his hair,\ncane, snuff-box, and singing-voice:  and unhappily the son of a\nworking shoemaker.  Bent on loftier flights than such a poor house-\nswallow as a teacher in a Sunday-school can take; and having no\ntruth, industry, perseverance, or other dull work-a-day quality, to\nplume his wings withal; he casts about him, in his jaunty way, for\nsome mode of distinguishing himself--some means of getting that head\nof hair into the print-shops; of having something like justice done\nto his singing-voice and fine intellect; of making the life and\nadventures of Thomas Hocker remarkable; and of getting up some\nexcitement in connection with that slighted piece of biography.  The\nStage?  No.  Not feasible.  There has always been a conspiracy\nagainst the Thomas Hockers, in that kind of effort.  It has been the\nsame with Authorship in prose and poetry.  Is there nothing else?  A\nMurder, now, would make a noise in the papers!  There is the gallows\nto be sure; but without that, it would be nothing.  Short of that,\nit wouldn't be fame.  Well!  We must all die at one time or other;\nand to die game, and have it in print, is just the thing for a man\nof spirit.  They always die game at the Minor Theatres and the\nSaloons, and the people like it very much.  Thurtell, too, died very\ngame, and made a capital speech when he was tried.  There's all\nabout it in a book at the cigar-shop now.  Come, Tom, get your name\nup!  Let it be a dashing murder that shall keep the wood-engravers\nat it for the next two months.  You are the boy to go through with\nit, and interest the town!\n\nThe miserable wretch, inflated by this lunatic conceit, arranges his\nwhole plan for publication and effect.  It is quite an epitome of\nhis experience of the domestic melodrama or penny novel.  There is\nthe Victim Friend; the mysterious letter of the injured Female to\nthe Victim Friend; the romantic spot for the Death-Struggle by\nnight; the unexpected appearance of Thomas Hocker to the Policeman;\nthe parlour of the Public House, with Thomas Hocker reading the\npaper to a strange gentleman; the Family Apartment, with a song by\nThomas Hocker; the Inquest Room, with Thomas Hocker boldly looking\non; the interior of the Marylebone Theatre, with Thomas Hocker taken\ninto custody; the Police Office with Thomas Hocker \"affable\" to the\nspectators; the interior of Newgate, with Thomas Hocker preparing\nhis defence; the Court, where Thomas Hocker, with his dancing-master\nairs, is put upon his trial, and complimented by the Judge; the\nProsecution, the Defence, the Verdict, the Black Cap, the Sentence--\neach of them a line in any Playbill, and how bold a line in Thomas\nHocker's life!\n\nIt is worthy of remark, that the nearer he approaches to the\ngallows--the great last scene to which the whole of these effects\nhave been working up--the more the overweening conceit of the poor\nwretch shows itself; the more he feels that he is the hero of the\nhour; the more audaciously and recklessly he lies, in supporting the\ncharacter.  In public--at the condemned sermon--he deports himself\nas becomes the man whose autographs are precious, whose portraits\nare innumerable; in memory of whom, whole fences and gates have been\nborne away, in splinters, from the scene of murder.  He knows that\nthe eyes of Europe are upon him; but he is not proud--only graceful.\nHe bows, like the first gentleman in Europe, to the turnkey who\nbrings him a glass of water; and composes his clothes and hassock as\ncarefully, as good Madame Blaize could do.  In private--within the\nwalls of the condemned cell--every word and action of his waning\nlife, is a lie.  His whole time is divided between telling lies and\nwriting them.  If he ever have another thought, it is for his\ngenteel appearance on the scaffold; as when he begs the barber \"not\nto cut his hair too short, or they won't know him when he comes\nout\".  His last proceeding but one is to write two romantic love\nletters to women who have no existence.  His last proceeding of all\n(but less characteristic, though the only true one) is to swoon\naway, miserably, in the arms of the attendants, and be hanged up\nlike a craven dog.\n\nIs not such a history, from first to last, a most revolting and\ndisgraceful one; and can the student of it bring himself to believe\nthat it ever could have place in any record of facts, or that the\nmiserable chief-actor in it could have ever had a motive for his\narrogant wickedness, but for the comment and the explanation which\nthe Punishment of Death supplies!\n\nIt is not a solitary case, nor is it a prodigy, but a mere specimen\nof a class.  The case of Oxford, who fired at Her Majesty in the\nPark, will be found, on examination, to resemble it very nearly, in\nthe essential feature.  There is no proved pretence whatever for\nregarding him as mad; other than that he was like this malefactor,\nbrimful of conceit, and a desire to become, even at the cost of the\ngallows (the only cost within his reach) the talk of the town.  He\nhad less invention than Hocker, and perhaps was not so deliberately\nbad; but his attempt was a branch of the same tree, and it has its\nroot in the ground where the scaffold is erected.\n\nOxford had his imitators.  Let it never be forgotten in the\nconsideration of this part of the subject, how they were stopped.\nSo long as attempts invested them with the distinction of being in\ndanger of death at the hangman's hands, so long did they spring up.\nWhen the penalty of death was removed, and a mean and humiliating\npunishment substituted in its place, the race was at an end, and\nceased to be.\n\n\nII\n\n\nWe come, now, to consider the effect of Capital Punishment in the\nprevention of crime.\n\nDoes it prevent crime in those who attend executions?\n\nThere never is (and there never was) an execution at the Old Bailey\nin London, but the spectators include two large classes of thieves--\none class who go there as they would go to a dog-fight, or any other\nbrutal sport, for the attraction and excitement of the spectacle;\nthe other who make it a dry matter of business, and mix with the\ncrowd solely to pick pockets.  Add to these, the dissolute, the\ndrunken, the most idle, profligate, and abandoned of both sexes--\nsome moody ill-conditioned minds, drawn thither by a fearful\ninterest--and some impelled by curiosity; of whom the greater part\nare of an age and temperament rendering the gratification of that\ncuriosity highly dangerous to themselves and to society--and the\ngreat elements of the concourse are stated.\n\nNor is this assemblage peculiar to London.  It is the same in\ncountry towns, allowing for the different statistics of the\npopulation.  It is the same in America.  I was present at an\nexecution in Rome, for a most treacherous and wicked murder, and not\nonly saw the same kind of assemblage there, but, wearing what is\ncalled a shooting-coat, with a great many pockets in it, felt\ninnumerable hands busy in every one of them, close to the scaffold.\n\nI have already mentioned that out of one hundred and sixty-seven\nconvicts under sentence of death, questioned at different times in\nthe performance of his duty by an English clergyman, there were only\nthree who had not been spectators of executions.  Mr. Wakefield, in\nhis Facts relating to the Punishment of Death, goes into the\nworking, as it were, of this sum.  His testimony is extremely\nvaluable, because it is the evidence of an educated and observing\nman, who, before having personal knowledge of the subject and of\nNewgate, was quite satisfied that the Punishment of Death should\ncontinue, but who, when he gained that experience, exerted himself\nto the utmost for its abolition, even at the pain of constant public\nreference in his own person to his own imprisonment.  \"It cannot be\negotism\", he reasonably observes, \"that prompts a man to speak of\nhimself in connection with Newgate.\"\n\n\"Whoever will undergo the pain,\" says Mr. Wakefield, \"of witnessing\nthe public destruction of a fellow-creature's life, in London, must\nbe perfectly satisfied that in the great mass of spectators, the\neffect of the punishment is to excite sympathy for the criminal and\nhatred of the law. . . I am inclined to believe that the criminals\nof London, spoken of as a class and allowing for exceptions, take\nthe same sort of delight in witnessing executions, as the sportsman\nand soldier find in the dangers of hunting and war. . . I am\nconfident that few Old Bailey Sessions pass without the trial of a\nboy, whose first thought of crime occurred whilst he was witnessing\nan execution. . . And one grown man, of great mental powers and\nsuperior education, who was acquitted of a charge of forgery,\nassured me that the first idea of committing a forgery occurred to\nhim at the moment when he was accidentally witnessing the execution\nof Fauntleroy.  To which it may be added, that Fauntleroy is said to\nhave made precisely the same declaration in reference to the origin\nof his own criminality.\n\nBut one convict \"who was within an ace of being hanged\", among the\nmany with whom Mr. Wakefield conversed, seems to me to have\nunconsciously put a question which the advocates of Capital\nPunishment would find it very difficult indeed to answer.  \"Have you\noften seen an execution?\" asked Mr. Wakefield.  \"Yes, often.\"  \"Did\nit not frighten you?\"  \"No.  Why should it?\"\n\nIt is very easy and very natural to turn from this ruffian, shocked\nby the hardened retort; but answer his question, why should it?\nShould he be frightened by the sight of a dead man?  We are born to\ndie, he says, with a careless triumph.  We are not born to the\ntreadmill, or to servitude and slavery, or to banishment; but the\nexecutioner has done no more for that criminal than nature may do\ntomorrow for the judge, and will certainly do, in her own good time,\nfor judge and jury, counsel and witnesses, turnkeys, hangman, and\nall.  Should he be frightened by the manner of the death?  It is\nhorrible, truly, so horrible, that the law, afraid or ashamed of its\nown deed, hides the face of the struggling wretch it slays; but does\nthis fact naturally awaken in such a man, terror--or defiance?  Let\nthe same man speak.  \"What did you think then?\" asked Mr. Wakefield.\n\"Think?  Why, I thought it was a--shame.\"\n\nDisgust and indignation, or recklessness and indifference, or a\nmorbid tendency to brood over the sight until temptation is\nengendered by it, are the inevitable consequences of the spectacle,\naccording to the difference of habit and disposition in those who\nbehold it.  Why should it frighten or deter?  We know it does not.\nWe know it from the police reports, and from the testimony of those\nwho have experience of prisons and prisoners, and we may know it, on\nthe occasion of an execution, by the evidence of our own senses; if\nwe will be at the misery of using them for such a purpose.  But why\nshould it?  Who would send his child or his apprentice, or what\ntutor would send his scholars, or what master would send his\nservants, to be deterred from vice by the spectacle of an execution?\nIf it be an example to criminals, and to criminals only, why are not\nthe prisoners in Newgate brought out to see the show before the\ndebtors' door?  Why, while they are made parties to the condemned\nsermon, are they rigidly excluded from the improving postscript of\nthe gallows?  Because an execution is well known to be an utterly\nuseless, barbarous, and brutalising sight, and because the sympathy\nof all beholders, who have any sympathy at all, is certain to be\nalways with the criminal, and never with the law.\n\nI learn from the newspaper accounts of every execution, how Mr. So-\nand-so, and Mr. Somebody else, and Mr. So-forth shook hands with the\nculprit, but I never find them shaking hands with the hangman.  All\nkinds of attention and consideration are lavished on the one; but\nthe other is universally avoided, like a pestilence.  I want to know\nwhy so much sympathy is expended on the man who kills another in the\nvehemence of his own bad passions, and why the man who kills him in\nthe name of the law is shunned and fled from?  Is it because the\nmurderer is going to die?  Then by no means put him to death.  Is it\nbecause the hangman executes a law, which, when they once come near\nit face to face, all men instinctively revolt from?  Then by all\nmeans change it.  There is, there can be, no prevention in such a\nlaw.\n\nIt may be urged that Public Executions are not intended for the\nbenefit of those dregs of society who habitually attend them.  This\nis an absurdity, to which the obvious answer is, So much the worse.\nIf they be not considered with reference to that class of persons,\ncomprehending a great host of criminals in various stages of\ndevelopment, they ought to be, and must be.  To lose sight of that\nconsideration is to be irrational, unjust, and cruel.  All other\npunishments are especially devised, with a reference to the rooted\nhabits, propensities, and antipathies of criminals.  And shall it be\nsaid, out of Bedlam, that this last punishment of all is alone to be\nmade an exception from the rule, even where it is shown to be a\nmeans of propagating vice and crime?\n\nBut there may be people who do not attend executions, to whom the\ngeneral fame and rumour of such scenes is an example, and a means of\ndeterring from crime.\n\nWho are they?  We have seen that around Capital Punishment there\nlingers a fascination, urging weak and bad people towards it, and\nimparting an interest to details connected with it, and with\nmalefactors awaiting it or suffering it, which even good and well-\ndisposed people cannot withstand.  We know that last-dying speeches\nand Newgate calendars are the favourite literature of very low\nintellects.  The gallows is not appealed to as an example in the\ninstruction of youth (unless they are training for it); nor are\nthere condensed accounts of celebrated executions for the use of\nnational schools.  There is a story in an old spelling-book of a\ncertain Don't Care who was hanged at last, but it is not understood\nto have had any remarkable effect on crimes or executions in the\ngeneration to which it belonged, and with which it has passed away.\nHogarth's idle apprentice is hanged; but the whole scene--with the\nunmistakable stout lady, drunk and pious, in the cast; the\nquarrelling, blasphemy, lewdness, and uproar; Tiddy Doll vending his\ngingerbread, and the boys picking his pocket--is a bitter satire on\nthe great example; as efficient then, as now.\n\nIs it efficient to prevent crime?  The parliamentary returns\ndemonstrate that it is not.  I was engaged in making some extracts\nfrom these documents, when I found them so well abstracted in one of\nthe papers published by the committee on this subject established at\nAylesbury last year, by the humane exertions of Lord Nugent, that I\nam glad to quote the general results from its pages:\n\n\n\"In 1843 a return was laid on the table of the House of the\ncommitments and executions for murder in England and Wales during\nthe thirty years ending with December 1842, divided into five\nperiods of six years each.  It shows that in the last six years,\nfrom 1836 to 1842, during which there were only 50 executions, the\ncommitments for murder were fewer by 61 than in the six years\npreceding with 74 executions; fewer by 63 than in the six years\nending 1830 with 75 executions; fewer by 56 than in the six years\nending 1824 with 94 executions; and fewer by 93 than in the six\nyears ending 1818 when there was no less a number of executions than\n122.  But it may be said, perhaps, that in the inference we draw\nfrom this return, we are substituting cause for effect, and that in\neach successive cycle, the number of murders decreased in\nconsequence of the example of public executions in the cycle\nimmediately preceding, and that it was for that reason there were\nfewer commitments.  This might be said with some colour of truth, if\nthe example had been taken from two successive cycles only.  But\nwhen the comparative examples adduced are of no less than five\nsuccessive cycles, and the result gradually and constantly\nprogressive in the same direction, the relation of facts to each\nother is determined beyond all ground for dispute, namely, that the\nnumber of these crimes has diminished in consequence of the\ndiminution of the number of executions.  More especially when it is\nalso remembered that it was immediately after the first of these\ncycles of five years, when there had been the greatest number of\nexecutions and the greatest number of murders, that the greatest\nnumber of persons were suddenly cast loose upon the country, without\nemploy, by the reduction of the Army and Navy; that then came\nperiods of great distress and great disturbance in the agricultural\nand manufacturing districts; and above all, that it was during the\nsubsequent cycles that the most important mitigations were effected\nin the law, and that the Punishment of Death was taken away not only\nfor crimes of stealth, such as cattle and horse stealing and\nforgery, of which crimes corresponding statistics show likewise a\ncorresponding decrease, but for the crimes of violence too, tending\nto murder, such as are many of the incendiary offences, and such as\nare highway robbery and burglary.  But another return, laid before\nthe House at the same time, bears upon our argument, if possible,\nstill more conclusively.  In table 11 we have only the years which\nhave occurred since 1810, in which all persons convicted of murder\nsuffered death; and, compared with these an equal number of years in\nwhich the smallest proportion of persons convicted were executed.\nIn the first case there were 66 persons convicted, all of whom\nunderwent the penalty of death; in the second 83 were convicted, of\nwhom 31 only were executed.  Now see how these two very different\nmethods of dealing with the crime of murder affected the commission\nof it in the years immediately following.  The number of commitments\nfor murder, in the four years immediately following those in which\nall persons convicted were executed, was 270.\n\n\"In the four years immediately following those in which little more\nthan one-third of the persons convicted were executed, there were\nbut 222, being 48 less.  If we compare the commitments in the\nfollowing years with those in the first years, we shall find that,\nimmediately after the examples of unsparing execution, the crime\nincreased nearly 13 per cent., and that after commutation was the\npractice and capital punishment the exception, it decreased 17 per\ncent.\n\n\"In the same parliamentary return is an account of the commitments\nand executions in London and Middlesex, spread over a space of 32\nyears, ending in 1842, divided into two cycles of 16 years each.  In\nthe first of these, 34 persons were convicted of murder, all of whom\nwere executed.  In the second, 27 were convicted, and only 17\nexecuted.  The commitments for murder during the latter long period,\nwith 17 executions, were more than one half fewer than they had been\nin the former long period with exactly double the number of\nexecutions.  This appears to us to be as conclusive upon our\nargument as any statistical illustration can be upon any argument\nprofessing to place successive events in the relation of cause and\neffect to each other.  How justly then is it said in that able and\nuseful periodical work, now in the course of publication at Glasgow,\nunder the name of the Magazine of Popular Information on Capital and\nSecondary Punishment, 'the greater the number of executions, the\ngreater the number of murders; the smaller the number of executions,\nthe smaller the number of murders.  The lives of her Majesty's\nsubjects are less safe with a hundred executions a year than with\nfifty; less safe with fifty than with twenty-five.'\"\n\n\nSimilar results have followed from rendering public executions more\nand more infrequent, in Tuscany, in Prussia, in France, in Belgium.\nWherever capital punishments are diminished in their number, there,\ncrimes diminish in their number too.\n\nBut the very same advocates of the punishment of Death who contend,\nin the teeth of all facts and figures, that it does prevent crime,\ncontend in the same breath against its abolition because it does\nnot!  \"There are so many bad murders,\" say they, \"and they follow in\nsuch quick succession, that the Punishment must not be repealed.\"\nWhy, is not this a reason, among others, for repealing it?  Does it\nnot go to show that it is ineffective as an example; that it fails\nto prevent crime; and that it is wholly inefficient to stay that\nimitation, or contagion, call it what you please, which brings one\nmurder on the heels of another?\n\nOne forgery came crowding on another's heels in the same way, when\nthe same punishment attached to that crime.  Since it has been\nremoved, forgeries have diminished in a most remarkable degree.  Yet\nwithin five and thirty years, Lord Eldon, with tearful solemnity,\nimagined in the House of Lords as a possibility for their Lordships\nto shudder at, that the time might come when some visionary and\nmorbid person might even propose the abolition of the punishment of\nDeath for forgery.  And when it was proposed, Lords Lyndhurst,\nWynford, Tenterden, and Eldon--all Law Lords--opposed it.\n\nThe same Lord Tenterden manfully said, on another occasion and\nanother question, that he was glad the subject of the amendment of\nthe laws had been taken up by Mr. Peel, \"who had not been bred to\nthe law; for those who were, were rendered dull, by habit, to many\nof its defects!\"  I would respectfully submit, in extension of this\ntext, that a criminal judge is an excellent witness against the\nPunishment of Death, but a bad witness in its favour; and I will\nreserve this point for a few remarks in the next, concluding,\nLetter.\n\n\nIII\n\n\nThe last English Judge, I believe, who gave expression to a public\nand judicial opinion in favour of the punishment of Death, is Mr.\nJustice Coleridge, who, in charging the Grand Jury at Hertford last\nyear, took occasion to lament the presence of serious crimes in the\ncalendar, and to say that he feared that they were referable to the\ncomparative infrequency of Capital Punishment.\n\nIt is not incompatible with the utmost deference and respect for an\nauthority so eminent, to say that, in this, Mr. Justice Coleridge\nwas not supported by facts, but quite the reverse.  He went out of\nhis way to found a general assumption on certain very limited and\npartial grounds, and even on those grounds was wrong.  For among the\nfew crimes which he instanced, murder stood prominently forth.  Now\npersons found guilty of murder are more certainly and unsparingly\nhanged at this time, as the Parliamentary Returns demonstrate, than\nsuch criminals ever were.  So how can the decline of public\nexecutions affect that class of crimes?  As to persons committing\nmurder, and yet not found guilty of it by juries, they escape solely\nbecause there are many public executions--not because there are none\nor few.\n\nBut when I submit that a criminal judge is an excellent witness\nagainst Capital Punishment, but a bad witness in its favour, I do so\non more broad and general grounds than apply to this error in fact\nand deduction (so I presume to consider it) on the part of the\ndistinguished judge in question.  And they are grounds which do not\napply offensively to judges, as a class; than whom there are no\nauthorities in England so deserving of general respect and\nconfidence, or so possessed of it; but which apply alike to all men\nin their several degrees and pursuits.\n\nIt is certain that men contract a general liking for those things\nwhich they have studied at great cost of time and intellect, and\ntheir proficiency in which has led to their becoming distinguished\nand successful.  It is certain that out of this feeling arises, not\nonly that passive blindness to their defects of which the example\ngiven by my Lord Tenterden was quoted in the last letter, but an\nactive disposition to advocate and defend them.  If it were\notherwise; if it were not for this spirit of interest and\npartisanship; no single pursuit could have that attraction for its\nvotaries which most pursuits in course of time establish.  Thus\nlegal authorities are usually jealous of innovations on legal\nprinciples.  Thus it is described of the lawyer in the Introductory\nDiscourse to the Description of Utopia, that he said of a proposal\nagainst Capital Punishment, \"'this could never be so established in\nEngland but that it must needs bring the weal-public into great\njeopardy and hazard', and as he was thus saying, he shaked his head,\nand made a wry mouth, and so he held his peace\".  Thus the Recorder\nof London, in 1811, objected to \"the capital part being taken off\"\nfrom the offence of picking pockets.  Thus the Lord Chancellor, in\n1813, objected to the removal of the penalty of death from the\noffence of stealing to the amount of five shillings from a shop.\nThus, Lord Ellenborough, in 1820, anticipated the worst effects from\nthere being no punishment of death for stealing five shillings worth\nof wet linen from a bleaching ground.  Thus the Solicitor General,\nin 1830, advocated the punishment of death for forgery, and \"the\nsatisfaction of thinking\" in the teeth of mountains of evidence from\nbankers and other injured parties (one thousand bankers alone!)\n\"that he was deterring persons from the commission of crime, by the\nseverity of the law\".  Thus, Mr. Justice Coleridge delivered his\ncharge at Hertford in 1845.  Thus there were in the criminal code of\nEngland, in 1790, one hundred and sixty crimes punishable with\ndeath.  Thus the lawyer has said, again and again, in his\ngeneration, that any change in such a state of things \"must needs\nbring the weal-public into jeopardy and hazard\".  And thus he has,\nall through the dismal history, \"shaked his head, and made a wry\nmouth, and held his peace\".  Except--a glorious exception!--when\nsuch lawyers as Bacon, More, Blackstone, Romilly, and--let us ever\ngratefully remember--in later times Mr. Basil Montagu, have striven,\neach in his day, within the utmost limits of the endurance of the\nmistaken feeling of the people or the legislature of the time, to\nchampion and maintain the truth.\n\nThere is another and a stronger reason still, why a criminal judge\nis a bad witness in favour of the punishment of Death.  He is a\nchief actor in the terrible drama of a trial, where the life or\ndeath of a fellow creature is at issue.  No one who has seen such a\ntrial can fail to know, or can ever forget, its intense interest.  I\ncare not how painful this interest is to the good, wise judge upon\nthe bench.  I admit its painful nature, and the judge's goodness and\nwisdom to the fullest extent--but I submit that his prominent share\nin the excitement of such a trial, and the dread mystery involved,\nhas a tendency to bewilder and confuse the judge upon the general\nsubject of that penalty.  I know the solemn pause before the\nverdict, the bush and stifling of the fever in the court, the\nsolitary figure brought back to the bar, and standing there,\nobserved of all the outstretched heads and gleaming eyes, to be next\nminute stricken dead as one may say, among them.  I know the thrill\nthat goes round when the black cap is put on, and how there will be\nshrieks among the women, and a taking out of some one in a swoon;\nand, when the judge's faltering voice delivers sentence, how awfully\nthe prisoner and he confront each other; two mere men, destined one\nday, however far removed from one another at this time, to stand\nalike as suppliants at the bar of God.  I know all this, I can\nimagine what the office of the judge costs in this execution of it;\nbut I say that in these strong sensations he is lost, and is unable\nto abstract the penalty as a preventive or example, from an\nexperience of it, and from associations surrounding it, which are\nand can be, only his, and his alone.\n\nNot to contend that there is no amount of wig or ermine that can\nchange the nature of the man inside; not to say that the nature of a\njudge may be, like the dyer's hand, subdued to what it works in, and\nmay become too used to this punishment of death to consider it quite\ndispassionately; not to say that it may possibly be inconsistent to\nhave, deciding as calm authorities in favour of death, judges who\nhave been constantly sentencing to death;--I contend that for the\nreasons I have stated alone, a judge, and especially a criminal\njudge, is a bad witness for the punishment but an excellent witness\nagainst it, inasmuch as in the latter case his conviction of its\ninutility has been so strong and paramount as utterly to beat down\nand conquer these adverse incidents.  I have no scruple in stating\nthis position, because, for anything I know, the majority of\nexcellent judges now on the bench may have overcome them, and may be\nopposed to the punishment of Death under any circumstances.\n\nI mentioned that I would devote a portion of this letter to a few\nprominent illustrations of each head of objection to the punishment\nof Death.  Those on record are so very numerous that selection is\nextremely difficult; but in reference to the possibility of mistake,\nand the impossibility of reparation, one case is as good (I should\nrather say as bad) as a hundred; and if there were none but Eliza\nFenning's, that would be sufficient.  Nay, if there were none at\nall, it would be enough to sustain this objection, that men of\nfinite and limited judgment do inflict, on testimony which admits of\ndoubt, an infinite and irreparable punishment.  But there are on\nrecord numerous instances of mistake; many of them very generally\nknown and immediately recognisable in the following summary, which I\ncopy from the New York Report already referred to.\n\n\n\"There have been cases in which groans have been heard in the\napartment of the crime, which have attracted the steps of those on\nwhose testimony the case has turned--when, on proceeding to the\nspot, they have found a man bending over the murdered body, a\nlantern in the left hand, and the knife yet dripping with the warm\ncurrent in the blood-stained right, with horror-stricken\ncountenance, and lips which, in the presence of the dead, seem to\nrefuse to deny the crime in the very act of which he is thus\nsurprised--and yet the man has been, many years after, when his\nmemory alone could be benefited by the discovery, ascertained not to\nhave been the real murderer!  There have been cases in which, in a\nhouse in which were two persons alone, a murder has been committed\non one of them--when many additional circumstances have fastened the\nimputation upon the other--and when, all apparent modes of access\nfrom without, being closed inward, the demonstration has seemed\ncomplete of the guilt for which that other has suffered the doom of\nthe law--yet suffered innocently!  There have been cases in which a\nfather has been found murdered in an outhouse, the only person at\nhome being a son, sworn by a sister to have been dissolute and\nundutiful, and anxious for the death of the father, and succession\nto the family property--when the track of his shoes in the snow is\nfound from the house to the spot of the murder, and the hammer with\nwhich it was committed (known as his own), found, on a search, in\nthe corner of one of his private drawers, with the bloody evidence\nof the deed only imperfectly effaced from it--and yet the son has\nbeen innocent!--the sister, years after, on her death-bed,\nconfessing herself the fratricide as well as the parricide.  There\nhave been cases in which men have been hung on the most positive\ntestimony to identity (aided by many suspicious circumstances), by\npersons familiar with their appearance, which have afterwards proved\ngrievous mistakes, growing out of remarkable personal resemblance.\nThere have been cases in which two men have been seen fighting in a\nfield--an old enmity existing between them--the one found dead,\nkilled by a stab from a pitchfork known as belonging to the other,\nand which that other had been carrying, the pitch-fork lying by the\nside of the murdered man--and yet its owner has been afterwards\nfound not to have been the author of the murder of which it had been\nthe instrument, the true murderer sitting on the jury that tried\nhim.  There have been cases in which an innkeeper has been charged\nby one of his servants with the murder of a traveller, the servant\ndeposing to having seen his master on the stranger's bed, strangling\nhim, and afterwards rifling his pockets--another servant deposing\nthat she saw him come down at that time at a very early hour in the\nmorning, steal into the garden, take gold from his pocket, and\ncarefully wrapping it up bury it in a designated spot--on the search\nof which the ground is found loose and freshly dug, and a sum of\nthirty pounds in gold found buried according to the description--the\nmaster, who confessed the burying of the money, with many evidences\nof guilt in his hesitation and confusion, has been hung of course,\nand proved innocent only too late.  There have been cases in which a\ntraveller has been robbed on the highway of twenty guineas, which he\nhad taken the precaution to mark--one of these is found to have been\npaid away or changed by one of the servants of the inn which the\ntraveller reaches the same evening--the servant is about the height\nof the robber, who had been cloaked and disguised--his master\ndeposes to his having been recently unaccountably extravagant and\nflush of gold--and on his trunk being searched the other nineteen\nmarked guineas and the traveller's purse are found there, the\nservant being asleep at the time, half-drunk--he is of course\nconvicted and hung, for the crime of which his master was the\nauthor!  There have been cases in which a father and daughter have\nbeen overheard in violent dispute--the words \"barbarity\", \"cruelly\",\nand \"death\", being heard frequently to proceed from the latter--the\nformer goes out locking the door behind him--groans are overheard,\nand the words, \"cruel father, thou art the cause of my death!\"--on\nthe room being opened she is found on the point of death from a\nwound in her side, and near her the knife with which it had been\ninflicted--and on being questioned as to her owing her death to her\nfather, her last motion before expiring is an expression of assent--\nthe father, on returning to the room, exhibits the usual evidences\nof guilt--he, too, is of course hung--and it is not till nearly a\nyear afterwards that, on the discovery of conclusive evidence that\nit was a suicide, the vain reparation is made, to his memory by the\npublic authorities, of--waving a pair of colours over his grave in\ntoken of the recognition of his innocence.\"\n\n\nMore than a hundred such cases are known, it is said in this Report,\nin English criminal jurisprudence.  The same Report contains three\nstriking cases of supposed criminals being unjustly hanged in\nAmerica; and also five more in which people whose innocence was not\nafterwards established were put to death on evidence as purely\ncircumstantial and as doubtful, to say the least of it, as any that\nwas held to be sufficient in this general summary of legal murders.\nMr. O'Connell defended, in Ireland, within five and twenty years,\nthree brothers who were hanged for a murder of which they were\nafterwards shown to have been innocent.  I cannot find the reference\nat this moment, but I have seen it stated on good authority, that\nbut for the exertions, I think of the present Lord Chief Baron, six\nor seven innocent men would certainly have been hanged.  Such are\nthe instances of wrong judgment which are known to us.  How many\nmore there may be in which the real murderers never disclosed their\nguilt, or were never discovered, and where the odium of great crimes\nstill rests on guiltless people long since resolved to dust in their\nuntimely graves, no human power can tell.\n\nThe effect of public executions on those who witness them, requires\nno better illustration, and can have none, than the scene which any\nexecution in itself presents, and the general Police-office\nknowledge of the offences arising out of them.  I have stated my\nbelief that the study of rude scenes leads to the disregard of human\nlife, and to murder.  Referring, since that expression of opinion,\nto the very last trial for murder in London, I have made inquiry,\nand am assured that the youth now under sentence of death in Newgate\nfor the murder of his master in Drury Lane, was a vigilant spectator\nof the three last public executions in this City.  What effects a\ndaily increasing familiarity with the scaffold, and with death upon\nit, wrought in France in the Great Revolution, everybody knows.  In\nreference to this very question of Capital Punishment, Robespierre\nhimself, before he was\n\n\n\"in blood stept in so far\",\n\n\nwarned the National Assembly that in taking human life, and in\ndisplaying before the eyes of the people scenes of cruelty and the\nbodies of murdered men, the law awakened ferocious prejudices, which\ngave birth to a long and growing train of their own kind.  With how\nmuch reason this was said, let his own detestable name bear witness!\nIf we would know how callous and hardened society, even in a\npeaceful and settled state, becomes to public executions when they\nare frequent, let us recollect how few they were who made the last\nattempt to stay the dreadful Monday-morning spectacles of men and\nwomen strung up in a row for crimes as different in their degree as\nour whole social scheme is different in its component parts, which,\nwithin some fifteen years or so, made human shambles of the Old\nBailey.\n\nThere is no better way of testing the effect of public executions on\nthose who do not actually behold them, but who read of them and know\nof them, than by inquiring into their efficiency in preventing\ncrime.  In this respect they have always, and in all countries,\nfailed.  According to all facts and figures, failed.  In Russia, in\nSpain, in France, in Italy, in Belgium, in Sweden, in England, there\nhas been one result.  In Bombay, during the Recordership of Sir\nJames Macintosh, there were fewer crimes in seven years without one\nexecution, than in the preceding seven years with forty-seven\nexecutions; notwithstanding that in the seven years without capital\npunishment, the population had greatly increased, and there had been\na large accession to the numbers of the ignorant and licentious\nsoldiery, with whom the more violent offences originated.  During\nthe four wickedest years of the Bank of England (from 1814 to 1817,\ninclusive), when the one-pound note capital prosecutions were most\nnumerous and shocking, the number of forged one-pound notes\ndiscovered by the Bank steadily increased, from the gross amount in\nthe first year of 10,342 pounds, to the gross amount in the last of\n28,412 pounds.  But in every branch of this part of the subject--the\ninefficiency of capital punishment to prevent crime, and its\nefficiency to produce it--the body of evidence (if there were space\nto quote or analyse it here) is overpowering and resistless.\n\nI have purposely deferred until now any reference to one objection\nwhich is urged against the abolition of capital punishment:  I mean\nthat objection which claims to rest on Scriptural authority.\n\nIt was excellently well said by Lord Melbourne, that no class of\npersons can be shown to be very miserable and oppressed, but some\nsupporters of things as they are will immediately rise up and\nassert--not that those persons are moderately well to do, or that\ntheir lot in life has a reasonably bright side--but that they are,\nof all sorts and conditions of men, the happiest.  In like manner,\nwhen a certain proceeding or institution is shown to be very wrong\nindeed, there is a class of people who rush to the fountainhead at\nonce, and will have no less an authority for it than the Bible, on\nany terms.\n\nSo, we have the Bible appealed to in behalf of Capital Punishment.\nSo, we have the Bible produced as a distinct authority for Slavery.\nSo, American representatives find the title of their country to the\nOregon territory distinctly laid down in the Book of Genesis.  So,\nin course of time, we shall find Repudiation, perhaps, expressly\ncommanded in the Sacred Writings.\n\nIt is enough for me to be satisfied, on calm inquiry and with\nreason, that an Institution or Custom is wrong and bad; and thence\nto feel assured that IT CANNOT BE a part of the law laid down by the\nDivinity who walked the earth.  Though every other man who wields a\npen should turn himself into a commentator on the Scriptures--not\nall their united efforts, pursued through our united lives, could\never persuade me that Slavery is a Christian law; nor, with one of\nthese objections to an execution in my certain knowledge, that\nExecutions are a Christian law, my will is not concerned.  I could\nnot, in my veneration for the life and lessons of Our Lord, believe\nit.  If any text appeared to justify the claim, I would reject that\nlimited appeal, and rest upon the character of the Redeemer, and the\ngreat scheme of His Religion, where, in its broad spirit, made so\nplain--and not this or that disputed letter--we all put our trust.\nBut, happily, such doubts do not exist.  The case is far too plain.\nThe Rev. Henry Christmas, in a recent pamphlet on this subject,\nshows clearly that in five important versions of the Old Testament\n(to say nothing of versions of less note) the words, \"by man\", in\nthe often-quoted text, \"Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his\nblood be shed\", do not appear at all.  We know that the law of Moses\nwas delivered to certain wandering tribes in a peculiar and\nperfectly different social condition from that which prevails among\nus at this time.  We know that the Christian Dispensation did\ndistinctly repeal and annul certain portions of that law.  We know\nthat the doctrine of retributive justice or vengeance, was plainly\ndisavowed by the Saviour.  We know that on the only occasion of an\noffender, liable by the law to death, being brought before Him for\nHis judgment, it was not death.  We know that He said, \"Thou shalt\nnot kill\".  And if we are still to inflict capital punishment\nbecause of the Mosaic law (under which it was not the consequence of\na legal proceeding, but an act of vengeance from the next of kin,\nwhich would surely be discouraged by our later laws if it were\nrevived among the Jews just now) it would be equally reasonable to\nestablish the lawfulness of a plurality of wives on the same\nauthority.\n\nHere I will leave this aspect of the question.  I should not have\ntreated of it at all in the columns of a newspaper, but for the\npossibility of being unjustly supposed to have given it no\nconsideration in my own mind.\n\nIn bringing to a close these letters on a subject, in connection\nwith which there is happily very little that is new to be said or\nwritten, I beg to be understood as advocating the total abolition of\nthe Punishment of Death, as a general principle, for the advantage\nof society, for the prevention of crime, and without the least\nreference to, or tenderness for any individual malefactor\nwhomsoever.  Indeed, in most cases of murder, my feeling towards the\nculprit is very strongly and violently the reverse.  I am the more\ndesirous to be so understood, after reading a speech made by Mr.\nMacaulay in the House of Commons last Tuesday night, in which that\naccomplished gentleman hardly seemed to recognise the possibility of\nanybody entertaining an honest conviction of the inutility and bad\neffects of Capital Punishment in the abstract, founded on inquiry\nand reflection, without being the victim of \"a kind of effeminate\nfeeling\".  Without staying to inquire what there may be that is\nespecially manly and heroic in the advocacy of the gallows, or to\nexpress my admiration of Mr. Calcraft, the hangman, as doubtless one\nof the most manly specimens now in existence, I would simply hint a\ndoubt, in all good humour, whether this be the true Macaulay way of\nmeeting a great question?  One of the instances of effeminacy of\nfeeling quoted by Mr. Macaulay, I have reason to think was not quite\nfairly stated.  I allude to the petition in Tawell's case.  I had\nneither hand nor part in it myself; but, unless I am greatly\nmistaken, it did pretty clearly set forth that Tawell was a most\nabhorred villain, and that the House might conclude how strongly the\npetitioners were opposed to the Punishment of Death, when they\nprayed for its non-infliction even in such a case.\n\n\n\nTHE SPIRIT OF CHIVALRY IN WESTMINSTER HALL\n\n\n\n\"Of all the cants that are canted in this canting world,\" wrote\nSterne, \"kind Heaven defend me from the cant of Art!\"  We have no\nintention of tapping our little cask of cant, soured by the thunder\nof great men's fame, for the refreshment of our readers:  its freest\ndraught would be unreasonably dear at a shilling, when the same\nsmall liquor may be had for nothing, at innumerable ready pipes and\nconduits.\n\nBut it is a main part of the design of this Magazine to sympathise\nwith what is truly great and good; to scout the miserable\ndiscouragements that beset, especially in England, the upward path\nof men of high desert; and gladly to give honour where it is due, in\nright of Something achieved, tending to elevate the tastes and\nthoughts of all who contemplate it, and prove a lasting credit to\nthe country of its birth.\n\nUpon the walls of Westminster Hall, there hangs, at this time, such\na Something.  A composition of such marvellous beauty, of such\ninfinite variety, of such masterly design, of such vigorous and\nskilful drawing, of such thought and fancy, of such surprising and\ndelicate accuracy of detail, subserving one grand harmony, and one\nplain purpose, that it may be questioned whether the Fine Arts in\nany period of their history have known a more remarkable\nperformance.\n\nIt is the cartoon of Daniel Maclise, \"executed by order of the\nCommissioners\", and called The Spirit of Chivalry.  It may be left\nan open question, whether or no this allegorical order on the part\nof the Commissioners, displays any uncommon felicity of idea.  We\nrather think not; and are free to confess that we should like to\nhave seen the Commissioners' notion of the Spirit of Chivalry stated\nby themselves, in the first instance, on a sheet of foolscap, as the\nground-plan of a model cartoon, with all the commissioned\nproportions of height and breadth.  That the treatment of such an\nabstraction, for the purposes of Art, involves great and peculiar\ndifficulties, no one who considers the subject for a moment can\ndoubt.  That nothing is easier to render it absurd and monstrous, is\na position as little capable of dispute by anybody who has beheld\nanother cartoon on the same subject in the same Hall, representing a\nGhoule in a state of raving madness, dancing on a Body in a very\nhigh wind, to the great astonishment of John the Baptist's head,\nwhich is looking on from a corner.\n\nMr. Maclise's handling of the subject has by this time sunk into the\nhearts of thousands upon thousands of people.  It is familiar\nknowledge among all classes and conditions of men.  It is the great\nfeature within the Hall, and the constant topic of discourse\nelsewhere.  It has awakened in the great body of society a new\ninterest in, and a new perception and a new love of, Art.  Students\nof Art have sat before it, hour by hour, perusing in its many forms\nof Beauty, lessons to delight the world, and raise themselves, its\nfuture teachers, in its better estimation.  Eyes well accustomed to\nthe glories of the Vatican, the galleries of Florence, all the\nmightiest works of art in Europe, have grown dim before it with the\nstrong emotions it inspires; ignorant, unlettered, drudging men,\nmere hewers and drawers, have gathered in a knot about it (as at our\nback a week ago), and read it, in their homely language, as it were\na Book.  In minds, the roughest and the most refined, it has alike\nfound quick response; and will, and must, so long as it shall hold\ntogether.\n\nFor how can it be otherwise?  Look up, upon the pressing throng who\nstrive to win distinction from the Guardian Genius of all noble\ndeeds and honourable renown,--a gentle Spirit, holding her fair\nstate for their reward and recognition (do not be alarmed, my Lord\nChamberlain; this is only in a picture); and say what young and\nardent heart may not find one to beat in unison with it--beat high\nwith generous aspiration like its own--in following their onward\ncourse, as it is traced by this great pencil!  Is it the Love of\nWoman, in its truth and deep devotion, that inspires you?  See it\nhere!  Is it Glory, as the world has learned to call the pomp and\ncircumstance of arms?  Behold it at the summit of its exaltation,\nwith its mailed hand resting on the altar where the Spirit\nministers.  The Poet's laurel-crown, which they who sit on thrones\ncan neither twine or wither--is that the aim of thy ambition?  It is\nthere, upon his brow; it wreathes his stately forehead, as he walks\napart and holds communion with himself.  The Palmer and the Bard are\nthere; no solitary wayfarers, now; but two of a great company of\npilgrims, climbing up to honour by the different paths that lead to\nthe great end.  And sure, amidst the gravity and beauty of them all-\n-unseen in his own form, but shining in his spirit, out of every\ngallant shape and earnest thought--the Painter goes triumphant!\n\nOr say that you who look upon this work, be old, and bring to it\ngrey hairs, a head bowed down, a mind on which the day of life has\nspent itself, and the calm evening closes gently in.  Is its appeal\nto you confined to its presentment of the Past?  Have you no share\nin this, but while the grace of youth and the strong resolve of\nmaturity are yours to aid you?  Look up again.  Look up where the\nspirit is enthroned, and see about her, reverend men, whose task is\ndone; whose struggle is no more; who cluster round her as her train\nand council; who have lost no share or interest in that great rising\nup and progress, which bears upward with it every means of human\nhappiness, but, true in Autumn to the purposes of Spring, are there\nto stimulate the race who follow in their steps; to contemplate,\nwith hearts grown serious, not cold or sad, the striving in which\nthey once had part; to die in that great Presence, which is Truth\nand Bravery, and Mercy to the Weak, beyond all power of separation.\n\nIt would be idle to observe of this last group that, both in\nexecution and idea, they are of the very highest order of Art, and\nwonderfully serve the purpose of the picture.  There is not one\namong its three-and-twenty heads of which the same remark might not\nbe made.  Neither will we treat of great effects produced by means\nquite powerless in other hands for such an end, or of the prodigious\nforce and colour which so separate this work from all the rest\nexhibited, that it would scarcely appear to be produced upon the\nsame kind of surface by the same description of instrument.  The\nbricks and stones and timbers of the Hall itself are not facts more\nindisputable than these.\n\nIt has been objected to this extraordinary work that it is too\nelaborately finished; too complete in its several parts.  And Heaven\nknows, if it be judged in this respect by any standard in the Hall\nabout it, it will find no parallel, nor anything approaching to it.\nBut it is a design, intended to be afterwards copied and painted in\nfresco; and certain finish must be had at last, if not at first.  It\nis very well to take it for granted in a Cartoon that a series of\ncross-lines, almost as rough and apart as the lattice-work of a\ngarden summerhouse, represents the texture of a human face; but the\nface cannot be painted so.  A smear upon the paper may be\nunderstood, by virtue of the context gained from what surrounds it,\nto stand for a limb, or a body, or a cuirass, or a hat and feathers,\nor a flag, or a boot, or an angel.  But when the time arrives for\nrendering these things in colours on a wall, they must be grappled\nwith, and cannot be slurred over in this wise.  Great\nmisapprehension on this head seems to have been engendered in the\nminds of some observers by the famous cartoons of Raphael; but they\nforget that these were never intended as designs for fresco\npainting.  They were designs for tapestry-work, which is susceptible\nof only certain broad and general effects, as no one better knew\nthan the Great Master.  Utterly detestable and vile as the tapestry\nis, compared with the immortal Cartoons from which it was worked, it\nis impossible for any man who casts his eyes upon it where it hangs\nat Rome, not to see immediately the special adaptation of the\ndrawings to that end, and for that purpose.  The aim of these\nCartoons being wholly different, Mr. Maclise's object, if we\nunderstand it, was to show precisely what he meant to do, and knew\nhe could perform, in fresco, on a wall.  And here his meaning is;\nworked out; without a compromise of any difficulty; without the\navoidance of any disconcerting truth; expressed in all its beauty,\nstrength, and power.\n\nTo what end?  To be perpetuated hereafter in the high place of the\nchief Senate-House of England?  To be wrought, as it were, into the\nvery elements of which that Temple is composed; to co-endure with\nit, and still present, perhaps, some lingering traces of its ancient\nBeauty, when London shall have sunk into a grave of grass-grown\nruin,--and the whole circle of the Arts, another revolution of the\nmighty wheel completed, shall be wrecked and broken?\n\nLet us hope so.  We will contemplate no other possibility--at\npresent.\n\n\n\nIN MEMORIAM--W. M. THACKERAY\n\n\n\nIt has been desired by some of the personal friends of the great\nEnglish writer who established this magazine, {1} that its brief\nrecord of his having been stricken from among men should be written\nby the old comrade and brother in arms who pens these lines, and of\nwhom he often wrote himself, and always with the warmest generosity.\n\nI saw him first nearly twenty-eight years ago, when he proposed to\nbecome the illustrator of my earliest book.  I saw him last, shortly\nbefore Christmas, at the Athenaeum Club, when he told me that he had\nbeen in bed three days--that, after these attacks, he was troubled\nwith cold shiverings, \"which quite took the power of work out of\nhim\"--and that he had it in his mind to try a new remedy which he\nlaughingly described.  He was very cheerful, and looked very bright.\nIn the night of that day week, he died.\n\nThe long interval between those two periods is marked in my\nremembrance of him by many occasions when he was supremely humorous,\nwhen he was irresistibly extravagant, when he was softened and\nserious, when he was charming with children.  But, by none do I\nrecall him more tenderly than by two or three that start out of the\ncrowd, when he unexpectedly presented himself in my room, announcing\nhow that some passage in a certain book had made him cry yesterday,\nand how that he had come to dinner, \"because he couldn't help it\",\nand must talk such passage over.  No one can ever have seen him more\ngenial, natural, cordial, fresh, and honestly impulsive, than I have\nseen him at those times.  No one can be surer than I, of the\ngreatness and the goodness of the heart that then disclosed itself.\n\nWe had our differences of opinion.  I thought that he too much\nfeigned a want of earnestness, and that he made a pretence of under-\nvaluing his art, which was not good for the art that he held in\ntrust.  But, when we fell upon these topics, it was never very\ngravely, and I have a lively image of him in my mind, twisting both\nhis hands in his hair, and stamping about, laughing, to make an end\nof the discussion.\n\nWhen we were associated in remembrance of the late Mr. Douglas\nJerrold, he delivered a public lecture in London, in the course of\nwhich, he read his very best contribution to Punch, describing the\ngrown-up cares of a poor family of young children.  No one hearing\nhim could have doubted his natural gentleness, or his thoroughly\nunaffected manly sympathy with the weak and lowly.  He read the\npaper most pathetically, and with a simplicity of tenderness that\ncertainly moved one of his audience to tears.  This was presently\nafter his standing for Oxford, from which place he had dispatched\nhis agent to me, with a droll note (to which he afterwards added a\nverbal postscript), urging me to \"come down and make a speech, and\ntell them who he was, for he doubted whether more than two of the\nelectors had ever heard of him, and he thought there might be as\nmany as six or eight who had heard of me\".  He introduced the\nlecture just mentioned, with a reference to his late electioneering\nfailure, which was full of good sense, good spirits, and good\nhumour.\n\nHe had a particular delight in boys, and an excellent way with them.\nI remember his once asking me with fantastic gravity, when he had\nbeen to Eton where my eldest son then was, whether I felt as he did\nin regard of never seeing a boy without wanting instantly to give\nhim a sovereign?  I thought of this when I looked down into his\ngrave, after he was laid there, for I looked down into it over the\nshoulder of a boy to whom he had been kind.\n\nThese are slight remembrances; but it is to little familiar things\nsuggestive of the voice, look, manner, never, never more to be\nencountered on this earth, that the mind first turns in a\nbereavement.  And greater things that are known of him, in the way\nof his warm affections, his quiet endurance, his unselfish\nthoughtfulness for others, and his munificent hand, may not be told.\n\nIf, in the reckless vivacity of his youth, his satirical pen had\never gone astray or done amiss, he had caused it to prefer its own\npetition for forgiveness, long before:-\n\n\nI've writ the foolish fancy of his brain;\nThe aimless jest that, striking, hath caused pain;\nThe idle word that he'd wish back again.\n\n\nIn no pages should I take it upon myself at this time to discourse\nof his books, of his refined knowledge of character, of his subtle\nacquaintance with the weaknesses of human nature, of his delightful\nplayfulness as an essayist, of his quaint and touching ballads, of\nhis mastery over the English language.  Least of all, in these\npages, enriched by his brilliant qualities from the first of the\nseries, and beforehand accepted by the Public through the strength\nof his great name.\n\nBut, on the table before me, there lies all that he had written of\nhis latest and last story.  That it would be very sad to any one--\nthat it is inexpressibly so to a writer--in its evidences of matured\ndesigns never to be accomplished, of intentions begun to be executed\nand destined never to be completed, of careful preparation for long\nroads of thought that he was never to traverse, and for shining\ngoals that he was never to reach, will be readily believed.  The\npain, however, that I have felt in perusing it, has not been deeper\nthan the conviction that he was in the healthiest vigour of his\npowers when he wrought on this last labour.  In respect of earnest\nfeeling, far-seeing purpose, character, incident, and a certain\nloving picturesqueness blending the whole, I believe it to be much\nthe best of all his works.  That he fully meant it to be so, that he\nhad become strongly attached to it, and that he bestowed great pains\nupon it, I trace in almost every page.  It contains one picture\nwhich must have cost him extreme distress, and which is a\nmasterpiece.  There are two children in it, touched with a hand as\nloving and tender as ever a father caressed his little child with.\nThere is some young love as pure and innocent and pretty as the\ntruth.  And it is very remarkable that, by reason of the singular\nconstruction of the story, more than one main incident usually\nbelonging to the end of such a fiction is anticipated in the\nbeginning, and thus there is an approach to completeness in the\nfragment, as to the satisfaction of the reader's mind concerning the\nmost interesting persons, which could hardly have been better\nattained if the writer's breaking-off had been foreseen.\n\nThe last line he wrote, and the last proof he corrected, are among\nthese papers through which I have so sorrowfully made my way.  The\ncondition of the little pages of manuscript where Death stopped his\nhand, shows that he had carried them about, and often taken them out\nof his pocket here and there, for patient revision and\ninterlineation.  The last words he corrected in print were, \"And my\nheart throbbed with an exquisite bliss\".  GOD grant that on that\nChristmas Eve when he laid his head back on his pillow and threw up\nhis arms as he had been wont to do when very weary, some\nconsciousness of duty done and Christian hope throughout life humbly\ncherished, may have caused his own heart so to throb, when he passed\naway to his Redeemer's rest!\n\nHe was found peacefully lying as above described, composed,\nundisturbed, and to all appearance asleep, on the twenty-fourth of\nDecember 1863.  He was only in his fifty-third year; so young a man\nthat the mother who blessed him in his first sleep blessed him in\nhis last.  Twenty years before, he had written, after being in a\nwhite squall:\n\n\nAnd when, its force expended,\nThe harmless storm was ended,\nAnd, as the sunrise splendid\nCame blushing o'er the sea;\nI thought, as day was breaking,\nMy little girls were waking,\nAnd smiling, and making\nA prayer at home for me.\n\n\nThose little girls had grown to be women when the mournful day broke\nthat saw their father lying dead.  In those twenty years of\ncompanionship with him they had learned much from him; and one of\nthem has a literary course before her, worthy of her famous name.\n\nOn the bright wintry day, the last but one of the old year, he was\nlaid in his grave at Kensal Green, there to mingle the dust to which\nthe mortal part of him had returned, with that of a third child,\nlost in her infancy years ago.  The heads of a great concourse of\nhis fellow-workers in the Arts were bowed around his tomb.\n\n\n\nADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER\nINTRODUCTION TO HER \"LEGENDS AND LYRICS\"\n\n\n\nIn the spring of the year 1853, I observed, as conductor of the\nweekly journal Household Words, a short poem among the proffered\ncontributions, very different, as I thought, from the shoal of\nverses perpetually setting through the office of such a periodical,\nand possessing much more merit.  Its authoress was quite unknown to\nme.  She was one Miss Mary Berwick, whom I had never heard of; and\nshe was to be addressed by letter, if addressed at all, at a\ncirculating library in the western district of London.  Through this\nchannel, Miss Berwick was informed that her poem was accepted, and\nwas invited to send another.  She complied, and became a regular and\nfrequent contributor.  Many letters passed between the journal and\nMiss Berwick, but Miss Berwick herself was never seen.\n\nHow we came gradually to establish, at the office of Household\nWords, that we knew all about Miss Berwick, I have never discovered.\nBut we settled somehow, to our complete satisfaction, that she was\ngoverness in a family; that she went to Italy in that capacity, and\nreturned; and that she had long been in the same family.  We really\nknew nothing whatever of her, except that she was remarkably\nbusiness-like, punctual, self-reliant, and reliable:  so I suppose\nwe insensibly invented the rest.  For myself, my mother was not a\nmore real personage to me, than Miss Berwick the governess became.\n\nThis went on until December, 1854, when the Christmas number,\nentitled The Seven Poor Travellers, was sent to press.  Happening to\nbe going to dine that day with an old and dear friend, distinguished\nin literature as Barry Cornwall, I took with me an early proof of\nthat number, and remarked, as I laid it on the drawing-room table,\nthat it contained a very pretty poem, written by a certain Miss\nBerwick.  Next day brought me the disclosure that I had so spoken of\nthe poem to the mother of its writer, in its writer's presence; that\nI had no such correspondent in existence as Miss Berwick; and that\nthe name had been assumed by Barry Cornwall's eldest daughter, Miss\nAdelaide Anne Procter.\n\nThe anecdote I have here noted down, besides serving to explain why\nthe parents of the late Miss Procter have looked to me for these\npoor words of remembrance of their lamented child, strikingly\nillustrates the honesty, independence, and quiet dignity, of the\nlady's character.  I had known her when she was very young; I had\nbeen honoured with her father's friendship when I was myself a young\naspirant; and she had said at home, \"If I send him, in my own name,\nverses that he does not honestly like, either it will be very\npainful to him to return them, or he will print them for papa's\nsake, and not for their own.  So I have made up my mind to take my\nchance fairly with the unknown volunteers.\"\n\nPerhaps it requires an editor's experience of the profoundly\nunreasonable grounds on which he is often urged to accept unsuitable\narticles--such as having been to school with the writer's husband's\nbrother-in-law, or having lent an alpenstock in Switzerland to the\nwriter's wife's nephew, when that interesting stranger had broken\nhis own--fully to appreciate the delicacy and the self-respect of\nthis resolution.\n\nSome verses by Miss Procter had been published in the Book of\nBeauty, ten years before she became Miss Berwick.  With the\nexception of two poems in the Cornhill Magazine, two in Good Words,\nand others in a little book called A Chaplet of Verses (issued in\n1862 for the benefit of a Night Refuge), her published writings\nfirst appeared in Household Words, or All the Year Round.  The\npresent edition contains the whole of her Legends and Lyrics, and\noriginates in the great favour with which they have been received by\nthe public.\n\nMiss Procter was born in Bedford Square, London, on the 30th of\nOctober, 1825.  Her love of poetry was conspicuous at so early an\nage, that I have before me a tiny album made of small note-paper,\ninto which her favourite passages were copied for her by her\nmother's hand before she herself could write.  It looks as if she\nhad carried it about, as another little girl might have carried a\ndoll.  She soon displayed a remarkable memory, and great quickness\nof apprehension.  When she was quite a young child, she learned with\nfacility several of the problems of Euclid.  As she grew older, she\nacquired the French, Italian, and German languages; became a clever\npianoforte player; and showed a true taste and sentiment in drawing.\nBut, as soon as she had completely vanquished the difficulties of\nany one branch of study, it was her way to lose interest in it, and\npass to another.  While her mental resources were being trained, it\nwas not at all suspected in her family that she had any gift of\nauthorship, or any ambition to become a writer.  Her father had no\nidea of her having ever attempted to turn a rhyme, until her first\nlittle poem saw the light in print.\n\nWhen she attained to womanhood, she had read an extraordinary number\nof books, and throughout her life she was always largely adding to\nthe number.  In 1853 she went to Turin and its neighbourhood, on a\nvisit to her aunt, a Roman Catholic lady.  As Miss Procter had\nherself professed the Roman Catholic Faith two years before, she\nentered with the greater ardour on the study of the Piedmontese\ndialect, and the observation of the habits and manners of the\npeasantry.  In the former, she soon became a proficient.  On the\nlatter head, I extract from her familiar letters written home to\nEngland at the time, two pleasant pieces of description.\n\n\nA BETROTHAL\n\n\n\"We have been to a ball, of which I must give you a description.\nLast Tuesday we had just done dinner at about seven, and stepped out\ninto the balcony to look at the remains of the sunset behind the\nmountains, when we heard very distinctly a band of music, which\nrather excited my astonishment, as a solitary organ is the utmost\nthat toils up here.  I went out of the room for a few minutes, and,\non my returning, Emily said, 'Oh!  That band is playing at the\nfarmer's near here.  The daughter is fiancee to-day, and they have a\nball.'  I said, 'I wish I was going!'  'Well,' replied she, 'the\nfarmer's wife did call to invite us.'  'Then I shall certainly go,'\nI exclaimed.  I applied to Madame B., who said she would like it\nvery much, and we had better go, children and all.  Some of the\nservants were already gone.  We rushed away to put on some shawls,\nand put off any shred of black we might have about us (as the people\nwould have been quite annoyed if we had appeared on such an occasion\nwith any black), and we started.  When we reached the farmer's,\nwhich is a stone's throw above our house, we were received with\ngreat enthusiasm; the only drawback being, that no one spoke French,\nand we did not yet speak Piedmontese.  We were placed on a bench\nagainst the wall, and the people went on dancing.  The room was a\nlarge whitewashed kitchen (I suppose), with several large pictures\nin black frames, and very smoky.  I distinguished the Martyrdom of\nSaint Sebastian, and the others appeared equally lively and\nappropriate subjects.  Whether they were Old Masters or not, and if\nso, by whom, I could not ascertain.  The band were seated opposite\nus.  Five men, with wind instruments, part of the band of the\nNational Guard, to which the farmer's sons belong.  They played\nreally admirably, and I began to be afraid that some idea of our\ndignity would prevent me getting a partner; so, by Madame B.'s\nadvice, I went up to the bride, and offered to dance with her.  Such\na handsome young woman!  Like one of Uwins's pictures.  Very dark,\nwith a quantity of black hair, and on an immense scale.  The\nchildren were already dancing, as well as the maids.  After we came\nto an end of our dance, which was what they called a Polka-Mazourka,\nI saw the bride trying to screw up the courage of her fiance to ask\nme to dance, which after a little hesitation he did.  And admirably\nhe danced, as indeed they all did--in excellent time, and with a\nlittle more spirit than one sees in a ball-room.  In fact, they were\nvery like one's ordinary partners, except that they wore earrings\nand were in their shirt-sleeves, and truth compels me to state that\nthey decidedly smelt of garlic.  Some of them had been smoking, but\nthrew away their cigars when we came in.  The only thing that did\nnot look cheerful was, that the room was only lighted by two or\nthree oil-lamps, and that there seemed to be no preparation for\nrefreshments.  Madame B., seeing this, whispered to her maid, who\ndisengaged herself from her partner, and ran off to the house; she\nand the kitchenmaid presently returning with a large tray covered\nwith all kinds of cakes (of which we are great consumers and always\nhave a stock), and a large hamper full of bottles of wine, with\ncoffee and sugar.  This seemed all very acceptable.  The fiancee was\nrequested to distribute the eatables, and a bucket of water being\nproduced to wash the glasses in, the wine disappeared very quickly--\nas fast as they could open the bottles.  But, elated, I suppose, by\nthis, the floor was sprinkled with water, and the musicians played a\nMonferrino, which is a Piedmontese dance.  Madame B. danced with the\nfarmer's son, and Emily with another distinguished member of the\ncompany.  It was very fatiguing--something like a Scotch reel.  My\npartner was a little man, like Perrot, and very proud of his\ndancing.  He cut in the air and twisted about, until I was out of\nbreath, though my attempts to imitate him were feeble in the\nextreme.  At last, after seven or eight dances, I was obliged to sit\ndown.  We stayed till nine, and I was so dead beat with the heat\nthat I could hardly crawl about the house, and in an agony with the\ncramp, it is so long since I have danced.\"\n\n\nA MARRIAGE\n\n\nThe wedding of the farmer's daughter has taken place.  We had hoped\nit would have been in the little chapel of our house, but it seems\nsome special permission was necessary, and they applied for it too\nlate.  They all said, \"This is the Constitution.  There would have\nbeen no difficulty before!\" the lower classes making the poor\nConstitution the scapegoat for everything they don't like.  So as it\nwas impossible for us to climb up to the church where the wedding\nwas to be, we contented ourselves with seeing the procession pass.\nIt was not a very large one, for, it requiring some activity to go\nup, all the old people remained at home.  It is not etiquette for\nthe bride's mother to go, and no unmarried woman can go to a\nwedding--I suppose for fear of its making her discontented with her\nown position.  The procession stopped at our door, for the bride to\nreceive our congratulations.  She was dressed in a shot silk, with a\nyellow handkerchief, and rows of a large gold chain.  In the\nafternoon they sent to request us to go there.  On our arrival we\nfound them dancing out of doors, and a most melancholy affair it\nwas.  All the bride's sisters were not to be recognised, they had\ncried so.  The mother sat in the house, and could not appear.  And\nthe bride was sobbing so, she could hardly stand!  The most\nmelancholy spectacle of all to my mind was, that the bridegroom was\ndecidedly tipsy.  He seemed rather affronted at all the distress.\nWe danced a Monferrino; I with the bridegroom; and the bride crying\nthe whole time.  The company did their utmost to enliven her by\nfiring pistols, but without success, and at last they began a series\nof yells, which reminded me of a set of savages.  But even this\ndelicate method of consolation failed, and the wishing good-bye\nbegan.  It was altogether so melancholy an affair that Madame B.\ndropped a few tears, and I was very near it, particularly when the\npoor mother came out to see the last of her daughter, who was\nfinally dragged off between her brother and uncle, with a last\nexplosion of pistols.  As she lives quite near, makes an excellent\nmatch, and is one of nine children, it really was a most desirable\nmarriage, in spite of all the show of distress.  Albert was so\ndiscomfited by it, that he forgot to kiss the bride as he had\nintended to do, and therefore went to call upon her yesterday, and\nfound her very smiling in her new house, and supplied the omission.\nThe cook came home from the wedding, declaring she was cured of any\nwish to marry--but I would not recommend any man to act upon that\nthreat and make her an offer.  In a couple of days we had some rolls\nof the bride's first baking, which they call Madonnas.  The\nmusicians, it seems, were in the same state as the bridegroom, for,\nin escorting her home, they all fell down in the mud.  My wrath\nagainst the bridegroom is somewhat calmed by finding that it is\nconsidered bad luck if he does not get tipsy at his wedding.\"\n\n\nThose readers of Miss Procter's poems who should suppose from their\ntone that her mind was of a gloomy or despondent cast, would be\ncuriously mistaken.  She was exceedingly humorous, and had a great\ndelight in humour.  Cheerfulness was habitual with her, she was very\nready at a sally or a reply, and in her laugh (as I remember well)\nthere was an unusual vivacity, enjoyment, and sense of drollery.\nShe was perfectly unconstrained and unaffected:  as modestly silent\nabout her productions, as she was generous with their pecuniary\nresults.  She was a friend who inspired the strongest attachments;\nshe was a finely sympathetic woman, with a great accordant heart and\na sterling noble nature.  No claim can be set up for her, thank God,\nto the possession of any of the conventional poetical qualities.\nShe never by any means held the opinion that she was among the\ngreatest of human beings; she never suspected the existence of a\nconspiracy on the part of mankind against her; she never recognised\nin her best friends, her worst enemies; she never cultivated the\nluxury of being misunderstood and unappreciated; she would far\nrather have died without seeing a line of her composition in print,\nthan that I should have maundered about her, here, as \"the Poet\", or\n\"the Poetess\".\n\nWith the recollection of Miss Procter as a mere child and as a\nwoman, fresh upon me, it is natural that I should linger on my way\nto the close of this brief record, avoiding its end.  But, even as\nthe close came upon her, so must it come here.\n\nAlways impelled by an intense conviction that her life must not be\ndreamed away, and that her indulgence in her favourite pursuits must\nbe balanced by action in the real world around her, she was\nindefatigable in her endeavours to do some good.  Naturally\nenthusiastic, and conscientiously impressed with a deep sense of her\nChristian duty to her neighbour, she devoted herself to a variety of\nbenevolent objects.  Now, it was the visitation of the sick, that\nhad possession of her; now, it was the sheltering of the houseless;\nnow, it was the elementary teaching of the densely ignorant; now, it\nwas the raising up of those who had wandered and got trodden under\nfoot; now, it was the wider employment of her own sex in the general\nbusiness of life; now, it was all these things at once.  Perfectly\nunselfish, swift to sympathise and eager to relieve, she wrought at\nsuch designs with a flushed earnestness that disregarded season,\nweather, time of day or night, food, rest.  Under such a hurry of\nthe spirits, and such incessant occupation, the strongest\nconstitution will commonly go down.  Hers, neither of the strongest\nnor the weakest, yielded to the burden, and began to sink.\n\nTo have saved her life, then, by taking action on the warning that\nshone in her eyes and sounded in her voice, would have been\nimpossible, without changing her nature.  As long as the power of\nmoving about in the old way was left to her, she must exercise it,\nor be killed by the restraint.  And so the time came when she could\nmove about no longer, and took to her bed.\n\nAll the restlessness gone then, and all the sweet patience of her\nnatural disposition purified by the resignation of her soul, she lay\nupon her bed through the whole round of changes of the seasons.  She\nlay upon her bed through fifteen months.  In all that time, her old\ncheerfulness never quitted her.  In all that time, not an impatient\nor a querulous minute can be remembered.\n\nAt length, at midnight on the second of February, 1864, she turned\ndown a leaf of a little book she was reading, and shut it up.\n\nThe ministering hand that had copied the verses into the tiny album\nwas soon around her neck, and she quietly asked, as the clock was on\nthe stroke of one:\n\n\"Do you think I am dying, mamma?\"\n\n\"I think you are very, very ill to-night, my dear!\"\n\n\"Send for my sister.  My feet are so cold.  Lift me up?\"\n\nHer sister entering as they raised her, she said:  \"It has come at\nlast!\"  And with a bright and happy smile, looked upward, and\ndeparted.\n\nWell had she written:\n\n\nWhy shouldst thou fear the beautiful angel, Death,\nWho waits thee at the portals of the skies,\nReady to kiss away thy struggling breath,\nReady with gentle hand to close thine eyes?\n\nOh what were life, if life were all?  Thine eyes\nAre blinded by their tears, or thou wouldst see\nThy treasures wait thee in the far-off skies,\nAnd Death, thy friend, will give them all to thee.\n\n\n\nCHAUNCEY HARE TOWNSHEND\nEXPLANATORY INTRODUCTION TO \"RELIGIOUS\nOPINIONS\" BY THE LATE REVEREND\nCHAUNCEY HARE TOWNSHEND\n\n\n\nMr. Chauncey Hare Townshend died in London, on the 25th of February\n1868.  His will contained the following passage:-\n\n\n\"I appoint my friend Charles Dickens, of Gad's Hill Place, in the\nCounty of Kent, Esquire, my literary executor; and beg of him to\npublish without alteration as much of my notes and reflections as\nmay make known my opinions on religious matters, they being such as\nI verily believe would be conducive to the happiness of mankind.\"\n\n\nIn pursuance of the foregoing injunction, the Literary Executor so\nappointed (not previously aware that the publication of any\nReligious Opinions would be enjoined upon him), applied himself to\nthe examination of the numerous papers left by his deceased friend.\nSome of these were in Lausanne, and some were in London.\nConsiderable delay occurred before they could be got together,\narising out of certain claims preferred, and formalities insisted on\nby the authorities of the Canton de Vaud.  When at length the whole\nof his late friend's papers passed into the Literary Executor's\nhands, it was found that Religious Opinions were scattered up and\ndown through a variety of memoranda and note-books, the gradual\naccumulation of years and years.  Many of the following pages were\ncarefully transcribed, numbered, connected, and prepared for the\npress; but many more were dispersed fragments, originally written in\npencil, afterwards inked over, the intended sequence of which in the\nwriter's mind, it was extremely difficult to follow.  These again\nwere intermixed with journals of travel, fragments of poems,\ncritical essays, voluminous correspondence, and old school-exercises\nand college themes, having no kind of connection with them.\n\nTo publish such materials \"without alteration\", was simply\nimpossible.  But finding everywhere internal evidence that Mr.\nTownshend's Religious Opinions had been constantly meditated and\nreconsidered with great pains and sincerity throughout his life, the\nLiterary Executor carefully compiled them (always in the writer's\nexact words), and endeavoured in piecing them together to avoid\nneedless repetition.  He does not doubt that Mr. Townshend held the\nclue to a precise plan, which could have greatly simplified the\npresentation of these views; and he has devoted the first section of\nthis volume to Mr. Townshend's own notes of his comprehensive\nintentions.  Proofs of the devout spirit in which they were\nconceived, and of the sense of responsibility with which he worked\nat them, abound through the whole mass of papers.  Mr. Townshend's\nvaried attainments, delicate tastes, and amiable and gentle nature,\ncaused him to be beloved through life by the variously distinguished\nmen who were his compeers at Cambridge long ago.  To his Literary\nExecutor he was always a warmly-attached and sympathetic friend.  To\nthe public, he has been a most generous benefactor, both in his\nmunificent bequest of his collection of precious stones in the South\nKensington Museum, and in the devotion of the bulk of his property\nto the education of poor children.\n\n\n\nON MR. FECHTER'S ACTING\n\n\n\nThe distinguished artist whose name is prefixed to these remarks\npurposes to leave England for a professional tour in the United\nStates.  A few words from me, in reference to his merits as an\nactor, I hope may not be uninteresting to some readers, in advance\nof his publicly proving them before an American audience, and I know\nwill not be unacceptable to my intimate friend.  I state at once\nthat Mr. Fechter holds that relation towards me; not only because it\nis the fact, but also because our friendship originated in my public\nappreciation of him.  I had studied his acting closely, and had\nadmired it highly, both in Paris and in London, years before we\nexchanged a word.  Consequently my appreciation is not the result of\npersonal regard, but personal regard has sprung out of my\nappreciation.\n\nThe first quality observable in Mr. Fechter's acting is, that it is\nin the highest degree romantic.  However elaborated in minute\ndetails, there is always a peculiar dash and vigour in it, like the\nfresh atmosphere of the story whereof it is a part.  When he is on\nthe stage, it seems to me as though the story were transpiring\nbefore me for the first and last time.  Thus there is a fervour in\nhis love-making--a suffusion of his whole being with the rapture of\nhis passion--that sheds a glory on its object, and raises her,\nbefore the eyes of the audience, into the light in which he sees\nher.  It was this remarkable power that took Paris by storm when he\nbecame famous in the lover's part in the Dame aux Camelias.  It is a\nshort part, really comprised in two scenes, but, as he acted it (he\nwas its original representative), it left its poetic and exalting\ninfluence on the heroine throughout the play.  A woman who could be\nso loved--who could be so devotedly and romantically adored--had a\nhold upon the general sympathy with which nothing less absorbing and\ncomplete could have invested her.  When I first saw this play and\nthis actor, I could not in forming my lenient judgment of the\nheroine, forget that she had been the inspiration of a passion of\nwhich I had beheld such profound and affecting marks.  I said to\nmyself, as a child might have said:  \"A bad woman could not have\nbeen the object of that wonderful tenderness, could not have so\nsubdued that worshipping heart, could not have drawn such tears from\nsuch a lover\".  I am persuaded that the same effect was wrought upon\nthe Parisian audiences, both consciously and unconsciously, to a\nvery great extent, and that what was morally disagreeable in the\nDame aux Camelias first got lost in this brilliant halo of romance.\nI have seen the same play with the same part otherwise acted, and in\nexact degree as the love became dull and earthy, the heroine\ndescended from her pedestal.\n\nIn Ruy Blas, in the Master of Ravenswood, and in the Lady of Lyons--\nthree dramas in which Mr. Fechter especially shines as a lover, but\nnotably in the first--this remarkable power of surrounding the\nbeloved creature, in the eyes of the audience, with the fascination\nthat she has for him, is strikingly displayed.  That observer must\nbe cold indeed who does not feel, when Ruy Blas stands in the\npresence of the young unwedded Queen of Spain, that the air is\nenchanted; or, when she bends over him, laying her tender touch upon\nhis bloody breast, that it is better so to die than to live apart\nfrom her, and that she is worthy to be so died for.  When the Master\nof Ravenswood declares his love to Lucy Ashton, and she hers to him,\nand when in a burst of rapture, he kisses the skirt of her dress, we\nfeel as though we touched it with our lips to stay our goddess from\nsoaring away into the very heavens.  And when they plight their\ntroth and break the piece of gold, it is we--not Edgar--who quickly\nexchange our half for the half she was about to hang about her neck,\nsolely because the latter has for an instant touched the bosom we so\ndearly love.  Again, in the Lady of Lyons:  the picture on the easel\nin the poor cottage studio is not the unfinished portrait of a vain\nand arrogant girl, but becomes the sketch of a Soul's high ambition\nand aspiration here and hereafter.\n\nPicturesqueness is a quality above all others pervading Mr.\nFechter's assumptions.  Himself a skilled painter and sculptor,\nlearned in the history of costume, and informing those\naccomplishments and that knowledge with a similar infusion of\nromance (for romance is inseparable from the man), he is always a\npicture,--always a picture in its right place in the group, always\nin true composition with the background of the scene.  For\npicturesqueness of manner, note so trivial a thing as the turn of\nhis hand in beckoning from a window, in Ruy Blas, to a personage\ndown in an outer courtyard to come up; or his assumption of the\nDuke's livery in the same scene; or his writing a letter from\ndictation.  In the last scene of Victor Hugo's noble drama, his\nbearing becomes positively inspired; and his sudden assumption of\nthe attitude of the headsman, in his denunciation of the Duke and\nthreat to be his executioner, is, so far as I know, one of the most\nferociously picturesque things conceivable on the stage.\n\nThe foregoing use of the word \"ferociously\" reminds me to remark\nthat this artist is a master of passionate vehemence; in which\naspect he appears to me to represent, perhaps more than in any\nother, an interesting union of characteristics of two great\nnations,--the French and the Anglo-Saxon.  Born in London of a\nFrench mother, by a German father, but reared entirely in England\nand in France, there is, in his fury, a combination of French\nsuddenness and impressibility with our more slowly demonstrative\nAnglo-Saxon way when we get, as we say, \"our blood up\", that\nproduces an intensely fiery result.  The fusion of two races is in\nit, and one cannot decidedly say that it belongs to either; but one\ncan most decidedly say that it belongs to a powerful concentration\nof human passion and emotion, and to human nature.\n\nMr. Fechter has been in the main more accustomed to speak French\nthan to speak English, and therefore he speaks our language with a\nFrench accent.  But whosoever should suppose that he does not speak\nEnglish fluently, plainly, distinctly, and with a perfect\nunderstanding of the meaning, weight, and value of every word, would\nbe greatly mistaken.  Not only is his knowledge of English--\nextending to the most subtle idiom, or the most recondite cant\nphrase--more extensive than that of many of us who have English for\nour mother-tongue, but his delivery of Shakespeare's blank verse is\nremarkably facile, musical, and intelligent.  To be in a sort of\npain for him, as one sometimes is for a foreigner speaking English,\nor to be in any doubt of his having twenty synonymes at his tongue's\nend if he should want one, is out of the question after having been\nof his audience.\n\nA few words on two of his Shakespearian impersonations, and I shall\nhave indicated enough, in advance of Mr. Fechter's presentation of\nhimself.  That quality of picturesqueness, on which I have already\nlaid stress, is strikingly developed in his Iago, and yet it is so\njudiciously governed that his Iago is not in the least picturesque\naccording to the conventional ways of frowning, sneering,\ndiabolically grinning, and elaborately doing everything else that\nwould induce Othello to run him through the body very early in the\nplay.  Mr. Fechter's is the Iago who could, and did, make friends,\nwho could dissect his master's soul, without flourishing his scalpel\nas if it were a walking-stick, who could overpower Emilia by other\narts than a sign-of-the-Saracen's-Head grimness; who could be a boon\ncompanion without ipso facto warning all beholders off by the\nportentous phenomenon; who could sing a song and clink a can\nnaturally enough, and stab men really in the dark,--not in a\ntransparent notification of himself as going about seeking whom to\nstab.  Mr. Fechter's Iago is no more in the conventional\npsychological mode than in the conventional hussar pantaloons and\nboots; and you shall see the picturesqueness of his wearing borne\nout in his bearing all through the tragedy down to the moment when\nhe becomes invincibly and consistently dumb.\n\nPerhaps no innovation in Art was ever accepted with so much favour\nby so many intellectual persons pre-committed to, and preoccupied\nby, another system, as Mr. Fechter's Hamlet.  I take this to have\nbeen the case (as it unquestionably was in London), not because of\nits picturesqueness, not because of its novelty, not because of its\nmany scattered beauties, but because of its perfect consistency with\nitself.  As the animal-painter said of his favourite picture of\nrabbits that there was more nature about those rabbits than you\nusually found in rabbits, so it may be said of Mr. Fechter's Hamlet,\nthat there was more consistency about that Hamlet than you usually\nfound in Hamlets.  Its great and satisfying originality was in its\npossessing the merit of a distinctly conceived and executed idea.\nFrom the first appearance of the broken glass of fashion and mould\nof form, pale and worn with weeping for his father's death, and\nremotely suspicious of its cause, to his final struggle with Horatio\nfor the fatal cup, there were cohesion and coherence in Mr.\nFechter's view of the character.  Devrient, the German actor, had,\nsome years before in London, fluttered the theatrical doves\nconsiderably, by such changes as being seated when instructing the\nplayers, and like mild departures from established usage; but he had\nworn, in the main, the old nondescript dress, and had held forth, in\nthe main, in the old way, hovering between sanity and madness.  I do\nnot remember whether he wore his hair crisply curled short, as if he\nwere going to an everlasting dancing-master's party at the Danish\ncourt; but I do remember that most other Hamlets since the great\nKemble had been bound to do so.  Mr. Fechter's Hamlet, a pale,\nwoebegone Norseman with long flaxen hair, wearing a strange garb\nnever associated with the part upon the English stage (if ever seen\nthere at all) and making a piratical swoop upon the whole fleet of\nlittle theatrical prescriptions without meaning, or, like Dr.\nJohnson's celebrated friend, with only one idea in them, and that a\nwrong one, never could have achieved its extraordinary success but\nfor its animation by one pervading purpose, to which all changes\nwere made intelligently subservient.  The bearing of this purpose on\nthe treatment of Ophelia, on the death of Polonius, and on the old\nstudent fellowship between Hamlet and Horatio, was exceedingly\nstriking; and the difference between picturesqueness of stage\narrangement for mere stage effect, and for the elucidation of a\nmeaning, was well displayed in there having been a gallery of\nmusicians at the Play, and in one of them passing on his way out,\nwith his instrument in his hand, when Hamlet, seeing it, took it\nfrom him, to point his talk with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.\n\nThis leads me to the observation with which I have all along desired\nto conclude:  that Mr. Fechter's romance and picturesqueness are\nalways united to a true artist's intelligence, and a true artist's\ntraining in a true artist's spirit.  He became one of the company of\nthe Theatre Francais when he was a very young man, and he has\ncultivated his natural gifts in the best schools.  I cannot wish my\nfriend a better audience than he will have in the American people,\nand I cannot wish them a better actor than they will have in my\nfriend.\n\n\n\nFootnotes:\n\n{1}  Cornhill Magazine\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"1465":"\n\n\n\n\nTranscribed from the 1894 Chapman and Hall edition of \"Christmas Stories\"\nby David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY\n\n\nTHE WRECK\n\n\nI was apprenticed to the Sea when I was twelve years old, and I have\nencountered a great deal of rough weather, both literal and metaphorical.\nIt has always been my opinion since I first possessed such a thing as an\nopinion, that the man who knows only one subject is next tiresome to the\nman who knows no subject.  Therefore, in the course of my life I have\ntaught myself whatever I could, and although I am not an educated man, I\nam able, I am thankful to say, to have an intelligent interest in most\nthings.\n\nA person might suppose, from reading the above, that I am in the habit of\nholding forth about number one.  That is not the case.  Just as if I was\nto come into a room among strangers, and must either be introduced or\nintroduce myself, so I have taken the liberty of passing these few\nremarks, simply and plainly that it may be known who and what I am.  I\nwill add no more of the sort than that my name is William George\nRavender, that I was born at Penrith half a year after my own father was\ndrowned, and that I am on the second day of this present blessed\nChristmas week of one thousand eight hundred and fifty-six, fifty-six\nyears of age.\n\nWhen the rumour first went flying up and down that there was gold in\nCalifornia--which, as most people know, was before it was discovered in\nthe British colony of Australia--I was in the West Indies, trading among\nthe Islands.  Being in command and likewise part-owner of a smart\nschooner, I had my work cut out for me, and I was doing it.  Consequently,\ngold in California was no business of mine.\n\nBut, by the time when I came home to England again, the thing was as\nclear as your hand held up before you at noon-day.  There was Californian\ngold in the museums and in the goldsmiths' shops, and the very first time\nI went upon 'Change, I met a friend of mine (a seafaring man like\nmyself), with a Californian nugget hanging to his watch-chain.  I handled\nit.  It was as like a peeled walnut with bits unevenly broken off here\nand there, and then electrotyped all over, as ever I saw anything in my\nlife.\n\nI am a single man (she was too good for this world and for me, and she\ndied six weeks before our marriage-day), so when I am ashore, I live in\nmy house at Poplar.  My house at Poplar is taken care of and kept ship-\nshape by an old lady who was my mother's maid before I was born.  She is\nas handsome and as upright as any old lady in the world.  She is as fond\nof me as if she had ever had an only son, and I was he.  Well do I know\nwherever I sail that she never lays down her head at night without having\nsaid, \"Merciful Lord! bless and preserve William George Ravender, and\nsend him safe home, through Christ our Saviour!\"  I have thought of it in\nmany a dangerous moment, when it has done me no harm, I am sure.\n\nIn my house at Poplar, along with this old lady, I lived quiet for best\npart of a year: having had a long spell of it among the Islands, and\nhaving (which was very uncommon in me) taken the fever rather badly.  At\nlast, being strong and hearty, and having read every book I could lay\nhold of, right out, I was walking down Leadenhall Street in the City of\nLondon, thinking of turning-to again, when I met what I call Smithick and\nWatersby of Liverpool.  I chanced to lift up my eyes from looking in at a\nship's chronometer in a window, and I saw him bearing down upon me, head\non.\n\nIt is, personally, neither Smithick, nor Watersby, that I here mention,\nnor was I ever acquainted with any man of either of those names, nor do I\nthink that there has been any one of either of those names in that\nLiverpool House for years back.  But, it is in reality the House itself\nthat I refer to; and a wiser merchant or a truer gentleman never stepped.\n\n\"My dear Captain Ravender,\" says he.  \"Of all the men on earth, I wanted\nto see you most.  I was on my way to you.\"\n\n\"Well!\" says I.  \"That looks as if you _were_ to see me, don't it?\"  With\nthat I put my arm in his, and we walked on towards the Royal Exchange,\nand when we got there, walked up and down at the back of it where the\nClock-Tower is.  We walked an hour and more, for he had much to say to\nme.  He had a scheme for chartering a new ship of their own to take out\ncargo to the diggers and emigrants in California, and to buy and bring\nback gold.  Into the particulars of that scheme I will not enter, and I\nhave no right to enter.  All I say of it is, that it was a very original\none, a very fine one, a very sound one, and a very lucrative one beyond\ndoubt.\n\nHe imparted it to me as freely as if I had been a part of himself.  After\ndoing so, he made me the handsomest sharing offer that ever was made to\nme, boy or man--or I believe to any other captain in the Merchant\nNavy--and he took this round turn to finish with:\n\n\"Ravender, you are well aware that the lawlessness of that coast and\ncountry at present, is as special as the circumstances in which it is\nplaced.  Crews of vessels outward-bound, desert as soon as they make the\nland; crews of vessels homeward-bound, ship at enormous wages, with the\nexpress intention of murdering the captain and seizing the gold freight;\nno man can trust another, and the devil seems let loose.  Now,\" says he,\n\"you know my opinion of you, and you know I am only expressing it, and\nwith no singularity, when I tell you that you are almost the only man on\nwhose integrity, discretion, and energy--\" &c., &c.  For, I don't want to\nrepeat what he said, though I was and am sensible of it.\n\nNotwithstanding my being, as I have mentioned, quite ready for a voyage,\nstill I had some doubts of this voyage.  Of course I knew, without being\ntold, that there were peculiar difficulties and dangers in it, a long way\nover and above those which attend all voyages.  It must not be supposed\nthat I was afraid to face them; but, in my opinion a man has no manly\nmotive or sustainment in his own breast for facing dangers, unless he has\nwell considered what they are, and is able quietly to say to himself,\n\"None of these perils can now take me by surprise; I shall know what to\ndo for the best in any of them; all the rest lies in the higher and\ngreater hands to which I humbly commit myself.\"  On this principle I have\nso attentively considered (regarding it as my duty) all the hazards I\nhave ever been able to think of, in the ordinary way of storm, shipwreck,\nand fire at sea, that I hope I should be prepared to do, in any of those\ncases, whatever could be done, to save the lives intrusted to my charge.\n\nAs I was thoughtful, my good friend proposed that he should leave me to\nwalk there as long as I liked, and that I should dine with him by-and-by\nat his club in Pall Mall.  I accepted the invitation and I walked up and\ndown there, quarter-deck fashion, a matter of a couple of hours; now and\nthen looking up at the weathercock as I might have looked up aloft; and\nnow and then taking a look into Cornhill, as I might have taken a look\nover the side.\n\nAll dinner-time, and all after dinner-time, we talked it over again.  I\ngave him my views of his plan, and he very much approved of the same.  I\ntold him I had nearly decided, but not quite.  \"Well, well,\" says he,\n\"come down to Liverpool to-morrow with me, and see the Golden Mary.\"  I\nliked the name (her name was Mary, and she was golden, if golden stands\nfor good), so I began to feel that it was almost done when I said I would\ngo to Liverpool.  On the next morning but one we were on board the Golden\nMary.  I might have known, from his asking me to come down and see her,\nwhat she was.  I declare her to have been the completest and most\nexquisite Beauty that ever I set my eyes upon.\n\nWe had inspected every timber in her, and had come back to the gangway to\ngo ashore from the dock-basin, when I put out my hand to my friend.\n\"Touch upon it,\" says I, \"and touch heartily.  I take command of this\nship, and I am hers and yours, if I can get John Steadiman for my chief\nmate.\"\n\nJohn Steadiman had sailed with me four voyages.  The first voyage John\nwas third mate out to China, and came home second.  The other three\nvoyages he was my first officer.  At this time of chartering the Golden\nMary, he was aged thirty-two.  A brisk, bright, blue-eyed fellow, a very\nneat figure and rather under the middle size, never out of the way and\nnever in it, a face that pleased everybody and that all children took to,\na habit of going about singing as cheerily as a blackbird, and a perfect\nsailor.\n\nWe were in one of those Liverpool hackney-coaches in less than a minute,\nand we cruised about in her upwards of three hours, looking for John.\nJohn had come home from Van Diemen's Land barely a month before, and I\nhad heard of him as taking a frisk in Liverpool.  We asked after him,\namong many other places, at the two boarding-houses he was fondest of,\nand we found he had had a week's spell at each of them; but, he had gone\nhere and gone there, and had set off \"to lay out on the main-to'-gallant-\nyard of the highest Welsh mountain\" (so he had told the people of the\nhouse), and where he might be then, or when he might come back, nobody\ncould tell us.  But it was surprising, to be sure, to see how every face\nbrightened the moment there was mention made of the name of Mr.\nSteadiman.\n\nWe were taken aback at meeting with no better luck, and we had wore ship\nand put her head for my friends, when as we were jogging through the\nstreets, I clap my eyes on John himself coming out of a toyshop!  He was\ncarrying a little boy, and conducting two uncommon pretty women to their\ncoach, and he told me afterwards that he had never in his life seen one\nof the three before, but that he was so taken with them on looking in at\nthe toyshop while they were buying the child a cranky Noah's Ark, very\nmuch down by the head, that he had gone in and asked the ladies'\npermission to treat him to a tolerably correct Cutter there was in the\nwindow, in order that such a handsome boy might not grow up with a\nlubberly idea of naval architecture.\n\nWe stood off and on until the ladies' coachman began to give way, and\nthen we hailed John.  On his coming aboard of us, I told him, very\ngravely, what I had said to my friend.  It struck him, as he said\nhimself, amidships.  He was quite shaken by it.  \"Captain Ravender,\" were\nJohn Steadiman's words, \"such an opinion from you is true commendation,\nand I'll sail round the world with you for twenty years if you hoist the\nsignal, and stand by you for ever!\"  And now indeed I felt that it was\ndone, and that the Golden Mary was afloat.\n\nGrass never grew yet under the feet of Smithick and Watersby.  The\nriggers were out of that ship in a fortnight's time, and we had begun\ntaking in cargo.  John was always aboard, seeing everything stowed with\nhis own eyes; and whenever I went aboard myself early or late, whether he\nwas below in the hold, or on deck at the hatchway, or overhauling his\ncabin, nailing up pictures in it of the Blush Roses of England, the Blue\nBelles of Scotland, and the female Shamrock of Ireland: of a certainty I\nheard John singing like a blackbird.\n\nWe had room for twenty passengers.  Our sailing advertisement was no\nsooner out, than we might have taken these twenty times over.  In\nentering our men, I and John (both together) picked them, and we entered\nnone but good hands--as good as were to be found in that port.  And so,\nin a good ship of the best build, well owned, well arranged, well\nofficered, well manned, well found in all respects, we parted with our\npilot at a quarter past four o'clock in the afternoon of the seventh of\nMarch, one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one, and stood with a fair\nwind out to sea.\n\nIt may be easily believed that up to that time I had had no leisure to be\nintimate with my passengers.  The most of them were then in their berths\nsea-sick; however, in going among them, telling them what was good for\nthem, persuading them not to be there, but to come up on deck and feel\nthe breeze, and in rousing them with a joke, or a comfortable word, I\nmade acquaintance with them, perhaps, in a more friendly and confidential\nway from the first, than I might have done at the cabin table.\n\nOf my passengers, I need only particularise, just at present, a bright-\neyed blooming young wife who was going out to join her husband in\nCalifornia, taking with her their only child, a little girl of three\nyears old, whom he had never seen; a sedate young woman in black, some\nfive years older (about thirty as I should say), who was going out to\njoin a brother; and an old gentleman, a good deal like a hawk if his eyes\nhad been better and not so red, who was always talking, morning, noon,\nand night, about the gold discovery.  But, whether he was making the\nvoyage, thinking his old arms could dig for gold, or whether his\nspeculation was to buy it, or to barter for it, or to cheat for it, or to\nsnatch it anyhow from other people, was his secret.  He kept his secret.\n\nThese three and the child were the soonest well.  The child was a most\nengaging child, to be sure, and very fond of me: though I am bound to\nadmit that John Steadiman and I were borne on her pretty little books in\nreverse order, and that he was captain there, and I was mate.  It was\nbeautiful to watch her with John, and it was beautiful to watch John with\nher.  Few would have thought it possible, to see John playing at bo-peep\nround the mast, that he was the man who had caught up an iron bar and\nstruck a Malay and a Maltese dead, as they were gliding with their knives\ndown the cabin stair aboard the barque Old England, when the captain lay\nill in his cot, off Saugar Point.  But he was; and give him his back\nagainst a bulwark, he would have done the same by half a dozen of them.\nThe name of the young mother was Mrs. Atherfield, the name of the young\nlady in black was Miss Coleshaw, and the name of the old gentleman was\nMr. Rarx.\n\nAs the child had a quantity of shining fair hair, clustering in curls all\nabout her face, and as her name was Lucy, Steadiman gave her the name of\nthe Golden Lucy.  So, we had the Golden Lucy and the Golden Mary; and\nJohn kept up the idea to that extent as he and the child went playing\nabout the decks, that I believe she used to think the ship was alive\nsomehow--a sister or companion, going to the same place as herself.  She\nliked to be by the wheel, and in fine weather, I have often stood by the\nman whose trick it was at the wheel, only to hear her, sitting near my\nfeet, talking to the ship.  Never had a child such a doll before, I\nsuppose; but she made a doll of the Golden Mary, and used to dress her up\nby tying ribbons and little bits of finery to the belaying-pins; and\nnobody ever moved them, unless it was to save them from being blown away.\n\nOf course I took charge of the two young women, and I called them \"my\ndear,\" and they never minded, knowing that whatever I said was said in a\nfatherly and protecting spirit.  I gave them their places on each side of\nme at dinner, Mrs. Atherfield on my right and Miss Coleshaw on my left;\nand I directed the unmarried lady to serve out the breakfast, and the\nmarried lady to serve out the tea.  Likewise I said to my black steward\nin their presence, \"Tom Snow, these two ladies are equally the mistresses\nof this house, and do you obey their orders equally;\" at which Tom\nlaughed, and they all laughed.\n\nOld Mr. Rarx was not a pleasant man to look at, nor yet to talk to, or to\nbe with, for no one could help seeing that he was a sordid and selfish\ncharacter, and that he had warped further and further out of the straight\nwith time.  Not but what he was on his best behaviour with us, as\neverybody was; for we had no bickering among us, for'ard or aft.  I only\nmean to say, he was not the man one would have chosen for a messmate.  If\nchoice there had been, one might even have gone a few points out of one's\ncourse, to say, \"No!  Not him!\"  But, there was one curious inconsistency\nin Mr. Rarx.  That was, that he took an astonishing interest in the\nchild.  He looked, and I may add, he was, one of the last of men to care\nat all for a child, or to care much for any human creature.  Still, he\nwent so far as to be habitually uneasy, if the child was long on deck,\nout of his sight.  He was always afraid of her falling overboard, or\nfalling down a hatchway, or of a block or what not coming down upon her\nfrom the rigging in the working of the ship, or of her getting some hurt\nor other.  He used to look at her and touch her, as if she was something\nprecious to him.  He was always solicitous about her not injuring her\nhealth, and constantly entreated her mother to be careful of it.  This\nwas so much the more curious, because the child did not like him, but\nused to shrink away from him, and would not even put out her hand to him\nwithout coaxing from others.  I believe that every soul on board\nfrequently noticed this, and not one of us understood it.  However, it\nwas such a plain fact, that John Steadiman said more than once when old\nMr. Rarx was not within earshot, that if the Golden Mary felt a\ntenderness for the dear old gentleman she carried in her lap, she must be\nbitterly jealous of the Golden Lucy.\n\nBefore I go any further with this narrative, I will state that our ship\nwas a barque of three hundred tons, carrying a crew of eighteen men, a\nsecond mate in addition to John, a carpenter, an armourer or smith, and\ntwo apprentices (one a Scotch boy, poor little fellow).  We had three\nboats; the Long-boat, capable of carrying twenty-five men; the Cutter,\ncapable of carrying fifteen; and the Surf-boat, capable of carrying ten.\nI put down the capacity of these boats according to the numbers they were\nreally meant to hold.\n\nWe had tastes of bad weather and head-winds, of course; but, on the whole\nwe had as fine a run as any reasonable man could expect, for sixty days.\nI then began to enter two remarks in the ship's Log and in my Journal;\nfirst, that there was an unusual and amazing quantity of ice; second,\nthat the nights were most wonderfully dark, in spite of the ice.\n\nFor five days and a half, it seemed quite useless and hopeless to alter\nthe ship's course so as to stand out of the way of this ice.  I made what\nsouthing I could; but, all that time, we were beset by it.  Mrs.\nAtherfield after standing by me on deck once, looking for some time in an\nawed manner at the great bergs that surrounded us, said in a whisper, \"O!\nCaptain Ravender, it looks as if the whole solid earth had changed into\nice, and broken up!\"  I said to her, laughing, \"I don't wonder that it\ndoes, to your inexperienced eyes, my dear.\"  But I had never seen a\ntwentieth part of the quantity, and, in reality, I was pretty much of her\nopinion.\n\nHowever, at two p.m. on the afternoon of the sixth day, that is to say,\nwhen we were sixty-six days out, John Steadiman who had gone aloft, sang\nout from the top, that the sea was clear ahead.  Before four p.m. a\nstrong breeze springing up right astern, we were in open water at sunset.\nThe breeze then freshening into half a gale of wind, and the Golden Mary\nbeing a very fast sailer, we went before the wind merrily, all night.\n\nI had thought it impossible that it could be darker than it had been,\nuntil the sun, moon, and stars should fall out of the Heavens, and Time\nshould be destroyed; but, it had been next to light, in comparison with\nwhat it was now.  The darkness was so profound, that looking into it was\npainful and oppressive--like looking, without a ray of light, into a\ndense black bandage put as close before the eyes as it could be, without\ntouching them.  I doubled the look-out, and John and I stood in the bow\nside-by-side, never leaving it all night.  Yet I should no more have\nknown that he was near me when he was silent, without putting out my arm\nand touching him, than I should if he had turned in and been fast asleep\nbelow.  We were not so much looking out, all of us, as listening to the\nutmost, both with our eyes and ears.\n\nNext day, I found that the mercury in the barometer, which had risen\nsteadily since we cleared the ice, remained steady.  I had had very good\nobservations, with now and then the interruption of a day or so, since\nour departure.  I got the sun at noon, and found that we were in Lat. 58\ndegrees S., Long. 60 degrees W., off New South Shetland; in the\nneighbourhood of Cape Horn.  We were sixty-seven days out, that day.  The\nship's reckoning was accurately worked and made up.  The ship did her\nduty admirably, all on board were well, and all hands were as smart,\nefficient, and contented, as it was possible to be.\n\nWhen the night came on again as dark as before, it was the eighth night I\nhad been on deck.  Nor had I taken more than a very little sleep in the\nday-time, my station being always near the helm, and often at it, while\nwe were among the ice.  Few but those who have tried it can imagine the\ndifficulty and pain of only keeping the eyes open--physically open--under\nsuch circumstances, in such darkness.  They get struck by the darkness,\nand blinded by the darkness.  They make patterns in it, and they flash in\nit, as if they had gone out of your head to look at you.  On the turn of\nmidnight, John Steadiman, who was alert and fresh (for I had always made\nhim turn in by day), said to me, \"Captain Ravender, I entreat of you to\ngo below.  I am sure you can hardly stand, and your voice is getting\nweak, sir.  Go below, and take a little rest.  I'll call you if a block\nchafes.\"  I said to John in answer, \"Well, well, John!  Let us wait till\nthe turn of one o'clock, before we talk about that.\"  I had just had one\nof the ship's lanterns held up, that I might see how the night went by my\nwatch, and it was then twenty minutes after twelve.\n\nAt five minutes before one, John sang out to the boy to bring the lantern\nagain, and when I told him once more what the time was, entreated and\nprayed of me to go below.  \"Captain Ravender,\" says he, \"all's well; we\ncan't afford to have you laid up for a single hour; and I respectfully\nand earnestly beg of you to go below.\"  The end of it was, that I agreed\nto do so, on the understanding that if I failed to come up of my own\naccord within three hours, I was to be punctually called.  Having settled\nthat, I left John in charge.  But I called him to me once afterwards, to\nask him a question.  I had been to look at the barometer, and had seen\nthe mercury still perfectly steady, and had come up the companion again\nto take a last look about me--if I can use such a word in reference to\nsuch darkness--when I thought that the waves, as the Golden Mary parted\nthem and shook them off, had a hollow sound in them; something that I\nfancied was a rather unusual reverberation.  I was standing by the\nquarter-deck rail on the starboard side, when I called John aft to me,\nand bade him listen.  He did so with the greatest attention.  Turning to\nme he then said, \"Rely upon it, Captain Ravender, you have been without\nrest too long, and the novelty is only in the state of your sense of\nhearing.\"  I thought so too by that time, and I think so now, though I\ncan never know for absolute certain in this world, whether it was or not.\n\nWhen I left John Steadiman in charge, the ship was still going at a great\nrate through the water.  The wind still blew right astern.  Though she\nwas making great way, she was under shortened sail, and had no more than\nshe could easily carry.  All was snug, and nothing complained.  There was\na pretty sea running, but not a very high sea neither, nor at all a\nconfused one.\n\nI turned in, as we seamen say, all standing.  The meaning of that is, I\ndid not pull my clothes off--no, not even so much as my coat: though I\ndid my shoes, for my feet were badly swelled with the deck.  There was a\nlittle swing-lamp alight in my cabin.  I thought, as I looked at it\nbefore shutting my eyes, that I was so tired of darkness, and troubled by\ndarkness, that I could have gone to sleep best in the midst of a million\nof flaming gas-lights.  That was the last thought I had before I went\noff, except the prevailing thought that I should not be able to get to\nsleep at all.\n\nI dreamed that I was back at Penrith again, and was trying to get round\nthe church, which had altered its shape very much since I last saw it,\nand was cloven all down the middle of the steeple in a most singular\nmanner.  Why I wanted to get round the church I don't know; but I was as\nanxious to do it as if my life depended on it.  Indeed, I believe it did\nin the dream.  For all that, I could not get round the church.  I was\nstill trying, when I came against it with a violent shock, and was flung\nout of my cot against the ship's side.  Shrieks and a terrific outcry\nstruck me far harder than the bruising timbers, and amidst sounds of\ngrinding and crashing, and a heavy rushing and breaking of water--sounds\nI understood too well--I made my way on deck.  It was not an easy thing\nto do, for the ship heeled over frightfully, and was beating in a furious\nmanner.\n\nI could not see the men as I went forward, but I could hear that they\nwere hauling in sail, in disorder.  I had my trumpet in my hand, and,\nafter directing and encouraging them in this till it was done, I hailed\nfirst John Steadiman, and then my second mate, Mr. William Rames.  Both\nanswered clearly and steadily.  Now, I had practised them and all my\ncrew, as I have ever made it a custom to practise all who sail with me,\nto take certain stations and wait my orders, in case of any unexpected\ncrisis.  When my voice was heard hailing, and their voices were heard\nanswering, I was aware, through all the noises of the ship and sea, and\nall the crying of the passengers below, that there was a pause.  \"Are you\nready, Rames?\"--\"Ay, ay, sir!\"--\"Then light up, for God's sake!\"  In a\nmoment he and another were burning blue-lights, and the ship and all on\nboard seemed to be enclosed in a mist of light, under a great black dome.\n\nThe light shone up so high that I could see the huge Iceberg upon which\nwe had struck, cloven at the top and down the middle, exactly like\nPenrith Church in my dream.  At the same moment I could see the watch\nlast relieved, crowding up and down on deck; I could see Mrs. Atherfield\nand Miss Coleshaw thrown about on the top of the companion as they\nstruggled to bring the child up from below; I could see that the masts\nwere going with the shock and the beating of the ship; I could see the\nfrightful breach stove in on the starboard side, half the length of the\nvessel, and the sheathing and timbers spirting up; I could see that the\nCutter was disabled, in a wreck of broken fragments; and I could see\nevery eye turned upon me.  It is my belief that if there had been ten\nthousand eyes there, I should have seen them all, with their different\nlooks.  And all this in a moment.  But you must consider what a moment.\n\nI saw the men, as they looked at me, fall towards their appointed\nstations, like good men and true.  If she had not righted, they could\nhave done very little there or anywhere but die--not that it is little\nfor a man to die at his post--I mean they could have done nothing to save\nthe passengers and themselves.  Happily, however, the violence of the\nshock with which we had so determinedly borne down direct on that fatal\nIceberg, as if it had been our destination instead of our destruction,\nhad so smashed and pounded the ship that she got off in this same instant\nand righted.  I did not want the carpenter to tell me she was filling and\ngoing down; I could see and hear that.  I gave Rames the word to lower\nthe Long-boat and the Surf-boat, and I myself told off the men for each\nduty.  Not one hung back, or came before the other.  I now whispered to\nJohn Steadiman, \"John, I stand at the gangway here, to see every soul on\nboard safe over the side.  You shall have the next post of honour, and\nshall be the last but one to leave the ship.  Bring up the passengers,\nand range them behind me; and put what provision and water you can got\nat, in the boats.  Cast your eye for'ard, John, and you'll see you have\nnot a moment to lose.\"\n\nMy noble fellows got the boats over the side as orderly as I ever saw\nboats lowered with any sea running, and, when they were launched, two or\nthree of the nearest men in them as they held on, rising and falling with\nthe swell, called out, looking up at me, \"Captain Ravender, if anything\ngoes wrong with us, and you are saved, remember we stood by you!\"--\"We'll\nall stand by one another ashore, yet, please God, my lads!\" says I.  \"Hold\non bravely, and be tender with the women.\"\n\nThe women were an example to us.  They trembled very much, but they were\nquiet and perfectly collected.  \"Kiss me, Captain Ravender,\" says Mrs.\nAtherfield, \"and God in heaven bless you, you good man!\"  \"My dear,\" says\nI, \"those words are better for me than a life-boat.\"  I held her child in\nmy arms till she was in the boat, and then kissed the child and handed\nher safe down.  I now said to the people in her, \"You have got your\nfreight, my lads, all but me, and I am not coming yet awhile.  Pull away\nfrom the ship, and keep off!\"\n\nThat was the Long-boat.  Old Mr. Rarx was one of her complement, and he\nwas the only passenger who had greatly misbehaved since the ship struck.\nOthers had been a little wild, which was not to be wondered at, and not\nvery blamable; but, he had made a lamentation and uproar which it was\ndangerous for the people to hear, as there is always contagion in\nweakness and selfishness.  His incessant cry had been that he must not be\nseparated from the child, that he couldn't see the child, and that he and\nthe child must go together.  He had even tried to wrest the child out of\nmy arms, that he might keep her in his.  \"Mr. Rarx,\" said I to him when\nit came to that, \"I have a loaded pistol in my pocket; and if you don't\nstand out of the gangway, and keep perfectly quiet, I shall shoot you\nthrough the heart, if you have got one.\"  Says he, \"You won't do murder,\nCaptain Ravender!\"   \"No, sir,\" says I, \"I won't murder forty-four people\nto humour you, but I'll shoot you to save them.\"  After that he was\nquiet, and stood shivering a little way off, until I named him to go over\nthe side.\n\nThe Long-boat being cast off, the Surf-boat was soon filled.  There only\nremained aboard the Golden Mary, John Mullion the man who had kept on\nburning the blue-lights (and who had lighted every new one at every old\none before it went out, as quietly as if he had been at an illumination);\nJohn Steadiman; and myself.  I hurried those two into the Surf-boat,\ncalled to them to keep off, and waited with a grateful and relieved heart\nfor the Long-boat to come and take me in, if she could.  I looked at my\nwatch, and it showed me, by the blue-light, ten minutes past two.  They\nlost no time.  As soon as she was near enough, I swung myself into her,\nand called to the men, \"With a will, lads!  She's reeling!\"  We were not\nan inch too far out of the inner vortex of her going down, when, by the\nblue-light which John Mullion still burnt in the bow of the Surf-boat, we\nsaw her lurch, and plunge to the bottom head-foremost.  The child cried,\nweeping wildly, \"O the dear Golden Mary!  O look at her!  Save her!  Save\nthe poor Golden Mary!\"  And then the light burnt out, and the black dome\nseemed to come down upon us.\n\nI suppose if we had all stood a-top of a mountain, and seen the whole\nremainder of the world sink away from under us, we could hardly have felt\nmore shocked and solitary than we did when we knew we were alone on the\nwide ocean, and that the beautiful ship in which most of us had been\nsecurely asleep within half an hour was gone for ever.  There was an\nawful silence in our boat, and such a kind of palsy on the rowers and the\nman at the rudder, that I felt they were scarcely keeping her before the\nsea.  I spoke out then, and said, \"Let every one here thank the Lord for\nour preservation!\"  All the voices answered (even the child's), \"We thank\nthe Lord!\"  I then said the Lord's Prayer, and all hands said it after me\nwith a solemn murmuring.  Then I gave the word \"Cheerily, O men,\nCheerily!\" and I felt that they were handling the boat again as a boat\nought to be handled.\n\nThe Surf-boat now burnt another blue-light to show us where they were,\nand we made for her, and laid ourselves as nearly alongside of her as we\ndared.  I had always kept my boats with a coil or two of good stout stuff\nin each of them, so both boats had a rope at hand.  We made a shift, with\nmuch labour and trouble, to get near enough to one another to divide the\nblue-lights (they were no use after that night, for the sea-water soon\ngot at them), and to get a tow-rope out between us.  All night long we\nkept together, sometimes obliged to cast off the rope, and sometimes\ngetting it out again, and all of us wearying for the morning--which\nappeared so long in coming that old Mr. Rarx screamed out, in spite of\nhis fears of me, \"The world is drawing to an end, and the sun will never\nrise any more!\"\n\nWhen the day broke, I found that we were all huddled together in a\nmiserable manner.  We were deep in the water; being, as I found on\nmustering, thirty-one in number, or at least six too many.  In the Surf-\nboat they were fourteen in number, being at least four too many.  The\nfirst thing I did, was to get myself passed to the rudder--which I took\nfrom that time--and to get Mrs. Atherfield, her child, and Miss Coleshaw,\npassed on to sit next me.  As to old Mr. Rarx, I put him in the bow, as\nfar from us as I could.  And I put some of the best men near us in order\nthat if I should drop there might be a skilful hand ready to take the\nhelm.\n\nThe sea moderating as the sun came up, though the sky was cloudy and\nwild, we spoke the other boat, to know what stores they had, and to\noverhaul what we had.  I had a compass in my pocket, a small telescope, a\ndouble-barrelled pistol, a knife, and a fire-box and matches.  Most of my\nmen had knives, and some had a little tobacco: some, a pipe as well.  We\nhad a mug among us, and an iron spoon.  As to provisions, there were in\nmy boat two bags of biscuit, one piece of raw beef, one piece of raw\npork, a bag of coffee, roasted but not ground (thrown in, I imagine, by\nmistake, for something else), two small casks of water, and about half-a-\ngallon of rum in a keg.  The Surf-boat, having rather more rum than we,\nand fewer to drink it, gave us, as I estimated, another quart into our\nkeg.  In return, we gave them three double handfuls of coffee, tied up in\na piece of a handkerchief; they reported that they had aboard besides, a\nbag of biscuit, a piece of beef, a small cask of water, a small box of\nlemons, and a Dutch cheese.  It took a long time to make these exchanges,\nand they were not made without risk to both parties; the sea running\nquite high enough to make our approaching near to one another very\nhazardous.  In the bundle with the coffee, I conveyed to John Steadiman\n(who had a ship's compass with him), a paper written in pencil, and torn\nfrom my pocket-book, containing the course I meant to steer, in the hope\nof making land, or being picked up by some vessel--I say in the hope,\nthough I had little hope of either deliverance.  I then sang out to him,\nso as all might hear, that if we two boats could live or die together, we\nwould; but, that if we should be parted by the weather, and join company\nno more, they should have our prayers and blessings, and we asked for\ntheirs.  We then gave them three cheers, which they returned, and I saw\nthe men's heads droop in both boats as they fell to their oars again.\n\nThese arrangements had occupied the general attention advantageously for\nall, though (as I expressed in the last sentence) they ended in a\nsorrowful feeling.  I now said a few words to my fellow-voyagers on the\nsubject of the small stock of food on which our lives depended if they\nwere preserved from the great deep, and on the rigid necessity of our\neking it out in the most frugal manner.  One and all replied that\nwhatever allowance I thought best to lay down should be strictly kept to.\nWe made a pair of scales out of a thin scrap of iron-plating and some\ntwine, and I got together for weights such of the heaviest buttons among\nus as I calculated made up some fraction over two ounces.  This was the\nallowance of solid food served out once a-day to each, from that time to\nthe end; with the addition of a coffee-berry, or sometimes half a one,\nwhen the weather was very fair, for breakfast.  We had nothing else\nwhatever, but half a pint of water each per day, and sometimes, when we\nwere coldest and weakest, a teaspoonful of rum each, served out as a\ndram.  I know how learnedly it can be shown that rum is poison, but I\nalso know that in this case, as in all similar cases I have ever read\nof--which are numerous--no words can express the comfort and support\nderived from it.  Nor have I the least doubt that it saved the lives of\nfar more than half our number.  Having mentioned half a pint of water as\nour daily allowance, I ought to observe that sometimes we had less, and\nsometimes we had more; for much rain fell, and we caught it in a canvas\nstretched for the purpose.\n\nThus, at that tempestuous time of the year, and in that tempestuous part\nof the world, we shipwrecked people rose and fell with the waves.  It is\nnot my intention to relate (if I can avoid it) such circumstances\nappertaining to our doleful condition as have been better told in many\nother narratives of the kind than I can be expected to tell them.  I will\nonly note, in so many passing words, that day after day and night after\nnight, we received the sea upon our backs to prevent it from swamping the\nboat; that one party was always kept baling, and that every hat and cap\namong us soon got worn out, though patched up fifty times, as the only\nvessels we had for that service; that another party lay down in the\nbottom of the boat, while a third rowed; and that we were soon all in\nboils and blisters and rags.\n\nThe other boat was a source of such anxious interest to all of us that I\nused to wonder whether, if we were saved, the time could ever come when\nthe survivors in this boat of ours could be at all indifferent to the\nfortunes of the survivors in that.  We got out a tow-rope whenever the\nweather permitted, but that did not often happen, and how we two parties\nkept within the same horizon, as we did, He, who mercifully permitted it\nto be so for our consolation, only knows.  I never shall forget the looks\nwith which, when the morning light came, we used to gaze about us over\nthe stormy waters, for the other boat.  We once parted company for\nseventy-two hours, and we believed them to have gone down, as they did\nus.  The joy on both sides when we came within view of one another again,\nhad something in a manner Divine in it; each was so forgetful of\nindividual suffering, in tears of delight and sympathy for the people in\nthe other boat.\n\nI have been wanting to get round to the individual or personal part of my\nsubject, as I call it, and the foregoing incident puts me in the right\nway.  The patience and good disposition aboard of us, was wonderful.  I\nwas not surprised by it in the women; for all men born of women know what\ngreat qualities they will show when men will fail; but, I own I was a\nlittle surprised by it in some of the men.  Among one-and-thirty people\nassembled at the best of times, there will usually, I should say, be two\nor three uncertain tempers.  I knew that I had more than one rough temper\nwith me among my own people, for I had chosen those for the Long-boat\nthat I might have them under my eye.  But, they softened under their\nmisery, and were as considerate of the ladies, and as compassionate of\nthe child, as the best among us, or among men--they could not have been\nmore so.  I heard scarcely any complaining.  The party lying down would\nmoan a good deal in their sleep, and I would often notice a man--not\nalways the same man, it is to be understood, but nearly all of them at\none time or other--sitting moaning at his oar, or in his place, as he\nlooked mistily over the sea.  When it happened to be long before I could\ncatch his eye, he would go on moaning all the time in the dismallest\nmanner; but, when our looks met, he would brighten and leave off.  I\nalmost always got the impression that he did not know what sound he had\nbeen making, but that he thought he had been humming a tune.\n\nOur sufferings from cold and wet were far greater than our sufferings\nfrom hunger.  We managed to keep the child warm; but, I doubt if any one\nelse among us ever was warm for five minutes together; and the shivering,\nand the chattering of teeth, were sad to hear.  The child cried a little\nat first for her lost playfellow, the Golden Mary; but hardly ever\nwhimpered afterwards; and when the state of the weather made it possible,\nshe used now and then to be held up in the arms of some of us, to look\nover the sea for John Steadiman's boat.  I see the golden hair and the\ninnocent face now, between me and the driving clouds, like an angel going\nto fly away.\n\nIt had happened on the second day, towards night, that Mrs. Atherfield,\nin getting Little Lucy to sleep, sang her a song.  She had a soft,\nmelodious voice, and, when she had finished it, our people up and begged\nfor another.  She sang them another, and after it had fallen dark ended\nwith the Evening Hymn.  From that time, whenever anything could be heard\nabove the sea and wind, and while she had any voice left, nothing would\nserve the people but that she should sing at sunset.  She always did, and\nalways ended with the Evening Hymn.  We mostly took up the last line, and\nshed tears when it was done, but not miserably.  We had a prayer night\nand morning, also, when the weather allowed of it.\n\nTwelve nights and eleven days we had been driving in the boat, when old\nMr. Rarx began to be delirious, and to cry out to me to throw the gold\noverboard or it would sink us, and we should all be lost.  For days past\nthe child had been declining, and that was the great cause of his\nwildness.  He had been over and over again shrieking out to me to give\nher all the remaining meat, to give her all the remaining rum, to save\nher at any cost, or we should all be ruined.  At this time, she lay in\nher mother's arms at my feet.  One of her little hands was almost always\ncreeping about her mother's neck or chin.  I had watched the wasting of\nthe little hand, and I knew it was nearly over.\n\nThe old man's cries were so discordant with the mother's love and\nsubmission, that I called out to him in an angry voice, unless he held\nhis peace on the instant, I would order him to be knocked on the head and\nthrown overboard.  He was mute then, until the child died, very\npeacefully, an hour afterwards: which was known to all in the boat by the\nmother's breaking out into lamentations for the first time since the\nwreck--for, she had great fortitude and constancy, though she was a\nlittle gentle woman.  Old Mr. Rarx then became quite ungovernable,\ntearing what rags he had on him, raging in imprecations, and calling to\nme that if I had thrown the gold overboard (always the gold with him!) I\nmight have saved the child.  \"And now,\" says he, in a terrible voice, \"we\nshall founder, and all go to the Devil, for our sins will sink us, when\nwe have no innocent child to bear us up!\"  We so discovered with\namazement, that this old wretch had only cared for the life of the pretty\nlittle creature dear to all of us, because of the influence he\nsuperstitiously hoped she might have in preserving him!  Altogether it\nwas too much for the smith or armourer, who was sitting next the old man,\nto bear.  He took him by the throat and rolled him under the thwarts,\nwhere he lay still enough for hours afterwards.\n\nAll that thirteenth night, Miss Coleshaw, lying across my knees as I kept\nthe helm, comforted and supported the poor mother.  Her child, covered\nwith a pea-jacket of mine, lay in her lap.  It troubled me all night to\nthink that there was no Prayer-Book among us, and that I could remember\nbut very few of the exact words of the burial service.  When I stood up\nat broad day, all knew what was going to be done, and I noticed that my\npoor fellows made the motion of uncovering their heads, though their\nheads had been stark bare to the sky and sea for many a weary hour.  There\nwas a long heavy swell on, but otherwise it was a fair morning, and there\nwere broad fields of sunlight on the waves in the east.  I said no more\nthan this: \"I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord.  He\nraised the daughter of Jairus the ruler, and said she was not dead but\nslept.  He raised the widow's son.  He arose Himself, and was seen of\nmany.  He loved little children, saying, Suffer them to come unto Me and\nrebuke them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.  In His name, my\nfriends, and committed to His merciful goodness!\"  With those words I\nlaid my rough face softly on the placid little forehead, and buried the\nGolden Lucy in the grave of the Golden Mary.\n\nHaving had it on my mind to relate the end of this dear little child, I\nhave omitted something from its exact place, which I will supply here.  It\nwill come quite as well here as anywhere else.\n\nForeseeing that if the boat lived through the stormy weather, the time\nmust come, and soon come, when we should have absolutely no morsel to\neat, I had one momentous point often in my thoughts.  Although I had,\nyears before that, fully satisfied myself that the instances in which\nhuman beings in the last distress have fed upon each other, are\nexceedingly few, and have very seldom indeed (if ever) occurred when the\npeople in distress, however dreadful their extremity, have been\naccustomed to moderate forbearance and restraint; I say, though I had\nlong before quite satisfied my mind on this topic, I felt doubtful\nwhether there might not have been in former cases some harm and danger\nfrom keeping it out of sight and pretending not to think of it.  I felt\ndoubtful whether some minds, growing weak with fasting and exposure and\nhaving such a terrific idea to dwell upon in secret, might not magnify it\nuntil it got to have an awful attraction about it.  This was not a new\nthought of mine, for it had grown out of my reading.  However, it came\nover me stronger than it had ever done before--as it had reason for\ndoing--in the boat, and on the fourth day I decided that I would bring\nout into the light that unformed fear which must have been more or less\ndarkly in every brain among us.  Therefore, as a means of beguiling the\ntime and inspiring hope, I gave them the best summary in my power of\nBligh's voyage of more than three thousand miles, in an open boat, after\nthe Mutiny of the Bounty, and of the wonderful preservation of that\nboat's crew.  They listened throughout with great interest, and I\nconcluded by telling them, that, in my opinion, the happiest circumstance\nin the whole narrative was, that Bligh, who was no delicate man either,\nhad solemnly placed it on record therein that he was sure and certain\nthat under no conceivable circumstances whatever would that emaciated\nparty, who had gone through all the pains of famine, have preyed on one\nanother.  I cannot describe the visible relief which this spread through\nthe boat, and how the tears stood in every eye.  From that time I was as\nwell convinced as Bligh himself that there was no danger, and that this\nphantom, at any rate, did not haunt us.\n\nNow, it was a part of Bligh's experience that when the people in his boat\nwere most cast down, nothing did them so much good as hearing a story\ntold by one of their number.  When I mentioned that, I saw that it struck\nthe general attention as much as it did my own, for I had not thought of\nit until I came to it in my summary.  This was on the day after Mrs.\nAtherfield first sang to us.  I proposed that, whenever the weather would\npermit, we should have a story two hours after dinner (I always issued\nthe allowance I have mentioned at one o'clock, and called it by that\nname), as well as our song at sunset.  The proposal was received with a\ncheerful satisfaction that warmed my heart within me; and I do not say\ntoo much when I say that those two periods in the four-and-twenty hours\nwere expected with positive pleasure, and were really enjoyed by all\nhands.  Spectres as we soon were in our bodily wasting, our imaginations\ndid not perish like the gross flesh upon our bones.  Music and Adventure,\ntwo of the great gifts of Providence to mankind, could charm us long\nafter that was lost.\n\nThe wind was almost always against us after the second day; and for many\ndays together we could not nearly hold our own.  We had all varieties of\nbad weather.  We had rain, hail, snow, wind, mist, thunder and lightning.\nStill the boats lived through the heavy seas, and still we perishing\npeople rose and fell with the great waves.\n\nSixteen nights and fifteen days, twenty nights and nineteen days, twenty-\nfour nights and twenty-three days.  So the time went on.  Disheartening\nas I knew that our progress, or want of progress, must be, I never\ndeceived them as to my calculations of it.  In the first place, I felt\nthat we were all too near eternity for deceit; in the second place, I\nknew that if I failed, or died, the man who followed me must have a\nknowledge of the true state of things to begin upon.  When I told them at\nnoon, what I reckoned we had made or lost, they generally received what I\nsaid in a tranquil and resigned manner, and always gratefully towards me.\nIt was not unusual at any time of the day for some one to burst out\nweeping loudly without any new cause; and, when the burst was over, to\ncalm down a little better than before.  I had seen exactly the same thing\nin a house of mourning.\n\nDuring the whole of this time, old Mr. Rarx had had his fits of calling\nout to me to throw the gold (always the gold!) overboard, and of heaping\nviolent reproaches upon me for not having saved the child; but now, the\nfood being all gone, and I having nothing left to serve out but a bit of\ncoffee-berry now and then, he began to be too weak to do this, and\nconsequently fell silent.  Mrs. Atherfield and Miss Coleshaw generally\nlay, each with an arm across one of my knees, and her head upon it.  They\nnever complained at all.  Up to the time of her child's death, Mrs.\nAtherfield had bound up her own beautiful hair every day; and I took\nparticular notice that this was always before she sang her song at night,\nwhen everyone looked at her.  But she never did it after the loss of her\ndarling; and it would have been now all tangled with dirt and wet, but\nthat Miss Coleshaw was careful of it long after she was herself, and\nwould sometimes smooth it down with her weak thin hands.\n\nWe were past mustering a story now; but one day, at about this period, I\nreverted to the superstition of old Mr. Rarx, concerning the Golden Lucy,\nand told them that nothing vanished from the eye of God, though much\nmight pass away from the eyes of men.  \"We were all of us,\" says I,\n\"children once; and our baby feet have strolled in green woods ashore;\nand our baby hands have gathered flowers in gardens, where the birds were\nsinging.  The children that we were, are not lost to the great knowledge\nof our Creator.  Those innocent creatures will appear with us before Him,\nand plead for us.  What we were in the best time of our generous youth\nwill arise and go with us too.  The purest part of our lives will not\ndesert us at the pass to which all of us here present are gliding.  What\nwe were then, will be as much in existence before Him, as what we are\nnow.\"  They were no less comforted by this consideration, than I was\nmyself; and Miss Coleshaw, drawing my ear nearer to her lips, said,\n\"Captain Ravender, I was on my way to marry a disgraced and broken man,\nwhom I dearly loved when he was honourable and good.  Your words seem to\nhave come out of my own poor heart.\"  She pressed my hand upon it,\nsmiling.\n\nTwenty-seven nights and twenty-six days.  We were in no want of\nrain-water, but we had nothing else.  And yet, even now, I never turned\nmy eyes upon a waking face but it tried to brighten before mine.  O, what\na thing it is, in a time of danger and in the presence of death, the\nshining of a face upon a face!  I have heard it broached that orders\nshould be given in great new ships by electric telegraph.  I admire\nmachinery as much is any man, and am as thankful to it as any man can be\nfor what it does for us.  But it will never be a substitute for the face\nof a man, with his soul in it, encouraging another man to be brave and\ntrue.  Never try it for that.  It will break down like a straw.\n\nI now began to remark certain changes in myself which I did not like.\nThey caused me much disquiet.  I often saw the Golden Lucy in the air\nabove the boat.  I often saw her I have spoken of before, sitting beside\nme.  I saw the Golden Mary go down, as she really had gone down, twenty\ntimes in a day.  And yet the sea was mostly, to my thinking, not sea\nneither, but moving country and extraordinary mountainous regions, the\nlike of which have never been beheld.  I felt it time to leave my last\nwords regarding John Steadiman, in case any lips should last out to\nrepeat them to any living ears.  I said that John had told me (as he had\non deck) that he had sung out \"Breakers ahead!\" the instant they were\naudible, and had tried to wear ship, but she struck before it could be\ndone.  (His cry, I dare say, had made my dream.)  I said that the\ncircumstances were altogether without warning, and out of any course that\ncould have been guarded against; that the same loss would have happened\nif I had been in charge; and that John was not to blame, but from first\nto last had done his duty nobly, like the man he was.  I tried to write\nit down in my pocket-book, but could make no words, though I knew what\nthe words were that I wanted to make.  When it had come to that, her\nhands--though she was dead so long--laid me down gently in the bottom of\nthe boat, and she and the Golden Lucy swung me to sleep.\n\n* * * * *\n\n_All that follows, was written by John Steadiman, Chief Mate_:\n\nOn the twenty-sixth day after the foundering of the Golden Mary at sea,\nI, John Steadiman, was sitting in my place in the stern-sheets of the\nSurf-boat, with just sense enough left in me to steer--that is to say,\nwith my eyes strained, wide-awake, over the bows of the boat, and my\nbrains fast asleep and dreaming--when I was roused upon a sudden by our\nsecond mate, Mr. William Rames.\n\n\"Let me take a spell in your place,\" says he.  \"And look you out for the\nLong-boat astern.  The last time she rose on the crest of a wave, I\nthought I made out a signal flying aboard her.\"\n\nWe shifted our places, clumsily and slowly enough, for we were both of us\nweak and dazed with wet, cold, and hunger.  I waited some time, watching\nthe heavy rollers astern, before the Long-boat rose a-top of one of them\nat the same time with us.  At last, she was heaved up for a moment well\nin view, and there, sure enough, was the signal flying aboard of her--a\nstrip of rag of some sort, rigged to an oar, and hoisted in her bows.\n\n\"What does it mean?\" says Rames to me in a quavering, trembling sort of\nvoice.  \"Do they signal a sail in sight?\"\n\n\"Hush, for God's sake!\" says I, clapping my hand over his mouth.  \"Don't\nlet the people hear you.  They'll all go mad together if we mislead them\nabout that signal.  Wait a bit, till I have another look at it.\"\n\nI held on by him, for he had set me all of a tremble with his notion of a\nsail in sight, and watched for the Long-boat again.  Up she rose on the\ntop of another roller.  I made out the signal clearly, that second time,\nand saw that it was rigged half-mast high.\n\n\"Rames,\" says I, \"it's a signal of distress.  Pass the word forward to\nkeep her before the sea, and no more.  We must get the Long-boat within\nhailing distance of us, as soon as possible.\"\n\nI dropped down into my old place at the tiller without another word--for\nthe thought went through me like a knife that something had happened to\nCaptain Ravender.  I should consider myself unworthy to write another\nline of this statement, if I had not made up my mind to speak the truth,\nthe whole truth, and nothing but the truth--and I must, therefore,\nconfess plainly that now, for the first time, my heart sank within me.\nThis weakness on my part was produced in some degree, as I take it, by\nthe exhausting effects of previous anxiety and grief.\n\nOur provisions--if I may give that name to what we had left--were reduced\nto the rind of one lemon and about a couple of handsfull of\ncoffee-berries.  Besides these great distresses, caused by the death, the\ndanger, and the suffering among my crew and passengers, I had had a\nlittle distress of my own to shake me still more, in the death of the\nchild whom I had got to be very fond of on the voyage out--so fond that I\nwas secretly a little jealous of her being taken in the Long-boat instead\nof mine when the ship foundered.  It used to be a great comfort to me,\nand I think to those with me also, after we had seen the last of the\nGolden Mary, to see the Golden Lucy, held up by the men in the Long-boat,\nwhen the weather allowed it, as the best and brightest sight they had to\nshow.  She looked, at the distance we saw her from, almost like a little\nwhite bird in the air.  To miss her for the first time, when the weather\nlulled a little again, and we all looked out for our white bird and\nlooked in vain, was a sore disappointment.  To see the men's heads bowed\ndown and the captain's hand pointing into the sea when we hailed the Long-\nboat, a few days after, gave me as heavy a shock and as sharp a pang of\nheartache to bear as ever I remember suffering in all my life.  I only\nmention these things to show that if I did give way a little at first,\nunder the dread that our captain was lost to us, it was not without\nhaving been a good deal shaken beforehand by more trials of one sort or\nanother than often fall to one man's share.\n\nI had got over the choking in my throat with the help of a drop of water,\nand had steadied my mind again so as to be prepared against the worst,\nwhen I heard the hail (Lord help the poor fellows, how weak it sounded!)--\n\n\"Surf-boat, ahoy!\"\n\nI looked up, and there were our companions in misfortune tossing abreast\nof us; not so near that we could make out the features of any of them,\nbut near enough, with some exertion for people in our condition, to make\ntheir voices heard in the intervals when the wind was weakest.\n\nI answered the hail, and waited a bit, and heard nothing, and then sung\nout the captain's name.  The voice that replied did not sound like his;\nthe words that reached us were:\n\n\"Chief-mate wanted on board!\"\n\nEvery man of my crew knew what that meant as well as I did.  As second\nofficer in command, there could be but one reason for wanting me on board\nthe Long-boat.  A groan went all round us, and my men looked darkly in\neach other's faces, and whispered under their breaths:\n\n\"The captain is dead!\"\n\nI commanded them to be silent, and not to make too sure of bad news, at\nsuch a pass as things had now come to with us.  Then, hailing the Long-\nboat, I signified that I was ready to go on board when the weather would\nlet me--stopped a bit to draw a good long breath--and then called out as\nloud as I could the dreadful question:\n\n\"Is the captain dead?\"\n\nThe black figures of three or four men in the after-part of the Long-boat\nall stooped down together as my voice reached them.  They were lost to\nview for about a minute; then appeared again--one man among them was held\nup on his feet by the rest, and he hailed back the blessed words (a very\nfaint hope went a very long way with people in our desperate situation):\n\"Not yet!\"\n\nThe relief felt by me, and by all with me, when we knew that our captain,\nthough unfitted for duty, was not lost to us, it is not in words--at\nleast, not in such words as a man like me can command--to express.  I did\nmy best to cheer the men by telling them what a good sign it was that we\nwere not as badly off yet as we had feared; and then communicated what\ninstructions I had to give, to William Rames, who was to be left in\ncommand in my place when I took charge of the Long-boat.  After that,\nthere was nothing to be done, but to wait for the chance of the wind\ndropping at sunset, and the sea going down afterwards, so as to enable\nour weak crews to lay the two boats alongside of each other, without\nundue risk--or, to put it plainer, without saddling ourselves with the\nnecessity for any extraordinary exertion of strength or skill.  Both the\none and the other had now been starved out of us for days and days\ntogether.\n\nAt sunset the wind suddenly dropped, but the sea, which had been running\nhigh for so long a time past, took hours after that before it showed any\nsigns of getting to rest.  The moon was shining, the sky was wonderfully\nclear, and it could not have been, according to my calculations, far off\nmidnight, when the long, slow, regular swell of the calming ocean fairly\nset in, and I took the responsibility of lessening the distance between\nthe Long-boat and ourselves.\n\nIt was, I dare say, a delusion of mine; but I thought I had never seen\nthe moon shine so white and ghastly anywhere, either on sea or on land,\nas she shone that night while we were approaching our companions in\nmisery.  When there was not much more than a boat's length between us,\nand the white light streamed cold and clear over all our faces, both\ncrews rested on their oars with one great shudder, and stared over the\ngunwale of either boat, panic-stricken at the first sight of each other.\n\n\"Any lives lost among you?\" I asked, in the midst of that frightful\nsilence.\n\nThe men in the Long-bout huddled together like sheep at the sound of my\nvoice.\n\n\"None yet, but the child, thanks be to God!\" answered one among them.\n\nAnd at the sound of his voice, all my men shrank together like the men in\nthe Long-boat.  I was afraid to let the horror produced by our first\nmeeting at close quarters after the dreadful changes that wet, cold, and\nfamine had produced, last one moment longer than could be helped; so,\nwithout giving time for any more questions and answers, I commanded the\nmen to lay the two boats close alongside of each other.  When I rose up\nand committed the tiller to the hands of Rames, all my poor follows\nraised their white faces imploringly to mine.  \"Don't leave us, sir,\"\nthey said, \"don't leave us.\"  \"I leave you,\" says I, \"under the command\nand the guidance of Mr. William Rames, as good a sailor as I am, and as\ntrusty and kind a man as ever stepped.  Do your duty by him, as you have\ndone it by me; and remember to the last, that while there is life there\nis hope.  God bless and help you all!\"  With those words I collected what\nstrength I had left, and caught at two arms that were held out to me, and\nso got from the stern-sheets of one boat into the stern-sheets of the\nother.\n\n\"Mind where you step, sir,\" whispered one of the men who had helped me\ninto the Long-boat.  I looked down as he spoke.  Three figures were\nhuddled up below me, with the moonshine falling on them in ragged streaks\nthrough the gaps between the men standing or sitting above them.  The\nfirst face I made out was the face of Miss Coleshaw, her eyes were wide\nopen and fixed on me.  She seemed still to keep her senses, and, by the\nalternate parting and closing of her lips, to be trying to speak, but I\ncould not hear that she uttered a single word.  On her shoulder rested\nthe head of Mrs. Atherfield.  The mother of our poor little Golden Lucy\nmust, I think, have been dreaming of the child she had lost; for there\nwas a faint smile just ruffling the white stillness of her face, when I\nfirst saw it turned upward, with peaceful closed eyes towards the\nheavens.  From her, I looked down a little, and there, with his head on\nher lap, and with one of her hands resting tenderly on his cheek--there\nlay the Captain, to whose help and guidance, up to this miserable time,\nwe had never looked in vain,--there, worn out at last in our service, and\nfor our sakes, lay the best and bravest man of all our company.  I stole\nmy hand in gently through his clothes and laid it on his heart, and felt\na little feeble warmth over it, though my cold dulled touch could not\ndetect even the faintest beating.  The two men in the stern-sheets with\nme, noticing what I was doing--knowing I loved him like a brother--and\nseeing, I suppose, more distress in my face than I myself was conscious\nof its showing, lost command over themselves altogether, and burst into a\npiteous moaning, sobbing lamentation over him.  One of the two drew aside\na jacket from his feet, and showed me that they were bare, except where a\nwet, ragged strip of stocking still clung to one of them.  When the ship\nstruck the Iceberg, he had run on deck leaving his shoes in his cabin.\nAll through the voyage in the boat his feet had been unprotected; and not\na soul had discovered it until he dropped!  As long as he could keep his\neyes open, the very look of them had cheered the men, and comforted and\nupheld the women.  Not one living creature in the boat, with any sense\nabout him, but had felt the good influence of that brave man in one way\nor another.  Not one but had heard him, over and over again, give the\ncredit to others which was due only to himself; praising this man for\npatience, and thanking that man for help, when the patience and the help\nhad really and truly, as to the best part of both, come only from him.\nAll this, and much more, I heard pouring confusedly from the men's lips\nwhile they crouched down, sobbing and crying over their commander, and\nwrapping the jacket as warmly and tenderly as they could over his cold\nfeet.  It went to my heart to check them; but I knew that if this\nlamenting spirit spread any further, all chance of keeping alight any\nlast sparks of hope and resolution among the boat's company would be lost\nfor ever.  Accordingly I sent them to their places, spoke a few\nencouraging words to the men forward, promising to serve out, when the\nmorning came, as much as I dared, of any eatable thing left in the\nlockers; called to Rames, in my old boat, to keep as near us as he safely\ncould; drew the garments and coverings of the two poor suffering women\nmore closely about them; and, with a secret prayer to be directed for the\nbest in bearing the awful responsibility now laid on my shoulders, took\nmy Captain's vacant place at the helm of the Long-boat.\n\nThis, as well as I can tell it, is the full and true account of how I\ncame to be placed in charge of the lost passengers and crew of the Golden\nMary, on the morning of the twenty-seventh day after the ship struck the\nIceberg, and foundered at sea.\n\n\n"}
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{"1467":"\n\nTranscribed from the 1911 Chapman and Hall Christmas Stories edition,\nVolume 1, by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org\n\n\n\n\n\n                       SOME SHORT CHRISTMAS STORIES\n                                    by\n                             CHARLES DICKENS\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n                                         PAGE\nA Christmas Tree                            1\nWhat Christmas is as we Grow Older         23\nThe Poor Relation\u2019s Story                  31\nThe Child\u2019s Story                          47\nThe Schoolboy\u2019s Story                      55\nNobody\u2019s Story                             69\n\n\n\n\nA CHRISTMAS TREE.\n[1850]\n\n\nI HAVE been looking on, this evening, at a merry company of children\nassembled round that pretty German toy, a Christmas Tree.  The tree was\nplanted in the middle of a great round table, and towered high above\ntheir heads.  It was brilliantly lighted by a multitude of little tapers;\nand everywhere sparkled and glittered with bright objects.  There were\nrosy-cheeked dolls, hiding behind the green leaves; and there were real\nwatches (with movable hands, at least, and an endless capacity of being\nwound up) dangling from innumerable twigs; there were French-polished\ntables, chairs, bedsteads, wardrobes, eight-day clocks, and various other\narticles of domestic furniture (wonderfully made, in tin, at\nWolverhampton), perched among the boughs, as if in preparation for some\nfairy housekeeping; there were jolly, broad-faced little men, much more\nagreeable in appearance than many real men\u2014and no wonder, for their heads\ntook off, and showed them to be full of sugar-plums; there were fiddles\nand drums; there were tambourines, books, work-boxes, paint-boxes,\nsweetmeat-boxes, peep-show boxes, and all kinds of boxes; there were\ntrinkets for the elder girls, far brighter than any grown-up gold and\njewels; there were baskets and pincushions in all devices; there were\nguns, swords, and banners; there were witches standing in enchanted rings\nof pasteboard, to tell fortunes; there were teetotums, humming-tops,\nneedle-cases, pen-wipers, smelling-bottles, conversation-cards,\nbouquet-holders; real fruit, made artificially dazzling with gold leaf;\nimitation apples, pears, and walnuts, crammed with surprises; in short,\nas a pretty child, before me, delightedly whispered to another pretty\nchild, her bosom friend, \u201cThere was everything, and more.\u201d  This motley\ncollection of odd objects, clustering on the tree like magic fruit, and\nflashing back the bright looks directed towards it from every side\u2014some\nof the diamond-eyes admiring it were hardly on a level with the table,\nand a few were languishing in timid wonder on the bosoms of pretty\nmothers, aunts, and nurses\u2014made a lively realisation of the fancies of\nchildhood; and set me thinking how all the trees that grow and all the\nthings that come into existence on the earth, have their wild adornments\nat that well-remembered time.\n\nBeing now at home again, and alone, the only person in the house awake,\nmy thoughts are drawn back, by a fascination which I do not care to\nresist, to my own childhood.  I begin to consider, what do we all\nremember best upon the branches of the Christmas Tree of our own young\nChristmas days, by which we climbed to real life.\n\nStraight, in the middle of the room, cramped in the freedom of its growth\nby no encircling walls or soon-reached ceiling, a shadowy tree arises;\nand, looking up into the dreamy brightness of its top\u2014for I observe in\nthis tree the singular property that it appears to grow downward towards\nthe earth\u2014I look into my youngest Christmas recollections!\n\nAll toys at first, I find.  Up yonder, among the green holly and red\nberries, is the Tumbler with his hands in his pockets, who wouldn\u2019t lie\ndown, but whenever he was put upon the floor, persisted in rolling his\nfat body about, until he rolled himself still, and brought those lobster\neyes of his to bear upon me\u2014when I affected to laugh very much, but in my\nheart of hearts was extremely doubtful of him.  Close beside him is that\ninfernal snuff-box, out of which there sprang a demoniacal Counsellor in\na black gown, with an obnoxious head of hair, and a red cloth mouth, wide\nopen, who was not to be endured on any terms, but could not be put away\neither; for he used suddenly, in a highly magnified state, to fly out of\nMammoth Snuff-boxes in dreams, when least expected.  Nor is the frog with\ncobbler\u2019s wax on his tail, far off; for there was no knowing where he\nwouldn\u2019t jump; and when he flew over the candle, and came upon one\u2019s hand\nwith that spotted back\u2014red on a green ground\u2014he was horrible.  The\ncardboard lady in a blue-silk skirt, who was stood up against the\ncandlestick to dance, and whom I see on the same branch, was milder, and\nwas beautiful; but I can\u2019t say as much for the larger cardboard man, who\nused to be hung against the wall and pulled by a string; there was a\nsinister expression in that nose of his; and when he got his legs round\nhis neck (which he very often did), he was ghastly, and not a creature to\nbe alone with.\n\nWhen did that dreadful Mask first look at me?  Who put it on, and why was\nI so frightened that the sight of it is an era in my life?  It is not a\nhideous visage in itself; it is even meant to be droll, why then were its\nstolid features so intolerable?  Surely not because it hid the wearer\u2019s\nface.  An apron would have done as much; and though I should have\npreferred even the apron away, it would not have been absolutely\ninsupportable, like the mask.  Was it the immovability of the mask?  The\ndoll\u2019s face was immovable, but I was not afraid of _her_.  Perhaps that\nfixed and set change coming over a real face, infused into my quickened\nheart some remote suggestion and dread of the universal change that is to\ncome on every face, and make it still?  Nothing reconciled me to it.  No\ndrummers, from whom proceeded a melancholy chirping on the turning of a\nhandle; no regiment of soldiers, with a mute band, taken out of a box,\nand fitted, one by one, upon a stiff and lazy little set of lazy-tongs;\nno old woman, made of wires and a brown-paper composition, cutting up a\npie for two small children; could give me a permanent comfort, for a long\ntime.  Nor was it any satisfaction to be shown the Mask, and see that it\nwas made of paper, or to have it locked up and be assured that no one\nwore it.  The mere recollection of that fixed face, the mere knowledge of\nits existence anywhere, was sufficient to awake me in the night all\nperspiration and horror, with, \u201cO I know it\u2019s coming!  O the mask!\u201d\n\nI never wondered what the dear old donkey with the panniers\u2014there he is!\nwas made of, then!  His hide was real to the touch, I recollect.  And the\ngreat black horse with the round red spots all over him\u2014the horse that I\ncould even get upon\u2014I never wondered what had brought him to that strange\ncondition, or thought that such a horse was not commonly seen at\nNewmarket.  The four horses of no colour, next to him, that went into the\nwaggon of cheeses, and could be taken out and stabled under the piano,\nappear to have bits of fur-tippet for their tails, and other bits for\ntheir manes, and to stand on pegs instead of legs, but it was not so when\nthey were brought home for a Christmas present.  They were all right,\nthen; neither was their harness unceremoniously nailed into their chests,\nas appears to be the case now.  The tinkling works of the music-cart, I\n_did_ find out, to be made of quill tooth-picks and wire; and I always\nthought that little tumbler in his shirt sleeves, perpetually swarming up\none side of a wooden frame, and coming down, head foremost, on the other,\nrather a weak-minded person\u2014though good-natured; but the Jacob\u2019s Ladder,\nnext him, made of little squares of red wood, that went flapping and\nclattering over one another, each developing a different picture, and the\nwhole enlivened by small bells, was a mighty marvel and a great delight.\n\nAh!  The Doll\u2019s house!\u2014of which I was not proprietor, but where I\nvisited.  I don\u2019t admire the Houses of Parliament half so much as that\nstone-fronted mansion with real glass windows, and door-steps, and a real\nbalcony\u2014greener than I ever see now, except at watering places; and even\nthey afford but a poor imitation.  And though it _did_ open all at once,\nthe entire house-front (which was a blow, I admit, as cancelling the\nfiction of a staircase), it was but to shut it up again, and I could\nbelieve.  Even open, there were three distinct rooms in it: a\nsitting-room and bed-room, elegantly furnished, and best of all, a\nkitchen, with uncommonly soft fire-irons, a plentiful assortment of\ndiminutive utensils\u2014oh, the warming-pan!\u2014and a tin man-cook in profile,\nwho was always going to fry two fish.  What Barmecide justice have I done\nto the noble feasts wherein the set of wooden platters figured, each with\nits own peculiar delicacy, as a ham or turkey, glued tight on to it, and\ngarnished with something green, which I recollect as moss!  Could all the\nTemperance Societies of these later days, united, give me such a\ntea-drinking as I have had through the means of yonder little set of blue\ncrockery, which really would hold liquid (it ran out of the small wooden\ncask, I recollect, and tasted of matches), and which made tea, nectar.\nAnd if the two legs of the ineffectual little sugar-tongs did tumble over\none another, and want purpose, like Punch\u2019s hands, what does it matter?\nAnd if I did once shriek out, as a poisoned child, and strike the\nfashionable company with consternation, by reason of having drunk a\nlittle teaspoon, inadvertently dissolved in too hot tea, I was never the\nworse for it, except by a powder!\n\nUpon the next branches of the tree, lower down, hard by the green roller\nand miniature gardening-tools, how thick the books begin to hang.  Thin\nbooks, in themselves, at first, but many of them, and with deliciously\nsmooth covers of bright red or green.  What fat black letters to begin\nwith!  \u201cA was an archer, and shot at a frog.\u201d  Of course he was.  He was\nan apple-pie also, and there he is!  He was a good many things in his\ntime, was A, and so were most of his friends, except X, who had so little\nversatility, that I never knew him to get beyond Xerxes or Xantippe\u2014like\nY, who was always confined to a Yacht or a Yew Tree; and Z condemned for\never to be a Zebra or a Zany.  But, now, the very tree itself changes,\nand becomes a bean-stalk\u2014the marvellous bean-stalk up which Jack climbed\nto the Giant\u2019s house!  And now, those dreadfully interesting,\ndouble-headed giants, with their clubs over their shoulders, begin to\nstride along the boughs in a perfect throng, dragging knights and ladies\nhome for dinner by the hair of their heads.  And Jack\u2014how noble, with his\nsword of sharpness, and his shoes of swiftness!  Again those old\nmeditations come upon me as I gaze up at him; and I debate within myself\nwhether there was more than one Jack (which I am loth to believe\npossible), or only one genuine original admirable Jack, who achieved all\nthe recorded exploits.\n\nGood for Christmas-time is the ruddy colour of the cloak, in which\u2014the\ntree making a forest of itself for her to trip through, with her\nbasket\u2014Little Red Riding-Hood comes to me one Christmas Eve to give me\ninformation of the cruelty and treachery of that dissembling Wolf who ate\nher grandmother, without making any impression on his appetite, and then\nate her, after making that ferocious joke about his teeth.  She was my\nfirst love.  I felt that if I could have married Little Red Riding-Hood,\nI should have known perfect bliss.  But, it was not to be; and there was\nnothing for it but to look out the Wolf in the Noah\u2019s Ark there, and put\nhim late in the procession on the table, as a monster who was to be\ndegraded.  O the wonderful Noah\u2019s Ark!  It was not found seaworthy when\nput in a washing-tub, and the animals were crammed in at the roof, and\nneeded to have their legs well shaken down before they could be got in,\neven there\u2014and then, ten to one but they began to tumble out at the door,\nwhich was but imperfectly fastened with a wire latch\u2014but what was _that_\nagainst it!  Consider the noble fly, a size or two smaller than the\nelephant: the lady-bird, the butterfly\u2014all triumphs of art!  Consider the\ngoose, whose feet were so small, and whose balance was so indifferent,\nthat he usually tumbled forward, and knocked down all the animal\ncreation.  Consider Noah and his family, like idiotic tobacco-stoppers;\nand how the leopard stuck to warm little fingers; and how the tails of\nthe larger animals used gradually to resolve themselves into frayed bits\nof string!\n\nHush!  Again a forest, and somebody up in a tree\u2014not Robin Hood, not\nValentine, not the Yellow Dwarf (I have passed him and all Mother Bunch\u2019s\nwonders, without mention), but an Eastern King with a glittering scimitar\nand turban.  By Allah! two Eastern Kings, for I see another, looking over\nhis shoulder!  Down upon the grass, at the tree\u2019s foot, lies the full\nlength of a coal-black Giant, stretched asleep, with his head in a lady\u2019s\nlap; and near them is a glass box, fastened with four locks of shining\nsteel, in which he keeps the lady prisoner when he is awake.  I see the\nfour keys at his girdle now.  The lady makes signs to the two kings in\nthe tree, who softly descend.  It is the setting-in of the bright Arabian\nNights.\n\nOh, now all common things become uncommon and enchanted to me.  All lamps\nare wonderful; all rings are talismans.  Common flower-pots are full of\ntreasure, with a little earth scattered on the top; trees are for Ali\nBaba to hide in; beef-steaks are to throw down into the Valley of\nDiamonds, that the precious stones may stick to them, and be carried by\nthe eagles to their nests, whence the traders, with loud cries, will\nscare them.  Tarts are made, according to the recipe of the Vizier\u2019s son\nof Bussorah, who turned pastrycook after he was set down in his drawers\nat the gate of Damascus; cobblers are all Mustaphas, and in the habit of\nsewing up people cut into four pieces, to whom they are taken blind-fold.\n\nAny iron ring let into stone is the entrance to a cave which only waits\nfor the magician, and the little fire, and the necromancy, that will make\nthe earth shake.  All the dates imported come from the same tree as that\nunlucky date, with whose shell the merchant knocked out the eye of the\ngenie\u2019s invisible son.  All olives are of the stock of that fresh fruit,\nconcerning which the Commander of the Faithful overheard the boy conduct\nthe fictitious trial of the fraudulent olive merchant; all apples are\nakin to the apple purchased (with two others) from the Sultan\u2019s gardener\nfor three sequins, and which the tall black slave stole from the child.\nAll dogs are associated with the dog, really a transformed man, who\njumped upon the baker\u2019s counter, and put his paw on the piece of bad\nmoney.  All rice recalls the rice which the awful lady, who was a ghoule,\ncould only peck by grains, because of her nightly feasts in the\nburial-place.  My very rocking-horse,\u2014there he is, with his nostrils\nturned completely inside-out, indicative of Blood!\u2014should have a peg in\nhis neck, by virtue thereof to fly away with me, as the wooden horse did\nwith the Prince of Persia, in the sight of all his father\u2019s Court.\n\nYes, on every object that I recognise among those upper branches of my\nChristmas Tree, I see this fairy light!  When I wake in bed, at daybreak,\non the cold, dark, winter mornings, the white snow dimly beheld, outside,\nthrough the frost on the window-pane, I hear Dinarzade.  \u201cSister, sister,\nif you are yet awake, I pray you finish the history of the Young King of\nthe Black Islands.\u201d  Scheherazade replies, \u201cIf my lord the Sultan will\nsuffer me to live another day, sister, I will not only finish that, but\ntell you a more wonderful story yet.\u201d  Then, the gracious Sultan goes\nout, giving no orders for the execution, and we all three breathe again.\n\nAt this height of my tree I begin to see, cowering among the leaves\u2014it\nmay be born of turkey, or of pudding, or mince pie, or of these many\nfancies, jumbled with Robinson Crusoe on his desert island, Philip Quarll\namong the monkeys, Sandford and Merton with Mr. Barlow, Mother Bunch, and\nthe Mask\u2014or it may be the result of indigestion, assisted by imagination\nand over-doctoring\u2014a prodigious nightmare.  It is so exceedingly\nindistinct, that I don\u2019t know why it\u2019s frightful\u2014but I know it is.  I can\nonly make out that it is an immense array of shapeless things, which\nappear to be planted on a vast exaggeration of the lazy-tongs that used\nto bear the toy soldiers, and to be slowly coming close to my eyes, and\nreceding to an immeasurable distance.  When it comes closest, it is\nworse.  In connection with it I descry remembrances of winter nights\nincredibly long; of being sent early to bed, as a punishment for some\nsmall offence, and waking in two hours, with a sensation of having been\nasleep two nights; of the laden hopelessness of morning ever dawning; and\nthe oppression of a weight of remorse.\n\nAnd now, I see a wonderful row of little lights rise smoothly out of the\nground, before a vast green curtain.  Now, a bell rings\u2014a magic bell,\nwhich still sounds in my ears unlike all other bells\u2014and music plays,\namidst a buzz of voices, and a fragrant smell of orange-peel and oil.\nAnon, the magic bell commands the music to cease, and the great green\ncurtain rolls itself up majestically, and The Play begins!  The devoted\ndog of Montargis avenges the death of his master, foully murdered in the\nForest of Bondy; and a humorous Peasant with a red nose and a very little\nhat, whom I take from this hour forth to my bosom as a friend (I think he\nwas a Waiter or an Hostler at a village Inn, but many years have passed\nsince he and I have met), remarks that the sassigassity of that dog is\nindeed surprising; and evermore this jocular conceit will live in my\nremembrance fresh and unfading, overtopping all possible jokes, unto the\nend of time.  Or now, I learn with bitter tears how poor Jane Shore,\ndressed all in white, and with her brown hair hanging down, went starving\nthrough the streets; or how George Barnwell killed the worthiest uncle\nthat ever man had, and was afterwards so sorry for it that he ought to\nhave been let off.  Comes swift to comfort me, the Pantomime\u2014stupendous\nPhenomenon!\u2014when clowns are shot from loaded mortars into the great\nchandelier, bright constellation that it is; when Harlequins, covered all\nover with scales of pure gold, twist and sparkle, like amazing fish; when\nPantaloon (whom I deem it no irreverence to compare in my own mind to my\ngrandfather) puts red-hot pokers in his pocket, and cries \u201cHere\u2019s\nsomebody coming!\u201d or taxes the Clown with petty larceny, by saying, \u201cNow,\nI sawed you do it!\u201d when Everything is capable, with the greatest ease,\nof being changed into Anything; and \u201cNothing is, but thinking makes it\nso.\u201d  Now, too, I perceive my first experience of the dreary\nsensation\u2014often to return in after-life\u2014of being unable, next day, to get\nback to the dull, settled world; of wanting to live for ever in the\nbright atmosphere I have quitted; of doting on the little Fairy, with the\nwand like a celestial Barber\u2019s Pole, and pining for a Fairy immortality\nalong with her.  Ah, she comes back, in many shapes, as my eye wanders\ndown the branches of my Christmas Tree, and goes as often, and has never\nyet stayed by me!\n\nOut of this delight springs the toy-theatre,\u2014there it is, with its\nfamiliar proscenium, and ladies in feathers, in the boxes!\u2014and all its\nattendant occupation with paste and glue, and gum, and water colours, in\nthe getting-up of The Miller and his Men, and Elizabeth, or the Exile of\nSiberia.  In spite of a few besetting accidents and failures\n(particularly an unreasonable disposition in the respectable Kelmar, and\nsome others, to become faint in the legs, and double up, at exciting\npoints of the drama), a teeming world of fancies so suggestive and\nall-embracing, that, far below it on my Christmas Tree, I see dark,\ndirty, real Theatres in the day-time, adorned with these associations as\nwith the freshest garlands of the rarest flowers, and charming me yet.\n\nBut hark!  The Waits are playing, and they break my childish sleep!  What\nimages do I associate with the Christmas music as I see them set forth on\nthe Christmas Tree?  Known before all the others, keeping far apart from\nall the others, they gather round my little bed.  An angel, speaking to a\ngroup of shepherds in a field; some travellers, with eyes uplifted,\nfollowing a star; a baby in a manger; a child in a spacious temple,\ntalking with grave men; a solemn figure, with a mild and beautiful face,\nraising a dead girl by the hand; again, near a city gate, calling back\nthe son of a widow, on his bier, to life; a crowd of people looking\nthrough the opened roof of a chamber where he sits, and letting down a\nsick person on a bed, with ropes; the same, in a tempest, walking on the\nwater to a ship; again, on a sea-shore, teaching a great multitude;\nagain, with a child upon his knee, and other children round; again,\nrestoring sight to the blind, speech to the dumb, hearing to the deaf,\nhealth to the sick, strength to the lame, knowledge to the ignorant;\nagain, dying upon a Cross, watched by armed soldiers, a thick darkness\ncoming on, the earth beginning to shake, and only one voice heard,\n\u201cForgive them, for they know not what they do.\u201d\n\nStill, on the lower and maturer branches of the Tree, Christmas\nassociations cluster thick.  School-books shut up; Ovid and Virgil\nsilenced; the Rule of Three, with its cool impertinent inquiries, long\ndisposed of; Terence and Plautus acted no more, in an arena of huddled\ndesks and forms, all chipped, and notched, and inked; cricket-bats,\nstumps, and balls, left higher up, with the smell of trodden grass and\nthe softened noise of shouts in the evening air; the tree is still fresh,\nstill gay.  If I no more come home at Christmas-time, there will be boys\nand girls (thank Heaven!) while the World lasts; and they do!  Yonder\nthey dance and play upon the branches of my Tree, God bless them,\nmerrily, and my heart dances and plays too!\n\nAnd I do come home at Christmas.  We all do, or we all should.  We all\ncome home, or ought to come home, for a short holiday\u2014the longer, the\nbetter\u2014from the great boarding-school, where we are for ever working at\nour arithmetical slates, to take, and give a rest.  As to going a\nvisiting, where can we not go, if we will; where have we not been, when\nwe would; starting our fancy from our Christmas Tree!\n\nAway into the winter prospect.  There are many such upon the tree!  On,\nby low-lying, misty grounds, through fens and fogs, up long hills,\nwinding dark as caverns between thick plantations, almost shutting out\nthe sparkling stars; so, out on broad heights, until we stop at last,\nwith sudden silence, at an avenue.  The gate-bell has a deep, half-awful\nsound in the frosty air; the gate swings open on its hinges; and, as we\ndrive up to a great house, the glancing lights grow larger in the\nwindows, and the opposing rows of trees seem to fall solemnly back on\neither side, to give us place.  At intervals, all day, a frightened hare\nhas shot across this whitened turf; or the distant clatter of a herd of\ndeer trampling the hard frost, has, for the minute, crushed the silence\ntoo.  Their watchful eyes beneath the fern may be shining now, if we\ncould see them, like the icy dewdrops on the leaves; but they are still,\nand all is still.  And so, the lights growing larger, and the trees\nfalling back before us, and closing up again behind us, as if to forbid\nretreat, we come to the house.\n\nThere is probably a smell of roasted chestnuts and other good comfortable\nthings all the time, for we are telling Winter Stories\u2014Ghost Stories, or\nmore shame for us\u2014round the Christmas fire; and we have never stirred,\nexcept to draw a little nearer to it.  But, no matter for that.  We came\nto the house, and it is an old house, full of great chimneys where wood\nis burnt on ancient dogs upon the hearth, and grim portraits (some of\nthem with grim legends, too) lower distrustfully from the oaken panels of\nthe walls.  We are a middle-aged nobleman, and we make a generous supper\nwith our host and hostess and their guests\u2014it being Christmas-time, and\nthe old house full of company\u2014and then we go to bed.  Our room is a very\nold room.  It is hung with tapestry.  We don\u2019t like the portrait of a\ncavalier in green, over the fireplace.  There are great black beams in\nthe ceiling, and there is a great black bedstead, supported at the foot\nby two great black figures, who seem to have come off a couple of tombs\nin the old baronial church in the park, for our particular accommodation.\nBut, we are not a superstitious nobleman, and we don\u2019t mind.  Well! we\ndismiss our servant, lock the door, and sit before the fire in our\ndressing-gown, musing about a great many things.  At length we go to bed.\nWell! we can\u2019t sleep.  We toss and tumble, and can\u2019t sleep.  The embers\non the hearth burn fitfully and make the room look ghostly.  We can\u2019t\nhelp peeping out over the counterpane, at the two black figures and the\ncavalier\u2014that wicked-looking cavalier\u2014in green.  In the flickering light\nthey seem to advance and retire: which, though we are not by any means a\nsuperstitious nobleman, is not agreeable.  Well! we get nervous\u2014more and\nmore nervous.  We say \u201cThis is very foolish, but we can\u2019t stand this;\nwe\u2019ll pretend to be ill, and knock up somebody.\u201d  Well! we are just going\nto do it, when the locked door opens, and there comes in a young woman,\ndeadly pale, and with long fair hair, who glides to the fire, and sits\ndown in the chair we have left there, wringing her hands.  Then, we\nnotice that her clothes are wet.  Our tongue cleaves to the roof of our\nmouth, and we can\u2019t speak; but, we observe her accurately.  Her clothes\nare wet; her long hair is dabbled with moist mud; she is dressed in the\nfashion of two hundred years ago; and she has at her girdle a bunch of\nrusty keys.  Well! there she sits, and we can\u2019t even faint, we are in\nsuch a state about it.  Presently she gets up, and tries all the locks in\nthe room with the rusty keys, which won\u2019t fit one of them; then, she\nfixes her eyes on the portrait of the cavalier in green, and says, in a\nlow, terrible voice, \u201cThe stags know it!\u201d  After that, she wrings her\nhands again, passes the bedside, and goes out at the door.  We hurry on\nour dressing-gown, seize our pistols (we always travel with pistols), and\nare following, when we find the door locked.  We turn the key, look out\ninto the dark gallery; no one there.  We wander away, and try to find our\nservant.  Can\u2019t be done.  We pace the gallery till daybreak; then return\nto our deserted room, fall asleep, and are awakened by our servant\n(nothing ever haunts him) and the shining sun.  Well! we make a wretched\nbreakfast, and all the company say we look queer.  After breakfast, we go\nover the house with our host, and then we take him to the portrait of the\ncavalier in green, and then it all comes out.  He was false to a young\nhousekeeper once attached to that family, and famous for her beauty, who\ndrowned herself in a pond, and whose body was discovered, after a long\ntime, because the stags refused to drink of the water.  Since which, it\nhas been whispered that she traverses the house at midnight (but goes\nespecially to that room where the cavalier in green was wont to sleep),\ntrying the old locks with the rusty keys.  Well! we tell our host of what\nwe have seen, and a shade comes over his features, and he begs it may be\nhushed up; and so it is.  But, it\u2019s all true; and we said so, before we\ndied (we are dead now) to many responsible people.\n\nThere is no end to the old houses, with resounding galleries, and dismal\nstate-bedchambers, and haunted wings shut up for many years, through\nwhich we may ramble, with an agreeable creeping up our back, and\nencounter any number of ghosts, but (it is worthy of remark perhaps)\nreducible to a very few general types and classes; for, ghosts have\nlittle originality, and \u201cwalk\u201d in a beaten track.  Thus, it comes to\npass, that a certain room in a certain old hall, where a certain bad\nlord, baronet, knight, or gentleman, shot himself, has certain planks in\nthe floor from which the blood _will not_ be taken out.  You may scrape\nand scrape, as the present owner has done, or plane and plane, as his\nfather did, or scrub and scrub, as his grandfather did, or burn and burn\nwith strong acids, as his great-grandfather did, but, there the blood\nwill still be\u2014no redder and no paler\u2014no more and no less\u2014always just the\nsame.  Thus, in such another house there is a haunted door, that never\nwill keep open; or another door that never will keep shut, or a haunted\nsound of a spinning-wheel, or a hammer, or a footstep, or a cry, or a\nsigh, or a horse\u2019s tramp, or the rattling of a chain.  Or else, there is\na turret-clock, which, at the midnight hour, strikes thirteen when the\nhead of the family is going to die; or a shadowy, immovable black\ncarriage which at such a time is always seen by somebody, waiting near\nthe great gates in the stable-yard.  Or thus, it came to pass how Lady\nMary went to pay a visit at a large wild house in the Scottish Highlands,\nand, being fatigued with her long journey, retired to bed early, and\ninnocently said, next morning, at the breakfast-table, \u201cHow odd, to have\nso late a party last night, in this remote place, and not to tell me of\nit, before I went to bed!\u201d  Then, every one asked Lady Mary what she\nmeant?  Then, Lady Mary replied, \u201cWhy, all night long, the carriages were\ndriving round and round the terrace, underneath my window!\u201d  Then, the\nowner of the house turned pale, and so did his Lady, and Charles\nMacdoodle of Macdoodle signed to Lady Mary to say no more, and every one\nwas silent.  After breakfast, Charles Macdoodle told Lady Mary that it\nwas a tradition in the family that those rumbling carriages on the\nterrace betokened death.  And so it proved, for, two months afterwards,\nthe Lady of the mansion died.  And Lady Mary, who was a Maid of Honour at\nCourt, often told this story to the old Queen Charlotte; by this token\nthat the old King always said, \u201cEh, eh?  What, what?  Ghosts, ghosts?  No\nsuch thing, no such thing!\u201d  And never left off saying so, until he went\nto bed.\n\nOr, a friend of somebody\u2019s whom most of us know, when he was a young man\nat college, had a particular friend, with whom he made the compact that,\nif it were possible for the Spirit to return to this earth after its\nseparation from the body, he of the twain who first died, should reappear\nto the other.  In course of time, this compact was forgotten by our\nfriend; the two young men having progressed in life, and taken diverging\npaths that were wide asunder.  But, one night, many years afterwards, our\nfriend being in the North of England, and staying for the night in an\ninn, on the Yorkshire Moors, happened to look out of bed; and there, in\nthe moonlight, leaning on a bureau near the window, steadfastly regarding\nhim, saw his old college friend!  The appearance being solemnly\naddressed, replied, in a kind of whisper, but very audibly, \u201cDo not come\nnear me.  I am dead.  I am here to redeem my promise.  I come from\nanother world, but may not disclose its secrets!\u201d  Then, the whole form\nbecoming paler, melted, as it were, into the moonlight, and faded away.\n\nOr, there was the daughter of the first occupier of the picturesque\nElizabethan house, so famous in our neighbourhood.  You have heard about\nher?  No!  Why, _She_ went out one summer evening at twilight, when she\nwas a beautiful girl, just seventeen years of age, to gather flowers in\nthe garden; and presently came running, terrified, into the hall to her\nfather, saying, \u201cOh, dear father, I have met myself!\u201d  He took her in his\narms, and told her it was fancy, but she said, \u201cOh no!  I met myself in\nthe broad walk, and I was pale and gathering withered flowers, and I\nturned my head, and held them up!\u201d  And, that night, she died; and a\npicture of her story was begun, though never finished, and they say it is\nsomewhere in the house to this day, with its face to the wall.\n\nOr, the uncle of my brother\u2019s wife was riding home on horseback, one\nmellow evening at sunset, when, in a green lane close to his own house,\nhe saw a man standing before him, in the very centre of a narrow way.\n\u201cWhy does that man in the cloak stand there!\u201d he thought.  \u201cDoes he want\nme to ride over him?\u201d  But the figure never moved.  He felt a strange\nsensation at seeing it so still, but slackened his trot and rode forward.\nWhen he was so close to it, as almost to touch it with his stirrup, his\nhorse shied, and the figure glided up the bank, in a curious, unearthly\nmanner\u2014backward, and without seeming to use its feet\u2014and was gone.  The\nuncle of my brother\u2019s wife, exclaiming, \u201cGood Heaven!  It\u2019s my cousin\nHarry, from Bombay!\u201d put spurs to his horse, which was suddenly in a\nprofuse sweat, and, wondering at such strange behaviour, dashed round to\nthe front of his house.  There, he saw the same figure, just passing in\nat the long French window of the drawing-room, opening on the ground.  He\nthrew his bridle to a servant, and hastened in after it.  His sister was\nsitting there, alone.  \u201cAlice, where\u2019s my cousin Harry?\u201d  \u201cYour cousin\nHarry, John?\u201d  \u201cYes.  From Bombay.  I met him in the lane just now, and\nsaw him enter here, this instant.\u201d  Not a creature had been seen by any\none; and in that hour and minute, as it afterwards appeared, this cousin\ndied in India.\n\nOr, it was a certain sensible old maiden lady, who died at ninety-nine,\nand retained her faculties to the last, who really did see the Orphan\nBoy; a story which has often been incorrectly told, but, of which the\nreal truth is this\u2014because it is, in fact, a story belonging to our\nfamily\u2014and she was a connexion of our family.  When she was about forty\nyears of age, and still an uncommonly fine woman (her lover died young,\nwhich was the reason why she never married, though she had many offers),\nshe went to stay at a place in Kent, which her brother, an\nIndian-Merchant, had newly bought.  There was a story that this place had\nonce been held in trust by the guardian of a young boy; who was himself\nthe next heir, and who killed the young boy by harsh and cruel treatment.\nShe knew nothing of that.  It has been said that there was a Cage in her\nbedroom in which the guardian used to put the boy.  There was no such\nthing.  There was only a closet.  She went to bed, made no alarm whatever\nin the night, and in the morning said composedly to her maid when she\ncame in, \u201cWho is the pretty forlorn-looking child who has been peeping\nout of that closet all night?\u201d  The maid replied by giving a loud scream,\nand instantly decamping.  She was surprised; but she was a woman of\nremarkable strength of mind, and she dressed herself and went downstairs,\nand closeted herself with her brother.  \u201cNow, Walter,\u201d she said, \u201cI have\nbeen disturbed all night by a pretty, forlorn-looking boy, who has been\nconstantly peeping out of that closet in my room, which I can\u2019t open.\nThis is some trick.\u201d  \u201cI am afraid not, Charlotte,\u201d said he, \u201cfor it is\nthe legend of the house.  It is the Orphan Boy.  What did he do?\u201d  \u201cHe\nopened the door softly,\u201d said she, \u201cand peeped out.  Sometimes, he came a\nstep or two into the room.  Then, I called to him, to encourage him, and\nhe shrunk, and shuddered, and crept in again, and shut the door.\u201d  \u201cThe\ncloset has no communication, Charlotte,\u201d said her brother, \u201cwith any\nother part of the house, and it\u2019s nailed up.\u201d  This was undeniably true,\nand it took two carpenters a whole forenoon to get it open, for\nexamination.  Then, she was satisfied that she had seen the Orphan Boy.\nBut, the wild and terrible part of the story is, that he was also seen by\nthree of her brother\u2019s sons, in succession, who all died young.  On the\noccasion of each child being taken ill, he came home in a heat, twelve\nhours before, and said, Oh, Mamma, he had been playing under a particular\noak-tree, in a certain meadow, with a strange boy\u2014a pretty,\nforlorn-looking boy, who was very timid, and made signs!  From fatal\nexperience, the parents came to know that this was the Orphan Boy, and\nthat the course of that child whom he chose for his little playmate was\nsurely run.\n\nLegion is the name of the German castles, where we sit up alone to wait\nfor the Spectre\u2014where we are shown into a room, made comparatively\ncheerful for our reception\u2014where we glance round at the shadows, thrown\non the blank walls by the crackling fire\u2014where we feel very lonely when\nthe village innkeeper and his pretty daughter have retired, after laying\ndown a fresh store of wood upon the hearth, and setting forth on the\nsmall table such supper-cheer as a cold roast capon, bread, grapes, and a\nflask of old Rhine wine\u2014where the reverberating doors close on their\nretreat, one after another, like so many peals of sullen thunder\u2014and\nwhere, about the small hours of the night, we come into the knowledge of\ndivers supernatural mysteries.  Legion is the name of the haunted German\nstudents, in whose society we draw yet nearer to the fire, while the\nschoolboy in the corner opens his eyes wide and round, and flies off the\nfootstool he has chosen for his seat, when the door accidentally blows\nopen.  Vast is the crop of such fruit, shining on our Christmas Tree; in\nblossom, almost at the very top; ripening all down the boughs!\n\nAmong the later toys and fancies hanging there\u2014as idle often and less\npure\u2014be the images once associated with the sweet old Waits, the softened\nmusic in the night, ever unalterable!  Encircled by the social thoughts\nof Christmas-time, still let the benignant figure of my childhood stand\nunchanged!  In every cheerful image and suggestion that the season\nbrings, may the bright star that rested above the poor roof, be the star\nof all the Christian World!  A moment\u2019s pause, O vanishing tree, of which\nthe lower boughs are dark to me as yet, and let me look once more!  I\nknow there are blank spaces on thy branches, where eyes that I have loved\nhave shone and smiled; from which they are departed.  But, far above, I\nsee the raiser of the dead girl, and the Widow\u2019s Son; and God is good!\nIf Age be hiding for me in the unseen portion of thy downward growth, O\nmay I, with a grey head, turn a child\u2019s heart to that figure yet, and a\nchild\u2019s trustfulness and confidence!\n\nNow, the tree is decorated with bright merriment, and song, and dance,\nand cheerfulness.  And they are welcome.  Innocent and welcome be they\never held, beneath the branches of the Christmas Tree, which cast no\ngloomy shadow!  But, as it sinks into the ground, I hear a whisper going\nthrough the leaves.  \u201cThis, in commemoration of the law of love and\nkindness, mercy and compassion.  This, in remembrance of Me!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nWHAT CHRISTMAS IS AS WE GROW OLDER.\n[1851]\n\n\nTIME was, with most of us, when Christmas Day encircling all our limited\nworld like a magic ring, left nothing out for us to miss or seek; bound\ntogether all our home enjoyments, affections, and hopes; grouped\neverything and every one around the Christmas fire; and made the little\npicture shining in our bright young eyes, complete.\n\nTime came, perhaps, all so soon, when our thoughts over-leaped that\nnarrow boundary; when there was some one (very dear, we thought then,\nvery beautiful, and absolutely perfect) wanting to the fulness of our\nhappiness; when we were wanting too (or we thought so, which did just as\nwell) at the Christmas hearth by which that some one sat; and when we\nintertwined with every wreath and garland of our life that some one\u2019s\nname.\n\nThat was the time for the bright visionary Christmases which have long\narisen from us to show faintly, after summer rain, in the palest edges of\nthe rainbow!  That was the time for the beatified enjoyment of the things\nthat were to be, and never were, and yet the things that were so real in\nour resolute hope that it would be hard to say, now, what realities\nachieved since, have been stronger!\n\nWhat!  Did that Christmas never really come when we and the priceless\npearl who was our young choice were received, after the happiest of\ntotally impossible marriages, by the two united families previously at\ndaggers\u2014drawn on our account?  When brothers and sisters-in-law who had\nalways been rather cool to us before our relationship was effected,\nperfectly doted on us, and when fathers and mothers overwhelmed us with\nunlimited incomes?  Was that Christmas dinner never really eaten, after\nwhich we arose, and generously and eloquently rendered honour to our late\nrival, present in the company, then and there exchanging friendship and\nforgiveness, and founding an attachment, not to be surpassed in Greek or\nRoman story, which subsisted until death?  Has that same rival long\nceased to care for that same priceless pearl, and married for money, and\nbecome usurious?  Above all, do we really know, now, that we should\nprobably have been miserable if we had won and worn the pearl, and that\nwe are better without her?\n\nThat Christmas when we had recently achieved so much fame; when we had\nbeen carried in triumph somewhere, for doing something great and good;\nwhen we had won an honoured and ennobled name, and arrived and were\nreceived at home in a shower of tears of joy; is it possible that _that_\nChristmas has not come yet?\n\nAnd is our life here, at the best, so constituted that, pausing as we\nadvance at such a noticeable mile-stone in the track as this great\nbirthday, we look back on the things that never were, as naturally and\nfull as gravely as on the things that have been and are gone, or have\nbeen and still are?  If it be so, and so it seems to be, must we come to\nthe conclusion that life is little better than a dream, and little worth\nthe loves and strivings that we crowd into it?\n\nNo!  Far be such miscalled philosophy from us, dear Reader, on Christmas\nDay!  Nearer and closer to our hearts be the Christmas spirit, which is\nthe spirit of active usefulness, perseverance, cheerful discharge of\nduty, kindness and forbearance!  It is in the last virtues especially,\nthat we are, or should be, strengthened by the unaccomplished visions of\nour youth; for, who shall say that they are not our teachers to deal\ngently even with the impalpable nothings of the earth!\n\nTherefore, as we grow older, let us be more thankful that the circle of\nour Christmas associations and of the lessons that they bring, expands!\nLet us welcome every one of them, and summon them to take their places by\nthe Christmas hearth.\n\nWelcome, old aspirations, glittering creatures of an ardent fancy, to\nyour shelter underneath the holly!  We know you, and have not outlived\nyou yet.  Welcome, old projects and old loves, however fleeting, to your\nnooks among the steadier lights that burn around us.  Welcome, all that\nwas ever real to our hearts; and for the earnestness that made you real,\nthanks to Heaven!  Do we build no Christmas castles in the clouds now?\nLet our thoughts, fluttering like butterflies among these flowers of\nchildren, bear witness!  Before this boy, there stretches out a Future,\nbrighter than we ever looked on in our old romantic time, but bright with\nhonour and with truth.  Around this little head on which the sunny curls\nlie heaped, the graces sport, as prettily, as airily, as when there was\nno scythe within the reach of Time to shear away the curls of our\nfirst-love.  Upon another girl\u2019s face near it\u2014placider but smiling\nbright\u2014a quiet and contented little face, we see Home fairly written.\nShining from the word, as rays shine from a star, we see how, when our\ngraves are old, other hopes than ours are young, other hearts than ours\nare moved; how other ways are smoothed; how other happiness blooms,\nripens, and decays\u2014no, not decays, for other homes and other bands of\nchildren, not yet in being nor for ages yet to be, arise, and bloom and\nripen to the end of all!\n\nWelcome, everything!  Welcome, alike what has been, and what never was,\nand what we hope may be, to your shelter underneath the holly, to your\nplaces round the Christmas fire, where what is sits open-hearted!  In\nyonder shadow, do we see obtruding furtively upon the blaze, an enemy\u2019s\nface?  By Christmas Day we do forgive him!  If the injury he has done us\nmay admit of such companionship, let him come here and take his place.\nIf otherwise, unhappily, let him go hence, assured that we will never\ninjure nor accuse him.\n\nOn this day we shut out Nothing!\n\n\u201cPause,\u201d says a low voice.  \u201cNothing?  Think!\u201d\n\n\u201cOn Christmas Day, we will shut out from our fireside, Nothing.\u201d\n\n\u201cNot the shadow of a vast City where the withered leaves are lying deep?\u201d\nthe voice replies.  \u201cNot the shadow that darkens the whole globe?  Not\nthe shadow of the City of the Dead?\u201d\n\nNot even that.  Of all days in the year, we will turn our faces towards\nthat City upon Christmas Day, and from its silent hosts bring those we\nloved, among us.  City of the Dead, in the blessed name wherein we are\ngathered together at this time, and in the Presence that is here among us\naccording to the promise, we will receive, and not dismiss, thy people\nwho are dear to us!\n\nYes.  We can look upon these children angels that alight, so solemnly, so\nbeautifully among the living children by the fire, and can bear to think\nhow they departed from us.  Entertaining angels unawares, as the\nPatriarchs did, the playful children are unconscious of their guests; but\nwe can see them\u2014can see a radiant arm around one favourite neck, as if\nthere were a tempting of that child away.  Among the celestial figures\nthere is one, a poor misshapen boy on earth, of a glorious beauty now, of\nwhom his dying mother said it grieved her much to leave him here, alone,\nfor so many years as it was likely would elapse before he came to\nher\u2014being such a little child.  But he went quickly, and was laid upon\nher breast, and in her hand she leads him.\n\nThere was a gallant boy, who fell, far away, upon a burning sand beneath\na burning sun, and said, \u201cTell them at home, with my last love, how much\nI could have wished to kiss them once, but that I died contented and had\ndone my duty!\u201d  Or there was another, over whom they read the words,\n\u201cTherefore we commit his body to the deep,\u201d and so consigned him to the\nlonely ocean and sailed on.  Or there was another, who lay down to his\nrest in the dark shadow of great forests, and, on earth, awoke no more.\nO shall they not, from sand and sea and forest, be brought home at such a\ntime!\n\nThere was a dear girl\u2014almost a woman\u2014never to be one\u2014who made a mourning\nChristmas in a house of joy, and went her trackless way to the silent\nCity.  Do we recollect her, worn out, faintly whispering what could not\nbe heard, and falling into that last sleep for weariness?  O look upon\nher now!  O look upon her beauty, her serenity, her changeless youth, her\nhappiness!  The daughter of Jairus was recalled to life, to die; but she,\nmore blest, has heard the same voice, saying unto her, \u201cArise for ever!\u201d\n\nWe had a friend who was our friend from early days, with whom we often\npictured the changes that were to come upon our lives, and merrily\nimagined how we would speak, and walk, and think, and talk, when we came\nto be old.  His destined habitation in the City of the Dead received him\nin his prime.  Shall he be shut out from our Christmas remembrance?\nWould his love have so excluded us?  Lost friend, lost child, lost\nparent, sister, brother, husband, wife, we will not so discard you!  You\nshall hold your cherished places in our Christmas hearts, and by our\nChristmas fires; and in the season of immortal hope, and on the birthday\nof immortal mercy, we will shut out Nothing!\n\nThe winter sun goes down over town and village; on the sea it makes a\nrosy path, as if the Sacred tread were fresh upon the water.  A few more\nmoments, and it sinks, and night comes on, and lights begin to sparkle in\nthe prospect.  On the hill-side beyond the shapelessly-diffused town, and\nin the quiet keeping of the trees that gird the village-steeple,\nremembrances are cut in stone, planted in common flowers, growing in\ngrass, entwined with lowly brambles around many a mound of earth.  In\ntown and village, there are doors and windows closed against the weather,\nthere are flaming logs heaped high, there are joyful faces, there is\nhealthy music of voices.  Be all ungentleness and harm excluded from the\ntemples of the Household Gods, but be those remembrances admitted with\ntender encouragement!  They are of the time and all its comforting and\npeaceful reassurances; and of the history that re-united even upon earth\nthe living and the dead; and of the broad beneficence and goodness that\ntoo many men have tried to tear to narrow shreds.\n\n\n\n\nTHE POOR RELATION\u2019S STORY.\n[1852]\n\n\nHE was very reluctant to take precedence of so many respected members of\nthe family, by beginning the round of stories they were to relate as they\nsat in a goodly circle by the Christmas fire; and he modestly suggested\nthat it would be more correct if \u201cJohn our esteemed host\u201d (whose health\nhe begged to drink) would have the kindness to begin.  For as to himself,\nhe said, he was so little used to lead the way that really\u2014  But as they\nall cried out here, that he must begin, and agreed with one voice that he\nmight, could, would, and should begin, he left off rubbing his hands, and\ntook his legs out from under his armchair, and did begin.\n\nI have no doubt (said the poor relation) that I shall surprise the\nassembled members of our family, and particularly John our esteemed host\nto whom we are so much indebted for the great hospitality with which he\nhas this day entertained us, by the confession I am going to make.  But,\nif you do me the honour to be surprised at anything that falls from a\nperson so unimportant in the family as I am, I can only say that I shall\nbe scrupulously accurate in all I relate.\n\nI am not what I am supposed to be.  I am quite another thing.  Perhaps\nbefore I go further, I had better glance at what I _am_ supposed to be.\n\nIt is supposed, unless I mistake\u2014the assembled members of our family will\ncorrect me if I do, which is very likely (here the poor relation looked\nmildly about him for contradiction); that I am nobody\u2019s enemy but my own.\nThat I never met with any particular success in anything.  That I failed\nin business because I was unbusiness-like and credulous\u2014in not being\nprepared for the interested designs of my partner.  That I failed in\nlove, because I was ridiculously trustful\u2014in thinking it impossible that\nChristiana could deceive me.  That I failed in my expectations from my\nuncle Chill, on account of not being as sharp as he could have wished in\nworldly matters.  That, through life, I have been rather put upon and\ndisappointed in a general way.  That I am at present a bachelor of\nbetween fifty-nine and sixty years of age, living on a limited income in\nthe form of a quarterly allowance, to which I see that John our esteemed\nhost wishes me to make no further allusion.\n\nThe supposition as to my present pursuits and habits is to the following\neffect.\n\nI live in a lodging in the Clapham Road\u2014a very clean back room, in a very\nrespectable house\u2014where I am expected not to be at home in the day-time,\nunless poorly; and which I usually leave in the morning at nine o\u2019clock,\non pretence of going to business.  I take my breakfast\u2014my roll and\nbutter, and my half-pint of coffee\u2014at the old-established coffee-shop\nnear Westminster Bridge; and then I go into the City\u2014I don\u2019t know why\u2014and\nsit in Garraway\u2019s Coffee House, and on \u2019Change, and walk about, and look\ninto a few offices and counting-houses where some of my relations or\nacquaintance are so good as to tolerate me, and where I stand by the fire\nif the weather happens to be cold.  I get through the day in this way\nuntil five o\u2019clock, and then I dine: at a cost, on the average, of one\nand threepence.  Having still a little money to spend on my evening\u2019s\nentertainment, I look into the old-established coffee-shop as I go home,\nand take my cup of tea, and perhaps my bit of toast.  So, as the large\nhand of the clock makes its way round to the morning hour again, I make\nmy way round to the Clapham Road again, and go to bed when I get to my\nlodging\u2014fire being expensive, and being objected to by the family on\naccount of its giving trouble and making a dirt.\n\nSometimes, one of my relations or acquaintances is so obliging as to ask\nme to dinner.  Those are holiday occasions, and then I generally walk in\nthe Park.  I am a solitary man, and seldom walk with anybody.  Not that I\nam avoided because I am shabby; for I am not at all shabby, having always\na very good suit of black on (or rather Oxford mixture, which has the\nappearance of black and wears much better); but I have got into a habit\nof speaking low, and being rather silent, and my spirits are not high,\nand I am sensible that I am not an attractive companion.\n\nThe only exception to this general rule is the child of my first cousin,\nLittle Frank.  I have a particular affection for that child, and he takes\nvery kindly to me.  He is a diffident boy by nature; and in a crowd he is\nsoon run over, as I may say, and forgotten.  He and I, however, get on\nexceedingly well.  I have a fancy that the poor child will in time\nsucceed to my peculiar position in the family.  We talk but little;\nstill, we understand each other.  We walk about, hand in hand; and\nwithout much speaking he knows what I mean, and I know what he means.\nWhen he was very little indeed, I used to take him to the windows of the\ntoy-shops, and show him the toys inside.  It is surprising how soon he\nfound out that I would have made him a great many presents if I had been\nin circumstances to do it.\n\nLittle Frank and I go and look at the outside of the Monument\u2014he is very\nfond of the Monument\u2014and at the Bridges, and at all the sights that are\nfree.  On two of my birthdays, we have dined on \u00e0-la-mode beef, and gone\nat half-price to the play, and been deeply interested.  I was once\nwalking with him in Lombard Street, which we often visit on account of my\nhaving mentioned to him that there are great riches there\u2014he is very fond\nof Lombard Street\u2014when a gentleman said to me as he passed by, \u201cSir, your\nlittle son has dropped his glove.\u201d  I assure you, if you will excuse my\nremarking on so trivial a circumstance, this accidental mention of the\nchild as mine, quite touched my heart and brought the foolish tears into\nmy eyes.\n\nWhen Little Frank is sent to school in the country, I shall be very much\nat a loss what to do with myself, but I have the intention of walking\ndown there once a month and seeing him on a half holiday.  I am told he\nwill then be at play upon the Heath; and if my visits should be objected\nto, as unsettling the child, I can see him from a distance without his\nseeing me, and walk back again.  His mother comes of a highly genteel\nfamily, and rather disapproves, I am aware, of our being too much\ntogether.  I know that I am not calculated to improve his retiring\ndisposition; but I think he would miss me beyond the feeling of the\nmoment if we were wholly separated.\n\nWhen I die in the Clapham Road, I shall not leave much more in this world\nthan I shall take out of it; but, I happen to have a miniature of a\nbright-faced boy, with a curling head, and an open shirt-frill waving\ndown his bosom (my mother had it taken for me, but I can\u2019t believe that\nit was ever like), which will be worth nothing to sell, and which I shall\nbeg may he given to Frank.  I have written my dear boy a little letter\nwith it, in which I have told him that I felt very sorry to part from\nhim, though bound to confess that I knew no reason why I should remain\nhere.  I have given him some short advice, the best in my power, to take\nwarning of the consequences of being nobody\u2019s enemy but his own; and I\nhave endeavoured to comfort him for what I fear he will consider a\nbereavement, by pointing out to him, that I was only a superfluous\nsomething to every one but him; and that having by some means failed to\nfind a place in this great assembly, I am better out of it.\n\nSuch (said the poor relation, clearing his throat and beginning to speak\na little louder) is the general impression about me.  Now, it is a\nremarkable circumstance which forms the aim and purpose of my story, that\nthis is all wrong.  This is not my life, and these are not my habits.  I\ndo not even live in the Clapham Road.  Comparatively speaking, I am very\nseldom there.  I reside, mostly, in a\u2014I am almost ashamed to say the\nword, it sounds so full of pretension\u2014in a Castle.  I do not mean that it\nis an old baronial habitation, but still it is a building always known to\nevery one by the name of a Castle.  In it, I preserve the particulars of\nmy history; they run thus:\n\nIt was when I first took John Spatter (who had been my clerk) into\npartnership, and when I was still a young man of not more than\nfive-and-twenty, residing in the house of my uncle Chill, from whom I had\nconsiderable expectations, that I ventured to propose to Christiana.  I\nhad loved Christiana a long time.  She was very beautiful, and very\nwinning in all respects.  I rather mistrusted her widowed mother, who I\nfeared was of a plotting and mercenary turn of mind; but, I thought as\nwell of her as I could, for Christiana\u2019s sake.  I never had loved any one\nbut Christiana, and she had been all the world, and O far more than all\nthe world, to me, from our childhood!\n\nChristiana accepted me with her mother\u2019s consent, and I was rendered very\nhappy indeed.  My life at my uncle Chill\u2019s was of a spare dull kind, and\nmy garret chamber was as dull, and bare, and cold, as an upper prison\nroom in some stern northern fortress.  But, having Christiana\u2019s love, I\nwanted nothing upon earth.  I would not have changed my lot with any\nhuman being.\n\nAvarice was, unhappily, my uncle Chill\u2019s master-vice.  Though he was\nrich, he pinched, and scraped, and clutched, and lived miserably.  As\nChristiana had no fortune, I was for some time a little fearful of\nconfessing our engagement to him; but, at length I wrote him a letter,\nsaying how it all truly was.  I put it into his hand one night, on going\nto bed.\n\nAs I came down-stairs next morning, shivering in the cold December air;\ncolder in my uncle\u2019s unwarmed house than in the street, where the winter\nsun did sometimes shine, and which was at all events enlivened by\ncheerful faces and voices passing along; I carried a heavy heart towards\nthe long, low breakfast-room in which my uncle sat.  It was a large room\nwith a small fire, and there was a great bay window in it which the rain\nhad marked in the night as if with the tears of houseless people.  It\nstared upon a raw yard, with a cracked stone pavement, and some rusted\niron railings half uprooted, whence an ugly out-building that had once\nbeen a dissecting-room (in the time of the great surgeon who had\nmortgaged the house to my uncle), stared at it.\n\nWe rose so early always, that at that time of the year we breakfasted by\ncandle-light.  When I went into the room, my uncle was so contracted by\nthe cold, and so huddled together in his chair behind the one dim candle,\nthat I did not see him until I was close to the table.\n\nAs I held out my hand to him, he caught up his stick (being infirm, he\nalways walked about the house with a stick), and made a blow at me, and\nsaid, \u201cYou fool!\u201d\n\n\u201cUncle,\u201d I returned, \u201cI didn\u2019t expect you to be so angry as this.\u201d  Nor\nhad I expected it, though he was a hard and angry old man.\n\n\u201cYou didn\u2019t expect!\u201d said he; \u201cwhen did you ever expect?  When did you\never calculate, or look forward, you contemptible dog?\u201d\n\n\u201cThese are hard words, uncle!\u201d\n\n\u201cHard words?  Feathers, to pelt such an idiot as you with,\u201d said he.\n\u201cHere!  Betsy Snap!  Look at him!\u201d\n\nBetsy Snap was a withered, hard-favoured, yellow old woman\u2014our only\ndomestic\u2014always employed, at this time of the morning, in rubbing my\nuncle\u2019s legs.  As my uncle adjured her to look at me, he put his lean\ngrip on the crown of her head, she kneeling beside him, and turned her\nface towards me.  An involuntary thought connecting them both with the\nDissecting Room, as it must often have been in the surgeon\u2019s time, passed\nacross my mind in the midst of my anxiety.\n\n\u201cLook at the snivelling milksop!\u201d said my uncle.  \u201cLook at the baby!\nThis is the gentleman who, people say, is nobody\u2019s enemy but his own.\nThis is the gentleman who can\u2019t say no.  This is the gentleman who was\nmaking such large profits in his business that he must needs take a\npartner, t\u2019other day.  This is the gentleman who is going to marry a wife\nwithout a penny, and who falls into the hands of Jezabels who are\nspeculating on my death!\u201d\n\nI knew, now, how great my uncle\u2019s rage was; for nothing short of his\nbeing almost beside himself would have induced him to utter that\nconcluding word, which he held in such repugnance that it was never\nspoken or hinted at before him on any account.\n\n\u201cOn my death,\u201d he repeated, as if he were defying me by defying his own\nabhorrence of the word.  \u201cOn my death\u2014death\u2014Death!  But I\u2019ll spoil the\nspeculation.  Eat your last under this roof, you feeble wretch, and may\nit choke you!\u201d\n\nYou may suppose that I had not much appetite for the breakfast to which I\nwas bidden in these terms; but, I took my accustomed seat.  I saw that I\nwas repudiated henceforth by my uncle; still I could bear that very well,\npossessing Christiana\u2019s heart.\n\nHe emptied his basin of bread and milk as usual, only that he took it on\nhis knees with his chair turned away from the table where I sat.  When he\nhad done, he carefully snuffed out the candle; and the cold,\nslate-coloured, miserable day looked in upon us.\n\n\u201cNow, Mr. Michael,\u201d said he, \u201cbefore we part, I should like to have a\nword with these ladies in your presence.\u201d\n\n\u201cAs you will, sir,\u201d I returned; \u201cbut you deceive yourself, and wrong us,\ncruelly, if you suppose that there is any feeling at stake in this\ncontract but pure, disinterested, faithful love.\u201d\n\nTo this, he only replied, \u201cYou lie!\u201d and not one other word.\n\nWe went, through half-thawed snow and half-frozen rain, to the house\nwhere Christiana and her mother lived.  My uncle knew them very well.\nThey were sitting at their breakfast, and were surprised to see us at\nthat hour.\n\n\u201cYour servant, ma\u2019am,\u201d said my uncle to the mother.  \u201cYou divine the\npurpose of my visit, I dare say, ma\u2019am.  I understand there is a world of\npure, disinterested, faithful love cooped up here.  I am happy to bring\nit all it wants, to make it complete.  I bring you your son-in-law,\nma\u2019am\u2014and you, your husband, miss.  The gentleman is a perfect stranger\nto me, but I wish him joy of his wise bargain.\u201d\n\nHe snarled at me as he went out, and I never saw him again.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nIt is altogether a mistake (continued the poor relation) to suppose that\nmy dear Christiana, over-persuaded and influenced by her mother, married\na rich man, the dirt from whose carriage wheels is often, in these\nchanged times, thrown upon me as she rides by.  No, no.  She married me.\n\nThe way we came to be married rather sooner than we intended, was this.\nI took a frugal lodging and was saving and planning for her sake, when,\none day, she spoke to me with great earnestness, and said:\n\n\u201cMy dear Michael, I have given you my heart.  I have said that I loved\nyou, and I have pledged myself to be your wife.  I am as much yours\nthrough all changes of good and evil as if we had been married on the day\nwhen such words passed between us.  I know you well, and know that if we\nshould be separated and our union broken off, your whole life would be\nshadowed, and all that might, even now, be stronger in your character for\nthe conflict with the world would then be weakened to the shadow of what\nit is!\u201d\n\n\u201cGod help me, Christiana!\u201d said I.  \u201cYou speak the truth.\u201d\n\n\u201cMichael!\u201d said she, putting her hand in mine, in all maidenly devotion,\n\u201clet us keep apart no longer.  It is but for me to say that I can live\ncontented upon such means as you have, and I well know you are happy.  I\nsay so from my heart.  Strive no more alone; let us strive together.  My\ndear Michael, it is not right that I should keep secret from you what you\ndo not suspect, but what distresses my whole life.  My mother: without\nconsidering that what you have lost, you have lost for me, and on the\nassurance of my faith: sets her heart on riches, and urges another suit\nupon me, to my misery.  I cannot bear this, for to bear it is to be\nuntrue to you.  I would rather share your struggles than look on.  I want\nno better home than you can give me.  I know that you will aspire and\nlabour with a higher courage if I am wholly yours, and let it be so when\nyou will!\u201d\n\nI was blest indeed, that day, and a new world opened to me.  We were\nmarried in a very little while, and I took my wife to our happy home.\nThat was the beginning of the residence I have spoken of; the Castle we\nhave ever since inhabited together, dates from that time.  All our\nchildren have been born in it.  Our first child\u2014now married\u2014was a little\ngirl, whom we called Christiana.  Her son is so like Little Frank, that I\nhardly know which is which.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nThe current impression as to my partner\u2019s dealings with me is also quite\nerroneous.  He did not begin to treat me coldly, as a poor simpleton,\nwhen my uncle and I so fatally quarrelled; nor did he afterwards\ngradually possess himself of our business and edge me out.  On the\ncontrary, he behaved to me with the utmost good faith and honour.\n\nMatters between us took this turn:\u2014On the day of my separation from my\nuncle, and even before the arrival at our counting-house of my trunks\n(which he sent after me, _not_ carriage paid), I went down to our room of\nbusiness, on our little wharf, overlooking the river; and there I told\nJohn Spatter what had happened.  John did not say, in reply, that rich\nold relatives were palpable facts, and that love and sentiment were\nmoonshine and fiction.  He addressed me thus:\n\n\u201cMichael,\u201d said John, \u201cwe were at school together, and I generally had\nthe knack of getting on better than you, and making a higher reputation.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou had, John,\u201d I returned.\n\n\u201cAlthough\u201d said John, \u201cI borrowed your books and lost them; borrowed your\npocket-money, and never repaid it; got you to buy my damaged knives at a\nhigher price than I had given for them new; and to own to the windows\nthat I had broken.\u201d\n\n\u201cAll not worth mentioning, John Spatter,\u201d said I, \u201cbut certainly true.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhen you were first established in this infant business, which promises\nto thrive so well,\u201d pursued John, \u201cI came to you, in my search for almost\nany employment, and you made me your clerk.\u201d\n\n\u201cStill not worth mentioning, my dear John Spatter,\u201d said I; \u201cstill,\nequally true.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd finding that I had a good head for business, and that I was really\nuseful _to_ the business, you did not like to retain me in that capacity,\nand thought it an act of justice soon to make me your partner.\u201d\n\n\u201cStill less worth mentioning than any of those other little circumstances\nyou have recalled, John Spatter,\u201d said I; \u201cfor I was, and am, sensible of\nyour merits and my deficiencies.\u201d\n\n\u201cNow, my good friend,\u201d said John, drawing my arm through his, as he had\nhad a habit of doing at school; while two vessels outside the windows of\nour counting-house\u2014which were shaped like the stern windows of a\nship\u2014went lightly down the river with the tide, as John and I might then\nbe sailing away in company, and in trust and confidence, on our voyage of\nlife; \u201clet there, under these friendly circumstances, be a right\nunderstanding between us.  You are too easy, Michael.  You are nobody\u2019s\nenemy but your own.  If I were to give you that damaging character among\nour connexion, with a shrug, and a shake of the head, and a sigh; and if\nI were further to abuse the trust you place in me\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cBut you never will abuse it at all, John,\u201d I observed.\n\n\u201cNever!\u201d said he; \u201cbut I am putting a case\u2014I say, and if I were further\nto abuse that trust by keeping this piece of our common affairs in the\ndark, and this other piece in the light, and again this other piece in\nthe twilight, and so on, I should strengthen my strength, and weaken your\nweakness, day by day, until at last I found myself on the high road to\nfortune, and you left behind on some bare common, a hopeless number of\nmiles out of the way.\u201d\n\n\u201cExactly so,\u201d said I.\n\n\u201cTo prevent this, Michael,\u201d said John Spatter, \u201cor the remotest chance of\nthis, there must be perfect openness between us.  Nothing must be\nconcealed, and we must have but one interest.\u201d\n\n\u201cMy dear John Spatter,\u201d I assured him, \u201cthat is precisely what I mean.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd when you are too easy,\u201d pursued John, his face glowing with\nfriendship, \u201cyou must allow me to prevent that imperfection in your\nnature from being taken advantage of, by any one; you must not expect me\nto humour it\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cMy dear John Spatter,\u201d I interrupted, \u201cI _don\u2019t_ expect you to humour\nit.  I want to correct it.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd I, too,\u201d said John.\n\n\u201cExactly so!\u201d cried I.  \u201cWe both have the same end in view; and,\nhonourably seeking it, and fully trusting one another, and having but one\ninterest, ours will be a prosperous and happy partnership.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am sure of it!\u201d returned John Spatter.  And we shook hands most\naffectionately.\n\nI took John home to my Castle, and we had a very happy day.  Our\npartnership throve well.  My friend and partner supplied what I wanted,\nas I had foreseen that he would, and by improving both the business and\nmyself, amply acknowledged any little rise in life to which I had helped\nhim.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nI am not (said the poor relation, looking at the fire as he slowly rubbed\nhis hands) very rich, for I never cared to be that; but I have enough,\nand am above all moderate wants and anxieties.  My Castle is not a\nsplendid place, but it is very comfortable, and it has a warm and\ncheerful air, and is quite a picture of Home.\n\nOur eldest girl, who is very like her mother, married John Spatter\u2019s\neldest son.  Our two families are closely united in other ties of\nattachment.  It is very pleasant of an evening, when we are all assembled\ntogether\u2014which frequently happens\u2014and when John and I talk over old\ntimes, and the one interest there has always been between us.\n\nI really do not know, in my Castle, what loneliness is.  Some of our\nchildren or grandchildren are always about it, and the young voices of my\ndescendants are delightful\u2014O, how delightful!\u2014to me to hear.  My dearest\nand most devoted wife, ever faithful, ever loving, ever helpful and\nsustaining and consoling, is the priceless blessing of my house; from\nwhom all its other blessings spring.  We are rather a musical family, and\nwhen Christiana sees me, at any time, a little weary or depressed, she\nsteals to the piano and sings a gentle air she used to sing when we were\nfirst betrothed.  So weak a man am I, that I cannot bear to hear it from\nany other source.  They played it once, at the Theatre, when I was there\nwith Little Frank; and the child said wondering, \u201cCousin Michael, whose\nhot tears are these that have fallen on my hand!\u201d\n\nSuch is my Castle, and such are the real particulars of my life therein\npreserved.  I often take Little Frank home there.  He is very welcome to\nmy grandchildren, and they play together.  At this time of the year\u2014the\nChristmas and New Year time\u2014I am seldom out of my Castle.  For, the\nassociations of the season seem to hold me there, and the precepts of the\nseason seem to teach me that it is well to be there.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n\u201cAnd the Castle is\u2014\u201d observed a grave, kind voice among the company.\n\n\u201cYes.  My Castle,\u201d said the poor relation, shaking his head as he still\nlooked at the fire, \u201cis in the Air.  John our esteemed host suggests its\nsituation accurately.  My Castle is in the Air!  I have done.  Will you\nbe so good as to pass the story?\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE CHILD\u2019S STORY.\n[1852]\n\n\nONCE upon a time, a good many years ago, there was a traveller, and he\nset out upon a journey.  It was a magic journey, and was to seem very\nlong when he began it, and very short when he got half way through.\n\nHe travelled along a rather dark path for some little time, without\nmeeting anything, until at last he came to a beautiful child.  So he said\nto the child, \u201cWhat do you do here?\u201d  And the child said, \u201cI am always at\nplay.  Come and play with me!\u201d\n\nSo, he played with that child, the whole day long, and they were very\nmerry.  The sky was so blue, the sun was so bright, the water was so\nsparkling, the leaves were so green, the flowers were so lovely, and they\nheard such singing-birds and saw so many butteries, that everything was\nbeautiful.  This was in fine weather.  When it rained, they loved to\nwatch the falling drops, and to smell the fresh scents.  When it blew, it\nwas delightful to listen to the wind, and fancy what it said, as it came\nrushing from its home\u2014where was that, they wondered!\u2014whistling and\nhowling, driving the clouds before it, bending the trees, rumbling in the\nchimneys, shaking the house, and making the sea roar in fury.  But, when\nit snowed, that was best of all; for, they liked nothing so well as to\nlook up at the white flakes falling fast and thick, like down from the\nbreasts of millions of white birds; and to see how smooth and deep the\ndrift was; and to listen to the hush upon the paths and roads.\n\nThey had plenty of the finest toys in the world, and the most astonishing\npicture-books: all about scimitars and slippers and turbans, and dwarfs\nand giants and genii and fairies, and blue-beards and bean-stalks and\nriches and caverns and forests and Valentines and Orsons: and all new and\nall true.\n\nBut, one day, of a sudden, the traveller lost the child.  He called to\nhim over and over again, but got no answer.  So, he went upon his road,\nand went on for a little while without meeting anything, until at last he\ncame to a handsome boy.  So, he said to the boy, \u201cWhat do you do here?\u201d\nAnd the boy said, \u201cI am always learning.  Come and learn with me.\u201d\n\nSo he learned with that boy about Jupiter and Juno, and the Greeks and\nthe Romans, and I don\u2019t know what, and learned more than I could tell\u2014or\nhe either, for he soon forgot a great deal of it.  But, they were not\nalways learning; they had the merriest games that ever were played.  They\nrowed upon the river in summer, and skated on the ice in winter; they\nwere active afoot, and active on horseback; at cricket, and all games at\nball; at prisoner\u2019s base, hare and hounds, follow my leader, and more\nsports than I can think of; nobody could beat them.  They had holidays\ntoo, and Twelfth cakes, and parties where they danced till midnight, and\nreal Theatres where they saw palaces of real gold and silver rise out of\nthe real earth, and saw all the wonders of the world at once.  As to\nfriends, they had such dear friends and so many of them, that I want the\ntime to reckon them up.  They were all young, like the handsome boy, and\nwere never to be strange to one another all their lives through.\n\nStill, one day, in the midst of all these pleasures, the traveller lost\nthe boy as he had lost the child, and, after calling to him in vain, went\non upon his journey.  So he went on for a little while without seeing\nanything, until at last he came to a young man.  So, he said to the young\nman, \u201cWhat do you do here?\u201d  And the young man said, \u201cI am always in\nlove.  Come and love with me.\u201d\n\nSo, he went away with that young man, and presently they came to one of\nthe prettiest girls that ever was seen\u2014just like Fanny in the corner\nthere\u2014and she had eyes like Fanny, and hair like Fanny, and dimples like\nFanny\u2019s, and she laughed and coloured just as Fanny does while I am\ntalking about her.  So, the young man fell in love directly\u2014just as\nSomebody I won\u2019t mention, the first time he came here, did with Fanny.\nWell! he was teased sometimes\u2014just as Somebody used to be by Fanny; and\nthey quarrelled sometimes\u2014just as Somebody and Fanny used to quarrel; and\nthey made it up, and sat in the dark, and wrote letters every day, and\nnever were happy asunder, and were always looking out for one another and\npretending not to, and were engaged at Christmas-time, and sat close to\none another by the fire, and were going to be married very soon\u2014all\nexactly like Somebody I won\u2019t mention, and Fanny!\n\nBut, the traveller lost them one day, as he had lost the rest of his\nfriends, and, after calling to them to come back, which they never did,\nwent on upon his journey.  So, he went on for a little while without\nseeing anything, until at last he came to a middle-aged gentleman.  So,\nhe said to the gentleman, \u201cWhat are you doing here?\u201d  And his answer was,\n\u201cI am always busy.  Come and be busy with me!\u201d\n\nSo, he began to be very busy with that gentleman, and they went on\nthrough the wood together.  The whole journey was through a wood, only it\nhad been open and green at first, like a wood in spring; and now began to\nbe thick and dark, like a wood in summer; some of the little trees that\nhad come out earliest, were even turning brown.  The gentleman was not\nalone, but had a lady of about the same age with him, who was his Wife;\nand they had children, who were with them too.  So, they all went on\ntogether through the wood, cutting down the trees, and making a path\nthrough the branches and the fallen leaves, and carrying burdens, and\nworking hard.\n\nSometimes, they came to a long green avenue that opened into deeper\nwoods.  Then they would hear a very little, distant voice crying,\n\u201cFather, father, I am another child!  Stop for me!\u201d  And presently they\nwould see a very little figure, growing larger as it came along, running\nto join them.  When it came up, they all crowded round it, and kissed and\nwelcomed it; and then they all went on together.\n\nSometimes, they came to several avenues at once, and then they all stood\nstill, and one of the children said, \u201cFather, I am going to sea,\u201d and\nanother said, \u201cFather, I am going to India,\u201d and another, \u201cFather, I am\ngoing to seek my fortune where I can,\u201d and another, \u201cFather, I am going\nto Heaven!\u201d  So, with many tears at parting, they went, solitary, down\nthose avenues, each child upon its way; and the child who went to Heaven,\nrose into the golden air and vanished.\n\nWhenever these partings happened, the traveller looked at the gentleman,\nand saw him glance up at the sky above the trees, where the day was\nbeginning to decline, and the sunset to come on.  He saw, too, that his\nhair was turning grey.  But, they never could rest long, for they had\ntheir journey to perform, and it was necessary for them to be always\nbusy.\n\nAt last, there had been so many partings that there were no children\nleft, and only the traveller, the gentleman, and the lady, went upon\ntheir way in company.  And now the wood was yellow; and now brown; and\nthe leaves, even of the forest trees, began to fall.\n\nSo, they came to an avenue that was darker than the rest, and were\npressing forward on their journey without looking down it when the lady\nstopped.\n\n\u201cMy husband,\u201d said the lady.  \u201cI am called.\u201d\n\nThey listened, and they heard a voice a long way down the avenue, say,\n\u201cMother, mother!\u201d\n\nIt was the voice of the first child who had said, \u201cI am going to Heaven!\u201d\nand the father said, \u201cI pray not yet.  The sunset is very near.  I pray\nnot yet!\u201d\n\nBut, the voice cried, \u201cMother, mother!\u201d without minding him, though his\nhair was now quite white, and tears were on his face.\n\nThen, the mother, who was already drawn into the shade of the dark avenue\nand moving away with her arms still round his neck, kissed him, and said,\n\u201cMy dearest, I am summoned, and I go!\u201d  And she was gone.  And the\ntraveller and he were left alone together.\n\nAnd they went on and on together, until they came to very near the end of\nthe wood: so near, that they could see the sunset shining red before them\nthrough the trees.\n\nYet, once more, while he broke his way among the branches, the traveller\nlost his friend.  He called and called, but there was no reply, and when\nhe passed out of the wood, and saw the peaceful sun going down upon a\nwide purple prospect, he came to an old man sitting on a fallen tree.\nSo, he said to the old man, \u201cWhat do you do here?\u201d  And the old man said\nwith a calm smile, \u201cI am always remembering.  Come and remember with me!\u201d\n\nSo the traveller sat down by the side of that old man, face to face with\nthe serene sunset; and all his friends came softly back and stood around\nhim.  The beautiful child, the handsome boy, the young man in love, the\nfather, mother, and children: every one of them was there, and he had\nlost nothing.  So, he loved them all, and was kind and forbearing with\nthem all, and was always pleased to watch them all, and they all honoured\nand loved him.  And I think the traveller must be yourself, dear\nGrandfather, because this what you do to us, and what we do to you.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SCHOOLBOY\u2019S STORY.\n[1853]\n\n\nBEING rather young at present\u2014I am getting on in years, but still I am\nrather young\u2014I have no particular adventures of my own to fall back upon.\nIt wouldn\u2019t much interest anybody here, I suppose, to know what a screw\nthe Reverend is, or what a griffin _she_ is, or how they do stick it into\nparents\u2014particularly hair-cutting, and medical attendance.  One of our\nfellows was charged in his half\u2019s account twelve and sixpence for two\npills\u2014tolerably profitable at six and threepence a-piece, I should\nthink\u2014and he never took them either, but put them up the sleeve of his\njacket.\n\n        [Picture: Schoolboy with book: illustrated by Fred Walker]\n\nAs to the beef, it\u2019s shameful.  It\u2019s _not_ beef.  Regular beef isn\u2019t\nveins.  You can chew regular beef.  Besides which, there\u2019s gravy to\nregular beef, and you never see a drop to ours.  Another of our fellows\nwent home ill, and heard the family doctor tell his father that he\ncouldn\u2019t account for his complaint unless it was the beer.  Of course it\nwas the beer, and well it might be!\n\nHowever, beef and Old Cheeseman are two different things.  So is beer.\nIt was Old Cheeseman I meant to tell about; not the manner in which our\nfellows get their constitutions destroyed for the sake of profit.\n\nWhy, look at the pie-crust alone.  There\u2019s no flakiness in it.  It\u2019s\nsolid\u2014like damp lead.  Then our fellows get nightmares, and are bolstered\nfor calling out and waking other fellows.  Who can wonder!\n\nOld Cheeseman one night walked in his sleep, put his hat on over his\nnight-cap, got hold of a fishing-rod and a cricket-bat, and went down\ninto the parlour, where they naturally thought from his appearance he was\na Ghost.  Why, he never would have done that if his meals had been\nwholesome.  When we all begin to walk in our sleeps, I suppose they\u2019ll be\nsorry for it.\n\nOld Cheeseman wasn\u2019t second Latin Master then; he was a fellow himself.\nHe was first brought there, very small, in a post-chaise, by a woman who\nwas always taking snuff and shaking him\u2014and that was the most he\nremembered about it.  He never went home for the holidays.  His accounts\n(he never learnt any extras) were sent to a Bank, and the Bank paid them;\nand he had a brown suit twice a-year, and went into boots at twelve.\nThey were always too big for him, too.\n\nIn the Midsummer holidays, some of our fellows who lived within walking\ndistance, used to come back and climb the trees outside the playground\nwall, on purpose to look at Old Cheeseman reading there by himself.  He\nwas always as mild as the tea\u2014and _that\u2019s_ pretty mild, I should hope!\u2014so\nwhen they whistled to him, he looked up and nodded; and when they said,\n\u201cHalloa, Old Cheeseman, what have you had for dinner?\u201d he said, \u201cBoiled\nmutton;\u201d and when they said, \u201cAn\u2019t it solitary, Old Cheeseman?\u201d he said,\n\u201cIt is a little dull sometimes:\u201d and then they said, \u201cWell good-bye, Old\nCheeseman!\u201d and climbed down again.  Of course it was imposing on Old\nCheeseman to give him nothing but boiled mutton through a whole Vacation,\nbut that was just like the system.  When they didn\u2019t give him boiled\nmutton, they gave him rice pudding, pretending it was a treat.  And saved\nthe butcher.\n\nSo Old Cheeseman went on.  The holidays brought him into other trouble\nbesides the loneliness; because when the fellows began to come back, not\nwanting to, he was always glad to see them; which was aggravating when\nthey were not at all glad to see him, and so he got his head knocked\nagainst walls, and that was the way his nose bled.  But he was a\nfavourite in general.  Once a subscription was raised for him; and, to\nkeep up his spirits, he was presented before the holidays with two white\nmice, a rabbit, a pigeon, and a beautiful puppy.  Old Cheeseman cried\nabout it\u2014especially soon afterwards, when they all ate one another.\n\nOf course Old Cheeseman used to be called by the names of all sorts of\ncheeses\u2014Double Glo\u2019sterman, Family Cheshireman, Dutchman, North\nWiltshireman, and all that.  But he never minded it.  And I don\u2019t mean to\nsay he was old in point of years\u2014because he wasn\u2019t\u2014only he was called\nfrom the first, Old Cheeseman.\n\nAt last, Old Cheeseman was made second Latin Master.  He was brought in\none morning at the beginning of a new half, and presented to the school\nin that capacity as \u201cMr. Cheeseman.\u201d  Then our fellows all agreed that\nOld Cheeseman was a spy, and a deserter, who had gone over to the enemy\u2019s\ncamp, and sold himself for gold.  It was no excuse for him that he had\nsold himself for very little gold\u2014two pound ten a quarter and his\nwashing, as was reported.  It was decided by a Parliament which sat about\nit, that Old Cheeseman\u2019s mercenary motives could alone be taken into\naccount, and that he had \u201ccoined our blood for drachmas.\u201d  The Parliament\ntook the expression out of the quarrel scene between Brutus and Cassius.\n\nWhen it was settled in this strong way that Old Cheeseman was a\ntremendous traitor, who had wormed himself into our fellows\u2019 secrets on\npurpose to get himself into favour by giving up everything he knew, all\ncourageous fellows were invited to come forward and enrol themselves in a\nSociety for making a set against him.  The President of the Society was\nFirst boy, named Bob Tarter.  His father was in the West Indies, and he\nowned, himself, that his father was worth Millions.  He had great power\namong our fellows, and he wrote a parody, beginning\u2014\n\n    \u201cWho made believe to be so meek\n    That we could hardly hear him speak,\n    Yet turned out an Informing Sneak?\n                         Old Cheeseman.\u201d\n\n\u2014and on in that way through more than a dozen verses, which he used to go\nand sing, every morning, close by the new master\u2019s desk.  He trained one\nof the low boys, too, a rosy-cheeked little Brass who didn\u2019t care what he\ndid, to go up to him with his Latin Grammar one morning, and say it so:\n_Nominativus pronominum_\u2014Old Cheeseman, _raro exprimitur_\u2014was never\nsuspected, _nisi distinctionis_\u2014of being an informer, _aut emphasis\ngrat\u00eea_\u2014until he proved one.  _Ut_\u2014for instance, _Vos damnastis_\u2014when he\nsold the boys.  _Quasi_\u2014as though, _dicat_\u2014he should say, _Pret\u00e6rea\nnemo_\u2014I\u2019m a Judas!  All this produced a great effect on Old Cheeseman.\nHe had never had much hair; but what he had, began to get thinner and\nthinner every day.  He grew paler and more worn; and sometimes of an\nevening he was seen sitting at his desk with a precious long snuff to his\ncandle, and his hands before his face, crying.  But no member of the\nSociety could pity him, even if he felt inclined, because the President\nsaid it was Old Cheeseman\u2019s conscience.\n\nSo Old Cheeseman went on, and didn\u2019t he lead a miserable life!  Of course\nthe Reverend turned up his nose at him, and of course _she_ did\u2014because\nboth of them always do that at all the masters\u2014but he suffered from the\nfellows most, and he suffered from them constantly.  He never told about\nit, that the Society could find out; but he got no credit for that,\nbecause the President said it was Old Cheeseman\u2019s cowardice.\n\nHe had only one friend in the world, and that one was almost as powerless\nas he was, for it was only Jane.  Jane was a sort of wardrobe woman to\nour fellows, and took care of the boxes.  She had come at first, I\nbelieve, as a kind of apprentice\u2014some of our fellows say from a Charity,\nbut _I_ don\u2019t know\u2014and after her time was out, had stopped at so much a\nyear.  So little a year, perhaps I ought to say, for it is far more\nlikely.  However, she had put some pounds in the Savings\u2019 Bank, and she\nwas a very nice young woman.  She was not quite pretty; but she had a\nvery frank, honest, bright face, and all our fellows were fond of her.\nShe was uncommonly neat and cheerful, and uncommonly comfortable and\nkind.  And if anything was the matter with a fellow\u2019s mother, he always\nwent and showed the letter to Jane.\n\nJane was Old Cheeseman\u2019s friend.  The more the Society went against him,\nthe more Jane stood by him.  She used to give him a good-humoured look\nout of her still-room window, sometimes, that seemed to set him up for\nthe day.  She used to pass out of the orchard and the kitchen garden\n(always kept locked, I believe you!) through the playground, when she\nmight have gone the other way, only to give a turn of her head, as much\nas to say \u201cKeep up your spirits!\u201d to Old Cheeseman.  His slip of a room\nwas so fresh and orderly that it was well known who looked after it while\nhe was at his desk; and when our fellows saw a smoking hot dumpling on\nhis plate at dinner, they knew with indignation who had sent it up.\n\nUnder these circumstances, the Society resolved, after a quantity of\nmeeting and debating, that Jane should be requested to cut Old Cheeseman\ndead; and that if she refused, she must be sent to Coventry herself.  So\na deputation, headed by the President, was appointed to wait on Jane, and\ninform her of the vote the Society had been under the painful necessity\nof passing.  She was very much respected for all her good qualities, and\nthere was a story about her having once waylaid the Reverend in his own\nstudy, and got a fellow off from severe punishment, of her own kind\ncomfortable heart.  So the deputation didn\u2019t much like the job.  However,\nthey went up, and the President told Jane all about it.  Upon which Jane\nturned very red, burst into tears, informed the President and the\ndeputation, in a way not at all like her usual way, that they were a\nparcel of malicious young savages, and turned the whole respected body\nout of the room.  Consequently it was entered in the Society\u2019s book (kept\nin astronomical cypher for fear of detection), that all communication\nwith Jane was interdicted: and the President addressed the members on\nthis convincing instance of Old Cheeseman\u2019s undermining.\n\nBut Jane was as true to Old Cheeseman as Old Cheeseman was false to our\nfellows\u2014in their opinion, at all events\u2014and steadily continued to be his\nonly friend.  It was a great exasperation to the Society, because Jane\nwas as much a loss to them as she was a gain to him; and being more\ninveterate against him than ever, they treated him worse than ever.  At\nlast, one morning, his desk stood empty, his room was peeped into, and\nfound to be vacant, and a whisper went about among the pale faces of our\nfellows that Old Cheeseman, unable to bear it any longer, had got up\nearly and drowned himself.\n\nThe mysterious looks of the other masters after breakfast, and the\nevident fact that old Cheeseman was not expected, confirmed the Society\nin this opinion.  Some began to discuss whether the President was liable\nto hanging or only transportation for life, and the President\u2019s face\nshowed a great anxiety to know which.  However, he said that a jury of\nhis country should find him game; and that in his address he should put\nit to them to lay their hands upon their hearts and say whether they as\nBritons approved of informers, and how they thought they would like it\nthemselves.  Some of the Society considered that he had better run away\nuntil he found a forest where he might change clothes with a wood-cutter,\nand stain his face with blackberries; but the majority believed that if\nhe stood his ground, his father\u2014belonging as he did to the West Indies,\nand being worth millions\u2014could buy him off.\n\nAll our fellows\u2019 hearts beat fast when the Reverend came in, and made a\nsort of a Roman, or a Field Marshal, of himself with the ruler; as he\nalways did before delivering an address.  But their fears were nothing to\ntheir astonishment when he came out with the story that Old Cheeseman,\n\u201cso long our respected friend and fellow-pilgrim in the pleasant plains\nof knowledge,\u201d he called him\u2014O yes!  I dare say!  Much of that!\u2014was the\norphan child of a disinherited young lady who had married against her\nfather\u2019s wish, and whose young husband had died, and who had died of\nsorrow herself, and whose unfortunate baby (Old Cheeseman) had been\nbrought up at the cost of a grandfather who would never consent to see\nit, baby, boy, or man: which grandfather was now dead, and serve him\nright\u2014that\u2019s my putting in\u2014and which grandfather\u2019s large property, there\nbeing no will, was now, and all of a sudden and for ever, Old\nCheeseman\u2019s!  Our so long respected friend and fellow-pilgrim in the\npleasant plains of knowledge, the Reverend wound up a lot of bothering\nquotations by saying, would \u201ccome among us once more\u201d that day fortnight,\nwhen he desired to take leave of us himself, in a more particular manner.\nWith these words, he stared severely round at our fellows, and went\nsolemnly out.\n\nThere was precious consternation among the members of the Society, now.\nLots of them wanted to resign, and lots more began to try to make out\nthat they had never belonged to it.  However, the President stuck up, and\nsaid that they must stand or fall together, and that if a breach was made\nit should be over his body\u2014which was meant to encourage the Society: but\nit didn\u2019t.  The President further said, he would consider the position in\nwhich they stood, and would give them his best opinion and advice in a\nfew days.  This was eagerly looked for, as he knew a good deal of the\nworld on account of his father\u2019s being in the West Indies.\n\nAfter days and days of hard thinking, and drawing armies all over his\nslate, the President called our fellows together, and made the matter\nclear.  He said it was plain that when Old Cheeseman came on the\nappointed day, his first revenge would be to impeach the Society, and\nhave it flogged all round.  After witnessing with joy the torture of his\nenemies, and gloating over the cries which agony would extort from them,\nthe probability was that he would invite the Reverend, on pretence of\nconversation, into a private room\u2014say the parlour into which Parents were\nshown, where the two great globes were which were never used\u2014and would\nthere reproach him with the various frauds and oppressions he had endured\nat his hands.  At the close of his observations he would make a signal to\na Prizefighter concealed in the passage, who would then appear and pitch\ninto the Reverend, till he was left insensible.  Old Cheeseman would then\nmake Jane a present of from five to ten pounds, and would leave the\nestablishment in fiendish triumph.\n\nThe President explained that against the parlour part, or the Jane part,\nof these arrangements he had nothing to say; but, on the part of the\nSociety, he counselled deadly resistance.  With this view he recommended\nthat all available desks should be filled with stones, and that the first\nword of the complaint should be the signal to every fellow to let fly at\nOld Cheeseman.  The bold advice put the Society in better spirits, and\nwas unanimously taken.  A post about Old Cheeseman\u2019s size was put up in\nthe playground, and all our fellows practised at it till it was dinted\nall over.\n\nWhen the day came, and Places were called, every fellow sat down in a\ntremble.  There had been much discussing and disputing as to how Old\nCheeseman would come; but it was the general opinion that he would appear\nin a sort of triumphal car drawn by four horses, with two livery servants\nin front, and the Prizefighter in disguise up behind.  So, all our\nfellows sat listening for the sound of wheels.  But no wheels were heard,\nfor Old Cheeseman walked after all, and came into the school without any\npreparation.  Pretty much as he used to be, only dressed in black.\n\n\u201cGentlemen,\u201d said the Reverend, presenting him, \u201cour so long respected\nfriend and fellow-pilgrim in the pleasant plains of knowledge, is\ndesirous to offer a word or two.  Attention, gentlemen, one and all!\u201d\n\nEvery fellow stole his hand into his desk and looked at the President.\nThe President was all ready, and taking aim at old Cheeseman with his\neyes.\n\nWhat did Old Cheeseman then, but walk up to his old desk, look round him\nwith a queer smile as if there was a tear in his eye, and begin in a\nquavering, mild voice, \u201cMy dear companions and old friends!\u201d\n\nEvery fellow\u2019s hand came out of his desk, and the President suddenly\nbegan to cry.\n\n\u201cMy dear companions and old friends,\u201d said Old Cheeseman, \u201cyou have heard\nof my good fortune.  I have passed so many years under this roof\u2014my\nentire life so far, I may say\u2014that I hope you have been glad to hear of\nit for my sake.  I could never enjoy it without exchanging\ncongratulations with you.  If we have ever misunderstood one another at\nall, pray, my dear boys, let us forgive and forget.  I have a great\ntenderness for you, and I am sure you return it.  I want in the fulness\nof a grateful heart to shake hands with you every one.  I have come back\nto do it, if you please, my dear boys.\u201d\n\nSince the President had begun to cry, several other fellows had broken\nout here and there: but now, when Old Cheeseman began with him as first\nboy, laid his left hand affectionately on his shoulder and gave him his\nright; and when the President said \u201cIndeed, I don\u2019t deserve it, sir; upon\nmy honour I don\u2019t;\u201d there was sobbing and crying all over the school.\nEvery other fellow said he didn\u2019t deserve it, much in the same way; but\nOld Cheeseman, not minding that a bit, went cheerfully round to every\nboy, and wound up with every master\u2014finishing off the Reverend last.\n\nThen a snivelling little chap in a corner, who was always under some\npunishment or other, set up a shrill cry of \u201cSuccess to Old Cheeseman!\nHooray!\u201d  The Reverend glared upon him, and said, \u201c_Mr._ Cheeseman, sir.\u201d\nBut, Old Cheeseman protesting that he liked his old name a great deal\nbetter than his new one, all our fellows took up the cry; and, for I\ndon\u2019t know how many minutes, there was such a thundering of feet and\nhands, and such a roaring of Old Cheeseman, as never was heard.\n\nAfter that, there was a spread in the dining-room of the most magnificent\nkind.  Fowls, tongues, preserves, fruits, confectionaries, jellies,\nneguses, barley-sugar temples, trifles, crackers\u2014eat all you can and\npocket what you like\u2014all at Old Cheeseman\u2019s expense.  After that,\nspeeches, whole holiday, double and treble sets of all manners of things\nfor all manners of games, donkeys, pony-chaises and drive yourself,\ndinner for all the masters at the Seven Bells (twenty pounds a-head our\nfellows estimated it at), an annual holiday and feast fixed for that day\nevery year, and another on Old Cheeseman\u2019s birthday\u2014Reverend bound down\nbefore the fellows to allow it, so that he could never back out\u2014all at\nOld Cheeseman\u2019s expense.\n\nAnd didn\u2019t our fellows go down in a body and cheer outside the Seven\nBells?  O no!\n\nBut there\u2019s something else besides.  Don\u2019t look at the next story-teller,\nfor there\u2019s more yet.  Next day, it was resolved that the Society should\nmake it up with Jane, and then be dissolved.  What do you think of Jane\nbeing gone, though!  \u201cWhat?  Gone for ever?\u201d said our fellows, with long\nfaces.  \u201cYes, to be sure,\u201d was all the answer they could get.  None of\nthe people about the house would say anything more.  At length, the first\nboy took upon himself to ask the Reverend whether our old friend Jane was\nreally gone?  The Reverend (he has got a daughter at home\u2014turn-up nose,\nand red) replied severely, \u201cYes, sir, Miss Pitt is gone.\u201d  The idea of\ncalling Jane, Miss Pitt!  Some said she had been sent away in disgrace\nfor taking money from Old Cheeseman; others said she had gone into Old\nCheeseman\u2019s service at a rise of ten pounds a year.  All that our fellows\nknew, was, she was gone.\n\nIt was two or three months afterwards, when, one afternoon, an open\ncarriage stopped at the cricket field, just outside bounds, with a lady\nand gentleman in it, who looked at the game a long time and stood up to\nsee it played.  Nobody thought much about them, until the same little\nsnivelling chap came in, against all rules, from the post where he was\nScout, and said, \u201cIt\u2019s Jane!\u201d  Both Elevens forgot the game directly, and\nran crowding round the carriage.  It _was_ Jane!  In such a bonnet!  And\nif you\u2019ll believe me, Jane was married to Old Cheeseman.\n\nIt soon became quite a regular thing when our fellows were hard at it in\nthe playground, to see a carriage at the low part of the wall where it\njoins the high part, and a lady and gentleman standing up in it, looking\nover.  The gentleman was always Old Cheeseman, and the lady was always\nJane.\n\nThe first time I ever saw them, I saw them in that way.  There had been a\ngood many changes among our fellows then, and it had turned out that Bob\nTarter\u2019s father wasn\u2019t worth Millions!  He wasn\u2019t worth anything.  Bob\nhad gone for a soldier, and Old Cheeseman had purchased his discharge.\nBut that\u2019s not the carriage.  The carriage stopped, and all our fellows\nstopped as soon as it was seen.\n\n\u201cSo you have never sent me to Coventry after all!\u201d said the lady,\nlaughing, as our fellows swarmed up the wall to shake hands with her.\n\u201cAre you never going to do it?\u201d\n\n\u201cNever! never! never!\u201d on all sides.\n\nI didn\u2019t understand what she meant then, but of course I do now.  I was\nvery much pleased with her face though, and with her good way, and I\ncouldn\u2019t help looking at her\u2014and at him too\u2014with all our fellows\nclustering so joyfully about them.\n\nThey soon took notice of me as a new boy, so I thought I might as well\nswarm up the wall myself, and shake hands with them as the rest did.  I\nwas quite as glad to see them as the rest were, and was quite as familiar\nwith them in a moment.\n\n\u201cOnly a fortnight now,\u201d said Old Cheeseman, \u201cto the holidays.  Who stops?\nAnybody?\u201d\n\nA good many fingers pointed at me, and a good many voices cried \u201cHe\ndoes!\u201d  For it was the year when you were all away; and rather low I was\nabout it, I can tell you.\n\n\u201cOh!\u201d said Old Cheeseman.  \u201cBut it\u2019s solitary here in the holiday time.\nHe had better come to us.\u201d\n\nSo I went to their delightful house, and was as happy as I could possibly\nbe.  They understand how to conduct themselves towards boys, _they_ do.\nWhen they take a boy to the play, for instance, they _do_ take him.  They\ndon\u2019t go in after it\u2019s begun, or come out before it\u2019s over.  They know\nhow to bring a boy up, too.  Look at their own!  Though he is very little\nas yet, what a capital boy he is!  Why, my next favourite to Mrs.\nCheeseman and Old Cheeseman, is young Cheeseman.\n\nSo, now I have told you all I know about Old Cheeseman.  And it\u2019s not\nmuch after all, I am afraid.  Is it?\n\n\n\n\nNOBODY\u2019S STORY\n\n\nHE lived on the bank of a mighty river, broad and deep, which was always\nsilently rolling on to a vast undiscovered ocean.  It had rolled on, ever\nsince the world began.  It had changed its course sometimes, and turned\ninto new channels, leaving its old ways dry and barren; but it had ever\nbeen upon the flow, and ever was to flow until Time should be no more.\nAgainst its strong, unfathomable stream, nothing made head.  No living\ncreature, no flower, no leaf, no particle of animate or inanimate\nexistence, ever strayed back from the undiscovered ocean.  The tide of\nthe river set resistlessly towards it; and the tide never stopped, any\nmore than the earth stops in its circling round the sun.\n\nHe lived in a busy place, and he worked very hard to live.  He had no\nhope of ever being rich enough to live a month without hard work, but he\nwas quite content, GOD knows, to labour with a cheerful will.  He was one\nof an immense family, all of whose sons and daughters gained their daily\nbread by daily work, prolonged from their rising up betimes until their\nlying down at night.  Beyond this destiny he had no prospect, and he\nsought none.\n\nThere was over-much drumming, trumpeting, and speech-making, in the\nneighbourhood where he dwelt; but he had nothing to do with that.  Such\nclash and uproar came from the Bigwig family, at the unaccountable\nproceedings of which race, he marvelled much.  They set up the strangest\nstatues, in iron, marble, bronze, and brass, before his door; and\ndarkened his house with the legs and tails of uncouth images of horses.\nHe wondered what it all meant, smiled in a rough good-humoured way he\nhad, and kept at his hard work.\n\nThe Bigwig family (composed of all the stateliest people thereabouts, and\nall the noisiest) had undertaken to save him the trouble of thinking for\nhimself, and to manage him and his affairs.  \u201cWhy truly,\u201d said he, \u201cI\nhave little time upon my hands; and if you will be so good as to take\ncare of me, in return for the money I pay over\u201d\u2014for the Bigwig family\nwere not above his money\u2014\u201cI shall be relieved and much obliged,\nconsidering that you know best.\u201d  Hence the drumming, trumpeting, and\nspeech-making, and the ugly images of horses which he was expected to\nfall down and worship.\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t understand all this,\u201d said he, rubbing his furrowed brow\nconfusedly.  \u201cBut it _has_ a meaning, maybe, if I could find it out.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt means,\u201d returned the Bigwig family, suspecting something of what he\nsaid, \u201chonour and glory in the highest, to the highest merit.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh!\u201d said he.  And he was glad to hear that.\n\nBut, when he looked among the images in iron, marble, bronze, and brass,\nhe failed to find a rather meritorious countryman of his, once the son of\na Warwickshire wool-dealer, or any single countryman whomsoever of that\nkind.  He could find none of the men whose knowledge had rescued him and\nhis children from terrific and disfiguring disease, whose boldness had\nraised his forefathers from the condition of serfs, whose wise fancy had\nopened a new and high existence to the humblest, whose skill had filled\nthe working man\u2019s world with accumulated wonders.  Whereas, he did find\nothers whom he knew no good of, and even others whom he knew much ill of.\n\n\u201cHumph!\u201d said he.  \u201cI don\u2019t quite understand it.\u201d\n\nSo, he went home, and sat down by his fireside to get it out of his mind.\n\nNow, his fireside was a bare one, all hemmed in by blackened streets; but\nit was a precious place to him.  The hands of his wife were hardened with\ntoil, and she was old before her time; but she was dear to him.  His\nchildren, stunted in their growth, bore traces of unwholesome nurture;\nbut they had beauty in his sight.  Above all other things, it was an\nearnest desire of this man\u2019s soul that his children should be taught.\n\u201cIf I am sometimes misled,\u201d said he, \u201cfor want of knowledge, at least let\nthem know better, and avoid my mistakes.  If it is hard to me to reap the\nharvest of pleasure and instruction that is stored in books, let it be\neasier to them.\u201d\n\nBut, the Bigwig family broke out into violent family quarrels concerning\nwhat it was lawful to teach to this man\u2019s children.  Some of the family\ninsisted on such a thing being primary and indispensable above all other\nthings; and others of the family insisted on such another thing being\nprimary and indispensable above all other things; and the Bigwig family,\nrent into factions, wrote pamphlets, held convocations, delivered\ncharges, orations, and all varieties of discourses; impounded one another\nin courts Lay and courts Ecclesiastical; threw dirt, exchanged\npummelings, and fell together by the ears in unintelligible animosity.\nMeanwhile, this man, in his short evening snatches at his fireside, saw\nthe demon Ignorance arise there, and take his children to itself.  He saw\nhis daughter perverted into a heavy, slatternly drudge; he saw his son go\nmoping down the ways of low sensuality, to brutality and crime; he saw\nthe dawning light of intelligence in the eyes of his babies so changing\ninto cunning and suspicion, that he could have rather wished them idiots.\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t understand this any the better,\u201d said he; \u201cbut I think it cannot\nbe right.  Nay, by the clouded Heaven above me, I protest against this as\nmy wrong!\u201d\n\nBecoming peaceable again (for his passion was usually short-lived, and\nhis nature kind), he looked about him on his Sundays and holidays, and he\nsaw how much monotony and weariness there was, and thence how drunkenness\narose with all its train of ruin.  Then he appealed to the Bigwig family,\nand said, \u201cWe are a labouring people, and I have a glimmering suspicion\nin me that labouring people of whatever condition were made\u2014by a higher\nintelligence than yours, as I poorly understand it\u2014to be in need of\nmental refreshment and recreation.  See what we fall into, when we rest\nwithout it.  Come!  Amuse me harmlessly, show me something, give me an\nescape!\u201d\n\nBut, here the Bigwig family fell into a state of uproar absolutely\ndeafening.  When some few voices were faintly heard, proposing to show\nhim the wonders of the world, the greatness of creation, the mighty\nchanges of time, the workings of nature and the beauties of art\u2014to show\nhim these things, that is to say, at any period of his life when he could\nlook upon them\u2014there arose among the Bigwigs such roaring and raving,\nsuch pulpiting and petitioning, such maundering and memorialising, such\nname-calling and dirt-throwing, such a shrill wind of parliamentary\nquestioning and feeble replying\u2014where \u201cI dare not\u201d waited on \u201cI\nwould\u201d\u2014that the poor fellow stood aghast, staring wildly around.\n\n\u201cHave I provoked all this,\u201d said he, with his hands to his affrighted\nears, \u201cby what was meant to be an innocent request, plainly arising out\nof my familiar experience, and the common knowledge of all men who choose\nto open their eyes?  I don\u2019t understand, and I am not understood.  What\nis to come of such a state of things!\u201d\n\nHe was bending over his work, often asking himself the question, when the\nnews began to spread that a pestilence had appeared among the labourers,\nand was slaying them by thousands.  Going forth to look about him, he\nsoon found this to be true.  The dying and the dead were mingled in the\nclose and tainted houses among which his life was passed.  New poison was\ndistilled into the always murky, always sickening air.  The robust and\nthe weak, old age and infancy, the father and the mother, all were\nstricken down alike.\n\nWhat means of flight had he?  He remained there, where he was, and saw\nthose who were dearest to him die.  A kind preacher came to him, and\nwould have said some prayers to soften his heart in his gloom, but he\nreplied:\n\n\u201cO what avails it, missionary, to come to me, a man condemned to\nresidence in this foetid place, where every sense bestowed upon me for my\ndelight becomes a torment, and where every minute of my numbered days is\nnew mire added to the heap under which I lie oppressed!  But, give me my\nfirst glimpse of Heaven, through a little of its light and air; give me\npure water; help me to be clean; lighten this heavy atmosphere and heavy\nlife, in which our spirits sink, and we become the indifferent and\ncallous creatures you too often see us; gently and kindly take the bodies\nof those who die among us, out of the small room where we grow to be so\nfamiliar with the awful change that even its sanctity is lost to us; and,\nTeacher, then I will hear\u2014none know better than you, how willingly\u2014of Him\nwhose thoughts were so much with the poor, and who had compassion for all\nhuman sorrow!\u201d\n\nHe was at work again, solitary and sad, when his Master came and stood\nnear to him dressed in black.  He, also, had suffered heavily.  His young\nwife, his beautiful and good young wife, was dead; so, too, his only\nchild.\n\n\u201cMaster, \u2019tis hard to bear\u2014I know it\u2014but be comforted.  I would give you\ncomfort, if I could.\u201d\n\nThe Master thanked him from his heart, but, said he, \u201cO you labouring\nmen!  The calamity began among you.  If you had but lived more healthily\nand decently, I should not be the widowed and bereft mourner that I am\nthis day.\u201d\n\n\u201cMaster,\u201d returned the other, shaking his head, \u201cI have begun to\nunderstand a little that most calamities will come from us, as this one\ndid, and that none will stop at our poor doors, until we are united with\nthat great squabbling family yonder, to do the things that are right.  We\ncannot live healthily and decently, unless they who undertook to manage\nus provide the means.  We cannot be instructed unless they will teach us;\nwe cannot be rationally amused, unless they will amuse us; we cannot but\nhave some false gods of our own, while they set up so many of theirs in\nall the public places.  The evil consequences of imperfect instruction,\nthe evil consequences of pernicious neglect, the evil consequences of\nunnatural restraint and the denial of humanising enjoyments, will all\ncome from us, and none of them will stop with us.  They will spread far\nand wide.  They always do; they always have done\u2014just like the\npestilence.  I understand so much, I think, at last.\u201d\n\nBut the Master said again, \u201cO you labouring men!  How seldom do we ever\nhear of you, except in connection with some trouble!\u201d\n\n\u201cMaster,\u201d he replied, \u201cI am Nobody, and little likely to be heard of (nor\nyet much wanted to be heard of, perhaps), except when there is some\ntrouble.  But it never begins with me, and it never can end with me.  As\nsure as Death, it comes down to me, and it goes up from me.\u201d\n\nThere was so much reason in what he said, that the Bigwig family, getting\nwind of it, and being horribly frightened by the late desolation,\nresolved to unite with him to do the things that were right\u2014at all\nevents, so far as the said things were associated with the direct\nprevention, humanly speaking, of another pestilence.  But, as their fear\nwore off, which it soon began to do, they resumed their falling out among\nthemselves, and did nothing.  Consequently the scourge appeared again\u2014low\ndown as before\u2014and spread avengingly upward as before, and carried off\nvast numbers of the brawlers.  But not a man among them ever admitted, if\nin the least degree he ever perceived, that he had anything to do with\nit.\n\nSo Nobody lived and died in the old, old, old way; and this, in the main,\nis the whole of Nobody\u2019s story.\n\nHad he no name, you ask?  Perhaps it was Legion.  It matters little what\nhis name was.  Let us call him Legion.\n\nIf you were ever in the Belgian villages near the field of Waterloo, you\nwill have seen, in some quiet little church, a monument erected by\nfaithful companions in arms to the memory of Colonel A, Major B, Captains\nC, D and E, Lieutenants F and G, Ensigns H, I and J, seven\nnon-commissioned officers, and one hundred and thirty rank and file, who\nfell in the discharge of their duty on the memorable day.  The story of\nNobody is the story of the rank and file of the earth.  They bear their\nshare of the battle; they have their part in the victory; they fall; they\nleave no name but in the mass.  The march of the proudest of us, leads to\nthe dusty way by which they go.  O!  Let us think of them this year at\nthe Christmas fire, and not forget them when it is burnt out.\n\n\n\n"}
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{"14789":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAVENTURES\n\nDE MONSIEUR\n\nPICKWICK\n\n\n\n\nCHARLES DICKENS\n\n\nAVENTURES DE MONSIEUR PICKWICK\n\n\nROMAN ANGLAIS\n\nTRADUIT AVEC L'AUTORISATION DE L'AUTEUR SOUS LA DIRECTION DE P. LORAIN\n\nPAR P. GROLIER\n\nTOME SECOND\n\nPARIS\n\nLIBRAIRIE HACHETTE ET Cie\n\n79, BOULEVARD SAINT-GERMAIN, 79\n\n\n1893\n\n\n\n\nAVENTURES\n\nDE\n\nM. PICKWICK.\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE PREMIER.\n\nComment les pickwickiens firent et cultiv\u00e8rent la connaissance d'une\ncouple d'agr\u00e9ables jeunes gens, appartenant \u00e0 une des professions\nlib\u00e9rales; comment ils fol\u00e2tr\u00e8rent sur la glace; et comment se termina\nleur visite.\n\n\n\u00abEh bien! Sam, il g\u00e8le toujours?\u00bb dit M. Pickwick \u00e0 son domestique\nfavori, comme celui-ci entrait dans sa chambre le matin du jour de No\u00ebl,\npour lui appr\u00eater l'eau chaude n\u00e9cessaire.\n\n\u00abL'eau du pot \u00e0 eau n'est plus qu'un masque de glace, monsieur.\n\n--Une rude saison, Sam!\n\n--Beau temps pour ceux qui sont bien v\u00eatus, monsieur, comme disait\nl'ours blanc en s'exer\u00e7ant \u00e0 patiner.\n\n--Je descendrai dans un quart d'heure, Sam, reprit M. Pickwick, en\nd\u00e9nouant son bonnet de nuit.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, monsieur, vous trouverez en bas une couple de carabins.\n\n--Une couple de quoi? s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick en s'asseyant sur son lit.\n\n--Une couple de carabins, monsieur.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que c'est qu'un carabin? demanda M. Pickwick, incertain si\nc'\u00e9tait un animal vivant ou quelque comestible.\n\n--Comment! vous ne savez pas ce que c'est qu'un carabin, monsieur. Mais\ntout le monde sait que c'est un chirurgien.\n\n--Oh! un chirurgien?\n\n--Justement, monsieur. Quoique \u00e7a, ceux-l\u00e0 ne sont que des chirurgiens\nen herbe; ce sont seulement des apprentis.\n\n--En d'autres termes, ce sont, je suppose, des \u00e9tudiants en m\u00e9decine?\u00bb\n\nSam Weller fit un signe affirmatif.\n\n\u00abJ'en suis charm\u00e9, dit M. Pickwick, en jetant \u00e9nergiquement son bonnet\nsur son couvre-pieds. Ce sont d'aimables jeunes gens, dont le jugement\nest m\u00fbri par l'habitude d'observer et de r\u00e9fl\u00e9chir; dont les go\u00fbts sont\n\u00e9pur\u00e9s par l'\u00e9tude et par la lecture: je serai charm\u00e9 de les voir.\n\n--Ils fument des cigares au coin du feu dans la cuisine, dit Sam.\n\n--Ah! fit M. Pickwick en se frottant les mains, justement ce que j'aime:\nsurabondance d'esprits animaux et de socialit\u00e9.\n\n--Et il y en a un, poursuivit Sam, sans remarquer l'interruption de son\nma\u00eetre; il y en a un qui a ses pieds sur la table, et qui pompe ferme de\nl'eau-de-vie; pendant que l'autre qui parait amateur de mollusques, a\npris un baril d'hu\u00eetres entre ses genoux, il les ouvre \u00e0 la vapeur, et\nles avale de m\u00eame, et avec les coquilles il vise not' jeune popotame qui\nest endormi dans le coin de la chemin\u00e9e.\n\n--Excentricit\u00e9s du g\u00e9nie, Sam. Vous pouvez vous retirer.\u00bb\n\nSam se retira, en cons\u00e9quence, et M. Pickwick, au bout d'un quart\nd'heure, descendit pour d\u00e9jeuner.\n\n\u00abLe voici \u00e0 la fin, s'\u00e9cria le vieux Wardle. Pickwick, je vous pr\u00e9sente\nle fr\u00e8re de miss Allen, M. Benjamin Allen. Nous l'appelons Ben, et vous\npouvez en faire autant, si vous voulez. Ce gentleman est son ami intime,\nmonsieur....\n\n--M. Bob Sawyer,\u00bb dit M. Benjamin Allen. Et l\u00e0-dessus, M. Bob Sawyer et\nM. Benjamin Allen \u00e9clat\u00e8rent de rire en duo.\n\nM. Pickwick salua Bob Sawyer, et Bob Sawyer salua M. Pickwick; apr\u00e8s\nquoi Ben et son ami intime s'occup\u00e8rent tr\u00e8s-assid\u00fbment des comestibles,\nce qui donna au philosophe la facilit\u00e9 de les examiner.\n\nM. Benjamin Allen \u00e9tait un jeune homme \u00e9pais, ramass\u00e9, dont les cheveux\nnoirs avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 taill\u00e9s trop courts, dont la face blanche \u00e9tait\ntaill\u00e9e trop longue. Il s'\u00e9tait embelli d'une paire de lunettes, et\nportait une cravate blanche. Au-dessous de son habit noir, qui \u00e9tait\nboutonn\u00e9 jusqu'au menton, apparaissait le nombre ordinaire de jambes,\nrev\u00eatues d'un pantalon couleur de poivre, termin\u00e9 par une paire de\nbottes imparfaitement cir\u00e9es. Quoique les manches de son habit fussent\ncourtes, elles ne laissaient voir aucun vestige de manchettes; et\nquoique son visage f\u00fbt assez large pour admettre l'encadrement d'un col\nde chemise, il n'\u00e9tait orn\u00e9 d'aucun appendice de ce genre. Au total, son\ncostume avait l'air un peu moisi, et il r\u00e9pandait autour de lui une\np\u00e9n\u00e9trante odeur de cigares \u00e0 bon march\u00e9.\n\nM. Bob Sawyer, couvert d'un gras v\u00eatement bleu moiti\u00e9 paletot, moiti\u00e9\nredingote, d'un large pantalon \u00e9cossais, d'un grossier gilet \u00e0 doubles\nrevers, avait cet air de pr\u00e9tention mal propre, cette tournure\nfanfaronne, particuli\u00e8re aux jeunes gentlemen qui fument dans la rue\ndurant le jour, y chantent et y crient durant la nuit, appellent les\ngar\u00e7ons des tavernes par leur nom de bapt\u00eame, et accomplissent dans la\nrue divers autres exploits non moins fac\u00e9tieux; il portait un gros\nb\u00e2ton, orn\u00e9 d'une grosse pomme, se gardait de mettre des gants, et\nressemblait en somme \u00e0 un Robinson Cruso\u00e9, tomb\u00e9 dans la d\u00e9bauche.\n\nTelles \u00e9taient les deux notabilit\u00e9s auxquelles M. Pickwick fut pr\u00e9sent\u00e9,\ndans la matin\u00e9e du jour de No\u00ebl.\n\n\u00abSuperbe matin\u00e9e, messieurs,\u00bb dit-il. M. Bob Sawyer fit un l\u00e9ger signe\nd'assentiment \u00e0 cette proposition, et demanda la moutarde \u00e0 M. Benjamin\nAllen.\n\n--\u00cates-vous venus de loin ce matin, messieurs? poursuivit M. Pickwick.\n\n--De l'auberge du _Lion-Bleu_, \u00e0 Muggleton, r\u00e9pondit bri\u00e8vement M.\nAllen.\n\n--Vous auriez d\u00fb arriver hier au soir, continua M. Pickwick.\n\n--Et c'est ce que nous aurions fait, r\u00e9pliqua Bob Sawyer, mais\nl'eau-de-vie du _Lion-Bleu_ \u00e9tait trop bonne pour la quitter si vite;\npas vrai, Ben?\n\n--Certainement, r\u00e9pondit celui-ci, et les cigares n'\u00e9taient pas mauvais,\nni les c\u00f4telettes de porc frais non plus, hein Bob?\n\n--Assur\u00e9ment, repartit Bob;\u00bb et les amis intimes recommenc\u00e8rent plus\nvigoureusement leur attaque sur le d\u00e9jeuner, comme si le souvenir du\nsouper de la veille leur avait donn\u00e9 un nouvel app\u00e9tit.\n\n\u00abMastique, Bob, dit Allen \u00e0 son compagnon, d'un air encourageant.\n\n--C'est ce que je fais, r\u00e9pondit M. Bob; et, pour lui rendre justice,\nil faut convenir qu'il s'en acquittait joliment.\n\n--Vive la dissection pour donner de l'app\u00e9tit, reprit M. Bob Sawyer, en\nregardant autour de la table.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick frissonna l\u00e9g\u00e8rement.\n\n\u00ab\u00c0 propos, Bob, dit M. Allen, avez-vous fini cette jambe?\n\n--\u00c0 peu pr\u00e8s, r\u00e9pondit M. Sawyer, en s'administrant la moiti\u00e9 d'une\nvolaille. Elle est fort musculeuse pour une jambe d'enfant.\n\n--Vraiment? dit n\u00e9gligemment M. Allen.\n\n--Mais oui, r\u00e9pliqua Bob Sawyer, la bouche pleine.\n\n--Je me suis inscrit pour un bras \u00e0 notre \u00e9cole, reprit M. Allen. Nous\nnous cotisons pour un sujet, et la liste est presque pleine; mais nous\nne trouvons pas d'amateur pour la t\u00eate. Vous devriez bien la prendre.\n\n--Merci, repartit Bob Sawyer; c'est trop de luxe pour moi.\n\n--Bah! bah!\n\n--Impossible! une cervelle, je ne dis pas.... Mais une t\u00eate tout\nenti\u00e8re, c'est au-dessus de mes moyens.\n\n--Chut! chut! messieurs! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick; j'entends les dames.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick parlait encore lorsque les dames rentr\u00e8rent de leur\npromenade matinale. Elles avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 galamment escort\u00e9es par MM.\nSnodgrass, Winkle et Tupman.\n\n\u00abComment, c'est toi, Ben? dit Arabelle, d'un ton qui exprimait plus de\nsurprise que de plaisir, \u00e0 la vue de son fr\u00e8re.\n\n--Je te ram\u00e8ne demain \u00e0 la maison, Arabelle, r\u00e9pondit Benjamin.\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle devint p\u00e2le.\n\n\u00abTu ne vois donc pas Bob Sawyer?\u00bb poursuivit l'\u00e9tudiant, d'un ton de\nreproche.\n\nArabelle tendit gracieusement la main; et, comme M. Sawyer la serrait\nd'une mani\u00e8re visible, M. Winkle sentit dans son coeur un fr\u00e9missement\nde haine.\n\n\u00abMon cher Ben, dit Arabelle en rougissant, as-tu... as-tu \u00e9t\u00e9 pr\u00e9sent\u00e9 \u00e0\nM. Winkle?\n\n--Non, mais ce sera avec plaisir,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit son fr\u00e8re gravement; puis il\nsalua d'un air roide M. Winkle, tandis que celui-ci et M. Bob Sawyer se\nd\u00e9visageaient du coin de l'oeil avec une m\u00e9fiance mutuelle.\n\nL'arriv\u00e9e de deux nouveaux visages, et la contrainte qui en r\u00e9sultait\npour Arabelle et pour M. Winkle, auraient, suivant toute apparence,\nmodifi\u00e9 d'une mani\u00e8re d\u00e9plaisante l'entrain de la compagnie, si\nl'amabilit\u00e9 de M. Pickwick et la bonne humeur de leur h\u00f4te ne s'\u00e9taient\npas d\u00e9ploy\u00e9es au plus haut degr\u00e9 pour le bonheur commun. M. Winkle\ns'insinua graduellement dans les bonnes gr\u00e2ces de M. Benjamin Allen, et\nentama m\u00eame une conversation amicale avec M. Bob Sawyer, qui, gr\u00e2ce \u00e0\nl'eau-de-vie, au d\u00e9jeuner et \u00e0 la causerie, se trouvait dans une\nsituation d'esprit des plus fac\u00e9tieuses. Il raconta avec beaucoup de\nverve comment il avait enlev\u00e9 une tumeur sur la t\u00eate d'un vieux\ngentleman, illustrant cette agr\u00e9able anecdote en faisant, avec son\ncouteau, des incisions sur un pain d'une demi-livre, \u00e0 la grande\n\u00e9dification de son auditoire.\n\nApr\u00e8s le d\u00e9jeuner, on se rendit \u00e0 l'\u00e9glise, o\u00f9 M. Benjamin Allen\ns'endormit profond\u00e9ment, tandis que M. Bob Sawyer d\u00e9tachait ses pens\u00e9es\ndes choses terrestres par un ing\u00e9nieux proc\u00e9d\u00e9, qui consistait \u00e0 graver\nson nom sur le devant de son banc en lettres corpulentes de quatre\npouces de hauteur environ.\n\nApr\u00e8s un go\u00fbter substantiel, arros\u00e9 de forte bi\u00e8re et de cerises \u00e0\nl'eau-de-vie, le vieux Wardle dit \u00e0 ses h\u00f4tes:\n\n\u00abQue pensez-vous d'une heure pass\u00e9e sur la glace? Nous avons du temps \u00e0\nrevendre.\n\n--Admirable! s'\u00e9cria Benjamin Allen.\n\n--Fameux! acclama Bob Sawyer.\n\n--Winkle! reprit M. Wardle. Vous patinez, n\u00e9cessairement?\n\n--Eh!... oui, oh! oui, r\u00e9pliqua M. Winkle. Mais... mais je suis un peu\nrouill\u00e9.\n\n--Oh! monsieur Winkle, dit Arabelle, patinez, je vous en prie; j'aime\ntant \u00e0 voir patiner!\n\n--C'est si gracieux!\u00bb continua une autre jeune demoiselle.\n\nUne troisi\u00e8me jeune demoiselle ajouta que c'\u00e9tait \u00e9l\u00e9gant; une\nquatri\u00e8me, que c'\u00e9tait a\u00e9rien.\n\n\u00abJ'en serais enchant\u00e9, r\u00e9pliqua M. Winkle en rougissant; mais je n'ai\npas de patins.\u00bb\n\nCette objection fut ais\u00e9ment surmont\u00e9e: M. Trundle avait deux paires de\npatins, et le gros joufflu annon\u00e7a qu'il y en avait en bas une\ndemi-douzaine d'autres. En apprenant cette bonne nouvelle, M. Winkle\nd\u00e9clara qu'il \u00e9tait ravi; mais, en disant cela, il avait l'air\nparfaitement mis\u00e9rable.\n\nM. Wardle conduisit donc ses h\u00f4tes vers une large nappe de glace. Sam\nWeller et le gros joufflu balay\u00e8rent la neige qui \u00e9tait tomb\u00e9e la nuit\npr\u00e9c\u00e9dente, et M. Bob Sawyer ajusta ses patins avec une dext\u00e9rit\u00e9 qui,\naux yeux de M. Winkle, \u00e9tait absolument merveilleuse. Ensuite il se mit\n\u00e0 tracer des cercles, \u00e0 \u00e9crire des huit, \u00e0 inscrire sur la glace, sans\ns'arr\u00eater un seul instant, une collection d'agr\u00e9ables embl\u00e8mes, \u00e0\nl'excessive satisfaction de M. Pickwick, de M. Tupman et de toutes les\ndames. Mais ce fut bien mieux encore, ce fut un v\u00e9ritable enthousiasme,\nquand le vieux Wardle et Benjamin Allen, assist\u00e9s par ledit Bob,\naccomplirent nombre de figures et d'\u00e9volutions mystiques.\n\nPendant tout ce temps, M. Winkle, dont le visage et les mains \u00e9taient\nbleus de froid, s'occupait \u00e0 mettre ses patins avec la pointe par\nderri\u00e8re et \u00e0 emm\u00ealer les courroies de la mani\u00e8re la plus compliqu\u00e9e. Il\navait \u00e9t\u00e9 aid\u00e9 dans cette op\u00e9ration par M. Snodgrass, qui se connaissait\nen patins \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s aussi bien qu'un Hindou; n\u00e9anmoins, gr\u00e2ce \u00e0\nl'assistance de Sam, les malheureux patins furent serr\u00e9s assez\nsolidement pour engourdir les pieds du patient, et il fut enfin lev\u00e9 sur\nses jambes.\n\n\u00abVoila, monsieur, lui dit Sam, d'un ton encourageant; en route, \u00e0 cette\nheure, et montrez-leur comme il faut s'y prendre.\n\n--Attendez, attendez! cria M. Winkle, qui tremblait violemment et qui\navait saisi Sam avec la vigueur convulsive d'un noy\u00e9. Comme c'est\nglissant, Sam!\n\n--La glace est presque toujours comme \u00e7a. Tenez-vous donc, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nCette derni\u00e8re exhortation \u00e9tait inspir\u00e9e \u00e0 Sam par un brusque mouvement\ndu patineur, qui semblait avoir un d\u00e9sir fr\u00e9n\u00e9tique de lever ses pieds\nvers le ciel et de briser la glace avec le derri\u00e8re de sa t\u00eate.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0... voil\u00e0 des patins bien peu solides; n'est-ce pas, Sam? balbutia\nM. Winkle, en tr\u00e9buchant.\n\n--Je crois plut\u00f4t, r\u00e9pliqua l'autre, que c'est le gentleman qui est\ndedans qui n'est pas solide.\n\n--Eh bien! Winkle! cria M. Pickwick, tout \u00e0 fait ignorant de ce qui se\npassait, venez donc; ces dames vous attendent avec impatience.\n\n--Oui, oui, r\u00e9pondit l'infortun\u00e9 jeune homme, avec un sourire qui\nfaisait mal \u00e0 voir; oui, oui, j'y vais \u00e0 l'instant.\n\n--Voil\u00e0 que \u00e7a va commencer! dit Sam en cherchant \u00e0 se d\u00e9gager. Allons,\nmonsieur, en route!\n\n--Attendez un moment, Sam, murmura M. Winkle, en s'attachant \u00e0 son\nsoutien avec l'affection du lierre pour l'ormeau. Je me rappelle\nmaintenant que j'ai \u00e0 la maison deux habits qui ne me servent plus; je\nvous les donnerai, Sam.\n\n--Merci, monsieur.\n\n--Inutile de toucher votre chapeau, Sam, reprit vivement M. Winkle; ne\nme l\u00e2chez pas!... Je voulais vous donner cinq shillings, ce matin, pour\nvos \u00e9trennes de No\u00ebl, mais vous les aurez cette apr\u00e8s-midi, Sam.\n\n--Vous \u00eates bien bon, monsieur.\n\n--Tenez-moi d'abord un peu, Sam. Voulez-vous? L\u00e0... c'est cela. Je m'y\nhabituerai promptement. Pas trop vite! pas trop vite! Sam!\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle, pench\u00e9 en avant, et le corps presque en deux, \u00e9tait soutenu\npar Sam, et s'avan\u00e7ait sur la glace d'une mani\u00e8re singuli\u00e8re, mais\ntr\u00e8s-peu a\u00e9rienne, lorsque M. Pickwick cria, fort innocemment, du bord\noppos\u00e9:\n\n\u00abSam!\n\n--Monsieur!\n\n--Venez ici, j'ai besoin de vous.\n\n--L\u00e2chez-moi, monsieur! Est-ce que vous n'entendez pas mon ma\u00eetre, qui\nm'appelle? L\u00e2chez-moi donc, monsieur!\u00bb\n\nEn parlant ainsi, Sam se d\u00e9gagea par un violent effort, des mains du\nmalheureux M. Winkle et lui communiqua en m\u00eame temps une vitesse\nconsid\u00e9rable. Aussi, avec une pr\u00e9cision qu'aucune habilet\u00e9 n'aurait pu\nsurpasser, l'infortun\u00e9 patineur arriva-t-il rapidement au milieu de ses\ntrois confr\u00e8res, au moment m\u00eame o\u00f9 M. Bob Sawyer accomplissait une\nfigure d'une beaut\u00e9 sans pareille; M. Winkle se heurta violemment contre\nlui, et tous les deux tomb\u00e8rent sur la glace avec un grand fracas. M.\nPickwick accourut. Quand il arriva sur la place, Bob Sawyer \u00e9tait d\u00e9j\u00e0\nrelev\u00e9, mais M. Winkle \u00e9tait trop prudent pour en faire autant, avec des\npatins aux pieds. Il \u00e9tait assis sur la glace et faisait des efforts\nconvulsifs pour sourire, tandis que chaque trait de son visage exprimait\nl'angoisse la plus profonde.\n\n\u00ab\u00cates-vous bless\u00e9? demanda anxieusement Ben Allen.\n\n--Pas beaucoup, r\u00e9pondit M. Winkle, en frottant son dos.\n\n--Voulez-vous que je vous saigne? reprit Benjamin, avec un empressement\ng\u00e9n\u00e9reux.\n\n--Non! non! merci, r\u00e9pliqua vivement le pickwickien d\u00e9sar\u00e7onn\u00e9.\n\n--Qu'en pensez-vous, M. Pickwick? dit Bob Sawyer.\u00bb\n\nLe philosophe \u00e9tait indign\u00e9! Il fit un signe \u00e0 Sam Weller, en disant\nd'une voix s\u00e9v\u00e8re:\n\n\u00ab\u00d4tez-lui ses patins.\n\n--Les \u00f4ter? mais je ne fais que commencer, repr\u00e9sente M. Winkle, d'un\nton de remontrance.\n\n--\u00d4tez-lui ses patins, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick avec fermet\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nOn ne pouvait r\u00e9sister \u00e0 un ordre donn\u00e9 de cette mani\u00e8re. M. Winkle\npermit silencieusement \u00e0 Sam de l'ex\u00e9cuter.\n\n\u00abLevez-le,\u00bb dit M. Pickwick.\n\nSam aida M. Winkle \u00e0 se relever.\n\nM. Pickwick s'\u00e9loigna de quelques pas, et ayant fait signe \u00e0 son jeune\nami de s'approcher, fixa sur lui un regard p\u00e9n\u00e9trant et pronon\u00e7a d'un\nton peu \u00e9lev\u00e9, mais distinct et emphatique, ces paroles remarquables:\n\n\u00abVous \u00eates un imposteur, monsieur.\n\n--Un quoi? demanda M. Winkle en tressaillant.\n\n--Un imposteur, monsieur. Et je parlerai plus clairement si vous le\nd\u00e9sirez: un blagueur, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nAyant laiss\u00e9 tomber ces mots d'une l\u00e8vre d\u00e9daigneuse, le philosophe\ntourna lentement sur ses talons, et rejoignit la soci\u00e9t\u00e9.\n\nPendant que M. Pickwick exprimait l'opinion ci-dessus rapport\u00e9e, Sam et\nle gros joufflu avaient r\u00e9uni leurs efforts pour \u00e9tablir une glissade,\net s'exer\u00e7aient d'une mani\u00e8re tr\u00e8s-brillante. Sam, en particulier,\nex\u00e9cutait cette admirable et romantique figure que l'on appelle\nvulgairement _cogner \u00e0 la porte du savetier_, et qui consiste \u00e0 glisser\nsur un pied, tandis que de l'autre on frappe de temps en temps la glace\nd'un coup redoubl\u00e9.\n\nLa glissade \u00e9tait longue et luisante, et comme M. Pickwick se sentait \u00e0\nmoiti\u00e9 gel\u00e9 d'\u00eatre rest\u00e9 si longtemps tranquille, il y avait dans ce\nmouvement quelque chose qui semblait l'attirer.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0 un joli exercice, et qui doit bien r\u00e9chauffer, n'est-ce pas?\ndit-il \u00e0 M. Wardle.\n\n--Oui, ma foi! r\u00e9pondit celui-ci, qui \u00e9tait tout essouffle d'avoir\nconverti ses jambes en une paire de compas infatigable pour tracer sur\nla glace mille figures g\u00e9om\u00e9triques. Glissez-vous?\n\n--Je glissais autrefois, quand j'\u00e9tais enfant; sur les ruisseaux.\n\n--Essayez maintenant.\n\n--Oh! oui, monsieur Pickwick, s'il vous pla\u00eet! s'\u00e9cri\u00e8rent toutes les\ndames.\n\n--Je serais enchant\u00e9 de vous procurer quelque amusement, repartit le\nphilosophe, mais il y a plus de trente ans que je n'ai gliss\u00e9!\n\n--Bah! bah! enfantillage, reprit M. Wardle, en \u00f4tant ses patins avec\nl'imp\u00e9tuosit\u00e9 qui le caract\u00e9risait. Allons! je vous tiendrai compagnie;\nvenez!\u00bb\n\nEt en effet le joyeux vieillard s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a sur la glissade avec une\nrapidit\u00e9 digne de Sam Weller, et qui enfon\u00e7ait compl\u00e8tement le gros\njoufflu.\n\nM. Pickwick le contempla un instant d'un air r\u00e9fl\u00e9chi, \u00f4ta ses gants,\nles mit dans son chapeau, prit son \u00e9lan deux ou trois fois sans pouvoir\npartir, et \u00e0 la fin, apr\u00e8s avoir couru sur la glace la longueur d'une\ncentaine de pas, se lan\u00e7a sur la glissade et la parcourut lentement et\ngravement, avec ses jambes \u00e9cart\u00e9es de deux ou trois pieds. L'air\nretentissait au loin des applaudissements des spectateurs.\n\n\u00abIl ne faut pas laisser \u00e0 la marmite le temps de se refroidir,\nmonsieur,\u00bb cria Sam; et le vieux Wardle s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a de nouveau sur la\nglissade, suivi de M. Pickwick, puis de Sam, puis de M. Winkle, et puis\nde M. Bob Sawyer, puis du gros joufflu, et enfin de M. Snodgrass; chacun\nglissant sur les talons de son pr\u00e9d\u00e9cesseur, tous courant l'un apr\u00e8s\nl'autre avec autant d'ardeur que si le bonheur de toute leur vie avait\nd\u00e9pendu de leur v\u00e9locit\u00e9.\n\nLa mani\u00e8re dont M. Pickwick ex\u00e9cutait son r\u00f4le dans cette c\u00e9r\u00e9monie,\noffrait un spectacle du plus haut int\u00e9r\u00eat. Avec quelle anxi\u00e9t\u00e9, avec\nquelle torture, il s'apercevait que son successeur gagnait sur lui, au\nrisque imminent de le renverser! Arriv\u00e9 \u00e0 la fin de la glissade, avec\nquelle satisfaction il se rel\u00e2chait graduellement de la crispation\np\u00e9nible qu'il avait d\u00e9ploy\u00e9e d'abord, et, tournant sur lui-m\u00eame,\ndirigeait son visage vers le point d'o\u00f9 il \u00e9tait parti! Quel jovial\nsourire se jouait sur ses l\u00e8vres quand il avait accompli sa distance,\nquel empressement pour reprendre son rang et pour courir apr\u00e8s son\npr\u00e9d\u00e9cesseur! Ses gu\u00eatres noires trottaient gaiement \u00e0 travers la neige;\nses yeux rayonnaient de gaiet\u00e9 derri\u00e8re ses lunettes, et quand il \u00e9tait\nrenvers\u00e9 (ce qui arrivait en moyenne une fois sur trois tours), quel\nplaisir de lui voir ramasser vivement son chapeau, ses gants, son\nmouchoir, et reprendre sa place avec une physionomie enflamm\u00e9e, avec une\nardeur, un enthousiasme que rien ne pouvait abattre!\n\nLe jeu s'\u00e9chauffait de plus en plus; on glissait de plus en plus vite;\non riait de plus en plus fort, quand un violent craquement se fit\nentendre. On se pr\u00e9cipite vers le bord; les dames jettent un cri\nd'horreur; M. Tupman y r\u00e9pond par un g\u00e9missement; un vaste morceau de\nglace avait disparu; l'eau bouillonnait par-dessus; le chapeau, les\ngants, le mouchoir de M. Pickwick flottaient sur la surface: c'\u00e9tait\ntout ce qui restait de ce grand homme.\n\nLa crainte, le d\u00e9sespoir \u00e9taient grav\u00e9s sur tous les visages. Les hommes\np\u00e2lissaient, les femmes se trouvaient mal; M. Snodgrass et M. Winkle\ns'\u00e9taient saisis convulsivement par la main, et contemplaient d'un oeil\neffar\u00e9 la place o\u00f9 avait disparu leur ma\u00eetre; tandis que M. Tupman,\nemport\u00e9 par le d\u00e9sir de secourir efficacement son ami, et de faire\nconna\u00eetre, aussi clairement que possible, aux personnes qui pourraient\nse trouver aux environs, la nature de la catastrophe, courait \u00e0 travers\nchamps comme un poss\u00e9d\u00e9, en criant de toute la force de ses poumons: \u00abAu\nfeu! au feu! au feu!\u00bb\n\nCependant le vieux Wardle et Sam Weller s'approchaient avec prudence de\nl'ouverture; M. Benjamin Allen et M. Bob Sawyer se consultaient sur la\nconvenance qu'il y aurait \u00e0 saigner g\u00e9n\u00e9ralement toute la compagnie,\nafin de s'exercer la main, lorsqu'une t\u00eate et des \u00e9paules sortirent de\ndessous les flots et offrirent aux regards enchant\u00e9s des assistants les\ntraits et les lunettes de M. Pickwick.\n\n\u00abSoutenez-vous sur l'eau un instant, un seul instant, vocif\u00e9ra M.\nSnodgrass.\n\n--Oui! hurla M. Winkle, profond\u00e9ment \u00e9mu; je vous en supplie,\nsoutenez-vous sur l'eau, pour l'amour de moi!\u00bb\n\nCette adjuration n'\u00e9tait peut-\u00eatre pas fort n\u00e9cessaire; car, suivant\ntoutes les apparences, si M. Pickwick avait pu se soutenir sur l'eau, il\nn'aurait pas manqu\u00e9 de le faire pour l'amour de lui-m\u00eame.\n\n\u00abEh! vieux camarade, dit M. Wardle, sentez-vous le fond?\n\n--Oui, certainement, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick, en respirant longuement et en\npressant ses cheveux pour en faire d\u00e9couler l'eau; je suis tomb\u00e9 sur le\ndos, et je n'ai pas pu me remettre tout de suite sur mes jambes.\u00bb\n\nLa v\u00e9rit\u00e9 de cette assertion \u00e9tait corrobor\u00e9e par la cuirasse d'argile\nqui recouvrait la partie visible de l'habit de M. Pickwick; et, comme le\ngros joufflu se rappela soudainement que l'eau n'avait nulle part plus\nde quatre pieds de profondeur, des prodiges de valeur furent accomplis\npour d\u00e9livrer le philosophe embourb\u00e9. Apr\u00e8s bien des craquements, des\n\u00e9claboussures, des plongeons, M. Pickwick fut, \u00e0 la fin, tir\u00e9 de sa\nd\u00e9sagr\u00e9able situation et se retrouva sur la terre ferme.\n\n\u00abOh, mon Dieu! il va attraper un rhume \u00e9pouvantable, s'\u00e9cria \u00c9mily.\n\n--Pauvre ch\u00e8re \u00e2me! dit Arabelle. Enveloppez-vous dans mon ch\u00e2le, M.\nPickwick.\n\n--C'est ce qu'il y a de mieux \u00e0 faire, ajouta M. Wardle. Ensuite, courez\n\u00e0 la maison, aussi vite que vous pourrez, et fourrez-vous dans votre lit\nsur-le-champ.\u00bb\n\nUne douzaine de ch\u00e2les furent offerts \u00e0 l'instant, et M. Pickwick, ayant\n\u00e9t\u00e9 emmaillot\u00e9 dans trois ou quatre des plus chauds, s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a vers la\nmaison, sous la conduite de Sam, offrant \u00e0 ceux qui le rencontraient le\nsingulier ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne d'un homme \u00e2g\u00e9, ruisselant d'eau, la t\u00eate nue, les\nbras attach\u00e9s au corps par un ch\u00e2le f\u00e9minin et trottant sans aucun but\napparent avec une vitesse de six bons milles \u00e0 l'heure.\n\nMais, dans une circonstance aussi grave, M. Pickwick ne se souciait\ngu\u00e8re des apparences. Soutenu par Sam, il continua \u00e0 courir de toutes\nses forces jusqu'\u00e0 la porte de Manoir-Ferme, o\u00f9 M. Tupman, arriv\u00e9\nquelques minutes avant lui, avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 r\u00e9pandu la terreur. La vieille\nlady, saisie de palpitations violentes, se d\u00e9solait, dans l'in\u00e9branlable\nconviction que le feu avait pris \u00e0 la chemin\u00e9e de la cuisine: genre de\ncalamit\u00e9 qui se pr\u00e9sentait toujours \u00e0 son esprit sous les plus affreuses\ncouleurs, lorsqu'elle voyait autour d'elle la moindre agitation.\n\nM. Pickwick, sans perdre un instant, se coucha bien chaudement dans son\nlit. Sam alluma dans sa chambre un feu d'enfer et lui apporta son d\u00eener.\nBient\u00f4t apr\u00e8s, on monta un bol de punch, et il y eut des r\u00e9jouissances\ng\u00e9n\u00e9rales en l'honneur de son heureux sauvetage. Le vieux Wardle ne\nvoulut pas lui permettre de se lever; mais son lit fut promu aux\nfonctions de _fauteuil_ de la pr\u00e9sidence, et M. Pickwick, nomm\u00e9\npr\u00e9sident de la table. Un second, un troisi\u00e8me bol furent apport\u00e9s, et\nle lendemain matin, quand le pr\u00e9sident s'\u00e9veilla, il ne ressentait aucun\nsympt\u00f4me de rhumatisme. Ce qui prouve, comme le fit tr\u00e8s-bien remarquer\nM. Bob Sawyer, qu'il n'y a rien de tel que le punch chaud dans des cas\nsemblables, et que, si quelquefois le punch n'a pas produit l'effet\nd\u00e9sir\u00e9, c'est simplement parce que le patient \u00e9tait tomb\u00e9 dans l'erreur\nvulgaire de n'en pas prendre suffisamment.\n\nLe lendemain matin fut dissoute la joyeuse association que les f\u00eates de\nNo\u00ebl avaient form\u00e9e. Les coll\u00e9giens qui se quittent en sent enchant\u00e9s;\nmais plus tard, dans la vie du monde, ces s\u00e9parations deviennent\np\u00e9nibles. La mort, l'int\u00e9r\u00eat, les changements de fortune divisent chaque\njour d'heureux groupes, dont les membres, dispers\u00e9s au loin, ne se\nrejoignent jamais. Nous ne voulons pas faire entendre que cela soit\nexactement le cas dans cette circonstance; nous d\u00e9sirons seulement\ninformer nos lecteurs que les h\u00f4tes de M. Wardle se s\u00e9par\u00e8rent pour le\nmoment et s'en furent chacun chez soi. M. Pickwick et ses amis prirent\nde nouveau leur place \u00e0 l'ext\u00e9rieur de la voiture de Muggleton, pendant\nque miss Arabelle Allen, sous la conduite de son fr\u00e8re Benjamin et de\nl'ami intime dudit fr\u00e8re, se rendait \u00e0 sa destination. Nous sommes\noblig\u00e9 de confesser que nous ne pourrions pas dire quelle \u00e9tait cette\ndestination; mais nous avons quelques raisons de croire que M. Winkle ne\nl'ignorait pas.\n\nQuoi qu'il en soit, avant de quitter M. Pickwick, les jeunes \u00e9tudiants\nle prirent \u00e0 part d'un air myst\u00e9rieux.\n\n\u00abDites donc, vieux, o\u00f9 se trouve votre perchoir?\u00bb lui demanda M. Bob\nSawyer, en introduisant son index entre deux des c\u00f4tes du philosophe,\nd\u00e9montrant \u00e0 la fois, par cette action, sa gaiet\u00e9 naturelle et ses\nconnaissances ost\u00e9ologiques.\n\nM. Pickwick r\u00e9pondit qu'il perchait, pour le moment, \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel du\n_George et Vautour_.\n\n\u00abVous devriez bien venir me voir, reprit M. Bob Sawyer.\n\n--Avec le plus grand plaisir, reprit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Voici mon adresse, dit Bob, en tirant une carte. _Lant-street,\nBorough_. C'est commode pour moi, comme vous voyez, tout aupr\u00e8s de\n_Guy's hospital_. Quand vous avez pass\u00e9 l'\u00e9glise Saint-George, vous\ntournez \u00e0 droite.\n\n--Je vois cela d'ici.\n\n--Venez de jeudi en quinze, et amenez ces autres individus avec nous.\nJ'aurai quelques \u00e9tudiants en m\u00e9decine ce soir-l\u00e0; Ben y sera, et nous\nn'engendrerons pas de m\u00e9lancolie.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick exprima la satisfaction qu'il \u00e9prouverait \u00e0 rencontrer les\n\u00e9tudiants en m\u00e9decine; et, des poign\u00e9es de main ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9chang\u00e9es, nos\nnouveaux amis se s\u00e9par\u00e8rent.\n\nNous sentons qu'en cet endroit nous sommes expos\u00e9 \u00e0 ce qu'on nous\ndemande si M. Winkle chuchotait, pendant ce temps, avec Arabelle Allen,\net, dans ce cas, ce qu'il lui disait; et, en outre, si M. Snodgrass\ncausait \u00e0 part avec \u00c9mily Wardle, et, dans ce cas, quel \u00e9tait le sujet\nde leur conversation. Nous r\u00e9pondrons \u00e0 ceci que, quoi qu'ils aient pu\ndire aux jeunes demoiselles en question, ils ne dirent rien du tout \u00e0 M.\nPickwick, ni \u00e0 M. Tupman, pendant vingt-quatre milles, et que, durant\ntout ce temps, ils soupir\u00e8rent toutes les trois minutes et refus\u00e8rent\nd'un air t\u00e9n\u00e9breux l'ale et l'eau-de-vie qui leur \u00e9taient offertes. Si\nnos judicieuses lectrices peuvent tirer de ces faits quelques\nconclusions satisfaisantes, nous ne nous y opposons nullement.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE II.\n\nConsacr\u00e9 tout entier \u00e0 la loi et \u00e0 ses savants interpr\u00e8tes.\n\n\nDans divers coins et recoins du Temple, se trouvent certaines chambres\nsombres et malpropres, vers lesquelles se dirigent sans cesse pendant\ntoute la matin\u00e9e, dans le temps des vacances, et, en outre, durant la\nmoiti\u00e9 de la soir\u00e9e, dans le temps des sessions, une arm\u00e9e de clercs\nd'avou\u00e9s portant d'\u00e9normes paquets de papiers sous leurs bras et dans\nleurs poches. Il y a plusieurs grades parmi les clercs: d'abord le\npremier clerc, qui a pay\u00e9 une pension, qui est avou\u00e9 en perspective,\nposs\u00e8de un compte courant chez son tailleur, re\u00e7oit des invitations de\nsoir\u00e9es, conna\u00eet une famille dans Gower-street et une autre dans\nTavistock-Square, quitte la ville aux vacances pour aller voir son p\u00e8re,\nentretient d'innombrables chevaux vivants, et est enfin l'aristocrate\ndes clercs. Il y a le clerc salari\u00e9, externe ou interne, suivant les\ncas: il consacre la majeure partie de ses trente shillings hebdomadaires\n\u00e0 orner sa personne et \u00e0 la divertir. Trois fois par semaine, au moins,\nil assiste \u00e0 moiti\u00e9 prix[1] aux repr\u00e9sentations du th\u00e9\u00e2tre d'_Adelphi_,\net fait majestueusement la d\u00e9bauche dans les tavernes qui restent\nouvertes apr\u00e8s la fermeture des spectacles; il est enfin une caricature\nmalpropre de la mode d'il y a six mois. Vient ensuite l'exp\u00e9ditionnaire,\nhomme d'un certain \u00e2ge, p\u00e8re d'une nombreuse famille: il est toujours\nr\u00e2p\u00e9 et souvent gris. Puis ce sont les saute-ruisseaux dans leur premier\nhabit; ils \u00e9prouvent un m\u00e9pris convenable pour les enfants \u00e0 l'\u00e9cole, se\ncotisent en retournant \u00e0 la maison, le soir, pour l'achat de saucissons\net de _porter_, et pensent qu'il n'y a rien de tel que de faire la vie.\nIl y a, en un mot, des vari\u00e9t\u00e9s de clercs trop nombreuses pour que nous\npuissions les \u00e9num\u00e9rer, mais tout innombrables qu'elles soient, on les\nvoit toutes, \u00e0 certaines heures r\u00e9gl\u00e9es, s'engouffrer dans les lieux\nsombres que nous venons de mentionner, ou en ressortir comme un torrent.\n\n[Footnote 1: \u00c0 une certaine heure, les places des th\u00e9\u00e2tres anglais ne se\npayent plus que moiti\u00e9 prix.]\n\nCes antres, isol\u00e9s du reste du monde, nous repr\u00e9sentent les bureaux\npublics de la justice. L\u00e0 sont lanc\u00e9es les assignations; l\u00e0 les\njugements sont sign\u00e9s; l\u00e0 les d\u00e9clarations sont remplies; l\u00e0 une\nmultitude d'autres petites machines sont ing\u00e9nieusement mises en\nmouvement pour la torture des fid\u00e8les sujets de Sa Majest\u00e9, et pour le\nprofit des hommes de loi. Ce sont, pour la plupart, des salles basses,\nsentant le renferm\u00e9, o\u00f9 d'innombrables feuilles de parchemin qui y\ntranspirent en secret depuis un si\u00e8cle, \u00e9mettent un agr\u00e9able parfum,\nauquel vient se m\u00ealer, pendant la journ\u00e9e, une odeur de moisissure, et\npendant la nuit, les exhalaisons de manteaux, de parapluies humides et\nde chandelles rances.\n\nUne quinzaine de jours apr\u00e8s le retour de M. Pickwick \u00e0 Londres, on vit\nentrer dans un de ces bureaux, vers 7 heures et demie du soir, un\nindividu dont les longs cheveux \u00e9taient scrupuleusement roul\u00e9s autour\ndes bords de son chapeau, priv\u00e9 de poil. Il avait un habit brun, avec\ndes boutons de cuivre, et son pantalon malpropre \u00e9tait si bien tir\u00e9 sur\nses bottes \u00e0 la Bl\u00fccher, que ses genoux mena\u00e7aient \u00e0 chaque instant de\nsortir de leur retraite. Il aveignit de sa poche un morceau de\nparchemin, long et \u00e9troit, sur lequel le fonctionnaire officier imprima\nun timbre noir et illisible. Ledit individu tira ensuite, d'une autre\npoche, quatre morceaux de papier de dimension semblable, contenant, avec\ndes blancs pour les noms, une copie imprim\u00e9e du parchemin. Il remplit\nles blancs, remit les cinq documents dans sa poche et s'\u00e9loigna d'un pas\npr\u00e9cipit\u00e9.\n\nL'homme \u00e0 l'habit brun, qui emportait ces documents cabalistiques,\nn'\u00e9tait autre que notre vieille connaissance M. Jackson de la maison\nDodson et Fogg, Freeman's Court, Cornhill. Mais au lieu de retourner\nvers l'\u00e9tude d'o\u00f9 il venait, il dirigea ses pas vers Sun Court, et\nentrant tout droit dans l'h\u00f4tel du _George et Vautour_, il demanda si un\ncertain M. Pickwick ne s'y trouvait pas.\n\n\u00abTom, dit la demoiselle de comptoir, appelez le domestique de M.\nPickwick.\u00bb\n\n\u00abCe n'est pas la peine, reprit M. Jackson, je viens pour affaire. Si\nvous voulez m'indiquer la chambre de M. Pickwick, je monterai moi-m\u00eame.\u00bb\n\n\u00abVotre nom, monsieur? demanda le gar\u00e7on.\n\n--Jackson,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit le clerc.\n\nLe gar\u00e7on monta pour annoncer M. Jackson, mais M. Jackson lui \u00e9pargna la\npeine de l'annoncer, en marchant sur ses talons, et en entrant dans la\nchambre avant qu'il e\u00fbt pu articuler une syllabe.\n\nCe jour-l\u00e0, M. Pickwick avait invit\u00e9 ses trois amis \u00e0 d\u00eener, et ils\n\u00e9taient tous assis autour du feu, en train de boire leur vin, lorsque M.\nJackson se pr\u00e9senta de la mani\u00e8re qui vient d'\u00eatre indiqu\u00e9e.\n\n\u00abComment vous portez-vous, monsieur,\u00bb dit-il, en faisant un signe de\nt\u00eate \u00e0 M. Pickwick.\n\nLe philosophe salua d'un air l\u00e9g\u00e8rement surpris, car la physionomie de\nM. Jackson ne s'\u00e9tait pas log\u00e9e dans sa m\u00e9moire.\n\n\u00abJe viens de chez Dodson et Fogg,\u00bb dit M. Jackson d'un ton explicatif.\n\nNotre h\u00e9ros s'\u00e9chauffa \u00e0 ce nom. \u00abMonsieur, dit-il, adressez vous \u00e0 mon\nhomme d'affaire, Perker, de _Gray's-Inn_.--Gar\u00e7on: reconduisez ce\ngentleman.\n\n--Je vous demande pardon, monsieur Pickwick, r\u00e9torqua Jackson en posant\nson chapeau par terre, d'un air d\u00e9lib\u00e9r\u00e9, et en tirant de sa poche le\nmorceau de parchemin. Vous savez, monsieur Pickwick, la citation doit\n\u00eatre signifi\u00e9e par un clerc ou un agent, parlant \u00e0 sa personne, etc.,\netc. Il faut de la prudence dans toutes les formalit\u00e9s l\u00e9gales, eh! eh!\u00bb\n\nM. Jackson appuya alors ses deux mains sur la table, et regardant \u00e0\nl'entour avec un sourire engageant et persuasif il continua ainsi:\n\u00abAllons, n'ayons pas de discussions pour si peu de chose,--qui de vous,\nmessieurs, s'appelle Snodgrass?\u00bb\n\n\u00c0 cette demande, M. Snodgrass tressaillit si visiblement qu'il n'eut\npas besoin de faire une autre r\u00e9ponse.\n\n\u00abAh! je m'en doutais, dit Jackson d'une mani\u00e8re plus affable\nqu'auparavant. J'ai un petit papier \u00e0 vous remettre, monsieur.\n\n--\u00c0 moi? s'\u00e9cria M. Snodgrass.\n\n--C'est seulement une citation, un _sub poena_ dans l'affaire Bardell et\nPickwick, \u00e0 la requ\u00eate de la plaignante, r\u00e9pliqua le clerc, en\nchoisissant un de ses morceaux de papier, et tirant un shilling de se\npoche. Nous pensons que ce sera pour le 14 f\u00e9vrier, bien que la citation\nporte la date du dix, et nous avons demand\u00e9 un jury sp\u00e9cial. Voil\u00e0 pour\nvous, monsieur Snodgrass;\u00bb et en parlant ainsi, M. Jackson pr\u00e9senta le\nparchemin devant les yeux de M. Snodgrass, et glissa dans sa main le\npapier et le shilling.\n\nM. Tupman avait consid\u00e9r\u00e9 cette op\u00e9ration avec un \u00e9tonnement silencieux.\nSoudain le clerc lui dit, en se tournant vers lui \u00e0 l'improviste:\n\n\u00abJe ne me trompe pas en disant que votre nom est Tupman, monsieur?\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman jeta un coup d'oeil \u00e0 M. Pickwick; mais n'apercevant dans ses\nyeux tout grands ouverts aucun encouragement \u00e0 nier son identit\u00e9, il\nr\u00e9pliqua:\n\n\u00abOui, monsieur, mon nom est Tupman.\n\n--Et cet autre gentleman est M. Winkle, j'imagine?\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle balbutia une r\u00e9ponse affirmative, et tous les deux furent\nalors approvisionn\u00e9s d'un morceau de papier et d'un shilling par\nl'adroit M. Jackson.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, dit-il, j'ai peur que vous ne me trouviez importun, mais\nj'ai encore besoin de quelqu'un, si vous le permettez. J'ai ici le nom\nde Samuel Weller, monsieur Pickwick.\n\n--Gar\u00e7on, dit M. Pickwick, envoyez mon domestique.\u00bb\n\nLe gar\u00e7on se retira fort \u00e9tonn\u00e9, et M. Pickwick fit signe \u00e0 Jackson de\ns'asseoir.\n\nIl y eut un silence p\u00e9nible, qui fut \u00e0 la fin rompu par l'innocent\nd\u00e9fendeur.\n\n\u00abMonsieur, dit-il, et son indignation s'accroissait en parlant, je\nsuppose que l'intention de vos patrons est de chercher \u00e0 m'incriminer\npar le t\u00e9moignage de mes propres amis?\u00bb\n\nM. Jackson frappa plusieurs fois son index sur le c\u00f4t\u00e9 gauche de son\nnez, afin d'intimer qu'il n'\u00e9tait pas l\u00e0 pour divulguer les secrets de\nla boutique, puis il r\u00e9pondit d'un air jovial:\n\n\u00abPeux pas dire.... Sais pas.\n\n--Pour quelle autre raison, monsieur, ces citations leur auraient-elles\n\u00e9t\u00e9 remises?\n\n--Votre sourici\u00e8re est tr\u00e8s-bonne, monsieur Pickwick, r\u00e9pliqua Jackson\nen secouant la t\u00eate; mais je ne donne pas dans le panneau. Il n'y a pas\nde mal \u00e0 essayer, mais il n'y a pas grand'chose \u00e0 tirer de moi.\u00bb\n\nEn parlant ainsi, M. Jackson accorda un nouveau sourire \u00e0 la compagnie;\net, appliquant son pouce gauche au bout de son nez, fit tourner avec sa\nmain droite un moulin \u00e0 caf\u00e9 imaginaire, accomplissant ainsi une\ngracieuse pantomime, fort en vogue \u00e0 cette \u00e9poque, mais par malheur\npresque oubli\u00e9e maintenant, et que l'on appelait _faire le moulin_.\n\n\u00abNon, non, monsieur Pickwick, dit-il comme conclusion. Les gens de\nPerker prendront la peine de deviner pourquoi nous avons lanc\u00e9 ces\ncitations; s'ils ne le peuvent pas, ils n'ont qu'\u00e0 attendre jusqu'\u00e0 ce\nque l'action arrive, et ils le sauront alors.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick jeta un regard de d\u00e9go\u00fbt excessif \u00e0 son malencontreux\nvisiteur, et aurait probablement accumul\u00e9 d'effroyables anath\u00e8mes sur la\nt\u00eate de MM. Dodson et Fogg, s'il n'en avait pas \u00e9t\u00e9 emp\u00each\u00e9 par\nl'arriv\u00e9e de Sam.\n\n\u00abSamuel Weller? dit M. Jackson interrogativement.\n\n--Une des plus grandes v\u00e9rit\u00e9s que vous ayez dites depuis bien\nlongtemps, r\u00e9pondit Sam d'un air fort tranquille.\n\n--Voici un _sub poena_ pour vous, monsieur Weller?\n\n--Qu'est-ce que c'est que \u00e7a, en anglais?\n\n--Voici l'original, poursuivit Jackson, sans vouloir donner d'autre\nexplication.\n\n--Lequel?\n\n--Ceci, r\u00e9pliqua Jackson en secouant le parchemin.\n\n--Ah! c'est \u00e7a l'original? Eh bien! je suis charm\u00e9 d'avoir vu\nl'original; c'est un spectacle bien agr\u00e9able et qui me r\u00e9jouit beaucoup\nl'esprit.\n\n--Et voici le shilling: c'est de la part de Dodson et Fogg.\n\n--Et c'est bien gentil de la part de Dodson et Fogg, qui me connaissent\nsi peu, de m'envoyer un cadeau. Voil\u00e0 ce que j'appelle une fi\u00e8re\npolitesse, monsieur. C'est tr\u00e8s-honorable pour eux de r\u00e9compenser comme\n\u00e7a le m\u00e9rite o\u00f9 il se trouve; m'en voil\u00e0 tout \u00e9mu.\u00bb\n\nEn parlant ainsi, Sam fit avec sa manche une petite friction sur sa\npaupi\u00e8re gauche, \u00e0 l'instar des meilleurs acteurs quand ils ex\u00e9cutent du\npath\u00e9tique bourgeois.\n\nM. Jackson paraissait quelque peu intrigu\u00e9 par les mani\u00e8res de Sam;\nmais, comme il avait remis les citations et n'avait plus rien \u00e0 dire, il\nfit la feinte de mettre le gant unique qu'il portait ordinairement dans\nsa main, pour sauver les apparences, et retourna \u00e0 son \u00e9tude rendre\ncompte de sa mission.\n\nM. Pickwick dormit peu cette nuit-l\u00e0. Sa m\u00e9moire avait \u00e9t\u00e9\nd\u00e9sagr\u00e9ablement rafra\u00eechie au sujet de l'action Bardell. Il d\u00e9jeuna de\nbonne heure le lendemain, et ordonnant \u00e0 Sam de l'accompagner, se mit en\nroute pour _Gray's Inn Square_.\n\nAu bout de Cheapside, M. Pickwick, dit en regardant derri\u00e8re lui:\n\n\u00abSam!\n\n--Monsieur, fit Sam en s'avan\u00e7ant aupr\u00e8s de son ma\u00eetre.\n\n--De quel c\u00f4t\u00e9?\n\n--Par Newgate-Street, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick ne se remit pas imm\u00e9diatement en route, mais pendant\nquelques secondes il regarda d'un air distrait le visage de Sam et\npoussa un profond soupir.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce qu'il y a, monsieur?\n\n--Ce proc\u00e8s, Sam; il doit arriver le 14 du mois prochain.\n\n--Remarquable co\u00efncidence, monsieur.\n\n--Quoi de remarquable, Sam?\n\n--Le jour de la saint Valentin[2], monsieur. Fameux jour pour juger une\nviolation de promesse de mariage.\u00bb\n\n[Footnote 2: Jour o\u00f9 un grand nombre d'amoureux et d'amoureuses\ns'adressent, sous le voile de l'anonyme, des d\u00e9clarations s\u00e9rieuses ou\nironiques.]\n\nLe sourire de Sam Weller n'\u00e9veilla aucun rayon de gaiet\u00e9 sur le visage\nde son ma\u00eetre, qui se d\u00e9tourna vivement et continua son chemin en\nsilence.\n\nDepuis quelque temps, M. Pickwick, plong\u00e9 dans une profonde m\u00e9ditation,\ntrottait en avant et Sam suivait par derri\u00e8re, avec une physionomie qui\nexprimait la plus heureuse et la plus enviable insouciance de chacun et\nde chaque chose; tout \u00e0 coup, Sam, qui \u00e9tait toujours empress\u00e9 de\ncommuniquer \u00e0 son ma\u00eetre les connaissances sp\u00e9ciales qu'il poss\u00e9dait,\nh\u00e2ta le pas jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'il f\u00fbt sur les talons de M. Pickwick, et, lui\nmontrant une maison devant laquelle ils passaient, lui dit:\n\n\u00abUne jolie boutique de charcuterie, ici, monsieur.\n\n--Oui; elle en a l'air.\n\n--Une fameuse fabrique de saucisses.\n\n--Vraiment?\n\n--Vraiment? r\u00e9p\u00e9ta Sam avec une sorte d'indignation, un peu! Mais vous\nne savez donc rien de rien, monsieur? C'est l\u00e0 qu'un respectable\nindustriel a disparu myst\u00e9rieusement il y a quatre ans.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick se retourna brusquement.\n\n\u00abEst-ce que vous voulez dire qu'il a \u00e9t\u00e9 assassin\u00e9?\n\n--Non, monsieur; mais je voudrais pouvoir le dire! C'est pire que \u00e7a,\nmonsieur. Il \u00e9tait le ma\u00eetre de cette boutique et l'inventeur d'une\nnouvelle m\u00e9canique \u00e0 vapeur, patent\u00e9e, pour fabriquer des saucisses sans\nfin. Sa machine aurait aval\u00e9 un pav\u00e9, si vous l'aviez mis aupr\u00e8s, et\nl'aurait broy\u00e9 en saucisses aussi ais\u00e9ment qu'un tendre b\u00e9b\u00e9. Il \u00e9tait\njoliment fier de sa m\u00e9canique, comme vous pensez; et, quand elle \u00e9tait\nen mouvement, il restait dans la cave pendant plusieurs heures, jusqu'\u00e0\nce qu'il devint tout m\u00e9lancolique de joie. Il aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 heureux comme\nun roi dans la possession de cette m\u00e9canique-l\u00e0 et de deux jolis enfants\npar-dessus le march\u00e9, s'il n'avait pas eu une femme qui \u00e9tait la plus\nmauvaise des mauvaises. Elle \u00e9tait toujours autour de lui \u00e0 le\ntarabuster et \u00e0 lui corner dans les oreilles, tant qu'il n'y pouvait\nplus tenir. \u00abVoyez-vous, ma ch\u00e8re, qu'il lui dit un jour, si vous\npers\u00e9v\u00e9rez dans cette sorte d'amusement, je veux \u00eatre pendu si je ne\npars pas pour l'Am\u00e9rique. Et voil\u00e0, qu'il dit.--Vous \u00eates un grand\nfeignant, qu'elle dit; et cela leur fera une belle jambe aux Am\u00e9ricains,\nsi vous y allez.\u00bb Alors elle continue \u00e0 l'agoniser pendant une\ndemi-heure, et puis elle court dans le petit parloir, derri\u00e8re la\nboutique, et elle tombe dans des attaques, et elle crie qu'il la fera\np\u00e9rir, et tout \u00e7a avec des coups de pied et des coups de poing, que \u00e7a\ndure trois heures. Pour lors, voil\u00e0 que le lendemain matin, le mari ne\nse trouve pas. Il n'avait rien pris dans la caisse; il n'avait m\u00eame pas\nmis son paletot; ainsi, il \u00e9tait clair qu'il ne s'\u00e9tait pas pay\u00e9\nl'Am\u00e9rique. Cependant il ne revient pas le jour d'apr\u00e8s, ni la semaine\nd'apr\u00e8s non plus. La bourgeoise fait imprimer des affiches, pour dire\nque, s'il revenait, elle lui pardonnerait tout. Ce qui \u00e9tait fort\nlib\u00e9ral de sa part, puisqu'il ne lui avait rien fait au monde. Alors,\ntous les canaux sont visit\u00e9s; et, pendant deux mois apr\u00e8s, toutes les\nfois qu'on trouvait un corps mort, on le portait tout de go \u00e0 la\nboutique des saucisses; mais pas un ne r\u00e9pondait au signalement. Elle\nfit courir le bruit que son mari s'\u00e9tait sauv\u00e9, et elle continua son\ncommerce. Un samedi soir, un vieux petit gentleman, tr\u00e8s-maigre, vient\ndans la boutique, en grande col\u00e8re. \u00ab\u00cates-vous la ma\u00eetresse de cette\nboutique ici? dit-il.--Oui, qu'elle dit.--Eh bien! madame, je suis venu\npour vous avertir que ma famille et moi nous ne voulons pas \u00eatre\n\u00e9trangl\u00e9s \u00e0 cause de vous. Et plus que \u00e7a; permettez-moi de vous\nobserver, madame, que, comme vous ne mettez pas de la viande de premier\nchoix dans vos saucisses, vous pourriez bien trouver du boeuf aussi bon\nmarch\u00e9 que des boutons.--Des boutons? monsieur, dit-elle.--Des boutons,\nmadame, dit l'autre en d\u00e9ployant un morceau de papier et lui montrant\nvingt ou trente moiti\u00e9s de boutons. Voil\u00e0 un joli assaisonnement pour\ndes saucisses, madame; des boutons de culotte.--Saperlote! s'\u00e9crie la\nveuve en se trouvant mal, c'est les boutons de mon mari!\u00bb L\u00e0-dessus,\nvoila le vieux petit gentleman qui devient blanc comme du saindoux. \u00abJe\nvois ce que c'est, dit la veuve; dans un moment d'impatience, il s'est\nb\u00eatement converti en saucisses!\u00bb Et c'\u00e9tait vrai, monsieur, poursuivit\nSam en regardant en face le visage plein d'horreur de M. Pickwick,\nc'\u00e9tait vrai. Ou bien, peut-\u00eatre qu'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 pris dans la machine.\nMais, en tout cas, le petit vieux gentleman, qui avait toujours ador\u00e9\nles saucisses, se sauva de la boutique comme un fou, et on n'en a jamais\nplus entendu parler depuis!\u00bb\n\nLa relation de cette touchante trag\u00e9die domestique amena le ma\u00eetre et le\nvalet au cabinet de M. Perker. M. Lowten, tenant la porte \u00e0 moiti\u00e9\nouverte, \u00e9tait en conversation avec un homme dont l'air et les v\u00eatements\nparaissaient \u00e9galement mis\u00e9rables. Ses bottes \u00e9taient sans talons, et\nses gants sans doigts. On voyait des traces de souffrances, de\nprivations, presque de d\u00e9sespoir sur sa figure maigre et creus\u00e9e par les\nsoucis. Il avait la conscience de sa pauvret\u00e9, car il se rangea sur le\nc\u00f4t\u00e9 obscur de l'escalier, lorsque M. Pickwick approcha.\n\n\u00abC'est bien malheureux, disait l'\u00e9tranger avec un soupir.\n\n--Effectivement, r\u00e9pondit Lowten, en griffonnant son nom sur la porte,\net en l'effa\u00e7ant avec la barbe de sa plume. Voulez-vous lui faire dire\nquelque chose?\n\n--Quand pensez-vous qu'il reviendra?\n\n--Je n'en sais rien du tout, r\u00e9pliqua Lowten, en clignant de l'oeil \u00e0 M.\nPickwick, pendant que l'\u00e9tranger abaissait ses regards vers le plancher.\n\n--Ce n'est donc pas la peine de l'attendre? demanda le pauvre homme, en\nregardant d'un air d'envie dans le bureau.\n\n--Oh! non, r\u00e9torqua le clerc en se pla\u00e7ant plus exactement au centre de\nla porte. Il est bien certain qu'il ne reviendra pas cette semaine... et\nc'est bien du hasard si nous le voyons la semaine d'apr\u00e8s. Quand une\nfois Perker est hors de la ville, il ne se presse pas d'y revenir.\n\n--Hors de la ville! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, juste ciel! que c'est\nmalheureux!\n\n--Ne vous en allez pas, monsieur Pickwick, dit Lowten; J'ai une lettre\npour vous.\u00bb\n\nL'\u00e9tranger parut h\u00e9siter. Il contempla de nouveau le plancher; et le\nclerc fit un signe du coin de l'oeil \u00e0 M. Pickwick, comme pour lui faire\nentendre qu'il y avait sous jeu une excellente plaisanterie: mais, ce\nque c'\u00e9tait, le philosophe n'aurait pas pu le deviner, quand il se\nserait agi de sa vie.\n\n\u00abEntrez, monsieur Pickwick, dit Lowten. Eh bien! monsieur Watty,\nvoulez-vous me donner un message, ou bien revenir?\n\n--Priez-le de laisser un mot pour m'apprendre o\u00f9 en est mon affaire,\nr\u00e9pondit le malheureux Watty. Pour l'amour de Dieu! ne l'oubliez pas,\nmonsieur Lowten.\n\n--Non, non, je ne l'oublierai pas, r\u00e9pliqua le clerc.--Entrez, monsieur\nPickwick.--Bonjour, monsieur Watty... un joli temps pour se promener,\nn'est-ce pas?\u00bb Ayant ainsi parl\u00e9, et voyant que l'\u00e9tranger h\u00e9sitait\nencore, il fit signe \u00e0 Sam de suivre son ma\u00eetre dans l'appartement, et\nferma la porte au nez du pauvre diable.\n\n\u00abJe crois qu'on n'a jamais vu un si insupportable banqueroutier depuis\nle commencement du monde! s'\u00e9cria Lowten, en jetant sa plume sur la\ntable, avec toute la mauvaise humeur d'un homme outrag\u00e9. Il n'y a pas\nencore quatre ans que son affaire est devant la cour de la chancellerie,\net je veux \u00eatre damn\u00e9 s'il ne vient pas nous ennuyer deux fois par\nsemaine. Il fait un peu froid, pourtant, pour perdre son temps debout, \u00e0\nla porte, avec de mis\u00e9rables r\u00e2p\u00e9s comme cela.\u00bb\n\nEn prof\u00e9rant ces expressions de d\u00e9pit, Lowten attisait un feu\nremarquablement grand avec un tisonnier remarquablement petit; puis il\najouta: \u00abEntrez par ici, monsieur Pickwick. Perker _y est_: je sais\nqu'il vous recevra volontiers.\u00bb\n\n\u00abAh! mon cher monsieur, dit le petit avou\u00e9 en s'empressant de se lever,\nlorsque M. Pickwick lui fut annonc\u00e9. Et bien! mon cher monsieur,\nquelles nouvelles de votre affaire? Eh! vous avez entendu parler de nos\namis de Freeman's Court? Ils ne se sont pas endormis; je sais cela. Ah!\nce sont des gaillards bien madr\u00e9s, bien madr\u00e9s, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nEn concluant cet \u00e9loge, M. Perker prit une prise de tabac emphatique,\ncomme un tribut \u00e0 la madrerie de MM. Dodson et Fogg.\n\n\u00abCe sont de fameux coquins! dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Oui, oui, reprit le petit homme. C'est une affaire d'opinion, comme\nvous savez, et nous ne disputerons pas sur des mots. Il est tout simple\nque vous ne consid\u00e9riez pas ces choses l\u00e0 d'un point de vue\nprofessionnel. Du reste, nous avons fait tout ce qui \u00e9tait n\u00e9cessaire.\nJ'ai retenu ma\u00eetre Snubbin.\n\n--Est-ce un habile avocat? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Habile! Bon Dieu, quelle question m'adressez-vous l\u00e0, mon cher\nmonsieur; mais ma\u00eetre Snubbin est \u00e0 la t\u00eate de sa profession. Il a trois\nfois plus d'affaires que les meilleurs avocats: il est engag\u00e9 dans tous\nles proc\u00e8s de ce genre. Il ne faut pas r\u00e9p\u00e9ter cela au dehors, mais nous\ndisons, entre nous, qu'il m\u00e8ne le tribunal par le bout du nez.\u00bb\n\nLe petit homme prit une autre prise de tabac, en faisant cette\ncommunication \u00e0 M. Pickwick, et l'accompagna d'un geste myst\u00e9rieux.\n\n\u00abIls ont envoy\u00e9 des citations \u00e0 mes trois amis, dit le philosophe.\n\n--Ah! naturellement; ce sont des t\u00e9moins importants: ils vous ont vu\ndans une situation d\u00e9licate.\n\n--Mais ce n'est pas ma faute s'il lui a plu de se trouver mal! Elle\ns'est jet\u00e9e elle-m\u00eame dans mes bras.\n\n--C'est tr\u00e8s-probable, mon cher monsieur; tr\u00e8s-probable et tr\u00e8s-naturel.\nRien n'est plus naturel, mon cher monsieur; mais qu'est-ce qui le\nprouvera?\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick passa \u00e0 un autre sujet, car la question de M. Perker l'avait\nun peu d\u00e9mont\u00e9. \u00abIls ont \u00e9galement cit\u00e9 mon domestique, dit-il.\n\n--Sam?\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick r\u00e9pliqua affirmativement:\n\n\u00abNaturellement, mon cher monsieur; naturellement. Je le savais d'avance;\nj'aurais pu vous le dire, il y a un mois. Voyez-vous, mon cher monsieur,\nsi vous voulez faire vos affaires vous-m\u00eame, apr\u00e8s les avoir confi\u00e9es \u00e0\nvotre avou\u00e9, il faut en subir les cons\u00e9quences.\u00bb\n\nIci M. Perker se redressa avec un air de dignit\u00e9, et fit tomber\nquelques grains de tabac, \u00e9gar\u00e9s sur son jabot.\n\n\u00abQue veulent-ils donc prouver par son t\u00e9moignage? demanda M. Pickwick,\napr\u00e8s deux ou trois minutes de silence.\n\n--Que vous l'avez envoy\u00e9 \u00e0 la plaignante pour faire quelques affaires de\ncompromis, je suppose. Au reste, il n'y a pas beaucoup d'inconv\u00e9nient,\ncar je ne crois pas que nos adversaires puissent tirer grand'chose de\nlui.\n\n--Je ne le crois pas, dit M. Pickwick, et malgr\u00e9 sa vexation, il ne put\ns'emp\u00eacher de sourire \u00e0 la pens\u00e9e de voir Sam para\u00eetre comme t\u00e9moin.\nQuelle conduite tiendrons-nous? ajouta-t-il.\n\n--Nous n'en avons qu'une seule \u00e0 adopter, mon cher monsieur; c'est de\ncontre-examiner les t\u00e9moins, de nous fier \u00e0 l'\u00e9loquence de Snubbin, de\njeter de la poudre aux yeux des juges, et de nous en rapporter au jury.\n\n--Et si le verdict est contre moi?\u00bb\n\nM. Perker sourit, prit une tr\u00e8s-longue prise de tabac, attisa le feu,\nleva les \u00e9paules, et garda un silence expressif.\n\n\u00abVous voulez dire que dans ce cas il faudra que je paye les\ndommages-int\u00e9r\u00eats?\u00bb reprit M. Pickwick, qui avait examin\u00e9 avec un\nmaintien s\u00e9v\u00e8re cette r\u00e9ponse t\u00e9l\u00e9graphique.\n\nPerker donna au feu une autre secousse fort peu n\u00e9cessaire, en disant:\n\u00abJ'en ai peur.\n\n--Et moi, reprit M. Pickwick avec \u00e9nergie, je vous annonce ici ma\nr\u00e9solution inalt\u00e9rable de ne payer aucun dommage quelconque, aucun,\nPerker. Pas une guin\u00e9e, pas un penny de mon argent ne s'engouffrera dans\nles poches de Dodson et Fogg. Telle est ma d\u00e9termination r\u00e9fl\u00e9chie,\nirr\u00e9vocable. Et en parlant ainsi, M. Pickwick d\u00e9chargea sur la table qui\n\u00e9tait aupr\u00e8s de lui un violent coup de poing, pour confirmer\nl'irr\u00e9vocabilit\u00e9 de ses intentions.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, mon cher monsieur; tr\u00e8s-bien: vous savez mieux que personne\nce que vous avez \u00e0 faire.\n\n--Sans aucun doute, reprit notre h\u00e9ros avec vivacit\u00e9. O\u00f9 demeure ma\u00eetre\nSnubbin?\n\n--Dans _Old-Square, Lincoln's Inn_.\n\n--Je d\u00e9sirerais le voir.\n\n--Voir ma\u00eetre Snubbin! mon cher monsieur, s'\u00e9cria M. Perker, dans le\nplus grand \u00e9tonnement. Poh! Poh! impossible! Voir ma\u00eetre Snubbin! Dieu\nvous b\u00e9nisse, mon cher monsieur, on n'a jamais entendu parler d'une\nchose semblable. Cela ne peut absolument pas se faire, \u00e0 moins d'avoir\npay\u00e9 d'avance des honoraires de consultation, et d'avoir obtenu un\nrendez-vous.\n\nMalgr\u00e9 tout cela, M. Pickwick avait d\u00e9cid\u00e9, non-seulement que cela\npouvait se faire, mais que cela se ferait; et, en cons\u00e9quence, dix\nminutes apr\u00e8s avoir re\u00e7u l'assurance que la chose \u00e9tait impossible, il\nfut conduit par son avou\u00e9 dans le cabinet ext\u00e9rieur de l'illustre ma\u00eetre\nSnubbin.\n\nC'\u00e9tait une pi\u00e8ce assez grande, mais sans tapis. Aupr\u00e8s du feu \u00e9tait une\ntable couverte d'une serge, qui depuis longtemps avait perdu toute\npr\u00e9tention \u00e0 son ancienne couleur verte, et qui, gr\u00e2ces \u00e0 l'\u00e2ge et \u00e0 la\npoussi\u00e8re, \u00e9tait graduellement devenue grise, except\u00e9 dans les endroits\nnombreux o\u00f9 elle \u00e9tait noircie d'encre. On voyait sur la table une\n\u00e9norme quantit\u00e9 de petits paquets de papier, attach\u00e9s avec de la ficelle\nrouge; et, derri\u00e8re la table, un clerc assez \u00e2g\u00e9, dont l'apparence\nsoign\u00e9e et la pesante cha\u00eene d'or accusaient clairement la client\u00e8le\n\u00e9tendue et lucrative de ma\u00eetre Snubbin.\n\n\u00abLe patron est-il dans son cabinet, monsieur Mallard, demanda Perker au\nvieux clerc, en lui offrant sa tabati\u00e8re, avec toute la courtoisie\nimaginable.\n\n--Oui, mais il est trop occup\u00e9. Voyez-vous toutes ces affaires? Il n'a\npu encore donner d'opinion sur aucune d'elles, et cependant les\nhonoraires d'exp\u00e9dition sont pay\u00e9s pour toutes.\u00bb\n\nLe clerc sourit en disant ceci, et respira sa prise de tabac avec une\nsensualit\u00e9 qui semblait \u00eatre compos\u00e9e de go\u00fbt pour le tabac et d'amour\npour les honoraires.\n\n\u00ab\u00c7a ressemble \u00e0 de la client\u00e8le, cela, dit Perker.\n\n--Oui, r\u00e9pondit le clerc, en offrant \u00e0 son tour sa bo\u00eete, avec la plus\ngrande cordialit\u00e9; et le meilleur de l'affaire c'est que personne au\nmonde, except\u00e9 moi, ne peut lire l'\u00e9criture du patron. Si bien que,\nquand il a donn\u00e9 son opinion, on est oblig\u00e9 d'attendre que je l'aie\ncopi\u00e9e, h\u00e9! h\u00e9! h\u00e9!\n\n--Ce qui profite \u00e0 quelqu'un aussi bien qu'\u00e0 ma\u00eetre Snubbin, et\ncontribue \u00e0 vider la bourse du client, ha! ha! ha!\u00bb\n\n\u00c0 cette observation, le clerc recommen\u00e7a \u00e0 rire; non pas d'un rire\nbruyant et ouvert, mais d'un ricanement silencieux, int\u00e9rieur, qui\nfaisait mal \u00e0 M. Pickwick. Quand un homme saigne int\u00e9rieurement, c'est\nune chose fort dangereuse pour lui; mais quand il rit int\u00e9rieurement,\ncela ne pr\u00e9sage rien de bon pour les autres.\n\n\u00abEst-ce que vous n'avez pas fait la petite note des honoraires que je\nvous dois? reprit Perker.\n\n--Non; pas encore.\n\n--Faites-la donc, je vous en prie. Je vous enverrai un mandat. Mais vous\n\u00eates trop occup\u00e9 \u00e0 empocher l'argent comptant pour penser \u00e0 vos\nd\u00e9biteurs, h\u00e9! h\u00e9! h\u00e9!\u00bb\n\nCette plaisanterie parut chatouiller agr\u00e9ablement le clerc, et il se\nr\u00e9gala sur nouveaux frais de son ricanement \u00e9go\u00efste.\n\n\u00abMaintenant M. Mallard, mon cher ami, dit M. Perker en recouvrant tout\nd'un coup sa gravit\u00e9, et en tirant par le revers de son habit le grand\nclerc du grand avocat, dans un coin de la chambre, il faut que vous\npersuadiez au patron de me recevoir avec mon client que voil\u00e0.\n\n--Allons! allons! en voil\u00e0 une bonne! voir ma\u00eetre Snubbin? C'est par\ntrop absurde!\u00bb\n\nMalgr\u00e9 l'absurdit\u00e9 de la proposition, le clerc se laissa doucement\nemmener hors de l'ou\u00efe de M. Pickwick, puis apr\u00e8s quelques\nchuchotements, il disparut dans le sanctuaire du luminaire de la\njustice. Il en revint bient\u00f4t sur la pointe du pied et informa M. Perker\net M. Pickwick qu'il avait d\u00e9cid\u00e9 ma\u00eetre Snubbin \u00e0 les admettre\nsur-le-champ, en violation de toutes les r\u00e8gles \u00e9tablies.\n\nMa\u00eetre Snubbin, suivant la phrase re\u00e7ue, pouvait avoir une cinquantaine\nd'ann\u00e9es. C'\u00e9tait un de ces individus p\u00e2les, maigres, dess\u00e9ch\u00e9s, dont la\nfigure ressemble \u00e0 une lanterne de corne. Il avait des yeux ronds,\nsaillants, ternes comme on en rencontre ordinairement dans la t\u00eate des\ngens qui se sont appliqu\u00e9s pendant de longues ann\u00e9es \u00e0 de laborieuses et\nmonotones \u00e9tudes; des yeux qui l'auraient fait reconna\u00eetre pour myope\nquand m\u00eame on n'aurait pas vu le lorgnon qui se dandinait sur sa\npoitrine, au bout d'un large ruban noir. Ses cheveux \u00e9taient rares et\ngr\u00eales, ce qu'on pouvait attribuer en partie \u00e0 ce qu'il n'avait jamais\nsacrifi\u00e9 beaucoup de temps \u00e0 leur arrangement, mais surtout \u00e0 ce qu'il\navait port\u00e9 pendant vingt-cinq ans la perruque l\u00e9gale, que l'on voyait\nderri\u00e8re lui, sur une t\u00eate \u00e0 perruque. Les traces de poudre qui\nsouillaient son collet, la cravate de batiste mal blanchie et plus mal\nattach\u00e9e, qui entourait son cou, indiquaient que, depuis qu'il avait\nquitt\u00e9 la cour, il n'avait pas eu le temps de faire le moindre\nchangement dans sa toilette; et l'air malpropre du reste de son costume,\ndonnait lieu de croire qu'il aurait pu avoir tout le temps d\u00e9sirable,\nsans que sa tournure en f\u00fbt am\u00e9lior\u00e9e. Des livres de droit, des\nmonceaux de papiers, des lettres ouvertes, \u00e9taient r\u00e9pandus sur la\ntable, sans aucune apparence d'ordre. L'ameublement \u00e9tait vieux et\nd\u00e9labr\u00e9, les portes de la biblioth\u00e8que semblaient vermoulues; \u00e0 chaque\npas la poussi\u00e8re s'\u00e9levait en petits nuages du tapis r\u00e2p\u00e9; les rideaux\n\u00e9taient jaunis par l'\u00e2ge et par la fum\u00e9e, et l'\u00e9tat de toutes choses,\ndans le cabinet, prouvait, clair comme le jour, que ma\u00eetre Snubbin \u00e9tait\ntrop absorb\u00e9 par sa profession pour faire attention \u00e0 ses aises.\n\nL'illustre avocat s'occupait \u00e0 \u00e9crire, lorsque ses clients entr\u00e8rent; il\nsalua d'un air distrait, quand M. Pickwick lui fut pr\u00e9sent\u00e9 par son\navou\u00e9, fit signe \u00e0 ses visiteurs de s'asseoir, pla\u00e7a soigneusement sa\nplume dans son encrier, croisa sa jambe gauche sur sa jambe droite, et\nattendit qu'on lui adress\u00e2t la parole.\n\n\u00abMa\u00eetre Snubbin, dit M. Perker, M. Pickwick est le d\u00e9fendeur dans\nBardell et Pickwick.\n\n--Est-ce que je suis retenu pour cette affaire-l\u00e0?\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nL'avocat inclina la t\u00eate, et attendit une autre communication.\n\n\u00abMa\u00eetre Snubbin, reprit le petit avou\u00e9, M. Pickwick avait le plus vif\nd\u00e9sir de vous voir, avant que vous entrepreniez sa cause, pour vous\nassurer qu'il n'y a aucun fondement, aucun pr\u00e9texte \u00e0 l'action intent\u00e9e\ncontre lui, et pour vous affirmer qu'il ne para\u00eetrait pas devant la\ncour, si sa conscience n'\u00e9tait pas compl\u00e8tement tranquille en r\u00e9sistant\naux demandes de la plaignante.--Ai-je bien exprim\u00e9 votre pens\u00e9e, mon\ncher monsieur? continua le petit homme en se tournant vers M. Pickwick.\n\n--Parfaitement.\u00bb\n\nMa\u00eetre Snubbin d\u00e9veloppa son lorgnon, l'\u00e9leva \u00e0 la hauteur de ses yeux,\net apr\u00e8s avoir consid\u00e9r\u00e9 notre h\u00e9ros pendant quelques secondes, avec une\ngrande curiosit\u00e9, se tourna vers M. Perker, et lui dit en souriant\nl\u00e9g\u00e8rement:\n\n\u00abLa cause de M. Pickwick est-elle bonne?\u00bb\n\nL'avou\u00e9 leva les \u00e9paules.\n\n\u00abVous proposez-vous d'appeler des t\u00e9moins?\n\n--Non, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nLe sourire de l'avocat se dessina de plus en plus; il dandina sa jambe\navec une violence redoubl\u00e9e, et se rejetant en arri\u00e8re dans son\nfauteuil, il toussa dubitativement.\n\nTout l\u00e9gers qu'\u00e9taient ces indices des sentiments de l'avocat, ils ne\nfurent pas perdus pour M. Pickwick. Il fixa plus solidement sur son nez\nles b\u00e9sicles \u00e0 travers lesquelles il avait attentivement contempl\u00e9 les\nd\u00e9monstrations que l'homme de loi avait laiss\u00e9 \u00e9chapper, puis il lui\ndit, avec une grande \u00e9nergie, et en d\u00e9pit des clins d'oeil et des\nfroncements de sourcils de l'avou\u00e9:\n\n\u00abMon d\u00e9sir de vous \u00eatre pr\u00e9sent\u00e9 dans un semblable but, monsieur, para\u00eet\nsans doute fort extraordinaire \u00e0 une personne qui voit tant d'affaires\ndu m\u00eame genre?\u00bb\n\nL'avocat essaya de regarder gravement son feu, mais il eut beau faire,\nle sourire revint encore sur ses l\u00e8vres. M. Pickwick continua:\n\n\u00abLes gentlemen de votre profession, monsieur, voient toujours le plus\nmauvais c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la nature humaine. Toutes les discussions, toutes les\nrancunes, toutes les haines, se produisent devant vous. Vous savez par\nexp\u00e9rience jusqu'\u00e0 quel point les jur\u00e9s se laissent prendre par la mise\nen sc\u00e8ne, et naturellement vous attribuez aux autres le d\u00e9sir\nd'employer, dans un but d'int\u00e9r\u00eat et de d\u00e9ception, le moyen dont vous\nconnaissez si bien la valeur, parce que vous l'employez constamment dans\nl'intention louable et honorable de faire tout ce qui est possible en\nfaveur de vos clients. Je crois qu'il faut attribuer \u00e0 cette cause\nl'opinion vulgaire mais g\u00e9n\u00e9rale, que vous \u00eates, comme corps, froids,\nsoup\u00e7onneux, \u00e9go\u00efstes. Je sais donc fort bien, monsieur, tout le\nd\u00e9savantage qu'il y a \u00e0 vous faire une semblable d\u00e9claration, dans la\ncirconstance o\u00f9 je me trouve. N\u00e9anmoins, comme vous l'a dit mon ami, M.\nPerker, je suis venu ici pour vous d\u00e9clarer positivement que je suis\ninnocent de l'action qu'on m'impute; et quoique je connaisse\nparfaitement l'inestimable valeur de votre assistance, je vous demande\nla permission d'ajouter que je renoncerais \u00e0 me servir de votre talent,\nsi vous n'\u00e9tiez pas absolument convaincu de ma sinc\u00e9rit\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nLongtemps avant la fin de ce discours (qui, nous devons le dire, \u00e9tait\nd'une nature fort prolixe pour M. Pickwick), l'avocat \u00e9tait retomb\u00e9 dans\nses distractions. Cependant, au bout de quelques minutes de silence et\napr\u00e8s avoir repris sa plume, il parut se ressouvenir de la pr\u00e9sence de\nson client, et levant les yeux de dessus son papier, il dit d'un ton\nassez brusque:\n\n\u00abQui est-ce qui est avec moi dans cette cause?\n\n--M. Phunky, r\u00e9pliqua l'avou\u00e9.\n\n--Phunky? Phunky? Je n'ai jamais entendu ce nom-l\u00e0. C'est donc un jeune\nhomme?\n\n--Oui, c'est un tr\u00e8s-jeune homme. Il n'y a que quelques semaines qu'il a\nplaid\u00e9 sa premi\u00e8re cause, il n'y a pas encore huit ans qu'il est au\nbarreau.\n\n--Oh! c'est ce que je pensais, reprit ma\u00eetre Snubbin, avec cet accent de\ncommis\u00e9ration que l'on emploie dans le monde pour parler d'un pauvre\npetit enfant sans appui.--M. Mallard, envoyez chez monsieur...\nmonsieur....\n\n--Phunky, Holborn-Court, suppl\u00e9a M. Perker\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien. Faites-lui dire, je vous prie, de venir ici un instant.\u00bb\n\nM. Mallard partit pour ex\u00e9cuter sa commission, et ma\u00eetre Snubbin retomba\ndans son abstraction, jusqu'au moment o\u00f9 M. Phunky fut introduit.\n\nM. Phunky \u00e9tait un homme d'un \u00e2ge m\u00fbr, quoique un avocat en bourgeon. Il\navait des mani\u00e8res timides, embarrass\u00e9es, et en parlant, il h\u00e9sitait\np\u00e9niblement. Cependant ce d\u00e9faut ne semblait pas lui \u00eatre naturel, mais\nparaissait provenir de la conscience qu'il avait des obstacles que lui\nopposait son manque de fortune ou de protections, ou peut-\u00eatre bien de\nsavoir faire. Il \u00e9tait intimid\u00e9 par l'avocat, et se montrait\nobs\u00e9quieusement poli pour l'avou\u00e9.\n\n\u00abJe n'ai pas encore eu le plaisir de vous voir, M. Phunky,\u00bb dit ma\u00eetre\nSnubbin avec une condescendance hautaine.\n\nM. Phunky salua. Il avait eu, pendant huit ans et plus, le plaisir de\nvoir ma\u00eetre Snubbin, et de l'envier aussi, avec toute l'envie d'un homme\npauvre.\n\n\u00abVous \u00eates avec moi dans cette cause, \u00e0 ce que j'apprends? poursuivit\nl'avocat.\u00bb\n\nSi M. Phunky avait \u00e9t\u00e9 riche, il aurait imm\u00e9diatement envoy\u00e9 chercher\nson clerc, pour savoir ce qui en \u00e9tait; s'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 habile, il aurait\nappliqu\u00e9 son index \u00e0 son front et aurait t\u00e2ch\u00e9 de se rappeler si, dans\nla multitude de ses engagements, il s'en trouvait un pour cette affaire:\nmais, comme il n'\u00e9tait ni riche ni habile (dans ce sens, du moins), il\ndevint rouge et salua.\n\n\u00abAvez-vous lu les pi\u00e8ces, M. Phunky? continua le grand avocat.\u00bb\n\nIci encore, M. Phunky aurait d\u00fb d\u00e9clarer qu'il n'en avait aucun\nsouvenir; mais comme il avait examin\u00e9 tous les papiers qui lui avaient\n\u00e9t\u00e9 remis, et comme, le jour ou la nuit, il n'avait pas pens\u00e9 \u00e0 autre\nchose depuis deux mois qu'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 retenu comme junior de ma\u00eetre\nSnubbin, il devint encore plus rouge, et salua sur nouveaux frais.\n\n\u00abVoici M. Pickwick, reprit l'avocat en agitant sa plume dans la\ndirection de l'endroit o\u00f9 notre philosophe se tenait debout.\n\nM. Phunky salua M. Pickwick avec toute la r\u00e9v\u00e9rence qu'inspire un\npremier client, et ensuite inclina la t\u00eate du c\u00f4t\u00e9 de son chef.\n\n\u00abVous pourriez emmener M. Pickwick, dit ma\u00eetre Snubbin, et... et... et\n\u00e9couter tout ce que M. Pickwick voudra vous communiquer. Apr\u00e8s cela,\nnous aurons une consultation, naturellement.\u00bb\n\nAyant ainsi donn\u00e9 \u00e0 entendre qu'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9rang\u00e9 suffisamment,\nma\u00eetre Snubbin qui \u00e9tait devenu de plus en plus distrait, appliqua son\nlorgnon \u00e0 ses yeux, pendant un instant, salua l\u00e9g\u00e8rement, et s'enfon\u00e7a\nplus profond\u00e9ment dans l'affaire qu'il avait devant lui. C'\u00e9tait une\nprodigieuse affaire; une interminable proc\u00e9dure occasionn\u00e9e par le fait\nd'un individu, d\u00e9c\u00e9d\u00e9 depuis environ un si\u00e8cle, et qui avait envahi un\nsentier conduisant d'un endroit d'o\u00f9 personne n'\u00e9tait jamais venu, \u00e0 un\nautre endroit o\u00f9 personne n'\u00e9tait jamais all\u00e9!\n\nM. Phunky ne voulant jamais consentir \u00e0 passer une porte avant M.\nPickwick et son avou\u00e9, il leur fallut quelque temps avant d'arriver dans\nle square. Ils s'y promen\u00e8rent longtemps en long et en large, et le\nr\u00e9sultat de leur conf\u00e9rence fut qu'il \u00e9tait fort difficile de pr\u00e9voir si\nle verdict serait favorable ou non; que personne ne pouvait avoir la\npr\u00e9tention de pr\u00e9dire le r\u00e9sultat de l'affaire; enfin qu'on \u00e9tait fort\nheureux d'avoir pr\u00e9venu l'autre partie, en retenant ma\u00eetre Snubbin.\n\nApr\u00e8s avoir entendu diff\u00e9rents autres topiques de doute et de\nconsolation, \u00e9galement bien appropri\u00e9s \u00e0 son affaire, M. Pickwick tira\nSam du profond sommeil o\u00f9 il \u00e9tait tomb\u00e9 depuis une heure, et ayant dit\nadieu \u00e0 Lowten, retourna dans la Cit\u00e9, suivi de son fid\u00e8le domestique.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE III.\n\nO\u00f9 l'on d\u00e9crit plus compendieusement que ne l'a jamais fait aucun\njournal de la cour une soir\u00e9e de gar\u00e7on, donn\u00e9e par M. Bob Sawyer en son\ndomicile, dans le _Borough_.\n\n\nLe repos et le silence qui caract\u00e9risent Lant-street, dans le\n_Borough_[3], font couler jusqu'au fond de l'\u00e2me les tr\u00e9sors d'une douce\nm\u00e9lancolie. C'est une rue de traverse dont la monotonie est consolante\net o\u00f9 l'on voit toujours beaucoup d'\u00e9criteaux aux crois\u00e9es. Une maison,\ndans Lant-street, ne pourrait gu\u00e8re recevoir la d\u00e9nomination d'_h\u00f4tel_,\ndans la stricte acception du mot; mais, cependant, c'est un domicile\nfort souhaitable. Si quelqu'un d\u00e9sire se retirer du monde, se soustraire\n\u00e0 toutes les tentations, se pr\u00e9cautionner contre tout ce qui pourrait\nl'engager \u00e0 regarder par la fen\u00eatre, nous lui recommandons Lant-street\npar-dessus toute autre rue.\n\n[Footnote 3: Faubourg m\u00e9ridional de Londres.]\n\nDans cette heureuse retraite sont colonis\u00e9es quelques blanchisseuses de\nfin, une poign\u00e9e d'ouvriers relieurs, un ou deux recors, plusieurs\npetits employ\u00e9s des Docks, une pinc\u00e9e de couturi\u00e8res et un\nassaisonnement d'ouvriers tailleurs. La majorit\u00e9 des aborig\u00e8nes dirige\nses facult\u00e9s vers la location d'appartements garnis, ou se d\u00e9voue \u00e0 la\nsaine et lib\u00e9rale profession de la calandre. Ce qu'il y a de plus\nremarquable dans la nature morte de cette r\u00e9gion, ce sont les volets\nverts, les \u00e9criteaux de location, les plaques de cuivre sur les portes\net les poign\u00e9es de sonnettes du m\u00eame m\u00e9tal. Les principaux sp\u00e9cimens du\nr\u00e8gne animal sont les gar\u00e7ons de taverne, les marchands de petits\ng\u00e2teaux et les marchands de pommes de terre cuites. La population est\nnomade; elle dispara\u00eet habituellement \u00e0 l'approche du terme, et\ng\u00e9n\u00e9ralement pendant la nuit. Les revenus de S.M. sont rarement\nrecueillis dans cette vall\u00e9e fortun\u00e9e. Les loyers sont hypoth\u00e9tiques, et\nla distribution de l'eau est souvent interrompue faute du payement de la\nrente.\n\nAu commencement de la soir\u00e9e \u00e0 laquelle M. Pickwick avait \u00e9t\u00e9 invit\u00e9\npar M. Bob Sawyer, ce jeune praticien et son ami, M. Ben Allen,\ns'\u00e9talaient aux deux coins de la chemin\u00e9e, au premier \u00e9tage d'une des\nmaisons de la rue que nous venons de d\u00e9crire. Les pr\u00e9paratifs de\nr\u00e9ception paraissaient complets. Les parapluies avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 retir\u00e9s du\npassage et entass\u00e9s derri\u00e8re la porte de l'arri\u00e8re-parloir; la servante\nde la propri\u00e9taire avait \u00f4t\u00e9 son bonnet et son ch\u00e2le de dessus la rampe\nde l'escalier, o\u00f9 ils \u00e9taient habituellement d\u00e9pos\u00e9s. Il ne restait que\ndeux paires de socques sur le paillasson, derri\u00e8re la porte de la rue;\nenfin, une chandelle de cuisine, dont la m\u00e8che \u00e9tait fort longue,\nbr\u00fblait gaiement sur le bord de la fen\u00eatre de l'escalier. M. Bob Sawyer\navait achet\u00e9 lui-m\u00eame les spiritueux dans un caveau de High-street, et\navait pr\u00e9c\u00e9d\u00e9 jusqu'\u00e0 son domicile celui qui les portait, pour emp\u00eacher\nla possibilit\u00e9 d'une erreur. Le punch \u00e9tait d\u00e9j\u00e0 pr\u00e9par\u00e9 dans une\ncasserole de cuivre. Une petite table, couverte d'une vieille serge\nverte, avait \u00e9t\u00e9 amen\u00e9e du parloir pour jouer aux cartes, et les verres\nde l'\u00e9tablissement, avec ceux qu'on avait emprunt\u00e9s \u00e0 la taverne\nvoisine, garnissaient un plateau, sur le carr\u00e9.\n\nNonobstant la nature singuli\u00e8rement satisfaisante de tous ces\narrangements, un nuage obscurcissait la physionomie de M. Bob Sawyer.\nAssis \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de lui, Ben Allen regardait attentivement les charbons avec\nune expression de sympathie qui vibra m\u00e9lancoliquement dans sa voix\nlorsqu'il se prit \u00e0 dire, apr\u00e8s un long silence:\n\n\u00abC'est damnant qu'elle ait tourn\u00e9 \u00e0 l'aigre justement aujourd'hui! Elle\naurait bien d\u00fb attendre jusqu'\u00e0 demain.\n\n--C'est pure m\u00e9chancet\u00e9, pure m\u00e9chancet\u00e9! r\u00e9torqua M. Bob Sawyer avec\nv\u00e9h\u00e9mence. Elle dit que, si j'ai assez d'argent pour donner une soir\u00e9e,\nje dois en avoir assez pour payer son petit m\u00e9moire.\n\n--Depuis combien de temps court-il? demanda M. Ben Allen (par parenth\u00e8se\nun m\u00e9moire est l'engin locomotif le plus extraordinaire que le g\u00e9nie de\nl'homme ait jamais invent\u00e9: une fois en mouvement, il continue \u00e0 courir\nde soi-m\u00eame, sans jamais s'arr\u00eater, durant la vie la plus longue).\n\n--Il n'y a gu\u00e8re que trois ou quatre mois\u00bb, r\u00e9pliqua l'autre.\n\nBen Allen toussa d'un air d\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9 en contemplant fixement les barres\nde la grille. \u00c0 la fin, il ajouta:\n\n\u00ab\u00c7a sera diablement d\u00e9sagr\u00e9able si elle se met dans la t\u00eate de faire son\nsabbat quand les amis seront arriv\u00e9s, hein?\n\n--Horrible! murmura Bob Sawyer, horrible!\u00bb\n\nEn ce moment un l\u00e9ger coup se fit entendre \u00e0 la porte. M. Bob Sawyer\njeta un regard expressif \u00e0 son ami; et, lorsqu'il eut dit: \u00abEntrez!\u00bb on\nvit appara\u00eetre dans l'ouverture de la porte la t\u00eate mal peign\u00e9e d'une\nservante, dont l'apparence aurait fait peu d'honneur \u00e0 la fille d'un\nbalayeur retrait\u00e9.\n\n\u00abSauf votre respect, monsieur Sawyer, Mme Raddle d\u00e9sire vous parler.\u00bb\n\nM. Bob Sawyer n'avait pas encore m\u00e9dit\u00e9 sa r\u00e9ponse, lorsque la jeune\nfille disparut subitement, comme quelqu'un qui est violemment tir\u00e9 par\nderri\u00e8re, et en m\u00eame temps un autre coup fut frapp\u00e9 \u00e0 la porte, un coup\nsec et d\u00e9cid\u00e9, qui semblait dire: me voici; c'est moi.\n\nM. Bob Sawyer regarda son ami avec un air de mortelle appr\u00e9hension, et\ncria de nouveau: \u00abEntrez.\u00bb\n\nLa permission n'\u00e9tait nullement n\u00e9cessaire, car, avant qu'elle f\u00fbt\narticul\u00e9e, une petite femme, p\u00e2le et tremblante de col\u00e8re, s'\u00e9tait\n\u00e9lanc\u00e9e dans la chambre.\n\n\u00abM. Sawyer, dit-elle en s'effor\u00e7ant de para\u00eetre calme, voulez-vous avoir\nla bont\u00e9 de r\u00e9gler mon petit m\u00e9moire? Je vous serai bien oblig\u00e9e, parce\nque j'ai mon loyer \u00e0 payer ce soir, et que mon propri\u00e9taire est en bas\nqui attend.\u00bb\n\nIci la petite femme se frotta les mains et fixa fi\u00e8rement ses regards\nsur la muraille, par-dessus la t\u00eate de M. Bob Sawyer.\n\n\u00abJe suis excessivement f\u00e2ch\u00e9 de vous incommoder, madame Raddle, r\u00e9pondit\nBob avec d\u00e9f\u00e9rence, mais....\n\n--Oh! cela ne m'incommode pas, interrompit la petite femme, d'une voix\naigre. Je n'en avais pas absolument besoin avant le jour d'aujourd'hui;\nmais, comme cet argent-l\u00e0 va directement dans la poche du propri\u00e9taire,\nautant valait que vous le gardissiez pour moi. Vous me l'avez promis\npour aujourd'hui, monsieur Sawyer, et tous les gentlemen qui ont v\u00e9cu\nici ont toujours tenu leur parole, comme doit le faire n\u00e9cessairement\nquiconque est v\u00e9ritablement un gentleman.\u00bb\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, mistress Raddle secoua sa t\u00eate, mordit ses l\u00e8vres, se\nfrotta les mains encore plus fort, et regarda le mur plus fixement que\njamais. Il \u00e9tait clair que la vapeur s'amassait, comme le dit plus tard\nM. Bob lui-m\u00eame, dans un style d'all\u00e9gorie orientale.\n\n\u00abJe suis bien f\u00e2ch\u00e9, madame Raddle, r\u00e9pondit-il avec toute l'humilit\u00e9\nimaginable; mais le fait est que j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9sappoint\u00e9 dans la cit\u00e9\naujourd'hui.\u00bb\n\nC'est un endroit bien extraordinaire que cette cit\u00e9; nous connaissons un\nnombre \u00e9tonnant de gens qui y sont journellement d\u00e9sappoint\u00e9s.\n\n\u00abEh bien! monsieur Sawyer, dit mistress Raddle en se plantant solidement\nsur une des rosaces du tapis de Kidderminster, qu'est-ce que cela me\nfait \u00e0 moi?\n\n--Je... je suis certain, madame Raddle, r\u00e9pondit Bob en \u00e9ludant la\nderni\u00e8re question; je suis certain qu'avant le milieu de la semaine\nprochaine nous pourrons tout ajuster, et qu'ensuite nous marcherons plus\nr\u00e9guli\u00e8rement.\u00bb\n\nC'\u00e9tait l\u00e0 tout ce que voulait Mme Raddle. Elle avait escalad\u00e9\nl'appartement de l'infortun\u00e9 Bob avec tant d'envie de faire une sc\u00e8ne,\nqu'elle aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 probablement contrari\u00e9e si elle avait re\u00e7u son\nargent. En effet, elle \u00e9tait singuli\u00e8rement bien dispos\u00e9e pour une\nr\u00e9cr\u00e9ation de ce genre, car elle venait d'\u00e9changer, dans la cuisine,\navec M. Raddle, quelques compliments pr\u00e9paratoires.\n\n\u00abSupposez-vous, monsieur Sawyer, s'\u00e9cria-t-elle en \u00e9levant la voix pour\nl'\u00e9dification des voisins, supposez-vous que je garderai \u00e9ternellement\ndans ma maison un individu qui ne pense jamais \u00e0 payer son loyer, et qui\nne donne pas m\u00eame un rouge liard pour le beurre et pour le sucre de son\nd\u00e9jeuner, ni pour le lait qu'on lui ach\u00e8te \u00e0 la porte? Supposez-vous\nqu'une femme honn\u00eate et laborieuse, qui a v\u00e9cu vingt ans dans cette rue\n(dix ans sur le pav\u00e9 et neuf ans et neuf mois dans cette maison), n'a\nrien autre chose \u00e0 faire que de s'\u00e9reinter pour loger et nourrir un tas\nde paresseux qui sont toujours \u00e0 fumer, \u00e0 boire et \u00e0 fl\u00e2ner, au lieu de\ntravailler pour payer leur m\u00e9moire? Supposez-vous....\n\n--Ma bonne dame, dit M. Ben Allen d'une voix conciliante....\n\n--Ayez la bont\u00e9, monsieur, de garder vos observations pour vous-m\u00eame,\ndit mistress Raddle en comprimant soudain le rapide torrent de son\n\u00e9loquence, et en s'adressant \u00e0 l'interrupteur avec une lenteur et une\nsolennit\u00e9 imposante. Je ne pense pas, monsieur, que vous ayez aucun\ndroit de m'adresser votre conversation? Je ne pense pas vous avoir lou\u00e9\ncet appartement?\n\n--Non, certainement, r\u00e9pondit Benjamin.\n\n--Parfaitement, monsieur, r\u00e9torqua mistress Raddle avec une politesse\nhautaine; parfaitement, monsieur; et vous voudrez bien alors vous\ncontenter de briser les bras et les jambes du pauvre monde, dans les\nh\u00f4pitaux, et vous tenir \u00e0 votre place. Autrement il y aura peut-\u00eatre ici\nquelque personne qui vous y fera tenir, monsieur.\n\n--Mais vous \u00eates une femme si peu raisonnable..., dit Benjamin.\n\n--Je vous demande excuse, jeune homme, s'\u00e9cria mistress Raddle, que la\ncol\u00e8re inondait d'une sueur froide. Voulez-vous avoir la bont\u00e9 de\nr\u00e9p\u00e9ter un peu ce mot-l\u00e0?\n\n--Madame, r\u00e9pondit Benjamin, qui commen\u00e7ait \u00e0 devenir inquiet pour son\npropre compte, je n'attachais pas d'offense \u00e0 cette expression.\n\n--Je vous demande excuse, jeune homme, reprit mistress Raddle d'un ton\nencore plus imp\u00e9ratif et plus \u00e9lev\u00e9. Qui avez-vous appel\u00e9 une femme?\nEst-ce \u00e0 moi que vous adressez cette remarque-l\u00e0, monsieur?\n\n--Eh! mon Dieu!... fit Benjamin.\n\n--Je vous demande, oui ou non, si c'est \u00e0 moi que vous appliquez ce\nnom-l\u00e0, monsieur? interrompit mistress Raddle avec fureur, en ouvrant la\nporte toute grande.\n\n--Eh!... oui!... parbleu! confessa le pauvre \u00e9tudiant.\n\n--Oui, parbleu! reprit mistress Raddle en reculant graduellement jusqu'\u00e0\nla porte, et en \u00e9levant la voix \u00e0 sa plus haute clef, pour le b\u00e9n\u00e9fice\nsp\u00e9cial de M. Raddle, qui \u00e9tait dans la cuisine. En effet, chacun sait\nqu'on peut m'insulter dans ma propre maison, pendant que mon mari\nroupille en bas, sans faire plus d'attention \u00e0 moi qu'\u00e0 un caniche. Il\ndevrait rougir (ici mistress Raddle commen\u00e7a \u00e0 sangloter); il devrait\nrougir de laisser traiter sa femme comme la derni\u00e8re des derni\u00e8res, par\ndes bouchers de chair humaine qui d\u00e9shonorent le logement (autres\nsanglots). Le poltron! le sans coeur! qui laisse sa femme expos\u00e9e \u00e0\ntoutes sortes d'avanies! Voyez-vous, le capon; il a peur de monter pour\ncorriger ces bandits-l\u00e0! Il a peur de monter! Il a peur de monter!\u00bb\n\nIci mistress Raddle s'arr\u00eata pour \u00e9couter si la r\u00e9p\u00e9tition de ce d\u00e9fi\navait r\u00e9veill\u00e9 sa meilleure moiti\u00e9. Voyant qu'elle n'y pouvait r\u00e9ussir,\nelle commen\u00e7ait \u00e0 descendre l'escalier en poussant d'innombrables\nsanglots, lorsqu'un double coup de marteau retentit violemment \u00e0 la\nporte de la rue. Elle y r\u00e9pondit par des g\u00e9missements qui duraient\nencore au sixi\u00e8me coup frapp\u00e9 par le visiteur; puis, \u00e0 la fin, dans un\nacc\u00e8s irr\u00e9sistible d'agonie mentale, elle renversa tous les parapluies\net se pr\u00e9cipita dans l'arri\u00e8re-parloir en fermant la porte apr\u00e8s elle\navec un fracas \u00e9pouvantable.\n\n\u00abN'est-ce pas ici que demeure M. Sawyer? demanda M. Pickwick \u00e0 la\nservante qui lui ouvrit la porte.\n\n--Au premier, la porte en face de l'escalier, r\u00e9pondit la jeune fille en\nrentrant dans la cuisine avec sa chandelle, parfaitement convaincue\nqu'elle avait fait tout ce qu'exigeaient les circonstances.\u00bb\n\nM. Snodgrass, qui \u00e9tait entr\u00e9 le dernier, parvint, apr\u00e8s bien des\nefforts, \u00e0 fermer la porto de la rue; et les pickwickiens, ayant grimp\u00e9\nl'escalier en tr\u00e9buchant, furent re\u00e7us par Bob, qui n'avait pas os\u00e9\ndescendre au-devant d'eux, de peur d'\u00eatre assailli par Mme Raddle.\n\n\u00abComment vous portez-vous? leur dit l'\u00e9tudiant d\u00e9confit, charm\u00e9 de vous\nvoir. Prenez garde aux verres!\u00bb\n\nCet avertissement s'adressait \u00e0 M. Pickwick, qui avait pos\u00e9 son chapeau\nsur le plateau.\n\n\u00abPardon! s'\u00e9cria celui-ci; je vous demande pardon.\n\n--Il n'y a pas de mal; il n'y a pas de mal, reprit l'amphitryon. Je suis\nun peu \u00e0 l'\u00e9troit ici; mais il faut en prendre son parti quand on vient\nvoir un gar\u00e7on. Entrez donc.... Vous avez d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu ce gentleman, je\npense?\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick secoua la main de M. Benjamin Allen, et ses amis suivirent\nson exemple. Ils \u00e9taient \u00e0 peine assis lorsqu'on entendit frapper de\nnouveau un double coup \u00e0 la porte.\n\n\u00abJ'esp\u00e8re que c'est Jack Hopkins, dit Bob. Chut!... Oui, c'est lui.\nMontez, Jack, montez.\u00bb\n\nDes pas lourds retentirent sur l'escalier, et Jack Hopkins se pr\u00e9senta\nsous un gilet de velours noir, orn\u00e9 de boutons flamboyants. Il portait,\nen outre, une chemise bleue ray\u00e9e, surmont\u00e9e d'un faux-col blanc.\n\n\u00abVous arrivez bien tard, lui dit Ben.\n\n--J'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 retenu \u00e0 l'h\u00f4pital.\n\n--Y a-t-il quelque chose de nouveau!\n\n--Non, rien d'extraordinaire. Un assez bon accident, toutefois.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que c'est, monsieur? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Un homme qui est tomb\u00e9 d'un quatri\u00e8me \u00e9tage, voil\u00e0 tout. Mais c'est un\ncas superbe.\n\n--Voulez-vous dire que le patient gu\u00e9rira probablement?\n\n--Non, r\u00e9pondit le nouveau venu d'un air d'indiff\u00e9rence, j'imagine\nplut\u00f4t qu'il en mourra; mais il y aura une belle op\u00e9ration demain; quel\nspectacle magnifique si c'est Slasher qui op\u00e8re!\n\n--Vous regardez donc M. Slasher comme un bon op\u00e9rateur?\n\n--Le meilleur qui existe assur\u00e9ment. La semaine derni\u00e8re, il a\nd\u00e9sarticul\u00e9 la jambe d'un enfant, qui a mang\u00e9 cinq pommes et un morceau\nde pain d'\u00e9pice pendant l'op\u00e9ration. Mais ce n'est pas tout; deux\nminutes apr\u00e8s, le moutard a d\u00e9clar\u00e9 qu'il ne voulait pas rester l\u00e0 pour\nle roi de Prusse, et qu'il le dirait \u00e0 sa m\u00e8re si on ne commen\u00e7ait pas.\n\n--Vous m'\u00e9tonnez, s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick.\n\n--Bah! cela n'est rien; n'est-il pas vrai, Bob?\n\n--Rien du tout, r\u00e9pliqua M. Sawyer.\n\n--\u00c0 propos, Bob, reprit Hopkins en jetant vers le visage attentif de M.\nPickwick un coup d'oeil \u00e0 peine perceptible, nous avons eu un curieux\naccident la nuit derni\u00e8re. On nous a amen\u00e9 un enfant qui avait aval\u00e9 un\ncollier.\n\n--Aval\u00e9 quoi, monsieur? interrompit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Un collier. Non pas tout \u00e0 la fois, cela serait trop fort; vous ne\npourriez pas avaler cela, n'est-ce pas? Hein! monsieur Pickwick. Ha! ha!\nha!\u00bb\n\nIci M. Hopkins \u00e9clata de rire, enchant\u00e9 de sa propre plaisanterie, puis\nil continua:\n\n\u00abNon, mais voici la chose. Les parents du bambin sont tr\u00e8s-pauvres; la\nsoeur a\u00een\u00e9e ach\u00e8te un collier, un collier commun, des grosses boules de\nbois noir. L'enfant, qui aime beaucoup les joujoux, escamote le collier,\nle cache, joue avec coupe le fil et avale une boule. Il trouve que c'est\nune fameuse farce; il recommence le lendemain et avale une autre\nboule....\n\n--Juste ciel! interrompit M. Pickwick, quelle \u00e9pouvantable chose! Mais\nje vous demande pardon, monsieur; continuez.\n\n--Le lendemain, l'enfant avale deux boules. Le surlendemain, il se\nr\u00e9gale de trois, et ainsi de suite, si bien qu'en une semaine il avait\nexp\u00e9di\u00e9 tout le collier, vingt-cinq boules en tout. La soeur, qui est\nune jeune fille \u00e9conome, et qui ne d\u00e9pense gu\u00e8re d'argent en parure, se\ndess\u00e8che les lacrymales \u00e0 force de pleurer son collier; elle le cherche\npartout, mais je n'ai pas besoin de vous dire qu'elle ne le trouve nulle\npart. Quelques jours apr\u00e8s, la famille \u00e9tait \u00e0 d\u00eener... une \u00e9paule de\nmouton cuite au four avec des pommes de terre... l'enfant, qui n'avait\npas faim, jouait dans la chambra. Voil\u00e0 que l'on entend un bruit du\ndiable, comme s'il \u00e9tait tomb\u00e9 de la gr\u00eale. \u00abNe fais pas ce bruit l\u00e0,\nmon gar\u00e7on, dit le p\u00e8re.--Ce n'est pas moi, r\u00e9pond le moutard.--C'est\nbon, dit le p\u00e8re; ne le fais plus alors.\u00bb Il y eut un court silence, et\nle bruit recommen\u00e7a de plus belle. \u00abMon gar\u00e7on, dit le p\u00e8re, si tu ne\nm'\u00e9coutes pas, tu te trouveras dans ton lit en moins de rien.\u00bb En m\u00eame\ntemps, il secoue l'enfant, pour lui faire mieux comprendre la chose, et\nvoil\u00e0 qu'il entend un cliquetis terrible. \u00abDieu me damne! s'\u00e9crie-t-il,\nc'est dans le corps de mon fils! Il a le croup dans le ventre!--Non,\nnon, papa\u00bb dit le moucheron en se mettant \u00e0 pleurer. C'est le collier de\nma soeur; je l'ai aval\u00e9, papa.\u00bb Le p\u00e8re prend l'enfant dans ses bras et\ncourt avec lui \u00e0 l'h\u00f4pital; et, tout le long du chemin, les boules de\nbois retentissaient dans son estomac \u00e0 chaque secousse; et les\nboutiquiers cherchaient de tous les c\u00f4tes d'o\u00f9 venait un si dr\u00f4le de\nbruit. L'enfant est \u00e0 l'h\u00f4pital maintenant; et il fait tant de tapage en\nmarchant, qu'on a \u00e9t\u00e9 oblig\u00e9 de l'entortiller dans une houppelande de\nwatchman, de peur qu'il n'\u00e9veille les autres malades.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0 l'accident le plus extraordinaire dont j'aie jamais entendu\nparler! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, en donnant sur la table un coup de poing\nemphatique.\n\n--Oh! cela n'est rien encore, r\u00e9torqua Jack Hopkins. N'est-ce pas, Bob?\n\n--Non, certainement.\n\n--Je vous assure, monsieur, reprit Hopkins, qu'il arrive des choses\nsinguli\u00e8res dans notre profession.\n\n--Je le crois facilement, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick.\u00bb\n\nUn nouveau coup de marteau frapp\u00e9 \u00e0 la porte annon\u00e7a un gros jeune\nhomme, dont l'\u00e9norme t\u00eate \u00e9tait ombrag\u00e9e d'une perruque noire. Il\namenait avec lui un jouvenceau enga\u00een\u00e9 dans une \u00e9troite redingote, et\nqui avait une physionomie scorbutique. Ensuite arriva un gentleman dont\nla chemise \u00e9tait sem\u00e9e de petites ancres rouges. Celui-ci fut suivi de\npr\u00e8s par un p\u00e2le gar\u00e7on, d\u00e9cor\u00e9 d'une lourde cha\u00eene en chrysocale.\nL'entr\u00e9e d'un individu mani\u00e9r\u00e9, au linge parfaitement blanc, aux\nbottines de lasting, compl\u00e9ta la r\u00e9union. La petite table \u00e0 la serge\nverte fut amen\u00e9e; le premier service de punch fut apport\u00e9 dans un pot\nblanc, et les trois heures suivantes furent d\u00e9vou\u00e9es au vingt et un, \u00e0\nun demi penny la fiche. Une fois seulement cet agr\u00e9able jeu fut\ninterrompu par une l\u00e9g\u00e8re difficult\u00e9 qui s'\u00e9leva entre le jeune nomma\nscorbutique et le gentleman aux ancres rouges. \u00c0 cette occasion le\npremier exprima un br\u00fblant d\u00e9sir de tirer le nez du second, et celui qui\nportait les embl\u00e8mes de l'esp\u00e9rance d\u00e9clara qu'il n'entendait accepter,\n\u00e0 titre gratuit, aucune insolence, ni de l'irascible jeune homme \u00e0 la\ncontenance scorbutique, ni de tout autre individu, orn\u00e9 d'une t\u00eate\nhumaine.\n\nQuand la derni\u00e8re banque fut termin\u00e9e, et lorsque le compte des fiches\net des pence fut ajust\u00e9 \u00e0 la satisfaction de toutes les parties, M. Bob\nSawyer sonna pour le souper, et ces convives se comprim\u00e8rent dans les\ncoins, pendant qu'on servait le festin.\n\nCe n'\u00e9tait pas une op\u00e9ration aussi facile qu'on pourrait l'imaginer.\nD'abord il fut n\u00e9cessaire d'\u00e9veiller la fille qui \u00e9tait tomb\u00e9e endormie\nsur la table de la cuisine. Cela prit un peu de temps, et m\u00eame\nlorsqu'elle eut r\u00e9pondu \u00e0 la sonnette, un autre quart-d'heure s'\u00e9coula\navant qu'on p\u00fbt exciter chez elle une faible \u00e9tincelle de raison.\nD'autre part, l'homme \u00e0 qui on avait demand\u00e9 des hu\u00eetres, n'avait pas\nre\u00e7u l'ordre de les ouvrir; or il est tr\u00e8s-difficile d'ouvrir une hu\u00eetre\navec un couteau de table, ou avec une fourchette \u00e0 deux pointes; aussi\nn'en put-on pas tirer grand parti. Le boeuf n'offrit gu\u00e8re plus de\nressources, car il n'\u00e9tait pas assez cuit, et l'on en pouvait dire\nautant du jambon, quoiqu'il f\u00fbt de la boutique allemande du coin de la\nrue. En revanche l'on poss\u00e9dait abondance de _porter_ dans un broc\nd'\u00e9tain, et il y avait assez de fromage pour contenter tout le monde,\ncar il \u00e9tait tr\u00e8s-fort. Au total le souper fut aussi bon qu'il l'est en\ng\u00e9n\u00e9ral dans une r\u00e9union de ce genre.\n\nApr\u00e8s souper, un autre bol de punch fut plac\u00e9 sur la table, avec un\npaquet de cigares et deux bouteilles d'eau-de-vie. Mais alors il y eut\nune pause p\u00e9nible, occasionn\u00e9e par une circonstance fort commune en\npareille occasion et qui pourtant n'en est pas moins embarrassante.\n\nLe fait est que la fille \u00e9tait occup\u00e9e \u00e0 laver les verres.\nL'\u00e9tablissement s'enorgueillissait d'en poss\u00e9der quatre; ce que nous ne\nrapportons nullement comme \u00e9tant injurieux \u00e0 Mme Raddle, car il n'y a\njamais eu, jusqu'\u00e0 pr\u00e9sent, d'appartement garni o\u00f9 l'on ne f\u00fbt pas \u00e0\ncourt de verres. Ceux de l'h\u00f4tesse \u00e9taient des petits goblets, \u00e9troits\net minces; ceux qu'on avait emprunt\u00e9s l'auberge voisine \u00e9taient de\ngrands vases souffl\u00e9s, hydropiques, port\u00e9s, chacun, sur un gros pied\ngoutteux. Ceci, de soi, aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 suffisant pour avertir la compagnie\nde l'\u00e9tat r\u00e9el des affaires; mais la jeune servante _factotum_, pour\nemp\u00eacher la possibilit\u00e9 du doute \u00e0 cet \u00e9gard, s'\u00e9tait empar\u00e9e violemment\nde tous les verres, longtemps avant que la bi\u00e8re f\u00fbt finie, en d\u00e9clarant\nhautement, malgr\u00e9 les clins d'oeil et les interruptions de l'amphytrion,\nqu'elle allait les porter en bas pour les rincer.\n\nC'est, dit le proverbe, un bien mauvais vent que celui qui ne souffle\nrien de bon pour personne. L'homme mani\u00e9r\u00e9, aux bottines d'\u00e9toffe,\ns'\u00e9tait inutilement efforc\u00e9 d'accoucher d'une plaisanterie durant la\npartie. Il remarqua l'occasion et la saisit aux cheveux. \u00c0 l'instant o\u00f9\nles verres disparurent, il commen\u00e7a une longue histoire, au sujet d'une\nr\u00e9ponse singuli\u00e8rement heureuse, faite par un grand personnage\npolitique, dont il avait oubli\u00e9 le nom, \u00e0 un autre individu \u00e9galement\nnoble et illustre, dont il n'avait jamais pu v\u00e9rifier l'identit\u00e9. Il\ns'\u00e9tendit soigneusement et avec d\u00e9tail sur diverses circonstances\naccessoires, mais il ne put jamais venir \u00e0 bout, dans ce moment, de se\nrappeler la r\u00e9ponse m\u00eame, quoiqu'il e\u00fbt l'habitude de raconter cette\nanecdote, avec grand succ\u00e8s, depuis dix ann\u00e9es.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0 qui est dr\u00f4le! s'\u00e9cria l'homme mani\u00e9r\u00e9, est-ce extraordinaire\nd'oublier ainsi!\n\n--J'en suis f\u00e2ch\u00e9, dit Bob, en regardant avec anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 vers la porte, car\nil croyait avoir entendu un froissement de verres, j'en suis tr\u00e8s-f\u00e2ch\u00e9!\n\n--Et moi aussi, r\u00e9pliqua le narrateur, parce que je suis s\u00fbr que cela\nvous aurait bien amus\u00e9. Mais ne vous chagrinez pas, d'ici \u00e0 une\ndemi-heure, ou environ, j'esp\u00e8re bien parvenir \u00e0 m'en souvenir.\u00bb\n\nL'homme mani\u00e9r\u00e9 en \u00e9tait l\u00e0, lorsque les verres revinrent; et M. Bob\nSawyer qui jusqu'alors \u00e9tait rest\u00e9 comme absorb\u00e9 lui dit en souriant\ngracieusement, qu'il serait enchant\u00e9 d'entendre la fin de son histoire,\net que, telle qu'elle \u00e9tait, c'\u00e9tait la meilleure qu'il e\u00fbt jamais oui\nraconter.\n\nEn effet, la vue des verres avait replac\u00e9 notre ami Bob dans un \u00e9tat\nd'\u00e9quanimit\u00e9 qu'il n'avait pas connu depuis son entrevue avec l'h\u00f4tesse.\nSon visage s'\u00e9tait \u00e9clairci, et il commen\u00e7ait \u00e0 se sentir tout \u00e0 fait \u00e0\nson aise.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, Betsy, dit-il avec une grande suavit\u00e9, en dispersant le\npetit rassemblement de verres que la jeune fille avait concentr\u00e9 au\nmilieu de la table; maintenant, Betsy de l'eau chaude, et d\u00e9p\u00eachez-vous,\ncomme une brave fille.\u00bb\n\n--Vous ne pouvez pas avoir d'eau chaude, r\u00e9pliqua Betsy.\n\n--Pas d'eau chaude! s'\u00e9cria Bob.\n\n--Non, reprit la servante avec un hochement de t\u00eate plus n\u00e9gatif que\nn'aurait pu l'\u00eatre le langage le plus verbeux, madame a dit que vous\nc'en auriez point.\u00bb\n\nLa surprise qui se peignait sur le visage des invit\u00e9s inspira un nouveau\ncourage \u00e0 l'amphitryon.\n\n\u00abApportez de l'eau chaude sur-le-champ, sur-le-champ! dit-il avec le\ncalme du d\u00e9sespoir.\n\n--Mais je ne peux pas! Mme Raddle a \u00e9teint le feu et enferm\u00e9 la\nbouilloire avant d'aller se coucher.\n\n--Oh! c'est \u00e9gal, c'est \u00e9gal, ne vous tourmentez pas pour si peu, dit M.\nPickwick, en remarquant le tumulte des passions qui agitaient la\nphysionomie de Bob Sawyer, de l'eau froide sera tout aussi bonne.\n\n--Oui, certainement, ajouta Benjamin Allen.\n\n--Mon h\u00f4tesse est sujette \u00e0 de l\u00e9g\u00e8res attaques de d\u00e9rangement mental,\ndit Bob avec un sourire glac\u00e9. Je crains d'\u00eatre oblig\u00e9 de lui donner\ncong\u00e9.\n\n--Non, non, fit Benjamin.\n\n--Je crains d'y \u00eatre oblig\u00e9, poursuivit Bob, avec une fermet\u00e9 h\u00e9ro\u00efque.\nJe lui payerai ce que je lui dois, et je lui donnerai cong\u00e9 ce matin.\u00bb\n\nPauvre gar\u00e7on! avec quelle d\u00e9votion il souhaitait de pouvoir le faire!\n\nLes lamentables efforts de Bob pour se relever de ce dernier coup,\ncommuniqu\u00e8rent leur influence d\u00e9courageante \u00e0 la compagnie. La plupart\nde ses h\u00f4tes, pour ranimer leurs esprits, s'attach\u00e8rent avec un surcro\u00eet\nde cordialit\u00e9 au grog froid, dont les premiers effets se firent sentir\npar un renouvellement d'hostilit\u00e9s entre le jeune homme scorbutique et\nle propri\u00e9taire de la chemise pleine d'espoir. Les bellig\u00e9rants\nsignal\u00e8rent pendant quelque temps leur m\u00e9pris mutuel par une vari\u00e9t\u00e9 de\nfroncements de sourcil et de reniflements; mais \u00e0 la fin, le jeune\nscorbutique sentit qu'il \u00e9tait n\u00e9cessaire de provoquer un\n\u00e9claircissement. On va voir comment il s'y prit pour cela.\n\n\u00abSawyer, dit-il d'une voix retentissante.\n\n--Eh bien, Noddy, r\u00e9pondit l'amphitryon.\n\n--Je serais tr\u00e8s-f\u00e2ch\u00e9, Sawyer, d'occasionner le moindre d\u00e9sagr\u00e9ment \u00e0\nla table d'un ami, et surtout \u00e0 la v\u00f4tre, mon cher; mais je me crois\noblig\u00e9 de saisir cette occasion d'informer M. Gunter qu'il n'est pas un\ngentleman.\n\n--Et moi, Sawyer, reprit M. Gunter, je serais tr\u00e8s-f\u00e2ch\u00e9 d'occasionner\nle moindre vacarme dans la rue que vous habitez, mais j'ai peur d'\u00eatre\noblig\u00e9 d'alarmer les voisins, en jetant par la fen\u00eatre la personne qui\nvient de parler.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que vous entendez par l\u00e0, monsieur, demanda M. Noddy?\n\n--J'entends ce que j'ai dit, monsieur.\n\n--Je voudrais bien voir cela, monsieur!\n\n--Vous allez le sentir dans une minute, monsieur.\n\n--Je vous serai oblig\u00e9 de me donner votre carte, monsieur.\n\n--Je n'en ferai rien, monsieur.\n\n--Pourquoi pas, monsieur?\n\n--Parce que vous la placeriez \u00e0 votre glace, pour faire croire que vous\navez re\u00e7u la visite d'un gentleman.\n\n--Monsieur, un de mes amis ira vous parler demain matin.\n\n--Je vous suis tr\u00e8s-oblig\u00e9 de m'en pr\u00e9venir, monsieur; j'aurai soin de\ndire au domestique d'enfermer l'argenterie.\u00bb\n\nEn cet endroit du dialogue, les assistants s'interpos\u00e8rent et\nrepr\u00e9sent\u00e8rent aux deux parties l'inconvenance de leur conduite. En\ncons\u00e9quence, M. Noddy d\u00e9clara que son p\u00e8re \u00e9tait aussi respectable que\nle p\u00e8re de M. Gunter. \u00c0 quoi M. Gunter r\u00e9torqua que son p\u00e8re \u00e9tait tout\naussi respectable que le p\u00e8re de M. Noddy, et que, tous les jours de la\nsemaine, le fils de son p\u00e8re valait bien M. Noddy. Comme cette\nd\u00e9claration semblait pr\u00e9luder au renouvellement de la dispute, il y eut\nune autre intervention de la part de la compagnie; il s'en suivit une\nvaste quantit\u00e9 de paroles et de cris, pendant lesquels M. Noddy se\nlaissa vaincre graduellement par son \u00e9motion, et protesta qu'il avait\ntoujours profess\u00e9 pour M. Gunter un attachement et un d\u00e9vouement sans\nbornes. \u00c0 cela, M. Gunter r\u00e9pliqua, qu'au total, il pr\u00e9f\u00e9rait peut-\u00eatre\nM. Noddy \u00e0 son propre fr\u00e8re. En entendant cette d\u00e9claration, M. Noddy se\nleva avec magnanimit\u00e9, et tendit la main \u00e0 M. Gunter; M. Gunter la\nsecoua avec une ferveur touchante, et chacun convint que toute cette\ndiscussion avait \u00e9t\u00e9 conduite d'une mani\u00e8re grandement honorable pour\nles deux parties bellig\u00e9rantes.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, Bob, pour vous remettre \u00e0 flot, dit M. Jack Hopkins, je ne\ndemande pas mieux que de chanter une chanson.\u00bb Cette proposition ayant\n\u00e9t\u00e9 accueillie par des applaudissements tumultueux, Hopkins se plongea\nimm\u00e9diatement dans _God save the King_, qu'il chanta de toutes ses\nforces sur un nouvel air compos\u00e9 de la _Baie de Biscaye_ et de _Une\ngrenouille volait_. Le refrain \u00e9tait l'essence de la chanson, et comme\nchaque gentleman le chantait en choeur, sur l'air qu'il savait le mieux,\nl'effet en \u00e9tait r\u00e9ellement saisissant.\n\n\u00c0 la fin du choeur du premier couplet, M. Pickwick leva la main pour\nr\u00e9clamer l'attention des assistants, et dit, aussit\u00f4t que la\ntranquillit\u00e9 fut r\u00e9tablie:\n\n\u00abChut! je vous demande pardon, mais il me semble que j'entends appeler\nl\u00e0-haut.\u00bb\n\nUn profond silence se fit, et l'on remarqua que M. Bob Sawyer p\u00e2lissait.\n\n\u00abJe crois que j'entends encore le m\u00eame bruit, poursuivit M. Pickwick.\nAyez la bont\u00e9 d'ouvrir la porte.\u00bb\n\n\u00c0 peine la porte fut-elle ouverte que toute esp\u00e8ce de doute se trouva\ndissip\u00e9.\n\n\u00abM. Sawyer! M. Sawyer! criait une voix au second \u00e9tage.\n\n--C'est mon h\u00f4tesse, dit Bob en regardant ses invit\u00e9s avec angoisse.\nOui, Mme Raddle.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que cela signifie, M. Sawyer? r\u00e9p\u00e9ta la voix avec une aigre\nrapidit\u00e9. C'est donc pas assez de m'escroquer mon loyer et l'argent que\nj'ai pay\u00e9 pour vous de ma poche, et de me faire insulter par vos amis,\nqui ont le front de s'appeler des hommes, il faut encore que vous\nfassiez un sabbat capable d'attirer les pompiers et de faire tomber la\nmaison par les fen\u00eatres, et \u00e7a \u00e0 deux heures du matin. Renvoyez-moi ces\ngens-l\u00e0!\n\n--Vous devriez mourir de honte, ajouta la voix de M. Raddle, laquelle\nparaissait sortir de dessous quelques couvertures lointaines.\n\n--Mourir de honte, certainement, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta sa douce moiti\u00e9. Mais vous,\npoule mouill\u00e9e que vous \u00eates, pourquoi n'allez vous pas les rouler en\nbas des escaliers? Voil\u00e0 ce que vous feriez si vous \u00e9tiez un homme.\n\n--Voil\u00e0 ce que je ferais, si j'\u00e9tais une douzaine d'hommes, ma ch\u00e8re,\nr\u00e9pliqua pacifiquement le mari. Dans ce moment ici, ils ont un peu trop\nl'avantage du nombre sur moi.\n\n--Hou! le poltron, r\u00e9torqua Mme Raddle avec un m\u00e9pris supr\u00eame. M.\nSawyer, voulez-vous renvoyer ces gens, oui ou non?\n\n--Ils s'en vont, Mme Raddle, ils s'en vont, dit le mis\u00e9rable Bob. Je\ncrois que vous feriez mieux de vous en aller, ajouta-t-il \u00e0 ses amis, je\npensais effectivement que vous faisiez trop de bruit.\n\n--C'est bien malheureux, fit observer l'homme mani\u00e9r\u00e9, juste au moment\no\u00f9 nous devenions si confortables! (Le fait est qu'il venait de\nretrouver un souvenir confus de son histoire.) C'est difficile \u00e0\ndig\u00e9rer, continua-t-il en regardant autour de lui, c'est difficile \u00e0\ndig\u00e9rer, hein!\n\n--Il ne faut pas endurer cela, r\u00e9pliqua Hopkins. Chantons l'autre\ncouplet, Bob, allons!\n\n--Non, non, Jack, ne chantez pas! s'empressa de dire le triste\namphitryon. C'est une superbe chanson, mais je crois que nous ferons\nmieux d'en rester l\u00e0. Les gens de cette maison sont tr\u00e8s-violents,\nexcessivement violents.\n\n--Voulez-vous que je monte en haut et que j'entreprenne le propri\u00e9taire?\ndit Hopkins, ou que je carillonne \u00e0 la sonnette, ou que j'aille aboyer\nsur l'escalier? Disposez de moi, Bob.\n\n--Je suis bien oblig\u00e9 \u00e0 votre amiti\u00e9 et \u00e0 votre bon naturel, r\u00e9pondit le\nmalheureux Bob, mais je crois que le meilleur plan, pour \u00e9viter toute\ndispute, est de nous s\u00e9parer sur-le-champ.\n\n--Eh bien! M. Sawyer, cria la voix aig\u00fce de Mme Raddle, s'en vont-ils,\nces brigands?\n\n--Ils cherchent leurs chapeaux, Mme Raddle; ils s'en vont \u00e0 la minute.\n\n--C'est heureux! s'\u00e9cria Mme Raddle en allongeant son bonnet de nuit\npar-dessus la rampe, juste au moment o\u00f9 M. Pickwick, suivi de M. Tupman,\nsortait de la chambre. C'est heureux! Ils auraient pu se dispenser de\nvenir.\n\n--Ma ch\u00e8re dame, dit M. Pickwick en levant la t\u00eate....\n\n--Allez-vous-en, vieux farceur! r\u00e9torqua Mme Raddle, en \u00f4tant\npr\u00e9cipitamment son bonnet de nuit. Assez vieux pour \u00eatre son grand-p\u00e8re,\nle d\u00e9bauch\u00e9! Vous \u00eates le pire de tous.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick reconnut qu'il \u00e9tait inutile de protester de son innocence.\nIl descendit donc rapidement l'escalier, et fut rejoint dans la rue par\nMM. Tupman, Winkle et Snodgrass. M. Ben Allen, qui \u00e9tait affreusement\ncontrist\u00e9 par l'eau-de-vie et par l'agitation de cette sc\u00e8ne, les\naccompagna jusqu'au pont de Londres, et le long du chemin confia \u00e0 M.\nWinkle, comme \u00e0 une personne singuli\u00e8rement digne de sa confidence,\nqu'il \u00e9tait d\u00e9cid\u00e9 \u00e0 couper la gorge de tout gentleman, autre que M. Bob\nSawyer, qui oserait aspirer \u00e0 l'affection de sa soeur Arabelle. Ayant\nexprim\u00e9 sa d\u00e9termination d'ex\u00e9cuter avec une fermet\u00e9 convenable ce\np\u00e9nible devoir fraternel, il fondit en larmes, enfon\u00e7a son chapeau sur\nses yeux, et reprenant son chemin le mieux possible, il s'arr\u00eata devant\nla porte du march\u00e9 du Borough. L\u00e0, jusqu'au point du jour, il s'occupa \u00e0\nfrapper \u00e0 coups redoubl\u00e9s et \u00e0 faire alternativement de petits sommes\nsur les marches de pierre, dans la ferme persuasion qu'il \u00e9tait devant\nsa porte, et qu'il en avait oubli\u00e9 la clef.\n\nLes invit\u00e9s \u00e9tant ainsi partis, gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 la requ\u00eate assez pressante de\nMme Raddle, l'infortun\u00e9 Bob se trouva libre de m\u00e9diter sur les\n\u00e9v\u00e9nements probables du lendemain et sur les plaisirs de la soir\u00e9e.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE IV.\n\nM. Weller _senior_ prof\u00e8re quelques opinions critiques concernant les\ncompositions litt\u00e9raires; puis avec l'assistance de son fils Samuel, il\ns'acquitte d'une partie de sa dette envers le r\u00e9v\u00e9rend gentleman au nez\nrouge.\n\n\nLe 13 f\u00e9vrier, comme le savent aussi bien que nous les lecteurs de cette\nauthentique narration, \u00e9tait la veille du jour d\u00e9sign\u00e9 pour le jugement\nde l'action intent\u00e9e par Mme Bardell. Ce fut une journ\u00e9e fatigante pour\nSamuel Weller, qui fut occup\u00e9 sans interruption, depuis 9 heures du\nmatin jusqu'\u00e0 2 heures de l'apr\u00e8s-midi, inclusivement, \u00e0 voyager de\nl'h\u00f4tel de M. Pickwick au cabinet de M. Perker, et r\u00e9ciproquement; non\npas qu'il y e\u00fbt la moindre chose \u00e0 faire, car les consultations avaient\neu lieu, et l'on avait d\u00e9finitivement arr\u00eat\u00e9 la marche qui devait \u00eatre\nsuivie, mais M. Pickwick se trouvant dans un \u00e9tat d'excitation\nexcessive, persistait \u00e0 envoyer constamment \u00e0 son avou\u00e9 de petites notes\ncontenant seulement cette demande: _Cher Perker, tout marche-t-il\nbien?_--\u00c0 quoi M. Perker r\u00e9pondait invariablement: _Cher Pickwick, aussi\nbien que possible_. Le fait est, comme nous l'avons d\u00e9j\u00e0 fait entendre,\nque rien ne pouvait marcher, soit bien, soit mal, jusqu'\u00e0 l'audience du\njour subs\u00e9quent. Mais on doit passer aux gens qui vont volontairement\ndevant un tribunal, ou qui y sont tra\u00een\u00e9s forc\u00e9ment pour la premi\u00e8re\nfois, l'irritation temporaire et l'anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 dont ils sont atteints. Sam\nn'ignorait pas cela, il savait se pr\u00eater philosophiquement aux\nfaiblesses de la nature humaine; aussi ex\u00e9cuta-t-il toutes les\nfantaisies de son ma\u00eetre, avec cette bonne humeur imperturbable qui\nformait l'un des traits les plus frappants et les plus aimables de son\ncaract\u00e8re.\n\nIl s'\u00e9tait r\u00e9confort\u00e9 avec un petit d\u00eener fort agr\u00e9able, et attendait \u00e0\nla buvette la chaude mixture que M. Pickwick l'avait engag\u00e9 \u00e0 prendre\npour noyer les fatigues de ses promenades matinales, lorsqu'un jeune\ngar\u00e7on, dont la casquette \u00e0 poil, la jaquette de flanelle et toute la\ntournure, annon\u00e7aient qu'il avait la louable ambition d'atteindre un\njour la dignit\u00e9 de palefrenier, entra dans le passage du _George et\nVautour_, et regarda d'abord sur l'escalier, ensuite le long du corridor\npuis enfin dans la buvette, comme s'il avait cherch\u00e9 quelqu'un pour qui\nil aurait eu une commission.\n\nLa demoiselle de comptoir ne consid\u00e9rant pas comme improbable que ladite\ncommission e\u00fbt pour objet l'argenterie de l'\u00e9tablissement, accosta en\nces termes l'indiscret personnage:\n\n\u00abEh bien! jeune nomme, qu'est-ce que vous voulez?\n\n--Y a-t-il ici quettes un appel\u00e9 Sam? r\u00e9pondit le gamin d'une voix de\nfausset.\n\n--Et l'aut' nom? demanda Sam en se retournant.\n\n--Est-ce que j'sais, moi, r\u00e9torqua vivement le jeune gentleman \u00e0 la\ncasquette velue.\n\n--Vous avez l'air joliment fin, mon p'tit, mais \u00e0 vot' place, je ne\nferais pas trop voir ma finesse ici, on pourrait vouloir vous\nl'\u00e9mousser. Qu'est-ce que \u00e7a veut dire de venir dans un h\u00f4tel, demander\napr\u00e8s Sam, avec autant de politesse qu'un sauvage indien?\n\n--Parce qu' i' y a un vieux qui me l'a dit.\n\n--Quel vieux? demanda Sam avec un profond d\u00e9dain.\n\n--Celui-l\u00e0 qui conduit la voiture d'Ipswick et qui remise \u00e0 not'\nauberge. Il m'a dit hier matin de venir c't' apr\u00e8s-midi au _George et\nVautour_, et de demander Sam.\n\n--C'est mon auteur, ma ch\u00e8re, dit Sam, en se tournant d'un air\nexplicatif vers la demoiselle de comptoir. Dieu me b\u00e9nisse s'il sait mon\nautre nom! Eh bien! jeune chou fris\u00e9 qu'est-ce qu'il y a encore?\n\n--Y a qu'i' dit que vous veniez chez nous \u00e0 six heures, parce qu'i' veut\nvous voir, \u00e0 _l'Ours Bleu_, pr\u00e8s du march\u00e9 de Leadenhall. J'y dirai-t-i'\nque vous viendrez?\n\n--Oui, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Sam avec une exquise politesse; vous pouvez\nvous aventurer \u00e0 dire cela.\u00bb\n\nAyant re\u00e7u ces pleins pouvoirs, le jeune gentleman s'\u00e9loigna, \u00e9veillant\nen chemin tous les \u00e9chos de George Yard, par des imitations\nsinguli\u00e8rement sonores et correctes du sifflet d'un bouvier.\n\nSam obtint facilement un cong\u00e9 de M. Pickwick, car dans l'\u00e9tat\nd'excitation et de m\u00e9contentement o\u00f9 se trouvait notre philosophe, il\nn'\u00e9tait pas f\u00e2ch\u00e9 de demeurer seul. Sam se mit donc en route, longtemps\navant l'heure indiqu\u00e9e, et ayant du temps \u00e0 revendre, s'en alla tout en\nfl\u00e2nant jusqu'\u00e0 Mansion-House[4]. L\u00e0, il s'arr\u00eata et s'occupa \u00e0\ncontempler, avec un calme philosophique, les nombreux cabriolets et les\ninnombrables voitures de toute esp\u00e8ce qui stationnent aux environs, \u00e0 la\ngrande terreur et confusion des vieilles femmes du royaume uni de\nGrande-Bretagne et d'Irlande. Ayant mus\u00e9 dans cet endroit pendant une\ndemi-heure, Sam se remit en route, et se dirigea vers le march\u00e9 de\nLeadenhall, \u00e0 travers une multitude de ruelles et de cours. Comme il\ntravaillait \u00e0 perdre son temps, et s'arr\u00eatait devant presque tous les\nobjets qui frappaient sa vue, on ne doit nullement s'\u00e9tonner de ce qu'il\nfit une pose devant la demeure d'un petit papetier; mais ce qui sans\nautre explication para\u00eetrait surprenant, c'est qu'\u00e0 peine ses yeux\ns'\u00e9taient-ils arr\u00eat\u00e9s sur certaines peintures expos\u00e9es aux vitres de la\nboutique, qu'il tressaillit violemment, frappa \u00e9nergiquement de sa main\ndroite sur sa cuisse, et s'\u00e9cria avec grande v\u00e9h\u00e9mence: \u00abMa foi,\nj'aurais oubli\u00e9 de lui en envoyer un! Je ne me serais pas rappel\u00e9 que\nc'est demain la Saint-Valentin![5].\u00bb\n\n[Footnote 4: H\u00f4tel du maire de Londres ou h\u00f4tel de ville.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Tous les papetiers exposent pendant une quinzaine de jours\navant la Saint-Valentin des d\u00e9clarations enjoliv\u00e9es dont le prix varie\nde deux sols \u00e0 trois ou quatre francs, lesquelles sont destin\u00e9es aux\namoureux et amoureuses qui n'ont pas assez d'imagination pour composer\neux-m\u00eames une des \u00e9p\u00eetres qu'on exp\u00e9die par centaines de milliers en\ncette saison.]\n\nLe dessin colori\u00e9 sur lequel s'\u00e9taient arr\u00eat\u00e9s les yeux de Sam, tandis\nqu'il parlait ainsi, repr\u00e9sentait deux coeurs humains, hauts en couleur,\nfix\u00e9s ensemble par une fl\u00e8che, et qui cuisaient devant un feu ardent. Un\ncouple de cannibales, m\u00e2le et femelle, en costume moderne (le gentleman\nv\u00eatu d'un habit bleu et d'un pantalon blanc, la dame d'une pelisse rouge\navec un parasol pareil), s'avan\u00e7aient vers ce r\u00f4ti, d'un air affam\u00e9 et\npar un sentier couvert d'un sable fin. Un petit gar\u00e7on fort immodeste\n(car il n'avait pour tout v\u00eatement qu'une paire d'ailes), surveillait la\ncuisine. Dans le fond on distinguait le clocher de l'\u00e9glise de Langham;\nbref, cela repr\u00e9sentait une de ces lettres d'amour qu'on nomme un\n_Valentin_[6]. Il s'en trouvait dans la boutique un vaste assortiment,\ncomme l'annon\u00e7ait une inscription manuscrite coll\u00e9e au carreau, et le\npapetier s'engageait \u00e0 les livrer \u00e0 ses concitoyens au prix mod\u00e9r\u00e9 d'un\nshilling six pence.\n\n[Footnote 6: Parce qu'elles se terminent presque toujours par ces mots:\n_Voulez-vous de moi pour votre Valentin?_]\n\n\u00abEh bien! je n'aurais jamais song\u00e9 \u00e0 lui en envoyer un,\u00bb r\u00e9p\u00e9ta Sam; et\nen parlant ainsi, il entra tout droit dans la boutique, et demanda une\nfeuille du plus beau papier \u00e0 lettre dor\u00e9 sur tranche, ainsi qu'une\nplume taill\u00e9e dur et garantie pour ne pas cracher. Ayant obtenu\npromptement ces objets, il se remit en route d'un bon pas, fort\ndiff\u00e9rent de l'allure nonchalante qu'il avait auparavant. Arriv\u00e9 pr\u00e8s du\nmarch\u00e9 de Leadenhall, il regarda autour de lui, et vit une enseigne sur\nlaquelle le peintre avait dessin\u00e9 quelque chose qui ressemblait \u00e0 un\n\u00e9l\u00e9phant bleu de ciel, avec un nez aquilin au lieu de trompe.\nConjecturant judicieusement que c'\u00e9tait l'_Ours Bleu_ en personne, Sam\nentra dans la maison, et demanda l'auteur de ses jours.\n\n\u00abIl ne sera pas ici avant trois quarts d'heure, au plus t\u00f4t, r\u00e9pondit la\njeune lady qui dirigeait les arrangements domestiques de l'_Ours Bleu_.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, ma ch\u00e8re, r\u00e9pliqua Sam. Faites-moi donner pour neuf pence\nd'eau-de-vie, avec de l'eau chaude, et l'encrier s'il vous pla\u00eet, miss.\u00bb\n\nL'eau-de-vie et l'eau chaude avec l'encrier ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 apport\u00e9s dans le\npetit parloir, la jeune lady aplatit soigneusement le charbon de terre\npour l'emp\u00eacher de flamber, et emporta le fourgon pour \u00f4ter toute\npossibilit\u00e9 d'attiser le feu, sans avoir obtenu pr\u00e9alablement le\nconsentement et la participation de l'_Ours Bleu_. Pendant ce temps,\nSam, assis dans une stalle, pr\u00e8s du po\u00eble, tirait de sa poche la feuille\nde papier dor\u00e9 et la plume au bec dur, examinait soigneusement la fente\nde celle-ci, pour voir s'il ne s'y trouvait point de poil, \u00e9poussetait\nla table, de peur qu'il n'y e\u00fbt des miettes de pain sous son papier,\nrelevait les parements de son habit, \u00e9talait ses coudes, et se pr\u00e9parait\n\u00e0 \u00e9crire.\n\n\u00c9crire une lettre n'est pas la chose du monde la plus facile, pour les\nladies et les gentlemen qui ne se d\u00e9vouent pas habituellement \u00e0 la\nscience de la calligraphie. Dans des cas semblables, l'\u00e9crivain a\ntoujours consid\u00e9r\u00e9 comme n\u00e9cessaire d'incliner sa t\u00eate sur son bras\ngauche, de mani\u00e8re \u00e0 placer ses yeux, autant que possible, au m\u00eame\nniveau que son papier, et, tout en consid\u00e9rant de c\u00f4t\u00e9 les lettres qu'il\nconstruit, de former avec sa langue des caract\u00e8res imaginaires pour y\ncorrespondre. Or, quoique ces mouvements favorisent incontestablement la\ncomposition, ils retardent quelque peu les progr\u00e8s de l'\u00e9crivain. Aussi\ny avait-il plus d'une heure et demie que Sam s'appliquait \u00e0 \u00e9crire, en\ncaract\u00e8res menus, effa\u00e7ant avec son petit doigt les mauvaises lettres,\npour en mettre d'autres \u00e0 la place, et repassant plusieurs fois sur\ncelles-ci, afin de les rendre lisibles, lorsqu'il fut rappel\u00e9 \u00e0\nlui-m\u00eame, par l'entr\u00e9e du respectable M. Weller.\n\n\u00abEh ben! Sammy, dit le p\u00e8re.\n\n--Eh bien! Bleu de Prusse, r\u00e9pondit le fils, en d\u00e9posant sa plume. Que\ndit le dernier bulletin de la sant\u00e9 de belle-m\u00e8re?\n\n--Mme Weller a pass\u00e9 une bonne nuit; mais elle est d'une humeur joliment\nmassacrante ce matin. Sign\u00e9 z'avec serment Tony Weller, squire. Voil\u00e0 le\ndernier bulletin, Sammy, r\u00e9pliqua M. Weller en d\u00e9nouant son ch\u00e2le.\n\n--\u00c7a ne va donc pas mieux?\n\n--Tous les sympt\u00f4mes agrav\u00e9s, dit le p\u00e8re en hochant la t\u00eate. Mais\nqu'est-ce que vous faites donc l\u00e0 Sammy? Instruction primaire, hein?\n\n--J'ai fini maintenant, r\u00e9pondit Sam avec un l\u00e9ger embarras; j'\u00e9tais en\ntrain d'\u00e9crire.\n\n--Je le vois bien, pas \u00e0 une jeune femme, j'esp\u00e8re?\n\n--Ma foi, \u00e7a ne sert \u00e0 rien de dissimuler, c'est un Valentin.\n\n--Un quoi? s'\u00e9cria le p\u00e8re, que le son de ces mots semblait frapper\nd'horreur.\n\n--Un Valentin.\n\n--Samivel, Samivel! reprit le p\u00e8re d'un ton plein de reproches, je\nn'aurais pas cru cela de toi, apr\u00e8s l'exemple que tu as eu des penchants\nvicieux de ton p\u00e8re, apr\u00e8s tout ce que je t'ai raisonn\u00e9 sur ce sujet\nici, apr\u00e8s avoir v\u00e9cu toi-m\u00eame avec ta belle-m\u00e8re, qu'est une le\u00e7on\nmorale qu'un homme ne doit pas oublier, jusqu'\u00e0 la fin de ses jours; je\nne pensais pas que tu aurais fait cela, Samivel, non, je ne l'aurais pas\ncru!\u00bb\n\nCes r\u00e9flexions \u00e9taient trop p\u00e9nibles pour l'infortun\u00e9 p\u00e8re; il porta le\nverre de Sam \u00e0 ses l\u00e8vres, et en but le contenu, tout d'un trait.\n\n\u00abComment \u00e7a va-t-il maintenant? lui demanda son fils.\n\n--Ah! Sammy, \u00e7a sera une furieuse \u00e9preuve de voir \u00e7a \u00e0 mon \u00e2ge!\nHeureusement que je suis passablement coriace, et c'est une consolation,\ncomme disait le vieux dindon, quand le fermier l'avertit qu'il \u00e9tait\noblig\u00e9 de le tuer pour le porter au march\u00e9.\n\n--Qu'est-ce qui sera une \u00e9preuve?\n\n--De te voir mari\u00e9, Sammy; de te voir comme une victime abus\u00e9e, qui\ns'imagine que tout est rose. C'est une \u00e9preuve effroyable pour les\nsentiments d'un p\u00e8re, Sammy!\n\n--B\u00eatises! je ne suis pas pour me marier; ne vous vexez pas pour cela.\nDemandez plut\u00f4t votre pipe, je m'en vas vous lire ma lettre; l\u00e0!\u00bb\n\nNous ne saurions dire positivement si le chagrin de M. Weller fut calm\u00e9\npar la perspective de sa pipe ou par la pens\u00e9e qu'il y avait dans sa\nfamille une propension fatale au mariage, contre laquelle il \u00e9tait\ninutile de vouloir lutter. Nous sommes port\u00e9 \u00e0 croire que cet heureux\nr\u00e9sultat fut atteint \u00e0 la fois par ces deux sources combin\u00e9es de\nconsolation, car il r\u00e9p\u00e9ta fr\u00e9quemment la seconde \u00e0 voix basse, pendant\nqu'il sonnait pour se faire apporter la premi\u00e8re. Ensuite il se\nd\u00e9barrassa de sa houppelande, alluma sa pipe, et se pla\u00e7a le dos au feu,\nde mani\u00e8re \u00e0 en recevoir toute la chaleur et \u00e0 s'appuyer en m\u00eame temps\nsur le manteau de la chemin\u00e9e; puis il tourna vers Sam son visage\nnotablement adouci par la b\u00e9nigne influence du tabac, et l'engagea \u00e0\nd\u00e9marrer.\n\nSam plongea sa plume dans l'encre pour \u00eatre pr\u00eat \u00e0 faire des\ncorrections, et commen\u00e7a d'un air th\u00e9\u00e2tral.\n\n\u00abAimable....\u00bb\n\n\u00abHalte! dit M. Weller en tirant la sonnette. Un double verre de\nl'invariable, ma ch\u00e8re.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit la jeune fille; et avec une singuli\u00e8re\nprestesse elle disparut, revint et redisparut.\n\n--Ils ont l'air de conna\u00eetre vos id\u00e9es, ici, fit observer Sam.\n\n--Oui, r\u00e9pondit son p\u00e8re; j'y ai z'\u00e9t\u00e9 qu\u00e9'que fois dans ma vie. Allons\nSam.\u00bb\n\n\u00abAimable cr\u00e9ature....\u00bb\n\n\u00abEst-ce que c'est des verses?\n\n--Non, non.\n\n--Tant mieux. Les verses, ce n'est pas naturel. I' n'y a pas un homme\nqui parle en verses, except\u00e9 la circulaire du bedeau, le jour des\n\u00e9trennes, les annonces du cirage de Warren, ou l'huile de Macassar, ou\nqu\u00e9'que gens de ce poil l\u00e0. Ne te laisse jamais aller \u00e0 parler en\nverses, mon gar\u00e7on, c'est trop commun! Recommence-moi un peu \u00e7a, Sammy.\u00bb\n\nCela dit, M. Weller reprit sa pipe avec une solennit\u00e9 d'Aristarque, et\nSam, recommen\u00e7ant pour la troisi\u00e8me fois, lut ainsi qu'il suit:\n\n\u00abAimable cr\u00e9ature, je sens que mon coeur est bigrement....\u00bb\n\n\u00abCela n'est pas convenable, interrompit M. Weller, en \u00f4tant sa pipe de\nsa bouche.\n\n--Non, \u00e7a n'est pas bigrement, dit Sam, en tournant la lettre plus au\njour. C'est joliment; il y a un p\u00e2t\u00e9 l\u00e0. Je sens que mon coeur est\njoliment tonteux.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, marchez.\n\n--Est joliment tonteux et sir.... J'ai oubli\u00e9 le mot qu'il y a l\u00e0, dit\nSam, en se grattant l'oreille avec sa plume.\n\n--Pourquoi ne le regardes-tu pas alors?\n\n--C'est ce que je fais, mais il y a un autre p\u00e2t\u00e9. Il y a un s et un i\net un r.\n\n--Circonscrit, peut-\u00eatre? sugg\u00e9ra M. Weller.\n\n--Non ce n'est pas cela. Sirconvenu voil\u00e0.\n\n--\u00c7a n'est pas un aussi beau mot que circonscrit, dit M. Weller\ngravement.\n\n--Vous croyez?\n\n--S\u00fbr et certain.\n\n--Vous ne trouvez pas que \u00e7a dit plus de choses?\n\n--Eh! Eh! fit M. Weller apr\u00e8s un moment de r\u00e9flexion. C'est peut-\u00eatre un\nmot plus tendre. Va toujours, Sammy.\u00bb\n\n\u00ab--Mon coeur est joliment tonteux et sirconvenu quant je me rat pelle de\nvous, car vous \u00eates un joli brain de fille, et je voudrais bien qu'on\nvint me dire le contraire....\u00bb\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0 une belle pens\u00e9e, dit M. Weller, en \u00f4tant sa pipe, pour laisser\nsortir cette remarque.\n\n--Oui, je crois qu'elle n'est pas mauvaise, r\u00e9pondit son fils,\nsinguli\u00e8rement flatt\u00e9.\n\n--Ce que j'aime dans ton style, c'est que tu ne donnes pas un tas de\nnoms aux gens; tu n'y mets pas de V\u00e9nus, ni d'autres machines de ce\ngenre-l\u00e0. \u00c0 quoi sert d'appeler une jeune femme une V\u00e9nus ou un ange,\nSammy?\n\n--Ah! oui, \u00e0 quoi bon!\n\n--Pourquoi ne pas l'appeler tout de suite _griffon_ ou _licorne_, qu'est\nbien connu pour \u00eatre des animaux m\u00e9taphysiques.\n\n--\u00c7a vaudrait tout autant.\n\n--Roulez toujours, Sammy.\u00bb\n\nSam ob\u00e9it, et continua \u00e0 lire, tandis que son p\u00e8re continuait \u00e0 fumer,\navec une physionomie de sagesse et de contentement tout \u00e0 fait\n\u00e9difiante.\n\n\u00ab--Avent de vous havoir vu je pansais que toute les fames fucent\npareils....\u00bb\n\n\u00abElles le sont,\u00bb fit observer M. Weller, entre parenth\u00e8ses.\n\n\u00abMai maintenant je vois quel fichu b\u00eatte de corps nid chond j'ai z\u00e9t\u00e9,\ncar il nid a pas dent tout le monde une p\u00e8rresone come vous quoi que je\nvous \u00eame come tout!\u00bb\n\n\u00abJ'ai pens\u00e9 que je ferais bien de mettre cela un peu fort,\u00bb dit Sam en\nlevant la t\u00eate.\n\nM. Weller fit un signe approbatif, et son fils poursuivit:\n\n\u00abIn scie je prrends le privilaije du jour, ma chair Mary, come dit le\ngenman dent l'embarrat, qui ne sortais que la nuit pour vous dire que la\n1\u00e8re et leunnuque foie que je vous et vu vot porterait et aimprim\u00e9 dent\nmont cueur en couleur ben pus vive et ben pus vitte qu'y ni a jamet eu\nd\u00e9 portret fait par la machinne \u00e0 porfil (don vous avet peu ta\u00eetre\nentendu parler ma chair Mary) qui fabrique le porttrait et met le quadre\navec un annot \u00f4 boue pour la crocher en 2 minutes un cart.\u00bb\n\n\u00abJ'ai peur que \u00e7a ne frise le po\u00e9tique, fit observer M. Weller d'un air\ndubitatif.\n\n--Pas du tout,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit Sam, en recommen\u00e7ant promptement \u00e0 lire pour\n\u00e9viter toute discussion.\n\n\u00abAcceptez moi Mary ma chair pour votre Valentin et panset \u00e0 se que je\nvous et dit. Ma chair Mary je vais conclure maintenan.--Voil\u00e0 tout.\u00bb\n\n\u00ab\u00c7a s'arr\u00eate un peu court, il me semble, Sammy\n\n--Pas du tout. Elle souhaitera qu'il y en ait plus long; et voil\u00e0 le\ngrand art d'\u00e9crire des lettres!\n\n--Eh! ben, i' y a qu\u00e9'que chose l\u00e0 dedans. Je voudrais seulement que te\nbelle-m\u00e8re conduise sa conversation sur ce principe ici. Est-ce que vous\nn'allez pas signer.\n\n--C'est la difficult\u00e9, \u00e7a. Je ne sais pas ce que je vas signer.\n\n--Signe: _Weller_, dit le vieux propri\u00e9taire de ce nom.\n\n--\u00c7a n'ira pas: il ne faut jamais signer un Valentin avec son propre\nnom.\n\n--Signe: _Pickwick_ alors, c'est un tr\u00e8s-bon nom et facile \u00e0 \u00e9peler.\n\n--Voil\u00e0 l'affaire. Si je finissais par des verses, hein?\n\n--Je n'aime pas \u00e7a, mon gar\u00e7on; je n'ai jamais connu un respectable\ncocher qu'a \u00e9crit de la po\u00e9sie, except\u00e9 un qu'a fait un morceau de\nverses attendrissant, le jour avant qu'il a \u00e9t\u00e9 pendu, pour un vol de\ngrand chemin, et encore c'\u00e9tait seulement un homme de Cambervell. Ainsi\n\u00e7a ne compte pas.\u00bb\n\nCependant Sam ne put \u00eatre dissuad\u00e9 de l'id\u00e9e po\u00e9tique qui lui \u00e9tait\nsurvenue, il signa donc sa lettre ainsi qu'il suit:\n\n    L'amour me pique,\n    Piquewique.\n\nAyant ensuite ferm\u00e9 son \u00e9p\u00eetre d'une mani\u00e8re tr\u00e8s-compliqu\u00e9e, il y mit\nobliquement l'adresse:\n\n_Miss Mary fam de chambre ch\u00e9 monsieur Nupkins m\u00e8re \u00e0 Ipswick Suffolk._\nPuis apr\u00e8s l'avoir cachet\u00e9e il la fourra dans sa poche, toute pr\u00eate pour\nla poste.\n\nCette importante affaire \u00e9tant termin\u00e9e, M. Weller _senior_ commen\u00e7a \u00e0\nd\u00e9velopper celle pour laquelle il avait convoqu\u00e9 son h\u00e9ritier.\n\n\u00abLa premi\u00e8re histoire regarde ton gouverneur, Sammy, lui dit-il. Il va\n\u00eatre jug\u00e9 demain, n'est-il pas vrai?\n\n--S\u00fbr comme ache.\n\n--Eh bien! je suppose qu'il aura besoin de qu\u00e9'ques t\u00e9moins pour jurer\nses moeurs, ou bien peut-\u00eatre pour prouver un all\u00e9bi. J'ai retourn\u00e9 tout\ncela dans ma t\u00eate, et y peut se tranquilliser, Sammy. J'ai ramass\u00e9\nqu\u00e9'ques amis qui feront son affaire, pour les deux choses. Mais voil\u00e0\nmon avis \u00e0 moi. Vous inqui\u00e9tez pas des moeurs, et raccrochez vous \u00e0\nl'all\u00e9bi. Rien comme un all\u00e9bi, Sammy, rien.\u00bb\n\nAyant d\u00e9livr\u00e9 cette opinion l\u00e9gale d'un air singuli\u00e8rement profond, M.\nWeller ensevelit son nez dans son verre, et fit par-dessus le bord de\nrapides clins d'oeil \u00e0 son fils \u00e9tonn\u00e9.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce que vous voulez dire? demanda celui-ci. Est-ce que vous vous\nimaginez qu'il va passer en cour d'assises?\n\n--\u00c7a ne fait rien \u00e0 l'affaire, Sammy. N'importe o\u00f9 ce qui sera jug\u00e9, mon\ngar\u00e7on; un all\u00e9bi voil\u00e0 la chose. Nous avons sauv\u00e9 Tom Wildspark d'un\nmeurtre, avec un all\u00e9bi, quand toutes les grosses perruques disaient\nque rien ne pouvait le tirer d'affaire. Et vois-tu, Sammy, mon opinion\nest que si ton gouverneur ne prouve pas un all\u00e9bi, il se trouvera\ncouronn\u00e9 des deux jambes.\u00bb\n\nComme M. Weller entretenait la conviction ferme et inalt\u00e9rable que le\n_Old Bailey_ \u00e9tait la cour supr\u00eame de judicature de l'Angleterre, et que\nses formes de proc\u00e9dure r\u00e9glaient toutes les autres cours de justice\nsans exception, il n'\u00e9couta en aucune mani\u00e8re les assurances et les\narguments de son fils pour lui prouver que l'alibi \u00e9tait inadmissible;\nmais il continua \u00e0 protester avec v\u00e9h\u00e9mence que M. Pickwick allait \u00eatre\n_victimis\u00e9_. Trouvant qu'il \u00e9tait inutile de discuter davantage cette\nmati\u00e8re, Sam changea de sujet, et demanda quel \u00e9tait le second topique,\nsur lequel son v\u00e9n\u00e9rable parent d\u00e9sirait le consulter.\n\n\u00abC'est un point de politique domestique, Sammy, r\u00e9pondit celui-ci. Tu\nsais bien ce Stiggins?\n\n--L'homme au nez rouge?\n\n--Le m\u00eame. Cet homme au nez rouge, Sammy, visite ta belle-m\u00e8re avec une\nbont\u00e9 et une constance comme je n'en ai jamais vu. Il aime tant notre\nfamille que, quand il s'en va, il ne peut pas \u00eatre confortable, \u00e0 moins\nqu'il n'emporte qu\u00e9'que chose pour se souvenir de nous.\n\n--Et si j'\u00e9tais que de vous, interrompit Sam, je lui donnerais qu\u00e9'que\nchose qu'il s'en souviendrait pendant dix ans.\n\n--Une minute: j'allais te dire qu'\u00e0 pr\u00e9sent il apporte toujours une\nbouteille plate, qui tient \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s une pinte et demie, et qu'avant de\ns'en aller il la remplit soigneusement avec notre rhum.\n\n--Et il la vide toujours avant de revenir, je suppose?\n\n--Juste, il n'y laisse rien que le bouchon et l'odeur. Fie-toi \u00e0 lui\npour cela, Sammy. Maintenant, mon gar\u00e7on, ces gaillards ici vont tenir\nce soir l'assembl\u00e9e mensuelle de la branche de _Brick-Lane_ de la grande\nunion _Ebenezer_, \u00e0 l'association de Temp\u00e9rance. Ta belle-m\u00e8re \u00e9tait\npour y aller Sammy, mais elle a attrap\u00e9 le rhumatique, et elle ne peut\npas; et moi j'ai attrap\u00e9 les deux billets qu'on y avait envoy\u00e9s.\u00bb\n\nM. Weller communiqua ce secret avec une immense jouissance, et ensuite\nse mit \u00e0 cligner de l'oeil, si infatigablement que Sam commen\u00e7a \u00e0 penser\nqu'il avait le tic douloureux dans la paupi\u00e8re droite.\n\n\u00abEh bien! dit le jeune gentleman.\n\n--Eh bien! continua son p\u00e8re en regardant avec pr\u00e9caution autour de\nlui, nous irons ensemble, ponctuels \u00e0 l'heure, Sammy. Le substitut du\nberger ne le sera pas! Le substitut du berger ne le sera pas!\u00bb\n\nIci M. Weller fut saisi d'un paroxysme de ricanement qui s'approcha\ngraduellement de la suffocation, autant que cela se peut chez un vieux\ngentleman, sans amener d'accident. Pendant ce temps, Sam frottait le dos\nde son p\u00e8re, assez vivement pour l'enflammer par la friction, s'il e\u00fbt\n\u00e9t\u00e9 un peu plus sec.\n\n\u00abVraiment, dit-il, je n'ai jamais vu un vieux revenant comme \u00e7a de mes\njours, ni de ma vie. Qu'est-ce que vous avez donc \u00e0 rire, corpulence?\n\n--Chut! Sammy, r\u00e9pondit M. Weller, en regardant autour de lui, avec\nencore plus de d\u00e9fiance, et en parlant \u00e0 voix basse. Deux de mes amis,\nqui travaillent sur la route d'Oxford, et qu'est fameux pour toutes\nsortes de farces, ont pris le substitut du berger \u00e0 la remorque, et\nquand il viendra \u00e0 la grande union Ebenezer (ce qu'il est bien s\u00fbr de\nfaire, car ils le reconduiront jusqu'\u00e0 la porte, et ils le feront\nmonter, bon gr\u00e9 malgr\u00e9, si c'est n\u00e9cessaire), il sera embourb\u00e9 dans le\nrhum aussi fort qu'il l'a jamais \u00e9t\u00e9 au marquis de Granby, et c'est pas\npeu dire.\u00bb\n\nIci, M. Weller recommen\u00e7a \u00e0 rire immod\u00e9r\u00e9ment, et en cons\u00e9quence retomba\nsur nouveaux frais dans un \u00e9tat de suffocation partielle.\n\nRien ne pouvait mieux s'accorder avec les id\u00e9es de Sam que le projet de\nd\u00e9masquer les penchants et les qualit\u00e9s r\u00e9elles de l'homme au nez rouge.\nL'heure d\u00e9sign\u00e9e pour la r\u00e9union approchant, le p\u00e8re et le fils se\ndirig\u00e8rent imm\u00e9diatement vers Brick-Lane, et pendant le chemin Sam\nn'oublia pas de jeter sa lettre \u00e0 la poste.\n\nL'assembl\u00e9e mensuelle de la branche de l'Association de Temp\u00e9rance de\n_Brick-Lane_, embranchement de la grande union _Ebenezer_, se tenait\ndans une vaste chambre, situ\u00e9e d'une mani\u00e8re agr\u00e9able et a\u00e9r\u00e9e au sommet\nd'une \u00e9chelle s\u00fbre et commode. Le pr\u00e9sident \u00e9tait le juste M. Anthony\nHumm, pompier converti, maintenant ma\u00eetre d'\u00e9cole, et occasionnellement\npr\u00e9dicant-voyageur. Le secr\u00e9taire \u00e9tait M. Jonas Mudge, gar\u00e7on\nchandelier, vase d'enthousiasme et de d\u00e9sint\u00e9ressement, qui vendait du\nth\u00e9 aux membres de l'association. Pr\u00e9alablement au commencement des\nop\u00e9rations, les dames \u00e9taient assises sur des tabourets et buvaient du\nth\u00e9, aussi longtemps qu'elles croyaient pouvoir le faire, tandis qu'une\nlarge tirelire de bois \u00e9tait plac\u00e9e en \u00e9vidence sur le tapis vert du\nbureau, derri\u00e8re lequel le secr\u00e9taire se tenait debout, reconnaissant\npar un gracieux sourire, chaque addition \u00e0 la riche veine de cuivre que\nla botte renfermait dans ses flancs.\n\nDans la pr\u00e9sente occasion, les dames commenc\u00e8rent par boire une quantit\u00e9\nde th\u00e9 presque alarmante, \u00e0 la grande horreur de M. Weller qui,\nm\u00e9prisant les signes de Sam, promenait autour de lui des regards o\u00f9\npouvaient se lire, avec facilit\u00e9, son \u00e9tonnement et son m\u00e9pris.\n\n\u00abSammy, murmura-t-il \u00e0 son fils, si qu\u00e9'ques uns de ces gens ici n'ont\npas besoin d'\u00eatre op\u00e9r\u00e9s pour l'hydropisie, demain matin, je ne suis pas\nton p\u00e8re! Vois-tu cette vieille lady, assise aupr\u00e8s de moi? elle se noie\navec du th\u00e9.\n\n--Est-ce que vous ne pouvez pas vous tenir tranquille? chuchota Sam.\n\n--Sammy, reprit M. Weller au bout d'un moment et avec un accent\nd'agitation profonde, fais attention \u00e0 ce que je te dis, mon gar\u00e7on; si\nce secr\u00e9taire continue encore cinq minutes, il va crever \u00e0 force\nd'avaler des r\u00f4ties et de l'eau chaude.\n\n--Eh bien! laissez-le, si \u00e7a lui fait plaisir. Ce n'est pas votre\naffaire.\n\n--Si \u00e7a dure plus longtemps, Sammy, poursuivit M. Weller \u00e0 voix basse,\nje sens que c'est mon devoir comme homme et comme chr\u00e9tien, de me lever\net d'adresser qu\u00e9'ques paroles au pr\u00e9sident. Il y a l\u00e0 une jeune femme,\nau troisi\u00e8me tabouret, qui a bu neuf tasses et demie; je la vois qui\ngonfle visiblement \u00e0 l'oeil nu.\u00bb\n\nIl n'y a nul doute que M. Weller e\u00fbt ex\u00e9cut\u00e9 ses bienveillantes\nintentions, si un grand bruit, occasionn\u00e9 par le choc des tasses,\nn'avait pas heureusement annonc\u00e9 que le th\u00e9 \u00e9tait termin\u00e9. La fa\u00efence\nayant \u00e9t\u00e9 enlev\u00e9e et la table \u00e0 la serge verte apport\u00e9e au centre de la\nchambre, les op\u00e9rations de la soir\u00e9e furent entam\u00e9es par un petit homme\nchauve, en culotte de velours de coton, qui grimpa soudainement \u00e0\nl'\u00e9chelle, au hasard imminent de briser ses jambes maigrelettes.\n\n\u00abLadies et gentlemen, dit le petit homme chauve, je porte au fauteuil\nnotre excellent fr\u00e8re, M. Anthony Humm.\u00bb\n\n\u00c0 cette proposition les dames agit\u00e8rent une \u00e9l\u00e9gante collection de\nmouchoirs, et l'imp\u00e9tueux petit homme porta litt\u00e9ralement au fauteuil\nM. Humm, en le prenant par les \u00e9paules et le poussant vers un ustensile\nd'acajou, qui avait autrefois repr\u00e9sent\u00e9 cette pi\u00e8ce d'ameublement.\nL'agitation des mouchoirs fut renouvel\u00e9e, et M. Humm, qui avait un\nvisage blafard et luisant, en \u00e9tat de transpiration perp\u00e9tuelle, salua\ngracieusement l'assembl\u00e9e, \u00e0 la grande admiration des femelles, et prit\ngravement son si\u00e9ge. Le silence fut alors r\u00e9clam\u00e9 par le petit homme,\npuis M. Humm se leva, et dit qu'avec la permission des fr\u00e8res et des\nsoeurs de la branche de _Brick-Lane_, alors pr\u00e9sents, le secr\u00e9taire\nlirait le rapport du comit\u00e9 de la branche de _Brick-Lane_, proposition\nqui fut encore accueillie par un tr\u00e9pignement de mouchoirs.\n\nLe secr\u00e9taire ayant \u00e9ternu\u00e9 d'une mani\u00e8re tr\u00e8s-expressive, et la toux\nqui saisit toujours une assembl\u00e9e, quand il va se passer quelque chose\nd'int\u00e9ressant, ayant eu son cours r\u00e9gulier, on entendit la lecture du\ndocument suivant:\n\n_Rapport du Comit\u00e9 de la Branche de Brick-Lane de la Grande Union\nEbenezer de l'Association de Temp\u00e9rance._\n\n\u00abVotre comit\u00e9 a poursuivi ses agr\u00e9ables travaux, durant le mois pass\u00e9,\net a l'inexprimable plaisir de vous rapporter les cas suivants de\nnouveaux convertis \u00e0 la temp\u00e9rance.\n\n\u00abM. Walker, tailleur, sa femme et ses deux enfants. Quand il \u00e9tait plus\n\u00e0 son aise, il confesse qu'il avait l'habitude de boire de l'ale et de\nla bi\u00e8re. Il dit qu'il n'est pas certain s'il n'a pas sirot\u00e9 pendant\nvingt ans, deux fois par semaines, du _nez de chien_, que votre comit\u00e9\ntrouve, sur enqu\u00eate, \u00eatre compos\u00e9 de porter chaud, de cassonade, de\ngeni\u00e8vre et de muscade. (Ici une femme \u00e2g\u00e9e pousse un g\u00e9missement en\ns'\u00e9criant: c'est vrai!) Il est maintenant sans ouvrage et sans argent;\nil pense que ce doit \u00eatre la faute du porter (applaudissements) ou la\nperte de l'usage de sa main droite; il ne peut pas dire lequel des deux,\nmais il regarde comme tr\u00e8s-probable que s'il n'avait bu que de l'eau\ntoute sa vie, son camarade ne l'aurait pas piqu\u00e9 avec une aiguille\nrouill\u00e9e, ce qui a occasionn\u00e9 son accident (immenses applaudissements).\nIl n'a plus rien \u00e0 boire que de l'eau claire, et ne se sent jamais\nalt\u00e9r\u00e9 (grands applaudissements).\n\n\u00abBetzy Martin, veuve, n'a qu'un enfant et qu'un oeil, va en journ\u00e9e\ncomme femme de m\u00e9nage et blanchisseuse: n'a jamais et qu'un oeil, mais\nsait que sa m\u00e8re buvait solidement, ne serait pas \u00e9tonn\u00e9e si cela en\n\u00e9tait la cause (terribles applaudissements). Ne regarde pas comme\nimpossible qu'elle e\u00fbt deux yeux maintenant, si elle s'\u00e9tait toujours\nabstenue de spiritueux (applaudissements formidables). \u00c9tait habitu\u00e9e \u00e0\nrecevoir par jour _1 shilling et 6 pence_, une pinte de porter et un\nverre d'eau-de-vie, mais depuis qu'elle est devenue membre de la branche\nde _Brick-Lane_ elle demande toujours \u00e0 la place _3 shillings et 6\npence_ (l'annonce de ce fait int\u00e9ressant est re\u00e7ue avec le plus\n\u00e9tourdissant enthousiasme).\n\n\u00abHenry Beller a \u00e9t\u00e9 pendant nombre d'ann\u00e9es ma\u00eetre d'h\u00f4tel pour\ndiff\u00e9rents d\u00eeners de corporations. En ce temps-l\u00e0 il buvait une grande\nquantit\u00e9 de vins \u00e9trangers. Il en a peut-\u00eatre emport\u00e9 quelque fois une\nbouteille ou deux chez lui. Il n'est pas tout \u00e0 fait certain de cela,\nmais il est s\u00fbr que s'il les a emport\u00e9es, il en a bu le contenu. Il se\ntrouve tr\u00e8s-mal dispos\u00e9 et m\u00e9lancolique, est agit\u00e9 la nuit et \u00e9prouve\nune soif continuelle. Il pense que ce doit \u00eatre le vin qu'il avait\nl'habitude de boire (applaudissements). Il est sans emploi maintenant,\net ne t\u00e2te jamais une seule goutte de vins \u00e9trangers (applaudissements\n\u00e9pouvantables).\n\n\u00abThomas Burten, marchand de mou du lord maire, des sch\u00e9rifs et de\nplusieurs membres du Common council (le nom de ce gentleman est entendu\navec un int\u00e9r\u00eat saisissant). Il a une jambe de bois: il trouve qu'une\njambe de bois co\u00fbte bien cher quand on marche sur le pav\u00e9. Il avait\nl'habitude d'acheter des jambes de bois d'occasion, et buvait\nr\u00e9guli\u00e8rement chaque soir un verre d'eau et de geni\u00e8vre chaud;\nquelquefois deux (profonds soupirs). Il s'est aper\u00e7u que les jambes\nd'occasion se fendaient et se pourrissaient tr\u00e8s-promptement; il est\nfermement persuad\u00e9 que leur constitution \u00e9tait min\u00e9e par l'eau et le\ngeni\u00e8vre (applaudissements prolong\u00e9s). Il ach\u00e8te maintenant des jambes\nde bois neuves, et ne boit rien que de l'eau et du th\u00e9 l\u00e9ger. Les\nnouvelles jambes de bois durent deux fois aussi longtemps que les\nanciennes, et il attribue cela uniquement \u00e0 ses habitudes de temp\u00e9rance\n(applaudissements triomphants).\u00bb\n\nApr\u00e8s cette lecture, Anthony Humm proposa \u00e0 l'assembl\u00e9e de se r\u00e9galer\nd'une chanson. Il l'invita \u00e0 se joindre \u00e0 lui pour chanter les paroles\ndu joyeux batelier, adapt\u00e9es \u00e0 l'air du centi\u00e8me psaume par le fr\u00e8re\nMordlin, en vue de favoriser les jouissances morales et rationnelles de\nla soci\u00e9t\u00e9 (grands applaudissements). M. Anthony Humm saisit cette\nopportunit\u00e9 d'exprimer sa ferme persuasion que feu M. Dibdin[7],\nreconnaissant les erreurs de sa jeunesse, avait \u00e9crit cette chanson\npour montrer les avantages de l'abstinence. \u00abC'est une chanson de\ntemp\u00e9rance (tourbillon d'applaudissements). La propret\u00e9 du costume de\nl'int\u00e9ressant jeune homme, son habilet\u00e9, comme rameur, la d\u00e9sirable\ndisposition d'esprit qui lui permettait, suivant la belle expression du\npo\u00ebte, de ramer tout le jour en ne pensant \u00e0 rien; tout se r\u00e9unit pour\nprouver qu'il devait \u00eatre buveur d'eau (applaudissements). Oh! quel \u00e9tat\nde vertueuses jouissances (applaudissements enthousiastes)! et quelle\nfut la r\u00e9compense du jeune homme! que tous les jeunes gens pr\u00e9sents\nremarquent ceci:\n\n[Footnote 7: Auteur de chansons c\u00e9l\u00e8bres.]\n\n\u00abLes jeunes filles s'empressaient d'entrer dans son bateau (bruyants\napplaudissements, surtout parmi les dames). Quel brillant exemple! Les\njeunes filles se pressant autour du jeune batelier et l'escortant dans\nle sentier du devoir et de la temp\u00e9rance. Mais \u00e9taient-ce seulement les\njeunes filles de bas \u00e9tage, qui le soignaient, qui le consolaient, qui\nle soutenaient? Non!\n\n    Il \u00e9tait le rameur ch\u00e9ri\n    Des plus belles dames du monde.\n\n(Immenses applaudissements). Le doux sexe se ralliait comme un seul\nhomme.... Mille pardons, comme une seule femme... autour du jeune\nbatelier, et se d\u00e9tournait avec d\u00e9go\u00fbt des buveurs de spiritueux\n(applaudissements). Les fr\u00e8res de la _Branche de Brick-Lane_ sont des\nbateliers d'eau douce (applaudissements et rires). Cette chambre est\nleur bateau; cette audience repr\u00e9sente les jeunes filles, et l'orateur,\nquoique indigne, est leur rameur ch\u00e9ri (applaudissements fr\u00e9n\u00e9tiques et\ninterminables).\u00bb\n\n\u00abSammy, qu'est-ce qui veut dire par le _doux sexe_? demanda M. Weller \u00e0\nvoix basse.\n\n--La femme, r\u00e9pondit Sam du m\u00eame ton.\n\n--Pour \u00e7a, il n'a pas tort; faut qu'elle soit joliment _douce_ pour se\nlaisser plumer par des olibrius comme \u00e7a.\u00bb\n\nLes observations mordantes du vieux gentleman furent interrompues par le\ncommencement de la chanson que M. Anthony Humm psalmodiait, deux lignes\npar deux lignes, pour l'instruction de ceux de ses auditeurs qui ne\nconnaissaient point la l\u00e9gende. Pendant qu'on chantait, le petit homme\nchauve disparut, mais il revint aussit\u00f4t que la chanson fut termin\u00e9e,\net parla bas \u00e0 M. Anthony Humm avec un visage plein d'importance.\n\n\u00abMes amis, dit M. Humm en levant la main d'un air suppliant, pour faire\ntaire quelques vieilles ladies qui \u00e9taient en arri\u00e8re d'un vers ou deux;\nmes amis, un d\u00e9l\u00e9gu\u00e9 de la branche de Dorking, de notre soci\u00e9t\u00e9, le\nfr\u00e8re Stiggins, est en bas.\u00bb\n\nLes mouchoirs s'agit\u00e8rent de nouveau et plus fort que jamais, car M.\nStiggins \u00e9tait extr\u00eamement populaire parmi les dames de _Brick-Lane_.\n\n\u00abIl peut entrer, je pense, dit M. Humm en regardant autour de lui avec\nun sourire fixe. Fr\u00e8re Tadger, il peut venir aupr\u00e8s de nous et remplir\nsa mission.\u00bb\n\nLe petit homme chauve, qui r\u00e9pondait au nom de fr\u00e8re Tadger, d\u00e9gringola\nl'\u00e9chelle avec grande rapidit\u00e9, puis imm\u00e9diatement apr\u00e8s, on l'entendit\nremonter avec le r\u00e9v\u00e9rend M. Stiggins.\n\n\u00abLe voil\u00e0 qui vient, Sammy, chuchota M. Weller, dont le visage \u00e9tait\npourpre d'une envie de rire supprim\u00e9e.\n\n--Ne lui dites rien, r\u00e9partit Sam, je ne pourrais pas me retenir. Il est\npr\u00e8s de la porte; je l'entends qui se cogne la t\u00eate contre la cloison.\u00bb\n\nPendant que Sam parlait, la porte s'ouvrit et le fr\u00e8re Tadger parut,\nimm\u00e9diatement suivi par le r\u00e9v\u00e9rend M. Stiggins. L'entr\u00e9e de celui-ci\nfut accueillie par des bravos, par des tr\u00e9pignements, par des agitations\nde mouchoirs. Mais, \u00e0 toutes ces manifestations de d\u00e9lices, le fr\u00e8re\nStiggins ne r\u00e9pondit pas un mot, se contentant de regarder avec un\nsourire h\u00e9b\u00e9t\u00e9 la chandelle qui fumait sur la table, et balan\u00e7ant en\nm\u00eame temps son corps d'une mani\u00e8re irr\u00e9guli\u00e8re et alarmante.\n\n\u00abEst-ce que vous n'allez pas bien, fr\u00e8re Stiggins? lui dit tout bas M.\nAnthony Humm.\n\n--Je vais tr\u00e8s-bien, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua M. Stiggins d'une voix aussi\nf\u00e9roce que le permettait l'\u00e9paisseur de sa langue. Je vais parfaitement,\nmonsieur.\n\n--Tant mieux, tant mieux, reprit M. Anthony Humm, en reculant de\nquelques pas.\n\n--J'esp\u00e8re que personne ici ne se permet de dire que je ne suis pas\nbien?\n\n--Oh! certainement non.\n\n--Je les engage \u00e0 ne pas le dire, monsieur, je les y engage.\u00bb\n\nTendant ce colloque, l'assembl\u00e9e \u00e9tait rest\u00e9e parfaitement silencieuse,\nattendant avec une certaine anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 la reprise de ses travaux\nordinaires.\n\n\u00abFr\u00e8re, dit M. Humm avec un sourire engageant, voulez-vous \u00e9difier\nl'assembl\u00e9e?\n\n--Non,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua M. Stiggins.\n\nL'assembl\u00e9e leva les yeux au ciel et un murmure d'\u00e9tonnement parcourut\nla salle.\n\n\u00abMonsieur, dit M. Stiggins, en d\u00e9boutonnant son habit, et en parlant\ntr\u00e8s-haut; j'ai dans l'opinion que cette assembl\u00e9e s'est honteusement\nso\u00fbl\u00e9e.--Fr\u00e8re Tadger, continua-t-il avec une f\u00e9rocit\u00e9 croissante, et en\nse tournant brusquement vers le petit homme chauve; vous \u00eates so\u00fbl,\nmonsieur.\u00bb\n\nEn disant ces mots, M. Stiggins dans le louable dessein d'encourager la\nsobri\u00e9t\u00e9 de rassembl\u00e9e, et d'en exclure toute personne indigne, lan\u00e7a\nsur le nez de fr\u00e8re Tadger un coup de poing, si bien appliqu\u00e9, que le\npetit secr\u00e9taire disparut en un clin d'oeil. Il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9 la\nt\u00eate premi\u00e8re en bas de l'\u00e9chelle.\n\n\u00c0 ce mouvement oratoire, tes femmes pouss\u00e8rent des cris d\u00e9chirants, et\nse pr\u00e9cipitant par petits groupes autour de leurs fr\u00e8res favoris, les\nentour\u00e8rent de leurs bras pour les pr\u00e9server du danger. Cette preuve\nd'affection touchante devint presque fatale au fr\u00e8re Humm, car il \u00e9tait\nextr\u00eamement populaire, et il s'en fallut de peu qu'il ne f\u00fbt \u00e9touff\u00e9 par\nla foule des s\u00e9\u00efdes femelles qui se pendirent \u00e0 son cou, et\nl'accabl\u00e8rent de leurs caresses. La plus grande partie des lumi\u00e8res\nfurent promptement \u00e9teintes, et l'on n'entendit plus, de toutes parts,\nqu'un tumulte \u00e9pouvantable.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, Sammy, dit M. Weller en \u00f4tant sa redingote d'un air\nd\u00e9lib\u00e9r\u00e9, allez-vous-en me chercher un watchman.\n\n--Et qu'est-ce donc que vous allez faire, en attendant?\n\n--Ne vous inqui\u00e9tez pas de moi, Sammy; je vas m'occuper \u00e0 r\u00e9gler un\npetit compte avec ce Stiggins ici.\u00bb\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, et avant que Sam p\u00fbt le retenir, l'h\u00e9ro\u00efque vieillard\np\u00e9n\u00e9tra dans le coin de la chambre o\u00f9 se trouvait le r\u00e9v\u00e9rend M.\nStiggins, et l'attaqua avec une admirable dext\u00e9rit\u00e9.\n\n\u00abVenez-vous-en, dit Sam.\n\n--Avancez donc!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria M. Weller, et sans autre avertissement, il\nadministra au r\u00e9v\u00e9rend M. Stiggins une tape sur la t\u00eate, puis se mit \u00e0\ndanser autour de lui, avec une l\u00e9g\u00e8ret\u00e9 parfaitement admirable chez un\ngentleman de cet \u00e2ge.\u00bb\n\nVoyant que ses remontrances \u00e9taient inutiles, Sam enfon\u00e7a solidement\nson chapeau, jeta sur son bras l'habit de son p\u00e8re, et saisissant le\ngros cocher par la ceinture, l'entra\u00eena de force le long de l'\u00e9chelle,\net de l\u00e0 dans la rue, sans le l\u00e2cher, et sans lui permettre de\ns'arr\u00eater. Comme ils arrivaient au carrefour, ils entendirent le tumulte\noccasionn\u00e9 par la dispersion, dans diff\u00e9rentes directions, des membres\nla branche de _Brick-Lane_ de la grande union d'_Ebenezer_ \u00e0\nl'association de Temp\u00e9rance, et virent bient\u00f4t apr\u00e8s passer le r\u00e9v\u00e9rend\nM. Stiggins, que l'on emmenait parmi les hu\u00e9es de la populace, afin de\nlui faire passer la nuit dans un logement fourni par la cit\u00e9.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE V.\n\nEnti\u00e8rement consacr\u00e9 au compte-rendu complet et fid\u00e8le du m\u00e9morable\nproc\u00e8s de Bardell contre Pickwick.\n\n\n\u00abJe voudrais bien savoir ce que le chef du jury peut avoir mang\u00e9 ce\nmatin \u00e0 son d\u00e9jeuner, dit M. Snodgrass par mani\u00e8re de conversation, dans\nla m\u00e9morable matin\u00e9e du 14 f\u00e9vrier.\n\n--Ah! r\u00e9pondit M. Perker, j'esp\u00e8re qu'il a fait un bon d\u00e9jeuner.\n\n--Pourquoi cela? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--C'est fort important, extr\u00eamement important, mon cher monsieur. Un bon\njury satisfait, qui a bien d\u00e9je\u00fbn\u00e9, est une chose capitale pour nous.\nDes jur\u00e9s m\u00e9contents ou affam\u00e9s, sont toujours pour le plaignant.\n\n--Au nom du ciel, dit M. Pickwick, d'un air de compl\u00e8te stup\u00e9faction,\nquelle est la cause de tout cela?\n\n--Ma foi, je n'en sais rien, r\u00e9pondit froidement le petit homme, c'est\npour aller plus vite, je suppose.\u00bb Quand le jury s'est retir\u00e9 dans la\nchambre des d\u00e9lib\u00e9rations, si l'heure du d\u00eener est proche, le chef des\njur\u00e9s tire sa montre, et dit:\n\n\u00abJuste ciel! gentlemen, d\u00e9j\u00e0 cinq heures moins dix, et je d\u00een\u00e9 \u00e0 cinq\nheures!--Moi aussi,\u00bb disent tous les autres, except\u00e9 deux individus qui\nauraient d\u00fb d\u00eener \u00e0 trois heures, et qui en cons\u00e9quence sont encore plus\npress\u00e9s de sortir. Le chef des jur\u00e9s sourit et remet sa montre. \u00abEh\nbien! gentlemen, qu'est-ce que nous disons? Le plaignant ou le\nd\u00e9fendant, gentlemen! Je suis dispos\u00e9 \u00e0 croire, quant \u00e0 moi.... Mais que\ncela ne vous influence pas.... Je suis assez dispos\u00e9 \u00e0 croire que\nplaignant a raison.\u00bb L\u00e0-dessus deux ou trois autres jur\u00e9s ne manquent\npas de dire qu'ils le croient aussi, comme c'est naturel; et alors ils\nfont leur affaire unanimement et confortablement. \u00abNeuf heures dix\nminutes, continua le petit homme en regardant \u00e0 sa montre, il est\ngrandement temps de partir, mon cher monsieur. La cour est ordinairement\npleine quand il s'agit d'une violation de promesse de mariage. Vous\nferez bien de demander une voiture, mon cher monsieur, ou nous\narriverons trop tard.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick tira imm\u00e9diatement la sonnette; une voiture fut amen\u00e9e, et\nles quatre Pickwickiens y \u00e9tant mont\u00e9s, avec M. Perker, se firent\nconduire \u00e0 Guildball. Sam Weller, M. Lowten et le sac bleu, contenant la\nproc\u00e9dure, suivaient dans un cabriolet.\n\n\u00abLowten, dit Perker, quand ils eurent atteint la salle des pas perdus,\nmettez les amis de M. Pickwick dans la tribune des stagiaires; M.\nPickwick lui-m\u00eame sera mieux aupr\u00e8s de moi.\n\n--Par ici, mon cher monsieur, par ici.\u00bb En parlant de la sorte, le petit\nhomme prit M. Pickwick par la manche et le conduisit vers un si\u00e9ge peu\n\u00e9lev\u00e9, situ\u00e9 au-dessous du bureau du conseil du roi. De l\u00e0, les avou\u00e9s\npeuvent commod\u00e9ment chuchoter, dans l'oreille des avocats, les\ninstructions que la marche du proc\u00e8s rend n\u00e9cessaires. Ils y sont\nd'ailleurs invisibles au plus grand nombre des spectateurs, car ils sont\nassis beaucoup plus bas que les avocats et que les jur\u00e9s, dont les\nsi\u00e9ges dominent le parquet. Naturellement ils leur tournent le dos, et\nregardent le juge.\n\n\u00abVoici la tribune des t\u00e9moins, je suppose? dit M. Pickwick, en montrant,\n\u00e0 sa gauche, une esp\u00e8ce de chaire, entour\u00e9e d'une balustrade de cuivre.\n\n--Oui, mon cher monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Perker en extrayant une quantit\u00e9 de\npapiers du sac bleu que Lowten venait de d\u00e9poser \u00e0 ses pieds.\n\n--Et l\u00e0, dit M. Pickwick en indiquant, sur sa droite, une couple de\nbancs, enferm\u00e9s d'une balustrade, l\u00e0 si\u00e9gent les jur\u00e9s, n'est-il pas\nvrai?\n\n--Pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit Perker, en tapant sur le couvercle de sa\ntabati\u00e8re.\n\nAinsi renseign\u00e9, M. Pickwick se tint debout dans un \u00e9tat de grande\nagitation, et promena ses regarda sur la salle.\n\nIl y avait d\u00e9j\u00e0, dans la galerie, un flot assez \u00e9pais de spectateurs, et\nsur le si\u00e9ge des avocats, une nombreuse collection de gentlemen en\nperruque, dont la r\u00e9union pr\u00e9sentait cette \u00e9tonnante et agr\u00e9able vari\u00e9t\u00e9\nde nez et de favoris, pour laquelle le barreau anglais est si justement\nc\u00e9l\u00e8bre. Parmi ces gentlemen, ceux qui poss\u00e9daient un dossier le\ntenaient de la mani\u00e8re la plus visible possible, et de temps en temps\ns'en frottaient le menton, pour convaincre davantage les spectateurs de\nla r\u00e9alit\u00e9 de ce fait. Quelques-uns de ceux qui n'avaient aucun dossier\n\u00e0 montrer, portaient sous leurs bras de bons gros in-octavo, reli\u00e9s en\nbasane fauve \u00e0 titres rouges. D'autres qui n'avaient ni dipl\u00f4mes ni\nlivres, fourraient leurs mains dans leurs poches et prenaient un air\naussi important qu'ils le pouvaient, sans s'incommoder; tandis que\nd'autres encore, allaient et venaient avec une mine suffisante et\naffair\u00e9e, satisfaits d'\u00e9veiller, de la sorte, l'admiration des \u00e9trangers\nnon initi\u00e9s. Enfin, au grand \u00e9tonnement de M. Pickwick, ils \u00e9taient tous\ndivis\u00e9s en petits groupes, et causaient des nouvelles du jour, avec la\ntranquillit\u00e9 la plus parfaite, comme s'il n'avait jamais \u00e9t\u00e9 question de\njugement.\n\nUn salut de M. Phunky, lorsqu'il entra pour prendre sa place, derri\u00e8re\nle banc r\u00e9serv\u00e9 au conseil du roi, attira l'attention de M. Pickwick. \u00c0\npeine lui avait-il rendu sa politesse, lorsque Me Snubbin parut, suivi\npar M. Mallard, qui d\u00e9posa sur la table un immense sac cramoisi, donna\nune poign\u00e9e de main \u00e0 M. Perker, et se retira. Ensuite entr\u00e8rent deux ou\ntrois autres avocats, et parmi eux un homme au teint rubicond, qui fit\nun signe de t\u00eate amical \u00e0 Me Snubbin, et lui dit que la matin\u00e9e \u00e9tait\nbelle.\n\n\u00abQuel est cet homme rubicond, qui vient de saluer notre conseil, et de\nlui dire que la matin\u00e9e est belle? demanda tout bas M. Pickwick \u00e0 son\navou\u00e9.\n\n--C'est Me Buzfuz, l'avocat de notre adversaire. Ce gentleman plac\u00e9\nderri\u00e8re lui, est M. Skimpin, son junior.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick, rempli d'horreur, en apprenant la froide sc\u00e9l\u00e9ratesse de\ncet homme, allait demander comment Me Buzfuz, qui \u00e9tait l'avocat de son\nadverse partie, osait se permettre de dire, \u00e0 son propre avocat, qu'il\nfaisait une belle matin\u00e9e, quand il fut interrompu par un long cri de:\n_silence!_ que pouss\u00e8rent les officiers de la cour, et au bruit duquel\nse lev\u00e8rent tous les avocats. M. Pickwick se retourna, et s'aper\u00e7ut que\nce tumulte \u00e9tait caus\u00e9 par l'entr\u00e9e du juge.\n\nM. le juge Stareleigh (qui si\u00e9geait en l'absence du chef-justice,\nemp\u00each\u00e9 par indisposition), \u00e9tait un homme remarquablement court, et si\ngros qu'il semblait tout visage et tout gilet. Il roula dans la salle\nsur deux petites jambes cagneuses, et ayant salu\u00e9 gravement le barreau,\nqui le salua gravement \u00e0 son tour, il mit ses deux petites jambes sous\nla table, et son petit chapeau \u00e0 trois cornes, dessus. Lorsque M. le\njuge Stareleigh eut fait cela, tout ce qu'on pouvait voir de lui\nc'\u00e9taient deux petits yeux fort dr\u00f4les, une large face \u00e9carlate, et\nenviron la moiti\u00e9 d'une grande perruque tr\u00e8s-comique.\n\nAussit\u00f4t que le juge eut pris son si\u00e9ge, l'huissier qui se tenait debout\nsur le parquet de la cour, cria: _silence!_ d'un ton de commandement, un\nautre huissier dans la galerie r\u00e9p\u00e9ta imm\u00e9diatement: _silence!_ d'une\nvoix col\u00e9rique, et trois ou quatre autres huissiers lui r\u00e9pondirent avec\nindignation: _silence!_ Ceci \u00e9tant accompli, un gentleman en noir, assis\nau-dessous du juge, appela les noms des jur\u00e9s. Apr\u00e8s beaucoup de\nhurlements, on d\u00e9couvrit qu'il n'y avait que dix jur\u00e9s sp\u00e9ciaux qui\nfussent pr\u00e9sents. Me Buzfuz ayant alors demand\u00e9 que le jury sp\u00e9cial f\u00fbt\ncompl\u00e9t\u00e9 par des _tales quales_, le gentleman en noir s'empara\nimm\u00e9diatement de deux jur\u00e9s ordinaires, \u00e0 savoir un apothicaire et un\n\u00e9picier.\n\n\u00abGentlemen, dit l'homme en noir, r\u00e9pondez \u00e0 votre nom pour pr\u00eater le\nserment. Richard Upwitch?\n\n--Voil\u00e0, r\u00e9pondit l'\u00e9picier.\n\n--Thomas Groffin?\n\n--Pr\u00e9sent, dit l'apothicaire.\n\n--Prenez le livre, gentlemen. Vous jugerez fid\u00e8lement et loyalement....\n\n--Je demande pardon \u00e0 la cour, interrompit l'apothicaire, qui \u00e9tait\ngrand, maigre et jaune, mais j'esp\u00e8re que la cour ne m'obligera pas \u00e0\nsi\u00e9ger.\n\n--Et pourquoi cela, monsieur? dit le juge Stareleigh.\n\n--Je n'ai pas de gar\u00e7on, milord, r\u00e9pondit l'apothicaire.\n\n--Je n'y peux rien, monsieur. Vous devriez en avoir un.\n\n--Je n'en ai pas le moyen, milord.\n\n--Eh bien! monsieur, vous devriez en avoir le moyen, r\u00e9torqua le juge en\ndevenant rouge, car son temp\u00e9rament frisait l'irritable et ne supportait\npoint la contradiction.\n\n--Je sais que je devrais en avoir le moyen, si je prosp\u00e9rais comme je\nle m\u00e9rite; mais je ne l'ai pas, milord.\n\n--Faites pr\u00eater serment au gentleman, reprit le juge d'un ton\np\u00e9remptoire.\u00bb\n\nL'officier n'avait pas \u00e9t\u00e9 plus loin que le _vous jugerez fid\u00e8lement et\nloyalement_, quand il fut encore interrompu par l'apothicaire.\n\n\u00abEst-ce qu'il faut que je pr\u00eate serment, milord? demanda-t-il.\n\n--Certainement, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua l'ent\u00eat\u00e9 petit juge.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, milord, fit l'apothicaire d'un air r\u00e9sign\u00e9. Il y aura mort\nd'homme avant que le jugement soit rendu, voil\u00e0 tout. Faites-moi pr\u00eater\nserment si vous voulez, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nEt l'apothicaire pr\u00eata serment avant que le juge e\u00fbt pu trouver une\nparole \u00e0 prononcer.\n\n\u00abMilord, reprit l'apothicaire en s'asseyant fort tranquillement, je\nvoulais seulement vous faire observer que je n'ai laiss\u00e9 qu'un galopin\ndans ma boutique. C'est un charmant bonhomme, milord, mais qui se\nconna\u00eet fort peu en drogues; et je sais que, dans son id\u00e9e, _sel\nd'Epsom_ veut dire _acide prussique_, et _sirop d'Ip\u00e9cacuanha,\nlaudanum_. Voil\u00e0 tout, milord.\u00bb\n\nAyant prof\u00e9r\u00e9 ces mots, l'apothicaire s'arrangea commod\u00e9ment sur son\nsi\u00e9ge, prit un visage aimable et parut pr\u00e9par\u00e9 \u00e0 tout \u00e9v\u00e9nement.\n\nM. Pickwick le consid\u00e9rait avec le sentiment de la plus profonde\nhorreur, lorsqu'une l\u00e9g\u00e8re sensation se fit remarquer dans la cour. Mme\nBardell, support\u00e9e par Mme Cluppins, fut amen\u00e9e et plac\u00e9e, dans un \u00e9tat\nd'accablement pitoyable, \u00e0 l'autre bout du banc qu'occupait M. Pickwick.\nUn \u00e9norme parapluie fut alors apport\u00e9 par M. Dodson, et une paire de\nsocques, par M. Fogg, qui, tous les deux, avaient pr\u00e9par\u00e9 pour cette\noccasion leurs visages les plus sympathiques et les plus compatissants.\nMme Sanders parut ensuite, conduisant master Bardell. \u00c0 la vue de son\nenfant, la tendre m\u00e8re tressaillit, revint \u00e0 elle et l'embrassa avec des\ntransports fr\u00e9n\u00e9tiques; puis, retombant dans un \u00e9tat d'imb\u00e9cillit\u00e9\nhyst\u00e9rique, la bonne dame demanda \u00e0 ses amies o\u00f9 elle \u00e9tait. En\nr\u00e9pliquant \u00e0 cette question, Mme Cluppins et Mme Sanders d\u00e9tourn\u00e8rent la\nt\u00eate et se prirent \u00e0 pleurer, tandis que MM. Dodson et Fogg suppliaient\nla plaignante de se tranquilliser. Me Buzfuz frotta ses yeux de toutes\nses forces avec un mouchoir blanc et jeta vers le jury un regard qui\nsemblait faire appel \u00e0 son humanit\u00e9. Le juge \u00e9tait visiblement affect\u00e9,\net plusieurs des spectateurs touss\u00e8rent pour cacher leur \u00e9motion.\n\n\u00abUne tr\u00e8s bonne id\u00e9e, murmura Perker \u00e0 M. Pickwick. Dodson et Fogg sont\nd'habiles gens. Voil\u00e0 une sc\u00e8ne d'un excellent effet, mon cher monsieur,\nd'un excellent effet.\u00bb\n\nPendant que Perker parlait, Mme Bardell revenait lentement \u00e0 elle, et\nMme Cluppins, apr\u00e8s avoir soigneusement examin\u00e9 les boutons de monter\nBardell et leurs boutonni\u00e8res respectives, le pla\u00e7ait sur le parquet de\nla cour, devant sa m\u00e8re: position avantageuse o\u00f9 il ne pouvait manquer\nd'\u00e9veiller la commis\u00e9ration des jur\u00e9s et du juge. Cependant cela ne\ns'\u00e9tait pas fait sans une opposition consid\u00e9rable de la part du jeune\ngentleman lui-m\u00eame; car il n'\u00e9tait pas \u00e9loign\u00e9 de croire que ce f\u00fbt l\u00e0\nune formalit\u00e9 l\u00e9gale, apr\u00e8s laquelle on le condamnerait \u00e0 une ex\u00e9cution\nimm\u00e9diate ou \u00e0 la transportation au del\u00e0 des mers pour le reste de ses\njours, tout au moins.\n\n\u00abBardell et Pickwick! cria le gentleman en noir, appelant la cause qui\nse trouvait la premi\u00e8re sur la liste.\n\n--Milord, dit Me Buzfuz, je suis pour la plaignante.\n\n--Avec qui \u00eates-vous, Me Buzfuz? demanda le juge.\u00bb\n\nM. Skimpin salua pour exprimer que c'\u00e9tait avec lui.\n\n\u00abJe parais pour le d\u00e9fendeur, milord, dit \u00e0 son tour Me Snubbin.\n\n--Il y a quelqu'un avec vous, Me Snubbin? reprit le juge.\n\n--M. Phunky, milord.\n\n--Me Buzfuz et Me Skimpin, pour la plaignante, dit le juge en \u00e9crivant\nles noms sur son livre de notes et en articulant ce qu'il \u00e9crivait. Pour\nle d\u00e9fendeur, Me Snubbin et M. Tronquet.\n\n--Je demande pardon \u00e0 votre seigneurie: Phunky.\n\n--Oh! tr\u00e8s-bien, dit le juge. Je n'avais jamais eu le plaisir d'entendre\nle nom de monsieur.\u00bb\n\nIci M. Phunky salua et sourit, et le juge salua et sourit aussi; et\nalors M. Phunky, rougissant jusqu'au blanc des yeux, s'effor\u00e7a d'avoir\nl'air d'ignorer que tout le monde le regardait, chose qui n'a jamais\nr\u00e9ussi jusqu'\u00e0 pr\u00e9sent \u00e0 personne, et qui suivant toutes probabilit\u00e9s,\nne r\u00e9ussira en aucun temps.\n\n\u00abProc\u00e9dons,\u00bb dit le juge.\n\nLes huissiers, cri\u00e8rent de nouveau: _silence!_ et M. Skimpin exposa\nl'affaire; mais, lorsqu'elle fut expos\u00e9e, l'audience n'en fut gu\u00e8re plus\navanc\u00e9e, car l'avocat avait soigneusement gard\u00e9 pour lui-m\u00eame les\nparticularit\u00e9s qu'il savait; et, quand il se rassit, au bout de trois\nminutes, la religion du jury \u00e9tait pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment aussi \u00e9clair\u00e9e\nqu'auparavant.\n\nMe Buzfuz se leva alors, avec toute la dignit\u00e9 qu'exigeait la nature de\nsa cause, chuchota avec Dodson, conf\u00e9ra bri\u00e8vement avec Fogg, tira sa\nrobe sur ses \u00e9paules, arrangea sa perruque, et s'adressa au jury.\n\nIl commen\u00e7a par dire que jamais, dans le cours de sa carri\u00e8re, jamais\ndepuis le premier moment o\u00f9 il s'\u00e9tait appliqu\u00e9 \u00e0 l'\u00e9tude des lois, il\nne s'\u00e9tait approch\u00e9 d'une cause avec des sentiments d'\u00e9motion aussi\nprofonde, avec la conscience d'une aussi pesante responsabilit\u00e9;\nresponsabilit\u00e9, pouvait-il dire, qu'il n'aurait jamais voulu assumer\ns'il n'avait pas \u00e9t\u00e9 soutenu par la conviction, assez forte pour\n\u00e9quivaloir \u00e0 une certitude, par la conviction que la cause de la\njustice, ou, en d'autres termes, la cause de sa cliente, de sa cliente\nabus\u00e9e, innocente et pers\u00e9cut\u00e9e, devait pr\u00e9valoir aupr\u00e8s des douze\ngentlemen intelligents, nobles et g\u00e9n\u00e9reux, qu'il voyait assis en face\nde lui.\n\nLes avocats commencent toujours de cette mani\u00e8re, parce que cela rend\nles jur\u00e9s contents d'eux-m\u00eames en leur faisant croire qu'ils doivent\n\u00eatre des personnages bien difficiles \u00e0 tromper. Un effet visible fut\nproduit imm\u00e9diatement et plusieurs jur\u00e9s commenc\u00e8rent \u00e0 prendre avec\nactivit\u00e9 de volumineuses notes.\n\n\u00abGentlemen, vous avez appris de mon savant ami, poursuivit Me Buzfuz,\nquoiqu'il s\u00fbt tr\u00e8s-bien que les gentlemen du jury n'avaient rien appris\ndu tout du savant ami en question; vous avez appris de mon savant ami\nque ceci est une action pour violation de promesse de mariage, dans\nlaquelle les dommages demand\u00e9s sont de 1500 livres sterling; mais vous\nn'avez pas appris de mon savant ami, attendu que cela n'entrait pas dans\nles attributions de mon savant ami, quels sont les faits et les\ncirconstances de la cause. Ces faits et ces circonstances, gentlemen,\nvous allez les entendre d\u00e9taill\u00e9s par moi et prouv\u00e9s par les v\u00e9ridiques\ndames que je placerai devant vous dans cette tribune.\u00bb\n\nIci Me Buzfuz, avec une terrible emphase sur le mot _tribune_, frappa sa\ntable d'un poing majestueux en regardant Dodson et Fogg. Ceux-ci firent\nun signe d'admiration pour l'avocat, d'indignation et de d\u00e9fi pour le\nd\u00e9fendeur.\n\n\u00abLa plaignante, gentlemen, continua Me Buzfuz d'une voix douce et\nm\u00e9lancolique, la plaignante est une veuve. Oui, gentlemen, une veuve.\nFeu M. Bardell, apr\u00e8s avoir joui, pendant beaucoup d'ann\u00e9es, de l'estime\net de la confiance de son souverain, comme l'un des gardiens de ses\nrevenus royaux, s'\u00e9loigna presque imperceptiblement de ce monde, pour\naller chercher ailleurs le repos et la paix, que la douane ne peut\njamais accorder.\u00bb\n\n\u00c0 cette po\u00e9tique description du d\u00e9c\u00e8s de M. Bardell (qui avait eu la\nt\u00eate cass\u00e9e d'un coup de pinte dans une rixe de taverne), la voix du\nsavant avocat trembla et s'\u00e9teignit un instant. Il continua avec grande\n\u00e9motion.\n\n\u00abQuelque temps avant sa mort, il avait imprim\u00e9 sa ressemblance sur le\nfront d'un petit gar\u00e7on. Avec ce petit gar\u00e7on, seul gage de l'amour du\nd\u00e9funt douanier, Mme Bardell se cacha au monde et rechercha la\ntranquillit\u00e9 de la rue Goswell. L\u00e0 elle pla\u00e7a \u00e0 la crois\u00e9e de son\nparloir un \u00e9criteau manuscrit portant cette inscription: _Appartement de\ngar\u00e7on \u00e0 louer en garni; s'adresser au rez-de-chauss\u00e9e._\u00bb\n\nIci Me Buzfuz fit une pause, tandis que plusieurs gentlemen du jury\nprenaient note de ce document.\n\n\u00abEst-ce qu'il n'y a point de date \u00e0 cette pi\u00e8ce? demanda un jur\u00e9.\n\n--Non, monsieur, il n'y a point de date, r\u00e9pondit l'avocat. Mais je suis\nautoris\u00e9 \u00e0 d\u00e9clarer que cet \u00e9criteau fut mis \u00e0 la fen\u00eatre de la\nplaignante il y a justement trois ann\u00e9es. J'appelle l'attention du jury\nsur les termes de ce document: _Appartement de gar\u00e7on \u00e0 louer en garni_.\nMessieurs, l'opinion que Mme Bardell s'\u00e9tait form\u00e9e de l'autre sexe\n\u00e9tait d\u00e9riv\u00e9e d'une longue contemplation des qualit\u00e9s inestimables de\nl'\u00e9poux qu'elle avait perdu. Elle n'avait pas de crainte; elle n'avait\npas de m\u00e9fiance; elle n'avait pas de soup\u00e7ons; elle \u00e9tait tout abandon\net toute confiance. M. Bardell, disait la veuve, M. Bardell \u00e9tait\nautrefois gar\u00e7on; c'est \u00e0 un gar\u00e7on que je demanderai protection,\nassistance, consolation. C'est dans un gar\u00e7on que je verrai\n\u00e9ternellement quelque chose qui me rappellera ce qu'\u00e9tait M. Bardell,\nquand il gagna mes jeunes et vierges affections; c'est \u00e0 un gar\u00e7on que\nje louerai mon appartement. Entra\u00een\u00e9e par cette belle et touchante\ninspiration (l'une des plus belles inspirations de notre imparfaite\nnature, gentlemen), la veuve solitaire et d\u00e9sol\u00e9e s\u00e9cha ses lames,\nmeubla son premier \u00e9tage, serra son innocente prog\u00e9niture sur son sein\nmaternel, et mit \u00e0 la fen\u00eatre de son parloir l'\u00e9criteau que vous\nconnaissez. Y resta-t-il longtemps? Non. Le serpent \u00e9tait aux aguets,\nla m\u00e8che \u00e9tait allum\u00e9e, la mine \u00e9tait pr\u00e9par\u00e9e, le sapeur et le mineur\n\u00e9taient \u00e0 l'ouvrage. L'\u00e9criteau n'avait pas \u00e9t\u00e9 trois jours \u00e0 la fen\u00eatre\ndu parloir... trois jours, gentlemen! quand un \u00eatre qui marchait sur\ndeux jambes et qui ressemblait ext\u00e9rieurement \u00e0 un homme et non point \u00e0\nun monstre, frappa \u00e0 la porte de Mme Bardell. Il s'adressa au\nrez-de-chauss\u00e9e; il loua le logement, et le lendemain il s'y installa.\nCet \u00eatre \u00e9tait Pickwick; Pickwick le d\u00e9fendeur.\u00bb\n\nMe Buzfuz avait parl\u00e9 avec tant de volubilit\u00e9 que son visage en \u00e9tait\ndevenu absolument cramoisi. Il s'arr\u00eata ici pour reprendre haleine. Le\nsilence r\u00e9veilla M. le juge Stareleigh qui, imm\u00e9diatement, \u00e9crivit\nquelque chose avec une plume o\u00f9 il n'y avait pas d'encre, et prit un air\nextraordinairement r\u00e9fl\u00e9chi, afin de faire croire au jury qu'il pensait\ntoujours plus profond\u00e9ment quand il avait les yeux ferm\u00e9s.\n\nMe Buzfuz continua.\n\n\u00abJe dirai peu de choses de cet homme. Le sujet pr\u00e9sente peu de charmes,\net je n'aurais pas plus de plaisir que vous, gentlemen, \u00e0 m'\u00e9tendre\ncomplaisamment sur son \u00e9go\u00efsme r\u00e9voltant, sur sa sc\u00e9l\u00e9ratesse\nsyst\u00e9matique.\u00bb\n\nEn entendant ces derniers mots, M. Pickwick qui, depuis quelques\ninstants \u00e9crivait en silence, tressaillit violemment, comme si quelque\nvague id\u00e9e d'attaquer Me Buzfuz sous les yeux m\u00eames de la justice,\ns'\u00e9tait pr\u00e9sent\u00e9e \u00e0 son esprit. Un geste monitoire de M. Perker le\nretint, et il \u00e9couta le reste du discours du savant gentleman avec un\nair d'indignation qui contrastait compl\u00e8tement avec le visage admirateur\nde Mmes Cluppins et Sanders.\n\n\u00abJe dis sc\u00e9l\u00e9ratesse syst\u00e9matique, gentlemen, continua l'avocat en\nregardant M. Pickwick, et en s'adressant directement \u00e0 lui; et, quand je\ndis sc\u00e9l\u00e9ratesse syst\u00e9matique, permettez-moi d'avertir le d\u00e9fendeur,\ns'il est dans cette salle, comme je suis inform\u00e9 qu'il y est, qu'il\naurait agi plus d\u00e9cemment, plus convenablement, avec plus de jugement et\nde bon go\u00fbt, s'il s'\u00e9tait abstenu d'y para\u00eetre. Laissez-moi l'avertir,\nmessieurs, que s'il se permettait quelque geste de d\u00e9sapprobation dans\ncette enceinte, vous sauriez les appr\u00e9cier et lui en tenir un compte\nrigoureux; et laissez-moi lui dire, en outre, comme milord vous le dira,\ngentlemen, qu'un Avocat qui remplit son devoir envers ses clients, ne\ndoit \u00eatre ni intimid\u00e9, ni menac\u00e9, ni maltrait\u00e9, et que toute tentative\npour commettre l'un ou l'autre de ces actes retombera sur la t\u00eate du\nmachinateur, qu'il soit demandeur ou d\u00e9fendeur, que son nom soit\nPickwick ou Noakes, ou Stonkes, ou Stiles, ou Brown, ou Thompson.\u00bb\n\nCette petite digression du sujet principal amena n\u00e9cessairement le\nr\u00e9sultat d\u00e9sir\u00e9, de tourner tous les yeux sur M. Pickwick. Me Buzfuz,\ns'\u00e9tant partiellement remis de l'\u00e9tat d'\u00e9l\u00e9vation morale o\u00f9 il s'\u00e9tait\nfouett\u00e9, continua plus pos\u00e9ment.\n\n\u00abJe vous prouverai, gentlemen, que, pendant deux ann\u00e9es, Pickwick\ncontinua de rester constamment et sans interruption, sans intermission,\ndans la maison de la dame Bardell; je vous prouverai que, durant tout ce\ntemps, la dame Bardell le servit, s'occupa de ses besoins, fit cuire ses\nrepas, donna son linge \u00e0 la blanchisseuse, le re\u00e7ut, le raccommoda, et\njouit enfin de toute la confiance de son locataire. Je vous prouverai\nque, dans beaucoup d'occasions, il donna \u00e0 son petit gar\u00e7on des\ndemi-pence, et m\u00eame, dans, quelques occasions, des pi\u00e8ces de six pence;\nje vous prouverai aussi, par la d\u00e9position d'un t\u00e9moin qu'il a\u00e9ra\nimpossible \u00e0 mon savant ami de r\u00e9cuser ou d'infirmer; je vous prouverai,\ndis-je, qu'une fois il caressa le petit bonhomme sur la t\u00eate, et, apr\u00e8s\nlui avoir demand\u00e9 s'il avait gagn\u00e9 r\u00e9cemment beaucoup de billes et de\ncalots, se servit de ces expressions remarquables: _Seriez-vous bien\ncontent d'avoir un autre p\u00e8re?_ Je vous prouverai, en outre, gentlemen,\nqu'il y a environ un an, Pickwick commen\u00e7a tout \u00e0 coup \u00e0 s'absenter de\nla maison, durant de longs intervalles, comme s'il avait eu l'intention\nde se s\u00e9parer graduellement de ma cliente; mais je vous ferai voir aussi\nqu'\u00e0 cette \u00e9poque sa r\u00e9solution n'\u00e9tait pas assez forte ou que ses bons\nsentiments prirent le dessus, s'il a de bons sentiments; ou que les\ncharmes et les accomplissements de ma cliente l'emport\u00e8rent sur ses\nintentions inhumaines; car je vous prouverai qu'en revenant d'un voyage,\nil lui fit positivement des offres de mariage, apr\u00e8s avoir pris soin\ntoutefois qu'il ne put y avoir aucun t\u00e9moin de leur contrat solennel.\nCependant je suis en \u00e9tat de vous prouver, d'apr\u00e8s le t\u00e9moignage de\ntrois de ses amis, qui d\u00e9poseront bien malgr\u00e9 eux, gentlemen, que, dans\ncette m\u00eame matin\u00e9e, il fut d\u00e9couvert par eux, tenant la plaignante dans\nses bras et calmant son agitation par des douceurs et des caresses.\u00bb\n\nUne impression visible fut produite sur les auditeurs par cette partie\ndu discours du savant avocat. Tirant de son sac deux petits chiffons de\npapier, il continua:\n\n\u00abEt maintenant, gentlemen, un seul mot de plus. Nous avons heureusement\nretrouv\u00e9 deux lettres, que le d\u00e9fendeur confesse \u00eatre de lui, et qui\ndisent des volumes. Ces lettres d\u00e9voilent le caract\u00e8re de l'homme. Elles\nne sont point \u00e9crites dans un langage ouvert, \u00e9loquent, fervent,\nrespirant le parfum d'une tendresse passionn\u00e9e; non, elles sont pleines\nde pr\u00e9cautions, de ruses, de mots couverts, mais qui heureusement sont\nbien plus concluantes que si elles contenaient les expressions les plus\nbr\u00fblantes, les plus po\u00e9tiques images: lettres qui doivent \u00eatre examin\u00e9es\navec un oeil soup\u00e7onneux; lettres qui \u00e9taient destin\u00e9es, par Pickwick, \u00e0\nd\u00e9router les tiers entre les mains desquels elles pourraient tomber. Je\nvais vous lire la premi\u00e8re, gentlemen. \u00abGarraway, midi. Ch\u00e8re mistress\nB. C\u00f4telettes de mouton et sauce aux tomates! Tout \u00e0 vous. Pickwick.\u00bb\nC\u00f4telettes de mouton! Juste ciel! et sauce aux tomates! Gentlemen, le\nbonheur d'une femme sensible et confiante devra-t-il \u00eatre \u00e0 jamais\nd\u00e9truit par ces vils artifices? La lettre suivante n'a point de date, ce\nqui, par soi-m\u00eame, est d\u00e9j\u00e0 suspect. \u00abCh\u00e8re madame B. Je n'arriverai \u00e0\nla maison que demain matin: la voiture est en retard.\u00bb Et ensuite\nviennent ces expressions tr\u00e8s-remarquables: \u00abNe vous tourmentez point\npour la bassinoire.\u00bb La bassinoire! Eh! messieurs, qui donc se tourmente\npour une bassinoire? Quand est-ce que la paix d'un homme ou d'une femme\na \u00e9t\u00e9 troubl\u00e9e par une bassinoire? par une bassinoire, qui est en\nelle-m\u00eame un meuble domestique innocent, utile, et j'ajouterai m\u00eame,\ncommode. Pourquoi Mme Bardell est-elle si chaleureusement suppli\u00e9e de ne\npoint d'affliger pour la bassinoire? \u00c0 moins (comme il n'y a pas l'ombre\nd'un doute) que ce mot ne serve de couvercle \u00e0 un feu cach\u00e9, qu'il ne\nsoit l'\u00e9quivalent de quelque expression caressante, de quelque promesse\nflatteuse, le tout d\u00e9guis\u00e9 par un syst\u00e8me de correspondance \u00e9nigmatique,\nartificieusement imagin\u00e9 par Pickwick, dans le dessein de pr\u00e9parer sa\nl\u00e2che trahison, et qui, effectivement, est rest\u00e9 ind\u00e9chiffrable pour\ntout le monde. Ensuite, que signifient ces paroles: _La voiture est en\nretard?_ Je ne serais point \u00e9tonn\u00e9 qu'elles s'appliquassent \u00e0 Pickwick\nlui-m\u00eame qui, incontestablement, a \u00e9t\u00e9 bien criminellement en retard\ndurant toute cette affaire; mais dont la vitesse sera inopin\u00e9ment\nacc\u00e9l\u00e9r\u00e9e, et dont les roues, comme il s'en apercevra \u00e0 son dam, seront\nincessamment graiss\u00e9es par vous-m\u00eames, gentlemen!\u00bb\n\nMe Buzfuz s'arr\u00eata en cet endroit, pour voir si le jury souriait \u00e0\ncette plaisanterie; mais personne ne l'ayant comprise, except\u00e9\nl'\u00e9picier, dont l'intelligence sur ce sujet provenait probablement de ce\nqu'il avait soumis, dans la matin\u00e9e m\u00eame, son chariot au proc\u00e9d\u00e9 en\nquestion, le savant avocat jugea convenable, pour finir, de retomber\nencore dans le lugubre.\n\n\u00abAssez de ceci, gentlemen; il est difficile de sourire avec un coeur\nd\u00e9chir\u00e9; il est mal de plaisanter, quand nos plus profondes sympathies\nsont \u00e9veill\u00e9es. L'avenir de ma cliente est perdu; et ce n'est pas une\nfigure de rh\u00e9torique de dire que sa maison est vide. L'\u00e9criteau n'est\npas mis, et pourtant il n'y a point de locataire. Des c\u00e9libataires\nestimables passent et repassent dans la rue Goswell, mais il n'y a pas\npour eux d'invitation \u00e0 s'adresser au rez-de-chauss\u00e9e. Tout est sombre\net silencieux dans la demeure de madame Bardell; la voix m\u00eame de\nl'enfant ne s'y fait plus entendre; ses jeux innocents sont abandonn\u00e9s,\ncar sa m\u00e8re g\u00e9mit et se d\u00e9sesp\u00e8re; ses agates et ses billes sont\nn\u00e9glig\u00e9es; il n'entend plus le cri familier de ses camarades: pas de\ntricherie! Il a perdu l'habilet\u00e9 dont il faisait preuve au jeu de pair\nou impair. Cependant, gentlemen, Pickwick, l'inf\u00e2me destructeur de cette\noasis domestique qui verdoyait dans le d\u00e9sert de Goswell Street,\nPickwick qui se pr\u00e9sente devant vous au jourd'hui, avec son infernale\n_sauce aux tomates_ et son ignoble _bassinoire_, Pickwick l\u00e8ve encore\ndevant vous son front d'airain, et contemple avec f\u00e9rocit\u00e9 la ruine dont\nil est l'auteur. Des dommages, gentlemen, de forts dommages sont la\nseule punition que vous puissiez lui infliger, la seule consolation que\nvous puissiez offrir \u00e0 ma cliente; et c'est dans cet espoir qu'elle\nfait, en ce moment, un appel \u00e0 l'intelligence, \u00e0 l'esprit \u00e9lev\u00e9, \u00e0 la\nsympathie, \u00e0 la conscience, \u00e0 la justice, \u00e0 la grandeur d'\u00e2me d'un jury\ncompos\u00e9 de ses plus honorables concitoyens.\u00bb\n\nApr\u00e8s cette belle p\u00e9roraison, Me Buzfuz s'assit, et M. le juge\nStareleigh s'\u00e9veilla.\n\n\u00abAppelez \u00c9lisabeth Cluppins,\u00bb dit l'avocat en se relevant au bout d'une\nminute, avec une nouvelle vigueur.\n\nL'huissier le plus proche appela: \u00ab\u00c9lisabeth Tuppins!\u00bb un autre, \u00e0 une\npetite distance, demanda: \u00ab\u00c9lisabeth Supkins!\u00bb et un troisi\u00e8me enfin se\npr\u00e9cipita dans King-Street et beugla: \u00ab\u00c9lisabeth Fnuffin!\u00bb jusqu'\u00e0 ce\nqu'il en f\u00fbt enrou\u00e9.\n\nPendant ce temps, Madame Cluppins avec l'assistance combin\u00e9e de Mmes\nBardell et Sanders, de M. Dodson et de M. Fogg, \u00e9tait conduite vers la\ntribune des t\u00e9moins. Lorsqu'elle fut heureusement juch\u00e9e sur la marche\nd'en haut, Mme Bardell se pla\u00e7a debout sur celle d'en bas, tenant d'une\nmain le mouchoir et les socques de son amie, de l'autre une bouteille de\nverre, qui pouvait contenir environ un quart de pinte de sel de\nvinaigre, afin d'\u00eatre pr\u00eate \u00e0 tout \u00e9v\u00e9nement. Mme Sanders, dont les yeux\n\u00e9taient attentivement fix\u00e9s sur le visage du juge, se planta pr\u00e8s de Mme\nBardell, tenant de la main gauche le grand parapluie, et appuyant d'un\nair d\u00e9termin\u00e9 son pouce droit sur le ressort, comme pour faire voir\nqu'elle \u00e9tait pr\u00eate \u00e0 l'ouvrir, au plus l\u00e9ger signal.\n\n\u00abMadame Cluppins, dit Me Buzfuz, je vous en prie, madame,\ntranquillisez-vous.\u00bb\n\nBien entendu qu'\u00e0 cette invitation, Mme Cluppins se prit \u00e0 sangloter\navec une nouvelle violence, et donna des marques si alarmantes de\nsensibilit\u00e9, qu'elle semblait \u00e0 chaque instant pr\u00eate \u00e0 s'\u00e9vanouir.\n\nCependant, apr\u00e8s quelques questions peu importantes, Me Buzfuz lui dit:\n\u00abVous rappelez-vous, madame Cluppins, vous \u00eatre trouv\u00e9e dans la chambre\ndu fond, au premier \u00e9tage, chez Mme Bardell, dans une certaine matin\u00e9e\nde juillet, tandis qu'elle \u00e9poussetait l'appartement de M. Pickwick?\n\n--Oui milord, et messieurs du jury, r\u00e9pondit Mme Cluppins.\n\n--La chambre de M. Pickwick \u00e9tait au premier, sur le devant, je pense?\n\n--Oui, Monsieur.\n\n--Que faisiez-vous dans la chambre de derri\u00e8re, madame? demanda le petit\njuge.\n\n--Milord et messieurs! s'\u00e9cria Mme Cluppins, avec une agitation\nint\u00e9ressante, je ne veux pas vous tromper....\n\n--Vous ferez bien, madame, lui dit-le petit juge.\n\n--Je me trouvais l\u00e0 \u00e0 l'insu de Mme Bardell. J'\u00e9tais sortie avec un\npetit panier, messieurs, pour acheter trois livres de vitelottes, qui\nm'ont bien co\u00fbt\u00e9 deux pence et demi, quand je vois la porte de la rue de\nMme Bardell entre-b\u00e2ill\u00e9e....\n\n--Entre quoi? s'\u00e9cria le petit juge.\n\n--\u00c0 moiti\u00e9 ouverte, milord, dit Me Snubbin.\n\n--Elle a dit entre-b\u00e2ill\u00e9e, fit observer le petit juge d'un air\nplaisant.\n\n--C'est la m\u00eame chose, milord,\u00bb reprit l'illustre avocat.\n\nLe petit juge le regarda dubitativement, et dit qu'il en tiendrait note.\nMme Cluppins continua.\n\n\u00abJe suis entr\u00e9e, gentlemen, juste pour dire bonjour, et je suis mont\u00e9e\nles escaliers, d'une mani\u00e8re pacifique, et je suis p\u00e9n\u00e9tr\u00e9e dans la\nchambre de derri\u00e8re et... et....\n\n--Et vous avez \u00e9cout\u00e9, je pense, madame Cluppins? dit Me Buzfuz.\n\n--Je vous demande excuse, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Mme Cluppins, d'un air\nmajestueux, j'en m\u00e9priserais l'action, les voix \u00e9taient tr\u00e8s-\u00e9lev\u00e9es,\nmonsieur, et se forc\u00e8rent sur mon oreille.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s bien, vous n'\u00e9coutiez pas, mais vous entendiez les voix. Une de\nces voix \u00e9tait-elle celle de M. Pickwick?\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nMme Cluppins, apr\u00e8s avoir d\u00e9clar\u00e9 distinctement que M. Pickwick\ns'adressait \u00e0 Mme Bardell, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta lentement et en r\u00e9ponse \u00e0 de\nnombreuses questions, la conversation que nos lecteurs connaissent d\u00e9j\u00e0.\nMe Buzfuz sourit, en s'asseyant, et les jur\u00e9s prirent un air\nsoup\u00e7onneux; mais leur physionomie devint absolument mena\u00e7ante, lorsque\nMe Snubbin d\u00e9clara qu'il ne contre-examinerait pas le t\u00e9moin, parce que\nM. Pickwick croyait devoir convenir que son r\u00e9cit \u00e9tait exact en\nsubstance.\n\nMme Cluppins ayant une fois bris\u00e9 la glace, jugea que l'occasion \u00e9tait\nfavorable pour faire une courte dissertation sur ses propres affaires\ndomestiques. Elle commen\u00e7a donc par informer la cour qu'elle \u00e9tait au\nmoment actuel m\u00e8re de huit enfants, et qu'elle entretenait l'esp\u00e9rance\nd'en pr\u00e9senter un neuvi\u00e8me \u00e0 M. Cluppins dans environ six mois.\nMalheureusement dans cet endroit instructif, le petit juge l'interrompit\ntr\u00e8s-col\u00e9riquement, et par suite de cette interruption la vertueuse dame\net Mme Sanders furent poliment conduites hors de la salle, sous\nl'escorte de M. Jackson, sans autre forme de proc\u00e8s.\n\n\u00abNathaniel Winkle! dit M. Skimpin.\n\n--Pr\u00e9sent, r\u00e9pondit M. Winkle, d'une voix faible; puis il entra dans la\ntribune des t\u00e9moins, et apr\u00e8s avoir pr\u00eat\u00e9 serment, salua le juge avec\nune grande d\u00e9f\u00e9rence.\n\n--Ne vous tournez pas vers moi, monsieur, lui dit aigrement le juge, en\nr\u00e9ponse \u00e0 son salut. Regardez le jury.\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle ob\u00e9it, avec empressement, \u00e0 cet ordre, et se tourna vers la\nplace o\u00f9 il supposait que le jury devait \u00eatre, car dans l'\u00e9tat de\nconfusion o\u00f9 il se trouvait, il \u00e9tait tout \u00e0 fait incapable de voir\nquelque chose.\n\nM. Skimpin s'occupa alors de l'examiner. C'\u00e9tait un jeune homme de 42\nou 43 ans, qui promettait beaucoup, et qui \u00e9tait n\u00e9cessairement fort\nd\u00e9sireux de confondre, autant qu'il le pourrait, un t\u00e9moin notoirement\npr\u00e9dispos\u00e9 en faveur de l'autre partie.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, monsieur, aurez-vous la bont\u00e9 de faire conna\u00eetre votre nom\n\u00e0 Sa Seigneurie et au jury? dit M. Skimpin, en inclinant de c\u00f4t\u00e9 pour\n\u00e9couter la r\u00e9ponse, et pour jeter en m\u00eame temps aux jur\u00e9s un coup d'oeil\nqui semblait indiquer que le go\u00fbt naturel de M. Winkle pour le parjure\npourrait bien l'induire \u00e0 d\u00e9clarer un autre nom que le sien.\n\n--Winkle, r\u00e9pondit le t\u00e9moin.\n\n--Quel est votre nom de bapt\u00eame, monsieur? demanda le petit juge d'un\nton courrouc\u00e9.\n\n--Nathaniel, monsieur.\n\n--Daniel? Vous n'avez pas d'autre pr\u00e9nom?\n\n--Nathaniel, monsieur... milord, je veux dire.\n\n--Nathaniel, Daniel? ou Daniel Nathaniel?\n\n--Non, milord; seulement Nathaniel; point Daniel.\n\n--Alors, monsieur, pourquoi donc m'avez-vous dit Daniel?\n\n--Je ne l'ai pas dit, milord.\n\n--Vous l'avez dit, monsieur, r\u00e9torqua le juge, avec un aust\u00e8re\nfroncement de sourcils. Pourquoi aurais-je \u00e9crit: _Daniel_, dans mes\nnotes, si vous ne me l'aviez pas dit, monsieur?\u00bb\n\nCet argument \u00e9tait \u00e9videmment sans r\u00e9plique.\n\n\u00abM. Winkle a la m\u00e9moire assez courte, milord, interrompit M. Skimpin, en\njetant un autre coup d'oeil au jury; mais j'esp\u00e8re que nous trouverons\nmoyen de la lui rafra\u00eechir.\n\n--Je vous conseille de faire attention, monsieur,\u00bb dit le petit juge au\nt\u00e9moin, en le regardant d'un air sinistre.\n\nLe pauvre M. Winkle salua, et s'effor\u00e7a de feindre une tranquillit\u00e9 dont\nil \u00e9tait bien loin; ce qui, dans son \u00e9tat de perplexit\u00e9, lui donnait\npr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment l'air d'un filou pris sur le fait.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, monsieur Winkle, reprit M. Skimpin, \u00e9coutez moi avec\nattention, s'il vous pla\u00eet, et laissez-moi vous recommander, dans votre\npropre int\u00e9r\u00eat, de ne point oublier les injonctions de milord.\nN'\u00eates-vous pas ami intime de M. Pickwick, le d\u00e9fendeur?\n\n--Autant que je puisse me le rappeler, en ce moment, je connais M.\nPickwick depuis pr\u00e8s de....\n\n--Monsieur, n'\u00e9ludez pas la question. \u00cates-vous oui ou non ami intime\ndu d\u00e9fendeur?\n\n--J'allais justement vous dire que....\n\n--Voulez-vous, oui ou non, r\u00e9pondre \u00e0 ma question, monsieur?\n\n--Si vous ne r\u00e9pondez pas \u00e0 la question, je vous ferai incarc\u00e9rer,\nmonsieur, s'\u00e9cria le petit juge en regardant par-dessus ses notes.\n\n--Allons! monsieur, oui ou non, s'il vous pla\u00eet, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Skimpin.\n\n--Oui, je le suis, dit enfin M. Winkle.\n\n--Ah! vous l'\u00eates! Et pourquoi n'avez-vous pas voulu le dire du premier\ncoup, monsieur? Vous connaissez peut-\u00eatre aussi la plaignante? n'est-ce\npas, monsieur Winkle?\n\n--Je ne la connais pas, mais je l'ai vue.\n\n--Oh! vous ne la connaissez pas, mais vous l'avez vue! Maintenant ayez\nla bont\u00e9 de dire \u00e0 MM. les jur\u00e9s, ce que vous entendez par cette\ndistinction, monsieur Winkle?\n\n--J'entends que je ne suis pas intime avec elle, mais que je l'ai vue\nquand j'allais chez monsieur Pickwick, dans Goswell-Street.\n\n--Combien de fois l'avez-vous vue, monsieur?\n\n--Combien de fois?\n\n--Oui, monsieur, combien de fois? Je vous r\u00e9p\u00e9terai cette question tant\nque vous le d\u00e9sirerez, monsieur.\u00bb Et le savant gentleman, apr\u00e8s avoir\nfronc\u00e9 s\u00e9v\u00e8rement les sourcils, pla\u00e7a ses mains sur ses hanches, et\nsourit aux jur\u00e9s, d'un air soup\u00e7onneux.\n\nSur cette question, s'\u00e9leva l'\u00e9difiante controverse, ordinaire en pareil\ncas. D'abord M. Winkle d\u00e9clara qu'il lui \u00e9tait absolument impossible de\npr\u00e9ciser combien de fois il avait vu Mme Bardell. Alors on lui demanda\ns'il l'avait vue vingt fois? \u00e0 quoi il r\u00e9pondit: \u00abCertainement plus que\ncela.\u00bb--S'il l'avait vue cent fois?--S'il pouvait jurer de l'avoir vue\nplus de cinquante fois?--S'il n'\u00e9tait pas certain de l'avoir vue, au\nmoins soixante et quinze fois, et ainsi de suite. \u00c0 la fin on arriva \u00e0\ncette conclusion satisfaisante qu'il ferait bien de prendre garde \u00e0 lui\net \u00e0 ses r\u00e9ponses. Le t\u00e9moin ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 r\u00e9duit de la sorte \u00e0 l'\u00e9tat\nd\u00e9sir\u00e9 de susceptibilit\u00e9 nerveuse, l'interrogatoire fut continu\u00e9 ainsi\nqu'il suit:\n\n\u00abMonsieur Winkle, vous rappelez-vous avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 chez le d\u00e9fendeur\nPickwick dans l'appartement de la plaignante, rue Goswell, une certaine\nmatin\u00e9e de juillet?\n\n--Oui, je me le rappelle.\n\n--\u00c9tiez-vous accompagn\u00e9 dans cette occasion par un ami du nom de Tupman,\net par un autre du nom de Snodgrass.\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--Sont-ils ici?\n\n--Oui, ils y sont, r\u00e9pondit M. Winkle en regardant avec inqui\u00e9tude\nl'endroit o\u00f9 \u00e9taient plac\u00e9s ses amis.\n\n--Je vous en prie, monsieur Winkle, occupez-vous de moi et ne pensez pas\n\u00e0 vos amis, reprit M. Skimpin, en jetant au jury un autre coup d'oeil\nexpressif. Il faudra qu'ils racontent leur histoire sans avoir de\nconsultation pr\u00e9alable avec vous, s'ils n'en ont pas eu d\u00e9j\u00e0 (autre\nregard au jury). Maintenant, monsieur, dites \u00e0 MM. les jur\u00e9s ce que vous\nv\u00eetes en entrant dans la chambre du d\u00e9fendeur, le jour en question.\nAllons! monsieur, accouchez donc; il faut que nous le sachions t\u00f4t ou\ntard.\n\n--Le d\u00e9fendeur, M. Pickwick, tenait la plaignante dans ses bras, ayant\nses mains autour de sa taille, r\u00e9pliqua M. Winkle, avec une h\u00e9sitation\nbien naturelle; et la plaignante paraissait \u00eatre \u00e9vanouie.\n\n--Avez-vous entendu le d\u00e9fendeur dire quelque chose?\n\n--Je l'ai entendu appeler Mme Bardell une bonne \u00e2me, et l'engager \u00e0 se\ncalmer, en lui repr\u00e9sentant dans quelle situation on les trouverait s'il\nsurvenait quelqu'un, ou quelque chose comme cela.\n\n--Maintenant, monsieur Winkle, je n'ai plus qu'une question \u00e0 vous\nfaire, et je vous prie de vous rappeler l'avertissement de milord.\nVoulez-vous affirmer, sous serment, que Pickwick, le d\u00e9fendeur, n'a pas\ndit dans l'occasion en question: \u00abMa ch\u00e8re madame Bardell, vous \u00eates une\nbonne \u00e2me; habituez-vous \u00e0 cette situation: un jour vous y viendrez,\nm\u00eame devant quelqu'un;\u00bb ou quelque chose comme cela.\n\n--Je... je ne l'ai certainement pas compris ainsi, dit M. Winkle \u00e9tonn\u00e9\nde l'ing\u00e9nieuse explication donn\u00e9e au petit nombre de paroles qu'il\navait entendues. J'\u00e9tais sur l'escalier, et je n'ai pas pu entendre\ndistinctement. L'impression qui m'est rest\u00e9e est que....\n\n--Ah! interrompit M. Skimpin, les gentlemen du jury n'ont pas besoin de\nvos impressions qui, je le crains, ne satisferaient gu\u00e8re des personnes\nhonn\u00eates et franches: vous \u00e9tiez sur l'escalier et vous n'avez pas\nentendu distinctement; mais vous ne voulez pas jurer que M. Pickwick ne\nse soit pas servi des expressions que je viens de citer. Vous ai-je\nbien compris?\n\n--Non, je ne le peux pas jurer,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua M. Winkle; et M. Skimpin\ns'assit d'un air triomphant.\n\nJusque-l\u00e0, la cause de M. Pickwick n'avait pas march\u00e9 d'une mani\u00e8re\ntellement heureuse qu'elle f\u00fbt en \u00e9tat de supporter le poids de nouveaux\nsoup\u00e7ons, mais comme on pouvait d\u00e9sirer de la placer sous un meilleur\njour, s'il \u00e9tait possible, M. Phunky se leva, afin de tirer quelque\nchose d'important de M. Winkle dans un contre-examen. On va voir tout \u00e0\nl'heure s'il en tira en effet quelque chose d'important.\n\n\u00abJe crois, monsieur Winkle, lui dit-il, que M. Pickwick n'est plus un\njeune homme?\n\n--Oh non! r\u00e9pondit M. Winkle, il est assez \u00e2g\u00e9 pour \u00eatre mon p\u00e8re.\n\n--Vous avez dit \u00e0 mon savant ami que vous connaissiez M. Pickwick depuis\nlongtemps. Avez-vous jamais eu quelques raisons de supposer qu'il \u00e9tait\nsur le point de se marier?\n\n--Oh non! certainement, non! r\u00e9pliqua M. Winkle avec tant d'empressement\nque M. Phunky aurait d\u00fb le tirer de la tribune le plus promptement\npossible. Les praticiens tiennent qu'il y a deux esp\u00e8ces de t\u00e9moins\nparticuli\u00e8rement dangereux: le t\u00e9moin qui rechigne, et le t\u00e9moin qui a\ntrop de bonne volont\u00e9. Ce fut la destin\u00e9e de M. Winkle de figurer de ces\ndeux mani\u00e8res, dans la cause de son ami.\n\n--J'irai m\u00eame plus loin que ceci, continua M. Phunky, de l'air le pins\nsatisfait et le plus confiant. Avez-vous jamais vu dans les mani\u00e8res de\nM. Pickwick envers l'autre sexe, quelque chose qui ait pu vous induire \u00e0\ncroire qu'il ne serait pas \u00e9loign\u00e9 de renoncer \u00e0 la vie d'un vieux\ngar\u00e7on?\n\n--Oh non! certainement, non!\n\n--Dans ses rapports avec les dames, sa conduite n'a-t-elle pas toujours\n\u00e9t\u00e9 celle d'un homme qui, ayant atteint un \u00e2ge assez avanc\u00e9, satisfait\nde ses propres amusements et de ses occupations, les traite toujours\ncomme un p\u00e8re traite ses filles?\n\n--Il n'y a pas le moindre doute \u00e0 cela, r\u00e9pliqua M. Winkle dans la\npl\u00e9nitude de son coeur. C'est-\u00e0-dire... oui... oh! oui certainement.\n\n--Vous n'avez jamais remarqu\u00e9 dans sa conduite envers Mme Bardell, ou\nenvers toute autre femme, rien qui f\u00fbt le moins du monde suspect? ajouta\nM. Phunky, en se pr\u00e9parant \u00e0 s'asseoir, car Me Snubbin lui faisait\nsigne du coin de l'oeil.\n\n--Mais... n... n... non, r\u00e9pondit M. Winkle, except\u00e9... dans une l\u00e9g\u00e8re\ncirconstance, qui, j'en suis s\u00fbr, pourrait \u00eatre facilement expliqu\u00e9e.\u00bb\n\nCette d\u00e9plorable confession n'aurait pas \u00e9t\u00e9 arrach\u00e9e au t\u00e9moin, sans\naucun doute, si le malheureux M. Phunky s'\u00e9tait assis quand Me Snubbin\nlui avait fait signe, ou si Me Buzfuz avait arr\u00eat\u00e9 d\u00e8s le d\u00e9but ce\ncontre-examen irr\u00e9gulier. Mais il s'\u00e9tait bien gard\u00e9 de le faire, car il\navait remarqu\u00e9 l'anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 de M. Winkle, et avait habilement conclu que sa\ncliente en tirerait quelque profit. Au moment o\u00f9 ces paroles\nmalencontreuses tomb\u00e8rent des l\u00e8vres du t\u00e9moin, M. Phunky s'assit \u00e0 la\nfin, et Me Snubbin s'empressa, peut-\u00eatre un peu trop, de dire au t\u00e9moin\nde quitter la tribune. M. Winkle s'y pr\u00e9parait avec grande satisfaction,\nquand Me Buzfuz l'arr\u00eata.\n\n\u00abAttendez monsieur Winkle, attendez, lui dit-il. Puis s'adressant au\npetit juge: Votre Seigneurie veut-elle avoir la bont\u00e9 de demander au\nt\u00e9moin en quelle circonstance ce gentleman, qui est assez vieux pour\n\u00eatre son p\u00e8re, s'est comport\u00e9 d'une mani\u00e8re suspecte envers des femmes?\n\n--Monsieur, dit le juge, en se tournant vers le mis\u00e9rable et d\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9\nt\u00e9moin, vous entendez la question du savant avocat. D\u00e9crivez la\ncirconstance \u00e0 laquelle vous avez fait allusion.\n\n--Milord, r\u00e9pondit M. Winkle d'une voix tremblante d'anxi\u00e9t\u00e9, je... je\nd\u00e9sirerais me taire \u00e0 cet \u00e9gard.\n\n--C'est possible, r\u00e9torqua le petit juge, mais il faut parler.\u00bb\n\nParmi le profond silence de toute l'assembl\u00e9e, M. Winkle balbutia que la\nl\u00e9g\u00e8re circonstance suspecte \u00e9tait que M. Pickwick avait \u00e9t\u00e9 trouv\u00e9, \u00e0\nminuit, dans la chambre \u00e0 coucher d'une dame, ce qui s'\u00e9tait termin\u00e9, \u00e0\nce que croyait M. Winkle, par la rupture du mariage projet\u00e9 de la dame\nen question, et ce qui avait amen\u00e9, comme il le savait fort bien, la\ncomparution forc\u00e9e des pickwickiens devant Georges Nupkins, esquire,\nmagistrat et juge de paix du bourg d'Ipswich.\n\n\u00abVous pouvez quitter la tribune,\u00bb monsieur, dit alors Me Snubbin. M.\nWinkle la quitta en effet, et se pr\u00e9cipita, en courant comme un fou,\nvers son h\u00f4tel o\u00f9 il f\u00fbt d\u00e9couvert par le gar\u00e7on, au bout de quelques\nheures, la t\u00eate ensevelie sous les coussins d'un sofa, et poussant des\ng\u00e9missements qui fendaient le coeur.\n\nTracy Tupman et Augustus Snodgrass furent successivement appel\u00e9s \u00e0 la\ntribune. L'un et l'autre corrobor\u00e8rent la d\u00e9position de leur malheureux\nami, et chacun d'eux f\u00fbt presque r\u00e9duit au d\u00e9sespoir par d'insidieuses\nquestions.\n\nSusannah Sanders fut ensuite appel\u00e9e, examin\u00e9e par Me Buzfuz, et\ncontre-examin\u00e9e par Me Subbin. Elle avait toujours dit et cru que M.\nPickwick \u00e9pouserait Mme Bardell. Elle savait qu'apr\u00e8s l'\u00e9vanouissement\nde juillet, le futur mariage de M. Pickwick et de mistress Bardell avait\n\u00e9t\u00e9 le sujet ordinaire des conversations du voisinage. Elle l'avait\nentendu dire \u00e0 mistress Mudberry, la revendeuse, et \u00e0 la repasseuse,\nmistress Bunkin; mais elle ne voyait dans la salle ni mistress Mudberry\nni mistress Bunkin. Elle avait entendu M. Pickwick demander au petit\ngar\u00e7on s'il aimerait \u00e0 avoir un autre p\u00e8re. Elle ne savait pas si Mme\nBardell faisait soci\u00e9t\u00e9 avec le boulanger, mais elle savait que le\nboulanger \u00e9tait alors gar\u00e7on, et est maintenant mari\u00e9. Elle ne pouvait\npas jurer que Mme Bardell ne f\u00fbt pas tr\u00e8s-\u00e9prise du boulanger, mais elle\nimaginait que le boulanger n'\u00e9tait pas tr\u00e8s-\u00e9pris de Mme Bardell, car\ndans ce cas il n'aurait pas \u00e9pous\u00e9 une autre personne. Elle pensait que\nMme Bardell s'\u00e9tait \u00e9vanouie dans la matin\u00e9e du mois de juillet parce\nque M. Pickwick lui avait demand\u00e9 de fixer le jour; elle savait\nqu'elle-m\u00eame avait tout \u00e0 fait perdu connaissance, quand M. Sanders lui\navait demand\u00e9 de fixer le jour, et elle pensait que toute personne qui\npeut s'appeler une lady en ferait autant, en semblable circonstance.\nEnfin elle avait entendu la question adress\u00e9e par M. Pickwick au petit\nBardell, relativement aux billes et aux calots, mais sur sa foi de\nchr\u00e9tienne, elle ne savait pas quelle diff\u00e9rence il y avait entre une\nbille et un calot.\n\nInterrog\u00e9e par M. le juge Stareleigh, mistress Sanders r\u00e9pondit que,\npendant que M. Sanders lui faisait la cour, elle avait re\u00e7u de lui des\nlettres d'amour comme font les autres ladies; que dans le cours de leur\ncorrespondance M. Sanders l'avait appel\u00e9e tr\u00e8s-souvent mon _canard_,\nmais jamais _ma c\u00f4telette_ ou _ma sauce aux tomates_. M. Sanders aimait\npassionn\u00e9ment le canard; peut-\u00eatre que s'il avait autant aim\u00e9 la\nc\u00f4telette et la sauce aux tomates, il en aurait employ\u00e9 le nom comme un\nterme d'affection.\n\nApr\u00e8s cette d\u00e9position capitale, Me Buzfuz se leva avec plus\nd'importance qu'il n'en avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 montr\u00e9, et dit d'une voix forte:\n\u00abAppelez Samuel Weller.\u00bb\n\nIl \u00e9tait tout \u00e0 fait inutile d'appeler Samuel Weller, car Samuel Weller\nmonta lentement dans la tribune au moment o\u00f9 son nom fut prononc\u00e9. Il\nposa son chapeau sur le plancher, ses bras sur la balustrade, et examina\nla cour, \u00e0 vol d'oiseau, avec un air remarquablement gracieux et jovial.\n\n\u00abQuel est votre nom, monsieur? demanda le juge.\n\n--Sam Weller, milord, r\u00e9pliqua ce gentleman.\n\n--L'\u00e9crivez-vous avec un V ou un W?\n\n--\u00c7a d\u00e9pend du go\u00fbt et de la fantaisie de celui qui \u00e9crit, milord. Je\nn'ai eu cette occasion qu'une fois ou deux dans ma vie, mais je l'\u00e9cris\navec un V.\u00bb\n\nIci on entendit dans la galerie une voix qui criait: \u00abC'est bien \u00e7a,\nSamivel; c'est bien \u00e7a. Mettez un V, milord.\n\n--Qui est-ce qui se permet d'apostropher la cour, s'\u00e9cria le petit juge\nen levant les jeux. Huissier!\n\n--Oui, milord.\n\n--Amenez cette personne ici, sur-le-champ.\n\n--Oui, milord.\u00bb\n\nMais comme l'huissier ne put trouver la personne, il ne l'amena pas, et\napr\u00e8s une grande commotion, tous les assistants, qui s'\u00e9taient lev\u00e9s\npour regarder le coupable, se rassirent.\n\nAussit\u00f4t que l'indignation du petit juge lui permit de parler, il se\ntourna vers le t\u00e9moin et lui dit:\n\n\u00abSavez-vous qui c'\u00e9tait, monsieur?\n\n--Je suspecte un brin que c'\u00e9tait mon p\u00e8re, milord.\n\n--Le voyez-vous maintenant?\n\n--Non, je ne le vois pas, milord, r\u00e9pliqua Sam, en attachant ses yeux \u00e0\nla lanterne par laquelle la salle \u00e9tait \u00e9clair\u00e9e.\n\n--Si vous aviez pu me le montrer, je l'aurais fait empoigner\nsur-le-champ, reprit l'irascible petit juge.\u00bb\n\nSam fit un salut plein de reconnaissance et se retourna vers Me Buzfuz,\navec son air de bonne humeur imperturbable.\n\n\u00abMaintenant monsieur Weller, dit Me Buzfuz.\n\n--Voil\u00e0, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Sam.\n\n--Vous \u00eates, je crois, au service de M. Pickwick, le d\u00e9fendeur en cette\ncause? Parlez s'il vous pla\u00eet, monsieur Weller.\n\n--Oui, monsieur, je vas parler. Je suis au service de ce gentleman ici,\net c'est un tr\u00e8s-bon service.\n\n--Pas grand'chose \u00e0 faire, et beaucoup \u00e0 gagner, je suppose? dit\nl'avocat, d'un air farceur.\n\n--Ah! oui, suffisamment \u00e0 gagner, monsieur, comme disait le soldat,\nquand on le condamna \u00e0 cent cinquante coups de fouet.\n\n--Nous n'avons pas besoin de ce qu'a dit le soldat, monsieur, ni toute\nautre personne, interrompit le juge.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, milord.\n\n--Vous rappelez-vous, dit Me Buzfuz, en reprenant la parole, vous\nrappelez-vous quelque chose de remarquable qui arriva dans la matin\u00e9e o\u00f9\nvous f\u00fbtes engag\u00e9 par le d\u00e9fendeur? voyons! monsieur Weller?\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--Ayez la bont\u00e9 de dire au jury ce que c'\u00e9tait.\n\n--J'ai eu un habillement complet tout neuf, ce matin-l\u00e0, messieurs du\njury, et c'\u00e9tait une circonstance tr\u00e8s-remarquable pour moi, dans ce\ntemps-l\u00e0.\u00bb\n\nCes mots excit\u00e8rent un \u00e9clat de rire g\u00e9n\u00e9ral, mais le petit juge,\nregardant avec col\u00e8re par-dessus son bureau: \u00abMonsieur, dit-il, je vous\nengage \u00e0 prendre garde.\n\n--C'est ce que M. Pickwick m'a dit dans le temps, milord; et j'ai pris\nbien garde \u00e0 conserver ces habits-l\u00e0, v\u00e9ritablement, milord.\u00bb\n\nPendant deux grandes minutes, le juge regarda s\u00e9v\u00e8rement le visage de\nSam, mais voyant que ses traits \u00e9taient compl\u00e8tement calmes et sereins,\nil ne dit rien, et fit signe \u00e0 l'avocat de continuer.\n\n\u00abEst-ce que vous pr\u00e9tendez me dire, monsieur Weller, reprit Me Buzfuz en\ncroisant ses bras emphatiquement et en se tournant \u00e0 demi vers le jury,\ncomme pour l'assurer silencieusement qu'il viendrait \u00e0 bout du t\u00e9moin,\nest-ce que vous pr\u00e9tendez me dire, monsieur Weller, que vous n'avez pas\nvu la plaignante \u00e9vanouie dans les bras du d\u00e9fendeur, comme vous venez\nde l'entendre d\u00e9crire par les t\u00e9moins?\n\n--Non certainement: j'\u00e9tais dans le corridor jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'ils m'ont\nappel\u00e9, et la vieille lady \u00e9tait partie alors.\n\n--Maintenant faites attention, monsieur Weller, continua Me Buzfuz, en\ntrempant une \u00e9norme plume dans son encrier, afin d'effrayer Sam, en lui\nfaisant voir qu'il allait noter sa r\u00e9ponse. Vous \u00e9tiez dans le corridor\net vous n'avez rien vu de ce qui se passait. Avez-vous des yeux,\nmonsieur Weller?\n\n--Oui, j'en ai des yeux, et c'est justement pour \u00e7a. Si c'\u00e9taient des\nmicroscopes au gaz, brevet\u00e9s pour grossir cent mille millions de fois,\nj'aurais peut-\u00eatre pu voir \u00e0 travers les escaliers et la porte de\nch\u00eane; mais comme je n'ai que des yeux vous comprenez, ma vision est\nlimit\u00e9e.\u00bb\n\n\u00c0 cette r\u00e9ponse qui fut d\u00e9livr\u00e9e de la mani\u00e8re la plus simple et sans la\nplus l\u00e9g\u00e8re apparence d'irritation, les spectateurs rican\u00e8rent, le petit\njuge sourit, et Me Buzfuz eut l'air singuli\u00e8rement d\u00e9confit. Apr\u00e8s une\ncourte consultation avec Dodson et Fogg, le savant avocat se tourna de\nnouveau vers Sam, et lui dit avec un p\u00e9nible effort pour cacher sa\nvexation.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, monsieur Weller, je vous ferai encore une question sur un\nautre point, s'il vous pla\u00eet.\n\n--Je suis \u00e0 vos ordres, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit Sam avec une admirable bonne\nhumeur.\n\n--Vous rappelez-vous \u00eatre all\u00e9 chez Mme Bardell un soir de novembre?\n\n--Oh! oui, tr\u00e8s bien.\n\n--Ah! ah! vous vous rappelez cela, monsieur Weller? dit l'avocat, en\nrecouvrant son \u00e9quanimit\u00e9. Je pensais bien que nous arriverions \u00e0\nquelque chose \u00e0 la fin.\n\n--Je le pensais bien aussi, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Sam; et les spectateurs\nrirent encore.\n\n--Bien. Je suppose que vous y \u00eates all\u00e9 pour causer un peu du proc\u00e8s,\neh! monsieur Weller? reprit l'avocat, en lan\u00e7ant un coup d'oeil malin au\njury.\n\n--J'y suis all\u00e9 pour payer le terme; mais nous avons caus\u00e9 un brin du\nproc\u00e8s.\n\n--Ah! vous en avez caus\u00e9? r\u00e9p\u00e9ta Me Buzfuz dont le visage devint\nradieux, par l'anticipation de quelque importante d\u00e9couverte.\nVoulez-vous avoir la bont\u00e9 de nous raconter ce qui s'est dit \u00e0 ce\npropos, monsieur Weller?\n\n--Avec le plus grand plaisir du monde, monsieur. Apr\u00e8s quelques\nobservations gu\u00e8re importantes des deux respectables dames qui ont\nd\u00e9pos\u00e9 ici aujourd'hui, elles se sont quasi p\u00e2m\u00e9es d'admiration sur la\nvertueuse conduite de MM. Dodson et Fogg, ces deux gentlemen qui sont\nassis \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de vous maintenant.\u00bb\n\nCeci, bien entendu, attira l'attention g\u00e9n\u00e9rale sur Dodson et Fogg qui\nprirent un air aussi vertueux que possible.\n\n\u00abAh! dit Me Buzfuz, ces dames parl\u00e8rent donc avec \u00e9loge de l'honorable\nconduite de MM. Dodson et Fogg, les avou\u00e9s de la plaignante, hein?\n\n--Oui, monsieur. Elles dirent que c'\u00e9tait une bien g\u00e9n\u00e9reuse chose de\nleur part de prendre cette affaire-l\u00e0 par sp\u00e9culation, et de ne rien\ndemander pour les frais, s'ils ne les faisaient pas payer \u00e0 M.\nPickwick.\u00bb\n\n\u00c0 cette r\u00e9plique inattendue, les spectateurs rican\u00e8rent encore, et\nDodson et Fogg, qui \u00e9taient devenus tout rouges, se pench\u00e8rent vers Me\nBuzfuz, et d'un air tr\u00e8s-empress\u00e9 lui chuchot\u00e8rent quelque chose dans\nl'oreille.\n\n\u00abVous avez compl\u00e8tement raison, r\u00e9pondit tout haut l'avocat, avec une\ntranquillit\u00e9 affect\u00e9e. Il est parfaitement impossible de tirer quelque\n\u00e9claircissement de l'imp\u00e9n\u00e9trable stupidit\u00e9 du t\u00e9moin. Je n'abuserai\npoint des moments de la cour en lui adressant d'autres questions. Vous\npouvez descendre, monsieur.\n\n--Il n'y a pas quelque autre gentleman qui d\u00e9sire m'adresser une\nquestion? demanda Sam, en prenant son chapeau et en regardant autour de\nlui d'un air d\u00e9lib\u00e9r\u00e9.\n\n--Non pas moi, monsieur Weller. Je vous remercie, dit Me Snubbin, en\nriant.\n\n--Vous pouvez descendre, monsieur,\u00bb r\u00e9p\u00e9ta Me Buzfuz, en agitant la main\nd'un air impatient.\n\nSam descendit en cons\u00e9quence, apr\u00e8s avoir fait \u00e0 la cause de MM. Dodson\net Fogg, autant de mal qu'il le pouvait, sans inconv\u00e9nient, et apr\u00e8s\navoir parl\u00e9 le moins possible de l'affaire de M. Pickwick, ce qui \u00e9tait\npr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment le but qu'il s'\u00e9tait propos\u00e9.\n\n\u00abMilord, dit Me Snubbin, si cela peut \u00e9pargner l'interrogatoire d'autres\nt\u00e9moins, je n'ai pas d'objections \u00e0 admettre que M. Pickwick s'est\nretir\u00e9 des affaires et poss\u00e8de une fortune ind\u00e9pendante et consid\u00e9rable.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua Me Buzfuz, en passant au clerc les deux lettres\nde M. Pickwick.\n\nMe Snubbin s'adressa alors au jury en faveur du d\u00e9fendeur, et d\u00e9bita un\ntr\u00e8s-long et tr\u00e8s-emphatique discours, dans lequel il donna \u00e0 la\nconduite et aux moeurs de M. Pickwick les plus magnifiques \u00e9loges. Mais\ncomme nos lecteurs doivent s'\u00eatre form\u00e9 relativement au m\u00e9rite de ce\ngentleman une opinion beaucoup plus nette que celle de Me Snubbin, nous\nne croyons pas devoir rapporter longuement ses observations. Il\ns'effor\u00e7a de d\u00e9montrer que les lettres qui avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 produites se\nrapportaient simplement au d\u00eener de M. Pickwick et aux pr\u00e9parations \u00e0\nfaire dans son appartement, pour le recevoir \u00e0 son retour de quelque\nexcursion. Enfin il parla le mieux qu'il put, en faveur de notre h\u00e9ros,\net comme tout le monde le sait, sur la foi d'un vieil adage, il est\nimpossible de faire plus.\n\nM. le juge Starleigh fit son r\u00e9sum\u00e9, suivant les formes et de la mani\u00e8re\nla plus approuv\u00e9e. Il lut au jury autant de ses notes qu'il lui fut\npossible d'en d\u00e9chiffrer en si peu de temps, et fit en passant des\ncommentaires sur chaque t\u00e9moignage. Si mistress Bardell avait raison, il\n\u00e9tait parfaitement \u00e9vident que M. Pickwick avait tort. Si les jur\u00e9s\npensaient que le t\u00e9moignage de mistress Cluppins \u00e9tait digne de\ncroyance, c'\u00e9tait leur devoir de le croire: mais sinon, non. S'ils\n\u00e9taient convaincus qu'il y avait eu violation de promesse de mariage,\nils devaient attribuer \u00e0 la plaignante les dommages-int\u00e9r\u00eats qu'ils\njugeraient convenables; mais d'un autre c\u00f4t\u00e9 s'il leur paraissait qu'il\nn'y e\u00fbt jamais eu de promesse de mariage, alors ils devaient renvoyer le\nd\u00e9fenseur sans aucun dommage. Apr\u00e8s cette harangue, les jur\u00e9s se\nretir\u00e8rent dans leur salle pour d\u00e9lib\u00e9rer, et le juge se retira dans son\ncabinet pour se rafra\u00eechir avec une c\u00f4telette de mouton et un verre de\nx\u00e9r\u00e8s.\n\nUn quart d'heure plein d'anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 s'\u00e9coula. Le jury revint; on alla\nqu\u00e9rir le juge. M. Pickwick mit ses lunettes et contempla le chef du\njury, avec un coeur palpitant et une contenance agit\u00e9e.\n\n\u00abGentlemen, dit l'individu en noir, \u00eates-vous tous d'accord sur votre\nverdict?\n\n--Oui, nous sommes d'accord, r\u00e9pondit le chef du jury.\n\n--D\u00e9cidez-vous en faveur de la plaignante ou du d\u00e9fendeur, gentlemen?\n\n--En faveur de la plaignante.\n\n--Avec quels dommages, gentlemen?\n\n--Sept cent cinquante livres sterling.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick \u00f4ta ses lunettes, en essuya soigneusement les verres, les\nrenferma dans leur \u00e9tui, et les introduisit dans sa poche. Ensuite ayant\nmis ses gants avec exactitude, tout en continuant de consid\u00e9rer le chef\ndu jury, il suivit machinalement hors de la salle M. Perker et le sac\nbleu.\n\nM. Perker s'arr\u00eata dans une salle voisine pour payer les honoraires de\nla cour. L\u00e0, M. Pickwick fut rejoint par ses amis, et l\u00e0 aussi il\nrencontra MM. Dodson et Fogg, se frottant les mains avec tous les signes\next\u00e9rieurs d'une vive satisfaction.\n\n\u00abEh! bien? gentlemen, dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Eh! bien, monsieur, dit Dodson pour lui et son partenaire.\n\n--Vous vous imaginez que vous allez empocher vos frais, n'est-ce pas,\ngentlemen?\u00bb\n\nFogg r\u00e9pondit qu'il regardait cela comme assez probable, et Dodson\nsourit en disant qu'ils essayeraient.\n\n\u00abVous pouvez essayer, et essayer, et essayer encore, messieurs Dodson et\nFogg, s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick avec v\u00e9h\u00e9mence, mais vous ne tirerez jamais de\nmoi un penny de dommages, ni de frais, quand je devrais passer le reste\nde mon existence dans une prison pour dettes.\n\n--Ah! ah! dit Dodson, vous y repenserez avant le prochain terme,\nmonsieur Pickwick.\n\n--Hi! hi! hi! nous verrons cela incessamment, monsieur Pickwick, ricana\nM. Fogg.\u00bb\n\nMuet d'indignation, M. Pickwick se laissa entra\u00eener par son avou\u00e9 et par\nses amis qui le firent monter dans une voiture, amen\u00e9e en un clin d'oeil\npar l'attentif Sam Weller.\n\nSam avait relev\u00e9 le marchepied, et se pr\u00e9parait \u00e0 sauter sur le si\u00e9ge,\nquand il sentit toucher l\u00e9g\u00e8rement son \u00e9paule. Il se retourna et vit son\np\u00e8re, debout devant lui. Le visage du vieux gentleman avait une\nexpression lugubre. Il secoua gravement la t\u00eate, et dit d'un ton de\nremontrance:\n\n\u00abJe savais ce qu'arriverait de cette mani\u00e8re-l\u00e0 de conduire l'affaire. O\nSammy, Sammy, pourquoi qu'i' ne se sont pas servis d'un al\u00e9bi.\u00bb\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE VI.\n\nDans lequel M. Pickwick pense que ce qu'il a de mieux \u00e0 faire est\nd'aller \u00e0 Bath, et y va en cons\u00e9quence.\n\n\n\u00abMais, mon cher monsieur, dit le petit Perker \u00e0 M. Pickwick, qu'il \u00e9tait\nall\u00e9 voir dans la matin\u00e9e qui suivit le jugement, vous n'entendez pas,\nen r\u00e9alit\u00e9 et s\u00e9rieusement, et toute irritation \u00e0 part, que vous ne\npayerez pas ces frais et ces dommages?\n\n--Pas un demi-penny, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick avec fermet\u00e9, pas un demi-penny.\n\n--Hourra! vivent les principes! comme disait l'usurier en refusant de\nrenouveler le billet, s'\u00e9cria Sam, qui enlevait le couvert du d\u00e9jeuner.\n\n--Sam, dit M. Pickwick, ayez la bont\u00e9 de descendre en bas.\n\n--Certainement, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Sam en ob\u00e9issant \u00e0 l'aimable\ninsinuation de son ma\u00eetre.\n\n--Non, Perker, reprit M. Pickwick d'un air tr\u00e8s-s\u00e9rieux. Mes amis ici\npr\u00e9sents se sont vainement efforc\u00e9s de me dissuader de cette\nd\u00e9termination. Je m'occuperai comme \u00e0 l'ordinaire. Mes adversaires ont\nle pouvoir de poursuivre mon incarc\u00e9ration, et, s'ils sont assez vifs\npour s'en servir et pour arr\u00eater une personne, je me soumettrai aux lois\navec une parfaite tranquillit\u00e9. Quand peuvent-ils faire cela?\n\n--Ils peuvent lancer une ex\u00e9cution pour le montant des dommages et des\nfrais tax\u00e9s, le terme prochain, juste dans deux mois d'ici, mon cher\nmonsieur.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien. D'ici l\u00e0, mon ami, ne me reparlez plus de cette affaire. Et\nmaintenant, continua M. Pickwick en regardant ses amis avec un sourire\nb\u00e9n\u00e9vole et un regard brillant que nulles lunettes ne pouvaient\nobscurcir, voici la seule question \u00e0 r\u00e9soudre: O\u00f9 dirigerons-nous notre\nprochaine excursion?\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman et M. Snodgrass \u00e9taient trop affect\u00e9s par l'h\u00e9ro\u00efsme de leur\nami pour pouvoir faire une r\u00e9ponse. Quant \u00e0 M. Winkle, il n'avait pas\nencore suffisamment perdu le souvenir de sa d\u00e9position en justice, pour\noser \u00e9lever la voix sur aucun sujet. C'est donc en vain que M. Pickwick\nattendit.\n\n\u00abEh bien! reprit-il, si vous me permettez de choisir notre destination,\nje dirai Bath. Je pense que personne parmi vous n'y a jamais \u00e9t\u00e9?\u00bb\n\nM. Perker, regardant comme tr\u00e8s-probable que le changement de sc\u00e8ne et\nla gaiet\u00e9 du s\u00e9jour engageraient M. Pickwick \u00e0 mieux appr\u00e9cier sa\nd\u00e9termination, et \u00e0 moins estimer une prison pour dettes, appuya\nchaudement cette proposition. Elle fut adopt\u00e9e \u00e0 l'unanimit\u00e9, et Sam\nimm\u00e9diatement d\u00e9p\u00each\u00e9 au _Cheval-Blanc_, pour retenir cinq places dans\nla voiture qui partait le lendemain matin, \u00e0 sept heures et demie.\n\nIl restait justement deux places \u00e0 l'int\u00e9rieur et trois places \u00e0\nl'ext\u00e9rieur. Sam les arr\u00eata, \u00e9changea quelques compliments avec le\ncommis, qui lui avait gliss\u00e9 mal \u00e0 propos une demi-couronne en \u00e9tain, en\nlui rendant sa monnaie, retourna au _Georges et Vautour_, et s'y occupa\nactivement, jusqu'au moment de se mettre au lit, \u00e0 comprimer des habits\net du linge dans la plus petit espace possible, et \u00e0 inventer\nd'ing\u00e9nieux moyens m\u00e9caniques pour faire tenir des couvercles sur des\nbo\u00eetes qui n'avaient ni charni\u00e8res ni serrure.\n\nLe lendemain matin se leva fort d\u00e9plaisant pour un voyage, sombre,\nhumide et crott\u00e9. Les chevaux des diligences qui passaient fumaient si\nfort que les passagers de l'ext\u00e9rieur \u00e9taient invisibles. Les crieurs de\njournaux paraissaient noy\u00e9s et sentaient le moisi; la pluie d\u00e9gouttait\ndes chapeaux des marchandes d'oranges; et, lorsqu'elles fourraient leur\nt\u00eate par la porti\u00e8re des voitures, elles en arrosaient l'int\u00e9rieur d'une\nmani\u00e8re tr\u00e8s rafra\u00eechissante. Les juifs fermaient de d\u00e9sespoir leurs\ncanifs \u00e0 cinquante lames; les vendeurs d'agendas de poche en faisaient\nv\u00e9ritablement des agendas de poche; les cha\u00eenes de montres et les\nfourchettes \u00e0 faire des r\u00f4ties se livraient \u00e0 porte; les porte-crayons\net les \u00e9ponges \u00e9taient pour rien sur le march\u00e9.\n\nLaissant Sam Weller disputer les bagages \u00e0 sept ou huit porteurs qui\ns'en \u00e9taient violemment empar\u00e9s aussit\u00f4t que la voiture de place s'\u00e9tait\narr\u00eat\u00e9e, et voyant qu'il y avait encore vingt minutes \u00e0 attendre avant\nle d\u00e9part de la diligence, M. Pickwick et ses amis all\u00e8rent chercher un\nabri dans la salle des voyageurs, derni\u00e8re ressource de l'humaine\nmis\u00e8re.\n\nLa salle des voyageurs, au _Cheval-Blanc_, est comme on le pense bien,\npeu confortable; autrement ce ne serait pas une salle de voyageurs.\nC'est le parloir qui se trouve \u00e0 main droite, et dans lequel une\nambitieuse chemin\u00e9e de cuisine semble s'\u00eatre impatronis\u00e9e, avec\nl'accompagnement d'un poker rebelle, d'une pelle et de pincettes\nr\u00e9fractaires. Le pourtour de la salle est divis\u00e9 en stalles pour la\ns\u00e9questration des voyageurs, et la salle elle-m\u00eame est garnie d'une\npendule, d'un miroir et d'un gar\u00e7on vivant; ce dernier article \u00e9tant\nhabituellement renferm\u00e9 dans une esp\u00e8ce de chenil o\u00f9 se lavent les\nverres, \u00e0 l'un des coins de la chambre.\n\nLe jour en question, une des stalles \u00e9tait occup\u00e9e par un homme\nd'environ quarante-cinq ans, dont le cr\u00e2ne chauve et luisant sur le\ndevant de la t\u00eate, \u00e9tait garni sur les c\u00f4t\u00e9s et par derri\u00e8re d'\u00e9pais\ncheveux noirs qui se m\u00ealaient avec ses larges favoris. Son habit brun\n\u00e9tait boutonn\u00e9 jusqu'au menton; il avait une vaste casquette de veau\nmarin et une redingote avec un manteau \u00e9taient \u00e9tendus sur le si\u00e9ge, \u00e0\nc\u00f4t\u00e9 de lui. Lorsque M. Pickwick entra, il leva les yeux de dessus son\nd\u00e9je\u00fbner avec un air fier et p\u00e9remptoire tout \u00e0 fait plein de dignit\u00e9;\npuis, apr\u00e8s avoir scrut\u00e9 notre philosophe et ses compagnons, il se mit\n\u00e0 chantonner de mani\u00e8re \u00e0 faire entendre que, s'il y avait des gens qui\nse flattaient de le mettre dedans, cela ne prendrait point.\n\n\u00abGar\u00e7on! dit le gentleman aux favoris noirs.\n\n--Monsieur! r\u00e9pliqua, en sortant du chenil ci-dessus mentionn\u00e9, un homme\nqui avait un teint malpropre et un torchon idem.\n\n--Encore quelques r\u00f4ties!\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--Faites attention qu'elles soient beurr\u00e9es, ajouta le gentleman d'un\nton dur.\n\n--Tout de suite, monsieur,\u00bb repartit le gar\u00e7on.\n\nLe gentleman aux favoris noirs recommen\u00e7a \u00e0 chantonner le m\u00eame air;\npuis, en attendant l'arriv\u00e9e des r\u00f4ties, il vint se placer le dos au\nfeu, releva sous ses bras les pans de son habit, et contempla ses bottes\nen ruminant.\n\n\u00abVous ne savez pas o\u00f9 la voiture arr\u00eate \u00e0 Bath? dit M. Pickwick d'un ton\ndoux en s'adressant \u00e0 M. Winkle.\n\n--Hum! Eh! qu'est-ce! dit l'\u00e9tranger.\n\n--Je faisais une observation \u00e0 mon ami, dit M. Pickwick, toujours pr\u00eat \u00e0\nentrer en conversation. Je demandais o\u00f9 la voiture arr\u00eate \u00e0 Bath. Vous\npouvez peut-\u00eatre m'en informer, monsieur?\n\n--Est-ce que vous allez \u00e0 Bath?\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n\u00abEt ces autres gentlemen?\n\n--Ils y vont aussi.\n\n--Pas dans l'int\u00e9rieur! Je veux \u00eatre damn\u00e9 si vous allez dans\nl'int\u00e9rieur!\n\n--Non, pas tous.\n\n--Non certes, pas tous, reprit l'\u00e9tranger avec \u00e9nergie. J'ai retenu deux\nplaces, et, s'ils veulent empiler six personnes dans une bo\u00eete infernale\nqui n'en peut tenir que quatre, je louerai une chaise de poste \u00e0 leurs\nfrais. Cela ne prendra pas. J'ai dit au commis, en payant mes places,\nque cela ne prendrait pas. Je sais que cela s'est fait; je sais que cela\nse fait tous les jours; mais on ne m'a jamais mis dedans, et on ne m'y\nmettra pas. Ceux qui me connaissent le savent, Dieu me damne!\u00bb\n\nIci le f\u00e9roce gentleman tira la sonnette avec grande violence et d\u00e9clara\nau gar\u00e7on que si on ne lui apportait pas ses r\u00f4ties avant cinq secondes,\nil irait lui-m\u00eame en savoir la raison.\n\n\u00abMon cher monsieur, dit M. Pickwick, permettez-moi de vous faire\nobserver que vous vous agitez bien inutilement. Je n'ai retenu de places\n\u00e0 l'int\u00e9rieur que pour deux.\n\n--Je suis charm\u00e9 de le savoir, r\u00e9pondit l'homme f\u00e9roce. Je retire mes\nexpressions; acceptez mes excuses. Voici ma carte; faisons connaissance.\n\n--Avec grand plaisir, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick. Nous devons \u00eatre compagnons\nde voyage, et j'esp\u00e8re que nous trouverons mutuellement notre soci\u00e9t\u00e9\nagr\u00e9able.\n\n--Je l'esp\u00e8re. J'en suis persuad\u00e9. J'aime votre air; il me pla\u00eet.\nGentlemen, vos mains et vos noms. Faisons connaissance.\u00bb\n\nN\u00e9cessairement un \u00e9change de salutations amicales suivit ce gracieux\ndiscours. Le fier gentleman informa alors nos amis avec le m\u00eame syst\u00e8me\nde phrases courtes, abruptes, sautillantes, que son nom \u00e9tait Dowler,\nqu'il allait \u00e0 Bath pour son plaisir, qu'il \u00e9tait autrefois dans\nl'arm\u00e9e, que maintenant il s'\u00e9tait mis dans les affaires, comme un\ngentleman; qu'il vivait des profits qu'il en tirait, et que la personne\npour qui la seconde place avait \u00e9t\u00e9 retenue par lui, n'\u00e9tait pas une\npersonne moins illustre que Mme Dowler, son \u00e9pouse.\n\n\u00abC'est une jolie femme, poursuivit-il. J'en suis orgueilleux. J'ai\nraison de l'\u00eatre.\n\n--J'esp\u00e8re que nous aurons le plaisir d'en juger, dit M. Pickwick avec\nun sourire.\n\n--Vous en jugerez. Elle vous conna\u00eetra. Elle vous estimera. Je lui ai\nfait la cour d'une singuli\u00e8re mani\u00e8re. Je l'ai gagn\u00e9e par un voeu\nt\u00e9m\u00e9raire. Voil\u00e0. Je la vis; je l'aimai; je la demandai; elle me refusa.\n\u00abVous en aimez un autre?--\u00c9pargnez ma pudeur.--Je le\nconnais.--Vraiment?--Certes; s'il reste ici, je l'\u00e9corcherai vif.\u00bb\n\n--Diable! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick involontairement.\n\n--Et... l'avez-vous \u00e9corch\u00e9, monsieur? demanda M. Winkle en p\u00e2lissant.\n\n--Je lui \u00e9crivis un mot. Je lui dis que c'\u00e9tait une chose p\u00e9nible.\nC'\u00e9tait vrai.\n\n--Certainement, murmura M. Winkle.\n\n--Je dis que j'avais donn\u00e9 ma parole de l'\u00e9corcher vif, que mon honneur\n\u00e9tait engag\u00e9, et que, comme officier de Sa Majest\u00e9, je n'avais pas\nd'autre alternative. J'en regrettais la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9, mais il fallait que\ncela se fit. Il se laissa convaincre; il vit que les r\u00e8gles de service\n\u00e9taient imp\u00e9ratives. Il s'enfuit. J'\u00e9pousai la jeune personne. Voici la\nvoiture. C'est sa t\u00eate que vous voyez \u00e0 la porti\u00e8re.\u00bb\n\nEn achevant ces mots, M. Dowler montrait une voiture qui venait de\ns'arr\u00eater. On voyait effectivement \u00e0 la porti\u00e8re une figure assez jolie,\ncoiff\u00e9e d'un chapeau bleu, et qui, regardant parmi la foule, cherchait\nprobablement l'homme violent lui-m\u00eame. M. Dowler paya sa d\u00e9pense et\nsortit promptement avec sa casquette, sa redingote et son manteau: M.\nPickwick et ses amis le suivirent pour s'assurer de leurs places.\n\nM. Tupman et M. Snodgrass s'\u00e9taient huch\u00e9s derri\u00e8re la voiture; M.\nWinkle \u00e9tait mont\u00e9 dans l'int\u00e9rieur et M. Pickwick se pr\u00e9parait \u00e0 le\nsuivre, quand Sam Weller s'approcha d'un air de profond myst\u00e8re, et,\nchuchotant dans l'oreille de son ma\u00eetre, lui demanda la permission de\nlui parler.\n\n\u00abEh bien! Sam, dit M. Pickwick, qu'est-ce qu'il y a maintenant?\n\n--En voil\u00e0 une de s\u00e9v\u00e8re, monsieur!\n\n--Une quoi?\n\n--Une histoire, monsieur. J'ai bien peur que le propri\u00e9taire de cette\nvoiture-ci ne nous fasse quelque impertinence.\n\n--Comment cela, Sam? Est-ce que nos noms ne sont point sur la feuille de\nroute?\n\n--Certainement qu'ils y sont, monsieur; mais ce qui est plus fort, c'est\nqu'il y en a un qui est sur la porte de la voiture.\u00bb\n\nEn parlant ainsi, Sam montrait \u00e0 son ma\u00eetre cette partie de la porti\u00e8re\no\u00f9 se trouve ordinairement le nom du propri\u00e9taire; et l\u00e0, en effet, se\nlisait en lettres dor\u00e9es, d'une raisonnable grandeur, le nom magique de\n_Pickwick_.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0 qui est curieux! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, tout \u00e0 fait \u00e9tourdi de\ncette co\u00efncidence; quelle chose extraordinaire!\n\n--Oui; mais ce n'est pas tout, reprit Sam en dirigeant de nouveau\nl'attention de son ma\u00eetre vers la porti\u00e8re. Non contents d'\u00e9crire\n_Pickwick_, ils mettent _Mo\u00efse_ devant. Voil\u00e0 ce que j'appelle ajouter\nl'injure \u00e0 l'insulte, comme disait le perroquet quand on lui a appris \u00e0\nparler anglais, apr\u00e8s l'avoir emport\u00e9 de son pays natal.\n\n--Cela est certainement assez singulier, Sam; mais si nous restons l\u00e0,\ndebout, nous perdrons nos places.\n\n--Comment! est-ce qu'il n'y a rien \u00e0 faire en cons\u00e9quence, monsieur?\ns'\u00e9cria Sam tout \u00e0 fait d\u00e9mont\u00e9 par la tranquillit\u00e9 avec laquelle M.\nPickwick se pr\u00e9parait \u00e0 s'enfoncer dans l'int\u00e9rieur.\n\n--\u00c0 faire? dit le philosophe; qu'est-ce qu'on pourrait faire?\n\n--Est-ce qu'il n'y aura personne de ross\u00e9 pour avoir pris cette libert\u00e9,\nmonsieur? demanda Sam, qui s'\u00e9tait attendu, pour le moins, \u00e0 recevoir la\ncommission de d\u00e9fier le cocher et le conducteur en combat singulier.\n\n--Non, certainement, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick avec vivacit\u00e9. Sous aucun\npr\u00e9texte! Montez \u00e0 votre place, sur-le-champ.\n\n--Ah! murmura Sam en grimpant sur son banc, faut que le gouverneur ait\nquelque chose; autrement il n'aurait pas pris \u00e7a aussi tranquillement.\nJ'esp\u00e8re que ce jugement-ici ne l'aura pas affect\u00e9; mais \u00e7a va mal, \u00e7a\nva tr\u00e8s-mal,\u00bb continua-t-il en secouant gravement la t\u00eate.\n\nEt, ce qui est digne de remarque, car cela fait voir combien il prit\ncette circonstance \u00e0 coeur, il ne pronon\u00e7a plus une seule parole\njusqu'au moment o\u00f9 la voiture atteignit le turnpike de Kensington.\nC'\u00e9tait pour lui un effort de taciturnit\u00e9 tellement extraordinaire,\nqu'il peut \u00eatre consid\u00e9r\u00e9 comme tout \u00e0 fait sans pr\u00e9c\u00e9dent.\n\nIl n'arriva rien durant le voyage qui m\u00e9rite une mention sp\u00e9ciale. M.\nDowler rapporta plusieurs anecdotes, toutes illustratives de ses\nprouesses personnelles; et, \u00e0 chacune d'elles il en appelait au\nt\u00e9moignage de Mme Dowler. Alors cette aimable dame racontait, sous la\nforme d'appendice, quelques circonstances remarquables que M. Dowler\navait oubli\u00e9es, ou peut-\u00eatre que sa modestie avait omises; car ces\nadditions tendaient toujours \u00e0 montrer que M. Dowler \u00e9tait un homme\nencore plus \u00e9tonnant qu'il ne le disait lui-m\u00eame. M. Pickwick et M.\nWinkle l'\u00e9coutaient avec la plus grande admiration: par intervalles,\ncependant, ils conversaient avec Mme Dowler, qui \u00e9tait une personne tout\n\u00e0 fait s\u00e9duisante. Ainsi, gr\u00e2ces aux histoires de M. Dowler et aux\ncharmes de son autre moiti\u00e9, gr\u00e2ces \u00e0 l'amabilit\u00e9 de M. Pickwick et \u00e0\nl'attention imperturbable de M. Winkle, les habitants de l'int\u00e9rieur de\nla diligence ex\u00e9cut\u00e8rent leur voyage en bonne harmonie et en parfaite\nhumeur.\n\nLes voyageurs de l'ext\u00e9rieur se conduisirent comme leurs places le\ncomportaient. Ils \u00e9taient gais et causeurs au commencement de tous les\nrelais, tristes et endormis au milieu, et de nouveau brillants et\n\u00e9veill\u00e9s vers la fin. Il y avait un jeune gentleman en manteau de\ncaoutchouc, qui fumait des cigares tout le long du chemin; et il y avait\nun autre jeune gentleman dont la redingote avait l'air de la parodie\nd'un paletot, qui en allumait un grand nombre; mais, se sentant\n\u00e9videmment \u00e9tourdi, apr\u00e8s la seconde bouff\u00e9e, il les jetait par terre,\nquand il croyait que personne ne pouvait s'en apercevoir. Il y avait sur\nle si\u00e9ge un troisi\u00e8me jeune homme qui d\u00e9sirait se conna\u00eetre en chevaux,\net par derri\u00e8re, un vieillard qui semblait tr\u00e8s-fort en agriculture. On\nrencontrait sur la route une constante succession de noms de bapt\u00eame, en\nblouses ou en redingotes grises, qui \u00e9taient invit\u00e9s par le garde \u00e0\nmonter un bout de chemin, et qui connaissaient chaque cheval et chaque\naubergiste de la contr\u00e9e. Enfin on fit un d\u00eener, qui aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 bon\nmarch\u00e9 \u00e0 une demi-couronne par t\u00eate, si on avait eu le temps d'en manger\nquelque chose. Quoi qu'il en soit, \u00e0 sept heures du soir, M. Pickwick et\nses amis, et M. Dowler ainsi que son \u00e9pouse se retir\u00e8rent respectivement\ndans leur salon particulier \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel du _Blanc-Cerf_, en face de la\ngrande salle des bains de Bath; h\u00f4tel illustre dans lequel les gar\u00e7ons,\ngr\u00e2ces \u00e0 leur costume, pourraient \u00eatre pris pour des \u00e9tudiants de\nWestminster, s'ils ne d\u00e9truisaient pas l'illusion par leur sagesse et\nleur bonne tenue.\n\nLe lendemain matin, le d\u00e9jeuner des pickwickiens avait \u00e0 peine \u00e9t\u00e9\nenlev\u00e9, lorsqu'un gar\u00e7on apporta la carte de M. Dowler, qui demandait la\npermission de pr\u00e9senter un de ses amis. M. Dowler lui-m\u00eame suivit\nimm\u00e9diatement sa carte, amenant aussi son ami.\n\nL'ami \u00e9tait un charmant jeune homme d'une cinquantaine d'ann\u00e9es tout au\nplus. Il avait un habit bleu tr\u00e8s-clair, avec des boutons\nresplendissants; un pantalon noir et la paire de bottes la plus fine et\nla plus luisante qu'on puisse imaginer. Un lorgnon d'or \u00e9tait suspendu \u00e0\nson cou par un ruban noir, large et court. Une tabati\u00e8re d'or tournait\n\u00e9l\u00e9gamment entre l'index et le pouce de sa main gauche; des bagues\ninnombrables brillaient \u00e0 ses doigts; un \u00e9norme solitaire, mont\u00e9 en or,\n\u00e9tincelait sur son jabot. Il avait, en outre, une montre d'or et une\ncha\u00eene d'or, avec de massifs cachets d'or. Sa l\u00e9g\u00e8re canne d'\u00e9b\u00e8ne\nportait une lourde pomme d'or; son linge \u00e9tait le plus fin, le plus\nblanc, le plus roide possible; son faux toupet le mieux huil\u00e9, le plus\nnoir, le plus boucl\u00e9 des faux toupets. Son tabac \u00e9tait du tabac du\nr\u00e9gent, son parfum, _bouquet du roi_. Ses traits s'embellissaient d'un\nperp\u00e9tuel sourire, et ses dents \u00e9taient si parfaitement rang\u00e9es qu'\u00e0 une\npetite distance il \u00e9tait difficile de distinguer les fausses des\nv\u00e9ritables.\n\n\u00abMonsieur Pickwick, dit Dowler, mon ami Angelo-Cyrus Bantam, esquire,\n_magister ceremoniorum_.--Bantam, monsieur Pickwick. Faites\nconnaissance.\n\n--Soyez le bienvenu \u00e0 Ba-ath, monsieur. Voici en v\u00e9rit\u00e9 une\nacquisition.... Tr\u00e8s-bien venu \u00e0 Ba-ath, monsieur.... Il y a longtemps,\ntr\u00e8s-longtemps, monsieur Pickwick, que vous n'avez pris les eaux. Il y a\nun si\u00e8cle, monsieur Pickwick. Re-marquable.\u00bb\n\nEn parlant ainsi, M. Angelo-Cyrus Bantam, esq., m.c. prit la main de M.\nPickwick; et, tout en disloquant ses \u00e9paules par une constante\nsuccession de saluts, il garda la main du philosophe dans les siennes,\ncomme s'il n'avait pas pu prendre sur lui de la l\u00e2cher.\n\n--Il y a certainement tr\u00e8s-longtemps que je n'ai bu les eaux, r\u00e9pondit\nM. Pickwick, car, \u00e0 ma connaissance, je ne suis jamais venu ici jusqu'\u00e0\npr\u00e9sent.\n\n--Jamais venu \u00e0 Ba-ath, monsieur Pickwick! s'\u00e9cria le grand ma\u00eetre en\nlaissant tomber d'\u00e9tonnement la main savante. Jamais venu \u00e0 Ba-ath! ha!\nha! ha! Monsieur Pickwick, vous aimez \u00e0 plaisanter! Pas mauvais, pas\nmauvais! Joli, joli! Hi! hi! hi! re-marquable.\n\n--Je dois dire, \u00e0 ma honte, que je parle tout \u00e0 fait s\u00e9rieusement. Je ne\nsuis jamais venu ici.\n\n--Oh! je vois, s'\u00e9cria le grand ma\u00eetre d'un air extr\u00eamement satisfait.\nOui, oui. Bon, bon. De mieux en mieux. Vous \u00eates le gentleman dont nous\navons entendu parler. Nous vous connaissons, monsieur Pickwick, nous\nvous connaissons.\u00bb\n\nIls ont lu, dans ces maudits journaux, les d\u00e9tails de mon proc\u00e8s, pensa\nM. Pickwick. Ils savent toute mon histoire.\n\n\u00abOui, reprit Bantam, vous \u00eates le gentleman r\u00e9sidant \u00e0 Clapham-Green,\nqui a perdu l'usage de ses membres pour s'\u00eatre imprudemment refroidi\napr\u00e8s avoir pris du vin de Porto; qui, \u00e0 cause de ses souffrances\naigu\u00ebs, ne pouvait plus bouger de place, et qui fit prendre des\nbouteilles de la source des bains du roi \u00e0 103\u00b0, se les fit apporter par\nun chariot dans sa chambre \u00e0 coucher \u00e0 Londres, se baigna, \u00e9ternua et\nfut r\u00e9tabli le m\u00eame jour. Tr\u00e8s-remarquable.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick reconnut le compliment que renfermait cette supposition, et\ncependant il eut l'abn\u00e9gation de la repousser. Ensuite, prenant avantage\nd'un moment o\u00f9 le ma\u00eetre des c\u00e9r\u00e9monies demeurait silencieux, il demanda\nla permission de pr\u00e9senter ses amis, M. Tupman, M. Winkle et M.\nSnodgrass; pr\u00e9sentation qui, comme on se l'imagine, accabla le ma\u00eetre\ndes c\u00e9r\u00e9monies de d\u00e9lices et d'honneur.\n\n\u00abBantam, dit M. Dowler, M. Pickwick et ses amis sont \u00e9trangers; il faut\nqu'ils inscrivent leurs noms. O\u00f9 est le livre?\n\n--La registre des visiteurs distingu\u00e9s de Ba-ath sera \u00e0 la salle de la\nPompe aujourd'hui \u00e0 deux heures. Voulez-vous guider nos amis vers ce\nsplendide b\u00e2timent et me procurer l'avantage d'obtenir leurs\nautographes.\n\n--Je le ferai, r\u00e9pliqua Dowler. Voil\u00e0 une longue visite. Il est temps de\npartir. Je reviendrai dans une heure. Allons.\n\n--Il y a bal ce soir, monsieur, dit le ma\u00eetre des c\u00e9r\u00e9monies en prenant\nla main de M. Pickwick, au moment de s'en aller. Les nuits de bal, dans\nBa-ath, sont des instants d\u00e9rob\u00e9s au paradis, des instants que rendent\nenchanteurs la musique, la beaut\u00e9, l'\u00e9l\u00e9gance, la mode, l'\u00e9tiquette,\netc..., et par-dessus tout, l'absence des boutiquiers, gens tout \u00e0 fait\nincompatibles avec le paradis. Ces gens-l\u00e0 ont, entre eux, tous les\nquinze jours, au Guidhall, une esp\u00e8ce d'amalgame qui est, pour ne rien\ndire de plus, re-marquable. Adieu, adieu.\u00bb\n\nCela dit, et ayant protest\u00e9 tout le long de l'escalier qu'il \u00e9tait fort\nsatisfait, enti\u00e8rement charm\u00e9, compl\u00e8tement enchant\u00e9, immens\u00e9ment\nflatt\u00e9, on ne peut pas plus honor\u00e9, Angelo-Cyrus Bantam, esq., m.c.\nmonta dans un \u00e9quipage tr\u00e8s-\u00e9l\u00e9gant qui l'attendait \u00e0 la porte et\ndisparut au grand trot.\n\n\u00c0 l'heure d\u00e9sign\u00e9e, M. Pickwick et ses amis, escort\u00e9s par Dowler, se\nrendirent aux salles d'assembl\u00e9e et \u00e9crivirent leur nom sur le livre,\npreuve de condescendance dont Ang\u00e9lo Bantam se montra encore plus confus\net plus charm\u00e9 qu'auparavant. Des billets d'admission devaient \u00eatre\npr\u00e9par\u00e9s pour les quatre amis; mais, comme ils ne se trouvaient pas\npr\u00eats, M. Pickwick s'engagea, malgr\u00e9 toutes les protestations d'Angelo\nBantam, \u00e0 envoyer Sam les chercher, \u00e0 quatre heures, chez le M.C., dans\nQueen-Square.\n\nApr\u00e8s avoir fait une courte promenade dans la ville et \u00eatre arriv\u00e9s \u00e0 la\nconclusion unanime que Park-Street ressemble beaucoup aux rues\nperpendiculaires qu'on voit dans les r\u00eaves, et qu'on ne peut pas venir \u00e0\nbout de gravir, les pickwickiens retourn\u00e8rent au _Blanc-Cerf_ et\nd\u00e9p\u00each\u00e8rent Sam pour chercher les billets.\n\nSam Weller posa son chapeau sur sa t\u00eate d'une mani\u00e8re chalante et\ngracieuse, enfon\u00e7a ses mains dans les poches de son gilet, et se\ndirigea, d'un pas d\u00e9lib\u00e9r\u00e9, vers Queen-Square, en sifflant le long du\nchemin plusieurs airs populaires de l'\u00e9poque, arrang\u00e9s sur un mouvement\nenti\u00e8rement nouveau pour les instruments \u00e0 vent. Arriv\u00e9 dans\nQueen-Square, au num\u00e9ro qui lui avait \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9sign\u00e9, il cessa de siffler\net frappa solidement \u00e0 une porte, que vint ouvrir imm\u00e9diatement un\nlaquais \u00e0 la t\u00eate poudr\u00e9e, \u00e0 la livr\u00e9e magnifique, \u00e0 la stature carr\u00e9e.\n\n\u00abC'est-il ici M. Bantam, vieux? demanda Sam sans se laisser le moins du\nmonde intimider par le rayon de splendeur qui lui donna dans l'oeil \u00e0\nl'apparition du laquais poudr\u00e9, \u00e0 la livr\u00e9e magnifique, etc.\n\n--Pourquoi cela, jeune homme? r\u00e9pondit celui-ci d'un air hautain.\n\n--Parce que, si c'est ici chez lui, portez-lui \u00e7a, et dites-lui que M.\nWeller attend la r\u00e9ponse. Voulez-vous m'obliger, six pieds?\u00bb\n\nAinsi parla Sam; et, \u00e9tant entr\u00e9 froidement dans la salle, il s'y assit.\n\nLe laquais poudr\u00e9 poussa violemment la porte et fron\u00e7a les sourcils avec\ndignit\u00e9; mais tout cela ne fit nulle impression sur Sam, qui s'occupait\n\u00e0 regarder, avec un air de connaisseur satisfait, un \u00e9l\u00e9gant\nporte-parapluie en acajou.\n\nLa mani\u00e8re dont M. Bantam re\u00e7ut la carte disposa apparemment le laquais\npoudr\u00e9 en faveur de Sam, car, lorsqu'il revint, il lui sourit\namicalement et lui dit que la r\u00e9ponse allait \u00eatre pr\u00eate sur-le-champ.\n\n\u00abTr\u00e8s-bien, r\u00e9pliqua Sam; vous pouvez dire au vieux gentleman de ne pas\nse mettre en transpiration. Il n'y a pas de presse, six pieds. J'ai\nd\u00een\u00e9.\n\n--Vous d\u00eenez de bien bonne heure, monsieur.\n\n--C'est pour mieux travailler au souper.\n\n--Y a-t-il longtemps que vous restez \u00e0 Bath, monsieur? Je n'ai pas eu le\nplaisir d'entendre parler de vous.\n\n--Je n'ai pas encore caus\u00e9 ici une sensation \u00e9tonnamment surprenante,\nr\u00e9pondit Sam tranquillement. Moi et les autres personnages distingu\u00e9s\nque j'accompagne, nous ne sommes arriv\u00e9s que d'hier au soir.\n\n--Un joli endroit, monsieur.\n\n--\u00c7a m'en a l'air.\n\n--Bonne soci\u00e9t\u00e9, monsieur. Des domestiques fort agr\u00e9ables, monsieur.\n\n--\u00c7a me fait cet effet-l\u00e0, des gaillards affables, sans affectation,\nqui ont l'air de vous dire: Allez vous promener; je ne vous connais pas!\n\n--Oh! c'est bien vrai, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua le laquais poudr\u00e9, croyant\n\u00e9videmment que le discours de Sam renfermait un superbe compliment. En\nprenez-vous, monsieur? ajouta-t-il en produisant une petite tabati\u00e8re.\n\n--Pas sans \u00e9ternuer.\n\n--Oh! c'est difficile, monsieur; je le confesse; mais cela s'apprend par\ndegr\u00e9s. Le caf\u00e9 est ce qu'il y a de mieux pour cela. J'ai longtemps\nport\u00e9 du caf\u00e9, monsieur; cela ressemble beaucoup \u00e0 du tabac.\u00bb\n\nIci un violent coup de sonnette r\u00e9duisit le laquais poudr\u00e9 \u00e0\nl'ignominieuse n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 de remettre la tabati\u00e8re dans sa poche et de se\nrendre, avec une humble contenance, dans le cabinet de M. Bantam.\nObservons, par parenth\u00e8se, que tous les individus qui ne lisent et\nn'\u00e9crivent jamais, ont toujours quelque petit arri\u00e8re-parloir qu'ils\nappellent leur _cabinet_.\n\n\u00abVoici la r\u00e9ponse, monsieur, dit \u00e0 Sam le laquais poudr\u00e9. J'ai peur que\nvous ne la trouviez incommode par sa grandeur.\n\n--Ne vous tourmentez pas, r\u00e9pondit Sam en recevant la lettre, qui \u00e9tait\nenferm\u00e9e dans une petite enveloppe. Je crois que la nature peut\nsupporter cela sans tomber en d\u00e9faillance.\n\n--J'esp\u00e8re que nous nous reverrons, monsieur, dit le laquais poudr\u00e9 en\nse frottant les mains et en reconduisant Sam jusqu'\u00e0 la porte.\n\n--Vous \u00eates bien obligeant, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Sam; mais, je vous en\nprie, n'\u00e9reintez pas outre mesure une personne aussi aimable. Consid\u00e9rez\nce que vous devez \u00e0 la soci\u00e9t\u00e9, et ne vous laissez pas \u00e9craser par\nl'ouvrage. Pour l'amour de vos semblables, tenez-vous aussi tranquille\nque vous pourrez; songez quelle perte ce serait pour le monde!\u00bb\n\nSam s'\u00e9loigna sur ces mots path\u00e9tiques.\n\n\u00abUn jeune homme fort singulier,\u00bb dit en lui-m\u00eame le laquais poudr\u00e9, avec\nune physionomie tout \u00e9bahie.\n\nSam ne dit rien, mais il cligna de l'oeil, hocha la t\u00eate, sourit, cligna\nde l'oeil sur nouveaux frais, et s'en alla l\u00e9g\u00e8rement, avec une\nphysionomie qui semblait d\u00e9noter qu'il \u00e9tait singuli\u00e8rement amus\u00e9, par\nune chose ou par une autre.\n\nLe m\u00eame soir, juste \u00e0 huit heures moins vingt minutes, Angelo-Cyrus\nBantam esq. m.c. descendit de sa voiture \u00e0 la porte des salons\nd'assembl\u00e9e, avec le m\u00eame toupet, les m\u00eames dents, le m\u00eame lorgnon, la\nm\u00eame cha\u00eene et les m\u00eames cachets, les m\u00eames bagues, les m\u00eames \u00e9pingles\net la m\u00eame canne, que celles ou ceux dont il \u00e9tait affubl\u00e9 le matin. Le\nseul changement remarquable dans son costume \u00e9tait qu'il portait un\nhabit d'un bleu plus clair, doubl\u00e9 de soie blanche, un pantalon collant\nnoir, des bas de soie noire, des escarpins et un gilet blanc, et qu'il\n\u00e9tait, si cela est possible, encore un peu plus parfum\u00e9.\n\nAinsi accoutr\u00e9, le ma\u00eetre des c\u00e9r\u00e9monies se planta dans la premi\u00e8re\nsalle, pour recevoir la compagnie, et remplir les importants devoirs de\nson indispensable office.\n\nBath \u00e9tait comble. La compagnie et les pi\u00e8ces de 6 pence pour le th\u00e9,\narrivaient en foule. Dans la salle de bal, dans les salles de jeu, dans\nles escaliers, dans les passages, le murmure des voix et le bruit des\npieds \u00e9taient absolument \u00e9tourdissants. Les v\u00eatements de soie\nbruissaient, les plumes se balan\u00e7aient, les lumi\u00e8res brillaient, et les\njoyaux \u00e9tincelaient. On entendait la musique, non pas des contredanses,\ncar elles n'\u00e9taient pas encore commenc\u00e9es, mais la musique toujours\nagr\u00e9able \u00e0 entendre, soit \u00e0 Bath, soit ailleurs, des pieds mignons et\nd\u00e9licats qui glissent sur le parquet, des rires clairs et joyeux de\njeunes filles, des voix de femmes retenues et voil\u00e9es. De toutes parts\nscintillaient des yeux brillants, \u00e9clair\u00e9s par l'attente du plaisir; et\nde quelque cot\u00e9 qu'on regard\u00e2t, on voyait glisser gracieusement, \u00e0\ntravers la foule, quelque figure \u00e9l\u00e9gante, qui, \u00e0 peine perdue, \u00e9tait\nremplac\u00e9e par une autre, aussi s\u00e9duisante et aussi par\u00e9e.\n\nDans la salle o\u00f9 l'on prenait le th\u00e9, et tout autour des tables de jeu,\ns'entassaient une foule innombrable d'\u00e9tranges vieilles ladies et de\ngentlemen d\u00e9cr\u00e9pits, discutant tous les petits scandales du jour avec\nune vivacit\u00e9 qui montrait suffisamment quel plaisir ils y trouvaient.\nParmi ces groupes, se trouvaient quelques m\u00e8res de famille, absorb\u00e9es,\nen apparence, par la conversation \u00e0 laquelle elles prenaient part, mais\njetant de temps \u00e0 autre un regard inquiet du c\u00f4t\u00e9 de leurs filles.\nCelles-ci, se rappelant les injonctions maternelles de profiter de\nl'occasion, \u00e9taient en plein exercice de coquetterie, \u00e9garant leurs\n\u00e9charpes, mettant leurs gants, d\u00e9posant leurs tasses \u00e0 th\u00e9, et ainsi de\nsuite, toutes choses l\u00e9g\u00e8res en apparence, mais qui peuvent \u00eatre fort\navantageusement exploit\u00e9es par d'habiles praticiennes.\n\nAupr\u00e8s des portes et dans les recoins, divers groupes de jeunes gens,\n\u00e9talant toutes les vari\u00e9t\u00e9s du dandysme et de la stupidit\u00e9, amusaient\nles gens raisonnables par leur folie et leur pr\u00e9tention, tout en se\ncroyant, heureusement, les objets de l'admiration g\u00e9n\u00e9rale. Sage et\npr\u00e9voyante dispensation de la Providence, qu'un esprit charitable ne\nsaurait assez louer.\n\nSur les bancs de derri\u00e8re, o\u00f9 elles avaient d\u00e9j\u00e0 pris leur position pour\nla soir\u00e9e, \u00e9taient assises certaines ladies non mari\u00e9es, qui avaient\npass\u00e9 leur grande ann\u00e9e climat\u00e9rique, et qui, ne dansant pas, parce\nqu'elles n'avaient point de partenaires, ne jouant pas, de peur d'\u00eatre\nregard\u00e9es comme irr\u00e9vocablement vieilles filles, \u00e9taient dans la\nsituation favorable de pouvoir dire du mal de tout le monde, sans qu'il\nretomb\u00e2t sur elles-m\u00eames. Tout le monde, en effet, se trouvait-l\u00e0.\nC'\u00e9tait une sc\u00e8ne de gaiet\u00e9, de luxe et de toilettes, de glaces\nmagnifiques, de parquets blanchis \u00e0 la craie, de girandoles, de bougies,\net sur tous les plans du tableau, glissant de place en place, avec une\nsouplesse silencieuse, saluant obs\u00e9quieusement telle soci\u00e9t\u00e9, faisant un\nsigne familier \u00e0 telle autre, et souriant complaisamment \u00e0 toutes, se\nfaisait remarquer la personne tir\u00e9e \u00e0 quatre \u00e9pingles, d'Angelo-Cyrus\nBantam esquire, _le ma\u00eetre des c\u00e9r\u00e9monies_.\n\n\u00abArr\u00eatez-vous dans la salle du th\u00e9. Prenez-en pour vos 6 pence. Ils\ndistribuent de l'eau chaude et appellent cela du th\u00e9. Buvez,\u00bb dit tout\nhaut M. Dowler \u00e0 M. Pickwick, qui s'avan\u00e7ait en t\u00eate de leur soci\u00e9t\u00e9,\ndonnant le bras \u00e0 Mme Dowler. M. Pickwick tourna donc vers la salle du\nth\u00e9, et M. Bantam, en l'apercevant, se glissa \u00e0 travers la foule, et le\nsalua avec extase.\n\n\u00abMon cher monsieur, je suis prodigieusement honor\u00e9.... Ba-ath est\nfavoris\u00e9.... Madame Dowler, vous embellissez cette salle. Je vous\nf\u00e9licite vos plumes re-marquables!\n\n--Y a-t-il quelqu'un ici? demanda M. Dowler d'un air d\u00e9daigneux.\n\n--Quelqu'un? l'\u00e9lite de Ba-ath! Monsieur Pickwick, voyez vous cette dame\nen turban de gaze?\n\n--Cette grosse vieille dame? demanda M. Pickwick innocemment.\n\n--Chut! mon cher monsieur, chut! Personne n'est gros ni vieux, dans\nBa-ath. C'est la lady douairi\u00e8re Snuphanuph.[8]\n\n[Footnote 8: Prise assez.]\n\n--En v\u00e9rit\u00e9! fit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Ni plus ni moins. Chut! approchez un peu par ici, monsieur Pickwick.\nVoyez-vous ce jeune homme, richement v\u00eatu, qui vient de notre c\u00f4t\u00e9?\n\n--Celui qui a des cheveux longs, et le front singuli\u00e8rement \u00e9troit?\n\n--Pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment. C'est le plus riche jeune homme de Ba-ath, en ce moment.\nLe jeune lord Mutanhed[9].\n\n[Footnote 9: T\u00eate de mouton.]\n\n--Quoi, vraiment?\n\n--Oui. Vous entendrez sa voix dans un moment, monsieur Pickwick. Il me\nparlera. Le gentleman qui est avec lui et qui a un dessous de gilet\nrouge et des moustaches noires, est l'honorable M. Crushton, son ami\nintime.--Comment vous portez-vous, mylord?\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-saudement, Bantam, r\u00e9pondit Sa Seigneurie.\n\n--En effet, il fait tr\u00e8s-chaud, milord, reprit le M.C.\n\n--Diablement,\u00bb ajouta l'honorable M. Crushton.\n\nApr\u00e8s une pause durant laquelle le jeune lord s'\u00e9tait efforc\u00e9 de\nd\u00e9contenancer M. Pickwick en le lorgnant, tandis que son acolyte\nr\u00e9fl\u00e9chissait sur quel sujet lord Mutanhed pouvait parler le plus\navantageusement, M. Crushton, dit:\n\n\u00abBantam, avez-vous vu la malle-poste de milord?\n\n--Mon Dieu non. Une malle-poste? Quelle excellente id\u00e9e. Re-marquable!\n\n--Vaiment, je coyais que tout le monde l'avait vue! C'est la plus zolie,\nla plus l\u00e9z\u00e8re, la plus gacieuse chose qui ait zamais \u00e9t\u00e9 sur des roues.\nPeinte en rouge, avec des gevaux caf\u00e9 au lait.\n\n--Et avec une v\u00e9ritable malle pour les lettres; tout \u00e0 fait compl\u00e8te,\najouta l'honorable M. Crushton.\n\n--Et un petit si\u00e9ge devant, entour\u00e9 d'une tringle de fer pour le cozer,\ncontinua Sa Seigneurie. Ze l'ai conduite \u00e0 Bristol l'aut'matin, avec un\nhabit \u00e9calate et deux domestiques courant un quart de mille en arri\u00e8re,\net Dieu me damne si les paysans ne sortaient pas de leurs cabanes, pour\nm'arr\u00eater et me demander si je n'\u00e9tais pas la poste! Glo'ieux!\nGlo'ieux!\u00bb\n\nLe jeune lord rit de tout son coeur de cette anecdote, et les auditeurs\nen firent autant, bien entendu.\n\n\u00abCharmant jeune homme! dit le ma\u00eetre des c\u00e9r\u00e9monies \u00e0 M. Pickwick.\n\n--Il en a l'air,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua s\u00e8chement le philosophe.\n\nLa danse ayant commenc\u00e9, les pr\u00e9sentations n\u00e9cessaires ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 faites,\net tous les pr\u00e9liminaires \u00e9tant arrang\u00e9s, Angelo Bantam rejoignit M.\nPickwick et le conduisit dans les salons de jeux.\n\nAu moment de leur entr\u00e9e, lady Snuphanuph et deux autres ladies, d'une\napparence antique, et qui sentait le whist, erraient tristement autour\nd'une table inoccup\u00e9e. Aussit\u00f4t qu'elles aper\u00e7urent M. Pickwick, sous la\nconduite d'Angelo Bantam, elles \u00e9chang\u00e8rent entre elles des regards qui\nvoulaient dire que c'\u00e9tait l\u00e0 justement la personne qu'il leur fallait\npour faire un rob.\n\n\u00abMon cher Bantam, dit la lady douairi\u00e8re Snuphanuph, d'un air engageant,\ntrouvez-nous donc quelque aimable personne pour faire un whist, comme\nune bonne \u00e2me que vous \u00eates.\u00bb\n\nDans ce moment M. Pickwick regardait d'un autre c\u00f4t\u00e9, de sorte que\nmilady fit un signe de t\u00eate expressif en l'indiquant.\n\nLe ma\u00eetre des c\u00e9r\u00e9monies comprit ce geste muet.\n\n\u00abMilady, r\u00e9pondit-il, mon ami M. Pickwick s'estimera, j'en suis s\u00fbr,\ntr\u00e8s-heureux, re-marquablement.--M. Pickwick, lady Snuphanuph, Mme la\ncolonel Wugsby, miss Bolo.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick salua et voyant qu'il \u00e9tait impossible de s'\u00e9chapper, se\nr\u00e9signa. On tira les places, et M. Pickwick se trouva avec miss Bolo,\ncontre lady Snuphanuph et Mme Wugsby.\n\n\u00c0 la seconde donne, au moment o\u00f9 la retourne venait \u00e0 \u00eatre vue, deux\njeunes ladies accoururent dans la salle et se plac\u00e8rent de chaque c\u00f4t\u00e9\nde Mme Wugsby, o\u00f9 elles attendirent patiemment et silencieusement que le\ncoup f\u00fbt fini.\n\n\u00abEh bien! dit Mme Wugsby en se retournant vers l'une de ses filles,\nqu'est-ce qu'il y a?\n\n--M'man, r\u00e9pondit \u00e0 voix basse la plus jeune et la plus jolie des deux,\nje venais vous demander si je puis danser avec le plus jeune M. Crawley.\n\n--Mais \u00e0 quoi donc pensez-vous, Jane? r\u00e9pondit la maman avec\nindignation. N'avez-vous pas entendu dire cent fois, que son p\u00e8re n'a\nque huit cents livres sterling de revenu, et qui meurent avec lui\nencore! Vous me faites rougir de honte! Non, sous aucun pr\u00e9texte.\n\n--M'man, chuchota l'autre demoiselle qui \u00e9tait beaucoup plus vieille que\nsa soeur, et avait l'air insipide et artificiel; lord Mutanhed m'a \u00e9t\u00e9\npr\u00e9sent\u00e9. J'ai dit que je croyais n'\u00eatre pas engag\u00e9e, m'man.\n\n--Vous \u00eates une bonne fille, mon enfant, et on peut se fier \u00e0 vous,\nr\u00e9pondit Mme Wugsby, en tapant de son \u00e9ventail la joue de sa fille. Il\nest immens\u00e9ment riche, ma ch\u00e9rie.\u00bb En parlant ainsi, Mme Wugsby baisa sa\nfille a\u00een\u00e9e fort tendrement, admonesta la cadette par un froncement de\nsourcil, et m\u00eala les cartes.\n\nPauvre M. Pickwick! il n'avait jamais jou\u00e9 jusqu'alors avec trois\nvieilles femmes aussi compl\u00e8tement joueuses. Elles \u00e9taient d'une\nhabilet\u00e9 qui l'effrayait. S'il jouait mal, miss Bolo le poignardait du\nregard; s'il s'arr\u00eatait pour r\u00e9fl\u00e9chir, lady Snuphanuph se renversait\nsur sa chaise et souriait, en jetant \u00e0 Mme Wugsby un coup d'oeil m\u00eal\u00e9\nd'impatience et de piti\u00e9. \u00c0 quoi celle-ci r\u00e9pondait en haussant les\n\u00e9paules et en toussant, comme pour demander s'il se d\u00e9ciderait jamais \u00e0\njouer. \u00c0 la fin de chaque coup, miss Bolo demandait avec une contenance\nsombre et un soupir plein de reproche, pourquoi M. Pickwick n'avait pas\nrendu atout, attaqu\u00e9 tr\u00e8fle, coup\u00e9 pique, finass\u00e9 la dame, fait \u00e9chec \u00e0\nl'honneur, invit\u00e9 au roi ou quelque autre chose de semblable; et M.\nPickwick \u00e9tait tout \u00e0 fait incapable de se disculper de ces graves\naccusations, car il avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 oubli\u00e9 le coup. Ce n'est pas tout; il y\navait des gens qui venaient regarder et qui intimidaient M. Pickwick;\nenfin, pr\u00e8s de la table, s'\u00e9changeait une conversation fort active et\nfort distrayante, entre Angelo Bantam et les deux miss Matinters, qui,\n\u00e9tant filles et un peu m\u00fbres, faisaient une cour assidue au ma\u00eetre des\nc\u00e9r\u00e9monies, dans l'espoir d'attraper, de temps en temps, un danseur de\nrencontre. Toutes ces choses combin\u00e9es avec le bruit et les constantes\ninterruptions des allants et des venants, firent que M. Pickwick joua\nv\u00e9ritablement assez mal; de plus, les cartes \u00e9taient contre lui, de\nsorte que quand il quitta la table, \u00e0 onze heures dix minutes, miss Bolo\nse leva dans une agitation effroyable et partit dans les larmes et dans\nune chaise \u00e0 porteurs.\n\nM. Pickwick fut rejoint bient\u00f4t apr\u00e8s par ses amis, qui protest\u00e8rent\nunanimement avoir rarement pass\u00e9 une soir\u00e9e aussi agr\u00e9able. Ils\nretourn\u00e8rent tous ensemble au _Blanc-Cerf_, et le philosophe s'\u00e9tant\nconsol\u00e9 de ses infortunes, en avalant quelque chose de chaud, se coucha\net s'endormit presque simultan\u00e9ment.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE VII.\n\nOccup\u00e9 principalement par une authentique version de la l\u00e9gende du\nprince Bladud, et par une calamit\u00e9 fort extraordinaire dont M. Winkle\nfut la victime.\n\n\nM. Pickwick, en proposant de rester au moins deux mois \u00e0 Bath, jugea\nconvenable de prendre pour lui et pour ses amis un appartement\nparticulier. Il eut la bonne fortune d'obtenir, pour un prix mod\u00e9r\u00e9, la\npartie sup\u00e9rieure d'une des maisons sur la Royal-Crescent; et comme il\ns'y trouvait plus de logement qu'il n'en fallait pour les pickwickiens,\nM. et Mme Dowler lui offrirent de reprendre une chambre \u00e0 coucher et un\nsalon. Cette proposition fut accept\u00e9e avec un empressement, et des le\ntroisi\u00e8me jour les deux soci\u00e9t\u00e9s furent \u00e9tablies dans leur nouveau\ndomicile. M. Pickwick commen\u00e7a alors \u00e0 prendre les eaux avec la plus\ngrande assiduit\u00e9. Il les prenait syst\u00e9matiquement, buvant un quart de\npinte avant le d\u00e9jeuner, et montant un coteau; un autre quart de pinte\napr\u00e8s le d\u00e9jeuner, et descendant un coteau; et apr\u00e8s chaque nouveau\nquart de pinte, M. Pickwick d\u00e9clarait, dans les termes les plus\nsolennels, qu'il se sentait infiniment mieux: ce dont ses amis se\nr\u00e9jouissaient vivement, quoiqu'ils ne se fussent pas dout\u00e9s, jusque-l\u00e0,\nqu'il e\u00fbt \u00e0 se plaindre de la moindre chose.\n\nLa grande buvette est un salon spacieux, orn\u00e9 de piliers corinthiens,\nd'une galerie pour la musique, d'une pendule de Tompion, d'une statue de\nNash, et d'une inscription en lettres d'or, \u00e0 laquelle tous les buveurs\nd'eau devraient faire attention, car elle fait un touchant appel \u00e0 leur\ncharit\u00e9. Il s'y trouve, en outre, un vase de marbre o\u00f9 le gar\u00e7on plonge\nsans cesse de grands verres, qui ont l'air d'avoir la jaunisse, et c'est\nun spectacle prodigieusement \u00e9difiant et satisfaisant, que de voir avec\nquelle gravit\u00e9 et quelle pers\u00e9v\u00e9rance les buveurs d'eau engloutissent le\ncontenu de ces verres. Tout aupr\u00e8s on a dispos\u00e9 des baignoires, dans\nlesquelles se lavent une partie des malades; apr\u00e8s quoi la musique joue\ndes fanfares pour les congratuler d'en \u00eatre sortis. Il existe encore une\nseconde buvette, o\u00f9 les ladies et les gentlemen infirmes sont roul\u00e9s\ndans une quantit\u00e9 de chaises et de fauteuils, si \u00e9tonnante et si vari\u00e9e,\nqu'un individu aventureux, qui s'y rend avec le nombre ordinaire\nd'orteils, doit s'estimer heureux s'il les poss\u00e8de encore quand il en\nsort.\n\nEnfin il y a une troisi\u00e8me buvette o\u00f9 se r\u00e9unissent les gens\ntranquilles, parce qu'elle est moins bruyante que les autres. Il se fait\nd'ailleurs aux environs une infinit\u00e9 de promenades avec b\u00e9quilles ou\nsans b\u00e9quilles, avec canne ou sans canne, et une infinit\u00e9 de\nconversations et de plaisanteries, avec esprit ou sans esprit.\n\nChaque matin les buveurs d'eau consciencieux, parmi lesquels se trouvait\nM. Pickwick, se r\u00e9unissaient dans les buvettes, avalaient leur quart de\npinte, et marchaient suivant l'ordonnance. \u00c0 la promenade de\nl'apr\u00e8s-midi, lord Mutanhed et l'honorable M. Crushton, lady Snuphanuph,\nmistress Wugsby, et tout le beau monde, et tous les buveurs d'eau du\nmatin, se r\u00e9unissaient en grande compagnie. Apr\u00e8s cela, ils se\npromenaient \u00e0 pied, ou en voiture, ou dans les chaises \u00e0 porteurs, et se\nrencontraient sur nouveaux frais. Apr\u00e8s cela, les gentlemen allaient au\ncabinet de lecture, et y rencontraient une portion de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9; apr\u00e8s\nquoi, ils s'en retournaient chacun chez soi. Ensuite, si c'\u00e9tait jour de\nth\u00e9\u00e2tre, on se rencontrait au th\u00e9\u00e2tre; si c'\u00e9tait jour d'assembl\u00e9e, on\nse rencontrait au salon, et si ce n'\u00e9tait ni l'un ni l'autre, on se\nrencontrait le jour suivant: agr\u00e9able routine \u00e0 laquelle on pourrait\npeut-\u00eatre reprocher uniquement une l\u00e9g\u00e8re teinte de monotonie.\n\nApr\u00e8s une journ\u00e9e d\u00e9pens\u00e9e de cette mani\u00e8re, M. Pickwick, dont les amis\ns'\u00e9taient all\u00e9s coucher, s'occupait \u00e0 compl\u00e9ter son journal, lorsqu'il\nentendit frapper doucement \u00e0 sa porte.\n\n--Je vous demande pardon, monsieur, dit la ma\u00eetresse de la maison, Mme\nCraddock, en insinuant sa t\u00eate dans la chambre, vous n'avez plus besoin\nde rien?\n\n--De rien du tout, madame, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Ma jeune fille est all\u00e9e se coucher, monsieur, et M. Dowler a la bont\u00e9\nde rester debout pour attendre Mme Dowler, qui ne doit rentrer que fort\ntard. Ainsi, monsieur Pickwick, je pensais que si vous n'aviez plus\nbesoin de rien, j'irais me coucher aussi.\n\n--Vous ferez tr\u00e8s-bien, madame.\n\n--Je vous souhaite une bonne nuit, monsieur.\n\n--Bonne nuit, madame.\u00bb\n\nMistress Craddock ferma la porte et M. Pickwick continua d'\u00e9crire.\n\nEn une demi-heure de temps ses notes furent mises \u00e0 jour. Il appuya\nsoigneusement la derni\u00e8re page sur le papier buvard, ferma le livre,\nessuya sa plume au pan de son habit, et ouvrit le tiroir de l'encrier\npour l'y serrer. Il y avait dans ce tiroir quelques feuilles de papier \u00e0\nlettres, \u00e9crites serr\u00e9es et pli\u00e9es de telle sorte que le titre, moul\u00e9 en\nronde, sautait aux yeux. Voyant par l\u00e0 que ce n'\u00e9tait point un document\npriv\u00e9, qu'il paraissait se rapporter \u00e0 Bath, et qu'il \u00e9tait fort court,\nM. Pickwick d\u00e9plia le papier, et tirant sa chaise aupr\u00e8s du feu, lut ce\nqui suit:\n\n\u00abLA V\u00c9RITABLE L\u00c9GENDE DU PRINCE BLADUD.\n\n\u00abIl n'y a pas encore deux cents ans qu'on voyait sur l'un des bains\npublies de cette ville, une inscription en honneur de son puissant\nfondateur, le renomm\u00e9 prince Bladud. Cette inscription est maintenant\neffac\u00e9e, mais une vieille l\u00e9gende, transmise d'\u00e2ge en \u00e2ge, nous apprend\nque plusieurs si\u00e8cles auparavant cet illustre prince, afflig\u00e9 de la\nl\u00e8pre depuis son retour d'Ath\u00e8nes, o\u00f9 il \u00e9tait all\u00e9 recueillir une ample\nmoisson de science, \u00e9vitait la cour de son royal p\u00e8re, et faisait\ntristement soci\u00e9t\u00e9 avec ses bergers et ses cochons. Dans le troupeau,\ndit la l\u00e9gende, se trouvait un porc d'une contenance grave et\nsolennelle, pour qui le prince \u00e9prouvait une certaine sympathie; car ce\nporc \u00e9tait un sage, un personnage aux mani\u00e8res pensives et r\u00e9serv\u00e9es, un\nanimal sup\u00e9rieur \u00e0 ses semblables, dont le grognement \u00e9tait terrible,\ndont la morsure \u00e9tait fatale. Le jeune prince soupirait profond\u00e9ment en\nregardant la physionomie majestueuse du quadrup\u00e8de. Il songeait \u00e0 son\nroyal p\u00e8re, et ses yeux se noyaient de larmes.\n\n\u00abCe porc intelligent aimait beaucoup \u00e0 se baigner dans une fange molle\net verd\u00e2tre, non pas au coeur de l'\u00e9t\u00e9, comme font maintenant les porcs\nvulgaires, pour se rafra\u00eechir, et comme ils faisaient m\u00eame dans ces\ntemps recul\u00e9s (ce qui prouve que la lumi\u00e8re de la civilisation avait\nd\u00e9j\u00e0 commenc\u00e9 \u00e0 briller, quoique faiblement); mais au milieu des froids\nles plus piquants de l'hiver. La robe du pachyderme \u00e9tait toujours si\nlisse et sa complexion si claire, que le prince r\u00e9solut d'essayer les\nqualit\u00e9s purifiantes de l'eau, qui r\u00e9ussissait si bien \u00e0 son ami. Un\nbeau jour il le suivit au bain. Sous la fange verd\u00e2tre, sourdissaient\nles sources chaudes de Bath; le prince s'y lava et fut gu\u00e9ri. S'\u00e9tant\nrendu aussit\u00f4t \u00e0 la cour du roi son p\u00e8re, il lui pr\u00e9senta ses respects\nles plus tendres, mais il s'empressa de revenir ici, pour y fonder cette\nville et ces bains fameux.\n\n\u00abD'abord il chercha le porc avec toute l'ardeur d'une ancienne amiti\u00e9;\nmais, h\u00e9las! ces eaux c\u00e9l\u00e8bres avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 cause de sa perte. Il avait\npris un bain \u00e0 une temp\u00e9rature trop \u00e9lev\u00e9e et le philosophe sans le\nsavoir n'\u00e9tait plus. Pline qui lui succ\u00e9da dans la philosophie, p\u00e9rit\n\u00e9galement victime de son ardeur pour la science.\n\n\u00abTelle \u00e9tait la l\u00e9gende: \u00c9coutez l'histoire v\u00e9ritable.\n\n\u00abLe fameux Lud Hudibras, roi de la Grande-Bretagne, florissait il y a\nbien des si\u00e8cles. C'\u00e9tait un redoutable monarque: la terre tremblait\nsous ses pas, tant il \u00e9tait gros; ses peuples avaient peine \u00e0 soutenir\nl'\u00e9clat de sa face, tant elle \u00e9tait rouge et luisante. Il \u00e9tait roi\ndepuis les pieds jusqu'\u00e0 la t\u00eate, et c'\u00e9tait beaucoup dire, car, s'il\nn'\u00e9tait pas tr\u00e8s-haut, il \u00e9tait tr\u00e8s-puissant, et son immense ampleur\ncompensait et au del\u00e0, ce qui pouvait manquer \u00e0 sa taille. Si quelque\nprince d\u00e9g\u00e9n\u00e9r\u00e9 de ces temps modernes pouvait lui \u00eatre compar\u00e9, ce\nserait le v\u00e9n\u00e9rable roi Cole, qui seul m\u00e9riterait cette gloire.\n\n\u00abCe bon roi avait une reine qui, dix-huit ans auparavant, avait eu un\nfils, lequel avait nom Bladud. On l'avait plac\u00e9 dans une \u00e9cole\npr\u00e9paratoire des \u00c9tats de son p\u00e8re, jusqu'\u00e0 l'\u00e2ge de dix ans, mais alors\nil avait \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9p\u00each\u00e9, sous la conduite d'un fid\u00e8le messager, pour finir\nses classes \u00e0 Ath\u00e8nes. Comme il n'y avait point de suppl\u00e9ment \u00e0 payer\npour rester \u00e0 l'\u00e9cole les jours de f\u00eate, et pas d'avertissement\npr\u00e9alable \u00e0 donner pour la sortie des \u00e9l\u00e8ves, il y demeura huit ann\u00e9es,\n\u00e0 l'expiration desquelles le roi son p\u00e8re envoya le lord chambellan pour\nsolder sa d\u00e9pense, et pour le ramener au logis. Le lord chambellan\nex\u00e9cuta habilement cette mission difficile, fut re\u00e7u avec\napplaudissements, et pensionn\u00e9 sans d\u00e9lai.\n\n\u00abQuand le roi Lud vit le prince son fils, et remarqua qu'il \u00e9tait devenu\nun superbe jeune homme, il s'aper\u00e7ut du premier coup d'oeil que ce\nserait une grande chose de le marier imm\u00e9diatement, afin que ses enfants\npussent servir \u00e0 perp\u00e9tuer la glorieuse race de Lud, jusqu'aux derniers\n\u00e2ges du monde. Dans cette vue il composa une ambassade extraordinaire de\nnobles seigneurs qui n'avaient pas grand'chose \u00e0 faire, et qui\nd\u00e9siraient obtenir des emplois lucratifs; puis il les envoya \u00e0 un roi\nvoisin, pour lui demander en mariage sa charmante fille, et pour lui\nd\u00e9clarer, en m\u00eame temps, que, comme roi chr\u00e9tien, il souhaitait\nvivement conserver les relations les plus amicales avec le roi son fr\u00e8re\net son ami; mais que si le mariage ne s'arrangeait pas, il serait dans\nla p\u00e9nible n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 de lui aller rendre visite, avec une arm\u00e9e\nnombreuse, et de lui faire crever les yeux. L'autre roi qui \u00e9tait le\nplus faible, r\u00e9pondit \u00e0 cette d\u00e9claration, qu'il \u00e9tait fort oblig\u00e9 au\nroi son fr\u00e8re, de sa bont\u00e9 et de sa magnanimit\u00e9, et que sa fille \u00e9tait\ntoute pr\u00eate \u00e0 se marier, aussit\u00f4t qu'il plairait au prince Bladud de\nvenir et de l'emmener.\n\n\u00abD\u00e8s que cette r\u00e9ponse parvint en Angleterre, toute la nation fut\ntransport\u00e9e de joie, on n'entendait plus que le bruit des r\u00e9jouissances\net des f\u00eates, comme aussi celui de l'argent qui sonnait dans la sacoche\ndes collecteurs, charg\u00e9s de lever sur le peuple l'imp\u00f4t n\u00e9cessaire pour\nd\u00e9frayer la d\u00e9pense de cette heureuse c\u00e9r\u00e9monie.\n\n\u00abC'est dans cette occasion que le roi Lud, assis au sommet de son tr\u00f4ne,\nen plein conseil, se leva, dans la joie de son \u00e2me, et commanda au lord\nchef de la justice de faire venir les m\u00e9nestrels, et de faire apporter\nles meilleurs vins. L'ignorance des historiens l\u00e9gendaires attribue cet\nacte de gracieuset\u00e9 au roi Cole, comme on le voit dans ces vers\nc\u00e9l\u00e8bres:\n\n    \u00abIl fit venir sa pipe, et ses trois violons,\n    Pour boire un pot, au doux bruit des flonflons.\u00bb\n\n\u00abMais c'est une injustice \u00e9vidente envers la m\u00e9moire du roi Lud, et une\nmalhonn\u00eate exaltation des vertus du roi Cole.\n\n\u00abCependant, au milieu de ces f\u00eates et de ces r\u00e9jouissances, il y avait\nun individu qui ne buvait point, quand les vins g\u00e9n\u00e9reux p\u00e9tillaient\ndans les verres, et qui ne dansait point, quand les instruments des\nm\u00e9nestrels s'\u00e9veillaient sous leurs doigts. C'\u00e9tait le prince Bladud\nlui-m\u00eame, pour le bonheur duquel tout un peuple vidait ses poches, et\nremplissait son gosier. H\u00e9las! c'est que le prince, oubliant que le\nministre des affaires \u00e9trang\u00e8res avait le droit incontestable de devenir\namoureux pour lui, \u00e9tait d\u00e9j\u00e0 devenu amoureux pour son propre compte,\ncontrairement \u00e0 tous les pr\u00e9c\u00e9dents de la diplomatie, et s'\u00e9tait mari\u00e9,\ndans son coeur, avec la fille d'un noble Ath\u00e9nien.\n\n\u00abIci nous trouvons un frappant exemple de l'un des nombreux avantages de\nla civilisation. Si le prince avait v\u00e9cu de nos jours, il aurait \u00e9pous\u00e9\nsans scrupule la princesse choisie par son p\u00e8re, et se serait\nimm\u00e9diatement et s\u00e9rieusement mis \u00e0 l'ouvrage pour se d\u00e9barrasser\nd'elle, en la faisant mourir de chagrin par un encha\u00eenement syst\u00e9matique\nde m\u00e9pris et d'insultes; puis si la tranquille fiert\u00e9 de son sexe, et\nla conscience de son innocence, lui avaient donn\u00e9 la force de r\u00e9sister \u00e0\nces mauvais traitements, il aurait pu chercher quelque autre mani\u00e8re de\nlui \u00f4ter la vie et de s'en d\u00e9livrer sans scandale. Mais ni l'un ni\nl'autre de ces moyens ne s'offrit \u00e0 l'imagination du prince Bladud; il\nse borna donc \u00e0 solliciter une audience priv\u00e9e de son p\u00e8re, et \u00e0 lui\ntout avouer.\n\n\u00abC'est une ancienne pr\u00e9rogative des souverains de gouverner toutes\nchoses, except\u00e9 leurs passions. En cons\u00e9quence le roi Lud se mit dans\nune col\u00e8re abominable; jeta sa couronne au plafond (car dans ce temps-l\u00e0\nles rois gardaient leur couronne sur leur t\u00eate et non pas dans la Tour);\ntr\u00e9pigna sur le plancher, se frappa le front; demanda au ciel pourquoi\nson propre sang se r\u00e9voltait contre lui, et finalement, appelant ses\ngardes, leur ordonna d'enfermer son fils dans un donjon: sorte de\ntraitement que les rois d'autrefois employaient g\u00e9n\u00e9ralement envers\nleurs enfants, quand les inclinations matrimoniales de ceux-ci ne\ns'accordaient pas avec leurs propres vues.\n\n\u00abApr\u00e8s avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 enferm\u00e9 dans son donjon, pendant pr\u00e8s d'une ann\u00e9e, sans\nque ses yeux eussent d'autre point de vue qu'un mur de pierre, et son\nesprit d'autre perspective qu'un perp\u00e9tuel emprisonnement, le prince\nBladud commen\u00e7a naturellement \u00e0 ruminer un plan d'\u00e9vasion, gr\u00e2ce auquel,\nau bout de plusieurs mois de pr\u00e9paratifs, il parvint \u00e0 s'\u00e9chapper,\nlaissant avec humanit\u00e9 son couteau de table dans le coeur de son\nge\u00f4lier, de peur que ce pauvre diable, qui avait de la famille, ne f\u00fbt\nsoup\u00e7onn\u00e9 d'avoir favoris\u00e9 sa fuite, et ne f\u00fbt puni en cons\u00e9quence par\nle roi irrit\u00e9.\n\n\u00abLe monarque devint presque enrag\u00e9 quand il apprit l'escapade de son\nfils. Il ne savait sur qui faire tomber son courroux, lorsque\nheureusement il vint \u00e0 penser au lord chambellan, qui l'avait ramen\u00e9\nd'Ath\u00e8nes. Il lui fit donc retrancher en m\u00eame temps sa pension et sa\nt\u00eate.\n\n\u00abCependant le jeune prince, habilement d\u00e9guis\u00e9, errait \u00e0 pied dans les\ndomaines de son p\u00e8re, soutenu et r\u00e9joui dans toutes ses privations par\nle doux souvenir de la jeune Ath\u00e9nienne, cause innocente de ses\nmalheurs. Un jour, il s'arr\u00eata pour se reposer dans un bourg. On dansait\ngaiement sur la place, et le plaisir brillait sur tous les visages. Le\nprince se hasarda \u00e0 demander quelle \u00e9tait la cause de ces r\u00e9jouissances.\n\n\u00abO \u00e9tranger, lui r\u00e9pliqua-t-on, ne connaissez-vous pas la r\u00e9cente\nproclamation de notre gracieux souverain?\n\n--La proclamation? Non. Quelle proclamation? repartit le prince, car il\nn'avait voyag\u00e9 que par les chemins de traverse, et ne savait rien de ce\nqui se passait sur les grandes routes, telles qu'elles \u00e9taient alors.\n\n--En bien! dit le paysan, la demoiselle \u00e9trang\u00e8re que le prince d\u00e9sirait\n\u00e9pouser, s'est mari\u00e9e \u00e0 un noble \u00e9tranger de son pays, et le roi\nproclame le fait et ordonne de grandes r\u00e9jouissances publiques, car\nmaintenant, sans nul doute, le prince Bladud va revenir, pour \u00e9pouser la\nprincesse que son p\u00e8re a choisie, et qui, dit-on, est aussi belle que le\nsoleil de midi. \u00c0 votre sant\u00e9, monsieur, Dieu sauve le roi!\u00bb\n\n\u00abLe prince n'en voulut pas entendre davantage. Il s'enfuit et s'enfon\u00e7a\ndans les lieux les plus d\u00e9serts d'un bois voisin. Il errait, il errait\nsans cesse, la jour et la nuit, sous le soleil d\u00e9vorant, sous les p\u00e2les\nrayons de la lune, malgr\u00e9 la chaleur de midi, malgr\u00e9 les nocturnes\nbrouillards; \u00e0 la lueur gris\u00e2tre du matin, \u00e0 la rouge clart\u00e9 du soir: si\nd\u00e9sol\u00e9, si peu attentif \u00e0 toute la nature, que, voulant aller \u00e0 Ath\u00e8nes,\nil se trouva un matin \u00e0 Bath, c'est-\u00e0-dire qu'il se trouva dans\nl'endroit o\u00f9 la ville existe maintenant, car il n'y avait point alors de\nvestige d'habitation, pas de trace d'hommes, pas m\u00eame de fontaine\nthermale. En revanche, c'\u00e9taient le m\u00eame paysage charmant, la m\u00eame\nrichesse de coteaux et de vall\u00e9es, le m\u00eame ruisseau qui coulait avec un\ndoux murmure, les m\u00eames montagnes orgueilleuses qui, semblables aux\npeines de la vie quand elles sont vues \u00e0 distance et partiellement\nobscurcies par la brume argent\u00e9e du matin, perdent leur sauvagerie et\nleur rudesse, et ne pr\u00e9sentent aux yeux que de doux et gracieux\ncontours. \u00c9mu par la beaut\u00e9 de cette sc\u00e8ne, le prince se laissa tomber\nsur le gazon, et baigna de ses larmes ses pieds enfl\u00e9s par la fatigue.\n\n\u00abOh! s'\u00e9cria-t-il en tordant ses mains, et en levant tristement sas yeux\nau ciel; oh! si ma course fatigante pouvait se terminer ici! Oh! si ces\ndouces larmes, que m'arrache un amour mal plac\u00e9, pouvaient couler en\npaix pour toujours!\u00bb\n\n\u00abSon voeu fut entendu. C'\u00e9tait le temps des divinit\u00e9s pa\u00efennes, qui\nprenaient parfois les gens au mot, avec un empressement fort g\u00eanant. Le\nsol s'ouvrit sous les pieds du prince, il tomba dans un gouffre, qui se\nreferma imm\u00e9diatement au-dessus de sa t\u00eate; mais ses larmes br\u00fblantes\ncontinu\u00e8rent \u00e0 couler, et continueront pour toujours \u00e0 sourdre\nabondamment de la terre.\n\n\u00abIl est remarquable que, depuis lors, un grand nombre de ladies et de\ngentlemen, parvenus \u00e0 un certain \u00e2ge sans avoir pu se procurer de\npartenaire, et presque, tout autant de jeunes gens, qui sont press\u00e9s\nd'en obtenir, se rendent annuellement \u00e0 Bath, pour boire les eaux, et\npr\u00e9tendent en tirer beaucoup de force et de consolation. Cela fait\nhonneur aux larmes du prince Bladud, et la v\u00e9racit\u00e9 de cette l\u00e9gende en\nest singuli\u00e8rement corrobor\u00e9e.\u00bb\n\n\nM. Pickwick bailla plusieurs fois en arrivant \u00e0 la fin de ce petit\nmanuscrit, puis il le replia soigneusement, et le remit dans le tiroir\nde l'encrier. Ensuite, avec une contenance qui exprimait le plus profond\nennui, il alluma sa chandelle, et monta l'escalier pour s'aller coucher.\n\nIl s'arr\u00eata, suivant sa coutume, \u00e0 la porte de M. Dowler, et y frappa\npour lui dire bonsoir.\n\n\u00abAh! dit M. Dowler, vous allez vous coucher? je voudrais bien en pouvoir\nfaire autant. Quel temps affreux! Entendez-vous le vent?\n\n--Terrible! r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick; bonne nuit!\n\n--Bonne nuit!\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick monta dans sa chambre \u00e0 coucher, et M. Dowler reprit son\nsi\u00e9ge, devant le feu, pour accomplir son imprudente promesse de rester\nsur pied jusqu'au retour de sa femme.\n\nIl y a peu de choses plus contrariantes que de veiller pour attendre\nquelqu'un, principalement quand ce quelqu'un est en partie de plaisir.\nVous ne pouvez vous emp\u00eacher de penser combien le temps, qui passe si\nlentement pour vous, passe vite pour la personne que vous attendez; et\nplus vous pensez \u00e0 cela plus vous sentez d\u00e9cliner votre espoir de la\nvoir arriver promptement. Le tic tac des horloges para\u00eet alors plus lent\net plus lourd, et il vous semble que vous avez sur le corps comme une\ntunique de toiles d'araign\u00e9es. D'abord c'est quelque chose qui d\u00e9mange\nvotre genou droit, ensuite la m\u00eame sensation vient irriter votre genou\ngauche. Aussit\u00f4t que vous changez de position, cela vous prend dans les\nbras; vous contractez vos membres de mille mani\u00e8res fantastiques, mais\ntout \u00e0 coup vous avez une rechute dans le nez, et vous vous mettez \u00e0 le\ngratter comme si vous vouliez l'arracher, ce que vous feriez\ninfailliblement, si vous pouviez le faire. Les yeux sont encore de bien\ngrands inconv\u00e9nients, dans ce cas, et l'on voit souvent la m\u00e8che d'une\nchandelle s'allonger de deux pouces tandis que l'on mouche sa voisine.\nToutes ces petites vexations nerveuses, et beaucoup d'autres du m\u00eame\ngenre, rendent fort probl\u00e9matique le plaisir de veiller, lorsque tout le\nmonde, dans la maison, est all\u00e9 se coucher.\n\nTelle \u00e9tait pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment l'opinion de M. Dowler, tandis qu'il veillait\nseul au coin du feu, et il ressentait une vertueuse indignation contre\nles danseurs inhumains qui le for\u00e7aient \u00e0 rester debout. D'ailleurs sa\nbonne humeur n'\u00e9tait pas augment\u00e9e par la r\u00e9flexion que c'\u00e9tait lui-m\u00eame\nqui avait imagin\u00e9 d'avoir mal \u00e0 la t\u00eate et de garder la maison. \u00c0 la\nfin, apr\u00e8s s'\u00eatre endormi plusieurs fois, apr\u00e8s \u00eatre tomb\u00e9 en avant vers\nla grille, et s'\u00eatre redress\u00e9 juste \u00e0 temps pour ne pas avoir le visage\nbr\u00fbl\u00e9, M. Dowler se d\u00e9cida \u00e0 s'aller jeter un instant sur son lit, dans\nla chambre de derri\u00e8re, non pas pour dormir, bien entendu, mais pour\npenser.\n\n--J'ai le sommeil tr\u00e8s-dur, se dit \u00e0 lui-m\u00eame M. Dowler, en s'\u00e9tendant\nsur le lit; il faut que je me tienne \u00e9veill\u00e9. Je suppose que d'ici\nj'entendrai frapper \u00e0 la porte. Oui, je le pensais bien, j'entends le\nwatchman; le voil\u00e0 qui s'en va; je l'entends moins fort maintenant....\nEncore un peu moins fort... il tourne le coin,... Ah! ah!...\u00bb\n\nArriv\u00e9 \u00e0 cette conclusion, M. Dowler tourna le coin autour duquel il\navait si longtemps h\u00e9sit\u00e9, et s'endormit profond\u00e9ment.\n\nJuste au moment o\u00f9 l'horloge sonnait trois heures, une chaise \u00e0\nporteurs, contenant mistress Dowler, d\u00e9boucha sur la demi-lune, balanc\u00e9e\npar le vent et par deux porteurs, l'un gros et court, l'autre long et\nmince. Tous les deux (pour ne pas parler de la chaise) avaient bien de\nla peine \u00e0 se maintenir perpendiculaires; mais sur la place, o\u00f9 la\ntemp\u00eate soufflait avec une furie capable de d\u00e9raciner les pav\u00e9s, ce fut\nbien pis, et ils s'estim\u00e8rent fort heureux, lorsqu'ils eurent d\u00e9pos\u00e9\nleur fardeau, et donn\u00e9 un bon double coup \u00e0 la porte de la rue.\n\nIls attendirent quelque temps, mais personne ne vint.\n\n\u00abLe domestique est dans les bras de lord f\u00e9e, dit le petit porteur en se\nchauffant les mains \u00e0 la torche du galopin qui les \u00e9clairait.\n\n--Il devrait bien le pincer et le r\u00e9veiller, ajouta le grand porteur.\n\n--Frappez encore, s'il vous pla\u00eet, cria mistress Dowler de sa chaise.\nFrappez deux ou trois fois, s'il vous pla\u00eet.\u00bb\n\nLe petit homme \u00e9tait fort dispos\u00e9 \u00e0 en finir, il monta donc ses les\nmarches, et donna huit ou dix doubles coups effrayants, tandis que le\ngrand homme s'\u00e9loignait de la maison et regardait aux fen\u00eatres s'il y\navait de la lumi\u00e8re.\n\nPersonne ne vint; tout \u00e9tait sombre et silencieux.\n\n\u00abAh mon Dieu! fit mistress Dowler. Voulez-vous frapper encore, s'il vous\npla\u00eet.\n\n--N'y a-t-il pas de sonnette, madame? demanda le petit porteur.\n\n--Oui, il y en a une, interrompit le gamin \u00e0 la torche. Voil\u00e0 je ne sais\ncombien de temps que je la tire.\n\n--Il n'y a que la poign\u00e9e, dit mistress Dowler, le ressort est bris\u00e9.\n\n--Je voudrais bien pouvoir en dire autant de la t\u00eate des domestiques,\ngrommela le grand porteur.\n\n--Je vous prierai de frapper encore, s'il vous pla\u00eet,\u00bb recommen\u00e7a\nmistress Dowler, avec la plus exquise politesse.\n\nLe petit homme heurta sur nouveaux frais, et \u00e0 plusieurs reprises, sans\nproduire aucun effet. Le grand homme, qui s'impatientait, le releva et\nse mit \u00e0 frapper perp\u00e9tuellement des doubles coups, comme un facteur\nenrag\u00e9.\n\n\u00c0 la fin, M. Winkle commen\u00e7a \u00e0 r\u00eaver qu'il se trouvait dans un club, et\nque les membres \u00e9tant fort indisciplin\u00e9s, le pr\u00e9sident \u00e9tait oblig\u00e9 de\ncogner continuellement sur la table, pour maintenir l'ordre. Ensuite il\neut l'id\u00e9e confuse d'une vente \u00e0 l'encan, o\u00f9 il n'y avait pas\nd'ench\u00e9risseurs, et o\u00f9 le crieur achetait toutes choses. Enfin, en\ndernier lieu, il lui vint dans l'esprit qu'il n'\u00e9tait pas tout \u00e0 fait\nimpossible que quelqu'un frapp\u00e2t \u00e0 la porte de la rue. Afin de s'en\nassurer, en \u00e9coutant mieux, il resta tranquille dans son lit, pendant\nenviron dix minutes, et lorsqu'il eut compt\u00e9 trente et quelques coups,\nil se trouva suffisamment convaincu, et s'applaudit beaucoup d'\u00eatre si\nvigilant.\n\nPanpan, panpan, panpan. Pan, pan, pan, pan, pan; le marteau n'arr\u00eatait\nplus.\n\nM. Winkle sautant hors de son lit, se demanda ce que ce pouvait \u00eatre;\npuis ayant mis rapidement ses bas et ses pantoufles, il passa sa robe de\nchambre, alluma une chandelle \u00e0 la veilleuse qui br\u00fblait dans la\nchemin\u00e9e, et descendit les escaliers.\n\n\u00ab\u00c0 la fin vla qu\u00e9qu'sun qui vient, madame, dit le petit porteur.\n\n--Je voudrais ben \u00eatre derri\u00e8re lui avec un poin\u00e7on, murmura son grand\ncompagnon.\n\n--Qui va l\u00e0? cria M. Winkle, en d\u00e9faisant la cha\u00eene de la porte.\n\n--Ne vous amusez pas \u00e0 faire des questions, t\u00eate de buse, r\u00e9pondit avec\nd\u00e9dain la grand homme, s'imaginant avoir affaire \u00e0 un laquais. Ouvrez la\nporte.\n\n--Allons d\u00e9p\u00eachez, l'endormi,\u00bb ajouta l'autre d'un ton encourageant.\n\nM. Winkle, qui n'\u00e9tait qu'\u00e0 moiti\u00e9 \u00e9veill\u00e9, ob\u00e9it machinalement \u00e0 cette\ninvitation, ouvra la poste et regarda dans la rue. La premi\u00e8re chose\nqu'il aper\u00e7oit c'est la lueur rouge du falot. \u00c9pouvant\u00e9 par la crainte\nsoudaine que le feu ne soit \u00e0 la maison, il ouvre la porte toute grande,\n\u00e9l\u00e8ve sa chandelle au-dessus de sa t\u00eate, et regarde d'un air effar\u00e9\ndevant lui, ne sachant pas trop si ce qu'il voit est une chaise \u00e0\nporteurs, ou une pompe \u00e0 incendie. Dans ce moment un tourbillon de vent\narrive; la chandelle s'\u00e9teint; M. Winkle se sent pouss\u00e9 par derri\u00e8re,\nd'une mani\u00e8re irr\u00e9sistible, et la porte se ferme avec un violent\ncraquement.\n\n\u00abBien, jeune homme! c'est habile!\u00bb dit le petit porteur.\n\nM. Winkle, apercevant un visage de femme \u00e0 la porti\u00e8re de la chaise, se\nretourne rapidement et se met \u00e0 frapper le marteau de toute la force de\nson bras, en suppliant en m\u00eame temps les porteurs d'emmener la dame.\n\n\u00abEmportez-la! s'\u00e9criait-il, emportez-la! Bien! voil\u00e0 quelqu'un qui sort\nd'une autre maison! Cachez-moi, cachez-moi n'importe o\u00f9, dans cette\nchaise.\u00bb\n\nEn pronon\u00e7ant ces phrases incoh\u00e9rentes, il frissonnait de froid, car\nchaque fois qu'il levait le bras et le marteau, le vent s'engouffrait\nsous sa robe de chambre et la soulevait d'une mani\u00e8re tr\u00e8s-inqui\u00e9tante.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0, une soci\u00e9t\u00e9 qui arrive sur la place... il y a des dames!\nCouvrez-moi avec quelque chose! mettez-vous devant moi!\u00bb criait M.\nWinkle avec angoisses. Mais les porteurs \u00e9taient trop occup\u00e9s de rire\npour lui donner la moindre assistance, et cependant les dames\ns'approchaient de minute en minute.\n\nM. Winkle donna un dernier coup de marteau d\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9... les dames\nn'\u00e9taient plus \u00e9loign\u00e9es que de quelques maisons. Il jeta au loin la\nchandelle \u00e9teinte, que durant tout ce temps il avait tenue au-dessus de\nsa t\u00eate, et s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a vers la chaise \u00e0 porteurs, dans laquelle se\ntrouvait toujours mistress Dowler.\n\nOr, mistress Craddock avait, \u00e0 la fin, entendu les voix et les coups de\nmarteau. Elle avait pris tout juste le temps de mettre sur sa t\u00eate\nquelque chose de plus \u00e9l\u00e9gant que son bonnet de nuit, \u00e9tait descendue au\nparloir pour s'assurer que c'\u00e9tait bien mistress Dowler, et venait\npr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment de lever le ch\u00e2ssis de la fen\u00eatre, lorsqu'elle aper\u00e7ut M.\nWinkle qui s'\u00e9lan\u00e7ait vers la chaise. \u00c0 ce spectacle elle se mit \u00e0\npousser des cris affreux, suppliant M. Dowler de se lever sur-le-champ,\npour emp\u00eacher sa femme de s'enfuir avec un autre gentleman.\n\n\u00c0 ces cris, \u00e0 ce terrible avertissement, M. Dowler bondit hors de son\nlit, aussi vivement qu'une balle \u00e9lastique, et, se pr\u00e9cipitant dans la\nchambre de devant, arriva \u00e0 une des fen\u00eatres comme M. Pickwick ouvrait\nl'autre. Le premier objet qui frappa leurs regards fut M. Winkle entrant\ndans la chaise \u00e0 porteurs.\n\n\u00abWatchman, s'\u00e9cria Dowler d'un ton f\u00e9roce, arr\u00eatez-le, empoignez-le,\nencha\u00eenez-le, enfermez-le, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que j'arrive! Je veux lui couper\nla gorge! donnez-moi un couteau! De l'une \u00e0 l'autre oreille, mistress\nCraddock! Je veux lui couper la gorge! \u00abTout en hurlant ces menaces,\nl'\u00e9poux indign\u00e9 s'arracha des mains de l'h\u00f4tesse et de M. Pickwick,\nsaisit un petit couteau de dessert, et s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a dans la rue.\n\nMais M. Winkle ne l'attendit pas. \u00c0 peine avait-il entendu l'horrible\nmenace du valeureux Dowler, qu'il se pr\u00e9cipita hors de la chaise, aussi\nvite qu'il s'y \u00e9tait introduit, et, jetant ses pantoufles dans la rue,\npour mieux prendre ses jambes \u00e0 son cou, fit le tour de la demi-lune,\nchaudement poursuivi par Dowler et par le watchman. N\u00e9anmoins il avait\nconserv\u00e9 son avantage quand il revint devant la maison. La porte \u00e9tait\nouverte, il la franchit, la cingla au nez de Dowler, monta dans sa\nchambre \u00e0 coucher, ferma la porte, empila par derri\u00e8re un coffre, une\ntable, un lavabo, et s'occupa \u00e0 faire un paquet de ses effets les plus\nindispensables, afin de s'enfuir aux premiers rayons du jour.\n\nCependant Dowler temp\u00eatait de l'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la porte du malheureux\nWinkle, et lui d\u00e9clarait, \u00e0 travers le trou de la serrure, son intention\nirr\u00e9vocable de lui couper la gorge, le lendemain matin. \u00c0 la fin, apr\u00e8s\nun grand tumulte de voix, parmi lesquelles on entendait distinctement\ncelle de M. Pickwick qui s'effor\u00e7ait de r\u00e9tablir la paix, les habitants\nde la maison se dispers\u00e8rent dans leurs chambres \u00e0 coucher respectives,\net la tranquillit\u00e9 fut momentan\u00e9ment r\u00e9tablie.\n\nEt pendant tout ce temps-l\u00e0, dira peut-\u00eatre quelque lecteur sagace, o\u00f9\ndonc \u00e9tait Samuel Weller? Nous allons dire o\u00f9 il \u00e9tait, dans le chapitre\nsuivant.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE VIII.\n\nQui explique honorablement l'absence de Sam Weller, en rendant compte\nd'une soir\u00e9e o\u00f9 il fut invit\u00e9 et assista; et qui raconte, en outre,\ncomment ledit Sam Weller fut charg\u00e9 par M. Pickwick d'une mission\nparticuli\u00e8re, pleine de d\u00e9licatesse et d'importance.\n\n\n\u00abMonsieur Weller, dit mistress Craddock, dans la matin\u00e9e du jour\nm\u00e9morable dont nous venons d'esquisser les aventures; voici une lettre\npour vous.\n\n--C'est bien dr\u00f4le, r\u00e9pondit Sam. J'ai peur qu'il n'y ait quelque chose,\ncar je ne me rappelle pas un seul gentleman dans mes connaissances qui\nsoit capable d'en \u00e9crire une.\n\n--Peut-\u00eatre est-il arriv\u00e9 quelque chose d'extraordinaire, fit observer\nmistress Craddock.\n\n--Faut que \u00e7a soit quelque chose de bien extraordinaire pour produire\nune lettre d'un de mes amis, r\u00e9pliqua Sam, en secouant dubitativement la\nt\u00eate. Ni plus ni moins qu'un tremblement de terre, comme le jeune\ngentleman observa, quand il fut pris d'une attaque. \u00c7a ne peut pas \u00eatre\nde mon papa poursuivit Sam, en regardant l'adresse, il fait toujours des\nlettres moul\u00e9es parce qu'il a appris \u00e0 \u00e9crire dans les affiches. C'est\nbien extraordinaire! D'o\u00f9 cette lettre-l\u00e0 peut-elle me venir?\u00bb\n\nTout en parlant ainsi, Sam faisait ce que font beaucoup de personnes\nlorsqu'elles ignorent de qui leur vient une lettre: il regarda le\ncachet, puis l'adresse, puis les c\u00f4t\u00e9s, puis le dos de la lettre, et\nenfin, comme derni\u00e8re ressource, il pensa qu'il ferait peut-\u00eatre aussi\nbien de regarder l'int\u00e9rieur, et d'essayer d'en tirer quelques\n\u00e9claircissements.\n\n\u00abC'est \u00e9crit sur du papier dor\u00e9, dit Sam en d\u00e9pliant la lettre, et\ncachet\u00e9 de cire verte, avec le bout d'une clef; faut voir!\u00bb et avec une\nphysionomie tr\u00e8s-grave, il commen\u00e7a \u00e0 lire ce qui suit:\n\n\u00abUne compagnie choisie de domestiques de Bath pr\u00e9sentent leurs\ncompliments \u00e0 M. Weller et r\u00e9clament le plaisir de sa compagnie pour un\nrat-houtte amical, compos\u00e9 d'une \u00e9paule de mouton bouillie avec\nl'assaisonnement ordinaire. Le rat-houtte sera servi sur table \u00e0 neuf\nheures et demie, heure militaire.\u00bb\n\nCette invitation \u00e9tait incluse dans un autre billet ainsi con\u00e7u:\n\n\u00abM. John Smauker, le gentleman qui a eu le plaisir de rencontrer M.\nWeller chez leur mutuelle connaissance M. Bantam, il y a quelques jours,\na l'honneur de transmettre \u00e0 M. Weller la pr\u00e9sente invitation. Si M.\nWeller veut passer chez M. John Smauker \u00e0 9 heures, M. John Smauker aura\nle plaisir de pr\u00e9senter M. Weller.\n\n\u00ab_Sign\u00e9_: JOHN SMAUKER.\u00bb\n\nLa suscription portait: _\u00e0 M. Weller esquire, chez M. Pickwick_; et,\nentre parenth\u00e8ses, dans le coin gauche de l'adresse \u00e9taient \u00e9crits ces\nmots, comme une instruction au porteur: _Tir\u00e9 la sonnette de la rue_.\n\n\u00abEh bien! dit Sam, en voil\u00e0 une dr\u00f4le! Je n'avais jamais auparavant\nentendu appeler une \u00e9paule de mouton bouillie un rat-houtte; comment\ndonc qu'il l'appellerait si elle \u00e9tait r\u00f4tie?\u00bb\n\nCependant, sans perdre plus de temps \u00e0 d\u00e9battre ce point, Sam se rendit\nimm\u00e9diatement chez M. Pickwick, et lui demanda, pour le soir, un cong\u00e9\nqui lui fut facilement accord\u00e9. Avec cette permission, et la clef de la\nporte de la rue dans sa poche, Sam sortit un peu avant l'heure d\u00e9sign\u00e9e,\net se dirigea d'un pas tranquille vers Queen-Square. L\u00e0 il eut la\nsatisfaction d'apercevoir M. John Smauker, dont la t\u00eate poudr\u00e9e, appuy\u00e9e\ncontre un poteau de r\u00e9verb\u00e8re, fumait une cigarette \u00e0 travers un tube\nd'ambre.\n\n\u00abComment vous portez-vous, monsieur Weller? dit M. John Smauker, en\nsoulevant gracieusement son chapeau d'une main, tandis qu'il agitait\nl'autre d'un air de condescendance. Comment vous portez-vous, monsieur?\n\n--Eh! eh! la convalescence n'est pas mauvaise, repartit Sam; et vous,\nmon cher, comment vous va?\n\n--L\u00e0, l\u00e0.\n\n--Ah! vous aurez trop travaill\u00e9. J'en avais terriblement peur, \u00e7a ne\nr\u00e9ussit pas \u00e0 tout le monde, voyez-vous. Faut pas vous laisser emporter\ncomme \u00e7a par votre ardeur.\n\n--Ce n'est pas tant cela, monsieur Weller; c'est plut\u00f4t le mauvais vin.\nJe m\u00e8ne une vie trop dissip\u00e9e, je le crains.\n\n--Oh! c'est-il cela? c'est une mauvaise maladie, \u00e7a.\n\n--Et pourtant, les tentations, monsieur Weller?\n\n--Ah! bien s\u00fbr.\n\n--Plong\u00e9 dans le tourbillon de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9, comme vous savez monsieur\nWeller, ajouta M. John Smauker avec un soupir.\n\n--Ah! c'est terrible, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9!\n\n--Mais c'est toujours comme cela quand la destin\u00e9 vous pousse dans une\ncarri\u00e8re publique, monsieur Weller. On est soumis \u00e0 des tentations dont\nles autres individus sont exempts.\n\n--Pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment ce que mon oncle disait quand il ouvrit une auberge,\nr\u00e9pondit Sam; et il avait bien raison, le pauvre vieux; car il a bu sa\nmort en moins d'un terme.\u00bb\n\nM. Smauker parut profond\u00e9ment indign\u00e9 du parall\u00e8le \u00e9tabli entre lui et\nle d\u00e9funt aubergiste; mais comme le visage de Sam conservait le calme le\nplus immuable, M. Smauker y r\u00e9fl\u00e9chit mieux, et reprit son air affable.\n\n\u00abNous ferions peut-\u00eatre bien de nous mettre en route, dit-il, en\nconsultant une montre de cuivre qui habitait au fond d'un immense\ngousset, et qui \u00e9tait \u00e9lev\u00e9e \u00e0 la surface au moyen d'un cordon noir,\ngarni \u00e0 l'autre bout d'une clef de chrysocale.\n\n--C'est possible, r\u00e9pondit Sam; autrement on pourrait laisser br\u00fbler le\nrat-houtte et \u00e7a le g\u00e2terait.\n\n--Avez-vous bu les eaux, M. Weller? demanda son compagnon, tout en\nmarchant vers High-Street.\n\n--Une seule fois.\n\n--Comment les trouvez-vous?\n\n--Consid\u00e9rablement mauvaises.\n\n--Ah! vous n'aimez pas le go\u00fbt v\u00e9rugineux, peut-\u00eatre?\n\n--Je ne connais pas beaucoup \u00e7a; j'ai trouv\u00e9 qu'elles sentaient la t\u00f4le\nrouge.\n\n--C'est le v\u00e9rugineux, monsieur Weller; r\u00e9torqua M. John Smauker d'un\nton contemptueux.\n\n--Eh bien, c'est un mot qui ne signifie pas grand'chose, voil\u00e0 tout. Au\nreste, je ne suis pas beaucoup chimique, ainsi peux pas dire.\u00bb\n\nEn achevant ces mots, et \u00e0 la grande horreur de M. John Smauker, Sam\ncommen\u00e7a \u00e0 siffler.\n\n\u00abJe vous demande pardon, monsieur Weller, dit M. Smauker, tortur\u00e9 par\nce bruit in\u00e9l\u00e9gant; voulez-vous prendre mon bras?\n\n--Merci, vous \u00eates bien bon, je ne veux pas vous en priver; j'ai\nl'habitude de mettre mes mains dans mes poches, si \u00e7a vous est\nsuperficiel.\u00bb\n\nEn disant ceci, Sam joignit le geste aux paroles et recommen\u00e7a \u00e0 siffler\nplus fort que jamais.\n\n\u00abPar ici, dit son nouvel ami qui paraissait fort soulag\u00e9 en entrant dans\nune petite rue. Nous y serons bient\u00f4t.\n\n--Ah! ah! fit Sam\u00bb, sans \u00eatre le moindrement \u00e9mu, en apprenant qu'il\n\u00e9tait si proche de la fleur des domestiques de Bath.\n\n--Oui, reprit M. John Smauker, ne soyez pas intimid\u00e9, monsieur Weller.\n\n--Oh! que non.\n\n--Vous verrez quelques uniformes tr\u00e8s-brillants, et peut-\u00eatre\ntrouverez-vous que les gentlemen seront un peu roides d'abord. C'est\nnaturel, vous savez: mais ils se rel\u00e2cheront bient\u00f4t.\n\n--\u00c7a sera tr\u00e8s-obligeant de leur part.\n\n--Vous savez? reprit M. Smauker avec un air de sublime protection, comme\nvous \u00eates un \u00e9tranger, ils se mettront peut-\u00eatre un peu apr\u00e8s vous,\nd'abord.\n\n--Ils ne seront pas trop cruels, n'est-ce pas? demanda Sam.\n\n--Non, non, repartit M. Smauker en tirant sa tabati\u00e8re, qui repr\u00e9sentait\nune t\u00eate de renard, et en prenant une prise distingu\u00e9e. Il y a parmi\nnous quelques gais coquins, et ils aiment \u00e0 s'amuser... vous savez...\nmais il ne faut pas y faire attention. Il ne faut pas y faire attention.\n\n--Je t\u00e2cherai, dit Sam, de supporter le d\u00e9bordement des talents et de\nl'esprit.\n\n--\u00c0 la bonne heure, r\u00e9pliqua M. John Smauker en remettant dans sa poche\nla t\u00eate de renard et en relevant la sienne. D'ailleurs, je vous\nsoutiendrai.\u00bb\n\nEn causant ainsi, ils \u00e9taient arriv\u00e9s devant une petite boutique de\nfruitier. M. John Smauker y entra, et Sam, qui le suivait, laissa alors\ns'\u00e9panouir sur sa figure un muet ricanement et divers autres sympt\u00f4mes\n\u00e9nergiques d'un \u00e9tat fort d\u00e9sirable de satisfaction intime.\n\nApr\u00e8s avoir travers\u00e9 la boutique du fruitier, et d\u00e9pos\u00e9 leurs chapeaux\nsur les marches de l'escalier qui se trouvait derri\u00e8re, ils entr\u00e8rent\ndans un petit parloir, et c'est alors que toute la splendeur de la sc\u00e8ne\nse d\u00e9voila aux regards de Sam Weller.\n\nDeux tables, d'in\u00e9gale hauteur, accoupl\u00e9es au milieu de la chambre,\n\u00e9taient couvertes de trois ou quatre nappes de diff\u00e9rents \u00e2ges,\narrang\u00e9es, autant que possible, pour faire l'effet d'une seule. Sur ces\nnappes, on voyait des contenus et des fourchettes pour sept ou huit\npersonnes. Or les manches de ces couteaux \u00e9taient verts, rouges et\njaunes, tandis que ceux de toutes les fourchettes \u00e9taient noirs, ce qui\nproduisait une gamme de couleurs des plus pittoresques. Des assiettes,\npour un nombre \u00e9gal de convives, chauffaient derri\u00e8re le garde-cendres.\nLes convives eux-m\u00eames se chauffaient devant. Parmi eux, le plus\nremarquable comme le plus important, \u00e9tait un grand et vigoureux\ngentleman, dont la calotte et l'habit \u00e0 longs pans, resplendissaient\nd'une \u00e9clatante couleur d'\u00e9carlate. Il se tenait debout, le dos au feu,\net venait apparemment d'entrer; car, outre qu'il avait encore sur la\nt\u00eate son chapeau retrouss\u00e9, il gardait \u00e0 la main une tr\u00e8s-longue canne,\ntelle que les gentlemen de sa profession ont l'habitude d'en porter\nderri\u00e8re les carrosses.\n\n\u00abSmauker, mon gar\u00e7on, votre nageoire,\u00bb dit le gentleman au chapeau \u00e0\ncornes.\n\nM. Smauker insinua le bout du petit doigt de sa main droite dans la main\ndu gentleman au chapeau \u00e0 cornes, en lui disant qu'il \u00e9tait charm\u00e9 de le\nvoir si bien portant.\n\n\u00abC'est vrai: on dit que j'ai l'air assez ros\u00e9; et c'est \u00e9tonnant! Depuis\nune quinzaine, je suis toujours notre vieille femme pendant deux heures,\net rien que de contempler si longtemps la fa\u00e7on dont elle agrafe sa\nvieille robe de soie lilas, s'il n'y a pas de quoi vous rendre\nhippofondre pour le reste de votre vie, je consens \u00e0 perdre mon\ntraitement.\u00bb\n\n\u00c0 ces mots, la compagnie choisie se mit \u00e0 rire de tout son coeur, et\nl'un des gentlemen, qui avait un gilet jaune, murmura \u00e0 son voisin, qui\navait une culotte verte, que Tuckle \u00e9tait en train ce soir-l\u00e0.\n\n\u00ab\u00c0 propos, reprit M. Tuckle, Smauker mon gar\u00e7on, vous....\u00bb\n\nLe reste de la sentence fut d\u00e9pos\u00e9 dans le tuyau de l'oreille de M.\nSmauker.\n\n\u00abAh! tiens! je l'avais oubli\u00e9! r\u00e9pondit celui-ci. Gentlemen, mon ami, M.\nWeller.\n\n--F\u00e2ch\u00e9 de vous boucher le feu, Weller, dit M. Tuckle avec un signe de\nt\u00eate familier. J'esp\u00e8re que vous n'avez pas froid, Weller?\n\n--Pas le moins du monde, Flambant, r\u00e9pliqua Sam. Faudrait un sujet bien\nglac\u00e9 pour avoir froid vis-\u00e0-vis de vous. Vous \u00e9conomiseriez la houille\nsi on vous mettait sur la grille, dans une salle publique; vrai!\u00bb\n\nComme cette r\u00e9pliqua paraissait faire une allusion personnelle \u00e0 la\nlivr\u00e9e \u00e9carlate de M. Tuckle, il prit un air majestueux durant quelques\nsecondes. Pourtant il s'\u00e9loigna graduellement du feu, et dit avec un\nsourire forc\u00e9:\n\n\u00abPas mauvais, pas mauvais.\n\n--Je vous suis bien oblig\u00e9 pour votre bonne opinion, monsieur, reprit\nSam. Nous arriverons peu \u00e0 peu, j'esp\u00e8re. Plus tard, nous en essayerons\nun meilleur.\u00bb\n\nEn cet endroit la conversation fut interrompue par l'arriv\u00e9e d'un\ngentleman v\u00eatu de peluche orange. Il \u00e9tait accompagn\u00e9 d'un autre\npersonnage en drap pourpre, avec un remarquable d\u00e9veloppement de bas.\nLes nouveaux venus ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 congratul\u00e9s par les anciens, M. Tuckle\nproposa de faire apporter le souper, et cette proposition fut adopt\u00e9e\nunanimement.\n\nLe fruitier et sa femme d\u00e9pos\u00e8rent alors sur la table un plat de mouton\nbouilli, avec une sauce chaude aux c\u00e2pres, des navets et des pommes de\nterre. M. Tuckle prit le fauteuil, et eut pour vice-pr\u00e9sident le\ngentleman en peluche orange. Le fruitier mit une paire de gants de\ncastor pour donner les assiettes et se pla\u00e7a derri\u00e8re la chaise de M.\nTuckle.\n\n\u00abHarris! dit celui-ci d'un ton de commandement.\n\n--Monsieur?\n\n--Avez-vous mis vos gants?\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--Alors \u00f4tez le couvercle.\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nLe fruitier, avec de grandes d\u00e9monstrations d'humilit\u00e9, fit ce qui lui\n\u00e9tait ordonn\u00e9, et tendit obs\u00e9quieusement \u00e0 M. Tuckle le couteau \u00e0\nd\u00e9couper; mais, en faisant cela, il vint par hasard \u00e0 b\u00e2iller.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce que cela veut dire, monsieur? lui dit M. Tuckle avec une\ngrande asp\u00e9rit\u00e9.\n\n--Je vous demande pardon, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit le fruitier, d\u00e9contenanc\u00e9.\nJe ne l'ai pas fait expr\u00e8s, monsieur. J'ai veill\u00e9 tard la nuit derni\u00e8re.\n\n--Je vais vous dire mon opinion sur votre compte, Harris, poursuivit M.\nTuckle avec un air plein de grandeur. Vous \u00eates une brute mal \u00e9lev\u00e9e.\n\n--J'esp\u00e8re, gentlemen, dit Harris, que vous ne serez pas trop s\u00e9v\u00e8res\nenvers moi. Je vous suis certainement tr\u00e8s-oblig\u00e9, gentlemen, pour votre\npatronage et aussi pour vos recommandations, gentlemen, quand on a\nbesoin quelque part de quelqu'un de plus pour servir. J'esp\u00e8re,\ngentlemen, que vous \u00eates satisfaits de moi.\n\n--Non, monsieur, dit M. Tuckle. Bien loin de l\u00e0, monsieur.\n\n--Vous \u00eates un dr\u00f4le sans soin, grommela le gentleman en peluche orange.\n\n--Et un fichu chenapan, ajouta le gentleman en culotte verte.\n\n--Et un mauvais gueux, continua le gentleman de couleur pourpre.\u00bb\n\nLe pauvre fruitier saluait de plus en plus humblement, tandis qu'on le\ngratifiait de ces petites \u00e9pith\u00e8tes, selon le v\u00e9ritable esprit de la\nplus basse tyrannie. Lorsque tout le monde eut dit son mot, pour prouver\nsa sup\u00e9riorit\u00e9, M. Tuckle commen\u00e7a \u00e0 d\u00e9couper l'\u00e9paule de mouton et \u00e0\nservir la compagnie.\n\nCette importante affaire \u00e9tait \u00e0 peine entam\u00e9e, quand la porte s'ouvrit\nbrusquement et laissa appara\u00eetre un autre gentleman en habit bleu clair,\navec des boutons d'\u00e9tain.\n\n\u00abContre les r\u00e8gles, dit M. Tuckle. Trop tard, trop tard.\n\n--Non, non; impossible de faire autrement, r\u00e9pondit le gentleman bleu.\nJ'en appelle \u00e0 la compagnie. Une affaire de galanterie, un rendez-vous\nau th\u00e9\u00e2tre.\n\n--Oh! dans ce cas-l\u00e0! s'\u00e9cria le gentleman en peluche orange.\n\n--Oui, riellement, parole d'honneur. J'avais promis de conduire notre\nplus jeune demoiselle \u00e0 dix heures et demie, et c'est une si jolie\nfille, riellement, que je n'ai pas eu le coeur de la d\u00e9sobliger. Pas\nd'offense \u00e0 la compagnie pr\u00e9sente, monsieur; mais un cottillon,\nmonsieur, riellement, c'est irr\u00e9vocable.\n\n--Je commence \u00e0 soup\u00e7onner qu'il y a quelque chose l\u00e0-dessous, dit\nTuckle, pendant que le nouveau venu s'asseyait \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de Sam. J'ai\nremarqu\u00e9, une ou deux fois, qu'elle s'appuie beaucoup sur votre \u00e9paule\nquand elle descend de voiture.\n\n--Oh! riellement, riellement, Tuckle, i' ne faut pas.... C'est pas\nbien.... J'ai pu dire \u00e0 qu\u00e9'ques amis que c'\u00e9tait une divine criature et\nqu'elle avait refus\u00e9 deux ou trois mariages sans motif, mais... non,\nnon, riellement, Tuckle.... Devant des \u00e9trangers encore! C'est pas bien;\nvous avez tort.... La d\u00e9licatesse, mon cher ami, la d\u00e9licatesse!\u00bb\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, l'homme \u00e0 la livr\u00e9e bleue releva sa cravate, ajusta\nses parements, grima\u00e7a et fron\u00e7a les sourcils, comme s'il avait pu en\ndire infiniment plus long, mais qu'il se cr\u00fbt, en honneur, oblig\u00e9 de se\ntaire. C'\u00e9tait une sorte de petit valet de pied, \u00e0 l'air libre et\nd\u00e9gag\u00e9, aux cheveux blonds, au cou empes\u00e9, et qui avait attir\u00e9 d\u00e8s\nl'abord, l'attention de Sam; mais quand il eut d\u00e9but\u00e9 de cette mani\u00e8re,\nM. Weller se sentit plus que jamais dispos\u00e9 \u00e0 cultiver sa connaissance;\naussi s'immis\u00e7a-t-il, tout d'un coup, dans la conversation, avec\nl'ind\u00e9pendance qui le caract\u00e9risait.\n\n\u00ab\u00c0 votre sant\u00e9, monsieur, dit-il; j'aime beaucoup votre conversation; je\nla trouve vraiment jolie.\u00bb\n\nEn entendant ce discours, l'homme bleu sourit comme une personne\naccoutum\u00e9e aux compliments, mais en m\u00eame temps il regarda Sam d'un air\napprobatif et r\u00e9pondit qu'il esp\u00e9rait cultiver davantage sa\nconnaissance, car, sans flatterie, il y avait en lui l'\u00e9toffe d'un joli\ngar\u00e7on, et tout \u00e0 fait selon son coeur.\n\n\u00abVous \u00eates bien bon, monsieur, r\u00e9torqua Sam. Quel heureux gaillard vous\n\u00eates!\n\n--Qu'est-ce que vous voulez dire? demanda l'homme bleu avec une modeste\nconfusion.\n\n--Cette jeune demoiselle ici, elle sait ce que vous valez, j'en suis\ns\u00fbr. Ah! je comprends les choses; et Sam ferma un oeil en roulant sa\nt\u00eate d'une \u00e9paule \u00e0 l'autre, d'une mani\u00e8re fort satisfaisante pour la\nvanit\u00e9 personnelle du gentleman azur\u00e9.\n\n\u00abVous \u00eates trop malin, r\u00e9pliqua-t-il.\n\n--Non, non, c'est bon pour vous, reprit Sam; \u00e7a ne me regarde pas, comme\ndit le gentleman qu'\u00e9tait en dedans du mur \u00e0 celui qu'\u00e9tait dans la rue,\nquand le taureau courait comme un enrag\u00e9.\n\n--Eh bien! monsieur Weller, nullement, je crois qu'elle a remarqu\u00e9 mon\nair et me mani\u00e8res.\n\n--J'imagine que \u00e7a ne peut gu\u00e8re \u00eatre autrement.\n\n--Avez-vous qu\u00e9'que amourette de ce genre en train, monsieur? demanda \u00e0\nSam l'heureux gentleman en tirant un cure-dents de la poche de son\ngilet.\n\n--Pas exactement, r\u00e9pondit Sam; il n'y a pas de demoiselle \u00e0 la maison,\nautrement j'aurais fait la cour \u00e0 l'une d'elles, n\u00e9cessairement. Mais,\nvoyez-vous, je ne voudrais pas me compromettre avec une femme au-dessous\nd'une marquise; je pourrais prendra une richarde, si elle devenait folle\nde moi, mais pas autrement, non ma foi!\n\n--Certainement, non, monsieur Weller. Il ne faut pas se laisser\nd\u00e9pr\u00e9cier. Nous, qui sommes des hommes du monde, nous savons que, t\u00f4t ou\ntard, un bel uniforme \u00e9corne toujours le coeur d'une dame. Au fait,\nc'est la seule chose, entre nous, qui fait qu'on peut entrer au service.\n\n--Justement, dit Sam; c'est \u00e7a, rien que \u00e7a.\u00bb\n\nApr\u00e8s ce dialogue confidentiel, des verres furent distribu\u00e9s \u00e0 la ronde;\net, avant que la taverne f\u00fbt ferm\u00e9e, chaque gentleman demanda ce qu'il\naimait le mieux. Le gentleman en bleu et l'homme en orange, qui \u00e9taient\nles beaux fils de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9, ordonn\u00e8rent du grog froid; mais le\nbreuvage favori des autres paraissait \u00eatre le geni\u00e8vre et l'eau sucr\u00e9e.\nSam appela le fruitier: _Satan\u00e9 coquin!_ et ordonna un bol de punch,\ndeux circonstances qui sembl\u00e8rent l'\u00e9lever beaucoup dans l'opinion des\ndomestiques choisis.\n\n\u00abGentlemen, dit l'homme bleu avec le ton du plus consomm\u00e9 dandy, allons!\n\u00e0 la sant\u00e9 des dames!\n\n--\u00c9coutez! \u00e9coutez! s'\u00e9cria Sam, aux jeunes ma\u00eetresses.\u00bb\n\n\u00c0 ce mot, de toutes parts on entendit crier: _\u00e0 l'ordre!_ Et M. John\nSmauker, \u00e9tant le gentleman qui avait introduit Sam dans la soci\u00e9t\u00e9,\nl'informa que ce mot n'\u00e9tait pas parlementaire.\n\n\u00abQuel mot, monsieur? demanda Sam.\n\n--Ma\u00eetresse, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit M. Smauker avec un froncement de\nsourcils effrayant. Ici nous ne reconnaissons pas de distinctions\nsemblables.\n\n--Oh! tr\u00e8s-bien alors; j'amenderai mon observation, et je les appellerai\nles ch\u00e8res criatures, si Flambant veut bien le permettre.\u00bb\n\nQuelques doutes parurent s'\u00e9lever dans l'esprit du gentleman en culotte\nverte, sur la question de savoir si le pr\u00e9sident pouvait \u00eatre l\u00e9galement\ninterpell\u00e9 par le nom de Flambant; toutefois, comme les assistants\nsemblaient moins soigneux de ses droits que des leurs, l'observation\nn'eut point de suite. L'homme au chapeau \u00e0 cornes fit entendre une\npetite toux courte et regarda longuement Sam; mais il pensa apparemment\nqu'il ferait aussi bien de ne rien dire, de peur de s'en trouver plus\nmal.\n\nApr\u00e8s un instant de silence, un gentleman, dont l'habit brod\u00e9 descendait\njusqu'\u00e0 ses talons, et dont le gilet, \u00e9galement brod\u00e9, tenait au chaud\nla moiti\u00e9 de ses jambes, remua son geni\u00e8vre et son eau avec une grande\n\u00e9nergie; et, se levant tout d'un coup sur ses pieds, par un violent\neffort, annon\u00e7a qu'il d\u00e9sirait adresser quelques observations \u00e0 la\ncompagnie. L'homme au chapeau retrouss\u00e9 s'\u00e9tant h\u00e2t\u00e9 de l'assurer que la\ncompagnie serait tr\u00e8s-heureuse d'entendre toutes les observations qu'il\npourrait avoir \u00e0 faire, le gentleman au grand habit commen\u00e7a en ces\ntermes:\n\n\u00abJe sens une grande d\u00e9licatesse \u00e0 me mettre en avant, gentlemen, ayant\nl'infortune de n'\u00eatre qu'un cocher et n'\u00e9tant admis que comme membre\nhonoraire dans ces agr\u00e9ables soir\u00e9es; mais je me sens pouss\u00e9, gentlemen,\nl'\u00e9peron dans le ventre, si je puis employer cette expression, \u00e0 vous\nfaire conna\u00eetre une circonstance affligeante qui est venue \u00e0 ma\nconnaissance et qui est arriv\u00e9e, je puis dire, \u00e0 la port\u00e9e de mon fouet.\nGentlemen, notre ami, M. Whiffers (tout le monde regarda l'individu\norange); notre ami, M. Whiffers a donn\u00e9 sa d\u00e9mission.\u00bb\n\nUn \u00e9tonnement universel s'empara des auditeurs. Chaque gentleman\nregardait son voisin et reportait ensuite son oeil inquiet sur le\ncocher, qui continuait \u00e0 se tenir debout.\n\n\u00abVous avez bien raison d'\u00eatre surpris, gentlemen, poursuivit celui-ci.\nJe ne me permettrai pas de vous frelater les motifs de cette irr\u00e9parable\nperte pour le service; mais je prierai M. Whiffers de les \u00e9noncer\nlui-m\u00eame, pour l'instruction et l'imitation de ses amis.\u00bb\n\nCette suggestion ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 hautement applaudie, M. Whiffers s'expliqua.\nIl dit qu'il aurait certainement d\u00e9sir\u00e9 de continuer \u00e0 remplir l'emploi\nqu'il venait de r\u00e9signer. L'uniforme \u00e9tait extr\u00eamement riche et co\u00fbteux,\nles dames de la famille tr\u00e8s-agr\u00e9ables, et les devoirs de sa place, il\n\u00e9tait oblig\u00e9 d'en convenir, n'\u00e9taient pas trop lourds. Le principal\nservice qu'on exigeait de lui \u00e9tait de passer le plus de temps possible\n\u00e0 regarder par la fen\u00eatre, en compagnie d'un autre gentleman, qui avait\n\u00e9galement donn\u00e9 sa d\u00e9mission. Il aurait d\u00e9sir\u00e9 \u00e9pargner \u00e0 la compagnie\nles p\u00e9nibles et d\u00e9go\u00fbtants d\u00e9tails dans lesquels il allait \u00eatre oblig\u00e9\nd'entrer; mais, comme une explication lui avait \u00e9t\u00e9 demand\u00e9e, il n'avait\npas d'autre alternative que de d\u00e9clarer hardiment et distinctement qu'on\navait voulu lui faire manger de la viande froide.\n\nImpossible de concevoir le d\u00e9go\u00fbt qu'\u00e9veilla cet aveu dans le sein des\nauditeurs. Pendant un quart d'heure, au moins, on n'entendit que de\nviolents cris de: _Honteux! Ignoble!_ m\u00eal\u00e9s de sifflets et de\ngrognements.\n\nM. Whiffers ajouta alors qu'il craignait qu'une partie de cet outrage ne\np\u00fbt \u00eatre justement attribu\u00e9 \u00e0 ses dispositions obligeantes et\naccommodantes. Il se souvenait parfaitement d'avoir consenti une fois \u00e0\nmanger du beurre sal\u00e9; et, dans une occasion o\u00f9 il y avait eu subitement\nplusieurs malades dans la maison, il s'\u00e9tait oubli\u00e9 au point de monter\nlui-m\u00eame un panier de charbon de terre jusqu'au second \u00e9tage. Il\nesp\u00e9rait qu'il ne s'\u00e9tait pas abaiss\u00e9 dans la bonne opinion de ses amis\npar cette franche confession de sa faute; mais s'il avait eu ce malheur,\nil se flattait d'y \u00eatre remont\u00e9 par la promptitude avec laquelle il\navait repouss\u00e9 le dernier et fl\u00e9trissant outrage qu'on avait voulu faire\nsubir \u00e0 ses sentiments d'homme et d'Anglais.\n\nLe discours de M. Whiffers fut accueilli par des cris d'admiration, et\nl'on but \u00e0 la sant\u00e9 de l'int\u00e9ressant martyr, de la mani\u00e8re la plus\nenthousiaste. Le martyr fit ses remerc\u00eements \u00e0 la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 et proposa la\nsant\u00e9 de leur visiteur, M. Weller, gentleman qu'il n'avait pas le\nplaisir de conna\u00eetre intimement, mais qui \u00e9tait l'ami de M. John\nSmauker, ce qui devait \u00eatre, partout et toujours, une lettre de\nrecommandation suffisante pour toute soci\u00e9t\u00e9 de gentlemen. Par ces\nconsid\u00e9rations, il aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 dispos\u00e9 \u00e0 voter la sant\u00e9 de M. Weller avec\ntous les _honneurs_, si ses amis avaient bu du vin; mais comme ils\nprenaient des spiritueux et qu'il pourrait \u00eatre dangereux de vider un\nverre \u00e0 chaque toast, il proposait que les honneurs fussent\nsous-entendus.\n\n\u00c0 la conclusion de ce discours, tous les assistants burent une partie de\nleur verre en l'honneur de Sam; et celui-ci, ayant puis\u00e9 dans le bol et\naval\u00e9 deux verres en l'honneur de lui-m\u00eame, offrit ses remerc\u00eements \u00e0\nl'assembl\u00e9e dans un \u00e9l\u00e9gant discours.\n\n\u00abBien oblig\u00e9, mes vieux, dit-il en retournant au bol avec la plus grande\nd\u00e9sinvolture. Venant d'o\u00f9 ce que \u00e7a vient, c'est prodigieusement\nflatteur. J'avais beaucoup entendu parler de vous; mais je n'imaginais\npas, je dois le dire, que vous eussiez \u00e9t\u00e9 d'aussi \u00e9tonnamment jolis\nhommes que vous \u00eates. J'esp\u00e8re seulement que vous ferez attention \u00e0 vous\net que vous ne compromettrez en rien votre dignit\u00e9, qui est une\ncharmante chose \u00e0 voir, quand on vous rencontre en promenade, et qui m'a\ntoujours fait grand plaisir depuis que je n'\u00e9tais qu'un moutard, moiti\u00e9\nsi haut que la canne \u00e0 pomme de cuivre de mon tr\u00e8s-respectable ami\nFlambant, ici pr\u00e9sent. Quant \u00e0 la victime de l'oppression en habit\njaune, tout ce que je puis dire de lui, c'est que j'esp\u00e8re qu'il\ntrouvera une occupation aussi bonne qu'il le m\u00e9rite, moyennant quoi il\nsera tr\u00e8s-rarement afflig\u00e9 avec des rat-houttes froids.\u00bb\n\nCela dit, Sam se rassit avec un agr\u00e9able sourire, et son oraison ayant\n\u00e9t\u00e9 bruyamment applaudie, la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 se s\u00e9para bient\u00f4t apr\u00e8s.\n\n\u00abPar exemple, vieux, vous n'avez pas envie de vous en aller, dit Sam \u00e0\nson ami M. John Smauker?\n\n--Il le faut, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9, r\u00e9pondit celui-ci. J'ai promis \u00e0 Bantam.\n\n--Oh! c'est tr\u00e8s-bien, reprit Sam, c'est une autre affaire. Peut-\u00eatre\nqu'il donnerait sa d\u00e9mission si vous le d\u00e9sappointiez. Mais vous,\nFlambant, vous ne vous en allez pas?\n\n--Mon Dieu, si, r\u00e9pliqua l'homme au chapeau \u00e0 cornes.\n\n--Quoi! et laisser derri\u00e8re vous les trois-quarts d'un bol de punch?\nCette b\u00eatise! rasseyez-vous donc!\u00bb\n\nM. Tuckle ne put r\u00e9sister \u00e0 une invitation si pressante; il d\u00e9posa son\nchapeau et sa canne et r\u00e9pondit qu'il boirait encore un verre pour faire\nplaisir \u00e0 M. Weller.\n\nComme le gentleman en bleu demeurait du m\u00eame c\u00f4t\u00e9 que M. Tuckle, il\nconsentit \u00e9galement \u00e0 rester. Lorsque le punch fut \u00e0 moiti\u00e9 bu, Sam fit\nvenir des hu\u00eetres de la boutique du fruitier, et leur effet, joint \u00e0\ncelui du punch, fut si prodigieux, que M. Tuckle, coiff\u00e9 de son chapeau\n\u00e0 cornes et arm\u00e9 de sa canne \u00e0 grosse pomme, se mit \u00e0 danser un pas de\nmatelot sur la table, au milieu des coquilles, tandis que le gentleman\nen bleu l'accompagnait sur un ing\u00e9nieux instrument musical, form\u00e9 d'un\npeigne et d'un papier \u00e0 papillotes. \u00c0 la fin quand le punch fut termin\u00e9\net que la nuit fut \u00e9galement fort avanc\u00e9e, ils sortirent tous les trois\npour chercher leur maison. \u00c0 peine M. Tuckle se trouva-t-il au grand air\nqu'il fut saisi d'un soudain d\u00e9sir de se coucher sur le pav\u00e9. Sam\npensant que ce serait une piti\u00e9 de le contredire, lui laissa prendre son\nplaisir o\u00f9 il la trouvait; mais, de peur que le chapeau \u00e0 cornes de\nFlambant ne s'ab\u00eem\u00e2t, dans ces conjonctures, il l'aplatit bravement sur\nla t\u00eate du gentleman en livr\u00e9e bleue, lui mit la grande canne \u00e0 la main,\nl'appuya contre la porte de sa maison, tira pour lui la sonnette et s'en\nalla tranquillement \u00e0 son h\u00f4tel.\n\nDans la matin\u00e9e suivante, M. Pickwick descendit, compl\u00e8tement habill\u00e9,\nbeaucoup plus t\u00f4t qu'il n'avait l'habitude de le faire, et sonna son\nfid\u00e8le domestique.\n\nSam ayant r\u00e9pondu exactement \u00e0 cet appel, le philosophe commen\u00e7a par lui\nfaire fermer soigneusement la porte, et dit ensuite:\n\n\u00abSam, il est arriv\u00e9 ici, la nuit derni\u00e8re, un malheureux accident qui a\ndonn\u00e9 \u00e0 M. Winkle quelques raisons de redouter la violence de M. Dowler.\n\n--Oui, monsieur, j'ai entendu dire cela \u00e0 la vieille dame de la maison.\n\n--Et je suis f\u00e2ch\u00e9 d'ajouter, continua M. Pickwick d'un air intrigu\u00e9 et\ncontrari\u00e9, je suis f\u00e2ch\u00e9 d'ajouter que, dans la crainte de cette\nviolence, M. Winkle est parti.\n\n--Parti!\n\n--Il a quitt\u00e9 la maison ce matin, sans la plus l\u00e9g\u00e8re communication avec\nmoi, et il est all\u00e9 je ne sais pas o\u00f9.\n\n--Il aurait d\u00fb rester et se battre, monsieur, dit Sam d'un ton\ncontempteur. Il ne faudrait pas grand'chose pour redresser ce Dowler.\n\n--C'est possible, Sam; j'ai peut-\u00eatre aussi quelques doutes sur sa\ngrande valeur, mais, quoi qu'il en soit, M. Winkle est parti. Il faut le\ntrouver, Sam, le trouver et me le ramener.\n\n--Et si il ne veut pas venir, monsieur?\n\n--Il faudra le lui faire vouloir, Sam.\n\n--Et qui le fera, monsieur? demanda Sam avec un sourire.\n\n--Vous.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, monsieur.\u00bb\n\n\u00c0 ces mots, Sam quitta la chambre, et bient\u00f4t apr\u00e8s M. Pickwick\nl'entendit fermer la porte de la rue. Au bout de deux heures, il revint\nd'un air aussi calme que s'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9p\u00each\u00e9 pour le message le plus\nordinaire, et rapporta qu'un individu, ressemblant en tous points \u00e0 M.\nWinkle, \u00e9tait parti le matin pour Bristol, par la voiture de l'H\u00f4tel\nroyal.\n\n\u00abSam, dit M. Pickwick en lui serrant la main, vous \u00eates un gar\u00e7on\npr\u00e9cieux, inestimable. Vous allez le poursuivre, Sam.\n\n--Certainement, monsieur.\n\n--Aussit\u00f4t que vous le d\u00e9couvrirez, \u00e9crivez-moi. S'il essaye de vous\n\u00e9chapper, empoignez-le, terrassez-le, enfermez-le. Je vous d\u00e9l\u00e8gue toute\nmon autorit\u00e9, Sam.\n\n--Je ne l'oublierai pas, monsieur.\n\n\u00abVous lui direz que je suis fort irrit\u00e9, excessivement indign\u00e9 de la\nd\u00e9marche extraordinaire qu'il lui a plu de faire.\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--Vous lui direz que, s'il ne revient pas dans cette maison, avec vous,\nil y reviendra avec moi, car j'irai le chercher.\n\n--Je lui en glisserai deux mots, monsieur.\n\n--Vous pensez pouvoir le trouver? poursuivit M. Pickwick en regardant\nSam d'un air inquiet.\n\n--Je le trouverai s'il est quelque part, r\u00e9pliqua Sam avec confiance.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien. Alors plus t\u00f4t vous partirez, mieux ce sera.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick ayant ajout\u00e9 une somme d'argent \u00e0 ses instructions, Sam mit\nquelques objets n\u00e9cessaires dans un sac de nuit et s'\u00e9loigna pour son\nexp\u00e9dition. Pourtant il s'arr\u00eata au bout du corridor, et, revenant\ndoucement sur ses pas, il entr'ouvrit la porte du parloir, et, ne\nlaissant voir que sa t\u00eate:\n\n\u00abMonsieur? murmura-t-il.\n\n--Eh bien! Sam.\n\n--J'entends-t-il parfaitement mes instructions, monsieur?\n\n--Je l'esp\u00e8re.\n\n--C'est-il convenu pour le terrassement, monsieur\n\n--Parfaitement. Faites ce que vous jugerez n\u00e9cessaire. Vous aurez mon\napprobation.\u00bb\n\nSam fit un signe d'intelligence; et, retirant sa t\u00eate de la porte\nentre-b\u00e2ill\u00e9e, se mit en route pour son p\u00e8lerinage le coeur tout \u00e0 fait\nl\u00e9ger.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE IX.\n\nComment M. Winkle, voulant sortir de la po\u00eale \u00e0 frire, se jeta\ntranquillement et confortablement dans le feu.\n\n\nL'infortun\u00e9 gentleman, cause innocente du tumulte qui avait alarm\u00e9 les\nhabitants du _Royal-Crescent_, dans les circonstances ci-devant\nd\u00e9crites, apr\u00e8s avoir pass\u00e9 une nuit pleine de trouble et d'anxi\u00e9t\u00e9,\nquitta le toit sous lequel ses amis dormaient encore, sans savoir o\u00f9 il\ndirigerait ses pas. On ne saurait jamais appr\u00e9cier trop hautement, ni\ntrop chaudement louer les sentiments r\u00e9fl\u00e9chis et philanthropiques qui\nd\u00e9termin\u00e8rent M. Winkle \u00e0 adopter cette conduite. \u00abSi ce Dowler,\nraisonnait-il en lui-m\u00eame, si ce Dowler essaye (comme je n'en doute pas)\nd'ex\u00e9cuter ses menaces, je serai oblig\u00e9 de l'appeler sur le terrain. Il\na une femme; cette femme lui est attach\u00e9e et a besoin de lui. Ciel! si\nj'allais l'immoler \u00e0 mon aveugle rage, quels seraient ensuite mes\nremords!\u00bb Cette r\u00e9flexion p\u00e9nible affectait si puissamment l'excellent\njeune homme que ses joues p\u00e2lissaient, que ses genoux\ns'entre-choquaient. D\u00e9termin\u00e9 par ces motifs, il saisit son sac de nuit,\net descendant l'escalier \u00e0 pas de loups, ferma, avec le moins de bruit\npossible, la d\u00e9testable porte de la rue, et s'\u00e9loigna rapidement. Il\ntrouva \u00e0 l'H\u00f4tel royal une voiture sur le point de partir pour Bristol.\n\u00abAutant vaut, pensa-t-il, autant vaut Bristol que tout autre endroit!\u00bb\nIl monta donc sur l'imp\u00e9riale, et atteignit le lieu de sa destination en\naussi peu de temps qu'on pouvait raisonnablement l'esp\u00e9rer de deux\nchevaux oblig\u00e9s de franchir quatre fois par jour la distance qui s\u00e9pare\nles deux villes.\n\nM. Winkle \u00e9tablit ses quartiers \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel du _Buisson_. Il \u00e9tait r\u00e9solu\n\u00e0 s'abstenir de toute communication \u00e9pistolaire avec M. Pickwick jusqu'\u00e0\nce que la fr\u00e9n\u00e9sie de M. Dowler e\u00fbt eu le temps de s'\u00e9vaporer, et trouva\nque dans ces circonstances il n'avait rien de mieux \u00e0 faire que de\nvisiter la ville. Il sortit donc et fut, tout d'abord, frapp\u00e9 de ce fait\nqu'il n'avait jamais vu d'endroit aussi sale. Ayant inspect\u00e9 les docks\nainsi que le port, et admir\u00e9 la cath\u00e9drale, il demanda le chemin de\nClifton, et suivit la route qui lui fut indiqu\u00e9e; mais, de m\u00eame que les\npav\u00e9s de Bristol ne sont pas les plus larges ni les plus propres de tous\nles pav\u00e9s, de m\u00eame ses rues ne sont pas absolument les plus droites ni\nles moins entrelac\u00e9es. M. Winkle se trouva bient\u00f4t compl\u00e8tement\nembrouill\u00e9 dans leur labyrinthe, et chercha autour de lui une boutique\nd\u00e9cente, o\u00f9 il p\u00fbt demander de nouvelles instructions.\n\nSes yeux tomb\u00e8rent sur un rez-de-chauss\u00e9e nouvellement peint qui avait\n\u00e9t\u00e9 converti en quelque chose qui tenait le milieu entre une boutique et\nun appartement. Une lampe rouge qui s'avan\u00e7ait au-dessus de la porte\nl'aurait suffisamment annonc\u00e9 comme la demeure d'un supp\u00f4t d'Esculape\nquand m\u00eame le mot: _chirurgie_[10] n'aurait pas \u00e9t\u00e9 inscrit, en lettres\nd'or, au-dessus de la fen\u00eatre, qui avait autrefois \u00e9t\u00e9 celle du parloir\nau devant. Pensant que c'\u00e9tait l\u00e0 un endroit convenable pour demander\nson chemin, M. Winkle entra dans la petite boutique garnie de tiroirs et\nde flacons, aux inscriptions dor\u00e9s. N'y apercevant aucun \u00eatre vivant, il\nfrappa sur le comptoir avec une demi couronne, afin d'attirer\nl'attention des personnes qui pourraient \u00eatre dans l'arri\u00e8re-parloir,\nesp\u00e8ce de _sanctum sanctorum_ de l'\u00e9tablissement, car le mot:\n_chirurgie_ \u00e9tait r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9 sur la porte, en lettres blanches, cette fois,\npour \u00e9viter la monotonie.\n\n[Footnote 10: En Angleterre, surtout dans les petites villes, les gens\nqui vendent des m\u00e9dicaments donnent en m\u00eame temps des consultations, et\nprennent le titre de _chirurgiens_.]\n\nAu premier coup, un bruit tr\u00e8s-sensible jusqu'alors, et semblable \u00e0\ncelui d'un assaut ex\u00e9cut\u00e9 avec des pelles et des pincettes, cessa\nsoudainement. Au second coup un jeune gentleman, \u00e0 l'air studieux,\nportant sur son nez de larges b\u00e9sicles vertes et dans ses mains un\n\u00e9norme livre, entra d'un pas grave dans la boutique, et, passant\nderri\u00e8re le comptoir, demanda \u00e0 M. Winkle ce qu'il d\u00e9sirait.\n\n\u00abJe suis f\u00e2ch\u00e9 de vous d\u00e9ranger, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit celui-ci.\nVoulez-vous avoir la bont\u00e9 de m'indiquer....\n\n--Ha! ha! ha! se mit \u00e0 beugler le studieux gentleman, en jetant en l'air\nson \u00e9norme livre et en le rattrapant avec grande dext\u00e9rit\u00e9, au moment o\u00f9\nil mena\u00e7ait de r\u00e9duire en atomes toutes les fioles qui garnissaient le\ncomptoir. En voil\u00e0 une bonne!\u00bb\n\nSi l'inconnu entendit par l\u00e0 une bonne secousse, il n'avait pas tort,\ncar M. Winkle avait \u00e9t\u00e9 si \u00e9tonn\u00e9 de la conduite extraordinaire du\njeune docteur, qu'il avait pr\u00e9cipitamment battu en retraite jusqu'\u00e0 la\nporte, et paraissait fort troubl\u00e9 par cette \u00e9trange r\u00e9ception.\n\n\u00abComment! Est-ce que vous ne me reconnaissez pas?\u00bb s'\u00e9cria le\nchirurgien-apothicaire.\n\nM. Winkle balbutia qu'il n'avait pas ce plaisir.\n\n\u00abAh! bien alors, il y a encore de l'espoir pour moi! Je puis soigner la\nmoiti\u00e9 des vieilles femmes de Bristol, si j'ai un peu de chance.\nMaintenant, au diable, vieux bouquin moisi!\u00bb Cette adjuration\ns'adressait au gros volume, que le studieux pharmacien lan\u00e7a, avec une\nvigueur remarquable, \u00e0 l'autre bout de la boutique; puis, retirant ses\nlunettes vertes, il d\u00e9couvrit aux regards stup\u00e9faits de M. Winkle, le\nricanement identique de Robert Sawyer, esquire, ci-devant \u00e9tudiant \u00e0\nl'h\u00f4pital de Guy, dans le _Borough_, et possesseur d'une r\u00e9sidence\npriv\u00e9e dans _Lant-Street_.\n\n\u00abVous veniez pour me voir, n'est-ce pas? vous ne direz pas le contraire?\ns'\u00e9cria M. Bob Sawyer en secouant amicalement la main de M. Winkle.\n\n--Non, sur ma parole! r\u00e9pliqua celui-ci en serrant la main de M. Sawyer.\n\n--Quoi! vous n'avez pas remarqu\u00e9 mon nom? demanda Bob en appelant\nl'attention de son ami sur la porte ext\u00e9rieure, au-dessus de laquelle\n\u00e9taient trac\u00e9s ces mots: _Sawyer successeur de Nockemorf_.\n\n--Mes yeux ne sont pas tomb\u00e9s dessus, dit M. Winkle.\n\n--Ma foi! si j'avais su que c'\u00e9tait vous, reprit Bob, je me serais\npr\u00e9cipit\u00e9 et je vous aurais re\u00e7u dans mes bras. Mais, sur mon honneur,\nje croyais que vous \u00e9tiez le percepteur des contributions.[11]\n\n[Footnote 11: Le gouvernement anglais a l'obligeance de faire toucher\nles taxes chez les contribuables.]\n\n--Pas possible!\n\n--Vrai. J'allais vous dire que je n'\u00e9tais pas \u00e0 la maison, et que si\nvous vouliez me laisser un message, je ne manquerais pas de me le\nremettre; car le collecteur des taxes ne me conna\u00eet point, pas plus que\ncelui de l'\u00e9clairage, ni du pav\u00e9. Je crois que le collecteur de l'\u00e9glise\nsoup\u00e7onne qui je suis, et je sais que celui des eaux ne l'ignore pas,\nparce que je lui ai tir\u00e9 une dent le premier jour que je suis venu ici.\nMais entrez, entrez donc!\u00bb\n\nTout en bavardant de la sorte, Bob poussait M. Winkle dans\nl'arri\u00e8re-parloir, o\u00f9 s'\u00e9tait assis un personnage qui n'\u00e9tait pas moins\nque M. Benjamin Allen. Il s'amusait gravement \u00e0 faire de petites\ncavernes circulaires dans le manteau de la chemin\u00e9e, au moyen d'un\nfourgon rougi.\n\n\u00abEn v\u00e9rit\u00e9, dit M. Winkle, voil\u00e0 un plaisir que je n'avais pas esp\u00e9r\u00e9.\nQuelle jolie retraite vous avez l\u00e0!\n\n--Pas mal, pas mal, repartit Bob. J'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 re\u00e7u peu de temps apr\u00e8s cette\nfameuse soir\u00e9e; et mes amis se sont saign\u00e9s pour m'aider \u00e0 acheter cet\n\u00e9tablissement. Ainsi j'ai endoss\u00e9 un habit noir et une paire de\nlunettes, et je suis venu ici pour avoir l'air aussi solennel que\npossible.\n\n--Et vous avez sans doute une jolie client\u00e8le? demanda M. Winkle d'un\nair fin.\n\n--Oh! si mignonne, qu'\u00e0 la fin de l'ann\u00e9e vous pourriez mettre tous les\nprofits dans un verre \u00e0 liqueur, et les couvrir avec une feuille de\ngroseille.\n\n--Vous voulez rire. Rien que les marchandises....\n\n--Pure charge, mon cher gar\u00e7on. La moiti\u00e9 des tiroirs est vide, et\nl'autre moiti\u00e9 n'ouvre point.\n\n--Vous plaisantez?\n\n--C'est un fait, r\u00e9torqua Bob en allant dans la boutique et d\u00e9montrant\nla v\u00e9racit\u00e9 de son assertion par de violentes secousses donn\u00e9es aux\npetits boutons dor\u00e9s des tiroirs imaginaires.\n\n--Du diable s'il y a une seule chose r\u00e9elle dans la boutique, except\u00e9s\nles sangsues; et encore elles ont d\u00e9j\u00e0 servi.\n\n--Je n'aurais jamais cru cela! s'\u00e9cria M. Winkle plein de surprise.\n\n--Je m'en flatte un peu, reprit Bob; autrement \u00e0 quoi serviraient les\napparences, hein? Mais, que voulez-vous prendre! Comme nous? C'est bon.\nBen, mon gar\u00e7on, fourrez la main dans le buffet, et amenez-nous le\ndigestif brevet\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nM. Benjamin Allen sourit pour indiquer son consentement, et tira du\nbuffet une bouteille noire, \u00e0 moiti\u00e9 pleine d'eau-de-vie.\n\n\u00abVous n'y mettez pas d'eau, n'est-ce pas? dit Bob \u00e0 M. Winkle.\n\n--Pardonnez-moi, repartit celui-ci. Il est de bonne heure et j'aimerais\nmieux m\u00e9langer, si vous ne vous y opposez point.\n\n--Pas le moins du monde, si votre conscience vous le permet, r\u00e9pliqua\nBob en avec sensualit\u00e9 un verre du liquide bienfaisant. Ben, passe-nous\nl'eau.\u00bb\n\nM. Benjamin Allen tira de la m\u00eame place une petite cocote de cuivre,\ndont M. Bob d\u00e9clara qu'il \u00e9tait tr\u00e8s-fier \u00e0 cause de sa physionomie\nm\u00e9dicale. Lorsqu'on eut fait bouillir l'eau contenue dans la cocote, au\nmoyen de plusieurs pellet\u00e9es de charbon de terre que Bob puisa dans une\ncaisse qui portait pour inscription: _eau de selz_, M. Winkle baptisa\nson eau-de-vie, et la conversation commen\u00e7ait \u00e0 devenir g\u00e9n\u00e9rale,\nlorsqu'elle fut interrompue par l'entr\u00e9e d'un jeune gar\u00e7on, v\u00eatu d'une\ns\u00e9v\u00e8re livr\u00e9e grise, ayant un galon d'or \u00e0 son chapeau, et tenant sur\nson bras un petit panier couvert.\n\nM. Bob l'apostropha imm\u00e9diatement.\n\n\u00abTom, vagabond! venez-ici! (L'enfant s'approcha en cons\u00e9quence.) Vous\nvous \u00eates arr\u00eat\u00e9 \u00e0 toutes les bornes de Bristol, vilain fain\u00e9ant!\n\n--Non, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit l'enfant.\n\n--Prenez-y garde, reprit Bob avec un visage mena\u00e7ant. Pensez-vous que\nquelqu'un voudrait employer un chirurgien, si on voyait son gar\u00e7on jouer\naux billes dans tous les ruisseaux, ou enlever un cerf-volant sur la\ngrande route? Ayez soin, monsieur, de conserver toujours le respect de\nvotre profession. Avez-vous port\u00e9 tous les m\u00e9dicaments, paresseux?\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--La poudre pour les enfants, dans la grande maison habit\u00e9e par la\nfamille nouvellement arriv\u00e9e? Et les pilules digestives chez le vieux\ngentleman grognon et goutteux?\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--Alors fermez la porte et faites attention \u00e0 la boutique.\n\n--Allons! dit M. Winkle quand le jeune gar\u00e7on se fut retir\u00e9, les choses\nne vont pas tout \u00e0 fait aussi mal que vous voudriez me le faire croire.\nVous avez toujours quelques m\u00e9dicaments \u00e0 fournir.\u00bb\n\nBob Sawyer regarda dans la boutique pour s'assurer qu'il n'y avait pas\nd'oreilles \u00e9trang\u00e8res, puis se penchant vers M. Winkle, il lui dit \u00e0\nvoix basse: \u00abIl se trompe toujours de maison.\u00bb\n\nLa physionomie de M. Winkle exprima qu'il n'y \u00e9tait plus du tout, tandis\nque Bob et son ami riaient \u00e0 qui mieux mieux.\n\n\u00abVous ne me comprenez pas? dit Bob. Il va dans une maison, tire la\nsonnette, fourre un paquet de m\u00e9dicaments sans adresse dans la main,\nd'un domestique et s'en va. Le domestique porte le paquet dans la salle\n\u00e0 manger; le ma\u00eetre l'ouvre, et lit la suscription: _Potion \u00e0 prendre\nle soir; pilules selon la formule; lotion idem; Sawyer, successeur de\nNockemorf, pr\u00e9pare avec soin les ordonnances, etc., etc._ Le gentleman\nmontre le paquet \u00e0 sa femme; elle lit l'inscription, elle le renvoie aux\ndomestiques; ils lisent l'inscription. Le lendemain le gar\u00e7on revient:\nTr\u00e8s-f\u00e2ch\u00e9. Il s'est tromp\u00e9. Tant d'affaires, tant de paquets \u00e0 porter.\nM. Sawyer, successeur de Nockemorf, offre ses compliments. Le nom reste\ndans la m\u00e9moire, et voil\u00e0 l'affaire, mon gar\u00e7on; cela vaut mieux que\ntoutes les annonces du monde. Nous avons une bouteille de quatre onces\nqui a couru dans la moiti\u00e9 des maisons de Bristol, et qui n'a point\nencore fini sa ronde.\n\n--Tiens, tiens! je comprends, r\u00e9pondit M. Winkle, un fameux plan.\n\n--Oh! Ben et moi, nous en avons trouv\u00e9 une douzaine comme cela; continua\nl'habile pharmacien, avec une grande satisfaction. L'allumeur de\nr\u00e9verb\u00e8res re\u00e7oit dix-huit pence par semaines pour tirer ma sonnette de\nnuit, pendant dix minutes, chaque fois qu'il passe devant la maison; et\ntous les dimanches, mon gar\u00e7on court dans l'\u00e9glise, juste au moment des\npsaumes, quand personne n'a rien \u00e0 faire que de regarder autour de soi,\net il m'appelle avec un air effar\u00e9. \u00abBon! disent les assistants,\nquelqu'un est tomb\u00e9 malade tout \u00e0 coup; on envoie chercher Sawyer,\nsuccesseur de Nockemorf; comme ce jeune homme est occup\u00e9!\u00bb\n\nAyant ainsi divulgu\u00e9 les arcanes de l'art m\u00e9dical, M. Bob Sawyer et son\nami Ben Allen se renvers\u00e8rent sur leurs chaises, et \u00e9clat\u00e8rent de rire\nbruyamment. Quand ils s'en furent donn\u00e9 \u00e0 coeur joie, la conversation\nrecommen\u00e7a, et vint toucher un sujet qui int\u00e9ressait plus imm\u00e9diatement\nM. Winkle.\n\nNous pensons avoir dit ailleurs que M. Benjamin Allen devenait\nhabituellement fort sentimental, apr\u00e8s boire. Le cas n'est pas unique,\ncomme nous pouvons l'attester nous-m\u00eame, ayant eu affaire quelquefois \u00e0\ndes patients affect\u00e9s de la m\u00eame mani\u00e8re. Dans cette p\u00e9riode de son\nexistence, M. Allen avait plus que jamais une pr\u00e9disposition \u00e0 la\nsentimentalit\u00e9. Cette maladie provenait de ce qu'il demeurait depuis\nplus de trois semaines avec M. Sawyer; car l'amphitryon n'\u00e9tait pas\nremarquable par la temp\u00e9rance, et l'invit\u00e9 ne pouvait nullement se\nvanter d'avoir la t\u00eate forte. Pendant tout cet espace de temps, Benjamin\navait toujours flott\u00e9 entre l'ivresse partielle et l'ivresse compl\u00e8te.\n\n\u00abMon bon ami, dit-il \u00e0 M. Winkle, en profitant de l'absence temporaire\nde M. Bob Sawyer, qui \u00e9tait all\u00e9 administrer \u00e0 un chaland quelques-unes\nde ses sangsues d'occasion: mon bon ami, je suis bien malheureux!\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle exprima tous ses regrets, en apprenant cette nouvelle et\ndemanda s'il ne pouvait rien faire pour all\u00e9ger les chagrins de\nl'infortun\u00e9 \u00e9tudiant.\n\n\u00abRien, mon cher, rien. Vous rappelez-vous Arabelle? ma soeur Arabelle?\nUne petite fille qui a des yeux noirs. Je ne sais pas si vous l'avez\nremarqu\u00e9e cher M. Winkle? Une jolie petite fille, Winkle. Peut-\u00eatre que\nmes traits pourront vous rappeler sa physionomie.\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle n'avait pas besoin de proc\u00e9d\u00e9s artificiels pour se souvenir de\nla charmante Arabelle, et c'\u00e9tait fort heureux, car certainement les\ntraits du fr\u00e8re lui auraient difficilement rappel\u00e9 ceux de la soeur. Il\nr\u00e9pondit, avec autant de calme qu'il lui fut possible d'en feindre,\nqu'il se rappelait parfaitement avoir vu la jeune personne en question,\net qu'il se flattait qu'elle \u00e9tait en bonne sant\u00e9.\n\nPour toute r\u00e9ponse, M. Ben Allen, lui dit: \u00abNotre ami Bob est un\ncharmant gar\u00e7on, Winkle.\n\n--C'est vrai, r\u00e9pliqua laconiquement M. Winkle, qui n'aimait pas\nbeaucoup le rapprochement de ces deux noms.\n\n--Je les ai toujours destin\u00e9s l'un \u00e0 l'autre; ils ont \u00e9t\u00e9 cr\u00e9es l'un\npour l'autre; ils sont venus au monde l'un pour l'autre; ils ont \u00e9t\u00e9\n\u00e9lev\u00e9s l'un pour l'autre, dit M. Ben Allen, en posant son verre avec\nemphase. Il y a un coup du sort dans cette affaire, mon cher gar\u00e7on; il\nn'y a entre eux qu'une diff\u00e9rence de cinq ans, et tous les deux sont n\u00e9s\ndans le mois d'ao\u00fbt.\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle \u00e9tait trop impatient d'entendre le reste, pour exprimer\nbeaucoup d'\u00e9tonnement de cette co\u00efncidence, toute merveilleuse qu'elle\nf\u00fbt. Ainsi, apr\u00e8s une larme ou deux, Ben continua \u00e0 dire que malgr\u00e9\ntoute son estime et son respect, et sa v\u00e9n\u00e9ration pour son ami, sa soeur\nArabelle avait toujours, ingratement et sans raison, montr\u00e9 la plus vive\nantipathie pour sa personne. Et je pense, conclua-t-il, je pense qu'il y\na un attachement ant\u00e9rieur.\n\n--Avez-vous quelque id\u00e9e sur la personne?\u00bb demanda en tremblant M.\nWinkle.\n\nM. Ben Allen saisit le fourgon, le fit tourner d'une mani\u00e8re martiale\nau-dessus de sa t\u00eate, infligea un coup mortel sur un cr\u00e2ne imaginaire,\net termina en disant, d'une fa\u00e7on tr\u00e8s-expressive: \u00abJe voudrais le\nconna\u00eetre, voil\u00e0 tout. Je lui montrerais ce que j'en pense!\u00bb et pendant\nce temps le fourgon tournoyait avec plus de f\u00e9rocit\u00e9 que jamais.\n\nTout cela, comme on le suppose, \u00e9tait fort consolant pour M. Winkle. Il\nresta silencieux durant quelques minutes, mais \u00e0 la fin, il rassembla\ntout son courage, et demanda si miss Allen \u00e9tait dans le comt\u00e9 de Kent.\n\n\u00abNon, non, r\u00e9pondit Ben, en d\u00e9posant le fourgon et en prenant un air\nfort rus\u00e9. Je n'ai pas pens\u00e9 que la maison du vieux Wardle f\u00fbt\nexactement ce qui convenait pour une jeune fille ent\u00eat\u00e9e. Aussi, comme\nje suis son protecteur naturel et son tuteur, puisque nos parents sont\nd\u00e9funts, je l'ai amen\u00e9e dans ce pays-ci pour passer quelques mois chez\nune vieille tante, dans une jolie maison bien ennuyeuse et bien ferm\u00e9e.\nJ'esp\u00e8re que cela la gu\u00e9rira. Si \u00e7a ne r\u00e9ussit pas, je l'emm\u00e8nerai \u00e0\nl'\u00e9tranger pendant quelque temps, et nous verrons alors.\n\n--Et... et... la tante demeure \u00e0 Bristol? balbutia M. Winkle.\n\n--Non, non; pas dans Bristol, r\u00e9pondit Ben, en passant son pouce\npar-dessus son \u00e9paule droite. Par-l\u00e0 bas; mais chut! voici Bob. Pas un\nmot, mon cher ami, pas un mot.\u00bb\n\nToute courte qu'avait \u00e9t\u00e9 cette conversation, elle produisit chez M.\nWinkle l'anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 la plus vive. L'attachement ant\u00e9rieur, que soup\u00e7onnait\nBen, agitait son coeur. Pouvait-il en \u00eatre l'objet? \u00c9tait-ce pour lui\nque la s\u00e9duisante Arabelle avait d\u00e9daign\u00e9 le spirituel Bob Sawyer? ou\nbien avait-il un rival pr\u00e9f\u00e9r\u00e9? Il se d\u00e9termina \u00e0 la voir, quoi qu'il\np\u00fbt en arriver. Mais ici se pr\u00e9sentait une objection insurmontable; car\nsi l'explication donn\u00e9e par Ben avec ces mots: _par l\u00e0-bas_, voulait\ndire trois milles, ou trente milles, ou trois cents milles, M. Winkle ne\npouvait en aucune fa\u00e7on le conjecturer. Au reste il n'eut pas, pour le\nmoment, le loisir de penser \u00e0 ses amours, l'arriv\u00e9e de Bob ayant \u00e9t\u00e9\nimm\u00e9diatement suivie par celle d'un p\u00e2t\u00e9, dont M. Winkle fut instamment\npri\u00e9 de prendre sa part. La nappe fut mise par une femme de m\u00e9nage, qui\nofficiait comme femme de charge de M. Bob Sawyer. La m\u00e8re du jeune\ngar\u00e7on en livr\u00e9e grise apporta un troisi\u00e8me couteau et une troisi\u00e8me\nfourchette (car l'\u00e9tablissement domestique de M. Sawyer \u00e9tait mont\u00e9 sur\nune \u00e9chelle assez limit\u00e9e), et les trois amis commenc\u00e8rent \u00e0 d\u00eener. La\nbi\u00e8re \u00e9tait servie, comme le fit observer M. Sawyer, dans son \u00e9tain\nnatif.\n\nApr\u00e8s le d\u00eener, Bob fit apporter le plus grand mortier de sa boutique,\net y brassa un m\u00e9lange fumant de punch au rhum, remuant et amalgamant\nles mat\u00e9riaux avec un pilon, d'une mani\u00e8re fort convenable pour un\npharmacien. Comme beaucoup de c\u00e9libataires, il ne poss\u00e9dait qu'un seul\nverre, qui fut assign\u00e9 par honneur \u00e0 M. Winkle. Ben Allen fut accommod\u00e9\nd'un entonnoir de verre, dont l'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 inf\u00e9rieure \u00e9tait garnie d'un\nbouchon; quant \u00e0 Bob lui-m\u00eame, il se contenta d'un de ces vases de\ncristal cylindriques, incrust\u00e9s d'une quantit\u00e9 de caract\u00e8res\ncabalistiques, et dans lesquels les apothicaires mesurent habituellement\nles drogues liquides qui doivent composer leurs potions. Ces\npr\u00e9liminaires ajust\u00e9s, le punch fut go\u00fbt\u00e9 et d\u00e9clar\u00e9 excellent. On\nconvint que Bob Sawyer et Ben Allen seraient libres de remplir leur vase\ndeux fois, pour chaque verre de M. Winkle, et l'on commen\u00e7a les\nlibations sur ce pied d'\u00e9galit\u00e9 avec bonne humeur et de fort bonne\namiti\u00e9. On ne chanta point, parce que Bob d\u00e9clara que cela n'aurait pas\nl'air professionnel; mais, en revanche, on parla et l'on rit, si bien et\nsi fort, que les passants \u00e0 l'autre bout de la rue pouvaient entendre et\nentendirent sans aucun doute le bruit confus qui sortait de l'officine\ndu successeur de Nockemorf. Quoi qu'il en soit, la conversation des\ntrois amis charmait apparemment les ennuis et aiguisait l'esprit du\njeune gar\u00e7on pharmacien, car au lieu de d\u00e9vouer sa soir\u00e9e, comme il le\nfaisait ordinairement, \u00e0 \u00e9crire son nom sur le comptoir et \u00e0 l'effacer\nensuite, il se colla contre la porte vitr\u00e9e, et de la sorte put \u00e9couter\net voir en m\u00eame temps ce qui se passait chez son patron.\n\nLa gaiet\u00e9 de M. Bob Sawyer se tournait peu \u00e0 peu en fureur, M. Ben Allen\nretombait dans le sentimental, et le punch \u00e9tait presque enti\u00e8rement\ndisparu, quand le jeune gar\u00e7on entra rapidement pour annoncer qu'une\njeune femme venait demander M. Sawyer, successeur de Nockemorf, qu'on\nattendait impatiemment. Ceci termina la f\u00eate. Lorsque le gar\u00e7on eut\nr\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9 pour la vingti\u00e8me fois son message, M. Bob Sawyer commen\u00e7ant \u00e0 le\ncomprendre, attacha autour de sa t\u00eate une serviette mouill\u00e9e, afin de se\nd\u00e9griser; et, y ayant r\u00e9ussi en partie, mit ses lunettes vertes et\nsortit. Ensuite de quoi, M. Winkle voyant qu'il \u00e9tait impossible\nd'engager M. Ben Allen dans une conversation tant soit peu intelligible\nsur le sujet qui l'int\u00e9ressait le plus, refusa de rester jusqu'au retour\ndu chirurgien, et s'en retourna \u00e0 son h\u00f4tel.\n\nL'inqui\u00e9tude qui l'agitait et les nombreuses m\u00e9ditations qu'avait\n\u00e9veill\u00e9es dans son esprit le nom d'Arabelle, emp\u00each\u00e8rent la part qu'il\navait prise dans le mortier de produire sur lui l'effet qu'on en aurait\npu attendre dans d'autres circonstances. Ainsi, apr\u00e8s avoir pris \u00e0 la\nbuvette de son h\u00f4tel un verre d'eau de Seltz et d'eau-de-vie, il entra\ndans le caf\u00e9, plut\u00f4t d\u00e9courag\u00e9 qu'anim\u00e9 par les aventures de la soir\u00e9e.\n\nUn grand gentleman, v\u00eatu d'une longue redingote, se trouvait seul dans\nle caf\u00e9, assis devant le feu, et tournant le dos \u00e0 M. Winkle. Comme la\nsoir\u00e9e \u00e9tait assez froide pour la saison, le gentleman rangea sa chaise\nde c\u00f4t\u00e9 pour laisser approcher le nouvel arrivant, mais quelle fut\nl'\u00e9motion de M. Winkle, quand ce mouvement lui d\u00e9couvrit le visage du\nvindicatif et sanguinaire Dowler!\n\nSa premi\u00e8re pens\u00e9e fut de tirer violemment le cordon de sonnette le plus\nproche. Malheureusement, ce cordon se trouvait derri\u00e8re la chaise de son\nadversaire. Machinalement le brave jeune homme fit un pas pour en saisir\nla poign\u00e9e, mais M. Dowler se reculant avec promptitude: \u00abMonsieur\nWinkle, dit-il, soyez calme. Ne me frappez pas, monsieur, je ne le\nsupporterais point. Un soufflet? Jamais!\u00bb\n\nTout en parlant ainsi, M Dowler avait l'air beaucoup plus doux que M.\nWinkle ne l'aurait attendu d'une personne aussi emport\u00e9e.\n\n\u00abUn soufflet, monsieur? balbutia M. Winkle.\n\n--Un soufflet, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Dowler. Ma\u00eetrisez vos premiers\nmouvements, asseyez-vous, \u00e9coutez-moi.\n\n--Monsieur, dit M. Winkle, en tremblant des pieds \u00e0 la t\u00eate, avant que\nje consente \u00e0 m'asseoir aupr\u00e8s ou en face de vous, sans la pr\u00e9sence d'un\ngar\u00e7on, il me faut d'autres assurances de s\u00e9curit\u00e9. Vous m'avez fait des\nmenaces la nuit derni\u00e8re, monsieur, d'affreuses menaces! Ici M. Winkle\ns'arr\u00eata et devint encore plus p\u00e2le.\n\n--C'est la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, repartit M. Dowler avec un visage presque aussi blanc\nque celui de son antagoniste. Les circonstances \u00e9taient suspectes. Elles\nont \u00e9t\u00e9 expliqu\u00e9es. Je respecte votre courage. Vous avez raison. C'est\nl'assurance de l'innocence. Voil\u00e0 ma main, serrez-la.\n\n--R\u00e9ellement, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit M. Winkle, h\u00e9sitant \u00e0 donner sa main,\ndans la pens\u00e9e que M. Dowler pourrait bien vouloir le prendre en\ntra\u00eetre, r\u00e9ellement, monsieur, je....\n\n--Je sais ce que vous voulez dire, interrompit l'autre. Vous vous\nsentez offens\u00e9. C'est naturel, j'en ferais autant \u00e0 votre place. J'ai eu\ntort, je vous demande pardon. Soyons amis, pardonnez-moi....\u00bb Et en m\u00eame\ntemps Dowler s'empara de la main de M. Winkle, et la secouant avec la\nplus grande v\u00e9h\u00e9mence, d\u00e9clara qu'il le regardait comme un gar\u00e7on plein\nde courage, et qu'il avait de lui meilleure opinion que jamais.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, poursuivit-il, asseyez-vous, racontez-moi tout. Comment\nm'avez-vous d\u00e9couvert? Quand est-ce que vous \u00eates parti pour me suivre?\nSoyez franc, dites tout.\n\n--C'est enti\u00e8rement par hasard, r\u00e9pliqua M. Winkle grandement intrigu\u00e9\npar la tournure singuli\u00e8re et inattendue de leur entrevue, enti\u00e8rement.\n\n--J'en suis charm\u00e9. Je me suis \u00e9veill\u00e9 ce matin. J'avais oubli\u00e9 mes\nmenaces. Le souvenir de votre aventure me fit rire. Je me sentais des\ndispositions amicales: je le dis.\n\n--\u00c0 qui?\n\n--\u00c0 mistress Dowler.--\u00abVous avez fait un voeu, me dit-elle.--C'est vrai,\nr\u00e9pondis-je.--C'\u00e9tait un voeu t\u00e9m\u00e9raire.--C'est encore vrai. J'offrirai\ndes excuses. O\u00f9 est-il?\u00bb\n\n--Qui? demanda M. Winkle.\n\n--Vous. Je descendis l'escalier, mais je ne vous trouvai pas. Pickwick\navait l'air sombre. Il secoua la t\u00eate, il dit qu'il esp\u00e9rait qu'on ne\ncommettrait point de violences. Je compris tout. Vous vous sentiez\ninsult\u00e9. Vous \u00e9tiez sorti pour chercher un ami, peut-\u00eatre des pistolets.\nUn noble courage, me dis-je, je l'admire.\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle toussa, et commen\u00e7ant \u00e0 voir o\u00f9 g\u00eetait le li\u00e8vre, prit un air\nd'importance.\n\n\u00abJe laissai une note pour vous, poursuivit Dowler. Je dis que j'\u00e9tais\nf\u00e2ch\u00e9. C'\u00e9tait vrai. Des affaires pressantes m'appelaient ici. Vous\nn'avez pas \u00e9t\u00e9 satisfait; vous m'avez suivi. Vous avez demand\u00e9 une\nexplication verbale. Vous avez eu raison. Tout est fini maintenant. Mes\naffaires sont termin\u00e9es. Je m'en retourne demain, venez avec moi.\u00bb\n\n\u00c0 mesure que Dowler avan\u00e7ait dans son r\u00e9cit, la contenance de M. Winkle\ndevenait de plus en plus digne. La myst\u00e9rieuse nature du commencement de\nleur conversation \u00e9tait expliqu\u00e9e; M. Dowler \u00e9tait aussi \u00e9loign\u00e9 de se\nbattre, que lui-m\u00eame. En un mot, ce vantard personnage \u00e9tait un des plus\nadmirables poltrons qui eussent jamais exist\u00e9. Il avait interpr\u00e9t\u00e9 selon\nses craintes l'absence de M. Winkle, et prenant le m\u00eame parti que lui\nil c'\u00e9tait d\u00e9cid\u00e9 \u00e0 s'absenter, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que toute irritation f\u00fbt\npass\u00e9e.\n\nQuand l'\u00e9tat r\u00e9el des affaires se fut d\u00e9voil\u00e9 \u00e0 l'esprit de M. Winkle,\nsa physionomie devint terrible. Il d\u00e9clara qu'il \u00e9tait parfaitement\nsatisfait, mais il le d\u00e9clara d'un air capable de persuader M. Dowler\nque, s'il n'avait pas \u00e9t\u00e9 satisfait, il s'en serait suivi une horrible\ndestruction. Enfin M. Dowler parut convenablement reconnaissant de sa\nmagnanimit\u00e9, et les deux bellig\u00e9rants se s\u00e9par\u00e8rent, pour la nuit, avec\nmille protestations d'amiti\u00e9 \u00e9ternelle.\n\nIl \u00e9tait minuit, et depuis vingt minutes environ M. Winkle jouissait des\ndouceurs de son premier sommeil, lorsqu'il fut tout \u00e0 coup r\u00e9veill\u00e9 par\nun coup violent frapp\u00e9 \u00e0 sa porte, et r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9 imm\u00e9diatement apr\u00e8s, avec\ntant de v\u00e9h\u00e9mence, qu'il en tressaillit dans son lit, et demanda avec\ninqui\u00e9tude qui \u00e9tait l\u00e0, et ce qu'on lui voulait.\n\n\u00abS'il vous pla\u00eet, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit une servante, c'est un jeune homme\nqui d\u00e9sire vous voir, sur-le-champ.\n\n--Un jeune homme! s'\u00e9cria M. Winkle.\n\n--Il n'y a pas d'erreur, ici, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit une autre voix \u00e0\ntravers le trou de la serrure; et si ce m\u00eame int\u00e9ressant jeune gar\u00e7on\nn'est pas introduit, sans d\u00e9lai, vous ne vous \u00e9tonnerez pas que ses\njambes entrent chez vous avant sa phylosomie.\u00bb En achevant ces mots,\nl'\u00e9tranger \u00e9branla l\u00e9g\u00e8rement avec son pied le panneau inf\u00e9rieur de la\nporte, comme pour donner plus de force \u00e0 son insinuation.\n\n--C'est vous, Sam? demanda M. Winkle, en sautant \u00e0 bas du lit.\n\n--Pas possible de reconna\u00eetre un gentleman sans regardes son visage,\u00bb\nr\u00e9pondit la voix d'un ton dogmatique.\n\nM. Winkle n'ayant plus gu\u00e8re de doutes sur l'identit\u00e9 du jeune homme,\ntira les verrous et ouvrit. Aussit\u00f4t Sam entra pr\u00e9cipitamment, referma\nla porte \u00e0 double tour, mit gravement la clef dans sa poche, et, apr\u00e8s\navoir examin\u00e9 M. Winkle des pieds \u00e0 la t\u00eate, lui dit: \u00abEh bien, vous\nvous conduisez gentiment, monsieur.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que signifie cette conduite? demanda M. Winkle avec\nindignation, sortez sur-le-champ, qu'est-ce que cela signifie?\n\n--Ce que \u00e7a signifie! Eh bien, en voil\u00e0 une s\u00e9v\u00e8re, comme dit la jeune\nlady au p\u00e2tissier qui lui avait vendu un p\u00e2t\u00e9 o\u00f9 il n'y avait que de la\ngraisse dedans. Ce que \u00e7a signifie! Eh bien, en voil\u00e0 une bonne!\n\n--Ouvrez cette porte, et quittez cette chambre sur-le-champ.\n\n--Je quitterai cette chambre, monsieur, juste pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment au moment m\u00eame\no\u00f9 vous la quitterez, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit Sam d'une voix imposante, et en\ns'asseyant avec gravit\u00e9. Seulement si je suis oblig\u00e9 de vous emporter\nsur mon dos, je m'en irai un brin avant vous, n\u00e9cessairement. Mais\npermettez-moi d'esp\u00e9rer que vous ne me r\u00e9duirez pas \u00e0 des extr\u00e9mit\u00e9s,\nmonsieur, comme disait le gentleman au colima\u00e7on obstin\u00e9, qui ne voulait\npas sortir de sa coquille, malgr\u00e9 les coups d'\u00e9pingle qu'on lui\nadministrait, et qu'il avait peur d'\u00eatre oblig\u00e9 de l'\u00e9craser entre le\nchambranle et la porte.\u00bb\n\n\u00c0 la fin de ce discours, singuli\u00e8rement prolixe pour lui, Sam planta ses\nmains sur ses genoux, et regarda M. Winkle en face, avec une expression\nde visage o\u00f9 l'on pouvait lire facilement qu'il n'avait pas du tout\nenvie de plaisanter.\n\n\u00abVous \u00eates vraiment un jeune homme bien aimable, monsieur, poursuivit-il\nd'un ton de reproche, un aimable jeune homme, d'entortiller notre\npr\u00e9cieux gouverneur dans toutes sortes de fantasmagories, quand il s'est\nd\u00e9termin\u00e9 \u00e0 tout faire pour les principes. Vous \u00eates pire que Dodson,\nmonsieur, et pire que Fogg. Je les regarde comme des anges aupr\u00e8s de\nvous.\u00bb\n\nSam ayant accompagn\u00e9 cette derni\u00e8re sentence d'une tape emphatique sur\nchaque genou, croisa ses bras d'un air d\u00e9daigneux, et se renversa sur sa\nchaise, comme pour attendre la d\u00e9fense du criminel.\n\n\u00abMon brave Sam, dit M. Winkle, en lui tendant la main, je respecte votre\nattachement pour mon excellent ami, et je suis vraiment tr\u00e8s-chagrin\nd'avoir augment\u00e9 ses sujets d'inqui\u00e9tude. Allons, Sam, allons! Et tout\nen parlant, ses dents claquaient de froid, car il \u00e9tait rest\u00e9 debout,\ndans son costume de nuit, durant toute la le\u00e7on de M. Weller.\n\n--C'est heureux, r\u00e9pondit Sam d'un ton bourru, en secouant cependant\nd'une mani\u00e8re respectueuse la main qui lui \u00e9tait offerte; c'est heureux,\nquand on s'amende \u00e0 la fin. Mais si je puis, je ne le laisserai\ntourmenter par personne, et voil\u00e0 la chose.\n\n--Certainement, Sam, certainement. Et maintenant allez vous coucher,\nnous parlerons de tout cela demain matin.\n\n--J'en suis bien f\u00e2ch\u00e9, monsieur; je ne peux pas m'aller coucher.\n\n--Vous ne pouvez pas vous aller coucher?\n\n--Non, r\u00e9pondit Sam, en secouant la t\u00eate, pas possible.\n\n--Vous n'allez pas repartir cette nuit? s'\u00e9cria M. Winkle, grandement\nsurpris.\n\n--Non, monsieur, \u00e0 moins que vous ne le d\u00e9siriez absolument, mais je ne\ndois pas quitter cette chambre. Les ordres du gouverneur sont\np\u00e9remptoires.\n\n--Allons donc, Sam, allons donc! il faut que je reste ici deux ou trois\njours, et qui plus est, il faudra que vous restiez aussi, pour m'aider \u00e0\navoir une entrevue avec une jeune lady... miss Allen, Sam. Vous vous en\nsouvenez? Il faut que je la voie, et je la verrai avant de quitter\nBristol.\u00bb\n\nMais en r\u00e9plique \u00e0 toutes ces instances, Sam continua \u00e0 secouer la t\u00eate\n\u00e9nergiquement, en r\u00e9pondant avec fermet\u00e9: \u00abPas possible, pas possible!\u00bb\n\nCependant, apr\u00e8s beaucoup d'arguments et de repr\u00e9sentations de la part\nde M. Winkle; apr\u00e8s une exposition compl\u00e8te de tout ce qui s'\u00e9tait pass\u00e9\ndans l'entrevue avec Dowler, le fid\u00e8le domestique commen\u00e7a \u00e0 h\u00e9siter. \u00c0\nla fin les deux parties en vinrent \u00e0 un compromis, dont voici les\nprincipales clauses:\n\nQue Sam se retirerait et laisserait \u00e0 M. Winkle la libre possession de\nson appartement, \u00e0 condition qu'il aurait la permission de fermer la\nporte en dehors et d'emporter la clef; pourvu toutefois qu'il ne manqu\u00e2t\npas d'ouvrir, sur-le-champ, la porte en cas de feu ou d'autre danger\ncontingent; que M. Winkle \u00e9crirait le lendemain \u00e0 M. Pickwick une lettre\nqui lui serait port\u00e9e par Dowler, et dans laquelle il lui demanderait,\npour Sam et pour lui-m\u00eame, la permission de rester \u00e0 Bristol, afin de\npoursuivre le but d\u00e9j\u00e0 indiqu\u00e9; que si la r\u00e9ponse \u00e9tait favorable, les\nsusdites parties contractantes demeureraient en cons\u00e9quence \u00e0 Bristol;\nque sinon, elles retourneraient \u00e0 Bath imm\u00e9diatement; et enfin que M.\nWinkle s'engageait positivement \u00e0 ne pas chercher \u00e0 s'\u00e9chapper, en\nattendant, ni par les fen\u00eatres, ni par la chemin\u00e9e, ni par tout autre\nmoyen \u00e9vasif. Ce trait\u00e9 ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00fbment ratifi\u00e9, Sam ferma la porte et\ns'en alla.\n\nIl \u00e9tait arriv\u00e9 au bas de l'escalier, quand il s'arr\u00eata court.\n\n\u00abTiens! dit-il, en tirant la clef de sa poche et en faisant un quart de\nconversion, j'avais enti\u00e8rement oubli\u00e9 le terrassement. Le gouverneur me\nl'avait pourtant bien recommand\u00e9.... Bah! c'est \u00e9gal, poursuivit-il en\nremettant la clef dans sa poche, \u00e7a peut toujours se faire demain matin,\ncomme aujourd'hui.\u00bb\n\nApparemment consol\u00e9 par cette r\u00e9flexion, Sam descendit le reste de\nl'escalier, sans autre retour de conscience, et fut bient\u00f4t enseveli\ndans un profond sommeil, ainsi que les autres habitants de la maison.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE X.\n\nSam Weller, honor\u00e9 d'une mission d'amour, s'occupe de l'ex\u00e9cuter. On\nverra plus loin avec quel succ\u00e8s.\n\n\nDurant toute la journ\u00e9e subs\u00e9quente, Sam tint ses yeux constamment fix\u00e9s\nsur M. Winkle, d\u00e9termin\u00e9 \u00e0 ne point le perdre de vue avant d'avoir re\u00e7u\nde nouvelles instructions. Quelque d\u00e9sagr\u00e9able que f\u00fbt pour le\nprisonnier cette grande vigilance, il pensa qu'il valait mieux la\nsupporter que de s'exposer \u00e0 \u00eatre emport\u00e9 de vive force; car le fid\u00e8le\nserviteur lui avait plus d'une fois fait entendre que le strict\nsentiment de ses devoirs le forcerait \u00e0 adopter cette ligne de conduite.\nIl est m\u00eame probable que Sam aurait fini par assoupir tous ses\nscrupules, en ramenant \u00e0 Bath M. Winkle, pieds et poings li\u00e9s, si la\nprompte attention donn\u00e9e par M. Pickwick au billet remis par Dowler,\nn'avait point rendu inutile, cette mani\u00e8re de proc\u00e9der. En un mot, \u00e0\nhuit heures du soir, M. Pickwick, lui-m\u00eame entra dans le caf\u00e9 de l'h\u00f4tel\ndu Buisson, et avec un sourire dit \u00e0 Sam enchant\u00e9, qu'il s'\u00e9tait\ntr\u00e8s-bien comport\u00e9 et n'avait pas besoin de monter la garde davantage.\n\n\u00abJ'ai pens\u00e9, continua M. Pickwick, en s'adressant \u00e0 M. Winkle, pendant\nque Sam le d\u00e9barrassait de sa redingote et de son cache-nez, j'ai pens\u00e9\nque je ferais mieux de venir moi-m\u00eame, m'assurer que vos vues sur cette\njeune personne sont honorables et s\u00e9rieuses, avant de consentir \u00e0 ce que\nSam soit employ\u00e9 dans cette affaire.\n\n--Tout \u00e0 fait honorables et s\u00e9rieuses, r\u00e9pliqua M. Winkle avec grande\n\u00e9nergie, je vous l'assure du fond de mon coeur, de toute mon \u00e2me.\n\n--Rappelez-vous, reprit M. Pickwick, avec un regard humide,\nrappelez-vous que nous l'avons rencontr\u00e9e chez notre excellent ami\nWardle. Ce serait bien mal reconna\u00eetre son hospitalit\u00e9, que de traiter\navec l\u00e9g\u00e8ret\u00e9 les affections de sa jeune amie. Je ne le permettrais pas,\nmonsieur; je ne le permettrais pas.\n\n--Je n'ai certainement pas cette id\u00e9e-l\u00e0, s'\u00e9cria chaleureusement M.\nWinkle. J'ai r\u00e9fl\u00e9chi pendant longtemps, et je sens que mon bonheur est\ntout entier en elle.\n\n--Voil\u00e0 ce que j'appelle mettre tous ses oeufs dans le m\u00eame panier,\u00bb\ninterrompit Sam avec un agr\u00e9able sourire.\n\nM. Winkle prit un air s\u00e9rieux \u00e0 cette observation, et M. Pickwick irrit\u00e9\nengagea son serviteur \u00e0 ne pas badiner avec un des meilleurs sentiments\nde notre nature.\n\n\u00abCertainement, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit Sam, mais il y en a tant de ces\nmeilleurs-l\u00e0, que je ne m'y reconnais jamais, quand on m'en parle.\u00bb\n\nCet incident termin\u00e9, M. Winkle raconta ce qui s'\u00e9tait pass\u00e9 entre lui\net M. Ben Allen, relativement \u00e0 Arabelle. Il dit que son but actuel\n\u00e9tait d'avoir une entrevue avec la jeune personne, et de lui faire un\naveu formel de sa passion. Enfin il d\u00e9clara que le lieu de sa d\u00e9tention\nlui paraissait \u00eatre quelque part aux environs des Dunes, ce qui semblait\nr\u00e9sulter de certaines insinuations obscures dudit Ben Allen; mais\nc'\u00e9tait tout ce qu'il avait pu apprendre ou soup\u00e7onner.\n\nMalgr\u00e9 l'inanit\u00e9 de ces renseignements il fut d\u00e9cid\u00e9 que Sam partirait\nle lendemain, pour une exp\u00e9dition de d\u00e9couverte. Il fut convenu aussi\nque M. Pickwick et M. Winkle, qui avaient moins de confiance dans leur\nhabilet\u00e9, se prom\u00e8neraient pendant ce temps dans la ville et entreraient\n_par hasard_, chez M. Bob Sawyer, dans l'esp\u00e9rance d'apprendre quelque\nchose sur la jeune lady.\n\nEn cons\u00e9quence, Sam se mit en qu\u00eate le lendemain matin, sans \u00eatre\naucunement d\u00e9courag\u00e9 par les difficult\u00e9s qui l'attendaient. Il marcha de\nrue en rue, nous allions presque dire de coteau en coteau, mais c'est\ntoute mont\u00e9e jusqu'\u00e0 Clifton. Durant tout ce temps il ne vit rien, il ne\nrencontra personne qui p\u00fbt jeter la moindre lumi\u00e8re sur son entreprise.\nIl eut de nombreux colloques avec des grooms qui faisaient prendre l'air\n\u00e0 des chevaux sur la route, avec des nourrices qui faisaient prendre\nl'air \u00e0 des enfants sur le pas de la porte: mais il ne put rien tirer ni\ndes uns ni des autres qui e\u00fbt le rapport le plus \u00e9loign\u00e9 avec l'objet de\nson habile enqu\u00eate. Il y avait dans force maisons, force jeunes ladies,\ndont le plus grand nombre \u00e9taient violemment soup\u00e7onn\u00e9es par les\ndomestiques m\u00e2les ou femelles d'\u00eatre profond\u00e9ment attach\u00e9es \u00e0\nquelqu'un, ou parfaitement dispos\u00e9es \u00e0 s'attacher au premier venu, si\nl'occasion s'en pr\u00e9sentait; mais comme aucune de ces jeunes ladies\nn'\u00e9tait miss Arabelle Allen, ces renseignements laissaient Sam\npr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment aussi instruit qu'il l'\u00e9tait auparavant.\n\nIl poursuivit sa route \u00e0 travers les Dunes, en luttant contre un vent\nviolent, et, chemin faisant, il se demandait si, dans ce pays, il \u00e9tait\ntoujours n\u00e9cessaire de tenir son chapeau des deux mains. Enfin il arriva\ndans un endroit ombrag\u00e9, o\u00f9 se trouvaient r\u00e9pandues plusieurs petites\nvillas, d'une apparence tranquille et retir\u00e9e. Au fond d'une longue\nimpasse, devant une porte d'\u00e9curie, un groom, en veste du matin,\ns'occupait \u00e0 fl\u00e2ner, en soci\u00e9t\u00e9 d'une pelle et d'une brouette; moyennant\nquoi, il se persuadait apparemment \u00e0 lui-m\u00eame qu'il faisait quelque\nchose d'utile. Nous ferons remarquer, en passant, que nous avons\nrarement vu un groom aupr\u00e8s d'une \u00e9curie, qui, dans ses moments de\nlaisser aller, ne f\u00fbt pas plus ou moins victime de cette singuli\u00e8re\nillusion.\n\nSam pensa qu'il pourrait parler avec ce groom, aussi bien qu'avec tout\nautre, et cela d'autant plus, qu'il \u00e9tait fatigu\u00e9 de marcher, et qu'il y\navait une bonne grosse pierre, juste en face de la porte. Il se dandina\ndonc jusqu'au fond de la ruelle, et, s'asseyant sur la pierre, ouvrit la\nconversation avec l'admirable aisance qui le caract\u00e9risait.\n\n\u00abBonsoir, vieux, dit-il.\n\n--Vous voulez dire bonjour? r\u00e9pliqua le groom, en jetant \u00e0 Sam un regard\nrechign\u00e9.\n\n--Vous avez raison, vieux, je voulais dire bonjour. Comment vous va?\n\n--Eh! je ne me sens gu\u00e8re mieux, depuis que vous \u00eates l\u00e0.\n\n--C'est dr\u00f4le, vous paraissez pourtant de bien bonne humeur, vous avez\nla mine si guillerette que \u00e7a r\u00e9jouit le coeur de vous voir.\u00bb\n\n\u00c0 cette plaisanterie, le groom rechign\u00e9 parut plus rechign\u00e9 encore, mais\nnon pas suffisamment pour produire quelque impression sur Sam. Celui-ci\nlui demanda imm\u00e9diatement, et avec un air de grand int\u00e9r\u00eat, si le nom de\nson ma\u00eetre n'\u00e9tait pas un certain M. Walker.\n\n\u00abNon, r\u00e9pondit le groom.\n\n--Ni Brown, je suppose.\n\n--Non.\n\n--Ni Wilson.\n\n--Non.\n\n--Eh! bien alors, je me suis tromp\u00e9 et il n'a pas l'honneur de ma\nconnaissance, comme je me l'\u00e9tais d'abord figur\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nCependant le groom, ayant rentr\u00e9 sa brouette, s'appr\u00eatait \u00e0 fermer la\nporte.\n\n\u00abNe restez pas \u00e0 l'air pour moi, lui cria Sam. O\u00f9 il y a de la g\u00eane, il\nn'y a pas de plaisir. Je vous excuserai, mon vieux.\n\n--Je vous casserais bien la t\u00eate pour un liard, dit le groom rechign\u00e9 en\nfermant une moiti\u00e9 de la porte.\n\n--Peux pas la c\u00e9der pour si peu, r\u00e9torqua Sam, \u00e7a vaudrait au moins tous\nvos gages jusqu'\u00e0 la fin de vos jours, et encore \u00e7a serait trop bon\nmarch\u00e9. Mes compliments chez vous. Dites qu'on ne m'attende pas pour\nd\u00eener, et qu'on ne mette rien de c\u00f4t\u00e9 pour moi, parce que ce serait\nfroid avant que je revienne.\u00bb\n\nEn r\u00e9ponse \u00e0 ces compliments, le groom dont la bile s'\u00e9chauffait,\ngrommela un d\u00e9sir indistinct d'endommager le cr\u00e2ne de quelqu'un.\nN\u00e9anmoins il disparut sans ex\u00e9cuter sa menace, poussant la porte\nderri\u00e8re lui avec col\u00e8re et sans faire attention \u00e0 la tendre requ\u00eate de\nM. Weller, qui le suppliait de lui laisser une m\u00e8che de ses cheveux.\n\nSam \u00e9tait rest\u00e9 assis sur la pierre et continuait de m\u00e9diter sur ce\nqu'il avait \u00e0 faire. D\u00e9j\u00e0 il avait arrang\u00e9 dans son esprit un plan, qui\nconsistait \u00e0 frapper \u00e0 toutes les portes, dans un rayon de cinq milles\nautour de Bristol, les mettant l'une dans l'autre \u00e0 cent cinquante ou\ndeux cents par jour, et comptant de cette mani\u00e8re arriver \u00e0 d\u00e9couvrir\nmiss Arabelle Allen dans un temps donn\u00e9, lorsque tout \u00e0 coup le hasard\njeta entre ses mains, ce qu'il aurait pu chercher pendant toute une\nann\u00e9e, sans le rencontrer.\n\nDans l'impasse o\u00f9 s'\u00e9tait install\u00e9 Sam, ouvraient trois ou quatre\ngrilles appartenant \u00e0 autant de maisons, qui, quoique d\u00e9tach\u00e9es les unes\ndes autres, n'\u00e9taient cependant s\u00e9par\u00e9es que par leur jardin. Comme\nceux-ci \u00e9taient grands et bien plant\u00e9s, non-seulement les maisons se\ntrouvaient \u00e9cart\u00e9es, mais la plupart \u00e9taient cach\u00e9es par les arbres. Sam\n\u00e9tait assis les yeux fix\u00e9s sur la porte voisine de celle o\u00f9 avait\ndisparu le groom rechign\u00e9; il retournait profond\u00e9ment dans son esprit\nles difficult\u00e9s de sa pr\u00e9sente entreprise, lorsqu'il vit la porte qu'il\nregardait machinalement, s'ouvrir et laisser passer une servante qui\nvenait secouer dans la ruelle des descentes de lit.\n\nM. Weller \u00e9tait si pr\u00e9occup\u00e9 de ses pens\u00e9es, que tr\u00e8s-probablement il\nse serait content\u00e9 de lever la t\u00eate et de remarquer que la jeune\nservante avait l'air tr\u00e8s-gentille, si ses sentiments de galanterie\nn'avaient pas \u00e9t\u00e9 fortement remu\u00e9s, en voyant qu'il ne se trouvait l\u00e0\npersonne pour aider la pauvrette, et que les tapis paraissaient bien\npesants pour ses mains d\u00e9licates. Sam \u00e9tait un gentleman fort galant \u00e0\nsa mani\u00e8re. Aussit\u00f4t qu'il eut remarqu\u00e9 cette circonstance, il quitta\nbrusquement sa pierre, et s'avan\u00e7ant vers la jeune fille: \u00abMa ch\u00e8re,\ndit-il d'un ton respectueux, vous g\u00e2terez vos jolies proportions, si\nvous secouez ces tapis l\u00e0 toute seule. Laissez-moi vous aider.\u00bb\n\nLa jeune bonne, qui avait modestement affect\u00e9 de ne pas savoir qu'un\ngentleman \u00e9tait si pr\u00eat d'elle, se retourna au discours de Sam, dans\nl'intention (comme elle le dit plus tard elle-m\u00eame) de refuser l'offre\nd'un \u00e9tranger, quand, au lieu de r\u00e9pondre, elle tressaillit, recula et\npoussa un l\u00e9ger cri, qu'elle s'effor\u00e7a vainement de retenir. Sam n'\u00e9tait\ngu\u00e8re moins boulevers\u00e9: car dans la physionomie de la servante, \u00e0 la\njolie tournure, il avait reconnu les traits de sa bien-aim\u00e9e, la\ngentille bonne de M. Nupkins.\n\n\u00abAh! Mary, ma ch\u00e8re!\n\n--Seigneur! M. Weller! comme vous effrayez les gens!\u00bb\n\nSam ne fit pas de r\u00e9ponse verbale \u00e0 cette plainte, et nous ne pouvons\nm\u00eame pas dire pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment quelle r\u00e9ponse il fit. Seulement nous savons\nqu'apr\u00e8s un court silence, Mary s'\u00e9cria: \u00abFinissez donc, M. Weller!\u00bb et\nque le chapeau de Sam \u00e9tait tomb\u00e9 quelques instants auparavant, d'apr\u00e8s\nquoi nous sommes dispos\u00e9s \u00e0 imaginer qu'un baiser, ou m\u00eame plusieurs,\navaient \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9chang\u00e9s entre les deux parties.\n\n\u00abPourquoi donc \u00eates-vous venu ici? demanda Mary quand la conversation,\nainsi interrompue, fut reprise.\n\n--Vous voyez bien que je suis venu ici pour vous chercher ma ch\u00e8re,\nr\u00e9pondit Sam, permettant pour une fois \u00e0 sa passion de l'emporter sur sa\nv\u00e9racit\u00e9.\n\n--Et comment avez-vous su que j'\u00e9tais ici? Qui peut vous avoir dit que\nj'\u00e9tais entr\u00e9e chez d'autres ma\u00eetres \u00e0 Ipswich, et qu'ensuite ils\n\u00e9taient venus dans ce pays-ci? Qui donc a pu vous dire \u00e7a, M. Weller?\n\n--Ah, oui! reprit Sam avec un regard malin, voil\u00e0 la question: qui peut\nme l'avoir dit?\n\n--Ce n'est pas M. Muzzle, n'est-ce pas?\n\n--Oh! non, r\u00e9pliqua Sam avec un branlement de t\u00eate solennel, ce n'est\npas lui.\n\n--Il faut que ce soit la cuisini\u00e8re?\n\n--N\u00e9cessairement.\n\n--Eh bien! qui est-ce qui se serait dout\u00e9 de \u00e7a!\n\n--Pas moi, toujours, dit M. Weller. Mais Mary, ma ch\u00e8re (ici les\nmani\u00e8res de Sam devinrent extr\u00eamement tendres), Mary, ma ch\u00e8re, j'ai sur\nles bras une autre affaire tr\u00e8s-pressante. Il y a un ami de mon\ngouverneur.... M. Winkle, vous vous en souvenez?\n\n--Celui qui avait un habit vert? Oh, oui, je m'en souviens.\n\n--Bon! Il est dans un horrible \u00e9tat d'amour, absolument confusionn\u00e9, et\ntout sens dessus dessous.\n\n--Bah! s'\u00e9cria Mary.\n\n--Oui, poursuivit Sam; mais \u00e7a ne serait rien, si nous pouvions\nseulement trouver la jeune lady.\u00bb\n\nIci, avec beaucoup de digressions sur la beaut\u00e9 personnelle de Mary, et\nsur les indicibles tortures qu'il avait \u00e9prouv\u00e9es pour son propre compte\ndepuis qu'il ne l'avait vue, Sam fit un r\u00e9cit fid\u00e8le de la situation\npr\u00e9sente de M. Winkle.\n\n\u00abPar exemple, dit Mary, voil\u00e0 qui est dr\u00f4le!\n\n--Bien s\u00fbr, reprit Sam; et moi, me voil\u00e0 ici, marchant toujours comme le\njuif errant (un personnage bien connu autrefois sur le _turf_, et que\nvous connaissez peut-\u00eatre, Mary, ma ch\u00e8re? qui avait fait la gageure de\nmarcher aussi longtemps que le temps et qui ne dort jamais), pour\nchercher cette miss Arabelle Allen.\n\n--Miss qui? demanda Mary avec grand \u00e9tonnement.\n\n--Miss Arabelle Allen.\n\n--Bont\u00e9 du ciel! s'\u00e9cria Mary en montrant la porte que le groom rechign\u00e9\navait ferm\u00e9e apr\u00e8s lui. Elle est l\u00e0, dans cette maison. Voil\u00e0 six\nsemaines qu'elle y reste. Leur femme de chambre m'a racont\u00e9 tout cela\ndevant la buanderie un matin que toute la famille dormait encore.\n\n--Quoi! la porte \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de vous?\n\n--Pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment.\u00bb\n\nSam se sentit tellement \u00e9tourdi en apprenant cette nouvelle, qu'il se\ntrouva oblig\u00e9 de prendre la taille de la jolie bonne pour se soutenir,\net que plusieurs petits t\u00e9moignages d'amour s'\u00e9chang\u00e8rent entre eux,\navant qu'il f\u00fbt suffisamment remis pour retourner au sujet de ses\nrecherches.\n\n\u00abEh bien! reprit-il \u00e0 la fin, si \u00e7a n'enfonce pas les combats de coq,\nrien ne les enfoncera jamais, comme dit le lord maire quand le premier\nsecr\u00e9taire d'\u00e9tat proposa la sant\u00e9 de madame la mairesse apr\u00e8s d\u00eener.\nJuste la porte apr\u00e8s! Moi, qui ai re\u00e7u un message pour elle, et qui ai\nd\u00e9j\u00e0 pass\u00e9 toute une journ\u00e9e, sans trouver moyen de le lui remettre!\n\n--Ah! dit Mary, vous ne pouvez pas le lui donner maintenant. Elle ne se\nprom\u00e8ne dans le jardin que le soir, et seulement pendant quelques\nminutes. Elle ne sort jamais sans la vieille lady.\n\nSam rumina durant quelques instants, et \u00e0 la fin s'arr\u00eata au plan\nd'op\u00e9rations que voici: il r\u00e9solut de revenir \u00e0 la brune, \u00e9poque \u00e0\nlaquelle Arabelle faisait invariablement sa promenade, \u00e9tant admis par\nMary dans le jardin de sa maison, il trouverait moyen d'escalader le\nmur, au-dessous des branches pendantes d'un \u00e9norme poirier qui\nl'emp\u00eacherait d'\u00eatre aper\u00e7u de loin, puis, une fois l\u00e0, il d\u00e9livrerait\nson message et t\u00e2cherait d'obtenir, en faveur de M. Winkle, une entrevue\npour le lendemain \u00e0 la m\u00eame heure. Ayant conclu ces arrangements fort\nrapidement, il aida Mary \u00e0 secouer ses tapis durant si longtemps\nn\u00e9glig\u00e9s.\n\nCe n'est pas une chose aussi innocente qu'on se l'imagine, que de\nsecouer ces petits tapis; ou du moins, s'il n'y a pas grand mal \u00e0 les\nsecouer, il est fort dangereux de les plier. Tant qu'on ne fait que\nsecouer, tant que les deux parties sont s\u00e9par\u00e9es par toute la longueur\ndu tapis, c'est un amusement aussi moral qu'il soit possible d'en\ninventer. Mais quand on commence \u00e0 plier, et quand la distance diminue\nd'une moiti\u00e9 \u00e0 un quart, puis \u00e0 un huiti\u00e8me, puis \u00e0 un seizi\u00e8me, puis \u00e0\nun trente-deuxi\u00e8me, si le tapis est assez long, cela devient extr\u00eamement\np\u00e9rilleux. Nous ne savons pas au juste combien de tapis furent repli\u00e9s\ndans cette occasion, mais nous pouvons nous permettre d'assurer qu'\u00e0\nchaque tapis Sam embrassa la jolie femme de chambre.\n\nLes adieux termin\u00e9s, M. Weller alla se r\u00e9galer, avec mod\u00e9ration, \u00e0 la\ntaverne la plus voisine. Il ne revint dans l'impasse qu'\u00e0 la brune, fut\nintroduit dans le jardin par Mary, et, ayant re\u00e7u d'elle plusieurs\nadmonestations concernant la s\u00fbret\u00e9 de ses membres et de son cou, il\nmonta dans le poirier et attendit l'arriv\u00e9e d'Arabelle.\n\nIl attendit si longtemps, sans la voir venir, qu'il commen\u00e7ait \u00e0\ncraindre de ne rien voir du tout, lorsqu'il entendit sur le sable un\nl\u00e9ger bruit de pas, et, imm\u00e9diatement apr\u00e8s, aper\u00e7ut Arabelle elle-m\u00eame,\nqui marchait d'un air pensif dans le jardin. Lorsqu'elle fut arriv\u00e9e\npresque au-dessous du poirier, Sam, qui d\u00e9sirait lui indiquer doucement\nsa pr\u00e9sence, commen\u00e7a \u00e0 faire diverses rumeurs diaboliques, semblables \u00e0\ncelles qui seraient sans doute, naturelles \u00e0 une personne attaqu\u00e9e \u00e0 la\nfois, d\u00e8s son enfance, d'une esquinancie, du croup et de la coqueluche.\n\nLa jeune lady jeta un regard effray\u00e9 vers le lieu d'o\u00f9 partaient ces\nhorribles sons, et ses alarmes n'\u00e9tant nullement diminu\u00e9es en voyant un\nhomme parmi les branches, elle se serait certainement enfuie et aurait\nalarm\u00e9 la maison, si, fort heureusement, la peur ne l'avait pas priv\u00e9e\nde tous mouvements et ne l'avait pas forc\u00e9e \u00e0 s'asseoir sur un banc, qui\npar bonheur se trouvait l\u00e0.\n\n\u00abLa voil\u00e0 qui s'en va, se disait Sam tout perplexe. Quelle vexation que\nces jeunes cr\u00e9atures veulent toujours s'\u00e9vanouir mal \u00e0 propos! Eh! jeune\nlady.... miss carabin.... Mme Winkle, tranquillisez-vous!\u00bb\n\n\u00c9tait-ce le nom magique de M. Winkle? ou la fra\u00eecheur de l'air? ou\nquelque souvenir de la voix de Sam, qui ranima Arabelle? cela est peu\nimportant \u00e0 savoir. Elle releva la t\u00eate et demanda d'une voix\nlanguissante:\n\n\u00abQui est l\u00e0? que me voulez-vous?\n\n--Chut! r\u00e9pondit Sam en se hissant sur le mur et en s'y blottissant dans\nle moindre espace possible; \u00e7a n'est que moi, miss, \u00e7a n'est que moi.\n\n--Le domestique de M. Pickwick? s'\u00e9cria Arabelle avec vivacit\u00e9.\n\n--Lui-m\u00eame, miss. Voil\u00e0 M. Winkle qu'est tout \u00e0 fait estomaqu\u00e9 de\nd\u00e9sespoir.\n\n--Ah! fit Arabelle en s'approchant plus pr\u00e8s du mur.\n\n--H\u00e9las! oui, poursuivit Sam. Nous avons cru qu'il faudrait lui mettre\nla camisole de force la nuit derni\u00e8re. Il n'a fait que r\u00eaver toute la\njourn\u00e9e, et il jure que, s'il ne vous voit pas demain soir, il veut\n\u00eatre.... il veut qu'il lui arrive quelque chose de d\u00e9sagr\u00e9able!\n\n--Oh non! non, M. Weller! s'\u00e9cria Arabelle en joignant les mains.\n\n--C'est l\u00e0 ce qu'il dit, miss, r\u00e9pliqua Sam froidement. C'est un homme\nd'honneur, miss, et, dans mon opinion, il le fera comme il dit. Il a\ntout appris du vilain magot en lunettes.\n\n--Mon fr\u00e8re! s'\u00e9cria Arabelle \u00e0 qui la description de Sam rappelait des\nsouvenirs de famille.\n\n--Je ne sais pas trop lequel est votre fr\u00e8re, miss. Est-ce le plus\nmalpropre des deux?\n\n--Oui, oui, M. Weller! Continuez, d\u00e9p\u00eachez-vous, je vous prie.\n\n--Eh bien! miss, il a tout appris par lui, et c'est l'opinion du\ngouverneur que, si vous ne le voyez pas tr\u00e8s-promptement, le carabin\ndont nous venons de parler recevra assez de plomb dans la t\u00eate, pour la\nd\u00e9t\u00e9riorer, si on veut jamais la conserver dans de l'esprit de vin.\n\n--Oh! ciel! que puis-je faire pour pr\u00e9venir ces \u00e9pouvantables querelles?\n\n--C'est la supposition d'un attachement ant\u00e9rieur qui est la cause de\ntout, miss. Vous feriez mieux de le voir.\n\n--Mais o\u00f9? comment? s'\u00e9cria Arabelle. Je ne puis quitter la maison toute\nseule, mon fr\u00e8re est si peu raisonnable, si injuste! Je sais combien il\npeut para\u00eetre \u00e9trange que je vous parle ainsi, M. Weller, mais je suis\nmalheureuse, bien malheureuse!...\u00bb\n\nIci la pauvre Arabelle se mit \u00e0 pleurer am\u00e8rement, et Sam devint\nchevaleresque.\n\n\u00abC'est possible que \u00e7a ait l'air \u00e9trange, reprit-il avec une grande\nv\u00e9h\u00e9mence, mais tout ce que je puis dire, c'est que je suis dispos\u00e9 \u00e0\nfaire l'impossible pour arranger les affaires, et si \u00e7a peut \u00eatre utile\nde jeter soit l'un soit l'autre des carabins par la fen\u00eatre, je suis\nvotre homme.\u00bb En disant ceci, et pour intimer son empressement de se\nmettre \u00e0 l'ouvrage, Sam releva ses parements d'habit, au hasard imminent\nde tomber du haut en bas du mur, pendant cette manifestation.\n\nQuelque flatteuse que f\u00fbt cette profession de d\u00e9vouement, Arabelle\nrefusa obstin\u00e9ment d'y avoir recours, au grand \u00e9tonnement de l'h\u00e9ro\u00efque\nvalet. Pendant quelque temps elle refusa, tout aussi courageusement,\nd'accorder \u00e0 M. Winkle l'entrevue demand\u00e9e par Sam d'une mani\u00e8re si\npath\u00e9tique; mais \u00e0 la fin, et lorsque la conversation mena\u00e7ait d'\u00eatre\ninterrompue par l'arriv\u00e9e intempestive d'un tiers, elle lui donna\nrapidement \u00e0 entendre, avec beaucoup d'expressions de gratitude, qu'il\nne serait pas impossible qu'elle se trouv\u00e2t dans le jardin le lendemain,\nune heure plus tard. Sam comprit parfaitement la chose; et Arabelle, lui\nayant accord\u00e9 un de ses plus doux sourires, s'\u00e9loigna d'un pas leste et\ngracieux, laissant M. Weller dans une vive admiration de ses charmes,\ntant spirituels que corporels.\n\nDescendu sans encombre de sa muraille, Sam n'oublia pas de d\u00e9vouer\nquelques minutes \u00e0 ses propres affaires, dans le m\u00eame d\u00e9partement; puis\nil retourna directement \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel du Buisson, o\u00f9 son absence prolong\u00e9e\navait occasionn\u00e9 beaucoup de suppositions et quelques alarmes.\n\n\u00abIl faudra que nous soyons tr\u00e8s-prudents, dit M. Pickwick apr\u00e8s avoir\n\u00e9cout\u00e9 attentivement le r\u00e9cit de Sam: non dans notre propre int\u00e9r\u00eat,\nmais dans celui de la jeune lady. Il faudra que nous soyons\ntr\u00e8s-prudents.\n\n--Nous? s'\u00e9cria M. Winkle avec une emphase marqu\u00e9e.\u00bb\n\nLe ton de cette observation arracha \u00e0 M. Pickwick un coup d'oeil\nd'indignation momentan\u00e9e, mais qui fut remplac\u00e9 presque aussit\u00f4t par son\nexpression de bienveillance accoutum\u00e9e, lorsqu'il r\u00e9pondit: \u00abOui,\n_nous_, monsieur! Je vous accompagnerai.\n\n--Vous? s'\u00e9cria M. Winkle.\n\n--Moi, reprit M. Pickwick d'un ton doux. En vous accordant cette\nentrevue, la jeune lady a fait une d\u00e9marche naturelle, peut-\u00eatre, mais\ntr\u00e8s-imprudente. Si je m'y trouve pr\u00e9sent, moi qui suis un ami commun,\net assez vieux pour \u00eatre le p\u00e8re de l'un et de l'autre, la voix de la\ncalomnie ne pourra jamais s'\u00e9lever contre elle, par la suite.\u00bb\n\nEn parlant ainsi, la contenance de M. Pickwick s'illumina d'une honn\u00eate\nsatisfaction de sa propre pr\u00e9voyance.\n\nM. Winkle fut touch\u00e9 de cette preuve d\u00e9licate de respect donn\u00e9e par M.\nPickwick \u00e0 sa jeune prot\u00e9g\u00e9e. Il saisit la main du philosophe avec un\nsentiment qui tenait de la v\u00e9n\u00e9ration.\n\n\u00abVous y viendrez? lui dit-il.\n\n--Oui, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick. Sam, vous pr\u00e9parerez mon paletot et mon\nch\u00e2le, et vous aurez soin de faire venir une voiture \u00e0 la porte, demain\nsoir un peu avant l'heure n\u00e9cessaire, afin que nous soyons s\u00fbrs\nd'arriver \u00e0 temps.\u00bb\n\nSam toucha son chapeau en signe d'ob\u00e9issance et se retira pour faire les\npr\u00e9paratifs de l'exp\u00e9dition.\n\nLa voiture fut ponctuelle \u00e0 l'heure d\u00e9sign\u00e9e, et apr\u00e8s avoir install\u00e9 M.\nPickwick et M. Winkle dans l'int\u00e9rieur, Sam se pla\u00e7a sur le si\u00e9ge \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9\ndu cocher. Ils descendirent comme ils \u00e9taient convenus, \u00e0 environ un\nquart de mille du lieu du rendez-vous, et, ordonnant au cocher\nd'attendre leur retour, firent le reste du chemin \u00e0 pied.\n\nC'est dans cette p\u00e9riode de leur entreprise que M. Pickwick, avec\nplusieurs sourires et divers autres signes d'un grand contentement\nint\u00e9rieur, tira d'une de ses poches une lanterne sourde dont il s'\u00e9tait\npourvu sp\u00e9cialement pour cette occasion. Tout en marchant, il en\nexpliquait \u00e0 M. Winkle la grande beaut\u00e9 m\u00e9canique, \u00e0 l'immense surprise\ndu peu de passants qu'ils rencontraient.\n\n\u00abJe m'en serais mieux trouv\u00e9 si j'avais eu quelque chose de la sorte\ndans ma derni\u00e8re exp\u00e9dition nocturne, au jardin de la pension, eh! eh!\nSam? dit-il en se tournant avec bonne humeur vers son domestique qui\nmarchait derri\u00e8re lui.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-jolies choses quand on conna\u00eet la mani\u00e8re de s'en servir,\nmonsieur. Mais si on ne veut pas \u00eatre vu, je crois qu'elles sont plus\nutiles quand la chandelle est \u00e9teinte.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick fut apparemment frapp\u00e9 de la remarque de Sam, car il mit la\nlanterne dans sa poche, et ils continu\u00e8rent \u00e0 marcher en silence.\n\n\u00abPar ici, monsieur, murmura Sam. Laissez-moi vous conduire. Voici la\nruelle, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nIls entr\u00e8rent dans la ruelle, et comme elle \u00e9tait passablement noire, M.\nPickwick, pour voir le chemin, tira deux ou trois fois sa lanterne, et\njeta devant eux une petite \u00e9chapp\u00e9e de lumi\u00e8re fort brillante d'environ\nun pied de diam\u00e8tre. C'\u00e9tait extr\u00eamement joli \u00e0 regarder; mais cela ne\nsemblait avoir d'autre effet que de rendre plus obscures les t\u00e9n\u00e8bres\nenvironnantes.\n\n\u00c0 la fin, ils arriv\u00e8rent \u00e0 la grosse pierre, sur laquelle Sam fit\nasseoir son ma\u00eetre et M. Winkle, tandis qu'il allait faire une\nreconnaissance, et s'assurer que Mary les attendait.\n\nApr\u00e8s une absence de huit ou dix minutes, Sam revint dire que la porte\n\u00e9tait ouverte et que tout paraissait tranquille. M. Pickwick et M.\nWinkle, le suivant d'un pas l\u00e9ger, se trouv\u00e8rent bient\u00f4t dans le jardin,\net l\u00e0 tout le monde se prit \u00e0 dire: Chut! chut! un assez grand nombre de\nfois; mais cela \u00e9tant fait, personne ne sembla plus avoir une id\u00e9e\ndistincte de ce qu'il fallait faire ensuite.\n\n\u00abMiss Allen est-elle d\u00e9j\u00e0 dans le jardin, Mary? demanda M. Winkle fort\nagit\u00e9.\n\n--Je n'en sais rien, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit la jolie bonne. La meilleure\nchose \u00e0 faire, c'est que M. Weller vous donne un coup d'\u00e9paule dans\nl'arbre, et peut-\u00eatre que monsieur Pickwick aura la bont\u00e9 de voir si\npersonne ne vient dans la ruelle pendant que je monterai la garde \u00e0\nl'autre bout du jardin. Seigneur! qu'est-ce que cela?\n\n--Cette satan\u00e9e lanterne causera notre malheur \u00e0 tous! s'\u00e9cria Sam\naigrement. Prenez garde \u00e0 ce que vous faites, monsieur; vous envoyez un\ntremblement de lumi\u00e8re, droit dans la fen\u00eatre du parloir.\n\n--Pas possible!... dit M. Pickwick, en d\u00e9tournant brusquement sa\nlanterne. Je ne l'ai pas fait expr\u00e8s.\n\n--Maintenant, vous illuminez la maison voisine, monsieur.\n\n--Bont\u00e9 divine!... s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick en se d\u00e9tournant encore.\n\n--Voil\u00e0 que vous \u00e9clairez l'\u00e9curie, et l'on croira que le feu y est.\nFermez la cloison, monsieur; est-ce que vous ne pouvez pas?\n\n--C'est la lanterne la plus extraordinaire que j'aie jamais rencontrez\ndans toute ma vie! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, grandement abasourdi par les\neffets pyrotechniques qu'il avait produits sans le vouloir. Je n'ai\njamais vu de r\u00e9flecteur si puissant.\n\n--Il sera trop puissant pour nous, si vous le tenez flambant de cette\nmani\u00e8re ici, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Sam, comme M. Pickwick, apr\u00e8s d'autres\nefforts inutiles, parvenait \u00e0 fermer la coulisse. J'entends les pas de\nla jeune lady, monsieur Winkle, monsieur, oup l\u00e0!\n\n--Arr\u00eatez, arr\u00eatez!... dit M. Pickwick. Je veux lui parler d'abord;\naidez-moi, Sam.\n\n--Doucement, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit Sam en plantant sa t\u00eate contre le mur et\nfaisant une plate-forme de son dos. Montez sur ce pot de fleur ici,\nmonsieur. Allons maintenant, oup!\n\n--J'ai peur de vous blesser, Sam.\n\n--Ne vous inqui\u00e9tez pas, monsieur. Aidez-le \u00e0 monter, monsieur Winkle.\nAllons, monsieur, allons! voil\u00e0 le moment.\u00bb\n\nSam parlait encore, et d\u00e9j\u00e0 M. Pickwick \u00e9tait parvenu \u00e0 lui grimper sur\nle dos, par des efforts presque surnaturels chez un gentleman de son \u00e2ge\net de son poids. Ensuite Sam se redressa doucement, et M. Pickwick,\ns'accrochant au sommet du mur, tandis que M. Winkle le poussait par les\njambes, ils parvinrent de cette fa\u00e7on \u00e0 amener ses lunettes juste au\nniveau du chaperon.\n\n\u00abMa ch\u00e8re, dit M. Pickwick, en regardant par-dessus le mur et en\napercevant de l'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9 Arabelle, n'ayez pas peur ma ch\u00e8re, c'est\nseulement moi.\n\n--Oh! je vous en supplie, monsieur Pickwick, allez-vous-en! Dites-leur\nde s'en aller; je suis si effray\u00e9e! Cher monsieur Pickwick, ne restez\npas l\u00e0; vous allez tomber et vous tuer, j'en suis s\u00fbre.\n\n--Allons, ma ch\u00e8re enfant, ne vous alarmez pas, reprit M. Pickwick d'un\nton encourageant. Il n'y a pas le plus petit danger, je vous assure.\nTenez-vous ferme, Sam, continua-t-il en regardant en bas.\n\n--Tout va bien, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Sam. Cependant ne soyez pas plus long\nqu'il ne faut, si \u00e7a vous est \u00e9gal; vous \u00eates un brin pesant, monsieur.\n\n--Encore un seul instant, Sam. Je d\u00e9sirais seulement vous apprendre, ma\nch\u00e8re, que je n'aurais pas permis \u00e0 mon jeune ami de vous voir de cette\nmani\u00e8re clandestine, si la situation dans laquelle vous \u00eates plac\u00e9e lui\navait laiss\u00e9 une autre alternative. Mais, de peur que l'inconvenance de\ncette d\u00e9marche ne vous caus\u00e2t quelque d\u00e9plaisir, j'ai voulu vous faire\nsavoir que je suis pr\u00e9sent. Voila tout, ma ch\u00e8re.\n\n--En v\u00e9rit\u00e9, monsieur Pickwick, je vous suis tr\u00e8s-oblig\u00e9e pour votre\nbont\u00e9 et votre pr\u00e9voyance, r\u00e9pondit Arabelle en essuyant ses larmes avec\nson mouchoir.\u00bb\n\nElle en aurait dit bien davantage, sans doute, si la t\u00eate de M. Pickwick\nn'avait pas soudainement disparu, en cons\u00e9quence d'un faux pas qu'il\navait fait sur l'\u00e9paule de Sam, et gr\u00e2ce auquel il se trouva tout \u00e0 coup\nsur la terre. Cependant il fut remis sur ses pieds en un moment, et,\ndisant \u00e0 M. Winkle de se h\u00e2ter de terminer son entrevue, il courut au\nbout de la ruelle pour monter la garde avec tout le courage et l'ardeur\nd'un jeune homme. M. Winkle, inspir\u00e9 par l'occasion, fut sur le mur en\nun clin d'oeil; il s'y arr\u00eata n\u00e9anmoins pour engager Sam \u00e0 prendre soin\nde son ma\u00eetre.\n\n\u00abSoyez tranquille, monsieur, je m'en charge.\n\n--O\u00f9 est-il, que fait-il, Sam?\n\n--Dieu b\u00e9nisse ses vieilles gu\u00eatres! r\u00e9pliqua Sam en regardant vers la\nporte du jardin. Il monte la garde dans la ruelle avec sa lanterne\nsourde, comme un aimable Mandrin. Je n'ai jamais vu une si charmante\ncr\u00e9ature de mes jours. Dieu me sauve! si je n'imagine pas que son coeur\ndoit \u00eatre venu au monde vingt-cinq ans apr\u00e8s son corps, pour le moins.\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle n'\u00e9tait pas rest\u00e9 pour entendre l'\u00e9loge de son ami; il s'\u00e9tait\npr\u00e9cipit\u00e9 \u00e0 bas du mur, il s'\u00e9tait jet\u00e9 aux pieds d'Arabelle, et\nplaidait la sinc\u00e9rit\u00e9 de sa passion avec une \u00e9loquence digne de M.\nPickwick lui-m\u00eame.\n\nPendant que ces choses se passaient en plein air, un gentleman d'un\ncertain \u00e2ge, et fort distingu\u00e9 dans les sciences, \u00e9tait assis dans sa\nbiblioth\u00e8que, deux ou trois maisons plus loin et s'occupait \u00e0 \u00e9crire un\ntrait\u00e9 philosophique, adoucissant de temps en temps son gosier et son\ntravail avec un verre de Bordeaux, qui r\u00e9sidait \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de lui dans une\nbouteille v\u00e9n\u00e9rable. Pendant les agonies de la composition, le savant\ngentleman regardait quelquefois le tapis, quelquefois le plafond,\nquelquefois la muraille; et quand ni le tapis, ni le plafond, ni la\nmuraille ne lui donnaient le degr\u00e9 n\u00e9cessaire d'inspiration, il\nregardait par la fen\u00eatre.\n\nDans une de ces d\u00e9faillances de l'invention, notre savant observait avec\nabstraction les t\u00e9n\u00e8bres ext\u00e9rieures, lorsqu'il fut \u00e9trangement surpris\nen remarquant une lumi\u00e8re tr\u00e8s-brillante qui glissait dans les airs, \u00e0\nune petite distance du sol, et qui s'\u00e9vanouit presque instantan\u00e9ment. Au\nbout de quelques secondes, le ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne s'\u00e9tait r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9, non pas une\nfois, ni deux, mais plusieurs.\n\n\u00c0 la fin, le savant d\u00e9posa sa plume, et commen\u00e7a \u00e0 chercher quelle\npouvait \u00eatre la cause naturelle de ces apparences.\n\nCe m'\u00e9taient point des m\u00e9t\u00e9ores, elles luisaient trop bas; ce n'\u00e9taient\npas des vers luisants, elles brillaient trop haut. Ce n'\u00e9taient point\ndes feux follets, ce n'\u00e9taient point des mouches phosphoriques, ce\nn'\u00e9taient point des feux d'artifice; que pouvait-ce donc \u00eatre? Quelque\njeu de la nature, \u00e9tonnant, extraordinaire, qu'aucun philosophe n'avait\njamais vu auparavant; quelque chose que lui seul \u00e9tait destin\u00e9 \u00e0\nd\u00e9couvrir, et qui, recueilli par lui pour le b\u00e9n\u00e9fice de la post\u00e9rit\u00e9,\ndevait immortaliser son nom. Plein de ces id\u00e9es, le savant saisit de\nnouveau sa plume, et confia au papier la description exacte et\nminutieuse de ces apparitions sans exemple, avec la date, le jour,\nl'heure, la minute, la seconde pr\u00e9cise o\u00f9 elles avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 visibles.\nC'\u00e9taient les premiers mat\u00e9riaux d'un volumineux trait\u00e9, plein de\ngrandes recherches et de science profonde, qui devait \u00e9tonner toutes les\nsoci\u00e9t\u00e9s m\u00e9t\u00e9orologiques des contr\u00e9es civilis\u00e9es.\n\nEnivr\u00e9 par la contemplation de sa future grandeur, le savant se renversa\ndans son fauteuil. La myst\u00e9rieuse lumi\u00e8re reparut, plus brillante que\njamais, dansant, en apparence, du haut en bas de la ruelle, passant d'un\nc\u00f4t\u00e9 \u00e0 l'autre, et se mouvant dans une orbite aussi excentrique que\ncelle des com\u00e8tes elles-m\u00eames.\n\nLe savant \u00e9tait gar\u00e7on: ne pouvant appeler sa femme pour l'\u00e9tonner, il\ntira la sonnette et fit venir son domestique. \u00abPruffie, lui dit-il, il y\na cette nuit dans l'air quelque chose de bien extraordinaire. Avez-vous\nvu cela? Et il montrait, par la fen\u00eatre, les rayons lumineux qui\nvenaient de repara\u00eetre.\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--Et qu'en pensez-vous, Pruffie?\n\n--Ce que j'en pense, monsieur?\n\n--Oui. Vous avez \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9lev\u00e9 \u00e0 la campagne; savez-vous quelle est la cause\nde ces lumi\u00e8res?\u00bb\n\nLa savant attendait en souriant une r\u00e9ponse n\u00e9gative.\n\n\u00abMonsieur, dit-il \u00e0 la fin, j'imagine que ce sont des voleurs.\n\n--Vous \u00eates un sot! Vous pouvez retourner en bas.\n\n--Merci, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit Pruffie; et il s'en alla.\u00bb\n\nCependant le savant \u00e9tait cruellement tourment\u00e9 par l'id\u00e9e que son\nprofond trait\u00e9 serait infailliblement perdu pour le monde, si\nl'hypoth\u00e8se de l'ing\u00e9nieux M. Pruffie n'\u00e9tait pas \u00e9touff\u00e9e d\u00e8s sa\nnaissance. Il mit donc son chapeau et descendit doucement dans son\njardin, d\u00e9termin\u00e9 \u00e0 \u00e9tudier \u00e0 fond le m\u00e9t\u00e9ore.\n\nOr, quelque temps avant que le savant f\u00fbt descendu dans son jardin, M.\nPickwick, croyant entendre venir quelqu'un, avait couru jusqu'au fond de\nla ruelle, le plus vite qu'il avait pu, pour communiquer une fausse\nalerte, et, dans sa course rapide, avait de temps en temps tir\u00e9 la\ncoulisse de sa lanterne sourde pour \u00e9viter de tomber dans le foss\u00e9.\nAussit\u00f4t que cette alerte eut \u00e9t\u00e9 donn\u00e9e, M. Winkle regrimpa sur son\nmur, Arabelle courut dans sa maison, la porte du jardin fut ferm\u00e9e, et\nnos trois aventuriers s'en revenaient, de leur mieux, le long de la\nruelle, quand ils furent effray\u00e9s par le bruit que faisait le savant en\nouvrant la porte de son jardin.\n\n\u00abHalte! murmura Sam, qui marchait en avant, bien entendu. Montrez la\nlumi\u00e8re juste une seconde, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick fit ce qui lui \u00e9tait demand\u00e9, et Sam voyant une t\u00eate d'homme\nqui s'avan\u00e7ait avec pr\u00e9caution, \u00e0 environ deux pieds de la sienne, lui\ndonna de son poing ferm\u00e9 une l\u00e9g\u00e8re tape qui lui fit sonner le creux\ncontre la grille; puis, ayant accompli cet exploit avec grande\npromptitude et dext\u00e9rit\u00e9, il prit M. Pickwick sur son dos et suivit M.\nWinkle le long de la ruelle, avec une rapidit\u00e9 v\u00e9ritablement \u00e9tonnante,\nvu le poids dont il \u00e9tait charg\u00e9.\n\n\u00abMonsieur, demanda-t-il \u00e0 son ma\u00eetre, quand il fut arriv\u00e9 au bout,\navez-vous repris votre respire?\n\n--Tout \u00e0 fait... tout \u00e0 fait maintenant, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick.\n\n--Allons! pour lors, reprit Sam en remettant le philosophe sur ses\npieds, venez entre nous, monsieur; pas plus d'un demi-mille \u00e0 courir.\nImaginez que vous gagnez un prix, et en route!\u00bb\n\nAinsi encourag\u00e9, M. Pickwick fit le meilleur usage possible de ses\njambes, et l'on peut assurer avec confiance que jamais une paire de\ngu\u00eatres noires n'arpenta le terrain plus lestement que ne le firent les\ngu\u00eatres de M. Pickwick dans cette occasion m\u00e9morable.\n\nLa voiture attendait, les chevaux \u00e9taient frais, la route bonne et le\ncocher bien dispos\u00e9. Toute la troupe arriva saine et sauve \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel\navant que M. Pickwick e\u00fbt eu le temps de reprendre haleine.\n\n\u00abEntrez tout de suite, monsieur, dit Sam en aidant son ma\u00eetre \u00e0\ndescendre. Ne restez pas une seconde dans la rue apr\u00e8s cet exercice ici.\nJe vous demande pardon, monsieur, continua-t-il, en touchant son\nchapeau, \u00e0 M. Winkle qui descendait de la voiture. J'esp\u00e8re qui n'y a\npas d'attachement ant\u00e9rieur?\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle serra la main de son humble ami, et lui dit \u00e0 l'oreille: \u00abTout\nva bien, Sam; parfaitement bien!\u00bb\n\n\u00c0 cette annonce, M. Weller, en signe d'intelligence, frappa trois coups\ndistincts sur son nez, sourit, cligna de l'oeil, et monta l'escalier,\navec une physionomie qui exprimait la satisfaction la plus vive.\n\nQuant au savant gentleman de la ruelle, il d\u00e9montra, dans un admirable\ntrait\u00e9, que ces \u00e9tonnantes lumi\u00e8res \u00e9taient des effets de l'\u00e9lectricit\u00e9,\net il le prouva clairement, en d\u00e9taillant comment un \u00e9clair \u00e9blouissant\navait dans\u00e9 devant ses yeux, lorsqu'il avait mis la t\u00eate hors de sa\nporte, et comment il avait re\u00e7u un choc qui l'avait \u00e9tourdi pendant un\ngrand quart d'heure. Gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 cette d\u00e9monstration, qui charma toutes les\nsoci\u00e9t\u00e9s savantes de l'univers, il fut toujours consid\u00e9r\u00e9, depuis lors,\ncomme une des lumi\u00e8res de la science.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XI.\n\nO\u00f9 l'on voit M. Pickwick sur une nouvelle sc\u00e8ne du grand drame de la\nvie.\n\n\nLe reste du temps que M. Pickwick avait destin\u00e9 \u00e0 son s\u00e9jour \u00e0 Bath\ns'\u00e9coula sans rien amener de remarquable. Le terme de la Trinit\u00e9\ncommen\u00e7ait, et avant que sa premi\u00e8re semaine f\u00fbt achev\u00e9e, M. Pickwick,\nrevenu \u00e0 Londres, avec ses amis, \u00e9tait all\u00e9 s'\u00e9tablir dans ses anciens\nquartiers, \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel de _George-et-Vautour_.\n\nTrois jours apr\u00e8s leur arriv\u00e9e, juste au moment o\u00f9 les horloges de la\ncit\u00e9 sonnaient individuellement neuf heures du matin, et collectivement\nenviron neuf cents heures, Sam \u00e9tait en train de prendre l'air dans la\ncour, lorsqu'il vit s'arr\u00eater devant la porte de l'h\u00f4tel une \u00e9trange\nsorte de v\u00e9hicule, fra\u00eechement peint, hors duquel sauta l\u00e9g\u00e8rement une\n\u00e9trange sorte de gentleman, qui semblait fait pour le v\u00e9hicule, comme le\nv\u00e9hicule semblait fait pour lui, et qui donna les r\u00eanes \u00e0 un gros homme\nassis aupr\u00e8s de lui.\n\nCe v\u00e9hicule n'\u00e9tait pas exactement un tilbury, et n'\u00e9tait pas non plus\nun pha\u00e9ton. Ce n'\u00e9tait pas ce qu'on appelle vulgairement un dog-cart, ni\nune carriole, ni un cabriolet; et cependant il participait du caract\u00e8re\nde chacune de ces machines. La caisse \u00e9tait peinte en jaune clair, sur\nlequel se d\u00e9tachaient, en noir, les rayons et les jantes des roues. Le\nconducteur \u00e9tait assis, suivant le style classique, sur des coussins\nempil\u00e9s environ deux pieds au-dessus du dossier. Le cheval \u00e9tait un\nanimal bai, d'assez bonne tournure, mais ayant n\u00e9anmoins un air de\nmauvais ton et de mauvais sujet \u00e0 la fois, qui s'accordait admirablement\navec le v\u00e9hicule et avec son ma\u00eetre.\n\nLe ma\u00eetre lui-m\u00eame \u00e9tait un homme d'une quarantaine d'ann\u00e9es, ayant des\ncheveux et des favoris noirs, soigneusement peign\u00e9s. Il \u00e9tait v\u00eatu d'une\nmani\u00e8re singuli\u00e8rement recherch\u00e9e, et couvert d'une quantit\u00e9 de bijoux,\ntous environ trois fois plus grands que ceux qui sont port\u00e9s\nordinairement par un gentleman. Pour couronner le tout, il \u00e9tait\nenvelopp\u00e9 d'une grosse redingote \u00e0 long poils.\n\nAussit\u00f4t qu'il fut descendu, il fourra sa main gauche dans l'une des\npoches de sa redingote, tandis qu'avec sa main droite, il tirait d'une\nautre poche un foulard tr\u00e8s-brillant, dont il se servit pour \u00e9pousseter\ntrois grains de poussi\u00e8re sur ses bottes, et qu'il garda ensuite, en le\nfroissant dans sa main, pour traverser la cour d'un air fendant.\n\nPendant que ce personnage descendait de voiture, Sam remarqua qu'un\nautre homme, v\u00eatu d'une vieille redingote brune, veuve de plusieurs\nboutons, et qui, jusque l\u00e0, \u00e9tait rest\u00e9 \u00e0 fl\u00e2ner de l'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la\nrue, la traversa et se tint immobile non loin de la porte. Ayant plus\nd'un soup\u00e7on sur le but de la visite du premier gentleman, Sam le\npr\u00e9c\u00e9da \u00e0 l'entr\u00e9e de l'h\u00f4tel, et, se retournant brusquement, se planta\nau centre de la porte.\n\n\u00abAllons! mon gar\u00e7on,\u00bb dit le gentleman d'un ton imp\u00e9rieux, en essayant\nen m\u00eame temps de pousser Sam.\n\n\u00abAllons! monsieur. Qu'est-ce que c'est?\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua Sam, en lui rendant sa\nbousculade avec les int\u00e9r\u00eats compos\u00e9s.\n\n\u00abAllons, allons! mon gar\u00e7on, \u00e7a ne prend pas avec moi, r\u00e9torqua\nl'\u00e9tranger, en \u00e9levant la voix et en devenant tout blanc. Ici, Smouch.\n\n--Ben! quoi qui gnia,\u00bb grommela l'homme \u00e0 la redingote brune, qui\npendant ce court dialogue s'\u00e9tait graduellement avanc\u00e9 dans la cour.\n\n\u00abC'est ce jeune homme qui fait l'insolent,\u00bb dit le principal, en\npoussant Sam de nouveau.\n\n\u00abOh\u00e9, pas de b\u00eatises!\u00bb gronda Smouch, en bourrant Sam beaucoup plus\nfort.\n\nCe compliment eut le r\u00e9sultat qu'en attendait l'habile M. Smouch: car\ntandis que Sam, empress\u00e9 d'y r\u00e9pondre, le froissait contre la porte, le\nprincipal se faufilait, et p\u00e9n\u00e9trait jusqu'au bureau. Sam l'y suivit\nimm\u00e9diatement, apr\u00e8s avoir \u00e9chang\u00e9 avec M. Smouch quelques arguments,\ncompos\u00e9s principalement d'\u00e9pith\u00e8tes.\n\n\u00abBonjour, ma ch\u00e8re, dit le principal, en s'adressant \u00e0 la jeune personne\ndu bureau, avec une aisance de d\u00e9tenu lib\u00e9r\u00e9. O\u00f9 est la chambre de M.\nPickwick, ma ch\u00e8re?\n\n--Conduisez-le,\u00bb dit la jeune lady au gar\u00e7on, sans daigner jeter un\nsecond coup d'oeil au fashionable.\n\nLe gar\u00e7on se mit en route, suivi du personnage; Sam venait derri\u00e8re, et\ntant le long de l'escalier se soulageait par d'innombrables gestes de\nd\u00e9fi et de m\u00e9pris supr\u00eame, \u00e0 la grande satisfaction des domestiques et\ndes autres spectateurs de cette sc\u00e8ne. M. Smouch, qui \u00e9tait troubl\u00e9 par\nune grosse toux, resta en bas, et expectora dans le passage.\n\nM. Pickwick \u00e9tait profond\u00e9ment endormi dans son lit, quand ce visiteur\nmatinal entra dans sa chambre, toujours suivi par Sam. Le bruit de cette\nintrusion le r\u00e9veilla.\n\n\u00abDe l'eau pour ma barbe, Sam,\u00bb dit-il sans ouvrir les yeux.\n\n\u00abOui, oui, nous allons vous faire la barbe, M. Pickwick, dit l'\u00e9tranger,\nen tirant un des rideaux du lit. J'ai un mandat d'arr\u00eat contre vous, \u00e0\nla requ\u00eate de Bardell. Voici le _warrant_, lanc\u00e9 par la cour des _common\npleas_; et voil\u00e0 ma carte. Je suppose que vous viendrez chez moi?\u00bb\n\nEn parlant ainsi, l'officier du sh\u00e9riff, car tel \u00e9tait son titre, donna\nune tape amicale sur l'\u00e9paule de M. Pickwick, puis il jeta sa carte sur\nla courte-pointe, et tira de la poche de son gilet un cure-dents, en or.\n\n\u00abNamby est mon nom, poursuivit-il, pendant que M. Pickwick aveignait ses\nlunettes de dessous son traversin, et les mettait sur son nez pour lire\nla carte. Namby, Bell Aley, Coleman Street.\u00bb\n\nEn cet endroit, Sam qui avait eu jusque-l\u00e0 les yeux fix\u00e9s sur le chapeau\nluisant de M. Namby, l'interrompit:\n\n\u00ab\u00cates-vous quaker[12]?\u00bb lui demanda-t-il.\n\n[Footnote 12: Les _quakers_ gardent leur chapeau en certaines occasions\no\u00f9 d'autres se croient tenus de l'\u00f4ter.]\n\n\u00abJe vous ferai conna\u00eetre ce que je suis, avant de vous quitter, r\u00e9pondit\nl'officier indign\u00e9. Je vous apprendrai la politesse, mon gar\u00e7on, un de\nces beaux matins.\n\n--Merci, r\u00e9pliqua Sam. J'en ferai autant pour vous, tout de suite. \u00d4tez\nvot' chapeau.\u00bb En parlant ainsi, Sam envoyait, d'un revers de main, le\nchapeau de M. Namby \u00e0 l'autre bout de la chambre, et cela avec tant de\nviolence, que peu s'en fallut qu'il n'y fit voler le cure-dents d'or\npar-dessus le march\u00e9.\n\n\u00abObservez cela, M. Pickwick, s'\u00e9cria l'officier d\u00e9concert\u00e9, en reprenant\nhaleine. J'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 attaqu\u00e9 dans votre chambre, par votre domestique, dans\nl'exercice de mes fonctions. J'ai des craintes personnelles, je vous\nprends \u00e0 t\u00e9moin.\n\n--Ne soyez t\u00e9moin de rien, monsieur, interrompit Sam, fermez vos yeux\nsolidement, monsieur! Je le jetterais volontiers par la fen\u00eatre;\nseulement il ne tomberait pas assez loin, \u00e0 cause du plomb.\n\n--Sam! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick d'une voix m\u00e9contente, pendant que son\ndomestique faisait diverses d\u00e9monstrations d'hostilit\u00e9s, si vous dites\nune autre parole, si vous causez le moindre trouble \u00e0 cette personne, je\nvous renvoie sur-le-champ.\n\n--Mais, monsieur....\n\n--Taisez-vous et ramassez ce chapeau.\u00bb\n\nMalgr\u00e9 la s\u00e9v\u00e8re r\u00e9primande de son ma\u00eetre, Sam refusa positivement de\nrelever le chapeau; et comme l'officier du _sh\u00e9rif_ \u00e9tait press\u00e9, il\ncondescendit \u00e0 le ramasser lui-m\u00eame. Ce ne fut pas, toutefois, sans\nlancer contre Sam un d\u00e9luge de menaces, que celui-ci recevait avec la\nplus grande tranquillit\u00e9, se contentant de faire observer que si M.\nNamby voulait avoir la bont\u00e9 de remettre son chapeau sur sa t\u00eate, il le\nlui enverrait aux grandes Indes. M. Namby, pensant qu'une telle\nop\u00e9ration produirait peut-\u00eatre quelques inconv\u00e9nients pour lui-m\u00eame, ne\nvoulut pas exposer son adversaire \u00e0 une trop forte tentation, et bient\u00f4t\napr\u00e8s appela Smouch. L'ayant inform\u00e9 que la capture \u00e9tait faite, et\nqu'il n'avait plus qu'\u00e0 attendre jusqu'\u00e0 ce que le prisonnier e\u00fbt fini\nde s'habiller, Namby s'en fut en se pavanant et remonta dans son\nv\u00e9hicule. Smouch ayant pri\u00e9 M. Pickwick de _ne pas s'endormir_, tira une\nchaise aupr\u00e8s de la porte et y resta assis jusqu'\u00e0 ce que notre h\u00e9ros\ne\u00fbt fini de s'habiller. Sam fut alors d\u00e9p\u00each\u00e9 pour amener une voiture de\nplace, dans laquelle le triumvirat se rendit \u00e0 Coleman-Street. Le trajet\nn'\u00e9tait pas long, heureusement; car, outre que M. Smouch n'\u00e9tait pas\ndou\u00e9 d'une conversation fort enchanteresse, sa soci\u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9tait rendue\nd\u00e9cid\u00e9ment d\u00e9sagr\u00e9able, dans un espace limit\u00e9, par la faiblesse physique\n\u00e0 laquelle nous avons fait allusion plus haut.\n\nLa voiture ayant tourn\u00e9 dans une rue tr\u00e8s-sombre et tr\u00e8s-\u00e9troite,\ns'arr\u00eata devant une maison dont toutes les fen\u00eatres \u00e9taient grill\u00e9es. La\nmuraille en \u00e9tait d\u00e9cor\u00e9e du nom et du titre de _Namby, officier des\nsh\u00e9rifs de Londres_. La porte int\u00e9rieure ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 ouverte, au moyen\nd'une \u00e9norme clef, par un gentleman qui pouvait passer pour un fr\u00e8re\njumeau n\u00e9glig\u00e9 de M. Smouch, M. Pickwick fut introduit dans la salle du\ncaf\u00e9.\n\nCette salle du caf\u00e9 \u00e9tait principalement remarquable par du sable frais,\nqui jonchait le plancher, et par une odeur de tabac qui parfumait l'air.\nM. Pickwick salua en entrant, trois personnes qui s'y trouvaient, et\nayant envoy\u00e9 Sam pour chercher M. Perker, se retira dans un coin obscur,\net de l\u00e0 regarda avec quelque curiosit\u00e9 ses nouveaux compagnons.\n\nUn de ceux-ci \u00e9tait un jeune gar\u00e7on de dix-neuf ou vingt ans, qui,\nquoiqu'il f\u00fbt \u00e0 peine dix heures du matin, buvait de l'eau et du\ngeni\u00e8vre, et fumait un cigare, amusements auxquels il devait avoir\nd\u00e9vou\u00e9 presque constamment les deux ou trois derni\u00e8res ann\u00e9es de sa vie,\n\u00e0 en juger par sa contenance enflamm\u00e9e. En face de lui, et s'occupant \u00e0\nattiser le feu avec le bout de sa botte droite, se trouvait un jeune\nhomme, d'environ trente ans, \u00e9pais, vulgaire, au visage jaune, \u00e0 la voix\ndure, et poss\u00e9dant \u00e9videmment cette connaissance du monde et cette\ns\u00e9duisante libert\u00e9 de mani\u00e8res qui s'acquiert dans les salles de\nbillards et les estaminets de bas \u00e9tage. Le troisi\u00e8me prisonnier \u00e9tait\nun homme d'un certain \u00e2ge, v\u00eatu d'un tr\u00e8s-vieil habit noir. Son visage\n\u00e9tait p\u00e2le et hagard, et il parcourait incessamment la chambre,\ns'arr\u00eatant de temps en temps pour regarder par la fen\u00eatre avec beaucoup\nd'inqui\u00e9tude, comme s'il e\u00fbt attendu quelqu'un. Apr\u00e8s quoi il\nrecommen\u00e7ait \u00e0 marcher.\n\n\u00abVous feriez mieux d'accepter mon rasoir ce matin, M. Ayresleigh,\u00bb dit\nl'homme qui attisait le feu, en clignant de l'oeil \u00e0 son ami, le jeune\ngar\u00e7on.\n\n--Non, je vous remercie, je n'en aurai pas besoin. Je compte bien \u00eatre\ndehors avant une heure ou deux,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua l'autre avec pr\u00e9cipitation;\npuis allant, une fois de plus, \u00e0 la fen\u00eatre, et revenant encore\nd\u00e9sappoint\u00e9, il soupira profond\u00e9ment et quitta la chambre. Les deux\nautres pouss\u00e8rent des \u00e9clats de rire bruyants.\n\n\u00abEh bien, je n'ai jamais vu une farce comme cela! dit le gentleman qui\navait offert le rasoir, et dont le nom paraissait \u00eatre Price. Jamais!\u00bb\nIl confirma cette assertion par un juron, et recommen\u00e7a \u00e0 rire; en quoi\nil fut imit\u00e9 par le jeune gar\u00e7on qui le regardait \u00e9videmment comme un\nmod\u00e8le accompli.\n\n\u00abCroiriez-vous, continua Price en se tournant vers M. Pickwick, que ce\nbonhomme-l\u00e0, qui est ici depuis huit jours, ne s'est point encore ras\u00e9\nune fois? Il se croit si s\u00fbr de sortir avant une demi-heure, qu'il aime\nautant attendre qu'il soit rentr\u00e9 chez lui.\n\n--Pauvre homme! dit M. Pickwick. A-t-il r\u00e9ellement quelques chances de\nse tirer d'affaire?\n\n--Des chances? il n'en a pas la queue d'une. Je ne donnerais pas \u00e7a\npour la chance qu'il a de marcher dans la rue d'ici \u00e0 dix ans.\u00bb En\nparlant ainsi, M. Price secouait contemptueusement ses doigts. Un\ninstant apr\u00e8s il tira la sonnette.\n\n\u00abApportez-moi une feuille de papier, Crookey, dit-il au domestique, qui,\npar sa mise et par sa tournure, avait l'air de tenir le milieu entre un\nnourrisseur banqueroutier et un bouvier en \u00e9tat d'insolvabilit\u00e9. Un\nverre de grog avec, Crookey, entendez-vous? Je vais \u00e9crire \u00e0 mon p\u00e8re,\net il me faut du stimulant, autrement je ne serais pas capable\nd'entortiller le vieux.\u00bb\n\nIl est inutile de dire que le jeune homme se p\u00e2ma, en entendant ce\ndiscours fac\u00e9tieux.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0 la chose, continua M. Price. Faut pas se laisser abattre; c'est\namusant, hein?\n\n--Fameux! dit le jeune gentleman.\n\n--Vous avez de l'aplomb, reprit M. Price, approbativement. Vous avez vu\nle monde?\n\n--Un peu!\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua le jeune homme. Il l'avait regard\u00e9 \u00e0 travers les\nvitres malpropres d'un estaminet.\n\nM. Pickwick n'\u00e9tait pas m\u00e9diocrement d\u00e9go\u00fbt\u00e9 par ce dialogue, aussi bien\nque par l'air et les mani\u00e8res des deux \u00eatres qui l'\u00e9changeaient. Il\nallait demander s'il n'\u00e9tait pas possible d'avoir une chambre\nparticuli\u00e8re, lorsqu'il vit entrer deux ou trois \u00e9trangers, d'une\napparence assez respectable. En les apercevant, le jeune homme jeta son\ncigare dans le feu, et dit tout bas \u00e0 M. Price qu'ils \u00e9taient venus pour\nle tirer d'affaire, puis il se retira avec eux, aupr\u00e8s d'une table, \u00e0\nl'autre bout de la chambre.\n\nIl para\u00eetrait cependant qu'on ne tirait pas le jeune homme _d'affaire_\naussi promptement qu'il l'avait imagin\u00e9; car il s'en suivit une\ntr\u00e8s-longue conversation, dont M. Pickwick ne put s'emp\u00eacher d'entendre\ncertains passages, concernant une conduite dissolue et des pardons\nr\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9s. \u00c0 la fin, le plus vieux des trois \u00e9trangers fit des allusions\nfort distinctes \u00e0 une certaine rue Whitecross[13], au nom de laquelle le\njeune gentleman, malgr\u00e9 son aplomb et sa connaissance du monde, appuya\nsa t\u00eate sur la table, et se mit \u00e0 sangloter cruellement.\n\n[Footnote 13: Rue o\u00f9 se trouve la prison pour dettes.]\n\nTr\u00e8s-satisfait d'avoir vu si soudainement rabaisser le ton et abattre la\nvaleur du jeune homme, M. Pickwick tira la sonnette, et fut conduit, sur\nsa requ\u00eate, dans une chambre particuli\u00e8re, garnie d'un tapis, d'une\ntable, de plusieurs chaises, d'un buffet, d'un sofa, et orn\u00e9e d'une\nglace et de plusieurs vieilles gravures. L\u00e0, tandis que son d\u00e9jeuner\ns'appr\u00eatait, il eut l'avantage d'entendre Mme Namby toucher au piano,\nau-dessus de sa t\u00eate, et quand le d\u00e9jeuner arriva, M. Perker arriva\naussi.\n\n\u00abAh! ah! mon cher monsieur, dit le petit avou\u00e9; coffr\u00e9 \u00e0 la fin, eh?\nAllons, allons! je n'en suis pas tr\u00e8s-f\u00e2ch\u00e9, parce que vous allez voir\nl'absurdit\u00e9 de cette conduite. J'ai not\u00e9 le montant des frais tax\u00e9s et\ndes dommages, et nous ferons bien de r\u00e9gler cela, sans perdre de temps.\nNamby doit-\u00eatre revenu \u00e0 l'heure qu'il est. Qu'en dites-vous, mon cher\nmonsieur? Voulez-vous \u00e9crire un mandat, ou bien aimez-vous mieux m'en\ncharger?\u00bb En disant ceci, Perker se frottait les mains, avec une gaiet\u00e9\naffect\u00e9e; mais, ayant observ\u00e9 la contenance de M. Pickwick, il ne put\ns'emp\u00eacher de jeter vers Sam un regard d\u00e9courag\u00e9.\n\n\u00abPerker, dit M. Pickwick, je vous prie de ne plus me parler de cela. Je\nne vois aucun avantage \u00e0 rester ici; ainsi j'irai \u00e0 la prison ce soir.\n\n--Vous ne pouvez pas aller \u00e0 Whitecross, mon cher monsieur, s'\u00e9cria le\npetit homme; impossible! Il y a soixante lits par dortoir, et les\ngrilles sont ferm\u00e9es seize heures sur vingt-quatre.\n\n--J'aimerais mieux aller dans quelque autre prison, si je le puis,\nr\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick. Si non, je m'arrangerai le mieux que je pourrai de\ncelle-l\u00e0.\n\n--Vous pouvez aller \u00e0 la prison de Fleet-Street, mon cher monsieur; si\nvous \u00eates d\u00e9termin\u00e9 \u00e0 aller quelque part.\n\n--C'est cela. J'irai aussit\u00f4t que j'aurai fini mon d\u00e9jeuner.\n\n--Doucement, doucement, mon cher monsieur, dit le brave homme de petit\navou\u00e9. Il n'est pas besoin d'aller si vite dans un endroit dont tous les\nautres hommes sont si empress\u00e9s de sortir. Il faut d'abord que nous\nayons un _habeas corpus_. Il n'y aura pas de juges aux chambres avant\nquatre heures de l'apr\u00e8s-midi; il faudra que vous attendiez jusque-l\u00e0.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, dit M. Pickwick, avec une patience in\u00e9branlable. Alors nous\nmangerons une c\u00f4telette ici, \u00e0 deux heures. Occupez-vous-en, Sam, et\ndites qu'on soit ponctuel.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick demeurant immuable, malgr\u00e9 les remontrances et les arguments\nde Perker, les c\u00f4telettes parurent, et disparurent en temps utile.\nEnsuite on attendit pendant une heure ou deux M. Namby, qui avait des\npersonnes distingu\u00e9es \u00e0 d\u00eener, et ne pouvait se d\u00e9ranger, sous aucun\npr\u00e9texte. Enfin notre philosophe monta avec lui et M. Perker dans une\nvoiture qui les transporta \u00e0 _Chancery-lane_.\n\nIl y avait deux juges de service \u00e0 _Serjeants' Inn_, l'un du banc du\nroi, l'autre des _common pleas_; et s'il fallait en croire la foule de\nclercs qui allaient et venaient avec des paquets de papiers, il devait\npasser par leurs mains une immense quantit\u00e9 d'affaires. Lorsque M.\nPickwick et ses acolytes eurent atteint la basse arcade qui forme\nl'entr\u00e9e de _Serjeants' Inn_, Perker fut retenu, pendant quelques\nmoments, pour parlementer avec le cocher, concernant le prix de la\ncourse et la monnaie, et M. Pickwick, se mettant de c\u00f4t\u00e9 pour \u00eatre hors\ndu courant d'individus qui entraient, regarda autour de lui avec\ncuriosit\u00e9.\n\nLes personnages qui attiraient le plus son attention, \u00e9taient trois ou\nquatre hommes d'une tournure \u00e0 la fois pr\u00e9tentieuse et mis\u00e9rable. Ils\ntouchaient leur chapeau devant la plupart des avou\u00e9s qui passaient, et\nsemblaient \u00eatre l\u00e0 pour quelque affaire, dont M. Pickwick ne pouvait\ndeviner la nature. C'\u00e9taient des individus fort curieux \u00e0 observer. L'un\n\u00e9tait grand et boiteux, avec un habit noir r\u00e2p\u00e9 et une cravate blanche;\nun autre \u00e9tait un gros courtaud, \u00e9galement v\u00eatu de noir, mais dont la\ncravate, jadis noire, avait une teinte rouge\u00e2tre; un troisi\u00e8me \u00e9tait un\ndr\u00f4le de corps, \u00e0 la tournure avin\u00e9e, \u00e0 la face bourgeonn\u00e9e. Ils se\npromenaient aux alentours, les mains derri\u00e8re le dos, et quelquefois,\nd'un air empress\u00e9, ils murmuraient deux ou trois mots \u00e0 l'oreille des\npersonnes qui passaient aupr\u00e8s d'eux avec des paquets de papiers. M.\nPickwick se souvint de les avoir souvent remarqu\u00e9s sous l'arcade,\nlorsqu'il se promenait par-l\u00e0, et il \u00e9prouva une vive curiosit\u00e9 de\nsavoir \u00e0 quelle branche de la chicane appartenaient ces fl\u00e2neurs peu\ndistingu\u00e9s.\n\nIl allait le demander \u00e0 Namby, qui \u00e9tait rest\u00e9 aupr\u00e8s de lui, et qui\ns'occupait \u00e0 sucer un large anneau d'or, dont son petit doigt \u00e9tait\nd\u00e9cor\u00e9, lorsque Perker revint avec empressement leur dire qu'il n'y\navait pas de temps \u00e0 perdre, et se dirigea vers l'int\u00e9rieur de la\nmaison. M. Pickwick se disposait \u00e0 le suivre, lorsque le boiteux\ns'approcha de lui, toucha poliment son chapeau, et lui tendit une carte\n\u00e9crite \u00e0 la main. Notre excellent ami, ne voulant pas contrister cet\ninconnu par un refus, accepta gracieusement sa carte, et la d\u00e9posa dans\nla poche de son gilet.\n\n\u00abNous y voil\u00e0, dit Perker, en se retournant, pour voir si ses\ncompagnons \u00e9taient aupr\u00e8s de lui, avant d'entrer dans les bureaux. Par\nici, mon cher monsieur. Eh! qu'est-ce que vous voulez?\u00bb\n\nCette derni\u00e8re question \u00e9tait adress\u00e9e au boiteux, qui s'\u00e9tait joint \u00e0\nleur soci\u00e9t\u00e9, sans que M. Pickwick l'e\u00fbt remarqu\u00e9. Pour toute r\u00e9ponse le\nboiteux toucha de nouveau son chapeau, avec la plus grande politesse, et\nmontra le philosophe.\n\n\u00abNon, non, dit Perker avec un sourire; nous n'avons pas besoin de vous,\nmon cher ami.\n\n--Je vous demande pardon, monsieur, dit le boiteux. Le gentleman a pris\nma carte. J'esp\u00e8re que vous m'emploierez, monsieur. Le gentleman m'a\nfait un signe. Je consens \u00e0 \u00eatre jug\u00e9 par le gentleman lui-m\u00eame. Vous\nm'avez fait un signe, monsieur.\n\n--Bah, bah! folie. Vous n'avez fait de signe \u00e0 personne, Pickwick? C'est\nune erreur, c'est une erreur.\n\n--Ce monsieur m'a tendu sa carte, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick, en la sortant de\nla poche de son gilet. Je l'ai accept\u00e9e, comme il paraissait le d\u00e9sirer.\nAu fait j'avais quelque curiosit\u00e9 de la regarder quand j'en aurais le\nloisir. Je....\u00bb\n\nLe petit avou\u00e9 \u00e9clata de rire, et rendant la carte au boiteux l'informa\nque c'\u00e9tait une erreur. Ensuite, pendant que cet homme s'en allait, de\nmauvaise humeur, il dit \u00e0 demi-voix \u00e0 M. Pickwick que c'\u00e9tait simplement\nune caution.\n\n\u00abUne quoi? s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick.\n\n--Une caution.\n\n--Une caution!\n\n--Oui, mon cher monsieur, il y en \u00e0 une demi-douzaine ici. Ils vous\nservent de caution, n'importe pour quelle somme, et ne prennent pour\ncela qu'une demi-couronne. Un curieux m\u00e9tier, hein? dit Perker, en se\nr\u00e9galant d'une prise de tabac.\n\n--Quoi! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, renvers\u00e9 par cette d\u00e9couverte, dois-je\nentendre que ces hommes se font un revenu en se parjurant devant les\njuges du pays, au taux d'une demi-couronne par crime!\n\n--H\u00e9! h\u00e9! Quant au parjure, je n'en sais trop rien, mon cher monsieur;\nc'est un mot s\u00e9v\u00e8re, mon cher monsieur; tr\u00e8s-s\u00e9v\u00e8re. Il y a l\u00e0 une\nnotion l\u00e9gale, rien de plus.\u00bb\n\nAyant dit ceci, l'avou\u00e9 sourit, haussa les \u00e9paules, prit une seconde\npinc\u00e9e de tabac, et entra dans le bureau du clerc du juge.\n\nC'\u00e9tait une chambre d'une apparence essentiellement malpropre, dont le\nplafond \u00e9tait bas et les murs couverts de vieilles boiseries. Elle \u00e9tait\nsi mal \u00e9clair\u00e9e que, quoiqu'il f\u00eet grand jour au dehors, des chandelles\nde suif br\u00fblaient sur les bureaux. \u00c0 l'une des extr\u00e9mit\u00e9s ouvrait une\nporte qui conduisait dans le cabinet du juge, et autour de laquelle se\ntrouvaient r\u00e9unis une nu\u00e9e d'avou\u00e9s et de clercs, qui y \u00e9taient\nintroduits par ordre. Chaque fois que cette porte s'ouvrait pour laisser\nsortir un groupe, un autre groupe se pr\u00e9cipitait pour entrer. Et comme\nceux qui avaient vu le juge m\u00ealaient des discussions assez intimes aux\nbruyants dialogues de ceux qui ne l'avaient point encore vu, il en\nr\u00e9sultait un tapage aussi immense qu'il est possible de l'imaginer dans\nun espace aussi r\u00e9tr\u00e9ci.\n\nCependant ces conversations n'\u00e9taient point le seul bruit qui fatigu\u00e2t\nles oreilles. Debout sur une bo\u00eete, derri\u00e8re une barre de bois, \u00e0\nl'autre bout de la chambre, \u00e9tait un clerc arm\u00e9 de lunettes, qui\nrecevait les attestations; et de temps en temps un autre clerc en\nemportait de gros paquets dans le cabinet du juge, pour les lui faire\nsigner. Il y avait un tr\u00e8s-grand nombre de clercs d'avou\u00e9s qui devaient\npr\u00eater serment; et, comme il \u00e9tait moralement impossible de le leur\nfaire pr\u00eater \u00e0 tous en m\u00eame temps, les efforts de ces gentlemen pour se\nrapprocher du clerc aux lunettes \u00e9taient semblables \u00e0 ceux de la foule\nqui assi\u00e9ge la porte du parterre d'un th\u00e9\u00e2tre, lorsque sa tr\u00e8s-gracieuse\nMajest\u00e9 l'honore de sa pr\u00e9sence. Un autre fonctionnaire exer\u00e7ait de\ntemps en temps la force de ses poumons \u00e0 appeler le nom de ceux qui\navaient pr\u00eat\u00e9 serment, afin de leur rendre leurs attestations lorsque\ncelles-ci avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 sign\u00e9es par le juge, ce qui occasionnait de\nnouvelles luttes; et, toutes ces choses, se passant en m\u00eame temps,\ndonnaient naissance \u00e0 autant de hourvari qu'en puisse d\u00e9sirer la\npersonne la plus active. Il y avait encore une autre classe d'individus\nqui n'\u00e9taient pas moins bruyants, c'\u00e9taient ceux qui venaient pour\nassister \u00e0 des conf\u00e9rences demand\u00e9es par leurs patrons. L'avou\u00e9 de la\npartie adverse pouvait ou non s'y rendre, \u00e0 son choix; et les clercs en\nquestion n'avaient pas d'autre affaire que de crier de temps en temps le\nnom de l'avou\u00e9 adverse, afin de s'assurer qu'il ne se trouvait pas l\u00e0.\n\nPar exemple, tout aupr\u00e8s du si\u00e9ge o\u00f9 s'\u00e9tait assis M. Pickwick, se\ntenaient appuy\u00e9s contre la muraille deux clercs, dont l'un avait une\nvoix de basse-taille, tandis que l'autre en avait une de t\u00e9nor.\n\nUn clerc entra avec un paquet de papiers et se mit \u00e0 regarder tout\nautour de lui.\n\n\u00abSniggle et Blink, miaula le t\u00e9nor.\n\n--Porkin et Snob, mugit la basse.\n\n--Stumpy et Deacon, hurla le nouveau venu.\u00bb\n\nPersonne ne r\u00e9pondit, et le premier individu qui entra apr\u00e8s cela fut\nsalu\u00e9 par tous les trois \u00e0 la fois, et \u00e0 son tour cria d'autres noms.\nPuis un nouveau personnage en vocif\u00e9ra d'autres encore, et ainsi de\nsuite.\n\nPendant tout ce temps, l'homme aux lunettes travaillait sans r\u00e9pit \u00e0\nfaire jurer les clercs. Leur serment \u00e9tait toujours administr\u00e9 sans\naucune esp\u00e8ce de ponctuation, et ordinairement dans les termes suivants:\n\n\u00abPrenez le livre dans votre main droite ceci est votre nom et votre\n\u00e9criture au nom de Dieu vous jurez que le contenu de votre pr\u00e9sente\nattestation est v\u00e9ritable un shilling il faut vous procurer de la\nmonnaie je n'en ai pas.\u00bb\n\n\u00abEh bien! Sam, dit M. Pickwick, je suppose qu'on pr\u00e9pare l'_Habeas\ncorpus_?\n\n--Oui, r\u00e9pondit Sam, je voudrais bien qu'ils l'am\u00e8nent leur _ayez sa\ncarcasse_. C'est pas d\u00e9licat de nous faire attendre comme \u00e7a. Dans ce\ntemps-l\u00e0 moi j'aurais arrang\u00e9 une douzaine d'_ayez sa carcasse_ tout\nemball\u00e9s et tout ficel\u00e9s.\u00bb\n\nSam paraissait s'imaginer qu'un _habeas corpus_ est une esp\u00e8ce de\nmachine encombrante; mais nous ne saurions dire au juste de quelle\nsorte, car en ce moment M. Perker revint et emmena M. Pickwick.\n\nLes formalit\u00e9s ordinaires ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 accomplies, le corpus de Samuel\nPickwick fut confi\u00e9 \u00e0 la garde d'un huissier, pour \u00eatre, par lui,\nconduit au gouverneur de la prison de la Flotte, et pour \u00eatre l\u00e0 d\u00e9tenu\njusqu'\u00e0 ce que le montant des dommages et des frais r\u00e9sultant de\nl'action de Bardell contre Pickwick f\u00fbt enti\u00e8rement pay\u00e9 et sold\u00e9.\n\n\u00abEt ce ne sera pas de sit\u00f4t, dit M. Pickwick en riant. Sam--appelez une\nautre voiture. Perker, mon cher ami, adieu.\n\n--Je vais aller avec vous pour vous voir \u00e9tabli en s\u00fbret\u00e9.\n\n--En v\u00e9rit\u00e9, je pr\u00e9f\u00e9rerais \u00eatre seul avec Sam. Aussit\u00f4t que je serai\norganis\u00e9, je vous \u00e9crirai pour vous le dire, et je vous attendrai\nimm\u00e9diatement. Jusque-l\u00e0, adieu.\u00bb\n\nCela dit, M. Pickwick monta dans la voiture qui venait d'arriver;\nl'huissier le suivit et Sam se pla\u00e7a sur le si\u00e9ge.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0 un homme comme il n'y en a gu\u00e8re! dit Perker en s'arr\u00eatant pour\nmettre ses gants.\n\n--Quel banqueroutier il aurait fait, monsieur! sugg\u00e9ra Lowten, qui se\ntrouvait aupr\u00e8s de lui. Comme il aurait fait aller les commissaires!\nS'ils avaient parl\u00e9 de le coffrer, il les aurait mis au d\u00e9fi, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nL'avou\u00e9 ne fut apparemment pas fort touch\u00e9 de la mani\u00e8re toute\nprofessionnelle dont son clerc estimait le caract\u00e8re de M. Pickwick, car\nil s'\u00e9loigna sans daigner lui r\u00e9pondre.\n\nLa voiture de M. Pickwick se tra\u00eena en cahotant le long de\n_Fleet-Street_, comme les voitures de place ont coutume de le faire. Les\nchevaux allaient mieux, dit le cocher, quand ils avaient une autre\nvoiture devant eux (il fallait qu'ils allassent \u00e0 un pas bien\nextraordinaire quand ils n'en avaient pas); en cons\u00e9quence, il les avait\nmis derri\u00e8re une charrette. Quand la charrette s'arr\u00eatait, la voiture\ns'arr\u00eatait, et quand la charrette repartait, la voiture repartait aussi.\nM. Pickwick \u00e9tait assis en face de l'huissier, et l'huissier \u00e9tait assis\navec son chapeau entre ses genoux, sifflant un air et regardant par la\nporti\u00e8re.\n\nLe temps fait des miracles, et avec l'aide de ce puissant vieillard, une\nvoiture de place elle-m\u00eame peut accomplir un mille de distance. Celle-ci\narriva enfin, et M. Pickwick descendit \u00e0 la porte de la prison.\n\nL'huissier, regardant par-dessus son \u00e9paule pour voir si M. Pickwick le\nsuivait, pr\u00e9c\u00e9da le philosophe dans le b\u00e2timent. Tournant imm\u00e9diatement\n\u00e0 gauche, ils entr\u00e8rent par une porte ouverte sous un vestibule, de\nl'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9 duquel \u00e9tait une autre porte qui conduisait dans\nl'int\u00e9rieur de la prison: celle-ci \u00e9tait gard\u00e9e par un vigoureux\nguichetier tenant des clefs dans sa main.\n\nLe trio s'arr\u00eata sous ce vestibule pendant que l'huissier d\u00e9livrait ses\npapiers, et M. Pickwick apprit qu'il devait y rester jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'il\ne\u00fbt subi la c\u00e9r\u00e9monie connue des initi\u00e9s sous le nom de _poser pour son\nportrait_.\n\n\u00abPoser pour mon portrait! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick.\n\n--Pour prendre votre ressemblance, monsieur, dit le vigoureux\nguichetier. Nous sommes tr\u00e8s-forts sur les ressemblances ici. Nous les\nprenons en un rien de temps et toujours exactes. Entrez, monsieur, et\nmettez-vous \u00e0 votre aise.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick se rendit \u00e0 l'invitation du guichetier; et, lorsqu'il se fut\nassis, Sam s'appuya sur le dos de sa chaise et lui dit tout bas que,\n_poser pour son portrait_, voulait tout bonnement dire subir une\ninspection des diff\u00e9rents ge\u00f4liers, afin qu'ils pussent distinguer les\nprisonniers de ceux qui venaient les visiter.\n\n\u00abEh bien! alors, Sam, dit M. Pickwick, je d\u00e9sire que les artistes\narrivent promptement. Ceci est un endroit un peu trop public pour mon\ngo\u00fbt.\n\n--Ils ne seront pas longs, monsieur, soyez tranquille. Voil\u00e0 une horloge\n\u00e0 poids, monsieur.\n\n--Je la vois.\n\n--Et une cage d'oiseaux, une prison dans une prison, monsieur. C'est-il\npas vrai?\u00bb\n\nPendant que Sam donnait cours \u00e0 ces r\u00e9flexions philosophiques, M.\nPickwick s'apercevait que la s\u00e9ance \u00e9tait commenc\u00e9e. Le vigoureux\nguichetier s'\u00e9tait assis non loin de notre h\u00e9ros et le regardait\nn\u00e9gligemment de temps en temps, tandis qu'un grand homme mince, plant\u00e9\nvis-\u00e0-vis de lui, avec ses mains sous les pans de son habit, l'examinait\nlonguement. Un troisi\u00e8me gentleman, qui avait l'air de mauvaise humeur\net qui venait sans doute d'\u00eatre d\u00e9rang\u00e9 de son th\u00e9, car il mangeait\nencore un reste de tartine de beurre, s'\u00e9tait plac\u00e9 pr\u00e8s du philosophe,\net, appuyant ses mains sur ses hanches, l'inspectait minutieusement;\nenfin deux autres individus group\u00e9s ensemble \u00e9tudiaient ses traits avec\ndes visages pensifs et pleins d'attention. M. Pickwick tressaillit\nplusieurs fois pendant cette op\u00e9ration, durant laquelle il semblait fort\nmal \u00e0 l'aise sur son si\u00e9ge; mais il ne fit de remarque \u00e0 personne, pas\nm\u00eame \u00e0 Sam, qui, inclin\u00e9 sur le dos de sa chaise, r\u00e9fl\u00e9chissait partie\nsur la situation de son ma\u00eetre et partie sur la satisfaction qu'il\naurait \u00e9prouv\u00e9e \u00e0 attaquer, l'un apr\u00e8s l'autre, tous les ge\u00f4liers\npr\u00e9sents, si cela avait \u00e9t\u00e9 l\u00e9gal et conforme \u00e0 la paix publique.\n\nQuand le portrait fut termin\u00e9, on informa M. Pickwick qu'il pouvait\nentrer dans la prison.\n\n\u00abO\u00f9 coucherai-je cette nuit? demanda-t-il.\n\n--Ma foi, r\u00e9pondit le vigoureux guichetier, je ne sais pas trop, pour\ncette nuit. Demain matin, vous serez accoupl\u00e9 avec quelqu'un, et alors\nvous serez tout \u00e0 l'aise et confortable. La premi\u00e8re nuit, on est\nordinairement un peu en l'air; mais tout s'arrange le lendemain.\u00bb\n\nApr\u00e8s quelques discussions, on d\u00e9couvrit qu'un des ge\u00f4liers avait un lit\n\u00e0 louer pour la nuit, et M. Pickwick s'en accommoda avec empressement.\n\n\u00abSi vous voulez venir avec moi, je vais vous le montrer sur-le-champ,\ndit l'homme. Il n'est pas bien grand, mais on y dort comme une douzaine\nde marmottes. Par ici, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nIls travers\u00e8rent la porte int\u00e9rieure et descendirent un court escalier;\nla serrure fut referm\u00e9e derri\u00e8re eux, et M. Pickwick se trouva, pour la\npremi\u00e8re fois de sa vie, dans une prison pour dettes.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XII.\n\nCe qui arriva \u00e0 M. Pickwick dans la prison pour dettes; quelle esp\u00e8ce de\nd\u00e9biteurs il y vit, et comment il passa la nuit.\n\n\nLe gentleman qui accompagnait notre philosophe et qui avait nom Tom\nRoker, tourna \u00e0 droite au bas de l'escalier, traversa une grille qui\n\u00e9tait ouverte, et, remontant quelques marches, entra dans une galerie\nlongue et \u00e9troite, basse et malpropre, pav\u00e9e de pierres et tr\u00e8s-mal\n\u00e9clair\u00e9e par deux fen\u00eatres plac\u00e9es \u00e0 ses deux extr\u00e9mit\u00e9s.\n\n\u00abCeci, dit le gentleman en fourrant ses mains dans ses poches et en\nregardant n\u00e9gligemment M. Pickwick par-dessus son \u00e9paule, ceci est\nl'escalier de la salle.\n\n--Oh! r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick en abaissant les yeux pour regarder un\nescalier sombre et humide, qui semblait mener \u00e0 une rang\u00e9e de vo\u00fbtes de\npierres au-dessous du niveau de la terre. L\u00e0, je suppose, sont les\ncaveaux o\u00f9 les prisonniers tiennent leur petite provision de charbon de\nterre? Ce sont de vilains endroits quand il faut y descendre, mais je\nparie qu'ils sont fort commodes.\n\n--Oui, je crois bien qu'ils sont commodes, vu qu'il y a quelques\npersonnes qui s'arrangent pour y vivre et joliment bien!\n\n--Mon ami, reprit M. Pickwick, vous ne voulez pas dire que des \u00eatres\nhumains vivent r\u00e9ellement dans ces mis\u00e9rables cachots?\n\n--Je ne veux pas dire! s'\u00e9cria M. Roker avec un \u00e9tonnement plein\nd'indignation, et pourquoi pas?\n\n--Qui vivent! qui vivent l\u00e0?\n\n--Qui vivent l\u00e0, oui, et qui meurent l\u00e0 aussi fort souvent. Et pourquoi\npas? Qu'est-ce qui a quelque chose \u00e0 dire l\u00e0 contre? Qui vivent l\u00e0! oui,\ncertainement. Est-ce que ce n'est pas une tr\u00e8s-bonne place pour y\nvivre?\u00bb\n\nComme M. Roker, en disant cela, se tourna vers M. Pickwick d'une mani\u00e8re\nassez farouche, et murmura en outre, d'un air excit\u00e9, certaines\nexpressions mal sonnantes, notre philosophe jugea convenable de ne point\npoursuivre davantage ce discours. M. Roker commen\u00e7a alors \u00e0 monter un\nautre escalier aussi malpropre que le pr\u00e9c\u00e9dent, et fut suivi, dans\ncette ascension, par M. Pickwick et par Sam.\n\nQuand ils eurent atteint une autre galerie de la m\u00eame dimension que\ncelle du bas, M. Roker s'arr\u00eata pour respirer, et dit \u00e0 M. Pickwick:\n\u00abVoici l'\u00e9tage du caf\u00e9; celui d'au-dessus est le troisi\u00e8me, et celui\nd'au-dessus est le grenier: la chambre o\u00f9 vous allez coucher cette nuit\ns'appelle la salle du gardien, et voil\u00e0 le chemin, venez.\u00bb\n\nLorsqu'il eut d\u00e9bit\u00e9 tout cela d'une haleine, M. Roker monta un autre\nescalier, M. Pickwick et Sam le suivant toujours sur ses talons.\n\nCet escalier recevait la lumi\u00e8re par plusieurs petites fen\u00eatres, plac\u00e9es\n\u00e0 peu de distance du plancher et ouvrant sur une cour sabl\u00e9e, born\u00e9e par\nun grand mur de briques, au sommet duquel r\u00e9gnaient dans toute la\nlongueur des chevaux de frise en fer. Cette cour, d'apr\u00e8s le t\u00e9moignage\nde M. Roker, \u00e9tait le jeu de paume; et il paraissait, en outre, toujours\nd'apr\u00e8s la m\u00eame autorit\u00e9, qu'il y avait une autre cour plus petite, du\nc\u00f4t\u00e9 de _Farringdon-Street_, laquelle \u00e9tait appel\u00e9e la cour _peinte_,\nparce que ses murs avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 autrefois d\u00e9cor\u00e9s de certaines\nrepr\u00e9sentations de vaisseaux de guerre, voguant \u00e0 toutes voiles, et de\ndivers autres sujets artistiques, ex\u00e9cut\u00e9s jadis aux heures de loisir de\nquelque dessinateur emprisonn\u00e9.\n\nAyant communiqu\u00e9 cette information, plus en apparence pour d\u00e9charger sa\nconscience d'un fait important que dans le dessein particulier\nd'instruire M. Pickwick, le guide entra dans une autre galerie, p\u00e9n\u00e9tra\ndans un petit corridor qui se trouvait \u00e0 l'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9, ouvrit une porte,\net d\u00e9couvrit aux yeux des nouveaux venus une chambre d'un aspect fort\npeu engageant, qui contenait huit ou neuf lits en fer.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0, dit M. Roker en tenant la porte ouverte et en regardant M.\nPickwick d'un air triomphant, voil\u00e0 une chambre.\u00bb\n\nCependant la physionomie de M. Pickwick exprimait une si l\u00e9g\u00e8re dose de\nsatisfaction \u00e0 l'apparence de son logement, que M. Roker reporta ses\nregards vers Samuel Weller, qui jusqu'alors avait gard\u00e9 un silence plein\nde dignit\u00e9, esp\u00e9rant apparemment trouver plus de sympathie sur son\nvisage.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0 une chambre! jeune homme, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta-t-il.\n\n--Oui, je la vois, r\u00e9pondit Sam, avec un signe de t\u00eate pacifique.\n\n--Vous ne vous attendiez pas \u00e0 trouver une chambre comme \u00e7a dans l'h\u00f4tel\nde Farringdon, hein?\u00bb dit M. Roker avec un sourire plein de\ncomplaisance.\n\nSam r\u00e9pondit \u00e0 ceci en fermant d'une mani\u00e8re ais\u00e9e et naturelle un de\nses yeux, ce qui pouvait signifier ou qu'il l'aurait pens\u00e9, ou qu'il n'y\navait jamais pens\u00e9 du tout, au gr\u00e9 de l'imagination de l'observateur.\nAyant ex\u00e9cut\u00e9 ce tour de force, Sam rouvrit son oeil et demanda \u00e0 M.\nRoker quel \u00e9tait le lit particulier qu'il avait d\u00e9sign\u00e9 d'une fa\u00e7on si\nflatteuse en disant qu'on y dormait comme une douzaine de marmottes.\n\n\u00abLe voil\u00e0, dit M. Roker en montrant dans un coin un vieux lit de fer\nrouill\u00e9. \u00c7a ferait dormir quelqu'un, qu'il le veuille ou non.\n\n--\u00c7a me fait c't effet-l\u00e0, r\u00e9pondit Sam en examinant le meuble en\nquestion avec un air de d\u00e9go\u00fbt excessif. J'imagine que l'eau d'\u00e2non\nn'est rien aupr\u00e8s.\n\n--Rien du tout, fit M. Roker.\n\n--Et je suppose, poursuivit Sam, en regardant son ma\u00eetre du coin de\nl'oeil, dans l'esp\u00e9rance de d\u00e9couvrir sur son visage quelque sympt\u00f4me\nque sa r\u00e9solution \u00e9tait \u00e9branl\u00e9e par tout ce qui s'\u00e9tait pass\u00e9, je\nsuppose que les autres gentlemen qui dorment ici sont de vrais\n_gentlemen_?\n\n--Rien que de \u00e7a. I'y en a un qui pompe ses douze pintes d'ale par jour,\net qui n'arr\u00eate pas de fumer, m\u00eame \u00e0 ses repas.\n\n--Ce doit \u00eatre un fier homme, fit observer Sam.\n\n--Num\u00e9ro 1!\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua M. Roker.\n\nNullement dompt\u00e9 par cet \u00e9loge, M. Pickwick annon\u00e7a, en souriant, qu'il\n\u00e9tait d\u00e9termin\u00e9 \u00e0 essayer pour cette nuit le pouvoir du lit narcotique.\nM. Roker l'informa qu'il pouvait se retirer pour dormir \u00e0 l'heure qui\nlui conviendrait, sans autre formalit\u00e9, et le laissa ensuite avec Sam\ndans la galerie.\n\nIl commen\u00e7ait \u00e0 faire sombre; c'est-\u00e0-dire que, dans cet endroit o\u00f9 il\nne faisait jamais clair, on venait d'allumer quelques becs de gaz en\nmani\u00e8re de compliment pour la nuit qui s'avan\u00e7ait au dehors. Comme il\nfaisait assez chaud, quelques-uns des habitants des nombreuses petites\nchambres qui ouvraient \u00e0 droite et \u00e0 gauche sur la galerie avaient\nentre-baill\u00e9 leurs portes. M. Pickwick y jetait un coup d'oeil, en\npassant, avec beaucoup d'int\u00e9r\u00eat et de curiosit\u00e9. Ici, quatre ou cinq\ngrands lourdauds, qu'on apercevait \u00e0 peine \u00e0 travers un nuage de fum\u00e9e\nde tabac, criaient et se disputaient, au milieu de verres de bi\u00e8re \u00e0\nmoiti\u00e9 vides, ou jouaient \u00e0 l'imp\u00e9riale avec des cartes remarquablement\ngrasses. L\u00e0, un pauvre vieillard solitaire, courb\u00e9 sur des papiers\njaunis et d\u00e9chir\u00e9s, \u00e9crivait \u00e0 la lueur d'une faible chandelle, et pour\nla cinqui\u00e8me fois, peut-\u00eatre, le long r\u00e9cit de ses griefs, dans l'espoir\nde le faire parvenir \u00e0 quelque grand personnage dont ces papiers ne\ndevaient jamais arr\u00eater les yeux, ni toucher le coeur. Dans une\ntroisi\u00e8me chambre, on pouvait voir un homme occup\u00e9 avec sa femme \u00e0\narranger par terre un mauvais grabat, pour y coucher le plus jeune de\nses nombreux enfants. Enfin, dans une quatri\u00e8me et dans une cinqui\u00e8me,\net dans une sixi\u00e8me et dans une septi\u00e8me, le bruit et la bi\u00e8re et les\ncartes et la fum\u00e9e de tabac reparaissaient de plus en plus fort.\n\nDans la galerie m\u00eame, et principalement dans les escaliers, fl\u00e2naient un\ngrand nombre de gens qui venaient l\u00e0, les uns parce que leur chambre\n\u00e9tait vide et solitaire, les autres parce que la leur \u00e9tait pleine et\n\u00e9touffante; le plus grand nombre parce qu'ils \u00e9taient inquiets, mal \u00e0\nleur aise, et ne savaient que faire d'eux-m\u00eames.\n\nIl y avait l\u00e0 toutes sortes de gens, depuis l'ouvrier avec sa veste de\ngros drap jusqu'\u00e0 l'\u00e9l\u00e9gant prodigue, en robe de chambre de cachemire\nfort convenablement perc\u00e9e au coude. Mais ils se ressemblaient tous en\nun point, ils avaient tous un certain air n\u00e9gligent, inquiet, effar\u00e9, de\ngibier de prison; une physionomie impudente et fanfaronne, qu'il est\nimpossible de d\u00e9crire par des paroles, mais que chacun peut conna\u00eetre\nquand il le d\u00e9sirera, car il suffit pour cela de mettre le pied dans la\nprison pour dettes la plus voisine, et de contempler le premier groupe\nde prisonniers qui se pr\u00e9sentera, avec le m\u00eame int\u00e9r\u00eat que r\u00e9v\u00e9lait la\nfigure intelligente de M. Pickwick.\n\n\u00abCe qui me frappe, Sam, dit le philosophe, en s'appuyant sur la rampe de\nfer de l'escalier, ce qui me frappe, c'est que l'emprisonnement pour\ndettes est \u00e0 peine une punition.\n\n--Vous croyez, monsieur?\n\n--Vous voyez comme ces gaillards l\u00e0 boivent, fument et braillent. Il\nn'est pas possible que la prison les affecte beaucoup.\n\n--Ah! voil\u00e0 justement la chose, monsieur. Ils ne s'affectent pas,\nceux-l\u00e0. C'est tous les jours f\u00eate pour eux, tout _porter_ et jeux de\nquilles. C'est les autres qui s'affectent de \u00e7a: les pauvres diables qui\nont le coeur tendre, et qui ne peuvent pas pomper la bi\u00e8re, ni jouer aux\nquilles; ceux qui prieraient, s'ils pouvaient, et qui se rongent le\ncoeur quand ils sont enferm\u00e9s. Je vais vous dire ce qui en est,\nmonsieur; ceux qui sont toujours \u00e0 fl\u00e2ner dans les tavernes, \u00e7a ne les\npunit pas du tout; et ceux qui sont toujours \u00e0 travailler quand ils\npeuvent, \u00e7a les ab\u00eeme trop. C'est in\u00e9gal, comme disait mon p\u00e8re quand il\nn'y avait pas une bonne moiti\u00e9 d'eau-de-vie dans son grog; c'est in\u00e9gal,\net voil\u00e0 pourquoi \u00e7a ne vaut rien.\n\n--Je crois que vous avez raison, Sam, dit M. Pickwick, apr\u00e8s quelques\nmoments de r\u00e9flexion; tout \u00e0 fait raison.\n\n--Peut-\u00eatre qu'il y a par-ci par-l\u00e0 quelques honn\u00eates gens qui s'y\nplaisent, poursuivit Sam, en ruminant; mais je ne peux pas m'en rappeler\nbeaucoup, except\u00e9 le petit homme crasseux, en habit brun, et c'\u00e9tait la\nforce de l'habitude.\n\n--Qui \u00e9tait-ce donc?\n\n--Voil\u00e0 pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment ce que personne n'a jamais su.\n\n--Mais qu'est-ce qu'il faisait?\n\n--Ah! il avait fait comme beaucoup d'autres qui sont bien plus connus.\nIl avait trop de cr\u00e9dit sur la place et il s'en \u00e9tait servi.\n\n--En d'autres termes, il avait des dettes, je suppose.\n\n--Juste la chose, monsieur; et, au bout d'un certain temps, il est venu\nici, en cons\u00e9quence. Ce n'\u00e9tait pas pour beaucoup: ex\u00e9cution pour neuf\nlivres sterling, multipli\u00e9es par cinq, pour les frais. Mais c'est \u00e9gal,\nil est rest\u00e9 ici, sans en bouger, pendant dix-sept ans. S'il avait gagn\u00e9\nquelques rides sur la face, elles \u00e9taient effac\u00e9es par la crasse, car\nson visage malpropre et son habit brun \u00e9taient juste les m\u00eames \u00e0 la fin\ndu temps qu'ils \u00e9taient au commencement. C'\u00e9tait une petite cr\u00e9ature\npaisible et inoffensive, courant toujours pour celui-ci ou celui-l\u00e0, ou\njouant \u00e0 la paume et ne gagnant jamais; si bien qu'\u00e0 la fin les ge\u00f4liers\n\u00e9taient devenus tout \u00e0 fait amoureux de lui, et il \u00e9tait dans la loge\ntous les soirs \u00e0 bavarder avec eux, et \u00e0 leur compter des histoires et\ntout \u00e7a. Un soir qu'il \u00e9tait, comme d'habitude, tout seul avec un de ses\nvieux amis, qui \u00e9tait de garde, il dit tout d'un coup: \u00abJe n'ai pourtant\npas vu le march\u00e9, Bill, qu'il dit (le march\u00e9 de Fleet-Street \u00e9tait\nencore l\u00e0 \u00e0 cette \u00e9poque); je n'ai pourtant pas vu le march\u00e9 depuis\ndix-sept ans.--Je sais \u00e7a, dit le ge\u00f4lier en fumant sa pipe.--J'aimerais\nbien \u00e0 le voir une minute, Bill, qu'il dit.--Je n'en doute pas, dit le\nge\u00f4lier en fumant sa pipe fort et ferme, pour ne pas avoir l'air\nd'entendre ce que parler voulait dire.--Bill, dit le petit homme brun\nbrusquement, c'est une fantaisie que j'ai mis dans ma t\u00eate. Laissez-moi\nvoir la rue encore une fois avant que je meure, et, si je ne suis pas\nfrapp\u00e9 d'apoplexie, je serai revenu dans cinq minutes, \u00e0 l'horloge.--Et\nqu'est-ce que je deviendrais, moi, si vous \u00eates frapp\u00e9 d'apoplexie, dit\nle ge\u00f4lier.--Eh bien! dit la petite cr\u00e9ature, ceux-l\u00e0 qui me trouveront\nme ram\u00e8neront \u00e0 la maison, car j'ai ma carte dans ma poche: n\u00ba 20,\n_escalier du caf\u00e9_, dit-il.--Et c'\u00e9tait vrai, car, quand il avait envie\nde faire connaissance avec quelque nouveau voisin, il avait l'habitude\nde tirer de sa poche un petit morceau de carte chiffonn\u00e9e avec ces\nmots-l\u00e0 dessus, et pas autre chose; en consid\u00e9ration de quoi on\nl'appelait toujours Num\u00e9ro Vingt. Le ge\u00f4lier le regarda fisquement, puis\n\u00e0 la fin, il dit d'un air solennel: Num\u00e9ro Vingt, qu'il dit, je me fie \u00e0\nvous. Vous ne voudriez pas mettre un vieil ami dans l'embarras?--Non,\nmon gar\u00e7on; j'esp\u00e8re que j'ai quelque chose de meilleur l\u00e0-dessous,\u00bb dit\nle petit homme en cognant de toutes ses forces sur son gilet, et en\nlaissant d\u00e9gringoler une larme de chaque oeil, ce qui \u00e9tait fort\nextraordinaire, car jamais auparavant une goutte d'eau n'avait touch\u00e9\nson visage. Il secoua la main du ge\u00f4lier et le voil\u00e0 parti.\n\n--Et il n'est jamais revenu, dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Enfonc\u00e9 pour cette fois-ci, monsieur! car il revint deux minutes avant\nle temps, tout bouillant de rage, et disant qu'il avait manqu\u00e9 d'\u00eatre\n\u00e9cras\u00e9 par une voiture de place, qu'il n'y \u00e9tait plus habitu\u00e9, et qu'il\nvoulait \u00eatre pendu, s'il n'en \u00e9crivait pas au lord maire. \u00c0 la fin, on\nfinit par le pacifier, et pendant cinq ans apr\u00e8s \u00e7a, il ne mit pas\nseulement le nez \u00e0 la grille.\n\n--\u00c0 l'expiration de ce temps, il mourut, je suppose, dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Non, monsieur; il lui vint la fantaisie de go\u00fbter la bi\u00e8re, dans une\nnouvelle taverne, tout \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la prison, et il y avait un si joli\nparloir, qu'il se mit dans la t\u00eate d'y aller tous les soirs, et il n'y\nmanqua pas, monsieur, pendant longtemps, revenant toujours\nr\u00e9guli\u00e8rement, un quart d'heure avant la fermeture des grilles. \u00c7a\nallait bien et confortablement; mais fin finale, il commen\u00e7a \u00e0 se mettre\nsi joliment en train, qu'il oubliait que le temps marchait, ou qu'il ne\ns'en souciait pas, et il arrivait de plus en plus tard, jusqu'\u00e0 ce\nqu'une nuit son vieil ami allait justement fermer la porte. Il avait\nd\u00e9j\u00e0 tourn\u00e9 la clef quand l'autre rentra. \u00abUn moment, Bill, qu'il\ndit.--Comment, Num\u00e9ro Vingt, dit le guichetier, vous n'\u00e9tiez pas encore\nrentr\u00e9?--Non, fit le petit homme avec un sourire.--Eh bien! alors, je\nvous dirai ce qui en est, mon ami, dit le guichetier en ouvrant la porte\nlentement et d'un air bourru. C'est mon opinion que vous avez fait de\nmauvaises connaissances derni\u00e8rement, et que vous vous d\u00e9rangez; j'en\nsuis tr\u00e8s-f\u00e2ch\u00e9. Voyez-vous, je ne veux pas vous d\u00e9sobliger, qu'il dit;\nmais si vous ne vous bornez pas \u00e0 voir des gens comme il faut, et si\nvous ne revenez pas \u00e0 des heures r\u00e9guli\u00e8res, aussi s\u00fbr comme vous \u00eates\nl\u00e0, je vous laisserai \u00e0 la porte tout \u00e0 fait.\u00bb Le petit homme fut saisi\nd'un tremblement, et jamais il n'a mis le pied hors de la prison\ndepuis.\u00bb\n\nPendant ce discours, M. Pickwick avait lentement redescendu les\nescaliers. Apr\u00e8s avoir fait quelques tours dans la cour peinte, qui\n\u00e9tait presque d\u00e9serte \u00e0 cause de l'obscurit\u00e9, il engagea Sam \u00e0 se\nretirer pour la nuit et \u00e0 chercher un lit dans quelque auberge voisine,\nafin de revenir le lendemain de bonne heure pour faire apporter ses\neffets du _George et Vautour_. Sam se pr\u00e9para \u00e0 ob\u00e9ir \u00e0 cette requ\u00eate\nd'aussi bonne gr\u00e2ce qu'il lui fut possible, mais n\u00e9anmoins avec une\nexpression de m\u00e9contentement fort notable. Il alla m\u00eame jusqu'\u00e0 essayer\ndiverses insinuations sur la convenance de se coucher dans une des cours\nde la prison pour cette nuit; mais, trouvant que M. Pickwick \u00e9tait\nobstin\u00e9ment sourd \u00e0 de telles suggestions, il se retira d\u00e9finitivement.\n\nOn ne saurait dissimuler que M. Pickwick se trouvait fort peu\nconfortable et fort m\u00e9lancolique. En effet, quoique la prison f\u00fbt pleine\nde monde et qu'une bouteille de vin lui e\u00fbt imm\u00e9diatement procur\u00e9 la\nsoci\u00e9t\u00e9 de quelques esprits choisis, sans aucun embarras de pr\u00e9sentation\nformelle, il se sentait absolument seul dans cette foule grossi\u00e8re. Il\nne pouvait donc r\u00e9sister \u00e0 l'abattement inspir\u00e9 par la perspective d'une\nprison perp\u00e9tuelle; car, pour ce qui est de se lib\u00e9rer en satisfaisant\nla friponnerie et la rapacit\u00e9 de Dodson et Fogg, sa pens\u00e9e ne s'y arr\u00eata\npas un seul instant.\n\nDans cette disposition d'esprit, il rentra dans la galerie du caf\u00e9 et\ns'y promena lentement. L'endroit \u00e9tait intol\u00e9rablement malpropre, et\nl'odeur du tabac y devenait absolument suffocante; on y entendait un\nperp\u00e9tuel tapage de portes ouvertes et ferm\u00e9es, et le bruit des voix et\ndes pas y retentissait constamment. Une jeune femme, qui tenait dans ses\nbras un enfant, et qui semblait \u00e0 peine capable de se tra\u00eener, tant elle\n\u00e9tait maigre et avait l'air mis\u00e9rable, marchait le long du corridor en\ncausant avec son mari, qui n'avait pas d'autre asile pour la recevoir.\nLorsque cette femme passait aupr\u00e8s de M. Pickwick, il l'entendait\nsangloter am\u00e8rement, et, une fois, elle se laissa aller \u00e0 un tel\ntransport de douleur, qu'elle fut oblig\u00e9e de s'appuyer contre le mur\npour se soutenir, tandis que le mari prenait l'enfant dans ses bras, et\ns'effor\u00e7ait vainement de la consoler.\n\nLe coeur de notre excellent ami \u00e9tait trop plein pour pouvoir supporter\nce spectacle; il monta les escaliers et rentra dans sa chambre.\n\nOr, quoique la salle des gardiens f\u00fbt extr\u00eamement incommode, \u00e9tant, pour\nle bien-\u00eatre aussi bien que pour la d\u00e9coration, \u00e0 plusieurs centaines de\ndegr\u00e9s au-dessous de la plus mauvaise infirmerie d'une prison de\nprovince; elle avait, pour le pr\u00e9sent, le m\u00e9rite d'\u00eatre tout \u00e0 fait\nd\u00e9serte. M. Pickwick s'assit donc au pied de son petit lit de fer, et\nentreprit de calculer combien d'argent on pouvait tirer de cette pi\u00e8ce\nd\u00e9go\u00fbtante. S'\u00e9tant convaincu, par une op\u00e9ration math\u00e9matique, qu'elle\nrapportait autant de revenu qu'une petite rue des faubourgs de Londres,\nil en vint \u00e0 se demander, avec \u00e9tonnement, quelle tentation pouvait\navoir une petite mouche noir\u00e2tre, qui rampait sur son pantalon, \u00e0 venir\ndans une prison mal a\u00e9r\u00e9e, quand elle avait le choix de tant d'endroits\nagr\u00e9ables. Ses r\u00e9flexions sur ce sujet l'amen\u00e8rent, par une suite de\nd\u00e9ductions rigoureuses, \u00e0 cette conclusion, que l'insecte \u00e9tait fou.\nApr\u00e8s avoir d\u00e9cid\u00e9 cela, il commen\u00e7a \u00e0 s'apercevoir qu'il\ns'assoupissait; il tira donc de sa poche son bonnet de nuit, qu'il avait\neu la pr\u00e9caution d'y ins\u00e9rer le matin, et s'\u00e9tant d\u00e9shabill\u00e9 tout\ndoucement, il se glissa dans son lit et s'endormit profond\u00e9ment.\n\n\u00abBravo, z\u00e9phyre! Bien d\u00e9tach\u00e9! En voil\u00e0 un d'entrechat! Je veux \u00eatre\ndamn\u00e9 si l'op\u00e9ra n'est pas votre sph\u00e8re! Allons, hurrah!...\u00bb\n\nCes exclamations, plusieurs fois r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9es du ton le plus bruyant, et\naccompagn\u00e9es d'\u00e9clats de rire retentissants, tir\u00e8rent M. Pickwick d'un\nde ces sommeils l\u00e9thargiques qui, ne durant en r\u00e9alit\u00e9 qu'une\ndemi-heure, semblent au dormeur avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 prolong\u00e9s pendant trois\nsemaines ou un mois.\n\nLe bruit des voix avait \u00e0 peine cess\u00e9, quand le plancher de la chambre\nfut \u00e9branl\u00e9 avec tant de violence que les vitres en vibr\u00e8rent dans leurs\nch\u00e2ssis, et que tout le lit en trembla. M. Pickwick tressaillit, se leva\nsur son s\u00e9ant et resta abruti pendant quelques minutes par la sc\u00e8ne qui\nse passait devant lui.\n\nAu milieu de la chambre, un homme en habit vert, avec une culotte de\nvelours et des bas de coton gris, ex\u00e9cutait le pas le plus populaire\nd'une cornemuse, avec une exag\u00e9ration burlesque de gr\u00e2ce et de l\u00e9g\u00e8ret\u00e9,\nqui, jointe \u00e0 la nature de son costume, en faisait la chose la plus\nabsurde du monde. Un autre individu, \u00e9videmment fort gris, et qui\nprobablement avait \u00e9t\u00e9 apport\u00e9 dans son lit par ses compagnons, \u00e9tait\nassis, envelopp\u00e9 dans ses draps, et fredonnait d'une mani\u00e8re\nprodigieusement lugubre tous les passages qu'il pouvait se rappeler\nd'une chanson comique. Un troisi\u00e8me enfin, assis sur un autre lit,\napplaudissait les ex\u00e9cutants de l'air d'un profond connaisseur, et les\nencourageait par des transports d'enthousiasme tels que celui qui avait\nr\u00e9veill\u00e9 M. Pickwick.\n\nCe dernier personnage \u00e9tait un magnifique sp\u00e9cimen d'une classe de gens\nqui ne peuvent jamais \u00eatre vus dans toute leur perfection, except\u00e9 dans\nde semblables endroits. On les rencontre parfois, dans un \u00e9tat\nimparfait, autour des \u00e9curies et des tavernes; mais ils n'atteignent\nleur entier d\u00e9veloppement que dans ces admirables serres chaudes, qui\nsemblent sagement \u00e9tablies par le l\u00e9gislateur dans le dessein de les\npropager.\n\nC'\u00e9tait un grand gaillard au teint oliv\u00e2tre, aux cheveux longs et noirs,\naux favoris \u00e9pais et r\u00e9unis sous le menton. Le collet de sa chemise\n\u00e9tait ouvert, et il n'avait pas de cravate, car il avait jou\u00e9 \u00e0 la paume\ntoute la journ\u00e9e. Il portait sur la t\u00eate une calotte grecque, qui avait\nbien co\u00fbt\u00e9 dix-huit pence et dont le gland de soie \u00e9clatant se balan\u00e7ait\nsur un habit de gros drap. Ses jambes, qui \u00e9taient fort longues et\ngr\u00eales, embellissaient un pantalon collant, destin\u00e9 \u00e0 en faire ressortir\nla sym\u00e9trie, mais qui, \u00e9tant mis n\u00e9gligemment, et n'\u00e9tant\nqu'imparfaitement boutonn\u00e9, tombait par une succession de plis peu\ngracieux sur une paire de souliers assez \u00e9cul\u00e9s pour laisser voir des\nbas blancs extr\u00eamement sales. Enfin il y avait dans tout ce personnage\nune sorte de recherche grossi\u00e8re et de friponnerie impudente, qui\nvalaient un monceau d'or.\n\nCe fut lui qui le premier aper\u00e7ut M. Pickwick. Il cligna de l'oeil au\nz\u00e9phyre, et l'engagea avec une gravit\u00e9 moqueuse, \u00e0 ne point r\u00e9veiller le\ngentleman.\n\n\u00abComment, dit le z\u00e9phyre en se retournant, et en affectant la plus\ngrande surprise; est-ce que le gentleman est r\u00e9veill\u00e9! _Mais oui, il est\nr\u00e9veill\u00e9_!... Heim!... Cette citation est de Shakspeare!... Comment vous\nportez-vous, monsieur? Comment vont Mary et Sarah, monsieur? Et la ch\u00e8re\nvieille dame qu'est \u00e0 la maison, monsieur? Eh! monsieur, Voudriez-vous\navoir la bont\u00e9 de leur transmettre mes compliments dans le premier petit\npaquet que vous enverrez par l\u00e0, monsieur, en ajoutant que je les aurais\nenvoy\u00e9s auparavant si je n'avais pas eu peur qu'ils soient cass\u00e9s dans\nla charrette, monsieur.\n\n--N'ennuyez donc pas le gentleman de civilit\u00e9s banales, quand vous voyez\nqu'il meurt d'envie de boire quelque chose, reprit d'un air jovial le\ngentleman aux favoris. Pourquoi ne lui demandez-vous pas ce qu'il veut\nprendre?\n\n--Nom d'un tonnerre! je l'avais oubli\u00e9, s'\u00e9cria l'autre. Qu'est-ce que\nvous voulez prendre, monsieur? Voulez-vous prendre du vin de Porto,\nmonsieur? ou du X\u00e9r\u00e8s? Je puis vous recommander l'ale, monsieur. Ou\npeut-\u00eatre que vous voudriez t\u00e2ter du Porter? Permettez-moi d'avoir le\nplaisir d'accrocher votre casque \u00e0 m\u00e8che, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nEn disant ceci, l'orateur enleva la coiffure de M. Pickwick, et la fixa\nen un clin d'oeil sur celle de l'homme ivre, qui continuait \u00e0 bourdonner\nses chansons comiques, de la mani\u00e8re la plus lugubre qu'on puisse\nimaginer, mais avec la ferme persuasion qu'il enchantait une soci\u00e9t\u00e9\nnombreuse et choisie.\n\nMalgr\u00e9 tout le sel qu'il y a \u00e0 enlever violemment le bonnet de nuit d'un\nhomme, et \u00e0 l'ajuster sur la t\u00eate d'un gentleman inconnu, dont\nl'ext\u00e9rieur est notoirement malpropre, c'est l\u00e0 certainement une\nplaisanterie assez hasard\u00e9e. Consid\u00e9rant la chose pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment \u00e0 ce point\nde vue, M. Pickwick, sans avoir donn\u00e9 le moindre avertissement pr\u00e9alable\nde son dessein, s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a vigoureusement hors de son lit, donna au\nz\u00e9phyre dans l'estomac, un coup de poing assez vigoureux pour le priver\nd'une portion consid\u00e9rable du souffle que la nature a jug\u00e9 n\u00e9cessaire\naux organes respiratoires, puis, ayant r\u00e9cup\u00e9r\u00e9 son bonnet, se pla\u00e7a\nhardiment dans une posture de d\u00e9fense.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, s'\u00e9cria-t-il en haletant, non moins par excitation que par\nla d\u00e9pense de tant d'\u00e9nergie, maintenant, avancez tous les deux, tous\nles deux ensemble!\u00bb et, tout en faisant cette lib\u00e9rale invitation, le\ndigne gentleman imprimait \u00e0 ses poings ferm\u00e9s un mouvement de rotation,\nafin d'\u00e9pouvanter ses antagonistes par cette d\u00e9monstration scientifique.\n\n\u00c9tait-ce la mani\u00e8re compliqu\u00e9e dont M. Pickwick \u00e9tait sorti de son lit\npour tomber tout d'une masse sur le danseur? \u00e9tait-ce la preuve\ninattendue de courage donn\u00e9e par lui, qui avait touch\u00e9 ses adversaires?\nIl est certain qu'ils \u00e9taient touch\u00e9s: car au lieu d'essayer de\ncommettre un meurtre, comme le philosophe s'y attendait fermement, ils\ns'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent, se regard\u00e8rent l'un l'autre pendant quelque temps, et\nfinalement \u00e9clat\u00e8rent de rire.\n\n\u00abAllons, vous \u00eates un bon zig, dit le z\u00e9phyre. Rentrez dans votre lit,\nou bien vous attraperez des rhumatismes. Pas de rancune, j'esp\u00e8re?\ncontinua-t-il en tendant vers M. Pickwick une main capable de remplir\nces gants d'\u00e9tain rouge qui se balancent habituellement au-dessus de la\nporte des gantiers.\n\n--Non certainement, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick avec empressement; car\nmaintenant que l'excitation du moment \u00e9tait pass\u00e9e, il commen\u00e7ait \u00e0\nsentir le froid sur ses jambes.\n\n--Permettez-moi, monsieur, d'avoir le m\u00eame _honneur_, dit le gentleman\naux favoris en pr\u00e9sentant sa main droite, et en aspirant le _h_.\n\n--Avec beaucoup de plaisir, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick qui remonta\ndans son lit, apr\u00e8s avoir \u00e9chang\u00e9 une poign\u00e9e de main tr\u00e8s-longue et\ntr\u00e8s-solennelle.\n\n--Je m'appelle Smangle, monsieur, dit l'homme aux favoris.\n\n--Oh! fit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Et moi, Mivins, dit l'homme aux bas gris.\n\n--Je suis charm\u00e9 de le savoir, monsieur,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick.\n\nM. Smangle toussa: hem!\n\n\u00abVous me parliez, monsieur? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Non, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua M. Smangle.\n\n--Je l'avais cru, monsieur, dit M. Pickwick.\u00bb\n\nTout ceci \u00e9tait fort poli et fort agr\u00e9able, et pour augmenter encore la\nbonne harmonie, M. Smangle assura nombre de fois M. Pickwick qu'il\nentretenait le plus grand respect, pour les sentiments d'un gentleman.\nOr, on devait assur\u00e9ment lui en savoir un gr\u00e9 infini, car il \u00e9tait\nimpossible de supposer qu'il p\u00fbt les comprendre.\n\n\u00abVous allez vous faire d\u00e9clarer insolvable, monsieur? demanda M.\nSmangle.\n\n--Me faire quoi? dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--D\u00e9clarer insolvable par la cour de la rue de Portugal[14]. La cour\npour le soulagement des banqueroutiers, vous savez?\n\n[Footnote 14: Tribunal.]\n\n--Oh! non, du tout.\n\n--Vous allez sortir peut-\u00eatre? sugg\u00e9ra M. Mivins.\n\n--J'ai peur que non. Je refuse de payer quelques dommages-int\u00e9r\u00eats, et\nje suis ici en cons\u00e9quence.\n\n--Ah! fit observer M. Smangle, le papier a \u00e9t\u00e9 ma ruine.\n\n--Vous \u00e9tiez papetier, monsieur? dit M. Pickwick innocemment.\n\n--Non, non, Dieu me damne, je ne suis jamais tomb\u00e9 si bas que cela; pas\nde boutique. Quand je dis le papier, je veux dire les lettres de change.\n\n--Ah! vous employiez le mot dans ce sens?\n\n--Par le diable! un gentleman doit s'attendre \u00e0 des revers. Mais quoi?\nje suis ici dans la prison de Fleet Street? Bon! est-ce que j'en suis\nplus pauvre pour cela?\n\n--Au contraire, r\u00e9pliqua M. Mivins;\u00bb et il avait raison: bien loin que\nM. Smangle f\u00fbt plus pauvre pour cela, le fait est qu'il \u00e9tait plus\nriche; car ce qui l'avait amen\u00e9 dans la prison, c'est qu'au moyen de son\npapier, il avait acquis gratuitement la possession de certains articles\nde joaillerie qui, depuis lors, avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 plac\u00e9s par lui chez un\npr\u00eateur sur gages.\n\n\u00abAllons! allons! reprit M. Smangle. Tout cela c'est bien sec. Il faut\nnous rincer la bouche avec une goutte de X\u00e9r\u00e8s br\u00fbl\u00e9. Le dernier venu le\npayera; Mivins l'ira chercher, et moi j'aiderai \u00e0 le boire. C'est ce que\nj'appelle une impartiale division du travail, Dieu me damne!\u00bb\n\nNe voulant pas risquer une autre querelle, M. Pickwick consentit \u00e0 cette\nproposition. Il donna de l'argent \u00e0 M. Mivins, qui ne perdit pas un\ninstant pour se rendre au caf\u00e9, car il \u00e9tait pr\u00e8s de onze heures.\n\n\u00abDites-donc, demanda tout bas M. Smangle, aussit\u00f4t que son ami eut\nquitt\u00e9 la chambre.\n\n--Combien lui avez-vous donn\u00e9?\n\n--Un demi-souverain.\n\n--C'est un gentleman des plus aimables; spirituel en diable... je ne\nconnais personne qui le soit plus, mais....\u00bb Ici M. Smangle s'arr\u00eata\ncourt en hochant la t\u00eate d'un air dubitatif.\n\n\u00abVous ne regardez pas comme probable qu'il approprie cet argent \u00e0 ses\nbesoins personnels? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Oh! non! je ne dis pas cela. J'ai dit en toutes lettres que c'\u00e9tait un\ngentleman des plus aimables. Mais je pense qu'il n'y aurait pas de mal \u00e0\nce que quelqu'un descendit par hasard pour voir s'il ne trempe pas son\nbec dans le bol, ou s'il ne perd pas la monnaie le long du chemin. \u00abIci,\nh\u00e9! monsieur! d\u00e9gringolez en bas, s'il vous pla\u00eet, et voyez un peu ce\nque fait le gentleman qui vient de descendre.\u00bb\n\nCette requ\u00eate \u00e9tait adress\u00e9e \u00e0 un jeune homme \u00e0 l'air timide, modeste,\ndont l'ext\u00e9rieur annon\u00e7ait une grande pauvret\u00e9, et qui, pendant tout ce\ntemps, \u00e9tait rest\u00e9 aplati sur son lit, p\u00e9trifi\u00e9, en apparence, par la\nnouveaut\u00e9 de sa situation.\n\n\u00abVous savez o\u00f9 est le caf\u00e9, n'est-ce pas? Descendez seulement et dites\nau gentleman que vous \u00eates venu l'aider \u00e0 monter le bol... ou bien...\nattendez... je vais vous dire ce que... je vais vous dire comment nous\nl'attraperons, dit Smangle d'un air malin.\n\n--Comment cela? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Faites-lui dire qu'il emploie le reste en cigares. Fameuse id\u00e9e!\nCourez vite lui dire cela, entendez-vous? Ils ne seront pas perdus,\ncontinua Smangle, en se tournant vers M. Pickwick, je les fumerai au\nbesoin.\u00bb\n\nCette manoeuvre \u00e9tait si ing\u00e9nieuse, et elle avait \u00e9t\u00e9 accomplie avec un\naplomb si admirable, que M. Pickwick n'aurait pas voulu y mettre\nd'obstacle, quand m\u00eame il l'aurait pu. Au bout de peu de temps, M.\nMivins revint apportant le X\u00e9r\u00e8s, que M. Smangle distribua dans deux\npetites tasses f\u00eal\u00e9es, faisant observer judicieusement par rapport \u00e0\nlui-m\u00eame, qu'un gentleman ne doit pas \u00eatre difficile, dans de semblables\ncirconstances, et que, quant \u00e0 lui, il n'\u00e9tait pas trop fier pour boire\n\u00e0 m\u00eame dans le bol. En m\u00eame temps pour montrer sa sinc\u00e9rit\u00e9, il porta un\ntoast \u00e0 la compagnie, et vida le vase presque en entier.\n\nUne touchante harmonie ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9tablie de cette mani\u00e8re, M. Smangle\ncommen\u00e7a \u00e0 raconter diverses anecdotes romanesques de sa vie priv\u00e9e,\nconcernant, entre autres choses, un cheval pur sang, et une magnifique\njuive, l'un et l'autre d'une beaut\u00e9 surprenante, et singuli\u00e8rement\nconvoit\u00e9s par la noblesse des trois royaumes.\n\nLongtemps avant la conclusion de ces \u00e9l\u00e9gants extraits de la biographie\nd'un gentleman, M. Mivins s'\u00e9tait mis au lit et avait commenc\u00e9 \u00e0\nronfler, laissant M. Pickwick et le timide \u00e9tranger profiter seuls de\nl'exp\u00e9rience de M. Smangle.\n\nCependant ces deux auditeurs eux-m\u00eames ne furent pas apparemment aussi\n\u00e9difi\u00e9s qu'ils auraient d\u00fb l'\u00eatre par les r\u00e9cits touchants qui leur\nfurent faits. Depuis quelque temps, M. Pickwick se trouvait dans un \u00e9tat\nde somnolence, lorsqu'il eut une indistincte perception que l'homme ivre\navait recommenc\u00e9 \u00e0 psalmodier ses chansons comiques, et que M. Smangle\nlui avait fait doucement comprendre que son auditoire n'\u00e9tait pas\ndispos\u00e9 musicalement, en lui versant le pot \u00e0 l'eau sur la t\u00eate. Notre\nh\u00e9ros retomba alors dans le sommeil avec le sentiment confus que M.\nSmangle \u00e9tait encore occup\u00e9 \u00e0 raconter une longue histoire, dont le\npoint principal paraissait \u00eatre que dans une certaine occasion sp\u00e9cifi\u00e9e\navec d\u00e9tails, il avait _fait_ une lettre de change et _refait_ un\ngentleman.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XIII.\n\nD\u00e9montrant, comme le pr\u00e9c\u00e9dent, la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 de ce vieux proverbe, que\nl'adversit\u00e9 vous fait faire connaissance avec d'\u00e9tranges camarades de\nlit; et contenant, en outre, l'incroyable d\u00e9claration que M. Pickwick\nfit \u00e0 Sam.\n\n\nQuand M. Pickwick ouvrit les yeux, le lendemain matin, le premier objet\nqu'il aper\u00e7ut fut Samuel Weller assis sur un petit porte-manteau noir,\net regardant d'un air de profonde abstraction la majestueuse figure de\nl'\u00e9blouissant M. Smangle, tandis que celui-ci, \u00e0 moiti\u00e9 habill\u00e9 et assis\nsur son lit, s'occupait de l'entreprise tout \u00e0 fait d\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9e de faire\nbaisser les yeux dudit Sam. Nous disons tout \u00e0 fait d\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9e, parce\nque Sam, d'un regard qui embrassait tout \u00e0 la fois la culotte, les\npieds, la t\u00eate, le visage, les jambes et les favoris de M. Smangle,\ncontinuait de l'examiner avec un air de vive satisfaction et sans plus\ns'inqui\u00e9ter des sentiments du sujet, que s'il avait inspect\u00e9 une statue\nou le corps empaill\u00e9 d'une effigie de Guy Faux.\n\n\u00abEh bien! me reconna\u00eetrez-vous? dit M. Smangle en fron\u00e7ant le sourcil.\n\n--Je pr\u00eaterai serment de le faire, n'importe o\u00f9, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit Sam\nd'un air de bonne humeur.\n\n--Ne dites pas d'impertinences \u00e0 un gentleman, monsieur.\n\n--Non, assur\u00e9ment; si vous voulez me dire quand il s'\u00e9veillera, je lui\nferai des politesses extra-superfines.\u00bb\n\nCette observation ayant une tendance indirecte \u00e0 impliquer que M.\nSmangle n'\u00e9tait pas un gentleman, excita quelque peu son courroux.\n\n\u00abMivins, dit-il d'un air col\u00e9rique.\n\n--Qu'y a-t-il? r\u00e9pliqua M. Mivins de sa couche.\n\n--Qui diable est donc ce gaillard-l\u00e0?\n\n--Ma foi, dit M. Mivins en regardant languissamment de dessous ses\ndraps, je devrais plut\u00f4t vous le demander. A-t-il quelque chose \u00e0 faire\nici?\n\n--Non, r\u00e9pliqua Smangle.\n\n--Alors jetez-le en bas des escaliers, et dites-lui de ne pas se\npermettre de se relever jusqu'\u00e0 ce que j'aille le trouver,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit M.\nMivins. Puis ayant donn\u00e9 cet avis, l'excellent gentleman se remit \u00e0\ndormir.\n\nLa conversation montrant ces sympt\u00f4mes peu \u00e9quivoques de devenir\npersonnelle, M. Pickwick jugea qu'il \u00e9tait temps d'intervenir.\n\n\u00abSam, dit-il.\n\n--Monsieur?\n\n--Il n'y a rien de nouveau depuis hier?\n\n--Rien d'important, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Sam, en lorgnant les favoris de\nM. Smangle. L'humidit\u00e9 et la chaleur de l'atmosph\u00e8re para\u00eet favorable \u00e0\nla croissance de certaines mauvaises herbes terribles et rouge\u00e2tres;\nmais \u00e0 \u00e7a pr\u00e8s, tout boulotte assez raisonnablement.\n\n--Je vais me lever, interrompit M. Pickwick. Donnez-moi du linge blanc.\u00bb\n\nQuelque hostiles qu'eussent pu \u00eatre les intentions de M. Smangle, elles\nfurent imm\u00e9diatement radoucies par le porte-manteau dont le contenu\nparut lui donner tout \u00e0 coup la plus favorable opinion, non-seulement de\nM. Pickwick, mais aussi de Sam. En cons\u00e9quence, il saisit promptement\nune occasion de d\u00e9clarer d'un ton assez \u00e9lev\u00e9 pour que cet excentrique\npersonnage p\u00fbt l'entendre, qu'il le reconnaissait pour un original pur\nsang et partant pour l'homme suivant son coeur. Quant \u00e0 M. Pickwick,\nl'affection qu'il con\u00e7ut pour lui en ce moment ne connut plus de bornes.\n\n\u00abY a-t-il quelque chose que je puisse faire pour vous, mon cher\nmonsieur? lui dit-il.\n\n--Rien que je sache; je vous suis oblig\u00e9, r\u00e9pondit le philosophe.\n\n--Vous n'avez pas de linge \u00e0 envoyer \u00e0 la blanchisseuse? Je connais une\nadmirable blanchisseuse dans le voisinage. Elle vient pour moi deux fois\npar semaine.... Par Jupiter! comme c'est heureux! c'est justement son\njour! Mettrai-je quelques-unes de vos petites affaires avec les miennes?\nNe parlez pas de l'embarras: au diable l'embarras! \u00c0 quoi servirait\nl'humanit\u00e9, si un gentleman dans la malheur ne se d\u00e9rangeait pas un peu\npour assister un autre gentleman qui se trouve dans le m\u00eame cas?\u00bb\n\nAinsi parlait M. Smangle en s'approchant en m\u00eame temps du porte-manteau\naussi pr\u00e8s que possible, et laissant voir dans ses regards toute la\nferveur de l'amiti\u00e9 la plus d\u00e9sint\u00e9ress\u00e9e.\n\n\u00abEst-ce que vous n'avez rien \u00e0 faire brosser au gar\u00e7on, mon cher ami?\ncontinua-t-il.\n\n--Rien du tout mon fiston, dit Sam en se chargeant de la r\u00e9plique.\nPeut-\u00eatre que si l'un de nous avait la bonne id\u00e9e de d\u00e9camper sans\nattendre le gar\u00e7on, \u00e7a serait plus agr\u00e9able pour tout le monde, comme\ndisait le ma\u00eetre d'\u00e9cole au jeune gentleman qui refusait de se laisser\nfouetter par le domestique.\n\n--Et il n'y a rien que je puisse envoyer dans ma petite bo\u00eete \u00e0 la\nblanchisseuse? ajouta M. Smangle en se tournant de nouveau vers M.\nPickwick avec un air quelque peu d\u00e9confit.\n\n--Pas l'ombre d'une camisole, monsieur, r\u00e9torqua Sam. J'ai peur que la\npetite bo\u00eete ne soit d\u00e9j\u00e0 comble de vos effets.\u00bb\n\nCe discours fut accompagn\u00e9 d'un coup d'oeil expressif jet\u00e9 sur cette\npartie du costume de M. Smangle qui atteste ordinairement la science de\nla blanchisseuse; aussi ce gentleman se crut-il oblig\u00e9 de tourner sur\nses talons et d'abandonner, pour le pr\u00e9sent du moins, toutes pr\u00e9tentions\nsur la bourse et sur la garde-robe de M. Pickwick. Il se retira donc\nd'assez mauvaise humeur au jeu de paume, o\u00f9 il d\u00e9jeuna l\u00e9g\u00e8rement et\nsainement d'une couple des cigares qui avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 achet\u00e9s le soir\npr\u00e9c\u00e9dent.\n\nM. Mivins qui n'\u00e9tait pas fumeur, dont le compte en petits articles\nd'\u00e9picerie avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 atteint le bas de l'ardoise, et pour lequel on\nrefusait de retourner ce grand livre primitif, demeura dans son lit, et\nsuivant sa propre expression demanda \u00e0 d\u00e9jeuner \u00e0 Morph\u00e9e.\n\nM. Pickwick d\u00e9jeuna dans un petit cabinet, d\u00e9cor\u00e9 du nom de boudoir,\ndont les habitants temporaires avaient l'inexprimable avantage\nd'entendre tout ce qui se disait dans le caf\u00e9 voisin; ensuite il d\u00e9p\u00eacha\nSam pour faire quelques commissions n\u00e9cessaires; puis il se rendit \u00e0 la\nloge, afin d'interroger M. Roker concernant son \u00e9tablissement futur.\n\n\u00abAh! ah! M. Pickwick, dit ce gentleman en consultant un \u00e9norme livre.\nNous ne manquons pas de place. Votre billet de _copin_ sera pour le 27,\nau troisi\u00e8me.\n\n--Mon quoi? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Votre billet de copin. Vous n'y \u00eates pas?\n\n--Pas tout \u00e0 fait, dit M. Pickwick en souriant.\n\n--Vraiment, c'est aussi clair que le jour. Vous aurez un billet de copin\npour le 27, au troisi\u00e8me, et ceux qui habitent la m\u00eame chambre seront\nvos copins.\n\n--Sont-ils nombreux? demanda M. Pickwick d'un air intrigu\u00e9.\n\n--Trois....\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick toussa.\n\n\u00abL'un deux est un ministre, continua M. Roker en \u00e9crivant sur un petit\nmorceau de papier; l'autre est un boucher.\n\n--Hein! fit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Un boucher, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Roker en appuyant le bec de sa plume sur son\nbureau pour la d\u00e9cider \u00e0 marquer. Neddy, vous rappelez-vous Tom Martin,\nquel noceur \u00e7a faisait? dit M. Roker \u00e0 un autre habitant de la loge,\nlequel s'amusait \u00e0 \u00f4ter la boue de ses souliers, avec un canif \u00e0\nvingt-cinq lames.\n\n--Je crois bien, r\u00e9pondit l'individu interrog\u00e9.\n\n--Dieu nous b\u00e9nisse! continua M. Roker en branlant doucement la t\u00eate, et\nen regardant d'un air distrait par les barreaux de la fen\u00eatre comme\nquelqu'un qui prend plaisir \u00e0 se rappeler les sc\u00e8nes paisibles de son\nenfance; il me semble que c'est hier qu'il donnait une roul\u00e9e aux\ncharretiers, l\u00e0 bas \u00e0 _Fox-under-the-Hill_, pr\u00e8s de l'endroit o\u00f9 on\nd\u00e9barque le charbon. Je le vois encore le long du _Strand_, entre deux\nWatchmen, un peu d\u00e9gris\u00e9 par ses meurtrissures, avec un empl\u00e2tre de\nvinaigre et de papier gris sur l'oeil droit; et sur ses talons, son joli\nboule-dogue, qui a d\u00e9vor\u00e9 le petit gar\u00e7on ensuite. Quelle dr\u00f4le de\nchose que le temps, hein, Neddy?\u00bb\n\nLe gentleman \u00e0 qui ses observations \u00e9taient adress\u00e9es et qui paraissait\nd'une disposition pensive et taciturne, se contenta de r\u00e9p\u00e9ter la m\u00eame\nphrase, et M. Roker secouant les id\u00e9es sombres et po\u00e9tiques qui\ns'\u00e9taient empar\u00e9es de lui, redescendit aux affaires communes de la vie,\net reprit sa plume.\n\n\u00abSavez-vous quel est le troisi\u00e8me gentleman? demanda M. Pickwick, fort\npeu enchant\u00e9 par cette description de ses futurs associ\u00e9s.\n\n--Neddy, qu'est-ce que c'est que Simpson? dit M. Roker, en se tournant\nvers son compagnon.\n\n--Quel Simpson?\n\n--Celui qui est au 27, au troisi\u00e8me, avec qui ce gentleman va \u00eatre\ncopin.\n\n--Oh! lui? r\u00e9pliqua Neddy, il n'est rien du tout; autrefois c'\u00e9tait le\ncomp\u00e8re d'un maquignon; aujourd'hui il est floueur.\n\n--C'est ce que je pensais, r\u00e9pliqua M. Roker en fermant son livre, et en\npin\u00e7ant le petit morceau de papier dans la main de M. Pickwick. Voil\u00e0 le\nbillet, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nTr\u00e8s-embarrass\u00e9 par cette mani\u00e8re sommaire de disposer de sa personne,\nM. Pickwick rentra dans la prison, en r\u00e9fl\u00e9chissant \u00e0 ce qu'il avait de\nmieux \u00e0 faire.\n\nConvaincu toutefois qu'avant de tenter une autre d\u00e9marche, il \u00e9tait\nutile de voir les trois gentlemen avec qui on voulait le colloquer, il\nse dirigea le mieux qu'il put vers le troisi\u00e8me \u00e9tage.\n\nApr\u00e8s avoir err\u00e9 quelque temps dans la galerie en essayant de\nd\u00e9chiffrer, malgr\u00e9 l'obscurit\u00e9, les num\u00e9ros qui se trouvaient sur les\ndiff\u00e9rentes portes, il s'adressa \u00e0 la fin \u00e0 un gar\u00e7on de taverne qui\npoursuivait son occupation matinale de glaner les pots d'\u00e9tain.\n\n\u00abO\u00f9 est le n\u00ba 27, mon ami? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Cinq portes plus loin, r\u00e9pliqua le gar\u00e7on. Il y a sur la porte en\ndehors le portrait \u00e0 la craie d'un gentleman pendu qui fume sa pipe.\u00bb\n\nGuid\u00e9 par ces instructions, M. Pickwick s'avan\u00e7a lentement le long de la\ngalerie jusqu'au moment o\u00f9 il rencontra le portrait du gentleman\nci-dessus d\u00e9crit. Il frappa \u00e0 la porte avec le revers de son index,\ndoucement d'abord, puis ensuite plus fortement. Apr\u00e8s avoir inutilement\nr\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9 cette op\u00e9ration, il se hasarda \u00e0 ouvrir et \u00e0 regarder dans\nl'int\u00e9rieur.\n\nIl y avait dans la chambre un seul homme qui se penchait par la fen\u00eatre\naussi loin qu'il le pouvait sans perdre l'\u00e9quilibre, et qui s'effor\u00e7ait\navec grande pers\u00e9v\u00e9rance de cracher sur le chapeau d'un de ses amis\nintimes qui se trouvait en bas dans la cour. M. Pickwick n'ayant pu lui\nindiquer sa pr\u00e9sence ni en parlant, ni en toussant, ni en \u00e9ternuant, ni\nen frappant, ni par aucun autre moyen d'attirer l'attention, se\nd\u00e9termina enfin \u00e0 s'approcher de la fen\u00eatre et \u00e0 tirer doucement la\nbasque de l'habit de cet individu. Celui-ci rentra vivement la t\u00eate et\nles \u00e9paules, et demanda \u00e0 M. Pickwick, d'un ton bourru, ce qu'il lui\nvoulait.\n\n\u00abJe crois, dit M. Pickwick en consultant son billet, je crois que c'est\nici le n\u00ba 27, au troisi\u00e8me?\n\n--Eh bien?\n\n--C'est en vertu de ce morceau de papier que je suis venu ici.\n\n--Voyons un peu \u00e7a.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick ob\u00e9it.\n\n\u00abM. Roker aurait bien pu vous fourrer ailleurs,\u00bb dit d'un air m\u00e9content\nM. Simpson (car c'\u00e9tait ce chevalier d'industrie).\n\nM. Pickwick le pensait aussi, mais, dans de telles circonstances, il\njugea prudent de garder le silence.\n\nM. Simpson r\u00e9fl\u00e9chit pendant quelques instants, puis mettant la t\u00eate \u00e0\nla fen\u00eatre, il donna un coup de sifflet aigu et pronon\u00e7a \u00e0 haute voix\ncertaines paroles. M. Pickwick ne put pas les distinguer, mais il\nimagina que c'\u00e9tait quelque sobriquet qui distinguait M. Martin, car\nimm\u00e9diatement apr\u00e8s, un grand nombre de gentlemen qui se trouvaient en\nbas se mirent \u00e0 crier: \u00abLe boucher! le boucher!\u00bb en imitant le cri par\nlequel les membres de cette utile classe de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 ont coutume de\nfaire conna\u00eetre quotidiennement leur pr\u00e9sence, aux grilles des sous-sols\ndes maisons de Londres.\n\nLes \u00e9v\u00e9nements subs\u00e9quents confirm\u00e8rent l'exactitude de cette hypoth\u00e8se,\ncar au bout de quelques secondes un gentleman pr\u00e9matur\u00e9ment gros pour\nson \u00e2ge, habill\u00e9 du bourgeron bleu professionnel et avec des bottes \u00e0\nrevers, et \u00e0 bouts ronds, entra presque hors d'haleine dans la chambre:\nil fut suivi de pr\u00e8s par un autre gentleman en habit noir tr\u00e8s-r\u00e2p\u00e9, et\nen bonnet de peau de loutre. Celui-ci s'occupait tout le long du chemin\n\u00e0 rattacher son habit jusqu'au menton, au moyen de boutons et\nd'\u00e9pingles. Il avait un visage tr\u00e8s-rouge et tr\u00e8s-commun, et faisait\nl'effet d'un chapelain ivre, ce qu'il \u00e9tait effectivement.\n\nCes deux gentlemen ayant \u00e0 leur tour parcouru le billet de M. Pickwick,\nl'un exprima son opinion que c'\u00e9tait emb\u00eatant, et l'autre, sa conviction\nque c'\u00e9tait une scie. Ayant manifest\u00e9 leurs sentiments en ces termes\nintelligibles, ils se regard\u00e8rent entre eux et regard\u00e8rent M. Pickwick,\nau milieu d'un silence fort embarrassant.\n\n\u00abQuel ennui! Et il faut que \u00e7a arrive au moment o\u00f9 nous formons une\npetite soci\u00e9t\u00e9 si agr\u00e9able,\u00bb reprit le chapelain en regardant trois\nmatelas malpropres, roul\u00e9s chacun dans une couverture, et qui occupaient\ndurant le jour un coin de la chambre, formant une toilette d'un nouveau\ngenre, sur laquelle \u00e9taient plac\u00e9s une vieille cuvette f\u00eal\u00e9e, une bo\u00eete\net un pot \u00e0 eau de fa\u00efence \u00e0 fleurs bleues. \u00abQuel ennui!\u00bb\n\nM. Martin exprima la m\u00eame opinion en termes plus \u00e9nergiques, et M.\nSimpson, apr\u00e8s avoir lanc\u00e9 dans le monde une quantit\u00e9 d'adjectifs sans\naucun substantif pour les accompagner, releva le bas de ses manches et\ncommen\u00e7a \u00e0 laver des choux pour le d\u00eener.\n\nPendant que cela se passait, M. Pickwick s'occupait \u00e0 consid\u00e9rer la\nchambre, qui \u00e9tait outrageusement sale et sentait le renferm\u00e9 d'une\nmani\u00e8re intol\u00e9rable. Il n'y avait point de vestige de tapis, de rideaux,\nni de jalousies; il n'y avait pas m\u00eame un cabinet. \u00c0 la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, s'il y\nen avait en un, il ne se trouvait pas grand'chose \u00e0 y mettre; mais,\nquoique peu nombreux et peu consid\u00e9rables, individuellement, cependant\ndes morceaux de fromage, des cro\u00fbtons de pain, des torchons mouill\u00e9s,\ndes restes de viande, des objets de v\u00eatements, de la vaisselle mutil\u00e9e,\ndes soufflets sans bout, des fourchettes sans manche, pr\u00e9sentent quelque\nchose d'assez peu confortable, en apparence, quand ils sont r\u00e9pandus sur\nle carreau d'une petite salle qui repr\u00e9sente \u00e0 la fois le salon et la\nchambre \u00e0 coucher de trois individus d\u00e9soeuvr\u00e9s.\n\n\u00abJe suppose pourtant que cela peut s'arranger, dit le boucher, apr\u00e8s un\nassez long silence. Que prendriez-vous pour vous en aller?\n\n--Je vous demande pardon, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick: qu'est-ce que vous\ndisiez? je n'ai pas bien entendu.\n\n--Combien demandez-vous pour vous en aller? D'ordinaire c'est trois\nfrancs, mais on vous en donnera quatre; \u00e7a vous va-t-il?\n\n--Au besoin, nous nous fendrons d'une roue de cabriolet, sugg\u00e9ra M.\nSimpson.\n\n--Va pour la roue de cabriolet; \u00e7a ne nous fait que quelques sous de\nplus par personne, ajouta M. Martin. Qu'en dites-vous. Nous vous offrons\nquatre shillings par semaine pour vous en aller. Eh bien?\n\n--On fera monter un _gallon_ de bi\u00e8re par-dessus le march\u00e9, intercala M.\nSimpson. L\u00e0!\n\n--Et nous le boirons sur-le-champ, ajouta le chapelain Allons!\n\n--Je suis r\u00e9ellement si ignorant des r\u00e8gles de cet endroit, r\u00e9pondit M.\nPickwick, que je ne vous comprends pas encore parfaitement. Est-ce que\nje puis loger ailleurs? Je ne le croyais pas.\u00bb\n\nEn entendant cette question, M. Martin regarda ses deux amis avec une\nexcessive surprise, et alors chacun des trois gentlemen \u00e9tendit son\npouce droit par-dessus son \u00e9paule gauche. Ce geste, que les paroles:\n_as-tu fini!_ ne sauraient rendre que d'une fa\u00e7on fort imparfaite,\nproduit un effet fort gracieux et fort a\u00e9rien quand il est ex\u00e9cut\u00e9 par\nun certain nombre de ladies et de gentlemen, habitu\u00e9s \u00e0 agir de concert.\nIl exprime un l\u00e9ger sarcasme plein d'atticisme et de bonne humeur.\n\n\u00abVous ne le croyiez pas? r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Martin avec un sourire de piti\u00e9.\n\n--Eh bien! dit l'eccl\u00e9siastique, si je connaissais la vie aussi peu que\ncela, je mangerais mon chapeau et sa boucle avec!\n\n--Et moi, _item_, ajouta le boucher solennellement.\u00bb\n\nApr\u00e8s cette courte pr\u00e9face, les trois copins inform\u00e8rent M. Pickwick,\ntout d'une haleine, que l'argent avait dans la prison la m\u00eame vertu que\ndehors; qu'il lui procurerait instantan\u00e9ment presque tout ce qu'on peut\nd\u00e9sirer, et que, si M. Pickwick en poss\u00e9dait et voulait bien le\nd\u00e9penser, il n'avait qu'\u00e0 signifier son d\u00e9sir d'avoir une chambre \u00e0 lui\nseul, et qu'il la trouverait toute meubl\u00e9e et garnie en moins d'une\ndemi-heure de temps.\n\nNos gens se s\u00e9par\u00e8rent alors avec une satisfaction mutuelle: M. Pickwick\nretournant sur nouveaux frais \u00e0 la loge, et les trois copins se rendant\nau caf\u00e9 pour y d\u00e9penser les cinq shillings que le ministre, avec une\nadmirable pr\u00e9voyance, avait emprunt\u00e9s dans ce dessein au candide\nphilosophe.\n\nLorsque M. Pickwick eut d\u00e9clar\u00e9 \u00e0 M. Roker pourquoi il revenait:\n\n\u00abJe le savais bien, s'\u00e9cria celui-ci avec un gras rire, ne l'ai-je pas\ndit, Neddy?\u00bb\n\nLe sage possesseur du couteau universel fit entendre un grognement\naffirmatif.\n\n\u00abParbleu! je savais qu'il vous fallait une chambre \u00e0 vous seul. Voyons!\nIl vous faudra des meubles; c'est moi qui vous les louerai, je suppose,\nsuivant l'usage.\n\n--Avec grand plaisir, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick.\n\n--Il y a dans l'escalier du caf\u00e9 une chambre magnifique qui appartient \u00e0\nun prisonnier de la chancellerie: elle vous co\u00fbtera une livre sterling\npar semaine. Je suppose que vous ne regardez pas \u00e0 cela?\n\n--Pas le moins du monde.\n\n--Venez avec moi, cria M. Roker en prenant son chapeau avec une grande\nvivacit\u00e9. L'affaire sera faite en cinq minutes. Que diable! pourquoi\nn'avez-vous pas commenc\u00e9 par dire que vous consentiez \u00e0 bien faire les\nchoses?\u00bb\n\nComme le guichetier l'avait pr\u00e9dit, l'affaire fut promptement arrang\u00e9e.\nLe prisonnier de la Chancellerie \u00e9tait l\u00e0 depuis assez longtemps pour\navoir perdu amis, fortune, habitudes, bonheur, et pour avoir acquis en\n\u00e9change le droit d'avoir une chambre \u00e0 lui tout seul. Cependant, comme\nil \u00e9prouvait le l\u00e9ger inconv\u00e9nient de manquer souvent d'un morceau de\npain, il consentit, avec empressement \u00e0 c\u00e9der cette chambre \u00e0 M.\nPickwick, moyennant la somme hebdomadaire de vingt shillings, sur\nlaquelle il s'engageait, en outre, \u00e0 payer l'expulsion de toute personne\nqui pourrait \u00eatre envoy\u00e9e comme copin dans cet appartement.\n\nPendant que ce march\u00e9 se concluait, M. Pickwick examinait le prisonnier\navec un int\u00e9r\u00eat p\u00e9nible. C'\u00e9tait un grand homme d\u00e9charn\u00e9, cadav\u00e9reux,\nenvelopp\u00e9 d'une vieille redingote, et dont les pieds sortaient \u00e0 moiti\u00e9\nde ses pantoufles \u00e9cul\u00e9es. Son regard \u00e9tait inquiet, ses joues\npendantes, ses l\u00e8vres p\u00e2les, ses os minces et aigus. Le malheureux! on\nvoyait que la dent de fer de l'isolement et du besoin l'avait lentement\nrong\u00e9 depuis vingt ann\u00e9es!\n\n\u00abEt vous, monsieur, o\u00f9 allez-vous demeurer maintenant? lui demanda M.\nPickwick en d\u00e9posant d'avance, sur la table chancelante, la premi\u00e8re\nsemaine de son loyer.\u00bb\n\nL'homme ramassa l'argent d'une main agit\u00e9e et r\u00e9pliqua qu'il n'en savait\nrien encore, mais qu'il allait voir o\u00f9 il pourrait transporter son lit.\n\n\u00abJ'ai peur, monsieur, reprit M. Pickwick en posant doucement sa main\nsur le bras du prisonnier; j'ai peur que vous ne soyez oblig\u00e9 de loger\ndans quelque endroit bruyant et encombr\u00e9 de monde. Mais, je vous en\nprie, continuez \u00e0 consid\u00e9rer cette chambre comme la v\u00f4tre, quand vous\naurez besoin d'un peu de tranquillit\u00e9, ou lorsque vos amis viendront\nvous voir.\n\n--Mes amis! interrompit le prisonnier d'une voix qui r\u00e2lait dans son\ngosier. Si j'\u00e9tais clou\u00e9 dans mon cercueil, enfonc\u00e9 dans la bourbe du\nfoss\u00e9 infect qui croupit sous les fondations de cette prison, je ne\npourrais pas \u00eatre plus oubli\u00e9, plus abandonn\u00e9 que je ne le suis ici. Je\nsuis un homme mort, mort \u00e0 la soci\u00e9t\u00e9, sans avoir obtenu la piti\u00e9 qu'on\naccorde \u00e0 ceux dont les \u00e2mes sont all\u00e9es compara\u00eetre devant leur juge.\nDes amis pour me voir, mon Dieu! Ma jeunesse s'est consum\u00e9e dans ce\ndonjon, et il n'y aura personne pour lever sa main au-dessus de mon lit,\nquand je serai mort, et pour dire: Dieu soit lou\u00e9, il ne souffre plus!\u00bb\n\nLe feu inaccoutum\u00e9 que l'excitation du vieillard avait jet\u00e9 sur ses\ntraits s'\u00e9teignit aussit\u00f4t qu'il eut fini de parler; il pressa l'une\ncontre l'autre ses mains d\u00e9charn\u00e9es et sortit brusquement de la chambre.\n\n\u00abEh! eh! il se cabre encore quelquefois! dit M. Roker avec un sourire.\nC'est comme les \u00e9l\u00e9phants; ils sentent la pointe de temps en temps, et\n\u00e7a les rend furieux.\u00bb\n\nAyant fait cette remarque, pleine de sympathie, M. Roker s'occupa avec\ntant d'activit\u00e9 des arrangements n\u00e9cessaires au confort de M. Pickwick,\nqu'en peu de temps la chambre fut garnie d'un tapis, de six chaises,\nd'une table, d'un lit sofa, des ustensiles n\u00e9cessaires pour le th\u00e9, et\nde divers autres, etc. Le tout ne devait co\u00fbter \u00e0 M. Pickwick que le\nprix fort raisonnable de vingt-sept shillings et six pence par semaine.\n\n\u00abY a-t-il encore quelque chose que nous puissions faire pour vous?\ndemanda M. Roker en regardant autour de lui avec grande satisfaction et\nen faisant sonner dans sa main la premi\u00e8re semaine de son loyer.\n\n\u00abMais, oui, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick, qui, depuis quelques minutes,\nr\u00e9fl\u00e9chissait profond\u00e9ment. Trouve-t-on ici des gens qui font des\ncommissions?\n\n--Vous voulez dire au dehors?\n\n--Oui, des gens qui puissent aller au dehors, pas des prisonniers.\n\n--Nous avons votre affaire. Il y a un pauvre diable qui a un ami dans\nle quartier des pauvres et qui est bien content quand on l'emploie.\nVoil\u00e0 deux mois qu'il fait des courses et des commissions pour gagner sa\nvie. Faut-il que je vous l'envoie?\n\n--S'il vous pla\u00eet... attendez... non.... Le quartier des pauvres,\ndites-vous? Je suis curieux de voir cela; je vais y aller moi-m\u00eame.\u00bb\n\nLe quartier des pauvres, dans une prison pour dettes, est, comme son nom\nl'indique, la demeure des d\u00e9biteurs les plus mis\u00e9rables. Un prisonnier\nqui se d\u00e9clare pour le quartier des pauvres ne paye ni rente, ni taxe de\ncopie. Le droit qu'il doit acquitter, en entrant dans la prison et en en\nsortant, est extr\u00eamement r\u00e9duit, et il re\u00e7oit une petite quantit\u00e9 de\nnourriture, achet\u00e9e sur le revenu des faibles legs laiss\u00e9s de temps en\ntemps pour cet objet par des personnes charitables. Il y a quelques\nann\u00e9es seulement, on voyait encore ext\u00e9rieurement, dans le mur de la\nprison de la Flotte, une esp\u00e8ce de cage de fer o\u00f9 se postait un homme \u00e0\nla physionomie affam\u00e9e, qui secouait de temps en temps une tirelire en\ns'\u00e9criant d'une voix lugubre: \u00abN'oubliez pas les pauvres d\u00e9biteurs, s'il\nvous pla\u00eet!\u00bb La recette de cette qu\u00eate, lorsqu'il y avait recette, \u00e9tait\npartag\u00e9e entre les pauvres prisonniers, qui se relevaient tour \u00e0 tour\ndans cet emploi d\u00e9gradant.\n\nQuoique cette coutume ait \u00e9t\u00e9 abolie et que la cage ait disparu\nmaintenant, la condition mis\u00e9rable de ces pauvres gens est encore la\nm\u00eame. On ne souffre plus qu'ils fassent appel \u00e0 la compassion des\npassants, mais, pour l'admiration des \u00e2ges futurs, on a laiss\u00e9 subsister\nles lois justes et bienfaisantes qui d\u00e9clarent que le criminel vigoureux\nsera nourri et habill\u00e9, tandis que le d\u00e9biteur sans argent se verra\ncondamn\u00e9 \u00e0 mourir de faim et de nudit\u00e9. Et ceci n'est pas une fiction:\nil ne se passe pas une semaine dans laquelle quelques-uns des\nprisonniers pour dette ne dussent in\u00e9vitablement p\u00e9rir dans les lentes\nagonies de la faim, s'ils n'\u00e9taient pas secourus par leurs camarades de\nprison.\n\nRepassant ces choses dans son esprit, tout en montant l'\u00e9troit escalier,\nau pied duquel il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 laiss\u00e9 par le guichetier, M. Pickwick\ns'\u00e9chauffa graduellement jusqu'au plus haut degr\u00e9 d'indignation; et il\navait \u00e9t\u00e9 tellement excit\u00e9 par ses r\u00e9flexions sur ce sujet, qu'il \u00e9tait\nentr\u00e9 dans la chambre qu'on lui avait indiqu\u00e9e dans le quartier des\npauvres, sans avoir aucun sentiment distinct ni de l'endroit o\u00f9 il\n\u00e9tait, ni de l'objet de sa visite.\n\nL'aspect de la chambre le rappela tout \u00e0 coup \u00e0 lui-m\u00eame, mais lorsque\nses regards se port\u00e8rent sur un homme languissamment assis pr\u00e8s d'un\nmauvais feu, il laissa tomber son chapeau de surprise et resta immobile\net comme p\u00e9trifi\u00e9.\n\nOui, cet homme sans habit, sans gilet, dont le pantalon \u00e9tait d\u00e9chir\u00e9,\ndont la chemise de calicot \u00e9tait jaunie et d\u00e9chir\u00e9e, dont les grands\ncheveux pendaient en d\u00e9sordre, dont les traits \u00e9taient creus\u00e9s par la\nsouffrance et par la famine, c'\u00e9tait M. Alfred Jingle! Il se tenait la\nt\u00eate appuy\u00e9e sur la main: ses yeux \u00e9taient fix\u00e9s sur le feu et tout son\next\u00e9rieur d\u00e9notait la mis\u00e8re et l'abattement.\n\nAupr\u00e8s de lui, n\u00e9gligemment accot\u00e9 contre le mur, se trouvait un\nvigoureux campagnard, caressant avec un vieux fouet de chasse-la-botte\nqui ornait son pied droit, le pied gauche \u00e9tant fourr\u00e9 dans une\npantoufle. Les chevaux, les chiens, la boisson avaient caus\u00e9 sa ruine.\nIl y avait encore \u00e0 cette botte solitaire un \u00e9peron rouill\u00e9, qu'il\nenfon\u00e7ait quelquefois dans l'air en faisant vigoureusement claquer son\nfouet et en murmurant quelques-unes de ces interjections par lesquelles\nun cavalier encourage son cheval: il ex\u00e9cutait, \u00e9videmment, en\nimagination, quelque furieuse course au clocher. Pauvre diable! le\nmeilleur cheval de son \u00e9curie ne lui avait jamais fait faire une course\naussi rapide que celle qui s'\u00e9tait termin\u00e9e \u00e0 la Flotte.\n\nDe l'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la chambre, un vieillard, assis sur une caisse de\nbois, tenait ses yeux attach\u00e9s au plancher. Un profond d\u00e9sespoir\nimmobilisait son visage. Un enfant, son arri\u00e8re-petite-fille, se pendait\napr\u00e8s lui et s'effor\u00e7ait d'attirer son attention par mille inventions\nenfantines; mais le vieillard ne la voyait ni ne l'entendait. La voix\nqui lui avait paru si musicale, les yeux qui avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 sa lumi\u00e8re, ne\nproduisaient plus d'impression sur ses sens; la maladie faisait trembler\nses genoux et la paralysie avait glac\u00e9 son esprit.\n\nDans un autre coin de la salle, deux ou trois individus formaient un\npetit groupe et parlaient bruyamment entre eux. Plus loin, une femme au\nvisage maigre et hagard, la femme d'un prisonnier, s'occupait \u00e0 arroser\nles mis\u00e9rables restes d'une plante dess\u00e9ch\u00e9e, qui ne devait jamais\nreverdir: embl\u00e8me trop vrai, peut-\u00eatre, du devoir qu'elle venait remplir\ndans la prison.\n\nTels \u00e9taient les mis\u00e9rables prisonniers qui se pr\u00e9sent\u00e8rent aux yeux de\nM. Pickwick, tandis qu'il regardait autour de lui avec \u00e9tonnement.\nEntendant le pas pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9 de quelqu'un qui entrait dans la chambre, il\ntourna les yeux vers la porte, et, dans le nouveau venu, \u00e0 travers ses\nhaillons, sa malpropret\u00e9, sa mis\u00e8re, il reconnut les traits familiers de\nM. Job Trotter.\n\n\u00abMonsieur Pickwick! s'\u00e9cria Job \u00e0 haute voix.\n\n--Eh! fit Jingle en tressaillant et en se levant de son si\u00e9ge,\nmonsieur.... C'est vrai; dr\u00f4le d'endroit, \u00e9trange chose! Je le m\u00e9ritais;\nc'est bien fait.\u00bb\n\nEn disant ces mots, M. Jingle fourra ses mains \u00e0 la place o\u00f9 les poches\nde son pantalon avaient coutume d'\u00eatre; et, laissant tomber son menton\nsur sa poitrine, s'affaissa de nouveau sur sa chaise.\n\nM. Pickwick fut affect\u00e9; ces deux hommes avaient l'air si mis\u00e9rable! Le\ncoup d'oeil affam\u00e9, involontaire que Jingle avait jet\u00e9 sur un petit\nmorceau de mouton cru, apport\u00e9 par Job, expliquait plus clairement que\nne l'aurait pu faire un r\u00e9cit de deux heures l'\u00e9tat de d\u00e9n\u00fbment auquel\nil avait \u00e9t\u00e9 r\u00e9duit. M. Pickwick regarda Jingle d'un air doux et lui\ndit:\n\n\u00abJe d\u00e9sirerais vous parler en particulier. Voulez-vous sortir avec moi\npour un instant.\n\n--Certainement, r\u00e9pondit Jingle en se levant avec empressement. Ne peux\npas aller bien loin. Pas de danger de trop marcher ici. Parc clos d'un\nmur \u00e0 chevaux de frise. Joli terrain, pittoresque, mais peu \u00e9tendu.\nL'entr\u00e9e ouverte au public. La famille toujours en ville. La femme de\ncharge terriblement soigneuse.\n\n--Vous avez oubli\u00e9 votre habit, dit M. Pickwick en descendant\nl'escalier.\n\n--Ah! oui.... il est au clou.... accroch\u00e9 chez une de mes bonnes\nparentes, ma tante du c\u00f4t\u00e9 maternel. Pouvais pas faire autrement. Faut\nmanger, vous savez; besoins de nature, et tout cela.\n\n--Qu'est ce que vous voulez dire?\n\n--Mon v\u00eatement a sign\u00e9 un engagement volontaire, mon cher monsieur,\ndernier habit. Bah! ce qui est fait est fait. J'ai v\u00e9cu d'une paire de\nbottes toute une quinzaine; d'un parapluie de soie, poign\u00e9e d'ivoire,\ntoute une semaine; c'est vrai ma parole d'honneur. Demandez \u00e0 Job; il le\nsait bien.\n\n--Vous avez v\u00e9cu pendant trois semaines d'une paire de bottes et d'un\nparapluie de soie avec une poign\u00e9e d'ivoire! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, frapp\u00e9\nd'horreur, et qui n'avait entendu parler de choses semblables que dans\nl'histoire des naufrages.\n\n--Vrai, r\u00e9torqua Jingle en secouant la t\u00eate. Les reconnaissances sont\nl\u00e0. Pr\u00eateurs sur gages, tous voleurs: ne donnent presque rien....\n\n--Oh! dit M. Pickwick grandement soulag\u00e9 par cette explication. Je\ncomprends; vous avez mis vos effets en gage?\n\n--Tout. Job aussi; toutes ses chemises en plus. Bah! \u00e7a \u00e9conomise le\nblanchissage. Plus rien bient\u00f4t. On reste couch\u00e9; on meurt de faim.\nL'enqu\u00eate se fait. Pauvre prisonnier. Mis\u00e8re! \u00c9touffer cela! Les\ngentlemen du jury, fournisseurs de la prison; pas d'\u00e9clat, mort\nnaturelle. Convoi des pauvres, bien m\u00e9rit\u00e9. Tout est fini: tirez le\nrideau.\u00bb\n\nJingle d\u00e9bita ce singulier sommaire de son avenir avec sa volubilit\u00e9\naccoutum\u00e9e et en s'effor\u00e7ant par diff\u00e9rentes grimaces de contrefaire un\nsourire. Cependant M. Pickwick s'aper\u00e7ut ais\u00e9ment que cette insouciance\n\u00e9tait jou\u00e9e; et, le regardant en face, mais non pas s\u00e9v\u00e8rement, il vit\nque ses yeux \u00e9taient mouill\u00e9s de larmes.\n\n\u00abBon enfant, reprit Jingle en pressant la main du philosophe et en\nd\u00e9tournant la t\u00eate. Chien d'ingrat! B\u00eate de pleurer; impossible de faire\nautrement. Mauvaise fi\u00e8vre; faible, malade, affam\u00e9; m\u00e9rit\u00e9 tout cela,\nmais souffert beaucoup! ah! beaucoup!\u00bb\n\nIncapable de se contenir, et peut-\u00eatre plus \u00e9nerv\u00e9 par les efforts qu'il\navait d\u00e9j\u00e0 faits pour y parvenir, l'histrion abattu s'assit sur\nl'escalier; et, couvrant son visage de ses mains, se prit \u00e0 sangloter\ncomme un enfant.\n\n\u00abAllons! allons! dit M. Pickwick avec beaucoup d'\u00e9motion. Je verrai ce\nqu'on peut faire quand je conna\u00eetrai mieux votre histoire. Ici Job; o\u00f9\nest-il donc?\n\n--Voil\u00e0, monsieur,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit Job en se montrant sur l'escalier.\n\nNous l'avons repr\u00e9sent\u00e9 quelque part comme ayant, dans son bon temps,\ndes yeux fort creux. Dans son \u00e9tat pr\u00e9sent de besoin et de d\u00e9tresse, il\navait l'air de n'en plus avoir du tout.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0, monsieur, dit Job.\n\n--Venez ici, monsieur, reprit M. Pickwick en essayant d'avoir l'air\ns\u00e9v\u00e8re, avec quatre grosses larmes qui coulaient sur son gilet. Prenez\ncela.\u00bb\n\nPrenez quoi? Suivant les habitudes du monde, ce devait \u00eatre un coup de\npoing solidement appliqu\u00e9, car M. Pickwick avait \u00e9t\u00e9 dup\u00e9, bafou\u00e9 par\nle pauvre diable qui se trouvait maintenant en son pouvoir. Faut-il dire\nla v\u00e9rit\u00e9? C'\u00e9tait quelque chose qui sortait du gousset de M. Pickwick\net qui sonna dans la main de Job; et, lorsque notre excellent ami\ns'\u00e9loigna pr\u00e9cipitamment, une \u00e9tincelle humide brillait dans son oeil et\nson coeur \u00e9tait gonfl\u00e9.\n\nEn rentrant dans sa chambre, M. Pickwick y trouva Sam, qui contemplait\nces nouveaux arrangements avec une sombre satisfaction, fort curieuse \u00e0\nvoir. D\u00e9cid\u00e9ment oppos\u00e9 \u00e0 ce que son ma\u00eetre demeur\u00e2t l\u00e0, en aucune\nmani\u00e8re, il consid\u00e9rait comme un devoir moral de ne para\u00eetre content\nd'aucune chose qui y serait faite, dite, sugg\u00e9r\u00e9e ou propos\u00e9e.\n\n\u00abEh bien! Sam?\n\n--Eh bien! monsieur?\n\n--Assez confortable, maintenant, n'est-ce pas?\n\n--Oui, pas mal, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit Sam en regardant autour de lui d'une\nmani\u00e8re m\u00e9prisante.\n\n--Avez-vous vu M. Tupman et nos autres amis?\n\n--Oui, monsieur. Ils viendront demain; et ils ont \u00e9t\u00e9 bien surpris\nd'apprendre qu'ils ne devaient pas venir aujourd'hui.\n\n--Vous m'avez apport\u00e9 les choses dont j'avais besoin?\u00bb\n\nPour toute r\u00e9ponse, Sam montra du doigt diff\u00e9rents paquets qui \u00e9taient\narrang\u00e9s aussi proprement que possible dans un coin de la chambre.\n\n\u00abTr\u00e8s-bien, dit M. Pickwick; et, apr\u00e8s un peu d'h\u00e9sitation, il ajouta:\n\u00c9coutez ce que j'ai \u00e0 vous dire, Sam.\n\n--Certainement, monsieur; faites feu, monsieur.\n\n--Sam, poursuivit M. Pickwick avec beaucoup de solennit\u00e9, j'ai senti,\nd\u00e8s le commencement, que ce n'est pas ici un endroit convenable pour un\njeune homme.\n\n--Ni pour un vieux, non plus, monsieur.\n\n--Vous avez tout \u00e0 fait raison, Sam. Mais les vieillards peuvent venir\nici \u00e0 cause de leur imprudente confiance, et les jeunes gens peuvent y\n\u00eatre amen\u00e9s par l'\u00e9go\u00efsme de ceux qu'ils servent. Il vaut mieux, pour\nces jeunes gens, sous tous les rapports, qu'ils ne restent point ici. Me\ncomprenez-vous, Sam?\n\n--Ma foi! non, monsieur; non, r\u00e9pondit Sam d'un ton obstin\u00e9.\n\n--Essayez, Sam.\n\n--Eh bien! monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Sam apr\u00e8s une courte pause je crois voir\no\u00f9 vous voulez en venir; et, si je vois o\u00f9 vous voulez en venir, c'est\nmon opinion que c'est un peu trop fort, comme disait le cocher de la\nmalle lorsqu'il fut pris dans un tourbillon de neige.\n\n--Je vois que vous me comprenez, Sam. Comme je vous l'ai dit, je d\u00e9sire\nd'abord que vous ne demeuriez pas \u00e0 perdre votre temps dans un endroit\ncomme celui-ci; mais, en outre, je sens que c'est une monstreuse\nabsurdit\u00e9 qu'un prisonnier pour dettes ait un domestique avec lui. Il\nfaut que vous me quittiez pour quelque temps, Sam.\n\n--Oh! pour quelque temps, monsieur? r\u00e9p\u00e9ta Sam, avec un l\u00e9ger accent de\nsarcasme.\n\n--Oui, pour le temps que je demeurerai ici. Je continuerai \u00e0 payer vos\ngages, et l'un de mes trois amis sera heureux de vous prendre avec lui,\nne f\u00fbt-ce que par respect pour moi. Si jamais je quitte cet endroit,\nSam, poursuivit M. Pickwick avec une gaiet\u00e9 affect\u00e9e, je vous donne ma\nparole que vous reviendrez aussit\u00f4t avec moi.\n\n--Maintenant, je vas vous dire ce qui en est, monsieur; r\u00e9pliqua Sam\nd'une voix grave et solennelle. \u00c7a ne peut pas aller comme \u00e7a: ainsi,\nn'en parlons plus.\n\n--Sam, je vous parle s\u00e9rieusement: j'y suis r\u00e9solu.\n\n--Vous \u00eates r\u00e9solu, monsieur? Tr\u00e8s-bien, monsieur. Eh bien! moi aussi\nalors.\u00bb\n\nEn pronon\u00e7ant ces mots d'une voix ferme, Sam fixa son chapeau sur sa\nt\u00eate avec une grande pr\u00e9cision, et quitta brusquement la chambre.\n\n\u00abSam! lui cria M. Pickwick, Sam, venez ici!\u00bb\n\nMais la longue galerie avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 cess\u00e9 de r\u00e9p\u00e9ter l'\u00e9cho de ses pas.\nSam \u00e9tait parti.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XIV.\n\nComment M. Samuel Weller se mit mal dans ses affaires.\n\n\nDans une grande salle mal \u00e9clair\u00e9e et plus mal a\u00e9r\u00e9e, situ\u00e9e dans\n_Portugal Street, Lincoln's Inn fields_, si\u00e9gent durant presque toute\nl'ann\u00e9e un, deux, trois ou quatre gentlemen en perruque, qui ont devant\neux de petits pupitres mal vernis. Des stalles d'avocats sont \u00e0 leur\nmain droite; \u00e0 leur main gauche, une enceinte pour les d\u00e9biteurs\ninsolvables; et en face, un plan inclin\u00e9 de figures sp\u00e9cialement\nmalpropres. Ces gentlemen en perruque sont les commissaires de la Cour\ndes insolvables, et l'endroit o\u00f9 ils si\u00e9gent est la Cour des insolvables\nelle-m\u00eame.\n\nDepuis un temps imm\u00e9morial, c'est le remarquable destin de cette cour\nd'\u00eatre regard\u00e9e, par le consentement universel de tous les gens r\u00e2p\u00e9s de\nLondres, comme leur lieu de refuge habituel pendant le jour. La salle\nest toujours pleine; les vapeurs de la bi\u00e8re et des spiritueux montent\nconstamment vers le plafond, s'y condensent par le froid et redescendent\ncomme une pluie le long des murs. L\u00e0, se trouvent \u00e0 la fois plus de\nvieux habits que n'en mettent en vente durant tout un an les juifs du\nquartier de _Houndsditch_, et plus de peaux crasseuses, plus de barbes\nlongues, que toutes les pompes et les boutiques de barbiers situ\u00e9es\nentre _Tyburn_ et _Whitechapel_ n'en pourraient nettoyer entre le lever\net le coucher du soleil.\n\nIl ne faut pas supposer que quelques-uns de ces individus aient l'ombre\nd'une affaire dans l'endroit o\u00f9 ils se rendent si assid\u00fbment; s'ils en\navaient, leur pr\u00e9sence ne serait plus surprenante, et la singularit\u00e9 de\nla chose cesserait imm\u00e9diatement. Quelques-uns dorment pendant la plus\ngrande partie de la s\u00e9ance; d'autres apportant leur d\u00eener dans leur\nmouchoir, ou dans leur poche d\u00e9chir\u00e9e, et mangent tout en \u00e9coutant, avec\nun double d\u00e9lice: mais jamais un seul d'entre eux ne fut connu pour\navoir le plus l\u00e9ger int\u00e9r\u00eat personnel dans aucune des affaires trait\u00e9es\npar la cour. Quelle que soit la mani\u00e8re dont ils occupent leur temps,\nils restent l\u00e0, tous, depuis le commencement jusqu'\u00e0 la fin de la\ns\u00e9ance. Quand il pleut, ils arrivent tout tremp\u00e9s, et alors, les vapeurs\nqui s'\u00e9l\u00e8vent de l'audience ressemblent \u00e0 celles d'un marais.\n\nUn observateur qui se trouverait l\u00e0 par hasard pourrait imaginer que\nc'est un temple \u00e9lev\u00e9 au g\u00e9nie de la pauvret\u00e9 r\u00e2p\u00e9e. Il n'y a pas un\nseul messager, pas un huissier qui porte un habit fait pour lui; il n'y\na pas dans tout l'\u00e9tablissement un seul homme passablement frais et bien\nportant, si ce n'est un petit huissier aux cheveux blancs, \u00e0 la figure\nrougeaude; et encore, comme une cerise \u00e0 l'eau-de-vie mal conserv\u00e9e, il\nsemble avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 dess\u00e9ch\u00e9 par un proc\u00e9d\u00e9 artificiel dont il n'a pas le\ndroit de tirer vanit\u00e9. Enfin les perruques des avocats eux-m\u00eames sont\nmal poudr\u00e9es et mal fris\u00e9es.\n\nMais, apr\u00e8s tout, les avou\u00e9s qui si\u00e9gent derri\u00e8re une vaste table toute\nnue, au-dessous des commissaires, sont encore la plus grande curiosit\u00e9\nde cet endroit. L'\u00e9tablissement professionnel du plus opulent de ces\ngentlemen consiste en un sac bleu,[15] et un jeune clerc ordinairement\njuif. Ils n'ont point de cabinet, mais ils traitent leurs affaires\nl\u00e9gales dans les tavernes, ou dans la cour des prisons o\u00f9 ils se rendent\nen foule et se disputent les chalands, \u00e0 la mani\u00e8re des conducteurs\nd'omnibus. Ils ont une physionomie bouffie et moisie, et si on peut les\nsoup\u00e7onner de quelques vices, c'est principalement d'ivrognerie et de\nfriponnerie. Leur r\u00e9sidence se trouve ordinairement dans un rayon d'un\nmille, autour de l'ob\u00e9lisque de _Saint George's Fields_. Leur tournure\nn'est pas engageante, et leurs mani\u00e8res sont _sui generis_.\n\n[Footnote 15: Les avocats anglais portent leurs dossiers dans un sac de\nserge bleue.]\n\nM. Salomon Pell, l'un des membres de cet illustre corps, \u00e9tait un homme\ngras, flasque et p\u00e2le. Son habit semblait tant\u00f4t vert, tant\u00f4t brun,\nsuivant les reflets du jour, et \u00e9tait orn\u00e9 d'un collet de velours, qui\noffrait la m\u00eame particularit\u00e9. Son front \u00e9tait \u00e9troit, sa face large, sa\nt\u00eate grosse, et, son nez tourn\u00e9 tout d'un c\u00f4t\u00e9, comme si la nature,\nindign\u00e9e des mauvais penchants qu'elle d\u00e9couvrait en lui \u00e0 sa naissance,\nlui avait donn\u00e9, de col\u00e8re, une secousse dont il ne s'\u00e9tait jamais\nrelev\u00e9. Au reste, comme M. Pell \u00e9tait replet et asthmatique, il\nrespirait principalement par cet organe qui, de la sorte, rachetait\npeut-\u00eatre en utilit\u00e9 ce qui lui manquait en beaut\u00e9.\n\n\u00abJe suis s\u00fbr de le tirer d'affaire, disait M. Pell.\n\n--Bien s\u00fbr? demanda la personne \u00e0 qui cette assurance \u00e9tait donn\u00e9e.\n\n--S\u00fbr et certain, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pell. Mais, voyez-vous, s'il avait\nrencontr\u00e9 quelque praticien irr\u00e9gulier je n'aurais pas r\u00e9pondu des\ncons\u00e9quences.\n\n--Ah! fit l'autre avec une bouche toute grande ouverte.\n\n--Non, je n'en aurais pas r\u00e9pondu,\u00bb r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pell; et il pin\u00e7a ses\nl\u00e8vres, fron\u00e7a ses sourcils, et secoua sa t\u00eate myst\u00e9rieusement.\n\nOr, l'endroit o\u00f9 se tenait ce discours \u00e9tait la taverne qui se trouve\njuste en face de la Cour des insolvables; et la personne \u00e0 qui il \u00e9tait\nadress\u00e9 n'\u00e9tait autre que M. Weller, _senior_. Il \u00e9tait venu l\u00e0 pour\nr\u00e9conforter un de ses amis dont la p\u00e9tition, pour \u00eatre renvoy\u00e9 en\nqualit\u00e9 de d\u00e9biteur honn\u00eatement insolvable, devait \u00eatre pr\u00e9sent\u00e9e ce\njour-l\u00e0 m\u00eame; et c'\u00e9tait \u00e0 ce sujet que l'avou\u00e9 exposait son opinion de\nla mani\u00e8re sus-\u00e9nonc\u00e9e.\n\n\u00abEt George, o\u00f9 est-il?\u00bb demanda M. Weller.\n\nM. Pell ayant inclin\u00e9 la t\u00eate dans la direction d'un arri\u00e8re-parloir, M.\nWeller s'y rendit imm\u00e9diatement, et fut salu\u00e9 de la mani\u00e8re la plus\nchaleureuse et la plus flatteuse par une demi douzaine de ses confr\u00e8res.\nLe gentleman insolvable, qui avait contract\u00e9 une passion sp\u00e9culative,\nmais imprudente, pour \u00e9tablir des relais de poste, avait l'air fort bien\nportant, et s'effor\u00e7ait de calmer l'excitation de ses esprits avec des\nomettes et du _porter_.\n\nLe salut \u00e9chang\u00e9 entre M. Weller et ses amis se borna strictement \u00e0 la\nfranc-ma\u00e7onnerie du m\u00e9tier, c'est-\u00e0-dire au renversement du poignet\ndroit, en agitant en m\u00eame temps le petit doigt en l'air. Nous avons\nconnu autrefois deux fameux cochers (pauvres gar\u00e7ons, ils sont morts\nmaintenant!) qui \u00e9taient jumeaux, et entre lesquels existait\nl'attachement le plus sinc\u00e8re, le plus d\u00e9vou\u00e9e. Ils se croisaient,\nchaque jour, sur la route de Douvres, sans \u00e9changer jamais d'autre salut\nque celui que nous venons de d\u00e9crire; et cependant, quand l'un des deux\nmourut, l'autre tomba en langueur, et le suivit bient\u00f4t apr\u00e8s.\n\n\u00abEh ben! George? dit M. Weller, en \u00f4tant sa redingote et en s'asseyant\navec sa gravit\u00e9 accoutum\u00e9e. \u00abComment \u00e7a marche-t-i'. Tout va-t-i' ben\nsur l'imp\u00e9riale; tout est-i' plein dans le coup\u00e9?\n\n--Tout va bien, vieux camarade, repartit le gentleman qui avait fait de\nmauvaises affaires.\n\n--La jument grise est-elle pass\u00e9e \u00e0 quelqu'un?\u00bb demanda M. Weller avec\nanxi\u00e9t\u00e9. Georges fit un signe affirmatif.\n\n--Bon! c'est bien. On a eu soin des voitures aussi?\n\n--Consign\u00e9es dans un endroit s\u00fbr, r\u00e9pliqua Georges, en arrachant la t\u00eate\nd'une demi-douzaine de crevettes, et en les avalant sans plus de\nc\u00e9r\u00e9monie.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, tr\u00e8s-bien; dit M. Weller. Faites toujours attention \u00e0 la\nm\u00e9canique quand vous descendez un coteau. La feuille de route est-elle\nbien dress\u00e9e?\u00bb\n\nM. Pell devinant la pens\u00e9e de M. Weller, prit la parole et dit:\n\u00abL'inventaire de l'actif et du passif est aussi clair et aussi\nsatisfaisant que la plume et l'encre peuvent le rendre.\u00bb\n\nM. Weller fit un signe de t\u00eate qui impliquait son approbation de ces\narrangements, et ensuite se tournant vers M. Pell, il lui dit, en\nmontrant son ami Georges:\n\n\u00abQuand est-ce que vous y \u00f4tez sa couverture?\n\n--Eh?... Il est le troisi\u00e8me sur la liste des d\u00e9biteurs dont les\ncr\u00e9anciers refusent de reconna\u00eetre l'insolvabilit\u00e9, et je pense que son\ntour arrivera dans une demi-heure. J'ai dit \u00e0 mon clerc de venir me\npr\u00e9venir quand il y aurait une chance.\u00bb\n\nM. Weller consid\u00e9ra l'avou\u00e9 des pieds \u00e0 la t\u00eate avec grande\u00bb admiration,\net dit emphatiquement:\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce que vous voulez prendre, mossieu?\n\n--Mais, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9, vous \u00eates bien.... Ma parole d'honneur, je n'ai pas\nl'habitude de.... Il est r\u00e9ellement de si bonne heure que.... Eh bien!\nVous pouvez m'apporter pour trois pence de rhum, ma ch\u00e8re.\u00bb\n\nLa demoiselle servante, qui avait anticip\u00e9 la conclusion de ce discours,\nposa un verre devant Pell et se retira.\n\n\u00abGentlemen, dit M. Pell en regardant toute la compagnie, bonne chance \u00e0\nvotre ami! Je n'aime pas \u00e0 me vanter, gentlemen, ce n'est pas dans mes\nhabitudes; pourtant je ne puis pas m'emp\u00eacher de dire que, si votre ami\nn'avait pas \u00e9t\u00e9 assez heureux pour tomber dans des mains qui.... Mais je\nne veux pas dire ce que j'allais dire.... Gentlemen, \u00e0 vos sant\u00e9s!\u00bb\n\nAyant vid\u00e9 son verre en un clin d'oeil, M. Pell fit claquer ses l\u00e8vres\net regarda avec complaisance le cercle des cochers, aux yeux desquels il\npassait \u00e9videmment pour une esp\u00e8ce d'oracle.\n\n\u00abVoyons, reprit-il, qu'est-ce que je disais, gentlemen?\n\n--Vous observiez que vous n'en refuseriez pas un second verre, dit M.\nWeller avec une gravit\u00e9 fac\u00e9tieuse.\n\n--Ha! ha! Pas mauvais, pas mauvais.... Un bon... bon.... \u00c0 cette\n\u00e9poque-ci de la matin\u00e9e, ce serait un peu.... Eh bien! vous attendez, ma\nch\u00e8re.... Vous pouvez m'apporter la seconde \u00e9dition, s'il vous pla\u00eet....\nHem!\u00bb\n\nCe dernier mot repr\u00e9sente une toux solennelle et pleine de dignit\u00e9, que\nM. Pell avait cru se devoir \u00e0 lui-m\u00eame, en remarquant parmi ses\nauditeurs une ind\u00e9cente disposition \u00e0 la gaiet\u00e9.\n\n\u00abGentlemen, reprit M. Pell, le d\u00e9funt lord chancelier m'aimait beaucoup.\n\n--Et c'\u00e9tait fort honorable pour lui, interrompit M. Weller.\n\n--\u00c9coutez, \u00e9coutez! cria le client de l'homme d'affaires. Pourquoi pas?\n\n--Ah! oui; pourquoi pas, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9? r\u00e9p\u00e9ta un homme au visage\ntr\u00e8s-rouge, qui n'avait encore rien dit jusqu'alors, et qui avait tout \u00e0\nfait l'air de n'avoir rien \u00e0 dire de plus. Pourquoi pas?\u00bb\n\nUn murmure d'assentiment circula dans la compagnie.\n\n\u00abJe me rappelle, gentlemen, que, d\u00eenant avec lui un certain jour... nous\nn'\u00e9tions que nous deux, mais tout \u00e9tait aussi splendide que si l'on\navait attendu vingt personnes.... Le grand sceau \u00e9tait sur une \u00e9tag\u00e8re,\n\u00e0 sa droite, et \u00e0 sa gauche un homme en grande perruque et couvert d'une\narmure gardait la masse, avec un sabre nu et des bas de soie.... Ce qui\nse fait perp\u00e9tuellement, gentlemen, la nuit et le jour. Il me dit tout \u00e0\ncoup: \u00abPell, dit-il, pas de fausse d\u00e9licatesse. Pell, vous \u00eates un homme\nde talent; vous pouvez faire passer qui vous voulez \u00e0 la Cour des\ninsolvables. Votre pays doit \u00eatre fier de vous, Pell.\u00bb Ce sont l\u00e0 ses\npropres paroles, \u00abMylord, lui dis-je, vous me flattez.--Pell, dit-il, si\nje vous flatte, je veux \u00eatre damn\u00e9!...\u00bb\n\n--A-t-il dit \u00e7a? interrompit M. Weller.\n\n--Il l'a dit.\n\n--Eh bien! alors je dis que le parlement aurait d\u00fb le mettre \u00e0 l'amende\npour avoir jur\u00e9, et si le chancelier avait \u00e9t\u00e9 un pauv' diable, on l'y\naurait mis.\n\n--Mais, mon cher monsieur, il connaissait ma discr\u00e9tion.... Il me disait\ncela en toute confiance.\n\n--Et quoi?\n\n--En toute confiance.\n\n--Ah! tr\u00e8s-bien, r\u00e9partit M. Weller apr\u00e8s un petit moment de r\u00e9flexion.\nS'il se damnait en toute confiance, \u00e7a change la question.\n\n--N\u00e9cessairement la distinction est \u00e9vidente.\n\n--\u00c7a change la question enti\u00e8rement. Continuez, monsieur.\n\n--Non, je ne continuerai pas, reprit M. Pell d'une voix basse et\ns\u00e9rieuse. Vous m'avez rappel\u00e9, monsieur, que c'\u00e9tait une conversation\npriv\u00e9e.... priv\u00e9e et confidentielle, gentlemen. Gentlemen, je suis un\nhomme de loi.... Il est possible que je sois fort estim\u00e9 dans ma\nprofession; il est possible que je ne le sois pas. Chacun peut le\nsavoir; je n'en dis rien. On a d\u00e9j\u00e0 fait dans cette chambre des\nobservations injurieuses \u00e0 la m\u00e9moire de mon noble ami. Vous\nm'excuserez, gentlemen, j'avais \u00e9t\u00e9 imprudent.... Je sens que je n'ai\npas le droit de parler de cette mati\u00e8re sans son consentement. Je vous\nremercie, monsieur, de m'en avoir fait souvenir.\u00bb\n\nM. Pell, ainsi d\u00e9gag\u00e9, fourra ses mains dans ses poches, fit r\u00e9sonner\navec une d\u00e9termination terrible trois demi-pence qui s'y trouvaient, et\nfron\u00e7a le sourcil en regardant autour de lui.\n\nIl venait \u00e0 peine d'exprimer sa vertueuse r\u00e9solution, lorsque le galopin\net le sac bleu, deux ins\u00e9parables compagnons, se pr\u00e9cipit\u00e8rent dans la\nchambre et dirent (ou du moins le galopin _dit_, car le sac bleu ne prit\naucune part \u00e0 cette annonce) que la cause allait passer \u00e0 l'instant.\nToute la compagnie se h\u00e2ta aussit\u00f4t de traverser la rue et de faire le\ncoup de poing pour p\u00e9n\u00e9trer dans la salle, c\u00e9r\u00e9monie pr\u00e9paratoire qui,\ndans les cas ordinaires, a \u00e9t\u00e9 calcul\u00e9e durer de vingt-cinq \u00e0 trente\nminutes.\n\nM. Weller, qui \u00e9tait puissant, se jeta tout d'abord au milieu de la\nfoule dans l'esp\u00e9rance d'arriver, \u00e0 la fin, dans quelque endroit qui lui\nconviendrait; mais le succ\u00e8s ne r\u00e9pondit pas enti\u00e8rement \u00e0 son attente,\net son chapeau, qu'il avait n\u00e9glig\u00e9 d'\u00f4ter, fut tout \u00e0 coup enfonc\u00e9 sur\nses yeux par une personne invisible, dont il avait pesamment froiss\u00e9 les\norteils. Cet individu regretta apparemment son imp\u00e9tuosit\u00e9, car\nl'instant d'apr\u00e8s, murmurant une indistincte exclamation de surprise, il\nentra\u00eena le gros homme dans la salle, et, avec de violents efforts, le\nd\u00e9barrassa de son chapeau.\n\n\u00abSamivel!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria M. Weller, quand il lui fut possible de voir la\nlumi\u00e8re.\n\nSam fit un signe de t\u00eate.\n\n\u00abTu es un fils bien affectionn\u00e9, bien soumis? Coiffer com' \u00e7a ton p\u00e8re\ndans sa vieillesse!\n\n--Comment pouvais-je savoir que c'\u00e9tait vous? Est-ce que vous croyez que\nje peux vous reconna\u00eetre au poids de votre pied?\n\n--Ha! c'est vrai, Samivel, repartit M. Weller imm\u00e9diatement amolli. Mais\nqu'est-ce que tu fais ici? Ton gouverneur ne peut rien gagner ici,\nSammy. I' ne passeront pas le verdict, Sammy; i' ne l' passeront pas. Et\nM. Weller secouait la t\u00eate avec une gravit\u00e9 toute judiciaire.\n\n--Quelle vieille caboche obstin\u00e9e! s'\u00e9cria Sam. Toujours avec les\nverdicts et les all\u00e9bis, et tout \u00e7a. Qu'est-ce qui vous parle de\nverdicts?\u00bb\n\nM. Weller ne fit point de r\u00e9ponse, mais il secoua encore la t\u00eate avec\nune solennit\u00e9 officielle.\n\n\u00abNe dandinez pas votre coloquinte comme \u00e7a, si vous ne voulez pas la\nd\u00e9mancher tout \u00e0 fait, poursuivit Sam avec impatience. Comportez-vous\nraisonnablement. J'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 vous chercher hier soir au marquis de Granby.\n\n--As-tu vu la marquise de Granby? dit M. Weller avec un soupir.\n\n--Oui.\n\n--Quelle mine avait la pauvre femme?\n\n--Fort dr\u00f4le. J'imagine qu'elle se d\u00e9t\u00e9riore graduellement avec le rhum\net les autres m\u00e9decines de m\u00eame nature qu'elle s'administre.\n\n--Tu crois, Sammy? s'\u00e9cria M. Weller avec un vif int\u00e9r\u00eat.\n\n--Oui, bien s\u00fbr.\u00bb\n\nM. Weller saisit la main de son fils, la serra, puis la laissa retomber;\net durant cette action, sa contenance ne r\u00e9v\u00e9lait pas la crainte ni la\ndouleur, mais refl\u00e9tait plut\u00f4t la douce expression de l'esp\u00e9rance. Un\nrayon de r\u00e9signation et m\u00eame de contentement passa sur son visage,\npendant qu'il disait:\n\n\u00abJe ne suis pas tout \u00e0 fait s\u00fbr et certain de la chose, Sammy; je ne\nveux pas trop y compter de peur d'un d\u00e9sappointement subs\u00e9quent; mais il\nme semble, mon gar\u00e7on, il me semble que le berger a gagn\u00e9 une maladie de\nfoie.\n\n--A-t-il mauvaise mine?\n\n--\u00c9tonnamment p\u00e2le, except\u00e9 son nez qu'est plus rouge que jamais. Son\napp\u00e9tit est m\u00e9diocre; mais il imbibe prodigieusement.\u00bb\n\nPendant que M. Weller pronon\u00e7ait ces derni\u00e8res paroles, quelques id\u00e9es\nassoci\u00e9es avec le rhum passaient probablement dans son esprit, car son\nair devint triste et pensif; mais il se remit presque aussit\u00f4t, ce qui\nfut attest\u00e9 par tout un alphabet de clignements d'yeux, auxquels il\nn'avait coutume de se livrer que quand il \u00e9tait particuli\u00e8rement\nsatisfait.\n\n\u00abAllons, maintenant, arrivons \u00e0 mon affaire, reprit Sam. Ouvrez-moi vos\noreilles, et ne soufflez mot jusqu'\u00e0 ce que j'aie fini.\u00bb\n\nApr\u00e8s ce court exorde, Sam rapporta aussi succinctement qu'il le put la\nderni\u00e8re et m\u00e9morable conversation qu'il avait eue avec M. Pickwick.\n\n\u00abPauvre cr\u00e9ature! s'\u00e9cria M. Weller. Rester l\u00e0 tout seul sans personne\npour prendre son parti! \u00c7a ne se peut pas, Samivel; \u00e7a ne se peut pas.\n\n--Parbleu! je savais \u00e7a avant que de venir.\n\n--Ils le mangeraient tout cru, Sammy.\u00bb Sam t\u00e9moigna par un signe qu'il\n\u00e9tait de la m\u00eame opinion.\n\n\u00abEt s'ils ne le d\u00e9vorent pas, il en sortira si bien plum\u00e9 que ses\npropres amis ne le conna\u00eetront pas. Un pigeon bard\u00e9 n'es rien aupr\u00e8s,\nSammy.\u00bb\n\nSam r\u00e9p\u00e9ta le m\u00eame signe.\n\n\u00ab\u00c7a ne se doit pas, Samivel, continua M. Weller gravement.\n\n--\u00c7a ne sera pas, dit Sam.\n\n--Certainement non, poursuivit M. Weller.\n\n--Eh bien! reprit Sam, vous proph\u00e9tisez comme un v\u00e9ritable B\u00e2t-l'\u00e2ne,\nqui a un visage si rougeaud dans le livre \u00e0 six pence.\n\n--Qu'est-ce qu'il \u00e9tait, Sammy?\n\n--\u00c7a ne vous fait rien; c'\u00e9tait pas un cocher; \u00e7a doit vous suffire.\n\n--J'ai connu un palefrenier de ce nom l\u00e0, dit M. Weller en\nr\u00e9fl\u00e9chissant.\n\n--C'est pas lui; le mien \u00e9tait un proph\u00e8te.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que c'est qu'un proph\u00e8te? demanda M. Weller en regardant son\nfils d'un air s\u00e9v\u00e8re.\n\n--Eh bien! c'est un homme qui dit ce qui doit arriver.\n\n--Je voudrais bien le conna\u00eetre, Sammy. Peut-\u00eatre qui pourrait me jeter\nun petit brin de lumi\u00e8re sur cette maladie de foie dont je te parlais\ntout \u00e0 l'heure. Quoiqu'i' n'en soit, s'il est mort, et s'il n'a laiss\u00e9\nsa boutique \u00e0 personne, voil\u00e0 qu'est fini. Continue, Sammy, dit M.\nWeller avec un soupir.\n\n--Eh bien! reprit Sam, vous avez proph\u00e9tis\u00e9 ce qui arrivera au\ngouverneur s'il reste tout seul. Voyez-vous quelques moyens d'avoir soin\nde lui?\n\n--Non, Sammy, non, r\u00e9pondit M. Weller d'un air pensif.\n\n--Pas de moyens du tout?\n\n--Non, pas un seul. \u00c0 moins.... Un rayon d'intelligence \u00e9claira la\ncontenance de M. Weller. Il r\u00e9duisit sa voix au plus faible\nchuchottement, et, appliquant la bouche \u00e0 l'oreille de sa prog\u00e9niture: \u00c0\nmoins de le faire sortir dans un matelas roul\u00e9, \u00e0 l'insu du guichetier,\nou de le d\u00e9guiser en vieille femme avec un voile vert.\u00bb\n\nSam re\u00e7ut ces deux suggestions avec un d\u00e9dain inattendu, et r\u00e9p\u00e9ta sur\nnouveaux frais sa question.\n\n\u00abNon, dit le vieux gentleman. S'il ne veut pas que vous y restez, je ne\nvois pas de moyens du tout. C'est pas une grand' route, Sammy; c'est pas\nune grand' route.\n\n--Eh bien! alors, je vas vous dire ce qui en est. Je vous prierai de me\npr\u00eater vingt-cinq livres sterling.\n\n--Quel bien \u00e7a fera-t-i \u00e7a?\n\n--Vous inqui\u00e9tez pas. Peut-\u00eatre que vous me les redemanderez cinq\nminutes apr\u00e8s; peut-\u00eatre que je dirai que je ne veux pas les rendre, et\nque je ferai l'insolent. Et vous, vous \u00eates capable de faire arr\u00eater\nvotre propre fils pour un peu d'argent. Vous \u00eates capable de l'envoyer\nen prison, p\u00e8re d\u00e9natur\u00e9!\u00bb\n\n\u00c0 ces mots, le p\u00e8re et le fils \u00e9chang\u00e8rent un code complet de signes et\nde gestes t\u00e9l\u00e9graphiques, apr\u00e8s quoi M. Weller s'assit sur une pierre et\nse mit \u00e0 rire si violemment qu'il en devint pourpre.\n\n\u00abQuelle vieille face d'image! s'\u00e9cria Sam, indign\u00e9 de cette perte de\ntemps. Qu'est-ce que vous avez besoin de vous asseoir l\u00e0 et de faire des\ngrimaces comme le marteau d'une porte coch\u00e8re. Est-ce que nous n'avons\npas autre chose \u00e0 faire? O\u00f9 est la monnaie?\n\n--Dans le coffre, Sam, dans le coffre, dit M. Weller, en rendant \u00e0 ses\ntraits leur expression accoutum\u00e9e. Tiens mon chapeau, Sam.\u00bb\n\nD\u00e9barrass\u00e9 de cet ornement, M. Weller tordit son corps tout d'un cot\u00e9,\net, par un mouvement habile, parvint \u00e0 insinuer sa main droite dans une\npoche immense, d'o\u00f9 il vint \u00e0 bout d'extraire, apr\u00e8s bien des efforts et\ndes soupirs, un portefeuille grand in-octavo, ferm\u00e9 par une \u00e9norme\ncourroie de cuir. Il tira de ce portefeuille une couple de m\u00e8ches de\nfouet, trois ou quatre boucles, un petit sac d'\u00e9chantillon d'avoine, et\nenfin un rouleau de bank-notes fort malpropres, parmi lesquelles il\nchoisit la somme requise, qu'il tendit \u00e0 Sam.\n\n\u00abEt maintenant, Sammy, dit-il apr\u00e8s avoir r\u00e9int\u00e9gr\u00e9 dans le portefeuille\nles m\u00e8ches, les boucles et le sac d'avoine, et apr\u00e8s avoir de nouveau\nd\u00e9pos\u00e9 le portefeuille dans le fond de sa grande poche; maintenant,\nSammy, je connais un gentleman qui va faire pour nous le reste de la\nbesogne en moins de rien. C'est un supp\u00f4t de la loi, Sammy, qu'a de la\ncervelle, jusqu'au bout des doigts comme les grenouilles; un ami de lord\nchancelier, celui qui n'aurait qu'un signe \u00e0 faire pour te faire\nenfermer toute ta vie si i'voulait.\n\n--Halte-l\u00e0, interrompit Sam, pas de \u00e7a.\n\n--Pas de quoi?\n\n--Pas de ces moyens inconstitutionnels. Apr\u00e8s le mouvement perp\u00e9tuel,\nles _ayez sa carcasse_ est une des plus excellentes choses qu'on ait\njamais invent\u00e9es. J'ai lu \u00e7a dans les journaux tr\u00e8s-souvent.\n\n--Eh bien! qu'est-ce que \u00e7a a affaire ici?\n\n--Voila; c'est que je veux favoriser l'invention et me faire mettre\ndedans de cette mani\u00e8re l\u00e0. Pas de manigances avec le chancelier; je\nn'aime pas \u00e7a. Ce n'est peut-\u00eatre pas bien sain, pour ce qui est d'en\nressortir.\u00bb\n\nD\u00e9f\u00e9rant sur ce point au sentiment de son fils, M. Weller alla retrouver\nM. Salomon Pell et lui communiqua son d\u00e9sir d'obtenir sur-le-champ une\nprise de corps pour la somme de vingt-cinq livres sterling et les frais,\ncontre un certain Samuel Weller; la d\u00e9pense \u00e0 ce n\u00e9cessaire devant \u00eatre\npay\u00e9e d'avance \u00e0 Salomon.\n\nL'homme d'affaires \u00e9tait de fort bonne humeur, car son client venait de\nrecevoir sa d\u00e9charge. Il approuva hautement l'attachement de Sam pour\nson ma\u00eetre, d\u00e9clara que cela lui rappelait fortement ses propres\nsentiments de d\u00e9vouement pour son ami, le chancelier, et mena sans d\u00e9lai\nM. Weller au Temple, pour y pr\u00eater serment au sujet de la dette dont\nl'attestation venait d'\u00eatre dress\u00e9e sur place, par le petit clerc,\nassist\u00e9 du sac bleu.\n\nPendant ce temps Sam ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 formellement pr\u00e9sent\u00e9 au gentleman, qui\nvenait d'\u00eatre lib\u00e9r\u00e9 du poids de ses dettes, et \u00e0 ses amis, comme le\nrejeton de M. Weller, de la Belle Sauvage, fut trait\u00e9 avec une\ndistinction marqu\u00e9e, et invit\u00e9 \u00e0 se r\u00e9galer avec eux en l'honneur de la\ncirconstance, invitation qu'il accepta sans aucune esp\u00e8ce de difficult\u00e9.\n\nLa gaiet\u00e9 des gentlemen de cette classe est ordinairement d'un caract\u00e8re\ngrave et tranquille; mais il s'agissait l\u00e0 d'une r\u00e9jouissance toute\nparticuli\u00e8re, et ils se rel\u00e2ch\u00e8rent, en proportion, de leur gravit\u00e9\naccoutum\u00e9e. Apr\u00e8s quelques toasts assez tumultueux, en l'honneur du chef\ndes commissaires et de M. Salomon Pell, qui venait de d\u00e9ployer une\nhabilet\u00e9 si transcendante, un gentleman, au teint marbr\u00e9 de rouge, qui\navait pour cravate un ch\u00e2le bleu, proposa de chanter. La r\u00e9plique\nnaturelle \u00e9tait que le gentleman au teint marbr\u00e9, qui d\u00e9sirait une\nchanson, la chant\u00e2t lui-m\u00eame; mais il s'y refusa fermement, et m\u00eame d'un\nair l\u00e9g\u00e8rement offens\u00e9: il s'ensuivit comme cela arrive assez souvent en\npareil cas, un colloque aigre doux.\n\n\u00abGentlemen, dit le client de M. Pell, plut\u00f4t que de d\u00e9truire l'harmonie\nde cette d\u00e9licieuse r\u00e9union, peut-\u00eatre que M. Samuel Weller voudra bien\nobliger la soci\u00e9t\u00e9.\n\n--R\u00e9ellement, gentlemen, dit Sam, je ne suis pas trop dans l'habitude de\nchanter sans instrument; mais faut tout faire pour une vie tranquille,\ncomme dit le marin, quand il accepta la place de gardien du phare.\u00bb\n\nApr\u00e8s ce l\u00e9ger pr\u00e9lude, M. Samuel Weller se lan\u00e7a tout \u00e0 coup dans\nl'admirable l\u00e9gende que nous prenons la libert\u00e9 d'imprimer ci-dessous,\ncar nous pensons qu'elle n'est pas g\u00e9n\u00e9ralement connue. Nous prions les\nlecteurs de vouloir bien remarquer les dissyllabes qui terminent le\npremier et le quatri\u00e8me vers, et qui, non-seulement permettent au\nchanteur de reprendre haleine un cet endroit, mais en outre favorisant\nsinguli\u00e8rement le m\u00e8tre.\n\n    ROMANCE.\n\n    _1er Couplet._\n\n    Un beau jour le hardi Turpin, oh\u00e9!\n    Galoppait grand train sur sa jument noire.\n    V'l\u00e0 qu'un bel \u00e9v\u00eaque, en robe de moire,\n    Se prom'nait sur le grand chemin, oh\u00e9!\n    V'l\u00e0 Turpin qui court apr\u00e8s le carosse,\n    Et qui met sa t\u00eat' tout enti\u00e8r' dedans;\n    Et l'\u00e9v\u00eaqu' qui dit: \u00abL' diable emport' ma crosse,\n    Si c' n'est pas Turpin qui m'fait voir ses dents!\u00bb\n\n    _Le choeur._\n\n    Et l'\u00e9vequ' qui dit: \u00abL' diable emport' ma crosse,\n    Si c' n'est pas Turpin qui m' fait voir ses dents!\u00bb\n\n    _2e Couplet._\n\n    Turpin dit: \u00abVous mang'rez c'mot l\u00e0, oh\u00e9!\n    Avec un' sauce, mon cher, d'balles de plomb.\u00bb\n    Alors i' tire un pistolet d'ar\u00e7on\n    Et lui fait entrer dans la gorge, oh\u00e9!\n    Le cocher, qui n'aimait pas cett' rasade,\n    Fouett' ses ch'vaux et part au triple galop;\n    Mais Turpin lui met quatre ball' dans l' dos,\n    Et de s'arr\u00eater ainsi le persuade.\n\n    _Le choeur, d'un ton sarcastique._\n\n    Mais Turpin lui met quatre ball' dans l' dos,\n    Et de s'arr\u00eater ainsi le persuade.\n\n\u00abJe maintiens que cette chanson est personnelle \u00e0 la profession, dit le\ngentleman au teint marbr\u00e9, en l'interrompant en cet endroit. Je demande\nle nom de ce cocher.\n\n--On n'a jamais pu le savoir, r\u00e9pliqua Sam; vu qu'il n'avait pas sa\ncarte dans sa poche.\n\n--Je m'oppose \u00e0 l'introduction de la politique, reprit le cocher au\nteint marbr\u00e9. Je remarque que dans la pr\u00e9sente compagnie cette chanson\nest politique, et, ce qu'est \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s la m\u00eame chose, qu'elle n'est pas\nvraie. Je dis que ce cocher ne s'est pas sauv\u00e9, mais qu'il est mort\nbravement comme un des plus grands z'h\u00e9ros, et je ne veux pas entendre\ndire le contraire.\u00bb\n\nComme l'orateur parlait avec beaucoup d'\u00e9nergie et de d\u00e9cision, et comme\nles opinions de la compagnie paraissaient divis\u00e9es \u00e0 ce sujet, on \u00e9tait\nmenac\u00e9 de nouvelles altercations, lorsque M. Weller et M. Pell\narriv\u00e8rent, fort \u00e0 propos.\n\n\u00abTout va bien, Sammy, dit M. Weller.\n\n--L'officier sera ici \u00e0 quatre heures, ajouta M. Pell. Je suppose que\nvous ne vous enfuirez pas en attendant! ha! ha! ha!\n\n--Peut-\u00eatre que mon cruel papa se repentira d'ici l\u00e0? balbutia Sam, avec\nune grimace comique.\n\n--Non, ma foi, dit M. Weller.\n\n--Je vous en prie, continua Sam.\n\n--Pour rien au monde, r\u00e9torqua l'inexorable cr\u00e9ancier.\n\n--Je vous ferai des billets pour vous payer six pence par mois.\n\n--Je n'en veux pas.\n\n--Ha! ha! ha! tr\u00e8s-bon, tr\u00e8s-bon! s'\u00e9cria M. Salomon Pell, qui\ns'occupait de faire sa petite note des frais. C'est un incident fort\namusant, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9.--Benjamin, copiez cela; et M. Pell recommen\u00e7a \u00e0\nsourire, en faisant remarquer le total \u00e0 M. Weller.\n\n--Merci, merci, dit l'homme de loi en prenant les grasses bank-notes que\nle vieux cocher tirait de son portefeuille. Trois livres dix shillings\net une livre dix shillings font cinq livres sterling. Bien oblig\u00e9,\nmonsieur Weller.... Votre fils est un jeune homme fort int\u00e9ressant. Tout\n\u00e0 fait, monsieur, c'est un trait fort honorable de la part d'un jeune\nhomme, tout \u00e0 fait, ajouta M. Pell, en souriant fort gracieusement \u00e0 la\nronde, et en empochant son argent\u00bb.\n\n--Une fameuse farce, dit M. Weller, avec un gros rire, un v\u00e9ritable\nenfant prodige.\n\n--Prodigue, monsieur, enfant prodigue, sugg\u00e9ra doucement M. Pell.\n\n--Ne vous tourmentez pas, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua M. Weller, avec dignit\u00e9. Je\nsais l'heure qu'il est, monsieur. Quand je ne la saurai pas, je vous la\ndemanderai, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nLorsque l'officier arriva, Sam s'\u00e9tait rendu si populaire, que les\ngentlemen r\u00e9unis \u00e0 la taverne se d\u00e9termin\u00e8rent \u00e0 le conduire, en corps,\n\u00e0 la prison. Ils se mirent donc en route; le demandeur et le d\u00e9fendeur\nmarchaient bras dessus bras dessous: l'officier en t\u00eate et huit\npuissants cochers formaient l'arri\u00e8re-garde. Apr\u00e8s s'\u00eatre arr\u00eat\u00e9s au\ncaf\u00e9 de _Sergeant's Inn_ pour se rafra\u00eechir et pour terminer tous les\narrangements l\u00e9gaux, la procession se remit en marche.\n\nUne l\u00e9g\u00e8re commotion fut excit\u00e9e dans Fleet-Street par l'humeur\nplaisante des huit gentlemen de l'arri\u00e8re-garde, qui persistaient \u00e0\nmarcher quatre de front. On d\u00e9cida qu'il \u00e9tait n\u00e9cessaire de laisser en\narri\u00e8re le gentleman gr\u00eal\u00e9 pour boxer avec un commissionnaire, et il fut\nconvenu que ses amis le prendraient au retour. Au reste ces l\u00e9gers\nincidents furent les seuls qui arriv\u00e8rent pendant la route. Quand on fut\nparvenu devant la prison, la cavalcade sous la direction du demandeur,\npoussa trois effroyables acclamations pour le d\u00e9fendeur, et ne le quitta\nque lorsqu'il eut plusieurs fois secou\u00e9 la main de chacun de ses\nmembres.\n\nSam ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 formellement remis entre les mains du gouverneur de la\nflotte, \u00e0 l'immense surprise de Roker et du flegmatique Neddy lui-m\u00eame,\nentra sur-le-champ dans la prison, marcha droit \u00e0 la chambre de son\nma\u00eetre, et frappa \u00e0 la porte.\n\n\u00abEntrez, dit M. Pickwick.\u00bb\n\nSam parut, \u00f4ta son chapeau, et sourit.\n\n\u00abAh! Sam, mon bon gar\u00e7on! dit M. Pickwick, \u00e9videmment charm\u00e9 de revoir\nson humble ami; je n'avais pas l'intention de vous blesser hier par ce\nque je vous ai dit, mon fid\u00e8le serviteur. Posez votre chapeau, Sam, et\nlaissez-moi vous expliquer un peu plus longuement mes id\u00e9es.\n\n--\u00c7a ne peut-il pas attendre \u00e0 tout \u00e0 l'heure, monsieur?\n\n--Oui, certainement. Mais pourquoi pas maintenant?\n\n--J'aimerais mieux tout \u00e0 l'heure, monsieur.\n\n--Pourquoi donc?\n\n--Parce que..., dit Sam en h\u00e9sitant.\n\n--Parce que quoi? reprit M. Pickwick, alarm\u00e9 par les mani\u00e8res de son\ndomestiqua. Parlez clairement, Sam.\n\n--Parce que... j'ai une petite affaire qu'il faut que je fasse.\n\n--Quelle affaire? demanda M. Pickwick, surpris de l'air confus de Sam.\n\n--Rien de bien cons\u00e9quent, monsieur.\n\n--Ah! dans ce cas, dit M. Pickwick en souriant, vous pouvez m'entendre\nd'abord.\n\n--J'imagine que je terminerai d'abord mon affaire,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua Sam, en\nh\u00e9sitant encore.\n\nM. Pickwick eut l'air surpris, mais ne r\u00e9pondit pas.\n\n\u00abLe fait est, dit Sam, en s'arr\u00eatant court.\n\n--Eh bien? reprit M. Pickwick, parlez donc.\n\n--Eh bien! le fait est, r\u00e9pliqua Sam avec un effort d\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9, le fait\nest que je ferais peut-\u00eatre mieux de voir apr\u00e8s mon lit.\n\n--Votre lit! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, plein d'\u00e9tonnement.\n\n--Oui, mon lit, monsieur; je suis prisonnier; j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 arr\u00eat\u00e9 cette\napr\u00e8s-midi, pour dettes.\n\n--Arr\u00eat\u00e9 pour dettes! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, en se laissant tomber sur une\nchaise.\n\n--Oui, monsieur, pour dettes, et l'homme qui m'a mis ici ne m'en\nlaissera jamais sortir, tant que vous y serez vous-m\u00eame.\n\n--Que me dites vous donc l\u00e0!\u00bb\n\n--Ce que je dis, monsieur, je suis prisonnier, quand \u00e7a devrait durer\nquarante ans! et j'en suis fort content encore; et si vous aviez \u00e9t\u00e9\ndans Sewgate, \u00e7'aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 la m\u00eame chose! maintenant le gros mot est\nl\u00e2ch\u00e9, sapristi! c'est une affaire finie!\u00bb\n\nEn pronon\u00e7ant ces mots, qu'il r\u00e9p\u00e9ta plusieurs fois avec grande\nviolence, Sam aplatit son chapeau sur la terre, dans un \u00e9tat\nd'excitation fort extraordinaire chez lui; puis ensuite, croisant ses\nbras, il regarda son ma\u00eetre en face et avec fermet\u00e9.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XV.\n\nO\u00f9 l'on apprend diverses petites aventures arriv\u00e9es dans la prison,\nainsi que la conduite myst\u00e9rieuse de M. Winkle; et o\u00f9 l'on voit comment\nle pauvre prisonnier de la chancellerie fut enfin rel\u00e2ch\u00e9.\n\n\nM. Pickwick \u00e9tait trop vivement touch\u00e9 par l'in\u00e9branlable attachement de\nson domestique, pour pouvoir lui t\u00e9moigner quelque m\u00e9contentement de la\npr\u00e9cipitation avec laquelle il s'\u00e9tait fait incarc\u00e9rer, pour une p\u00e9riode\nind\u00e9finie. La seule chose sur laquelle il persista \u00e0 demander une\nexplication, c'\u00e9tait le nom du cr\u00e9ancier de Sam; mais celui-ci pers\u00e9v\u00e9ra\n\u00e9galement \u00e0 ne point le dire.\n\n\u00ab\u00c7a ne servirait de rien, monsieur, r\u00e9p\u00e9tait-il constamment. C'est une\ncr\u00e9ature malicieuse, rancuni\u00e8re, avaricieuse, vindicative, avec un coeur\nqu'il n'y a pas moyen de toucher, comme observait le vertueux vicaire au\ngentleman hydropique, qui aimait mieux laisser son bien \u00e0 sa femme, que\nde b\u00e2tir une chapelle avec.\n\n--En v\u00e9rit\u00e9, Sam, la somme est si petite qu'il serait fort ais\u00e9 de la\npayer; et puisque je me suis d\u00e9cid\u00e9 \u00e0 vous garder avec moi, vous devriez\nfaire attention que vous me seriez beaucoup plus utile si vous pouviez\naller au dehors.\n\n--Je vous suis bien oblig\u00e9, monsieur, mais je ne voudrais pas.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que vous ne voudriez pas, Sam?\n\n--Je ne voudrais pas m'abaisser \u00e0 demander une faveur \u00e0 cet ennemi sans\npiti\u00e9.\n\n--Mais ce n'est pas lui demander une faveur que de lui offrir son\nargent.\n\n--Je vous demande pardon, monsieur, ce serait une grande faveur de le\npayer, et il n'en m\u00e9rite pas. Voil\u00e0 l'histoire, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nEn cet endroit, M. Pickwick frottant son nez avec un air de vexation,\nSam jugea qu'il \u00e9tait prudent de changer de th\u00e8me. \u00abMonsieur, dit-il, je\nprends ma d\u00e9termination par principe, comme vous prenez la v\u00f4tre, ce qui\nme rappelle l'histoire de l'homme qui s'est tu\u00e9 par principe. Vous le\nsavez n\u00e9cessairement, monsieur!\u00bb Ici Sam s'arr\u00eata de parler, et du coin\nde l'oeil gauche jeta \u00e0 son ma\u00eetre un regard comique.\n\n\u00abIl n'y a pas de n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 l\u00e0-dedans, Sam, dit M. Pickwick, en se\nlaissant aller graduellement \u00e0 sourire, malgr\u00e9 le d\u00e9plaisir que lui\navait caus\u00e9 l'obstination de Sam. La renomm\u00e9e du gentleman en question\nn'est jamais venue \u00e0 mes oreilles.\n\n--Jamais, monsieur? Vous m'\u00e9tonnez, monsieur; il \u00e9tait employ\u00e9 dans les\nbureaux du gouvernement.\n\n--Ah! vraiment?\n\n--Oui, monsieur; et c'\u00e9tait un gentleman fort agr\u00e9able encore; un de\nl'esp\u00e8ce soigneuse et m\u00e9thodique, qui fourrent leurs pieds dans leurs\nclaques, quand il fait humide, et qui n'ont jamais d'autre ami pr\u00e8s de\nleur coeur qu'une peau de li\u00e8vre. Il faisait des \u00e9conomies par principe;\nmettait une chemise blanche tous les jours, par principe; ne parlait\njamais \u00e0 aucun de ses parents, par principe, de peur qu'ils ne lui\nempruntassent de l'argent; enfin c'\u00e9tait r\u00e9ellement un caract\u00e8re tout \u00e0\nfait agr\u00e9able. Il faisait couper ses cheveux tous les quinze jours, par\nprincipe, et s'abonnait chez son tailleur, suivant le principe\n\u00e9conomique: trois v\u00eatements par an, et renvoyer les anciens. Comme\nc'\u00e9tait un gentleman tr\u00e8s r\u00e9gulier, il d\u00eenait tous les jours au m\u00eame\nendroit, \u00e0 trente-trois pence par t\u00eate, et il en prenait joliment pour\nses trente-trois pence. L'h\u00f4te le disait bien ensuite, en versant de\ngrosses larmes, sans parler de la mani\u00e8re dont il attisait le feu dans\nl'hiver, ce qui \u00e9tait une perte s\u00e8che de quatre pence et demi par jour,\noutre la vexation de le voir faire. Avec \u00e7a il \u00e9tait si long \u00e0 lire les\njournaux: \u00abLe _Morning-Post_ apr\u00e8s le gentleman,\u00bb disait-il tous les\njours en arrivant. \u00abVoyez pour le _Times_, Thomas. Apportez-moi le\n_Morning-Herald_, quand il sera libre. \u00abN'oubliez pas de demander le\n_Chronicle_, et donnez-moi l'_Advertiser_.\u00bb Alors il appliquait ses yeux\nsur l'horloge, et il sortait un quart de minute, juste avant le temps,\npour enlever le papier du soir au gamin qui l'apportait, et puis il se\nmettait \u00e0 le lire avec tant d'int\u00e9r\u00eat et de pers\u00e9v\u00e9rance, qu'il\nr\u00e9duisait les autres habitu\u00e9s au d\u00e9sespoir et \u00e0 la rage, surtout un\npetit vieux tr\u00e8s col\u00e8re, que le gar\u00e7on \u00e9tait toujours oblig\u00e9 de\nsurveiller de pr\u00e8s, dans ces moments-l\u00e0, de peur qu'il ne se porta \u00e0\nquelque exc\u00e8s avec le couteau \u00e0 d\u00e9couper. Eh bien! monsieur, il restait\nl\u00e0, occupant la meilleure place, pendant trois heures, et ne prenant\njamais rien apr\u00e8s son d\u00eener qu'un petit somme; et ensuite, il s'en\nallait au caf\u00e9 \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9, et il avalait une petite tasse de caf\u00e9 et quatre\n_crumpets_[16]; apr\u00e8s quoi il rentrait \u00e0 Kensington et se mettait au\nlit. Une nuit il se trouve mal. Le docteur vient dans un coup\u00e9 vert,\navec une esp\u00e8ce de marchepied \u00e0 la Robinson Cruso\u00e9, qu'il pouvait\nbaisser et relever apr\u00e8s lui quand il voulait, pour que le cocher ne\nsoit pas oblig\u00e9 de descendre, et ne laisse pas voir au public qu'il n'a\nqu'un habit de livr\u00e9e et pas de culottes pareilles. Bien. \u00abQu'est-ce que\nvous avez? dit le docteur.--\u00c7a va tr\u00e8s-mal, dit le patient.--Qu'est-ce\nque vous avez mang\u00e9? dit le docteur.--Du veau r\u00f4ti, dit le\npatient.--Quelle est la derni\u00e8re chose que vous avez d\u00e9vor\u00e9? dit le\ndocteur.--Des _crumpets_, dit le patient.--C'est \u00e7a, dit le docteur. Je\nvas vous envoyer une bo\u00eete de pilules sur-le-champ, et n'en prenez plus,\ndit-il.--Plus de quoi, dit le patient? des pilules?--Non pas, des\n_crumpets_, dit le docteur.--Pourquoi? dit le patient en se levant sur\nson s\u00e9ant. J'en mange quatre tous les soirs depuis quinze ans, par\nprincipe.--Vous ferez bien d'y renoncer, par principe, dit le\ndocteur.--C'est un g\u00e2teau tr\u00e8s-sain, monsieur dit le patient.--C'est un\ng\u00e2teau tr\u00e8s-malsain, dit le docteur avec col\u00e8re.--Mais \u00e7a revient si bon\nmarch\u00e9, dit le patient en baissant un peu la voix, et \u00e7a remplit si bien\nl'estomac pour le prix.--C'est trop cher pour vous, n'importe \u00e0 quel\nprix, dit le docteur. Trop cher, quand on vous payerait pour en manger.\nQuatre crumpets par soir\u00e9e! dit-il: \u00e7a ferait votre affaire en six\nmois.\u00bb Le patient le regarda en face, pendant quelque temps, et \u00e0 la\nfin, il lui dit, apr\u00e8s avoir bien rumin\u00e9: \u00ab\u00cates-vous s\u00fbr de \u00e7a,\nmonsieur?--J'en mettrais ma r\u00e9putation au feu, dit le docteur.--Combien\npensez-vous qu'il en faudrait pour me tuer, en une fois? dit le\npatient.--Je ne sais pas, dit le docteur.--Pensez-vous que si j'en\nmangeais pour trois francs, \u00e7a me tuerait? dit le patient.--C'est\npossible, dit le docteur.--Pour trois francs soixante-quinze, \u00e7a ne me\nmanquerait pas, je suppose? dit le patient.--Certainement, dit le\ndocteur.--Tr\u00e8s-bien, dit le patient. Bonsoir.\u00bb Le lendemain il se l\u00e8ve,\nfait allumer son feu, envoie chercher pour trois francs soixante-quinze\nde _crumpets_, les fait r\u00f4tir toutes, les mange et se br\u00fble la cervelle.\n\n[Footnote 16: G\u00e2teau anglais.]\n\n--Eh pourquoi fit-il cela? demanda brusquement M. Pickwick, affect\u00e9 au\nplus haut point, par le d\u00e9no\u00fbment tragique de la narration.\n\n--Pourquoi, monsieur? pour prouver son grand principe, que les\n_crumpets_ sont une nourriture saine, et pour faire voir qu'il ne\nvoulait se laisser mener par personne.\u00bb\n\nC'est par de tels artifices oratoires que Sam \u00e9luda les questions de son\nma\u00eetre, pendant le premier soir de sa r\u00e9sidence \u00e0 la flotte. \u00c0 la fin,\nvoyant que toute remontrance \u00e9tait inutile M. Pickwick consentit,\nquoiqu'avec regret, \u00e0 ce qu'il se loge\u00e2t, \u00e0 tant la semaine, chez un\nsavetier chauve qui occupait une petite chambre dans l'une des galeries\nsup\u00e9rieures. Sam porta dans cet humble appartement, un matelas, une\ncouverture et des draps lou\u00e9s \u00e0 M. Roker, et lorsqu'il s'\u00e9tendit sur ce\nlit improvis\u00e9, il y \u00e9tait aussi \u00e0 son aise que s'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9lev\u00e9 dans\nla prison, et que toute sa famille y e\u00fbt v\u00e9g\u00e9t\u00e9 depuis trois\ng\u00e9n\u00e9rations.\n\n\u00abFumez-vous toujours apr\u00e8s que vous \u00eates couch\u00e9, vieux coq? demanda Sam\n\u00e0 son h\u00f4te, lorsque l'un et l'autre se furent plac\u00e9s horizontalement\npour la nuit.\n\n--Oui, toujours, jeune cochinchinois, r\u00e9pondit le savetier.\n\n--Voulez-vous me permettre de vous demander pourquoi vous faites votre\nlit sous la table?\n\n--Parce que j'ai toujours \u00e9t\u00e9 z'habitu\u00e9 \u00e0 un baldaquin, avant de venir\nici, et je trouve que la table fait juste le m\u00eame effet.\n\n--Vous avez un fameux caract\u00e8re, monsieur[17], dit Sam.\n\n[Footnote 17: Jeu de mots: _caract\u00e8re_, en anglais, veut dire \u00e0 la fois\n_un original_, et un certificat de bonne conduite.\n\n(_Note du traducteur._)]\n\n--Je n'en sais rien, r\u00e9pondit le savetier, en secouant la t\u00eate; mais si\nvous voulez en trouver un bon, je crains que vous n'ayez de la peine\ndans cet \u00e9tablissement ici.\u00bb\n\nPendant ce dialogue, Sam \u00e9tait \u00e9tendu sur son matelas, \u00e0 une extr\u00e9mit\u00e9\nde la chambre, et le savetier sur le sien, \u00e0 l'autre extr\u00e9mit\u00e9.\nL'appartement \u00e9tait illumin\u00e9 par la lumi\u00e8re d'une chandelle, et par la\npipe du savetier qui luisait sous la table comme un charbon ardent.\nToute courte qu'e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 cette conversation, elle avait singuli\u00e8rement\npr\u00e9dispos\u00e9 Sam en faveur de son h\u00f4te. En cons\u00e9quence il se souleva sur\nson coude, et se mit \u00e0 l'examiner plus soigneusement qu'il n'avait eu\njusqu'alors le temps, ou l'envie de le faire.\n\nC'\u00e9tait un homme bl\u00eame, tous les savetiers le sont. Il avait une barbe\nrude et h\u00e9riss\u00e9e, tous les savetiers l'ont ainsi; son visage \u00e9tait un\ndr\u00f4le de chef-d'oeuvre, tout contourn\u00e9, tout raboteux, mais o\u00f9 r\u00e9gnait\nun air de bonne humeur, et dont les yeux devaient avoir eu une fort\njoyeuse expression, car ils jetaient encore des \u00e9tincelles. Le savetier\navait soixante ans d'\u00e2ge, et Dieu sait combien de prison, de sorte qu'il\n\u00e9tait assez singulier de d\u00e9couvrir encore en lui quelque chose qui\napproch\u00e2t de la gaiet\u00e9. C'\u00e9tait un petit homme; et comme il \u00e9tait repli\u00e9\ndans son lit, il paraissait \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s aussi long qu'il aurait d\u00fb\nl'\u00eatre, s'il n'avait point eu de jambes. Il tenait dans sa bouche une\ngrosse pipe rouge, et, tout en fumant, il envisageait la chandelle avec\nune b\u00e9atitude v\u00e9ritablement digne d'envie.\n\n\u00abY a-t-il longtemps que vous \u00eates ici? lui demanda Sam, apr\u00e8s un silence\nde quelques minutes.\n\n--Douze ans, r\u00e9pondit le savetier en mordant, pour parler, le bout de sa\npipe.\n\n--Pour m\u00e9pris envers la cour de chancellerie?\u00bb demanda Sam.\n\nLe savetier fit un signe affirmatif.\n\n\u00abEh bien! alors, reprit Sam avec m\u00e9contentement, pourquoi vous\nembourbez-vous dans votre obstination, \u00e0 user votre pr\u00e9cieuse vie ici,\ndans cette grande fondri\u00e8re? Pourquoi ne c\u00e9dez-vous pas, et ne\ndites-vous pas au chancelier que vous \u00eates f\u00e2ch\u00e9 d'avoir manqu\u00e9 de\nrespect \u00e0 la cour, et que vous ne le ferez plus?\u00bb\n\nLe savetier mit sa pipe dans le coin de sa bouche, pour sourire, et la\nramena ensuite \u00e0 sa place, mais ne r\u00e9pondit rien.\n\n\u00abPourquoi? reprit Sam avec plus de force.\n\n--Ah! dit le savetier, vous n'entendez pas bien ces affaires-l\u00e0. Voyons,\nqu'est-ce que vous supposez qui m'a ruin\u00e9?\n\n--Eh!... fit Sam, en mouchant la chandelle, je suppose que vous avez\nfait des dettes pour commencer?\n\n--Je n'ai jamais d\u00fb un liard; devinez encore.\n\n--Eh bien! peut-\u00eatre que vous avez achet\u00e9 des maisons, ce qui veut dire\ndevenir fou en langage poli; ou bien que vous vous \u00eates mis \u00e0 b\u00e2tir, ce\nqu'on appelle \u00eatre incurable, en langage m\u00e9dical.\u00bb\n\nLe savetier secoua la t\u00eate et dit: \u00abEssayez encore.\n\n--J'esp\u00e8re que vous ne vous \u00eates pas amus\u00e9 \u00e0 plaider? poursuivit Sam,\nd'un air soup\u00e7onneux.\n\n--C'est pas dans mes moeurs. Le fait est que j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 ruin\u00e9 pour avoir\nfait un h\u00e9ritage.\n\n--Allons! allons! \u00e7a ne prendra pas. Je voudrais bien avoir un riche\nennemi qui tramerait ma destruction de cette mani\u00e8re-l\u00e0. Je me\nlaisserais faire.\n\n--Ah! j'\u00e9tais s\u00fbr que vous ne me croiriez pas, dit le savetier, en\nfumant sa pipe avec une r\u00e9signation philosophique. J'en ferais autant \u00e0\nvotre place. C'est pourtant vrai malgr\u00e9 \u00e7a.\n\n--Comment \u00e7a se peut-il? demanda Sam, d\u00e9j\u00e0 \u00e0 moiti\u00e9 convaincu par l'air\ntranquille du savetier.\n\n--Voil\u00e0 comment. Un vieux gentleman, pour qui je travaillais dans la\nprovince, et dont j'avais \u00e9pous\u00e9 une parente (elle est morte, gr\u00e2ce \u00e0\nDieu! puisse-t-il la b\u00e9nir!) eut une attaque et s'en alla.\n\n--O\u00f9? demanda Sam qui, apr\u00e8s les nombreux \u00e9v\u00e9nements de la soir\u00e9e, \u00e9tait\nun peu endormi.\n\n--Est-ce que je puis savoir \u00e7a? r\u00e9pondit le savetier, en parlant \u00e0\ntravers son nez, pour mieux jouir de sa pipe. Il mourut.\n\n--Ah! bien! Et ensuite?\n\n--Ensuite, il laissa cinq mille livres sterling.\n\n--C'\u00e9tait bien distingu\u00e9 de sa part.\n\n--Il me laissa mille livres \u00e0 moi, parce que j'avais \u00e9pous\u00e9 une de ses\nparentes, voyez-vous.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, murmura Sam.\n\n--Et \u00e9tant entour\u00e9 d'un grand nombre de ni\u00e8ces et de neveux, qui \u00e9taient\ntoujours \u00e0 se disputer, il me fit son ex\u00e9cuteur et me chargea de diviser\nle reste entre eux, comme fid\u00e9i-commissaire.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que vous entendez par-l\u00e0, demanda Sam, en se r\u00e9veillant un\npeu. Si ce n'est pas de l'argent comptant, \u00e0 quoi \u00e7a sert-il?\n\n--C'est un terme de loi qui veut dire qu'il avait confiance en moi.\n\n--Je ne crois pas \u00e7a, r\u00e9partit Sam en hochant la t\u00eate; il n'y a gu\u00e8re de\nconfiance dans cette boutique-l\u00e0. Mais c'est \u00e9gal; marchez.\n\n--Pour lors, dit le savetier; comme j'allais faire enregistrer le\ntestament, les ni\u00e8ces et les neveux, qui \u00e9taient furieux de ne pas avoir\ntout l'argent, s'y opposent par un _caveat_.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que c'est que \u00e7a?\n\n--Un instrument l\u00e9gal. Comme qui dirait: halte-l\u00e0!\n\n--Je vois; un parent du _ayez sa carcasse_. Ensuite?\n\n--Ensuite, voyant qu'ils ne pouvaient pas s'entendre entre eux sur\nl'ex\u00e9cution du testament, ils retirent le _caveat_ et je paye tous les\nlegs. \u00c0 peine si j'avais fait tout cela, quand voil\u00e0 un neveu qui\ndemande l'annulation du testament. L'affaire se plaide quelques mois\napr\u00e8s devant un vieux gentleman sourd, dans une petite chambre \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 du\ncimeti\u00e8re de Saint-Paul; et apr\u00e8s que quatre avocats ont pass\u00e9 chacun\nune journ\u00e9e \u00e0 embrouiller l'affaire, il passe une semaine ou deux \u00e0\nr\u00e9fl\u00e9chir sur les pi\u00e8ces qui faisaient six gros volumes, et il donne son\njugement comme quoi le testateur n'avait pas le cerveau bien solide, et\ncomme quoi je dois payer de nouveau tout l'argent, avec tous les frais.\nJ'en appelle. L'affaire vient devant trois ou quatre gentlemen\ntr\u00e8s-endormis, qui l'avaient d\u00e9j\u00e0 entendue dans l'autre cour, o\u00f9 ils\nsont des avocats sans cause. La seule diff\u00e9rence, c'est que dans l'autre\ncour on les appelait les d\u00e9l\u00e9gu\u00e9s, et que dans cette cour-ci, on les\nappelle docteurs: t\u00e2chez de comprendre \u00e7a. Bien: ils confirment\ntr\u00e8s-respectueusement la d\u00e9cision du vieux gentleman sourd. Mon homme de\nloi avait eu depuis longtemps tout mon argent, tellement qu'entre le\nprincipal, comme ils appellent \u00e7a, et les frais, je suis ici pour dix\nmille livres sterling, et j'y resterai \u00e0 raccommoder des souliers\njusqu'\u00e0 ce que je meure. Quelques gentlemen ont parl\u00e9 de porter la\nquestion devant le parlement, et je crois bien qu'ils l'auraient fait;\nseulement ils n'avaient pas le temps de venir me voir, et je ne pouvais\npas aller leur parler, et ils se sont ennuy\u00e9s de mes longues lettres, et\nils ont abandonn\u00e9 l'affaire, et tout ceci, c'est la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 devant Dieu,\nsans un mot de suppression ni d'exag\u00e9ration, comme le savent tr\u00e8s-bien\ncinquante personnes tant ici que dehors.\u00bb\n\nLe savetier s'arr\u00eata pour voir quel effet son histoire avait produit sur\nSam. Il s'\u00e9tait endormi. Le savetier secoua la cendre de sa pipe, la\nposa par terre \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de lui, soupira, tira sa couverture sur sa t\u00eate,\net s'endormit aussi.\n\nLe lendemain matin, Sam \u00e9tant activement engag\u00e9 \u00e0 polir les souliers de\nson ma\u00eetre et \u00e0 brosser ses gu\u00eatres noires, dans la chambre du savetier,\nM. Pickwick se trouvait seul, \u00e0 d\u00e9je\u00fbner, lorsqu'un l\u00e9ger coup fut\nfrapp\u00e9 \u00e0 sa porte. Avant qu'il e\u00fbt eu le temps de crier _entrez!_ il vit\nappara\u00eetre une t\u00eate chevelue et une calotte de velours de coton,\narticles d'habillement qu'il n'eut pas de peine \u00e0 reconna\u00eetre comme la\npropri\u00e9t\u00e9 personnelle de M. Smangle.\n\n\u00abComment \u00e7a va-t-il? demanda ce vertueux personnage, en accompagnant\ncette question de deux ou trois signes de t\u00eate. Attendez-vous quelqu'un\nce matin? Il y a trois gentlemen, des gaillards diablement \u00e9l\u00e9gants, qui\ndemandent apr\u00e8s vous, en bas, et qui frappent \u00e0 toutes les portes. Aussi\nils sont joliment rembarr\u00e9s par les pensionnaires qui prennent la peine\nde leur ouvrir.\n\n--Mais \u00e0 quoi pensent-ils donc! dit M. Pickwick, en se levant. Oui, ce\nsont sans doute quelques amis que j'attendais plut\u00f4t hier.\n\n--Des amis \u00e0 vous! s'\u00e9cria Smangle, en saisissant M. Pickwick par la\nmain. En voil\u00e0 assez, Dieu me damne! d\u00e8s ce moment ils sont mes amis, et\nceux de Mivins aussi: \u00abDiablement agr\u00e9able et distingu\u00e9, cet animal de\nMivins, hein?\u00bb dit M. Smangle avec grande sensibilit\u00e9.\n\n--V\u00e9ritablement, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick avec h\u00e9sitation, je connais si peu\nce gentleman que....\n\n--Je le sais, interrompit Smangle, en lui frappant sur l'\u00e9paule. Vous le\nconna\u00eetrez mieux quelque jour; vous en serez charm\u00e9. Cet homme-l\u00e0,\nmonsieur, poursuivit Smangle, avec une contenance solennelle, a des\ntalents comiques qui feraient honneur au th\u00e9\u00e2tre de Drury-Lane.\n\n--En v\u00e9rit\u00e9?\n\n--Oui, de par Jupiter! Si vous l'entendiez quand il fait les quatre\nchats dans un tonneau! Ce sont bien quatre chats distincts, je vous en\ndonne ma parole d'honneur. Vous voyez comme c'est spirituel? Dieu me\ndamne! on ne peut pas s'emp\u00eacher d'aimer un homme qui a un talent\npareil. Il n'a qu'un seul d\u00e9faut, cette petite faiblesse dont je vous ai\npr\u00e9venu, vous savez?\u00bb\n\nComme, en cet endroit, M. Smangle dandina sa t\u00eate d'une mani\u00e8re\nconfidentielle et sympathisante, M. Pickwick sentit qu'il devait dire\nquelque chose: \u00abAh! fit-il, en cons\u00e9quence, et il regarda avec\nimpatience vers la porte.\n\n--Ah! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Smangle, avec un profond soupir; cet homme-l\u00e0, monsieur,\nc'est une d\u00e9licieuse compagnie; je ne connais pas de meilleure\ncompagnie. Il n'a que ce petit d\u00e9faut; si l'ombre de son grand-p\u00e8re lui\napparaissait, il ferait une lettre de change sur papier timbr\u00e9, et le\nprierait de l'endosser.\n\n--Pas possible! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick\n\n--Oui, ajouta M. Smangle; et s'il avait le pouvoir de l'\u00e9voquer une\nseconde fois, il l'\u00e9voquerait au bout de deux mois et trois jours, pour\nrenouveler son billet.\n\n--Ce sont-l\u00e0 des traits fort remarquables, dit M. Pickwick; mais pendant\nque nous causons ici, j'ai peur que mes amis ne soient fort embarrass\u00e9s\npour me trouver.\n\n--Je vais les amener, r\u00e9pondit Smangle en se dirigeant vers la porte.\nAdieu, je ne vous d\u00e9rangerai point pendant qu'ils seront ici.... \u00c0\npropos....\u00bb\n\nEn pronon\u00e7ant ces deux derniers mots, Smangle s'arr\u00eata tout \u00e0 coup,\nreferma la porte, qu'il avait \u00e0 moiti\u00e9 ouverte, et et retournant sur la\npointe du pied pr\u00e8s de M. Pickwick, lui dit tout bas \u00e0 l'oreille:\n\n\u00abVous ne pourriez pas, sans vous g\u00eaner, me pr\u00eater une demi-couronne\njusqu'\u00e0 la fin de la semaine prochaine?\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick put \u00e0 peine s'emp\u00eacher de sourire; cependant il parvint \u00e0\nconserver sa gravit\u00e9, tira une demi-couronne, et la pla\u00e7a dans la main\nde M. Smangle. Celui-ci, apr\u00e8s un grand nombre de clignements d'oeil,\nqui impliquaient un profond myst\u00e8re, disparut pour chercher les trois\n\u00e9trangers, avec lesquels il revint bient\u00f4t apr\u00e8s. Alors ayant touss\u00e9\ntrois fois, et fait \u00e0 M. Pickwick autant de signes de t\u00eate, comme une\nassurance qu'il n'oublierait pas sa dette, il donna des poign\u00e9es de main\n\u00e0 toute la compagnie, d'une mani\u00e8re fort engageante, et se retira.\n\n\u00abMes chers amis, dit M. Pickwick en pressant alternativement les mains\nde M. Tupman, de M. Winkle et de M. Snodgrass, qui \u00e9taient les trois\nvisiteurs en question; je suis enchant\u00e9 de vous voir.\u00bb\n\nLe triumvirat \u00e9tait fort affect\u00e9. M. Tupman branla la t\u00eate d'un air\n\u00e9plor\u00e9; M. Snodgrass tira son mouchoir, avec une \u00e9motion visible; M.\nWinkle se retira \u00e0 la fen\u00eatre, et renifla tout haut.\n\n\u00abBonjour gentlemen, dit Sam, qui entrait en ce moment avec les souliers\net les gu\u00eatres. Plus de m\u00e9rancolie, comme disait l'\u00e9colier quand la\nma\u00eetresse de pension mourut. Soyez les bienvenus \u00e0 la prison, gentlemen.\n\n--Ce fou de Sam, dit M. Pickwick en lui tapant sur la t\u00eate, pendant\nqu'il s'agenouillait pour boutonner les gu\u00eatres de son ma\u00eetre, ce fou de\nSam, qui s'est fait arr\u00eater pour rester avec moi!\n\n--Quoi! s'\u00e9cri\u00e8rent les trois amis.\n\n--Oui, gentlemen, dit Sam, je suis.... Tenez-vous tranquille, monsieur,\ns'il vous pla\u00eet.... Je suis prisonnier, gentlemen. Me voil\u00e0 confin\u00e9[18],\ncomme disait la petite dame.\n\n[Footnote 18: Jeu de mots: _to be confined_ signifie \u00eatre en couches et\n\u00eatre prisonnier.]\n\n--Prisonnier, s'\u00e9cria M. Winkle avec une v\u00e9h\u00e9mence inconcevable.\n\n--Oh\u00e9, monsieur? reprit Sam, en levant la t\u00eate; qu'est-ce qu'il y a,\nmonsieur?\n\n--J'avais esp\u00e9r\u00e9 Sam, que.... C'est-\u00e0-dire.... Rien, rien,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit M.\nWinkle pr\u00e9cipitamment.\n\nIl y avait quelque chose de si brusque et de si \u00e9gar\u00e9 dans les mani\u00e8res\nde M. Winkle, que M. Pickwick regarda involontairement ses deux amis,\ncomme pour leur demander une explication.\n\n\u00abNous n'en savons rien, dit M. Tupman, en r\u00e9ponse \u00e0 ce muet appel. Il a\n\u00e9t\u00e9 fort agit\u00e9 ces deux jours-ci, et tout \u00e0 fait diff\u00e9rent de ce qu'il\nest ordinairement. Nous craignions qu'il n'e\u00fbt quelque chose, mais il le\nnie r\u00e9solument.\n\n--Non, non, dit M. Winkle en rougissant sous le regard de M. Pickwick,\nje n'ai vraiment rien, je vous assure que je n'ai rien, mon cher\nmonsieur; seulement je serai oblig\u00e9 de quitter la ville, pendant quelque\ntemps, pour une affaire priv\u00e9e, et j'avais esp\u00e9r\u00e9 que vous me\npermettriez d'emmener Sam.\u00bb\n\nLa physionomie de M. Pickwick exprima encore plus d'\u00e9tonnement.\n\n\u00abJe pense, balbutia M. Winkle, que Sam ne s'y serait pas refus\u00e9; mais\n\u00e9videmment cela devient impossible, puisqu'il est prisonnier ici. Je\nserai donc oblig\u00e9 d'aller tout seul.\u00bb\n\nPendant que M. Winkle disait ceci, M. Pickwick sentit, avec quelque\n\u00e9tonnement, que les doigts de Sam tremblaient en attachant ses gu\u00eatres,\ncomme s'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 surpris ou \u00e9mu. Quand M. Winkle eut cess\u00e9 de\nparler, Sam leva la t\u00eate pour le regarder, et quoique le coup d'oeil\nqu'ils \u00e9chang\u00e8rent ne dura qu'un instant, ils eurent l'air de\ns'entendre.\n\n\u00abSam, dit vivement M. Pickwick, savez-vous quelque chose de ceci?\n\n--Non monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Sam, en recommen\u00e7ant \u00e0 boutonner avec une\nassiduit\u00e9 extraordinaire.\n\n--En \u00eates-vous s\u00fbr, Sam?\n\n--Eh! mais, monsieur, je suis bien s\u00fbr que je n'ai jamais rien entendu\nsur ce sujet, jusqu'\u00e0 pr\u00e9sent. Si je fais quelques conjectures\nl\u00e0-dessus, ajouta Sam, en regardant M. Winkle, je n'ai pas le droit de\ndire ce que c'est, de peur de me tromper.\n\n--Et moi je n'ai pas le droit de m'ing\u00e9rer davantage dans les affaires\nd'un ami, quelque intime qu'il soit, reprit M. Pickwick, apr\u00e8s un court\nsilence. \u00c0 pr\u00e9sent je dirai seulement que je n'y comprends rien du tout.\nMais en voil\u00e0 assez l\u00e0-dessus.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick s'\u00e9tant ainsi exprim\u00e9, amena la conversation sur un autre\nsujet, et M. Winkle parut graduellement plus \u00e0 son aise, quoiqu'il f\u00fbt\nencore loin de l'\u00eatre tout \u00e0 fait. Cependant nos amis avaient tant de\nchoses \u00e0 se dire, que la matin\u00e9e s'\u00e9coula rapidement. Vers trois heures,\nSam posa sur une petite table un gigot de mouton et un \u00e9norme p\u00e2t\u00e9, sans\nparler de plusieurs plats de l\u00e9gumes et de force pots de _porter_, qui\nse promenaient sur les chaises et sur les canap\u00e9s. Quoique ce repas e\u00fbt\n\u00e9t\u00e9 achet\u00e9 et dress\u00e9 dans une cuisine voisine de la prison, chacun se\nmontra dispos\u00e9 \u00e0 y faire honneur.\n\nAu _porter_ succ\u00e9d\u00e8rent une bouteille ou deux d'excellent vin, pour\nlequel M. Pickwick avait d\u00e9p\u00each\u00e9 un expr\u00e8s au caf\u00e9 de la _Corne_, dans\n_Doctors' Common_. Pour dire la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, _la bouteille ou deux_\npourraient \u00eatre plus convenablement \u00e9nonc\u00e9es comme une bouteille ou\n_six_, car avant qu'elles fussent bues et le th\u00e9 achev\u00e9, la cloche\ncommen\u00e7a \u00e0 sonner pour le d\u00e9part des \u00e9trangers.\n\nSi la conduite de M. Winkle avait \u00e9t\u00e9 inexplicable dans la matin\u00e9e, elle\ndevint tout \u00e0 fait surnaturelle, lorsqu'il se pr\u00e9para \u00e0 prendre cong\u00e9 de\nson ami, sous l'influence des bouteilles vid\u00e9es. Il resta en arri\u00e8re\njusqu'\u00e0 ce que MM. Tupman et Snodgrass eussent disparu, et alors,\nsaisissant la main de M. Pickwick, avec une physionomie o\u00f9 le calme\nd'une r\u00e9solution d\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9e se m\u00ealait effroyablement avec la\nquintessence de la tristesse:\n\n\u00abBonsoir, mon cher monsieur, lui dit-il entre ses dents jointes.\n\n--Dieu vous b\u00e9nisse, mon cher gar\u00e7on! r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick, en serrant\navec chaleur la main de son jeune ami.\n\n--Allons donc! cria M. Tupman de la galerie.\n\n--Oui, oui, sur-le-champ, r\u00e9pondit M. Winkle. Bonsoir!\n\n--Bonsoir,\u00bb dit M. Pickwick.\n\nUn autre bonsoir fut \u00e9chang\u00e9, puis un autre, puis une demi-douzaine\nd'autres, et cependant M. Winkle tenait encore solidement la main du\nphilosophe, et consid\u00e9rait son visage avec la m\u00eame expression\nextraordinaire.\n\n\u00abVous serait-il arriv\u00e9 quelque chose? lui demanda \u00e0 la fin M. Pickwick,\nlorsqu'il eut le bras fatigu\u00e9 de secousses.\n\n--Non, non.\n\n--Eh bien! alors, bonsoir, reprit-il en essayant de d\u00e9gager sa main.\n\n--Mon ami, mon bienfaiteur, mon respectable mentor, murmura M. Winkle en\nle saisissant par le poignet; ne me jugez pas s\u00e9v\u00e8rement, et lorsque\nvous apprendrez \u00e0 quelles extr\u00e9mit\u00e9s des obstacles insurmontables....\n\n--Allons donc! dit M. Tupman, en reparaissant \u00e0 la porte. Si vous ne\nvenez pas, nous allons \u00eatre enferm\u00e9s ici!\n\n--Oui, oui; je suis pr\u00eat,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua M. Winkle, et par un violent\neffort il s'arracha de la chambre de M. Pickwick.\n\nNotre philosophe le suivait des yeux le long du corridor, dans un muet\n\u00e9tonnement, lorsque Sam parut au haut de l'escalier, et chuchota un\ninstant \u00e0 l'oreille de M. Winkle.\n\n\u00abOh! certainement, comptez sur moi, r\u00e9pondit tout haut celui-ci.\n\n--Merci, monsieur. Vous ne l'oublierez pas, monsieur?\n\n--Non, assur\u00e9ment.\n\n--Bonne chance, monsieur, dit Sam, en touchant son chapeau. J'aurais\nbeaucoup aim\u00e9 aller avec vous, monsieur; mais naturellement le\ngouverneur avant tout.\n\n--Vous avez raison, cela vous fait honneur, dit M. Winkle;\u00bb et en\nparlant ainsi, les interlocuteurs descendaient l'escalier et\ndisparaissaient.\n\n\u00abC'est tr\u00e8s-extraordinaire! pensa M. Pickwick, en rentrant dans sa\nchambre et en s'asseyant pr\u00e8s de sa table dans une attitude r\u00e9fl\u00e9chie.\nQu'est-ce que ce jeune homme peut aller faire?\u00bb\n\nIl y avait quelque temps qu'il ruminait sur cette id\u00e9e, lorsque la voix\nde Roker, le guichetier, demanda s'il pouvait entrer.\n\n\u00abCertainement, dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Je vous ai apport\u00e9 un traversin plus doux, monsieur, en place du\nprovisoire que vous aviez la nuit derni\u00e8re.\n\n--Je vous remercie. Voulez-vous prendre un verre de vin?\n\n--Vous \u00eates bien bon, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua M. Roker en acceptant le verre.\n\u00c0 la v\u00f4tre, monsieur.\n\n--Bien oblig\u00e9.\n\n--Je suis f\u00e2ch\u00e9 de vous apprendre que votre propri\u00e9taire n'est pas\ntr\u00e8s-bien portant ce soir, monsieur, dit le guichetier, en inspectant\nla bordure de son chapeau, avant de le remettre sur sa t\u00eate.\n\n--Quoi! le prisonnier de la chancellerie? s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick.\n\n--Il ne sera pas longtemps prisonnier de la chancellerie, monsieur,\nr\u00e9pliqua Roker, en tournant son chapeau, de mani\u00e8re \u00e0 pouvoir lire le\nnom du chapelier.\n\n--Vous me faites frissonner, reprit M. Pickwick. Qu'est-ce que vous\nvoulez dire!\n\n--Il y a longtemps qu'il est poitrinaire, et il avait bien de la peine \u00e0\nrespirer cette nuit. Depuis plus de six mois, le docteur nous dit que le\nchangement d'air pourrait seul le sauver.\n\n--Grand Dieu! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, cet homme a-t-il \u00e9t\u00e9 lentement\nassassin\u00e9 par la loi, durant six mois?\n\n--Je ne sais pas \u00e7a, monsieur, repartit Roker, en pesant son chapeau par\nles bords dans ses deux mains; je suppose qu'il serait mort de m\u00eame\npartout ailleurs. Il est all\u00e9 \u00e0 l'infirmerie ce matin. Le docteur dit\nqu'il faut soutenir ses forces autant que possible, et le gouverneur lui\nenvoie du vin et du bouillon de sa maison. Ce n'est pas la faute du\ngouverneur, monsieur.\n\n--Non, sans doute, r\u00e9pliqua promptement M. Pickwick.\n\n--Malgr\u00e9 cela, reprit Roker en hochant la t\u00eate, j'ai peur que tout ne\nsoit fini pour lui. J'ai offert \u00e0 Neddy, tout \u00e0 l'heure, de lui parier\nune pi\u00e8ce de vingt sous contre une de dix, qu'il n'en reviendrait pas,\nmais il n'a pas voulu tenir le pari, et il a bien fait. Je vous\nremercie, monsieur. Bonne nuit, monsieur.\n\n--Attendez, dit M. Pickwick avec chaleur, o\u00f9 est l'infirmerie?\n\n--Juste au-dessous de votre chambre, monsieur, je vais vous la montrer\nsi vous voulez.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick saisit son chapeau sans parler et suivit imm\u00e9diatement le\nguichetier.\n\nCelui-ci le conduisit en silence, et levant doucement le loquet de la\nporte de l'infirmerie, lui fit signe d'entrer. C'\u00e9tait une grande\nchambre nue, d\u00e9sol\u00e9e, o\u00f9 il y avait plusieurs lits de fer; l'un d'eux\ncontenait l'ombre d'un homme maigre, p\u00e2le, cadav\u00e9reux. Sa respiration\n\u00e9tait courte et oppress\u00e9e: \u00e0 chaque minute il g\u00e9missait p\u00e9niblement. Au\nchevet du lit \u00e9tait assis un petit vieux, portant un tablier de\nsavetier, et qui, \u00e0 l'aide d'une paire de lunettes \u00e0 monture de corne,\nlisait tout haut un passage de la bible. C'\u00e9tait l'heureux l\u00e9gataire.\n\nLe malade posa sa main sur le bras du vieillard et lui fit signe de\ns'arr\u00eater. Celui-ci ferma le livre et le pla\u00e7a sur le lit.\n\n\u00abOuvrez la fen\u00eatre,\u00bb dit le malade.\n\nElle fut ouverte, et le roulement des charrettes et des carrosses, les\ncris des hommes et des enfants, tous les bruits affair\u00e9s d'une puissante\nmultitude, pleine de vie et d'occupations, p\u00e9n\u00e9tr\u00e8rent aussit\u00f4t dans la\nchambre, confondus en un profond murmure. Par-dessus, s'\u00e9levaient de\ntemps en temps quelques \u00e9clats de rire joyeux ou quelques lambeaux de\nchansons comiques, qui se perdaient ensuite parmi le tumulte des voix et\ndes pas, sourds mugissements des flots agit\u00e9s de la vie, qui roulaient\npesamment au dehors.\n\nDans toutes les situations, ces sons confus et lointains paraissent\nm\u00e9lancoliques \u00e0 celui qui les \u00e9coute de sang-froid, mais combien plus \u00e0\ncelui qui veille aupr\u00e8s d'un lit de mort!\n\n\u00abIl n'y a pas d'air ici, dit le malade d'une voix faible. Ces murs le\ncorrompent. Il \u00e9tait frais \u00e0 l'entour quand je m'y promenais, il y a\nbien des ann\u00e9es, mais en entrant dans la prison il devient chaud et\nbr\u00fblant.... Je ne puis plus le respirer.\n\n--Nous l'avons respir\u00e9 ensemble pendant longtemps, dit le savetier.\nAllons, allons, patience!\u00bb\n\nIl se fit un court silence pendant lequel les deux spectateurs\ns'approch\u00e8rent du lit. Le malade attira sur son lit la main de son vieux\ncamarade de prison et la retint serr\u00e9e avec affection, dans les siennes.\n\n\u00abJ'esp\u00e8re, b\u00e9gaya-t-il ensuite d'une voix entrecoup\u00e9e et si faible que\nses auditeurs se pench\u00e8rent sur son lit pour recueillir les sons \u00e0 demi\nform\u00e9s qui s'\u00e9chappaient de ses l\u00e8vres livides; j'esp\u00e8re que mon juge\nplein de cl\u00e9mence n'oubliera pas la punition que j'ai soufferte sur\nterre. Vingt ann\u00e9es, mon ami, vingt ann\u00e9es dans cette hideuse tombe! Mon\ncoeur s'est bris\u00e9, quand mon enfant est morte, et je n'ai pas m\u00eame pu\nl'embrasser dans sa petite bi\u00e8re! Depuis lors, au milieu de tous ces\nbruits et de ces d\u00e9bauches, ma solitude a \u00e9t\u00e9 terrible. Que Dieu me\npardonne! il a vu mon agonie solitaire et prolong\u00e9e!\u00bb\n\nApr\u00e8s ces mots, le vieillard joignit les mains et murmura encore quelque\nchose, mais si bas qu'on ne pouvait l'entendre, puis il s'endormit. Il\nne fit que s'endormir d'abord, car les assistants le virent sourire.\n\nPendant quelques minutes ils parl\u00e8rent entre eux, \u00e0 voix basse, mais le\nguichetier s'\u00e9tant courb\u00e9 sur le traversin se releva pr\u00e9cipitamment.\n\u00abMa foi! dit-il, le voil\u00e0 lib\u00e9r\u00e9 \u00e0 la fin.\u00bb\n\nCela \u00e9tait vrai. Mais durant sa vie il \u00e9tait devenu si semblable \u00e0 un\nmort, qu'on ne sut point dans quel instant il avait expir\u00e9.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XVI.\n\nO\u00f9 l'on d\u00e9crit une entrevue touchante entre M. Samuel Weller et sa\nfamille. M. Pickwick fait le tour du petit monde qu'il habite, et prend\nla r\u00e9solution de ne s'y m\u00ealer, \u00e0 l'avenir, que le moins possible.\n\n\nQuelques matin\u00e9es apr\u00e8s son incarc\u00e9ration, Sam ayant arrang\u00e9 la chambre\nde son ma\u00eetre avec tout le soin possible, et ayant laiss\u00e9 le philosophe\nconfortablement assis pr\u00e8s de ses livres et de ses papiers, se retira\npour employer une heure ou deux le mieux qu'il pourrait. Comme la\njourn\u00e9e \u00e9tait belle, il pensa qu'une pinte de _porter_, en plein air,\npourrait embellir son existence, aussi bien qu'aucun autre petit\namusement dont il lui serait possible de se r\u00e9galer.\n\n\u00c9tant arriv\u00e9 \u00e0 cette conclusion, il se dirigea vers la buvette, acheta\nsa bi\u00e8re, obtint en outre un journal de l'avant-veille, se rendit \u00e0 la\ncour du jeu de quilles, et, s'asseyant sur un banc, commen\u00e7a \u00e0 s'amuser\nd'une mani\u00e8re tr\u00e8s-m\u00e9thodique.\n\nD'abord il but un bon coup de bi\u00e8re, et levant les yeux vers une\ncrois\u00e9e, lan\u00e7a un coup d'oeil platonique \u00e0 une jeune lady qui y \u00e9tait\noccup\u00e9e \u00e0 peler des pommes de terre; ensuite il ouvrit le journal et le\nplia de mani\u00e8re \u00e0 mettre au-dessus le compte rendu des tribunaux; mais\ncomme ceci est une oeuvre difficile, surtout quand il fait du vent, il\nprit un autre coup de bi\u00e8re aussit\u00f4t qu'il en fut venu \u00e0 bout. Alors il\nlut deux lignes du journal, et s'arr\u00eata pour contempler deux individus\nqui finissaient une partie de paume. Lorsqu'elle fut termin\u00e9e, il leur\ncria: _Tr\u00e8s-bien_, d'une mani\u00e8re encourageante, puis regarda tout autour\nde lui pour savoir si le sentiment des spectateurs coincidait avec le\nsien. Ceci entra\u00eenait la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 de regarder aussi aux fen\u00eatres; et\ncomme la jeune lady \u00e9tait encore \u00e0 la sienne, ce n'\u00e9tait qu'un acte de\npure politesse de cligner de l'oeil de nouveau et de boire \u00e0 sa sant\u00e9,\nen pantomime, un autre coup de bi\u00e8re. Sam n'y manqua pas; puis ayant\nhideusement fronc\u00e9 ses sourcils \u00e0 un petit gar\u00e7on qui l'avait regard\u00e9\nfaire avec des yeux tout grands ouverts, il se croisa les jambes, et,\ntenant le journal \u00e0 deux mains, commen\u00e7a \u00e0 lire s\u00e9rieusement.\n\n\u00c0 peine s'\u00e9tait-il recueilli dans l'\u00e9tat d'abstraction n\u00e9cessaire, quand\nil crut entendre qu'on l'appelait dans le lointain. Il ne s'\u00e9tait pas\ntromp\u00e9, car son nom passait rapidement de bouche en bouche, et peu de\nsecondes apr\u00e8s l'air retentissait des cris de: _Weller! Weller!_\n\n\u00abIci, beugla Sam, d'une voix de Stentor. Qu'est-ce qu'il y a? Qu'est-ce\nqu'a besoin de lui? Est-ce qu'il est venu un expr\u00e8s pour lui dire que sa\nmaison de campagne est br\u00fbl\u00e9e?\n\n--On vous demande au parloir, dit un homme en s'approchant.\n\n--Merci, mon vieux, r\u00e9pondit Sam. Faites un brin attention \u00e0 mon journal\net \u00e0 mon pot ici, s'il vous pla\u00eet. Je reviens tout de suite. Dieu me\npardonne! si on m'appelait \u00e0 la barre du tribunal, on ne pourrait pas\nfaire plus de bruit que cela.\u00bb\n\nSam accompagna ces mots d'une l\u00e9g\u00e8re tape sur la t\u00eate du jeune gentleman\nci-devant cit\u00e9, lequel, ne croyant pas \u00eatre si pr\u00e8s de la personne\ndemand\u00e9e, criait _Weller!_ de tous ses poumons; puis il traversa la\ncour, et, montant les marches quatre \u00e0 quatre, se dirigea vers le\nparloir. Comme il y arrivait, la premi\u00e8re personne qui frappa ses\nregards fut son cher p\u00e8re, assis au bout de l'escalier, tenant son\nchapeau dans sa main et vocif\u00e9rant _Weller!_ de toutes ses forces, de\ndemi-minute en demi-minute.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce que vous avez \u00e0 rugir? demanda Sam imp\u00e9tueusement, quand le\nvieux gentleman se fut d\u00e9charg\u00e9 d'un autre cri. Vous voil\u00e0 d'un si beau\nrouge que vous avez l'air d'un souffleur de bouteilles en col\u00e8re;\nqu'est-ce qu'il y a?\n\n--Ah! r\u00e9pliqua M. Weller. Je commen\u00e7ais \u00e0 craindre que tu n'aies \u00e9t\u00e9\nfaire un tour au parc, Sammy.\n\n--Allons! reprit Sam, n'insultez pas comme cela la victime de votre\navarice. Otez-vous de cette marche. Pourquoi \u00eates-vous assis l\u00e0? Ce\nn'est pas mon appartement.\n\n--Tu vas voir une fameuse farce, Sammy, dit M. Weller en se levant.\n\n--Attendez une minute, dit Sam. Vous \u00eates tout blanc par derri\u00e8re.\n\n--Tu as raison, Sammy: \u00f4te cela, r\u00e9pliqua M. Weller pendant que son fils\nl'\u00e9poussetait. \u00c7a pourrait passer pour une personnalit\u00e9 de se montrer\nici avec un habit blanchi \u00e0 la chaux[19].\u00bb\n\n[Footnote 19: En argot, _\u00eatre blanchi \u00e0 la chaux_, veut dire avoir\nobtenu un certificat d'insolvabilit\u00e9.]\n\nComme M. Weller montrait, en parlant ainsi, des sympt\u00f4mes non \u00e9quivoques\nd'un prochain acc\u00e8s de rire, Sam se h\u00e2ta de l'arr\u00eater.\n\n\u00abTenez-vous tranquille, lui dit-il. Je n'ai jamais vu un grimacier comme\n\u00e7a. Qu'est-ce que vous avez \u00e0 vous crever maintenant?\n\n--Sammy, dit M. Weller en essuyant son front, j'ai peur qu'un de ces\njours, \u00e0 force de rire, je ne gagne une attaque d'apoplexie, mon gar\u00e7on.\n\n--Eh bien! alors, pourquoi riez-vous, demanda Sam. Voyons, qu'est-ce que\nvous avez \u00e0 me dire maintenant?\n\n--Devine qui est venu ici avec moi, Samivel? dit M. Weller en se\nreculant d'un pas ou deux, en pin\u00e7ant ses l\u00e8vres et en relevant ses\nsourcils.\n\n--M. Pell?\u00bb\n\nM. Weller secoua la t\u00eate, et ses joues roses se gonfl\u00e8rent de tous les\nrires qu'il s'effor\u00e7ait de comprimer.\n\n\u00abL'homme au teint marbr\u00e9 peut-\u00eatre?\n\nM. Weller secoua la t\u00eate de nouveau.\n\n\u00abEt qui donc, alors?\n\n--Ta belle-m\u00e8re, Sammy, s'\u00e9cria le gros cocher, fort heureusement pour\nlui, car autrement ses joues auraient n\u00e9cessairement crev\u00e9, tant elles\n\u00e9taient distendues. Ta belle-m\u00e8re, Sammy, et l'homme au nez rouge, mon\ngar\u00e7on; et l'homme au nez rouge. Ho! ho! ho!\u00bb\n\nEn disant cela, M. Weller se laissa aller \u00e0 de joyeuses convulsions,\ntandis que Sam le regardait avec un plaisant sourire, qui se r\u00e9pandait\ngraduellement sur toute sa physionomie.\n\n\u00abIls sont venus pour avoir une petite conversation s\u00e9rieuse avec toi,\nSamivel, reprit M. Weller en essuyant ses yeux. Ne leur laisse rien\nsuspecter sur ce cr\u00e9ancier d\u00e9natur\u00e9.\n\n--Comment, ils ne savent pas qui c'est?\n\n--Pas un brin.\n\n--O\u00f9 sont-ils? reprit Sam, dont le visage r\u00e9p\u00e9tait toutes les grimaces\ndu vieux gentleman.\n\n--Dans le divan, pr\u00e8s du caf\u00e9. Attrape l'homme au nez rouge o\u00f9 ce qu'il\nn'y a pas de liqueurs, et tu seras malin, Samivel. Nous avons eu une\nagr\u00e9able promenade en voiture ce matin pour venir du march\u00e9 ici,\npoursuivit M. Weller quand il se sentit capable de parler d'une mani\u00e8re\nplus distincte. Je conduisais la vieille pie dans le petit char \u00e0 bancs\nqu'a appartenu au premier essai de ta belle-m\u00e8re. On y avait mis un\nfauteuil pour le berger, et je veux \u00eatre pendu, Samivel, continua M.\nWeller avec un air de profond m\u00e9pris, si on n'a pas apport\u00e9 sur la\nroute, devant not' porte un marchepied pour le faire monter!\n\n--Bah!... C'est pas possible?\n\n--C'est la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, Sammy; et je voudrais que tu l'aies vu se tenir aux\nc\u00f4t\u00e9s en montant, comme s'il avait eu peur de tomber de six pieds de\nhaut et d'\u00eatre broy\u00e9 en un million de morceaux. Malgr\u00e9 \u00e7a, il est mont\u00e9\n\u00e0 la fin, et nous voil\u00e0 partis; mais j'ai peur.... j'ai bien peur, Sam,\nqu'il a \u00e9t\u00e9 un peu cahot\u00e9 quand nous tournions les coins.\n\n--Ah! je suppose que vous aurez accroch\u00e9 une borne ou deux?\n\n--Je le crains, Sammy; je crains d'en avoir accroch\u00e9 quelques-unes,\nrepartit M. Weller en multipliant les clins d'oeil. J'en ai peur, Sammy.\nIl s'envolait hors du fauteuil tout le long de la route.\u00bb\n\nIci M. Weller roula sa t\u00eate d'une \u00e9paule \u00e0 l'autre en faisant entendre\nune sorte de r\u00e2lement enrou\u00e9, accompagn\u00e9 d'un gonflement soudain de tous\nses traits, sympt\u00f4mes qui n'alarm\u00e8rent pas l\u00e9g\u00e8rement son fils.\n\n\u00abNe t'effraye pas, Sammy; ne t'effraye pas, dit-il quand, \u00e0 force de se\ntortiller et de frapper du pied, il eut recouvr\u00e9 la voix. C'est\nseulement une esp\u00e8ce de rire tranquille que j'essaye.\n\n--Eh bien! si ce n'est que \u00e7a, vous ferez bien de ne pas essayer trop\nsouvent; vous trouveriez que c'est une invention un peu dangereuse.\n\n--Tu ne l'admires pas, Sammy?\n\n--Pas du tout.\n\n--Ah! dit M. Weller avec des larmes qui coulaient encore le long de ses\njoues, \u00e7'aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 un bien grand avantage pour moi, si j'avais pu m'y\nhabituer; \u00e7a m'aurait sauv\u00e9 bien des mauvaises paroles avec ta\nbelle-m\u00e8re. Mais tu as raison: c'est trop dans le genre de l'apoplexie,\nbeaucoup trop, Samivel.\u00bb\n\nCette conversation amena nos deux personnages \u00e0 la porte du divan. Sam\ns'y arr\u00eata un instant, jeta par-dessus son \u00e9paule un coup d'oeil malin \u00e0\nson respectable auteur, qui ricanait derri\u00e8re lui, puis il tourna le\nbouton et entra.\n\n\u00abBelle-m\u00e8re, dit-il en embrassant poliment la dame, je vous suis\ntr\u00e8s-oblig\u00e9 pour cette visite ici. Berger, comment \u00e7a vous va-t-il?\n\n--Ah! Samuel, dit Mme Weller, ceci est \u00e9pouvantable.\n\n--Pas du tout, madame. N'est-ce pas, Berger?\u00bb r\u00e9pondit Sam.\n\nM. Stiggins leva ses mains et tourna les yeux vers le ciel, de mani\u00e8re \u00e0\nn'en plus laisser voir que le blanc, ou plut\u00f4t que le jaune; mais il ne\nfit point de r\u00e9ponse vocale.\n\n\u00abEst-ce que ce gentilhomme se trouve mal? demanda Sam \u00e0 sa belle-m\u00e8re.\n\n--L'excellent homme est pein\u00e9 de vous voir ici, r\u00e9pliqua Mme Weller.\n\n--Oh! c'est-il tout? En le voyant j'avais peur qu'il n'e\u00fbt oubli\u00e9 de\nprendre du poivre avec les derni\u00e8res concombres qu'il a mang\u00e9es.\nAsseyez-vous, monsieur, les chaises ne se payent point, comme le roi\nremarqua \u00e0 ses ministres, le jour o\u00f9 il voulait leur flanquer une\nsemonce.\n\n--Jeune homme, dit M. Stiggins avec ostentation, j'ai peur que vous ne\nsoyez pas amend\u00e9 par l'emprisonnement.\n\n--Pardon, monsieur, qu'est-ce que vous aviez la bont\u00e9 d'observer?\n\n--Je crains, jeune homme, que ce ch\u00e2timent ne vous ait pas adouci,\nr\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Stiggins d'une voix sonore.\n\n--Ah! monsieur, vous \u00eates bien bon; j'esp\u00e8re bien que je ne suis pas\ntrop doux[20]; je vous suis bien oblig\u00e9, monsieur pour vot' bonne\nopinion.\u00bb\n\n[Footnote 20: _Soft_, veut dire _doux_ ou _sot_.]\n\n\u00c0 cet endroit de la conversation, un son, qui approchait ind\u00e9cemment\nd'un \u00e9clat de rire, se fit entendre du c\u00f4t\u00e9 o\u00f9 \u00e9tait assis M. Weller, et\nsa moiti\u00e9, ayant rapidement consid\u00e9r\u00e9 le cas, crut devoir se payer\ngraduellement une attaque de nerfs.\n\n\u00abWeller, s'\u00e9cria-t-elle, venez ici! (Le vieux gentleman \u00e9tait assis dans\nun coin.)\n\n--Bien oblig\u00e9, ma ch\u00e8re; je suis tout \u00e0 fait bien o\u00f9 je suis.\u00bb\n\n\u00c0 cette r\u00e9ponse Mme Weller fondit en larmes.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce qu'il y a, maman? lui demanda Sam.\n\n--Oh! Samuel, r\u00e9pliqua-t-elle, votre p\u00e8re me rend bien malheureuse! il\nn'est donc sensible \u00e0 rien?\n\n--Entendez-vous cela? dit Sam. Madame demande si vous n'\u00eates sensible \u00e0\nrien.\n\n--Bien oblig\u00e9 de sa politesse, Sammy. Je pense que je serais\ntr\u00e8s-sensible au don d'une pipe de sa part. Puis-je en avoir une, mon\ngar\u00e7on?\u00bb\n\nEn entendant ces mots, Mme Weller redoubla ses pleurs, et M. Stiggins\npoussa un g\u00e9missement.\n\n\u00abOh\u00e9! voil\u00e0 l'infortun\u00e9 gentleman qui est retomb\u00e9, dit Sam en se\nretournant. O\u00f9 \u00e7a vous fait-il mal, monsieur?\n\n--Au m\u00eame endroit, jeune homme, au m\u00eame endroit.\n\n--O\u00f9 cela peut-il \u00eatre, monsieur? demanda Sam, avec une grande\nsimplicit\u00e9 ext\u00e9rieure.\n\n\u00abDans mon sein, jeune homme,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit M. Stiggins, en appuyant son\nparapluie sur son gilet.\n\n\u00c0 cette r\u00e9ponse touchante, Mme Weller incapable de contenir son \u00e9motion,\nsanglota encore plus bruyamment, en affirmant que l'homme au nez rouge\n\u00e9tait un saint.\n\n\u00abMaman, dit Sam, j'ai peur que ce gentleman, avec le tic dans sa\nphysolomie, ne soit un peu alt\u00e9r\u00e9 par le m\u00e9lancolique spectacle qu'il a\nsous les yeux. C'est-il le cas, maman?\u00bb\n\nLa digne lady regarda M. Stiggins pour avoir une r\u00e9ponse, et celui-ci,\navec de nombreux roulements d'yeux, serra son gosier de sa main droite,\net imita l'acte d'avaler, pour exprimer qu'il avait soif.\n\n\u00abSamuel, dit Mme Weller d'une voix dolente, je crains en v\u00e9rit\u00e9 que ces\n\u00e9motions ne l'aient alt\u00e9r\u00e9.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que vous buvez ordinairement, monsieur? demanda Sam.\n\n--Oh! mon cher jeune ami, toutes les boissons ne sont que vanit\u00e9s!\n\n--Ce n'est que trop vrai, ce n'est que trop vrai! murmura Mme Weller,\navec un g\u00e9missement et un signe de t\u00eate approbatif.\n\n--Eh bien! je le crois, dit Sam; mais quelle est votre vanit\u00e9\nparticuli\u00e8re, monsieur? Quelle vanit\u00e9 aimez-vous le mieux?\n\n--Oh, mon cher jeune ami, je les m\u00e9prise toutes. Pourtant, s'il en est\nune moins odieuse que les autres, c'est la liqueur que l'on appelle\nrhum; chaude, mon cher jeune ami avec trois morceaux de sucre par verre.\n\n--J'en suis tr\u00e8s-f\u00e2ch\u00e9, monsieur; mais on ne permet pas de vendre cette\nvanit\u00e9-l\u00e0 dans l'\u00e9tablissement.\n\n--Oh! les coeurs endurcis, les coeurs endurcis! s'\u00e9cria M. Stiggins. Oh!\nla cruaut\u00e9 maudite de ces pers\u00e9cuteurs inhumains!\u00bb\n\nAyant dit ces mots, l'homme de Dieu recommen\u00e7a \u00e0 tourner ses yeux, en\nfrappant sa poitrine de son parapluie; et pour lui rendre justice, nous\ndevons dire que son indignation ne paraissait ni feinte, ni l\u00e9g\u00e8re.\n\nLorsque Mme Weller et le r\u00e9v\u00e9rend gentleman eurent vigoureusement\nd\u00e9blat\u00e9r\u00e9 contre cette r\u00e8gle barbare, et lanc\u00e9 contre ses auteurs un\ngrand nombre de pieuses ex\u00e9crations, M. Stiggins recommanda une\nbouteille de vin de Porto, m\u00eal\u00e9e avec un peu d'eau chaude, d'\u00e9pices et\nde sucre, comme \u00e9tant un m\u00e9lange agr\u00e9able \u00e0 l'estomac et moins rempli de\nvanit\u00e9 que beaucoup d'autres compositions.\n\nPendant qu'on pr\u00e9parait cette c\u00e9l\u00e8bre mixture, l'homme au nez rouge et\nMme Weller s'occupaient \u00e0 contempler M. Weller, tout en poussant des\ng\u00e9missements.\n\n\u00abEh bien! Sammy, dit celui-ci; j'esp\u00e8re que tu te trouveras ragaillardi\npar cette aimable visite? Une conversation tr\u00e8s-gaie et\ntr\u00e8s-instructive, n'est-ce pas?\n\n--Vous \u00eates un r\u00e9prouv\u00e9, dit Sam; et je vous prie de ne plus m'adresser\nvos observations impies.\u00bb\n\nBien loin d'\u00eatre \u00e9difi\u00e9 par cette r\u00e9plique, pleine de convenance, M.\nWeller retomba sur nouveaux frais dans ses ricanements, et cette\nconduite imp\u00e9nitente ayant induit la vertueuse dame et M. Stiggins \u00e0\nfermer les yeux et \u00e0 se balancer sur leur chaise comme s'ils avaient eu\nla colique, le jovial cocher se permit, en outre, divers actes de\npantomime, indiquant le d\u00e9sir de ramollir la t\u00eate et de tirer le nez du\nr\u00e9v\u00e9rend personnage. Mais il s'en fallut de peu qu'il ne f\u00fbt d\u00e9couvert,\ncar M. Stiggins ayant tressailli \u00e0 l'arriv\u00e9e du vin chaud, amena sa t\u00eate\nen violent contact avec le poing ferm\u00e9 de M. Weller, qui depuis quelques\nminutes d\u00e9crivait autour des oreilles de r\u00e9v\u00e9rend homme un feu\nd'artifice imaginaire.\n\n\u00abVous aviez bien besoin d'avancer la main, comme un sauvage pour prendre\nle verre? s'\u00e9cria Sam, avec une grande pr\u00e9sence d'esprit. Ne voyez-vous\npas que vous avez attrap\u00e9 le gentleman?\n\n--Je ne l'ai pas fait expr\u00e8s, Sammy, r\u00e9pondit M. Weller, un peu d\u00e9mont\u00e9\npar cet incident inattendu.\n\n--Monsieur, dit Sam au r\u00e9v\u00e9rend Stiggins, qui frottait sa t\u00eate d'un air\ndolent, essayez une application int\u00e9rieure. Comment trouvez-vous cela\npour une vanit\u00e9, monsieur?\u00bb\n\nM. Stiggins ne fit pas de r\u00e9ponse verbale, mais ses mani\u00e8res \u00e9taient\nexpressives: il go\u00fbta le contenu du verre que Sam avait plac\u00e9 devant\nlui, posa son parapluie par terre, sirota de nouveau un peu de liqueur,\nen passant doucement la main sur son estomac; puis enfin, avala tout le\nreste, d'un seul trait, et faisant claquer ses l\u00e8vres, tendit son verre\npour en avoir une nouvelle dose.\n\nMme Weller se tarda pas non plus \u00e0 rendre justice au vin chaud. La bonne\ndame avait commenc\u00e9 par protester qu'elle ne pouvait pas en prendre une\ngoutte; ensuite elle avait accept\u00e9 une petite goutte; puis une grosse\ngoutte; puis un grand nombre de gouttes; et comme sa sensibilit\u00e9 \u00e9tait,\napparemment, de la nature de ces substances qui se dissolvent dans\nl'esprit de vin, \u00e0 chaque goutte de liqueur elle versait une larme; si\nbien qu'\u00e0 la fin elle arriva \u00e0 un degr\u00e9 de mis\u00e8re tout \u00e0 fait\npath\u00e9tique.\n\nM. Weller manifestait un profond d\u00e9go\u00fbt, en observant ces sympt\u00f4mes, et\nquand, apr\u00e8s un second bol, M. Stiggins commen\u00e7a \u00e0 soupirer d'une\nterrible mani\u00e8re, l'illustre cocher ne put s'emp\u00eacher d'exprimer sa\nd\u00e9sapprobation, en murmurant des phrases incoh\u00e9rentes, parmi lesquelles\nune col\u00e9rique r\u00e9p\u00e9tition du mot _blague_ \u00e9tait seule perceptible \u00e0\nl'oreille.\n\n\u00abSamivel, mon gar\u00e7on, chuchota-t-il enfin \u00e0 son fils, apr\u00e8s une longue\ncontemplation de sa femme, et de l'homme au nez rouge, je vas te dire ce\nqui en est: faut qu'il y ait quelque chose de d\u00e9croch\u00e9 dans l'int\u00e9rieur\nde ta belle-m\u00e8re et dans celui de M. Stiggins.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que vous voulez dire?\n\n--Je veux dire que tout ce qu'ils boivent, n'a pas l'air de les nourrir.\n\u00c7a se change en eau chaude tout de suite, et \u00e7a vient couler par les\nyeux. Crois-moi, Sammy, c'est une infirmit\u00e9 constitutionnaire.\u00bb\n\nM. Weller confirma cette opinion scientifique par un grand nombre de\nclins d'oeil, et de signes de t\u00eate qui furent malheureusement remarqu\u00e9s\npar Mme Weller. Cette aimable dame, concluant qu'ils devaient renfermer\nquelque signification outrageante, soit pour M. Stiggins, soit pour\nelle-m\u00eame, soit pour tous les deux, allait se trouver infiniment plus\nmal, lorsque le r\u00e9v\u00e9rend, se mettant sur ses pieds aussi bien qu'il put,\ncommen\u00e7a \u00e0 d\u00e9biter un touchant discours pour le b\u00e9n\u00e9fice de la\ncompagnie, et principalement de Samuel Weller. Il l'adjura, en termes\n\u00e9difiants, de se tenir sur ses gardes, dans ce puits d'iniquit\u00e9s o\u00f9 il\n\u00e9tait tomb\u00e9. Il le conjura de s'abstenir de toute hypocrisie et de tout\norgueil, et, pour cela, de prendre exactement mod\u00e8le sur lui-m\u00eame (M.\nStiggins). Bient\u00f4t alors, il arriverait \u00e0 l'agr\u00e9able conclusion qu'il\nserait, comme lui, essentiellement estimable et vertueux, tandis que\ntoutes ses connaissances et amis ne seraient que de mis\u00e9rables d\u00e9bauch\u00e9s\nabandonn\u00e9s de Dieu, et sans nulle esp\u00e9rance de salut; ce qui, ajouta M.\nStiggins, est une grande consolation.\n\nIl le supplia en outre d'\u00e9viter par-dessus toutes choses le vice\nd'ivrognerie, qu'il comparait aux d\u00e9go\u00fbtantes habitudes des pourceaux,\nou bien \u00e0 ces drogues malfaisantes qui d\u00e9truisent la m\u00e9moire de celui\nqui les m\u00e2che. Malheureusement, \u00e0 cet endroit de son discours, le\nr\u00e9v\u00e9rend gentleman devint singuli\u00e8rement incoh\u00e9rent; et comme il \u00e9tait\npr\u00e8s de perdre l'\u00e9quilibre \u00e0 cause des grands mouvements de son\n\u00e9loquence, il fut oblig\u00e9 de se rattraper au dos d'une chaise, afin de\nmaintenir sa perpendiculaire.\n\nM. Stiggins n'engagea pas ses auditeurs \u00e0 se d\u00e9fier de ces faux\nproph\u00e8tes, de ces hypocrites marchands de religion, qui n'ayant pas le\nsens n\u00e9cessaire pour en exposer les plus simples doctrines, ni le coeur\nassez bien fait pour en sentir les premiers principes, sont, pour la\nsoci\u00e9t\u00e9, bien plus dangereux que les criminels ordinaires: car ils\nentra\u00eenent dans l'erreur ses membres les plus ignorants et les plus\nfaibles, appellent le m\u00e9pris surtout ce qui devrait \u00eatre le plus sacr\u00e9,\net font rejaillir, jusqu'\u00e0 un certain point, la d\u00e9fiance et le d\u00e9dain\nsur plus d'une secte vertueuse et honorable. Cependant comme M. Stiggins\nresta pendant fort longtemps appuy\u00e9 sur le dos de sa chaise, tenant un\nde ses yeux ferm\u00e9 et clignant perp\u00e9tuellement de l'autre, il est\npr\u00e9sumable qu'il pensa tout cela, mais qu'il le garda pour lui.\n\nMme Weller pleurait \u00e0 chaudes larmes, pendant le d\u00e9bit de cette oraison,\net sanglotait \u00e0 la fin de chaque paragraphe. Sam s'\u00e9tant mis \u00e0 cheval\nsur une chaise, les bras appuy\u00e9s sur le dossier, regardait le\npr\u00e9dicateur avec une physionomie pleine de douceur et de componction, se\ncontentant de jeter de temps en temps vers son p\u00e8re un regard\nd'intelligence. Enfin le vieux gentleman, qui avait paru enchant\u00e9 au\ncommencement, se mit \u00e0 dormir vers le milieu.\n\n\u00abBravo! Bravo! tr\u00e8s-joli! dit Sam lorsque M. Stiggins, ayant cess\u00e9 de\nm\u00e9diter, commen\u00e7a \u00e0 mettre ses gants perc\u00e9s par le bout, et \u00e0 les tirer\nsi bien qu'ils laissaient passer \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s la moiti\u00e9 de chaque doigt.\n\n--J'esp\u00e8re que cela vous fera du bien, Samuel, dit mistress Weller\nsolennellement.\n\n--Je l'esp\u00e8re, maman, r\u00e9pondit Sam.\n\n--Je d\u00e9sirerais bien que cela en f\u00eet aussi \u00e0 votre p\u00e8re.\n\n--Merci, ma ch\u00e8re, dit M. Weller. Comment vous trouvez-vous \u00e0 pr\u00e9sent,\nmon amour?\n\n--Impie!\n\n--Homme \u00e9gar\u00e9, dit le r\u00e9v\u00e9rend.\n\n--Ma digne cr\u00e9ature, r\u00e9pondit M. Weller; si je ne trouve pas de\nmeilleure lumi\u00e8re que votre petit clair de lune, il est probable que je\ncontinuerai \u00e0 voyager dans la nuit, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que je sois mis \u00e0 pied\ntout \u00e0 fait. Mais voyez-vous, madame Weller, si la pie, ma ch\u00e8re jument,\ndemeure plus longtemps \u00e0 l'\u00e9curie, elle ne restera pas tranquille quand\nnous retournerons, et elle pourrait bien envoyer le fauteuil dans\nquelque haie avec le berger dedans.\u00bb\n\nEn entendant cette supposition, le r\u00e9v\u00e9rend M. Stiggins, avec une\nconsternation \u00e9vidente, ramassa son chapeau et son parapluie, et proposa\nde partir sur-le-champ. Mme Weller y consentit, et Sam les ayant\naccompagn\u00e9s jusqu'\u00e0 la porte, prit un cong\u00e9 respectueux.\n\n\u00ab_Adiou_, Sam, dit le vieux cocher.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que c'est \u00e7a, _adiou_ demanda Sam.\n\n--Bonsoir, alors.\n\n--Ah! tr\u00e8s-bien, j'y suis, r\u00e9pliqua Sam. Bonsoir, vieux r\u00e9prouv\u00e9.\n\n--Sammy, reprit tout bas M. Weller, en regardant soigneusement autour de\nlui, mes devoirs \u00e0 ton gouverneur, et dis-y que s'il fait des r\u00e9flexions\nsur cette affaire ici, qu'il me le fasse savoir. Moi, et un \u00e9b\u00e9niste,\nj'ai fait un plan pour le tirer de l\u00e0. Un piano, Sammy, un piano, dit M.\nWeller, en frappant de sa main la poitrine de son fils, et en se\nreculant d'un pas ou deux, pour mieux juger l'effet de sa communication.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que vous voulez dire?\n\n--Un piano forc\u00e9, Samivel, r\u00e9pliqua M. Weller d'une mani\u00e8re encore plus\nmyst\u00e9rieuse. Un qu'il peut louer, mais qui ne jouera pas.\n\n--Et \u00e0 quoi servira-t-il, alors?\n\n--Il fera dire \u00e0 mon ami, l'\u00e9b\u00e9niste, de le remporter; y es-tu?\n\n--Non.\n\n--Y n'y a pas de machine dedans; il y tiendra ais\u00e9ment avec son chapeau\net ses souliers, et il respirera par les pieds, qui sont creux. Vous\navez un passage tout pr\u00eat pour la M\u00e9rique... Le gouvernement des\nM\u00e9ricains ne le livrera jamais, tant qu'il aura de l'argent \u00e0 d\u00e9penser.\nLe gouverneur n'a qu'\u00e0 rester l\u00e0 jusqu'\u00e0 ce que Mme Bardell soit morte,\nou que MM. Dodson et Fogg soient pendus, ce qu'est le plus probable des\ndeux \u00e9v\u00e9nements, et ensuite il revient et \u00e9crit un livre sur les\nM\u00e9ricains, qui payera toutes ses d\u00e9penses, et plus, s'il les m\u00e9canise\nsuffisamment.\u00bb\n\nM. Weller d\u00e9bita ce rapide sommaire de son complot, avec une grande\nv\u00e9h\u00e9mence de chuchotements, et ensuite, comme s'il avait peur\nd'affaiblir par d'autres discours l'effet de cette prodigieuse annonce,\nil fit le salut du cocher et s'enfuit.\n\nSam avait \u00e0 peine recouvr\u00e9 sa gravit\u00e9 ordinaire, grandement troubl\u00e9e par\nla communication secr\u00e8te de son respectable parent, lorsque M. Pickwick\nl'accosta.\n\n\u00abSam, lui dit-il.\n\n--Monsieur?\n\n--Je vais faire le tour de la prison, et je d\u00e9sire que vous me suiviez.\nSam, ajouta l'excellent homme en souriant, voil\u00e0 un prisonnier de votre\nconnaissance qui vient par l\u00e0.\n\n--Lequel, monsieur? Le gentleman velu, o\u00f9 bien l'int\u00e9ressant captif avec\nles bas bleus?\n\n--Ni l'un ni l'autre. C'est un de vos plus anciens amis.\n\n--De mes amis!\n\n--Je suis s\u00fbr que vous vous le rappelez tr\u00e8s-bien; ou vous auriez moins\nde m\u00e9moire pour vos vieilles connaissances que je ne vous en croyais.\nChut! pas un mot, pas une syllabe, Sam! Le voici.\u00bb\n\nPendant ce colloque M. Jingle s'approchait. Il n'avait plus l'air aussi\nmis\u00e9rable, et portait des v\u00eatements \u00e0 demi us\u00e9s, retir\u00e9s, gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 M.\nPickwick, des griffes du pr\u00eateur sur gages. Ses cheveux avaient \u00e9t\u00e9\ncoup\u00e9s, il portait du linge blanc; mais il \u00e9tait encore tr\u00e8s-p\u00e2le et\ntr\u00e8s-maigre. Il se tra\u00eenait lentement, en s'appuyant sur un b\u00e2ton, et\nl'on voyait sans peine qu'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 rudement \u00e9prouv\u00e9 par la maladie\net par le besoin. Il \u00f4ta son chapeau lorsque M. Pickwick le salua, et\nparut fort troubl\u00e9 et tout honteux en apercevant Sam.\n\nDerri\u00e8re lui, presque sur ses talons, venait M. Job Trotter, qui, du\nmoins, ne comptait pas dans le catalogue de ses vices le manque\nd'attachement \u00e0 son compagnon. Il \u00e9tait encore d\u00e9guenill\u00e9 et malpropre,\nmais son visage n'\u00e9tait plus tout \u00e0 fait aussi creux que lors de sa\npremi\u00e8re rencontre avec M. Pickwick. En \u00f4tant son chapeau \u00e0 notre\nbienveillant ami, il murmura quelques expressions entrecoup\u00e9es de\nreconnaissance, ajoutant que sans M. Pickwick ils seraient morts de\nfaim.\n\n\u00abBien, bien! dit M. Pickwick en l'interrompant avec impatience. Restez\nderri\u00e8re avec Sam. Je veux vous parler, monsieur Jingle. Pouvez-vous\nmarcher sans son bras?\n\n--Certainement, monsieur, \u00e0 vos ordres. Pas trop vite, jambes\nvacillantes, t\u00eate ahurie, sorte de tremblement de terre.\n\n--Allons, donnez-moi votre bras, dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Non, non, je ne veux pas, j'aime mieux marcher seul.\n\n--Folie! Appuyez-vous sur moi, je le veux.\u00bb\n\nVoyant que Jingle \u00e9tait confus, agit\u00e9, et ne savait que faire, M.\nPickwick coupa court \u00e0 ses incertitudes, en tirant sous son bras celui\nde l'ex-com\u00e9dien, et en l'emmenant avec lui, sans ajouter une autre\nparole.\n\nDurant tout ce temps la contenance de M. Samuel Weller exprimait\nl'\u00e9tonnement le plus monstrueux, le plus stup\u00e9fiant qu'il soit possible\nd'imaginer. Apr\u00e8s avoir promen\u00e9 ses yeux de Job \u00e0 Jingle, et de Jingle \u00e0\nJob, dans un profond silence, il murmura entre ses dents: Pas possible!\npas possible! et r\u00e9p\u00e9ta ces mots une douzaine de fois; apr\u00e8s quoi il\nparut compl\u00e8tement priv\u00e9 de la parole, et recommen\u00e7a \u00e0 contempler tant\u00f4t\nl'un, tant\u00f4t l'autre, dans une muette perplexit\u00e9.\n\n\u00abAllons, Sam, dit M. Pickwick en regardant derri\u00e8re lui.\n\n--Voil\u00e0, monsieur,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua Sam en suivant machinalement son ma\u00eetre,\nmais sans \u00f4ter ses yeux de dessus M. Job Trotter, qui trottait \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de\nlui.\n\nPendant quelque temps Job tint ses regards fix\u00e9s sur la terre, tandis\nque Sam, les yeux riv\u00e9s sur lui, se heurtait contre les passants,\ntombait sur les petits enfants, s'accrochait aux marches et aux\nbarri\u00e8res sans para\u00eetre s'en apercevoir, lorsque Job, le regardant \u00e0 la\nd\u00e9rob\u00e9e, lui dit:\n\n\u00abComment vous portez-vous, monsieur Weller?\n\n--C'est lui! s'\u00e9cria Sam, et ayant \u00e9tabli avec certitude l'identit\u00e9 de\nJob, il frappa ses mains, sur ses cuisses, et exhala son \u00e9motion en une\nsorte de sifflement long et aigu.\n\n--Les choses ont bien chang\u00e9 pour moi, monsieur Weller.\n\n--\u00c7a m'en a l'air, r\u00e9pondit Sam en examinant avec une \u00e9vidente surprise\nles haillons de son compagnon. Mais c'est un changement en mal, comme\ndit le gentleman, quand il re\u00e7ut de la mauvaise monnaie pour une bonne\ndemi-couronne.\n\n--Vous avez bien raison, r\u00e9pliqua Job en secouant la t\u00eate; il n'y a pas\nde d\u00e9ception maintenant, monsieur Weller. Les larmes, ajouta-t-il avec\nune expression de malice momentan\u00e9e, les larmes ne sont pas les seules\npreuves de l'infortune, ni les meilleures.\n\n--C'est vrai, r\u00e9pliqua Sam, d'un ton expressif.\n\n--Elles peuvent \u00eatre command\u00e9es, monsieur Weller.\n\n--Je le sais. Il y a des personnes qui les ont toujours toutes pr\u00eates,\net qui l\u00e2chent la bonde quand elles veulent.\n\n--Oui, mais voici des choses qui ne sont pas ais\u00e9ment contrefaites,\nmonsieur Weller; et pour y arriver, le proc\u00e9d\u00e9 est long et p\u00e9nible.\u00bb\n\nEn parlant ainsi, Job montrait ses joues creuses, et, relevant la manche\nde son habit, d\u00e9couvrait son bras si fr\u00eale et si d\u00e9charn\u00e9, qu'il\nsemblait pouvoir \u00eatre bris\u00e9 par le moindre choc.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce que vous avez donc fait? s'\u00e9cria Sam en reculant.\n\n--Rien.\n\n--Rien?\n\n--Il y a plusieurs semaines que je ne fais rien, et que je ne mange\ngu\u00e8re davantage.\u00bb\n\nSam embrassa d'un coup d'oeil la figure maigre de M. Trotter et son\ncostume mis\u00e9rable, puis, le saisissant par le bras, il commen\u00e7a \u00e0\nl'entra\u00eener de vive force.\n\n\u00abO\u00f9 allez-vous, monsieur Weller? s'\u00e9cria Job en se d\u00e9battant vainement\nsous la main puissante de son ancien ennemi.\n\n--Venez, venez! r\u00e9pondit Sam sans daigner lui donner d'autre\nexplication, jusqu'au moment o\u00f9 ils atteignirent la buvette, et o\u00f9 il\ndemanda un pot de _porter_, qui fut promptement apport\u00e9.\n\n--Maintenant, dit Sam, buvez-moi \u00e7a jusqu'\u00e0 la derni\u00e8re goutte, et\nensuite retournez le pot sens dessus dessous, pour me faire voir que\nvous avez pris la m\u00e9decine tout enti\u00e8re.\n\n--Mais, mon cher monsieur Weller....\n\n--Avalez-moi \u00e7a,\u00bb reprit Sam d'un ton p\u00e9remptoire.\n\nAinsi admonest\u00e9, M. Trotter porta le pot \u00e0 ses l\u00e8vres et en \u00e9leva le\nfond lentement, et d'une mani\u00e8re presque imperceptible. Une fois,\nseulement, il s'arr\u00eata pour respirer longuement, mais sans retirer son\nvisage du vase; et quelques moments apr\u00e8s, lorsqu'il le tint \u00e0 bras\ntendus, avec le fond en haut, rien ne tomba \u00e0 terre, si ce n'est trois\nou quatre flocons de mousse, qui se d\u00e9tach\u00e8rent lentement du bord.\n\n\u00abBien op\u00e9r\u00e9, dit Sam. Comment vous trouvez-vous, apr\u00e8s \u00e7a?\n\n--Mieux, monsieur, beaucoup mieux, je pense.\n\n--N\u00e9cessairement; c'est comme quand on met du gaz dans un ballon. Vous\ndevenez plus gros \u00e0 vue d'oeil. Qu'est-ce que vous dites d'un autre\nverre de la m\u00eame tisane?\n\n--J'en ai suffisamment, monsieur; je vous remercie bien, mais j'en ai\nassez.\n\n--Eh bien! alors, qu'est-ce que vous dites, de quelque chose de plus\nsolide?\n\n--Gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 votre digne gouverneur, nous avons, \u00e0 trois heures, un\ndemi-gigot cuit au four, et garni de pommes de terre.\n\n--Quoi! c'est lui qui vous donne des provisions? s'\u00e9cria Sam avec un\naccent emphatique.\n\n--Oui, monsieur. Et plus que cela, monsieur Weller, comme mon ma\u00eetre\n\u00e9tait fort malade, il a lou\u00e9 une chambre pour nous. Nous \u00e9tions dans un\nchenil auparavant. Il est venu nous y voir la nuit, quand personne ne\npouvait s'en douter. Monsieur Weller, continua Job, avec des larmes\nr\u00e9elles cette fois, je serais capable de servir cet homme-l\u00e0, jusqu'\u00e0 ce\nque je tombe mort \u00e0 ses pieds.\n\n--Dites donc, mon ami, pas de \u00e7a, s'il vous pla\u00eet!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria Sam.\n\nJob Trotter le regarda d'un air \u00e9tonn\u00e9.\n\n\u00abJe vous dis que je n'entends pas cela, mon gar\u00e7on, poursuivit Sam, avec\nfermet\u00e9. Personne ne le servira, except\u00e9 moi; et puisque nous en sommes\nl\u00e0-dessus, continua-t-il, en payant sa bi\u00e8re, je vas vous apprendre un\nautre secret. Je n'ai jamais entendu dire, ni lu dans aucun livre\nd'histoire, ni vu dans aucun tableau, un ange avec une culotte et des\ngu\u00eatres; non, pas m\u00eame au spectacle, quoique \u00e7a ait pu se faire; mais\nvoyez-vous, Job, malgr\u00e9 \u00e7a, je vous dis que c'est un v\u00e9ritable ange, pur\nsang; et montrez-moi l'homme qui osera me soutenir le contraire!\u00bb\n\nAyant prof\u00e9r\u00e9 cette provocation, qu'il confirma par de nombreux gestes\net signes de t\u00eate, Sam empocha sa monnaie et se mit en qu\u00eate de l'objet\nde son pan\u00e9gyrique.\n\nM. Pickwick \u00e9tait encore avec Jingle, et lui parlait vivement, sans\njeter un coup d'oeil sur les groupes vari\u00e9s et curieux qui\nl'entouraient.\n\n\u00abBien, disait-il, lorsque Sam et son compagnon s'approch\u00e8rent: vous\nverrez comment vous irez, et en attendant, vous r\u00e9fl\u00e9chirez \u00e0 cela.\nQuand vous vous trouverez assez fort, vous me le direz, et nous en\ncauserons. Maintenant, retournez dans votre chambre, vous avez l'air\nfatigu\u00e9, et vous n'\u00eates pas assez vigoureux pour demeurer longtemps\ndehors.\u00bb\n\nM. Alfred Jingle, \u00e0 qui il ne restait plus une \u00e9tincelle de son ancienne\nvivacit\u00e9, ni m\u00eame de la sombre gaiet\u00e9 qu'il avait feinte, le premier\njour o\u00f9 M. Pickwick l'avait rencontr\u00e9 dans sa mis\u00e8re, salua fort bas,\nsans parler, et s'\u00e9loigna avec lenteur, apr\u00e8s avoir fait signe \u00e0 Job de\nne pas le suivre imm\u00e9diatement.\n\n\u00abSam, dit M. Pickwick en regardant autour de lui avec bonne humeur. Ne\nvoil\u00e0-t-il pas une curieuse sc\u00e8ne?\n\n--Tout \u00e0 fait, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit Sam; et il ajouta, en se partant \u00e0\nlui-m\u00eame: \u00abLes miracles ne sont pas finis. Voil\u00e0-t-il pas ce Jingle qui\nse met aussi \u00e0 faire jouer les pompes!\u00bb\n\nDans la partie de la prison o\u00f9 se trouvait alors M. Pickwick, l'espace\ncirconscrit par les murs, \u00e9tait assez \u00e9tendu pour former un bon jeu de\npaume; un des c\u00f4t\u00e9s de la cour \u00e9tait ferm\u00e9, cela va sans dire, par le\nmur m\u00eame, et l'autre par cette partie de la prison qui avait vue sur\nSaint-Paul; ou, plut\u00f4t, qui _aurait eu_ vue sur cette cath\u00e9drale si on\navait pu voir \u00e0 travers la muraille. L\u00e0 se montraient un grand nombre de\nd\u00e9biteurs, en mouvement ou en repos dans toutes les attitudes possibles\nd'une inqui\u00e8te fain\u00e9antise. La plupart attendaient le moment de\ncompara\u00eetre devant la cour des insolvables; les autres \u00e9taient renvoy\u00e9s\nen prison pour un certain temps, qu'ils s'effor\u00e7aient de passer de leur\nmieux. Quelques-uns avaient l'air mis\u00e9rable, d'autres ne manquaient\npoint de recherche; le plus grand nombre \u00e9taient crasseux; le petit\nnombre moins malpropres. Mais tous en fl\u00e2nant, en se tra\u00eenant, en\nbaguenaudant, semblaient y mettre aussi peu d'int\u00e9r\u00eat, aussi peu\nd'animation, que les animaux qui vont et viennent derri\u00e8re les barreaux\nd'une m\u00e9nagerie.\n\nD'autres prisonniers passaient leur temps aux fen\u00eatres qui donnaient sur\nles promenades; et, parmi ceux-ci, les uns conversaient bruyamment avec\nles individus de leur connaissance qui se trouvaient en bas; les autres\njouaient \u00e0 la balle avec quelques aventureux personnages, qui les\n_servaient_ du dehors; d'autres enfin regardaient les joueurs de paume,\nou \u00e9coutaient les gar\u00e7ons qui criaient le jeu.\n\nDes femmes malpropres passaient et repassaient avec des savates pour se\nrendre \u00e0 la cuisine, qui \u00e9tait dans un coin de la cour. Dans un autre\ncoin, des enfants criaient, jouaient, et se battaient. Le fracas des\nquilles et les cris des joueurs se m\u00ealaient perp\u00e9tuellement \u00e0 ces mille\nbruits divers; tout \u00e9tait mouvement et tumulte, except\u00e9 \u00e0 quelques pas\nde l\u00e0, dans un mis\u00e9rable petit hangar o\u00f9 gisait, p\u00e2le et immobile, le\ncorps du prisonnier de la chancellerie, d\u00e9c\u00e9d\u00e9 la nuit pr\u00e9c\u00e9dente, et\nattendant la com\u00e9die d'une enqu\u00eate. Le corps! c'est le terme l\u00e9gal pour\nexprimer cette masse turbulente de soins, d'anxi\u00e9t\u00e9s, d'affections,\nd'esp\u00e9rances, de douleurs, qui composent l'homme vivant. La loi\nposs\u00e9dait le corps du prisonnier; il \u00e9tait l\u00e0, t\u00e9moin effrayant des\ntendres soins de cette bonne m\u00e8re.\n\n\u00abVoulez-vous voir une boutique sifflante[21], monsieur? demanda Job \u00e0 M.\nPickwick.\n\n[Footnote 21: \u00c9tymologie: _s'humecter le sifflet_ (boire).]\n\n--Qu'est-ce que vous voulez dire? r\u00e9pondit celui-ci.\n\n--Une boutique chifflante, monsieur, fit observer Sam.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela, Sam? Une boutique d'oiseleur?\n\n--Du tout! monsieur, reprit Job; c'est o\u00f9 l'on vend des liqueurs. Il\nexpliqua alors bri\u00e8vement, qu'il \u00e9tait d\u00e9fendu d'introduire dans la\nprison des d\u00e9biteurs des boissons spiritueuses; mais que cet article y\n\u00e9tant singuli\u00e8rement appr\u00e9ci\u00e9, quelques ge\u00f4liers sp\u00e9culateurs,\nd\u00e9termin\u00e9s par certaines consid\u00e9rations lucratives, s'\u00e9taient avis\u00e9s de\npermettre \u00e0 deux ou trois prisonniers de d\u00e9biter, dans leurs chambres,\nle r\u00e9gal favori des ladies et des gentlemen confin\u00e9s dans la prison. Cet\nusage, continua Job, a \u00e9t\u00e9 introduit graduellement dans toutes les\nprisons pour dettes.\n\n--Et il est fort avantageux, interrompit Sam; car les guichetiers ont\nbien soin de faire saisir tous ceux qui font la fraude, et qui ne les\npayent point; et quand \u00e7a arrive, ils sont lou\u00e9s dans les journaux pour\nleur vigilance; de mani\u00e8re que \u00e7a fait d'une pierre deux coups; \u00e7a\nemp\u00eache les autres de faire le commerce, et \u00e7a rel\u00e8ve leur r\u00e9putation.\n\n--Voil\u00e0 la chose, ajouta Job.\n\n--Mais, dit M. Pickwick, est-ce qu'on ne visite jamais ces chambres pour\nsavoir si elles contiennent des spiritueux?\n\n--Si, certainement, monsieur; mais les guichetiers le savent d'avance;\nils pr\u00e9viennent les siffleurs, et alors va-t'en voir s'ils viennent,\nJean! L'inspecteur ne trouve rien.\u00bb\n\nTandis que Sam achevait ces explications, Job frappait \u00e0 une porte qui\nfut imm\u00e9diatement ouverte par un gentleman mal peign\u00e9, puis\nsoigneusement referm\u00e9e au verrou, quand la compagnie fut entr\u00e9e; apr\u00e8s\nquoi le gentleman siffleur regarda les nouveaux venus en riant;\nl\u00e0-dessus Job se mit aussi \u00e0 rire, autant en fit Sam; et M. Pickwick,\npensant qu'on en attendait sans doute autant de lui, prit un visage\nsouriant, jusqu'\u00e0 la fin de l'entrevue.\n\nLe gentleman mal peign\u00e9 parut comprendre parfaitement cette silencieuse\nmani\u00e8re d'entrer en affaires. Il aveignit de dessous son lit une\nbouteille de gr\u00e8s plate, qui pouvait contenir environ une couple de\npintes, et remplit de geni\u00e8vre trois verres, que Job et Sam d\u00e9p\u00each\u00e8rent\nhabilement.\n\n\u00abEn voulez-vous encore, dit le gentleman siffleur.\n\n--Non, merci, dit Job Trotter.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick paya, la porte fut d\u00e9verrouill\u00e9e, et comme M. Roker passait\nen ce moment, le gentleman mal peign\u00e9 lui fit un signe de t\u00eate amical.\n\nEn sortant de l\u00e0, M. Pickwick erra dans les escaliers et le long des\ngaleries, puis il fit encore une fois le tour de la maison.\n\n\u00c0 chaque pas, dans chaque personne, il lui semblait voir Mivins et\nSmangle, et le vicaire, et le boucher, car toute la population\nparaissait compos\u00e9e d'individus d'une seule esp\u00e8ce. C'\u00e9tait la m\u00eame\nmalpropret\u00e9, le m\u00eame tumulte, le m\u00eame remue-m\u00e9nage, les m\u00eames sympt\u00f4mes\ncaract\u00e9ristiques dans tous les coins, dans les meilleurs comme dans les\npires. Il y avait partout quelque chose de turbulent et d'inquiet, et\nl'on voyait toutes sortes de gens se rassembler et se s\u00e9parer, comme on\nvoit passer des ombres dans les r\u00eaves d'une nuit agit\u00e9e.\n\n\u00abJ'en ai vu assez, dit M. Pickwick en se jetant sur une chaise dans sa\npetite chambre. Ma t\u00eate est fatigu\u00e9e de ces sc\u00e8nes bruyantes, et mon\ncoeur aussi. Dor\u00e9navant je serai prisonnier dans ma propre chambre.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick se t\u00eent parole. Durant trois longs mois il resta enferm\u00e9\ntout le jour, ne sortant qu'\u00e0 la nuit pour respirer l'air, quand la plus\ngrande partie des autres prisonniers \u00e9taient dans leur lit, ou se\nr\u00e9galaient dans leur chambre. Sa sant\u00e9 commen\u00e7ait \u00e9videmment \u00e0 souffrir\nde la rigueur de cette r\u00e9clusion, mais ni les fr\u00e9quentes supplications\nde ses amis et de M. Perker, ni les avertissements encore plus fr\u00e9quents\nde Sam, ne pouvaient le d\u00e9cider \u00e0 changer un _iota_ \u00e0 son inflexible\nr\u00e9solution.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XVII.\n\nO\u00f9 l'on rapporte un acte touchant de d\u00e9licatesse accompli par MM. Dodson\net Fogg, non sans une certaine dose de plaisanterie.\n\n\nVers la fin du mois du juillet, un cabriolet de place dont le num\u00e9ro\nn'est point sp\u00e9cifi\u00e9, s'avan\u00e7ait d'un pas rapide vers _Goswell-Street_,\ntrois personnes y \u00e9taient entass\u00e9es, outre le conducteur, plac\u00e9, comme \u00e0\nl'ordinaire, dans son petit si\u00e9ge de cot\u00e9. Sur le tablier pendaient deux\nch\u00e2les, appartenant, selon toute apparence, \u00e0 deux dames \u00e0 l'air\nrev\u00eache, assises sous ledit tablier. Enfin un gentleman, d'une tournure\n\u00e9paisse et soumise, \u00e9tait soigneusement comprim\u00e9 entre les deux ladies,\npar l'une ou par l'autre desquelles il \u00e9tait imm\u00e9diatement rabrou\u00e9\nlorsqu'il s'aventurait \u00e0 faire quelque l\u00e9g\u00e8re observation. Ces trois\npersonnages donnaient en m\u00eame temps au cocher des instructions\ncontradictoires, tendant toutes au m\u00eame but, qui \u00e9tait d'arr\u00eater \u00e0 la\nporte de Mme Bardell; mais tandis que l'\u00e9pais gentleman pr\u00e9tendait que\ncette porte \u00e9tait verte, les deux ladies rev\u00eaches soutenaient qu'elle\n\u00e9tait jaune.\n\n\u00abCocher, disait le gentleman, arr\u00eatez \u00e0 la porte verte.\n\n--Quel \u00eatre insupportable! s'\u00e9cria l'une des dames. Cocher, arr\u00eatez \u00e0 la\nmaison qui a la porte jaune.\u00bb\n\nPour arr\u00eater \u00e0 la porte verte, le cocher avait retenu son cheval si\nbrusquement qu'il l'avait presque fait reculer dans le cabriolet; mais \u00e0\ncette nouvelle indication, il le laissa retomber sur ses jambes de\ndevant, en disant: \u00abArrangez \u00e7a entre vous. Moi \u00e7a m'est \u00e9gal.\u00bb\n\nLa dispute recommen\u00e7a alors avec une nouvelle violence; et comme le\ncheval \u00e9tait tourment\u00e9 par une mouche qui lui piquait le nez, le cocher\nemploya humainement son loisir \u00e0 lui donner des coups de fouet sur les\noreilles, suivant le syst\u00e8me m\u00e9dical des r\u00e9vulsions.\n\n\u00abC'est la majorit\u00e9 qui l'emporte, dit \u00e0 la fin l'une des dames rev\u00eaches.\nCocher, la porte jaune.\u00bb Mais lorsque le cabriolet fut arriv\u00e9 d'une\nmani\u00e8re brillante devant la porte jaune, faisant r\u00e9ellement plus de\nbruit qu'un carrosse bourgeois (comme le fit remarquer l'une des\nladies), et lorsque le cocher fut descendu pour assister les dames, la\npetite t\u00eate ronde de Master Bardell se fit voir \u00e0 la fen\u00eatre d'une\nmaison qui avait une porte rouge, quelques num\u00e9ros plus loin.\n\n\u00ab\u00catre assommant! s'\u00e9cria la dame ci-dessus mentionn\u00e9e, en lan\u00e7ant \u00e0\nl'\u00e9pais gentleman un regard capable de le r\u00e9duire en poudre.\n\n--Mais ma ch\u00e8re, ce n'est pas ma faute.\n\n--Taisez-vous imb\u00e9cile! La maison \u00e0 la porte rouge, cocher. Oh! Si\njamais pauvre femme a \u00e9t\u00e9 z'unie avec une cr\u00e9ature qui prend plaisir \u00e0\nla tourner en ridicule devant les \u00e9trangers, je puis me vanter d'\u00eatre\ncette femme!\n\n--Vous devriez mourir de honte, Raddle, dit la seconde petite femme qui\nn'\u00e9tait autre que Mme Cluppins.\n\n--Dites-moi donc au moins ce que j'ai fait?\n\n--Taisez-vous, brute, de peur de me faire oublier de quelle \u00e9cole je\nsuis, et que je ne m'abaisse \u00e0 vous gifler!\u00bb\n\nPendant ce petit dialogue matrimonial, le cocher conduisait\nignominieusement le cheval par la bride, et s'arr\u00eatait devant la porte\nrouge que Master Bardell avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 ouverte. Quelle mani\u00e8re plate et\ncommune de se pr\u00e9senter devant la porte d'une amie! au lieu d'arriver\navec tout le feu, toute la furie du noble coursier; au lieu de faire\nfrapper \u00e0 la porte par le cocher; au lieu d'ouvrir le tablier avec\nbruit, et juste au dernier moment, de peur de rester dans un courant\nd'air, au lieu de se faire tendre son ch\u00e2le comme si on avait un\ndomestique \u00e0 soi! Tout le zeste de la chose \u00e9tait perdu; c'\u00e9tait plus\nvulgaire que de venir \u00e0 pied.\n\n\u00abEh ben! Tommy, dit Mme Cluppins; comment va c'te pauv' ch\u00e8re femme de\nm\u00e8re?\n\n--Oh! elle va tr\u00e8s-bien. Elle est dans le parloir de devant, toute\npr\u00eate. Je suis tout pr\u00eat aussi, moi. En parlant ainsi, Master Bardell\nfourrait ses mains dans ses poches et s'amusait \u00e0 sauter de la premi\u00e8re\nmarche du perron sur le trottoir, et _vice versa_.\n\n--Y a-t-il encore quelqu'un qui vient avec nous? reprit Mme Cluppins, en\narrangeant sa p\u00e8lerine.\n\n--Mme Sanders y va aussi; et moi aussi, j'y vas aussi, moi.\n\n--Peste soit du moutard, il ne pense qu'\u00e0 lui seul. Dites donc, Tommy,\nmon petit homme?\n\n--Hein?\n\n--Qu'est-ce qui vient encore, mon amour? continua Mme Cluppins d'une\nmani\u00e8re insinuante.\n\n--Oh! Mme Rogers, elle vient aussi, elle, r\u00e9pondit Master Bardell, en\nouvrant ses yeux de toutes ses forces.\n\n--Quoi! la dame qui a lou\u00e9 le logement?\u00bb s'\u00e9cria Mme Cluppins.\n\nMaster Bardell enfon\u00e7a ses mains plus profond\u00e9ment dans ses poches, et\nbaissa la t\u00eate trente-cinq fois, ni plus ni moins, pour exprimer qu'il\ns'agissait bien de la dame du logement.\n\n\u00abAh \u00e7a! continua Mme Cluppins; c'est une vraie noce.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que vous diriez donc, si vous saviez ce qu'il y a dans le\nbuffet? ajouta Master Bardell.\n\n--Qu'est-ce qu'il y a donc, Tommy? reprit Mme Cluppins d'un air\ns\u00e9duisant. Je suis s\u00fbre que vous allez me le dire.\n\n--Non, je ne veux pas; r\u00e9torqua l'int\u00e9ressant h\u00e9ritier, en secouant sa\nt\u00eate un nombre ind\u00e9termin\u00e9 de fois, et en recommen\u00e7ant \u00e0 sauter sur\nl'escalier.\n\n--Quel petit m\u00e2tin emb\u00eatant murmura Mme Cluppins. Allons, Tommy, contez\nla chose \u00e0 votre ch\u00e8re Cluppy.\n\n--Maman ne veut pas. Si je ne dis rien, j'en aurai, moi, j'en aurai,\nmoi!\u00bb R\u00e9joui par cette agr\u00e9able perspective, le jeune prodige s'appliqua\navec une nouvelle vigueur \u00e0 son man\u00e8ge enfantin.\n\nCette esp\u00e8ce d'interrogatoire avait lieu tandis que M. Raddle, Mme\nRaddle et le cocher se disputaient sur le prix de la course.\nL'altercation s'\u00e9tant termin\u00e9e \u00e0 l'avantage de l'autom\u00e9don, Mme Raddle\nentra dans la maison, affreusement agit\u00e9e.\n\n\u00abCiel qu'avez-vous donc, Mary-Ann? demanda Mme Cluppins.\n\n--Ah! Betsy! j'en suis encore toute tremblante! Raddle n'est pas un\nhomme; il me laisse tout sur le dos.\u00bb\n\nCette attaque contre la virilit\u00e9 de pauvre Raddle, \u00e9tait \u00e0 peine loyale:\ncar, d\u00e8s le commencement de la dispute, il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 mis de cot\u00e9 par son\naimable \u00e9pouse, et avait re\u00e7u l'ordre p\u00e9remptoire de tenir son bec. Quoi\nqu'il en soit, il n'eut pas le loisir de se d\u00e9fendre, car il devenait\n\u00e9vident que Mme Raddle allait s'\u00e9vanouir. D\u00e8s qu'on s'en aper\u00e7ut, de la\nfen\u00eatre du parloir, Mme Bardell, mistress Sanders, la locataire et la\nservante de la locataire, sortirent pr\u00e9cipitamment, et port\u00e8rent\nl'int\u00e9ressante lady dans l'appartement, parlant toutes \u00e0 la fois, et\nl'accablant d'expressions de condol\u00e9ances et de piti\u00e9, comme si elle\n\u00e9tait la personne la plus malheureuse de la terre. Elle fut d\u00e9pos\u00e9e sur\nun sofa du parloir, et la dame du premier \u00e9tage ayant couru chercher un\nflacon de sel volatil, prit Mme Raddle par le cou, et le lui appliqua\nsous le nez, avec toute la sollicitude compatissante du beau sexe. Apr\u00e8s\nde nombreux plongeons, apr\u00e8s s'\u00eatre bien d\u00e9battue, la dame \u00e9vanouie fut\nenfin oblig\u00e9e de d\u00e9clarer qu'elle se trouvait mieux.\n\n\u00abAh! pauvre cr\u00e9ature! s'\u00e9cria Mme Rogers; je con\u00e7ois ce qu'elle \u00e9prouve,\nh\u00e9las! je le sais trop bien.\n\n--Ah! pauvre cr\u00e9ature! Et moi aussi je le sais, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta Mme Sanders, et\nalors toutes les dames commenc\u00e8rent \u00e0 g\u00e9mir \u00e0 l'unisson, en disant\nqu'elles aussi savaient ce qu'il en \u00e9tait, et la plaignaient de tout\nleur coeur. La petite servante elle-m\u00eame, haute de trois pieds, et \u00e2g\u00e9e\nde treize ans, manifestait sa profonde sympathie.\n\n--Mais qu'est-ce qui est arriv\u00e9? demanda Mme Bardell.\n\n--Oui, ajouta Mme Rogers, qu'est-ce qui vous a mis dans cet \u00e9tat,\nmadame?\n\n--J'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 contrari\u00e9e, r\u00e9pondit Mme Raddle d'un ton de reproche. Toutes\nles dames jet\u00e8rent aussit\u00f4t \u00e0 M. Raddle des regards pleins\nd'indignation.\n\n--Le fait est, dit ce malheureux gentleman, en s'avan\u00e7ant, le fait est\nque, quand nous sommes descendus \u00e0 la porte, nous avons eu une dispute\navec le conducteur du cabriolet.\u00bb Un cri aigu de sa femme, \u00e0 la mention\nde ce nom, rendit toute autre explication impossible.\n\n\u00abRaddle, dit Mme Cluppins, vous feriez bien de nous laisser seules avec\nelle, pour la faire revenir. Elle ne se remettra jamais tant que vous\nserez l\u00e0.\u00bb\n\nToutes les dames \u00e9tant de la m\u00eame opinion, M. Raddle fut pouss\u00e9 hors de\nla chambre, et engag\u00e9 \u00e0 prendre l'air dans la cour. Il s'y promenait\ndepuis environ un quart d'heure, lorsque Mme Bardell vint lui annoncer,\navec un visage solennel, qu'il pouvait rentrer maintenant; mais qu'il\ndevait faire bien attention \u00e0 la mani\u00e8re dont il se conduirait avec sa\nfemme. Mme Bardell savait bien qu'il n'avait pas de mauvaises\nintentions, mais Mary-Ann n'\u00e9tait pas forte, et s'il n'y prenait pas\ngarde, il pourrait la perdre au moment o\u00f9 il s'y attendrait le moins; ce\nqui serait pour lui un terrible sujet de remords, dans la suite.\n\nM. Raddle entendit tout cela et bien d'autres choses encore, avec grande\nsoumission, et entra enfin dans le parloir, doux comme un agneau.\n\n\u00abMon Dieu, madame Rogers, dit Mme Bardell, personne ne vous a \u00e9t\u00e9\npr\u00e9sent\u00e9!--M. Raddle, madame; Mme Cluppins, madame; Mme Raddle,\nmadame....\n\n--Soeur de Mme Cluppins, fit observer Mme Sanders.\n\n--Ah! vraiment? dit mistress Rogers gracieusement; car elle \u00e9tait\nlocataire, et c'est sa servante qui devait servir, et, en vertu de sa\nposition, elle devait \u00eatre plus gracieuse qu'intime. Ah! vraiment!\u00bb\n\nMme Raddle sourit agr\u00e9ablement, M. Raddle salua, et Mme Cluppins d\u00e9clara\nqu'elle se trouvait bien heureuse d'avoir l'honneur de faire la\nconnaissance d'une personne dont elle avait entendu dire autant de\nchoses avantageuses. Ce compliment bien tourn\u00e9 fut re\u00e7u par la lady du\npremier \u00e9tage avec une condescendance parfaite.\n\n\u00abSavez-vous, monsieur Raddle, dit Mme Bardell, que vous devez vous\ntrouver fort honor\u00e9 de ce que vous et Tommy, vous \u00eates les seuls\ngentlemen charg\u00e9s d'escorter tant de dames au Jardin Espagnol \u00e0\nHampstead. N'est-ce pas votre avis, madame Rogers?\n\n--Oh! certainement, madame, r\u00e9pondit Mme Rogers; apr\u00e8s quoi les autres\ndames r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e8rent: Oh certainement!\n\n--Sans aucun doute, madame, je sens cela, dit M. Raddle en se frottant\nles mains, et en laissant apercevoir une l\u00e9g\u00e8re tendance \u00e0 la gaiet\u00e9. Et\nm\u00eame, je disais \u00e0 Mme Raddle, pendant que nous venions dans le\ncabriolet...\u00bb\n\nEn entendant ce mot, qui r\u00e9veillait tant de souvenirs p\u00e9nibles, Mme\nRaddle appliqua de nouveau son mouchoir \u00e0 ses yeux, et ne put s'emp\u00eacher\nde pousser un cri \u00e9touff\u00e9; Mme Bardell fron\u00e7a le sourcil, en regardant\nM. Raddle, pour lui faire comprendre qu'il ferait beaucoup mieux de se\ntaire; puis, avec un air de dignit\u00e9, elle pria la domestique de Mme\nRogers de mettre le vin sur la table.\n\n\u00c0 ce signal, les tr\u00e9sors cach\u00e9s du buffet furent apport\u00e9s, en l'honneur\nde la locataire, et donn\u00e8rent \u00e0 tous les assistants une satisfaction\nsans limite. C'\u00e9taient plusieurs plats d'oranges et de biscuits, une\nbouteille de vieux porto, \u00e0 trente-quatre pence, puis une autre\nbouteille du c\u00e9l\u00e8bre x\u00e9r\u00e8s des Indes orientales, \u00e0 quatorze pence. Mais\nalors, \u00e0 la grande consternation de Mme Cluppins, Tommy parut sur le\npoint de raconter comment il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 interrog\u00e9 par elle, concernant le\ncontenu du buffet. Heureusement que, tout en parlant, il avala de\ntravers un verre de porto, ce qui mit sa vie en danger pendant quelques\nminutes, et \u00e9touffa son r\u00e9cit dans son germe.\n\nApr\u00e8s ce petit incident, la compagnie alla chercher la voiture de\nHampstead, et au bout de deux heures elle \u00e9tait arriv\u00e9e, saine et sauve,\nau Jardin Espagnol. Mais l\u00e0 le premier acte du malheureux M. Raddle\nfaillit occasionner une rechute de sa tendre \u00e9pouse; car n'alla-t-il pas\ns'aviser de demander du th\u00e9 pour sept, tandis que, comme toutes les\ndames le firent remarquer \u00e0 la fois, rien n'\u00e9tait plus facile que de\nfaire boire Tommy dans la tasse de quelqu'un, ou dans celle de tout le\nmonde, quand le gar\u00e7on aurait eu le dos tourn\u00e9, ce qui aurait \u00e9pargn\u00e9 du\nth\u00e9 pour un, sans qu'il en f\u00fbt moins bon pour cela?\n\nQuoi qu'il en soit, il n'y avait plus de ressources, et le th\u00e9 arriva\navec sept tasses, sept soucoupes, et du pain et du beurre sur la m\u00eame\n\u00e9chelle. Mme Bardell fut \u00e9lev\u00e9e au fauteuil \u00e0 l'unanimit\u00e9; Mme Rogers se\npla\u00e7a \u00e0 sa droite, Mme Raddle \u00e0 sa gauche, et la collation chemina avec\nbeaucoup de gaiet\u00e9 et de succ\u00e8s.\n\n\u00abQue la campagne est jolie, soupira mistress Rogers; je souhaiterais\nvraiment y vivre toujours!\n\n--Oh! vous ne l'aimeriez pas longtemps, madame, r\u00e9pliqua Mme Bardell\navec pr\u00e9cipitation; car il n'\u00e9tait pas \u00e0 propos d'encourager de\nsemblables id\u00e9es chez sa locataire.\n\n--Je suis s\u00fbre, madame, reprit la petite Mme Cluppins, que vous ne vous\nen contenteriez pas quinze jours; vous \u00eates trop gaie et trop recherch\u00e9e\n\u00e0 la ville.\n\n--Cela se peut, madame.... cela se peut, murmura doucement la locataire\ndu premier \u00e9tage.\n\n--La campagne, fit observer M. Raddle, en retrouvant un peu d'assurance\net de gaiet\u00e9, la campagne est tr\u00e8s-bonne pour les personnes seules, qui\nn'ont personne qui se soucisse d'elles, ou pour les personnes qui ont eu\ndes peines de coeur, et toutes ces sortes de choses. La campagne pour\nune \u00e2me bless\u00e9e, dit le po\u00ebte....\u00bb\n\nOr, de toutes les paroles que pouvait prof\u00e9rer le malheureux gentleman,\ncelles-ci \u00e9taient indubitablement les plus mal trouv\u00e9es. En effet, \u00e0\ncette citation, Mme Bardell ne manqua pas de fondre en larmes, et voulut\nquitter la table sur-le-champ; ce que voyant, son tendre fils se mit \u00e0\npousser des cris affreux.\n\n\u00abEst-il possible, s'\u00e9cria Mme Raddle, en se tournant avec fureur vers la\nlocataire du premier \u00e9tage, est-il possible qu'une femme soit mari\u00e9e \u00e0\nun \u00eatre aussi insupportable, qui se fait un jeu de blesser sa\nsensibilit\u00e9 \u00e0 chaque instant de la journ\u00e9e.\n\n--Ma ch\u00e8re, dit M. Raddle d'une voix plaintive, je n'avais pas la\nmoindre pens\u00e9e....\n\n--Vous n'aviez pas la moindre pens\u00e9e, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta Mme Raddle avec un noble\nd\u00e9dain. Allez-vous-en; je ne puis plus vous voir; vous \u00eates une brute.\n\n--Ne vous tourmentez pas, Mary-Ann, interrompit mistress Cluppins. Il\nfaut vraiment faire attention \u00e0 votre sant\u00e9 ma ch\u00e8re, vous n'y songez\npas assez. Allez-vous-en, Raddle, comme une bonne \u00e2me. Elle est toujours\nplus mal quand elle vous Voit.\n\n--Oui, oui, dit Mme Rogers, en appliquant sur nouveaux frais son flacon,\nvous ferez bien de prendre votre th\u00e9 tout seul, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nMme Sanders qui, suivant sa coutume, \u00e9tait fort occup\u00e9e du pain et du\nbeurre, exprima la m\u00eame opinion, et Raddle se retira sans souffler mot.\n\nApr\u00e8s cela, les dames s'empress\u00e8rent d'\u00e9lever Master Bardell dans les\nbras de sa m\u00e8re, mais comme il \u00e9tait un peu grand pour cette manoeuvre\nenfantine, ses bottines s'embarrass\u00e8rent dans la table \u00e0 th\u00e9, et\noccasionn\u00e8rent quelque confusion parmi les tasses et les soucoupes.\nHeureusement que cette esp\u00e8ce d'attaque, qui est contagieuse chez les\ndames, dure rarement longtemps: aussi, apr\u00e8s avoir bien embrass\u00e9 son\nbambin, apr\u00e8s avoir pleur\u00e9 sur ses cheveux, Mme Bardell revint \u00e0 elle,\nle remit par terre, s'\u00e9tonna d'avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 si peu raisonnable, et se versa\nune autre tasse de th\u00e9.\n\nEn ce moment, on entendit le roulement d'un carrosse qui s'approchait,\net les dames, en levant les yeux, virent une voiture de place s'arr\u00eater\n\u00e0 la porte du jardin.\n\n\u00abEncore du monde, dit Mme Sanders.\n\n--C'est un gentleman, reprit Mme Raddle.\n\n--Eh mais! s'\u00e9cria Mme Bardell, c'est M. Jackson, le jeune homme de chez\nDodson et Fogg. Est-ce que M. Pickwick aurait pay\u00e9 les dommages?\n\n--Ou offert le mariage, sugg\u00e9ra Mme Cluppins.\n\n--Comme le gentleman est long \u00e0 venir! dit Mme Rogers. Pourquoi donc ne\nse d\u00e9p\u00eache-t-il pas?\u00bb\n\nCependant, M. Jackson, apr\u00e8s avoir adress\u00e9 quelques observations \u00e0 un\nhomme en habit noir r\u00e2p\u00e9, qui venait de descendre du fiacre, et qui\ntenait un gros b\u00e2ton de fr\u00eane, se dirigea vers l'endroit o\u00f9 les dames\n\u00e9taient assises, tout en tortillant ses cheveux autour du bord de son\nchapeau.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce qu'il y a de nouveau, monsieur Jackson? demanda Mme Bardell\navec anxi\u00e9t\u00e9.\n\n--Rien du tout, madame, r\u00e9pondit Jackson. Comment \u00e7a va-t-il, madame? Je\nvous demande pardon, madame, de vous d\u00e9ranger, mais la loi, madame, la\nloi....\u00bb En prof\u00e9rant cette apologie, M. Jackson sourit, fit un salut\ncommun \u00e0 toutes les dames, et donna \u00e0 ses cheveux un autre tour. Mme\nRogers chuchota \u00e0 Mme Raddle que c'\u00e9tait r\u00e9ellement un jeune homme bien\n\u00e9l\u00e9gant.\n\n\u00abJe suis all\u00e9 chez vous, reprit Jackson, et en apprenant que vous \u00e9tiez\nici, j'ai pris une voiture et je suis venu. Nous avons besoin de vous\nsur-le-champ, madame Bardell.\n\n--Besoin de moi! s'\u00e9cria la dame, que la soudainet\u00e9 de cette\ncommunication avait fait tressaillir.\n\n--Oui, dit Jackson en se mordant les l\u00e8vres, c'est une affaire\ntr\u00e8s-importante, tr\u00e8s-pressante, et qui ne peut pas \u00eatre remise. Dodson\nme l'a dit express\u00e9ment et Fogg aussi. Tellement que j'ai gard\u00e9 la\nvoiture pour vous remmener.\n\n--Quelle dr\u00f4le de chose!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria Mme Bardell.\n\nToutes les dames convinrent que c'\u00e9tait fort dr\u00f4le, mais elles furent\nunanimement d'avis que ce devait \u00eatre fort important; sans quoi Dodson\net Fogg n'auraient pas envoy\u00e9 \u00e0 Hampstead. Enfin elles ajout\u00e8rent que,\npuisque l'affaire \u00e9tait importante, Mme Bardell ferait bien de se rendre\nsur-le-champ \u00e0 l'\u00e9tude.\n\nLorsqu'on est demand\u00e9 avec une h\u00e2te si monstrueuse par son homme\nd'affaires, cela donne un certain degr\u00e9 de relief, qui n'\u00e9tait\nnullement d\u00e9sagr\u00e9able \u00e0 Mme Bardell. En effet, elle pouvait\nraisonnablement esp\u00e9rer que cela la rehausserait dans l'opinion de sa\nlocataire, elle fit quelques minauderies, affecta beaucoup de vexation\net d'h\u00e9sitation, mais elle conclut, \u00e0 la fin, qu'elle ferait bien de\ns'en aller. Ensuite elle ajouta d'une voix persuasive: \u00abVous vous\nrafra\u00eechirez bien un peu apr\u00e8s votre course, monsieur Jackson?\n\n--R\u00e9ellement, il n'y a pas beaucoup de temps \u00e0 perdre; et puis j'ai l\u00e0\nun ami, r\u00e9pondit Jackson en montrant l'homme au b\u00e2ton de fr\u00eane.\n\n--Oh! mais, monsieur, faites entrer votre ami.\n\n--Mais.... je vous remercie, r\u00e9pliqua Jackson avec quelque embarras. Il\nn'est pas habitu\u00e9 \u00e0 la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 des dames, et cela le rend tout timide.\nSi vous voulez ordonner au gar\u00e7on de lui porter quelque chose, je ne\nsuis pas bien s\u00fbr qu'il le boive, mais vous pouvez essayer.\u00bb Vers la fin\nde ce discours, les doigts de M. Jackson se jouaient plaisamment autour\nde son nez, pour avertir ses auditeurs qu'il parlait ironiquement.\n\nLe gar\u00e7on fut imm\u00e9diatement d\u00e9p\u00each\u00e9 vers le gentleman timide, qui\nconsentit \u00e0 prendre quelque chose. M. Jackson prit aussi quelque chose,\net les dames en firent autant, par pur esprit d'hospitalit\u00e9. M. Jackson\nayant alors d\u00e9clar\u00e9 qu'il \u00e9tait temps de partir, Mme Sanders, Mme\nCluppins et Tommy grimp\u00e8rent dans la voiture, laissant les autres dames\nsous la protection de M. Raddle. Mme Bardell monta la derni\u00e8re.\n\n\u00abIsaac, dit alors Jackson, en regardant son ami qui \u00e9tait assis sur le\nsi\u00e9ge, et fumait un cigare.\n\n--Eh bien?\n\n--Voil\u00e0 madame Bardell.\n\n--Oh! il y a longtemps que je le savais.\u00bb\n\nMme Bardell \u00e9tant entr\u00e9e dans le carrosse, M. Jackson s'y pla\u00e7a apr\u00e8s\nelle, et les chevaux partirent. Chemin faisant, Mme Bardell admirait la\nperspicacit\u00e9 de l'ami de M. Jackson, \u00abQue ces hommes de loi sont malins!\npensait-elle; comme ils reconnaissent les gens!\u00bb\n\nAu bout de peu de temps Mme Cluppins et Mme Sanders s'\u00e9tant endormies,\nM. Jackson dit \u00e0 la veuve du douanier: \u00abSavez-vous que les frais de\nvotre affaire sont bien lourds?\n\n--Je suis f\u00e2ch\u00e9e que vous ne puissiez pas les faire payer, r\u00e9pondit\ncelle-ci. Mais dame! puisque vous entreprenez les choses par\nsp\u00e9culation, il faut bien que vous buviez un bouillon de temps en temps.\n\n--On m'a dit qu'apr\u00e8s le proc\u00e8s, vous aviez donn\u00e9 \u00e0 Dodson et Fogg un\n_cognovit_ pour le montant des frais.\n\n--Oui, simple affaire de forme.\n\n--Sans doute, r\u00e9pliqua Jackson d'un ton sec. Simple affaire de forme,\ncomme vous dites.\u00bb\n\nOn continuait \u00e0 rouler, et Mme Bardell s'endormit. Elle se r\u00e9veilla au\nbout de quelque temps, lorsque la voiture s'arr\u00eata.\n\n\u00abComment! s'\u00e9cria-t-elle. Sommes-nous d\u00e9j\u00e0 \u00e0 _Freeman's Court_?\n\n--Nous n'allons pas tout \u00e0 fait jusque-l\u00e0, repartit Jackson. Voulez-vous\navoir la bont\u00e9 de descendre?\u00bb\n\nMme Bardell ob\u00e9it machinalement, car elle n'\u00e9tait pas encore\ncompl\u00e8tement r\u00e9veill\u00e9e. Elle se trouvait dans un dr\u00f4le d'endroit: un\ngrand mur avec une grille au milieu; et, \u00e0 l'int\u00e9rieur d'un vestibule,\nun bec de gaz qui br\u00fblait.\n\n--Allons, mesdames! dit l'homme au b\u00e2ton de fr\u00eane en regardant dans la\nvoiture et en secouant Mme Sanders pour la r\u00e9veiller, descendons.\u00bb\n\nMme Sanders ayant pouss\u00e9 son amie, elles descendirent, et Mme Bardell,\nappuy\u00e9e sur le bras de M. Jackson et conduisant Tommy par la main, \u00e9tait\nd\u00e9j\u00e0 entr\u00e9e sous le porche.\n\nLa chambre o\u00f9 les trois dames p\u00e9n\u00e9tr\u00e8rent ensuite \u00e9tait encore plus\nsinguli\u00e8re que l'entr\u00e9e du b\u00e2timent. Il s'y trouvait tant d'hommes\ndebout, et ils regardaient si fixement les ladies!\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce que c'est donc que cet endroit? demanda Mme Bardell, en\ns'arr\u00eatant.\n\n--C'est une de nos administrations publiques, r\u00e9pondit Jackson, en lui\nfaisant passer une porte. Puis se retournant pour voir si les autres\nfemmes le suivaient: Attention, Isaac! s'\u00e9cria-t-il.\n\n--N'ayez pas peur, r\u00e9pondit l'homme au b\u00e2ton de fr\u00eane. La porte se\nreferma pesamment sur eux, et ils descendirent un escalier de quelques\nmarches.\n\n--Enfin, nous y voil\u00e0! s'\u00e9cria Jackson en regardant d'un air triomphant\nautour de lui, sains et saufs, hein! madame Bardell?\n\n--Qu'est-ce que vous voulez dire? demanda la dame dont le coeur\npalpitait sans qu'elle s\u00fbt pourquoi.\n\n--Voil\u00e0, r\u00e9pondit Jackson en la tirant un peu de c\u00f4t\u00e9. Ne vous effrayez\npas, madame Bardell. Il n'y a jamais eu d'homme plus d\u00e9licat que Dodson,\nmadame, ni plus humain que Fogg. C'\u00e9tait leur devoir, comme hommes\nd'affaires, de vous faire mettre \u00e0 l'ombre pour ces frais; mais ils\ntenaient beaucoup \u00e0 m\u00e9nager votre sensibilit\u00e9, autant que possible.\nQuelle consolation pour vous de penser comment cela s'est fait! Vous\n\u00eates dans la prison pour dettes, madame. Je vous souhaite une bonne\nnuit, madame Bardell. Bonsoir, Tommy.\u00bb\n\nAyant dit ces mots, Jackson s'\u00e9loigna rapidement avec l'homme au b\u00e2ton\nde fr\u00eane. Un autre individu, qui se trouvait l\u00e0 avec des clefs \u00e0 la\nmain, emmena Mme Bardell, tout \u00e9perdue, \u00e0 un corridor du second \u00e9tage.\nLa malheureuse veuve poussa un cri de d\u00e9sespoir, Tommy l'accompagna d'un\ngrognement, Mme Cluppins resta p\u00e9trifi\u00e9e; quant \u00e0 Mme Sanders, elle\ns'enfuit, sans plus de fa\u00e7on, car M. Pickwick, l'homme innocent et\nopprim\u00e9, \u00e9tait l\u00e0, prenant sa pitance d'air quotidienne, et pr\u00e8s de lui\nse tenait Sam Weller qui, en apercevant Mme Bardell, \u00f4ta son chapeau\navec une politesse moqueuse, tandis que son ma\u00eetre indign\u00e9 faisait une\npirouette sur le talon.\n\n\u00abNe la tracassez pas, cette pauvre femme, dit le guichetier \u00e0 Sam\nWeller, elle ne fait que d'arriver.\n\n--Prisonni\u00e8re! s'\u00e9cria Sam en remettant son chapeau avec vivacit\u00e9. \u00c0 la\nrequ\u00eate de qui? Pourquoi? Parlez donc, vieux!\n\n--Dodson et Fogg, r\u00e9pondit l'homme. En vertu d'un _cognovit_ pour des\nfrais.\n\n--Ici, Job! Job! vocif\u00e9ra Sam en se pr\u00e9cipitant le long du corridor,\ncourez chez M. Perker, Job; j'ai besoin de lui sur-le-champ. Voil\u00e0 une\nbonne affaire pour nous, j'esp\u00e8re. Ah! la bonne farce! Hourra! O\u00f9 est le\ngouverneur?\u00bb\n\nMais personne ne r\u00e9pondit \u00e0 ces questions, car aussit\u00f4t que Job avait\nappris de quoi il s'agissait, il \u00e9tait parti comme un furieux, et Mme\nBardell s'\u00e9tait \u00e9vanouie pour tout de bon.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XVIII.\n\nPrincipalement d\u00e9vou\u00e9 \u00e0 des affaires d'int\u00e9r\u00eat et \u00e0 l'avantage temporel\nde Dodson et Fogg. R\u00e9apparition de M. Winkle dans des circonstances\nextraordinaires. La bienveillance de M. Pickwick se montre plus forte\nque son obstination.\n\n\nJob Trotter, sans rien diminuer de sa rapidit\u00e9, courut tout le long\nd'_Holborn_. Il s'ouvrait un passage tant\u00f4t au milieu de la rue, tant\u00f4t\nsur le trottoir, tant\u00f4t dans le ruisseau, suivant l'endroit o\u00f9 il voyait\nle plus de chances d'avancer \u00e0 travers la foule de voitures, d'hommes,\nde femmes et d'enfants qui encombraient cette longue rue, et sans se\nsoucier d'aucune esp\u00e8ce d'obstacle. Il ne s'arr\u00eata pas une seule\nseconde, tant qu'il n'eut pas atteint la porte de _Gray's Inn_.\nCependant, malgr\u00e9 toute sa diligence, il y avait une bonne demi-heure\nqu'elle \u00e9tait ferm\u00e9e; lorsqu'il y arriva, et avant qu'il e\u00fbt d\u00e9couvert\nla femme de m\u00e9nage de M. Perker, laquelle vivait avec une de ses filles,\nmari\u00e9e \u00e0 un gar\u00e7on de bureau, non r\u00e9sident, qui demeurait \u00e0 un certain\nnum\u00e9ro, dans une certaine rue, tout aupr\u00e8s d'une certaine brasserie,\nquelque part derri\u00e8re _Gray's Inn Lane_, il ne s'en fallait plus que de\nquinze minutes que la prison f\u00fbt ferm\u00e9e pour la nuit. Il \u00e9tait encore\nn\u00e9cessaire de d\u00e9terrer M. Lowten dans l'arri\u00e8re-parloir de la _Pie et la\nSouche_, et Job lui avait \u00e0 peine communiqu\u00e9 le message de Sam, lorsque\nl'horloge sonna dix heures.\n\n\u00abAh! ah! dit Lowten; vous ne pourrez pas rentrer cette nuit, il est trop\ntard. Vous avez pris la clef des champs, mon ami.\n\n--Ne vous occupez pas de moi, r\u00e9pliqua Job. Je puis dormir n'importe o\u00f9;\nmais ne serait-il pas bon de voir M. Perker ce soir pour qu'il puisse\nfaire notre affaire demain, d\u00e8s le matin.\n\n--Voyez-vous, r\u00e9pondit Lowten apr\u00e8s avoir r\u00e9fl\u00e9chi pendant quelques\ninstants; si c'\u00e9tait pour tout autre personne, Perker ne serait pas bien\ncharm\u00e9 que j'allasse le relancer chez lui; mais comme c'est pour M.\nPickwick, je pense que je puis me permettre le cabriolet aux frais de\nl'\u00e9tude, pour l'aller trouver.\u00bb\n\nS'\u00e9tant d\u00e9cid\u00e9 \u00e0 suivre cette marche, M. Lowten prit son chapeau, pria\nla compagnie de faire occuper le fauteuil par un vice-pr\u00e9sident, durant\nson absence temporaire, conduisit Job \u00e0 la place de voitures la plus\nvoisine, et choisissant la plus rapide en apparence, donna au cocher\ncette adresse: _Montague-Place, Russell-Square_.\n\nM. Perker avait eu du monde \u00e0 d\u00eener, comme le t\u00e9moignaient les lumi\u00e8res\nqu'on apercevait aux fen\u00eatres, le son d'un piano carr\u00e9 _perfectionn\u00e9_ et\nd'une voix de salon _perfectionnable_, qui s'\u00e9chappaient des m\u00eames\nfen\u00eatres, et l'odeur, un peu trop forte de victuaille, qui remplissait\nles escaliers. Le fait est qu'une couple d'excellents agents d'affaires\nde province, \u00e9tant venus \u00e0 Londres, en m\u00eame temps, M. Perker avait\nr\u00e9uni, pour les recevoir, une agr\u00e9able soci\u00e9t\u00e9. C'\u00e9taient M. Snicks, le\nsecr\u00e9taire du bureau d'assurances sur la vie; M. Prosant, le c\u00e9l\u00e8bre\navocat; trois avou\u00e9s, un commissaire des banqueroutes, un avocat sp\u00e9cial\ndu Temple, et son \u00e9l\u00e8ve, petit jeune homme \u00e0 l'air d\u00e9cid\u00e9, qui avait\n\u00e9crit sur les lois mortuaires un livre fort amusant, embelli d'un grand\nnombre de notes marginales; enfin, divers autres personnages aussi\naimables et aussi distingu\u00e9s. Telle \u00e9tait la r\u00e9union que quitta le petit\nPerker, lorsqu'on lui eut annonc\u00e9 \u00e0 voix basse que son clerc demandait \u00e0\nlui parler. Arriv\u00e9 dans la salle \u00e0 manger, il y trouva M. Lowten avec\nJob. Une chandelle de cuisine, pos\u00e9e sur la table, \u00e9clairait\nm\u00e9diocrement les deux visiteurs, car le gentleman qui, pour un salaire\ntrimestriel, consentait \u00e0 porter une culotte de peluche, entretenait\npour le clerc et pour toute la boutique un m\u00e9pris bien naturel, et\nn'avait pas daign\u00e9 leur donner d'autres luminaires.\n\n\u00abEh bien! Lowten, dit le petit Perker en fermant la porte, qu'est-ce\nqu'il y a de nouveau? Quelque lettre importante arriv\u00e9e dans un paquet?\n\n--Non, monsieur; mais voil\u00e0 un messager de M. Pickwick.\n\n--De Pickwick, eh? dit le petit homme, et se tournant vivement vers Job.\nEh bien! qu'est-ce qu'il y a?\n\n--Dodson et Fogg ont fait coffrer Mme Bardell pour les frais de son\naffaire, monsieur.\n\n--Pas possible! s'\u00e9cria Perker, en mettant ses mains dans ses poches et\nen s'appuyant sur le buffet.\n\n--Il para\u00eet qu'ils se sont fait donner par elle un _cognovit_ aussit\u00f4t\napr\u00e8s le jugement.\n\n--Par Jupiter! s'\u00e9cria Perker en retirant ses mains de ses poches et en\nfrappant emphatiquement le dos de la droite dans la paume de la gauche:\nPar Jupiter! ce sont les gaillards les plus habiles que j'aie jamais\nrencontr\u00e9s.\n\n--Et les plus rus\u00e9s que j'aie jamais connus, monsieur, ajouta Lowten.\n\n--Je le crois bien, fit Perker; on ne sait par o\u00f9 les prendre.\n\n--C'est tr\u00e8s-vrai, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit Lowten. Et tous les deux, alors,\nclerc et avou\u00e9, demeur\u00e8rent silencieux, pendant quelques minutes, avec\nune physionomie anim\u00e9e, comme s'ils avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 occup\u00e9s \u00e0 r\u00e9fl\u00e9chir sur\nl'une des plus belles d\u00e9couvertes qui aient jamais enorgueilli l'esprit\nhumain. Lorsqu'ils furent revenus de ce transport d'admiration, Job\nTrotter se d\u00e9chargea du reste de sa commission. Perker hocha la t\u00eate\nd'un air pensif, et tirant sa montre:\n\n\u00abDemain \u00e0 dix heures pr\u00e9cises, j'y serai, dit-il, Sam a tout \u00e0 fait\nraison: dites-le-lui de ma part. Voulez-vous prendre un verre de vin,\nLowten?\n\n--Non, monsieur, je vous remercie.\n\n--Vous voulez dire oui, je pense? a reprit le petit homme en prenant une\nbouteille et des verres.\n\nComme effectivement Lowten voulait dire oui, il n'ajouta rien sur le\nm\u00eame sujet, mais, s'adressant \u00e0 Job, il lui demanda \u00e0 voix basse, assez\nhaut cependant pour \u00eatre entendu de Perker, si son portrait, qui \u00e9tait\npendu \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la chemin\u00e9e, n'\u00e9tait pas \u00e9tonnant de ressemblance?\nN\u00e9cessairement Job r\u00e9pondit que oui; puis, le vin \u00e9tant vers\u00e9, Lowten\nbut \u00e0 la sant\u00e9 de mistress Perker et des enfants, et Job \u00e0 celle de M.\nPerker. Cependant le gentleman aux culottes de peluche, ne regardant pas\ncomme une partie de son devoir de reconduire les gens de l'\u00e9tude, et ne\ndaignant pas r\u00e9pondre \u00e0 la sonnette, nos deux messagers se\nreconduisirent eux-m\u00eames. L'avou\u00e9 rentra dans son salon, le clerc dans\nsa taverne et Job dans le march\u00e9 de _Covent-Garden_, pour y passer la\nnuit, dans un panier \u00e0 l\u00e9gumes.\n\nLe lendemain matin, ponctuel \u00e0 l'heure dite, le brave petit avou\u00e9 frappa\n\u00e0 la porte de M. Pickwick. Sam l'ouvrit avec empressement. \u00abMonsieur\nPerker, dit-il \u00e0 M. Pickwick, qui \u00e9tait assis pr\u00e8s de la fen\u00eatre, dans\nune attitude pensive; puis il ajouta: Je suis bien content, monsieur,\nque vous soyez venu par hasard. J'imagine que le gouverneur a quelque\nchose \u00e0 vous dire.\u00bb\n\nPerker fit comprendre \u00e0 Sam, par un coup d'oeil d'intelligence, qu'il ne\nparlerait pas de son message, et lui ayant fait signe de s'approcher, il\nlui chuchota quelques mots \u00e0 l'oreille.\n\n\u00abVraiment, monsieur? c'est-il possible!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria Sam en reculant de\nsurprise.\n\nPerker sourit et fit un geste affirmatif. Sam regarda le petit avou\u00e9,\npuis M. Pickwick, puis le plafond, puis le petit avou\u00e9 sur nouveaux\nfrais; il sourit, il \u00e9clata de rire tout \u00e0 fait, et finalement,\nramassant son chapeau, il disparut sans autre explication.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce que tout cela signifie? demanda M. Pickwick en regardant\nPerker avec \u00e9tonnement. Qu'est-ce qui a mis Sam dans un \u00e9tat aussi\nextraordinaire?\n\n--Oh! rien, rien, r\u00e9pliqua le petit homme; mais, mon cher monsieur,\napprochez votre chaise de la table, je vous prie, car j'ai beaucoup de\nchoses \u00e0 vous dire.\n\n--Quels sont ces papiers? demanda M. Pickwick en voyant l'avou\u00e9 d\u00e9poser\nsur la table une liasse attach\u00e9e avec de la ficelle rouge.\n\n--Les papiers de Bardell et Pickwick,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua Perker en d\u00e9nouant la\nficelle avec ses dents.\n\nLe philosophe fit grincer les pieds de sa chaise sur le carreau, se\nrenversa sur le dossier, croisa ses bras et regarda son avou\u00e9 avec un\nair s\u00e9v\u00e8re, si tant est que M. Pickwick p\u00fbt prendre un air s\u00e9v\u00e8re.\n\n\u00abVous n'aimez pas \u00e0 entendre parler de cette affaire? poursuivit le\npetit homme, toujours occup\u00e9 de son noeud.\n\n--Non, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9.\n\n--J'en suis f\u00e2ch\u00e9, car ce sera le sujet de notre conversation, et....\n\n--Perker, interrompit pr\u00e9cipitamment M. Pickwick, j'aimerais beaucoup\nmieux que ce sujet ne f\u00fbt jamais mentionn\u00e9 entre nous.\n\n--Bah! bah! mon cher monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua l'avou\u00e9 en d\u00e9faisant sa liasse\net en regardant son client du coin de l'oeil; il est n\u00e9cessaire que nous\nen parlions. Je suis venu ici expr\u00e8s pour cela. \u00cates-vous pr\u00eat \u00e0\nentendre ce que j'ai \u00e0 vous dire, mon cher monsieur? Ne vous pressez\npas: si vous n'\u00eates pas encore dispos\u00e9, je puis attendre. J'ai apport\u00e9\nun journal, je serai \u00e0 vos ordres quand vous voudrez. Voil\u00e0. En parlant\nainsi, le petit homme croisa ses jambes, et parut commencer \u00e0 lire _le\nTimes_ avec beaucoup de tranquillit\u00e9 et d'application.\n\n--Allons, dit M. Pickwick avec un soupir, qui pourtant se termina en un\nsourire; dites tout ce que vous voudrez. C'est encore la vieille\nrengaine, je suppose?\n\n--Avec une diff\u00e9rence, mon cher monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Perker en fermant\nsoigneusement le journal et en le remettant dans sa poche. Mme Bardell,\nla demanderesse, est dans ces murs, monsieur.\n\n--Je le sais.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, et vous savez comment elle est venue, je suppose? Je veux\ndire pour quelle cause et \u00e0 la requ\u00eate de qui?\n\n--Oui!... c'est-\u00e0-dire que j'ai entendu la version de Sam \u00e0 ce sujet,\nr\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick avec une indiff\u00e9rence affect\u00e9e.\n\n--Je suis persuad\u00e9 que la version de Sam \u00e9tait parfaitement correcte Eh\nbien! maintenant, mon cher monsieur, voici la premi\u00e8re question que\nj'aie \u00e0 vous adresser. Cette femme doit-elle rester ici?\n\n--Rester ici! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick.\n\n--Rester ici, mon cher monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Perker en s'appuyant sur le\ndos de la chaise et en regardant fixement son client.\n\n--Pourquoi me demander cela \u00e0 moi? Cela d\u00e9pend de Dodson et Fogg, vous\nle savez tr\u00e8s-bien.\n\n--Je ne le sais pas du tout, r\u00e9torqua M. Perker avec fermet\u00e9. Cela ne\nd\u00e9pend pas de Dodson ni de Fogg; vous connaissez les personnages aussi\nbien que moi, mon cher monsieur. Cela d\u00e9pend enti\u00e8rement et uniquement\nde vous.\n\n--De moi! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick en se levant par un mouvement nerveux, et\nen se rasseyant \u00e0 l'instant m\u00eame.\n\nLe petit homme frappa deux fois sur le couvercle de sa tabati\u00e8re,\nl'ouvrit, prit une grosse pinc\u00e9e de tabac, referma la bo\u00eete et articula\nces paroles: \u00abde vous seul.\u00bb\n\n\u00abJe dis, mon cher monsieur, poursuivit l'avou\u00e9, \u00e0 qui sa prise semblait\ndonner, plus de confiance, je dis que sa lib\u00e9ration prochaine, ou son\n\u00e9ternelle r\u00e9clusion, d\u00e9pendent de vous, et de vous seul. \u00c9coutez-moi\njusqu'au bout, s'il vous pla\u00eet, mon cher monsieur; et ne d\u00e9pensez pas\ntant d'\u00e9nergie, car cela n'est bon \u00e0 rien du tout, qu'\u00e0 vous mettre en\ntranspiration. Je dis, continua le petit homme, en \u00e9tablissant chaque\nproposition sur chacun de ses doigts; je dis qu'il n'y a que vous qui\npuissiez la retirer de cet ab\u00eeme de mis\u00e8re, et que vous ne pouvez faire\ncela qu'en payant les frais du proc\u00e8s, ceux de la demanderesse et ceux\ndu d\u00e9fendeur, entre les mains de ces requins de _Freeman's Court_.\nAllons, mon cher monsieur, soyez calme, je vous en prie.\u00bb\n\nPendant ce discours, le visage de M. Pickwick avait subi les changements\nles plus extraordinaires, et il \u00e9tait \u00e9videmment sur le point de laisser\n\u00e9clater sa foudroyante indignation. Cependant il calma sa rage comme il\nput, et Perker, renfor\u00e7ant son argumentation par une autre prise de\ntabac, poursuivit ainsi qu'il suit:\n\n\u00abJ'ai vu cette femme ce matin. En payant les frais, vous pouvez obtenir\nune d\u00e9charge pleine et enti\u00e8re des dommages, et ce qui sera pour vous,\nj'en suis s\u00fbr, un motif beaucoup plus puissant, une confession\nvolontaire, \u00e9crite par elle, sous la forme d'une lettre \u00e0 moi adress\u00e9e,\net d\u00e9clarant que, d\u00e8s le commencement, cette affaire a \u00e9t\u00e9 imagin\u00e9e,\nfoment\u00e9e, et poursuivie par ces individus, Dodson et Fogg; qu'elle\nregrette profond\u00e9ment d'avoir servi d'instrument pour vous tourmenter,\net qu'elle me prie d'interc\u00e9der aupr\u00e8s de vous pour obtenir que vous\nlui pardonniez.\n\n--.... Si je paye les frais pour elle, s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick avec\nindignation. Un merveilleux document, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9!\n\n--Il n'y a point de _si_ dans l'affaire, mon cher monsieur, reprit\nPerker d'un air triomphant. Voici la lettre m\u00eame dont je parle. Elle a\n\u00e9t\u00e9 apport\u00e9e \u00e0 mon \u00e9tude ce matin, \u00e0 neuf heures, par une autre femme,\navant que j'eusse mis le pied dans la prison; avant que j'eusse eu\naucune communication avec Mme Bardell; sur mon honneur! Le petit avou\u00e9\nchoisit alors dans ses papiers la lettre en question, la posa devant M.\nPickwick, et se bourra le nez de tabac, durant deux minutes\ncons\u00e9cutives.\n\n--Est-ce l\u00e0 tout ce que vous avez \u00e0 me dire, demanda doucement M.\nPickwick.\n\n--Pas tout \u00e0 fait. Je ne puis pas dire encore si la contexture du\n_cognovit_, et les preuves que nous pourrons r\u00e9unir sur la conduite de\ntoute l'affaire, seront suffisantes pour justifier une accusation de\ncaptation contre les deux avou\u00e9s. Je ne l'esp\u00e8re pas, mon cher monsieur;\nils sont sans doute trop habiles pour cela; mais je dirai du moins que\nces faits, pris ensemble, seront suffisants pour vous justifier aux yeux\nde tout homme raisonnable. Et maintenant, mon cher monsieur, voil\u00e0 mon\nraisonnement: ces cent cinquante livres sterling en nombre rond, ne sont\nrien pour vous. Les jur\u00e9s ont d\u00e9cid\u00e9 contre vous.... Oui, leur verdict\nest erron\u00e9, je le sais; mais cependant ils ont d\u00e9cid\u00e9, selon leur\nconscience et contre vous. Or, il se pr\u00e9sente une occasion de vous\nplacer dans une position bien plus avantageuse que vous ne le pourriez\nfaire en restent ici. Car, croyez-moi, mon cher monsieur, pour les gens\nqui ne vous connaissent pas, votre fermet\u00e9 ne serait qu'une obstination\nbrutale, qu'un ent\u00eatement criminel. Pouvez-vous donc h\u00e9siter \u00e0 profiter\nd'une circonstance qui vous rend votre libert\u00e9, votre sant\u00e9, vos amis,\nvos occupations, vos amusements; qui d\u00e9livre votre fid\u00e8le serviteur\nd'une r\u00e9clusion \u00e9gale \u00e0 la dur\u00e9e de votre vie, et par-dessus tout qui\nvous permet de vous venger d'une mani\u00e8re magnanime, et tout \u00e0 fait selon\nvotre coeur, en faisant sortir cette femme d'un r\u00e9ceptacle de mis\u00e8re et\nde d\u00e9bauche, o\u00f9 jamais aucun homme ne serait renferm\u00e9, si j'en avais le\npouvoir, mais o\u00f9 l'on ne peut confiner une femme sans une effroyable\nbarbarie. Eh bien! mon cher monsieur, je vous le demande non pas comme\nvotre homme d'affaires, mais comme votre v\u00e9ritable ami, laisserez-vous\n\u00e9chapper l'occasion de faire tant de bien, pour cette mis\u00e9rable\nconsid\u00e9ration que quelques livres sterling passeront dans la poche d'une\ncouple de fripons, pour qui cela ne fait aucune sorte de diff\u00e9rence, si\nce n'est que plus ils en auront gagn\u00e9 de cette mani\u00e8re, plus ils\nchercheront \u00e0 en gagner encore, et par cons\u00e9quent plus t\u00f4t ils seront\nentra\u00een\u00e9s dans quelque coquinerie, qui finira par une culbute. Je vous\nai soumis ces observations, mon cher monsieur, tr\u00e8s-faiblement,\ntr\u00e8s-imparfaitement, mais je vous prie d'y r\u00e9fl\u00e9chir. Retournez-les dans\nvotre esprit aussi longtemps qu'il vous plaira, j'attendrai patiemment\nvotre r\u00e9ponse.\u00bb\n\nAvant que M. Pickwick e\u00fbt pu r\u00e9pliquer, avant que Perker e\u00fbt pris la\nvingti\u00e8me partie de tabac qu'exigeait imp\u00e9rativement un si long\ndiscours, ils entendirent dans le corridor un l\u00e9ger chuchotement, suivi\nd'un coup frapp\u00e9 avec h\u00e9sitation \u00e0 la porte.\n\n\u00abQuel ennui! quel tourment! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, qui avait \u00e9t\u00e9\n\u00e9videmment \u00e9mu par le discours de son ami. Qui est l\u00e0?...\n\n\u00abMoi, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit Sam, en faisant voir sa t\u00eate.\n\n--Je ne puis pas vous parler dans ce moment, Sam; je suis en affaire.\n\n--Je vous demande pardon, monsieur, mais il y a ici une dame qui pr\u00e9tend\nqu'elle a quelque chose de tr\u00e8s-urgent \u00e0 vous dire.\n\n--Je ne puis pas la voir, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick, dont l'esprit \u00e9tait\nrempli de visions de Mme Bardell.\n\n--Je ne crois pas \u00e7a, reprit Sam en secouant la t\u00eate. Si vous saviez\nqu'est-ce qu'est l\u00e0, j'imagine que vous changeriez de note, comme disait\nle milan en entendant le rouge-gorge chanter dans la haie.\n\n--Qui est-ce donc? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Voulez-vous la voir, monsieur? r\u00e9torqua Sam, en tenant la porte\nentr'ouverte, comme s'il avait amen\u00e9 de l'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9 quelque animal\ncurieux.\n\n--Il le faut bien, je suppose, dit le philosophe en regardant, Perker.\n\n--Eh bien! alors, \u00e7a va commencer! s'\u00e9cria Sam. En avant la grosse\ncaisse, tirez le rideau. Entrez les deux conspirateurs.\u00bb\n\nEn parlant ainsi, Sam ouvrit enti\u00e8rement la porte, et l'on vit\nappara\u00eetre M. Nathaniel Winkle conduisant par la main la jeune lady qui,\n\u00e0 Dingley-Dell, avait port\u00e9 les brodequins fourr\u00e9s, et qui maintenant\nformait un s\u00e9duisant compos\u00e9 de confusion, de dentelles, de rougeur, et\nde soie lilas.\n\n\u00abMiss Arabelle Allen! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick en se levant de sa chaise.\n\n--Non, mon cher ami, madame Winkle, r\u00e9pondit le jeune homme, en tombant\nsur ses genoux. Pardonnez-nous, mon respectable ami, pardonnez-nous.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick pouvait \u00e0 peine en croire l'\u00e9vidence de ses sens, et\npeut-\u00eatre ne s'en serait-il pas content\u00e9, si leur t\u00e9moignage n'avait pas\n\u00e9t\u00e9 corrobor\u00e9 par la physionomie souriante de M. Perker et par la\npr\u00e9sence corporelle de Sam et de la jolie femme de chambre qui, dans le\nfond du tableau, paraissaient contempler avec la plus vive satisfaction\nla sc\u00e8ne du premier plan.\n\n\u00abO monsieur Pickwick, dit Arabelle d'une voix tremblante, et comme\nalarm\u00e9e de son silence. Pouvez-vous me pardonner mon imprudence?\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick ne fit pas de r\u00e9ponse verbale \u00e0 cette demande, mais il \u00f4ta\npr\u00e9cipitamment ses lunettes, et saisissant les deux mains de la jeune\nlady dans les siennes, il l'embrassa un grand nombre de fois (un plus\ngrand nombre de fois peut-\u00eatre qu'il n'\u00e9tait absolument n\u00e9cessaire);\nensuite, retenant toujours ses deux mains, il dit \u00e0 M. Winkle qu'il\n\u00e9tait un coquin bien audacieux, et lui ordonna de se lever. M. Winkle,\nqui depuis quelques minutes grattait son nez avec le bord de son\nchapeau, d'une mani\u00e8re tr\u00e8s-repentante, se remit alors sur les pieds; et\nM. Pickwick, apr\u00e8s lui avoir tap\u00e9 plusieurs fois sur le dos, donna une\npoign\u00e9e de main pleine de chaleur au petit avou\u00e9. De son c\u00f4t\u00e9, pour ne\npas rester en arri\u00e8re dans les compliments qu'exigeait la circonstance,\nle petit homme embrassa de fort bon coeur la mari\u00e9e et la jolie femme de\nchambre, puis apr\u00e8s avoir secou\u00e9 cordialement la main de M. Winkle,\ncompl\u00e9ta sa d\u00e9monstration de joie en prenant une quantit\u00e9 de tabac\nsuffisante pour faire \u00e9ternuer, durant le reste de leur vie, une\ndemi-douzaine de nez ordinaires.\n\n\u00abEh bien, ma ch\u00e8re enfant, dit M. Pickwick, comment tout cela s'est-il\npass\u00e9? Allons, asseyez-vous et racontez-moi votre histoire. Comme elle\nest jolie, Perker! continua l'excellent homme, en examinant le visage\nd'Arabelle, avec autant de plaisir et d'orgueil que si elle avait \u00e9t\u00e9 sa\npropre fille.\n\n--D\u00e9licieuse, mon cher monsieur! Si je n'\u00e9tais pas mari\u00e9 moi-m\u00eame, je\nvous porterais envie, heureux coquin, dit Perker en bourrant dans les\nc\u00f4tes de M. Winkle un coup de poing, que ce gentleman lui rendit\nimm\u00e9diatement. Apr\u00e8s quoi l'un et l'autre se mirent \u00e0 rire aux \u00e9clats,\nmais non pas aussi fort que Sam Weller, car il venait de calmer son\n\u00e9motion en embrassant la jolie femme de chambre, derri\u00e8re la porte d'une\narmoire.\n\n--Sam, dit Arabelle avec le plus doux sourire imaginable, je ne pourrai\njamais assez vous t\u00e9moigner ma reconnaissance. Je me souviendrai\ntoujours de vos bons services dans le jardin de Clifton.\n\n--Faut pas parler de \u00e7a, madame, r\u00e9pondit Sam; je n'ai fait qu'aider la\nnature, comme dit le docteur \u00e0 la m\u00e8re de l'enfant qui \u00e9tait mort d'une\nsaign\u00e9e.\n\n--Mary, ma ch\u00e8re, asseyez-vous, dit M. Pickwick en coupant court \u00e0 ces\ncompliments. Et maintenant, combien y a-t-il de temps que vous \u00eates\nmari\u00e9s, hein?\u00bb\n\nArabelle regarda d'un air confus son seigneur et ma\u00eetre qui r\u00e9pondit:\n\u00abSeulement trois jours.\n\n--Seulement trois jours! Et qu'est-ce que vous avez donc fait pendant\nces trois mois-ci?\n\n--Ah, oui! voil\u00e0 la question! interrompit M. Perker. Comment pouvez-vous\nexcuser tant de lenteur? Vous voyez bien que le seul \u00e9tonnement de\nPickwick c'est que cela ne se soit pas fait plus t\u00f4t.\n\n--Le fait est, r\u00e9pliqua M. Winkle en regardant la jeune femme qui\nrougissait; le fait est que j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 longtemps avant de pouvoir\npersuader \u00e0 Bella de s'enfuir avec moi; et lorsque je suis parvenu \u00e0 la\npersuader, il s'est pass\u00e9 longtemps avant que nous pussions trouver une\noccasion. D'ailleurs, Mary \u00e9tait oblig\u00e9e de pr\u00e9venir un mois d'avance,\navant de quitter sa place, et nous ne pouvions gu\u00e8re nous passer de son\nassistance.\n\n--Sur ma parole, s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, qui avait remis ses lunettes et\nqui contemplait tour \u00e0 tour Arabelle et M. Winkle, avec l'air le plus\n\u00e9panoui que puissent donner \u00e0 une physionomie humaine la bienveillance\net le contentement; sur ma parole, vous avez agi d'une mani\u00e8re\ntr\u00e8s-syst\u00e9matique. Et votre fr\u00e8re est-il instruit de tout ceci, ma\nch\u00e8re?\n\n--Oh! non, non! r\u00e9pondit Arabelle en changeant de couleur. Cher monsieur\nPickwick, c'est de vous seul qu'il doit l'apprendre. Il est si violent,\nsi pr\u00e9venu, et il a \u00e9t\u00e9 si.... si partial pour son ami M. Sawyer, que je\nredoute affreusement les cons\u00e9quences.\n\n--Ah! sans aucun doute, ajouta Perker gravement. Il faut que vous vous\nchargiez de cette affaire-l\u00e0, mon cher monsieur. Ces jeunes gens vous\nrespecteront, mais ils n'\u00e9couteraient nulle autre personne. Vous seul\npouvez pr\u00e9venir un malheur. Des t\u00eates chaudes! des t\u00eates chaudes!\u00bb Et le\npetit homme prit une prise de tabac mena\u00e7ante, en faisant une grimace\npleine de doute et d'anxi\u00e9t\u00e9.\n\n\u00abMais, mon ange, dit M. Pickwick d'une voix douce, vous oubliez que je\nsuis prisonnier?\n\n--Oh! non, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9, je ne l'oublie pas! je ne l'ai jamais oubli\u00e9; je\nn'ai jamais cess\u00e9 de penser combien vos souffrances devaient \u00eatre\ngrandes, en cet horrible s\u00e9jour. Mais j'esp\u00e9rais que vous consentiriez \u00e0\nfaire, pour notre bonheur, ce que vous ne vouliez pas faire pour\nvous-m\u00eame. Si mon fr\u00e8re apprend cette nouvelle de votre bouche, je suis\ns\u00fbre que nous serons r\u00e9concili\u00e9s. C'est le seul parent que j'aie au\nmonde, monsieur Pickwick, et si vous ne plaidez pas ma cause, je crains\nbien de perdre m\u00eame ce dernier parent. J'ai eu tort, tr\u00e8s-grand tort, je\nle sais....\u00bb Ici la pauvre Arabelle cacha son visage dans son mouchoir,\net se prit \u00e0 pleurer am\u00e8rement.\n\nLe bon naturel de M. Pickwick avait bien de la peine \u00e0 r\u00e9sister \u00e0 ces\nlarmes; mais quand Mme Winkle, s\u00e9chant ses yeux, se mit \u00e0 le c\u00e2liner, \u00e0\nle supplier, avec les accents les plus doux de sa douce voix, il devint\ntout \u00e0 fait ind\u00e9cis et mal \u00e0 son aise, comme il le laissait voir\nsuffisamment en frottant avec un mouvement nerveux les verres de ses\nlunettes, son nez, ses gu\u00eatres, sa t\u00eate et sa culotte.\n\nPrenant avantage de ces sympt\u00f4mes d'ind\u00e9cision, M. Perker, chez qui le\njeune couple \u00e9tait d\u00e9barqu\u00e9 dans la matin\u00e9e, rappela, avec l'habilet\u00e9\nd'un homme d'affaires, que M. Winkle _senior_ n'avait pas encore appris\nl'importante d\u00e9marche que son fils avait faite; que le bien-\u00eatre futur\ndudit fils d\u00e9pendait enti\u00e8rement de l'affection que continuerait \u00e0 lui\nporter ledit M. Winkle _senior_; et que cette affection serait fort\nprobablement endommag\u00e9e si on lui cachait davantage ce grand \u00e9v\u00e9nement;\nque M. Pickwick, en se rendant \u00e0 Bristol pour voir M. Allen, pourrait\n\u00e9galement aller \u00e0 Birmingham pour voir M. Winkle _senior_; enfin que M.\nWinkle _senior_ pouvant \u00e0 juste titre regarder M. Pickwick comme le\nmentor et pour ainsi dire le tuteur de son fils, M. Pickwick se devait \u00e0\nlui-m\u00eame de l'informer personnellement de toutes les circonstances de\nl'affaire, et de la part qu'il y avait prise.\n\nM. Tupman et M. Snodgrass arriv\u00e8rent fort \u00e0 propos dans cet endroit de\nla plaidoirie; car comme il fallait bien leur apprendre ce qui \u00e9tait\narriv\u00e9, avec les diverses raisons, pour et contre, la totalit\u00e9 des\narguments fut pass\u00e9e en revue sur nouveaux frais; apr\u00e8s quoi chaque\npersonne pr\u00e9sente r\u00e9p\u00e9ta \u00e0 son tour, \u00e0 sa mani\u00e8re et \u00e0 son aise, tous\nles raisonnements qu'elle put imaginer. \u00c0 la fin M. Pickwick suppli\u00e9,\nraisonn\u00e9, de mani\u00e8re \u00e0 renverser ses r\u00e9solutions, et presque \u00e0 troubler\nsa raison, prit Arabelle dans ses bras, d\u00e9clara qu'elle \u00e9tait une\ncharmante cr\u00e9ature, que d\u00e8s qu'il l'avait vue il avait eu de l'affection\npour elle, et ajouta enfin qu'il n'avait pas le courage de s'opposer au\nbonheur de deux jeunes gens, et qu'ils pouvaient faire de lui tout ce\nqu'ils voudraient.\n\nAussit\u00f4t que Sam eut entendu cette concession, il s'empressa de d\u00e9p\u00eacher\nJob Trotter \u00e0 l'illustre M. Pell, pour lui demander la d\u00e9charge dont M.\nWeller avait eu soin de le munir dans la pr\u00e9vision que quelque\ncirconstance inattendue pourrait la rendre imm\u00e9diatement n\u00e9cessaire. Sam\n\u00e9changea ensuite tout ce qu'il avait d'argent comptant contre vingt-cinq\ngallons de porter, qu'il distribua lui-m\u00eame dans le jeu de paume, \u00e0 tous\nceux qui en voulurent t\u00e2ter; puis enfin il parcourut la prison en\npoussant des hourras, jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'il en e\u00fbt perdu la voix, apr\u00e8s quoi\nil retomba dans ses habitudes calmes et philosophiques.\n\n\u00c0 trois heures de l'apr\u00e8s-midi, M. Pickwick quitta pour toujours sa\npetite chambre, et traversa avec quelque peine la foule des d\u00e9biteurs\nqui se pressaient autour de lui, pour lui donner des poign\u00e9es de main.\nQuand il fut arriv\u00e9 aux marches de la loge, il se retourna et ses yeux\nbrill\u00e8rent d'un \u00e9clat c\u00e9leste, car dans cette foule de visages h\u00e2ves et\namaigris, il n'en voyait pas un seul qui n'e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 plus malheureux\nencore, sans sa sympathie et sa charit\u00e9.\n\n\u00abPerker, dit-il au petit avou\u00e9, en faisant signe \u00e0 un jeune homme de\ns'approcher: voici M. Jingle dont je vous ai parl\u00e9.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, mon cher monsieur, r\u00e9pondit l'homme d'affaires en regardant\nJingle d'un oeil scrutateur. Vous me reverrez demain, jeune homme, et\nj'esp\u00e8re que vous vous rappellerez, durant toute votre vie, ce que je\nvous communiquerai.\u00bb\n\nL'ex-com\u00e9dien salua respectueusement, prit d'une main tremblante la main\nque lui offrait M. Pickwick, et se retira.\n\n\u00abVous connaissez Job? je pense, reprit notre philosophe en le pr\u00e9sentant\n\u00e0 M. Perker.\n\n--Oui, je connais le coquin, r\u00e9pondit celui-ci d'un ton de bonne\nhumeur. Allez voir votre ami, et trouvez-vous ici demain \u00e0 une heure,\nentendez-vous. Vous n'avez plus rien \u00e0 me dire, Pickwick?\n\n--Rien du tout. Sam, vous avez donn\u00e9 \u00e0 votre h\u00f4te le petit paquet que je\nvous ai remis pour lui?\n\n--Oui, monsieur, il s'est mis \u00e0 pleurer, et il a dit que vous \u00e9tiez bien\nbon et bien g\u00e9n\u00e9reux, mais qu'il souhaiterait plut\u00f4t que vous puissiez\nlui faire inoculer une bonne apoplexie, vu que son vieil ami, avec qui\nil avait v\u00e9cu si longtemps, est mort, et qu'il n'en trouvera plus jamais\nd'autre.\n\n--Pauvre homme! dit M. Pickwick: pauvre homme! Que Dieu vous b\u00e9nisse,\nmes amis!\u00bb\n\nLorsque l'excellent homme eut ainsi fait ses adieux, la foule poussa une\nacclamation bruyante, et beaucoup d'individus se pr\u00e9cipitaient vers lui\npour serrer de nouveau ses mains; mais il passa son bras sous celui de\nPerker et s'empressa de sortir de la maison, infiniment plus triste en\ncet instant que lorsqu'il y \u00e9tait entr\u00e9. H\u00e9las! combien d'\u00eatres\ninfortun\u00e9s restaient l\u00e0 apr\u00e8s lui; et combien y sont encore encha\u00een\u00e9s!\n\nCe fut une heureuse soir\u00e9e, du moins pour la compagnie qui s'\u00e9tait\nrassembl\u00e9e \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel de _George et Vautour_; et le lendemain matin il\nsortit de cette demeure hospitali\u00e8re deux coeurs l\u00e9gers et joyeux, dont\nles propri\u00e9taires \u00e9taient M. Pickwick et Sam Weller. Le premier fut\nbient\u00f4t apr\u00e8s d\u00e9pos\u00e9 dans l'int\u00e9rieur d'une bonne chaise de poste, et le\nsecond monta l\u00e9g\u00e8rement sur le petit si\u00e9ge de derri\u00e8re.\n\n\u00abMonsieur, cria le valet \u00e0 son ma\u00eetre.\n\n--Eh! bien, Sam? r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick en mettant la t\u00eate \u00e0 la porti\u00e8re.\n\n--Je voudrais bien que ces chevaux-l\u00e0 soient rest\u00e9s trois mois en\nprison, monsieur.\n\n--Et pourquoi cela, Sam?\n\n--Ma foi, monsieur, s'\u00e9cria Sam en se frottant les mains c'est qu'ils\nd\u00e9taleraient d'un fameux train!\u00bb\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XIX.\n\nO\u00f9 l'on raconte comment M. Pickwick, avec l'assistance de Sam, essaya\nd'amollir le coeur de M. Benjamin Allen, et d'adoucir la rage de M.\nRobert Sawyer.\n\n\nM. Ben Allen et M. Bob Sawyer, assis en t\u00eate \u00e0 t\u00eate dans leur\narri\u00e8re-boutique, s'occupaient activement \u00e0 d\u00e9vorer un hachis de veau et\n\u00e0 faire des projets d'avenir, lorsque le discours tomba, assez\nnaturellement, sur la client\u00e8le acquise par le susdit Bob, et sur ses\nchances actuelles d'obtenir un revenu suffisant au moyen de l'honorable\nprofession \u00e0 laquelle il s'\u00e9tait d\u00e9vou\u00e9.\n\n\u00abJe les crois l\u00e9g\u00e8rement douteuses, dit l'estimable jeune homme, en\nsuivant le fil de la conversation.\n\n--L\u00e9g\u00e8rement douteuses? r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Ben Allen; et, apr\u00e8s avoir aiguis\u00e9 son\nintelligence au moyen d'un verre de bi\u00e8re, il ajouta: Qu'est-ce donc que\nvous trouvez l\u00e9g\u00e8rement douteux?\n\n--Les chances que j'ai de faire fortune.\n\n--Je l'avais oubli\u00e9, Bob. La bi\u00e8re vient de me faire souvenir que je\nl'avais oubli\u00e9! C'est vrai, elles sont douteuses.\n\n--C'est \u00e9tonnant comme les pauvres gens me patronnent, reprit Bob d'un\nton r\u00e9fl\u00e9chi. Ils frappent \u00e0 ma porte \u00e0 toutes les heures de la nuit,\nprennent une quantit\u00e9 fabuleuse de m\u00e9decines, mettent des v\u00e9sicatoires\net des sangsues, avec une pers\u00e9v\u00e9rance digne d'un meilleur sort, et\naugmentent leur famille d'une mani\u00e8re v\u00e9ritablement hyperbolique. Six de\nces petites lettres de change, \u00e9ch\u00e9ant toutes le m\u00eame jour, et toutes\nconfi\u00e9es \u00e0 mes soins, Ben!\n\n--C'est une chose fort consolante, r\u00e9pondit M. Ben Allen en approchant\nson assiette du plat de hachis.\n\n--Oh! certainement. Seulement j'aimerais autant avoir la confiance de\npatients qui pourraient se priver d'un ou deux shillings. Cette\nclient\u00e8le-ci \u00e9tait parfaitement d\u00e9crite dans l'annonce; c'est une\n_client\u00e8le_..., une client\u00e8le tr\u00e8s \u00e9tendue, et rien de plus!\n\n--Bob, dit M. Ben Allen en posant son couteau et sa fourchette, et en\nfixant ses yeux sur le visage de son ami; Bob, je vais vous dire ce\nqu'il faut faire.\n\n--Voyons.\n\n--Il faut vous rendre ma\u00eetre, aussi vite que possible, des mille livres\nsterling (25 000 fr.) d'Arabelle.\n\n--Trois pour cent consolid\u00e9s, actuellement inscrits, en son nom, sur le\nlivre du gouverneur et de la compagnie de la banque d'Angleterre, ajouta\nBob Sawyer avec la phras\u00e9ologie l\u00e9gale.\n\n--Exactement. Elle en jouira \u00e0 sa majorit\u00e9, ou lorsqu'elle sera mari\u00e9e.\nIl s'en faut d'un an qu'elle ne soit majeure; et si vous aviez du\ntoupet, il ne s'en faudrait pas d'un mois qu'elle ne f\u00fbt mari\u00e9e.\n\n--C'est une cr\u00e9ature charmante, d\u00e9licieuse, Ben, et elle n'a qu'un seul\net unique d\u00e9faut, mais malheureusement cette l\u00e9g\u00e8re tache est un manque\nde go\u00fbt. Elle ne m'aime pas.\n\n--Je crois qu'elle ne sait pas qui elle aime, r\u00e9pliqua M. Ben Allen d'un\nton d\u00e9daigneux.\n\n--C'est possible: mais je crois qu'elle sait qui elle n'aime pas, et\ncela est encore plus grave.\n\n--Je voudrais, s'\u00e9cria M. Ben Allen en serrant ses dents, et en parlant\ncomme un guerrier sauvage qui d\u00e9vore la chair crue d'un loup, apr\u00e8s\nl'avoir d\u00e9chir\u00e9 avec ses ongles, plut\u00f4t que comme un jeune gentleman\ncivilis\u00e9, qui mange un hachis de veau avec un couteau et une fourchette;\nje voudrais savoir s'il y a r\u00e9ellement quelque mis\u00e9rable qui ait essay\u00e9\nde gagner ses affections. Je crois que je l'assassinerais, Bob.\n\n--Si je le rencontrais, r\u00e9pondit M. Sawyer en s'arr\u00eatant au milieu d'une\nlongue gorg\u00e9e de _porter_, et en regardant d'un air farouche par-dessus\nle pot; si je le rencontrais, je lui mettrais une balle de plomb dans le\nventre; et si cela ne suffisait pas, je le tuerais en l'en extrayant.\u00bb\n\nBenjamin regarda pensivement et silencieusement son ami, pendant\nquelques minutes, puis il lui dit:\n\n\u00abVous ne lui avez jamais fait de propositions directes, Bob?\n\n--Non, parce que je savais que cela ne servirait \u00e0 rien.\n\n--Vous lui en ferez avant qu'il se passe vingt-quatre heures; reprit\nBen, avec le calme du d\u00e9sespoir. Elle vous \u00e9pousera ou.... elle dira\npourquoi. J'emploierai toute mon autorit\u00e9.\n\n--Eh bien! nous verrons.\n\n--Oui, mon ami, nous verrons! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta Ben Allen d'un ton f\u00e9roce. Il se\ntut pendant quelques secondes, et ajouta d'une voix saccad\u00e9e par\nl'\u00e9motion: Vous l'avez aim\u00e9e d\u00e8s son enfance, mon ami; vous l'aimiez\nquand nous \u00e9tions \u00e0 l'\u00e9cole ensemble, et d\u00e8s lors elle faisait la\nb\u00e9gueule et d\u00e9daignait votre jeune tendresse. Vous rappelez-vous qu'un\njour, avec toute la chaleur d'un amour enfantin, vous la pressiez\nd'accepter une pomme et deux petits biscuits anis\u00e9s, proprement\nenvelopp\u00e9s dans le titre d'un de vos cahiers d'\u00e9criture?\n\n--Oui, je me le rappelle.\n\n--Elle vous refusa, n'est-ce pas?\n\n--Oui, elle me dit que j'avais gard\u00e9 le paquet dans la poche de mon\npantalon, pendant si longtemps, que la pomme avait acquis une chaleur\nd\u00e9sagr\u00e9able.\n\n--Je m'en souviens, reprit M. Allen d'un air sombre. Et l\u00e0 dessus, nous\nla mange\u00e2mes nous-m\u00eames, en y mordant alternativement.\u00bb\n\nBob Sawyer indiqua par le m\u00e9lancolique froncement de ses sourcils qu'il\nse rappelait encore cette derni\u00e8re circonstance; et les deux amis\nrest\u00e8rent, durant quelques minutes, absorb\u00e9s dans leurs m\u00e9ditations.\n\nTandis que ces r\u00e9flexions \u00e9taient \u00e9chang\u00e9es entre M. Bob Sawyer et M.\nBenjamin Allen, et tandis que le jeune gar\u00e7on en livr\u00e9e grise,\ns'\u00e9tonnant de la longueur inaccoutum\u00e9e du d\u00eener, et ressentant de\ntristes pressentiments, relativement \u00e0 la quantit\u00e9 de veau hach\u00e9 qui lui\nresterait, jetait de temps en temps vers la porte vitr\u00e9e un regard plein\nd'anxi\u00e9t\u00e9, une voiture bourgeoise roulait pacifiquement \u00e0 travers les\nrues de Bristol. C'\u00e9tait une esp\u00e8ce de coup\u00e9, peint d'une triste couleur\nverte, tir\u00e9 par une esp\u00e8ce de cheval fourbu et conduit par un homme \u00e0\nl'air rechign\u00e9, dont les jambes \u00e9taient couvertes comme celles d'un\ngroom, pendant que son corps \u00e9tait rev\u00eatu d'un habit de cocher. Ces\napparences sont communes \u00e0 beaucoup de voitures entretenues par de\nvieilles dames \u00e9conomes; et en effet, dans cette voiture, \u00e9tait assise\nune vieille dame, qui se vantait d'en \u00eatre propri\u00e9taire.\n\n\u00abMartin? dit la vieille dame en appelant l'homme rechign\u00e9 par la glace\nde devant.\n\n--Eh bien? r\u00e9pondit l'homme rechign\u00e9 en touchant son chapeau.\n\n--Chez M. Sawyer.\n\n--J'y allais.\u00bb\n\nLa vieille dame fit un signe de satisfaction \u00e0 cette preuve\nd'intelligence de son domestique; et l'homme rechign\u00e9, donnant un bon\ncoup de fouet au cheval fourbu, ils arriv\u00e8rent, tous ensemble, devant la\nmaison de M. Bob Sawyer.\n\n\u00abMartin, dit la vieille dame quand la voiture fut arr\u00eat\u00e9e \u00e0 la porte de\nM. Bob Sawyer, successeur de Nockemorf.\n\n--De de quoi?\n\n--Dites au gar\u00e7on de faire attention au cheval.\n\n--J'y ferai ben attention moi-m\u00eame, r\u00e9pondit le cocher-groom en posant\nson fouet sur l'imp\u00e9riale du coup\u00e9.\n\n--Non, cela ne se peut pas: votre t\u00e9moignage sera tr\u00e8s-important, et je\nvous emm\u00e8nerai avec moi dans la maison. Vous ne bougerez pas de mon c\u00f4t\u00e9\npendant toute l'entrevue, entendez-vous?\n\n--J'entends.\n\n--Eh bien! qu'est-ce qui vous arr\u00eate?\n\n--Rien.\u00bb\n\nEn prof\u00e9rant ce monosyllabe, l'homme rechign\u00e9 descendit pos\u00e9ment de la\nroue, o\u00f9 il se balan\u00e7ait sur le gros orteil de son pied droit, appela le\ngar\u00e7on en livr\u00e9e grise, ouvrit la porti\u00e8re, abaissa le marchepied, et,\n\u00e9tendant sa main envelopp\u00e9e d'un gant de daim de couleur sombre,\naveignit la vieille dame, d'un air aussi peu attentif que s'il s'\u00e9tait\nagi d'un paquet de linge.\n\n\u00abH\u00e9las! s'\u00e9cria-t-elle; maintenant que me voil\u00e0 ici, je suis si agit\u00e9e,\nque j'en suis toute tremblante.\u00bb\n\nM. Martin toussa derri\u00e8re son gant de daim, mais ne donna pas d'autres\nsignes de sympathie. En cons\u00e9quence, la vieille dame se calma, et,\nsuivie de son domestique, monta les marches de M. Bob Sawyer. Aussit\u00f4t\nqu'elle fut entr\u00e9e dans l'officine, MM. Ben Allen et Bob Sawyer, qui\ns'\u00e9taient empress\u00e9s de faire dispara\u00eetre les liqueurs et de r\u00e9pandre des\ndrogues naus\u00e9abondes, pour dissimuler l'odeur du tabac, sortirent\nau-devant d'elle, avec des transports de plaisir et d'affection.\n\n\u00abMa ch\u00e8re tante, s'\u00e9cria Benjamin; que vous \u00eates bonne d'\u00eatre venue nous\nvoir! Monsieur Sawyer, ma tante.... Mon ami, monsieur Bob Sawyer, dont\nje vous ai parl\u00e9.... ici, M. Ben Allen, qui n'\u00e9tait pas tout \u00e0 fait \u00e0\njeun, ajouta le mot _Arabelle_, d'un ton de voix qu'il croyait \u00eatre un\nmurmure, mais qui, en r\u00e9alit\u00e9, \u00e9tait si distinct et si \u00e9lev\u00e9 que\npersonne n'aurait pu s'emp\u00eacher de l'entendre, m\u00eame en y mettant toute\nla bonne volont\u00e9 du monde.\n\n--Mon cher Benjamin, dit la vieille dame qui s'effor\u00e7ait de reprendre\nhaleine, et qui tremblait de la t\u00eate aux pieds, ne vous alarmez pas, mon\ncher enfant.... Mais je crois que je ferai mieux de parler \u00e0 monsieur\nSawyer en particulier, pour un instant, pour un seul instant.\n\n--Bob, dit M. Allen, voulez-vous emmener ma tante dans le laboratoire?\n\n--Certainement, r\u00e9pondit Bob d'une voix professionnelle. Passez par ici,\nma ch\u00e8re dame. N'ayez pas peur, madame, je suis persuad\u00e9 que nous\nrem\u00e9dierons \u00e0 tout cela, en fort peu de temps. Ici, ma ch\u00e8re dame, je\nvous \u00e9coute.\u00bb\n\nEn parlant ainsi, M. Bob Sawyer conduisait la vieille lady vers son\nfauteuil, fermait la porte, tirait une chaise aupr\u00e8s d'elle et attendait\nqu'il lui pl\u00fbt de d\u00e9tailler les sympt\u00f4mes de quelque maladie, dont il\ncalculait d\u00e9j\u00e0 les profits probables.\n\nLa premi\u00e8re chose que fit la vieille dame fut de branler la t\u00eate un\ngrand nombre de fois et de se mettre \u00e0 pleurer.\n\n\u00abLes nerfs agit\u00e9s, dit le chirurgien avec complaisance. Julep de\ncamphre, trois fois par jour, et, le soir, potion calmante.\n\n--Je ne sais par o\u00f9 commencer, monsieur Sawyer. C'est si p\u00e9nible, si\nd\u00e9solant....\n\n--Ne vous tourmentez pas, madame; je devine tout ce que vous voudriez\ndire. La t\u00eate est malade.\n\n--Je serais bien d\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9e de croire que c'est le coeur, r\u00e9pondit la\ndame avec un profond soupir.\n\n--Il n'y a pas le plus petit danger, madame. L'estomac est la cause\nprimitive.\n\n--Monsieur Sawyer! s'\u00e9cria la vieille dame en tressaillant.\n\n--Ce n'est pas douteux, madame; poursuivit Bob, d'un air prodigieusement\nsavant. Une m\u00e9decine, en temps utile, aurait pr\u00e9venu tout cela.\n\n--Monsieur Sawyer! s'\u00e9cria la vieille dame plus agit\u00e9e qu'auparavant;\ncette conduite est une impertinence, \u00e0 moins qu'elle ne provienne de ce\nque vous ne comprenez pas l'objet de ma visite. S'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 au\npouvoir de la m\u00e9decine, ou de la prudence humaine, de pr\u00e9venir ce qui\nest arriv\u00e9, je ne l'aurais pas souffert, assur\u00e9ment. Mais je ferais\nmieux de parler \u00e0 mon neveu, ajouta la vieille dame, en tortillant avec\nindignation son ridicule, et en se levant tout d'une pi\u00e8ce.\n\n--Attendez un moment, madame; j'ai peur de ne vous avoir pas bien\ncomprise. De quoi s'agit-il? madame.\n\n--Ma ni\u00e8ce, monsieur Sawyer, la soeur de votre ami....\n\n--Oui, madame, interrompit Bob plein d'impatience; car la vieille lady,\nquoique extr\u00eamement agit\u00e9e, parlait avec la lenteur la plus\ntantalisante, comme le font volontiers les vieilles ladies. Oui madame.\n\n--A quitt\u00e9 ma maison, monsieur Sawyer, il y a quatre jours, sous\npr\u00e9texte d'aller faire une visite \u00e0 ma soeur, qui est aussi sa tante, et\nqui tient une grande pension de demoiselles, pr\u00e8s de la borne du\ntroisi\u00e8me mille, o\u00f9 il y a un grand \u00e9b\u00e9nier et une porte de ch\u00eane. En\ncet endroit, la vieille dame s'arr\u00eata pour essuyer ses yeux.\n\n--Eh! que le diable emporte l'\u00e9b\u00e9nier, s'\u00e9cria Bob, \u00e0 qui son anxi\u00e9t\u00e9\nfaisait oublier sa dignit\u00e9 m\u00e9dicale. Allez un peu plus vite, je vous en\nsupplie.\n\n--Ce matin, continua la vieille dame avec lenteur, ce matin elle....\n\n--Elle est revenue, je suppose, interrompit Bob vivement. Est-elle\nrevenue?\n\n--Non, elle n'est pas revenue; elle a \u00e9crit.\n\n--Et que dit-elle? demanda Bob avec impatience.\n\n--Elle dit, monsieur Sawyer, et c'est \u00e0 cela que je vous prie de\npr\u00e9parer l'esprit de Benjamin, lentement et par degr\u00e9s, monsieur Sawyer.\nElle dit qu'elle est.... J'ai la lettre dans ma poche, mais j'ai laiss\u00e9\nmes lunettes dans la voiture, et sans elles je ne ferais que perdre du\ntemps, en essayant de vous montrer le passage. En un mot, elle dit\nqu'elle est mari\u00e9e.\n\n--Quoi? dit ou plut\u00f4t beugla M. Bob Sawyer.\n\n--Mari\u00e9e!\u00bb r\u00e9p\u00e9ta la vieille dame.\n\nBob n'en \u00e9couta pas davantage, mais, s'\u00e9lan\u00e7ant du laboratoire dans la\nboutique, il s'\u00e9cria d'une voix de stentor: \u00abBen, mon gar\u00e7on, elle a\nd\u00e9camp\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nM. Ben Allen, dont les genoux s'\u00e9levaient \u00e0 un demi-pied environ plus\nhaut que la t\u00eate, \u00e9tait en train de sommeiller derri\u00e8re le comptoir.\nAussit\u00f4t qu'il eut entendu cette effrayante communication, il se\npr\u00e9cipita sur Martin, et entortillant sa main dans la cravate de ce\ntaciturne serviteur, il exprima l'intention obligeante de l'\u00e9trangler\nsur place; ce qu'il commen\u00e7ait, effectivement, \u00e0 ex\u00e9cuter avec cette\npromptitude que produit souvent le d\u00e9sespoir, et qui d\u00e9notait beaucoup\nde vigueur et d'adresse chirurgicale.\n\nM. Martin, qui n'\u00e9tait pas un homme verbeux, et qui comptait peu sur ses\ntalents oratoires, se soumit durant quelques secondes \u00e0 cette op\u00e9ration,\navec une physionomie tr\u00e8s-calme et tr\u00e8s-agr\u00e9able. Cependant,\ns'apercevant qu'elle devait en peu de temps le mettre hors d'\u00e9tat de\njamais r\u00e9clamer ses gages, il murmura quelques repr\u00e9sentations\ninarticul\u00e9es, et, d'un coup de poing, il \u00e9tendit M. Benjamin Allen sur\nla terre; mais il fut imm\u00e9diatement oblig\u00e9 de l'y suivre, car le\ntemp\u00e9rant jeune homme n'avait pas l\u00e2ch\u00e9 sa cravate. Ils \u00e9taient donc l\u00e0,\ntous les deux, en train de se d\u00e9battre, lorsque la porte de la boutique\ns'ouvrit et laissa entrer deux personnages inattendus, M. Pickwick et\nSam Weller.\n\nEn voyant ce spectacle, la premi\u00e8re impression produite sur l'esprit de\nSam, fut que Martin \u00e9tait pay\u00e9 par l'\u00e9tablissement de Sawyer, successeur\nde Nockemorf, pour prendre quelque violent rem\u00e8de; ou pour avoir des\nattaques et se soumettre \u00e0 des exp\u00e9riences, ou pour avaler de temps en\ntemps du poison, afin d'attester l'efficacit\u00e9 de quelque nouvel\nantidote, ou pour faire n'importe quoi, dans l'int\u00e9r\u00eat de la science\nm\u00e9dicale, et pour satisfaire l'ardent d\u00e9sir d'instruction qui br\u00fblait\ndans le sein des deux jeunes professeurs. Ainsi, sans se permettre la\nmoindre intervention, Sam resta parfaitement calme, attendant, avec\nl'air du plus profond int\u00e9r\u00eat, le r\u00e9sultat de l'exp\u00e9rience; mais il n'en\nfut pas de m\u00eame de M. Pickwick: il se pr\u00e9cipita, avec son \u00e9nergie\naccoutum\u00e9e, entre les combattants \u00e9tonn\u00e9s et engagea \u00e0 grands cris les\nassistante \u00e0 les s\u00e9parer.\n\nCeci r\u00e9veilla M. Sawyer qui, jusque-l\u00e0, \u00e9tait rest\u00e9 comme paralys\u00e9 par\nla fr\u00e9n\u00e9sie de son compagnon. Avec son assistance, M. Pickwick remit Ben\nAllen sur ses pieds: quant \u00e0 Martin, se trouvant tout seul sur le\nplancher, il se releva, et regarda autour de lui.\n\n\u00abMonsieur Allen, dit M. Pickwick, qu'est-il donc arriv\u00e9?\n\n--Cela me regarde, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Benjamin, avec une hauteur\nprovoquante.\n\n--Qu'est-ce qu'il y a, demanda M. Pickwick en se tournant vers Bob.\nEst-ce qu'il serait indispos\u00e9?\u00bb\n\nAvant que le pharmacien e\u00fbt pu r\u00e9pliquer, Ben Allen saisit M. Pickwick\npar la main et murmura d'une voix dolente: \u00abMa soeur! mon cher monsieur,\nma soeur!\n\n--Oh! est-ce l\u00e0 tout? r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick. Nous arrangerons ais\u00e9ment\ncette affaire, \u00e0 ce que j'esp\u00e8re. Votre soeur est en s\u00fbret\u00e9 et bien\nportante, mon cher monsieur, je suis ici pour....\n\n--Demande pardon, monsieur, interrompit Sam, qui venait de regarder par\nla porte vitr\u00e9e, f\u00e2ch\u00e9 de faire quelque chose qui puisse d\u00e9ranger ces\nagr\u00e9ables op\u00e9rations, comme dit le roi en mettant le parlement \u00e0 la\nporte, mais il y a une autre exp\u00e9rience qui se fait l\u00e0-dedans, une\nv\u00e9n\u00e9rable vieille qui est \u00e9tendue sur le tapis, et qui attend pour \u00eatre\ndiss\u00e9qu\u00e9e, ou galvanis\u00e9e, ou quelque autre invention ressuscitante et\nscientifique.\n\n--Je l'avais oubli\u00e9e! s'\u00e9cria M. Allen; c'est ma tante.\n\n--Bont\u00e9 divine! dit M. Pickwick. Pauvre dame! Doucement, Sam, doucement.\n\n--Une dr\u00f4le de situation pour un membre de la famille, fit observer Sam,\nen hissant la tante sur une chaise. Maintenant apprenti carabin,\napportez les volatils.\u00bb\n\nCette derni\u00e8re phrase \u00e9tait adress\u00e9e au gar\u00e7on en livr\u00e9e grise, qui\navait confi\u00e9 le coup\u00e9 \u00e0 un watchman, et \u00e9tait rentr\u00e9 pour voir ce que\nsignifiait tant de bruit. Gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 ses soins, \u00e0 ceux de M. Bob Sawyer, et\n\u00e0 ceux de M. Ben Allen, qui \u00e9tant cause par sa violence de\nl'\u00e9vanouissement de sa tante, se montrait plein d'une tendre sollicitude\npour la faire revenir, la vieille dame fut \u00e0 la fin rendue \u00e0 la vie, et\nalors l'affectionn\u00e9 neveu se tournant vers M. Pickwick avec une\nphysionomie tout ahurie, lui demanda ce qu'il allait dire lorsqu'il\navait \u00e9t\u00e9 interrompu d'une mani\u00e8re si alarmante.\n\n\u00abIl n'y a ici que des amis, je pr\u00e9sume?\u00bb dit M. Pickwick en toussant\npour \u00e9claircir sa voix et en regardant l'homme au visage rechign\u00e9.\n\nCeci rappela \u00e0 Bob Sawyer que le gar\u00e7on en livr\u00e9e grise \u00e9tait l\u00e0,\nouvrant de grands yeux, et des oreilles encore plus grandes. Il l'enleva\npar le collet de son habit, et l'ayant jet\u00e9 de l'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9, il engagea\nM. Pickwick \u00e0 parler sans r\u00e9serve.\n\n\u00abVotre soeur, mon cher monsieur, dit le philosophe, en se retournant\nvers Ben Allen, est \u00e0 Londres, bien portante et heureuse.\n\n--Son bonheur n'est pas le but que je me propose, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit\nl'aimable fr\u00e8re, en faisant un geste d\u00e9daigneux de la main.\n\n--Son mari sera un but pour moi, monsieur! s'\u00e9cria Bob; il sera un but\npour moi, \u00e0 douze pas, et j'en ferai un crible de ce l\u00e2che coquin!\u00bb\n\nC'\u00e9tait l\u00e0 un joli d\u00e9fi et fort magnanime; mais le pharmacien en\naffaiblit l\u00e9g\u00e8rement l'effet, en y ajoutant quelques observations\ng\u00e9n\u00e9rales sur les t\u00eates ramollies, et sur les yeux au beurre noir,\nlesquelles n'\u00e9taient que des lieux communs en comparaison.\n\n--Arr\u00eatez, monsieur! interrompit M. Pickwick; et avant d'appliquer ces\n\u00e9pith\u00e8tes au gentleman en question, consid\u00e9rez de sang-froid l'\u00e9tendue\nde sa faute, et surtout rappelez-vous qu'il est mon ami.\n\n--Quoi! s'\u00e9cria M. Bob Sawyer.\n\n--Son nom? vocif\u00e9ra Ben Allen, son nom?\n\n--M. Nathaniel Winkle,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick avec fermet\u00e9.\n\n\u00c0 ce nom, Benjamin \u00e9crasa soigneusement ses lunettes sous le talon de sa\nbotte, en releva les morceaux qu'il pla\u00e7a dans trois poches diff\u00e9rentes,\nse croisa les bras, se mordit les l\u00e8vres, et lan\u00e7a des regards mena\u00e7ants\nsur la physionomie calme et douce de M. Pickwick. \u00c0 la fin rompant le\nsilence:\n\n\u00abC'est donc vous, monsieur, qui avez encourag\u00e9 et fabriqu\u00e9 ce mariage?\n\n--Et je suppose, interrompit la vieille dame, je suppose que c'est le\ndomestique de monsieur qu'on a vu r\u00f4der autour de ma maison, pour\nessayer de corrompre mes gens. Martin?\n\n--De de quoi? dit l'homme rechign\u00e9 en s'avan\u00e7ant.\n\n--Est-ce l\u00e0 le jeune homme que vous avez vu dans la ruelle, et dont vous\nm'avez parl\u00e9 ce matin?\u00bb\n\nM. Martin, qui \u00e9tait un homme laconique, comme on l'a d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu,\ns'approcha de Sam, fit un signe de t\u00eate et grommela: \u00abC'est l'homme.\u00bb\nSam, qui n'\u00e9tait jamais fier, lui adressa un sourire de connaissance et\nconfessa, en termes polis, qu'il avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu cette boule-l\u00e0 quelque\npart.\n\n\u00abEt moi, s'\u00e9cria Benjamin, moi qui ai manqu\u00e9 d'\u00e9trangler ce fid\u00e8le\nserviteur! Monsieur Pickwick, comment avez-vous os\u00e9 permettre \u00e0 cet\nindividu de participer \u00e0 l'enl\u00e8vement de ma soeur? Je vous prie de\nm'expliquer cela, monsieur.\n\n--Oui, monsieur, ajouta Bob avec violence, expliquez cela!\n\n--C'est une conspiration! reprit Ben.\n\n--Une v\u00e9ritable sourici\u00e8re, continua Bob.\n\n--C'est une honteuse ruse, poursuivit la vieille dame.\n\n--On vous a mis dedans, fit observer M. Martin.\n\n--\u00c9coutez-moi, je vous en prie, dit M. Pickwick, tandis que M. Ben\nAllen, humectant copieusement son mouchoir, se laissait tomber dans le\nfauteuil o\u00f9 l'on saignait les malades. Je ne suis pour rien dans tout\nceci, si ce n'est que j'ai voulu \u00eatre pr\u00e9sent \u00e0 une entrevue des deux\njeunes gens, que je ne pouvais pas emp\u00eacher, et dont je pensais \u00e9carter\nainsi tout reproche d'inconvenance. C'est l\u00e0 toute la part que j'ai eue\ndans cette affaire, et m\u00eame \u00e0 cette \u00e9poque, je ne me doutais pas que\nl'on pens\u00e2t \u00e0 un mariage imm\u00e9diat. Cependant remarquez bien, ajouta M.\nPickwick sur-le-champ, remarquez bien que je ne dis point que je\nl'eusse emp\u00each\u00e9 si je l'avais su.\n\n--Vous entendez cela? reprit M. Benjamin Allen; vous l'entendez tous?\n\n--J'y compte bien, poursuivit paisiblement le philosophe, en regardant\nautour de lui; et j'esp\u00e8re qu'ils entendront ce qui me reste \u00e0 dire,\najouta-t-il, d'une voix plus \u00e9lev\u00e9e et avec un visage plus color\u00e9: c'est\nque vous aviez grand tort de vouloir forcer les inclinations de votre\nsoeur, et que vous auriez d\u00fb plut\u00f4t, par votre tendresse et par votre\ncomplaisance, lui tenir lieu des parents qu'elle a perdus d\u00e8s son\nenfance. Quant \u00e0 ce qui regarde mon jeune ami, je dirai seulement que,\nsous le rapport de la fortune, il est dans une position au moins \u00e9gale \u00e0\nla v\u00f4tre, si ce n'est sup\u00e9rieure, et que je refuse positivement de rien\nentendre davantage sur ce point, \u00e0 moins que l'on ne s'exprime avec la\nmod\u00e9ration convenable.\n\n--Je d\u00e9sirerais ajouter quelques observations \u00e0 ce qui a \u00e9t\u00e9 dit par le\ngentleman qui vient de quitter la tribune, dit alors Sam, en s'avan\u00e7ant.\nVoici ce que c'est: une personne de l'honorable soci\u00e9t\u00e9 m'a appel\u00e9\nindividu....\n\n--Cela n'a aucun rapport \u00e0 la question, Sam, interrompit M. Pickwick.\nRetenez votre langue, s'il vous pla\u00eet.\n\n--Je ne veux rien dire sur ce sujet, monsieur. Mais voil\u00e0 la chose:\nPeut-\u00eatre que l'autre gentleman pense qu'il y avait un attachement\nant\u00e9rieur; mais il n'y a rien de cette esp\u00e8ce-l\u00e0, car la jeune lady a\nd\u00e9clar\u00e9, d\u00e8s le commencement, qu'elle ne pouvait pas le souffrir. Ainsi\npersonne ne lui a fait du tort, et il ne serait pas plus avanc\u00e9 si la\njeune lady n'avait jamais vu M. Winkle. Voil\u00e0 ce que je d\u00e9sirais\nobserver, monsieur, et maintenant j'esp\u00e8re que j'ai tranquillis\u00e9 le\ngentleman.\u00bb\n\nUne courte pause suivit cette consolante remarque, apr\u00e8s quoi M. Ben\nAllen se levant de son fauteuil protesta qu'il ne reverrait jamais le\nvisage d'Arabelle, tandis que M. Bob, en d\u00e9pit des assurances flatteuses\nde Sam, continuait \u00e0 jurer qu'il tirerait une affreuse vengeance de\nl'heureux mari\u00e9.\n\nMais pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment \u00e0 l'instant o\u00f9 les affaires avaient pris cette tournure\nmena\u00e7ante, M. Pickwick trouva un alli\u00e9 inattendu et puissant, dans la\nvieille dame qui avait \u00e9t\u00e9 vivement frapp\u00e9e de la mani\u00e8re dont il avait\nplaid\u00e9 la cause de sa ni\u00e8ce. Elle s'approcha donc de Ben Allen, et se\nhasarda \u00e0 lui adresser quelques r\u00e9flexions consolantes, dont les\nprincipales \u00e9taient, qu'apr\u00e8s tout il \u00e9tait heureux que la chose ne f\u00fbt\npas encore pire; que moins on parlerait, mieux cela vaudrait; qu'au\nbout du compte, il n'\u00e9tait pas prouv\u00e9 que ce f\u00fbt un si grand malheur;\nque ce qui est fait est fait, et qu'il faut savoir souffrir ce qu'on ne\npeut emp\u00eacher, avec diff\u00e9rents autres apophthegmes aussi nouveaux et\naussi r\u00e9confortants.\n\n\u00c0 tout cela, M. Benjamin Allen r\u00e9pliquait qu'il n'entendait pas manquer\nde respect \u00e0 sa tante, ni \u00e0 aucune personne pr\u00e9sente, mais que, si cela\nleur \u00e9tait \u00e9gal, et si on voulait lui permettre d'agir \u00e0 sa fantaisie,\nil pr\u00e9f\u00e9rerait avoir le plaisir de ha\u00efr sa soeur jusqu'\u00e0 la mort, et par\nde l\u00e0.\n\n\u00c0 la fin, quand cette d\u00e9termination eut \u00e9t\u00e9 annonc\u00e9e une cinquantaine de\nfois, la vieille dame se redressant tout \u00e0 coup, et prenant un air fort\nmajestueux, demanda ce qu'elle avait fait pour n'obtenir aucun respect \u00e0\nson \u00e2ge, et pour \u00eatre oblig\u00e9e de supplier ainsi son propre neveu, dont\nelle pouvait raconter l'histoire environ vingt-cinq ans avant sa\nnaissance, et qu'elle avait connu personnellement avant qu'il e\u00fbt une\nseule dent dans la bouche; sans parler de ce qu'elle avait \u00e9t\u00e9 pr\u00e9sente\nla premi\u00e8re fois qu'on lui avait coup\u00e9 les cheveux, et avait \u00e9galement\nassist\u00e9 \u00e0 nombre d'autres c\u00e9r\u00e9monies de son enfance, toutes suffisamment\nimportantes pour m\u00e9riter \u00e0 jamais son affection, son ob\u00e9issance, sa\nv\u00e9n\u00e9ration.\n\nTandis que la bonne dame exorcisait ainsi M. Ben Allen, M. Pickwick\ns'\u00e9tait retir\u00e9 dans le laboratoire avec M. Bob Sawyer; et celui-ci,\ndurant leur conversation, avait appliqu\u00e9 plusieurs fois \u00e0 sa bouche une\ncertaine bouteille noire, sous l'influence de laquelle ses traits\navaient pris graduellement une expression tranquille et m\u00eame joviale. \u00c0\nla fin, il sortit de la pi\u00e8ce, bouteille en main, et faisant observer\nqu'il \u00e9tait tr\u00e8s-f\u00e2ch\u00e9 de s'\u00eatre conduit comme un fou, il proposa de\nboire \u00e0 la sant\u00e9 et au bonheur de M. et de Mme Winkle, dont il voyait la\nf\u00e9licit\u00e9 avec si peu d'envie, qu'il serait le premier \u00e0 les congratuler.\nEn entendant ceci, M. Ben Allen se leva soudainement de son fauteuil,\nsaisit la bouteille noire, et but le toast de si bon coeur, que son\nvisage en devint presque aussi noir que la bouteille elle-m\u00eame, car la\nliqueur \u00e9tait forte. Finalement la bouteille noire fut pass\u00e9e \u00e0 la ronde\njusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'elle se trouva vide, et il y eut tant de poign\u00e9es de main\ndonn\u00e9es, tant de compliments \u00e9chang\u00e9s, que le visage glac\u00e9 de M. Martin\nlui-m\u00eame condescendit \u00e0 sourire.\n\n\u00abEt maintenant, dit Bob en se frottant les mains, nous allons terminer\njoyeusement la soir\u00e9e.\n\n--Je suis bien f\u00e2ch\u00e9 d'\u00eatre oblig\u00e9 de retourner \u00e0 mon h\u00f4tel, r\u00e9pondit\nM. Pickwick; mais depuis quelque temps je ne suis plus accoutum\u00e9 au\nmouvement, et mon voyage m'a excessivement fatigu\u00e9.\n\n--Vous prendrez au moins un peu de th\u00e9, monsieur Pickwick, dit la\nvieille lady avec une douceur indescriptible.\n\n--Je vous suis bien oblig\u00e9, madame, cela me serait impossible.\u00bb\n\nLe fait est que l'admiration visiblement croissante de la vieille dame\n\u00e9tait la principale raison qui engageait M. Pickwick \u00e0 se retirer; il\npensait \u00e0 Mme Bardell, et chaque regard de l'aimable tante lui donnait\nune sueur froide.\n\nM. Pickwick ayant absolument refus\u00e9 de rester, il fut convenu, sur sa\nproposition, que M. Ben Allen l'accompagnerait dans son voyage aupr\u00e8s du\np\u00e8re de M. Winkle, et que la voiture serait \u00e0 la porte le lendemain\nmatin, \u00e0 neuf heures. Il prit alors cong\u00e9, et suivi de Sam, il se rendit\n\u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel du _Buisson_. C'est une chose digne de remarque que le visage\nde M. Martin \u00e9prouva d'horribles convulsions lorsqu'il secoua la main de\nSam en le quittant, et qu'il l\u00e2cha \u00e0 la fois un juron et un sourire. Les\npersonnes les mieux instruites des mani\u00e8res de ce gentleman ont conclu\nde ces sympt\u00f4mes, qu'il \u00e9tait enchant\u00e9 de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 de Sam, et qu'il\nexprimait le d\u00e9sir de faire connaissance avec lui.\n\n\u00abVoulez-vous un salon particulier, monsieur? demanda Sam \u00e0 son ma\u00eetre,\nlorsqu'ils furent arriv\u00e9s \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel.\n\n--Ma foi, r\u00e9pondit celui-ci, comme j'ai d\u00een\u00e9 dans la salle du caf\u00e9 et\nque je me coucherai bient\u00f4t, ce n'en est gu\u00e8re la peine. Voyez quelles\nsont les personnes qui se trouvent dans la salle des voyageurs?\u00bb\n\nSam revint bient\u00f4t dire qu'il n'y avait qu'un gentleman borgne, qui\nbuvait un bol de bishop avec l'h\u00f4te.\n\n\u00abC'est bon, je vais les aller trouver.\n\n--C'est un dr\u00f4le de gaillard, monsieur, que ce borgne, dit Sam en\nconduisant M. Pickwick. Il en fait avaler de toutes les couleurs au\nma\u00eetre de l'h\u00f4tel, si bien que le pauvre homme ne sait plus s'il se\ntient sur la semelle de ses souliers ou sur la forme de son chapeau.\u00bb\n\nLorsque M. Pickwick entra dans la salle, l'individu \u00e0 qui s'appliquait\ncette observation \u00e9tait en train de fumer une \u00e9norme pipe hollandaise,\net tenait son oeil unique constamment fix\u00e9 sur le visage arrondi de\nl'aubergiste. Il venait apparemment de raconter au jovial vieillard\nquelque histoire \u00e9tonnante, car celui-ci laissait encore \u00e9chapper de ses\nl\u00e8vres des exclamations de surprise. \u00abEh bien, je n'aurais pas cru \u00e7a!\nc'est la plus \u00e9trange chose que j'aie jamais entendu dire! Je ne pensais\npas que ce fut possible!\u00bb\n\n\u00abServiteur, monsieur, dit le borgne \u00e0 M. Pickwick; une jolie soir\u00e9e,\nmonsieur.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-belle,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit le philosophe; et il s'occupa \u00e0 m\u00e9langer\nl'eau-de-vie et l'eau chaude que le gar\u00e7on avait plac\u00e9es devant lui. Le\nborgne le regardait avec attention et lui dit enfin:\n\n\u00abJe crois que je vous ai d\u00e9j\u00e0 rencontr\u00e9.\n\n--Je ne m'en souviens pas.\n\n--Cela ne m'\u00e9tonne pas, vous ne me connaissiez pas. Mais moi je\nconnaissais deux de vos amis qui restaient au _Paon d'argent_ \u00e0\nEatanswill, \u00e0 l'\u00e9poque des \u00e9lections.\n\n--Oh! en v\u00e9rit\u00e9.\n\n--Oui; Je leur ai racont\u00e9 une petite aventure qui \u00e9tait arriv\u00e9e \u00e0 un de\nmes amis nomm\u00e9 Tom Smart. Peut-\u00eatre que vous leur en aurez entendu\nparler?\n\n--Souvent, dit M. Pickwick en souriant. Il \u00e9tait votre oncle, je pense.\n\n--Non, non, seulement un ami de mon oncle.\n\n--Malgr\u00e9 \u00e7a, c'\u00e9tait un homme bien \u00e9tonnant que votre oncle, dit\nl'aubergiste en branlant la t\u00eate.\n\n--Eh! eh! je le crois bien, r\u00e9pliqua le borgne. Je pourrais vous\nrapporter une histoire de ce m\u00eame oncle, qui vous \u00e9tonnerait peut-\u00eatre\nun peu, gentlemen.\n\n--Racontez-la nous, je vous en supplie, dit M. Pickwick avec\nempressement.\u00bb\n\nLe borgne tira du bol un verre de vin chaud et le but; prit une bonne\nbouff\u00e9e de fum\u00e9e dans la pipe hollandaise, et voyant que Sam lanternait\nautour de la porte, lui dit qu'il pouvait rester s'il voulait, et qu'il\nn'y avait rien de secret dans son histoire. Enfin, fixant son oeil\nunique sur l'aubergiste, il commen\u00e7a dans les termes du chapitre\nsuivant.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XX.\n\nContenant l'histoire de l'oncle du commis-voyageur.\n\n\nMon oncle, gentlemen, dit le commis-voyageur, \u00e9tait le gaillard le plus\njovial, le plus plaisant, le plus malin qui ait jamais exist\u00e9. Je\nvoudrais que vous l'eussiez connu, gentlemen.... Mais non, en y\nr\u00e9fl\u00e9chissant, je ne le voudrais point; car, suivant le cours de la\nnature, si vous l'aviez connu, vous seriez ou morts ou si pr\u00e8s de\nl'\u00eatre, que vous auriez renonc\u00e9 \u00e0 courir le monde, ce qui me priverait\nde l'inestimable plaisir de vous parler en ce moment. Gentlemen, je\nvoudrais que vos p\u00e8res et vos m\u00e8res eussent connu mon oncle, il leur\naurait plu \u00e9tonnamment, principalement \u00e0 vos respectables m\u00e8res. J'en\nsuis s\u00fbr et certain. Si parmi ses nombreuses vertus il y en avait deux\nqui pr\u00e9dominaient, j'oserais dire que c'\u00e9tait son punch et ses chansons\n\u00e0 boire. Pardonnez-moi de me laisser aller ainsi au m\u00e9lancolique\nsouvenir du m\u00e9rite qui n'est plus; vous ne verrez pas tous les jours de\nla semaine un homme comme mon oncle, gentlemen.\n\nJ'ai toujours regard\u00e9 comme fort honorable pour mon oncle d'avoir \u00e9t\u00e9\ncompagnon et ami intime de Tom Smart, de la grande maison de Bilson et\nSlum, _Cateaton-Street, City_. Mon oncle voyageait pour Tiggin et Welps;\nmais, pendant longtemps, il fit \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s la m\u00eame tourn\u00e9e que Tom. Le\npremier soir o\u00f9 ils se rencontr\u00e8rent, mon oncle se prit d'une fantaisie\npour Tom, et Tom se prit d'une fantaisie pour mon oncle. Ils ne se\nconnaissaient pas depuis une demi-heure, lorsqu'ils pari\u00e8rent \u00e0 qui\nferait le meilleur bol de punch, et le boirait le plus vite. On jugea\nque mon oncle avait gagn\u00e9, pour la fa\u00e7on; mais pour ce qui est de boire,\nTom l'emporta environ d'une demi-cuiller \u00e0 sel. Ils prirent alors un\nautre bol chacun, pour boire mutuellement \u00e0 leur sant\u00e9, et furent\ntoujours amis d\u00e9vou\u00e9s, depuis lors. Il y a une destin\u00e9e dans ces sorte\nde choses, gentlemen; c'est plus fort que nous.\n\nEn apparence personnelle, mon oncle \u00e9tait une id\u00e9e plus court que la\ntaille moyenne, il \u00e9tait aussi une id\u00e9e plus gros; et peut-\u00eatre que son\nvisage \u00e9tait une id\u00e9e plus rouge que les visages ordinaires. Il avait la\nface la plus joviale que vous ayez jamais vue, gentlemen. Quelque chose\nqui tenait de polichinelle, avec un nez et un menton beaucoup plus\navantageux. Ses yeux \u00e9tincelaient toujours de gaiet\u00e9, et sur sa figure\ns'\u00e9panouissait perp\u00e9tuellement un sourire; non pas un de vos ricanements\ninsignifiants, b\u00eates, vulgaires, mais un vrai sourire, joyeux,\nsatisfait, malin. Une fois il fut lanc\u00e9 hors de son cab, et se cogna la\nt\u00eate contre une borne. Il resta l\u00e0, \u00e9tourdi, et le visage si ab\u00eem\u00e9 par\nle sable, que, pour me servir de son expression \u00e9nergique, si sa pauvre\nm\u00e8re avait pu revenir sur la terre, elle ne l'aurait pas reconnu. En y\nr\u00e9fl\u00e9chissant, gentlemen, je puis vous en donner ma parole d'honneur,\ncar lorsqu'elle mourut, mon oncle n'avait que deux ans et sept mois; et,\nsans parler des \u00e9corchures, ses bottes \u00e0 revers auraient sans doute\nsinguli\u00e8rement embarrass\u00e9 la bonne dame, pour ne rien dire non plus de\nson nez et de sa face rubiconde. N'importe: il \u00e9tait l\u00e0, \u00e9tendu, et j'ai\nsouvent entendu dire qu'il souriait aussi agr\u00e9ablement que s'il \u00e9tait\ntomb\u00e9 par partie de plaisir, et qu'apr\u00e8s avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 saign\u00e9, aussit\u00f4t\nqu'il s'\u00e9tait senti revivre, il avait commenc\u00e9 par se dresser dans son\nlit, \u00e9clater de rire, embrasser la jeune fille qui tenait la palette,\napr\u00e8s quoi il avait demand\u00e9 sur-le-champ une c\u00f4telette de mouton et des\nnoix marin\u00e9es. Il \u00e9tait fort amateur de noix marin\u00e9es, gentlemen; il\ndisait que, prises sans vinaigre, elles faisaient trouver la bi\u00e8re\nmeilleure.\n\nLa grande tourn\u00e9e de mon oncle avait lieu \u00e0 la chute des feuilles. C'est\nalors qu'il faisait rentrer les fonds, et prenait les commissions dans\nle Nord. Il allait de Londres \u00e0 \u00c9dimbourg, d'\u00c9dimbourg \u00e0 Glascow; de\nGlascow il revenait \u00e0 \u00c9dimbourg, et enfin \u00e0 Londres, par le paquebot. Il\nfaut que vous sachiez que cette seconde visite \u00e0 \u00c9dimbourg \u00e9tait pour\nson propre plaisir; il avait l'habitude d'y revenir pour une semaine,\njuste le temps de voir ses vieux amis; et comme il d\u00e9jeunait avec\ncelui-ci, go\u00fbtait avec celui-l\u00e0, d\u00eenait avec un troisi\u00e8me et soupait\navec un autre, il passait une jolie petite semaine, pas mal occup\u00e9e. Je\nne sais pas si quelqu'un de vous, gentlemen, a jamais t\u00e2t\u00e9 d'un solide\nd\u00e9jeuner \u00e9cossais, substantiel, abondant, puis est all\u00e9 ensuite faire un\npetit go\u00fbter d'un baril d'hu\u00eetres et d'une douzaine de bouteilles d'ale,\navec un ou deux flacons de whiskey, pour terminer. Si cela vous est\narriv\u00e9, vous conviendrez avec moi qu'il faut avoir la t\u00eate un peu\nsolide pour faire honneur, apr\u00e8s cela, au d\u00eener et au souper.\n\nMais que Dieu vous b\u00e9nisse tant cela n'\u00e9tait rien pour mon oncle. Il y\n\u00e9tait si bien fait, que ce n'\u00e9tait pour lui qu'un jeu d'enfant. Je lui\nai entendu dire qu'il pouvait tenir t\u00eate aux gens de Dundee, et revenir\nchez lui sans tr\u00e9bucher; et cependant, gentlemen, les gens de Dundee ont\ndes t\u00eates et du punch aussi forts que vous pouvez en rencontrer entre\nles deux p\u00f4les. J'ai entendu parler d'un homme de Dundee et d'un autre\nde Glasgow, qui burent ensemble pendant quinze heures cons\u00e9cutives.\nAutant qu'on put s'en assurer, ils furent suffoqu\u00e9s \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s au m\u00eame\ninstant: mais \u00e0 cela pr\u00e8s, gentlemen, ils ne s'en trouv\u00e8rent pas plus\nmal.\n\nUn soir, vingt-quatre heures avant l'\u00e9poque qu'il avait fix\u00e9e pour son\nembarquement, mon oncle soupa chez un de ses plus anciens amis, qui\nrestait dans la vieille ville d'\u00c9dimbourg. Un Mac quelque chose, avec\nquatre syllabes apr\u00e8s. Il y avait la femme du bailli, et les trois\nfilles du bailli, et le grand-fils du bailli, et trois ou quatre gros\n\u00c9cossais madr\u00e9s, \u00e0 sourcils \u00e9pais, que le bailli avait rassembl\u00e9s pour\nfaire honneur \u00e0 mon oncle, et pour aider \u00e0 chasser la m\u00e9lancolie. Ce fut\nun glorieux souper. On y mangea du saumon marin\u00e9, des merluches fum\u00e9es,\nune t\u00eate d'agneau, et un boudin, un haggis, c\u00e9l\u00e8bre plat \u00e9cossais, qui\nfaisait toujours \u00e0 mon oncle l'effet de l'estomac d'un petit amour. Il y\navait bien d'autres choses encore, dont j'ai oubli\u00e9 les noms, mais de\nbonnes choses n\u00e9anmoins. Les jeunes filles \u00e9taient agr\u00e9ables, la femme\ndu bailli paraissait une des meilleures cr\u00e9atures qui aient jamais\nexist\u00e9, et mon oncle se montra d'une humeur charmante. Aussi, pendant\ntoute la soir\u00e9e, fallait-il voir les jeunes filles sourire en dessous,\net la vieille dame \u00e9clater de rire, et les joyeux compagnons pouffer si\njoliment que leur large face en devenait \u00e9carlate. Je ne me rappelle\npas, au juste, combien de verres de grog au _whiskey_ chacun d'eux but,\napr\u00e8s souper; mais ce que je sais, c'est que, vers une heure du matin,\nle grand fils du bailli perdit connaissance au moment o\u00f9 il entamait\npour la vingti\u00e8me fois un couplet de la chanson de Burns: _Oh! Wilie\nbrassa un picotin d'orge_. Comme depuis une demi-heure environ c'\u00e9tait\nle seul convive que mon oncle p\u00fbt voir au-dessus de la table, il s'avisa\nqu'il \u00e9tait bient\u00f4t temps de s'en aller, afin qu'il p\u00fbt rentrer chez lui\n\u00e0 une heure d\u00e9cente, d'autant plus qu'on avait commenc\u00e9 \u00e0 boire \u00e0 sept\nheures du soir. Croyant n\u00e9anmoins qu'il ne serait pas poli de partir\nsans dire gare, mon oncle se vota au fauteuil, m\u00e9langea un autre verre\nde grog, se leva pour proposer sa sant\u00e9, s'adressa un discours bien\ntourn\u00e9 et tr\u00e8s flatteur, et but le toast avec enthousiasme. Cependant\npersonne ne se r\u00e9veillait. Mon oncle but encore une petite goutte pure,\ncette fois, de peur que le punch ne lui f\u00eet mal, et finalement,\nempoignant son chapeau, sortit dans la rue.\n\nIl faisait beaucoup de vent, lorsque mon oncle ferma la porte du bailli.\nIl enfon\u00e7a solidement son chapeau sur sa t\u00eate, fourra ses mains dans ses\npoches, et regardant en l'air, passa rapidement en revue l'\u00e9tat de\nl'atmosph\u00e8re. Des nuages passaient sur la lune avec la plus folle\nvitesse, tant\u00f4t l'obscurcissant tout \u00e0 fait, tant\u00f4t lui permettant de\nr\u00e9pandre toute sa splendeur sur les objets environnants, puis passant de\nnouveau sur elle avec une rapidit\u00e9 incroyable. \u00abR\u00e9ellement, dit mon\noncle en s'adressant au temps comme s'il s'\u00e9tait senti personnellement\noffens\u00e9, \u00e7a ne peut pas aller comme cela. Ce n'est pas l\u00e0 du tout le\ntemps qu'il me faut pour mon voyage. Je n'en veux pas \u00e0 aucun prix\u00bb dit\nmon oncle d'une voix imposante. Apr\u00e8s avoir r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9 cela plusieurs fois,\net apr\u00e8s avoir recouvr\u00e9 son \u00e9quilibre, car il \u00e9tait un peu \u00e9tourdi\nd'avoir regard\u00e9 si longtemps en l'air, il se remit gaiement en marche.\n\nLa maison du bailli \u00e9tait dans _Canongate_, et mon oncle allait \u00e0\nl'autre bout du _Leithwalk_; un peu plus d'un mille de distance. \u00c0 sa\ndroite et \u00e0 sa gauche, s'\u00e9levaient vers les cieux de grandes maisons\nisol\u00e9es, hautes, d\u00e9charn\u00e9es, dont les fa\u00e7ades \u00e9taient noircies par\nl'\u00e2ge, dont les fen\u00eatres, comme les yeux des vieillards, semblaient \u00eatre\nternes et creus\u00e9es par les ann\u00e9es. Six, sept, huit \u00e9tages, s'empilaient\ncomme des ch\u00e2teaux de cartes, les uns au-dessus des autres, jetant leur\nombre \u00e9paisse sur la route pav\u00e9e de pierres raboteuses, en rendant la\nnuit encore plus noire. Un petit nombre de lanternes \u00e9taient \u00e9parpill\u00e9es\n\u00e0 de grandes distances; mais elles servaient seulement \u00e0 marquer\nl'entr\u00e9e malpropre de quelques \u00e9troits culs-de-sac, ou de quelques\nescaliers conduisant par des m\u00e9andres roides et compliqu\u00e9s aux divers\n\u00e9tages sup\u00e9rieurs. Regardant toutes ces choses de l'air de quelqu'un qui\nles a vues trop souvent pour s'en soucier beaucoup, mon oncle marchait\nau milieu de la rue, avec son pouce dans chacune des poches de son\ngilet, modulant de temps en temps la chansonnette avec tant de chaleur\nque les honn\u00eates habitants du voisinage, r\u00e9veill\u00e9s en sursaut de leur\npremier sommeil, restaient tremblante dans leur lit, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que le\nson s'\u00e9teignit en s'\u00e9loignant, et convaincus alors que c'\u00e9tait quelque\npropret \u00e0 rien d'ivrogne qui regagnait sa maison, ce recouvraient\nchaudement et s'endormaient de nouveau.\n\nGentlemen, je vous raconte minutieusement comment mon oncle marchait au\nmilieu de la rue, avec ses pouces dans les poches de son gilet, parce\nque, comme il le disait souvent et avec raison, il n'y a rien du tout\nd'extraordinaire dans cette histoire, si vous ne voyez pas bien\ndistinctement, d\u00e8s le commencement, qu'il n'avait pas du tout l'esprit\ntourn\u00e9 au merveilleux, ni au romantique.\n\nMon oncle marchait donc, avec ses pouces dans les poches de son gilet,\noccupant le milieu de la rue \u00e0 lui tout seul, et chantant tant\u00f4t un\nrefrain d'amour, tant\u00f4t un refrain bachique; puis, quand il \u00e9tait\nfatigu\u00e9 de l'amour et du Bacchus, sifflant m\u00e9lodieusement; lorsqu'il\natteignit le pont du Nord, qui, en cet endroit, r\u00e9unit la vieille ville\nd'\u00c9dimbourg \u00e0 la ville nouvelle. Il s'y arr\u00eata, pendant une minute, \u00e0\nconsid\u00e9rer l'amas \u00e9trange et irr\u00e9gulier de lumi\u00e8res, empil\u00e9es si haut\ndans les airs, qu'on croirait voir des \u00e9toiles briller, d'un c\u00f4t\u00e9, sur\nles mures de la forteresse, et de l'autre sur Calton-Hill, pour\nilluminer des ch\u00e2teaux a\u00e9riens. \u00c0 leur pied, l'antique et pittoresque\ncit\u00e9 dormait pesamment dans son obscurit\u00e9 majestueuse, tandis que le\nvieux tr\u00f4ne d'Arthur, qui s'\u00e9levait imposant et sombre, comme un\npuissant g\u00e9nie, semblait garder et prot\u00e9ger le ch\u00e2teau et la chapelle\nd'Holyrood. Je dis, gentlemen, que mon oncle s'arr\u00eate l\u00e0 une minute ou\ndeux, pour regarder autour de lui. Ensuite faisant un doigt de\ncompliment au temps qui s'\u00e9tait un peu \u00e9clairci, quoique la lune fut sur\nson d\u00e9clin, il se remit \u00e0 marcher aussi royalement qu'auparavant,\noccupant le milieu de la route, avec une grande dignit\u00e9, et comme\nquelqu'un qui voudrait bien voir qu'on lui en disput\u00e2t la possession.\nPourtant, comme il ne se trouvait l\u00e0 personne qui f\u00fbt dispos\u00e9 \u00e0 ouvrir\nune contestation \u00e0 ce sujet, il continua de marcher, avec les pouces\ndans les poches de son gilet, aussi paisible qu'un agneau. Quand mon\noncle eut atteint la fin de Leith-Walk, il lui fallut traverser un grand\nterrain vague, au bout duquel, en ce temps-l\u00e0, se trouvait un enclos,\nappartenant \u00e0 un charron, qui rachetait \u00e0 l'administration des postes\nles voitures hors de service. Mon oncle \u00e9tait grand amateur de voitures,\nvieilles, jeunes ou d'\u00e2ge moyen, et il lui prit fantaisie de se d\u00e9ranger\nde sa route, sans autre but que d'aller lorgner, entre les palissades,\nune douzaine d'antiques malles-postes, qu'il se rappelait avoir vues la,\nen fort mauvais \u00e9tat et toutes d\u00e9mantibul\u00e9es. Mon oncle, gentlemen,\n\u00e9tait d'un caract\u00e8re d\u00e9cid\u00e9, et avait la t\u00eate chaude: ne pouvant pas\nvoir \u00e0 son aise \u00e0 travers les pieux, il grimpa par-dessus, et,\ns'asseyant tranquillement sur un vieux timon, il commen\u00e7a \u00e0 consid\u00e9rer\nles d\u00e9bris des carrosses avec une gravit\u00e9 remarquable.\n\nIl y en avait peut-\u00eatre une douzaine, ou m\u00eame davantage; mon oncle\nn'\u00e9tait pas bien s\u00fbr de cela, et comme c'\u00e9tait un homme fort scrupuleux\n\u00e0 propos de chiffres, il n'aimait point \u00e0 en citer \u00e0 la l\u00e9g\u00e8re. Enfin\nils \u00e9taient l\u00e0 tous, p\u00eale-m\u00eale, dans un \u00e9tat de d\u00e9solation inimaginable.\nLes porti\u00e8res avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 arrach\u00e9es de leurs gonds, les garnitures\nenlev\u00e9es; seulement de distance en distance, une loque pendait encore \u00e0\nun clou rouill\u00e9. Les lanternes \u00e9taient parties, les timons \u00e9vanouis\ndepuis longtemps, les ressorts bris\u00e9s, les boiseries d\u00e9pouill\u00e9es de\npeinture. Le vent sifflait \u00e0 travers les crevasses, et la pluie, qui\ns'\u00e9tait amass\u00e9e sur les imp\u00e9riales, tombait goutte \u00e0 goutte dans\nl'int\u00e9rieur, avec un son lugubre et sourd: c'\u00e9taient enfin les\nsquelettes des malles-postes d\u00e9c\u00e9d\u00e9es; et dans cette place solitaire, \u00e0\ncette heure de la mort, elles avaient quelque chose de lugubre et\nd'horrible.\n\nMon oncle appuya sa t\u00eate sur ses mains, et se mit \u00e0 penser aux gens\nactifs, affair\u00e9s, qui avaient roul\u00e9 autrefois dans ces vieilles\nvoitures, et qui maintenant \u00e9taient aussi silencieux et aussi chang\u00e9s\nqu'elles-m\u00eames. Il pensa aux nombreux individus \u00e0 qui ces carcasses\nvermoulues avaient apport\u00e9, pendant des ann\u00e9es, \u00e0 travers toutes les\nsaisons, tant de nouvelles, impatiemment attendues: nouvelles d'heureux\nvoyage et de bonne sant\u00e9; envoi de lettres de change et d'argent. Le\nmarchand, l'amant, l'\u00e9pouse, la veuve, la m\u00e8re, l'\u00e9colier, le bambin\nm\u00eame qui se tra\u00eenait \u00e0 la porte, en entendant frapper le facteur; avec\nquelle anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 chacun d'eux avait attendu l'arriv\u00e9e de cette vieille\nmalle-poste! Et maintenant, qu'\u00e9taient-ils tous devenus? Gentlemen, mon\noncle disait qu'il avait pens\u00e9 \u00e0 tout cela; mais je soup\u00e7onne plut\u00f4t\nqu'il l'avait lu depuis dans quelque livre, car il d\u00e9clarait\npositivement que, tout en regardant ces squelettes de voitures, il \u00e9tait\ntomb\u00e9 dans une esp\u00e8ce d'assoupissement, dont il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 r\u00e9veill\u00e9\nsoudain par une cloche voisine qui sonnait deux heures. Or, mon oncle\nn'a jamais \u00e9t\u00e9 distingu\u00e9 pour penser vite, et s'il avait r\u00e9ellement\nsong\u00e9 \u00e0 toutes ces choses, je suis convaincu que cela l'aurait tenu,\npour le moins, jusqu'\u00e0 deux heures et demie. Je crois donc pouvoir\naffirmer que mon oncle tomba dans cette esp\u00e8ce d'assoupissement, sans\navoir pens\u00e9 \u00e0 rien du tout.\n\nQuoi qu'il en soit, l'horloge de l'\u00e9glise sonna deux heures. Mon oncle\ns'\u00e9veilla, frotta ses yeux, et sauta sur ses pieds, d'\u00e9tonnement.\n\nEn un instant, d\u00e8s que l'horloge eut sonn\u00e9 deux heures, cet endroit\nd\u00e9sert et abandonn\u00e9 devint plein de vie et d'activit\u00e9. Les porti\u00e8res\nfurent remises sur leurs gonds, les garnitures restaur\u00e9es, les boiseries\nrepeintes, les lampes allum\u00e9es. Dos coussins, des houppelandes \u00e9taient\nplac\u00e9s sur chaque si\u00e9ge; les porteurs fourraient des paquets dans chaque\ncoffre; les gardes rangeaient les sacs de lettres; les palefreniers\njetaient des seaux d'eau sur les roues renouvel\u00e9es; une quantit\u00e9\nd'hommes se pr\u00e9cipitaient de toutes parts, fixant des timons \u00e0 chaque\nvoiture. Les passagers arrivaient; les porte manteaux \u00e9taient emball\u00e9s;\nles chevaux attel\u00e9s; enfin il devenait \u00e9vident que chaque malle allait\npartir sans retard. Gentlemen, mon oncle ouvrait de si grands yeux, en\nvoyant tout cela, que jusqu'au dernier moment de sa vie, il ne pouvait\ns'expliquer comment il avait jamais \u00e9t\u00e9 capable de les refermer.\n\n\u00abAllons, allons! dit une voix \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de mon oncle, en m\u00eame temps qu'il\nsentait une main se poser sur son \u00e9paule; vous \u00eates inscrit pour un\nint\u00e9rieur, il est temps de monter.\n\n--Moi inscrit! s'\u00e9cria mon oncle en se retournant.\n\n--Oui, certainement.\u00bb\n\nMon oncle, gentlemen ne put rien dire, tant il \u00e9tait \u00e9tonn\u00e9. La plus\ndr\u00f4le de chose \u00e9tait que, quoiqu'il y e\u00fbt l\u00e0 un si grand nombre de\npersonnes, et quoique de nouveaux visages arrivassent \u00e0 chaque instant,\non ne pouvait pas dire d'o\u00f9 ils venaient; ils semblaient sortir\nmyst\u00e9rieusement de sous terre ou de l'air, et dispara\u00eetre de la m\u00eame\nmani\u00e8re. D\u00e8s qu'un commissionnaire avait mis son bagage dans la voiture\net re\u00e7u son pourboire, il se retournait, et crac, il avait disparu!\nAvant que mon oncle e\u00fbt eu le temps de s'inqui\u00e9ter de ce qu'il \u00e9tait\ndevenu, une demi-douzaine d'autres apparaissaient, chancelant sous le\npoids de paquets qui paraissaient assez gros pour les \u00e9craser. Une autre\nsingularit\u00e9, c'est que les voyageurs \u00e9taient tous habill\u00e9s d'une mani\u00e8re\n\u00e9trange. Ils avaient de grands habits brod\u00e9s, avec de larges basques,\nd'\u00e9normes parements, et pas de collets: enfin ils portaient de vastes\nperruques, avec un sac par derri\u00e8re. Mon oncle n'y pouvait rien\ncomprendre.\n\n\u00abEh bien! allons-nous monter?\u00bb dit l'individu qui s'\u00e9tait d\u00e9j\u00e0 adress\u00e9\n\u00e0 mon oncle.\n\nIl \u00e9tait habill\u00e9 comme un courrier de malle-poste, mais il avait une\nperruque sur la t\u00eate, et de prodigieux parements \u00e0 ses manches. D'une\nmain il tenait une lanterne, et de l'autre une grosse espingole.\n\n\u00abEn finirez-vous de monter, Jack Martin? r\u00e9p\u00e9ta le garde en approchant\nsa lanterne du visage de mon oncle.\n\n--Par exemple! s'\u00e9cria mon oncle en reculant d'un pas ou deux, voil\u00e0 qui\nest familier.\n\n--C'est comme cela sur la feuille de route, r\u00e9pliqua le courrier.\n\n--Est-ce qu'il n'y a pas un _monsieur_ devant? demanda mon oncle; car il\ntrouvait qu'un conducteur, qu'il ne connaissait pas, et qui l'appelait\n_Jack Martin_, tout court, prenait une libert\u00e9 que l'administration de\nla poste n'aurait pas approuv\u00e9e, si elle en avait \u00e9t\u00e9 instruite.\n\n--Non, il n'y en a pas, r\u00e9torqua le conducteur froidement.\n\n--La place est-elle pay\u00e9e? demanda mon oncle.\n\n--Bien entendu.\n\n--Ah! ah! Eh bien, allons. Quelle voiture?\n\n--Celle-ci, r\u00e9pondit le garde en montrant une malle-poste gothique, dont\nla porti\u00e8re \u00e9tait ouverte, le marchepied abaiss\u00e9, et qui faisait le\nservice d'\u00c9dimbourg \u00e0 Londres.\n\n--Attendez, voici d'autres voyageurs: laissez-les monter d'abord.\u00bb\n\nTandis qu'il parlait, mon oncle vit tout \u00e0 coup appara\u00eetre en face de\nlui un jeune gentilhomme, avec une perruque poudr\u00e9e et un habit bleu,\nbrod\u00e9 d'argent, dont les basques doubl\u00e9es de bougran \u00e9taient \u00e9tonnamment\ncarr\u00e9es. Tiggin et Welps \u00e9taient dans les nouveaut\u00e9s, gentlemen, si bien\nque mon oncle reconnut du premier coup d'oeil ces \u00e9toffes. L'\u00e9tranger\navait, en outre, une culotte de soie, des bas de soie et des souliers \u00e0\nboucles. Il portait \u00e0 ses poignets des manchettes, sur sa t\u00eate un\nchapeau \u00e0 trois cornes, et \u00e0 son c\u00f4t\u00e9 une \u00e9p\u00e9e tr\u00e8s-mince. Les pans de\nson gilet couvraient \u00e0 moiti\u00e9 ses cuisses, et les bouts de sa cravate\ndescendaient jusqu'\u00e0 sa ceinture. Il s'avan\u00e7a gravement vers la porti\u00e8re\nde la voiture, \u00f4ta son chapeau et le tint \u00e0 bras tendu au-dessus de sa\nt\u00eate, arrondissant en m\u00eame temps son petit doigt, comme le font quelques\npersonnes mani\u00e9r\u00e9es, en prenant une tasse de th\u00e9. Puis il pla\u00e7a ses\npieds \u00e0 la troisi\u00e8me position, fit un profond salut, et enfin tendit sa\nmain gauche. Mon oncle allait s'avancer et la secouer cordialement,\nquand il s'aper\u00e7\u00fbt que ces civilit\u00e9s n'\u00e9taient pas pour lui, mais pour\nune jeune lady, qui parut en ce moment au bas du marchepied. Elle avait\nune robe de velours vert, d'une coupe antique, avec une longue taille et\nun corsage lac\u00e9. Elle \u00e9tait coiff\u00e9e en cheveux, et portait sur la t\u00eate\nun capuchon de soie noire. Elle se retourna un instant, et d\u00e9couvrit \u00e0\nmon oncle le plus beau visage qu'il e\u00fbt jamais vu, m\u00eame en peinture.\nQuand elle monta dans la voiture, elle releva sa robe d'une main, et,\ncomme le disait mon oncle, avec un juron, chaque fois qu'il racontait\ncette histoire, il n'aurait jamais cru que des pieds et des jambes\npussent atteindre cette perfection, s'il ne l'avait pas vu de ses\npropres yeux.\n\nCependant mon oncle s'\u00e9tait aper\u00e7u que la jeune dame paraissait\n\u00e9pouvant\u00e9e, et qu'elle avait jet\u00e9 vers lui un regard suppliant. Il\nremarqua aussi que le jeune homme \u00e0 la perruque poudr\u00e9e, malgr\u00e9 toutes\nses apparences de respect et de galanterie, lui avait \u00e9troitement serr\u00e9\nle poignet, pour la faire monter, et l'avait suivie imm\u00e9diatement. Un\nautre individu, de fort mauvaise mine, \u00e9tait avec eux. Il avait une\npetite perruque brune, un habit raisin de Corinthe, une \u00e9norme rapi\u00e8re \u00e0\nlarge coquille, et des bottes qui lui montaient jusqu'aux hanches. Quand\nil s'assit aupr\u00e8s de la charmante lady, elle se renfon\u00e7a d'un air\ncraintif, dans son coin, et mon oncle fut confirm\u00e9 dans son id\u00e9e\npremi\u00e8re, qu'il allait se passer quelque drame sombre et myst\u00e9rieux; ou,\ncomme il le disait lui-m\u00eame, qu'il y avait quelque chose qui clochait.\nEn un clin d'oeil, il se d\u00e9cida \u00e0 secourir la jeune dame, si elle avait\nbesoin d'assistance.\n\n\u00abSang et tonnerre!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria le jeune gentilhomme en mettant la main sur\nson \u00e9p\u00e9e lorsque mon oncle entra dans la voiture.\n\n--\u00abMort et enfer!\u00bb vocif\u00e9ra l'autre individu en tirant sa rapi\u00e8re et en\nse fendant sur mon oncle, sans plus de c\u00e9r\u00e9monies.\n\nMon oncle n'avait pas d'armes; mais, avec une grande dext\u00e9rit\u00e9, il\nenleva le chapeau \u00e0 trois cornes de son adversaire, et recevant la\npointe de l'\u00e9p\u00e9e juste au milieu de la forme, serra les deux cot\u00e9s et\nempoigna solidement la lame.\n\n--Piquez-le par derri\u00e8re, s'\u00e9cria l'homme de mauvaise mine \u00e0 son\ncompagnon, tout en s'effor\u00e7ant de rattraper son \u00e9p\u00e9e.\n\n--Qu'il ne s'en avise pas, s'\u00e9cria mon oncle en relevant d'une mani\u00e8re\nmena\u00e7ante le talon d'un de ses souliers ferr\u00e9s, je lui ferais sauter la\ncervelle, s'il en a, ou s'il n'en a pas je lui briserais le cr\u00e2ne!\nEmployant en m\u00eame temps toute sa vigueur, il arracha l'\u00e9p\u00e9e de son\nadversaire et la jeta bravement par la porti\u00e8re.\n\n--Sang et tonnerre!\u00bb cria sur nouveaux frais le jeune gentilhomme en\nmettant encore la main sur le pommeau de son \u00e9p\u00e9e, mais sans la tirer.\nPeut-\u00eatre, comme le disait mon oncle avec un sourire, peut-\u00eatre avait-il\npeur d'effrayer la jeune dame.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, gentlemen, dit mon oncle en prenant tranquillement sa\nplace, il est inutile de parler de mort avec ou sans enfer, devant une\ndame, et nous avons eu assez de sang et de tonnerre pour notre voyage.\nAinsi, s'il vous pla\u00eet, nous nous assi\u00e9rons pacifiquement \u00e0 nos places\ncomme de paisibles voyageurs. Ici, conducteur! ramassez le couteau \u00e0\nd\u00e9couper de ce gentleman.\u00bb\n\n\u00abMon oncle n'avait pas achev\u00e9 ces mots, lorsque le conducteur parut \u00e0 la\nporti\u00e8re avec l'\u00e9p\u00e9e. En la passant dans l'int\u00e9rieur, il leva sa\nlanterne et regarda fixement mon oncle, qui, \u00e0 sa grande surprise,\naper\u00e7ut autour de la voiture une fourmili\u00e8re de conducteurs ayant tous\nles yeux riv\u00e9s sur lui. Jamais, dans toute sa vie, il n'avait vu un si\ngrand nombre de visages p\u00e2les, d'habits rouges et de regards fixes.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0 la chose la plus \u00e9trange qui me soit arriv\u00e9e jusqu'\u00e0 ce jour,\npensa mon oncle. Permettez-moi de vous rendre votre chapeau, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nL'individu de mauvaise mine re\u00e7ut en silence le chapeau \u00e0 trois cornes,\nregarda attentivement le trou qui se trouvait au milieu, et, finalement,\nle pla\u00e7a sur le sommet de sa perruque, avec une solennit\u00e9 dont l'effet\nfut cependant l\u00e9g\u00e8rement diminu\u00e9 par un violent \u00e9ternuement qui fit\nretomber son tricorne sur ses genoux.\n\n\u00abEn route!\u00bb cria la conducteur arm\u00e9 de la lanterne, en montant par\nderri\u00e8re sur son petit si\u00e9ge. La voiture partit. Mon oncle, en sortant\nde la cour, regarda \u00e0 travers les glaces, et vit que les autres malles,\navec les cochers, les gardes, les chevaux et les voyageurs, tournaient\nen rond, au petit trot, avec une vitesse d'environ cinq milles \u00e0\nl'heure. Mon oncle bouillait d'indignation, gentlemen. Comme n\u00e9gociant\nil trouvait qu'on ne devait pas badiner avec les d\u00e9p\u00eaches, et il r\u00e9solut\nd'en \u00e9crire \u00e0 la direction des postes aussit\u00f4t apr\u00e8s son retour \u00e0\nLondres.\n\nBient\u00f4t cependant toutes ses pens\u00e9es se concentr\u00e8rent sur la jeune dame,\nqui \u00e9tait assise \u00e0 l'autre coin de l'int\u00e9rieur, le visage soigneusement\nenvelopp\u00e9 dans son capuchon. Le gentilhomme \u00e0 l'habit bleu se trouvait\nen face d'elle, et \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 d'elle, l'autre individu en habit raisin de\nCorinthe. Tous les deux la surveillaient attentivement. Si elle faisait\nfr\u00f4ler les plis de son capuchon, mon oncle entendait l'homme de mauvaise\nmine mettre la main sur sa rapi\u00e8re, et il \u00e9tait s\u00fbr, par la respiration\ndu jeune matamore (car la nuit \u00e9tait trop noire pour distinguer les\nvisages), qu'il lui faisait une moue et des yeux comme s'il avait voulu\nl'avaler. Ce man\u00e8ge irrita mon oncle de plus en plus, et il r\u00e9solut d'en\nvoir la fin \u00e0 tout prix. Il avait une grande admiration pour les yeux\nbrillants et pour les jolis visages, pour les pieds mignons et pour les\njolies jambes; en un mot, il \u00e9tait passionn\u00e9 pour le sexe tout entier.\nCela court dans le sang de la famille, gentlemen, je suis comme lui.\n\nMon oncle employa bien des subterfuges pour attirer l'attention de la\njeune dame, ou tout au moins pour engager la conversation avec ses\nmyst\u00e9rieux compagnons, mais ce fut en vain. Les gentlemen ne voulaient\npas parler, et la jeune dame ne l'osait pas. De temps en temps mon oncle\nmettait la t\u00eate \u00e0 la porti\u00e8re et demandait \u00e0 haute voix pourquoi on\nn'allait pas plus vite; mais il avait beau s'enrouer \u00e0 crier, personne\nne faisait attention \u00e0 lui. Il se renfon\u00e7ait alors dans son coin et\npensait au joli visage, au pied mignon, \u00e0 la jambe fine de sa compagne\nde voyage; ceci r\u00e9ussissait \u00e0 lui faire passer le temps, et l'emp\u00eachait\nde s'inqui\u00e9ter de l'\u00e9trange situation o\u00f9 il se trouvait, allant toujours\nsans savoir o\u00f9. Il est vrai que cela ne l'aurait pas beaucoup tourment\u00e9\nde toute mani\u00e8re; car mon oncle, gentlemen, \u00e9tait un gaillard\nentreprenant, nomade, sans peur et sans souci.\n\nTout d'un coup la voiture s'arr\u00eata:\n\n\u00abOh\u00e9! cria mon onde, qu'est-ce qui nous arrive maintenant;\n\n--Descendez ici, dit le conducteur en abattant le marchepied.\n\n--Ici! fit mon oncle.\n\n--Ici r\u00e9p\u00e9ta le garde.\n\n--Je n'en ferai rien.\n\n--\u00c0 la bonne heure, alors, restez o\u00f9 vous \u00eates.\n\n--C'est mon intention.\n\n--C'est bien.\u00bb\n\nLes autres voyageurs avaient \u00e9cout\u00e9 ce colloque fort attentivement.\nVoyant que mon onde \u00e9tait d\u00e9termin\u00e9 \u00e0 rester, le jeune gentilhomme passa\ndevant lui, pour faire descendre la dame. Dans ce moment, l'homme de\nmauvaise mine inspectait minutieusement le trou qui d\u00e9shonorait le fond\nde son tricorne. La jeune dame, en passant, laissa tomber son gant dans\nla main de mon oncle, et, approchant les l\u00e8vres de son visage, si pr\u00e8s\nqu'il sentit sur son nez une ti\u00e8de haleine, lui murmura tout bas ces\ndeux mots:\u00abSecourez-moi monsieur.\u00bb Mon oncle s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a \u00e0 bas de la\nvoiture avec tant de violence qu'il la fit bondir sur ses ressorts.\n\n\u00abAh! vous vous ravisez?\u00bb a dit le conducteur, quand il vit mon oncle sur\nses jambes.\n\nMon oncle le regarda pendant quelques secondes, incertain s'il devait\nlui arracher son espingole, la tirer au visage du matamore, casser la\nt\u00eate du reste de la compagnie avec la crosse, saisir la jeune dame et\ndispara\u00eetre au milieu de la fum\u00e9e. En y r\u00e9fl\u00e9chissant, toutefois, il\nabandonna ce plan, comme d'une ex\u00e9cution un peu m\u00e9lodramatique, et il se\ncontenta de suivre les deux hommes myst\u00e9rieux dans une vieille maison\ndevant laquelle la voiture s'\u00e9tait arr\u00eat\u00e9e. Conduisant entre eux la\njeune dame, ils tourn\u00e8rent dans le corridor, et mon oncle s'y enfon\u00e7a \u00e0\nleur suite.\n\nDe tous les endroits ruin\u00e9s et d\u00e9sol\u00e9s que mon oncle avait rencontr\u00e9s\ndans sa vie, celui-ci \u00e9tait le plus d\u00e9sol\u00e9 et le plus ruin\u00e9. On voyait\nque \u00e7'avait \u00e9t\u00e9 autrefois un vaste h\u00f4tel, mais le toit \u00e9tait ouvert dans\nplusieurs endroits, et les escaliers \u00e9taient raboteux et d\u00e9fonc\u00e9s. Dans\nla chambre o\u00f9 les voyageurs entr\u00e8rent, il y avait une vaste chemin\u00e9e,\ntoute noire de fum\u00e9e, quoiqu'elle ne f\u00fbt \u00e9gay\u00e9e par aucun feu. La cendre\nblanch\u00e2tre du bois br\u00fbl\u00e9 \u00e9tait encore r\u00e9pandue sur l'\u00e2tre, mais le foyer\n\u00e9tait froid, et tout paraissait sombre et triste.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0 du joli, dit mon oncle en regardant autour de lui; une malle qui\nfait six milles et demi \u00e0 l'heure, et qui s'arr\u00eate ind\u00e9finiment dans un\ntrou comme celui-ci! C'est un peu fort! mais \u00e7a sera connu; j'en \u00e9crirai\naux journaux.\u00bb\n\nMon oncle dit cela d'une voix assez \u00e9lev\u00e9e et d'une mani\u00e8re ouverte et\nsans r\u00e9serve, pour t\u00e2cher d'engager la conversation avec les deux\n\u00e9trangers; mais ils se content\u00e8rent de chuchoter entre eux, en lui\nlan\u00e7ant des regards farouches. La dame \u00e9tait \u00e0 l'autre bout de la\nchambre, et elle s'aventura, une fois, \u00e0 agiter sa main, comme pour\ndemander l'assistance de mon oncle.\n\n\u00c0 la fin les deux \u00e9trangers s'avanc\u00e8rent un peu, et la conversation\ncommen\u00e7a.\n\n\u00abMon brave homme, dit le gentilhomme en habit bleu, vous ne savez pas,\nje suppose, que ceci est une chambre particuli\u00e8re.\n\n--Non, mon brave homme; je n'en sais rien, r\u00e9torqua mon oncle.\nSeulement si ceci est une chambre particuli\u00e8re, pr\u00e9par\u00e9e expr\u00e8s,\nj'imagine que la salle publique doit \u00eatre joliment confortable!\u00bb\n\nEn disant cela, mon oncle s'\u00e9tablit dans un grand fauteuil et mesura de\nl'oeil les deux gentlemen, si exactement, que Tiggin et Welps auraient\npu leur fournir l'\u00e9toffe d'un habit, sans y mettre un pouce de plus ni\nde moins.\n\n\u00abQuittez cette chambre! dirent les deux hommes ensemble, en saisissant\nleurs \u00e9p\u00e9es.\n\n--Hein? fit mon oncle, sans avoir l'air de comprendre ce qu'ils\nvoulaient dire.\n\n--Quittez cette chambre, ou vous \u00eates mort! dit l'homme de mauvaise\nmine, en mettant sa grande flamberge au vent, et en la faisant voltiger\nau-dessus de sa t\u00eate.\n\n--Tue! tue! s'\u00e9cria l'homme \u00e0 l'habit bleu, en d\u00e9gainant aussi son \u00e9p\u00e9e\net en reculant deux ou trois pas. Tue! tue!\u00bb\n\nLa dame jeta un grand cri. Mon oncle, gentlemen, \u00e9tait remarquable pour\nsa hardiesse et pour sa pr\u00e9sence d'esprit. Pendant tout le temps qu'il\navait paru si indiff\u00e9rent \u00e0 ce qui se passait, il \u00e9tait occup\u00e9 \u00e0\nchercher, sans en faire semblant, quelques projectiles ou quelque arme\nd\u00e9fensive; et au moment m\u00eame o\u00f9 les \u00e9p\u00e9es furent tir\u00e9es, il aper\u00e7ut,\ndans le coin de la chemin\u00e9e, une vieille rapi\u00e8re \u00e0 coquille, avec un\nfourreau rouill\u00e9. D'un seul bond, mon oncle l'atteignit, la tira, la fit\ntourner rapidement au-dessus de sa t\u00eate, cria \u00e0 la jeune dame de se\nretirer dans un coin, lan\u00e7a le fourreau \u00e0 l'homme de mauvaise mine, jeta\nune chaise au gentilhomme en habit bleu, et prenant avantage de leur\nconfusion, tomba sur tous les deux, p\u00eale-m\u00eale.\n\nIl y a une vieille histoire, qui n'en est pas moins bonne pour \u00eatre\nvieille, concernant un jeune gentleman irlandais, \u00e0 qui l'on demandait\ns'il jouait du violon: \u00abJe n'en sais rien, r\u00e9pondit-il; car je n'ai\njamais essay\u00e9.\u00bb Ceci pourrait fort bien s'appliquer \u00e0 mon oncle et \u00e0 son\nescrime. Il n'avait jamais tenu une \u00e9p\u00e9e dans sa main, si ce n'est une\nfois, en jouant Richard III sur un th\u00e9\u00e2tre d'amateurs; et encore, dans\ncette occasion, il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 convenu que Richmond le tuerait par\nderri\u00e8re, sans faire le simulacre du combat; mais ici, voil\u00e0 qu'il\nfaisait assaut avec deux habiles tireurs, poussant de tierce et de\nquarte, parant, se fendant, et combattant enfin de la mani\u00e8re la plus\ncourageuse et la plus adroite, quoique jusqu'\u00e0 ce moment il ne se f\u00fbt\npas dout\u00e9 qu'il e\u00fbt la plus l\u00e9g\u00e8re notion de la science de l'escrime.\nCela montra la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 de ce vieux proverbe, qu'un homme ne sait pas ce\nqu'il peut faire tant qu'il ne l'a pas essay\u00e9.\n\nLe bruit du combat \u00e9tait terrible. Les trois champions juraient comme\ndes troupiers, et leurs \u00e9p\u00e9es faisaient un cliquetis plus bruyant que ne\npourraient faire tous les couteaux et toutes les m\u00e9caniques \u00e0 affiler du\nmarch\u00e9 de Newport, s'entrechoquant en mesure. Au moment le plus anim\u00e9,\nla jeune dame, sans doute pour encourager mon oncle, retira enti\u00e8rement\nson chaperon, et lui fit voir une si \u00e9blouissante beaut\u00e9 qu'il aurait\ncombattu contre cinquante d\u00e9mons pour obtenir d'elle un sourire, et\nmourir au m\u00eame instant. Il avait fait des merveilles jusque-l\u00e0, mais il\ncommen\u00e7a alors \u00e0 se d\u00e9tacher comme un g\u00e9ant enrag\u00e9.\n\nLe gentilhomme en habit bleu aper\u00e7ut en se retournant que la jeune dame\navait d\u00e9couvert son visage; il poussa une exclamation de rage et de\njalousie, et, tournant son \u00e9p\u00e9e vers elle, il lui lan\u00e7a un coup de\npointe, qui fit pousser \u00e0 mon oncle un rugissement d'appr\u00e9hension. Mais\nla jeune dame sauta l\u00e9g\u00e8rement de c\u00f4t\u00e9, et saisissant l'\u00e9p\u00e9e du jeune\nhomme avant qu'il se f\u00fbt redress\u00e9, la lui arracha, le poussa vers le\nmur, et lui passant l'\u00e9p\u00e9e en travers du corps, jusqu'\u00e0 la garde, le\ncloua solidement dans la boiserie. C'\u00e9tait d'un magnifique exemple. Mon\noncle, avec un cri de triomphe et une vigueur irr\u00e9sistible, fit reculer\nson adversaire dans la m\u00eame direction, et plongeant la vieille rapi\u00e8re\njuste au centre d'une des fleurs de son gilet, le cloua \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de son\nami. Ils \u00e9taient l\u00e0 tous les deux gentlemen, gigotant des bras et des\njambes dans leur agonie, comme les pantins de carton que les enfants\nfont mouvoir avec un fil. Mon oncle r\u00e9p\u00e9tait souvent, dans la suite, que\nc'\u00e9tait l\u00e0 la mani\u00e8re la plus s\u00fbre de se d\u00e9barrasser d'un ennemi, et\nqu'elle ne pr\u00e9sentait qu'un seul inconv\u00e9nient, c'\u00e9tait la d\u00e9pense\nqu'elle entra\u00eenait, puisqu'il fallait perdre une \u00e9p\u00e9e pour chaque homme\nmis hors de combat.\n\n\u00abLa malle! la malle! cria la jeune dame, en se pr\u00e9cipitant vers mon\noncle, et en lui jetant ses beaux bras autour du cou; nous pouvons\nencore nous sauver!\n\n--Vraiment, ma ch\u00e8re, dit mon oncle, cala ne me para\u00eet gu\u00e8re douteux. Il\nme semble qu'il n'y a plus personne \u00e0 tuer.\u00bb\n\nMon oncle \u00e9tait un peu d\u00e9sappoint\u00e9, gentlemen; car il pensait qu'un\npetit interm\u00e8de d'amour e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 fort agr\u00e9able apr\u00e8s ce massacre, quand\nce n'e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 qu'\u00e0 cause du contraste.\n\n\u00abNous n'avons pas un instant \u00e0 perdre ici, reprit la jeune lady.\nCelui-ci (montrant le gentilhomme en habit bleu) est le fils du puissant\nmarquis de Filleteville.\n\n--Eh bien! ma ch\u00e8re, j'ai peur qu'il n'en porte jamais le titre,\nr\u00e9pondit mon oncle, en regardant froidement le jeune homme, qui \u00e9tait\npiqu\u00e9 contre le mur comme un papillon. Vous avez \u00e9teint le majorat, mon\namour.\n\n--J'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 enlev\u00e9e \u00e0 ma famille, \u00e0 mes amis, par ce sc\u00e9l\u00e9rat, s'\u00e9cria la\njeune dame, dont le regard brillait d'indignation. Ce mis\u00e9rable m'aurait\n\u00e9pous\u00e9e de force avant une heure.\n\n--L'impudent coquin! dit mon oncle en jetant un coup d'oeil m\u00e9prisant \u00e0\nl'h\u00e9ritier moribond des Filleteville.\n\n--Comme vous pouvez en juger par ce que vous avez vu, leurs complices\nsont pr\u00eats \u00e0 m'assassiner, si vous invoquez l'assistance de quelqu'un.\nS'ils nous trouvent ici, nous sommes perdus! Dans deux minutes il sera\npeut-\u00eatre trop tard pour fuir. La malle! la malle!\u00bb\n\nEn pronon\u00e7ant ces mots, la jeune dame, \u00e9puis\u00e9e par son \u00e9motion et par\nl'effort qu'elle avait fait en embrochant le marquis de Filleteville, se\nlaissa tomber dans les bras de mon oncle, qui l'emporta aussit\u00f4t devant\nla porte de la maison. La malle \u00e9tait l\u00e0, attel\u00e9e de quatre chevaux\nnoirs \u00e0 tout crin, mais sans cocher, sans conducteur, et m\u00eame sans\npalefrenier \u00e0 la t\u00eate des chevaux.\n\nGentlemen, j'esp\u00e8re que ne je fais pas tort \u00e0 la m\u00e9moire de mon oncle en\ndisant que, quoique gar\u00e7on, il avait tenu, avant ce moment-l\u00e0, quelques\ndames dans ses bras. Je crois m\u00eame qu'il avait l'habitude d'embrasser\nles filles d'auberge, et je sais que deux ou trois fois il a \u00e9t\u00e9 vu par\ndes t\u00e9moins dignes de foi d\u00e9posant un baiser sur le cou d'une ma\u00eetresse\nd'h\u00f4tel d'une mani\u00e8re tr\u00e8s perceptible. Je mentionne ces circonstances\nafin que vous jugiez combien la beaut\u00e9 de cette jeune lady devait \u00eatre\nincomparable pour affecter mon oncle comme elle le fit: il disait\nsouvent qu'en voyant ses longs cheveux noirs flotter sur son bras et ses\nbeaux yeux noirs se tourner vers lui, lorsqu'elle revint \u00e0 elle, il\ns'\u00e9tait senti si agit\u00e9, si dr\u00f4le, que ses jambes en tremblaient sous\nlui. Mais qui peut regarder une paire de jolis yeux noirs sans se sentir\ntout dr\u00f4le? Pour moi, je ne le puis, gentlemen, et je connais certains\nyeux que je n'oserais pas regarder, parole d'honneur!\n\n\u00abVous ne me quitterez jamais, murmura la jeune dame.\n\n--Jamais! r\u00e9pondit mon oncle. Et il le pensait comme il le disait.\n\n--Mon brave lib\u00e9rateur, mon excellent, mon cher lib\u00e9rateur!\n\n--Ne me dites donc pas de ces choses-l\u00e0!\n\n--Pourquoi pas?\n\n--Parce que votre bouche est si s\u00e9duisante quand vous parlez que j'ai\npeur d'\u00eatre assez impertinent pour la baiser.\u00bb\n\nLa jeune femme leva sa main comme pour avertir mon oncle de n'en rien\nfaire et dit... non, elle ne dit rien, elle sourit. Quand vous regardez\nune paire de l\u00e8vres les plus d\u00e9licieuses du monde, et quand elles\ns'\u00e9panouissent doucement en un sourire fripon, si vous \u00eates assez pr\u00e8s\nd'elles et sans t\u00e9moin, vous ne pouvez mieux t\u00e9moigner votre admiration\nde leur forme et de leur couleur charmante qu'en les baisant: c'est ce\nque fit mon oncle, et je l'honore pour cela.\n\n\u00ab\u00c9coutez, s'\u00e9cria la jeune dame en tressaillant, entendez-vous le bruit\ndes roues et des chevaux?\n\n--C'est vrai,\u00bb dit mon oncle en se baissant.\n\nIl avait l'oreille fine et \u00e9tait habitu\u00e9 \u00e0 reconna\u00eetre le roulement des\nvoitures; mais celles qui s'approchaient vers eux paraissaient si\nnombreuses et faisaient tant de fracas qu'il lui fut impossible d'en\ndeviner le nombre. Il semblait qu'il y e\u00fbt cinquante carrosses emport\u00e9s\nchacun par six chevaux.\n\n\u00abNous sommes poursuivis! s'\u00e9cria la jeune dame en tordant ses mains.\nNous sommes poursuivis! Je n'ai plus d'espoir qu'en vous seul!\u00bb\n\nIl y avait une telle expression de terreur sur son charmant visage que\nmon oncle se d\u00e9cida tout d'un coup. Il la porta dans la voiture, lui dit\nde ne pas s'effrayer, pressa encore uns fois ses l\u00e8vres sur les siennes,\net l'ayant engag\u00e9e \u00e0 lever les glaces pour sa pr\u00e9server du froid, monta\nsur le si\u00e9ge.\n\n\u00abAttendez, mon sauveur, dit la jeune lady.\n\n--Qu'est-ce qu'il y a? demanda mon oncle de son si\u00e9ge.\n\n--Je voudrais vous parler. Un mot, un seul mot, mon ch\u00e9ri!\n\n--Faut-il que je descende?\u00bb demanda mon oncle.\n\nLa jeune dame ne fit pas de r\u00e9ponse, mais elle sourit encore, et d'un si\njoli sourire, gentlemen, qu'il enfon\u00e7ait l'autre compl\u00e9tement. Mon oncle\nfut par terre en un clin d'oeil.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce qu'il y a ma ch\u00e8re?\u00bb dit-il en mettant la t\u00eate \u00e0 la porti\u00e8re.\n\nLa dame s'y penchait en m\u00eame temps par hasard, et elle lui parut plus\nbelle que jamais. Il \u00e9tait fort pr\u00e8s d'elle dans ce moment-l\u00e0; ainsi il\nne pouvait pas se tromper.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce qu'il y a, ma ch\u00e8re? demanda mon oncle.\n\n--Vous n'aimerez jamais d'autre femme que moi? Vous n'en \u00e9pouserez\njamais d'autre?\u00bb\n\nMon oncle jura ses grands dieux qu'il n'\u00e9pouserait jamais une autre\nfemme, et la jeune lady retira sa t\u00eate et releva la glace. Mon oncle\ns'\u00e9lan\u00e7a de nouveau sur le si\u00e9ge, \u00e9quarrit ses coudes, ajusta les r\u00eanes,\nprit le fouet sur l'imp\u00e9riale, le fit claquer savamment, et en route!\nLes quatre chevaux noirs \u00e0 tout crin s'\u00e9lanc\u00e8rent avec la vieille malle\nderri\u00e8re eux, d\u00e9vorant quinze bons milles en une heure. Brrr! brrrr!\ncomme ils galopaient!\n\nPourtant le bruit des voitures devenait plus fort par derri\u00e8re. Le vieux\ncarrosse avait beau aller vite, ceux qui le poursuivaient allaient plus\nvite encore. Les hommes, les chevaux, les chiens, semblaient ligu\u00e9s pour\nl'atteindre; le fracas \u00e9tait \u00e9pouvantable, mais par-dessus tout\ns'\u00e9levait la voix de la jeune dame, excitant mon oncle, et lui criant:\n\u00abPlus vite! plus vite! plus vite!\u00bb\n\nIls volaient comme l'\u00e9clair. Les arbres sombres, les meules de foin, les\nmaisons, les \u00e9glises, tous les objets fuyaient \u00e0 droite et \u00e0 gauche,\ncomme des brins de paille emport\u00e9s par un ouragan. Leurs roues\nretentissaient comme un torrent qui d\u00e9chire ses digues, et pourtant le\nbruit de la poursuite devenait plus fort, et mon oncle entendait encore\nla jeune lady crier d'une voix d\u00e9chirante: \u00abPlus vite! plus vite! plus\nvite!\u00bb\n\nMon oncle employait le fouet et les r\u00eanes, et les chevaux d\u00e9talaient\navec tant de rapidit\u00e9, qu'ils \u00e9taient tout blancs d'\u00e9cume, et cependant\nla jeune dame criait encore: \u00abPlus vite! plus vite!\u00bb Dans l'excitation\ndu moment, mon oncle donna un violent coup sur le marchepied avec le\ntalon de sa botte... et il s'aper\u00e7ut que l'aube blanchissait, et qu'il\n\u00e9tait assis sur le si\u00e9ge d'une vieille malle d'\u00c9dimbourg, dans l'enclos\ndu carrossier, grelottant de froid et d'humidit\u00e9, et frappant ses pieds\npour les r\u00e9chauffer. Il descendit avec empressement, et chercha la\ncharmante jeune lady dans l'int\u00e9rieur.... H\u00e9las! il n'y avait ni\nporti\u00e8re, ni coussin \u00e0 la voiture, c'\u00e9tait une simple carcasse.\n\n\nMon oncle vit bien qu'il y avait l\u00e0-dessous quelque myst\u00e8re, et que tout\ns'\u00e9tait pass\u00e9 exactement comme il avait coutume de le raconter. Il resta\nfid\u00e8le au serment qu'il avait fait \u00e0 la jeune dame, refusa, pour l'amour\nd'elle, plusieurs ma\u00eetresses d'auberge, fort d\u00e9sirables, et mourut\ngar\u00e7on \u00e0 la fin. Il faisait souvent remarquer quelle dr\u00f4le de chose\nc'\u00e9tait qu'il e\u00fbt d\u00e9couvert, en montant tout bonnement par-dessus cette\npalissade, que les ombres des malles, des chevaux, des gardes, des\ncochers et des voyageurs, eussent l'habitude de faire des voyages\nr\u00e9guli\u00e8rement chaque nuit. Il ajoutait qu'il croyait \u00eatre le seul\nindividu vivant qu'on e\u00fbt jamais pris comme passager dans une de ces\nexcursions. Je crois effectivement qu'il avait raison, gentlemen, ou du\nmoins je n'ai jamais entendu parler d'aucun autre.\n\n\u00abJe ne comprends pas ce que ces ombres de malles-postes peuvent porter\ndans leurs sacs?... dit l'h\u00f4te, qui avait \u00e9cout\u00e9 l'histoire avec une\nprofonde attention.\n\n--Parbleu, les lettres mortes. [22]\n\n[Footnote 22: En anglais, _dead letters_, lettres mises au rebut. (_Note\ndu traducteur._)]\n\n--Oh! ah! c'est juste. Je n'y avais pas pens\u00e9.\u00bb\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XXI.\n\n\nComment M. Pickwick ex\u00e9cuta sa mission et comment il fut renforc\u00e9, d\u00e8s\nle d\u00e9but, par un auxiliaire tout \u00e0 fait impr\u00e9vu.\n\n\nLes chevaux furent ponctuellement amen\u00e9s le lendemain matin \u00e0 neuf\nheures moins un quart, et M. Pickwick ayant occupa sa place, ainsi que\nSam, l'un \u00e0 l'int\u00e9rieur, l'autre \u00e0 l'ext\u00e9rieur, le postillon re\u00e7ut ordre\nde se rendre \u00e0 la maison de M. Sawyer, afin d'y prendre M. Benjamin\nAllen.\n\nLa voiture arriva bient\u00f4t devant la boutique o\u00f9 se lisait cette\ninscription: _Sawyer, successeur de Nockemorf_; et M. Pickwick, en\nmettant la t\u00eate \u00e0 la porti\u00e8re, vit, avec une surprise extr\u00eame, le jeune\ngar\u00e7on en livr\u00e9e grise, activement occup\u00e9 \u00e0 fermer les volets. \u00c0 cette\nheure de la matin\u00e9e c'\u00e9tait une occupation hors du train ordinaire des\naffaires, et cela fit penser d'abord \u00e0 notre philosophe que quelque ami\nou patient de M. Sawyer \u00e9tait mort, ou bien peut-\u00eatre que M. Bob Sawyer\nlui-m\u00eame avait fait banqueroute.\n\n\u00abQu'est-il donc arriv\u00e9? demanda-t-il au gar\u00e7on.\n\n--Rien du tout, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit celui-ci en fendant sa bouche jusqu'\u00e0\nses oreilles.\n\n--Tout va bien, tout va bien cria Bob en paraissant soudainement sur le\npas de sa porte, avec un petit havresac de cuir, vieux et malpropre,\ndans une main, et dans l'autre une grosse redingote et un ch\u00e2le. Je\nm'embarque, vieux.\n\n--Vous?\n\n--Oui, et nous allons faire une v\u00e9ritable exp\u00e9dition. H\u00e9! Sam, \u00e0 vous!\nAyant ainsi bri\u00e8vement \u00e9veill\u00e9 l'attention de Sam Welter, dont la\nphysionomie exprimait beaucoup d'admiration pour ce proc\u00e9d\u00e9 exp\u00e9ditif,\nBob lui lan\u00e7a son havresac, qui fut imm\u00e9diatement log\u00e9 dans le si\u00e9ge.\nCela fait, ledit Bob, avec l'assistance du gamin, s'introduisit de force\ndans la redingote, beaucoup trop petite pour lui, et, s'approchant de la\nporti\u00e8re du carrosse, y fourra sa t\u00eate, et se prit \u00e0 rire bruyamment.\n\n\u00abQuelle bonne farce! dit-il en essuyant avec son parement les larmes qui\ntombaient de ses yeux.\n\n--Mon cher monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick, avec quelque embarras, je\nn'avais pas la moindre id\u00e9e que vous nous accompagneriez.\n\n--Justement; voil\u00e0 le bon de la chose.\n\n--Ah! voila le bon de la chose? r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick, dubitativement.\n\n--Sans doute: outre le plaisir de laisser la pharmacie se tirer\nd'affaire toute seule, puisqu'elle parait bien d\u00e9cid\u00e9e \u00e0 ne pas se tirer\nd'affaire avec moi.\u00bb\n\nAyant ainsi expliqu\u00e9 le ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne des volets, M. Sawyer retomba dans une\nextase de joie.\n\n\u00abQuoi vous seriez assez fou pour laisser vos malades sans m\u00e9decin? dit\nM. Pickwick d'un ton s\u00e9rieux.\n\n--Pourquoi pas? r\u00e9pliqua Bob. J'y gagnerai encore; il n'y en a pas un\nqui me paye. Et puis, ajoute-t-il en baissant la voix jusqu'\u00e0 un\nchuchotement confidentiel, ils y gagneront, aussi; car, n'ayant presque\nplus de m\u00e9dicaments, et ne pouvant pas les remplacer dans ce moment-ci,\nj'aurais \u00e9t\u00e9 oblig\u00e9 de leur donner \u00e0 tous du calomel; ce qui aurait pu\nmal r\u00e9ussir \u00e0 quelques-uns. Ainsi, tout est pour le mieux.\u00bb\n\nIl y avait dans cette r\u00e9ponse une force de raisonnement et de\nphilosophie \u00e0 laquelle M. Pickwick ne s'attendait point. Il r\u00e9fl\u00e9chit\npendant quelques instants, et dit ensuite, d'une mani\u00e8re moins ferme\ntoutefois:\n\n\u00abMais cette chaise, mon jeune ami, cette chaise ne peut contenir que\ndeux personnes, et je l'ai promise \u00e0 M. Allen.\n\n--Ne vous occupez pas de moi un seul instant, j'ai arrang\u00e9 tout cela,\nSam me fera de la place sur le si\u00e9ge de derri\u00e8re, \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de lui.\nRegardez ceci; ce petit \u00e9criteau va \u00eatre coll\u00e9 sur la porte: _Sawyer,\nsuccesseur de Nockemorf. S'adresser en face, chez Mme Cripps_. Mme\nCripps est la m\u00e8re de mon groom. M. Sawyer est tr\u00e8s f\u00e2ch\u00e9, dira Mme\nCripps, il n'a pas pu faire autrement. On est venu le chercher ce matin\npour une consultation, avec les premiers chirurgiens du pays. On ne\npouvait pas se passer de lui; on voulait l'avoir \u00e0 tout prix. Une\nop\u00e9ration terrible. Le fait est, ajouta Bob, pour conclure, que cela me\nfera, j'esp\u00e8re, plus de bien que de mal. Si on pouvait annoncer mon\nd\u00e9port dans la journal de la localit\u00e9, ma fortune est faite. Mais voila\nBen.... Allons, montez!\u00bb\n\nTout en prof\u00e9rant ces paroles pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9es, Bob poussait de cot\u00e9 le\npostillon, jetait son ami dans la voiture, fermait la porti\u00e8re, relevait\nle marchepied, collait l'\u00e9criteau sur sa porte, la fermait, mettait la\nclef dans sa poche, s'\u00e9lan\u00e7ait \u00e0 cot\u00e9 de Sam, ordonnait au postillon de\npartir, et tout cela avec une rapidit\u00e9 si extraordinaire, que la voiture\nroulait d\u00e9j\u00e0, et que M. Bob Sawyer \u00e9tait compl\u00e8tement \u00e9tabli comme\npartie int\u00e9grante de l'\u00e9quipage, avant que M. Pickwick e\u00fbt eu le temps\nde peser en lui-m\u00eame s'il devait l'emmener ou non.\n\nTant que la voiture se trouva dans les rues de Bristol, le fac\u00e9tieux Bob\nconserva ses lunettes vertes, et se comporta avec une gravit\u00e9\nconvenable, se contentant de chuchoter diverses plaisanteries pour\nl'amusement sp\u00e9cial de Samuel Weller; mais, une fois arriv\u00e9 sur la\ngrand'route, il se d\u00e9pouilla \u00e0 la fois de ses lunettes et de sa gravit\u00e9\nprofessionnelle, et se r\u00e9gala de diverses charges qui pouvaient jusqu'\u00e0\nun certain point attirer l'attention des passante sur la voiture, et\nrendre ceux qu'elle contenait l'objet d'une curiosit\u00e9 plus qu'ordinaire.\nLe moins remarquable de ces exploits \u00e9tait l'imitation bruyante d'un\ncornet \u00e0 piston et le d\u00e9ploiement ambitieux d'un mouchoir de soie rouge\nattach\u00e9 au bout d'une canne, en guise de pavillon, et agit\u00e9 de temps en\ntemps d'un air de supr\u00e9matie et de provocation.\n\n\u00abJe ne comprends pas, dit M. Pickwick en s'arr\u00eatant au milieu d'une\ngrave conversation avec M. Ben Allen, sur les bonnes qualit\u00e9s de M.\nWinkle et de sa jeune \u00e9pouse, je ne comprends pas ce que tons les\npassants trouvent en nous de si extraordinaire pour nous examiner ainsi.\n\n--La bonne tournure de la voiture, r\u00e9pondit B\u00e9a avec un l\u00e9ger sentiment\nd'orgueil. Je parierais qu'ils n'en voient pas tous les jours de\nsemblables.\n\n--Cela n'est pas impossible... cela ne peut... cela doit \u00eatre\u00bb reprit M.\nPickwick, qui se savait sans doute persuad\u00e9 que cela _\u00e9tait_ si,\nregardant en ce moment par la porti\u00e8re, il n'avait pas remarqu\u00e9 que la\ncontenance des passants n'indiquait aucunement un \u00e9tonnement\nrespectueux, et que diverses communications t\u00e9l\u00e9graphiques paraissaient\ns'\u00e9changer entre eux et les habitants ext\u00e9rieurs de la voiture. M.\nPickwick, comprenant instinctivement que cela pouvait avoir quelques\nrapports \u00e9loign\u00e9s avec l'humeur plaisante de M. Bob Sawyer: \u00abJ'esp\u00e8re,\ndit-il, que notre fac\u00e9tieux ami ne commet pas d'absurdit\u00e9s l\u00e0 derri\u00e8re.\n\n--Oh que non! r\u00e9pliqua Ben Allen; except\u00e9 quand il est un peu lanc\u00e9, Bob\nest la plus paisible cr\u00e9ature de la terre.\u00bb\n\nIci l'on entendit l'imitation prolong\u00e9e d'un cornet \u00e0 piston,\nimm\u00e9diatement suivie par des cris, par des hourras, qui sortaient\n\u00e9videmment du gosier et des poumons de _la plus paisible cr\u00e9ature du\nmonde_, ou, en termes plus clairs, de M. Bob Sawyer lui-m\u00eame.\n\nM. Pickwick et M. Ben Allen \u00e9chang\u00e8rent un regard expressif, et le\npremier de ces gentlemen, \u00f4tant son chapeau et se penchant par la\nporti\u00e8re, de fa\u00e7on que presque tout son gilet \u00e9tait en dehors, parvint\nenfin \u00e0 apercevoir le jovial pharmacien.\n\nM. Bob Sawyer \u00e9tait assis, non pas sur le si\u00e9ge de derri\u00e8re, mais sur le\nhaut de la voiture, les jambes aussi \u00e9cart\u00e9es que possible; il portait\nsur le coin de l'oreille le chapeau de Sam, et tenait d'une main une\n\u00e9norme sandwich, tandis que, de l'autre, il soulevait un immense flacon.\nD'un air de suave jouissance, il caressait tour \u00e0 tour l'un et l'antre,\nvariant toutefois la monotonie de cette occupation en poussant de temps\nen temps quelques cris, ou en \u00e9changeant avec les passants quelques\nspirituels badinages. Le pavillon sanguinaire \u00e9tait soigneusement\nattach\u00e9 au si\u00e9ge de la voiture, dans une position verticale, et M.\nSamuel Weller, d\u00e9cor\u00e9 du chapeau de Bob, \u00e9tait en train d'exp\u00e9dier une\ndouble sandwich avec une contenance anim\u00e9e et satisfaite, qui annon\u00e7ait\nson enti\u00e8re approbation de tous ces proc\u00e9d\u00e9s.\n\nCela \u00e9tait bien suffisant pour irriter un gentleman ayant, autant que M.\nPickwick, le sentiment des convenances; mais ce n'\u00e9tait pas encore l\u00e0\ntout le mal, car la chaise de poste croisait, en ce moment-l\u00e0 m\u00eame, une\nvoiture publique, charg\u00e9e \u00e0 l'ext\u00e9rieur comme \u00e0 l'int\u00e9rieur de\nvoyageurs, dont l'\u00e9tonnement \u00e9tait exprim\u00e9 d'une mani\u00e8re fort\nsignificative. Les congratulations d'une famille irlandaise qui courait\n\u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la chaise en demandant l'aum\u00f4ne, \u00e9taient aussi passablement\nbruyantes, surtout celles du chef de la famille, car il paraissait\ncroire que cet \u00e9talage faisait partie de quelque d\u00e9monstration politique\net triomphale.\n\n\u00abMonsieur Sawyer! cria M. Pickwick dans un \u00e9tat de grande excitation.\nMonsieur Sawyer, monsieur!\n\n--Oh\u00e9! r\u00e9pondit l'aimable jeune homme en se penchant sur un c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la\nvoiture avec toute la tranquillit\u00e9 imaginable.\n\n--\u00cates-vous fou, monsieur?\n\n--Pas le moins du monde! Je ne suis que gai.\n\n--Gai! Otez-moi ce scandaleux mouchoir rouge, monsieur! J'exige que vous\nl'abattiez, monsieur! Sam, \u00f4tez-le sur-le-champ!\u00bb\n\nAvant que Sam e\u00fbt pu intervenir, M. Bob Sawyer amena gracieusement son\npavillon, le pla\u00e7a dans sa poche, fit un signe de t\u00eate poli \u00e0 M.\nPickwick, essuya le goulot de la bouteille et l'appliqua \u00e0 sa bouche,\nlui faisant comprendre par l\u00e0, sans perte de paroles, qu'il lui\nsouhaitait toutes sortes de bonheur et de prosp\u00e9rit\u00e9. Ayant ex\u00e9cut\u00e9\ncette pantomime, Bob repla\u00e7a soigneusement le bouchon, et, regardant M.\nPickwick d'un air b\u00e9nin, mordit une bonne bouch\u00e9e dans sa sandwich, et\nsourit.\n\n\u00abAllons! dit M. Pickwick, dont la col\u00e8re momentan\u00e9e n'\u00e9tait pas \u00e0\nl'\u00e9preuve de l'aimable aplomb de Bob; allons, monsieur, ne faites plus\nde semblables absurdit\u00e9s, s'il vous pla\u00eet.\n\n--Non, non, r\u00e9pliqua le disciple d'Esculape en changeant de chapeau avec\nSam. Je ne l'ai pas fait expr\u00e8s; le grand air m'avait si fort anim\u00e9 que\nje n'ai pas pu m'en emp\u00eacher.\n\n--Pensez \u00e0 l'effet que cela produit, reprit M Pickwick d'une voix\npersuasive. Ayez quelques \u00e9gards pour les convenances.\n\n--Oh! certainement, r\u00e9pliqua Bob. Cela n'\u00e9tait pas du tout convenable.\nC'est fini, gouverneur.\u00bb\n\nSatisfait de cette assurance, M. Pickwick rentra la t\u00eate dans la\nvoiture; mais \u00e0 peine avait-il repris la conversation interrompue, qu'il\nfut \u00e9tonn\u00e9 par l'apparition d'un petit corps opaque qui vint donner\nplusieurs tapes sur l\u00e0 glace, comme pour t\u00e9moigner son impatience d'\u00eatre\nadmis dans l'int\u00e9rieur.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce que cela? s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick.\n\n--\u00c7a ressemble \u00e0 un flacon, r\u00e9pondit Ben Allen en regardant l'objet en\nquestion \u00e0 travers ses lunettes et avec beaucoup d'int\u00e9r\u00eat. Je pense\nqu'il appartient \u00e0 Bob.\u00bb\n\nCette opinion \u00e9tait parfaitement exacte. M. Bob Sawyer ayant attach\u00e9 le\nflacon au bout de sa canne, le faisait battre contre la fen\u00eatre, pour\nengager ses amis de l'int\u00e9rieur \u00e0 en partager le contenu, en bonne\nharmonie et en bonne intelligence.\n\n\u00abQue faut-il faire? demanda M. Pickwick en regardant le flacon. Cette\nid\u00e9e-l\u00e0 est encore plus absurde que l'autre.\n\n--Je pense qu'il vaudrait mieux le prendre et le garder opina Ben Allen.\nIl le m\u00e9rite bien.\n\n--Certainement. Le prendrai-je?\n\n--Je crois que c'est ce que nous pouvons faire de mieux.\u00bb\n\nCet avis co\u00efncidant compl\u00e8tement avec l'opinion de M. Pickwick, il\nabaissa doucement la glace et d\u00e9tacha la bouteille du b\u00e2ton. Celui-ci\nfut alors retir\u00e9, et l'on entendit M. Bob Sawyer rire de tout son coeur.\n\n\u00abQuel joyeux gaillard! dit M. Pickwick, le flacon \u00e0 la main.\n\n--C'est vrai, r\u00e9pondit Ben.\n\n--On ne saurait rester f\u00e2ch\u00e9 contre lui.\n\n--Tout \u00e0 fait impossible.\u00bb\n\nPendant cette courte communication de sentiments, M. Pickwick avait\nmachinalement d\u00e9bouch\u00e9 la bouteille. \u00abQu'est-ce que c'est? demanda\nnonchalamment M. Allen.\n\n--Je n'en sais rien, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick avec une \u00e9gale nonchalance.\nCela sent, je crois, le punch.\n\n--Vraiment? dit Benjamin.\n\n--Je le suppose du moins, reprit M. Pickwick, qui n'aurait pas voulu\ns'exposer \u00e0 dire une fausset\u00e9. Je le suppose, car il me serait\nimpossible d'en parler avec certitude sans y go\u00fbter.\n\n--Vous ne feriez pas mal d'essayer. Autant vaut savoir ce que c'est.\n\n--Est-ce votre avis? Eh bien! ci cela vous fait plaisir, je ne veux pas\nm'y refuser.\u00bb\n\nToujours dispos\u00e9 \u00e0 sacrifier ses propres sentiments aux d\u00e9sirs de ses\namis, M. Pickwick s'occupa assez longuement \u00e0 d\u00e9guster le contenu de la\nbouteille.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce que c'est? demanda M. Allen, en l'interrompant avec quelque\nimpatience.\n\n--C'est extraordinaire! r\u00e9pondit le philosophe en l\u00e9chant ses l\u00e8vres; je\nn'en suis pas bien sur. Oh! oui, ajouta-t-il, apr\u00e8s avoir go\u00fbt\u00e9 une\nseconde fois, c'est du punch.\u00bb\n\nM. Ben Allen regarda M. Pickwick, et M. Pickwick regarda M. Ben Allen.\nM. Ben Allen sourit, mais M. Pickwick garda son s\u00e9rieux.\n\n\u00abIl m\u00e9riterait, dit ce dernier avec s\u00e9v\u00e9rit\u00e9, il m\u00e9riterait que nous\nbuvions tout, jusqu'\u00e0 la derni\u00e8re goutte.\n\n--C'est pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment ce que je pensais.\n\n--En v\u00e9rit\u00e9! Eh bien alors, \u00e0 sa sant\u00e9!\u00bb\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, notre excellent ami donna un tendre et long baiser \u00e0\nla bouteille, et la passa \u00e0 Benjamin. Celui-ci ne se fit pas prier pour\nsuivre son exemple: les sourires devinrent r\u00e9ciproques, et le punch\ndisparut graduellement et joyeusement.\n\n\u00abApr\u00e8s tout, dit M. Pickwick en savourant la derni\u00e8re goutte, ses id\u00e9es\nsont r\u00e9ellement tr\u00e8s-plaisantes, tr\u00e8s-amusantes en v\u00e9rit\u00e9!\n\n--Sans aucun doute,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua Ben. Et, pour prouver que M. Bob \u00e9tait un\ndes plus joyeux comp\u00e8res existants, il raconta lentement et en d\u00e9tail,\ncomment son ami avait tant bu une fois, qu'il y avait gagn\u00e9 une fi\u00e8vre\nchaude, et qu'on avait \u00e9t\u00e9 oblig\u00e9 de le raser. La relation de cet\nagr\u00e9able incident durait encore, lorsque la chaise arr\u00eata devant l'h\u00f4tel\nde _la Cloche_, \u00e0 Berkeby-Heath, pour changer de chevaux.\n\n\u00abNous allons d\u00eener ici, n'est-ce pas? dit Bob en fourrant sa t\u00eate \u00e0 la\nporti\u00e8re.\n\n--D\u00eener! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick. Nous n'avons encore fait que dix-neuf\nmilles, et nous en avons quatre-vingt-sept et demi \u00e0 faire.\n\n--C'est pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment pour cela qu'il faut prendre quelque chose qui nous\naide \u00e0 supporter la fatigue, r\u00e9pliqua Bob.\n\n--Oh! reprit M. Pickwick en regardant sa montre, il est tout \u00e0 fait\nimpossible de d\u00eener \u00e0 onze heures et demie du matin.\n\n--C'est juste, c'est un d\u00e9jeuner qu'il nous faut.--Oh\u00e9! monsieur! un\nd\u00e9jeuner pour trois, sur-le-champ, et n'attelez les chevaux que dans un\nquart d'heure. Faites mettre sur la table tout ce que vous avez de\nfroid, avec quelques bouteilles d'ale, et votre meilleur mad\u00e8re.\u00bb Ayant\ndonn\u00e9 ces ordres avec un empressement et une importance prodigieuse, M.\nBob Sawyer entra imm\u00e9diatement dans la maison pour en surveiller\nl'ex\u00e9cution. Il revint, en moins de cinq minutes, d\u00e9clarer que tout\n\u00e9tait pr\u00eat et excellent.\n\nLa qualit\u00e9 du d\u00e9jeuner justifia compl\u00e9tement les assertions du\npharmacien, et ses compagnons de voyage y firent autant d'honneur que\nlui. Gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 leurs efforts r\u00e9unis, les bouteilles d'ale et le vin de\nMad\u00e8re disparurent promptement. Le flacon fut ensuite rempli du meilleur\n\u00e9quivalent possible pour le punch, et quand nos amis eurent repris leurs\nplaces dans la voiture, le cornet sonna et le pavillon rouge flotta,\nsans la plus l\u00e9g\u00e8re opposition de la part de M. Pickwick.\n\n\u00c0 Tewkesbury, on arr\u00eata pour d\u00eener, et on y exp\u00e9dia encore de l'ale, une\nbouteille de mad\u00e8re et du porto par-dessus le march\u00e9; enfin le flacon y\nfut rempli, pour la quatri\u00e8me fois. Sous l'influence combin\u00e9e de ces\nliquides, M. Pickwick et M. Allen rest\u00e8rent endormis pendant trente\nmilles, tandis que Bob et Sam Weller chantaient des duos sur leur si\u00e9ge.\n\nIl faisait tout \u00e0 fait sombre, quand M. Pickwick se secoua et s'\u00e9veilla\nsuffisamment pour regarder par la porti\u00e8re. Des chaumi\u00e8res \u00e9parses sur\nle bord de la route, la teinte enfum\u00e9e de tous les objets visibles,\nl'atmosph\u00e8re n\u00e9buleuse, les chemins couverts de cendre et de poussi\u00e8re\nde brique, la lueur ardente des fournaises embras\u00e9es, \u00e0 droite et \u00e0\ngauche, les nuages de fum\u00e9e qui sortaient pesamment des hautes chemin\u00e9es\npyramidales et qui noircissaient tous les environs, l'\u00e9clat des lumi\u00e8res\nlointaines, les pesants chariots qui rampaient sur la route, charg\u00e9s de\nbarres de fer retentissantes ou d'autres lourdes marchandises, tout\nenfin indiquait qu'on approchait de la grande cit\u00e9 industrielle de\nBirmingham.\n\nLe mouvement et le tapage d'un travail s\u00e9rieux devenaient de plus en\nplus sensibles, \u00e0 mesure que la voiture avan\u00e7ait dans les \u00e9troites rues\nqui conduisent au centre des affaires, une foule active circulait\npartout; des lumi\u00e8res brillaient, jusque sous les toits, aux longues\nfiles de fen\u00eatres; le bourdonnement du travail sortait de chaque maison;\nle mouvement des roues et des balanciers faisait trembler les murailles.\nLes feux dont les reflets rouge\u00e2tres \u00e9taient visibles depuis plusieurs\nmilles, flambaient furieusement dans les grands ateliers. Le bruit des\noutils, les coups mesur\u00e9s des marteaux, le sifflement de la vapeur, le\nlourd cliquetis des machines, retentissaient de tous les c\u00f4t\u00e9s, comme\nune rude harmonie.\n\nLa voiture \u00e9tait arriv\u00e9e dans les larges rues et devant les boutiques\nbrillantes qui entourent le vieil h\u00f4tel _Royal_, avant que M. Pickwick\ne\u00fbt commenc\u00e9 \u00e0 consid\u00e9rer la nature d\u00e9licate et difficile de la\ncommission qui l'avait amen\u00e9 l\u00e0.\n\nLa d\u00e9licatesse de la commission et la difficult\u00e9 de l'ex\u00e9cuter\nconvenablement n'\u00e9taient nullement amoindries par la pr\u00e9sence volontaire\nde M. Bob Sawyer. Pour dire la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, M. Pickwick n'\u00e9tait nullement\nenchant\u00e9 de l'avantage qu'il avait de jouir de sa soci\u00e9t\u00e9, quelque\nagr\u00e9able et quelque honorable qu'elle f\u00fbt d'ailleurs. Il aurait m\u00eame\ndonn\u00e9 joyeusement une somme raisonnable, pour pouvoir le faire\ntransporter, temporairement, \u00e0 cinquante milles de distance.\n\nM. Pickwick n'avait jamais eu de communications personnelles avec M.\nWinkle p\u00e8re, quoiqu'il e\u00fbt deux ou trois fois correspondu par lettre\navec lui, et lui e\u00fbt fait des r\u00e9ponses satisfaisantes concernant la\nconduite et le caract\u00e8re de M. Winkle junior. Il sentait donc, avec un\nfr\u00e9missement nerveux, que ce n'\u00e9tait pas un moyen fort ing\u00e9nieux de le\npr\u00e9disposer en sa faveur, que de lui faire sa premi\u00e8re visite,\naccompagn\u00e9 de Ben Allen et de Bob Sawyer, tous deux l\u00e9g\u00e8rement gris.\n\n\u00abQuoi qu'il en soit, pensait M. Pickwick en cherchant \u00e0 se rassurer\nlui-m\u00eame, il faut que je fasse de mon mieux. Je suis oblig\u00e9 de le voir\nce soir, car je l'ai positivement promis \u00e0 son fils; et si les deux\njeunes gens persistent \u00e0 vouloir m'accompagner, il faudra que je rende\nl'entrevue aussi courte que possible, me contentant d'esp\u00e9rer que, pour\nleur propre honneur, ils ne feront pas d'extravagances.\u00bb\n\nComme M. Pickwick se consolait par ces r\u00e9flexions, la chaise s'arr\u00eata \u00e0\nla porte du vieil h\u00f4tel _Royal_. Ben Allen, \u00e0 moiti\u00e9 r\u00e9veill\u00e9, en fut\ntir\u00e9 par Sam, et M. Pickwick put descendre \u00e0 son tour. Ayant \u00e9t\u00e9\nintroduit, avec ses compagnons, dans un appartement confortable, il\ninterrogea imm\u00e9diatement le gar\u00e7on concernant la r\u00e9sidence de M. Winkle.\n\n\u00abTout pr\u00e8s d'ici, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit le gar\u00e7on. M. Winkle a un entrep\u00f4t\nsur le quai, mais sa maison n'est pas \u00e0 cinq cents pas d'ici, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nIci le gar\u00e7on \u00e9teignit une chandelle et la ralluma le plus lentement\npossible, afin de laisser \u00e0 M. Pickwick le temps de lui adresser\nd'autres questions, s'il y \u00e9tait dispos\u00e9.\n\n\u00abD\u00e9sirez-vous quelque chose, monsieur? dit-il, en d\u00e9sespoir de cause. Un\nd\u00eener, monsieur? du th\u00e9 ou du caf\u00e9?\n\n--Rien, pour le moment.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, monsieur. Vous ne voulez pas commander votre souper,\nmonsieur?\n\n--Non, pas \u00e0 pr\u00e9sent.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nLe gar\u00e7on marche doucement vers la porte, et s'arr\u00eatant court, se\nretourna et dit avec une grande suavit\u00e9:\n\n\u00abVous enverrai-je la fille de chambre, messieurs?\n\n--Oui, s'il vous pla\u00eet, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Et puis vous apporterez une bouteille de soda-water ajouta Bob.\n\n--Soda-water? Oui, monsieur.\u00bb Avec ces mots, le gar\u00e7on, dont l'esprit\nparaissait soulag\u00e9 d'un poids accablant en ayant \u00e0 la fin obtenu l'ordre\nde servir quelque chose, s'\u00e9vanouit imperceptiblement. En effet, les\ngar\u00e7ons d'h\u00f4tel ne marchent ni ne courent; ils ont une mani\u00e8re\nmyst\u00e9rieuse de glisser, qui n'est pas donn\u00e9e aux autres hommes.\n\nQuelques l\u00e9gers sympt\u00f4mes de vitalit\u00e9 ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9veill\u00e9s chez M. Ben\nAllen par un verre de soda-water, il consentit enfin \u00e0 laver son visage\net ses mains, et \u00e0 se laisser brosser par Sam. M. Pickwick et Bob Sawyer\nayant \u00e9galement r\u00e9par\u00e9 les d\u00e9sordres que le voyage avait produits dans\nleur costume, les trois amis partirent, bras dessus, bras dessous, pour\nse rendre chez M. Winkle. Le long du chemin, Bob impr\u00e9gnait l'atmosph\u00e8re\nd'une violente odeur de tabac.\n\n\u00c0 un quart de mille environ, dans une rue tranquille et propre,\ns'\u00e9levait une vieille maison de briques rouges. La porte, \u00e0 laquelle on\nmontait par trois marches, portait sur une plaque de cuivre ces mots: M.\nWINKLE. Les marches \u00e9taient fort blanches, les briques tr\u00e8s-rouges, et\nla maison tr\u00e8s-propre.\n\nL'horloge sonnait dix heures quand MM. Pickwick, Ben Allen et Bob Sawyer\nfrapp\u00e8rent \u00e0 la porte. Une servante proprette vint l'ouvrir, et\ntressaillit en voyant trois \u00e9trangers.\n\n\u00abM. Winkle est-il chez lui, ma ch\u00e8re? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Il va souper, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit la jeune fille.\n\n--Donnez-lui cette carte, s'il vous pla\u00eet, et dites-lui que je suis\nf\u00e2ch\u00e9 de le d\u00e9ranger si tard, mais que je viens d'arriver, et que je\ndois absolument le voir ce soir.\u00bb\n\nLa jeune fille regarda timidement M. Sawyer, qui exprimait par une\n\u00e9tonnante vari\u00e9t\u00e9 de grimaces l'admiration que lui inspiraient ses\ncharmes; ensuite, jetant un coup d'oeil aux chapeaux et aux redingotes\naccroch\u00e9s dans le corridor, elle appela une autre servante, pour garder\nla porte pendant qu'elle montait. La sentinelle fut rapidement relev\u00e9e,\ncar la jeune fille revint imm\u00e9diatement, demanda pardon aux trois amis\nde les avoir laiss\u00e9s dans la rue, et les introduisit dans un\narri\u00e8re-parloir, moiti\u00e9 bureau, moiti\u00e9 cabinet de toilette, dont les\nprincipaux meubles \u00e9taient un bureau, un lavabo, un miroir \u00e0 barbe, un\ntire-botte et des crochets, un tabouret, quatre chaises, une table et\nune vieille horloge.\n\nSur le manteau de la chemin\u00e9e se trouvait un coffre-fort en fer fix\u00e9\ndans le mur; enfin un almanach et une couple de tablettes charg\u00e9es de\nlivres et de papiers poudreux d\u00e9coraient les murs.\n\n\u00abJe suis bien f\u00e2ch\u00e9 de vous avoir fait attendre \u00e0 la porte, monsieur,\ndit la jeune fille en allumant une lampe et en s'adressant \u00e0 M. Pickwick\navec un gracieux sourire; mais je ne vous connaissais pas du tout, et il\ny a tant d'aventuriers qui viennent pour voir s'ils peuvent mettre la\nmain sur quelque chose que r\u00e9ellement....\n\n--Il n'y a pas le moindre besoin d'apologie, ma ch\u00e8re enfant, r\u00e9pliqua\nM. Pickwick avec bonne humeur.\n\n--Pas le plus l\u00e9ger, mon amour,\u00bb ajouta Bob en \u00e9tendant plaisamment les\nbras, et sautant d'un c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la chambre \u00e0 l'autre, comme pour emp\u00eacher\nla jeune fille de s'\u00e9loigner imm\u00e9diatement. Mais elle ne fut nullement\nattendrie par ces gracieuset\u00e9s, car elle exprima tout haut son opinion\nque M. Bob Sawyer \u00e9tait un polisson, et lorsqu'il voulut l'amadouer par\ndes moyens encore plus pressants, elle lui imprima ses jolis doigts sur\nle visage, et bondit hors de la chambre, avec force expressions\nd'aversion et de m\u00e9pris.\n\nPriv\u00e9 de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 de la jeune bonne, M. Bob Sawyer chercha \u00e0 se\ndivertir en regardant dans le bureau, en ouvrant les tiroirs de la\ntable, en feignant de crocheter la serrure du coffre-fort, en retournant\nl'almanach, en essayant, par-dessus ses bottes, celles de M. Winkle\nsenior, et en faisant sur les meubles et ornements diverses autres\nexp\u00e9riences amusantes, qui causaient \u00e0 M. Pickwick une horreur et une\nagonie inexprimables, mais qui donnaient \u00e0 M. Bob Sawyer un d\u00e9lice\nproportionnel.\n\n\u00c0 la fin, la porte s'ouvrit, et un petit vieillard, en habit couleur de\ntabac, dont le visage et le cr\u00e2ne \u00e9taient exactement la contre-partie du\ncr\u00e2ne et du visage appartenant \u00e0 M. Winkle _junior_ (si ce n'est que le\npetit vieillard \u00e9tait un peu chauve), entra, en trottant, dans la\nchambre, tenant d'une main la carte de M Pickwick, de l'autre un\nchandelier d'argent.\n\n\u00abMonsieur Pickwick, comment vous portez-vous, monsieur? dit le petit\nvieillard en posant son chandelier et tendant sa main. J'esp\u00e8re que\nvous allez bien, monsieur? Charm\u00e9 de vous voir, asseyez-vous, monsieur\nPickwick, je vous en prie Ce gentleman est?...\n\n--Mon ami monsieur Sawyer, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick, un ami de votre fils.\n\n--Oh! fit M. Winkle en regardant Bob d'un air un peu refrogn\u00e9. J'esp\u00e8re\nque vous allez bien, monsieur?\n\n--Comme un charme, r\u00e9pliqua Bob.\n\n--Cet autre gentleman, dit M. Pickwick, cet autre gentleman, comme vous\nle verrez quand vous aurez lu la lettre dont je suis charg\u00e9, est un\nparent tr\u00e8s-proche.... ou plut\u00f4t devrais-je dire, un intime ami de votre\nfils. Son nom est Allen.\n\n--Ce gentleman?\u00bb demanda M. Winkle, en montrant avec la carte M.\nBenjamin Allen, qui s'\u00e9tait endormi dans une attitude telle qu'on\nn'apercevait de lui que son \u00e9pine dorsale, et le collet de son habit.\n\nM. Pickwick \u00e9tait sur le point de r\u00e9pondre \u00e0 cette question, et de\nr\u00e9citer tout au long les noms et honorables qualit\u00e9s de M. Benjamin\nAllen, quand le spirituel Bob, afin de faire comprendre \u00e0 son ami la\nsituation o\u00f9 il se trouvait, lui fit dans la partie charnue du bras un\nviolent pin\u00e7on. Ben se dressa sur ses pieds, avec un grand cri; mais\ns'apercevant aussit\u00f4t qu'il \u00e9tait en pr\u00e9sence d'un \u00e9tranger, il s'avan\u00e7a\nvers M. Winkle et lui secouant tendrement les deux mains pendant environ\ncinq minutes, murmura quelques mots sans suite, \u00e0 moiti\u00e9 intelligibles,\nsur le plaisir qu'il \u00e9prouvait \u00e0 le voir; lui demandant, d'une mani\u00e8re\ntr\u00e8s-hospitali\u00e8re, s'il \u00e9tait dispos\u00e9 \u00e0 prendre quelque chose apr\u00e8s sa\npromenade, ou s'il pr\u00e9f\u00e9rait attendre jusqu'au d\u00eener; apr\u00e8s quoi il\ns'assit, et se mit \u00e0 regarder autour de lui, d'un air h\u00e9b\u00e9t\u00e9, comme s'il\nn'avait pas eu la moindre id\u00e9e du lieu o\u00f9 il se trouvait; ce qui \u00e9tait\nvrai, effectivement.\n\nTout ceci \u00e9tait fort embarrassant pour M. Pickwick, et d'autant plus que\nM. Winkle _senior_ t\u00e9moignait un \u00e9tonnement palpable \u00e0 la conduite\nexcentrique, pour ne pas dire plus, de ses deux compagnons. Afin de\nmettre un terme \u00e0 cette situation, il tira une lettre de sa poche, et la\npr\u00e9sentant \u00e0 M. Winkle, lui dit:\n\n\u00abCette lettre, monsieur, est de votre fils. Vous verrez par ce qu'elle\ncontient que son bien-\u00eatre et son bonheur futur d\u00e9pendent de la mani\u00e8re\nbienveillante et paternelle dont vous l'accueillerez. Vous m'obligerez\nbeaucoup en la lisant avec calme, et en en discutant ensuite le sujet\navec moi, d'une mani\u00e8re grave et convenable. Vous pouvez juger de quelle\nimportance votre d\u00e9cision est pour votre fils, et quelle est son extr\u00eame\nanxi\u00e9t\u00e9, \u00e0 ce sujet, puisqu'elle m'a engag\u00e9 \u00e0 me pr\u00e9senter chez vous, \u00e0\nune heure si avanc\u00e9e, et, ajouta M. Pickwick en regardant l\u00e9g\u00e8rement ses\ndeux compagnons, et dans des circonstances si d\u00e9favorables.\u00bb\n\nApr\u00e8s ce pr\u00e9lude, M. Pickwick pla\u00e7a entre les mains du vieillard \u00e9tonn\u00e9,\nquatre pages serr\u00e9es de repentir superfin; puis, s'\u00e9tant assis, il\nexamina sa figure et son maintien, avec inqui\u00e9tude il est vrai, mais\navec l'air ouvert et assur\u00e9 d'un homme qui a accept\u00e9 un r\u00f4le dont il n'a\npas \u00e0 rougir ni \u00e0 se d\u00e9fendre.\n\nLe vieux n\u00e9gociant tourna et retourna la lettre avant de l'ouvrir;\nexamina l'adresse, le dos, les c\u00f4t\u00e9s; fit des observations\nmicroscopiques sur le petit gar\u00e7on grassouillet imprim\u00e9 sur la cire;\nleva ses yeux sur le visage de M. Pickwick; et enfin, s'asseyant sur le\ntabouret de son bureau et rapprochant la lampe, brisa le cachot, ouvrit\nl'\u00e9p\u00eetre, et, l'\u00e9levant pr\u00e8s de la lumi\u00e8re, se pr\u00e9para \u00e0 lire.\n\nJuste dans ce moment, M. Bob Sawyer, dont l'esprit \u00e9tait demeur\u00e9 inactif\ndepuis quelques minutes, pla\u00e7a ses mains sur ses genoux et se composa un\nvisage de clown, d'apr\u00e8s les portraits de feu M. Grimaldi.\nMalheureusement il arriva que M. Winkle, au lieu d'\u00eatre profond\u00e9ment\noccup\u00e9 \u00e0 lire sa lettre, comme Bob l'imaginait, s'avisa de regarder\npar-dessus, et, conjecturant avec raison que le visage en question \u00e9tait\nfabriqu\u00e9 en d\u00e9rision de sa propre personne, fixa ses yeux sur le\ncoupable avec tant de s\u00e9v\u00e9rit\u00e9, que les traits de feu M. Grimaldi se\nr\u00e9solurent, graduellement, en une contenance fort humble et fort\nconfuse.\n\n\u00abVous m'avez parl\u00e9, monsieur? demanda M. Winkle apr\u00e8s un silence\nmena\u00e7ant.\n\n--Non, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Bob qui n'avait plus rien d'un clown, except\u00e9\nl'extr\u00eame rougeur de ses joues.\n\n--En \u00eates-vous bien s\u00fbr, monsieur?\n\n--Oh! certainement; oui, monsieur, tout \u00e0 fait.\n\n--Je l'avais cru, monsieur, r\u00e9torqua le vieux gentleman avec une emphase\npleine d'indignation. Peut-\u00eatre que vous m'avez regard\u00e9, monsieur?\n\n--Oh! non, monsieur, pas du tout, r\u00e9pliqua Bob de la mani\u00e8re la plus\ncivile.\n\n--Je suis charm\u00e9 de l'apprendre, monsieur, reprit le vieillard en\nfron\u00e7ant ses sourcils d'un air majestueux; puis il rapprocha la lettre\nde la lumi\u00e8re et commen\u00e7a \u00e0 lire s\u00e9rieusement.\n\nM. Pickwick le consid\u00e9rait avec attention, tandis qu'il tournait de la\nderni\u00e8re ligne de la premi\u00e8re page \u00e0 la premi\u00e8re ligne de la seconde; et\nde la derni\u00e8re ligne de la seconde page \u00e0 la premi\u00e8re ligne de la\ntroisi\u00e8me; et de la derni\u00e8re ligne de la troisi\u00e8me page \u00e0 la premi\u00e8re\nligne de la quatri\u00e8me; mais quoique le mariage de son fils lui f\u00fbt\nannonc\u00e9 dans les douze premi\u00e8res lignes, comme le savait tr\u00e8s bien M.\nPickwick, aucune alt\u00e9ration de sa physionomie n'indiqua avec quels\nsentiments il prenait une si importante nouvelle.\n\nM. Winkle lut la lettre jusqu'au dernier mot, la replia avec la\npr\u00e9cision d'un homme d'affaires, et juste au moment o\u00f9 M. Pickwick\nattendait quelque grande expansion de sensibilit\u00e9, il trempa une plume\ndans l'encrier, et dit aussi tranquillement que s'il avait parl\u00e9 de\nl'affaire commerciale la plus ordinaire: Quelle est l'adresse de\nNathaniel, monsieur Pickwick?\n\n\n\u00ab\u00c0 l'h\u00f4tel _George et Vautour_, pour le pr\u00e9sent.\n\n--George et Vautour, o\u00f9 est cela?\n\n--George Yard, Lombard street.\n\n--Dans la cit\u00e9?\n\n--Oui.\u00bb\n\nLe vieux gentleman \u00e9crivit m\u00e9thodiquement l'adresse sur le dos de la\nlettre, et l'ayant plac\u00e9e dans son bureau, qu'il ferma, dit en rangeant\nle tabouret et en mettant la clef dans sa poche: \u00abJe suppose que nous\nn'avons plus rien \u00e0 nous dire, monsieur Pickwick?\u00bb\n\n--Rien \u00e0 nous dire, mon cher monsieur? s'\u00e9cria l'excellent homme avec\nune chaleur pleine d'indignation. Rien \u00e0 nous dire! N'avez-vous pas\nd'opinion \u00e0 exprimer sur un \u00e9v\u00e9nement si consid\u00e9rable dans la vie de mon\njeune ami? Pas d'assurance \u00e0 lui faire transmettre par moi, de la\ncontinuation de votre affection et de votre protection? Rien \u00e0 dire qui\npuisse le rassurer, rien qui puisse consoler la jeune femme inqui\u00e8te,\ndont le bonheur d\u00e9pend de lui? Mon cher monsieur, r\u00e9fl\u00e9chissez.\n\n--Pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment, je r\u00e9fl\u00e9chirai. Je ne puis rien dire maintenant. Je suis\nun homme m\u00e9thodique, monsieur Pickwick, je ne m'embarque jamais\npr\u00e9cipitamment dans aucune affaire et d'apr\u00e8s ce que je vois de\ncelle-ci, je n'en aime nullement les apparences. Mille livres sterling\nne sont pas grand chose, monsieur Pickwick.\n\n--Vous avez bien raison, monsieur, dit Ben Allen, justement assez\n\u00e9veill\u00e9 pour savoir qu'il avait d\u00e9pens\u00e9 ses mille livres sans la plus\npetite difficult\u00e9. Vous \u00eates un homme intelligent. Bob, c'est un\ngaillard intelligent.\n\n--Je suis enchant\u00e9 que vous me rendiez cette justice, dit M. Winkle, en\njetant un regard m\u00e9prisant \u00e0 M. Ben Allen, qui hochait la t\u00eate d'un air\nprofond. Le fait est, monsieur Pickwick, qu'en permettant \u00e0 mon fils de\nvoyager sous vos auspices pendant un an ou deux, pour apprendre \u00e0\nconna\u00eetre les hommes et les choses, et afin qu'il n'entr\u00e2t pas dans la\nvie comme un \u00e9colier, qui se laisse attraper par le premier venu, je\nn'avais nullement compt\u00e9 sur ceci. Il le sait tr\u00e8s bien, et si je\ncessais de le soutenir, il n'aurait pas lieu d'\u00eatre surpris. Au reste il\napprendra ma d\u00e9cision, monsieur Pickwick. En attendant, je vous souhaite\nle bonsoir. Margaret, ouvrez la porte.\u00bb\n\nPendant tout ce temps M. Bob Sawyer avait fait des signes \u00e0 son ami pour\nl'engager \u00e0 dire quelque chose qui f\u00fbt frapp\u00e9 au bon coin; aussi Ben\nimprovisa-t-il, sans aucun avertissement pr\u00e9alable, une petite oraison\nbr\u00e8ve, mais pleine de chaleur. \u00abMonsieur, dit-il en regardant le vieux\ngentleman avec des yeux ternes et fixes et en balan\u00e7ant furieusement son\nbras de bas en haut: Vous.... vous devriez rougir de votre conduite.\n\n--En effet, r\u00e9pliqua M. Winkle; comme fr\u00e8re de la jeune personne, vous\n\u00eates un excellent juge de la question. Allons! en voil\u00e0 assez. Je vous\nen prie, monsieur Pickwick, n'ajoutez plus rien. Bonne nuit, messieurs.\u00bb\n\nAyant dit ces mots, le vieux n\u00e9gociant prit le chandelier et ouvrit la\nporte de la chambre, en montrant poliment le corridor.\n\n\u00abVous regretterez votre conduite, monsieur, dit M. Pickwick en serrant\n\u00e9troitement ses dents, pour contenir sa col\u00e8re, car il sentait combien\ncela \u00e9tait important pour son jeune ami.\n\n--Je suis pour le moment d'une opinion diff\u00e9rente, r\u00e9pondit M. Winkle\navec calme. Allons, messieurs, je vous souhaite encore un bonne nuit.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick regagna la rue d'un pas irrit\u00e9; Bob Sawyer, compl\u00e8tement\nmat\u00e9 par les mani\u00e8res d\u00e9cid\u00e9es du vieux gentleman, prit le m\u00eame parti;\nle chapeau de M. Ben Allen roula apr\u00e8s eux sur les marches, et la\npersonne de M. Ben Allen le suivit imm\u00e9diatement; puis les trois\ncompagnons all\u00e8rent se coucher en silence, et sans songer. Mais avant de\ns'endormir, M. Pickwick pense que s'il avait su quel homme m\u00e9thodique\n\u00e9tait M. Winkle _senior_, il ne serait assur\u00e9ment pas charg\u00e9 d'une telle\ncommission pour lui.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XXII.\n\nDans lequel M. Pickwick rencontre une vieille connaissance, circonstance\nfortuite \u00e0 la quelle la lenteur est principalement redevable des d\u00e9tails\nbr\u00fblants d'int\u00e9r\u00eat ci-dessous consign\u00e9s, concernant deux hommes\npolitiques.\n\n\nLorsque M. Pickwick se r\u00e9veilla \u00e0 huit heures du matin, l'\u00e9tat de\nl'atmosph\u00e8re n'\u00e9tait nullement propre \u00e0 \u00e9gayer son esprit, ni \u00e0 diminuer\nl'abattement que lui avait inspir\u00e9 le r\u00e9sultat inattendu de son\nambassade. Le ciel \u00e9tait triste et sombre, l' air humide et froid, les\nrues mouill\u00e9es et fangeuses. La fum\u00e9e restait paresseusement suspendue\nau sommet des chemin\u00e9es, comme si elle avait manqu\u00e9 d'\u00e9nergie pour\ns'\u00e9lever, et la brume descendait lentement, comme si elle n'avait pas eu\nm\u00eame le coeur \u00e0 tomber. Un coq de combat, priv\u00e9 de toute son animation\nhabituelle, se balan\u00e7ait tristement sur une patte, dans la cour, tandis\nqu'une bourrique, sous un \u00e9troit appentis, tenait sa t\u00eate baiss\u00e9e, et,\ns'il fallait en croire sa contenance mis\u00e9rable, devait m\u00e9diter un\nsuicide. Dans les rues, on ne voyait que des parapluies, et l'on\nn'entendait que le cliquetis des casques et le clapotement de l'eau, qui\nd\u00e9gouttait des toits.\n\nPendant le d\u00e9jeuner, la conversation demeura singuli\u00e8rement tra\u00eenante.\nM. Bob Sawyer lui-m\u00eame ressentait l'influence du temps, et la r\u00e9action\nde l'excitation du jour pr\u00e9c\u00e9dent. Suivant son propre et expressif\nlangage, il \u00e9tait _aplati_. M. Ben Allen l'\u00e9tait aussi; et pareillement\nM. Pickwick.\n\nDans l'attente prolong\u00e9e d'une \u00e9claircie, le dernier journal de Londres\nfut lu et relu, avec une intensit\u00e9 d'int\u00e9r\u00eat qui ne s'observe jamais que\ndans des cas d'extr\u00eame mis\u00e8re. Les trois compagnons d'infortunes ne\nmirent pas moins de pers\u00e9v\u00e9rances \u00e0 arpenter chaque fleur du tapis; ils\nregard\u00e8rent par la fen\u00eatre assez souvent pour justifier l'imposition\nd'une double taxe; ils entam\u00e8rent, sans r\u00e9sultat, toutes sortes de\nsujets de conversation, et \u00e0 la fin, lorsque midi fut arriv\u00e9 sans amener\naucun changement favorable, M. Pickwick tira r\u00e9solument la sonnette et\ndemanda sa voiture.\n\nLa route \u00e9tait boueuse, il bruinait plus fort que jamais, et la boue\n\u00e9tait lanc\u00e9e dans la chaise ouverte en si grande quantit\u00e9, qu'elle\nincommodait les habitants de l'int\u00e9rieur presque autant que ceux de\nl'ext\u00e9rieur. Pourtant, dans le mouvement m\u00eame, dans le sentiment d'un\nchangement, d'une action, il y avait quelque chose de bien pr\u00e9f\u00e9rable \u00e0\nl'ennui de rester enferm\u00e9 dans une chambre sombre, et de voir pour toute\ndistraction la pluie tomber tristement dans une triste rue. Aussi nos\nvoyageurs s'\u00e9tonn\u00e8rent-ils d'abord d'avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 si longtemps \u00e0 prendre\nleur parti.\n\nQuand ils arr\u00eat\u00e8rent \u00e0 Coventry pour relayer, la vapeur qui sortait des\nchevaux formait un nuage si \u00e9pais, qu'elle \u00e9clipsait compl\u00e9tement le\npalefrenier; seulement on l'entendit s'\u00e9crier au milieu du brouillard,\nqu'il esp\u00e9rait bien obtenir la premi\u00e8re m\u00e9daille d'or de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9\nd'humanit\u00e9, pour avoir \u00f4t\u00e9 le chapeau du postillon, attendu que celui-ci\naurait \u00e9t\u00e9 infailliblement noy\u00e9 par l'eau qui d\u00e9coulait des bords, si\nl'invisible gentleman n'avait pas eu la pr\u00e9sence d'esprit de l'enlever\nvivement, et d'essuyer avec un bouchon de paille le visage du naufrag\u00e9.\n\n\u00abCeci est agr\u00e9able, dit Bob en arrangeant le collet de son habit, et en\ntirant son ch\u00e2le sur sa bouche pour concentrer la fum\u00e9e d'un verre\nd'eau-de-vie qu'il venait d'avaler.\n\n--Tout \u00e0 fait, r\u00e9pondit Sam d'un air tranquille.\n\n--Vous n'avez pas l'air d'y faire attention.\n\n--Dame! monsieur, je ne vois pas trop quel bien \u00e7a me ferait.\n\n--Voil\u00e0 une excellente r\u00e9ponse, ma foi!\n\n--Certainement, monsieur. Tout ce qui arrive est bien, comme remarqua\ndoucement le jeune seigneur quand il re\u00e7ut une pension, parce que le\ngrand-p\u00e8re de la femme de l'oncle de sa m\u00e8re avait une fois allum\u00e9 la\npipe du roi avec son briquet phosphorique.\n\n--Ce n'est pas une mauvaise id\u00e9e cela, r\u00e9pliqua Bob d'un air approbatif.\n\n--Juste ce que le jeune courtisan disait ensuite tous les jours\nd'\u00e9ch\u00e9ance pendant le reste de sa vie.\u00bb\n\nApr\u00e8s un court silence, Sam jeta un coup d'oeil au postillon, et\nbaissant la voix de mani\u00e8re \u00e0 ne produire qu'un chuchotement myst\u00e9rieux:\n\u00abAvez-vous jamais \u00e9t\u00e9 appel\u00e9, quand vous \u00e9tiez apprenti carabin, pour\nvisiter un postillon?...\n\n--Non, je ne le crois pas.\n\n--Vous n'avez jamais vu un postillon dans un h\u00f4pital n'est-ce pas?\n\n--Non, je ne pense pas en avoir vu.\n\n--Vous n'avez jamais connu un cimeti\u00e8re o\u00f9 y avait un postillon\nd'enterr\u00e9? vous n'avez jamais vu un postillon mort, n'est-ce pas?\ndemanda Sam, en poursuivant son cat\u00e9chisme.\n\n--Non, r\u00e9pliqua Bob.\n\n--Ah! reprit Sam d'un air triomphant, et vous n'en verrez jamais, et il\ny a une autre chose qu'on ne verra jamais, c'est un \u00e2ne mort. Personne\nn'a jamais vu un \u00e2ne mort, except\u00e9 le gentleman[23] en culotte de soie\nnoire, qui connaissait la jeune femme qui gardait une ch\u00e8vre, et encore\nc'\u00e9tait un \u00e2ne fran\u00e7ais; ainsi il n'\u00e9tait pas de pur sang, apr\u00e8s tout.\n\n[Footnote 23: _Yorick_. Voy. le voyage sentimental de Sterne. _(Note du\ntraducteur.)_]\n\n--Eh bien! quel rapport tout cela a-t-il avec le postillon? demanda Bob.\n\n--Voil\u00e0. Je ne veux pas assurer, comme quelques personnes tr\u00e8s-sens\u00e9es,\nque les postillons et les \u00e2nes sont un \u00eatre immortel, tous les deux;\nmais voil\u00e0 ce que je dis: C'est que, quand ils se sentent trop roides\npour travailler, ils s'en vont, l'un portant l'autre: un postillon pour\ndeux \u00e2nes, c'est la r\u00e8gle. Ce qu'ils deviennent ensuite, personne n'en\nsait rien; mais il est tr\u00e8s-probable qu'ils vont pour s'amuser dans un\nmonde meilleur, car il n'y a pas un homme vivant qui ait jamais vu un\npostillon ni un \u00e2ne s'amuser dans ce monde ici.\u00bb\n\nD\u00e9veloppant compendieusement cette remarquable th\u00e9orie, et citant \u00e0\nl'appui divers faits statistiques, Sam Weller \u00e9gaya le trajet jusqu'\u00e0\nDunchurch. L\u00e0 on obtint un postillon sec et des chevaux frais. Daventry\n\u00e9tait le relais suivant, Towcester celui d'apr\u00e8s, et \u00e0 la fin de chaque\nrelais, il pleuvait plus fort qu'au commencement.\n\n\u00abSavez-vous, dit Bob d'un ton de remontrance en mettant le nez \u00e0 la\nporti\u00e8re de la chaise, lorsqu'elle arr\u00eata devant la t\u00eate du sarrasin, \u00e0\nTowcester, savez-vous que \u00e7a ne peut pas aller comme \u00e7a?\n\n--Ah \u00e7a! dit M. Pickwick, qui venait de sommeiller un peu: J'ai peur\nque vous n'attrapiez de l'humidit\u00e9.\n\n--Oh vraiment! en effet, je crois que je suis l\u00e9g\u00e8rement humide! dit\nBob, et personne ne pouvait le nier, car la pluie coulait de son cou, de\nses coudes, de ses parements, de ses casques et de ses genoux. Tout son\ncostume \u00e9tait si luisant d'eau, qu'on aurait pu croire qu'il \u00e9tait\nimpr\u00e9gn\u00e9 d'huile.\n\n--Je crois que je suis l\u00e9g\u00e8rement humide, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta Bob, en se secouant et\nen jetant autour de lui une petite pluie fine, comme font les chiens de\nTerre-Neuve, en sortant de l'eau.\n\n--Je pense vraiment qu'il n'est pas possible d'aller plus loin ce soir,\nfit observer Ben Allen.\n\n--Tout \u00e0 fait hors de question, monsieur, ajouta Sam en s'approchant\npour assister \u00e0 la conf\u00e9rence? C'est de la cruaut\u00e9 envers les animaux\nque de les faire sortir d'un temps pareil. Il y a des lits ici,\nmonsieur. Tout est propre et confortable. Un tr\u00e8s-bon petit d\u00eener, qui\npeut \u00eatre pr\u00eat en une demi-heure; des poulets et des c\u00f4telettes, du\nveau, des haricots verts, une tarte et de la propret\u00e9. Vous ferez bien\nde rester ici, monsieur, si j'ose donner mon avis gratis. Consultez les\ngens de l'art, comme disait le docteur.\u00bb\n\nL'h\u00f4te de la _T\u00eate de Sarrasin_ arriva fort \u00e0 propos, en ce moment, pour\nconfirmer les \u00e9loges de Sam, relativement aux m\u00e9rites de son\n\u00e9tablissement et pour appuyer ses supplications par une quantit\u00e9 de\nconjonctures effrayantes concernant l'\u00e9tat des routes, l'improbabilit\u00e9\nd'avoir des chevaux frais aux relais suivant la certitude infaillible\nqu'il pleuvrait toute la nuit, et la certitude, \u00e9galement infaillible,\nque le temps s'\u00e9claircirait le matin; avec divers autres raisonnements\ns\u00e9ducteurs familiers \u00e0 tous les aubergistes.\n\n\u00abC'est bien! dit M. Pickwick; mais alors il faut que j'envoie une\nlettre \u00e0 Londres, de mani\u00e8re \u00e0 ce que qu'elle soit remise demain, d\u00e8s le\nmatin. Autrement je serais oblig\u00e9 de continuer ma route, \u00e0 tout hasard.\u00bb\n\nL'h\u00f4te fit une grimace de plaisir. Rien n'\u00e9tait plus facile que\nd'envoyer une lettre empaquet\u00e9e dans une feuille de papier gris, soit\npar la malle, soit par la voiture de nuit de Birmingham. Si le gentleman\ntenait particuli\u00e8rement \u00e0 ce que qu'elle f\u00fbt remise de suite, il pouvait\n\u00e9crire sur l'enveloppe _tr\u00e8s-press\u00e9e_, moyennant quoi il serait certain\nqu'elle serait port\u00e9e imm\u00e9diatement, ou bien _une demi-couronne au\nporteur si ce paquet est remis de suite_, ce qui serait encore plus s\u00fbr.\n\n\u00abTr\u00e8s-bien! dit M. Pickwick. Alors nous allons rester ici.\n\n--John, cria l'aubergiste; des lumi\u00e8res dans le _soleil_; faites vite du\nfeu, les gentlemen sont mouill\u00e9s. Par ici, messieurs. Ne vous tourmentez\npas du postillon, monsieur, je vous l'enverrai quand vous le sonnerez.\nMaintenant, John, les chandelles.\u00bb\n\nLes chandelles furent apport\u00e9es, le feu fut attis\u00e9 et une nouvelle b\u00fbche\ny fut jet\u00e9e. En dix minutes de temps un gar\u00e7on mettait la nappe pour le\nd\u00eener, les rideaux \u00e9taient tir\u00e9s, le feu flambait, et, comme il arrive\ntoujours dans une auberge anglaise un peu d\u00e9cente, on aurait cru, \u00e0 voir\nl'arrangement de toutes choses, que les voyageurs \u00e9taient attendus\ndepuis huit jours au moins.\n\nM. Pickwick s'assit \u00e0 une petite table et \u00e9crivit rapidement, pour M.\nWinkle, un billet dans lequel il l'informait simplement qu'il \u00e9tait\narr\u00eat\u00e9 par le mauvais temps, mais qu'il arriverait certainement \u00e0\nLondres, le jour suivant; remettant d'ailleurs, \u00e0 cette \u00e9poque, le\nd\u00e9tail de ses op\u00e9rations. Ce billet, arrang\u00e9 de mani\u00e8re \u00e0 avoir l'air\nd'un paquet, fut imm\u00e9diatement port\u00e9 \u00e0 l'aubergiste, par Sam.\n\nApr\u00e8s s'\u00eatre s\u00e9ch\u00e9 au feu de la cuisine, Sam revenait pour \u00f4ter les\nbottes de son ma\u00eetre, quand, en regardant par une porte entr'ouverte, il\naper\u00e7ut un grand homme, dont les cheveux \u00e9taient roux. Devant lui, sur\nune table, \u00e9tait \u00e9tal\u00e9 un paquet de journaux, et il lisait l'article\npolitique de l'un d'eux, avec un air de sarcasme continuel, qui donnait\n\u00e0 ses narines et \u00e0 tous ses traits une expression de m\u00e9pris superbe et\nmajestueux.\n\n\u00abH\u00e9! dit Sam, il me semble que je connais cette boule-l\u00e0, et le lorgnon\nd'or, et la tuile \u00e0 grands rebords. J'ai vu tout cela \u00e0 Eatanswill, ou\nbien je suis un cr\u00e9tin!\u00bb\n\n\u00c0 l'instant m\u00eame, afin d'attirer l'attention du gentleman, Sam fut saisi\nd'une toux fort incommode. Celui-ci tressaillit, en entendant du bruit,\nleva sa t\u00eate et son lorgnon, et laissa apercevoir les traits profonds et\npensifs de M. Pott, l'\u00e9diteur de _la Gazette d'Eatanswill_.\n\n\u00abPardon, monsieur, dit Sam en s'approchant avec un salut. Mon ma\u00eetre est\nici, monsieur Pott.\n\n--Chut! chut! cria Pott, en entra\u00eenant Sam, dans la chambre et en\nfermant la porte, avec une expression de physionomie pleine de myst\u00e8re\net d'appr\u00e9hension.\n\n--Qu'est-ce qu'il y a? monsieur, dit Sam en regardant avec \u00e9tonnement\nautour de lui.\n\n--Gardez-vous bien de murmurer mon nom. Nous sommes dans un pays jaune:\nsi la population irritable savait que je suis ici, elle me d\u00e9chirerait\nen lambeaux.\n\n--En v\u00e9rit\u00e9, monsieur?\n\n--Oui; je serais la victime de leur furie. Mais maintenant jeune homme,\nqu'est-ce que vous disiez de votre ma\u00eetre?\n\n--Qu'il passe la nuit dans cette auberge, avec un couple d'amis.\n\n--M. Winkle en est-il? demanda M. Pott en fron\u00e7ant l\u00e9g\u00e8rement le\nsourcil.\n\n--Non, monsieur, il reste chez lui maintenant. Il est mari\u00e9.\n\n--Mari\u00e9! s'\u00e9cria Pott avec une v\u00e9h\u00e9mence effrayante. Il s'arr\u00eata, sourit\nd'un air sombre, et ajouta \u00e0 voix basse et d'un ton vindicatif: C'est\nbien fait, il n'a que ce qu'il m\u00e9rite.\u00bb\n\nAyant ainsi exhal\u00e9, avec un sauvage triomphe, sa mortelle malice envers\nun ennemi abattu, M. Pott demanda si les amis de M. Pickwick \u00e9taient\nbleus, et l'intelligent valet, qui en savait \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s autant que\nl'\u00e9diteur lui-m\u00eame, ayant fait une r\u00e9ponse tr\u00e8s-satisfaisante, M. Pott\nconsentit \u00e0 l'accompagner dans la chambre de M. Pickwick. Il y fut re\u00e7u\navec beaucoup de cordialit\u00e9, et l'on convint de d\u00eener en commun.\n\nLorsque M. Pott eut pris son si\u00e9ge pr\u00e8s du feu, et lorsque nos trois\nvoyageurs eurent \u00f4t\u00e9 leurs bottes mouill\u00e9es et mis des pantoufles:\n\u00abComment vont les affaires \u00e0 Eatanswill? demanda M. Pickwick.\n_L'Ind\u00e9pendant_ existe-t-il toujours?\n\n--_L'Ind\u00e9pendant_, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Pott, tra\u00eene encore sa mis\u00e9rable\net languissante carri\u00e8re, abhorr\u00e9 et m\u00e9pris\u00e9 par le petit nombre de ceux\nqui connaissent sa honteuse et m\u00e9prisable existence; suffoqu\u00e9 lui-m\u00eame\npar les ordures qu'il r\u00e9pand en si grande profusion, assourdi et aveugl\u00e9\npar les exhalaisons de sa propre fange, l'obsc\u00e8ne journal, sans avoir la\nconscience de son \u00e9tat d\u00e9grad\u00e9, s'enfonce rapidement sous la vase\ntrompeuse qui semble lui offrir un point d'appui solide aupr\u00e8s des\nclasses les plus basses de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9, mais qui, s'\u00e9levant par degr\u00e9\nau-dessus de sa t\u00eate d\u00e9test\u00e9e, l'engloutira bient\u00f4t pour toujours.\u00bb\n\nAyant d\u00e9bit\u00e9 avec v\u00e9h\u00e9mence ce manifeste, tir\u00e9 de son dernier article\npolitique, l'\u00e9diteur s'arr\u00eata pour prendre haleine, puis regardant\nmajestueusement Bob: \u00abVous \u00eates jeune, monsieur,\u00bb lui dit-il.\n\nM. Sawyer inclina la t\u00eate.\n\n\u00abEt vous aussi, monsieur,\u00bb ajouta Pott en s'adressant \u00e0 M. Ben Allen.\n\nCelui-ci reconnut l'agr\u00e9able imputation.\n\n--Et vous \u00eates tous les deux profond\u00e9ment imbus de ces principes bleus,\nque j'ai promis aux peuples de ce royaume de d\u00e9fendre et de maintenir\ntant que je vivrai?\n\n--H\u00e9! h\u00e9! quant \u00e0 cela, je n'en sais trop rien, r\u00e9pliqua Bob, je\nsuis....\n\n--Pas un jaune, n'est-ce pas? monsieur Pickwick, interrompit l'\u00e9diteur\nen reculant sa chaise. Votre ami n'est pas un jaune, monsieur.\n\n--Non, non, r\u00e9pliqua Bob. Je suis une esp\u00e8ce de tartan \u00e9cossais, \u00e0\npr\u00e9sent; un compos\u00e9 de toutes les couleurs.\n\n--Un vacillateur, dit Pott d'une voix solennelle; un vacillateur! Ah!\nmonsieur, si vous pouviez lire une s\u00e9rie de huit articles, qui ont paru\ndans _la Gazette d'Eatanswill_, j'ose dire que vous ne seriez pas\nlongtemps sans asseoir vos opinions sur une base ferme et solide.\n\n--Et moi, j'ose dire que je deviendrais tout bleu, avant d'\u00eatre arriv\u00e9 \u00e0\nla fin,\u00bb r\u00e9torqua Bob.\n\nM. Pott le regarda d'un air soup\u00e7onneux, pendant quelques minutes, puis\nse tournant vers M. Pickwick: \u00abVous avez lu, sans doute, les articles\nlitt\u00e9raires qui ont paru par intervalles, depuis trois mois, dans _la\nGazette d'Eatanswill_, et qui ont excit\u00e9 une attention si g\u00e9n\u00e9rale\net.... et je puis le dire, une admiration si universelle.\n\n--Eh! mais, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick, l\u00e9g\u00e8rement embarrass\u00e9 par cette\nquestion, le fait est que j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 tellement occup\u00e9, d'une autre\nmani\u00e8re, que je n'ai r\u00e9ellement pas eu la possibilit\u00e9 de les parcourir.\n\n--Il faut les lire, monsieur, dit l'\u00e9diteur d'un air s\u00e9v\u00e8re.\n\n--Oui, certainement.\n\n--Ils ont paru sous la forme d'une critique tr\u00e8s-d\u00e9taill\u00e9e d'un ouvrage\nsur la m\u00e9taphysique chinoise.\n\n--Ah! tr\u00e8s-bien.... Ces articles sont de vous? j'esp\u00e8re.\n\n--Ils sont de mon critique, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Pott avec grande dignit\u00e9.\n\n--Un sujet bien abstrait, \u00e0 ce qu'il semble?\n\n--Tout \u00e0 fait, r\u00e9pondit Pott, avec l'air profond d'un sage. Il a fait,\nsous ma direction, des \u00e9tudes pr\u00e9paratoires. D'apr\u00e8s mon avis, il s'est\naid\u00e9, pour cela, de l'_Encyclop\u00e9die britannique_.\n\n--En v\u00e9rit\u00e9? Je ne savais pas que cet excellent ouvrage cont\u00eent quelque\nchose sur la m\u00e9taphysique chinoise.\n\n--Monsieur, continua Pott, en posant sa main sur le genou de M.\nPickwick et en regardant autour de lui avec un sourire de sup\u00e9riorit\u00e9\nintellectuelle, il a lu, pour la m\u00e9taphysique, \u00e0 la lettre M; et pour la\nChine, \u00e0 la lettre C; et il a amalgam\u00e9 les fruits de cette double\nlecture, monsieur!\u00bb\n\nLes traits de M. Pott rayonn\u00e8rent de tant de grandeur additionnelle, au\nsouvenir de la puissance de g\u00e9nie et des tr\u00e9sors de science d\u00e9ploy\u00e9s\ndans le docte travail en question, qu'il s'\u00e9coula quelques minutes avant\nque M. Pickwick e\u00fbt la hardiesse de recommencer la conversation.\nPourtant la contenance de l'\u00e9diteur \u00e9tant retomb\u00e9e graduellement dans\nson expression ordinaire de supr\u00e9matie morale, notre philosophe se\nhasarda \u00e0 lui dire: \u00abMe sera-t-il permis de demander quel grand objet\nvous a amen\u00e9 si loin de votre maison?\n\n--L'objet qui me guide et qui m'anime toujours, dans mes gigantesques\ntravaux, r\u00e9pliqua Pott avec un sourire; le bien de mon pays.\n\n--Je supposais, effectivement, que c'\u00e9tait quelque mission politique.\n\n--Oui, monsieur, vous aviez raison, r\u00e9pondit Pott. Puis, se courbant\nvers M. Pickwick, il lui murmura \u00e0 l'oreille d'une voix creuse et lente:\nIl doit y avoir demain soir un bal jaune \u00e0 Birmingham.\n\n--En v\u00e9rit\u00e9! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick.\n\n--Oui, monsieur; et un souper jaune!\n\n--Est-il possible?\u00bb\n\nPott affirma le fait par un signe majestueux.\n\nQuoique M. Pickwick fit semblant d'\u00eatre atterr\u00e9 par cette communication,\nil \u00e9tait si peu vers\u00e9 dans la politique locale, qu'il ne pouvait pas\ncomprendre suffisamment l'importance de l'affreuse conspiration dont il\n\u00e9tait question. M. Pott s'en aper\u00e7ut, et tirant le dernier num\u00e9ro de _la\nGazette d'Eatanswill_, lui lut avec solemnit\u00e9 le paragraphe suivant:\n\nR\u00c9UNION CLANDESTINE DES JAUNES.\n\n\u00abUn reptile contemporain a r\u00e9cemment vomi son noir venin dans le vain\nespoir de souiller la pure renomm\u00e9e de notre illustre repr\u00e9sentant,\nl'honorable Samuel Slumkey; ce Slumkey dont nous avons pr\u00e9dit, longtemps\navant qu'il e\u00fbt atteint sa position actuelle, si noble et si ch\u00e9rie,\nqu'il serait un jour l'honneur et le triomphe de sa patrie, et le hardi\nd\u00e9fenseur de nos droits. Un reptile contemporain, disons-nous, a fait\nd'ignobles plaisanteries au sujet d'un panier \u00e0 charbon, en plaqu\u00e9,\nsuperbement cisel\u00e9, offert \u00e0 cet admirable citoyen par ses mandataires\nenchant\u00e9s. Ce mis\u00e9rable et obscur \u00e9crivain insinue que l'honorable\nSamuel Slumkey a, lui-m\u00eame, contribu\u00e9, par le moyen d'un ami intime de\nson sommelier, pour plus des trois quarts de la somme totale de la\nsouscription. Eh! quoi? cette cr\u00e9ature rampante ne voit-elle pas que, si\nce fait \u00e9tait vrai, il ne servirait qu'\u00e0 placer l'honorable M. Slumkey\ndans une aur\u00e9ole encore plus brillante, s'il est possible. Sa cervelle\nobtuse ne comprend-elle pas que cet aimable et touchant d\u00e9sir d'exaucer\nles voeux des \u00e9lecteurs doit le rendre cher \u00e0 jamais \u00e0 ceux de ses\ncompatriotes qui ne sont pas pires que des pourceaux, ou, en d'autres\ntermes, qui ne sont pas tomb\u00e9s aussi bas que notre contemporain? Mais\ntelles sont les mis\u00e9rables \u00e9quivoques des jaunes j\u00e9suitiques. Et ce ne\nsont pas l\u00e0 leurs seuls artifices! La trahison couve sous la cendre.\nNous d\u00e9clarons hardiment, maintenant que nous sommes provoqu\u00e9 \u00e0 tout\ndire, et nous nous pla\u00e7ons en cons\u00e9quence sous la sauvegarde de notre\npays et de ses constables, nous d\u00e9clarons hardiment qu'on fait, en ce\nmoment m\u00eame, des pr\u00e9paratifs pour un bal _jaune_, qui sera donn\u00e9 dans\nune ville _jaune_, au centre m\u00eame d'une population _jaune_, qui sera\ndirig\u00e9 par un ma\u00eetre des c\u00e9r\u00e9monies _jaune_, o\u00f9 assisteront quatre\nmembres du parlement _ultra-jaunes_, et o\u00f9 l'on ne sera admis qu'avec\ndes billets _jaunes_! Notre infernal contemporain frissonne-t-il? Qu'il\nse torde vainement dans son impuissante malice, en lisant ces mots:\n_Nous serons l\u00e0_.\u00bb\n\nApr\u00e8s avoir d\u00e9bit\u00e9 cette tirade, le journaliste, tout \u00e0 fait \u00e9puis\u00e9,\nreferma la gazette, en disant: \u00abVoil\u00e0 monsieur, voil\u00e0 l'\u00e9tat de la\nquestion.\u00bb\n\nL'aubergiste et le gar\u00e7on entrant en ce moment avec le d\u00eener, M. Pott\nposa son doigt sur ses l\u00e8vres, pour indiquer qu'il comptait sur la\ndiscr\u00e9tion de M. Pickwick, et qu'il le regardait comme ma\u00eetre de sa vie.\nM. Bob Sawyer et Benjamin Allen, qui s'\u00e9taient irr\u00e9v\u00e9remment endormis\npendant la lecture de la Gazette, furent r\u00e9veill\u00e9s par la prononciation\n\u00e0 voix basse de ce mot cabalistique: _d\u00eener_, et se mirent \u00e0 table, avec\nbon app\u00e9tit.\n\nPendant le repas et la s\u00e9ance qui lui succ\u00e9da, M. Pott, descendant pour\nquelques instants \u00e0 des sujets domestiques, informa M. Pickwick que\nl'air d'Eatanswill ne convenant pas \u00e0 son \u00e9pouse, elle \u00e9tait all\u00e9e\nvisiter diff\u00e9rents \u00e9tablissements fashionables d'eaux thermales, afin de\nrecouvrer sa bonne humeur, et sa sant\u00e9 accoutum\u00e9e. C'\u00e9tait l\u00e0 une\nmani\u00e8re d\u00e9licate de voiler le fait, que Mme Pott, ex\u00e9cutant sa menace de\ns\u00e9paration souvent r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9e, et en vertu d'un arrangement arrach\u00e9 \u00e0 M.\nPott par son fr\u00e8re le lieutenant, s'\u00e9tait retir\u00e9e pour vivre, avec son\nfid\u00e8le garde du corps, de la moiti\u00e9 des profits annuels provenant de la\nvente de la gazette d'Eatanswill.\n\nTandis que l'illustre journaliste, quels que fussent les diff\u00e9rents\nsujets qu'il trait\u00e2t, embellissait la conversation par des passages\nextraits de ses propres \u00e9lucubrations, un majestueux \u00e9tranger, mettant\nla t\u00eate \u00e0 la porti\u00e8re d'une diligence qui se rendait \u00e0 Birmingham, et\nqui s'\u00e9tait arr\u00eat\u00e9e devant l'auberge pour y laisser quelques paquets,\ndemanda s'il pouvait trouver dans l'h\u00f4tel un bon lit.\n\n\u00abCertainement, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua l'h\u00f4te.\n\n--En \u00eates-vous s\u00fbr? puis-je y compter? reprit l'\u00e9tranger, dont les\nregards et les mani\u00e8res avaient quelque chose de soup\u00e7onneux.\n\n--Sans aucun doute, monsieur.\n\n--Bien. Cocher, je reste ici. Conducteur, mon sac de nuit.\u00bb\n\nPuis ayant dit bonsoir aux autres passagers, d'un air d'assez mauvaise\nhumeur, l'\u00e9tranger descendit. C'\u00e9tait un petit gentleman, dont les\ncheveux noirs et roides \u00e9taient taill\u00e9s en h\u00e9risson, ou si l'on aime\nmieux en brosse, et se tenaient tout droits sur sa t\u00eate. Son aspect\n\u00e9tait pompeux et mena\u00e7ant; ses mani\u00e8res p\u00e9remptoires, ses yeux per\u00e7ants\net inquiets; toute sa tournure, enfin, annon\u00e7ait le sentiment d'une\ngrande confiance en soi-m\u00eame, et la conscience d'une incommensurable\nsup\u00e9riorit\u00e9 sur tout le reste du monde.\n\nCe gentleman fut introduit dans la chambre, originairement assign\u00e9e au\npatriote M. Pott, et le gar\u00e7on remarqua, avec un muet \u00e9tonnement, que la\nchandelle \u00e9tait \u00e0 peine allum\u00e9e quand l'\u00e9tranger, plongeant la main dans\nson chapeau, en tira un journal, et commen\u00e7a \u00e0 le lire avec la morne\nexpression d'indignation et de m\u00e9pris, qui avait jailli une heure\nauparavant du regard majestueux de M. Pott. Il se rappela aussi que\nl'indignation de M. Pott avait \u00e9t\u00e9 allum\u00e9e par un journal nomm\u00e9\nl'_Ind\u00e9pendant d'Eatanswill_, tandis que le profond m\u00e9pris du nouveau\ngentleman \u00e9tait excit\u00e9 par une feuille intitul\u00e9e: _La gazette\nd'Eatanswill_.\n\n\u00abEnvoyez-moi le ma\u00eetre de l'h\u00f4tel, dit l'\u00e9tranger.\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nL'h\u00f4te arriva bient\u00f4t apr\u00e8s.\n\n\u00ab\u00cates-vous le ma\u00eetre de l'h\u00f4tel? demanda l'\u00e9tranger.\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--Me connaissez-vous?\n\n--Je n'ai pas ce plaisir-l\u00e0, monsieur.\n\n--Mon nom est _Slurk_.\u00bb\n\nL'h\u00f4te inclina l\u00e9g\u00e8rement la t\u00eate.\n\n\u00abSlurk, monsieur! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta le gentleman d'un air hautain. Me\nconnaissez-vous, maintenant, aubergiste?\u00bb\n\nL'h\u00f4te se gratta la t\u00eate, regarda le plafond, puis l'\u00e9tranger, et sourit\nfaiblement.\n\n\u00abMe connaissez-vous?\u00bb\n\nL'h\u00f4te parut faire un grand effort, et r\u00e9pondit \u00e0 la fin:\n\n\u00abNon monsieur, je ne vous connais pas.\n\n--Grand Dieu! s'\u00e9cria l'\u00e9tranger en frappant la table de son poing;\nvoil\u00e0 donc ce que c'est que la popularit\u00e9!\u00bb\n\nL'h\u00f4te recula d'un pas ou deux vers la porte, et l'\u00e9tranger poursuivit,\nen le suivant des yeux:\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0 donc la reconnaissance que l'on accorde \u00e0 des ann\u00e9es d'\u00e9tude et\nde travail, sacrifi\u00e9es en faveur des masses! Je descends de voiture,\nmouill\u00e9, fatigu\u00e9, et les habitants ne s'empressent point pour f\u00e9liciter\nleur champion; leurs cloches sont silencieuses; mon nom m\u00eame ne r\u00e9veille\naucune gratitude dans leur esprit plein de torpeur. N'est-ce pas assez,\ncontinua M. Slurk en se promenant avec agitation, n'est-ce pas assez\npour faire bouillonner l'encre d'un homme dans sa plume, et pour le\nd\u00e9cider \u00e0 abandonner leur cause \u00e0 jamais!\n\n--Monsieur demande un grog \u00e0 l'eau-de-vie? dit l'h\u00f4te en hasardant une\ninsinuation.\n\n--Au rhum! r\u00e9pondit Slurk en se tournant vers lui d'un air farouche.\nAvez-vous du feu quelque part?\n\n--Nous pouvons en allumer sur-le-champ, monsieur.\n\n--Oui! et qu'il donne de la chaleur \u00e0 l'instant de me coucher. Y a-t-il\nquelqu'un dans la cuisine?\n\n--Pas une \u00e2me, monsieur. Il y a un feu superbe; tout le monde s'est\nretir\u00e9 et la porte est ferm\u00e9e pour la nuit.\n\n--C'est bien! je boirai mon grog pr\u00e8s du feu de la cuisine.\u00bb\n\nEt l\u00e0-dessus, reprenant majestueusement son chapeau et son journal,\nl'\u00e9tranger marcha d'un pas solennel derri\u00e8re l'h\u00f4te. Arriv\u00e9 dans la\ncuisine, il se jeta sur un si\u00e9ge, au coin du feu, reprit sa physionomie\nm\u00e9prisante, et commen\u00e7a \u00e0 lire et \u00e0 boire, avec une dignit\u00e9 silencieuse.\n\nOr, un d\u00e9mon de discorde, volant en ce moment au-dessus de la t\u00eate du\nSarrazin, et jetant les yeux en bas, par pure curiosit\u00e9, aper\u00e7ut Slurk,\nconfortablement \u00e9tabli au coin du feu de la cuisine et, dans une autre\nchambre, Pott, l\u00e9g\u00e8rement exalt\u00e9 par le vin. Aussit\u00f4t le malicieux\nd\u00e9mon, s'abattant dans ladite chambre avec une inconcevable rapidit\u00e9, et\ns'introduisant du m\u00eame temps dans la t\u00eate de Bob Sawyer, lui souffla le\ndiscours suivant.\n\n\u00abDites donc, nous avons laiss\u00e9 \u00e9teindre le feu; cette pluie a joliment\nrefroidi l'air.\n\n--C'est vrai, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick en frissonnant.\n\n--\u00c7a ne serait pas une mauvaise id\u00e9e de fumer un cigare au feu de la\ncuisine, hein! qu'en dites-vous? reprit Bob, toujours excit\u00e9 par le\nd\u00e9mon susdit.\n\n--Je crois que cela serait tout \u00e0 fait confortable, r\u00e9pliqua M.\nPickwick; qu'en pensez-vous, monsieur Pott?\u00bb\n\nM. Pott donna facilement son assentiment \u00e0 la mesure propos\u00e9e, et les\nquatre voyageurs se rendirent imm\u00e9diatement \u00e0 la cuisine, chacun d'eux\ntenant son verre \u00e0 la main, et Sam Weller marchant \u00e0 la t\u00eate de la\nprocession, afin de montrer le chemin.\n\nL'\u00e9tranger lisait encore. Il leva les yeux et tressaillit. M. Pott\nrecula d'un pas.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce qu'il y a? chuchota M. Pickwick.\n\n--Ce reptile! r\u00e9pliqua Pott.\n\n--Quel reptile? s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick en regardant autour de lui, de peur\nde marcher sur une limace gigantesque ou sur une araign\u00e9e hydropique.\n\n--Ce reptile! murmura Pott en prenant M. Pickwick par le bras, et lui\nmontrant l'\u00e9tranger; ce reptile, Slurk, de _l'Ind\u00e9pendant_.\n\n--Nous ferions peut-\u00eatre mieux de nous retirer? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Jamais, monsieur, jamais!\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua Pott; et prenant position \u00e0\nl'autre coin de la chemin\u00e9e, il choisit un journal dans son paquet et\ncommen\u00e7a \u00e0 lire en face de son ennemi.\n\nM. Pott naturellement lisait l'_Ind\u00e9pendant_, et M. Slurk lisait _la\nGazette_, et chaque gentleman exprimait son m\u00e9pris pour les compositions\nde l'autre par des ricanements amers et par des reniflements\nsarcastiques. Ensuite ils pass\u00e8rent \u00e0 des manifestations plus ouvertes,\ntelles que: Absurde! mis\u00e9rable! atrocit\u00e9! blague! coquinerie! boue!\nfange! ordure! et autres remarques critiques d'une nature semblable.\n\nMM. Bob Sawyer et Ben Allen avaient tous les deux observ\u00e9 ces sympt\u00f4mes\nde rivalit\u00e9 avec un plaisir intime, qui ajoutait beaucoup de go\u00fbt au\ncigare, dont ils tiraient de vigoureuses bouff\u00e9es. Lorsque le feu\nroulant d'observations commen\u00e7a \u00e0 s'apaiser, le malicieux Bob,\ns'adressant \u00e0 Slurk avec une grande politesse, lui dit: \u00abVoudriez-vous\nme permettre de jeter les yeux sur ce journal, quand vous l'aurez fini,\nmonsieur?\n\n--Vous trouverez peu de chose qui m\u00e9rite d'\u00eatre lu dans ces m\u00e9prisables\ngasconnades, r\u00e9pondit Slurk en lan\u00e7ant \u00e0 son rival un regard satanique.\n\n--Je vais vous donner celui-ci sur-le-champ, dit Pott en levant sa\nfigure, p\u00e2le de rage, et avec une voix que la m\u00eame cause rendait\ntremblante: vous serez amus\u00e9 par l'ignorance de cet \u00e9crivassier.\u00bb\n\nUne terrible emphase fut mise sur ces mots: _m\u00e9prisables_ et\n_\u00e9crivassier_, et le visage des deux \u00e9diteurs commen\u00e7a \u00e0 prendre une\nexpression provocatrice.\n\n\u00abLa galimatias et l'infamie de ce mis\u00e9rable sont par trop d\u00e9go\u00fbtants,\u00bb\npoursuivit Pott en affectant de s'adresser \u00e0 M. Bob Sawyer, tout en\njetant un regard mena\u00e7ant \u00e0 M. Slurk.\n\nM. Slurk se mit \u00e0 rire de tout son coeur, et, repliant le papier de\nmani\u00e8re \u00e0 passer \u00e0 la lecture d'une nouvelle colonne, d\u00e9clara que,\nmalgr\u00e9 tout, il ne pouvait s'emp\u00eacher de rire des absurdit\u00e9s de cet\nimb\u00e9cile.\n\n\u00abQuelle ignorance crasse! s'\u00e9cria Pott en passant du rouge au cramoisi.\n\n--Avez-vous jamais lu les sottises de cet homme? demanda Slurk \u00e0 Bob\nSawyer.\n\n--Jamais. C'est donc bien mauvais?\n\n--D\u00e9testable!\n\n--R\u00e9ellement! s'\u00e9cria Pott, feignant d'\u00eatre absorb\u00e9 dans sa lecture;\nceci est par trop inf\u00e2me!\u00bb\n\nSlurk tendit son journal \u00e0 Bob Sawyer en lui disant: \u00abSi vous avez le\ncourage de parcourir cet amas de m\u00e9chancet\u00e9s, de bassesses, de\nfausset\u00e9s, de parjures, de trahisons, d'hypocrisies, vous aurez\npeut-\u00eatre quelque plaisir \u00e0 rire du style peu grammatical de ce cuistre\nignorant.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que vous dites, monsieur? s'\u00e9cria Pott en relevant sa t\u00eate,\ntoute tremblante de fureur.\n\n--Cela ne vous regarde pas, monsieur.\n\n--Ne disiez-vous pas, style peu grammatical, cuistre ignorant, monsieur?\n\n--Oui, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Slurk; je dirai m\u00eame _style de haut\nemb\u00eatement_, si cela peut vous faire plaisir.\u00bb\n\nM. Pott ne r\u00e9pliqua rien, mais ayant soigneusement repli\u00e9 son\nind\u00e9pendant, il le jeta par terre, l'\u00e9crasa sous sa botte, cracha\ndessus, en grande c\u00e9r\u00e9monie, et le lan\u00e7a dans le feu.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0, dit-il en reculant sa chaise, voil\u00e0 comme je traiterais le\nserpent qui a vomi ce venin, si je n'\u00e9tais pas retenu, heureusement pour\nlui, par les lois de ma patrie. Oui, sans cette consid\u00e9ration, je le\ntraiterais de m\u00eame.\n\n--Traitez-le donc de m\u00eame, monsieur! cria Slurk en se levant. Il n'en\nappellera jamais aux lois dans un cas semblable. Traitez-le donc de\nm\u00eame, monsieur!\n\n--\u00c9coutez, \u00e9coutez! dit Bob Sawyer.\n\n--Rien ne saurait \u00eatre plus loyal, fit observer Ben Allen.\n\n--Traitez-le donc de m\u00eame, monsieur, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta Slurk d'un ton \u00e9lev\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nM. Pott lui darda un regard de m\u00e9pris qui aurait glac\u00e9 une fournaise.\n\n\u00abTraitez-le donc de m\u00eame! continua l'autre, d'une voix encore plus\nstridente.\n\n--Je ne le veux pas, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit Pott.\n\n--Oh! vous ne le voulez pas? Vraiment vous ne le voulez pas? reprit\nSlurk d'un air provoquant. Vous entendez cela, messieurs, il ne le veut\npas! Ce n'est pas qu'il ait peur, au moins; oh! non, il ne le veut pas,\nah! ah! ah!\n\n--Monsieur, r\u00e9torqua Pott \u00e9mu par ce sarcasme; je vous regarde comme une\nvip\u00e8re. Je vous consid\u00e8re comme un homme qui s'est mis en dehors de la\nsoci\u00e9t\u00e9, par sa conduite impudente, d\u00e9go\u00fbtante, abominable. Vous n'\u00eates\nplus pour moi, personnellement ou politiquement, qu'une vip\u00e8re, une pure\net simple vip\u00e8re!\u00bb\n\nL'Ind\u00e9pendant indign\u00e9 n'attendit pas la fin de cette d\u00e9claration, mais\nsaisissant son sac de nuit, qui \u00e9tait raisonnablement garni de biens\nmeubles, il le fit tourner en l'air pendant que Pott s'\u00e9loignait, et le\nlaissant retomber avec un grand fracas, sur la t\u00eate du gazetier,\nl'\u00e9tendit tout de son long sur le carreau.\n\n\u00abMessieurs! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, pendant que Pott se relevait et\nsaisissait la pelle; messieurs, r\u00e9fl\u00e9chissez, au nom du ciel! Du\nsecours! Sam! ici. Je vous en supplie, messieurs... Aidez-moi donc \u00e0 les\ns\u00e9parer!\u00bb\n\nTout en pronon\u00e7ant ces exclamations incoh\u00e9rentes, M. Pickwick s'\u00e9tait\npr\u00e9cipit\u00e9 entre les deux combattants, juste \u00e0 temps pour recevoir, sur\nses \u00e9paules, le sac de nuit d'un c\u00f4t\u00e9 et la pelle de l'autre. Soit que\nles organes de l'opinion publique d'Eatanswill fussent aveugl\u00e9s par leur\nanimosit\u00e9, soit qu'\u00e9tant tous deux de subtils raisonneurs, ils eussent\nvu l'avantage d'avoir entre eux un tiers parti pour recevoir les coups,\nil est certain qu'ils ne firent pas la plus l\u00e9g\u00e8re attention au\nphilosophe, mais que, se d\u00e9fiant mutuellement avec audace, ils\ncontinu\u00e8rent \u00e0 employer la pelle et le sac de nuit. M. Pickwick aurait\nsans doute cruellement souffert de son trop d'humanit\u00e9, si Sam, attir\u00e9\npar les cris de son ma\u00eetre, n'\u00e9tait pas accouru en cet instant, et,\nsaisissant un sac \u00e0 farine, n'avait pas efficacement arr\u00eat\u00e9 le conflit\nen l'enfon\u00e7ant sur la t\u00eate et sur les \u00e9paules du puissant Pott, et en le\nserrant au-dessous des coudes.\n\n\u00ab\u00d4tez le sac de nuit \u00e0 l'autre enrag\u00e9! cria-t-il en m\u00eame temps, \u00e0 MM.\nBen Allen et Bob Sawyer qui jusqu'alors s'\u00e9taient content\u00e9s de voltiger\nautour des combattants, une lancette \u00e0 la main, pr\u00eats \u00e0 saigner le\npremier individu \u00e9tourdi. L\u00e2chez votre sac, mis\u00e9rable petite cr\u00e9ature,\nou je vous \u00e9touffe l\u00e0 dedans!\u00bb\n\nIntimid\u00e9 par cette menace, et d'ailleurs tout \u00e0 fait hors d'haleine,\nl'Ind\u00e9pendant consentit \u00e0 se laisser d\u00e9sarmer. Sam \u00f4ta alors l'\u00e9teignoir\nqu'il tenait sur Pott, et le laissa libre en lui disant: \u00abAllez vous\ncoucher tranquillement, ou bien je vous mettrai tous les deux dans le\nsac, je le fermerai, et je vous laisserai battre dedans \u00e0 votre aise. Et\nquand vous seriez douze, je vous en ferais autant, pour vous apprendre \u00e0\nvous conduire de la sorte!\n\n--Vous, monsieur, continua-t-il en s'adressant \u00e0 son ma\u00eetre, ayez la\nbont\u00e9 de venir par ici, s'il vous pla\u00eet.\u00bb\n\nEn parlant ainsi il prit M. Pickwick par le bras et l'emmena, tandis que\nles \u00e9diteurs rivaux \u00e9taient conduits vers leurs lits par l'aubergiste,\nsous l'inspection de MM. Ben Allen et Bob Sawyer. Chemin faisant, les\ndeux combattants exhalaient encore leur courroux en menaces\nsanguinaires, et se donnaient de vagues et f\u00e9roces rendez-vous pour le\nlendemain. Toutefois, quand ils y eurent mieux pens\u00e9, ils trouv\u00e8rent que\nla presse \u00e9tait l'arme la plus redoutable: ils recommenc\u00e8rent donc sans\nd\u00e9lai leurs sanglantes hostilit\u00e9s, et tout Eatanswill fut effray\u00e9 de\nleur valeur... sur le papier.\n\nLe jour suivant nos amis apprirent que les \u00e9diteurs \u00e9taient partis, d\u00e8s\nle matin, par des voitures diff\u00e9rentes, et comme le temps s'\u00e9tait\n\u00e9clairci, ils se mirent en route pour Londres.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XXIII.\n\nAnnon\u00e7ant un changement s\u00e9rieux dans la famille Weller, et la chute\npr\u00e9matur\u00e9e de l'homme au nez rouge.\n\n\nCroyant que la d\u00e9licatesse ne lui permettait point de pr\u00e9senter, sans\npr\u00e9paration, MM. Bob Sawyer et Ben Allen au nouveau m\u00e9nage, et d\u00e9sirant\nm\u00e9nager, autant que possible, la sensibilit\u00e9 d'Arabelle, M. Pickwick\nproposa \u00e0 ses compagnons de descendre, pour le moment, quelque part et\nde le laisser aller seul, avec Sam, \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel de _George et Vautour_.\nIls y consentirent facilement et prirent, en cons\u00e9quence, leurs\nquartiers dans une taverne situ\u00e9e sur les confins du _Borough_. Ils s'y\ntrouvaient en pays de connaissance, car, en d'autre temps, leurs noms y\navaient souvent brill\u00e9 en t\u00eate de certains calculs longs et complexes\nenregistr\u00e9s \u00e0 la craie derri\u00e8re la porte.\n\n\u00abTiens, c'est vous? Bonjour, monsieur Weller, dit la jolie femme de\nchambre, lorsqu'elle rencontra Sam \u00e0 la porte.\n\n--C'est toujours un bon jour quand je vous vois, ma ch\u00e8re, r\u00e9pondit Sam\nen restant en arri\u00e8re, de mani\u00e8re \u00e0 n'\u00eatre pas entendu de son ma\u00eetre.\nQuelle jolie cr\u00e9ature vous faites, Mary!\n\n--Allons! monsieur Weller, quelles folies vous dites! Oh! finissez donc,\nmonsieur Weller.\n\n--Finissez quoi, ma ch\u00e8re?\n\n--Eh! mais ce que vous faites.... Laissez-moi donc monsieur Weller, dit\nla jolie bonne en souriant et en poussant Sam contre le mur. Vous avez\nchiffonn\u00e9 mon bonnet, d\u00e9fris\u00e9 mes cheveux, et vous m'emp\u00eachez de vous\ndire qu'il y a ici une lettre qui vous attend depuis trois jours. Vous\nne faisiez que de partir quand elle est arriv\u00e9e, et il y a _press\u00e9e_\ndessus.\n\n--O\u00f9 est-elle, mon amour?\n\n--J'en ai pris soin \u00e0 cause de vous; autrement je suis bien s\u00fbre\nqu'elle aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 perdue depuis longtemps. En v\u00e9rit\u00e9, c'est plus que\nvous ne m\u00e9ritez.\u00bb\n\nTout en parlant ainsi et en exprimant avec une petite coquetterie\ncharmante des doutes, des craintes, de l'espoir, sur la conservation de\nla lettre, Mary la tira de la plus jolie petite guimpe qu'on puisse\nimaginer, et la tendit \u00e0 Sam, qui la baisa aussit\u00f4t avec beaucoup de\ngalanterie et de d\u00e9votion.\n\n\u00abTiens, tiens, dit Mary en ajustant sa collerette avec une feinte\nignorance; vous avez l'air d'\u00eatre devenu bien amoureux de cette\n\u00e9criture-l\u00e0 tout d'un coup?\u00bb\n\nSam ne r\u00e9pondit que par une oeillade, dont l'expression br\u00fblante ne\npourrait \u00eatre rendue par aucune description; puis s'asseyant aupr\u00e8s de\nMary, sur l'appui de la fen\u00eatre, il ouvrit la lettre et en examina le\ncontenu.\n\n\u00abOh\u00e9! s'\u00e9cria-t-il, qu'est-ce que \u00e7a veut dire?\n\n--Pas de malheur, j'esp\u00e8re? dit Mary en regardant par-dessus son \u00e9paule.\n\n--Que Dieu b\u00e9nisse vos jolis yeux! s'\u00e9cria Sam en se retournant.\n\n--Ne vous occupez pas de mes yeux et pensez \u00e0 votre lettre,\u00bb r\u00e9torqua la\ncharmant bonne.\n\nMais en parlant ainsi, elle lui d\u00e9cochait un regard o\u00f9 brillait tant de\nmalice et de vivacit\u00e9 qu'il \u00e9tait absolument irr\u00e9sistible.\n\nSam se rafra\u00eechit donc d'un baiser, et lut ensuite ce qui suit:\n\n\u00abMarkis Gran by Dorken, mekerdi.\n\n\u00abMon cher Saumule,\n\n\u00abJe suis tr\u00e8s f\u00e2ch\u00e9 davoir le pl\u00e9sir de vous anonser des m\u00f4v\u00e8ses\nnouvelles. Votre Belmaire a atrapp\u00e9 un rumhe en cons\u00e9quance quelle a u\nlimprudanse de rester trop lontems assise sur le gason humid a la pluie\npour antendre un berger qui navet pas pu tenir son bec que tr\u00e9 tar dent\nla nui parce qui s\u00e9tait si bien mont\u00e9 avec du grogue qui na pas pu\nsarr\u00eater aveng deitre un peu d\u00e9gris\u00e9 ce ka pris plusieurres heurres le\ndocteur dit que si elle avait pris du grogue chaux aprais au lieur de le\nprandre avent elle naurait pas \u00e9t\u00e9 endommajait. Ses roues a \u00e9t\u00e9\nimm\u00e9diatement grais\u00e9 et on a fai tout ce quel on a pu pour la faire\nrouler Votre p\u00e8re esp\u00e9rait quel pourait march\u00e9 comme \u00e0 lordinairre mais\njuste comme elle tournais le coin mon garson elle a pris le mauves\nchemin et elle a d\u00e9gring aulet la montagne avec une vellocit\u00e9 comme on\nnen na jam\u00e8s veu et malgr\u00e9 que le m\u00e9decin a voulu lenrayer \u00e7a na servi\nde rien du tout car elle a fait son dernier relai i\u00e8re souarre \u00e0 si\nzeurre moins vin minnutes ayant fait le voilliage en baucoup moins de\ntemsp qu'\u00e0 lordinaire peut h\u00eatre parce quelle avait pris tr\u00f4 peu de\nbagaje en route. Votre p\u00e8re dit que si vous voulez venir me voir samy il\nen sera bien satisf\u00e8z car je suis for sollitaire sammivel. N.B. il veut\nque \u00e7a soit hortografhi\u00e9 comme cela que je dis qui na\u00eet pas bien et\ncomme il y a beaucoup de chose \u00e0 arrranger il hait s\u00fbr que votre\ngouvernur ne si refusera pas bien s\u00fbr qu'il ne si refuserra pas samy car\nje le connais bien ainsil vous envoie ses devoirs auquels je me joint et\nsuis pour la vie infernalement d\u00e9vou\u00e9,\n\n_Votre p\u00e8re_ TONY VELLER\u00bb\n\n\u00abQuelle dr\u00f4le de lettre, dit Sam. Y a-t-il moyen de comprendre ce qu'il\nveut dire avec ses _il_ et ses _je_. Ce n'est pas l'\u00e9criture de mon\np\u00e8re, except\u00e9 cette signature ici en lettres moul\u00e9es. \u00c7a c'est sa\ngriphe.\n\n--Peut-\u00eatre qu'il l'a fait \u00e9crire par quelqu'un et qu'il a sign\u00e9\nensuite, dit la jolie femme de chambre.\n\n--Attendez un peu, reprit Sam en parcourant la lettre de nouveau et en\ns'arr\u00eatant \u00e7a et l\u00e0 pour r\u00e9fl\u00e9chir. Vous avez raison. Le gentleman qui\nl'a \u00e9crite racontait le malheur qui est arriv\u00e9 d'une mani\u00e8re convenable,\net alors v'l\u00e0 le p\u00e8re qui vient regarder par-dessus son \u00e9paule et qui\ncomplique l'histoire en y fourrant son nez. C'est pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment comme \u00e7a\nqu'il fait toujours. Vous avez raison, Mary, ma ch\u00e8re.\u00bb\n\nS'\u00e9tant mis l'esprit en repos sur ce point, Sam relut encore la lettre,\net paraissant, pour la premi\u00e8re fois, se faire une id\u00e9e nette de son\ncontenu, il la referma d'un air pensif en disant:\n\n\u00abAinsi la pauvre cr\u00e9ature est morte. J'en suis f\u00e2ch\u00e9: elle n'aurait pas\neu un mauvais caract\u00e8re, si ces bergers l'avaient laiss\u00e9e tranquille.\nJ'en suis tr\u00e8s-f\u00e2ch\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nSam murmura ces paroles d'un air si s\u00e9rieux que la jolie bonne baissa\nles yeux et prit une physionomie grave.\n\n\u00abQuoi qu'il en soit, poursuivit Sam en mettant la lettre dans sa poche\navec l\u00e9ger soupir, \u00e7a devait arriver comme \u00e7a, et il n'y a plus de\nrem\u00e8de maintenant, comme dit la vieille lady, apr\u00e8s avoir \u00e9pous\u00e9 son\ndomestique. C'est-il pas vrai, Mary?\u00bb\n\nMary secoua la t\u00eate et soupira aussi.\n\n\u00abIl faut que je demande un cong\u00e9 \u00e0 l'empereur, maintenant.\u00bb\n\nMary soupira encore; la lettre \u00e9tait si touchante.\n\n\u00abAdieu, dit Sam.\n\n--Adieu, r\u00e9pondit la jolie bonne en d\u00e9tournant la t\u00eate.\n\n--Une poign\u00e9e de mains. Est-ce que vous ne voulez pas?\u00bb\n\nLa jolie bonne tendit une main qui \u00e9tait fort petite, quoique ce fut la\nmain d'une bonne. Puis elle se leva pour s'en aller.\n\n\u00abJe ne serai pas bien longtemps, dit Sam.\n\n--Vous \u00eates toujours absent, r\u00e9pliqua Mary en donnant \u00e0 sa t\u00eate la plus\nl\u00e9g\u00e8re secousse possible. Vous n'\u00eates pas plus t\u00f4t revenu que vous voil\u00e0\nreparti, monsieur Weller.\u00bb\n\nSam attira plus pr\u00e8s de lui la beaut\u00e9 domestique et commen\u00e7a \u00e0 lui\nparler \u00e0 voix basse. Bient\u00f4t elle retourna son visage et consentit \u00e0 le\nregarder de nouveau, de sorte que, quand ils se s\u00e9par\u00e8rent, elle fut\noblig\u00e9e d'aller dans sa chambre pour rarranger son bonnet et ses\ncheveux, avant de se rendre aupr\u00e8s de sa ma\u00eetresse. Tout en montant\nl\u00e9g\u00e8rement les escaliers, elle faisait encore \u00e0 Sam, par-dessus la\nrampe, un grand nombre de signes et de sourires.\n\n\u00abJe ne serai pas plus d'un jour ou deux, monsieur, dit Sam \u00e0 M.\nPickwick.\n\n--Aussi longtemps qu'il sera n\u00e9cessaire, Sam; vous avez toute permission\nde rester.\u00bb\n\nSam salua.\n\n\u00abVous direz \u00e0 votre p\u00e8re que si je puis lui \u00eatre de quelque utilit\u00e9, je\nsuis pr\u00eat \u00e0 faire pour lui tout ce qui sera en mon pouvoir.\n\n--Je vous remercie bien, monsieur; je le lui dirai.\u00bb\n\nAyant \u00e9chang\u00e9 ces expressions de bonne volont\u00e9 et d'int\u00e9r\u00eat mutuel, le\nma\u00eetre et le valet se s\u00e9par\u00e8rent.\n\nIl \u00e9tait sept heures du soir quand Samuel Weller descendit du si\u00e9ge\nd'une voiture publique, qui passait par Dorking, \u00e0 quelques cents pas du\nmarquis de Granby. La soir\u00e9e \u00e9tait triste et froide, la petite rue,\nnoire et d\u00e9serte, et le visage d'acajou du noble marquis, pouss\u00e9 \u00e0\ndroite et \u00e0 gauche par le vent qui le faisait craquer d'une mani\u00e8re\nlugubre, semblait plus m\u00e9lancolique qu'\u00e0 l'ordinaire; les jalousies\n\u00e9taient baiss\u00e9es, les volets ferm\u00e9s en partie; il n'y avait pas un seul\nfl\u00e2neur devant la porte; la sc\u00e8ne \u00e9tait silencieuse et d\u00e9sol\u00e9e.\n\nVoyant qu'il ne se trouvait l\u00e0 personne pour r\u00e9pondre \u00e0 des questions\npr\u00e9liminaires, Sam entra doucement et aper\u00e7ut bient\u00f4t le respectable\nauteur de ses jours.\n\nLe veuf \u00e9tait assis pr\u00e8s d'une petite table dans le cabinet situ\u00e9\nderri\u00e8re le comptoir. Il fumait sa pipe et ses yeux \u00e9taient\nattentivement fix\u00e9s sur le feu. Les fun\u00e9railles avaient \u00e9videmment eu\nlieu le jour m\u00eame, car une grande bande de cr\u00eape noir d'environ une aune\net demie \u00e9tait encore attach\u00e9e \u00e0 son chapeau qu'il avait gard\u00e9 sur sa\nt\u00eate, et, passant par-dessus le dossier de sa chaise, descendait\nn\u00e9gligemment jusqu'\u00e0 terre. M. Weller \u00e9tait dans une disposition si\ncontemplative que Sam l'appela vainement plusieurs fois par son nom; il\ncontinua de fumer avec la m\u00eame physionomie calme et immobile jusqu'au\nmoment o\u00f9 son fils le r\u00e9veilla d\u00e9finitivement en posant la main sur son\n\u00e9paule.\n\n\u00abSammy, dit M. Weller, tu es le bienvenu.\n\n--Je vous ai appel\u00e9 une demi-douzaine de fois, r\u00e9pondit Sam en\naccrochant son chapeau \u00e0 une pat\u00e8re; mais vous ne m'entendiez pas.\n\n--C'est vrai, r\u00e9pliqua M. Weller en regardant encore le feu d'une\nmani\u00e8re pensive; j'\u00e9tais dans une _r\u00e9verri_, Sammy.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que \u00e7a? demanda Sam, en tirant une chaise pr\u00e8s du foyer.\n\n--Je pensais \u00e0 elle.\u00bb En disant ces mots, le veuf inclina sa t\u00eate du\nc\u00f4t\u00e9 du cimeti\u00e8re de Dorking, pour indiquer que ses paroles se\nrapportaient \u00e0 la d\u00e9funte Mme Weller. \u00abJe pensais, poursuivit-il en\nregardant fixement son fils par-dessus sa pipe, comme pour l'assurer que\nla d\u00e9claration qu'il allait entendre, tout extraordinaire, tout\nincroyable qu'elle f\u00fbt, \u00e9tait prof\u00e9r\u00e9e avec calme et r\u00e9flexion, je\npensais qu'apr\u00e8s tout, je suis tr\u00e8s-f\u00e2ch\u00e9 qu'elle est partie.\n\n--Eh bien! vous devez l'\u00eatre.\u00bb\n\nM. Weller fit un signe d'assentiment, et fixant de nouveau ses yeux sur\nle feu, s'enveloppa dans un nuage de fum\u00e9e et de r\u00e9flexions.\n\nApr\u00e8s un long silence, il reprit, en chassant la fum\u00e9e avec sa main:\n\n\u00abC'est des observations tr\u00e8s-raisonnables qu'elle m'a fait, Sammy.\n\n--Quelles observations?\n\n--Celles qu'elle m'a faites quand elle a \u00e9t\u00e9 malade.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que c'\u00e9tait?\n\n--Quelque chose comme ceci: \u00abWeller, qu'elle dit, j'ai peur que je n'ai\npas z'\u00e9t\u00e9 avec vous comme j'aurais d\u00fb \u00eatre. Vous \u00e9tiez un brave homme,\navec un bon coeur, et j'aurais pu vous rendre votre maison plus\nconfortable. Maintenant qu'il est trop tard, dit-elle, je m'aper\u00e7ois que\nsi une femme mari\u00e9e veut s'montrer d\u00e9vote, il faut qu'elle commence par\nremplir ses devoirs dans sa maison, et qu'elle rende ceux qui sont\nautour d'elle confortables et heureux. Pourvu qu'elle aille \u00e0 l'\u00e9glise\nou \u00e0 la chapelle en temps convenable, il ne faut pas qu'elle se serve de\nces sortes de choses pour excuser sa paresse ou sa gourmandise, ou bien\npire. J'ai fait tout \u00e7a, dit-elle, et j'ai d\u00e9pens\u00e9 mon temps et mon\nargent pour des gens qui employaient leur temps encore plus mal que moi.\nMais quand je serai partie, Weller, j'esp\u00e8re que vous vous rappellerez\nde moi, telle que j'\u00e9tais r\u00e9ellement par mon naturel avant d'avoir connu\nces gens-l\u00e0.\u00bb--Suzanne, que je lui ai dit--j'avais \u00e9t\u00e9 pris un peu court\npar cette remarque-l\u00e0, Samivel, je ne veux pas le nier, mon gar\u00e7on--.\n\u00abSuzanne, que je lui ai dit, vous avez \u00e9t\u00e9 une tr\u00e8s-bonne femme pour moi\nau total; ainsi ne parlons plus de cela. Reprenez bon courage, ma ch\u00e8re,\net vous vivrez encore assez longtemps pour me voir ramollir la t\u00eate de\nce Stiggins.\u00bb \u00c7a l'a fait sourire, Samivel, dit le vieux gentleman en\n\u00e9touffant un soupir avec sa pipe. Mais elle est morte tout de m\u00eame!\u00bb\n\nAu bout de trois ou quatre minutes consum\u00e9es par l'honn\u00eate cocher \u00e0\nbalancer lentement sa t\u00eate d'une \u00e9paule \u00e0 l'autre, en fumant\nsolennellement, Sam crut devoir se hasarder \u00e0 lui offrir quelques lieux\ncommuns de consolation:\n\n\u00abAllons, gouverneur, dit-il, faut bien que nous en passions tous par l\u00e0\nun jour ou l'autre.\n\n--C'est vrai, Sammy.\n\n--Il y a une providence dans tout \u00e7a.\n\n--Certainement, r\u00e9pondit le p\u00e8re avec un signe d'approbation r\u00e9fl\u00e9chie;\nsans cela, que deviendraient les entrepreneurs des pompes fun\u00e8bres?\u00bb\n\nPerdu dans le champ immense de conjectures ouvert par cette r\u00e9flexion,\nM. Weller posa sa pipe sur la table et attisa le feu d'un air pensif.\n\nTandis qu'il \u00e9tait ainsi occup\u00e9, une cuisini\u00e8re grassouillette, v\u00eatue de\ndeuil, et qui, depuis quelques instants, avait l'air ranger le comptoir,\nse glissa dans la chambre, et, accordant \u00e0 Sam plusieurs sourires de\nreconnaissance, se pla\u00e7a silencieusement derri\u00e8re la chaise de M.\nWeller, auquel elle annon\u00e7a sa pr\u00e9sence par une l\u00e9g\u00e8re toux, r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9e\nbient\u00f4t apr\u00e8s sur un ton beaucoup plus \u00e9lev\u00e9.\n\n\u00abOh\u00e9! dit M. Weller en reculant pr\u00e9cipitamment sa chaise et en se\nretournant si vite qu'il laissa tomber le fourgon, qu'est-ce qu'il y a\nmaintenant?\n\n--Prenez une petite tasse de th\u00e9, mon bon monsieur Weller dit d'une voix\nc\u00e2line la cuisini\u00e8re grassouillette.\n\n--Je n'en veux pas, r\u00e9pliqua brusquement le cocher. Allez vous-en \u00e0\ntous.... Allez vous promener, dit-il en sa reprenant et d'un ton plus\nbas.\n\n--Voyez donc comme le malheur change le monde! s'\u00e9cria la dame en levant\nles yeux au ciel.\n\n--\u00c7a ne me fera pas changer d'\u00e9tat au moins, murmura M. Weller.\n\n--R\u00e9ellement, je n'ai jamais vu un homme de si mauvaise humeur!\n\n--Ne vous inqui\u00e9tez pas; c'est pour mon bien, comme disait l'\u00e9colier\npour se consoler quand on lui donnait le fouet.\u00bb\n\nLa dame potel\u00e9e hocha la t\u00eate d'un air plein de sympathie, et\ns'adressant \u00e0 Sam, lui demanda s'il ne pensait pas que son p\u00e8re devrait\nfaire un effort pour se remonter et ne pas c\u00e9der \u00e0 son abattement.\n\n\u00abVoyez-vous, monsieur Samuel, poursuivit-elle, c'est ce que je lui\ndisais avant z'hier. I'sentira qu'il est bien seul. \u00c7a ne se peut pas\nautrement, monsieur; mais il devrait t\u00e2cher de prendre courage, car je\nsuis s\u00fbre que nous le plaignons bien et que nous sommes pr\u00eates \u00e0 faire\nce que nous pourrons pour le consoler. Il n'y a point dans la vie de\nsituation si malheureuse qu'on ne puisse l'amender, et c'est ce qu'une\npersonne tr\u00e8s-digne me disait quand mon mari est mort.\u00bb\n\nIci l'orateur potel\u00e9, mettant sa main devant sa bouche, toussa encore et\nregarda affectueusement M. Weller.\n\n\u00abComme je n'ai pas besoin de vot'conversation dans ce moment, ma'm,\nvoulez-vous avoir l'obligeance de vous retirer, lui dit le cocher d'une\nvoix grave et ferme.\n\n--Bien, bien, monsieur Weller! Je ne vous ai parl\u00e9 que par bont\u00e9 d'\u00e2me\npour s\u00fbr.\n\n--C'est tr\u00e8s-probable, ma'm. Samivel, reconduisez madame, et fermez la\nporte apr\u00e8s elle.\u00bb\n\nCette insinuation ne fut pas perdue pour la cuisini\u00e8re grassouillette,\ncar elle quitta la chambre sans d\u00e9lai, et jeta violemment la porte\nderri\u00e8re elle.\n\nAlors M. Weller retombant sur sa chaise, dans une violente\ntranspiration:\n\n\u00abSammy, dit-il, si je restais ici tout seul une semaine, rien qu'une\nsemaine, mon gar\u00e7on, je suis s\u00fbr que cette femme-l\u00e0 m'\u00e9pouserait de\nforce.\n\n--Elle vous aime donc furieusement?\n\n--Je le crois bon qu'elle m'aime; je ne puis pas la faire tenir. Si\nj'\u00e9tais enferm\u00e9 dans un coffre-fort de fer, avec une serrure brevet\u00e9e,\nelle trouverait moyen d'arriver jusqu'\u00e0 moi.\n\n--C'est terrible d'\u00eatre recherch\u00e9 comme cela! fit observer Sam en\nsouriant.\n\n--Je n'en tire pas d'orgueil, Sammy, r\u00e9pliqua M. Weller en attisant le\nfeu avec v\u00e9h\u00e9mence. C'est une horrible situation! Je suis positivement\nchass\u00e9 de ma maison \u00e0 cause de cela. \u00c0 peine si les yeux de vot' pauvre\nbelle-m\u00e8re \u00e9taient ferm\u00e9s, que v'l\u00e0 une vieille qui m'envoie un pot de\nconfitures; une autre, un bocal de cornichons; une autre qui m'apporte\nelle-m\u00eame une grande cruche de tisane de camomille.\u00bb M. Weller s'arr\u00eata\navec un air de profond d\u00e9go\u00fbt, et, regardant autour de lui, ajouta \u00e0\nvoix basse: \u00abC'\u00e9taient toutes des veuves, Sammy; toutes, except\u00e9 celle \u00e0\nla camomille, qu'\u00e9tait une jeune demoiselle de cinquante-trois ans.\u00bb\n\nSam r\u00e9pondit \u00e0 son p\u00e8re par un regard comique, et le vieux gentleman se\nmit \u00e0 briser un gros morceau de charbon de terre, avec une physionomie\naussi vindicative et aussi f\u00e9roce que si \u00e7'avait \u00e9t\u00e9 la t\u00eate de l'une\ndes veuves ci-mentionn\u00e9es.\n\n\u00abEnfin, Sam, poursuivit-il, je ne me sens pas en s\u00fbret\u00e9 ailleurs que sur\nmon si\u00e9ge.\n\n--Comment y \u00eates-vous plus en s\u00fbret\u00e9 qu'ailleurs? interrompit Sam.\n\n--Parce qu'un cocher est un \u00eatre privil\u00e9gi\u00e9, r\u00e9pliqua M. Weller en\nregardant son fils fixement. Parce qu'un cocher peut faire, sans \u00eatre\nsoup\u00e7onn\u00e9, ce qu'un autre homme ne peut pas faire; parce qu'un cocher\npeut \u00eatre sur le pied le plus amicable avec quatre-vingt mille\nvoyageuses du beau sexe, sans que personne pense jamais qu'il ait envie\nd'en \u00e9pouser une seule. Y a-t-il un autre mortel qui puisse en dire\nautant, Sammy?\n\n--Vraiment, y a quelque chose l\u00e0 dedans, r\u00e9pondit Sam d'un air\nm\u00e9ditatif.\n\n--Si ton gouverneur avait \u00e9t\u00e9 un cocher, crois-tu que les jurys\nl'auraient condamn\u00e9? En supposant que les choses en seraient venues \u00e0\nces extr\u00eamit\u00e9s-l\u00e0, ils n'auraient pas os\u00e9, mon gar\u00e7on.\n\n--Pourquoi pas? demanda Sam dubitativement.\n\n--Pourquoi pas? Parce que \u00e7a aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 contre leur conscience. Un\nv\u00e9ritable cocher est une sorte de trait-d'union entre le c\u00e9libat et le\nmariage; tous les hommes pratiques savent cela.\n\n--Vous voulez dire qu'ils sont les favoris de tout le monde, et que\npersonne ne veut abuser de leur innocence.\u00bb\n\nLe p\u00e8re Weller fit un signe de t\u00eate affirmatif, puis il ajouta:\n\n\u00abComment \u00e7a en est venu l\u00e0, je ne peux pas le dire. Pourquoi le cocher\nde diligence poss\u00e8de tant d'insinuation et est toujours lorgn\u00e9,\nrecherch\u00e9, ador\u00e9 par toutes les jeunes femmes dans chaque ville o\u00f9 il\ntravaille, je n'en sais rien; je sais seulement que c'est comme \u00e7a.\nC'est une r\u00e8gle de la nature, un dispensaire de la providence, comme\nvotre pauvre belle-m\u00e8re avait l'habitude de dire.\n\n--Une dispensation, fit observer Sam, en corrigeant le vieux gentleman.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, Samivel, une dispensation si \u00e7a te pla\u00eet; moi je l'appelle\nun dispensaire, et c'est toujours \u00e9crit comme \u00e7a dans les endroits o\u00f9 on\nvous donne des m\u00e9decines pour rien, pourvu que vous apportiez une fiole:\nvoila tout.\u00bb\n\nEn pronon\u00e7ant ces mots, M. Weller bourra et ralluma sa pipe; puis,\nreprenant encore une expression de physionomie r\u00e9fl\u00e9chie, il continua\nainsi qu'il suit:\n\n\u00abC'est pourquoi, mon gar\u00e7on, comme je ne vois pas l'utilit\u00e9 de rester\nici pour \u00eatre mari\u00e9 de force, et comme je ne veux pas me s\u00e9parer des\nplus aimables membres de la socili\u00e9t\u00e9, j'ai r\u00e9solu de conduire encore\nl'_inversable_, et de me remiser \u00e0 la _Belle-Sauvage_, ce qu'est mon\n\u00e9l\u00e9ment naturel, Sammy.\n\n--Et qu'est-ce que la boutique deviendra?\n\n--La boutique, mon gar\u00e7on, fonds, crient\u00e8le et ameublement, sera vendue\npar un bon contrat, et comme ta belle-m\u00e8re m'en a montr\u00e9 le d\u00e9sir avant\nde mourir, sur le prix de la vente on rel\u00e8vera deux cents livres\nsterling, qui seront plac\u00e9es en ton nom dans les.... Comment appelles-tu\nces machines-l\u00e0?\n\n--Quelles machines?\n\n--Ces histoires qui sont toujours \u00e0 monter et \u00e0 descendre dans la cit\u00e9.\n\n--Les omnibus?\n\n--Non, ces histoires qui sont toujours en fluctuation, et qui\ns'entrem\u00ealent continuellement, d'une mani\u00e8re ou d'une autre, avec la\ndette nationale, les bons du tr\u00e9sor et tout \u00e7a?\n\n--Ah! les fonds publics.\n\n--Oui, les fontes publiques. Deux cents livres sterling, qui seront\nplac\u00e9es pour toi dans les fontes, quatre et demi pour cent, Sammy.\n\n--C'est tr\u00e8s-aimable de la part de la vieille lady, d'avoir pens\u00e9 \u00e0 moi,\net je lui en suis fort oblig\u00e9.\n\n--La reste sera pla\u00e7a en mon nom, et quand je recevrai ma feuille de\nroute, \u00e7a te reviendra. Ainsi prends garde de ne pas tout d\u00e9penser d'un\ncoup, mon gar\u00e7on, et fais attention qu'il n'y ait pas quelque veuve qui\nse doute de ta fortune, ou bien te voil\u00e0 enfonc\u00e9!\u00bb\n\nAyant prof\u00e9r\u00e9 cet avertissement paternel, M. Weller reprit sa pipe avec\nune contenance plus sereine, son esprit \u00e9tant en apparence\nconsid\u00e9rablement soulag\u00e9 par la r\u00e9v\u00e9lation qu'il venait de faire \u00e0 son\nfils.\n\n\u00abOn frappe, dit Sam au bout d'un moment.\n\n--Laisse-les frapper,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit son p\u00e8re avec dignit\u00e9.\n\nSam demeurant donc immobile, un autre coup se fit entendre, puis un\nautre, puis une longue succession de coups, et Sam demandant pourquoi la\npersonne qui tapait n'\u00e9tait pas admise:\n\n\u00abChut! murmura M. Weller avec un air d'appr\u00e9hension; n'y fais pas\nattention, Sammy, c'est une veuve peut-\u00eatre.\u00bb\n\nAu bout de quelque temps l'invisible tapeur, remarquant qu'on ne\ns'occupait pas de lui, s'aventura \u00e0 entr'ouvrir la porte pour jeter un\ncoup d'oeil dans la chambre, et l'on aper\u00e7ut alors par l'ouverture, non\npas une t\u00eate f\u00e9minine, mais les longs cheveux noirs et la face rougeaude\nde M. Stiggins.\n\nLa pipe du vieux cocher lui tomba des mains.\n\nLe r\u00e9v\u00e9rend gentleman entre-b\u00e2illa la porte par un mouvement presque\nimperceptible, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que l'ouverture f\u00fbt assez large pour permettre\nle passage de son corps d\u00e9charn\u00e9, puis il se glissa dans la chambre et\nreferma la porte avec soin et sans faire de bruit. Se tournant alors\nvers Sam il leva ses yeux et ses mains vers le plafond, en t\u00e9moignage du\nchagrin inexprimable que lui avait caus\u00e9 la calamit\u00e9 tomb\u00e9e sur la\nfamille; puis il porta le grand fauteuil dans un coin, aupr\u00e8s du feu, et\ns'asseyant sur le bord du si\u00e9ge, tira de sa poche un mouchoir brun, et\nl'appliqua \u00e0 ses yeux.\n\nTandis que ceci se passait, M. Weller \u00e9tait demeur\u00e9 sur sa chaise, les\nyeux d\u00e9mesur\u00e9ment ouverts, les mains plant\u00e9es sur ses genoux, et toute\nsa contenance exprimant la stup\u00e9faction la plus accablante. Sam plac\u00e9\nvis-\u00e0-vis de lui attendait en silence et avec une inqui\u00e8te curiosit\u00e9, la\nfin de cette sc\u00e8ne.\n\nM. Stiggins tint, pendant quelques minutes, le mouchoir brun devant ses\nyeux, tout en g\u00e9missant d'une mani\u00e8re d\u00e9cente. Ensuite, ayant surmont\u00e9\nsa tristesse par un violent effort, il remit son mouchoir dans sa poche\net l'y boutonna; apr\u00e8s quoi il attisa le feu, frotta ses mains, et\nregarda Sam.\n\n\u00abOh! mon jeune ami, dit-il en rompant le silence, mais d'une voix\ntr\u00e8s-basse; voil\u00e0 une terrible affliction pour moi.\u00bb\n\nSam baissa l\u00e9g\u00e8rement la t\u00eate.\n\n\u00abEt pour l'impie \u00e9galement! Cela fait saigner le coeur.\u00bb\n\nSam crut entendre son p\u00e8re murmurer quelque chose sur un nez qui\npourrait bien aussi saigner; mais M. Stiggins ne l'entendit point.\n\nLe r\u00e9v\u00e9rend rapprocha sa chaise de Sam.\n\n\u00abSavez-vous, jeune homme, lui dit-il, si elle a l\u00e9gu\u00e9 quelque chose \u00e0\nEmmanuel?\n\n--Qui c'est-il? demanda Sam.\n\n--La chapelle..., notre chapelle..., notre troupeau, monsieur Samuel.\n\n--Elle n'a rien laiss\u00e9 pour le troupeau, rien pour le berger, rien pour\nles animaux, ni pour les chiens non plus,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit Sam d'un ton\nd\u00e9cisif.\n\nM. Stiggins regarda Sam finement, jeta un coup d'oeil au vieux gentleman\nqui avait ferm\u00e9 les yeux, comme s'il s'\u00e9tait endormi, et rapprochant\nencore sa chaise de Sam, lui dit:\n\n\u00abRien pour moi, monsieur Samuel?\u00bb\n\nSam secoua la t\u00eate.\n\n\u00abIl me semble qu'il doit y avoir quelque chose, dit Stiggins en devenant\naussi p\u00e2le que cela lui \u00e9tait possible. Rappelez-vous bien, monsieur\nSamuel, pas un petit souvenir?\n\n--Pas seulement la valeur de votre vieux parapluie.\n\n--Peut-\u00eatre, reprit avec h\u00e9sitation M. Stiggins, apr\u00e8s quelques minutes\nde r\u00e9flexion profonde; peut-\u00eatre qu'elle m'a recommand\u00e9 aux soins de\nl'impie?\n\n--C'est fort probable, d'apr\u00e8s ce qu'il m'a dit. Il me parlait de vous\ntout \u00e0 l'heure.\n\n--Vraiment! s'\u00e9cria M. Stiggins en se rass\u00e9r\u00e9nant. Ah! il est chang\u00e9, je\nl'esp\u00e8re? Nous pourrons vivre tr\u00e8s-confortablement ensemble maintenant,\nmonsieur Samuel. Je pourrai prendre soin de son bien, quand vous serez\npartis; bien du soin, croyez-moi.\u00bb\n\nTirant du fond de sa poitrine un long soupir, M. Stiggins s'arr\u00eata pour\nattendre une r\u00e9ponse; Sam baissa la t\u00eate, et M. Weller laissa exhaler un\nson extraordinaire qui n'\u00e9tait ni un g\u00e9missement, ni un grognement, ni\nun r\u00e2lement, mais qui paraissait participer, en quelque degr\u00e9, du\ncaract\u00e8re de tous les trois.\n\nM. Stiggins, encourag\u00e9 par ce son, qu'il expliqua comme un signe de\nrepentir, regarda autour de lui, frotta ses mains, pleura, sourit,\npleura sur nouveaux frais; et ensuite, traversant doucement la chambre,\nprit un verre sur une tablette bien connue, et y mit gravement quatre\nmorceaux de sucre. Ce premier acte accompli, il regarda de nouveau\nautour de lui, et soupira lugubrement, puis il entra \u00e0 pas de loup dans\nle comptoir, et revenant avec son verre \u00e0 moiti\u00e9 plein de rhum, il\ns'approcha de la bouilloire qui chantait gaiement sur le foyer, m\u00e9langea\nson grog, le remua, le go\u00fbta, s'assit, but une longue gorg\u00e9e, et\ns'arr\u00eata pour reprendre haleine.\n\nM. Weller, qui avait continu\u00e9 \u00e0 faire d'effrayants efforts pour para\u00eetre\nendormi, ne hasarda pas la plus l\u00e9g\u00e8re remarque pendant ces op\u00e9rations,\nmais quand M. Stiggins s'arr\u00eata pour reprendre haleine, il se pr\u00e9cipita\nsur lui, arracha le verre de ses mains, lui jeta au visage le restant du\ngrog, lan\u00e7a le verre dans la chemin\u00e9e, et saisissant par le collet le\nr\u00e9v\u00e9rend gentleman, lui d\u00e9tacha soudainement des coups de pied par\nderri\u00e8re, en accompagnant chaque application de sa botte de violents et\nincoh\u00e9rents anath\u00e8mes, sur toute la personne du berger \u00e9tourdi.\n\n\u00abSammy, dit-il en s'arr\u00eatant un moment, enfonce-moi solidement mon\nchapeau.\u00bb\n\nEn fils soumis, Sam enfon\u00e7a le chapeau paternel orn\u00e9 de la longue bande\nde cr\u00eape, et le brave cocher, reprenant ses occupations plus activement\nque jamais, roula avec M. Stiggins \u00e0 travers le comptoir, \u00e0 travers le\npassage, \u00e0 travers la porte de la rue, et arriva dans la rue m\u00eame, les\ncoups de pied continuant tout le long du chemin, et leur violence, loin\nde diminuer, paraissant s'augmenter encore, chaque fois que la botte se\nlevait.\n\nC'\u00e9tait un superbe et r\u00e9jouissant spectacle, de voir l'homme au nez\nrouge, dont le corps tremblait d'angoisse, se tordre dans les serres de\nM. Weller tandis que les coups de pied se succ\u00e9daient furieusement.\nMais l'int\u00e9r\u00eat redoubla, lorsque le puissant cocher, apr\u00e8s une lutte\ngigantesque, plongea la t\u00eate de M. Stiggins dans une auge pleine d'eau,\net l'y tint enfonc\u00e9e jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'il f\u00fbt presque suffoqu\u00e9.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0! dit-il enfin en permettant au r\u00e9v\u00e9rend de retirer sa t\u00eate de\nl'auge, et en mettant toute son \u00e9nergie dans un dernier coup de pied.\nEnvoyez-moi ici quelques-uns de vos paresseux de bergers, et je les\nr\u00e9duirai en gel\u00e9e, puis je les d\u00e9layerai ensuite. Sammy, donne-moi le\nbras, et verse-moi un verre d'eau-de-vie, je suis tout hors d'haleine,\nmon gar\u00e7on.\u00bb\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XXIV.\n\nComprenant la sortie finale de MM. Jingle et Job Trotter, avec une\ngrande matin\u00e9e d'affaires dans _Gray's Inn square_, termin\u00e9e par un\ndouble coup frapp\u00e9 \u00e0 la porte de M. Perker.\n\n\nLorsque M. Pickwick, apr\u00e8s de prudentes pr\u00e9parations et de nombreuses\nassurances qu'il n'y avait pas la plus petite raison d'\u00eatre d\u00e9courag\u00e9,\neut appris \u00e0 Arabelle le r\u00e9sultat peu satisfaisant de sa visite \u00e0\nBirmingham, elle fondit en larmes et se plaignit en termes touchants,\nd'\u00eatre un malheureux sujet de discorde entre le p\u00e8re et le fils.\n\n\u00abMa ch\u00e8re enfant, dit M. Pickwick avec bont\u00e9, ce n'est pas du tout votre\nfaute. Il \u00e9tait impossible de pr\u00e9voir que le vieux Winkle serait si\nfortement pr\u00e9venu contre le mariage de son fils. Je suis s\u00fbr,\najouta-t-il en regardant son joli visage, qu'il ne se doute pas de tout\nle plaisir qu'il se refuse.\n\n--Oh! mon cher monsieur Pickwick, reprit Arabelle, que ferons-nous s'il\ncontinue \u00e0 \u00eatre en col\u00e8re contre nous?\n\n--Nous attendrons patiemment qu'il se ravise, ma ch\u00e8re enfant, r\u00e9pliqua\nl'excellent homme d'un air conciliant.\n\n--Mais, mon cher monsieur Pickwick, qu'est-ce que Nathaniel deviendra si\nson p\u00e8re lui retire son assistance.\n\n--En ce cas-l\u00e0, ma ch\u00e8re petite, je parierais bien qu'il trouvera\nquelque autre ami pour l'aider \u00e0 faire son chemin dans le monde.\u00bb\n\nLa signification de cette r\u00e9ponse s'\u00e9tait pas assez voil\u00e9e pour\nqu'Arabelle ne la compr\u00eet point: aussi jetant ses bras autour du cou de\nM. Pickwick, elle l'embrassa tendrement, et sanglota encore plus fort.\n\n\u00abAllons, allons! dit-il en prenant ses mains nous attendrons encore\nquelques jours, et nous verrons s'il \u00e9crit ou s'il fait quelque autre\nr\u00e9ponse \u00e0 la communication de votre mari. Si nous ne recevons pas de\nnouvelles, j'ai dans la t\u00eate une douzaine de plans, dont un seul\nsuffirait pour vous rendre heureux sur-le-champ. Voil\u00e0, ma ch\u00e8re,\nvoil\u00e0.\u00bb\n\nEn disant ces mots, M. Pickwick pressa doucement la main d'Arabelle, et\nl'invita \u00e0 s\u00e9cher ses larmes, pour ne point tourmenter son mari.\nAussit\u00f4t, la jeune femme, qui \u00e9tait la meilleure petite cr\u00e9ature du\nmonde, mit son mouchoir dans son sac, et lorsque M. Winkle arriva, il\ntrouva sur sa physionomie le m\u00eame gracieux sourire et les m\u00eames regards\n\u00e9tincelants qui l'avaient originairement captiv\u00e9.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0 une situation affligeante pour ces deux jeunes gens, pensa M.\nPickwick, en s'habillant le lendemain matin. Je vais aller jusque chez\nPerker, et le consulter l\u00e0-dessus.\u00bb Comme il \u00e9tait en outre invit\u00e9 \u00e0 se\nrendre chez le bon petit avou\u00e9 par un vif d\u00e9sir de r\u00e9gler son compte\navec lui, il d\u00e9jeuna \u00e0 la h\u00e2te, et ex\u00e9cuta ses intentions si rapidement,\nqu'il s'en fallait encore de dix minutes que l'horloge e\u00fbt sonn\u00e9 dix\nheures quand il atteignit _Gray's Inn_.\n\nLorsqu'il se trouva sur le carr\u00e9 o\u00f9 s'ouvrait l'\u00e9tude de Perker, les\nclercs n'\u00e9taient pas arriv\u00e9s et il se mit \u00e0 la fen\u00eatre pour passer le\ntemps.\n\nLe soleil, tant c\u00e9l\u00e9br\u00e9, d'une belle matin\u00e9e d'octobre, semblait \u00e9gayer\nun peu les vieilles maisons elles-m\u00eames, et quelques-unes des fen\u00eatres\nvermoulues paraissaient presque joyeuses, gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 l'influence de ses\nrayons. Les clercs, arrivant par les diverses portes, se pr\u00e9cipitaient\nl'un apr\u00e8s l'autre dans le square, et regardant la grande horloge,\ndiminuaient ou augmentaient leur vitesse, suivant l'heure \u00e0 laquelle\nleur bureau devait s'ouvrir; les gens de neuf heures et demie, devenant\ntout \u00e0 coup fort empress\u00e9s, et les gentlemen de dix heures retombant\ndans une lenteur aristocratique. L'horloge sonna dix heures, et le flot\ndes clercs se r\u00e9pandit plus vite que jamais, chacun d'eux arrivant en\nplus grande transpiration que son pr\u00e9d\u00e9cesseur. Le bruit des portes\nouvertes et ferm\u00e9es retentissait de tous les c\u00f4t\u00e9s; des t\u00eates\napparaissaient, comme par enchantement, \u00e0 chaque fen\u00eatre; les\ncommissionnaires prenaient leur place pour la journ\u00e9e; les femmes de\nm\u00e9nage, en savates, se retiraient pr\u00e9cipitamment; le facteur courait de\nmaison en maison, et toute la ruche l\u00e9gale se montrait pleine\nd'agitation.\n\n\u00abVous voil\u00e0 de bien bonne heure, monsieur Pickwick, dit une voix\nderri\u00e8re notre savant ami.\n\n--Ah! ah! monsieur Lowten! r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick en se retournant.\n\n--Il fait joliment chaud \u00e0 marcher, reprit Lowten en tirant de sa poche\nune clef Bramah, garnie d'un petit fausset, pour emp\u00eacher l'entr\u00e9e de la\npoussi\u00e8re.\n\n--Il para\u00eet que vous vous en \u00eates aper\u00e7u, dit M. Pickwick au clerc qui\n\u00e9tait rouge comme une \u00e9crevisse.\n\n--Je suis venu un peu vite. Il \u00e9tait neuf heures et demie quand j'ai\ntravers\u00e9 le _Polygone_; mais comme je suis arriv\u00e9 avant lui, \u00e7a m'est\n\u00e9gal!\u00bb\n\nConsol\u00e9 par cette r\u00e9flexion, M. Lowten \u00f4ta la cheville de sa clef,\nouvrit la porte, rechevilla et rempocha son bramah, recueillit les\nlettres que le facteur avait mises dans la bo\u00eete, et introduisit M.\nPickwick dans son cabinet. L\u00e0, en un clin d'oeil, il se d\u00e9pouilla de son\nhabit, tira d'un pupitre et endossa un v\u00eatement r\u00e2p\u00e9 jusqu'\u00e0 la corde,\naccrocha son chapeau, tira quelques feuilles de papier-cartouche,\ndispos\u00e9es par lits alternatifs avec des feuillets de papier buvard, et\nposant sa plume sur son oreille, frotta ses mains avec un air de grande\nsatisfaction.\n\n\u00abVous voyez, monsieur Pickwick, me voil\u00e0 au grand complet! J'ai mis mon\nhabit de bureau, ma boutique est ouverte; il peut venir maintenant aussi\nvite qu'il voudra. Est-ce que vous n'avez pas une prise de tabac \u00e0 me\ndonner?\n\n--Je n'en ai pas, malheureusement.\n\n--Tant pis! mais c'est \u00e9gal, je vais courir chercher une bouteille de\nsoda-water. N'ai-je pas quelque chose de dr\u00f4le dans les yeux, monsieur\nPickwick?\u00bb\n\nLe philosophe consult\u00e9 examina d'une certaine distance les yeux de M.\nLowten, et exprima son opinion qu'ils n'avaient rien de plus dr\u00f4le qu'\u00e0\nl'ordinaire.\n\n\u00abJ'en suis bien aise, reprit leur possesseur. Nous ne nous en sommes pas\nmal donn\u00e9, la nuit pass\u00e9e, \u00e0 la _Souche_, et je me sens tout farce, ce\nmatin.--\u00c0 propos, Perker s'occupe de votre affaire.\n\n--Quelle affaire? Les frais pour mistress Bardell?\n\n--Non, l'affaire du d\u00e9biteur pour qui nous avons rachet\u00e9 les dettes,\npar votre ordre, \u00e0 un rabais de cinquante pour cent. Perker va le tirer\nde prison et l'envoyer \u00e0 Demerary.\n\n--Ha! M. Jingle, dit vivement M. Pickwick. Eh bien!\n\n--Eh bien! tout est arrang\u00e9, r\u00e9pondit Lowten, en surcoupant sa plume.\nL'agent de Liverpool a dit qu'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 oblig\u00e9 par vous bien des\nfois, quand vous \u00e9tiez dans les affaires, et qu'il le prendrait avec\nplaisir, sur votre recommandation.\n\n--C'est tr\u00e8s-bien, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick; j'en suis charm\u00e9.\n\n--Mais, reprit Lowten en grattant une autre plume avec le dos de son\ncanif avant de la tailler; l'autre est-il bonasse!\n\n--Quel autre?\n\n--Eh! mais, le domestique, ou l'ami,... vous savez bien,... Trotter.\n\n--Bah! fit M. Pickwick, avec un sourire, j'ai toujours pens\u00e9 de lui tout\nle contraire.\n\n--Eh bien! moi aussi, d'apr\u00e8s le peu que j'en avais vu. Cela montre\nseulement comment on est tromp\u00e9. Qu'est-ce que vous diriez s'il s'en\nallait \u00e0 Demerary aussi?\n\n--Quoi? il renoncerait \u00e0 ce qu'on lui offre ici?\n\n--Il a re\u00e7u comme rien l'offre que lui faisait Perker de dix-huit\nshillings par semaine, avec de l'avancement s'il se comportait bien. Il\ndit qu'il ne peut pas quitter l'autre. Il a persuad\u00e9 \u00e0 Perker d'\u00e9crire\nsur nouveaux frais, et on lui a trouv\u00e9 quelque chose sur la m\u00eame\npropri\u00e9t\u00e9... d'un peu moins avantageux que ce qu'obtiendrait un\n_convict_ dans la Nouvelle-Galles au sud, s'il paraissait devant le\ntribunal avec des habits neufs.\n\n--Quelle folie! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick avec des yeux brillants, quelle\nfolie!\n\n--Oh! c'est pire que de la folie, c'est de la v\u00e9ritable bassesse, comme\nvous voyez, r\u00e9pliqua Lowten en coupant sa plume d'un air m\u00e9prisant. Il\ndit que c'est le seul ami qu'il ait jamais eu, et qu'il lui est attach\u00e9,\net tout \u00e7a. L'amiti\u00e9 est certainement une tr\u00e8s-bonne chose, dans son\ngenre. Par exemple, apr\u00e8s notre grog, nous sommes tous tr\u00e8s-bons amis, \u00e0\n_la Souche_, o\u00f9 chacun paye son \u00e9cot. Mais le diable emporte celui qui\nse sacrifierait pour un autre, n'est-ce pas? Un homme ne doit avoir que\ndeux attachements: l'un pour le premier des pronoms personnels, l'autre\npour les dames en g\u00e9n\u00e9ral; voil\u00e0 mon syst\u00e8me, ha! ha! ha!\u00bb\n\nM. Lowten termina cette profession du foi par un bruyant \u00e9clat de rire,\nmoiti\u00e9 joyeux, moiti\u00e9 d\u00e9risoire, mais qui fut coup\u00e9 court par le bruit\ndes pas de Perker sur l'escalier. En l'entendant approcher, le clerc\ns'\u00e9lan\u00e7a sur son tabouret avec une agilit\u00e9 remarquable, et se mit \u00e0\n\u00e9crire furieusement.\n\nLes salutations entre M. Pickwick et son conseiller l\u00e9gal furent\ncordiales et chaudes, mais le client \u00e9tait \u00e0 peine \u00e9tendu dans le\nfauteuil de l'avou\u00e9, quand un coup se fit entendre \u00e0 la porte, et une\nvoix demanda si M. Perker \u00e9tait l\u00e0.\n\n\u00ab\u00c9coutez, dit le petit homme, c'est un de nos vagabonds; Jingle\nlui-m\u00eame, mon cher monsieur. Voulez-vous le voir?...\n\n--Qu'en pensez-vous? demanda M. Pickwick en h\u00e9sitant.\n\n--Je pense que vous ferez bien. Allons, monsieur... chose... entrez.\u00bb\n\nOb\u00e9issant \u00e0 cette invitation famili\u00e8re, Jingle et Job entr\u00e8rent dans la\nchambre; mais, apercevant M. Pickwick, ils s'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent avec confusion.\n\n\u00abEh bien, dit Perker, reconnaissez-vous ce gentleman?\n\n--Bonnes raisons pour cela, r\u00e9pliqua Jingle en s'avan\u00e7ant. Monsieur\nPickwick, les plus grandes obligations, sauv\u00e9 la vie, remis \u00e0 flot. Vous\nne vous en repentirez jamais, monsieur.\n\n--Je suis charm\u00e9 de vous l'entendre dire, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick. Vous\navez bien meilleure mine.\n\n--Gr\u00e2ces \u00e0 vous, monsieur. Grand changement. La prison de Sa Majest\u00e9,\nmalsaine, tr\u00e8s-malsaine,\u00bb dit Jingle en hochant la t\u00eate.\n\nIl \u00e9tait proprement et d\u00e9cemment v\u00eatu, ainsi que Job, qui se tenait\ndebout derri\u00e8re lui, regardant fixement M. Pickwick avec un visage\nd'airain.\n\n\u00abQuand partent-ils pour Liverpool? demanda M. Pickwick \u00e0 son avou\u00e9.\n\n--Ce soir, monsieur, \u00e0 sept heures, dit Job en avan\u00e7ant d'un pas; par la\ngrande diligence de la cit\u00e9, monsieur.\n\n--Les places sont retenues?\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--Et vous \u00eates tout \u00e0 fait d\u00e9cid\u00e9 \u00e0 partir?\n\n--Tout \u00e0 fait, monsieur.\n\n--Quant \u00e0 l'\u00e9quipement de Jingle, dit Perker en s'adressant tout haut \u00e0\nM. Pickwick, j'ai pris sur moi de faire un arrangement pour d\u00e9duire,\ntous les trois mois, de son salaire, une petite somme, et pour nous\nrembourser ainsi de l'argent qu'il a fallu avancer. Je d\u00e9sapprouve\nenti\u00e8rement que vous fassiez pour lui quelque chose qu'il ne\nreconna\u00eetrait pas par ses propres efforts et par sa bonne conduite.\n\n--Certainement, interrompit Jingle avec fermet\u00e9. Esprit juste, homme du\nmonde, il a raison, parfaitement raison.\n\n--En d\u00e9sint\u00e9ressant ses cr\u00e9anciers, en retirant ses habits mis en gage,\nen le nourrissant dans la prison, en payant le prix de son passage,\ncontinua Perker sans s'occuper de l'observation de Jingle, vous avez\nd\u00e9j\u00e0 perdu plus de cinquante livres sterling....\n\n--Pas perdus! s'\u00e9cria Jingle pr\u00e9cipitamment, tout sera rembours\u00e9. Je\ntravaillerai comme un cheval jusqu'au dernier liard. La fi\u00e8vre jaune,\npeut-\u00eatre... \u00e7a ne peut pas s'emp\u00eacher... sinon....\u00bb\n\nJingle s'arr\u00eata, et, frappant le fond de son chapeau avec violence,\npassa sa main sur ses yeux et s'assit.\n\n\u00abIl veut dire, ajouta Job en s'avan\u00e7ant de quelques pas, il veut dire\nque s'il n'est pas emport\u00e9 par la fi\u00e8vre jaune, il remboursera tout\nl'argent. S'il vit, il le fera, monsieur Pickwick; j'y tiendrai la main.\nJe suis s\u00fbr qu'il le fera, monsieur, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta Job avec beaucoup d'\u00e9nergie;\nj'en ferais volontiers serment.\n\n--Bien, bien,\u00bb dit M. Pickwick, qui, pour arr\u00eater l'\u00e9num\u00e9ration de ses\nbienfaits, avait fait au petit avou\u00e9 une douzaine de signes que celui-ci\ns'\u00e9tait obstin\u00e9 \u00e0 ne point remarquer. \u00abJe vous engage seulement \u00e0 jouer\nplus mod\u00e9r\u00e9ment \u00e0 la crosse, monsieur Jingle, et \u00e0 ne point renouer\nconnaissance avec sir Thomas Blazo. Moyennant cela, je ne doute pas que\nvous ne conserviez votre sant\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nM. Jingle sourit \u00e0 cette saillie, mais en m\u00eame temps il avait l'air\nembarrass\u00e9, aussi M. Pickwick changea-t-il de sujet en disant:\n\u00abSavez-vous ce qu'est devenu un de vos amis, un pauvre diable, que j'ai\nvu \u00e0 Rochester?\n\n--Jemmy le lugubre? demanda Jingle.\n\n--Oui.\n\n--Gaillard malin, reprit Jingle en branlant la t\u00eate, dr\u00f4le de corps,\ng\u00e9nie mystificateur, fr\u00e8re de Job.\n\n--Fr\u00e8re de Job! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick. Eh bien, maintenant que j'y regarde\nde plus pr\u00e9s, je trouve de la ressemblance.\n\n--On en a toujours trouv\u00e9 entre nous, dit Job avec un grain de malice\ndans le coin de ses yeux; seulement, j'\u00e9tais r\u00e9ellement d'une nature\ns\u00e9rieuse, et lui tout le contraire. Il a \u00e9migr\u00e9 en Am\u00e9rique, monsieur,\nparce qu'on s'occupait trop de lui dans ce pays-ci. Nous n'en avons plus\nentendu parler depuis.\n\n--Cela m'explique pourquoi je n'ai pas re\u00e7u _la page du roman de la vie\nr\u00e9elle_ qu'il m'avait promise un matin sur le pont de Rochester, o\u00f9 il\nparaissait m\u00e9diter un suicide. Je puis apparemment me dispenser de\ndemander si sa conduite lugubre \u00e9tait naturelle ou affect\u00e9e? continua M.\nPickwick en souriant.\n\n--Il savait jouer tous les r\u00f4les, monsieur, et vous devez vous regarder\ncomme tr\u00e8s-heureux de lui avoir \u00e9chapp\u00e9 si ais\u00e9ment. \u00c7'aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 pour\nvous une connaissance encore plus dangereuse que....\u00bb\n\nJob regarda Jingle, h\u00e9sita et ajouta finalement:\n\n\u00abQue..., que moi-m\u00eame.\n\n--Savez-vous que votre famille donnait beaucoup d'esp\u00e9rances, monsieur\nTrotter? dit le petit avou\u00e9 en cachetant une lettre qu'il venait\nd'\u00e9crire.\n\n--C'est vrai, monsieur, beaucoup.\n\n--J'esp\u00e8re que vous allez la d\u00e9shonorer, reprit Perker en riant. Donnez\ncette lettre \u00e0 l'agent, quand vous arriverez \u00e0 Liverpool, et\npermettez-moi de vous engager, gentlemen, \u00e0 ne pas \u00eatre trop habiles en\nAm\u00e9rique. Si vous manquiez cette occasion de vous r\u00e9habiliter, vous\nm\u00e9riteriez richement d'\u00eatre pendus tous les deux, comme j'esp\u00e8re\nd\u00e9votement que vous le seriez. Maintenant, vous pouvez me laisser seul\navec M. Pickwick, car nous avons des affaires \u00e0 terminer, et le temps\nest pr\u00e9cieux.\u00bb\n\nEn disant cela, Perker regarda la porte, avec le d\u00e9sir \u00e9vident de rendre\nles adieux aussi brefs que possible.\n\nIls furent assez brefs, en effet, de la part de Jingle. Il remercia par\nquelques paroles pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9es le petit avou\u00e9 de la bont\u00e9 et de la\npromptitude qu'il avait d\u00e9ploy\u00e9es pour le secourir; puis, se tournant\nvers son bienfaiteur, il resta immobile pendant quelques secondes, comme\nincertain de ce qu'il devait faire ou dire. Job Trotter termina sa\nperplexit\u00e9, car, ayant fait \u00e0 M. Pickwick un salut humble et\nreconnaissant, il prit doucement son ami par le bras, et l'emmena hors\nde la chambre.\n\n\u00abUn digne couple! dit Perker lorsque la porte se fut referm\u00e9e derri\u00e8re\neux.\n\n--J'esp\u00e8re qu'ils le deviendront, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick. Qu'en\npensez-vous? Y a-t-il quelques chances pour qu'ils s'amendent?\u00bb\n\nPerker haussa les \u00e9paules, mais observant l'air d\u00e9sappoint\u00e9 de M.\nPickwick, il r\u00e9pondit:\n\n\u00abN\u00e9cessairement il y a une chance; j'esp\u00e8re qu'elle sera bonne. Ils\nsont \u00e9videmment repentants, maintenant; mais, comme vous le savez, ils\nont encore le souvenir tout frais de leurs souffrances r\u00e9centes. Ce\nqu'ils feront quand ce souvenir se sera effac\u00e9, c'est un probl\u00e8me que ni\nvous ni moi ne pouvons r\u00e9soudre. Cependant, mon cher monsieur,\najouta-t-il en posant sa main sur l'\u00e9paule de M. Pickwick, votre action\nest \u00e9galement honorable, quel qu'en soit le r\u00e9sultat. Je laisse \u00e0 des\nt\u00eates plus habiles que la mienne le soin de d\u00e9cider si cette esp\u00e8ce de\nbienveillance, si clairvoyante, qu'elle s'exerce rarement, de peur de\ns'exercer mal \u00e0 propos, est une charit\u00e9 r\u00e9elle ou bien une contrefa\u00e7on\nmondaine de la charit\u00e9. Mais, quand ces deux gaillards-ci commettraient\nun Vol qualifi\u00e9 d\u00e8s demain, mon opinion sur votre conduite n'en serait\npas moins toujours la m\u00eame.\u00bb\n\nAyant d\u00e9bit\u00e9 ce discours d'une mani\u00e8re plus anim\u00e9e que ce n'est\nl'habitude des gens d'affaires, il approcha sa chaise de son bureau et\n\u00e9couta le r\u00e9cit que lui fit M. Pickwick de l'obstination du vieux M.\nWinkle.\n\n\u00abDonnez-lui une semaine, dit-il en hochant la t\u00eate d'une mani\u00e8re\nproph\u00e9tique.\n\n--Pensez-vous qu'il se rendra?\n\n--Mais, oui; autrement, il faudrait essayer les moyens de persuasion de\nla jeune dame, et c'est m\u00eame par o\u00f9 tout autre que vous aurait\ncommenc\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nM. Perker prenait une prise de tabac avec diverses contractions\ngrotesques de sa physionomie, en honneur du pouvoir persuasif des jeunes\nladies, lorsqu'on entendit dans le premier bureau un murmure de demandes\net de r\u00e9ponses; apr\u00e8s quoi, Lowten frappa \u00e0 la porte du cabinet.\n\n\u00abEntrez!\u00bb cria le petit homme.\n\nLe clerc entra et ferma la porte apr\u00e8s lui d'un air myst\u00e9rieux.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce qu'il y a? lui dit Perker.\n\n--On vous demande, monsieur.\n\n--Qui donc?\u00bb\n\nLowten regarda M. Pickwick et fit entendre une l\u00e9g\u00e8re toux.\n\n\u00abQui est-ce qui me demande? Est-ce que vous ne pouvez pas parler,\nmonsieur Lowten?\n\n--Eh! mais, monsieur, MM. Dodson et Fogg.\n\n--Parbleu! s'\u00e9cria le petit homme en regardant \u00e0 sa montre, je leur ai\ndonn\u00e9 rendez-vous ce matin \u00e0 onze heures et demie pour terminer votre\naffaire, Pickwick. C'est fort embarrassant; que ferez-vous, mon cher\nmonsieur? Voudriez-vous passer dans la chambre \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9?\u00bb\n\nLa chambre \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 \u00e9tant pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment celle dans laquelle se trouvaient\nDodson et Fogg, M. Pickwick r\u00e9pliqua avec une contenance anim\u00e9e et\nbeaucoup de marques d'indignation qu'il voulait rester o\u00f9 il \u00e9tait,\nattendu que MM. Dodson et Fogg devaient \u00eatre honteux de para\u00eetre devant\nlui, mais que lui pouvait les regarder en face sans rougir, circonstance\nqu'il priait instamment M. Perker de noter.\n\n\u00abTr\u00e8s-bien, mon cher monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua M. Perker. Je vous dirai\nseulement que, si vous vous attendez \u00e0 ce que Dodson ou Fogg montrent\nquelques sympt\u00f4mes de honte ou de confusion en vous regardant ou en\nregardant qui que ce soit en face, vous \u00eates l'homme le plus jeune que\nj'aie jamais rencontr\u00e9. Faites-les entrer, monsieur Lowten.\u00bb\n\nM. Lowten disparut en riant tout bas; et, revenant bient\u00f4t apr\u00e8s,\nintroduisit formellement les associ\u00e9s, Dodson d'abord, et Fogg ensuite.\n\n\u00abVous avez d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu M. Pickwick, je pense, dit Perker en inclinant sa\nplume dans la direction o\u00f9 le philosophe \u00e9tait assis.\n\n--Comment vous portez-vous, monsieur Pickwick? cria Dodson d'une voix\nbruyante.\n\n--Eh! eh! comment vous portez-vous, monsieur Pickwick? reprit Fogg en\napprochant sa chaise et en regardant autour de lui avec un sourire.\nJ'esp\u00e8re que vous n'allez pas mal ce soir? Je savais bien que je\nconnaissais votre figure.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick inclina fort l\u00e9g\u00e8rement la t\u00eate en r\u00e9ponse \u00e0 ces\nsalutations, puis, voyant que Fogg tirait un paquet de sa poche, il se\nleva et se retira dans l'embrasure de la crois\u00e9e.\n\n\u00abIl n'y a pas besoin que M. Pickwick se d\u00e9range, monsieur Perker, dit\nFogg en d\u00e9tachant le cordon rouge qui entourait le petit paquet et en\nsouriant encore plus agr\u00e9ablement. M. Pickwick conna\u00eet d\u00e9j\u00e0 cette\naffaire-l\u00e0. Il n'y a point de secret entre nous, j'esp\u00e8re. H\u00e9! h\u00e9! h\u00e9!\n\n--Non; il n'y en a gu\u00e8re, ajouta Dodson; ha! ha! ha!\u00bb et les deux\npartenaires se mirent \u00e0 rire joyeusement, comme on fait d'ordinaire\nquand on va recevoir de l'argent.\n\n--M. Pickwick a bien achet\u00e9 le droit de tout voir, reprit Fogg d'un air\nnotablement spirituel. Le montant des sommes tax\u00e9es est de cent\ntrente-trois livres sterling six shillings et quatre pence, monsieur\nPerker.\u00bb\n\nPerker et Fogg s'occup\u00e8rent alors attentivement \u00e0 comparer des papiers,\n\u00e0 tourner des feuillets, et, pendant ce temps, Dodson dit \u00e0 M. Pickwick\nd'une mani\u00e8re affable:\n\n\u00abVous ne m'avez pas l'air tout \u00e0 fait aussi solide que la derni\u00e8re fois\no\u00f9 j'ai eu le plaisir de vous voir, monsieur Pickwick.\n\n--C'est possible, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua notre h\u00e9ros, qui avait lanc\u00e9 sur\nles deux habiles praticiens mille regards d'indignation, sans produire\nsur eux le plus l\u00e9ger effet. C'est tr\u00e8s-probable, monsieur. J'ai \u00e9t\u00e9\nderni\u00e8rement tourment\u00e9 et pers\u00e9cut\u00e9 par des fripons, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nPerker toussa violemment et demanda \u00e0 M. Pickwick s'il ne voulait pas\njeter un coup d'oeil sur le journal; mais celui-ci r\u00e9pondit par la\nn\u00e9gative la plus d\u00e9cid\u00e9e.\n\n\u00abEffectivement, reprit Dodson, je parierais que vous avez \u00e9t\u00e9 tourment\u00e9\ndans la prison. Il y a l\u00e0 de dr\u00f4les de gens. O\u00f9 \u00e9tait votre appartement,\nmonsieur Pickwick?\n\n--Mon unique chambre \u00e9tait \u00e0 l'\u00e9tage du caf\u00e9.\n\n--Oh! en v\u00e9rit\u00e9! C'est, je pense, la partie la plus agr\u00e9able de\nl'\u00e9tablissement.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-agr\u00e9able,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua s\u00e8chement M. Pickwick.\n\nLe sang-froid de ce mis\u00e9rable \u00e9tait bien fait pour exasp\u00e9rer une\npersonne d'un temp\u00e9rament irritable. M. Pickwick restreignit sa col\u00e8re\npar des efforts gigantesques; mais quand Perker eut \u00e9crit un mandat pour\nle montant de la somme, et lorsque Fogg le d\u00e9posa dans son portefeuille\navec un sourire triomphant, qui se communiqua \u00e9galement \u00e0 la contenance\nde Dodson, il sentit que son sang montait dans ses joues en bouillonnant\nd'indignation.\n\n\u00abAllons, monsieur Dodson, dit Fogg en empochant son portefeuille et en\nmettant ses gants, je suis \u00e0 vos ordres.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, r\u00e9pondit Dodson en se levant; je suis aux v\u00f4tres.\n\n--Je me trouve tr\u00e8s-heureux, reprit Fogg, adouci par le mandat qu'il\navait empoch\u00e9, je me trouve tr\u00e8s-heureux d'avoir eu le plaisir de faire\nla connaissance de monsieur Pickwick. J'esp\u00e8re, monsieur, que vous\nn'avez plus aussi mauvaise opinion de nous, que la premi\u00e8re fois o\u00f9 nous\navons eu le plaisir de vous rencontrer.\n\n--J'esp\u00e8re que non, ajoute Dodson avec le ton d'\u00e9l\u00e9vation d'une vertu\ncalomni\u00e9e. Vous nous connaissez mieux maintenant monsieur Pickwick; mais\nquelle que puisse \u00eatre votre opinion des gentlemen de notre profession,\nje vous prie de croire, monsieur, que je ne conserve pas de rancune\ncontre vous, pour les sentiments qu'il vous a plu d'exprimer dans notre\nbureau de _Freeman's Court Cornhill_, lors de la circonstance \u00e0 laquelle\nmon associ\u00e9 vient de faire allusion.\n\n--Oh! non, nous dit Fogg avec une charit\u00e9 toute chr\u00e9tienne.\n\n--Notre conduite, monsieur, poursuivit l'autre associ\u00e9, parlera pour\nelle-m\u00eame et se justifiera d'elle-m\u00eame, en toutes occasions. Nous avons\n\u00e9t\u00e9 dans la profession pas mal d'ann\u00e9es, monsieur Pickwick, et nous\navons m\u00e9rit\u00e9 la confiance de beaucoup d'honorables clients. Je vous\nsouhaite le bonjour, monsieur.\n\n--Bonjour, monsieur Pickwick, dit Fogg; en parlant ainsi, il mit son\nparapluie sous son bras, \u00f4ta son gant droit, et tendit une main\nconciliatrice au philosophe indign\u00e9. Celui-ci fourra aussit\u00f4t ses\npoignets sous les pans de son habit, et lan\u00e7a \u00e0 l'avou\u00e9 des regards\npleins d'une surprise m\u00e9prisante.\n\n--Lowten! s'\u00e9cria au m\u00eame instant M. Perker, ouvrez la porte!\n\n--Attendez un instant, dit M. Pickwick. Je veux parler, Perker.\n\n--Mon cher monsieur, interrompit le petit avou\u00e9, qui, pendant toute\ncette entrevue, avait \u00e9t\u00e9 dans un \u00e9tat d'appr\u00e9hension nerveuse, mon cher\nmonsieur, en voil\u00e0 assez sur ce sujet. Restons-en l\u00e0, je vous supplie,\nmonsieur Pickwick.\n\n--Monsieur, reprit M. Pickwick avec vivacit\u00e9, je ne veux pas qu'on me\nfasse taire!--Monsieur Dodson, vous m'avez adress\u00e9 quelques\nobservations....\u00bb\n\nDodson se retourna, pencha doucement la t\u00eate et sourit.\n\n\u00abVous m'avez adress\u00e9 quelques observations, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick, presque\nhors d'haleine, et votre associ\u00e9 m'a tendu la main, et tous les deux\nvous avez pris avec moi un ton de g\u00e9n\u00e9rosit\u00e9 et de magnanimit\u00e9! C'est l\u00e0\nun exc\u00e8s d'impudence auquel je ne m'attendais pas, m\u00eame de votre part.\n\n--Quoi, monsieur? s'\u00e9cria Dodson.\n\n--Quoi, monsieur? r\u00e9p\u00e9ta Fogg.\n\n--Savez-vous bien que j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 victime de vos perfides complots?\nSavez-vous que je suis l'homme que vous avez emprisonn\u00e9 et vol\u00e9?\nSavez-vous que vous \u00eates les avou\u00e9s de la plaignante, dans Bardell et\nPickwick.\n\n--Oui, monsieur, nous savons cela, repartit Dodson.\n\n--N\u00e9cessairement, nous le savons, ajouta Fogg en frappant sur sa poche,\npeut-\u00eatre par hasard.\n\n--Je vois que vous vous en souvenez avec satisfaction, reprit M.\nPickwick en essayant, pour la premi\u00e8re fois de sa vie, de produire un\nrire amer, et en l'essayant tout \u00e0 fait en vain. Quoique j'aie longtemps\nd\u00e9sir\u00e9 de vous dire, en termes clairs et nets, quelle est mon opinion de\nvotre conduite, j'aurais laiss\u00e9 passer cette occasion, par d\u00e9f\u00e9rence\npour les d\u00e9sirs de mon ami Perker, sans le ton inexcusable que vous avez\npris et sans votre insolente familiarit\u00e9. Je dis insolente familiarit\u00e9,\nmonsieur! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick en se retournant vers Fogg, avec une\nvivacit\u00e9 qui fit battre l'autre en retraite jusqu'\u00e0 la porte.\n\n--Prenez garde, monsieur! s'\u00e9cria Dodson, qui, quoique le plus grand et\nle plus gros des deux, s'\u00e9tait prudemment retranch\u00e9 derri\u00e8re Fogg, et\nqui parlait par-dessus la t\u00eate de son associ\u00e9 avec un visage tr\u00e8s-p\u00e2le.\nLaissez-vous maltraiter, monsieur Fogg; ne lui rendez point ses coups\nsous aucun pr\u00e9texte.\n\n--Non, non, je ne les lui rendrai pas, dit Fogg en se reculant un peu\nplus, au soulagement \u00e9vident de son associ\u00e9, qui se trouvait ainsi\narriv\u00e9 au bureau ext\u00e9rieur.\n\n--Vous \u00eates, continua M. Pickwick en reprenant le fil de son discours,\nvous \u00eates une paire bien assortie de vils chicaneurs, de fripons, de\nvoleurs....\n\n--Allons, interrompit Perker, est-ce l\u00e0 tout?\n\n--Tout se r\u00e9sume l\u00e0 dedans, reprit M. Pickwick. Ce sont de vils\nchicaneurs, des fripons, des voleurs!\n\n--Bien, bien, reprit Perker d'un ton conciliant. Mes chers messieurs, il\na dit tout ce qu'il avait \u00e0 dire. Maintenant, je vous en prie,\nallez-vous-en. Lowten, la porte est-elle ouverte?\u00bb\n\nM. Lowten qui riait dans le lointain, r\u00e9pondit affirmativement.\n\n--Allons, allons; adieu, adieu; allons, mes chers messieurs; monsieur\nLowten, la porte, cria le petit homme en poussant Dodson et Fogg hors de\nson bureau. Par ici, mes chers messieurs. Terminons cela, je vous en\nprie. Que diable, monsieur Lowten, la porte! Pourquoi ne\nreconduisez-vous pas, monsieur?\n\n--S'il y a quelque justice en Angleterre, dit Dodson en mettant son\nchapeau et en regardant M. Pickwick, vous nous payerez cela, monsieur!\n\n--Vous \u00eates une paire de voleurs!\n\n--Souvenez-vous que vous nous le payerez bien! cria Fogg en agitant son\npoing.\n\n--Chicaneurs! fripons! voleurs! continua M. Pickwick sans s'embarrasser\ndes menaces qui lui \u00e9taient adress\u00e9es.\n\n--Voleurs! cria-t-il en courant sur le carr\u00e9 pendant que les deux avou\u00e9s\ndescendaient.\n\n--Voleurs!\u00bb vocif\u00e9ra-t-il en s'\u00e9chappant des mains de Lowten et de\nPerker et en mettant sa t\u00eate \u00e0 la fen\u00eatre de l'escalier.\n\nQuand M. Pickwick retira sa t\u00eate de la fen\u00eatre, sa physionomie \u00e9tait\nradieuse, souriante et tranquille, et en rentrant dans le bureau, il\nd\u00e9clara que son esprit \u00e9tait soulag\u00e9 d'un grand poids, et qu'il se\ntrouvait maintenant tout \u00e0 fait heureux.\n\nPerker ne dit rien du tout jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'il eut vid\u00e9 sa tabati\u00e8re et\nrenvoy\u00e9 Lowten pour la remplir; mais alors il fut saisi d'un acc\u00e8s de\nfou rire, qui dura cinq minutes, \u00e0 l'expiration desquelles il fit\nobserver qu'il devrait se mettre en col\u00e8re, mais qu'il ne pouvait pas\nencore penser s\u00e9rieusement \u00e0 cette affaire, et qu'il se f\u00e2cherait d\u00e8s\nqu'il le pourrait.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, dit M. Pickwick, je voudrais bien r\u00e9gler mon compte avec\nvous.\n\n--Est-ce de la m\u00eame mani\u00e8re que vous avez r\u00e9gl\u00e9 l'autre? demanda Perker\nen recommen\u00e7ant \u00e0 rire.\n\n--Non, pas exactement, r\u00e9pondit le philosophe, en tirant son\nportefeuille, et en secouant cordialement la main du petit avou\u00e9. Je\nveux parler seulement de notre compte p\u00e9cuniaire. Vous m'avez donn\u00e9\nplusieurs preuves d'amiti\u00e9 dont je ne pourrai jamais m'acquitter, ce que\nd'ailleurs je ne d\u00e9sire pas, car je pr\u00e9f\u00e8re continuer \u00e0 rester votre\noblig\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nApr\u00e8s cette pr\u00e9face, les deux amis s'enfonc\u00e8rent dans des comptes fort\ncompliqu\u00e9s, qui furent r\u00e9guli\u00e8rement expos\u00e9s par Perker, et\nimm\u00e9diatement sold\u00e9s par M. Pickwick, avec beaucoup d'expressions\nd'affection et d'estime.\n\n\u00c0 peine cette op\u00e9ration \u00e9tait-elle termin\u00e9e, qu'on entendit frapper \u00e0 la\nporte du carr\u00e9, de la mani\u00e8re la plus violente et la plus \u00e9pouvantable.\nCe n'\u00e9tait pas un double coup ordinaire, mais une succession constante\net non interrompue de coups formidables, comme si le marteau avait \u00e9t\u00e9\ndou\u00e9 du mouvement perp\u00e9tuel, ou comme si la personne qui l'agitait avait\noubli\u00e9 de s'arr\u00eater.\n\n\u00abAh \u00e7\u00e0! qu'est-ce que cela? s'\u00e9cria Perker en tressaillant.\n\n--Je pense qu'on frappe \u00e0 la porte, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick, comme s'il y\navait pu avoir le moindre doute \u00e0 cet \u00e9gard.\u00bb\n\nLe marteau fit une r\u00e9ponse plus \u00e9nergique que n'auraient pu faire des\nparoles, car il continua \u00e0 battre, sans un moment de rel\u00e2che, et avec\nune force et un tapage surprenants.\n\n\u00abSi cela continue, dit Perker en faisant retentir sa sonnette, nous\nallons ameuter tout le quartier! Monsieur Lowten, n'entendez-vous pas\nqu'on frappe?\n\n--J'y vais \u00e0 l'instant, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua le clerc.\u00bb\n\nLa marteau parut entendre la r\u00e9ponse, et pour assurer qu'il lui \u00e9tait\nimpossible d'attendre plus longtemps, il fit un effroyable vacarme.\n\n\u00abC'est \u00e9pouvantable! dit Perker en se bouchant les oreilles.\u00bb\n\nM. Lowten, qui \u00e9tait en train de se laver les mains dans le cabinet\nnoir, se pr\u00e9cipita vers la porte, et tournant le bouton se trouva en\npr\u00e9sence d'une apparition, qui va \u00eatre d\u00e9crite dans le chapitre suivant.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XXV.\n\nContenant quelques d\u00e9tails relatifs aux coups de marteau, ainsi que\ndiverses autres particularit\u00e9s, parmi lesquelles figurent, notablement,\ncertaines d\u00e9couvertes concernant M. Snodgrass et une jeune lady.\n\n\nL'objet qui se pr\u00e9senta aux yeux du clerc, \u00e9tait un jeune gar\u00e7on\nprodigieusement gras, rev\u00eatu d'une livr\u00e9e de domestique, et se tenant\ndebout sur le paillasson, mais avec les yeux ferm\u00e9s comme pour dormir.\nLowten n'avait jamais vu un jeune gar\u00e7on aussi gras, et sa corpulence\nextraordinaire, jointe au repos complet de sa physionomie, si diff\u00e9rente\nde celle qu'on aurait d\u00fb raisonnablement attendre d'un si intr\u00e9pide\nfrappeur, le remplirent d'\u00e9tonnement.\n\n\u00abQue voulez-vous? demanda le clerc.\u00bb\n\nL'enfant extraordinaire ne r\u00e9pondit point un seul mot, mais il baissa la\nt\u00eate, et Lowten s'imagina l'entendre ronfler faiblement.\n\n\u00abD'o\u00f9 venez-vous?\u00bb reprit le clerc. Le gros gar\u00e7on respira profond\u00e9ment,\nmais il ne bougea point.\n\nLe clerc r\u00e9p\u00e9ta trois fois ses questions, et ne recevant aucune\nr\u00e9ponse, il se pr\u00e9parait \u00e0 fermer la porte, quand tout \u00e0 coup le jeune\ngar\u00e7on ouvrit les yeux, les cligna plusieurs fois, \u00e9ternua et \u00e9tendit la\nmain, comme pour recommencer \u00e0 frapper. S'apercevant que la porte \u00e9tait\nouverte, il regarda autour de lui avec stup\u00e9faction, et, \u00e0 la fin, fixa\nses gros yeux ronds sur le visage de Lowten.\n\n\u00abPourquoi diable frappez-vous comme cela? lui demanda le clerc avec\ncol\u00e8re.\n\n--Comme quoi? r\u00e9pondit le gros gar\u00e7on d'une voix endormie.\n\n--Comme quarante cochers de place.\n\n--Parce que mon ma\u00eetre m'a dit de ne pas arr\u00eater de frapper jusqu'\u00e0 ce\nqu'on ouvre la porte, de peur que je m'endorme.\n\n--Eh bien! quel message apportez-vous?\n\n--Il est en bas.\n\n--Qui?\n\n--Mon ma\u00eetre; il veut savoir si vous \u00eates \u00e0 la maison.\u00bb\n\nEn ce moment, M. Lowten imagina de mettre la t\u00eate \u00e0 la fen\u00eatre. Voyant\ndans son carrosse ouvert un vieux gentleman qui regardait en l'air avec\nanxi\u00e9t\u00e9, il lui fit signe, et le vieux gentleman descendit\nimm\u00e9diatement.\n\n--C'est votre ma\u00eetre qui est dans la voiture, je suppose, dit Lowten.\u00bb\n\nLe gros gar\u00e7on baissa la t\u00eate d'une mani\u00e8re affirmative.\n\nToute autre question fut rendue inutile par l'apparition du vieux\nWardle, qui, ayant mont\u00e9 lestement l'escalier et reconnu Lowten, passa\nimm\u00e9diatement dans la chambre de Perker.\n\n\u00abPickwick! s'\u00e9cria-t-il, votre main, mon gar\u00e7on. C'est d'hier seulement\nque j'ai appris que vous vous \u00e9tiez laiss\u00e9 mettre en cage. Comment\navez-vous souffert cela, Perker?\n\n--Je n'ai pas pu l'emp\u00eacher, mon cher monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua le petit avou\u00e9\navec un sourire et une prise de tabac. Vous savez comme il est obstin\u00e9.\n\n--Certainement, je le sais, mais je suis enchant\u00e9 de le voir malgr\u00e9\ncela. Ce n'est pas de sit\u00f4t que je le perdrai de vue.\u00bb\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, Wardle serra de nouveau la main de M. Pickwick, puis\ncelle de Perker, et se jeta dans un fauteuil, son joyeux visage brillant\nplus que jamais de bonne humeur et de sant\u00e9.\n\n\u00abEh bien! dit-il, voil\u00e0 de jolies histoires! Une prise de tabac, Perker\nmon gar\u00e7on. Avez-vous jamais rien vu de pareil, hein?\n\n--Que voulez-vous dire? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Ma foi! je pense que toutes les filles ont perdu la t\u00eate. Vous direz\npeut-\u00eatre que cela n'est pas bien nouveau, mais c'est vrai n\u00e9anmoins.\n\n--Eh! mon cher monsieur, dit Perker, est-ce que vous \u00eates venu \u00e0 Londres\ntout expr\u00e8s pour nous apprendre cela?\n\n--Non, non, pas tout \u00e0 fait; quoique ce soit la principale cause de mon\nvoyage. Comment va Arabelle?\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick; et elle sera charm\u00e9e de vous voir,\nj'en suis s\u00fbr.\n\n--La petite coquette aux yeux noirs! J'avais grandement id\u00e9e de\nl'\u00e9pouser moi-m\u00eame un de ces beaux jours, mais n\u00e9anmoins je suis charm\u00e9\nde cela, v\u00e9ritablement.\n\n--Comment l'avez-vous appris? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Oh! par mes filles naturellement. Arabelle leur a \u00e9crit avant-hier\nqu'elle s'\u00e9tait mari\u00e9e sans le consentement du p\u00e8re de son mari, et que\nvous \u00e9tiez all\u00e9 pour le lui demander, quand son refus ne pourrait plus\nemp\u00eacher le mariage, et tout cela. J'ai pens\u00e9 que c'\u00e9tait un bon moment\npour donner une petite le\u00e7on \u00e0 mes filles, pour leur faire remarquer\nquelle chose terrible c'\u00e9tait quand les enfants se mariaient sans le\nconsentement de leurs parents, et le reste. Mais baste! je n'ai pas pu\nfaire la plus l\u00e9g\u00e8re impression sur elles. Elles trouvaient mille fois\nplus terrible qu'il y e\u00fbt eu un mariage sans demoiselles d'honneur, et\nj'aurais aussi bien fait de pr\u00eacher Joe lui-m\u00eame.\u00bb\n\nIci le vieux gentleman s'arr\u00eata pour rire, et quand il s'en fut donn\u00e9\ntout son content, il reprit en ces termes:\n\n\u00abMais ce n'est pas tout, \u00e0 ce qu'il para\u00eet. Ce n'est l\u00e0 que la moiti\u00e9\ndes complots et des amourettes qui se sont machin\u00e9s. Depuis six mois\nnous marchons sur des mines, et elles ont \u00e9clat\u00e9 \u00e0 la fin.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que vous voulez dire, s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, en p\u00e2lissant. Pas\nd'autre mariage secret, j'esp\u00e8re.\n\n--Non! non! pas tout \u00e0 fait aussi mauvais que cela; non.\n\n--Quoi donc alors! suis-je int\u00e9ress\u00e9 dans l'affaire?\n\n--Dois-je r\u00e9pondre \u00e0 cette question, Perker?\n\n--Si vous ne vous compromettez pas, en y r\u00e9pondant, mon cher monsieur.\n\n--Eh bien! alors, dit M. Wardle en se tournant vers M. Pickwick; eh bien\nalors, oui, vous y \u00eates int\u00e9ress\u00e9.\n\n--Comment cela, demanda celui-ci avec anxi\u00e9t\u00e9. En quelle mani\u00e8re?\n\n--R\u00e9ellement, vous \u00eates un jeune gaillard si emport\u00e9, que j'ai presque\npeur de vous le dire. N\u00e9anmoins, si Perker veut s'asseoir entre nous,\npour pr\u00e9venir un malheur, je m'y hasarderai.\u00bb\n\nAyant ferm\u00e9 la porte de la chambre, et s'\u00e9tant fortifi\u00e9 par une autre\ndescente dans la tabati\u00e8re de Perker, le vieux gentleman commen\u00e7a sa\ngrande r\u00e9v\u00e9lation en ces termes:\n\n\u00abLe fait est que ma fille Bella... Bella qui a \u00e9pous\u00e9 le jeune Trundle,\nvous savez?\n\n--Oui, oui, nous savons, dit M. Pickwick avec impatience.\n\n--Ne m'intimidez pas d\u00e8s le commencement. Ma fille Bella, l'autre soir,\ns'assit \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de moi lorsque \u00c9mily fut all\u00e9e se coucher, avec un mal de\nt\u00eate, apr\u00e8s m'avoir lu la lettre d'Arabelle; et commen\u00e7a \u00e0 me parler de\nce mariage. \u00abEh bien! papa, dit-elle, qu'est-ce que vous en pensez.--Ma\nfoi, ma ch\u00e8re, r\u00e9pondis-je, j'aime \u00e0 croire que tout ira bien.\u00bb Il faut\nvous dire que j'\u00e9tais assis devant un bon feu, buvant mon grog\npaisiblement, et que je comptais bien, en jetant de temps en temps un\nmot ind\u00e9cis, l'engager \u00e0 continuer son charmant petit babil. Mes deux\nfilles sont tout le portrait de leur pauvre ch\u00e8re m\u00e8re et plus je\ndeviens vieux, plus j'ai de plaisir \u00e0 rester assis en t\u00eate \u00e0 t\u00eate avec\nelles. Dans ces moments-l\u00e0, leur voix, leur physionomie, me reportent au\ntemps le plus agr\u00e9able de ma vie, me rendent encore aussi jeune que je\nl'\u00e9tais alors, quoique pas tout \u00e0 fait aussi heureux. \u00abC'est un\nv\u00e9ritable mariage d'inclination, dit Bella apr\u00e8s un moment de\nsilence.--Oui, ma ch\u00e8re, r\u00e9pondis-je; mais ce ne sont pas toujours ceux\nqui r\u00e9ussissent le mieux....\u00bb\n\n--Je soutiens le contraire! interrompit M. Pickwick avec chaleur.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien; soutenez ce que vous voudrez, quand ce sera votre tour \u00e0\nparler, mais ne m'interrompez pas.\n\n--Je vous demande pardon.\n\n--Accord\u00e9. \u00abPapa, dit Bella en rougissant un peu, je suis f\u00e2ch\u00e9e de vous\nentendre parler contre les mariages d'inclination.--J'ai eu tort, ma\nch\u00e8re, r\u00e9pondis-je en tapant ses joues aussi doucement que peut le faire\nun vieux gaillard comme moi. J'ai eu tort de parler ainsi, car votre\nm\u00e8re a fait un mariage d'inclination, et vous aussi.--Ce n'est pas l\u00e0\nce que je voulais dire, papa, reprit Bella; le fait est que je voulais\nvous parler d'\u00c9mily.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick tressaillit.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce qu'il y a maintenant? lui demanda M. Wardle en s'arr\u00eatant\ndans sa narration.\n\n--Rien, r\u00e9pondit le philosophe; continuez, je vous en prie.\n\n--Ma foi! Je n'ai jamais su filer une histoire, reprit le vieux\ngentleman brusquement. Il faut que cela vienne t\u00f4t ou tard, et \u00e7a nous\n\u00e9pargnera beaucoup de temps, si \u00e7a vient tout de suite. Le fait est qu'\u00e0\nla fin Bella se d\u00e9cida \u00e0 me dire qu'\u00c9mily \u00e9tait fort malheureuse; que\ndepuis les derni\u00e8res f\u00eates de No\u00ebl elle avait \u00e9t\u00e9 en correspondance\nconstante avec notre jeune ami Snodgrass; qu'elle s'\u00e9tait fort sagement\nd\u00e9cid\u00e9e \u00e0 s'enfuir avec lui, pour imiter la louable conduite de son\namie; mais qu'ayant senti quelques retours de componction, \u00e0 ce sujet,\nattendu que j'avais toujours \u00e9t\u00e9 passablement bien dispos\u00e9 pour tous les\ndeux, elle avait pens\u00e9 qu'il valait mieux commencer par me faire\nl'honneur de me demander si je m'opposerais \u00e0 ce qu'ils fussent mari\u00e9s\nde la mani\u00e8re ordinaire et vulgaire. Voil\u00e0 la chose; et maintenant,\nPickwick, si vous voulez bien r\u00e9duire vos yeux \u00e0 leur grandeur\nhabituelle, et me conseiller, je vous serai fort oblig\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nCette derni\u00e8re phrase, prof\u00e9r\u00e9e d'une mani\u00e8re bourrue par l'honn\u00eate\nvieillard, n'\u00e9tait pas tout \u00e0 fait sans motifs, car les traits de M.\nPickwick avaient pris une expression de surprise et de perplexit\u00e9 tout \u00e0\nfait curieuse \u00e0 voir.\n\n\u00abSnodgrass!... Depuis No\u00ebl....\u00bb murmura-t-il enfin, tout confondu.\n\n--Depuis No\u00ebl, r\u00e9pliqua Wardle. Cela est clair, et il faut que nous\nayons eu de bien mauvaises b\u00e9sicles, pour ne pas le d\u00e9couvrir plus t\u00f4t.\n\n--Je n'y comprends rien, reprit M. Pickwick en ruminant. Je n'y\ncomprends rien.\n\n--C'est pourtant assez facile \u00e0 comprendre, r\u00e9torqua le col\u00e9rique\nvieillard. Si vous aviez \u00e9t\u00e9 plus jeune, vous auriez \u00e9t\u00e9 dans le secret\ndepuis longtemps. Et de plus, ajouta-t-il apr\u00e8s un peu d'h\u00e9sitation, je\ndois dire que ne sachant rien de cela, j'avais un peu press\u00e9 \u00c9mily,\ndepuis quatre ou cinq mois, afin qu'elle re\u00e7\u00fbt favorablement un jeune\ngentleman du voisinage; si elle le pouvait, toutefois, car je n'ai\njamais voulu forcer son inclination. Je suis bien convaincu qu'en\nv\u00e9ritable jeune fille, pour rehausser sa valeur et pour augmenter\nl'ardeur de M. Snodgrass, elle lui aura repr\u00e9sent\u00e9 cela avec des\ncouleurs tr\u00e8s-sombres, et qu'ils auront tous deux fini par conclure\nqu'ils sont un couple bien pers\u00e9cut\u00e9, et qu'ils n'ont pas d'autre\nressource qu'un mariage clandestin, ou un fourneau de charbon.\nMaintenant voil\u00e0 la question: Qu'est-ce qu'il faut faire?\n\n--Qu'est-ce que vous avez fait, demanda M. Pickwick?\n\n--Moi?\n\n--Je veux dire qu'est-ce que vous avez fait, quand vous avez appris cela\nde votre fille a\u00een\u00e9e?\n\n--Oh! J'ai fait des sottises, naturellement.\n\n--C'est juste, interrompit Perker, qui avait \u00e9cout\u00e9 ce dialogue en\ntortillant sa cha\u00eene, en grattant son nez et en donnant divers autres\nsignes d'impatience. Cela est tr\u00e8s-naturel. Mais quelle esp\u00e8ce de\nsottises?\n\n--Je me suis mis dans une grande col\u00e8re, et j'ai si bien effray\u00e9 ma m\u00e8re\nqu'elle s'en est trouv\u00e9e mal.\n\n--C'\u00e9tait judicieux, fit remarquer Perker. Et quoi encore, mon cher\nmonsieur?\n\n--J'ai grond\u00e9 et cri\u00e9 toute la journ\u00e9e suivante; mais \u00e0 la fin, lass\u00e9 de\nrendre tout le monde, et moi-m\u00eame, mis\u00e9rable, j'ai lou\u00e9 une voiture \u00e0\nMuggleton, et je suis venu ici sous pr\u00e9texte d'amener \u00c9mily pour voir\nArabelle.\n\n--Miss Wardle est avec vous, alors? dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Certainement, elle est en ce moment \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel d'Osborne \u00e0 moins que\nvotre entreprenant ami ne l'ait enlev\u00e9e depuis que je suis sorti.\n\n--Vous \u00eates donc r\u00e9concili\u00e9s? demanda Perker.\n\n--Pas du tout; elle n'a fait que languir et pleurer depuis ce temps-l\u00e0,\nexcept\u00e9 hier soir; entre le th\u00e9 et le souper; car alors elle a fait\ngrande parade d'\u00e9crire une lettre, ce dont j'ai fait semblant de ne\npoint m'apercevoir.\n\n--Vous voulez avoir mon avis dans cette affaire, \u00e0 ce que je suppose?\ndit Perker en regardant successivement la physionomie r\u00e9fl\u00e9chie de M.\nPickwick, et la contenance inqui\u00e8te de Wardle, et en prenant plusieurs\nprises cons\u00e9cutives de son stimulant favori.\n\n--Je le suppose, r\u00e9pondit Wardle, en regardant M. Pickwick.\n\n--Certainement, r\u00e9pliqua celui-ci.\n\n--Eh bien! alors, dit Perker en se levant et en repoussant sa chaise,\nmon avis est que vous vous en alliez tous les deux vous promener, \u00e0 pied\nou en voiture, comme vous voudrez; car vous m'ennuyez; vous causerez de\ncette affaire-l\u00e0 ensemble. Et si vous n'avez pas tout arrang\u00e9 la\npremi\u00e8re fois que je vous verrai, je vous dirai ce que vous avez \u00e0\nfaire.\n\n--Voil\u00e0 quelque chose de satisfaisant, dit Wardle, qui ne savait pas\ntrop s'il devait rire ou s'offenser.\n\n--Bah! bah! mon cher monsieur, je vous connais tous les deux, beaucoup\nmieux que vous ne vous connaissez vous-m\u00eames. Vous avez d\u00e9j\u00e0 arrang\u00e9\ntout cela dans votre esprit.\u00bb\n\nEn parlant ainsi, le petit avou\u00e9 bourra sa tabati\u00e8re dans la poitrine de\nM. Pickwick et dans le gilet de M. Wardle; puis tous les trois se mirent\n\u00e0 rire ensemble, mais surtout les deux derniers gentlemen, qui se\nprirent et se secou\u00e8rent la main sans aucune raison apparente.\n\n\u00abVous d\u00eenez avec moi aujourd'hui? dit M. Wardle \u00e0 Perker, pendant que\ncelui-ci le reconduisait.\n\n--Je ne peux pas vous le promettre, mon cher monsieur; je ne peux pas\nvous le promettre. En tout cas, je passerai chez vous ce soir.\n\n--Je vous attendrai \u00e0 cinq heures.\n\n--Allons, Joe!\u00bb Et Joe ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9veill\u00e9, \u00e0 grand'peine, les deux amis\npartirent dans le carrosse de M. Wardle. Joe monta derri\u00e8re et s'\u00e9tablit\nsur le si\u00e9ge que son ma\u00eetre y avait fait placer par humanit\u00e9; car s'il\navait d\u00fb rester debout, il aurait roul\u00e9 en bas et se serait tu\u00e9, d\u00e8s son\npremier somme.\n\nNos amis se firent conduire d'abord au _George et Vautour_. L\u00e0 ils\napprirent qu'Arabelle \u00e9tait partie avec sa femme de chambre, dans une\nvoiture de place, pour aller voir \u00c9mily; dont elle avait re\u00e7u un petit\nbillet. Alors, comme Wardle avait quelques affaires \u00e0 arranger dans la\ncit\u00e9, il renvoya la voiture et le gros bouffi \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel, afin de\npr\u00e9venir qu'il reviendrait \u00e0 cinq heures avec M. Pickwick pour d\u00eener.\n\nCharg\u00e9 de ce message, le gros bouffi s'en retourna, dormant sur son\nsi\u00e9ge aussi paisiblement que s'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 sur un lit soutenu par des\nressorts de montre. Par une esp\u00e8ce de miracle, il se r\u00e9veilla de\nlui-m\u00eame lorsque la voiture s'arr\u00eata, et se secouant vigoureusement,\npour aiguiser ses facult\u00e9s, il monta l'escalier, afin d'ex\u00e9cuter sa\ncommission.\n\nMais, soit que les secousses que s'\u00e9tait donn\u00e9es le gros joufflu eussent\nembrouill\u00e9 ses facult\u00e9s, au lieu de les remettre sur un bon pied; soit\nqu'elles eussent \u00e9veill\u00e9 en lui une quantit\u00e9 d'id\u00e9es nouvelles,\nsuffisantes pour lui faire oublier les c\u00e9r\u00e9monies et les formalit\u00e9s\nordinaires; soit (ce qui est encore possible) qu'elles n'eussent pas\n\u00e9t\u00e9 suffisantes pour l'emp\u00eacher de se rendormir en montant l'escalier,\nle fait est qu'il entra dans le salon, sans avoir pr\u00e9alablement frappa \u00e0\nla porte, et aper\u00e7ut ainsi un gentleman, assis amoureusement sur le\nsofa, aupr\u00e8s de miss \u00c9mily, en tenant un bras pass\u00e9 autour de sa taille,\ntandis qu'Arabelle et la jolie femme de chambre feignaient de regarder\nattentivement par une fen\u00eatre, \u00e0 l'autre bout de la chambre. \u00c0 cette vue\nle gros joufflu laissa \u00e9chapper une exclamation, les femmes jet\u00e8rent un\ncri, et le gentleman l\u00e2cha un juron, presque simultan\u00e9ment.\n\n\u00abQui venez-vous chercher ici, petit mis\u00e9rable?\u00bb s'\u00e9cria le gentleman,\nqui n'\u00e9tait autre que M. Snodgrass.\n\nLe gros joufflu, prodigieusement \u00e9pouvant\u00e9, r\u00e9pondit bri\u00e8vement:\n\u00abMa\u00eetresse.\u00bb\n\n\u00abQue me voulez-vous, stupide cr\u00e9ature? lui demanda \u00c9mily, en d\u00e9tournant\nla t\u00eate.\n\n--Mon ma\u00eetre et M. Pickwick viennent d\u00eener ici \u00e0 cinq heures.\n\n--Quittez cette chambre! reprit M. Snodgrass, dont les yeux lan\u00e7aient\ndes flammes sur le jeune homme stup\u00e9fi\u00e9.\n\n--Non! non! non! s'\u00e9cria pr\u00e9cipitamment \u00c9mily. Arabelle, ma ch\u00e8re,\nconseillez-moi.\u00bb\n\n\u00c9mily et M. Snodgrass, Arabelle et Mary tinrent conseil dans un coin, et\nse mirent \u00e0 parler vivement, \u00e0 voix basse, pendant quelques minutes,\ndurant lesquelles le gros joufflu sommeilla.\n\n\u00abJoe, dit \u00e0 la fin Arabelle, en se retournant avec le plus s\u00e9duisant\nsourire; comment vous portez-vous, Joe?\n\n--Joe, reprit \u00c9mily, vous \u00eates un bon gar\u00e7on. Je ne vous oublierai pas,\nJoe.\n\n--Joe, poursuivit M. Snodgrass, en s'avan\u00e7ant vers l'enfant \u00e9tonn\u00e9, et\nen lui prenant la main, je ne vous avais pas reconnu. Voil\u00e0 cinq\nshillings pour vous, Joe.\n\n--Je vous en devrai cinq aussi, ajouta Arabelle, parce que nous sommes\nde vieilles connaissances, vous savez,\u00bb et elle accorda un second\nsourire, encore plus enchanteur, au corpulent intrus.\n\nLes perceptions du gros bouffi \u00e9tant peu rapides, il parut d'abord\nsinguli\u00e8rement intrigu\u00e9 par cette soudaine r\u00e9volution qui s'op\u00e9rait en\nsa faveur, et regarda m\u00eame autour de lui, d'un air tr\u00e8s-alarm\u00e9. \u00c0 la\nfin, cependant, son large visage commen\u00e7a \u00e0 montrer quelques sympt\u00f4mes\nd'un sourire proportionnellement large, puis, fourrant une\ndemi-couronne dans chacun de ses goussets, et, ses mains et ses poignets\npar-dessus, il laissa \u00e9chapper un \u00e9clat de rire enrou\u00e9. C'est la\npremi\u00e8re et ce fut la seule fois de sa vie qu'on l'entendit rire.\n\n\u00abJe vois qu'il nous comprend, dit Arabelle.\n\n--Il faudrait lui faire manger quelque chose sur-le-champ,\u00bb fit observer\n\u00c9mily.\n\nIl s'en fallut de peu que le gros bouffi ne rit encore en entendant\ncette proposition. Apr\u00e8s quelques autres chuchotements, Mary sortit\nlestement du groupe et dit:\n\n\u00abJe vais d\u00eener avec vous aujourd'hui, monsieur, si vous voulez bien?\n\n--Par ici, r\u00e9pondit le jeune gar\u00e7on avec empressement. Il y a un fameux\np\u00e2t\u00e9 de viande en bas!\u00bb\n\n\u00c0 ces mots, le gros joufflu descendit l'escalier pour conduire Mary \u00e0\nl'office, et le long du chemin sa jolie compagne captivait l'attention\nde tous les gar\u00e7ons, et mettait de mauvaise humeur toutes les femmes de\nchambre.\n\nLe p\u00e2t\u00e9, dont le gros joufflu avait parl\u00e9 avec tant de tendresse, se\ntrouvait effectivement, encore dans l'office; on y ajouta un bifteck, un\nplat de pommes de terre, et un pot de porter.\n\n\u00abAsseyez-vous, dit Joe. Quelle chance! Le bon d\u00eener! Comme j'ai faim!\u00bb\n\nAyant r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9 cinq ou six fois ces exclamations avec une sorte de\nravissement, le jeune gar\u00e7on s'assit au haut bout de la petite table, et\nMary se pla\u00e7a au bas bout.\n\n\u00abVoulez-vous un peu de cela? dit le gros joufflu, en plongeant dans le\np\u00e2t\u00e9 son couteau et sa fourchette jusqu'au manche.\n\n--Un peu, s'il vous pla\u00eet.\u00bb\n\nJoe ayant servi \u00e0 Mary un peu du p\u00e2t\u00e9, et s'en \u00e9tant servi beaucoup \u00e0\nlui-m\u00eame, allait commencer \u00e0 manger, quand, tout \u00e0 coup il se pencha en\navant sur sa chaise, en laissant ses mains, avec le couteau et la\nfourchette, tomber sur ses genoux, et dit tr\u00e8s-lentement.\n\n\u00abVous \u00eates gentille \u00e0 croquer, savez-vous?\u00bb\n\nCeci \u00e9tait dit d'un air d'admiration tr\u00e8s-flatteur, mais cependant il y\navait encore, dans les yeux du jeune gentleman, quelque chose qui\nsentait le cannibale plus que l'amour passionn\u00e9.\n\n--Eh! mais, Joseph, s'\u00e9cria Mary, en affectant de rougir, qu'est-ce que\nvous voulez dire?\u00bb\n\nLe gros joufflu, reprenant graduellement sa premi\u00e8re position, r\u00e9pliqua\nseulement par un profond soupir, resta pensif pendant quelques minutes,\net but une longue gorg\u00e9e de _porter_. Apr\u00e8s quoi, il soupira encore, et\ns'appliqua tr\u00e8s-solidement au p\u00e2t\u00e9.\n\n\u00abQuelle aimable personne que miss \u00c9mily! dit Mary, apr\u00e8s un long\nsilence.\n\n--J'en connais une plus aimable.\n\n--En v\u00e9rit\u00e9?\n\n--Oui, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9, r\u00e9pliqua le gros joufflu, avec une vivacit\u00e9\ninaccoutum\u00e9e.\n\n--Comment s'appelle-t-elle?\n\n--Comment vous appelez-vous?\u00bb\n\n--Mary.\n\n--C'est son nom. C'est vous.\u00bb\n\nLe gros gar\u00e7on, pour rendre ce compliment plus incisif, y joignit une\ngrimace, et donna \u00e0 ses deux prunelles une combinaison de loucherie,\ncroyant ainsi, selon toute apparence, lancer une oeillade meurtri\u00e8re.\n\n\u00abIl ne faut pas me parler comme cela, dit Mary. Vous ne me parlez pas\ns\u00e9rieusement.\n\n--Bah! que si, je dis.\n\n--Eh bien?\n\n--Allez-vous venir ici r\u00e9guli\u00e8rement?\n\n--Non, je m'en vais demain soir.\n\n--Oh! reprit le gros joufflu, d'un ton prodigieusement sentimental,\ncomme nous aurions eu du plaisir \u00e0 manger ensemble, si vous \u00e9tiez\nrest\u00e9e!\n\n--Je pourrais peut-\u00eatre venir quelquefois, ici, pour vous voir, si vous\nvouliez me rendre un service,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit Mary, en roulant la nappe pour\njouer l'embarras.\n\nLe gros joufflu regarda alternativement le p\u00e2t\u00e9 et la grillade, comme\ns'il avait pens\u00e9 qu'un service devait \u00eatre li\u00e9 en quelque sorte avec des\ncomestibles; puis, tirant de sa poche une de ses demi-couronnes, il la\nconsid\u00e9ra avec inqui\u00e9tude.\n\n\u00abVous ne me comprenez pas?\u00bb poursuivit Mary, en regardant finement son\nlarge visage.\n\nIl consid\u00e9ra sur nouveaux frais la demi-couronne, et r\u00e9pondit\nfaiblement: non.\n\n\u00abLes ladies voudraient bien que vous ne parliez pas au vieux gentleman\ndu jeune gentleman qui \u00e9tait l\u00e0-haut; et moi je le voudrais bien aussi.\n\n--C'est-il l\u00e0 tout? r\u00e9pondit le gros gar\u00e7on, \u00e9videmment soulag\u00e9 d'un\ngrand poids, et rempochant sa demi-couronne. Je n'en dirai rien, bien\ns\u00fbr.\n\n--Voyez-vous, M. Snodgrass aime beaucoup miss \u00c9mily; et miss \u00c9mily aime\nbeaucoup M. Snodgrass; et si vous racontiez cela, le vieux gentleman\nvous emm\u00e8nerait bien loin \u00e0 la campagne, o\u00f9 vous ne pourriez plus voir\npersonne.\n\n--Non, non, je n'en dirai rien, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta le gros joufflu, r\u00e9solument.\n\n--Vous serez bien gentil. Mais, \u00e0 pr\u00e9sent, il faut que je monte en haut,\net que j'habille ma ma\u00eetresse pour le d\u00eener.\n\n--Ne vous en allez pas encore.\n\n--Il le faut bien. Adieu, pour \u00e0 pr\u00e9sent.\u00bb\n\nLe gros joufflu, avec la galanterie d'un jeune \u00e9l\u00e9phant, \u00e9tendit ses\nbras pour ravir un baiser; mais comme il ne fallait pas grande agilit\u00e9\npour lui \u00e9chapper, son aimable vainqueur disparut, avant qu'il les e\u00fbt\nreferm\u00e9s. Ainsi d\u00e9sappoint\u00e9, l'apathique jeune homme mangea une livre ou\ndeux de bifteck, avec une contenance sentimentale, et s'endormit\nprofond\u00e9ment.\n\nOn avait tant de choses \u00e0 se dire dans le salon, tant de plans \u00e0\nconcerter pour le cas o\u00f9 la cruaut\u00e9 de M. Wardle rendrait n\u00e9cessaires un\nenl\u00e8vement et un mariage secret, qu'il \u00e9tait quatre heures et demie\nquand M. Snodgrass fit ses derniers adieux. Les dames coururent pour\ns'habiller dans la chambre d'\u00c9mily, et le gentleman, ayant pris son\nchapeau, sortit du salon; mais \u00e0 peine \u00e9tait-il sur le carr\u00e9, qu'il\nentendit la voix de M. Wardle. Il regarda par-dessus la rampe et le vit\nmonter, suivi de plusieurs autres personnes. Dans sa confusion, et ne\nconnaissant point les \u00eatres de l'h\u00f4tel, M. Snodgrass rentra\npr\u00e9cipitamment dans la chambre qu'il venait de quitter, puis passant de\nl\u00e0 dans une autre pi\u00e8ce, qui \u00e9tait la chambre \u00e0 coucher de M. Wardle, il\nen ferma la porte doucement, juste comme les personnes qu'il avait\naper\u00e7ues entraient dans le salon. Il reconnut facilement leurs voix:\nc'\u00e9taient M. Wardle et M. Pickwick, M. Nathaniel Winkle et M. Benjamin\nAllen.\n\n\u00abC'est tr\u00e8s-heureux que j'aie eu la pr\u00e9sence d'esprit de les \u00e9viter,\npensa M. Snodgrass avec un sourire, en marchant, sur la pointe du pied,\nvers une autre porte, situ\u00e9e aupr\u00e8s du lit. Cette porte-ci ouvre sur le\nm\u00eame corridor, et je puis m'en aller par l\u00e0 tranquillement et\ncommod\u00e9ment.\u00bb\n\nIl n'y avait qu'un seul obstacle \u00e0 ce qu'il s'en all\u00e2t tranquillement\net commod\u00e9ment, c'est que la porte \u00e9tait ferm\u00e9e \u00e0 double tour et la clef\nabsente.\n\n\u00abGar\u00e7on! dit le vieux Wardle, en se frottant les mains; donnez-nous de\nvotre meilleur vin, aujourd'hui.\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--Faites savoir \u00e0 ces dames que nous sommes rentr\u00e9s.\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nM. Snodgrass aussi d\u00e9sirait bien ardemment faire savoir \u00e0 ces dames\nqu'il \u00e9tait rentr\u00e9. Une fois m\u00eame il se hasarda \u00e0 chuchoter \u00e0 travers le\ntrou de la serrure: \u00abGar\u00e7on!\u00bb Mais pensant qu'il pourrait \u00e9voquer\nquelque autre personne, et se rappelant avoir lu le matin, dans son\njournal, sous la rubrique _Cours et Tribunaux_, les infortunes d'un\ngentleman, arr\u00eat\u00e9 dans un h\u00f4tel voisin, pour s'\u00eatre trouv\u00e9 dans une\nsituation semblable \u00e0 la sienne, il s'assit sur un porte-manteau, en\ntremblant violemment.\n\n\u00abNous n'attendrons pas Perker une seule minute, dit Wardle en regardant\nsa montre. Il est toujours exact, il sera ici \u00e0 l'heure juste s'il a\nl'intention de venir; sinon il est inutile de nous en occuper. Ah!\nArabelle.\n\n--Ma soeur! s'\u00e9cria Benjamin Allen, en l'enveloppant de ses bras d'une\nmani\u00e8re fort dramatique.\n\n--Oh! Ben, mon cher, comme tu sens le tabac! s'\u00e9cria Arabelle,\napparemment suffoqu\u00e9e par cette marque d'affection.\n\n--Tu trouves? C'est possible... (C'\u00e9tait possible en effet, car il\nvenait de quitter une charmante r\u00e9union de dix ou douze \u00e9tudiants en\nm\u00e9decine, entass\u00e9s dans un arri\u00e8re-parloir devant un \u00e9norme feu.)\nCombien je suis charm\u00e9 de te voir! Dieu te b\u00e9nisse, Arabelle.\n\n--L\u00e0, dit Arabelle, en se penchant en avant et en tendant son visage \u00e0\nson fr\u00e8re; mais, mon cher Ben, ne me prends pas comme cela, tu me\nchiffonnes.\u00bb\n\nEn cet endroit de la r\u00e9conciliation, M. Ben Allen se laissant vaincre\npar sa sensibilit\u00e9, par les cigares et le _porter_, promena ses yeux sur\ntous les assistants \u00e0 travers des lunettes humides.\n\n\u00abEst-ce qu'on ne me dira rien \u00e0 moi? demanda M. Wardle en ouvrant ses\nbras.\n\n--Au contraire, dit tout bas Arabelle, en recevant l'accolade et les\ncordiales f\u00e9licitations du vieux gentlemen; vous \u00eates un m\u00e9chant, un\ncruel, un monstre!\n\n--Vous \u00eates une petite rebelle, r\u00e9pliqua Wardle du m\u00eame ton; et je me\nverrai oblig\u00e9 de vous interdire ma maison. Les personnes comme vous, qui\nse sont mari\u00e9es en d\u00e9pit de tout le monde, devraient \u00eatre s\u00e9questr\u00e9es de\nla soci\u00e9t\u00e9. Mais, allons! ajouta-t-il tout haut, voici le d\u00eener; vous\nvous mettrez \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de moi.--Joe, damn\u00e9 gar\u00e7on, comme il est \u00e9veill\u00e9!\u00bb\n\nAu grand d\u00e9sespoir de son ma\u00eetre, le gros joufflu \u00e9tait effectivement\ndans un \u00e9tat de vigilance remarquable. Ses yeux se tenaient tout grands\nouverts et ne paraissaient point avoir envie de se fermer. Il y avait\naussi dans ses mani\u00e8res une vivacit\u00e9 \u00e9galement inexplicable! Chaque fois\nque ses regards rencontraient ceux d'\u00c9mily ou d'Arabelle, il souriait en\ngrima\u00e7ant; et une fois Wardle aurait pu jurer qu'il l'avait vu cligner\nde l'oeil.\n\nCette alt\u00e9ration dans les mani\u00e8res du gros joufflu naissait du sentiment\nde sa nouvelle importance, et de la dignit\u00e9 qu'il avait acquise en se\ntrouvant le confident des jeunes ladies. Ces sourires et ces clins\nd'oeil \u00e9taient autant d'assurances condescendantes qu'elles pouvaient\ncompter sur sa fid\u00e9lit\u00e9. Cependant comme ces signes \u00e9taient plus propres\n\u00e0 inspirer les soup\u00e7ons qu'\u00e0 les apaiser, et comme ils \u00e9taient, en\noutre, l\u00e9g\u00e8rement embarrassants, Arabelle y r\u00e9pondait de temps en temps\npar un froncement de sourcils, par un geste de r\u00e9primande; mais le gros\ngar\u00e7on ne voyant l\u00e0 qu'une invitation \u00e0 se tenir sur ses gardes,\nrecommen\u00e7ait \u00e0 cligner de l'oeil et \u00e0 sourire avec encore plus\nd'assiduit\u00e9, afin de prouver qu'il comprenait parfaitement.\n\n\u00abJoe, dit M. Wardle, apr\u00e8s une recherche infructueuse dans toutes ses\npoches, ma tabati\u00e8re est-elle sur le sofa?\n\n--Non, monsieur.\n\n--Oh! je m'en souviens; je l'ai laiss\u00e9e sur la toilette ce matin. Allez\nla chercher dans ma chambre.\u00bb\n\nLe gros gar\u00e7on alla dans la chambre voisine, et apr\u00e8s quelques minutes\nd'absence revint avec la tabati\u00e8re, mais aussi avec la figure la plus\np\u00e2le qu'ait jamais port\u00e9e un gros gar\u00e7on.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce qui lui est donc arriv\u00e9? s'\u00e9cria M. Wardle.\n\n--Il ne m'est rien arriv\u00e9, r\u00e9pondit Joe avec inqui\u00e9tude.\n\n--Est-ce que vous avez vu des esprits? demanda le vieux gentleman.\n\n--Ou bien est-ce que vous en avez bu? sugg\u00e9ra Ben Allen.\n\n--Je pense que vous avez raison, chuchota Wardle \u00e0 travers la table; il\ns'est gris\u00e9, j'en suis s\u00fbr.\u00bb\n\nBen Allen r\u00e9pondit qu'il le croyait; et comme il avait observ\u00e9 beaucoup\nde cas semblables, Wardle fut confirm\u00e9 dans la pens\u00e9e qui cherchait \u00e0\ns'insinuer dans son cerveau depuis une demi-heure, et arriva \u00e0 la\nconclusion que le gros joufflu \u00e9tait tout \u00e0 fait gris.\n\n\u00abAyez l'oeil sur lui pendant quelques minutes, murmura-t-il; nous\nverrons bient\u00f4t s'il a r\u00e9ellement bu.\u00bb\n\nLe fait est que l'infortun\u00e9 jeune homme avait seulement \u00e9chang\u00e9 une\ndouzaine de paroles avec M. Snodgrass; que celui-ci l'avait suppli\u00e9 de\ns'adresser \u00e0 quelque ami pour le faire mettre en libert\u00e9, puis l'avait\npouss\u00e9 dehors avec la tabati\u00e8re de peur qu'une absence trop prolong\u00e9e\nn'\u00e9veill\u00e2t des soup\u00e7ons. Rentr\u00e9 dans la salle \u00e0 manger, Joe \u00e9tait rest\u00e9\nquelques instants \u00e0 ruminer, avec une physionomie renvers\u00e9e, puis il\navait quitt\u00e9 la chambre pour aller chercher Mary.\n\nMais Mary \u00e9tait retourn\u00e9e au _Georges et Vautour_, apr\u00e8s avoir habill\u00e9\nsa ma\u00eetresse, et le gros joufflu \u00e9tait revenu, plus d\u00e9mont\u00e9\nqu'auparavant.\n\nM. Wardle et Ben Allen \u00e9chang\u00e8rent plusieurs coups d'oeil.\n\n\u00abJoe, dit M. Wardle.\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--Pourquoi \u00eates-vous sorti?\u00bb\n\nLe gros joufflu regarda d'un air troubl\u00e9 chacun des convives, et b\u00e9gaya\nqu'il n'en savait rien.\n\n\u00abOh! dit Wardle, vous n'en savez rien. Portez ce fromage \u00e0 M. Pickwick.\u00bb\n\nOr, M. Pickwick, se trouvant en parfaite sant\u00e9 et en parfaite humeur,\ns'\u00e9tait rendu universellement d\u00e9licieux pendant tout le temps du d\u00eener,\net paraissait en ce moment, engag\u00e9 dans une int\u00e9ressante conversation\navec \u00c9mily et M. Winkle. Courbant gracieusement sa t\u00eate du c\u00f4t\u00e9 de ses\nauditeurs, et tout rayonnant de paisibles sourires, il agitait doucement\nsa main droite, pour donner plus de force \u00e0 ses observations. Il prit un\nmorceau de fromage sur l'assiette et allait se retourner pour continuer\nsa conversation, quand le gros gar\u00e7on se baissant de mani\u00e8re \u00e0 amener sa\nt\u00eate au m\u00eame niveau que celle de M. Pickwick, dirigea son pouce\npar-dessus son \u00e9paule comme pour lui montrer quelque chose, et fit en\nm\u00eame temps la grimace la plus hideuse qu'on ait jamais vue.\n\n\u00abEh mais! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick en tressaillant, voil\u00e0 qui est... Eh...?\u00bb\nil s'arr\u00eata court, car Joe venait de se redresser, et \u00e9tait ou\npr\u00e9tendait \u00eatre profond\u00e9ment endormi.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce qu'il y a? demanda M. Wardle.\n\n--Votre jeune homme est si singulier, continua M. Pickwick en regardant\nJoe d'un air inquiet. Cela vous \u00e9tonnera peut-\u00eatre, mais sur ma parole,\nj'ai peur qu'il n'ait quelquefois l'esprit un peu d\u00e9rang\u00e9.\n\n--Oh! monsieur Pickwick ne dites point cela, s'\u00e9cri\u00e8rent ensemble \u00c9mily\net Arabelle.\n\n--Je n'en r\u00e9pondrais pas, bien entendu, reprit le philosophe, au milieu\nd'un profond silence et d'une \u00e9pouvante g\u00e9n\u00e9rale; mais ses mani\u00e8res avec\nmoi, en ce moment, \u00e9taient vraiment alarmantes! Oh l\u00e0 l\u00e0! cria M.\nPickwick en sautant sur sa chaise. Je vous demande pardon, mesdames;\nmais il vient de m'enfoncer quelque chose de pointu dans la jambe....\nR\u00e9ellement, il est tr\u00e8s-dangereux.\n\n--Il est so\u00fbl! vocif\u00e9ra le vieux Wardle avec col\u00e8re. Tirez la sonnette,\nappelez les gar\u00e7ons! il est so\u00fbl!...\n\n--Je ne suis pas so\u00fbl! s'\u00e9cria le gros bouffi en tombant \u00e0 genoux,\npendant que son ma\u00eetre le saisissait par le collet, je ne suis pas so\u00fbl!\n\n--Alors vous \u00eates fou, ce qui est encore pis; appelez les gar\u00e7ons!\n\n--Je ne suis pas fou, je suis tr\u00e8s-raisonnable, r\u00e9pliqua Joe en\ncommen\u00e7ant \u00e0 pleurer.\n\n--Alors pourquoi diable piquez-vous la jambe de M. Pickwick?\n\n--Il ne voulait pas me regarder, j'avais quelque chose \u00e0 lui dire.\n\n--Que vouliez-vous lui dire?\u00bb demand\u00e8rent une demi-douzaine de voix \u00e0 la\nfois.\n\nJoe soupira, regarda la porte de la chambre \u00e0 coucher, soupira encore,\net essuya ses larmes avec les jointures de ses deux index.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce que vous vouliez lui dire? demanda M. Wardle en le secouant.\n\n--Arr\u00eatez! dit M. Pickwick, laissez-moi lui parler. Qu'est-ce que vous\nd\u00e9siriez me communiquer, mon pauvre gar\u00e7on?\n\n--Je voulais vous parler tout bas.\n\n--Vous vouliez lui mordre l'oreille, je suppose, interrompit M. Wardle;\nne l'approchez pas, Pickwick, il est enrag\u00e9. Tirez la sonnette pour\nqu'on l'emm\u00e8ne en bas.\u00bb\n\n\u00c0 l'instant o\u00f9 M. Winkle prenait le cordon de la sonnette, il fut arr\u00eat\u00e9\npar d'universelles exclamations de surprise. L'amant captif, avec un\nvisage pourpre de confusion, \u00e9tait soudainement sorti de la chambre \u00e0\ncoucher, et faisait un salut g\u00e9n\u00e9ral \u00e0 toute le compagnie.\n\n\u00abOh! ah! s'\u00e9cria M. Wardle en l\u00e2chant le collet du gros joufflu et en\nreculant d'un pas, qu'est-ce que cela signifie?\n\n--Monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua M. Snodgrass, je suis cach\u00e9 dans la chambre voisine\ndepuis votre retour.\n\n--\u00c9mily, ma fille, dit M. Wardle d'un ton de reproche, vous savez\npourtant bien que je d\u00e9teste les cachoteries et les mensonges. Ceci est\ntout \u00e0 fait ind\u00e9licat et inexcusable. Je ne m\u00e9ritais pas cela de votre\npart, \u00c9mily, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9.\n\n--Cher papa, dit \u00c9mily, j'ignorais qu'il \u00e9tait l\u00e0. Arabelle peut vous le\ndire, et Joe aussi, et tout le monde. Auguste, au nom du ciel,\nexpliquez-vous!\u00bb\n\nM. Snodgrass, qui avait attendu seulement qu'on voul\u00fbt bien l'entendre,\nraconta imm\u00e9diatement comment il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 plac\u00e9 dans cette position\nembarrassante; comment la crainte d'exciter des dissensions domestiques\nl'avait seule engag\u00e9 \u00e0 \u00e9viter la rencontre de M. Wardle; comment il\nvoulait simplement s'en aller par une autre porte, et comment, la\ntrouvant ferm\u00e9e, il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 forc\u00e9 de rester, contre sa volont\u00e9. Il\ntermina en disant qu'il se trouvait plac\u00e9 dans une situation p\u00e9nible;\nmais qu'il le regrettait moins maintenant, puisque c'\u00e9tait une occasion\nde d\u00e9clarer devant leurs amis communs qu'il aimait profond\u00e9ment et\nsinc\u00e8rement la fille de M. Wardle; qu'il \u00e9tait orgueilleux d'avouer que\nleur penchant \u00e9tait mutuel, et que, quand m\u00eame il serait s\u00e9par\u00e9 d'elle\npar des milliers de lieues, quand m\u00eame l'Oc\u00e9an roulerait entre eux ses\nondes infinies, il n'oublierait jamais un seul instant cet heureux jour\no\u00f9, pour la premi\u00e8re fois, etc., etc., etc.\n\nAyant p\u00e9ror\u00e9 de cette mani\u00e8re, M. Snodgrass salua encore, regarda dans\nson chapeau, et se dirigea vers la porte.\n\n\u00abArr\u00eatez! s'\u00e9cria M. Wardle. Pourquoi, au nom de tout ce qui est....\n\n--Inflammable, sugg\u00e9ra doucement M. Pickwick, pensant qu'il allait venir\nquelque chose de pis.\n\n--Eh bien! au nom de tout ce qui est inflammable, dit M. Wardle en\nadoptant cette variante, pourquoi ne m'avez-vous pas dit cela, \u00e0 moi, en\npremier lieu?\n\n--Ou pourquoi ne vous \u00eates-vous pas confi\u00e9 \u00e0 moi? ajouta M. Pickwick.\n\n--Voyons, dit Arabelle, en se chargeant de la d\u00e9fense, \u00e0 quoi sert de\nfaire tant de questions; maintenant surtout, quand vous savez que vous\naviez choisi, dans des vues int\u00e9ress\u00e9es, un beau-fils beaucoup plus\nriche, et que vous \u00eates si m\u00e9chant et si emport\u00e9, que tout le monde a\npeur de vous, except\u00e9 moi? Donnez-lui une poign\u00e9e de mains, et\nfaites-lui servir quelque chose \u00e0 manger, pour l'amour du ciel! Vous\nvoyez bien son air affam\u00e9! et, je vous en prie, faites apporter votre\nvin tout de suite, car vous ne serez pas supportable jusqu'\u00e0 ce que vous\nayez bu vos deux bouteilles, au moins.\u00bb\n\nLe digne vieillard tira Arabelle par l'oreille, l'embrassa sans le plus\nl\u00e9ger scrupule, embrassa \u00e9galement sa fille avec une grande affection,\net secoua cordialement la main de M. Snodgrass.\n\n\u00abElle a raison sur un point, tout au moins, dit-il joyeusement; sonnez\npour le vin.\u00bb\n\nLe vin arriva, et Perker entra en m\u00eame temps. M. Snodgrass fut servi sur\nune petite table, et quand il eut d\u00e9p\u00each\u00e9 son d\u00eener, il tira sa chaise\naupr\u00e8s d'\u00c9mily, sans la plus l\u00e9g\u00e8re opposition de la part du vieux\ngentleman.\n\nLa soir\u00e9e fut charmante. Le petit Perker \u00e9tait tout \u00e0 fait en train. Il\nraconta plusieurs histoires comiques, et chanta une chanson s\u00e9rieuse qui\nparut presque aussi comique que ses anecdotes. Arabelle fut ravissante,\nM. Wardle jovial, M. Pickwick harmonieux, M. Ben Allen bruyant, les\namants silencieux, M. Winkle bavard, et toute la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 fort heureuse.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XXVI.\n\nM. Salomon Pell, assist\u00e9 par un comit\u00e9 choisi de cochers, arrange les\naffaires de M. Weller senior.\n\n\n\u00abSamivel, dit M. Weller en accostant son fils, le lendemain des\nfun\u00e9railles, je l'ai trouv\u00e9; je pensais bien qu'il \u00e9tait ici.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que vous avez trouv\u00e9?\n\n--Le testament de ta belle-m\u00e8re, Sammy, qui fait ces arrangements dont\nje t'ai parl\u00e9, pour les fontes.\n\n\u00abQuoi! elle ne vous avait pas dit o\u00f9 il \u00e9tait?\n\n--Pas un brin, Sammy. Nous \u00e9tions en train d'ajuster nos petits\ndiff\u00e9rents, et je la remontais, et je l'engageais \u00e0 se remettre sur\npieds, si bien que j'ai oubli\u00e9 de lui parler de cela. Ensuite, je ne\nsais pas trop si j'en aurais parl\u00e9, quand m\u00eame je m'en serais souvenu,\ncar c'est une dr\u00f4le de chose, Sammy, de tourmenter quelqu'un pour sa\npropri\u00e9t\u00e9, quand vous l'assistez dans une maladie. C'est comme si vous\nmettiez la main dans la poche d'un voyageur de l'imp\u00e9riale, qui a \u00e9t\u00e9\njet\u00e9 par terre, pendant que vous l'aidez \u00e0 se relever, et que vous lui\ndemandez, avec un soupir, comment il se porte.\u00bb\n\nApr\u00e8s avoir donn\u00e9 cette illustration figur\u00e9e de sa pens\u00e9e, M. Weller\nouvrit son portefeuille, et en tira une feuille de papier \u00e0 lettre,\npassablement malpropre, et sur laquelle \u00e9taient inscrits divers\ncaract\u00e8res, amoncel\u00e9s dans une remarquable confusion.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0 ici le document, Sammy; je l'ai trouv\u00e9 dans la petite th\u00e9i\u00e8re\nnoire, sur la planche de l'armoire du comptoir. C'est l\u00e0 qu'elle mettait\nses bank-notes avant d'\u00eatre mari\u00e9e, Sammy; j'y en ai vu prendre bien des\nfois. Pauvre cr\u00e9ature! elle aurait pu remplir de testaments toutes les\nth\u00e9i\u00e8res de la maison, sans se g\u00eaner beaucoup, car elle ne prenait gu\u00e8re\nde cette boisson-l\u00e0 dans les derniers temps, except\u00e9 dans les soir\u00e9es de\ntemp\u00e9rance, ous-ce qu'elle mettait une fondation de th\u00e9 pour poser les\nesprits par-dessus.\n\n--Qu'est-ce qu'il dit? demanda Sam.\n\n--Juste ce que je t'ai racont\u00e9, mon gar\u00e7on: deux cents livres sterling\ndans les fontes, \u00e0 mon beau-fils Samivel, et tout le reste de mes\npropri\u00e9t\u00e9s de toute sorte \u00e0 mon mari, M. Tony Veller, que je nomme mon\nseul \u00e9quateur.\n\n--Est-ce tout?\n\n--C'est tout. Et comme c'est clair et satisfaisant pour vous et pour\nmoi, qui sont les seules parties int\u00e9ress\u00e9es, je suppose que nous\npourrons aussi bien mettre ce morceau de papier ici dans le feu.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que vous allez faire, lunatique? s'\u00e9cria Sam en saisissant\nle testament, tandis que son p\u00e8re attisait innocemment le feu avant de\nl'y jeter. Vous \u00eates un joli ex\u00e9cuteur, v\u00e9ritablement.\n\n--Pourquoi pas? demanda M. Weller en se retournant d'un air s\u00e9v\u00e8re, avec\nle fourgon dans sa main.\n\n--Pourquoi pas! Parce qu'il faut qu'il soit \u00e9galis\u00e9, et falzifl\u00e9, et\njur\u00e9, et toutes sortes de mani\u00e8res de formalit\u00e9s.\n\n--C'est-y s\u00e9rieux tout \u00e7a? demanda M. Weller en d\u00e9posant le fourgon.\u00bb\n\nSam boutonna soigneusement le testament dans sa poche, en intimant, par\nun geste, qu'il parlait fort s\u00e9rieusement.\n\n\u00abAlors je vas te dire la chose, reprit M. Weller apr\u00e8s une courte\nm\u00e9ditation; voil\u00e0 une affaire qui regarde l'ami intime du chancelier. I\nfaut que Pell mette son nez l\u00e0 dedans. C'est un fameux gaillard dans une\nquestion de loi difficile. Nous allons faire produire \u00e7a sur-le-champ\ndevant la Cour des insolvables, Sammy.\n\n--Je n'ai jamais vu une vieille cr\u00e9ature aussi \u00e9cervel\u00e9e! s'\u00e9cria Sam\ncol\u00e9riquement. _Old Baileys_, et la Cour des insolvables, et les\n_al\u00e9bis_, et toute sorte de fariboles qui se brouillent dans sa\ncervelle. Vous feriez mieux de mettre votre habit du dimanche et de\nvenir avec moi \u00e0 la ville, pour arranger cette affaire ici, que de\nrester l\u00e0 \u00e0 pr\u00eacher sur ce que vous n'entendez pas.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, Sammy, je suis tout \u00e0 fait concordant \u00e0 ce qui pourra\nexp\u00e9dier les affaires. Mais fais attention \u00e0 ceci, mon gar\u00e7on, il n'y a\nque Pell, il n'y a que Pell, dans une affaire l\u00e9gislative.\n\n--Je n'en demande pas un autre; mais \u00eates-vous pr\u00eat \u00e0 venir?\n\n--Attends une minute, Sammy, r\u00e9pliqua M. Weller en attachant son ch\u00e2le \u00e0\nl'aide d'une petite glace accroch\u00e9e \u00e0 la fen\u00eatre; attends une minute,\nSammy, poursuivit-il en s'effor\u00e7ant d'entrer dans son habit au moyen des\nplus \u00e9tonnantes contorsions; quand tu seras devenu aussi vieux que ton\np\u00e8re, tu n'entreras pas dans ta veste aussi ais\u00e9ment qu'\u00e0 pr\u00e9sent, mon\ngar\u00e7on.\n\n--Si je ne pouvais pas y entrer plus ais\u00e9ment que cela, je veux \u00eatre\npendu si j'en mettais jamais une.\n\n--Tu penses comme \u00e7a, maintenant, r\u00e9pliqua M. Weller avec la gravit\u00e9 de\nl'\u00e2ge; mais tu t'apercevras que tu deviendras plus sage quand tu\ndeviendras plus gros. La grosseur et la sagesse vont toujours ensemble,\nSammy.\u00bb\n\nAyant d\u00e9bit\u00e9 cette infaillible maxime, r\u00e9sultat de beaucoup d'ann\u00e9es et\nd'observations personnelles, M. Weller parvint, par une habile inflexion\nde son corps, \u00e0 boutonner le premier bouton de sa lourde redingote.\nEnsuite, s'\u00e9tant repos\u00e9 quelques secondes pour reprendre haleine, il\nbrossa son chapeau avec son coude, et d\u00e9clara qu'il \u00e9tait pr\u00eat.\n\n\u00abComme quatre t\u00eates valent mieux que deux, Sammy, dit M. Weller en\nconduisant sa carriole sur la route de Londres, et comme cette propri\u00e9t\u00e9\nici est une tentation pour un gentleman de la justice, nous prendrons\ndeux de mes amis avec nous qui seront bient\u00f4t sur ses talons, s'il veut\nfaire qu\u00e9'que chose d'inconvenant: deux de ceux que tu as vus \u00e0 la\nprison l'autre jour. C'est les meilleurs connaisseurs en chevaux que tu\naies jamais rencontr\u00e9s.\n\n--Et en hommes d'affaires aussi?\n\n--L'homme qui sait former un jugement judiciaire d'un cheval peut former\nun jugement judiciaire de n'importe quoi,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit M. Weller si\ndogmatiquement, que Sam n'osa point contester cet aphorisme.\n\nEn cons\u00e9quence de cette notable r\u00e9solution, M. Weller mit en r\u00e9quisition\nles services du gentleman au teint marbr\u00e9 et ceux de deux autres\ntr\u00e8s-gros cochers, choisis apparemment \u00e0 cause de leur ampleur et de\nleur sagesse proportionnelle. Le quintette se rendit alors \u00e0 la taverne\ndu _Portugal-Street_, d'o\u00f9 un messager fut d\u00e9p\u00each\u00e9 \u00e0 la Cour des\ninsolvables, pour requ\u00e9rir la pr\u00e9sence imm\u00e9diate de M. Salomon Pell.\n\nLe messager le trouva dans la salle, occup\u00e9 \u00e0 prendre une petite\ncollation froide, compos\u00e9e d'un biscuit et d'un cervelas. Les affaires\n\u00e9taient un peu languissantes en ce moment; aussi \u00e0 peine le message lui\neut-il \u00e9t\u00e9 souffl\u00e9 dans l'oreille qu'il fourra les restes de son\nd\u00e9jeuner dans sa poche parmi plusieurs autres documents professionnels,\net se dirigea vers ses clients avec tant de vivacit\u00e9 qu'il avait atteint\nle parloir de la taverne avant que le messager se f\u00fbt d\u00e9gag\u00e9 de la salle\nd'audience.\n\n\u00abGentlemen, dit M. Pell en touchant son chapeau, je vous offre mes\nservices. Je ne dis pas cela pour vous flatter, gentlemen, mais il n'y a\npas dans le monde cinq autres personnes pour qui je fusse sorti de la\ncour aujourd'hui.\n\n--Fort occup\u00e9? dit Sam.\n\n--Occup\u00e9 par-dessus les \u00e9paules, comme mon ami le d\u00e9funt lord chancelier\nme disait souvent, quand il venait d'entendre des appels dans la chambre\ndes Lords. Il n'\u00e9tait pas bien robuste, et il se ressentait beaucoup de\nces appels. J'ai pens\u00e9 bien des fois qu'il ne pourrait pas y r\u00e9sister,\nen v\u00e9rit\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nEn achevant ces paroles, M. Pell branla la t\u00eate et s'arr\u00eata. Aussit\u00f4t M.\nWeller, poussant du coude son voisin pour lui faire remarquer les\nconnaissances distingu\u00e9es de l'homme d'affaires, demanda \u00e0 celui-ci si\nles fatigues en question avaient produit quelques mauvais effets\npermanents sur la constitution de son noble ami.\n\n\u00abJe ne pense pas qu'il s'en soit jamais remis, r\u00e9pliqua Pell. En fait,\nje suis s\u00fbr que non. \u00abPell, me disait-il souvent, comment diable\npouvez-vous soutenir tout le travail que vous faites? C'est un myst\u00e8re\npour moi.--Ma foi, r\u00e9pondais-je, sur ma vie, je ne le sais pas\nmoi-m\u00eame.--Pell, ajoutait-il en soupirant et en me regardant avec un peu\nd'envie.... une envie amicale, comme vous voyez, gentlemen, pure envie\namicale.... je n'y faisais pas attention; Pell, disait-il, vous \u00eates\n\u00e9tonnant, vraiment \u00e9tonnant.\u00bb Ah! vous l'auriez beaucoup, aim\u00e9 si vous\nl'aviez connu, gentlemen. Apportez-moi pour trois pence de rhum, ma\nch\u00e8re.\u00bb\n\nAyant adress\u00e9 cette derni\u00e8re phrase \u00e0 la servante d'un ton de douleur\ncomprim\u00e9e, M. Pell soupira, regarda ses souliers, puis le plafond, but\nson rhum et tirant sa chaise plus pr\u00e8s de la table: \u00abQuoi qu'il en soit,\nun homme de ma profession n'a pas le droit de penser \u00e0 ses amiti\u00e9s\npriv\u00e9es, quand son assistance l\u00e9gale est requise. Par parenth\u00e8se,\ngentlemen, depuis la derni\u00e8re fois que je vous ai vus, nous avons eu \u00e0\npleurer sur une m\u00e9lancolique circonstance. (M. Pell tira son mouchoir en\npronon\u00e7ant le mot _pleurer_, mais il n'en fit pas d'autre usage que\nd'essuyer une l\u00e9g\u00e8re goutte de rhum qui teignait sa l\u00e8vre sup\u00e9rieure.)\nJ'ai vu cela dans l'_Advertiser_, monsieur Weller, poursuivit-il. Et\ndire qu'elle n'avait pas plus de cinquante-deux ans!\u00bb\n\nCes exclamations d'un esprit pensif \u00e9taient adress\u00e9es \u00e0 l'homme au teint\nmarbr\u00e9, dont M. Pell avait fortuitement rencontr\u00e9 le regard.\nMalheureusement, la conception de celui-ci \u00e9tait, en g\u00e9n\u00e9ral, d'une\nnature fort nuageuse. Il s'agita d'un air inquiet sur sa chaise en\nd\u00e9clarant qu'en v\u00e9rit\u00e9.... quant \u00e0 cela.... il n'y avait pas moyen de\ndire comment les choses en \u00e9taient venues l\u00e0: proposition subtile,\ndifficile \u00e0 d\u00e9truire par des arguments, et qui, en cons\u00e9quence, ne fut\ncontrovers\u00e9e par personne.\n\n\u00abJ'ai entendu dire que c'\u00e9tait une bien belle femme, monsieur Weller,\najouta-t-il d'un air de sympathie.\n\n--Oui, monsieur, c'est vrai, r\u00e9pliqua le cocher, quoiqu'il n'aim\u00e2t pas\ntrop cette mani\u00e8re d'entamer le sujet; mais il pensait que l'homme\nd'affaires, vu sa longue intimit\u00e9 avec le d\u00e9funt lord chancelier,\ndevait se conna\u00eetre mieux que lui en politesse et en bonnes mani\u00e8res.\nElle \u00e9tait fort belle femme quand je l'ai connue, monsieur; elle \u00e9tait\nveuve alors.\n\n--Voil\u00e0 qui est curieux, dit Pell, en regardant les assistants avec un\ndouloureux sourire; Mme Pell, aussi, \u00e9tait une veuve.\n\n--C'est un fait fort extraordinaire, fit observer l'homme au teint\nmarbr\u00e9.\n\n--Oui, c'est une singuli\u00e8re co\u00efncidence, reprit Pell.\n\n--Pas du tout reprit M. Weller d'un ton bourru, il a y plus de veuves\nque de filles qui se marient.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, tr\u00e8s-bien, r\u00e9pondit Pell, vous avez tout \u00e0 fait raison,\nmonsieur Weller. Mme Pell \u00e9tait une femme \u00e9l\u00e9gante et accomplie; ses\nmani\u00e8res faisaient l'admiration g\u00e9n\u00e9rale du voisinage. J'\u00e9tais\norgueilleux quand je la voyais danser. Il y avait quelque chose de si\nferme, de si noble, et cependant de si naturel dans son maintien! Sa\ntournure, gentlemen, \u00e9tait la simplicit\u00e9 m\u00eame.... Ah!\nh\u00e9las!--Permettez-moi cette question, monsieur Samuel, poursuivit\nl'avou\u00e9 d'une voix plus basse, votre belle-m\u00e8re \u00e9tait-elle grande?\n\n--Pas trop.\n\n--Mme Pell \u00e9tait grande; c'\u00e9tait une femme superbe, d'une magnifique\nfigure, et dont le nez, gentlemen, avait \u00e9t\u00e9 fait pour commander. Elle\nm'\u00e9tait fort attach\u00e9e, fort! Elle avait de plus une famille distingu\u00e9e:\nle fr\u00e8re de sa m\u00e8re, gentlemen, avait fait une faillite de huit cents\nlivres sterling comme _Law stationer_[24].\n\n[Footnote 24: Papetier qui se charge de faire faire des copies d'actes\net vend des quittances de loyer, etc. etc.]\n\n--Maintenant, interrompit M. Weller, qui s'\u00e9tait montr\u00e9 inquiet et agit\u00e9\npendant cette discussion, maintenant, pour parler d'affaires....\u00bb\n\nCes paroles furent une d\u00e9licieuse musique aux oreilles de M. Pell. Il\ncherchait depuis longtemps \u00e0 deviner s'il y avait quelque affaire \u00e0\ntraiter, ou s'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 simplement invit\u00e9 pour prendre sa part d'un\nbol de punch ou de grog; et le doute se trouvait r\u00e9solu sans qu'il e\u00fbt\nt\u00e9moign\u00e9 aucun empressement capable de le compromettre. Il posa son\nchapeau sur la table et ses yeux brillaient en disant:\n\n\u00abQuelle est l'affaire sur laquelle.... hum?--Y a-t-il un de ces\ngentlemen qui d\u00e9sire passer devant la cour? Nous avons besoin d'une\narrestation: une arrestation amicale fera l'affaire. Nous sommes tous\namis ici, je suppose?\n\n--Donne-moi le document Sammy, dit M. Weller \u00e0 son fils, qui paraissait\njouir \u00e9tonnamment de cette sc\u00e8ne. Ce que nous d\u00e9sirons, mossieu, c'est\nv\u00e9trification de ceci.\n\n--Une v\u00e9rification, mon cher monsieur; v\u00e9rification, fit observer Pell.\n\n--C'est bien, mossieu, reprit M. Weller aigrement; v\u00e9rification, ou\nv\u00e9trification, c'est toujours la m\u00eame chose. Si vous ne me comprenez\npas, j'esp\u00e8re que je trouverai quelqu'un qui me comprendra.\n\n--Il n'y a pas d'offense, monsieur Weller, r\u00e9pondit Pell d'un ton doux.\nVous \u00eates l'ex\u00e9cuteur \u00e0 ce que je vois, ajouta-t-il en jetant les yeux\nsur le papier.\n\n--Oui, mossieu.\n\n--Ces autres gentlemen sont l\u00e9gataires, \u00e0 ce que je pr\u00e9sume? demanda\nPell avec un sourire congratulatoire.\n\n--Sammy est locataire, r\u00e9pliqua M. Weller. Ces autres gentlemen sont de\nmes amis, venus avec moi pour voir que tout se passe comme il faut, des\nesp\u00e8ces d'arbitres.\n\n--Oh! tr\u00e8s-bien; je n'ai aucune raison pour m'opposer \u00e0 cela,\nassur\u00e9ment. Je vous demanderai la l\u00e9g\u00e8re somme de cinq livres\nsterling[25] avant de commencer, ha! ha! ha!\u00bb\n\n[Footnote 25: 125 francs.]\n\nLe comit\u00e9 ayant d\u00e9cid\u00e9 que les cinq livres sterling pouvaient \u00eatre\navanc\u00e9es, M. Weller produisit cette somme. Ensuite on tint, \u00e0 propos de\nrien, une longue consultation, dans laquelle M. Pell d\u00e9montra, \u00e0 la\nparfaite satisfaction des arbitres, que si le soin de cette affaire\navait \u00e9t\u00e9 confi\u00e9 \u00e0 tout autre qu'\u00e0 lui, elle aurait tourn\u00e9 de travers\npour des raisons qu'il n'expliquait pas clairement, mais qui \u00e9taient,\nsans aucun doute, satisfaisantes. Ce point important d\u00e9p\u00each\u00e9, l'homme de\nloi prit pour se restaurer trois c\u00f4telettes, arros\u00e9es de bi\u00e8re et\nd'eau-de-vie, puis ensuite toute la troupe se dirigea vers _Doctor's\nCommons_.\n\nLe lendemain, on fit une autre visite \u00e0 _Doctors' Commons_, mais les\nattestations n\u00e9cessaires furent un peu enray\u00e9es par un palfrenier ivre,\nqui se refusait obstin\u00e9ment \u00e0 jurer autre chose que des jurons profanes,\nau grand scandale d'un procureur et d'un d\u00e9l\u00e9gu\u00e9 du lord chancelier. La\nsemaine suivante, il fallut faire encore d'autres visites \u00e0 _Doctor's\nCommons_, puis au bureau des droits d'h\u00e9ritage; puis il fallut r\u00e9diger\nau contrat pour la vente de l'auberge, ratifier ledit contrat, dresser\ndes inventaires, accumuler des masses de papier, exp\u00e9dier des d\u00e9jeuners,\navaler des d\u00eeners, et faire enfin une foule d'autres choses \u00e9galement\nn\u00e9cessaires et profitables. Aussi M. Salomon Pell, et son gar\u00e7on, et son\nsac bleu par-dessus le march\u00e9, se remplum\u00e8rent-ils si bien qu'on aurait\neu infiniment de peine \u00e0 les reconna\u00eetre pour le m\u00eame homme, le m\u00eame\ngar\u00e7on et le m\u00eame sac, qui fl\u00e2naient \u00e0 vide, quelques jours auparavant,\ndans _Portugal-Street_.\n\n\u00c0 la fin, toutes ces importantes affaires ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 arrang\u00e9es, un jour\nfut fix\u00e9 pour la vente et le transfert en rentes qui devais \u00eatre fait\npar les soins de Wilkins Flasher, esquire[26], agent de change,\ndemeurant aux environs de la Banque, lequel avait \u00e9t\u00e9 recommand\u00e9 par M.\nSalomon Pell.\n\n[Footnote 26: En Angleterre tout le monde peut s'\u00e9tablir agent de\nchange.]\n\nC'\u00e9tait une sorte de jour de f\u00eate, et nos amis n'avaient pas manqu\u00e9 de\nse costumer en cons\u00e9quence. Les bottes de M. Weller \u00e9taient fra\u00eechement\ncir\u00e9es et ses v\u00eatements arrang\u00e9s avec un soin particulier. Le gentleman\nau teint marbr\u00e9 portait \u00e0 la boutonni\u00e8re de son habit un \u00e9norme dalhia\ngarni de quelques feuilles, et les habits de ses deux amis \u00e9taient orn\u00e9s\nde bouquets de laurier et d'autres arbres verts. Tous les trois avaient\nmis leur costume de f\u00eate, c'est-\u00e0-dire qu'ils \u00e9taient envelopp\u00e9s\njusqu'au menton, et portaient la plus grande quantit\u00e9 possible de\nv\u00eatements; ce qui a toujours \u00e9t\u00e9 le nec-plus-ultra de la toilette pour\nles cochers de voitures publiques, depuis que les voitures publiques ont\n\u00e9t\u00e9 invent\u00e9es.\n\nM. Pell les attendait \u00e0 l'heure d\u00e9sign\u00e9e, dans le lieu de r\u00e9union\nordinaire. Lui aussi avait mis une paire de gants et une chemise\nblanche, malheureusement \u00e9raill\u00e9e au col et aux poignets par de trop\nfr\u00e9quents lavages.\n\n\u00abDeux heures moins un quart, dit-il en regardant l'horloge de la salle.\nLe meilleur moment pour aller chez M. Flasher c'est deux heures un\nquart.\n\n--Que pensez-vous d'une goutte de bi\u00e8re, gentlemen? sugg\u00e9ra l'homme au\nteint marbr\u00e9.\n\n--Et d'un petit morceau de boeuf froid? dit le second cocher.\n\n--\u00c9coutez! \u00e9coutez! cria Pell.\n\n--Ou bien d'une hu\u00eetre? ajouta le troisi\u00e8me cocher, qui \u00e9tait un\ngentleman enrou\u00e9, support\u00e9 par des piliers \u00e9normes.\n\n--Afin de f\u00e9liciter monsieur Weller sur sa nouvelle propri\u00e9t\u00e9, continua\nl'habile homme d'affaires. Eh! ha! hi! hi! hi!\n\n--J'y suis tout \u00e0 fait consentant, gentlemen, r\u00e9pondit M. Weller. Sammy,\ntirez la sonnette.\u00bb\n\nSam ob\u00e9it, et le _porter_, le boeuf froid et les hu\u00eetres ayant \u00e9t\u00e9\npromptement apport\u00e9s, furent aussi promptement d\u00e9p\u00each\u00e9s. Dans une\nop\u00e9ration o\u00f9 chacun prit une part si active, il serait peut-\u00eatre\ninconvenant de signaler quelque distinction; pourtant, si un individu\nmontra plus de capacit\u00e9s qu'un autre, ce fut le cocher \u00e0 la voix\nenrou\u00e9e, car il prit une pinte de vinaigre avec ses hu\u00eetres sans trahir\nla moindre \u00e9motion.\n\nLorsque les coquilles d'hu\u00eetres eurent \u00e9t\u00e9 emport\u00e9es, un verre d'eau et\nd'eau-de-vie fut plac\u00e9 devant chacun des gentlemen.\n\n\u00abMonsieur Pell, dit M. Weller en remuant son grog, c'\u00e9tait mon intention\nde proposer un toast en l'honneur des _fontes_ dans cette occasion; mais\nSamivel m'a souffl\u00e9 tout bas (ici M. Samuel Weller qui, jusqu'alors\navait mang\u00e9 ses hu\u00eetres avec de tranquilles sourires, cria tout \u00e0 coup\nd'une voix sonore: \u00c9coutez!) m'a souffl\u00e9 tout bas qu'il vaudrait mieux\nd\u00e9vouer la liqueur \u00e0 vous souhaiter toutes sortes de succ\u00e8s et de\nprosp\u00e9rit\u00e9, et \u00e0 vous remercier de la mani\u00e8re dont vous avez conduit mon\naffaire. \u00c0 vot'sant\u00e9, mossieu.\n\n--Arr\u00eatez un instant, s'\u00e9cria le gentleman au teint marbr\u00e9 avec une\n\u00e9nergie soudaine; regardez-moi, gentlemen!\u00bb\n\nEn parlant ainsi, le gentleman au teint marbr\u00e9 se leva, et ses\ncompagnons en firent autant. Il promena ses regards sur toute la\ncompagnie, puis il leva lentement sa main, et en m\u00eame temps chaque\ngentleman pr\u00e9sent prit une longue haleine et porta son verre \u00e0 sa\nbouche. Au bout d'un instant, le coryph\u00e9e abaissa la main, et chaque\nverre fut d\u00e9pos\u00e9 sur la table compl\u00e9tement vide. Il est impossible de\nd\u00e9crire l'effet \u00e9lectrique de cette imposante c\u00e9r\u00e9monie. \u00c0 la fois\nsimple, frappante et pleine de dignit\u00e9, elle combinait tous les \u00e9l\u00e9ments\nde grandeur.\n\n\u00abEh bien! gentlemen, fit alors M. Pell, tout ce que je puis dire, c'est\nque de telles marques de confiance sont bien honorables pour un homme\nd'affaires. Je ne voudrais point avoir l'air d'un \u00e9go\u00efste, gentlemen;\nmais je suis charm\u00e9, dans votre propre int\u00e9r\u00eat, que vous vous soyez\nadress\u00e9s \u00e0 moi: voil\u00e0 tout. Si vous \u00e9tiez tomb\u00e9s entre les griffes de\nquelques membres infimes de la profession, vous vous seriez trouv\u00e9s\ndepuis longtemps dans la rue des enfonc\u00e9s. Pl\u00fbt \u00e0 Dieu que mon noble\nami e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 vivant pour voir comment j'ai conduit cette affaire! Je ne\ndis pas cela par amour-propre, mais je pense... mais non, gentlemen, je\nne vous fatiguerai pas de mon opinion \u00e0 cet \u00e9gard. On me trouve\ng\u00e9n\u00e9ralement ici, gentlemen; mais si je ne suis pas ici, au bien de\nl'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la rue, voil\u00e0 mon adresse. Vous trouverez mes prix fort\nmod\u00e9r\u00e9s et fort raisonnables. Il n'y a pas d'homme qui s'occupe plus que\nmoi de ses clients, et je me flatte, en outre, de conna\u00eetre suffisamment\nma profession. Si vous pouvez me recommander \u00e0 vos amis, gentlemen, je\nvous en serai tr\u00e8s-oblig\u00e9, et ils vous seront oblig\u00e9s aussi quand ils me\nconna\u00eetront. \u00c0 votre sant\u00e9, gentlemen.\u00bb\n\nAyant ainsi exprim\u00e9 ses sentiments, M. Salomon Pell pla\u00e7a trois petites\ncartes devant les amis de M. Weller, et regardant de nouveau l'horloge,\nmanifesta la crainte qu'il ne f\u00fbt temps de partir. Comprenant cette\ninsinuation, M. Weller paya les frais; puis l'ex\u00e9cuteur, le l\u00e9gataire,\nl'homme d'affaires et les arbitres, dirig\u00e8rent leurs pas vers la cit\u00e9.\n\nLe bureau de Wilkins Flasher, esquire, agent de change, \u00e9tait au premier\n\u00e9tage, dans une cour, derri\u00e8re la Banque d'Angleterre; la maison de\nWilkins Flasher, esquire, \u00e9tait \u00e0 _Brixton, Surrey_; le cheval et le\n_stanhope_ de Wilkins Flasher, esquire, \u00e9taient dans une \u00e9curie et une\nremise adjacente; le groom de Wilkins Flasher, esquire, \u00e9tait en route\nvers le _West-End_ pour y porter du gibier; le clerc de Wilkins Flasher,\nesquire, \u00e9tait all\u00e9 d\u00eener; et ainsi ce fut Wilkins Flasher lui-m\u00eame qui\ncria: Entrez! lorsque M. Pell et ses compagnons frapp\u00e8rent \u00e0 la porte de\nson bureau.\n\n\u00abBonjour, monsieur, dit Pell en saluant obs\u00e9quieusement. Nous\nd\u00e9sirerions faire un petit transfert, s'il vous pla\u00eet.\n\n--Bien, bien, entrez, r\u00e9pondit M. Flasher. Asseyez-vous une minute, je\nsuis \u00e0 vous sur-le-champ.\n\n--Merci, monsieur, reprit Pell; il n'y a pas de presse.--Prenez une\nchaise, monsieur Weller.\u00bb\n\nM. Weller prit une chaise, et Sam prit une bo\u00eete, et les arbitres\nprirent ce qu'ils purent trouver, et se mirent \u00e0 contempler un almanach\net deux ou trois papiers, coll\u00e9s sur le mur, avec d'aussi grands yeux et\nautant de r\u00e9v\u00e9rence que si \u00e7'avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 les plus belles productions des\nanciens ma\u00eetres.\n\n\u00abEh bien! voulez-vous parier une demi-douzaine de vin de Bordeaux,\u00bb dit\nWilkins Flasher, esquire, en reprenant la conversation que l'entr\u00e9e de\nM. Pell et de ses compagnons, avait interrompue un instant.\n\nCeci s'adressait \u00e0 un jeune gentleman fort \u00e9l\u00e9gant, qui portait son\nchapeau sur son favori droit, et qui, nonchalamment appuy\u00e9 sur un\nbureau, s'occupait \u00e0 tuer des mouches avec une r\u00e8gle. Wilkins Flasher,\nesquire, se balan\u00e7ait sur deux des pieds d'un tabouret fort \u00e9lev\u00e9,\nfrappant avec grande dext\u00e9rit\u00e9, de la pointe d'un canif, le contre d'un\npetit pain \u00e0 cacheter rouge, coll\u00e9 sur une bo\u00eete de carton. Les deux\ngentlemen avaient des gilets tr\u00e8s-ouverts et des collets tr\u00e8s-rabattus,\nde tr\u00e8s-petites bottes et de tr\u00e8s-gros anneaux, de tr\u00e8s-petites montres\net de tr\u00e8s-grosses cha\u00eenes, des pantalons tr\u00e8s-sym\u00e9triques et des\nmouchoirs parfum\u00e9s.\n\n\u00abJe ne parie jamais une demi-douzaine. Une douzaine, si vous voulez?\n\n--Tenu. Simmery, tenu!\n\n--Premi\u00e8re qualit\u00e9.\n\n--Naturellement, r\u00e9pliqua Wilkins Flasher, esquire; et il inscrivit le\npari sur un petit carnet, avec un porte crayon d'or. L'autre gentleman\nl'inscrivit \u00e9galement, sur un autre petit carnet, avec un autre porte\ncrayon d'or.\n\n--J'ai lu ce matin un avis concernant Boffer, dit ensuite M. Simmery.\nPauvre diable! il est ex\u00e9cut\u00e9.\n\n--Je vous parie dix guin\u00e9es contre cinq, qu'il se coupe la gorge.\n\n--Tenu.\n\n--Attendez! Je me ravise, reprit Wilkins Flasher d'un air pensif. Il se\npendra peut-\u00eatre.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien! r\u00e9pliqua M. Simmery, en tirant le porte crayon d'or. Je\nconsens \u00e0 cela. Disons qu'il se d\u00e9truira.\n\n--Qu'il se suicidera.\n\n--Pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment. Flasher, dix guin\u00e9es contre cinq; Boffer se suicidera.\nDans quel espace de temps dirons-nous?\n\n--Une quinzaine.\n\n--Non pas! r\u00e9pliqua M. Simmery, en s'arr\u00eatant un instant pour tuer une\nmouche. Disons une semaine.\n\n--Partageons la diff\u00e9rence; mettons dix jours.\n\n--Bien dix jours.\u00bb\n\nAinsi il fut enregistr\u00e9 sur le petit carnet, que Boffer devait se\nsuicider dans l'espace de dix jours; sans quoi Wilkins Flasher, esquire,\npayerait \u00e0 Frank Simmery, esquire, la somme de dix guin\u00e9es; mais que si\nBoffer se suicidait dans cet intervalle, Frank Simmery, esquire,\npayerait cinq guin\u00e9es \u00e0 Wilkins Flasher, esquire.\n\n\u00abJe suis tr\u00e8s-f\u00e2ch\u00e9 qu'il ait saut\u00e9, reprit Wilkins Flasher, esquire.\nQuels fameux d\u00eeners il donnait.\n\n--Quel bon porter il avait! J'envoie demain notre ma\u00eetre d'h\u00f4tel \u00e0 la\nvente, pour acheter quelques bouteilles de son soixante-quatre.\n\n--Diantre! mon homme doit y aller aussi. Cinq guin\u00e9es que mon homme\ncouvre l'ench\u00e8re du votre.\n\n--Tenu.\u00bb\n\nUne autre inscription fut faite sur les petits carnets, et M. Simmery,\nayant tu\u00e9s toutes les mouches et tenu tous les paris, se dandina jusqu'\u00e0\nla Bourse, pour voir ce qui s'y passait.\n\nWilkins Flasher, esquire, condescendit alors \u00e0 recevoir les instructions\nde M. Salomon Pell, et, ayant rempli quelques imprim\u00e9s, engagea la\nsoci\u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e0 le suivre \u00e0 la Banque. Durant le chemin, M. Weller et ses amis\nouvraient de grands yeux, pleins d'\u00e9tonnement, \u00e0 tout ce qu'ils\nvoyaient, tandis que Sam examinait toutes choses avec un sang froid que\nrien ne pouvait troubler.\n\nAyant travers\u00e9 une cour remplie de mouvement et de bruit, et pass\u00e9 pr\u00e8s\nde deux portiers qui paraissaient habill\u00e9s pour rivaliser avec la pompe\n\u00e0 incendie peinte en rouge et rel\u00e9gu\u00e9e dans un coin, nos personnages\narriv\u00e8rent dans le bureau o\u00f9 leur affaire devait \u00eatre exp\u00e9di\u00e9e, et o\u00f9\nPell et Flasher les laiss\u00e8rent quelques instants, pour monter au bureau\ndes testaments.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce que c'est donc que cet endroit-ci? murmura l'homme au teint\nmarbr\u00e9 \u00e0 l'oreille de M. Weller _senior_.\n\n--Le bureau des consolid\u00e9s, r\u00e9pliqua tout bas l'ex\u00e9cuteur testamentaire.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que c'est que ces gentlemen qui s'tiennent derri\u00e8re les\ncomptoirs? demanda le cocher enrou\u00e9.\n\n--Des consolid\u00e9s r\u00e9duits, je suppose, r\u00e9pondit M. Weller. C'est-t'il pas\ndes consolid\u00e9s r\u00e9duits, Samivel?\n\n--Comment? vous ne supposez pas que les consolid\u00e9s sont vivants? dit Sam\navec quelque d\u00e9dain.\n\n--Est-ce que je sais, moi, reprit M. Weller. Qu'est-ce que c'est alors?\n\n--Des employ\u00e9s, r\u00e9pondit Sam.\n\n--Pourquoi donc qu'ils mangent tous des _sandwiches_ au jambon?\n\n--Parce que c'est dans leur devoir, je suppose. C'est une partie du\nsyst\u00e8me. Ils ne font que \u00e7a toute la journ\u00e9e.\u00bb\n\nM. Weller et ses amis eurent \u00e0 peine un moment pour r\u00e9fl\u00e9chir sur cette\nsinguli\u00e8re particularit\u00e9 du syst\u00e8me financier de l'Angleterre, car ils\nfurent rejoints aussit\u00f4t par Pell et par Wilkins Flasher, esquire, qui\nles conduisirent vers la partie du comptoir au-dessus de laquelle un\ngros W \u00e9tait inscrit sur son \u00e9criteau noir.\n\n\u00abPourquoi c'est-il, cela? demanda M. Weller \u00e0 M. Pell, en dirigeant son\nattention vers l'\u00e9criteau en question.\n\n--La premi\u00e8re lettre du nom de la d\u00e9funte, r\u00e9pliqua l'homme d'affaires.\n\n--\u00c7a ne peut pas marcher comme \u00e7a, dit M. Weller en se tournant vers les\narbitres. Il y a quelque chose qui ne va pas bien. V est notre lettre.\n\u00c7a ne peut pas aller comme \u00e7a.\u00bb\n\nLes arbitres, interpell\u00e9s, donn\u00e8rent imm\u00e9diatement leur opinion que\nl'affaire ne pouvait pas \u00eatre l\u00e9galement termin\u00e9e sous la lettre W; et,\nsuivant toutes les probabilit\u00e9s, elle aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 retard\u00e9e d'un jour, au\nmoins, si Sam n'avait pas pris sur-le-champ un parti peu respectueux, en\napparence, mais d\u00e9cisif. Saisissant son p\u00e8re par le collet de son habit,\nil le tira vers le comptoir et l'y tint clou\u00e9 jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'il e\u00fbt\nappos\u00e9 sa signature sur une couple d'instruments; ce qui n'\u00e9tait pas une\npetite affaire, vu l'habitude qu'avait M. Weller de n'\u00e9crire qu'en\nlettres moul\u00e9es. Aussi, pendant cette op\u00e9ration, l'employ\u00e9 eut-il le\ntemps de couper et de peler trois pommes de reinette.\n\nComme M. Weller insistait pour vendre sa portion, sur-le-champ, toute la\nbande se rendit de la Banque \u00e0 la porte de la Bourse.\n\nApr\u00e8s une courte absence, Wilkins Flasher, esquire, revint vers nos\namis, apportant, sur _Smith Payne et Smith_, un mandat de cinq cent\ntrente livres sterling, lesquelles cinq cent trente livres sterling\nrepr\u00e9sentaient, au cours du jour, la portion des rentes de la seconde\nmadame Weller, aff\u00e9rente \u00e0 M. Weller _senior_.\n\nLes deux cents livres sterling de Sam rest\u00e8rent inscrites en son nom, et\nWilkins Flasher, esquire, ayant re\u00e7u sa commission, la laissa tomber\nnonchalamment dans sa poche et se dandina vers son bureau.\n\nM. Weller \u00e9tait d'abord obstin\u00e9ment d\u00e9cid\u00e9 \u00e0 ne toucher son mandat qu'en\nsouverains; mais les arbitres lui ayant repr\u00e9sent\u00e9 qu'il serait oblig\u00e9\nde faire la d\u00e9pense d'un sac, pour les emporter, il consentit \u00e0\nrecevoir la somme en billets de cinq livres sterling.\n\n\u00abMon fils et moi, dit-il en sortant de chez le banquier, mon fils et moi\nnous avons un engagement tr\u00e8s-particulier pour cette apr\u00e8s-d\u00eener, et je\nvoudrais bien enfoncer cette affaire ici compl\u00e8tement. Ainsi,\nallons-nous-en tout droit quelque part pour finir nos comptes.\u00bb\n\nUne salle tranquille ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 trouv\u00e9e dans le voisinage, les comptes\nfurent produits et examin\u00e9s. Le m\u00e9moire de M. Pell fut tax\u00e9 par Sam, et\nquelques-uns des articles ne furent pas allou\u00e9s par les arbitres; mais\nquoique M. Pell leur e\u00fbt d\u00e9clar\u00e9, avec de solennelles assurances, qu'ils\n\u00e9taient trop durs pour lui, ce fut certainement l'op\u00e9ration la plus\nprofitable qu'il e\u00fbt jamais faite, et elle servit \u00e0 d\u00e9frayer pendant\nplus de six mois son logement, sa nourriture et son blanchissage.\n\nLes arbitres ayant pris la goutte, donn\u00e8rent des poign\u00e9es de main et\npartirent, car ils devaient conduire le soir m\u00eame. M. Salomon voyant\nqu'il n'y avait plus rien \u00e0 boire ni \u00e0 manger, prit cong\u00e9 de la mani\u00e8re\nla plus amicale, et Sam fut laiss\u00e9 seul avec son p\u00e8re.\n\n\u00abMon gar\u00e7on, dit M. Weller, en mettant son portefeuille dans sa poche de\nc\u00f4t\u00e9, il y a l\u00e0 onze cent quatre-vingts livres sterling, y compris les\nbillets pour la cession du bail et le reste. Maintenant Samivel, tournez\nla t\u00eate du cheval du c\u00f4t\u00e9 du _George et Vautour_.\u00bb\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XXVII.\n\nM. Weller assiste \u00e0 une importante conf\u00e9rence entre M. Pickwick et\nSamuel. Un vieux gentleman, en habit couleur de tabac, arrive\ninopin\u00e9ment.\n\n\nM. Pickwick \u00e9tait seul, r\u00eavant \u00e0 beaucoup de choses, et pensant\nprincipalement \u00e0 ce qu'il y avait de mieux \u00e0 faire pour le jeune couple,\ndont la condition incertaine \u00e9tait pour lui un sujet constant de regrets\net d'anxi\u00e9t\u00e9, lorsque Mary entra l\u00e9g\u00e8rement dans la chambre, et,\ns'avan\u00e7ant vers la table, lui dit d'une mani\u00e8re un peu pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9e:\n\n\u00abOh! monsieur, s'il vous pla\u00eet, Samuel est en bas, et il demande si son\np\u00e8re peut vous voir!\n\n--Certainement.\n\n--Merci, monsieur, dit Mary, en retournant vers la porte.\n\n--Est-ce qu'il y a longtemps que Sam est ici?\n\n--Oh! non, monsieur. Il ne fait que de revenir, et il ne vous demandera\nplus de cong\u00e9, \u00e0 ce qu'il dit.\u00bb\n\nMary n'aper\u00e7ut sans doute, qu'elle avait communiqu\u00e9 cette derni\u00e8re\nnouvelle avec plus de chaleur qu'il n'\u00e9tait absolument n\u00e9cessaire; ou\npeut-\u00eatre remarque-t-elle le sourire de bonne humour avec lequel M.\nPickwick la regarda, quand elle eut fini de parler. Le fait est qu'elle\nbaissa la t\u00eate et examina le coin de son joli petit tablier, avec une\nattention qui ne paraissait pas indispensable.\n\n\u00abDites-leur qu'ils viennent sur-le-champ.\u00bb\n\nMary, apparemment fort soulag\u00e9e, s'en alla rapidement avec son message.\n\nM. Pickwick fit deux ou trois tours dans la chambre, et frottant son\nmenton avec sa main gauche, parut plong\u00e9 dans de profondes r\u00e9flexions.\n\n\u00abAllons, allons! dit-il \u00e0 la fin, d'un ton doux, mais m\u00e9lancolique,\nc'est la meilleure mani\u00e8re dont je puisse r\u00e9compenser sa fid\u00e9lit\u00e9. Il\nfaut que cela soit ainsi. C'est le destin d'un vieux gar\u00e7on de voir ceux\nqui l'entourent former de nouveaux attachements et l'abandonner. Je n'ai\npas le droit d'attendre qu'il en soit autrement pour moi. Non, non,\najouta-t-il plus gaiement, ce serait de l'\u00e9go\u00efsme et de l'ingratitude.\nJe dois m'estimer heureux d'avoir une si bonne occasion de l'\u00e9tablir.\nJ'en suis heureux, n\u00e9cessairement j'en suis heureux.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick \u00e9tait si absorb\u00e9 dans ces r\u00e9flexions, qu'on avait frapp\u00e9\ntrois ou quatre fois \u00e0 la porte avant qu'il l'entendit. S'asseyant\nrapidement et reprenant l'air aimable qui lui \u00e9tait ordinaire, il cria:\n\n\u00abEntrez!\u00bb Et Sam Weller parut, suivi par son p\u00e8re.\n\n\u00abJe suis charm\u00e9 de vous voir revenu, Sam. Comment vous portez-vous,\nmonsieur Weller?\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, mossieu, grand merci, r\u00e9pliqua le veuf. J'esp\u00e8re que vous\nallez bien, mossieu?\n\n--Tout \u00e0 fait, je vous remercie.\n\n--Je d\u00e9sirerais avoir un petit brin de conversation avec vous, mossieu,\nsi vous pouvez m'accorder cinq minutes.\n\n--Certainement. Sam, donnez une chaise \u00e0 votre p\u00e8re.\n\n--Merci, Samivel, j'en ai attrap\u00e9 une ici. Un bon joli temps mossieu,\ndit M. Weller en s'asseyant et en posant son chapeau par terre.\n\n--Fort beau pour la saison, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick, fort beau.\n\n--Le plus joli temps que j'aie jamais vu,\u00bb reprit M. Weller. Mais,\narriv\u00e9 l\u00e0, il fut saisi d'un violent acc\u00e8s de toux, et sa toux termin\u00e9e,\nil se mit \u00e0 faire des signes de t\u00eate, des clins d'oeil, des gestes\nsuppliants et mena\u00e7ants \u00e0 son fils, qui s'obstinait m\u00e9chamment \u00e0 n'en\nrien voir.\n\nM. Pickwick s'apercevant que le vieux gentleman \u00e9tait embarrass\u00e9,\nfeignit de s'occuper \u00e0 couper les feuillets d'un livre, et attendit\nainsi que M. Weller expliqu\u00e2t l'objet de sa visite.\n\n\u00abJe n'ai jamais vu un gar\u00e7on aussi contrariant que toi, Samivel, dit \u00e0\nla fin le vieux cocher, en regardant son fils d'un air indign\u00e9. Jamais,\nde ma vie ni de mes jours.\n\n--Qu'a-t-il donc fait, M. Weller? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Il ne veut pas commencer, mossieu; il sait que je ne suis pas capable\nde m'exprimer moi-m\u00eame, quand il y a quelque chose de particulier \u00e0\ndire, et il reste l\u00e0, comme une ferme, plut\u00f4t que de m'aider d'une\nsyllabe. Il me laisse embourber dans l'chemin pour que je vous fasse\nperdre votre temps, et que je me donne moi-m\u00eame en spectacle. Ce n'est\npas une conduite filiale, Samivel, poursuivit M. Weller en essuyant son\nfront; bien loin de l\u00e0!\n\n--Vous disiez que vous vouliez parler, r\u00e9pliqua Sam; comment pouvais-je\nsavoir que vous \u00e9tiez embourb\u00e9 d\u00e8s le commencement?\n\n--Tu as bien vu que je n'\u00e9tais pas capable de d\u00e9marrer, que j'\u00e9tais sur\nle mauvais c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la route, et que je reculais dans les palissades, et\ntoutes sortes d'autres d\u00e9sagr\u00e9ments. Et malgr\u00e9 \u00e7a, tu ne veux pas me\ndonner un coup de main. Je suis honteux de toi, Samivel.\n\n--Le fait est, monsieur, reprit Sam avec un l\u00e9ger salut; le fait est que\nle gouverneur vient de retirer son argent des fontes...\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, Samivel, tr\u00e8s-bien, interrompit M. Weller, en remuant la\nt\u00eate d'un air satisfait. Je n'avais pas l'intention d'\u00eatre dur envers\ntoi, Sammy. Tr\u00e8s-bien, voil\u00e0 comme il faut commencer; arrivons au fait\ntout de suite. Tr\u00e8s-bien, Samivel, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nDans l'exc\u00e8s de son contentement M. Weller fit une quantit\u00e9\nextraordinaires de signes de t\u00eate, et attendit d'un air attentif que\nSam continu\u00e2t son discours.\n\n--Sam, dit M. Pickwick, en s'apercevant que l'entrevue promettait d'\u00eatre\nplus longue qu'il ne l'avait imagin\u00e9, vous pouvez vous asseoir.\u00bb\n\nSam salua encore, puis il s'assit; et son p\u00e8re lui ayant lanc\u00e9 un coup\nd'oeil expressif, il continua.\n\n\u00abLe gouverneur a touch\u00e9 cinq cent trente livres sterling....\n\n--Toutes consolid\u00e9es, interpella M. Weller, \u00e0 demi-voix.\n\n--\u00c7a ne fait pas grand choses, que ce soit des fontes consolid\u00e9es ou\nnon, reprit Sam. N'est-ce pas cinq cent trente livres sterling?\n\n--Justement, Samivel.\n\n--\u00c0 quoi il a ajout\u00e9 pour la vente de l'auberge....\n\n--Pour le bail, les meubles et la client\u00e8le, expliqua M. Weller.\n\n--De quoi faire en tout onze cent quatre-vingts livres sterling.\n\n--En v\u00e9rit\u00e9, fit M. Pickwick, je vous f\u00e9licite, monsieur Weller, d'avoir\nfait de si bonnes affaires.\n\n--Attendez une minute, mossieu dit le sage cocher, en levant la main\nd'une mani\u00e8re suppliante. Marche toujours, Samivel.\n\n--Il d\u00e9sire beaucoup, reprit Sam, avec un peu d'h\u00e9sitation, et je d\u00e9sire\nbeaucoup aussi voir mettre cette monnaie-l\u00e0 dans un endroit o\u00f9 elle sera\nen s\u00fbret\u00e9; car, s'il la garde, il va la pr\u00eater au premier venu, ou la\nd\u00e9penser en chevaux, ou laisser tomber son portefeuille de sa poche sur\nla route, ou faire une momie \u00e9gyptienne de son corps, d'une mani\u00e8re o\u00f9\nd'une autre.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, Samivel, interrompit M. Weller, d'un air aussi complaisant\nque si son fils avait fait le plus grand \u00e9loge de sa prudence et de sa\npr\u00e9voyance.\n\n--C'est pourquoi, continua Sam, en tortillant avec inqui\u00e9tude le bord de\nson chapeau; c'est pourquoi il l'a ramass\u00e9e aujourd'hui, et est venu ici\navec moi, pour dire... c'est-\u00e0-dire pour offrir... ou en d'autres termes\npour....\n\n--Pour dire ceci, continua M. Weller avec impatience, c'est que la\nmonnaie ne me servira de rien, \u00e0 moi, vu que je vas conduire une voiture\nr\u00e9guli\u00e8rement; et comme je n'ai pas d'endroit pour la mettre, \u00e0 moins\nque je ne paye le conducteur pour en prendre soin, ou que je la mette\ndans une des poches de la voiture, ce qui serait une tentation pour les\nvoyageurs du coup\u00e9; de sorte que si vous voulez en prendre soin pour\nmoi, mossieu, je vous serai bien oblig\u00e9. Peut-\u00eatre, ajouta M. Weller, en\nse levant et en venant parler \u00e0 l'oreille de M. Pickwick, peut-\u00eatre\nqu'elle pourra servir \u00e0 payer une partie de cette condamnation.... Tout\nce que j'ai \u00e0 dire, c'est que vous la gardiez, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que je vous la\nredemande.\u00bb\n\nEn disant ces mots, M. Weller posa son portefeuille sur les genoux de M.\nPickwick, saisit son chapeau, et se sauva hors de la chambre, avec une\nc\u00e9l\u00e9rit\u00e9 qu'on aurait eu bien de la peine \u00e0 attendre d'un sujet aussi\ncorpulent.\n\n\u00abSam, arr\u00eatez-le! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick d'un ton s\u00e9rieux. Rattrapez-le!\nramenez-le moi sur-le-champ, Monsieur Weller, arr\u00eatez, arr\u00eatez!\u00bb\n\nSam vit qu'il ne fallait pas badiner avec les injonctions de son ma\u00eetre.\nIl saisit son p\u00e8re par le bras, comme il descendait l'escalier, et le\nramena de vive force.\n\n\u00abMon ami, dit M. Pickwick en le prenant par la main, votre honn\u00eate\nconfiance me confond.\n\n--Il n'y a pas de quoi, monsieur, repartit le cocher, d'un ton obstin\u00e9.\n\n--Je vous assure, mon ami, que j'ai plus d'argent qu'il ne m'en faut;\nbien plus qu'un homme de mon \u00e2ge ne pourra jamais en d\u00e9penser.\n\n--On ne sait pas ce qu'on peut d\u00e9penser tant qu'on n'a pas essay\u00e9.\n\n--C'est possible; mais comme je ne veux pas faire cette exp\u00e9rience-l\u00e0,\nil n'est gu\u00e8re probable que je tombe dans le besoin. Je dois donc vous\nprier de reprendre ceci, monsieur Weller.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, r\u00e9pliqua le vieux cocher d'un ton m\u00e9content. Faites\nattention \u00e0 ceci, Samivel; je ferai un acte de d\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9 avec cette\npropri\u00e9t\u00e9; un acte de d\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9!\n\n--Je ne vous y engage pas,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit Sam.\n\nM. Weller r\u00e9fl\u00e9chit pendant quelque temps, puis, boutonnant son habit\nd'un air d\u00e9termin\u00e9, il dit: je tiendrai un _turnpike_[27].\n\n[Footnote 27: Un _Turnpike_, barri\u00e8re pour le p\u00e9age des voitures sur les\nroutes anglaises.\n\n(_Note du traducteur._)]\n\n\u00abQuoi? s'\u00e9cria Sam.\n\n--Un _turnpike_ r\u00e9torqua M. Weller entre ses dents serr\u00e9es. Dites adieu\n\u00e0 votre p\u00e8re, Samivel; je d\u00e9voue le reste de ma carri\u00e8re \u00e0 tenir un\n_turnpike_!\u00bb\n\nCette menace \u00e9tait si terrible, M. Weller semblait si d\u00e9termin\u00e9 \u00e0\nl'ex\u00e9cuter, et si profond\u00e9ment mortifi\u00e9 par le refus de M. Pickwick, que\nl'excellent homme, apr\u00e8s quelques instants de r\u00e9flexion, lui dit:\n\n\u00abAllons, allons, monsieur Weller, je garderai votre argent. Il est\npossible effectivement que je puisse faire plus de bien que vous avec\ncette somme.\n\n--Parbleu, r\u00e9pondit M. Weller en se rass\u00e9r\u00e9nant, certainement, que vous\npourrez en faire plus que moi, mossieu.\n\n--Ne parlons plus de cela, dit M. Pickwick, en enfermant le portefeuille\ndans son bureau. Je vous suis sinc\u00e8rement oblig\u00e9, mon ami. Et maintenant\nrasseyez-vous, j'ai un avis \u00e0 vous demander.\u00bb\n\nLe rire comprim\u00e9 de triomphe qui avait boulevers\u00e9, non seulement le\nvisage de M. Weller, mais ses bras, ses jambes et tout son corps,\npendant que le portefeuille \u00e9tait enferm\u00e9, fut remplac\u00e9 par la gravit\u00e9\nla plus majestueuse, aussit\u00f4t qu'il eut entendu ces paroles.\n\n\u00abLaissez-nous un instant, Sam,\u00bb dit M. Pickwick.\n\nSam se retira imm\u00e9diatement.\n\nLe corpulent cocher avait l'air singuli\u00e8rement profond, mais\nprodigieusement \u00e9tonn\u00e9, lorsque M. Pickwick ouvrit le discours en\ndisant:\n\n\u00abVous n'\u00eates pas, je pense, un avocat du mariage, monsieur Weller?\u00bb\n\nLe p\u00e8re de Sam secoua la t\u00eate, mais il n'eut point la force de parler;\nil \u00e9tait p\u00e9trifi\u00e9 par la pens\u00e9e que quelque m\u00e9chante veuve avait r\u00e9ussi\n\u00e0 enchev\u00eatrer M. Pickwick.\n\n\u00abTout \u00e0 l'heure, en montant l'escalier avec votre fils, avez-vous, par\nhasard, remarqu\u00e9 une jeune fille?\n\n--J'ai vu une jeunesse, r\u00e9pliqua M. Weller bri\u00e8vement.\n\n--Comment l'avez-vous trouv\u00e9e, monsieur Weller? Dites-moi candidement\ncomment vous l'avez trouv\u00e9e?\u00bb\n\n--J'ai trouv\u00e9 qu'elle \u00e9tait dodue, et les membres bien attach\u00e9s,\nr\u00e9pondit le cocher d'un air de connaisseur.\n\n\u00abC'est vrai, vous avez raison. Mais qu'avez-vous pens\u00e9 de ses mani\u00e8res?\n\n--Eh! eh! tr\u00e8s-agr\u00e9ables, mossieu, et tr\u00e8s-conformables.\u00bb\n\nRien ne d\u00e9terminait le sens pr\u00e9cis que M. Weller attachait \u00e0 ce dernier\nadjectif; mais comme le ton dont il l'avait prononc\u00e9 indiquait\n\u00e9videmment que c'\u00e9tait une expression favorable, M. Pickwick en fut\naussi satisfait que s'il l'avait compris distinctement.\n\n\u00abElle m'inspire beaucoup d'int\u00e9r\u00eat, monsieur Weller,\u00bb reprit M.\nPickwick.\n\nLe cocher toussa.\n\n\u00abJe veux dire que je prends int\u00e9r\u00eat \u00e0 son bien-\u00eatre, \u00e0 ce qu'elle soit\nheureuse et confortable, vous me comprenez?\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-clairement, r\u00e9pliqua M. Weller, qui ne comprenait rien du tout.\n\n--Cette jeune personne est attach\u00e9e \u00e0 votre fils.\n\n--\u00c0 Samivel Weller! s'\u00e9cria le p\u00e8re.\n\n--Pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment.\n\n--C'est naturel, dit M. Weller, apr\u00e8s quelques instants de r\u00e9flexion;\nc'est naturel, mais c'est un peu alarmant; il faut que Samivel prenne\nbien garde.\n\n--Qu'entendez-vous par l\u00e0?\n\n--Prenne bien garde de ne rien lui dire dans un moment d'innocence, qui\npuisse servir \u00e0 une conviction pour violation de promesse de mariage.\nFaut pas jouer avec ces choses-l\u00e0, monsieur Pickwick. Quand une fois\nelles ont des desseins sur vous, on ne sait comment s'en d\u00e9p\u00eatrer, et\npendant qu'on y r\u00e9fl\u00e9chit, elles vous empoignent. J'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 mari\u00e9 comme\n\u00e7a moi-m\u00eame la premi\u00e8re fois, mossieu; et Samivel est la cons\u00e9quence de\nla manoeuvre.\n\n--Vous ne me donnez pas grand encouragement pour conclure ce que j'avais\n\u00e0 vous dire; mais je crois, pourtant, qu'il vaut mieux en finir tout\nd'un coup. Non-seulement, cette jeune personne est attach\u00e9e \u00e0 votre\nfils, mais votre fils lui est attach\u00e9, monsieur Weller.\n\n--Eh ben! voil\u00e0 de jolies choses pour revenir aux oreilles d'un p\u00e8re!\nVoil\u00e0 de jolies choses!\n\n--Je les ai observ\u00e9s dans diverses occasions, poursuivit M. Pickwick,\nsans faire de commentaires sur l'exclamation du gros cocher; et je n'en\ndoute aucunement. Supposez que je d\u00e9sirasse les \u00e9tablir, comme mari et\nfemme, dans une situation o\u00f9 ils puissent vivre confortablement; qu'en\npenseriez-vous, monsieur Weller?\u00bb\n\nD'abord, M. Weller re\u00e7ut avec de violentes grimaces une proposition\nimpliquant mariage, pour une personne \u00e0 laquelle il prenait int\u00e9r\u00eat:\nmais comme M. Pickwick, en raisonnant avec lui, insistait fortement sur\nce que Mary n'\u00e9tait point une veuve, il devint graduellement plus\ntraitable. M. Pickwick avait beaucoup d'influence sur son esprit, le\ncocher d'ailleurs avait \u00e9t\u00e9 singuli\u00e8rement frapp\u00e9 par les charmes de la\njeune fille, \u00e0 qui il avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 lanc\u00e9 plusieurs oeillades tr\u00e8s-peu\npaternelles. \u00c0 la fin, il d\u00e9clara que ce n'\u00e9tait pas \u00e0 lui de s'opposer\naux d\u00e9sirs de M. Pickwick, et qu'il suivrait toujours ses avis avec\ngrand plaisir. Notre excellent ami le prit au mot avec empressement, et\nsans lui donner le temps de la r\u00e9flexion, fit compara\u00eetre son\ndomestique.\n\n\u00abSam, dit M. Pickwick en toussant un peu, car il avait quelque chose\ndans la gorge, votre p\u00e8re et moi, avons eu une conversation \u00e0 votre\nsujet.\n\n--\u00c0 ton sujet, Samivel, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Weller, d'un ton protecteur et calcul\u00e9\npour faire de l'effet.\n\n--Je ne suis pas assez aveugle, Sam, pour ne pas m'\u00eatre aper\u00e7u, depuis\nlongtemps, que vous avez pour la femme de chambre de madame Winkle, plus\nque de l'amiti\u00e9.\n\n--Tu entends, Samivel, ajouta M. Weller du m\u00eame air magistral.\n\n--J'esp\u00e8re, monsieur, dit Sam en s'adressant \u00e0 son ma\u00eetre; j'esp\u00e8re\nqu'il n'y a pas de mal \u00e0 ce qu'un jeune homme remarque une jeune femme\nqui est certainement agr\u00e9able, et d'une bonne conduite.\n\n--Aucun, dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Pas le moins du monde, ajouta M. Weller, d'une voix affable mais\nmagistrale.\n\n--Loin de penser qu'il y ait du mal dans une chose si naturelle, reprit\nM. Pickwick, je suis tout dispos\u00e9 \u00e0 favoriser vos d\u00e9sirs. C'est pour\ncela que j'ai eu une petite conversation avec votre p\u00e8re; et comme il\nest de mon opinion....\n\n--La personne n'\u00e9tant pas une veuve, fit remarquer M. Weller.\n\n--La personne n'\u00e9tant pas une veuve, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick en souriant, je\nd\u00e9sire vous d\u00e9livrer de la contrainte que vous impose votre pr\u00e9sente\ncondition aupr\u00e8s de moi, et vous t\u00e9moigner ma reconnaissance pour votre\nfid\u00e9lit\u00e9, en vous mettant \u00e0 m\u00eame d'\u00e9pouser cette jeune fille,\nsur-le-champ, et de soutenir, d'une mani\u00e8re ind\u00e9pendante, votre famille\net vous-m\u00eame. Je serai fier, poursuivit M. Pickwick, dont la voix\njusque-l\u00e0 tremblante, avait repris son \u00e9lasticit\u00e9 ordinaire, je serai\nfier et heureux de prendre soin moi-m\u00eame de votre bien-\u00eatre \u00e0 venir.\u00bb\n\nIl y eut pendant quelques instants un profond silence, apr\u00e8s lequel, Sam\ndit d'une voix basse et entrecoup\u00e9e, mais ferme n\u00e9anmoins:\n\n\u00abJe vous suis tr\u00e8s-oblig\u00e9 pour votre bont\u00e9, monsieur, qui est tout \u00e0\nfait digne de vous, mais \u00e7a ne peut pas se faire.\n\n--Cela ne peut pas se faire! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, avec \u00e9tonnement.\n\n--Samivel! dit M. Weller avec dignit\u00e9.\n\n--Je dis que \u00e7a ne peut pas se faire, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta Sam d'un ton plus \u00e9lev\u00e9.\nQu'est-ce que vous deviendriez, monsieur?\n\n--Mon cher gar\u00e7on, r\u00e9pondit Pickwick, les derniers \u00e9v\u00e9nements qui ont eu\nlieu parmi mes amis changeront compl\u00e8tement ma mani\u00e8re de vivre \u00e0\nl'avenir. En outre, je deviens vieux, j'ai besoin de repos et de\ntranquillit\u00e9; mes promenades sont finies, Sam.\n\n--Comment puis-je savoir \u00e7a, monsieur? Vous le croyez comme \u00e7a,\nmaintenant; mais supposez que vous veniez \u00e0 changer d'avis, \u00e7a n'est pas\nimpossible, car vous avez encore le feu d'un jeune homme de vingt-cinq\nans; qu'est-ce que vous deviendriez sans moi? \u00c7a ne peut pas se faire,\nmonsieur, \u00e7a ne peut pas se faire.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, Samivel. Il y a beaucoup de raison l\u00e0-dedans, fit observer\nM. Weller, d'une voix encourageante.\n\n--Je parle apr\u00e8s de longues r\u00e9flexions, Sam, reprit M. Pickwick en\nsecouant la t\u00eate. Les sc\u00e8nes nouvelles ne me conviennent plus; mes\nvoyages sont finis.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, monsieur. Alors raison de plus pour que vous ayez toujours\navec vous quelqu'un qui vous connaisse, pour vous rendre confortable. Si\nvous voulez avoir un gaillard plus \u00e9l\u00e9gant, c'est bel et bon, prenez-le;\nmais avec ou sans gages, avec cong\u00e9 ou sans cong\u00e9, nourri ou non nourri,\nlog\u00e9 ou non log\u00e9, Sam Weller, que vous avez pris dans la vieille auberge\ndu _Borough_, s'attache \u00e0 vous, arrive qui plante; et tout le monde aura\nbeau faire et beau dire, rien ne l'en emp\u00eachera!\u00bb\n\n\u00c0 la fin de cette d\u00e9claration, que Sam fit avec grande \u00e9motion, son p\u00e8re\nse leva de sa chaise, et oubliant toute consid\u00e9ration de lieu et de\nconvenance, agita son chapeau au-dessus de sa t\u00eate, en poussant trois\nv\u00e9h\u00e9mentes acclamations.\n\n\u00abMon gar\u00e7on, dit M. Pickwick, lorsque M. Weller se fut rassis, un peu\nhonteux de son propre enthousiasme, mon gar\u00e7on, vous devez consid\u00e9rer\naussi la jeune fille.\n\n--Je consid\u00e8re la jeune fille, monsieur; j'ai consid\u00e9r\u00e9 la jeune fille,\nje lui ai dit ma position, et elle consent \u00e0 attendre, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que je\nsois pr\u00eat. Je crois qu'elle tiendra sa promesse, monsieur: si elle ne\nla tenait pas, elle ne serait pas la jeune fille pour qui je l'ai prise,\net j'y renonce volontiers. Vous me connaissez bien, monsieur; mon parti\nest arr\u00eat\u00e9, et rien ne pourra m'en faire changer.\u00bb\n\nQui aurait eu le coeur de combattre cette r\u00e9solution? Ce n'\u00e9tait pas M.\nPickwick. L'attachement d\u00e9sint\u00e9ress\u00e9 de ses humbles amis lui inspirait,\nen ce moment, plus d'orgueil et de jouissances de sentiments que\nn'auraient pu lui en causer dix mille protestations des plus grands\npersonnages de la terre.\n\nTandis que cette conversation avait lieu dans la chambre de M. Pickwick,\nun petit vieillard en habit couleur de tabac, suivi d'un porteur et\nd'une valise, se pr\u00e9sentait \u00e0 la porte de l'h\u00f4tel. Apr\u00e8s s'\u00eatre assur\u00e9\nd'une chambre pour la nuit, il demanda au gar\u00e7on s'il n'y avait pas dans\nla maison une certaine Mme Winkle; et sur sa r\u00e9ponse affirmative:\n\n\u00abEst-elle seule? demanda le petit vieillard.\n\n--Je crois que oui, monsieur. Je puis appeler sa femme de chambre, si\nvous....\n\n--Non, je n'en ai pas besoin; interrompit vivement le petit homme.\nConduisez-moi \u00e0 sa chambre sans m'annoncer.\n\n--Mais, monsieur! fit le gar\u00e7on.\n\n--\u00cates-vous sourd?\n\n--Non, monsieur.\n\n--Alors \u00e9coutez-moi, s'il vous pla\u00eet. Pouvez-vous m'entendre maintenant?\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--C'est bien. Conduisez-moi \u00e0 la chambre de mistress Winkle sans\nm'annoncer.\u00bb\n\nEn prof\u00e9rant cet ordre, le petit vieillard glissa cinq shillings dans la\nmain du gar\u00e7on et le regarda fixement.\n\n\u00abR\u00e9ellement, monsieur, je ne sais pas si....\n\n--Eh! vous finirez par le faire, je le vois bien; ainsi autant vaut le\nfaire tout de suite; cela nous \u00e9pargnera du temps.\u00bb\n\nIl y avait quelque chose de si tranquille et de si d\u00e9cid\u00e9 dans les\nmani\u00e8res du petit vieillard, que le gar\u00e7on mit les cinq shillings dans\nsa poche et le conduisit sans ajouter un seul mot.\n\n\u00abC'est l\u00e0? dit l'\u00e9tranger. Bien, vous pouvez vous retirer.\u00bb\n\nLa gar\u00e7on ob\u00e9it, tout en se demandant qui le gentleman pouvait \u00eatre et\nce qu'il voulait. Celui-ci attendit qu'il fut disparu et frappa \u00e0 la\nporte.\n\n\u00abEntrez, fit Arabelle.\n\n--Hum! une jolie voix toujours; mais cela n'est rien.\u00bb\n\nEn disant ceci, il ouvrit la porte et entra dans la chambre. Arabelle,\nqui \u00e9tait en train de travailler, se leva en voyant un \u00e9tranger, un peu\nconfuse, mais d'une confusion pleine de gr\u00e2ce.\n\n\u00abNe vous d\u00e9rangez pas, madame, je vous prie, dit l'inconnu en fermant la\nporte derri\u00e8re lui. Mme Winkle, je pr\u00e9sume?\u00bb\n\nArabelle inclina la t\u00eate.\n\n\u00abMme Nathaniel Winkle, qui a \u00e9pous\u00e9 le fils du vieux marchand de\nBirmingham?\u00bb poursuivit l'\u00e9tranger en examinant Arabelle avec une\ncuriosit\u00e9 visible.\n\nArabelle inclina encore la t\u00eate et regarda autour d'elle avec une sorte\nd'inqui\u00e9tude, comme si elle avait song\u00e9 \u00e0 appeler quelqu'un.\n\n\u00abMa visite vous surprend, \u00e0 ce que je vois, madame? dit le vieux\ngentleman.\n\n--Un peu, je le confesse, r\u00e9pondit Arabelle en s'\u00e9tonnant de plus en\nplus.\n\n--Je prendrai une chaise, si vous me le permettez, madame, dit\nl'\u00e9tranger en s'asseyant et en tirant tranquillement de sa poche une\npaire de lunettes qu'il ajusta sur son nez. Vous ne me connaissez pas,\nmadame? dit-il en regardant Arabelle si attentivement qu'elle commen\u00e7a \u00e0\ns'alarmer.\n\n--Non, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua-t-elle timidement.\n\n--Non, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta l'\u00e9tranger en balan\u00e7ant sa jambe droite; je ne vois pas\ncomment vous me conna\u00eetriez. Vous savez mon nom cependant, madame.\n\n--Vous croyez? dit Arabelle toute tremblante, sans trop savoir pourquoi.\nPuis-je vous prier de me le rappeler?\n\n--Tout \u00e0 l'heure, madame, tout \u00e0 l'heure, r\u00e9pondit l'inconnu qui n'avait\npas encore d\u00e9tourn\u00e9 les yeux de son visage. Vous \u00eates mari\u00e9e depuis peu,\nmadame?\n\n--Oui, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Arabelle d'une voix \u00e0 peine perceptible et en\nmettant de c\u00f4t\u00e9 son ouvrage; car une pens\u00e9e, qui l'avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 frapp\u00e9e\nauparavant, l'agitait de plus en plus.\n\n--Sans avoir repr\u00e9sent\u00e9 \u00e0 votre mari la convenance de consulter d'abord\nson p\u00e8re, dont il d\u00e9pend enti\u00e8rement, \u00e0 ce que je crois?\u00bb\n\nArabelle mit son mouchoir sur ses yeux.\n\n\u00abSans m\u00eame vous efforcer d'apprendre par quelque moyen indirect quels\n\u00e9taient les sentiments du vieillard sur un point qui l'int\u00e9ressait\nautant que celui-l\u00e0.\n\n--Je ne puis le nier, monsieur, balbutia Arabelle.\n\n--Et sans avoir assez de bien, de votre c\u00f4t\u00e9, pour assurer \u00e0 votre \u00e9poux\nun d\u00e9dommagement des avantages auxquels il renon\u00e7ait en ne se mariant\npas selon les d\u00e9sirs de son p\u00e8re? C'est l\u00e0 ce que les jeunes gens\nappellent une affection d\u00e9sint\u00e9ress\u00e9e, jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'ils aient des\nenfants \u00e0 leur tour et qu'ils viennent alors \u00e0 penser diff\u00e9remment.\u00bb\n\nLes larmes d'Arabelle coulaient abondamment, tandis qu'elle s'excusait\nen disant qu'elle \u00e9tait jeune et inexp\u00e9riment\u00e9e, que son attachement\nseul l'avait entra\u00een\u00e9e, et qu'elle avait \u00e9t\u00e9 priv\u00e9e des soins et des\nconseils de ses parents presque depuis son enfance.\n\nC'\u00e9tait mal, dit le vieux gentleman d'un ton plus doux, c'\u00e9tait fort\nmal. C'\u00e9tait romanesque, mal calcul\u00e9, absurde.\n\n--C'est ma faute, monsieur, ma faute \u00e0 moi seule, r\u00e9plique la pauvre\nArabelle en pleurant.\n\n--Bah! Ce n'est pas votre faute, je suppose, s'il est devenu amoureux de\nvous.... Mais si pourtant, ajouta l'inconnu en regardant Arabelle d'un\nair malin, si, c'est bien votre faute; il ne pouvait pas s'en emp\u00eacher.\n\nCe petit compliment, ou l'\u00e9trange fa\u00e7on dont le vieux gentleman l'avait\nfait, ou le changement de ses mani\u00e8res qui \u00e9taient devenues beaucoup\nplus douces, ou ces trois causes r\u00e9unies, arrach\u00e8rent \u00e0 Arabelle un\nsourire au milieu de ses larmes.\n\n\u00abO\u00f9 est votre mari? demanda brusquement l'inconnu pour dissimuler un\nsourire qui avait \u00e9clairci son propre visage.\n\n--Je l'attends \u00e0 chaque instant, monsieur. Je lui ai persuad\u00e9 de se\npromener un peu ce matin; il est tr\u00e8s malheureux, tr\u00e8s-abattu, de\nn'avoir pas re\u00e7u de nouvelles de son p\u00e8re.\n\n--Ah! ah! c'est bien fait, il le m\u00e9rite.\n\n--Il en souffre pour moi, monsieur; et, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9, je souffre beaucoup\npour lui, car c'est moi qui suis la cause de son chagrin.\n\n--Ne vous tourmentez pas \u00e0 cause de lui, ma ch\u00e8re; il le m\u00e9rite bien.\nJ'en suis charm\u00e9, tout \u00e0 fait charm\u00e9, pour ce qui est de lui.\n\nCes mots \u00e9taient \u00e0 peine sortis de la bouche du vieux gentleman, lorsque\ndes pas se firent entendre sur l'escalier. Arabelle et l'\u00e9tranger\nparurent les reconna\u00eetre au m\u00eame instant. Le petit vieillard devint\np\u00e2le, et, faisant un violent effort pour para\u00eetre tranquille, il se leva\ncomme M. Winkle entrait dans la chambre.\n\n\u00abMon p\u00e8re! s'\u00e9cria celui-ci en reculant d'\u00e9tonnement.\n\n--Oui, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit le petit vieillard. Eh bien! monsieur,\nqu'est-ce que vous avez \u00e0 me dire?\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle garda le silence.\n\n\u00abVous rougissez de votre conduite, j'esp\u00e8re?\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle ne dit rien encore.\n\n\u00abRougissez-vous de votre conduite, monsieur, oui ou non?\n\n--Non, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua M. Winkle, en passant le bras d'Arabelle sous\nle sien; je ne rougis ni de ma conduite ni de ma femme.\n\n--Vraiment? dit le petit gentleman ironiquement.\n\n--Je suis bien f\u00e2ch\u00e9 d'avoir fait quelque chose qui ait diminu\u00e9 votre\naffection pour moi, monsieur; mais je dois dire en m\u00eame temps que je\nn'ai aucune raison de rougir de mon choix, pas plus que vous ne devez\nrougir de l'avoir pour belle-fille.\n\n--Donne-moi la main, Nathaniel, dit le vieillard d'une voix \u00e9mue.\nEmbrassez-moi, mon ange; vous \u00eates une charmante belle-fille, apr\u00e8s\ntout.\u00bb\n\nAu bout de quelques minutes, M. Winkle alla chercher M. Pickwick et le\npr\u00e9senta \u00e0 son p\u00e8re qui \u00e9changea avec lui des poign\u00e9es de main pendant\ncinq minutes cons\u00e9cutives.\n\n\u00abMonsieur Pickwick, dit le petit vieillard d'un ton ouvert et sans\nfa\u00e7on, je vous remercie sinc\u00e8rement de toutes vos bont\u00e9s pour mon fils.\nJe suis un peu vif, et la derni\u00e8re fois que je vous ai vu j'\u00e9tais\nsurpris et vex\u00e9. J'ai jug\u00e9 par moi-m\u00eame maintenant, et je suis plus que\nsatisfait. Dois-je vous faire d'autres excuses?\n\n--Pas l'ombre d'une, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick.... Vous avez fait la seule\nchose qui manquait pour compl\u00e9ter mon bonheur.\u00bb\n\nL\u00e0-dessus il y eut un autre \u00e9change de poign\u00e9es de mains, pendant cinq\nautres minutes, avec accompagnement de compliments qui avaient le m\u00e9rite\ntr\u00e8s-grand et tr\u00e8s-nouveau d'\u00eatre sinc\u00e8res.\n\nSam avait respectueusement reconduit son p\u00e8re \u00e0 la _Belle Sauvage_,\nquand, \u00e0 son retour, il rencontra dans la cour le gros joufflu qui\nvenait d'apporter un billet d'\u00c9mily Wardle.\n\n\u00abDites donc, lui cria le jeune ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne, qui paraissait singuli\u00e8rement\nen train de parler, dites donc, Mary est-elle assez gentille, hein? Je\nl'aime joliment, allez!\u00bb\n\nSam ne fit point de r\u00e9ponse verbale, mais, compl\u00e9tement p\u00e9trifi\u00e9 par la\npr\u00e9somption du gros gar\u00e7on, il le regarda fixement pendant une minute,\nle conduisit par le collet jusqu'au coin de la rue et le renvoya avec un\ncoup de pied innocent mais c\u00e9r\u00e9monieux, apr\u00e8s quoi il rentra \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel\nen sifflant.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XXVIII.\n\nDans lequel le club des pickwickiens est d\u00e9finitivement dissous, et\ntoutes choses termin\u00e9es, \u00e0 la satisfaction de tout le monde.\n\n\nDurant une semaine, apr\u00e8s l'arriv\u00e9e de M. Winkle de Birmingham, M.\nPickwick et Sam Weller s'absent\u00e8rent de l'h\u00f4tel toute la journ\u00e9e,\nrentrant seulement \u00e0 l'heure du d\u00eener et ayant l'un et l'autre un air de\nmyst\u00e8re et d'importance tout \u00e0 fait \u00e9tranger \u00e0 leur caract\u00e8re. Il \u00e9tait\n\u00e9vident qu'il se pr\u00e9parait quelque \u00e9v\u00e9nement notable, mais on se perdait\nen conjectures sur ce que ce pouvait \u00eatre. Quelques-uns (parmi lesquels\nse trouvait M. Tupman) \u00e9taient dispos\u00e9s \u00e0 penser que M. Pickwick\nprojetait une alliance matrimoniale, mais les dames repoussaient\nfortement cette id\u00e9e. D'autres inclinaient \u00e0 croire qu'il avait projet\u00e9\nquelque exp\u00e9dition lointaine, dont il faisait les arrangements\npr\u00e9liminaires. Mais cela avait \u00e9t\u00e9 vigoureusement ni\u00e9 par Sam lui-m\u00eame\nqui, press\u00e9 de questions par Mary, avait solennellement assur\u00e9 qu'il ne\ns'agissait point de nouveaux voyages. \u00c0 la fin, lorsque les cerveaux de\ntoute la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 se furent mis inutilement \u00e0 la torture, pendant six\njours entiers, il fut unanimement d\u00e9cid\u00e9 que M. Pickwick serait invit\u00e9 \u00e0\nexpliquer sa conduite, et \u00e0 d\u00e9clarer nettement pourquoi il privait ainsi\nde sa soci\u00e9t\u00e9 ses amis, remplis d'admiration pour sa personne.\n\nDans ce but, M. Wardle invita tout le monde \u00e0 d\u00eener \u00e0 l'_Adelphi-H\u00f4tel_,\net, lorsque le vin de Bordeaux eut fait deux fois le tour de la table,\nil entama l'affaire en ces termes:\n\n\u00abMon cher Pickwick, nous sommes inquiets de savoir en quoi nous avons\npu vous offenser, pour que vous nous abandonniez ainsi, consacrant tout\nvotre temps \u00e0 ces promenades solitaires.\n\n--Chose singuli\u00e8re! r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick, j'avais justement l'intention\nde vous donner aujourd'hui m\u00eame une explication compl\u00e8te. Ainsi, si vous\nvoulez me verser encore un verre de vin, je vais satisfaire votre\ncuriosit\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nLa bouteille passa de main en main avec une vivacit\u00e9 inaccoutum\u00e9e, et M.\nPickwick, regardant avec un joyeux sourire ses nombreux amis:\n\n\u00abTous les changements qui sont arriv\u00e9s parmi nous, dit-il, je veux dire\nle mariage qui s'est fait et le mariage qui doit se faire, avec les\ncons\u00e9quences qu'ils entra\u00eenent, rendaient n\u00e9cessaire pour moi de penser\ns\u00e9rieusement et d'avance \u00e0 mes plans pour l'avenir. Je me suis d\u00e9termin\u00e9\n\u00e0 me retirer aux environs de Londres, dans quelque endroit joli et\ntranquille. J'ai vu une maison qui me convenait, je l'ai achet\u00e9e et\nmeubl\u00e9e. Elle est tout \u00e0 fait pr\u00eate \u00e0 me recevoir et je compte m'y\n\u00e9tablir sur-le-champ. J'esp\u00e8re que je pourrai encore passer bien des\nann\u00e9es heureuses dans cette paisible retraite, r\u00e9joui, pendant le reste\nde mes jours, par la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 de mes amis, et suivi, apr\u00e8s ma mort, de\nleurs regrets affectueux.\u00bb\n\nIci M. Pickwick s'arr\u00eata et l'on entendit autour de la table un murmure\ndoux et triste.\n\n\u00abLa maison que j'ai choisie, poursuivit-il, est \u00e0 Dulwich, dans une des\nsituations les plus agr\u00e9ables qu'on puisse trouver aupr\u00e8s de Londres. Il\ny a un grand jardin, et l'habitation est arrang\u00e9e de mani\u00e8re \u00e0 ce qu'on\nn'y manque d'aucun confort. Peut-\u00eatre m\u00eame n'est-elle pas d\u00e9pourvue\nd'une certaine \u00e9l\u00e9gance. Vous en jugerez vous-m\u00eame. Sam m'y\naccompagnera. J'ai engag\u00e9, sur les repr\u00e9sentations de Perker, une femme\nde charge, une tr\u00e8s-vieille femme de charge, et les autres domestiques\nqu'il a jug\u00e9s n\u00e9cessaires. Je me propose de consacrer cette petite\nretraite en y faisant accomplir une c\u00e9r\u00e9monie \u00e0 laquelle je prends\nbeaucoup d'int\u00e9r\u00eat. Je d\u00e9sire, si mon ami Wardle ne s'y oppose point,\nque les noces de sa fille soient c\u00e9l\u00e9br\u00e9es dans cette nouvelle demeure,\nle jour o\u00f9 j'en prendrai possession. Le bonheur des jeunes gens,\npoursuivit M. Pickwick un peu \u00e9mu, a toujours \u00e9t\u00e9 le plus grand plaisir\nde ma vie; mon coeur se rajeunira lorsque je verrai, sous mon propre\ntoit, s'accomplir le bonheur des amis qui me sont les plus chers.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick s'arr\u00eata encore; Arabelle et \u00c9mily sanglotaient.\n\n\u00abJ'ai communiqu\u00e9, personnellement et par \u00e9crit, avec le club, reprit le\nphilosophe. Je lui ai appris mon intention. Durant notre longue absence,\nil avait \u00e9t\u00e9 divis\u00e9 par des dissensions intestines. Ma retraite, jointe\n\u00e0 diverses autres circonstances, a d\u00e9cid\u00e9 sa dissolution.\n_Pickwick-Club_ n'existe plus. Toutes frivoles que mes recherches aient\npu para\u00eetre \u00e0 certaines gens, continua M. Pickwick d'une voix plus\ngrave, je ne regretterai jamais d'avoir d\u00e9vou\u00e9 pr\u00e8s de deux ann\u00e9es \u00e0\n\u00e9tudier les diff\u00e9rentes vari\u00e9t\u00e9s de caract\u00e8re de l'esp\u00e8ce humaine.\nPresque toute ma vie ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 consacr\u00e9e \u00e0 des affaires positives, et \u00e0\nla poursuite de la fortune, j'ai vu s'ouvrir devant moi de nombreux\npoints de vue dont je n'avais aucune id\u00e9e, et qui, je l'esp\u00e8re, ont\n\u00e9largi mon intelligence et perfectionn\u00e9 mon esprit. Si je n'ai fait que\npeu de bien, je me flatte d'avoir fait encore moins de mal. Aussi,\nj'esp\u00e8re qu'au d\u00e9clin de ma vie chacune de mes aventures ne m'apportera\nque des souvenirs consolants et agr\u00e9ables. Et maintenant, mes chers\namis, que Dieu vous b\u00e9nisse tous!\u00bb\n\n\u00c0 ces mots, M. Pickwick remplit son verre et le porta \u00e0 ses l\u00e8vres d'une\nmain tremblante. Ses yeux se mouill\u00e8rent de larmes lorsque ses amis se\nlev\u00e8rent simultan\u00e9ment pour lui faire raison, du fond du coeur.\n\nIl y avait peu d'arrangements \u00e0 faire pour le mariage de M. Snodgrass.\nComme il n'avait ni p\u00e8re ni m\u00e8re, et qu'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9, dans sa minorit\u00e9,\npupille de M. Pickwick, celui-ci connaissait parfaitement l'\u00e9tat de sa\nfortune. Le compte qu'il en rendit \u00e0 M. Wardle le satisfit compl\u00e9tement,\ncomme, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9, l'aurait satisfait tout autre compte; car le bon\nvieillard avait le coeur plein de tendresse et de contentement. Il donna\n\u00e0 \u00c9mily une belle dot, et le mariage \u00e9tant fix\u00e9 pour la quatri\u00e8me jour,\nle peu de temps accord\u00e9 pour les pr\u00e9paratifs faillit faire perdre la\nt\u00eate \u00e0 trois couturi\u00e8res et \u00e0 un tailleur.\n\nLe lendemain, ayant fait mettre des chevaux de poste \u00e0 sa voiture, M.\nWardle partit pour aller chercher sa m\u00e8re \u00e0 Dingley-Dell. La vieille\nlady \u00e0 qui il communiqua cette nouvelle avec son imp\u00e9tuosit\u00e9 ordinaire,\ns'\u00e9vanouit \u00e0 l'instant; mais, ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 promptement ranim\u00e9e, elle\nordonna d'empaqueter sur-le-champ sa robe de brocard, et se mit \u00e0\nraconter quelques circonstances analogues, qui avaient eu lieu au\nmariage de la fille a\u00een\u00e9e de feu lady Tollimglower. Ce r\u00e9cit dura trois\nheures, et, au bout de ce temps, il n'\u00e9tait encore qu'\u00e0 moiti\u00e9.\n\nIl \u00e9tait n\u00e9cessaire d'informer Mme Trundle des prodigieux pr\u00e9paratifs\nqui se faisaient \u00e0 Londres; et, comme sa situation \u00e9tait alors\ntr\u00e8s-int\u00e9ressante, cette nouvelle lui fut communiqu\u00e9e par M. Trundle, de\npeur qu'elle n'en f\u00fbt boulevers\u00e9e. Mais elle ne fut pas boulevers\u00e9e le\nmoins du monde, car elle \u00e9crivit sur-le-champ \u00e0 Muggleton pour se faire\nfaire un nouveau bonnet et une robe de satin noire, et elle d\u00e9clara, de\nplus, sa d\u00e9termination d'\u00eatre pr\u00e9sente \u00e0 la c\u00e9r\u00e9monie. M. Trundle, \u00e0 ces\nmots, envoya imm\u00e9diatement chercher le docteur. Le docteur d\u00e9cida que\nMme Trundle devait savoir, mieux que personne, comment elle se sentait;\n\u00e0 quoi Mme Trundle r\u00e9pondit qu'elle se sentit assez forte pour aller \u00e0\nLondres et qu'elle y irait. Or, le docteur \u00e9tait un docteur habile et\nprudent. Il savait ce qui \u00e9tait bon pour lui-m\u00eame aussi bien que pour\nses malades; son avis fut donc que si Mme Trundle restait chez elle,\nelle se tourmenterait peut-\u00eatre de mani\u00e8re \u00e0 se faire plus de mal que ne\nlui en ferait le voyage, et que, par cons\u00e9quent, il valait mieux la\nlaisser partir. Elle partit en effet, et le docteur eut l'attention de\nlui envoyer une douzaine de potions, pour boire le long de la route.\n\nEn addition \u00e0 tous ses embarras, M. Wardle avait \u00e9t\u00e9 charg\u00e9 de deux\npetites lettres, pour deux petites demoiselles, qui devaient officier\ncomme demoiselles d'honneur. En apprenant cette importante nouvelle, les\ndeux demoiselles faillirent se d\u00e9sesp\u00e9rer de n'avoir rien \u00e0 mettre dans\nune occasion aussi importante, et pas m\u00eame le temps de rien faire faire,\ncirconstance qui ne parut pas affecter aussi tristement les dignes papas\ndesdites demoiselles. Cependant, de vieilles robes furent rajust\u00e9es, on\nfabriqua \u00e0 la h\u00e2te des chapeaux neufs, et les deux demoiselles furent\naussi belles qu'il \u00e9tait possible de l'esp\u00e9rer. D'ailleurs, comme elles\npleur\u00e8rent aux endroits convenables, le jour de la c\u00e9r\u00e9monie, et comme\nelles trembl\u00e8rent \u00e0 propos, tous les assistants convinrent qu'elles\ns'\u00e9taient admirablement acquitt\u00e9es de leurs fonctions.\n\nComment les deux parents pauvres atteignirent Londres; s'ils y all\u00e8rent\n\u00e0 pied, ou mont\u00e8rent derri\u00e8re des voitures, ou grimp\u00e8rent dans des\ncharrettes, ou se port\u00e8rent mutuellement, c'est ce que nous ne saurions\ndire; mais ils y \u00e9taient arriv\u00e9s avant M. Wardle, et ce furent eux qui,\nles premiers, frapp\u00e8rent \u00e0 la porte de M. Pickwick, le jour du mariage.\nLeur visage n'\u00e9tait que sourires et cols de chemise.\n\nIls furent re\u00e7us cordialement, car la pauvret\u00e9 ou la richesse n'avaient\naucune influence sur le philosophe. Les nouveaux domestiques \u00e9taient\ntout empressement, toute vivacit\u00e9; Sam, dans un \u00e9tat sans pareil de\nbonne humeur et d'exaltation; Mary, \u00e9blouissante de beaut\u00e9 et de jolis\nrubans.\n\nLe mari\u00e9 qui demeurait dans la maison de M. Pickwick depuis deux ou\ntrois jours, en sortit galamment pour rejoindre la mari\u00e9e \u00e0 l'\u00e9glise de\nDulwich. Il \u00e9tait accompagn\u00e9 de MM. Pickwick, Ben Allen, Sawyer et\nTupman. Sam \u00e9tait \u00e0 l'ext\u00e9rieur de la voiture, v\u00eatu d'une brillante\nlivr\u00e9e, invent\u00e9e express\u00e9ment pour cette occasion; il portait \u00e0 sa\nboutonni\u00e8re une faveur blanche, gage d'amour de la dame de ses pens\u00e9es.\nCette troupe joyeuse rejoignait les Wardle et les Winkle, et la mari\u00e9e,\net les demoiselles d'honneur, et les Trundle; et lorsque la c\u00e9r\u00e9monie\nfut termin\u00e9e, tous les carrosses roul\u00e8rent vers la maison de M.\nPickwick. Le d\u00e9jeuner et le petit Perker les y attendaient.\n\nL\u00e0 s'effac\u00e8rent les l\u00e9gers nuages de m\u00e9lancolie engendr\u00e9s par la\nsolennit\u00e9 de la c\u00e9r\u00e9monie. Tous les visages brillaient de la joie la\nplus pure, et l'on n'entendait que des compliments et des\ncongratulations. Le gazon sur le devant de la maison, le jardin par\nderri\u00e8re, la serre mignonne, la salle \u00e0 manger, le salon, les chambres \u00e0\ncoucher, le fumoir, et, par-dessus tout, le cabinet d'\u00e9tude avec ses\ntableaux, ses gouaches, ses bahuts gothiques, ses tables \u00e9tranges, ses\nlivres sans nombre, ses grandes fen\u00eatres, ouvrant sur une jolie pelouse\net sur une belle perspective; puis, enfin, les rideaux et les tapis, et\nles chaises, et les sofas; tout \u00e9tait si beau, si solide, si propre et\nd'un go\u00fbt si exquis, \u00e0 ce que disait chacun, qu'il n'y avait r\u00e9ellement\npas moyen de d\u00e9cider ce qu'on devait admirer le plus.\n\nAu milieu de toutes ces belles choses, M. Pickwick se tenait debout, et\nsa physionomie \u00e9tait radieuse de sourires auxquels n'aurait pu r\u00e9sister\naucun coeur d'homme, ni de femme, ni d'enfant. Il semblait le plus\nheureux de tous les assistants; il serrait, de minute en minute, les\nmains des m\u00eames personnes, et quand ses mains n'\u00e9taient pas ainsi\noccup\u00e9es, il les frottait avec un indicible plaisir. Il se retournait de\ntous c\u00f4t\u00e9s \u00e0 chaque expression nouvelle de curiosit\u00e9 ou d'admiration, et\ncharmait tout le monde par son air de contentement et de bonhomie.\n\nLe d\u00e9jeuner est annonc\u00e9. M. Pickwick conduit au sommet d'une longue\ntable la vieille lady, fort \u00e9loquente, comme d'ordinaire, sur le\nchapitre de Tollimglower; Wardle se met au fin bout; les amis\ns'arrangent comme ils l'entendent, des deux c\u00f4t\u00e9s, et Sam prend sa place\nderri\u00e8re la chaise de son ma\u00eetre. Les rires et les causeries cessant\npour une minute, M. Pickwick ayant dit le b\u00e9n\u00e9dicit\u00e9, s'arr\u00eate un moment\net regarde autour de lui; des larmes de joie coulent de ses yeux en\ncontemplant cette heureuse r\u00e9union.\n\nNous allons prendre cong\u00e9 de notre ami dans un de ces moments de bonheur\nsans m\u00e9lange qui viennent de temps en temps embellir notre passag\u00e8re\nexistence. Il y a de sombres nuits sur la terre, mais l'aurore joyeuse\nn'en semble que plus brillante par le contraste. Certaines personnes,\npareilles aux hiboux et aux chauves-souris, ont de meilleure yeux pour\nles t\u00e9n\u00e8bres que pour la lumi\u00e8re; nous, qui ne leur ressemblons point,\nnous \u00e9prouvons plus de plaisir \u00e0 jeter un dernier regard aux compagnons\nimaginaires de bien des heures de solitude, dans un moment o\u00f9 le rapide\n\u00e9clat du bonheur les illumine de ses passag\u00e8res clart\u00e9s.\n\nC'est le destin de la plupart des hommes, m\u00eame de ceux qui n'arrivent\nqu'\u00e0 l'\u00e9t\u00e9 de la vie, d'acqu\u00e9rir dans le monde quelques amis sinc\u00e8res et\nde les perdre, suivant le cours de la nature. C'est le destin de tous\nles romanciers, de se cr\u00e9er des amis fantastiques et de les perdre,\nsuivant le cours de l'art. Mais ce n'est pas l\u00e0 toute leur infortune;\nils sont encore oblig\u00e9s d'en rendre compte.\n\nPour nous soumettre \u00e0 cette coutume, \u00e9videmment d\u00e9testable, nous\najouterons ici une courte notice biographique sur la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 r\u00e9unie chez\nM. Pickwick.\n\nM. et Mme Winkle, compl\u00e9tement rentr\u00e9s en gr\u00e2ce aupr\u00e8s de M. Winkle\nsenior, furent, bient\u00f4t apr\u00e8s, install\u00e9s dans une maison nouvellement\nb\u00e2tie, \u00e0 moins d'un mille de celle de M. Pickwick. M. Winkle \u00e9tant\nengag\u00e9 comme correspondant de son p\u00e8re dans la Cit\u00e9, changea son ancien\ncostume contre l'habit ordinaire des Anglais, et conserva toujours dans\nla suite l'ext\u00e9rieur d'un chr\u00e9tien civilis\u00e9.\n\nM. et Mme Snodgrass s'\u00e9tablirent \u00e0 Dingley-Dell, o\u00f9 ils achet\u00e8rent et\ncultiv\u00e8rent une petite ferme, pour s'occuper plut\u00f4t que pour en tirer\nprofit. M. Snodgrass se montrant encore quelquefois distrait et\nm\u00e9lancolique, est, jusqu'\u00e0 ce jour, r\u00e9put\u00e9 grand po\u00ebte parmi ses amis et\nconnaissances, quoique nous ne sachions pas qu'il ait jamais rien \u00e9crit\npour encourager cette croyance. Nous connaissons beaucoup de\npersonnages c\u00e9l\u00e8bres dans la litt\u00e9rature, la philosophie et les autres\nfacult\u00e9s, dont la haute r\u00e9putation n'est pas bas\u00e9e sur de meilleurs\nfondements.\n\nLorsque M. Pickwick fut \u00e9tabli \u00e0 poste fixe et ses amis mari\u00e9s, M.\nTupman prit un logement \u00e0 Richmond, o\u00f9 il a toujours r\u00e9sid\u00e9 depuis.\nPendant les jours d'\u00e9t\u00e9, il se prom\u00e8ne constamment sur la rive d'un air\njuv\u00e9nile et coquet, gr\u00e2ce auquel il fait l'admiration des nombreuses\nladies d'un certain \u00e2ge qui habitent ces parages dans une vertueuse\nsolitude. Cependant il n'a jamais risqu\u00e9 de nouvelles propositions.\n\nMM. Bob Sawyer et Ben Allen, apr\u00e8s avoir fait banqueroute, pass\u00e8rent\nensemble au Bengale comme chirurgiens de la compagnie des Indes. Ils ont\neu, tous les deux, la fi\u00e8vre jaune jusqu'\u00e0 quatorze fois, et se sont\nr\u00e9solus enfin \u00e0 essayer d'un peu d'abstinence. Depuis cette \u00e9poque, ils\nse portent bien.\n\nMme Bardell continua \u00e0 louer ses logements \u00e0 plusieurs gentlemen,\ngar\u00e7ons et agr\u00e9ables. Elle en tira de bons profits, mais elle n'attaqua\nplus personne pour violation de promesse de mariage. Ses alli\u00e9s, MM.\nDodson et Fogg, sont encore dans les affaires; ils se font toujours un\nriche revenu, et sont consid\u00e9r\u00e9s comme les plus habiles entre les\nhabiles.\n\nSam Weller tint sa parole et resta deux ans sans se marier. Mais, au\nbout de ce temps, la vieille femme de charge de M. Pickwick \u00e9tant morte,\nM. Pickwick \u00e9leva Mary \u00e0 cette dignit\u00e9, sous la condition d'\u00e9pouser Sam\nsur-le-champ, ce qu'elle fit sans murmurer. Nous avons lieu de supposer\nque cette union ne fut pas st\u00e9rile, car on a vu plusieurs fois deux\npetits gar\u00e7ons bouffis \u00e0 la grille du jardin.\n\nM. Weller senior conduisit sa voiture pendant un an; mais, \u00e9tant attaqu\u00e9\nde la goutte, il fut oblig\u00e9 de prendre sa retraite. Fort heureusement,\nle contenu de son portefeuille avait \u00e9t\u00e9 si bien plac\u00e9 par M. Pickwick,\nqu'il peut vivre \u00e0 son aise dans une excellente auberge, pr\u00e8s de\nShooter's Hill. Il y est r\u00e9v\u00e9r\u00e9 comme un oracle, se vante de son\nintimit\u00e9 avec M. Pickwick, et a conserv\u00e9 pour les veuves une aversion\ninsurmontable.\n\nM. Pickwick lui-m\u00eame continua de r\u00e9sider dans sa nouvelle maison,\nemployant ses heures de loisir, soit \u00e0 mettre en ordre les souvenirs\ndont il fit pr\u00e9sent ensuite au ci-devant secr\u00e9taire du c\u00e9l\u00e8bre club;\nsoit \u00e0 se faire faire la lecture par Sam, dont les remarques ne manquent\njamais de lui procurer beaucoup d'amusement. Il fut d'abord fr\u00e9quemment\nd\u00e9rang\u00e9 par les nombreuses pri\u00e8res que lui firent M. Snodgrass, M.\nWinkle et M. Trundle, de servir de parrain \u00e0 leurs enfants; mais il y\nest habitu\u00e9 maintenant et remplit ces fonctions comme une chose toute\nsimple. Il n'a jamais eu de raison de regretter ses bont\u00e9s pour Jingle\net pour Job Trotter; car ces deux personnages sont devenus, avec le\ntemps, de respectables membres de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9. Cependant, ils ont\ntoujours refus\u00e9 de revenir sur le th\u00e9\u00e2tre de leurs anciennes tentations\net de leurs premi\u00e8res chutes. M. Pickwick est un peu infirme maintenant;\nmais son esprit est toujours aussi jeune. On peut le voir souvent occup\u00e9\n\u00e0 contempler les tableaux de la galerie de Dulwich, ou, dans les beaux\njours, \u00e0 faire une agr\u00e9able promenade dans le voisinage. Il est connu de\ntous les pauvres gens d'alentour, qui ne manquent jamais d'\u00f4ter leur\nchapeau avec respect lorsqu'il passe. Les enfants l'idol\u00e2trent, et, pour\nbien dire, tous les voisins en font autant. Chaque ann\u00e9e, il se rend \u00e0\nune grande r\u00e9union de famille, chez M. Wardle, et, dans cette occasion,\ncomme dans toutes les autres, il est invariablement accompagn\u00e9 de son\nfid\u00e8le Sam; car il existe entre le ma\u00eetre et le serviteur un attachement\nr\u00e9ciproque et solide que la mort seule pourra briser.\n\n\n\nFIN DU DEUXI\u00c8ME ET DERNIER VOLUME.\n\n\n\n\nTABLE DES MATI\u00c8RES\n\nCONTENUES DANS LE SECOND VOLUME\n\nI. Comment les pickwickiens firent et cultiv\u00e8rent la connaissance d'une\ncouple d'agr\u00e9ables jeunes gens, appartenant \u00e0 une des professions\nlib\u00e9rales; comment ils fol\u00e2tr\u00e8rent sur la glace; et comment se termina\nleur visite.\n\nII. Consacr\u00e9 tout entier \u00e0 la loi et \u00e0 ses savants interpr\u00e8tes\n\nIII. O\u00f9 l'on d\u00e9crit plus compendieusement que ne l'a jamais fait aucun\njournal de la cour une soir\u00e9e de gar\u00e7on, donn\u00e9e par M. Bob Sawyer en son\ndomicile, dans le Borough.\n\nIV. M. Weller senior prof\u00e8re quelques opinions critiques concernant les\ncompositions litt\u00e9raires; puis avec l'assistance de son fils Samuel, il\ns'acquitte d'une partie de sa dette envers le r\u00e9v\u00e9rend gentleman au nez\nrouge.\n\nV. Enti\u00e8rement consacr\u00e9 au compte rendu complet et fid\u00e8le du m\u00e9morable\nproc\u00e8s de Bardell contre Pickwick.\n\nVI. Dans lequel M. Pickwick pense que ce qu'il a de mieux \u00e0 faire est\nd'aller \u00e0 Bath, et y va en cons\u00e9quence.\n\nVII. Occup\u00e9 principalement par une authentique version de la l\u00e9gende du\nprince Bladud, et par une calamit\u00e9 fort extraordinaire dont M. Winkle\nfut la victime.\n\nVIII. Qui explique honorablement l'absence de Sam Weller, en rendant\ncompte d'une soir\u00e9e o\u00f9 il fut invit\u00e9 et assista; et qui raconte, en\noutre, comment ledit Sam Weller fut charg\u00e9 par M. Pickwick d'une mission\nparticuli\u00e8re, pleine de d\u00e9licatesse et d'importance.\n\nIX. Comment M. Winkle, voulant sortir de la po\u00eale \u00e0 frire, se jeta\ntranquillement et confortablement dans le feu.\n\nX. Sam Weller, honor\u00e9 d'une mission d'amour, s'occupe de l'ex\u00e9cuter. On\nverra plus loin avec quel succ\u00e8s.\n\nXI. O\u00f9 l'on voit M. Pickwick sur une nouvelle sc\u00e8ne du grand drame de la\nvie.\n\nXII. Ce qui arriva \u00e0 M. Pickwick dans la prison pour dettes; quelle\nesp\u00e8ce de d\u00e9biteurs il y vit, et comment il passa la nuit.\n\nXIII. D\u00e9montrant, comme le pr\u00e9c\u00e9dent, la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 de ce vieux proverbe,\nque l'adversit\u00e9 vous fait faire connaissance avec d'\u00e9tranges camarades\nde lit; et contenant, en outre, l'incroyable d\u00e9claration que M. Pickwick\nfit \u00e0 Sam.\n\nXIV. Comment M. Samuel Weller se mit mal dans ses affaires.\n\nXV. O\u00f9 l'on apprend diverses petites aventures arriv\u00e9es dans la prison,\nainsi que la conduite myst\u00e9rieuse de M. Winkle; et o\u00f9 l'on voit comment\nle pauvre prisonnier de la chancellerie fut enfin rel\u00e2ch\u00e9.\n\nXVI. O\u00f9 l'on d\u00e9crit une entrevue touchante entre M. Samuel Weller et sa\nfamille. M. Pickwick fait le tour du petit monde qu'il habite, et prend\nla r\u00e9solution de ne s'y m\u00ealer, \u00e0 l'avenir, que le moins possible.\n\nXVII. O\u00f9 l'on rapporte un acte touchant de d\u00e9licatesse accompli par MM.\nDodson et Fogg, non sans une certaine dose de plaisanterie.\n\nXVIII. Principalement d\u00e9vou\u00e9 \u00e0 des affaires d'int\u00e9r\u00eat et \u00e0 l'avantage\ntemporel de Dodson et Fogg. R\u00e9apparition de M. Winkle dans des\ncirconstances extraordinaires. La bienveillance de M. Pickwick se montre\nplus forte que son obstination.\n\nXIX. O\u00f9 l'on raconte comment M. Pickwick, avec l'assistance de Sam,\nessaya d'amollir le coeur de M. Benjamin Allen, et d'adoucir la rage de\nM. Robert Sawyer.\n\nXX. Contenant l'histoire de l'oncle du commis-voyageur\n\nXXI. Comment M. Pickwick ex\u00e9cuta sa mission et comment il fut renforc\u00e9,\nd\u00e8s le d\u00e9but, par un auxiliaire tout \u00e0 fait impr\u00e9vu.\n\nXXII. Dans lequel M. Pickwick rencontre une vieille connaissance,\ncirconstance fortun\u00e9e \u00e0 laquelle le lecteur est principalement redevable\ndes d\u00e9tails br\u00fblants d'int\u00e9r\u00eat ci-dessous consign\u00e9s, concernant deux\ngrands hommes politiques.\n\nXXIII. Annon\u00e7ant un changement s\u00e9rieux dans la famille Weller, et la\nchute pr\u00e9matur\u00e9e de l'homme au nez rouge.\n\nXXIV. Comprenant la sortie finale de MM. Jingle et Job Trotter, avec une\ngrande matin\u00e9e d'affaires dans Gray's Inn square, termin\u00e9e par un double\ncoup frapp\u00e9 \u00e0 la porte de M. Perker.\n\nXXV. Contenant quelques d\u00e9tails relatifs aux coups de marteau, ainsi\nque diverses autres particularit\u00e9s, parmi lesquelles figurent,\nnotablement, certaines d\u00e9couvertes concernant M. Snodgrass et une jeune\nlady.\n\nXXVI. M. Salomon Pell, assist\u00e9 par un comit\u00e9 choisi de cochers, arrange\nles affaires de M. Weller senior.\n\nXXVII. M. Weller assiste \u00e0 une importante conf\u00e9rence entre M. Pickwick\net Samuel. Un vieux gentleman, en habit couleur de tabac, arrive\ninopin\u00e9ment.\n\nXXVIII. Dans lequel le club des pickwickiens est d\u00e9finitivement dissous,\net toutes choses termin\u00e9es \u00e0 la satisfaction de tout le monde.\n\n\nFIN DE LA TABLE DES MATI\u00c8RES\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"10449":"Mike Greene and the Little Greene Schoolhouse\n(http://www.users.nac.net/mgreene/Homer_Greene_Museum.html) for supplying\nmissing pages for this rare book.\n\n\n\nBURNHAM BREAKER\n\nBY\n\nHOMER GREENE\n\nAUTHOR OF \"THE BLIND BROTHER\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTO MY FATHER,\n\nWHOSE GRAY HAIRS I HONOR, AND WHOSE PERFECT MANHOOD I REVERE,\n\nTHIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR.\n\nHONESDALE, PENN., SEPT. 29, 1887.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\nCHAPTER\n\n     I. A SURPRISE IN THE SCREEN-ROOM\n\n    II. A STRANGE VISITOR\n\n   III. A BRILLIANT SCHEME\n\n    IV. A SET OF RESOLUTIONS\n\n     V. IN SEARCH OF A MOTHER\n\n    VI. BREAKING THE NEWS\n\n   VII. RHYMING JOE\n\n  VIII. A FRIEND IN NEED\n\n    IX. A FRIEND INDEED\n\n     X. AT THE BAR OF THE COURT\n\n    XI. THE EVIDENCE IN THE CASE\n\n   XII. AT THE GATES OF PARADISE\n\n  XIII. THE PURCHASE OF A LIE\n\n   XIV. THE ANGEL WITH THE SWORD\n\n    XV. AN EVENTFUL JOURNEY\n\n   XVI. A BLOCK IN THE WHEEL\n\n  XVII. GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY\n\n XVIII. A WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS\n\n   XIX. BACK TO THE BREAKER\n\n    XX. THE FIRE IN THE SHAFT\n\n   XXI. A PERILOUS PASSAGE\n\n  XXII. IN THE POWER OF DARKNESS\n\n XXIII. A STROKE OF LIGHTNING\n\n  XXIV. AT THE DAWN OF DAY\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nA SURPRISE IN THE SCREEN-ROOM.\n\n\nThe city of Scranton lies in the centre of the Lackawanna coal-field,\nin the State of Pennsylvania. Year by year the suburbs of the city\ncreep up the sides of the surrounding hills, like the waters of a\nrising lake.\n\nStanding at any point on this shore line of human habitations, you can\nlook out across the wide landscape and count a score of coal-breakers\nwithin the limits of your first glance. These breakers are huge, dark\nbuildings that remind you of castles of the olden time. They are\nmany-winged and many-windowed, and their shaft-towers rise high up\ntoward the clouds and the stars. About the feet of those in the valley\nthe waves of the out-reaching city beat and break, and out on the\nhill-sides they stand like mighty fortresses built to guard the lives\nand fortunes of the multitudes who toil beneath them. But they are not\nlong-lived. Like human beings, they rise, they flourish, they die and\nare forgotten. Not one in hundreds of the people who walk the streets\nof Scranton to-day, or who dig the coal from its surrounding hills,\ncan tell you where Burnham Breaker stood a quarter of a century ago.\nYet there are men still living, and boys who have grown to manhood,\nscores of them, who toiled for years in the black dust breathed out\nfrom its throats of iron, and listened to the thunder of its grinding\njaws from dawn to dark of many and many a day.\n\nThese will surely tell you where the breaker stood. They are proud to\nhave labored there in other years. They will speak to you of that time\nwith pleasant memories. It was thought to be a stroke of fortune to\nobtain work at Burnham Breaker. It was just beyond the suburbs of the\ncity as they then were, and near to the homes of all the workmen. The\nvein of coal at this point was of more than ordinary thickness, and of\nexcellent quality, and these were matters of much moment to the miners\nwho worked there. Then, the wages were always paid according to the\nhighest rate, promptly and in full.\n\nBut there was something more, and more important than all this, to be\nconsidered. Robert Burnham, the chief power in the company, and the\nmanager of its interests, was a man whose energetic business qualities\nand methods did not interfere with his concern for the welfare of his\nemployees. He was not only just, but liberal and kind. He held not\nonly the confidence but the good-will, even the affection, of those\nwho labored under him. There were never any strikes at the Burnham\nmines. The men would have considered it high treason in any one to\nadvocate a strike against the interests of Robert Burnham.\n\nYet it was no place for idling. There were, no laggards there. Men\nhad to work, and work hard too, for the wages that bought their daily\nbread. Even the boys in the screen-room were held as closely to their\ntasks as care and vigilance could hold them. Theirs were no light\ntasks, either. They sat all day on their little benches, high up in\nthe great black building, with their eyes fixed always on the shallow\nstreams of broken coal passing down the iron-sheathed chutes, and\nfalling out of sight below them; and it was their duty to pick the\nparticles of slate and stone from out these moving masses, bending\nconstantly above them as they worked. It was not the physical exertion\nthat made their task a hard one; there was not much straining of the\njoints or muscles, not even in the constant bending of the body to\nthat one position.\n\nNeither was it that their tender hands were often cut and bruised by\nthe sharp pieces of the coal or the heavy ones of slate. But it was\nhard because they were boys; young boys, with bounding pulses, chafing\nat restraint, full to the brim with life and spirit, longing for the\nfresh air, the bright sunlight, the fields, the woods, the waters, the\nbirds, the flowers, all things beautiful and wonderful that nature\nspreads upon the earth to make of it a paradise for boys. To think of\nall these things, to catch brief glimpses of the happiness of children\nwho were not born to toil, and then to sit, from dawn to mid-day and\nfrom mid-day till the sun went down, and listen to the ceaseless\nthunder of moving wheels and the constant sliding of the streams of\ncoal across their iron beds,--it was this that wearied them.\n\nTo know that in the woods the brooks were singing over pebbly bottoms,\nthat in the fields the air was filled with the fragrance of blossoming\nflowers, that everywhere the free wind rioted at will, and then to\nsit in such a prison-house as this all day, and breathe an atmosphere\nso thick with dust that even the bits of blue sky framed in by\nthe open windows in the summer time were like strips of some dark\nthunder-cloud,--it was this, this dull monotony of dizzy sight and\ndoleful sound and changeless post of duty, that made their task a hard\none.\n\nThere came a certain summer day at Burnham Breaker when the labor and\nconfinement fell with double weight upon the slate-pickers in the\nscreen-room. It was circus day. The dead-walls and bill-boards of the\ncity had been gorgeous for weeks and weeks with pictures heralding the\nwonders of the coming show. By the turnpike road, not forty rods from\nwhere the breaker stood, there was a wide barn the whole side of which\nhad been covered with brightly colored prints of beasts and birds, of\nlong processions, of men turning marvellous somersaults, of ladies\nriding, poised on one foot, on the backs of flying horses, of a\nhundred other things to charm the eyes and rouse anticipation in the\nbreasts of boys.\n\nEvery day, when the whistle blew at noon, the boys ran, shouting, from\nthe breaker, and hurried, with their dinner-pails, to the roadside\nbarn, to eat and gaze alternately, and discuss the pictured wonders.\n\nAnd now it was all here; beasts, birds, vaulting men, flying women,\nracing horses and all. They had seen the great white tents gleaming\nin the sunlight up in the open fields, a mile away, and had heard the\ndistant music of the band and caught glimpses of the long procession\nas it wound through the city streets below them. This was at the noon\nhour, while they were waiting for the signal that should call them\nback into the dust and din of the screen-room, where they might dream,\nindeed, of circus joys while bending to their tasks, but that was all.\nThere was much wishing and longing. There was some murmuring. There\nwas even a rash suggestion from one boy that they should go, in spite\nof the breaker and the bosses, and revel for a good half-day in the\npleasures of the show. But this treasonable proposition was frowned\ndown without delay. These boys had caught the spirit of loyalty\nfrom the men who worked at Burnham Breaker, and not even so great a\ntemptation as this could keep them from the path of duty.\n\nWhen the bell rang for them to return to work, not one was missing,\neach bench had its accustomed occupant, and the coal that was poured\ninto the cars at the loading-place was never more free from slate and\nstone than it was that afternoon.\n\nBut it was hot up in the screen-room. The air was close and stifling,\nand heavy with the choking dust. The noise of the iron-teethed rollers\ncrunching the lumps of coal, and the bang and rattle of ponderous\nmachinery were never before so loud and discordant, and the black\nstreams moving down their narrow channels never passed beneath these\ndizzy boys in monotony quite so dull and ceaseless as they were\npassing this day.\n\nSuddenly the machinery stopped. The grinding and the roaring ceased.\nThe frame-work of the giant building was quiet from its trembling. The\niron gates that held back the broken coal were quickly shut and the\nlong chutes were empty.\n\nThe unexpected stillness was almost startling. The boys looked up in\nmute astonishment.\n\nThrough the dust, in the door-way at the end of the room, they saw the\nbreaker boss and the screen-room boss talking with Robert Burnham.\nThen Mr. Burnham advanced a step or two and said:--\n\n\"Boys, Mr. Curtis tells me you are all here. I am pleased with your\nloyalty. I had rather have the good-will and confidence of the boys\nwho work for me than to have the money that they earn. Now, I intend\nthat you shall see the circus if you wish to, and you will be provided\nwith the means of admission to it. Mr. Curtis will dismiss you for the\nrest of the day, and as you pass out you will each receive a silver\nquarter as a gift for good behavior.\"\n\nFor a minute the boys were silent. It was too sudden a vision of\nhappiness to be realized at once. Then one little fellow stood up on\nhis bench and shouted:--\n\n\"Hooray for Mr. Burnham!\" The next moment the air was filled with\nshouts and hurrahs so loud and vigorous that they went echoing\nthrough every dust-laden apartment of the huge building from head to\nloading-place.\n\nThen the boys filed out. One by one they went through the door-way,\neach, as he passed, receiving from Mr. Burnham's own hand the shining\npiece of silver that should admit him to the wonders of the \"greatest\nshow on earth.\"\n\nThey spoke their thanks, rudely indeed, and in voices that were almost\ntoo much burdened with happiness for quiet speech.\n\nBut their eyes were sparkling with anticipation; their lips were\nparted in smiles, their white teeth were gleaming from their\ndust-black faces, each look and action was eloquent with thoughts of\ncoming pleasure. And the one who enjoyed it more than all the others\nwas Robert Burnham.\n\nIt is so old that it was trite and tiresome centuries ago, that saying\nabout one finding one's greatest happiness in making others happy. But\nit has never ceased to be true; it never will cease to be true; it is\none of those primal principles of humanity that no use nor law nor\nlogic can ever hope to falsify.\n\nThe last boy in the line differed apparently in no respect from\nthose who had preceded him. The faces of all of them were black with\ncoal-dust, and their clothes were patched and soiled. But this one had\njust cut his hand, and, as he held it up to let the blood drip from it\nyou noticed that it was small and delicate in shape.\n\n\"Why, my boy!\" exclaimed Mr. Burnham, \"you have cut your hand. Let me\nsee.\"\n\n\"'Taint much, sir,\" the lad replied; \"I often cut 'em a little. You're\napt to, a-handlin' the coal that way.\" The man had the little hand in\nhis and bent to examine the wound. \"That's quite a cut,\" he said, \"as\nclean as though it had been made with a knife. Come, let's wash it off\nand fix it up a little.\"\n\nHe led the way to the corner of the room, uncovered the water-pail,\ndipped out a cup of water, and began to bathe the bleeding hand.\n\n\"That shows it's good coal, sir,\" said the boy, \"Poor coal wouldn't\nmake such a clean cut as that. The better the coal the sharper 'tis.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" said Mr. Burnham, smiling. \"Taking the circumstances into\nconsideration, I regard that as the best compliment for our coal that\nI have ever received.\"\n\nThe hand had been washed off as well as water without soap could do\nit.\n\n\"I guess that's as clean as it'll come,\" said the boy. \"It's pirty\nhard work to git 'em real clean. The dirt gits into the corners so,\nan' into the chaps an' cuts, an' you can't git it all out, not even\nfor Sunday.\"\n\nThe man was looking around for something to bind up the wound with.\n\"Have you a handkerchief?\" he asked.\n\nThe boy drew from an inner pocket what had once been a red bandanna\nhandkerchief of the old style, but alas! it was sadly soiled, it was\nworn beyond repair and crumpled beyond belief.\n\n\"'Taint very clean,\" he said, apologetically. \"You can't keep a\nhan'kerchy very clean a-workin' in the breaker, it's so dusty here.\"\n\n\"Oh! it's good enough,\" replied the man, noticing the boy's\nembarrassment, and trying to reassure him, \"it's plenty good enough,\nbut it's red you see, and red won't do. Here, I have a white one. This\nis just the thing,\" he added, tearing his own handkerchief into strips\nand binding them carefully about the wounded hand. \"There!\" giving the\nbandage a final adjustment; \"that will be better for it. Now, then,\nyou're off to the circus; good-by.\"\n\nThe lad took a step or two forward, hesitated a moment, and then\nturned back. The breaker boss and the screen-room boss were already\ngone and he was alone with Mr. Burnham.\n\n\"Would it make any dif'rence to you,\" he asked, holding up the silver\ncoin, \"if I spent this money for sumpthin' else, an' didn't go to the\ncircus with it?\"\n\n\"Why, no!\" said the man, wonderingly, \"I suppose not; but I thought\nyou boys would rather spend your money at the circus than to spend it\nin almost any other way.\"\n\n\"Oh! I'd like to go well enough. I al'ays did like a circus, an' I\nwanted to go to this one, 'cause it's a big one; but they's sumpthin'\nelse I want worse'n that, an' I'm a-tryin' to save up a little money\nfor it.\"\n\nRobert Burnham's curiosity was aroused. Here was a boy who was willing\nto forego the pleasures of the circus that he might gratify some\ngreater desire; a strong and noble one, the man felt sure, to call for\nsuch a sacrifice. Visions of a worn-out mother, an invalid sister, a\nmortgaged home, passed through his mind as he said: \"And what is it\nyou are saving your money for, my boy, if I am at liberty to ask?\"\n\n\"To'stablish my'dentity, sir.\"\n\n\"To do what?\"\n\n\"To'stablish my'dentity; that's what Uncle Billy calls it.\"\n\n\"Why, what's the matter with your identity?\"\n\n\"I ain't got any; I'm a stranger; I don't know who my 'lations are.\"\n\n\"Don't know--who--your relations are! Why, what's your name?\"\n\n\"Ralph, that's all; I ain't got any other name. They call me Ralph\nBuckley sometimes, 'cause I live with Uncle Billy; but he ain't my\nuncle, you know,--I only call him Uncle Billy 'cause I live with him,\nan'--an' he's good to me, that's all.\"\n\nAt the name \"Ralph,\" coming so suddenly from the lad's lips, the man\nhad started, turned pale, and then his face flushed deeply. He drew\nthe boy down tenderly on the bench beside him, and said:--\n\n\"Tell me about yourself, Ralph; where do you say you live?\"\n\n\"With Uncle Billy,--Bachelor Billy they call him; him that dumps at\nthe head, pushes the cars out from the carriage an' dumps 'em; don't\nyou know Billy Buckley?\"\n\nThe man nodded assent and the boy went on:--\n\n\"He's been awful good to me, Uncle Billy has; you don't know how good\nhe's been to me; but he ain't my uncle, he ain't no 'lation to me; I\nain't got no 'lations 'at I know of; I wish't I had.\"\n\nThe lad looked wistfully out through the open window to the far line\nof hills with their summits veiled in a delicate mist of blue.\n\n\"But where did Billy get you?\" asked Mr. Burnham.\n\n\"He foun' me; he foun' me on the road, an' he took me in an' took care\no' me, and he didn't know me at all; that's where he's so good. I was\nsick, an' he hired Widow Maloney to tend me while he was a-workin',\nand when I got well he got me this place a-pickin' slate in the\nbreaker.\"\n\n\"But, Ralph, where had you come from when Billy found you?\"\n\n\"Well, now, I'll tell you all I know about it. The first thing 'at I\n'member is 'at I was a-livin' with Gran'pa Simon in Philadelphy. He\nwasn't my gran'pa, though; if he had 'a' been he wouldn't 'a' 'bused\nme so. I don't know where he got me, but he treated me very bad; an'\nwhen I wouldn't do bad things for him, he whipped me, he whipped me\nawful, an' he shet me up in the dark all day an' all night, 'an didn't\ngive me nothin' to eat; an' I'm dreadful 'fraid o' the dark; an' I\nwasn't more'n jest about so high, neither. Well, you see, I couldn't\nstan' it, an' one day I run away. I wouldn't 'a' run away if I could\n'a' stood it, but I _couldn't_ stan' it no longer. Gran'pa Simon\nwasn't there when I run away. He used to go off an' leave me with Ole\nSally, an' she wasn't much better'n him, only she couldn't see very\nwell, an' she couldn't follow me. I slep' with Buck the bootblack that\nnight, an' nex' mornin', early, I started out in the country. I was\n'fraid they'd find me if I stayed aroun' the city. It was pirty near\nafternoon 'fore I got out where the fields is, an' then a woman, she\ngive me sumpthin' to eat. I wanted to git away from the city fur's I\ncould, an' day-times I walked fast, an' nights I slep' under the big\ntrees, an' folks in the houses along the road, they give me things\nto eat. An' then a circus came along, an' the man on the tiger wagon\nhe give me a ride, an' then I went everywhere with the circus, an'\nI worked for 'em, oh! for a good many days; I worked real hard too,\na-doin' everything, an' they never let me go into their show but once,\nonly jest once. Well, w'en we got here to Scranton I got sick, an'\nthey wouldn't take me no furder 'cause I wasn't any good to 'em, an'\nthey went off an' lef me, an' nex' mornin' I laid down up there along\nthe road a-cryin' an' a-feelin' awful bad, an' then Uncle Billy, he\nhappened to come that way, an' he foun' me an' took me home with him.\nHe lives in part o' Widow Maloney's house, you know, an' he ain't got\nnobody but me, an' I ain't got nobody but him, an' we live together.\nThat's why they call him Bachelor Billy, 'cause he ain't never got\nmarried. Oh! he's been awful good to me, Uncle Billy has, awful good!\"\nAnd the boy looked out again musingly into the blue distance.\n\nThe man had not once stirred during this recital. His eyes had been\nfixed on the boy's face, and he had listened with intense interest.\n\n\"Well, Ralph,\" he said, \"that is indeed a strange story. And is that\nall you know about yourself? Have you no clew to your parentage or\nbirthplace?\"\n\n\"No, sir; not any. That's what I want to find out when I git money\nenough.\"\n\n\"How much money have you now?\"\n\n\"About nine dollars, countin' what I'll save from nex' pay day.\"\n\n\"And how do you propose to proceed when you have money enough?\"\n\n\"Hire a lawyer to 'vestigate. The lawyer he keeps half the money, an'\ngives the other half of it to a 'tective, an' then the 'tective, he\nfinds out all about you. Uncle Billy says that's the way. He says if\nyou git a good smart lawyer you can find out 'most anything.\"\n\n\"And suppose you should find your parents, and they should be rich and\ngive you a great deal of money, how would you spend it?\"\n\n\"Well, I don't know; I'd give a lot of it to Uncle Billy, I guess,\nan' some to Widow Maloney, an'--an' I'd go to the circus, an'--but I\nwouldn't care so much about the money, sir, if I could have folks like\nother boys have. If I could only have a mother, that's what I want\nworst, a mother to kiss me every day, an' be good to me that way, like\nmothers are, you know; if I could only jest have that, I wouldn't want\nnothin' else, not never any more.\"\n\nThe man turned his face away.\n\n\"And wouldn't you like to have a father too?\" he asked.\n\n\"Oh, yes, I would; but I _could_ git along without a father, a real\nfather. Uncle Billy's been a kind o' father to me; but I ain't never\nhad no mother, nor no sister; an' that's what I want now, an\" I want\n'em very bad. Seems, sometimes, jes' as if I _couldn't_ wait; jes' as\nif I couldn't stan' it no longer 'thout 'em. Don't--don't you s'pose\nthe things we can't have is the things we want worst?\"\n\n\"Yes, my boy: yes. You've spoken a truth as old as the ages. That\nwhich I myself would give my fortune for I can never have. I mean my\nlittle boy who--who died. I cannot have him back. His name too was\nRalph.\"\n\nFor a few moments there was silence in the screen-room. The child was\nawed by the man's effort to suppress his deep emotion.\n\nAt last Ralph said, rising:--\n\n\"Well, I mus' go now an' tell Uncle Billy.\"\n\nMr. Burnham rose in his turn.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, \"you'll be late for the circus if you don't hurry.\nWhat! you're not going? Oh! yes, you _must_ go. Here, here's a silver\ndollar to add to your identity fund; now you can afford to spend the\nquarter. Yes,\" as the boy hesitated to accept the proffered money,\n\"yes, you _must_ take it; you can pay it back, you know, when--when\nyou come to your own. And wait! I want to help you in that matter of\nestablishing your identity. Come to my office, and we'll talk it over.\nLet me see; to-day is Tuesday. Friday we shall shut down the screens a\nhalf-day for repairs. Come on Friday afternoon.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir; yes, sir, I will.\"\n\n\"All right; good-by!\"\n\n\"Good-by, sir!\"\n\nWhen Ralph reached the circus grounds the crowds were still pushing in\nthrough the gate at the front of the big tent, and he had to take his\nplace far back in the line and move slowly along with the others.\n\nLeaning wearily against a post near the entrance, and watching the\npeople as they passed in, stood an old man. He was shabbily dressed,\nhis clothes' were very dusty, and an old felt hat was pulled low on\nhis forehead. He was pale and gaunt, and an occasional hollow cough\ngave conclusive evidence of his disease. But 'he had a pair of sharp\ngray eyes that looked out from under the brim of his hat, and gave\nclose scrutiny to every one who passed by. The breaker boys, who had\ngone into the tent in a body some minutes earlier, had attracted his\nattention and aroused his interest. By and by his eyes rested upon\nRalph, who stood back in the line, awaiting the forward movement of\nthe crowd. The old man started perceptibly at sight of the boy, and\nuttered an ejaculation of surprise, which ended in a cough. He moved\nforward as if to meet him; then, apparently on second thought, he\nretreated to his post. But he kept his eyes fixed on the lad, who was\ncoming slowly nearer, and his thin face took on an expression of the\ndeepest satisfaction. He turned partly aside, however, as the boy\napproached him, and stood with averted countenance until the lad had\npassed through the gate.\n\nRalph was just in time. He had no sooner got in and found a seat, with\nthe other breaker boys, away up under the edge of the tent, than the\ngrand procession made its entrance. There were golden chariots, there\nwere ladies in elegant riding habits and men in knightly costumes,\nthere were prancing steeds and gorgeous banners, elephants, camels,\nmonkeys, clowns, a moving mass of dazzling beauty and bright colors\nthat almost made one dizzy to look upon it; and through it all the\ngreat band across the arena poured its stirring music in a way to\nmake the pulses leap and the hands and feet keep time to its sounding\nrhythm.\n\nThen came the athletes and the jugglers, the tight-rope walkers and\nthe trapeze performers, the trained dogs and horses, the clowns and\nthe monkeys, the riding and the races; all of it too wonderful, too\nmirthful, too complete to be adequately described. At least, this was\nwhat the breaker boys thought.\n\nAfter the performance was ended, they went out to the menagerie tent,\nin a body, to look at the animals.\n\nOne of the boys became separated from the others, and stood watching\nthe antics of the monkeys, and laughing gleefully at each comical\ntrick performed by the grave-faced little creatures. Looking up, he\nsaw an old man standing by him; an old man with sharp gray eyes and\ndusty clothes, who leaned heavily upon a cane.\n\n\"Curious things, these monkeys,\" said the old man.\n\n\"Ain't they, though!\" replied the boy. \"Luk at that un, now!--don't he\nbeat all? ain't he funny?\"\n\n\"Very!\" responded the old man, gazing across the open space to where\nRalph stood chattering with his companions.\n\n\"Sonny,\" said he, \"can you tell me who that boy is, over yonder, with\nhis hand done up in a white cloth?\"\n\n\"That boy w'ats a-talkin' to Jimmy Dooley, you mean?\"\n\n\"Yes, the one there by the lion's cage.\"\n\n\"You mean that boy there with the blue patch on his pants?\"\n\n\"Yes, yes! the one with his hand bandaged; don't you see?\"\n\n\"Oh, that's Ralph.\"\n\n\"Ralph who?\"\n\n\"Ralph nobody. He ain't got no other name. He lives with Bachelor\nBilly.\"\n\n\"Is--is Bachelor Billy his father?\"\n\n\"Naw; he ain't got no father.\"\n\n\"Does he work with you in the mines?\"\n\n\"In the mines? naw; we don't work in the mines; we work in the\nscreen-room up t' the breaker, a-pickin' slate. He sets nex' to me.\"\n\n\"How long has he been working there?\"\n\n\"Oh, I donno; couple o' years, I guess. You want to see 'im? I'll go\ncall 'im.\"\n\n\"No; I don't care to see him. Don't call him; he isn't the boy I'm\nlooking for, any way.\"\n\n\"There! he's a-turnin' this way now. I'll have 'im here in a minute;\nhey, Ralph! Ralph! here he comes.\"\n\nBut the old man was gone. He had disappeared suddenly and\nmysteriously. A little later he was trudging slowly along the dusty\nroad, through the crowds of people, up toward the city. He was\nsmiling, and muttering to himself. \"Found him at last!\" he exclaimed,\nin a whisper, \"found him at last! It'll be all right now; only be\ncautious, Simon! be cautious!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nA STRANGE VISITOR.\n\n\nIt was the day after the circus. Robert Burnham sat in his office on\nLackawanna Avenue, busy with his afternoon mail. As he laid the last\nletter aside the incidents of the previous day recurred to him, and he\nsaw again, in imagination, the long line of breaker-boys, with happy,\ndusty faces, filing slowly by him, grateful for his gifts, eager for\nthe joys to come. The pleasure he had found in his generous deed\nstayed with him, as such pleasures always do, and was manifest even\nnow in the light of his kindly face.\n\nHe had pondered, too, upon the strange story of the boy Ralph. It had\nawakened his interest and aroused his sympathy. He had spoken to his\nwife about the lad when he went home at night; and he had taken his\nlittle daughter on his knee and told to her the story of the boy who\nworked all day in the breaker, who had no father and no mother, and\nwhose name was--Ralph! Both wife and daughter had listened eagerly\nto the tale, and had made him promise to look carefully to the lad\nand help him to some better occupation than the drudgery of the\nscreen-room.\n\nBut he had already resolved to do this, and more. The mystery\nsurrounding the child's life should be unravelled. Obscure and humble\nthough his origin might be, he should, at least, bear the name to\nwhich his parentage entitled him. The more he thought on this subject,\nthe wider grew his intentions concerning the child. His fatherly\nnature was aroused and eager for action.\n\nThere was something about the lad, too, that reminded him, not so much\nof what his own child had been as of what he might have been had he\nlived to this boy's age. It was not alone in the name, but something\nalso in the tone of voice, in the turn of the head, in the look of\nthe brown eyes; something which struck a chord of memory or hope, and\nbrought no unfamiliar sound.\n\nThe thought pleased him, and he dwelt upon it, and, turning away from\nhis table with its accumulation of letters and papers, he looked\nabsently out into the busy street and laid plans for the future of\nthis boy who had dropped so suddenly into the current of his life.\n\nBy and by he heard some one in the outer office inquiring for him.\nThen his door was opened, and a stranger entered, an old man in shabby\nclothes, leaning on a cane. He was breathing heavily, apparently from\nthe exertion of climbing the steps at the entrance, and he was no\nsooner in the room than he fell into a violent fit of coughing.\n\nHe seated himself carefully in a chair at the other side of the table\nfrom Mr. Burnham, placed a well worn leather satchel on the floor by\nhis side, and laid his cane across it.\n\nWhen he had recovered somewhat from his shortness of breath, he said:\n\"Excuse me. A little unusual exertion always brings on a fit of\ncoughing. This is Mr. Robert Burnham, I suppose?\"\n\n\"That is my name,\" answered Burnham, regarding his visitor with some\ncuriosity.\n\n\"Ah! just so; you don't know me, I presume?\"\n\n\"No, I don't remember to have met you before.\"\n\n\"It's not likely that you have, not at all likely. My name is Craft,\nSimon Craft. I live in Philadelphia when I'm at home.\"\n\n\"Ah! Philadelphia is a fine city. What can I do for you, Mr. Craft?\"\n\n\"That isn't the question, sir. The question is, what can _I_ do for\n_you_?\"\n\nThe old man looked carefully around the room, rose, went to the door,\nwhich had been left ajar, closed it noiselessly, and resumed his seat.\n\n\"Well,\" said Mr. Burnham, calmly, \"what can you do for me?\"\n\n\"Much,\" responded the old man, resting his elbows on the table in\nfront of him; \"very much if you will give me your time and attention\nfor a few moments.\"\n\n\"My time is at your disposal,\" replied Burnham, smiling, and leaning\nback in his chair somewhat wearily, \"and I am all attention; proceed.\"\n\nThus far the old man had succeeded in arousing in his listener only\na languid curiosity. This coal magnate was accustomed to being\ninterrupted by \"cranks\" of all kinds, as are most rich men, and\noften enjoyed short interviews with them. This one had opened the\nconversation in much the usual manner, and the probability seemed to\nbe that he would now go on to unfold the usual scheme by which his\nlistener's thousands could be converted into millions in an incredibly\nshort time, under the skilful management of the schemer. But his very\nnext words dispelled this idea and aroused Robert Burnham to serious\nattention.\n\n\"Do you remember,\" the old man asked, \"the Cherry Brook bridge\ndisaster that occurred near Philadelphia some eight years ago?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" replied Burnham, straightening up in his chair, \"I do; I have\ngood reason to remember it. Were you on that train?\"\n\n\"I was on that train. Terrible accident, wasn't it?\"\n\n\"Terrible; yes, it was terrible indeed.\"\n\n\"Wouldn't have been quite so bad if the cars hadn't taken fire and\nburned up after they went down, would it?\"\n\n\"The fire was the most distressing part of it; but why do you ask me\nthese questions?\"\n\n\"You were on board, I believe, you and your wife and your child, and\nall went down. Isn't that so?\"\n\n\"Yes, it is so. But why, I repeat, are you asking me these questions?\nIt is no pleasure to me to talk about this matter, I assure you.\"\n\nCraft gave no heed to this protest, but kept on:--\n\n\"You and your wife were rescued in an unconscious state, were you not,\njust as the fire was creeping up to you?\"\n\nThe old man seemed to take delight in torturing his hearer by\ncalling up painful memories. Receiving no answer to his question, he\ncontinued:--\n\n\"But the boy, the boy Ralph, he perished, didn't he? Was burned up in\nthe wreck, wasn't he?\"\n\n\"Stop!\" exclaimed Burnham. \"You have said enough. If you have any\nobject in repeating this harrowing story, let me know what it is at\nonce; if not, I have no time to listen to you further.\"\n\n\"I have an object,\" replied Craft, deliberately, \"a most important\nobject, which I will disclose to you if you will be good enough to\nanswer my question. Your boy Ralph was burned up in the wreck at\nCherry Bridge, wasn't he?\"\n\n\"Yes, he was. That is our firm belief; what then?\"\n\n\"Simply this, that you are mistaken.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Your boy is not dead.\"\n\nBurnham started to his feet, unable for the moment to speak. His face\ntook on a sudden pallor, then a smile of incredulity settled on his\nlips.\n\n\"You are wild,\" he said; \"the child perished; we have abundant proof\nof it.\"\n\n\"I say the child is not dead,\" persisted the old man; \"I saw\nhim--yesterday.\"\n\n\"Then, bring him to me. Bring him to me and I will believe you.\"\n\nBurnham had settled down into his chair with a look of weary\nhopelessness on his face.\n\n\"You have no faith in me,\" said Craft. \"Mere perversity might make you\nfail to recognize the child. Suppose I show you further proofs of the\ntruth of what I say.\"\n\n\"Very well; produce them.\"\n\nThe old man bent down, took his leather hand-bag from the floor, and\nplaced it on the table before him. The exertion brought on a spasm of\ncoughing. When he had recovered from this, he drew an old wallet from\nhis pocket and took from it a key, with which he unlocked the satchel.\nThen, drawing forth a package and untying and unrolling it, he shook\nit out and held it up for Robert Burnham to look at. It was a little\nflannel cloak. It had once been white, but it was sadly stained\nand soiled now. The delicate ribbons that had ornamented it were\ncompletely faded, and out of the front a great hole had been burned,\nthe edges of which were still black and crumbling.\n\n\"Do you recognize it?\" asked the old man.\n\nBurnham seized it with both hands.\n\n\"It is his!\" he exclaimed. \"It is Ralph's! He wore it that day. Where\ndid you get it? Where did you get it, I say?\"\n\nCraft did not reply. He was searching in his hand-bag for something\nelse. Finally he drew out a child's cap, a quaint little thing of\nvelvet and lace, and laid it on the table.\n\nThis, too, was grasped by Burnham with eager fingers, and looked upon\nwith loving eyes.\n\n\"Do you still think me wild?\" said the old man, \"or do you believe now\nthat I have some knowledge of what I am talking about?\"\n\nHis listener did not answer the question. His mind seemed to be far\naway. He said, finally:--\n\n\"There--there was a locket, a little gold locket. It had his father's\npicture in it. Did--did you find that?\"\n\nThe visitor smiled, opened the wallet again, and produced the locket.\nThe father took it in his trembling hands, looked on it very tenderly\nfor a moment, and then his eyes became flooded with tears.\n\n\"It was his,\" he said at last, very gently; \"they were all his; tell\nme now--where did you get them?\"\n\n\"I came by them honestly, Mr. Burnham, honestly; and I have kept them\nfaithfully. But I will tell you the whole story. I think you are ready\nnow to hear it with attention, and to consider it fairly.\"\n\nThe old man pushed his satchel aside, pulled his chair closer to the\ntable, cleared his throat, and began:--\n\n\"It was May 13, 1859. I'd been out in the country at my son's, and was\nriding into the city in the evening. I was in the smoking-car. Along\nabout nine o'clock there was a sudden jerk, then half a dozen more\njerks, and the train came to a dead stop. I got up and went out with\nthe rest, and we then saw that the bridge had broken down, and the\nthree cars behind the smoker had tumbled into the creek. I hurried\ndown the bank and did what I could to help those in the wreck, but it\nwas very dark and the cars were piled up in a heap, and it was hard to\ndo anything. Then the fire broke out and we had to stand back. But I\nheard a child crying by a broken window, just where the middle car had\nstruck across the rear one, and I climbed up there at the risk of my\nlife and looked in. The fire gave some light by this time, and I saw\na young woman lying there, caught between the timbers and perfectly\nstill. A sudden blaze showed me that she was dead. Then the child\ncried again; I saw where he was, and reached in and pulled him out\njust as the fire caught in his cloak. I jumped down into the water\nwith him, and put out the fire and saved him. He wasn't hurt much. It\nwas your boy Ralph. By this time the wreck was all ablaze and we had\nto get up on the bank.\n\n\"I took the child around among the people there, and tried to find\nout who he belonged to, but no one seemed to know anything about him.\nHe wasn't old enough to talk distinctly, so he couldn't tell me much\nabout himself; not anything, in fact, except that his name was Ralph.\nI took him home with me to my lodgings in the city that night, and\nthe next morning I went out to the scene of the accident to try to\ndiscover some clew to his identity. But I couldn't find out anything\nabout him; nothing at all. The day after that I was taken sick. The\nexertion, the exposure, and the wetting I had got in the water of the\nbrook, brought on a severe attack of pneumonia. It was several months\nbefore I got around again as usual, and I am still suffering, you see,\nfrom the results of that sickness. After that, as my time and means\nand business would permit, I went out and searched for the boy's\nfriends. It is useless for me to go into the details of that search,\nbut I will say that I made every effort and every sacrifice possible\nduring five years, without the slightest success. In the meantime the\nchild remained with me, and I clothed him and fed him and cared for\nhim the very best I could, considering the circumstances in which I\nwas placed.\n\n\"About three years ago I happened to be in Scranton on business, and,\nby the merest chance, I learned that you had been in the Cherry Brook\ndisaster, that you had lost your child there, and that the child's\nname was Ralph. Following up the clew, I became convinced that this\nboy was your son. I thought the best way to break the news to you was\nto bring you the child himself. With that end in view, I returned\nimmediately to Philadelphia, only to find Ralph--missing. He had\neither run away or been stolen, I could not tell which. I was not\nable to trace him. Three months later I heard that he had been with a\ntravelling circus company, but had left them after a few days. After\nthat I lost track of him entirely for about three years. Now, however,\nI have found him. I saw him so lately as yesterday. He is alive and\nwell.\"\n\nSeveral times during the recital of this narrative, the old man had\nbeen interrupted by spasms of coughing, and, now that he was done, he\ngave himself up to a violent and prolonged fit of it.\n\nRobert Burnham had listened intently enough, there was no doubt of\nthat; but he did not yet seem quite ready to believe that his boy was\nreally alive.\n\n\"Why did you not tell me,\" he asked, \"when the child left you, so that\nI might have assisted you in the search for him?\"\n\nCraft hesitated a moment.\n\n\"I did not dare to,\" he said. I was afraid you would blame me too\nseverely for not taking better care of him, and I was hoping every day\nto find him myself.\"\n\n\"Well, let that pass. Where is he now? Where is the boy who, you say,\nis my son?\"\n\n\"Pardon me, sir, but I cannot tell you that just yet. I know where he\nis. I can bring him to you on two days' notice. But, before I do that,\nI feel that, in justice to myself, I should receive some compensation,\nnot only for the care of the child through five years of his life, but\nalso for the time, toil, and money spent in restoring him to you.\"\n\nBurnham's brow darkened.\n\n\"Ah! I see,\" he said. \"This is to be a money transaction. Your object\nis to get gain from it. Am I right?\"\n\n\"Exactly. My motive is not wholly an unselfish one, I assure you.\"\n\n\"Still, you insist upon the absolute truth of your story?\"\n\n\"I do, certainly.\"\n\n\"Well, then, what is your proposition? name it.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. After mature consideration, I have concluded that three\nthousand dollars is not too large a sum.\"\n\n\"Well, what then?\"\n\n\"I am to receive that amount when I bring your son to you.\"\n\n\"But suppose I should not recognize nor acknowledge as my son the\nperson whom you will bring?\"\n\n\"Then you will pay me no money, and the boy will return home with me.\"\n\nBurnham wheeled suddenly in his chair and rose to his feet. \"Listen!\"\nhe exclaimed, earnestly. \"If you will bring my boy to me, alive,\nunharmed, my own boy Ralph, I will give you twice three thousand\ndollars.\"\n\n\"In cash?\"\n\n\"In cash.\"\n\n\"It's a bargain. You shall see him within two days. But--you may\nchange your mind in the meantime; will you give me a writing to secure\nme?\"\n\n\"Certainly.\"\n\nMr. Burnham resumed his seat and wrote hurriedly, the following\ncontract:--\n\n\"This agreement, made and executed this thirtieth day of June, 1867,\nbetween Simon Craft of the city of Philadelphia, party of the first\npart, and Robert Burnham of the city of Scranton, party of the second\npart, both of the state of Pennsylvania, witnesseth that the said\nCraft agrees to produce to the said Burnham, within two days from this\ndate, the son of the said Robert Burnham, named Ralph, in full life,\nand in good health of body and mind. And thereupon the said Burnham,\nprovided he recognizes as his said son Ralph the person so produced,\nagrees to pay to the said Craft, in cash, the sum of six thousand\ndollars. Witness our hands and seals the day and year aforesaid.\n\n\"ROBERT BURNHAM.\" [L.S.]\n\n\"There!\" said Burnham, handing the paper to Craft; \"that will secure\nyou in the payment of the money, provided you fulfil your agreement.\nBut let me be plain with you. If you are deceiving me or trying to\ndeceive me, or if you should practise fraud on me, or attempt to do\nso, you will surely regret it. And if that child be really in life,\nand you have been guilty of any cruelty toward him, of any kind\nwhatever, you will look upon the world through prison bars, I promise\nyou, in spite of the money you may obtain from me. Now you understand;\ngo bring the boy.\"\n\nThe old man did not answer. He was holding the paper close to his\neyes, and going over it word by word.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, finally; \"I suppose it's all right. I'm not very\nfamiliar with written contracts, but I'll venture it.\"\n\nBurnham had risen again from his chair, and was striding up and down\nthe floor.\n\n\"When will you bring him?\" he asked; \"to-morrow?\"\n\n\"My dear sir, do not be in too great haste; I am not gifted with\nmiraculous powers. I will bring the boy here or take you to him within\ntwo days, as I have agreed.\"\n\n\"Well, then, to-day is Tuesday. Will you have him here by Friday?\nFriday morning?\"\n\n\"By Friday afternoon, at any rate.\"\n\nThe old man was carefully wrapping up the articles he had exhibited,\nand putting them back into his hand-bag. Finally, Burnham's attention\nwas attracted to this proceeding.\n\n\"Why,\" he exclaimed, \"what are you doing? You have no right to those\nthings; they are mine.\"\n\n\"Oh no! they are mine. They shall be given to you some time perhaps;\nbut, for the present, they are mine.\"\n\n\"Stop! you shall not have them. Those things are very precious to me.\nPut them down, I say; put them down!\"\n\n\"Very well. You may have these or--your boy. If you force these things\nfrom me, you go without your child. Now take your choice.\"\n\nOld Simon was very calm and firm. He knew his ground, and knew that he\ncould afford to be domineering. His long experience in sharp practice\nhad not failed to teach him that the man who holds his temper, in a\ncontest like this, always has the best of it. And he was too shrewd\nnot to see that his listener was laboring under an excitement that\nwas liable at any moment to break forth in passionate speech. He was,\ntherefore, not surprised nor greatly disturbed when Burnham exclaimed,\nvehemently:--\n\n\"I'll have you arrested, sir! I'll force you to disclose your secret!\nI'll have you punished by the hand of the law!\"\n\n\"The hand of the law is not laid in punishment on people who are\nguilty of no crime,\" responded Craft, coolly; \"and there is no\ncriminal charge that you can fairly bring against me. Poverty is my\nworst crime. I have done nothing except for your benefit. Now, Mr.\nBurnham you are excited. Calm yourself and listen to reason. Don't you\nsee that if I were to give those things to you I would be putting out\nof my hands the best evidence I have of the truth of my assertions?\"\n\n\"But I have seen you produce them. I will not deny that you gave them\nto me.\"\n\n\"Ah! very good; but you may die before night! What then?\"\n\n\"Die before night! Absurd! But keep the things; keep them. I can do\nwithout them if you will restore the child himself to me. When did you\nsay you would bring him?\"\n\n\"Friday afternoon.\"\n\n\"Until Friday afternoon, then, I wait.\"\n\n\"Very well, sir; good day!\"\n\n\"Good day!\"\n\nThe old man picked up his cane, rose slowly from his chair, and, with\nhis satchel in his hand, walked softly out, closing the door carefully\nbehind him.\n\nRobert Burnham continued his walk up and down the room, his flushed\nface showing alternately the signs of the hope and the doubt that were\nstriving for the mastery within him.\n\nFor eight years he had believed his boy to be dead. The terrible\nwreck at Cherry Brook had yielded up to him from its ashes only a few\nformless trinkets of all that had once been his child's, only a few\nunrecognizable bones, to be interred, long afterward, where flowers\nmight bloom above them. The last search had been made, the last clew\nfollowed, the last resources of wealth and skill were at an end, and\nthese, these bones and trinkets were all that could be found. Still,\nthe fact of the child's death had not been established beyond all\nquestion, and among the millions of remote possibilities that this\nworld always holds in reserve lingered yet the one that he might after\nall be living.\n\nAnd now came this old man with his strange story, and the cap and the\ncloak and the locket. Did it mean simply a renewal of the old hope,\ndestined to fade away again into a hopelessness duller than the last?\n\nBut what if the man's story were true? What if the boy were really in\nlife? What if in two days' time the father should clasp his living\nchild in his arms, and bear him to his mother! Ah! his mother. She\nwould have given her life any time to have had her child restored to\nher, if only for a day. But she had been taught early to believe that\nhe was dead It was better than to torture her heart with hopes that\ncould only by the rarest possibility be fulfilled. Now, now, if he\ndared to go home to her this night, and tell her that their son was\nalive, was found, was coming back to them! Ah! if he only dared!\n\nThe sunlight, streaming through the western window, fell upon him as\nhe walked. It was that golden light that conies from a sun low in the\nwest, when the days are long, and it illumined his face with a glow\nthat revealed there the hope, the courage, the honor, the manly\nstrength that held mastery in his heart.\n\nThere was a sudden commotion in the outer office. Men were talking in\nan excited manner; some one opened the door, and said:--\n\n\"There's been an accident in the breaker mine, Mr. Burnham.\"\n\n\"What kind of an accident?\"\n\n\"Explosion of fire-damp.\"\n\n\"What about the men?\"\n\n\"It is not known yet how many are injured.\"\n\n\"Tell James to bring the horses immediately; I will go there.\"\n\n\"James is waiting at the door now with the team, sir.\"\n\nMr. Burnham put away a few papers, wrote a hurried letter to his wife,\ntook his hat and went out and down the steps.\n\n\"Send Dr. Gunther up to the breaker at once,\" he said, as he made\nready to start.\n\nThe fleet horses drew him rapidly out through the suburbs and up the\nhill, and in less than twenty minutes he had reached the breaker, and\nstopped at the mouth of the shaft.\n\nMany people had already assembled, and others were coming from all\ndirections. Women whose husbands and sons worked in the mine were\nthere, with pale faces and beseeching words. There was much confusion.\nIt was difficult to keep the crowd from pressing in against the mouth\nof the shaft. Men were busy clearing a space about the opening when\nRobert Burnham arrived.\n\n\"How did it happen?\" he said to the mine boss as he stepped from his\nwagon. \"Where was it?\"\n\n\"Up in the north tier, sir. We don't know how it happened. Some one\nmust 'a' gone in below, where the fire-damp was, with a naked lamp,\nan' touched it off; an' then, most like, it run along the roof to the\nchambers where the men was a-workin'. I can't account for it in no\nother way.\"\n\n\"Has any one come out from there?\"\n\n\"Yes, Billy Williams. He was a-comin' out when it went off. We found\nhim up in the headin', senseless. He ain't come to yet.\"\n\n\"And the others?\"\n\n\"We've tried to git to 'em, sir, but the after-damp is awful, an' we\ncouldn't stan' it; we had to come out.\"\n\n\"How many men are up there?\"\n\n\"Five, as we count 'em; the rest are all out.\"\n\nThe carriage came up the shaft, and a half-dozen miners, with dull\neyes and drawn faces, staggered from it, out into the sunlight. It\nwas a rescuing party, just come from a vain attempt to save their\nunfortunate comrades. They were almost choked to death themselves,\nwith the foul air of the mine. One of them recovered sufficiently to\nspeak.\n\n\"We got a'most there,\" he gasped; \"we could hear 'em a-groanin'; but\nthe after-damp got--so bad--we--\" He reeled and fell, speechless and\nexhausted.\n\nThe crowd had surged up, trying to hear what the man was saying.\nPeople were getting dangerously near to the mouth of the shaft. Women\nwhose husbands were below were wringing their hands and crying out\ndesperately that some one should go down to the rescue.\n\n\"Stand back, my friends,\" said Burnham, facing the people, \"stand back\nand give these men air, and leave us room to work. We shall do all in\nour power to help those who are below. If they can be saved, we shall\nsave them. Trust us and give us opportunity to do it. Now, men, who\nwill go down? I feel that we shall get to them this time and bring\nthem out. Who volunteers?\"\n\nA dozen miners stepped forward from the crowd; sturdy, strong-limbed\nmen, with courage stamped on their dust-soiled faces, and heroic\nresolution gleaming from their eyes.\n\n\"Good! we want but eight. Take the aprons of the women; give us the\nsafety-lamps, the oil, the brandy; there, ready; slack off!\"\n\nBurnham had stepped on to the carriage with the men who were going\ndown. One of them cried out to him:--\n\n\"Don't ye go, sir! don't ye go! it'll be worth the life o' ye!\"\n\n\"I'll not ask men to go where I dare not go myself,\" he said; \"slack\noff!\"\n\nFor an instant the carriage trembled in the slight rise that preceded\nits descent, and in that instant a boy, a young slender boy, pushed\nhis way through the encircling crowd, leaped in among the men of the\nrescuing party, and with them went speeding down into the blackness.\n\nIt was Ralph. After the first moment of surprise his employer\nrecognized him.\n\n\"Ralph!\" he exclaimed, \"Ralph, why have you done this?\"\n\n\"I couldn't help it, sir,\" replied the boy; \"I had to come. Please\ndon't send me back.\"\n\n\"But it's a desperate trip. These men are taking their lives in their\nhands.\"\n\n\"I know it, sir; but they ain't one o' them whose life is worth so\nlittle as mine. They've all got folks to live an' work for, an' I\nain't. I'll go where they don't dare. Please let me help!\"\n\nThe men who were clustered on the carriage looked down on the boy in\nmute astonishment. His slight figure was drawn up to its full height;\nhis little hands were tightly clenched; out from his brown eyes\nshone the fire of resolution. Some latent spirit of true knighthood\nhad risen in his breast, had quenched all the coward in his nature,\nand impelled him, in that one moment that called for sacrifice and\ncourage, to a deed as daring and heroic as any that the knights of old\nwere ever prompted to perform. To those who looked upon him thus, the\ndust and rags that covered him were blotted out, the marks of pain and\npoverty and all his childish weaknesses had disappeared, and it seemed\nto them almost as though a messenger from God were standing in their\nmidst.\n\nBut Robert Burnham saw something besides this in the child's face; he\nsaw a likeness to himself that startled him. Men see things in moments\nof sublimity to which at all other times their eyes are blinded. He\nthought of Craft's story; he thought of the boy's story; he compared\nthem; a sudden hope seized him, a conviction broke upon his mind like\na flash of light.\n\nThis boy was his son. For the moment, all other thoughts, motives,\ndesires were blotted from his mind. His desperate errand was lost to\nsight. The imperilled miners were forgotten.\n\n\"Ralph!\" he cried, seizing the boy's hand in both of his; \"Ralph, I\nhave found you!\"\n\nBut the child looked up in wonder, and the men who stood by did not\nknow what it meant.\n\nThe carriage struck the floor of the mine and they all stepped off.\nThe shock at stopping brought Burnham to himself. This was no time,\nno place to recognize the lad and take him to his heart. He would do\nthat--afterward. Duty, with a stern voice, was calling to him now.\n\n\"Men,\" he said, \"are you ready? Here, soak the aprons; Ralph, take\nthis; now then, come on!\"\n\nUp the heading, in single file, they walked swiftly, swinging their\nsafety-lamps in their hands, or holding them against their breasts.\nThey knew that up in the chambers their comrades were lying prostrate\nand in pain. They knew that the spaces through which they must pass to\nreach them were filled with poisonous gases, and that in those regions\ndeath lurked in every \"entrance\" and behind every \"pillar.\" But they\nhurried on, saying little, fearing little, hoping much, as they\nplunged ahead into the blackness, on their humane but desperate\nerrand.\n\nA half-hour later the bell in the engine-room tinkled softly once, and\nthen rang savagely again and again to \"hoist away.\" The great wheel\nturned fast and faster; the piston-rods flew in and out; the iron\nropes hummed as they cut the air; and the people at the shaft's mouth\nwaited, breathless with suspense, to see what the blackness would\nyield up to them. The carriage rose swiftly to the surface. On it four\nmen, tottering and exhausted, were supporting an insensible body in\ntheir midst. The body was taken into strong arms, and borne hurriedly\nto the office of the breaker, a little distance away. Then a boy\nstaggered off the carriage and fell fainting into the outstretched\narms of Bachelor Billy.\n\n\"Ralph!\" cried the man, \"Ralph, lad! here! brandy for the child!\nbrandy, quick!\"\n\nAfter a little the boy opened his eyes, and gazed wonderingly at the\npeople who were looking down on him. Then he remembered what had\nhappened.\n\n\"Mr. Burnham,\" he whispered, \"is--is he alive?\"\n\n\"Yes, lad; they've took 'im to the office; the doctor's in wi' 'im.\nDid ye fin' the air bad?\"\n\nThe child lay back with a sigh of relief.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, \"very bad. We got to 'em though; we found 'em an'\nbrought 'em out. I carried the things; they couldn't 'a' got along\n'ithout me.\"\n\nThe carriage had gone down again and brought up a load of those who\nhad suffered from the fire. They were blackened, burned, disfigured,\nbut living. One of them, in the midst of his agony, cried out:--\n\n\"Whaur is he? whaur's Robert Burnham? I'll gi' ma life for his,\nan' ye'll save his to 'im. Ye mus' na let 'im dee. Mon! he done\nthe brawest thing ye ever kenned. He plungit through the belt o'\nafter-damp ahead o' all o' them, an' draggit us back across it, mon by\nmon, an' did na fa' till he pullit the last one ayont it. Did ye ever\nhear the like? He's worth a thousan' o' us. I say ye mus' na let 'im\ndee!\"\n\nOver at the breaker office there was silence. The doctor and his\nhelpers were there with Robert Burnham, and the door was closed. Every\none knew that, inside, a desperate struggle was going on between life\nand death. The story of Burnham's bravery had gone out through the\nassembled crowds, and, with one instinct and one hope, all eyes were\nturned toward the little room wherein he lay. Men spoke in whispers;\nwomen were weeping softly; every face was set in pale expectancy.\nThere were hundreds there who would have given all they had on earth\nto prolong this noble life for just one day. Still, there was silence\nat the office. It grew ominous. A great hush had fallen on the\nmultitude. The sun dropped down behind the hills, obscured in mist,\nand the pallor that precedes the twilight overspread the earth.\n\nThen the office door was opened, and the white-haired doctor came\noutside and stood upon the steps. His head was bared and his eyes\nwere filled with tears. He turned to those who stood near by, and\nwhispered, sadly:--\n\n\"He is dead.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nA BRILLIANT SCHEME.\n\n\nLackawanna Avenue is the principal thoroughfare in the city of\nScranton. Anthracite Avenue leads from it eastwardly at right angles.\n\nMidway in the second block, on the right side of this last named\nstreet, there stood, twenty years ago, a small wooden building, but\none story in height. It was set well back from the street, and a stone\nwalk led up to the front door. On the door-post, at the left, was a\nsign, in rusty gilt letters, reading:--\n\n  JOHN R. SHARPMAN,\n  ATTORNEY AT LAW.\n\nOn the morning following his interview with Robert Burnham, Simon\nCraft turned in from Anthracite Avenue, shuffled along the walk to the\noffice door, and stood for a minute examining the sign, and comparing\nthe name on it with the name on a bit of paper that he held in his\nhand.\n\n\"That's the man,\" he muttered; \"he's the one;\" and he entered at the\nhalf-opened door.\n\nInside, a clerk sat, busily writing.\n\n\"Mr. Sharpman has not come down yet,\" he said, in answer to Craft's\nquestion. \"Take a chair; he'll be here in twenty minutes.\"\n\nThe old man seated himself, and the clerk resumed his writing.\n\nIn less than half an hour Sharpman came in. He was a tall, well-built\nman, forty years of age, smooth-faced, with a clerical cast of\ncountenance, easy and graceful in manner, and of pleasant address.\n\nAfter a few words relating to a certain matter of business, the clerk\nsaid to his employer,--\n\n\"This man has been waiting some time to see you, Mr. Sharpman.\"\n\nThe lawyer advanced to Craft, and shook hands with him in a very\nfriendly way. \"Good-morning, sir,\" he said. \"Will you step into my\noffice, sir?\"\n\nHe ushered the old man into an inner room, and gave him an easy,\ncushioned chair to sit in. Sharpman was nothing, if not gracious. Rich\nand poor, alike, were met by him with the utmost cordiality. He had\na pleasant word for every one. His success at the bar was due, in no\nsmall degree, to his apparent frankness and friendliness toward all\nmen. The fact that these qualities were indeed apparent rather than\nreal, did not seem to matter; the general effect was the same. His\npersonal character, so far as any one knew, was beyond reproach. But\nhis reputation for shrewdness, for sharp practice, for concocting\nbrilliant financial schemes, was general. It was this latter\nreputation that had brought Simon Graft to him.\n\nThis morning Sharpman was especially courteous. He regretted that his\nvisitor had been obliged to wait so long. He spoke of the beautiful\nweather. He noticed that the old man was in ill health, and expressed\nmuch sorrow thereat. Finally he said: \"Well, my friend, I am at your\nservice for any favor I can do you.\"\n\nCraft was not displeased with the lawyer's manner. On the contrary,\nhe rather liked it. But he was too shrewd and far-sighted to allow\nhimself to be carried away by it. He proceeded at once to business. He\ntook from an inner pocket of his coat the paper that Robert Burnham\nhad given to him the day before, unfolded it slowly, and handed it to\nSharpman.\n\n\"I want your opinion of this paper,\" he said. \"Is it drawn up in legal\nshape? Is it binding on the man that signed it?\"\n\nSharpman took the paper, and read it carefully through; then he looked\nup at Craft in unfeigned surprise.\n\n\"My dear sir!\" he said, \"did you know that Robert Burnham died last\nnight?\"\n\nThe old man started from his chair in sudden amazement.\n\n\"Died!\" he exclaimed. \"Robert Burnham--died!\"\n\n\"Yes; suffocated by foul air in his own mine. It was a dreadful\nthing.\"\n\nCraft dropped into his chair again, his pale face growing each moment\nmore pale and gaunt, and stared at the lawyer in silence. Finally he\nsaid: \"There must be some mistake. I saw him only yesterday. He signed\nthat paper in my presence as late as four o'clock.\"\n\n\"Very likely,\" responded Sharpman: \"he did not die until after six.\nOh, no! there is no mistake. It was this Robert Burnham. I know his\nsignature.\"\n\nThe old man sat for another minute in silence, keen disappointment\nwritten plainly on his face. Then a thought came to him.\n\n\"Don't that agreement bind his heirs?\" he gasped, \"or his estate?\nDon't somebody have to pay me that money, when I bring the boy?\"\n\nThe lawyer took the paper up, and re-read it. \"No;\" he said. \"The\nagreement was binding only on Burnham himself. It calls for the\nproduction of the boy to him personally; you can't produce anything to\na dead man.\"\n\nOld Simon settled back in his chair, a perfect picture of gaunt\ndespair.\n\nSharpman continued: \"This is a strange case, though. I thought that\nchild of Burnham's was dead. Do you mean to say that the boy is still\nliving?\"\n\n\"Yes; that's it. He wasn't even hurt. Of course he's alive. I know\nit.\"\n\n\"Can you prove it?\"\n\n\"Certainly!\"\n\nThe lawyer gazed at his visitor, apparently in doubt as to the man's\nveracity or sanity, and again there was silence.\n\nFinally Craft spoke. Another thought had come to him.\n\n\"The boy's mother; she's living, ain't she?\"\n\n\"Burnham's widow? Yes; she's living.\"\n\n\"Then I'll go to her! I'll make a new contract with her. The money'll\nbe hers, now. I'll raise on my price! She'll pay it. I'll warrant\nshe'll pay it! May be it's lucky for me, after all, that I've got her\nto deal with instead of her husband!\"\n\nEven Sharpman was amazed and disgusted at this exhibition of cruel\ngreed in the face of death.\n\n\"That's it!\" continued the old man in an exulting tone; \"that's the\nplan. I'll go to her. I'll get my money--I'll get it in spite of\ndeath!\"\n\nHe rose from his chair, and grasped his cane to go, but the excitement\nhad brought on a severe fit of coughing, and he was obliged to resume\nhis seat until it was over.\n\nThis delay gave Sharpman time to think.\n\n\"Wait!\" he said, when the old man had finally recovered; \"wait a\nlittle. I think I have a plan in mind that is better than yours--one\nthat will bring you in more cash.\"\n\n\"More cash?\" Craft was quiet and attentive in a moment. The word\n\"cash\" had a magical influence over him.\n\nSharpman arose, closed the door between the two rooms tightly, and\nlocked it. \"Some one might chance to intrude,\" he explained.\n\nThen he came back, sat down in front of his visitor, and assumed an\nattitude of confidence.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, \"more cash; ten times as much.\"\n\n\"Well, what's your plan?\" asked the old man, somewhat incredulously.\n\n\"Let me tell you first what I know,\" replied the lawyer. \"I know that\nMrs. Burnham believes this boy to be dead; believes it with her whole\nmind and heart. You would find it exceedingly difficult to convince\nher to the contrary. She would explain away your proofs: she would\nfail to recognize the child himself. Such an errand as you propose\nwould be little better than useless.\"\n\nSharpman paused.\n\n\"Well, what's your plan?\" repeated Craft, impatiently.\n\nThe lawyer assumed a still more confidential attitude.\n\n\"Listen! Burnham died rich. His wealth will mount well up into the\nhundreds of thousands. He leaves a widow and one daughter, a little\ngirl. This boy, if he is really Burnham's son, is entitled to one\nthird of the personal property absolutely, to one third of the real\nestate at once, and to one fourth of the remainder at his mother's\ndeath. Do you understand?\" Old Simon nodded. This was worth listening\nto. He began to think that this shrewd lawyer was going to put him\nin the way of making a fortune after all. Sharpman continued: \"Now,\nthe boy is a minor. He must have a guardian. The mother would be the\nguardian preferred by law; but if, for any reason, she should fail\nto recognize the boy as her son, some one else must be appointed. It\nwill be the duty of the guardian to establish his ward's identity in\ncase it should be disputed, to sue for his portion of the estate, if\nnecessary, and to receive and care for it till the boy reaches his\nmajority. The usual guardian's commission is five per cent, retainable\nout of the funds of the estate. Do you see how the management of such\nan estate would be a fortune to a guardian, acting within the strict\nletter of the law?\"\n\nCraft nodded again, but this time with eagerness and excitement. He\nsaw that a scheme was being opened up to him that outrivalled in\nsplendid opportunities any he had ever thought of.\n\nAfter a pause Sharpman asked, glancing furtively at his client:--\n\n\"Do you think, Mr. Craft, that you could take upon your shoulders the\nduties and responsibilities attendant upon such a trust? In short,\ncould you act as this boy's guardian?\"\n\n\"Yes, no doubt of it\"; responded the old man, eagerly. \"Why, I would\nbe the very person. I am his nearest friend.\"\n\n\"Very well; that's my opinion, too. Now, then, as to the boy's\nidentity. There must be no mistake in proving that. What proof have\nyou? Tell me what you know about it.\"\n\nThus requested, Craft gave to the lawyer a detailed account of the\ndisaster at the bridge, of the finding and keeping of Ralph, of his\nmysterious disappearance, and of the prolonged search for him.\n\n\"Day before yesterday,\" continued the old man, \"I was watching the\ncrowds at the circus,--I knew the boy was fond of circuses,--an who\nshould go by me into the tent but this same Ralph. I made sure he was\nthe identical person, and yesterday I went to Robert Burnham, and got\nthat paper.\"\n\n\"Indeed! Where does the boy live? what does he do?\"\n\n\"Why, it seems that he works at picking slate, in Burnham's own\nbreaker, and lives with one Bachelor Billy, a simple-minded old\nfellow, without a family, who took the boy in when he was abandoned by\nthe circus.\"\n\n\"Good!\" exclaimed the lawyer; \"good! we shall have a capital case. But\nwait; does Mrs. Burnham know of your interview with her husband, or\nabout this paper?\"\n\n\"I don't know. I left the man at his office, alone.\"\n\n\"At what hour?\"\n\n\"Well, about half-past four, as nearly as I can judge.\"\n\n\"Then it's not at all probable that she knows. He went from his office\ndirectly to the breaker, and died before she could see him.\"\n\n\"Well, how shall we begin?\" said Craft, impatiently. \"What's the first\nthing to be done?\" Visions of golden thousands were already floating\nbefore his greedy eyes.\n\n\"We shall not begin at all, just yet,\" said Sharpman. \"We'll wait till\nthe horror and excitement, consequent upon this disaster, have passed\naway. It wouldn't do to proceed now; besides, all action should be\npostponed, at any rate, until an inventory of the estate shall have\nbeen filed.\"\n\nA look of disappointment came into old Simon's face. The lawyer\nnoticed it. \"You mustn't be in too much of a hurry,\" he said. \"All\ngood things come slowly. Now, I'll tell you what I propose to do.\nAfter this excitement has passed over, and the lady's mind has become\nsomewhat settled, I will go to her myself, and say to her frankly that\nyou believe her son to be still alive. Of course, she'll not believe\nme. Indeed, I shall be very careful to put the matter in such a shape\nthat she will not believe me. I will say to her, however, that you\nhave employed me to prosecute your claim for services to the child,\nand that it will be necessary to have a guardian appointed against\nwhom such action may be taken. I will suggest to her that if she will\nacknowledge the boy to be her son, she will be the proper person to\nact as his guardian. Of course, she will refuse to do either. The rest\nis easy. We will go into court with a petition setting forth the facts\nin the case, stating that the boy's mother has refused to act as his\nguardian, and asking for your appointment as such. Do you see?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes! that's good; that's very good, indeed.\"\n\n\"But, let me see, though; you'll have to give bonds. There's the\ntrouble. Got any money, or any rich friends?\"\n\n\"Neither; I'm very poor, very poor indeed, Mr. Sharpman.\"\n\n\"Ah! that's awkward. We can do nothing without bondsmen. The court\nwouldn't let us touch a penny of that fund without first giving good\nbonds.\".\n\nThe look of disappointment and trouble had returned into the old man's\nface. \"Ain't there some way you could get bonds for me?\" he asked,\nappealingly.\n\n\"Well, yes, I suppose I might procure bondsmen for you; I suppose I\nmight go on your bond myself. But you see no one cares to risk his\nfortune in the hands of a total stranger that way. We don't know you;\nwe don't know what you might do.\"\n\n\"Oh! I should be honest, Mr. Sharpman, perfectly honest and discreet;\nand you should not suffer to the value of a cent, not a single cent.\"\n\n\"No doubt your intentions are good enough, my dear sir, but it\nrequires great skill to handle so large an estate properly, and a\nsingle error in judgment on your part might cost thousands of dollars.\nGood intentions and promises are well enough in their way, but they\nare no security against misfortune, you see. I guess we'll have to\ndrop the scheme, after all.\"\n\nSharpman arose and walked the floor in apparent perplexity, while\nCraft, resting his hands on his cane, and staring silently at the\nlawyer, tried to conceive some plan to prevent this golden opportunity\nfrom eluding his grasp. Finally Sharpman stopped.\n\n\"Craft,\" he said, \"I'll tell you what I'll do. If you will give me a\npower of attorney to hold and manage all the funds of the trust until\nthe boy shall have attained his majority, I'll get the necessary bonds\nfor you.\"\n\nCraft thought a moment. The proposition did not strike him favorably.\n\"That would be putting the whole thing out of my hands into yours,\" he\nsaid.\n\n\"Ah! but you would still be the boy's guardian, with right to use all\nthe money that in your judgment should be necessary, to maintain and\neducate him according to his proper station in life. For this purpose\nI would agree to pay you three thousand dollars on receipt of the\nfunds, and three thousand dollars each year thereafter, besides your\nguardian's commission, which would amount to eight or ten thousand\ndollars at least. I would also agree to pay you a liberal sum for\npast services, say two or three thousand dollars. You would have no\nresponsibility whatever in the matter. I would be liable for any\nmistakes you might make. You could use the money as you saw fit. What\ndo you say?\"\n\nThe scheme appeared to Simon Craft to be a very brilliant one. He saw\na great fortune in it for himself, if he could only depend on the\nlawyer's promises.\n\n\"Will you give me a writing to this effect?\" he asked.\n\n\"Certainly; we shall have a mutual agreement.\"\n\n\"Then I'll do it. You'll get the lion's share I can see that easy\nenough; but if you'll do what you say you will, I shan't complain.\nThen will I have a right to take the boy again?\"\n\n\"Yes, after your appointment; but I don't think I would, if I were\nyou. If he is contented and well off, you had better let him stay\nwhere he is. He might give you the slip again. How old is he now?\"\n\n\"I don't know exactly; somewhere between ten and twelve, I think.\"\n\n\"Well, his consent to the choice of a guardian is not necessary; but I\nthink it would be better, under the circumstances, if he would go into\ncourt with us, and agree to your appointment. Do you think he will?\"\n\nOld Simon frowned savagely.\n\n\"Yes, he will,\" he exclaimed. \"I'll make him do it. I've made him do\nharder things than that; it's a pity if I can't make him do what's for\nhis own benefit now!\" He struck the floor viciously with his cane.\n\n\"Easy,\" said the lawyer, soothingly, \"easy; I fear the boy has been\nhis own master too long to be bullied. We shall have to work him in a\ndifferent way now. I think I can manage it, though. I'll have him come\ndown here some day, after we get Mrs. Burnham's refusal to acknowledge\nhim, and I'll explain matters to him, and show him why it's necessary\nthat you should take hold of the case. I'll use logic with him, and\nI'll wager that he'll come around all right. You must treat boys as\nthough they were men, Craft. They will listen to reason, and yield to\npersuasion, but they won't be bullied, not even into a fortune. By the\nway, I don't quite understand how it was, if Burnham was searching\nenergetically for the boy, and you were searching with as much energy\nfor the boy's father all those years, that you didn't meet each other\nsooner.\"\n\nCraft looked up slyly from under his shaggy eyebrows.\n\n\"May I speak confidentially?\" he asked.\n\n\"Certainly.\"\n\n\"Well, then, I didn't wear myself out hunting for the boy's friends,\nfor the first year or two. Time increases the value of some things,\nyou know--lost children, particularly. I knew there was money back\nof the boy by the looks of his clothes. I kept matters pretty well\ncovered up for a while; allowed that he was my grandson; made him\ncall me 'Grandpa'; carried the scheme a little too far, and came near\nlosing everything. Now, do you see?\"\n\nSharpman nodded, and smiled knowingly. \"You're a shrewd man, Craft,\"\nhe said.\n\nBut the old man's thought had returned to the wealth he believed to\nbe in store for him. \"What's to be done now?\" he asked. \"Ain't there\nsomething we can start on?\"\n\n\"No; we can do nothing until after I have seen the widow, and that\nwill be a couple of months yet at least. In the meantime, you must not\nsay a word to any one about this matter. The boy, especially, must not\nknow that you have been here. Come again about the first of September.\nIn the meantime, get together the evidence necessary to establish the\nboy's identity. We mustn't fail in that when it comes to an issue.\"\n\n\"I'll have proof enough, no fear of that. The only thing I don't like\nabout the business is this waiting. I'm pretty bad here,\" placing his\nbony hand on his chest; \"no knowing how long I'll last.\"\n\n\"Oh! you're good for twenty years yet,\" said Sharpman, heartily,\ntaking him by the hand, and walking with him to the door. \"A--are you\npretty well off for money? Would trifling loan be of any benefit to\nyou?\"\n\n\"Why, if you can spare it,\" said the old man, trying to suppress his\nevident pleasure at the offer; \"if you can spare it, it would come in\nvery handy indeed.\"\n\nSharpman drew a well-filled wallet from his pocket, took two bills\nfrom it, folded them together, and placed them into Craft's trembling\nfingers. \"There,\" he said, \"that's all right; we won't say anything\nabout that till we come into our fortune.\"\n\nOld Simon pocketed the money, mumbling his thanks as he did so. The\ntwo men shook hands again at the outer door, and Craft trudged down\nthe avenue, toward the railroad station, his mind filled with visions\nof enormous wealth, but his patience sorely tried by the long delay\nthat he must suffer before his fingers should close upon the promised\nmoney.\n\nSharpman returned to his office to congratulate himself upon the happy\nchance that had placed so rich an opportunity within his grasp. If the\nold man's story were true--he proposed to take steps immediately to\nsatisfy himself upon that point--then he saw no reason why he should\nnot have the management of a large estate. Of course there would be\nopposition, but if he could succeed so far as to get the funds and the\nproperty into his hands, he felt sure that, in one way or another, he\ncould make a fortune out of the estate before he should be compelled\nto relinquish his hold. As for Simon Craft, he should use him so\nfar as such use was necessary for the accomplishment of his object.\nAfter that he would or would not keep faith with him, as he chose.\nAnd as for Ralph, if he were really Robert Burnham's son, he would\nbe rich enough at any rate, and if he were not that son he would\nnot be entitled to wealth. There was no use, therefore, in being\nover-conscientious on his account.\n\nIt was a brilliant scheme, worth risking a great deal on, both of\nmoney and reputation, Sharpman resolved to make the most of it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nA SET OF RESOLUTIONS.\n\n\nIt was the morning of the third day after the disaster at Burnham\nShaft. The breaker boys were to go that morning, in a body, to the\nmansion of their dead employer to look for the last time on his face.\nThey had asked that they might be permitted to do this, and the\nprivilege had been granted.\n\nGrief holds short reign in young hearts, it is true; but the sorrow\nin the hearts of these children of toil was none the less sincere.\nHad there been any tendency to forget their loss, the solemn faces\nand tearful eyes of those who were older than they would have been\na constant reminder.\n\nAs Robert Burnham had been universally beloved, so his death was\nuniversally mourned. The miners at Burnham Shaft felt that they had\nespecial cause for grief. He had a way of coming to the mines and\nlooking after them and their labor, personally, that they liked. He\nknew the names of all the men who worked there, and he had a word of\nkindly greeting for each one whom he met. When he came among them out\nof the darkness of heading or chamber, there seemed, somehow, to be\nmore light in the mines, more light and better air, and a sense of\ncheeriness and comfort. And, after he had gone, you could hear these\nmen whistling and singing at their tasks for hours; the mere fact of\nhis presence had so lightened their labors. The bosses caught this\nspirit of friendliness, and there was always harmony at Burnham\nBreaker and in the Burnham mines, among all who labored there in any\nway whatever. But the screen-room boys had, somehow, come to look upon\nthis man as their especial friend. He sympathized with them. He seemed\nto understand how hard it was for boys like they were to bend all day\nabove those moving streams of coal. He always had kind words for them,\nand devised means to lessen, at times, the rigid monotony of their\ntasks. They regarded him with something of that affection which a\nchild has for a firm, kind parent. Moreover, they looked upon him as a\ntype of that perfect manhood toward which each, to the extent of his\npoor ability, should strive to climb. Even in his death he had set for\nthem a shining mark of manly bravery. He had died to rescue others. If\nhe had been a father to them before, he was a hero to them now. But he\nwas dead. They had heard his gentle voice and seen his kindly smile\nand felt the searching tenderness of his brown eyes for the last time.\nThey would see his face once more; it would not be like him as he was,\nbut--they would see it.\n\nThey had gathered on the grass-plot, on the hill east of the breaker,\nunder the shadow of a great oak-tree. There were forty of them. They\nwere dressed in their best clothes; not very rich apparel to be sure,\npatched and worn and faded most of it was, but it was their very best.\nThere was no loud talking among them. There were no tricks being\nplayed; there was no shouting, no laughter. They were all sober-faced,\nearnest, and sorrowful.\n\nOne of the boys spoke up and said: \"Tell you what I think, fellows; I\nthink we ought to pass res'lutions like what the miners they done.\"\n\n\"Res'lutions,\" said another, \"w'at's them?\"\n\n\"W'y,\" said a third, \"it's a little piece o' black cloth, like a veil,\nw'at you wear on your arm w'en you go to a fun'al.\"\n\nThen some one proposed that the meeting should first be duly\norganized. Many of the boys had attended the miners' meetings and knew\nsomething about parliamentary organization.\n\n\"I move't Ralph Buckley, he be chairman,\" said one.\n\n\"I second the move,\" said another. The motion was put, and Ralph was\nunanimously elected as chairman.\n\n\"They ain't no time to make any speech,\" he said, backing up against\nthe tree in order to face the assemblage. \"We got jest time to 'lect a\nsec'etary and draw out some res'lutions.\"\n\n\"I move't Jimmie Donnelly be sec'etary.\"\n\n\"I second Jimmie Donnelly.\"\n\n\"All you who want Jimmie Donnelly for sec'etary, hol' up your right\nhan's an' say yi.\"\n\nThere was a chorus of yi's.\n\n\"I move't Ed. Williams be treasher.\"\n\nThen the objector rose. \"Aw!\" he said, \"we don't want no treasher.\nW'at we want a treasher for? we ain't goin' to spen' no money.\"\n\n\"You got to have a treasher,\" broke in a youthful Gushing, \"you got to\nhave one, or less your meetin' won't be legal, nor your res'lutions,\nneither!\"\n\nThe discussion was ended abruptly by some one seconding the nomination\nof Ed. Williams, and the motion was immediately put and carried.\n\n\"Now,\" said another young parliamentarian, \"I move't the chairman pint\nout a committee of three fellows to write the res'lutions.\"\n\nThis motion was also seconded, put, and carried, and Ralph designated\nthree boys in the company, one of whom, Joe Foster, had more than an\nordinary reputation for learning, as a committee on resolutions; and,\nwhile they went down to the breaker office for pen, ink, and paper,\nthe meeting took a recess.\n\nIt was, indeed, a task for those three unlearned boys to express in\nwriting, their grief consequent upon the death of their employer,\nand their sympathy for his living loved ones, but they performed it.\nThere was some discussion concerning a proper form for beginning. One\nthought they should begin by saying, \"Know all men by these presents.\"\n\n\"But we ain't got no presents to give 'em,\" said another, \"an' if we\nhad it ain't no time to give any presents.\"\n\nJoe Foster had attended the meeting at which the resolutions by the\nminers were adopted, and after recalling, as nearly as possible, the\nlanguage in which they were drawn, it was decided to begin:--\"We, the\nbreaker boys, of Burnham Breaker, in mass meeting met\"--\n\nAfter that, with the exception of an occasional dispute concerning the\nspelling of a word, they got on very well, and came, finally, to the\nend.\n\n\"You two write your names on to it,\" said Jack Murphy; \"I won't put\nmine down; two's enough.\"\n\n\"Oh! we've all got to sign it,\" said Joe Foster; \"a majoriky ain't\nenough to make a paper like this stan' law.\"\n\n\"Well, I don't b'lieve I'll sign it,\" responded Jack; \"I don't like\nthe res'lutions very well, anyway.\"\n\n\"Why not? they're jest as you wanted 'em--oh, I know! you can't write\nyour name.\n\n\"Well, I guess I could, maybe, if I wanted to, but I don't want to;\nI'm 'fraid I'd spile the looks o' the paper. You's fellows go ahead\nan' sign it.\"\n\n\"I'll tell you what to do,\" said Joe; \"I'll write your name jest as\ngood as I can, an' then you can put your solemn cross on top of it,\nan' that'll make it jest as legal as it can be got.\"\n\nSo they arranged it in that way. Joe signed Jack Murphy's name in his\nvery best style, and then Jack took the pen and under Joe's explicit\ndirections, drew one line horizontally through the name and another\nline perpendicularly between the two words of it, and Joe wrote\nabove it: \"his solem mark.\" This completed the resolutions, and\nthe committee hurried back with them to the impatient assembly.\nThe meeting was called to order again, and Joe Foster read the\nresolutions.\n\n\"That's jest the way I feel about it,\" said Ralph, \"jest the way that\npaper reads. He couldn't 'a' been no better to us, no way. Boys,\" he\ncontinued, earnestly, forgetting for the time being his position, \"do\nyou 'member 'bout his comin' into the screen-room last Tuesday an'\ngivin' us each a quarter to go t' the circus with? Well, I'd cut my\nhan' that day on a piece o' coal, an' it was a-bleedin' bad, an' he\nsee it, an' he asked me what was the matter with it, an' I told 'im,\nan' he took it an' washed it off, he did, jest as nice an' careful;\nan' then what d'ye think he done? W'y he took 'is own han'kerchy, his\nown han'kerchy, mind ye, an' tore it into strips an' wrapped it roun'\nmy han' jest as nice--jest as nice--\"\n\nAnd here the memory of this kindness became so vivid in Ralph's mind\nthat he broke down and cried outright.\n\n\"It was jes' like 'im,\" said one in the crowd; \"he was always a-doin'\nsumpthin' jes' like that. D'ye 'member that time w'en I froze my ear,\nan' he give me money to buy a new cap with ear-laps on to it?\"\n\nThe recital of this incident called from another the statement of some\ngenerous deed, and, in the fund of kindly reminiscence thus aroused,\nthe resolutions came near to being wholly forgotten. But they were\nremembered, finally, and were called up and adopted, and it was agreed\nthat the chairman should carry them and present them to whoever\nshould be found in charge at the house. Then, with Ralph and Joe\nFoster leading the procession, they started toward the city. Reaching\nLaburnum Avenue, they marched down that street in twos until they came\nto the Burnham residence. There was a short consultation there, and\nthen they all passed in through the gate to the lawn, and Ralph and\nJoe went up the broad stone steps to the door. A kind-faced woman\nmet them there, and Ralph said: \"We've come, if you please, the\nbreaker boys have come to--to--\" The woman smiled sweetly, and said:\n\"Yes, we've been expecting you; wait a moment and I will see what\narrangements have been made for you.\"\n\nJoe Foster nudged Ralph with his elbow, and whispered:--\n\n\"The res'lutions, Ralph, the res'lutions; now's the time; give 'em to\nher.\"\n\nBut Ralph did not hear him. His mind was elsewhere. As his eyes\ngrew accustomed to the dim light in the hall, and he saw the\nwinding staircase with its richly carved posts, the beauty of the\nstained-glass windows, the graceful hangings, the broad doors, the\npictures, and the flowers, there came upon him a sense of strange\nfamiliarity with the scene. It seemed to him as though sometime,\nsomewhere, he had seen it, known it all before. The feeling was so\nsudden and so strong that it made him faint and dizzy.\n\nThe kind-featured woman saw the pallor on his face and the tremor on\nhis lips, and led him to a chair. She ascribed his weakness to sorrow\nand excitement, and the dread of looking on a dead face.\n\n\"Poor boy!\" she said. \"I don't wonder at it; he was more than generous\nto us all.\"\n\nBut Joe, afraid that the resolutions he had labored on with so much\ndiligence would be forgotten, spoke of them again to Ralph.\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" said Ralph, with a wan smile, \"oh, yes! here's the\nres'lutions. That's the way the breaker boys feel--the way it says in\nthis paper; an' we want Mrs. Burnham to know.\"\n\n\"I'll take it to her,\" said the woman, receiving from Ralph's hands\nthe awkwardly folded and now sadly soiled paper. \"You will wait here a\nmoment, please.\"\n\nShe passed up the broad staircase, by the richly colored window at the\nlanding, and was lost to sight; while the two boys, sitting in the\nspacious hall, gazed, with wondering eyes, upon the beauty which\nsurrounded them.\n\nThe widow of Robert Burnham sat in the morning-room of her desolated\nhome, talking calmly with her friends.\n\nAfter the first shock incident upon her husband's death had passed\naway, she had made no outcry, she grew quiet and self-possessed, she\nwas ready for any consultation, gave all necessary orders, spoke\nof her dead husband's goodness to her with a smile on her face, and\nlooked calmly forth into the future. The shock of that terrible\nmessage from the mines, two days ago, had paralyzed her emotional\nnature, and left her white-faced and tearless.\n\nShe had a smile and a kind word for every one as before; she had eaten\nmechanically; but she had lain with wide-open eyes all night, and\nstill no one had seen a single tear upon her cheeks. This was why they\nfeared for her; they said,\n\n  \"She must weep, or she will die.\"\n\nSome one came into the room and spoke to her.\n\n\"The breaker boys, who asked to come this morning, are here.\"\n\n\"Let them come in,\" she said, \"and pass through the parlors and look\nupon him; and let them be treated with all kindness and courtesy.\"\n\n\"They have brought this paper, containing resolutions passed by them,\nwhich they would like to have you read.\"\n\nMrs. Burnham took the paper, and asked the woman to wait while she\nread it. There was something in the fact that these boys had passed\nresolutions of sympathy that touched her heart. She unfolded the\nsoiled paper and read:--\n\n    Wee, the braker Boys of burnham braker in mass meeting met Did\n    pass thease res'lutions. first the braker Boys is all vary sory\n    indede Cause mister Burnham dide.\n\n    second Wee have A grate dele of sympathy for his wife and his\n    little girl, what has got to get along now without him. third wee\n    are vary Proud of him cause he dide a trying to save John Welshes\n    life and pat Morys life and the other mens lifes. fourth he was\n    vary Good indede to us Boys, and they ain't one of us but what\n    liked him vary mutch and feel vary bad. fift Wee dont none of us\n    ixpect to have no moar sutch good Times at the braker as wee did\n    Befoar. sixt Wee aint scollers enougth to rite it down just what\n    wee feel, but wee feel a hunderd times more an what weave got rote\n    down.\n\n    JOE FOSTER, comity,\n\n    PAT DONNELLY, comity,\n\n    his solem mark\n\n    JACK + MURFY comity.\n\nThe widow laid aside the paper, put her face in her hands, and began\nto weep. There was something in the honest, unskilled way in which\nthese boys had laid their hearts open before her in this time of\ngeneral sorrow, that brought the tears into her eyes at last, and for\nmany minutes they flowed without restraint. Those who were with her\nknew that the danger that had menaced her was passed.\n\nAfter a little she lifted her head.\n\n\"I will see the boys,\" she said. \"I will thank them in person. Tell\nthem to assemble in the hall.\"\n\nThe message was given, and the boys filed into the broad hall, and\nstood waiting, hats in hand, in silence and in awe.\n\nDown the wide staircase the lady came, holding her little girl by the\nhand, and at the last step they halted. As Ralph looked up and saw her\nface, pallid but beautiful, and felt the influence of her gracious yet\ncommanding presence, there came over him again that strange sensation\nas of beholding some familiar sight. It seemed to him that sometime,\nsomewhere, he had not only seen her and known her, but that she had\nbeen very close to him. He felt an almost uncontrollable impulse to\ncry out to her for some word, some look of recognition. Then she began\nto speak. He held himself firmly by the back of a chair, and listened\nas to a voice that had been familiar to him in some state of being\nprior to his life on earth.\n\n\"Boys,\" said the lady, \"I come to thank you in person for your\nassurances of sympathy for me and for my little daughter, and for your\nveneration for the dead. I know that his feeling toward you was very\nkind, that he tried to lighten your labors as he could, that he hoped\nfor you that you would all grow into strong, good men. I do not wonder\nthat you sorrow at his loss. This honest, simple tribute to his memory\nthat you have given to me has touched me deeply.\n\n\"I cannot hope to be as close to you as he was, but from this time\nforth I shall be twice your friend. I want to take each one of you by\nthe hand as you pass by, in token of our friendship, and of my faith\nin you, and my gratitude toward you.\"\n\nSo, one by one, as they passed into the room beyond, she held each\nboy's hand for a moment and spoke to him some kind word, and every\nheart in her presence went out to her in sympathy and love.\n\nLast of all came Ralph. As leader of the party he had thought it\nproper to give precedence to the rest. The lady took his hand as he\ncame by, the same hand that had received her husband's tender care;\nbut there was something in his pallid, grief-marked face, in the brown\neyes filled with tears, in the sensitive trembling of the delicate\nlips, as she looked down on him, that brought swift tenderness for him\nto her heart. She bent over and lifted up his face to hers, and kissed\nhis lips, and then, unable longer to restrain her emotion, she turned\nand hastened up the stairway, and was lost to sight.\n\nFor many minutes Ralph stood still, in gratified amazement. It was\nthe first time in all his life, so far as memory served him, that any\none had kissed him. And that this grief-stricken lady should be the\nfirst--it was very strange, but very beautiful, indeed. He felt that\nby that kiss he had been lifted to a higher level, to a clearer, purer\natmosphere, to a station where better things than he had ever done\nbefore would be expected of him now; he felt, indeed, as though it\nwere the first long reach ahead to attain to such a manhood as was\nRobert Burnham's. The repetition of this name in his mind brought him\nto himself, and he turned into the parlor just as the last one of the\nother boys was passing out. He hurried across the room to look upon\nthe face of his friend and employer. It was not the unpleasant sight\nthat he had feared it might be. The dead man's features were relaxed\nand calm. A smile seemed to be playing about the lips. The face had\nall its wonted color and fulness, and one might well have thought,\nlooking on the closed eye-lids, that he lay asleep.\n\nStanding thus in the presence of death, the boy had no fear. His only\nfeeling was one of tenderness and of deep sorrow. The man had been so\nkind to him in life, so very kind. It seemed almost as though the lips\nmight part and speak to him. But he was dead; this was his face, this\nhis body; but he, himself, was not here. Dead! The word struck harshly\non his mind and roused him from his reverie. He looked up; the boys\nhad all gone, only the kind-faced woman stood there with a puzzled\nexpression in her eyes. She had chanced to mark the strong resemblance\nbetween the face of the dead man and that of the boy who looked upon\nit; a resemblance so striking that it startled her. In the countenance\nof Robert Burnham as he had looked in life, one might not have noticed\nit, but--\n\n  \"Sometimes, in a dead man's face,\n    To those that watch it more and more,\n    A likeness, hardly seen before,\n  Comes out, to some one of his race.\"\n\nIt was so here. The faces of the dead man and of the living boy were\nthe faces of father and son.\n\nRalph turned away, at last, from the lifeless presence before him,\nfrom the searching eyes of the woman, from the hall with its dim\nsuggestions of something in the long ago, and went out into the\nstreet, into the sunlight, into the busy world around him; but from\nthat time forth a shadow rested on his young life that had never\ndarkened it before,--a shadow whose cause he could not fathom and\nwhose gloom he could not dispel.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nIN SEARCH OF A MOTHER.\n\n\nThree months had gone by since the accident at Burnham Shaft. They\nwere summer months, full of sunshine and green landscapes and singing\nbirds and blossoming flowers and all things beautiful. But in the\nhouse from which the body of Robert Burnham had been carried to the\ngrave there were still tears and desolation. Not, indeed, as an\noutward show; Margaret Burnham was very brave, and hid her grief\nunder a calm exterior, but there were times, in the quiet of her own\nchamber, when loneliness and sorrow came down upon her as a burden\ntoo great for her woman's heart to bear. Still, she had her daughter\nMildred, and the child's sweet ways and ceaseless chatter and fond\ndevotion charmed her, now and then, into something almost like\nforgetfulness. She often sighed, and said: \"If only Ralph had lived,\nthat I might have both my children with me now!\"\n\nOne morning, toward the middle of September, Lawyer John H. Sharpman\nrang the bell at the door of the Burnham mansion, sent his card up to\nMrs. Burnham, and seated himself gracefully in an easy-chair by the\nparlor window to wait for her appearance.\n\nShe came soon and greeted him with gracious dignity. He was very\ncourteous to her; he apologized for coming, in this way, without\nprevious announcement, but said that the nature of his errand seemed\nto render it necessary.\n\n\"I am sure no apology is required,\" she replied; \"I shall be pleased\nto listen to you.\"\n\n\"Then I will proceed directly to the matter in hand. You remember, of\ncourse, the Cherry Brook disaster and what occurred there?\"\n\n\"I shall never forget it,\" she said.\n\n\"I have a strange thing to tell you about that, an almost incredible\nthing. An old man has visited me at my office, within the last few\ndays, who claims to have saved your child from that wreck, to have\ntaken him to his own home and cared for him, and to know that he is\nliving to-day.\"\n\nThe woman rose from her chair, with a sudden pallor on her face, too\ngreatly startled, for the moment, to reply.\n\n\"I beg you to be calm, madam,\" the lawyer said; \"I will try to speak\nof the matter as gently as possible.\"\n\n\"Ralph!\" she exclaimed, \"my Ralph! did you say that he is living?\"\n\n\"So this old man says. I am simply telling you his story. He seems to\nbe very much in earnest, though I am bound to say that his appearance\nis somewhat against him.\"\n\n\"Who is he? Bring him here! I will question him myself. Bring the\nchild to me also; why did you not bring the child?\"\n\n\"My dear lady, I beg that you will be calm; if you will allow me I\nwill explain it all, so far as lies in my power.\"\n\n\"But if my boy is living I must see him; I cannot wait! It is cruel to\nkeep him from me!\"\n\nSharpman began to fear that he had injured his cause by presenting the\ncase too strongly. At this rate the lady would soon believe, fully,\nthat her son had been saved and could be restored to her. With such a\nbelief in her mind the success of his scheme would be impossible. It\nwould never do to let her go on in this way; he began to remonstrate.\n\n\"But, madam, I am telling to you only what this man has told to me. I\nhave no means of proving his veracity, and his appearance, as I have\nsaid, is against him. I have agreed to assist him only in case he is\nable to establish, beyond question, the boy's identity. Thus far his\nstatements have not been wholly satisfactory.\"\n\nMrs. Burnham had grown more calm. The startling suddenness of\nthe proposition that Ralph was living had, for the time being,\novermastered her. Now she sank back into her chair, with pale face,\ncontrolling her emotion with an effort, trying to give way to reason.\n\n\"What does he say?\" she asked. \"What is this old man's story?\"\n\nSharpman repeated, in substance, old Simon's account of the rescue,\ngiving to it, however, an air of lightness and improbability that it\nhad not had before.\n\n\"It is possible,\" he added, \"that the evidence you have of the child's\ndeath is sufficient to refute this man's story completely. On what\nfacts do you rest your belief, if I am at liberty to ask?\"\n\n\"The proofs,\" she replied, \"have seemed to us to be abundant.\nNeither Mr. Burnham nor myself were in a condition to make personal\ninvestigation until some days had elapsed from the time of the\naccident, and then the wreck had been cleared away. But we learned\nbeyond doubt that there was but one other child in the car, a bright,\npretty boy of Ralph's age, travelling with his grandfather, and that\nthis child was saved. No one had seen Ralph after the crash; no\narticle of clothing that he wore has ever been found; there were only\na few trinkets, fireproof, that he carried in the pocket of his skirt,\ndiscovered in the ashes of the wreck.\"\n\nThe lady put her hands to her eyes as if to shut out the memory of\nsome dread sight.\n\n\"And I presume you made diligent inquiry afterward?\" questioned the\nlawyer.\n\n\"Oh, yes! of the most searching nature, but no trace could be found\nof our child's existence. We came to the firm belief, long ago, that\nhe died that night. The most that we have dared to hope is that his\nsufferings were not great nor prolonged.\"\n\n\"It seems incredible,\" said Sharpman, \"that the child could have been\nsaved and cared for, without your knowledge, through so long a period.\nBut the man appears to be in earnest, his story is a straightforward\none, and I feel it to be my duty to examine into it. Of course, his\nobject is to get gain. He wants compensation for his services in the\nmatter of rescuing and caring for the child. He seems also to be very\ndesirous that the boy's rights should be established and maintained,\nand has asked me to take the matter in hand in that respect as well.\nAre you prepared to say, definitely, that no evidence would induce you\nto believe your child to be living?\"\n\n\"Oh, no! not that. But I should want something very strong in the\nway of proof. Let this man come and relate his story to me. If it is\nfalse, I think I should be able to detect it.\"\n\n\"I advised him to do so, but, aside from his appearance, which is\nhardly in harmony with these surroundings, I think he would prefer not\nto hold a personal conference with the boy's friends. I may as well\ngive you my reason for that belief. The old man says that the boy ran\naway from him two or three years ago, and I have inferred that the\nflight was due, partially, at least, to unkind treatment on Craft's\npart. I believe he is now afraid to talk the matter over with you\npersonally, lest you should rebuke him too severely for his conduct\ntoward the child and his failure to take proper care of him. He\nis anxious that all negotiations should be conducted through his\nattorney. Rather sensitive, he is, for a man of his general stamp.\"\n\n\"And did the child return to him?\" asked the lady, anxiously, not\nheeding the lawyer's last remark.\n\n\"Oh, no! The old man searched the country over for him. He did not\nfind him until this summer.\"\n\n\"And where was he found?\"\n\n\"Here, in Scranton.\"\n\n\"In Scranton! That is strange. Is the boy here still?\"\n\n\"He is.\"\n\n\"Where does he live? who cares for him?\"\n\nSharpman had not intended to give quite so much information, but he\ncould not well evade these questions and at the same time appear to be\nperfectly honest in the matter, so he answered her frankly:\n\n\"He lives with one William Buckley, better known as 'Bachelor Billy.'\nHe works in the screen-room at Burnham Breaker.\"\n\n\"Indeed! by what name is he known?\"\n\n\"By your son's name--Ralph.\"\n\n\"Ralph, the slate-picker! Do you mean that boy?\"\n\nIt was Sharpman's turn to be surprised.\n\n\"Do you know him?\" he asked, quickly.\n\n\"I do,\" she replied. \"My husband first told me of him; I have seen him\nfrequently; I have talked with him so lately as yesterday.\"\n\n\"Ah, indeed! I am very glad you know the boy. We can talk more\nintelligently concerning him.\"\n\n\"Do I understand you, then, to claim that Ralph, the slate-picker, is\nmy son? this boy and no other?\"\n\n\"That is my client's statement, madam.\"\n\nThe lady leaned back wearily in her chair.\n\n\"Then I fear you have come upon a futile errand, Mr. Sharpman,\" she\nsaid.\n\nBut, from the lawyer's stand-point, it began to look as if the errand\nwas to be successful. He felt that he could speak a little more\nstrongly now of Ralph's identity with Mrs. Burnham's son without\nendangering his cause.\n\n\"Can you remember,\" he said, \"nothing about the lad's appearance\nthat impressed you--now that you know the claim set up for hi--that\nimpressed you with a sense of his relationship to you?\"\n\n\"Nothing, sir, nothing whatever. The boy is a bright, frank, manly\nfellow; I have taken much interest in him from the first. His sorrow\nat the time of my husband's death touched me very deeply. I have been\nseveral times since then to look after his comfort and happiness. I\nsaw and talked with him yesterday, as I have already told you. But he\nis not my son, sir, he is not my son.\"\n\n\"Pardon me, madam! but you must remember that time works wonders in a\nchild's appearance; from three to eleven is a long stretch.\"\n\n\"I appreciate that fact, but I recall no resemblance whatever. My baby\nhad light, curling hair, large eyes, full round cheeks and chin, a\nglow of health and happiness in his face. This lad is different, very\ndifferent. There could not have been so great a change. Oh, no, sir!\nyour client is mistaken; the boy is not my son; I am sure he is not.\"\n\nSharpman was rejoiced. Everything was working now exactly according to\nhis plan. He thought it safe to push his scheme more rapidly.\n\n\"But my client,\" he said, \"appears to be perfectly sincere in his\nbelief. He will doubtless desire me to institute legal proceedings to\nrecover for the boy his portion of Robert Burnham's estate.\"\n\n\"If you can recover it,\" she said, calmly, \"I shall transfer it to\nthe child most cheerfully. I take it, however, that you must first\nestablish his identity as an heir?\"\n\n\"Certainly.\"\n\n\"And do you think this can be done against my positive testimony?\"\n\n\"Perhaps not; that remains to be seen. But I do not desire to\ncontemplate such a contingency. My object, my sole object, is to\nobtain a harmonious settlement of this matter outside of the courts.\nThat is why I am here in person. I had hoped that I might induce you\nto acknowledge the boy as your son, to agree to set off his interest\nin his father's estate, and to reimburse my client, to some extent,\nfor his care and services. This is my only wish in the matter, I\nassure you.\"\n\n\"Why, as to that,\" she replied, \"I am willing to recognize services\nperformed for any one; and if this old man has rescued and cared for\nthe boy, even though he is not my son--I have enough; if the man is in\nwant, I will help him, I will give him money. But wait! did you say he\nhad been cruel to the child? Then I withdraw my offer. I have no pity\nfor the harsh task-masters of young children. Something to eat, to\ndrink, to wear,--I will give him that,--nothing more.\"\n\n\"I am to understand, then, that you positively decline to acknowledge\nthis boy as your son?\" asked the lawyer, rising.\n\n\"With the evidence that I now have,\" she said, \"I do. I should be glad\nto assist him; I have it in mind to do so; he is a brave, good boy,\nand I love him. But I can do nothing more, sir,--nothing more.\"\n\n\"I regret exceedingly, madam, the failure of my visit,\" said Sharpman,\nbowing himself toward the door. \"I trust, I sincerely trust, that\nwhatever I may find it in my heart and conscience to do in behalf\nof this boy, through the medium of the courts, will meet with no\nbitterness of feeling on your part.\"\n\n\"Certainly not,\" she replied, standing in matronly dignity. \"You could\ndo me no greater favor than to prove to me that this boy is Ralph\nBurnham. If I could believe that he is really my son, I would take him\nto my heart with inexpressible joy. Without that belief I should be\nfalse to my daughter's interest to compel her to share with a stranger\nnot only her father's estate but also her mother's affection.\"\n\n\"Madam, I have the most profound respect for your conscience and your\njudgment. I trust that no meeting between us will be less pleasant\nthan this one has been. I wish you good-morning!\"\n\n\"Good-morning, sir!\"\n\nSharpman bowed himself gracefully out, and walked briskly down the\nstreet, with a smile on his face. The execution of his scheme had met,\nthus far, with a success which he had hardly anticipated.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nEvery one about Burnham Breaker knew Bachelor Billy. No one ever knew\nany ill of him. He was simple and unlearned, but his heart was very\nlarge, and he was honest and manly to the marrow of his bones. He\nhad no ties of family or of kin, but every one who knew him was his\nfriend; every child who saw him smiled up instinctively into his face;\nhe was a brother to all men. Gray spots were coming in his hair, his\nshoulders were bowed with toil, and his limbs were bent with disease,\nbut the kind look never vanished from his rugged face, and the kind\nword never faltered on his lips. He went to his task at Burnham\nBreaker in the early morning, he toiled all day, and came home at\nnight, happy and contented with his lot.\n\nHis work was at the head of the shaft, at the very topmost part of the\ntowering breaker. When a mine car came up, loaded with coal, it was\nhis duty to push it to the dump, some forty feet away, to tip it till\nthe load ran out, and then to push it back to the waiting carriage.\nMichael Maloney had been Billy's assistant here, in other years; but,\none day, Michael stepped back, inadvertently, into the open mouth of\nthe shaft, and, three minutes later, his mangled remains were gathered\nup at the foot. Billy knew that Michael's widow was poor, with a\nfamily of small children to care for, so he came and hired from her\na part of her cottage to live in, and took his meals with her, and\npaid her generously. To this house he had taken Ralph. It was not an\nelegant home, to be sure, but it was a home where no harsh word was\nspoken from year's end to year's end; and to Ralph, fresh from his\ndreadful life with Simon Craft, this was much, oh! very much, indeed.\nThe boy was very fond of \"Uncle Billy,\" as he called him, and the days\nand nights he spent with him were not unhappy ones. But since the day\nwhen Mrs. Burnham turned his face to hers, and kissed him on his lips,\nthere had been a longing in his heart for something more; a longing\nwhich, at first, he could not quite define, but which grew and\ncrystallized, at last, into a strong desire to merit and possess the\nfond affection, and to live in the sweet presence, of a kind and\nloving mother. He had always wanted a mother, ever since he could\nremember. The thought of one had always brought a picture of perfect\nhappiness to his mind. But never, until now, had that want reached so\ngreat proportions. It had come to be the leading motive and ambition\nof his life. He yearned for mother-love and home affection, with an\nintensity as passionate, a desire as deep, as ever stirred within the\nheart of man. He had not revealed his longing to Bachelor Billy. He\nfeared that he might think he was discontented and unhappy, and he\nwould not have hurt his Uncle Billy's feelings for the world. So the\nsummer days went by, and he kept his thought in this matter, as much\nas possible, to himself.\n\nIt had come to be the middle of September. There had been a three days\nrain, which had so freshened the parched grass and checked the fading\nof the leaves, that one might readily have thought the summer had\nreturned to bring new foliage and flowers, and to deck the earth for\nstill another season with its covering of green.\n\nBut it had cleared off cold.\n\n\"It'd be nice to have a fire to-night, Uncle Billy,\" said Ralph, as\nthe two were walking home together in the twilight, from their day's\nwork at the breaker.\n\n\"Wull, lad,\" was the reply, \"ye ha' the wood choppit for it, ye can\nmak' un oop.\"\n\nSo, after supper, Ralph built a wood fire in the little rude grate,\nand Billy lighted his clay pipe, and they both drew their chairs up\nbefore the comfortable blaze, and watched it while they talked.\n\nIt was the first fire of the season, and they enjoyed it. It seemed to\nbring not only warmth but cheer.\n\n\"Ain't this nice, Uncle Billy?\" said Ralph, after quite a long\nsilence. \"Seems kind o' home-like an' happy, don't it?\"\n\n\"Ye're richt, lad! Gin a mon has a guid fire to sit to, an' a guid\npipe o' 'bacca to pull awa' on, what more wull ye? eh, Ralph!\"\n\n\"A comfortable room like this to stay in, Uncle Billy,\" replied the\nboy, looking around on the four bare walls, the uncarpeted floor, and\nthe rude furniture of the room, all bright and glowing now in the\nlight of the cheerful fire.\n\n\"Oh! the room's guid enook, guid enook,\" responded the man, without\nremoving the pipe from his mouth.\n\n\"An' a nice bed, like ours, to sleep in.\"\n\n\"True for ye lad; tired bones rest well in a saft bed.\"\n\n\"An' plenty to eat, too, Uncle Billy; that's a good thing to have.\"\n\n\"Richt again, Ralph! richt again!\" exclaimed Billy, enthusiastically,\npushing the burning tobacco down in the bowl of his pipe. \"An' the\nWidow Maloney, she do gi' us 'mazin' proper food, now, don't she? D'ye\nmin' that opple pie we had for sooper, lad?\"\n\n\"Yes, that was good,\" said Ralph, gazing absently into the fire.\n\"They's only one thing more we need, Uncle Billy, an' that's somebody\nto love us. Not but what you an' me cares a good deal for each other,\"\nadded Ralph, apprehensively, as the man puffed vigorously away at his\npipe, \"but that ain't it. I mean somebody, some woman, you know, 'at'd\nkiss us an' comfort us an' be nice to us that way.\"\n\nBilly turned and gazed contemplatively at Ralph. \"Been readin' some\nmore o' them love-stories?\" he asked, smiling behind a cloud of smoke.\n\n\"No, I ain't, an' I don't mean that kind. I mean your mother or your\nsister or your wife--it'd be jes' like as though you had a wife, you\nknow, Uncle Billy.\"\n\nAgain, the man puffed savagely at his pipe before replying.\n\n\"Wull,\" he said at last, \"na doot it'd be comfortin' to have a guid\nweef to care for ye; but they're an awfu' trooble, Ralph, women\nis,--an awfu' trooble.\"\n\n\"But you don't know, Uncle Billy; you ain't had no 'xperience.\"\n\n\"No more am I like to have. I'm a gittin' too auld now. I could na get\nme a weef an' I wanted one. Hoot, lad! think o' your Uncle Billy wi' a\nweef to look after; it's no' sensiba, no' sensiba,\" and the man took\nhis pipe from his mouth and indulged in a hearty burst of laughter at\nthe mental vision of himself in matrimonial chains.\n\n\"But then,\" persisted Ralph, \"you'd have such a nice home, you know;\nan' somebody to look glad an' smile an' say nice things to you w'en\nyou come home from work o' nights. Uncle Billy, I'd give a good deal\nif I had it, jes' to have a home like other boys has, an' mothers an'\nfathers an' sisters an' all that.\"\n\n\"Wull, lad, I've done the bes' I could for ye, I've--\"\n\n\"Oh, Uncle Billy!\" interrupted the boy, rising and laying his hand\non the man's shoulder affectionately, \"you know I don't mean that;\nI don't mean but what you've been awful good to me; jes' as good as\nany one ever could be; but it's sumpthin' dif'rent from that 'at I\nmean. I'm thinkin' about a home with pirty things in it, books, an'\npictures, an' cushions, the way women fix 'em you know, an'--an' a\nmother; I want a mother very much; I think it'd be the mos' beautiful\nthing in the world to have a mother. You've had one, ain't you, Uncle\nBilly?\"\n\nThe man's face had taken on a pleased expression when Ralph began with\nhis expostulation, but, as the boy continued, the look changed into\none of sadness.\n\n\"Yes, lad,\" he said, \"an' a guid mither she waur too. She died an'\nwent to heaven it's mony a year sin', but I still min' the sweet\nway she had wi' me. Ye're richt, laddie, there's naught like a\nblessed mither to care for ye--an' ye never had the good o' one\nyoursel'\"--turning and looking at the boy, with an expression of\nwondering pity on his face, as though that thought had occurred to\nhim now for the first time.\n\n\"No, I never had, you know; that's the worst of it. If I could only\nremember jest the least bit about my mother, it wouldn't seem so bad,\nbut I can't remember nothing, not nothing.\"\n\n\"Puir lad! puir lad! I had na thocht o' that afoor. But, patience,\nRalph, patience; mayhap we'll find a mither for ye yet.\"\n\n\"Oh, Uncle Billy! if we could, if we only could! Do you know,\nsometimes w'en I go down town, an' walk along the street, an' see\nthe ladies there, I look at ev'ry one I meet, an' w'en a real nice\nbeautiful one comes along, I say to myself, 'I wisht that lady was my\nmother,' an' w'en some other one goes by, I say, 'I wonder if that\nain't my mother.' It don't do no good, you know, but it's kind o'\ncomfortin'.\"\n\n\"Puir lad!\" repeated Billy, putting his arm around the boy and drawing\nhim up closer to his chair, \"Puir lad!\"\n\n\"You 'member that night I come home a-cryin', an' I couldn't tell w'at\nthe matter was? Well, it wasn't nothin' but that. I come by a house\ndown there in the city, w'ere they had it all lighted up, an' they\nwasn't no curtains acrost the windows, an' you could look right in.\nThey was a havin' a little party there; they was a father an' a mother\nan' sisters and brothers an' all; an' they was all a-laughin' an'\na-playin' an' jest as happy as they could be. An' they was a boy there\n'at wasn't no bigger'n me, an' his mother come an' put her arms aroun'\nhis neck an' kissed him. It didn't seem as though I could stan' it,\nUncle Billy, I wanted to go in so bad an' be one of 'em. An' then it\nbegun to rain, an' I had to come away, an' I walked up here in the\ndark all alone, an' w'en I got here they wasn't nothin' but jest one\nroom, an' nobody but you a-waitin' for me, an'--no! now, Uncle Billy,\ndon't! I don't mean nothin' like that--you've been jest as good to me\nas you could be; you've been awful good to me, al'ays! but it ain't\nlike, you know; it ain't like havin' a home with your own mother.\"\n\n\"Never min', laddie; never min'; ye s'all have a hame, an' a mither\ntoo some day, I mak' na doot,--some day.\"\n\nThere was silence for a time, then Bachelor Billy continued:--\n\n\"Gin ye had your choice, lad, what kin' o' a mither would ye choose\nfor yoursel'?\"\n\n\"Oh! I don't know--yes, I do too!--it's wild, I know it's wild, an'\nI hadn't ought to think of it; but if I could have jest the mother I\nwant, it'd be--it'd be Mrs. Burnham. There! now, don't laugh, Uncle\nBilly; I know it's out o' all reason; she's very rich, an' beautiful,\nan' everything; but if I could be her boy for jest one week--jest one\nweek, Uncle Billy, I'd--well, I'd be willin' to die.\"\n\n\"Ye mak' high choice, Ralph, high choice; but why not? ye're as like\nto find the mither in high places as in low, an' liker too fra my way\no' thinkin'. Choose the bes', lad, choose the bes'!\"\n\n\"But she's so good to us,\" continued the boy, \"an' she talks so nice\nto us. You 'member the time I told you 'bout, w'en we breaker boys\nwent down there, all of us, an' she cried kin' o' soft, an' stooped\ndown an' kissed me? I shouldn't never forgit that if I live to be a\nthousan' years old. An' jes' think of her kissin' me that way ev'ry\nnight,--think of it Uncle Billy! an' ev'ry mornin' too, maybe;\nwouldn't that be--be--\" and Ralph, at a loss for a fitting wor to\nrepresent such bliss as that, simply clasped his hands together and\ngazed wistfully into the fire. After a minute or two he went on: \"She\n'membered it, too. I was 'fraid she'd never know which boy it was she\nkissed, they was so many of us there; but she did, you know, an' she's\nbeen to see me, an' brought me things, ain't she? an' promised to help\nme find out about myself jest the same as Mr. Burnham did. Oh dear! I\nhope she won't die now, like he did--Uncle Billy! oh, Uncle Billy!\"\nas a sudden thought struck in on the boy's mind, \"if she was--if Mrs.\nBurnham _was_ my mother, then Mr. Burnham would 'a' been my father\nwouldn't he?\"\n\n\"Na doot, lad, na doot.\"\n\n\"Robert Burnham--would 'a' been--my father. Oh!\" The boy drew himself\nup to his full height and stood gazing into the fire in proud\ncontemplation of such overwhelming happiness and honor.\n\nThere was a knock at the door. Ralph went and opened it, and a young\nman stepped in.\n\n\"Ah! good evening!\" he said. \"Does a man by the name of Buckley live\nhere? William Buckley?\"\n\n\"That's my name,\" responded Billy, rising from his chair.\n\n\"And are you Ralph?\" asked the young man, turning to the boy.\n\n\"Yes, sir, that's my name, too,\" was the quick reply.\n\n\"Well, Ralph, can you take a little walk with me this evening, as far\nas Lawyer Sharpman's office?\"\n\n\"Wha' for do ye want the lad?\" asked Billy, advancing and placing a\nchair for the stranger to sit in.\n\n\"Well, to speak confidentially, I believe it's something about his\nparentage.\"\n\n\"Who his father an' mother waur?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Then he s'all go wi' ye if he like. Ralph, ye can put on the new\njacket an' go wi' the mon.\"\n\nThe boy's heart beat tumultuously as he hurried on his best clothes.\n\nAt last! at last he was to know. Some one had found him out. He was no\nlonger \"nobody's child.\"\n\nHe struggled into his Sunday coat, pulled his cap on his head, and,\nin less than ten minutes he was out on the road with the messenger,\nhurrying through the frosty air and the bright moonlight, toward\nSharpman's office.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nBREAKING THE NEWS.\n\n\nSimon Craft and Lawyer Sharpman were sitting together in the rear room\nof the latter's law office. The window-shades were closely drawn,\nshutting out the mellow light of the full moon, which rested brightly\nand beautifully on all objects out of doors.\n\nThe gas jet, shaded by a powerful reflector, threw a disk of light\non the round table beneath it, but the corners of the room were in\nshadow. It was in a shaded corner that Craft was sitting, resting his\nfolded arms on his cane, while Sharpman, seated carelessly by the\ntable, was toying with a pencil. There were pleased looks on the faces\nof both men; but old Simon seemed to have grown thinner and feebler\nduring the summer months, and his cough troubled him greatly.\n\nSharpman was saying: \"If we can succeed in managing the boy, now,\nas well as we have managed the mother, I think we are all right. I\nsomewhat fear the effect of your presence on him, Craft, but he may\nas well see you to-night as later. You must keep cool, and be gentle;\ndon't let him think you are here for any purpose but his good.\"\n\n\"Oh! you may trust me, Mr. Sharpman,\" responded the old man, \"you may\ntrust me. I shall get into the spirit of the scheme very nicely.\"\n\n\"What kind of a boy is he, any way? Pretty clear-headed?\"\n\n\"Well, yes, middling; but as obstinate as a mule. When he gets his\nmind set on a thing, it's no use to try to budge him. I've whipped him\ntill he was black and blue, and it didn't do a penny's worth of good.\"\n\n\"You should have used moral suasion, Craft; that's the way to treat\nboys. Get their confidence, and then you can handle them. Well, we'll\nget Ralph's mind fixed on the fact that he is Mrs. Burnham's son, and\nsee how he'll stick to that. Hark! There they come now. Sooner than I\nexpected.\"\n\nThe outer door of the office was opened, and Ralph and the young man\nentered. The messenger disappeared into the inner room, but after a\nminute or two he came out and ushered Ralph into the presence of the\nlawyer. Sharpman arose, greeted the boy pleasantly and shook hands\nwith him, and Ralph thought that lawyers were not such forbidding\npeople after all.\n\n\"Do you recognize this gentleman?\" said Sharpman, turning, with a wave\nof his hand, toward old Simon.\n\nThe old man was sitting there with his hands crossed on his cane, and\nwith a grim smile on his gaunt face. Ralph looked intently, for a\nmoment, into the shadow, and then, with an exclamation of surprise and\nfear on his lips, he stepped back toward the door.\n\n\"I won't go!\" he cried; \"don't make me go back with him, sir!\" turning\nhis distressed face to the lawyer, as he spoke.\n\nSharpman advanced and took the boy by the hand and led him to a chair.\n\"Don't be afraid,\" he said, gently, \"there's no cause for alarm. You\nshall not go back with him. He is not here to take you back, but to\nestablish your identity.\"\n\nThen a new fear dawned upon Ralph's mind.\n\n\"He ain't my grandfather!\" he exclaimed. \"Simon Craft ain't my\ngrandfather. He wouldn't never 'a' whipped me the way he done if he'd\na-been truly my grandfather.\"\n\nCraft looked up at Sharpman with a little nod. The boy had identified\nhim pretty plainly, and proved the truth of his story to that extent\nat least.\n\n\"Oh, no!\" said the lawyer, \"oh, no! Mr. Craft is not your grandfather;\nhe doesn't claim to be. He has come here only to do you good. Now, be\ncalm and reasonable, and listen to what we have to tell you, and, my\nword for it, you will go back to Billy Buckley's to-night with a heart\nas light as a feather. Now, you'll take my advice, and do that much,\nwon't you?\"\n\n\"Yes, I will,\" said Ralph, settling himself into his chair, \"I will,\nif I can only find out about my father 'n' mother. But I won't go back\nto live with him; I won't never go back there!\"\n\n\"Oh, no!\" replied Sharpman, \"we'll find a better home for you than Mr.\nCraft could ever give you. Now, if you will sit still and listen to\nus, and take our advice, we will tell you more things about yourself\nthan you have ever thought of knowing. You want to hear them, don't\nyou?\"\n\n\"Well, yes,\" replied Ralph, smiling and rapidly regaining his\ncomposure; \"yes, of course.\"\n\n\"I thought so. Now I want to ask you one or two questions. In the\nfirst place, what do you remember about yourself before you went to\nlive with Mr. Craft?\"\n\n\"I don't remember anything, sir,--not anything.\"\n\n\"Haven't you a faint recollection of having been in a big accident\nsometime; say, for instance, a railroad disaster?\"\n\n\"No--I don't think I have. I think I must 'a' dreamed sumpthin' like\nthat once, but I guess it never happened to me, or I'd 'member more\nabout it.\"\n\n\"Well, Ralph, it did happen to you. You were riding in a railroad car\nwith your father and mother, and the train went through a bridge. A\ngood many people were killed, and a good many more were wounded; but\nyou were saved. Do you know how?\"\n\nRalph did not answer the question. His face had suddenly paled.\n\n\"Were my father an' mother killed?\" he exclaimed.\n\n\"No, Ralph, they were not killed. They were injured, but they\nrecovered in good time.\"\n\n\"Are they alive now? where are they?\" asked the boy, rising suddenly\nfrom his chair.\n\n\"Be patient, Ralph! be patient! we will get to that in time. Be seated\nand answer my question. Do you know how you were saved?\"\n\n\"No, sir; I don't.\"\n\n\"Well, my boy,\" said the lawyer, impressively, pointing his finger\ntoward Craft, \"there is the man who saved you. He was on the train. He\nrushed into the wreck at the risk of his life, and drew you from the\ncar window. In another minute it would have been too late. He fell\nback into the river holding you in his arms, but he saved you from\nboth fire and water. The effort and exposure of that night brought on\nthe illness that has resulted in the permanent loss of his health, and\nleft him in the condition in which you now see him.\"\n\nRalph looked earnestly at old Simon, who still sat, quiet and\nspeechless, chuckling to himself, and wishing, in his heart, that he\ncould tell a story as smoothly and impressively as Lawyer Sharpman.\n\n\"An' do I owe my life to him?\" asked the boy. \"Wouldn't I 'a' been\nsaved if he hadn't 'a' saved me?\"\n\n\"It is not at all probable,\" replied Sharpman. \"The flames had already\nreached you, and your clothing was on fire when you were drawn from\nthe car.\"\n\nIt was hard for Ralph to believe in any heroic or unselfish conduct on\nthe part of Simon Craft; but as he felt the force of the story, and\nthought of the horrors of a death by fire, he began to relent toward\nthe old man, and was ready to condone the harsh treatment that he had\nsuffered at his hands.\n\n\"I'm sure I'm much obliged to 'im,\" he said, \"I'm much obliged to 'im,\neven if he did use me very bad afterwards.\"\n\n\"But you must remember, Ralph, that Mr. Craft was very poor, and he\nwas ill and irritable, and your high temper and stubborn ways annoyed\nhim greatly. But he never ceased to have your best interests at heart,\nand he was in constant search of your parents, in order to restore you\nto them. Do you remember that he used often to be away from home?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, he used to go an' leave me with ole Sally.\"\n\n\"Well, he was away searching for your friends. He continued the search\nfor five years, and at last he found your father and mother. He\nhurried back to Philadelphia to get you and bring you to your parents,\nas the best means of breaking to them the glad news; and when he\nreached his home, what do you suppose he found?\"\n\nRalph smiled sheepishly, and said: \"I 'xpect, maybe, I'd run away.\"\n\n\"Yes, my boy, you had. You had left his sheltering roof and his\nfostering care, without his knowledge or consent. Most men would have\nleft you, then, to struggle on by yourself, as best you could; and\nwould have rewarded your ingratitude by forgetfulness. Not so with\nMr. Craft. He swallowed his pain and disappointment, and went out to\nsearch for you. He had your welfare too deeply at heart to neglect\nyou, even then. His mind had been too long set on restoring you to\nloving parents and a happy home. After years of unremitting toil\nhe found you, and is here to-night to act as your best and nearest\nfriend.\"\n\nRalph had sat during this recital, with astonishment plainly depicted\non his face. He could scarcely believe what he heard. The idea that\nSimon Craft could be kind or good to any one had never occurred to him\nbefore.\n\n\"I hope,\" he said, slowly, \"I hope you'll forgive me, Gran'pa Simon,\nif I've thought wrong of you. I didn't know 'at you was a-doin' all\nthat for me, an' I thought I was a-havin' a pirty hard time with you.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Craft, speaking for the first time since Ralph's\nentrance. \"Well, we won't say anything more about your bad behavior;\nit's all past and gone now, and I'm here to help you, not to scold\nyou. I'm going to put you, now, in the way of getting back into your\nown home and family, if you'll let me. What do you say?\"\n\n\"I'm sure that's very good in you, an' of course I'd like it. You\ncouldn't do anything for me 'at I'd like better. I'm sorry if I've\never hurt your feelin's, but--\"\n\n\"How do you think you would like to belong to a nice family, Ralph?\"\ninterrupted Sharpman.\n\n\"I think it'd make me very happy, sir.\"\n\n\"And have a home, a beautiful home, with books, pictures, horses, fine\nclothes, everything that wealth could furnish?\"\n\n\"That'd be lovely, very lovely; but I don't quite 'xpect that, an'\nwhat I want most is a good mother, a real, nice, good mother. Haven't\nyou got one for me? say, haven't you got one?\"\n\nThe boy had risen to his feet and stood with clasped hands, gazing\nanxiously at Sharpman.\n\n\"Yes, my boy, yes,\" said the lawyer, \"we've found a good mother for\nyou, the best in the city of Scranton, and the sweetest little sister\nyou ever saw. Now what do you think?\"\n\n\"I think--I think 'at it's most too good to be true. But you wouldn't\ntell me a lie about it, would you? you wouldn't do that, would you?\"\n\n\"Oh, no! Ralph; good lawyers never lie, and I'm a good lawyer.\"\n\n\"An' when can I see 'em? Can I go to 'em to-night? I don't b'lieve I\ncan wait,--I don't b'lieve I can!\"\n\n\"Ralph! Ralph! you promised to be quiet and reasonable. There, be\nseated and wait till you hear us through. There is something better\nyet for you to know. Now, who do you suppose your mother is? She lives\nin Scranton.\"\n\nRalph sat, for a moment, in stupid wonder, staring at Sharpman. Then\na brilliant thought, borne on by instinct, impulse, strong desire,\nflashed like a ray of sunlight, into his mind, and he started to his\nfeet again, exclaiming:--\n\n\"Mrs. Burnham! it can't be! oh, it can't be! tell me, is it Mrs.\nBurnham?\"\n\nCraft and Sharpman exchanged quick glances of amazement, and the\nlatter said, impressively:--\n\n\"Yes, Ralph, Mrs. Burnham is your mother.\"\n\nThe boy stood for another moment, as if lost in thought; then he cried\nout, suddenly: \"And Mr. Burnham, he--he was my--my father!\" and he\nsank back into his chair, with a sudden weakness in his limbs, and a\nmist before his eyes.\n\nFor many minutes no one spoke. Then Ralph asked, quietly,--\n\n\"Does--does she know?\"\n\n\"Now, Ralph,\" said Sharpman, \"now comes the strangest part of the\nstory. Your mother believes you to be dead. She believes that you\nperished in the accident at Cherry Brook, and has mourned for you ever\nsince the time of that disaster.\"\n\n\"Am I the boy--am I the Ralph she lost?\"\n\n\"The very one, but we cannot make her think so. I went to her, myself,\nthis morning, and told her that you are alive. I told her who you are,\nand all about you. She knows you, but she will not believe that you\nare her son. She wants better evidence than we can give to her,\noutside of the courts.\"\n\n\"An' won't she never believe it? won't she never take me?\"\n\nThe boy's voice and look revealed the sudden clashing of his hope.\n\n\"Oh, yes, Ralph! in time; I do not doubt that in good time she will\nrecognize you and take you to her home. She has so long believed you\nto be dead that it is hard for her to overcome the prejudice of that\nbelief.\"\n\nThen another fear came into the lad's mind.\n\n\"Are you sure,\" he cried out, \"that I am her boy? are you sure I'm the\nright one?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes!\" said the lawyer, assuringly, \"oh, yes! there's no mistake\nabout that, there isn't the shadow of a doubt about that. We shall\nestablish your identity beyond question; but we shall have to do it in\nthe courts. When it is once done no one can prevent you from taking\nthe name and the property to which you are entitled and using them as\nyou see fit.\"\n\n\"But my mother!\" said Ralph, anxiously, \"my mother; she's all I care\nabout; I don't want the property if I can't have her.\"\n\n\"And you shall have her, my boy. Mrs. Burnham said to me this morning,\nthat, until your claim was duly proved in a court of law, she would\nhave no legal right to accept you as her son; but that, when your\nidentity is once established in that way, she will receive you into\nher home and her heart with much joy.\"\n\nRalph looked up with brightening eyes.\n\n\"Did she say that?\" he exclaimed, \"an' will she do it?\"\n\n\"I have no doubt of it, none whatever.\"\n\n\"Then let's get at it right away,\" said the boy, impatiently, \"it\nwon't take very long, will it?\"\n\n\"Oh! some little time; several months, may be; may be longer.\"\n\nRalph's face fell again.\n\n\"I can't wait that long!\" he exclaimed; \"I'll go to her myself; I'll\ntell her ev'rything; I'll beg her to take me. Do you think she would?\ndo you?\"\n\n\"Oh, Ralph! now be reasonable. That would never do. In the first\nplace, it would be useless. She has seen you, she knows you; she says\nyou are not her son; you can't prove it to her. Besides that, she has\nno legal right to take you as her son until the courts have passed\nupon the question of your identity. If she should attempt to do so,\nthe other heirs of Robert Burnham would come in and contest your\nclaim, and you would be in a far worse position to maintain your\nrights than you are now,--oh! far worse. No, you must not go to Mrs.\nBurnham, you must not go to her at all, until your sonship is fully\nestablished. You must keep cool, and wait patiently, or you will\ndestroy every chance you have.\"\n\n\"Well, then, I'll try to; I'll try to wait an' do what you tell me to;\nwhat shall I do first?\"\n\n\"The first thing to be done, Ralph, is to have the court appoint a\nguardian for you. You can't do anything for yourself, legally, you\nknow, till you are twenty-one years old; and whatever action is taken\nin your behalf, must be taken by a guardian. It will be his place to\nestablish your identity, to restore you to your mother, and to take\ncare of your property. Now, who would you prefer to have act in that\ncapacity?\"\n\n\"Well, I don't know; there's Uncle Billy, he's the best friend I've\ngot; wouldn't he do?\"\n\n\"Do you mean William Buckley, with whom you are living?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Why, he would do if he were rich, or had rich friends who would go\non his bond. You see, the guardian would have to give a bond to the\nextent of a great many thousand dollars for the faithful performance\nof his duties. Could Buckley do that?\"\n\n\"I'm afraid not, sir. He ain't rich, himself, an' I never heard of his\nhavin' any rich friends.\"\n\n\"Whom else can you think of?\"\n\n\"Won't Mrs. Burnham do?\"\n\n\"Oh, no! it might be necessary for the guardian to bring suit against\nher.\"\n\n\"There ain't anybody else that I can think of,\" said Ralph,\ndespairingly, after a moment's pause.\n\n\"Well, then, I don't know what we shall do. If you can't find some one\nwho is able to qualify for this trust, we may as well stop right here.\nI guess we've done all we can for the boy, Mr. Craft?\"\n\nCraft nodded and smiled. He was enjoying the lawyer's diplomacy with\nRalph, exceedingly.\n\nThe lad was again in the depths of anxiety. He looked from one to the\nother of the men with appealing eyes.\n\n\"Ain't they some way to fix it, Mr. Sharpman?\" he said. \"Can't you do\nsumpthin' for me?\"\n\n\"Oh! I couldn't be your guardian, my boy, the law wouldn't allow that;\nand Mr. Craft, here, hasn't money enough. I guess we'll have to give\nup the idea of restoring you to your mother, and let you go back to\nwork in the breaker again.\"\n\n\"That'd be too bad,\" said the boy. \"Don't do that; I couldn't stan'\nthat--now. Can't you see my mother again, Mr. Sharpman, an' get her to\ntake me--some way?\"\n\n\"It can't be done, Ralph. There's only one way to fix it, and that is\nto get a guardian for you. If we can't do that, we may as well give it\nall up.\"\n\nThe anxiety and disappointment expressed in the lad's face was pitiful\nto look upon.\n\nThen Craft spoke up.\n\n\"Ralph has been very unkind and ungrateful to me,\" he said, \"but I\nhave always been his best friend. I saved his life; and I've spent\ntime and money and lost my health on his account. But I'm willing to\ndo him a favor yet, if he thinks he can appreciate it. I'll act as his\nguardian and take care of his property for him, if he'll be a good boy\nand do as we tell him.\"\n\n\"I'll do everything I can,\" said Ralph, eagerly, \"'ceptin' to go back\nan' live with you; everything--but Mr. Sharpman said you wasn't rich\nenough.\"\n\n\"No, I ain't,\" responded the old man; \"and I don't know how to get\naround that difficulty, unless Mr. Sharpman will help me and be my\nbondsman.\"\n\nRalph turned his face pleadingly to Sharpman.\n\n\"Oh, now, Craft!\" said the lawyer, smiling, and shaking his head,\n\"don't you think you are presuming a little too much on my friendship?\nIf you were the only one to be trusted, why, I might do it; but in\nthis case I would have to depend on the boy as well, and there's no\nknowing how he would misbehave. According to your own story, he is a\nwilful, wrong-headed lad, who has already rewarded your kindness to\nhim with base ingratitude. Oh, no! I could trust you, but not him.\"\n\n\"Mr. Sharpman!\" pleaded the boy, \"Mr. Sharpman, I never meant to be\nmean or unkind to Gran'pa Simon. I never knew't he saved my life,\nnever. I thought he abused me, I did; I was sure of it; that's the\nreason I run away from 'im. But, you see, I'm older now; I'd be more\nreason'ble; I'll do anything you tell me to, Mr. Sharpman,--anything,\nif you'll only fix it for Gran'pa Simon so's't he can help me get back\nto my mother.\"\n\nThe lawyer sat for a few moments as if lost in thought. Finally, he\nraised his head and said:--\n\n\"I've a great mind to try you, Ralph. Do you think I can really place\nfull confidence in you?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir; oh, yes, sir!\"\n\n\"And will you follow my advice to the letter, and do just what I tell\nyou to do in this matter?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir; I will.\"\n\n\"Well, then,\" said Sharpman, turning to Craft, \"I think I'll trust the\nboy, and I'll assist you in your bonds. I know that we both have his\ninterest at heart, and I believe that, together, we can restore his\nrights to him, and place him in the way of acceptance by his family.\nRalph,\" turning again to the boy, \"you ought to be very thankful to\nhave found two such good friends as Mr. Craft and myself.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, I am. You'll do everything you can for me, won't you? as\nquick as you can?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes! Mr. Craft will be your guardian, and I will be his bondsman\nand lawyer. Now, I think we understand each other, and I guess that's\nall for to-night.\"\n\n\"When do you want me to come again?\"\n\n\"Well, I shall want you to go to Wilkesbarre with me in a few days, to\nhave the appointment of guardian made; but I will send for you. In the\nmeantime you will keep on with your work as usual, and say nothing to\nany person about what we have told you. You'll do that, won't you?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, I will. But, Uncle Billy--can't I tell him? he'll be awful\nglad to know.\"\n\n\"Well, yes, you may tell Billy, but charge him to keep it a profound\nsecret.\"\n\n\"Oh! he will, he will; he'll do anything like that 'at I ask 'im to.\"\n\nRalph picked up his cap and turned to go; he hesitated a moment, then\nhe crossed the room to where old Simon still sat, and, standing before\nhim, he said:--\n\n\"I'm sorry you're sick, Gran'pa Simon. I never meant to do wrong by\nyou. I'll try to do w'at's right, after this, anyway.\"\n\nThe old man, taken by surprise, had no answer ready; and Sharpman,\nseeing that the situation was likely to become awkward, stepped\nforward and said: \"Oh! I've no doubt he'll be all we can desire now.\"\n\nHe took the boy's hand, and led him toward the door. \"I see my clerk\nhas gone,\" he said; \"are you afraid to go home alone?\"\n\n\"Oh, no! It's moonlight; an' besides, I've gone home alone lot's o'\nnights.\"\n\n\"Well, good luck to you! Good-night!\"\n\n\"Good-night!\"\n\nThe office door closed behind the boy, and he went out into the street\nand turned toward home.\n\nThe moon was bright and full, and a delicate mist hung close to the\nearth. It was a very beautiful night. Ralph thought he had never seen\nso beautiful a night before. His own footsteps had a musical sound in\nhis ears, as he hurried along, impatient to reach Bachelor Billy, and\nto tell to him the wonderful news,--news so wonderful that he could\nscarcely realize or comprehend it. Mr. Sharpman said he would be going\nback home to-night with a heart as light as a feather. And so he was,\nwas he not? He asked his heart the question, but, somehow, it would\nnot say yes. There was a vague uneasiness within him that he could not\nquite define. It was not because he doubted that he was Mrs. Burnham's\nson; he believed that fact implicitly. It was not so much, either,\nthat he could not go to her at once; he could wait for that if the end\nwould only surely bring it. But it seemed to him that he was being\nset up in a kind of opposition to her; that he was being placed in a\nposition which might lead to an estrangement between them: and that\nwould be a very sad result, indeed, of this effort to establish his\nidentity. But Mr. Sharpman had assured him that Mrs. Burnham approved\nof the action that was about to be taken in his behalf. Why, then,\nshould he fear? Was it not absurd to cloud his happiness with the\ndread of something which would never come? Away with doubts! away\nwith fears! he would revel, for to-night at least, in the joy of his\nnew knowledge. Mrs. Burnham was his mother; was not that beautiful,\nbeautiful? Could he, in his wildest flight of fancy or desire, have\never hoped for more than that? But there was something more, and that\nsomething was that Robert Burnham was his father. Ah! that was, beyond\nall question, the highest honor that could ever rest upon a boy,--to\nbe the son of a hero! Ralph threw back his head and shoulders with\ninstinctive, honest pride as this thought filled his mind and heart,\nand his quick step grew more elastic and more firm as he hurried on\nalong the moonlit path.\n\nHe was out beyond the city limits now, climbing the long hill\ntoward home. He could see Burnham Breaker, standing out in majestic\nproportions, black and clear-cut against the moon-illumined sky.\nBy and by the little mining village came into view, and the row of\ncottages, in one of which the Widow Maloney lived; and finally the\nlight in Bachelor Billy's window. When Ralph saw this he broke into a\nrun, and sped swiftly along the deserted street, with the whole glad\nstory of his parentage and his prospects crowding to his tongue.\n\nBilly was still sitting by the fire when the boy burst into the room;\nbut he had fallen asleep, and his clay pipe had dropped from his\nfingers and lay broken on the hearth.\n\n\"Uncle Billy! oh, Uncle Billy! what do you think?\"\n\n\"Why, Ralph, lad, is that yo'? I mus' 'a' been asleep. Whaur ye been,\neh?\"\n\n\"W'y don't you 'member? I went to Lawyer Sharpman's office.\"\n\n\"True for ye, so ye did. I forgot; an' did ye--\"\n\n\"Oh, Uncle Billy! what _do_ you think? Guess who I am; guess!\"\n\n\"Why, lad, don't frighten a mon like that. Ye'll wake the neeborhood.\nWho be ye, then?\"\n\n\"Guess! guess! Oh, you'd never guess! I'm Ralph Burnham; I'm Mrs.\nBurnham's son!\"\n\nBachelor Billy's hands dropped lifelessly to his knees, his mouth and\neyes came wide open with unfeigned astonishment, and, for the moment,\nhe was speechless. Finally he found breath to exclaim: \"Why, Ralph,\nlad; Ralph, ye're crazy,--or a-jokin'! Don't joke wi' a mon that way,\nRalph; it ain't richt!\"\n\n\"No, but, Uncle Billy, it's true; it's all true! Ain't it splendid?\"\n\n\"Be ye sure o' that, Ralph? be ye sure o' it?\"\n\n\"Oh! they ain't no mistake about it; they couldn't be.\"\n\n\"Well, the guid Lord save ye, lad!\" and Billy looked the boy over\ncarefully from head to foot, apparently to see if he had undergone any\nchange during his absence. Then he continued: \"Coom, sit ye, then; sit\nye, an' tell us aboot it a'; how happenit it, eh?\"\n\nAgain they drew their chairs up before the replenished fire, and Ralph\ngave a full account of all that had occurred at the lawyer's office.\n\nBy virtue of his own faith he inspired Bachelor Billy with equal\nconfidence in the truth of the story; and, by virtue of his own\nenthusiasm, he kindled a blaze of enthusiasm in the man's heart that\nglowed with hardly less of brightness than that in his own. Very late\nthat night they sat there, these two, talking of what the future held\nfor Ralph; building bright castles for him, and high hopes, with\nhappiness beyond measure. It was only when the fire burned out and\nleft its charred coals in the iron grate-bars and on the hearth that\nthey went to bed, the one to rest in the dreamless sleep that follows\nin the path of honest toil, and the other to wake often from his\nfeverish slumber and stare down into the block of moonlight that fell\nacross his bed through the half-curtained window of the room, and\nwonder whether he had just dreamed it all, or whether he had, indeed,\nat last, a birthright and a name.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nRHYMING JOE.\n\n\nTen days after the evening interview at Sharpman's office, Ralph\nreceived a message from the lawyer instructing him to be at the\nrailroad station on the following morning, prepared to go to\nWilkesbarre.\n\nSo Bachelor Billy went alone that day to the breaker, and Ralph stayed\nbehind to make ready for his journey.\n\nHe dressed himself in his best clothes, brushed them carefully, put a\nlittle money in his pocket, and, long before the appointed hour, he\nwas at the station, waiting for Sharpman.\n\nThe lawyer did not come until it was nearly time for the train to\nstart. He greeted Ralph very pleasantly, and they took a seat together\nin the car. It was a beautiful autumn morning, and the nature-loving\nboy enjoyed greatly the changing views from the car window, as the\ntrain bore them swiftly on through the picturesque valley of the\nLackawanna. After reaching, at Pittston, the junction with the\nSusquehanna River, the scenery was grander; and, as they passed down\nthrough the far-famed Wyoming Valley, Ralph thought he had never\nbefore seen anything quite so beautiful. On the whole it was a\ndelightful journey. Sharpman was in excellent spirits and made himself\nvery agreeable indeed. He seemed to enjoy answering the boy's bright\nquestions, and listening to his shrewd remarks and frank opinions. It\nwas not until they were nearing Wilkesbarre that the special object\nof their trip was mentioned; then the lawyer informed Ralph that they\nwould go directly to court, and instructed him that if the judge\nshould ask him whom he wished for his guardian, Ralph was to reply\nthat he desired the appointment of Simon Craft. That matter being\nthoroughly understood, they went on to talk of what they should do in\nthe future.\n\n\"It will be necessary, eventually,\" said Sharpman, \"to bring a formal\nsuit against Mrs. Burnham, as administrator, to recover your interest\nin the estate; but, judging from what she has intimated to me, I don't\nanticipate any serious opposition on her part.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, though,\" responded Ralph, \"that they's got to be a\nlaw-suit. Couldn't we make it so plain to her, some way, 'at I'm her\nson that we needn't have any suit?\"\n\n\"I am afraid not. Even though she, herself, were convinced, she would\nhave no right to distribute a portion of the estate to you against the\nobjection of her daughter's guardian. There is no way but to get a\njudgment of the court in the matter.\"\n\n\"Well, why couldn't she jes' take my part, an' give it to her\ndaughter's guarden, an' then take me home to live with her without any\npropaty? Wouldn't that do? I'd a good deal ruther do that than have a\nlaw-suit. A man hates to go to law with his own mother, you know.\"\n\nSharpman smiled and replied: \"That would be a very generous offer,\nindeed; but I am afraid even that would not do. You would have no\nright to make such an agreement before you are twenty-one years old.\nOh, no! we must have a law-suit, there is no other way; but it will be\na mere matter of form; you need have no fear concerning it.\"\n\nThe train reached Wilkesbarre, and Ralph and the lawyer went directly\nfrom the station to the court-house. There were very few people in the\ncourt-room when they entered it, and there seemed to be no especial\nbusiness before the court. Sharpman went down into the bar and shook\nhands with several of the attorneys there. The judge was writing\nbusily at his desk. After a few moments he laid his pen aside and\nread a long opinion he had prepared in the matter of some decedent's\nestate. Ralph could not understand it at all, and his mind soon\nwandered to other subjects. After the reading was finished and one or\ntwo of the lawyers had made short speeches, there was a pause. Then\nSharpman arose, and, drawing a bundle of papers from his pocket, he\nread to the court from one of them as follows:--\n\n    \"TO THE HONORABLE, THE JUDGE OF THE ORPHANS' COURT OF LUZERNE\n    COUNTY:--\n\n    \"The petition of Ralph Burnham, by his next friend Simon Craft,\n    respectfully represents that the petitioner is a minor child of\n    Robert Burnham, late of the city of Scranton in said county,\n    deceased, under the age of fourteen years; that he is resident\n    within the said county and has no guardian to take care of his\n    estate. He therefore prays the court to appoint a guardian for\n    that purpose.\n\n                           \"RALPH BURNHAM.\n    By his next friend, SIMON CRAFT.\n      Dated, Sept. 26, 1867.\"\n\n\"Your Honor will notice that the petition is duly sworn to,\" said\nSharpman, handing the paper to the clerk, who, in turn, handed it to\nthe judge. There was a minute of silence. The lawyers were all staring\nat Sharpman in astonishment.\n\nThen, the judge spoke.\n\n\"Mr. Sharpman, I was not aware that Robert Burnham left more than one\nchild living; a girl, for whom we have already made appointment of a\nguardian.\"\n\n\"I was not aware of that fact either,\" rejoined Sharpman, \"until very\nrecently; but it is a fact, nevertheless; and we are here now, asking\nthat a way be prepared by which this heir may come into his rightful\nportion of his father's estate.\"\n\n\"This is a peculiar case,\" responded the judge; \"and I think we should\nhave some other basis than this on which to act; some affidavit of\nfacts.\"\n\n\"I came prepared to meet that objection,\" said Sharpman. \"I will now\nread, if the court please, a statement of the facts in the case.\" He\nunfolded another paper and read a long and detailed account of the\nwreck, of Ralph's rescue by Simon Craft, of the old man's care and\nkeeping of the boy, of the finding of Ralph's parents, the lad's\ndesertion, the recent discovery of his whereabouts, of Craft's toil\nand sacrifice in the matter, and of Ralph's desire to be restored to\nhis family. This was signed and sworn to by Simon Craft.\n\nThe judge sat for a moment in silence, as if studying the effect of\nthis affidavit.\n\n\"Has the mother been notified,\" he said finally, \"that this child\nis living, and, if so, why does not she appear here to make this\napplication?\"\n\n\"I will answer that question, your Honor, by reading the following\naffidavit,\" replied Sharpman.\n\n    \"LUZERNE COUNTY, SS.:\n\n    \"John H. Sharpman, attorney at law of said county, being duly\n    sworn according to law, deposes, and says: that, on the fifteenth\n    day of September, A.D. 1867, he called upon Mrs. Margaret Burnham,\n    the widow of Robert Burnham, late of the city of Scranton,\n    deceased, and administrator of the said Robert Burnham's estate,\n    and informed her of the facts set forth in the foregoing affidavit\n    of Simon Craft. She acknowledged her acquaintance with the boy\n    Ralph, herein mentioned, but refused to acknowledge him as the\n    son of Robert Burnham, or to grant him any legal interest in the\n    estate of the said Robert Burnham. A notice, a copy of which is\n    hereto attached, has been served on the said Margaret Burnham,\n    warning her that application will be made to the Orphans' Court,\n    on this day, at this hour, for the appointment of a guardian for\n    the boy Ralph.\n\n                            \"JOHN H. SHARPMAN.\n    Sworn and subscribed before me,\n      Sept. 26, 1867.\n        ISRAEL DURHAM,\n          _Justice of the Peace_.\"\n\n\"Does any one appear for Mrs. Burnham in this matter?\" inquired the\njudge, addressing the assembly of lawyers.\n\nAn elderly man, short and thick-set, with gray hair and moustache,\narose, and said:--\n\n\"I have been informed, as Mrs. Burnham's attorney, that such a\nproceeding as this was in contemplation. I appreciate your Honor's\ncareful scrutiny of the matter before making an appointment; but, so\nlong as we do not recognize the boy as Robert Burnham's son, it would\nhardly be justifiable for us to interfere in the simple appointment\nof a guardian for him. Inasmuch, however, as the avowed purpose is\nto make an attack on the Burnham estates, we shall insist that the\nguardian enter into a bond of sufficient amount and value to cover any\ndamages which may accrue from any action he may see fit to take.\"\n\n\"Have you prepared a bond, Mr. Sharpman?\" inquired the judge.\n\n\"We have,\" replied Sharpman, producing still another paper.\n\n\"Mr. Goodlaw,\" continued the judge, addressing Mrs. Burnham's\nattorney, \"will you look at the bond and see if it is satisfactory to\nyou?\"\n\nMr. Goodlaw took the bond, examined it, and returned it to the clerk.\n\"I have no objection to make to it,\" he said.\n\n\"Then we will approve the bond, Mr. Sharpman, and make the\nappointment. You have named Simon Craft as guardian. We are wholly\nunacquainted with him. Have you consulted with the boy in this matter?\nWhat does he say?\"\n\n\"I have brought the boy into court, so that, notwithstanding his legal\ninability to make choice for himself, your Honor might be satisfied as\nto his wish in the matter. This is the boy,\" as Ralph, obedient to the\nlawyer's summons, came into the bar and stood beside him. The judge\nscrutinized the lad closely, and the lawyers leaned forward in their\nchairs, or came nearer for the purpose of better observation. Ralph\nfelt somewhat embarrassed, standing there to be stared at so, but the\nvoice of the judge soon reassured him.\n\n\"Ralph,\" he said, \"is this application for a guardian made according\nto your desire?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" replied the boy; \"Mr. Sharpman says I ought to have one.\"\n\n\"And whom do you choose for your guardian?\"\n\n\"Gran'pa Simon, sir.\"\n\nSharpman looked annoyed, and whispered something to Ralph.\n\n\"I mean Simon Craft,\" said the boy, correcting himself.\n\n\"Is Simon Craft your grandfather?\" asked the judge, sternly.\n\n\"Oh, no! I guess not. He made me call 'im that. I never had no\ngrandfather; but Mr. Sharpman says that Robert Burnham was my\nfather--and--and he's dead.\"\n\nThe judge looked down at the lad somewhat uncertainly, then he said:\n\"Well, Ralph, that will do; we'll make the appointment, but,\" turning\nto Sharpman, \"we shall watch this matter closely. We shall see that\njustice is done to the child in any event.\"\n\n\"It is my earnest wish,\" responded Sharpman, \"that your Honor shall\ndo so. My only object in the matter is to see that this boy, whom I\nfirmly believe to be Robert Burnham's son, is restored to his family\nand estates, and that this old man, who has saved the lad's life, and\nhas spent and endured much for him through many years, is adequately\nrewarded in his old age.\"\n\nThe judge endorsed the papers and handed them to the clerk, and\nSharpman walked up the aisle with Ralph to the door of the court-room.\n\n\"I have business,\" said the lawyer, \"which will keep me here the rest\nof the day. Can you find your way back to the station?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes!\"\n\n\"Here is something to pay your fare with;\" offering a piece of money\nto the boy.\n\n\"I've got enough,\" said Ralph, declining to accept it, \"plenty; I'll\nget home all right.\"\n\n\"Well, the train will leave at noon. I'll send for you when we want\nyou again. Good-by!\"\n\n\"Good-by!\"\n\nRalph went down the steps, out at the door, and across the court-house\nyard. He was not sure that he struck into the right street to go to\nthe station, there were so many streets radiating from the court-house\nsquare. But it did not much matter; there was plenty of time before\nthe train would start, and he thought he would like to walk about a\nlittle, and see something of the city. He felt like walking off, too,\na feeling of dissatisfaction concerning what had just been done in\ncourt. It was too much in the nature of an adverse proceeding to seem\nquite right to him; he was fearful that, somehow, it would estrange\nhis mother from him. He thought there ought to be some simpler way to\nrestore him to his family, some way in which he and his mother could\nact jointly and in undoubted harmony. He hoped it would all come out\nright, though. He did not know what better he could do, at any rate,\nthan to follow the advice of his lawyer; and, besides that, he had\npromised to obey him implicitly in this matter, and he must keep\nhis promise. He had no thought that he was being used merely as an\ninstrument in the hands of designing men.\n\nIt was with this vague feeling of unrest at his heart, and with his\nmind occupied by uneasy thought, that he walked leisurely down the\nstreet of this strange city, paying little attention to his course,\nor to what was going on around him.\n\nFinally he thought it was time he should have reached the station, or\nat least made some attempt to find it; so he quickened his steps a\nlittle, and looked out ahead of him.\n\nThere was a man standing on the next corner, and Ralph stopped and\nasked him if he was on the right road to get to the station. The man\nlaughed good-naturedly, and told him he was on the right road to get\naway from it, and advised him to retrace his steps for four blocks,\nthen to go two blocks to the left, and there he would find a street\nrunning diagonally across the town, which, if he would follow it,\nwould take him very near to the station. He would have to hurry, too,\nthe man said, if he wanted to catch the noon train.\n\nSo Ralph turned back, counting the blocks as he went, turning at\nthe right place, and coming, at last, to the street described. But,\ninstead of one street running diagonally from this point there were\ntwo or three; and Ralph did not know which one to follow. He asked\na boy, who was passing by with a basket on his shoulder, where the\nstation was, and the boy, bending his neck and looking at him, said,--\n\n\"I guess this's the way you want to go, sonny,\" pointing down one\nof the streets, as he spoke, and then whistling a merry tune as he\ntrudged on with his burden.\n\nRalph turned into the street designated, and hurried down it, block\nafter block; but he did not reach the station, nor did he see any\nplace that looked like it. He seemed to be in the suburbs, too, in a\nlocality the surroundings of which impressed him unpleasantly. The\nbuildings were small and dilapidated, there was a good deal of rubbish\non the sidewalks and in the streets, a few ragged children were\nplaying in the gutter near by, shivering with cold as they ran about\nin bare, dirty feet, and a drunken man, leaning against a post on the\nopposite corner, was talking affectionately to some imaginary person\nin the vicinity. Ralph thought that this, certainly, was not where he\nought to be. He walked more slowly, trying to find some one who would\ngive him reliable directions.\n\nAt the corner of the block there was a house that looked somewhat\nbetter than its neighbors. It had a show-window projecting a\nfew inches into the street, and in the window was a display of\nwine-bottles, and a very dirty placard announcing that oysters would\nbe served to customers, in every style. On the ground-glass comprising\nthe upper part of the door, the words \"Sample Room\" were elaborately\nlettered. Ralph heard some one talking inside, and, after a moment of\nhesitation, concluded to go in there and make his inquiry, as the need\nof finding his way had come to be very pressing. Coming in, as he did,\nfrom the street, the room was quite dark to his eyes, and he could not\nwell make out, at first, who were in it. But he soon discovered a man\nstanding, in his shirt-sleeves, behind a bar, and he went up to him\nand said:--\n\n\"Will you please tell me, sir, which is the nearest way to the\nrailroad station?\"\n\n\"Which station d'ye want to go to, bub?\" inquired the man, leaning\nover the bar to look at him.\n\n\"The one you take the train for Scranton from.\"\n\n\"Which train for Scranton d'ye want to take?\"\n\n\"The one't leaves at noon.\"\n\n\"Why that train goes in just five minutes. You couldn't catch that\ntrain now, my little cupid, if you should spread your wings and fly to\nthe station.\"\n\nIt was not the bar-tender who spoke this time; it was a young man who\nhad left his chair by the stove and had come up closer to get a better\nlook at the boy. He was just slipping a silver watch back into his\nvest pocket. It was a black silk vest, dotted with little red figures.\nBelow the vest, encasing the wearer's legs very tightly, were a pair\nof much soiled corduroy pantaloons that had once been of a lavender\nshade. Over the vest was a short, dark, double-breasted sack coat, now\nunbuttoned. A large gaudy, flowing cravat, and an ill-used silk hat,\nset well back on the wearer's head, completed this somewhat noticeable\ncostume.\n\nThere was a good-natured looking face under the hat though, smooth and\nfreckled; but the eyes were red and heavy, and the tip of the straight\nnose was of quite a vermilion hue.\n\n\"No, my dear boy,\" he continued,--\n\n  \"You can't catch it,\n  And I can't fetch it,\n\n\"so you may as well take it easy and wait for the next one.\"\n\n\"When does the next one go?\" inquired Ralph, looking up at the strange\nyoung man, but with his eyes still unaccustomed to the darkness of the\nroom.\n\n\"Four o'clock, my cherub; not till four o'clock. Going up on that\ntrain myself, and I'll see you right through:--\n\n  \"Oh, sonny! if you'll wait and go with me,\n  How happy and delighted I should be.\"\n\nThen the young man did a strange thing; he took hold of Ralph's arm,\nled him to the window, turned his face to the light and scrutinized it\nclosely.\n\n\"Well, I'll be kicked to death by grasshoppers!\" he exclaimed, at\nlast, \"have I found--do I behold--is this indeed the long lost Ralph?\"\n\nThe boy had broken away from him, and stood with frightened, wondering\nface, gazing steadily on the young man, as if trying to call something\nto memory. Then a light of recognition came into his eyes, and a smile\nto his lips.\n\n\"Why!\" he exclaimed, \"it's Joe; it's Rhymin' Joe!\"\n\n\"A happy meeting,\" said the young man, \"and a mutual remembrance.\nHeart speaks to heart.\n\n  \"The hand of friendship, ever true,\n  Brings you to me and me to you.\n\n\"Mr. Bummerton,\" turning to the bar-tender, \"allow me to introduce my\nesteemed young friend, Mr. Ralph Craft, the worthy grandson of an old\nacquaintance.\"\n\nMr. Bummerton reached a burly hand over the bar and shook hands\ncordially with Ralph. \"Glad to meet your young friend,\" he said.\n\n\"Well,\" continued Rhyming Joe, \"isn't it strange how and under what\ncircumstances old cronies sometimes meet? I cast my eyes on you and I\nsaid to myself, 'that young man has a familiar look to me.' I listened\nto your voice and I remarked to my inner consciousness, 'that voice\nlingers somewhere in the depths of of memory.' I turn your face to the\nlight, and lo and behold! I reveal to my astonished gaze the features\nof my old friend, Ralph.\n\n  \"No tongue can tell my great delight,\n  At seeing you again to-night.\n\n\"Of course it isn't night yet, you know, but the pressing exigencies of\nrhyme often demand the elimination, as it were, of a small portion of\ntime.\"\n\nRalph was glancing uneasily about the room. \"Gran'pa Simon ain't\nanywheres around is he?\" he asked, letting his eyes rest, with careful\nscrutiny, on a drunken man asleep in a chair in a dark corner.\n\n\"No, my boy,\" answered Joe, \"he isn't. I haven't seen the dear old\nsaint, for, lo, these many moons. Ah!--let me see! did you not leave\nthe patriarch's sweet home circle, somewhat prematurely, eh?\n\n  \"Gave the good old man the slip\n  Ere the cup could touch the lip?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Ralph, \"I did. I run away. He didn't use me right.\"\n\n\"No, he didn't, that's so. Come, be seated--tell me about it. Oh!\nyou needn't fear. I'll not give it away. Your affectionate grandpa\nand I are not on speaking terms. The unpleasant bitterness of our\nestrangement is sapping the juices of my young life and dragging the\nroses from my cheeks.\n\n  \"How sad when lack of faith doth part\n  The tender from the toughened heart!\"\n\nRhyming Joe had drawn two chairs near to the stove, and had playfully\nforced Ralph into one of them, while he, himself, took the other.\n\nThe bar-tender came out from behind his bar and approached the couple.\n\n\"Oh, by the way,\" he asked, \"did ye have a ticket for your passage up,\nor was ye goin' to pay your fare?\"\n\n\"Oh, no!\" said Ralph, \"I ain't got any ticket. Mr. Sharpman paid my\nfare down, but I was goin' to pay it back, myself.\"\n\nThe man stood, for a few minutes, listening to the reminiscences of\ntheir Philadelphia life which Ralph and Joe were recalling, then he\ninterrupted again:--\n\n\"How'd ye like to have some dinner, me boy? Ain't ye gittin' a little\nhungry? it's after noon now.\"\n\n\"Well, I am a bit hungry,\" responded Ralph, \"that's a fact. Do you get\ndinners here for people?\"\n\n\"Oh, certainly! jest as good a dinner as ye'll git anywhere. Don't\ncharge ye for nothing more'n ye actially eat, neither. Have some?\"\n\n\"Well, yes,\" said the boy, \"I guess so; I won't have no better chance\nto get any, 'fore I get home.\"\n\n\"I think,\" said Rhyming Joe, as the man shuffled away, \"that my young\nfriend would like a dish of soup, then a bit of tenderloin, and a\nlittle chicken-salad, and some quail on toast, with the vegetables\nand accessories. For dessert we will have some ices, a few chocolate\neclairs and lady-fingers, and a cup of black coffee. You had better\nbring the iced champagne with the dinner, and don't forget the\nfinger-bowls.\"\n\nBefore the last words were out of the speaker's mouth, the bar-tender\nhad disappeared through a door behind the bar, with a wicked smile on\nhis face.\n\nIt seemed a long time, to Ralph, before the man came back, but when\nhe did come, he carried in his hands a tray, on which were bowls of\noyster soup, very thin, a few crackers, and two little plates of dirty\nbutter. He placed them on a round table at one side of the room, and\nRalph and Joe drew up their chairs and began to eat.\n\nThe man came again, a few minutes afterward, with bread, and pork, and\ncabbage, and coffee.\n\nOn the whole, it was much better than no dinner, and Ralph's hunger\nprevented him from being very critical. The warm food seemed to have\nthe effect of making him more communicative, and he was allowing his\ncompanion to draw out from him, little by little, as they sat and ate,\nthe whole story of his life since leaving Simon Craft. Rhyming Joe\nappeared to be deeply interested and very sympathetic.\n\n\"Well, you did have a hard time, my dear lad,\" he said, \"out on the\nroad with that circus company. I travelled with a circus company once,\nmyself, in the capacity of special entertainer of country people and\ninspector of watches and jewelry, but it brings tears to my eyes now,\nto remember how ungratefully they treated me.\"\n\n\"That's jes' like they did me,\" said Ralph; \"w'en I got sick up there\nat Scranton, they hadn't no furder use for me, an' they went away an'\nlef' me there alone.\"\n\n\"That was a sad plight to be in. How did you meet that emergency?\"\n\n\"I didn't meet it at all. Bachelor Billy, he met it; he foun' me, an'\ncured me, an' I live with him now, an' work in the breaker.\"\n\n\"Ah, indeed! at work. _Laborarium est honorarium_, as the Latin poet\nhas it. How often have I wished that it were possible for me to earn\nmy bread by the sweat of my brow; but, alas!--\"\n\n\"Ain't it?\" interrupted Ralph.\n\n\"No, my dear boy, it isn't. I have been afflicted, from my youth up,\nwith a chronic disease which the best physicians of both continents\nhave pronounced imminently dangerous to both life and happiness, if\nphysical exercise be immoderately indulged in.\"\n\n\"What is it?\" asked Ralph, innocently.\n\n\"Indolentia, my dear boy, indolentia; a terrible affliction. But how\nabout Grandpa Simon? Has he discovered your retreat?\n\n  \"Has the bald, bad eagle of the plain\n  Swooped down upon his prey again?\"\n\n\"Well, not hardly that,\" responded Ralph, \"but he's foun' me.\"\n\n\"Indeed! And what is his state of mind concerning you now?\"\n\n\"He ain't my grandfather,\" said the boy, abruptly.\n\n\"Ain't your grandfather! You startle me.\"\n\n\"No, he ain't no relation to me.\"\n\n\"You take my breath away! Who are you, then?\"\n\n\"I'm Ralph Burnham. I'm Robert Burnham's son.\"\n\nRalph had not meant to disclose so much, in this place, to this\nfellow, but the words came out before he thought. It did not matter\nmuch anyway,--every one would soon know it.\n\n\"Robert Burnham's son? You don't mean the rich coal proprietor who\ndied at his mine in Scranton last spring?\"\n\n\"Yes, he's the one I mean. I'm his son.\"\n\nRhyming Joe leaned across the table, lifted up the boy's chin, and\nlooked into his eyes. \"My dear young friend,\" he said, \"I fear you\nhave fallen into evil ways since you passed out of the range of my\nbeneficent influence. But you should not try to impose so glittering a\nromance on the verdant credulity of an old acquaintance at the first\nmeeting in many weary years.\"\n\n  \"To your faithful friend and true,\n  Tell the truth, whate'er you do.\"\n\n\"Tis true!\" asserted Ralph, stoutly. \"Gran'pa Simon says so, an'\nLawyer Sharpman says so, an' Mrs. Burnham, she--she--she almost\nbelieves it, too, I guess.\"\n\nThe bar-tender approached again and asked what else they would have.\n\n\"A little something to wash the dinner down with, Bummerton,\" said\nJoe, turning again quickly to Ralph.\n\n\"Then why don't you live in the Burnham mansion?\" he asked, \"and leave\nrude toil for others?\"\n\n\"'Cause my mother ain't able to reco'nize me yet; she can't do it till\nthe suit's ended. They's other heirs, you know.\"\n\n\"Suit! what suit? are you going to have a suit over it?\"\n\nThe bar-tender brought a bottle, a pitcher of water, two glasses, and\na bowl of sugar.\n\n\"Yes,\" replied the boy, sadly, \"I s'pose we've got to. Gran'pa Simon,\nhe's been 'pointed my garden. He ain't so bad a man as he used to be,\nGran'pa Simon ain't. He's been sick a good deal lately, I guess.\"\n\nRhyming Joe paid no attention to these last remarks, but he seemed to\nbe deeply interested in the law-suit mentioned. He took time to pour\nsome of the contents of the bottle into each glass, then he filled the\nglasses up with water and stirred a goodly quantity of sugar into the\none he pushed toward Ralph.\n\n\"What is it?\" asked the boy. \"Uncle Billy an' me's temperance; we\ndon't drink nothin' much but water.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" responded Joe, \"this is purely a temperance drink; it's made up\nfrom wheat, just the same as you get in your white bread. They have to\ndrink it here in Wilkesbarre, the water is so bad.\n\n  \"When man and water both are ill,\n  A little wheat-juice fills the bill.\n\n\"Try some, you'll find it good.\"\n\nRalph was thirsty, and he sipped a little of the mixture; but he did\nnot like it very well, and he drank no more of it.\n\n\"Who is going to carry on the suit for you?\" continued Rhyming Joe;\n\"have you got a lawyer?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes! Lawyer Sharpman; he's very smart, too. He's goin' to manage\nit.\"\n\n\"And when will the trial come off? Perhaps I may be of some assistance\nto you and to my quondam friend, your sometime grandfather. I would\ndrop all bitterness of feeling, all vain enmity, if I might do the\nrevered patriarch a favor.\n\n  \"My motto has been, and my motto is yet,\n  That it frequently pays to forgive and forget.\"\n\n\"Oh! I don't know,\" Ralph replied; \"it'll be two or three months yet,\nanyway, I guess.\"\n\nRhyming Joe gazed thoughtfully at the stove.\n\nBummerton came and began to take away the dishes.\n\n\"What's your bill, landlord?\" inquired Joe.\n\n\"D'ye want the bill for both of ye?\"\n\n\"Certainly. My young friend here, if I remember rightly, invited me to\ndine with him. I am his guest, and he foots the bills. See?\"\n\nRalph did not remember to have asked Rhyming Joe to dine with him, but\nhe did not want to appear mean, so he said:--\n\n\"Yes, I'll foot the bill; how much is it?\" taking out his little\nleather wallet as he spoke.\n\n\"It'll be three dollars,\" said Bummerton; \"a dollar an' a quarter\napiece for the dinner, an' a quarter apiece for the drinks.\"\n\nRalph looked up in amazement. He had never before heard of a dinner\nbeing worth so much money.\n\n\"Oh! it's all right,\" said Joe. \"This is rather a high-priced hotel;\nbut they get up everything in first-class style, do you see?\n\n  \"If in style you drink and eat,\n  Lofty bills you'll have to meet.\"\n\n\"But I ain't got that much money,\" said Ralph, unstrapping his wallet.\n\n\"How much have ye got?\" inquired the bar-tender.\n\n\"I've only got a dollar'n eighty-two cents.\"\n\n\"Well, you see, sonny,\" said Bummerton, \"that ain't more'n half\nenough. Ye shouldn't order such a fancy dinner 'nless ye've got money\nto pay for it.\"\n\n\"But I didn't know it was goin' to cost so much,\" protested Ralph.\n\"Uncle Billy an' me got jest as good a dinner last Fourth o' July at\na place in Scranton, an' it didn't cost both of us but seventy cents.\nBesides, I don't b'lieve--\"\n\n\"Look here, Bummerton!\" said Joe, rising and leading the bar-tender\naside. They whispered together for a few moments and then returned.\n\n\"It's all right,\" said Joe. \"You're to pay him what money you have,\nand he's to charge the remainder on my bill. I'll stand the rest of it\nfor you.\n\n  \"I'll be that precious 'friend in need,'\n  Who proves himself a friend indeed.\"\n\n\"Then,\" said Ralph, \"I won't have any money left to pay my fare back\nhome.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'll see to that!\" exclaimed Joe. \"I invited you to ride up with\nme, didn't I? and of course I'll pay your fare; _das verstekt sich_;\nthat goes without saying.\n\n  \"I'll never desert you, oh, never! he spake,\n  We'll stand by each other, asleep or awake.\"\n\nIt was not without much misgiving that Ralph gave the dollar and\neighty-two cents to the bar-tender, and returned the empty wallet to\nhis pocket. But Rhyming Joe soon engaged him again in conversation.\nThe young man seemed to be deeply interested in the movement to\nrestore the boy to his family rights and possessions. He asked\nmany questions about it, about Craft, about Sharpman, about Ralph's\nknowledge of himself; the whole ground, indeed, was gone over\ncarefully from the beginning to the present; even the probabilities of\nthe future were fully discussed.\n\nIn the meantime, the liquor in the bottle was steadily diminishing in\nquantity, as a result of Rhyming Joe's constant attention to it, and\nRalph thought he began to detect evidences of intoxication in the\nspeech and conduct of his friend. His nose appeared to be getting\nredder, his eyelids were drooping, he was sinking lower into his\nchair, his utterance was growing thick, and his voice had a sleepy\ntone.\n\nRalph, too, felt sleepy. The excitement and exercise of the morning,\nthe hearty dinner, the warm, close room, and the fumes of alcohol in\nthe atmosphere, were all having their effect on his senses. He saw,\ndimly, that Joe's chin was resting on his breast and that his eyes\nwere closed; he heard him mutter in a voice that seemed to come from\nsome distant room:--\n\n  \"Of all 'e bowls I s-s-smell or see,\n  The wassail bowl's 'e bowl f-f-for me,\"\n\nand the next moment both man and boy were fast asleep.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nA FRIEND IN NEED.\n\n\nWhen Ralph awoke, it was quite dark in the room. He was still sitting\nat the round table, but Rhyming Joe had disappeared from the other\nside of it. He looked around the room, and saw that an oil-lamp was\nburning behind the bar, and that two or three rough-looking men stood\nthere with the bar-tender, talking and drinking. But the young man who\nhad dined with him was nowhere to be seen. Ralph arose, and went over\nto the bar.\n\n\"Can you tell me where Joe is, please?\" he asked of the bar-tender.\n\n\"Joe? Oh, he went out a half-an-hour ago. I don't know where he went,\nsonny.\" And the man went on filling the glasses, and talking to the\nother men. Ralph stood for a moment, in deep thought, then he asked:--\n\n\"Did Joe say when he would be back?\"\n\nThe bar-tender paid no attention to him, and, after a few moments, the\nboy repeated the question.\n\n\"Mr. Bummerton, did Joe say when he would be back?\"\n\n\"No, he didn't,\" responded the man, in a surly tone; \"I don't know\nnothing about him.\"\n\nRalph went back, and stood by the stove to consider the matter. He\nthought it was very strange. He could hardly believe that Rhyming Toe\nhad intended to desert him in this way. He preferred to think that the\nfellow had become helpless, and that Bummerton had dragged him into\nsome other room. He knew that Joe used to get that way, years before,\nin Philadelphia. He had seen much of him during the wretched period of\nhis life with Simon Craft. Joe and the old man were together a great\ndeal during that time. They were engaged jointly in an occupation\nwhich was not strictly within the limit of the law, and which,\ntherefore, required mutual confidence. The young fellow had,\napparently, taken a great liking to Ralph, had made much of him in\na jovial way, and, indeed, in several instances, had successfully\ndefended him against the results of Old Simon's wrath. The child had\ncome to regard him as a friend, and had not been displeased to meet\nhim, after all these years, in this unexpected manner. He had had a\ngeneral idea that the young man's character was not good, and that his\nlife was not moral, but he had not expected to be badly treated by\nhim. Now, however, he felt compelled to believe that Joe had abused\nthe privileges of friendship. The more he thought of it, the more sure\nhe became that he had been deceived and deserted. He was alone in a\nstrange city, without money or friends. What was to be done?\n\nPerhaps the bar-tender, understanding the difficulty, would help him\nout of it. He resolved to apply to him.\n\n\"Mr. Bummerton,\" he said, approaching the bar again, \"now't Joe's\ngone, an' I ain't got no money, I don't see how I'm goin' to git home.\nCould--could you lend me enough to pay my fare up? I'll send it back\nto you right away. I will,--honest!\"\n\nThe man pushed both his hands into the pockets of his pantaloons, and\nstood for a minute staring at the boy, in feigned astonishment.\n\n\"Why, my little innocent!\" he exclaimed, \"what do ye take me for;\na reg'lar home for the friendless? No, I ain't in the charitable\nbusiness jist now. By the way, did ye know that the law don't allow\nhotel-keepers to let boys stay in the bar-room? Fust thing I know\nthey'll be a constable a-swoopin' down on me here with a warrant.\nDon't ye think ye'd better excuse yourself? That's the door over\nyonder, young feller.\"\n\nRalph turned, without a word, went to the door, opened it, and stepped\ninto the street. It was very dark outside, and a cold wind was blowing\nup. He stood, for a few minutes, on the corner, shivering, and\nwondering which way to go. He felt very wretched indeed; not so much\nbecause he was penniless and lost, as because he had been deceived,\nabused, and mocked. He saw through the whole scheme now, and wondered\nhow he had fallen so easily into it.\n\nOn a distant corner there was a street-lamp, burning dimly, and,\nwithout much thought of where he was going, the boy started toward it.\n\nThere were other drinking-saloons along the street, and he could hear\nloud talking and quarrelling in them as he passed by. A man came\nout from one of them and hailed him gruffly. It frightened him, and\nhe started to run. The man followed him for a little way, shouting\nsavagely, and then turned back; but Ralph ran on. He stumbled,\nfinally, on the uneven pavement, and fell headlong, bruising his side\nand hurting his wrist. His cap had rolled off, and it took him a\nlong time to find it. Then he crossed the street to avoid a party of\ndrunken revellers, and limped along until he came to the lamp that he\nhad seen from the distance. Down another street there were a number of\nlights, and it looked more inviting; so he turned in that way. After\nhe had gone two or three blocks in this direction, avoiding carefully\nthe few persons whom he met, he turned again. The streets were\ngrowing lighter and wider now, and there were more people on them,\nand that was something to be thankful for. Finally he reached a busy,\nwell-lighted thoroughfare, and turned into it, with a sigh of relief.\nHe had not walked very far along it before he saw, over to the right,\nsurrounded by lights, a long, low building, in the middle of an open\nsquare. It occurred to him, suddenly, that this was the railroad\nstation, and he hurried toward it. When he reached the door he\nremembered that he was without money, but he thought he would go in at\nany rate. He was very tired, and he knew of no better place in which\nto stop and rest. So he went into the waiting-room, and sat down on a\nbench, and looked around him.\n\nThere were not many people there, but they began to come very soon,\nand kept coming until the room was nearly full. Finally, there was a\npuffing of a locomotive out on the track, and a ringing of an engine\nbell, and the door-keeper called out:--\n\n\"All aboard for Pittston, Scranton, and Carbondale!\"\n\nThe people crowded toward the door, and just then a carriage drove up\nto the other side of the station, and a gentleman and a lady and a\nlittle girl came into the waiting-room from the street entrance. The\nlady was in deep mourning; but, as she threw aside her veil for a\nmoment, Ralph recognized her as Mrs. Burnham, and the little girl as\nher child. His heart gave a great throb, and he started to his feet.\n\nThe gentleman was saying: \"I trust you will reach home safely and\ncomfortably.\"\n\nAnd Mrs. Burnham replied: \"Oh, there is no doubt of it, Mr. Goodlaw! I\nhave telegraphed to James to meet us at the station; we shall be there\nbefore nine o'clock.\"\n\n\"I will see that you are comfortably settled,\" he said, as they\ncrossed the room toward the waiting train.\n\nFor a moment Ralph stood, wondering and uncertain. Then there came\ninto his mind a sudden resolution to speak to them, to tell them who\nhe was, and why and how he was here, and ask them to help him. He\nstarted forward, but they were already passing out at the door. He\npushed hurriedly by several people in his effort to overtake them, but\nthe man who stood there punching tickets stopped him.\n\n\"Where's your ticket, sonny?\" he asked.\n\n\"I ain't got any,\" replied Ralph.\n\n\"Then you can't get out here.\"\n\n\"But I want to find Mrs. Burnham.\"\n\n\"Who's Mrs. Burnham?\"\n\n\"The lady't just went out.\"\n\n\"Has she got a ticket for you?\"\n\n\"No, but she'd give me money to get one--I think.\"\n\n\"Well, I can't help that; you can't go out Come, stand aside! you're\nblocking up the way.\"\n\nThe people, crowding by, pushed Ralph back, and he went and sat down\non the bench again.\n\nThe bell rang, the conductor shouted \"All aboard!\" and the train\nmoved off.\n\nRalph's eyes were full of tears, and his heart was very heavy. It\nwas not so much because he was friendless and without money that he\ngrieved, but because his mother,--his own mother,--had passed him by\nin his distress and had not helped him. She had been so close to him\nthat he could almost have put out his hand and touched her dress, and\nyet she had swept by, in her haste, oblivious of his presence. He\nknew, of course, that, if he had spoken to her, or if she had seen and\nknown him, she would gladly have befriended him. But it was not her\nassistance that he wanted so much as it was her love. It was the\nabsence of that sympathy, that devotion, that watchful care over every\nstep he might take, that motherly instinct that ought to have felt his\npresence though her eyes had been blinded; it was the absence of all\nthis that filled his heart with heaviness.\n\nBut he did not linger long in despair; he dashed the tears from his\neyes, and began to consider what he should do. He thought it probable\nthat there would be a later train; and it was barely possible that\nsome one whom he knew might be going up on it. It occurred to him that\nSharpman had said he would be busy in Wilkesbarre all day. Perhaps he\nhad not gone home yet; if not, he might go on the next train, if there\nwas one. It was worth while to inquire, at any rate.\n\n\"Yes,\" said the door-keeper, in answer to Ralph's question, \"there'll\nbe another train going up at eleven thirty-five.\"\n\n\"Do you know Mr. Sharpman?\" asked the boy, timidly.\n\n\"Mr. who?\"\n\n\"Mr. Sharpman, the lawyer from Scranton.\"\n\n\"No, I don't know him,--why?\"\n\n\"Oh, I didn't know but you might know w'ether he'd gone home or not;\nbut, of course, if you don't know 'im you couldn't tell.\"\n\n\"No, I don't know anything about him,\" said the man, stretching\nhimself on the bench for a nap.\n\nRalph thought he would wait. Indeed, there was nothing better for him\nto do. It was warm here, and he had a seat, and he knew of no other\nplace in the city where he could be so comfortable. The clock on the\nwall informed him that it was eight in the evening. He began to feel\nhungry. He could see, through a half-opened door, the tempting array\nof food on the lunch-counter in another room; but he knew that he\ncould get none, and he tried not to think of eating. It was very\nquiet now in the waiting-room, and it was not very long before Ralph\nfell to dozing and dreaming. He dreamed that he was somewhere in deep\ndistress, and that his mother came, looking for him, but unable to see\nhim; that she passed so close to him he put out his hand and touched\nher; that he tried to speak to her and could not, and so, unaware of\nhis presence, she went on, leaving him alone in his misery.\n\nThe noise of persons coming into the room awoke him, finally, and he\nsat up and rubbed his eyes and looked around him. He saw, by the clock\non the wall, that it was nearly train time. The escaping steam from\nthe waiting engine could already be heard outside. People were buying\ntickets and making their way hurriedly to the platform; but, among all\nthose who came in and went out, Ralph could not discover the familiar\nface and figure of Sharpman, nor, indeed, could he see any one whom\nhe knew.\n\nAfter the passengers had all gone out, the door-keeper called Ralph to\nhim.\n\n\"Find your man?\" he asked.\n\n\"Do you mean Mr. Sharpman?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"No, he didn't come in. I guess he went home before.\"\n\nThe door-keeper paused and looked thoughtful. Finally he said:--\n\n\"You want to go to Scranton?\"\n\n\"Yes, that's where I live.\"\n\n\"Well, I'll tell you what you do. You git onto that train, and when\nJim Coleman--he's the conductor--when he comes around to punch your\nticket, you tell him I said you were to be passed. Now you'll have to\nhurry; run!\"\n\nThe kind-hearted door-keeper saw Ralph leap on to the train as it\nmoved slowly out, and then he turned back into the waiting-room.\n\"Might as well give the lad a lift,\" he said to a man who stood by,\nsmiling; \"he looked awful solemn when the last train before went and\nleft him. Jim won't put him off till he gits to Pittston, anyway.\"\n\nRalph found a vacant seat in the car and dropped into it, breathless\nand excited. His good luck had come to him all in a moment so, that it\nhad quite upset him.\n\nHe did not just understand why the door-keeper's word should be good\nfor his passage, but the conductor would know, and doubtless it was\nall right.\n\nThe train went rumbling on through the darkness; the lamps, hanging\nfrom the ceiling, swayed back and forth; the people in the car were\nvery quiet,--some of them, indeed, were already asleep.\n\nBy and by, the conductor came in, a slender, young-looking man, with\na good-natured face. He greeted several of the passengers pleasantly,\nand came down the aisle, punching tickets to the right and left, till\nhe reached the seat where Ralph was.\n\n\"Ticket?\" he asked.\n\n\"I ain't got any,\" said the boy.\n\n\"What's the reason?\"\n\n\"W'y, I lost all my money, an' I couldn't buy one, an' I couldn't see\nnobody't I knew, an' the man't tended door, he said tell you to pass\nme up.\"\n\nThe conductor smiled, as he recognized a familiar scheme of the\nkind-hearted door-keeper, but he said, trying to speak sternly:--\n\n\"The man had no right to tell you that. Our rules are very strict. No\none can ride without a ticket or a pass. Where do you want to go?\"\n\n\"To Scranton; I live there,\" said Ralph, his voice faltering with\napprehension.\n\n\"Well, I suppose I ought to stop the train and put you off.\"\n\nRalph looked out through the car window, at the blackness outside, and\nhis face took on a look of fear.\n\n\"I'm very sorry,\" he said, \"I'm awful sorry. I wouldn't 'a' got on\nif I'd 'a' known it. Do you think you've _got_ to put me off--right\naway?\"\n\nThe conductor looked out through the window, too.\n\n\"Well,\" he said, \"it's pretty dark, and I hate to stop the train\nbetween stations. I guess I'll have to let you ride to Pittston,\nanyway. You'll get out there, won't you? it's the first stop.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes! I'll get out there,\" said Ralph, much relieved, settling\nback into his seat as the conductor left.\n\nThe train dashed on through the night, rumbling, rocking, waking the\nechoes now and then with its screaming whistle, and finally it pulled\ninto the station at Pittston.\n\nTrue to his bargain, Ralph stepped from the train. Two or three other\npeople left it at the same time and hurried away up the street; then\nthe puffing engine pulled the cars out again into the darkness.\n\nThe boy stood, for a moment or two, wondering what he should do\nnow. The chill night air made him shiver, and he turned toward\nthe waiting-room. But the lights were already out there, and the\nstation-master had locked himself into his office. Off to the left he\nsaw the street lamps of West Pittston, dotting the blackness here and\nthere like dim, round stars; and between them and him the dark water\nof the river reflected the few lights that shone on it. Finally, Ralph\nwalked down the length of the platform and turned up the street at the\nend of it.\n\nIn a minute or two he had reached Main Street, and stood looking up\nand down it, trying to decide which way to go. On the other side, and\na little to the right, he saw a man standing on the corner, under a\nstreet lamp, and looking at him.\n\nHe was an honest-looking man, Ralph thought; may be he would tell him\nwhat to do. He crossed over and went down to where the man stood.\n\n\"Please, mister,\" he said, \"I'd like to find a place to stay all\nnight.\"\n\nThe man looked down on him wonderingly, but not unkindly.\n\n\"Is it a hotel ye're after?\" he asked.\n\n\"Well, not hardly. I ain't got any money. I only want a place to stay\nwhere I won't be in the dark an' cold alone all night.\"\n\n\"Do ye belong in Pittston, I don' no'?\"\n\n\"No, I live in Scranton.\"\n\n\"Sure, the train jist wint for there. Why didn't ye go with it?\"\n\n\"Well, you see, I didn't have any ticket, an' the conductor, he told\nme to--to--he asked me if I wouldn't jest as lieve git off here.\"\n\nThe man gave a low whistle.\n\n\"Come along with me,\" he said, \"it's little I can do for yez, but it's\nbetter nor the strate.\" He led the way up the pavement of the side\nstreet a few steps, unlocked a door and entered a building, and Ralph\nfollowed him.\n\nThey seemed to be in a sort of retiring room for the use of the\nadjoining offices. A gas light was burning dimly. There was a table\nin the room, and there were some chairs. Some engineering tools stood\nin one corner, some mining tools in another; caps were hanging on the\nwall, and odds and ends of many kinds were scattered about.\n\nThe man took down a heavy overcoat, and spread it on the table.\n\n\"There,\" he said, \"ye can slape on that.\"\n\n\"That'll be very nice,\" said Ralph; \"it'll be a sight better'n stayin'\nout in the street all night.\"\n\n\"Right ye are, me lad! Compose yoursilf now. Good-night, an' swate\ndrames to yez! I'm the watchman; I'll be out an' in; it's nothing here\nthat'll hurt ye, sure; good-night!\" and the man went out, and locked\nthe door after him.\n\nIt was warm in the room, and very comfortable, and it was not long\nafter the boy laid down on the improvised bed before he was sound\nasleep. He did not wake until the day began to dawn, and the watchman\ncame in and shook him; and it was some moments after he was roused\nbefore he could make out just where he was. But he remembered the\nsituation, finally, and jumped down on to the floor.\n\n\"I've had a good sleep,\" he said. \"I'm a great deal obliged to you.\"\n\n\"Don't shpake of it, lad,\" said the man; \"don't shpake of it. Will ye\nwash up a bit?\"\n\n\"Yes, I would like to,\" replied Ralph, \"very much.\"\n\nHe was shown the way to the basin and water, and after a few moments\nhe came back fresh and clean.\n\n\"Ye wouldn't like a bit to ate now, would ye?\" asked the watchman, who\nhad been busying himself about the room.\n\n\"Oh, I can get along very well without it,\" replied the boy; \"you've\ndone enough for me.\"\n\n\"Whin did ye ate last?\"\n\n\"Well, it must 'a' been some after noon yestaday.\"\n\nThe man went to a closet and took down a dinner-pail.\n\n\"I've a bit left o' me last-night's dinner,\" said he; \"an' av ye're\nthe laste bit hungry ye'll not be makin' me carry it home with me.\" He\nhad spread a newspaper on the table, and had laid out the pieces of\nfood upon it.\n\n\"Oh, I am hungry!\" responded Ralph, looking eagerly over the tempting\narray. \"I'm very hungry; but you've been too good to me already, an'\nyou don't know me, either.\"\n\nThe man turned his face toward the door, and stood for a minute\nwithout speaking. Then he said, huskily:--\n\n\"Ate it lad, ate it. Bless your sowl, there's a plinty more where that\ncome from.\"\n\nThe boy needed no further urging. He ate the food with great relish,\nwhile the watchman stood by and looked on approvingly. When the meal\nwas finished, Ralph said:--\n\n\"Now, I'll be a-goin'. I can't never thank you enough. Maybe I can do\nsumpthin' for you, some time, but--\"\n\n\"Howld your tongue, now! Didn't I tell ye not to shpake of it?\"\n\nThe boy opened the door and looked out upon the dawning day.\n\n\"Ain't it nice!\" he said. \"I can git along splendid in the daylight.\nI ain't afraid, but it's awful lonesome in the dark, 'specially when\nyou're away from home this way.\"\n\n\"An' where do ye be goin' now?\" inquired the watchman.\n\n\"Home; to Scranton. I can walk there, so long as it's daylight. Oh! I\ncan git along beautiful now. Which is the bes' way to go?\"\n\nThe man looked down at him wonderingly for a moment. \"Well, ye do bate\nthe--the--the prisidint!\" he said, going with him to the corner of the\nstreet. \"Now, thin, go up the strate straight,--I mean straight up the\nstrate,--turn nayther to the right nor the lift, an whin the strate\ninds, follow the road up the river, an' be it soon or late ye'll come\nto Scranton.\"\n\n\"Thank you! Good-by. I'll al'ays remember you.\"\n\n\"Good-by, me lad! an' the saints attind ye!\"\n\nThey shook hands cordially, and Ralph started up the street on his\nlong journey toward home, while the watchman turned back to his\nduties, with his heart full of kindness and his eyes full of tears.\nBut he never, never forgot the homeless lad whom he fed and sheltered\nthat autumn night.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nA FRIEND INDEED.\n\n\nIt had been understood, when Ralph went to Wilkesbarre that morning,\nthat he should return in the afternoon. Bachelor Billy was very much\nsurprised, therefore, when he returned from his work, not to find\nthe boy waiting for him. Indeed, he had more than half expected that\nRalph would come up to the breaker to walk home with him, or would, at\nleast, meet him on the way. The Widow Maloney had not seen him, she\nsaid; and when supper was ready she sent her little girl down the road\nto look for him, and to tell him to hurry home.\n\nBefore they had finished eating, the child came back, saying that she\ncould not find him. They were not worried about him, though; they\nthought he had been delayed at court, and would come in on one of the\nlater trains. So, after supper, Billy lighted his pipe and walked down\ntoward the city, hoping to meet the lad. He went on until he reached\nthe railroad station. They told him there that the next train would be\nin from Wilkesbarre in about an hour. He concluded to wait for it, so\nhe sat on one of the benches, and watched the people coming and going,\nand smoked his clay-pipe in comparative comfort. The train came at\nlast, and the passengers from it crowded through the hall-way, and out\ninto the street. But among them all Bachelor Billy could not discover\nRalph. He saw Mrs. Burnham coming from the cars, though, and it\noccurred to him that possibly she might know something about the boy.\nShe had doubtless come from Wilkesbarre; indeed it was not unlikely\nthat she had been in court. He did not hesitate to inquire of her; she\nknew him very well, and always had a kind word for him when she came\nto see Ralph.\n\nHe took off his cap and approached her. \"Beggin' your pardon, Mistress\nBurnham,\" he said, \"but ha' ye seen aught o' Ralph?\"\n\nThe lady stopped in surprise, but in a moment she recognized the man,\nand, throwing aside her veil, she replied: \"Oh, Billy, is that you?\nRalph, did you say? I have not seen him. Why?\"\n\n\"He went to Wilkesbarre the day, ma'am, an' he s'ould 'a' comit hame\nsooner, an' I thocht mayhap ye might 'a' rin across the lad, d'ye see.\nPardon me for a-stoppin' o' ye.\"\n\nThe lady still stood, holding her child by the hand.\n\n\"Did he go alone?\" she asked.\n\n\"No, he went doon wi' Muster Sharpman.\"\n\n\"And has Mr. Sharpman returned?\"\n\n\"I did na thenk to ask; that was fulish in me,--I s'ould 'a' gone\nthere first.\"\n\n\"I think Mr. Sharpman will look after him. I do not think you need to\nworry; perhaps it was necessary for them to remain overnight. But, if\nRalph does not come in the morning, you must let me know, and I shall\nassist you in searching for him.\"\n\n\"Thank ye, Mistress Burnham, thank ye, kindly! I canna feel greatly\nconcernit ower the lad, sin' he's verra gude at carin' for himsel'.\nBut, gin he does na come i' the mornin', I s'all mak' search for 'im.\nHere's James a-waitin' for ye\"; going ahead, as he spoke, to stand by\nthe fretting horses while James held open the carriage door.\n\n\"Good-night, Billy!\" came from inside the coach as it rolled away; and\n\"Good-night, Billy!\" echoed the sweet voice of the child.\n\n\"Good-nicht to both o' ye!\" he shouted, standing to watch them until\nthe carriage disappeared into the darkness.\n\n\"She's verra kin',\" he said to himself, as he walked up the street\ntoward home, \"verra kin', but it's no' sic a care as the lad's ane\nmither s'ould ha' ower 'im, an' he awa' fra hame i' the darkness o'\nthe nicht so. But she dinna ken, she dinna ken as he be her son. Coom\na day when that's plain to her, an' she'd spare naught to save 'im fra\nthe ghost o' danger.\"\n\nWhen Bachelor Billy reached home, Mrs. Maloney was at the door to\nask about Ralph. The man told her what Mrs. Burnham had said, and\nexpressed an earnest hope that the boy would come safely back in the\nmorning. Then' he went to his room, started a fire in the grate, and\nsat down, by it to smoke.\n\nIt was already past his customary bed-time, but he could not quite\nmake up his mind to go to bed without Ralph. It seemed a very lonely\nand awkward thing for him to do. They had gone to bed together every\nnight for nearly three years, and it is not easy to break in upon such\na habit as that.\n\nSo Billy sat by the fire and smoked his pipe and thought about the\nboy. He was thoroughly convinced that the child was Robert Burnham's\nson, and all of his hopes and plans and ambitions, during these days,\nwere centred in the effort to have Ralph restored his family, and\nto his rights as a member of that family. It would be such a fine\nthing for the boy, he thought. In the first place, he could have an\neducation. Bachelor Billy reverenced an education. To him, it was\nalmost a personality. He held that, with an education, a man could\ndo anything short of performing miracles; that all possibilities of\ngoodness or greatness that the world holds were open to him. The very\nfirst thing he would choose for Ralph would be an education. Then the\nchild would have wealth; that, too, would be a great thing for him\nand, through him, for society. The poor would be fed, and the homeless\nwould be sheltered. He was so sure of the boy's honest heart and\nmoral firmness that he knew wealth would be a blessing to him and not\na curse.\n\nAnd a beautiful home! Once he had been in Robert Burnham's house; and,\nfor days thereafter, its richness and beauty and its homelike air had\nhaunted him wherever he went. Yes, the boy would have a beautiful\nhome. He looked around on the bare walls and scanty furniture of his\nown poor dwelling-place as if comparing them with the comforts and\nluxuries of the Burnham mansion. The contrast was a sharp one, the\nchange would be great. But Ralph was so delicate in taste and fancy,\nso high-minded, so pure-souled, that nothing would be too beautiful\nfor him, no luxury would seem strange, no life would be so exalted\nthat he could not hold himself at its level. The home that had haunted\nBachelor Billy's fancy was the home for Ralph, and there he should\ndwell. But then--and the thought came suddenly and for the first time\ninto the man's mind--when the boy went there to live, he, Billy, would\nbe alone, _alone_. He would have no one to chatter brightly to him\nat the dawn of day, no one to walk with him to their daily tasks at\nBurnham Breaker, to eat from the same pail with him the dinner that\nhad been prepared for both, to come home with him at night, and fill\nthe bare room in which they lived with light and cheer enough to flood\na palace. Instead of that, every day would be like this day had been,\nevery night would be as dull and lonely as the night now passing.\n\nHow could he ever endure them?\n\nHe was staring intently into the fire, clutching his pipe in his hand,\nand spilling from it the tobacco he had forgotten to smoke.\n\nThe lad would have a mother, too,--a kind, good, beautiful mother to\nlove him, to caress him, to do a million more things for him than his\nUncle Billy had ever done or ever could do. And the boy would love his\nmother, he would love her very tenderly; he ought to; it was right\nthat he should; but in the beauty and sweetness of such a life as that\nwould Ralph remember him? How could he hope it? Yet, how could he bear\nto be forgotten by the child? How could he ever bear it?\n\nIn his intensity of thought the man had risen to his feet, grasping\nhis clay pipe so closely that it broke and fell in fragments to the\nhearth.\n\nHe looked around again on the bare walls of his home, down on his own\nbent form, on his patched, soiled clothing and his clumsy shoes, then\nhe sank back into his chair, covered his face with his hands, and gave\nway to tears. He had lived in this world too long not to know that\nprosperity breeds forgetfulness, and he felt already in his heart a\nforetaste of the bitterness that should overwhelm him when this boy,\nwhom he loved as his own child, should leave him alone, forgotten.\n\nBut after a time he looked up again. Pleasanter thoughts were in\nhis mind. They were thoughts of the days and nights that he and\nthe boy had spent together, from the time when he had found him,\nsick, helpless, and alone, on the dusty highway, in the heat of the\nmidsummer sun, to these days that were now passing, with their strange\nrevelations, their bright hopes, their shadowy fears.\n\nBut in all his thought there was no touch of disappointment, no trace\nof regret. It was worth it all, he told himself,--worth all the care\nhe had given to the boy, all the money he had spent to restore him\nto health, worth all he had ever done or ever could do for him, just\nto have had the lad with him for a year, a month, a week: why it was\nworth it all and more, yes, vastly more, just to have felt the small\nhand laid once on his arm, to have seen the loving eyes look up once\ninto his, and to have heard the clear voice say, \"Dear Uncle Billy\" in\nthe confiding way he knew so well.\n\nIt was nearly midnight when Bachelor Billy went to bed, and long after\nthat hour before he fell asleep.\n\nHe awoke several times during the night with a sense of loneliness\nand desolation pressing down upon him, and he arose early to prepare\nfor his day's work. It was arranged at the breakfast-table that Mrs.\nMaloney's oldest girl should go down to Lawyer Sharpman's office to\ninquire about Ralph, and Billy was to come home at noon, contrary to\nhis custom, to hear her report.\n\nDaylight is a great promoter of natural cheer, and the man went away\nto his work with a strong hope in his heart of Ralph's speedy return;\nand when the long morning had passed and he hurried back to his home,\nhe half expected that the boy would meet him on the way. But he was\ndisappointed; even Mrs. Maloney's girl had no news for him. She had\nbeen to Sharpman's office twice, she said, and had not found him in,\nthough the clerk had told her that Mr. Sharpman had returned from\nWilkesbarre the day before.\n\nBilly decided then that it was time to make active search for the boy,\nand when he had finished a hurried dinner, he put on his best clothes\nand started for the city. He thought it would be wise for him to\ngo first to Sharpman's office and learn what he could there. The\nlawyer had not yet returned from lunch, but the clerk said he would\npositively be in at half-past one, so Billy took the proffered chair,\nand waited. Sharpman came promptly at the time, greeted his visitor\ncordially, and took him into his private office.\n\n\"Well, my friend; what can I do for you?\" he asked.\n\n\"I cam' to see aboot Ralph, sir; Ralph as lives wi' me.\"\n\n\"Oh! are you Buckley? William Buckley?\"\n\n\"I am, sir. I want to know when saw ye the lad last?\"\n\n\"Why, about eleven o'clock yesterday. He came up on the noon train,\ndidn't he?\"\n\n\"I ha' no' seen 'im.\"\n\n\"Haven't seen him!\" exclaimed Sharpman, in a voice expressive of much\nalarm. \"Haven't seen him since when, man?\"\n\n\"Not sin' yester-mornin', when I said 'good-by' till the lad, an' went\nt' the breaker. I got scared aboot 'im, an' cam' to look 'im oop.\"\n\nBachelor Billy had become infected with Sharpman's alarm.\n\n\"Well, we _must_ look him up,\" said the lawyer, putting on his hat,\nwhich he had just laid aside, and taking up a light overcoat. \"Come,\nwe'll go down to the station and see if we can learn anything of him\nthere.\"\n\nSharpman was really very anxious about the boy; it would interfere\nsadly with his scheme to have Ralph disappear again, now. The two men\nwent out from the door together and down the street at a rapid pace.\nBut they had not taken two steps around the corner into Lackawanna\nAvenue, when they came face to face with the missing boy. He was a\nsorry sight, limping slowly along, covered with dust, exhausted from\nhis journey. He was no less surprised to meet Bachelor Billy and the\nlawyer, than they were to meet him, and all three stood speechless,\nfor a moment, with astonishment.\n\n\"Why, Ralph!\" exclaimed Billy, \"Ralph, lad, whaur ye been?\"\n\nBut Ralph did not know what to say. An overwhelming sense of shame\nat his unfortunate adventure and at his wretched condition had come\nsuddenly to him, and the lawyer's sharp eyes, fixed steadily upon him,\nincreased his embarrassment not a little.\n\n\"Why don' ye speak, lad? Tell Uncle Billy what's happenit to ye; coom\nnoo!\" and the man took the child's hands affectionately into his.\n\nThen Ralph spoke. From a full heart, poor lad, he made his confession.\n\n\"Well, Uncle Billy, I got lost in Wilkesbarre; I wasn't used to it,\nan' I went into a saloon there, an' they got all my money, an' I got\nonto the train 'ithout a ticket, an' the conductor put me off, an' I\nhad to walk the rest o' the way home; an' I'm pirty tired, an' dirty,\nan' 'shamed.\"\n\nSharpman laughed aloud.\n\n\"Ah! that's Wilkesbarre charity,\" he said; \"you were a stranger, and\nthey took you in. But come, let's go back to my office and talk it\nover.\"\n\nSecluded in the lawyer's private room Ralph told the whole story of\nhis adventures from the time he left Sharpman at the court-house door.\n\nWhen he had finished, Bachelor Billy said, \"Puir lad!\" then, turning\nto Sharpman, \"it was no' his fau't, thenk ye?\"\n\n\"Oh, no!\" said the lawyer, smiling, \"any one might have met with the\nsame fate: dreadful town, Wilkesbarre is, dreadful! Have you had any\ndinner, Ralph?\"\n\n\"No, sir,\" said Ralph, \"I haven't.\"\n\n\"Well, come into my wash-room and brighten yourself up a little.\nYou're somewhat travel-stained, as it were.\"\n\nIn ten minutes Ralph reappeared, looking clean and comparatively\nfresh.\n\n\"Now,\" said Sharpman, \"you don't resemble quite so strongly the man\nwho went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. Here, take this,\" reaching\nout some money, \"and go down to the restaurant on the corner and\nsurprise yourself with the best dinner you can buy. Oh, you can pay\nit back,\" as the boy hesitated about accepting the money; \"we'll call\nit a loan if you like. Come, you agreed to obey my instructions, you\nknow. Buckley will wait here for you till you get back. Now, don't\nhurry!\" he said, as Ralph passed out at the door, \"there's plenty of\ntime.\"\n\nFor some minutes after the boy's departure, Sharpman and Bachelor\nBilly sat talking over Ralph's recent adventure. Then the conversation\nturned to the prospect for the future, and they agreed that it was\nvery bright. Finally, the lawyer said:--\n\n\"He was pretty sick when you first found him, wasn't he?\"\n\n\"He was that, verra bad indeed.\"\n\n\"Called a doctor for him, didn't you?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes! Dr. Gunther. He comed every day for a for'night, an' often\nhe comed twice i' the same day. He was awfu' sick, the chil' was.\"\n\n\"Footed the doctor's bill, I suppose, didn't you?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, yes; but I did na min' that so long's the lad got well.\"\n\n\"Had to pay the woman to nurse him and look after him, I take it?\"\n\n\"Oh! well, yes; but she needit the money, mon, an' the lad he needit\nthe noorsin', an' it was doin' a bit double good wi' ma siller, do ye\nsee?\"\n\n\"Well, you've housed and clothed and fed the boy for a matter of three\nyears or thereabouts, haven't you?\"\n\n\"Why, the lad's lived wi' me; he had a right to't. He's the same as my\nown son'd be, min' ye.\"\n\n\"You collect his wages, I presume?\"\n\n\"Oh, now! what'd I be doin' wi' the wee bit money that a baby like\nhim'd earn? He's a-savin' o' it. It ain't much, but mayhap it'll buy\na bit o' schoolin' for the lad some day. Ye s'ould see the braw way\nhe'll read an' write now, sir.\"\n\nSharpman sat for some time as if in deep thought. Finally, he said:--\n\n\"Look here, Buckley! You're a poor man; you can't afford to throw away\nwhat little money you earn, nor to let an opportunity slip for turning\nan honest penny. You have done a good deal for the boy; I don't see\nwhy you shouldn't be rewarded.\"\n\n\"I've had ma reward, sir, i' the blessin' o' the lad's company.\"\n\n\"Yes, that's all very true, but a man must not rob himself; it's\nnot right. You are getting along in years; you should have a little\nsomething to lay by for old age. We are sure to establish Ralph's\nidentity, and to recover his interest in his father's estate. I know\nthat the boy would be delighted to have you paid out of the funds that\nwould come into our hands, and I am very certain that Mrs. Burnham\nwould be proud to have your services acknowledged in that way. The\nbasis of compensation would not be so much the time, labor, and money\nactually expended by you, as it would be the value of the property\nrescued and cared for. That would figure into a very nice sum. I think\nyou had better let me manage it, and secure for you something to lay\nby for a rainy day, or for old age that is sure to fall on you. What\ndo you say?\"\n\nBut Bachelor Billy had risen to his feet, excited, and in earnest.\n\n\"I'm a poor mon, Muster Sharpman,\" he said, \"an' money's worth a deal\nto me, but I could na tak' it for a-doin' what I ha' for Ralph.\"\n\n\"Why, I am sure your services have been of infinite value, both to the\nboy and to his mother.\"\n\n\"Mayhap! mayhap! that's no' for me to say. But I canna do it. I could\nna look ony mon i' the eye wi' a cent o' the lad's money i' ma purse.\nIt'd seem as though I'd been a-doin' for 'im a' these years wi' a\npurpose to get it back in siller some day, an' I never did; I never\nthocht o' it, sir. The chil's been as free an' welcome as the sunshine\nwi' me. The bit money I ha' spent, the bit care I ha' had wi' 'im, why\nthat was paid back wi' dooble interest the first week he could sit oop\ni' the bed an' talk. It's a blessin' to hear the lad talk to ye. Na,\nna! do what ye can for Ralph. Spare naught to get his rightfu' dues;\nbut me, there's not a penny comin' to me. I've had ma pay, an' that\nlang sin', lang sin', do ye mind.\"\n\nThe lawyer waved his hand, as much as to say: \"Very well, you're a\nfool, but it's not my fault. I have placed the opportunity within your\nreach; if you do not choose to grasp it, you're the loser, not I.\" But\nSharpman felt that he was the loser, nevertheless.\n\nHe knew that his shrewd scheme to use this honest man as a tool for\nthe furtherance of his own ends had fallen through, and that the\nmodest sum which he had expected to gain for himself in this way would\nnever be his.\n\nHe was not quite so cordial when Ralph returned from his dinner; and,\nafter a few words of admonition to the boy, he dismissed the pair, and\nset himself diligently to the task of preparing a new scheme to take\nthe place of the one that had just vanished.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nAT THE BAR OF THE COURT.\n\n\nWhen Ralph went to his work at the breaker on the morning after his\nreturn from Wilkesbarre, he was met with curious glances from the men,\nand wondering looks and abrupt questions from the boys. It had become\ngenerally known that he claimed to be Robert Burnham's son, and that\nhe was about to institute proceedings, through his guardian, to\nrecover possession of his share of the estate. There was but little\nopportunity to interrogate him through the morning hours: the flow of\ncoal through the chutes was too rapid and constant, and the grinding\nand crunching of the rollers, and the rumbling and hammering of the\nmachinery, were too loud and incessant.\n\nRalph worked very diligently too; he was in the mood for work. He\nwas glad to be at home again and able to work. It was much better\nthan wandering through the streets of strange towns, without money\nor friends. Nor were his hands and eyes less vigilant because of the\nbright future that lay before him. He was so certain of the promised\nluxuries, the beautiful home, the love of mother and sister, the means\nfor education,--so sure of them all that he felt he could well afford\nto wait, and to work while waiting. This toil and poverty would last\nbut a few weeks, or a few months at the longest; after that there\nwould be a lifetime of pleasure and of peace and of satisfied\nambitions.\n\nSo hope nerved his muscles, and anticipation brought color to his\ncheeks and fire to his eyes, and the thought of his mother's kiss\nlent inspiration to his labor, and no boy that ever worked in Burnham\nBreaker performed his task with more skill and diligence than he.\n\nWhen the noon hour came the boys took their dinner-pails and ran down\nout of the building and over on the hill-side, where they could lie on\nthe clean grass in the warm September sunshine, and eat and talk until\nthe bell should call them again to work.\n\nHere, before the recess was over, Ralph joined them, feeling very\nconscious, indeed, of his embarrassing position, but determined to\nbrave it out.\n\nJoe Foster set the, ball rolling by asking Ralph how much he had to\npay his lawyer. Some one else followed it up with a question relating\nto his expectations for the future, and in a very few minutes the boy\nwas the object of a perfect broadside of interrogations.\n\n\"Will you have a hoss of your own?\" asked Patsey Welch.\n\n\"I don't know,\" was the reply; \"that depen's on what my mother'll\nthink.\"\n\n\"Oh! she'll give you one if you want 'im, Mrs. Burnham will,\" said\nanother boy; \"she'll give you everything you want; she's ter'ble good\nthat way, they say.\"\n\n\"Will you own the breaker, an' boss us boys?\" came a query from\nanother quarter.\n\nBefore Ralph could reply to this startling and embarrassing question,\nsome one else asked:--\n\n\"How'd you find out who you was, anyway?\"\n\n\"Why, my lawyer told me,\" was the reply.\n\n\"How'd he find out?\"\n\n\"Well, a man told him.\"\n\n\"What man?\"\n\n\"Now, look here, fellows!\" said Ralph, \"I ain't goin' to tell you\neverything. It'd predujuice my case too much. I can't do it, I got no\nright to.\"\n\nThen a doubting Thomas arose.\n\n\"I ain't got nothin' agin him,\" he began, referring to Ralph, \"he's a\ngood enough feller--for a slate-picker, for w'at I know; but that's\nall he is; he ain't a Burnham, no more'n I be, if he was he wouldn't\nbe a-workin' here in the dirt; it ain't reason'ble.\"\n\nBefore Ralph could reply, some one took up the cudgel for him.\n\n\"Yes, he is too,--a Burnham. My father says he is, an' Lawyer Sharpman\nsays he is, an' you don't know nothin' 'bout it.\"\n\nWhereupon a great confusion of voices arose, some of the boys denying\nRalph's claim of a right to participate in the privileges allotted to\nthe Burnham family, while most of them vigorously upheld it.\n\nFinally, Ralph made his voice heard above the uproar:--\n\n\"Boys,\" he said, \"they ain't no use o' quarrellin'; we'll all find out\nthe truth about it 'fore very long. I'm a-goin' to stay here an' work\nin the breaker till the thing's settled, an' I want you boys to use me\njest as well as ever you did, an' I'll treat you jest the same as I\nal'ays have; now, ain't that fair?\"\n\n\"Yes, that's fair!\" shouted a dozen boys at a time. \"Hooray for Ralph\nBurnham!\" added another; \"hooray!\"\n\nThe cheers were given with a will, then the breaker bell rang, and the\nboys flocked back to their work.\n\nRalph was as good as his word. Every morning he came and took his\nplace on the bench, and picked slate ten hours a day, just as the\nother boys did; and though the subject of his coming prosperity was\noften discussed among them, there was never again any malice or\nbitterness in the discussion.\n\nBut the days and weeks and months went by. The snows of winter came,\nand the north winds howled furiously about the towering heights of\nBurnham Breaker. Morning after morning, before it was fairly light,\nRalph and Bachelor Billy trudged through the deep snow on their way to\ntheir work, or faced the driving storms as they plodded home at night.\nAnd still, so far as these two could see, and they talked the matter\nover very often, no progress was being made toward the restoration of\nRalph to his family and family rights.\n\nSharpman had explained why the delay was expedient, not to say\nnecessary; and, though the boy tried to be patient, and was very\npatient indeed, yet the unquiet feeling remained in his heart, and\ngrew.\n\nBut at last there was progress. A petition had been presented to\nthe Orphans' Court, asking for a citation to Margaret Burnham, as\nadministrator of her husband's estate, to appear and show cause why\nshe should not pay over to Ralph's guardian a sufficient sum of money\nto educate and maintain the boy in a manner befitting his proper\nstation in life. An answer had been put in by Mrs. Burnham's attorney,\ndenying that Ralph was the son of Robert Burnham, and an issue had\nbeen asked for to try that disputed fact. The issue had been awarded,\nand the case certified to the Common Pleas for trial, and placed on\nthe trial list for the May term of court.\n\nAs the time for the hearing approached, the preparations for it grew\nmore active and incessant about Sharpman's office.\n\nOld Simon had taken up his abode in Scranton for the time being, and\nwas on hand frequently to inform and advise. Witnesses from distant\npoints had been subpoenaed, and Ralph, himself, had been called on\nseveral occasions to the lawyer's office to be interrogated about\nmatters lying within his knowledge or memory.\n\nThe question of the boy's identity had become one of the general\ntopics of conversation in the city, and, as the time for the trial\napproached, public interest in the matter ran high.\n\nIn those days the courts were held at Wilkesbarre for the entire\ndistrict. Lackawanna County had not yet been erected out of the\nnorthern part of Luzerne, with Scranton as its county seat.\n\nThere were several suits on the list for the May term that were to be\ntried before the Burnham case would come on, so that Ralph did not\nfind it necessary to go to Wilkesbarre until Thursday of the first\nweek of court.\n\nBachelor Billy accompanied him. He had been subpoenaed as a witness,\nand he was glad to be able to go and to have an opportunity to care\nfor the boy during the time of the trial.\n\nSpring comes early in the valley of the Susquehanna; and, as the train\ndashed along, Ralph, looking from the open window of the car, saw the\nwhole country white with the blossoms of fruit-bearing trees. The\nrains had been frequent and warm, and the springing vegetation, rich\nand abundant, reflected its bright green in the waters of the river\nalong all the miles of their journey. The spring air was warm and\nsweet, white clouds were floating in the sky, birds were darting here\nand there among the branches of the trees, wild flowers were unfolding\ntheir modest beauty in the very shadow of the iron rails. Ralph saw\nand felt it all, his spirit rose into accord with nature, and hope\nfilled his heart more abundantly than it ever had before.\n\nWhen he and Bachelor Billy went into the court-room that afternoon,\nSharpman met them and told them that their case would probably not\nbe reached that day, the one immediately preceding it having already\ntaken much more time in the trial than had been expected. But he\nadvised them not to leave the city. So they went out and walked about\nthe streets a little, then they wandered down along the river bank,\nand sat there looking out upon the water and discussing the method and\nprobable outcome of the trial.\n\nWhen supper-time came, they went to their boarding-house, a cottage in\nthe suburbs, kept by a man who had formerly known Bachelor Billy in\nScranton.\n\nThe next morning when they went into court the lawyers were making\ntheir addresses to the jury in the case that had been heard on the\nprevious day, and Ralph and Billy listened to the speeches with\nmuch interest. The judge's charge was a long one, and before it\nwas concluded the noon-hour had come. But it was known, when court\nadjourned, that the Burnham case would be taken up at two o'clock.\nLong before that time, however, the benches in the court-room were\nfilled with people, and even the precincts of the bar were invaded.\nThe suit had aroused so much interest and excitement that hundreds\nof people came simply to see the parties and hear the evidence in\nthe case.\n\nAt two o'clock Mr. Goodlaw entered, accompanied by Mrs. Burnham and\nher little daughter, and all three took seats by a table inside\nthe bar.\n\nSharpman came in a few minutes later, and Simon Craft arose from his\nplace near the railing and went with him to another table. Ralph, who\nwas with Bachelor Billy down on a front bench, scarcely recognized the\nold man at first, there was so marked a change in his appearance. He\nhad on a clean new suit of black broadcloth, his linen was white and\nwell arranged, and he had been freshly shaven. Probably he had not\npresented so attractive an appearance before in many years. It was all\ndue to Sharpman's money and wit. He knew how much it is worth to have\na client look well in the eyes of a jury, and he had acted according\nto his knowledge.\n\nSo Old Simon had a very grandfatherly air as he took his seat by the\nside of his counsel and laid his cane on the floor beside him.\n\nAfter arranging his papers on the table, Sharpman arose and looked\nback over the crowded court-room. Finally, catching sight of Ralph,\nhe motioned to him to come inside the bar. The boy obeyed, but not\nwithout embarrassment. He saw that the eyes of all the people in the\nroom were fixed on him as he crossed the open space and dropped into a\nchair by the side of Craft. But he had passed Mrs. Burnham on his way,\nand she had reached out her gloved hand and grasped his little one and\nheld him by her for a moment to look searchingly and longingly into\nhis face; and she had said to him some kind words to put him at his\nease, so that the situation was not so very trying, after all.\n\nThe clerk began to call a jury into the box. One by one they answered\nto their names, and were scrutinized closely by the lawyers as they\ntook their places. Then Sharpman examined, carefully, the list of\njurors that was handed to him, and drew his pen through one of the\nnames. It was that of a man who had once suffered by reason of the\nlawyer's shrewdness, and he thought it best to challenge him.\n\n\"Call another juror,\" he said, passing the list to Goodlaw, who also\nstruck a name from it, added a new one, and passed it back.\n\nThe jury was finally settled, the challenged men were excused, and the\nremaining twelve were duly sworn.\n\nThen Sharpman arose to open his case. With rapid detail he went over\nthe history of Ralph's life from the time of the railroad accident\nto the day of the trial. He dwelt upon Simon Craft's kindness to the\nchild, upon his energetic search for the unknown parents, and, later,\nfor the boy himself; of his final success, of his constant effort in\nRalph's behalf, and his great desire, now, to help him into the family\nand fortune to which his birth entitled him. \"We shall show to you all\nof these facts, gentlemen of the jury,\" said Sharpman, in conclusion.\n\"We shall prove to you, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that this boy is\nMargaret Burnham's son and an heir to Robert Burnham's estates; and,\nhaving done so, we shall expect a verdict at your hands.\"\n\nThe lawyer resumed his seat, spent a few moments looking over his\npapers, and then said, in a tone of mingled respect and firmness:--\n\n\"We desire, if your Honor please, to call Mrs. Burnham for the purpose\nof cross-examination.\"\n\n\"That is your privilege under the law,\" said the judge.\n\n\"Mrs. Burnham,\" continued Sharpman, \"will you kindly take the stand?\"\n\n\"Certainly,\" replied the lady.\n\nShe arose, advanced to the witness-stand, received the oath, and took\nher chair with a matronly dignity and kindly grace that aroused the\nsympathy and admiration of all who saw her. She gave her name, the\ndate of her marriage to Robert Burnham, the fact of his death, and the\nnames and ages of her children. In the course of the examination, she\nwas asked to describe the railway journey which ended in the disaster\nat Cherry Brook, and to give the details of that disaster as she\nremembered them.\n\n\"Can you not spare me that recital, sir?\" she said.\n\n\"No one would be more willing or glad to do so, madam,\" responded\nSharpman, \"than I, but the whole future of this fatherless boy is\nhanging upon this examination, and I dare not do it. I will try to\nmake it easier for you, however, by interrogation.\"\n\nShe had hidden her face in her hands a moment before; now she raised\nit, pallid, but fixed with strong determination.\n\n\"Go on,\" she said, \"I will answer you.\"\n\nSharpman stood for a moment as if collecting his thoughts, then he\nasked: \"Did you and your husband, accompanied by your child Ralph and\nhis nurse, leave your home in Scranton on the thirteenth day of May,\n1859, to go by rail to the city of Philadelphia?\"\n\n\"We did.\"\n\n\"Was the car in which you were riding well filled?\"\n\n\"It was not; no, sir.\"\n\n\"How many children were in that car besides your son?\"\n\n\"Only one.\"\n\n\"A boy?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"About how old?\"\n\n\"About Ralph's age, I should think.\"\n\n\"With whom was he travelling?\"\n\n\"With an elderly gentleman whom he called, 'Grandpa.'\"\n\n\"Before you reached Philadelphia, did the bridge over Cherry Creek\ngive way and precipitate the car in which you were riding into the bed\nof the stream?\"\n\n\"It did; yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Immediately before that occurred where was your child?\"\n\n\"He was sitting with his nurse in the second seat ahead of us.\"\n\n\"And the other child, where was he?\"\n\n\"Just across the aisle.\"\n\n\"Did you see that other child after the accident?\"\n\n\"I did not; I only know that he survived it.\"\n\n\"How do you know it?\"\n\n\"We learned, on inquiry, that the same old gentleman and little\nchild went on to the city in the train which carried the rescued\npassengers.\"\n\n\"You and your husband were both injured in the disaster, were you\nnot?\"\n\n\"We were.\"\n\n\"And the nurse lost her life?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"How long was it after the accident before you began the search for\nyour child?\"\n\n\"It was nearly three days afterward before we were sufficiently\nrecovered to be able to do anything.\"\n\n\"Did you find any trace of him?\"\n\n\"None whatever.\"\n\n\"Any clothing or jewelry?\"\n\n\"Only a few trinkets in the ashes of the wreck.\"\n\n\"Is it your belief that Ralph perished in that disaster?\"\n\n\"It is; yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Would it take strong evidence to convince you to the contrary?\"\n\n\"I think it would.\"\n\n\"Ralph,\" said Sharpman, turning to the boy, \"stand up!\"\n\nThe lad arose.\n\n\"Have you seen this boy before?\" continued the lawyer, addressing the\nwitness again.\n\n\"I have,\" she replied, \"on several occasions.\"\n\n\"Are you familiar with his face, his expression, his manner?\"\n\n\"To a great extent--yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Do you recognize him as your son Ralph?\"\n\nShe looked down, long and searchingly, into the boy's face, and then\nreplied, deliberately, \"No, sir, I do not.\"\n\n\"That is all, Mrs. Burnham.\"\n\nRalph was surprised and disappointed. He had not quite expected this.\nHe had thought she would say, perhaps, that she would receive him as\nher son when his claim was duly proven. He would not have wondered\nat that, but that she should positively, under oath, deny their\nrelationship to each other, had not been to him, before, within the\nrange of possibility. His brightness and enthusiasm were quenched\nin a moment, and a chill crept up to his heart, as he saw the lady\ncome down from the witness-stand, throw her widow's veil across her\nface, and resume her seat at the table. The case had taken on a new,\nstrange, harsh aspect in his sight. It seemed to him that a barrier\nhad been suddenly erected between him and the lady whom he had learned\nto love as his mother; a barrier which no verdict of the jury or\njudgment of the court, even though he should receive them, would help\nhim to surmount.\n\nOf what use were these things, if motherly recognition was to be\ndenied him? He began to feel that it would be almost better to go back\nat once to the not unpleasant home with Bachelor Billy, than to try to\ngrasp something which, it now seemed, was lying beyond his reach.\n\nHe was just considering the advisability of crossing over to Sharpman\nand suggesting to him that he was willing to drop the proceedings,\nwhen that person called another witness to the stand. This was a\nheavily built man, with close-cropped beard, bronzed face, and one\nsleeve empty of its arm. He gave his name as William B. Merrick, and\nsaid that he was conductor of the train that broke through the Cherry\nBrook bridge, on the night of May 13, 1859.\n\n\"Did you see, on your train that night,\" asked Sharpman, \"the witness\nwho has just left the stand?\"\n\n\"I cannot be positive,\" the man replied, \"but, to the best of my\nrecollection, the lady was a passenger in the rear car.\"\n\n\"With whom was she travelling?\"\n\n\"With a gentleman whom I afterward learned was her husband, a little\nboy some two or three years of age, and the child's nurse.\"\n\n\"Were there any other children on the train?\"\n\n\"Yes, one, a boy of about the same age, riding in the same car in\ncompany with an elderly gentleman.\"\n\n\"Did you see either of these children after the disaster?\"\n\n\"I saw one of them.\"\n\n\"Which one?\"\n\n\"I supposed, at the time, that it was the one who accompanied the old\ngentleman.\"\n\n\"Why did you suppose so?\"\n\n\"Because I saw a child who bore marks of having been in the wreck\nriding in the car which carried the rescued passengers to the city,\nand he was in company with an elderly man.\"\n\n\"Was he the same elderly man whom you saw with the child before the\naccident?\"\n\n\"I cannot say; my attention was not particularly called to him before\nthe accident; but I supposed he was the one, from the fact of his\nhaving the child with him.\"\n\n\"Could you, at this time, recognize the man whom you saw with the\nchild after the accident?\"\n\n\"I think so. I took especial notice of him then.\"\n\n\"Look at this old gentleman, sitting by me,\" said Sharpman, waving his\nhand toward Craft, \"and tell me whether he is the one.\"\n\nThe man turned his eyes on Old Simon, and looked at him closely for a\nfull minute.\n\n\"Yes,\" he replied, \"I believe he is the one. He has grown older and\nthinner, but I do not think I am mistaken.\"\n\nCraft nodded his head mildly in assent, and Sharpman continued:--\n\n\"Did you take particular notice of the child's clothing as you saw it\nafter the accident; could you recognize, at this time, the principal\narticles of outside wear that he had on?\"\n\n\"I think I could.\"\n\nSharpman paused as if in thought.\n\nAfter he had whispered for a moment with Craft, he said to the\nwitness:--\n\n\"That is all, for the present, Mr. Merrick.\" Then he turned to the\nopposing counsel and said:--\n\n\"Mr. Goodlaw, you may take the witness.\"\n\nGoodlaw fixed his glasses more firmly on his nose, consulted briefly\nwith his client, and then began his cross-examination.\n\nAfter drawing out much of the personal history of the witness, he went\nwith him into the details of the Cherry Brook disaster.\n\nFinally he asked:--\n\n\"Did you know Robert Burnham in his lifetime?\"\n\n\"A gentleman by that name called on me a week after the accident to\nmake inquiries about his son.\"\n\n\"Did you say to him, at that time, that the child must have perished\nin the wreck?\"\n\n\"I think I did; yes, sir.\"\n\n\"On what did you base your opinion?\"\n\n\"On several circumstances. The nurse with whom he was sitting was\nkilled outright; it would seem to have been impossible for any one\noccupying that seat to have escaped instant death, since the other\ncar struck and rested at just that point. Again, there were but two\nchildren on the train. It took it for granted that the old man and\nchild whom I saw together after the accident were the same ones whom I\nhad seen together before it occurred.\"\n\n\"Did you tell Mr. Burnham of seeing this old man and child after the\naccident?\"\n\n\"I did; yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Did you not say to him positively, at that time, that they were the\nsame persons who were sitting together across the aisle from him\nbefore the crash came?\"\n\n\"It may be that I did.\"\n\n\"And did you not assure him that the child who went to the city, on\nthe train that night after the accident was not his son?\"\n\n\"I may have done so. I felt quite positive of it at that time.\"\n\n\"Has your opinion in that matter changed since then?\"\n\n\"Not as to the facts; no, sir; but I feel that I may have taken too\nmuch for granted at that time, and have given Mr. Burnham a wrong\nimpression.\"\n\n\"At which time, sir, would you be better able to form an opinion,--one\nweek after this accident occurred, or ten years afterward?\"\n\n\"My opinion is formed on the facts; and I assure you that they were\nnot weighted with such light consequences for me that I have easily\nforgotten them. If there were any tendency to do so, I have here a\nconstant reminder,\" holding up his empty sleeve as he spoke. \"My\njudgment is better, to-day, than it was ten years ago. I have learned\nmore; and, looking carefully over the facts in this case in the light\nI now have, I believe it possible that this son of Robert Burnham's\nmay have been saved.\"\n\n\"That will do,\" said Goodlaw. The witness left the stand, and the\njudge, looking up at the clock on the wall, and then consulting his\nwatch, said:--\n\n\"Gentlemen, it is nearly time to adjourn court. Mr. Sharpman, can you\nclose your case before adjourning time?\"\n\n\"That will be impossible, your Honor.\"\n\n\"Then, crier, you may adjourn the court until to-morrow morning at\nnine o'clock.\"\n\nThe crier made due proclamation, the spectators began to crowd out of\nthe room, the judge left the bench, and the lawyers gathered up their\npapers. Ralph, on his way out, again passed by Mrs. Burnham, and she\nhad for him a smile and a kind word. Bachelor Billy stood waiting at\nthe door, and the boy went down with him to their humble lodgings in\nthe suburbs, his mind filled with conflicting thoughts, and his heart\nwith conflicting emotions.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nTHE EVIDENCE IN THE CASE.\n\n\nWhen court opened on Saturday morning, all the persons interested in\nthe Burnham suit were present, and the court-room was crowded to even\na greater extent than it had been on the previous day. Sharpman began\nthe proceedings by offering in evidence the files of the Register's\ncourt, showing the date of Robert Burnham's death, the issuing\nof letters of administration to his widow, and the inventory and\nappraisement of his personal estate.\n\nThen he called Simon Craft to the witness-stand. There was a stir of\nexcitement in the room; every one was curious to see this witness and\nto hear his evidence.\n\nThe old man did not present an unfavorable appearance, as he sat,\nleaning on his cane, dressed in his new black suit, waiting for the\nexamination to begin. He looked across the bar into the faces of the\npeople with the utmost calmness. He was perfectly at his ease. He knew\nthat what he was about to tell was absolutely true in all material\nrespects, and this fact inspired him with confidence in his ability to\ntell it effectually. It relieved him, also, of the necessity for that\nconstant evasion and watchfulness which had characterized his efforts\nas a witness in other cases.\n\nThe formal questions relating to his residence, age, occupation, etc.,\nwere answered with alacrity.\n\nThen Sharpman, pointing to Ralph, asked the witness:--\n\n\"Do you know this boy?\"\n\n\"I do,\" answered Craft, unhesitatingly.\n\n\"What is his name?\"\n\n\"Ralph Burnham.\"\n\n\"When did you first see him?\"\n\n\"On the night of May 13, 1859.\"\n\n\"Under what circumstances?\"\n\nThis question, as by previous arrangement between attorney and\nwitness, opened up the way for a narration of facts, and old Simon,\nclearing his throat, leaned across the railing of the witness-box and\nbegan.\n\nHe related in detail, and with much dramatic effect, the scenes at the\naccident, his rescue of the boy, his effort at the time to find some\none to whom he belonged, and the ride into the city afterward. He\ncorroborated conductor Merrick's story of the meeting on the train\nwhich carried the rescued passengers, and related the conversation\nwhich passed between them, as nearly as he could remember it.\n\nHe told of his attempts to find the child's friends during the few\ndays that followed, then of the long and desperate illness from which\nhe suffered as a result of his exertion and exposure on the night\nof the accident. From that point, he went on with an account of his\ncontinued care for the child, of his incessant search for clews to\nthe lad's identity, of his final success, of Ralph's unaccountable\ndisappearance, and of his own regret and disappointment thereat.\n\nHe said that the lad had grown into his affections to so great an\nextent, and his sympathy for the child's parents was such, that he\ncould not let him go in that way, and so he started out to find him.\n\nHe told how he traced him from one point to another, until he was\ntaken up by the circus wagon, how the scent was then lost, and how the\nboy's whereabouts remained a mystery to him, until the happy discovery\nat the tent in Scranton.\n\n\"Well,\" said Sharpman, \"when you had found the boy, what did you do?\"\n\n\"I went, the very next day,\" was the reply, \"to Robert Burnham to tell\nhim that his son was living.\"\n\n\"What conversation did you have with him?\"\n\n\"I object,\" interposed Goodlaw, \"to evidence of any alleged\nconversation between this witness and Robert Burnham. Counsel should\nknow better than to ask for it.\"\n\n\"The question is not a proper one,\" said the judge.\n\n\"Well,\" continued Sharpman, \"as a result of that meeting what were you\nto do?\"\n\n\"I was to bring his son to him the following day.\"\n\n\"Did you bring him?\"\n\n\"I did not.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Mr. Burnham died that night.\"\n\n\"What did you do then?\"\n\n\"I went to you for advice.\"\n\n\"In pursuance of that advice, did you have an interview with the boy\nRalph?\"\n\n\"I did.\"\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"At your office.\"\n\n\"Did you explain to him the facts concerning his parentage and\nhistory?\"\n\n\"They were explained to him.\"\n\n\"What did he say he wished you to do for him?\"\n\nGoodlaw interrupted again, to object to the testimony offered as\nincompetent and thereupon ensued an argument between counsel, which\nwas cut short by the judge ordering the testimony to be excluded, and\ndirecting a bill of exceptions to be sealed for the plaintiff.\n\nThe hour for the noon recess had now come, and court was adjourned to\nmeet again at two o'clock.\n\nWhen the afternoon session was called, Sharpman announced that he was\nthrough with the direct examination of Craft.\n\nThen Goodlaw took the witness in hand. He asked many questions about\nCraft's personal history, about the wreck, and about the rescue of the\nchild. He demanded a full account of the way in which Robert Burnham\nhad been discovered, by the witness and found to be Ralph's father. He\ncalled for the explicit reason for every opinion given, but Old Simon\nwas on safe ground, and his testimony remained unshaken.\n\nFinally, Goodlaw asked:--\n\n\"What is your occupation, Mr. Craft?\" and Craft answered: \"I have no\noccupation at present, except to see that this boy gets his rights.\"\n\n\"What was your occupation during the time that this boy lived with\nyou?\"\n\n\"I was a travelling salesman.\"\n\n\"What did you sell?\"\n\n\"Jewelry, mostly.\"\n\n\"For whom did you sell the jewelry?\"\n\n\"For myself, and others who employed me.\"\n\n\"Where did you obtain the goods you sold?\"\n\n\"Some of it I bought, some of it I sold on commission.\"\n\n\"Of whom did you buy it?\"\n\n\"Sometimes I bought it at auction, or at sheriff's sales; sometimes of\nprivate parties; sometimes of manufacturers and wholesalers.\"\n\nGoodlaw rose to his feet. \"Now, as a matter of fact, sir,\" he said,\nsternly, \"did not you retail goods through the country that had been\nfurnished to you by your confederates in crime? and was not your house\nin the city a place for the reception of stolen wares?\"\n\nCraft's cane came to the floor with a sharp rap. \"No, sir!\" he\nreplied, with much indignation; \"I have never harbored thieves, nor\nsold stolen goods to my knowledge. You insult me, sir!\"\n\nGoodlaw resumed his seat, looked at some notes in pencil on a slip of\npaper, and then resumed the examination.\n\n\"Did you send this boy out on the streets to beg?\" he asked.\n\n\"Well, you see, we had pretty hard work sometimes to get along and get\nenough to eat, and--\"\n\n\"I say, did you send this boy out on the streets to beg?\"\n\n\"Well, I'm telling you that sometimes we had either to beg or to\nstarve. Then the boy went out and asked aid from wealthy people.\"\n\n\"Did you send him?\"\n\n\"Yes, I did; but not against his will.\"\n\n\"Did you sometimes whip him for not bringing back money to you from\nhis begging excursions?\"\n\n\"I punished him once or twice for telling falsehoods to me.\"\n\n\"Did you beat him for not bringing money to you when you sent him out\nto beg?\"\n\n\"He came home once or twice when I had reason to believe that he had\nmade no effort to procure assistance for us, and--\"\n\nGoodlaw rose to his feet again.\n\n\"Answer my question!\" he exclaimed. \"Did you beat this boy for not\nbringing back money to you when you had sent him out to beg?\"\n\n\"Yes, I did,\" replied Craft, now thoroughly aroused, \"and I'd do it\nagain, too, under the same circumstances.\"\n\nThen he was seized with a fit of coughing that racked his feeble body\nfrom head to foot. A tipstaff brought him a glass of water, and he\nfinally recovered.\n\nGoodlaw continued, sarcastically,--\n\n\"When you found it necessary to correct this boy by the gentle\npersuasion of force, what kind of a weapon did you use?\"\n\nThe witness answered, mildly enough, \"I had a little strip of leather\nthat I used when it was unavoidably necessary.\"\n\n\"A rawhide, was it?\"\n\n\"I said a little strip of leather. You can call it what you choose.\"\n\n\"Was it the kind of a strip of leather commonly known as a rawhide?\"\n\n\"It was.\"\n\n\"What other mode of punishment did you practise on this child besides\nrawhiding him?\"\n\n\"I can't recall any.\"\n\n\"Did you pull his ears?\"\n\n\"Probably.\"\n\n\"Pinch his flesh?\"\n\n\"Sometimes.\"\n\n\"Pull his hair?\"\n\n\"Oh, I shouldn't wonder.\"\n\n\"Knock him down with your fist?\"\n\n\"No, sir! never, never!\"\n\n\"Did you never strike him with the palm of your hand?\"\n\n\"Well, I have slapped him when my patience with him has been\nexhausted.\"\n\n\"Did any of these slaps ever happen to push him over?\"\n\n\"Why, he used to tumble onto the floor sometimes, to cry and pretend\nhe was hurt.\"\n\n\"Well, what other means of grandfatherly persuasion did you use in\ncorrecting the child?\"\n\n\"I don't know of any.\"\n\n\"Did you ever lock him up in a dark closet?\"\n\n\"I think I did, once or twice; yes.\"\n\n\"For how long at a time?\"\n\n\"Oh, not more than an hour or two.\"\n\n\"Now, didn't you lock him up that way once, and keep him locked up all\nday and all night?\"\n\n\"I think not so long as that. He was unusually stubborn. I told him he\ncould come out as soon as he would promise obedience. He remained in\nthere of his own accord.\"\n\n\"Appeared to like it, did he?\"\n\n\"I can't say as to that.\"\n\n\"For how long a time did you say he stayed there?\"\n\n\"Oh, I think from one afternoon till the next.\"\n\n\"Did he have anything to eat during that time?\"\n\n\"I promised him abundance if he would do as I told him.\"\n\n\"Did he have anything to eat?\" emphatically.\n\n\"No!\" just as emphatically.\n\n\"What was it he refused to do?\"\n\n\"Simply to go on a little errand for me.\"\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"To the house of a friend.\"\n\n\"For what purpose?\"\n\n\"To get some jewelry.\"\n\n\"Was the jewelry yours?\"\n\n\"I expected to purchase it.\"\n\n\"Had it been stolen?\"\n\n\"Not to my knowledge.\"\n\n\"Did the boy think it had been stolen?\"\n\n\"He pretended to.\"\n\n\"Was that the reason he would not go?\"\n\n\"It was the reason he gave.\"\n\n\"Have the city police found stolen goods on your premises?\"\n\n\"They have confiscated goods that were innocently purchased by me;\nthey have robbed me.\"\n\n\"Did you compel this boy to lie to the officers when they came?\"\n\n\"I made him hold his tongue.\"\n\n\"Did you make him lie?\"\n\n\"I ordered him not to tell where certain goods were stored in the\nhouse, on pain of being thrashed within an inch of his life. The goods\nwere mine, bought with my money, and it was none of their business\nwhere they were.\"\n\n\"Did you not command the boy to say that there were no such goods in\nthe house?\"\n\n\"I don't know--perhaps; I was exasperated at the outrage they were\nperpetrating in the name of law.\"\n\n\"Then you did make him lie?\"\n\n\"Yes, if you call it lying to protect your own property from robbers,\nI did make him lie!\"\n\n\"More than once?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"Did you make him steal?\"\n\n\"I made him take what belonged to us.\"\n\n\"Did you make him _steal_, I say!\"\n\n\"Call it what you like!\" shouted the angered and excited old man.\nHe had become so annoyed and harassed by this persistent, searching\ncross-examination that he was growing reckless and telling the truth\nin spite of himself. Besides, it seemed to him that Goodlaw must know\nall about Ralph's life with him, and he dared not go far astray in his\nanswers.\n\nBut the lawyer knew only what Craft himself was disclosing. He based\neach question on the answers that had preceded it, long practice\nhaving enabled him to estimate closely what was lying in the mind of\nthe witness.\n\n\"And so,\" continued Goodlaw, \"when you returned from one of your trips\ninto the country you found that the boy had disappeared?\"\n\n\"He had.\"\n\n\"Were you surprised at that?\"\n\n\"Yes, I was.\"\n\n\"Had you any idea why he went away?\"\n\n\"None whatever. He was well fed and clothed and cared for.\"\n\n\"Did it ever occur to you that the Almighty made some boys with hearts\nso honest that they had rather starve and die by the roadside than be\nmade to lie and steal at home?\"\n\nThe old man did not answer, he was too greatly surprised and angered\nto reply.\n\n\"Well,\" said Sharpman, calmly, \"I don't know, if your Honor please,\nthat the witness is bound to be sufficiently versed in the subject of\nChristian ethics to answer questions of that kind.\"\n\n\"He need not answer it,\" said the judge.\n\nThen Sharpman continued, more vehemently: \"The cross-examination,\nas conducted by the eminent counsel, has, thus far, been simply an\noutrage on professional courtesy. I ask now that the gentleman be\nconfined to questions which are germane to the issue and decently\nput.\"\n\n\"I have but a few more questions to ask,\" said Goodlaw.\n\nTurning to the witness again, he continued: \"If you succeed in\nestablishing this boy's identity, you will have a bill to present for\ncare and moneys expended and services performed on his account, will\nyou not?\"\n\n\"I expect so; yes, sir.\"\n\n\"As the service continued through a period of years, the bill will\namount now to quite a large sum, I presume?\"\n\n\"Yes, I nave done a good deal for the boy.\"\n\n\"You expect to retain the usual commission for your services as\nguardian, do you not?\"\n\n\"I do.\"\n\n\"And to control the moneys and properties that may come into your\nhands?\"\n\n\"Well--yes.\"\n\n\"About how much money, all together, do you expect to make out of this\nestate?\"\n\n\"I do not look on it in that light, sir; I am taking these proceedings\nsimply to compel you and your client to give that boy his rights.\"\n\nThis impudent assertion angered Goodlaw, who well knew the object of\nthe plot, and he rose from his chair, saying deliberately:--\n\n\"Do you mean to swear that this is not a deep-laid scheme on the part\nof you and your attorney to wrest from this estate enough to make a\nfortune for you both? Do you mean to say mat you care as much for this\nboy's rights as you do for the dust in your path?\"\n\nCraft's face paled, and Sharpman started to his feet, red with\npassion.\n\n\"This is the last straw!\" he exclaimed, hoarsely; \"now I intend\"--\n\nBut the judge, fearing an uncontrollable outbreak of temper,\ninterrupted him, saying:--\n\n\"Your witness need not answer the question in that form, Mr. Sharpman.\nMr. Goodlaw, do you desire to cross-examine the witness further?\"\n\nGoodlaw had resumed his seat and was turning over his papers.\n\n\"I do not care to take up the time of the court any longer,\" he said,\n\"with this witness.\"\n\n\"Then, Mr. Sharpman, you may proceed with further evidence.\"\n\nBut Sharpman was still smarting from the blow inflicted by his\nopponent. \"I desire, first,\" he said, \"that the court shall take\nmeasures to protect me and my client from the unfounded and insulting\ncharges of counsel for the defence.\"\n\n\"We will see,\" said the judge, \"that no harm comes to you or to your\ncause from irrelevant matter interjected by counsel. But let us get on\nwith the case. We are taking too much time.\"\n\nSharpman turned again to his papers and called the name of \"Anthony\nHenderson.\"\n\nAn old man arose in the audience, and made his way feebly to the\nwitness-stand, which had just been vacated by Craft.\n\nAfter he had been sworn, he said, in reply to questions by Sharpman,\nthat he was a resident of St. Louis; that in May, 1859, he was on his\nway east with his little grandson, and went down with the train that\nbroke through the bridge at Cherry Brook.\n\nHe said that before the crash came he had noticed a lady and gentleman\nsitting across the aisle from him, and a nurse and child a few seats\nfurther ahead; that his attention had been called to the child\nparticularly, because he was a boy and about the age of his own little\ngrandson.\n\nHe said he was on the train that carried the rescued passengers to\nPhiladelphia after the accident, and that, passing through the car,\nhe had seen the same child who had been with the nurse now sitting\nwith an old man; he was sure the child was the same, as he stopped\nand looked at him closely. The features of the old man he could not\nremember. For two days he searched for his grandson, but being met, on\nevery hand, by indisputable proof that the child had perished in the\nwreck, he then started on his return journey to St. Louis, and had not\nsince been east until the week before the trial.\n\n\"How did the plaintiff in this case find you out?\" asked Goodlaw, on\ncross-examination.\n\n\"I found him out,\" replied the witness. \"I learned, from the\nnewspapers, that the trial was to take place; and, seeing that it\nrelated to the Cherry Brook disaster, I came here to learn what little\nelse I might in connection with my grandchild's death. I went, first,\nto see the counsel for the plaintiff and his client.\"\n\n\"Have you learned anything new about your grandson?\"\n\n\"No, sir; nothing.\"\n\n\"Have you heard from him since the accident?\"\n\n\"I have not.\"\n\n\"Are you sure he is dead?\"\n\n\"I have no doubt of it.\"\n\n\"Can you recognize this boy,\" pointing to Ralph, \"as the one whom you\nsaw with the nurse and afterward with the old man on the night of the\naccident?\"\n\n\"Oh, no! he was a mere baby at that time.\"\n\n\"Are you positive that the boy in court is not your grandson?\"\n\n\"Perfectly positive, there is not the slightest resemblance.\"\n\n\"That will do.\"\n\nThe cross-examination had done little more than to strengthen the\ndirect testimony. Mrs. Burnham had thrown aside her veil and gazed\nintently at the witness from the moment he went on the stand. She\nrecognized him as the man who sat across the aisle from her, with his\ngrandchild, on the night of the disaster, and she knew that he was\ntelling the truth. There seemed to be no escape from the conclusion\nthat it was her child who went down to the city that night with Simon\nCraft. Was it her child who escaped from him, and wandered, sick and\ndestitute, almost to her own door? Her thought was interrupted by\nthe voice of Sharpman, who had faced the crowded court-room and was\ncalling the name of another witness: \"Richard Lyon!\"\n\nA young man in short jacket and plaid trousers took the witness-stand.\n\n\"What is your occupation?\" asked Sharpman, after the man had given his\nname and residence.\n\n\"I'm a driver for Farnum an' Furkison.\"\n\n\"Who are Farnum and Furkison?\"\n\n\"They run the Great European Circus an' Menagerie.\"\n\n\"Have you ever seen this boy before?\" pointing to Ralph.\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"When?\"\n\n\"Three years ago this summer.\"\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"Down in Pennsylvania. It was after we left Bloomsburg, I think, I\npicked 'im up along the road an' give 'im a ride on the tiger wagon.\"\n\n\"How long did he stay with you?\"\n\n\"Oh, I don't remember; four or five days, maybe.\"\n\n\"What did he do?\"\n\n\"Well, not much; chored around a little.\"\n\n\"Did he tell you where he came from?\"\n\n\"No, nor he wouldn't tell his name. Seemed to be afraid somebody'd\nketch 'im; I couldn't make out who. He talked about some one he called\nGran'pa Craft two or three times w'en he was off his guard, an' I\nreckoned from what he said that he come from Philadelphy.\"\n\n\"Where did he leave you?\"\n\n\"Didn't leave us at all. We left him; played the desertion act on\n'im.\"\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"At Scranton.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Well, he wasn't much use to us, an' he got sick an' couldn't do\nanything, an' the boss wouldn't let us take 'im no further, so we left\n'im there.\"\n\n\"Are you sure this is the boy?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes! positive. He's bigger, an' looks better now, but he's the\nsame boy, I know he is.\"\n\n\"Cross-examine.\"\n\nThis last remark was addressed to the defendant's attorney.\n\n\"I have no questions to ask,\" said Goodlaw, \"I have no doubt the\nwitness tells the truth.\"\n\n\"That's all,\" said Sharpman, quickly; then, turning again toward the\ncourt-room, he called:\n\n\"William Buckley!\"\n\nBachelor Billy arose from among the crowds on the front benches, and\nmade his way awkwardly around the aisle and up to the witness-stand.\nAfter the usual preliminary questions had been asked and answered, he\nwaited, looking out over the multitude of faces turned toward him,\nwhile Sharpman consulted his notes.\n\n\"Do you know this boy?\" the lawyer asked, pointing to Ralph.\n\n\"Do I know that boy?\" repeated Billy, pointing also to Ralph, \"'deed I\ndo that. I ken 'im weel.\"\n\n\"When did you first see him?\"\n\n\"An he's the son o' Robert Burnham, I seen 'im first i' the arms o'\n'is mither a matter o' ten year back or so. She cam' t' the breaker\non a day wi' her gude mon, an' she had the bairnie in her arms. Ye'll\nremember it, na doot, Mistress Burnham,\" turning to that lady as he\nspoke, \"how ye said to me 'Billy,' said ye, 'saw ye ever so fine a\nbaby as'\"--\n\n\"Well, never mind that,\" interrupted Sharpman; \"when did you next see\nthe boy?\"\n\n\"Never till I pickit 'im up o' the road.\"\n\n\"And when was that?\"\n\n\"It'll be three year come the middle o' June. I canna tell ye the\nday.\"\n\n\"On what road was it?\"\n\n\"I'll tell ye how it cam' aboot. It was the mornin' after the circus.\nI was a-comin' doon fra Providence, an' when I got along the ither\nside o' whaur the tents was I see a bit lad a-layin' by the roadside,\nsick. It was him,\" pointing to Ralph and smiling kindly on him, \"it\nwas Ralph yonner. I says to 'im, 'What's the matter wi' ye, laddie?'\nsays I. 'I'm sick,' says 'e, 'an' they've goned an' lef me.' 'Who's\nlef' ye?' says I. 'The circus,' says he. 'An' ha' ye no place to go?'\nsays I. 'No,' says 'e, 'I ain't; not any.' So I said t' the lad as he\ns'ould come along wi' me. He could na walk, he was too sick, I carried\n'im, but he was no' much o' a load. I took 'im hame wi' me an' pit\n'im i' the bed. He got warse, an' I bringit the doctor. Oh! but he\nwas awfu' sick, the lad was, but he pullit through as cheerfu' as ye\nplease. An' the Widow Maloney she 'tended 'im like a mither, she did.\"\n\n\"Did you find out where he came from?\"\n\n\"Wull, he said little aboot 'imsel' at the first, he was a bit\nafraid to talk wi' strangers, but he tellit, later on, that he cam'\nfra Philadelphy. He tellit me, in fact,\" said Billy, in a burst of\nconfidence, \"that 'e rin awa' fra th'auld mon, Simon Craft, him that's\na-settin' yonner. But it's small blame to the lad; ye s'ould na lay\nthat up again' 'im. He _had_ to do it, look ye! had ye not, eh,\nRalph?\"\n\nBefore Ralph could reply, Sharpman interrupted: \"And has the boy been\nwith you ever since?\"\n\n\"He has that, an' I could na think o' his goin' awa' noo, an it would\nna be for his gret good.\"\n\n\"In your intercourse with the boy through three years, have you\nnoticed in him any indications of higher birth than is usually found\namong the boys who work about the mines? I mean, do his manners, modes\nof thought, impulses, expressions, indicate, to your mind, better\nblood than ordinary?\"\n\n\"Why, yes,\" replied the witness, slowly grasping the idea, \"yes. He\nhas a way wi' 'im, the lad has, that ye'd think he did na belong amang\nsuch as we. He's as gentle as a lass, an' that lovin', why, he's that\nlovin' that ye could na speak sharp till 'im an ye had need to. But\nye'll no' need to, Mistress Burnham, ye'll no' need to.\"\n\nThe lady was sitting with her veil across her face, smiling now and\nthen, wiping away a tear or two, listening carefully to catch every\nword.\n\nThen the witness was turned over to the counsel for the defence, for\ncross-examination.\n\n\"What else has the boy done or said to make you think he is of gentler\nbirth than his companions in the breaker?\" asked Goodlaw, somewhat\nsarcastically.\n\n\"Why, the lad does na swear nor say bad words.\"\n\n\"What else?\"\n\n\"He's tidy wi' the clothes, an' he _wull_ be clean.\"\n\n\"What else?\"\n\n\"What else? wull, they be times when he says things to ye so quick\nlike, so bright like, so lofty like, 'at ye'd mos' think he was na\nhuman like the rest o' us. An' 'e fears naught, ye canna mak' 'im\nafeard o' doin' what's richt. D'ye min' the time 'e jumpit on the\ncarriage an' went doon wi' the rest o' them to bring oot the burnit\nuns? an' cam' up alive when Robert Burnham met his death? Ah, mon! no\ncoward chiel 'd 'a' done like that.\"\n\n\"Might not a child of very lowly birth do all the things you speak of\nunder proper training and certain influences?\"\n\n\"Mayhap, but it's no' likely, no' likely. Hold! wait a bit! I dinna\nmean but that a poor mon's childer can be bright, braw, guid boys an'\ngirls; they be, I ken mony o' them mysel'. But gin the father an' the\nmither think high an' act gentle an' do noble, ye'll fin' it i' the\nblood an' bone o' the childer, sure as they're born. Now, look ye! I\nkenned Robert Burnham, I kenned 'im weel. He was kind an' gentle an'\nbraw, a-thinkin' bright things an' a-doin' gret deeds. The lad's like\n'im, mind ye; he thinks like 'im, he says like 'im, he does like 'im.\nTruth, I daur say, i' the face o' all o' ye, that no son was ever more\nlike the father than the lad a-settin' yonner is like Robert Burnham\nwas afoor the guid Lord took 'im to 'imsel'.\"\n\nBachelor Billy was leaning forward across the railing of the\nwitness-stand, speaking in a voice that could be heard in the remotest\ncorner of the room, emphasizing his words with forceful gesticulation.\nNo one could for a moment doubt his candor and earnestness.\n\n\"You are very anxious that the plaintiff should succeed in this suit,\nare you not?\" asked Goodlaw.\n\n\"I dinna unnerstan' ye, sir.\"\n\n\"You would like to have this boy declared to be a son of Robert\nBurnham, would you not?\"\n\n\"For the lad's sake, yes. But I canna tell ye how it'll hurt me to\nlose 'im fra ma bit hame. He's verra dear to me, the lad is.\"\n\n\"Have you presented any bill to Ralph's guardian for services to the\nboy?\"\n\n\"Bill! I ha' no bill.\"\n\n\"Do you not propose to present such a bill in case the plaintiff is\nsuccessful in this suit?\"\n\n\"I tell ye, mon, I ha' no bill. The child's richt welcome to all that\nI 'a' ever done for 'im. It's little eneuch to be sure, but he's\nwelcome to it, an' so's 'is father an' 'is mother an' 'is gardeen; an'\nthat's what I tellit Muster Sharpman 'imsel'. An the lad's as guid to\nthem as 'e has been wi' me, they'll unnerstan' as how his company's a\nthing ye canna balance wi' gold an' siller.\"\n\nMrs. Burnham leaned over to Goodlaw and whispered something to him. He\nnodded, smiled and said to the witness: \"That's all, Mr. Buckley,\" and\nBachelor Billy came down from the stand and pushed his way back to a\nseat among the people.\n\nThere was a whispered conversation for a few moments between Sharpman\nand his client, and then the lawyer said:--\n\n\"We desire to recall Mrs. Burnham for one or two more questions. Will\nyou be kind enough to take the stand, Mrs. Burnham?\"\n\nThe lady arose and went again to the witness-stand.\n\nCraft was busy with his leather hand-bag. He had taken a parcel\ntherefrom, unwrapped it and laid it on the table. It was the cloak\nthat Old Simon had shown to Robert Burnham on the day of the mine\ndisaster. Sharpman took it up, shook it out, carried it to Mrs.\nBurnham, and placed it in her hands.\n\n\"Do you recognize this cloak?\" he asked.\n\nA sudden pallor overspread her face. She could not speak. She\nwas holding the cloak up before her eyes, gazing on it in mute\nastonishment.\n\n\"Do you recognize it, madam?\" repeated Sharpman.\n\n\"Why, sir!\" she said, at last, \"it is--it was Ralph's. He wore it the\nnight of the disaster.\" She was caressing the faded ribbons with her\nhand; the color was returning to her face.\n\n\"And this, Mrs. Burnham, do you recognize this?\" inquired the lawyer,\nadvancing with the cap.\n\n\"It was Ralph's!\" she exclaimed, holding out her hands eagerly to\ngrasp it. \"It was his cap. May I have it, sir? May I have them both? I\nhave nothing, you know, that he wore that night.\"\n\nShe was bending forward, looking eagerly at Sharpman, with flushed\nface and eyes swimming in tears.\n\n\"Perhaps so, madam,\" he said, \"perhaps; they go with the boy. If we\nsucceed in restoring your son to you, we shall give you these things\nalso.\"\n\n\"What else have you that he wore?\" she asked, impatiently. \"Oh! did\nyou find the locket, a little gold locket? He wore it with a chain\nround his neck; it had his--his father's portrait in it.\"\n\nWithout a word, Sharpman placed the locket in her hands. Her fingers\ntrembled so that she could hardly open it. Then the gold covers parted\nand revealed to her the pictured face of her dead husband. The eyes\nlooked up at her kindly, gently, lovingly, as they had always looked\non her in life. After a moment her lips trembled, her eyes filled with\ntears, she drew the veil across her face, and her frame grew tremulous\nwith deep emotion.\n\n\"I do not think it is necessary,\" said Sharpman, courteously, \"to pain\nthe witness with other questions. I regard the identification of these\narticles, by her, as sufficiently complete. We will excuse her from\nfurther examination.\"\n\nThe lady left the stand with bowed head and veiled face, and Conductor\nMerrick was recalled.\n\n\"Look at that cloak and the cap,\" said Sharpman, \"and tell me if they\nare the articles worn by the child who was going to the city with this\nold man after the accident.\"\n\n\"To the best of my recollection,\" said the witness, \"they are the\nsame. I noticed the cloak particularly on account of the hole burned\nout of the front of it. I considered it an indication of a very narrow\nescape.\"\n\nThe witness was turned over to the defence for cross-examination.\n\n\"No questions,\" said Goodlaw, shortly, gathering up his papers as if\nhis defeat was already an accomplished fact.\n\n\"Mr. Craft,\" said Sharpman, \"stand up right where you are. I want to\nask you one question. Did the child whom you rescued from the wreck\nhave on, when you found him, this cap, cloak, and locket?\"\n\n\"He did.\"\n\n\"And is the child whom you rescued that night from the burning car\nthis boy who is sitting beside you here to-day?\"\n\n\"They are one and the same.\"\n\nMrs. Burnham threw back her veil, looked steadily across at Ralph,\nthen started to her feet, and moved slightly toward him as if to clasp\nhim in her arms. For a moment it seemed as though there was to be a\nscene. The people in the audience bent forward eagerly to look into\nthe bar, those in the rear of the room rising to their feet.\n\nThe noise seemed to startle her, and she sank back into her chair and\nsat there white and motionless during the remainder of the session.\n\nSharpman arose. \"I believe that is our case,\" he said.\n\n\"Then you rest here?\" asked the judge.\n\n\"We rest.\"\n\nHis Honor continued: \"It is now adjourning time and Saturday night. I\nthink it would be impossible to conclude this case, even by holding an\nevening session; but perhaps we can get through with the testimony so\nthat witnesses may be excused. What do you say, Mr. Goodlaw?\"\n\nGoodlaw arose. \"It may have been apparent to the court,\" he said,\n\"that the only effort being put forth by the defence in this case is\nan effort to learn as much of the truth as possible. We have called no\nwitnesses to contradict the testimony offered, and we expect to call\nnone. But, lest something should occur of which we might wish to take\nadvantage, we ask that the evidence be not closed until the meeting of\ncourt on Monday next.\"\n\n\"Is that agreeable to you, Mr. Sharpman?\" inquired the judge.\n\n\"Perfectly,\" replied that lawyer, his face beaming with good nature.\nHe knew that Goodlaw had given up the case and that his path was now\nclear.\n\n\"Then, crier,\" said the judge, \"you may adjourn the court until Monday\nnext, at two o'clock in the afternoon.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nAT THE GATES OF PARADISE.\n\n\nThe result of the trial seemed to be a foregone conclusion. Every one\nsaid there was no doubt, now, that Ralph was really Robert Burnham's\nson. People even wondered why Mrs. Burnham did not end the matter by\nacknowledging the boy and taking him to her home.\n\nAnd, indeed, this was her impulse and inclination, but Goodlaw, in\nwhose wisdom she put much confidence, had advised her not to be in\nhaste. They had had a long consultation after the adjournment of court\non Saturday evening, and had agreed that the evidence pointed, almost\nconclusively, to the fact that Ralph was Mrs. Burnham's son. But the\nlawyer said that the only safe way was to wait until the verdict of\nthe jury should fix the status of the boy beyond question. It would be\nbut a day or two at the most.\n\nThen Ralph might be taken by his mother, and proceedings could be at\nonce begun to have Simon Craft dismissed from the post of guardian.\nIndeed, it had been with this end in view that Goodlaw had made his\ncross-examination of Craft so thorough and severe. He had shown, as\nhe intended to, from the man's own lips that he was unfit to have\npossession either of the child or of his property.\n\nThis danger was now making itself more and more apparent to Sharpman.\nIn the excitement of the trial, he had not fully realized the probable\neffect which the testimony elicited from his client by the opposing\ncounsel might have.\n\nNow he saw what it could lead to; but he had sufficient confidence in\nhimself to believe that, in the time before action in that phase of\nthe case should become necessary, he could perfect a plan by which to\navert disaster. The first and best thing to be done, however, under\nany circumstances, was to keep the confidence and friendship of\nRalph. With this thought in mind, he occupied a seat with the boy as\nthey rode up from Wilkesbarre on the train that night, and kept him\ninterested and amused until they reached the station at Scranton.\n\nHe said to him that he, Sharpman, should go down to Wilkesbarre early\non Monday morning, and that, as it might be necessary to see Ralph\nbefore going, the boy had better call at his office for a few moments\non Sunday evening. Ralph promised to do so, and, with a cordial\nhandshake, the lawyer hurried away.\n\nIt is seldom that the probable outcome of a suit at law gives so great\nsatisfaction to all the parties concerned in it as this had done.\nSimon Craft was jubilant. At last his watching and waiting, his hoping\nand scheming, were about to be rewarded. It came in the evening of\nhis life to be sure, but--better late than never. He had remained in\nWilkesbarre Saturday night. He thought it useless to go up to Scranton\nsimply to come back again on Monday morning. He spent the entire day\non Sunday planning for the investment of the money he should receive,\ncounting it over and over again in anticipation, chuckling with true\nmiserly glee at the prospect of coming wealth.\n\nBut Ralph was the happiest one of all. He knew that on the coming\nMonday the jury would declare him to be Robert Burnham's son.\n\nAfter that, there would be nothing to prevent his mother from taking\nhim to her home, and that she would do so there was no longer any\ndoubt. When he awoke Sunday morning and thought it all over, it seemed\nto him that he had never been so near to perfect happiness in all his\nlife before.\n\nThe little birds that came and sang in the elm-tree by his window\nrepeated in their songs the story of his fortune. The kind old sun\nbeamed in upon him with warmest greeting and heartiest approval.\n\nOut-of-doors, the very atmosphere of the May day was redolent with\nall good cheer, and Ralph took great draughts of it into his lungs\nas he walked with Bachelor Billy to the little chapel at the foot of\nthe hill, where they were used to going to attend the Sunday morning\nservice. In the afternoon they went, these two, out by the long way to\nthe breaker. Ralph looked up at the grim, black monster, and thought\nof the days gone by; the days of watchfulness, of weariness, of\nhopeless toil that he had spent shut up within its jarring walls.\n\nBut they were over now. He should never again climb the narrow steps\nto the screen-room in the darkness of the early morning. He should\nnever again take his seat on the black bench to bend above the stream\nof flowing coal, to breathe the thick dust, and listen to the rattling\nand the roaring all day long. That time had passed, there was to be no\nmore grinding toil, no more harsh confinement in the heat and dust,\nno more longing for the bright sunlight and the open air, nor for the\nthings of life that lay beyond his reach. The night was gone, the\nmorning was come, the May day of his life was dawning, wealth was\nlying at his feet, rich love was overshadowing him; why should he not\nbe happy?\n\n\"Seems jest as though I hadn't never had any trouble, Uncle Billy,\" he\nsaid, \"as though I'd been kind o' waitin' an' waitin' all along for\njest this, an' now it's here, ain't it?\"\n\n\"Yes, lad.\"\n\n\"An' some way it's all so quiet an' smooth like, so peaceful, don't\nyou know. She--she seems to be so glad 'at she needn't keep me away\nfrom her no longer after the trial's over. I think she wants me to\ncome, don't you? It ain't like most law-suits, is it?\"\n\n\"She's a lovin' lady, an' I'm a-thinkin' they're a-meanin' to deal\nrightly by ye, Ralph.\"\n\nThere was a pause. They were sitting on the bank in the shadow of\nthe breaker, and the soft wind was bringing up to them the perfume\nof apple-blossoms from the orchard down by the road-side. Silence,\nindeed, was the only means of giving fitting expression to such quiet\njoy as pervaded the boy's heart.\n\nA man, driving along the turnpike with a horse and buggy, turned up\nthe road to the breaker, and stopped in front of Bachelor Billy and\nthe boy.\n\n\"Is this Ralph?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yes,\" said the boy, \"that's me.\"\n\n\"Well, Mrs. Burnham would like to see you. She sent me over to bring\nyou. I went to your house, and they said most likely I'd find you up\nhere. Just jump in and we'll drive right down.\"\n\nRalph looked up inquiringly at Bachelor Billy.\n\n\"Go on, lad,\" he said; \"when the mither sen's for ye, ye mus' go.\"\nRalph climbed up into the buggy.\n\n\"Good-by, Uncle Billy,\" he called out, as they started away down the\nhill.\n\nBachelor Billy did not answer. A sudden thought had come to him; a\nsudden fear had seized him. He stood for a moment motionless; then he\nstarted to run after the retreating carriage, calling as he ran. They\nheard him and stopped. In a minute he had reached them.\n\n\"Ralph,\" he said, hastily, \"ye're not goin' now for gude? Ye'll coom\nback the nicht, won't ye, Ralph? I couldn't--I couldn't abide to have\nye go this way, not for gude. It's--it's too sudden, d'ye see.\"\n\nHis voice was trembling with emotion, and the pallor about his lips\nwas heightened by the forced smile that parted them. Ralph reached out\nfrom the buggy and grasped the man's rough hand.\n\n\"I ain't leavin' you for good, Uncle Billy,\" he said. \"I'm comin' back\nagin, sure; I promise I will. Would you ruther I wouldn't go, Uncle\nBilly?\"\n\n\"Oh, no! ye mus' go. I shouldn't 'a' stoppit ye. It was verra fulish\nin me. But ye see,\" turning to the driver apologetically, \"the lad's\nbeen so long wi' me it's hard to part wi' 'im. An' it cam' ower me\nso sudden like, that mayhap he'd not be a-comin' back, that I--that\nI--wull, wull! it's a' richt, ye need na min' me go on; go on, lad,\nan' rich blessin's go wi' ye!\" and Bachelor Billy turned and walked\nrapidly away.\n\nThis was the only cloud in the otherwise clear sky of Ralph's\nhappiness. He would have to leave Bachelor Billy alone. But he had\nfully resolved that the man who had so befriended him in the dark days\nof his adversity should not fail of sharing in the blessings that were\nnow at hand.\n\nHis mind was full of plans for his Uncle Billy's happiness and\nwelfare, as they rode along through the green suburban streets, with\nthe Sunday quiet resting on them, to the House where Ralph's mother\nwaited, with a full heart, to receive and welcome her son.\n\nShe had promised Goodlaw that she would not take the boy to her home\nuntil after the conclusion of the trial. He had explained to her that\nto anticipate the verdict of the jury in this way might, in a certain\nevent, prejudice not only her interests but her son's also. And the\ntime would be so short now that she thought surely she could wait.\nShe had resolved, indeed, not to see nor to speak to the lad, out of\ncourt, until full permission had been granted to her to do so. Then,\nwhen the time came, she would revel in the brightness of his presence.\n\nThat there still lingered in her mind a doubt as to his identity was\nnothing. She would not think of that. It was only a prejudice fixed\nby long years of belief in her child's death, a prejudice so firmly\nrooted now that it required an effort to cast it out.\n\nBut it would not greatly matter, she thought, if it should chance that\nRalph was not her son. He was a brave, good boy, worthy of the best\nthat could come to him, and she loved him. Indeed, during these last\nfew days her heart had gone out to him with an affection so strange\nand a desire so strong that she felt that only his presence could\nsatisfy it. She could not be glad enough that the trial, now so nearly\nto its close, would result in giving to her a son. It was a strange\ndefeat, indeed, to cause her such rejoicing. On this peaceful Sunday\nmorning her mind was full with plans for the lad's comfort, for his\nhappiness and his education. But the more she thought upon him the\ngreater grew her longing to have him with her, the harder it became\nto repress her strong desire to see him, to speak to him, to kiss his\nface, to hold him in her arms. In the quiet of the afternoon this\nlonging became more intense. She tried to put it away from her, but it\nwould not go; she tried to reason it down, but the boy's face, rising\nalways in her thought, refuted all her logic. She felt that he must\ncome to her, that she must see him, if only long enough to look into\nhis eyes, to touch his hand, to welcome him and say good-by. She\ncalled the coachmen then, and sent him for the boy, and waited at the\nwindow to catch the first glimpse of him when he should appear.\n\nHe came at last, and she met him in the hall. It was a welcome such as\nhe had never dreamed of. They went into a beautiful room, and she drew\nhis chair so close to hers that she could hold his hands, and smooth\nhis hair back now and then, and look down into his eyes as she talked\nwith him. She made him repeat to her the whole story of his life from\nthe time he could remember, and when he told about Bachelor Billy\nand all his kindness and goodness, he saw that her eyes were filled\nwith tears.\n\n\"We'll remember him,\" she said; \"we'll be very good to him always.\"\n\n\"Mrs. Burnham,\" asked Ralph, \"do you really an' truly believe 'at I'm\nyour son?\"\n\nShe evaded the question skilfully.\n\n\"I'm not Mrs. Burnham to you any more,\" she said. \"You are my little\nboy now and I am your mother. But wait! no; you must not call me\n'mother' yet, not until the trial is over, then we shall call each\nother the names we like best, shall we not?\"\n\n\"Yes; an' will the trial be over to-morrow, do you think?\"\n\n\"I hope so. I shall be glad to have it done; shall not you?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes; but so long as it's comin' out so nice, I don't care so very\nmuch. It's all so good now 'at it couldn't be much better. I could\nstan' it another day or two, I guess.\"\n\n\"Well, my dear, we will be patient. It cannot but come out right. Are\nyou glad you are coming here to live with me, Ralph?\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am, I am; I'm very much delighted. I've always wanted a\nmother; you don't know how much I've wanted a mother; but I never\n'xpected--not till Gran'pa Simon come--I never 'xpected to get such a\nlovely one. You don't know; I wisht I could tell you; I wisht I could\ndo sumpthin' so 'at you'd know how glad I am.\"\n\nShe leaned over and kissed him.\n\n\"There's only one thing you can do, Ralph, to show me that; you can\ncome back here when the trial is over and be my boy and live with me\nalways.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'll come!\"\n\n\"And then we'll see what you shall do. Would you like to go to school\nand study?\"\n\n\"Oh, may I?\"\n\n\"Certainly! what would you like to study?\"\n\n\"Readin'. If I could only study readin' so as to learn to read real\ngood. I can read some now; but you know they's such lots o' things to\nread 'at I can't do it fast enough.\"\n\n\"Yes, you shall learn to read fast, and you shall read to me. You\nshall read books to me.\"\n\n\"What! whole books?--through?\"\n\n\"Yes, would you like that?\"\n\n\"Oh!\" and the boy clasped his hands together in unspeakable delight.\n\n\"Yes, and you shall read stories to Mildred, your little sister. I\nwonder where she is; wouldn't you like to see her?\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am, I would, very much.\"\n\n\"I'll send for her.\"\n\n\"You'll have books of your own, you know,\" continued the lady, as she\nreturned across the room, \"and playthings of your own, and a room of\nyour own, near mine, and every night you'll kiss me good-night, will\nyou not, and every morning you will kiss me good-morning?\"\n\n\"Oh, indeed I will! indeed!\"\n\nIn through the curtained door-way came little Mildred, her blond\ncurls tossing about her face, her cheeks rosy with health, her eyes\nsparkling with anticipation.\n\nShe had seen Ralph and knew him, but as yet she had not understood\nthat he was her brother. She could not comprehend it at once, there\nwere many explanations to be made, and Ralph's story was retold; but\nwhen the fact of his relation to her became fixed in her mind, it was\nto her a truth that could never afterward be shaken.\n\n\"And will you come to live with us?\" she asked him.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Ralph, \"I 'xpect to.\"\n\n\"And will you play with me?\"\n\n\"Well, I--I don't know how to play girl's plays, but I guess I can\nlearn,\" he said, looking inquiringly up into his mother's face.\n\n\"You shall both learn whatever you like that is innocent and healthful\nand pretty to play, my children.\"\n\nThe house-maid, at the door, announced dinner.\n\n\"Come,\" said the lady, placing an arm about each child, \"come, let us\neat together and see how it seems.\"\n\nShe drew them gently to the dining-room and placed them at the table,\nand sat where she could look from one to the other and drink in the\njoy of their presence.\n\nBut Ralph had grown more quiet. It was all so new and strange to him\nand so very beautiful that he could do little more than eat his food,\nand answer questions, and look about him in admiring wonder.\n\nWhen dinner was finished the afternoon had grown late, and Ralph,\nremembering Bachelor Billy's fear, said that he ought to go. They did\nnot try to detain him; but, with many kind words and good-wishes and\nbright hopes for the morrow, they kissed him good-night and he went\nhis way. The sky was still cloudless; the cool of the coming evening\nrefreshed the air, the birds that sing at twilight were already\nbreaking forth into melody as if impatient for the night, and Ralph\nwalked out through it all like one in a dream.\n\nIt was so much sweeter than anything he had ever heard of or thought\nof, this taste of home, so much, so very much! His heart was like a\nthistle bloom floating in the air, his feet seemed not to touch the\nground; he was walking as a spirit might have walked, buoyed up by\nthoughts of all things beautiful. He reached the cottage that for\nyears had been his home, and entered it with a cry of gladness on\nhis lips.\n\n\"Oh, Uncle Billy! it was--it was just like heaven!\" He had thrown\nhimself upon a stool at the man's feet, and sat looking up into the\nkindly face.\n\nBachelor Billy did not answer. He only placed his hand tenderly on the\nboy's head, and they both sat, in silence, looking out through the\nopen door, until the pink clouds in the western sky had faded into\ngray, and the deepening twilight wrapped the landscape, fold on fold,\nin an ever thickening veil.\n\nBy and by Ralph's tongue was loosened, and he told the story of his\nvisit to Mrs. Burnham. He gave it with all fulness; he dwelt long and\nlovingly on his mother's beauty and affection, on his sister's pretty\nways, on the splendors of their home, on the plans marked out for him.\n\n\"An' just to think of it!\" he exclaimed, \"after to-morrow, I'll be\nthere ev'ry day, _ev'ry day_. It's too beautiful to think of, Uncle\nBilly; I can't help lookin' at myself an' wonderin' if it's me.\"\n\n\"It's verra fine, but ye've a richt to it, lad, an' ye desarve it, an'\nit's a blessin' to all o' ye.\"\n\nAgain they fell into silence. The blue smoke from Billy's pipe went\nfloating into the darkness, and up to their ears came the sound of\ndistant church bells ringing out their music to the night.\n\nFinally, Ralph thought of the appointed meeting at Sharpman's office,\nand started to his feet.\n\n\"I mus' hurry now,\" he said, \"or he'll think I ain't a-comin'.\"\n\nThe proposed visit seemed to worry Bachelor Billy somewhat. He did\nnot like Sharpman. He had not had full confidence in him from the\nbeginning. And since the interview on the day of Ralph's return from\nWilkesbarre, his faith in the pureness of the lawyer's motives had\nbeen greatly shaken. He had watched the proceedings in Ralph's case as\nwell as his limited knowledge of the law would allow, and, though he\nhad discovered nothing, thus far, that would injure or compromise the\nboy, he was in constant fear lest some plan should be developed by\nwhich Ralph would be wronged, either in reputation or estate.\n\nHe hesitated, therefore, to have the lad fulfil this appointment.\n\n\"I guess I'd better go wi' ye,\" he said, \"mayhap an' ye'll be afeared\na-comin' hame i' the dark.\"\n\n\"Oh, no, Uncle Billy!\" exclaimed the boy, \"they ain't no use in your\nwalkin' way down there. I ain't a bit afraid, an' I'll get home\nearly. Mr. Sharpman said maybe it wouldn't be any use for me to go to\nWilkesbarre to-morrow at all, and he'd let me know to-night. No, don't\nyou go! I'm a-goin' to run down the hill so's to get there quicker;\ngood-by!\"\n\nThe boy started off at a rapid pace, and broke into a run as he\nreached the brow of the hill, while Bachelor Billy unwillingly resumed\nhis seat, and watched the retreating form of the lad until it was\nswallowed up in the darkness.\n\nRalph thought that the night air was very sweet, and he slackened his\npace at the foot of the hill, in order to enjoy breathing it.\n\nHe was passing along a street lined with pretty, suburban dwellings.\nOut from one yard floated the rich perfume of some early flowering\nshrub. The delicious odor lingered in the air along the whole length\nof the block, and Ralph pleased his fancy by saying that it was\nfollowing him.\n\nFarther on there was a little family group gathered on the porch,\nparents and children, talking and laughing, but gently as became the\nday. Very happy they seemed, very peaceful, untroubled and content. It\nwas beautiful, Ralph thought, very beautiful, this picture of home,\nbut he was no longer envious, his heart did not now grow bitter nor\nhis eyes fill full with tears. His own exceeding hope was too great\nfor that to-night, his own home joys too near and dear.\n\nStill farther on there was music. He could look into the lighted\nparlor and see the peaceful faces of those who stood or sat there. A\ngirl was at the piano playing; a young, fair girl with a face like the\nfaces of the pictured angels. They were all singing, a familiar sacred\nsong, and the words came floating out so sweetly to the boy's ears\nthat he stopped to listen:--\n\n  \"O Paradise! O Paradise!\n    Who doth not crave for rest?\n  Who would not seek the happy land,\n    Where they that loved are blest;\n  Where loyal hearts and true\n    Stand ever in the light,\n  All rapture through and through,\n    In God's most holy sight?\"\n\nOh, it was all so beautiful! so peaceful! so calm and holy!\n\nRalph tried to think, as he started on, whether there was anything\nthat he could have, or see, or do, that would increase his happiness.\nBut there was nothing in the whole world now, nothing more, he said to\nhimself, that he could think to ask for.\n\n  \"Where loyal hearts and true,\n  Stand ever in the light.\"\n\nThe words came faintly from the distance to his ears as the music died\naway, the gentle wind brought perfumed air from out the shadows of the\nnight to touch his face. The quiet stars looked down in peace upon\nhim, the heart that beat within his breast was full with hope, with\nhappiness, with calm content.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\nTHE PURCHASE OF A LIE.\n\n\nLawyer Sharpman sat in his office on Sunday evening, meditating on his\nsuccess in the Burnham suit and planning to avert the dangers that\nstill lay in his path.\n\nOld Simon's disclosures in court were a source of much anxiety to him.\nGoodlaw's design in bringing them out was apparent, and he felt that\nit must in some way be thwarted. Of what use was it to establish the\nboy's identity if he could not control the boy's fortune? He was glad\nhe had asked Ralph to call. He intended, when he should come, to have\na long talk with him concerning his guardian. He hoped to be able to\nwork into the boy's mind a theory that he had been as well treated\nduring his stay with Simon Craft as circumstances would permit. He\nwould remind him, in the most persuasive manner possible, that Craft\nwas old and ill and easily annoyed, that he was poor and unable to\nwork, that his care for and maintenance of Ralph were deeds of the\npurest generosity, and that the old man's entire connection with the\nmatter was very creditable to him, when all the adverse circumstances\nagainst which he had to struggle were taken into account. If he could\nimpress this view of the case strongly enough upon Ralph's mind, he\nshould not greatly fear the result of possible proceedings for the\ndismissal of the guardian. This, at any rate, was the first thing to\nbe done, and to-night was the time to do it.\n\nHe had been lying back in his chair, with his hands locked behind his\nhead. He now straightened himself, drew closer to the table, turned up\nthe gas, looked over some notes of evidence, and began to mark out a\nplan for his address to the jury on the morrow. He was sitting in the\ninner room, the door between that and the outer room being open, but\nthe street door closed.\n\nAfter a little he heard some one enter and walk across the floor. He\nthought it must be Ralph, and he looked up to welcome him. But it was\ndark in the outer office, and he could not see who came, until his\nvisitor was fairly standing in the door-way of his room.\n\nIt was not Ralph. It was a young man, a stranger. He wore a pair of\nlight corduroy pantaloons, a checked vest, a double-breasted sack\ncoat, and a flowing red cravat.\n\nHe bowed low and said:--\n\n\"Have I the honor of addressing Mr. Sharpman, attorney at law?\"\n\n\"That is my name,\" said the lawyer, regarding his visitor with some\ncuriosity, \"will you walk in?\"\n\n\"With pleasure, sir.\"\n\nThe young man entered the room, removed his high silk hat from his\nhead, and laid it on the table, top down. Then he drew a card case\nfrom an inner pocket, and produced and handed to the lawyer a soiled\ncard on which was printed in elaborate letters the following name and\naddress:--\n\nL. JOSEPH CHEEKERTON,\n\nPHILADELPHIA.\n\n\"_Rhyming Joe_.\"\n\nWhile Sharpman was examining the card, his visitor was forming in his\nmind a plan of procedure. He had come there with a carefully concocted\nlie on his tongue to swindle the sharpest lawyer in Scranton out of\nenough money to fill an empty purse.\n\n\"Will you be seated, Mr. Cheekerton?\" said the lawyer, looking up from\nthe card.\n\n\"Thank you, sir!\"\n\nThe young man drew the chair indicated by Sharpman closer to the\ntable, and settled himself comfortably into it.\n\n\"It is somewhat unusual, I presume,\" he said, \"for attorneys to\nreceive calls on Sunday evening:--\n\n  \"But this motto I hold as a part of my creed,\n  The better the day, why, the better the deed.\n\n\"Excuse me! Oh, no; it doesn't hurt. I've been composing extemporaneous\nverse like that for fifteen years. Philosophy and rhyme are my forte.\nI've had some narrow escapes to be sure, but I've never been deserted\nby the muses. Now, as to my Sunday evening call. It seemed to be\nsomewhat of a necessity, as I understand that the evidence will be\nclosed in the Burnham case at the opening of court to-morrow. Am\nI right?\"\n\n\"It may be, and it may not be,\" said Sharpman, somewhat curtly. \"I am\nnot acquainted with the plans of the defence. Are you interested in\nthe case?\"\n\n\"Indirectly, yes. You see, Craft and I have been friends for a good\nmany years, we have exchanged confidences, and have matured plans\ntogether. I am pretty well acquainted with the history of his\nsuccesses and his failures.\"\n\n\"Then it will please you to know that he is pretty certain to meet\nwith success in the Burnham suit.\"\n\n\"Yes? I am quite delighted to hear it:--\n\n  \"Glad to know that wit and pluck\n  Bring their owner such good-luck.\n\n\"But, between you and me, the old gentleman has brought some faculties\nto bear on this case besides wit and pluck.\"\n\n\"Ah, indeed?\"\n\n\"Yes, indeed! You see, I knew all about this matter up to the time\nthe boy ran away. To tell the truth, the old man didn't treat the lad\njust right, and I gave the little fellow a pointer on getting off. Old\nSimon hasn't been so friendly to me since, for some reason.\n\n  \"Strange what trifles oft will tend\n  To cool the friendship of a friend.\n\n\"In fact, I was not aware that the boy had been found, until I heard\nthat fact from his own lips one day last fall, in Wilkesbarre. We\nmet by a happy chance, and I entertained him on account of old\nacquaintance's sake.\"\n\nIn a moment the story of Ralph's adventure in Wilkesbarre returned to\nSharpman, and he recognized Rhyming Joe as the person who had swindled\nthe lad out of his money. He looked at the young man sternly, and\nsaid:--\n\n\"Yes; I have heard the story of that chance meeting. You were\nvery liberal on account of old acquaintance's sake, were you not?\nentertained the boy till his pocket was empty, didn't you?\" and the\nlawyer cast a look of withering contempt on his visitor.\n\nBut Rhyming Joe did not wither. On the contrary, he broke into a merry\nfit of laughter.\n\n\"Good joke on the lad, wasn't it?\" he replied. \"A little rough,\nperhaps, but you see I was pretty hard up just then; hadn't had a\nsquare meal before in two days. I'll not forget the boy's generosity,\nthough; I'll call and see him when he comes into his fortune; he'll be\ndelighted to receive me, I've no doubt.\n\n  \"For a trifle like that he'll remember no more,\n  In the calm contemplation of favors of yore.\"\n\nBut, let that pass. That's a pretty shrewd scheme Old Simon has on\nfoot just now, isn't it? Did he get that up alone or did he have a\nlittle legal advice? I wouldn't have said that he was quite up to it\nall, himself. It's a big thing.\n\n  \"A man may work hard with his hands and his feet\n  And find but poor lodging and little to eat.\n  But if he would gather the princeliest gains\n  He must smother his conscience and cudgel his brains.\"\n\nSharpman looked sternly across at his visitor. \"Have you any business\nwith me?\" he said; \"if not, my time is very valuable, and I desire to\nutilize it.\"\n\n\"I beg pardon, sir, if I have occupied time that is precious to you.\nI had no particular object in calling except to gratify a slight\ncuriosity. I had a desire to know whether it was really understood\nbetween you--that is whether the old man had enlightened you as to who\nthis boy actually is--that's all.\"\n\n\"There's no doubt as to who the boy is. If you've come here to give me\nany information on that point, your visit will have been useless. His\nidentity is well established.\"\n\n\"Yes? Well, now I have the good-fortune to know all about that child,\nand if you are laboring under the impression that he is a son of\nRobert Burnham, you are very greatly mistaken. He is not a Burnham at\nall.\"\n\nSharpman looked at the young man incredulously. \"You do not expect\nme to believe that?\" he said. \"You certainly do not mean what you\nare saying?\"\n\nThere was a noise in the outer room as of some one entering from\nthe street. Sharpman did not hear it; he was too busily engaged in\nthinking. Rhyming Joe gave a quick glance at the room door, which\nstood slightly ajar, then, turning in his chair to face the lawyer, he\nsaid deliberately and with emphasis:--\n\n\"I say the boy Ralph is not Robert Burnham's son.\"\n\nFor a moment Sharpman sat quietly staring at his visitor; then, in a\nvoice which betrayed his effort to remain calm, he said:--\n\n\"What right have you to make such a statement as this? How can you\nprove it?\"\n\n\"Well, in the first place I knew the boy's father, and he was not\nRobert Burnham, I assure you.\"\n\n\"Who was he?\"\n\n\"Simon Craft's son.\"\n\n\"Then Ralph is--?\"\n\n\"Old Simon's grandchild.\"\n\n\"How do you happen to know all this?\"\n\n\"Well, I saw the child frequently before he was taken into the\ncountry, and I saw him the night Old Simon brought him back. He was\nthe same child. The young fellow and his wife separated, and the old\nman had to take the baby. I was on confidential terms with the old\nfellow at that time, and he told me all about it.\"\n\n\"Then he probably deceived you. The evidence concerning the railroad\ndisaster and the rescue of Robert Burnham's child from the wreck is\ntoo well established by the testimony to be upset now by such a story\nas yours.\"\n\n\"Ah! let me explain that matter to you. The train that went through\nthe bridge was the express. The local was twenty minutes behind it.\nOld Simon and his grandchild were on the local to the bridge. An\nhour later they came down to the city on the train which brought the\nwounded passengers. I had this that night from the old man's own lips.\nI repeat to you, sir, the boy Ralph is Simon Craft's grandson, and I\nknow it.\"\n\nIn the outer room there was a slight noise as of some person drawing\nin his breath sharply and with pain. Neither of the men heard it.\nRhyming Joe was too intent on giving due weight to his pretended\ndisclosure; Lawyer Sharpman was too busy studying the chances of\nthat disclosure being true. It was evident that the young man was\nacquainted with his subject. If his story were false he had it too\nwell learned to admit of successful contradiction. It was therefore of\nno use to argue with him, but Sharpman thought he would see what was\nlying back of this.\n\n\"Well,\" he said, calmly, \"I don't see how this affects our case.\nSuppose you can prove your story to be true; what then?\"\n\nThe young man did not answer immediately. He took a package of\ncigarettes from his pocket and offered one to Sharpman. It was\ndeclined. He lighted one for himself, leaned back in his chair,\ncrossed his legs, and began to study the ceiling through the rings\nof blue smoke which came curling from his nostrils. Finally he said:\n\"What would you consider my silence on this subject worth, for a\nperiod of say twenty-four hours?\"\n\n\"I do not know that your silence will be of material benefit to us.\"\n\n\"Well, perhaps not. My knowledge, however, may be of material injury\nto you.\"\n\n\"In what way?\"\n\n\"By the disclosure of it to your opponent.\"\n\n\"What would he do with it?\"\n\n\"Use it as evidence in this case.\"\n\n\"Well, had you not better go to him?\"\n\nRhyming Joe laid his cigarette aside, straightened up in his chair,\nand again faced the lawyer squarely.\n\n\"Look here, Mr. Sharpman,\" he said, \"you know, as well as I do, that\nthe knowledge I hold is extremely dangerous to you. I can back up\nmy assertion by any amount of corroborative detail. I am thoroughly\nfamiliar with the facts, and if I were to go on the witness-stand\nto-morrow for the defendant in this suit, your hopes and schemes would\nvanish into thin air. Now, I have no great desire to do this; I have\nstill a friendly feeling left for Old Simon, and as for the boy, he\nis a nice fellow, and I would like to see him prosper. But in my\ncircumstances, as they are at present, I do not feel that I can afford\nto let slip an opportunity to turn an honest penny.\n\n  \"If a penny saved is a penny earned,\n  Then a penny found is a penny turned.\"\n\nSharpman was still looking calmly at his visitor. \"Well?\" he said,\ninquiringly.\n\n\"Well, to make a long story short, if I get two hundred dollars\nto-night, I keep my knowledge of Simon Craft and his grandson to\nmyself. If I don't get two hundred dollars to-night, I go to Goodlaw\nthe first thing to-morrow morning and offer my services to the\ndefence. I propose to make the amount of a witness fee out of this\ncase, at any rate.\"\n\n\"You are attempting a game that will hardly work here,\" said Sharpman,\nseverely. \"You will find yourself earning two hundred dollars for the\nstate in the penitentiary of your native city if you persist in that\ncourse.\"\n\n\"Very well, sir; you have heard my story, you have my ultimatum. You\nare at liberty to act or not to act as you see fit. If you do not\nchoose to act it will be unnecessary for me to prolong my visit. I\nwill have to rise early in the morning, in order to get the first\nWilkesbarre train, and I must retire without delay.\n\n  \"The adage of the early bird,\n  My soul from infancy has stirred,\n  And since the worm I sorely need\n  I'll practise, now, that thrifty creed.\"\n\nRhyming Joe reached for his hat.\n\nSharpman was growing anxious. There was no doubt that the fellow\nmight hurt them greatly if he chose to do so. His story was not an\nimprobable one. Indeed, there was good reason to believe that it might\nbe true. His manner tended to impress one with its truth. But, true or\nfalse, it would not do to have the statement get before that jury. The\nman must be detained, to give time for further thought.\n\n\"Don't be in a hurry,\" said Sharpman, mildly; \"let's talk this matter\nover a little more. Perhaps we can reach an amicable understanding.\"\n\nRhyming Joe detected, in an instant, the weakening on the lawyer's\npart, and increased his audacity accordingly.\n\n\"You have heard my proposition, Mr. Sharpman,\" he said; \"it is the\nonly one I shall make, and I must decline to discuss the matter\nfurther. My time, as I have already intimated, is of considerable\nvalue to me.\"\n\n\"But how can you expect me to decide on your proposition without first\nconsulting my client? He is in Wilkesbarre. Give us time. Wait until\nmorning; I'll go down on the first train with you.\"\n\n\"No, I don't care to have Old Simon consulted in this matter; if I\nhad cared to, I should have consulted him myself; I know where he is.\nBesides, his interest in the case is very small compared with yours.\nYou are to get the lion's share, that is apparent, and you, of course,\nare the one to pay the cost. It is necessary that I should have the\nmoney to-night; after to-night it will be too late.\"\n\nSharpman arose and began pacing up and down the room. He was inclined\nto yield to the man's demand. The Burnham suit was drawing rapidly to\na successful close. If this fellow should go on the witness-stand and\ntell his plausible story, the entire scheme might be wrecked beyond\nretrieval. But it was very annoying to be bulldozed into a thing in\nthis way. The lawyer's stubborn nature rebelled against it powerfully.\nIt would be a great pleasure, he thought, to defy the fellow and turn\nhim into the street. Then a new fear came to him. What would be the\neffect of this man's story, with its air of genuineness, on the mind\nof so conscientious a boy as Ralph? He surely could not afford to\nhave Ralph's faith interfered with; that would be certain to bring\ndisaster.\n\nHe made up his mind at once. Turning quickly on his heel to face his\nvisitor, he said:--\n\n\"I want you to understand that I'm not afraid of you nor of your\nstory, but I don't want to be bothered with you. Now, I'll tell you\nwhat I'll do. I'll give you one hundred dollars in cash to-night, on\ncondition that you will leave this town by the first train in the\nmorning, that you'll not go to Wilkesbarre, that you'll not come back\nhere inside of a year, and that you'll not mention a word of this\nmatter to any one so long as you shall live.\"\n\nThe lawyer spoke with determined earnestness. Rhyming Joe looked up at\nthe ceiling as if in doubt.\n\nFinally, he said:--\n\n  \"Split the difference and call it even,\n  A hundred and fifty and I'll be leavin'.\"\n\nSharpman was whirling the knob of his safe back and forth. At last he\nflung open the safe-door.\n\n\"I don't care,\" he said, looking around at his visitor, \"whether your\nstory is true or false. We'll call it true if that will please you.\nBut if I ever hear of your lisping it again to any living person, I\ngive you my word for it you shall be sorry. I pay you your own price\nfor your silence; now I want you to understand that I've bought it and\nit's mine.\"\n\nHe had taken a package of bank-notes from a drawer in his safe, had\ncounted out a portion of them, and now handed them to Rhyming Joe.\n\n\"Certainly,\" said the young man, \"certainly; no one can say that I\nhave ever failed to keep an honest obligation; and between you and me\nthere shall be the utmost confidence and good faith.\n\n  \"Though woman's vain, and man deceives,\n  There's always honor among--gentlemen.\n\n\"I beg your pardon! it's the first time in fifteen years that I have\nfailed to find an appropriate rhyming word; but the exigencies of a\nmoment, you will understand, may destroy both rhyme and reason.\"\n\nHe was folding the bills carefully and placing them in a shabby purse\nwhile Sharpman looked down on him with undisguised ill will.\n\n\"Now,\" said the lawyer, \"I expect that you will leave the city on the\nfirst train in the morning, and that you will not stop until you have\ngone at least a hundred miles. Here! here's enough more money to pay\nyour fare that far, and buy your dinner\"; and he held out, scornfully,\ntoward the young man, another bank-bill.\n\nRhyming Joe declined it with a courteous wave of his hand, and,\nrising, began, with much dignity, to button his coat.\n\n\"I have already received,\" he said, \"the _quid pro quo_ of the\nbargain. I do not sue for charity nor accept it. Reserve your\nfinancial favors for the poor and needy.\n\n  \"Go find the beggar crawling in the sun,\n     Or him that's worse;\n   But don't inflict your charity on one\n     With well filled purse.\"\n\nSharpman looked amused and put the money back into his pocket. Then a\nbit of his customary politeness returned to him.\n\n\"I shall not expect to see you in Scranton again for some time, Mr.\nCheekerton,\" he said, \"but when you do come this way, I trust you will\nhonor me with a visit.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir. When I return I shall expect to find that your\nbrilliant scheme has met with deserved success; that old Craft has\nchuckled himself to death over his riches; and that my young friend\nRalph is happy in his new home, and contented with such slight remnant\nof his fortune as may be left to him after you two are through with\nit. By the way, let me ask just one favor of you on leaving, and\nthat is that the boy may never know what a narrow escape he has had\nto-night, and may never know that he is not really the son of Robert\nBurnham. It would be an awful blow to him to know that Old Simon is\nactually his grandfather; and there's no need, now, to tell him.\n\n  \"'Where ignorance is bliss,' you know the rest,\n  And a still tongue is generally the best.\"\n\n\"Oh, no, indeed! the boy shall hear nothing of the kind from me. I am\nvery much obliged to you, however, for the true story of the matter.\"\n\nUnder the circumstances Sharpman was outdoing himself in politeness,\nbut he could not well outdo Rhyming Joe. The young man extended his\nhand to the lawyer with a respectful bow.\n\n\"I shall long remember your extreme kindness and courtesy,\" he said.\n\n  \"Henceforth the spider of a friendship true,\n  Shall weave its silken web twixt me and you.\"\n\nMy dear sir, I wish you a very good night!\"\n\n\"Good-night!\"\n\nThe young man placed his silk hat jauntily on his head, and passed\nthrough the outer office, whistling a low tune; out at the street door\nand down the walk; out into the gay world of dissipation, down into\nthe treacherous depths of crime; one more of the many who have chained\nbright intellects to the chariot wheels of vice, and have been dragged\nthrough dust and mire to final and to irretrievable disaster.\n\nA moment later a boy arose from a chair in the outer office and\nstaggered out into the street. It was Ralph. He had heard it all.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\n\nTHE ANGEL WITH THE SWORD.\n\n\nRalph had entered the office just as Rhyming Joe reached the point of\nhis disclosure. He had heard him declare, in emphatic tones: \"I say\nthe boy Ralph is not Robert Burnham's son.\"\n\nIt was as though some one had struck him. He dropped into a chair and\nsat as if under a spell, listening to every word that was uttered. He\nwas powerless to move or to speak until the man who had told the cruel\nstory had passed by him in the dark and gone down the walk into the\nstreet.\n\nThen he arose and followed him; he did not know just why, but it\nseemed as if he must see him, if only to beg him to declare that the\nstory he had just heard him tell was all a lie. And yet Ralph believed\nthat Rhyming Joe had told the truth. Why should he not believe him\nwhen Sharpman himself had put such faith in the tale as to purchase\nthe man's silence with money. But if the story were true, if it _were_\ntrue, then it should be known; Mrs. Burnham should know it, Mr.\nGoodlaw should know it, Mr. Sharpman should not conceal it, Rhyming\nJoe must not be allowed to depart until he had told it on the\nwitness-stand, in open court. He must see him, Ralph thought; he must\nfind him, he must, in some way, compel him to remain. The sound of the\nman's footsteps had not yet died away as the boy ran after him along\nthe street, but half-way down the block his breath grew short, his\nheart began to pound against his breast, he pressed his hand to his\nside as if in pain, and staggered up to a lamp-post for support.\n\nWhen he recovered sufficiently to start on, Rhyming Joe had passed\nout of both sight and hearing. Ralph hurried down the street until he\nreached Lackawanna Avenue, and there he stopped, wondering which way\nto turn. But there was no time to lose. If the man should escape him\nnow he might never see him again, he might never hear from his lips\nwhether the dreadful story was really and positively true. He felt\nthat Rhyming Joe would not lie to him to-night, nor deceive him, nor\ndeny his request to make the truth known to those who ought to know\nit, if he could only find him and speak to him, and if the man could\nonly see how utterly miserable he was. He plunged in among the Sunday\nevening saunterers, and hurried up the street, looking to the right\nand to the left, before and behind him, hastening on as he could. Once\nhe thought he saw, just ahead, the object of his search. He ran up to\nspeak to him, looked into his face, and--it was some one else.\n\nFinally he reached the head of the avenue and turned up toward the\nDunmore road. Then he came back, crossed over, and went down on the\nother side of the street. Block after block he traversed, looking into\nthe face of every man he met, glancing into doorways and dark corners,\nmaking short excursions into side streets; block after block, until\nhe reached the Hyde Park bridge. He was tired and disheartened as he\nturned back and wondered what he should do next. Then it occurred to\nhim that he had promised to meet Mr. Sharpman that night. Perhaps the\nlawyer was still waiting for him. Perhaps, if he should appeal to him,\nthe lawyer would help him to find Rhyming Joe, and to make the truth\nknown before injustice should be done.\n\nHe turned his steps in the direction of Sharpman's office, reached\nit finally, went up the little walk, tried to open the door, and\nfound it locked. The lights were out, the lawyer had gone. Ralph was\nvery tired, and he sat down on the door-step to rest and to try to\nthink. He felt that he had made every effort to find Rhyming Joe and\nhad failed. To-morrow the man would be gone. Sharpman would go to\nWilkesbarre. The evidence in the Burnham case would be closed. The\njury would come into court and declare that he, Ralph, was Robert\nBurnham's son--and it would be all a lie. Oh, no! he could not let\nthat be done. His whole moral nature cried out against it. He must\nsee Sharpman to-night and beg him to put a stop to so unjust a cause.\nTo-morrow it might be too late. He rose and started down the walk to\nfind the lawyer's dwelling. But he did not know in which direction to\nturn. A man was passing along the street, and Ralph accosted him:--\n\n\"Please, can you tell me where Mr. Sharpman lives?\" he asked.\n\n\"I don't know anything about him,\" replied the man gruffly, starting\non.\n\nIn a minute another man came by, and Ralph repeated his question.\n\n\"I don't know where he does live, sonny,\" said the man, \"but I know\nwhere he would live if I had my choice as to his dwelling-place; he'd\nreside in the county jail,\" and this man, too, passed on.\n\nRalph went back and sat down on the steps again.\n\nThe sky had become covered with clouds, no stars were visible, and it\nwas very dark.\n\nWhat was to be done now? He had failed to find Rhyming Joe, he had\nfailed to find Lawyer Sharpman. The early morning train would carry\nboth of them beyond his reach. Suppose it should? Suppose the case at\nWilkesbarre should go on to its predicted end, and the jury should\nbring in their expected verdict, what then?\n\nWhy, then the law would declare him to be Robert Burnham's son; the\ntitle, the position, the fortune would all be his; Mrs. Burnham would\ntake him to her home, and lavish love and care upon him; all this\nunless--unless he should tell what he had heard. Ah! there was a\nthought. Suppose he should not tell, suppose he should let the case go\non just as though he had not known the truth, just as though he had\nstayed at home that night instead of coming to the city; who would\never be the wiser? who would ever suspect him of knowing that the\nverdict was unjust? He might yet have it all, all, if only he would\nhold his tongue. His heart beat wildly with the thought, his breath\ncame in gasps, something in his throat seemed choking him. But that\nwould be wrong--he knew it would be wrong, and wicked; a sense of\nshame came over him, and he cast the tempting thought aside.\n\nNo, there was but one thing for him, as an honest boy, to do, and that\nwas to tell what he had heard.\n\nIf he could tell it soon enough to hold the verdict back, so much the\nbetter, if he could not, still he had no right to keep his knowledge\nto himself--the story must be known. And then farewell to all his\nhopes, his plans, his high ambition. No beautiful home for him now,\nno loving mother nor winsome sister nor taste of any joy that he had\nthought to know. It was hard to give them up, it was terrible, but it\nmust be done.\n\nHe fell to thinking of his visit to his mother. It seemed to him as\nthough it were something that had taken place very long ago. It was\nlike a sweet dream that he had dreamed as a little boy. He wondered\nif it was indeed only that afternoon that it had all occurred. It\nhad been so beautiful, so very beautiful; and now! Could it be that\nthis boy, sitting weak, wretched, disconsolate, on the steps of this\ndeserted office, in the night-time, was the same boy whose feet had\nscarcely touched the ground that afternoon for buoyant happiness? Oh,\nit was dreadful! dreadful! He began to wonder why he did not cry. He\nput up his hands to see if there were any tears on his cheeks, but he\nfound none. Did only people cry who had some gentler cause for tears?\n\nBut the thought of what would happen if he should keep his knowledge\nto himself came back again into his mind. He drove it out, but it\nreturned. It had a fascination about it that was difficult to resist.\nIt would be so easy simply to say nothing. And who would ever know\nthat he was not Mrs. Burnham's son? Why, Old Simon would know, but he\nwould not dare to tell; Lawyer Sharpman would know, but he would not\ndare to tell; Rhyming Joe would know, but he would not dare to tell,\nat least, not for a long time. And suppose it should be known after\na year, after two years or longer, who would blame him? he would be\nsupposed to have been ignorant of it all; he would be so established\nby that time in his new home that he would not have to leave it. They\nmight take his property, his money, all things else, but he knew that\nif he could but live with Mrs. Burnham for a year she would never let\nhim leave her, and that was all he cared for at any rate.\n\nBut then, he himself would know that he had no right there; he would\nhave to live with this knowledge always with him, he would have to\nwalk about with an ever present lie on his mind and in his heart. He\ncould not do that, he would not do it; he must disclose his knowledge,\nand make some effort to see that justice was not mocked. But it was\ntoo late to do anything to-night. He wondered how late it was. He\nthought of Bachelor Billy waiting for him at home. He feared that the\ngood man would be worried on account of his long absence. A clock in a\nchurch tower not far away struck ten. Ralph started to his feet, went\nout into the street again, and up toward home.\n\nBut Uncle Billy! what would Uncle Billy say when he should tell him\nwhat he had heard? Would he counsel him to hold his tongue? Ah, no!\nthe boy knew well the course that Uncle Billy would mark out for him.\n\nBut it would be a great blow to the man; he would grieve much\non account of the lad's misfortune; he would feel the pangs of\ndisappointment as deeply as did Ralph himself. Ought he not to be\nspared this pain?\n\nAnd then, a person holding the position of Robert Burnham's son could\ngive much comfort to the man who had been his dearest friend, could\nplace him beyond the reach of possible want, could provide well\nfor the old age that was rapidly approaching, could make happy and\npeaceful the remnant of his days. Was it not the duty of a boy to\ndo it?\n\nBut, ah! he would not have the good man look into his heart and see\nthe lie there, not for worlds.\n\nRalph was passing along the same streets that he had traversed in\ncoming to the city two hours before; but now the doors of the houses\nwere closed, the curtains were drawn, the lights were out, there was\nno longer any sound of sweet voices at the steps, nor any laughter,\nnor any music in the air. A rising wind was stirring the foliage of\nthe trees into a noise like the subdued sobbing of many people; the\nstreets were deserted, a fine rain had begun to fall, and out on the\nroad, after the lad had left the suburbs, it was very dark. Indeed, it\nwas only by reason of long familiarity with the route that he could\nfind his way at all.\n\nBut the storm and darkness outside were not to be compared with the\ntempest in his heart; that was terrible. He had about made up his\nmind to tell Bachelor Billy everything and to follow his advice when\nhe chanced to think of Mrs. Burnham, and how great her pain and\ndisappointment would be when she should know the truth. He knew that\nshe believed him now to be her son; that she was ready to take him\nto her home, that she counted very greatly on his coming, and was\nimpatient to bestow on him all the care and devotion that her mother's\nheart could conceive. It would be a bitter blow to her, oh, a very\nbitter blow. It would be like raising her son from the dead only to\nlay him back into his grave after the first day.\n\nWhat right had he to inflict such torture as this on a lady who had\nbeen so kind to him? What right? Did not her love for him and his love\nfor her demand that he should keep silence? But, oh! to hear the sound\nof loving words from her lips and know that he did not deserve them,\nto feel her mother's kisses on his cheek and know that his heart was\ndark with deep deceit. Could he endure that? could he?\n\nAs Ralph turned the corner of the village street, he saw the light\nfrom Bachelor Billy's window shining out into the darkness. There were\nno other lights to be seen. People went early to bed there; they must\nrise early in the morning.\n\nThe boy knew that his Uncle Billy was waiting for him, doubtless with\nmuch anxiety, but, now that he had reached the cottage, he stood\nmotionless by the door. He was trying to decide what he should do and\nsay on entering. To tell Uncle Billy or not to tell him, that was the\nquestion. He had never kept anything from him before; this would be\nthe first secret he had not shared with him. And Uncle Billy had been\nso good to him, too, so very good! Yes, he thought he had better tell\nhim; he would do it now, before his resolution failed. He raised his\nhand to lift the latch. Again he hesitated. If he should tell him,\nthat would end it all. The good man would never allow him to act a\nfalsehood. He would have to bid farewell to all his sweet dreams of\nhome, and his high plans for life, and step back into the old routine\nof helpless poverty and hopeless toil. He felt that he was not quite\nready to do that yet; heart, mind, body, all rebelled against it. He\nwould wait and hope for some way out, without the sacrifice of all\nthat he had longed for. His hand fell nerveless to his side. He still\nstood waiting on the step in the beating rain.\n\nBut then, it was wrong to keep silent, wrong! wrong! wrong!\n\nThe word went echoing through his mind like the stern sentence of\nsome high court; conscience again pushed her way to the front, and\nthe struggle in the boy's heart went on with a fierceness that was\nterrible.\n\nSuddenly the door was opened from the inside, and Bachelor Billy\nstood there, shading his eyes with his hand and peering out into the\ndarkness.\n\n\"Ralph,\" he said, \"is that yo' a-stannin' there i' the rain? Coom in,\nlad; coom in wi' ye! Why!\" he exclaimed, as the boy entered the room,\n\"ye're a' drippin' wet!\"\n\n\"Yes, Uncle Billy, it's a-rainin' pirty hard; I believe I--I believe I\ndid git wet.\"\n\nThe boy's voice sounded strange and hard even to himself. Bachelor\nBilly looked down into his face questioningly.\n\n\"What's the matter wi' ye, Ralph? Soun's like as if ye'd been\na-cryin'. Anything gone wrong?\"\n\n\"Oh, no. Only I'm tired, that's all, an'--an' wet.\"\n\n\"Ye look bad i' the face. Mayhap an' ye're a bit sick?\"\n\n\"No, I ain't sick.\"\n\n\"Wull, then, off wi' the wet duddies, an' we'll be a-creepin' awa' to\nbed.\"\n\nAs Ralph proceeded to remove his wet clothing, Bachelor Billy watched\nhim with increasing concern. The boy's face was white and haggard,\nthere were dark crescents under his eyes, his movements were heavy and\nconfused, he seemed hardly to know what he was about.\n\n\"Has the lawyer said aught to mak' ye unhappy, Ralph?\" inquired Billy\nat last.\n\n\"No, I ain't seen Mr. Sharpman. He wasn't in. He was in when I first\nwent there, but somebody else was there a-talkin' to 'im, an' I went\nout to wait, an' w'en I got back again the office was locked, so I\ndidn't see 'im.\"\n\n\"Ye've been a lang time gone, lad?\"\n\n\"Yes, I waited aroun', thinkin' maybe he'd come back, but he didn't. I\ndidn't git started for home\" till just before it begun to rain.\"\n\n\"Mayhap ye got a bit frightened a-comin' up i' the dark?\"\n\n\"No--well, I did git just a little scared a-comin' by old No. 10\nshaft; I thought I heard a funny noise in there.\"\n\n\"Ye s'ould na be oot so late alone. Nex' time I'll go wi' ye mysel'!\"\n\nRalph finished the removal of his wet clothing, and went to bed, glad\nto get where Bachelor Billy could not see his face, and where he need\nnot talk.\n\n\"I'll wait up a bit an' finish ma pipe,\" said the man, and he leaned\nback in his chair and began again his slow puffing.\n\nHe knew that something had gone wrong with Ralph. He feared that he\nwas either sick or in deep trouble. He did not like to question him\ntoo closely, but he thought he would wait a little before going to bed\nand see if there were any further developments.\n\nRalph could not sleep, but he tried to lie very still. A half-hour\nwent by, and then Bachelor Billy stole softly to the bed and looked\ndown into the lad's face. He was still awake.\n\n\"Have you got your pipe smoked out, Uncle Billy?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yes, lad; I ha' just finished it.\"\n\n\"Then are you comin' to bed now?\"\n\n\"I thocht to. Do ye want for anything?\"\n\n\"Oh, no! I'm all right.\"\n\nThe man began to prepare for bed.\n\nAfter a while Ralph spoke.\n\n\"Uncle Billy!\"\n\n\"What is it, lad?\"\n\n\"I've been thinkin', s'pose this suit should go against us, do you\nb'lieve Mrs. Burnham would do anything more for me?\"\n\n\"She's a gude woman, Ralph. Na doot she'd care for ye; but ye could\nna hope to have her tak' ye to her hame, an they proved ye waur no'\nher son.\"\n\n\"An' then--an' then I'd stay right along with you, wouldn't I?\"\n\n\"I hope so, lad, I hope so. I want ye s'ould stay wi' me till ye find\na better place.\"\n\n\"Oh, I couldn't find a better place to stay, I know I couldn't, 'xcept\nwith my--'xcept with Mrs. Burnham.\"\n\n\"Wull, ye need na worry aboot the matter. Ye'll ha' naught to fear fra\nthe trial, I'm thinkin'. Gae to sleep noo; ye'll feel better i' the\nmornin', na doot.\"\n\nRalph was silent, but only for a minute. A new thought was working\nslowly into his mind.\n\n\"But, Uncle Billy,\" he said, \"s'pose they should prove, to-morrow, 'at\nSimon Craft is my own gran'father, would I have to--Oh! Uncle Billy!\"\n\nThe lad started up in bed, sat there for a moment with wildly staring\neyes, and then sprang to the floor trembling with excitement and fear.\n\n\"Oh, don't!\" he cried; \"Uncle Billy, don't let him take me back there\nto live with him! I couldn't stan' it! I couldn't! I'd die! I can't\ngo, Uncle Billy! I can't!\"\n\n\"There, there, lad! ha' no fear; ye'll no' go back, I'll no' let ye.\"\n\nThe man had Ralph in his arms trying to quiet him.\n\n\"But,\" persisted the boy, \"he'll come for me, he'll, make me go. If\nthey find out I'm his gran'son there at the court, they'll tell him to\ntake me, I know they will!\"\n\n\"But ye're no' his gran'son, Ralph, ye've naught to do wi' 'im. Ye're\nRobert Burnham's son.\"\n\n\"Oh, no, Uncle Billy, I ain't, I--\" He stopped suddenly. The certain\nresult of disclosing his knowledge to his Uncle Billy flashed\nwarningly across his mind. If Bachelor Billy knew it, Mrs. Burnham\nmust know it; if Mrs. Burnham knew it, Goodlaw and the court must know\nit, the verdict would be against him, Simon Craft would come to take\nhim back to the terrors of his wretched home, and he would have to\ngo. The law that would deny his claim as Robert Burnham's son would\nstamp him as the grandson of Simon Craft, and place him again in his\ncruel keeping.\n\nOh, no! he must not tell. If there were reasons for keeping silence\nbefore, they were increased a hundred-fold by the shadow of this last\ndanger. He felt that he had rather die than go back to live with Simon\nCraft.\n\nBachelor Billy was rocking the boy in his arms as he would have rocked\na baby.\n\n\"There, noo, there, noo, quiet yoursel',\" he said, and his voice was\nvery soothing, \"quiet yoursel'; ye've naught to dread; it'll a'\ncoom oot richt. What's happenit to ye, Ralph, that ye s'ould be so\nfearfu'?\"\n\n\"N--nothin'; I'm tired, that's all. I guess I'll go to bed again.\"\n\nHe went back to bed, but not to sleep. Hot and feverish, and with his\nmind in a tumult, he tossed about, restlessly, through the long hours\nof the night. He had decided at last that he could not tell what he\nhad heard at Sharpman's office. The thought of having to return to\nSimon Craft had settled the matter in his mind. The other reasons\nfor his silence he had lost sight of now; this last one outweighed\nthem all, and placed a seal upon his tongue that he felt must not\nbe broken.\n\nToward morning he fell into a troubled sleep and dreamed that Old\nSimon was holding him over the mouth of Burnham Shaft, threatening to\ndrop him down into it, while Sharpman stood by, with his hands in his\npockets, laughing heartily at his terror. He managed to cry out, and\nawoke both himself and Bachelor Billy. He started up in bed, clutching\nat the coverings in an attempt, to save himself from apparent\ndisaster, trembling from head to foot, moaning hoarsely in his fright.\n\n\"What is it, Ralph, lad, what's ailin' ye?\"\n\n\"Oh, don't! don't let him throw me--Uncle Billy, is that you?\"\n\n\"It's me, Ralph. Waur ye dreamin'? There, never mind; no one s'all\nharm ye, ye're safe i' the bed at hame. Gae to sleep, lad, gae to\nsleep.\"\n\n\"I thought they was goin' to throw me down the shaft. I must 'a' been\na-dreamin'.\"\n\n\"Yes, ye waur dreamin'. Gae to sleep.\"\n\nBut Ralph did not go to sleep again that night, and when the first\ngray light of the dawning day came in at the cottage window he arose.\nBachelor Billy was still wrapped in heavy slumber, and the boy moved\nabout cautiously so as not to waken him.\n\nWhen he was dressed he went out and sat on a bench by the door. The\nstorm of the night before had left the air cool and sweet, and it\nrefreshed him to sit there and breathe it, and watch the sun as it\ncame up from behind the long slanting roof of Burnham Breaker.\n\nBut he was very miserable, very miserable indeed. It was not so much\nthe sense of fear, of pain, of disappointment that disturbed him now,\nit was the misery of a fettered conscience, the shadow of an ever\npresent shame.\n\nFinally the door was opened and Bachelor Billy stepped out.\n\n\"Good mornin', Uncle Billy,\" said the boy, trying to speak cheerfully.\n\n\"Gude mornin' till ye, Ralph! Ye're up airly the mornin'. I mak' free\nto say ye're a-feelin' better.\"\n\n\"Yes, I am. I didn't sleep very well, but I'm better this mornin'. I\nwisht it was all over with--the trial I mean; you see it's a-makin' me\nkind o' nervous an'--an' tired. I can't stan' much 'xcitement, some\nway.\"\n\n\"Wull, ye'll no' ha' lang to wait I'm a-thinkin'. It'll be ower the\nday. What aboot you're gaein' to Wilkesbarre?\"\n\n\"I don't know. I guess I'll go down to Mr. Sharpman's office after a\nwhile, an' see if he's left any word for me.\"\n\nMrs. Maloney appeared at her door.\n\n\"The top o' the mornin' to yez!\" she cried, cheerily. \"It's a fine\nmornin' this!\"\n\nBoth Bachelor Billy and Ralph responded to the woman's hearty\ngreeting. She continued:\n\n\"Ye'll be afther gettin' out in the air, I mind, to sharpen up the\nappetites; an' a-boardin' with a widdy, too, bad 'cess to ye!\"\n\nMrs. Maloney was inclined to be jovial, as well as kind-hearted.\n\"Well, I've a bite on the table for yez, an ye don't come an' ate it,\nthe griddle-cakes'll burn an' the coffee'll be cowld, an'--why, Ralph,\nis it sick ye are? sure, ye're not lookin' right well.\"\n\n\"I wasn't feelin' very good las' night, Mrs. Maloney, but I'm better\nthis mornin'.\"\n\nThe sympathetic woman took the boy's hand and rubbed it gently, and,\nwith many inquiries and much advice, she led him to the table. He\nforced himself to eat a little food and to drink something that the\ngood woman had prepared for him, which, she declared emphatically,\nwould drive off the \"wakeness.\"\n\nBachelor Billy did not take his dinner with him that morning as usual.\nHe said he would come back at noon to learn whether anything new\nhad occurred in the matter of the lawsuit, and whether it would be\nnecessary for Ralph to go to Wilkesbarre.\n\nHe was really much concerned about the boy. Ralph's conduct since the\nevening before had been a mystery to him. He knew that something was\ntroubling the lad greatly; but, whatever it was, he had faith that\nRalph would meet it manfully, the more manfully, perhaps, without his\nhelp. So he went away with cheering predictions concerning the suit,\nand with kindly admonition to the boy to remain as quiet as possible\nand try to sleep.\n\nBut Ralph could not sleep, nor could he rest. He was laboring under\ntoo much excitement still to do either. He walked nervously about the\ncottage for a while, then he started down toward the city. He went\nfirst to Sharpman's office, and the clerk told him that Mr. Sharpman\nhad left word that Ralph need not go to Wilkesbarre that day. Then he\nwent on to the heart of the city. He was trying to divert himself,\ntrying to drown his thought, as people try who are suffering from the\nreproaches of conscience.\n\nHe walked down to the railroad station. He wondered if Rhyming Joe had\ngone. He supposed he had. He did not care to see him now, at any rate.\n\nHe sat on a bench in the waiting-room for a few minutes to rest,\nthen he went out into the street again. But he was very wretched. It\nseemed to him as though all persons whom he met looked down on him\ndisdainfully, as if they knew of his proposed deceit, and despised him\nfor it. A lady coming toward him crossed to the other side of the walk\nbefore she reached him. He wondered if she saw disgrace in his face\nand was trying to avoid him.\n\nAfter that he left the busy streets and walked back, by a less\nfrequented route, toward home. The day was very bright and warm, but\nthe brightness had a cold glare in Ralph's eyes, and he actually\nshivered as he walked on in the shade of the trees. He crossed to the\nsunny side of the street, and hurried along through the suburbs and\nup the hill.\n\nWidow Maloney called to him as he reached the cottage door, to ask\nafter his health; but he told her he was feeling better, and went on\ninto his own room. He closed the door behind him, locked it, and threw\nhimself down upon the bed. He was very wretched. Oh, very wretched,\nindeed.\n\nHe had decided to keep silent, and to let the case at Wilkesbarre go\non to its expected end, but the decision had brought to him no peace;\nit had only made him more unhappy than he was before. But why should\nit do this? Was he not doing what was best? Would it not be better\nfor Uncle Billy, for Mrs. Burnham, for himself? Must he, for the sake\nof some farfetched moral principle, throw himself into the merciless\nclutch of Simon Craft?\n\nThus the fight began again, and the battle in the boy's heart went on\nwith renewed earnestness. He gave to his conscience, one by one, the\nreasons that he had for acting the part of Robert Burnham's son; good\nreasons they were too, overwhelmingly convincing they seemed to him;\nbut his conscience, like an angel with a flaming sword, rejected all\nof them, declaring constantly that what he thought to do would be a\ngrievous wrong.\n\nBut whom would it wrong? Not Ralph Burnham, for he was dead, and it\ncould be no wrong to him; not Mrs. Burnham, for she would rejoice to\nhave this boy with her, even though she knew he was not her son; not\nBachelor Billy, for he would be helped to comfort and to happiness.\nAnd yet there stood the angel with the flaming sword crying out always\nthat it was wrong.\n\nBut whom would it wrong? himself? Ah! there was a thought--would it be\nwronging himself?\n\nWell, would it not? Had it not already made a coward of him? Was it\nnot degrading him in his own eyes? Was it not trying to stifle the\nvoice of conscience in his breast? Would it not make of him a living,\nwalking lie? a thing to be shunned and scorned? Had he a right to\nplace a burden so appalling on himself? Would it not be better to face\nthe toil, the pain, the poverty, the fear? Would it not be better even\nto die than to live a life like that?\n\nHe sprang from the bed with clenched hands and flashing eyes and\nswelling nostrils. A fire of moral courage had blazed up suddenly in\nhis breast. His better nature rose to the help of the angel with the\nflaming sword, and together they fought, as the giants of old fought\nthe dragons in their path. Then hope came back, and courage grew, and\nresolution found new footing. He stood there as he stood that day\non the carriage that bore Robert Burnham to his death, the light of\nheroism in his eyes, the glow of splendid faith illuming his face. He\ncould not help but conquer. He drove the spirit of temptation from his\nbreast, and enthroned in its stead the principle of everlasting right.\nThere was no thought now of yielding; he felt brave and strong to meet\nevery trial, yes, every terror that might lie in his path, without\nflinching one hair's breadth from the stern line of duty.\n\nBut now that his decision was made, he must act, and that promptly.\nWhat was the first thing to be done? Why, the first thing always was\nto confide in Uncle Billy, and to ask for his advice.\n\nHe seized his hat and started up the village street and across the\nhill to Burnham Breaker There was no lagging now, no indecision in his\nstep, no doubt within his mind.\n\nHe was once more brave, hopeful, free-hearted, ready to do anything or\nall things, that justice might be done and truth become established.\n\nThe sun shone down upon him tenderly, the birds sang carols to him on\nthe way, the blossoming trees cast white flowers at his feet; but he\nnever stayed his steps nor turned his thought until the black heights\nof Burnham Breaker threw their shadows on his head.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV.\n\nAN EVENTFUL JOURNEY.\n\n\nThe shaft-tower of Burnham Breaker reached up so high from the surface\nof the earth that it seemed, sometimes, as if the low-hanging clouds\nwere only a foot or two above its head. In the winter time the wind\nswept wildly against it, the flying snow drifted in through the wide\ncracks and broken windows, and the men who worked there suffered from\nthe piercing cold. But when summer came, and the cool breeze floated\nacross through the open places at the head, and one could look down\nalways on the green fields far below, and the blossoming gardens,\nand the gray-roofed city, and the shining waters of the Lackawanna,\nwinding southward, and the wooded hills rising like green waves to\ntouch the far blue line of mountain peaks, ah, then it was a pleasant\nplace to work in. So Bachelor Billy thought, these warm spring days,\nas he pushed the dripping cars from the carriage, and dumped each load\nof coal into the slide, to be carried down between the iron-teethed\nrollers, to be crushed and divided and screened and re-screened, till\nit should pass beneath the sharp eyes and nimble fingers of the boys\nwho cleansed it from its slate and stone.\n\nBilly often thought, as he dumped a carload into the slide, and saw a\nhuge lump of coal that glistened brightly, or glowed with iridescent\ntints, or was veined with fossil-marked or twisted slate, that\nperhaps, down below in the screen-room, Ralph's eyes would see the\nbrightness of the broken lump, or Ralph's fingers pick the curious\nbits of slate from out the moving mass. And as he fastened up the\nswing-board and pushed the empty car to the carriage, he imagined how\nthe boy's face would light up with pleasure, or his brown eyes gleam\nwith wonder and delight in looking on these strange specimens of\nnature's handiwork.\n\nBut to-day Ralph was not there. In all probability he would never\nbe there again to work. Another boy was sitting on his bench in the\nscreen-room, another boy was watching rainbow coal and fern-marked\nslate. This thought in Bachelor Billy's mind was a sad one. He pushed\nthe empty car on the carriage, and sat down on a bench by the window\nto consider the subject of Ralph's absence.\n\nSomething had gone wrong at the foot of the shaft. There were no cars\nready for hoisting, and Billy and his co-laborer, Andy Gilgallon, were\nable to rest for many minutes from their toil.\n\nAs they sat looking down upon the green landscape below them, Bachelor\nBilly's attention was attracted to a boy who was hurrying along the\nturnpike road a quarter of a mile away. He came to the foot of the\nhill and turned up the path to the breaker, looking up to the men in\nthe shaft-tower as he hastened on, and waving his hand to them.\n\n\"I believe it's Ralph,\" said Billy, \"it surely is. An ye'll mind both\ncarriages for a bit when they start up, Andy, I'll go t' the lad,\" and\nhe hurried across the tracks and down the dark and devious way that\nled to the surface of the earth.\n\nAt the door of the pump-room he met Ralph. \"Uncle Billy!\" shouted the\nboy, \"I want to see you; I've got sumpthin' to tell you.\"\n\nTwo or three men were standing by, watching the pair curiously, and\nRalph continued: \"Come up to the tree where they ain't so much noise;\n'twon't take long.\"\n\nHe led the way across the level space, up the bank, and into the\nshadow of the tree beneath which the breaker boys had gathered a year\nbefore to pass resolutions of sympathy for Robert Burnham's widow;\n\nThey were no sooner seated on the rude bench than Ralph began:--\n\n\"I ought to 'a' told you before, I done very wrong not to tell you,\nbut I couldn't raise the courage to do it till this mornin'. Here's\nwhat I want you to know.\"\n\nThen Ralph told, with full detail, of his visit to Sharpman's office\non Sunday evening, of what he had heard there, of his subsequent\njourney through the streets of the city, of his night of agony, of his\nmorning of shame, of his final victory over himself.\n\nBachelor Billy listened with intense interest, and when he had heard\nthe boy's story to the end he dashed the tears from his eyes and said:\n\"Gie's your han' Ralph; gie's your twa han's! Ye're a braw lad. Son or\nno son o' Robert Burnham, ye're fit to stan' ony day in his shoes!\"\n\nHe was looking down with strong admiration into the boy's pale face,\nholding the small hands affectionately in both of his.\n\n\"I come just as quick as I could,\" continued the boy, \"after I got\nover thinkin' I'd keep still about it, just as quick as I could, to\ntell you an' ask you what to do. I'll do anything 'at you tell me it's\nright to do, Uncle Billy, anything. If you'll only say I must do it,\nI will. But it's awful hard to do it all alone, to let 'em know who I\nam, to give up everything so, an' not to have any mother any more, nor\nno sister, nor no home, nor no learnin', nor nothing; not anything at\nall, never, any more; it's terrible! Oh, Uncle Billy, it's terrible!\"\n\nThen, for the first time since the dreadful words of Rhyming Joe fell\non his ears in the darkness of Sharpman's office, Ralph gave way to\ntears. He wept till his whole frame shook with the deep force of his\nsobs.\n\nBachelor Billy put his arm around the boy and drew him to his side. He\nsmoothed back the tangled hair from the child's hot forehead and spoke\nrude words of comfort into his ears, and after a time Ralph grew\nquiet.\n\n\"Do you think, Uncle Billy,\" asked Ralph, \"'at Rhymin' Joe was\na-tellin' the truth? He used to lie, I know he did, I've heard 'im\nlie myself.\"\n\n\"It looks verra like, Ralph, as though he might 'a' been a-tellin' o'\nthe truth; he must 'a' been knowin' to it all, or he could na tell it\nso plain.\"\n\n\"Oh! he was; he knew all about it. I remember him about the first\nthing. He was there most all the time. But I didn't know but he might\njust 'a' been lyin' to get that money.\"\n\n\"It's no' unlikely. But atween the twa, I'd sooner think it was the\nauld mon was a-tellin' o' the lee. He has more to make out o' it, do\nye see?\"\n\n\"Well, there's the evidence in court.\"\n\n\"True, but Lawyer Sharpman kens the worth o' that as well as ony o'\nus. An he was na fearfu' that the truth would owerbalance it, he wadna\ngi' a mon a hunderd an' fifty dollars to hold his tongue. I'm doubtfu'\nfor ye, Ralph, I'm verra doubtfu'.\"\n\nRalph had believed Rhyming Joe's story from the beginning, but he felt\nthat this belief must be confirmed by Uncle Billy in order to put it\nbeyond question. Now he was satisfied. It only remained to act.\n\n\"It's all true,\" he said; \"I know it's all true, an' sumpthin's got to\nbe done. What shall I do, Uncle Billy?\"\n\nThe troubled look deepened on the man's face.\n\n\"Whether it's fause or true,\" he replied, \"ye s'ould na keep it to\nyoursel'. She ought to know. It's only fair to go an' tell the tale to\nher an' let her do what she thenks bes'.\"\n\n\"Must I tell Mrs. Burnham? Must I go an' tell her 'at I ain't her\nson, an' 'at I can't live with her, an' 'at we can't never be happy\ntogether the way we talked? Oh, Uncle Billy, I can't do that, I\ncan't!\"\n\nHe looked up beseechingly into the man's face. Something that he saw\nthere--pain, disappointment, affection, something, inspired him with\nfresh courage, and he started to his feet and dashed the tears from\nhis eyes.\n\n\"Yes, I can do it too!\" he exclaimed. \"I can do anything 'at's right,\nan' that's right. I won't wait; I'll go now.\"\n\n\"Don't haste, lad; wait a bit; listen! If the lady should be gone to\ncourt ye mus' gae there too. If ye canna find her, ye mus' find her\nlawyer. One or the ither ye s'ould tell, afoor the verdict comes;\nafterwards it might be too late.\"\n\n\"Yes, I'll do it, I'll do it just like that.\"\n\n\"Mos' like ye'll have to go to Wilkesbarre. An ye do I'll go mysel'.\nBut dinna wait for me. I'll coom when I can get awa'. Ye s'ould go on\nthe first train that leaves.\"\n\n\"Yes, I unnerstan'. I'll go now.\"\n\n\"Wait a bit! Keep up your courage, Ralph. Ye've done a braw thing, an'\nye're through the worst o' it; but ye'll find a hard path yet, an'\nye'll need a stout hert. Ralph,\" he had taken both the boy's hands\ninto his again, and was looking tenderly into his haggard face and\nbloodshot eyes; the traces of the struggle were so very plain--\"Ralph,\nI fear I'd cry ower ye a bit an we had the time, ye've sufferit so.\nAn' it's gude for ye, I'm thinkin', that ye mus' go quick. I'd make ye\nweak, an' ye need to be strang. I canna fear for ye, laddie; ye ken\nthe right an' ye'll do it. Good-by till ye; it'll not be lang till I\ns'all go to ye; good-by!\"\n\nHe bent down and kissed the boy's forehead and turned him to face\ntoward the city; and when Ralph had disappeared below the brow of the\nhill, the rough-handed, warm-hearted toiler of the breaker's head\nwiped the tears from his face, and climbed back up the steep steps,\nand the long walks of cleated plank, to engage in his accustomed task.\n\nThere was no shrinking on Ralph's part now. He was on fire with the\ndetermination to do the duty that lay so plainly in his sight. He did\nnot stop to argue with himself, he scarcely saw a person or a thing\nalong his path; he never rested from his rapid journey till he reached\nthe door of Mrs. Burnham's house.\n\nA servant came in answer to his ring at the bell, and gave him\npleasant greeting. She said that Mrs. Burnham had gone to Wilkesbarre,\nthat she had started an hour before, that she had said she would come\nback in the early evening and would doubtless bring her son with her.\n\nRalph looked up into the woman's face, and his eyes grew dim.\n\n\"Thank you,\" he said, repressing a sob, and he went down the steps\nwith a choking in his throat and a pain at his heart.\n\nHe turned at the gate, and looked back through the half-opened door\ninto the rich shadows that lay beyond it, with a ray of crimson light\nfrom the stained glass window cleaving them across, and then his eyes\nwere blinded with tears, and he could see no more. The gates of his\nEden were closed behind him; he felt that he should never enter them\nagain.\n\nBut this was no time for sorrow and regret.\n\nHe wiped the tears from his eyes and turned his face resolutely toward\nthe heart of the city.\n\nAt the railroad station he was told that the next train would leave\nfor Wilkesbarre at twelve o'clock.\n\nIt lacked half an hour of that time now. There was nothing to do but\nto wait. He began to mark out in his mind the course he should pursue\non reaching Wilkesbarre. He thought he would inquire the way to Mr.\nGoodlaw's office, and go directly to it and tell the whole story to\nhim. Perhaps Mrs. Burnham would be there too, that would be better\nyet, more painful but better. Then he should follow their advice as\nto the course to be pursued. It was more than likely that they would\nwant him to testify as a witness. That would be strange, too, that\nhe should give such evidence voluntarily as would deprive him of a\nbeautiful home, of a loving mother, and of an honored name. But he was\nready to do it; he was ready to do anything now that seemed right and\nbest, anything that would meet the approval of his Uncle Billy and of\nhis own conscience.\n\nWhen the train was ready he found a seat in the cars and waited\nimpatiently for them to start. For some reason they were late in\ngetting away, but, once started, they seemed to be going fast enough\nto make up for lost time.\n\nIn the seats behind Ralph was a merry party of young girls. Their\nincessant chatter and musical laughter came to his ears as from a long\ndistance. At any former time he would have listened to them with great\npleasure; such sounds had an unspeakable charm for him; but to-day his\nbrain was busied with weightier matters.\n\nHe looked from the car window and saw the river glancing in the\nsunlight, winding under shaded banks, rippling over stony bottoms.\nHe saw the wooded hill-sides, with the delicate green of spring upon\nthem fast deepening into the darker tints of summer. He saw the giant\nbreakers looming up, black and massive, in the foreground of almost\nevery scene. And yet it was all scarcely more to him than a shadowy\ndream. The strong reality in his mind was the trying task that lay\nbefore him yet, and the bitter outcome, so soon to be, of all his\nhopes and fancies.\n\nAt Pittston Junction there was another long delay. Ralph grew very\nnervous and impatient.\n\nIf the train could have reached Wilkesbarre on time he would have had\nonly an hour to spare before the sitting of the court. Now he could\nhope for only a half-hour at the best. And if anything should happen\nto deprive him of that time; if anything _should_ happen so that he\nshould not get to court until after the case was closed, until after\nthe verdict of the jury had been rendered, until after the law had\ndeclared him to be Robert Burnham's son; if anything _should_ happen!\nHis face flushed, his heart began to beat wildly, his breath came in\ngasps. If such a thing were to occur, without his fault, against his\nwill and effort, what then? It was only for a moment that he gave way\nto this insidious and undermining thought. Then he fought it back,\ncrushed it, trampled on it, and set his face again sternly to the\nfront.\n\nAt last the train came, the impatient passengers entered it, and they\nwere once more on their way.\n\nIt was a relief at least to be going, and for the moment Ralph had a\nfaint sense of enjoyment in looking out across the placid bosom of the\nSusquehanna, over into the tree-girt, garden-decked expanse of the\nvalley of Wyoming. Off the nearer shore of a green-walled island in\nthe river, a group of cattle stood knee-deep in the shaded water, a\npicture of perfect comfort and content.\n\nThen the train swept around a curve, away from the shore, and back\namong the low hills to the east. Suddenly there was a bumping together\nof the cars, an apparently powerful effort to check their impetus, a\ngrinding of the brakes on the wheels, a rapid slowing of the train,\nand a slight shock at stopping.\n\nThe party of girls had grown silent, and their eyes were wide and\ntheir faces blanched with fear.\n\nThe men in the car arose from their seats and went out to discover the\ncause of the alarm. Ralph went also. The train had narrowly escaped\nplunging into a mass of wrecked coal cars, thrown together by a\ncollision which had just occurred, and half buried in the scattered\ncoal.\n\nTo make the matter still worse the collision had taken place in a deep\nand narrow cut, and had filled it from side to side with twisted and\nsplintered wreckage.\n\nWhat was to be done? the passengers asked. The conductor replied\nthat a man would be sent back to the next station, a few miles away,\nto telegraph for a special train from Wilkesbarre, and that the\npassengers would take the train from the other side of the wreck. And\nhow long would they be obliged to wait here?\n\n\"Well, an hour at any rate, perhaps longer.\"\n\n\"That means two hours,\" said an impatient traveller, bitterly.\n\nRalph heard it all. An hour would make him very late, two hours would\nbe fatal to his mission. He went up to the conductor and asked,--\n\n\"How long'd it take to walk to Wilkesbarre?\"\n\n\"That depends on how fast you can walk, sonny. Some men might do it in\nhalf or three quarters of an hour: you couldn't.\" And the man looked\ndown, slightingly, on the boyish figure beside him.\n\nRalph turned away in deep thought. If he could walk it in\nthree-quarters of an hour, he might yet be in time; time to do\nsomething at least. Should he try?\n\nBut this accident, this delay, might it not be providential? Must he\nalways be striving against fate? against every circumstance that would\ntend to relieve him? against every obstacle thrown into his path to\nprevent him from bringing calamity on his own head? Must he?--but the\nquery went no further. The angel with the flaming sword came back to\nguard the gates of thought, and conscience still was king. He would do\nall that lay in his human power, with every moment and every muscle\nthat he had, to fulfil the stern command of duty, and then if he\nshould fail, it would be with no shame in his heart, no blot upon his\nsoul.\n\nAlready he was making his way through the thick underbrush along the\nsteep hill-side above the wreck, stumbling, falling, bruising his\nhands and knees, and finally leaping down into the railroad track on\nthe other side of the piled-up cars. From there he ran along smoothly\non the ties, turning out once for a train of coal cars to pass him,\nbut stopping for nothing. A man at work in a field by the track asked\nhim what the matter was up the line; the boy answered him in as few\nwords as possible, walking while he talked, and then ran on again.\nAfter he had gone a mile or more he came to a wagon-road crossing, and\nwondered if, by following it, he would not sooner reach his journey's\nend. He could see, in the distance, the smoke arising from a hundred\nchimneys where the city lay, and the road looked as though it would\ntake him more directly there. He did not stop long to consider. He\nplunged ahead down a little hill, and then along on a foot-path by the\nside of the wagon-track. The day had grown to be very warm, and Ralph\nremoved his jacket and carried it on his arm or across his shoulder.\nHe became thirsty after a while, but he dared not stop at the houses\nalong the way to ask for water; it would take too much time. He met\nmany wagons coming toward him, but there seemed to be few going in to\nthe city. He had hoped to get a ride. He had overtaken a farmer with\na wagon-load of produce going to the town and had passed him. Two or\nthree fast teams whirled by, leaving a cloud of dust to envelop him.\nThen a man, riding in a buggy, drove slowly down the road. Ralph\nshouted at him as he passed:--\n\n\"Please, sir, may I have a ride? I'm in a desp'ate hurry!\"\n\nBut the man looked back at him contemptuously. \"I don't run a stage\nfor the benefit of tramps,\" he said, and drove on.\n\nRalph was discouraged and did not dare to ask any one else for a ride,\nthough there seemed to be several opportunities to get one.\n\nBut he came to a place, at last, where a little creek crossed the\nroad, a cool spring run, and he knelt down by it and quenched his\nthirst, and considered that if he had been in a wagon he would have\nmissed the drink. The road was somewhat disappointing to him, too. It\nseemed to turn away, after a little distance, from the direct line to\nthe city, and to bear to the west, toward the river. He feared that\nhe had made a mistake in leaving the railroad, but he only walked the\nfaster. Now and then he would break into a run and keep running until\nhis breath gave out, then he would drop back into a walk.\n\nHis feet began to hurt him. One shoe rubbed his heel until the pain\nbecame so intense that he could not bear it, and he sat down by the\nroadside and removed his shoes and stockings, and then ran on in his\nbare feet. The sunlight grew hotter; no air was stirring; the dust\nhung above the road in clouds. Deep thirst came back upon the boy;\nhis limbs grew weak and tired; his bared feet were bruised upon the\nstones.\n\nBut he scarcely thought of these things; his only anxiety was that the\nmoments were passing, that the road was long, that unless he reached\nhis journey's end in time injustice would be done and wrong prevail.\n\nSo he pressed on; abating not one jot of his swiftness, falling\nnot one hair's breadth from his height of resolution, on and on,\nfoot-sore, thirsty, in deep distress; but with a heart unyielding\nas the flint, with a purpose strong as steel, with a heroism more\nmagnificent than that which meets the points of glittering bayonets\nor the mouths of belching cannon.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI.\n\nA BLOCK IN THE WHEEL.\n\n\nAt half-past one o'clock people began to loiter into the court-house\nat Wilkesbarre; at two the court-room was full. They were there, the\nmost of them, to hear the close of the now celebrated Burnham case.\n\nThe judge came in from a side door and took his seat on the bench.\nBeneath him the prothonotary was busy writing in a big book. Down in\nthe bar the attorneys sat chatting familiarly and pleasantly with one\nanother. Sharpman was there, and Craft was at his elbow.\n\nGoodlaw was there, and Mrs. Burnham sat in her accustomed place. The\ncrier opened court in a voice that could be heard to the farthest end\nof the room, though few of the listeners understood what his \"Oyez!\noyez! oyez!\" was all about.\n\nSome opinions of the court were read and handed down by the judge. The\nprothonotary called the jury list for the week. Two or three jurors\npresented applications for discharge which were patiently considered\nand acted on by the court.\n\nThe sheriff arose and acknowledged a bunch of deeds, the title-pages\nof which had been read aloud by the judge.\n\nAn attorney stepped up to the railing and presented a petition to the\ncourt; another attorney arose and objected to it, and quite a little\ndiscussion ensued over the matter. It finally ended by a rule being\ngranted to show cause why the petition should not be allowed. Then\nthere were several motions made by as many lawyers. All this took much\ntime; a good half-hour at least, perhaps longer.\n\nFinally there was a lull. The judge was busily engaged in writing. The\nattorneys seemed to have exhausted their topics for conversation and\nto be waiting for new ones.\n\nThe jury in the Burnham case sat listlessly in their chairs, glad that\ntheir work in the matter at issue was nearly done, yet regretful that\na case had not been made out which might have called for the exercise\nof that large intelligence, that critical acumen, that capacity\nfor close reasoning, of which the members of the average jury\nfeel themselves to be severally and collectively possessed. As it\nwas, there would be little for them to do. The case was extremely\none-sided, \"like the handle on a jug,\" as one of them sententiously\nand somewhat scornfully remarked.\n\nThe judge looked up from his writing. \"Well, gentlemen,\" he said, \"are\nyou ready to proceed in the case of 'Craft against Burnham'?\"\n\n\"We are ready on the part of the plaintiff,\" replied Sharpman.\n\nGoodlaw arose. \"If it please the court,\" he said, \"we are in the same\nposition to-day that we were in on Saturday night at the adjournment.\nThis matter has been, with us, one of investigation rather than of\ndefence.\n\n\"Though we hesitate to accept a statement of fact from a man of Simon\nCraft's self-confessed character, yet the corroborative evidence seems\nto warrant a belief in the general truth of his story.\n\n\"We do not wish to offer any further contradictory evidence than that\nalready elicited from the plaintiff's witnesses. I may say, however,\nthat this decision on our part is due not so much to my own sense of\nthe legal barrenness of our case as to my client's deep conviction\nthat the boy Ralph is her son, and to her great desire that justice\nshall be done to him.\"\n\n\"In that case,\" said the judge, \"I presume you will have nothing\nfurther to offer on the part of the plaintiff, Mr. Sharpman?\"\n\n\"Nothing,\" replied that gentleman, with an involuntary, smile of\nsatisfaction on his lips.\n\n\"Then,\" said Goodlaw, who was still standing, \"I suppose the evidence\nmay be declared closed. I know of no--\" He stopped and turned to see\nwhat the noise and confusion back by the entrance was about. The eyes\nof every one else in the room were turned in that direction also. A\ntipstaff was trying to detain Ralph at the door; he had not recognized\nhim. But the boy broke away from him and hurried down the central\naisle to the railing of the bar. In the struggle with the officer he\nhad lost his hat, and his hair was tumbled over his forehead. His face\nwas grimy and streaked with perspiration; his clothes were torn and\ndusty, and in his hand he still carried his shoes and stockings.\n\n\"Mr. Goodlaw!\" he exclaimed in a loud whisper as he hastened across\nthe bar, \"Mr. Goodlaw, wait a minute! I ain't Robert Burnham's son! I\ndidn't know it till yestaday; but I ain't--I ain't his son!\"\n\nThe boy dropped, panting, into a chair. Goodlaw looked down on him\nin astonishment. Old Simon clutched his cane and leaned forward with\nhis eyes flashing fire. Mrs. Burnham, her face pale with surprise and\ncompassion, began to smooth back the hair from the lad's wet forehead.\nThe people back in the court-room had risen to their feet, to look\ndown into the bar, and the constables were trying to restore order.\n\nIt all took place in a minute.\n\nThen Ralph began to talk again:--\n\n\"Rhymin' Joe said so; he said I was Simon Craft's grandson; he told--\"\n\nSharpman interrupted him. \"Come with me, Ralph,\" he said, \"I want to\nspeak with you a minute.\" He reached out his hand, as if to lead him\naway; but Goodlaw stepped between them, saying, sternly:--\n\n\"He shall not go! The boy shall tell his story unhampered; you shall\nnot crowd it back down his throat in private!\"\n\n\"I say the boy shall go,\" replied Sharpman, angrily. \"He is my client,\nand I have a right to consult with him.\"\n\nThis was true. For a moment Goodlaw was at his wit's end. Then, a\nbright idea came to him.\n\n\"Ralph,\" he said, \"take the witness-stand.\"\n\nSharpman saw that he was foiled.\n\nHe turned to the court, white with passion.\n\n\"I protest,\" he exclaimed, \"against this proceeding! It is contrary\nto both law and courtesy. I demand the privilege of consulting with\nmy client!\"\n\n\"Counsel has a right to call the boy as a witness,\" said the judge,\ndispassionately, \"and to put him on the stand at once. Let him be\nsworn.\"\n\nRalph pushed his way up to the witness-stand, and the officer\nadministered the oath. He was a sorry-looking witness indeed.\n\nAt any other time or in any other place, his appearance would have\nbeen ludicrous. But now no one laughed. The people in the court-room\nbegan to whisper, \"Hush!\" fearing lest the noise of moving bodies\nmight cause them to lose the boy's words.\n\nTo Goodlaw it was all a mystery. He did not know how to begin the\nexamination. He started at a venture.\n\n\"Are you Robert Burnham's son?\"\n\n\"No, sir,\" replied Ralph, firmly. \"I ain't.\"\n\nThere was a buzz of excitement in the room. Old Simon sat staring\nat the boy incredulously. His anger had changed for the moment into\nwonder. He could not understand the cause of Ralph's action. Sharpman\nhad not told him of the interview with Rhyming Joe--he had not thought\nit advisable.\n\n\"Who are you, then?\" inquired Goodlaw.\n\n\"I'm Simon Craft's grandson.\" The excitement in the room ran higher.\nCraft raised himself on his cane to lean toward Sharpman. \"He lies!\"\nwhispered the old man, hoarsely; \"the boy lies!\"\n\nSharpman paid no attention to him.\n\n\"When did you first learn that you are Mr. Craft's grandson?\"\ncontinued the counsel for the defence.\n\n\"Last night,\" responded Ralph.\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"At Mr. Sharpman's office.\"\n\nThe blood rushed suddenly into Sharpman's face. He understood it all\nnow; Ralph had overheard.\n\n\"Who told you?\" asked Goodlaw.\n\n\"No one told me, I heard Rhymin' Joe--\"\n\nSharpman interrupted him.\n\n\"I don't know,\" he said, \"if the court please, what this boy is trying\nto tell nor what wild idea has found lodgement in his brain; but I\ncertainly object to the introduction of such hearsay evidence as\ncounsel seems trying to bring out. Let us at least know whether the\nresponsible plaintiff in this case was present or was a party to this\nalleged conversation.\"\n\n\"Was Mr. Craft present?\" asked Goodlaw of the witness.\n\n\"No, sir; I guess not, I didn't hear 'im, any way.\"\n\n\"Did you see him?\"\n\n\"No, sir; I didn't see 'im. I didn't see either of 'em.\"\n\n\"Where were you?\"\n\n\"In the room nex' to the street.\"\n\n\"Where did this conversation take place?\"\n\n\"In the back room.\"\n\n\"Was the door open?\"\n\n\"Just a little.\"\n\n\"Who were in the back room?\"\n\n\"Mr. Sharpman an' Rhymin' Joe.\"\n\n\"Who is Rhyming Joe?\"\n\n\"He's a man I used to know in Philadelphy.\"\n\n\"When you lived with Craft?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"What was his business?\"\n\n\"I don't know as anything. He used to bring things to the house\nsometimes, watches an' things.\"\n\n\"How long have you known Rhyming Joe?\"\n\n\"Ever since I can remember.\"\n\n\"Was he at Craft's house frequently?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir; most all the time.\"\n\nAn idea of the true situation of affairs was dawning upon Goodlaw's\nmind. That Ralph had overheard Rhyming Joe say to Sharpman that the\nboy was Simon Craft's grandson was evident. But how to get that fact\nbefore the jury in the face of the rules of evidence--that was the\nquestion. It seemed to him that there should be some way to do it, and\nhe kept on with the examination in order to gain time for thought and\nto lead up to the point.\n\n\"Did Mr. Sharpman know that you were in his office when this\nconversation took place?\"\n\n\"No, sir; I guess not.\"\n\n\"Did Rhyming Joe know you were there?\"\n\n\"No, sir; I don't believe he did.\"\n\n\"From the conversation overheard by you, have you reason to believe\nthat Rhyming Joe is acquainted with the facts relating to your\nparentage?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir; he must know.\"\n\n\"And, from hearing that conversation, did you become convinced that\nyou are Simon Craft's grandson and not Robert Burnham's son?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, I did. Rhymin' Joe said so, an' he knows.\"\n\n\"Did you see Rhyming Joe last night?\"\n\n\"No, sir. Only as he passed by me in the dark.\"\n\n\"Have you seen him to-day?\"\n\n\"No, sir; he promised to go away this mornin'.\"\n\n\"To whom did he make that promise?\"\n\nSharpman was on his feet in an instant, calling on Ralph to stop, and\nappealing to the court to have the counsel and witness restricted to\na line of evidence that was legal and proper. He saw open before him\nthe pit of bribery, and this fearless boy was pushing him dangerously\nclose to the brink of it.\n\nThe judge admonished the defendant's attorney to hold the witness\nwithin proper bounds and to proceed with the examination.\n\nIn the meantime, Goodlaw had been thinking. He felt that it was of the\nhighest importance that this occurrence in Sharpman's office should be\nmade known to the court and the jury, and that without delay. There\nwas but one theory, however, on which he could hope to introduce\nevidence of all that had taken place there, and he feared that that\nwas not a sound one. But he determined to put on a bold face and make\nthe effort.\n\n\"Ralph,\" he said, calmly, \"you may go on now and give the entire\nconversation as you heard it last night between Mr. Sharpman and\nRhyming Joe.\"\n\nThe very boldness of the question brought a smile to Sharpman's face\nas he arose and objected to the legality of the evidence asked for.\n\n\"We contend,\" said Goodlaw, in support of his offer, \"that neither the\ntrustee-plaintiff nor his attorney are persons whom the law recognizes\nas having any vital interest in this suit. The witness on the stand is\nthe real plaintiff here, his are the interests that are at stake, and\nif he chooses to give evidence adverse to those interests, evidence\nrelevant to the matter at issue, although it may be hearsay evidence,\nhe has a perfect right to do so. His privilege as a witness is as high\nas that of any other plaintiff.\"\n\nBut Sharpman was on the alert. He arose to reply.\n\n\"Counsel forgets,\" he said, \"or else is ignorant of the fact, that\nthe very object of the appointment of a guardian is because the law\nconsiders that a minor is incapable of acting for himself. He has no\ndiscretionary power in connection with his estate. He has no more\nright to go on the witness-stand and give voluntary hearsay evidence\nwhich shall be adverse to his own interests than he has to give away\nany part of his estate which may be under the control of his trustee.\nA guardian who will allow him to do either of these things without\nobjection will be liable for damages at the hands of his ward when\nthat ward shall have reached his majority. We insist on the rejection\nof the offer.\"\n\nThe judge sat for a minute in silence, as if weighing the matter\ncarefully. Finally he said:--\n\n\"We do not think the testimony is competent, Mr. Goodlaw. Although the\npoint is a new one to us, we are inclined to look upon the law of the\ncase as Mr. Sharpman looks on it. We shall be obliged to refuse your\noffer. We will seal you a bill of exceptions.\"\n\nGoodlaw had hardly dared to expect anything else. There was nothing\nfor him to do but to acquiesce in the ruling of the court.\n\nRalph turned to face him with a question on his lips.\n\n\"Mr. Goodlaw,\" he said, \"ain't they goin' to let me tell what I heard\nRhymin' Joe say?\"\n\n\"I am afraid not, Ralph; the court has ruled that conversation out.\"\n\n\"But they won't never know the right of it unless I tell that. I've\ngot to tell it; that's what I come here for.\"\n\nThe judge turned to the witness and spoke to him, not unkindly:--\n\n\"Ralph, suppose you refrain from interrogating your counsel, and let\nhim ask questions of you; that is the way we do here.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, I will,\" said the boy, innocently, \"only it seems too bad\n'at I can't tell what Rhymin' Joe said.\"\n\nThe lawyers in the bar were smiling, Sharpman had recovered his\napparent good-nature, and Goodlaw began again to interrogate the\nwitness.\n\n\"Are you aware, Ralph,\" he asked, \"that your testimony here to-day\nmay have the effect of excluding you from all rights in the estate\nof Robert Burnham?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, I know it.\"\n\n\"And do you know that you are probably denying yourself the right to\nbear one of the most honored names, and to live in one of the most\nbeautiful homes in this community?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, I know it all. I wouldn't mind all that so much though if\nit wasn't for my mother. I've got to give her up now, that's the worst\nof it; I don't know how I'm goin' to stan' that.\"\n\nMrs. Burnham, sitting by her counsel, bent her head above the table\nand wept silently.\n\n\"Was your decision to disclose your knowledge reached with a fair\nunderstanding of the probable result of such a disclosure?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, it was. I knew what the end of it'd be, an' I had a pirty\nhard time to bring myself to it, but I done it, an' I'm glad now 'at\nI did.\"\n\n\"Did you reach this decision alone or did some one help you to it?\"\n\n\"Well, I'll tell you how that was. All't I decided in the first place\nwas to tell Uncle Billy,--he's the man't I live with. So I told him,\nan' he said I ought to tell Mrs. Burnham right away. But she wasn't\nhome when I got to her house, so I started right down here; an' they\nwas an accident up on the road, an' the train couldn't go no further,\nan' so I walked in--I was afraid I wouldn't get here in time 'less\nI did.\"\n\n\"Your long walk accounts for your dusty and shoeless condition, I\nsuppose?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir; it was pirty dusty an' hot, an' I had to walk a good ways,\nan' my shoes hurt me so't I had to take 'em off, an' I didn't have\ntime to put 'em on again after I got here. Besides,\" continued the\nboy, looking down apologetically at his bruised and dusty feet, \"I\nhurt my feet a-knockin' 'em against the stones when I was a-runnin',\nan' they've got swelled up so 'at I don't believe I could git my shoes\non now, any way.\"\n\nMany people in the room besides Mrs. Burnham had tears in their eyes\nat the conclusion of this simple statement.\n\nThen Ralph grew white about the lips and looked around him uneasily.\nThe judge saw that the lad was faint, and ordered a tipstaff to bring\nhim a glass of water. Ralph drank the water and it refreshed him.\n\n\"You may cross-examine the witness,\" said Goodlaw to the plaintiff's\nattorney.\n\nSharpman hardly knew how to begin. But he felt that he must make an\neffort to break in some way the force of Ralph's testimony. He knew\nthat from a strictly legal point of view, the evidence was of little\nvalue, but he feared that the boy's apparent honesty, coupled with his\ndramatic entrance, would create an impression on the minds of the jury\nwhich might carry them to a disastrous verdict. He leaned back in his\nchair with an assumed calmness, placed the tips of his fingers against\neach other, and cast his eyes toward the ceiling.\n\n\"Ralph,\" he said, \"you considered up to yesterday that Mr. Craft and I\nwere acting in your interest in this case, did you not?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir; I thought so.\"\n\n\"And you have consulted with us and followed our advice until\nyesterday, have you not?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"And last night you came to the conclusion that we were deceiving\nyou?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir; I did.\"\n\n\"Have you any reason for this opinion aside from the conversation you\nallege that you heard?\"\n\n\"I don't know as I have.\"\n\n\"At what hour did you reach my office last evening?\"\n\n\"I don't know, I guess it must 'a' been after eight o'clock.\"\n\n\"Was it dark?\"\n\n\"It was jest dark.\"\n\n\"Was there a light in the office when you came in?\"\n\n\"They was in the back room where you an' Rhymin' Joe were.\"\n\n\"Did you think that I knew when you came into the office?\"\n\n\"I don't believe you did.\"\n\n\"Why did you not make your presence known?\"\n\n\"Well, I--I--\"\n\n\"Come, out with it! If you had any reason for playing the spy, let's\nhear what it was.\"\n\n\"I didn't play the spy. I didn't think o' bein' mean that way, but\nwhen I heard Rhymin' Joe tell you 'at I wasn't Robert Burnham's son,\nI was so s'prised, an' scart-like 'at I couldn't speak.\"\n\nThis was a little more than Sharpman wanted, but he kept on:--\n\n\"How long were you under the control of this spirit of muteness?\"\n\n\"Sir?\"\n\n\"How long was it before the power to speak returned to you?\"\n\n\"Oh! not till Rhymin' Joe went out, I guess. I felt so bad I didn't\nwant to speak to anybody.\"\n\n\"Did you see this person whom you call Rhyming Joe?\"\n\n\"Only in the dark.\"\n\n\"Not so as to recognize him by sight?\"\n\n\"No, sir.\"\n\n\"How did you know it was he?\"\n\n\"By the way he talked.\"\n\n\"How long is it since you have been accustomed to hearing him talk?\"\n\n\"About three years.\"\n\n\"Did you see me last night?\"\n\n\"I caught a glimpse of you jest once.\"\n\n\"When?\"\n\n\"When you went across the room an' gave Rhymin' Joe the money.\"\n\nSharpman flushed angrily. He felt that he was treading on dangerous\nground in this line of examination. He went on more cautiously.\n\n\"At what time did you leave my office last night?\"\n\n\"Right after Rhymin' Joe did. I went out to find him.\"\n\n\"Then you went away without letting me know of your presence there,\ndid you?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Did you find this Rhyming Joe?\"\n\n\"No, sir, I couldn't find 'im.\"\n\n\"Now, Ralph, when you left me at the Scranton station on Saturday\nnight, did you go straight home?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Did you see any one to talk with except Bachelor Billy that night\nafter you left me?\"\n\n\"No, sir.\"\n\n\"Where did you go on Sunday morning?\"\n\n\"Uncle Billy an' me went down to the chapel to meetin'.\"\n\n\"From there where did you go?\"\n\n\"Back home.\"\n\n\"And had your dinner?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"What did you do after that?\"\n\n\"Me an' Uncle Billy went up to the breaker.\"\n\n\"What breaker?\"\n\n\"Burnham Breaker.\"\n\n\"Why did you go there?\"\n\n\"Jest for a walk, an' to see how it looked.\"\n\n\"How long did you stay there?\"\n\n\"Oh, we hadn't been there more'n fifteen or twenty minutes 'fore Mrs.\nBurnham's man came for me an' took me to her house.\"\n\nSharpman straightened up in his chair. His drag-net had brought up\nsomething at last. It might be of value to him and it might not be.\n\n\"Ah!\" he said, \"so you spent a portion of yesterday afternoon at Mrs.\nBurnham's house, did you?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, I did.\"\n\n\"How long did you stay there?\"\n\n\"Oh! I shouldn't wonder if it was two or three hours.\"\n\n\"Did you see Mrs. Burnham alone?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Have a long talk together?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, a very nice long talk.\"\n\nSharpman thought that if he could only lead the jury, by inference,\nto the presumption that what had taken place to-day was understood\nbetween Ralph and Mrs. Burnham yesterday it would be a strong point,\nbut he knew that he must go cautiously.\n\n\"She was very kind to you, wasn't she?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir; she was lovely. I never had so good a time before in all my\nlife.\"\n\n\"You took dinner with her, I suppose?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Have a good dinner?\"\n\n\"It was splendid.\"\n\n\"Did you eat a good deal?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, I think I eat a great deal.\"\n\n\"Had a good many things that were new to you, I presume?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, quite a good many.\"\n\n\"Did you think you would like to go there to live?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes! I did. It's beautiful there, it's very beautiful. You don't\nknow how lovely it is till you get there. I couldn't help bein' happy\nin a home like that, an' they couldn't be no nicer mother'n Mrs.\nBurnham is, nor no pirtier little sister. An' everybody was jest as\ngood to me there! Why, you don't know what a--\"\n\nThe glow suddenly left the boy's face, and the rapture fled from his\neyes. In the enthusiasm of his description he had forgotten, for the\nmoment, that it was not all to be his, and when the memory of his loss\ncame back to him, it was like a plunge into outer darkness. He stopped\nso unexpectedly, and in such apparent mental distress that people\nstared at him in astonishment, wondering what had happened.\n\nAfter a moment of silence he spoke again: \"But it ain't mine any\nlonger; I can't have any of it now; I've got no right to go there at\nall any more.\" The sadness in his broken voice was pitiful. Those who\nwere looking on him saw his under lip tremble and his eyes fill with\ntears. But it was only for a moment. Then he drew himself up until\nhe sat rigidly in his chair, his little hands were tightly clenched,\nhis lips were set in desperate firmness, every muscle of his face\ngrew tense and hard with sudden resolution. It was a magnificently\nsuccessful effort of the will to hold back almost overpowering\nemotion, and to keep both mind and body strong and steady for any\nordeal through which he might have yet to pass.\n\nIt came upon those who saw it like an electric flash, and in another\nmoment the crowded room was ringing with applause.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII.\n\nGENTLEMEN OF THE JURY.\n\n\nSharpman had not seen Ralph's expression and did not know what the\nnoise was all about. He looked around at the audience uneasily,\nwhispered to Craft for a moment, and then announced that he was done\nwith the witness. He was really afraid to carry the examination\nfurther; there were too many pit-falls along the way.\n\nGoodlaw, too, was wise enough to ask no additional questions. He\ndid not care to lay grounds for the possible reversal of a judgment\nin favor of the defendant, by introducing questionable evidence.\nBut he felt that the case, in its present aspect, needed farther\ninvestigation, and he moved for a continuance of the cause for two\ndays. He desired, he said, to find the person known as Rhyming Joe,\nand to produce such other evidence as this new and startling turn of\naffairs might make necessary.\n\nCraft whispered to Sharpman that the request should be agreed to,\nsaying that he could bring plenty of witnesses to prove that Rhyming\nJoe was a worthless adventurer, notorious for his habits of lying;\nand stoutly asserting that the boy was positively Ralph Burnham. But\nSharpman's great fear was that if Rhyming Joe should be brought back,\nthe story of the bribery could no longer be hushed; and he therefore\nopposed the application for a continuance with all his energy.\n\nThe court ruled that the reasons presented were not sufficient to\nwarrant the holding of a jury at this stage of the case for so long a\ntime, but intimated that in the event of a verdict for the plaintiff a\nmotion for a new trial might be favorably considered by the court.\n\n\"Then we have nothing further to offer,\" said Goodlaw.\n\nSharpman resumed his seat with an air of satisfaction, and sat for\nfull five minutes, with his face in his hand, in deep thought.\n\n\"I think,\" he said, finally, looking up, \"that we shall present\nnothing in rebuttal. The case, as it now stands, doesn't seem to call\nfor it.\" He had been considering whether it would be safe and wise for\nhim to go on the witness-stand and deny any portion of Ralph's story.\nHe had reached the conclusion that it would not. The risk was too\ngreat.\n\n\"Very well,\" said the judge, taking up his pen, \"then the evidence is\nclosed. Mr. Goodlaw, are you ready to go to the jury?\"\n\nGoodlaw, who had been, during this time, holding a whispered\nconversation with Ralph, arose, bowed to the court, and turned to\nface the jurors. He began his speech by saying that, until the recent\ntestimony given by the boy Ralph had been produced in court, he had\nnot expected to address the jury at all; but that that testimony had\nso changed the whole tenor of the case as to make a brief argument for\nthe defence an apparent necessity.\n\nFortified by the knowledge of the story that Rhyming Joe had told, as\nRalph had just whispered it to him, Goodlaw was able to dissipate,\ngreatly, the force of the plaintiff's evidence, and to show how\nCraft's whole story might easily be a cleverly concocted falsehood\nbuilt upon a foundation of truth. He opened up to the wondering minds\nof the jurors the probable scheme which had been originated by these\ntwo plotters, Craft and Sharpman, to raise up an heir to the estates\nof Robert Burnham, an heir of whom Craft could be guardian, and a\nguardian of whom Sharpman could be attorney. He explained how the\nproperty and the funds that would thus come into their hands could be\nso managed as to leave a fortune in the pocket of each of them before\nthey should have done with the estate.\n\n\"The scheme was a clever one,\" he said, \"and worked well, and no\nobstacle stood in the way of these conspirators until a person known\nas Rhyming Joe came on the scene. This person knew the history of\nRalph's parentage and saw through Craft's duplicity; and, in an\nunguarded moment, the attorney for the plaintiff closed this man's\nmouth by means which we can only guess at, and sent him forth to hide\namong the moral and the social wrecks that constitute the flotsam and\nthe jetsam of society. But his words, declaring Simon Craft's bold\nscheme a fabric built upon a lie, had already struck upon the ears and\npierced into the heart of one whose tender conscience would not let\nhim rest with the burden of this knowledge weighing down upon it. What\nwas it that he heard, gentlemen? We can only conjecture. The laws of\nevidence drop down upon us here and forbid that we should fully know.\nBut that it was a tale that brought conviction to the mind of this\nbrave boy you cannot doubt. It is for no light cause that he comes\nhere to publicly renounce his right and title to the name, the wealth,\nthe high maternal love that yesterday was lying at his feet and\nsmiling in his face. The counsel for the plaintiff tries to throw\nupon him the mantle of the eavesdropper, but the breath of this boy's\nlightest word lifts such a covering from him, and reveals his purity\nof purpose and his agony of mind in listening to the revelation that\nwas made. I do not wonder that he should lose the power to move on\nhearing it. I do not wonder that he should be compelled, as if by\nsome strange force, to sit and listen quietly to every piercing word.\nI can well conceive how terrible the shock would be to one who came,\nas he did, fresh from a home where love had made the hours so sweet\nto him that he thought them fairer than any he had ever known before.\nI can well conceive what bitter disappointment and what deep emotion\nfilled his breast. But the struggle that began there then between\nhis boyish sense of honor and his desire for home, for wealth, for\nfond affection, I cannot fathom that;--it is too deep, too high,\ntoo terrible for me to fully understand. I only know that honor was\ntriumphant; that he bade farewell to love, to hope, to home, to the\nbrightest, sweetest things in all this world of beauty, and turned his\nface manfully, steadfastly, unflinchingly to the right. With the help\nand counsel of one honest man, he set about to check the progress of a\nmighty wrong. No disappointment discouraged him, no fear found place\nin his heart, no distance was too great for him to traverse. He knew\nthat here, to-day, without his presence, injustice would be done,\ndishonesty would be rewarded, and shameless fraud prevail. It was\nfor him, and him alone, to stop it, and he set out upon his journey\nhither. The powers of darkness were arrayed against him, fate scowled\nsavagely upon him, disaster blocked his path, the iron horse refused\nto draw him, but he remained undaunted and determined. He had no time\nto lose; he left the conquered power of steam behind him, and started\nout alone through heat and dust to reach the place of justice. With\nbared, bruised feet and aching limbs and parched tongue he hurried,\non, walking, running, as he could, dragging himself at last into the\npresence of the court at the very moment when the scales of justice\nwere trembling for the downward plunge, and spoke the words that\nchecked the course of legal crime, that placed the chains of hopeless\ntoil upon his own weak limbs, but that gave the world--another hero!\n\n\"Gentlemen of the jury, I have labored at the bar of this court for\nmore than thirty years, but I never saw before a specimen of moral\ncourage fit to bear comparison with this; I never in my life before\nsaw such a lofty deed of heroism so magnificently done. And do you\nthink that such a boy as this would lie? Do you think that such a boy\nas this would say to you one word that did not rise from the deep\nconviction of an honest heart?\n\n\"I leave the case in your hands, gentlemen; you are to choose between\nselfish greed and honest sacrifice, between the force of cunning craft\nand the mighty power of truth. See to it that you choose rightly and\nwell.\"\n\nThe rumble of applause from the court-room as Goodlaw resumed his seat\nwas quickly suppressed by the officers, and Sharpman arose to speak.\nHe was calm and courteous, and seemed sanguine of success. But his\nmind was filled with the darkness of disappointment and the dread of\ndisaster; and his heart was heavy with its bitterness toward those who\nhad blocked his path. He knew that Ralph's testimony ought to bear but\nlightly on the case, but he feared that it would weigh heavily with\nthe jury, and that his own character would not come out stainless. He\nhardly hoped to save both case and character, but he determined to\nmake the strongest effort of which he was capable. He reviewed the\ntestimony given by Mrs. Burnham concerning her child and his supposed\ntragic death; he recalled all the circumstances connected with the\nrailroad accident, and repeated the statements of the witnesses\nconcerning the old man and the child; he gave again the history of\nRalph's life, and of Simon Craft's searching and failures and success;\nhe contended, with all the powers of logic and oratory at his command,\nthat Ralph Burnham was saved from the wreck at Cherry Brook, and Was\nthat moment sitting by his mother before the faces and eyes of the\ncourt and jury.\n\n\"Until to-day,\" he said, \"every one who has heard this evidence, and\ntaken interest in this case, has believed, as I do, that this boy is\nRobert Burnham's son. The boy's mother believed it, the counsel for\nthe defence believed it, the lad himself believed it, his Honor on the\nbench, and you, gentlemen in the jury-box, I doubt not, all believed\nit; indeed it was agreed by all parties that nothing remained to be\ndone but to take your verdict for the plaintiff. But, lo! this child\nmakes his dramatic entrance into the presence of the court, and, under\nthe inspired guidance of defendant's counsel, tells his story of\neavesdropping, and when it is done my learned friend has the temerity\nto ask you to throw away your reason, to dismiss logic from your\nminds, to trample law under your feet, to scatter the evidence to the\nfour winds of heaven, and to believe what? Why, a boy's silly story of\nan absurd and palpable lie?\n\n\"I did not go upon the witness-stand to contradict this fairy tale; it\ndid not seem to be worth the while.\n\n\"Consider it for a moment. This youth says he came to my office last\nnight and found me in the inner room in conversation with another\nperson. I shall not deny that. Supposing it to be true, there was\nnothing strange or wrong in it, was there? But what does this boy whom\nmy learned friend has lauded to the skies for his manliness and honor\ndo next? Why, according to his own story, he steals into the darkness\nof the outer office and seats himself to listen to the conversation\nin the inner room, and hears--what? No good of himself certainly.\nEavesdroppers never do hear good of themselves. But he thinks he hears\nthe voice of a person whom no one in this court-room ever heard of or\nthought of before, nor has seen or heard of since--a person who, I\ndaresay, has existence only in this child's imagination; he thinks\nhe hears this person declare that he, Ralph, is not Robert Burnham's\nson, and, by way of embellishing his tale, he adds statements which\nare still more absurd, statements on the strength of which my learned\nfriend hopes to darken in your eyes the character of the counsel for\nthe plaintiff. I trust, gentlemen, that I am too well known at the bar\nof this court and in this community to have my moral standing swept\naway by such a flimsy falsehood as you see this to be. And so, to-day,\nthis child comes into court and declares, with solemn asseveration,\nthat the evidence fixing his identity beyond dispute or question is\nall a lie; and what is this declaration worth? His Honor will tell\nyou, in his charge, I have no doubt, that this boy's statement,\nfounded, as he himself says, on hearsay, is valueless in law, and\nshould have no weight in your minds. But I do not ask you to base your\njudgment on technicalities of law. I ask you to base it simply on the\nreasonable evidence in this case.\n\n\"What explanation there can be of this lad's conduct, I have not, as\nyet, been ably, fully, to determine.\n\n\"I have tried, in my own mind, to throw the mantle of charity across\nhim. I have tried to think that, coming from an unaccustomed meal, his\nstomach loaded with rich food, he no sooner sank into the office chair\nthan he fell asleep and dreamed. It is not improbable. The power of\ndreams is great on children's minds, as all of you may know. But in\nthe face of these developments I can hardly bring myself to accept\nthis theory. There is too much method in the child's madness. It\nlooks more like the outcome of some desperate move on the part of\nthis defence to win the game which they have seen slipping from their\ncontrol. It looks like a deep-laid plan to rob my aged and honored\nclient of the credit to which he is entitled for rescuing this boy at\nthe risk of his life, for caring for him through poverty and disease,\nfor finding him when his own mother had given him up for dead, and\nrestoring him to the bosom of his family. It looks as though they\nfeared that this old man, already trembling on the brink of the grave,\nwould snatch some comfort for his remaining days out of the pittance\nthat he might hope to collect from this vast estate for services that\nought to be beyond price. It looks as though hatred and jealousy were\ncombined in a desperate effort to crush the counsel for the plaintiff.\nThe counsel for the plaintiff can afford to laugh at their animosity\ntoward himself, but he cannot help his indignation at their plot. Now,\nlet us see.\n\n\"It is acknowledged that the boy Ralph spent the larger part of\nyesterday afternoon at the house of this defendant, and was fed and\nflattered till he nearly lost his head in telling of it. That is a\nstrange circumstance, to begin with. How many private consultations\nhe has had with counsel for defence, I know not. Neither do I know\nwhat tempting inducements have been held out to him to turn traitor\nto those who have been his truest friends. These things I can only\nimagine. But that fine promises have been made to him, that pictures\nof plenty have been unfolded to his gaze, that the glitter of gold and\nthe sheen of silver have dazzled his young eyes, there can be little\ndoubt. So he has seen visions and dreamed dreams, at will; he has\nendured terrible temptations, and fought great moral battles, by\nspecial request, and has come off more than victor, in the counsel's\nmind. To-day everything is ready for the carrying-out of their skilful\nscheme. At the right moment the counsel gives the signal, and the boy\ndarts in, hatless, shoeless, ragged, and dusty, for the occasion, and\ntragic to the counsel's heart's content, and is put at once upon the\nstand to tell his made-up tale, and--\"\n\nSharpman heard a slight noise behind him, and some one exclaimed:--\n\n\"He has fainted!\"\n\nThe lawyer stopped in his harangue and turned in time to see Ralph\nlying in a heap on the floor, just as he had slipped that moment from\nhis chair. The boy had listened to Goodlaw's praises of his conduct\nwith a vague feeling that he was undeserving of so much credit for it.\nBut when Sharpman, advancing in his speech, charged him with having\ndreamed his story, he was astounded. He thought it was the strangest\nthing he had ever heard of. For was not Mr. Sharpman there, himself?\nand did not he know that it was all real and true? He could not\nunderstand the lawyer's allegation. Later on, when Sharpman declared\nboldly that Ralph's statement on the witness-stand was a carefully\nconcocted falsehood, the bluntness of the charge was like a cruel\nblow, and the boy's sensitive nerves shrank and quivered beneath it;\nthen his lips grew pale, his breath came in gasps, the room went\nswimming round him, darkness came before his eyes, and his weak body,\nenfeebled by prolonged fasting and excitement, slipped down to the\nfloor.\n\nThe people in the court-room scrambled to their feet again to look\nover into the bar.\n\nA man who had entered the room in time to hear Sharpman's brutal\nspeech pushed his way through the crowd, and hurried down to the place\nwhere Ralph was lying. It was Bachelor Billy.\n\nIn a moment he was down on his knees by the boy's side, chafing the\nsmall cold hands and wrists, while Mrs. Burnham, kneeling on the other\nside, was dipping her handkerchief into a glass of water, and bathing\nthe lad's face.\n\nBachelor Billy turned on his knees and looked up angrily at Sharpman.\n\"Mayhap an' ye've killet 'im,\" he said, \"wi' your traish an' your\nlees!\" Then he rose to his feet and continued: \"Can ye no' tell when\na lad speaks the truth? Mon! he's as honest as the day is lang! But\nwhat's the use o' tellin' ye? ye ken it yoursel'. Ye _wull_ be fause\nto 'im!\"\n\nHis lips were white with passion as he knelt again by the side of the\nunconscious boy.\n\n\"Ye're verra gude to the lad, ma'am,\" he said to Mrs. Burnham, who had\nraised Ralph's head in her arms and was pressing her wet handkerchief\nagainst it; \"ye're verra gude, but ma mind is to tak' 'im hame an'\nten' till 'im mysel'. He was ower-tired, d'ye see, wi' the trooble an'\nthe toil, an' noo I fear me an they've broke the hert o' 'im.\"\n\nThen Bachelor Billy, lifting the boy up in his arms, set his face\ntoward the door. The people pressed back and made way for him as he\npassed up the aisle holding the drooping body very tenderly, looking\ndown at times with great compassion into the white face that lay\nagainst his breast; and the eyes that watched his sturdy back until\nit disappeared from view were wet with sympathetic tears.\n\nWhen the doors had closed behind him, Sharpman turned again to the\njury, with a bitterly sarcastic smile upon his face.\n\n\"Another chapter in the made-up tragedy,\" he said, \"performed with\nmarvellous skill as you can see. My learned friend has drilled his\npeople well. He has made consummate actors of them all. And yet he\nwould have you think that one is but an honest fool, and that the\nother is as innocent as a babe in arms.\"\n\nUp among the people some one hissed, then some one else joined in,\nand, before the judge and officers could restore order in the room,\nthe indignant crowd had greeted Sharpman's words with a perfect\ntorrent of groans and hisses. Then the wily lawyer realized that he\nwas making a mistake. He knew that he could not afford to gain the\nill-will of the populace, and accordingly he changed the tenor of his\nspeech. He spoke generally of law and justice, and particularly of the\nweight of evidence in the case at bar. He dwelt with much emphasis on\nSimon Craft's bravery, self-sacrifice, poverty, toil, and suffering;\nand, with a burst of oratory that made the walls re-echo with the\nsound of his resonant voice, he closed his address and resumed his\nseat.\n\nThen the judge delivered the charge in a calm, dispassionate way. He\nreviewed the evidence very briefly, warning the jury to reject from\ntheir minds all improper declarations of any witness or other person,\nand directing them to rest their decision only on the legal evidence\nin the case. He instructed them that although the boy Ralph's\ndeclaration that he was not Robert Burnham's son might be regarded by\nthem, yet they must also take into consideration the fact that his\nopinion was founded partly, if not wholly, on hearsay, and, for that\nreason, would be of little value to them in making up their decision.\nAny evidence of the alleged conversation at Mr. Sharpman's office, he\nsaid, must be rejected wholly. He warned them to dismiss from their\nminds all prejudice or sympathy that might have been aroused by the\nspeeches of counsel, or the appearance of witnesses in court, and to\ntake into consideration and decide upon but one question, namely:\nwhether the boy Ralph is or is not the son of the late Robert Burnham:\nthat, laying aside all other questions, matters, and things, they must\ndecide that and that alone, according to the law and the evidence.\n\nWhen the judge had finished his charge a constable was sworn, and,\nfollowed by the twelve jurors, he marched from the court-room.\n\nIt was already after six o'clock, so the crier was directed to adjourn\nthe court, and, a few minutes later, the judge, the lawyers, the\nwitnesses, and the spectators had all disappeared, and the room\nwas empty.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII.\n\nA WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS.\n\n\nEvery one expected that the jury would come into court with a verdict\nat the opening of the session on Tuesday morning. There was much\ndifference of opinion, however, as to what that verdict would be.\n\nBut the morning hours went by and the jury still remained in their\nroom. The constable who watched at the door shook his head and smiled\nwhen asked about the probability of an early agreement. No one seemed\nto know just how the jury stood.\n\nSharpman and his client had been greatly disheartened on Monday night,\nand had confessed as much to each other; but the longer the jury\nremained out the more hope they gathered. It was apparent that the\nverdict would not be rendered under the impulses of the moment; and\nthat the jury were applying the principles of cold law and stern logic\nto the case, there seemed to be little doubt.\n\nBut, as a matter of fact, the jury were doing no such thing.\n\nThey believed, to a man, that Ralph had told the truth, and that such\nan event as he had described had actually taken place in Sharpman's\noffice; and, notwithstanding the judge's charge, they were trying to\nharmonize Ralph's statement with the evidence of the witnesses who\nhad corroborated Simon Craft's story. This led them into so many\ndifficulties that they finally abandoned the effort, and the questions\nbefore them were gradually reduced to just one. That question was not\nwhether Ralph was the son of Robert Burnham; but it was: which would\nbe better for the boy, to decide in favor of the plaintiff or of the\ndefendant. If they found for the plaintiff, they would throw the\nboy's fortune into the hands of Craft and Sharpman, where they feared\nthe greater part of it would finally remain. If they found for the\ndefendant, they would practically consign the lad to a life of\nhomelessness and toil. It was to discuss and settle this question,\ntherefore, that the jury remained locked up in their room through so\nmany hours.\n\nThe day wore on and no verdict was rendered. Sharpman's spirits\ncontinued to rise, and Goodlaw feared that his case was lost.\n\nAt four o'clock the jury sent in word that they had agreed, and a few\nminutes later they filed into the court-room. When their verdict had\nbeen inspected by the judge it was given to the prothonotary to read.\nHe faced the jury, saying:--\n\n\"Gentlemen of the jury, listen to your verdict as the court has it\nrecorded. In the case wherein Simon Craft, guardian of the estate\nof Ralph Burnham, a minor, is plaintiff, and Margaret Burnham,\nadministrator of the estate of Robert Burnham, deceased, is defendant,\nyou say you find for the defendant, and that the boy Ralph is _not_\nthe son of Robert Burnham. So say you all?\"\n\nThe jury nodded assent, and the verdict was filed. That settled it.\nCraft and Sharpman were beaten.\n\nIt was very strange that a solid truth, backed up by abundant and\nirreproachable evidence, presented under the strict rules of law and\nthe solemn sanction of an oath, should be upset and shattered by a\nflimsy falsehood told by an unknown adventurer, heard unawares by\na listening child, and denied a proper entrance into court. It was\nstrange but it was very true. Yet in that ruin was involved one of\nthe boldest schemes for legal plunder that was ever carried into the\ncourts of Luzerne County.\n\nSharpman felt that a fortune had slipped from his grasp, and that he\nhad lost it by reason of his own credulity and fear. He saw now the\nmistake he had made in not defying Rhyming Joe. He knew now that the\nfellow never would have dared to appear in court as a witness. He felt\nthat he had not only lost his money, but that he had come dangerously\nnear to losing what character he had, also. He knew that it was all\ndue to his own fault, and he was humiliated and angry with himself,\nand bitter toward every one who had sided with the defendant.\n\nBut if Sharpman's disappointment was great, that of his client was\ntenfold greater.\n\nSimon Craft was in a most unenviable mood. At times, indeed, he grew\nfairly desperate. The golden bubble that he had been chasing for eight\nyears had burst and vanished. He had told the truth, he had been\nhonest in his statements, he had sought to do the boy and the boy's\nmother a great favor, and they had turned against him, and the verdict\nof the jury had placed upon him the stigma of perjury. This was the\nburden of his complaint. But aside from this he was filled with bitter\nregret. If he had only closed his bargain with Robert Burnham on the\nday it had been made! If he had only made his proposition to Mrs.\nBurnham as he had intended doing, instead of going into this wild\nscheme with this visionary lawyer! This was his silent sorrow. His\nmisery was deep and apparent. He had grown to be ten years older in a\nday. This misfortune, he said, bitterly, was the result of trying to\nbe honest and to do good. This was the reward of virtue, these the\nwages of charity.\n\nTired, at last, of railing at abstract principles of right, he turned\nhis attention to those who had been instrumental in his downfall. The\njudge, the jury, and the attorney for the defence, all came in for a\nshare of his malignant hatred and abuse. For Mrs. Burnham he had only\nsilent contempt. Her honest desire to have right done had been too\napparent from the start. The only fault he had to find with her was\nthat she did not come to his rescue when the tide was turning against\nhim. But against Ralph the old man's wrath and indignation were\nintense.\n\nHad he not saved the child from death? Had he not fed and clothed and\ncared for him during five years? Had he not rescued him from oblivion,\nand made every effort to endow him with wealth and position and an\nhonored name? And then, to think that in the very moment when these\nefforts were about to meet with just success, this boy had turned\nagainst him, and brought ruin and disgrace upon him. Oh, it was too\nmuch, too much!\n\nIf he could only have the lad in his possession for a week, he\nthought, for a day, for an hour even, he would teach him the cost of\nturning traitor to his friends. Oh, he would teach him!\n\nThen it occurred to him that perhaps he might get possession of the\nboy, and permanent possession at that. Had not Ralph sworn that he was\nSimon Craft's grandson? Had not the jury accepted Ralph's testimony\nas true? And had not the court ordered judgment to be entered on the\njury's verdict? Well, if the court had declared the boy to be his\ngrandson, he was entitled to him, was he not? If the boy was able to\nearn anything, he was entitled to his earnings, was he not? If he was\nthe child's grandfather, then he had authority to take him, to govern\nhim, to punish him for disobedience--was not that true?\n\nOld Simon rose from his chair and began to walk up and down the room,\nhammering his cane upon the floor at every step.\n\nThe idea was a good one, a very good one, and he resolved to act upon\nit without delay. He would go the very next day and get the boy and\ntake him to Philadelphia.\n\nBut suppose Ralph should refuse to go, and suppose Bachelor Billy,\nwith his strong arms, should stand by to protect the lad from force,\nwhat then? Well, there was a law to meet just such a case as that. He\nknew of an instance where a child had been taken by its grandfather by\nvirtue of a writ of _habeas corpus_.\n\nHe would get such a writ, the sheriff should go with him, they would\nbring Ralph to court again; and since the law had declared the boy to\nbe Simon Craft's grandson, the law could do nothing else than to place\nhim in Simon Craft's custody. Then the old man went to bed, thinking\nthat in the morning he would get Sharpman to prepare for him the\npapers that would be necessary to carry his plan into execution.\n\nHe derived much pleasure from his dreams that night, for he dreamed\nof torturing poor Ralph to his heart's content.\n\nWhen Bachelor Billy left the court-room that Monday evening with his\nunconscious burden in his arms, he remained only long enough in the\ncourt-house square to revive the boy, then he took him to the railway\nstation, and they went together, by the earliest train, to Scranton.\n\nThe next morning Ralph felt very weak and miserable, and did not leave\nthe house; and Bachelor Billy came home at noon to see him and to\nlearn what news, if any, had been received from Wilkesbarre. Both he\nand Ralph expected that a verdict would be rendered for the defendant,\nin accordance with Ralph's testimony, and neither of them were\nsurprised, therefore, when Andy Gilgallon came up from the city after\nsupper and informed them that the jury had so found. That settled the\nmatter, at any rate. It was a relief to Ralph to know that it was at\nan end; that he was through with courts and lawyers and judges and\njuries, and that there need be no further effort on his part to escape\nfrom unmerited fortune. The tumult that had raged in his mind through\nmany hours was at last stilled, and that night he slept. He wanted\nto go back the next morning to his work at the breaker, but Bachelor\nBilly would not allow him to do so. He still looked very pale and\nweak, and the anxious man resolved to come home at noon again that day\nto see to the lad's health.\n\nIndeed, as the morning wore on, Ralph acknowledged to himself that he\ndid not feel so well. His head was very heavy, and there was a bruised\nfeeling over the entire surface of his body. It was a dull day, too;\nit rained a little now and then, and was cloudy all the morning. He\nsat indoors the most of the time, reading a little, sleeping a little,\nand thinking a great deal. The sense of his loss was coming back upon\nhim very strongly. It was not so much the loss of wealth, or of name,\nor of the power to do other and better things than he had ever done\nbefore that grieved him now. But it was that the dear and gentle lady\nwho was to have been his mother, who had verily been a mother to him\nfor one sweet day, was a mother to him no longer. To feel that he was\nnothing to her now, no more, indeed, than any other ragged, dust-black\nboy in Burnham Breaker, this was what brought pain and sorrow to his\nheart, and made the hot tears come into his eyes in spite of his\ndetermined effort to hold them back.\n\nHe was sitting in his accustomed chair, facing the dying embers of a\nlittle wood fire that he had built, for the morning was a chilly one.\n\nBehind him the door was opened and some one entered the room from the\nstreet. He thought it was Bachelor Billy, just come from work, and\nhe straightened up in his chair and tried to wipe away the traces of\ntears from his face before he should turn to give him greeting.\n\n\"Is that you, Uncle Billy?\" he said; \"ain't you home early?\"\n\nHe was still rubbing industriously at his eyes. Receiving no answer he\nlooked around.\n\nIt was not Uncle Billy. It was Simon Craft.\n\nRalph uttered a cry of surprise and terror, and retreated into a\ncorner of the room. Old Simon, looking at him maliciously from under\nhis bushy brows, gradually extended his thin lips into a wicked smile.\n\n\"What!\" he exclaimed, \"is it possible that you are afraid of your\naffectionate old grandfather? Why, I thought you desired nothing so\nmuch as to go and live with him and be his pet.\"\n\nThe boy's worst fears were realized. Old Simon had come for him.\n\n\"I won't go back with you!\" he cried. \"I won't! I won't!\" Then,\nchanging his tone to one of appealing, he continued: \"You didn't come\nfor me, did you, gran'pa? you won't make me go back with you, will\nyou?\"\n\n\"I'm afraid I can't do without you any longer,\" said Craft, coming\nnearer and looking Ralph over carefully. \"I'm getting old and sick,\nand your presence will be a great comfort to me in my declining years.\nBesides, my affection for you is so great that I feel that I couldn't\ndo without you; oh, I couldn't, I couldn't possibly!\" And the old man\nactually chuckled himself into a fit of coughing at his grim sarcasm.\n\n\"But I don't want to go,\" persisted the boy. \"I'm very happy here.\nUncle Billy's very good to me, an' I'd ruther stay, a good deal\nruther.\"\n\nAt the mention of Uncle Billy's name Old Simon's smile vanished and he\nadvanced threateningly toward the boy, striking his cane repeatedly on\nthe floor.\n\n\"It don't matter what you want,\" he said, harshly; \"you were crazy to\nbe my grandson; now the law says you are, and the law gives me the\nright to take you and do what I choose with you. Oh, you've got to go!\nso get your hat and come along, and don't let's have any more nonsense\nabout it!\"\n\n\"Gran'pa--Gran'pa Simon!\" exclaimed the terrified boy, shrinking still\nfarther away, \"I can't go back to Philadelphy, I can't! I couldn't\nlive, I'd die if I went back there! I'd--\"\n\nCraft interrupted him: \"Well, if you do die, it won't be because\nyou're killed with kindness, I warrant you. You've cheated me out of\na living and yourself out of a fortune; you've made your own bed, now\nyou've got to lie in it. Come on, I say! get your hat and come along!\"\n\nThe old man was working himself into a passion. There was danger in\nhis eyes. Ralph knew it, too, but the thought of going back to live\nwith Simon Craft was such a dreadful one to him that he could not\nrefrain from further pleading.\n\n\"I know I belong to you, Gran'pa Simon,\" he said, \"an' I know I've got\nto mind you; but please don't make me go back to live with you; please\ndon't! I'll do anything else in the world you want me to; I'll give\nyou ev'ry dollar I earn if you'll let me stay here, ev'ry dollar; an'\nI'll work hard, too, ev'ry day. I'll--I'll give you--I'll give you--\n\n\"Well, what'll you give me? Out with it!\"\n\nIt was a desperate chance; it called for sacrifice, but Ralph felt\nthat he would offer it gladly if he could thereby be saved.\n\n\"I'll give you,\" he said, \"all the money I've got saved up.\"\n\n\"How much money have you got saved up?\" The light of hatred in the\nman's eyes gave place, for the time being, to the light of greed.\n\n\"About thirty-two dollars.\"\n\n\"Well, give it to me, then, and be quick about it!\"\n\nRalph went to a small closet built into the wall over the chimney, and\ntook from it a little box.\n\nThat box contained his accumulated savings. With a large portion of\nthe money he had thought to buy new clothing for himself. He had\ndetermined that he would not go to live with Mrs. Burnham, dressed\nlike a beggar. He would have clothes befitting his station in life.\nIndeed, he and Uncle Billy were to have gone out the day before to\nmake the necessary purchases; but since the change came the matter had\nnot been thought of. Now he should pay it to Simon Craft as the price\nof his freedom. He was willing and more than willing to do so. He\nwould have given all he ever hoped to earn to save himself from that\nman's custody, and would have considered it a cheap release.\n\nHe took the money from the box,--it was all paper money,--and counted\nit carefully out into Old Simon's trembling hand. There were just\nthirty-two dollars.\n\n\"Is that all?\" said Craft, folding the bills and putting them into an\ninside pocket as he spoke.\n\n\"Yes, that's all.\"\n\n\"You haven't got any more hidden around the house anywhere, have you?\nDon't lie to me, now!\"\n\n\"Oh, no! I've given you ev'ry cent I had, ev'ry single cent.\"\n\n\"Well, then, get your hat and come along.\"\n\n\"Wh--what?\" Ralph was staring at the man in astonishment. He thought\nhe had just bought his freedom, and that he need not go.\n\n\"Get your hat and come along, I say; and be quick about it? I can't\nwait here all day.\"\n\n\"Where--where to?\"\n\n\"Why, home with me, of course. Where would I take you?\"\n\n\"But I gave you the money to let me stay here with Uncle Billy; you\nsaid you would take it for that.\"\n\n\"No, I didn't. I told you to give it to me. The money belongs to me\nthe same as you do. Now, are you coming, or do you want me to help\nyou?\"\n\nRalph's face was white with indignation. He had been willing to do\nwhat was right. He thought he had made a fair bargain; but now,\nthis--this was an outrage. His spirit rose against it. The old sense\nof fearlessness took possession of him. He looked the man squarely\nin the eyes. His voice was firm and his hands were clenched with\nresolution. \"I will not go with you,\" he said.\n\n\"What's that?\" Craft looked down on the boy in astonishment.\n\n\"I say I will not go with you,\" repeated Ralph; \"that's all--I won't\ngo.\"\n\nThen the old man's wrath was let loose.\n\n\"You beggar!\" he shouted, \"how dare you disobey me! I'll teach you!\"\nHe raised his cane threateningly as he spoke.\n\n\"Hit me,\" said Ralph, \"kill me if you want to; I'd ruther die than go\nback to live with you.\"\n\nOld Simon grasped his cane by its foot and raised it above his\nhead. In another instant it would have descended on the body of the\nunfortunate boy; but in that instant some one seized it from behind,\nwrenched it from Craft's weak grasp, and flung it into the street.\n\nIt was Bachelor Billy; He had entered at the open door unseen. He\nseized Craft's shoulders and whirled him around till the two men stood\nface to face.\n\n\"Mon!\" he exclaimed, \"mon! an' yon steck had a-fallen o' the lad's\nhead, I dinna ken what I s'ould 'a' done till ye. Ye're lucky to be\nauld an' sick, or ye s'ould feel the weight o' ma han' as it is.\"\n\nBut Craft was not subdued. On the contrary his rage grew more fierce.\n\"What's the boy to you?\" he shouted, savagely. \"You leave us alone. He\nbelongs to me; he shall go with me.\"\n\nIt was a full half-minute before Bachelor Billy's dull mind grasped\nthe situation. Meanwhile he was looking down into Ralph's white face.\nThen he turned again to Craft.\n\n\"Never!\" he said, solemnly. \"Ye s'all never tak' 'im. I'll see the lad\nin his grave first.\" After a moment he continued, \"It's no' safe for\nye to stay longer wi' us; it's better ye s'ould go.\"\n\nThen another man entered at the open door. It was the sheriff of\nLuzerne County. He held the writ of _habeas corpus_ in his hand.\n\n\"Why didn't you wait for me,\" he said, turning angrily to Craft,\n\"instead of coming here to pick a quarrel with these people?\"\n\n\"That's none of your business,\" replied the old man. \"You've got your\nwrit, now do your duty or I'll--\" A fit of coughing attacked him, and\nhe dropped into a chair to give way to it.\n\nThe sheriff looked at him contemptuously for a moment, then he turned\nto Bachelor Billy.\n\n\"This miserable old man,\" he said, \"has had a writ of _habeas corpus_\nissued, commanding you to produce immediately before the judge at\nWilkesbarre the body of the boy Ralph. It is my place to see that the\nwrit is properly executed. There's no help for it, so I think you had\nbetter get ready, and we will go as soon as possible.\" And he handed\nto Bachelor Billy a copy of the writ.\n\n\"I ha' no time to read it,\" said Billy, \"but if the judge says as the\nlad s'ould gae to court again, he s'all gae. We mus' obey the law. An'\nI s'all gae wi' 'im. Whaur the lad gae's I s'all gae. I s'all stay by\n'im nicht an' day. If the law says he mus' live wi' Seemon Craft, then\nI s'all live wi' Seemon Craft also. I ha' nursit 'im too long, an'\nlovit 'im too weel to turn 'im alone into the wolfs den noo.\"\n\nIn a minute or two Craft recovered, but the coughing had left him very\nweak. He rose unsteadily to his feet and looked around for his cane.\nHe had grown calm. He thought that the game was his at any rate, and\nthat it was of no use for him to lose strength over it. \"You'll walk\nfaster than I,\" he said, \"so I'll be going. If I miss this train I\ncan't get started to Philadelphia with the boy before to-morrow.\" He\ntottered out into the road, picked up his cane, and trudged on down\nthe hill toward the city.\n\nIt was not long before the two men and the boy were ready to go also.\n\n\"Keep up your courage, my son,\" said the sheriff kindly, for the sight\nof Ralph's face aroused his sympathy. \"Keep up your courage; the court\nhas got to pass on this matter yet. You don't have to go with the old\nman till the judge says so.\"\n\n\"Tak' heart,\" added Bachelor Billy, \"tak' heart, laddie. It's not all\nower wi' us yet. I canna thenk as any law'd put a lamb i' the wolf's\nteeth.\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" said the sheriff, as they stood on the step for a\nmoment before leaving the house. \"I don't know how you'll make it. I\nsuppose, as far as the law's concerned, the old man's on the right\ntrack. As near as I can make out, the way the law-suit turned, he has\na legal right to the custody of the child and to his earnings. But, if\nI was the lad, he'd no sooner get me to Philadelphia than I'd give him\nthe slip. You've done it once, Ralph, you can do it again, can't you?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" answered the boy, weakly; \"I don't believe I'd try. If\nI have to go back with him I wouldn't live very long any way, an' it\nwouldn't pay to run away again. It don't make much difference; I ain't\ngot anybody left now but Uncle Billy, an', if he goes with me, I guess\nI can stan' it till it's through with.\"\n\nIt was the first time in his life that Ralph had ever spoken in so\ndespondent a way, and Bachelor Billy was alarmed. \"Bear up, lad,\" he\nsaid, \"bear up. We'll mak' the best o' it; an' they canna do much harm\ntill ye wi' Uncle Billy a-stannin' by.\"\n\nMrs. Maloney had come to her door and stood there, looking at the trio\nin sorrowful surprise.\n\n\"Good-by, Mrs. Maloney!\" said Ralph going up to her. \"It ain't likely\nI'll ever come back here any more, an' you've been very good to me,\nMrs. Maloney, very good indeed, an'--an'--good-by!\"\n\n\"An' where do ye be goin' Ralphy?\"\n\n\"Back to Gran'pa Simon's, I s'pose. He's come for me and he's got a\nright to take me.\"\n\nThe sheriff was looking uneasily at his watch. \"Come,\" he said, \"we'll\nhave to hurry to catch the train.\"\n\nThe good woman bent down and kissed the boy tenderly. \"Good-by to ye,\ndarlin',\" she said, \"an' the saints protict ye.\" Then she burst into\ntears, and, throwing her apron up before her face, she held it against\nher eyes and went, backward, into the house.\n\nRalph laid hold of Bachelor Billy's rough hand affectionately, and\nthey walked rapidly away.\n\nAt the bend in the street, the boy turned to look back for the last\ntime upon the cottage which had been his home. A happy home it had\nbeen to him, a very happy home indeed. He never knew before how dear\nthe old place was to him. The brow of the hill which they were now\ndescending hid the house at last from sight, and, with tear-blinded\neyes, Ralph turned his face again toward the city, toward the misery\nof the court-room, toward the desolate and dreadful prospect of a life\nwith Simon Craft.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX.\n\nBACK TO THE BREAKER.\n\n\nIt was a dull day in the court-room at Wilkesbarre. The jury trials\nhad all been disposed of, and for the last hour or more the court\nhad been listening to an argument on a rule for a new trial in an\nejectment case. It was a very uninteresting matter. Every one had\nleft the court-room with the exception of the court officers, a few\nlawyers, and a half-dozen spectators who seemed to be there for the\npurpose of resting on the benches rather than with any desire to hear\nthe proceedings before the court.\n\nThe lawyers on both sides had concluded their arguments, and the judge\nwas bundling together the papers in the case and trying to encircle\nthe bulky package with a heavy rubber band.\n\nThen the court-room door was opened, and the sheriff came down the\naisle, accompanied by Ralph and Bachelor Billy. A moment later, Simon\nCraft followed them to the bar. Sharpman, who was sitting inside the\nrailing by a table, looked up with disgust plainly marked on his face\nas the old man entered and sat down beside him.\n\nHe had prepared the petition for a writ of _habeas corpus_, at Craft's\nrequest, and had agreed to appear in his behalf when the writ should\nbe returned. He shared, in some small degree, the old man's desire for\nrevenge on those who had been instrumental in destroying their scheme.\nBut, as the day wore on, the matter took on a slightly different\naspect in his mind. In the first place, he doubted whether the court\nwould order Ralph to be returned into Craft's custody. In the next\nplace, he had no love for his client. He had been using him simply\nas a tool; it was time now to cast him aside since he could be of no\nfurther benefit to him. Besides, the old man had come to be annoying\nand repulsive, and he had no money to pay for legal services. Then,\nthere was still an opportunity to recover some of the personal\nprestige he had lost in his bitter advocacy of Craft's cause before\nthe jury. In short, he had deliberately resolved to desert his client\nat the first opportunity.\n\nThe sheriff endorsed his return on the writ and filed it.\n\nThe judge looked at the papers, and then he called Bachelor Billy\nbefore him. \"I see,\" he said, \"that you have produced the body of the\nboy Ralph as you were directed to do. Have you a lawyer?\"\n\n\"I ha' none,\" answered the man. \"I did na ken as I needit ony.\"\n\n\"We do not think you do, either, as we understand the case. The\nprothonotary will endorse a simple return on the writ, setting forth\nthe production of the boy, and you may sign it. We think that is all\nthat will be necessary on your part. Now you may be seated.\"\n\nThe judge turned to Sharpman.\n\n\"Well, Mr. Sharpman,\" he said, \"what have you to offer on the part of\nyour client?\"\n\nSharpman arose. \"If the court please,\" he responded, \"I would\nrespectfully ask to be allowed, at this juncture, to withdraw from\nthe case. I prepared and presented the petition as a matter of duty\nto a client. I do not conceive it to be my duty to render any further\nassistance. That client, either through ignorance or deception, has\nbeen the means of placing me in a false and unenviable light before\nthe court and before this community, in the suit which has just\nclosed. I have neither the desire nor the opportunity to set myself\nright in that matter, but I do wish and I have fully determined to\nwash my hands of the whole affair. From this time forth I shall have\nnothing to do with it.\"\n\nSharpman resumed his seat, while Craft stared at him in astonishment\nand with growing anger.\n\nHe could hardly believe that the man who had led him into this scheme,\nand whose unpardonable blunder had brought disaster on them both, was\nnow not only deserting him, but heaping ignominy on his head. Every\nmoment was adding to his bitterness and rage.\n\n\"Well, Mr. Craft,\" said the judge, \"what have you to offer in this\nmatter? Your attorney seems to have left you to handle the case for\nyourself; we will hear you.\"\n\n\"My attorney is a rascal,\" said Craft, white with passion, as he\narose. \"His part and presence in that trial was a curse on it from the\nbeginning. He wasn't satisfied to ruin me, but he must now seek to\ndisgrace me as well. He is--\"\n\nThe judge interrupted him:--\n\n\"We do not care to hear your opinion of Mr. Sharpman; we have neither\nthe time nor the disposition to listen to it. You caused this\ndefendant to produce before us the body of the boy Ralph. They are\nboth here; what further do you desire?\"\n\n\"I desire to take the boy home with me. The judgment of this court\nis that he is my grandson. In the absence of other persons legally\nentitled to take charge of him, I claim that right. I ask the court to\norder him into my custody.\"\n\nThe old man resumed his seat, and immediately fell into his customary\nfit of coughing.\n\nWhen he had recovered, the judge, who had in the meantime been writing\nrapidly, said:--\n\n\"We cannot agree with you, Mr. Craft, as to the law. Although the\npresumption may be that the jury based their verdict on the boy's\ntestimony that he is your grandson, yet their verdict does not state\nthat fact specifically, and we have nothing on the record to show it.\nIt would be necessary for you to prove that relation here and now, by\nnew and independent evidence, before we could place the boy in your\ncustody under any circumstances. But we shall save you the trouble of\ndoing so by deciding the matter on other grounds. The court has heard\nfrom your own lips, within a few days, that you are, or have been,\nengaged in a business such as to make thieving and lying a common\noccurrence in your life. The court has also heard from your own lips\nthat during the time this child was in your custody, you not only\ntreated him inhumanly as regarded his body, but that you put forth\nevery effort to destroy what has since proved itself to be a pure and\nsteadfast soul. A kind providence placed it in the child's power to\nescape from you, and the same providence led him to the door of a man\nwhose tenderness, whose honor, and whose nobility of character, no\nmatter how humble his station in life, marks him as one eminently\nworthy to care for the body and to minister to the spirit of a boy\nlike this.\n\n\"We feel that to take this lad now from his charge and to place him\nin yours, would be to do an act so utterly repugnant to justice, to\nhumanity, and to law, that, if done, it ought to drag us from this\nbench in disgrace. We have marked your petition dismissed; we have\nordered you to pay the cost of this proceeding, and we have remanded\nthe boy Ralph to the custody of William Buckley.\"\n\nSimon Craft said not a word. He rose from his chair, steadied himself\nfor a moment on his cane, then shuffled up the aisle, out at the door\nand down the hall into the street. Disappointment, anger, bitter\nhatred, raged in his heart and distorted his face. The weight of\nyears, of disease, of a criminal life, sat heavily upon him as he\ndragged himself miserably along the crowded thoroughfare, looking\nneither to the right nor the left, thinking only of the evil burden of\nhis own misfortunes. Now and then some one who recognized him stopped,\nturned, looked at him scornfully for a moment, and passed on. Then he\nwas lost to view. He was never seen in the city of Wilkesbarre again.\nHe left no friends behind him there. He was first ridiculed, then\ndespised, and then--forgotten.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt was two weeks after this before Ralph was able to return to his\nwork. So much excitement, so much mental distress and bodily fatigue\nin so short a time, had occasioned a severe shock to his system, and\nhe rallied from it but slowly.\n\nOne Monday morning, however, he went back to his accustomed work at\nthe breaker.\n\nHe had thought that perhaps he might be ridiculed by the screen-room\nboys as one who had tried to soar above his fellows and had fallen\nignominiously back to the earth. He expected to be greeted with\njeering words and with cutting remarks, not so much in the way of\nmalice as of fun. He resolved to take it calmly, however, and to give\nway to no show of feeling, hoping that thus the boys would soon forget\nto tease him.\n\nBut when he came among them that morning, looking so thin, and\npale, and old, there was not a boy in all the waiting crowd who had\nthe heart or hardihood to say an unpleasant word to him or to give\nutterance to a jest at his expense.\n\nThey all spoke kindly to him, and welcomed him back. Some of them did\nit very awkwardly indeed, and with much embarrassment, but they made\nhim to understand, somehow, that they were glad to see him, and that\nhe still held his place among them as a companion and a friend. It was\nvery good in them, Ralph thought, very good indeed; he could scarcely\nkeep the tears back for gratitude.\n\nHe took his accustomed bench in the screen-room, and bent to his task\nin the old way; but not with the old, light heart and willing fingers.\nHe had thought never to do this again. He had thought that life held\nfor him some higher, brighter, less laborious work. He had thought to\ngain knowledge, to win fame, to satisfy ambition. But the storm came\nwith its fierce blasts of disappointment and despair, and when it had\npassed, hope and joy were engulfed in the ruins it left behind it.\nHenceforth there remained nothing but this, this toilsome bending over\nstreams of flowing coal, to-day, to-morrow, next week, next year. And\nin the remote future nothing better; nothing but the laborer's pick\nand shovel, or, at best, the miner's drill and powder-can and fuse. In\nall the coming years there was not one bright spot to which he could\nlook, this day, with hope. The day itself seemed very long to him,\nvery long indeed and very tiresome. The heat grew burdensome; the\nblack dust filled his throat and lungs, the ceaseless noise became\nalmost unendurable; the stream of coal ran down and down in a dull\nmonotony that made him faint and dizzy, and the bits of blue sky seen\nfrom the open windows never yet had seemed to him to be so far and far\naway.\n\nBut the day had an end at last, as all days must have, and Ralph came\ndown from his seat in the dingy castle to walk with Bachelor Billy to\ntheir home.\n\nThey went by a path that led through green fields, where the light of\nthe setting sun, falling on the grass and daisies, changed them to a\ngolden yellow as one looked on them from the distance.\n\nWhen they turned the corner of the village street, they were surprised\nto see horses and a carriage standing in front of Mrs. Maloney's\ncottage. It was an unaccustomed sight. There was a lady there talking\nto Mrs. Maloney, and she had a little girl by her side. At the second\nlook, Ralph recognized them as Mrs. Burnham and Mildred. Then the lady\ndescended from her carriage and stood at the door waiting for Bachelor\nBilly and the boy to come to her. But Ralph, looking down at his black\nhands and soiled clothing, hesitated and stopped in the middle of the\nroad. He knew that his face, too, was so covered with coal-dust as to\nbe almost unrecognizable. He felt that he ought not to appear before\nMrs. Burnham in this guise.\n\nBut she saw his embarrassment and called to him.\n\n\"I came to see you, Ralph,\" she said. \"I want to talk to you both. May\nI go into your house and find a chair?\"\n\nBoth boy and man hurried forward then with kindly greetings, and\nBachelor Billy unlocked the door and bade her enter.\n\nShe went in and sat in the big rocking-chair, looking pale and weak,\nwhile Ralph hurried away to wash the black dust from his face and\nhands.\n\n\"Ye were verra kind, Mistress Burnham,\" said the man, \"to sen' Ralph\nthe gude things to eat when he waur sick. An' the perty roses ye gie'd\n'im,--he never tired o' watchin' 'em.\"\n\n\"I should have come myself to see him,\" she replied, \"only that I too\nhave been ill. I thought to send such little delicacies as might tempt\nhis appetite. I knew that he must be quite exhausted after so great a\nstrain upon his nervous system. The excitement wore me out, and I had\nno such struggle as he had. I am glad he has rallied from the shock.\"\n\n\"He's not ower strang yet; ye ken that by lukin' at 'im; but he's a\nbraw lad, a braw lad.\"\n\nThe lady turned and looked earnestly into Bachelor Billy's face.\n\n\"He's the bravest boy,\" she said, \"the very bravest boy I ever knew\nor heard, of, and the very best. I want him, Billy; I have come here\nto-night to ask you if I may have him. Son or no son, he is very dear\nto me, and I feel that I cannot do without him.\"\n\nFor a minute the man was silent. Down deep in his heart there had been\na spark of rejoicing at the probability that Ralph would stay with him\nnow indefinitely. He had pushed it as far out of sight as possible,\nbecause it was a selfish rejoicing, and he felt that it was not right\nsince it came as a result of the boy's misfortune.\n\nAnd now suddenly the fear of loss had quenched it entirely, and the\ndread of being left alone came back upon him in full force.\n\nHe bit his lip before replying, to help hold back his mingled feeling\nof pleasure at the bright prospect opening for Ralph, and of pain for\nthe separation which must follow.\n\n\"I dinna ken,\" he said at last, \"how aught could be better for the\nlad than bein' wi' ye. Ye're ower kin' to think o' it. It'll be hard\npartin' wi' im, but, if the lad wishes it, he s'all gae. I ha'\nno claim on 'im only to do what's best for 'im as I ken it. He's\na-comin'; he'll speak for 'imsel'.\"\n\nRalph came back into the room with face and hands as clean as a\nhurried washing could make them. \"What thenk ye,\" said Bachelor Billy\nto him, \"that the lady wants for ye to do?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" replied the boy, looking uneasily from one to the\nother; \"but she's been very good to me, an', whatever it is, I'll try\nto do it.\"\n\n\"I want you to go home with me, Ralph,\" said Mrs. Burnham, \"and live\nwith me and be my son. I am not sure yet that you are not my child. We\nshall find that out. With the new light we have we shall make a new\nsearch for proofs of your identity, but that may take weeks, perhaps\nmonths. In the meantime I cannot do without you. I want you to come to\nme now, and, whatever the result of this new investigation may be, I\nwant you to stay with me and be my son. Will you come?\"\n\nShe had taken both the boy's hands and had drawn him to her, and was\nlooking up into his face with tenderness and longing.\n\nRalph could not speak. He was dumb with the joy of hearing her kindly\nearnest words. A light of great gladness broke in upon his mind. The\nworld had become bright and beautiful once more. He was not to be\nwithout home and love and learning after all. Then came second\nthoughts, bringing doubt, hesitancy, mental struggling.\n\nStill he was silent, looking out through the open door to the eastern\nhills, where the sunlight lingered lovingly with golden radiance. On\nthe boy's face the lights and shadows, coming and going, marked the\nprogress of the conflict in his mind.\n\nThe lady put her arm around him and drew him closer to her, regardless\nof his soiled and dusty clothing. She was still looking into his eyes.\n\n\"You will come, will you not, Ralph? We want you so much, so very\nmuch; do we not, Mildred?\" she asked, turning to her little daughter,\nwho stood at the other side of her chair.\n\n\"Indeed we do,\" answered the child. \"Mamma wants you an' I want you.\nI don't have anybody to play wiv me half the time, 'cept Towser; an'\nyeste'day I asked Towser if he wanted you, an' Towser said 'bow,' an'\nthat means 'yes.'\"\n\n\"There! you see we all want you, Ralph,\" said Mrs. Burnham, smiling;\n\"the entire family wants you. Now, you will come, won't you?\"\n\nThe boy had looked across to the little girl, over to Bachelor Billy,\nwho stood leaning against the mantel, and then down again into the\nlady's eyes. It was almost pitiful to look into his face and see the\nstrong emotion outlined there, marking the fierceness of the conflict\nin his mind between a great desire for honest happiness and a stern\nand manly sense of the right and proper thing for him to do. At last\nhe spoke.\n\n\"Mrs. Burnham,\" he said, in a sharp voice, \"I can't, I can't!\"\n\nA look of surprise and pain came into the lady's face.\n\n\"Why, Ralph!\" she exclaimed, \"I thought,--I hoped you would be glad\nto go. We would be very good to you; we would try to make you very\nhappy.\"\n\n\"An' I'll give you half of ev'ry nice thing I have!\" spoke out the\ngirl, impetuously.\n\n\"I know, I know!\" responded Ralph, \"it'd be beautiful, just as it was\nthat Sunday I was there; an' I'd like to go,--you don't know how I'd\nlike to,--but I can't! Oh, no! I can't!\"\n\nBachelor Billy was leaning forward, watching the boy intently,\nsurprise and admiration marking his soiled face.\n\n\"Then, why will you not come?\" persisted the lady. \"What reason have\nyou, if we can all be happy?\"\n\nRalph stood for a moment in deep thought.\n\n\"I can't tell you,\" he said, at last. \"I don't know just how to\nexplain it, but, some way, after all this that's happened, it don't\nseem to me as though I'd ought to go, it don't seem to me as though\nit'd be just right; as though it'd be a-doin' what--what--Oh! I can't\ntell you. I can't explain it to you so'st you can understand. But I\nmus'n't go; indeed, I mus'n't!\"\n\nAt last, however, the lady understood and was silent.\n\nShe had not thought before how this proposal, well meant though it\nwas, might jar upon the lad's fine sense of honor and of the fitness\nof things. She had not realized, until this moment, how a boy,\npossessing so delicate a nature as Ralph's, might feel to take a\nposition now, to which a court and jury had declared he was not\nentitled, to which he himself had acknowledged, and to which every one\nknew he was not entitled.\n\nHe had tried to gain the place by virtue of a suit at law, he had\ncalled upon the highest power in the land to put him into it, and his\neffort had not only ended in ignominious failure, but had left him\nstamped as a lineal descendant of one whose very name had become a\nby-word and a reproach. How could he now, with the remotest sense of\nhonor or of pride, step into the place that should have been occupied\nby Robert Burnham's son?\n\nThe lady could not urge him any more, knowing what his thought was.\nShe could only say:--\n\n\"Yes, Ralph; I understand. I am very, very sorry. I love you just the\nsame, but I cannot ask you now to go with me. I can only hope for a\nday when we shall know, and the world shall know, that you are my son.\nYou would come to me then, would you not, Ralph?\"\n\n\"Indeed I would!\" he said. \"Oh, _indeed_ I would!\"\n\nShe drew his head down upon her bosom and kissed his lips again\nand again; then she released him and rose to go. She inquired very\ntenderly about his health, about his work, about his likes in\nthe way of books and food and clothing; and one could see that,\nnotwithstanding her resolution to leave Ralph with Bachelor Billy, she\nstill had many plans in her mind, for his comfort and happiness. She\ncharged Billy to be very careful of the boy; she kissed him again, and\nMildred kissed him, and then they stepped into the carriage and the\nrestless brown horses drew them rapidly away.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX.\n\nTHE FIRE IN THE SHAFT.\n\n\nA boy with Ralph's natural courage and spirit could not remain long\ndespondent. Ambition came back to him with the summer days, and hope\nfound an abiding place in his breast once more. It was not, indeed,\nthe old ambition to be rich and learned and famous, nor the hope that\nhe should yet be surrounded with beauty in a home made bright by a\nmother's love.\n\nAll these things, though they had not faded from his mind, were\nthought of only as sweet dreams of the past. His future, as he looked\nout upon it now, did not hold them; yet it was a future that had in\nit no disappointment, no desolation, no despair. The path before him\nwas a very humble one, indeed, but he resolved to tread it royally.\nBecause the high places and the beautiful things of earth were not for\nhim was no reason why he should sit and mourn his fate in cheerless\ninactivity. He determined to be up and doing, with the light and\nenergy that he had, looking constantly ahead for more. He knew that in\nAmerica there is always something better for the very humblest toiler\nto anticipate, and that, with courage, hope, and high endeavor to\nassist him, he is sure to reach his goal.\n\nRalph resolved, at any rate, to do all that lay in his power toward\nthe attainment of useful and honorable manhood. He did not set his\nmark so very high, but the way to it was rough with obstacles and\nbordered with daily toil.\n\nHis plan was, simply to find better places for himself about the\nbreaker and the mines, as his age and strength would permit, and so to\ndo his work as to gain the confidence of his employers. When he should\nbecome old enough, he would be a miner's laborer, then a miner, and\nperhaps, eventually, he might rise to the position of a mine boss.\nHe would improve his leisure with self study, get what schooling he\ncould, and, finally, as the height of his ambition, he hoped that,\nsome day, he might become a mining engineer; able to sink shafts, to\ndirect headings, to map out the devious courses of the mine, or to\nbuild great breakers like the one in which he spent his days.\n\nHaving marked out his course he began to follow it. He labored\nearnestly and with a will. The breaker boss said that no cleaner coal\nwas emptied into the cars at the loading place than that which came\ndown through Ralph's chute.\n\nHis plan was successful as it was bound to be, and it was not long\nbefore a better place was offered to him. It was that of a driver boy\nin the mine below the breaker. He accepted it; the wages were much\nbetter than those he was now receiving, and it was a long step ahead\ntoward the end he had in view.\n\nBut the work was new and strange to him. He did not like it. He did\nnot think, at first, that he ever could like it. It was so dark in\nthe mines, so desolate, so lonely. He grew accustomed to the place,\nhowever, as the days went by, and then he began not to mind it so\nmuch after all. He had more responsibility here, but the work was not\nso tiresome and monotonous as it had been in the screen-room, and he\ncould be in motion all the time.\n\nHe went down the shaft every morning with a load of miners and\nlaborers, carrying his whip and his dinner-pail, and a lighted lamp\nfastened to the front of his cap. When he reached the bottom of\nthe shaft he hurried to the inside plane, and up the slope to the\nstables to get his mule. The mule's name was Jasper. Nobody knew why\nhe had been named Jasper, but when Ralph called him by that name he\nalways came to him. He was a very intelligent animal, but he had\nan exceedingly bad habit of kicking.\n\nIt was Ralph's duty to take the mule from the stable, to fasten him\nto a trip of empty mine cars, and to make him draw them to the little\ncluster of chambers at the end of the branch that turned off from the\nupper-level heading.\n\nThis was the farthest point from the shaft in the entire mine. The\ndistance from the head of the plane alone was more than a mile, and\nit was from the head of the plane that Ralph took the cars. When he\nreached the end of his route he left one car of his trip at the foot\nof each chamber in which it was needed, gathered together into a new\ntrip the loaded cars that had been pushed down to the main track for\nhim, and started back with them to the head of the plane.\n\nHe usually made from eight to ten round trips a day; stopping at noon,\nor thereabouts, to eat the dinner with which the Widow Maloney had\nfilled his pail. All the driver boys on that level gathered at the\nhead of the plane to eat their dinners, and, during the noon-hour,\nthe place was alive with shouts and songs and pranks and chattering\nwithout limit. These boys were older, stronger, ruder than those in\nthe screen-room; but they were no less human and good-hearted; only\none needed to look beneath the rough exterior into their real natures.\nThere were eight of them who took trips in by Ralph's heading, but,\nfor the last half-mile of his route, he was the only driver boy. It\nwas a lonesome half-mile too, with no working chambers along it,\nand Ralph was always glad when he reached the end of it. There was,\nusually, plenty of life, though, up in the workings to which he\ndistributed his cars. One could look up from the air-way and see the\nlights dancing in the darkness at the breast of every chamber. There\nwas always the sharp tap, tap of the drill, the noise of the sledge\nfalling heavily on the huge lumps of coal, sometimes a sudden rush of\nair against one's face, followed by a dull report and crash that told\nof the firing of a blast, and now and then a miner's laborer would\ncome running a loaded car down to the heading or go pushing an empty\none back up the chamber.\n\nThere was a laborer up in one of these chambers with whom Ralph had\nformed quite a friendship. His name was Michael Conway. He was young\nand strong-limbed, with huge hairy arms, a kind face, and a warm\nheart.\n\nHe had promised to teach Ralph the art of breaking and loading coal.\nHe expected, he said, to have a chamber himself after a while, and\nthen he would take the boy on as a laborer. Indeed, Ralph had already\nlearned many things from him about the use of tools and the handling\nof coal and the setting of props. But he did not often have an\nopportunity to see Conway at work. The chamber in which the young man\nwas laboring was the longest one in the tier, and the loaded car was\nusually at the foot of it when Ralph arrived with his trip of lights;\nso that he had only to run the empty car up into the air-way a few\nfeet, take on the loaded one, and start back toward the plane.\n\nBut one afternoon, when he came up with his last trip for the day, he\nfound no load at the foot of Conway's chamber, and, after waiting a\nfew minutes, he went up to the face to investigate. He found Conway\nthere alone. The miner for whom the young man worked had fallen sick\nand had gone out earlier than usual, so his laborer had finished\nthe blast at which the employer had been at work. It was a blast of\ntop-coal, and therefore it took longer to get it down and break it up.\nThis accounted for the delay.\n\n\"Come up here with ye,\" said Conway to the boy; \"I want to show ye\nsomething.\"\n\nRalph climbed up on to the shelf of coal at the breast of the chamber,\nand the man, tearing away a few pieces of slate and a few handfuls of\ndirt from a spot in the upper face, disclosed an opening in the wall\nscarcely larger than one's head. A strong current of air coursed\nthrough it, and when Conway put his lamp against it the flame was\nextinguished in a moment.\n\n\"Where does it go to?\" asked Ralph.\n\n\"I don't just know, but I think it must go somewhere into the workin's\nfrom old No. 1 slope. The boss, he was in this mornin', and he said he\nthought we must be a-gettin' perty close to them old chambers.\"\n\n\"Does anybody work in there?\"\n\n\"Oh, bless ye, no! They robbed the pillars tin years ago an' more; I\ndoubt an ye could get through it at all now. It's one o' the oldest\nplaces in the valley, I'm thinkin'. D'ye mind the old openin' ye can\nsee in the side-hill when ye're goin' up by Tom Ballard's to the\nDunmore road?\"\n\n\"Yes, that's where Uncle Billy worked when he was a miner.\"\n\n\"Did he, thin! Well, that's where they wint in. It's a long way from\nhere though, I'm thinkin'.\"\n\n\"Awful strong wind goin' in there, ain't they?\"\n\n\"Yes, I must block it up again, or it'll take all our air away.\"\n\n\"What'll your miner do to-morrow when he finds this place?\"\n\n\"Oh, he'll have to get another chamber, I guess.\"\n\nThe man was fastening up the opening again with pieces of slate and\ncoal, and plastering it over with loose wet dirt.\n\n\"Well,\" said Ralph, \"I'll have to go now. Jasper's gettin' in a hurry.\nDon't you hear 'im?\"\n\nConway helped the boy to push the loaded car down the chamber and\nfasten it to his trip.\n\n\"I'll not be here long,\" said the man as he turned back into the\nair-way, \"I'll take this light in, an' pick things up a bit, an' quit.\nMaybe I'll catch ye before ye get to the plane.\"\n\n\"All right! I'll go slow. Hurry up; everybody else has gone out, you\nknow.\"\n\nAfter a moment Ralph heard Conway pushing the empty car up the\nchamber, then he climbed up on his trip, took the reins, said,\n\"giddep\" to Jasper, and they started on the long journey out. For\nsome reason it seemed longer than usual this night. But Ralph did not\nurge his beast. He went slowly, hoping that Conway would overtake him\nbefore he reached the plane.\n\nHe looked back frequently, but Mike, as every one called him, was not\nyet in sight.\n\nThe last curve was reached, and, as the little trip rounded it,\nRalph's attention was attracted by a light which was being waved\nrapidly in the distance ahead of him. Some one was shouting, too. He\nstopped the mule, and held the cars back to listen, but the sound\nwas so broken by intervening pillars and openings that all he could\ncatch was: \"Hurry! hurry--up!\" He laid the whip on Jasper's back\nenergetically, and they went swiftly to the head of the plane. There\nwas no one there when he reached it, but half-way down the incline he\nsaw the light again, and up the broad, straight gallery came the cry\nof danger distinctly to his ears.\n\n\"Hurry! hurry! The breaker's afire! The shaft's a-burnin'!--run!\"\n\nInstinctively Ralph unhitched the mule, dropped the trace-chains,\nand ran down the long incline of the plane. He reached the foot,\nrounded the curve, and came into sight of the bottom of the shaft.\nA half-dozen or more of men and boys were there, crowding in toward\nthe carriage-way, with fear stamped on their soiled faces, looking\nanxiously up for the descending carriage.\n\n\"Ralph, ye're lucky!\" shouted some one to the boy as he stepped\nbreathless and excited into the group. \"Ye're just in time for\nthe last carriage. It'll not come down but this once, again. It's\na-gettin' too hot up there to run it Ye're the last one from the end\nchambers, too. Here, step closer!\"\n\nThen Ralph thought of Conway.\n\n\"Did Mike come out?\" he asked. \"Mike Conway?\"\n\nAs he spoke a huge fire-brand fell from the shaft at their feet,\nscattering sparks and throwing out smoke. The men drew back a little,\nand no one answered Ralph's question.\n\n\"Has Mike Conway come out yet?\" he repeated.\n\n\"Yes, long ago; didn't he, Jimmy?\" replied some one, turning to the\nfootman.\n\n\"Mike Conway? no it was Mike Corcoran that went out. Is Conway back\nyet?\"\n\n\"He is!\" exclaimed Ralph, \"he is just a-comin'. I'll tell 'im to\nhurry.\"\n\nAnother blazing stick fell as the lad darted out from among the men\nand ran toward the foot of the plane.\n\n\"Come back, Ralph!\" shouted some one, \"come back; ye've no time; the\ncarriage is here!\"\n\n\"Hold it a minute!\" answered the boy, \"just a minute; I'll see 'im on\nthe plane.\"\n\nThe carriage struck the floor of the mine heavily and threw a shower\nof blazing fragments from its iron roof. At the same moment a man\nappeared from a lower entrance and hurried toward the group.\n\n\"It's Conway!\" cried some one; \"he's come across by the sump. Ralph!\nho, Ralph!\"\n\n\"Why, where's Ralph?\" asked Conway, as he crowded on to the carriage.\n\n\"Gone to the plane to warn ye,\" was the answer.\"\n\n\"Wait the hoisting bell, then, till I get 'im.\"\n\nBut the carriage was already moving slowly upward.\n\n\"You can't do it!\" shouted some one.\n\n\"Then I'll stay with 'im!\" cried Conway, trying to push his way off.\n\"Ralph, oh, Ralph!\"\n\nBut the man was held to his place by strong arms, and the next moment\nthe smoking, burning carriage was speeding up the shaft for the last\ntime.\n\nRalph reached the foot of the plane and looked up it, but he saw no\nlight in the darkness there. Before he had time to think what he\nshould do next, he heard a shout from the direction of the shaft:--\n\n\"Ralph! oh, Ralph!\"\n\nIt was Conway's voice. He recognized it. He had often heard that voice\ncoming from the breast of Mike's chamber, in kindly greeting.\n\nQuick as thought he turned on his heel and started back. He flew\naround the curve like a shadow.\n\n\"Wait!\" he cried, \"wait a minute; I'm a-comin'!\"\n\nAt the foot of the shaft there was a pile of blazing sticks, but there\nwas no carriage there, nor were there any men. He stumbled into the\nvery flames in his eagerness, and called wildly up the dark opening:\n\n\"Wait! come back! oh, wait!\"\n\nBut the whirring, thumping noise of a falling body was the only answer\nthat came to him, and he darted back in time to escape destruction\nfrom a huge flaming piece of timber that struck the floor of the mine\nwith a great noise, and sent out a perfect shower of sparks.\n\nBut they might send the carriage down again if he rang for it.\n\nHe ran across and seized the handle of the bell wire and pulled it\nwith all his might. The wire gave way somewhere above him and came\ncoiling down upon his head. He threw it from him and turned again\ntoward the opening of the shaft. Then the carriage did descend. It\ncame down the shaft for the last time in its brief existence, came\nlike a thunderbolt, struck the floor of the mine with a great shock\nand--collapsed. It was just a mass of fragments covered by an iron\nroof--that was all. On top of it fell a storm of blazing sticks and\ntimbers, filling up the space at the foot, piling a mass of wreckage\nhigh into the narrow confines of the shaft.\n\nRalph retreated to the footman's bench, and sat there looking vaguely\nat the burning heap and listening to the crash of falling bodies, and\nthe deep roar of the flames that coursed upward out of sight. He could\nhardly realize the danger of his situation, it had all come upon him\nso suddenly. He knew, however, that he was probably the only human\nbeing in the mine, that the only way of escape was by the shaft, and\nthat that was blocked.\n\nBut he did not doubt for a moment that he would be rescued in time.\nThey would come down and get him, he knew, as soon as the shaft could\nbe cleared out. The crashing still continued, but it was not so loud\nnow, indicating, probably, that the burning wreckage had reached to a\ngreat height in the shaft.\n\nThe rubbish at the foot had become so tightly wedged to the floor of\nthe mine that it had no chance to burn, and by and by the glow from\nthe burning wood was entirely extinguished, the sparks sputtered and\nwent out, and darkness settled slowly down again upon the place.\n\nRalph still sat there, because that was the spot nearest to where\nhuman beings were, and that was the way of approach when they should\ncome to rescue him.\n\nAt last there was only the faint glimmer from his own little lamp\nto light up the gloom, and the noises in the shaft had died almost\nentirely away.\n\nThen came a sense of loneliness and desolation to be added to his\nfear. Silence and darkness are great promoters of despondency. But he\nstill hoped for the best.\n\nAfter a time he became aware that he was sitting in an atmosphere\ngrowing dense with smoke. The air current had become reversed, at\nintervals, and had sent the smoke pouring out from among the charred\ntimbers in dense volumes. It choked the boy, and he was obliged to\nmove. Instinctively he made his way along the passage to which he was\nmost accustomed toward the foot of the plane.\n\nHere he stopped and seated himself again, but he did not stay long.\nThe smoke soon reached him, surrounded him, and choked him again. He\nwalked slowly up the plane. When he reached the head he was tired and\nhis limbs were trembling. He went across to the bench by the wheel and\nsat down on it. He thought to wait here until help should come.\n\nHe felt sure that he would be rescued; miners never did these things\nby halves, and he knew that, sooner or later, he should leave the mine\nalive. The most that he dreaded now was the waiting, the loneliness,\nthe darkness, the hunger perhaps, the suffering it might be, from\nsmoke and foul air.\n\nIn the darkness back of him he heard a noise. It sounded like heavy\nirregular stepping. He was startled at first, but it soon occurred\nto him that the sounds were made by the mule which he had left there\nuntied.\n\nHe was right. In another moment Jasper appeared with his head\nstretched forward, sniffing the air curiously, and looking in a\nfrightened way at Ralph.\n\n\"Hello, Jasper!\"\n\nThe boy spoke cheerily, because he was relieved from sudden fright,\nand because he was glad to see in the mine a living being whom he\nknew, even though it was only a mule.\n\nThe beast came forward and pushed his nose against Ralph's breast\nas if seeking sympathy, and the boy put up his hand and rubbed the\nanimal's face.\n\n\"We're shut in, Jasper,\" he said, \"the breaker's burned, an' things\nafire have tumbled down the shaft an' we can't get out till they clean\nit up an' come for us.\"\n\nThe mule raised his head and looked around him, then he rested his\nnose against Ralph's shoulder again.\n\n\"We'll stay together, won't we, old fellow? We'll keep each other\ncompany till they come for us. I'm glad I found you, Jasper; I'm very\nglad.\"\n\nHe patted the beast's neck affectionately; then he removed the bridle\nfrom his head, unbuckled the harness and slipped it down to the\nground, and tried to get the collar off; but it would not come. He\nturned it and twisted it and pulled it, but he could not get it over\nthe animal's ears. He gave up trying at last, and after laying the\nremainder of the harness up against the wheel-frame, he sat down on\nthe bench again.\n\nExcept the occasional quick stamping of Jasper's feet, there was no\nsound, and Ralph sat for a long time immersed in thought.\n\nThe mule had been gazing contemplatively down the plane into the\ndarkness; finally he turned and faced toward the interior of the mine.\nIt was evident that he did not like the contaminated air that was\ncreeping up the slope. Ralph, too, soon felt the effect of it; it\nmade his head light and dizzy, and the smoke with which it was laden\nbrought back the choking sensation into his throat. He knew that he\nmust go farther in. He rose and went slowly along the heading, over\nhis accustomed route, until he reached a bench by a door that opened\ninto the air-way. Here he sat down again. He was tired and was\nbreathing heavily. A little exertion seemed to exhaust him so. He\ncould not quite understand it. He remembered when he had run all the\nway from the plane to the north chambers with only a quickening of the\nbreath as the result. He was not familiar with the action of vitiated\nair upon the system.\n\nJasper had followed him; so closely indeed that the beast's nose had\noften touched the boy's shoulder as they walked.\n\nRalph's lamp seemed to weigh heavily on his head, and he unfastened it\nfrom his cap and placed it on the bench beside him.\n\nThen he fell to thinking again. He thought how anxious Bachelor Billy\nwould be about him, and how he would make every effort to accomplish\nhis rescue. He hoped that his Uncle Billy would be the first one to\nreach him when the way was opened; that would be very pleasant for\nthem both.\n\nMrs. Burnham would be anxious about him too. He knew that she would;\nshe had been very kind to him of late, very kind indeed, and she came\noften to see him.\n\nThen the memory of Robert Burnham came back to him. He thought of the\nway he looked and talked, of his kind manner and his gentle words. He\nremembered how, long ago, he had resolved to strive toward the perfect\nmanhood exemplified in this man's life. He wondered if he had done the\nbest he could. The scenes and incidents of the day on which this good\nman died recurred to him.\n\nWhy, it was at this very door that the little rescuing party had\nturned off to go up into the easterly tier of chambers. Ralph had not\nbeen up there since. He had often thought to go over again the route\ntaken on that day, but he had never found the time to do so. He had\ntime enough at his disposal now, however; why not make the trip up\nthere? it would be better than sitting here in idleness to wait for\nsome sign of rescue.\n\nHe arose and opened the door.\n\nThe mule made as if to follow him.\n\n\"You stay here, Jasper,\" he said, \"I won't be gone long.\"\n\nHe shut the door in the animal's face and started off up the\nside-heading. There had not been much travel on this road during the\nlast year. Most of the chambers in this part of the mine had been\nworked out and abandoned.\n\nAs the boy passed on he recalled the incidents of the former journey.\nHe came to a place where the explosion at that time had blown out the\nprops and shaken down the roof until the passage was entirely blocked.\n\nHe remembered that they had turned there and had gone up into a\nchamber to try to get in through the entrances. But they had found the\nentrances all blocked, and the men had set to work to make an opening\nthrough one of them. Ralph recalled the scene very distinctly. With\nwhat desperate energy those men worked, tearing away the stones\nand dirt with their hands in order to get in the sooner to their\nunfortunate comrades.\n\nHe remembered that while they were doing this Robert Burnham had\nseated himself on a fallen prop, had torn a leaf from his memorandum\nbook and had asked Ralph to hold his lamp near by, so that he could\nsee to write. He filled one side of the leaf, half of the other side,\nfolded it, addressed it, and placed it in the pocket of his vest. Then\nhe went up and directed the enlargement of the opening and crawled\nthrough with the rest. Here was the entrance, and here was the\nopening, just as it had been left. Ralph clambered through it and went\ndown to the fall. The piled-up rocks were before him, as he had seen\nthem that day. Nothing had been disturbed.\n\nOn the floor of the mine was something that attracted his attention.\nHe stooped and picked it up. It was a piece of paper.\n\nThere was writing on it in pencil, much faded now, but still distinct\nenough to be read. He held his lamp to it and examined it more\nclosely. He could read writing very well, and this was written\nplainly. He began to read it aloud:--\n\n    \"My DEAR WIFE,--I desire to supplement the letter sent to you from\n    the office with this note written in the mine during a minute of\n    waiting. I want to tell you that our Ralph is living; that he is\n    here with me, standing this moment at my side.\"\n\nThe paper dropped from the boy's trembling fingers, and he stood for\na minute awe-struck and breathless. Then he picked up the note and\nexamined it again. It was the very one that Robert Burnham had written\non the day of his death. Ralph recognized it by the crossed lines of\nred and blue marking the page into squares.\n\nWithout thinking that there might be any impropriety in doing so, he\ncontinued to read the letter as fast as his wildly beating heart and\nhis eyes clouded with mist would let him.\n\n    \"I have not time to tell you why and how I know, but, believe me,\n    Margaret, there is no mistake. He is Ralph, the slate-picker,\n    of whom I told you, who lives with Bachelor Billy. If he should\n    survive this trying journey, take him immediately and bring him up\n    as our son; if he should die, give him proper burial. We have set\n    out on a perilous undertaking and some of us may not live through\n    it. I write this note in case I should not see you again. It will\n    be found on my person. Do not allow any one to persuade you that\n    this boy is not our son. I _know_ he is. I send love and greeting\n    to you. I pray for God's mercy and blessing on you and on our\n    children.\n\n    \"ROBERT.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI.\n\nA PERILOUS PASSAGE.\n\n\nFor many minutes Ralph stood, like one in a dream, holding the slip of\npaper tightly in his grasp. Then there came upon him, not suddenly,\nbut very gently and sweetly, as the morning sunlight breaks into a\nwestern valley, the broad assurance that he was Robert Burnham's son.\nHere was the declaration of that fact over the man's own signature.\nThat was enough; there was no need for him to question the writer's\nsources of knowledge. Robert Burnham had been his ideal of truth and\nhonor; he would have believed his lightest word against the solemn\nasseveration of thousands.\n\nThe flimsy lie coined by Rhyming Joe no longer had place in his mind.\nHe cared nothing now for the weakness of Sharpman, for the cunning of\nCraft, for the verdict of the jury, for the judgment of the court; he\n_knew_, at last, that he was Robert Burnham's son, and no power on\nearth could have shaken that belief by the breadth of a single hair.\n\nThe scene on the descending carriage the day his father died came back\ninto his mind. He thought how the man had grasped his hands, crying,\nin a voice deep and earnest with conviction:--\n\n\"Ralph! Ralph! I have found you!\"\n\nHe had not understood it then; he knew now what it meant.\n\nHe raised the paper to the level of his eyes, and read, again and\nagain, the convincing words:--\n\n    \"Do not allow any one to persuade you that this boy is not our\n    son. I _know_ he is.\"\n\nThen Ralph felt again that honest pride in his blood and in his\nname, and that high ambition to be worthy of his parentage, that had\ninspired him in the days gone by. Again he looked forward into the\nbright future, to the large fulfilment of all his hopes and desires,\nto learning, culture, influence, the power to do good; above all, to\nthe sweetness of a life with his own mother, in the home where he had\nspent one beautiful day.\n\nHe had drawn himself to his full height; every muscle was tense, his\nhead was erect with proud knowledge, high hope flashed from his eyes,\ngladness dwelt in every feature of his face.\n\nThen, suddenly, the light went out from his countenance, and the old\nlook of pain came back there.\n\nHis face had changed with his changing thought as it did that day\nin the court-room at Wilkesbarre. The fact of his imprisonment had\nreturned into his mind, and for the moment it overcame him. He sat\ndown on a jutting rock to consider it. Of what use was it to be Robert\nBurnham's son, with two hundred feet of solid rock between him and the\noutside world, and the only passage through it blocked with burned and\nbroken timbers?\n\nFor a time despondency darkened his mind and despair sat heavily upon\nhim. He even wished that the joy of this new knowledge had not come to\nhim. It made the depth of his present misfortune seem so much greater.\n\nBut, after a while, he took heart again; courage came back to him; the\nbelief that he would be finally saved grew stronger in his mind; hope\nburned up brightly in his breast, and the pride of parentage within\nhim filled him with ambition to do what lay in his power to accomplish\nhis own deliverance. It was little he could do, indeed, save to wait\nwith patience and in hope until outside help should come, but this\nlittle, he resolved, should be done with a will, as befitted his birth\nand position.\n\nHe folded the precious bit of paper he had found and fastened it in\nhis waistcoat pocket so that he should not lose it as Robert Burnham\nhad lost it; then he took up his lamp and went back through the\nhalf-walled entrance, down the chamber and along the side-heading to\nthe air-way door where Jasper had been left.\n\nThere was a small can of oil sitting just inside the door-way. It\nwas the joint property of Ralph and the door-boy. It was fortunate,\nhe thought, that he had selected that place for it, as he was now in\ngreat need of it. He filled his lamp, from which the oil had become\nnearly exhausted, and then passed out through the door.\n\nThe mule was still there and uttered a hoarse sound of welcome when he\nsaw the boy.\n\n\"I found somethin' up there, Jasper,\" said Ralph, as he sat down\non the bench and began to pat the beast's neck again, \"somethin'\nwonderful; I wish I could tell you so you could understand it; it's\ntoo bad you can't, Jasper; I know you'd be glad.\"\n\nThe mule seemed to recognize the pleasantness of the lad's voice and\nto enjoy it, and for a long time Ralph sat there petting him and\ntalking to him.\n\nFinally, he became aware that the air about him was growing to be very\nbad. It made him feel sick and dizzy, and caused his heart to beat\nrapidly.\n\nHe knew that he must go farther in. He thought, however, to make an\nattempt to get out toward the shaft first. It might be that it had\ngrown clearer out there, it might be that the rescuers were already\nworking down toward him. He started rapidly down the heading, but\nbefore he had gone half-way to the head of the plane, the smoke and\nthe foul air were so dense and deadly that he had to stop and to crawl\naway from it on his hands and knees. He was greatly exhausted when he\nreached the air-way door again, and he sat on the bench for a long\ntime to rest and to recover.\n\nBut he knew that it was dangerous to remain there now, and, taking the\ncan of oil with him, he started slowly up the heading. He did not know\nhow soon he should get back here, and when the oil in his lamp should\ngive out again he desired to be able to renew it.\n\nThe mule was following closely behind him. It was a great comfort,\ntoo, to have a living being with him for company. He might have been\nshut up here alone, and that would have been infinitely worse.\n\nAt the point where the branch leading to the new chambers left the\nmain heading, Ralph turned in, following his accustomed route.\nIt seemed to him that he ought to go to places with which he was\nfamiliar.\n\nHe trudged along through the half-mile of gang-way that he had always\nfound so lonely when he was at work, stopping now and then to rest.\nFor, although he walked very slowly, he grew tired very easily. He\nfelt that he was not getting into a purer atmosphere either. The air\naround him seemed to lack strength and vitality; and when, at last, he\nreached the tier of chambers that it had been his duty to supply with\ncars, he was suffering from dizziness, from shortness of breath, and\nfrom rapid beating of the heart.\n\nAt the foot of Conway's chamber Ralph found a seat. He was very weak\nand tired and his whole frame was in a tremor.\n\nHe began to recall all that he had heard and read about people being\nsuffocated in the mines; all the stories that had ever been told to\nhim about miners being shut in by accident and poisoned with foul air,\nor rescued at the point of death. He knew that his own situation was\na critical one. He knew that, with the shaft crowded full of wreckage\nand giving no passage to the air, the entire mine would eventually\nbecome filled with poisonous gases. He knew that his present physical\ncondition was due to the foulness of the atmosphere he was breathing.\nHe felt that the situation was becoming rapidly more alarming. The\nonly question now was as to how long this vitiated air would support\nlife. Still, his courage did not give way. He had strong hope that he\nwould yet be rescued, and he struggled to hold fast to his hope.\n\nThe flame of his lamp burned round and dim, so dim that he could\nscarcely see across the heading.\n\nThe mule came up to him and put out his nose to touch the boy's hand.\n\n\"I guess we may as well stay here. Jasper,\" he said. \"This is the\nfurthest place away from the shaft, an' if we can't stan' it here we\ncan't stan' it nowhere.\"\n\nThe beast seemed to understand him, for he lay down then, with his\nhead resting on Ralph's knee. They remained for a long time in that\nposition, and Ralph listened anxiously for some sound from the\ndirection of the shaft. He began to think finally that it was foolish\nto expect help as yet. No human being could get through the gas and\nsmoke to him. The mine would first need to be ventilated. But he felt\nthat the air was growing constantly more foul and heavy. His head was\naching, he labored greatly in breathing, and he seemed to be confused\nand sleepy. He arose and tried to walk a little to keep awake. He knew\nthat sleep was dangerous. But he was too tired to walk and he soon\ncame back and sat down again by the mule.\n\n\"I'm a-tryin', Jasper,\" he said, \"I'm a-tryin' my best to hold out;\nbut I'm afraid it ain't a-goin' to do much good; I can't see much\nchance\"--\n\nHe stopped suddenly. A thought had struck him. He seized his lamp\nand oil-can and pushed ahead across the air-way and up into Conway's\nchamber.\n\nThe mule arose with much difficulty and staggered weakly after him. A\nnew hope had arisen in the boy's heart, an inspiration toward life had\nput strength into his limbs.\n\nAt the breast of the chamber he set down his lamp and can, climbed up\non to the shelf of coal, and began tearing out the slate and rubbish\nfrom the little opening in the wall that Conway had that day shown to\nhim. If he could once get through into the old mine he knew that he\nshould find pure air and--life.\n\nThe opening was too small to admit his body, but that was nothing;\nthere were tools here, and he still had strength enough to work. He\ndragged the drill up to the face but it was too heavy for him to\nhandle, and the stroke he was able to make with it was wholly without\neffect. His work with the clumsy sledge was still less useful, and\nbefore he had struck the third blow the instrument fell from his\nnerveless hands.\n\nHe was exhausted by the effort and lay down on the bed of coal to\nrest, gasping for breath.\n\nHe thought if only the air current would come from the other mine\ninto this what a blessing it would be; but, alas! the draft was the\nother way. The poisoned air was being drawn swiftly into the old\nmine, making a whistling noise as it crossed the sharp edges of\nthe aperture.\n\nRalph knew that very soon the strong current would bring in smoke and\nfouler air, and he rose to make still another effort. He went down\nand brought up the pick. It was worn and light and he could handle it\nmore easily. He began picking away at the edges of coal to enlarge the\nopening. But the labor soon exhausted him, and he sat down with his\nback against the aperture to intercept the passage of air while he\nrecovered his breath.\n\nHe was soon at work again. The hope of escape put energy into his weak\nmuscles.\n\nOnce, a block as large as his two hands broke away and fell down on\nthe other side. That was a great help. But he had to stop and rest\nagain. Indeed, after that he had very frequently to stop and rest.\n\nThe space was widening steadily, but very, very slowly.\n\nAfter a time he threw down the pick and passed his head through the\nopening, but it was not yet large enough to receive his body.\n\nThe air that was now coming up the chamber was very bad, and it was\nblue with smoke, besides.\n\nThe boy bent to his task with renewed energy; but every blow exhausted\nhim, and he had to wait before striking another. He was chipping the\ncoal away, though, piece by piece, inch by inch.\n\nBy and by, by a stroke of rare good-fortune, a blow that drew the pick\nfrom the lad's weak hands and sent it rattling down upon the other\nside, loosened a large block at the top of the opening, and it fell\nwith a crash.\n\nNow he could get through, and it would be none too soon either. He\ndropped his oil-can down on the other side, then his lamp, and then,\nafter a single moment's rest, he crawled into the aperture, and\ntumbled heavily to the floor of the old mine.\n\nIt was not a great fall; he fell from a height of only a few feet, but\nin his exhausted condition it stunned him, and he lay for some minutes\nin a state of unconsciousness.\n\nThe air was better in here, he was below the line of the poisoned\ncurrent, and he soon revived, sat up, picked up his lamp, and looked\naround him.\n\nHe was evidently in a worked-out chamber. Over his head in the\nside-wall was the opening through which he had fallen, and he knew\nthat the first thing to be done was to close it up and prevent the\nentrance of any more foul air.\n\nThere was plenty of slate and of coal and of dirt near by, but he\ncould not reach up so high and work easily, and he had first to build\na platform against the wall, on which to stand.\n\nIt took a long time to do this, but when it was completed he stood up\non it to put the first stone in place.\n\nOn the other side of the opening he heard a hoarse sound of distress,\nthen a scrambling noise, and then Jasper's nose was pushed through\nagainst his hand. The mule had stood patiently and watched Ralph while\nhe was at work, but when the boy disappeared he had become frightened,\nand had clambered up on the shelf of coal at the face to try to follow\nhim. He was down on his knees now, with his head wedged into the\naperture, drawing in his breath with long, forced gasps, looking\npiteously into the boy's face.\n\n\"Poor Jasper!\" said Ralph, \"poor fellow! I didn't think of you. I'd\nget you in here too if I could.\"\n\nHe looked around him, as if contemplating the possibility of such a\nscheme; but he knew that it could not be accomplished.\n\n\"I can't do it, Jasper,\" he said, rubbing the animal's face as he\nspoke. \"I can't do it. Don't you see the hole ain't big enough? an' I\ncouldn't never make it big enough for you, never.\"\n\nBut the look in Jasper's eyes was very beseeching, and he tried to\npush his head in so that he might lay his nose against Ralph's breast.\n\nThe boy put his arms about the beast's neck.\n\n\"I can't do it, Jasper,\" he repeated, sobbing. \"Don't you see I can't?\nI wisht I could, oh, I wisht I could!\"\n\nThe animal drew his head back. His position was uncomfortable, and it\nchoked him to stretch his neck out that way.\n\nRalph knew that he must proceed with the building of his wall. One\nafter another he laid up the pieces of slate and coal, chinking in\nthe crevices with dirt, keeping his head as much as possible out of\nthe foul current, stopping often to rest, talking affectionately to\nJasper, and trying, in a childish way, to console him.\n\nAt last his work was nearly completed, but the gruff sounds of\ndistress from the frightened mule had ceased. Ralph held his lamp up\nout of the current, so that the light would fall through the little\nopening, and looked in.\n\nJasper lay there on his side, his head resting on the coal bottom, a\nlong, convulsive respiration at intervals the only movement of his\nbody. He was unconscious, and dying. The boy drew back with tears in\nhis eyes and with sorrow at his heart. The beast had been his friend\nand companion, not only in his daily toil, but here also, in the\nloneliness and peril of the poisoned mine. For the time being, he\nforgot his own misfortunes in his sympathy for Jasper. He put his face\nonce more to the opening.\n\n\"Good-by, Jasper!\" he said, \"good-by, old fellow! I couldn't help it,\nyou know, an'--an' it won't hurt you any more--good-by!\"\n\nHe drew back his head, put the few remaining stones in place, chinked\nthe crevices with dirt and culm, and then, trembling and faint,\nhe fell to the floor of the old mine, and lay there, panting and\nexhausted, for a long time in silent thought.\n\nBut it was not of himself he was thinking; it was of poor old Jasper,\ndying on the other side of the black wall, deserted, barred out,\nalone.\n\nFinally it occurred to him that he should go to some other place in\nthe mine. The poisonous gases must still be entering through the\ncrevices of his imperfectly built and rudely plastered wall, and it\nwould be wise for him to get farther away. His oil had nearly burned\nout again, and he refilled his lamp from the can. Then he arose and\nwent down the chamber.\n\nIt was a very long chamber. When he reached the foot of it he found\nthe entrances into the heading walled up, and he turned and went along\nthe air-way for a little distance, and then sat down to rest.\n\nFor the first time he noticed that he had cut his hands badly, on the\nsharp pieces of coal he had been handling, and he felt that there was\na bruise on his side, doubtless made when he fell through the opening.\n\nHitherto he had not had a clear idea as to the course he should pursue\nwhen he should have obtained entrance into the old mine. His principal\nobject had been to get into pure air.\n\nNow, however, he began to consider the matter of his escape. It was\nobvious that two methods were open to him. He could either try to make\nhis way out alone to the old slope near the Dunmore road, or he could\nremain in the vicinity of Conway's chamber till help should reach him\nfrom the Burnham mine.\n\nBut it might be many hours before assistance would come. The shaft\nwould have first to be cleared out, and that he knew would be no easy\nmatter. After that the mine would need to be ventilated before men\ncould make their way through it. All this could not be done in a day,\nindeed it might take many days, and when they should finally come in\nto search for him, they would not find him in the Burnham mine; he\nwould not be there.\n\nIf he could discover the way to the old slope, and the path should be\nunobstructed, he would be in the open air within half an hour. In the\nopen air! The very thought of such a possibility decided the question\nfor him. And when he should reach the surface he would go straight\nto Mrs. Burnham, straight to his mother, and place in her hands the\nletter he had found. She would be glad to read it; she would be\nvery, very glad to know that Ralph was her son. Sitting there in the\ndarkness and the desolation he could almost see her look of great\ndelight, he could almost feel her kisses on his lips as she gave him\ntender greeting. Oh! it would be beautiful, so beautiful!\n\nBut, then, there was Uncle Billy. He had come near to forgetting him.\nHe would go first to Uncle Billy, that would be better, and then they\nwould go together to his mother's house and would both enjoy her words\nof welcome.\n\nBut if he was going he must be about it. It would not do to sit there\nall night. All night? Ralph wondered what time it had come to be.\nWhether hours or days had passed since his imprisonment he could\nhardly tell.\n\nHe picked up his lamp and can and started on. At no great distance he\nfound an old door-way opening into the heading. He passed through it\nand began to trudge along the narrow, winding passage. He had often to\nstop and rest, he felt so very weak. A long time he walked, slowly,\nunsteadily, but without much pain. Then, suddenly, he came to the end\nof the heading. The black, solid wall faced him before he was hardly\naware of it. He had taken the wrong direction when he entered the\ngallery, that was all. He had followed the heading in instead of out.\nHis journey had not been without its use, however, for it settled\ndefinitely the course he ought to take to reach the slope, and that,\nhe thought, was a matter of no little importance.\n\nHe sat down for a few minutes to rest, and then started on his return.\nIt seemed to be taking so much more time to get back that he feared he\nhad passed the door-way by which he had entered the heading. But he\ncame to it at last and stopped there.\n\nHe began to feel hungry. He wondered why he had not thought to look\nfor some one's dinner pail, before he came over into the old mine. He\nknew that his own still had fragments of food in it; he wished that\nhe had them now. But wishing was of no use, the only thing for him\nto do was to push ahead toward the surface. When he should reach his\nmother's house his craving would be satisfied with all that could\ntempt the palate.\n\nHe started on again. The course of the heading was far from straight,\nand his progress was very slow.\n\nAt last he came to a place where there had been a fall. They had\nrobbed the pillars till they had become too weak to support the roof,\nand it had tumbled in.\n\nRalph turned back a little, crossed the air-way and went up into the\nchambers, thinking to get around the area of the fall. He went a long\nway up before he found an unblocked opening. Then, striking across\nthrough the entrances, he came out again, suddenly, to a heading. He\nthought it must have curved very rapidly to the right that he should\nfind it so soon, if it were the one he had been on before. But he\nfollowed it as best he could, stopping very often to catch a few\nmoments of rest, finding even his light oil-can a heavy burden in his\nhands, trying constantly to give strength to his heart and his limbs\nby thoughts of the fond greeting that awaited him when once he should\nescape from the gloomy passages of the mine.\n\nThe heading grew to be very devious. It wound here and there, with\nentrances on both sides, it crossed chambers and turned corners till\nthe boy became so bewildered that he gave up trying to trace it. He\npushed on, however, through the openings that seemed most likely\nto lead outward, looking for pathways and trackways, hungering,\nthirsting, faint in both body and spirit, till he reached a solid wall\nat the side of a long, broad chamber, and there he stopped to consider\nwhich way to turn. He struck some object at his feet. It was a pick.\nHe looked up at the wall in front of him, and he saw in it the\nfilled-up entrance through which he had made his way from the Burnham\nmine.\n\nIt came upon him like a blow, and he sank to the floor in sudden\ndespair.\n\nThis was worse than anything that had happened to him since the time\nwhen he ran back to the shaft to find the carriage gone and its place\nfilled with firebrands. His journey had been such a mournful waste of\ntime, of energy, and of hopeful anticipation.\n\nBut, after a little, he began to think that it was not quite so bad as\nit might have been after all. He had his lamp and his oil-can, and\nhe was in a place where the air was fit to breathe. That was better,\ncertainly, than to be lying on the other side of the wall with poor\nold Jasper. He forced new courage into his heart, he whipped his\nflagging spirits into fresh activity, and resolved to try once more to\nfind a passage to the outside world.\n\nBut he needed rest; that was apparent. He thought that if he could lie\ndown and be quiet and contented for fifteen or twenty minutes he would\ngain strength and vigor enough to sustain him through a long journey.\nHe arose and moved up the chamber a little way, out of the current of\npoisoned air that still sifted in through the crevices of his rudely\nbuilt wall.\n\nHere he lay down on a place soft with culm, to take his contemplated\nrest, and, before he was aware of it, sleep had descended on him,\noverpowered him, and bound him fast. But it was a gracious victor. It\nput away his sufferings from him; it allayed his hunger and assuaged\nhis thirst, it hid his loneliness and dispelled his fear, and it\nbrought sweet peace for a little time to his troubled mind. He was\nalone and in peril, and far from the pure air and the bright sunlight\nof the upper world; but the angel of sleep touched his eyelids just as\ngently in the darkness of this dreadful place as though he had been\nlying on beds of fragrant flowers, with white clouds or peaceful stars\nabove him to look upon his slumber.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII.\n\nIN THE POWER OF DARKNESS.\n\n\nRalph slept, hour after hour. He dreamed, and moved his hands uneasily\nat intervals, but still he slept. There were no noises there to\ndisturb him, and he had been very tired.\n\nWhen he finally awoke the waking was as gentle as though he had been\nlying on his own bed at home. He thought, at first, that he was at\nhome; and he wondered why it was so very dark. Then he remembered that\nhe was shut up in the mines. It was a cruel remembrance, but it was\na fact and he must make the best of it. While he slept his oil had\nburned out, and he was in total darkness. He felt for his oil-can and\nfound it. Then he found his lamp, filled it by the sense of touch, and\nlighted it. He always carried matches; they had done him good service\nin the mines before this. He was very thankful too, that he had\nthought to bring the oil-can. Without it he would have been long ago\nin the power of darkness. He was still hungry, and thirsty too, very\nthirsty now, indeed.\n\nHe arose and tried to walk, but he was so dizzy that he had to sit\ndown again. He felt better after a little, though, very much better\nthan before he had taken his rest. He wondered how long he had slept,\nand what progress was being made, if any, toward his rescue. He went\ndown to the opening in the wall, and held his lamp up to it. Threads\nof smoke were still curling in through the slate and culm, and the air\nthat crept in was very bad. Then, for a little time, Ralph sat there\nand listened. He thought that possibly he might hear some distant\nsound of rescue. But there was no noise; the silence was burdensome.\n\nHis thirst increased and he was hot and feverish.\n\nAt last he rose with the determination to carry out his plan of\nsearching for the old slope.\n\nHe knew that it would be worse than useless to stay here.\n\nBesides, he hoped that he might find a stream of water on the way at\nwhich to quench his thirst.\n\nHe thought of the letter in his pocket, and the desire grew strong\nwithin him to read it again. He took it out, unfolded it, and held it\nclose to the light, but there seemed to be a mist before his eyes and\nhe could not distinguish the words. He knew what it contained, though,\nand that was sufficient for him. He was Robert Burnham's son. His\nfather had been brave and manly; so would he be. His father would have\nkept up heart and courage to the end, no matter what fate faced him.\nHe determined that the son should do no less. He would be worthy of\nhis parentage, he would do all that lay in his power to accomplish his\nown safety; if he failed, the fault should not be his.\n\nHe folded and replaced the letter, picked up his oil-can, fastened\nhis lamp to his cap and started down the chamber. He felt that he was\nstrong with the strength of inspiration. It seemed to him, too, that\nhe was very light in body. It seemed almost as though he were treading\non air, and he thought that he was moving very fast.\n\nIn reality his steps were heavy and halting, and his way down the long\nchamber was devious and erratic. His fancied strength and elasticity\nwere born of the fever in his blood.\n\nHe came to the heading. He knew, now, which way to turn, and he passed\ndown it in what he thought was rapid flight.\n\nBut here was the fall again. What was to be done now? His last attempt\nto get around it had been disastrous. He would not try that plan\nagain. He would work his way through it this time and keep to the\nheading.\n\nHe climbed slowly up over the fallen rock and coal and let himself\ndown upon the other side. But it took his breath away, this climbing,\nand he had to wait there a little while to recover it. There was a\nclear space before him, though, and he made good progress through it\ntill he came again to the fall.\n\nIn this place the rock was piled higher and it was more difficult of\nascent. But he clambered bravely up, dragging his oil-can with him;\nthen he moved out along the smooth, sloping surfaces of fallen slate,\nkeeping as close as possible to the wall of the heading, climbing\nhigher and higher, very slowly now, and with much labor, stopping\noften to rest.\n\nHe came, at last, to a place where the space between the fallen rock\nand the roof above it was so narrow that he could scarcely squeeze his\nslender body through it. When he had done so he found himself on the\nedge of a precipice, a place where a solid mass had fallen like a\nwall, and had made a shelf so high that the feeble rays of Ralph's\nlamp would not reach to the bottom of it. The boy crawled, trembling,\nalong the edge of this cliff, trying to find some place for descent.\n\nThe oil-can that he carried made his movements cumbersome; the surface\nof the rock was smooth and hard to cling to; his limbs were weak and\nhis fingers nerveless.\n\nHe slipped, the can fell from his hand, he tried to recover it,\nslipped further, made a desperate effort to save himself, failed, and\nwent toppling over into the darkness.\n\nThe height was not very great, and he was not seriously injured by\nthe fall; but it stunned him, and he lay for some time in a state of\nunconsciousness.\n\nWhen he came to himself, he knew what had happened and where he was.\nHe tried to rise, but the effort pained him and he lay back again. He\nwas in total darkness. His lamp had fallen from his cap and become\nextinguished. He reached out to try and find it and his hand came in\ncontact with a little stream of water. The very touch of it refreshed\nhim. He rolled over, put his mouth to it and drank. It was running\nwater, cool and delicious, and he was very, very thankful for it.\n\nIn the stream he found his lamp. The lid had flown open, the oil was\nspilled out, and the water had entered. The can was not within reach\nof him as he lay. He raised himself to his hands and knees and groped\naround for it. He began to despair of ever finding it. It would be\nterrible, he thought, to lose it now, and be left alone in the dark.\n\nBut at last he came upon it and picked it up. It was very light; he\nfelt for the plug, it was gone; he turned the can upside down, it was\nempty.\n\nFor the moment his heart stopped beating; he could almost feel the\npallor in his face, he could almost see the look of horror in his own\neyes. From this time forth he would be in darkness. It was not enough\nthat he was weak, sick, lost and alone in the mysterious depths of\nthis old mine, but now darkness had come, thick darkness to crown his\nsuffering and bar his path to freedom. His self-imposed courage had\nalmost given way. It required matchless bravery to face a peril such\nas this without a murmur, and still find room for hope.\n\nBut he did his best. He fought valiantly against despair.\n\nIt occurred to him that he still had matches. He drew them from his\npocket and counted them. There were seven.\n\nHe poured the water from the chamber of his lamp and pulled out the\nwick and pressed it. He thought that possibly he might make it burn a\nlittle longer without oil. He selected one of the matches and struck\nit against the rock at his side. It did not light. The rock was wet\nand the match was spoiled.\n\nThe next one he lighted by drawing it swiftly across the sleeve of his\njacket. But the light was wasted; the cotton wick was still too wet to\nignite.\n\nThere was nothing left to him, then, save the matches, and they would\nnot light him far. But it was better to go even a little way than to\nremain here.\n\nHe rose to his feet and struck a match on his sleeve, but it broke\nshort off at the head, and the sputtering sulphur dropped into the\nstream and was quenched. He struck another, this time with success.\nHe saw the heading; the way was clear; and he started on, holding one\nhand out before him, touching at frequent intervals the lower wall of\nthe passage with the other.\n\nBut his side pained him when he tried to walk: he had struck it\nheavily in his last fall; and he had to stop in order to relieve it.\nAfter a time he arose again, but in the intense darkness and with that\nstrange confusion in his brain, he could not tell in which direction\nto go.\n\nHe lighted another match; it sputtered and went out.\n\nHe had two matches left. To what better use could he put them than to\nmake them light him as far as possible on his way? He struck one of\nthem, it blazed up, and with it he lighted the stick of the imperfect\none which he had not thrown away. He held them up before him, and,\nshielding the blaze with his hand, he moved rapidly down the narrow\npassage.\n\nHe knew that he was still in the heading and that if he could but\nfollow it he would, in time, reach the slope.\n\nHis light soon gave out; darkness surrounded him again, but he kept\non.\n\nHe moved from side to side of the passage, feeling his way.\n\nHis journey was slow, very slow and painful, but it was better to keep\ngoing, he knew that.\n\nHe had one match left but he dared not light it. He wanted to reserve\nthat for a case of greater need.\n\nThe emergency that called for its use soon arose.\n\nThe heading seemed to have grown suddenly wider. He went back and\nforth across it and touched all the pillars carefully. The way was\ndivided. One branch of the gallery bore to the right and another to\nthe left.\n\nStraight ahead was a solid wall. Ralph did not know which passage to\nenter. To go into one would be to go still farther and deeper into the\nrecesses of the old mine; to go into the other would be to go toward\nthe slope, toward the outer world, toward his mother and his home.\n\nIf he could only see he could choose more wisely.\n\nHad the necessity arisen for the use of his last match?\n\nHe hesitated. He sat down to rest and to consider the question. It\nwas hard to think, though, with all that whirling and buzzing in his\nfever-stricken brain.\n\nThen a scheme entered his mind, a brilliant scheme by which he\nshould get more light. He resolved to act upon it without delay. He\ntransferred everything from the pockets of his jacket to those of his\nwaistcoat. Then he removed this outer garment, tore a portion of it\ninto strips, and held it in one hand while he made ready to light his\nlast match. He held his breath while he struck it.\n\nIt did not light.\n\nHe waited a minute to think. Then he struck it again, this time with\nsuccess. He touched it to the rags of his coat, and the oil-soaked\ncloth flashed brightly into flame. He held the blazing jacket in his\nhand, looked around him for one moment to choose his way, and then\nbegan to run.\n\nIt was a travesty on running, to be sure, but it was the best he could\ndo. He staggered and stumbled; he lurched rapidly ahead for a little\nspace and then moved with halting steps. His limbs grew weak, his\nbreath came in gasps, and the pain in his side was cutting him like a\nknife.\n\nBut he thought he was going very rapidly. He could see so nicely too.\nThe flames, fanned by the motion, curled up and licked his hand and\nwrist, but he scarcely knew it.\n\nThen his foot struck some obstacle in the way and he fell. For a\nmoment he lay there panting and helpless, while the burning cloth,\nthrown from him in his fall, lighted up the narrow space around him\ntill it grew as clear as day. But all this splendid glow should not be\nwasted; it would never do; he must make it light him on his journey\ntill the last ray was gone.\n\nHe staggered to his feet again and ran on into the ever growing\ndarkness. Behind him the flames flared, flickered, and died slowly\nout, and when the last vestige of light was wholly gone he sank,\nutterly exhausted, to the floor of the mine, and thick darkness\nsettled on him like a pall.\n\nA long time he lay there wondering vaguely at his strange misfortunes.\nThe fever in his blood was running high, and, instead of harboring\nsober thought, his mind was filled with fleeting fancies.\n\nIt was very still here, so still that he thought he heard the\nthrobbing in his head. He wondered if it could be heard by others who\nmight thus find where he lay.\n\nThen fear came on him, fear like an icy hand clutching at his breast,\nfear that would not let him rest, but that brought him to his feet\nagain and urged him onward.\n\nTo die, that was nothing; he could die if need be; but to be shut up\nhere alone, with strange and unseen things hovering about him in the\nblackness, that was quite beyond endurance. He was striving to get\naway from them. He had not much thought, now, which way he went, he\ncared little for direction, he wished only to keep in motion.\n\nHe had to stop at times to get breath and to rest his limbs, they\nached so. But, whenever he stood still or sat down to rest, the\ndarkness seemed to close in upon him and around him so tightly as to\ngive him pain. He would not have cared so much for that, though, if it\nhad not been filled with strange creatures who crept close to him to\nhear the throbbing in his head. He could not bear that; it compelled\nhim to move on.\n\nHe went a long way like this, with his hands before him, stumbling,\nfalling, rising again, stopping for a moment's rest, moaning as he\nwalked, crying softly to himself at times like the sick child that he\nwas.\n\nOnce he felt that he was going down an inclined way, like a long\nchamber; there had been no prop or pillar on either side of him for\nmany minutes. Finally, his feet touched water. It grew to be ankle\ndeep. He pushed on, and it reached half-way to his knees. This would\nnever do. He turned in his tracks to retreat, just saved himself\nfrom falling, and then climbed slowly back up the long slope of the\nchamber.\n\nWhen he had reached the top of it he thought he would lie down and try\nnot to move again, he was so very tired and sick.\n\nIn the midst of all his fancies he realized his danger. He knew that\ndeath had ceased to be a possibility for him, and had come to be more\nthan probable.\n\nHe felt that it would be very sad indeed to die in this way, alone,\nin the dark, in the galleries of this old mine; it was not the way\nRobert Burnham's son should have died. It was not that he minded\ndeath so much; he would not have greatly cared for that, if he could\nonly have died in his mother's arms, with the sweet sunlight and the\nfresh air and the perfume of flowers in the room. That, he thought,\nwould have been beautiful, very beautiful indeed. But this, this was\nso different.\n\n\"It is very sad,\" he said; \"poor Ralph, poor boy.\"\n\nHe was talking to himself. It seemed to him that he was some one else,\nsome one who stood by trying to pity and console this child who was\ndying here alone in the awful darkness.\n\n\"It's hard on you,\" he said, \"I know it's hard on you, an' you've\njust got to where life'd be worth a good deal to you too. You had\nyour bitter an' the sweet was just a-comin'; but never mind, my boy,\nnever mind; your Uncle Billy says 'at heaven's a great sight better\nplace 'an any you could ever find on earth. An', then, you're Robert\nBurnham's son, you know, an' that's a good deal to think of;\nyou're--Robert Burnham's--son.\"\n\nFor a long time after this there was silence, and the boy did not\nmove. Then fear came back to him. He thought that the darkness was\nclosing in again upon him, that it pressed him from above, from right\nand left, that it crowded back his breath and crushed his body. He\nfelt that he must escape from it.\n\nHe was too weak now to rise and walk, so he lifted himself to his\nhands and knees and began to move away like a creeping child.\n\nThere were many obstacles in his path, some of them imaginary, most of\nthem real. There were old mine caps, piles of dirt, pieces of slate,\nand great lumps of coal on' which he cut his hands and bruised his\nknees. But he met and passed them all. He was intent only on getting\naway from these dreadful powers of darkness, they tortured him so.\n\nAnd he did get away from them. He came to a place where the space\nabout him seemed large, where the floor was smooth, and the air so\nclear and pure that he could breathe it freely.\n\nUtter darkness, indeed, surrounded him, but it was a darkness not\npeopled with evil beings; it was more like the sweet darkness of a\nsummer night, with the fragrance of dew-wet flowers in the air.\n\nHe leaned against a pillar to rest. He thought to stay here until the\nend should come.\n\nHe was not suffering from any pain now; he was glad of that. And he\nshould die peacefully, leaving no wrong behind him, with no guilt\nupon his conscience, no sin upon his soul. He was glad of that too.\nHe wondered if they would know, when they found his body, that he was\nRobert Burnham's son. Suppose they should never find it out. Suppose\nthe days and months and years should pass away, and no one ever know\nwhat high honor came to him while yet he lived on earth. That would be\nsad, very, very sad; worse even than death itself. But there was a way\nfor him to make it known. He thought that some sweet voice was telling\nhim what to do.\n\nHe took from his waistcoat pocket the paper that declared his birth,\nunfolded it once, pressed it to his lips once, took pins from the edge\nof the collar of his vest, and pinned the letter fast upon the bosom\nof his flannel shirt.\n\nIt took him a long time to do this in the darkness, his hands were so\nvery weak and tremulous, but, when it was done, he smoothed the paper\nover carefully and was content.\n\n\"They'll know it now,\" he said gently to himself, \"they'll surely know\nit now. They'll no sooner find me here than they'll know who I am, an'\nwho my mother is, an' where to take me. It's just the same, just the\nsame as though I was alive myself to tell 'em.\"\n\nHe leaned back then, and closed his eyes and lay quite still. He felt\nno pain from his cut and bleeding hands and knees, nor from his burned\nwrist, nor from his bruised body. He was not hungry any more, nor\nthirsty, nor suffering for breath. He was thinking, but he thought\nonly of pleasant things. He remembered no evil, neither any person who\nhad done him evil.\n\nOff somewhere in the distance he could see blue sky, and the tips of\nwaves glancing in the sunlight, and green fields, and long stretches\nof yellow grain. It seemed very real to him, so real that he wondered\nif he was still lying there in the darkness. He opened his eyes to\nsee. Yes, it was dark, very dark.\n\nThe faint noise of dripping water came to his ears from somewhere in\nthe mine below him. It reminded him of a tiny waterfall he had once\nseen under the shadow of a great rock on the bank of Roaring Brook.\nIt was where a little stream, like a silver thread, ran down across\nthe mossy covering of the edge and went drip, dripping into the\nstone-walled basin far below. He wondered if the stream was running\nthere this day, if the tall rock-oak was bending yet above it, if the\nbirds sang there as gayly as they sang that happy day when first he\nsaw it.\n\nFor a little time he thought that he was indeed there. He found it\nhard to make himself believe that he was still in the mine, alone. But\nhe was not alone; he knew that he was not alone. He felt that friends\nwere somewhere near him. They were staying back in the shadow so that\nthey should not disturb him. They would come to him soon, when--when\nhe should waken.\n\nHe did not move any more, his eyes were closed and he seemed to be\nsleeping. His breath came gently, in long respirations. The precious\nletter rose and fell with the slow heaving of his breast.\n\nDown in the darkness the water dripped as placidly as pulses beat. For\nthe rest there was no sound, no motion.\n\nOnce the boy stirred a little and opened his eyes.\n\n\"Is that you, Uncle Billy?\" he said. \"Come an' sit down an' rest a\nlittle, an' then we'll go out. I think I got lost or--or somethin'.\"\n\nHis Uncle Billy was not there. The darkness about him held no human\nbeing save himself, but the vision was just as real to him, and the\ncoming was just as welcome as though it had all been true.\n\n\"Why, how strange you look, Uncle Billy; an' you're a-laughin' at\nme--what! does she? Well, I'll go to her just as soon as I get out,\njust as soon. How did she find it out? I was goin' to be the first to\ntell her. I'm glad she knows it, though.\"\n\nAfter a moment he continued:--\n\n\"Oh, no, Uncle Billy; I shouldn't ever do that, I couldn't. You've\nbeen too good to me. You've been awful good to me, Uncle Billy--awful\ngood.\"\n\nAgain silence fell. Thick darkness, like a veil, wrapped the\nunconscious child in its folds. Black walls and winding galleries\nsurrounded him, the \"valley of the shadow\" lay beyond him, but on his\nbreast he bore the declaration of his birth, and in his heart he felt\nthat \"peace of God which passeth understanding.\"\n\nDown in the darkness the water dripped; up in the earth's sky the\nstars were out and the moon was shining.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII.\n\nA STROKE OF LIGHTNING.\n\n\nIt was a hot day at Burnham Breaker. The sun of midsummer beat\nfiercely upon the long and sloping roofs and against the coal-black\nsides of the giant building.\n\nDown in the engine-room, where there was no air stirring, and the\nvapor of steam hung heavily in the atmosphere, the heat was almost\ninsupportable.\n\nThe engineer, clothed lightly as he was, fairly dripped with\nperspiration. The fireman, with face and neck like a lobster, went\nout, at intervals, and plunged his hands and his head too into the\nstream of cool water sent out from the mine by the laboring pumps.\n\nUp in the screen-room, the boys were sweltering above their chutes,\nchoking with the thick dust, wondering if the afternoon would never be\nat an end.\n\nBachelor Billy, pushing the cars out from the head, said to himself\nthat he was glad Ralph was no longer picking slate. It was better that\nhe should work in the mines. It was cool there in summer and warm in\nwinter, and it was altogether more comfortable for the boy than it\ncould be in the breaker; neither was it any more dangerous, in his\nopinion, than it was among the wheels and rollers of the screen-room.\nHe had labored in the mines himself, until the rheumatism came and put\na stop to his under-ground toil. He mourned greatly the necessity that\ncompelled him to give up this kind of work. It is hard for a miner to\nleave his pillars and his chambers, his drill and powder-can and fuse,\nand to seek other occupation on the surface of the earth. The very\ndarkness and danger that surround him at his task hold him to it with\nan unaccountable fascination.\n\nBut Bachelor Billy had a good place here at the breaker. It was not\nhard work that he was doing. Robert Burnham had given him the position\nten years and more ago.\n\nEven on this hot mid-summer day, the heat was less where he was than\nin any other part of the building. A cool current came up the shaft\nand kept the air stirring about the head, and the loaded mine-cars\nrose to the platform, dripping cold water from their sides, and that\nwas very refreshing to the eye as well as to the touch.\n\nIt was well along in the afternoon that Billy, looking out to the\nnorth-west, saw a dark cloud rising slowly above the horizon, and said\nto Andy Gilgallon, his assistant, that he hoped it would not go away\nwithout leaving some rain behind it.\n\nLooking at it again, a few minutes later, he told Andy that he felt\nsure there would be water enough to lay the dust, at any rate.\n\nThe cloud increased rapidly in size, rolling up the sky in dark\nvolumes, and emitting flashes of forked lightning in quick succession.\n\nBy and by the face of the sun was covered, and the deep rumbling of\nthe thunder was almost continuous.\n\nThere was a dead calm. Not even at the head of the shaft could a\nparticle of moving air be felt.\n\n\"Faith! I don't like the looks o' it, Billy,\" said Andy Gilgallon,\nas a sharp flash cut the cloud surface from zenith to horizon, and a\nburst of thunder followed that made the breaker tremble.\n\n\"No more do I,\" replied Bachelor Billy; \"but we'll no' git scart afoor\nwe're hurt. It's no' likely the buildin' 'll be washit awa'.\"\n\n\"Thrue for ye! but this bit o' a steeple ud be a foine risting-place\nfor the lightnin's fut, an' a moighty hot fut it has, too--bad 'cess\nto it!\"\n\nThe man had been interrupted by another vivid flash and a sharp crack\nof thunder.\n\nThe mountains to the north and west were now entirely hidden, and the\nnear hills were disappearing rapidly behind the on-coming storm of\nrain. Already the first drops were rattling sharply on the breaker's\nroof, and warning puffs of wind were beating gently against the side\nof the shaft-tower.\n\n\"I'm glad Ralph's no' workin' i' the screen-room,\" said Bachelor\nBilly, as he put up his hand to shield his eyes from the blinding\nglare. \"It'd be a fearfu' thing to ha' the breaker hit.\"\n\nThe fury of the storm was on them at last. It was as though the\nheavens were shattered.\n\nBilly looked out upon the dreadful onslaught of the elements with awe\nand wonder on his face. His companion crouched against the timbers of\nthe shaft in terror.\n\nThen--lightning struck the breaker.\n\nPeople who sat in their houses a mile away started up in sudden fright\nat the fierce flash and terrible report.\n\nA man who was running toward the engine-room for shelter was blinded\nand stunned by the glare and crash, and fell to his knees.\n\nWhen he rose again and could use his eyes, he saw men and boys\ncrowding from the building out into the pouring rain. But the breaker\nwas on fire. Already the shaft-tower was wrapped in smoke and lighted\nwith flame. Some one in authority stood in the door of the engine-room\ngiving orders.\n\nThe carriage was descending the shaft. When it came up it was loaded\nwith men. It went down again, almost with the rapidity of lightning\nitself.\n\nThe engineer was crowding his servant of iron and steel to the utmost.\nThe men of the next load that came up had hardly time to push\neach other from the carriage before it darted down again into the\nblackness.\n\nThe flames were creeping lower on the shaft timbers, and were rioting\namong the screens.\n\nThe engine-room was hot and stifling. The engineer said he was\nhoisting the last load that could be brought out.\n\nWhen it reached the surface Conway leaped from among the men and stood\nin the door of the engine-room.\n\n\"Let it down again!\" he shouted. \"Ralph is below yet, the boy. I'll go\ndown myself an' git 'im.\"\n\nHe heard a crash behind him, and he turned in time to see the iron\nroof of the carriage disappear into the mouth of the shaft.\n\nThe burning frame-work at the head had ceased to support it, and it\nhad fallen down, dragging a mass of flaming timbers with it.\n\nConway went out into the rain and sat down and cried like a child.\n\nAfterward, when the storm had partially subsided, a wagon was stopped\nat the door of the office near the burning breaker, the limp body of\nBachelor Billy was brought out and placed in it, and it was driven\nrapidly away. They had found him lying on the track at the head with\nthe flames creeping dangerously near. He was unconscious when they\ncame to him, he was unconscious still. They took him to his room at\nMrs. Maloney's cottage, and put him in his bed. The doctor came soon,\nand under his vigorous treatment the man lost that deathly pallor\nabout his face, but he did not yet recover consciousness. The doctor\nsaid he would come out of it in time, and went away to see to the\nothers who had been injured.\n\nThe men who had brought the invalid were gone, and Mrs. Maloney was\nsitting by him alone.\n\nThe storm had passed, the sun had come out just long enough to bid\na reassuring \"good-night\" to the lately frightened dwellers on the\nearth, and was now dropping down behind the western hills.\n\nA carriage stopped at Bachelor Billy's door and a moment later Mrs.\nBurnham knocked and entered.\n\n\"I heard that he had suffered from the stroke,\" she said, looking at\nthe still form on the bed, \"and I came to see him. Is he better?\"\n\n\"He ain't come out of it yet, ma'am,\" responded Mrs. Maloney, \"but\nthe doctor's been a-rubbin' of im' an' a-givin' 'im stimmylants, an'\nhe says it's all right he'll be in the course of a few hours. Will ye\nhave a chair, ma'am?\"\n\n\"Thank you. I'll sit here by him a while with the fan and relieve you.\nWhere is Ralph?\"\n\n\"He's not come yet, ma'am.\"\n\n\"Why, Mrs. Maloney, are you sure? Is it possible that anything has\nhappened to him?\"\n\n\"To shpake the trut', ma'am, I'm a bit worried about 'im meself. But\nthey said to me partic'ler, as how ivery man o' thim got out o' the\nmine befoor the carriage fell. Most like he's a-watchin' the fire an'\ndoesn't know his Uncle Billy's hurted. Ye'll see 'im comin' quick\nenough when he hears that, I'm thinkin'.\"\n\nMrs. Burnham had seated herself at the bedside with the fan in her\nhand.\n\n\"I'll wait for him,\" she said; \"perhaps he'll be here soon.\"\n\n\"I'll be lookin' afther the supper, thin,\" said Mrs. Maloney, \"the\nlad'll be hungry whin he comes,\" and she left the room.\n\nBachelor Billy lay very quiet, as if asleep, breathing regularly, his\nface somewhat pale and his lips blue, but he had not the appearance of\none who is in danger.\n\nA few minutes later there came a gentle knock at the street door. Mrs.\nBurnham arose and opened it. Lawyer Goodlaw stood on the step. She\ngave him as courteous greeting as though she had been under the roof\nof her own mansion.\n\n\"I called at your home,\" he said, as he entered, \"and, learning that\nyou had come here, I concluded to follow you.\"\n\nHe went up to the bed and looked at Bachelor Billy, bending over him\nwith kind scrutiny.\n\n\"I heard that the shock had affected him seriously,\" he said, \"but he\ndoes not appear to be greatly the worse for it; I think he'll come\nthrough all right. He's an honest, warm-hearted man. I learned the\nother day of a proposition that Sharpman made to him before the trial;\na tempting one to offer to a poor man, but he rejected it with scorn.\nI'll tell you of it sometime; it shows forth the nobility of the man's\ncharacter.\"\n\nGoodlaw had crossed the room and had taken a seat by the window.\n\n\"But I came to bring you news,\" he continued. \"Our detective returned\nthis morning and presented a full report of his investigation and its\nresult. You will be pleased with it.\"\n\n\"Oh, Mr. Goodlaw! is Ralph--is Ralph--\"\n\nShe was leaning toward him with clasped hands.\n\n\"Ralph is your son,\" he said.\n\nShe bowed her head, and her lips moved in silence. When she looked up,\nthere were tears in her eyes, but her face was radiant with happiness.\n\n\"Is there any, any doubt about it now?\" she asked.\n\n\"None whatever,\" he replied.\n\n\"And what of Rhyming Joe's story?\"\n\n\"It was a pure falsehood. He does not tire of telling how he swindled\nthe sharpest lawyer in Scranton out of a hundred and fifty dollars, by\na plausible lie. He takes much credit to himself for the successful\nexecution of so bold a scheme. But the money got him into trouble. He\nhad too much, he spent it too freely, and, as a consequence, he is\nserving a short term of imprisonment in the Alleghany county jail for\nsome petty offence.\"\n\nThe tears would keep coming into the lady's eyes; but they were tears\nof joy, not of sorrow.\n\n\"I have the detective's report here in writing,\" continued Goodlaw;\n\"I will give it to you that you may read it at your leisure. Craft's\nstory was true enough in its material parts, but a gigantic scheme was\nbased on it to rob both you and your son. The odium of that, however,\nshould rest where the expense of the venture rested, on Craft's\nattorney. It is a matter for sincere congratulation that Ralph's\nidentity was not established by them at that time. He has been\ndelivered out of the hands of sharpers, and his property is wholly\nsaved to him.\n\n\"I learn that Craft is dying miserably in his wretched lodgings in\nPhiladelphia. With enough of ill-gotten gain to live on comfortably,\nhis miserly instincts are causing him to suffer for the very\nnecessities of life.\"\n\n\"I am sorry for him,\" said the lady; \"very sorry.\"\n\n\"He is not deserving of your sympathy, madam; he treated your son with\ngreat cruelty while he had him.\"\n\n\"But he saved Ralph's life.\"\n\n\"That is no doubt true, yet he stole the jewelry from the child's\nperson and kept him only for the sake of obtaining ransom.\n\n\"This reminds me that it is also true that he had an interview with\nyour husband on the day of Mr. Burnham's death. What took place\nbetween them I cannot ascertain, but I have learned that afterward,\nwhile the rescuing party were descending into the mine, your husband\nrecognized Ralph in a way that those who saw and heard him could not\nat the time understand. Recent events, however, prove beyond a doubt\nthat your husband knew, on the day he died, that this boy was his\nson.\"\n\nMrs. Burnham had been weeping silently.\n\n\"You are bringing me too much good and comforting news,\" she said; \"I\nam not quite able to bear it all, you see.\"\n\nShe was smiling through her tears, but a look of anxiety crossed her\nface as she continued:--\n\n\"I am worried about Ralph. He has not yet come from the breaker.\"\n\nShe glanced up at the little clock on the shelf, and then went to look\nout from the window.\n\nThe man on the bed moved and moaned, and she went back to him.\n\n\"Perhaps we had better send some one to look for the boy,\" said\nGoodlaw. \"I will go myself--\"\n\nHe was interrupted by the opening of the door. Andy Gilgallon stood\non the threshold and looked in with amazement. He had not expected to\nfind the lady and the lawyer there.\n\n\"I come to see Bachelor Billy,\" he said. \"Me an' him work togither at\nthe head. He got it worse nor I did. I'm over it, only I'm wake yit.\nThe likes o' it was niver seen afoor.\"\n\nHe looked curiously in at the bed where his comrade was lying.\n\n\"Come in,\" said Mrs. Burnham, \"come in and look at him. He's not\nconscious yet, but I think he'll soon come to himself.\"\n\nThe man entered the room, walking on the toes of his clumsy shoes.\n\n\"Have you seen anything of Ralph since the fire?\" continued the lady.\n\nAndy stopped and looked incredulously at his questioner.\n\n\"An' have ye not heard?\" he asked.\n\n\"Heard what, Andy?\" she replied, her face paling as she noted the\nman's strange look.\n\n\"Why, they didn't get 'im out,\" he said. \"It's in the mine he is,\nsure, mum.\"\n\nShe stood for a moment in silence, her face as white as the wall\nbehind her. Then she clasped her hands tightly together and all the\nmuscles of her body grew rigid in the desperate effort to remain calm\nfor the sake of the unconscious man on the bed, for the sake of the\nlost boy in the mine, for the sake of her own ability to think and to\nact.\n\nGoodlaw saw the struggle and rose from his chair.\n\n\"It's a dangerous imprisonment,\" he said, \"but not, of necessity, a\nfatal one.\"\n\nShe still stood staring silently at the messenger who had brought to\nher these dreadful tidings.\n\n\"They're a-thryin' to get to the mouth o' the shaft now,\" said Andy.\n\"They're a-dhraggin' the timbers away; timbers wid the fire in 'em\nyit. Ye'd be shtartled to see 'em, mum.\"\n\nThen the lady spoke.\n\n\"I will go to the shaft,\" she said. Her carriage was already at the\ndoor; she started toward it, throwing a light wrap across her arm as\nshe went.\n\nAgain the man on the bed moved and moaned.\n\n\"Stay with him,\" she said to Andy, \"until I come myself, or send some\none to relieve you. See that he has everything he needs. He is my\ncharge.\"\n\nGoodlaw helped her to the carriage.\n\n\"Will you come with me?\" she asked.\n\nHe seated himself beside her and they were driven away. There was\nlittle that he could say to comfort and assure her. The shock was too\nrecent. The situation of her son was too perilous.\n\nDarkness was coming on when they reached the scene of the disaster;\none or two stars were already out, and the crescent of the new moon\nwas hanging in the west. Great clouds of white smoke were floating\naway to the east, and where the breaker had that morning stood there\nwas now only a mass of charred and glowing ruins.\n\nThere were many people there, people who talked in low tones and\nwho looked on with solemn faces. But there were no outcries nor\nlamentations; there was but one person, a boy, shut up in the mine,\nand he was kin to no one there.\n\nUp at the south-west corner of the pile they were throwing water on\nthe ruins. An engine had been brought up from the city and was pouring\na steady stream on the spot where the shaft was thought to be.\n\nMany men were engaged in cutting and pulling away the burned timbers,\nhandling them while they were yet glowing with fire, so eager were\nthey to forward the work of rescue.\n\nThe superintendent of the mines was there, directing, encouraging,\nand giving a helping hand. He saw Mrs. Burnham and came up to her\ncarriage.\n\n\"It was a very disastrous lightning stroke,\" he said; \"the property of\nthe company is in ruins, but as yet no lives have been lost. There is\nbut one person in the mine, the boy Ralph; you both know him. We are\nclearing away the wreckage from the mouth of the shaft as rapidly as\npossible, in the hope that we may get down there in time to save his\nlife. Our people have directed me to spare no effort in this matter.\nOne life, even though it is that of an unknown boy, is not too poor a\nthing for us to try, by every possible means, to save.\"\n\n\"That boy,\" said Goodlaw, \"is Mrs. Burnham's son.\"\n\n\"Is it possible! Has he been identified, then, since the trial?\"\n\n\"Fully, fully! My dear sir, I beg that you will do all that lies in\nyour power to save this life for your company's sake, then double your\neffort for this lady's sake. She has no such fortune as this boy is to\nher.\"\n\nMrs. Burnham had sat there pale-faced and eager-eyed. Now she spoke:--\n\n\"What is the prospect? What are the chances? Can you surely save him?\nTell me truly, Mr. Martin?\"\n\n\"We cannot say certainly,\" replied the superintendent; \"there are too\nmany factors in the problem of which we are yet ignorant. We do not\nknow how badly the shaft is choked up; we do not know the condition\nof the air in the mine. To be frank with you, I think the chances are\nagainst rescuing the boy alive. The mine soon fills with poisonous\ngases when the air supply is cut off.\"\n\n\"Are you doing all that can be done?\" she asked. \"Will more men, more\nmoney, more of anything, help you in your work?\"\n\n\"We are doing all that can be done,\" he answered her. \"The men are\nworking bravely. We need nothing.\"\n\n\"How soon will you be able to go down and begin the search?\"\n\nThe man thought for a moment before replying.\n\n\"To-morrow,\" he said, uncertainly. \"I think surely by to-morrow.\"\n\nShe sank back into the carriage-seat, appalled by the length of time\nnamed. She had hoped that an hour or two at the farthest would enable\nthem to reach the bottom of the shaft.\n\n\"We will push the work to the utmost,\" said Martin, as he hurried\naway. \"Possibly we shall be able to get in sooner.\"\n\nGoodlaw and Mrs. Burnham sat for a long time in silence, watching the\nmen at their labor. Word had been passed among the workers that the\nmissing boy was Mrs. Burnham's son, and their energetic efforts were\nput forth now for her sake as well as for the lad's. For both mother\nand son held warm places in the hearts of these toiling men.\n\nThe mouth of the shaft had been finally uncovered, a space cleared\naround it, and the frame of a rude windlass erected. They were\npreparing to remove the debris from the opening.\n\nConway came to the carriage, and, in a voice broken with emotion, told\nthe story of Ralph's heroic effort to save a human life at the risk of\nhis own. He had little hope, he said, that Ralph could live till they\nshould reach him; but he should be the first, he declared, to go into\nthe mine in search of the gallant boy.\n\nAt this recital Mrs. Burnham wept; she could restrain her tears no\nlonger.\n\nAt last Goodlaw persuaded her to leave the scene. He feared the effect\nthat continued gazing on it might have upon her delicate nerves.\n\nThe flashing of the lanterns, the huge torches lighting up the\ndarkness, the forms of men moving back and forth in the smoky\natmosphere, the muscular and mental energy exhibited, the deep\nearnestness displayed,--all this made up a picture too dramatic and\nappalling for one whose heart was in it to look at undismayed.\n\nArrangements were made for a messenger service to keep Mrs. Burnham\nconstantly informed of the progress of the work, and, with a\nparting appeal to those in charge to hasten the hour of rescue, the\ngrief-stricken mother departed.\n\nThey drove first to Bachelor Billy's room. Andy was still there and\nsaid he would remain during the night. He said that Billy had spoken\nonce or twice, apparently in his right mind, and was now sleeping\nquietly.\n\nThen Mrs. Burnham went to her home. She passed the long night in\nsleepless anxiety, waiting for the messages from the mine, which\nfollowed each other in slow succession. They brought to her no good\nnews. The work was going on; the opening was full with wreckage; the\nair was very bad, even in the shaft. These were the tidings. It was\nhardly possible, they wrote, that the boy could still be living.\n\nLong before the last star had paled and faded in the western sky, or\nthe first rays of the morning sun had shot across the hills, despair\nhad taken in her heart the place of hope. She could only say: \"Well,\nhe died as his father died, trying to save the lives of others. I have\ntwo lost heroes now to mourn for and be proud of, instead of one.\"\n\nBut even yet there crossed her mind at times the thought that\npossibly, possibly the one chance for life as against thousands and\nthousands for death might fall to her boy; and the further and deeper\nthought that the range of God's mercy was very wide, oh, very wide!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV.\n\nAT THE DAWN OF DAY.\n\n\nIt was not until very late on the morning following the storm that\nBachelor Billy came fully to his senses and realized what had\nhappened.\n\nHe was told that the breaker had been struck by lightning and burned\nto the ground, and that his own illness was due to the severity of the\nelectric shock.\n\nHe asked where Ralph was, and they told him that Ralph was up at the\nmine. They thought it wiser that he should not know the truth about\nthe boy just yet.\n\nHe thought to get up and dress himself, but he felt so weak and\nbruised, and the strong metallic taste in his mouth nauseated him so,\nthat he yielded to the advice of those who were with him and lay down\nagain.\n\nHe looked up anxiously at the clock, at intervals, and seemed to be\nimpatient for the noon hour to arrive. He thought Ralph would come\nthen to his dinner. He wondered that the boy should go away and leave\nhim for so long a time alone in his illness.\n\nThe noon hour came, but Ralph did not come.\n\nAndy Gilgallon returned and tried to divert the man's mind with\nstories of the fire, but the attempt was in vain.\n\nAt one o'clock they made a pretence of sending Mrs. Maloney's little\ngirl to look for Ralph, in order to quiet Bachelor Billy's growing\napprehension.\n\nBut he remained very anxious and ill at ease. It struck him that there\nwas something peculiar about the conduct of the people who were with\nhim when Ralph's name was mentioned or his absence discussed. A\ngrowing fear had taken possession of his mind that something was\nwrong, and so terribly wrong that they dared not tell it to him.\n\nWhen the clock struck two, he sat up in the bed and looked at Andy\nGilgallon with a sternness in his face that was seldom seen there.\n\n\"Andy,\" he said, \"tha's summat ye're a-keepin' fra me. If aught's\nhappenit to the lad I want ye s'ould tell me. Be he hurt, be he dead,\nI wull know it. Coom noo, oot wi' it, mon! D'ye hear me?\"\n\nAndy could not resist an appeal and a command like this. There was\nsomething in the man's eyes, he said afterwards, that drew the truth\nright out of him.\n\nBachelor Billy heard the story calmly, asked about the means being\ntaken for the boy's rescue, and then sat for a few moments in quiet\nthought.\n\nFinally he said: \"Andy, gi' me ma clothes.\"\n\nAndy did not dare to disobey him. He gave his clothes to him, and\nhelped him to dress.\n\nThe man was so sick and dizzy still that he could hardly stand. He\ncrossed the room, took his cap from its hook and put it on his head.\n\n\"An' where do yez be goin' to I donno?\" inquired Andy, anxiously.\n\n\"I'm a-goin' to the breaker,\" replied Bachelor Billy.\n\n\"Ah, man! but ye're foolish. Ye'll be losin' your own life, I warrant,\nan' ye'll be doin' no good to the boy.\"\n\nBut Billy had already started from the door.\n\n\"I might be able to do a bit toward savin' 'im,\" he said. \"An' if he's\nbeyon' that, as mos' like he is, I s'ould want to get the lad's body\nan' care for it mysel'. I kenned 'im best.\"\n\nThe two men were walking up through the narrow street of the village.\n\n\"I hear now that it's Mrs. Burnham's son he is,\" said Andy. \"Lawyer\nGoodlaw came yesterday wid the news.\"\n\nBilly did not seem surprised.\n\nHe trudged on, saying simply:--\n\n\"Then he's worthy of his mither, the lad is, an' of his father. I'm\nthankfu' that he's got some one at last, besides his Uncle Billy,\nhappen it's only to bury 'im.\"\n\nThe fresh, cool air seemed to have revived and strengthened the\ninvalid, and he went on at a more rapid pace. But he was weak enough\nstill. He wavered from side to side as he walked, and his face was\nvery pale.\n\nWhen the two men reached the site of the burned breaker, they went\ndirectly to the opening to learn the latest news concerning the\nsearch. There was not much, however, for them to hear. The shaft was\nentirely cleaned out and men had been down into the mine, but they had\nnot been able to get far from the foot, the air was so very bad.\n\nA rough partition was being built now, down the entire depth of the\nopening, a cover had been erected over the mouth of the shaft, and a\nfan had been put up temporarily, to drive fresh air into the mine and\ncreate an atmosphere there that would support life.\n\nIt was not long after the arrival of the two men before another party\nof miners stepped into the bucket to be lowered into the mine.\n\nBachelor Billy asked to be allowed to go with them, but his request\nwas denied. They feared that, in his present condition, the foul air\nbelow would be fatal to him.\n\nThe party could not go far from the foot of the shaft, no farther,\nindeed, than the inside plane. But they found nothing, no sign\nwhatever of the missing boy.\n\nOthers went down afterward, and pushed the exploration farther, and\nstill others. It seemed probable that the lad, driven back by the\nsmoke and gas, had taken refuge in some remote portion of the mine;\nand the portion that he would be apt to choose, they thought, would\nbe the portion with which he had been most familiar. They therefore\nextended the search mainly in that direction.\n\nBut it was night before they reached those chambers which Ralph had\nbeen accustomed to serve with cars. They looked them over thoroughly;\nevery entrance and every corner was scrutinized, but no trace of the\nimprisoned boy could be found.\n\nBachelor Billy had not left the place. He had been the first to hear\nthe report of each returning squad, but his hope for the lad's safety\nhad disappeared long before the sun went down. When night came on he\nwent up on the bank and sat under the tree on the bench; the same\nbench on which he had sat that day in May to listen to the story of\nRalph's temptation. His only anxiety now was that the child's body\nshould be brought speedily from the foul air, so that the face might\nbe kept as fair as possible for the mother's sake.\n\nConway, who had gone down into the mine with the first searching\nparty, had been overcome by the foul air, and had been brought out\ninsensible and taken to his home. But he had recovered, and was now\nback again at the shaft. It seemed to him, he said, as though he was\ncompelled to return; as though there was something to be done here\nthat only he could do. He was sitting on the bench now with Bachelor\nBilly, and they were discussing the lad's heroic sacrifice, and\nwondering to what part of the mine he could have gone that the search\nof half a day should fail to disclose his whereabouts.\n\nA man who had just come out from the shaft, exhausted, was assisted up\nthe bank by two companions, and laid down on the grass near the bench,\nin the moonlight, to breathe the fresh air that was stirring there.\n\nAfter a little, he revived, and began to tell of the search.\n\n\"It's very strange,\" he said, \"where the lad could have gone. We\nthought to find him in the north tier, and we went up one chamber and\ndown the next, and looked into every entrance, but never a track of\nhim could we get.\"\n\nHe turned to Conway, who was standing by, and continued:--\n\n\"Up at the face o' your chamber we found a dead mule with his collar\non. The poor creature had gone there, no doubt, to find good air. He'd\nclimbed up on the very shelf o' coal at the breast to get the farthest\nhe could. Did ye ever hear the like?\"\n\nBut Conway did not answer. A vague solution of the mystery of Ralph's\ndisappearance was dawning on him. He turned suddenly to the man, and\nasked:--\n\n\"Did ye see the hole in the face when ye were there; a hole the size\no' your head walled up with stone-coal?\"\n\n\"I took no note o' such a thing. What for had ye such a hole there,\nan' where to?\"\n\n\"Into the old mine,\" said Conway, earnestly, \"into old No. 1. The boy\nsaw it yisterday. I told 'im where it wint. He's broke it in, and\ncrawled through, he has, I'll bet he has. Come on; we'll find 'im\nyet!\" and he started rapidly down the hill toward the mouth of the\nshaft.\n\nBachelor Billy rose from the bench and stumbled slowly after him;\nwhile the man who had told them about the mule lifted himself to his\nelbows, and looked down on them in astonishment.\n\nHe could not quite understand what Conway meant.\n\nThe superintendent of the mine had gone. The foreman in charge of the\nwindlass and fan stood leaning against a post, with the light of a\ntorch flaring across his swarthy face.\n\n\"Let me down!\" cried Conway, hastening to the opening. \"I know where\nthe boy is; I can find 'im.\"\n\nThe man smiled. \"It's against orders,\" he responded. \"Wait till Martin\ncomes back an' the next gang goes in; then ye can go.\"\n\n\"But I say I know where the boy is. I can find 'im in half an hour.\nFive minutes delay might cost 'im his life.\"--\n\nThe man looked at Conway in doubt and wonder; he was hesitating\nbetween obedience and inclination.\n\nThen Bachelor Billy spoke up, \"Why, mon!\" he exclaimed, \"what's orders\nwhen a life's at stake? We _mus'_ go doon, I tell ye! An ye hold us\nback ye'll be guilty o' the lad's daith!\"\n\nHis voice had a ring of earnestness in it that the man could not\nresist. He moved to the windlass and told his helpers to lower the\nbucket. Conway entreated Bachelor Billy not to go down, and the\nforeman joined in the protest. They might as well have talked to\nthe stars.\n\n\"Why, men!\" said Billy, \"tha's a chance as how the lad's alive. An\nthat be so no ither body can do for 'im like me w'en he's foond. I\nwull go doon, I tell ye; I _mus'_ go doon!\"\n\nHe stepped carefully into the bucket, Conway leaped in after him, and\nthey were lowered away.\n\nAt the bottom of the shaft they found no one but the footman, whose\nduty it was to remain steadily at his post. He listened somewhat\nincredulously to their hasty explanations, he gave to them another\nlighted lamp, and wished them good-luck as they started away into the\nheading.\n\nIn spite of his determination and self-will, Bachelor Billy's strength\ngave out before they had reached the head of the plane, and he was\nobliged to stop and rest. Indeed, he was compelled often to do this\nduring the remainder of the journey, but he would not listen to any\nsuggestion that he should turn back. The air was still very impure,\nalthough they could at times feel the fresh current from the shaft at\ntheir backs.\n\nThey met no one. The searching parties were all south of the shaft\nnow, this part of the mine having been thoroughly examined.\n\nBy the time the two men had reached the foot of Conway's chamber,\nthey were nearly prostrated by the foul air they had been compelled\nto breathe. Both were still feeble from recent illnesses and were\nwithout the power to resist successfully the effects of the poisoned\natmosphere. They made their way up the chamber in silence, their limbs\nunsteady, their heads swimming, their hearts beating violently. At the\nbreast Conway clambered up over the body of the mule and thrust his\nlighted lamp against the walled-up aperture.\n\n\"He's gone through here!\" he cried. \"He's opened up the hole an' gone\nthrough.\"\n\nThe next moment he was tearing away the blocks of slate and coal\nwith both hands. But his fingers were stiff and numb, and the work\nprogressed too slowly. Then he braced himself against the body of the\nmule, pushed with his feet against Ralph's rude wall, and the next\nmoment it fell back into the old mine. He brushed away the bottom\nstones and called to his companion.\n\n\"Come!\" he said, \"the way's clear an' we'll find better air in there.\"\n\nBut Bachelor Billy did not respond. He had fallen against the lower\nface of coal, unconscious. Conway saw that he must do quick work.\n\nHe reached over, grasped the man by his shoulders, and with superhuman\neffort drew him up to the shelf and across the body of the mule. Then,\ncreeping into the opening, he pulled the helpless man through with him\ninto the old mine, and dragged him up the chamber out of reach of the\npoisoned current. He loosened his collar and chafed his wrists and the\nbetter air in there did the rest.\n\nBachelor Billy soon returned to consciousness, and learned where he\nwas.\n\n\"That was fulish in me,\" he said, \"to weaken like that; but I'm no'\nused to that white damp. Gi' me a minute to catch ma breath an' I'll\ngo wi' ye.\"\n\nConway went down and walled up the opening again. When he came back\nBachelor Billy was on his feet, walking slowly down the chamber,\nthrowing the light of his lamp into the entrances on the way.\n\n\"Did he go far fra the openin,' thenk ye?\" he asked. \"Would he no'\nmost like stay near whaur he cam' through?\"\n\nThen he tried to lift up his voice and call to the boy; but he was too\nweak, he could hardly have been heard across the chamber.\n\n\"Call 'im yoursel', Mike,\" he said; \"I ha' no power i' my throat,\nsome way.\"\n\nConway called, loudly and repeatedly. There was no answer; the echoes\ncame rattling back to their ears, and that was all that they heard.\n\n\"Mayhap he's gone to the headin',\" said Billy, \"an\" tried to get oot\nby the auld slope.\"\n\n\"That's just what he's done,\" replied Conway, earnestly; \"I told 'im\nwhere the old openin' was; he's tried to get to it.\"\n\n\"Then we'll find 'im atween here an' there.\"\n\nThe two men had been moving slowly down the chamber. When they came to\nthe foot of it, they turned into the air-way, and from that they went\nthrough the entrance into the heading. At this place the dirt on the\nfloor was soft and damp, and they saw in it the print of a boy's shoe.\n\n\"He's gone in,\" said Bachelor Billy, examining the foot-prints, \"he's\ngone in toward the face. I ken the place richt well, it's mony's the\ntime I ha' travelled it.\"\n\nThey hurried in along the heading, not stopping to look for other\ntracks, but expecting to find the boy's body ahead of them at every\nstep they took.\n\nWhen they reached the face, they turned and looked at each other in\nsurprise.\n\n\"He's no' here,\" said Billy.\n\n\"It's strange, too,\" replied Conway. \"He couldn't 'a' got off o' the\nheadin'!\"\n\nHe stooped and examined the floor of the passage carefully, holding\nhis lamp very low.\n\n\"Billy,\" he said, \"I believe he's come in an' gone out again. Here's\ntracks a-pointin' the other way.\"\n\n\"So he has, Mike, so he has; the puir lad!\"\n\nBachelor Billy was thinking of the disappointment Ralph must have felt\nwhen he saw the face of the heading before him, and knew that his\njourney in had been in vain.\n\nAlready the two men had turned and were walking back.\n\nAt the point where they had entered the heading they found foot-prints\nleading out toward the slope. They had not noticed them at first.\n\nThey followed them hastily, and came, as Ralph had come, to the fall.\n\n\"He's no' climbit it,\" said Billy. \"He's gone up an' around it. The\nlad knew eneuch aboot the mines for that.\"\n\nThey passed up into the chambers, but the floor was too dry to take\nthe impress of footsteps, and they found no trace of the boy.\n\nWhen they reached the upper limit of the fall, Billy said:--\n\n\"We mus' turn sharp to the left here, or we'll no' get back. It's a\ntarrible windin' headin'.\"\n\nBut Conway had discovered tracks, faintly discernible, leading across\ninto a passage used by men and mules to shorten the distance to the\ninner workings.\n\n\"He's a-goin' stret back,\" said Billy, sorrowfully, as they slowly\nfollowed these traces, \"he's a-goin' stret back to whaur he cam'\nthrough.\"\n\nSurely enough the prints of the child's feet soon led the tired\nsearchers back to the opening from Conway's chamber.\n\nThey looked at each other in silent disappointment, and sat down for a\nfew moments to rest and to try to think.\n\nBachelor Billy was the first to rise to his feet.\n\n\"Mike,\" he said, \"the lad's i' this auld mine. Be it soon or late I\ns'all find 'im. I s'all search the place fra slope to headin'-face. I\ns'all no' gae oot till I gae wi' the boy or wi' 'is body; what say ye?\nwull ye help?\"\n\nConway grasped the man's hand with a pressure that meant more than\nwords, and they started immediately to follow their last track back.\nThey passed up and down all the chambers in the tier till they reached\nthe point, at the upper limit of the fall, where Ralph had turned into\nthe foot-way. Their search had been a long and tiresome one and had\nyielded to them no results.\n\nThey began to appreciate the fact that a thorough exploration of the\nmine could not be made in a short time by two worn-out men. Billy\nblamed himself for not having thought sooner to send for other and\nfresher help.\n\n\"Ye mus' go now, Mike,\" he said. \"Mayhap it'd take days wi' us twa\nhere alone, an' the lad's been a-wanderin' aroun' so.\"\n\nBut Conway demurred.\n\n\"You're the one to go,\" he said. \"You can't stan' it in here much\nlonger, an' I can. You're here at the risk o' your life. Go on out\nwith ye an' get a bit o' the fresh air. I'll stay and hunt for the\nboy till the new men comes.\"\n\nBut Bachelor Billy was in earnest.\n\n\"I canna do it,\" he said. \"I would na get farther fra the lad for\nwarlds, an' him lost an' a-dyin' mayhap. I'll stan' it. Never ye fear\nfor me! Go on, Mike, go on quick!\"\n\nConway turned reluctantly to go.\n\n\"Hold out for an hour,\" he shouted back, \"an' we'll be with ye!\"\n\nBefore the sound of his footsteps had died away, Billy had picked up\nhis lamp again and started down on the easterly side of the fall,\nmaking little side excursions as he went, hunting for foot-prints on\nthe floor of the mine.\n\nWhen he came to the heading, he turned to go back to the face of the\nfall. It was but a few steps. There was a little stream of water\nrunning down one side of the passage and he lay down by it to drink.\nHalf hidden in the stream he espied a miner's lamp. He reached for it\nin sudden surprise. He saw that it had been lately in use. He started\nto his feet and moved up closer to the fall, looking into the dark\nplaces under the rock. His foot struck something; it was the oil-can.\nHe picked it up and examined it. There was blood on it; and both can\nand lamp were empty. He looked up at the face of the fall and then\nthe truth came slowly into his mind. The boy had attempted to climb\nthrough that wilderness of rock, had reached the precipice, had fallen\nto the floor, had spilled his oil, and had wandered off into the\ndreadful darkness, hurt and helpless.\n\n\"Oh, the puir lad!\" he said, aloud. \"Oh, the puir dear lad! He canna\nbe far fra here,\" he continued, \"not far. Ralph! Ralph!\"\n\nHe waited a moment in silence, but there was no answer. Then, hastily\nexamining the passage as he went, he hurried down along the heading.\n\nAt one place he found a burned match. The boy had gone this way, then.\nHe hastened on. He came to a point where two headings met, and stopped\nin indecision. Which route had Ralph taken? He decided to try the one\nthat led to the slope. He went in that way, but he had not gone ten\nrods before he came upon a little heap of charred rags in the middle\nof the passage. He could not understand it at first; but he was not\nlong in discovering what it meant. Ralph had burned his jacket to\nlight up the path.\n\n\"Ah! the sufferin' child!\" he murmured; \"the dear sufferin' child!\"\n\nA little further along he saw a boy's cap lying in the way. He picked\nit up and placed it in his bosom. He brushed away a tear or two\nfrom his eyes and hastened on. It was no time to weep over the lad's\nsufferings when he expected to find his body at every step he took.\nBut he went a long distance and saw no other sign of the boy's\npassage. He came to a place at last where the dirt on the floor of the\nheading was wet. He bent down and made careful scrutiny from side to\nside, but there were no foot-prints there save his own. He had, in his\nhaste gone too far. He turned back with a desperate longing at his\nheart. He knew that the lad must be somewhere near.\n\nAt one point, an unblocked entrance opened from the heading into the\nair-way at an acute angle. He thought the boy might have turned into\nthat, and he passed up through it and so into the chambers. He stopped\nat times to call Ralph's name, but no answer ever came. He wandered\nback, finally, toward the fall, and down into the heading where\nthe burned coat was. After a few moments of rest, he started again,\nexamining every inch of the ground as he went. This time he found\nwhere Ralph had turned off into the air-way. He traced his foot-prints\nup through an entrance into the chambers and there they were again\nlost. But he passed on through the open places, calling as he went,\nand came finally to the sump near the foot of the slope. He held his\nlamp high and looked out over the black surface of the water. Not far\naway the roof came down to meet it. A dreadful apprehension entered\nthe man's mind. Perhaps Ralph had wandered unconsciously into this\nblack pool and been drowned. But that was too terrible; he would\nnot allow himself to think of it. He turned away, went back up the\nchamber, and crossed over again to the air-way. Moving back a little\nto search for foot-prints, he came to an old door-way and sat clown by\nit to rest--yes, and to weep. He could no longer think of the torture\nthe child must have endured in his wanderings through the old mine and\nkeep the tears from his eyes. He almost hoped that death had long ago\ncome to the boy's relief.\n\n\"Oh, puir lad!\" he sobbed, \"puir, puir lad!\"\n\nBelow him, in the darkness, he heard the drip of water from the roof.\nAside from that, the place was very, very still.\n\nThen, for a moment, his heart stopped beating and he could not move.\n\nHe had heard a voice somewhere near him saying:--\n\n\"Good-night, Uncle Billy! If I wake first in the mornin', I'll call\nyou--good-night!\"\n\nIt was what Ralph was used to saying when he went to bed at home. But\nit was not Ralph's voice sounding through the darkness; it was only\nthe ghost of Ralph's voice.\n\nIn the next moment the man's strength returned to him; he seized his\nlamp and leaped through the old door-way, and there at his feet lay\nRalph. The boy was living, breathing, talking.\n\nBilly fell on his knees beside him and began to push the hair back\nfrom his damp forehead, kissing it tenderly as he did so.\n\n\"Ralph,\" he said, \"Ralph, lad, dinna ye see me? It's your Uncle Billy,\nRalph, your Uncle Billy.\"\n\nThe boy did not open his eyes, but his lips moved.\n\n\"Did you call me, Uncle Billy?\" he asked. \"Is it mornin'? Is it\ndaylight?\"\n\n\"It'll soon be daylight, lad, verra soon noo, verra soon.\"\n\nHe had fastened his lamp in his cap, placed his arms gently under the\nchild's body, and lifted him to his breast. He stood for a moment\nthen, questioning with himself. But the slope was the nearest and the\nway to it was the safest, and there was no time to wait. He started\ndown the air-way on his journey to the outer world, bearing his burden\nas tenderly as a mother would have borne her babe, looking down at\ntimes into the still face, letting the tears drop now and then on the\npaper pinned to the boy's breast.\n\nHe stopped to rest after a little, holding the child on his knees as\nhe sat, and looking curiously at the letter, on which his tears had\nfallen. He read it slowly by the light of his lamp, bending back the\nfold to do so. He did not wonder at it. He knew what it meant and why\nthe boy had fastened it there.\n\n\"Ye s'all gae to her, lad,\" he said, \"ye s'all gae to the mither. I'm\nthankfu', verra thankfu', that the father kenned the truth afoor he\ndeed.\"\n\nHe raised his precious burden to his heart and began again his\njourney.\n\nThe water in the old sump had risen and flowed across the heading and\nthe air-way and far up into the chambers, and he was compelled to go\naround it. The way was long and devious; it was blocked and barred;\nhe had often to lay his burden down and make an opening through some\nwalled-up entrance to give them room for passage.\n\nThere were falls in his course, and he clambered across rough hills\nof rock and squeezed through narrow openings; but every step brought\nhim nearer to the slope, and this thought nerved him to still greater\neffort. Yet he could not wholly escape the water of the sump. He had\nstill to pass through it. It was cold and black. It came to his ankles\nas he trudged along. By and by it reached to his knees. When it grew\nto be waist-deep he lifted the child to his shoulder, steadied himself\nagainst the side wall of the passage and pushed on. He slipped often,\nhe became dizzy at times, there were horrible moments when he thought\nsurely that the dark water would close over him and his precious\nburden forever. But he came through it at last, dripping, gasping,\nstaggering on till he reached the foot of the old slope. There he sat\ndown to rest. From away back in the mine the echoing shouts of the\nrescuing party came faintly to his ears. Conway had returned with\nhelp. He tried to answer their call, but the cry stuck in his throat.\n\nHe knew that it would be folly for him to attempt to reach them; he\nknew also that they would never trace his course across that dreadful\nwaste of water.\n\nThere was but one thing to do; he must go on, he must climb the slope.\n\nHe gave one look up the long incline, gathered his burden to his\nbreast and started upward. The slope was not a steep one. There were\nmany in that region that were steeper; but to a man in the last stage\nof physical exhaustion, forcing his tired muscles and his pain-racked\nbody to carry him and his helpless charge up its slippery way, it was\nlittle less than precipitous.\n\nIt was long too, very long, and in many places it was rough with\ndislodged props and caps and fallen rock.\n\nMany and many a time Bachelor Billy fell prone upon the sloping floor,\nbut, though he was powerless to save himself, though he met in his own\nbody the force of every blow, he always held the child out of harm's\nway.\n\nHe began to wonder, at last, if he could ever get the lad to the\nsurface; if, within fifty rods of the blessed outer air, he would not\nafter all have to lie down and die with Ralph in his arms.\n\nBut as soon as such thoughts came to him he brought his tremendous\nwill and magnificent courage to the rescue, and arose and struggled\non.\n\nThe boy had not spoken since the journey began, nor had he opened his\neyes. He was still unconscious, but he was breathing; his heart was\nbeating, there was life in his body, and that was all that could be\nasked or hoped for.\n\nAt last! oh, at last! The straight, steep, dreadful half mile of slope\nwas at Bachelor Billy's back. He stood out once more in the free and\nopen air. Under his feet were the grass and flowers and yielding soil;\nover his head were the shining stars, now paling in the east; below\nhim lay the fair valley and the sleeping town clothed lightly in the\nmorning mist; and in his arms he still held the child who had thought\nnever again to draw breath under the starry sky or in the dewy air.\nThere came a faint breeze, laden with all the fragrance of the young\nmorning, and it swept Ralph's cheek so gently that the very sweetness\nof it made his eyes to open.\n\nHe looked at the reddening east, at the setting stars still glowing in\nthe western sky, at the city church spires rising out of the sea of\nsilver mist far down below him, and then at last up into the dear old\nface and the tear-wet eyes above him, and he said: \"Uncle Billy, oh,\nUncle Billy! don't you think it's beautiful? I wish--I wish my mother\ncould see it.\"\n\n\"Aye, lad! she s'all look upon it wi' ye, mony's the sweet mornin'\nyet, an it please the good God.\"\n\nThe effort to look and to speak had overpowered the weary child, and\nhe sank back again into unconsciousness.\n\nThen began the journey home. Not to the old cottage; that was Ralph's\nhome no longer, but to the home of wealth and beauty now, to the\nmansion yonder in the city where the mother was waiting for her boy.\n\nAye! the mother was waiting for her boy.\n\nThey had sent a messenger on horseback shortly after midnight to tell\nher that the lad's tracks had been found in the old mine, that all the\nmen at hand had started in there to make the search more thorough,\nthat by daylight the child would be in her arms, that possibly, oh! by\nthe merest possibility, he might still be living.\n\nSo through the long hours she had waited, had waited and watched,\nlistening for a footfall in the street, for a step on the porch, for\na sound at her door; yet no one came. The darkness that lay upon the\nearth seemed, also, to lie heavily on her spirit.\n\nBut now, at last, with the gray light that told of coming day, there\ncrept into her heart a hope, a confidence, a serenity of faith that\nset it quite at rest.\n\nShe drew back the curtains and threw open the windows to let in the\nmorning air.\n\nThe sky above the eastern hilltops was aglow with crimson; in the\nzenith it was like the color of the sweet pale rose.\n\nShe felt and knew that her boy was living and that very soon he would\nbe with her. Doubt had disappeared wholly from her mind. She threw\nopen the great hall doors that he might have a gracious and a fitting\nwelcome to his home.\n\nShe went up once more to the room in which he was to lie until health\nshould return to him, to see that it was ready to receive him.\n\nWhen she again descended the stairs she saw the poor, bent figure of\na man, carrying a burden in his arms, staggering weakly up the walk,\nlaboring with awful effort at the steps of the porch. He was wet and\nwretched, he was hatless and ragged, but on his soiled face was a\nsmile befitting one of God's angels.\n\nHe kissed his burden tenderly, and gave it into the lady's arms.\n\nHe said:--\n\n\"I've brought 'im to ye fra the edge o' daith. His title to your luve\nis pinnit on 'is breast. I'm thankfu'--thankfu' for ye--both.\"\n\nBachelor Billy's work was done. He had lived to place his dearest\ntreasure in the safest place on earth; there was nothing left for him\nto do. He sank down gently to the floor of the broad hall. The first\nsunlight of the new day flashed its rays against the stained-glass\nwindows, and the windows caught them and laid them in coverlets of\nblue and gold across the prostrate form of this humblest of earth's\nheroes.\n\nUnder them was no stain visible, no mark of poverty, no line of pain;\nhe lay like a king in state with the cloth of gold across his body,\nand a crown of gold upon his head; but his soul, his brave, pure,\nnoble soul, ah! that was looking down from the serene and lofty\nheights of everlasting life.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nYes, he lived, Ralph lived and became well and strong. He took his\nname and his estates and chose his mother for his guardian; and life\nfor him was very, very beautiful.\n\nThe summer passed and the singing birds grew silent in the woods and\nfields. The grain stood golden, and the ripe fruit dropped from vine\nand tree. October came, with her frosty nights and smoky days. She\ndashed the hill-sides with her red and yellow, and then she held her\nveil of mist for the sun's rays to shine through, lest the gorgeous\ncoloring should daze the eyes of men.\n\nOn one of these most beautiful autumnal days, Ralph and his mother\nwent driving through the country roads, gathering golden-rod and\npurple aster and the fleecy immortelle. When they returned they passed\nthrough the cemetery gates and drove to one spot where art and nature\nhad combined to make pleasant to the living eye the resting-places\nof the dead, and they laid their offering of fresh wild-flowers upon\nthe grave of one who had nobly lived and had not ignobly died. Above\nthe mound, a block of rugged granite rose, bearing on its face the\nname and age and day of death of William Buckley, and also this\ninscription:--\n\n  \"Having finished his work, by the will of God he fell asleep.\"\n\nAs they drove back toward the glowing west, toward the pink clouds\nthat lay above the mountain-tops behind which the sun had just now\ndisappeared, toward the bustling city and the dear, dear home, Ralph\nlifted up his face and kissed his mother on her lips. But he did not\nspeak; the happiness and peace within him were too great for words.\n\n\n"}
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{"12864":"\n\n\n\n\nA\n\nCOLLECTION\n\nOF\n\nCOLLEGE WORDS AND CUSTOMS.\n\nBY B.H. HALL.\n\n \"Multa renascentur qu\u00e6 jam cecidere, cadentque Qu\u00e6 nunc sunt in\n  honore, vocabula.\"\n\n \"Notandi sunt tibi mores.\"\n    HOR. _Ars Poet._\n\nREVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION.\n\n\n\nEntered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by\n\nB.H. HALL,\n\nin the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of\nMassachusetts.\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\n\nThe first edition of this publication was mostly compiled during\nthe leisure hours of the last half-year of a Senior's collegiate\nlife, and was presented anonymously to the public with the\nfollowing\n\n\"PREFACE.\n\n\"The Editor has an indistinct recollection of a sheet of foolscap\npaper, on one side of which was written, perhaps a year and a half\nago, a list of twenty or thirty college phrases, followed by the\neuphonious titles of 'Yale Coll.,' 'Harvard Coll.' Next he calls\nto mind two blue-covered books, turned from their original use, as\nreceptacles of Latin and Greek exercises, containing explanations\nof these and many other phrases. His friends heard that he was\nhunting up odd words and queer customs, and dubbed him\n'Antiquarian,' but in a kindly manner, spared his feelings, and\ndid not put the vinegar 'old' before it.\n\n\"Two and one half quires of paper were in time covered with a\nstrange medley, an olla-podrida of student peculiarities. Thus did\nhe amuse himself in his leisure hours, something like one who, as\nDryden says, 'is for raking in Chaucer for antiquated words.' By\nand by he heard a wish here and a wish there, whether real or\notherwise he does not know, which said something about 'type,'\n'press,' and used other cabalistic words, such as 'copy,' 'devil,'\netc. Then there was a gathering of papers, a transcribing of\npassages from letters, an arranging in alphabetical order, a\ncorrecting of proofs, and the work was done,--poorly it may be,\nbut with good intent.\n\n\"Some things will be found in the following pages which are\nneither words nor customs peculiar to colleges, and yet they have\nbeen inserted, because it was thought they would serve to explain\nthe character of student life, and afford a little amusement to\nthe student himself. Society histories have been omitted, with the\nexception of an account of the oldest affiliated literary society\nin the United States.\n\n\"To those who have aided in the compilation of this work, the\nEditor returns his warmest thanks. He has received the assistance\nof many, whose names he would here and in all places esteem it an\nhonor openly to acknowlege, were he not forbidden so to do by the\nfact that he is himself anonymous. Aware that there is information\nstill to be collected, in reference to the subjects here treated,\nhe would deem it a favor if he could receive through the medium of\nhis publisher such morsels as are yet ungathered.\n\n\"Should one pleasant thought arise within the breast of any\nAlumnus, as a long-forgotten but once familiar word stares him in\nthe face, like an old and early friend; or should one who is still\nguarded by his Alma Mater be led to a more summer-like\nacquaintance with those who have in years past roved, as he now\nroves, through classic shades and honored halls, the labors of\ntheir friend, the Editor, will have been crowned with complete\nsuccess.\n\n\"CAMBRIDGE, July 4th, 1851.\"\n\nFearing lest venerable brows should frown with displeasure at the\nrecital of incidents which once made those brows bright and\njoyous; dreading also those stern voices which might condemn as\nboyish, trivial, or wrong an attempt to glean a few grains of\nphilological lore from the hitherto unrecognized corners of the\nfields of college life, the Editor chose to regard the brows and\nhear the voices from an innominate position. Not knowing lest he\nshould at some future time regret the publication of pages which\nmight be deemed heterodox, he caused a small edition of the work\nto be published, hoping, should it be judged as evil, that the\nerror would be circumscribed in its effects, and the medium of the\nerror buried between the dusty shelves of the second-hand\ncollection of some rusty old bibliopole. By reason of this extreme\ncaution, the volume has been out of print for the last four years.\n\nIn the present edition, the contents of the work have been\ncarefully revised, and new articles, filling about two hundred\npages, have been interspersed throughout the volume, arranged\nunder appropriate titles. Numerous additions have been made to the\ncollection of technicalities peculiar to the English universities,\nand the best authorities have been consulted in the preparation of\nthis department. An index has also been added, containing a list\nof the American colleges referred to in the text in connection\nwith particular words or customs.\n\nThe Editor is aware that many of the words here inserted are\nwanting in that refinement of sound and derivation which their use\nin classical localities might seem to imply, and that some of the\ncustoms here noticed and described are\n \"More honored in the breach than the observance.\"\nThese facts are not, however, sufficient to outweigh his\nconviction that there is nothing in language or manners too\ninsignificant for the attention of those who are desirous of\nstudying the diversified developments of the character of man. For\nthis reason, and for the gratification of his own taste and the\ntastes of many who were pleased at the inceptive step taken in the\nfirst edition, the present volume has been prepared and is now\ngiven to the public.\n\nTROY, N.Y., February 2, 1856.\n\n\n\n\nA COLLECTION OF COLLEGE WORDS AND CUSTOMS.\n\n\n\n_A_.\n\n\nA.B. An abbreviation for _Artium Baccalaureus_, Bachelor of Arts.\nThe first degree taken by students at a college or university. It\nis usually written B.A., q.v.\n\n\nABSIT. Latin; literally, _let him be absent_; leave of absence\nfrom commons, given to a student in the English\nuniversities.--_Gradus ad Cantab._\n\n\nACADEMIAN. A member of an academy; a student in a university or\ncollege.\n\n\nACADEMIC. A student in a college or university.\n\nA young _academic_ coming into the country immediately after this\ngreat competition, &c.--_Forby's Vocabulary_, under _Pin-basket_.\n\nA young _academic_ shall dwell upon a journal that treats of\ntrade, and be lavish in the praise of the author; while persons\nskilled in those subjects hear the tattle with contempt.--_Watts's\nImprovement of the Mind_.\n\n\nACADEMICALS. In the English universities, the dress peculiar to\nthe students and officers.\n\nI must insist on your going to your College and putting on your\n_academicals_.--_The Etonian_, Vol. II. p. 382.\n\nThe Proctor makes a claim of 6s. 8d. on every undergraduate whom\nhe finds _inermem_, or without his _academicals_.--_Gradus ad\nCantab._, p. 8.\n\nIf you say you are going for a walk, or if it appears likely, from\nthe time and place, you are allowed to pass, otherwise you may be\nsent back to college to put on your _academicals_.--_Collegian's\nGuide_, p. 177.\n\n\nACKNOWLEDGMENT. At Harvard College, every student admitted upon\nexamination, after giving a bond for the payment of all college\ndues, according to the established laws and customs, is required\nto sign the following _acknowledgment_, as it is called:--\"I\nacknowledge that, having been admitted to the University at\nCambridge, I am subject to its laws.\" Thereupon he receives from\nthe President a copy of the laws which he has promised to\nobey.--_Laws Univ. of Cam., Mass._, 1848, p. 13.\n\n\nACT. In English universities, a thesis maintained in public by a\ncandidate for a degree, or to show the proficiency of a\nstudent.--_Webster_.\n\nThe student proposes certain questions to the presiding officer of\nthe schools, who then nominates other students to oppose him. The\ndiscussion is syllogistical and in Latin and terminates by the\npresiding officer questioning the respondent, or person who is\nsaid _to keep the act_, and his opponents, and dismissing them\nwith some remarks upon their respective merits.--_Brande_.\n\nThe effect of practice in such matters may be illustrated by the\nhabit of conversing in Latin, which German students do much more\nreadily than English, simply because the former practise it, and\nhold public disputes in Latin, while the latter have long left off\n\"_keeping Acts_,\" as the old public discussions required of\ncandidates for a degree used to be called.--_Bristed's Five Years\nin an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 184.\n\nThe word was formerly used in Harvard College. In the \"Orders of\nthe Overseers,\" May 6th, 1650, is the following: \"Such that expect\nto proceed Masters of Arts [are ordered] to exhibit their synopsis\nof _acts_ required by the laws of the College.\"--_Quincy's Hist.\nHarv. Univ._, Vol. I. p. 518.\n\nNine Bachelors commenced at Cambridge; they were young men of good\nhope, and performed their _acts_ so as to give good proof of their\nproficiency in the tongues and arts.--_Winthrop's Journal, by Mr.\nSavage_, Vol. I. p. 87.\n\nThe students of the first classis that have beene these foure\nyears trained up in University learning (for their ripening in the\nknowledge of the tongues, and arts) and are approved for their\nmanners, as they have _kept_ their publick _Acts_ in former\nyeares, ourselves being present at them; so have they lately\n_kept_ two solemn _Acts_ for their Commencement.--_New England's\nFirst Fruits_, in _Mass. Hist. Coll._, Vol. I. p. 245.\n\nBut in the succeeding _acts_ ... the Latin syllogism seemed to\ngive the most content.--_Harvard Register_, 1827-28, p. 305.\n\n2. The close of the session at Oxford, when Masters and Doctors\ncomplete their degrees, whence the _Act Term_, or that term in\nwhich the _act_ falls. It is always held with great solemnity. At\nCambridge, and in American colleges, it is called _Commencement_.\nIn this sense Mather uses it.\n\nThey that were to proceed Bachelors, held their _Act_ publickly in\nCambridge.--_Mather's Magnalia_, B. 4, pp. 127, 128.\n\nAt some times in the universities of England they have no public\n_acts_, but give degrees privately and silently.--_Letter of\nIncrease Mather, in App. to Pres. Woolsey's Hist. Disc._, p. 87.\n\n\nAD EUNDEM GRADUM. Latin, _to the same degree_. In American\ncolleges, a Bachelor or Master of one institution was formerly\nallowed to take _the same_ degree at another, on payment of a\ncertain fee. By this he was admitted to all the privileges of a\ngraduate of his adopted Alma Mater. _Ad eundem gradum_, to the\nsame degree, were the important words in the formula of admission.\nA similar custom prevails at present in the English universities.\n\nPersons who have received a degree in any other college or\nuniversity may, upon proper application, be admitted _ad eundem_,\nupon payment of the customary fees to the President.--_Laws Union\nColl._, 1807, p. 47.\n\nPersons who have received a degree in any other university or\ncollege may, upon proper application, be admitted _ad eundem_,\nupon paying five dollars to the Steward for the President.--_Laws\nof the Univ. in Cam., Mass._, 1828.\n\nPersons who have received a degree at any other college may, upon\nproper application, be admitted _ad eundem_, upon payment of the\ncustomary fee to the President.--_Laws Mid. Coll._, 1839, p. 24.\n\nThe House of Convocation consists both of regents and non-regents,\nthat is, in brief, all masters of arts not honorary, or _ad\neundems_ from Cambridge or Dublin, and of course graduates of a\nhigher order.--_Oxford Guide_, 1847, p. xi.\n\nFortunately some one recollected that the American Minister was a\nD.C.L. of Trinity College, Dublin, members of which are admitted\n_ad eundem gradum_ at Cambridge.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng.\nUniv._, Ed. 2d, p. 112.\n\n\nADJOURN. At Bowdoin College, _adjourns_ are the occasional\nholidays given when a Professor unexpectedly absents himself from\nrecitation.\n\n\nADJOURN. At the University of Vermont, this word as a verb is used\nin the same sense as is the verb BOLT at Williams College; e.g.\nthe students _adjourn_ a recitation, when they leave the\nrecitation-room _en masse_, despite the Professor.\n\n\nADMISSION. The act of admitting a person as a member of a college\nor university. The requirements for admission are usually a good\nmoral character on the part of the candidate, and that he shall be\nable to pass a satisfactory examination it certain studies. In\nsome colleges, students are not allowed to enter until they are of\na specified age.--_Laws Univ. at Cam., Mass._, 1848, p. 12. _Laws\nTale Coll._, 1837, p. 8.\n\nThe requisitions for entrance at Harvard College in 1650 are given\nin the following extract. \"When any scholar is able to read Tully,\nor such like classical Latin author, _extempore_, and make and\nspeak true Latin in verse and prose _suo (ut aiunt) Marte_, and\ndecline perfectly the paradigms of nouns and verbs in the Greek\ntongue, then may he be admitted into the College, nor shall any\nclaim admission before such qualifications.\"--_Quincy's Hist.\nHarv. Univ._, Vol. I. p. 515.\n\n\nADMITTATUR. Latin; literally, _let him be admitted_. In the older\nAmerican colleges, the certificate of admission given to a student\nupon entering was called an _admittatur_, from the word with which\nit began. At Harvard no student was allowed to occupy a room in\nthe College, to receive the instruction there given, or was\nconsidered a member thereof, until he had been admitted according\nto this form.--_Laws Harv. Coll._, 1798.\n\nReferring to Yale College, President Wholsey remarks on this\npoint: \"The earliest known laws of the College belong to the years\n1720 and 1726, and are in manuscript; which is explained by the\ncustom that every Freshman, on his admission, was required to\nwrite off a copy of them for himself, to which the _admittatur_ of\nthe officers was subscribed.\"--_Hist. Disc, before Grad. Yale\nColl._, 1850, p. 45.\n\nHe travels wearily over in visions the term he is to wait for his\ninitiation into college ways and his _admittatur_.--_Harvard\nRegister_, p. 377.\n\nI received my _admittatur_ and returned home, to pass the vacation\nand procure the college uniform.--_New England Magazine_, Vol.\nIII. p. 238.\n\nIt was not till six months of further trial, that we received our\n_admittatur_, so called, and became matriculated.--_A Tour through\nCollege_, 1832, p. 13.\n\n\nADMITTO TE AD GRADUM. _I admit you to a degree_; the first words\nin the formula used in conferring the honors of college.\n\n  The scholar-dress that once arrayed him,\n  The charm _Admitto te ad gradum_,\n  With touch of parchment can refine,\n  And make the veriest coxcomb shine,\n  Confer the gift of tongues at once,\n  And fill with sense the vacant dunce.\n    _Trumbull's Progress of Dullness_, Ed. 1794, Exeter, p. 12.\n\n\nADMONISH. In collegiate affairs, to reprove a member of a college\nfor a fault, either publicly or privately; the first step of\ncollege discipline. It is followed by _of_ or _against_; as, to\nadmonish of a fault committed, or against committing a fault.\n\n\nADMONITION. Private or public reproof; the first step of college\ndiscipline. In Harvard College, both private and public admonition\nsubject the offender to deductions from his rank, and the latter\nis accompanied in most cases with official notice to his parents\nor guardian.--See _Laws Univ. at Cam., Mass._, 1848, p. 21. _Laws\nYale Coll._, 1837, p. 23.\n\nMr. Flynt, for many years a tutor in Harvard College, thus records\nan instance of college punishment for stealing poultry:--\"November\n4th, 1717. Three scholars were publicly admonished for thievery,\nand one degraded below five in his class, because he had been\nbefore publicly admonished for card-playing. They were ordered by\nthe President into the middle of the Hall (while two others,\nconcealers of the theft, were ordered to stand up in their places,\nand spoken to there). The crime they were charged with was first\ndeclared, and then laid open as against the law of God and the\nHouse, and they were admonished to consider the nature and\ntendency of it, with its aggravations; and all, with them, were\nwarned to take heed and regulate themselves, so that they might\nnot be in danger of so doing for the future; and those who\nconsented to the theft were admonished to beware, lest God tear\nthem in pieces, according to the text. They were then fined, and\nordered to make restitution twofold for each theft.\"--_Quincy's\nHist. Harv. Univ._, Vol. I. p. 443.\n\n\nADOPTED SON. Said of a student in reference to the college of\nwhich he is or was a member, the college being styled his _alma\nmater_.\n\nThere is something in the affection of our Alma Mater which\nchanges the nature of her _adopted sons_; and let them come from\nwherever they may, she soon alters them and makes it evident that\nthey belong to the same brood.--_Harvard Register_, p. 377.\n\n\nADVANCE. The lesson which a student prepares for the first time is\ncalled _the advance_, in contradistinction to _the review_.\n\n                Even to save him from perdition,\n  He cannot get \"_the advance_,\" forgets \"_the review_.\"\n    _Childe Harvard_, p. 13.\n\n\n\u00c6GROTAL. Latin, _\u00e6grotus_, sick. A certificate of illness. Used\nin the Univ. of Cam., Eng.\n\nA lucky thought; he will get an \"_\u00e6grotal_,\" or medical\ncertificate of illness.--_Household Words_, Vol. II. p. 162.\n\n\n\u00c6GROTAT. Latin; literally, _he is sick_. In the English\nuniversities, a certificate from a doctor or surgeon, to the\neffect that a student has been prevented by illness from attending\nto his college duties, \"though, commonly,\" says the Gradus ad\nCantabrigiam, \"the real complaint is much more serious; viz.\nindisposition of the mind! _\u00e6grotat_ animo magis quam corpore.\"\nThis state is technically called _\u00e6gritude_, and the person thus\naffected is said to be _\u00e6ger_.--_The Etonian_, Vol. II. pp. 386,\n387.\n\nTo prove sickness nothing more is necessary than to send to some\nmedical man for a pill and a draught, and a little bit of paper\nwith _\u00e6grotat_ on it, and the doctor's signature. Some men let\nthemselves down off their horses, and send for an _\u00e6grotat_ on\nthe score of a fall.--_Westminster Rev._, Am. Ed., Vol. XXXV. p.\n235.\n\nDuring this term I attended another course of Aristotle lectures,\n--but not with any express view to the May examination, which I\nhad no intention of going in to, if it could be helped, and which\nI eventually escaped by an _\u00e6grotat_ from my\nphysician.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p.\n198.\n\nMr. John Trumbull well describes this state of indisposition in\nhis Progress of Dullness:--\n\n \"Then every book, which ought to please,\n  Stirs up the seeds of dire disease;\n  Greek spoils his eyes, the print's so fine,\n  Grown dim with study, and with wine;\n  Of Tully's Latin much afraid,\n  Each page he calls the doctor's aid;\n  While geometry, with lines so crooked,\n  Sprains all his wits to overlook it.\n  His sickness puts on every name,\n  Its cause and uses still the same;\n  'Tis toothache, colic, gout, or stone,\n  With phases various as the moon,\n  But tho' thro' all the body spread,\n  Still makes its cap'tal seat, the head.\n  In all diseases, 'tis expected,\n  The weakest parts be most infected.\"\n    Ed. 1794, Part I. p. 8.\n\n\n\u00c6GROTAT DEGREE. One who is sick or so indisposed that he cannot\nattend the Senate-House examination, nor consequently acquire any\nhonor, takes what is termed an _\u00c6grotat degree_.--_Alma Mater_,\nVol. II. p. 105.\n\n\nALMA MATER, _pl._ ALM\u00c6 MATRES. Fostering mother; a college or\nseminary where one is educated. The title was originally given to\nOxford and Cambridge, by such as had received their education in\neither university.\n\nIt must give pleasure to the alumni of the College to hear of his\ngood name, as he [Benjamin Woodbridge] was the eldest son of our\n_alma mater_.--_Peirce's Hist. Harv. Univ._, App., p. 57.\n\nI see the truths I have uttered, in relation to our _Alm\u00e6\nMatres_, assented to by sundry of their\nchildren.--_Terr\u00e6-Filius_, Oxford, p. 41.\n\n\nALUMNI, SOCIETY OF. An association composed of the graduates of a\nparticular college. The object of societies of this nature is\nstated in the following extract from President Hopkins's Address\nbefore the Society of Alumni of Williams College, Aug. 16, 1843.\n\"So far as I know, the Society of the Alumni of Williams College\nwas the first association of the kind in this country, certainly\nthe first which acted efficiently, and called forth literary\naddresses. It was formed September 5, 1821, and the preamble to\nthe constitution then adopted was as follows: 'For the promotion\nof literature and good fellowship among ourselves, and the better\nto advance the reputation and interests of our Alma Mater, we the\nsubscribers, graduates of Williams College, form ourselves into a\nSociety.' The first president was Dr. Asa Burbank. The first\norator elected was the Hon. Elijah Hunt Mills, a distinguished\nSenator of the United States. That appointment was not fulfilled.\nThe first oration was delivered in 1823, by the Rev. Dr.\nWoodbridge, now of Hadley, and was well worthy of the occasion;\nand since that time the annual oration before the Alumni has\nseldom failed.... Since this Society was formed, the example has\nbeen followed in other institutions, and bids fair to extend to\nthem all. Last year, for the first time, the voice of an Alumnus\norator was heard at Harvard and at Yale; and one of these\nassociations, I know, sprung directly from ours. It is but three\nyears since a venerable man attended the meeting of our Alumni,\none of those that have been so full of interest, and he said he\nshould go directly home and have such an association formed at the\nCommencement of his Alma Mater, then about to occur. He did so.\nThat association was formed, and the last year the voice of one of\nthe first scholars and jurists in the nation was heard before\nthem. The present year the Alumni of Dartmouth were addressed for\nthe first time, and the doctrine of Progress was illustrated by\nthe distinguished speaker in more senses than one.[01] Who can\ntell how great the influence of such associations may become in\ncherishing kind feeling, in fostering literature, in calling out\ntalent, in leading men to act, not selfishly, but more efficiently\nfor the general cause through particular institutions?\"--_Pres.\nHopkins's Miscellaneous Essays and Discourses_, pp. 275-277.\n\nTo the same effect also, Mr. Chief Justice Story, who, in his\nDiscourse before the Society of the Alumni of Harvard University,\nAug. 23, 1842, says: \"We meet to celebrate the first anniversary\nof the society of all the Alumni of Harvard. We meet without any\ndistinction of sect or party, or of rank or profession, in church\nor in state, in literature or in science.... Our fellowship is\ndesigned to be--as it should be--of the most liberal and\ncomprehensive character, conceived in the spirit of catholic\nbenevolence, asking no creed but the love of letters, seeking no\nend but the encouragement of learning, and imposing no conditions,\nwhich say lead to jealousy or ambitious strife. In short, we meet\nfor peace and for union; to devote one day in the year to\nacademical intercourse and the amenities of scholars.\"--p. 4.\n\nAn Alumni society was formed at Columbia College in the year 1829,\nand at Rutgers College in 1837. There are also societies of this\nnature at the College of New Jersey, Princeton; University of\nVirginia, Charlottesville; and at Columbian College, Washington.\n\n\nALUMNUS, _pl._ ALUMNI. Latin, from _alo_, to nourish. A pupil; one\neducated at a seminary or college is called an _alumnus_ of that\ninstitution.\n\n\nA.M. An abbreviation for _Artium Magister_, Master of Arts. The\nsecond degree given by universities and colleges. It is usually\nwritten M.A., q.v.\n\n\nANALYSIS. In the following passage, the word _analysis_ is used as\na verb; the meaning being directly derived from that of the noun\nof the same orthography.\n\nIf any resident Bachelor, Senior, or Junior Sophister shall\nneglect to _analysis_ in his course, he shall be punished not\nexceeding ten shillings.--_Peirce's Hist. Harv. Univ._, App., p.\n129.\n\n\nANNARUGIANS. At Centre College, Kentucky, is a society called the\n_Annarugians_, \"composed,\" says a correspondent \"of the wildest of\nthe College boys, who, in the most fantastic disguises, are always\non hand when a wedding is to take place, and join in a most\ntremendous Charivari, nor can they be forced to retreat until they\nhave received a due proportion of the sumptuous feast prepared.\"\n\n\nAPOSTLES. At Cambridge, England, the last twelve on the list of\nBachelors of Arts; a degree lower than the [Greek: oi polloi]\n\"Scape-goats of literature, who have at length scrambled through\nthe pales and discipline of the Senate-House, without being\n_plucked_, and miraculously obtained the title of A.B.\"--_Gradus\nad Cantab._\n\nAt Columbian College, D.C., the members of the Faculty are called\nafter the names of the _Apostles_.\n\n\nAPPLICANT. A diligent student. \"This word,\" says Mr. Pickering, in\nhis Vocabulary, \"has been much used at our colleges. The English\nhave the verb _to apply_, but the noun _applicant_, in this sense,\ndoes not appear to be in use among them. The only Dictionary in\nwhich I have found it with this meaning is Entick's, in which it\nis given under the word _applier_. Mr. Todd has the term\n_applicant_, but it is only in the sense of 'he who applies for\nanything.' An American reviewer, in his remarks on Mr. Webster's\nDictionary, takes notice of the word, observing, that it 'is a\nmean word'; and then adds, that 'Mr. Webster has not explained it\nin the most common sense, a _hard student_.'--_Monthly Anthology_,\nVol. VII. p. 263. A correspondent observes: 'The utmost that can\nbe said of this word among the English is, that perhaps it is\noccasionally used in conversation; at least, to signify one who\nasks (or applies) for something.'\" At present the word _applicant_\nis never used in the sense of a diligent student, the common\nsignification being that given by Mr. Webster, \"One who applies;\none who makes request; a petitioner.\"\n\n\nAPPOINTEE. One who receives an appointment at a college exhibition\nor commencement.\n\nThe _appointees_ are writing their pieces.--_Scenes and Characters\nin College_, New Haven, 1847, p. 193.\n\nTo the gratified _appointee_,--if his ambition for the honor has\nthe intensity it has in some bosoms,--the day is the proudest he\nwill ever see.--_Ibid._, p. 194.\n\nI suspect that a man in the first class of the \"Poll\" has usually\nread mathematics to more profit than many of the \"_appointees_,\"\neven of the \"oration men\" at Yale.--_Bristed's Five Years in an\nEng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 382.\n\nHe hears it said all about him that the College _appointees_ are\nfor the most part poor dull fellows.--_Ibid._, p. 389.\n\n\nAPPOINTMENT. In many American colleges, students to whom are\nassigned a part in the exercises of an exhibition or commencement,\nare said to receive an _appointment_. Appointments are given as a\nreward for superiority in scholarship.\n\nAs it regards college, the object of _appointments_ is to incite\nto study, and promote good scholarship.--_Scenes and Characters in\nCollege_, New Haven, 1847, p. 69.\n\n  If e'er ye would take an \"_appointment_\" young man,\n  Beware o' the \"blade\" and \"fine fellow,\" young man!\n    _Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. XV. p. 210.\n\n  Some have crammed for _appointments_, and some for degrees.\n    _Presentation Day Songs_, Yale Coll., June 14, 1854.\n\nSee JUNIOR APPOINTMENTS.\n\n\nAPPROBAMUS. Latin; _we approve_. A certificate, given to a\nstudent, testifying of his fitness for the performance of certain\nduties.\n\nIn an account of the exercises at Dartmouth College during the\nCommencement season in 1774, Dr. Belknap makes use of this word in\nthe following connection: \"I attended, with several others, the\nexamination of Joseph Johnson, an Indian, educated in this school,\nwho, with the rest of the New England Indians, are about moving up\ninto the country of the Six Nations, where they have a tract of\nland fifteen miles square given them. He appeared to be an\ningenious, sensible, serious young man; and we gave him an\n_approbamus_, of which there is a copy on the next page. After\nwhich, at three P.M., he preached in the college hall, and a\ncollection of twenty-seven dollars and a half was made for him.\nThe auditors were agreeably entertained.\n\n\"The _approbamus_ is as follows.\"--_Life of Jeremy Belknap, D.D._,\npp. 71, 72.\n\n\nAPPROBATE. To express approbation of; to manifest a liking, or\ndegree of satisfaction.--_Webster_.\n\nThe cause of this battle every man did allow and\n_approbate_.--_Hall, Henry VII., Richardson's Dict._\n\n\"This word,\" says Mr. Pickering, \"was formerly much used at our\ncolleges instead of the old English verb _approve_. The students\nused to speak of having their performances _approbated_ by the\ninstructors. It is also now in common use with our clergy as a\nsort of technical term, to denote a person who is licensed to\npreach; they would say, such a one is _approbated_, that is,\nlicensed to preach. It is also common in New England to say of a\nperson who is licensed by the county courts to sell spirituous\nliquors, or to keep a public house, that he is approbated; and the\nterm is adopted in the law of Massachusetts on this subject.\" The\nword is obsolete in England, is obsolescent at our colleges, and\nis very seldom heard in the other senses given above.\n\nBy the twelfth statute, a student incurs ... no penalty by\ndeclaiming or attempting to declaim without having his piece\npreviously _approbated_.--_MS. Note to Laws of Harvard College_,\n1798.\n\nObserve their faces as they enter, and you will perceive some\nshades there, which, if they are _approbated_ and admitted, will\nbe gone when they come out.--_Scenes and Characters in College_,\nNew Haven, 1847, p. 18.\n\nHow often does the professor whose duty it is to criticise and\n_approbate_ the pieces for this exhibition wish they were better!\n--_Ibid._, p. 195.\n\nI was _approbated_ by the Boston Association, I suspect, as a\nperson well known, but known as an anomaly, and admitted in\ncharity.--_Memorial of John S. Popkin, D.D._, p. lxxxv.\n\n\nASSES' BRIDGE. The fifth proposition of the first book of Euclid\nis called the _Asses' Bridge_, or rather \"Pons Asinorum,\" from the\ndifficulty with which many get over it.\n\nThe _Asses' Bridge_ in Euclid is not more difficult to be got\nover, nor the logarithms of Napier so hard to be unravelled, as\nmany of Hoyle's Cases and Propositions.--_The Connoisseur_, No.\nLX.\n\nAfter Mr. Brown had passed us over the \"_Asses' Bridge_,\" without\nany serious accident, and conducted us a few steps further into\nthe first book, he dismissed us with many compliments.--_Alma\nMater_, Vol. I. p. 126.\n\nI don't believe he passed the _Pons Asinorum_ without many a halt\nand a stumble.--_Ibid._, Vol. I. p. 146.\n\n\nASSESSOR. In the English universities, an officer specially\nappointed to assist the Vice-Chancellor in his court.--_Cam. Cal._\n\n\nAUCTION. At Harvard College, it was until within a few years\ncustomary for the members of the Senior Class, previously to\nleaving college, to bring together in some convenient room all the\nbooks, furniture, and movables of any kind which they wished to\ndispose of, and put them up at public auction. Everything offered\nwas either sold, or, if no bidders could be obtained, given away.\n\n\nAUDIT. In the University of Cambridge, England, a meeting of the\nMaster and Fellows to examine or _audit_ the college accounts.\nThis is succeeded by a feast, on which occasion is broached the\nvery best ale, for which reason ale of this character is called\n\"audit ale.\"--_Grad. ad Cantab._\n\nThis use of the word thirst made me drink an extra bumper of\n\"_Audit_\" that very day at dinner.--_Alma Mater_, Vol. I. p. 3.\n\nAfter a few draughts of the _Audit_, the company\ndisperse.--_Ibid._ Vol. I. p. 161.\n\n\nAUTHORITY. \"This word,\" says Mr. Pickering, in his Vocabulary, \"is\nused in some of the States, in speaking collectively of the\nProfessors, &c. of our colleges, to whom the _government_ of these\ninstitutions is intrusted.\"\n\nEvery Freshman shall be obliged to do any proper errand or message\nfor the _Authority_ of the College.--_Laws Middlebury Coll._,\n1804, p. 6.\n\n\nAUTOGRAPH BOOK. It is customary at Yale College for each member of\nthe Senior Class, before the close of his collegiate life, to\nobtain, in a book prepared for that purpose, the signatures of the\nPresident, Professors, Tutors, and of all his classmates, with\nanything else which they may choose to insert. Opposite the\nautographs of the college officers are placed engravings of them,\nso far as they are obtainable; and the whole, bound according to\nthe fancy of each, forms a most valuable collection of agreeable\nmementos.\n\nWhen news of his death reached me. I turned to my _book of\nclassmate autographs_, to see what he had written there, and to\nread a name unusually dear.--_Scenes and Characters in College_,\nNew Haven, 1847, p. 201.\n\n\nAVERAGE BOOK. At Harvard College, a book in which the marks\nreceived by each student, for the proper performance of his\ncollege duties, are entered; also the deductions from his rank\nresulting from misconduct. These unequal data are then arranged in\na mean proportion, and the result signifies the standing which the\nstudent has held for a given period.\n\n  In vain the Prex's grave rebuke,\n  Deductions from the _average book_.\n    _MS. Poem_, W.F. Allen, 1848.\n\n\n\n_B_.\n\n\nB.A. An abbreviation of _Baccalaureus Artium_, Bachelor of Arts.\nThe first degree taken by a student at a college or university.\nSometimes written A.B., which is in accordance with the proper\nLatin arrangement. In American colleges this degree is conferred\nin course on each member of the Senior Class in good standing. In\nthe English universities, it is given to the candidate who has\nbeen resident at least half of each of ten terms, i.e. during a\ncertain portion of a period extending over three and a third\nyears, and who has passed the University examinations.\n\nThe method of conferring the degree of B.A. at Trinity College,\nHartford, is peculiar. The President takes the hands of each\ncandidate in his own as he confers the degree. He also passes to\nthe candidate a book containing the College Statutes, which the\ncandidate holds in his right hand during the performance of a part\nof the ceremony.\n\nThe initials of English academical titles always correspond to the\n_English_, not to the Latin of the titles, _B.A._, M.A., D.D.,\nD.C.L., &c.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p.\n13.\n\nSee BACHELOR.\n\n\nBACCALAUREATE. The degree of Bachelor of Arts; the first or lowest\ndegree. In American colleges, this degree is conferred in course\non each member of the Senior Class in good standing. In Oxford and\nCambridge it is attainable in two different ways;--1. By\nexamination, to which those students alone are admissible who have\npursued the prescribed course of study for the space of three\nyears. 2. By extraordinary diploma, granted to individuals wholly\nunconnected with the University. The former class are styled\nBaccalaurei Formati, the latter Baccalaurei Currentes. In France\nthe degree of Baccalaureat (Baccalaureus Literarum) is conferred\nindiscriminately upon such natives or foreigners and after a\nstrict examination in the classics, mathematics, and philosophy,\nare declared to be qualified. In the German universities, the\ntitle \"Doctor Philosophi\u00e6\" has long been substituted for\nBaccalaureus Artium or Literarum. In the Middle Ages, the term\nBaccalaureus was applied to an inferior order of knights, who came\ninto the field unattended by vassals; from them it was transferred\nto the lowest class of ecclesiastics; and thence again, by Pope\nGregory the Ninth to the universities. In reference to the\nderivation of this word, the military classes maintain that it is\neither derived from the _baculus_ or staff with which knights were\nusually invested, or from _bas chevalier_, an inferior kind of\nknight; the literary classes, with more plausibility, perhaps,\ntrace its origin to the custom which prevailed universally among\nthe Greeks and Romans, and which was followed even in Italy till\nthe thirteenth century, of crowning distinguished individuals with\nlaurel; hence the recipient of this honor was style Baccalaureus,\nquasi _baccis laureis_ donatus.--_Brande's Dictionary_.\n\nThe subjoined passage, although it may not place the subject in\nany clearer light, will show the difference of opinion which\nexists in reference to the derivation of this work. Speaking of\nthe exercises of Commencement at Cambridge Mass., in the early\ndays of Harvard College, the writer says \"But the main exercises\nwere disputations upon questions wherein the respondents first\nmade their Theses: For according to Vossius, the very essence of\nthe Baccalaureat seems to lye in the thing: Baccalaureus being but\na name corrupted of Batualius, which Batualius (as well as the\nFrench Bataile [Bataille]) comes \u00e0 Batuendo, a business that\ncarries beating in it: So that, Batualii fuerunt vocati, quia jam\nquasi _batuissent_ cum adversario, ac manus conseruissent; hoc\nest, publice disputassent, atque ita periti\u00e6 su\u00e6 specimen\ndedissent.\"--_Mather's Magnalia_, B. IV. p. 128.\n\nThe Seniors will be examined for the _Baccalaureate_, four weeks\nbefore Commencement, by a committee, in connection with the\nFaculty.--_Cal. Wesleyan Univ._, 1849, p. 22.\n\n\nBACHELOR. A person who has taken the first degree in the liberal\narts and sciences, at a college or university. This degree, or\nhonor, is called the _Baccalaureate_. This title is given also to\nsuch as take the first degree in divinity, law, or physic, in\ncertain European universities. The word appears in various forms\nin different languages. The following are taken from _Webster's\nUnabridged Dictionary_. \"French, _bachelier_; Spanish,\n_bachiller_, a bachelor of arts and a babbler; Portuguese,\n_bacharel_, id., and _bacello_, a shoot or twig of the vine;\nItalian, _baccelliere_, a bachelor of arts; _bacchio_, a staff;\n_bachetta_, a rod; Latin, _bacillus_, a stick, that is, a shoot;\nFrench, _bachelette_, a damsel, or young woman; Scotch, _baich_, a\nchild; Welsh, _bacgen_, a boy, a child; _bacgenes_, a young girl,\nfrom _bac_, small. This word has its origin in the name of a\nchild, or young person of either sex, whence the sense of\n_babbling_ in the Spanish. Or both senses are rather from\nshooting, protruding.\"\n\nOf the various etymologies ascribed to the term _Bachelor_, \"the\ntrue one, and the most flattering,\" says the Gradus ad\nCantabrigiam, \"seems to be _bacca laurus_. Those who either are,\nor expect to be, honored with the title of _Bachelor of Arts_,\nwill hear with exultation, that they are then 'considered as the\nbudding flowers of the University; as the small _pillula_, or\n_bacca_, of the _laurel_ indicates the flowering of that tree,\nwhich is so generally used in the crowns of those who have\ndeserved well, both of the military states, and of the republic of\nlearning.'--_Carter's History of Cambridge, [Eng.]_, 1753.\"\n\n\nBACHELOR FELLOW. A Bachelor of Arts who is maintained on a\nfellowship.\n\n\nBACHELOR SCHOLAR. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., a B.A. who\nremains in residence after taking his degree, for the purpose of\nreading for a fellowship or acting as private tutor. He is always\nnoted for superiority in scholarship.\n\nBristed refers to the bachelor scholars in the annexed extract.\n\"Along the wall you see two tables, which, though less carefully\nprovided than the Fellows', are still served with tolerable\ndecency and go through a regular second course instead of the\n'sizings.' The occupants of the upper or inner table are men\napparently from twenty-two to twenty-six years of age, and wear\nblack gowns with two strings hanging loose in front. If this table\nhas less state than the adjoining one of the Fellows, it has more\nmirth and brilliancy; many a good joke seems to be going the\nrounds. These are the Bachelors, most of them Scholars reading for\nFellowships, and nearly all of them private tutors. Although\nBachelors in Arts, they are considered, both as respects the\nCollege and the University, to be _in statu pupillari_ until they\nbecome M.A.'s. They pay a small sum in fees nominally for tuition,\nand are liable to the authority of that mighty man, the Proctor.\"\n--_Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 20.\n\n\nBACHELORSHIP. The state of one who has taken his first degree in a\nuniversity or college.--_Webster_.\n\n\nBACK-LESSON. A lesson which has not been learned or recited; a\nlesson which has been omitted.\n\nIn a moment you may see the yard covered with hurrying groups,\nsome just released from metaphysics or the blackboard, and some\njust arisen from their beds where they have indulged in the luxury\nof sleeping over,--a luxury, however, which is sadly diminished by\nthe anticipated necessity of making up _back-lessons_.--_Harv.\nReg._, p. 202.\n\n\nBALBUS. At Yale College, this term is applied to Arnold's Latin\nProse Composition, from the fact of its so frequent occurrence in\nthat work. If a student wishes to inform his fellow-student that\nhe is engaged on Latin Prose Composition, he says he is studying\n_Balbus_. In the first example of this book, the first sentence\nreads, \"I and Balbus lifted up our hands,\" and the name Balbus\nappears in almost every exercise.\n\n\nBALL UP. At Middlebury College, to fail at recitation or\nexamination.\n\n\nBANDS. Linen ornaments, worn by professors and clergymen when\nofficiating; also by judges, barristers, &c., in court. They form\na distinguishing mark in the costume of the proctors of the\nEnglish universities, and at Cambridge, the questionists, on\nadmission to their degrees, are by the statutes obliged to appear\nin them.--_Grad. ad Cantab._\n\n\nBANGER. A club-like cane or stick; a bludgeon. This word is one of\nthe Yale vocables.\n\n  The Freshman reluctantly turned the key,\n  Expecting a Sophomore gang to see,\n  Who, with faces masked and _bangers_ stout,\n  Had come resolved to smoke him out.\n    _Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. XX. p. 75.\n\n\nBARBER. In the English universities, the college barber is often\nemployed by the students to write out or translate the impositions\nincurred by them. Those who by this means get rid of their\nimpositions are said to _barberize_ them.\n\nSo bad was the hand which poor Jenkinson wrote, that the many\nimpositions which he incurred would have kept him hard at work all\nday long; so he _barberized_ them, that is, handed them over to\nthe college barber, who had always some poor scholars in his pay.\nThis practice of barberizing is not uncommon among a certain class\nof men.--_Collegian's Guide_, p. 155.\n\n\nBARNEY. At Harvard College, about the year 1810, this word was\nused to designate a bad recitation. To _barney_ was to recite\nbadly.\n\n\nBARNWELL. At Cambridge, Eng., a place of resort for characters of\nbad report.\n\nOne of the most \"civilized\" undertook to banter me on my\nnon-appearance in the classic regions of _Barnwell_.--_Bristed's\nFive Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 31.\n\n\nBARRING-OUT SPREE. At Princeton College, when the students find\nthe North College clear of Tutors, which is about once a year,\nthey bar up the entrance, get access to the bell, and ring it.\n\nIn the \"Life of Edward Baines, late M.P. for the Borough of\nLeeds,\" is an account of a _barring-out_, as managed at the\ngrammar school at Preston, England. It is related in Dickens's\nHousehold Words to this effect. \"His master was pompous and\nignorant, and smote his pupils liberally with cane and tongue. It\nis not surprising that the lads learnt as much from the spirit of\ntheir master as from his preceptions and that one of those\njuvenile rebellions, better known as old than at present as a\n'_barring-out_,' was attempted. The doors of the school, the\nbiographer narrates, were fastened with huge nails, and one of the\nyounger lads was let out to obtain supplies of food for the\ngarrison. The rebellion having lasted two or three days, the\nmayor, town-clerk, and officers were sent for to intimidate the\noffenders. Young Baines, on the part of the besieged, answered the\nmagisterial summons to surrender, by declaring that they would\nnever give in, unless assured of full pardon and a certain length\nof holidays. With much good sense, the mayor gave them till the\nevening to consider; and on his second visit the doors were found\nopen, the garrison having fled to the woods of Penwortham. They\nregained their respective homes under the cover of night, and some\nhumane interposition averted the punishment they had\ndeserved.\"-- Am. Ed. Vol. III. p. 415.\n\n\nBATTEL. To stand indebted on the college books at Oxford for\nprovisions and drink from the buttery.\n\nEat my commons with a good stomach, and _battled_ with discretion.\n--_Puritan_, Malone's Suppl. 2, p. 543.\n\nMany men \"_battel_\" at the rate of a guinea a week. Wealthier men,\nmore expensive men, and more careless men, often \"_battelled_\"\nmuch higher.--_De Quincey's Life and Manners_, p. 274.\n\nCotgrave says, \"To _battle_ (as scholars do in Oxford) \u00eatre\ndebteur an coll\u00e8ge pour ses vivres.\" He adds, \"Mot us\u00e9 seulement\ndes jeunes \u00e9coliers de l'universit\u00e9 d'Oxford.\"\n\n2. To reside at the university; to keep terms.--_Webster_.\n\n\nBATTEL. Derived from the old monkish word _patella_, or _batella_,\na plate. At Oxford, \"whatsoever is furnished for dinner and for\nsupper, including malt liquor, but not wine, as well as the\nmaterials for breakfast, or for any casual refreshment to country\nvisitors, excepting only groceries,\" is expressed by the word\n_battels_.--_De Quincey_.\n\n  I on the nail my _Battels_ paid,\n  The monster turn'd away dismay'd.\n    _The Student_, Vol. I. p. 115, 1750.\n\n\nBATTELER, BATTLER. A student at Oxford who stands indebted, in the\ncollege books, for provisions and drink at the\nbuttery.--_Webster_.\n\nHalliwell, in his Dict. Arch. and Prov. Words, says, \"The term is\nused in contradistinction to gentleman commoner.\" In _Gent. Mag._,\n1787, p. 1146, is the following:--\"There was formerly at Oxford an\norder similar to the sizars of Cambridge, called _battelers_\n(_batteling_ having the same signification as sizing). The _sizar_\nand _batteler_ were as independent as any other members of the\ncollege, though of an inferior order, and were under no obligation\nto wait upon anybody.\"\n\n2. One who keeps terms, or resides at the University.--_Webster_.\n\n\nBATTELING. At Oxford, the act of taking provisions from the\nbuttery. Batteling has the same signification as SIZING at the\nUniversity of Cambridge.--_Gent. Mag._, 1787, p. 1146.\n\n_Batteling in a friend's name_, implies eating and drinking at his\nexpense. When a person's name is _crossed in the buttery_, i.e.\nwhen he is not allowed to take any articles thence, he usually\ncomes into the hall and battels for buttery supplies in a friend's\nname, \"for,\" says the Collegian's Guide, \"every man can 'take out'\nan extra commons, and some colleges two, at each meal, for a\nvisitor: and thus, under the name of a guest, though at your own\ntable, you escape part of the punishment of being crossed.\"--p.\n158.\n\n2. Spending money.\n\nThe business of the latter was to call us of a morning, to\ndistribute among us our _battlings_, or pocket money,\n&c.--_Dicken's Household Words_, Vol. I. p. 188.\n\n\nBAUM. At Hamilton College, to fawn upon; to flatter; to court the\nfavor of any one.\n\n\nB.C.L. Abbreviated for _Baccalaureus Civilis Legis_, Bachelor in\nCivil Law. In the University of Oxford, a Bachelor in Civil Law\nmust be an M.A. and a regent of three years' standing. The\nexercises necessary to the degree are disputations upon two\ndistinct days before the Professors of the Faculty of Law.\n\nIn the University of Cambridge, the candidate for this degree must\nhave resided nine terms (equal to three years), and been on the\nboards of some College for six years, have passed the \"previous\nexamination,\" attended the lectures of the Professor of Civil Law\nfor three terms, and passed a _series_ of examinations in the\nsubject of them; that is to say in General Jurisprudence, as\nillustrated by Roman and English law. The names of those who pass\ncreditably are arranged in three classes according to\nmerit.--_Lit. World_, Vol. XII. p. 284.\n\nThis degree is not conferred in the United States.\n\n\nB.D. An abbreviation for _Baccalaureus Divinitatis_, Bachelor in\nDivinity. In both the English Universities a B.D. must be an M.A.\nof seven years' standing, and at Oxford, a regent of the same\nlength of time. The exercises necessary to the degree are at\nCambridge one act after the fourth year, two opponencies, a\nclerum, and an English sermon. At Oxford, disputations are\nenjoined upon two distinct days before the Professors of the\nFaculty of Divinity, and a Latin sermon is preached before the\nVice-Chancellor. The degree of Theologi\u00e6 Baccalaureus was\nconferred at Harvard College on Mr. Leverett, afterwards President\nof that institution, in 1692, and on Mr. William Brattle in the\nsame year, the only instances, it is believed, in which this\ndegree has been given in America.\n\n\nBEADLE, BEDEL, BEDELL. An officer in a university, whose chief\nbusiness is to walk with a mace, before the masters, in a public\nprocession; or, as in America, before the president, trustees,\nfaculty, and students of a college, in a procession, at public\ncommencements.--_Webster_.\n\nIn the English universities there are two classes of Bedels,\ncalled the _Esquire_ and the _Yeoman Bedel_.\n\nOf this officer as connected with Yale College, President Woolsey\nspeaks as follows:--\"The beadle or his substitute, the vice-beadle\n(for the sheriff of the county came to be invested with the\noffice), was the master of processions, and a sort of\ngentleman-usher to execute the commands of the President. He was a\nyounger graduate settled at or near the College. There is on\nrecord a diploma of President Clap's, investing with this office a\ngraduate of three years' standing, and conceding to him 'omnia\njura privilegia et auctoritates ad Bedelli officium, secundum\ncollegiorum aut universitatum leges et consuetudines usitatas;\nspectantia.' The office, as is well known, still exists in the\nEnglish institutions of learning, whence it was transferred first\nto Harvard and thence to this institution.\"--_Hist. Disc._, Aug.,\n1850, p. 43.\n\nIn an account of a Commencement at Williams College, Sept. 8,\n1795, the order in which the procession was formed was as follows:\n\"First, the scholars of the academy; second, students of college;\nthird, the sheriff of the county acting as _Bedellus_,\"\n&c.--_Federal Orrery_, Sept. 28, 1795.\n\nThe _Beadle_, by order, made the following declaration.--_Clap's\nHist. Yale Coll._, 1766, p. 56.\n\nIt shall be the duty of the Faculty to appoint a _College Beadle_,\nwho shall direct the procession on Commencement day, and preserve\norder during the exhibitions.--_Laws Yale Coll._, 1837, p. 43.\n\n\nBED-MAKER. One whose occupation is to make beds, and, as in\ncolleges and universities, to take care of the students' rooms.\nUsed both in the United States and England.\n\nT' other day I caught my _bed-maker_, a grave old matron, poring\nvery seriously over a folio that lay open upon my table. I asked\nher what she was reading? \"Lord bless you, master,\" says she, \"who\nI reading? I never could read in my life, blessed be God; and yet\nI loves to look into a book too.\"--_The Student_, Vol. I. p. 55,\n1750.\n\nI asked a _bed-maker_ where Mr. ----'s chambers were.--_Gent.\nMag._, 1795, p. 118.\n\n  While the grim _bed-maker_ provokes the dust,\n  And soot-born atoms, which his tomes encrust.\n    _The College.--A sketch in verse_, in _Blackwood's Mag._, May,\n    1849.\n\nThe _bed-makers_ are the women who take care of the rooms: there\nis about one to each staircase, that is to say, to every eight\nrooms. For obvious reasons they are selected from such of the fair\nsex as have long passed the age at which they might have had any\npersonal attractions. The first intimation which your bed-maker\ngives you is that she is bound to report you to the tutor if ever\nyou stay out of your rooms all night.--_Bristed's Five Years in an\nEng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 15.\n\n\nBEER-COMMENT. In the German universities, the student's drinking\ncode.\n\nThe _beer-comment_ of Heidelberg, which gives the student's code\nof drinking, is about twice the length of our University book of\nstatutes.--_Lond. Quar. Rev._, Am. Ed., Vol. LXXIII. p. 56.\n\n\nBEMOSSED HEAD. In the German universities, a student during the\nsixth and last term, or _semester_, is called a _Bemossed Head_,\n\"the highest state of honor to which man can attain.\"--_Howitt_.\n\nSee MOSS-COVERED HEAD.\n\n\nBENE. Latin, _well_. A word sometimes attached to a written\ncollege exercise, by the instructor, as a mark of approbation.\n\n  When I look back upon my college life,\n  And think that I one starveling _bene_ got.\n    _Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 402.\n\n\nBENE DISCESSIT. Latin; literally, _he has departed honorably_.\nThis phrase is used in the English universities to signify that\nthe student leaves his college to enter another by the express\nconsent and approbation of the Master and Fellows.--_Gradus ad\nCantab._\n\nMr. Pope being about to remove from Trinity to Emmanuel, by\n_Bene-Discessit_, was desirous of taking my rooms.--_Alma Mater_,\nVol. I. p. 167.\n\n\nBENEFICIARY. One who receives anything as a gift, or is maintained\nby charity.--_Blackstone_.\n\nIn American colleges, students who are supported on established\nfoundations are called _beneficiaries_. Those who receive\nmaintenance from the American Education Society are especially\ndesignated in this manner.\n\nNo student who is a college _beneficiary_ shall remain such any\nlonger than he shall continue exemplary for sobriety, diligence,\nand orderly conduct.--_Laws of Univ. at Cam., Mass._, 1848, p. 19.\n\n\nBEVER. From the Italian _bevere_, to drink. An intermediate\nrefreshment between breakfast and dinner.--_Morison_.\n\nAt Harvard College, dinner was formerly the only meal which was\nregularly taken in the hall. Instead of breakfast and supper, the\nstudents were allowed to receive a bowl of milk or chocolate, with\na piece of bread, from the buttery hatch, at morning and evening;\nthis they could eat in the yard, or take to their rooms and eat\nthere. At the appointed hour for _bevers_, there was a general\nrush for the buttery, and if the walking happened to be bad, or if\nit was winter, many ludicrous accidents usually occurred. One\nperhaps would slip, his bowl would fly this way and his bread\nthat, while he, prostrate, afforded an excellent stumbling-block\nto those immediately behind him; these, falling in their turn,\nspattering with the milk themselves and all near them, holding\nperhaps their spoons aloft, the only thing saved from the\ndestruction, would, after disentangling themselves from the mass\nof legs, arms, etc., return to the buttery, and order a new bowl,\nto be charged with the extras at the close of the term.\n\nSimilar in thought to this account are the remarks of Professor\nSidney Willard concerning Harvard College in 1794, in his late\nwork, entitled, \"Memories of Youth and Manhood.\" \"The students who\nboarded in commons were obliged to go to the kitchen-door with\ntheir bowls or pitchers for their suppers, when they received\ntheir modicum of milk or chocolate in their vessel, held in one\nhand, and their piece of bread in the other, and repaired to their\nrooms to take their solitary repast. There were suspicions at\ntimes that the milk was diluted by a mixture of a very common\ntasteless fluid, which led a sagacious Yankee student to put the\nmatter to the test by asking the simple carrier-boy why his mother\ndid not mix the milk with warm water instead of cold. 'She does,'\nreplied the honest youth. This mode of obtaining evening commons\ndid not prove in all cases the most economical on the part of the\nfed. It sometimes happened, that, from inadvertence or previous\npreparation for a visit elsewhere, some individuals had arrayed\nthemselves in their dress-coats and breeches, and in their haste\nto be served, and by jostling in the crowd, got sadly sprinkled\nwith milk or chocolate, either by accident or by the stealthy\nindulgence of the mischievous propensities of those with whom they\ncame in contact; and oftentimes it was a scene of confusion that\nwas not the most pleasant to look upon or be engaged in. At\nbreakfast the students were furnished, in Commons Hall, with tea,\ncoffee, or milk, and a small loaf of bread. The age of a beaker of\nbeer with a certain allowance of bread had expired.\"--Vol. I. pp.\n313, 314.\n\nNo scholar shall be absent above an hour at morning _bever_, half\nan hour at evening _bever_, &c.--_Quincy's Hist. Harv. Univ._,\nVol. I. p. 517.\n\nThe butler is not bound to stay above half an hour at _bevers_ in\nthe buttery after the tolling of the bell.--_Ibid._, Vol. I. p.\n584.\n\n\nBEVER. To take a small repast between meals.--_Wallis_.\n\n\nBIBLE CLERK. In the University of Oxford, the _Bible clerks_ are\nrequired to attend the service of the chapel, and to deliver in a\nlist of the absent undergraduates to the officer appointed to\nenforce the discipline of the institution. Their duties are\ndifferent in different colleges.--_Oxford Guide_.\n\nA _Bible clerk_ has seldom too many friends in the\nUniversity.--_Blackwood's Mag._, Vol. LX., Eng. ed., p. 312.\n\nIn the University of Cambridge, Eng., \"a very ancient scholarship,\nso called because the student who was promoted to that office was\nenjoined to read the Bible at meal-times.\"--_Gradus ad Cantab._\n\n\nBIENNIAL EXAMINATION. At Yale College, in addition to the public\nexaminations of the classes at the close of each term, on the\nstudies of the term, private examinations are also held twice in\nthe college course, at the close of the Sophomore and Senior\nyears, on the studies of the two preceding years. The latter are\ncalled _biennial_.--_Yale Coll. Cat._\n\n\"The _Biennial_,\" remarks the writer of the preface to the _Songs\nof Yale_, \"is an examination occurring twice during the\ncourse,--at the close of the Sophomore and of the Senior\nyears,--in all the studies pursued during the two years previous.\nIt was established in 1850.\"--Ed. 1853, p. 4.\n\nThe system of examinations has been made more rigid, especially by\nthe introduction of _biennials_.--_Centennial Anniversary of the\nLinonian Soc._, Yale Coll., 1853, p. 70.\n\n  Faculty of College got together one night,\n    To have a little congratulation,\n  For they'd put their heads together and hatched out a load,\n    And called it \"_Bien. Examination_.\"\n    _Presentation Day Songs_, June 14, 1854.\n\n\nBIG-WIG. In the English universities, the higher dignitaries among\nthe officers are often spoken of as the _big-wigs._\n\nThus having anticipated the approbation of all, whether Freshman,\nSophomore, Bachelor, or _Big-Wig_, our next care is the choice of\na patron.--_Pref._ to _Grad. ad Cantab._\n\n\nBISHOP. At Cambridge, Eng., this beverage is compounded of\nport-wine mulled and burnt, with the addenda of roasted lemons and\ncloves.--_Gradus ad Cantab._\n\n  We'll pass round the _Bishop_, the spice-breathing cup.\n    _Will. Sentinel's Poems_.\n\n\nBITCH. Among the students of the University of Cambridge, Eng., a\ncommon name for tea.\n\nThe reading man gives no swell parties, runs very little into\ndebt, takes his cup of _bitch_ at night, and goes quietly to bed.\n--_Grad. ad Cantab._, p. 131.\n\nWith the Queens-men it is not unusual to issue an \"At home\" Tea\nand Vespers, alias _bitch_ and _hymns_.--_Ibid., Dedication_.\n\n\nBITCH. At Cambridge, Eng., to take or drink a dish of tea.\n\nI followed, and, having \"_bitched_\" (that is, taken a dish of tea)\narranged my books and boxes.--_Alma Mater_, Vol. I. p. 30.\n\nI dined, wined, or _bitched_ with a Medallist or Senior Wrangler.\n--_Ibid._, Vol. II. p. 218.\n\nA young man, who performs with great dexterity the honors of the\ntea-table, is, if complimented at all, said to be \"an excellent\n_bitch_.\"--_Gradus ad Cantab._, p. 18.\n\n\nBLACK BOOK. In the English universities, a gloomy volume\ncontaining a register of high crimes and misdemeanors.\n\nAt the University of G\u00f6ttingen, the expulsion of students is\nrecorded on a _blackboard_.--_Gradus ad Cantab._\n\nSirrah, I'll have you put in the _black book_, rusticated,\nexpelled.--_Miller's Humors of Oxford_, Act II. Sc. I.\n\nAll had reason to fear that their names were down in the proctor's\n_black book_.--_Collegian's Guide_, p. 277.\n\nSo irksome and borish did I ever find this early rising, spite of\nthe health it promised, that I was constantly in the _black book_\nof the dean.--_Alma Mater_, Vol. I. p. 32.\n\n\nBLACK-HOOD HOUSE. See SENATE.\n\n\nBLACK RIDING. At the College of South Carolina, it has until\nwithin a few years been customary for the students, disguised and\npainted black, to ride across the college-yard at midnight, on\nhorseback, with vociferations and the sound of horns. _Black\nriding_ is recognized by the laws of the College as a very high\noffence, punishable with expulsion.\n\n\nBLEACH. At Harvard College, he was formerly said to _bleach_ who\npreferred to be _spiritually_ rather than _bodily_ present at\nmorning prayers.\n\n  'T is sweet Commencement parts to reach,\n  But, oh! 'tis doubly sweet to _bleach_.\n    _Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 123.\n\n\nBLOOD. A hot spark; a man of spirit; a rake. A word long in use\namong collegians and by writers who described them.\n\nWith some rakes from Boston and a few College _bloods_, I got very\ndrunk.--_Monthly Anthology_, Boston, 1804, Vol. I. p. 154.\n\n  Indulgent Gods! exclaimed our _bloods_.\n    _The Crayon_, Yale Coll., 1823, p. 15.\n\n\nBLOOD. At some of the Western colleges this word signifies\nexcellent; as, a _blood_ recitation. A student who recites well is\nsaid to _make a blood_.\n\n\nBLOODEE. In the Farmer's Weekly Museum, formerly printed at\nWalpole, N.H., appeared August 21, 1797, a poetic production, in\nwhich occurred these lines:--\n\n  Seniors about to take degrees,\n  Not by their wits, but by _bloodees_.\n\nIn a note the word _bloodee_ was thus described: \"A kind of cudgel\nworn, or rather borne, by the bloods of a certain college in New\nEngland, 2 feet 5 inches in length, and 1-7/8 inch in diameter,\nwith a huge piece of lead at one end, emblematical of its owner. A\npretty prop for clumsy travellers on Parnassus.\"\n\n\nBLOODY. Formerly a college term for daring, rowdy, impudent.\n\n  Arriving at Lord Bibo's study,\n  They thought they'd be a little _bloody_;\n  So, with a bold, presumptuous look,\n  An honest pinch of snuff they took.\n    _Rebelliad_, p. 44.\n\n  They roar'd and bawl'd, and were so _bloody_,\n  As to besiege Lord Bibo's study.\n\n  _Ibid._, p. 76.\n\n\nBLOW. A merry frolic with drinking; a spree. A person intoxicated\nis said to be _blown_, and Mr. Halliwell, in his Dict. Arch. and\nProv. Words, has _blowboll_, a drunkard.\n\nThis word was formerly used by students to designate their frolics\nand social gatherings; at present, it is not much heard, being\nsupplanted by the more common words _spree_, _tight_, &c.\n\nMy fellow-students had been engaged at a _blow_ till the stagehorn\nhad summoned them to depart.--_Harvard Register_, 1827-28, p. 172.\n\n  No soft adagio from the muse of _blows_,\n  E'er roused indignant from serene repose.\n    _Ibid._, p. 233.\n\n  And, if no coming _blow_ his thoughts engage,\n  Lights candle and cigar.\n    _Ibid._, p. 235.\n\nThe person who engages in a blow is also called a _blow_.\n\nI could see, in the long vista of the past, the many hardened\n_blows_ who had rioted here around the festive\nboard.--_Collegian_, p. 231.\n\n\nBLUE. In several American colleges, a student who is very strict\nin observing the laws, and conscientious in performing his duties,\nis styled a _blue_. \"Our real delvers, midnight students,\" says a\ncorrespondent from Williams College, \"are called _blue_.\"\n\nI wouldn't carry a novel into chapel to read, not out of any\nrespect for some people's old-womanish twaddle about the\nsacredness of the place,--but because some of the _blues_ might\nsee you.--_Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. XV. p. 81.\n\n  Each jolly soul of them, save the _blues_,\n  Were doffing their coats, vests, pants, and shoes.\n    _Yale Gallinipper_, Nov. 1848.\n\n  None ever knew a sober \"_blue_\"\n    In this \"blood crowd\" of ours.\n    _Yale Tomahawk_, Nov. 1849.\n\nLucian called him a _blue_, and fell back in his chair in a\npouting fit.--_The Dartmouth_, Vol. IV. p. 118.\n\nTo acquire popularity,... he must lose his money at bluff and\neuchre without a sigh, and damn up hill and down the sober\nchurch-going man, as an out-and-out _blue_.--_The Parthenon, Union\nColl._, 1851, p. 6.\n\n\nBLUE-LIGHT. At the University of Vermont this term is used, writes\na correspondent, to designate \"a boy who sneaks about college, and\nreports to the Faculty the short-comings of his fellow-students. A\n_blue-light_ is occasionally found watching the door of a room\nwhere a party of jolly ones are roasting a turkey (which in\njustice belongs to the nearest farm-house), that he may go to the\nFaculty with the story, and tell them who the boys are.\"\n\nBLUES. The name of a party which formerly existed at Dartmouth\nCollege. In The Dartmouth, Vol. IV. p. 117, 1842, is the\nfollowing:--\"The students here are divided into two parties,--the\n_Rowes_ and the _Blues_. The Rowes are very liberal in their\nnotions; the _Blues_ more strict. The Rowes don't pretend to say\nanything worse of a fellow than to call him a Blue, and _vice\nversa_\"\n\nSee INDIGO and ROWES.\n\n\nBLUE-SKIN. This word was formerly in use at some American\ncolleges, with the meaning now given to the word BLUE, q.v.\n\n  I, with my little colleague here,\n    Forth issued from my cell,\n  To see if we could overhear,\n    Or make some _blue-skin_ tell.\n    _The Crayon_, Yale Coll., 1823, p. 22.\n\n\nBOARD. The _boards_, or _college boards_, in the English\nuniversities, are long wooden tablets on which the names of the\nmembers of each college are inscribed, according to seniority,\ngenerally hung up in the buttery.--_Gradus ad Cantab. Webster_.\n\nI gave in my resignation this time without recall, and took my\nname off the _boards_.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._,\nEd. 2d, p. 291.\n\nSimilar to this was the list of students which was formerly kept\nat Harvard College, and probably at Yale. Judge Wingate, who\ngraduated at the former institution in 1759, writes as follows in\nreference to this subject:--\"The Freshman Class was, in my day at\ncollege, usually _placed_ (as it was termed) within six or nine\nmonths after their admission. The official notice of this was\ngiven by having their names written in a large German text, in a\nhandsome style, and placed in a conspicuous part of the College\nButtery, where the names of the four classes of undergraduates\nwere kept suspended until they left College. If a scholar was\nexpelled, his name was taken from its place; or if he was degraded\n(which was considered the next highest punishment to expulsion),\nit was moved accordingly.\"--_Peirce's Hist. Harv. Univ._, p. 311.\n\n\nBOGS. Among English Cantabs, a privy.--_Gradus ad Cantab._\n\n\nBOHN. A translation; a pony. The volumes of Bohn's Classical\nLibrary are in such general use among undergraduates in American\ncolleges, that _Bohn_ has come to be a common name for a\ntranslation.\n\n  'Twas plenty of skin with a good deal of _Bohn_.\n    _Songs, Biennial Jubilee_, Yale Coll., 1855.\n\n\nBOLT. An omission of a recitation or lecture. A correspondent from\nUnion College gives the following account of it:--\"In West\nCollege, where the Sophomores and Freshmen congregate, when there\nwas a famous orator expected, or any unusual spectacle to be\nwitnessed in the city, we would call a 'class meeting,' to\nconsider upon the propriety of asking Professor ---- for a _bolt_.\nWe had our chairman, and the subject being debated, was generally\ndecided in favor of the remission. A committee of good steady\nfellows were selected, who forthwith waited upon the Professor,\nand, after urging the matter, commonly returned with the welcome\nassurance that we could have a _bolt_ from the next recitation.\"\n\nOne writer defines a _bolt_ in these words:--\"The promiscuous\nstampede of a class collectively. Caused generally by a few\nseconds' tardiness of the Professor, occasionally by finding the\nlock of the recitation-room door filled with shot.\"--_Sophomore\nIndependent_, Union College, Nov. 1854.\n\nThe quiet routine of college life had remained for some days\nundisturbed, even by a single _bolt_.--_Williams Quarterly_, Vol.\nII. p. 192.\n\n\nBOLT. At Union College, to be absent from a recitation, on the\nconditions related under the noun BOLT. Followed by _from_. At\nWilliams College, the word is applied with a different\nsignification. A correspondent writes: \"We sometimes _bolt_ from a\nrecitation before the Professor arrives, and the term most\nstrikingly suggests the derivation, as our movements in the case\nwould somewhat resemble a 'streak of lightning,'--a\nthunder-_bolt_.\"\n\n\nBOLTER. At Union College, one who _bolts_ from a recitation.\n\n2. A correspondent from the same college says: \"If a student is\nunable to answer a question in the class, and declares himself\nunprepared, he also is a '_bolter_.'\"\n\n\nBONFIRE. The making of bonfires, by students, is not an unfrequent\noccurrence at many of our colleges, and is usually a demonstration\nof dissatisfaction, or is done merely for the sake of the\nexcitement. It is accounted a high offence, and at Harvard College\nis prohibited by the following law:--\"In case of a bonfire, or\nunauthorized fireworks or illumination, any students crying fire,\nsounding an alarm, leaving their rooms, shouting or clapping from\nthe windows, going to the fire or being seen at it, going into the\ncollege yard, or assembling on account of such bonfire, shall be\ndeemed aiding and abetting such disorder, and punished\naccordingly.\"--_Laws_, 1848, _Bonfires_.\n\nA correspondent from Bowdoin College writes: \"Bonfires occur\nregularly twice a year; one on the night preceding the annual\nState Fast, and the other is built by the Freshmen on the night\nfollowing the yearly examination. A pole some sixty or seventy\nfeet long is raised, around which brush and tar are heaped to a\ngreat height. The construction of the pile occupies from four to\nfive hours.\"\n\n  Not ye, whom midnight cry ne'er urged to run\n  In search of fire, when fire there had been none;\n  Unless, perchance, some pump or hay-mound threw\n  Its _bonfire_ lustre o'er a jolly crew.\n    _Harvard Register_, p. 233.\n\n\nBOOK-KEEPER. At Harvard College, students are allowed to go out of\ntown on Saturday, after the exercises, but are required, if not at\nevening prayers, to enter their names before 10 P.M. with one of\nthe officers appointed for that purpose. Students were formerly\nrequired to report themselves before 8 P.M., in winter, and 9, in\nsummer, and the person who registered the names was a member of\nthe Freshman Class, and was called the _book-keeper_.\n\nI strode over the bridge, with a rapidity which grew with my\nvexation, my distaste for wind, cold, and wet, and my anxiety to\nreach my goal ere the hour appointed should expire, and the\n_book-keeper's_ light should disappear from his window;\n \"For while his light holds out to burn,\n  The vilest sinner may return.\"--_Collegian_, p. 225.\n\nSee FRESHMAN, COLLEGE.\n\n\nBOOK-WORK. Among students at Cambridge, Eng., all mathematics that\ncan be learned verbatim from books,--all that are not\nproblems.--_Bristed_.\n\nHe made a good fight of it, and ... beat the Trinity man a little\non the _book-work_.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed.\n2d, p. 96.\n\nThe men are continually writing out _book-work_, either at home or\nin their tutor's rooms.--_Ibid._, p. 149.\n\n\nBOOT-FOX. This name was at a former period given, in the German\nuniversities, to a fox, or a student in his first half-year, from\nthe fact of his being required to black the boots of his more\nadvanced comrades.\n\n\nBOOTLICK. To fawn upon; to court favor.\n\nScorns the acquaintance of those he deems beneath him; refuses to\n_bootlick_ men for their votes.--_The Parthenon_, Union Coll.,\nVol. I. p. 6.\n\nThe \"Wooden Spoon\" exhibition passed off without any such hubbub,\nexcept where the pieces were of such a character as to offend the\ndelicacy and modesty of some of those crouching, fawning,\n_bootlicking_ hypocrites.--_The Gallinipper_, Dec. 1849.\n\n\nBOOTLICKER. A student who seeks or gains favor from a teacher by\nflattery or officious civilities; one who curries favor. A\ncorrespondent from Union College writes: \"As you watch the\nstudents more closely, you will perhaps find some of them\nparticularly officious towards your teacher, and very apt to\nlinger after recitation to get a clearer knowledge of some\npassage. They are _Bootlicks_, and that is known as _Bootlicking_;\na reproach, I am sorry to say, too indiscriminately applied.\" At\nYale, and _other colleges_, a tutor or any other officer who\ninforms against the students, or acts as a spy upon their conduct,\nis also called a _bootlick_.\n\nThree or four _bootlickers_ rise.--_Yale Banger_, Oct. 1848.\n\n  The rites of Wooden Spoons we next recite,\n  When _bootlick_ hypocrites upraised their might.\n    _Ibid._, Nov. 1849.\n\nThen he arose, and offered himself as a \"_bootlick_\" to the\nFaculty.--_Yale Battery_, Feb. 14, 1850.\n\n\nBOOTS. At the College of South Carolina it is customary to present\nthe most unpopular member of a class with a pair of handsome\nred-topped boots, on which is inscribed the word BEAUTY. They were\nformerly given to the ugliest person, whence the inscription.\n\n\nBORE. A tiresome person or unwelcome visitor, who makes himself\nobnoxious by his disagreeable manners, or by a repetition of\nvisits.--_Bartlett_.\n\nA person or thing that wearies by iteration.--_Webster_.\n\nAlthough the use of this word is very general, yet it is so\npeculiarly applicable to the many annoyances to which a collegian\nis subjected, that it has come by adoption to be, to a certain\nextent, a student term. One writer classes under this title\n\"text-books generally; the Professor who marks _slight_ mistakes;\nthe familiar young man who calls continually, and when he finds\nthe door fastened demonstrates his verdant curiosity by revealing\nan inquisitive countenance through the ventilator.\"--_Sophomore\nIndependent_, Union College, Nov. 1854.\n\nIn college parlance, prayers, when the morning is cold or rainy,\nare a _bore_; a hard lesson is a _bore_; a dull lecture or\nlecturer is a _bore_; and, _par excellence_, an unwelcome visitor\nis a _bore_ of _bores_. This latter personage is well described in\nthe following lines:--\n\n \"Next comes the bore, with visage sad and pale,\n  And tortures you with some lugubrious tale;\n  Relates stale jokes collected near and far,\n  And in return expects a choice cigar;\n  Your brandy-punch he calls the merest sham,\n  Yet does not _scruple_ to partake a _dram_.\n  His prying eyes your secret nooks explore;\n  No place is sacred to the college bore.\n  Not e'en the letter filled with Helen's praise,\n  Escapes the sight of his unhallowed gaze;\n  Ere one short hour its silent course has flown,\n  Your Helen's charms to half the class are known.\n  Your books he takes, nor deigns your leave to ask,\n  Such forms to him appear a useless task.\n  When themes unfinished stare you in the face,\n  Then enters one of this accursed race.\n  Though like the Angel bidding John to write,\n  Frail ------ form uprises to thy sight,\n  His stupid stories chase your thoughts away,\n  And drive you mad with his unwelcome stay.\n  When he, departing, creaks the closing door,\n  You raise the Grecian chorus, [Greek: kikkabau].\"[02]\n    _MS. Poem_, F.E. Felton, Harv. Coll.\n\n\nBOS. At the University of Virginia, the desserts which the\nstudents, according to the statutes of college, are allowed twice\nper week, are respectively called the _Senior_ and _Junior Bos_.\n\n\nBOSH. Nonsense, trash, [Greek: phluaria]. An English Cantab's\nexpression.--_Bristed_.\n\nBut Spriggins's peculiar forte is that kind of talk which some\npeople irreverently call \"_bosh_.\"--_Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. XX. p.\n259.\n\n\nBOSKY. In the cant of the Oxonians, being tipsy.--_Grose_.\n\nNow when he comes home fuddled, alias _Bosky_, I shall not be so\nunmannerly as to say his Lordship ever gets drunk.--_The Sizar_,\ncited in _Gradus ad Cantab._, pp. 20, 21.\n\n\nBOWEL. At Harvard College, a student in common parlance will\nexpress his destitution or poverty by saying, \"I have not a\n_bowel_.\" The use of the word with this signification has arisen,\nprobably, from a jocular reference to a quaint Scriptural\nexpression.\n\n\nBRACKET. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., the result of the\nfinal examination in the Senate-House is published in lists signed\nby the examiners. In these lists the names of those who have been\nexamined are \"placed in individual order of merit.\" When the rank\nof two or three men is the same, their names are inclosed in\n_brackets_.\n\nAt the close of the course, and before the examination is\nconcluded, there is made out a new arrangement of the classes\ncalled the _Brackets_. These, in which each is placed according to\nmerit, are hung upon the pillars in the Senate-House.--_Alma\nMater_, Vol. II. p. 93.\n\nAs there is no provision in the printed lists for expressing the\nnumber of marks by which each man beats the one next below him,\nand there may be more difference between the twelfth and\nthirteenth than between the third and twelfth, it has been\nproposed to extend the use of the _brackets_ (which are now only\nemployed in cases of literal equality between two or three men),\nand put together six, eight, or ten, whose marks are nearly equal.\n--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 227.\n\n\nBRACKET. In a general sense, to place in a certain order.\n\nI very early in the Sophomore year gave up all thoughts of\nobtaining high honors, and settled down contentedly among the\ntwelve or fifteen who are _bracketed_, after the first two or\nthree, as \"English Orations.\"--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng.\nUniv._, Ed. 2d, p. 6.\n\nThere remained but two, _bracketed_ at the foot of the\nclass.--_Ibid._, p. 62.\n\nThe Trinity man who was _bracketed_ Senior Classic.--_Ibid._, p.\n187.\n\n\nBRANDER. In the German universities a name given to a student\nduring his second term.\n\nMeanwhile large tufts and strips of paper had been twisted into\nthe hair of the _Branders_, as those are called who have been\nalready one term at the University, and then at a given signal\nwere set on fire, and the _Branders_ rode round the table on\nchairs, amid roars of laughter.--_Longfellow's Hyperion_, p. 114.\n\nSee BRAND-FOX, BURNT FOX.\n\n\nBRAND-FOX. A student in a German university \"becomes a\n_Brand-fuchs_, or fox with a brand, after the foxes of Samson,\" in\nhis second half-year.--_Howitt_.\n\n\nBRICK. A gay, wild, thoughtless fellow, but not so _hard_ as the\nword itself might seem to imply.\n\nHe is a queer fellow,--not so bad as he seems,--his own enemy, but\na regular _brick_.--_Collegian's Guide_, p. 143.\n\nHe will come himself (public tutor or private), like a _brick_ as\nhe is, and consume his share of the generous potables.--_Bristed's\nFive Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 78.\n\nSee LIKE A BRICK.\n\n\nBRICK MILL. At the University of Vermont, the students speak of\nthe college as the _Brick Mill_, or the _Old Brick Mill_.\n\n\nBUCK. At Princeton College, anything which is in an intensive\ndegree good, excellent, pleasant, or agreeable, is called _buck_.\n\n\nBULL. At Dartmouth College, to recite badly; to make a poor\nrecitation. From the substantive _bull_, a blunder or\ncontradiction, or from the use of the word as a prefix, signifying\nlarge, lubberly, blundering.\n\n\nBULL-DOG. In the English universities, the lictor or servant who\nattends a proctor when on duty.\n\nSentiments which vanish for ever at the sight of the proctor with\nhis _bull-dogs_, as they call them, or four muscular fellows which\nalways follow him, like so many bailiffs.--_Westminster Rev._, Am.\nEd., Vol. XXXV. p. 232.\n\nThe proctors, through their attendants, commonly called\n_bull-dogs_, received much certain information, &c.--_Collegian's\nGuide_, p. 170.\n\n  And he had breathed the proctor's _dogs_.\n    _Tennyson, Prologue to Princess_.\n\n\nBULLY CLUB. The following account of the _Bully Club_, which was\nformerly a most honored transmittendum at Yale College, is taken\nfrom an entertaining little work, entitled Sketches of Yale\nCollege. \"_Bullyism_ had its origin, like everything else that is\nvenerated, far back in antiquity; no one pretends to know the era\nof its commencement, nor to say with certainty what was the cause\nof its establishment, or the original design of the institution.\nWe can only learn from dim and doubtful tradition, that many years\nago, no one knows how many, there was a feud between students and\ntownsmen: a sort of general ill-feeling, which manifested itself\nin the lower classes of society in rudeness and insult. Not\npatiently borne with, it grew worse and worse, until a regular\norganization became necessary for defence against the nightly\nassaults of a gang of drunken rowdies. Nor were their opponents\ndisposed to quit the unequal fight. An organization in opposition\nfollowed, and a band of tipsy townsmen, headed by some hardy tars,\ntook the field, were met, no one knows whether in offence or\ndefence, and after a fight repulsed, and a huge knotty club\nwrested from their leader. This trophy of personal courage was\npreserved, the organization perpetuated, and the _Bully Club_ was\nevery year, with procession and set form of speech, bestowed upon\nthe newly acknowledged leader. But in process of time the\norganization has assumed a different character: there was no\nlonger need of a system of defence,--the \"Bully\" was still\nacknowledged as class leader. He marshalled all processions, was\nmoderator of all meetings, and performed the various duties of a\nchief. The title became now a matter of dispute; it sounded harsh\nand rude to ears polite, and a strong party proposed a change: but\nthe supporters of antiquity pleaded the venerable character of the\ncustoms identified almost with the College itself. Thus the\nclasses were divided, a part electing a marshal, class-leader, or\nmoderator, and a part still choosing a _bully_ and _minor\nbully_--the latter usually the least of their number--from each\nclass, and still bestowing on them the wonted clubs, mounted with\ngold, the badges of their office.\n\n\"Unimportant as these distinctions seem, they formed the ground of\nconstant controversy, each party claiming for its leader the\nprecedence, until the dissensions ended in a scene of confusion\ntoo well known to need detail: the usual procession on\nCommencement day was broken up, and the partisans fell upon each\nother pell-mell; scarce heeding, in their hot fray, the orders of\nthe Faculty, the threats of the constables, or even the rebuke of\nthe chief magistrate of the State; the alumni were left to find\ntheir seats in church as they best could, the aged and beloved\nPresident following in sorrow, unescorted, to perform the duties\nof the day. It need not be told that the disputes were judicially\nended by a peremptory ordinance, prohibiting all class\norganizations of any name whatever.\"\n\nA more particular account of the Bully Club, and of the manner in\nwhich the students of Yale came to possess it, is given in the\nannexed extract.\n\n\"Many years ago, the farther back towards the Middle Ages the\nbetter, some students went out one evening to an inn at Dragon, as\nit was then called, now the populous and pretty village of Fair\nHaven, to regale themselves with an oyster supper, or for some\nother kind of recreation. They there fell into an affray with the\nyoung men of the place, a hardy if not a hard set, who regarded\ntheir presence there, at their own favorite resort, as an\nintrusion. The students proved too few for their adversaries. They\nreported the matter at College, giving an aggravated account of\nit, and, being strongly reinforced, went out the next evening to\nrenew the fight. The oystermen and sailors were prepared for them.\nA desperate conflict ensued, chiefly in the house, above stairs\nand below, into which the sons of science entered pell-mell. Which\ncame off the worse, I neither know nor care, believing defeat to\nbe far less discreditable to either party, and especially to the\nstudents, than the fact of their engaging in such a brawl. Where\nthe matter itself is essentially disgraceful, success or failure\nis indifferent, as it regards the honor of the actors. Among the\nDragoners, a great bully of a fellow, who appeared to be their\nleader, wielded a huge club, formed from an oak limb, with a\ngnarled excrescence on the end, heavy enough to battle with an\nelephant. A student remarkable for his strength in the arms and\nhands, griped the fellow so hard about the wrist that his fingers\nopened, and let the club fall. It was seized, and brought off as a\ntrophy. Such is the history of the Bully Club. It became the\noccasion of an annual election of a person to take charge of it,\nand to act as leader of the students in case of a quarrel between\nthem, and others. 'Bully' was the title of this chivalrous and\nhigh office.\"--_Scenes and Characters in College_, New Haven,\n1847, pp. 215, 216.\n\n\nBUMPTIOUS. Conceited, forward, pushing. An English Cantab's\nexpression.--_Bristed_.\n\nAbout nine, A.M., the new scholars are announced from the chapel\ngates. On this occasion it is not etiquette for the candidates\nthemselves to be in waiting,--it looks too\n\"_bumptious_.\"--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d,\np. 193.\n\n\nBURIAL OF EUCLID. \"The custom of bestowing burial honors upon the\nashes of Euclid with becoming demonstrations of respect has been\nhanded down,\" says the author of the Sketches of Yale College,\n\"from time immemorial.\" The account proceeds as follows:--\"This\nbook, the terror of the dilatory and unapt, having at length been\ncompletely mastered, the class, as their acquaintance with the\nGreek mathematician is about to close, assemble in their\nrespective places of meeting, and prepare (secretly for fear of\nthe Faculty) for the anniversary. The necessary committee having\nbeen appointed, and the regular preparations ordered, a ceremony\nhas sometimes taken place like the following. The huge poker is\nheated in the old stove, and driven through the smoking volume,\nand the division, marshalled in line, for _once_ at least see\n_through_ the whole affair. They then march over it in solemn\nprocession, and are enabled, as they step firmly on its covers, to\nassert with truth that they have gone over it,--poor jokes indeed,\nbut sufficient to afford abundant laughter. And then follow\nspeeches, comical and pathetic, and shouting and merriment. The\nnight assigned having arrived, how carefully they assemble, all\nsilent, at the place appointed. Laid on its bier, covered with\nsable pall, and borne in solemn state, the corpse (i.e. the book)\nis carried with slow procession, with the moaning music of flutes\nand fifes, the screaming of fiddles, and the thumping and mumbling\nof a cracked drum, to the open grave or the funeral pyre. A\ngleaming line of blazing torches and twinkling lanterns wave along\nthe quiet streets and through the opened fields, and the snow\ncreaks hoarsely under the tread of a hundred men. They reach the\nscene, and a circle forms around the consecrated spot; if the\nceremony is a burial, the defunct is laid all carefully in his\ngrave, and then his friends celebrate in prose or verse his\nmemory, his virtues, and his untimely end: and three oboli are\ntossed into his tomb to satisfy the surly boatman of the Styx.\nLingeringly is the last look taken of the familiar countenance, as\nthe procession passes slowly around the tomb; and the moaning is\nmade,--a sound of groans going up to the seventh heavens,--and the\nearth is thrown in, and the headstone with epitaph placed duly to\nhallow the grave of the dead. Or if, according to the custom of\nhis native land, the body of Euclid is committed to the funeral\nflames, the pyre, duly prepared with combustibles, is made the\ncentre of the ring; a ponderous jar of turpentine or whiskey is\nthe fragrant incense, and as the lighted fire mounts up in the\nstill night, and the alarm in the city sounds dim in the distance,\nthe eulogium is spoken, and the memory of the illustrious dead\nhonored; the urn receives the sacred ashes, which, borne in solemn\nprocession, are placed in some conspicuous situation, or solemnly\ndeposited in some fitting sarcophagus. So the sport ends; a song,\na loud hurrah, and the last jovial roysterer seeks short and\nprofound slumber.\"--pp. 166-169.\n\nThe above was written in the year 1843. That the interest in the\nobservance of this custom at Yale College has not since that time\ndiminished, may be inferred from the following account of the\nexercises of the Sophomore Class of 1850, on parting company with\ntheir old mathematical friend, given by a correspondent of the New\nYork Tribune.\n\n\"Arrangements having been well matured, notice was secretly given\nout on Wednesday last that the obsequies would be celebrated that\nevening at 'Barney's Hall,' on Church Street. An excellent band of\nmusic was engaged for the occasion, and an efficient Force\nCommittee assigned to their duty, who performed their office with\ngreat credit, taking singular care that no 'tutor' or 'spy' should\nsecure an entrance to the hall. The 'countersign' selected was\n'Zeus,' and fortunately was not betrayed. The hall being full at\nhalf past ten, the doors were closed, and the exercises commenced\nwith music. Then followed numerous pieces of various character,\nand among them an _Oration_, a _Poem_, _Funeral Sermon_ (of a very\nmetaphysical character), a _Dirge_, and, at the grave, a _Prayer\nto Pluto_. These pieces all exhibited taste and labor, and were\nacknowledged to be of a higher tone than that of any productions\nwhich have ever been delivered on a similar occasion. Besides\nthese, there were several songs interspersed throughout the\nProgramme, in both Latin and English, which were sung with great\njollity and effect. The band added greatly to the character of the\nperformances, by their frequent and appropriate pieces. A large\ncoffin was placed before the altar, within which, lay the\nveritable Euclid, arranged in a becoming winding-sheet, the body\nbeing composed of combustibles, and these thoroughly saturated\nwith turpentine. The company left the hall at half past twelve,\nformed in an orderly procession, preceded by the band, and bearing\nthe coffin in their midst. Those who composed the procession were\narrayed in disguises, to avoid detection, and bore a full\ncomplement of brilliant torches. The skeleton of Euclid (a\nfaithful caricature), himself bearing a torch, might have been\nseen dancing in the midst, to the great amusement of all\nbeholders. They marched up Chapel Street as far as the south end\nof the College, where they were saluted with three hearty cheers\nby their fellow-students, and then continued through College\nStreet in front of the whole College square, at the north\nextremity of which they were again greeted by cheers, and thence\nfollowed a circuitous way to _quasi_ Potter's Field, about a mile\nfrom the city, where the concluding ceremonies were performed.\nThese consist of walking over the coffin, thus _surmounting the\ndifficulties_ of the author; boring a hole through a copy of\nEuclid with a hot iron, that the class may see _through_ it; and\nfinally burning it upon the funeral pyre, in order to _throw\nlight_ upon the subject. After these exercises, the procession\nreturned, with music, to the State-House, where they disbanded,\nand returned to their desolate habitations. The affair surpassed\nanything of the kind that has ever taken place here, and nothing\nwas wanting to render it a complete performance. It testifies to\nthe spirit and character of the class of '53.\"--_Literary World_,\nNov. 23, 1850, from the _New York Tribune_.\n\nIn the Sketches of Williams College, printed in the year 1847, is\na description of the manner in which the funeral exercises of\nEuclid are sometimes conducted in that institution. It is as\nfollows:--\"The burial took place last night. The class assembled\nin the recitation-room in full numbers, at 9 o'clock. The\ndeceased, much emaciated, and in a torn and tattered dress, was\nstretched on a black table in the centre of the room. This table,\nby the way, was formed of the old blackboard, which, like a\nmirror, had so often reflected the image of old Euclid. In the\nbody of the corpse was a triangular hole, made for the _post\nmortem_ examination, a report of which was read. Through this\nhole, those who wished were allowed to look; and then, placing the\nbody on their heads, they could say with truth that they had for\nonce seen through and understood Euclid.\n\n\"A eulogy was then pronounced, followed by an oration and the\nreading of the epitaph, after which the class formed a procession,\nand marched with slow and solemn tread to the place of burial. The\nspot selected was in the woods, half a mile south of the College.\nAs we approached the place, we saw a bright fire burning on the\naltar of turf, and torches gleaming through the dark pines. All\nwas still, save the occasional sympathetic groans of some forlorn\nbull-frogs, which came up like minute-guns from the marsh below.\n\n\"When we arrived at the spot, the sexton received the body. This\ndignitary presented rather a grotesque appearance. He wore a white\nrobe bound around his waist with a black scarf, and on his head a\nblack, conical-shaped hat, some three feet high. Haying fastened\nthe remains to the extremity of a long, black wand, he held them\nin the fire of the altar until they were nearly consumed, and then\nlaid the charred mass in the urn, muttering an incantation in\nLatin. The urn being buried deep in the ground, we formed a ring\naround the grave, and sung the dirge. Then, lighting our larches\nby the dying fire, we retraced our steps with feelings suited to\nthe occasion.\"--pp. 74-76.\n\nOf this observance the writer of the preface to the \"Songs of\nYale\" remarks: \"The _Burial of Euclid_ is an old ceremony\npractised at many colleges. At Yale it is conducted by the\nSophomore Class during the first term of the year. After literary\nexercises within doors, a procession is formed, which proceeds at\nmidnight through the principal streets of the city, with music and\ntorches, conveying a coffin, supposed to contain the body of the\nold mathematician, to the funeral pile, when the whole is fired\nand consumed to ashes.\"--1853, p. 4.\n\nFrom the lugubrious songs which are usually sung on these sad\noccasions, the following dirge is selected. It appears in the\norder of exercises for the \"Burial of Euclid by the Class of '57,\"\nwhich took place at Yale College, November 8, 1854.\n\n    Tune,--\"_Auld Lang Syne_.\"\n\n              I.\n\n  Come, gather all ye tearful Sophs,\n    And stand around the ring;\n  Old Euclid's dead, and to his shade\n    A requiem we'll sing:\n  Then join the saddening chorus, all\n    Ye friends of Euclid true;\n  Defunct, he can no longer bore,\n    \"[Greek: Pheu pheu, oi moi, pheu pheu.]\"[03]\n\n              II.\n\n  Though we to Pluto _dead_icate,\n    No god to take him deigns,\n  So, one short year from now will Fate\n    Bring back his sad _re-manes_:\n  For at Biennial his ghost\n    Will prompt the tutor blue,\n  And every fizzling Soph will cry,\n    \"[Greek: Pheu pheu, oi moi, pheu pheu.]\"\n\n              III.\n\n  Though here we now his _corpus_ burn,\n    And flames about him roar,\n  The future Fresh shall say, that he's\n    \"Not dead, but gone before\":\n  We close around the dusky bier,\n    And pall of sable hue,\n  And silently we drop the tear;\n    \"[Greek: Pheu pheu, oi moi, pheu pheu.]\"\n\n\nBURLESQUE BILL. At Princeton College, it is customary for the\nmembers of the Sophomore Class to hold annually a Sophomore\nCommencement, caricaturing that of the Senior Class. The Sophomore\nCommencement is in turn travestied by the Junior Class, who\nprepare and publish _Burlesque Bills_, as they are called, in\nwhich, in a long and formal programme, such subjects and speeches\nare attributed to the members of the Sophomore Class as are\ncalculated to expose their weak points.\n\nSee SOPHOMORE COMMENCEMENT.\n\n\nBURLINGTON. At Middlebury College, a water-closet, privy. So\ncalled on account of the good-natured rivalry between that\ninstitution and the University of Vermont at Burlington.\n\n\nBURNING OF CONIC SECTIONS. \"This is a ceremony,\" writes a\ncorrespondent, \"observed by the Sophomore Class of Trinity\nCollege, on the Monday evening of Commencement week. The\nincremation of this text-book is made by the entire class, who\nappear in fantastic rig and in torch-light procession. The\nceremonies are held in the College grove, and are graced with an\noration and poem. The exercises are usually closed by a class\nsupper.\"\n\n\nBURNING OF CONVIVIUM. Convivium is a Greek book which is studied\nat Hamilton College during the last term of the Freshman year, and\nis considered somewhat difficult. Upon entering Sophomore it is\ncustomary to burn it, with exercises appropriate to the occasion.\nThe time being appointed, the class hold a meeting and elect the\nmarshals of the night. A large pyre is built during the evening,\nof rails and pine wood, on the middle of which is placed a barrel\nof tar, surrounded by straw saturated with turpentine. Notice is\nthen given to the upper classes that Convivium will be burnt that\nnight at twelve o'clock. Their company is requested at the\nexercises, which consist of two poems, a tragedy, and a funeral\noration. A coffin is laid out with the \"remains\" of the book, and\nthe literary exercises are performed. These concluded, the class\nform a procession, preceded by a brass band playing a dirge, and\nmarch to the pyre, around which, with uncovered heads, they\nsolemnly form. The four bearers with their torches then advance\nsilently, and place the coffin upon the funeral pile. The class,\neach member bearing a torch, form a circle around the pyre. At a\ngiven signal they all bend forward together, and touch their\ntorches to the heap of combustibles. In an instant \"a lurid flame\narises, licks around the coffin, and shakes its tongue to heaven.\"\nTo these ceremonies succeed festivities, which are usually\ncontinued until daylight.\n\n\nBURNING OF ZUMPT'S LATIN GRAMMAR. The funeral rites over the body\nof this book are performed by the students in the University of\nNew York. The place of turning and burial is usually at Hoboken.\nScenes of this nature often occur in American colleges, having\ntheir origin, it is supposed, in the custom at Yale of burying\nEuclid.\n\n\nBURNT FOX. A student during his second half-year, in the German\nuniversities, is called a _burnt fox_.\n\n\nBURSAR, _pl._ BURSARII. A treasurer or cash-keeper; as, the\n_bursar_ of a college or of a monastery. The said College in\nCambridge shall be a corporation consisting of seven persons, to\nwit, a President, five Fellows, and a Treasurer or\n_Bursar_.--_Peirce's Hist. Harv. Univ._, App., p. 11.\n\nEvery student is required on his arrival, at the commencement of\neach session, to deliver to the _Bursar_ the moneys and drafts for\nmoney which he has brought with him. It is the duty of the\n_Bursar_ to attend to the settlement of the demands for board,\n&c.; to pay into the hands of the student such sums as are\nrequired for other necessary expenses, and to render a statement\nof the same to the parent or guardian at the close of the session.\n--_Catalogue of Univ. of North Carolina_, 1848-49, p. 27.\n\n2. A student to whom a stipend is paid out of a burse or fund\nappropriated for that purpose, as the exhibitioners sent to the\nuniversities in Scotland, by each presbytery.--_Webster_.\n\nSee a full account in _Brande's Dict. Science, Lit., and Art_.\n\n\nBURSARY. The treasury of a college or monastery.--_Webster_.\n\n2. In Scotland, an exhibition.--_Encyc._\n\n\nBURSCH (bursh), _pl._ BURSCHEN. German. A youth; especially a\nstudent in a German university.\n\n\"By _bursch\u00e9_,\" says Howitt, \"we understand one who has already\nspent a certain time at the university,--and who, to a certain\ndegree, has taken part in the social practices of the\nstudents.\"--_Student Life of Germany_, Am. Ed., p. 27.\n\n  Und hat der _Bursch_ kein Geld im Beutel,\n    So pumpt er die Philister an,\n  Und denkt: es ist doch Alles eitel\n    Vom _Burschen_ bis zum Bettleman.\n    _Crambambuli Song_.\n\nStudent life! _Burschen_ life! What a magic sound have these words\nfor him who has learnt for himself their real meaning.--_Howitt's\nStudent Life of Germany_.\n\n\nBURSCHENSCHAFT. A league or secret association of students, formed\nin 1815, for the purpose, as was asserted, of the political\nregeneration of Germany, and suppressed, at least in name, by the\nexertions of the government.--_Brandt_.\n\n\"The Burschenschaft,\" says the Yale Literary Magazine, \"was a\nsociety formed in opposition to the vices and follies of the\nLandsmannschaft, with the motto, 'God, Honor, Freedom,\nFatherland.' Its object was 'to develop and perfect every mental\nand bodily power for the service of the Fatherland.' It exerted a\nmighty and salutary influence, was almost supreme in its power,\nbut was finally suppressed by the government, on account of its\nalleged dangerous political tendencies.\"--Vol. XV. p. 3.\n\n\nBURSE. In France, a fund or foundation for the maintenance of poor\nscholars in their studies. In the Middle Ages, it signified a\nlittle college, or a hall in a university.--_Webster_.\n\n\nBURST. To fail in reciting; to make a bad recitation. This word is\nused in some of the Southern colleges.\n\n\nBURT. At Union College, a privy is called _the Burt_, from a\nperson of that name, who many years ago was employed as the\narchitect and builder of the _latrin\u00e6_ of that institution.\n\n\nBUSY. An answer often given by a student, when he does not wish to\nsee visitors.\n\nPoor Croak was almost annihilated by this summons, and, clinging\nto the bed-clothes in all the agony of despair, forgot to _busy_\nhis midnight visitor.--_Harv. Reg._, p. 84.\n\nWhenever, during that sacred season, a knock salutes my door, I\nrespond with a _busy_.--_Collegian_, p. 25.\n\n\"_Busy_\" is a hard word to utter, often, though heart and\nconscience and the college clock require it.--_Scenes and\nCharacters in College_, p. 58.\n\n\nBUTLER. Anciently written BOTILER. A servant or officer whose\nprincipal business is to take charge of the liquors, food, plate,\n&c. In the old laws of Harvard College we find an enumeration of\nthe duties of the college butler. Some of them were as follows.\n\nHe was to keep the rooms and utensils belonging to his office\nsweet and clean, fit for use; his drinking-vessels were to be\nscoured once a week. The fines imposed by the President and other\nofficers were to be fairly recorded by him in a book, kept for\nthat purpose. He was to attend upon the ringing of the bell for\nprayer in the hall, and for lectures and commons. Providing\ncandles for the hall was a part of his duty. He was obliged to\nkeep the Buttery supplied, at his own expense, with beer, cider,\ntea, coffee, chocolate, sugar, biscuit, butter, cheese, pens, ink,\npaper, and such other articles as the President or Corporation\nordered or permitted; \"but no permission,\" it is added in the\nlaws, \"shall be given for selling wine, distilled spirits, or\nforeign fruits, on credit or for ready money.\" He was allowed to\nadvance twenty per cent. on the net cost of the articles sold by\nhim, excepting beer and cider, which were stated quarterly by the\nPresident and Tutors. The Butler was allowed a Freshman to assist\nhim, for an account of whom see under FRESHMAN,\nBUTLER'S.--_Peirce's Hist. Harv. Univ._, App., pp. 138, 139. _Laws\nHarv. Coll._, 1798, pp. 60-62.\n\nPresident Woolsey, in his Historical Discourse pronounced before\nthe Graduates of Yale College, August 14th, 1850, remarks as\nfollows concerning the Butler, in connection with that\ninstitution:--\n\n\"The classes since 1817, when the office of Butler was, abolished,\nare probably but little aware of the meaning of that singular\nappendage to the College, which had been in existence a hundred\nyears. To older graduates, the lower front corner room of the old\nmiddle college in the south entry must even now suggest many\namusing recollections. The Butler was a graduate of recent\nstanding, and, being invested with rather delicate functions, was\nrequired to be one in whom confidence might be reposed. Several of\nthe elder graduates who have filled this office are here to-day,\nand can explain, better than I can, its duties and its bearings\nupon the interests of College. The chief prerogative of the Butler\nwas to have the monopoly of certain eatables, drinkables, and\nother articles desired by students. The Latin laws of 1748 give\nhim leave to sell in the buttery, cider, metheglin, strong beer to\nthe amount of not more than twelve barrels annually,--which amount\nas the College grew was increased to twenty,--together with\nloaf-sugar ('saccharum rigidum'), pipes, tobacco, and such\nnecessaries of scholars as were not furnished in the commons hall.\nSome of these necessaries were books and stationery, but certain\nfresh fruits also figured largely in the Butler's supply. No\nstudent might buy cider or beer elsewhere. The Butler, too, had\nthe care of the bell, and was bound to wait upon the President or\na Tutor, and notify him of the time for prayers. He kept the book\nof fines, which, as we shall see, was no small task. He\ndistributed the bread and beer provided by the Steward in the Hall\ninto equal portions, and had the lost commons, for which privilege\nhe paid a small annual sum. He was bound, in consideration of the\nprofits of his monopoly, to provide candles at college prayers and\nfor a time to pay also fifty shillings sterling into the treasury.\nThe more menial part of these duties he performed by his\nwaiter.\"--pp. 43, 44.\n\nAt both Harvard and Yale the students were restricted in expending\nmoney at the Buttery, being allowed at the former \"to contract a\ndebt\" of five dollars a quarter; at the latter, of one dollar and\ntwenty-five cents per month.\n\n\nBUTTER. A size or small portion of butter. \"Send me a roll and two\nButters.\"--_Grad. ad Cantab._\n\nSix cheeses, three _butters_, and two beers.--_The Collegian's\nGuide_.\n\nPertinent to this singular use of the word, is the following\ncurious statement. At Cambridge, Eng., \"there is a market every\nday in the week, except Monday, for vegetables, poultry, eggs, and\nbutter. The sale of the last article is attended with the\npeculiarity of every pound designed for the market being rolled\nout to the length of a yard; each pound being in that state about\nthe thickness of a walking-cane. This practice, which is confined\nto Cambridge, is particularly convenient, as it renders the butter\nextremely easy of division into small portions, called _sizes_, as\nused in the Colleges.\"--_Camb. Guide_, Ed. 1845, p. 213.\n\n\nBUTTERY. An apartment in a house where butter, milk, provisions,\nand utensils are kept. In some colleges, a room where liquors,\nfruit, and refreshments are kept for sale to the\nstudents.--_Webster_.\n\nOf the Buttery, Mr. Peirce, in his History of Harvard University,\nspeaks as follows: \"As the Commons rendered the College\nindependent of private boarding-houses, so the _Buttery_ removed\nall just occasion for resorting to the different marts of luxury,\nintemperance, and ruin. This was a kind of supplement to the\nCommons, and offered for sale to the students, at a moderate\nadvance on the cost, wines, liquors, groceries, stationery, and,\nin general, such articles as it was proper and necessary for them\nto have occasionally, and which for the most part were not\nincluded in the Commons' fare. The Buttery was also an office,\nwhere, among other things, records were kept of the times when the\nscholars were present and absent. At their admission and\nsubsequent returns they entered their names in the Buttery, and\ntook them out whenever they had leave of absence. The Butler, who\nwas a graduate, had various other duties to perform, either by\nhimself or by his _Freshman_, as ringing the bell, seeing that the\nHall was kept clean, &c., and was allowed a salary, which, after\n1765, was \u00a360 per annum.\"--_Hist. Harv. Univ._, p. 220.\n\nWith particular reference to the condition of Harvard College a\nfew years prior to the Revolution, Professor Sidney Willard\nobserves: \"The Buttery was in part a sort of appendage to Commons,\nwhere the scholars could eke out their short commons with sizings\nof gingerbread and pastry, or needlessly or injuriously cram\nthemselves to satiety, as they had been accustomed to be crammed\nat home by their fond mothers. Besides eatables, everything\nnecessary for a student was there sold, and articles used in the\nplay-grounds, as bats, balls, &c.; and, in general, a petty trade\nwith small profits was carried on in stationery and other matters,\n--in things innocent or suitable for the young customers, and in\nsome things, perhaps, which were not. The Butler had a small\nsalary, and was allowed the service of a Freshman in the Buttery,\nwho was also employed to ring the college bell for prayers,\nlectures, and recitations, and take some oversight of the public\nrooms under the Butler's directions. The Buttery was also the\noffice of record of the names of undergraduates, and of the rooms\nassigned to them in the college buildings; of the dates of\ntemporary leave of absence given to individuals, and of their\nreturn; and of fines inflicted by the immediate government for\nnegligence or minor offences. The office was dropped or abolished\nin the first year of the present century, I believe, long after it\nceased to be of use for most of its primary purposes. The area\nbefore the entry doors of the Buttery had become a sort of\nstudents' exchange for idle gossip, if nothing worse. The rooms\nwere now redeemed from traffic, and devoted to places of study,\nand other provision was made for the records which had there been\nkept. The last person who held the office of Butler was Joseph\nChickering, a graduate of 1799.\"--_Memories of Youth and Manhood_,\n1855, Vol. I. pp. 31, 32.\n\nPresident Woolsey, in his Historical Discourse pronounced before\nthe Graduates of Yale College, August 14th, 1850, makes the\nfollowing remarks on this subject: \"The original motives for\nsetting up a buttery in colleges seem to have been, to put the\ntrade in articles which appealed to the appetite into safe hands;\nto ascertain how far students were expensive in their habits, and\nprevent them from running into debt; and finally, by providing a\nplace where drinkables of not very stimulating qualities were\nsold, to remove the temptation of going abroad after spirituous\nliquors. Accordingly, laws were passed limiting the sum for which\nthe Butler might give credit to a student, authorizing the\nPresident to inspect his books, and forbidding him to sell\nanything except permitted articles for ready money. But the whole\nsystem, as viewed from our position as critics of the past, must\nbe pronounced a bad one. It rather tempted the student to\nself-indulgence by setting up a place for the sale of things to\neat and drink within the College walls, than restrained him by\nbringing his habits under inspection. There was nothing to prevent\nhis going abroad in quest of stronger drinks than could be bought\nat the buttery, when once those which were there sold ceased to\nallay his thirst. And a monopoly, such as the Butler enjoyed of\ncertain articles, did not tend to lower their price, or to remove\nsuspicion that they were sold at a higher rate than free\ncompetition would assign to them.\"--pp. 44, 45.\n\n\"When,\" says the Gradus ad Cantabrigiam, \"the 'punishment\nobscene,' as Cowper, the poet, very properly terms it, of\n_flagellation_, was enforced at our University, it appears that\nthe Buttery was the scene of action. In The Poor Scholar, a\ncomedy, written by Robert Nevile, Fellow of King's College in\nCambridge, London, 1662, one of the students having lost his gown,\nwhich is picked up by the President of the College, the tutor\nsays, 'If we knew the owner, we 'd take him down to th' Butterie,\nand give him due correction.' To which the student, (_aside_,)\n'Under correction, Sir; if you're for the Butteries with me, I'll\nlie as close as Diogenes in dolio. I'll creep in at the bunghole,\nbefore I'll _mount a barrel_,' &c. (Act II. Sc. 6.)--Again: 'Had I\nbeen once i' th' Butteries, they'd have their rods about me. But\nlet us, for joy that I'm escaped, go to the Three Tuns and drink\na pint of wine, and laugh away our cares.--'T is drinking at the\nTuns that keeps us from ascending Buttery barrels,' &c.\" By a\nreference to the word PUNISHMENT, it will be seen that, in the\nolder American colleges, corporal punishment was inflicted upon\ndisobedient students in a manner much more solemn and imposing,\nthe students and officers usually being present.\n\nThe effect of _crossing the name in the buttery_ is thus stated in\nthe Collegian's Guide. \"To keep a term requires residence in the\nUniversity for a certain number of days within a space of time\nknown by the calendar, and the books of the buttery afford the\nappointed proof of residence; it being presumed that, if neither\nbread, butter, pastry, beer, or even toast and water (which is\ncharged one farthing), are entered on the buttery books in a given\nname, the party could not have been resident that day. Hence the\nphrase of 'eating one's way into the church or to a doctor's\ndegree.' Supposing, for example, twenty-one days' residence is\nrequired between the first of May and the twenty-fourth inclusive,\nthen there will be but three days to spare; consequently, should\nour names be crossed for more than three days in all in that term,\n--say for four days,--the other twenty days would not count, and\nthe term would be irrecoverably lost. Having our names crossed in\nthe buttery, therefore, is a punishment which suspends our\ncollegiate existence while the cross remains, besides putting an\nembargo on our pudding, beer, bread and cheese, milk, and butter;\nfor these articles come out of the buttery.\"--p. 157.\n\nThese remarks apply both to the Universities of Oxford and\nCambridge; but in the latter the phrase _to be put out of commons_\nis used instead of the one given above, yet with the same meaning.\nSee _Gradus ad Cantabrigiam_, p. 32.\n\nThe following extract from the laws of Harvard College, passed in\n1734, shows that this term was formerly used in that institution:\n\"No scholar shall be _put in or out of Commons_, but on Tuesdays\nor Fridays, and no Bachelor or Undergraduate, but by a note from\nthe President, or one of the Tutors (if an Undergraduate, from his\nown Tutor, if in town); and when any Bachelors or Undergraduates\nhave been out of Commons, the waiters, at their respective tables,\nshall, on the first Tuesday or Friday after they become obliged by\nthe preceding law to be in Commons, _put them into Commons_ again,\nby note, after the manner above directed. And if any Master\nneglects to put himself into Commons, when, by the preceding law,\nhe is obliged to be in Commons, the waiters on the Masters' table\nshall apply to the President or one of the Tutors for a note to\nput him into Commons, and inform him of it.\"\n\n  Be mine each morn, with eager appetite\n  And hunger undissembled, to repair\n  To friendly _Buttery_; there on smoking Crust\n  And foaming Ale to banquet unrestrained,\n  Material breakfast!\n    _The Student_, 1750, Vol. I. p. 107.\n\n\nBUTTERY-BOOK. In colleges, a book kept at the _buttery_, in which\nwas charged the prices of such articles as were sold to the\nstudents. There was also kept a list of the fines imposed by the\npresident and professors, and an account of the times when the\nstudents were present and absent, together with a register of the\nnames of all the members of the college.\n\n  My name in sure recording page\n    Shall time itself o'erpower,\n  If no rude mice with envious rage\n    The _buttery-books_ devour.\n    _The Student_, Vol. I. p. 348.\n\n\nBUTTERY-HATCH. A half-door between the buttery or kitchen and the\nhall, in colleges and old mansions. Also called a\n_buttery-bar_.--_Halliwell's Arch. and Prov. Words_.\n\nIf any scholar or scholars at any time take away or detain any\nvessel of the colleges, great or small, from the hall out of the\ndoors from the sight of the _buttery-hatch_ without the butler's\nor servitor's knowledge, or against their will, he or they shall\nbe punished three pence.--_Quincy's Hist. Harv. Coll._, Vol. I. p.\n584.\n\nHe (the college butler) domineers over Freshmen, when they first\ncome to the _hatch_.--_Earle's Micro-cosmographie_, 1628, Char.\n17.\n\nThere was a small ledging or bar on this hatch to rest the\ntankards on.\n\nI pray you, bring your hand to the _buttery-bar_, and let it\ndrink.--_Twelfth Night_, Act I. Sc. 3.\n\n\nBYE-FELLOW. In England, a name given in certain cases to a fellow\nin an inferior college. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., a\nbye-fellow can be elected to one of the regular fellowships when a\nvacancy occurs.\n\n\nBYE-FELLOWSHIP. An inferior establishment in a college for the\nnominal maintenance of what is called a _bye-fellow_, or a fellow\nout of the regular course.\n\nThe emoluments of the fellowships vary from a merely nominal\nincome, in the case of what are called _Bye-fellowships_, to\n$2,000 per annum.--_Literary World_, Vol. XII. p. 285.\n\n\nBYE-FOUNDATION. In the English universities, a foundation from\nwhich an insignificant income and an inferior maintenance are\nderived.\n\n\nBYE-TERM. In the University of Cambridge, Eng., students who take\nthe degree of B.A. at any other time save January, are said to\n\"_go out in a bye-term_.\"\n\nBristed uses this word, as follows: \"I had a double\ndisqualification exclusive of illness. First, as a Fellow\nCommoner.... Secondly, as a _bye-term man_, or one between two\nyears. Although I had entered into residence at the same time with\nthose men who were to go out in 1844, my name had not been placed\non the College Books, like theirs, previously to the commencement\nof 1840. I had therefore lost a term, and for most purposes was\nconsidered a Freshman, though I had been in residence as long as\nany of the Junior Sophs. In fact, I was _between two\nyears_.\"--_Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, pp. 97, 98.\n\n\n\n_C_.\n\n\nCAD. A low fellow, nearly equivalent to _snob_. Used among\nstudents in the University of Cambridge, Eng.--_Bristed_.\n\n\nCAHOOLE. At the University of North Carolina, this word in its\napplication is almost universal, but generally signifies to\ncajole, to wheedle, to deceive, to procure.\n\n\nCALENDAR. At the English universities the information which in\nAmerican colleges is published in a catalogue, is contained in a\nsimilar but far more comprehensive work, called a _calendar_.\nConversation based on the topics of which such a volume treats is\nin some localities denominated _calendar_.\n\n\"Shop,\" or, as it is sometimes here called, \"_Calendar_,\"\nnecessarily enters to a large extent into the conversation of the\nCantabs.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 82.\n\nI would lounge about into the rooms of those whom I knew for\ngeneral literary conversation,--even to talk _Calendar_ if there\nwas nothing else to do.--_Ibid._, p. 120.\n\n\nCALVIN'S FOLLY. At the University of Vermont, \"this name,\" writes\na correspondent, \"is given to a door, four inches thick and\nclosely studded with spike-nails, dividing the chapel hall from\nthe staircase leading to the belfry. It is called _Calvin's\nFolly_, because it was planned by a professor of that (Christian)\nname, in order to keep the students out of the belfry, which\ndignified scheme it has utterly failed to accomplish. It is one of\nthe celebrities of the Old Brick Mill,[04] and strangers always\nsee it and hear its history.\"\n\n\nCAMEL. In Germany, a student on entering the university becomes a\n_Kameel_,--a camel.\n\n\nCAMPUS. At the College of New Jersey, the college yard is\ndenominated the _Campus_. _Back Campus_, the privies.\n\n\nCANTAB. Abridged for CANTABRIGIAN.\n\nIt was transmitted to me by a respectable _Cantab_ for insertion.\n--_Hone's Every-day Book_, Vol. I. p. 697.\n\nShould all this be a mystery to our uncollegiate friends, or even\nto many matriculated _Cantabs_, we advise them not to attempt to\nunriddle it.--_Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 39.\n\n\nCANTABRIGIAN. A student or graduate of the University of\nCambridge, Eng. Used also at Cambridge, Mass., of the students and\ninhabitants.\n\n\nCANTABRIGICALLY. According to Cambridge.\n\nTo speak _Cantabrigically_.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng.\nUniv._, Ed. 2d, p. 28.\n\n\nCAP. The cap worn by students at the University of Cambridge,\nEng., is described by Bristed in the following passage: \"You must\nsuperadd the academical costume. This consists of a gown, varying\nin color and ornament according to the wearer's college and rank,\nbut generally black, not unlike an ordinary clerical gown, and a\nsquare-topped cap, which fits close to the head like a truncated\nhelmet, while the covered board which forms the crown measures\nabout a foot diagonally across.\"--_Five Years in an Eng. Univ._,\nEd. 2d, p. 4.\n\nA similar cap is worn at Oxford and at some American colleges on\nparticular occasions.\n\nSee OXFORD.\n\n\nCAP. To uncover the head in reverence or civility.\n\nThe youth, ignorant who they were, had omitted to _cap_\nthem.--_Gent. Mag._, Vol. XXIV. p. 567.\n\nI could not help smiling, when, among the dignitaries whom I was\nbound to make obeisance to by _capping_ whenever I met them, Mr.\nJackson's catalogue included his all-important self in the number.\n--_The Etonian_, Vol. II. p. 217.\n\nThe obsequious attention of college servants, and the more\nunwilling \"_capping_\" of the undergraduates, to such a man are\nreal luxuries.--_Blackwood's Mag._, Eng. ed., Vol. LVI. p. 572.\n\nUsed in the English universities.\n\n\nCAPTAIN OF THE POLL. The first of the Polloi.\n\nHe had moreover been _Captain_ (Head) _of the Poll_.--_Bristed's\nFive Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 96.\n\n\nCAPUT SENATUS. Latin; literally, _the head of the Senate_. In\nCambridge, Eng., a council of the University by which every grace\nmust be approved, before it can be submitted to the senate. The\nCaput Senatus is formed of the vice-chancellor, a doctor in each\nof the faculties of divinity, law, and medicine, and one regent\nM.A., and one non-regent M.A. The vice-chancellor's five\nassistants are elected annually by the heads of houses and the\ndoctors of the three faculties, out of fifteen persons nominated\nby the vice-chancellor and the proctors.--_Webster. Cam. Cal. Lit.\nWorld_, Vol. XII. p. 283.\n\nSee GRACE.\n\n\nCARCER. Latin. In German schools and universities, a\nprison.--_Adler's Germ, and Eng. Dict._\n\n  Wollten ihn drauf die N\u00fcrnberger Herren\n  Mir nichts, dir nichts ins _Carcer_ sperren.\n    _Wallenstein's Lager_.\n\n  And their Nur'mberg worships swore he should go\n  To _jail_ for his pains,--if he liked it, or no.\n    _Trans. Wallenstein's Camp, in Bohn's Stand. Lib._, p. 155.\n\n\nCASTLE END. At Cambridge, Eng., a noted resort for Cyprians.\n\n\nCATHARINE PURITANS. In the University of Cambridge, Eng., the\nmembers of St. Catharine's Hall are thus designated, from the\nimplied derivation of the word Catharine from the Greek [Greek:\nkatharos], pure.\n\n\nCAUTION MONEY. In the English universities, a deposit in the hands\nof the tutor at entrance, by way of security.\n\nWith reference to Oxford, De Quincey says of _caution money_:\n\"This is a small sum, properly enough demanded of every student,\nwhen matriculated, as a pledge for meeting any loss from unsettled\narrears, such as his sudden death or his unannounced departure\nmight else continually be inflicting upon his college. In most\ncolleges it amounts to \u00a325; in one only it was considerably less.\"\n--_Life and Manners_, p. 249.\n\nIn American colleges, a bond is usually given by a student upon\nentering college, in order to secure the payment of all his\ncollege dues.\n\n\nCENSOR. In the University of Oxford, Eng., a college officer whose\nduties are similar to those of the Dean.\n\n\nCEREVIS. From Latin _cerevisia_, beer. Among German students, a\nsmall, round, embroidered cap, otherwise called a beer-cap.\n\nBetter authorities ... have lately noted in the solitary student\nthat wends his way--_cerevis_ on head, note-book in hand--to the\nprofessor's class-room,... a vast improvement on the _Bursche_ of\ntwenty years ago.--_Lond. Quart. Rev._, Am. ed., Vol. LXXIII. p.\n59.\n\n\nCHAMBER. The apartment of a student at a college or university.\nThis word, although formerly used in American colleges, has been\nof late almost entirely supplanted by the word _room_, and it is\nfor this reason that it is here noticed.\n\nIf any of them choose to provide themselves with breakfasts in\ntheir own _chambers_, they are allowed so to do, but not to\nbreakfast in one another's _chambers_.--_Quincy's Hist. Harv.\nUniv._, Vol. II. p. 116.\n\nSome ringleaders gave up their _chambers_.--_Ibid._, Vol. II. p.\n116.\n\n\nCHAMBER-MATE. One who inhabits the same room or chamber with\nanother. Formerly used at our colleges. The word CHUM is now very\ngenerally used in its place; sometimes _room-mate_ is substituted.\n\nIf any one shall refuse to find his proportion of furniture, wood,\nand candles, the President and Tutors shall charge such\ndelinquent, in his quarter bills, his full proportion, which sum\nshall be paid to his _chamber-mate_.--_Laws Harv. Coll._, 1798, p.\n35.\n\n\nCHANCELLOR. The chancellor of a university is an officer who seals\nthe diplomas, or letters of degree, &c. The Chancellor of Oxford\nis usually one of the prime nobility, elected by the students in\nconvocation; and he holds the office for life. He is the chief\nmagistrate in the government of the University. The Chancellor of\nCambridge is also elected from among the prime nobility. The\noffice is biennial, or tenable for such a length of time beyond\ntwo years as the tacit consent of the University may choose to\nallow.--_Webster. Cam. Guide_.\n\n\"The Chancellor,\" says the Oxford Guide, \"is elected by\nconvocation, and his office is for life; but he never, according\nto usage, is allowed to set foot in this University, excepting on\nthe occasion of his installation, or when he is called upon to\naccompany any royal visitors.\"--Ed. 1847, p. xi.\n\nAt Cambridge, the office of Chancellor is, except on rare\noccasions, purely honorary, and the Chancellor himself seldom\nappears at Cambridge. He is elected by the Senate.\n\n2. At Trinity College, Hartford, the _Chancellor_ is the Bishop of\nthe Diocese of Connecticut, and is also the Visitor of the\nCollege. He is _ex officio_ the President of the\nCorporation.--_Calendar Trin. Coll._, 1850, pp. 6, 7.\n\n\nCHAPEL. A house for public worship, erected separate from a\nchurch. In England, chapels in the universities are places of\nworship belonging to particular colleges. The chapels connected\nwith the colleges in the United States are used for the same\npurpose. Religious exercises are usually held in them twice a day,\nmorning and evening, besides the services on the Sabbath.\n\n\nCHAPEL. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., the attendance at\ndaily religious services in the chapel of each college at morning\nand evening is thus denominated.\n\nSome time ago, upon an endeavor to compel the students of one\ncollege to increase their number of \"_chapels_,\" as the attendance\nis called, there was a violent outcry, and several squibs were\nwritten by various hands.--_Westminster Rev._, Am. ed., Vol. XXXV.\np. 235.\n\nIt is rather surprising that there should be so much shirking of\n_chapel_, when the very moderate amount of attendance required is\nconsidered.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p.\n16.\n\nTo _keep chapel_, is to be present at the daily religious services\nof college.\n\nThe Undergraduate is expected to go to chapel eight times, or, in\nacademic parlance, to _keep eight chapels_ a week, two on Sunday,\nand one on every week-day, attending morning or evening _chapel_\non week-days at his option. Nor is even this indulgent standard\nrigidly enforced. I believe if a Pensioner keeps six chapels, or a\nFellow-Commoner four, and is quite regular in all other respects,\nhe will never be troubled by the Dean. It certainly is an argument\nin favor of severe discipline, that there is more grumbling and\nhanging back, and unwillingness to conform to these extremely\nmoderate requisitions, than is exhibited by the sufferers at a New\nEngland college, who have to keep sixteen chapels a week, seven of\nthem at unreasonable hours. Even the scholars, who are literally\npaid for going, every chapel being directly worth two shillings\nsterling to them, are by no means invariable in attending the\nproper number of times.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._,\nEd. 2d, pp. 16, 17.\n\n\nCHAPEL CLERK. At Cambridge, Eng., in some colleges, it is the duty\nof this officer to _mark_ the students as they enter chapel; in\nothers, he merely sees that the proper lessons are read, by the\nstudents appointed by the Dean for that purpose.--_Gradus ad\nCantab._\n\nThe _chapel clerk_ is sent to various parties by the deans, with\norders to attend them after chapel and be reprimanded, but the\n_chapel clerk_ almost always goes to the wrong\nperson.--_Westminster Rev._, Am. ed., Vol. XXXV. p. 235.\n\n\nCHAPLAIN. In universities and colleges, the clergyman who performs\ndivine service, morning and evening.\n\n\nCHAW. A deception or trick.\n\nTo say, \"It's all a gum,\" or \"a regular _chaw_\" is the same thing.\n--_The Dartmouth_, Vol. IV. p. 117.\n\n\nCHAW. To use up.\n\nYesterday a Junior cracked a joke on me, when all standing round\nshouted in great glee, \"Chawed! Freshman chawed! Ha! ha! ha!\" \"No\nI a'n't _chawed_,\" said I, \"I'm as whole as ever.\" But I didn't\nunderstand, when a fellow is _used up_, he is said to be _chawed_;\nif very much used up, he is said to be _essentially chawed_.--_The\nDartmouth_, Vol. IV. p. 117.\n\nThe verb _to chaw up_ is used with nearly the same meaning in some\nof the Western States.\n\nMiss Patience said she was gratified to hear Mr. Cash was a\nmusician; she admired people who had a musical taste. Whereupon\nCash fell into a chair, as he afterwards observed, _chawed\nup_.--_Thorpe's Backwoods_, p. 28.\n\n\nCHIP DAY. At Williams College a day near the beginning of spring\nis thus designated, and is explained in the following passage.\n\"They give us, near the close of the second term, what is called\n'_chip day_,' when we put the grounds in order, and remove the\nruins caused by a winter's siege on the woodpiles.\"--_Sketches of\nWilliams College_, 1847, p. 79.\n\nAnother writer refers to the day, in a newspaper paragraph.\n\"'_Chip day_,' at the close of the spring term, is still observed\nin the old-fashioned way. Parties of students go off to the hills,\nand return with brush, and branches of evergreen, with which the\nchips, which have accumulated during the winter, are brushed\ntogether, and afterwards burnt.\"--_Boston Daily Evening\nTraveller_, July 12, 1854.\n\nAbout college there had been, in early spring, the customary\ncleaning up of \"_chip day_.\"--_Williams Quarterly_, Vol. II. p.\n186.\n\n\nCHOPPING AT THE TREE. At University College in the University of\nOxford, \"a curious and ancient custom, called '_chopping at the\ntree_,' still prevails. On Easter Sunday, every member, as he\nleaves the hall after dinner, chops with a cleaver at a small tree\ndressed up for the occasion with evergreens and flowers, and\nplaced on a turf close to the buttery. The cook stands by for his\naccustomed largess.\"--_Oxford Guide_, Ed. 1847, p. 144, note.\n\n\nCHORE. In the German universities, a club or society of the\nstudents is thus designated.\n\nDuels between members of different _chores_ were once\nfrequent;--sometimes one man was obliged to fight the members of a\nwhole _chore_ in succession.--_Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. XV. p. 5.\n\n\nCHRISTIAN. In the University of Cambridge, Eng., a member of\nChrist's College.\n\n\nCHUM. Armenian, _chomm_, or _chommein_, or _ham_, to dwell, stay,\nor lodge; French, _ch\u00f4mer_, to rest; Saxon, _ham_, home. A\nchamber-fellow; one who lodges or resides in the same\nroom.--_Webster_.\n\nThis word is used at the universities and colleges, both in\nEngland and the United States.\n\nA young student laid a wager with his _chum_, that the Dean was at\nthat instant smoking his pipe.--_Philip's Life and Poems_, p. 13.\n\n          But his _chum_\n  Had wielded, in his just defence,\n  A bowl of vast circumference.--_Rebelliad_, p. 17.\n\nEvery set of chambers was possessed by two co-occupants; they had\ngenerally the same bedroom, and a common study; and they were\ncalled _chums_.--_De Quincey's Life and Manners_, p. 251.\n\nI am again your petitioner in behalf of that great _chum_ of\nliterature, Samuel Johnson.--_Smollett, in Boswell_.\n\nIn this last instance, the word _chum_ is used either with the\nmore extended meaning of companion, friend, or, as the sovereign\nprince of Tartary is called the _Cham_ or _Khan_, so Johnson is\ncalled the _chum_ (cham) or prince of literature.\n\n\nCHUM. To occupy a chamber with another.\n\n\nCHUMMING. Occupying a room with another.\n\nSuch is one of the evils of _chumming_.--_Harvardiana_, Vol. I. p.\n324.\n\n\nCHUMSHIP. The state of occupying a room in company with another;\nchumming.\n\nIn the seventeenth century, in Milton's time, for example, (about\n1624,) and for more than sixty years after that era, the practice\nof _chumship_ prevailed.--_De Quincey's Life and Manners_, p. 251.\n\n\nCIVILIAN. A student of the civil law at the university.--_Graves.\nWebster_.\n\n\nCLARIAN. In the University of Cambridge, Eng., a member of Clare\nHall.\n\n\nCLASS. A number of students in a college or school, of the same\nstanding, or pursuing the same studies. In colleges, the students\nentering or becoming members the same year, and pursuing the same\nstudies.--_Webster_.\n\nIn the University of Oxford, _class_ is the division of the\ncandidates who are examined for their degrees according to their\nrate of merit. Those who are entitled to this distinction are\ndenominated _Classmen_, answering to the _optimes_ and _wranglers_\nin the University of Cambridge.--_Crabb's Tech. Dict._\n\nSee an interesting account of \"reading for a first class,\" in the\nCollegian's Guide, Chap. XII.\n\n\nCLASS. To place in ranks or divisions students that are pursuing\nthe same studies; to form into a class or classes.--_Webster_.\n\n\nCLASS BOOK. Within the last thirty or forty years, a custom has\narisen at Harvard College of no small importance in an historical\npoint of view, but which is principally deserving of notice from\nthe many pleasing associations to which its observance cannot fail\nto give rise. Every graduating class procures a beautiful and\nsubstantial folio of many hundred pages, called the _Class Book_,\nand lettered with the year of the graduation of the class. In this\na certain number of pages is allotted to each individual of the\nclass, in which he inscribes a brief autobiography, paying\nparticular attention to names and dates. The book is then\ndeposited in the hands of the _Class Secretary_, whose duty it is\nto keep a faithful record of the marriage, birth of children, and\ndeath of each of his classmates, together with their various\nplaces of residence, and the offices and honors to which each may\nhave attained. This information is communicated to him by letter\nby his classmates, and he is in consequence prepared to answer any\ninquiries relative to any member of the class. At his death, the\nbook passes into the hands of one of the _Class Committee_, and at\ntheir death, into those of some surviving member of the class; and\nwhen the class has at length become extinct, it is deposited on\nthe shelves of the College Library.\n\nThe Class Book also contains a full list of all persons who have\nat any time been members of the class, together with such\ninformation as can be gathered in reference to them; and an\naccount of the prizes, deturs, parts at Exhibitions and\nCommencement, degrees, etc., of all its members. Into it are also\ncopied the Class Oration, Poem, and Ode, and the Secretary's\nreport of the class meeting, at which the officers were elected.\nIt is also intended to contain the records of all future class\nmeetings, and the accounts of the Class Secretary, who is _ex\nofficio_ Class Treasurer and Chairman of the Class Committee. By\nvirtue of his office of Class Treasurer, he procures the _Cradle_\nfor the successful candidate, and keeps in his possession the\nClass Fund, which is sometimes raised to defray the accruing\nexpenses of the Class in future times.\n\nIn the Harvardiana, Vol. IV., is an extract from the Class Book of\n1838, which is very curious and unique. To this is appended the\nfollowing note:--\"It may be necessary to inform many of our\nreaders, that the _Class Book_ is a large volume, in which\nautobiographical sketches of the members of each graduating class\nare recorded, and which is left in the hands of the Class\nSecretary.\"\n\n\nCLASS CANE. At Union College, as a mark of distinction, a _class\ncane_ was for a time carried by the members of the Junior Class.\n\nThe Juniors, although on the whole a clever set of fellows, lean\nperhaps with too nonchalant an air on their _class\ncanes_.--_Sophomore Independent_, Union College, Nov. 1854.\n\nThey will refer to their _class cane_, that mark of decrepitude\nand imbecility, for old men use canes.--_Ibid._\n\n\nCLASS CAP. At Hamilton College, it is customary for the Sophomores\nto appear in a _class cap_ on the Junior Exhibition day, which is\nworn generally during part of the third term.\n\nIn American colleges, students frequently endeavor to adopt\ndistinctive dresses, but the attempt is usually followed by\nfailure. One of these attempts is pleasantly alluded to in the\nWilliams Monthly Miscellany. \"In a late number, the ambition for\nwhiskers was made the subject of a remark. The ambition of college\nhas since taken a somewhat different turn. We allude to the class\ncaps, which have been introduced in one or two of the classes. The\nFreshmen were the first to appear in this species of uniform, a\nfew days since at evening prayers; the cap which they have adopted\nis quite tasteful. The Sophomores, not to be outdone, have voted\nto adopt the tarpaulin, having, no doubt, become proficients in\nnavigation, as lucidly explained in one of their text-books. The\nJuniors we understand, will follow suit soon. We hardly know what\nis left for the Seniors, unless it be to go bare-headed.\"--1845,\np. 464.\n\n\nCLASS COMMITTEE. At Harvard College a committee of two persons,\njoined with the _Class Secretary_, who is _ex officio_ its\nchairman, whose duty it is, after the class has graduated, during\ntheir lives to call class meetings, whenever they deem it\nadvisable, and to attend to all other business relating to the\nclass.\n\nSee under CLASS BOOK.\n\n\nCLASS CRADLE. For some years it has been customary at Harvard\nCollege for the Senior Class, at the meeting for the election of\nthe officers of Class Day, &c., to appropriate a certain sum of\nmoney, usually not exceeding fifty dollars, for the purchase of a\ncradle, to be given to the first member of the class to whom a\nchild is born in lawful wedlock at a suitable time after marriage.\nThis sum is intrusted to the hands of the _Class Secretary_, who\nis expected to transmit the present to the successful candidate\nupon the receipt of the requisite information. In one instance a\n_Baby-jumper_ was voted by the class, to be given to the second\nmember who should be blessed as above stated.\n\n\nCLASS CUP. It is a theory at Yale College, that each class\nappropriates at graduating a certain amount of money for the\npurchase of a silver cup, to be given, in the name of the class,\nto the first member to whom a child shall be born in lawful\nwedlock at a suitable time after marriage. Although the\npresentation of the _class cup_ is often alluded to, yet it is\nbelieved that the gift has in no instance been bestowed. It is to\nbe regretted that a custom so agreeable in theory could not be\nreduced to practice.\n\n  Each man's mind was made up\n  To obtain the \"_Class Cup_.\"\n    _Presentation Day Songs_, June 14, 1854.\n\nSee SILVER CUP.\n\n\nCLASS DAY. The custom at Harvard College of observing with\nappropriate exercises the day on which the Senior Class finish\ntheir studies, is of a very early date. The first notice which\nappears in reference to this subject is contained in an account of\nthe disorders which began to prevail among the students about the\nyear 1760. Among the evils to be remedied are mentioned the\n\"disorders upon the day of the Senior Sophisters meeting to choose\nthe officers of the class,\" when \"it was usual for each scholar to\nbring a bottle of wine with him, which practice the committee\n(that reported upon it) apprehend has a natural tendency to\nproduce disorders.\" But the disturbances were not wholly confined\nto the _meeting_ when the officers of Class Day were chosen; they\noccurred also on Class Day, and it was for this reason that\nfrequent attempts were made at this period, by the College\ngovernment, to suppress its observance. How far their efforts\nsucceeded is not known, but it is safe to conclude that greater\ninterruptions were occasioned by the war of the Revolution, than\nby the attempts to abolish what it would have been wiser to have\nreformed.\n\nIn a MS. Journal, under date of June 21st, 1791, is the following\nentry: \"Neither the valedictory oration by Ward, nor poem by\nWalton, was delivered, on account of a division in the class, and\nalso because several were gone home.\" How long previous to this\nthe 21st of June had been the day chosen for the exercises of the\nclass, is uncertain; but for many years after, unless for special\nreasons, this period was regularly selected for that purpose.\nAnother extract from the MS. above mentioned, under date of June\n21st, 1792, reads: \"A valedictory poem was delivered by Paine 1st,\nand a valedictory Latin oration by Abiel Abbott.\"\n\nThe biographer of Mr. Robert Treat Paine, referring to the poem\nnoticed in the above memorandum, says: \"The 21st of every June,\ntill of late years, has been the day on which the members of the\nSenior Class closed their collegiate studies, and retired to make\npreparations for the ensuing Commencement. On this day it was\nusual for one member to deliver an oration, and another a poem;\nsuch members being appointed by their classmates. The Valedictory\nPoem of Mr. Paine, a tender, correct, and beautiful effusion of\nfeeling and taste, was received by the audience with applause and\ntears.\" In another place he speaks on the same subject, as\nfollows: \"The solemnity which produced this poem is extremely\ninteresting; and, being of ancient date, it is to be hoped that it\nmay never fall into disuse. His affection for the University Mr.\nPaine cherished as one of his most sacred principles. Of this\npoem, Mr. Paine always spoke as one of his happiest efforts.\nComing from so young a man, it is certainly very creditable, and\npromises more, I fear, than the untoward circumstances of his\nafter life would permit him to perform.\"--_Paine's Works_, Ed.\n1812, pp. xxvii., 439.\n\nIt was always customary, near the close of the last century, for\nthose who bore the honors of Class Day, to treat their friends\naccording to the style of the time, and there was scarcely a\ngraduate who did not provide an entertainment of such sort as he\ncould afford. An account of the exercises of the day at this\nperiod may not be uninteresting. It is from the Diary which is\nabove referred to.\n\n\"20th (Thursday). This day for special reasons the valedictory\npoem and oration were performed. The order of the day was this. At\nten, the class walked in procession to the President's, and\nescorted him, the Professors, and Tutors, to the Chapel, preceded\nby the band playing solemn music.\n\n\"The President began with a short prayer. He then read a chapter\nin the Bible; after this he prayed again; Cutler then delivered\nhis poem. Then the singing club, accompanied by the band,\nperformed Williams's _Friendship_. This was succeeded by a\nvaledictory Latin Oration by Jackson. We then formed, and waited\non the government to the President's, where we were very\nrespectably treated with wine, &c.\n\n\"We then marched in procession to Jackson's room, where we drank\npunch. At one we went to Mr. Moore's tavern and partook of an\nelegant entertainment, which cost 6/4 a piece. Marching then to\nCutler's room, we shook hands, and parted with expressing the\nsincerest tokens of friendship.\" June, 1793.\n\nThe incidents of Class Day, five years subsequent to the last\ndate, are detailed by Professor Sidney Willard, and may not be\nomitted in this connection.\n\n\"On the 21st of June, 1798, the day of the dismission of the\nSenior Class from all academic exercises, the class met in the\nCollege chapel to attend the accustomed ceremonies of the\noccasion, and afterwards to enjoy the usual festivities of the\nday, since called, for the sake of a name, and for brevity's sake,\nClass Day. There had been a want of perfect harmony in the\nprevious proceedings, which in some degree marred the social\nenjoyments of the day; but with the day all dissension closed,\nawaiting the dawn of another day, the harbinger of the brighter\nrecollections of four years spent in pleasant and peaceful\nintercourse. There lingered no lasting alienations of feeling.\nWhatever were the occasions of the discontent, it soon expired,\nwas buried in the darkest recesses of discarded memories, and\nthere lay lost and forgotten.\n\n\"After the exercises of the chapel, and visiting the President,\nProfessors, and Tutors at the President's house, according to the\ncustom still existing, we marched in procession round the College\nhalls, to another hall in Porter's tavern, (which some dozen or\nfifteen of the oldest living graduates may perhaps remember as\nBradish's tavern, of ancient celebrity,) where we dined. After\ndining, we assembled at the Liberty Tree, (according to another\ncustom still existing,) and in due time, having taken leave of\neach other, we departed, some of us to our family homes, and\nothers to their rooms to make preparations for their\ndeparture.\"--_Memories of Youth and Manhood_, Vol. II. pp. 1, 3.\n\nReferring to the same event, he observes in another place: \"In\nspeaking of the leave-taking of the College by my class, on the\n21st of June, 1798,--Class Day, as it is now called,--I\ninadvertently forgot to mention, that according to custom, at that\nperiod, [Samuel P.P.] Fay delivered a Latin Valedictory Oration in\nthe Chapel, in the presence of the Immediate Government, and of\nthe students of other classes who chose to be present. Speaking to\nhim on the subject some time since, he told me that he believed\n[Judge Joseph] Story delivered a Poem on the same occasion....\nThere was no poetical performance in the celebration of the day in\nthe class before ours, on the same occasion; Dr. John C. Warren's\nLatin oration being the only performance, and his class counting\nas many reputed poets as ours did.\"--_Ibid._, Vol. II. p. 320.\n\nAlterations were continually made in the observances of Class Day,\nand in twenty years after the period last mentioned, its character\nhad in many particulars changed. Instead of the Latin, an English\noration of a somewhat sportive nature had been introduced; the\nPoem was either serious or comic, at the writer's option; usually,\nhowever, the former. After the exercises in the Chapel, the class\ncommonly repaired to Porter's Hall, and there partook of a dinner,\nnot always observing with perfect strictness the rules of\ntemperance either in eating or drinking. This \"cenobitical\nsymposium\" concluded, they again returned to the college yard,\nwhere, scattered in groups under the trees, the rest of the day\nwas spent in singing, smoking, and drinking, or pretending to\ndrink, punch; for the negroes who supplied it in pails usually\ncontrived to take two or more glasses to every one glass that was\ndrank by those for whom it was provided. The dance around the\nLiberty Tree,\n  \"Each hand in comrade's hand,\"\nclosed the regular ceremonies of the day; but generally the\ngreater part of the succeeding night was spent in feasting and\nhilarity.\n\nThe punch-drinking in the yard increased to such an extent, that\nit was considered by the government of the college as a matter\nwhich demanded their interference; and in the year 1842, on one of\nthese occasions, an instructor having joined with the students in\ntheir revellings in the yard, the Faculty proposed that, instead\nof spending the afternoon in this manner, dancing should be\nintroduced, which was accordingly done, with the approbation of\nboth parties.\n\nThe observances of the day, which in a small way may be considered\nas a rival of Commencement, are at present as follows. The Orator,\nPoet, Odist, Chaplain, and Marshals having been previously chosen,\non the morning of Class Day the Seniors assemble in the yard, and,\npreceded by the band, walk in procession to one of the halls of\nthe College, where a prayer is offered by the Class Chaplain. They\nthen proceed to the President's house, and escort him to the\nChapel where the following order is observed. A prayer by one of\nthe College officers is succeeded by the Oration, in which the\ntransactions of the class from their entrance into College to the\npresent time are reviewed with witty and appropriate remarks. The\nPoem is then pronounced, followed by the Ode, which is sung by the\nwhole class to the tune of \"Fair Harvard.\" Music is performed at\nintervals by the band. The class then withdraw to Harvard Hall,\naccompanied by their friends and invited guests, where a rich\ncollation is provided.\n\nAfter an interval of from one to two hours, the dancing commences\nin the yard. Cotillons and the easier dances are here performed,\nbut the sport closes in the hall with the Polka and other\nfashionable steps. The Seniors again form, and make the circuit of\nthe yard, cheering the buildings, great and small. They then\nassemble under the Liberty Tree, around which with hands joined\nthey run and dance, after singing the student's adopted song,\n\"Auld Lang Syne.\" At parting, each member takes a sprig or a\nflower from the beautiful \"Wreath\" which surrounds the \"farewell\ntree,\" which is sacredly treasured as a last memento of college\nscenes and enjoyments. Thus close the exercises of the day, after\nwhich the class separate until Commencement.\n\nThe more marked events in the observance of Class Day have been\ngraphically described by Grace Greenwood, in the accompanying\nparagraphs.\n\n\"The exercises on this occasion were to me most novel and\ninteresting. The graduating class of 1848 are a fine-looking set\nof young men certainly, and seem to promise that their country\nshall yet be greater and better for the manly energies, the talent\nand learning, with which they are just entering upon life.\n\n\"The spectators were assembled in the College Chapel, whither the\nclass escorted the Faculty, headed by President Everett, in his\nOxford hat and gown.\n\n\"The President is a man of most imperial presence; his figure has\ngreat dignity, and his head is grand in form and expression. But\nto me he looks the governor, the foreign minister and the\nPresident, more than the orator or the poet.\n\n\"After a prayer from the Chaplain, we listened to an eloquent\noration from the class orator, Mr. Tiffany, of Baltimore and to a\nvery elegant and witty poem from the class poet Mr. Clarke, of\nBoston. The 'Fair Harvard' having been sung by the class, all\nadjourned to the College green, where such as were so disposed\ndanced to the music of a fine band. From the green we repaired to\nHarvard Hall, where an excellent collation was served, succeeded\nby dancing. From the hall the students of 1848 marched and cheered\nsuccessively every College building, then formed a circle round a\nmagnificent elm, whose trunk was beautifully garlanded will\nflowers, and, with hands joined in a peculiar manner, sung 'Auld\nLang Syne.' The scene was in the highest degree touching and\nimpressive, so much of the beauty and glory of life was there, so\nmuch of the energy, enthusiasm, and proud unbroken strength of\nmanhood. With throbbing hearts and glowing lips, linked for a few\nmoments with strong, fraternal grasps, they stood, with one deep,\ncommon feeling, thrilling like one pulse through all. An\ninvoluntary prayer sprang to my lips, that they might ever prove\ntrue to _Alma Mater_, to one another, to their country, and to\nHeaven.\n\n\"As the singing ceased, the students began running swiftly around\nthe tree, and at the cry, 'Harvard!' a second circle was formed by\nthe other students, which gave a tumultuous excitement to the\nscene. It broke up at last with a perfect storm of cheers, and a\nhasty division among the class of the garland which encircled the\nelm, each taking a flower in remembrance of the day.\"--_Greenwood\nLeaves_, Ed. 3d, 1851, pp. 350, 351.\n\nIn the poem which was read before the class of 1851, by William C.\nBradley, the comparisons of those about to graduate with the youth\nwho is attaining to his majority, and with the traveller who has\nstopped a little for rest and refreshment, are so genial and\nsuggestive, that their insertion in this connection will not be\ndeemed out of place.\n\n \"'T is a good custom, long maintained,\n  When the young heir has manhood gained,\n  To solemnize the welcome date,\n  Accession to the man's estate,\n  With open house and rousing game,\n  And friends to wish him joy and fame:\n  So Harvard, following thus the ways\n  Of careful sires of older days,\n  Directs her children till they grow\n  The strength of ripened years to know,\n  And bids their friends and kindred, then,\n  To come and hail her striplings--men.\n\n \"And as, about the table set,\n  Or on the shady grass-plat met,\n  They give the youngster leave to speak\n  Of vacant sport, and boyish freak,\n  So now would we (such tales have power\n  At noon-tide to abridge the hour)\n  Turn to the past, and mourn or praise\n  The joys and pains of boyhood's days.\n\n \"Like travellers with their hearts intent\n  Upon a distant journey bent,\n  We rest upon the earliest stage\n  Of life's laborious pilgrimage;\n  But like the band of pilgrims gay\n  (Whom Chaucer sings) at close of day,\n  That turned with mirth, and cheerful din,\n  To pass their evening at the inn,\n  Hot from the ride and dusty, we,\n  But yet untired and stout and free,\n  And like the travellers by the door,\n  Sit down and talk the journey o'er.\"\n\nAs a specimen of the character of the Ode which is always sung on\nClass Day to the tune \"Fair Harvard,\"--which is the name by which\nthe melody \"Believe me, if all those endearing young charms\" has\nbeen adopted at Cambridge,--that which was written by Joshua\nDanforth Robinson for the class of 1851 is here inserted.\n\n \"The days of thy tenderly nurture are done,\n    We call for the lance and the shield;\n  There's a battle to fight and a crown to be won,\n    And onward we press to the field!\n  But yet, Alma Mater, before we depart,\n    Shall the song of our farewell be sung,\n  And the grasp of the hand shall express for the heart\n    Emotions too deep for the tongue.\n\n \"This group of thy sons, Alma Mater, no more\n    May gladden thine ear with their song,\n  For soon we shall stand upon Time's crowded shore,\n    And mix in humanity's throng.\n  O, glad be the voices that ring through thy halls\n    When the echo of ours shall have flown,\n  And the footsteps that sound when no longer thy walls\n    Shall answer the tread of our own!\n\n \"Alas! our dear Mother, we see on thy face\n    A shadow of sorrow to-day;\n  For while we are clasped in thy farewell embrace,\n    And pass from thy bosom away,\n  To part with the living, we know, must recall\n    The lost whom thy love still embalms,\n  That one sigh must escape and one tear-drop must fall\n    For the children that died in thy arms.\n\n \"But the flowers of affection, bedewed by the tears\n    In the twilight of Memory distilled,\n  And sunned by the love of our earlier years,\n    When the soul with their beauty was thrilled,\n  Untouched by the frost of life's winter, shall blow,\n    And breathe the same odor they gave\n  When the vision of youth was entranced by their glow,\n    Till, fadeless, they bloom o'er the grave.\"\n\nA most genial account of the exercises of the Class Day of the\ngraduates of the year 1854 may be found in Harper's Magazine, Vol.\nIX. pp. 554, 555.\n\n\nCLASSIC. One learned in classical literature; a student of the\nancient Greek and Roman authors of the first rank.\n\nThese men, averaging about twenty-three years of age, the best\n_Classics_ and Mathematicians of their years, were reading for\nFellowships.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p.\n35.\n\nA quiet Scotchman irreproachable as a _classic_ and a\nwhist-player.--_Ibid._, p. 57.\n\nThe mathematical examination was very difficult, and made great\nhavoc among the _classics_.--_Ibid._, p. 62.\n\n\nCLASSIC SHADES. A poetical appellation given to colleges and\nuniversities.\n\n  He prepares for his departure,--but he must, ere he repair\n  To the \"_classic shades_,\" et cetera,--visit his \"ladye fayre.\"\n    _Poem before Iadma_, Harv. Coll., 1850.\n\nI exchanged the farm-house of my father for the \"_classic shades_\"\nof Union.--_The Parthenon_, Union Coll., 1851, p. 18.\n\n\nCLASSIS. Same meaning as Class. The Latin for the English.\n\n[They shall] observe the generall hours appointed for all the\nstudents, and the speciall houres for their own _classis_.--_New\nEngland's First Fruits_, in _Mass. Hist. Coll._, Vol. I. p. 243.\n\n\nCLASS LIST. In the University of Oxford, a list in which are\nentered the names of those who are examined for their degrees,\naccording to their rate of merit.\n\nAt the University of Cambridge, Eng., the names of those who are\nexamined at stated periods are placed alphabetically in the class\nlists, but the first eight or ten individual places are generally\nknown.\n\nThere are some men who read for honors in that covetous and\ncontracted spirit, and so bent upon securing the name of\nscholarship, even at the sacrifice of the reality, that, for the\npleasure of reading their names at the top of the _class list_,\nthey would make the examiners a present of all their Latin and\nGreek the moment they left the schools.--_Collegian's Guide_, p.\n327.\n\n\nCLASSMAN. See CLASS.\n\n\nCLASS MARSHAL. In many colleges in the United States, a _class\nmarshal_ is chosen by the Senior Class from their own number, for\nthe purpose of regulating the procession on the day of\nCommencement, and, as at Harvard College, on Class Day also.\n\n\"At Union College,\" writes a correspondent, \"the class marshal is\nelected by the Senior Class during the third term. He attends to\nthe order of the procession on Commencement Day, and walks into\nthe church by the side of the President. He chooses several\nassistants, who attend to the accommodation of the audience. He is\nchosen from among the best-looking and most popular men of the\nclass, and the honor of his office is considered next to that of\nthe Vice-President of the Senate for the third term.\"\n\n\nCLASSMATE. A member of the same class with another.\n\nThe day is wound up with a scene of careless laughter and\nmerriment, among a dozen of joke-loving _classmates_.--_Harv.\nReg._, p. 202.\n\n\nCLASS MEETING. A meeting where all the class are assembled for the\npurpose of carrying out some measure, appointing class officers,\nor transacting business of interest to the whole class.\n\nIn Harvard College, no class, or general, or other meeting of\nstudents can be called without an application in writing of three\nstudents, and no more, expressing the purpose of such meeting, nor\notherwise than by a printed notice, signed by the President,\nexpressing the time, the object, and place of such meeting, and\nthe three students applying for such meeting are held responsible\nfor any proceedings at it contrary to the laws of the\nCollege.--_Laws Univ. Cam., Mass._, 1848, Appendix.\n\nSimilar regulations are in force at all other American colleges.\nAt Union College the statute on this subject was formerly in these\nwords: \"No class meetings shall be held without special license\nfrom the President; and for such purposes only as shall be\nexpressed in the license; nor shall any class meeting be continued\nby adjournment or otherwise, without permission; and all class\nmeetings held without license shall be considered as unlawful\ncombinations, and punished accordingly.\"--_Laws Union Coll._,\n1807, pp. 37, 38.\n\n  While one, on fame alone intent,\n  Seek to be chosen President\n    Of clubs, or a _class meeting_.\n    _Harv. Reg._, p. 247.\n\n\nCLASSOLOGY. That science which treats of the members of the\nclasses of a college. This word is used in the title of a pleasant\n_jeu d'esprit_ by Mr. William Biglow, on the class which graduated\nat Harvard College in 1792. It is called, \"_Classology_: an\nAnacreontic Ode, in Imitation of 'Heathen Mythology.'\"\n\nSee under HIGH GO.\n\n\nCLASS SECRETARY. For an account of this officer, see under CLASS\nBOOK.\n\n\nCLASS SUPPER. In American colleges, a supper attended only by the\nmembers of a collegiate class. Class suppers are given in some\ncolleges at the close of each year; in others, only at the close\nof the Sophomore and Senior years, or at one of these periods.\n\n\nCLASS TREES. At Bowdoin College, \"immediately after the annual\nexamination of each class,\" says a correspondent, \"the members\nthat compose it are accustomed to form a ring round a tree, and\nthen, not dance, but run around it. So quickly do they revolve,\nthat every individual runner has a tendency 'to go off in a\ntangent,' which it is difficult to resist for any length of time.\nThe three lower classes have a tree by themselves in front of\nMassachusetts Hall. The Seniors have one of their own in front of\nKing Chapel.\"\n\nFor an account of a similar and much older custom, prevalent at\nHarvard College, see under CLASS DAY and LIBERTY TREE.\n\n\nCLIMBING. In reference to this word, a correspondent from\nDartmouth College writes: \"At the commencement of this century,\nthe Greek, Latin, and Philosophical Orations were assigned by the\nFaculty to the best scholars, while the Valedictorian was chosen\nfrom the remainder by his classmates. It was customary for each\none of these four to treat his classmates, which was called\n'_Climbing_,' from the effect which the liquor would have in\nelevating the class to an equality with the first scholars.\"\n\n\nCLIOSOPHIC. A word compounded from _Clio_, the Muse who presided\nover history, and [Greek: sophos], intelligent. At Yale College,\nthis word was formerly used to designate an oration on the arts\nand sciences, which was delivered annually at the examination in\nJuly.\n\nHaving finished his academic course, by the appointment of the\nPresident he delivered the _cliosophic_ oration in the College\nHall.--_Holmes's Life of Ezra Stiles_, p. 13.\n\n\nCOACH. In the English universities, this term is variously\napplied, as will be seen by a reference to the annexed examples.\nIt is generally used to designate a private tutor.\n\nEverything is (or used to be) called a \"_coach_\" at Oxford: a\nlecture-class, or a club of men meeting to take wine, luncheon, or\nbreakfast alternately, were severally called a \"wine, luncheon, or\nbreakfast _coach_\"; so a private tutor was called a \"private\n_coach_\"; and one, like Hilton of Worcester, very famed for\ngetting his men safe through, was termed \"a Patent Safety.\"--_The\nCollegian's Guide_, p. 103.\n\nIt is to his private tutors, or \"_coaches_,\" that he looks for\ninstruction.--_Household Words_, Vol. II. p. 160.\n\nHe applies to Mr. Crammer. Mr. Crammer is a celebrated \"_coach_\"\nfor lazy and stupid men, and has a system of his own which has met\nwith decided success.--_Ibid._, Vol. II. p. 162.\n\n\nCOACH. To prepare a student to pass an examination; to make use of\nthe aid of a private tutor.\n\nHe is putting on all steam, and \"_coaching_\" violently for the\nClassical Tripos.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed.\n2d. p. 10.\n\nIt is not every man who can get a Travis to _coach_ him.--_Ibid._,\np. 69.\n\n\nCOACHING. A cant term, in the British universities, for preparing\na student, by the assistance of a private tutor, to pass an\nexamination.\n\nWhether a man shall throw away every opportunity which a\nuniversity is so eminently calculated to afford, and come away\nwith a mere testamur gained rather by the trickery of private\n_coaching_ (tutoring) than by mental improvement, depends,\n&c.--_The Collegian's Guide_, p. 15.\n\n\nCOAX. This word was formerly used at Yale College in the same\nsense as the word _fish_ at Harvard, viz. to seek or gain the\nfavor of a teacher by flattery. One of the Proverbs of Solomon was\noften changed by the students to read as follows: \"Surely the\nchurning of milk bringeth forth butter, and the wringing of the\nnose bringeth forth blood; so the _coaxing_ of tutors bringeth\nforth parts.\"--_Prov._ xxx. 33.\n\n\nCOCHLEAUREATUS, _pl._ COCHLEAUREATI. Latin, _cochlear_, a spoon,\nand _laureatus_, laurelled. A free translation would be, _one\nhonored with a spoon_.\n\nAt Yale College, the wooden spoon is given to the one whose name\ncomes last on the list of appointees for the Junior Exhibition.\nThe recipient of this honor is designated _cochleaureatus_.\n\n  Now give in honor of the spoon\n    Three cheers, long, loud, and hearty,\n  And three for every honored June\n    In _coch-le-au-re-a-ti_.\n    _Songs of Yale_, 1853, p. 37.\n\nSee WOODEN SPOON.\n\n\nCOFFIN. At the University of Vermont, a boot, especially a large\none. A companion to the word HUMMEL, q.v.\n\n\nCOLLAR. At Yale College, \"to come up with; to seize; to lay hold\non; to appropriate.\"--_Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. XIV. p. 144.\n\nBy that means the oration marks will be effectually _collared_,\nwith scarce an effort.--_Yale Banger_, Oct. 1848.\n\n\nCOLLECTION. In the University of Oxford, a college examination,\nwhich takes place at the end of every term before the Warden and\nTutor.\n\nRead some Herodotus for _Collections_.--_The Etonian_, Vol. II. p.\n348.\n\nThe College examinations, called _collections_, are strictly\nprivate.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 139.\n\n\nCOLLECTOR. A Bachelor of Arts in the University of Oxford, who is\nappointed to superintend some scholastic proceedings in\nLent.--_Todd_.\n\nThe Collectors, who are two in number, Bachelors of Arts, are\nappointed to collect the names of _determining_ bachelors, during\nLent. Their office begins and ends with that season.--_Guide to\nOxford_.\n\n\nCOLLECTORSHIP. The office of a _collector_ in the University of\nOxford.--_Todd_.\n\nThis Lent the _collectors_ ceased from entertaining the Bachelors\nby advice and command of the proctors; so that now they got by\ntheir _collectorships_, whereas before they spent about 100_l._,\nbesides their gains, on clothes or needless entertainments.--_Life\nof A. Wood_, p. 286.\n\n\nCOLLEGE. Latin, _collegium_; _con_ and _lego_, to gather. In its\nprimary sense, a collection or assembly; hence, in a general\nsense, a collection, assemblage, or society of men, invested with\ncertain powers and rights, performing certain duties, or engaged\nin some common employment or pursuit.\n\n1. An establishment or edifice appropriated to the use of students\nwho are acquiring the languages and sciences.\n\n2. The society of persons engaged in the pursuits of literature,\nincluding the officers and students. Societies of this kind are\nincorporated, and endowed with revenues.\n\n\"A college, in the modern sense of that word, was an institution\nwhich arose within a university, probably within that of Paris or\nof Oxford first, being intended either as a kind of\nboarding-school, or for the support of scholars destitute of\nmeans, who were here to live under particular supervision. By\ndegrees it became more and more the custom that teachers should be\nattached to these establishments. And as they grew in favor, they\nwere resorted to by persons of means, who paid for their board;\nand this to such a degree, that at one time the colleges included\nnearly all the members of the University of Paris. In the English\nuniversities the colleges may have been first established by a\nmaster who gathered pupils around him, for whose board and\ninstruction he provided. He exercised them perhaps in logic and\nthe other liberal arts, and repeated the university lectures, as\nwell as superintended their morals. As his scholars grew in\nnumber, he associated with himself other teachers, who thus\nacquired the name of _fellows_. Thus it naturally happened that\nthe government of colleges, even of those which were founded by\nthe benevolence of pious persons, was in the hands of a principal\ncalled by various names, such as rector, president, provost, or\nmaster, and of fellows, all of whom were resident within the walls\nof the same edifices where the students lived. Where charitable\nmunificence went so far as to provide for the support of a greater\nnumber of fellows than were needed, some of them were intrusted,\nas tutors, with the instruction of the undergraduates, while\nothers performed various services within their college, or passed\na life of learned leisure.\"--_Pres. Woolsey's Hist. Disc._, New\nHaven, Aug. 14, 1850, p. 8.\n\n3. In _foreign universities_, a public lecture.--_Webster_.\n\n\nCOLLEGE BIBLE. The laws of a college are sometimes significantly\ncalled _the College Bible_.\n\n  He cons _the College Bible_ with eager, longing eyes,\n  And wonders how poor students at six o'clock can rise.\n    _Poem before Iadma of Harv. Coll._, 1850.\n\n\nCOLLEGER. A member of a college.\n\nWe stood like veteran _Collegers_ the next day's\nscrew.--_Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 9. [_Little used_.]\n\n2. The name by which a member of a certain class of the pupils of\nEton is known. \"The _Collegers_ are educated gratuitously, and\nsuch of them as have nearly but not quite reached the age of\nnineteen, when a vacancy in King's College, Cambridge, occurs, are\nelected scholars there forthwith and provided for during life--or\nuntil marriage.\"--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d,\npp. 262, 263.\n\nThey have nothing in lieu of our seventy _Collegers_.--_Ibid._, p.\n270.\n\nThe whole number of scholars or \"_Collegers_\" at Eton is seventy.\n--_Literary World_, Vol. XII. p. 285.\n\n\nCOLLEGE YARD. The enclosure on or within which the buildings of a\ncollege are situated. Although college enclosures are usually open\nfor others to pass through than those connected with the college,\nyet by law the grounds are as private as those connected with\nprivate dwellings, and are kept so, by refusing entrance, for a\ncertain period, to all who are not members of the college, at\nleast once in twenty years, although the time differs in different\nStates.\n\n  But when they got to _College yard_,\n  With one accord they all huzza'd.--_Rebelliad_, p. 33.\n\n  Not ye, whom science never taught to roam\n  Far as a _College yard_ or student's home.\n    _Harv. Reg._, p. 232.\n\n\nCOLLEGIAN. A member of a college, particularly of a literary\ninstitution so called; an inhabitant of a college.--_Johnson_.\n\n\nCOLLEGIATE. Pertaining to a college; as, _collegiate_ studies.\n\n2. Containing a college; instituted after the manner of a college;\nas, a _collegiate_ society.--_Johnson_.\n\n\nCOLLEGIATE. A member of a college.\n\n\nCOMBINATION. An agreement, for effecting some object by joint\noperation; in _an ill sense_, when the purpose is illegal or\niniquitous. An agreement entered into by students to resist or\ndisobey the Faculty of the College, or to do any unlawful act, is\na _combination_. When the number concerned is so great as to\nrender it inexpedient to punish all, those most culpable are\nusually selected, or as many as are deemed necessary to satisfy\nthe demands of justice.--_Laws Yale Coll._, 1837, p. 27. _Laws\nUniv. Cam., Mass._, 1848, p. 23.\n\n\nCOMBINATION ROOM. In the University of Cambridge Eng., a room into\nwhich the fellows, and others in authority withdraw after dinner,\nfor wine, dessert, and conversation.--_Webster_.\n\nIn popular phrase, the word _room_ is omitted.\n\n\"There will be some quiet Bachelors there, I suppose,\" thought I,\n\"and a Junior Fellow or two, some of those I have met in\n_combination_.\"--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d,\np. 52.\n\n\nCOMITAT. In the German universities, a procession formed to\naccompany a departing fellow-student with public honor out of the\ncity.--_Howitt_.\n\n\nCOMMEMORATION DAY. At the University of Oxford, Eng., this day is\nan annual solemnity in honor of the benefactors of the University,\nwhen orations are delivered, and prize compositions are read in\nthe theatre. It is the great day of festivity for the\nyear.--_Huber_.\n\nAt the University of Cambridge, Eng., there is always a sermon on\nthis day. The lesson which is read in the course of the service is\nfrom Ecclus. xliv.: \"Let us now praise famous men,\" &c. It is \"a\nday,\" says the Gradus ad Cantabrigiam, \"devoted to prayers, and\ngood living.\" It was formerly called _Anniversary Day_.\n\n\nCOMMENCE. To take a degree, or the first degree, in a university\nor college.--_Bailey_.\n\nNine Bachelors _commenced_ at Cambridge; they were young men of\ngood hope, and performed their acts so as to give good proof of\ntheir proficiency in the tongues and arts.--_Winthrop's Journal,\nby Mr. Savage_, Vol. II. p. 87.\n\nFour Senior Sophisters came from Saybrook, and received the Degree\nof Bachelor of Arts, and several others _commenced_\nMasters.--_Clap's Hist. Yale Coll._, p. 20.\n\n  A scholar see him now _commence_,\n  Without the aid of books or sense.\n    _Trumbull's Progress of Dullness_, 1794, p. 12.\n\nCharles Chauncy ... was afterwards, when qualified, sent to the\nUniversity of Cambridge, where he _commenced_ Bachelor of\nDivinity.--_Hist. Sketch of First Ch. in Boston_, 1812, p. 211.\n\n\nCOMMENCEMENT. The time when students in colleges _commence_\nBachelors; a day in which degrees are publicly conferred in the\nEnglish and American universities.--_Webster_.\n\nAt Harvard College, in its earliest days, Commencements were\nattended, as at present, by the highest officers in the State. At\nthe first Commencement, on the second Tuesday of August, 1642, we\nare told that \"the Governour, Magistrates, and the Ministers, from\nall parts, with all sorts of schollars, and others in great\nnumbers, were present.\"--_New England's First Fruits_, in _Mass.\nHist. Coll._, Vol. I. p. 246.\n\nIn the MS. Diary of Judge Sewall, under date of July 1, 1685,\nCommencement Day, is this remark: \"Gov'r there, whom I accompanied\nto Charlestown\"; and again, under date of July 2, 1690, is the\nfollowing entry respecting the Commencement of that year: \"Go to\nCambridge by water in ye Barge wherein the Gov'r, Maj. Gen'l,\nCapt. Blackwell, and others.\" In the Private Journal of Cotton\nMather, under the dates of 1708 and 1717, there are notices of the\nBoston troops waiting on the Governor to Cambridge on Commencement\nDay. During the presidency of Wadsworth, which continued from 1725\nto 1737, \"it was the custom,\" says Quincy, \"on Commencement Day,\nfor the Governor of the Province to come from Boston through\nRoxbury, often by the way of Watertown, attended by his body\nguards, and to arrive at the College about ten or eleven o'clock\nin the morning. A procession was then formed of the Corporation,\nOverseers, magistrates, ministers, and invited gentlemen, and\nimmediately moved from Harvard Hall to the Congregational church.\"\nAfter the exercises of the day were over, the students escorted\nthe Governor, Corporation, and Overseers, in procession, to the\nPresident's house. This description would answer very well for the\npresent day, by adding the graduating class to the procession, and\nsubstituting the Boston Lancers as an escort, instead of the \"body\nguards.\"\n\nThe exercises of the first Commencement are stated in New\nEngland's First Fruits, above referred to, as follows:--\"Latine\nand Greeke Orations, and Declamations, and Hebrew Analysis,\nGrammaticall, Logicall, and Rhetoricall of the Psalms: And their\nanswers and disputations in Logicall, Ethicall, Physicall, and\nMetaphysicall questions.\" At Commencement in 1685, the exercises\nwere, besides Disputes, four Orations, one Latin, two Greek, and\none Hebrew In the presidency of Wadsworth, above referred to, \"the\nexercises of the day,\" says Quincy, \"began with a short prayer by\nthe President; a salutatory oration in Latin, by one of the\ngraduating class, succeeded; then disputations on theses or\nquestions in Logic, Ethics, and Natural Philosophy commenced. When\nthe disputation terminated, one of the candidates pronounced a\nLatin 'gratulatory oration.' The graduating class were then\ncalled, and, after asking leave of the Governor and Overseers, the\nPresident conferred the Bachelor's degree, by delivering a book to\nthe candidates (who came forward successively in parties of four),\nand pronouncing a form of words in Latin. An adjournment then took\nplace to dinner, in Harvard Hall; thence the procession returned\nto the church, and, after the Masters' disputations, usually three\nin number, were finished, their degrees were conferred, with the\nsame general forms as those of the Bachelors. An occasional\naddress was then made by the President. A Latin valedictory\noration by one of the Masters succeeded, and the exercises\nconcluded with a prayer by the President.\"\n\nSimilar to this is the account given by the Hon. Paine Wingate, a\ngraduate of the class of 1759, of the exercises of Commencement as\nconducted while he was in College. \"I do not recollect now,\" he\nsays, \"any part of the public exercises on Commencement Day to be\nin English, excepting the President's prayers at opening and\nclosing the services. Next after the prayer followed the\nSalutatory Oration in Latin, by one of the candidates for the\nfirst degree. This office was assigned by the President, and was\nsupposed to be given to him who was the best orator in the class.\nThen followed a Syllogistic Disputation in Latin, in which four or\nfive or more of those who were distinguished as good scholars in\nthe class were appointed by the President as Respondents, to whom\nwere assigned certain questions, which the Respondents maintained,\nand the rest of the class severally opposed, and endeavored to\ninvalidate. This was conducted wholly in Latin, and in the form of\nSyllogisms and Theses. At the close of the Disputation, the\nPresident usually added some remarks in Latin. After these\nexercises the President conferred the degrees. This, I think, may\nbe considered as the summary of the public performances on a\nCommencement Day. I do not recollect any Forensic Disputation, or\na Poem or Oration spoken in English, whilst I was in\nCollege.\"--_Peirce's Hist. Harv. Univ._, pp. 307, 308.\n\nAs far back as the year 1685, it was customary for the President\nto deliver an address near the close of the exercises. Under this\ndate, in the MS. Diary of Judge Sewall, are these words: \"Mr.\nPresident after giving ye Degrees made an Oration in Praise of\nAcademical Studies and Degrees, Hebrew tongue.\" In 1688, at the\nCommencement, according to the same gentleman, Mr. William\nHubbard, then acting as President under the appointment of Sir\nEdmund Andros, \"made an oration.\"\n\nThe disputations were always in Latin, and continued to be a part\nof the exercises of Commencement until the year 1820. The orations\nwere in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and sometimes French; in 1818 a\nSpanish oration was delivered at the Commencement for that year by\nMr. George Osborne. The first English oration was made by Mr.\nJedidiah Huntington, in the year 1763, and the first English poem\nby Mr. John Davis, in 1781. The last Latin syllogisms were in\n1792, on the subjects, \"Materia cogitare non potest,\" and \"Nil\nnisi ignis natur\u00e2 est fluidum.\" The first year in which the\nperformers spoke without a prompter was 1837. There were no\nMaster's exercises for the first time in 1844. To prevent\nimproprieties, in the year 1760, \"the duty of inspecting the\nperformances on the day,\" says Quincy, \"and expunging all\nexceptionable parts, was assigned to the President; on whom it was\nparticularly enjoined 'to put an end to the practice of addressing\nthe female sex.'\" At a later period, in 1792, by referring to the\n\"Order of the Exercises of Commencement,\" we find that in the\nconcluding oration \"honorable notice is taken, from year to year,\nof those who have been the principal Benefactors of the\nUniversity.\" The practice is now discontinued.\n\nAt the first Commencement, all the magistrates, elders, and\ninvited guests who were present \"dined,\" says Winthrop in his\nJournal, Vol. II. pp. 87, 88, \"at the College with the scholars'\nordinary commons, which was done on purpose for the students'\nencouragement, &c., and it gave good content to all.\" After\ndinner, a Psalm was usually sung. In 1685, at Commencement, Sewall\nsays: \"After dinner ye 3d part of ye 103d Ps. was sung in ye\nHall.\" The seventy-eighth Psalm was the one usually sung, an\naccount of which will be found under that title. The Senior Class\nusually waited on the table on Commencement Day. After dinner,\nthey were allowed to take what provisions were left, and eat them\nat their rooms, or in the hall. This custom was not discontinued\nuntil the year 1812.\n\nIn 1754, owing to the expensive habits worn on Commencement Day, a\nlaw was passed, ordering that on that day \"every candidate for his\ndegree appear in black, or dark blue, or gray clothes; and that no\none wear any silk night-gowns; and that any candidate, who shall\nappear dressed contrary to such regulations, may not expect his\ndegree.\" At present, on Commencement Day, every candidate for a\nfirst degree wears, according to the law, \"a black dress and the\nusual black gown.\"\n\nIt was formerly customary, on this day, for the students to\nprovide entertainment in their rooms. But great care was taken, as\nfar as statutory enactments were concerned, that all excess should\nbe avoided. During the presidency of Increase Mather was developed\namong the students a singular phase of gastronomy, which was\nnoticed by the Corporation in their records, under the date of\nJune 22, 1693, in these words: \"The Corporation, having been\ninformed that the custom taken up in the College, not used in any\nother Universities, for the commencers [graduating class] to have\nplumb-cake, is dishonorable to the College, not grateful to wise\nmen, and chargeable to the parents of the commencers, do therefore\nput an end to that custom, and do hereby order that no commencer,\nor other scholar, shall have any such cakes in their studies or\nchambers; and that, if any scholar shall offend therein, the cakes\nshall be taken from him, and he shall moreover pay to the College\ntwenty shillings for each such offence.\" This stringent regulation\nwas, no doubt, all-sufficient for many years; but in the lapse of\ntime the taste for the forbidden delicacy, which was probably\nconcocted with a skill unknown to the moderns, was again revived,\naccompanied with confessions to a fondness for several kinds of\nexpensive preparations, the recipes for which preparations, it is\nto be feared, are inevitably lost. In 1722, in the latter part of\nPresident Leverett's administration, an act was passed \"for\nreforming the Extravagancys of Commencements,\" and providing \"that\nhenceforth no preparation nor provision of either Plumb Cake, or\nRoasted, Boyled, or Baked Meates or Pyes of any kind shal be made\nby any Commencer,\" and that no \"such have any distilled Lyquours\nin his Chamber or any composition therewith,\" under penalty of\nbeing \"punished twenty shillings, to be paid to the use of the\nCollege,\" and of forfeiture of the provisions and liquors, \"_to be\nseized by the tutors_.\" The President and Corporation were\naccustomed to visit the rooms of the Commencers, \"to see if the\nlaws prohibiting certain meats and drinks were not violated.\"\nThese restrictions not being sufficient, a vote passed the\nCorporation in 1727, declaring, that \"if any, who now doe, or\nhereafter shall, stand for their degrees, presume to doe any thing\ncontrary to the act of 11th June, 1722, or _go about to evade it\nby plain cake_, they shall not be admitted to their degree, and if\nany, after they have received their degree, shall presume to make\nany forbidden provisions, their names shall be left or rased out\nof the Catalogue of the Graduates.\"\n\nIn 1749, the Corporation strongly recommended to the parents and\nguardians of such as were to take degrees that year, \"considering\nthe awful judgments of God upon the land,\" to \"retrench\nCommencement expenses, so as may best correspond with the frowns\nof Divine Providence, and that they take effectual care to have\ntheir sons' chambers cleared of company, and their entertainments\nfinished, on the evening of said Commencement Day, or, at\nfurthest, by next morning.\" In 1755, attempts were made to prevent\nthose \"who proceeded Bachelors of Arts from having entertainments\nof any kind, either in the College or any house in Cambridge,\nafter the Commencement Day.\" This and several other propositions\nof the Overseers failing to meet with the approbation of the\nCorporation, a vote finally passed both boards in 1757, by which\nit was ordered, that, on account of the \"distressing drought upon\nthe land,\" and \"in consideration of the dark state of Providence\nwith respect to the war we are engaged in, which Providences call\nfor humiliation and fasting rather than festival entertainments,\"\nthe \"first and second degrees be given to the several candidates\nwithout their personal attendance\"; a general diploma was\naccordingly given, and Commencement was omitted for that year.\nThree years after, \"all unnecessary expenses were forbidden,\" and\nalso \"dancing in any part of Commencement week, in the Hall, or in\nany College building; nor was any undergraduate allowed to give\nany entertainment, after dinner, on Thursday of that week, under\nsevere penalties.\" But the laws were not always so strict, for we\nfind that, on account of a proposition made by the Overseers to\nthe Corporation in 1759, recommending a \"repeal of the law\nprohibiting the drinking of _punch_,\" the latter board voted, that\n\"it shall be no offence if any scholar shall, at Commencement,\nmake and entertain guests at his chamber with _punch_,\" which they\nafterwards declare, \"as it is now usually made, is no intoxicating\nliquor.\"\n\nTo prevent the disturbances incident to the day, an attempt was\nmade in 1727 to have the \"Commencements for time to come more\nprivate than has been usual,\" and for several years after, the\ntime of Commencement was concealed; \"only a short notice,\" says\nQuincy, \"being given to the public of the day on which it was to\nbe held.\" Friday was the day agreed on, for the reason, says\nPresident Wadsworth in his Diary, \"that there might be a less\nremaining time of the week spent in frolicking.\" This was very ill\nreceived by the people of Boston and the vicinity, to whom\nCommencement was a season of hilarity and festivity; the ministers\nwere also dissatisfied, not knowing the day in some cases, and in\nothers being subjected to great inconvenience on account of their\nliving at a distance from Cambridge. The practice was accordingly\nabandoned in 1736, and Commencement, as formerly, was held on\nWednesday, to general satisfaction. In 1749, \"three gentlemen,\"\nsays Quincy, \"who had sons about to be graduated, offered to give\nthe College a thousand pounds old tenor, provided 'a trial was\nmade of Commencements this year, in a more private manner.'\" The\nproposition, after much debate, was rejected, and \"public\nCommencements were continued without interruption, except during\nthe period of the Revolutionary war, and occasionally, from\ntemporary causes, during the remainder of the century,\nnotwithstanding their evils, anomalies, and inconsistencies.\"[05]\n\nThe following poetical account of Commencement at Harvard College\nis supposed to have been written by Dr. Mather Byles, in the year\n1742 or thereabouts. Of its merits, this is no place to speak. As\na picture of the times it is valuable, and for this reason, and to\nshow the high rank which Commencement Day formerly held among\nother days, it is here presented.\n\n \"COMMENCEMENT.\n\n \"I sing the day, bright with peculiar charms,\n  Whose rising radiance ev'ry bosom warms;\n  The day when _Cambridge_ empties all the towns,\n  And youths commencing, take their laurel crowns:\n  When smiling joys, and gay delights appear,\n  And shine distinguish'd, in the rolling year.\n\n \"While the glad theme I labour to rehearse,\n  In flowing numbers, and melodious verse,\n  Descend, immortal nine, my soul inspire,\n  Amid my bosom lavish all your fire,\n  While smiling _Phoebus_, owns the heavenly layes\n  And shades the poet with surrounding bayes.\n  But chief ye blooming nymphs of heavenly frame,\n  Who make the day with double glory flame,\n  In whose fair persons, art and nature vie,\n  On the young muse cast an auspicious eye:\n  Secure of fame, then shall the goddess sing,\n  And rise triumphant with a tow'ring wing,\n  Her tuneful notes wide-spreading all around,\n  The hills shall echo, and the vales resound.\n\n \"Soon as the morn in crimson robes array'd\n  With chearful beams dispels the flying shade,\n  While fragrant odours waft the air along,\n  And birds melodious chant their heavenly song,\n  And all the waste of heav'n with glory spread,\n  Wakes up the world, in sleep's embraces dead.\n  Then those whose dreams were on th' approaching day,\n  Prepare in splendid garbs to make their way\n  To that admired solemnity, whose date,\n  Tho' late begun, will last as long as fate.\n  And now the sprightly Fair approach the glass\n  To heighten every feature of the face.\n  They view the roses flush their glowing cheeks,\n  The snowy lillies towering round their necks,\n  Their rustling manteaus huddled on in haste,\n  They clasp with shining girdles round their waist.\n  Nor less the speed and care of every beau,\n  To shine in dress and swell the solemn show.\n  Thus clad, in careless order mixed by chance,\n  In haste they both along the streets advance:\n  'Till near the brink of _Charles's_ beauteous stream,\n  They stop, and think the lingering boat to blame.\n  Soon as the empty skiff salutes the shore,\n  In with impetuous haste they clustering pour,\n  The men the head, the stern the ladies grace,\n  And neighing horses fill the middle space.\n  Sunk deep, the boat floats slow the waves along,\n  And scarce contains the thickly crowded throng;\n  A gen'ral horror seizes on the fair,\n  While white-look'd cowards only not despair.\n  'Till rowed with care they reach th' opposing side,\n  Leap on the shore, and leave the threat'ning tide.\n  While to receive the pay the boatman stands,\n  And chinking pennys jingle in his hands.\n  Eager the sparks assault the waiting cars,\n  Fops meet with fops, and clash in civil wars.\n  Off fly the wigs, as mount their kicking heels,\n  The rudely bouncing head with anguish swells,\n  A crimson torrent gushes from the nose,\n  Adown the cheeks, and wanders o'er the cloaths.\n  Taunting, the victor's strait the chariots leap,\n  While the poor batter'd beau's for madness weep.\n\n \"Now in calashes shine the blooming maids,\n  Bright'ning the day which blazes o'er their heads;\n  The seats with nimble steps they swift ascend,\n  And moving on the crowd, their waste of beauties spend.\n  So bearing thro' the boundless breadth of heav'n,\n  The twinkling lamps of light are graceful driv'n;\n  While on the world they shed their glorious rays,\n  And set the face of nature in a blaze.\n\n \"Now smoak the burning wheels along the ground,\n  While rapid hoofs of flying steeds resound,\n  The drivers by no vulgar flame inspir'd,\n  But with the sparks of love and glory fir'd,\n  With furious swiftness sweep along the way,\n  And from the foremost chariot snatch the day.\n  So at Olympick games when heros strove,\n  In rapid cars to gain the goal of love.\n  If on her fav'rite youth the goddess shone\n  He left his rival and the winds out-run.\n\n \"And now thy town, _O Cambridge_! strikes the sight\n  Of the beholders with confus'd delight;\n  Thy green campaigns wide open to the view,\n  And buildings where bright youth their fame pursue.\n  Blest village! on whose plains united glows,\n  A vast, confus'd magnificence of shows.\n  Where num'rous crowds of different colours blend,\n  Thick as the trees which from the hills ascend:\n  Or as the grass which shoots in verdant spires,\n  Or stars which dart thro' natures realms their fires.\n\n \"How am I fir'd with a profuse delight,\n  When round the yard I roll my ravish'd sight!\n  From the high casements how the ladies show!\n  And scatter glory on the crowds below.\n  From sash to sash the lovely lightening plays\n  And blends their beauties in a radiant blaze.\n  So when the noon of night the earth invades\n  And o'er the landskip spreads her silent shades.\n  In heavens high vault the twinkling stars appear,\n  And with gay glory's light the gleemy sphere.\n  From their bright orbs a flame of splendors shows,\n  And all around th' enlighten'd ether glows.\n\n \"Soon as huge heaps have delug'd all the plains,\n  Of tawny damsels, mixt with simple swains,\n  Gay city beau's, grave matrons and coquats,\n  Bully's and cully's, clergymen and wits.\n  The thing which first the num'rous crowd employs,\n  Is by a breakfast to begin their joys.\n  While wine, which blushes in a crystal glass,\n  Streams down in floods, and paints their glowing face.\n  And now the time approaches when the bell,\n  With dull continuance tolls a solemn knell.\n  Numbers of blooming youth in black array\n  Adorn the yard, and gladden all the day.\n  In two strait lines they instantly divide,\n  While each beholds his partner on th' opposing side,\n  Then slow, majestick, walks the learned _head_,\n  The _senate_ follow with a solemn tread,\n  Next _Levi's_ tribe in reverend order move,\n  Whilst the uniting youth the show improve.\n  They glow in long procession till they come,\n  Near to the portals of the sacred dome;\n  Then on a sudden open fly the doors,\n  The leader enters, then the croud thick pours.\n  The temple in a moment feels its freight,\n  And cracks beneath its vast unwieldy weight,\n  So when the threatning Ocean roars around\n  A place encompass'd with a lofty mound,\n  If some weak part admits the raging waves,\n  It flows resistless, and the city laves;\n  Till underneath the waters ly the tow'rs,\n  Which menac'd with their height the heav'nly pow'rs.\n\n \"The work begun with pray'r, with modest pace,\n  A youth advancing mounts the desk with grace,\n  To all the audience sweeps a circling bow,\n  Then from his lips ten thousand graces flow.\n  The next that comes, a learned thesis reads,\n  The question states, and then a war succeeds.\n  Loud major, minor, and the consequence,\n  Amuse the crowd, wide-gaping at their fence.\n  Who speaks the loudest is with them the best,\n  And impudence for learning is confest.\n\n  \"The battle o'er, the sable youth descend,\n  And to the awful chief, their footsteps bend.\n  With a small book, the laurel wreath he gives\n  Join'd with a pow'r to use it all their lives.\n  Obsequious, they return what they receive,\n  With decent rev'rence, they his presence leave.\n  Dismiss'd, they strait repeat their back ward way\n  And with white napkins grace the sumptuous day.[06]\n\n  \"Now plates unnumber'd on the tables shine,\n  And dishes fill'd invite the guests to dine.\n  The grace perform'd, each as it suits him best,\n  Divides the sav'ry honours of the feast,\n  The glasses with bright sparkling wines abound\n  And flowing bowls repeat the jolly round.\n  Thanks said, the multitude unite their voice,\n  In sweetly mingled and melodious noise.\n  The warbling musick floats along the air,\n  And softly winds the mazes of the ear;\n  Ravish'd the crowd promiscuously retires,\n  And each pursues the pleasure he admires.\n\n \"Behold my muse far distant on the plains,\n  Amidst a wrestling ring two jolly swains;\n  Eager for fame, they tug and haul for blood,\n  One nam'd _Jack Luby_, t' other _Robin Clod_,\n  Panting they strain, and labouring hard they sweat,\n  Mix legs, kick shins, tear cloaths, and ply their feet.\n  Now nimbly trip, now stiffly stand their ground,\n  And now they twirl, around, around, around;\n  Till overcome by greater art or strength,\n  _Jack Luby_ lays along his lubber length.\n  A fall! a fall! the loud spectators cry,\n  A fall! a fall! the echoing hills reply.\n\n \"O'er yonder field in wild confusion runs,\n  A clam'rous troop of _Affric's_ sable sons,\n  Behind the victors shout, with barbarous roar,\n  The vanquish'd fly with hideous yells before,\n  The gloomy squadron thro' the valley speeds\n  Whilst clatt'ring cudgels rattle o'er their heads.\n\n \"Again to church the learned tribe repair,\n  Where syllogisms battle in the air,\n  And then the elder youth their second laurels wear.\n  Hail! Happy laurels! who our hopes inspire,\n  And set our ardent wishes all on fire.\n  By you the pulpit and the bar will shine\n  In future annals; while the ravish'd nine\n  Will in your bosom breathe c\u00e6lestial flames,\n  And stamp _Eternity_ upon your names.\n  Accept my infant muse, whose feeble wings\n  Can scarce sustain her flight, while you she sings.\n  With candour view my rude unfinish'd praise\n  And see my _Ivy_ twist around your _bayes_.\n  So _Phidias_ by immortal _Jove_ inspir'd,\n  His statue carv'd, by all mankind admir'd.\n  Nor thus content, by his approving nod,\n  He cut himself upon the shining god.\n  That shaded by the umbrage of his name,\n  Eternal honours might attend his fame.\"\n\nIn his almanacs, Nathaniel Ames was wont to insert, opposite the\ndays of Commencement week, remarks which he deemed appropriate to\nthat period. His notes for the year 1764 were these:--\n\n\"Much talk and nothing said.\"\n\n\"The loquacious more talkative than ever, and fine Harangues\npreparing.\"\n\n \"Much Money sunk,\n  Much Liquor drunk.\"\n\nHis only note for the year 1765 was this:--\n\n \"Many Crapul\u00e6 to Day\n  Give the Head-ach to the Gay.\"\n\nCommencement Day was generally considered a holiday throughout the\nProvince, and in the metropolis the shops were usually closed, and\nlittle or no business was done. About ten days before this period,\na body of Indians from Natick--men, women, and pappooses--commonly\nmade their appearance at Cambridge, and took up their station\naround the Episcopal Church, in the cellar of which they were\naccustomed to sleep, if the weather was unpleasant. The women sold\nbaskets and moccasons; the boys gained money by shooting at it,\nwhile the men wandered about and spent the little that was earned\nby their squaws in rum and tobacco. Then there would come along a\nbody of itinerant negro fiddlers, whose scraping never intermitted\nduring the time of their abode.\n\nThe Common, on Commencement week, was covered with booths, erected\nin lines, like streets, intended to accommodate the populace from\nBoston and the vicinity with the amusements of a fair. In these\nwere carried on all sorts of dissipation. Here was a knot of\ngamblers, gathered around a wheel of fortune, or watching the\nwhirl of the ball on a roulette-table. Further along, the jolly\nhucksters displayed their tempting wares in the shape of cooling\nbeverages and palate-tickling confections. There was dancing on\nthis side, auction-selling on the other; here a pantomimic show,\nthere a blind man, led by a dog, soliciting alms; organ-grinders\nand hurdy-gurdy grinders, bears and monkeys, jugglers and\nsword-swallowers, all mingled in inextricable confusion.\n\nIn a neighboring field, a countryman had, perchance, let loose a\nfox, which the dogs were worrying to death, while the surrounding\ncrowd testified their pleasure at the scene by shouts of\napprobation. Nor was there any want of the spirituous; pails of\npunch, guarded by stout negroes, bore witness to their own subtle\ncontents, now by the man who lay curled up under the adjoining\nhedge, \"forgetting and forgot,\" and again by the drunkard,\nreeling, cursing, and fighting among his comrades.\n\nThe following observations from the pen of Professor Sidney\nWillard, afford an accurate description of the outward\nmanifestations of Commencement Day at Harvard College, during the\nlatter part of the last century. \"Commencement Day at that time\nwas a widely noted day, not only among men and women of all\ncharacters and conditions, but also among boys. It was the great\nliterary and mob anniversary of Massachusetts, surpassed only in\nits celebrities by the great civil and mob anniversary, namely,\nthe Fourth of July, and the last Wednesday of May, Election day,\nso called, the anniversary of the organization of the government\nof the State for the civil year. But Commencement, perhaps most of\nall, exhibited an incongruous mixture of men and things. Besides\nthe academic exercises within the sanctuary of learning and\nreligion, followed by the festivities in the College dining-hall,\nand under temporary tents and awnings erected for the\nentertainments given to the numerous guests of wealthy parents of\nyoung men who had come out successful competitors for prizes in\nthe academic race, the large common was decked with tents filled\nwith various refreshments for the hungry and thirsty multitudes,\nand the intermediate spaces crowded with men, women, and boys,\nwhite and black, many of them gambling, drinking, swearing,\ndancing, and fighting from morning to midnight. Here and there the\nscene was varied by some show of curiosities, or of monkeys or\nless common wild animals, and the gambols of mountebanks, who by\ntheir ridiculous tricks drew a greater crowd than the abandoned\ngroup at the gaming-tables, or than the fooleries, distortions,\nand mad pranks of the inebriates. If my revered uncle[07] took a\nglimpse at these scenes, he did not see there any of our red\nbrethren, as Mr. Jefferson kindly called them, who formed a\nconsiderable part of the gathering at the time of his graduation,\nforty-two years before; but he must have seen exhibitions of\ndepravity which would disgust the most untutored savage. Near the\nclose of the last century these outrages began to disappear, and\nlessened from year to year, until by public opinion, enforced by\nan efficient police, they were many years ago wholly suppressed,\nand the vicinity of the College halls has become, as it should be,\na classic ground.\"--_Memories of Youth and Manhood_, Vol. I. pp.\n251, 252.\n\nIt is to such scenes as these that Mr. William Biglow refers, in\nhis poem recited before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, in their\ndining-hall, August 29th, 1811.\n\n \"All hail, Commencement! when all classes free\n  Throng learning's fount, from interest, taste, or glee;\n  When sutlers plain in tents, like Jacob, dwell,\n  Their goods distribute, and their purses swell;\n  When tipplers cease on wretchedness to think,\n  Those born to sell, as well as these to drink;\n  When every day each merry Andrew clears\n  More cash than useful men in many years;\n  When men to business come, or come to rake,\n  And modest women spurn at Pope's mistake.[08]\n\n \"All hail, Commencement! when all colors join,\n  To gamble, riot, quarrel, and purloin;\n  When Afric's sooty sons, a race forlorn,\n  Play, swear, and fight, like Christians freely born;\n  And Indians bless our civilizing merit,\n  And get dead drunk with truly _Christian spirit_;\n  When heroes, skilled in pocket-picking sleights,\n  Of equal property and equal rights,\n  Of rights of man and woman, boldest friends,\n  Believing means are sanctioned by their ends,\n  Sequester part of Gripus' boundless store,\n  While Gripus thanks god Plutus he has more;\n  And needy poet, from this ill secure,\n  Feeling his fob, cries, 'Blessed are the poor.'\"\n\nOn the same subject, the writer of Our Chronicle of '26, a\nsatirical poem, versifies in the following manner:--\n\n \"Then comes Commencement Day, and Discord dire\n  Strikes her confusion-string, and dust and noise\n  Climb up the skies; ladies in thin attire,\n  For 't is in August, and both men and boys,\n  Are all abroad, in sunshine and in glee\n  Making all heaven rattle with their revelry!\n\n \"Ah! what a classic sight it is to see\n  The black gowns flaunting in the sultry air,\n  Boys big with literary sympathy,\n  And all the glories of this great affair!\n  More classic sounds!--within, the plaudit shout,\n  While Punchinello's rabble echoes it without.\"\n\nTo this the author appends a note, as follows:--\n\n\"The holiday extends to thousands of those who have no particular\nclassical pretensions, further than can be recognized in a certain\n_penchant_ for such jubilees, contracted by attending them for\nyears as hangers-on. On this devoted day these noisy do-nothings\ncollect with mummers, monkeys, bears, and rope-dancers, and hold\ntheir revels just beneath the windows of the tabernacle where the\nliterary triumph is enacting.\n\n                             'Tum s\u00e6va sonare\n  Verbera, tum stridor ferri tract\u00e6que caten\u00e6.'\"\n\nA writer in Buckingham's New England Magazine, Vol. III., 1832, in\nan article entitled \"Harvard College Forty Years ago,\" thus\ndescribes the customs which then prevailed:--\n\n\"As I entered Cambridge, what were my 'first impressions'? The\nCollege buildings 'heaving in sight and looming up,' as the\nsailors say. Pyramids of Egypt! can ye surpass these enormous\npiles? The Common covered with tents and wigwams, and people of\nall sorts, colors, conditions, nations, and tongues. A country\nmuster or ordination dwindles into nothing in comparison. It was a\nsecond edition of Babel. The Governor's life-guard, in splendid\nuniform, prancing to and fro,\n 'Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum.'\nHorny-hoofed, galloping quadrupeds make all the common to tremble.\n\n\"I soon steered for the meeting-house, and obtained a seat, or\nrather standing, in the gallery, determined to be an eyewitness of\nall the sport of the day. Presently music was heard approaching,\nsuch as I had never heard before. It must be 'the music of the\nspheres.' Anon, three enormous white wigs, supported by three\nstately, venerable men, yclad in black, flowing robes, were\nlocated in the pulpit. A platform of wigs was formed in the body\npews, on which one might apparently walk as securely as on the\nstage. The _candidates_ for degrees seemed to have made a mistake\nin dressing themselves in _black togas_ instead of _white_ ones,\n_pro more Romanorum_. The musicians jammed into their pew in the\ngallery, very near to me, with enormous fiddles and fifes and\nramshorns. _Terribile visu_! They sounded. I stopped my ears, and\nwith open mouth and staring eyes stood aghast with wonderment. The\nmusic ceased. The performances commenced. English, Latin, Greek,\nHebrew, French! These scholars knew everything.\"\n\nMore particular is the account of the observances, at this period,\nof the day, at Harvard College, as given by Professor Sidney\nWillard:--\n\n\"Commencement Day, in the year 1798, was a day bereft, in some\nrespects, of its wonted cheerfulness. Instead of the serene\nsummer's dawn, and the clear rising of the sun,\n 'The dawn was overcast, the morning lowered,\n  And heavily in clouds brought on the day.'\nIn the evening, from the time that the public exercises closed\nuntil twilight, the rain descended in torrents. The President[09]\nlay prostrate on his bed from the effects of a violent disease,\nfrom which it was feared he could not recover.[10] His house,\nwhich on all occasions was the abode of hospitality, and on\nCommencement Day especially so, (being the great College\nanniversary,) was now a house of stillness, anxiety, and watching.\nFor seventeen successive years it had been thronged on this\nanniversary from morn till night, by welcome visitors, cheerfully\ngreeted and cared for, and now it was like a house of mourning for\nthe dead.\n\n\"After the literary exercises of the day were closed, the officers\nin the different branches of the College government and\ninstruction, Masters of Arts, and invited guests, repaired to the\nCollege dining-hall without the ceremony of a procession formed\naccording to dignity or priority of right. This the elements\nforbade. Each one ran the short race as he best could. But as the\nAlumni arrived, they naturally avoided taking possession of the\nseats usually occupied by the government of the College. The\nGovernor, Increase Sumner, I suppose, was present, and no doubt\nall possible respect was paid to the Overseers as well as to the\nCorporation. I was not present, but dined at my father's house\nwith a few friends, of whom the late Hon. Moses Brown of Beverly\nwas one. We went together to the College hall after dinner; but\nthe honorable and reverend Corporation and Overseers had retired,\nand I do not remember whether there was any person presiding. If\nthere were, a statue would have been as well. The age of wine and\nwassail, those potent aids to patriotism, mirth, and song, had not\nwholly passed away. The merry glee was at that time outrivalled by\n_Adams and Liberty_, the national patriotic song, so often and on\nso many occasions sung, and everywhere so familiarly known that\nall could join in grand chorus.\"--_Memories of Youth and Manhood_,\nVol. II. pp. 4, 5.\n\nThe irregularities of Commencement week seem at a very early\nperiod to have attracted the attention of the College government;\nfor we find that in 1728, to prevent disorder, a formal request\nwas made by the President, at the suggestion of the immediate\ngovernment, to Lieutenant-Governor Dummer, praying him to direct\nthe sheriff of Middlesex to prohibit the setting up of booths and\ntents on those public days. Some years after, in 1732, \"an\ninterview took place between the Corporation and three justices of\nthe peace in Cambridge, to concert measures to keep order at\nCommencement, and under their warrant to establish a constable\nwith six men, who, by watching and walking towards the evening on\nthese days, and also the night following, and in and about the\nentry at the College Hall at dinner-time, should prevent\ndisorders.\" At the beginning of the present century, it was\ncustomary for two special justices to give their attendance at\nthis period, in order to try offences, and a guard of twenty\nconstables was usually present to preserve order and attend on the\njustices. Among the writings of one, who for fifty years was a\nconstant attendant on these occasions, are the following\nmemoranda, which are in themselves an explanation of the customs\nof early years. \"Commencement, 1828; no tents on the Common for\nthe first time.\" \"Commencement, 1836; no persons intoxicated in\nthe hall or out of it; the first time.\"\n\nThe following extract from the works of a French traveller will be\nread with interest by some, as an instance of the manner in which\nour institutions are sometimes regarded by foreigners. \"In a free\ncountry, everything ought to bear the stamp of patriotism. This\npatriotism appears every year in a solemn feast celebrated at\nCambridge in honor of the sciences. This feast, which takes place\nonce a year in all the colleges of America, is called\n_Commencement_. It resembles the exercises and distribution of\nprizes in our colleges. It is a day of joy for Boston; almost all\nits inhabitants assemble in Cambridge. The most distinguished of\nthe students display their talents in the presence of the public;\nand these exercises, which are generally on patriotic subjects,\nare terminated by a feast, where reign the freest gayety and the\nmost cordial fraternity.\"--_Brissot's Travels in U.S._, 1788.\nLondon, 1794, Vol. I. pp. 85, 86.\n\nFor an account of the _chair_ from which the President delivers\ndiplomas on Commencement Day, see PRESIDENT'S CHAIR.\n\nAt Yale College, the first Commencement was held September 13th,\n1702, while that institution was located at Saybrook, at which\nfour young men who had before graduated at Harvard College, and\none whose education had been private, received the degree of\nMaster of Arts. This and several Commencements following were held\nprivately, according to an act which had been passed by the\nTrustees, in order to avoid unnecessary expense and other\ninconveniences. In 1718, the year in which the first College\nedifice was completed, was held at New Haven the first public\nCommencement. The following account of the exercises on this\noccasion was written at the time by one of the College officers,\nand is cited by President Woolsey in his Discourse before the\nGraduates of Yale College, August 14th, 1850. \"[We were] favored\nand honored with the presence of his Honor, Governor Saltonstall,\nand his lady, and the Hon. Col. Taylor of Boston, and the\nLieutenant-Governor, and the whole Superior Court, at our\nCommencement, September 10th, 1718, where the Trustees\npresent,--those gentlemen being present,--in the hall of our new\nCollege, first most solemnly named our College by the name of Yale\nCollege, to perpetuate the memory of the honorable Gov. Elihu\nYale, Esq., of London, who had granted so liberal and bountiful a\ndonation for the perfecting and adorning of it. Upon which the\nhonorable Colonel Taylor represented Governor Yale in a speech\nexpressing his great satisfaction; which ended, we passed to the\nchurch, and there the Commencement was carried on. In which\naffair, in the first place, after prayer an oration was had by the\nsaluting orator, James Pierpont, and then the disputations as\nusual; which concluded, the Rev. Mr. Davenport [one of the\nTrustees and minister of Stamford] offered an excellent oration in\nLatin, expressing their thanks to Almighty God, and Mr. Yale under\nhim, for so public a favor and so great regard to our languishing\nschool. After which were graduated ten young men, whereupon the\nHon. Gov. Saltonstall, in a Latin speech, congratulated the\nTrustees in their success and in the comfortable appearance of\nthings with relation to their school. All which ended, the\ngentlemen returned to the College Hall, where they were\nentertained with a splendid dinner, and the ladies, at the same\ntime, were also entertained in the Library; after which they sung\nthe four first verses in the 65th Psalm, and so the day\nended.\"--p. 24.\n\nThe following excellent and interesting account of the exercises\nand customs of Commencement at Yale College, in former times, is\ntaken from the entertaining address referred to\nabove:--\"Commencements were not to be public, according to the\nwishes of the first Trustees, through fear of the attendant\nexpense; but another practice soon prevailed, and continued with\nthree or four exceptions until the breaking out of the war in\n1775. They were then private for five years, on account of the\ntimes. The early exercises of the candidates for the first degree\nwere a 'saluting' oration in Latin, succeeded by syllogistic\ndisputations in the same language; and the day was closed by the\nMasters' exercises,--disputations and a valedictory. According to\nan ancient academical practice, theses were printed and\ndistributed upon this occasion, indicating what the candidates for\na degree had studied, and were prepared to defend; yet, contrary\nto the usage still prevailing at universities which have adhered\nto the old method of testing proficiency, it does not appear that\nthese theses were ever defended in public. They related to a\nvariety of subjects in Technology, Logic, Grammar, Rhetoric,\nMathematics, Physics, Metaphysics, Ethics, and afterwards\nTheology. The candidates for a Master's degree also published\ntheses at this time, which were called _Qu\u00e6stiones magistrales_.\nThe syllogistic disputes were held between an affirmant and\nrespondent, who stood in the side galleries of the church opposite\nto one another, and shot the weapons of their logic over the heads\nof the audience. The saluting Bachelor and the Master who\ndelivered the valedictory stood in the front gallery, and the\naudience huddled around below them to catch their Latin eloquence\nas it fell. It seems also to have been usual for the President to\npronounce an oration in some foreign tongue upon the same\noccasion.[11]\n\n\"At the first public Commencement under President Stiles, in 1781,\nwe find from a particular description which has been handed down,\nthat the original plan, as above described, was subjected for the\ntime to considerable modifications. The scheme, in brief, was as\nfollows. The salutatory oration was delivered by a member of the\ngraduating class, who is now our aged and honored townsman, Judge\nBaldwin. This was succeeded by the syllogistic disputations, and\nthese by a Greek oration, next to which came an English colloquy.\nThen followed a forensic disputation, in which James Kent was one\nof the speakers. Then President Stiles delivered an oration in\nHebrew, Chaldaic, and Arabic,--it being an extraordinary occasion.\nAfter which the morning was closed with an English oration by one\nof the graduating class. In the afternoon, the candidates for the\nsecond degree had the time, as usual, to themselves, after a Latin\ndiscourse by President Stiles. The exhibiters appeared in\nsyllogistic disputes, a dissertation, a poem, and an English\noration. Among these performers we find the names of Noah Webster,\nJoel Barlow, and Oliver Wolcott. Besides the Commencements there\nwere exhibitions upon quarter-days, as they were called, in\nDecember and March, as well as at the end of the third term, when\nthe younger classes performed; and an exhibition of the Seniors in\nJuly, at the time of their examination for degrees, when the\nvaledictory orator was one of their own choice. This oration was\ntransferred to the Commencement about the year 1798, when the\nMasters' valedictories had fallen into disuse; and being in\nEnglish, gave a new interest to the exercises of the day.\n\n\"Commencements were long occasions of noisy mirth, and even of\nriot. The older records are full of attempts, on the part of the\nCorporation, to put a stop to disorder and extravagance at this\nanniversary. From a document of 1731, it appears that cannons had\nbeen fired in honor of the day, and students were now forbidden to\nhave a share in this on pain of degradation. The same prohibition\nwas found necessary again in 1755, at which time the practice had\ngrown up of illuminating the College buildings upon Commencement\neve. But the habit of drinking spirituous liquor, and of\nfurnishing it to friends, on this public occasion, grew up into\nmore serious evils. In the year 1737, the Trustees, having found\nthat there was a great expense in spirituous distilled liquors\nupon Commencement occasions, ordered that for the future no\ncandidate for a degree, or other student, should provide or allow\nany such liquors to be drunk in his chamber during Commencement\nweek. And again, it was ordered in 1746, with the view of\npreventing several extravagant and expensive customs, that there\nshould be 'no kind of public treat but on Commencement,\nquarter-days, and the day on which the valedictory oration was\npronounced; and on that day the Seniors may provide and give away\na barrel of metheglin, and nothing more.' But the evil continued a\nlong time. In 1760, it appears that it was usual for the\ngraduating class to provide a pipe of wine, in the payment of\nwhich each one was forced to join. The Corporation now attempted\nby very stringent law to break up this practice; but the Senior\nClass having united in bringing large quantities of rum into\nCollege, the Commencement exercises were suspended, and degrees\nwere withheld until after a public confession of the class. In the\ntwo next years degrees were given at the July examination, with a\nview to prevent such disorders, and no public Commencement was\ncelebrated. Similar scenes are not known to have occurred\nafterwards, although for a long time that anniversary wore as much\nthe aspect of a training-day as of a literary festival.\n\n\"The Commencement Day in the modern sense of the term--that is, a\ngathering of graduated members and of others drawn together by a\ncommon interest in the College, and in its young members who are\nleaving its walls--has no counterpart that I know of in the older\ninstitutions of Europe. It arose by degrees out of the former\nexercises upon this occasion, with the addition of such as had\nbeen usual before upon quarter-days, or at the presentation in\nJuly. For a time several of the commencing Masters appeared on the\nstage to pronounce orations, as they had done before. In process\nof time, when they had nearly ceased to exhibit, this anniversary\nbegan to assume a somewhat new feature; the peculiarity of which\nconsists in this, that the graduates have a literary festival more\npeculiarly their own, in the shape of discourses delivered before\ntheir assembled body, or before some literary\nsociety.\"--_Woolsey's Historical Discourse_, pp. 65-68.\n\nFurther remarks concerning the observance of Commencement at Yale\nCollege may be found in Ebenezer Baldwin's \"Annals\" of that\ninstitution, pp. 189-197.\n\nAn article \"On the Date of the First Public Commencement at Yale\nCollege, in New Haven,\" will be read with pleasure by those who\nare interested in the deductions of antiquarian research. It is\ncontained in the \"Yale Literary Magazine,\" Vol. XX. pp. 199, 200.\n\nThe following account of Commencement at Dartmouth College, on\nWednesday, August 24th, 1774, written by Dr. Belknap, may not\nprove uninteresting.\n\n\"About eleven o'clock, the Commencement began in a large tent\nerected on the east side of the College, and covered with boards;\nscaffolds and seats being prepared.\n\n\"The President began with a prayer in the usual _strain_. Then an\nEnglish oration was spoken by one of the Bachelors, complimenting\nthe Trustees, &c. A syllogistic disputation on this question:\n_Amicitia vera non est absque amore divina_. Then a cliosophic\noration. Then an anthem, 'The voice of my beloved sounds,' &c.\nThen a forensic dispute, _Whether Christ died for all men_? which\nwas well supported on both sides. Then an anthem, 'Lift up your\nheads, O ye gates,' &c.\n\n\"The company were invited to dine at the President's and the hall.\nThe Connecticut lads and lasses, I observed, walked about hand in\nhand in procession, as 't is said they go to a wedding.\n\n\"Afternoon. The exercises began with a Latin oration on the state\nof society by Mr. Kipley. Then an English _Oration on the\nImitative Arts_, by Mr. J. Wheelock. The degrees were then\nconferred, and, in addition to the usual ceremony of the book,\ndiplomas were delivered to the candidates, with this form of\nwords: 'Admitto vos ad primum (vel secundum) gradum in artibus pro\nmore Academiarum in Anglia, vobisque trado hunc librum, una cum\npotestate publice prelegendi ubicumque ad hoc munus avocati\nfueritis (to the masters was added, fuistis vel fueritis), cujus\nrei h\u00e6c diploma membrana scripta est testimonium.' Mr. Woodward\nstood by the President, and held the book and parchments,\ndelivering and exchanging them as need required. Rev. Mr. Benjamin\nPomeroy, of Hebron, was admitted to the degree of Doctor in\nDivinity.\n\n\"After this, McGregore and Sweetland, two Bachelors, spoke a\ndialogue of Lord Lyttleton's between Apicius and Darteneuf, upon\ngood eating and drinking. The Mercury (who comes in at the close\nof the piece) performed his part but clumsily; but the two\nepicures did well, and the President laughed as heartily as the\nrest of the audience; though considering the circumstances, it\nmight admit of some doubt, whether the dialogue were really a\nburlesque, or a compliment to the College.\n\n\"An anthem and prayer concluded the public exercises. Much decency\nand regularity were observable through the day, in the numerous\nattending concourse of people.\"--_Life of Jeremy Belknap, D.D._,\npp. 69-71.\n\nAt Shelby College, Ky., it is customary at Commencement to perform\nplays, with appropriate costumes, at stated intervals during the\nexercises.\n\nAn account of the manner in which Commencement has been observed\nat other colleges would only be a repetition of what has been\nstated above, in reference to Harvard and Yale. These being, the\nformer the first, and the latter the third institution founded in\nour country, the colleges which were established at a later period\ngrounded, not only their laws, but to a great extent their\ncustoms, on the laws and customs which prevailed at Cambridge and\nNew Haven.\n\n\nCOMMENCEMENT CARD. At Union College, there is issued annually at\nCommencement a card containing a programme of the exercises of the\nday, signed with the names of twelve of the Senior Class, who are\nmembers of the four principal college societies. These cards are\nworded in the form of invitations, and are to be sent to the\nfriends of the students. To be \"_on the Commencement card_\" is\nesteemed an honor, and is eagerly sought for. At other colleges,\ninvitations are often issued at this period, usually signed by the\nPresident.\n\n\nCOMMENCER. In American colleges, a member of the Senior Class,\nafter the examination for degrees; generally, one who _commences_.\n\nThese exercises were, besides an oration usually made by the\nPresident, orations both salutatory and valedictory, made by some\nor other of the _commencers_.--_Mather's Magnalia_, B. IV. p. 128.\n\nThe Corporation with the Tutors shall visit the chambers of the\n_commencers_ to see that this law be well observed.--_Peirce's\nHist. Harv. Univ._, App., p. 137.\n\nThirty _commencers_, besides Mr. Rogers, &c.--_Ibid._, App., p.\n150.\n\n\nCOMMERS. In the German universities, a party of students assembled\nfor the purpose of making an excursion to some place in the\ncountry for a day's jollification. On such an occasion, the\nstudents usually go \"in a long train of carriages with outriders\";\ngenerally, a festive gathering of the students.--_Howitt's Student\nLife of Germany_, Am. ed., p. 56; see also Chap. XVI.\n\n\nCOMMISSARY. In the University of Cambridge, Eng., an officer under\nthe Chancellor, and appointed by him, who holds a court of record\nfor all privileged persons and scholars under the degree of M.A.\nIn this court, all causes are tried and determined by the civil\nand statute law, and by the custom of the University.--_Cam. Cal._\n\n\nCOMMON. To board together; to eat at a table in common.\n\n\nCOMMONER. A student of the second rank in the University of\nOxford, Eng., who is not dependent on the foundation for support,\nbut pays for his board or _commons_, together with all other\ncharges. Corresponds to a PENSIONER at Cambridge. See GENTLEMAN\nCOMMONER.\n\n2. One who boards in commons.\n\nIn all cases where those who do damage to the table furniture, or\nin the steward's kitchen, cannot be detected, the amount shall be\ncharged to the _commoners_.--_Laws Union Coll._, 1807, p. 34.\n\nThe steward shall keep an accurate list of the\n_commoners_.--_Ibid._, 1807, p. 34.\n\n\nCOMMON ROOM. The room to which all the members of the college have\naccess. There is sometimes one _common room_ for graduates, and\nanother for undergraduates.--_Crabb's Tech. Dict._\n\n  Oh, could the days once more but come,\n  When calm I smoak'd in _common room_.\n    _The Student_, Oxf. and Cam., 1750, Vol. I. p. 237.\n\n\nCOMMONS. Food provided at a common table, as in colleges, where\nmany persons eat at the same table, or in the same\nhall.--_Webster_.\n\nCommons were introduced into Harvard College at its first\nestablishment, in the year 1636, in imitation of the English\nuniversities, and from that time until the year 1849, when they\nwere abolished, seem to have been a never-failing source of\nuneasiness and disturbance. While the infant College with the\ntitle only of \"school,\" was under the superintendence of Mr.\nNathaniel Eaton, its first \"master,\" the badness of commons was\none of the principal causes of complaint. \"At no subsequent period\nof the College history,\" says Mr. Quincy, \"has discontent with\ncommons been more just and well founded, than under the huswifery\nof Mrs. Eaton.\" \"It is perhaps owing,\" Mr. Winthrop observes in\nhis History of New England, \"to the gallantry of our fathers, that\nshe was not enjoined in the perpetual malediction they bestowed on\nher husband.\" A few years after, we read, in the \"Information\ngiven by the Corporation and Overseers to the General Court,\" a\nproposition either to make \"the scholars' charges less, or their\ncommons better.\" For a long period after this we have no account\nof the state of commons, \"but it is not probable,\" says Mr.\nPeirce, \"they were materially different from what they have been\nsince.\"\n\nDuring the administration of President Holyoke, from 1737 to 1769,\ncommons were the constant cause of disorders among the students.\nThere appears to have been a very general permission to board in\nprivate families before the year 1737: an attempt was then made to\ncompel the undergraduates to board in commons. After many\nresolutions, a law was finally passed, in 1760, prohibiting them\n\"from dining or supping in any house in town, except on an\ninvitation to dine or sup _gratis_.\" \"The law,\" says Quincy, \"was\nprobably not very strictly enforced. It was limited to one year,\nand was not renewed.\"\n\nAn idea of the quality of commons may be formed from the following\naccounts furnished by Dr. Holyoke and Judge Wingate. According to\nthe former of these gentlemen, who graduated in 1746, the\n\"breakfast was two sizings of bread and a cue of beer\"; and\n\"evening commons were a pye.\" The latter, who graduated thirteen\nyears after, says: \"As to the commons, there were in the morning\nnone while I was in College. At dinner, we had, of rather ordinary\nquality, a sufficiency of meat of some kind, either baked or\nboiled; and at supper, we had either a pint of milk and half a\nbiscuit, or a meat pye of some other kind. Such were the commons\nin the hall in my day. They were rather ordinary; but I was young\nand hearty, and could live comfortably upon them. I had some\nclassmates who paid for their commons and never entered the hall\nwhile they belonged to the College. We were allowed at dinner a\ncue of beer, which was a half-pint, and a sizing of bread, which I\ncannot describe to you. It was quite sufficient for one dinner.\"\nBy a vote of the Corporation in 1750, a law was passed, declaring\n\"that the quantity of commons be as hath been usual, viz. two\nsizes of bread in the morning; one pound of meat at dinner, with\nsufficient sauce\" (vegetables), \"and a half a pint of beer; and at\nnight that a part pie be of the same quantity as usual, and also\nhalf a pint of beer; and that the supper messes be but of four\nparts, though the dinner messes be of six.\" This agrees in\nsubstance with the accounts given above. The consequence of such\ndiet was, \"that the sons of the rich,\" says Mr. Quincy,\n\"accustomed to better fare, paid for commons, which they would not\neat, and never entered the hall; while the students whose\nresources did not admit of such an evasion were perpetually\ndissatisfied.\"\n\nAbout ten years after, another law was made, \"to restrain scholars\nfrom breakfasting in the houses of town's people,\" and provision\nwas made \"for their being accommodated with breakfast in the hall,\neither milk, chocolate, tea, or coffee, as they should\nrespectively choose.\" They were allowed, however, to provide\nthemselves with breakfasts in their own chambers, but not to\nbreakfast in one another's chambers. From this period breakfast\nwas as regularly provided in commons as dinner, but it was not\nuntil about the year 1807 that an evening meal was also regularly\nprovided.\n\nIn the year 1765, after the erection of Hollis Hall, the\naccommodations for students within the walls were greatly\nenlarged; and the inconvenience being thus removed which those had\nexperienced who, living out of the College buildings, were\ncompelled to eat in commons, a system of laws was passed, by which\nall who occupied rooms within the College walls were compelled to\nboard constantly in common, \"the officers to be exempted only by\nthe Corporation, with the consent of the Overseers; the students\nby the President only when they were about to be absent for at\nleast one week.\" Scarcely a year had passed under this new\n_r\u00e9gime_ \"before,\" says Quincy, \"an open revolt of the students\ntook place on account of the provisions, which it took more than a\nmonth to quell.\" \"Although,\" he continues, \"their proceedings were\nviolent, illegal, and insulting, yet the records of the immediate\ngovernment show unquestionably, that the disturbances, in their\norigin, were not wholly without cause, and that they were\naggravated by want of early attention to very natural and\nreasonable complaints.\"\n\nDuring the war of the American Revolution, the difficulty of\nproviding satisfactory commons was extreme, as may be seen from\nthe following vote of the Corporation, passed Aug. 11th, 1777.\n\n\"Whereas by law 9th of Chap. VI. it is provided, 'that there shall\nalways be chocolate, tea, coffee, and milk for breakfast, with\nbread and biscuit and butter,' and whereas the foreign articles\nabove mentioned are now not to be procured without great\ndifficulty, and at a very exorbitant price; therefore, that the\ncharge of commons may be kept as low as possible,--\n\n\"_Voted_, That the Steward shall provide at the common charge only\nbread or biscuit and milk for breakfast; and, if any of the\nscholars choose tea, coffee, or chocolate for breakfast, they\nshall procure those articles for themselves, and likewise the\nsugar and butter to be used with them; and if any scholars choose\nto have their milk boiled, or thickened with flour, if it may be\nhad, or with meal, the Steward, having reasonable notice, shall\nprovide it; and further, as salt fish alone is appointed by the\naforesaid law for the dinner on Saturdays, and this article is now\nrisen to a very high price, and through the scarcity of salt will\nprobably be higher, the Steward shall not be obliged to provide\nsalt fish, but shall procure fresh fish as often as he\ncan.\"--_Quincy's Hist. Harv. Univ._, Vol. II. p. 541.\n\nMany of the facts in the following account of commons prior to,\nand immediately succeeding, the year 1800, have been furnished by\nMr. Royal Morse of Cambridge.\n\nThe hall where the students took their meals was usually provided\nwith ten tables; at each table were placed two messes, and each\nmess consisted of eight persons. The tables where the Tutors and\nSeniors sat were raised eighteen or twenty inches, so as to\noverlook the rest. It was the duty of one of the Tutors or of the\nLibrarian to \"ask a blessing and return thanks,\" and in their\nabsence, the duty devolved on \"the senior graduate or\nundergraduate.\" The waiters were students, chosen from the\ndifferent classes, and receiving for their services suitable\ncompensation. Each table was waited on by members of the class\nwhich occupied it, with the exception of the Tutor's table, at\nwhich members of the Senior Class served. Unlike the _sizars_ and\n_servitors_ at the English universities, the waiters were usually\nmuch respected, and were in many cases the best scholars in their\nrespective classes.\n\nThe breakfast consisted of a specified quantity of coffee, a\n_size_ of baker's biscuit, which was one biscuit, and a _size_ of\nbutter, which was about an ounce. If any one wished for more than\nwas provided, he was obliged to _size_ it, i.e. order from the\nkitchen or buttery, and this was charged as extra commons or\n_sizings_ in the quarter-bill.\n\nAt dinner, every mess was served with eight pounds of meat,\nallowing a pound to each person. On Monday and Thursday the meat\nwas boiled; these days were on this account commonly called\n\"boiling days.\" On the other days the meat was roasted; these were\naccordingly named \"roasting days.\" Two potatoes were allowed to\neach person, which he was obliged to pare for himself. On _boiling\ndays_, pudding and cabbage were added to the bill of fare, and in\ntheir season, greens, either dandelion or the wild pea. Of bread,\na _size_ was the usual quantity apiece, at dinner. Cider was the\ncommon beverage, of which there was no stated allowance, but each\ncould drink as much as he chose. It was brought, on in pewter\nquart cans, two to a mess, out of which they drank, passing them\nfrom mouth to mouth like the English wassail-bowl. The waiters\nreplenished them as soon as they were emptied.\n\nNo regular supper was provided, but a bowl of milk, and a size of\nbread procured at the kitchen, supplied the place of the evening\nmeal.\n\nRespecting the arrangement of the students at table, before\nreferred to, Professor Sidney Willard remarks: \"The intercourse\namong students at meals was not casual or promiscuous. Generally,\nthe students of the same class formed themselves into messes, as\nthey were called, consisting each of eight members; and the length\nof one table was sufficient to seat two messes. A mess was a\nvoluntary association of those who liked each other's company; and\neach member had his own place. This arrangement was favorable for\ngood order; and, where the members conducted themselves with\npropriety, their cheerful conversation, and even exuberant spirits\nand hilarity, if not too boisterous, were not unpleasant to that\nportion of the government who presided at the head table. But the\narrangement afforded opportunities also for combining in factious\nplans and organizations, tending to disorders, which became\ninfectious, and terminated unhappily for all\nconcerned.\"--_Memories of Youth and Manhood_, Vol. II. pp. 192,\n193.\n\nA writer in the New England Magazine, referring to the same\nperiod, says: \"In commons, we fared as well as one half of us had\nbeen accustomed to at home. Our breakfast consisted of a\ngood-sized biscuit of wheaten flour, with butter and coffee,\nchocolate, or milk, at our option. Our dinner was served up on\ndishes of pewter, and our drink, which was cider, in cans of the\nsame material. For our suppers, we went with our bowls to the\nkitchen, and received our rations of milk, or chocolate, and\nbread, and returned with them to our rooms.\"--Vol. III. p. 239.\n\nAlthough much can be said in favor of the commons system, on\naccount of its economy and its suitableness to health and study,\nyet these very circumstances which were its chief recommendation\nwere the occasion also of all the odium which it had to encounter.\n\"That simplicity,\" says Peirce, \"which makes the fare cheap, and\nwholesome, and philosophical, renders it also unsatisfactory to\ndainty palates; and the occasional appearance of some unlucky\nmeat, or other food, is a signal for a general outcry against the\nprovisions.\" In the plain but emphatic words of one who was\nacquainted with the state of commons, as they once were at Harvard\nCollege, \"the butter was sometimes so bad, that a farmer would not\ntake it to grease his cart-wheels with.\" It was the usual practice\nof the Steward, when veal was cheap, to furnish it to the students\nthree, four, and sometimes five times in the week; the same with\nreference to other meats when they could be bought at a low price,\nand especially with lamb. The students, after eating this latter\nkind of meat for five or six successive weeks would often assemble\nbefore the Steward's house, and, as if their natures had been\nchanged by their diet, would bleat and blatter until he was fain\nto promise them a change of food, upon which they would separate\nuntil a recurrence of the same evil compelled them to the same\nmeasures.\n\nThe annexed account of commons at Yale College, in former times,\nis given by President Woolsey, in his Historical Discourse,\npronounced at New Haven, August 14th, 1850.\n\n\"At first, a college without common meals was hardly conceived of;\nand, indeed, if we trace back the history of college as they grew\nup at Paris, nothing is more of their essence than that students\nlived and ate together in a kind of conventual system. No doubt,\nalso, when the town of New Haven was smaller, it was far more\ndifficult to find desirable places for boarding than at present.\nBut however necessary, the Steward's department was always beset\nwith difficulties and exposed to complaints which most gentlemen\npresent can readily understand. The following rations of commons,\nvoted by the Trustees in 1742, will show the state of college fare\nat that time. 'Ordered, that the Steward shall provide the commons\nfor the scholars as follows, viz.: For breakfast, one loaf of\nbread for four, which [the dough] shall weigh one pound. For\ndinner for four, one loaf of bread as aforesaid, two and a half\npounds beef, veal, or mutton, or one and three quarter pounds salt\npork about twice a week in the summer time, one quart of beer, two\npennyworth of sauce [vegetables]. For supper for four, two quarts\nof milk and one loaf of bread, when milk can conveniently be had,\nand when it cannot, then apple-pie, which shall be made of one and\nthree fourth pounds dough, one quarter pound hog's fat, two ounces\nsugar, and half a peck apples.' In 1759 we find, from a vote\nprohibiting the practice, that beer had become one of the articles\nallowed for the evening meal. Soon after this, the evening meal\nwas discontinued, and, as is now the case in the English colleges,\nthe students had supper in their own rooms, which led to\nextravagance and disorder. In the Revolutionary war the Steward\nwas quite unable once or twice to provide food for the College,\nand this, as has already appeared, led to the dispersion of the\nstudents in 1776 and 1777, and once again in 1779 delayed the\nbeginning of the winter term several weeks. Since that time,\nnothing peculiar has occurred with regard to commons, and they\ncontinued with all their evils of coarse manners and wastefulness\nfor sixty years. The conviction, meanwhile, was increasing, that\nthey were no essential part of the College, that on the score of\neconomy they could claim no advantage, that they degraded the\nmanners of students and fomented disorder. The experiment of\nsuppressing them has hitherto been only a successful one. No one,\nwho can retain a lively remembrance of the commons and the manners\nas they were both before and since the building of the new hall in\n1819, will wonder that this resolution was adopted by the\nauthorities of the College.\"--pp. 70-72.\n\nThe regulations which obtained at meal-time in commons were at one\nperiod in these words: \"The waiters in the hall, appointed by the\nPresident, are to put the victuals on the tables spread with\ndecent linen cloths, which are to be washed every week by the\nSteward's procurement, and the Tutors, or some of the senior\nscholars present, are to ask a blessing on the food, and to return\nthanks. All the scholars at mealtime are required to behave\nthemselves decently and gravely, and abstain from loud talking. No\nvictuals, platters, cups, &c. may be carried out of the hall,\nunless in case of sickness, and with liberty from one of the\nTutors. Nor may any scholar go out before thanks are returned. And\nwhen dinner is over, the waiters are to carry the platters and\ncloths back into the kitchen. And if any one shall offend in\neither of these things, or carry away anything belonging to the\nhall without leave, he shall be fined sixpence.\"--_Laws of Yale\nColl._, 1774, p. 19.\n\nFrom a little work by a graduate at Yale College of the class of\n1821, the accompanying remarks, referring to the system of commons\nas generally understood, are extracted.\n\n\"The practice of boarding the students in commons was adopted by\nour colleges, naturally, and perhaps without reflection, from the\nold universities of Europe, and particularly from those of\nEngland. At first those universities were without buildings,\neither for board or lodging; being merely rendezvous for such as\nwished to pursue study. The students lodged at inns, or at private\nhouses, defraying out of their own pockets, and in their own way,\nall charges for board and education. After a while, in consequence\nof the exorbitant demands of landlords, _halls_ were built, and\ncommon tables furnished, to relieve them from such exactions.\nColleges, with chambers for study and lodging, were erected for a\nlike reason. Being founded, in many cases, by private munificence,\nfor the benefit of indigent students, they naturally included in\ntheir economy both lodging-rooms and board. There was also a\n_police_ reason for the measure. It was thought that the students\ncould be better regulated as to their manners and behavior, being\nbrought together under the eye of supervisors.\"\n\nOmitting a few paragraphs, we come to a more particular account of\nsome of the jocose scenes which resulted from the commons system\nas once developed at Yale College.\n\n\"The Tutors, who were seated at raised tables, could not, with all\ntheir vigilance, see all that passed, and they winked at much they\ndid see. Boiled potatoes, pieces of bread, whole loaves, balls of\nbutter, dishes, would be flung back and forth, especially between\nSophomores and Freshmen; and you were never sure, in raising a cup\nto your lips, that it would not be dashed out of your hands, and\nthe contents spilt upon your clothes, by one of these flying\narticles slyly sent at random. Whatever damage was done was\naveraged on our term-bills; and I remember a charge of six hundred\ntumblers, thirty coffee-pots, and I know not how many other\narticles of table furniture, destroyed or carried off in a single\nterm. Speaking of tumblers, it may be mentioned as an instance of\nthe progress of luxury, even there, that down to about 1815 such a\nthing was not known, the drinking-vessels at dinner being\ncapacious pewter mugs, each table being furnished with two. We\nwere at one time a good deal incommoded by the diminutive size of\nthe milk-pitchers, which were all the while empty and gone for\nmore. A waiter mentioned, for our patience, that, when these were\nused up, a larger size would be provided. 'O, if that's the case,\nthe remedy is easy.' Accordingly the hint was passed through the\nroom, the offending pitchers were slyly placed upon the floor,\nand, as we rose from the tables, were crushed under foot. The next\nmorning the new set appeared. One of the classes being tired of\n_lamb, lamb, lamb_, wretchedly cooked, during the season of it,\nexpressed their dissatisfaction by entering the hall bleating; no\nnotice of which being taken, a day or two after they entered in\nadvance of the Tutors, and cleared the tables of it, throwing it\nout of the windows, platters and all, and immediately retired.\n\n\"In truth, not much could be said in commendation of our Alma\nMater's table. A worse diet for sedentary men than that we had\nduring the last days of the _old_ hall, now the laboratory, cannot\nbe imagined. I will not go into particulars, for I hate to talk\nabout food. It was absolutely destructive of health. I know it to\nhave ruined, permanently, the health of some, and I have not the\nleast doubt of its having occasioned, in certain instances which I\ncould specify, incurable debility and premature death.\"--_Scenes\nand Characters in College_, New Haven, 1847, pp. 113-117.\n\nSee INVALID'S TABLE. SLUM.\n\nThat the commons at Dartmouth College were at times of a quality\nwhich would not be called the best, appears from the annexed\nparagraph, written in the year 1774. \"He [Eleazer Wheelock,\nPresident of the College] has had the mortification to lose two\ncows, and the rest were greatly hurt by a contagious distemper, so\nthat they _could not have a full supply of milk_; and once the\npickle leaked out of the beef-barrel, so that the _meat was not\nsweet_. He had also been ill-used with respect to the purchase of\nsome wheat, so that they had smutty bread for a while, &c. The\nscholars, on the other hand, say they scarce ever have anything\nbut pork and greens, without vinegar, and pork and potatoes; that\nfresh meat comes but very seldom, and that the victuals are very\nbadly dressed.\"--_Life of Jeremy Belknap, D.D._, pp. 68, 69.\n\nThe above account of commons applies generally to the system as it\nwas carried out in the other colleges in the United States. In\nalmost every college, commons have been abolished, and with them\nhave departed the discords, dissatisfactions, and open revolts, of\nwhich they were so often the cause.\n\nSee BEVER.\n\n\nCOMMORANTES IN VILLA. Latin; literally, _those abiding in town_.\nIn the University of Cambridge, Eng., the designation of Masters\nof Arts, and others of higher degree, who, residing within the\nprecincts of the University, enjoy the privilege of being members\nof the Senate, without keeping their names on the college boards.\n--_Gradus ad Cantab._\n\nTo have a vote in the Senate, the graduate must keep his name on\nthe books of some college, or on the list of the _commorantes in\nvill\u00e2_.--_Lit. World_, Vol. XII. p. 283.\n\n\nCOMPOSITION. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., translating\nEnglish into Greek or Latin is called _composition_.--_Bristed_.\n\nIn _composition_ and cram I was yet untried.--_Bristed's Five\nYears in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 34.\n\nYou will have to turn English prose into Greek and Latin prose,\nEnglish verse into Greek Iambic Trimeters, and part of some chorus\nin the Agamemnon into Latin, and possibly also into English verse.\nThis is the \"_composition_,\" and is to be done, remember, without\nthe help of books or any other assistance.--_Ibid._, p. 68.\n\nThe term _Composition_ seems in itself to imply that the\ntranslation is something more than a translation.--_Ibid._, p.\n185.\n\nWriting a Latin Theme, or original Latin verses, is designated\n_Original Composition_.--_Bristed_.\n\n\nCOMPOSUIST. A writer; composer. \"This extraordinary word,\" says\nMr. Pickering, in his Vocabulary, \"has been much used at some of\nour colleges, but very seldom elsewhere. It is now rarely heard\namong us. A correspondent observes, that 'it is used in England\namong _musicians_.' I have never met with it in any English\npublications upon the subject of music.\"\n\nThe word is not found, I believe, in any dictionary of the English\ntongue.\n\n\nCOMPOUNDER. One at a university who pays extraordinary fees,\naccording to his means, for the degree he is to take. A _Grand\nCompounder_ pays double fees. See the _Customs and Laws of Univ.\nof Cam., Eng._, p. 297.\n\n\nCONCIO AD CLERUM. A sermon to the clergy. In the English\nuniversities, an exercise or Latin sermon, which is required of\nevery candidate for the degree of D.D. Used sometimes in America.\n\nIn the evening the \"_concio ad clerum_\" will be preached.--_Yale\nLit. Mag._, Vol. XII. p. 426.\n\n\nCONDITION. A student on being examined for admission to college,\nif found deficient in certain studies, is admitted on _condition_\nhe will make up the deficiency, if it is believed on the whole\nthat he is capable of pursuing the studies of the class for which\nhe is offered. The branches in which he is deficient are called\n_conditions_.\n\n  Talks of Bacchus and tobacco, short sixes, sines, transitions,\n  And Alma Mater takes him in on ten or twelve _conditions_.\n    _Poem before Y.H. Soc., Harv. Coll._\n\n                          Praying his guardian powers\n  To assist a poor Sub Fresh at the dread Examination,\n  And free from all _conditions_ to insure his first vacation.\n    _Poem before Iadma of Harv. Coll._\n\n\nCONDITION. To admit a student as member of a college, who on being\nexamined has been found deficient in some particular, the\nprovision of his admission being that he will make up the\ndeficiency.\n\nA young man shall come down to college from New Hampshire, with no\npreparation save that of a country winter-school, shall be\nexamined and \"_conditioned_\" in everything, and yet he shall come\nout far ahead of his city Latin-school classmate.--_A Letter to a\nYoung Man who has just entered College_, 1849, p. 8.\n\nThey find themselves _conditioned_ on the studies of the term, and\nnot very generally respected.--_Harvard Mag._, Vol. I. p. 415.\n\n\nCONDUCT. The title of two clergymen appointed to read prayers at\nEton College, in England.--_Mason. Webster_.\n\n\nCONFESSION. It was formerly the custom in the older American\ncolleges, when a student had rendered himself obnoxious to\npunishment, provided the crime was not of an aggravated nature, to\npardon and restore him to his place in the class, on his\npresenting a confession of his fault, to be read publicly in the\nhall. The Diary of President Leverett, of Harvard College, under\ndate of the 20th of March, 1714, contains an interesting account\nof the confession of Larnel, an Indian student belonging to the\nJunior Sophister class, who had been guilty of some offence for\nwhich he had been dismissed from college.\n\n\"He remained,\" says Mr. Leverett, \"a considerable time at Boston,\nin a state of penance. He presented his confession to Mr.\nPemberton, who thereupon became his intercessor, and in his letter\nto the President expresses himself thus: 'This comes by Larnel,\nwho brings a confession as good as Austin's, and I am charitably\ndisposed to hope it flows from a like spirit of penitence.' In the\npublic reading of his confession, the flowing of his passions was\nextraordinarily timed, and his expressions accented, and most\npeculiarly and emphatically those of the grace of God to him;\nwhich indeed did give a peculiar grace to the performance itself,\nand raised, I believe, a charity in some that had very little I am\nsure, and ratified wonderfully that which I had conceived of him.\nHaving made his public confession, he was restored to his standing\nin the College.\"--_Quincy's Hist. Harv. Univ._, Vol. I. pp. 443,\n444.\n\n\nCONGREGATION. At Oxford, the house of _congregation_ is one of the\ntwo assemblies in which the business of the University, as such,\nis carried on. In this house the Chancellor, or his vicar the\nVice-Chancellor, or in his absence one of his four deputies,\ntermed Pro-Vice-Chancellors, and the two Proctors, either by\nthemselves or their deputies, always preside. The members of this\nbody are regents, \"either regents '_necessary_' or '_ad\nplacitum_,' that is, on the one hand, all doctors and masters of\narts, during the first year of their degree; and on the other, all\nthose who have gone through the year of their necessary regency,\nand which includes all resident doctors, heads of colleges and\nhalls, professors and public lecturers, public examiners, masters\nof the schools, or examiners for responsions or 'little go,' deans\nand censors of colleges, and all other M.A.'s during the second\nyear of their regency.\" The business of the house of congregation,\nwhich may be regarded as the oligarchical body, is chiefly to\ngrant degrees, and pass graces and dispensations.--_Oxford Guide_.\n\n\nCONSERVATOR. An officer who has the charge of preserving the\nrights and privileges of a city, corporation, or community, as in\nRoman Catholic universities.--_Webster_.\n\n\nCONSILIUM ABEUNDI. Latin; freely, _the decree of departure_. In\nGerman universities, the _consilium abeundi_ \"consists in\nexpulsion out of the district of the court of justice within which\nthe university is situated. This punishment lasts a year; after\nthe expiration of which, the banished student can renew his\nmatriculation.\"--_Howitt's Student Life of Germany_, Am. ed., p.\n33.\n\n\nCONSISTORY COURT. In the University of Cambridge, England, there\nis a _consistory court_ of the Chancellor and of the Commissary.\n\"For the former,\" says the Gradus ad Cantabrigiam, \"the\nChancellor, and in his absence the Vice-Chancellor, assisted by\nsome of the heads of houses, and one or more doctors of the civil\nlaw, administers justice desired by any member of the University,\n&c. In the latter, the Commissary acts by authority given him\nunder the seal of the Chancellor, as well in the University as at\nStourbridge and Midsummer fairs, and takes cognizance of all\noffences, &c. The proceedings are the same in both courts.\"\n\n\nCONSTITUTIONAL. Among students at the University of Cambridge,\nEng., a walk for exercise.\n\nThe gallop over Bullington, and the \"_constitutional_\" up\nHeadington.--_Lond. Quart. Rev._, Am. ed., Vol. LXXIII. p. 53.\n\nInstead of boots he [the Cantab] wears easy low-heeled shoes, for\ngreater convenience in fence and ditch jumping, and other feats of\nextempore gymnastics which diversify his\n\"_constitutionals_\".--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed.\n2d, p. 4.\n\nEven the mild walks which are dignified with the name of exercise\nthere, how unlike the Cantab's _constitutional_ of eight miles in\nless than two hours.--_Ibid._, p. 45.\n\nLucky is the man who lives a mile off from his private tutor, or\nhas rooms ten minutes' walk from chapel: he is sure of that much\n_constitutional_ daily.--_Ibid._, p. 224.\n\n\"_Constitutionals_\" of eight miles in less than two hours, varied\nwith jumping hedges, ditches, and gates; \"pulling\" on the river,\ncricket, football, riding twelve miles without drawing bridle,...\nare what he understands by his two hours' exercise.--_Ibid._, p.\n328.\n\n\nCONSTITUTIONALIZING. Walking.\n\nThe most usual mode of exercise is walking,--_constitutionalizing_\nis the Cantab for it.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._,\nEd. 2d, p. 19.\n\n\nCONVENTION. In the University of Cambridge, England, a court\nconsisting of the Master and Fellows of a college, who sit in the\n_Combination Room_, and pass sentence on any young offender\nagainst the laws of soberness and chastity.--_Gradus ad\nCantabrigiam_.\n\n\nCONVICTOR. Latin, _a familiar acquaintance_. In the University of\nOxford, those are called _convictores_ who, although not belonging\nto the foundation of any college or hall, have at any time been\nregents, and have constantly kept their names on the books of some\ncollege or hall, from the time of their admission to the degree of\nM.A., or Doctors in either of the three faculties.--_Oxf. Cal._\n\n\nCONVOCATION. At Oxford, the house of _convocation_ is one of the\ntwo assemblies in which the business of the University, as such,\nis transacted. It consists both of regents and non-regents, \"that\nis, in brief, all masters of arts not 'honorary,' or 'ad eundems'\nfrom Cambridge or Dublin, and of course graduates of a higher\norder.\" In this house, the Chancellor, or his vicar the\nVice-Chancellor, or in his absence one of his four deputies,\ntermed Pro-Vice-Chancellors, and the two Proctors, either by\nthemselves or their deputies, always preside. The business of this\nassembly--which may be considered as the house of commons,\nexcepting that the lords have a vote here equally as in their own\nupper house, i.e. the house of congregation--is unlimited,\nextending to all subjects connected with the well-being of the\nUniversity, including the election of Chancellor, members of\nParliament, and many of the officers of the University, the\nconferring of extraordinary degrees, and the disposal of the\nUniversity ecclesiastical patronage. It has no initiative power,\nthis resting solely with the hebdomadal board, but it can debate,\nand accept or refuse, the measures which originate in that\nboard.--_Oxford Guide. Literary World_, Vol. XII. p. 223.\n\nIn the University of Cambridge, England, an assembly of the Senate\nout of term time is called a _convocation_. In such a case a grace\nis immediately passed to convert the convocation into a\ncongregation, after which the business proceeds as usual.--_Cam.\nCal._\n\n2. At Trinity College, Hartford, the house of _convocation_\nconsists of the Fellows and Professors, with all persons who have\nreceived any academic degree whatever in the same, except such as\nmay be lawfully deprived of their privileges. Its business is such\nas may from time to time be delegated by the Corporation, from\nwhich it derives its existence; and is, at present, limited to\nconsulting and advising for the good of the College, nominating\nthe Junior Fellows, and all candidates for admissions _ad eundem_;\nmaking laws for its own regulation; proposing plans, measures, or\ncounsel to the Corporation; and to instituting, endowing, and\nnaming with concurrence of the same, professorships, scholarships,\nprizes, medals, and the like. This and the _Corporation_ compose\nthe _Senatus Academicus_.--_Calendar Trin. Coll._, 1850, pp. 6, 7.\n\n\nCOPE. In the University of Cambridge, Eng., the ermined robe worn\nby a Doctor in the Senate House, on Congregation Day, is called a\n_cope_.\n\n\nCOPUS. \"Of mighty ale, a large quarte.\"--_Chaucer_.\n\nThe word _copus_ and the beverage itself are both extensively used\namong the _men_ of the University of Cambridge, England. \"The\nconjecture,\" says the Gradus ad Cantabrigiam, \"is surely\nridiculous and senseless, that _Copus_ is contracted from\n_Epis_copus, a bishop, 'a mixture of wine, oranges, and sugar.' A\ncopus of ale is a common fine at the student's table in hall for\nspeaking Latin, or for some similar impropriety.\"\n\n\nCOPY. At Cambridge, Eng., this word is applied exclusively to\npapers of verse composition. It is a public-school term\ntransplanted to the University.--_Bristed_.\n\n\nCORK, CALK. In some of the Southern colleges, this word, with a\nderived meaning, signifies a _complete stopper_. Used in the sense\nof an entire failure in reciting; an utter inability to answer an\ninstructor's interrogatories.\n\n\nCORPORAL PUNISHMENT. In the older American colleges, corporal\npunishment was formerly sanctioned by law, and several instances\nremain on record which show that its infliction was not of rare\noccurrence.\n\nAmong the laws, rules, and scholastic forms established between\nthe years 1642 and 1646, by Mr. Dunster, the first President of\nHarvard College, occurs the following: \"Siquis scholarium ullam\nDei et hujus Collegii legem, sive animo perverso, seu ex supin\u00e2\nnegligenti\u00e2, viol\u00e2rit, postquam fuerit bis admonitus, si non\nadultus, _virgis co\u00ebrceatur_, sin adultus, ad Inspectores Collegii\ndeferendus erit, ut public\u00e8 in eum pro mer\u00edtis animadversio fiat.\"\nIn the year 1656, this law was strengthened by another, recorded\nby Quincy, in these words: \"It is hereby ordered that the\nPresident and Fellows of Harvard College, for the time being, or\nthe major part of them, are hereby empowered, according to their\nbest discretion, to punish all misdemeanors of the youth in their\nsociety, either by fine, or _whipping in the Hall openly_, as the\nnature of the offence shall require, not exceeding ten shillings\nor _ten stripes_ for one offence; and this law to continue in\nforce until this Court or the Overseers of the College provide\nsome other order to punish such offences.\"--_Quincy's Hist. Harv.\nUniv._, Vol. I. pp. 578, 513.\n\nA knowledge of the existence of such laws as the above is in some\nmeasure a preparation for the following relation given by Mr.\nPeirce in his History of Harvard University.\n\n\"At the period when Harvard College was founded,\" says that\ngentleman, \"one of the modes of punishment in the great schools of\nEngland and other parts of Europe was corporal chastisement. It\nwas accordingly introduced here, and was, no doubt, frequently put\nin practice. An instance of its infliction, as part of the\nsentence upon an offender, is presented in Judge Sewall's MS.\nDiary, with the particulars of a ceremonial, which was reserved\nprobably for special occasions. His account will afford some idea\nof the manners and spirit of the age:--\n\n\"'June 15, 1674, Thomas Sargeant was examined by the Corporation\nfinally. The advice of Mr. Danforth, Mr. Stoughton, Mr. Thacher,\nMr. Mather (the present), was taken. This was his sentence:\n\n\"'That being convicted of speaking blasphemous words concerning\nthe H.G., he should be therefore publickly whipped before all the\nscholars.\n\n\"'2. That he should be suspended as to taking his degree of\nBachelor. (This sentence read before him twice at the President's\nbefore the Committee and in the Library, before execution.)\n\n\"'3. Sit alone by himself in the Hall uncovered at meals, during\nthe pleasure of the President and Fellows, and be in all things\nobedient, doing what exercise was appointed him by the President,\nor else be finally expelled the College. The first was presently\nput in execution in the Library (Mr. Danforth, Jr. being present)\nbefore the scholars. He kneeled down, and the instrument, Goodman\nHely, attended the President's word as to the performance of his\npart in the work. Prayer was had before and after by the\nPresident, July 1, 1674.'\"\n\n\"Men's ideas,\" continues Mr. Peirce, \"must have been very\ndifferent from those of the present day, to have tolerated a law\nauthorizing so degrading a treatment of the members of such a\nsociety. It may easily be imagined what complaints and uneasiness\nits execution must frequently have occasioned among the friends\nand connections of those who were the subjects of it. In one\ninstance, it even occasioned the prosecution of a Tutor; but this\nwas as late as 1733, when old rudeness had lost much of the\npeople's reverence. The law, however, was suffered, with some\nmodification, to continue more than a century. In the revised body\nof Laws made in the year 1734, we find this article:\n'Notwithstanding the preceding pecuniary mulcts, it shall be\nlawful for the President, Tutors, and Professors, to punish\nUndergraduates by Boxing, when they shall judge the nature or\ncircumstances of the offence call for it.' This relic of\nbarbarism, however, was growing more and more repugnant to the\ngeneral taste and sentiment. The late venerable Dr. Holyoke, who\nwas of the class of 1746, observed, that in his day 'corporal\npunishment was going out of use'; and at length it was expunged\nfrom the code, never, we trust, to be recalled from the rubbish of\npast absurdities.\"--pp. 227, 228.\n\nThe last movements which were made in reference to corporal\npunishment are thus stated by President Quincy, in his History of\nHarvard University. \"In July, 1755, the Overseers voted, that it\n[the right of boxing] should be 'taken away.' The Corporation,\nhowever, probably regarded it as too important an instrument of\nauthority to be for ever abandoned, and voted, 'that it should be\nsuspended, as to the execution of it, for one year.' When this\nvote came before the Overseers for their sanction, the board\nhesitated, and appointed a large committee 'to consider and make\nreport what punishments they apprehend proper to be substituted\ninstead of boxing, in case it be thought expedient to repeal or\nsuspend the law which allows or establishes the same.' From this\nperiod the law disappeared, and the practice was\ndiscontinued.\"--Vol. II. p. 134.\n\nThe manner in which corporal punishment was formerly inflicted at\nYale College is stated by President Woolsey, in his Historical\nDiscourse, delivered at New Haven, August, 1850. After speaking of\nthe methods of punishing by fines and degradation, he thus\nproceeds to this topic: \"There was a still more remarkable\npunishment, as it must strike the men of our times, and which,\nalthough for some reason or other no traces of it exist in any of\nour laws so far as I have discovered, was in accordance with the\n'good old plan,' pursued probably ever since the origin of\nuniversities. I refer--'horresco referens'--to the punishment of\nboxing or cuffing. It was applied before the Faculty to the\nluckless offender by the President, towards whom the culprit, in a\nstanding position, inclined his head, while blows fell in quick\nsuccession upon either ear. No one seems to have been served in\nthis way except Freshmen and commencing 'Sophimores.'[12] I do not\nfind evidence that this usage much survived the first jubilee of\nthe College. One of the few known instances of it, which is on\nother accounts remarkable, was as follows. A student in the first\nquarter of his Sophomore year, having committed an offence for\nwhich he had been boxed when a Freshman, was ordered to be boxed\nagain, and to have the additional penalty of acting as butler's\nwaiter for one week. On presenting himself, _more academico_, for\nthe purpose of having his ears boxed, and while the blow was\nfalling, he dodged and fled from the room and the College. The\nbeadle was thereupon ordered to try to find him, and to command\nhim to keep himself out of College and out of the yard, and to\nappear at prayers the next evening, there to receive further\norders. He was then publicly admonished and suspended; but in four\ndays after submitted to the punishment adjudged, which was\naccordingly inflicted, and upon his public confession his\nsuspension was taken off. Such public confessions, now unknown,\nwere then exceedingly common.\"\n\nAfter referring to the instance mentioned above, in which corporal\npunishment was inflicted at Harvard College, the author speaks as\nfollows, in reference to the same subject, as connected with the\nEnglish universities. \"The excerpts from the body of Oxford\nstatutes, printed in the very year when this College was founded,\nthreaten corporal punishment to persons of the proper age,--that\nis, below the age of eighteen,--for a variety of offences; and\namong the rest for disrespect to Seniors, for frequenting places\nwhere 'vinum aut quivis alius potus aut herba Nicotiana ordinarie\nvenditur,' for coming home to their rooms after the great Tom or\nbell of Christ's Church had sounded, and for playing football\nwithin the University precincts or in the city streets. But the\nstatutes of Trinity College, Cambridge, contain more remarkable\nrules, which are in theory still valid, although obsolete in fact.\nAll the scholars, it is there said, who are absent from\nprayers,--Bachelors excepted,--if over eighteen years of age,\n'shall be fined a half-penny, but if they have not completed the\nyear of their age above mentioned, they shall be chastised with\nrods in the hall on Friday.' At this chastisement all\nundergraduates were required to be lookers on, the Dean having the\nrod of punishment in his hand; and it was provided also, that\nwhosoever should not answer to his name on this occasion, if a\nboy, should be flogged on Saturday. No doubt this rigor towards\nthe younger members of the society was handed down from the\nmonastic forms which education took in the earlier schools of the\nMiddle Ages. And an advance in the age of admission, as well as a\nchange in the tone of treatment of the young, may account for this\nsystem being laid aside at the universities; although, as is well\nknown, it continues to flourish at the great public schools of\nEngland.\"--pp. 49-51.\n\n\nCORPORATION. The general government of colleges and universities\nis usually vested in a corporation aggregate, which is preserved\nby a succession of members. \"The President and Fellows of Harvard\nCollege,\" says Mr. Quincy in his History of Harvard University,\n\"being the only Corporation in the Province, and so continuing\nduring the whole of the seventeenth century, they early assumed,\nand had by common usage conceded to them, the name of \"_The\nCorporation_,\" by which they designate themselves in all the early\nrecords. Their proceedings are recorded as being done 'at a\nmeeting of _the Corporation_,' or introduced by the formula, 'It\nis ordered by _the Corporation_,' without stating the number or\nthe names of the members present, until April 19th, 1675, when,\nunder President Oakes, the names of those present were first\nentered on the records, and afterwards they were frequently,\nthough not uniformly, inserted.\"--Vol. I. p. 274.\n\n2. At Trinity College, Hartford, the _Corporation_, on which the\n_House of Convocation_ is wholly dependent, and to which, by law,\nbelongs the supreme control of the College, consists of not more\nthan twenty-four Trustees, resident within the State of\nConnecticut; the Chancellor and President of the College being _ex\nofficio_ members, and the Chancellor being _ex officio_ President\nof the same. They have authority to fill their own vacancies; to\nappoint to offices and professorships; to direct and manage the\nfunds for the good of the College; and, in general, to exercise\nthe powers of a collegiate society, according to the provisions of\nthe charter.--_Calendar Trin. Coll._, 1850, p. 6.\n\n\nCOSTUME. At the English universities there are few objects that\nattract the attention of the stranger more than the various\nacademical dresses worn by the members of those institutions. The\nfollowing description of the various costumes assumed in the\nUniversity of Cambridge is taken from \"The Cambridge Guide,\" Ed.\n1845.\n\n\"A _Doctor in Divinity_ has three robes: the _first_, a gown made\nof scarlet cloth, with ample sleeves terminating in a point, and\nlined with rose-colored silk, which is worn in public processions,\nand on all state and festival days;--the _second_ is the cope,\nworn at Great St. Mary's during the service on Litany-days, in the\nDivinity Schools during an Act, and at Conciones ad Clerum; it is\nmade of scarlet cloth, and completely envelops the person, being\nclosed down the front, which is trimmed with an edging of ermine;\nat the back of it is affixed a hood of the same costly fur;--the\n_third_ is a gown made of black silk or poplin, with full, round\nsleeves, and is the habit commonly worn in public by a D.D.;\nDoctors, however, sometimes wear a Master of Arts' gown, with a\nsilk scarf. These several dresses are put over a black silk\ncassock, which covers the entire body, around which it is fastened\nby a broad sash, and has sleeves coming down to the wrists, like a\ncoat. A handsome scarf of the same materials, which hangs over the\nshoulders, and extends to the feet, is always worn with the\nscarlet and black gowns. A square black cloth cap, with silk\ntassel, completes the costume.\n\n\"_Doctors in the Civil Law and in Physic_ have two robes: the\n_first_ is the scarlet gown, as just described, and the _second_,\nor ordinary dress of a D.C.L., is a black silk gown, with a plain\nsquare collar, the sleeves hanging down square to the feet;--the\nordinary gown of an M.D. is of the same shape, but trimmed at the\ncollar, sleeves, and front with rich black silk lace.\n\n\"A _Doctor in Music_ commonly wears the same dress as a D.C.L.;\nbut on festival and scarlet-days is arrayed in a gown made of rich\nwhite damask silk, with sleeves and facings of rose-color, a hood\nof the same, and a round black velvet cap with gold tassel.\n\n\"_Bachelors in Divinity_ and _Masters of Arts_ wear a black gown,\nmade of bombazine, poplin, or silk. It has sleeves extending to\nthe feet, with apertures for the arms just above the elbow, and\nmay be distinguished by the shape of the sleeves, which hang down\nsquare, and are cut out at the bottom like the section of a\nhorseshoe.\n\n\"_Bachelors in the Civil Law and in Physic_ wear a gown of the\nsame shape as that of a Master of Arts.\n\n\"All Graduates of the above ranks are entitled to wear a hat,\ninstead of the square black cloth cap, with their gowns, and the\ncustom of doing so is generally adopted, except by the HEADS,\n_Tutors_, and _University_ and _College Officers_, who consider it\nmore correct to appear in the full academical costume.\n\n\"A _Bachelor of Arts'_ gown is made of bombazine or poplin, with\nlarge sleeves terminating in a point, with apertures for the arms,\njust below the shoulder-joint.[13] _Bachelor Fellow-Commoners_\nusually wear silk gowns, and square velvet caps. The caps of other\nBachelors are of cloth.\n\n\"All the above, being _Graduates_, when they use surplices in\nchapel wear over them their _hoods_, which are peculiar to the\nseveral degrees. The hoods of _Doctors_ are made of scarlet cloth,\nlined with rose-colored silk; those of _Bachelors in Divinity_,\nand _Non-Regent Masters of Arts_, are of black silk; those of\n_Regent Masters of Arts_ and _Bachelors in the Civil Law and in\nPhysic_, of black silk lined with white; and those of _Bachelors\nof Arts_, of black serge, trimmed with a border of white\nlamb's-wool.\n\n\"The dresses of the _Undergraduates_ are the following:--\n\n\"A _Nobleman_ has two gowns: the _first_ in shape like that of the\nFellow-Commoners, is made of purple Ducape, very richly\nembroidered with gold lace, and is worn in public processions, and\non festival-days: a square black velvet cap with a very large gold\ntassel is worn with it;--the _second_, or ordinary gown, is made\nof black silk, with full round sleeves, and a hat is worn with it.\nThe latter dress is worn also by the Bachelor Fellows of King's\nCollege.\n\n\"A _Fellow-Commoner_ wears a black prince's stuff gown, with a\nsquare collar, and straight hanging sleeves, which are decorated\nwith gold lace; and a square black velvet cap with a gold tassel.\n\n\"The Fellow-Commoners of Emmanuel College wear a similar gown,\nwith the addition of several gold-lace buttons attached to the\ntrimmings on the sleeves;--those of Trinity College have a purple\nprince's stuff gown, adorned with silver lace,[14] and a silver\ntassel is attached to the cap;--at Downing the gown is made of\nblack silk, of the same shape, ornamented with tufts and silk\nlace; and a square cap of velvet with a gold tassel is worn. At\nJesus College, a Bachelor's silk gown is worn, plaited up at the\nsleeve, and with a gold lace from the shoulder to the bend of the\narm. At Queen's a Bachelor's silk gown, with a velvet cap and gold\ntassel, is worn: the same at Corpus and Magdalene; at the latter\nit is gathered and looped up at the sleeve,--at the former\n(Corpus) it has velvet facings. Married Fellow-Commoners usually\nwear a black silk gown, with full, round sleeves, and a square\nvelvet cap with silk tassel.[15]\n\n\"The _Pensioner's_ gown and cap are mostly of the same material\nand shape as those of the Bachelor's: the gown differs only in the\nmode of trimming. At Trinity and Caius Colleges the gown is\npurple, with large sleeves, terminating in a point. At St. Peter's\nand Queen's, the gown is precisely the same as that of a Bachelor;\nand at King's, the same, but made of fine black woollen cloth. At\nCorpus Christi is worn a B.A. gown, with black velvet facings. At\nDowning and Trinity Hall the gown is made of black bombazine, with\nlarge sleeves, looped up at the elbows.[16]\n\n\"_Students in the Civil Law and in Physic_, who have kept their\nActs, wear a full-sleeved gown, and are entitled to use a B.A.\nhood.\n\n\"Bachelors of Arts and Undergraduates are obliged by the statutes\nto wear their academical costume constantly in public, under a\npenalty of 6s. 8d. for every omission.[17]\n\n\"Very few of the _University Officers_ have distinctive dresses.\n\n\"The _Chancellor's_ gown is of black damask silk, very richly\nembroidered with gold. It is worn with a broad, rich lace band,\nand square velvet cap with large gold tassel.\n\n\"The _Vice-Chancellor_ dresses merely as a Doctor, except at\nCongregations in the Senate-House, when he wears a cope. When\nproceeding to St. Mary's, or elsewhere, in his official capacity,\nhe is preceded by the three Esquire-Bedells with their silver\nmaces, which were the gift of Queen Elizabeth.\n\n\"The _Regius Professors of the Civil Law and of Physic_, when they\npreside at Acts in the Schools, wear copes, and round black velvet\ncaps with gold tassels.\n\n\"The _Proctors_ are not distinguishable from other Masters of\nArts, except at St. Mary's Church and at Congregations, when they\nwear cassocks and black silk ruffs, and carry the Statutes of the\nUniversity, being attended by two servants, dressed in large blue\ncloaks, ornamented with gold-lace buttons.\n\n\"The _Yeoman-Bedell_, in processions, precedes the\nEsquire-Bedells, carrying an ebony mace, tipped with silver; his\ngown, as well as those of the _Marshal_ and _School-Keeper_, is\nmade of black prince's stuff, with square collar, and square\nhanging sleeves.\"--pp. 28-33.\n\nAt the University of Oxford, Eng., the costume of the Graduates is\nas follows:--\n\n\"The Doctor in Divinity has three dresses: the first consists of a\ngown of scarlet cloth, with black velvet sleeves and facings, a\ncassock, sash, and scarf. This dress is worn on all public\noccasions in the Theatre, in public processions, and on those\nSundays and holidays marked (*) in the _Oxford Calendar_. The\nsecond is a habit of scarlet cloth, and a hood of the same color\nlined with black, and a black silk scarf: the Master of Arts' gown\nis worn under this dress, the sleeves appearing through the\narm-holes of the habit. This is the dress of business; it is used\nin Convocation, Congregation, at Morning Sermons at St. Mary's\nduring the term, and at Afternoon Sermons at St. Peter's during\nLent, with the exception of the Morning Sermon on Quinquagesima\nSunday, and the Morning Sermons in Lent. The third, which is the\nusual dress in which a Doctor of Divinity appears, is a Master of\nArts' gown, with cassock, sash, and scarf. The Vice-Chancellor and\nHeads of Colleges and Halls have no distinguishing dress, but\nappear on all occasions as Doctors in the faculty to which they\nbelong.\n\n\"The dresses worn by Graduates in Law and Physic are nearly the\nsame. The Doctor has three. The first is a gown of scarlet cloth,\nwith sleeves and facings of pink silk, and a round black velvet\ncap. This is the dress of state. The second consists of a habit\nand hood of scarlet cloth, the habit faced and the hood lined with\npink silk. This habit, which is perfectly analogous to the second\ndress of the Doctor in Divinity, has lately grown into disuse; it\nis, however, retained by the Professors, and is always used in\npresenting to Degrees. The third or common dress of a Doctor in\nLaw or Physic nearly resembles that of the Bachelor in these\nfaculties; it is a black silk gown richly ornamented with black\nlace; the hood of the Bachelor of Laws (worn as a dress) is of\npurple silk, lined with white fur.\n\n\"The dress worn by the Doctor of Music on public occasions is a\nrich white damask silk gown, with sleeves and facings of crimson\nsatin, a hood of the same material, and a round black velvet cap.\nThe usual dresses of the Doctor and of the Bachelor in Music are\nnearly the same as those of Law and Physic.\n\n\"The Master of Arts wears a black gown, usually made of prince's\nstuff or crape, with long sleeves which are remarkable for the\ncircular cut at the bottom. The arm comes through an aperture in\nthe sleeve, which hangs down. The hood of a Master of Arts is\nblack silk lined with crimson.\n\n\"The gown of a Bachelor of Arts is also usually made of prince's\nstuff or crape. It has a full sleeve, looped up at the elbow, and\nterminating in a point; the dress hood is black, trimmed with\nwhite fur. In Lent, at the time of _determining_ in the Schools, a\nstrip of lamb's-wool is worn in addition to the hood. Noblemen and\nGentlemen-Commoners, who take the Degrees of Bachelor and Master\nof Arts, wear their gowns of silk.\"\n\nThe costume of the Undergraduates is thus described:--\n\n\"The Nobleman has two dresses; the first, which is worn in the\nTheatre, in processions, and on all public occasions, is a gown of\npurple damask silk, richly ornamented with gold lace. The second\nis a black silk gown, with full sleeves; it has a tippet attached\nto the shoulders. With both these dresses is worn a square cap of\nblack velvet, with a gold tassel.\n\n\"The Gentleman-Commoner has two gowns, _both of black silk_; the\nfirst, which is considered as a dress gown, although worn on all\noccasions, at pleasure, is richly ornamented with tassels. The\nsecond, or undress gown, is ornamented with plaits at the sleeves.\nA square black velvet cap with a silk tassel, is worn with both.\n\n\"The dress of Commoners is a gown of black prince's stuff, without\nsleeves; from each shoulder is appended a broad strip, which\nreaches to the bottom of the dress, and towards the top is\ngathered into plaits. Square cap of black cloth and silk tassel.\n\n\"The student in Civil Law, or Civilian, wears a plain black silk\ngown, and square cloth cap, with silk tassel.\n\n\"Scholars and Demies of Magdalene, and students of Christ Church\nwho have not taken a degree, wear a plain black gown of prince's\nstuff, with round, full sleeves half the length of the gown, and a\nsquare black cap, with silk tassel.\n\n\"The dress of the Servitor is the same as that of the Commoner,\nbut it has no plaits at the shoulder, and the cap is without a\ntassel.\"\n\nThe costume of those among the University Officers who are\ndistinguished by their dress, may be thus noted:--\n\n\"The dress of the Chancellor is of black damask silk, richly\nornamented with gold embroidery, a rich lace band, and square\nvelvet cap, with a large gold tassel.\n\n\"The Proctors wear gowns of prince's stuff, the sleeves and\nfacings of black velvet; to the left shoulder is affixed a small\ntippet. To this is added, as a dress, a large ermine hood.\n\n\"The Pro-Proctor wears a Master of Arts' gown, faced with velvet,\nwith a tippet attached to the left shoulder.\"\n\nThe Collectors wear the same dress as the Proctors, with the\nexception of the hood and tippet.\n\nThe Esquire Bedels wear silk gowns, similar to those of Bachelors\nof Law, and round velvet caps. The Yeoman Bedels have black stuff\ngowns, and round silk caps.\n\nThe dress of the Verger is nearly the same as that of the Yeoman\nBedel.\n\n\"Bands at the neck are considered as necessary appendages to the\nacademic dress, particularly on all public occasions.\"--_Guide to\nOxford_.\n\nSee DRESS.\n\n\nCOURTS. At the English universities, the squares or acres into\nwhich each college is divided. Called also quadrangles,\nabbreviated quads.\n\nAll the colleges are constructed in quadrangles or _courts_; and,\nas in course of years the population of every college, except\none,[18] has outgrown the original quadrangle, new courts have\nbeen added, so that the larger foundations have three, and one[19]\nhas four courts.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d,\np. 2.\n\n\nCRACKLING. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., in common\nparlance, the three stripes of velvet which a member of St. John's\nCollege wears on his sleeve, are designated by this name.\n\nVarious other gowns are to be discerned, the Pembroke looped at\nthe sleeve, the Christ's and Catherine curiously crimped in front,\nand the Johnian with its unmistakable \"_Crackling_\"--_Bristed's\nFive Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 73.\n\n\nCRAM. To prepare a student to pass an examination; to study in\nview of examination. In the latter sense used in American\ncolleges.\n\nIn the latter [Euclid] it is hardly possible, at least not near so\neasy as in Logic, to present the semblance of preparation by\nlearning questions and answers by rote:--in the cant phrase of\nundergraduates, by getting _crammed_.--_Whalely's Logic, Preface_.\n\n  For many weeks he \"_crams_\" him,--daily does he rehearse.\n    _Poem before the Iadma of Harv. Coll._, 1850.\n\nA class of men arose whose business was to _cram_ the candidates.\n--_Lit. World_, Vol. XII. p. 246.\n\nIn a wider sense, to prepare another, or one's self, by study, for\nany occasion.\n\nThe members of the bar were lounging about that tabooed precinct,\nsome smoking, some talking and laughing, some poring over long,\nill-written papers or large calf-bound books, and all big with the\nponderous interests depending upon them, and the eloquence and\nlearning with which they were \"_crammed_\" for the\noccasion.--_Talbot and Vernon_.\n\nWhen he was to write, it was necessary to _cram_ him with the\nfacts and points.--_F.K. Hunt's Fourth Estate_, 1850.\n\n\nCRAM. All miscellaneous information about Ancient History,\nGeography, Antiquities, Law, &c.; all classical matter not\nincluded under the heads of TRANSLATION and COMPOSITION, which can\nbe learned by CRAMMING. Peculiar to the English\nUniversities.--_Bristed_.\n\n2. The same as CRAMMING, which see.\n\nI have made him promise to give me four or five evenings of about\nhalf an hour's _cram_ each.--_Collegian's Guide_, p. 240.\n\nIt is not necessary to practise \"_cram_\" so outrageously as at\nsome of the college examinations.--_Westminster Rev._, Am. ed.,\nVol. XXXV. p. 237.\n\n3. A paper on which is written something necessary to be learned,\nprevious to an examination.\n\n\"Take care what you light your cigars with,\" said Belton, \"you'll\nbe burning some of Tufton's _crams_: they are stuck all about the\npictures.\"--_Collegian's Guide_, p. 223.\n\nHe puzzled himself with his _crams_ he had in his pocket, and\ncopied what he did not understand.--_Ibid._, p. 279.\n\n\nCRAMBAMBULI. A favorite drink among the students in the German\nuniversities, composed of burnt rum and sugar.\n\n  _Crambambuli_, das ist der Titel\n    Des Tranks, der sich bei uns bew\u00e4hrt.\n    _Drinking song_.\n\nTo the next! let's have the _crambambuli_ first, however.--_Yale\nLit. Mag._, Vol. XII. p. 117.\n\n\nCRAM BOOK. A book in which are laid down such topics as constitute\nan examination, together with the requisite answers to the\nquestions proposed on that occasion.\n\nHe in consequence engages a private tutor, and buys all the _cram\nbooks_ published for the occasion.--_Gradus ad Cantab._, p. 128.\n\n\nCRAMINATION. A farcical word, signifying the same as _cramming_;\nthe termination _tion_ being suffixed for the sake of mock\ndignity.\n\nThe ---- scholarship is awarded to the student in each Senior\nClass who attends most to _cramination_ on the College\ncourse.--_Burlesque Catalogue_, Yale Coll., 1852-53, p. 28.\n\n\nCRAM MAN. One who is cramming for an examination.\n\nHe has read all the black-lettered divinity in the Bodleian, and\nsays that none of the _cram men_ shall have a chance with\nhim.--_Collegian's Guide_, p. 274.\n\n\nCRAMMER. One who prepares another for an examination.\n\nThe qualifications of a _crammer_ are given in the following\nextract from the Collegian's Guide.\n\n\"The first point, therefore, in which a crammer differs from other\ntutors, is in the selection of subjects. While another tutor would\nteach every part of the books given up, he virtually reduces their\nquantity, dwelling chiefly on the 'likely parts.'\n\n\"The second point in which a crammer excels is in fixing the\nattention, and reducing subjects to the comprehension of\nill-formed and undisciplined minds.\n\n\"The third qualification of a crammer is a happy manner and\naddress, to encourage the desponding, to animate the idle, and to\nmake the exertions of the pupil continually increase in such a\nratio, that he shall be wound up to concert pitch by the day of\nentering the schools.\"--pp. 231, 232.\n\n\nCRAMMING. A cant term, in the British universities, for the act of\npreparing a student to pass an examination, by going over the\ntopics with him beforehand, and furnishing him with the requisite\nanswers.--_Webster_.\n\nThe author of the Collegian's Guide, speaking of examinations,\nsays: \"First, we must observe that all examinations imply the\nexistence of examiners, and examiners, like other mortal beings,\nlie open to the frauds of designing men, through the uniformity\nand sameness of their proceedings. This uniformity inventive men\nhave analyzed and reduced to a system, founding thereon a certain\nscience, and corresponding art, called _Cramming_.\"--p. 229.\n\nThe power of \"_cramming_\"--of filling the mind with knowledge\nhastily acquired for a particular occasion, and to be forgotten\nwhen that occasion is past--is a power not to be despised, and of\nmuch use in the world, especially at the bar.--_Westminster Rev._,\nAm. ed., Vol. XXXV. p. 237.\n\nI shall never forget the torment I suffered in _cramming_ long\nlessons in Greek Grammar.--_Dickens's Household Words_, Vol. I. p.\n192.\n\n\nCRAM PAPER. A paper in which are inserted such questions as are\ngenerally asked at an examination. The manner in which these\nquestions are obtained is explained in the following extract.\n\"Every pupil, after his examination, comes to thank him as a\nmatter of course; and as every man, you know, is loquacious enough\non such occasions, Tufton gets out of him all the questions he was\nasked in the schools; and according to these questions, he has\nmoulded his _cram papers_.\"--_Collegian's Guide_, p. 239.\n\nWe should be puzzled to find any questions more absurd and\nunreasonable than those in the _cram papers_ in the college\nexamination.--_Westminster Rev._, Am. ed., Vol. XXXV. p. 237.\n\n\nCRIB. Probably a translation; a pony.\n\nOf the \"Odes and Epodes of Horace, translated literally and\nrhythmically\" by W. Sewell, of Oxford, the editor of the Literary\nWorld remarks: \"Useful as a '_crib_,' it is also poetical.\"--Vol.\nVIII. p. 28.\n\n\nCROW'S-FOOT. At Harvard College a badge formerly worn on the\nsleeve, resembling a crow's foot, to denote the class to which a\nstudent belongs. In the regulations passed April 29, 1822, for\nestablishing the style of dress among the students at Harvard\nCollege, we find the following. A part of the dress shall be\n\"three crow's-feet, made of black silk cord, on the lower part of\nthe sleeve of a Senior, two on that of a Junior, and one on that\nof a Sophomore.\" The Freshmen were not allowed to wear the\ncrow's-foot, and the custom is now discontinued, although an\nunsuccessful attempt was made to revive it a few years ago.\n\nThe Freshman scampers off at the first bell for the chapel, where,\nfinding no brother student of a higher class to encourage his\npunctuality, he crawls back to watch the starting of some one\nblessed with a _crow's-foot_, to act as vanguard.--_Harv. Reg._,\np. 377.\n\n  The corded _crow's-feet_, and the collar square,\n  The change and chance of earthly lot must share.\n    _Class Poem at Harv. Coll._, 1835, p. 18.\n\n  What if the creature should arise,--\n    For he was stout and tall,--\n  And swallow down a Sophomore,\n    Coat, _crow's-foot_, cap, and all.\n    _Holmes's Poems_, 1850, p. 109.\n\n\nCUE, KUE, Q. A small portion of bread or beer; a term formerly\ncurrent in both the English universities, the letter q being the\nmark in the buttery books to denote such a piece. Q would seem to\nstand for _quadrans_, a farthing; but Minsheu says it was only\nhalf that sum, and thus particularly explains it: \"Because they\nset down in the battling or butterie bookes in Oxford and\nCambridge, the letter q for half a farthing; and in Oxford when\nthey make that cue or q a farthing, they say, _cap my q_, and make\nit a farthing, thus, [Symbol: small q with a line over]. But in\nCambridge they use this letter, a little f; thus, f, or thus, s,\nfor a farthing.\" He translates it in Latin _calculus panis_. Coles\nhas, \"A _cue_ [half a farthing] minutum.\"--_Nares's Glossary_.\n\n\"A cue of bread,\" says Halliwell, \"is the fourth part of a\nhalf-penny crust. A cue of beer, one draught.\"\n\nJ. Woods, under-butler of Christ Church, Oxon, said he would never\nsitt capping of _cues_.--_Urry's MS._ add. to Ray.\n\nYou are still at Cambridge with size _kue_.--_Orig. of Dr._, III.\np. 271.\n\nHe never drank above size _q_ of Helicon.--_Eachard, Contempt of\nCl._, p. 26.\n\n\"_Cues_ and _cees_,\" says Nares, \"are generally mentioned\ntogether, the _cee_ meaning a small measure of beer; but why, is\nnot equally explained.\" From certain passages in which they are\nused interchangeably, the terms do not seem to have been well\ndefined.\n\nHee [the college butler] domineers over freshmen, when they first\ncome to the hatch, and puzzles them with strange language of\n_cues_ and _cees_, and some broken Latin, which he has learnt at\nhis bin.--_Earle's Micro-cosmographie_, (1628,) Char. 17.\n\nThe word _cue_ was formerly used at Harvard College. Dr. Holyoke,\nwho graduated in 1746, says, the \"breakfast was two sizings of\nbread and a _cue_ of beer.\" Judge Wingate, who graduated thirteen\nyears after, says: \"We were allowed at dinner a _cue_ of beer,\nwhich was a half-pint.\"\n\nIt is amusing to see, term after term, and year after year, the\nformal votes, passed by this venerable body of seven ruling and\nteaching elders, regulating the price at which a _cue_ (a\nhalf-pint) of cider, or a _sizing_ (ration) of bread, or beef,\nmight be sold to the student by the butler.--_Eliot's Sketch of\nHist. Harv. Coll._, p. 70.\n\n\nCUP. Among the English Cantabs, \"an odious mixture ... compounded\nof spice and cider.\"--_Westminster Rev._, Am. ed., Vol. XXXV. p.\n239.\n\n\nCURL. In the University of Virginia, to make a perfect recitation;\nto overwhelm a Professor with student learning.\n\n\nCUT. To be absent from; to neglect. Thus, a person is said to\n\"_cut_ prayers,\" to \"_cut_ lecture,\" &c. Also, to \"_cut_ Greek\" or\n\"Latin\"; i.e. to be absent from the Greek or Latin recitation.\nAnother use of the word is, when one says, \"I _cut_ Dr. B----, or\nProf. C----, this morning,\" meaning that he was absent from their\nexercises.\n\nPrepare to _cut_ recitations, _cut_ prayers, _cut_ lectures,--ay,\nto _cut_ even the President himself.--_Oration before H.L. of I.O.\nof O.F._ 1848.\n\nNext morn he _cuts_ his maiden prayer, to his last night's text\nabiding.--_Poem before Y.H. of Harv. Coll._, 1849.\n\n  As soon as we were Seniors,\n    We _cut_ the morning prayers,\n  We showed the Freshmen to the door,\n    And helped them down the stairs.\n    _Presentation Day Songs_, June 15, 1854.\n\nWe speak not of individuals but of majorities, not of him whose\nambition is to \"_cut_\" prayers and recitations so far as possible.\n--_Williams Quarterly_, Vol. II. p. 15.\n\nThe two rudimentary lectures which he was at first forced to\nattend, are now pressed less earnestly upon his notice. In fact,\nhe can almost entirely \"_cut_\" them, if he likes, and does _cut_\nthem accordingly, as a waste of time,--_Household Words_, Vol. II.\np. 160.\n\n_To cut dead_, in student use, to neglect entirely.\n\nI _cut_ the Algebra and Trigonometry papers _dead_ my first year,\nand came out seventh.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._,\nEd. 2d, p. 51.\n\nThis word is much used in the University of Cambridge, England, as\nappears from the following extract from a letter in the\nGentleman's Magazine, written with reference to some of the\ncustoms there observed:--\"I remarked, also, that they frequently\nused the words _to cut_, and to sport, in senses to me totally\nunintelligible. A man had been cut in chapel, cut at afternoon\nlectures, cut in his tutor's rooms, cut at a concert, cut at a\nball, &c. Soon, however, I was told of men, _vice versa_, who cut\na figure, _cut_ chapel, _cut_ gates, _cut_ lectures, _cut_ hall,\n_cut_ examinations, cut particular connections; nay, more, I was\ninformed of some who _cut_ their tutors!\"--_Gent. Mag._, 1794, p.\n1085.\n\nThe instances in which the verb _to cut_ is used in the above\nextract without Italics, are now very common both in England and\nAmerica.\n\n_To cut Gates_. To enter college after ten o'clock,--the hour of\nshutting them.--_Gradus ad Cantab._, p. 40.\n\n\nCUT. An omission of a recitation. This phrase is frequently heard:\n\"We had a cut to-day in Greek,\" i.e. no recitation in Greek.\nAgain, \"Prof. D---- gave us a cut,\" i.e. he had no recitation. A\ncorrespondent from Bowdoin College gives, in the following\nsentence, the manner in which this word is there used:--\"_Cuts_.\nWhen a class for any reason become dissatisfied with one of the\nFaculty, they absent themselves from his recitation, as an\nexpression of their feelings\"\n\n\n\n_D_.\n\n\nD.C.L. An abbreviation for _Doctor Civilis Legis_, Doctor in Civil\nLaw. At the University of Oxford, England, this degree is\nconferred four years after receiving the degree of B.C.L. The\nexercises are three lectures. In the University of Cambridge,\nEngland, a D.C.L. must be a B.C.L. of five years' standing, or an\nM.A. of seven years' standing, and must have kept two acts.\n\n\nD.D. An abbreviation of _Divinitatis Doctor_, Doctor in Divinity.\nAt the University of Cambridge, England, this degree is conferred\non a B.D. of five, or an M.A. of twelve years' standing. The\nexercises are one act, two opponencies, a clerum, and an English\nsermon. At Oxford it is given to a B.D. of four, or a regent M.A.\nof eleven years' standing. The exercises are three lectures. In\nAmerican colleges this degree is honorary, and is conferred _pro\nmeritis_ on those who are distinguished as theologians.\n\n\nDEAD. To be unable to recite; to be ignorant of the lesson; to\ndeclare one's self unprepared to recite.\n\nBe ready, in fine, to cut, to drink, to smoke, to\n_dead_.--_Oration before H.L. of I.O. of O.F._, 1848.\n\nI see our whole lodge desperately striving to _dead_, by doing\nthat hardest of all work, nothing.--_Ibid._, 1849.\n\n_Transitively_; to cause one to fail in reciting. Said of a\nteacher who puzzles a scholar with difficult questions, and\nthereby causes him to fail.\n\n  Have I been screwed, yea, _deaded_ morn and eve,\n  Some dozen moons of this collegiate life,\n  And not yet taught me to philosophize?\n    _Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 255.\n\n\nDEAD. A complete failure; a declaration that one is not prepared\nto recite.\n\nOne must stand up in the singleness of his ignorance to understand\nall the mysterious feelings connected with a _dead_.--_Harv.\nReg._, p. 378.\n\n  And fearful of the morrow's screw or _dead_,\n  Takes book and candle underneath his bed.\n    _Class Poem, by B.D. Winslow, at Harv. Coll._, 1835, p. 10.\n\n  He, unmoved by Freshman's curses,\n  Loves the _deads_ which Freshmen make.--_MS. Poem_.\n\n  But oh! what aching heads had they!\n  What _deads_ they perpetrated the succeeding day.--_Ibid._\n\nIt was formerly customary in many colleges, and is now in a few,\nto talk about \"taking a dead.\"\n\n  I have a most instinctive dread\n  Of getting up to _take a dead_,\n    Unworthy degradation!--_Harv. Reg._, p. 312.\n\n\nDEAD-SET. The same as a DEAD, which see.\n\n  Now's the day and now's the hour;\n  See approach Old Sikes's power;\n  See the front of Logic lower;\n    Screws, _dead-sets_, and fines.--_Rebelliad_, p. 52.\n\nGrose has this word in his Slang Dictionary, and defines it \"a\nconcerted scheme to defraud a person by gaming.\" \"This phrase,\"\nsays Bartlett, in his Dictionary of Americanisms, \"seems to be\ntaken from the lifeless attitude of a pointer in marking his\ngame.\"\n\n\"The lifeless attitude\" seems to be the only point of resemblance\nbetween the above definitions, and the appearance of one who is\n_taking a dead set_. The word has of late years been displaced by\nthe more general use of the word _dead_, with the same meaning.\n\nThe phrase _to be at a dead-set_, implying a fixed state or\ncondition which precludes further progress, is in general use.\n\n\nDEAN. An officer in each college of the universities in England,\nwhose duties consist in the due preservation of the college\ndiscipline.\n\n\"Old Holingshed,\" says the Gradus ad Cantabrigiam, \"in his\nChronicles, describing Cambridge, speaks of 'certain censors, or\n_deanes_, appointed to looke to the behaviour and manner of the\nStudents there, whom they punish _very severely_, if they make any\ndefault, according to the quantitye and qualitye of their\ntrespasses.' When _flagellation_ was enforced at the universities,\nthe Deans were the ministers of vengeance.\"\n\nAt the present time, a person applying for admission to a college\nin the University of Cambridge, Eng., is examined by the Dean and\nthe Head Lecturer. \"The Dean is the presiding officer in chapel,\nand the only one whose presence there is indispensable. He\noversees the markers' lists, pulls up the absentees, and receives\ntheir excuses. This office is no sinecure in a large college.\" At\nOxford \"the discipline of a college is administered by its head,\nand by an officer usually called Dean, though, in some colleges,\nknown by other names.\"--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._,\nEd. 2d, pp. 12, 16. _Literary World_, Vol. XII. p. 223.\n\nIn the older American colleges, whipping and cuffing were\ninflicted by a tutor, professor, or president; the latter,\nhowever, usually employed an agent for this purpose.\n\nSee under CORPORAL PUNISHMENT.\n\n2. In the United States, a registrar of the faculty in some\ncolleges, and especially in medical institutions.--_Webster_.\n\nA _dean_ may also be appointed by the Faculty of each Professional\nSchool, if deemed expedient by the Corporation.--_Laws Univ. at\nCam., Mass._, 1848, p. 8.\n\n3. The head or president of a college.\n\nYou rarely find yourself in a shop, or other place of public\nresort, with a Christ-Church-man, but he takes occasion, if young\nand frivolous, to talk loudly of the _Dean_, as an indirect\nexpression of his own connection with this splendid college; the\ntitle of _Dean_ being exclusively attached to the headship of\nChrist Church.--_De Quincey's Life and Manners_, p. 245.\n\n\nDEAN OF CONVOCATION. At Trinity College, Hartford, this officer\npresides in the _House of Convocation_, and is elected by the\nsame, biennially.--_Calendar Trin. Coll._, 1850, p. 7.\n\n\nDEAN'S BOUNTY. In 1730, the Rev. Dr. George Berkeley, then Dean of\nDerry, in Ireland, came to America, and resided a year or two at\nNewport, Rhode Island, \"where,\" says Clap, in his History of Yale\nCollege, \"he purchased a country seat, with about ninety-six acres\nof land.\" On his return to London, in 1733, he sent a deed of his\nfarm in Rhode Island to Yale College, in which it was ordered,\n\"that the rents of the farm should be appropriated to the\nmaintenance of the three best scholars in Greek and Latin, who\nshould reside at College at least nine months in a year, in each\nof the three years between their first and second degrees.\"\nPresident Clap further remarks, that \"this premium has been a\ngreat incitement to a laudable ambition to excel in the knowledge\nof the classics.\" It was commonly known as the _Dean's\nbounty_.--_Clap's Hist. of Yale Coll._, pp. 37, 38.\n\nThe Dean afterwards conveyed to it [Yale College], by a deed\ntransmitted to Dr. Johnson, his Rhode Island farm, for the\nestablishment of that _Dean's bounty_, to which sound classical\nlearning in Connecticut has been much indebted.--_Hist. Sketch of\nColumbia Coll._, p. 19.\n\n\nDEAN SCHOLAR. The person who received the money appropriated by\nDean Berkeley was called the _Dean scholar_.\n\nThis premium was formerly called the Dean's bounty, and the person\nwho received it the _Dean scholar_.--_Sketches of Yale Coll._, p.\n87.\n\n\nDECENT. Tolerable; pretty good. He is a _decent_ scholar; a\n_decent_ writer; he is nothing more than _decent_. \"This word,\"\nsays Mr. Pickering, in his Vocabulary, \"has been in common use at\nsome of our colleges, but only in the language of conversation.\nThe adverb _decently_ (and possibly the adjective also) is\nsometimes used in a similar manner in some parts of Great\nBritain.\"\n\nThe greater part of the pieces it contains may be said to be very\n_decently_ written.--_Edinb. Rev._, Vol. I. p. 426.\n\n\nDECLAMATION. The word is applied especially to the public speaking\nand speeches of students in colleges, practised for exercises in\noratory.--_Webster_.\n\nIt would appear by the following extract from the old laws of\nHarvard College, that original declamations were formerly required\nof the students. \"The Undergraduates shall in their course declaim\npublicly in the hall, in one of the three learned languages; and\nin no other without leave or direction from the President, and\nimmediately give up their declamations fairly written to the\nPresident. And he that neglects this exercise shall be punished by\nthe President or Tutor that calls over the weekly bill, not\nexceeding five shillings. And such delinquent shall within one\nweek after give in to the President a written declamation\nsubscribed by himself.\"--_Laws 1734, in Peirce's Hist. Harv.\nUniv._, App., p. 129.\n\n2. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., an essay upon a given\nsubject, written in view of a prize, and publicly recited in the\nchapel of the college to which the writer belongs.\n\n\nDECLAMATION BOARDS. At Bowdoin College, small establishments in\nthe rear of each building, for urinary purposes.\n\n\nDEDUCTION. In some of the American colleges, one of the minor\npunishments for non-conformity with laws and regulations is\ndeducting from the marks which a student receives for recitations\nand other exercises, and by which his standing in the class is\ndetermined.\n\nSoften down the intense feeling with which he relates heroic\nRapid's _deductions_.--_Harv. Mag._, Vol. I. p. 267.\n\n2. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., an original proposition\nin geometry.\n\n\"How much Euclid did you do? Fifteen?\"\n\n\"No, fourteen; one of them was a _deduction_.\"--_Bristed's Five\nYears in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 75.\n\nWith a mathematical tutor, the hour of tuition is a sort of\nfamiliar examination, working out examples, _deductions_,\n&c.--_Ibid._, pp. 18, 19.\n\n\nDEGRADATION. In the older American colleges, it was formerly\ncustomary to arrange the members of each class in an order\ndetermined by the rank of the parent. \"Degradation consisted in\nplacing a student on the list, in consequence of some offence,\nbelow the level to which his father's condition would assign him;\nand thus declared that he had disgraced his family.\"\n\nIn the Immediate Government Book, No. IV., of Harvard College,\ndate July 20th, 1776, is the following entry: \"Voted, that\nTrumbal, a Middle Bachelor, who was degraded to the bottom of his\nclass for his misdemeanors when an undergraduate, having presented\nan humble confession of his faults, with a petition to be restored\nto his place in the class in the Catalogue now printing, be\nrestored agreeable to his request.\" The Triennial Catalogue for\nthat year was the first in which the names of the students\nappeared in an alphabetical order. The class of 1773 was the first\nin which the change was made.\n\n\"The punishment of degradation,\" says President Woolsey, in his\nHistorical Discourse before the Graduates of Yale College, \"laid\naside not very long before the beginning of the Revolutionary war,\nwas still more characteristic of the times. It was a method of\nacting upon the aristocratic feelings of family; and we at this\nday can hardly conceive to what extent the social distinctions\nwere then acknowledged and cherished. In the manuscript laws of\nthe infant College, we find the following regulation, which was\nborrowed from an early ordinance of Harvard under President\nDunster. 'Every student shall be called by his surname, except he\nbe the son of a nobleman, or a knight's eldest son.' I know not\nwhether such a 'rara avis in terris' ever received the honors of\nthe College; but a kind of colonial, untitled aristocracy grew up,\ncomposed of the families of chief magistrates, and of other\ncivilians and ministers. In the second year of college life,\nprecedency according to the aristocratic scale was determined, and\nthe arrangement of names on the class roll was in accordance. This\nappears on our Triennial Catalogue until 1768, when the minds of\nmen began to be imbued with the notion of equality. Thus, for\ninstance, Gurdon Saltonstall, son of the Governor of that name,\nand descendant of Sir Richard, the first emigrant of the family,\nheads the class of 1725, and names of the same stock begin the\nlists of 1752 and 1756. It must have been a pretty delicate matter\nto decide precedence in a multitude of cases, as in that of the\nsons of members of the Council or of ministers, to which class\nmany of the scholars belonged. The story used to circulate, as I\ndare say many of the older graduates remember, that a shoemaker's\nson, being questioned as to the quality of his father, replied,\nthat _he was upon the bench_, which gave him, of course, a high\nplace.\"--pp. 48, 49.\n\nSee under PLACE.\n\n\nDEGRADE. At the English universities to go back a year.\n\n\"'_Degrading_,' or going back a year,\" says Bristed, \"is not\nallowed except in case of illness (proved by a doctor's\ncertificate). A man _degrading_ for any other reason cannot go out\nafterwards in honors.\"--_Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p.\n98.\n\nI could choose the year below without formally\n_degrading_.--_Ibid._, p. 157.\n\n\nDEGREE. A mark of distinction conferred on students, as a\ntestimony of their proficiency in arts and sciences; giving them a\nkind of rank, and entitling them to certain privileges. This is\nusually evidenced by a diploma. Degrees are conferred _pro\nmeritis_ on the alumni of a college; or they are honorary tokens\nof respect, conferred on strangers of distinguished reputation.\nThe _first degree_ is that of _Bachelor of Arts_; the _second_,\nthat _of Master of Arts_. Honorary degrees are those of _Doctor of\nDivinity_, _Doctor of Laws_, &c. Physicians, also, receive the\ndegree of _Doctor of Medicine_.--_Webster_.\n\n\nDEGREE EXAMINATION. At the English universities, the final\nuniversity examination, which must be passed before the B.A.\ndegree is conferred.\n\nThe Classical Tripos is generally spoken of as _the_ Tripos, the\nMathematical one as _the Degree Examination_.--_Bristed's Five\nYears in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 170.\n\n\nDELTA. A piece of land in Cambridge, which belongs to Harvard\nCollege, where the students kick football, and play at cricket,\nand other games. The shape of the land is that of the Greek\nDelta, whence its name.\n\nWhat was unmeetest of all, timid strangers as we were, it was\nexpected on the first Monday eventide after our arrival, that we\nshould assemble on a neighboring green, the _Delta_, since devoted\nto the purposes of a gymnasium, there to engage in a furious\ncontest with those enemies, the Sophs, at kicking football and\nshins.--_A Tour through College_, 1823-1827, p. 13.\n\nWhere are the royal cricket-matches of old, the great games of\nfootball, when the obtaining of victory was a point of honor, and\ncrowds assembled on the _Delta_ to witness the all-absorbing\ncontest?--_Harvardiana_, Vol. I. p. 107.\n\nI must have another pair of pantaloons soon, for I have burst the\nknees of two, in kicking football on the _Delta_.--_Ibid._, Vol.\nIII. p. 77.\n\n  The _Delta_ can tell of the deeds we've done,\n  The fierce-fought fields we've lost and won,\n    The shins we've cracked,\n    And noses we've whacked,\n  The eyes we've blacked, and all in fun.\n    _Class Poem, 1849, Harv. Coll._\n\nA plat at Bowdoin College, of this shape, and used for similar\npurposes, is known by the same name.\n\n\nDEMI, DEMY. The name of a scholar at Magdalene College, Oxford,\nwhere there are thirty _demies_ or half-fellows, as it were, who,\nlike scholars in other colleges, succeed to\nfellowships.--_Johnson_.\n\n\nDEN. One of the buildings formerly attached to Harvard College,\nwhich was taken down in the year 1846, was for more than a\nhalf-century known by the name of the _Den_. It was occupied by\nstudents during the greater part of that period, although it was\noriginally built for private use. In later years, from its\nappearance, both externally and internally, it fully merited its\ncognomen; but this is supposed to have originated from the\nfollowing incident, which occurred within its walls about the year\n1770, the time when it was built. The north portion of the house\nwas occupied by Mr. Wiswal (to whom it belonged) and his family.\nHis wife, who was then ill, and, as it afterwards proved, fatally,\nwas attended by a woman who did not bear a very good character, to\nwhom Mr. Wiswal seemed to be more attentive than was consistent\nwith the character of a true and loving husband. About six weeks\nafter Mrs. Wiswal's death, Mr. Wiswal espoused the nurse, which,\ncircumstance gave great offence to the good people of Cambridge,\nand was the cause of much scandal among the gossips. One Sunday,\nnot long after this second marriage, Mr. Wiswal having gone to\nchurch, his wife, who did not accompany him, began an examination\nof her predecessor's wardrobe and possessions, with the intention,\nas was supposed, of appropriating to herself whatever had been\nleft by the former Mrs. Wiswal to her children. On his return from\nchurch, Mr. Wiswal, missing his wife, after searching for some\ntime, found her at last in the kitchen, convulsively clutching the\ndresser, her eyes staring wildly, she herself being unable to\nspeak. In this state of insensibility she remained until her\ndecease, which occurred shortly after. Although it was evident\nthat she had been seized with convulsions, and that these were the\ncause of her death, the old women were careful to promulgate, and\ntheir daughters to transmit the story, that the Devil had appeared\nto her _in propria persona_, and shaken her in pieces, as a\npunishment for her crimes. The building was purchased by Harvard\nCollege in the year 1774.\n\nIn the Federal Orrery, March 26, 1795, is an article dated\n_Wiswal-Den_, Cambridge, which title it also bore, from the name\nof its former occupant.\n\nIn his address spoken at the Harvard Alumni Festival, July 22,\n1852, Hon. Edward Everett, with reference to this mysterious\nbuilding as it appeared in the year 1807, said:--\n\n\"A little further to the north, and just at the corner of Church\nStreet (which was not then opened), stood what was dignified in\nthe annual College Catalogue--(which was printed on one side of a\nsheet of paper, and was a novelty)--as 'the College House.' The\ncellar is still visible. By the students, this edifice was\ndisrespectfully called 'Wiswal's Den,' or, for brevity, 'the Den.'\nI lived in it in my Freshman year. Whence the name of 'Wiswal's\nDen' I hardly dare say: there was something worse than 'old fogy'\nabout it. There was a dismal tradition that, at some former\nperiod, it had been the scene of a murder. A brutal husband had\ndragged his wife by the hair up and down the stairs, and then\nkilled her. On the anniversary of the murder,--and what day that\nwas no one knew,--there were sights and sounds,--flitting garments\ndaggled in blood, plaintive screams,--_stridor ferri tract\u00e6que\ncaten\u00e6_,--enough to appall the stoutest Sophomore. But for\nmyself, I can truly say, that I got through my Freshman year\nwithout having seen the ghost of Mr. Wiswal or his lamented lady.\nI was not, however, sorry when the twelvemonth was up, and I was\ntransferred to that light, airy, well-ventilated room, No. 20\nHollis; being the inner room, ground floor, north entry of that\nancient and respectable edifice.\"--_To-Day_, Boston, Saturday,\nJuly 31, 1852, p. 66.\n\nMany years ago there emigrated to this University, from the wilds\nof New Hampshire, an odd genius, by the name of Jedediah Croak,\nwho took up his abode as a student in the old _Den_.--_Harvard\nRegister_, 1827-28, _A Legend of the Den_, pp. 82-86.\n\n\nDEPOSITION. During the first half of the seventeenth century, in\nthe majority of the German universities, Catholic as well as\nProtestant, the matriculation of a student was preceded by a\nceremony called the _deposition_. See _Howitt's Student Life in\nGermany_, Am. ed., pp. 119-121.\n\n\nDESCENDAS. Latin; literally, _you may descend_. At the University\nof Cambridge, Eng., when a student who has been appointed to\ndeclaim in chapel fails in eloquence, memory, or taste, his\nharangue is usually cut short \"by a testy _descendas_.\"--_Grad. ad\nCantab._\n\n\nDETERMINING. In the University of Oxford, a Bachelor is entitled\nto his degree of M.A. twelve terms after the regular time for\ntaking his first degree, having previously gone through the\nceremony of _determining_, which exercise consists in reading two\ndissertations in Latin prose, or one in prose and a copy of Latin\nverses. As this takes place in Lent, it is commonly called\n_determining in Lent_.--_Oxf. Guide_.\n\n\nDETUR. Latin; literally, _let it be given_.\n\nIn 1657, the Hon. Edward Hopkins, dying, left, among other\ndonations to Harvard College, one \"to be applied to the purchase\nof books for presents to meritorious undergraduates.\" The\ndistribution of these books is made, at the commencement of each\nacademic year, to students of the Sophomore Class who have made\nmeritorious progress in their studies during their Freshman year;\nalso, as far as the state of the funds admits, to those members of\nthe Junior Class who entered as Sophomores, and have made\nmeritorious progress in their studies during the Sophomore year,\nand to such Juniors as, having failed to receive a _detur_ at the\ncommencement of the Sophomore year, have, during that year, made\ndecided improvement in scholarship.--_Laws of Univ. at Cam.,\nMass._, 1848, p. 18.\n\n\"From the first word in the short Latin label,\" Peirce says,\n\"which is signed by the President, and attached to the inside of\nthe cover, a book presented from this fund is familiarly called a\n_Detur_.\"--_Hist. Harv. Univ._, p. 103.\n\n  Now for my books; first Bunyan's Pilgrim,\n  (As he with thankful pleasure will grin,)\n  Tho' dogleaved, torn, in bad type set in,\n  'T will do quite well for classmate B----,\n  And thus with complaisance to treat her,\n  'T will answer for another _Detur_.\n    _The Will of Charles Prentiss_.\n\nBe not, then, painfully anxious about the Greek particles, and sit\nnot up all night lest you should miss prayers, only that you may\nhave a \"_Detur_,\" and be chosen into the Phi Beta Kappa among the\nfirst eight. Get a \"_Detur_\" by all means, and the square medal\nwith its cabalistic signs, the sooner the better; but do not\n\"stoop and lie in wait\" for them.--_A Letter to a Young Man who\nhas just entered College_, 1849, p. 36.\n\n  Or yet,--though 't were incredible,\n        --say hast obtained a _detur_!\n    _Poem before Iadma_, 1850.\n\n\nDIG. To study hard; to spend much time in studying.\n\n  Another, in his study chair,\n  _Digs_ up Greek roots with learned care,--\n    Unpalatable eating.--_Harv. Reg._, 1827-28, p. 247.\n\nHere the sunken eye and sallow countenance bespoke the man who\n_dug_ sixteen hours \"per diem.\"--_Ibid._, p. 303.\n\nSome have gone to lounge away an hour in the libraries,--some to\nditto in the grove,--some to _dig_ upon the afternoon\nlesson.--_Amherst Indicator_, Vol. I. p. 77.\n\n\nDIG. A diligent student; one who learns his lessons by hard and\nlong-continued exertion.\n\n  A clever soul is one, I say,\n  Who wears a laughing face all day,\n  Who never misses declamation,\n  Nor cuts a stupid recitation,\n  And yet is no elaborate _dig_,\n  Nor for rank systems cares a fig.\n    _Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 283.\n\nI could see, in the long vista of the past, the many honest _digs_\nwho had in this room consumed the midnight oil.--_Collegian_, p.\n231.\n\nAnd, truly, the picture of a college \"_dig_\" taking a walk--no, I\nsay not so, for he never \"takes a walk,\" but \"walking for\nexercise\"--justifies the contemptuous estimate.--_A Letter to a\nYoung Man who has just entered College_, 1849, p. 14.\n\nHe is just the character to enjoy the treadmill, which perhaps\nmight be a useful appendage to a college, not as a punishment, but\nas a recreation for \"_digs_.\"--_Ibid._, p. 14.\n\n  Resolves that he will be, in spite of toil or of fatigue,\n  That humbug of all humbugs, the staid, inveterate \"_dig_.\"\n    _Poem before Iadma of Harv. Coll._, 1850.\n\n          There goes the _dig_, just look!\n  How like a parson he eyes his book!\n    _The Jobsiad_, in _Lit. World_, Oct. 11, 1851.\n\nThe fact that I am thus getting the character of a man of no\ntalent, and a mere \"_dig_,\" does, I confess, weigh down my\nspirits.--_Amherst Indicator_, Vol. I. p. 224.\n\n  By this 't is that we get ahead of the _Dig_,\n  'T is not we that prevail, but the wine that we swig.\n    _Ibid._, Vol. II. p. 252.\n\n\nDIGGING. The act of studying hard; diligent application.\n\n  I find my eyes in doleful case,\n    By _digging_ until midnight.--_Harv. Reg._, p. 312.\n\nI've had an easy time in College, and enjoyed well the \"otium cum\ndignitate,\"--the learned leisure of a scholar's life,--always\ndespised _digging_, you know.--_Ibid._, p. 194.\n\nHow often after his day of _digging_, when he comes to lay his\nweary head to rest, he finds the cruel sheets giving him no\nadmittance.--_Ibid._, p. 377.\n\n        Hopes to hit the mark\n  By _digging_ nightly into matters dark.\n    _Class Poem, Harv. Coll._, 1835.\n\n  He \"makes up\" for past \"_digging_.\"\n    _Iadma Poem, Harv. Coll._, 1850.\n\n\nDIGNITY. At Bowdoin College, \"_Dignity_,\" says a correspondent,\n\"is the name applied to the regular holidays, varying from one\nhalf-day per week, during the Freshman year, up to four in the\nSenior.\"\n\n\nDIKED. At the University of Virginia, one who is dressed with more\nthan ordinary elegance is said to be _diked out_. Probably\ncorrupted from the word _decked_, or the nearly obsolete\n_dighted_.\n\n\nDIPLOMA. Greek, [Greek: diploma], from [Greek: diploo], to\n_double_ or fold. Anciently, a letter or other composition written\non paper or parchment, and folded; afterward, any letter, literary\nmonument, or public document. A letter or writing conferring some\npower, authority, privilege, or honor. Diplomas are given to\ngraduates of colleges on their receiving the usual degrees; to\nclergymen who are licensed to exercise the ministerial functions;\nto physicians who are licensed to practise their profession; and\nto agents who are authorized to transact business for their\nprincipals. A diploma, then, is a writing or instrument, usually\nunder seal, and signed by the proper person or officer, conferring\nmerely honor, as in the case of graduates, or authority, as in the\ncase of physicians, agents, &c.--_Webster_.\n\n\nDISCIPLINE. The punishments which are at present generally adopted\nin American colleges are warning, admonition, the letter home,\nsuspension, rustication, and expulsion. Formerly they were more\nnumerous, and their execution was attended with great solemnity.\n\"The discipline of the College,\" says President Quincy, in his\nHistory of Harvard University, \"was enforced and sanctioned by\ndaily visits of the tutors to the chambers of the students, fines,\nadmonitions, confession in the hall, publicly asking pardon,\ndegradation to the bottom of the class, striking the name from the\nCollege list, and expulsion, according to the nature and\naggravation of the offence.\"--Vol. I. p. 442.\n\nOf Yale College, President Woolsey in his Historical Discourse\nsays: \"The old system of discipline may be described in general as\nconsisting of a series of minor punishments for various petty\noffences, while the more extreme measure of separating a student\nfrom College seems not to have been usually adopted until long\nforbearance had been found fruitless, even in cases which would\nnow be visited in all American colleges with speedy dismission.\nThe chief of these punishments named in the laws are imposition of\nschool exercises,--of which we find little notice after the first\nfoundation of the College, but which we believe yet exists in the\ncolleges of England;[20] deprivation of the privilege of sending\nFreshmen upon errands, or extension of the period during which\nthis servitude should be required beyond the end of the Freshman\nyear; fines either specified, of which there are a very great\nnumber in the earlier laws, or arbitrarily imposed by the\nofficers; admonition and degradation. For the offence of\nmischievously ringing the bell, which was very common whilst the\nbell was in an exposed situation over an entry of a college\nbuilding, students were sometimes required to act as the butler's\nwaiters in ringing the bell for a certain time.\"--pp. 46, 47.\n\nSee under titles ADMONITION, CONFESSION, CORPORAL PUNISHMENT,\nDEGRADATION, FINES, LETTER HOME, SUSPENSION, &c.\n\n\nDISCOMMUNE. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., to prohibit an\nundergraduate from dealing with any tradesman or inhabitant of the\ntown who has violated the University privileges or regulations.\nThe right to exercise this power is vested in the Vice-Chancellor.\n\nAny tradesman who allows a student to run in debt with him to an\namount exceeding $25, without informing his college tutor, or to\nincur any debt for wine or spirituous liquors without giving\nnotice of it to the same functionary during the current quarter,\nor who shall take any promissory note from a student without his\ntutor's knowledge, is liable to be _discommuned_.--_Lit. World_,\nVol. XII. p. 283.\n\nIn the following extracts, this word appears under a different\northography.\n\nThere is always a great demand for the rooms in college. Those at\nlodging-houses are not so good, while the rules are equally\nstrict, the owners being solemnly bound to report all their\nlodgers who stay out at night, under pain of being\n\"_discommonsed_,\" a species of college\nexcommunication.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d,\np. 81.\n\nAny tradesman bringing a suit against an Undergraduate shall be\n\"_discommonsed_\"; i.e. all the Undergraduates are forbidden to\ndeal with him.--_Ibid._, p. 83.\n\nThis word is allied to the law term \"discommon,\" to deprive of the\nprivileges of a place.\n\n\nDISMISS. To separate from college, for an indefinite or limited\ntime.\n\n\nDISMISSION. In college government, dismission is the separation of\na student from a college, for an indefinite or for a limited time,\nat the discretion of the Faculty. It is required of the dismissed\nstudent, on applying for readmittance to his own or any other\nclass, to furnish satisfactory testimonials of good conduct during\nhis separation, and to appear, on examination, to be well\nqualified for such readmission.--_College Laws_.\n\nIn England, a student, although precluded from returning to the\nuniversity whence he has been dismissed, is not hindered from\ntaking a degree at some other university.\n\n\nDISPENSATION. In universities and colleges, the granting of a\nlicense, or the license itself, to do what is forbidden by law, or\nto omit something which is commanded. Also, an exemption from\nattending a college exercise.\n\nThe business of the first of these houses, or the oligarchal\nportion of the constitution [the House of Congregation], is\nchiefly to grant degrees, and pass graces and\n_dispensations_.--_Oxford Guide_, Ed. 1847, p. xi.\n\nAll the students who are under twenty-one years of age may be\nexcused from attending the private Hebrew lectures of the\nProfessor, upon their producing to the President a certificate\nfrom their parents or guardians, desiring a _dispensation_.--_Laws\nHarv. Coll._, 1798, p. 12.\n\n\nDISPERSE. A favorite word with tutors and proctors; used when\nspeaking to a number of students unlawfully collected. This\ntechnical use of the word is burlesqued in the following passages.\n\nMinerva conveys the Freshman to his room, where his cries make\nsuch a disturbance, that a proctor enters and commands the\nblue-eyed goddess \"_to disperse_.\" This order she reluctantly\nobeys.--_Harvardiana_, Vol. IV. p. 23.\n\n  And often grouping on the chains, he hums his own sweet verse,\n  Till Tutor ----, coming up, commands him to _disperse_.\n    _Poem before Y.H. Harv. Coll._, 1849.\n\n\nDISPUTATION. An exercise in colleges, in which parties reason in\nopposition to each other, on some question proposed.--_Webster_.\n\nDisputations were formerly, in American colleges, a part of the\nexercises on Commencement and Exhibition days.\n\n\nDISPUTE. To contend in argument; to reason or argue in opposition.\n--_Webster_.\n\nThe two Senior classes shall _dispute_ once or twice a week before\nthe President, a Professor, or the Tutor.--_Laws Yale Coll._,\n1837, p. 15.\n\n\nDIVINITY. A member of a theological school is often familiarly\ncalled a _Divinity_, abbreviated for a Divinity student.\n\n      One of the young _Divinities_ passed\n  Straight through the College yard.\n    _Childe Harvard_, p. 40.\n\n\nDIVISION. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., each of the three\nterms is divided into two parts. _Division_ is the time when this\npartition is made.\n\nAfter \"_division_\" in the Michaelmas and Lent terms, a student,\nwho can assign a good plea for absence to the college authorities,\nmay go down and take holiday for the rest of the time.--_Bristed's\nFive Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 63.\n\n\nDOCTOR. One who has passed all the degrees of a faculty, and is\nempowered to practise and teach it; as, a _doctor_ in divinity, in\nphysic, in law; or, according to modern usage, a person who has\nreceived the highest degree in a faculty. The degree of _doctor_\nis conferred by universities and colleges, as an honorary mark of\nliterary distinction. It is also conferred on physicians as a\nprofessional degree.--_Webster_.\n\n\nDOCTORATE. The degree of a doctor.--_Webster_.\n\nThe first diploma for a doctorate in divinity given in America was\npresented under the seal of Harvard College to Mr. Increase\nMather, the President of that institution, in the year\n1692.--_Peirce's Hist. Harv. Univ._, App., p. 68.\n\n\nDODGE. A trick; an artifice or stratagem for the purpose of\ndeception. Used often with _come_; as, \"_to come a dodge_ over\nhim.\"\n\n  No artful _dodge_ to leave my school could I just then prepare.\n    _Poem before Iadma, Harv. Coll._, 1850.\n\nAgreed; but I have another _dodge_ as good as yours.--_Collegian's\nGuide_, p. 240.\n\nWe may well admire the cleverness displayed by this would-be\nChatterton, in his attempt to sell the unwary with an Ossian\n_dodge_.--_Lit. World_, Vol. XII. p. 191.\n\n\nDOMINUS. A title bestowed on Bachelors of Arts, in England.\n_Dominus_ Nokes; _Dominus_ Stiles.--_Gradus ad Cantab._\n\n\nDON. In the English universities, a short generic term for a\nFellow or any college authority.\n\nHe had already told a lie to the _Dons_, by protesting against the\njustice of his sentence.--_Collegian's Guide_, p. 169.\n\nNever to order in any wine from an Oxford merchant, at least not\ntill I am a _Don_.--_The Etonian_, Vol. II. p. 288.\n\n  Nor hint how _Dons_, their untasked hours to pass,\n  Like Cato, warm their virtues with the glass.[21]\n    _The College_, in _Blackwood's Mag._, May, 1849.\n\n\nDONKEY. At Washington College, Penn., students of a religious\ncharacter are vulgarly called _donkeys_.\n\nSee LAP-EAR.\n\n\nDORMIAT. Latin; literally, _let him sleep_. To take out a\n_dormiat_, i.e. a license to sleep. The licensed person is excused\nfrom attending early prayers in the Chapel, from a plea of being\nindisposed. Used in the English universities.--_Gradus ad Cantab._\n\n\nDOUBLE FIRST. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., a student who\nattains high honors in both the classical and the mathematical\ntripos.\n\nThe Calendar does not show an average of two \"_Double Firsts_\"\nannually for the last ten years out of one hundred and\nthirty-eight graduates in Honors.--_Bristed's Five Years in an\nEng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 91.\n\nThe reported saying of a distinguished judge,... \"that the\nstandard of a _Double First_ was getting to be something beyond\nhuman ability,\" seems hardly an exaggeration.--_Ibid._, p. 224.\n\n\nDOUBLE MAN. In the English universities, a student who is a\nproficient in both classics and mathematics.\n\n\"_Double men_,\" as proficients in both classics and mathematics\nare termed, are very rare.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng.\nUniv._, Ed. 2d, p. 91.\n\nIt not unfrequently happens that he now drops the intention of\nbeing a \"_double man_,\" and concentrates himself upon mathematics.\n--_Ibid._, p. 104.\n\nTo one danger mathematicians are more exposed than either\nclassical or _double men_,--disgust and satiety arising from\nexclusive devotion to their unattractive studies.--_Ibid._, p.\n225.\n\n\nDOUBLE MARKS. It was formerly the custom in Harvard College with\nthe Professors in Rhetoric, when they had examined and corrected\nthe _themes_ of the students, to draw a straight line on the back\nof each one of them, under the name of the writer. Under the names\nof those whose themes were of more than ordinary correctness or\nelegance, _two_ lines were drawn, which were called _double\nmarks_.\n\nThey would take particular pains for securing the _double mark_ of\nthe English Professor to their poetical compositions.--_Monthly\nAnthology_, Boston, 1804, Vol. I. p. 104.\n\nMany, if not the greater part of Paine's themes, were written in\nverse; and his vanity was gratified, and his emulation roused, by\nthe honor of constant _double marks_.--_Works of R.T. Paine,\nBiography_, p. xxii., Ed. 1812.\n\nSee THEME.\n\n\nDOUBLE SECOND. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., one who\nobtains a high place in the second rank, in both mathematical and\nclassical honors.\n\nA good _double second_ will make, by his college scholarship, two\nfifths or three fifths of his expenses during two thirds of the\ntime he passes at the University.--_Bristed's Five Years in an\nEng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 427.\n\n\nDOUGH-BALL. At the Anderson Collegiate Institute, Indiana, a name\ngiven by the town's people to a student.\n\n\nDRESS. A uniformity in dress has never been so prevalent in\nAmerican colleges as in the English and other universities. About\nthe middle of the last century, however, the habit among the\nstudents of Harvard College of wearing gold lace attracted the\nattention of the Overseers, and a law was passed \"requiring that\non no occasion any of the scholars wear any gold or silver lace,\nor any gold or silver brocades, in the College or town of\nCambridge,\" and \"that no one wear any silk night-gowns.\" \"In\n1786,\" says Quincy, \"in order to lessen the expense of dress, a\nuniform was prescribed, the color and form of which were minutely\nset forth, with a distinction of the classes by means of frogs on\nthe cuffs and button-holes; silk was prohibited, and home\nmanufactures were recommended.\" This system of uniform is fully\ndescribed in the laws of 1790, and is as follows:--\n\n\"All the Undergraduates shall be clothed in coats of blue-gray,\nand with waistcoats and breeches of the same color, or of a black,\na nankeen, or an olive color. The coats of the Freshmen shall have\nplain button-holes. The cuffs shall be without buttons. The coats\nof the Sophomores shall have plain button-holes like those of the\nFreshmen, but the cuffs shall have buttons. The coats of the\nJuniors shall have cheap frogs to the button-holes, except the\nbutton-holes of the cuffs. The coats of the Seniors shall have\nfrogs to the button-holes of the cuffs. The buttons upon the coats\nof all the classes shall be as near the color of the coats as they\ncan be procured, or of a black color. And no student shall appear\nwithin the limits of the College, or town of Cambridge, in any\nother dress than in the uniform belonging to his respective class,\nunless he shall have on a night-gown or such an outside garment as\nmay be necessary over a coat, except only that the Seniors and\nJuniors are permitted to wear black gowns, and it is recommended\nthat they appear in them on all public occasions. Nor shall any\npart of their garments be of silk; nor shall they wear gold or\nsilver lace, cord, or edging upon their hats, waistcoats, or any\nother parts of their clothing. And whosoever shall violate these\nregulations shall be fined a sum not exceeding ten shillings for\neach offence.\"--_Laws of Harv. Coll._, 1790, pp. 36, 37.\n\nIt is to this dress that the poet alludes in these lines:--\n\n \"In blue-gray coat, with buttons on the cuffs,\n  First Modern Pride your ear with fustian stuffs;\n 'Welcome, blest age, by holy seers foretold,\n  By ancient bards proclaimed the age of gold,'\" &c.[22]\n\nBut it was by the would-be reformers of that day alone that such\nsentiments were held, and it was only by the severity of the\npunishment attending non-conformity with these regulations that\nthey were ever enforced. In 1796, \"the sumptuary law relative to\ndress had fallen into neglect,\" and in the next year \"it was found\nso obnoxious and difficult to enforce,\" says Quincy, \"that a law\nwas passed abrogating the whole system of distinction by 'frogs on\nthe cuffs and button-holes,' and the law respecting dress was\nlimited to prescribing a blue-gray or dark-blue coat, with\npermission to wear a black gown, and a prohibition of wearing gold\nor silver lace, cord, or edging.\"--_Quincy's Hist. Harv. Univ._,\nVol. II. p. 277.\n\nA writer in the New England Magazine, in an article relating to\nthe customs of Harvard College at the close of the last century,\ngives the following description of the uniform ordered by the\nCorporation to be worn by the students:--\n\n\"Each head supported a three-cornered cocket hat. Yes, gentle\nreader, no man or boy was considered in full dress, in those days,\nunless his pericranium was thus surmounted, with the forward peak\ndirectly over the right eye. Had a clergyman, especially, appeared\nwith a hat of any other form, it would have been deemed as great a\nheresy as Unitarianism is at the present day. Whether or not the\nthree-cornered hat was considered as an emblem of Trinitarianism,\nI am not able to determine. Our hair was worn in a _queue_, bound\nwith black ribbon, and reached to the small of the back, in the\nshape of the tail of that motherly animal which furnishes\nungrateful bipeds of the human race with milk, butter, and cheese.\nWhere nature had not bestowed a sufficiency of this ornamental\nappendage, the living and the dead contributed of their\nsuperfluity to supply the deficiency. Our ear-locks,--_horresco\nreferens_!--my ears tingle and my countenance is distorted at the\nrecollection of the tortures inflicted on them by the heated\ncurling-tongs and crimping-irons.\n\n\"The bosoms of our shirts were ruffled with lawn or cambric, and\n 'Our fingers' ends were seen to peep\n  From ruffles, full five inches deep.'\nOur coats were double-breasted, and of a black or priest-gray\ncolor. The directions were not so particular respecting our\nwaistcoats, breeches,--I beg pardon,--small clothes, and\nstockings. Our shoes ran to a point at the distance of two or\nthree inches from the extremity of the foot, and turned upward,\nlike the curve of a skate. Our dress was ornamented with shining\nstock, knee, and shoe buckles, the last embracing at least one\nhalf of the foot of ordinary dimensions. If any wore boots, they\nwere made to set as closely to the leg as its skin; for a handsome\ncalf and ankle were esteemed as great beauties as any portion of\nthe frame, or point in the physiognomy.\"--Vol. III. pp. 238, 239.\n\nIn his late work, entitled, \"Memories of Youth and Manhood,\"\nProfessor Sidney Willard has given an entertaining description of\nthe style of dress which was in vogue at Harvard College near the\nclose of the last century, in the following words:--\n\n\"Except on special occasions, which required more than ordinary\nattention to dress, the students, when I was an undergraduate,\nwere generally very careless in this particular. They were obliged\nby the College laws to wear coats of blue-gray; but as a\nsubstitute in warm weather, they were allowed to wear gowns,\nexcept on public occasions; and on these occasions they were\npermitted to wear black gowns. Seldom, however, did any one avail\nhimself of this permission. In summer long gowns of calico or\ngingham were the covering that distinguished the collegian, not\nonly about the College grounds, but in all parts of the village.\nStill worse, when the season no longer tolerated this thin outer\ngarment, many adopted one much in the same shape, made of\ncolorless woollen stuff called lambskin. These were worn by many\nwithout any under-coat in temperate weather, and in some cases for\na length of time in which they had become sadly soiled. In other\nrespects there was nothing peculiar in the common dress of the\nyoung men and boys of College to distinguish it from that of\nothers of the same age. Breeches were generally worn, buttoned at\nthe knees, and tied or buckled a little below; not so convenient a\ngarment for a person dressing in haste as trousers or pantaloons.\nOften did I see a fellow-student hurrying to the Chapel to escape\ntardiness at morning prayers, with this garment unbuttoned at the\nknees, the ribbons dangling over his legs, the hose refusing to\nkeep their elevation, and the calico or woollen gown wrapped about\nhim, ill concealing his dishabille.\n\n\"Not all at once did pantaloons gain the supremacy as the nether\ngarment. About the beginning of the present century they grew\nrapidly in favor with the young; but men past middle age were more\nslow to adopt the change. Then, last, the aged very gradually were\nconverted to the fashion by the plea of convenience and comfort;\nso that about the close of the first quarter of the present\ncentury it became almost universal. In another particular, more\nthan half a century ago, the sons adopted a custom of their wiser\nfathers. The young men had for several years worn shoes and boots\nshaped in the toe part to a point, called peaked toes, while the\naged adhered to the shape similar to the present fashion; so that\nthe shoemaker, in a doubtful case, would ask his customer whether\nhe would have square-toed or peaked-toed. The distinction between\nyoung and old in this fashion was so general, that sometimes a\ngraceless youth, who had been crossed by his father or guardian in\nsome of his unreasonable humors, would speak of him with the title\nof _Old Square-toes_.\n\n\"Boots with yellow tops inverted, and coming up to the knee-band,\nwere commonly worn by men somewhat advanced in years; but the\nyounger portion more generally wore half-boots, as they were\ncalled, made of elastic leather, cordovan. These, when worn, left\na space of two or three inches between the top of the boot and the\nknee-band. The great beauty of this fashion, as it was deemed by\nmany, consisted in restoring the boots, which were stretched by\ndrawing them on, to shape, and bringing them as nearly as possible\ninto contact with the legs; and he who prided himself most on the\nform of his lower limbs would work the hardest in pressure on the\nleather from the ankle upward in order to do this most\neffectually.\"--Vol. I. pp. 318-320.\n\nIn 1822 was passed the \"Law of Harvard University, regulating the\ndress of the students.\" The established uniform was as follows.\n\"The coat of black-mixed, single-breasted, with a rolling cape,\nsquare at the end, and with pocket flaps; waist reaching to the\nnatural waist, with lapels of the same length; skirts reaching to\nthe bend of the knee; three crow's-feet, made of black-silk cord,\non the lower part of the sleeve of a Senior, two on that of a\nJunior, and one on that of a Sophomore. The waistcoat of\nblack-mixed or of black; or when of cotton or linen fabric, of\nwhite, single-breasted, with a standing collar. The pantaloons of\nblack-mixed or of black bombazette, or when of cotton or linen\nfabric, of white. The surtout or great coat of black-mixed, with\nnot more than two capes. The buttons of the above dress must be\nflat, covered with the same cloth as that of the garments, not\nmore than eight nor less than six on the front of the coat, and\nfour behind. A surtout or outside garment is not to be substituted\nfor the coat. But the students are permitted to wear black gowns,\nin which they may appear on all public occasions. Night-gowns, of\ncotton or linen or silk fabric, made in the usual form, or in that\nof a frock coat, may be worn, except on the Sabbath, on exhibition\nand other occasions when an undress would be improper. The\nneckcloths must be plain black or plain white.\"\n\nNo student, while in the State of Massachusetts, was allowed,\neither in vacation or term time, to wear any different dress or\nornament from those above named, except in case of mourning, when\nhe could wear the customary badges. Although dismission was the\npunishment for persisting in the violation of these regulations,\nthey do not appear to have been very well observed, and gradually,\nlike the other laws of an earlier date on this subject, fell into\ndisuse. The night-gowns or dressing-gowns continued to be worn at\nprayers and in public until within a few years. The black-mixed,\notherwise called OXFORD MIXED cloth, is explained under the latter\ntitle.\n\nThe only law which now obtains at Harvard College on the subject\nof dress is this: \"On Sabbath, Exhibition, Examination, and\nCommencement days, and on all other public occasions, each\nstudent, in public, shall wear a black coat, with buttons of the\nsame color, and a black hat or cap.\"--_Orders and Regulations of\nthe Faculty of Harv. Coll._, July, 1853, p. 5.\n\nAt one period in the history of Yale College, a passion for\nexpensive dress having become manifest among the students, the\nFaculty endeavored to curb it by a direct appeal to the different\nclasses. The result was the establishment of the Lycurgan Society,\nwhose object was the encouragement of plainness in apparel. The\nbenefits which might have resulted from this organization were\ncontravened by the rashness of some of its members. The shape\nwhich this rashness assumed is described in a work entitled\n\"Scenes and Characters in College,\" written by a Yale graduate of\nthe class of 1821.\n\n\"Some members were seized with the notion of a _distinctive\ndress_. It was strongly objected to; but the measure was carried\nby a stroke of policy. The dress proposed was somewhat like that\nof the Quakers, but less respectable,--a rustic cousin to it, or\nrather a caricature; namely, a close coatee, with stand-up collar,\nand _very_ short skirts,--_skirtees_, they might be called,--the\ncolor gray; pantaloons and vest the same;--making the wearer a\nmonotonous gray man throughout, invisible at twilight. The\nproposers of this metamorphosis, to make it go, selected an\nindividual of small and agreeable figure, and procuring a suit of\nfine material, and a good fit, placed him on a platform as a\nspecimen. On _him_ it appeared very well, as a belted blouse does\non a graceful child; and all the more so, as he was a favorite\nwith the class, and lent to it the additional effect of agreeable\nassociation. But it is bad logic to derive a general conclusion\nfrom a single fact: it did not follow that the dress would be\nuniversally becoming because it was so on him. However, majorities\ngovern; the dress was voted. The tailors were glad to hear of it,\nexpecting a fine run of business.\n\n\"But when a tall son of Anak appeared in the little bodice of a\ncoat, stuck upon the hips; and still worse, when some very clumsy\nforms assumed the dress, and one in particular, that I remember,\nwho was equally huge in person and coarse in manners, whose taste,\nor economy, or both,--the one as probably as the other,--had led\nhim to the choice of an ugly pepper-and-salt, instead of the true\nOxford mix, or whatever the standard gray was called, and whose\ntailor, or tailoress, probably a tailoress, had contrived to\naggravate his natural disproportions by the most awkward fit\nimaginable,--then indeed you might have said that 'some of\nnature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they\nimitated humanity so abominably.' They looked like David's\nmessengers, maltreated and sent back by Hanun.[23]\n\n\"The consequence was, the dress was unpopular; very few adopted\nit; and the society itself went quietly into oblivion.\nNevertheless it had done some good; it had had a visible effect in\nchecking extravagance; and had accomplished all it would have\ndone, I imagine, had it continued longer.\n\n\"There was a time, some three or four years previous to this, when\na rakish fashion began to be introduced of wearing white-topped\nboots. It was a mere conceit of the wearers, such a fashion not\nexisting beyond College,--except as it appeared in here and there\nan antiquated gentleman, a venerable remnant of the olden time, in\nwhom the boots were matched with buckles at the knee, and a\npowdered queue. A practical satire quickly put an end to it. Some\nhumorists proposed to the waiters about College to furnish them\nwith such boots on condition of their wearing them. The offer was\naccepted; a lot of them was ordered at a boot-and-shoe shop, and,\nall at once, sweepers, sawyers, and the rest, appeared in\nwhite-topped boots. I will not repeat the profaneness of a\nSoutherner when he first observed a pair of them upon a tall and\ngawky shoe-black striding across the yard. He cursed the 'negro,'\nand the boots; and, pulling off his own, flung them from him.\nAfter this the servants had the fashion to themselves, and could\nbuy the article at any discount.\"--pp. 127-129.\n\nAt Union College, soon after its foundation, there was enacted a\nlaw, \"forbidding any student to appear at chapel without the\nCollege badge,--a piece of blue ribbon, tied in the button-hole of\nthe coat.\"--_Account of the First Semi-Centennial Anniversary of\nthe Philomathean Society, Union College_, 1847.\n\nSuch laws as the above have often been passed in American\ncolleges, but have generally fallen into disuse in a very few\nyears, owing to the predominancy of the feeling of democratic\nequality, the tendency of which is to narrow, in as great a degree\nas possible, the intervals between different ages and conditions.\n\nSee COSTUME.\n\n\nDUDLEIAN LECTURE. An anniversary sermon which is preached at\nHarvard College before the students; supported by the yearly\ninterest of one hundred pounds sterling, the gift of Paul Dudley,\nfrom whom the lecture derives its name. The following topics were\nchosen by him as subjects for this lecture. First, for \"the\nproving, explaining, and proper use and improvement of the\nprinciples of Natural Religion.\" Second, \"for the confirmation,\nillustration, and improvement of the great articles of the\nChristian Religion.\" Third, \"for the detecting, convicting, and\nexposing the idolatry, errors, and superstitions of the Romish\nChurch.\" Fourth, \"for maintaining, explaining, and proving the\nvalidity of the ordination of ministers or pastors of the\nchurches, and so their administration of the sacraments or\nordinances of religion, as the same hath been practised in New\nEngland from the first beginning of it, and so continued to this\nday.\"\n\n\"The instrument proceeds to declare,\" says Quincy, \"that he does\nnot intend to invalidate Episcopal ordination, or that practised\nin Scotland, at Geneva, and among the Dissenters in England and in\nthis country, all which 'I esteem very safe, Scriptural, and\nvalid.' He directed these subjects to be discussed in rotation,\none every year, and appointed the President of the College, the\nProfessor of Divinity, the pastor of the First Church in\nCambridge, the Senior Tutor of the College, and the pastor of the\nFirst Church in Roxbury, trustees of these lectures, which\ncommenced in 1755, and have since been annually continued without\nintermission.\"--_Quincy's Hist. Harv. Univ._, Vol. II. pp. 139,\n140.\n\n\nDULCE DECUS. Latin; literally, _sweet honor_. At Williams College\na name given by a certain class of students to the game of whist;\nthe reason for which is evident. Whether M\u00e6cenas would have\nconsidered it an _honor_ to have had the compliment of Horace,\n \"O et pr\u00e6sidium et dulce decus meum,\"\ntransferred as a title for a game at cards, we leave for others to\ndecide.\n\n\nDUMMER JUNGE,--literally, _stupid youth_,--among German students\n\"is the highest and most cutting insult, since it implies a denial\nof sound, manly understanding and strength of capacity to him to\nwhom it is applied.\"--_Howitt's Student Life of Germany_, Am. ed.,\np. 127.\n\n\nDUN. An importunate creditor who urges for payment. A character\nnot wholly unknown to collegians.\n\n  Thanks heaven, flings by his cap and gown, and shuns\n  A place made odious by remorseless _duns_.\n    _The College_, in _Blackwood's Mag._, May, 1849.\n\n\n\n_E_.\n\n\nEGRESSES. At the older American colleges, when charges were made\nand excuses rendered in Latin, the student who had left before the\nconclusion of any of the religious services was accused of the\nmisdemeanor by the proper officer, who made use of the word\n_egresses_, a kind of barbarous second person singular of some\nimaginary verb, signifying, it is supposed, \"you went out.\"\n\n  Much absence, tardes and _egresses_,\n  The college-evil on him seizes.\n    _Trumbull's Progress of Dullness_, Part I.\n\n\nEIGHT. On the scale of merit, at Harvard College, eight is the\nhighest mark which a student can receive for a recitation.\nStudents speak of \"_getting an eight_,\" which is equivalent to\nsaying, that they have made a perfect recitation.\n\n  But since the Fates will not grant all _eights_,\n    Save to some disgusting fellow\n  Who'll fish and dig, I care not a fig,\n    We'll be hard boys and mellow.\n    _MS. Poem_, W.F. Allen.\n\n  Numberless the _eights_ he showers\n    Full on my devoted head.--_MS. Ibid._\n\nAt the same college, when there were three exhibitions in the\nyear, it was customary for the first eight scholars in the Junior\nClass to have \"parts\" at the first exhibition, the second eight at\nthe second exhibition, and the third eight at the third\nexhibition. Eight Seniors performed with them at each of these\nthree exhibitions, but they were taken promiscuously from the\nfirst twenty-four in their class. Although there are now but two\nexhibitions in the year, twelve performing from each of the two\nupper classes, yet the students still retain the old phraseology,\nand you will often hear the question, \"Is he in the first or\nsecond _eight_?\"\n\n  The bell for morning prayers had long been sounding!\n    She says, \"What makes you look so very pale?\"--\n  \"I've had a dream.\"--\"Spring to 't, or you'll be late!\"--\n  \"Don't care! 'T was worth a part among the _Second Eight_.\"\n    _Childe Harvard_, p. 121.\n\n\nELECTIONEERING. In many colleges in the United States, where there\nare rival societies, it is customary, on the admission of a\nstudent to college, for the partisans of the different societies\nto wait upon him, and endeavor to secure him as a member. An\naccount of this _Society Electioneering_, as it is called, is\ngiven in _Sketches of Yale College_, at page 162.\n\nSociety _electioneering_ has mostly gone by.--_Williams\nQuarterly_, Vol. II. p. 285.\n\n\nELEGANT EXTRACTS. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., a cant\ntitle applied to some fifteen or twenty men who have just\nsucceeded in passing their final examination, and who are\nbracketed together, at the foot of the Polloi list.--_Bristed's\nFive Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 250.\n\n\nEMERITUS, _pl._ EMERITI. Latin; literally, _obtained by service_.\nOne who has been honorably discharged from public service, as, in\ncolleges and universities, a _Professor Emeritus_.\n\n\nEMIGRANT. In the English universities, one who migrates, or\nremoves from one college to another.\n\nAt Christ's, for three years successively,... the first man was an\n_emigrant_ from John's.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._,\nEd. 2d, p. 100.\n\nSee MIGRATION.\n\n\nEMPTY BOTTLE. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., the sobriquet\nof a fellow-commoner.\n\nIndeed they [fellow-commoners] are popularly denominated \"_empty\nbottles_,\" the first word of the appellation being an adjective,\nthough were it taken as a verb there would be no untruth in\nit.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 34.\n\n\nENCENIA, _pl._ Greek [Greek: enkainia], _a feast of dedication_.\nFestivals anciently kept on the days on which cities were built or\nchurches consecrated; and, in later times, ceremonies renewed at\ncertain periods, as at Oxford, at the celebration of founders and\nbenefactors.--_Hook_.\n\n\nEND WOMAN. At Bowdoin College, \"end women,\" says a correspondent,\n\"are the venerable females who officiate as chambermaids in the\ndifferent entries.\" They are so called from the entries being\nplaced at the _ends_ of the buildings.\n\n\nENGAGEMENT. At Yale College, the student, on entering, signs an\n_engagement_, as it is called, in the words following: \"I, A.B.,\non condition of being admitted as a member of Yale College,\npromise, on my faith and honor, to observe all the laws and\nregulations of this College; particularly that I will faithfully\navoid using profane language, gaming, and all indecent, disorderly\nbehavior, and disrespectful conduct to the Faculty, and all\ncombinations to resist their authority; as witness my hand. A.B.\"\n--_Yale Coll. Cat._, 1837, p. 10.\n\nNearly the same formula is used at Williams College.\n\n\nENGINE. At Harvard College, for many years before and succeeding\nthe year 1800, a fire-engine was owned by the government, and was\nunder the management of the students. In a MS. Journal, under date\nof Oct. 29, 1792, is this note: \"This day I turned out to exercise\nthe engine. P.M.\" The company were accustomed to attend all the\nfires in the neighboring towns, and were noted for their skill and\nefficiency. But they often mingled enjoyment with their labor, nor\nwere they always as scrupulous as they might have been in the\nmeans used to advance it. In 1810, the engine having been newly\nrepaired, they agreed to try its power on an old house, which was\nto be fired at a given time. By some mistake, the alarm was given\nbefore the house was fairly burning. Many of the town's people\nendeavored to save it, but the company, dragging the engine into a\npond near by, threw the dirty water on them in such quantities\nthat they were glad to desist from their laudable endeavors.\n\nIt was about this time that the Engine Society was organized,\nbefore which so many pleasant poems and orations were annually\ndelivered. Of these, that most noted is the \"Rebelliad,\" which was\nspoken in the year 1819, and was first published in the year 1842.\nOf it the editor has well remarked: \"It still remains the\ntext-book of the jocose, and is still regarded by all, even the\nmelancholy, as a most happy production of humorous taste.\" Its\nauthor was Dr. Augustus Pierce, who died at Tyngsborough, May 20,\n1849.\n\nThe favorite beverage at fires was rum and molasses, commonly\ncalled _black-strap_, which is referred to in the following lines,\ncommemorative of the engine company in its palmier days.\n\n \"But oh! let _black-strap's_ sable god deplore\n  Those _engine-heroes_ so renowned of yore!\n  Gone is that spirit, which, in ancient time,\n  Inspired more deeds than ever shone in rhyme!\n  Ye, who remember the superb array,\n  The deafening cry, the engine's 'maddening play,'\n  The broken windows, and the floating floor,\n  Wherewith those masters of hydraulic lore\n  Were wont to make us tremble as we gazed,\n  Can tell how many a false alarm was raised,\n  How many a room by their o'erflowings drenched,\n  And how few fires by their assistance quenched?\"\n    _Harvard Register_, p. 235.\n\nThe habit of attending fires in Boston, as it had a tendency to\ndraw the attention of the students from their college duties, was\nin part the cause of the dissolution of the company. Their\npresence was always welcomed in the neighboring city, and although\nthey often left their engine behind them on returning to\nCambridge, it was usually sent out to them soon after. The company\nwould often parade through the streets of Cambridge in masquerade\ndresses, headed by a chaplain, presenting a most ludicrous\nappearance. In passing through the College yard, it was the custom\nto throw water into any window that chanced to be open. Their\nfellow-students, knowing when they were to appear, usually kept\ntheir windows closed; but the officers were not always so\nfortunate. About the year 1822, having discharged water into the\nroom of the College regent, thereby damaging a very valuable\nlibrary of books, the government disbanded the company, and\nshortly after sold the engine to the then town of Cambridge, on\ncondition that it should never be taken out of the place. A few\nyears ago it was again sold to some young men of West Cambridge,\nin whose hands it still remains. One of the brakes of the engine,\na relic of its former glory, was lately discovered in the cellar\nof one of the College buildings, and that perchance has by this\ntime been used to kindle the element which it once assisted to\nextinguish.\n\n\nESQUIRE BEDELL. In the University of Cambridge, Eng., three\n_Esquire Bedells_ are appointed, whose office is to attend the\nVice-Chancellor, whom they precede with their silver maces upon\nall public occasions.--_Cam. Guide_.\n\nAt the University of Oxford, the Esquire Bedells are three in\nnumber. They walk before the Vice-Chancellor in processions, and\ncarry golden staves as the insignia of their office.--_Guide to\nOxford_.\n\nSee BEADLE.\n\n\nEVANGELICAL. In student phrase, a religious, orthodox man, one who\nis sound in the doctrines of the Gospel, or one who is reading\ntheology, is called an _Evangelical_.\n\nHe was a King's College, London, man, an\n_Evangelical_.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d,\np. 265.\n\nIt has been said by some of the _Evangelicals_, that nothing can\nbe done to improve the state of morality in the Universities so\nlong as the present Church system continues.--_Ibid._, p. 348.\n\n\nEXAMINATION. An inquiry into the acquisitions of the students, in\n_colleges_ and _seminaries of learning_, by questioning them in\nliterature and the sciences, and by hearing their\nrecitals.--_Webster_.\n\nIn all colleges candidates for entrance are required to be able to\npass an examination in certain branches of study before they can\nbe admitted. The students are generally examined, in most\ncolleges, at the close of each term.\n\nIn the revised laws of Harvard College, printed in the year 1790,\nwas one for the purpose of introducing examinations, the first\npart of which is as follows: \"To animate the students in the\npursuit of literary merit and fame, and to excite in their breasts\na noble spirit of emulation, there shall be annually a public\nexamination, in the presence of a joint committee of the\nCorporation and Overseers, and such other gentlemen as may be\ninclined to attend it.\" It then proceeds to enumerate the times\nand text-books for each class, and closes by stating, that,\n\"should any student neglect or refuse to attend such examination,\nhe shall be liable to be fined a sum not exceeding twenty\nshillings, or to be admonished or suspended.\" Great discontent was\nimmediately evinced by the students at this regulation, and as it\nwas not with this understanding that they entered college, they\nconsidered it as an _ex post facto_ law, and therefore not binding\nupon them. With these views, in the year 1791, the Senior and\nJunior Classes petitioned for exemption from the examination, but\ntheir application was rejected by the Overseers. When this was\ndeclared, some of the students determined to stop the exercises\nfor that year, if possible. For this purpose they obtained six\nhundred grains of tartar emetic, and early on the morning of April\n12th, the day on which the examination was to begin, emptied it\ninto the great cooking boilers in the kitchen. At breakfast, 150\nor more students and officers being present, the coffee was\nbrought on, made with the water from the boilers. Its effects were\nsoon visible. One after another left the hall, some in a slow,\nothers in a hurried manner, but all plainly showing that their\nsituation was by no means a pleasant one. Out of the whole number\nthere assembled, only four or five escaped without being made\nunwell. Those who put the drug in the coffee had drank the most,\nin order to escape detection, and were consequently the most\nseverely affected. Unluckily, one of them was seen putting\nsomething into the boilers, and the names of the others were soon\nafter discovered. Their punishment is stated in the following\nmemoranda from a manuscript journal.\n\n\"Exhibition, 1791. April 20th. This morning Trapier was rusticated\nand Sullivan suspended to Groton for nine months, for mingling\ntartar emetic with our commons on ye morning of April 12th.\"\n\n\"May 21st. Ely was suspended to Amherst for five months, for\nassisting Sullivan and Trapier in mingling tartar emetic with our\ncommons.\"\n\nAnother student, who threw a stone into the examination-room,\nwhich struck the chair in which Governor Hancock sat, was more\nseverely punished. The circumstance is mentioned in the manuscript\nreferred to above as follows:--\n\n\"April 14th, 1791. Henry W. Jones of H---- was expelled from\nCollege upon evidence of a little boy that he sent a stone into ye\nPhilosopher's room while a committee of ye Corporation and\nOverseers, and all ye Immediate Government, were engaged in\nexamination of ye Freshman Class.\"\n\nAlthough the examination was delayed for a day or two on account\nof these occurrences, it was again renewed and carried on during\nthat year, although many attempts were made to stop it. For\nseveral years after, whenever these periods occurred, disturbances\ncame with them, and it was not until the year 1797 that the\ndifferences between the officers and the students were\nsatisfactorily adjusted, and examinations established on a sure\nbasis.\n\n\nEXAMINE. To inquire into the improvements or qualifications of\nstudents, by interrogatories, proposing problems, or by hearing\ntheir recitals; as, to _examine_ the classes in college; to\n_examine_ the candidates for a degree, or for a license to preach\nor to practise in a profession.--_Webster_.\n\n\nEXAMINEE. One who is examined; one who undergoes at examination.\n\nWhat loads of cold beef and lobster vanish before the _examinees_.\n--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 72.\n\n\nEXAMINER. One who examines. In colleges and seminaries of\nlearning, the person who interrogates the students, proposes\nquestions for them to answer, and problems to solve.\n\nComing forward with assumed carelessness, he threw towards us the\nformal reply of his _examiners_.--_Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 9.\n\n\nEXEAT. Latin; literally, _let him depart_. Leave of absence given\nto a student in the English universities.--_Webster_.\n\nThe students who wish to go home apply for an \"_Exeat_,\" which is\na paper signed by the Tutor, Master, and Dean.--_Alma Mater_, Vol.\nI. p. 162.\n\n[At King's College], _exeats_, or permission to go down during\nterm, were never granted but in cases of life and\ndeath.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 140.\n\n\nEXERCISE. A task or lesson; that which is appointed for one to\nperform. In colleges, all the literary duties are called\n_exercises_.\n\nIt may be inquired, whether a great part of the _exercises_ be not\nat best but serious follies.--_Cotton Mather's Suggestions_, in\n_Quincy's Hist. Harv. Univ._, Vol. I. p. 558.\n\nIn the English universities, certain exercises, as acts,\nopponencies, &c., are required to be performed for particular\ndegrees.\n\n\nEXHIBIT. To take part in an exhibition; to speak in public at an\nexhibition or commencement.\n\nNo student who shall receive any appointment to _exhibit_ before\nthe class, the College, or the public, shall give any treat or\nentertainment to his class, or any part thereof, for or on account\nof those appointments.--_Laws Yale Coll._, 1837, p. 29.\n\nIf any student shall fail to perform the exercise assigned him, or\nshall _exhibit_ anything not allowed by the Faculty, he may be\nsent home.--_Ibid._, 1837, p. 16.\n\n2. To provide for poor students by an exhibition. (See EXHIBITION,\nsecond meaning.) An instance of this use is given in the Gradus ad\nCantabrigiam, where one Antony Wood says of Bishop Longland, \"He\nwas a special friend to the University, in maintaining its\nprivileges and in _exhibiting_ to the wants of certain scholars.\"\nIn Mr. Peirce's History of Harvard University occurs this passage,\nin an account of the will of the Hon. William Stoughton: \"He\nbequeathed a pasture in Dorchester, containing twenty-three acres\nand four acres of marsh, 'the income of both to be _exhibited_, in\nthe first place, to a scholar of the town of Dorchester, and if\nthere be none such, to one of the town of Milton, and in want of\nsuch, then to any other well deserving that shall be most needy.'\"\n--p. 77.\n\n\nEXHIBITION. In colleges, a public literary and oratorical display.\nThe exercises at _exhibitions_ are original compositions, prose\ntranslations from the English into Greek and Latin, and from other\nlanguages into the English, metrical versions, dialogues, &c.\n\nAt Harvard College, in the year 1760, it was voted, \"that twice in\na year, in the spring and fall, each class should recite to their\nTutors, in the presence of the President, Professors, and Tutors,\nin the several books in which they are reciting to their\nrespective Tutors, and that publicly in the College Hall or\nChapel.\" The next year, the Overseers being informed \"that the\nstudents are not required to translate English into Latin nor\nLatin into English,\" their committee \"thought it would be\nconvenient that specimens of such translations and other\nperformances in classical and polite literature should be from\ntime to time laid before\" their board. A vote passed the Board of\nOverseers recommending to the Corporation a conformity to these\nsuggestions; but it was not until the year 1766 that a law was\nformally enacted in both boards, \"that twice in the year, viz. at\nthe semiannual visitation of the committee of the Overseers, some\nof the scholars, at the direction of the President and Tutors,\nshall publicly exhibit specimens of their proficiency, by\npronouncing orations and delivering dialogues, either in English\nor in one of the learned languages, or hearing a forensic\ndisputation, or such other exercises as the President and Tutors\nshall direct.\"--_Quincy's Hist. Harv. Univ._, Vol. II. pp.\n128-132.\n\nA few years after this, two more exhibitions were added, and were\nso arranged as to fall one in each quarter of the College year.\nThe last year in which there were four exhibitions was 1789. After\nthis time there were three exhibitions during the year until 1849,\nwhen one was omitted, since which time the original plan has been\nadopted.\n\nIn the journal of a member of the class which graduated at Harvard\nCollege in the year 1793, under the date of December 23d, 1789,\nExhibition, is the following memorandum: \"Music was intermingled\nwith elocution, which (we read) has charms to soothe even a savage\nbreast.\" Again, on a similar occasion, April 13th, 1790, an\naccount of the exercises of the day closes with this note: \"Tender\nmusic being interspersed to enliven the audience.\" Vocal music was\nsometimes introduced. In the same Journal, date October 1st, 1790,\nExhibition, the writer says: \"The performances were enlivened with\nan excellent piece of music, sung by Harvard Singing Club,\naccompanied with a band of music.\" From this time to the present\nday, music, either vocal or instrumental, has formed a very\nentertaining part of the Exhibition performances.[24]\n\nThe exercises for exhibitions are assigned by the Faculty to\nmeritorious students, usually of the two higher classes. The\nexhibitions are held under the direction of the President, and a\nrefusal to perform the part assigned is regarded as a high\noffence.--_Laws of Univ. at Cam., Mass._, 1848, p. 19. _Laws Yale\nColl._, 1837, p. 16.\n\n2. Allowance of meat and drink; pension; benefaction settled for\nthe maintenance of scholars in the English Universities, not\ndepending on the foundation.--_Encyc._\n\n  What maintenance he from his friends receives,\n  Like _exhibition_ thou shalt have from me.\n    _Two Gent. Verona_, Act. I. Sc. 3.\n\nThis word was formerly used in American colleges.\n\nI order and appoint ... ten pounds a year for one _exhibition_, to\nassist one pious young man.--_Quincy's Hist. Harv. Univ._, Vol. I.\np. 530.\n\nAs to the extending the time of his _exhibitions_, we agree to it.\n--_Ibid._, Vol. I. p. 532.\n\nIn the yearly \"Statement of the Treasurer\" of Harvard College, the\nword is still retained.\n\n\"A _school exhibition_,\" says a writer in the Literary World, with\nreference to England, \"is a stipend given to the head boys of a\nschool, conditional on their proceeding to some particular college\nin one of the universities.\"--Vol. XII. p. 285.\n\n\nEXHIBITIONER. One who has a pension or allowance, granted for the\nencouragement of learning; one who enjoys an exhibition. Used\nprincipally in the English universities.\n\n2. One who performs a part at an exhibition in American colleges\nis sometimes called an _exhibitioner_.\n\n\nEXPEL. In college government, to command to leave; to dissolve the\nconnection of a student; to interdict him from further connection.\n--_Webster_.\n\n\nEXPULSION. In college government, expulsion is the highest\ncensure, and is a final separation from the college or university.\n--_Coll. Laws_.\n\nIn the Diary of Mr. Leverett, who was President of Harvard College\nfrom 1707 to 1724, is an account of the manner in which the\npunishment of expulsion was then inflicted. It is as follows:--\"In\nthe College Hall the President, after morning prayers, the\nFellows, Masters of Art, and the several classes of Undergraduates\nbeing present, after a full opening of the crimes of the\ndelinquents, a pathetic admonition of them, and solemn obtestation\nand caution to the scholars, pronounced the sentence of expulsion,\nordered their names to be rent off the tables, and them to depart\nthe Hall.\"--_Quincy's Hist. Harv. Univ._, Vol. I. p. 442.\n\nIn England, \"an expelled man,\" says Bristed, \"is shut out from the\nlearned professions, as well as from all Colleges at either\nUniversity.\"--_Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 131.\n\n\n\n_F_.\n\n\nFACILITIES. The means by which the performance of anything is\nrendered easy.--_Webster_.\n\nAmong students, a general name for what are technically called\n_ponies_ or translations.\n\nAll such subsidiary helps in learning lessons, he classed ...\nunder the opprobrious name of \"_facilities_,\" and never scrupled\nto seize them as contraband goods.--_Memorial of John S. Popkin,\nD.D._, p. lxxvii.\n\n\nFACULTY. In colleges, the masters and professors of the several\nsciences.--_Johnson_.\n\nIn America, the _faculty_ of a college or university consists of\nthe president, professors, and tutors.--_Webster_.\n\nThe duties of the faculty are very extended. They have the general\ncontrol and direction of the studies pursued in the college. They\nhave cognizance of all offences committed by undergraduates, and\nit is their special duty to enforce the observance of all the laws\nand regulations for maintaining discipline, and promoting good\norder, virtue, piety, and good learning in the institution with\nwhich they are connected. The faculty hold meetings to communicate\nand compare their opinions and information, respecting the conduct\nand character of the students and the state of the college; to\ndecide upon the petitions or requests which may be offered them by\nthe members of college, and to consider and suggest such measures\nas may tend to the advancement of learning, and the improvement of\nthe college. This assembly is called a _Faculty-meeting_, a word\nvery often in the mouths of students.--_Coll. Laws_.\n\n2. One of the members or departments of a university.\n\n\"In the origin of the University of Paris,\" says Brande, \"the\nseven liberal arts (grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic,\ngeometry, astronomy, and music) seem to have been the subjects of\nacademic instruction. These constituted what was afterwards\ndesignated the Faculty of Arts. Three other faculties--those of\ndivinity, law, and medicine--were subsequently added. In all these\nfour, lectures were given, and degrees conferred by the\nUniversity. The four Faculties were transplanted to Oxford and\nCambridge, where they are still retained; although, in point of\nfact, the faculty of arts is the only one in which substantial\ninstruction is communicated in the academical course.\"--_Brande's\nDict._, Art. FACULTY.\n\nIn some American colleges, these four departments are established,\nand sometimes a fifth, the Scientific, is added.\n\n\nFAG. Scotch, _faik_, to fail, to languish. Ancient Swedish,\n_wik-a_, cedere. To drudge; to labor to weariness; to become\nweary.\n\n2. To study hard; to persevere in study.\n\n  Place me 'midst every toil and care,\n  A hapless undergraduate still,\n  To _fag_ at mathematics dire, &c.\n    _Gradus ad Cantab._, p. 8.\n\nDee, the famous mathematician, appears to have _fagged_ as\nintensely as any man at Cambridge. For three years, he declares,\nhe only slept four hours a night, and allowed two hours for\nrefreshment. The remaining eighteen hours were spent in\nstudy.--_Ibid._, p. 48.\n\n  How did ye toil, and _fagg_, and fume, and fret,\n    And--what the bashful muse would blush to say.\n    But, now, your painful tremors are all o'er,\n      Cloath'd in the glories of a full-sleev'd gown,\n      Ye strut majestically up and down,\n    And now ye _fagg_, and now ye fear, no more!\n    _Gent. Mag._, 1795, p. 20.\n\n\nFAG. A laborious drudge; a drudge for another. In colleges and\nschools, this term is applied to a boy of a lower form who is\nforced to do menial services for another boy of a higher form or\nclass.\n\nBut who are those three by-standers, that have such an air of\nsubmission and awe in their countenances? They are\n_fags_,--Freshmen, poor fellows, called out of their beds, and\nshivering with fear in the apprehension of missing morning\nprayers, to wait upon their lords the Sophomores in their midnight\nrevellings.--_Harvardiana_, Vol. II. p. 106.\n\n  His _fag_ he had well-nigh killed by a blow.\n    _Wallenstein in Bohn's Stand. Lib._, p. 155.\n\nA sixth-form schoolboy is not a little astonished to find his\n_fags_ becoming his masters.--_Lond. Quar. Rev._, Am. Ed., Vol.\nLXXIII, p. 53.\n\nUnder the title FRESHMAN SERVITUDE will be found as account of the\nmanner in which members of that class were formerly treated in the\nolder American colleges.\n\n2. A diligent student, i.e. a _dig_.\n\n\nFAG. Time spent in, or period of, studying.\n\nThe afternoon's _fag_ is a pretty considerable one, lasting from\nthree till dark.--_Alma Mater_, Vol. I. p. 248.\n\nAfter another _hard fag_ of a week or two, a land excursion would\nbe proposed.--_Ibid._, Vol. II. p. 56.\n\n\nFAGGING. Laborious drudgery; the acting as a drudge for another at\na college or school.\n\n2. Studying hard, equivalent to _digging, grubbing, &c._\n\n  Thrice happy ye, through toil and dangers past,\n    Who rest upon that peaceful shore,\n    Where all your _fagging_ is no more,\n  And gain the long-expected port at last.\n    _Gent. Mag._, 1795, p. 19.\n\nTo _fagging_ I set to, therefore, with as keen a relish as ever\nalderman sat down to turtle.--_Alma Mater_, Vol. I. p. 123.\n\nSee what I pay for liberty to leave school early, and to figure in\nevery ball-room in the country, and see the world, instead of\n_fagging_ at college.--_Collegian's Guide_, p. 307.\n\n\nFAIR HARVARD. At the celebration of the era of the second century\nfrom the origin of Harvard College, which was held at Cambridge,\nSeptember 8th, 1836, the following Ode, written by the Rev. Samuel\nGilman, D.D., of Charleston, S.C., was sung to the air, \"Believe\nme, if all those endearing young charms.\"\n\n \"FAIR HARVARD! thy sons to thy Jubilee throng,\n    And with blessings surrender thee o'er,\n  By these festival-rites, from the Age that is past,\n    To the Age that is waiting before.\n  O Relic and Type of our ancestors' worth,\n    That hast long kept their memory warm!\n  First flower of their wilderness! Star of their night,\n    Calm rising through change and through storm!\n\n \"To thy bowers we were led in the bloom of our youth,\n    From the home of our free-roving years,\n  When our fathers had warned, and our mothers had prayed,\n    And our sisters had blest, through their tears.\n  _Thou_ then wert our parent,--the nurse of our souls,--\n    We were moulded to manhood by thee,\n  Till, freighted with treasure-thoughts, friendships, and hopes,\n    Thou didst launch us on Destiny's sea.\n\n \"When, as pilgrims, we come to revisit thy halls,\n    To what kindlings the season gives birth!\n  Thy shades are more soothing, thy sunlight more dear,\n    Than descend on less privileged earth:\n  For the Good and the Great, in their beautiful prime,\n    Through thy precincts have musingly trod,\n  As they girded their spirits, or deepened the streams\n    That make glad the fair City of God.\n\n \"Farewell! be thy destinies onward and bright!\n    To thy children the lesson still give,\n  With freedom to think, and with patience to bear,\n    And for right ever bravely to live.\n  Let not moss-covered Error moor _thee_ at its side,\n    As the world on Truth's current glides by;\n  Be the herald of Light, and the bearer of Love,\n    Till the stock of the Puritans die.\"\n\nSince the occasion on which this ode was sung, it has been the\npractice with the odists of Class Day at Harvard College to write\nthe farewell class song to the tune of \"Fair Harvard,\" the name by\nwhich the Irish air \"Believe me\" has been adopted. The deep pathos\nof this melody renders it peculiarly appropriate to the\ncircumstances with which it has been so happily connected, and\nfrom which it is to be hoped it may never be severed.\n\nSee CLASS DAY.\n\n\nFAIR LICK. In the game of football, when the ball is fairly caught\nor kicked beyond the bounds, the cry usually heard, is _Fair lick!\nFair lick!_\n\n  \"_Fair lick_!\" he cried, and raised his dreadful foot,\n  Armed at all points with the ancestral boot.\n    _Harvardiana_, Vol. IV. p. 22.\n\nSee FOOTBALL.\n\n\nFANTASTICS. At Princeton College, an exhibition on Commencement\nevening, of a number of students on horseback, fantastically\ndressed in masks, &c.\n\n\nFAST. An epithet of one who is showy in dress, expensive or\napparently so in his mode of living, and inclined to spree.\nFormerly used exclusively among students; now of more general\napplication.\n\nSpeaking of the student signification of the word, Bristed\nremarks: \"A _fast man_ is not necessarily (like the London fast\nman) a _rowing_ man, though the two attributes are often combined\nin the same person; he is one who dresses flashily, talks big, and\nspends, or affects to spend, money very freely.\"--_Five Years in\nan Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 23.\n\n  The _Fast_ Man comes, with reeling tread,\n  Cigar in mouth, and swimming head.\n    _MS. Poem_, F.E. Felton.\n\n\nFAT. At Princeton College, a letter with money or a draft is thus\ndenominated.\n\n\nFATHER or PR\u00c6LECTOR. In the University of Cambridge, Eng., one of\nthe fellows of a college, who attends all the examinations for the\nBachelor's degree, to see that justice is done to the candidates\nfrom his own college, who are at that time called his\n_sons_.--_Gradus ad Cantab._\n\nThe _Fathers_ of the respective colleges, zealous for the credit\nof the societies of which they are the guardians, are incessantly\nemployed in examining those students who appear most likely to\ncontest the palm of glory with their _sons_.--_Gent. Mag._, 1773,\np. 435.\n\n\nFEBRUARY TWENTY-SECOND. At Shelby, Centre, and Bacon Colleges, in\nKentucky, it is customary to select the best orators and speakers\nfrom the different literary societies to deliver addresses on the\ntwenty-second of February, in commemoration of the birthday of\nWashington. At Bethany College, in Virginia, this day is observed\nin a similar manner.\n\n\nFEEZE. Usually spelled PHEEZE, q.v.\n\nUnder FLOP, another, but probably a wrong or obsolete,\nsignification is given.\n\n\nFELLOW. A member of a corporation; a trustee. In the English\nuniversities, a residence at the college, engagement in\ninstruction, and receiving therefor a stipend, are essential\nrequisites to the character of a _fellow_. In American colleges,\nit is not necessary that a _fellow_ should be a resident, a\nstipendiary, or an instructor. In most cases the greater number of\nthe _Fellows of the Corporation_ are non-residents, and have no\npart in the instruction at the college.\n\nWith reference to the University of Cambridge, Eng., Bristed\nremarks: \"The Fellows, who form the general body from which the\nother college officers are chosen, consist of those four or five\nBachelor Scholars in each year who pass the best examination in\nclassics, mathematics, and metaphysics. This examination being a\nsevere one, and only the last of many trials which they have gone\nthrough, the inference is allowable that they are the most learned\nof the College graduates. They have a handsome income, whether\nresident or not; but if resident, enjoy the additional advantages\nof a well-spread table for nothing, and good rooms at a very low\nprice. The only conditions of retaining their Fellowships are,\nthat they take orders after a certain time and remain unmarried.\nOf those who do not fill college offices, some occupy themselves\nwith private pupils; others, who have property of their own,\nprefer to live a life of literary leisure, like some of their\npredecessors, the monks of old. The eight oldest Fellows at any\ntime in residence, together with the Master, have the government\nof the college vested in them.\"--_Five Years in an Eng. Univ._,\nEd. 2d, p. 16.\n\nFor some remarks on the word Fellow, see under the title COLLEGE.\n\n\nFELLOW-COMMONER. In the University of Cambridge, England,\n_Fellow-Commoners_ are generally the younger sons of the nobility,\nor young men of fortune, and have the privilege of dining at the\nFellows' table, whence the appellation originated.\n\n\"Fellow-Commoners,\" says Bristed, \"are 'young men of fortune,' as\nthe _Cambridge Calendar_ and _Cambridge Guide_ have it, who, in\nconsideration of their paying twice as much for everything as\nanybody else, are allowed the privilege of sitting at the Fellows'\ntable in hall, and in their seats at chapel; of wearing a gown\nwith gold or silver lace, and a velvet cap with a metallic tassel;\nof having the first choice of rooms; and as is generally believed,\nand believed not without reason, of getting off with a less number\nof chapels per week. Among them are included the Honorables _not_\neldest sons,--only these wear a hat instead of the velvet cap, and\nare thence popularly known as _Hat_ Fellow-Commoners.\"--_Five\nYears in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 13.\n\nA _Fellow-Commoner_ at Cambridge is equivalent to an Oxford\n_Gentleman-Commoner_, and is in all respects similar to what in\nprivate schools and seminaries is called a _parlor boarder_. A\nfuller account of this, the first rank at the University, will be\nfound in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1795, p. 20, and in the Gradus\nad Cantabrigiam, p. 50.\n\n\"Fellow-Commoners have been nicknamed '_Empty Bottles_'! They have\nbeen called, likewise, 'Useless Members'! 'The licensed Sons of\nIgnorance.'\"--_Gradus ad Cantab._\n\nThe Fellow-Commoners, alias _empty bottles_, (not so called\nbecause they've let out anything during the examination,) are then\npresented.--_Alma Mater_, Vol. II. p. 101.\n\nIn the old laws of Harvard College we find the following: \"None\nshall be admitted a _Fellow-Commoner_ unless he first pay thirteen\npounds six and eight pence to the college. And every\n_Fellow-Commoner_ shall pay double tuition money. They shall have\nthe privilege of dining and supping with the Fellows at their\ntable in the hall; they shall be excused from going on errands,\nand shall have the title of Masters, and have the privilege of\nwearing their hats as the Masters do; but shall attend all duties\nand exercises with the rest of their class, and be alike subject\nto the laws and government of the College,\" &c. The Hon. Paine\nWingate, a graduate of the class of 1759, says in reference to\nthis subject: \"I never heard anything about _Fellow-Commoners_ in\ncollege excepting in this paragraph. I am satisfied there has been\nno such description of scholars at Cambridge since I have known\nanything about the place.\"--_Peirce's Hist. Harv. Coll._, p. 314.\n\nIn the Appendix to \"A Sketch of the History of Harvard College,\"\nby Samuel A. Eliot, is a memorandum, in the list of donations to\nthat institution, under the date 1683, to this effect. \"Mr. Joseph\nBrown, Mr. Edward Page, Mr. Francis Wainwright,\n_fellow-commoners_, gave each a silver goblet.\" Mr. Wainwright\ngraduated in 1686. The other two do not appear to have received a\ndegree. All things considered, it is probable that this order,\nalthough introduced from the University of Cambridge, England,\ninto Harvard College, received but few members, on account of the\nevil influence which such distinctions usually exert.\n\n\nFELLOW OF THE HOUSE. See under HOUSE.\n\n\nFELLOW, RESIDENT. At Harvard College, the tutors were formerly\ncalled _resident fellows_.--_Quincy's Hist. Harv. Univ._, Vol. I.\np. 278.\n\nThe _resident fellows_ were tutors to the classes, and instructed\nthem in Hebrew, \"and led them through all the liberal arts before\nthe four years were expired.\"--_Harv. Reg._, p. 249.\n\n\nFELLOWSHIP. An establishment in colleges, for the maintenance of a\nfellow.--_Webster_.\n\nIn Harvard College, tutors were formerly called Fellows of the\nHouse or College, and their office, _fellowships_. In this sense\nthat word is used in the following passage.\n\nJoseph Stevens was chosen \"Fellow of the College, or House,\" and\nas such was approved by that board [the Corporation], in the\nlanguage of the records, \"to supply a vacancy in one of the\n_Fellowships_ of the House.\"--_Quincy's Hist. Harv. Univ._, Vol.\nI. p. 279.\n\n\nFELLOWS' ORCHARD. See TUTORS' PASTURE.\n\n\nFEMUR. Latin; _a thigh-bone_. At Yale College, a _femur_ was\nformerly the badge of a medical bully.\n\n  When hand in hand all joined in band,\n    With clubs, umbrellas, _femurs_,\n  Declaring death and broken teeth\n    'Gainst blacksmiths, cobblers, seamers.\n    _The Crayon_, Yale Coll., 1823, p. 14.\n\n \"One hundred valiant warriors, who\n    (My Captain bid me say)\n  Three _femurs_ wield, with one to fight,\n    With two to run away,\n\n \"Wait in Scull Castle, to receive,\n    With open gates, your men;\n  Their right arms nerved, their _femurs_ clenched,\n    Safe to protect ye then!\"--_Ibid._, p. 23.\n\n\nFERG. To lose the heat of excitement or passion; to become less\nangry, ardent; to cool. A correspondent from the University of\nVermont, where this word is used, says: \"If a man gets angry, we\n'let him _ferg_,' and he feels better.\"\n\n\nFESS. Probably abbreviated for CONFESS. In some of the Southern\nColleges, to fail in reciting; to silently request the teacher not\nto put farther queries.\n\nThis word is in use among the cadets at West Point, with the same\nmeaning.\n\n  And when you and I, and Benny, and General Jackson too,\n    Are brought before a final board our course of life to view,\n  May we never \"_fess_\" on any \"point,\" but then be told to go\n    To join the army of the blest, with Benny Havens, O!\n    _Song, Benny Havens, O!_\n\n\nFINES. In many of the colleges in the United States it was\nformerly customary to impose fines upon the students as a\npunishment for non-compliance with the laws. The practice is now\nvery generally abolished.\n\nAbout the middle of the eighteenth century, the custom of\npunishing by pecuniary mulets began, at Harvard College, to be\nconsidered objectionable. \"Although,\" says Quincy, \"little\nregarded by the students, they were very annoying to their\nparents.\" A list of the fines which were imposed on students at\nthat period presents a curious aggregate of offences and\npunishments.\n\n                                                         \u00a3  s. d.\nAbsence from prayers,                                    0  0  2\nTardiness at prayers,                                    0  0  1\nAbsence from Professor's public lecture,                 0  0  4\nTardiness at            do.                              0  0  2\nProfanation of Lord's day, not exceeding                 0  3  0\nAbsence from public worship,                             0  0  9\nTardiness at      do.                                    0  0  3\nIll behavior at   do.      not exceeding                 0  1  6\nGoing to meeting before bell-ringing,                    0  0  6\nNeglecting to repeat the sermon,                         0  0  9\nIrreverent behavior at prayers, or public divinity\n    lectures,                                            0  1  6\nAbsence from chambers, &c., not exceeding                0  0  6\nNot declaiming, not exceeding                            0  1  6\nNot giving up a declamation, not exceeding               0  1  6\nAbsence from recitation, not exceeding                   0  1  6\nNeglecting analyzing, not exceeding                      0  3  0\nBachelors neglecting disputations, not exceeding         0  1  6\nRespondents neglecting do. from 1s. 6d. to               0  3  0\nUndergraduates out of town without leave, not exceeding  0  2  6\nUndergraduates tarrying out of town without leave, not\n    exceeding _per diem_,                                0  1  3\nUndergraduates tarrying out of town one week without\n    leave, not exceeding                                 0 10  0\nUndergraduates tarrying out of town one month without\n    leave, not exceeding                                 2 10  0\nLodging strangers without leave, not exceeding           0  1  6\nEntertaining persons of ill character, not exceeding     0  1  6\nGoing out of College without proper garb, not exceeding  0  0  6\nFrequenting taverns, not exceeding                       0  1  6\nProfane cursing, not exceeding                           0  2  6\nGraduates playing cards, not exceeding                   0  5  0\nUndergraduates playing cards, not exceeding              0  2  6\nUndergraduates playing any game for money, not exceeding 0  1  6\nSelling and exchanging without leave, not exceeding      0  1  6\nLying, not exceeding                                     0  1  6\nOpening door by pick-locks, not exceeding                0  5  0\nDrunkenness, not exceeding                               0  1  6\nLiquors prohibited under penalty, not exceeding          0  1  6\nSecond offence, not exceeding                            0  3  0\nKeeping prohibited liquors, not exceeding                0  1  6\nSending for      do.                                     0  0  6\nFetching         do.                                     0  1  6\nGoing upon the top of the College,                       0  1  6\nCutting off the lead,                                    0  1  6\nConcealing the transgression of the 19th Law,[25]        0  1  6\nTumultuous noises,                                       0  1  6\nSecond offence,                                          0  3  0\nRefusing to give evidence,                               0  3  0\nRudeness at meals,                                       0  1  0\nButler and cook to keep utensils clean, not\n    exceeding                                            0  5  0\nNot lodging at their chambers, not exceeding             0  1  6\nSending Freshmen in studying time,                       0  0  9\nKeeping guns, and going on skating,                      0  1  0\nFiring guns or pistols in College yard,                  0  2  6\nFighting or hurting any person, not exceeding            0  1  6\n\nIn 1761, a committee, of which Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson was\na member, was appointed to consider of some other method of\npunishing offenders. Although they did not altogether abolish\nmulets, yet \"they proposed that, in lieu of an increase of mulcts,\nabsences without justifiable cause from any exercise of the\nCollege should subject the delinquent to warning, private\nadmonition, exhortation to duty, and public admonition, with a\nnotification to parents; when recitations had been omitted,\nperformance of them should be exacted at some other time; and, by\nway of punishment for disorders, confinement, and the performance\nof exercises during its continuance, should be\nenjoined.\"--_Quincy's Hist. Harv. Univ._, Vol. II. pp. 135, 136.\n\nBy the laws of 1798, fines not exceeding one dollar were imposed\nby a Professor or Tutor, or the Librarian; not exceeding two\ndollars, by the President; all above two dollars, by the\nPresident, Professors, and Tutors, at a meeting.\n\nUpon this subject, with reference to Harvard College, Professor\nSidney Willard remarks: \"For a long period fines constituted the\npunishment of undergraduates for negligence in attendance at the\nexercises and in the performance of the lessons assigned to them.\nA fine was the lowest degree in the gradation of punishment. This\nmode of punishment or disapprobation was liable to objections, as\na tax on the father rather than a rebuke of the son, (except it\nmight be, in some cases, for the indirect moral influence produced\nupon the latter, operating on his filial feeling,) and as a\nmercenary exaction, since the money went into the treasury of the\nCollege. It was a good day for the College when this punishment\nthrough the purse was abandoned as a part of the system of\npunishments; which, not confined to neglect of study, had been\nextended also to a variety of misdemeanors more or less aggravated\nand aggravating.\"--_Memories of Youth and Manhood_, Vol. I. p.\n304.\n\n\"Of fines,\" says President Woolsey, in his Historical Discourse\nrelating to Yale College, \"the laws are full, and other documents\nshow that the laws did not sleep. Thus there was in 1748 a fine of\na penny for the absence of an undergraduate from prayers, and of a\nhalf-penny for tardiness or coming in after the introductory\ncollect; of fourpence for absence from public worship; of from two\nto six pence for absence from one's chamber during the time of\nstudy; of one shilling for picking open a lock the first time, and\ntwo shillings the second; of two and sixpence for playing at cards\nor dice, or for bringing strong liquor into College; of one\nshilling for doing damage to the College, or jumping out of the\nwindows,--and so in many other cases.\n\n\"In the year 1759, a somewhat unfair pamphlet was written, which\ngave occasion to several others in quick succession, wherein,\namidst other complaints of President Clap's administration,\nmention is made of the large amount of fines imposed upon\nstudents. The author, after mentioning that in three years' time\nover one hundred and seventy-two pounds of lawful money was\ncollected in this way, goes on to add, that 'such an exorbitant\ncollection by fines tempts one to suspect that they have got\ntogether a most disorderly set of young men training up for the\nservice of the churches, or that they are governed and corrected\nchiefly by pecuniary punishments;--that almost all sins in that\nsociety are purged and atoned for by money.' He adds, with\njustice, that these fines do not fall on the persons of the\noffenders,--most of the students being minors,--but upon their\nparents; and that the practice takes place chiefly where there is\nthe least prospect of working a reformation, since the thoughtless\nand extravagant, being the principal offenders against College\nlaw, would not lay it to heart if their frolics should cost them a\nlittle more by way of fine. He further expresses his opinion, that\nthis way of punishing the children of the College has but little\ntendency to better their hearts and reform their manners; that\npecuniary impositions act only by touching the shame or\ncovetousness or necessities of those upon whom they are levied;\nand that fines had ceased to become dishonorable at College, while\nto appeal to the love of money was expelling one devil by another,\nand to restrain the necessitous by fear of fine would be extremely\ncruel and unequal. These and other considerations are very\nproperly urged, and the same feeling is manifested in the laws by\nthe gradual abolition of nearly all pecuniary mulcts. The\npractice, it ought to be added, was by no means peculiar to Yale\nCollege, but was transferred, even in a milder form, from the\ncolleges of England.\"--pp. 47, 48.\n\nIn connection with this subject, it may not be inappropriate to\nmention the following occurrence, which is said to have taken\nplace at Harvard College.\n\nDr. ----, _in propria persona_, called upon a Southern student one\nmorning in the recitation-room to define logic. The question was\nsomething in this form. \"Mr. ----, what is logic?\" Ans. \"Logic,\nSir, is the art of reasoning.\" \"Ay; but I wish you to give the\ndefinition in the exact words of the _learned author_.\" \"O, Sir,\nhe gives a very long, intricate, confused definition, with which I\ndid not think proper to burden my memory.\" \"Are you aware who the\nlearned author is?\" \"O, yes! your honor, Sir.\" \"Well, then, I fine\nyou one dollar for disrespect.\" Taking out a two-dollar note, the\nstudent said, with the utmost _sang froid_, \"If you will change\nthis, I will pay you on the spot.\" \"I fine you another dollar,\"\nsaid the Professor, emphatically, \"for repeated disrespect.\" \"Then\n'tis just the change, Sir,\" said the student, coolly.\n\n\nFIRST-YEAR MEN. In the University of Cambridge, England, the title\nof _First-Year Men_, or _Freshmen_, is given to students during\nthe first year of their residence at the University.\n\n\nFISH. At Harvard College, to seek or gain the good-will of an\ninstructor by flattery, caresses, kindness, or officious\ncivilities; to curry favor. The German word _fischen_ has a\nsecondary meaning, to get by cunning, which is similar to the\nEnglish word _fish_. Students speak of fishing for parts,\nappointments, ranks, marks, &c.\n\n  I give to those that _fish for parts_,\n  Long, sleepless nights, and aching hearts,\n  A little soul, a fawning spirit,\n  With half a grain of plodding merit,\n  Which is, as Heaven I hope will say,\n  Giving what's not my own away.\n    _Will of Charles Prentiss, in Rural Repository_, 1795.\n\n  Who would let a Tutor knave\n  Screw him like a Guinea slave!\n  Who would _fish_ a fine to save!\n    Let him turn and flee.--_Rebelliad_, p. 35.\n\n  Did I not promise those who _fished_\n  And pimped most, any part they wished?--_Ibid._, p. 33.\n\n  'T is all well here; though 't were a grand mistake\n  To write so, should one \"_fish_\" for a \"forty-eight!\"\n    _Childe Harvard_, p. 33.\n\n  Still achieving, still intriguing,\n  Learn to labor and to _fish_.\n    _Poem before Y.H._, 1849.\n\nThe following passage explains more clearly, perhaps, the meaning\nof this word. \"Any attempt to raise your standing by ingratiating\nyourself with the instructors, will not only be useless, but\ndishonorable. Of course, in your intercourse with the Professors\nand Tutors, you will not be wanting in that respect and courtesy\nwhich is due to them, both as your superiors and as\ngentlemen.\"--_Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 79.\n\nWashington Allston, who graduated at Harvard College in the year\n1800, left a painting of a fishing scene, to be transmitted from\nclass to class. It was in existence in the year 1828, but has\ndisappeared of late.\n\n\nFISH, FISHER. One who attempts to ingratiate himself with his\ninstructor, thereby to obtain favor or advantage; one who curries\nfavor.\n\nYou besought me to respect my teachers, and to be attentive to my\nstudies, though it shall procure me the odious title of a\n\"_fisher_.\"--_Monthly Anthology_, Boston, 1804, Vol. I. p. 153.\n\n\nFISHING. The act performed by a _fisher_. The full force of this\nword is set forth in a letter from Dr. Popkin, a Professor at\nHarvard College, to his brother William, dated Boston, October\n17th, 1800.\n\n\"I am sensible that the good conduct which I have advised you, and\nwhich, I doubt not, you are inclined to preserve, may expose you\nto the opprobrious epithet, _fishing_. You undoubtedly understand,\nby this time, the meaning of that frightful term, which has done\nmore damage in college than all the bad wine, and roasted pigs,\nthat have ever fired the frenzy of Genius! The meaning of it, in\nshort, is nothing less than this, that every one who acts as a\nreasonable being in the various relations and duties of a scholar\nis using the basest means to ingratiate himself with the\ngovernment, and seeking by mean compliances to purchase their\nhonors and favors. At least, I thought this to be true when I was\nin the government. If times and manners are altered, I am heartily\nglad of it; but it will not injure you to hear the tales of former\ntimes. If a scholar appeared to perform his exercises to his best\nability, if there were not a marked contempt and indifference in\nhis manner, I would hear the whisper run round the class,\n_fishing_. If one appeared firm enough to perform an unpopular\nduty, or showed common civility to his instructors, who certainly\nwished him well, he was _fishing_. If he refused to join in some\ngeneral disorder, he was insulted with _fishing_. If he did not\nappear to despise the esteem and approbation of his instructors,\nand to disclaim all the rewards of diligence and virtue, he was\nsuspected of _fishing_. The fear of this suspicion or imputation\nhas, I believe, perverted many minds which, from good and\nhonorable motives, were better disposed.\"--_Memorial of John S.\nPopkin, D.D._, pp. xxvi., xxvii.\n\n  To those who've parts at exhibition,\n  Obtained by long, unwearied _fishing_,\n  I say, to such unlucky wretches,\n  I give, for wear, a brace of breeches.\n    _Will of Charles Prentiss, in Rural Repository_, 1795.\n\n  And, since his _fishing_ on the land was vain,\n  To try his luck upon the azure main.--_Class Poem_, 1835.\n\nWhenever I needed advice or assistance, I did not hesitate,\nthrough any fear of the charge of what, in the College cant, was\ncalled \"_fishing_,\" to ask it of Dr. Popkin.--_Memorial of John S.\nPopkin, D.D._, p. ix.\n\nAt Dartmouth College, the electioneering for members of the secret\nsocieties was formerly called _fishing_. At the same institution,\nindividuals in the Senior Class were said to be _fishing for\nappointments_, if they tried to gain the good-will of the Faculty\nby any special means.\n\n\nFIVES. A kind of play with a ball against the side of a building,\nresembling tennis; so named, because three _fives_ or _fifteen_\nare counted to the game.--_Smart_.\n\nA correspondent, writing of Centre College, Ky., says: \"Fives was\na game very much in vogue, at which the President would often take\na hand, and while the students would play for ice-cream or some\nother refreshment, he would never fail to come in for his share.\"\n\n\nFIZZLE. Halliwell says: \"The half-hiss, half-sigh of an animal.\"\nIn many colleges in the United States, this word is applied to a\nbad recitation, probably from the want of distinct articulation\nwhich usually attends such performances. It is further explained\nin the Yale Banger, November 10, 1846: \"This figure of a wounded\nsnake is intended to represent what in technical language is\ntermed a _fizzle_. The best judges have decided, that to get just\none third of the meaning right constitutes a _perfect fizzle_.\"\n\nWith a mind and body so nearly at rest, that naught interrupted my\ninmost repose save cloudy reminiscences of a morning \"_fizzle_\"\nand an afternoon \"flunk,\" my tranquillity was sufficiently\nenviable.--_Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. XV. p. 114.\n\n  Here he could _fizzles_ mark without a sigh,\n  And see orations unregarded die.\n    _The Tomahawk_, Nov., 1849.\n\n  Not a wail was heard, or a \"_fizzle's_\" mild sigh,\n  As his corpse o'er the pavement we hurried.\n    _The Gallinipper_, Dec., 1849.\n\nAt Princeton College, the word _blue_ is used with _fizzle_, to\nrender it intensive; as, he made a _blue fizzle_, he _fizzled\nblue_.\n\n\nFIZZLE. To fail in reciting; to recite badly. A correspondent from\nWilliams College says: \"Flunk is the common word when some\nunfortunate man makes an utter failure in recitation. He _fizzles_\nwhen he stumbles through at last.\" Another from Union writes: \"If\nyou have been lazy, you will probably _fizzle_.\" A writer in the\nYale Literary Magazine thus humorously defines this word:\n\"_Fizzle_. To rise with modest reluctance, to hesitate often, to\ndecline finally; generally, to misunderstand the question.\"--Vol.\nXIV. p. 144.\n\nMy dignity is outraged at beholding those who _fizzle_ and flunk\nin my presence tower above me.--_The Yale Banger_, Oct. 22, 1847.\n\n  I \"skinned,\" and \"_fizzled_\" through.\n    _Presentation Day Songs_, June 14, 1854.\n\nThe verb _to fizzle out_, which is used at the West, has a little\nstronger signification, viz. to be quenched, extinguished; to\nprove a failure.--_Bartlett's Dict. Americanisms_.\n\nThe factious and revolutionary action of the fifteen has\ninterrupted the regular business of the Senate, disgraced the\nactors, and _fizzled out_.--_Cincinnati Gazette_.\n\n2. To cause one to fail in reciting. Said of an instructor.\n\n  _Fizzle_ him tenderly,\n    Bore him with care,\n  Fitted so slenderly,\n    Tutor, beware.\n    _Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. XIII. p. 321.\n\n\nFIZZLING. Reciting badly; the act of making a poor recitation.\n\nOf this word, a writer jocosely remarks: \"_Fizzling_ is a somewhat\n_free_ translation of an intricate sentence; proving a proposition\nin geometry from a wrong figure. Fizzling is caused sometimes by a\ntoo hasty perusal of the pony, and generally by a total loss of\nmemory when called upon to recite.\"--_Sophomore Independent_,\nUnion College, Nov. 1854.\n\n  Weather drizzling,\n  Freshmen _fizzling_.\n    _Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. XV. p. 212.\n\n\nFLAM. At the University of Vermont, in student phrase, to _flam_\nis to be attentive, at any time, to any lady or company of ladies.\nE.g. \"He spends half his time _flamming_\" i.e. in the society of\nthe other sex.\n\n\nFLASH-IN-THE-PAN. A student is said to make a _flash-in-the-pan_\nwhen he commences to recite brilliantly, and suddenly fails; the\nlatter part of such a recitation is a FIZZLE. The metaphor is\nborrowed from a gun, which, after being primed, loaded, and ready\nto be discharged, _flashes in the pan_.\n\n\nFLOOR. Among collegians, to answer such questions as may be\npropounded concerning a given subject.\n\n  Then Olmsted took hold, but he couldn't make it go,\n  For we _floored_ the Bien. Examination.\n    _Presentation Day Songs_, Yale Coll., June 14, 1854.\n\nTo _floor a paper_, is to answer every question in it.--_Bristed_.\n\nSomehow I nearly _floored the paper_, and came out feeling much\nmore comfortable than when I went in.--_Bristed's Five Years in an\nEng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 12.\n\nOur best classic had not time to _floor_ the _paper_.--_Ibid._, p.\n135.\n\n\nFLOP. A correspondent from the University of Vermont writes: \"Any\n'cute' performance by which a man is sold [deceived] is a _good\nflop_, and, by a phrase borrowed from the ball ground, is 'rightly\nplayed.' The discomfited individual declares that they 'are all on\na side,' and gives up, or 'rolls over' by giving his opponent\n'gowdy.'\" \"A man writes cards during examination to 'feeze the\nprofs'; said cards are 'gumming cards,' and he _flops_ the\nexamination if he gets a good mark by the means.\" One usually\n_flops_ his marks by feigning sickness.\n\n\nFLOP A TWENTY. At the University of Vermont, to _flop a twenty_ is\nto make a perfect recitation, twenty being the maximum mark for\nscholarship.\n\n\nFLUMMUX. Any failure is called a _flummux_. In some colleges the\nword is particularly applied to a poor recitation. At Williams\nCollege, a failure on the play-ground is called a _flummux_.\n\n\nFLUMMUX. To fail; to recite badly. Mr. Bartlett, in his Dictionary\nof Americanisms, has the word _flummix_, to be overcome; to be\nfrightened; to give way to.\n\nPerhaps Parson Hyme didn't put it into Pokerville for two mortal\nhours; and perhaps Pokerville didn't mizzle, wince, and finally\n_flummix_ right beneath him.--_Field, Drama in Pokerville_.\n\n\nFLUNK. This word is used in some American colleges to denote a\ncomplete failure in recitation.\n\nThis, O, [signifying neither beginning nor end,] Tutor H---- said\nmeant a perfect _flunk_.--_The Yale Banger_, Nov. 10, 1846.\n\nI've made some twelve or fourteen _flunks_.--_The Gallinipper_,\nDec. 1849.\n\n  And that bold man must bear a _flunk_, or die,\n  Who, when John pleased be captious, dared reply.\n    _Yale Tomahawk_, Nov. 1849.\n\nThe Sabbath dawns upon the poor student burdened with the thought\nof the lesson, or _flunk_ of the morrow morning.--_Ibid._, Feb.\n1851.\n\n    He thought ...\n  First of his distant home and parents, tunc,\n  Of tutors' note-books, and the morrow's _flunk_.\n    _Ibid._, Feb. 1851.\n\n  In moody meditation sunk,\n  Reflecting on my future _flunk_.\n    _Songs of Yale_, 1853, p. 54.\n\n  And so, in spite of scrapes and _flunks_,\n    I'll have a sheep-skin too.\n    _Presentation Day Songs_, June 14, 1854.\n\nSome amusing anecdotes are told, such as the well-known one about\nthe lofty dignitary's macaronic injunction, \"Exclude canem, et\nshut the door\"; and another of a tutor's dismal _flunk_ on\nfaba.--_Harv. Mag._, Vol. I. p. 263.\n\n\nFLUNK. To make a complete failure when called on to recite. A\nwriter in the Yale Literary Magazine defines it, \"to decline\nperemptorily, and then to whisper, 'I had it all, except that\nconfounded little place.'\"--Vol. XIV. p. 144.\n\nThey know that a man who has _flunked_, because too much of a\ngenius to get his lesson, is not in a state to appreciate joking.\n--_Amherst Indicator_, Vol. I. p. 253.\n\nNestor was appointed to deliver a poem, but most ingloriously\n_flunked_.--_Ibid._, Vol. I. p. 256.\n\nThe phrase _to flunk out_, which Bartlett, in his Dictionary of\nAmericanisms, defines, \"to retire through fear, to back out,\" is\nof the same nature as the above word.\n\nWhy, little one, you must be cracked, if you _flunk out_ before we\nbegin.--_J.C. Neal_.\n\nIt was formerly used in some American colleges as is now the word\n_flunk_.\n\nWe must have, at least, as many subscribers as there are students\nin College, or \"_flunk out.\"--The Crayon_, Yale Coll., 1823, p. 3.\n\n\nFLUNKEY. In college parlance, one who makes a complete failure at\nrecitation; one who _flunks_.\n\n  I bore him safe through Horace,\n    Saved him from the _flunkey's_ doom.\n    _Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. XX. p. 76.\n\n\nFLUNKING. Failing completely in reciting.\n\n  _Flunking_ so gloomily,\n  Crushed by contumely.\n    _Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. XIII. p. 322.\n\n\nWe made our earliest call while the man first called up in the\ndivision-room was deliberately and gracefully\n\"_flunking_.\"--_Ibid._, Vol. XIV. p. 190.\n\n  See what a spot a _flunking_ Soph'more made!\n    _Yale Gallinipper_, Nov. 1848.\n\n\nFLUNKOLOGY. A farcical word, designed to express the science _of\nflunking_.\n\nThe ---- scholarship, is awarded to the student in each Freshman\nClass who passes the poorest examination in\n_Flunkology_.--_Burlesque Catalogue_, Yale Coll., 1852-53, p. 28.\n\n\nFOOTBALL. For many years, the game of football has been the\nfavorite amusement at some of the American colleges, during\ncertain seasons of the year. At Harvard and Yale, it is customary\nfor the Sophomore Class to challenge the Freshmen to a trial game,\nsoon after their entrance into College. The interest excited on\nthis occasion is always very great, the Seniors usually siding\nwith the former, and the Juniors with the latter class. The result\nis generally in favor of the Sophomores. College poets and\nprose-writers have often chosen the game of football as a topic on\nwhich to exercise their descriptive powers. One invokes his muse,\nin imitation of a great poet, as follows:--\n\n \"The Freshmen's wrath, to Sophs the direful spring\n  Of shins unnumbered bruised, great goddess, sing!\"\n\nAnother, speaking of the size of the ball in ancient times\ncompared with what it is at present, says:--\n\n \"A ball like this, so monstrous and so hard,\n  Six eager Freshmen scarce could kick a yard!\"\n\nFurther compositions on this subject are to be found in the\nHarvard Register, Harvardiana, Yale Banger, &c.\n\nSee WRESTLING-MATCH.\n\n\nFORENSIC. A written argument, maintaining either the affirmative\nor the negative side of a question.\n\nIn Harvard College, the two senior classes are required to write\n_forensics_ once in every four weeks, on a subject assigned by the\nProfessor of Moral Philosophy; these they read before him and the\ndivision of the class to which they belong, on appointed days. It\nwas formerly customary for the teacher to name those who were to\nwrite on the affirmative and those on the negative, but it is now\nleft optional with the student which side he will take. This word\nwas originally used as an adjective, and it was usual to speak of\na forensic dispute, which has now been shortened into _forensic_.\n\nFor every unexcused omission of a _forensic_, or of reading a\n_forensic_, a deduction shall be made of the highest number of\nmarks to which that exercise is entitled. Seventy-two is the\nhighest mark for _forensics_.--_Laws of Univ. at Cam., Mass._,\n1848.\n\nWhat with themes, _forensics_, letters, memoranda, notes on\nlectures, verses, and articles, I find myself considerably\nhurried.--_Collegian_, 1830, p. 241.\n\n                                  When\n  I call to mind _Forensics_ numberless,\n  With arguments so grave and erudite,\n  I never understood their force myself,\n  But trusted that my sage instructor would.\n    _Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 403.\n\n\nFORK ON. At Hamilton College, _to fork on_, to appropriate to\none's self.\n\n\nFORTS. At Jefferson and at Washington Colleges in Pennsylvania,\nthe boarding-houses for the students are called _forts_.\n\n\nFOUNDATION. A donation or legacy appropriated to support an\ninstitution, and constituting a permanent fund, usually for a\ncharitable purpose.--_Webster_.\n\nIn America it is also applied to a donation or legacy appropriated\nespecially to maintain poor and deserving, or other students, at a\ncollege.\n\nIn the selection of candidates for the various beneficiary\n_foundations_, the preference will be given to those who are of\nexemplary conduct and scholarship.--_Laws of Univ. at Cam.,\nMass._, 1848, p. 19.\n\nScholars on this _foundation_ are to be called \"scholars of the\nhouse.\"--_Sketches of Yale Coll._, p. 86.\n\n\nFOUNDATIONER. One who derives support from the funds or foundation\nof a college or a great school.--_Jackson_.\n\nThis word is not in use in the _United States_.\n\nSee BENEFICIARY.\n\n\nFOUNDATION SCHOLAR. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., a\nscholar who enjoys certain privileges, and who is of that class\nwhence Fellows are taken.\n\nOf the scholars of this name, Bristed remarks: \"The table nearer\nthe door is filled by students in the ordinary Undergraduate blue\ngown; but from the better service of their table, and perhaps some\nlittle consequential air of their own, it is plain that they have\nsomething peculiar to boast of. They are the Foundation Scholars,\nfrom whom the future Fellows are to be chosen, in the proportion\nof about one out of three. Their Scholarships are gained by\nexamination in the second or third year, and entitle them to a\npecuniary allowance from the college, and also to their commons\ngratis (these latter subject to certain attendance at and service\nin chapel), a first choice of rooms, and some other little\nprivileges, of which they are somewhat proud, and occasionally\nthey look as if conscious that some Don may be saying to a chance\nvisitor at the high table, 'Those over yonder are the scholars,\nthe best men of their year.'\"--_Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed.\n2d, p. 20.\n\n\nFOX. In the German universities, a student during the first\nhalf-year is called a Fox (Fuchs), the same as Freshman. To this\nthe epithet _nasty_ is sometimes added.\n\nOn this subject, Howitt remarks: \"On entering the University, he\nbecomes a _Kameel_,--a Camel. This happy transition-state of a few\nweeks gone by, he comes forth finally, on entering a Chore, a\n_Fox_, and runs joyfully into the new Burschen life. During the\nfirst _semester_ or half-year, he is a gold fox, which means, that\nhe has _foxes_, or rich gold in plenty yet; or he is a\n_Crass-fucks_, or fat fox, meaning that he yet swells or puffs\nhimself up with gold.\"--_Student Life of Germany_, Am. ed., p.\n124.\n\n\"Halloo there, Herdman, _fox_!\" yelled another lusty tippler, and\nHerdman, thus appealed to, arose and emptied the contents of his\nglass.--_Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. XII. p. 116.\n\nAt the same moment, a door at the end of the hall was thrown open,\nand a procession of new-comers, or _Nasty Foxes_, as they are\ncalled in the college dialect, entered two by two, looking wild,\nand green, and foolish.--_Longfellow's Hyperion_, p. 109.\n\nSee also in the last-mentioned work the Fox song.\n\n\nFREEZE. A correspondent from Williams College writes: \"But by far\nthe most expressive word in use among us is _Freeze_. The meaning\nof it might be felt, if, some cold morning, you would place your\ntender hand upon some frosty door-latch; it would be a striking\nspecimen on the part of the door-latch of what we mean by\n_Freeze_. Thus we _freeze_ to apples in the orchards, to fellows\nwhom we electioneer for in our secret societies, and alas! some\neven go so far as to _freeze_ to the ladies.\"\n\n\"Now, boys,\" said Bob, \"_freeze on_,\" and at it they went.--_Yale\nLit. Mag._, Vol. XII. p. 111.\n\n\nFRESH. An abbreviation for Freshman or Freshmen; FRESHES is\nsometimes used for the plural.\n\nWhen Sophs met _Fresh_, power met opposing power. _Harv. Reg._, p.\n251.\n\nThe Sophs did nothing all the first fortnight but torment the\n_Fresh_, as they call us.--_Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 76.\n\nListen to the low murmurings of some annihilated _Fresh_ upon the\nDelta.--_Oration before H.L. of I.O. of O.F._, 1848.\n\n\nFRESH. Newly come; likewise, awkward, like a Freshman.--_Grad. ad\nCantab._\n\nFor their behavior at table, spitting and coughing, and speaking\nloud, was counted uncivil in any but a gentleman; as we say in the\nuniversity, that nothing is _fresh_ in a Senior, and to him it was\na glory.--_Arch\u00e6ol. Attic\u00e6_, Edit. Oxon., 1675, B. VI.\n\n\nFRESHMAN, _pl._ FRESHMEN. In England, a student during his first\nyear's residence at the university. In America, one who belongs to\nthe youngest of the four classes in college, called the _Freshman\nClass_.--_Webster_.\n\n\nFRESHMAN. Pertaining to a Freshman, or to the class called\n_Freshman_.\n\n\nFRESHMAN, BUTLER'S. At Harvard and Yale Colleges, a Freshman,\nformerly hired by the Butler, to perform certain duties pertaining\nto his office, was called by this name.\n\nThe Butler may be allowed a Freshman, to do the foregoing duties,\nand to deliver articles to the students from the Buttery, who\nshall be appointed by the President and Tutors, and he shall be\nallowed the same provision in the Hall as the Waiters; and he\nshall not be charged in the Steward's quarter-bills under the\nheads of Steward and Instruction and Sweepers, Catalogue and\nDinner.--_Laws of Harv. Coll._, 1793, p. 61.\n\nWith being _butler's freshman_, and ringing the bell the first\nyear, waiter the three last, and keeping school in the vacations,\nI rubbed through.--_The Algerine Captive_, Walpole, 1797, Vol. I.\np. 54.\n\nSee BUTLER, BUTTERY.\n\n\nFRESHMAN CLUB. At Hamilton College, it is customary for the new\nSophomore Class to present to the Freshmen at the commencement of\nthe first term a heavy cudgel, six feet long, of black walnut,\nbrass bound, with a silver plate inscribed \"_Freshman Club_.\" The\nclub is given to the one who can hold it out at arm's length the\nlongest time, and the presentation is accompanied with an address\nfrom one of the Sophomores in behalf of his class. He who receives\nthe club is styled the \"leader.\" The \"leader\" having been\ndeclared, after an appropriate speech from a Freshman appointed\nfor that purpose, \"the class,\" writes a correspondent, \"form a\nprocession, and march around the College yard, the leader carrying\nthe club before them. A trial is then made by the class of the\nvirtues of the club, on the Chapel door.\"\n\n\nFRESHMAN, COLLEGE. In Harvard University, a member of the Freshman\nClass, whose duties are enumerated below. \"On Saturday, after the\nexercises, any student not specially prohibited may go out of\ntown. If the students thus going out of town fail to return so as\nto be present at evening prayers, they must enter their names with\nthe _College Freshman_ within the hour next preceding the evening\nstudy bell; and all students who shall be absent from evening\nprayers on Saturday must in like manner enter their\nnames.\"--_Statutes and Laws of the Univ. in Cam., Mass._, 1825, p.\n42.\n\nThe _College Freshman_ lived in No. 1, Massachusetts Hall, and was\ncommonly called the _book-keeper_. The duties of this office are\nnow performed by one of the Proctors.\n\n\nFRESHMANHOOD. The state of a _Freshman_, or the time in which one\nis a Freshman, which is in duration a year.\n\n  But yearneth not thy laboring heart, O Tom,\n  For those dear hours of simple _Freshmanhood_?\n    _Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 405.\n\n  When to the college I came,\n        in the first dear day of _my freshhood_,\n  Like to the school we had left\n        I imagined the new situation.\n    _Ibid._, Vol. III. p. 98.\n\n\nFRESHMANIC. Pertaining to a _Freshman_; resembling a _Freshman_,\nor his condition.\n\nThe Junior Class had heard of our miraculous doings, and asserted\nwith that peculiar dignity which should at all times excite terror\nand awe in the _Freshmanic_ breast, that they would countenance no\nsuch proceedings.--_Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 316.\n\nI do not pine for those _Freshmanic_ days.--_Ibid._, Vol. III. p.\n405.\n\n\nFRESHMAN, PARIETAL. In Harvard College, the member of the Freshman\nClass who gives notice to those whom the chairman of the Parietal\nCommittee wishes to see, is known by the name of the _Parietal\nFreshman_. For his services he receives about forty dollars per\nannum, and the rent of his room.\n\n\nFRESHMAN, PRESIDENT'S. A member of the Freshman Class who performs\nthe official errands of the President, for which he receives the\nsame compensation as the PARIETAL FRESHMAN.\n\n  Then Bibo kicked his carpet thrice,\n  Which brought his _Freshman_ in a trice.\n  \"You little rascal! go and call\n  The persons mentioned in this scroll.\"\n  The fellow, hearing, scarcely feels\n  The ground, so quickly fly his heels.\n    _Rebelliad_, p. 27.\n\n\nFRESHMAN, REGENT'S. In Harvard College, a member of the Freshman\nClass whose duties are given below.\n\n\"When any student shall return to town, after having had leave of\nabsence for one night or more, or after any vacation, he shall\napply to the _Regent's Freshman_, at his room, to enter the time\nof his return; and shall tarry till he see it entered.\n\n\"The _Regent's Freshman_ is not charged under the heads of\nSteward, Instruction, Sweepers, Catalogue, and Dinner.\"--_Laws of\nHarv. Coll._, 1816, pp. 46, 47.\n\nThis office is now abolished.\n\n\nFRESHMAN'S BIBLE. Among collegians, the name by which the body of\nlaws, the catalogue, or the calendar of a collegiate institution\nis often designated. The significancy of the word _Bible_ is seen,\nwhen the position in which the laws are intended to be regarded is\nconsidered. The _Freshman_ is supposed to have studied and to be\nmore familiar with the laws than any one else, hence the propriety\nof using his name in this connection. A copy of the laws are\nusually presented to each student on his entrance into college.\n\nEvery year there issues from the warehouse of Messrs. Deighton,\nthe publishers to the University of Cambridge, an octavo volume,\nbound in white canvas, and of a very periodical and business-like\nappearance. Among the Undergraduates it is commonly known by the\nname of the \"_Freshman's Bible_,\"--the public usually ask for the\n\"University Calendar.\"--_Westminster Rev._, Am. ed., Vol. XXXV. p.\n230.\n\nSee COLLEGE BIBLE.\n\n\nFRESHMAN SERVITUDE. The custom which formerly prevailed in the\nolder American colleges of allowing the members of all the upper\nclasses to send Freshmen upon errands, and in other ways to treat\nthem as inferiors, appears at the present day strange and almost\nunaccountable. That our forefathers had reasons which they deemed\nsufficient, not only for allowing, but sanctioning, this\nsubjection, we cannot doubt; but what these were, we are not able\nto know from any accounts which have come down to us from the\npast.\n\n\"On attending prayers the first evening,\" says one who graduated\nat Harvard College near the close of the last century, \"no sooner\nhad the President pronounced the concluding 'Amen,' than one of\nthe Sophomores sung out, 'Stop, Freshmen, and hear the customs\nread.'\" An account of these customs is given in President Quincy's\nHistory of Harvard University, Vol. II. p. 539. It is entitled,\n\n\"THE ANCIENT CUSTOMS OF HARVARD COLLEGE, ESTABLISHED BY THE\nGOVERNMENT OF IT.\"\n\n\"1. No Freshman shall wear his hat in the College yard, unless it\nrains, hails, or snows, provided he be on foot, and have not both\nhands full.\n\n\"2. No Undergraduate shall wear his hat in the College yard when\nany of the Governors of the College are there; and no Bachelor\nshall wear his hat when the President is there.\n\n\"3. Freshmen are to consider all the other classes as their\nseniors.\n\n\"4. No Freshman shall speak to a Senior[26] with his hat on, or\nhave it on in a Senior's chamber, or in his own, if a Senior be\nthere.\n\n\"5. All the Undergraduates shall treat those in the Government of\nthe College with respect and deference; particularly they shall\nnot be seated without leave in their presence; they shall be\nuncovered when they speak to them or are spoken to by them.\n\n\"6. All Freshmen (except those employed by the Immediate\nGovernment of the College) shall be obliged to go on any errand\n(except such as shall be judged improper by some one in the\nGovernment of the College) for any of his Seniors, Graduates or\nUndergraduates, at any time, except in studying hours, or after\nnine o'clock in the evening.\n\n\"7. A Senior Sophister has authority to take a Freshman from a\nSophomore, a Middle Bachelor from a Junior Sophister, a Master\nfrom a Senior Sophister, and any Governor of the College from a\nMaster.\n\n\"8. Every Freshman before he goes for the person who takes him\naway (unless it be one in the Government of the College) shall\nreturn and inform the person from whom he is taken.\n\n\"9. No Freshman, when sent on an errand, shall make any\nunnecessary delay, neglect to make due return, or go away till\ndismissed by the person who sent him.\n\n\"10. No Freshman shall be detained by a Senior, when not actually\nemployed on some suitable errand.\n\n\"11. No Freshman shall be obliged to observe any order of a Senior\nto come to him, or go on any errand for him, unless he be wanted\nimmediately.\n\n\"12. No Freshman, when sent on an errand, shall tell who he is\ngoing for, unless he be asked; nor be obliged to tell what he is\ngoing for, unless asked by a Governor of the College.\n\n\"13. When any person knocks at a Freshman's door, except in\nstudying time, he shall immediately open the door, without\ninquiring who is there.\n\n\"14. No scholar shall call up or down, to or from, any chamber in\nthe College.\n\n\"15. No scholar shall play football or any other game in the\nCollege yard, or throw any thing across the yard.\n\n\"16. The Freshmen shall furnish bats, balls, and footballs for the\nuse of the students, to be kept at the Buttery.[27]\n\n\"17. Every Freshman shall pay the Butler for putting up his name\nin the Buttery.\n\n\"18. Strict attention shall be paid by all the students to the\ncommon rules of cleanliness, decency, and politeness.\n\n\"The Sophomores shall publish these customs to the Freshmen in the\nChapel, whenever ordered by any in the Government of the College;\nat which time the Freshmen are enjoined to keep their places in\ntheir seats, and attend with decency to the reading.\"\n\nAt the close of a manuscript copy of the laws of Harvard College,\ntranscribed by Richard Waldron, a graduate of the class of 1738,\nwhen a Freshman, are recorded the following regulations, which\ndiffer from those already cited, not only in arrangement, but in\nother respects.\n\nCOLLEGE CUSTOMS, ANNO 1734-5.\n\n\"1. No Freshman shall ware his hat in the College yard except it\nrains, snows, or hails, or he be on horse back or haith both hands\nfull.\n\n\"2. No Freshman shall ware his hat in his Seniors Chamber, or in\nhis own if his Senior be there.\n\n\"3. No Freshman shall go by his Senior, without taking his hat of\nif it be on.\n\n\"4. No Freshman shall intrude into his Seniors company.\n\n\"5. No Freshman shall laugh in his Seniors face.\n\n\"6. No Freshman shall talk saucily to his Senior, or speak to him\nwith his hat on.\n\n\"7. No Freshman shall ask his Senior an impertinent question.\n\n\"8. Freshmen are to take notice that a Senior Sophister can take a\nFreshman from a Sophimore,[28] a Middle Batcelour from a Junior\nSophister, a Master from a Senior Sophister, and a Fellow[29] from\na Master.\n\n\"9. Freshmen are to find the rest of the Scholars with bats,\nballs, and foot balls.\n\n\"10. Freshmen must pay three shillings a peice to the Butler to\nhave there names set up in the Buttery.\n\n\"11. No Freshman shall loiter by the [way] when he is sent of an\nerrand, but shall make hast and give a direct answer when he is\nasked who he is going [for]. No Freshman shall use lying or\nequivocation to escape going of an errand.\n\n\"12. No Freshman shall tell who [he] is going [for] except he be\nasked, nor for what except he be asked by a Fellow.\n\n\"13. No Freshman shall go away when he haith been sent of an\nerrand before he be dismissed, which may be understood by saying,\nit is well, I thank you, you may go, or the like.\n\n\"14. When a Freshman knocks at his Seniors door he shall tell\n[his] name if asked who.\n\n\"15. When anybody knocks at a Freshmans door, he shall not aske\nwho is there, but shall immediately open the door.\n\n\"16. No Freshman shall lean at prayrs but shall stand upright.\n\n\"17. No Freshman shall call his classmate by the name of Freshmen.\n\n\"18. No Freshman shall call up or down to or from his Seniors\nchamber or his own.\n\n\"19. No Freshman shall call or throw anything across the College\nyard.\n\n\"20. No Freshman shall mingo against the College wall, nor go into\nthe Fellows cus john.[30]\n\n\"21. Freshmen may ware there hats at dinner and supper, except\nwhen they go to receive there Commons of bread and bear.\n\n\"22. Freshmen are so to carry themselves to there Seniors in all\nrespects so as to be in no wise saucy to them, and who soever of\nthe Freshmen shall brake any of these customs shall be severely\npunished.\"\n\nAnother manuscript copy of these singular regulations bears date\nSeptember, 1741, and is entitled,\n\n\"THE CUSTOMS OF HARVARD COLLEGE, WHICH IF THE FRESHMEN DON'T\nOBSERVE AND OBEY, THEY SHALL BE SEVERELY PUNISHED IF THEY HAVE\nHEARD THEM READ.\"\n\n\"1. No Freshman shall wear his hat in the College yard, except it\nrains, hails, or snows, he be on horseback, or hath both hands\nfull.\n\n\"2. No Freshman shall pass by his Senior, without pulling his hat\noff.\n\n\"3. No Freshman shall be saucy to his Senior, or speak to him with\nhis hat on.\n\n\"4. No Freshman shall laugh in his Senior's face.\n\n\"5. No Freshman shall ask his Senior any impertinent question.\n\n\"6. No Freshman shall intrude into his Senior's company.\n\n\"7. Freshmen are to take notice that a Senior Sophister can take a\nFreshman from a Sophimore, a Master from a Senior Sophister, and a\nFellow from a Master.\n\n\"8. When a Freshman is sent of an errand, he shall not loiter by\nthe way, but shall make haste, and give a direct answer if asked\nwho he is going for.\n\n\"9. No Freshman shall tell who he is a going for (unless asked),\nor what he is a going for, unless asked by a Fellow.\n\n\"10. No Freshman, when he is going of errands, shall go away,\nexcept he be dismissed, which is known by saying, 'It is well,'\n'You may go,' 'I thank you,' or the like.\n\n\"11. Freshman are to find the rest of the scholars with bats,\nballs, and footballs.\n\n\"12. Freshmen shall pay three shillings to the Butler to have\ntheir names set up in the Buttery.\n\n\"13. No Freshman shall wear his hat in his Senior's chambers, nor\nin his own if his Senior be there.\n\n\"14. When anybody knocks at a Freshman's door, he shall not ask\nwho is there, but immediately open the door.\n\n\"15. When a Freshman knocks at his Senior's door, he shall tell\nhis name immediately.\n\n\"16. No Freshman shall call his classmate by the name of Freshman.\n\n\"17. No Freshman shall call up or down, to or from his Senior's\nchamber or his own.\n\n\"18. No Freshman shall call or throw anything across the College\nyard, nor go into the Fellows' Cuz-John.\n\n\"19. No Freshman shall mingo against the College walls.\n\n\"20. Freshmen are to carry themselves, in all respects, as to be\nin no wise saucy to their Seniors.\n\n\"21. Whatsoever Freshman shall break any of these customs, he\nshall be severely punished.\"\n\n\nA written copy of these regulations in Latin, of a very early\ndate, is still extant. They appear first in English, in the fourth\nvolume of the Immediate Government Books, 1781, p. 257. The two\nfollowing laws--one of which was passed soon after the\nestablishment of the College, the other in the year 1734--seem to\nhave been the foundation of these rules. \"Nulli ex scholaribus\nsenioribus, solis tutoribus et collegii sociis exceptis, recentem\nsive juniorem, ad itinerandum, aut ad aliud quodvis faciendum,\nminis, verberibus, vel aliis modis impellere licebit. Et siquis\nnon gradatus in hanc legem peccaverit, castigatione corporali,\nexpulsione, vel aliter, prout pr\u00e6sidi cum sociis visum fuerit\npunietur.\"--_Mather's Magnalia_, B. IV. p. 133.\n\n\"None belonging to the College, except the President, Fellows,\nProfessors, and Tutors, shall by threats or blows compel a\nFreshman or any Undergraduate to any duty or obedience; and if any\nUndergraduate shall offend against this law, he shall be liable to\nhave the privilege of sending Freshmen taken from him by the\nPresident and Tutors, or be degraded or expelled, according to the\naggravation of the offence. Neither shall any Senior scholars,\nGraduates or Undergraduates, send any Freshman on errands in\nstudying hours, without leave from one of the Tutors, his own\nTutor if in College.\"--_Peirce's Hist. Harv. Univ._, App., p. 141.\n\nThat this privilege of sending Freshmen on errands was abused in\nsome cases, we see from an account of \"a meeting of the\nCorporation in Cambridge, March 27th, 1682,\" at which time notice\nwas given that \"great complaints have been made and proved against\n----, for his abusive carriage, in requiring some of the Freshmen\nto go upon his private errands, and in striking the said\nFreshmen.\"\n\nIn the year 1772, \"the Overseers having repeatedly recommended\nabolishing the custom of allowing the upper classes to send\nFreshmen on errands, and the making of a law exempting them from\nsuch services, the Corporation voted, that, 'after deliberate\nconsideration and weighing all circumstances, they are not able to\nproject any plan in the room of this long and ancient custom, that\nwill not, in their opinion, be attended with equal, if not\ngreater, inconveniences.'\" It seems, however, to have fallen into\ndisuse, for a time at least, after this period; for in June, 1786,\n\"the retaining men or boys to perform the services for which\nFreshmen had been heretofore employed,\" was declared to be a\ngrowing evil, and was prohibited by the Corporation.--_Quincy's\nHist. Harv. Univ._, Vol. I. p. 515; Vol. II. pp. 274, 277.\n\nThe upper classes being thus forbidden to employ persons not\nconnected with the College to wait upon them, the services of\nFreshmen were again brought into requisition, and they were not\nwholly exempted from menial labor until after the year 1800.\n\nAnother service which the Freshmen were called on to perform, was\nonce every year to shake the carpets of the library and Philosophy\nChamber in the Chapel.\n\nThose who refused to comply with these regulations were not\nallowed to remain in College, as appears from the following\ncircumstance, which happened about the year 1790. A young man from\nthe West Indies, of wealthy and highly respectable parents,\nentered Freshman, and soon after, being ordered by a member of one\nof the upper classes to go upon an errand for him, refused, at the\nsame time saying, that if he had known it was the custom to\nrequire the lower class to wait on the other classes, he would\nhave brought a slave with him to perform his share of these\nduties. In the common phrase of the day, he was _hoisted_, i.e.\ncomplained of to a tutor, and on being told that he could not\nremain at College if he did not comply with its regulations, he\ntook up his connections and returned home.\n\nWith reference to some of the observances which were in vogue at\nHarvard College in the year 1794, the recollections of Professor\nSidney Willard are these:--\n\n\"It was the practice, at the time of my entrance at College, for\nthe Sophomore Class, by a member selected for the purpose, to\ncommunicate to the Freshmen, in the Chapel, 'the Customs,' so\ncalled; the Freshmen being required to 'keep their places in their\nseats, and attend with decency to the reading.' These customs had\nbeen handed down from remote times, with some modifications not\nessentially changing them. Not many days after our seats were\nassigned to us in the Chapel, we were directed to remain after\nevening prayers and attend to the reading of the customs; which\ndirection was accordingly complied with, and they were read and\nlistened to with decorum and gravity. Whether the ancient customs\nof outward respect, which forbade a Freshman 'to wear his hat in\nthe College yard, unless it rains, hails, or snows, provided he be\non foot, and have not both hands full,' as if the ground on which\nhe trod and the atmosphere around him were consecrated, and the\narticle which extends the same prohibition to all undergraduates,\nwhen any of the governors of the College are in the yard, were\nread, I cannot say; but I think they were not; for it would have\ndisturbed that gravity which I am confident was preserved during\nthe whole reading. These prescripts, after a long period of\nobsolescence, had become entirely obsolete.\n\n\"The most degrading item in the list of customs was that which\nmade Freshmen subservient to all the other classes; which obliged\nthose who were not employed by the Immediate Government of the\nCollege to go on any errand, not judged improper by an officer of\nthe government, or in study hours, for any of the other classes,\nthe Senior having the prior right to the service.... The privilege\nof claiming such service, and the obligation, on the other hand,\nto perform it, doubtless gave rise to much abuse, and sometimes to\nunpleasant conflict. A Senior having a claim to the service of a\nFreshman prior to that of the classes below them, it had become a\npractice not uncommon, for a Freshman to obtain a Senior, to whom,\nas a patron and friend, he acknowledged and avowed a permanent\nservice due, and whom he called _his_ Senior by way of eminence,\nthus escaping the demands that might otherwise be made upon him\nfor trivial or unpleasant errands. The ancient custom was never\nabolished by authority, but died with the change of feeling; so\nthat what might be demanded as a right came to be asked as a\nfavor, and the right was resorted to only as a sort of defensive\nweapon, as a rebuke of a supposed impertinence, or resentment of a\nreal injury.\"--_Memories of Youth and Manhood_, Vol. I. pp. 258,\n259.\n\nThe following account of this system, as it formerly obtained at\nYale College, is from President Woolsey's Historical Discourse\nbefore the Graduates of that Institution, Aug. 14, 1850:--\n\n\"Another remarkable particular in the old system here was the\nservitude of Freshmen,--for such it really deserved to be called.\nThe new-comers--as if it had been to try their patience and\nendurance in a novitiate before being received into some monastic\norder--were put into the hands of Seniors, to be reproved and\ninstructed in manners, and were obliged to run upon errands for\nthe members of all the upper classes. And all this was very\ngravely meant, and continued long in use. The Seniors considered\nit as a part of the system to initiate the ignorant striplings\ninto the college system, and performed it with the decorum of\ndancing-masters. And, if the Freshmen felt the burden, the upper\nclasses who had outlived it, and were now reaping the advantages\nof it, were not willing that the custom should die in their time.\n\n\"The following paper, printed I cannot tell when, but as early as\nthe year 1764, gives information to the Freshmen in regard to\ntheir duty of respect towards the officers, and towards the older\nstudents. It is entitled 'FRESHMAN LAWS,' and is perhaps part of a\nbook of customs which was annually read for the instruction of\nnew-comers.\n\n\"'It being the duty of the Seniors to teach Freshmen the laws,\nusages, and customs of the College, to this end they are empowered\nto order the whole Freshman Class, or any particular member of it,\nto appear, in order to be instructed or reproved, at such time and\nplace as they shall appoint; when and where every Freshman shall\nattend, answer all proper questions, and behave decently. The\nSeniors, however, are not to detain a Freshman more than five\nminutes after study bell, without special order from the\nPresident, Professor, or Tutor.\n\n\"'The Freshmen, as well as all other Undergraduates, are to be\nuncovered, and are forbidden to wear their hats (unless in stormy\nweather) in the front door-yard of the President's or Professor's\nhouse, or within ten rods of the person of the President, eight\nrods of the Professor, and five rods of a Tutor.\n\n\"'The Freshmen are forbidden to wear their hats in College yard\n(except in stormy weather, or when they are obliged to carry\nsomething in their hands) until May vacation; nor shall they\nafterwards wear them in College or Chapel.\n\n\"'No Freshman shall wear a gown, or walk with a cane, or appear\nout of his room without being completely dressed, and with his\nhat; and whenever a Freshman either speaks to a superior or is\nspoken to by one, he shall keep his hat off until he is bidden to\nput it on. A Freshman shall not play with any members of an upper\nclass, without being asked; nor is he permitted to use any acts of\nfamiliarity with them, even in study time.\n\n\"'In case of personal insult, a Junior may call up a Freshman and\nreprehend him. A Sophomore, in like case, must obtain leave from a\nSenior, and then he may discipline a Freshman, not detaining him\nmore than five minutes, after which the Freshman may retire, even\nwithout being dismissed, but must retire in a respectful manner.\n\n\"'Freshmen are obliged to perform all reasonable errands for any\nsuperior, always returning an account of the same to the person\nwho sent them. When called, they shall attend and give a\nrespectful answer; and when attending on their superior, they are\nnot to depart until regularly dismissed. They are responsible for\nall damage done to anything put into their hands by way of errand.\nThey are not obliged to go for the Undergraduates in study time,\nwithout permission obtained from the authority; nor are they\nobliged to go for a graduate out of the yard in study time. A\nSenior may take a Freshman from a Sophimore, a Bachelor from a\nJunior, and a Master from a Senior. None may order a Freshman in\none play time, to do an errand in another.\n\n\"'When a Freshman is near a gate or door belonging to College or\nCollege yard, he shall look around and observe whether any of his\nsuperiors are coming to the same; and if any are coming within\nthree rods, he shall not enter without a signal to proceed. In\npassing up or down stairs, or through an entry or any other narrow\npassage, if a Freshman meets a superior, he shall stop and give\nway, leaving the most convenient side,--if on the stairs, the\nbanister side. Freshmen shall not run in College yard, or up or\ndown stairs, or call to any one through a College window. When\ngoing into the chamber of a superior, they shall knock at the\ndoor, and shall leave it as they find it, whether open or shut.\nUpon entering the chamber of a superior, they shall not speak\nuntil spoken to; they shall reply modestly to all questions, and\nperform their messages decently and respectfully. They shall not\ntarry in a superior's room, after they are dismissed, unless asked\nto sit. They shall always rise whenever a superior enters or\nleaves the room where they are, and not sit in his presence until\npermitted.\n\n\"'These rules are to be observed, not only about College, but\neverywhere else within the limits of the city of New Haven.'\n\n\"This is certainly a very remarkable document, one which it\nrequires some faith to look on as originating in this land of\nuniversal suffrage, in the same century with the Declaration of\nIndependence. He who had been moulded and reduced into shape by\nsuch a system might soon become expert in the punctilios of the\ncourt of Louis the Fourteenth.\n\n\"This system, however, had more tenacity of life than might be\nsupposed. In 1800 we still find it laid down as the Senior's duty\nto inspect the manners and customs of the lower classes, and\nespecially of the Freshmen; and as the duty of the latter to do\nany proper errand, not only for the authorities of the College,\nbut also, within the limits of one mile, for Resident Graduates\nand for the two upper classes. By degrees the old usage sank down\nso far, that what the laws permitted was frequently abused for the\npurpose of playing tricks upon the inexperienced Freshmen; and\nthen all evidence of its ever having been current disappeared from\nthe College code. The Freshmen were formally exempted from the\nduty of running upon errands in 1804.\"--pp. 54-56.\n\nAmong the \"Laws of Yale College,\" published in 1774, appears the\nfollowing regulation: \"Every Freshman is obliged to do any proper\nErrand or Message, required of him by any one in an upper class,\nwhich if he shall refuse to do, he shall be punished. Provided\nthat in Study Time no Graduate may send a Freshman out of College\nYard, or an Undergraduate send him anywhere at all without Liberty\nfirst obtained of the President or Tutor.\"--pp. 14, 15.\n\nIn a copy of the \"Laws\" of the above date, which formerly belonged\nto Amasa Paine, who entered the Freshman Class at Yale in 1781, is\nto be found a note in pencil appended to the above regulation, in\nthese words: \"This Law was annulled when Dr. [Matthew] Marvin, Dr.\nM.J. Lyman, John D. Dickinson, William Bradley, and Amasa Paine\nwere classmates, and [they] claimed the Honor of abolishing it.\"\nThe first three were graduated at Yale in the class of 1785;\nBradley was graduated at the same college in 1784 and Paine, after\nspending three years at Yale, was graduated at Harvard College in\nthe class of 1785.\n\nAs a part of college discipline, the upper classes were sometimes\ndeprived of the privilege of employing the services of Freshmen.\nThe laws on this subject were these:--\n\n\"If any Scholar shall write or publish any scandalous Libel about\nthe President, a Fellow, Professor, or Tutor, or shall treat any\none of them with any reproachful or reviling Language, or behave\nobstinately, refractorily, or contemptuously towards either of\nthem, or be guilty of any Kind of Contempt, he may be punished by\nFine, Admonition, be deprived the Liberty of sending Freshmen for\na Time; by Suspension from all the Privileges of College; or\nExpulsion, according as the Nature and Aggravation of the Crime\nmay require.\"\n\n\"If any Freshman near the Time of Commencement shall fire the\ngreat Guns, or give or promise any Money, Counsel, or Assistance\ntowards their being fired; or shall illuminate College with\nCandles, either on the Inside or Outside of the Windows, or\nexhibit any such Kind of Show, or dig or scrape the College Yard\notherwise than with the Liberty and according to the Directions of\nthe President in the Manner formerly practised, or run in the\nCollege Yard in Company, they shall be deprived the Privilege of\nsending Freshmen three Months after the End of the Year.\"--_Laws\nYale Coll._, 1774, pp. 13, 25, 26.\n\nTo the latter of these laws, a clause was subsequently added,\ndeclaring that every Freshman who should \"do anything unsuitable\nfor a Freshman\" should be deprived of the privilege \"of sending\nFreshmen on errands, or teaching them manners, during the first\nthree months of _his_ Sophomore year.\"--_Laws Yale Coll._, 1787,\nin _Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. XII. p. 140.\n\nIn the Sketches of Yale College, p. 174, is the following\nanecdote, relating to this subject:--\"A Freshman was once\nfurnished with a dollar, and ordered by one of the upper classes\nto procure for him pipes and tobacco, from the farthest store on\nLong Wharf, a good mile distant. Being at that time compelled by\nCollege laws to obey the unreasonable demand, he proceeded\naccording to orders, and returned with ninety-nine cents' worth of\npipes and one pennyworth of tobacco. It is needless to add that he\nwas not again sent on a similar errand.\"\n\nThe custom of obliging the Freshmen to run on errands for the\nSeniors was done away with at Dartmouth College, by the class of\n1797, at the close of their Freshman year, when, having served\ntheir own time out, they presented a petition to the Trustees to\nhave it abolished.\n\nIn the old laws of Middlebury College are the two following\nregulations in regard to Freshmen, which seem to breathe the same\nspirit as those cited above. \"Every Freshman shall be obliged to\ndo any proper errand or message for the Authority of the College.\"\n--\"It shall be the duty of the Senior Class to inspect the manners\nof the Freshman Class, and to instruct them in the customs of the\nCollege, and in that graceful and decent behavior toward\nsuperiors, which politeness and a just and reasonable\nsubordination require.\"--_Laws_, 1804, pp. 6, 7.\n\n\nFRESHMANSHIP. The state of a Freshman.\n\nA man who had been my fellow-pupil with him from the beginning of\nour _Freshmanship_, would meet him there.--_Bristed's Five Years\nin an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 150.\n\n\nFRESHMAN'S LANDMARK. At Cambridge, Eng., King's College Chapel is\nthus designated. \"This stupendous edifice may be seen for several\nmiles on the London road, and indeed from most parts of the\nadjacent country.\"--_Grad. ad Cantab._\n\n\nFRESHMAN, TUTOR'S. In Harvard College, the _Freshman_ who occupies\na room under a _Tutor_. He is required to do the errands of the\nTutor which relate to College, and in return has a high choice of\nrooms in his Sophomore year.\n\nThe same remarks, _mutatis mutandis_, apply to the _Proctor's\nFreshman_.\n\n\nFRESH-SOPH. An abbreviation of _Freshman-Sophomore_. One who\nenters college in the _Sophomore_ year, having passed the time of\nthe _Freshman_ year elsewhere.\n\nI was a _Fresh-Sophomore_ then, and a waiter in the commons' hall.\n--_Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. XII. p. 114.\n\n\nFROG. In Germany, a student while in the gymnasium, and before\nentering the university, is called a _Frosch_,--a frog.\n\n\nFUNK. Disgust; weariness; fright. A sensation sometimes\nexperienced by students in view of an examination.\n\nIn Cantab phrase I was suffering examination _funk_.--_Bristed's\nFive Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 61.\n\nA singular case of _funk_ occurred at this examination. The man\nwho would have been second, took fright when four of the six days\nwere over, and fairly ran away, not only from the examination, but\nout of Cambridge, and was not discovered by his friends or family\ntill some time after.--_Ibid._, p. 125.\n\nOne of our Scholars, who stood a much better chance than myself,\ngave up from mere _funk_, and resolved to go out in the\nPoll.--_Ibid._, p. 229.\n\n2. Fear or sensibility to fear. The general application of the\nterm.\n\nSo my friend's first fault is timidity, which is only not\nrecognized as such on account of its vast proportions. I grant,\nthen, that the _funk_ is sublime, which is a true and friendly\nadmission.--_A letter to the N.Y. Tribune_, in _Lit. World_, Nov.\n30, 1850.\n\n\n\n_G_.\n\n\nGAS. To impose upon another by a consequential address, or by\ndetailing improbable stories or using \"great swelling words\"; to\ndeceive; to cheat.\n\nFound that Fairspeech only wanted to \"_gas_\" me, which he did\npretty effectually.--_Sketches of Williams College_, p. 72.\n\n\nGATE BILL. In the English universities, the record of a pupil's\nfailures to be within his college at or before a specified hour of\nthe night.\n\nTo avoid gate-bills, he will be out at night as late as he\npleases, and will defy any one to discover his absence; for he\nwill climb over the college walls, and fee his Gyp well, when he\nis out all night--_Grad. ad Cantab._, p. 128.\n\n\nGATED. At the English universities, students who, for\nmisdemeanors, are not permitted to be out of their college after\nten in the evening, are said to be _gated_.\n\n\"_Gated_,\" i.e. obliged to be within the college walls by ten\no'clock at night; by this he is prevented from partaking in\nsuppers, or other nocturnal festivities, in any other college or\nin lodgings.--Note to _The College_, in _Blackwood's Mag._, May,\n1849.\n\nThe lighter college offences, such as staying out at night or\nmissing chapel, are punished by what they term \"_gating_\"; in one\nform of which, a man is actually confined to his rooms: in a more\nmild way, he is simply restricted to the precincts of the college.\n--_Westminster Rev._, Am. ed., Vol. XXXV. p. 241.\n\n\nGAUDY. In the University of Oxford, a feast or festival. The days\non which they occur are called _gaudies_ or _gaudy days_. \"Blount,\nin his Glossographia,\" says Archdeacon Nares in his Glossary,\n\"speaks of a foolish derivation of the word from a Judge _Gaudy_,\nsaid to have been the institutor of such days. But _such_ days\nwere held in all times, and did not want a judge to invent them.\"\n\n                              Come,\n  Let's have one other _gaudy_ night: call to me\n  All my sad captains; fill our bowls; once more\n  Let's mock the midnight bell.\n    _Antony and Cleopatra_, Act. III. Sc. 11.\n\n            A foolish utensil of state,\n  Which like old plate upon a _gaudy day_,\n  's brought forth to make a show, and that is all.\n    _Goblins_, Old Play, X. 143.\n\nEdmund Riche, called of Pontigny, Archbishop of Canterbury. After\nhis death he was canonized by Pope Innocent V., and his day in the\ncalendar, 16 Nov., was formerly kept as a \"_gaudy_\" by the members\nof the hall.--_Oxford Guide_, Ed. 1847, p. 121.\n\n2. An entertainment; a treat; a spree.\n\nCut lectures, go to chapel as little as possible, dine in hall\nseldom more than once a week, give _Gaudies_ and spreads.--_Gradus\nad Cantab._, p. 122.\n\n\nGENTLEMAN-COMMONER. The highest class of Commoners at Oxford\nUniversity. Equivalent to a Cambridge _Fellow-Commoner_.\n\nGentlemen Commoners \"are eldest sons, or only sons, or men already\nin possession of estates, or else (which is as common a case as\nall the rest put together), they are the heirs of newly acquired\nwealth,--sons of the _nouveaux riches_\"; they enjoy a privilege as\nregards the choice of rooms; associate at meals with the Fellows\nand other authorities of the College; are the possessors of two\ngowns, \"an undress for the morning, and a full dress-gown for the\nevening,\" both of which are made of silk, the latter being very\nelaborately ornamented; wear a cap, covered with velvet instead of\ncloth; pay double caution money, at entrance, viz. fifty guineas,\nand are charged twenty guineas a year for tutorage, twice the\namount of the usual fee.--Compiled from _De Quincey's Life and\nManners_, pp. 278-280.\n\n\nGET UP A SUBJECT. See SUBJECT.\n\nThis was the fourth time I had begun Algebra, and essayed with no\nweakness of purpose to _get_ it _up_ properly.--_Bristed's Five\nYears in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 157.\n\n\nGILL. The projecting parts of a standing collar are, from their\nsituation, sometimes denominated _gills_.\n\n  But, O, what rage his maddening bosom fills!\n  Far worse than dust-soiled coat are ruined \"_gills_.\"\n    _Poem before the Class of 1828, Harv. Coll., by J.C.\n    Richmond_, p. 6.\n\n\nGOBBLE. At Yale College, to seize; to lay hold of; to appropriate;\nnearly the same as to _collar_, q.v.\n\n  Alas! how dearly for the fun they paid,\n  Whom the Proffs _gobbled_, and the Tutors too.\n    _The Gallinipper_, Dec. 1849.\n\n  I never _gobbled_ one poor flat,\n  To cheer me with his soft dark eye, &c.\n    _Yale Tomahawk_, Nov. 1849.\n\n  I went and performed, and got through the burning,\n  But oh! and alas! I was _gobbled_ returning.\n    _Yale Banger_, Nov. 1850.\n\nUpon that night, in the broad street, was I by one of the\nbrain-deficient men _gobbled_.--_Yale Battery_, Feb. 1850.\n\n  Then shout for the hero who _gobbles_ the prize.\n    _Songs of Yale_, 1853, p. 39.\n\nAt Cambridge, Eng., this word is used in the phrase _gobbling\nGreek_, i.e. studying or speaking that tongue.\n\nAmbitious to \"_gobble_\" his Greek in the _haute monde_.--_Alma\nMater_, Vol. I. p. 79.\n\nIt was now ten o'clock, and up stairs we therefore flew to\n_gobble_ Greek with Professor ----.--_Ibid._, Vol. I. p. 127.\n\nYou may have seen him, traversing the grass-plots, \"_gobbling\nGreek_\" to himself.--_Ibid._, Vol. I. p. 210.\n\n\nGOLGOTHA. _The place of a skull_. At Cambridge, Eng., in the\nUniversity Church, \"a particular part,\" says the Westminster\nReview, \"is appropriated to the _heads_ of the houses, and is\ncalled _Golgotha_ therefrom, a name which the appearance of its\noccupants renders peculiarly fitting, independent of the\npun.\"--Am. ed., Vol. XXXV. p. 236.\n\n\nGONUS. A stupid fellow.\n\nHe was a _gonus_; perhaps, though, you don't know what _gonus_\nmeans. One day I heard a Senior call a fellow a _gonus_. \"A what?\"\nsaid I. \"A great gonus,\" repeated he. \"_Gonus_,\" echoed I, \"what's\nthat mean?\" \"O,\" said he, \"you're a Freshman and don't\nunderstand.\" A stupid fellow, a dolt, a boot-jack, an ignoramus,\nis called here a _gonus_. \"All Freshmen,\" continued he gravely,\n\"are _gonuses_.\"--_The Dartmouth_, Vol. IV. p. 116.\n\nIf the disquisitionist should ever reform his habits, and turn his\nreally brilliant talents to some good account, then future\n_gonuses_ will swear by his name, and quote him in their daily\nmaledictions of the appointment system.--_Amherst Indicator_, Vol.\nI. p. 76.\n\nThe word _goney_, with the same meaning, is often used.\n\n\"How the _goney_ swallowed it all, didn't he?\" said Mr. Slick,\nwith great glee.--_Slick in England_, Chap. XXI.\n\nSome on 'em were fools enough to believe the _goney_; that's a\nfact.--_Ibid._\n\n\nGOOD FELLOW. At the University of Vermont, this term is used with\na signification directly opposite to that which it usually has. It\nthere designates a soft-brained boy; one who is lacking in\nintellect, or, as a correspondent observes, \"an _epithetical_\nfool.\"\n\n\nGOODY. At Harvard College, a woman who has the care of the\nstudents' rooms. The word seems to be an abbreviated form of the\nword _goodwife_. It has long been in use, as a low term of\ncivility or sport, and in some cases with the signification of a\ngood old dame; but in the sense above given it is believed to be\npeculiar to Harvard College. In early times, _sweeper_ was in use\ninstead of _goody_, and even now at Yale College the word _sweep_\nis retained. The words _bed-maker_ at Cambridge, Eng., and _gyp_\nat Oxford, express the same idea.\n\nThe Rebelliad, an epic poem, opens with an invocation to the\nGoody, as follows.\n\n  Old _Goody_ Muse! on thee I call,\n  _Pro more_, (as do poets all,)\n  To string thy fiddle, wax thy bow,\n  And scrape a ditty, jig, or so.\n  Now don't wax wrathy, but excuse\n  My calling you old _Goody_ Muse;\n  Because \"_Old Goody_\" is a name\n  Applied to every college dame.\n    Aloft in pendent dignity,\n      Astride her magic broom,\n    And wrapt in dazzling majesty,\n      See! see! the _Goody_ come!--p. 11.\n\n  Go on, dear _Goody_! and recite\n  The direful mishaps of the fight.--_Ibid._, p. 20.\n\n  The _Goodies_ hearing, cease to sweep,\n  And listen; while the cook-maids weep.--_Ibid._, p. 47.\n\n  The _Goody_ entered with her broom,\n  To make his bed and sweep his room.--_Ibid._, p. 73.\n\nOn opening the papers left to his care, he found a request that\nhis effects might be bestowed on his friend, the _Goody_, who had\nbeen so attentive to him during his declining hours.--_Harvard\nRegister_, 1827-28, p. 86.\n\nI was interrupted by a low knock at my door, followed by the\nentrance of our old _Goody_, with a bundle of musty papers in her\nhand, tied round with a soiled red ribbon.--_Collegian_, 1830, p.\n231.\n\nWere there any _Goodies_ when you were in college, father? Perhaps\nyou did not call them by that name. They are nice old ladies (not\nso _very_ nice, either), who come in every morning, after we have\nbeen to prayers, and sweep the rooms, and make the beds, and do\nall that sort of work. However, they don't much like their title,\nI find; for I called one, the other day, _Mrs. Goodie_, thinking\nit was her real name, and she was as sulky as she could\nbe.--_Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 76.\n\n  Yet these half-emptied bottles shall I take,\n  And, having purged them of this wicked stuff,\n  Make a small present unto _Goody_ Bush.\n    _Ibid._, Vol. III. p. 257.\n\nReader! wert ever beset by a dun? ducked by the _Goody_ from thine\nown window, when \"creeping like snail unwillingly\" to morning\nprayers?--_Ibid._, Vol. IV. p. 274.\n\n          The crowd delighted\n  Saw them, like _Goodies_, clothed in gowns of satin,\n  Of silk or cotton.--_Childe Harvard_, p. 26, 1848.\n\n  On the wall hangs a Horse-shoe I found in the street;\n  'T is the shoe that to-day sets in motion my feet;\n  Though its charms are all vanished this many a year,\n  And not even my _Goody_ regards it with fear.\n    _The Horse-Shoe, a Poem, by J.B. Felton_, 1849, p. 4.\n\nA very clever elegy on the death of Goody Morse, who\n \"For forty years or more\n  ... contrived the while\n  No little dust to raise\"\nin the rooms of the students of Harvard College, is to be found in\nHarvardiana, Vol. I. p. 233. It was written by Mr. (afterwards\nRev.) Benjamin Davis Winslow. In the poem which he read before his\nclass in the University Chapel at Cambridge, July 14, 1835, he\nreferred to her in these lines:\n\n \"'New brooms sweep clean': 't was thine, dear _Goody_ Morse,\n  To prove the musty proverb hath no force,\n  Since fifty years to vanished centuries crept,\n  While thy old broom our cloisters duly swept.\n  All changed but thee! beneath thine aged eye\n  Whole generations came and flitted by,\n  Yet saw thee still in office;--e'en reform\n  Spared thee the pelting of its angry storm.\n  Rest to thy bones in yonder church-yard laid,\n  Where thy last bed the village sexton made!\"--p. 19.\n\n\nGORM. From _gormandize_. At Hamilton College, to eat voraciously.\n\n\nGOT. In Princeton College, when a student or any one else has been\ncheated or taken in, it is customary to say, he was _got_.\n\n\nGOVERNMENT. In American colleges, the general government is\nusually vested in a corporation or a board of trustees, whose\npowers, rights, and duties are established by the respective\ncharters of the colleges over which they are placed. The immediate\ngovernment of the undergraduates is in the hands of the president,\nprofessors, and tutors, who are styled _the Government_, or _the\nCollege Government_, and more frequently _the Faculty_, or _the\nCollege Faculty_.--_Laws of Univ. at Cam., Mass._, 1848, pp. 7, 8.\n_Laws of Yale Coll._, 1837, p. 5.\n\nFor many years he was the most conspicuous figure among those who\nconstituted what was formerly called \"the\n_Government_.\"--_Memorial of John S. Popkin, D.D._, p. vii.\n\n  [Greek: Kudiste], mighty President!!!\n  [Greek: Kalomen nun] the _Government_.--_Rebelliad_, p. 27.\n\n  Did I not jaw the _Government_,\n  For cheating more than ten per cent?--_Ibid._, p. 32.\n\n  They shall receive due punishment\n  From Harvard College _Government_.--_Ibid._, p. 44.\n\nThe annexed production, printed from a MS. in the author's\nhandwriting, and in the possession of the editor of this work, is\nnow, it is believed, for the first time presented to the public.\nThe time is 1787; the scene, Harvard College. The poem was\n\"written by John Q. Adams, son of the President, when an\nundergraduate.\"\n\n   \"A DESCRIPTION OF A GOVERNMENT MEETING.\n\n \"The Government of College met,\n  And _Willard_[31] rul'd the stern debate.\n  The witty _Jennison_[32] declar'd\n  As how, he'd been completely scar'd;\n  Last night, quoth he, as I came home,\n  I heard a noise in _Prescott's_[33] room.\n  I went and listen'd at the door,\n  As I had often done before;\n  I found the Juniors in a high rant,\n  They call'd the President a tyrant;\n  And said as how I was a fool,\n  A long ear'd ass, a sottish mule,\n  Without the smallest grain of spunk;\n  So I concluded they were drunk.\n  At length I knock'd, and Prescott came:\n  I told him 't was a burning shame,\n  That he should give his classmates wine;\n  And he should pay a heavy fine.\n  Meanwhile the rest grew so outragious,\n  Altho' I boast of being couragious,\n  I could not help being in a fright,\n  For one of them put out the light.\n  I thought 't was best to come away,\n  And wait for vengeance 'till this day;\n  And he's a fool at any rate\n  Who'll fight, when he can RUSTICATE.\n  When they [had] found that I was gone,\n  They ran through College up and down;\n  And I could hear them very plain\n  Take the Lord's holy name in vain.\n  To Wier's[34] chamber they then repair'd,\n  And there the wine they freely shar'd;\n  They drank and sung till they were tir'd.\n  And then they peacefully retir'd.\n  When this Homeric speech was said,\n  With drolling tongue and hanging head,\n  The learned Doctor took his seat,\n  Thinking he'd done a noble feat.\n  Quoth Joe,[35] the crime is great I own,\n  Send for the Juniors one by one.\n  By this almighty wig I swear,\n  Which with such majesty I wear,\n  Which in its orbit vast contains\n  My dignity, my power and brains,\n  That Wier and Prescott both shall see,\n  That College boys must not be free.\n  He spake, and gave the awful nod\n  Like Homer's Didonean God,\n  The College from its centre shook,\n  And every pipe and wine-glass broke.\n\n \"_Williams_,[36] with countenance humane,\n  While scarce from laughter could refrain,\n  Thought that such youthful scenes of mirth\n  To punishment could not give birth;\n  Nor could he easily divine\n  What was the harm of drinking wine.\n\n \"But _Pearson_,[37] with an awful frown,\n  Full of his article and noun,\n  Spake thus: by all the parts of speech\n  Which I so elegantly teach,\n  By mercy I will never stain\n  The character which I sustain.\n  Pray tell me why the laws were made,\n  If they're not to be obey'd;\n  Besides, _that Wier_ I can't endure,\n  For he's a wicked rake, I'm sure.\n  But whether I am right or not,\n  I'll not recede a single jot.\n\n \"_James_[38] saw 'twould be in vain t' oppose,\n  And therefore to be silent chose.\n\n \"_Burr_,[39] who had little wit or pride,\n  Preferr'd to take the strongest side.\n  And Willard soon receiv'd commission\n  To give a publick admonition.\n  With pedant strut to prayers he came,\n  Call'd out the criminals by name;\n  Obedient to his dire command,\n  Prescott and Wier before him stand.\n  The rulers merciful and kind,\n  With equal grief and wonder find,\n  That you do drink, and play, and sing,\n  And make with noise the College ring.\n  I therefore warn you to beware\n  Of drinking more than you can bear.\n  Wine an incentive is to riot,\n  Disturbance of the publick quiet.\n  Full well your Tutors know the truth,\n  For sad experience taught their youth.\n  Take then this friendly exhortation;\n  The next offence is RUSTICATION.\"\n\n\nGOWN. A long, loose upper garment or robe, worn by professional\nmen, as divines, lawyers, students, &c., who are called _men of\nthe gown_, or _gownmen_. It is made of any kind of cloth, worn\nover ordinary clothes, and hangs down to the ankles, or nearly so.\n--_Encyc._\n\nFrom a letter written in the year 1766, by Mr. Holyoke, then\nPresident of Harvard College, it would appear that gowns were\nfirst worn by the members of that institution about the year 1760.\nThe gown, although worn by the students in the English\nuniversities, is now seldom worn in American colleges except on\nCommencement, Exhibition, or other days of a similar public\ncharacter.\n\nThe students are permitted to wear black _gowns_, in which they\nmay appear on all public occasions.--_Laws Harv. Coll._, 1798, p.\n37.\n\nEvery candidate for a first degree shall wear a black dress and\nthe usual black _gown_.--_Laws Univ. at Cam., Mass._, 1848, p. 20.\n\nThe performers all wore black _gowns_ with sleeves large enough to\nhold me in, and shouted and swung their arms, till they looked\nlike so many Methodist ministers just ordained.--_Harvardiana_,\nVol. III. p. 111.\n\n  Saw them ... clothed in _gowns_ of satin,\n    Or silk or cotton, black as souls benighted.--\n  All, save the _gowns_, was startling, splendid, tragic,\n  But gowns on men have lost their wonted magic.\n    _Childe Harvard_, p. 26.\n\n  The door swings open--and--he comes! behold him\n    Wrapt in his mantling _gown_, that round him flows\n  Waving, as C\u00e6sar's toga did enfold him.--_Ibid._, p. 36.\n\nOn Saturday evenings, Sundays, and Saints' days, the students wear\nsurplices instead of their _gowns_, and very innocent and\nexemplary they look in them.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng.\nUniv._, Ed. 2d, p. 21.\n\n2. One who wears a gown.\n\nAnd here, I think, I may properly introduce a very singular\ngallant, a sort of mongrel between town and _gown_,--I mean a\nbibliopola, or (as the vulgar have it) a bookseller.--_The\nStudent_, Oxf. and Cam., Vol. II. p. 226.\n\n\nGOWNMAN, GOWNSMAN. One whose professional habit is a gown, as a\ndivine or lawyer, and particularly a member of an English\nuniversity.--_Webster_.\n\n  The _gownman_ learned.--_Pope_.\n\n  Oft has some fair inquirer bid me say,\n  What tasks, what sports beguile the _gownsman's_ day.\n    _The College_, in _Blackwood's Mag._, May, 1849.\n\nFor if townsmen by our influence are so enlightened, what must we\n_gownsmen_ be ourselves?--_The Student_, Oxf. and Cam., Vol. I. p.\n56.\n\nNor must it be supposed that the _gownsmen_ are thin, study-worn,\nconsumptive-looking individuals.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng.\nUniv._, Ed. 2d, p. 5.\n\nSee CAP.\n\n\nGRACE. In English universities, an act, vote, or decree of the\ngovernment of the institution.--_Webster_.\n\n\"All _Graces_ (as the legislative measures proposed by the Senate\nare termed) have to be submitted first to the Caput, each member\nof which has an absolute veto on the grace. If it passes the\nCaput, it is then publicly recited in both houses, [the regent and\nnon-regent,] and at a subsequent meeting voted on, first in the\nNon-Regent House, and then in the other. If it passes both, it\nbecomes valid.\"--_Literary World_, Vol. XII. p. 283.\n\nSee CAPUT SENATUS.\n\n\nGRADUATE. To honor with a degree or diploma, in a college or\nuniversity; to confer a degree on; as, to _graduate_ a master of\narts.--_Wotton_.\n\n  _Graduated_ a doctor, and dubb'd a knight.--_Carew_.\n\nPickering, in his Vocabulary, says of the word _graduate_:\n\"Johnson has it as a verb active only. But an English friend\nobserves, that 'the active sense of this word is rare in England.'\nI have met with one instance in an English publication where it is\nused in a dialogue, in the following manner: 'You, methinks, _are\ngraduated_.' See a review in the British Critic, Vol. XXXIV. p.\n538.\"\n\nIn Mr. Todd's edition of Johnson's Dictionary, this word is given\nas a verb intransitive also: \"To take an academical degree; to\nbecome a graduate; as he _graduated_ at Oxford.\"\n\nIn America, the use of the phrase _he was graduated_, instead of\n_he graduated_, which has been of late so common, \"is merely,\"\nsays Mr. Bartlett in his Dictionary of Americanisms, \"a return to\nformer practice, the verb being originally active transitive.\"\n\nHe _was graduated_ with the esteem of the government, and the\nregard of his contemporaries--_Works of R.T. Paine_, p. xxix. The\nlatter, who _was graduated_ thirteen years after.--_Peirce's Hist.\nHarv. Univ._, p. 219.\n\nIn this perplexity the President had resolved \"to yield to the\ntorrent, and _graduate_ Hartshorn.\"--_Quincy's Hist. Harv. Univ._,\nVol. I. p. 398. (The quotation was written in 1737.)\n\nIn May, 1749, three gentlemen who had sons about _to be\ngraduated_.--_Ibid._, Vol. II. p. 92.\n\nMr. Peirce was born in September, 1778; and, after _being\ngraduated_ at Harvard College, with the highest honors of his\nclass.--_Ibid._, Vol. II. p. 390, and Chap. XXXVII. _passim_.\n\nHe _was graduated_ in 1789 with distinguished honors, at the age\nof nineteen.--_Mr. Young's Discourse on the Life of President\nKirkland_.\n\nHis class when _graduated_, in 1785, consisted of thirty-two\npersons.--_Dr. Palfrey's Discourse on the Life and Character of\nDr. Ware_.\n\n2. _Intransitively_. To receive a degree from a college or\nuniversity.\n\nHe _graduated_ at Leyden in 1691.--_London Monthly Mag._, Oct.\n1808, p. 224.\n\nWherever Magnol _graduated_.--_Rees's Cyclop\u00e6dia_, Art. MAGNOL.\n\n\nGRADUATE. One who has received a degree in a college or\nuniversity, or from some professional incorporated\nsociety.--_Webster_.\n\n\nGRADUATE IN A SCHOOL. A degree given, in the University of\nVirginia, to those who have been through a course of study less\nthan is required for the degree of B.A.\n\n\nGRADUATION. The act of conferring or receiving academical degrees.\n--_Charter of Dartmouth College_.\n\nAfter his _graduation_ at Yale College, in 1744, he continued his\nstudies at Harvard University, where he took his second degree in\n1747.--_Hist. Sketch of Columbia Coll._, p. 122.\n\nBachelors were called Senior, Middle, or Junior Bachelors\naccording to the year since _graduation_, and before taking the\ndegree of Master.--_Woolsey's Hist. Disc._, p. 122.\n\n\nGRAND COMPOUNDER. At the English Universities, one who pays double\nfees for his degree.\n\n\"Candidates for all degrees, who possess certain property,\" says\nthe Oxford University Calendar, \"must go out, as it is termed,\n_Grand Compounders_. The property required for this purpose may\narise from two distinct sources; either from some ecclesiastical\nbenefice or benefices, or else from some other revenue, civil or\necclesiastical. The ratio of computation in the first case is\nexpressly limited by statute to the value of the benefice or\nbenefices, as _rated in the King's books_, without regard to the\nactual estimation at the present period; and the amount of that\nvalue must not be _less than forty pounds_. In the second\ninstance, which includes all other cases, comprising\necclesiastical as well as civil income, (academical income alone\nexcepted,) property to the extent of _three hundred pounds_ a year\nis required; nor is any difference made between property in land\nand property in money, so that a _legal_ revenue to this extent of\nany description, not arising from a benefice or benefices, and not\nbeing strictly academical, renders the qualification\ncomplete.\"--Ed. 1832, p. 92.\n\nAt Oxford \"a '_grand compounder_' is one who has income to the\namount of $1,500, and is made to pay $150 for his degree, while\nthe ordinary fee is $42.\" _Lit. World_, Vol. XII. p. 247.\n\n\nGRAND TRIBUNAL. The Grand Tribunal is an institution peculiar to\nTrinity College, Hartford. A correspondent describes it as\nfollows. \"The Grand Tribunal is a mock court composed of the\nSenior and Junior Classes, and has for its special object the\nregulation and discipline of Sophomores. The first officer of the\nTribunal is the 'Grand High Chancellor,' who presides at all\nbusiness meetings. The Tribunal has its judges, advocates,\nsheriff, and his aids. According to the laws of the Tribunal, no\nSophomore can be tried who has three votes in his favor. This\nregulation makes a trial a difficult matter; there is rarely more\nthan one trial a year, and sometimes two years elapse without\nthere being a session of the court. When a selection of an\noffending and unlucky Soph has been made, he is arrested some time\nduring the day of the evening on which his trial takes place. The\ncourt provides him with one advocate, while he has the privilege\nof choosing another. These trials are often the scenes of\nconsiderable wit and eloquence. One of the most famous of them was\nheld in 1853. When the Tribunal is in session, it is customary for\nthe Faculty of the College to act as its police, by preserving\norder amongst the Sophs, who generally assemble at the door, to\ndisturb, if possible, the proceedings of the Court.\"\n\n\nGRANTA. The name by which the University of Cambridge, Eng., was\nformerly known. At present it is sometimes designated by this\ntitle in poetry, and in addresses written in other tongues than\nthe vernacular.\n\n  Warm with fond hope, and Learning's sacred flame,\n  To _Granta's_ bowers the youthful Poet came.\n\n    _Lines in Memory of H.K. White, by Prof. William Smyth_, in\n    _Cam. Guide_.\n\n\nGRATULATORY. Expressing gratulation; congratulatory.\n\nAt Harvard College, while Wadsworth was President, in the early\npart of the last century, it was customary to close the exercises\nof Commencement day with a _gratulatory oration_, pronounced by\none of the candidates for a degree. This has now given place to\nwhat is generally called the _valedictory oration_.\n\n\nGRAVEL DAY. The following account of this day is given in a work\nentitled Sketches of Williams College. \"On the second Monday of\nthe first term in the year, if the weather be at all favorable, it\nhas been customary from time immemorial to hold a college meeting,\nand petition the President for '_Gravel day_.' We did so this\nmorning. The day was granted, and, recitations being dispensed\nwith, the students turned out _en masse_ to re-gravel the college\nwalks. The gravel which we obtain here is of such a nature that it\npacks down very closely, and renders the walks as hard and smooth\nas a pavement. The Faculty grant this day for the purpose of\nfostering in the students the habit of physical labor and\nexercise, so essential to vigorous mental exertion.\"--1847, pp.\n78, 79.\n\nThe improved method of observing this day is noted in the annexed\nextract. \"Nearly every college has its own peculiar customs, which\nhave been transmitted from far antiquity; but Williams has perhaps\nless than any other. Among ours are '_gravel day_,' 'chip day,'\nand 'mountain day,' occurring one in each of the three terms. The\nfirst usually comes in the early part of the Fall term. In old\ntimes, when the students were few, and rather fonder of _work_\nthan at the present, they turned out with spades, hoes, and other\nimplements, and spread gravel over the walks, to the College\ngrounds; but in later days, they have preferred to tax themselves\nto a small amount and delegate the work to others, while they\nspend the day in visiting the Cascade, the Natural Bridge, or\nothers of the numerous places of interest near us.\"--_Boston Daily\nEvening Traveller_, July 12, 1854.\n\n\nGREAT GO. In the English universities the final and most important\nexamination is called the _great go_, in contradistinction to the\n_little go_, an examination about the middle of the course.\n\nIn my way back I stepped into the _Great Go_ schools.--_The\nEtonian_, Vol. II. p. 287.\n\nRead through the whole five volumes folio, Latin, previous to\ngoing up for his _Great Go_.--_Ibid._, Vol. II. p. 381.\n\n\nGREEN. Inexperienced, unsophisticated, verdant. Among collegians\nthis term is the favorite appellation for Freshmen.\n\nWhen a man is called _verdant_ or _green_, it means that he is\nunsophisticated and raw. For instance, when a man rushes to chapel\nin the morning at the ringing of the first bell, it is called\n_green_. At least, we were, for it. This greenness, we would\nremark, is not, like the verdure in the vision of the poet,\nnecessarily perennial.--_Williams Monthly Miscellany_, 1845, Vol.\nI. p. 463.\n\n\nGRIND. An exaction; an oppressive action. Students speak of a very\nlong lesson which they are required to learn, or of any thing\nwhich it is very unpleasant or difficult to perform, as a _grind_.\nThis meaning is derived from the verb _to grind_, in the sense of\nto harass, to afflict; as, to _grind_ the faces of the poor\n(Isaiah iii. 15).\n\n  I must say 't is a _grind_, though\n        --(perchance I spoke too loud).\n    _Poem before Iadma_, 1850, p. 12.\n\n\nGRINDING. Hard study; diligent application.\n\nThe successful candidate enjoys especial and excessive _grinding_\nduring the four years of his college course. _Burlesque Catalogue,\nYale Coll._, 1852-53, p. 28.\n\n\nGROATS. At the English universities, \"nine _groats_\" says Grose,\nin his Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, \"are deposited in the\nhands of an academic officer by every person standing for a\ndegree, which, if the depositor obtains with honor, are returned\nto him.\"\n\n_To save his groats_; to come off handsomely.--_Gradus ad Cantab._\n\n\nGROUP. A crowd or throng; a number collected without any regular\nform or arrangement. At Harvard College, students are not allowed\nto assemble in _groups_, as is seen by the following extract from\nthe laws. Three persons together are considered as a _group_.\n\nCollecting in _groups_ round the doors of the College buildings,\nor in the yard, shall be considered a violation of decorum.--_Laws\nUniv. at Cam., Mass._, 1848, Suppl., p. 4.\n\n\nGROUPING. Collecting together.\n\nIt will surely be incomprehensible to most students how so large a\nnumber as six could be suffered with impunity to horde themselves\ntogether within the limits of the college yard. In those days the\nvery learned laws about _grouping_ were not in existence. A\ncollection of two was not then considered a sure prognostic of\nrebellion, and spied out vigilantly by tutoric eyes. A _group_ of\nthree was not reckoned a gross outrage of the college peace, and\npunished severely by the subtraction of some dozens from the\nnumerical rank of the unfortunate youth engaged in so high a\nmisdemeanor. A congregation of four was not esteemed an open,\navowed contempt of the laws of decency and propriety, prophesying\nutter combustion, desolation, and destruction to all buildings and\ntrees in the neighborhood; and lastly, a multitude of five, though\nwatched with a little jealousy, was not called an intolerable,\nunparalleled violation of everything approaching the name of\norder, absolute, downright shamelessness, worthy capital\nmark-punishment, alias the loss of 87-3/4 digits!--_Harvardiana_,\nVol. III. p. 314.\n\nThe above passage and the following are both evidently of a\nsatirical nature.\n\n  And often _grouping_ on the chains, he hums his own sweet verse,\n  Till Tutor ----, coming up, commands him to disperse!\n    _Poem before Y.H._, 1849, p. 14.\n\n\nGRUB. A hard student. Used at Williams College, and synonymous\nwith DIG at other colleges. A correspondent says, writing from\nWilliams: \"Our real delvers, midnight students, are familiarly\ncalled _Grubs_. This is a very expressive name.\"\n\nA man must not be ashamed to be called a _grub_ in college, if he\nwould shine in the world.--_Sketches of Williams College_, p. 76.\n\nSome there are who, though never known to read or study, are ever\nready to debate,--not \"_grubs_\" or \"reading men,\" only \"wordy\nmen.\"--_Williams Quarterly_, Vol. II. p. 246.\n\n\nGRUB. To study hard; to be what is denominated a _grub_, or hard\nstudent. \"The primary sense,\" says Dr. Webster, \"is probably to\nrub, to rake, scrape, or scratch, as wild animals dig by\nscratching.\"\n\nI can _grub out_ a lesson in Latin or mathematics as well as the\nbest of them.--_Amherst Indicator_, Vol. I. p. 223.\n\n\nGUARDING. \"The custom of _guarding_ Freshmen,\" says a\ncorrespondent from Dartmouth College, \"is comparatively a late\none. Persons masked would go into another's room at night, and\noblige him to do anything they commanded him, as to get under his\nbed, sit with his feet in a pail of water,\" &c.\n\n\nGULF. In the University of Cambridge, Eng., one who obtains the\ndegree of B.A., but has not his name inserted in the Calendar, is\nsaid to be in the _gulf_.\n\nHe now begins to ... be anxious about ... that classical\nacquaintance who is in danger of the _gulf_.--_Bristed's Five\nYears in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 95.\n\nSome ten or fifteen men just on the line, not bad enough to be\nplucked or good enough to be placed, are put into the \"_gulf_,\" as\nit is popularly called (the Examiners' phrase is \"Degrees\nallowed\"), and have their degrees given them, but are not printed\nin the Calendar.--_Ibid._, p. 205.\n\n\nGULFING. In the University of Cambridge, England, \"those\ncandidates for B.A. who, but for sickness or some other sufficient\ncause, might have obtained an honor, have their degree given them\nwithout examination, and thus avoid having their names inserted in\nthe lists. This is called _Gulfing_.\" A degree taken in this\nmanner is called \"an \u00c6grotat Degree.\"--_Alma Mater_, Vol. II. pp.\n60, 105.\n\nI discovered that my name was nowhere to be found,--that I was\n_Gulfed_.--_Ibid._, Vol. II. p. 97.\n\n\nGUM. A trick; a deception. In use at Dartmouth College.\n\n_Gum_ is another word they have here. It means something like\nchaw. To say, \"It's all a _gum_,\" or \"a regular chaw,\" is the same\nthing.--_The Dartmouth_, Vol. IV. p. 117.\n\n\nGUM. At the University of Vermont, to cheat in recitation by using\n_ponies_, _interliners_, &c.; e.g. \"he _gummed_ in geometry.\"\n\n2. To cheat; to deceive. Not confined to college.\n\nHe was speaking of the \"moon hoax\" which \"_gummed_\" so many\nlearned philosophers.--_Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. XIV. p. 189.\n\n\nGUMMATION. A trick; raillery.\n\nOur reception to college ground was by no means the most\nhospitable, considering our unacquaintance with the manners of the\nplace, for, as poor \"Fresh,\" we soon found ourselves subject to\nall manner of sly tricks and \"_gummations_\" from our predecessors,\nthe Sophs.--_A Tour through College_, Boston, 1832, p. 13.\n\n\nGYP. A cant term for a servant at Cambridge, England, at _scout_\nis used at Oxford. Said to be a sportive application of [Greek:\ngyps], a vulture.--_Smart_.\n\nThe word _Gyp_ very properly characterizes them.--_Gradus ad\nCantab._, p. 56.\n\n  And many a yawning _gyp_ comes slipshod in,\n  To wake his master ere the bells begin.\n    _The College_, in _Blackwood's Mag._, May, 1849.\n\nThe Freshman, when once safe through his examination, is first\ninducted into his rooms by a _gyp_, usually recommended to him by\nhis tutor. The gyp (from [Greek: gyps], vulture, evidently a\nnickname at first, but now the only name applied to this class of\npersons) is a college servant, who attends upon a number of\nstudents, sometimes as many as twenty, calls them in the morning,\nbrushes their clothes, carries for them parcels and the queerly\ntwisted notes they are continually writing to one another, waits\nat their parties, and so on. Cleaning their boots is not in his\nbranch of the profession; there is a regular brigade of college\nshoeblacks.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p.\n14.\n\nIt is sometimes spelled _Jip_, though probably by mistake.\n\nMy _Jip_ brought one in this morning; faith! and told me I was\nfocussed.--_Gent. Mag._, 1794, p. 1085.\n\n\n\n_H_.\n\n\nHALF-LESSON. In some American colleges on certain occasions the\nstudents are required to learn only one half of the amount of an\nordinary lesson.\n\nThey promote it [the value of distinctions conferred by the\nstudents on one another] by formally acknowledging the existence\nof the larger debating societies in such acts as giving\n\"_half-lessons_\" for the morning after the Wednesday night\ndebates.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 386.\n\n\nHALF-YEAR. In the German universities, a collegiate term is called\na _half-year_.\n\nThe annual courses of instruction are divided into summer and\nwinter _half-years_.--_Howitt's Student Life of Germany_, Am. Ed.,\npp. 34, 35.\n\n\nHALL. A college or large edifice belonging to a collegiate\ninstitution.--_Webster_.\n\n2. A collegiate body in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.\nIn the former institution a hall differs from a college, in that\nhalls are not incorporated; consequently, whatever estate or other\nproperty they possess is held in trust by the University. In the\nlatter, colleges and halls are synonymous.--_Cam. and Oxf.\nCalendars_.\n\n\"In Cambridge,\" says the author of the Collegian's Guide, \"the\nhalls stand on the same footing as the colleges, but at Oxford\nthey did not, in my time, hold by any means so high a place in\ngeneral estimation. Certainly those halls which admit the outcasts\nof other colleges, and of those alone I am now speaking, used to\nbe precisely what one would expect to find them; indeed, I had\nrather that a son of mine should forego a university education\naltogether, than that he should have so sorry a counterfeit of\nacademic advantages as one of these halls affords.\"--p. 172.\n\n\"All the Colleges at Cambridge,\" says Bristed, \"have equal\nprivileges and rights, with the solitary exception of King's, and\nthough some of them are called _Halls_, the difference is merely\none of name. But the Halls at Oxford, of which there are five, are\nnot incorporated bodies, and have no vote in University matters,\nindeed are but a sort of boarding-houses at which students may\nremain until it is time for them to take a degree. I dined at one\nof those establishments; it was very like an officers' mess. The\nmen had their own wine, and did not wear their gowns, and the only\nDon belonging to the Hall was not present at table. There was a\ntradition of a chapel belonging to the concern, but no one present\nknew where it was. This Hall seemed to be a small Botany Bay of\nboth Universities, its members made up of all sorts of incapables\nand incorrigibles.\"--_Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, pp.\n140, 141.\n\n3. At Cambridge and Oxford, the public eating-room.\n\nI went into the public \"_hall_\" [so is called in Oxford the public\neating-room].--_De Quincey's Life and Manners_, p. 231.\n\nDinner is, in all colleges, a public meal, taken in the refectory\nor \"_hall_\" of the society.--_Ibid._, p. 273.\n\n4. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., dinner, the name of the\nplace where the meal is taken being given to the meal itself.\n\n_Hall_ lasts about three quarters of an hour.--_Bristed's Five\nYear in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 20.\n\nAfter _Hall_ is emphatically lounging-time, it being the wise\npractice of Englishmen to attempt no hard exercise, physical or\nmental, immediately after a hearty meal.--_Ibid._, p. 21.\n\nIt is not safe to read after _Hall_ (i.e. after dinner).--_Ibid._,\np. 331.\n\n\nHANG-OUT. An entertainment.\n\nI remember the date from the Fourth of July occurring just\nafterwards, which I celebrated by a \"_hang-out_.\"--_Bristed's Five\nYears in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 80.\n\nHe had kept me six hours at table, on the occasion of a dinner\nwhich he gave ... as an appendix to and a return for some of my\n\"_hangings-out_.\"--_Ibid._, p. 198.\n\n\nHANG OUT. To treat, to live, to have or possess. Among English\nCantabs, a verb of all-work.--_Bristed_.\n\nThere were but few pensioners who \"_hung out_\" servants of their\nown.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 90.\n\nI had become ... a man who knew and \"_hung out_ to\" clever and\npleasant people, and introduced agreeable lions to one\nanother.--_Ibid._, p. 158.\n\nI had gained such a reputation for dinner-giving, that men going\nto \"_hang out_\" sometimes asked me to compose bills of fare for\nthem.--_Ibid._, p. 195.\n\n\nHARRY SOPHS, or HENRY SOPHISTERS; in reality Harisophs, a\ncorruption of Erisophs ([Greek: erisophos], _valde eruditus_). At\nCambridge, England, students who have kept all the terms required\nfor a law act, and hence are ranked as Bachelors of Law by\ncourtesy.--_Gradus ad Cantab._\n\nSee, also, Gentleman's Magazine, 1795, p. 818.\n\n\nHARVARD WASHINGTON CORPS. From a memorandum on a fly leaf of an\nold Triennial Catalogue, it would appear that a military company\nwas first established among the students of Harvard College about\nthe year 1769, and that its first captain was Mr. William Wetmore,\na graduate of the Class of 1770. The motto which it then assumed,\nand continued to bear through every period of its existence, was,\n\"Tam Marti quam Mercurio.\" It was called at that time the Marti\nMercurian Band. The prescribed uniform was a blue coat, the skirts\nturned with white, nankeen breeches, white stockings, top-boots,\nand a cocked hat. This association continued for nearly twenty\nyears from the time of its organization, but the chivalrous spirit\nwhich had called it into existence seems at the end of that time\nto have faded away. The last captain, it is believed, was Mr.\nSolomon Vose, a graduate of the class of 1787.\n\nUnder the auspices of Governor Gerry, in December of the year\n1811, it was revived, and through his influence received a new\nloan of arms from the State, taking at the same time the name of\nthe Harvard Washington Corps. In 1812, Mr. George Thacher was\nappointed its commander. The members of the company wore a blue\ncoat, white vest, white pantaloons, white gaiters, a common black\nhat, and around the waist a white belt, which was always kept very\nneat, and to which were attached a bayonet and cartridge-box. The\nofficers wore the same dress, with the exceptions of a sash\ninstead of the belt, and a chapeau in place of the hat. Soon after\nthis reorganization, in the fall of 1812, a banner, with the arms\nof the College on one side and the arms of the State on the other,\nwas presented by the beautiful Miss Mellen, daughter of Judge\nMellen of Cambridge, in the name of the ladies of that place. The\npresentation took place before the door of her father's house.\nAppropriate addresses were made, both by the fair donor and the\ncaptain of the company. Mr. Frisbie, a Professor in the College,\nwho was at that time engaged to Miss Mellen, whom he afterwards\nmarried, recited on the occasion the following verses impromptu,\nwhich were received with great _eclat_.\n\n \"The standard's victory's leading star,\n    'T is danger to forsake it;\n  How altered are the scenes of war,\n    They're vanquished now who take it.\"\n\nA writer in the Harvardiana, 1836, referring to this banner, says:\n\"The gilded banner now moulders away in inglorious quiet, in the\ndusty retirement of a Senior Sophister's study. What a desecration\nfor that 'flag by angel hands to valor given'!\"[40] Within the\nlast two years it has wholly disappeared from its accustomed\nresting-place. Though departed, its memory will be ever dear to\nthose who saw it in its better days, and under its shadow enjoyed\nmany of the proudest moments of college life.\n\nAt its second organization, the company was one of the finest and\nbest drilled in the State. The members were from the Senior and\nJunior Classes. The armory was in the fifth story of Hollis Hall.\nThe regular time for exercise was after the evening commons. The\ndrum would often beat before the meal was finished, and the\nstudents could then be seen rushing forth with the half-eaten\nbiscuit, and at the same time buckling on their armor for the\naccustomed drill. They usually paraded on exhibition-days, when\nthe large concourse of people afforded an excellent opportunity\nfor showing off their skill in military tactics and manoeuvring.\nOn the arrival of the news of the peace of 1815, it appears, from\nan interleaved almanac, that \"the H.W. Corps paraded and fired a\nsalute; Mr. Porter treated the company.\" Again, on the 12th of\nMay, same year, \"H.W. Corps paraded in Charlestown, saluted Com.\nBainbridge, and returned by the way of Boston.\" The captain for\nthat year, Mr. W.H. Moulton, dying, on the 6th of July, at five\no'clock, P.M., \"the class,\" says the same authority, \"attended the\nfuneral of Br. Moulton in Boston. The H.W. Corps attended in\nuniform, without arms, the ceremony of entombing their late\nCaptain.\"\n\nIn the year 1825, it received a third loan of arms, and was again\nreorganized, admitting the members of all the classes to its\nranks. From this period until the year 1834, very great interest\nwas manifested in it; but a rebellion having broken out at that\ntime among the students, and the guns of the company having been\nconsiderably damaged by being thrown from the windows of the\narmory, which was then in University Hall, the company was\ndisbanded, and the arms were returned to the State.\n\nThe feelings with which it was regarded by the students generally\ncannot be better shown than by quoting from some of the\npublications in which reference is made to it. \"Many are the grave\ndiscussions and entry caucuses,\" says a writer in the Harvard\nRegister, published in 1828, \"to determine what favored few are to\nbe graced with the sash and epaulets, and march as leaders in the\nmartial band. Whilst these important canvassings are going on, it\nbehooves even the humblest and meekest to beware how he buttons\nhis coat, or stiffens himself to a perpendicular, lest he be more\nthan suspected of aspiring to some military capacity. But the\n_Harvard Washington Corps_ must not be passed over without further\nnotice. Who can tell what eagerness fills its ranks on an\nexhibition-day? with what spirit and bounding step the glorious\nphalanx wheels into the College yard? with what exultation they\nmark their banner, as it comes floating on the breeze from\nHolworthy? And ah! who cannot tell how this spirit expires, this\nexultation goes out, when the clerk calls again and again for the\nassessments.\"--p. 378.\n\nA college poet has thus immortalized this distinguished band:--\n\n \"But see where yonder light-armed ranks advance!--\n  Their colors gleaming in the noonday glance,\n  Their steps symphonious with the drum's deep notes,\n  While high the buoyant, breeze-borne banner floats!\n  O, let not allied hosts yon band deride!\n  'T is _Harvard Corps_, our bulwark and our pride!\n  Mark, how like one great whole, instinct with life,\n  They seem to woo the dangers of the strife!\n  Who would not brave the heat, the dust, the rain,\n  To march the leader of that valiant train?\"\n    _Harvard Register_, p. 235.\n\nAnother has sung its requiem in the following strain:--\n\n \"That martial band, 'neath waving stripes and stars\n  Inscribed alike to Mercury and Mars,\n  Those gallant warriors in their dread array,\n  Who shook these halls,--O where, alas! are they?\n  Gone! gone! and never to our ears shall come\n  The sounds of fife and spirit-stirring drum;\n  That war-worn banner slumbers in the dust,\n  Those bristling arms are dim with gathering rust;\n  That crested helm, that glittering sword, that plume,\n  Are laid to rest in reckless faction's tomb.\"\n    _Winslow's Class Poem_, 1835.\n\n\nHAT FELLOW-COMMONER. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., the\npopular name given to a baronet, the eldest son of a baronet, or\nthe younger son of a nobleman. A _Hat Fellow-Commoner_ wears the\ngown of a Fellow-Commoner, with a hat instead of the velvet cap\nwith metallic tassel which a Fellow-Commoner wears, and is\nadmitted to the degree of M.A. after two years' residence.\n\n\nHAULED UP. In many colleges, one brought up before the Faculty is\nsaid to be _hauled up_.\n\n\nHAZE. To trouble; to harass; to disturb. This word is used at\nHarvard College, to express the treatment which Freshmen sometimes\nreceive from the higher classes, and especially from the\nSophomores. It is used among sailors with the meanings _to urge_,\n_to drive_, _to harass_, especially with labor. In his Dictionary\nof Americanisms, Mr. Bartlett says, \"To haze round, is to go\nrioting about.\"\n\nBe ready, in fine, to cut, to drink, to smoke, to swear, to\n_haze_, to dead, to spree,--in one word, to be a\nSophomore.--_Oration before H.L. of I.O. of O.F._, 1848, p. 11.\n\n  To him no orchard is unknown,--no grape-vine unappraised,--\n  No farmer's hen-roost yet unrobbed,--no Freshman yet _unhazed_!\n    _Poem before Y.H._, 1849, p. 9.\n\n  'T is the Sophomores rushing the Freshmen to _haze_.\n    _Poem before Iadma_, 1850, p. 22.\n\n                                Never again\n  Leave unbolted your door when to rest you retire,\n  And, _unhazed_ and unmartyred, you proudly may scorn\n  Those foes to all Freshmen who 'gainst thee conspire.\n    _Ibid._, p. 23.\n\nFreshmen have got quietly settled down to work, Sophs have given\nup their _hazing_.--_Williams Quarterly_, Vol. II. p. 285.\n\nWe are glad to be able to record, that the absurd and barbarous\ncustom of _hazing_, which has long prevailed in College, is, to a\ngreat degree, discontinued.--_Harv. Mag._, Vol. I. p. 413.\n\nThe various means which are made use of in _hazing_ the Freshmen\nare enumerated in part below. In the first passage, a Sophomore\nspeaks in soliloquy.\n\n                      I am a man,\n  Have human feelings, though mistaken Fresh\n  Affirmed I was a savage or a brute,\n  When I did dash cold water in their necks,\n  Discharged green squashes through their window-panes,\n  And stript their beds of soft, luxurious sheets,\n  Placing instead harsh briers and rough sticks,\n  So that their sluggish bodies might not sleep,\n  Unroused by morning bell; or when perforce,\n  From leaden syringe, engine of fierce might,\n  I drave black ink upon their ruffle shirts,\n  Or drenched with showers of melancholy hue,\n  The new-fledged dickey peering o'er the stock,\n  Fit emblem of a young ambitious mind!\n    _Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 254.\n\nA Freshman writes thus on the subject:--\n\nThe Sophs did nothing all the first fortnight but torment the\nFresh, as they call us. They would come to our rooms with masks\non, and frighten us dreadfully; and sometimes squirt water through\nour keyholes, or throw a whole pailful on to one of us from the\nupper windows.--_Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 76.\n\n\nHEAD OF THE HOUSE. The generic name for the highest officer of a\ncollege in the English Universities.\n\nThe Master of the College, or \"_Head of the House_,\" is a D.D. who\nhas been a Fellow.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed.\n2d, p. 16.\n\nThe _heads of houses_ [are] styled, according to the usage of the\ncollege, President, Master, Principal, Provost, Warden, or Rector.\n--_Oxford Guide_, 1847, p. xiii.\n\nWritten often simply _Head_.\n\nThe \"_Head_,\" as he is called generically, of an Oxford college,\nis a greater man than the uninitiated suppose.--_De Quincey's Life\nand Manners_, p. 244.\n\nThe new _Head_ was a gentleman of most commanding personal\nappearance.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p.\n87.\n\n\nHEADSHIP. The office and place of head or president of a college.\n\nMost of the college _Headships_ are not at the disposal of the\nCrown.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, note, p.\n89, and _errata_.\n\nThe _Headships_ of the colleges are, with the exception of\nWorcester, filled by one chosen by the Fellows from among\nthemselves, or one who has been a Fellow.--_Oxford Guide_, Ed.\n1847, p. xiv.\n\n\nHEADS OUT. At Princeton College, the cry when anything occurs in\nthe _Campus_. Used, also, to give the alarm when a professor or\ntutor is about to interrupt a spree.\n\nSee CAMPUS.\n\n\nHEBDOMADAL BOARD. At Oxford, the local governing authority of the\nUniversity, composed of the Heads of colleges and the two\nProctors, and expressing itself through the Vice-Chancellor. An\ninstitution of Charles I.'s time, it has possessed, since the year\n1631, \"the sole initiative power in the legislation of the\nUniversity, and the chief share in its administration.\" Its\nmeetings are held weekly, whence the name.--_Oxford Guide.\nLiterary World_, Vol. XII., p. 223.\n\n\nHIGH-GO. A merry frolic, usually with drinking.\n\n  Songs of Scholars in revelling roundelays,\n  Belched out with hickups at bacchanal Go,\n  Bellowed, till heaven's high concave rebound the lays,\n  Are all for college carousals too low.\n  Of dullness quite tired, with merriment fired,\n  And fully inspired with amity's glow,\n  With hate-drowning wine, boys, and punch all divine, boys,\n  The Juniors combine, boys, in friendly HIGH-GO.\n    _Glossology, by William Biglow_, inserted in _Buckingham's\n    Reminiscences_, Vol. II. pp. 281-284.\n\nHe it was who broached the idea of a _high-go_, as being requisite\nto give us a rank among the classes in college. _D.A. White's\nAddress before Soc. of the Alumni of Harv. Univ._, Aug. 27, 1844,\np. 35.\n\nThis word is now seldom used; the words _High_ and _Go_ are,\nhowever, often used separately, with the same meaning; as the\ncompound. The phrase _to get high_, i.e. to become intoxicated,\nis allied with the above expression.\n\n  Or men \"_get high_\" by drinking abstract toddies?\n    _Childe Harvard_, p. 71.\n\n\nHIGH STEWARD. In the English universities, an officer who has\nspecial power to hear and determine capital causes, according to\nthe laws of the land and the privileges of the university,\nwhenever a scholar is the party offending. He also holds the\nuniversity _court-leet_, according to the established charter and\ncustom.--_Oxf. and Cam. Cals._\n\nAt Cambridge, in addition to his other duties, the High Steward is\nthe officer who represents the University in the House of Lords.\n\n\nHIGH TABLE. At Oxford, the table at which the Fellows and some\nother privileged persons are entitled to dine.\n\nWine is not generally allowed in the public hall, except to the\n\"_high table_.\"--_De Quincey's Life and Manners_, p. 278.\n\nI dine at the \"_high table_\" with the reverend deans, and hobnob\nwith professors.--_Household Words_, Am. ed., Vol. XI. p 521.\n\n\nHIGH-TI. At Williams College, a term by which is designated a\nshowy recitation. Equivalent to the word _squirt_ at Harvard\nCollege.\n\n\nHILLS. At Cambridge, Eng., Gogmagog Hills are commonly called _the\nHills_.\n\n  Or to the _Hills_ on horseback strays,\n  (Unasked his tutor,) or his chaise\n  To famed Newmarket guides.\n    _Gradus ad Cantab._, p. 35.\n\n\nHISS. To condemn by hissing.\n\nThis is a favorite method, especially among students, of\nexpressing their disapprobation of any person or measure.\n\n  I'll tell you what; your crime is this,\n  That, Touchy, you did scrape, and _hiss_.\n    _Rebelliad_, p. 45.\n\n  Who will bully, scrape, and _hiss_!\n  Who, I say, will do all this!\n  Let him follow me,--_Ibid._, p. 53.\n\n\nHOAXING. At Princeton College, inducing new-comers to join the\nsecret societies is called _hoaxing_.\n\n\nHOBBY. A translation. Hobbies are used by some students in\ntranslating Latin, Greek, and other languages, who from this\nreason are said to ride, in contradistinction to others who learn\ntheir lessons by study, who are said to _dig_ or _grub_.\n\nSee PONY.\n\n\nHOBSON'S CHOICE. Thomas Hobson, during the first third of the\nseventeenth century, was the University carrier between Cambridge\nand London. He died January 1st, 1631. \"He rendered himself famous\nby furnishing the students with horses; and, making it an\nunalterable rule that every horse should have an equal portion of\nrest as well as labor, he would never let one out of its turn;\nhence the celebrated saying, 'Hobson's Choice: _this_, or none.'\"\nMilton has perpetuated his fame in two whimsical epitaphs, which\nmay be found among his miscellaneous poems.\n\n\nHOE IN. At Hamilton College, to strive vigorously; a metaphorical\nmeaning, taken from labor with the hoe.\n\n\nHOIST. It was formerly customary at Harvard College, when the\nFreshmen were used as servants, to report them to their Tutor if\nthey refused to go when sent on an errand; this complaint was\ncalled a _hoisting_, and the delinquent was said to be _hoisted_.\n\nThe refusal to perform a reasonable service required by a member\nof the class above him, subjected the Freshmen to a complaint to\nbe brought before his Tutor, technically called _hoisting_ him to\nhis Tutor. The threat was commonly sufficient to exact the\nservice.--_Willard's Memories of Youth and Manhood_, Vol. I.\np. 259.\n\n\nHOLD INS. At Bowdoin College, \"near the commencement of each\nyear,\" says a correspondent, \"the Sophs are wont, on some\nparticular evening, to attempt to '_hold in_' the Freshmen when\ncoming out of prayers, generally producing quite a skirmish.\"\n\n\nHOLLIS. Mr. Thomas Hollis of Lincoln's Inn, to whom, with many\nothers of the same name, Harvard College is so much indebted,\namong other presents to its library, gave \"sixty-four volumes of\nvaluable books, curiously bound.\" To these reference is made in\nthe following extract from the Gentleman's Magazine for September,\n1781. \"Mr. Hollis employed Mr. Fingo to cut a number of\nemblematical devices, such as the caduceus of Mercury, the wand of\n\u00c6sculapius, the owl, the cap of liberty, &c.; and these devices\nwere to adorn the backs and sometimes the sides of books. When\npatriotism animated a work, instead of unmeaning ornaments on the\nbinding, he adorned it with caps of liberty. When wisdom filled\nthe page, the owl's majestic gravity bespoke its contents. The\ncaduceus pointed out the works of eloquence, and the wand of\n\u00c6sculapius was a signal of good medicine. The different emblems\nwere used on the same book, when possessed of different merits,\nand to express his disapprobation of the whole or parts of any\nwork, the figure or figures were reversed. Thus each cover\nexhibited a critique on the book, and was a proof that they were\nnot kept for show, as he must read before he could judge. Read\nthis, ye admirers of gilded books, and imitate.\"\n\n\nHONORARIUM, HONORARY. A term applied, in Europe, to the recompense\noffered to professors in universities, and to medical or other\nprofessional gentlemen for their services. It is nearly equivalent\nto _fee_, with the additional idea of being given _honoris causa_,\nas a token of respect.--_Brande. Webster_.\n\nThere are regular receivers, qu\u00e6stors, appointed for the reception\nof the _honorarium_, or charge for the attendance of\nlectures.--_Howitt's Student Life of Germany_, Am. ed., p. 30.\n\n\nHONORIS CAUSA. Latin; _as an honor_. Any honorary degree given by\na college.\n\nDegrees in the faculties of Divinity and Law are conferred, at\npresent, either in course, _honoris causa_, or on admission _ad\neundem_.--_Calendar Trin. Coll._, 1850, p. 10.\n\n\nHONORS. In American colleges, the principal honors are\nappointments as speakers at Exhibitions and Commencements. These\nare given for excellence in scholarship. The appointments for\nExhibitions are different in different colleges. Those of\nCommencement do not vary so much. The following is a list of the\nappointments at Harvard College, in the order in which they are\nusually assigned: Valedictory Oration, called also _the_ English\nOration, Salutatory in Latin, English Orations, Dissertations,\nDisquisitions, and Essays. The salutatorian is not always the\nsecond scholar in the class, but must be the best, or, in case\nthis distinction is enjoyed by the valedictorian, the second-best\nLatin scholar. Latin or Greek poems or orations or English poems\nsometimes form a part of the exercises, and may be assigned, as\nare the other appointments, to persons in the first part of the\nclass. At Yale College the order is as follows: Valedictory\nOration, Salutatory in Latin, Philosophical Orations, Orations,\nDissertations, Disputations, and Colloquies. A person who receives\nthe appointment of a Colloquy can either write or speak in a\ncolloquy, or write a poem. Any other appointee can also write a\npoem. Other colleges usually adopt one or the other of these\narrangements, or combine the two.\n\nAt the University of Cambridge, Eng., those who at the final\nexamination in the Senate-House are classed as Wranglers, Senior\nOptimes, or Junior Optimes, are said to go out in _honors_.\n\nI very early in the Sophomore year gave up all thoughts of\nobtaining high _honors_.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._,\nEd. 2d, p. 6.\n\n\nHOOD. An ornamented fold that hangs down the back of a graduate,\nto mark his degree.--_Johnson_.\n\n  My head with ample square-cap crown,\n  And deck with _hood_ my shoulders.\n    _The Student_, Oxf. and Cam., Vol. I. p. 349.\n\n\nHORN-BLOWING. At Princeton College, the students often provide\nthemselves at night with horns, bugles, &c., climb the trees in\nthe Campus, and set up a blowing which is continued as long as\nprudence and safety allow.\n\n\nHORSE-SHEDDING. At the University of Vermont, among secret and\nliterary societies, this term is used to express the idea conveyed\nby the word _electioneering_.\n\n\nHOUSE. A college. The word was formerly used with this\nsignification in Harvard and Yale Colleges.\n\nIf any scholar shall transgress any of the laws of God, or the\n_House_, he shall be liable, &c.--_Quincy's Hist. Harv. Univ._,\nVol. I. p. 517.\n\nIf detriment come by any out of the society, then those officers\n[the butler and cook] themselves shall be responsible to the\n_House_.--_Ibid._, Vol. I. p. 583.\n\nA member of the college was also called a _Member of the House_.\n\nThe steward is to see that one third part be reserved of all the\npayments to him by the _members of the House_ quarterly\nmade.--_Quincy's Hist. Harv. Univ._, Vol. I. p. 582.\n\nA college officer was called an _Officer of the House_.\n\nThe steward shall be bound to give an account of the necessary\ndisbursements which have been issued out to the steward himself,\nbutler, cook, or any other _officer of the House_.--_Quincy's\nHist. Harv. Univ._, Vol. I. p. 582.\n\nNeither shall the butler or cook suffer any scholar or scholars\nwhatever, except the Fellows, Masters of Art, Fellow-Commoners or\n_officers of the House_, to come into the butteries, &c.--_Ibid._,\nVol. I. p. 584.\n\nBefore the year 1708, the term _Fellows of the House_ was applied,\nat Harvard College, both to the members of the Corporation, and to\nthe instructors who did not belong to the Corporation. The\nequivocal meaning of this title was noticed by President Leverett,\nfor, in his duplicate record of the proceedings of the Corporation\nand the Overseers, he designated certain persons to whom he refers\nas \"Fellows of the House, i.e. of the Corporation.\" Soon after\nthis, an attempt was made to distinguish between these two classes\nof Fellows, and in 1711 the distinction was settled, when one\nWhiting, \"who had been for several years known as Tutor and\n'Fellow of the House,' but had never in consequence been deemed or\npretended to be a member of the Corporation, was admitted to a\nseat in that board.\"--_Quincy's Hist. Harv. Univ._, Vol. I. pp.\n278, 279. See SCHOLAR OF THE HOUSE.\n\n2. An assembly for transacting business.\n\nSee CONGREGATION, CONVOCATION.\n\n\nHOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. At Union College, the members of the\nJunior Class compose what is called the _House of\nRepresentatives_, a body organized after the manner of the\nnational House, for the purpose of becoming acquainted with the\nforms and manner of legislation. The following account has been\nfurnished by a member of that College.\n\n\"At the end of the third term, Sophomore year, when the members of\nthat class are looking forward to the honors awaiting them, comes\noff the initiation to the House. The Friday of the tenth week is\nthe day usually selected for the occasion. On the afternoon of\nthat day the Sophomores assemble in the Junior recitation-room,\nand, after organizing themselves by the appointment of a chairman,\nare waited upon by a committee of the House of Representatives of\nthe Junior Class, who announce that they are ready to proceed with\nthe initiation, and occasionally dilate upon the importance and\nresponsibility of the future position of the Sophomores.\n\n\"The invitation thus given is accepted, and the class, headed by\nthe committee, proceeds to the Representatives' Hall. On their\narrival, the members of the House retire, and the incoming\nmembers, under the direction of the committee, arrange themselves\naround the platform of the Speaker, all in the room at the same\ntime rising in their seats. The Speaker of the House now addresses\nthe Sophomores, announcing to them their election to the high\nposition of Representatives, and exhorting them to discharge well\nall their duties to their constituents and their common country.\nHe closes, by stating it to be their first business to elect the\nofficers of the House.\n\n\"The election of Speaker, Vice-Speaker, Clerk, and Treasurer by\nballot then follows, two tellers being appointed by the Chair. The\nSpeaker is elected for one year, and must be one of the Faculty;\nthe other officers hold only during the ensuing term. The Speaker,\nhowever, is never expected to be present at the meetings of the\nHouse, with the exception of that at the beginning of each term\nsession, so that the whole duty of presiding falls on the\nVice-Speaker. This is the only meeting of the _new_ House during\nthat term.\n\n\"On the second Friday afternoon of the fall term, the Speaker\nusually delivers an inaugural address, and soon after leaves the\nchair to the Vice-Speaker, who then announces the representation\nfrom the different States, and also the list of committees. The\nmembers are apportioned by him according to population, each State\nhaving at least one, and some two or three, as the number of the\nJunior Class may allow. The committees are constituted in the\nmanner common to the National House, the number of each, however,\nbeing less. Business then follows, as described in Jefferson's\nManual; petitions, remonstrances, resolutions, reports, debates,\nand all the 'toggery' of legislation, come on in regular, or\nrather irregular succession. The exercises, as may be well\nconceived, furnish an excellent opportunity for improvement in\nparliamentary tactics and political oratory.\"\n\nThe House of Representatives was founded by Professor John Austin\nTates. It is not constituted by every Junior Class, and may be\nregarded as intermittent in its character.\n\nSee SENATE.\n\n\nHUMANIST. One who pursues the study of the _humanities (liter\u00e6\nhumaniores)_, or polite literature; a term used in various\nEuropean universities, especially the Scotch.--_Brandt_.\n\n\nHUMANITY, _pl._ HUMANITIES. In the plural signifying grammar,\nrhetoric, the Latin and Greek languages, and poetry; for teaching\nwhich there are professors in the English and Scotch universities.\n--_Encyc._\n\n\nHUMMEL. At the University of Vermont, a foot, especially a large\none.\n\n\nHYPHENUTE. At Princeton College, the aristocratic or would-be\naristocratic in dress, manners, &c., are called _Hyphenutes_. Used\nboth as a noun and adjective. Same as [Greek: Oi Aristoi] q.v.\n\n\n\n_I_.\n\n\nILLUMINATE. To interline with a translation. Students _illuminate_\na book when they write between the printed lines a translation of\nthe text. _Illuminated_ books are preferred by good judges to\nponies or hobbies, as the text and translation in them are brought\nnearer to one another. The idea of calling books thus prepared\n_illuminated_, is taken partly from the meaning of the word\n_illuminate_, to adorn with ornamental letters, substituting,\nhowever, in this case, useful for ornamental, and partly from one\nof its other meanings, to throw light on, as on obscure subjects.\n\n\nILLUSTRATION. That which elucidates a subject. A word used with a\npeculiar application by undergraduates in the University of\nCambridge, Eng.\n\nI went back,... and did a few more bits of _illustration_, such as\nnoting down the relative resources of Athens and Sparta when the\nPeloponnesian war broke out, and the sources of the Athenian\nrevenue.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 51.\n\nIMPOSITION. In the English universities, a supernumerary exercise\nenjoined on students as a punishment.\n\nMinor offences are punished by rustication, and those of a more\ntrivial nature by fines, or by literary tasks, here termed\n_Impositions_.--_Oxford Guide_, p. 149.\n\nLiterary tasks called _impositions_, or frequent compulsive\nattendances on tedious and unimproving exercises in a college\nhall.--_T. Warton, Minor Poems of Milton_, p. 432.\n\n_Impositions_ are of various lengths. For missing chapel, about\none hundred lines to copy; for missing a lecture, the lecture to\ntranslate. This is the measure for an occasional offence.... For\ncoming in late at night repeatedly, or for any offence nearly\ndeserving rustication, I have known a whole book of Thucydides\ngiven to translate, or the Ethics of Aristotle to analyze, when\nthe offender has been a good scholar, while others, who could only\ndo mechanical work, have had a book of Euclid to write out.\n\nLong _impositions_ are very rarely _barberized_. When college\ntutors intend to be severe, which is very seldom, they are not to\nbe trifled with.\n\nAt Cambridge, _impositions_ are not always in writing, but\nsometimes two or three hundred lines to repeat by heart. This is\nruin to the barber.--_Collegian's Guide_, pp. 159, 160.\n\nIn an abbreviated form, _impos._\n\nHe is obliged to stomach the _impos._, and retire.--_Grad. ad\nCantab._, p. 125.\n\nHe satisfies the Proctor and the Dean by saying a part of each\n_impos._--_Ibid._, p. 128.\n\nSee BARBER.\n\n\nINCEPT. To take the degree of Master of Arts.\n\nThey may nevertheless take the degree of M.A. at the usual period,\nby putting their names on the _College boards_ a few days previous\nto _incepting_.--_Cambridge Calendar_.\n\nThe M.A. _incepts_ in about three years and two months from the\ntime of taking his first degree.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng.\nUniv._, Ed. 2d, p. 285.\n\n\nINCEPTOR. One who has proceeded to the degree of M.A., but who,\nnot enjoying all the privileges of an M.A. until the Commencement,\nis in the mean time termed an Inceptor.\n\nUsed in the English universities, and formerly at Harvard College.\n\nAnd, in case any of the Sophisters, Questionists, or _Inceptors_\nfail in the premises required at their hands ... they shall be\ndeferred to the following year.--_Laws of 1650, in Quincy's Hist.\nHarv. Univ._, Vol. I. p. 518.\n\nThe Admissio _Inceptorum_ was as follows: \"Admitto te ad secundum\ngradum in artibus pro more Academiarum in Angli\u00e2: tibique trado\nhunc librum un\u00e2 cum potestate publice profitendi, ubicunque ad hoc\nmunus public\u00e8 evocatus fueris.\"--_Ibid._, Vol. I. p. 580.\n\n\nINDIAN SOCIETY. At the Collegiate Institute of Indiana, a society\nof smokers was established, in the year 1837, by an Indian named\nZachary Colbert, and called the Indian Society. The members and\nthose who have been invited to join the society, to the number of\nsixty or eighty, are accustomed to meet in a small room, ten feet\nby eighteen; all are obliged to smoke, and he who first desists is\nrequired to pay for the cigars smoked at that meeting.\n\n\nINDIGO. At Dartmouth College, a member of the party called the\nBlues. The same as a BLUE, which see.\n\nThe Howes, years ago, used to room in Dartmouth Hall, though none\nroom there now, and so they made up some verses. Here is one:--\n\n \"Hurrah for Dartmouth Hall!\n  Success to every student\n  That rooms in Dartmouth Hall,\n  Unless he be an _Indigo_,\n  Then, no success at all.\"\n    _The Dartmouth_, Vol. IV. p. 117.\n\n\nINITIATION. Secret societies exist in almost all the colleges in\nthe United States, which require those who are admitted to pass\nthrough certain ceremonies called the initiation. This fact is\noften made use of to deceive Freshmen, upon their entrance into\ncollege, who are sometimes initiated into societies which have no\nexistence, and again into societies where initiation is not\nnecessary for membership.\n\nA correspondent from Dartmouth College writes as follows: \"I\nbelieve several of the colleges have various exercises of\n_initiating_ Freshmen. Ours is done by the 'United Fraternity,'\none of our library societies (they are neither of them secret),\nwhich gives out word that the _initiation_ is a fearful ceremony.\nIt is simply every kind of operation that can be contrived to\nterrify, and annoy, and make fun of Freshmen, who do not find out\nfor some time that it is not the necessary and serious ceremony of\nmaking them members of the society.\"\n\nIn the University of Virginia, students on entering are sometimes\ninitiated into the ways of college life by very novel and unique\nceremonies, an account of which has been furnished by a graduate\nof that institution. \"The first thing, by way of admitting the\nnovitiate to all the mysteries of college life, is to require of\nhim in an official communication, under apparent signature of one\nof the professors, a written list, tested under oath, of the\nentire number of his shirts and other necessary articles in his\nwardrobe. The list he is requested to commit to memory, and be\nprepared for an examination on it, before the Faculty, at some\nspecified hour. This the new-comer usually passes with due\nsatisfaction, and no little trepidation, in the presence of an\naugust assemblage of his student professors. He is now remanded to\nhis room to take his bed, and to rise about midnight bell for\nbreakfast. The 'Callithumpians' (in this Institution a regularly\norganized company), 'Squallinaders,' or 'Masquers,' perform their\npart during the livelong night with instruments 'harsh thunder\ngrating,' to insure to the poor youth a sleepless night, and give\nhim full time to con over and curse in his heart the miseries of a\ncollege existence. Our fellow-comrade is now up, dressed, and\nwashed, perhaps two hours in advance of the first light of dawn,\nand, under the guidance of a _posse comitatus_ of older students,\nis kindly conducted to his morning meal. A long alley, technically\n'Green Alley,' terminating with a brick wall, informing all, 'Thus\nfar shalt thou go, and no farther,' is pointed out to him, with\ndirections 'to follow his nose and keep straight ahead.' Of course\nthe unsophisticated finds himself completely nonplused, and gropes\nhis way back, amidst the loud vociferations of 'Go it, green un!'\nWith due apologies for the treatment he has received, and violent\ndenunciations against the former _posse_ for their unheard-of\ninsolence towards the gentleman, he is now placed under different\nguides, who volunteer their services 'to see him through.' Suffice\nit to be said, that he is again egregiously 'taken in,' being\ndeposited in the Rotunda or Lecture-room, and told to ring for\nwhatever he wants, either coffee or hot biscuit, but particularly\nenjoined not to leave without special permission from one of the\nFaculty. The length of his sojourn in this place, where he is\nfinally left, is of course in proportion to his state of\nverdancy.\"\n\n\nINSPECTOR OF THE COLLEGE. At Yale College, a person appointed to\nascertain, inspect, and estimate all damages done to the College\nbuildings and appurtenances, whenever required by the President.\nAll repairs, additions, and alterations are made under his\ninspection, and he is also authorized to determine whether the\nCollege chambers are fit for the reception of the students.\nFormerly the inspectorship in Harvard College was held by one of\nthe members of the College government. His duty was to examine the\nstate of the College public buildings, and also at stated times to\nexamine the exterior and interior of the buildings occupied by the\nstudents, and to cause such repairs to be made as were in his\nopinion proper. The same duties are now performed by the\n_Superintendent of Public Buildings_.--_Laws Yale Coll._, 1837,\np. 22. _Laws Harv. Coll._, 1814, p. 58, and 1848, p 29.\n\nThe duties of the _Inspector of the College Buildings_, at\nMiddlebury, are similar to those required of the inspector at\nYale.--_Laws Md. Coll._, 1839, pp. 15, 16.\n\nIN STATU PUPILLARI. Latin; literally, _in a state of pupilage_. In\nthe English universities, one who is subject to collegiate laws,\ndiscipline, and officers is said to be _in statu pupillari_.\n\n  And the short space that here we tarry,\n  At least \"_in statu pupillari_,\"\n  Forbids our growing hopes to germ,\n  Alas! beyond the appointed term.\n    _Grad. ad Cantab._, p. 109.\n\n\nINTERLINEAR. A printed book, with a written translation between\nthe lines. The same as an _illuminated_ book; for an account of\nwhich, see under ILLUMINATE.\n\n  Then devotes himself to study, with a steady, earnest zeal,\n  And scorns an _Interlinear_, or a Pony's meek appeal.\n    _Poem before Iadma_, 1850, p. 20.\n\n\nINTERLINER. Same as INTERLINEAR.\n\nIn the \"Memorial of John S. Popkin, D.D.,\" a Professor at Harvard\nCollege, Professor Felton observes: \"He was a mortal enemy to\ntranslations, '_interliners_,' and all such subsidiary helps in\nlearning lessons; he classed them all under the opprobrious name\nof 'facilities,' and never scrupled to seize them as contraband\ngoods. When he withdrew from College, he had a large and valuable\ncollection of this species of literature. In one of the notes to\nhis Three Lectures he says: 'I have on hand a goodly number of\nthese confiscated wares, full of manuscript innotations, which I\nseized in the way of duty, and would now restore to the owners on\ndemand, without their proving property or paying charges.'\"--p.\nlxxvii.\n\nPonies, _Interliners_, Ticks, Screws, and Deads (these are all\ncollege verbalities) were all put under contribution.--_A Tour\nthrough College_, Boston, 1832, p. 25.\n\n\nINTONITANS BOLUS. Greek, [Greek: bolos], a lump. Latin, _bolus_, a\nbit, a morsel. English, _bolus_, a mass of anything made into a\nlarge pill. It may be translated _a thundering pill_. At Harvard\nCollege, the _Intonitans Bolus_ was a great cane or club which was\ngiven nominally to the strongest fellow in the graduating class;\n\"but really,\" says a correspondent, \"to the greatest bully,\" and\nthus was transmitted, as an entailed estate, to the Samsons of\nCollege. If any one felt that he had been wronged in not receiving\nthis emblem of valor, he was permitted to take it from its\npossessor if he could. In later years the club presented a very\ncurious appearance; being almost entirely covered with the names\nof those who had held it, carved on its surface in letters of all\nimaginable shapes and descriptions. At one period, it was in the\npossession of Richard Jeffrey Cleveland, a member of the class of\n1827, and was by him transmitted to Jonathan Saunderson of the\nclass of 1828. It has disappeared within the last fifteen or\ntwenty years, and its hiding-place, even if it is in existence, is\nnot known.\n\nSee BULLY CLUB.\n\n\nINVALID'S TABLE. At Yale College, in former times, a table at\nwhich those who were not in health could obtain more nutritious\nfood than was supplied at the common board. A graduate at that\ninstitution has referred to the subject in the annexed extract.\n\"It was extremely difficult to obtain permission to board out, and\nindeed impossible except in extreme cases: the beginning of such\npermits would have been like the letting out of water. To take\naway all pretext for it, an '_invalid's table_' was provided,\nwhere, if one chose to avail himself of it, having a doctor's\ncertificate that his health required it, he might have a somewhat\ndifferent diet.\"--_Scenes and Characters in College, New Haven_,\n1847, pp. 117, 118.\n\n\n\n_J_.\n\n\nJACK-KNIFE. At Harvard College it has long been the custom for the\nugliest member of the Senior Class to receive from his classmates\na _Jack-knife_, as a reward or consolation for the plainness of\nhis features. In former times, it was transmitted from class to\nclass, its possessor in the graduating class presenting it to the\none who was deemed the ugliest in the class next below.\n\nMr. William Biglow, a member of the class of 1794, the recipient\nfor that year of the Jack-knife,--in an article under the head of\n\"Omnium Gatherum,\" published in the Federal Orrery, April 27,\n1795, entitled, \"A Will: Being the last words of CHARLES\nCHATTERBOX, Esq., late worthy and much lamented member of the\nLaughing Club of Harvard University, who departed college life,\nJune 21, 1794, in the twenty-first year of his age,\"--presents\nthis _transmittendum_ to his successor, with the following\nwords:--\n\n \"_Item_. C---- P----s[41] has my knife,\n   During his natural college life;\n   That knife, which ugliness inherits,\n   And due to his superior merits,\n   And when from Harvard he shall steer,\n   I order him to leave it here,\n   That't may from class to class descend,\n   Till time and ugliness shall end.\"\n\nMr. Prentiss, in the autumn of 1795, soon after graduating,\ncommenced the publication of the Rural Repository, at Leominster,\nMass. In one of the earliest numbers of this paper, following the\nexample of Mr. Biglow, he published his will, which Mr. Paine, the\neditor of the Federal Orrery, immediately transferred to his\ncolumns with this introductory note:--\"Having, in the second\nnumber of 'Omnium Gatherum' presented to our readers the last will\nand testament of Charles Chatterbox, Esq., of witty memory,\nwherein the said Charles, now deceased, did lawfully bequeath to\nCh----s Pr----s the celebrated 'Ugly Knife,' to be by him\ntransmitted, at his college demise, to the next succeeding\ncandidate; -------- and whereas the said Ch----s Pr----s, on the\n21st of June last, departed his aforesaid college life, thereby\nleaving to the inheritance of his successor the valuable legacy\nwhich his illustrious friend had bequeathed, as an entailed\nestate, to the poets of the university,--we have thought proper to\ninsert a full, true, and attested copy of the will of the last\ndeceased heir, in order that the world may be furnished with a\ncorrect genealogy of this renowned _Jack-knife_, whose pedigree\nwill become as illustrious in after time as the family of the\n'ROLLES,' and which will be celebrated by future wits as the most\nformidable _weapon_ of modern genius.\"\n\nThat part of the will only is here inserted which refers\nparticularly to the Knife. It is as follows:--\n\n \"I--I say I, now make this will;\n  Let those whom I assign fulfil.\n  I give, grant, render, and convey\n  My goods and chattels thus away;\n  That _honor of a college life,\n  That celebrated_ UGLY KNIFE,\n  Which predecessor SAWNEY[42] orders,\n  Descending to time's utmost borders,\n  To _noblest bard_ of _homeliest phiz_,\n  To have and hold and use, as his,\n  I now present C----s P----y S----r,[43]\n  To keep with his poetic lumber,\n  To scrape his quid, and make a split,\n  To point his pen for sharpening wit;\n  And order that he ne'er abuse\n  Said ugly knife, in dirtier use,\n  And let said CHARLES, that best of writers,\n  In prose satiric skilled to bite us,\n  And equally in verse delight us,\n  Take special care to keep it clean\n  From unpoetic hands,--I ween.\n  And when those walls, the muses' seat,\n  Said S----r is obliged to quit,\n  Let some one of APOLLO'S firing,\n  To such heroic joys aspiring,\n  Who long has borne a poet's name,\n  With said Knife cut his way to fame.\"\n    See _Buckingham's Reminiscences_, Vol. II. pp. 281, 270.\n\nTradition asserts that the original Jack-knife was terminated at\none end of the handle by a large blade, and at the other by a\nprojecting piece of iron, to which a chain of the same metal was\nattached, and that it was customary to carry it in the pocket\nfastened by this chain to some part of the person. When this was\nlost, and the custom of transmitting the Knife went out of\nfashion, the class, guided by no rule but that of their own fancy,\nwere accustomed to present any thing in the shape of a knife,\nwhether oyster or case, it made no difference. In one instance a\nwooden one was given, and was immediately burned by the person who\nreceived it. At present the Jack-knife is voted to the ugliest\nmember of the Senior Class, at the meeting for the election of\nofficers for Class Day, and the sum appropriated for its purchase\nvaries in different years from fifty cents to twenty dollars. The\ncustom of presenting the Jack-knife is one of the most amusing of\nthose which have come down to us from the past, and if any\nconclusion may be drawn from the interest which is now manifested\nin its observance, it is safe to infer, in the words of the poet,\nthat it will continue\n \"Till time and ugliness shall end.\"\n\nIn the Collegiate Institute of Indiana, a Jack-knife is given to\nthe greatest liar, as a reward of merit.\n\nSee WILL.\n\n\nJAPANNED. A cant term in use at the University of Cambridge, Eng.,\nexplained in the following passage. \"Many ... step ... into the\nChurch, without any pretence of other change than in the attire of\ntheir outward man,--the being '_japanned_,' as assuming the black\ndress and white cravat is called in University slang.\"--_Bristed's\nFive Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 344.\n\n\nJESUIT. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., a member of Jesus\nCollege.\n\n\nJOBATION. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., a sharp reprimand\nfrom the Dean for some offence, not eminently heinous.\n\nThus dismissed the august presence, he recounts this _jobation_ to\nhis friends, and enters into a discourse on masters, deans,\ntutors, and proctors.--_Grad. ad Cantab._, p. 124.\n\n\nJOBE. To reprove; to reprimand. \"In the University of Cambridge,\n[Eng.,] the young scholars are wont to call chiding,\n_jobing_.\"--_Grad. ad Cantab._\n\nI heard a lively young man assert, that, in consequence of an\nintimation from the tutor relative to his irregularities, his\nfather came from the country to _jobe_ him.--_Gent. Mag._, Dec.\n1794.\n\n\nJOE. A name given at several American colleges to a privy. It is\nsaid that when Joseph Penney was President of Hamilton College, a\nrequest from the students that the privies might be cleansed was\nmet by him with a denial. In consequence of this refusal, the\noffices were purified by fire on the night of November 5th. The\nderivation of the word, allowing the truth of this story, is\napparent.\n\nThe following account of _Joe-Burning_ is by a correspondent from\nHamilton College:--\"On the night of the 5th of November, every\nyear, the Sophomore Class burn 'Joe.' A large pile is made of\nrails, logs, and light wood, in the form of a triangle. The space\nwithin is filled level to the top, with all manner of\ncombustibles. A 'Joe' is then sought for by the class, carried\nfrom its foundations on a rude bier, and placed on this pile. The\ninterior is filled with wood and straw, surrounding a barrel of\ntar placed in the middle, over all of which gallons of turpentine\nare thrown, and then set fire to. From the top of the lofty hill\non which the College buildings are situated, this fire can be seen\nfor twenty miles around. The Sophomores are all disguised in the\nmost odd and grotesque dresses. A ring is formed around the\nburning 'Joe,' and a chant is sung. Horses of the neighbors are\nobtained and ridden indiscriminately, without saddle or bridle.\nThe burning continues usually until daylight.\"\n\n  Ponamus Convivium\n  _Josephi_ in locum\n    Et id uremus.\n    _Convivii Exsequi\u00e6, Hamilton Coll._, 1850.\n\n\nJOHNIAN. A member of St. John's College in the University of\nCambridge, Eng.\n\nThe _Johnians_ are always known by the name of pigs; they put up a\nnew organ the other day, which was immediately christened \"Baconi\nNovum Organum.\"--_Westminster Rev._, Am. ed., Vol. XXXV., p 236.\n\n\nJUN. Abbreviated for Junior.\n\nThe target for all the venomed darts of rowdy Sophs, magnificent\n_Juns_, and lazy Senes.--_The Yale Banger_, Nov. 10, 1846.\n\n\nJUNE. An abbreviation of Junior.\n\n  I once to Yale a Fresh did come,\n    But now a jolly _June_,\n  Returning to my distant home,\n    I bear the wooden spoon.\n    _Songs of Yale_, 1853, p. 36.\n\n  But now, when no longer a Fresh or a Soph,\n    Each blade is a gentleman _June_.\n    _Ibid._, p. 39.\n\n\nJUNE TRAINING. The following interesting and entertaining account\nof one of the distinguishing customs of the University of Vermont,\nis from the pen of one of her graduates, to whom the editor of\nthis work is under many obligations for the valuable assistance he\nhas rendered in effecting the completeness of this Collection.\n\n\"In the old time when militia trainings were in fashion, the\nauthorities of Burlington decided that, whereas the students of\nthe University of Vermont claimed and were allowed the right of\nsuffrage, they were to be considered citizens, and consequently\nsubject to military duty. The students having refused to appear on\nparade, were threatened with prosecution; and at last they\ndetermined to make their appearance. This they did on a certain\n'training day,' (the year I do not recollect,) to the full\nsatisfaction of the authorities, who did not expect _such_ a\nparade, and had no desire to see it repeated. But the students\nbeing unwilling to expose themselves to 'the rigor of the law,'\nparaded annually; and when at last the statute was repealed and\nmilitia musters abolished, they continued the practice for the\nsake of old association. Thus it passed into a custom, and the\nfirst Wednesday of June is as eagerly anticipated by the citizens\nof Burlington and the youth of the surrounding country for its\n'training,' as is the first Wednesday of August for its annual\nCommencement. The Faculty always smile propitiously, and in the\nafternoon the performance commences. The army, or more\neuphoniously the 'UNIVERSITY INVINCIBLES,' take up 'their line of\nmarch' from the College campus, and proceed through all the\nprincipal streets to the great square, where, in the presence of\nan immense audience, a speech is delivered by the\nCommander-in-chief, and a sermon by the Chaplain, the roll is\ncalled, and the annual health report is read by the surgeon. These\nproductions are noted for their patriotism and fervid eloquence\nrather than high literary merit. Formerly the music to which they\nmarched consisted solely of the good old-fashioned drum and fife;\nbut of late years the Invincibles have added to these a brass\nband, composed of as many obsolete instruments as can be procured,\nin the hands of inexperienced performers. None who have ever\nhandled a musical instrument before are allowed to become members\nof the band, lest the music should be too sweet and regular to\ncomport with the general order of the parade. The uniform (or\nrather the _multiform_) of the company varies from year to year,\nowing to the regulation that each soldier shall consult his own\ntaste,--provided that no two are to have the same taste in their\nequipments. The artillery consists of divers joints of rusty\nstove-pipe, in each of which is inserted a toy cannon of about one\nquarter of an inch calibre, mounted on an old dray, and drawn by\nas many horse-apologies as can be conveniently attached to it.\nWhen these guns are discharged, the effect--as might be\nexpected--is terrific. The banners, built of cotton sheeting and\nmounted on a rake-handle, although they do not always exhibit\ngreat artistic genius, often display vast originality of design.\nFor instance, one contained on the face a diagram (done in ink\nwith the wrong end of a quill) of the _pons asinorum_, with the\nrather belligerent inscription, 'REMEMBER NAPOLEON AT LODI.' On\nthe reverse was the head of an extremely doubtful-looking\nindividual viewing 'his natural face in a glass.'\nInscription,--'O wad some pow'r the giftie gie us To see oursel's\nas others see us.'\n\n\"The surgeon's equipment is an ox-cart containing jars of drugs\n(most of them marked 'N.E.R.' and 'O.B.J.'), boxes of homoeopathic\npills (about the size of a child's head), immense saws and knives,\nskeletons of animals, &c.; over which preside the surgeon and his\nassistant in appropriate dresses, with tin spectacles. This\nsurgeon is generally the chief feature of the parade, and his\nreports are astonishing additions to the surgical lore of our\ncountry. He is the wit of the College,--the one who above all\nothers is celebrated for the loudest laugh, the deepest bumper,\nthe best joke, and the poorest song. How well he sustains his\nreputation may be known by listening to his annual reading, or by\nreference to the reports of 'Trotwood,' 'Gubbins,' or 'Deppity\nSawbones,' who at different times have immortalized themselves by\ntheir contributions to science. The cavalcade is preceded by the\n'pioneers,' who clear the way for the advancing troops; which is\ngenerally effected by the panic among the boys, occasioned by the\nsavage aspect of the pioneers,--their faces being hideously\npainted, and their dress consisting of gleanings from every\ncostume, Christian, Pagan, and Turkish, known among men. As the\nbody passes through the different streets, the martial men receive\nsundry testimonials of regard and approval in the shape of boquets\nand wreaths from the fair 'Peruvians,' who of course bestow them\non those who, in their opinion, have best succeeded in the object\nof the day,--uncouth appearance. After the ceremonies, the\nstudents quietly congregate in some room in college to _count_\nthese favors and to ascertain who is to be considered the hero of\nthe day, as having rendered himself pre-eminently ridiculous. This\nhonor generally falls to the lot of the surgeon. As the sun sinks\nbehind the Adirondacs over the lake, the parade ends; the many\nlookers-on having nothing to see but the bright visions of the\nnext year's training, retire to their homes; while the now weary\nstudents, gathered in knots in the windows of the upper stories,\nlazily and comfortably puff their black pipes, and watch the\nlessening forms of the retreating countrymen.\"\n\nFurther to elucidate the peculiarities of the June Training, the\nannexed account of the custom, as it was observed on the first\nWednesday in June of the current year, is here inserted, taken\nfrom the \"Daily Free Press,\" published at Burlington, June 8th,\n1855.\n\n\"The annual parade of the principal military body in Vermont is an\nevent of importance. The first Wednesday in June, the day assigned\nto it, is becoming the great day of the year in Burlington.\nAlready it rivals, if it does not exceed, Commencement day in\nglory and honor. The people crowd in from the adjoining towns, the\nsteamboats bring numbers from across the lake, and the inhabitants\nof the town turn out in full force. The yearly recurrence of such\nscenes shows the fondness of the people for a hearty laugh, and\nthe general acceptableness of the entertainment provided.\n\n\"The day of the parade this year was a very favorable\none,--without dust, and neither too hot nor too cold for comfort\nThe performances properly--or rather _im_properly--commenced in\nthe small hours of the night previous by the discharge of a cannon\nin front of the college buildings, which, as the cannon was\nstupidly or wantonly pointed _towards_ the college buildings, blew\nin several hundred panes of glass. We have not heard that anybody\nlaughed at this piece of heavy wit.\n\n\"At four o'clock in the afternoon, the Invincibles took up their\nline of march, with scream of fife and roll of drum, down Pearl\nStreet to the Square, where the flying artillery discharged a\ngrand national salute of one gun; thence to the Exchange, where a\nhalt was made and a refreshment of water partaken of by the\ncompany, and then to the Square in front of the American, where\nthey were duly paraded, reviewed, exhorted, and reported upon, in\npresence of two or three thousand people.\n\n\"The scene presented was worth seeing. The windows of the American\nand Wheeler's Block had all been taken out, and were filled with\nbright female faces; the roofs of the same buildings were lined\nwith spectators, and the top of the portico of the American was a\ncondensed mass of loveliness and bright colors. The Town Hall\nwindows, steps, doors, &c. were also filled. Every good look-out\nanywhere near the spot was occupied, and a dense mass of\nby-standers and lookers-on in carriages crowded the southern part\nof the Square.\n\n\"Of the cortege itself, the pencil of a Hogarth only could give an\nadequate idea. The valorous Colonel Brick was of course the centre\nof all eyes. He was fitly supported by his two aids. The three\nwere in elegant uniforms, were handsomely mounted, rode well and\nwith gallant bearing, and presented a particularly attractive\nappearance.\n\n\"Behind them appeared a scarlet robe, surmounted by a white wig of\nBrobdinagian dimensions and spectacles to match, which it is\nsupposed contained in the interior the physical system of the\nReverendissimus Boanerges Diogenes Lanternarius, Chaplain, the\nwhole mounted upon the vertebr\u00e6 of a solemn-looking donkey.\n\n\"The representative of the Church Militant was properly backed up\nby the Flying Artillery. Their banner announced that they were\n'for the reduction of Sebastopol,' and it is safe to say that they\nwill certainly take that fortress, if they get a chance. If the\nRussians hold out against those four ghostly steeds, tandem, with\ntheir bandy-legged and kettle-stomached riders,--that gun, so\nstrikingly like a joint of old stove-pipe in its exterior, but\nwhich upon occasion could vomit forth your real smoke and sound\nand smell of unmistakable brimstone,--and those slashed and\nblood-stained artillerymen,--they will do more than anybody did on\nWednesday.\n\n\"The T.L.N. Horn-et Band, with Sackbut, Psaltery, Dulcimer, and\nShawm, Tanglang, Locofodeon, and Hugag, marched next. They\nreserved their efforts for special occasions, when they woke the\nechoes with strains of altogether unearthly music, composed for\nthem expressly by Saufylur, the eminent self-taught New Zealand\ncomposer.\n\n\"Barnum's Baby-Show, on four wheels, in charge of the great\nshowman himself, aided by that experienced nurse, Mrs. Gamp, in\nsomewhat dilapidated attire, followed. The babies, from a span\nlong to an indefinite length, of all shapes and sizes, black,\nwhite, and snuff-colored, twins, triplets, quartettes, and\nquincunxes, in calico and sackcloth, and in a state of nature,\nfilled the vehicle, and were hung about it by the leg or neck or\nmiddle. A half-starved quadruped of osseous and slightly equine\nappearance drew the concern, and the shrieking axles drowned the\ncries of the innocents.\n\n\"Mr. Joseph Hiss and Mrs. Patterson of Massachusetts were not\nabsent. Joseph's rubicund complexion, brassy and distinctly\nKnow-Nothing look, and nasal organ well developed by his\nexperience on the olfactory committee, were just what might have\nbeen expected. The 'make up' of Mrs. P., a bright brunette, was\ncapital, and she looked the woman, if not the lady, to perfection.\nThe two appeared in a handsome livery buggy, paid for, we suppose,\nby the State of Massachusetts.\n\n\"A wagon-load of two or three tattered and desperate looking\nindividuals, labelled 'Recruits for the Crimea,' with a generous\nsupply of old iron and brick-bats as material of war, was dragged\nalong by the frame and most of the skin of what was once a horse.\n\n\"Towards the rear, but by no means least in consequence or in the\namount of attention attracted, was the army hospital, drawn by two\nstaid and well-fed oxen. In front appeared the snowy locks and\n'fair round belly, with good _cotton_ lined' of the worthy Dr.\nEsculapius Liverwort Tarand Cantchuget-urlegawa Opodeldoc, while\nby his side his assistant sawbones brayed in a huge iron mortar,\nwith a weighty pestle, much noise, and indefatigable zeal, the\ndrugs and dye-stuffs. Thigh-bones, shoulder-blades, vertebr\u00e6, and\neven skulls, hanging round the establishment, testified to the\nnumerous and successful amputations performed by the skilful\nsurgeon.\n\n\"Noticeable among the cavalry were Don Quixote de la U.V.M.,\nKnight of the patent-leather gaiters, terrible in his bright\nrectangular cuirass of tin (once a tea-chest), and his glittering\nharpoon; his doughty squire, Sancho Panza; and a dashing young\nlady, whose tasteful riding-dress of black cambric, wealth of\nembroidered skirts and undersleeves, and bold riding, took not a\nlittle attention.\n\n\"Of the rank and file on foot it is useless to attempt a\ndescription. Beards of awful size, moustaches of every shade and\nlength under a foot, phizzes of all colors and contortions,\nfour-story hats with sky-scraping feathers, costumes\nring-streaked, speckled, monstrous, and incredible, made up the\nmotley crew. There was a Northern emigrant just returned from\nKansas, with garments torn and water-soaked, and but half cleaned\nof the adhesive tar and feathers, watched closely by a burly\nMissourian, with any quantity of hair and fire-arms and\nbowie-knives. There were Rev. Antoinette Brown, and Neal Dow;\nthere was a darky whose banner proclaimed his faith in Stowe and\nSeward and Parker, an aboriginal from the prairies, an ancient\nminstrel with a modern fiddle, and a modern minstrel with an\nancient hurdy- gurdy. All these and more. Each man was a study in\nhimself, and to all, Falstaff's description of his recruits would\napply:--\n\n\"'My whole charge consists of corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of\ncompanies, slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where\nthe glutton's dogs licked his sores; the cankers of a calm world\nand a long peace; ten times more dishonorable ragged than an\nold-faced ancient: and such have I, that you would think I had a\nhundred and fifty tattered prodigals lately come from\nswine-keeping, from eating draff and husks. A mad fellow met me on\nthe way and told me I had unloaded all the gibbets and pressed the\ndead bodies. No eye hath seen such scarecrows.'\n\n\"The proceedings on the review were exciting. After the calling of\nthe roll, the idol of his regiment, Col. Martin Van Buren Brick,\ndischarged an eloquent and touching speech.\n\n\"From the report of Dr. Opodeldoc, which was thirty-six feet in\nlength, we can of course give but a few extracts. He commenced by\ninforming the Invincibles that his cures the year past had been\nmore astounding than ever, and that his fame would continue to\ngrow brighter and brighter, until eclipsed by the advent of some\nyounger Dr. Esculapius Liverwort Tar Cant-ye-get-your-leg-away\nOpodeldoc, who in after years would shoot up like a meteor and\nreproduce his father's greatness; and went on as follows:--\n\n\"'The first academic that appeared after the last report was the\n_desideratum graduatere_, or graduating fever. Twenty-seven were\ntaken down. Symptoms, morality in the head,--dignity in the walk,\n--hints about graduating,--remarkable tendency to\nswell,--literary movement of the superior and inferior maxillary\nbones, &c., &c. Strictures on bleeding were first applied; then\ntreating homoeopathically _similis similibus_, applied roots\nextracted, roots Latin and Greek, infinitesimal extracts of\ncalculus, mathematical formulas, psychological inductions, &c.,\n&c. No avail. Finally applied huge sheep-skin plasters under the\naxilla, with a composition of printers' ink, paste, paper,\nribbons, and writing-ink besmeared thereon, and all were\ndespatched in one short day.\n\n\"'Sophomore Exhibition furnished many cases. One man hit by a\nSoph-bug, drove eye down into stomach, carrying with it brains and\nall inside of the head. In order to draw them back to their proper\nplace, your Surgeon caused a leaf from Barnum's Autobiography to\nbe placed on patient's head, thinking that to contain more true,\ngenuine _suction_ than anything yet discovered.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"'Nebraska _cancers_ have appeared in our ranks, especially in\nMissouri division. Surgeon recommends 385 eighty-pounders be\nloaded to the muzzle, first with blank cartridges,--to wit, Frank\nPierce and Stephen A. Douglas, Free-Soil sermons, Fern Leaves, Hot\nCorn, together with all the fancy literature of the day,--and\ncause the same to be fired upon the disputed territory; this would\ncause all the breakings out to be removed, and drive off\neverybody.'\n\n\"The close of the report was as follows. It affected many even to\ntears.\n\n\"'May you all remember your Surgeon, and may your thoracic duck\never continue to sail peacefully down the common carrotted\narteries, under the keystone of the arch of the aorta, and not\nrush madly into the abominable cavity and eclipse the semi-lunar\ndandelions, nor, still worse, play the dickens with the\npneumogastric nerve and auxiliary artery, reverse the doododen,\nupset the flamingo, irritate the _high-old-glossus_, and be for\never lost in the receptaculum chyli. No, no, but, &c. Yours\nfeelingly,\n\n'Dr. E.L.T.C.O., M.D.'\n\n\"Dr. O., we notice, has added a new branch, that of dentistry, to\nhis former accomplishments. By his new system, his customers are\nnot obliged to undergo the pain of the operations in person, but,\nby merely sending their heads to him, can have everything done\nwith a great decrease of trouble. From a calf's head thus sent in,\nthe Doctor, after cutting the gums with a hay-cutter, and filing\nbetween the teeth with a wood-saw, skilfully extracted with a pair\nof blacksmith tongs a very great number of molars and incisors.\n\n\"Miss Lucy Amazonia Crura Longa Lignea, thirteen feet high, and\nMr. Rattleshanks Don Skyphax, a swain a foot taller, advanced from\nthe ranks, and were made one by the chaplain. The bride promised\nto own the groom, but _protested_ formally against his custody of\nher person, property, and progeny. The groom pledged himself to\nmend the unmentionables of his spouse, or to resign his own when\nrequired to rock the cradle, and spank the babies. He placed no\nring upon her finger, but instead transferred his whiskers to her\nface, when the chaplain pronounced them 'wife and man,' and the\nhappy pair stalked off, their heads on a level with the\nsecond-story windows.\n\n\"Music from the Keeseville Band who were present followed; the\nflying artillery fired another salute; the fife and drums struck\nup; and the Invincibles took their winding way to the University,\nwhere they were disbanded in good season.\"\n\n\nJUNIOR. One in the third year of his collegiate course in an\nAmerican college, formerly called JUNIOR SOPHISTER.\n\nSee SOPHISTER.\n\n2. One in the first year of his course at a theological seminary.\n--_Webster_.\n\n\nJUNIOR. Noting the third year of the collegiate course in American\ncolleges, or the first year in the theological\nseminaries.--_Webster_.\n\n\nJUNIOR APPOINTMENTS. At Yale College, there appears yearly, in the\npapers conducted by the students, a burlesque imitation of the\nregular appointments of the Junior exhibition. These mock\nappointments are generally of a satirical nature, referring to\npeculiarities of habits, character, or manners. The following,\ntaken from some of the Yale newspapers, may be considered as\nspecimens of the subjects usually assigned. Philosophical Oration,\ngiven to one distinguished for a certain peculiarity, subject,\n\"The Advantage of a Great Breadth of Base.\" Latin Oration, to a\nvain person, subject, \"Amor Sui.\" Dissertations: to a meddling\nperson, subject, \"The Busybody\"; to a poor punster, subject,\n\"Diseased Razors\"; to a poor scholar, subject, \"Flunk on,--flunk\never.\" Colloquy, to a joker whose wit was not estimated, subject,\n\"Unappreciated Facetiousness.\" When a play upon names is\nattempted, the subject \"Perfect Looseness\" is assigned to Mr.\nSlack; Mr. Barnes discourses upon \"_Stability_ of character, or\npull down and build greater\"; Mr. Todd treats upon \"The Student's\nManual,\" and incentives to action are presented, based on the line\n \"Lives of great men all remind us,\"\nby students who rejoice in the Christian names, George Washington,\nPatrick Henry, Martin Van Buren, Andrew Jackson, Charles James\nFox, and Henry Clay.\n\nSee MOCK PART.\n\n\nJUNIOR BACHELOR. One who is in his first year after taking the\ndegree of Bachelor of Arts.\n\nNo _Junior Bachelor_ shall continue in the College after the\ncommencement in the Summer vacation.--_Laws of Harv. Coll._, 1798,\np. 19.\n\n\nJUNIOR FELLOW. At Oxford, one who stands upon the foundation of\nthe college to which he belongs, and is an aspirant for academic\nemoluments.--_De Quincey_.\n\n2. At Trinity College, Hartford, a Junior Fellow is one chosen by\nthe House of Convocation to be a member of the examining committee\nfor three years. Junior Fellows must have attained the M.A.\ndegree, and can only be voted for by Masters in Arts. Six Junior\nFellows are elected every three years.\n\n\nJUNIOR FRESHMAN. The name of the first of the four classes into\nwhich undergraduates are divided at Trinity College, Dublin.\n\n\nJUNIOR OPTIME. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., those who\noccupy the third rank in honors, at the close of the final\nexamination in the Senate-House, are called _Junior Optimes_.\n\nThe third class, or that of _Junior Optimes_, is usually about at\nnumerous as the first [that of the Wranglers], but its limits are\nmore extensive, varying from twenty-five to sixty. A majority of\nthe Classical men are in it; the rest of its contents are those\nwho have broken down before the examination from ill-health or\nlaziness, and choose the Junior Optime as an easier pass degree\nunder their circumstances than the Poll, and those who break down\nin the examination; among these last may be sometimes found an\nexpectant Wrangler.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed.\n2d p. 228.\n\nThe word is frequently abbreviated.\n\nTwo years ago he got up enough of his low subjects to go on among\nthe _Junior Ops._--_Ibid._, p. 53.\n\nThere are only two mathematical papers, and these consist almost\nentirely of high questions; what a _Junior Op._ or low Senior Op.\ncan do in them amounts to nothing.--_Ibid._, p. 286.\n\n\nJUNIOR SOPHISTER. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., a student\nin the second year of his residence is called Junior Soph or\nSophister.\n\n2. In some American colleges, a member of the Junior Class, i.e.\nof the third year, was formerly designated a Junior Sophister.\n\nSee SOPHISTER.\n\n\n\n_K_.\n\n\nKEEP. To lodge, live, dwell, or inhabit. To _keep_ in such a\nplace, is to have rooms there. This word, though formerly used\nextensively, is now confined to colleges and universities.\n\nInquire of anybody you meet in the court of a college at Cambridge\nyour way to Mr. A----'s room, you will be told that he _keeps_ on\nsuch a staircase, up so many pair of stairs, door to the right or\nleft.--_Forby's Vocabulary_, Vol. II. p. 178.\n\nHe said I ought to have asked for his rooms, or inquired where he\n_kept_.--_Gent. Mag._, 1795, p. 118.\n\nDr. Johnson, in his Dictionary, cites this very apposite passage\nfrom Shakespeare: \"Knock at the study where they say he keeps.\"\nMr. Pickering, in his Vocabulary, says of the word: \"This is noted\nas an Americanism in the Monthly Anthology, Vol. V. p. 428. It is\nless used now than formerly.\"\n\n_To keep an act_, in the English universities, \"to perform an\nexercise in the public schools preparatory to the proceeding in\ndegrees.\" The phrase was formerly in use in Harvard College. In an\naccount in the Mass. Hist. Coll., Vol. I. p. 245, entitled New\nEngland's First Fruits, is the following in reference to that\ninstitution: \"The students of the first classis that have beene\nthese foure yeeres trained up in University learning, and are\napproved for their manners, as they have _kept their publick Acts_\nin former yeeres, ourselves being present at them; so have they\nlately _kept two solemn Acts_ for their Commencement.\"\n\n_To keep chapel_, in colleges, to attend Divine services, which\nare there performed daily.\n\n\"As you have failed to _make up your number_ of chapels the last\ntwo weeks,\" such are the very words of the Dean, \"you will, if you\nplease, _keep every chapel_ till the end of the term.\"--_Household\nWords_, Vol. II. p. 161.\n\n_To keep a term_, in universities, is to reside during a\nterm.--_Webster_.\n\n\nKEYS. Caius, the name of one of the colleges in the University of\nCambridge, Eng., is familiarly pronounced _Keys_.\n\n\nKINGSMAN. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., a member of King's\nCollege.\n\nHe came out the winner, with the _Kingsman_ and one of our three\nclose at his heels.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed.\n2d, p. 127.\n\n\nKITCHEN-HATCH. A half-door between the kitchen and the hall in\ncolleges and old mansions. At Harvard College, the students in\nformer times received at the _kitchen-hatch_ their food for the\nevening meal, which they were allowed to eat in the yard or at\ntheir rooms. At the same place the waiters also took the food\nwhich they carried to the tables.\n\nThe waiters when the bell rings at meal-time shall take the\nvictuals at the _kitchen-hatch_, and carry the Same to the several\ntables for which they are designed.--_Laws Harv. Coll._, 1798, p.\n41.\n\nSee BUTTERY-HATCH.\n\n\nKNOCK IN. A phrase used at Oxford, and thus explained in the\nCollegian's Guide: \"_Knocking in_ late, or coming into college\nafter eleven or twelve o'clock, is punished frequently with being\n'confined to gates,' or being forbidden to '_knock in_' or come in\nafter nine o'clock for a week or more, sometimes all the\nterm.\"--p. 161.\n\n\nKNOCKS. From KNUCKLES. At some of the Southern colleges, a game at\nmarbles called _Knucks_ is a common diversion among the students.\n\n\n[Greek: Kudos]. Greek; literally, _glory, fame_. Used among\nstudents, with the meaning _credit, reputation_.\n\nI was actuated not merely by a desire after the promotion of my\nown [Greek: kudos], but by an honest wish to represent my country\nwell.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, pp. 27,\n28.\n\n\n\n_L_.\n\n\nLANDSMANNSCHAFT. German. The name of an association of students in\nGerman universities.\n\n\nLAP-EAR. At Washington College, Penn., students of a religious\ncharacter are called _lap-ears_ or _donkeys_. The opposite class\nare known by the common name of _bloods_.\n\n\nLATIN SPOKEN AT COLLEGES. At our older American colleges, students\nwere formerly required to be able to speak and write Latin before\nadmission, and to continue the use of it after they had become\nmembers. In his History of Harvard University, Quincy remarks on\nthis subject:--\n\n\"At a period when Latin was the common instrument of communication\namong the learned, and the official language of statesmen, great\nattention was naturally paid to this branch of education.\nAccordingly, 'to speak true Latin, both in prose and verse,' was\nmade an essential requisite for admission. Among the 'Laws and\nLiberties' of the College we also find the following: 'The\nscholars _shall never use their mother tongue_, except that, in\npublic exercises of oratory or such like, they be called to make\nthem in English.' This law appears upon the records of the College\nin the Latin as well as in the English language. The terms in the\nformer are indeed less restrictive and more practical: 'Scholares\nvernacul\u00e2 lingu\u00e2, _intra Collegii limites_, nullo pretextu\nutentur.' There is reason to believe that those educated at the\nCollege, and destined for the learned professions, acquired an\nadequate acquaintance with the Latin, and those destined to become\ndivines, with the Greek and Hebrew. In other respects, although\nthe sphere of instruction was limited, it was sufficient for the\nage and country, and amply supplied all their purposes and wants.\"\n--Vol. I. pp. 193, 194.\n\nBy the laws of 1734, the undergraduates were required to \"declaim\npublicly in the hall, in one of the three learned languages; and\nin no other without leave or direction from the President.\" The\nobservance of this rule seems to have been first laid aside, when,\n\"at an Overseers' meeting at the College, April 27th, 1756, John\nVassall, Jonathan Allen, Tristram Gilman, Thomas Toppan, Edward\nWalker, Samuel Barrett, presented themselves before the Board, and\npronounced, in the respective characters assigned them, a dialogue\nin _the English tongue_, translated from Castalio, and then\nwithdrew,\"--_Peirce's Hist. Harv. Univ._, p. 240.\n\nThe first English Oration was spoken by Mr. Jedediah Huntington in\nthe year 1763, and the first English Poem by Mr. John Davis in\n1781.\n\nIn reference to this subject, as connected with Yale College,\nPresident Wholsey remarks, in his Historical Discourse:--\n\n\"With regard to practice in the learned languages, particularly\nthe Latin, it is prescribed that 'no scholar shall use the English\ntongue in the College with his fellow-scholars, unless he be\ncalled to a public exercise proper to be attended in the English\ntongue, but scholars in their chambers, and when they are\ntogether, shall talk Latin.'\"--p. 59.\n\n\"The fluent use of Latin was acquired by the great body of the\nstudents; nay, certain phrases were caught up by the very cooks in\nthe kitchen. Yet it cannot be said that elegant Latin was either\nspoken or written. There was not, it would appear, much practice\nin writing this language, except on the part of those who were\ncandidates for Berkeleian prizes. And the extant specimens of\nLatin discourses written by the officers of the College in the\npast century are not eminently Ciceronian in their style. The\nspeaking of Latin, which was kept up as the College dialect in\nrendering excuses for absences, in syllogistic disputes, and in\nmuch of the intercourse between the officers and students, became\nnearly extinct about the time of Dr. Dwight's accession. And at\nthe same period syllogistic disputes as distinguished from\nforensic seem to have entirely ceased.\"--p. 62.\n\nThe following story is from the Sketches of Yale College. \"In\nformer times, the students were accustomed to assemble together to\nrender excuses for absence in Latin. One of the Presidents was in\nthe habit of answering to almost every excuse presented, 'Ratio\nnon sufficit' (The reason is not sufficient). On one occasion, a\nyoung man who had died a short time previous was called upon for\nan excuse. Some one answered, 'Mortuus est' (He is dead). 'Ratio\nnon sufficit,' repeated the grave President, to the infinite\nmerriment of his auditors.\"--p. 182.\n\nThe story is current of one of the old Presidents of Harvard\nCollege, that, wishing to have a dog that had strayed in at\nevening prayers driven out of the Chapel, he exclaimed, half in\nLatin and half in English, \"Exclude canem, et shut the door.\" It\nis also related that a Freshman who had been shut up in the\nbuttery by some Sophomores, and had on that account been absent\nfrom a recitation, when called upon with a number of others to\nrender an excuse, not knowing how to express his ideas in Latin,\nreplied in as learned a manner as possible, hoping that his answer\nwould pass as Latin, \"Shut m' up in t' Buttery.\"\n\nA very pleasant story, entitled \"The Tutor's Ghost,\" in which are\nnarrated the misfortunes which befell a tutor in the olden time,\non account of his inability to remember the Latin for the word\n\"beans,\" while engaged in conversation, may be found in the \"Yale\nLiterary Magazine,\" Vol. XX. pp. 190-195.\n\nSee NON PARAVI and NON VALUI.\n\n\nLAUREATE. To honor with a degree in the university, and a present\nof a wreath of laurel.--_Warton_.\n\n\nLAUREATION. The act of conferring a degree in the university,\ntogether with a wreath of laurel; an honor bestowed on those who\nexcelled in writing verse. This was an ancient practice at Oxford,\nfrom which, probably, originated the denomination of _poet\nlaureate_.--_Warton_.\n\nThe laurel crown, according to Brande, \"was customarily given at\nthe universities in the Middle Ages to such persons as took\ndegrees in grammar and rhetoric, of which poetry formed a branch;\nwhence, according to some authors, the term Baccalaureatus has\nbeen derived. The academical custom of bestowing the laurel, and\nthe court custom, were distinct, until the former was abolished.\nThe last instance in which the laurel was bestowed in the\nuniversities, was in the reign of Henry the Eighth.\"\n\n\nLAWS. In early times, the laws in the oldest colleges in the\nUnited States were as often in Latin as in English. They were\nusually in manuscript, and the students were required to make\ncopies for themselves on entering college. The Rev. Henry Dunster,\nwho was the first President of Harvard College, formed the first\ncode of laws for the College. They were styled, \"The Laws,\nLiberties, and Orders of Harvard College, confirmed by the\nOverseers and President of the College in the years 1642, 1643,\n1644, 1645, and 1646, and published to the scholars for the\nperpetual preservation of their welfare and government.\" Referring\nto him, Quincy says: \"Under his administration, the first code of\nlaws was formed; rules of admission, and the principles on which\ndegrees should be granted, were established; and scholastic forms,\nsimilar to those customary in the English universities, were\nadopted; many of which continue, with little variation, to be used\nat the present time.\"--_Hist. Harv. Univ._, Vol. I. p. 15.\n\nIn 1732, the laws were revised, and it was voted that they should\nall be in Latin, and that each student should have a copy, which\nhe was to write out for himself and subscribe. In 1790, they were\nagain revised and printed in English, since which time many\neditions have been issued.\n\nOf the laws of Yale College, President Woolsey gives the following\naccount, in his Historical Discourse before the Graduates of that\ninstitution, Aug. 14, 1850:--\n\n\"In the very first year of the legal existence of the College, we\nfind the Trustees ordaining, that, 'until they should provide\nfurther, the Rector or Tutors should make use of the orders and\ninstitutions of Harvard College, for the instructing and ruling of\nthe collegiate school, so far as they should judge them suitable,\nand wherein the Trustees had not at that meeting made provision.'\nThe regulations then made by the Trustees went no further than to\nprovide for the religious education of the College, and to give to\nthe College officers the power of imposing extraordinary school\nexercises or degradation in the class. The earliest known laws of\nthe College belong to the years 1720 and 1726, and are in\nmanuscript; which is explained by the custom that every Freshman,\non his admission, was required to write off a copy of them for\nhimself, to which the admittatur of the officers was subscribed.\nIn the year 1745 a new revision of the laws was completed, which\nexists in manuscript; but the first printed code was in Latin, and\nissued from the press of T. Green at New London, in 1748. Various\neditions, with sundry changes in them, appeared between that time\nand the year 1774, when the first edition in English saw the\nlight.\n\n\"It is said of this edition, that it was printed by particular\norder of the Legislature. That honorable body, being importuned to\nextend aid to the College, not long after the time when President\nClap's measures had excited no inconsiderable ill-will, demanded\nto see the laws; and accordingly a bundle of the Latin laws--the\nonly ones in existence--were sent over to the State-House. Not\nadmiring legislation in a dead language, and being desirous to pry\ninto the mysteries which it sealed up from some of the members,\nthey ordered the code to be translated. From that time the\nnumberless editions of the laws have all been in the English\ntongue.\"--pp. 45, 46.\n\nThe College of William and Mary, which was founded in 1693,\nimitated in its laws and customs the English universities, but\nespecially the University of Oxford. The other colleges which were\nfounded before the Revolution, viz. New Jersey College, Columbia\nCollege, Pennsylvania University, Brown University, Dartmouth, and\nRutgers College, \"generally imitated Harvard in the order of\nclasses, the course of studies, the use of text-books, and the\nmanner of instruction.\"--_Am. Quart. Reg._, Vol. XV. 1843, p. 426.\n\nThe colleges which were founded after the Revolution compiled\ntheir laws, in a great measure, from those of the above-named\ncolleges.\n\n\nLEATHER MEDAL. At Harvard College, the _leather Medal_ was\nformerly bestowed upon the _laziest_ fellow in College. He was to\nbe last at recitation, last at commons, seldom at morning prayers,\nand always asleep in church.\n\n\nLECTURE. A discourse _read_, as the derivation of the word\nimplies, by a professor to his pupils; more generally, it is\napplied to every species of instruction communicated _viv\u00e2 voce_.\n--_Brande_.\n\nIn American colleges, lectures form a part of the collegiate\ninstruction, especially during the last two years, in the latter\npart of which, in some colleges, they divide the time nearly\nequally with recitations.\n\n2. A rehearsal of a lesson.--_Eng. Univ._\n\nOf this word, De Quincey says: \"But what is the meaning of a\nlecture in Oxford and elsewhere? Elsewhere, it means a solemn\ndissertation, read, or sometimes histrionically declaimed, by the\nprofessor. In Oxford, it means an exercise performed orally by the\nstudents, occasionally assisted by the tutor, and subject, in its\nwhole course, to his corrections, and what may be called his\n_scholia_, or collateral suggestions and improvements.\"--_Life and\nManners_, p. 253.\n\n\nLECTURER. At the University of Cambridge, England, the _lecturers_\nassist in tuition, and especially attend to the exercises of the\nstudents in Greek and Latin composition, themes, declamations,\nverses, &c.--_Cam. Guide_.\n\n\nLEM. At Williams College, a privy.\n\nNight had thrown its mantle over earth. Sol had gone to lay his\nweary head in the lap of Thetis, as friend Hudibras has it; The\nhorned moon, and the sweet pale stars, were looking serenely! upon\nthe darkened earth, when the denizens of this little village were\ndisturbed by the cry of fire. The engines would have been rattling\nthrough the streets with considerable alacrity, if the fathers of\nthe town had not neglected to provide them; but the energetic\ncitizens were soon on hand. There was much difficulty in finding\nwhere the fire was, and heads and feet were turned in various\ndirections, till at length some wight of superior optical powers\ndiscovered a faint, ruddy light in the rear of West College. It\nwas an ancient building,--a time-honored structure,--an edifice\nerected by our forefathers, and by them christened LEMUEL, which\nin the vernacular tongue is called _Lem_ \"for short.\" The\ndimensions of the edifice were about 120 by 62 inches. The loss is\nalmost irreparable, estimated at not less than 2,000 pounds,\navoirdupois. May it rise like a Phoenix from its ashes!--_Williams\nMonthly Miscellany_, 1845, Vol. I. p. 464, 465.\n\n\nLETTER HOME. A writer in the American Literary Magazine thus\nexplains and remarks upon the custom of punishing students by\nsending a letter to their parents:--\"In some institutions, there\nis what is called the '_letter home_,'--which, however, in justice\nto professors and tutors in general, we ought to say, is a\npunishment inflicted upon parents for sending their sons to\ncollege, rather than upon delinquent students. A certain number of\nabsences from matins or vespers, or from recitations, entitles the\nculprit to a heartrending epistle, addressed, not to himself, but\nto his anxious father or guardian at home. The document is always\nconceived in a spirit of severity, in order to make it likely to\ntake effect. It is meant to be impressive, less by the heinousness\nof the offence upon which it is predicated, than by the pregnant\nterms in which it is couched. It often creates a misery and\nanxiety far away from the place wherein it is indited, not because\nit is understood, but because it is misunderstood and exaggerated\nby the recipient. While the student considers it a farcical\nproceeding, it is a leaf of tragedy to fathers and mothers. Then\nthe thing is explained. The offence is sifted. The father finds\nout that less than a dozen morning naps are all that is necessary\nto bring about this stupendous correspondence. The moral effect of\nthe act of discipline is neutralized, and the parent is perhaps\ntoo glad, at finding his anxiety all but groundless, to denounce\nthe puerile, infant-school system, which he has been made to\ncomprehend by so painful a process.\"--Vol. IV. p. 402.\n\nAvaunt, ye terrific dreams of \"failures,\" \"conditions,\" \"_letters\nhome_,\" and \"admonitions.\"--_Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. III. p. 407.\n\nThe birch twig sprouts into--_letters home_ and\ndismissions.--_Ibid._, Vol. XIII. p. 869.\n\nBut if they, capricious through long indulgence, did not choose to\nget up, what then? Why, absent marks and _letters home_.--_Yale\nBanger_, Oct. 22, 1847.\n\nHe thinks it very hard that the faculty write \"_letters\nhome_.\"--_Yale Tomahawk_, May, 1852.\n\n  And threats of \"_Letters home_, young man,\"\n    Now cause us no alarm.\n    _Presentation Day Song_, June 14, 1854.\n\n\nLIBERTY TREE. At Harvard College, a tree which formerly stood\nbetween Massachusetts and Harvard Halls received, about the year\n1760, the name of the Liberty Tree, on an occasion which is\nmentioned in Hutchinson's posthumous volume of the History of\nMassachusetts Bay. \"The spirit of liberty,\" says he, \"spread where\nit was not intended. The Undergraduates of Harvard College had\nbeen long used to make excuses for absence from prayers and\ncollege exercises; pretending detention at their chambers by their\nparents, or friends, who come to visit them. The tutors came into\nan agreement not to admit such excuses, unless the scholar came to\nthe tutor, before prayers or college exercises, and obtained leave\nto be absent. This gave such offence, that the scholars met in a\nbody, under and about a great tree, to which they gave the name of\nthe _tree of liberty_! There they came into several resolves in\nfavor of liberty; one of them, that the rule or order of the\ntutors was _unconstitutional_. The windows of some of the tutors\nwere broken soon after, by persons unknown. Several of the\nscholars were suspected, and examined. One of them falsely\nreported that he had been confined without victuals or drink, in\norder to compel him to a confession; and another declared, that he\nhad seen him under this confinement. This caused an attack upon\nthe tutors, and brickbats were thrown into the room, where they\nhad met together in the evening, through the windows. Three or\nfour of the rioters were discovered and expelled. The three junior\nclasses went to the President, and desired to give up their\nchambers, and to leave the college. The fourth class, which was to\nremain but about three months, and then to be admitted to their\ndegrees, applied to the President for a recommendation to the\ncollege in Connecticut, that they might be admitted there. The\nOverseers of the College met on the occasion, and, by a vigorous\nexertion of the powers with which they were intrusted,\nstrengthened the hands of the President and tutors, by confirming\nthe expulsions, and declaring their resolution to support the\nsubordinate government of the College; and the scholars were\nbrought to a sense and acknowledgment of their fault, and a stop\nwas put to the revolt.\"--Vol. III. p. 187.\n\nSome years after, this tree was either blown or cut down, and the\nname was transferred to another. A few of the old inhabitants of\nCambridge remember the stump of the former Liberty Tree, but all\ntraces of it seem to have been removed before the year 1800. The\npresent Liberty Tree stands between Holden Chapel and Harvard\nHall, to the west of Hollis. As early as the year 1815 there were\ngatherings under its branches on Class Day, and it is probable\nthat this was the case even at an earlier date. At present it is\ncustomary for the members of the Senior Class, at the close of the\nexercises incident to Class Day, (the day on which the members of\nthat class finish their collegiate studies, and retire to make\npreparations for the ensuing Commencement,) after cheering the\nbuildings, to encircle this tree, and, with hands joined, to sing\ntheir favorite ballad, \"Auld Lang Syne.\" They then run and dance\naround it, and afterwards cheer their own class, the other\nclasses, and many of the College professors. At parting, each\ntakes a sprig or a flower from the beautiful wreath which is hung\naround the tree, and this is sacredly preserved as a last memento\nof the scenes and enjoyments of college life.\n\nIn the poem delivered before the Class of 1849, on their Class\nDay, occur the following beautiful stanzas in memory of departed\nclassmates, in which reference is made to some of the customs\nmentioned above:--\n\n \"They are listening now to our parting prayers;\n    And the farewell song that we pour\n  Their distant voices will echo\n    From the far-off spirit shore;\n\n \"And the wreath that we break with our scattered band,\n    As it twines round the aged elm,--\n  Its fragments we'll keep with a sacred hand,\n    But the fragrance shall rise to them.\n\n \"So to-day we will dance right merrily,\n    An unbroken band, round the old elm-tree;\n  And they shall not ask for a greener shrine\n    Than the hearts of the class of '49.\"\n\nIts grateful shade has in later times been used for purposes\nsimilar to those which Hutchinson records, as the accompanying\nlines will show, written in commemoration of the Rebellion of\n1819.\n\n \"Wreaths to the chiefs who our rights have defended;\n    Hallowed and blessed be the Liberty Tree:\n  Where Lenox[44] his pies 'neath its shelter hath vended,\n    We Sophs have assembled, and sworn to be free.\"\n    _The Rebelliad_, p. 54.\n\nThe poet imagines the spirits of the different trees in the\nCollege yard assembled under the Liberty Tree to utter their\nsorrows.\n\n \"It was not many centuries since,\n    When, gathered on the moonlit green,\n  Beneath the Tree of Liberty,\n    A ring of weeping sprites was seen.\"\n    _Meeting of the Dryads,[45] Holmes's Poems_, p. 102.\n\nIt is sometimes called \"the Farewell Tree,\" for obvious reasons.\n\n \"Just fifty years ago, good friends,\n        a young and gallant band\n  Were dancing round the Farewell Tree,\n        --each hand in comrade's hand.\"\n    _Song, at Semi-centennial Anniversary of the Class of 1798_.\n\nSee CLASS DAY.\n\n\nLICEAT MIGRARE. Latin; literally, _let it be permitted him to\nremove_.\n\nAt Oxford, a form of modified dismissal from College. This\npunishment \"is usually the consequence of mental inefficiency\nrather than moral obliquity, and does not hinder the student so\ndismissed from entering at another college or at\nCambridge.\"--_Lit. World_, Vol. XII. p. 224.\n\nSame as LICET MIGRARI.\n\n\nLICET MIGRARI. Latin; literally, _it is permitted him to be\nremoved_. In the University of Cambridge, England, a permission to\nleave one's college. This differs from the Bene Discessit, for\nalthough you may leave with consent, it by no means follows in\nthis case that you have the approbation of the Master and Fellows\nso to do.--_Gradus ad Cantab._\n\n\nLIKE A BRICK OR A BEAN, LIKE A HOUSE ON FIRE, LIKE BRICKS. Among\nthe students at the University of Cambridge, Eng., intensive\nphrases, to express the most energetic way of doing anything.\n\"These phrases,\" observes Bristed, \"are sometimes in very odd\ncontexts. You hear men talk of a balloon going up _like bricks_,\nand rain coming down _like a house on fire_.\"--_Five Years in an\nEng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 24.\n\nStill it was not in human nature for a classical man, living among\nclassical men, and knowing that there were a dozen and more close\nto him reading away \"_like bricks_,\" to be long entirely separated\nfrom his Greek and Latin books.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng.\nUniv._, Ed. 2d, p. 218.\n\n\"_Like bricks_,\" is the commonest of their expressions, or used to\nbe. There was an old landlady at Huntingdon who said she always\ncharged Cambridge men twice as much as any one else. Then, \"How do\nyou know them?\" asked somebody. \"O sir, they always tell us to get\nthe beer _like bricks_.\"--_Westminster Rev._, Am. ed., Vol. XXXV.\np. 231.\n\n\nLITER\u00c6 HUMANIORES. Latin; freely, _the humanities; classical\nliterature_. At Oxford \"the _Liter\u00e6 Humaniores_ now include Latin\nand Greek Translation and Composition, Ancient History and\nRhetoric, Political and Moral Philosophy, and Logic.\"--_Lit.\nWorld_, Vol. XII. p. 245.\n\nSee HUMANITY.\n\n\nLITERARY CONTESTS. At Jefferson College, in Pennsylvania, \"there\nis,\" says a correspondent, \"an unusual interest taken in the two\nliterary societies, and once a year a challenge is passed between\nthem, to meet in an open literary contest upon an appointed\nevening, usually that preceding the close of the second session.\nThe _contestors_ are a Debater, an Orator, an Essayist, and a\nDeclaimer, elected from each society by the majority, some time\nprevious to their public appearance. An umpire and two associate\njudges, selected either by the societies or by the _contestors_\nthemselves, preside over the performances, and award the honors to\nthose whom they deem most worthy of them. The greatest excitement\nprevails upon this occasion, and an honor thus conferred is\npreferable to any given in the institution.\"\n\nAt Washington College, in Pennsylvania, the contest performances\nare conducted upon the same principle as at Jefferson.\n\n\nLITTLE-GO. In the English universities, a cant name for a public\nexamination about the middle of the course, which, being less\nstrict and less important in its consequences than the final one,\nhas received this appellation.--_Lyell_.\n\nWhether a regular attendance on the lecture of the college would\nsecure me a qualification against my first public examination;\nwhich is here called _the Little-go_.--_The Etonian_, Vol. II. p.\n283.\n\nAlso called at Oxford _Smalls_, or _Small-go_.\n\nYou must be prepared with your list of books, your testamur for\nResponsions (by Undergraduates called \"_Little-go_\" or\n\"_Smalls_\"), and also your certificate of\nmatriculation.--_Collegian's Guide_, p. 241.\n\nSee RESPONSION.\n\n\nLL.B. An abbreviation for _Legum Baccalaureus_, Bachelor of Laws.\nIn American colleges, this degree is conferred on students who\nfulfil the conditions of the statutes of the law school to which\nthey belong. The law schools in the different colleges are\nregulated on this point by different rules, but in many the degree\nof LL.B. is given to a B.A. who has been a member of a law school\nfor a year and a half.\n\nSee B.C.L.\n\n\nLL.D. An abbreviation for _Legum Doctor_, Doctor of Laws.\n\nIn American colleges, an honorary degree, conferred _pro meritis_\non those who are distinguished as lawyers, statesmen, &c.\n\nSee D.C.L.\n\n\nL.M. An abbreviation for the words _Licentiate in Medicine_. At\nthe University of Cambridge, Eng., an L.M. must be an M.A. or M.B.\nof two years' standing. No exercise, but examination by the\nProfessor and another Doctor in the Faculty.\n\n\nLOAF. At Princeton College, to borrow anything, whether returning\nit or not; usually in the latter sense.\n\n\nLODGE. At the University of Cambridge, England, the technical name\ngiven to the house occupied by the master of a\ncollege.--_Bristed_.\n\nWhen Undergraduates were invited to the _conversaziones_ at the\n_Lodge_, they were expected never to sit down in the Master's\npresence.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 90.\n\n\nLONG. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., the long vacation, or,\nas it is more familiarly called, \"The Long,\" commences according\nto statute in July, at the close of the Easter term, but\npractically early in June, and ends October 20th, at the beginning\nof the Michaelmas term.\n\nFor a month or six weeks in the \"_Long_,\" they rambled off to see\nthe sights of Paris.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed.\n2d, p. 37.\n\nIn the vacations, particularly the _Long_, there is every facility\nfor reading.--_Ibid._, p. 78.\n\nSo attractive is the Vacation-College-life that the great trouble\nof the Dons is to keep the men from staying up during the _Long_.\n--_Ibid._, p. 79.\n\nSome were going on reading parties, some taking a holiday before\nsettling down to their work in the \"_Long_.\"--_Ibid._, p. 104.\n\nSee VACATION.\n\n\nLONG-EAR. At Jefferson College, Pennsylvania, a student of a sober\nor religious character is denominated a _long-ear_. The opposite\nis _short-ear_.\n\n\nLOTTERY. The method of obtaining money by lottery has at different\ntimes been adopted in several of our American colleges. In 1747, a\nnew building being wanted at Yale College, the \"Liberty of a\nLottery\" was obtained from the General Assembly, \"by which,\" says\nClap, \"Five Hundred Pounds Sterling was raised, clear of all\nCharge and Deductions.\"--_Hist. of Yale Coll._, p. 55.\n\nThis sum defrayed one third of the expense of building what was\nthen called Connecticut Hall, and is known now by the name of \"the\nSouth Middle College.\"\n\nIn 1772, Harvard College being in an embarrassed condition, the\nLegislature granted it the benefit of a lottery; in 1794 this\ngrant was renewed, and for the purpose of enabling the College to\nerect an additional building. The proceeds of the lottery amounted\nto $18,400, which, with $5,300 from the general funds of the\nCollege, were applied to the erection of Stoughton Hall, which was\ncompleted in 1805. In 1806 the Legislature again authorized a\nlottery, which enabled the Corporation in 1813 to erect a new\nbuilding, called Holworthy Hall, at an expense of about $24,500,\nthe lottery having produced about $29,000.--_Quincy's Hist. of\nHarv. Univ._, Vol. II. pp. 162, 273, 292.\n\n\nLOUNGE. A treat, a comfort. A word introduced into the vocabulary\nof the English Cantabs, from Eton.--_Bristed_.\n\n\nLOW. The term applied to the questions, subjects, papers, &c.,\npertaining to a LOW MAN.\n\nThe \"_low_\" questions were chiefly confined to the first day's\npapers.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 205.\n\nThe \"_low_ subjects,\" as got up to pass men among the Junior\nOptimes, comprise, etc.--_Ibid._, p. 205.\n\nThe _low_ papers were longer.--_Ibid._, p. 206.\n\n\nLOWER HOUSE. See SENATE.\n\n\nLOW MAN. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., the name given to a\nJunior Optime as compared with a Senior Optime or with a Wrangler.\n\nI was fortunate enough to find a place in the team of a capital\ntutor,... who had but six pupils, all going out this time, and\nfive of them \"_low men_.\"--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng.\nUniv._, Ed. 2d, p. 204.\n\n\n\n_M_.\n\n\nM.A. An abbreviation of _Magister Artium_, Master of Arts. The\nsecond degree given by universities and colleges. Sometimes\nwritten A.M., which, is in accordance with the proper Latin\narrangement.\n\nIn the English universities, every B.A. of three years' standing\nmay proceed to this degree on payment of certain fees. In America,\nthis degree is conferred, without examination, on Bachelors of\nthree years' standing. At Harvard, this degree was formerly\nconferred only upon examination, as will be seen by the following\nextract. \"Every schollar that giveth up in writing a System, or\nSynopsis, or summe of Logick, naturall and morall Philosophy,\nArithmetick, Geometry and Astronomy: And is ready to defend his\nTheses or positions: Withall skilled in the originalls as\nabove-said; And of godly life and conversation; And so approved by\nthe Overseers and Master of the Colledge, at any publique Act, is\nfit to be dignified with his 2d degree.\"--_New England's First\nFruits_, in _Mass. Hist. Coll._, Vol. I. p. 246.\n\nUntil the year 1792, it was customary for those who applied for\nthe degree of M.A. to defend what were called _Master's\nquestions_; after this time an oration was substituted in place of\nthese, which continued until 1844, when for the first time there\nwere no Master's exercises. The degree is now given to any\ngraduate of three or more years' standing, on the payment of a\ncertain sum of money.\n\nThe degree is also presented by special vote to individuals wholly\nunconnected with any college, but who are distinguished for their\nliterary attainments. In this case, where the honor is given, no\nfee is required.\n\n\nMAKE UP. To recite a lesson which was not recited with the class\nat the regular recitation. It is properly used as a transitive\nverb, but in conversation is very often used intransitively. The\nfollowing passage explains the meaning of the phrase more fully.\n\nA student may be permitted, on petition to the Faculty, to _make\nup_ a recitation or other exercise from which he was absent and\nhas been excused, provided his application to this effect be made\nwithin the term in-which the absence occurred.--_Laws of Univ. at\nCam., Mass._, 1848, p. 16.\n\n... sleeping,--a luxury, however, which is sadly diminished by the\nanticipated necessity of _making up_ back lessons.--_Harv. Reg._,\np. 202.\n\n\nMAN. An undergraduate in a university or college.\n\nAt Cambridge and eke at Oxford, every stripling is accounted a\n_Man_ from the moment of his putting on the gown and cap.--_Gradus\nad Cantab._, p. 75.\n\nSweet are the slumbers, indeed, of a Freshman, who, just escaped\nthe trammels of \"home, sweet home,\" and the pedagogue's tyrannical\nbirch, for the first time in his life, with the academical gown,\nassumes the _toga virilis_, and feels himself a _Man_.--_Alma\nMater_, Vol. I. p. 30.\n\nIn College all are \"_men_\" from the hirsute Senior to the tender\nFreshman who carries off a pound of candy and paper of raisins\nfrom the maternal domicile weekly.--_Harv. Mag._, Vol. I. p. 264.\n\n\nMANCIPLE. Latin, _manceps_; _manu capio_, to take with the hand.\n\nIn the English universities, the person who purchases the\nprovisions; the college victualler. The office is now obsolete.\n\n  Our _Manciple_ I lately met,\n    Of visage wise and prudent.\n    _The Student_, Oxf. and Cam., Vol. I. p. 115.\n\n\nMANDAMUS. In the University of Cambridge, Eng., a special mandate\nunder the great seal, which enables a candidate to proceed to his\ndegree before the regular period.--_Grad. ad Cantab._\n\n\nMANNERS. The outward observances of respect which were formerly\nrequired of the students by college officers seem very strange to\nus of the present time, and we cannot but notice the omissions\nwhich have been made in college laws during the present century in\nreference to this subject. Among the laws of Harvard College,\npassed in 1734, is one declaring, that \"all scholars shall show\ndue respect and honor in speech and behavior, as to their natural\nparents, so to magistrates, elders, the President and Fellows of\nthe Corporation, and to all others concerned in the instruction or\ngovernment of the College, and to all superiors, keeping due\nsilence in their presence, and not disorderly gainsaying them; but\nshowing all laudable expressions of honor and reverence that are\nin use; such as uncovering the head, rising up in their presence,\nand the like. And particularly undergraduates shall be uncovered\nin the College yard when any of the Overseers, the President or\nFellows of the Corporation, or any other concerned in the\ngovernment or instruction of the College, are therein, and\nBachelors of Arts shall be uncovered when the President is there.\"\nThis law was still further enforced by some of the regulations\ncontained in a list of \"The Ancient Customs of Harvard College.\"\nThose which refer particularly to this point are the following:--\n\n\"No Freshman shall wear his hat in the College yard, unless it\nrains, hails, or snows, provided he be on foot, and have not both\nhands full.\n\n\"No Undergraduate shall wear his hat in the College yard, when any\nof the Governors of the College are there; and no Bachelor shall\nwear his hat when the President is there.\n\n\"No Freshman shall speak to a Senior with his hat on; or have it\non in a Senior's chamber, or in his own, if a Senior be there.\n\n\"All the Undergraduates shall treat those in the government of the\nCollege with respect and deference; particularly, they shall not\nbe seated without leave in their presence; they shall be uncovered\nwhen they speak to them, or are spoken to by them.\"\n\nSuch were the laws of the last century, and their observance was\nenforced with the greatest strictness. After the Revolution, the\nspirit of the people had become more republican, and about the\nyear 1796, \"considering the spirit of the times and the extreme\ndifficulty the executive must encounter in attempting to enforce\nthe law prohibiting students from wearing hats in the College\nyard,\" a vote passed repealing it.--_Quincy's Hist. Harv. Univ._,\nVol. II. p. 278.\n\nOn this subject, Professor Sidney Willard, with reference to the\ntime of the presidency of Joseph Willard at Harvard College,\nduring the latter part of the last century, remarks: \"Outward\ntokens of respect required to be paid to the immediate government,\nand particularly to the President, were attended with formalities\nthat seemed to be somewhat excessive; such, for instance, as made\nit an offence for a student to wear his hat in the College yard,\nor enclosure, when the President was within it. This, indeed, in\nthe fulness of the letter, gradually died out, and was compromised\nby the observance only when the student was so near, or in such a\nposition, that he was likely to be recognized. Still, when the\nstudents assembled for morning and evening prayer, which was\nperformed with great constancy by the President, they were careful\nto avoid a close proximity to the outer steps of the Chapel, until\nthe President had reached and passed within the threshold. This\nwas a point of decorum which it was pleasing to witness, and I\nnever saw it violated.\"--_Memories of Youth and Manhood_, 1855,\nVol. I. p. 132.\n\n\"In connection with the subject of discipline,\" says President\nWoolsey, in his Historical Discourse before the Graduates of Yale\nCollege, \"we may aptly introduce that of the respect required by\nthe officers of the College, and of the subordination which\nyounger classes were to observe towards older. The germ, and\nperhaps the details, of this system of college manners, are to be\nreferred back to the English universities. Thus the Oxford laws\nrequire that juniors shall show all due and befitting reverence to\nseniors, that is, Undergraduates to Bachelors, they to Masters,\nMasters to Doctors, as well in private as in public, by giving\nthem the better place when they are together, by withdrawing out\nof their way when they meet, by uncovering the head at the proper\ndistance, and by reverently saluting and addressing them.\"\n\nAfter citing the law of Harvard College passed in 1734, which is\ngiven above, he remarks as follows. \"Our laws of 1745 contain the\nsame identical provisions. These regulations were not a dead\nletter, nor do they seem to have been more irksome than many other\ncollege restraints. They presupposed originally that the college\nrank of the individual towards whom respect is to be shown could\nbe discovered at a distance by peculiarities of dress; the gown\nand the wig of the President could be seen far beyond the point\nwhere features and gait would cease to mark the person.\"--pp. 52,\n53.\n\nAs an illustration of the severity with which the laws on this\nsubject were enforced, it may not be inappropriate to insert the\nannexed account from the Sketches of Yale College:--\"The servile\nrequisition of making obeisance to the officers of College within\na prescribed distance was common, not only to Yale, but to all\nkindred institutions throughout the United States. Some young men\nwere found whose high spirit would not brook the degrading law\nimposed upon them without some opposition, which, however, was\nalways ineffectual. The following anecdote, related by Hon.\nEzekiel Bacon, in his Recollections of Fifty Years Since, although\nthe scene of its occurrence was in another college, yet is thought\nproper to be inserted here, as a fair sample of the\ninsubordination caused in every institution by an enactment so\nabsurd and degrading. In order to escape from the requirements of\nstriking his colors and doffing his chapeau when within the\nprescribed striking distance from the venerable President or the\ndignified tutors, young Ellsworth, who afterwards rose to the\nhonorable rank of Chief Justice of the United States, and to many\nother elevated stations in this country, and who was then a\nstudent there, cut off entirely the brim portion of his hat,\nleaving of it nothing but the crown, which he wore in the form of\na skull-cap on his head, putting it under his arm when he\napproached their reverences. Being reproved for his perversity,\nand told that this was not a hat within the meaning and intent of\nthe law, which he was required to do his obeisance with by\nremoving it from his head, he then made bold to wear his skull-cap\ninto the Chapel and recitation-room, in presence of the authority.\nBeing also then again reproved for wearing his hat in those\nforbidden and sacred places, he replied that he had once supposed\nthat it was in truth a veritable hat, but having been informed by\nhis superiors that it was _no hat_ at all, he had ventured to come\ninto their presence as he supposed with his head uncovered by that\nproscribed garment. But the dilemma was, as in his former\nposition, decided against him; and no other alternative remained\nto him but to resume his full-brimmed beaver, and to comply\nliterally with the enactments of the collegiate pandect.\"--pp.\n179, 180.\n\n\nMAN WHO IS JUST GOING OUT. At the University of Cambridge, Eng.,\nthe popular name of a student who is in the last term of his\ncollegiate course.\n\n\nMARK. The figure given to denote the quality of a recitation. In\nmost colleges, the merit of each performance is expressed by some\nnumber of a series, in which a certain fixed number indicates the\nhighest value.\n\nIn Harvard College the highest mark is eight. Four is considered\nas the average, and a student not receiving this average in all\nthe studies of a term is not allowed to remain as a member of\ncollege. At Yale the marks range from zero to four. Two is the\naverage, and a student not receiving this is obliged to leave\ncollege, not to return until he can pass an examination in all the\nbranches which his class has pursued.\n\nIn Harvard College, where the system of marks is most strictly\nfollowed, the merit of each individual is ascertained by adding\ntogether the term aggregates of each instructor, these \"term\naggregates being the sum of all the marks given during the term,\nfor the current work of each month, and for omitted lessons made\nup by permission, and of the marks given for examination by the\ninstructor and the examining committee at the close of the term.\"\nFrom the aggregate of these numbers deductions are made for\ndelinquencies unexcused, and the result is the rank of the\nstudent, according to which his appointment (if he receives one)\nis given.--_Laws of Univ. at Cam., Mass._, 1848.\n\n  That's the way to stand in college,\n  High in \"_marks_\" and want of knowledge!\n    _Childe Harvard_, p. 154.\n\nIf he does not understand his lesson, he swallows it whole,\nwithout understanding it; his object being, not the lesson, but\nthe \"_mark_,\" which he is frequently at the President's office to\ninquire about.--_A Letter to a Young Man who has Just entered\nCollege_, 1849, p. 21.\n\nI have spoken slightingly, too, of certain parts of college\nmachinery, and particularly of the system of \"_marks_.\" I do\nconfess that I hold them in small reverence, reckoning them as\nrather belonging to a college in embryo than to one fully grown. I\nsuppose it is \"dangerous\" advice; but I would be so intent upon my\nstudies as not to inquire or think about my \"_marks_.\"--_Ibid._ p.\n36.\n\nThen he makes mistakes in examinations also, and \"loses _marks_.\"\n--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 388.\n\n\nMARKER. In the University of Cambridge, England, three or four\npersons called _markers_ are employed to walk up and down chapel\nduring a considerable part of the service, with lists of the names\nof the members in their hands; they an required to run a pin\nthrough the names of those present.\n\nAs to the method adopted by the markers, Bristed says: \"The\nstudents, as they enter, are _marked_ with pins on long\nalphabetical lists, by two college servants, who are so\nexperienced and clever at their business that they never have to\nask the name of a new-comer more than once.\"--_Five Years in an\nEng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 15.\n\n  His name pricked off upon the _marker's_ roll,\n  No twinge of conscience racks his easy soul.\n    _The College_, in _Blackwood's Mag._, May, 1849.\n\n\nMARSHAL. In the University of Oxford, an officer who is usually in\nattendance on one of the proctors.--_Collegian's Guide_.\n\n\nMARSHAL'S TREAT. An account of the manner in which this\nobservance, peculiar to Williams College, is annually kept, is\ngiven in the annexed passage from the columns of a newspaper.\n\n\"Another custom here is the Marshal's Treat. The two gentlemen who\nare elected to act as Marshals during Commencement week are\nexpected to _treat_ the class, and this year it was done in fine\nstyle. The Seniors assembled at about seven o'clock in their\nrecitation-room, and, with Marshals Whiting and Taft at their\nhead, marched down to a grove, rather more than half a mile from\nthe Chapel, where tables had been set, and various luxuries\nprovided for the occasion. The Philharmonia Musical Society\ndiscoursed sweet strains during the entertainment, and speeches,\nsongs, and toasts were kept up till a late hour in the evening,\nwhen after giving cheers for the three lower classes, and three\ntimes three for '54, they marched back to the President's. A song\nwritten for the occasion was there performed, to which he replied\nin a few words, speaking of his attachment to the class, and his\nregret at the parting which must soon take place. The class then\nreturned to East College, and after joining hands and singing Auld\nLang Syne, separated.\"--_Boston Daily Evening Traveller_, July 12,\n1854.\n\n\nMASQUERADE. It was formerly the custom at Harvard College for the\nTutors, on leaving their office, to invite their friends to a\nmasquerade ball, which was held at some time during the vacation,\nusually in the rooms which they occupied in the College buildings.\nOne of the most splendid entertainments of this kind was given by\nMr. Kirkland, afterwards President of the College, in the year\n1794. The same custom also prevailed to a certain extent among the\nstudents, and these balls were not wholly discontinued until the\nyear 1811. After this period, members of societies would often\nappear in masquerade dresses in the streets, and would sometimes\nin this garb enter houses, with the occupants of which they were\nnot acquainted, thereby causing much sport, and not unfrequently\nmuch mischief.\n\n\nMASTER. The head of a college. This word is used in the English\nUniversities, and was formerly in use in this country, in this\nsense.\n\nThe _Master_ of the College, or \"Head of the House,\" is a D.D.,\nwho has been a Fellow. He is the supreme ruler within the college\nTrails, and moves about like an Undergraduate's deity, keeping at\nan awful distance from the students, and not letting himself be\nseen too frequently even at chapel. Besides his fat salary and\nhouse, he enjoys many perquisites and privileges, not the least of\nwhich is that of committing matrimony.--_Bristed's Five Years in\nan Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 16.\n\nEvery schollar, that on proofe is found able to read the originals\nof the Old and New Testament into the Latine tongue, &c. and at\nany publick act hath the approbation of the Overseers and _Master_\nof the Colledge, is fit to be dignified with his first\ndegree.--_New England's First Fruits_, in _Mass. Hist. Coll._,\nVol. I. pp. 245, 246.\n\n2. A title of dignity in colleges and universities; as, _Master_\nof Arts.--_Webster_.\n\nThey, likewise, which peruse the questiones published by the\n_Masters_.--_Mather's Magnalia_, B. IV. pp. 131, 132.\n\n\nMASTER OF THE KITCHEN. In Harvard College, a person who formerly\nmade all the contracts, and performed all the duties necessary for\nthe providing of commons, under the direction of the Steward. He\nwas required to be \"discreet and capable.\"--_Laws of Harv. Coll._,\n1814, p. 42.\n\n\nMASTER'S QUESTION. A proposition advanced by a candidate for the\ndegree of Master of Arts.\n\nIn the older American colleges it seems to have been the\nestablished custom, at a very early period, for those who\nproceeded Masters, to maintain in public _questions_ or\npropositions on scientific or moral topics. Dr. Cotton Mather, in\nhis _Magnalia_, p. 132, referring to Harvard College, speaks of\n\"the _questiones_ published by the Masters,\" and remarks that they\n\"now and then presume to fly as high as divinity.\" These questions\nwere in Latin, and the discussions upon them were carried on in\nthe same language. The earliest list of Masters' questions extant\nwas published at Harvard College in the year 1655. It was\nentitled, \"Qu\u00e6stiones in Philosophia Discutiend\u00e6 ... in comitiis\nper Inceptores in artib[us].\" In 1669 the title was changed to\n\"Qu\u00e6stiones pro Modulo Discutiend\u00e6 ... per Inceptores.\" The last\nMasters' questions were presented at the Commencement in 1789. The\nnext year Masters' exercises were substituted, which usually\nconsisted of an English Oration, a Poem, and a Valedictory Latin\nOration, delivered by three out of the number of candidates for\nthe second degree. A few years after, the Poem was omitted. The\nlast Masters' exercises were performed in the year 1843. At Yale\nCollege, from 1787 onwards, there were no Masters' valedictories,\nnor syllogistic disputes in Latin, and in 1793 there were no\nMaster's exercises at all.\n\n\nMATHEMATICAL SLATE. At Harvard College, the best mathematician\nreceived in former times a large slate, which, on leaving college,\nhe gave to the best mathematician in the next class, and thus\ntransmitted it from class to class. The slate disappeared a few\nyears since, and the custom is no longer observed.\n\n\nMATRICULA. A roll or register, from _matrix_. In _colleges_\nthe register or record which contains the names of the students,\ntimes of entering into college, remarks on their character,\n&c.\n\nThe remarks made in the _Matricula_ of the College respecting\nthose who entered the Freshman Class together with him are, of\none, that he \"in his third year went to Philadelphia\nCollege.\"--_Hist. Sketch of Columbia College_, p. 42.\n\nSimilar brief remarks are found throughout the _Matricula_ of\nKing's College.--_Ibid._, p. 42.\n\nWe find in its _Matricula_ the names of William Walton,\n&c.--_Ibid._, p. 64.\n\n\nMATRICULATE. Latin, _Matricula_, a roll or register, from\n_matrix_. To enter or admit to membership in a body or society,\nparticularly in a college or university, by enrolling the name in\na register.--_Wotton_.\n\nIn July, 1778, he was examined at that university, and\n_matriculated_.--_Works of R.T. Paine, Biography_, p. xviii.\n\nIn 1787, he _matriculated_ at St. John's College,\nCambridge.--_Household Words_, Vol. I. p. 210.\n\n\nMATRICULATE. One enrolled in a register, and thus admitted to\nmembership in a society.--_Arbuthnot_.\n\nThe number of _Matriculates_ has in every instance been greater\nthan that stated in the table.--_Cat. Univ. of North Carolina_,\n1848-49.\n\n\nMATRICULATION. The act of registering a name and admitting to\nmembership.--_Ayliffe_.\n\nIn American colleges, students who are found qualified on\nexamination to enter usually join the class to which they are\nadmitted, on probation, and are matriculated as members of the\ncollege in full standing, either at the close of their first or\nsecond term. The time of probation seldom exceeds one year; and if\nat the end of this time, or of a shorter, as the case may be, the\nconduct of a student has not been such as is deemed satisfactory\nby the Faculty, his connection with the college ceases. As a\npunishment, the _matriculation certificate_ of a student is\nsometimes taken from him, and during the time in which he is\nunmatriculated, he is under especial probation, and disobedience\nto college laws is then punished with more severity than at other\ntimes.--_Laws Univ. at Cam., Mass._, 1848, p. 12. _Laws Yale\nColl._, 1837, p. 9.\n\nMAUDLIN. The name by which Magdalen College, Cambridge, Eng., is\nalways known and spoken of by Englishmen.\n\nThe \"_Maudlin Men_\" were at one time so famous for tea-drinking,\nthat the Cam, which licks the very walls of the college, is said\nto have been absolutely rendered unnavigable with\ntea-leaves.--_Alma Mater_, Vol. II. p. 202.\n\nMAX. Abbreviated for _maximum_, greatest. At Union College, he who\nreceives the highest possible number of marks, which is one\nhundred, in each study, for a term, is said to _take Max_ (or\nmaximum); to be a _Max scholar_. On the Merit Roll all the _Maxs_\nare clustered at the top.\n\nA writer remarks jocosely of this word. It is \"that indication of\nperfect scholarship to which none but Freshmen aspire, and which\nis never attained except by accident.\"--_Sophomore Independent_,\nUnion College, Nov. 1854.\n\nProbably not less than one third of all who enter each new class\nconfidently expect to \"mark _max_,\" during their whole course, and\nto have the Valedictory at Commencement.--_Ibid._\n\nSee MERIT ROLL.\n\n\nMAY. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., the college Easter term\nexamination is familiarly spoken of as _the May_.\n\nThe \"_May_\" is one of the features which distinguishes Cambridge\nfrom Oxford; at the latter there are no public College\nexaminations.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d,\np. 64.\n\nAs the \"_May_\" approached, I began to feel nervous.--_Ibid._, p.\n70.\n\n\nMAY TRAINING. A correspondent from Bowdoin College where the\nfarcical custom of May Training is observed writes as follows in\nreference to its origin: \"In 1836, a law passed the Legislature\nrequiring students to perform military duty, and they were\nsummoned to appear at muster equipped as the law directs, to be\ninspected and drilled with the common militia. Great excitement\nprevailed in consequence, but they finally concluded to _train_.\nAt the appointed time and place, they made their appearance armed\n_cap-\u00e0-pie_ for grotesque deeds, some on foot, some on horse, with\nbanners and music appropriate, and altogether presenting as\nludicrous a spectacle as could easily be conceived of. They\nparaded pretty much 'on their own hook,' threw the whole field\ninto disorder by their evolutions, and were finally ordered off\nthe ground by the commanding officer. They were never called upon\nagain, but the day is still commemorated.\"\n\n\nM.B. An abbreviation for _Medicin\u00e6 Baccalaureus_, Bachelor of\nPhysic. At Cambridge, Eng., the candidate for this degree must\nhave had his name five years on the boards of some college, have\nresided three years, and attended medical lectures and hospital\npractice during the other two; also have attended the lectures of\nthe Professors of Anatomy, Chemistry, and Botany, and the Downing\nProfessor of Medicine, and passed an examination to their\nsatisfaction. At Oxford, Eng., the degree is given to an M.A. of\none year's standing, who is also a regent of the same length of\ntime. The exercises are disputations upon two distinct days before\nthe Professors of the Faculty of Medicine. The degree was formerly\ngiven in American colleges before that of M.D., but has of late\nyears been laid aside.\n\n\nM.D. An abbreviation for _Medicines Doctor_, Doctor of Physic. At\nCambridge, Eng., the candidate for this degree must be a Bachelor\nof Physic of five years' standing, must have attended hospital\npractice for three years, and passed an examination satisfactory\nto the Medical Professors of the University,\n\nAt Oxford, an M.D. must be an M.B. of three years' standing. The\nexercises are three distinct lectures, to be read on three\ndifferent days. In American colleges the degree is usually given\nto those who have pursued their studies in a medical school for\nthree years; but the regulations differ in different institutions.\n\n\nMED, MEDIC. A name sometimes given to a student in medicine.\n\n  ---- who sent\n  The _Medic_ to our aid.\n    _The Crayon_, Yale Coll., 1823, p. 23.\n\n \"The Council are among ye, Yale!\"\n  Some roaring _Medic_ cries.\n    _Ibid._, p. 24.\n\n  The slain, the _Medics_ stowed away.\n    _Ibid._, p. 24.\n\n    Seniors, Juniors, Freshmen blue,\n  And _Medics_ sing the anthem too.\n    _Yale Banger_, Nov. 1850.\n\n  Take ...\n  Sixteen interesting \"_Meds_,\"\n  With dirty hands and towzeled heads.\n    _Songs of Yale_, 1853, p. 16.\n\n\nMEDALIST. In universities, colleges, &c., one who has gained a\nmedal as the reward of merit.--_Ed. Rev. Gradus ad Cantab._\n\nThese _Medalists_ then are the best scholars among the men who\nhave taken a certain mathematical standing; but as out of the\nUniversity these niceties of discrimination are apt to be dropped\nthey usually pass at home for absolutely the first and second\nscholars of the year, and sometimes they are so.--_Bristed's Five\nYears in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 62.\n\n\nMEDICAL FACULTY. Usually abbreviated Med. Fac. The Medical Faculty\nSociety was established one evening after commons, in the year\n1818, by four students of Harvard College, James F. Deering,\nCharles Butterfield, David P. Hall, and Joseph Palmer, members of\nthe class of 1820. Like many other societies, it originated in\nsport, and, as in after history shows, was carried on in the same\nspirit. The young men above named happening to be assembled in\nHollis Hall, No. 13, a proposition was started that Deering should\ndeliver a mock lecture, which having been done, to the great\namusement of the rest, he in his turn proposed that they should at\nsome future time initiate members by solemn rites, in order that\nothers might enjoy their edifying exercises. From this small\nbeginning sprang the renowned Med. Fac. Society. Deering, a\n\"fellow of infinite jest,\" was chosen its first President; he was\nmuch esteemed for his talents, but died early, the victim of\nmelancholy madness.\n\nThe following entertaining account of the early history of this\nSociety has been kindly furnished, in a letter to the editor, by a\ndistinguished gentleman who was its President in the year 1820,\nand a graduate of the class of 1822.\n\n\"With regard to the Medical Faculty,\" he writes, \"I suppose that\nyou are aware that its object was mere fun. That object was\npursued with great diligence during the earlier period of its\nhistory, and probably through its whole existence. I do not\nremember that it ever had a constitution, or any stated meetings,\nexcept the annual one for the choice of officers. Frequent\nmeetings, however, were called by the President to carry out the\nobject of the institution. They were held always in some student's\nroom in the afternoon. The room was made as dark as possible, and\nbrilliantly lighted. The Faculty sat round a long table, in some\nsingular and antique costume, almost all in large wigs, and\nbreeches with knee-buckles. This practice was adopted to make a\nstrong impression on students who were invited in for examination.\nMembers were always examined for admission. The strangest\nquestions were asked by the venerable board, and often strange\nanswers elicited,--no matter how remote from the purpose, provided\nthere was wit or drollery. Sometimes a singularly slow person\nwould be invited, on purpose to puzzle and tease him with\nquestions that he could make nothing of; and he would stand in\nhelpless imbecility, without being able to cover his retreat with\neven the faintest suspicion of a joke. He would then be gravely\nadmonished of the necessity of diligent study, reminded of the\nanxiety of his parents on his account, and his duty to them, and\nat length a month or two would be allowed him to prepare himself\nfor another examination, or he would be set aside altogether. But\nif he appeared again for another trial, he was sure to fare no\nbetter. He would be set aside at last. I remember an instance in\nwhich a member was expelled for a reason purely fictitious,--droll\nenough to be worth telling, if I could remember it,--and the\nsecretary directed 'to write to his father, and break the matter\ngently to him, that it might not bring down the gray hairs of the\nold man with sorrow to the grave.'\n\n\"I have a pleasant recollection of the mock gravity, the broad\nhumor, and often exquisite wit of those meetings, but it is\nimpossible to give you any adequate idea of them. Burlesque\nlectures on all conceivable and inconceivable subjects were\nfrequently read or improvised by members _ad libitum_. I remember\nsomething of a remarkable one from Dr. Alden, upon part of a\nskeleton of a superannuated horse, which he made to do duty for\nthe remains of a great German Professor with an unspeakable name.\n\n\"Degrees were conferred upon all the members,--M.D. or D.M.[46]\naccording to their rank, which is explained in the Catalogue.\nHonorary degrees were liberally conferred upon conspicuous persons\nat home and abroad. It is said that one gentleman, at the South, I\nbelieve, considered himself insulted by the honor, and complained\nof it to the College government, who forthwith broke up the\nSociety. But this was long after my time, and I cannot answer for\nthe truth of the tradition. Diplomas were given to the M.D.'s and\nD.M.'s in ludicrous Latin, with a great seal appended by a green\nribbon. I have one, somewhere. My name is rendered _Filius\nSteti_.\"\n\nA graduate of the class of 1828 writes: \"I well remember that my\ninvitation to attend the meeting of the Med. Fac. Soc. was written\nin barbarous Latin, commencing 'Domine Crux,' and I think I passed\nso good an examination that I was made _Professor longis\nextremitatibus_, or Professor with long shanks. It was a society\nfor purposes of mere fun and burlesque, meeting secretly, and\nalways foiling the government in their attempts to break it up.\"\n\nThe members of the Society were accustomed to array themselves in\nmasquerade dresses, and in the evening would enter the houses of\nthe inhabitants of Cambridge, unbidden, though not always\nunwelcome guests. This practice, however, and that of conferring\ndegrees on public characters, brought the Society, as is above\nstated, into great disrepute with the College Faculty, by whom it\nwas abolished in the year 1834.\n\nThe Catalogue of the Society was a burlesque on the Triennial of\nthe College. The first was printed in the year 1821, the others\nfollowed in the years 1824, 1827, 1830, and 1833. The title on the\ncover of the Catalogue of 1833, the last issued, similar to the\ntitles borne by the others, was, \"Catalogus Senatus Facultatis, et\neorum qui munera et officia gesserunt, quique alicujus gradus\nlaurea donati sunt in Facultate Medicin\u00e6 in Universitate\nHarvardiana constituta, Cantabrigi\u00e6 in Republica Massachusettensi.\nCantabrigi\u00e6: Sumptibus Societatis. MDCCCXXXIII. Sanguinis\ncirculationis post patefactionem Anno CCV.\"\n\nThe Prefaces to the Catalogues were written in Latin, the\ncharacter of which might well be denominated _piggish_. In the\nfollowing translations by an esteemed friend, the beauty and force\nof the originals are well preserved.\n\n_Preface to the Catalogue of 1824_.\n\n\"To many, the first edition of the Medical Faculty Catalogue was a\nwonderful and extraordinary thing. Those who boasted that they\ncould comprehend it, found themselves at length terribly and\nwidely in error. Those who did not deny their inability to get the\nidea of it, were astonished and struck with amazement. To certain\nindividuals, it seemed to possess somewhat of wit and humor, and\nthese laughed immoderately; to others, the thing seemed so absurd\nand foolish, that they preserved a grave and serious countenance.\n\n\"Now, a new edition is necessary, in which it is proposed to state\nbriefly in order the rise and progress of the Medical Faculty. It\nis an undoubted matter of history, that the Medical Faculty is the\nmost ancient of all societies in the whole world. In fact, its\narchives contain documents and annals of the Society, written on\nbirch-bark, which are so ancient that they cannot be read at all;\nand, moreover, other writings belong to the Society, legible it is\ntrue, but, by ill-luck, in the words of an unknown and long-buried\nlanguage, and therefore unintelligible. Nearly all the documents\nof the Society have been reduced to ashes at some time amid the\nrolling years since the creation of man. On this account the\nMedical Faculty cannot pride itself on an uninterrupted series of\nrecords. But many oral traditions in regard to it have reached us\nfrom our ancestors, from which it may be inferred that this\nsociety formerly flourished under the name of the 'Society of\nWits' (Societas Jocosorum); and you might often gain an idea of it\nfrom many shrewd remarks that have found their way to various\nparts of the world.\n\n\"The Society, after various changes, has at length been brought to\nits present form, and its present name has been given it. It is,\nby the way, worthy of note, that this name is of peculiar\nsignification, the word 'medical' having the same force as\n'sanative' (sanans), as far as relates to the mind, and not to the\nbody, as in the vulgar signification. To be brief, the meaning of\n'medical' is 'diverting' (divertens), that is, _turning_ the mind\nfrom misery, evil, and grief. Under this interpretation, the\nMedical Faculty signifies neither more nor less than the 'Faculty\nof Recreation.' The thing proposed by the Society is, to _divert_\nits immediate and honorary members from unbecoming and foolish\nthoughts, and is twofold, namely, relating both to manners and to\nletters. Professors in the departments appropriated to letters\nread lectures; and the alumni, as the case requires, are sometimes\npublicly examined and questioned. The Library at present contains\na single book, but this _one_ is called for more and more every\nday. A collection of medical apparatus belongs to the Society,\nbeyond doubt the most grand and extensive in the whole world,\nintended to sharpen the _faculties_ of all the members.\n\n\"Honorary degrees have been conferred on illustrious and\nremarkable men of all countries.\n\n\"A certain part of the members go into all academies and literary\n'gymnasia,' to act as nuclei, around which branches of this\nSociety may be enabled to form.\"\n\n_Preface to the Catalogue of 1830_.\n\n\"As the members of the Medical Faculty have increased, as many\nmembers have been distinguished by honorary degrees, and as the\nformer Catalogues have all been sold, the Senate orders a new\nCatalogue to be printed.\n\n\"It seemed good to the editors of the former Catalogue briefly to\nstate the nature and to defend the antiquity of this Faculty.\nNevertheless, some have refused their assent to the statements,\nand demand some reasons for what is asserted. We therefore, once\nfor all, declare that, of all societies, this is the most ancient,\nthe most extensive, the most learned, and the most divine. We\nestablish its antiquity by two arguments: firstly, because\neverywhere in the world there are found many monuments of our\nancestors; secondly, because all other societies derive their\norigin from this. It appears from our annals, that different\ncurators have laid their bones beneath the Pyramids, Naples, Rome,\nand Paris. These, as described by a faithful secretary, are found\nat this day.\n\n\"The obelisks of Egypt contain in hieroglyphic characters many\nsecrets of our Faculty. The Chinese Wall, and the Colossus at\nRhodes, were erected by our ancestors in sport. We could cite many\nother examples, were it necessary.\n\n\"All societies to whom belong either wonderful art, or nothing\nexcept secrecy, have been founded on our pattern. It appears that\nthe Society of Free-Masons was founded by eleven disciples of the\nMed. Fac. expelled A.D. 1425. But these ignorant fellows were\nnever able to raise their brotherhood to our standard of\nperfection: in this respect alone they agree with us, in admitting\nonly the _masculine_ gender ('masc. gen.').[47]\n\n\"Therefore we have always been Antimason. No one who has ever\ngained admittance to our assembly has the slightest doubt that we\nhave extended our power to the farthest regions of the earth, for\nwe have embassies from every part of the world, and Satan himself\nhas learned many particulars from our Senate in regard to the\nadministration of affairs and the means of torture.\n\n\"We pride ourselves in being the most learned society on earth,\nfor men versed in all literature and erudition, when hurried into\nour presence for examination, quail and stand in silent amazement.\n'Placid Death' alone is coeval with this Society, and resembles\nit, for in its own Catalogue it equalizes rich and poor, great and\nsmall, white and black, old and young.\n\n\"Since these things are so, and you, kind reader, have been\ninstructed on these points, I will not longer detain you from the\nbook and the picture.[48] Farewell.\"\n\n_Preface to the Catalogue of_ 1833.\n\n\"It was much less than three years since the third edition of this\nCatalogue saw the light, when the most learned Med. Fac. began to\nbe reminded that the time had arrived for preparing to polish up\nand publish a new one. Accordingly, special curators were selected\nto bring this work to perfection. These curators would not neglect\nthe opportunity of saying a few words on matters of great moment.\n\n\"We have carefully revised the whole text, and, as far as we\ncould, we have taken pains to remove typographical errors. The\nduty is not light. But the number of medical men in the world has\nincreased, and it is becoming that the whole world should know the\ntrue authors of its greatest blessing. Therefore we have inserted\ntheir names and titles in their proper places.\n\n\"Among other changes, we would not forget the creation of a new\noffice. Many healing remedies, foreign, rare, and wonderful, have\nbeen brought for the use of the Faculty from Egypt and Arabia\nFelix. It was proper that some worthy, capable man, of quick\ndiscernment, should have charge of these most precious remedies.\nAccordingly, the Faculty has chosen a curator to be called the\n'Apothecarius.' Many quacks and cheats have desired to hold the\nnew office; but the present occupant has thrown all others into\nthe shade. The names, surnames, and titles of this excellent man\nwill be found in the following pages.[49]\n\n\"We have done well, not only towards others, but also towards\nourselves. Our library contains quite a number of books; among\nothers, ten thousand obtained through the munificence and\nliberality of great societies in the almost unknown regions of\nKamtschatka and the North Pole, and especially also through the\nmunificence of the Emperor of all the Russias. It has become so\nimmense, that, at the request of the Librarian, the Faculty have\nprohibited any further donations.\n\n\"In the next session of the General Court of Massachusetts, the\nSenate of the Faculty (assisted by the President of Harvard\nUniversity) will petition for forty thousand sesterces, for the\npurpose of erecting a large building to contain the immense\naccumulation of books. From the well-known liberality of the\nLegislature, no doubts are felt of obtaining it.\n\n\"To say more would make a long story. And this, kind reader, is\nwhat we have to communicate to you at the outset. The fruit will\nshow with how much fidelity we have performed the task imposed\nupon us by the most illustrious men. Farewell.\"\n\nAs a specimen of the character of the honorary degrees conferred\nby the Society, the following are taken from the list given in the\nCatalogues. They embrace, as will be seen, the names of\ndistinguished personages only, from the King and President to Day\nand Martin, Sam Patch, and the world-renowned Sea-Serpent.\n\n\"Henricus Christophe, Rex Hayti\u00e6 quondam, M.D. Med. Fac.\nhonorarius.\"[50]\n\n\"Gulielmus Cobbett, qui ad Angliam ossa Thom\u00e6 Paine ferebat, M.D.\nMed. Fac. honorarius.\"[51]\n\n\"Johannes-Cleaves Symmes, qui in terr\u00e6 ilia penetravissit, M.D.\nMed. Fac. honorarius.\"[52]\n\n\"ALEXANDER I. Russ. Imp. Illust. et Sanct. Foed. et Mass. Pac.\nSoc. Socius, qui per Legat. American. claro Med. Fac.,\n'_curiositatem raram et archaicam_,' regie transmisit, 1825, M.D.\nMed. Fac. honorarius.\"[53]\n\n\"ANDREAS JACKSON, Major-General in bello ultimo Americano, et\n_Nov. Orleans Heros_ fortissimus; et _ergo_ nunc Pr\u00e6sidis\nRerumpub. Foed, muneris _candidatus_ et 'Old Hickory,' M.D. et\nM.U.D. 1827, Med. Fac. honorarius, et 1829 Pr\u00e6ses Rerumpub.\nFoed., et LL.D. 1833.\"\n\n\"Gulielmus Emmons, pr\u00e6nominatus Pickle\u00efus, qui orator\neloquentissimus nostr\u00e6 \u00e6tatis; poma, nuces, _panem-zingiberis_,\nsuas orationes, '_Egg-popque_' vendit, D.M. Med. Fac.\nhonorarius.\"[54]\n\n\"Day et Martin, Angli, qui per quinquaginta annos toto Christiano\nOrbi et pr\u00e6cipue _Univ. Harv._ optimum _Real Japan Atramentum_ ab\n'XCVII. Alt\u00e2 Holborni\u00e2' subministr\u00e2runt, M.D. et M.U.D. Med. Fac.\nhonorarius.\"\n\n\"Samuel Patch, socius multum deploratus, qui multa experimenta, de\ngravitate et 'faciles descensus' suo corpore fecit; qui gradum,\nM.D. _per saltum_ consecutus est. Med. Fac. honorarius.\"\n\n\"Cheng et Heng, Siamesi juvenes, invicem _a mans_ et intime\nattacti, Med. Fac. que honorarii.\"\n\n\"Gulielmus Grimke, et quadraginta sodales qui 'omnes in uno' Conic\nSections sine Tabulis aspernati sunt, et contra Facultatem, Col.\nYal. rebellaverunt, posteaque expulsi et 'obumbrati' sunt et Med.\nFac. honorarii.\"\n\n\"MARTIN VAN BUREN, _Armig._, Civitatis Scriba Reipub. Foed. apud\nAul. Brit. Legat. Extraord. sibi constitutus. Reip. Nov. Ebor.\nGub. 'Don Whiskerandos'; 'Little Dutchman'; atque 'Great\nRejected.' Nunc (1832), Rerumpub. Foed. Vice-Pr\u00e6ses et 'Kitchen\nCabinet' Moderator, M.D. et Med. Fac. honorarius.\"\n\n\"Magnus Serpens Maris, suppositus, aut porpoises aut\nhorse-mackerel, grex; 'very like a whale' (Shak.); M.D. et\npeculiariter M.U.D. Med. Fac. honorarius.\"\n\n\"Timotheus Tibbets et Gulielmus J. Snelling 'par nobile sed\nhostile fratrum'; 'victor et victus,' unus buster et rake, alter\nlupinarum cockpitsque purgator, et nuper Edit. Nov. Ang. Galax.\nMed. Fac. honorarii.\"[55]\n\n\"Capt. Basil Hall, Tabitha Trollope, atque _Isaacus Fiddler_\nReverendus; semi-pay centurio, famelica transfuga, et semicoctus\ngrammaticaster, qui scriptitant solum ut prandere possint. Tres in\nuno Mend. Munch. Prof. M.D., M.U.D. et Med. Fac. Honorarium.\"\n\nA college poet thus laments the fall of this respected society:--\n\n \"Gone, too, for aye, that merry masquerade,\n  Which danced so gayly in the evening shade,\n  And Learning weeps, and Science hangs her head,\n  To mourn--vain toil!--their cherished offspring dead.\n  What though she sped her honors wide and far,\n  Hailing as son Muscovia's haughty Czar,\n  Who in his palace humbly knelt to greet,\n  And laid his costly presents at her feet?[56]\n  Relentless fate her sudden fall decreed,\n  Dooming each votary's tender heart to bleed,\n  And yet, as if in mercy to atone,\n  That fate hushed sighs, and silenced many a _groan_.\"\n    _Winslow's Class Poem_, 1835.\n\n\nMERIT ROLL. At Union College, \"the _Merit Rolls_ of the several\nclasses,\" says a correspondent, \"are sheets of paper put up in the\nCollege post-office, at the opening of each term, containing a\nlist of all students present in the different classes during the\nprevious term, with a statement of the conduct, attendance, and\nscholarship of each member of the class. The names are numbered\naccording to the standing of the student, all the best scholars\nbeing clustered at the head, and the poorer following in a\nmelancholy train. To be at the head, or 'to head the roll,' is an\nobject of ambition, while 'to foot the roll' is anything but\ndesirable.\"\n\n\nMIDDLE BACHELOR. One who is in his second year after taking the\ndegree of Bachelor of Arts.\n\nA Senior Sophister has authority to take a Freshman from a\nSophomore, a _Middle Bachelor_ from a Junior Sophister.--_Quincy's\nHist. Harv. Univ._, Vol. II. p. 540.\n\n\nMIGRATE. In the English universities, to remove from one college\nto another.\n\nOne of the unsuccessful candidates _migrated_.--_Bristed's Five\nYears in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 100.\n\n\nMIGRATION. In the English universities, a removal from one college\nto another.\n\n\"_A migration_,\" remarks Bristed, \"is generally tantamount to a\nconfession of inferiority, and an acknowledgment that the migrator\nis not likely to become a Fellow in his own College, and therefore\ntakes refuge in another, where a more moderate Degree will insure\nhim a Fellowship. A great deal of this _migration_ goes on from\nJohn's to the Small Colleges.\"--_Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed.\n2d, p. 100.\n\n\nMIGRATOR. In the English universities, one who removes from one\ncollege to another.\n\n\nMILD. A student epithet of depreciation, answering nearly to the\nphrases, \"no great shakes,\" and \"small potatoes.\"--_Bristed_.\n\nSome of us were very heavy men to all appearance, and our first\nattempts _mild_ enough.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._,\nEd. 2d, p. 169.\n\n\nMINGO. Latin. At Harvard College, this word was formerly used to\ndesignate a chamber-pot.\n\n  To him that occupies my study,\n  I give for use of making toddy,\n  A bottle full of _white-face Stingo_,\n  Another, handy, called a _mingo_.\n    _Will of Charles Prentiss_, in _Rural Repository_, 1795.\n\nMany years ago, some of the students of Harvard College wishing to\nmake a present to their Tutor, Mr. Flynt, called on him, informed\nhim of their intention, and requested him to select a gift which\nwould be acceptable to him. He replied that he was a single man,\nthat he already had a well-filled library, and in reality wanted\nnothing. The students, not all satisfied with this answer,\ndetermined to present him with a silver chamber-pot. One was\naccordingly made, of the appropriate dimensions, and inscribed\nwith these words:\n \"Mingere cum bombis\n  Res est saluberrima lumbis.\"\n\nOn the morning of Commencement Day, this was borne in procession,\nin a morocco case, and presented to the Tutor. Tradition does not\nsay with what feelings he received it, but it remained for many\nyears at a room in Quincy, where he was accustomed to spend his\nSaturdays and Sundays, and finally disappeared, about the\nbeginning of the Revolutionary War. It is supposed to have been\ncarried to England.\n\n\nMINOR. A privy. From the Latin _minor_, smaller; the word _house_\nbeing understood. Other derivations are given, but this seems to\nbe the most classical. This word is peculiar to Harvard College.\n\n\nMISS. An omission of a recitation, or any college exercise. An\ninstructor is said _to give a miss_, when he omits a recitation.\n\nA quaint Professor of Harvard College, being once asked by his\nclass to omit the recitation for that day, is said to have replied\nin the words of Scripture: \"Ye ask and receive not, for ye ask\na-_miss_.\"\n\nIn the \"Memorial of John S. Popkin, D.D.,\" Professor Felton has\nreferred to this story, and has appended to it the contradiction\nof the worthy Doctor. \"Amusing anecdotes, some true and many\napocryphal, were handed down in College from class to class, and,\nso far from being yet forgotten, they are rather on the increase.\nOne of these mythical stories was, that on a certain occasion one\nof the classes applied to the Doctor for what used to be called,\nin College jargon, a _miss_, i.e. an omission of recitation. The\nDoctor replied, as the legend run, 'Ye ask, and ye receive not,\nbecause ye ask a-_miss_.' Many years later, this was told to him.\n'It is not true,' he exclaimed, energetically. 'In the first\nplace, I have not wit enough; in the next place, I have too much\nwit, for I mortally hate a pun. Besides, _I never allude\nirreverently to the Scriptures_.'\"--p. lxxvii.\n\n  Or are there some who scrape and hiss\n  Because you never give a _miss_.--_Rebelliad_, p. 62.\n\n  ---- is good to all his subjects,\n  _Misses_ gives he every hour.--_MS. Poem_.\n\n\nMISS. To be absent from a recitation or any college exercise. Said\nof a student. See CUT.\n\n  Who will recitations _miss_!--_Rebelliad_, p. 53.\n\n  At every corner let us hiss 'em;\n  And as for recitations,--_miss_ 'em.--_Ibid._, p. 58.\n\n  Who never _misses_ declamation,\n  Nor cuts a stupid recitation.\n    _Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 283.\n\n_Missing_ chambers will be visited with consequences more to be\ndreaded than the penalties of _missing_ lecture.--_Collegian's\nGuide_, p. 304.\n\n\nMITTEN. At the Collegiate Institute of Indiana, a student who is\nexpelled is said _to get the mitten_.\n\n\nMOCK-PART. At Harvard College, it is customary, when the parts for\nthe first exhibition in the Junior year have been read, as\ndescribed under PART, for the part-reader to announce what are\ncalled the _mock-parts_. These mock-parts which are burlesques on\nthe regular appointments, are also satires on the habits,\ncharacter, or manners of those to whom they are assigned. They are\nnever given to any but members of the Junior Class. It was\nformerly customary for the Sophomore Class to read them in the\nlast term of that year when the parts were given out for the\nSophomore exhibition but as there is now no exhibition for that\nclass, they are read only in the Junior year. The following may do\nas specimens of the subjects usually assigned:--The difference\nbetween alluvial and original soils; a discussion between two\npersons not noted for personal cleanliness. The last term of a\ndecreasing series; a subject for an insignificant but conceited\nfellow. An essay on the Humbug, by a dabbler in natural history. A\nconference on the three dimensions, length, breadth, and\nthickness, between three persons, one very tall, another very\nbroad, and the third very fat.\n\n\nMODERATE. In colleges and universities, to superintend the\nexercises and disputations in philosophy, and the Commencements\nwhen degrees are conferred.\n\nThey had their weekly declamations on Friday, in the Colledge\nHall, besides publick disputations, which either the Pr\u00e6sident or\nthe Fellows _moderated_.--_Mather's Magnalia_, B. IV. p. 127.\n\nMr. Mather _moderated_ at the Masters'\ndisputations.--_Hutchinson's Hist. of Mass._, Vol. I. p. 175,\nnote.\n\nMr. Andrew _moderated_ at the Commencements.--_Clap's Hist. of\nYale Coll._, p. 15.\n\nPresident Holyoke was of a noble, commanding presence. He was\nperfectly acquainted with academic matters, and _moderated_ at\nCommencements with great dignity.--_Holmes's Life of Ezra Stiles_,\np. 26.\n\nMr. Woodbridge _moderated_ at Commencement, 1723.--_Woolsey's\nHist. Disc._, p. 103.\n\n\nMODERATOR. In the English universities, one who superintends the\nexercises and disputations in philosophy, and the examination for\nthe degree of B.A.--_Cam. Cal._\n\nThe disputations at which the _Moderators_ presided in the English\nuniversities \"are now reduced,\" says Brande, \"to little more than\nmatters of form.\"\n\nThe word was formerly in use in American colleges.\n\nFive scholars performed public exercises; the Rev. Mr. Woodbridge\nacted as _Moderator_.--_Clap's Hist. of Yale Coll._, p. 27.\n\nHe [the President] was occasionally present at the weekly\ndeclamations and public disputations, and then acted as\n_Moderator_; an office which, in his absence, was filled by one of\nthe Tutors.--_Quincy's Hist. of Harv. Univ._, Vol. I. p. 440.\n\n\nMONITOR. In schools or universities, a pupil selected to look to\nthe scholars in the absence of the instructor, or to notice the\nabsence or faults of the scholars, or to instruct a division or\nclass.--_Webster_.\n\nIn American colleges, the monitors are usually appointed by the\nPresident, their duty being to keep bills of absence from, and\ntardiness at, devotional and other exercises. See _Laws of Harv.\nand Yale Colls._, &c.\n\n  Let _monitors_ scratch as they please,\n  We'll lie in bed and take our ease.\n    _Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 123.\n\n\nMOONLIGHT. At Williams College, the prize rhetorical exercise is\ncalled by this name; the reason is not given. The students speak\nof \"making a rush for _moonlight_,\" i.e. of attempting to gain the\nprize for elocution.\n\nIn the evening comes _Moonlight_ Exhibition, when three men from\neach of the three lower classes exhibit their oratorical powers,\nand are followed by an oration before the Adelphic Union, by Ralph\nWaldo Emerson.--_Boston Daily Evening Traveller_, July 12, 1854.\n\n\nMOONLIGHT RANGERS. At Jefferson College, in Pennsylvania, a title\napplied to a band composed of the most noisy and turbulent\nstudents, commanded by a captain and sub-officer, who, in the most\nfantastic disguises, or in any dress to which the moonlight will\ngive most effect, appear on certain nights designated, prepared to\nobey any command in the way of engaging in any sport of a pleasant\nnature. They are all required to have instruments which will make\nthe loudest noise and create the greatest excitement.\n\n\nMOSS-COVERED HEAD. In the German universities, students during the\nsixth and last term, or _semester_, are called _Moss-covered\nHeads_, or, in an abbreviated form, _Mossy Heads_.\n\n\nMOUNTAIN DAY. The manner in which this day is observed at Williams\nCollege is described in the accompanying extracts.\n\n\"Greylock is to the student in his rambles, what Mecca is to the\nMahometan; and a pilgrimage to the summit is considered necessary,\nat least once during the collegiate course. There is an ancient\nand time-honored custom, which has existed from the establishment\nof the College, of granting to the students, once a year, a\ncertain day of relaxation and amusement, known by the name of\n'_Mountain Day_.' It usually occurs about the middle of June, when\nthe weather is most favorable for excursions to the mountains and\nother places of interest in the vicinity. It is customary, on this\nand other occasions during the summer, for parties to pass the\nnight upon the summit, both for the novelty of the thing, and also\nto enjoy the unrivalled prospect at sunrise next\nmorning.\"--_Sketches of Will. Coll._, 1847, pp. 85-89.\n\n\"It so happens that Greylock, in our immediate vicinity, is the\nhighest mountain in the Commonwealth, and gives a view from its\nsummit 'that for vastness and sublimity is equalled by nothing in\nNew England except the White Hills.' And it is an ancient\nobservance to go up from this valley once in the year to 'see the\nworld.' We were not of the number who availed themselves of this\n_lex non scripta_, forasmuch as more than one visit in time past\nhath somewhat worn off the novelty of the thing. But a goodly\nnumber 'went aloft,' some in wagons, some on horseback, and some,\nof a sturdier make, on foot. Some, not content with a mountain\n_day_, carried their knapsacks and blankets to encamp till morning\non the summit and see the sun rise. Not in the open air, however,\nfor a magnificent timber observatory has been set up,--a\nrough-hewn, sober, substantial 'light-house in the skies,' under\nwhose roof is a limited portion of infinite space shielded from\nthe winds.\"--_Williams Monthly Miscellany_, 1845, Vol. I. p. 555.\n\n\"'_Mountain day_,' the date to which most of the imaginary _rows_\nhave been assigned, comes at the beginning of the summer term, and\nthe various classes then ascend Greylock, the highest peak in the\nState, from which may be had a very fine view. Frequently they\npass the night there, and beds are made of leaves in the old\ntower, bonfires are built, and they get through it quite\ncomfortable.\"--_Boston Daily Evening Traveller_, July 12, 1854.\n\n\nMOUTH. To recite in an affected manner, as if one knew the lesson,\nwhen in reality he does not.\n\nNever shall you allow yourself to think of going into the\nrecitation-room, and there trust to \"skinning,\" as it is called in\nsome colleges, or \"phrasing,\" as in others, or \"_mouthing_ it,\" as\nin others.--_Todd's Student's Manual_, p. 115.\n\n\nMRS. GOFF. Formerly a cant phrase for any woman.\n\n  But cease the touching chords to sweep,\n  For _Mrs. Goff_ has deigned to weep.\n    _Rebelliad_, p. 21.\n\n\nMUFF. A foolish fellow.\n\nMany affected to sneer at him, as a \"_muff_\" who would have been\nexceedingly flattered by his personal acquaintance.--_Blackwood's\nMag._, Eng. ed., Vol. LX. p. 147.\n\n\nMULE. In Germany, a student during the vacation between the time\nof his quitting the gymnasium and entering the university, is\nknown as a mule.\n\n\nMUS.B. An abbreviation for _Music\u00e6 Baccalaureus_, Bachelor of\nMusic. In the English universities, a Bachelor of Music must enter\nhis name at some college, and compose and perform a solemn piece\nof music, as an exercise before the University.\n\n\nMUS.D. An abbreviation for _Music\u00e6 Doctor_, Doctor of Music. A\nMus.D. is generally a Mus.B., and his exercise is the same.\n\n\nMUSES. A college or university is often designated the _Temple,\nRetreat, Seat_, &c. _of the Muses_.\n\nHaving passed this outer court of the _Temple of the Muses_, you\nare ushered into the Sanctum Sanctorum itself.--_Alma Mater_, Vol.\nI. p. 87.\n\nInviting ... such distinguished visitors as happen then to be on a\ntour to this attractive _retreat of the Muses_.--_Ibid._, Vol. I,\np. 156.\n\nMy instructor ventured to offer me as a candidate for admission\ninto that renowned _seat of the Muses_, Harvard College.--_New\nEngland Mag._, Vol. III. p. 237.\n\nA student at a college or university is sometimes called a _Son of\nthe Muses_.\n\nIt might perhaps suit some inveterate idlers, smokers, and\ndrinkers, but no true _son of the Muses_.--_Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol.\nXV. p. 3.\n\nWhile it was his earnest desire that the beloved _sons of the\nMuses_ might leave the institutions enriched with the erudition,\n&c.--_Judge Kent's Address before [Greek: Phi Beta Kappa] of Yale\nColl._, p. 39, 1831.\n\n\n\n_N_.\n\n\nNAVY CLUB. The Navy Club, or the Navy, as it was formerly called,\noriginated among the students of Harvard College about the year\n1796, but did not reach its full perfection until several years\nafter. What the primary design of the association was is not\nknown, nor can the causes be ascertained which led to its\nformation. At a later period its object seems to have been to\nimitate, as far as possible, the customs and discipline peculiar\nto the flag-ship of a navy, and to afford some consolation to\nthose who received no appointments at Commencement, as such were\nalways chosen its officers. The _Lord High Admiral_ was appointed\nby the admiral of the preceding class, but his election was not\nknown to any of the members of his class until within six weeks of\nCommencement, when the parts for that occasion were assigned. It\nwas generally understood that this officer was to be one of the\npoorest in point of scholarship, yet the jolliest of all the\n\"Jolly Blades.\" At the time designated, he broke the seal of a\npackage which had been given him by his predecessor in office, the\ncontents of which were known only to himself; but these were\nsupposed to be the insignia of his office, and the instructions\npertaining to the admiralty. He then appointed his assistant\nofficers, a vice-admiral, rear-admiral, captain, sailing-master,\nboatswain, &c. To the boatswain a whistle was given, transmitted,\nlike the admiral's package, from class to class.\n\nThe Flag-ship for the year 1815 was a large marquee, called \"The\nGood Ship Harvard,\" which was moored in the woods, near the place\nwhere the residence of the Hon. John G. Palfrey now stands. The\nfloor was arranged like the deck of a man-of-war, being divided\ninto the main and quarter decks. The latter was occupied by the\nadmiral, and no one was allowed to be there with him without\nspecial order or permission. In his sway he was very despotic, and\non board ship might often have been seen reclining on his couch,\nattended by two of his subordinates (classmates), who made his\nslumbers pleasant by guarding his sacred person from the visits of\nany stray mosquito, and kept him cool by the vibrations of a fan.\nThe marquee stood for several weeks, during which time meetings\nwere frequently held in it. At the command of the admiral, the\nboatswain would sound his whistle in front of Holworthy Hall, the\nbuilding where the Seniors then, as now, resided, and the student\nsailors, issuing forth, would form in procession, and march to the\nplace of meeting, there to await further orders. If the members of\nthe Navy remained on board ship over night, those who had received\nappointments at Commencement, then called the \"Marines,\" were\nobliged to keep guard while the members slept or caroused.\n\nThe operations of the Navy were usually closed with an excursion\ndown the harbor. A vessel well stocked with certain kinds of\nprovisions afforded, with some assistance from the stores of old\nOcean, the requisites for a grand clam-bake or a mammoth chowder.\nThe spot usually selected for this entertainment was the shores of\nCape Cod. On the third day the party usually returned from their\nvoyage, and their entry into Cambridge was generally accompanied\nwith no little noise and disorder. The Admiral then appointed\nprivately his successor, and the Navy was disbanded for the year.\n\nThe exercises of the association varied from year to year. Many of\nthe old customs gradually went out of fashion, until finally but\nlittle of the original Navy remained. The officers were, as usual,\nappointed yearly, but the power of appointing them was transferred\nto the class, and a public parade was substituted for the forms\nand ceremonies once peculiar to the society. The excursion down\nthe harbor was omitted for the first time the present year,[57]\nand the last procession made its appearance in the year 1846.\n\nAt present the Navy Club is organized after the parts for the last\nSenior Exhibition have been assigned. It is composed of three\nclasses of persons; namely, the true NAVY, which consists of those\nwho have _never_ had parts; the MARINES, those who have had a\n_major_ or _second_ part in the Senior year, but no _minor_ or\n_first_ part in the Junior; and the HORSE-MARINES, those who have\nhad a _minor_ or _first_ part in the Junior year, but have\nsubsequently fallen off, so as not to get a _major_ or _second_\npart in the Senior. Of the Navy officers, the Lord High Admiral is\nusually he who has been sent from College the greatest number of\ntimes; the Vice-Admiral is the poorest scholar in the class; the\nRear-Admiral the laziest fellow in the class; the Commodore, one\naddicted to boating; the Captain, a jolly blade; the Lieutenant\nand Midshipman, fellows of the same description; the Chaplain, the\nmost profane; the Surgeon, a dabbler in surgery, or in medicine,\nor anything else; the Ensign, the tallest member of the class; the\nBoatswain, one most inclined to obscenity; the Drum Major, the\nmost aristocratic, and his assistants, fellows of the same\ncharacter. These constitute the Band. Such are the general rules\nof choice, but they are not always followed. The remainder of the\nclass who have had no parts and are not officers of the Navy Club\nare members, under the name of Privates. On the morning when the\nparts for Commencement are assigned, the members who receive\nappointments resign the stations which they have held in the Navy\nClub. This resignation takes place immediately after the parts\nhave been read to the class. The door-way of the middle entry of\nHolworthy Hall is the place usually chosen for this affecting\nscene. The performance is carried on in the mock-oratorical style,\na person concealed under a white sheet being placed behind the\nspeaker to make the gestures for him. The names of those members\nwho, having received Commencement appointments, have refused to\nresign their trusts in the Navy Club, are then read by the Lord\nHigh Admiral, and by his authority they are expelled from the\nsociety. This closes the exercises of the Club.\n\nThe following entertaining account of the last procession, in\n1846, has been furnished by a graduate of that year:--\n\n\"The class had nearly all assembled, and the procession, which\nextended through the rooms of the Natural History Society, began\nto move. The principal officers, as also the whole band, were\ndressed in full uniform. The Rear-Admiral brought up the rear, as\nwas fitting. He was borne in a sort of triumphal car, composed of\nsomething like a couch, elevated upon wheels, and drawn by a white\nhorse. On this his excellency, dressed in uniform, and enveloped\nin his cloak, reclined at full length. One of the Marines played\nthe part of driver. Behind the car walked a colored man, with a\nmost fantastic head-dress, whose duty it was to carry his Honor\nthe Rear-Admiral's pipe. Immediately before the car walked the\nother two Marines, with guns on their shoulders. The 'Digs'[58]\ncame immediately before the Marines, preceded by the tallest of\ntheir number, carrying a white satin banner, bearing on it, in\ngold letters, the word 'HARVARD,' with a _spade_ of gold paper\nfastened beneath. The Digs were all dressed in black, with Oxford\ncaps on their heads, and small iron spades over their shoulders.\nThey walked two and two, except in one instance, namely, that of\nthe first three scholars, who walked together, the last of their\nbrethren, immediately preceding the Marines. The second and third\nscholars did not carry spades, but pointed shovels, much larger\nand heavier; while the first scholar, who walked between the other\ntwo, carried an enormously great square shovel,--such as is often\nseen hung out at hardware-stores for a sign,--with 'SPADES AND\nSHOVELS,' or some such thing, painted on one side, and 'ALL SIZES'\non the other. This shovel was about two feet square. The idea of\ncarrying real, _bon\u00e2 fide_ spades and shovels originated wholly in\nour class. It has always been the custom before to wear a spade,\ncut out of white paper, on the lapel of the coat. The Navy\nPrivates were dressed in blue shirts, monkey-jackets, &c., and\npresented a very sailor-like appearance. Two of them carried small\nkedges over their shoulders. The Ensign bore an old and tattered\nflag, the same which was originally presented by Miss Mellen of\nCambridge to the Harvard Washington Corps. The Chaplain was\ndressed in a black gown, with an old-fashioned curly white wig on\nhis head, which, with a powdered face, gave him a very\nsanctimonious look. He carried a large French Bible, which by much\nuse had lost its covers. The Surgeon rode a beast which might well\nhave been taken for the Rosinante of the world-renowned Don\nQuixote. This worthy \u00c6sculapius had an infinite number of\nbrown-paper bags attached to his person. He was enveloped in an\nold plaid cloak, with a huge sign for _pills_ fastened upon his\nshoulders, and carried before him a skull on a staff. His nag was\nvery spirited, so much so as to leap over the chains, posts, &c.,\nand put to flight the crowd assembled to see the fun. The\nprocession, after having cheered all the College buildings, and\nthe houses of the Professors, separated about seven o'clock, P.M.\"\n\n  At first like a badger the Freshman dug,\n  Fed on Latin and Greek, in his room kept snug;\n  And he fondly hoped that on _Navy Club_ day\n  The highest spade he might bear away.\n    _MS. Poem_, F.E. Felton, Harv. Coll.\n\n\nNECK. To _run one's neck_, at Williams College, to trust to luck\nfor the success of any undertaking.\n\n\nNESCIO. Latin; literally, _I do not know_. At the University of\nCambridge, England, _to sport a nescio_, to shake the head, a\nsignal that one does not understand or is ignorant of the subject.\n\"After the Senate-House examination for degrees,\" says Grose, in\nhis Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, \"the students\nproceed to the schools, to be questioned by the proctor. According\nto custom immemorial, the answers _must_ be _Nescio_. The\nfollowing is a translated specimen:--\n\n\"_Ques._ What is your, name? _Ans._ I do not know.\n\n\"_Ques._ What is the name of this University? _Ans._ I do not\nknow.\n\n\"_Ques._ Who was your father? _Ans._ I do not know.\n\n\"The last is probably the only true answer of the three!\"\n\n\nNEWLING. In the German universities, a Freshman; one in his first\nhalf-year.\n\n\nNEWY. At Princeton College, a fresh arrival.\n\n\nNIGHTGOWN. A dressing-gown; a _deshabille_.\n\nNo student shall appear within the limits of the College, or town\nof Cambridge, in any other dress than in the uniform belonging to\nhis respective class, unless he shall have on a _nightgown_, or\nsuch an outside garment as may be necessary over a coat.--_Laws\nHarv. Coll._, 1790.\n\n\nNOBLEMAN. In the English universities, among the Undergraduates,\nthe nobleman enjoys privileges and exemptions not accorded to\nothers. At Oxford he wears a black-silk gown with full sleeves\n\"couped\" at the elbows, and a velvet cap with gold tassel, except\non full-dress occasions, when his habit is of violet-figured\ndamask silk, richly bedight with gold lace. At Cambridge he wears\nthe plain black-silk gown and the hat of an M.A., except on feast\ndays and state occasions, when he appears in a gown still more\ngorgeous than that of a Fellow-Commoner.--_Oxford Guide. Bristed_.\n\n\nNO END OF. Bristed records this phrase as an intensive peculiar to\nthe English Cantabs. Its import is obvious \"They have _no end of_\ntin; i.e. a great deal of money. He is _no end of_ a fool; i.e.\nthe greatest fool possible.\"--_Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed.\n2d, p. 24.\n\nThe use of this expression, with a similar signification, is\ncommon in some portions of the United States.\n\n\nNON ENS. Latin; literally _not being_. At the University of\nCambridge, Eng., one who has not been matriculated, though he has\nresided some time at the University; consequently is not\nconsidered as having any being. A Freshman in embryo.--_Grad. ad\nCantab._\n\n\nNON PARAVI. Latin; literally, _I have not prepared_. When Latin\nwas spoken in the American colleges, this excuse was commonly\ngiven by scholars not prepared for recitation.\n\n  With sleepy eyes and countenance heavy,\n  With much excuse of _non paravi_.\n    _Trumbull's Progress of Dullness_, 1794, p. 8.\n\nThe same excuse is now frequently given in English.\n\nThe same individuals were also observed to be \"_not prepared_\" for\nthe morning's recitation.--_Harvardiana_, Vol. II. p. 261.\n\nI hear you whispering, with white lips, \"_Not prepared_,\nsir.\"--_Burial of Euclid_, 1850, p. 9.\n\n\nNON PLACET. Latin; literally, _It is not pleasing_. In the\nUniversity of Cambridge, Eng., the term in which a _negative_ vote\nis given in the Senate-House.\n\nTo _non-placet_, with the meaning of the verb _to reject_, is\nsometimes used in familiar language.\n\nA classical examiner, having marked two candidates belonging to\nhis own College much higher than the other three examiners did,\nwas suspected of partiality to them, and _non-placeted_ (rejected)\nnext year when he came up for approval.--_Bristed's Five Years in\nan Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 231.\n\n\nNON-READING MAN. See READING MAN.\n\nThe result of the May decides whether he will go out in honors or\nnot,--that is, whether he will be a reading or a _non-reading\nman_.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 85.\n\n\nNON-REGENT. In the English universities, a term applied to those\nMasters of Arts whose regency has ceased.--_Webster_.\n\nSee REGENT. SENATE.\n\n\nNON-TERM. \"When any member of the Senate,\" says the Gradus ad\nCantabrigiam, \"dies within the University during term, on\napplication to the Vice-Chancellor, the University bell rings an\nhour; from which period _Non-Term_, as to public lectures and\ndisputations, commences for three days.\"\n\n\nNON VALUI. Latin; literally, _I was sick_. At Harvard College,\nwhen the students were obliged to speak Latin, it was usual for\nthem to give the excuse _non valui_ for almost every absence or\nomission. The President called upon delinquents for their excuses\nin the chapel, after morning prayers, and these words were often\npronounced so broadly as to sound like _non volui_, I did not wish\n[to go]. The quibble was not perceived for a long time, and was\nheartily enjoyed, as may be well supposed, by those who made use\nof it.\n\n\n[Greek: Nous]. Greek; _sense_. A word adopted by, and in use\namong, students.\n\nHe is a lad of more [Greek: nous], and keeps better\ncompany.--_Pref. to Grad. ad Cantab._\n\nGetting the better of them in anything which required the smallest\nexertion of [Greek: nous], was like being first in a donkey-race.\n--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 30.\n\n\nNUMBER FIFTY, NUMBER FORTY-NINE. At Trinity College, Hartford, the\nprivies are known by these names. Jarvis Hall contains forty-eight\nrooms, and the numbers forty-nine and fifty follow in numerical\ncontinuation, but with a different application.\n\n\nNUMBER TEN. At the Wesleyan University, the names \"No. 10, and, as\na sort of derivative, No. 1001, are applied to the privy.\" The\nformer title is used also at the University of Vermont, and at\nDartmouth College.\n\n\nNUTS. A correspondent from Williams College says, \"We speak of a\nperson whom we despise as being a _nuts_.\" This word is used in\nthe Yorkshire dialect with the meaning of a \"silly fellow.\" Mr.\nHalliwell, in his Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words,\nremarks: \"It is not applied to an idiot, but to one who has been\ndoing a foolish action.\"\n\n\n\n_O_.\n\n\nOAK. In the English universities, the outer door of a student's\nroom.\n\nNo man has a right to attack the rooms of one with whom he is not\nin the habit of intimacy. From ignorance of this axiom I had near\ngot a horse-whipping, and was kicked down stairs for going to a\nwrong _oak_, whose tenant was not in the habit of taking jokes of\nthis kind.--_The Etonian_, Vol. II. p. 287.\n\nA pecker, I must explain, is a heavy pointed hammer for splitting\nlarge coals; an instrument often put into requisition to force\nopen an _oak_ (an outer door), when the key of the spring latch\nhappens to be left inside, and the scout has gone away.--_The\nCollegian's Guide_, p. 119.\n\nEvery set of rooms is provided with an _oak_ or outer door, with a\nspring lock, of which the master has one latch-key, and the\nservant another.--_Ibid._, p. 141.\n\n\"To _sport oak_, or a door,\" says the Gradus ad Cantabrigiam, \"is,\nin the modern phrase, to exclude duns, or other unpleasant\nintruders.\" It generally signifies, however, nothing more than\nlocking or fastening one's door for safety or convenience.\n\nI always \"_sported my oak_\" whenever I went out; and if ever I\nfound any article removed from its usual place, I inquired for it;\nand thus showed I knew where everything was last\nplaced.--_Collegian's Guide_, p. 141.\n\nIf you persist, and say you cannot join them, you must _sport your\noak_, and shut yourself into your room, and all intruders\nout.--_Ibid._, p. 340.\n\nUsed also in some American colleges.\n\nAnd little did they dream who knocked hard and often at his _oak_\nin vain, &c.--_Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. X. p. 47.\n\n\nOATHS. At Yale College, those who were engaged in the government\nwere formerly required to take the oaths of allegiance and\nabjuration appointed by the Parliament of England. In his\nDiscourse before the Graduates of Yale College, President Woolsey\ngives the following account of this obligation:--\n\n\"The charter of 1745 imposed another test in the form of a\npolitical oath upon all governing officers in the College. They\nwere required before they undertook the execution of their trusts,\nor within three months after, 'publicly in the College hall [to]\ntake the oaths, and subscribe the declaration, appointed by an act\nof Parliament made in the first year of George the First,\nentitled, An Act for the further security of his Majesty's person\nand government, and the succession of the Crown in the heirs of\nthe late Princess Sophia, being Protestants, and for extinguishing\nthe hopes of the pretended Prince of Wales, and his open and\nsecret abettors.' We cannot find the motive for prescribing this\noath of allegiance and abjuration in the Protestant zeal which was\nenkindled by the second Pretender's movements in England,--for,\nalthough belonging to this same year 1745, these movements were\nsubsequent to the charter,--but rather in the desire of removing\nsuspicion of disloyalty, and conforming the practice in the\nCollege to that required by the law in the English universities.\nThis oath was taken until it became an unlawful one, when the\nState assumed complete sovereignty at the Revolution. For some\nyears afterwards, the officers took the oath of fidelity to the\nState of Connecticut, and I believe that the last instance of this\noccurred at the very end of the eighteenth century.\"--p. 40.\n\nIn the Diary of President Stiles, under the date of July 8, 1778,\nis the annexed entry, in which is given the formula of the oath\nrequired by the State:--\n\n\"The oath of fidelity administered to me by the Hon. Col. Hamlin,\none of the Council of the State of Connecticut, at my\ninauguration.\n\n\"'You, Ezra Stiles, do swear by the name of the ever-living God,\nthat you will be true and faithful to the State of Connecticut, as\na free and independent State, and in all things do your duty as a\ngood and faithful subject of the said State, in supporting the\nrights, liberties, and privileges of the same. So help you God.'\n\n\"This oath, substituted instead of that of allegiance to the King\nby the Assembly of Connecticut, May, 1777, to be taken by all in\nthis State; and so it comes into use in Yale College.\"--_Woolsey's\nHist. Discourse_, Appendix, p. 117.\n\n\n[Greek: Hoi Aristoi.] Greek; literally, _the bravest_. At\nPrinceton College, the aristocrats, or would-be aristocrats, are\nso called.\n\n\n[Greek: Hoi Polloi.] Greek; literally, _the many_.\n\nSee POLLOI.\n\n\nOLD BURSCH. A name given in the German universities to a student\nduring his fourth term. Students of this term are also designated\n_Old Ones_.\n\nAs they came forward, they were obliged to pass under a pair of\nnaked swords, held crosswise by two _Old Ones_.--_Longfellow's\nHyperion_, p. 110.\n\n\nOLD HOUSE. A name given in the German universities to a student\nduring his fifth term.\n\n\nOPPONENCY. The opening of an academical disputation; the\nproposition of objections to a tenet; an exercise for a\ndegree.--_Todd_.\n\nMr. Webster remarks, \"I believe not used in America.\"\n\nIn the old times, the university discharged this duty [teaching]\nby means of the public readings or lectures,... and by the keeping\nof acts and _opponencies_--being certain _viv\u00e2 voce_ disputations\n--by the students.--_The English Universities and their Reforms_,\nin _Blackwood's Magazine_, Feb. 1849.\n\n\nOPPONENT. In universities and colleges, where disputations are\ncarried on, the opponent is, in technical application, the person\nwho begins the dispute by raising objections to some tenet or\ndoctrine.\n\n\nOPTIME. The title of those who stand in the second and third ranks\nof honors, immediately after the Wranglers, in the University of\nCambridge, Eng. They are called respectively _Senior_ and _Junior\nOptimes_.\n\nSee JUNIOR OPTIME, POLLOI, and SENIOR OPTIME.\n\n\nOPTIONAL. At some American colleges, the student is obliged to\npursue during a part of the course such studies as are prescribed.\nDuring another portion of the course, he is allowed to select from\ncertain branches those which he desires to follow. The latter are\ncalled _optional_ studies. In familiar conversation and writing,\nthe word _optional_ is used alone.\n\n  For _optional_ will come our way,\n  And lectures furnish time to play,\n  'Neath elm-tree shade to smoke all day.\n    _Songs, Biennial Jubilee_, Yale Coll., 1855.\n\n\nORIGINAL COMPOSITION. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., an\nessay or theme written by a student in Latin, Greek, or Hebrew, is\ntermed _original_ composition.\n\nComposition there is of course, but more Latin than Greek, and\nsome _original Composition_.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng.\nUniv._, Ed. 2d, p. 137.\n\n_Original Composition_--that is, Composition in the true sense of\nthe word--in the dead languages is not much practised.--_Ibid._,\np. 185.\n\n\nOVERSEER. The general government of the colleges in the United\nStates is vested in some instances in a Corporation, in others in\na Board of Trustees or Overseers, or, as in the case of Harvard\nCollege, in the two combined. The duties of the Overseers are,\ngenerally, to pass such orders and statutes as seem to them\nnecessary for the prosperity of the college whose affairs they\noversee, to dispose of its funds in such a manner as will be most\nadvantageous, to appoint committees to visit it and examine the\nstudents connected with it, to ratify the appointment of\ninstructors, and to hear such reports of the proceedings of the\ncollege government as require their concurrence.\n\n\nOXFORD. The cap worn by the members of the University of Oxford,\nEngland, is called an _Oxford_ or _Oxford cap_. The same is worn\nat some American colleges on Exhibition and Commencement Days. In\nshape, it is square and flat, covered with black cloth; from the\ncentre depends a tassel of black cord. It is further described in\nthe following passage.\n\n  My back equipped, it was not fair\n  My head should 'scape, and so, as square\n          As chessboard,\n  A _cap_ I bought, my skull to screen,\n  Of cloth without, and all within\n          Of pasteboard.\n    _Terr\u00e6-Filius_, Vol. II. p. 225.\n\n  Thunders of clapping!--As he bows, on high\n  \"Pr\u00e6ses\" his \"_Oxford_\" doffs, and bows reply.\n    _Childe Harvard_, p. 36.\n\nIt is sometimes called a _trencher cap_, from its shape.\n\nSee CAP.\n\n\nOXFORD-MIXED. Cloth such as is worn at the University of Oxford,\nEngland. The students in Harvard College were formerly required to\nwear this kind of cloth as their uniform. The color is given in\nthe following passage: \"By black-mixed (called also\n_Oxford-mixed_) is understood, black with a mixture of not more\nthan one twentieth, nor less than one twenty-fifth, part of\nwhite.\"--_Laws of Harv. Coll._, 1826, p. 25.\n\nHe generally dresses in _Oxford-mixed_ pantaloons, and a brown\nsurtout.--_Collegian_, p. 240.\n\nIt has disappeared along with Commons, the servility of Freshmen\nand brutality of Sophomores, the _Oxford-mixed_ uniform and\nbuttons of the same color.--_Harv. Mag._, Vol. I. p. 263.\n\n\nOXONIAN. A student or graduate of the University of Oxford,\nEngland.\n\n\n\n_P_.\n\n\nPANDOWDY BAND. A correspondent writing from Bowdoin College says:\n\"We use the word _pandowdy_, and we have a custom of\n_pandowdying_. The Pandowdy Band, as it is called, has no regular\nplace nor time of meeting. The number of performers varies from\nhalf a dozen and less to fifty or more. The instruments used are\ncommonly horns, drums, tin-kettles, tongs, shovels, triangles,\npumpkin-vines, &c. The object of the band is serenading Professors\nwho have rendered themselves obnoxious to students; and sometimes\nothers,--frequently tutors are entertained by 'heavenly music'\nunder their windows, at dead of night. This is regarded on all\nhands as an unequivocal expression of the feelings of the\nstudents.\n\n\"The band corresponds to the _Calliathump_ of Yale. Its name is a\nburlesque on the _Pandean Band_ which formerly existed in this\ncollege.\"\n\nSee HORN-BLOWING.\n\n\nPAPE. Abbreviated from PAPER, q.v.\n\n  Old Hamlen, the printer, he got out the _papes_.\n    _Presentation Day Songs_, Yale Coll., June 14, 1854.\n\n  But Soph'more \"_papes_,\" and Soph'more scrapes,\n    Have long since passed away.--_Ibid._\n\n\nPAPER. In the English Universities, a sheet containing certain\nquestions, to which answers are to be given, is called _a paper_.\n\n_To beat a paper_, is to get more than full marks for it. In\nexplanation of this \"apparent Hibernicism,\" Bristed remarks: \"The\nordinary text-books are taken as the standard of excellence, and a\nvery good man will sometimes express the operations more neatly\nand cleverly than they are worded in these books, in which case he\nis entitled to extra marks for style.\"--_Five Years in an Eng.\nUniv._, Ed. 2d, p. 238.\n\n2. This name is applied at Yale College to the printed scheme\nwhich is used at the Biennial Examinations. Also, at Harvard\nCollege, to the printed sheet by means of which the examination\nfor entrance is conducted.\n\n\nPARCHMENT. A diploma, from the substance on which it is usually\nprinted, is in familiar language sometimes called a _parchment_.\n\nThere are some, who, relying not upon the \"_parchment_ and seal\"\nas a passport to favor, bear that with them which shall challenge\nnotice and admiration.--_Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. III. p. 365.\n\n  The passer-by, unskilled in ancient lore,\n  Whose hands the ribboned _parchment_ never bore.\n    _Class Poem at Harv. Coll._, 1835, p. 7.\n\nSee SHEEPSKIN.\n\n\nPARIETAL. From Latin _paries_, a wall; properly, _a\npartition-wall_, from the root of _part_ or _pare_. Pertaining to\na wall.--_Webster_.\n\nAt Harvard College the officers resident within the College walls\nconstitute a permanent standing committee, called the Parietal\nCommittee. They have particular cognizance of all tardinesses at\nprayers and Sabbath services, and of all offences against good\norder and decorum. They are allowed to deduct from the rank of a\nstudent, not exceeding one hundred for one offence. In case any\noffence seems to them to require a higher punishment than\ndeduction, it is reported to the Faculty.--_Laws_, 1850, App.\n\n  Had I forgotten, alas! the stern _pari\u00e8tal_ monitions?\n    _Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 98.\n\nThe chairman of the Parietal Committee is often called the\n_Parietal Tutor_.\n\nI see them shaking their fists in the face of the _parietal\ntutor_.--_Oration before H.L. of I.O. of O.F._, 1849.\n\nThe members of the committee are called, in common parlance,\n_Parietals_.\n\nFour rash and inconsiderate proctors, two tutors, and five\n_parietals_, each with a mug and pail in his hand, in their great\nhaste to arrive at the scene of conflagration, ran over the Devil,\nand knocked him down stairs.--_Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 124.\n\n  And at the loud laugh of thy gurgling throat,\n  The _pari\u00e8tals_ would forget themselves.\n    _Ibid._, Vol. III. p. 399 et passim.\n\n  Did not thy starting eyeballs think to see\n  Some goblin _pari\u00e8tal_ grin at thee?\n    _Ibid._, Vol. IV. p. 197.\n\nThe deductions made by the Parietal Committee are also called\n_Parietals_.\n\n  How now, ye secret, dark, and tuneless chanters,\n  What is 't ye do? Beware the _pari\u00e8tals_.\n    _Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 44.\n\nReckon on the fingers of your mind the reprimands, deductions,\n_parietals_, and privates in store for you.--_Orat. H.L. of I.O.\nof O.F._, 1848.\n\nThe accent of this word is on the antepenult; by _poetic license_,\nin four of the passages above quoted, it is placed on the penult.\n\n\nPART. A literary appointment assigned to a student to be kept at\nan Exhibition or Commencement. In Harvard College as soon as the\nparts for an Exhibition or Commencement are assigned, the subjects\nand the names of the performers are given to some member of one of\nthe higher classes, who proceeds to read them to the students from\na window of one of the buildings, after proposing the usual \"three\ncheers\" for each of the classes, designating them by the years in\nwhich they are to graduate. As the name of each person who has a\npart assigned him is read, the students respond with cheers. This\nover, the classes are again cheered, the reader of the parts is\napplauded, and the crowd disperses except when the mock parts are\nread, or the officers of the Navy Club resign their trusts.\n\nReferring to the proceedings consequent upon the announcement of\nappointments, Professor Sidney Willard, in his late work, entitled\n\"Memories of Youth and Manhood,\" says of Harvard College: \"The\ndistribution of parts to be performed at public exhibitions by the\nstudents was, particularly for the Commencement exhibition, more\nthan fifty years ago, as it still is, one of the most exciting\nevents of College life among those immediately interested, in\nwhich parents and near friends also deeply sympathized with them.\nThese parts were communicated to the individuals appointed to\nperform them by the President, who gave to them, severally, a\npaper with the name of the person and of the part assigned, and\nthe subject to be written upon. But they were not then, as in\nrecent times, after being thus communicated by the President,\nproclaimed by a voluntary herald of stentorian lungs, mounted on\nthe steps of one of the College halls, to the assembled crowd of\nstudents. Curiosity, however, was all alive. Each one's part was\nsoon ascertained; the comparative merits of those who obtained the\nprizes were discussed in groups; prompt judgments were pronounced,\nthat A had received a higher prize than he could rightfully claim,\nand that B was cruelly wronged; that some were unjustly passed\nover, and others raised above them through partiality. But at\nwhatever length their discussion might have been prolonged, they\nwould have found it difficult in solemn conclave to adjust the\ndistribution to their own satisfaction, while severally they\ndeemed themselves competent to measure the degree in the scale of\nmerit to which each was entitled.\"--Vol. I. pp. 328, 329.\n\nI took but little pains with these exercises myself, lest I should\nappear to be anxious for \"_parts_.\"--_Monthly Anthology_, Boston,\n1804, Vol. I. p. 154.\n\nOften, too, the qualifications for a _part_ ... are discussed in\nthe fireside circles so peculiar to college.--_Harv. Reg._, p.\n378.\n\nThe refusal of a student to perform the _part_ assigned him will\nbe regarded as a high offence.--_Laws Univ. at Cam., Mass._, 1848,\np. 19.\n\nYoung men within the College walls are incited to good conduct and\ndiligence, by the system of awarding _parts_, as they are called,\nat the exhibitions which take place each year, and at the annual\nCommencement.--_Eliot's Sketch of Hist. Harv. Coll._, pp. 114,\n115.\n\nIt is very common to speak of _getting parts_.\n\n              Here\n    Are acres of orations, and so forth,\n    The glorious nonsense that enchants young hearts\n  With all the humdrumology of \"_getting parts_.\"\n    _Our Chronicle of '26_, Boston, 1827, p. 28.\n\nSee under MOCK-PART and NAVY CLUB.\n\n\nPASS. At Oxford, permission to receive the degree of B.A. after\npassing the necessary examinations.\n\nThe good news of the _pass_ will be a set-off against the few\nsmall debts.--_Collegian's Guide_, p. 254.\n\n\nPASS EXAMINATION. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., an\nexamination which is required for the B.A. degree. Of these\nexaminations there are three during a student's undergraduateship.\n\nEven the examinations which are disparagingly known as \"_pass_\"\nones, the Previous, the Poll, and (since the new regulations) the\nJunior Optime, require more than half marks on their\npapers.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 319.\n\n\nPASSMAN. At Oxford, one who merely passes his examination, and\nobtains testimonials for a degree, but is not able to obtain any\nhonors or distinctions. Opposed to CLASSMAN, q.v.\n\n\"Have the _passmen_ done their paper work yet?\" asked Whitbread.\n\"However, the schools, I dare say, will not be open to the\nclassmen till Monday.\"--_Collegian's Guide_, p. 309.\n\n\nPATRON. At some of the Colleges in the United States, the patron\nis appointed to take charge of the funds, and to regulate the\nexpenses, of students who reside at a distance. Formerly, students\nwho came within this provision were obliged to conform to the laws\nin reference to the patron; it is now left optional.\n\n\nP.D. An abbreviation of _Philosophi\u00e6 Doctor_, Doctor of\nPhilosophy. \"In the German universities,\" says Brande, \"the title\n'Doctor Philosophi\u00e6' has long been substituted for Baccalaureus\nArtium or Literarium.\"\n\n\nPEACH. To inform against; to communicate facts by way of\naccusation.\n\nIt being rather advisable to enter college before twelve, or to\nstay out all night, bribing the bed-maker next morning not to\n_peach_.--_Alma Mater_, Vol. I. p. 190.\n\n  When, by a little spying, I can reach\n  The height of my ambition, I must _peach_.\n    _The Gallinipper_, Dec. 1849.\n\n\nPEMBROKER. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., a member of\nPembroke College.\n\nThe _Pembroker_ was booked to lead the Tripos.--_Bristed's Five\nYears in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 158.\n\n\nPENE. Latin, _almost, nearly_. A candidate for admission to the\nFreshman Class is called a _Pene_, that is, _almost_ a Freshman.\n\n\nPENNILESS BENCH. Archdeacon Nares, in his Glossary, says of this\nphrase: \"A cant term for a state of poverty. There was a public\nseat so called in Oxford; but I fancy it was rather named from the\ncommon saying, than that derived from it.\"\n\n          Bid him bear up, he shall not\n  Sit long on _penniless bench_.\n    _Mass. City Mad._, IV. 1.\n\nThat everie stool he sate on was _pennilesse bench_, that his\nrobes were rags.--_Euphues and his Engl._, D. 3.\n\n\nPENSIONER. French, _pensionnaire_, one who pays for his board. In\nthe University of Cambridge, Eng., and in that of Dublin, a\nstudent of the second rank, who is not dependent on the foundation\nfor support, but pays for his board and other charges. Equivalent\nto COMMONER at Oxford, or OPPIDANT of Eton school.--_Brande. Gent.\nMag._, 1795.\n\n\nPERUVIAN. At the University of Vermont, a name by which the\nstudents designate a lady; e.g., \"There are two hundred\n_Peruvians_ at the Seminary\"; or, \"The _Peruvians_ are in the\nobservatory.\" As illustrative of the use of this word, a\ncorrespondent observes: \"If John Smith has a particular regard for\nany one of the Burlington ladies, and Tom Brown happens to meet\nthe said lady in his town peregrinations, when he returns to\nCollege, if he meets John Smith, he (Tom) says to John, 'In yonder\nvillage I espied a _Peruvian_'; by which John understands that Tom\nhas had the very great pleasure of meeting John's Dulcinea.\"\n\n\nPETTY COMPOUNDER. At Oxford, one who pays more than ordinary fees\nfor his degree.\n\n\"A _Petty Compounder_,\" says the Oxford University Calendar, \"must\npossess ecclesiastical income of the annual value of five\nshillings, or property of any other description amounting in all\nto the sum of five pounds, per annum.\"--Ed. 1832, p. 92.\n\n\nPHEEZE, or FEEZE. At the University of Vermont, to pledge. If a\nstudent is pledged to join any secret society, he is said to be\n_pheezed_ or _feezed_.\n\n\nPHI BETA KAPPA. The fraternity of the [Greek: Phi Beta Kappa] \"was\nimported,\" says Allyn in his Ritual, \"into this country from\nFrance, in the year 1776; and, as it is said, by Thomas Jefferson,\nlate President of the United States.\" It was originally chartered\nas a society in William and Mary College, in Virginia, and was\norganized at Yale College, Nov. 13th, 1780. By virtue of a charter\nformally executed by the president, officers, and members of the\noriginal society, it was established soon after at Harvard\nCollege, through the influence of Mr. Elisha Parmele, a graduate\nof the year 1778. The first meeting in Cambridge was held Sept.\n5th, 1781. The original Alpha of Virginia is now extinct.\n\n\"Its objects,\" says Mr. Quincy, in his History of Harvard\nUniversity, \"were the 'promotion of literature and friendly\nintercourse among scholars'; and its name and motto indicate, that\n'philosophy, including therein religion as well as ethics, is\nworthy of cultivation as the guide of life.' This society took an\nearly and a deep root in the University; its exercises became\npublic, and admittance into it an object of ambition; but the\n'discrimination' which its selection of members made among\nstudents, became an early subject of question and discontent. In\nOctober, 1789, a committee of the Overseers, of which John Hancock\nwas chairman, reported to that board, 'that there is an\ninstitution in the University, with the nature of which the\ngovernment is not acquainted, which tends to make a discrimination\namong the students'; and submitted to the board 'the propriety of\ninquiring into its nature and designs.' The subject occasioned\nconsiderable debate, and a petition, of the nature of a complaint\nagainst the society, by a number of the members of the Senior\nClass, having been presented, its consideration was postponed, and\nit was committed; but it does not appear from the records, that\nany further notice was taken of the petition. The influence of the\nsociety was upon the whole deemed salutary, since literary merit\nwas assumed as the principle on which its members were selected;\nand, so far, its influence harmonized with the honorable motives\nto exertion which have ever been held out to the students by the\nlaws and usages of the College. In process of time, its catalogue\nincluded almost every member of the Immediate Government, and\nfairness in the selection of members has been in a great degree\nsecured by the practice it has adopted, of ascertaining those in\nevery class who stand the highest, in point of conduct and\nscholarship, according to the estimates of the Faculty of the\nCollege, and of generally regarding those estimates. Having\ngradually increased in numbers, popularity, and importance, the\nday after Commencement was adopted for its annual celebration.\nThese occasions have uniformly attracted a highly intelligent and\ncultivated audience, having been marked by a display of learning\nand eloquence, and having enriched the literature of the country\nwith some of its brightest gems.\"--Vol. II. p. 398.\n\nThe immediate members of the society at Cambridge were formerly\naccustomed to hold semi-monthly meetings, the exercises of which\nwere such as are usual in literary associations. At present,\nmeetings are seldom held except for the purpose of electing\nmembers. Affiliated societies have been established at Dartmouth,\nUnion, and Bowdoin Colleges, at Brown and the Wesleyan\nUniversities, at the Western Reserve College, at the University of\nVermont, and at Amherst College, and they number among their\nmembers many of the most distinguished men in our country. The\nletters which constitute the name of the society are the initials\nof its motto, [Greek: Philosophia, Biou Kubernaetaes], Philosophy,\nthe Guide of Life.\n\nA further account of this society may be found in Allyn's Ritual\nof Freemasonry, ed. 1831, pp. 296-302.\n\n\nPHILISTINE. In Germany this name, or what corresponds to it in\nthat country, _Philister_, is given by the students to tradesmen\nand others not belonging to the university.\n\n  Und hat der Bursch kein Geld im Beutel,\n    So pumpt er die Philister an.\n\n  And has the Bursch his cash expended?\n    To sponge the _Philistine's_ his plan.\n    _The Crambambuli Song_.\n\nMr. Halliwell, in his Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words,\nsays of this word, \"a cant term applied to bailiffs, sheriffs'\nofficers, and drunkards.\" The idea of narrowmindedness, a\ncontracted mode of thinking, and meanness, is usually connected\nwith it, and in some colleges in the United States the name has\nbeen given to those whose characters correspond with this\ndescription.\n\nSee SNOB.\n\n\nPHRASING. Reciting by, or giving the words or phraseology of the\nbook, without understanding their meaning.\n\nNever should you allow yourself to think of going into the\nrecitation-room, and there trust to \"skinning it,\" as it is called\nin some colleges, or \"_phrasing_,\" as in others.--_Todd's Students\nManual_, p. 115.\n\n\nPIECE. \"Be it known, at Cambridge the various Commons and other\nplaces open for the gymnastic games, and the like public\namusements, are usually denominated _Pieces_.\"--_Alma Mater_,\nLondon, 1827, Vol. II. p. 49.\n\n\nPIETAS ET GRATULATIO. On the death of George the Second, and\naccession of George the Third, Mr. Bernard, Governor of\nMassachusetts, suggested to Harvard College \"the expediency of\nexpressing sympathy and congratulation on these events, in\nconformity with the practice of the English universities.\"\nAccordingly, on Saturday, March 14, 1761, there was placed in the\nChapel of Harvard College the following \"Proposal for a\nCelebration of the Death of the late King, and the Accession of\nhis present Majesty, by members of Harvard College.\"\n\n\"Six guineas are given for a prize of a guinea each to the Author\nof the best composition of the following several kinds:--1. A\nLatin Oration. 2. A Latin Poem, in hexameters. 3. A Latin Elegy,\nin hexameters and pentameters. 4 A Latin Ode. 5. An English Poem,\nin long verse. 6. An English Ode.\n\n\"Other Compositions, besides those that obtain the prizes, that\nare most deserving, will be taken particular notice of.\n\n\"The candidates are to be, all, Gentlemen who are now members of\nsaid College, or have taken a degree within seven years.\n\n\"Any Candidate may deliver two or more compositions of different\nkinds, but not more than one of the same kind.\n\n\"That Gentlemen may be more encouraged to try their talents upon\nthis occasion, it is proposed that the names of the Candidates\nshall be kept secret, except those who shall be adjudged to\ndeserve the prizes, or to have particular notice taken of their\nCompositions, and even these shall be kept secret if desired.\n\n\"For this purpose, each Candidate is desired to send his\nComposition to the President, on or before the first day of July\nnext, subscribed at the bottom with, a feigned name or motto, and,\nin a distinct paper, to write his own name and seal it up, writing\nthe feigned name or motto on the outside. None of the sealed\npapers containing the real names will be opened, except those that\nare adjudged to obtain the prizes or to deserve particular notice;\nthe rest will be burned sealed.\"\n\nThis proposal resulted in a work entitled, \"Pietas et Gratulatio\nCollegii Cantabrigiensis apud Novanglos.\" In January, 1762, the\nCorporation passed a vote, \"that the collections in prose and\nverse in several languages composed by some of the members of the\nCollege, on the motion of his Excellency our Governor, Francis\nBernard, Esq., on occasion of the death of his late Majesty, and\nthe accession of his present Majesty, be printed; and that his\nExcellency be desired to send, if he shall judge it proper, a copy\nof the same to Great Britain, to be presented to his Majesty, in\nthe name of the Corporation.\"\n\nQuincy thus speaks of the collection:--\"Governor Bernard not only\nsuggested the work, but contributed to it. Five of the thirty-one\ncompositions, of which it consists, were from his pen. The Address\nto the King is stated to have been written by him, or by\nLieutenant-Governor Hutchinson. Its style and turn of thought\nindicate the politician rather than the student, and savor of the\nsenate-chamber more than of the academy. The classical and poetic\nmerits of the work bear a fair comparison with those of European\nuniversities on similar occasions, allowance being made for the\ndifference in the state of science and literature in the\nrespective countries; and it is the most creditable specimen\nextant of the art of printing, at that period, in the Colonies.\nThe work is respectfully noticed by the 'Critical' and 'Monthly'\nReviews, and an Ode of the President is pronounced by both to be\nwritten in a style truly Horatian. In the address prefixed, the\nhope is expressed, that, as 'English colleges have had kings for\ntheir nursing fathers, and queens for their nursing mothers, this\nof North America might experience the royal munificence, and look\nup to the throne for favor and patronage.' In May, 1763, letters\nwere received from Jasper Mauduit, agent of the Province,\nmentioning 'the presentation to his Majesty of the book of verses\nfrom the College,' but the records give no indication of the\nmanner in which it was received. The thoughts of George the Third\nwere occupied, not with patronizing learning in the Colonies, but\nwith deriving revenue from them, and Harvard College was indebted\nto him for no act of acknowledgment or munificence.\"--_Quincy's\nHist. of Harv. Univ._, Vol. II. pp. 103-105.\n\nThe Charleston Courier, in an article entitled \"Literary\nSparring,\" says of this production:--\"When, as late as 1761,\nHarvard University sent forth, in Greek, Latin, and English, its\ncongratulations on the accession of George the Third to the\nthrone, it was called, in England, a curiosity.\"--_Buckingham's\nMiscellanies from the Public Journals_, Vol. I. p. 103.\n\nMr. Kendall, an English traveller, who visited Cambridge in the\nyear 1807-8, notices this work as follows:--\"In the year 1761, on\nthe death of George the Second and the accession of his present\nMajesty, Harvard College, or, as on this occasion it styles\nitself, Cambridge College, produced a volume of tributary verses,\nin English, Latin, and Greek, entitled, Pietas et Gratulatio\nCollegii Cantabrigiensis apud Novanglos; and this collection, the\nfirst received, and, as it has since appeared, the last to be\nreceived, from this seminary, by an English king, was cordially\nwelcomed by the critical journals of the time.\"--_Kendall's\nTravels_, Vol. III. p. 12.\n\nFor further remarks, consult the Monthly Review, Vol. XXIX. p. 22;\nCritical Review, Vol. X. p. 284; and the Monthly Anthology, Vol.\nVI. pp. 422-427; Vol. VII. p. 67.\n\n\nPILL. In English Cantab parlance, twaddle, platitude.--_Bristed_.\n\n\nPIMP. To do little, mean actions for the purpose of gaining favor\nwith a superior, as, in college, with an instructor. The verb with\nthis meaning is derived from the adjective _pimping_, which\nsignifies _little, petty_.\n\n  Did I not promise those who fished\n  And _pimped_ most, any part they wished.\n    _The Rebelliad_, p. 33.\n\n\nPISCATORIAN. From the Latin _piscator_, a fisherman. One who seeks\nor gains favor with a teacher by being officious toward him.\n\nThis word was much used at Harvard College in the year 1822, and\nfor a few years after; it is now very seldom heard.\n\nSee under FISH.\n\n\nPIT. In the University of Cambridge, the place in St. Mary's\nChurch reserved for the accommodation of Masters of Arts and\nFellow-Commoners is jocularly styled the _pit_.--_Grad. ad\nCantab._\n\n\nPLACE. In the older American colleges, the situation of a student\nin the class of which he was a member was formerly decided, in a\nmeasure, by the rank and circumstances of his family; this was\ncalled _placing_. The Hon. Paine Wingate, who graduated at Harvard\nCollege in the year 1759, says, in one of his letters to Mr.\nPeirce:--\n\n\"You inquire of me whether any regard was paid to a student on\naccount of the rank of his parent, otherwise than his being\narranged or _placed_ in the order of his class?\n\n\"The right of precedence on every occasion is an object of\nimportance in the state of society. And there is scarce anything\nwhich more sensibly affects the feelings of ambition than the rank\nwhich a man is allowed to hold. This excitement was generally\ncalled up whenever a class in college was _placed_. The parents\nwere not wholly free from influence; but the scholars were often\nenraged beyond bounds for their disappointment in their _place_,\nand it was some time before a class could be settled down to an\nacquiescence in their allotment. The highest and the lowest in the\nclass was often ascertained more easily (though not without some\ndifficulty) than the intermediate members of the class, where\nthere was room for uncertainty whose claim was best, and where\npartiality, no doubt, was sometimes indulged. But I must add,\nthat, although the honor of a _place_ in the class was chiefly\nideal, yet there were some substantial advantages. The higher part\nof the class had generally the most influential friends, and they\ncommonly had the best chambers in College assigned to them. They\nhad also a right to help themselves first at table in Commons, and\nI believe generally, wherever there was occasional precedence\nallowed, it was very freely yielded to the higher of the class by\nthose who were below.\n\n\"The Freshman Class was, in my day at college, usually _placed_\n(as it was termed) within six or nine months after their\nadmission. The official notice of this was given by having their\nnames written in a large German text, in a handsome style, and\nplaced in a conspicuous part of the College _Buttery_, where the\nnames of the four classes of undergraduates were kept suspended\nuntil they left College. If a scholar was expelled, his name was\ntaken from its place; or if he was degraded (which was considered\nthe next highest punishment to expulsion), it was moved\naccordingly. As soon as the Freshmen were apprised of their\nplaces, each one took his station according to the new arrangement\nat recitation, and at Commons, and in the Chapel, and on all other\noccasions. And this arrangement was never afterward altered,\neither in College or in the Catalogue, however the rank of their\nparents might be varied. Considering how much dissatisfaction was\noften excited by placing the classes (and I believe all other\ncolleges had laid aside the practice), I think that it was a\njudicious expedient in Harvard to conform to the custom of putting\nthe names in _alphabetical_ order, and they have accordingly so\nremained since the year 1772.\"--_Peirce's Hist. of Harv. Univ._,\npp. 308-811.\n\nIn his \"Annals of Yale College,\" Ebenezer Baldwin observes on the\nsubject: \"Doctor Dwight, soon after his election to the Presidency\n[1795], effected various important alterations in the collegiate\nlaws. The statutes of the institution had been chiefly adopted\nfrom those of European universities, where the footsteps of\nmonarchical regulation were discerned even in the walks of\nscience. So difficult was it to divest the minds of wise men of\nthe influence of venerable follies, that the printed catalogues of\nstudents, until the year 1768, were arranged according to\nrespectability of parentage.\"--p. 147.\n\nSee DEGRADATION.\n\n\nPLACET. Latin; literally, _it is pleasing_. In the University of\nCambridge, Eng., the term in which an _affirmative_ vote is given\nin the Senate-House.\n\n\nPLUCK. In the English universities, a refusal of testimonials for\na degree.\n\nThe origin of this word is thus stated in the Collegian's Guide:\n\"At the time of conferring a degree, just as the name of each man\nto be presented to the Vice-Chancellor is read out, a proctor\nwalks once up and down, to give any person who can object to the\ndegree an opportunity of signifying his dissent, which is done by\nplucking or pulling the proctor's gown. Hence another and more\ncommon mode of stopping a degree, by refusing the testamur, or\ncertificate of proficiency, is also called plucking.\"--p. 203.\n\nOn the same word, the author in another place remarks as follows:\n\"As long back as my memory will carry me, down to the present day,\nthere has been scarcely a monosyllable in our language which\nseemed to convey so stinging a reproach, or to let a man down in\nthe general estimation half as much, as this one word PLUCK.\"--p.\n288.\n\n\nPLUCKED. A cant term at the English universities, applied to those\nwho, for want of scholarship, are refused their testimonials for a\ndegree.--_Oxford Guide_.\n\nWho had at length scrambled through the pales and discipline of\nthe Senate-House without being _plucked_, and miraculously\nobtained the title of A.B.--_Gent. Mag._, 1795, p. 19.\n\nO what a misery is it to be _plucked_! Not long since, an\nundergraduate was driven mad by it, and committed suicide.--The\nterm itself is contemptible: it is associated with the meanest,\nthe most stupid and spiritless animals of creation. When we hear\nof a man being _plucked_, we think he is necessarily a\ngoose.--_Collegian's Guide_, p. 288.\n\n  Poor Lentulus, twice _plucked_, some happy day\n  Just shuffles through, and dubs himself B.A.\n    _The College_, in _Blackwood's Mag._, May, 1849.\n\n\nPOKER. At Oxford, Eng., a cant name for a _bedel_.\n\nIf the visitor see an unusual \"state\" walking about, in shape of\nan individual preceded by a quantity of _pokers_, or, which is the\nsame thing, men, that is bedels, carrying maces, jocularly called\n_pokers_, he may be sure that that individual is the\nVice-Chancellor. _Oxford Guide_, 1847, p. xii.\n\n\nPOLE. At Princeton and Union Colleges, to study hard, e.g. to\n_pole_ out the lesson. To _pole_ on a composition, to take pains\nwith it.\n\n\nPOLER. One who studies hard; a close student. As a boat is\nimpelled with _poles_, so is the student by _poling_, and it is\nperhaps from this analogy that the word _poler_ is applied to a\ndiligent student.\n\n\nPOLING. Close application to study; diligent attention to the\nspecified pursuits of college.\n\nA writer defines poling, \"wasting the midnight oil in company with\na wine-bottle, box of cigars, a 'deck of eucre,' and three kindred\nspirits,\" thus leaving its real meaning to be deduced from its\nopposite.--_Sophomore Independent_, Union College, Nov., 1854.\n\n\nPOLL. Abbreviated from POLLOI.\n\nSeveral declared that they would go out in \"the _Poll_\" (among the\n[Greek: polloi], those not candidates for honors).--_Bristed's\nFive Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 62.\n\nAt Cambridge, those candidates for a degree who do not aspire to\nhonors are said to go out in the _poll_; this being the\nabbreviated term to denote those who were classically designated\n[Greek: hoi polloi].--_The English Universities and their\nReforms_, in _Blackwood's Magazine_, Feb. 1849.\n\n\nPOLLOI. [Greek: Hoi Polloi], the many. In the University of\nCambridge, Eng., those who take their degree without any honor.\nAfter residing something more than three years at this University,\nat the conclusion of the tenth term comes off the final\nexamination in the Senate-House. He who passes this examination in\nthe best manner is called Senior Wrangler. \"Then follow about\ntwenty, all called Wranglers, arranged in the order of merit. Two\nother ranks of honors are there,--Senior Optimes and Junior\nOptimes, each containing about twenty. The last Junior Optime is\ntermed the Wooden Spoon. Then comes the list of the large\nmajority, called the _Hoy Polloi_, the first of whom is named the\n_Captain of the Poll_, and the twelve last, the Apostles.\"--_Alma\nMater_, Vol. I. p. 3.\n\n2. Used by students to denote the rabble.\n\n  On Learning's sea, his hopes of safety buoy,\n  He sinks for ever lost among the [Greek: hoi polloi].\n    _The Crayon_, Yale Coll., 1823, p. 21.\n\n\nPONS ASINORUM. Vide ASSES' BRIDGE.\n\n\nPONY. A translation. So called, it may be, from the fleetness and\nease with which a skilful rider is enabled to pass over places\nwhich to a common plodder present many obstacles.\n\nOne writer jocosely defines this literary nag as \"the animal that\nambulates so delightfully through all the pleasant paths of\nknowledge, from whose back the student may look down on the weary\npedestrian, and 'thank his stars' that 'he who runs may\nread.'\"--_Sophomore Independent_, Union College, Nov. 1854\n\nAnd stick to the law, Tom, without a _Pony_.--_Harv. Reg._, p.\n194.\n\n  And when leaving, leave behind us\n    _Ponies_ for a lower class;\n  _Ponies_, which perhaps another,\n    Toiling up the College hill,\n  A forlorn, a \"younger brother,\"\n    \"Riding,\" may rise higher still.\n    _Poem before the Y.H. Soc._, 1849, p. 12.\n\nTheir lexicons, _ponies_, and text-books were strewed round their\nlamps on the table.--_A Tour through College_, Boston, 1832, p.\n30.\n\nIn the way of \"_pony_,\" or translation, to the Greek of Father\nGriesbach, the New Testament was wonderfully convenient.--_New\nEngland Magazine_, Vol. III. p. 208.\n\nThe notes are just what notes should be; they are not a _pony_,\nbut a guide.--_Southern Lit. Mess._\n\nInstead of plodding on foot along the dusty, well-worn McAdam of\nlearning, why will you take nigh cuts on _ponies_?--_Yale Lit.\nMag._, Vol. XIII. p. 281.\n\nThe \"board\" requests that all who present themselves will bring\nalong the _ponies_ they have used since their first entrance into\nCollege.--_The Gallinipper_, Dec. 1849.\n\n  The tutors with _ponies_ their lessons were learning.\n    _Yale Banger_, Nov. 1850.\n\nWe do think, that, with such a team of \"_ponies_\" and load of\ncommentators, his instruction might evince more accuracy.--_Yale\nTomahawk_, Feb. 1851.\n\n  In knowledge's road ye are but asses,\n    While we on _ponies_ ride before.\n    _Songs of Yale_, 1853, p. 7.\n\n\nPONY. To use a translation.\n\nWe learn that they do not _pony_ their lessons.--_Yale Tomahawk_,\nMay, 1852.\n\n  If you _pony_, he will see,\n  And before the Faculty\n  You will surely summoned be.\n    _Songs of Yale_, 1853, p. 23.\n\n\nPOPPING. At William and Mary College, getting the advantage over\nanother in argument is called _popping_ him.\n\n\nPOPULARITY. In the college _use_, favor of one's classmates, or of\nthe members of all the classes, generally. Nowhere is this term\nemployed so often, and with so much significance, as among\ncollegians. The first wish of the Freshman is to be popular, and\nthe desire does not leave him during all his college life. For\nremarks on this subject, see the Literary Miscellany, Vol. II. p.\n56; Amherst Indicator, Vol. II. p. 123, _et passim_.\n\n\nPORTIONIST. One who has a certain academical allowance or portion.\n--_Webster_.\n\nSee POSTMASTER.\n\n\nPOSTED. Rejected in a college examination. Term used at the\nUniversity of Cambridge, Eng.--_Bristed_.\n\nFifty marks will prevent one from being \"_posted_\" but there are\nalways two or three too stupid as well as idle to save their\n\"_Post_.\" These drones are _posted_ separately, as \"not worthy to\nbe classed,\" and privately slanged afterwards by the Master and\nSeniors. Should a man be _posted_ twice in succession, he is\ngenerally recommended to try the air of some Small College, or\ndevote his energies to some other walk of life.--_Bristed's Five\nYears in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 74.\n\n\nPOSTMASTER. In Merton College, Oxford, the scholars who are\nsupported on the foundation are called Postmasters, or Portionists\n(_Portionist\u00e6_).--_Oxf. Guide_.\n\nThe _postmasters_ anciently performed the duties of choristers,\nand their payment for this duty was six shillings and fourpence\nper annum.--_Oxford Guide_, Ed. 1847, p. 36.\n\n\nPOW-WOW. At Yale College on the evening of Presentation Day, the\nSeniors being excused from further attendance at prayers, the\nclasses who remain change their seats in the chapel. It was\nformerly customary for the Freshmen, on taking the Sophomore\nseats, to signalize the event by appearing at chapel in grotesque\ndresses. The impropriety of such conduct has abolished this\ncustom, but on the recurrence of the day, a uniformity is\nsometimes observable in the paper collars or white neck-cloths of\nthe in-coming Sophomores, as they file in at vespers. During the\nevening, the Freshmen are accustomed to assemble on the steps of\nthe State-House, and celebrate the occasion by speeches, a\ntorch-light procession, and the accompaniment of a band of music.\n\nThe students are forbidden to occupy the State-House steps on the\nevening of Presentation Day, since the Faculty design hereafter to\nhave a _Pow-wow_ there, as on the last.--_Burlesque Catalogue_,\nYale Coll., 1852-53, p. 35.\n\n\nPR\u00c6SES. The Latin for President.\n\n  \"_Pr\u00e6ses_\" his \"Oxford\" doffs, and bows reply.\n    _Childe Harvard_, p. 36.\n\n  Did not the _Pr\u00e6ses_ himself most kindly and oft reprimand me?\n    _Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 98.\n\n    --the good old _Pr\u00e6ses_ cries,\n  While the tears stand in his eyes,\n  \"You have passed and are classed\n  With the boys of 'Twenty-Nine.'\"\n    _Knick. Mag._, Vol. XLV. p. 195.\n\n\nPRAYERS. In colleges and universities, the religious exercises\nperformed in the chapel at morning and evening, at which all the\nstudents are required to attend.\n\nThese exercises in some institutions were formerly much more\nextended than at present, and must on some occasions have been\nvery onerous. Mr. Quincy, in his History of Harvard University,\nwriting in relation to the customs which were prevalent in the\nCollege at the beginning of the last century, says on this\nsubject: \"Previous to the accession of Leverett to the Presidency,\nthe practice of obliging the undergraduates to read portions of\nthe Scripture from Latin or English into Greek, at morning and\nevening service, had been discontinued. But in January and May,\n1708, this 'ancient and laudable practice was revived' by the\nCorporation. At morning prayers all the undergraduates were\nordered, beginning with the youngest, to read a verse out of the\nOld Testament from the Hebrew into Greek, except the Freshmen, who\nwere permitted to use their English Bibles in this exercise; and\nat evening service, to read from the New Testament out of the\nEnglish or Latin translation into Greek, whenever the President\nperformed this service in the Hall.\" In less than twenty years\nafter the revival of these exercises, they were again\ndiscontinued. The following was then established as the order of\nmorning and evening worship: \"The morning service began with a\nshort prayer; then a chapter of the Old Testament was read, which\nthe President expounded, and concluded with prayer. The evening\nservice was the same, except that the chapter read was from the\nNew Testament, and on Saturday a psalm was sung in the Hall. On\nSunday, exposition was omitted; a psalm was sung morning and\nevening; and one of the scholars, in course, was called upon to\nrepeat, in the evening, the sermons preached on that day.\"--Vol.\nI. pp. 439, 440.\n\nThe custom of singing at prayers on Sunday evening continued for\nmany years. In a manuscript journal kept during the year 1793,\nnotices to the following effect frequently occur. \"Feb. 24th,\nSunday. The singing club performed Man's Victory, at evening\nprayers.\" \"Sund. April 14th, P.M. At prayers the club performed\nBrandon.\" \"May 19th, Sabbath, P.M. At prayers the club performed\nHolden's Descend ye nine, etc.\" Soon after this, prayers were\ndiscontinued on Sunday evenings.\n\nThe President was required to officiate at prayers, but when\nunable to attend, the office devolved on one of the Tutors, \"they\ntaking their turns by course weekly.\" Whenever they performed this\nduty \"for any considerable time,\" they were \"suitably rewarded for\ntheir service.\" In one instance, in 1794, all the officers being\nabsent, Mr., afterwards Prof. McKean, then an undergraduate,\nperformed the duties of chaplain. In the journal above referred\nto, under date of Feb. 22, 1793, is this note: \"At prayers, I\ndeclaimed in Latin\"; which would seem to show, that this season\nwas sometimes made the occasion for exercises of a literary as\nwell as religious character.\n\nIn a late work by Professor Sidney Willard, he says of his father,\nwho was President of Harvard College: \"In the early period of his\nPresidency, Mr. Willard not unfrequently delivered a sermon at\nevening prayers on Sunday. In the year 1794, I remember he\npreached once or twice on that evening, but in the next year and\nonward he discontinued the service. His predecessor used to\nexpound passages of Scripture as a part of the religious service.\nThese expositions are frequently spoken of in the diary of Mr.\nCaleb Gannett when he was a Tutor. On Saturday evening and Sunday\nmorning and evening, generally the College choir sang a hymn or an\nanthem. When these Sunday services were observed in the Chapel,\nthe Faculty and students worshipped on Lord's day, at the stated\nhours of meeting, in the Congregational or the Episcopal Church.\"\n--_Memories of Youth and Manhood_, Vol. I. pp. 137, 138.\n\nAt Yale College, one of the earliest laws ordains that \"all\nundergraduates shall publicly repeat sermons in the hall in their\ncourse, and also bachelors; and be constantly examined on Sabbaths\n[at] evening prayer.\"--_Pres. Woolsey's Discourse_, p. 59.\n\nPrayers at this institution were at one period regulated by the\nfollowing rule. \"The President, or in his Absence, one of the\nTutors in their Turn, shall constantly pray in the Chapel every\nMorning and Evening, and read a Chapter, or some suitable Portion\nof Scripture, unless a Sermon, or some Theological Discourse shall\nthen be delivered. And every Member of College is obliged to\nattend, upon the Penalty of one Penny for every Instance of\nAbsence, without a sufficient Reason, and a half Penny for being\ntardy, i.e. when any one shall come in after the President, or go\nout before him.\"--_Laws Yale Coll._, 1774, p. 5.\n\nA writer in the American Literary Magazine, in noticing some of\nthe evils connected with the American college system, describes\nvery truthfully, in the following question, a scene not at all\nnovel in student life. \"But when the young man is compelled to\nrise at an unusually early hour to attend public prayers, under\nall kinds of disagreeable circumstances; when he rushes into the\nchapel breathless, with wet feet, half dressed, and with the\nprospect of a recitation immediately to succeed the devotions,--is\nit not natural that he should be listless, or drowsy, or excited\nabout his recitation, during the whole sacred exercise?\"--Vol. IV.\np. 517.\n\nThis season formerly afforded an excellent opportunity, for those\nwho were so disposed, to play off practical jokes on the person\nofficiating. On one occasion, at one of our colleges, a goose was\ntied to the desk by some of the students, intended as emblematic\nof the person who was accustomed to occupy that place. But the\nlaugh was artfully turned upon them by the minister, who, seeing\nthe bird with his head directed to the audience, remarked, that he\nperceived the young gentlemen were for once provided with a parson\nadmirably suited to their capacities, and with these words left\nthem to swallow his well-timed sarcasm. On another occasion, a ram\nwas placed in the pulpit, with his head turned to the door by\nwhich the minister usually entered. On opening the door, the\nanimal, diving between the legs of the fat shepherd, bolted down\nthe pulpit stairs, carrying on his back the sacred load, and with\nit rushed out of the chapel, leaving the assemblage to indulge in\nthe reflections excited by the expressive looks of the astonished\nbeast, and of his more astonished rider.\n\nThe Bible was often kept covered, when not in use, with a cloth.\nIt was formerly a very common trick to place under this cloth a\npewter plate obtained from the commons hall, which the minister,\non uncovering, would, if he were a shrewd man, quietly slide under\nthe desk, and proceed as usual with the exercises.\n\nAt Harvard College, about the year 1785, two Indian images were\nmissing from their accustomed place on the top of the gate-posts\nwhich stood in front of the dwelling of a gentleman of Cambridge.\nAt the same time the Bible was taken from the Chapel, and another,\nwhich was purchased to supply its place, soon followed it, no one\nknew where. One day, as a tutor was passing by the room of a\nstudent, hearing within an uncommonly loud noise, he entered, as\nwas his right and office. There stood the occupant,[59] holding in\nhis hands one of the Chapel Bibles, while before him on the table\nwere placed the images, to which he appeared to be reading, but in\nreality was vociferating all kinds of senseless gibberish. \"What\nis the meaning of this noise?\" inquired the tutor in great anger.\n\"Propagating the _Gospel_ among the _Indians_, Sir,\" replied the\nstudent calmly.\n\nWhile Professor Ashur Ware was a tutor in Harvard College, he in\nhis turn, when the President was absent, officiated at prayers.\nInclined to be longer in his devotions than was thought necessary\nby the students, they were often on such occasions seized with\nviolent fits of sneezing, which generally made themselves audible\nin the word \"A-a-shur,\" \"A-a-shur.\"\n\nThe following lines, written by William C. Bradley when an\nundergraduate at Harvard College, cannot fail to be appreciated by\nthose who have been cognizant of similar scenes and sentiments in\ntheir own experience of student life.\n\n \"Hark! the morning Bell is pealing\n    Faintly on the drowsy ear,\n  Far abroad the tidings dealing,\n    Now the hour of prayer is near.\n  To the pious Sons of Harvard,\n    Starting from the land of Nod,\n  Loudly comes the rousing summons,\n    Let us run and worship God.\n\n \"'T is the hour for deep contrition,\n    'T is the hour for peaceful thought,\n  'T is the hour to win the blessing\n    In the early stillness sought;\n  Kneeling in the quiet chamber,\n    On the deck, or on the sod,\n  In the still and early morning,\n    'T is the hour to worship God.\n\n  \"But don't _you_ stop to pray in secret,\n    No time for _you_ to worship there,\n  The hour approaches, 'Tempus fugit,'\n    Tear your shirt or miss a prayer.\n  Don't stop to wash, don't stop to button,\n    Go the ways your fathers trod;\n  Leg it, put it, rush it, streak it,\n    _Run_ and worship God.\n\n  \"On the staircase, stamping, tramping,\n    Bounding, sounding, down you go;\n  Jumping, bumping, crashing, smashing,\n    Jarring, bruising, heel and toe.\n  See your comrades far before you\n    Through the open door-way jam,\n  Heaven and earth! the bell is stopping!\n    Now it dies in silence--d**n!\"\n\n\nPRELECTION. Latin, _pr\u00e6lectio_. A lecture or discourse read in\npublic or to a select company.\n\nFurther explained by Dr. Popkin: \"In the introductory schools, I\nthink, _Prelections_ were given by the teachers to the learners.\nAccording to the meaning of the word, the Preceptor went before,\nas I suppose, and explained and probably interpreted the lesson or\nlection; and the scholar was required to receive it in memory, or\nin notes, and in due time to render it in recitation.\"--_Memorial\nof John S. Popkin, D.D._, p. 19.\n\n\nPRELECTOR. Latin, _pr\u00e6lector_. One who reads an author to others\nand adds explanations; a reader; a lecturer.\n\nTheir so famous a _prelectour_ doth teach.--_Sheldon, Mir. of\nAnti-Christ_, p. 38.\n\nIf his reproof be private, or with the cathedrated authority of a\n_pr\u00e6lector_ or public reader.--_Whitlock, Mann. of the English_,\np. 385.\n\n2. Same as FATHER, which see.\n\n\nPREPOSITOR. Latin. A scholar appointed by the master to overlook\nthe rest.\n\nAnd when requested for the salt-cellar, I handed it with as much\ntrepidation as a _pr\u00e6poster_ gives the Doctor a list, when he is\nconscious of a mistake in the excuses.--_The Etonian_, Vol. II. p.\n281.\n\n\nPRESENTATION DAY. At Yale College, Presentation Day is the time\nwhen the Senior Class, having finished the prescribed course of\nstudy, and passed a satisfactory examination, are _presented_ by\nthe examiners to the President, as properly qualified to be\nadmitted to the degree of Bachelor of Arts. A distinguished\nprofessor of the institution where this day is observed has kindly\nfurnished the following interesting historical account of this\nobservance.\n\n\"This presentation,\" he writes, \"is a ceremony of long standing.\nIt has certainly existed for more than a century. It is very early\nalluded to, not as a _novelty_, but as an established custom.\nThere is now less formality on such occasions, but the substantial\nparts of the exercises are retained. The examination is now begun\non Saturday and finished on Tuesday, and the day after, Wednesday,\nsix weeks before the public Commencement, is the day of\nPresentation. There have sometimes been literary exercises on that\nday by one or more of the candidates, and sometimes they have been\nomitted. I have in my possession a Latin Oration, what, I suppose,\nwas called a _Cliosophic Oration_, pronounced by William Samuel\nJohnson in 1744, at the presentation of his class. Sometimes a\nmember of the class exhibited an English Oration, which was\nresponded to by some one of the College Faculty, generally by one\nwho had been the principal instructor of the class presented. A\ncase of this kind occurred in 1776, when Mr., afterwards President\nDwight, responded to the class orator in an address, which, being\ndelivered the same July in which Independence was declared, drew,\nfrom its patriotic allusions, as well as for other reasons,\nunusual attention. It was published,--a rare thing at that period.\nAnother response was delivered in 1796, by J. Stebbins, Tutor,\nwhich was likewise published. There has been no exhibition of the\nkind since. For a few years past, there have been an oration and a\npoem exhibited by members of the graduating class, at the time of\npresentation. The appointments for these exercises are made by the\nclass.\n\n\"So much of an exhibition as there was at the presentation in 1778\nhas not been usual. More was then done, probably, from the fact,\nthat for several years, during the Revolutionary war, there was no\npublic Commencement. Perhaps it should be added, that, so far back\nas my information extends, after the literary exercises of\nPresentation Day, there has always been a dinner, or collation, at\nwhich the College Faculty, graduates, invited guests, and the\nSenior Class have been present.\"\n\nA graduate of the present year[60] writes more particularly in\nrelation to the observances of the day at the present time. \"In\nthe morning the Senior Class are met in one of the lecture-rooms\nby the chairman of the Faculty and the senior Tutor. The latter\nreads the names of those who have passed a satisfactory\nexamination, and are to be recommended for degrees. The Class then\nadjourn to the College Chapel, where the President and some of the\nProfessors are waiting to receive them. The senior Tutor reads the\nnames as before, after which Professor Kingsley recommends the\nClass to the President and Faculty for the degree of B.A., in a\nLatin discourse. The President then responds in the same tongue,\nand addresses a few words of counsel to the Class.\n\n\"These exercises are followed by the Poem and Oration, delivered\nby members of the Class chosen for these offices by the Class.\nThen comes the dinner, given in one of the lecture-rooms. After\nthis the Class meet in the College yard, and spend the afternoon\nin smoking (the old clay pipe is used, but no cigars) and singing.\nThus ends the active life of our college days.\"\n\n\"Presentation Day,\" says the writer of the preface to the \"Songs\nof Yale,\" \"is the sixth Wednesday of the Summer Term, when the\ngraduating Class, after having passed their second 'Biennial,' are\npresented to the President as qualified for the first degree, or\nthe B.A. After this 'presentation,' a farewell oration and poem\nare pronounced by members of the Class, previously elected by\ntheir classmates for the purpose. After a public dinner, they seat\nthemselves under the elms before the College, and smoke and sing\nfor the last time together. Each has his pipe, and 'they who\nnever' smoked 'before' now smoke, or seem to. The exercises are\nclosed with a procession about the buildings, bidding each\nfarewell.\" 1853, p. 4.\n\nThis last smoke is referred to in the following lines:--\n\n \"Green elms are waving o'er us,\n    Green grass beneath our feet,\n  The ring is round, and on the ground\n    We sit a class complete.\"\n    _Presentation Day Songs_, June 14, 1854.\n\n \"It is a very jolly thing,\n  Our sitting down in this great ring,\n  To smoke our pipes and loudly sing.\"--_Ibid._\n\nPleasant reference is had to some of the more modern features of\nPresentation Day, in the annexed extract from the \"Yale Literary\nMagazine\":--\n\n\"There is one spot where the elms stretch their long arms, not 'in\nquest of thought,' but as though they would afford their friendly\nshade to make pleasant the last scene of the academic life. Seated\nin a circle in this place, which has been so often trampled by the\n'stag-dance' of preceding classes, and made hallowed by\nassociations which will cling around such places, are the present\ngraduates. They have met together for the last time as a body, for\nthey will not all be present at the closing ceremony of\nCommencement, nor all answer to the muster in the future Class\nreunions. It is hard to tell whether such a ceremony should be sad\nor joyous, for, despite the boisterous merriment and exuberance\nwhich arises from the prospect of freedom, there is something\ntender in the thought of meeting for the last time, to break\nstrong ties, and lose individuality as a Class for ever.\n\n\"In the centre of the circle are the Class band, with horns,\nflutes, and violins, braying, piping, or saw-filing, at the option\nof the owners,--toot,--toot,--bum,--bang,--boo-o-o,--in a most\nmelodious discord. Songs are distributed, pipes filled, and the\nsmoke cloud rises, trembles as the chorus of a hundred voices\nrings out in a merry cadence, and then, breaking, soars off,--a\nfit emblem of the separation of those at whose parting it received\nits birth.\n\n\"'Braxton on the history of the Class!'\n\n\"'The Class history!--Braxton!--Braxton!'\n\n\"'In a moment, gentlemen,'--and our hero mounts upon a cask, and\nproceeds to give in burlesque a description of Class exploits and\nthe wonderful success of its _early_ graduates. Speeches follow,\nand the joke, and song, till the lengthening shadows bring a\nwarning, and a preparation for the final ceremony. The ring is\nspread out, the last pipes smoked in College laid down, and the\n'stag-dance,' with its rush, and their destruction ended. Again\nthe ring forms, and each classmate moves around it to grasp each\nhand for the last time, and exchange a parting blessing.\n\n\"The band strike up, and the long procession march around the\nCollege, plant their ivy, and return to cheer the\nbuildings.\"--Vol. XX. p. 228.\n\nThe following song was written by Francis Miles Finch of the class\nof 1849, for the Presentation Day of that year.\n\n \"Gather ye smiles from the ocean isles,\n    Warm hearts from river and fountain,\n  A playful chime from the palm-tree clime,\n    From the land of rock and mountain:\n      And roll the song in waves along,\n        For the hours are bright before us,\n      And grand and hale are the elms of Yale,\n        Like fathers, bending o'er us.\n\n \"Summon our band from the prairie land,\n    From the granite hills, dark frowning,\n  From the lakelet blue, and the black bayou,\n    From the snows our pine peaks crowning;\n      And pour the song in joy along,\n        For the hours are bright before us,\n      And grand and hale are the towers of Yale,\n        Like giants, watching o'er us.\n\n \"Count not the tears of the long-gone years,\n    With their moments of pain and sorrow,\n  But laugh in the light of their memories bright,\n    And treasure them all for the morrow;\n      Then roll the song in waves along,\n        While the hours are bright before us,\n      And high and hale are the spires of Yale,\n        Like guardians, towering o'er us.\n\n \"Dream of the days when the rainbow rays\n    Of Hope on our hearts fell lightly,\n  And each fair hour some cheerful flower\n    In our pathway blossomed brightly;\n      And pour the song in joy along,\n       Ere the moments fly before us,\n     While portly and hale the sires of Yale\n        Are kindly gazing o'er us.\n\n \"Linger again in memory's glen,\n    'Mid the tendrilled vines of feeling,\n  Till a voice or a sigh floats softly by,\n    Once more to the glad heart stealing;\n      And roll the song on waves along,\n        For the hours are bright before us,\n      And in cottage and vale are the brides of Yale,\n        Like angels, watching o'er us.\n\n \"Clasp ye the hand 'neath the arches grand\n    That with garlands span our greeting,\n  With a silent prayer that an hour as fair\n    May smile on each after meeting;\n      And long may the song, the joyous song,\n    Roll on in the hours before us,\n      And grand and hale may the elms of Yale,\n        For many a year, bend o'er us.\"\n\nIn the Appendix to President Woolsey's Historical Discourse\ndelivered before the Graduates of Yale College, is the following\naccount of Presentation Day, in 1778.\n\n\"The Professor of Divinity, two ministers of the town, and another\nminister, having accompanied me to the Library about 1, P.M., the\nmiddle Tutor waited upon me there, and informed me that the\nexamination was finished, and they were ready for the\npresentation. I gave leave, being seated in the Library between\nthe above ministers. Hereupon the examiners, preceded by the\nProfessor of Mathematics, entered the Library, and introduced\nthirty candidates, a beautiful sight! The Diploma Examinatorium,\nwith the return and minutes inscribed upon it, was delivered to\nthe President, who gave it to the Vice-Bedellus, directing him to\nread it. He read it and returned it to the President, to be\ndeposited among the College archives _in perpetuam rei memoriam_.\nThe senior Tutor thereupon made a very eloquent Latin speech, and\npresented the candidates for the honors of the College. This\npresentation the President in a Latin speech accepted, and\naddressed the gentlemen examiners and the candidates, and gave the\nlatter liberty to return home till Commencement. Then dismissed.\n\n\"At about 3, P.M., the afternoon exercises were appointed to\nbegin. At 3-1/2, the bell tolled, and the assembly convened in the\nchapel, ladies and gentlemen. The President introduced the\nexercises in a Latin speech, and then delivered the Diploma\nExaminatorium to the Vice-Bedellus, who, standing on the pulpit\nstairs, read it publicly. Then succeeded,--\n\n  Cliosophic Oration in Latin, by Sir Meigs.\n  Poetical Composition in English, by Sir Barlow.\n  Dialogue, English, by Sir Miller, Sir Chaplin, Sir Ely.\n  Cliosophic Oration, English, by Sir Webster.\n  Disputation, English, by Sir Wolcott, Sir Swift, Sir Smith.\n  Valedictory Oration, English, by Sir Tracy.\n  An Anthem. Exercises two hours.\"--p. 121.\n\n\nPRESIDENT. In the United States, the chief officer of a college or\nuniversity. His duties are, to preside at the meetings of the\nFaculty, at Exhibitions and Commencements, to sign the diplomas or\nletters of degree, to carry on the official correspondence, to\naddress counsel and instruction to the students, and to exercise a\ngeneral superintendence in the affairs of the college over which\nhe presides.\n\nAt Harvard College it was formerly the duty of the President \"to\ninspect the manners of the students, and unto his morning and\nevening prayers to join some exposition of the chapters which they\nread from Hebrew into Greek, from the Old Testament, in the\nmorning, and out of English into Greek, from the New Testament, in\nthe evening.\" At the same College, in the early part of the last\ncentury, Mr. Wadsworth, the President, states, \"that he expounded\nthe Scriptures, once eleven, and sometimes eight or nine times in\nthe course of a week.\"--_Harv. Reg._, p. 249, and _Quincy's Hist.\nHarv. Univ._, Vol. I. p. 440.\n\nSimilar duties were formerly required of the President at other\nAmerican colleges. In some, at the present day, he performs the\nduties of a professor in connection with those of his own office,\nand presides at the daily religious exercises in the Chapel.\n\nThe title of President is given to the chief officer in some of\nthe colleges of the English universities.\n\n\nPRESIDENT'S CHAIR. At Harvard College, there is in the Library an\nantique chair, venerable by age and association, which is used\nonly on Commencement Day, when it is occupied by the President\nwhile engaged in delivering the diplomas for degrees. \"Vague\nreport,\" says Quincy, \"represents it to have been brought to the\nCollege during the presidency of Holyoke, as the gift of the Rev.\nEbenezer Turell of Medford (the author of the Life of Dr. Colman).\nTurell was connected by marriage with the Mathers, by some of whom\nit is said to have been brought from England.\" Holyoke was\nPresident from 1737 to 1769. The round knobs on the chair were\nturned by President Holyoke, and attached to it by his own hands.\nIn the picture of this honored gentleman, belonging to the\nCollege, he is painted in the old chair, which seems peculiarly\nadapted by its strength to support the weight which fills it.\n\nBefore the erection of Gore Hall, the present library building,\nthe books of the College were kept in Harvard Hall. In the same\nbuilding, also, was the Philosophy Chamber, where the chair\nusually stood for the inspection of the curious. Over this domain,\nfrom the year 1793 to 1800, presided Mr. Samuel Shapleigh, the\nLibrarian. He was a dapper little bachelor, very active and\nremarkably attentive to the ladies who visited the Library,\nespecially the younger portion of them. When ushered into the room\nwhere stood the old chair, he would watch them with eager eyes,\nand, as soon as one, prompted by a desire of being able to say, \"I\nhave sat in the President's Chair,\" took this seat, rubbing his\nhands together, he would exclaim, in great glee, \"A forfeit! a\nforfeit!\" and demand from the fair occupant a kiss, a fee which,\nwhether refused or not, he very seldom failed to obtain.[61]\n\nThis custom, which seems now-a-days to be going out of fashion, is\nmentioned by Mr. William Biglow, in a poem before the Phi Beta\nKappa Society, recited in their dining-hall, August 29, 1811.\nSpeaking of Commencement Day and its observances, he says:--\n\n \"Now young gallants allure their favorite fair\n  To take a seat in Presidential chair;\n  Then seize the long-accustomed fee, the bliss\n  Of the half ravished, half free-granted kiss.\"\n\nThe editor of Mr. Peirce's History of Harvard University publishes\nthe following curious extracts from Horace Walpole's Private\nCorrespondence, giving a description of some antique chairs found\nin England, exactly of the same construction with the College\nchair; a circumstance which corroborates the supposition that this\nalso was brought from England.\n\nHORACE WALPOLE TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.\n\n\"_Strawberry Hill, August_ 20, 1761.\n\n\"Dickey Bateman has picked up a whole cloister full of old chairs\nin Herefordshire. He bought them one by one, here and there in\nfarm-houses, for three and sixpence and a crown apiece. They are\nof wood, the seats triangular, the backs, arms, and legs loaded\nwith turnery. A thousand to one but there are plenty up and down\nCheshire, too. If Mr. and Mrs. Wetenhall, as they ride or drive\nout, would now and then pick up such a chair, it would oblige me\ngreatly. Take notice, no two need be of the same\npattern.\"--_Private Correspondence of Horace Walpole, Earl of\nOrford_, Vol. II. p. 279.\n\nHORACE WALPOLE TO THE REV. MR. COLE.\n\n\"_Strawberry Hill, March_ 9, 1765.\n\n\"When you go into Cheshire, and upon your ramble, may I trouble\nyou with a commission? but about which you must promise me not to\ngo a step out of your way. Mr. Bateman has got a cloister at old\nWindsor furnished with ancient wooden chairs, most of them\ntriangular, but all of various patterns, and carved and turned in\nthe most uncouth and whimsical forms. He picked them up one by\none, for two, three, five, or six shillings apiece, from different\nfarm-houses in Herefordshire. I have long envied and coveted them.\nThere may be such in poor cottages in so neighboring a county as\nCheshire. I should not grudge any expense for purchase or\ncarriage, and should be glad even of a couple such for my cloister\nhere. When you are copying inscriptions in a churchyard in any\nVillage, think of me, and step into the first cottage you see, but\ndon't take further trouble than that.\"--_Ibid._, Vol. III. pp. 23,\n24, from _Peirce's Hist. Harv. Univ._, p. 312.\n\nAn engraving of the chair is to be found in President Quincy's\nHistory of Harvard University, Vol. I. p. 288.\n\n\nPREVARICATOR. A sort of an occasional orator; an academical phrase\nin the University of Cambridge, Eng.--_Johnson_.\n\nHe should not need have pursued me through the various shapes of a\ndivine, a doctor, a head of a college, a professor, a\n_prevaricator_, a mathematician.--_Bp. Wren, Monarchy Asserted_,\nPref.\n\nIt would have made you smile to hear the _prevaricator_, in his\njocular way, give him his title and character to face.--_A.\nPhilips, Life of Abp. Williams_, p. 34.\n\nSee TERR\u00c6-FILIUS.\n\n\nPREVIOUS EXAMINATION. In the English universities, the University\nexamination in the second year.\n\nCalled also the LITTLE-GO.\n\nThe only practical connection that the Undergraduate usually has\nwith the University, in its corporate capacity, consists in his\n_previous examination_, _alias_ the \"Little-Go,\" and his final\nexamination for a degree, with or without honors.--_Bristed's Five\nYears in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 10.\n\n\nPREX. A cant term for President.\n\nAfter examination, I went to the old _Prex_, and was admitted.\n_Prex_, by the way, is the same as President.--_The Dartmouth_,\nVol. IV. p. 117.\n\nBut take a peep with us, dear reader, into that _sanctum\nsanctorum_, that skull and bones of college mysteries, the\n_Prex's_ room.--_The Yale Banger_, Nov. 10, 1846.\n\nGood old _Prex_ used to get the students together and advise them\non keeping their faces clean, and blacking their boots,\n&c.--_Amherst Indicator_, Vol. III. p. 228.\n\n\nPRINCE'S STUFF. In the English universities, the fabric of which\nthe gowns of the undergraduates are usually made.\n\n[Their] every-day habit differs nothing as far as the gown is\nconcerned, it being _prince's stuff_, or other convenient\nmaterial.--_Oxford Guide_, Ed. 1847, p. xv.\n\nSee COSTUME.\n\n\nPRINCIPAL. At Oxford, the president of a college or hall is\nsometimes styled the Principal.--_Oxf. Cal._\n\n\nPRIVAT DOCENT. In German universities, a _private teacher_. \"The\nso-called _Privat Docenten_,\" remarks Howitt, \"are gentlemen who\ndevote themselves to an academical career, who have taken the\ndegree of Doctor, and through a public disputation have acquired\nthe right to deliver lectures on subjects connected with their\nparticular department of science. They receive no salary, but\ndepend upon the remuneration derived from their\nclasses.\"--_Student Life of Germany_, Am. ed., p. 29.\n\n\nPRIVATE. At Harvard College, one of the milder punishments is what\nis called _private admonition_, by which a deduction of thirty-two\nmarks is made from the rank of the offender. So called in\ncontradistinction to _public admonition_, when a deduction is\nmade, and with it a letter is sent to the parent. Often\nabbreviated into _private_.\n\n\"Reckon on the fingers of your mind the reprimands, deductions,\nparietals, and _privates_ in store for you.\"--_Oration before H.L.\nof I.O. of O.F._, 1848.\n\n  What are parietals, parts, _privates_ now,\n  To the still calmness of that placid brow?\n    _Class Poem, Harv. Coll._, 1849.\n\n\nPRIVATISSIMUM, _pl._ PRIVATISSIMI. Literally, _most private_. In\nthe German universities, an especially private lecture.\n\nTo these _Privatissimi_, as they are called, or especially private\nlectures, being once agreed upon, no other auditors can be\nadmitted.--_Howitt's Student Life of Germany_, Am. ed., p. 35.\n\n  Then my _Privatissimum_--(I've been thinking on it\n  For a long time--and in fact begun it)--\n    Will cost me 20 Rix-dollars more,\n    Please send with the ducats I mentioned before.\n    _The Jobsiad_, in _Lit. World_, Vol. IX. p. 281.\n\n  The use of a _Privatissimum_ I can't conjecture,\n  When one is already ten hours at lecture.\n    _Ibid._, Vol. IX. p. 448.\n\n\nPRIZEMAN. In universities and colleges, one who takes a prize.\n\n  The Wrangler's glory in his well-earned fame,\n  The _prizeman's_ triumph, and the plucked man's shame.\n    _The College_, in _Blackwood's Mag._, _May_, 1849.\n\n\nPROBATION. In colleges and universities, the examination of a\nstudent as to his qualifications for a degree.\n\n2. The time which a student passes in college from the period of\nentering until he is matriculated and received as a member in full\nstanding. In American colleges, this is usually six months, but\ncan be prolonged at discretion.--_Coll. Laws_.\n\n\nPROCEED. To take a degree. Mr. Halliwell, in his Dictionary of\nArchaic and Provincial Words, says, \"This term is still used at\nthe English universities.\" It is sometimes used in American\ncolleges.\n\nIn 1605 he _proceeded_ Master of Arts, and became celebrated as a\nwit and a poet.--_Poems of Bishop Corbet_, p. ix.\n\nThey that expect to _proceed_ Bachelors that year, to be examined\nof their sufficiency,... and such that expect to _proceed_ Masters\nof Arts, to exhibit their synopsis of acts.\n\nThey, that are approved sufficient for their degrees, shall\n_proceed_.--_Quincy's Hist. Harv. Univ._, Vol. I. p. 518.\n\nThe Overseers ... recommended to the Corporation \"to take\neffectual measures to prevent those who _proceeded_ Bachelors of\nArts, from having entertainments of any kind.\"--_Ibid._, Vol. II.\np. 93.\n\nWhen he _proceeded_ Bachelor of Arts, he was esteemed one of the\nmost perfect scholars that had ever received the honors of this\nseminary.--_Holmes's Life of Ezra Stiles_, p. 14.\n\nMasters may _proceed_ Bachelors in either of the Faculties, at the\nend of seven years, &c.--_Calendar Trin. Coll._, 1850, p. 10.\n\nOf the surviving graduates, the oldest _proceeded_ Bachelor of\nArts the very Commencement at which Dr. Stiles was elected to the\nPresidency.--_Woolsey's Discourse, Yale Coll._, Aug. 14, 1850, p.\n38.\n\n\nPROCTOR. Contracted from the Latin _procurator_, from _procuro_;\n_pro_ and _curo_.\n\nIn the University of Cambridge, Eng., two proctors are annually\nelected, who are peace-officers. It is their especial duty to\nattend to the discipline and behavior of all persons _in statu\npupillari_, to search houses of ill-fame, and to take into custody\nwomen of loose and abandoned character, and even those _de malo\nsuspectc\u00e6_. Their other duties are not so menial in their\ncharacter, and are different in different universities.--_Cam.\nCal._\n\nAt Oxford, \"the proctors act as university magistrates; they are\nappointed from each college in rotation, and remain in office two\nyears. They nominate four pro-proctors to assist them. Their chief\nduty, in which they are known to undergraduates, is to preserve\norder, and keep the town free from improper characters. When they\ngo out in the evening, they are usually attended by two servants,\ncalled by the gownsmen bull-dogs.... The marshal, a chief officer,\nis usually in attendance on one of the proctors.... It is also the\nproctor's duty to take care that the cap and gown are worn in the\nUniversity.\"--_The Collegian's Guide_, Oxford, pp. 176, 177.\n\nAt Oxford, the proctors \"jointly have, as has the Vice-Chancellor\nsingly, the power of interposing their _veto_ or _non placet_,\nupon all questions in congregation and convocation, which puts a\nstop at once to all further proceedings in the matter. These are\nthe 'censores morum' of the University, and their business is to\nsee that the undergraduate members, when no longer under the ken\nof the head or tutors of their own college, behave seemly when\nmixing with the townsmen and restrict themselves, as far as may\nbe, to lawful or constitutional and harmless amusements. Their\npowers extend over a circumference of three miles round the walls\nof the city. The proctors are easily recognized by their full\ndress gown of velvet sleeves, and bands-encircled neck.\"--_Oxford\nGuide_, Ed. 1847, p. xiii.\n\nAt Oxford, \"the two proctors were formerly nearly equal in\nimportance to the Vice-Chancellor. Their powers, though\ndiminished, are still considerable, as they administer the police\nof the University, appoint the Examiners, and have a joint veto on\nall measures brought before Convocation.\"--_Lit. World_, Vol. XII.\np. 223.\n\nThe class of officers called Proctors was instituted at Harvard\nCollege in the year 1805, their duty being \"to reside constantly\nand preserve order within the walls,\" to preserve order among the\nstudents, to see that the laws of the College are enforced, \"and\nto exercise the same inspection and authority in their particular\ndistrict, and throughout College, which it is the duty of a\nparietal Tutor to exercise therein.\"--_Quincy's Hist. Harv.\nUniv._, Vol. II. p. 292.\n\nI believe this is the only college in the United States where this\nclass of academical police officers is established.\n\n\nPROF, PROFF. Abbreviated for _Professor_.\n\nThe _Proff_ thought he knew too much to stay here, and so he went\nhis way, and I saw him no more.--_The Dartmouth_, Vol. IV. p. 116.\n\n  For _Proffs_ and Tutors too,\n  Who steer our big canoe,\n    Prepare their lays.\n    _Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. III. p. 144.\n\n\nPROFESSOR. One that publicly teaches any science or branch of\nlearning; particularly, an officer in a university, college, or\nother seminary, whose business is to read lectures or instruct\nstudents in a particular branch of learning; as a _professor_ of\ntheology or mathematics.--_Webster_.\n\n\nPROFESSORIATE. The office or employment of a professor.\n\nIt is desirable to restore the _professoriate_.--_Lit. World_,\nVol. XII. p. 246.\n\n\nPROFESSOR OF DUST AND ASHES. A title sometimes jocosely given by\nstudents to the person who has the care of their rooms.\n\nWas interrupted a moment just now, by the entrance of Mr. C------,\nthe gentleman who makes the beds, sweeps, takes up the ashes, and\nsupports the dignity of the title, \"_Professor of Dust and\nAshes_.\"--_Sketches of Williams College_, p. 77.\n\nThe South College _Prof. of Dust and Ashes_ has a huge bill\nagainst the Society.--_Yale Tomahawk_, Feb. 1851.\n\n\nPROFICIENT. The degree of Proficient is conferred in the\nUniversity of Virginia, in a certificate of proficiency, on those\nwho have studied only in certain branches taught in some of the\nschools connected with that institution.\n\n\nPRO MERITIS. Latin; literally, _for his merits_. A phrase\ncustomarily used in American collegiate diplomas.\n\n  Then, every crime atoned with ease,\n  _Pro meritis_, received degrees.\n    _Trumbull's Progress of Dullness_, Part I.\n\n\nPRO-PROCTOR. In the English universities, an officer appointed to\nassist the proctors in that part of their duty only which relates\nto the discipline and behavior of those persons who are _in statu\npupillari_.--_Cam. and Oxf. Cals._\n\nMore familiarly, these officers are called _pro's_.\n\nThey [the proctors] are assisted in their duties by four\npro-proctors, each principal being allowed to nominate his two\n\"_pro's_.\"--_Oxford Guide_, 1847, p. xiii.\n\nThe _pro's_ have also a strip of velvet on each side of the\ngown-front, and wear bands.--_Ibid._, p. xiii.\n\n\nPRO-VICE-CHANCELLOR. In the English universities a deputy\nappointed by the Vice-Chancellor, who exercises his power in case\nof his illness or necessary absence.\n\n\nPROVOST. The President of a college.\n\nDr. Jay, on his arrival in England, found there Dr. Smith,\n_Provost_ of the College in Philadelphia, soliciting aid for that\ninstitution.--_Hist. Sketch of Columbia Coll._, p. 36.\n\nAt Columbia College, in 1811, an officer was appointed, styled\n_Provost_, who, in absence of the President, was to supply his\nplace, and who, \"besides exercising the like general\nsuperintendence with the President,\" was to conduct the classical\nstudies of the Senior Class. The office of Provost continued until\n1816, when the Trustees determined that its powers and duties\nshould devolve upon the President.--_Ibid._, p. 81.\n\nAt Oxford, the chief officer of some of the colleges bears this\ntitle. At Cambridge, it is appropriated solely to the President of\nKing's College. \"On the choice of a Provost,\" says the author of a\nHistory of the University of Cambridge, 1753, \"the Fellows are all\nshut into the ante-chapel, and out of which they are not permitted\nto stir on any account, nor none permitted to enter, till they\nhave all agreed on their man; which agreement sometimes takes up\nseveral days; and, if I remember right, they were three days and\nnights confined in choosing the present Provost, and had their\nbeds, close-stools, &c. with them, and their commons, &c. given\nthem in at the windows.\"--_Grad. ad Cantab._, p. 85.\n\n\nPRUDENTIAL COMMITTEE. In Yale College, a committee to whom the\ndiscretionary concerns of the College are intrusted. They order\nsuch repairs of the College buildings as are necessary, audit the\naccounts of the Treasurer and Steward, make the annual report of\nthe state of the College, superintend the investment of the\nCollege funds, institute suits for the recovery and preservation\nof the College property, and perform various other duties which\nare enumerated in the laws of Yale College.\n\nAt Middlebury College, similar powers are given to a body bearing\nthe same name.--_Laws Mid. Coll._, 1839, pp. 4, 5.\n\n\nPUBLIC. At Harvard College, the punishment next higher in order to\na _private admonition_ is called a _public admonition_, and\nconsists in a deduction of sixty-four marks from the rank of the\noffender, accompanied by a letter to the parent or guardian. It is\noften called _a public_.\n\nSee ADMONITION, and PRIVATE.\n\n\nPUBLIC DAY. In the University of Virginia, the day on which \"the\ncertificates and diplomas are awarded to the successful\ncandidates, the results of the examinations are announced, and\naddresses are delivered by one or more of the Bachelors and\nMasters of Arts, and by the Orator appointed by the Society of the\nAlumni.\"--_Cat. of Univ. of Virginia_.\n\nThis occurs on the closing day of the session, the 29th of June.\n\nPUBLIC ORATOR. In the English universities, an officer who is the\nvoice of the university on all public occasions, who writes,\nreads, and records all letters of a public nature, and presents,\nwith an appropriate address, those on whom honorary degrees are\nconferred. At Cambridge, this it esteemed one of the most\nhonorable offices in the gift of the university.--_Cam. and Oxf.\nCals._\n\n\nPUMP. Among German students, to obtain or take on credit; to\nsponge.\n\n  Und hat der Bursch kein Geld im Beutel,\n  So _pumpt_ er die Philister an.\n    _Crambambuli Song_.\n\n\nPUNY. A young, inexperienced person; a novice.\n\nFreshmen at Oxford were called _punies of the first\nyear_.--_Halliwell's Dict. Arch. and Prov. Words_.\n\n\nPUT THROUGH. A phrase very general in its application. When a\nstudent treats, introduces, or assists another, or masters a hard\nlesson, he is said to _put_ him or it _through_. In a discourse by\nthe Rev. Dr. Orville Dewey, on the Law of Progress, referring to\nthese words, he said \"he had heard a teacher use the\ncharacteristic expression that his pupils should be '_put\nthrough_' such and such studies. This, he said, is a modern\npractice. We put children through philosophy,--put them through\nhistory,--put them through Euclid. He had no faith in this plan,\nand wished to see the school teachers set themselves against this\nforcing process.\"\n\n2. To examine thoroughly and with despatch.\n\n  First Thatcher, then Hadley, then Larned and Prex,\n    Each _put_ our class _through_ in succession.\n    _Presentation Day Songs_, June 14, 1854.\n\n\n\n_Q_.\n\n\nQ. See CUE.\n\n\nQUAD. An abbreviation of QUADRANGLE, q.v.\n\nHow silently did all come down the staircases into the chapel\n_quad_, that evening!--_Collegian's Guide_, p. 88.\n\nHis mother had been in Oxford only the week before, and had been\nseen crossing the _quad_ in tears.--_Ibid._, p. 144.\n\n\nQUADRANGLE. At Oxford and Cambridge, Eng., the rectangular courts\nin which the colleges are constructed.\n\n  Soon as the clouds divide, and dawning day\n  Tints the _quadrangle_ with its earliest ray.\n    _The College_, in _Blackwood's Mag._, May, 1849.\n\n\nQUARTER-DAY. The day when quarterly payments are made. The day\nthat completes three months.\n\nAt Harvard and Yale Colleges, quarter-day, when the officers and\ninstructors receive their quarterly salaries, was formerly\nobserved as a holiday. One of the evils which prevailed among the\nstudents of the former institution, about the middle of the last\ncentury, was the \"riotous disorders frequently committed on the\n_quarter-days_ and evenings,\" on one of which, in 1764, \"the\nwindows of all the Tutors and divers other windows were broken,\"\nso that, in consequence, a vote was passed that \"the observation\nof _quarter-days_, in distinction from other days, be wholly laid\naside, and that the undergraduates be obliged to observe the\nstudying hours, and to perform the college exercises, on\nquarter-day, and the day following, as at other times.\"--_Peirce's\nHist. Harv. Univ._, p. 216.\n\n\nQUESTIONIST. In the English universities, a name given to those\nwho are in the last term of their college course, and are soon to\nbe examined for honors or degrees.--_Webster_.\n\nIn the \"Orders agreed upon by the Overseers, at a meeting in\nHarvard College, May 6th, 1650,\" this word is used in the\nfollowing sentence: \"And, in case any of the Sophisters,\n_Questionists_, or Inceptors fail in the premises required at\ntheir hands,... they shall be deferred to the following year\"; but\nit does not seem to have gained any prevalence in the College, and\nis used, it is believed, only in this passage.\n\n\nQUILLWHEEL. At the Wesleyan University, \"when a student,\" says a\ncorrespondent, \"'knocks under,' or yields a point, he says he\n_quillwheels_, that is, he acknowledges he is wrong.\"\n\n\n\n_R_.\n\n\nRAG. This word is used at Union College, and is thus explained by\na correspondent: \"To _rag_ and _ragging_, you will find of very\nextensive application, they being employed primarily as expressive\nof what is called by the vulgar thieving and stealing, but in a\nmore extended sense as meaning superiority. Thus, if one declaims\nor composes much better than his classmates, he is said to _rag_\nall his competitors.\"\n\nThe common phrase, \"_to take the rag off_,\" i.e. to excel, seems\nto be the form from which this word has been abbreviated.\n\n\nRAKE. At Williams and at Bowdoin Colleges, used in the phrase \"to\n_rake_ an X,\" i.e. to recite perfectly, ten being the number of\nmarks given for the best recitation.\n\n\nRAM. A practical joke.\n\n  ---- in season to be just too late\n  A successful _ram_ to perpetrate.\n    _Sophomore Independent_, Union Coll., Nov. 1854.\n\n\nRAM ON THE CLERGY. At Middlebury College, a synonyme of the slang\nnoun, \"sell.\"\n\n\nRANTERS. At Bethany College, in Virginia, there is \"a band,\" says\na correspondent, \"calling themselves '_Ranters_,' formed for the\npurpose of perpetrating all kinds of rascality and\nmischievousness, both on their fellow-students and the neighboring\npeople. The band is commanded by one selected from the party,\ncalled the _Grand Ranter_, whose orders are to be obeyed under\npenalty of expulsion of the person offending. Among the tricks\ncommonly indulged in are those of robbing hen and turkey roosts,\nand feasting upon the fruits of their labor, of stealing from the\nneighbors their horses, to enjoy the pleasure of a midnight ride,\nand to facilitate their nocturnal perambulations. If detected, and\nany complaint is made, or if the Faculty are informed of their\nmovements, they seek revenge by shaving the tails and manes of the\nfavorite horses belonging to the person informing, or by some\nsimilar trick.\"\n\n\nRAZOR. A writer in the Yale Literary Magazine defines this word in\nthe following sentence: \"Many of the members of this time-honored\ninstitution, from whom we ought to expect better things, not only\ndo their own shaving, but actually _make their own razors_. But I\nmust explain for the benefit of the uninitiated. A pun, in the\nelegant college dialect, is called a razor, while an attempt at a\npun is styled a _sick razor_. The _sick_ ones are by far the most\nnumerous; however, once in a while you meet with one in quite\nrespectable health.\"--Vol. XIII. p. 283.\n\nThe meeting will be opened with _razors_ by the Society's jester.\n--_Yale Tomahawk_, Nov. 1849.\n\n  Behold how Duncia leads her chosen sons,\n  All armed with squibs, stale jokes, _dull razors_, puns.\n    _The Gallinipper_, Dec. 1849.\n\n\nREAD. To be studious; to practise much reading; e.g. at Oxford, to\n_read_ for a first class; at Cambridge, to _read_ for an honor. In\nAmerica it is common to speak of \"reading law, medicine,\" &c.\n\n  We seven stayed at Christmas up to _read_;\n  We seven took one tutor.\n    _Tennyson, Prologue to Princess_.\n\nIn England the vacations are the very times when you _read_ most.\n_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 78.\n\nThis system takes for granted that the students have \"_read_,\" as\nit is termed, with a private practitioner of medicine.--_Cat.\nUniv. of Virginia_, 1851, p. 25.\n\n\nREADER. In the University of Oxford, one who reads lectures on\nscientific subjects.--_Lyell_.\n\n2. At the English universities, a hard student, nearly equivalent\nto READING MAN.\n\nMost of the Cantabs are late _readers_, so that, supposing one of\nthem to begin at seven, he will not leave off before half past\neleven.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 21.\n\n\nREADERSHIP. In the University of Oxford, the office of a reader or\nlecturer on scientific subjects.--_Lyell_.\n\n\nREADING. In the academic sense, studying.\n\nOne would hardly suspect them to be students at all, did not the\nnumber of glasses hint that those who carried them had impaired\ntheir sight by late _reading_.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng.\nUniv._, Ed. 2d, p. 5.\n\n\nREADING MAN. In the English universities, a _reading man_ is a\nhard student, or one who is entirely devoted to his collegiate\nstudies.--_Webster_.\n\nThe distinction between \"_reading men_\" and \"_non-reading men_\"\nbegan to manifest itself.--_Alma Mater_, Vol. I. p. 169.\n\nWe might wonder, perhaps, if in England the \"[Greek: oi polloi]\"\nshould be \"_reading men_,\" but with us we should wonder were they\nnot.--_Williams Quarterly_, Vol. II. p. 15.\n\n\nREADING PARTY. In England, a number of students who in vacation\ntime, and at a distance from the university, pursue their studies\ntogether under the direction of a coach, or private tutor.\n\nOf this method of studying, Bristed remarks: \"It is not\n_impossible_ to read on a reading-party; there is only a great\nchance against your being able to do so. As a very general rule, a\nman works best in his accustomed place of business, where he has\nnot only his ordinary appliances and helps, but his familiar\nassociations about him. The time lost in settling down and making\none's self comfortable and ready for work in a new place is not\ninconsiderable, and is all clear loss. Moreover, the very idea of\na reading-party involves a combination of two things incompatible,\n--amusement and relaxation beyond the proper and necessary\nquantity of daily exercise, and hard work at books.\n\n\"Reading-parties do not confine themselves to England or the\nisland of Great Britain. Sometimes they have been known to go as\nfar as Dresden. Sometimes a party is of considerable size; when a\ncrack Tutor goes on one, which is not often, he takes his whole\nteam with him, and not unfrequently a Classical and Mathematical\nBachelor join their pupils.\"--_Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed.\n2d, pp. 199-201.\n\n\nREAD UP. Students often speak of _reading up_, i.e. preparing\nthemselves to write on a subject, by reading the works of authors\nwho have treated of it.\n\n\nREBELLION TREE. At Harvard College, a large elm-tree, which stands\nto the east of the south entry of Hollis Hall, has long been known\nby this name. It is supposed to have been planted at the request\nof Dr. Thaddeus M. Harris. His son, Dr. Thaddeus W. Harris, the\npresent Librarian of the College, says that his father has often\ntold him, that when he held the office of Librarian, in the year\n1792, a number of trees were set out in the College yard, and that\none was planted opposite his room, No. 7 Hollis Hall, under which\nhe buried a pewter plate, taken from the commons hall. On this\nplate was inscribed his name, the day of the month, the year, &c.\nFrom its situation and appearance, the Rebellion Tree would seem\nto be the one thus described; but it did not receive its name\nuntil the year 1807, when the famous rebellion occurred among the\nstudents, and perhaps not until within a few years antecedent to\nthe year 1819. At that time, however, this name seems to have been\nthe one by which it was commonly known, from the reference which\nis made to it in the Rebelliad, a poem written to commemorate the\ndeeds of the rebellion of that year.\n\n  And roared as loud as he could yell,\n  \"Come on, my lads, let us rebel!\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n  With one accord they all agree\n  To dance around _Rebellion Tree_.\n  _Rebelliad_, p. 46.\n\n  But they, rebellious rascals! flee\n  For shelter to _Rebellion Tree_.\n    _Ibid._, p. 60.\n\n  Stands a tree in front of Hollis,\n    Dear to Harvard over all;\n  But than ---- desert us,\n    Rather let _Rebellion_ fall.\n    _MS. Poem_.\n\nOther scenes are sometimes enacted under its branches, as the\nfollowing verses show:--\n\n  When the old year was drawing towards its close,\n  And in its place the gladsome new one rose,\n  Then members of each class, with spirits free,\n  Went forth to greet her round _Rebellion Tree_.\n  Round that old tree, sacred to students' rights,\n  And witness, too, of many wondrous sights,\n  In solemn circle all the students passed;\n  They danced with spirit, until, tired, at last\n  A pause they make, and some a song propose.\n  Then \"Auld Lang Syne\" from many voices rose.\n  Now, as the lamp of the old year dies out,\n  They greet the new one with exulting shout;\n  They groan for ----, and each class they cheer,\n  And thus they usher in the fair new year.\n    _Poem before H.L. of I.O. of O.F._, p. 19, 1849.\n\n\nRECENTES. Latin for the English FRESHMEN. Consult Clap's History\nof Yale College, 1766, p. 124.\n\n\nRECITATION. In American colleges and schools, the rehearsal of a\nlesson by pupils before their instructor.--_Webster_.\n\n\nRECITATION-ROOM. The room where lessons are rehearsed by pupils\nbefore their instructor.\n\nIn the older American colleges, the rooms of the Tutors were\nformerly the recitation-rooms of the classes. At Harvard College,\nthe benches on which the students sat when reciting were, when not\nin use, kept in piles, outside of the Tutors' rooms. When the hour\nof recitation arrived, they would carry them into the room, and\nagain return them to their places when the exercise was finished.\nOne of the favorite amusements of the students was to burn these\nbenches; the spot selected for the bonfire being usually the green\nin front of the old meeting-house, or the common.\n\n\nRECITE. Transitively, to rehearse, as a lesson to an instructor.\n\n2. Intransitively, to rehearse a lesson. The class will _recite_\nat eleven o'clock.--_Webster_.\n\nThis word is used in both forms in American seminaries.\n\n\nRECORD OF MERIT. At Middlebury College \"a class-book is kept by\neach instructor, in which the character of each student's\nrecitation is noted by numbers, and all absences from college\nexercises are minuted. Demerit for absences and other\nirregularities is also marked in like manner, and made the basis\nof discipline. At the close of each term, the average of these\nmarks is recorded, and, when desired, communicated to parents and\nguardians.\" This book is called the _record of merit_.--_Cat.\nMiddlebury Coll._, 1850-51, p. 17.\n\n\nRECTOR. The chief elective officer of some universities, as in\nFrance and Scotland. The same title was formerly given to the\npresident of a college in New England, but it is not now in\nuse.--_Webster_.\n\nThe title of _Rector_ was given to the chief officer of Yale\nCollege at the time of its foundation, and was continued until the\nyear 1745, when, by \"An Act for the more full and complete\nestablishment of Yale College in New Haven,\" it was changed, among\nother alterations, to that of _President_.--_Clap's Annals of Yale\nCollege_, p. 47.\n\nThe chief officer of Harvard College at the time of its foundation\nwas styled _Master_ or _Professor_. Mr. Dunster was chosen the\nfirst _President_, in 1640, and those who succeeded him bore this\ntitle until the year 1686, when Mr. Joseph Dudley, having received\nthe commission of President of the Colony, changed for the sake of\ndistinction the title of _President of the College_ to that of\n_Rector_. A few years after, the title of _President_ was resumed.\n--_Peirce's Hist. of Harv. Univ._, p. 63.\n\n\nREDEAT. Latin; literally, _he may return_. \"It is the custom in\nsome colleges,\" says the Gradus ad Cantabrigiam, \"on coming into\nresidence, to wait on the Dean, and sign your name in a book, kept\nfor that purpose, which is called signing your _Redeat_.\"--p. 92.\n\n\nREFECTORY. At Oxford, Eng., the place where the members of each\ncollege or hall dine. This word was originally applied to an\napartment in convents and monasteries, where a moderate repast was\ntaken.--_Brande_.\n\nIn Oxford there are nineteen colleges and five halls, containing\ndwelling-rooms for the students, and a distinct _refectory_ or\ndining-hall, library, and chapel to each college and hall.--_Oxf.\nGuide_, 1847, p. xvi.\n\nAt Princeton College, this name is given to the hall where the\nstudents eat together in common.--Abbreviated REFEC.\n\n\nREGENT. In the English universities, the regents, or _regentes_,\nare members of the university who have certain peculiar duties of\ninstruction or government. At Cambridge, all resident Masters of\nArts of less than four years' standing and all Doctors of less\nthan two, are Regents. At Oxford, the period of regency is\nshorter. At both universities, those of a more advanced standing,\nwho keep their names on the college books, are called\n_non-regents_. At Cambridge, the regents compose the upper house,\nand the non-regents the lower house of the Senate, or governing\nbody. At Oxford, the regents compose the _Congregation_, which\nconfers degrees, and does the ordinary business of the University.\nThe regents and non-regents, collectively, compose the\n_Convocation_, which is the governing body in the last\nresort.--_Webster_.\n\nSee SENATE.\n\n2. In the State of New York, the member of a corporate body which\nis invested with the superintendence of all the colleges,\nacademies, and schools in the State. This board consists of\ntwenty-one members, who are called _the Regents of the University\nof the State of New York_. They are appointed and removable by the\nlegislature. They have power to grant acts of incorporation for\ncolleges, to visit and inspect all colleges, academies, and\nschools, and to make regulations for governing the\nsame.--_Statutes of New York_.\n\n3. At Harvard College, an officer chosen from the _Faculty_, whose\nduties are under the immediate direction of the President. All\nweekly lists of absences, monitor's bills, petitions to the\nFaculty for excuse of absences from the regular exercises and for\nmaking up lessons, all petitions for elective studies, the returns\nof the scale of merit, and returns of delinquencies and deductions\nby the tutors and proctors, are left with the Regent, or deposited\nin his office. The Regent also informs those who petition for\nexcuses, and for elective studies, of the decision of the Faculty\nin regard to their petitions. Formerly, the Regent assisted in\nmaking out the quarter or term bills, of which he kept a record,\nand when students were punished by fining, he was obliged to keep\nan account of the fines, and the offences for which they were\nimposed. Some of his duties were performed by a Freshman, who was\nappointed by the Faculty.--_Laws Harv. Coll._, 1814, and\n_Regulations_, 1850.\n\nThe creation of the office of Regent at Harvard College is noticed\nby Professor Sidney Willard. In the year 1800 \"an officer was\nappointed to occupy a room in one of the halls to supply the place\nof a Tutor, for preserving order in the rooms in his entry, and to\nperform the duties that had been discharged by the Butler, so far\nas it regarded the keeping of certain records. He was allowed the\nservice of a Freshman, and the offices of Butler and of Butler's\nFreshman were abolished. The title of this new officer was\nRegent.\"--_Memories of Youth and Manhood_, Vol. II. p. 107.\n\nSee FRESHMAN, REGENT'S.\n\n\nREGISTER. In Union College, an officer whose duties are similar to\nthose enumerated under REGISTRAR. He also acts, without charge, as\nfiscal guardian for all students who deposit funds in his hands.\n\n\nREGISTRAR, REGISTRARY. In the English universities, an officer who\nhas the keeping of all the public records.--_Encyc._\n\nAt Harvard College, the Corporation appoint one of the Faculty to\nthe office of _Registrar_. He keeps a record of the votes and\norders passed by the latter body, gives certified copies of the\nsame when requisite, and performs other like duties.--_Laws Univ.\nat Cam., Mass._, 1848.\n\n\nREGIUS PROFESSOR. A name given in the British universities to the\nincumbents of those professorships which have been founded by\n_royal_ bounty.\n\n\nREGULATORS. At Hamilton College, \"a Junior Class affair,\" writes a\ncorrespondent, \"consisting of fifteen or twenty members, whose\nobject is to regulate college laws and customs according to their\nown way. They are known only by their deeds. Who the members are,\nno one out of the band knows. Their time for action is in the\nnight.\"\n\n\nRELEGATION. In German universities, the _relegation_ is the\npunishment next in severity to the _consilium abeundi_. Howitt\nexplains the term in these words: \"It has two degrees. First, the\nsimple relegation. This consists in expulsion [out of the district\nof the court of justice within which the university is situated],\nfor a period of from two to three years; after which the offender\nmay indeed return, but can no more be received as an academical\nburger. Secondly, the sharper relegation, which adds to the simple\nrelegation an announcement of the fact to the magistracy of the\nplace of abode of the offender; and, according to the discretion\nof the court, a confinement in an ordinary prison, previous to the\nbanishment, is added; and also the sharper relegation can be\nextended to more than four years, the ordinary term,--yes, even to\nperpetual expulsion.\"--_Student Life of Germany_, Am. ed., p. 33.\n\n\nRELIG. At Princeton College, an abbreviated name for a professor\nof religion.\n\n\nRENOWN. German, _renommiren_, to hector, to bully. Among the\nstudents in German universities, to _renown_ is, in English\npopular phrase, \"to cut a swell.\"--_Howitt_.\n\nThe spare hours of the forenoon and afternoon are spent in\nfencing, in _renowning_,--that is, in doing things-which make\npeople stare at them, and in providing duels for the\nmorrow.--_Russell's Tour in Germany_, Edinburgh ed., 1825, Vol.\nII. pp. 156, 157.\n\nWe cannot be deaf to the testimony of respectable eyewitnesses,\nwho, in proof of these defects, tell us ... of \"_renowning_,\" or\nwild irregularities, in which \"the spare hours\" of the day are\nspent.--_D.A. White's Address before Soc. of the Alumni of Harv.\nUniv._, Aug. 27, 1844, p. 24.\n\n\nREPLICATOR. \"The first discussions of the Society, called\nForensic, were in writing, and conducted by only two members,\nstyled the Respondent and the Opponent. Subsequently, a third was\nadded, called a _Replicator_, who reviewed the arguments of the\nother two, and decided upon their comparative\nmerits.\"--_Semi-centennial Anniversary of the Philomathean\nSociety, Union Coll._, p. 9.\n\n\nREPORT. A word much in use among the students of universities and\ncolleges, in the common sense of _to inform against_, but usually\nspoken in reference to the Faculty.\n\n  Thanks to the friendly proctor who spared to _report_ me.\n    _Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 79.\n\n          If I hear again\n  Of such fell outrage to the college laws,\n  Of such loud tumult after eight o'clock,\n  Thou'lt be _reported_ to the Faculty.--_Ibid._, p. 257.\n\n\nRESIDENCE. At the English universities, to be \"in residence\" is to\noccupy rooms as a member of a college, either in the college\nitself, or in the town where the college is situated.\n\nTrinity ... usually numbers four hundred undergraduates in\n_residence_.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p.\n11.\n\nAt Oxford, an examination, not always a very easy one, must be\npassed before the student can be admitted to\n_residence_.--_Westminster Rev._, Am. ed., Vol. XXXV. p. 232.\n\n\nRESIDENT GRADUATE. In the United States, graduates who are\ndesirous of pursuing their studies in a place where a college is\nsituated, without joining any of its departments, can do so in the\ncapacity of _residents_ or _resident graduates_. They are allowed\nto attend the public lectures given in the institution, and enjoy\nthe use of its library. Like other students, they give bonds for\nthe payment of college dues.--_Coll. Laws_.\n\n\nRESPONDENT. In the schools, one who maintains a thesis in reply,\nand whose province is to refute objections, or overthrow\narguments.--_Watts_.\n\nThis word, with its companion, _affirmant_, was formerly used in\nAmerican colleges, and was applied to those who engaged in the\nsyllogistic discussions then incident to Commencement.\n\nBut the main exercises were disputations upon questions, wherein\nthe _respondents_ first made their theses.--_Mather's Magnalia_,\nB. IV. p. 128.\n\nThe syllogistic disputes were held between an _affirmant_ and\n_respondent_, who stood in the side galleries of the church\nopposite to one another, and shot the weapons of their logic over\nthe heads of the audience.--_Pres. Woolsey's Hist. Disc., Yale\nColl._, p. 65.\n\nIn the public exercises at Commencement, I was somewhat remarked\nas a _respondent_.--_Life and Works of John Adams_, Vol. II. p. 3.\n\n\nRESPONSION. In the University of Oxford, an examination about the\nmiddle of the college course, also called the\n_Little-go_.--_Lyell_.\n\nSee LITTLE-GO.\n\n\nRETRO. Latin; literally, _back_. Among the students of the\nUniversity of Cambridge, Eng., used to designate a _behind_-hand\naccount. \"A cook's bill of extraordinaries not settled by the\nTutor.\"--_Grad. ad Cantab._\n\n\nREVIEW. A second or repeated examination of a lesson, or the\nlesson itself thus re-examined.\n\n  He cannot get the \"advance,\" forgets \"the _review_.\"\n    _Childe Harvard_, p. 13.\n\n\nRIDER. The meaning of this word, used at Cambridge, Eng., is given\nin the annexed sentence. \"His ambition is generally limited to\ndoing '_riders_,' which are a sort of scholia, or easy deductions\nfrom the book-work propositions, like a link between them and\nproblems; indeed, the rider being, as its name imports, attached\nto a question, the question is not fully answered until the rider\nis answered also.\"--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed.\n2d, p. 222.\n\n\nROLL A WHEEL. At the University of Vermont, in student parlance,\nto devise a scheme or lay a plot for an election or a college\nspree, is to _roll a wheel_. E.g. \"John was always _rolling a big\nwheel_,\" i.e. incessantly concocting some plot.\n\n\nROOM. To occupy an apartment; to lodge; _an academic use of the\nword_.--_Webster_.\n\nInquire of any student at our colleges where Mr. B. lodges, and\nyou will be told he _rooms_ in such a building, such a story, or\nup so many flights of stairs, No. --, to the right or left.\n\nThe Rowes, years ago, used to _room_ in Dartmouth Hall.--_The\nDartmouth_, Vol. IV. p. 117.\n\n_Rooming_ in college, it is convenient that they should have the\nmore immediate oversight of the deportment of the\nstudents.--_Scenes and Characters in College_, p. 133.\n\nSeven years ago, I _roomed_ in this room where we are now.--_Yale\nLit. Mag._, Vol. XII. p. 114.\n\nWhen Christmas came again I came back to this room, but the man\nwho _roomed_ here was frightened and ran away.--_Ibid._, Vol. XII.\np. 114.\n\nRent for these apartments is exacted from Sophomores, about sixty\n_rooming_ out of college.--_Burlesque Catalogue_, Yale Coll.,\n1852-53, p. 26.\n\n\nROOT. A word first used in the sense given below by Dr. Paley. \"He\n[Paley] held, indeed, all those little arts of underhand address,\nby which patronage and preferment are so frequently pursued, in\nsupreme contempt. He was not of a nature to _root_; for that was\nhis own expressive term, afterwards much used in the University to\ndenote the sort of practice alluded to. He one day humorously\nproposed, at some social meeting, that a certain contemporary\nFellow of his College [Christ's College, Cambridge, Eng.], at that\ntime distinguished for his elegant and engaging manners, and who\nhas since attained no small eminence in the Church of England,\nshould be appointed _Professor of Rooting_.\"--_Memoirs of Paley_.\n\n2. To study hard; to DIG, q.v.\n\nIll-favored men, eager for his old boots and diseased raiment,\ntorment him while _rooting_ at his Greek.--_Harv. Mag._, Vol. I.\np. 267.\n\n\nROT. Twaddle, platitude. In use among the students at the\nUniversity of Cambridge, Eng.--_Bristed_.\n\n\nROWES. The name of a party which formerly existed at Dartmouth\nCollege. They are thus described in The Dartmouth, Vol. IV. p.\n117: \"The _Rowes_ are very liberal in their notions. The Rowes\ndon't pretend to say anything worse of a fellow than to call him a\n_Blue_, and _vice vers\u00e2_.\"\n\nSee BLUES.\n\n\nROWING. The making of loud and noisy disturbance; acting like a\n_rowdy_.\n\n  Flushed with the juice of the grape,\n        all prime and ready for _rowing_.\n  When from the ground I raised\n        the fragments of ponderous brickbat.\n    _Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 98.\n\nThe Fellow-Commoners generally being more disposed to _rowing_\nthan reading.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d. p.\n34.\n\n\nROWING-MAN. One who is more inclined to fast living than hard\nstudy. Among English students used in contradistinction to\nREADING-MAN, q.v.\n\nWhen they go out to sup, as a reading-man does perhaps once a\nterm, and a _rowing-man_ twice a week, they eat very moderately,\nthough their potations are sometimes of the deepest.--_Bristed's\nFive Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 21.\n\n\nROWL, ROWEL. At Princeton, Union, and Hamilton Colleges, this word\nis used to signify a good recitation. Used in the phrase, \"to make\na _rowl_.\" From the second of these colleges, a correspondent\nwrites: \"Also of the word _rowl_; if a public speaker presents a\ntelling appeal or passage, he would _make a perfect rowl_, in the\nlanguage of all students at least.\"\n\n\nROWL. To recite well. A correspondent from Princeton College\ndefines this word, \"to perform any exercise well, recitation,\nspeech, or composition; to succeed in any branch or pursuit.\"\n\n\nRUSH. At Yale College, a perfect recitation is denominated a\n_rush_.\n\nI got my lesson perfectly, and what is more, made a perfect\n_rush_.--_Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. XIII. p. 134.\n\n  Every _rush_ and fizzle made\n  Every body frigid laid.\n    _Ibid._, Vol. XX. p. 186.\n\nThis mark [that of a hammer with a note, \"hit the nail on the\nhead\"] signifies that the student makes a capital hit; in other\nwords, a decided _rush_.--_Yale Banger_, Nov. 10, 1846.\n\n  In dreams his many _rushes_ heard.\n    _Ibid._, Oct. 22, 1847.\n\nThis word is much used among students with the common meaning;\nthus, they speak of \"a _rush_ into prayers,\" \"a _rush_ into the\nrecitation-room,\" &c. A correspondent from Dartmouth College says:\n\"_Rushing_ the Freshmen is putting them out of the chapel.\"\nAnother from Williams writes: \"Such a man is making a _rush_, and\nto this we often add--for the Valedictory.\"\n\n  The gay regatta where the Oneida led,\n  The glorious _rushes_, Seniors at the head.\n    _Class Poem, Harv. Coll._, 1849.\n\nOne of the Trinity men ... was making a tremendous _rush_ for a\nFellowship.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p.\n158.\n\n\nRUSH. To recite well; to make a perfect recitation.\n\nIt was purchased by the man,--who 'really did not look' at the\nlesson on which he '_rushed_.'--_Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. XIV. p.\n411.\n\nThen for the students mark flunks, even though the young men may\nbe _rushing_.--_Yale Banger_, Oct., 1848.\n\n  So they pulled off their coats, and rolled up their sleeves,\n    And _rushed_ in Bien. Examination.\n    _Presentation Day Songs, Yale Coll._, June 14, 1854.\n\n\nRUSTICATE. To send a student for a time from a college or\nuniversity, to reside in the country, by way of punishment for\nsome offence.\n\nSee a more complete definition under RUSTICATION.\n\n  And those whose crimes are very great,\n  Let us suspend or _rusticate_.--_Rebelliad_, p. 24.\n\n  The \"scope\" of what I have to state\n  Is to suspend and _rusticate_.--_Ibid._, p. 28.\n\nThe same meaning is thus paraphrastically conveyed:--\n\n  By my official power, I swear,\n  That you shall _smell the country air_.--_Rebelliad_, p. 45.\n\n\nRUSTICATION. In universities and colleges, the punishment of a\nstudent for some offence, by compelling him to leave the\ninstitution, and reside for a time in the country, where he is\nobliged to pursue with a private instructor the studies with which\nhis class are engaged during his term of separation, and in which\nhe is obliged to pass a satisfactory examination before he can be\nreinstated in his class.\n\nIt seems plain from his own verses to Diodati, that Milton had\nincurred _rustication_,--a temporary dismission into the country,\nwith, perhaps, the loss of a term.--_Johnson_.\n\n  Take then this friendly exhortation.\n  The next offence is _Rustication_.\n    _MS. Poem_, by John Q. Adams.\n\n\nRUST-RINGING. At Hamilton College, \"the Freshmen,\" writes a\ncorrespondent, \"are supposed to lose some of their verdancy at the\nend of the last term of that year, and the 'ringing off their\nrust' consists in ringing the chapel bell--commencing at midnight\n--until the rope wears out. During the ringing, the upper classes\nare diverted by the display of numerous fire-works, and enlivened\nby most beautifully discordant sounds, called 'music,' made to\nissue from tin kettle-drums, horse-fiddles, trumpets, horns, &c.,\n&c.\"\n\n\n\n_S_.\n\n\nSACK. To expel. Used at Hamilton College.\n\n\nSAIL. At Bowdoin College, a _sail_ is a perfect recitation. To\n_sail_ is to recite perfectly.\n\n\nSAINT. A name among students for one who pretends to particular\nsanctity of manners.\n\nOr if he had been a hard-reading man from choice,--or a stupid\nman,--or a \"_saint_,\"--no one would have troubled themselves about\nhim.--_Blackwood's Mag._, Eng. ed., Vol. LX. p. 148.\n\n\nSALTING THE FRESHMEN. In reference to this custom, which belongs\nto Dartmouth College, a correspondent from that institution\nwrites: \"There is an annual trick of '_salting the Freshmen_,'\nwhich is putting salt and water on their seats, so that their\nclothes are injured when they sit down.\" The idea of preservation,\ncleanliness, and health is no doubt intended to be conveyed by the\nuse of the wholesome articles salt and water.\n\n\nSALUTATORIAN. The student of a college who pronounces the\nsalutatory oration at the annual Commencement.--_Webster_.\n\n\nSALUTATORY. An epithet applied to the oration which introduces the\nexercises of the Commencements in American colleges.--_Webster_.\n\nThe oration is often called, simply, _The Salutatory_.\n\nAnd we ask our friends \"out in the world,\" whenever they meet an\neducated man of the class of '49, not to ask if he had the\nValedictory or _Salutatory_, but if he takes the\nIndicator.--_Amherst Indicator_, Vol. II. p. 96.\n\n\nSATIS. Latin; literally, _enough_. In the University of Cambridge,\nEng., the lowest honor in the schools. The manner in which this\nword is used is explained in the Gradus ad Cantabrigiam, as\nfollows: \"_Satis disputasti_; which is at much as to say, in the\ncolloquial style, 'Bad enough.' _Satis et bene disputasti_,\n'Pretty fair,--tolerable.' _Satis et optime disputasti_, 'Go thy\nways, thou flower and quintessence of Wranglers.' Such are the\ncompliments to be expected from the Moderator, after the _act is\nkept_.\"--p. 95.\n\n\nS.B. An abbreviation for _Scienti\u00e6 Baccalaureus_, Bachelor in\nScience. At Harvard College, this degree is conferred on those who\nhave pursued a prescribed course of study for at least one year in\nthe Scientific School, and at the end of that period passed a\nsatisfactory examination. The different degrees of excellence are\nexpressed in the diploma by the words, _cum laude_, _cum magna\nlaude_, _cum summa laude_.\n\n\nSCARLET DAY. In the Church of England, certain festival days are\nstyled _scarlet days_. On these occasions, the doctors in the\nthree learned professions appear in their scarlet robes, and the\nnoblemen residing in the universities wear their full\ndresses.--_Grad. ad Cantab._\n\n\nSCHEME. The printed papers which are given to the students at Yale\nCollege at the Biennial Examination, and which contain the\nquestions that are to be answered, are denominated _schemes_. They\nare also called, simply, _papers_.\n\n  See the down-cast air, and the blank despair,\n  That sits on each Soph'more feature,\n  As his bleared eyes gleam o'er that horrid _scheme_!\n    _Songs of Yale_, 1853, p. 22.\n\n  Olmsted served an apprenticeship setting up types,\n    For the _schemes_ of Bien. Examination.\n    _Presentation Day Songs_, June 14, 1854.\n\n  Here's health to the tutors who gave us good _schemes_,\n          Vive la compagnie!\n    _Songs, Biennial Jubilee_, 1855.\n\n\nSCHOLAR. Any member of a college, academy, or school.\n\n2. An undergraduate in English universities, who belongs to the\nfoundation of a college, and receives support in part from its\nrevenues.--_Webster_.\n\n\nSCHOLAR OF THE HOUSE. At Yale College, those are called _Scholars\nof the House_ who, by superiority in scholarship, become entitled\nto receive the income arising from certain foundations established\nfor the purpose of promoting learning and literature. In some\ncases the recipient is required to remain at New Haven for a\nspecified time, and pursue a course of studies under the direction\nof the Faculty of the College.--_Sketches of Yale Coll._, p. 86.\n_Laws of Yale Coll._\n\n2. \"The _scholar of the house_,\" says President Woolsey, in his\nHistorical Discourse,--\"_scholaris \u00e6dilitus_ of the Latin\nlaws,--before the institution of Berkeley's scholarships which had\nthe same title, was a kind of \u00e6dile appointed by the President and\nTutors to inspect the public buildings, and answered in a degree\nto the Inspector known to our present laws and practice. He was\nnot to leave town until the Friday after Commencement, because in\nthat week more than usual damage was done to the buildings.\"--p.\n43.\n\nThe duties of this officer are enumerated in the annexed passage.\n\"The Scholar of the House, appointed by the President, shall\ndiligently observe and set down the glass broken in College\nwindows, and every other damage done in College, together with the\ntime when, and the person by whom, it was done; and every quarter\nhe shall make up a bill of such damages, charged against every\nscholar according to the laws of College, and deliver the same to\nthe President or the Steward, and the Scholar of the House shall\ntarry at College until Friday noon after the public Commencement,\nand in that time shall be obliged to view any damage done in any\nchamber upon the information of him to whom the chamber is\nassigned.\"--_Laws of Yale Coll._, 1774, p. 22.\n\n\nSCHOLARSHIP. Exhibition or maintenance for a scholar; foundation\nfor the support of a student--_Ainsworth_.\n\n\nSCHOOL. THE SCHOOLS, _pl._; the seminaries for teaching logic,\nmetaphysics, and theology, which were formed in the Middle Ages,\nand which were characterized by academical disputations and\nsubtilties of reasoning; or the learned men who were engaged in\ndiscussing nice points in metaphysics or theology.--_Webster_.\n\n2. In some American colleges, the different departments for\nteaching law, medicine, divinity, &c. are denominated _schools_.\n\n3. The name given at the University of Oxford to the place of\nexamination. The principal exercises consist of disputations in\nphilosophy, divinity, and law, and are always conducted in a sort\nof barbarous Latin.\n\nI attended the _Schools_ several times, with the view of acquiring\nthe tact and self-possession so requisite in these public\ncontests.--_Alma Mater_, Vol. II. p. 39.\n\nThere were only two sets of men there, one who fagged\nunremittingly for the _Schools_, and another devoted to frivolity\nand dissipation.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d,\np. 141.\n\n\nS.C.L. At the English universities, one who is pursuing law\nstudies and has not yet received the degree of B.C.L. or D.C.L.,\nis designated S.C.L., _Student_ in or of _Civil Law_.\n\nAt the University of Cambridge, Eng., persons in this rank who\nhave kept their acts wear a full-sleeved gown, and are entitled to\nuse a B.A. hood.\n\n\nSCONCE. To mulct; to fine. Used at the University of Oxford.\n\nA young fellow of Baliol College, having, upon some discontent cut\nhis throat very dangerously, the Master of the College sent his\nservitor to the buttery-book to _sconce_ (i.e. fine) him 5s.; and,\nsays the Doctor, tell him the next time he cuts his throat I'll\n_sconce_ him ten.--_Terr\u00e6-Filius_, No. 39.\n\nWas _sconced_ in a quart of ale for quoting Latin, a passage from\nJuvenal; murmured, and the fine was doubled.--_The Etonian_, Vol.\nII. p. 391.\n\n\nSCOUT. A cant term at Oxford for a college servant or\nwaiter.--_Oxford Guide_.\n\nMy _scout_, indeed, is a very learned fellow, and has an excellent\nknack at using hard words. One morning he told me the gentleman in\nthe next room _contagious_ to mine desired to speak to me. I once\noverheard him give a fellow-servant very sober advice not to go\nastray, but be true to his own wife; for _idolatry_ would surely\nbring a man to _instruction_ at last.--_The Student_, Oxf. and\nCam., 1750, Vol. I. p. 55.\n\nAn anteroom, or vestibule, which serves the purpose of a _scout's_\npantry.--_The Etonian_, Vol. II. p. 280.\n\n_Scouts_ are usually pretty communicative of all they\nknow.--_Blackwood's Mag._, Eng. ed., Vol. LX. p. 147.\n\nSometimes used in American colleges.\n\nIn order to quiet him, we had to send for his factotum or _scout_,\nan old black fellow.--_Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. XI. p. 282.\n\n\nSCRAPE. To insult by drawing the feet over the floor.--_Grose_.\n\n  But in a manner quite uncivil,\n  They hissed and _scraped_ him like the devil.\n    _Rebelliad_, p. 37.\n\n                             \"I do insist,\"\n  Quoth he, \"that two, who _scraped_ and hissed,\n  Shall be condemned without a jury\n  To pass the winter months _in rure_.\"--_Ibid._, p. 41.\n\nThey not unfrequently rose to open outrage or some personal\nmolestation, as casting missiles through his windows at night, or\n\"_scraping him_\" by day.--_A Tour through College_, Boston, 1832,\np. 25.\n\n\nSCRAPING. A drawing of, or the act of drawing, the feet over the\nfloor, as an insult to some one, or merely to cause disturbance; a\nshuffling of the feet.\n\nNew lustre was added to the dignity of their feelings by the\npathetic and impressive manner in which they expressed them, which\nwas by stamping and _scraping_ majestically with their feet, when\nin the presence of the detested tutors.--_Don Quixotes at\nCollege_, 1807.\n\nThe morning and evening daily prayers were, on the next day\n(Thursday), interrupted by _scraping_, whistling, groaning, and\nother disgraceful noises.--_Circular, Harvard College_, 1834, p.\n9.\n\nThis word is used in the universities and colleges of both England\nand America.\n\n\nSCREW. In some American colleges, an excessive, unnecessarily\nminute, and annoying examination of a student by an instructor is\ncalled a _screw_. The instructor is often designated by the same\nname.\n\n  Haunted by day with fearful _screw_.\n    _Harvard Lyceum_, p. 102.\n\n  _Screws_, duns, and other such like evils.\n    _Rebelliad_, p. 77.\n\nOne must experience all the stammering and stuttering, the\nunending doubtings and guessings, to understand fully the power of\na mathematical _screw_.--_Harv. Reg._, p. 378.\n\nThe consequence was, a patient submission to the _screw_, and a\nloss of college honors and patronage.--_A Tour through College_,\nBoston, 1832, p. 26.\n\nI'll tell him a whopper next time, and astonish him so that he'll\nforget his _screws_.--_Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. XI. p. 336.\n\nWhat a darned _screw_ our tutor is.--_Ibid._\n\nApprehension of the severity of the examination, or what in after\ntimes, by an academic figure of speech, was called screwing, or a\n_screw_, was what excited the chief dread.--_Willard's Memories of\nYouth and Manhood_, Vol. I. p. 256.\n\nPassing such an examination is often denominated _taking a screw_.\n\n  And sad it is to _take a screw_.\n    _Harv. Reg._, p. 287.\n\n2. At Bowdoin College, an imperfect recitation is called a\n_screw_.\n\n  You never should look blue, sir,\n  If you chance to take a \"_screw_,\" sir,\n  To us it's nothing new, sir,\n    To drive dull care away.\n    _The Bowdoin Creed_.\n\n  We've felt the cruel, torturing _screw_,\n    And oft its driver's ire.\n    _Song, Sophomore Supper, Bowdoin Coll._, 1850.\n\n\nSCREW. To press with an excessive and unnecessarily minute\nexamination.\n\n  Who would let a tutor knave\n  _Screw _him like a Guinea slave!\n    _Rebelliad_, p. 53.\n\n  Have I been _screwed_, yea, deaded morn and eve,\n  Some dozen moons of this collegiate life?\n    _Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 255.\n\n  O, I do well remember when in college,\n  How we fought reason,--battles all in play,--\n  Under a most portentous man of knowledge,\n  The captain-general in the bloodless fray;\n  He was a wise man, and a good man, too,\n  And robed himself in green whene'er he came to _screw_.\n    _Our Chronicle of '26_, Boston, 1827.\n\nIn a note to the last quotation, the author says of the word\n_screw_: \"For the information of the inexperienced, we explain\nthis as a term quite rife in the universities, and, taken\nsubstantively, signifying an intellectual nonplus.\"\n\n  At last the day is ended,\n    The tutor _screws_ no more.\n    _Knick. Mag._, Vol. XLV. p. 195.\n\n\nSCREWING UP. The meaning of this phrase, as understood by English\nCantabs, may be gathered from the following extract. \"A\nmagnificent sofa will be lying close to a door ... bored through\nfrom top to bottom from the _screwing up_ of some former unpopular\ntenant; \"_screwing up_\" being the process of fastening on the\noutside, with nails and screws, every door of the hapless wight's\napartments. This is done at night, and in the morning the\ngentleman is leaning three-fourths out of his window, bawling for\nrescue.\"--_Westminster Rev._, Am. Ed., Vol. XXXV. p. 239.\n\n\nSCRIBBLING-PAPER. A kind of writing-paper, rather inferior in\nquality, a trifle larger than foolscap, and used at the English\nuniversities by mathematicians and in the lecture-room.--_Bristed.\nGrad. ad Cantab._\n\nCards are commonly sold at Cambridge as\n\"_scribbling-paper_.\"--_Westminster Rev._, Am. ed., Vol. XXXV. p.\n238.\n\nThe summer apartment contained only a big standing-desk, the\neternal \"_scribbling-paper_,\" and the half-dozen mathematical\nworks required.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d,\np. 218.\n\n\nSCROUGE. An exaction. A very long lesson, or any hard or\nunpleasant task, is usually among students denominated a\n_scrouge_.\n\n\nSCROUGE. To exact; to extort; said of an instructor who imposes\ndifficult tasks on his pupils.\n\nIt is used provincially in England, and in America in some of the\nNorthern and Southern States, with the meaning _to crowd, to\nsqueeze_.--_Bartlett's Dict. of Americanisms_.\n\n\nSCRUB. At Columbia College, a servant.\n\n2. One who is disliked for his meanness, ill-breeding, or\nvulgarity. Nearly equivalent to SPOON, q.v.\n\n\nSCRUBBY. Possessing the qualities of a scrub. Partially synonymous\nwith the adjective SPOONY, q.v.\n\n\nSCRUTATOR. In the University of Cambridge, England, an officer\nwhose duty it is to attend all _Congregations_, to read the\n_graces_ to the lower house of the Senate, to gather the votes\nsecretly, or to take them openly in scrutiny, and publicly to\npronounce the assent or dissent of that house.--_Cam. Cal._\n\n\nSECOND-YEAR MEN. In the University of Cambridge, Eng., the title\nof _Second-Year Men_, or _Junior Sophs_ or _Sophisters_, is given\nto students during the second year of their residence at the\nUniversity.\n\n\nSECTION COURT. At Union College, the college buildings are divided\ninto sections, a section comprising about fifteen rooms. Within\neach section is established a court, which is composed of a judge,\nan advocate, and a secretary, who are chosen by the students\nresident therein from their own number, and hold their offices\nduring one college term. Each section court claims the power to\nsummon for trial any inhabitant within the bounds of its\njurisdiction who may be charged with improper conduct. The accused\nmay either defend himself, or select some person to plead for him,\nsuch residents of the section as choose to do so acting as jurors.\nThe prisoner, if found guilty, is sentenced at the discretion of\nthe court,--generally, to treat the company to some specified\ndrink or dainty. These courts often give occasion for a great deal\nof fun, and sometimes call out real wit and eloquence.\n\nAt one of our \"_section courts_,\" which those who expected to\nenter upon the study of the law used to hold, &c.--_The Parthenon,\nUnion Coll._, 1851, p. 19.\n\n\nSECTION OFFICER. At Union College, each section of the college\nbuildings, containing about fifteen rooms, is under the\nsupervision of a professor or tutor, who is styled the _section\nofficer_. This officer is required to see that there be no\nimproper noise in the rooms or corridors, and to report the\nabsence of students from chapel and recitation, and from their\nrooms during study hours.\n\n\nSEED. In Yale College this word is used to designate what is\nunderstood by the common cant terms, \"a youth\"; \"case\"; \"bird\";\n\"b'hoy\"; \"one of 'em.\"\n\n  While tutors, every sport defeating,\n  And under feet-worn stairs secreting,\n  And each dark lane and alley beating,\n  Hunt up the _seeds_ in vain retreating.\n    _Yale Banger_, Nov. 1849.\n\n  The wretch had dared to flunk a gory _seed_!\n    _Ibid._, Nov. 1849.\n\n  One tells his jokes, the other tells his beads,\n  One talks of saints, the other sings of _seeds_.\n    _Ibid._, Nov. 1849.\n\n  But we are \"_seeds_,\" whose rowdy deeds\n    Make up the drunken tale.\n    _Yale Tomahawk_, Nov. 1849.\n\n  First Greek he enters; and with reckless speed\n  He drags o'er stumps and roots each hapless _seed_.\n    _Ibid._, Nov. 1849.\n\n  Each one a bold _seed_, well fit for the deed,\n    But of course a little bit flurried.\n    _Ibid._, May, 1852.\n\n\nSEEDY. At Yale College, rowdy, riotous, turbulent.\n\n  And snowballs, falling thick and fast\n    As oaths from _seedy_ Senior crowd.\n    _Yale Gallinipper_, Nov. 1848.\n\n  A _seedy_ Soph beneath a tree.\n    _Yale Gallinipper_, Nov. 1848.\n\n2. Among English Cantabs, not well, out of sorts, done up; the\nsort of feeling that a reading man has after an examination, or a\nrowing man after a dinner with the Beefsteak Club. Also, silly,\neasy to perform.--_Bristed_.\n\nThe owner of the apartment attired in a very old dressing-gown and\nslippers, half buried in an arm-chair, and looking what some young\nladies call interesting, i.e. pale and _seedy_.--_Bristed's Five\nYears in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 151.\n\nYou will seldom find anything very _seedy_ set for\nIambics.--_Ibid._, p. 182.\n\n\nSELL. An unexpected reply; a deception or trick.\n\nIn the Literary World, March 15, 1851, is the following\nexplanation of this word: \"Mr. Phillips's first introduction to\nCurran was made the occasion of a mystification, or practical\njoke, in which Irish wits have excelled since the time of Dean\nSwift, who was wont (_vide_ his letters to Stella) to call these\njocose tricks 'a _sell_,' from selling a bargain.\" The word\n_bargain_, however, which Johnson, in his Dictionary, defines \"an\nunexpected reply tending to obscenity,\" was formerly used more\ngenerally among the English wits. The noun _sell_ has of late been\nrevived in this country, and is used to a certain extent in New\nYork and Boston, and especially among the students at Cambridge.\n\n  I sought some hope to borrow, by thinking it a \"_sell_\"\n  By fancying it a fiction, my anguish to dispel.\n    _Poem before the Iadma of Harv. Coll._, 1850, p. 8.\n\n\nSELL. To give an unexpected answer; to deceive; to cheat.\n\nFor the love you bear me, never tell how badly I was\n_sold_.--_Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. XX. p. 94.\n\nThe use of this verb is much more common in the United States than\nthat of the noun of the same spelling, which is derived from it;\nfor instance, we frequently read in the newspapers that the Whigs\nor Democrats have been _sold_, i.e. defeated in an election, or\ncheated in some political affair. The phrase _to sell a bargain_,\nwhich Bailey defines \"to put a sham upon one,\" is now scarcely\never heard. It was once a favorite expression with certain English\nwriters.\n\n  Where _sold he bargains_, Whipstitch?--_Dryden_.\n\n  No maid at court is less ashamed,\n  Howe'er for _selling bargains_ famed.--_Swift_.\n\nDr. Sheridan, famous for punning, intending _to sell a bargain_,\nsaid, he had made a very good pun.--_Swift, Bons Mots de Stella_.\n\n\nSEMESTER. Latin, _semestris_, _sex_, six, and _mensis_, month. In\nthe German universities, a period or term of six months. The\ncourse of instruction occupies six _semesters_. Class distinctions\ndepend upon the number of _semesters_, not of years. During the\nfirst _semester_, the student is called _Fox_, in the second\n_Burnt Fox_, and then, successively, _Young Bursch_, _Old Bursch_,\n_Old House_, and _Moss-covered Head_.\n\n\nSENATE. In the University of Cambridge, England, the legislative\nbody of the University. It is divided into two houses, called\nREGENT and NON-REGENT. The former consists of the vice-chancellor,\nproctors, taxors, moderators, and esquire-beadles, all masters of\narts of less than five years' standing, and all doctors of\ndivinity, civil law, and physic, of less than two, and is called\nthe UPPER HOUSE, or WHITE-HOOD HOUSE, from its members wearing\nhoods lined with white silk. The latter is composed of masters of\narts of five years' standing, bachelors of divinity, and doctors\nin the three faculties of two years' standing, and is known as the\nLOWER HOUSE, or BLACK-HOOD HOUSE, its members wearing black silk\nhoods. To have a vote in the Senate, the graduate must keep his\nname on the books of some college (which involves a small annual\npayment), or in the list of the _commorantes in vill\u00e2_.--_Webster.\nCam. Cal. Lit. World_, Vol. XII. p. 283.\n\n2. At Union College, the members of the Senior Class form what is\ncalled the Senate, a body organized after the manner of the Senate\nof the United States, for the purpose of becoming acquainted with\nthe forms and practice of legislation. The members of the Junior\nClass compose the House of Representatives. The following account,\nshowing in what manner the Senate is conducted, has been furnished\nby a member of Union College.\n\n\"On the last Friday of the third term, the House of\nRepresentatives meet in their hall, and await their initiation to\nthe Upper House. There soon appears a committee of three, who\ninform them by their chairman of the readiness of the Senate to\nreceive them, and perhaps enlarge upon the importance of the\ncoming trust, and the ability of the House to fill it.\n\n\"When this has been done, the House, headed by the committee,\nproceed to the Senate Chamber (Senior Chapel), and are arranged by\nthe committee around the President, the Senators (Seniors)\nmeanwhile having taken the second floor. The President of the\nSenate then rises and delivers an appropriate address, informing\nthem of their new dignities and the grave responsibilities of\ntheir station. At the conclusion of this they take their seats,\nand proceed to the election of officers, viz. a President, a\nVice-President, Secretary, and Treasurer. The President must be a\nmember of the Faculty, and is chosen for a term; the other\nofficers are selected from the House, and continue in office but\nhalf a term. The first Vice-Presidency of the Senate is considered\none of the highest honors conferred by the class, and great is the\nstrife to obtain it.\n\n\"The Senate meet again on the second Friday of the next term, when\nthey receive the inaugural message of the President. He then\ndivides them into seven districts, each district including the\nstudents residing in a Section, or Hall of College, except the\nseventh, which is filled by the students lodging in town. The\nSenate is also divided into a number of standing committees, as\nLaw, Ethics, Political Economy. Business is referred to these\ncommittees, and reported on by them in the usual manner. The time\nof the Senate is principally occupied with the discussion of\nresolutions, in committee of the whole; and these discussions take\nthe place of the usual Friday afternoon recitation. At\nCommencement the Senate have an orator of their own election, who\nmust, however, have been a past or honorary member of their body.\nThey also have a committee on the 'Commencement Card.'\"\n\nOn the same subject, another correspondent writes as follows:--\n\n\"The Senate is composed of the Senior Class, and is intended as a\nschool of parliamentary usages. The officers are a President,\nVice-President, and Secretary, who are chosen once a term. At the\nclose of the second term, the Junior Class are admitted into the\nSenate. They are introduced by a committee of Senators, and are\nexpected to remain standing and uncovered during the ceremony, the\nPresident and Senators being seated and covered. After a short\naddress by the President, the old Senators leave the house, and\nthe Juniors proceed to elect their officers for the third term.\nDr. Thomas C. Reed who was the founder of the Senate, was always\nelected President during his connection with the College, but\nrarely took his place in the chamber except at the introduction of\nthe Juniors. The Vice-President for the third term, who takes a\npart in the ceremonies of commencement, is considered to hold the\nhighest honor of the class, and his election is attended with more\nexcitement than any other in the College.\"\n\nSee COMMENCEMENT CARD; HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.\n\n\nSENATE-HOUSE. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., the building\nin which the public business of the University, such as\nexaminations, the passing of graces, and admission to degrees, is\ncarried on.--_Cam. Guide_.\n\n\nSENATUS ACADEMICUS. At Trinity College, Hartford, the _Senatus\nAcademicus_ consists of two houses, known as the CORPORATION and\nthe HOUSE OF CONVOCATION, q.v.--_Calendar Trin. Coll._, 1850, p.\n6.\n\nSENE. An abbreviation for Senior.\n\n  Magnificent Juns, and lazy _Senes_.\n    _Yale Banger_, Nov. 10, 1846.\n\n  A rare young blade is the gallant _Sene_.\n    _Ibid._, Nov. 1850.\n\n\nSENIOR. One in the fourth year of his collegiate course at an\nAmerican college; originally called _Senior Sophister_. Also one\nin the third year of his course at a theological\nseminary.--_Webster_.\n\nSee SOPHISTER.\n\n\nSENIOR. Noting the fourth year of the collegiate course in\nAmerican colleges, or the third year in theological\nseminaries.--_Webster_.\n\n\nSENIOR BACHELOR. One who is in his third year after taking the\ndegree of Bachelor of Arts. It is further explained by President\nWoolsey, in his Historical Discourse: \"Bachelors were called\nSenior, Middle, or Junior Bachelors, according to the year since\ngraduation and before taking the degree of Master.\"--p. 122.\n\n\nSENIOR CLASSIC. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., the student\nwho passes best in the voluntary examination in classics, which\nfollows the last required examination in the Senate-House.\n\nNo one stands a chance for _Senior Classic_ alongside of\nhim.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 55.\n\nTwo men who had been rivals all the way through school and through\ncollege were racing for _Senior Classic_.--_Ibid._, p. 253.\n\n\nSENIOR FELLOW. At Trinity College, Hartford, the Senior Fellow is\na person chosen to attend the college examinations during the\nyear.\n\n\nSENIOR FRESHMAN. The name of the second of the four classes into\nwhich undergraduates are divided at Trinity College, Dublin.\n\n\nSENIORITY. In the University of Cambridge, Eng., the eight Senior\nFellows and the Master of a college compose what is called the\n_Seniority_. Their decisions in all matters are generally\nconclusive.\n\nMy duty now obliges me, however reluctantly, to bring you before\nthe _Seniority_.--_Alma Mater_, Vol. I. p. 75.\n\n\nSENIOR OPTIME. Those who occupy the second rank in honors at the\nclose of the final examination at the University of Cambridge,\nEng., are denominated _Senior Optimes_.\n\nThe Second Class, or that of _Senior Optimes_, is larger in number\n[than that of the Wranglers], usually exceeding forty, and\nsometimes reaching above sixty. This class contains a number of\ndisappointments, many who expect to be Wranglers, and some who are\ngenerally expected to be.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng.\nUniv._, Ed. 2d, p. 228.\n\nThe word is frequently abbreviated.\n\nThe Pembroker ... had the pleasant prospect of getting up all his\nmathematics for a place among the _Senior Ops._--_Ibid._, p. 158.\n\nHe would get just questions enough to make him a low _Senior Op._\n--_Ibid._, p. 222.\n\n\nSENIOR ORATION. \"The custom of delivering _Senior Orations_,\" says\na correspondent, \"is, I think, confined to Washington and\nJefferson Colleges in Pennsylvania. Each member of the Senior\nClass, taking them in alphabetical order, is required to deliver\nan oration before graduating, and on such nights as the Faculty\nmay decide. The public are invited to attend, and the speaking is\ncontinued at appointed times, until each member of the Class has\nspoken.\"\n\n\nSENIOR SOPHISTER. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., a student\nin the third year of his residence is called a Senior Soph or\nSophister.\n\n2. In some American colleges, a member of the Senior Class, i.e.\nof the fourth year, was formerly designated a Senior Sophister.\n\nSee SOPHISTER.\n\n\nSENIOR WRANGLER. In the University of Cambridge, Eng., the Senior\nWrangler is the student who passes the best examination in the\nSenate-House, and by consequence holds the first place on the\nMathematical Tripos.\n\nThe only road to classical honors and their accompanying\nemoluments in the University, and virtually in all the Colleges,\nexcept Trinity, is through mathematical honors, all candidates for\nthe Classical Tripos being obliged as a preliminary to obtain a\nplace in that mathematical list which is headed by the _Senior\nWrangler_ and tailed by the Wooden Spoon.--_Bristed's Five Years\nin an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 34.\n\n\nSEQUESTER. To cause to retire or withdraw into obscurity. In the\nfollowing passage it is used in the collegiate sense of _suspend_\nor _rusticate_.\n\nThough they were adulti, they were corrected in the College, and\n_sequestered_, &c. for a time.--_Winthrop's Journal, by Savage_,\nVol. II. p. 88.\n\n\nSERVITOR. In the University of Oxford, an undergraduate who is\npartly supported by the college funds. _Servitors_ formerly waited\nat table, but this is now dispensed with. The order similar to\nthat of the _servitor_ was at Cambridge styled the order of\n_Sub-sizars_. This has been long extinct. The _sizar_ at Cambridge\nis at present nearly equivalent to the Oxford _servitor_.--_Gent.\nMag._, 1787, p. 1146. _Brande_.\n\n\"It ought to be known,\" observes De Quincey, \"that the class of\n'_servitors_,' once a large body in Oxford, have gradually become\npractically extinct under the growing liberality of the age. They\ncarried in their academic dress a mark of their inferiority; they\nwaited at dinner on those of higher rank, and performed other\nmenial services, humiliating to themselves, and latterly felt as\nno less humiliating to the general name and interests of\nlearning.\"--_Life and Manners_, p. 272.\n\nA reference to the cruel custom of \"hunting the servitor\" is to be\nfound in Sir John Hawkins's Life of Dr. Johnson, p. 12.\n\n\nSESSION. At some of the Southern and Western colleges of the\nUnited States, the time during which instruction is regularly\ngiven to the students; a term.\n\nThe _session_ commences on the 1st of October, and continues\nwithout interruption until the 29th of June.--_Cat. of Univ. of\nVirginia_, 1851, p. 15.\n\n\nSEVENTY-EIGHTH PSALM. The recollections which cluster around this\nPsalm, so well known to all the Alumni of Harvard, are of the most\npleasant nature. For more than a hundred years, it has been sung\nat the dinner given on Commencement day at Cambridge, and for more\nthan a half-century to the tune of St. Martin's. Mr. Samuel\nShapleigh, who graduated at Harvard College in the year 1789, and\nwho was afterwards its Librarian, on the leaf of a hymn-book makes\na memorandum in reference to this Psalm, to the effect that it has\nbeen sung at Cambridge on Commencement day \"from _time\nimmemorial_.\" The late Rev. Dr. John Pierce, a graduate of the\nclass of 1793, referring to the same subject, remarks: \"The\nSeventy-eighth Psalm, it is supposed, has, _from the foundation of\nthe College_, been sung in the common version of the day.\" In a\npoem, entitled Education, delivered at Cambridge before the Phi\nBeta Kappa Society, by Mr. William Biglow, July 18th, 1799,\nspeaking of the conduct and manners of the students, the author\nsays:--\n\n \"Like pigs they eat, they drink an ocean dry,\n  They steal like France, like Jacobins they lie,\n  They raise the very Devil, when called to prayers,\n  'To sons transmit the same, and they again to theirs'\";\n\nand, in explanation of the last line, adds this note: \"Alluding to\nthe Psalm which is _always_ sung in Harvard Hall on Commencement\nday.\" In his account of some of the exercises attendant upon the\nCommencement at Harvard College in 1848, Professor Sidney Willard\nobserves: \"At the Commencement dinner the sitting is not of long\nduration; and we retired from table soon after the singing of the\nPsalm, which, with some variation in the version, has been sung on\nthe same occasion from time immemorial.\"--_Memoirs of Youth and\nManhood_, Vol. II. p. 65.\n\nBut that we cannot take these accounts as correct in their full\nextent, appears from an entry in the MS. Diary of Chief Justice\nSewall relating to a Commencement in 1685, which he closes with\nthese words: \"After Dinner ye 3d part of ye 103d Ps. was sung in\nye Hall.\"\n\nIn the year 1793, at the dinner on Commencement Day, the Rev.\nJoseph Willard, then President of the College, requested Mr.\nafterwards Dr. John Pierce, to set the tune to the Psalm; with\nwhich request having complied to the satisfaction of all present,\nhe from that period until the time of his death, in 1849,\nperformed this service, being absent only on one occasion. Those\nwho have attended Commencement dinners during the latter part of\nthis period cannot but associate with this hallowed Psalm the\nvenerable appearance and the benevolent countenance of this\nexcellent man.\n\nIn presenting a list of the different versions in which this Psalm\nhas been sung, it must not be supposed that entire correctness has\nbeen reached; the very scanty accounts which remain render this\nalmost impossible, but from these, which on a question of greater\nimportance might be considered hardly sufficient, it would appear\nthat the following are the versions in which the sons of Harvard\nhave been accustomed to sing the Psalm of the son of Jesse.\n\n1.--_The New England Version_.\n\n\"In 1639 there was an agreement amo. ye Magistrates and Ministers\nto set aside ye Psalms then printed at ye end of their Bibles, and\nsing one more congenial to their ideas of religion.\" Rev. Mr.\nRichard Mather of Dorchester, and Rev. Mr. Thomas Weld and Rev.\nMr. John Eliot of Roxbury, were selected to make a metrical\ntranslation, to whom the Rev. Thomas Shepard of Cambridge gives\nthe following metrical caution:--\n\n \"Ye Roxbury poets, keep clear of ye crime\n  Of missing to give us very good rhyme,\n  And you of Dorchester, your verses lengthen,\n  But with the texts own words you will y'm strengthen.\"\n\nThe version of this ministerial trio was printed in the year 1640,\nat Cambridge, and has the honor of being the first production of\nthe North American press that rises to the dignity of _a book_. It\nwas entitled, \"The Psalms newly turned into Metre.\" A second\nedition was printed in 1647. \"It was more to be commended,\nhowever,\" says Mr. Peirce, in his History of Harvard University,\n\"for its fidelity to the text, than for the elegance of its\nversification, which, having been executed by persons of different\ntastes and talents, was not only very uncouth, but deficient in\nuniformity. President Dunster, who was an excellent Oriental\nscholar, and possessed the other requisite qualifications for the\ntask, was employed to revise and polish it; and in two or three\nyears, with the assistance of Mr. Richard Lyon, a young gentleman\nwho was sent from England by Sir Henry Mildmay to attend his son,\nthen a student in Harvard College, he produced a work, which,\nunder the appellation of the 'Bay Psalm-Book,' was, for a long\ntime, the received version in the New England congregations, was\nalso used in many societies in England and Scotland, and passed\nthrough a great number of editions, both at home and abroad.\"--p.\n14.\n\nThe Seventy-eighth Psalm is thus rendered in the first edition:--\n\n  Give listning eare unto my law,\n    Yee people that are mine,\n  Unto the sayings of my mouth\n    Doe yee your eare incline.\n\n  My mouth I'le ope in parables,\n    I'le speak hid things of old:\n  Which we have heard, and knowne: and which\n    Our fathers have us told.\n\n  Them from their children wee'l not hide,\n    To th' after age shewing\n  The Lords prayses; his strength, and works\n    Of his wondrous doing.\n\n  In Jacob he a witnesse set,\n    And put in Israell\n  A law, which he our fathers charg'd\n    They should their children tell:\n\n  That th' age to come, and children which\n    Are to be borne might know;\n  That they might rise up and the same\n    Unto their children show.\n\n  That they upon the mighty God\n    Their confidence might set:\n  And Gods works and his commandment\n    Might keep and not forget,\n\n  And might not like their fathers be,\n    A stiffe, stout race; a race\n  That set not right their hearts: nor firme\n    With God their spirit was.\n\nThe Bay Psalm-Book underwent many changes in the various editions\nthrough which it passed, nor was this psalm left untouched, as\nwill be seen by referring to the twenty-sixth edition, published\nin 1744, and to the edition of 1758, revised and corrected, with\nadditions, by Mr. Thomas Prince.\n\n2.--_Watts's Version_.\n\nThe Psalms and Hymns of Dr. Isaac Watts were first published in\nthis country by Dr. Franklin, in the year 1741. His version is as\nfollows:--\n\n  Let children hear the mighty deeds\n    Which God performed of old;\n  Which in our younger years we saw,\n    And which our fathers told.\n\n  He bids us make his glories known,\n    His works of power and grace,\n  And we'll convey his wonders down\n    Through every rising race.\n\n  Our lips shall tell them to our sons,\n    And they again to theirs,\n  That generations yet unborn\n    May teach them to their heirs.\n\n  Thus shall they learn in God alone\n    Their hope securely stands,\n  That they may ne'er forget his works,\n    But practise his commands;\n\n3.--_Brady and Tate's Version_.\n\nIn the year 1803, the Seventy-eighth Psalm was first printed on a\nsmall sheet and placed under every plate, which practice has since\nbeen always adopted. The version of that year was from Brady and\nTate's collection, first published in London in 1698, and in this\ncountry about the year 1739. It was sung to the tune of St.\nMartin's in 1805, as appears from a memorandum in ink on the back\nof one of the sheets for that year, which reads, \"Sung in the\nhall, Commencement Day, tune St. Martin's, 1805.\" From the\nstatements of graduates of the last century, it seems that this\nhad been the customary tune for some time previous to this year,\nand it is still retained as a precious legacy of the past. St.\nMartin's was composed by William Tans'ur in the year 1735. The\nfollowing is the version of Brady and Tate:--\n\n  Hear, O my people; to my law\n    Devout attention lend;\n  Let the instruction of my mouth\n    Deep in your hearts descend.\n\n  My tongue, by inspiration taught,\n    Shall parables unfold,\n  Dark oracles, but understood,\n    And owned for truths of old;\n\n  Which we from sacred registers\n    Of ancient times have known,\n  And our forefathers' pious care\n    To us has handed down.\n\n  We will not hide them from our sons;\n    Our offspring shall be taught\n  The praises of the Lord, whose strength\n    Has works of wonders wrought.\n\n  For Jacob he this law ordained,\n    This league with Israel made;\n  With charge, to be from age to age,\n    From race to race, conveyed,\n\n  That generations yet to come\n    Should to their unborn heirs\n  Religiously transmit the same,\n    And they again to theirs.\n\n  To teach them that in God alone\n    Their hope securely stands;\n  That they should ne'er his works forget,\n    But keep his just commands.\n\n4.--_From Belknap's Collection_.\n\nThis collection was first published by the Rev. Dr. Jeremy\nBelknap, at Boston, in 1795. The version of the Seventy-eighth\nPsalm is partly from that of Brady and Tate, and partly from Dr.\nWatts's, with a few slight variations. It succeeded the version of\nBrady and Tate about the year 1820, and is the one which is now\nused. The first three stanzas were written by Brady and Tate; the\nlast three by Dr. Watts. It has of late been customary to omit the\nlast stanza in singing and in printing.\n\n  Give ear, ye children;[62] to my law\n    Devout attention lend;\n  Let the instructions[63] of my mouth\n    Deep in your hearts descend.\n\n  My tongue, by inspiration taught,\n    Shall parables unfold;\n  Dark oracles, but understood,\n    And owned for truths of old;\n\n  Which we from sacred registers\n    Of ancient times have known,\n  And our forefathers' pious care\n    To us has handed down.\n\n  Let children learn[64] the mighty deeds\n    Which God performed of old;\n  Which, in our younger years we saw,\n    And which our fathers told.\n\n  Our lips shall tell them to our sons,\n    And they again to theirs;\n  That generations yet unborn\n    May teach them to their heirs.\n\n  Thus shall they learn in God alone\n    Their hope securely stands;\n  That they may ne'er forget his works,\n    But practise his commands.\n\nIt has been supposed by some that the version of the\nSeventy-eighth Psalm by Sternhold and Hopkins, whose spiritual\nsongs were usually printed, as appears above, \"at ye end of their\nBibles,\" was the first which was sung at Commencement dinners; but\nthis does not seem at all probable, since the first Commencement\nat Cambridge did not take place until 1642, at which time the \"Bay\nPsalm-Book,\" written by three of the most popular ministers of the\nday, had already been published two years.\n\n\nSHADY. Among students at the University of Cambridge, Eng., an\nepithet of depreciation, equivalent to MILD and SLOW.--_Bristed_.\n\nSome ... are rather _shady_ in Greek and Latin.--_Bristed's Five\nYears in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 147.\n\nMy performances on the Latin verse paper were very\n_shady_.--_Ibid._, p. 191.\n\n\nSHARK. In student language, an absence from a recitation, a\nlecture, or from prayers, prompted by recklessness rather than by\nnecessity, is called a _shark_. He who is absent under these\ncircumstances is also known as a shark.\n\n  The Monitors' task is now quite done,\n    They 've pencilled all their marks,\n  \"Othello's occupation's gone,\"--\n    No more look out for _sharks_.\n    _Songs of Yale_, 1853, p. 45.\n\n\nSHEEPSKIN. The parchment diploma received by students on taking\ntheir degree at college. \"In the back settlements are many\nclergymen who have not had the advantages of a liberal education,\nand who consequently have no diplomas. Some of these look upon\ntheir more favored brethren with a little envy. A clergyman is\nsaid to have a _sheepskin_, or to be a _sheepskin_, when educated\nat college.\"--_Bartlett's Dict. of Americanisms_.\n\nThis apostle of ourn never rubbed his back agin a college, nor\ntoted about no _sheepskins_,--no, never!... How you'd a perished\nin your sins, if the first preachers had stayed till they got\n_sheepskins_.--_Carlton's New Purchase_.\n\nI can say as well as the best on them _sheepskins_, if you don't\nget religion and be saved, you'll be lost, teetotally and for\never.--(_Sermon of an Itinerant Preacher at a Camp\nMeeting_.)--_Ibid._\n\nAs for John Prescot, he not only lost the valedictory, but barely\nescaped with his \"_sheepskin_.\"--_Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. X. p. 74.\n\nThat handsome Senior ... receives his _sheepskin_ from the\ndispensing hand of our worthy Prex.--_Ibid._, Vol. XIX. p. 355.\n\n  When first I saw a \"_Sheepskin_,\"\n    In Prex's hand I spied it.\n    _Yale Coll. Song_.\n\n  We came to college fresh and green,--\n  We go back home with a huge _sheepskin_.\n    _Songs of Yale_, 1853, p. 43.\n\n\nSHIN. To tease or hector a person by kicking his shins. In some\ncolleges this is one of the means which the Sophomores adopt to\ntorment the Freshmen, especially when playing at football, or\nother similar games.\n\nWe have been _shinned_, smoked, ducked, and accelerated by the\nencouraging shouts of our generous friends.--_Yale Banger_, Nov.\n10, 1846.\n\n\nSHINE. At Harvard College this word was formerly used to designate\na good recitation. Used in the phrase, \"_to make a shine_.\"\n\n\nSHINNY. At Princeton College, the game of _Shinny_, known also by\nthe names of _Hawky_ and _Hurly_, is as great a favorite with the\nstudents as is football at other colleges. \"The players,\" says a\ncorrespondent, \"are each furnished with a stick four or five feet\nin length and one and a half or two inches in diameter, curved at\none end, the object of which is to give the ball a surer blow. The\nball is about three inches in diameter, bound with thick leather.\nThe players are divided into two parties, arranged along from one\ngoal to the other. The ball is then '_bucked_' by two players, one\nfrom each side, which is done by one of these two taking the ball\nand asking his opponent which he will have, 'high or low'; if he\nsays 'high,' the ball is thrown up midway between them; if he says\n'low,' the ball is thrown on the ground. The game is opened by a\nscuffle between these two for the ball. The other players then\njoin in, one party knocking towards North College, which is one\n'home' (as it is termed), and the other towards the fence bounding\nthe south side of the _Campus_, the other home. Whichever party\nfirst gets the ball home wins the game. A grand contest takes\nplace annually between the Juniors and Sophomores, in this game.\"\n\n\nSHIP. Among collegians, one expelled from college is said to be\n_shipped_.\n\n  For I, you know, am but a college minion,\n  But still, you'll all be _shipped_, in my opinion,\n    When brought before Conventus Facultatis.\n    _Yale Tomahawk_, May, 1852.\n\nHe may be overhauled, warned, admonished, dismissed, _shipped_,\nrusticated, sent off, suspended.--_Burlesque Catalogue_, _Yale\nColl._, 1852-53, p. 25.\n\n\nSHIPWRECK. Among students, a total failure.\n\nHis university course has been a _shipwreck_, and he will probably\nend by going out unnoticed among the [Greek:\n_polloi_].--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p.\n56.\n\n\nSHORT-EAR. At Jefferson College, Penn., a soubriquet for a\nroistering, noisy fellow; a rowdy. Opposed to _long-ear_.\n\n\nSHORT TERM. At Oxford, Eng., the extreme duration of residence in\nany college is under thirty weeks. \"It is possible to keep '_short\nterms_,' as the phrase is, by residence of thirteen weeks, or\nninety-one days.\"--_De Quincey's Life and Manners_, p. 274.\n\n\nSIDE. In the University of Cambridge, Eng., the set of pupils\nbelonging to any one particular tutor is called his _side_.\n\nA longer discourse he will perhaps have to listen to with the rest\nof his _side_.--_Westminster Rev._, Am. ed., Vol. XXXV. p. 281.\n\nA large college has usually two tutors,--Trinity has three,--and\nthe students are equally divided among them,--_on their sides_ the\nphrase is.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p.\n11.\n\n\nSILVER CUP. At Trinity College, Hartford, this is a testimonial\nvoted by each graduating class to the first legitimate boy whose\nfather is a member of the class.\n\nAt Yale College, a theory of this kind prevails, but it has never\nyet been carried into practice.\n\n  I tell you what, my classmates,\n    My mind it is made up,\n  I'm coming back three years from this,\n    To take that _silver cup_.\n  I'll bring along the \"requisite,\"\n    A little white-haired lad,\n  With \"bib\" and fixings all complete,\n    And I shall be his \"dad.\"\n    _Presentation Day Songs_, June 14, 1854.\n\nSee CLASS CUP.\n\n\nSIM. Abbreviated from _Simeonite_. A nickname given by the rowing\nmen at the University of Cambridge, Eng., to evangelicals, and to\nall religious men, or even quiet men generally.\n\nWhile passing for a terribly hard reading man, and a \"_Sim_\" of\nthe straitest kind with the \"empty bottles,\"... I was fast lapsing\ninto a state of literary sensualism.--_Bristed's Five Years in an\nEng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, pp. 39, 40.\n\n\nSIR. It was formerly the fashion in the older American colleges to\ncall a Bachelor of Arts, Sir; this was sometimes done at the time\nwhen the Seniors were accepted for that degree.\n\nVoted, Sept. 5th, 1763, \"that _Sir_ Sewall, B.A., be the\nInstructor in the Hebrew and other learned languages for three\nyears.\"--_Peirce's Hist. Harv. Univ._, p. 234.\n\nDecember, 1790. Some time in this month, _Sir_ Adams resigned the\nberth of Butler, and _Sir_ Samuel Shapleigh was chosen in his\nstead.--_MS. Journal, Harv. Coll._\n\nThen succeeded Cliosophic Oration in Latin, by _Sir_ Meigs.\nPoetical Composition in English, by _Sir_ Barlow.--_Woolsey's\nHist. Disc._, p. 121.\n\nThe author resided in Cambridge after he graduated. In common with\nall who had received the degree of Bachelor of Arts and not that\nof Master of Arts, he was called \"_Sir_,\" and known as \"_Sir_\nSeccomb.\"\n\nSome of the \"_Sirs_\" as well as undergraduates were arraigned\nbefore the college government.--_Father Abbey's Will_, Cambridge,\nMass., 1854, p. 7.\n\n\nSITTING OF THE SOLSTICES. It was customary, in the early days of\nHarvard College, for the graduates of the year to attend in the\nrecitation-room on Mondays and Tuesdays, for three weeks, during\nthe month of June, subject to the examination of all who chose to\nvisit them. This was called the _Sitting of the Solstices_,\nbecause it happened in midsummer, or at the time of the summer\nsolstice. The time was also known as the _Weeks of Visitation_.\n\n\nSIZAR, SISAR, SIZER. In the University of Cambridge, Eng., a\nstudent of the third rank, or that next below that of a pensioner,\nwho eats at the public table after the fellows, free of expense.\nIt was formerly customary for _every fellow-commoner_ to have his\n_sizar_, to whom he allowed a certain portion of commons, or\nvictuals and drink, weekly, but no money; and for this the sizar\nwas obliged to do him certain services daily.\n\nA lower order of students were called _sub-sizars_. In reference\nto this class, we take the following from the Gentleman's\nMagazine, 1787, p. 1146. \"At King's College, they were styled\n_hounds_. The situation of a sub-sizar being looked upon in so\ndegrading a light probably occasioned the extinction of the order.\nBut as the sub-sizars had certain assistances in return for their\nhumiliating services, and as the poverty of parents stood in need\nof such assistances for their sons, some of the sizars undertook\nthe same offices for the same advantages. The master's sizar,\ntherefore, waited upon him for the sake of his commons, etc., as\nthe sub-sizar had done; and the other sizars did the same office\nto the fellows for the advantage of the remains of their commons.\nThus the term sub-sizar became forgotten, and the sizar was\nsupposed to be the same as the _servitor_. But if a sizar did not\nchoose to accept of these assistances upon such degrading terms,\nhe dined in his own room, and was called a _proper sizar_. He wore\nthe same gown as the others, and his tutorage, etc. was no higher;\nbut there was nothing servile in his situation.\"--\"Now, indeed,\nall (or almost all) the colleges in Cambridge have allowed the\nsizars every advantage of the remains of the fellows' commons,\netc., though they have very liberally exempted them from every\nservile office.\"\n\nAnother writer in the same periodical, 1795, p. 21, says: The\nsizar \"is very much like the _scholars_ at Westminster, Eton, &c.,\nwho are on the _foundation_; and is, in a manner, the\n_half-boarder_ in private academies. The name was derived from the\nmenial services in which he was occasionally engaged; being in\nformer days compelled to transport the plates, dishes, _sizes_,\nand platters, to and from the tables of his superiors.\"\n\nA writer in the Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica, at the close of the\narticle SIZAR, says of this class: \"But though their education is\nthus obtained at a less expense, they are not now considered as a\nmenial order; for sizars, pensioner-scholars, and even sometimes\nfellow-commoners, mix together with the utmost cordiality.\"\n\n\"Sizars,\" says Bristed, \"answer to the beneficiaries of American\ncolleges. They receive pecuniary assistance from the college, and\ndine gratis after the fellows on the remains of their table. These\n'remains' are very liberally construed, the sizar always having\nfresh vegetables, and frequently fresh tarts and puddings.\"--_Five\nYears in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 14.\n\n\nSIZE. Food and drink from the buttery, aside from the regular\ndinner at commons.\n\n\"A _size_\" says Minsheu, \"is a portion of bread or drinke, it is a\nfarthing which schollers in Cambridge have at the buttery; it is\nnoted with the letter S. as in Oxford with the letter Q. for halfe\na farthing; and whereas they say in Oxford, to battle in the\nButtery Booke, i.e. to set downe on their names what they take in\nbread, drinke, butter, cheese, &c.; so, in Cambridge, they say, to\n_size_, i.e. to set downe their quantum, i.e. how much they take\non their name in the Buttery Booke.\"\n\nIn the Poems of the Rev. Dr. Dodd, a _size_ of bread is described\nas \"half a half-penny 'roll.'\" Grose, also, in the Provincial\nGlossary, says \"it signifies the half part of a halfpenny loaf,\nand comes from _scindo_, I cut.\"\n\nIn the Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica is the following explanation of\nthis term. \"A _size_ of anything is the smallest quantity of that\nthing which can be thus bought\" [i.e. by students in addition to\ntheir commons in the hall]; \"two _sizes_, or a part of beef, being\nnearly equal to what a young person will eat of that dish to his\ndinner, and a _size_ of ale or beer being equal to half an English\npint.\" It would seem, then, that formerly a _size_ was a small\nplateful of any eatable; the word now means anything had by\nstudents at dinner over and above the usual commons.\n\nOf its derivation Webster remarks, \"Either contracted from\n_assize_, or from the Latin _scissus_. I take it to be from the\nformer, and from the sense of setting, as we apply the word to the\n_assize_ of bread.\"\n\nThis word was introduced into the older American colleges from\nCambridge, England, and was used for many years, as was also the\nword _sizing_, with the same meaning. In 1750, the Corporation of\nHarvard College voted, \"that the quantity of commons be as hath\nbeen usual, viz. two _sizes_ of bread in the morning; one pound of\nmeat at dinner, with sufficient sauce [vegetables], and a\nhalf-pint of beer; and at night that a part pie be of the same\nquantity as usual, and also half a pint of beer; and that the\nsupper messes be but of four parts, though the dinner messes be of\nsix.\"--_Quincy's Hist. Harv. Coll._, Vol. II. p. 97.\n\nThe students of that day, if we may judge from the accounts which\nwe have of their poor commons, would have used far different\nwords, in addressing the Faculty, from King Lear, who, speaking to\nhis daughter Regan, says:--\n\n       \"'T is not in thee\n  To grudge my pleasures,...\n    ... to scant my _sizes_.\"\n\n\nSIZE. In the University of Cambridge, Eng., to _size_ is to order\nany sort of victuals from the kitchens which the students may want\nin their rooms, or in addition to their commons in the hall, and\nfor which they pay the cooks or butchers at the end of each\nquarter; a word corresponding to BATTEL at Oxford.--_Encyc. Brit._\n\nIn the Gentleman's Magazine, 1795, p. 21, a writer says: \"At\ndinner, to _size_ is to order for yourself any little luxury that\nmay chance to tempt you in addition to the general fare, for which\nyou are expected to pay the cook at the end of the term.\"\n\nThis word was formerly used in the older American colleges with\nthe meaning given above, as will be seen by the following extracts\nfrom the laws of Harvard and Yale.\n\n\"When they come into town after commons, they may be allowed to\n_size_ a meal at the kitchen.\"--_Laws of Harv. Coll._, 1798, p.\n39.\n\n\"At the close of each quarter, the Butler shall make up his bill\nagainst each student, in which every article _sized_ or taken up\nby him at the Buttery shall be particularly charged.\"--_Laws Yale\nColl._, 1811, p. 31.\n\n\"As a college term,\" says the Gradus ad Cantabrigiam, \"it is of\nvery considerable antiquity. In the comedy called 'The Return from\nParnassus,' 1606, one of the character says, 'You that are one of\nthe Devil's Fellow-Commoners; one that _sizeth_ the Devil's\nbutteries,' &c. Again, in the same: 'Fidlers, I use to _size_ my\nmusic, or go on the score for it.'\"\n\n_For_ is often used after the verb _size_, without changing the\nmeaning of the expression.\n\nThe tables of the Undergraduates, arranged according to their\nrespective years, are supplied with abundance of plain joints, and\nvegetables, and beer and ale _ad libitum_, besides which, soup,\npastry, and cheese can be \"_sized for_,\" that is, brought in\nportions to individuals at an extra charge.--_Bristed's Five Years\nin an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 19.\n\n_To size upon another_. To order extra food, and without\npermission charge it to another's account.\n\nIf any one shall _size upon another_, he shall be fined a\nShilling, and pay the Damage; and every Freshman sent [for\nvictuals] must declare that he who sends him is the only Person to\nbe charged.--_Laws Yale Coll._, 1774, p. 10.\n\n\nSIZING. Extra food or drink ordered from the buttery; the act of\nordering extra food or drink from the buttery.\n\nDr. Holyoke, who graduated at Harvard College in 1746, says: \"The\nbreakfast was two _sizings_ of bread and a cue of beer.\" Judge\nWingate, who graduated a little later, says: \"We were allowed at\ndinner a cue of beer, which was a half-pint, and a _sizing_ of\nbread, which I cannot describe to you. It was quite sufficient for\none dinner.\"--_Peirce's Hist. Harv. Univ._, p. 219.\n\nFrom more definite accounts it would seem that a sizing of biscuit\nwas one biscuit, and a sizing of cracker, two crackers. A certain\namount of food was allowed to each mess, and if any person wanted\nmore than the allowance, it was the custom to tell the waiter to\nbring a sizing of whatever was wished, provided it was obtained\nfrom the commons kitchen; for this payment was made at the close\nof the term. A sizing of cheese was nearly an ounce, and a sizing\nof cider varied from a half-pint to a pint and a half.\n\nThe Steward shall, at the close of every quarter, immediately fill\nup the columns of commons and _sizings_, and shall deliver the\nbill, &c.--_Laws Harv. Coll._, 1798, p. 58.\n\nThe Butler shall frequently inspect his book of\n_sizings_.--_Ibid._, p. 62.\n\nWhereas young scholars, to the dishonor of God, hinderance of\ntheir studies, and damage of their friends' estate,\ninconsiderately and intemperately are ready to abuse their liberty\nof _sizing_ besides their commons; therefore the Steward shall in\nno case permit any students whatever, under the degree of Masters\nof Arts, or Fellows, to expend or be provided for themselves or\nany townsmen any extraordinary commons, unless by the allowance of\nthe President, &c., or in case of sickness.--Orders written 28th\nMarch, 1650.--_Quincy's Hist. Harv. Univ._, Vol. I. p. 583.\n\nThis term, together with the verb and noun _size_, which had been\nin use at Harvard and Yale Colleges since their foundation, has of\nlate been little heard, and with the extinction of commons has,\nwith the others, fallen wholly, and probably for ever, into\ndisuse.\n\nThe use of this word and its collaterals is still retained in the\nUniversity of Cambridge, Eng.\n\nAlong the wall you see two tables, which, though less carefully\nprovided than the Fellows', are still served with tolerable\ndecency, and go through a regular second course instead of the\n\"_sizings_.\"--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p.\n20.\n\n\nSIZING PARTY. In the University of Cambridge, Eng., where this\nterm is used, a \"_sizing party_\" says the Gradus ad Cantabrigiam,\n\"differs from a supper in this; viz. at a sizing party every one\nof the guests contributes his _part_, i.e. orders what he pleases,\nat his own expense, to his friend's rooms,--'a _part_ of fowl' or\nduck; a roasted pigeon; 'a _part_ of apple pie.' A sober beaker of\nbrandy, or rum, or hollands and water, concludes the\nentertainment. In our days, a bowl of bishop, or milk punch, with\na chant, generally winds up the carousal.\"\n\n\nSKIN. At Yale College, to obtain a knowledge of a lesson by\nhearing it read by another; also, to borrow another's ideas and\npresent them as one's own; to plagiarize; to become possessed of\ninformation in an examination or a recitation by unfair or secret\nmeans. \"In our examinations,\" says a correspondent, \"many of the\nfellows cover the palms of their hands with dates, and when called\nupon for a given date, they read it off directly from their hands.\nSuch persons _skin_.\"\n\nThe tutor employs the crescent when it is evident that the lesson\nhas been _skinned_, according to the college vocabulary, in which\ncase he usually puts a minus sign after it, with the mark which he\nin all probability would have used had not the lesson been\n_skinned_.--_Yale Banger_, Nov. 1846.\n\nNever _skin_ a lesson which it requires any ability to\nlearn.--_Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. XV. p. 81.\n\nHe has passively admitted what he has _skinned_ from other\ngrammarians.--_Yale Banger_, Nov. 1846.\n\nPerhaps the youth who so barefacedly _skinned_ the song referred\nto, fondly fancied, &c.--_The Tomahawk_, Nov. 1849.\n\nHe uttered that remarkable prophecy which Horace has so boldly\n_skinned_ and called his own.--_Burial of Euclid_, Nov. 1850.\n\nA Pewter medal is awarded in the Senior Class, for the most\nremarkable example of _skinned_ Composition.--_Burlesque\nCatalogue, Yale Coll._, 1852-53, p. 29.\n\nClassical men were continually tempted to \"_skin_\" (copy) the\nsolutions of these examples.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng.\nUniv._, Ed. 2d, p. 381.\n\n_To skin ahead_; at Hamilton College, to read a lesson over in the\nclass immediately before reciting.\n\n\nSKIN. A lesson learned by hearing it read by another; borrowed\nideas; anything plagiarized.\n\n  'T was plenty of _skin_ with a good deal of Bohn.[65]\n    _Songs, Biennial Jubilee, Yale Coll._, 1855.\n\n\nSKINNING. Learning, or the act of learning, a lesson by hearing it\nread by another; plagiarizing.\n\nAlas for our beloved orations! acquired by _skinning_, looking on,\nand ponies.--_Yale Banger_, Oct. 1848.\n\nBarefaced copying from books and reviews in their compositions is\nfamiliar to our students, as much so as \"_skinning_\" their\nmathematical examples.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._,\nEd. 2d, p. 394.\n\n\nSKUNK. At Princeton College, to fail to pay a debt; used actively;\ne.g. to _skunk_ a tailor, i.e. not to pay him.\n\n\nSLANG. To scold, chide, rebuke. The use of this word as a verb is\nin a measure peculiar to students.\n\nThese drones are posted separately as \"not worthy to be classed,\"\nand privately _slanged_ afterwards by the Master and\nSeniors.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 74.\n\n\"I am afraid of going to T------,\" you may hear it said; \"he don't\n_slang_ his men enough.\"--_Ibid._, p. 148.\n\nHis vanity is sure to be speedily checked, and first of all by his\nprivate tutor, who \"_slangs_\" him for a mistake here or an\ninelegancy there.--_Ibid._, p. 388.\n\n\nSLANGING. Abusing, chiding, blaming.\n\nAs he was not backward in _slanging_,--one of the requisites of a\ngood coach,--he would give it to my unfortunate composition right\nand left.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p.\n166.\n\n\nSLEEPING OVER. A phrase equivalent to being absent from prayers.\n\nYou may see some who have just arisen from their beds, where they\nhave enjoyed the luxury of \"_sleeping over_.\"--_Harv. Reg._, p.\n202.\n\n\nSLOW. An epithet of depreciation, especially among students.\n\nIts equivalent slang is to be found in the phrases, \"no great\nshakes,\" and \"small potatoes.\"--_Bristed_.\n\nOne very well disposed and very tipsy man who was great upon\nboats, but very _slow_ at books, endeavored to pacify\nme.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 82.\n\n  The Juniors vainly attempted to show\n  That Sophs and Seniors were somewhat _slow_\n  In talent and ability.\n    _Sophomore Independent, Union College_, Nov. 1854.\n\n\nSLOW-COACH. A dull, stupid fellow.\n\n\nSLUM. A word once in use at Yale College, of which a graduate of\nthe year 1821 has given the annexed explanation. \"That noted dish\nto which our predecessors, of I know not what date, gave the name\nof _slum_, which was our ordinary breakfast, consisting of the\nremains of yesterday's boiled salt-beef and potatoes, hashed up,\nand indurated in a frying-pan, was of itself enough to have\nproduced any amount of dyspepsia. There are stomachs, it may be,\nwhich can put up with any sort of food, and any mode of cookery;\nbut they are not those of students. I remember an anecdote which\nPresident Day gave us (as an instance of hasty generalization),\nwhich would not be inappropriate here: 'A young physician,\ncommencing practice, determined to keep an account of each case he\nhad to do with, stating the mode of treatment and the result. His\nfirst patient was a blacksmith, sick of a fever. After the crisis\nof the disease had passed, the man expressed a hankering for pork\nand cabbage. The doctor humored him in this, and it seemed to do\nhim good; which was duly noted in the record. Next a tailor sent\nfor him, whom he found suffering from the same malady. To him he\n_prescribed_ pork and cabbage; and the patient died. Whereupon, he\nwrote it down as a general law in such cases, that pork and\ncabbage will cure a blacksmith, but will kill a tailor.' Now,\nthough the son of Vulcan found the pork and cabbage harmless, I am\nsure that _slum_ would have been a match for him.\"--_Scenes and\nCharacters at College_, New Haven, 1847, p. 117.\n\n\nSLUMP. German _schlump_; Danish and Swedish _slump_, a hap or\nchance, an accident; that is, a fall.\n\nAt Harvard College, a poor recitation.\n\n\nSLUMP. At Harvard College, to recite badly; to make a poor\nrecitation.\n\n  In fact, he'd rather dead than dig;\n        he'd rather _slump_ than squirt.\n    _Poem before the Y.H. of Harv. Coll._, 1849.\n\n  _Slumping_ is his usual custom,\n    Deading is his road to fame.--_MS. Poem_.\n\n  At recitations, unprepared, he _slumps_,\n  Then cuts a week, and feigns he has the mumps.\n    _MS. Poem_, by F.E. Felton.\n\nThe usual signification of this word is given by Webster, as\nfollows: \"To fall or sink suddenly into water or mud, when walking\non a hard surface, as on ice or frozen ground, not strong enough\nto bear the person.\" To which he adds: \"This legitimate word is in\ncommon and respectable use in New England, and its signification\nis so appropriate, that no other word will supply its place.\"\n\nFrom this meaning, the transfer is, by analogy, very easy and\nnatural, and the application very correct, to a poor recitation.\n\n\nSMALL-COLLEGE. The name by which an inferior college in the\nEnglish universities is known.\n\nA \"_Small-College_\" man was Senior Wrangler.--_Bristed's Five\nYears in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 61.\n\n\nSMALL-COLLEGER. A member of a Small-College.\n\nThe two Latin prizes and the English poem [were carried off] by a\n_Small-Colleger_.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed.\n2d, p. 113.\n\nThe idea of a _Small-Colleger_ beating all Trinity was deemed\npreposterous.--_Ibid._, p. 127.\n\n\nSMALLS, or SMALL-GO. At the University of Oxford, an examination\nin the second year. See LITTLE-GO; PREVIOUS EXAMINATION.\n\nAt the _Smalls_, as the previous Examination is here called, each\nexaminer sends in his Greek and Latin book.--_Bristed's Five Years\nin an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 139.\n\nIt follows that the _Smalls_ is a more formidable examination than\nthe Little-Go.--_Ibid._, p. 139.\n\n\nSMASH. At the Wesleyan University, a total failure in reciting is\ncalled a _smash_.\n\n\nSMILE. A small quantity of any spirituous liquor, or enough to\ngive one a pleasant feeling.\n\n  Hast ta'en a \"_smile_\" at Brigham's.\n    _Poem before the Iadma_, 1850, p. 7.\n\n\nSMOKE. In some colleges, one of the means made use of by the\nSophomores to trouble the Freshmen is to blow smoke into their\nrooms until they are compelled to leave, or, in other words, until\nthey are _smoked out_. When assafoetida is mingled with the\ntobacco, the sensation which ensues, as the foul effluvium is\ngently wafted through the keyhole, is anything but pleasing to the\nolfactory nerves.\n\n  Or when, in conclave met, the unpitying wights\n  _Smoke_ the young trembler into \"College rights\":\n  O spare my tender youth! he, suppliant, cries,\n  In vain, in vain; redoubled clouds arise,\n  While the big tears adown his visage roll,\n  Caused by the smoke, and sorrow of his soul.\n    _College Life, by J.C. Richmond_, p. 4.\n\nThey would lock me in if I left my key outside, _smoke me out_,\nduck me, &c.--_Sketches of Williams College_, p. 74.\n\nI would not have you sacrifice all these advantages for the sake\n_of smoking_ future Freshmen.--_Burial of Euclid_, 1850, p. 10.\n\nA correspondent from the University of Vermont gives the following\naccount of a practical joke, which we do not suppose is very often\nplayed in all its parts. \"They 'train' Freshmen in various ways;\nthe most _classic_ is to take a pumpkin, cut a piece from the top,\nclean it, put in two pounds of 'fine cut,' put it on the\nFreshman's table, and then, all standing round with long\npipe-stems, blow into it the fire placed in the _tobac_, and so\nfill the room with smoke, then put the Freshman to bed, with the\npumpkin for a nightcap.\"\n\n\nSMOUGE. At Hamilton College, to obtain without leave.\n\n\nSMUT. Vulgar, obscene conversation. Language which obtains\n\n \"Where Bacchus ruleth all that's done,\n  And Venus all that's said.\"\n\n\nSMUTTY. Possessing the qualities of obscene conversation. Applied\nalso to the person who uses such conversation.\n\n\nSNOB. In the English universities, a townsman, as opposed to a\nstudent; or a blackguard, as opposed to a gentleman; a loafer\ngenerally.--_Bristed_.\n\n  They charged the _Snobs_ against their will,\n    And shouted clear and lustily.\n    _Gradus ad Cantab_, p. 69.\n\nUsed in the same sense at some American colleges.\n\n2. A mean or vulgar person; particularly, one who apes gentility.\n--_Halliwell_.\n\nUsed both in England and the United States, \"and recently,\" says\nWebster, \"introduced into books as a term of derision.\"\n\n\nSNOBBESS. In the English universities, a female _snob_.\n\nEffeminacies like these, induced, no doubt, by the flattering\nadmiration of the fair _snobbesses_.--_Alma Mater_, Vol. II. p.\n116.\n\n\nSNOBBISH. Belonging to or resembling a _snob_.\n\n\nSNOBBY. Low; vulgar; resembling or pertaining to a _snob_.\n\n\nSNUB. To reprimand; check; rebuke. Used among students, more\nfrequently than by any other class of persons.\n\n\nSOPH. In the University of Cambridge, England, an abbreviation of\nSOPHISTER.--_Webster_.\n\nOn this word, Crabb, in his _Technological Dictionary_, says: \"A\ncertain distinction or title which undergraduates in the\nUniversity at Oxford assume, previous to their examination for a\ndegree. It took its rise in the exercises which students formerly\nhad to go through, but which are now out of use.\"\n\n  Three College _Sophs_, and three pert Templars came,\n  The same their talents, and their tastes the same.\n    _Pope's Dunciad_, B. II. v. 389, 390.\n\n2. In the American colleges, an abbreviation of Sophomore.\n\n  _Sophs_ wha ha' in Commons fed!\n  _Sophs_ wha ha' in Commons bled!\n  _Sophs_ wha ne'er from Commons fled!\n    Puddings, steaks, or wines!\n    _Rebelliad_, p. 52.\n\nThe _Sophs_ did nothing all the first fortnight but torment the\nFresh, as they call us.--_Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 76.\n\nThe _Sophs_ were victorious at every point.--_Yale Banger_, Nov.\n10, 1846.\n\nMy Chum, a _Soph_, says he committed himself too soon.--_The\nDartmouth_, Vol. IV. p. 118.\n\n\nSOPHIC. A contraction of sophomoric.\n\n  So then the _Sophic_ army\n    Came on in warlike glee.\n    _The Battle of the Ball_, 1853.\n\n\nSOPHIMORE. The old manner of spelling what is now known as\nSOPHOMORE.\n\nThe President may give Leave for the _Sophimores_ to take out some\nparticular Books.--_Laws Yale Coll._, 1774, p. 23.\n\nHis favorite researches, however, are discernible in his\nobservations on a comet, which appeared in the beginning of his\n_Sophimore_ year.--_Holmes's Life of Ezra Stiles_, p. 13.\n\nI aver thou hast never been a corporal in the militia, or a\n_sophimore_ at college.--_The Algerine Captive_, Walpole, 1797,\nVol. I. p. 68.\n\n\nSOPHISH GOWN. Among certain gownsmen, a gown that bears the marks\nof much service; \"a thing of shreds and patches.\"--_Gradus ad\nCantab._\n\n\nSOPHIST. A name given to the undergraduates at Cambridge, England.\n--_Crabb's Tech. Dict._\n\n\nSOPHISTER. Greek, [Greek: sophistaes]. In the University of\nCambridge, Eng., the title of students who are advanced beyond the\nfirst year of their residence. The entire course at the University\nconsists of three years and one term, during which the students\nhave the titles of First-Year Men, or Freshmen; Second-Year Men,\nor Junior Sophs or Sophisters; Third-Year Men, or Senior Sophs or\nSophisters; and, in the last term, Questionists, with reference to\nthe approaching examination. In the older American colleges, the\nJunior and Senior Classes were originally called Junior Sophisters\nand Senior Sophisters. The term is also used at Oxford and Dublin.\n--_Webster_.\n\nAnd in case any of the _Sophisters_ fail in the premises required\nat their hands, &c.--_Quincy's Hist. Harv. Univ._, Vol. I. p. 518.\n\n\nSOPHOMORE. One belonging to the second of the four classes in an\nAmerican college.\n\nProfessor Goodrich, in his unabridged edition of Dr. Webster's\nDictionary, gives the following interesting account of this word.\n\"This word has generally been considered as an 'American\nbarbarism,' but was probably introduced into our country, at a\nvery early period, from the University of Cambridge, Eng. Among\nthe cant terms at that University, as given in the Gradus ad\nCantabrigiam, we find _Soph-Mor_ as 'the next distinctive\nappellation to Freshman.' It is added, that 'a writer in the\nGentlemen's Magazine thinks _mor_ an abbreviation of the Greek\n[Greek: moria], introduced at a time when the _Encomium Mori\u00e6_,\nthe Praise of Folly, by Erasmus, was so generally used.' The\nordinary derivation of the word, from [Greek: sofos] and [Greek:\nmoros] would seem, therefore, to be incorrect. The younger Sophs\nat Cambridge appear, formerly, to have received the adjunct _mor_\n([Greek: moros]) to their names, either as one which they courted\nfor the reason mentioned above, or as one given them in sport, for\nthe supposed exhibition of inflated feeling in entering on their\nnew honors. The term, thus applied, seems to have passed, at a\nvery early period, from Cambridge in England to Cambridge in\nAmerica, as 'the next distinctive appellation to Freshman,' and\nthus to have been attached to the second of the four classes in\nour American colleges; while it has now almost ceased to be known,\neven as a cant word, at the parent institution in England whence\nit came. This derivation of the word is rendered more probable by\nthe fact, that the early spelling was, to a great extent at least,\nSoph_i_more, as appears from the manuscripts of President Stiles\nof Yale College, and the records of Harvard College down to the\nperiod of the American Revolution. This would be perfectly natural\nif _Soph_ or _Sophister_ was considered as the basis of the word,\nbut can hardly be explained if the ordinary derivation had then\nbeen regarded as the true one.\"\n\nSome further remarks on this word may be found in the Gentleman's\nMagazine, above referred to, 1795, Vol. LXV. p. 818.\n\n\nSOPHOMORE COMMENCEMENT. At Princeton College, it has long been the\ncustom for the Sophomore Class, near the time of the Commencement\nat the close of the Senior year, to hold a Commencement in\nimitation of it, at which burlesque and other exercises,\nappropriate to the occasion, are performed. The speakers chosen\nare a Salutatorian, a Poet, an Historian, who reads an account of\nthe doings of the Class up to that period, a Valedictorian, &c.,\n&c. A band of music is always in attendance. After the addresses,\nthe Class partake of a supper, which is usually prolonged to a\nvery late hour. In imitation of the Sophomore Commencement,\n_Burlesque Bills_, as they are called, are prepared and published\nby the Juniors, in which, in a long and formal programme, such\nsubjects and speeches are attributed to the members of the\nSophomore Class as are calculated to expose their weak points.\n\n\nSOPHOMORIC, SOPHOMORICAL. Pertaining to or like a Sophomore.\n\n  Better to face the prowling panther's path,\n  Than meet the storm of _Sophomoric_ wrath.\n    _Harvardiana_, Vol. IV. p. 22.\n\nWe trust he will add by his example no significancy to that pithy\nword, \"_Sophomoric_.\"--_Sketches of Williams Coll._, p. 63.\n\nAnother meaning, derived, it would appear, from the\ncharacteristics of the Sophomore, yet not very creditable to him,\nis _bombastic, inflated in style or manner_.--_J.C. Calhoun_.\n\nStudents are looked upon as being necessarily _Sophomorical_ in\nliterary matters.--_Williams Quarterly_, Vol. II. p. 84.\n\nThe Professor told me it was rather _Sophomorical_.--_Sketches of\nWilliams Coll._, p. 74.\n\n\nSOPHRONISCUS. At Yale College, this name is given to Arnold's\nGreek Prose Composition, from the fact of its repeated occurrence\nin that work.\n\n  _Sophroniscum_ relinquemus;\n  Et Euclidem comburemus,\n  Ejus vi soluti.\n    _Pow-wow of Class of '58, Yale Coll._\n\nSee BALBUS.\n\n\nSPIRT. Among the students at the University of Cambridge, Eng., an\nextraordinary effort of mind or body for a short time. A boat's\ncrew _make a spirt_, when they pull fifty yards with all the\nstrength they have left. A reading-man _makes_ _a spirt_ when he\ncrams twelve hours daily the week before examination.--_Bristed_.\n\nAs my ... health was decidedly improving, I now attempted a\n\"_spirt_,\" or what was one for me.--_Bristed's Five Years in an\nEng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 223.\n\nMy amateur Mathematical coach, who was now making his last _spirt_\nfor a Fellowship, used to accompany me.--_Ibid._, p. 288.\n\nHe reads nine hours a day on a \"_spirt_\" the fortnight before\nexamination.--_Ibid._, p. 327.\n\n\nSPIRTING. Making an extraordinary effort of mind or body for a\nshort time.--_Bristed_.\n\nAnts, bees, boat-crews _spirting_ at the Willows,... are but faint\ntypes of their activity.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._,\nEd. 2d, p. 224.\n\n\nSPLURGE. In many colleges, when one is either dashy, or dressed\nmore than ordinarily, he is said to _cut a splurge_. A showy\nrecitation is often called by the same name. In his Dictionary of\nAmericanisms, Mr. Bartlett defines it, \"a great effort, a\ndemonstration,\" which is the signification in which this word is\ngenerally used.\n\n\nSPLURGY. Showy; of greater surface than depth. Applied to a lesson\nwhich is well rehearsed but little appreciated. Also to literary\nefforts of a certain nature, to character, persons, &c.\n\nThey even pronounce his speeches _splurgy_.--_Yale Tomahawk_, May,\n1852.\n\n\nSPOON. In the University of Cambridge, Eng., the last of each\nclass of the honors is humorously denominated _The Spoon_. Thus,\nthe last Wrangler is called the Golden Spoon; the last Senior\nOptime, the Silver Spoon; and the last Junior Optime, the Wooden\nSpoon. The Wooden Spoon, however, is _par excellence_, \"The\nSpoon.\"--_Gradus ad Cantab._\n\nSee WOODEN SPOON.\n\n\nSPOON, SPOONY, SPOONEY. A man who has been drinking till he\nbecomes disgusting by his very ridiculous behavior, is said to be\n_spoony_ drunk; and hence it is usual to call a very prating,\nshallow fellow a rank _spoon_.--_Grose_.\n\nMr. Bartlett, in his Dictionary of Americanisms, says:--\"We use\nthe word only in the latter sense. The Hon. Mr. Preston, in his\nremarks on the Mexican war, thus quotes from Tom Crib's\nremonstrance against the meanness of a transaction, similar to our\ncries for more vigorous blows on Mexico when she is prostrate:\n\n\"'Look down upon Ben,--see him, _dunghill_ all o'er,\n  Insult the fallen foe that can harm him no more.\n  Out, cowardly _spooney_! Again and again,\n  By the fist of my father, I blush for thee, Ben.'\n\n\"Ay, you will see all the _spooneys_ that ran, like so many\n_dunghill_ champions, from 54 40, stand by the President for the\nvigorous prosecution of the war upon the body of a prostrate foe.\"\n--_N.Y. Tribune_, 1847.\n\nNow that year it so happened that the spoon was no\n_spooney_.--_Alma Mater_, Vol. I. p. 218.\n\nNot a few of this party were deluded into a belief, that all\nstudious and quiet men were slow, all men of proper self-respect\nexclusives, and all men of courtesy and good-breeding _spoonies_.\n--_Collegian's Guide_, p. 118.\n\nSuppose that rustication was the fate of a few others of our\nacquaintance, whom you cannot call slow, or _spoonies_ either,\nwould it be deemed no disgrace by them?--_Ibid._, p. 196.\n\n  When _spoonys_ on two knees, implore the aid of sorcery,\n  To suit their wicked purposes they quickly put the laws awry.\n    _Rejected Addresses_, Am. ed., p. 154.\n\nThey belong to the class of elderly \"_spoons_,\" with some few\nexceptions, and are nettled that the world should not go at their\nrate of progression.--_Boston Daily Times_, May 8, 1851.\n\n\nSPOONY, SPOONEY. Like a _spoon_; possessing the qualities of a\nsilly or stupid fellow.\n\nI shall escape from this beautiful critter, for I'm gettin'\n_spooney_, and shall talk silly presently.--_Sam Slick_.\n\nBoth the adjective and the noun _spooney_ are in constant and\nfrequent use at some of the American colleges, and are generally\napplied to one who is disliked either for his bad qualities or for\nhis ill-breeding, usually accompanied with the idea of weakness.\n\nHe sprees, is caught, rusticates, returns next year, mingles with\nfeminines, and is consequently degraded into the _spooney_ Junior.\n_Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. XV. p. 208.\n\nA \"bowl\" was the happy conveyance. Perhaps this was chosen because\nthe voyagers were _spooney_.--_Yale Banger_, Nov. 1849.\n\n\nSPOOPS, SPOOPSY. At Harvard College, a weak, silly fellow, or one\nwho is disliked on account of his foolish actions, is called a\n_spoops_, or _spoopsy_. The meaning is nearly the same as that of\n_spoony_.\n\n\nSPOOPSY. Foolish; silly. Applied either to a person or thing.\n\nSeniors always try to be dignified. The term \"_spoopsey_\" in its\nwidest signification applies admirably to them.--_Yale Tomahawk_,\nMay, 1852.\n\n\nSPORT. To exhibit or bring out in public; as, to _sport_ a new\nequipage.--_Grose_.\n\nThis word was in great vogue in England in the year 1783 and 1784;\nbut is now sacred to men of _fashion_, both in England and\nAmerica.\n\nWith regard to the word _sport_, they [the Cantabrigians]\n_sported_ knowing, and they _sported_ ignorant,--they _sported_ an\n\u00c6grotat, and they _sported_ a new coat,--they _sported_ an Exeat,\nthey _sported_ a Dormiat, &c.--_Gent. Mag._, 1794, p. 1085.\n\n  I'm going to serve my country,\n    And _sport_ a pretty wife.\n    _Presentation Day Songs_, June 14, 1854, Yale Coll.\n\nTo _sport oak_, or a door, is to fasten a door for safety or\nconvenience.\n\nIf you call on a man and his door is _sported_, signifying that he\nis out or busy, it is customary to pop your card through the\nlittle slit made for that purpose.--_Bristed's Five Years in an\nEng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 336.\n\nSome few constantly turn the keys of their churlish doors, and\nothers, from time to time, \"_sport oak_.\"--_Harv. Mag._, Vol. I.\np. 268.\n\n\nSPORTING-DOOR. At the English universities, the name given to the\nouter door of a student's room, which can be _sported_ or fastened\nto prevent intrusion.\n\nTheir impregnable _sporting-doors_, that defy alike the hostile\ndun and the too friendly \"fast man.\"--_Bristed's Five Years in an\nEng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 3.\n\n\nSPREAD. A feast of a more humble description than a GAUDY. Used at\nCambridge, England.\n\nThis puts him in high spirits again, and he gives a large\n_spread_, and gets drunk on the strength of it.--_Gradus ad\nCantab._, p. 129.\n\nHe sits down with all of them, about forty or fifty, to a most\nglorious _spread_, ordered from the college cook, to be served up\nin the most swell style possible.--_Ibid._, p. 129.\n\n\nSPROUT. Any _branch_ of education is in student phrase a _sprout_.\nThis peculiar use of the word is said to have originated at Yale.\n\n\nSPRUNG. The positive, of which _tight_ is the comparative, and\n_drunk_ the superlative.\n\n  \"One swallow makes not spring,\" the poet sung,\n  But many swallows make the fast man _sprung_.\n    _MS. Poem_, by F.E. Felton.\n\nSee TIGHT.\n\n\nSPY. In some of the American colleges, it is a prevailing opinion\namong the students, that certain members of the different classes\nare encouraged by the Faculty to report what they have seen or\nascertained in the conduct of their classmates, contrary to the\nlaws of the college. Many are stigmatized as _spies_ very\nunjustly, and seldom with any sufficient reason.\n\n\nSQUIRT. At Harvard College, a showy recitation is denominated a\n_squirt_; the ease and quickness with which the words flow from\nthe mouth being analogous to the ease and quickness which attend\nthe sudden ejection of a stream of water from a pipe. Such a\nrecitation being generally perfect, the word _squirt_ is very\noften used to convey that idea. Perhaps there is not, in the whole\nvocabulary of college cant terms, one more expressive than this,\nor that so easily conveys its meaning merely by its sound. It is\nmostly used colloquially.\n\n2. A foppish young fellow; a whipper-snapper.--_Bartlett_.\n\nIf they won't keep company with _squirts_ and dandies, who's going\nto make a monkey of himself?--_Maj. Jones's Courtship_, p. 160.\n\n\nSQUIRT. To make a showy recitation.\n\n  He'd rather slump than _squirt_.\n    _Poem before Y.H._, p. 9.\n\nWebster has this word with the meaning, \"to throw out words, to\nlet fly,\" and marks it as out of use.\n\n\nSQUIRTINESS. The quality of being showy.\n\n\nSQUIRTISH. Showy; dandified.\n\nIt's my opinion that these slicked up _squirtish_ kind a fellars\nain't particular hard baked, and they always goes in for\naristocracy notions.--_Robb, Squatter Life_, p. 73.\n\n\nSQUIRTY. Showy; fond of display; gaudy.\n\nApplied to an oration which is full of bombast and grandiloquence;\nto a foppish fellow; to an apartment gayly adorned, &c.\n\n  And should they \"scrape\" in prayers, because they are long\n  And rather \"_squirty_\" at times.\n    _Childe Harvard_, p. 58.\n\n\nSTAMMBOOK. German. A remembrance-book; an album. Among the German\nstudents stammbooks were kept formerly, as commonly as\nautograph-books now are among American students.\n\nBut do procure me the favor of thy Rapunzel writing something in\nmy _Stammbook_.--_Howitt's Student Life of Germany_, Am. ed., p.\n242.\n\n\nSTANDING. Academical age, or rank.\n\nOf what _standing_ are you? I am a Senior Soph.--_Gradus ad\nCantab._\n\n  Her mother told me all about your love,\n  And asked me of your prospects and your _standing_.\n    _Collegian_, 1830, p. 267.\n\n_To stand for an honor_; i.e. to offer one's self as a candidate\nfor an honor.\n\n\nSTAR. In triennial catalogues a star designates those who have\ndied. This sign was first used with this signification by Mather,\nin his Magnalia, in a list prepared by him of the graduates of\nHarvard College, with a fanciful allusion, it is supposed, to the\nabode of those thus marked.\n\n    Our tale shall be told by a silent _star_,\n  On the page of some future Triennial.\n    _Poem before Class of 1849, Harv. Coll._, p. 4.\n\nWe had only to look still further back to find the _stars_\nclustering more closely, indicating the rapid flight of the\nspirits of short-lived tenants of earth to another\nsphere.--_Memories of Youth and Manhood_, Vol. II. p. 66.\n\n\nSTAR. To mark a star opposite the name of a person, signifying\nthat he is dead.\n\nSix of the sixteen Presidents of our University have been\ninaugurated in this place; and the oldest living graduate, the\nHon. Paine Wingate of Stratham, New Hampshire, who stands on the\nCatalogue a lonely survivor amidst the _starred_ names of the\ndead, took his degree within these walls.--_A Sermon on leaving\nthe Old Meeting-house in Cambridge_, by Rev. William Newell, Dec.\n1, 1833, p. 22.\n\nAmong those fathers were the venerable remnants of classes that\nare _starred_ to the last two or three, or it may be to the last\none.--_Scenes and Characters in College_, p. 6.\n\n\nSTATEMENT OF FACTS. At Yale College, a name given to a public\nmeeting called for the purpose of setting forth the respective\nmerits of the two great societies in that institution, viz.\n\"Linonia\" and \"The Brothers in Unity.\" There are six orators,\nthree from Linonia and three from the Brothers,--a Senior, a\nJunior, and the President of each society. The Freshmen are\ninvited by handsomely printed cards to attend the meeting, and\nthey also have the best seats reserved for them, and are treated\nwith the most intense politeness. As now conducted, the _Statement\nof Facts_ is any thing rather than what is implied by the name. It\nis simply an opportunity for the display of speaking talent, in\nwhich wit and sarcasm are considered of far greater importance\nthan truth. The Freshmen are rarely swayed to either side. In nine\ncases out of ten they have already chosen their society, and\nattend the statement merely from a love of novelty and fun. The\ncustom grew up about the year 1830, after the practice of dividing\nthe students alphabetically between the two societies had fallen\ninto disuse. Like all similar customs, the Statement of Facts has\nreached its present college importance by gradual growth. At first\nthe societies met in a small room of the College, and the\nstatements did really consist of the facts in the case. Now the\nexercises take place in a public hall, and form a kind of\nintellectual tournament, where each society, in the presence of a\nlarge audience, strives to get the advantage of the other.\n\nFrom a newspaper account of the observance of this literary\nfestival during the present year, the annexed extract is taken.\n\n\"For some years, students, as they have entered College, have been\npermitted to choose the society with which they would connect\nthemselves, instead of being alphabetically allotted to one of the\ntwo. This method has made the two societies earnest rivals, and\nthe accession of each class to College creates an earnest struggle\nto see which shall secure the greater number of members. The\nelectioneering campaign, as it is termed, begins when the students\ncome to be examined for admission to College, that is, about the\ntime of the Commencement, and continues through a week or two of\nthe first term of the next year. Each society, of course, puts\nforth the most determined efforts to conquer. It selects the most\nprominent and popular men of the Senior Class as President, and\narrangements are so made that a Freshman no sooner enters town\nthan he finds himself unexpectedly surrounded by hosts of friends,\nwilling to do anything for him, and especially instruct him in his\nduty with reference to the selection of societies. For the benefit\nof those who do not yield to this private electioneering, this\nStatement of Facts is made. It amounts, however, to little more\nthan a 'good time,' as there are very few who wait to be\ninfluenced by 'facts' they know will be so distorted. The\nadvocates of each society feel bound, of course, to present its\naffairs in the most favorable aspect. Disputants are selected,\ngenerally with regard to their ability as speakers, one from the\nJunior and one from the Senior Class. The Presidents of each\nsociety also take part.\"--_N.Y. Daily Times_, Sept. 22, 1855.\n\nAs an illustration of the eloquence and ability which is often\ndisplayed on these occasions, the following passages have been\nselected from the address of John M. Holmes of Chicago, Ill., the\nJunior orator in behalf of the Brothers in Unity at the Statement\nof Facts held September 20th, 1855.\n\n\"Time forbids me to speak at length of the illustrious alumni of\nthe Brothers; of Professor Thatcher, the favorite of college,--of\nProfessor Silliman, the Nestor of American literati,--of the\nrevered head of this institution, President Woolsey, first\nPresident of the Brothers in 1820,--of Professor Andrews, the\nauthor of the best dictionary of the Latin language,--of such\ndivines as Dwight and Murdock,--of Bacon and Bushnell, the pride\nof New England,--or of the great names of Clayton, Badger,\nCalhoun, Ellsworth, and John Davis,--all of whom were nurtured and\ndisciplined in the halls of the Brothers, and there received the\nAchillean baptism that made their lives invulnerable. But perhaps\nI err in claiming such men as the peculium of the Brothers,--they\nare the common heritage of the human race.\n\n 'Such names as theirs are pilgrim shrines,\n  Shrines to no code nor creed confined,\n  The Delphian vales, the Palestines,\n  The Meccas of the mind.'\n\n\"But there are other names which to overlook would be worse than\nnegligence,--it would be ingratitude unworthy of a son of Yale.\n\n\"At the head of that glorious host stands the venerable form of\nJoel Barlow, who, in addition to his various civil and literary\ndistinctions, was the father of American poetry. There too is the\nintellectual brow of Webster, not indeed the great defender of the\nConstitution, but that other Webster, who spent his life in the\nperpetuation of that language in which the Constitution is\nembalmed, and whose memory will be coeval with that language to\nthe latest syllable of recorded time. Beside Webster on the\nhistoric canvas appears the form of the only Judge of the Supreme\nCourt of the United States that ever graduated at this\nCollege,--Chief Justice Baldwin, of the class of 1797. Next to him\nis his classmate, a patriarchal old man who still lives to bless\nthe associations of his youth,--who has consecrated the noblest\ntalents to the noblest earthly purposes,--the pioneer of Western\neducation,--the apostle of Temperance,--the life-long teacher of\nimmortality,--and who is the father of an illustrious family whose\ngenius has magnetized all Christendom. His classmate is Lyman\nBeecher. But a year ago in the neighboring city of Hartford there\nwas a monument erected to another Brother in Unity,--the\nphilanthropist who first introduced into this country the system\nof instructing deaf mutes. More than a thousand unfortunates bowed\naround his grave. And although there was no audible voice of\neulogy or thankfulness, yet there were many tears. And grateful\nthoughts went up to heaven in silent benediction for him who had\nunchained their faculties, and given them the priceless treasures\nof intellectual and social communion. Thomas H. Gallaudet was a\nBrother in Unity.\n\n\"And he who has been truly called the most learned of poets and\nthe most poetical of learned men,--whose ascent to the heaven of\nsong has been like the pathway of his own broad sweeping\neagle,--J.G. Percival,--is a Brother in Unity. And what shall I\nsay of Morse? Of Morse, the wonder-worker, the world-girdler, the\nspace-destroyer, the author of the noblest invention whose glory\nwas ever concentrated in a single man, who has realized the\nfabulous prerogative of Olympian Jove, and by the instantaneous\nintercommunication of thought has accomplished the work of ages in\nbinding together the whole civilized world into one great\nBrotherhood in Unity?\n\n\"Gentlemen, these are the men who wait to welcome you to the\nblessings of our society. There they stand, like the majestic\nstatues that line the entrance to an eternal pyramid. And when I\nlook upon one statue, and another, and another, and contemplate\nthe colossal greatness of their proportions, as Canova gazed with\nrapture upon the sun-god of the Vatican, I envy not the man whose\nheart expands not with the sense of a new nobility, and whose eye\nkindles not with the heart's enthusiasm, as he thinks that he too\nis numbered among that glorious company,--that he too is sprung\nfrom that royal ancestry. And who asks for a richer heritage, or a\nmore enduring epitaph, than that he too is a Brother in Unity?\"\n\n\nS.T.B. _Sanct\u00e6 Theologi\u00e6 Baccalaureus_, Bachelor in Theology.\n\nSee B.D.\n\n\nS.T.D. _Sanct\u00e6 Theologi\u00e6 Doctor_. Doctor in Theology.\n\nSee D.D.\n\n\nSTEWARD. In colleges, an officer who provides food for the\nstudents, and superintends the kitchen.--_Webster_.\n\nIn American colleges, the labors of the steward are at present\nmore extended, and not so servile, as set forth in the above\ndefinition. To him is usually assigned the duty of making out the\nterm-bills and receiving the money thereon; of superintending the\ncollege edifices with respect to repairs, &c.; of engaging proper\nservants in the employ of the college; and of performing such\nother services as are declared by the faculty of the college to be\nwithin his province.\n\n\nSTICK. In college phrase, _to stick_, or _to get stuck_, is to be\nunable to proceed, either in a recitation, declamation, or any\nother exercise. An instructor is said to _stick_ a student, when\nhe asks a question which the student is unable to answer.\n\nBut he has not yet discovered, probably, that he ... that\n\"_sticks_\" in Greek, and cannot tell, by demonstration of his own,\nwhether the three angles of a triangle are equal to two, or four,\n... can nevertheless drawl out the word Fresh, &c.--_Scenes and\nCharacters in College_, p. 30.\n\n\nS.T.P. _Sanct\u00e6 Theologi\u00e6 Professor_. Professor in Theology.\n\nA degree of similar import to S.T.D., and D.D.\n\n\nSTUDENT. A person engaged in study; one who is devoted to\nlearning, either in a seminary or in private; a scholar; as, the\n_students_ of an academy, of a college or university; a medical\n_student_; a law _student_.\n\n2. A man devoted to books; a bookish man; as, a hard _student_; a\nclose _student_.--_Webster_.\n\n3. At Oxford, this word is used to designate one who stands upon\nthe foundation of the college to which he belongs, and is an\naspirant for academic emoluments.--_De Quincey_.\n\n4. In German universities, by _student_ is understood \"one who has\nby matriculation acquired the rights of academical\ncitizenship.\"--_Howitt's Student Life of Germany_, Am. ed., p. 27.\n\n\nSTUDY. A building or an apartment devoted to study or to literary\nemployment.--_Webster_.\n\nIn some of the older American colleges, it was formerly the custom\nto partition off, in each chamber, two small rooms, where the\noccupants, who were always two in number, could carry on their\nliterary pursuits. These rooms were called, from this\ncircumstance, _studies_. Speaking of the first college edifice\nwhich was erected at New Haven, Mr. Clap, in his History of Yale\nCollege, says: \"It made a handsome appearance, and contained near\nfifty _studies_ in convenient chambers\"; and again he speaks of\nConnecticut Hall as containing thirty-two chambers and sixty-four\n_studies_. In the oldest buildings, some of these _studies_ remain\nat the present day.\n\nThe _study_ rents, until December last, were discontinued with Mr.\nDunster.--_Quincy's Hist. Harv. Univ._, Vol. I. p. 463.\n\nEvery Graduate and Undergraduate shall find his proportion of\nfurniture, &c., during the whole time of his having a _study_\nassigned him.--_Laws Harv. Coll._, 1798, p. 35.\n\n  To him that occupies my _study_,\n  I give, &c.--_Will of Charles Prentiss_.\n\n\nSTUMP. At Princeton College, to fail in reciting; to say, \"Not\nprepared,\" when called on to recite. A _stump_, a bad recitation;\nused in the phrase, \"_to make a stump_.\"\n\n\nSUB-FRESH. A person previous to entering the Freshman Class is\ncalled a _sub-fresh_, or one below a Freshman.\n\n           Praying his guardian powers\n  To assist a poor \"_Sub-Fresh_\" at the dread examination.\n    _Poem before the Iadma Soc. of Harv. Coll._, 1850, p. 14.\n\n  Our \"_Sub-Fresh_\" has that feeling.\n    _Ibid._, p. 16.\n\nEverybody happy, except _Sub-Fresh_, and they trying hardest to\nappear so.--_Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. XX. p. 103.\n\nThe timid _Sub-Fresh_ had determined to construct stout\nbarricades, with no lack of ammunition.--_Ibid._, p. 103.\n\nSometimes written _Sub_.\n\nInformation wanted of the \"_Sub_\" who didn't think it an honor to\nbe electioneered.--_N.B., Yale Coll., June_ 14, 1851.\n\nSee PENE.\n\n\nSUBJECT. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., a particular\nauthor, or part of an author, set for examination; or a particular\nbranch of Mathematics, such as Optics, Hydrostatics,\n&c.--_Bristed_.\n\nTo _get up a subject_, is to make one's self thoroughly master of\nit.--_Bristed_.\n\n\nSUB-RECTOR. A rector's deputy or substitute.--_Walton, Webster_.\n\n\nSUB-SIZAR. In the University of Cambridge, Eng., formerly an order\nof students lower than the _sizars_.\n\n  Masters of all sorts, and all ages,\n  Keepers, _subcizers_, lackeys, pages.\n    _Poems of Bp. Corbet_, p. 22.\n\n           There he sits and sees\n  How lackeys and _subsizers_ press\n    And scramble for degrees.\n    _Ibid._, p. 88.\n\nSee under SIZAR.\n\n\nSUCK. At Middlebury College, to cheat at recitation or examination\nby using _ponies_, _interliners_, or _helps_ of any kind.\n\n\nSUPPLICAT. Latin; literally, _he supplicates_. In the English\nuniversities, a petition; particularly a written application with\na certificate that the requisite conditions have been complied\nwith.--_Webster_.\n\nA _Supplicat_, says the Gradus ad Cantabrigiam, is \"an entreaty to\nbe admitted to the degree of B.A.; containing a certificate that\nthe Questionist has kept his full number of terms, or explaining\nany deficiency. This document is presented to the caput by the\nfather of his college.\"\n\n\nSURPLICE DAY. An occasion or day on which the surplice is worn by\nthe members of a university.\n\n\"On all Sundays and Saint-days, and the evenings preceding, every\nmember of the University, except noblemen, attends chapel in his\nsurplice.\"--_Grad. ad Cantab._, pp. 106, 107.\n\n\nSUSPEND. In colleges, to separate a student from his class, and\nplace him under private instruction.\n\n  And those whose crimes are very great,\n  Let us _suspend_ or rusticate.--_Rebelliad_, p. 24.\n\n\nSUSPENSION. In universities and colleges, the punishment of a\nstudent for some offence, usually negligence, by separating him\nfrom his class, and compelling him to pursue those branches of\nstudy in which he is deficient under private instruction, provided\nfor the purpose.\n\n\nSUSPENSION-PAPER. The paper in which the act of suspension from\ncollege is declared.\n\n  Come, take these three _suspension-papers_;\n  They'll teach you how to cut such capers.\n    _Rebelliad_, p. 32.\n\n\nSUSPENSION TO THE ROOM. In Princeton College, one of the\npunishments for certain offences subjects a student to confinement\nto his chamber and exclusion from his class, and requires him to\nrecite to a teacher privately for a certain time. This is\ntechnically called _suspension to the room_.\n\n\nSWEEP, SWEEPER. The name given at Yale and other colleges to the\nperson whose occupation it is to sweep the students' rooms, make\ntheir beds, &c.\n\nThen how welcome the entrance of the _sweep_, and how cutely we\nfling jokes at each other through the dust!--_Yale Lit. Mag._,\nVol. XIV. p. 223.\n\nKnocking down the _sweep_, in clearing the stairs, we described a\ncircle to our room.--_The Yale Banger_, Nov. 10, 1846.\n\n  A Freshman by the faithful _sweep_\n  Was found half buried in soft sleep.\n    _Ibid._, Nov. 10, 1846.\n\n  With fingers dirty and black,\n    From lower to upper room,\n  A College _Sweep_ went dustily round,\n    Plying his yellow broom.\n    _Songs of Yale_, 1853, p. 12.\n\nIn the Yale Literary Magazine, Vol. III. p. 144, is \"A tribute to\ncertain Members of the Faculty, whose names are omitted in the\nCatalogue,\" in which appropriate praise is awarded to these useful\nservants.\n\nThe Steward ... engages _sweepers_ for the College.--_Laws Harv.\nColl._, 1816, p. 48.\n\nOne of the _sweepers_ finding a parcel of wood,... the defendant,\nin the absence of the owner of the wood, authorizes the _sweeper_\nto carry it away.--_Scenes and Characters in College_, p. 98.\n\n\nSWELL BLOCK. In the University of Virginia, a sobriquet applied to\ndandies and vain pretenders.\n\n\nSWING. At several American colleges, the word _swing_ is used for\ncoming out with a secret society badge; 1st, of the society, to\n_swing out_ the new men; and, 2d, of the men, intransitively, to\n_swing_, or to _swing out_, i.e. to appear with the badge of a\nsecret society. Generally, _to swing out_ signifies to appear in\nsomething new.\n\nThe new members have \"_swung out_,\" and all again is\nharmony.--_Sophomore Independent_, Union College, Nov. 1854.\n\n\nSYNDIC. Latin, _syndicus_; Greek, [Greek: sundikos; sun], _with_,\nand [Greek: dikae], _justice_.\n\nAn officer of government, invested with different powers in\ndifferent countries. Almost all the companies in Paris, the\nUniversity, &c., have their _syndics_. The University of Cambridge\nhas its _syndics_, who are chosen from the Senate to transact\nspecial business, as the regulation of fees, forming of laws,\ninspecting the library, buildings, printing, &c.--_Webster. Cam.\nCal._\n\n\nSYNDICATE. A council or body of syndics.\n\nThe state of instruction in and encouragement to the study of\nTheology were thus set forth in the report of a _syndicate_\nappointed to consider the subject in 1842.--_Bristed's Five Years\nin an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 293.\n\n\n\n_T_.\n\n\nTADS. At Centre College, Ky., there is \"a society,\" says a\ncorrespondent, \"composed of the very best fellows of the College,\ncalling themselves _Tads_, who are generally associated together,\nfor the object of electing, by the additional votes of their\nmembers, any of their friends who are brought forward as\ncandidates for any honor or appointment in the literary societies\nto which they belong.\"\n\n\nTAKE UP. To call on a student to rehearse a lesson.\n\n  Professor _took_ him _up_ on Greek;\n  He tried to talk, but couldn't speak.\n    _MS Poem_.\n\n\nTAKE UP ONE'S CONNECTIONS. In students' phrase, to leave college.\nUsed in American institutions.\n\n\nTARDES. At the older American colleges, when charges were made and\nexcuses rendered in Latin, the student who had come late to any\nreligious service was addressed by the proper officer with the\nword _Tardes_, a kind of barbarous second person singular of some\nunknown verb, signifying, probably, \"You are or were late.\"\n\n  Much absence, _tardes_ and egresses,\n  The college-evil on him seizes.\n    _Trumbull's Progress of Dullness_, Part I.\n\n\nTARDY. In colleges, late in attendance on a public\nexercise.--_Webster_.\n\n\nTAVERN. At Harvard College, the rooms No. 24 Massachusetts Hall,\nand No. 8 Hollis Hall, were occupied from the year 1789 to 1793 by\nMr. Charles Angier. His table was always supplied with wine,\nbrandy, crackers, etc., of which his friends were at liberty to\npartake at any time. From this circumstance his rooms were called\n_the Tavern_ for nearly twenty years after his graduation.\n\nIn connection with this incident, it may not be uninteresting to\nstate, that the cellars of the two buildings above mentioned were\ndivided each into thirty-two compartments, corresponding with the\nnumber of rooms. In these the students and tutors stored their\nliquors, sometimes in no inconsiderable quantities. Frequent\nentries are met with in the records of the Faculty, in which the\nstudents are charged with pilfering wine, brandy, or eatables from\nthe tutors' _bins_.\n\n\nTAXOR. In the University of Cambridge, Eng., an officer appointed\nto regulate the assize of bread, the true gauge of weights,\netc.--_Cam. Cal._\n\n\nTEAM. In the English universities, the pupils of a private tutor\nor COACH.--_Bristed_.\n\nNo man who has not taken a good degree expects or pretends to take\ngood men into his _team_.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng.\nUniv._, Ed. 2d, p. 69.\n\nIt frequently, indeed usually happens, that a \"coach\" of\nreputation declines taking men into his _team_ before they have\nmade time in public.--_Ibid._, p. 85.\n\n\nTEAR. At Princeton College, a _perfect tear_ is a very extra\nrecitation, superior to a _rowl_.\n\n\nTEMPLE. At Bowdoin College, a privy is thus designated.\n\n\nTEN-STRIKE. At Hamilton College, a perfect recitation, ten being\nthe mark given for a perfect recitation.\n\n\nTEN-YEAR MEN. In the University of Cambridge, Eng., these are\nallowed to take the degree of Bachelor in Divinity without having\nbeen B.A. or M.A., by the statute of 9th Queen Elizabeth, which\npermits persons, who are admitted at any college when twenty-four\nyears of age and upwards, to take the degree of B.D. after their\nnames have remained on the _boards_ ten years or more. After the\nfirst eight years, they must reside in the University the greater\npart of three several terms, and perform the exercises which are\nrequired by the statutes.--_Cam. Cal._\n\n\nTERM. In universities and colleges, the time during which\ninstruction is regularly given to students, who are obliged by the\nstatutes and laws of the institution to attend to the recitations,\nlectures, and other exercises.--_Webster_.\n\nIn the University of Cambridge, Eng., there are three terms during\neach year, which are fixed by invariable rules. October or\nMichaelmas term begins on the 10th of October, and ends on the\n16th of December. Lent or January term begins on the 13th of\nJanuary, and ends on the Friday before Palm Sunday. Easter or\nMidsummer term, begins on the eleventh day (the Wednesday\nsennight) after Easter-day, and ends on the Friday after\nCommencement day. Commencement is always on the first Tuesday in\nJuly.\n\nAt Oxford University, there are four terms in the year. Michaelmas\nterm begins on the 10th of October, and ends on the 17th of\nDecember. Hilary term begins on the 14th of January, and ends the\nday before Palm Sunday. But if the Saturday before Palm Sunday\nshould be a festival, the term does not end till the Monday\nfollowing. Easter term begins on the tenth day after Easter\nSunday, and ends on the day before Whitsunday. Trinity term begins\non the Wednesday after Whitsunday, and ends the Saturday after the\nAct, which is always on the first Tuesday in July.\n\nAt the Dublin University, the terms in each year are four in\nnumber. Hilary term begins on the Monday after Epiphany, and ends\nthe day before Palm Sunday. Easter term begins on the eighth day\nafter Easter Sunday, and ends on Whitsun-eve. Trinity term begins\non Trinity Monday, and ends on the 8th of July. Michaelmas term\nbegins on the 1st of October (or on the 2d, if the 1st should be\nSunday), and ends on December 16th.\n\n\nTERR\u00c6 FILIUS. Latin; _son of earth_.\n\nFormerly, one appointed to write a satirical Latin poem at the\npublic Acts in the University of Oxford; not unlike the\nprevaricator at Cambridge, Eng.--_Webster_.\n\nFull accounts of the compositions written on these occasions may\nbe found in a work in two volumes, entitled \"Terr\u00e6-Filius; or the\nSecret History of the University of Oxford,\" printed in the year\n1726.\n\nSee TRIPOS PAPER.\n\n\nTESTAMUR. Latin; literally, _we testify_. In the English\nuniversities, a certificate of proficiency, without which a person\nis not able to take his degree. So called from the first word in\nthe formula.\n\nThere is not one out of twenty of my pupils who can look forward\nwith unmixed pleasure to a _testamur_.--_Collegian's Guide_, p.\n254.\n\nEvery _testamur_ must be signed by three out of the four\nexaminers, at least.--_Ibid._, p. 282.\n\n\nTHEATRE. At Oxford, a building in which are held the annual\ncommemoration of benefactors, the recitation of prize\ncompositions, and the occasional ceremony of conferring degrees on\ndistinguished personages.--_Oxford Guide_.\n\n\nTHEME. In college phrase, a short dissertation composed by a\nstudent.\n\nIt is the practice at Cambridge [Mass.] for the Professor of\nRhetoric and the English Language, commencing in the first or\nsecond quarter of the student's Sophomore year, to give the class\na text; generally some brief moral quotation from some of the\nancient or modern poets, from which the students write a short\nessay, usually denominated a _theme_.--_Works of R.T. Paine_, p.\nxxi.\n\nFar be it from me to enter into competition with students who have\nbeen practising the sublime art of _theme_ and forensic writing\nfor two years.--_Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 316.\n\n  But on the sleepy day of _themes_,\n  May doze away a dozen reams.\n    _Ibid._, p. 283.\n\nNimrod holds his \"first _theme_\" in one hand, and is leaning his\nhead on the other.--_Ibid._, p. 253.\n\n\nTHEME-BEARER. At Harvard College, until within a few years, a\nstudent was chosen once in a term by his classmates to perform the\nduties of _theme-bearer_. He received the subjects for themes and\nforensics from the Professors of Rhetoric and of Moral Philosophy,\nand posted them up in convenient places, usually in the entries of\nthe buildings and on, the bulletin-boards. He also distributed the\ncorrected themes, at first giving them to the students after\nevening prayers, and, when this had been forbidden by the\nPresident, carrying them to their rooms. For these services he\nreceived seventy-five cents per term from each member of the\nclass.\n\n\nTHEME-PAPER. In American colleges, a kind of paper on which\nstudents write their themes or composition. It is of the size of\nan ordinary letter-sheet, contains eighteen or nineteen lines\nplaced at wide intervals, and is ruled in red ink with a margin a\nlittle less than an inch in width.\n\nShoe-strings, lucifers, omnibus-tickets, _theme-paper_,\npostage-stamps, and the nutriment of pipes.--_Harv. Mag._, Vol. I.\np. 266.\n\n\nTHEOLOGUE. A cant name among collegians for a student in theology.\n\nThe hardened hearts of Freshmen and _Theologues_ burned with\nrighteous indignation.--_Yale Tomahawk_, May, 1852.\n\nThe _Theologs_ are not so wicked as the Medics.--_Burlesque\nCatalogue, Yale Coll._, 1852-53, p. 30.\n\n\nTHESES-COLLECTOR. One who collects or prepares _theses_. The\nfollowing extract from the laws of Harvard College will explain\nfurther what is meant by this term. \"The President, Professors,\nand Tutors, annually, some time in the third term, shall select\nfrom the Junior Class a number of _Theses-Collectors_, to prepare\ntheses for the next year; from which selection they shall appoint\nso many divisions as shall be equal to the number of branches they\nmay assign. And each one shall, in the particular branch assigned\nhim, collect so many theses as the government may judge expedient;\nand all the theses, thus collected, shall be delivered to the\nPresident, by the Saturday immediately succeeding the end of the\nSpring vacation in the Senior year, at furthest, from which the\nPresident, Professors, and Tutors shall select such as they shall\njudge proper to be published. But if the theses delivered to the\nPresident, in any particular branch, should not afford a\nsufficient number suitable for publication, a further number shall\nbe required. The name of the student who collected any set or\nnumber of theses shall be annexed to the theses collected by him,\nin every publication. Should any one neglect to collect the theses\nrequired of him, he shall be liable to lose his degree.\"--1814, p.\n35.\n\nThe Theses-Collectors were formerly chosen by the class, as the\nfollowing extract from a MS. Journal will show.\n\n\"March 27th, 1792. My Class assembled in the chapel to choose\ntheses-collectors, a valedictory orator, and poet. Jackson was\nchosen to deliver the Latin oration, and Cutler to deliver the\npoem. Ellis was almost unanimously chosen a collector of the\ngrammatical theses. Prince was chosen metaphysical\ntheses-collector, with considerable opposition. Lowell was chosen\nmathematical theses-collector, though not unanimously. Chamberlain\nwas chosen physical theses-collector.\"\n\n\nTHESIS. A position or proposition which a person advances and\noffers to maintain, or which is actually maintained by argument; a\ntheme; a subject; particularly, a subject or proposition for a\nschool or university exercise, or the exercise itself.--_Webster_.\n\nIn the older American colleges, the _theses_ held a prominent\nplace in the exercises of Commencement. At Harvard College the\nearliest theses extant bear the date of the year 1687. They were\nTheses Technological, Logical, Grammatical, Rhetorical,\nMathematical, and Physical. The last theses were presented in the\nyear 1820. The earliest theses extant belonging to Yale College\nare of 1714, and the last were printed in 1797.\n\n\nTHIRDING. In England, \"a custom practised at the universities,\nwhere two _thirds_ of the original price is allowed by\nupholsterers to the students for household goods returned them\nwithin the year.\"--_Grose's Dict._\n\nOn this subject De Quincey says: \"The Oxford rule is, that, if you\ntake the rooms (which is at your own option), in that case you\n_third_ the furniture and the embellishments; i.e. you succeed to\nthe total cost diminished by one third. You pay, therefore, two\nguineas out of each three to your _immediate_ predecessor.\"--_Life\nand Manners_, p. 250.\n\n\nTHIRD-YEAR MEN. In the University of Cambridge, Eng., the title of\nThird-Year Men, or Senior Sophs or Sophisters, is given to\nstudents during the third year of their residence at the\nUniversity.\n\n\nTHUNDERING BOLUS. See INTONITANS BOLUS.\n\n\nTICK. A recitation made by one who does not know of what he is\ntalking.\n\n_Ticks_, screws, and deads were all put under contribution.--_A\nTour through College_, Boston, 1832, p. 25.\n\n\nTICKER. One who recites without knowing what he is talking about;\none entirely independent of any book-knowledge.\n\n  If any \"_Ticker_\" dare to look\n  A stealthy moment on his book.\n    _Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 123.\n\n\nTICKING. The act of reciting without knowing anything about the\nlesson.\n\nAnd what with _ticking_, screwing, and deading, am candidate for a\npiece of parchment to-morrow.--_Harv. Reg._, p. 194.\n\n\nTIGHT. A common slang term among students; the comparative, of\nwhich _drunk_ is the superlative.\n\n  Some twenty of as jolly chaps as e'er got jolly _tight_.\n    _Poem before Y.H._, 1849.\n\n               Hast spent the livelong night\n  In smoking Esculapios,--in getting jolly _tight_?\n    _Poem before Iadma_, 1850.\n\n  He clenched his fist as fain for fight,\n  Sank back, and gently murmured \"_tight_.\"\n    _MS. Poem_, W.F. Allen, 1848.\n\n  While fathers, are bursting with rage and spite,\n  And old ladies vow that the students are _tight_.\n    _Yale Gallinipper_, Nov. 1848.\n\nSpeaking of the word \"drunk,\" the Burlington Sentinel remarks:\n\"The last synonyme that we have observed is '_tight_,' a term, it\nstrikes us, rather inappropriate, since a 'tight' man, in the cant\nuse of the word, is almost always a 'loose character.' We give a\nlist of a few of the various words and phrases which have been in\nuse, at one time or another, to signify some stage of inebriation:\nOver the bay, half seas over, hot, high, corned, cut, cocked,\nshaved, disguised, jammed, damaged, sleepy, tired, discouraged,\nsnuffy, whipped, how come ye so, breezy, smoked, top-heavy,\nfuddled, groggy, tipsy, smashed, swipy, slewed, cronk, salted\ndown, how fare ye, on the lee lurch, all sails set, three sheets\nin the wind, well under way, battered, blowing, snubbed, sawed,\nboosy, bruised, screwed, soaked, comfortable, stimulated,\njug-steamed, tangle-legged, fogmatic, blue-eyed, a passenger in\nthe Cape Ann stage, striped, faint, shot in the neck, bamboozled,\nweak-jointed, got a brick in his hat, got a turkey on his back.\"\n\nDr. Franklin, in speaking of the intemperate drinker, says, he\nwill never, or seldom, allow that he is drunk; he may be \"boosy,\ncosey, foxed, merry, mellow, fuddled, groatable, confoundedly cut,\nmay see two moons, be among the Philistines, in a very good humor,\nhave been in the sun, is a little feverish, pretty well entered,\n&c., but _never drunk_.\"\n\nA highly entertaining list of the phrases which the Germans employ\n\"to clothe in a tolerable garb of decorum that dreamy condition\ninto which Bacchus frequently throws his votaries,\" is given in\n_Howitt's Student Life of Germany_, Am. ed., pp. 296, 297.\n\nSee SPRUNG.\n\n2. At Williams College, this word is sometimes used as an\nexclamation; e.g. \"O _tight_!\"\n\n\nTIGHT FIT. At the University of Vermont, a good joke is\ndenominated by the students a _tight fit_, and the jokee is said\nto be \"hard up.\"\n\n\nTILE. A hat. Evidently suggested by the meaning of the word, a\ncovering for the roof of buildings.\n\n  Then, taking it from off his head, began to brush his \"_tile_.\"\n    _Poem before the Iadma_, 1850.\n\n\nTOADY. A fawning, obsequious parasite; a toad-eater. In college\ncant, one who seeks or gains favor with an instructor or\npopularity with his classmates by mean and sycophantic actions.\n\n\nTOADY. To flatter any one for gain.--_Halliwell_.\n\n\nTOM. The great bell of Christ Church, Oxford, which formerly\nbelonged to Osney Abbey.\n\n\"This bell,\" says the Oxford Guide, \"was recast in 1680, its\nweight being about 17,000 pounds; more than double the weight of\nthe great bell in St. Paul's, London. This bell has always been\nrepresented as one of the finest in England, but even at the risk\nof dispelling an illusion under which most Oxford men have\nlabored, and which every member of Christ Church has indulged in\nfrom 1680 to the present time, touching the fancied superiority of\nmighty Tom, it must be confessed that it is neither an accurate\nnor a musical bell. The note, as we are assured by the learned in\nthese matters, ought to be B flat, but is not so. On the contrary,\nthe bell is imperfect and inharmonious, and requires, in the\nopinion of those best informed, and of most experience, to be\nrecast. It is, however, still a great curiosity, and may be seen\nby applying to the porter at Tom-Gate lodge.\"--Ed. 1847, p. 5,\nnote a.\n\n\nTO THE _n(-th.)_, TO THE _n + 1(-th.)_ Among English Cantabs\nthese algebraic expressions are used as intensives to denote the\nmost energetic way of doing anything.--_Bristed_.\n\n\nTOWNEY. The name by which a student in an American college is\naccustomed to designate any young man residing in the town in\nwhich the college is situated, who is not a collegian.\n\n  And _Towneys_ left when she showed fight.\n    _Pow-wow of Class of '58, Yale Coll._\n\n\nTRANSLATION. The act of turning one language into another.\n\nAt the University of Cambridge, Eng., this word is applied more\nparticularly to the turning of Greek or Latin into English.\n\nIn composition and cram I was yet untried, and the _translations_\nin lecture-room were not difficult to acquit one's self on\nrespectably.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p.\n34.\n\n\nTRANSMITTENDUM, _pl._ TRANSMITTENDA or TRANSMITTENDUMS. Anything\ntransmitted, or handed down from one to another.\n\nStudents, on withdrawing from college, often leave in the room\nwhich they last occupied, pictures, looking-glasses, chairs, &c.,\nthere to remain, and to be handed down to the latest posterity.\nArticles thus left are called _transmittenda_.\n\nThe Great Mathematical Slate was a _transmittendum_ to the best\nmathematical scholar in each class.--_MS. note in Cat. Med. Fac.\nSoc._, 1833, p. 16.\n\n\nTRENCHER-CAP. A-name, sometimes given to the square head-covering\nworn by students in the English universities. Used figuratively to\ndenote collegiate power.\n\nThe _trencher-cap_ has claimed a right to take its part in the\nmovements which make or mar the destinies of nations, by the side\nof plumed casque and priestly tiara.--_The English Universities\nand their Reforms_, in _Blackwood's Mag._, Feb. 1849.\n\n\nTRIANGLE. At Union College, a urinal, so called from its shape.\n\n\nTRIENNIAL, or TRIENNIAL CATALOGUE. In American colleges, a\ncatalogue issued once in three years. This catalogue contains the\nnames of the officers and students, arranged according to the\nyears in which they were connected with the college, an account of\nthe high public offices which they have filled, degrees which they\nhave received, time of death, &c.[66]\n\nThe _Triennial Catalogue_ becomes increasingly a mournful\nrecord--it should be monitory, as well as mournful--to survivors,\nlooking at the stars thickening on it, from one date to\nanother.--_Scenes and Characters in College_, p. 198.\n\n  Our tale shall be told by a silent star,\n  On the page of some future _Triennial_.\n    _Class Poem, Harv. Coll._, 1849, p. 4.\n\n\nTRIMESTER. Latin _trimestris_; _tres_, three, and _mensis_, month.\nIn the German universities, a term or period of three\nmonths.--_Webster_.\n\n\nTRINITARIAN. The popular name of a member of Trinity College in\nthe University of Cambridge, Eng.\n\n\nTRIPOS, _pl._ TRIPOSES. At Cambridge, Eng., any university\nexamination for honors, of questionists or men who have just taken\ntheir B.A. The university scholarship examinations are not called\n_triposes_.--_Bristed_.\n\nThe Classical Tripos is generally spoken of as _the Tripos_, the\nMathematical one as the Degree Examination.--_Ibid._, p. 170.\n\n2. A tripos paper.\n\n3. One who prepares a tripos paper.--_Webster_.\n\n\nTRIPOS PAPER. At the University of Cambridge, England, a printed\nlist of the successful candidates for mathematical honors,\naccompanied by a piece in Latin verse. There are two of these,\ndesigned to commemorate the two Tripos days. The first contains\nthe names of the Wranglers and Senior Optimes, and the second the\nnames of the Junior Optimes. The word _tripos_ is supposed to\nrefer to the three-legged stool formerly used at the examinations\nfor these honors, though some derive it from the three _brackets_\nformerly printed on the back of the paper.\n\n_Classical Tripos Examination_. The final university examination\nfor classical honors, optional to all who have taken the\nmathematical honors.--_C.A. Bristed_, in _Webster's Dict._\n\nThe Tripos Paper is more fully described in the annexed extract.\n\"The names of the Bachelors who were highest in the list\n(Wranglers and Senior Optimes, _Baccalaurei quibus sua reservatur\nsenioritas Comitiis prioribus_, and Junior Optimes, _Comitiis\nposterioribus_) were written on slips of paper; and on the back of\nthese papers, probably with a view of making them less fugitive\nand more entertaining, was given a copy of Latin verses. These\nverses were written by one of the new Bachelors, and the exuberant\nspirits and enlarged freedom arising from the termination of the\nUndergraduate restrictions often gave to these effusions a\ncharacter of buffoonery and satire. The writer was termed _Terr\u00e6\nFilius_, or _Tripos_, probably from some circumstance in the mode\nof his making his appearance and delivering his verses; and took\nconsiderable liberties. On some occasions, we find that these went\nso far as to incur the censure of the authorities. Even now, the\nTripos verses often aim at satire and humor. [It is customary to\nhave one serious and one humorous copy of verses.] The writer does\nnot now appear in person, but the Tripos Paper, the list of honors\nwith its verses, still comes forth at its due season, and the list\nitself has now taken the name of the Tripos. This being the case\nwith the list of mathematical honors, the same name has been\nextended to the list of classical honors, though unaccompanied by\nits classical verses.\"--_Whewell on Cambridge Education_, Preface\nto Part II., quoted in _Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._,\nEd. 2d, p. 25.\n\n\nTRUMP. A jolly blade; a merry fellow; one who occupies among his\ncompanions a position similar to that which trumps hold to the\nother cards in the pack. Not confined in its use to collegians,\nbut much in vogue among them.\n\n  But soon he treads this classic ground,\n  Where knowledge dwells and _trumps_ abound.\n    _MS. Poem_.\n\n\nTRUSTEE. A person to whom property is legally committed in\n_trust_, to be applied either for the benefit of specified\nindividuals, or for public uses.--_Webster_.\n\nIn many American colleges the general government is vested in a\nboard of _trustees_, appointed differently in different colleges.\n\nSee CORPORATION and OVERSEER.\n\n\nTUFT-HUNTER. A cant term, in the English universities, for a\nhanger-on to noblemen and persons of quality. So called from the\n_tuft_ in the cap of the latter.--_Halliwell_.\n\nThere are few such thorough _tuft-hunters_ as your genuine Oxford\nDon.--_Blackwood's Mag._, Eng. ed., Vol. LVI. p. 572.\n\n\nTUITION. In universities, colleges, schools, &c., the money paid\nfor instruction. In American colleges, the tuition is from thirty\nto seventy dollars a year.\n\n\nTUTE. Abbreviation for Tutor.\n\n\nTUTOR. Latin; from _tueor_, to defend; French, _tuteur_.\n\nIn English universities and colleges, an officer or member of some\nhall, who has the charge of hearing the lessons of the students,\nand otherwise giving them instruction in the sciences and various\nbranches of learning.\n\nIn the American colleges, tutors are graduates selected by the\ntrustees, for the instruction of undergraduates of the first three\nyears. They are usually officers of the institution, who have a\nshare, with the president and professors, in the government of the\nstudents.--_Webster_.\n\n\nTUTORAGE. In the English universities, the guardianship exerted by\na tutor; the care of a pupil.\n\nThe next item which I shall notice is that which in college bills\nis expressed by the word _Tutorage_.--_De Quincey's Life and\nManners_, p. 251.\n\n\nTUTOR, CLASS. At some of the colleges in the United States, each\nof the four classes is assigned to the care of a particular tutor,\nwho acts as the ordinary medium of communication between the\nmembers of the class and the Faculty, and who may be consulted by\nthe students concerning their studies, or on any other subject\ninteresting to them in their relations to the college.\n\nAt Harvard College, in addition to these offices, the Class Tutors\ngrant leave of absence from church and from town for Sunday,\nincluding Saturday night, on the presentation of a satisfactory\nreason, and administer all warnings and private admonitions\nordered by the Faculty for misconduct or neglect of duty.--_Orders\nand Regulations of the Faculty of Harv. Coll._, July, 1853, pp. 1,\n2.\n\nOf this regulation as it obtained at Harvard during the latter\npart of the last century, Professor Sidney Willard says: \"Each of\nthe Tutors had one class, of which he was charged with a certain\noversight, and of which he was called the particular Tutor. The\nseveral Tutors in Latin successively sustained this relation to my\nclass. Warnings of various kinds, private admonitions for\nnegligence or minor offences, and, in general, intercommunication\nbetween his class and the Immediate Government, were the duties\nbelonging to this relation.\"--_Memories of Youth and Manhood_,\nVol. I. p. 266, note.\n\n\nTUTOR, COLLEGE. At the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, an\nofficer connected with a college, whose duties are described in\nthe annexed extracts.\n\nWith reference to Oxford, De Quincey remarks: \"Each college takes\nupon itself the regular instruction of its separate inmates,--of\nthese and of no others; and for this office it appoints, after\ncareful selection, trial, and probation, the best qualified\namongst those of its senior members who choose to undertake a\ntrust of such heavy responsibility. These officers are called\nTutors; and they are connected by duties and by accountability,\nnot with the University at all, but with their own private\ncolleges. The public tutors appointed in each college [are] on the\nscale of one to each dozen or score of students.\"--_Life and\nManners_, Boston, 1851, p. 252.\n\nBristed, writing of Cambridge, says: \"When, therefore, a boy, or,\nas we should call him, a young man, leaves his school, public or\nprivate, at the age of eighteen or nineteen, and 'goes up' to the\nUniversity, he necessarily goes up to some particular college, and\nthe first academical authority he makes acquaintance with in the\nregular order of things is the College Tutor. This gentleman has\nusually taken high honors either in classics or mathematics, and\none of his duties is naturally to lecture. But this by no means\nconstitutes the whole, or forms the most important part, of his\nfunctions. He is the medium of all the students' pecuniary\nrelations with the College. He sends in their accounts every term,\nand receives the money through his banker; nay, more, he takes in\nthe bills of their tradesmen, and settles them also. Further, he\nhas the disposal of the college rooms, and assigns them to their\nrespective occupants. When I speak of the College _Tutor_, it must\nnot be supposed that one man is equal to all this work in a large\ncollege,--Trinity, for instance, which usually numbers four\nhundred Undergraduates in residence. A large college has usually\ntwo Tutors,--Trinity has three,--and the students are equally\ndivided among them,--_on their sides_, the phrase is,--without\ndistinction of year, or, as we should call it, of _class_. The\njurisdiction of the rooms is divided in like manner. The Tutor is\nsupposed to stand _in loco parentis_; but having sometimes more\nthan a hundred young men under him, he cannot discharge his duties\nin this respect very thoroughly, nor is it generally expected that\nhe should.\"--_Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, pp. 10, 11.\n\n\nTUTORIAL. Belonging to or exercised by a tutor or instructor.\n\nEven while he is engaged in his \"_tutorial_\" duties, &c.--_Am.\nLit. Mag._, Vol. IV. p. 409.\n\n\nTUTORIC. Pertaining to a tutor.\n\nA collection of two was not then considered a sure prognostic of\nrebellion, and spied out vigilantly by _tutoric_\neyes.--_Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 314.\n\n\nTUTORIFIC. The same as _tutoric_.\n\n  While thus in doubt they hesitating stand,\n  Approaches near the _Tutorific_ band.\n    _Yale Tomahawk_, May, 1852.\n\n  \"Old Yale,\" of thee we sing, thou art our theme,\n  Of thee with all thy _Tutorific_ host.--_Ibid._\n\n\nTUTORING FRESHMEN. Of the various means used by Sophomores to\ntrouble Freshmen, that of _tutoring_ them, as described in the\nfollowing extract from the Sketches of Yale College, is not at all\npeculiar to that institution, except in so far as the name is\nconcerned.\n\n\"The ancient customs of subordination among the classes, though\nlong since abrogated, still preserve a part of their power over\nthe students, not only of this, but of almost every similar\ninstitution. The recently exalted Sophomore, the dignified Junior,\nand the venerable Senior, look back with equal humor at the\n'greenness' of their first year. The former of these classes,\nhowever, is chiefly notorious in the annals of Freshman capers. To\nthem is allotted the duty of fumigating the room of the new-comer,\nand preparing him, by a due induction into the mysteries of Yale,\nfor the duties of his new situation. Of these performances, the\nmost systematic is commonly styled _Tutoring_, from the character\nassumed by the officiating Sophomore. Seated solemnly in his chair\nof state, arrayed in a pompous gown, with specs and powdered hair,\nhe awaits the approach of the awe-struck subject, who has been\nduly warned to attend his pleasure, and fitly instructed to make a\nlow reverence and stand speechless until addressed by his\nillustrious superior. A becoming impression has also been conveyed\nof the dignity, talents, and profound learning and influence into\nthe congregated presence of which he is summoned. Everything, in\nshort, which can increase his sufficiently reverent emotions, or\nproduce a readier or more humble obedience, is carefully set\nforth, till he is prepared to approach the door with no little\ndegree of that terror with which the superstitious inquirer enters\nthe mystic circle of the magician. A shaded light gleams dimly out\ninto the room, and pours its fuller radiance upon a ponderous\nvolume of Hebrew; a huge pile of folios rests on the table, and\nthe eye of the fearful Freshman half ventures to discover that\nthey are tomes of the dead languages.\n\n\"But first he has, in obedience to his careful monitor, bowed\nlowly before the dignified presence; and, hardly raising his eyes,\nhe stands abashed at his awful situation, waiting the supreme\npleasure of the supposed officer. A benignant smile lights up the\ntutor's grave countenance; he enters strangely enough into\nfamiliar talk with the recently admitted collegiate; in pathetic\nterms he describes the temptations of this _great_ city, the\nthousand dangers to which he will be exposed, the vortex of ruin\ninto which, if he walks unwarily, he will be surely plunged. He\nfires the youthful ambition with glowing descriptions of the\nhonors that await the successful, and opens to his eager view the\ndazzling prospect of college fame. Nor does he fail to please the\nyouthful aspirant with assurances of the kindly notice of the\nFaculty; he informs him of the satisfactory examination he has\npassed, and the gratification of the President at his uncommon\nproficiency; and having thus filled the buoyant imagination of his\ndupe with the most glowing college air-castles, dismisses him from\nhis august presence, after having given him especial permission to\ncall on any important occasion hereafter.\"--pp. 159-162.\n\n\nTUTOR, PRIVATE. At the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, an\ninstructor, whose position and studies are set forth in the\nfollowing extracts.\n\n\"Besides the public tutors appointed in each college,\" says De\nQuincey, writing of Oxford, \"there are also tutors strictly\nprivate, who attend any students in search of special and\nextraordinary aid, on terms settled privately by themselves. Of\nthese persons, or their existence, the college takes no\ncognizance.\" \"These are the working agents in the Oxford system.\"\n\"The _Tutors_ of Oxford correspond to the _Professors_ of other\nuniversities.\"--_Life and Manners_, Boston, 1851, pp. 252, 253.\n\nReferring to Cambridge, Bristed remarks: \"The private tutor at an\nEnglish university corresponds, as has been already observed, in\nmany respects, to the _professor_ at a German. The German\nprofessor is not _necessarily_ attached to any specific chair; he\nreceives no _fixed_ stipend, and has not public lecture-rooms; he\nteaches at his own house, and the number of his pupils depends on\nhis reputation. The Cambridge private tutor is also a graduate,\nwho takes pupils at his rooms in numbers proportionate to his\nreputation and ability. And although while the German professor is\nregularly licensed as such by his university, and the existence of\nthe private tutor _as such_ is not even officially recognized by\nhis, still this difference is more apparent than real; for the\nEnglish university has _virtually_ licensed the tutor to instruct\nin a particular branch by the standing she has given him in her\nexaminations.\" \"Students come up to the University with all\ndegrees of preparation.... To make up for former deficiences, and\nto direct study so that it may not be wasted, are two _desiderata_\nwhich probably led to the introduction of private tutors, once a\npartial, now a general appliance.\"--_Five Years in an Eng. Univ._,\nEd. 2d, pp. 146-148.\n\n\nTUTORSHIP. The office of a tutor.--_Hooker_.\n\nIn the following passage, this word is used as a titulary\ncompellation, like the word _lordship_.\n\n  One morning, as the story goes,\n  Before his _tutorship_ arose.--_Rebelliad_, p. 73.\n\n\nTUTORS' PASTURE. In 1645, John Bulkley, the \"first Master of Arts\nin Harvard College,\" by a deed, gave to Mr. Dunster, the President\nof that institution, two acres of land in Cambridge, during his\nlife. The deed then proceeds: \"If at any time he shall leave the\nPresidency, or shall decease, I then desire the College to\nappropriate the same to itself for ever, as a small gift from an\nalumnus, bearing towards it the greatest good-will.\" \"After\nPresident Dunster's resignation,\" says Quincy, \"the Corporation\ngave the income of Bulkley's donation to the tutors, who received\nit for many years, and hence the enclosure obtained the name of\n'_Tutors' Pasture_,' or '_Fellows' Orchard_.'\" In the Donation\nBook of the College, the deed is introduced as \"Extractum Doni\nPomarii Sociorum per Johannem Bulkleium.\"--_Quincy's Hist. Harv.\nUniv._, Vol. I. pp. 269, 270.\n\nFor further remarks on this subject, see Peirce's \"History of\nHarvard University,\" pp. 15, 81, 113, also Chap. XIII., and\n\"Memorial of John S. Popkin, D.D.,\" pp. 390, 391.\n\n\nTWITCH A TWELVE. At Middlebury College, to make a perfect\nrecitation; twelve being the maximum mark for scholarship.\n\n\n\n_U_.\n\n\nUGLY KNIFE. See JACK-KNIFE.\n\n\nUNDERGRADUATE. A student, or member of a university or college,\nwho has not taken his first degree.--_Webster_.\n\n\nUNDERGRADUATE. Noting or pertaining to a student of a college who\nhas not taken his first degree.\n\nThe _undergraduate_ students shall be divided into four distinct\nclasses.--_Laws Yale Coll._, 1837, p. 11.\n\nWith these the _undergraduate_ course is not intended to\ninterfere.--_Yale Coll. Cat._, 1850-51, p. 33.\n\n\nUNDERGRADUATESHIP. The state of being an undergraduate.--_Life of\nPaley_.\n\n\nUNIVERSITY. An assemblage of colleges established in any place,\nwith professors for instructing students in the sciences and other\nbranches of learning, and where degrees are conferred. A\n_university_ is properly a universal school, in which are taught\nall branches of learning, or the four faculties of theology,\nmedicine, law, and the sciences and arts.--_Cyclop\u00e6dia_.\n\n2. At some American colleges, a name given to a university\nstudent. The regulation in reference to this class at Union\nCollege is as follows:--\"Students, not regular members of college,\nare allowed, as university students, to prosecute any branches for\nwhich they are qualified, provided they attend three recitations\ndaily, and conform in all other respects to the laws of College.\nOn leaving College, they receive certificates of character and\nscholarship.\"--_Union Coll. Cat._, 1850.\n\nThe eyes of several Freshmen and _Universities_ shone with a\nwatery lustre.--_The Parthenon_, Vol. I. p. 20.\n\n\nUP. To be _up_ in a subject, is to be informed in regard to it.\n_Posted_ expresses a similar idea. The use of this word, although\ncommon among collegians, is by no means confined to them.\n\nIn our past history, short as it is, we would hardly expect them\nto be well _up_.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d,\np. 28.\n\n\nHe is well _up_ in metaphysics.--_Ibid._, p. 53.\n\n\nUPPER HOUSE. See SENATE.\n\n\n\n_V_.\n\n\nVACATION. The intermission of the regular studies and exercises of\na college or other seminary, when the students have a\nrecess.--_Webster_.\n\nIn the University of Cambridge, Eng., there are three vacations\nduring each year. Christmas vacation begins on the 16th of\nDecember, and ends on the 13th of January. Easter vacation begins\non the Friday before Palm Sunday, and ends on the eleventh day\nafter Easter-day. The Long vacation begins on the Friday\nsucceeding the first Tuesday in July, and ends on the 10th of\nOctober. At the University of Oxford there are four vacations in\neach year. At Dublin University there are also four vacations,\nwhich correspond nearly with the vacations of Oxford.\n\nSee TERM.\n\n\nVALEDICTION. A farewell; a bidding farewell. Used sometimes with\nthe meaning of _valedictory_ or _valedictory oration_.\n\nTwo publick Orations, by the Candidates: the one to give a\nspecimen of their Knowledge, &c., and the other to give a grateful\nand pathetick _Valediction_ to all the Officers and Members of the\nSociety.--_Clap's Hist. Yale Coll._, p. 87.\n\n\nVALEDICTORIAN. The student of a college who pronounces the\nvaledictory oration at the annual Commencement.--_Webster_.\n\n\nVALEDICTORY. In American colleges, a farewell oration or address\nspoken at Commencement, by a member of the class which receive the\ndegree of Bachelor of Arts, and take their leave of college and of\neach other.\n\n\nVARMINT. At Cambridge, England, and also among the whip gentry,\nthis word signifies natty, spruce, dashing; e.g. he is quite\n_varmint_; he sports a _varmint_ hat, coat, &c.\n\nA _varmint_ man spurns a scholarship, would consider it a\ndegradation to be a fellow.--_Gradus ad Cantab._, p. 122.\n\nThe handsome man, my friend and pupil, was naturally enough a bit\nof a swell, or _varmint_ man.--_Alma Mater_, Vol. II. p. 118.\n\n\nVERGER. At the University of Oxford, an officer who walks first in\nprocessions, and carries a silver rod.\n\n\nVICE-CHANCELLOR. An officer in a university, in England, a\ndistinguished member, who is annually elected to manage the\naffairs in the absence of the Chancellor. He must be the head of a\ncollege, and during his continuance in office he acts as a\nmagistrate for the university, town, and county.--_Cam. Cal._\n\nAt Oxford, the Vice-Chancellor holds a court, in which suits may\nbe brought against any member of the University. He never walks\nout, without being preceded by a Yeoman-Bedel with his silver\nstaff. At Cambridge, the Mayor and Bailiffs of the town are\nobliged, at their election, to take certain oaths before the\nVice-Chancellor. The Vice-Chancellor has the sole right of\nlicensing wine and ale-houses in Cambridge, and of _discommuning_\nany tradesman or inhabitant who has violated the University\nprivileges or regulations. In both universities, the\nVice-Chancellor is nominated by the Heads of Houses, from among\nthemselves.\n\n\nVICE-MASTER. An officer of a college in the English universities\nwho performs the duties of the Master in his absence.\n\n\nVISITATION. The act of a superior or superintending officer, who\nvisits a corporation, college, church, or other house, to examine\ninto the manner in which it is conducted, and see that its laws\nand regulations are duly observed and executed.--_Cyc._\n\nIn July, 1766, a law was formally enacted, \"that twice in the\nyear, viz. at the semiannual _visitation_ of the committee of the\nOverseers, some of the scholars, at the direction of the President\nand Tutors, shall publicly exhibit specimens of their\nproficiency,\" &c.--_Quincy's Hist. Harv. Univ._, Vol. II. p. 132.\n\n\nVIVA VOCE. Latin; literally, _with the living voice_. In the\nEnglish universities, that part of an examination which is carried\non orally.\n\nThe examination involves a little _viva voce_, and it was said,\nthat, if a man did his _viva voce_ well, none of his papers were\nlooked at but the Paley.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._,\nEd. 2d, p. 92.\n\nIn Combination Room, where once I sat at _viva voce_, wretched,\nignorant, the wine goes round, and wit, and pleasant\ntalk.--_Household Words_, Am. ed., Vol. XI. p. 521.\n\n\n\n_W_.\n\n\nWALLING. At the University of Oxford, the punishment of _walling_,\nas it is popularly denominated, consists in confining a student to\nthe walls of his college for a certain period.\n\n\nWARDEN. The master or president of a college.--_England_.\n\n\nWARNING. In many colleges, when it is ascertained that a student\nis not living in accordance with the laws of the institution, he\nis usually informed of the fact by a _warning_, as it is called,\nfrom one of the faculty, which consists merely of friendly caution\nand advice, thus giving him an opportunity, by correcting his\nfaults, to escape punishment.\n\n  Sadly I feel I should have been saved by numerous _warnings_.\n    _Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 98.\n\n  No more shall \"_warnings_\" in their hearing ring,\n  Nor \"admonitions\" haunt their aching head.\n    _Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol. XV. p. 210.\n\n\nWEDGE. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., the man whose name is\nthe last on the list of honors in the voluntary classical\nexamination, which follows the last examination required by\nstatute, is called the _wedge_. \"The last man is called the\n_wedge_\" says Bristed, \"corresponding to the Spoon in Mathematics.\nThis name originated in that of the man who was last on the first\nTripos list (in 1824), _Wedgewood_. Some one suggested that the\n_wooden wedge_ was a good counterpart to the _wooden spoon_, and\nthe appellation stuck.\"--_Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p.\n253.\n\n\nWET. To christen a new garment by treating one's friends when one\nfirst appears in it; e.g.:--A. \"Have you _wet_ that new coat yet?\"\nB. \"No.\" A. \"Well, then, I should recommend to you the propriety\nof so doing.\" B. \"What will you drink?\" This word, although much\nused among students, is by no means confined to them.\n\n\nWHINNICK. At Hamilton College, to refuse to fulfil a promise or\nengagement; to retreat from a difficulty; to back out.\n\n\nWHITE-HOOD HOUSE. See SENATE.\n\n\nWIGS. The custom of wearing wigs was, perhaps, observed nowhere in\nAmerica during the last century with so much particularity as at\nthe older colleges. Of this the following incident is\nillustrative. Mr. Joseph Palmer, who graduated at Harvard in the\nyear 1747, entered college at the age of fourteen; but, although\nso young, was required immediately after admission to cut off his\nlong, flowing hair, and to cover his head with an unsightly\nbag-wig. At the beginning of the present century, wigs were not\nwholly discarded, although the fashion of wearing the hair in a\nqueue was more in vogue. From a record of curious facts, it\nappears that the last wig which appeared at Commencement in\nHarvard College was worn by Mr. John Marsh, in the year 1819.\n\nSee DRESS.\n\n\nWILL. At Harvard College, it was at one time the mode for the\nstudent to whom had been given the JACK-KNIFE in consequence of\nhis ugliness, to transmit the inheritance, when he left, to some\none of equal pretensions in the class next below him. At one\nperiod, this transmission was effected by a _will_, in which not\nonly the knife, but other articles, were bequeathed. As the 21st\nof June was, till of late years, the day on which the members of\nthe Senior Class closed their collegiate studies, and retired to\nmake preparations for the ensuing Commencement, Wills were usually\ndated at that time. The first will of this nature of which mention\nis made is that of Mr. William Biglow, a member of the class of\n1794, and the recipient for that year of the knife. It appeared in\nthe department entitled \"Omnium Gatherum\" of the Federal Orrery,\npublished at Boston, April 27, 1795, in these words:--\n\n \"A WILL:\n\nBEING THE LAST WORDS OF CHARLES CHATTERBOX, ESQ., LATE WORTHY AND\nMUCH LAMENTED MEMBER OF THE LAUGHING CLUB OF HARVARD UNIVERSITT,\nWHO DEPARTED COLLEGE LIFE, JUNE 21, 1794, IN THE TWENTY-FIRST YEAR\nOF HIS AGE.\n\n \"I, CHARLEY CHATTER, sound of mind,\n  To making fun am much inclined;\n  So, having cause to apprehend\n  My college life is near its end,\n  All future quarrels to prevent,\n  I seal this will and testament.\n\n \"My soul and body, while together,\n  I send the storms of life to weather;\n  To steer as safely as they can,\n  To honor GOD, and profit man.\n\n \"_Imprimis_, then, my bed and bedding,\n  My only chattels worth the sledding,\n  Consisting of a maple stead,\n  A counterpane, and coverlet,\n  Two cases with the pillows in,\n  A blanket, cord, a winch and pin,\n  Two sheets, a feather bed and hay-tick,\n  I order sledded up to _Natick_,\n  And that with care the sledder save them\n  For those kind parents, first who gave them.\n\n \"_Item_. The Laughing Club, so blest,\n  Who think this life what 't is,--a jest,--\n  Collect its flowers from every spray,\n  And laugh its goading thorns away;\n  From whom to-morrow I dissever,\n  Take one sweet grin, and leave for ever;\n  My chest, and all that in it is,\n  I give and I bequeath them, viz.:\n  Westminster grammar, old and poor,\n  Another one, compiled by Moor;\n  A bunch of pamphlets pro and con\n  The doctrine of salva-ti-on;\n  The college laws, I'm freed from minding,\n  A Hebrew psalter, stripped from binding.\n  A Hebrew Bible, too, lies nigh it,\n  Unsold--because no one would buy it.\n\n \"My manuscripts, in prose and verse,\n  They take for better and for worse;\n  Their minds enlighten with the best,\n  And pipes and candles with the rest;\n  Provided that from them they cull\n  My college exercises dull,\n  On threadbare theme, with mind unwilling,\n  Strained out through fear of fine one shilling,\n  To teachers paid t' avert an evil,\n  Like Indian worship to the Devil.\n  The above-named manuscripts, I say.\n  To club aforesaid I convey,\n  Provided that said themes, so given,\n  Full proofs that _genius won't be driven_,\n  To our physicians be presented,\n  As the best opiates yet invented.\n\n \"_Item_. The government of college,\n  Those liberal _helluos_ of knowledge,\n  Who, e'en in these degenerate days,\n  Deserve the world's unceasing praise;\n  Who, friends of science and of men,\n  Stand forth Gomorrah's righteous ten;\n  On them I naught but thanks bestow,\n  For, like my cash, my credit's low;\n  So I can give nor clothes nor wines,\n  But bid them welcome to my fines.\n\n \"_Item_. My study desk of pine,\n  That work-bench, sacred to the nine,\n  Which oft hath groaned beneath my metre,\n  I give to pay my debts to PETER.\n\n \"_Item_. Two penknives with white handles,\n  A bunch of quills, and pound of candles,\n  A lexicon compiled by COLE,\n  A pewter spoon, and earthen bowl,\n  A hammer, and two homespun towels,\n  For which I yearn with tender bowels,\n  Since I no longer can control them,\n  I leave to those sly lads who stole them.\n\n \"_Item_. A gown much greased in Commons,\n  A hat between a man's and woman's,\n  A tattered coat of college blue,\n  A fustian waistcoat torn in two,\n  With all my rust, through college carried,\n  I give to classmate O----,[67] who's _married_.\n\n \"_Item_. C------ P------s[68] has my knife,\n  During his natural college life,--\n  That knife, which ugliness inherits,\n  And due to his superior merits;\n  And when from Harvard he shall steer,\n  I order him to leave it here,\n  That 't may from class to class descend,\n  Till time and ugliness shall end.\n\n \"The said C------ P------s, humor's son,\n  Who long shall stay when I am gone,\n  The Muses' most successful suitor,\n  I constitute my executor;\n  And for his trouble to requite him,\n  Member of Laughing Club I write him.\n\n \"Myself on life's broad sea I throw,\n  Sail with its joy, or stem its woe,\n  No other friend to take my part,\n  Than careless head and honest heart.\n  My purse is drained, my debts are paid,\n  My glass is run, my will is made,\n  To beauteous Cam. I bid adieu,\n  And with the world begin anew.\"\n\nFollowing the example of his friend Biglow, Mr. Prentiss, on\nleaving college, prepared a will, which afterwards appeared in one\nof the earliest numbers of the Rural Repository, a literary paper,\nthe publication of which he commenced at Leominster, Mass., in the\nautumn of 1795. Thomas Paine, afterwards Robert Treat Paine, Jr.,\nimmediately transferred it to the columns of the Federal Orrery,\nwhich paper he edited, with these introductory remarks: \"Having,\nin the second number of 'Omnium Gatherum' presented to our readers\nthe last will and testament of Charles Chatterbox, Esq., of witty\nmemory, wherein the said Charles, now deceased, did lawfully\nbequeath to Ch----s Pr----s the celebrated 'Ugly Knife,' to be by\nhim transmitted, at his collegiate demise, to the next succeeding\ncandidate;... and whereas the said Ch-----s Pr-----s, on the 21st\nof June last, departed his aforesaid '_college life_,' thereby\nleaving to the inheritance of his successor the valuable legacy,\nwhich his illustrious friend had bequeathed, as an _entailed\nestate_, to the poets of the university,--we have thought proper\nto insert a full, true, and attested copy of the will of the last\ndeceased heir, in order that the world may be furnished with a\ncorrect genealogy of this renowned _jack-knife_, whose pedigree\nwill become as illustrious in after time as the family of the\n'ROLLES,' and which will be celebrated by future wits as the most\nformidable _weapon_ of modern genius.\"\n\n\"A WILL;\n\nBEING THE LAST WORDS OP CH----S PR----S, LATE WORTHY AND MUCH\nLAMENTED MEMBER OF THE LAUGHING CLUB OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY, WHO\nDEPARTED COLLEGE LIFE ON THE 21ST OF JUNE, 1795.\n\n \"I, Pr-----s Ch----s, of judgment sound,\n  In soul, in limb and wind, now found;\n  I, since my head is full of wit,\n  And must be emptied, or must split,\n  In name of _president_ APOLLO,\n  And other gentle folks, that follow:\n  Such as URANIA and CLIO,\n  To whom my fame poetic I owe;\n  With the whole drove of rhyming sisters,\n  For whom my heart with rapture blisters;\n  Who swim in HELICON uncertain\n  Whether a petticoat or shirt on,\n  From vulgar ken their charms do cover,\n  From every eye but _Muses' lover_;\n  In name of every ugly GOD;\n  Whose beauty scarce outshines a toad;\n  In name of PROSERPINE and PLUTO,\n  Who board in hell's sublimest grotto;\n  In name of CERBERUS and FURIES,\n  Those damned _aristocrats_ and tories;\n  In presence of two witnesses,\n  Who are as homely as you please,\n  Who are in truth, I'd not belie 'em,\n  Ten times as ugly, faith, as I am;\n  But being, as most people tell us,\n  A pair of jolly clever fellows,\n  And classmates likewise, at this time,\n  They sha'n't be honored in my rhyme.\n  I--I say I, now make this will;\n  Let those whom I assign fulfil.\n  I give, grant, render, and convey\n  My goods and chattels thus away:\n  That _honor of a college life_,\n  _That celebrated_ UGLY KNIFE,\n  Which predecessor SAWNEY[69] orders,\n  Descending to time's utmost borders,\n  To _noblest bard of homeliest phiz_,\n  To have and hold and use as his;\n  I now present C----s P----y S----r,[70]\n  To keep with his poetic lumber,\n  To scrape his quid, and make a split,\n  To point his pen for sharpening wit;\n  And order that he ne'er abuse\n  Said Ugly Knife, in dirtier use,\n  And let said CHARLES, that best of writers,\n  In prose satiric skilled to bite us,\n  And equally in verse delight us,\n  Take special care to keep it clean\n  From unpoetic hands,--I ween.\n  And when those walls, the Muses' seat,\n  Said S----r is obliged to quit,\n  Let some one of APOLLO'S firing,\n  To such heroic joys aspiring,\n  Who long has borne a poet's name,\n  With said knife cut his way to fame.\n\n \"I give to those that fish for parts,\n  Long sleepless nights, and aching hearts,\n  A little soul, a fawning spirit,\n  With half a grain of plodding merit,\n  Which is, as Heaven I hope will say,\n  Giving what's not my own away.\n\n \"Those _oven baked_ or _goose egg folded_,\n  Who, though so often I have told it,\n  With all my documents to show it,\n  Will scarce believe that I'm a poet,\n  I give of criticism the lens\n  With half an ounce of common sense.\n\n \"And 't would a breach be of humanity,\n  Not to bequeath D---n[71] my vanity;\n  For 'tis a rule direct from Heaven,\n  _To him that hath, more shall be given_.\n\n \"_Item_. Tom M----n,[72] COLLEGE LION,\n  Who'd ne'er spend cash enough to buy one,\n  The BOANERGES of a pun,\n  A man of science and of fun,\n  That quite uncommon witty elf,\n  Who darts his bolts and shoots himself,\n  Who oft hath bled beneath my jokes,\n  I give my old _tobacco-box_.\n\n \"My _Centinels_[73] for some years past,\n  So neatly bound with thread and paste,\n  Exposing Jacobinic tricks,\n  I give my chum _for politics_.\n\n \"My neckcloth, dirty, old, yet _strong_,\n  That round my neck has lasted long,\n  I give BIG BOY, for deed of pith,\n  Namely, to hang himself therewith.\n\n \"To those who've parts at exhibition\n  Obtained by long, unwearied fishing,\n  I say, to such unlucky wretches,\n  I give, for wear, a brace of breeches;\n  Then used; as they're but little tore,\n  I hope they'll show their tails no more.\n\n \"And ere it quite has gone to rot,\n  I, B---- give my blue great-coat,\n  With all its rags, and dirt, and tallow,\n  Because he's such a dirty fellow.\n\n \"Now for my books; first, _Bunyan's Pilgrim_,\n  (As he with thankful pleasure will grin,)\n  Though dog-leaved, torn, in bad type set in,\n  'T will do quite well for classmate B----,\n  And thus, with complaisance to treat her,\n  'T will answer for another Detur.\n\n \"To him that occupies my study,\n  I give, for use of making toddy,\n  A bottle full of _white-face_ STINGO,\n  Another, handy, called a _mingo_.\n  My wit, as I've enough to spare,\n  And many much in want there are,\n  I ne'er intend to keep at _home_,\n  But give to those that handiest come,\n  Having due caution, _where_ and _when_,\n  Never to spatter _gentlemen_.\n  The world's loud call I can't refuse,\n  The fine productions of my muse;\n  If _impudence_ to _fame_ shall waft her,\n  I'll give the public all, hereafter.\n  My love-songs, sorrowful, complaining,\n  (The recollection puts me pain in,)\n  The last sad groans of deep despair,\n  That once could all my entrails tear;\n  My farewell sermon to the ladies;\n  My satire on a woman's head-dress;\n  My epigram so full of glee,\n  Pointed as epigrams should be;\n  My sonnets soft, and sweet as lasses,\n  My GEOGRAPHY of MOUNT PARNASSUS;\n  With all the bards that round it gather,\n  And variations of the weather;\n  Containing more true humorous satire,\n  Than's oft the lot of human nature;\n  ('O dear, what can the matter be!'\n  I've given away my _vanity_;\n  The vessel can't so much contain,\n  It runs o'er and comes back again.)\n  My blank verse, poems so majestic,\n  My rhymes heroic, tales agrestic;\n  The whole, I say, I'll overhaul 'em,\n  Collect and publish in a volume.\n\n \"My heart, which thousand ladies crave,\n  That I intend my wife shall have.\n  I'd give my foibles to the wind,\n  And leave my vices all behind;\n  But much I fear they'll to me stick,\n  Where'er I go, through thin and thick.\n  On WISDOM'S _horse_, oh, might I ride,\n  Whose steps let PRUDENCE' bridle guide.\n  Thy loudest voice, O REASON, lend,\n  And thou, PHILOSOPHY, befriend.\n  May candor all my actions guide,\n  And o'er my every thought preside,\n  And in thy ear, O FORTUNE, one word,\n  Let thy swelled canvas bear me onward,\n  Thy favors let me ever see,\n  And I'll be much obliged to thee;\n  And come with blooming visage meek,\n  Come, HEALTH, and ever flush my cheek;\n  O bid me in the morning rise,\n  When tinges Sol the eastern skies;\n  At breakfast, supper-time, or dinner,\n  Let me against thee be no sinner.\n\n \"And when the glass of life is run,\n  And I behold my setting sun,\n  May conscience sound be my protection,\n  And no ungrateful recollection,\n  No gnawing cares nor tumbling woes,\n  Disturb the quiet of life's close.\n  And when Death's gentle feet shall come\n  To bear me to my endless home,\n  Oh! may my soul, should Heaven but save it,\n  Safely return to GOD who gave it.\"\n    _Federal Orrery_, Oct. 29, 1795. _Buckingham's Reminiscences_,\n    Vol. II. pp. 228-231, 268-273.\n\nIt is probable that the idea of a \"College Will\" was suggested to\nBiglow by \"Father Abbey's Will,\" portions of which, till the\npresent generation, were \"familiar to nearly all the good\nhousewives of New England.\" From the history of this poetical\nproduction, which has been lately printed for private circulation\nby the Rev. John Langdon Sibley of Harvard College, the annexed\ntranscript of the instrument itself, together with the love-letter\nwhich was suggested by it, has been taken. The instances in which\nthe accepted text differs from a Broadside copy, in the possession\nof the editor of this work, are noted at the foot of the page.\n\n \"FATHER ABBEY'S WILL:\n\n  TO WHICH IS NOW ADDED, A LETTER OF COURTSHIP TO HIS VIRTUOUS AND\n  AMIABLE WIDOW.\n   \"_Cambridge, December_, 1730.\n\n\"Some time since died here Mr. Matthew Abbey, in a very advanced\nage: He had for a great number of years served the College in\nquality of Bedmaker and Sweeper: Having no child, his wife\ninherits his whole estate, which he bequeathed to her by his last\nwill and testament, as follows, viz.:--\n\n \"To my dear wife\n  My joy and life,\n  I freely now do give her,\n  My whole estate,\n  With all my plate,\n  Being just about to leave her.\n\n \"My tub of soap,\n  A long cart-rope,\n  A frying pan and kettle,\n  An ashes[74] pail,\n  A threshing-flail,\n  An iron wedge and beetle.\n\n \"Two painted chairs,\n  Nine warden pears,\n  A large old dripping platter,\n  This bed of hay\n  On which I lay,\n  An old saucepan for butter.\n\n \"A little mug,\n  A two-quart jug,\n  A bottle full of brandy,\n  A looking-glass\n  To see your face,\n  You'll find it very handy.\n\n \"A musket true,\n  As ever flew,\n  A pound of shot and wallet,\n  A leather sash,\n  My calabash,\n  My powder-horn and bullet.\n\n \"An old sword-blade,\n  A garden spade,\n  A hoe, a rake, a ladder,\n  A wooden can,\n  A close-stool pan,\n  A clyster-pipe and bladder.\n\n \"A greasy hat,\n  My old ram cat,\n  A yard and half of linen,\n  A woollen fleece,\n  A pot of grease,[75]\n  In order for your spinning.\n\n \"A small tooth comb,\n  An ashen broom,\n  A candlestick and hatchet,\n  A coverlid\n  Striped down with red,\n  A bag of rags to patch it.\n\n \"A rugged mat,\n  A tub of fat,\n  A book put out by Bunyan,\n  Another book\n  By Robin Cook,[76]\n  A skein or two of spun-yarn.\n\n \"An old black muff,\n  Some garden stuff,\n  A quantity of borage,[77]\n  Some devil's weed,\n  And burdock seed,\n  To season well your porridge.\n\n \"A chafing-dish,\n  With one salt-fish.\n  If I am not mistaken,\n  A leg of pork,\n  A broken fork,\n  And half a flitch of bacon.\n\n \"A spinning-wheel,\n  One peck of meal,\n  A knife without a handle,\n  A rusty lamp,\n  Two quarts of samp,\n  And half a tallow candle.\n\n \"My pouch and pipes,\n  Two oxen tripes,\n  An oaken dish well carved,\n  My little dog,\n  And spotted hog,\n  With two young pigs just starved.\n\n \"This is my store,\n  I have no more,\n  I heartily do give it:\n  My years are spun,\n  My days are done,\n  And so I think to leave it.\n\n \"Thus Father Abbey left his spouse,\n  As rich as church or college mouse,\n  Which is sufficient invitation\n  To serve the college in his station.\"\n    _Newhaven, January_ 2, 1731.\n\n\"Our sweeper having lately buried his spouse, and accidentally\nhearing of the death and will of his deceased Cambridge brother,\nhas conceived a violent passion for the relict. As love softens\nthe mind and disposes to poetry, he has eased himself in the\nfollowing strains, which he transmits to the charming widow, as\nthe first essay of his love and courtship.\n\n \"MISTRESS Abbey\n  To you I fly,\n  You only can relieve me;\n  To you I turn,\n  For you I burn,\n  If you will but believe me.\n\n \"Then, gentle dame,\n  Admit my flame,\n  And grant me my petition;\n  If you deny,\n  Alas! I die\n  In pitiful condition.\n\n \"Before the news\n  Of your dear spouse\n  Had reached us at New Haven,\n  My dear wife dy'd,\n  Who was my bride\n  In anno eighty-seven.\n\n \"Thus[78] being free,\n  Let's both agree\n  To join our hands, for I do\n  Boldly aver\n  A widower\n  Is fittest for a widow.\n\n \"You may be sure\n  'T is not your dower\n  I make this flowing verse on;\n  In these smooth lays\n  I only praise\n  The glories[79] of your person.\n\n \"For the whole that\n  Was left by[80] _Mat._\n  Fortune to me has granted\n  In equal store,\n  I've[81] one thing more\n  Which Matthew long had wanted.\n\n \"No teeth, 't is true,\n  You have to shew,\n  The young think teeth inviting;\n  But silly youths!\n  I love those mouths[82]\n  Where there's no fear of biting.\n\n \"A leaky eye,\n  That's never dry,\n  These woful times is fitting.\n  A wrinkled face\n  Adds solemn grace\n  To folks devout at meeting.\n\n \"[A furrowed brow,\n  Where corn might grow,\n  Such fertile soil is seen in 't,\n  A long hook nose,\n  Though scorned by foes,\n  For spectacles convenient.][83]\n\n \"Thus to go on\n  I would[84] put down\n  Your charms from head to foot,\n  Set all your glory\n  In verse before ye,\n  But I've no mind to do 't.[85]\n\n \"Then haste away,\n  And make no stay;\n  For soon as you come hither,\n  We'll eat and sleep,\n  Make beds and sweep.\n  And talk and smoke together.\n\n \"But if, my dear,\n  I must move there,\n  Tow'rds Cambridge straight I'll set me.[86]\n  To touse the hay\n  On which you lay,\n  If age and you will let me.\"[87]\n\nThe authorship of Father Abbey's Will and the Letter of Courtship\nis ascribed to the Rev. John Seccombe, who graduated at Harvard\nCollege in the year 1728. The former production was sent to\nEngland through the hands of Governor Belcher, and in May, 1732,\nappeared both in the Gentleman's Magazine and the London Magazine.\nThe latter was also despatched to England, and was printed in the\nGentleman's Magazine for June, and in the London Magazine for\nAugust, 1732. Both were republished in the Massachusetts Magazine,\nNovember, 1794. A most entertaining account of the author of these\npoems, and of those to whom they relate, may be found in the\n\"Historical and Biographical Notes\" of the pamphlet to which\nallusion has been already made, and in the \"Cambridge [Mass.]\nChronicle\" of April 28, 1855.\n\n\nWINE. To drink wine.\n\nAfter \"wining\" to a certain extent, we sallied forth from his\nrooms.--_Alma Mater_, Vol. I. p. 14.\n\nHither they repair each day after dinner \"_to wine_.\"\n\n_Ibid._, Vol. I. p. 95.\n\nAfter dinner I had the honor of _wining_ with no less a personage\nthan a fellow of the college.--_Ibid._, Vol. I. p. 114.\n\n\nIn _wining_ with a fair one opposite, a luckless piece of jelly\nadhered to the tip of his still more luckless nose.--_The Blank\nBook of a Small-Colleger_, New York, 1824, p. 75.\n\n\nWINE PARTY. Among students at the University of Cambridge, Eng.,\nan entertainment after dinner, which is thus described by Bristed:\n\"Many assemble at _wine parties_ to chat over a frugal dessert of\noranges, biscuits, and cake, and sip a few glasses of not\nremarkably good wine. These wine parties are the most common\nentertainments, being rather the cheapest and very much the most\nconvenient, for the preparations required for them are so slight\nas not to disturb the studies of the hardest reading man, and they\ntake place at a time when no one pretends to do any work.\"--_Five\nYears in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 21.\n\n\nWIRE. At Harvard College, a trick; an artifice; a stratagem; a\n_dodge_.\n\n\nWIRY. Trickish; artful.\n\n\nWITENAGEMOTE. Saxon, _witan_, to know, and _gemot_, a meeting, a\ncouncil.\n\nIn the University of Oxford, the weekly meeting of the heads of\nthe colleges.--_Oxford Guide_.\n\n\nWOODEN SPOON. In the University of Cambridge, Eng., the scholar\nwhose name stands last of all on the printed list of honors, at\nthe Bachelors' Commencement in January, is scoffingly said to gain\nthe _wooden spoon_. He is also very currently himself called the\n_wooden spoon_.\n\nA young academic coming into the country immediately after this\ngreat competition, in which he had conspicuously distinguished\nhimself, was asked by a plain country gentleman, \"Pray, Sir, is my\nJack a Wrangler?\" \"No, Sir.\" Now Jack had confidently pledged\nhimself to his uncle that he would take his degree with honor. \"A\nSenior Optime?\" \"No, Sir.\" \"Why, what was he then?\" \"Wooden\nSpoon!\" \"Best suited to his wooden head,\" said the mortified\ninquirer.--_Forby's Vocabulary_, Vol. II. p. 258.\n\nIt may not perhaps be improper to mention one very remarkable\npersonage, I mean \"the _Wooden Spoon_.\" This luckless wight (for\nwhat cause I know not) is annually the universal butt and\nlaughing-stock of the whole Senate-House. He is the last of those\nyoung men who take honors, in his year, and is called a Junior\nOptime; yet, notwithstanding his being in fact superior to them\nall, the very lowest of the [Greek: oi polloi], or gregarious\nundistinguished bachelors, think themselves entitled to shoot the\npointless arrows of their clumsy wit against the _wooden spoon_;\nand to reiterate the stale and perennial remark, that \"Wranglers\nare born with gold spoons in their mouths, Senior Optimes with\nsilver, Junior Optimes with _wooden_, and the [Greek: oi polloi]\nwith leaden ones.\"--_Gent. Mag._, 1795, p. 19.\n\n  Who while he lives must wield the boasted prize,\n  Whose value all can feel, the weak, the wise;\n  Displays in triumph his distinguished boon,\n  The solid honors of the _wooden spoon_.\n    _Grad. ad Cantab._, p. 119.\n\n2. At Yale College, this title is conferred on the student who\ntakes the last appointment at the Junior Exhibition. The following\naccount of the ceremonies incident to the presentation of the\nWooden Spoon has been kindly furnished by a graduate of that\ninstitution.\n\n\"At Yale College the honors, or, as they are there termed,\nappointments, are given to a class twice during the course;--upon\nthe merits of the two preceding years, at the end of the first\nterm, Junior; and at the end of the second term, Senior, upon the\nmerits of the whole college course. There are about eight grades\nof appointments, the lowest of which is the Third Colloquy. Each\ngrade has its own standard, and if a number of students have\nattained to the same degree, they receive the same appointment. It\nis rarely the case, however, that more than one student can claim\nthe distinction of a third colloquy; but when there are several,\nthey draw lots to see which is entitled to be considered properly\n_the_ third colloquy man.\n\n\"After the Junior appointments are awarded, the members of the\nJunior Class hold an exhibition similar to the regular Junior\nexhibition, and present a _wooden spoon_ to the man who received\nthe lowest honor in the gift of the Faculty.\n\n\"The exhibition takes place in the evening, at some public hall in\ntown. Except to those engaged in the arrangements, nothing is\nknown about it among the students at large, until the evening of\nthe performances, when notices of the hour and place are quietly\ncirculated at prayers, in order that it may not reach the ears of\nthe Faculty, who are ever too ready to participate in the sports\nof the students, and to make the result tell unfavorably against\nthe college welfare of the more prominent characters.\n\n\"As the appointed hour approaches, long files of black coats may\nbe seen emerging from the dark halls, and winding their way\nthrough the classic elms towards the Temple, the favorite scene of\nstudents' exhibitions and secret festivals. When they reach the\ndoor, each man must undergo the searching scrutiny of the\ndoor-keeper, usually disguised as an Indian, to avoid being\nrecognized by a college officer, should one chance to be in the\ncrowd, and no one is allowed to enter unless he is known.\n\n\"By the time the hour of the exercises has arrived, the hall is\ndensely packed with undergraduates and professional students. The\nPresident, who is a non-appointment man, and probably the poorest\nscholar in the class, sits on a stage with his associate\nprofessors. Appropriate programmes, printed in the college style,\nare scattered throughout the house. As the hour strikes, the\nPresident arises with becoming dignity, and, instead of the usual\nphrase, 'Musicam audeamus,' restores order among the audience by\n'Silentiam audeamus,' and then addresses the band, 'Musica\ncantetur.'\n\n\"Then follow a series of burlesque orations, dissertations, and\ndisputes, upon scientific and other subjects, from the wittiest\nand cleverest men in the class, and the house is kept in a\ncontinual roar of laughter. The highest appointment men frequently\ntake part in the speeches. From time to time the band play, and\nthe College choir sing pieces composed for the occasion. In one of\nthe best, called AUDACIA, composed in imitation of the Crambambuli\nsong, by a member of the class to which the writer belonged, the\nWooden Spoon is referred to in the following stanza:--\n\n 'But do not think our life is aimless;\n    O no! we crave one blessed boon,\n  It is the prize of value nameless,\n    The honored, classic WOODEN SPOON;\n  But give us this, we'll shout Hurrah!\n    O nothing like Audacia!'\n\n\"After the speeches are concluded and the music has ceased, the\nPresident rises and calls the name of the hero of the evening, who\nascends the stage and stands before the high dignitary. The\nPresident then congratulates him upon having attained to so\neminent a position, and speaks of the pride that he and his\nassociates feel in conferring upon him the highest honor in their\ngift,--the Wooden Spoon. He exhorts him to pursue through life the\nnoble cruise he has commenced in College,--not seeking glory as\none of the illiterate,--the [Greek: oi polloi],--nor exactly on\nthe fence, but so near to it that he may safely be said to have\ngained the 'happy medium.'\n\n\"The President then proceeds to the grand ceremony of the evening,\n--the delivery of the Wooden Spoon,--a handsomely finished spoon,\nor ladle, with a long handle, on which is carved the name of the\nClass, and the rank and honor of the recipient, and the date of\nits presentation. The President confers the honor in Latin,\nprovided he and his associates are able to muster a sufficient\nnumber of sentences.\n\n\"When the President resumes his seat, the Third Colloquy man\nthanks his eminent instructors for the honor conferred upon him,\nand thanks (often with sincerity) the class for the distinction he\nenjoys. The exercises close with music by the band, or a burlesque\ncolloquy. On one occasion, the colloquy was announced upon the\nprogramme as 'A Practical Illustration of Humbugging,' with a long\nlist of witty men as speakers, to appear in original costumes.\nCuriosity was very much excited, and expectation on the tiptoe,\nwhen the colloquy became due. The audience waited and waited until\nsufficiently _humbugged_, when they were allowed to retire with\nthe laugh turned against them.\n\n\"Many men prefer the Wooden Spoon to any other college honor or\nprize, because it comes directly from their classmates, and hence,\nperhaps, the Faculty disapprove of it, considering it as a damper\nto ambition and college distinctions.\"\n\nThis account of the Wooden Spoon Exhibition was written in the\nyear 1851. Since then its privacy has been abolished, and its\nexercises are no longer forbidden by the Faculty. Tutors are now\nnot unfrequently among the spectators at the presentation, and\neven ladies lend their presence, attention, and applause, to\nbeautify, temper, and enliven the occasion.\n\nThe \"_Wooden Spoon_,\" tradition says, was in ancient times\npresented to the greatest glutton in the class, by his\nappreciating classmates. It is now given to the one whose name\ncomes last on the list of appointees for the Junior Exhibition,\nthough this rule is not strictly followed. The presentation takes\nplace during the Summer Term, and in vivacity with respect to the\nliterary exercises, and brilliance in point of audience, forms a\nrather formidable rival to the regularly authorized Junior\nExhibition.--_Songs of Tale_, Preface, 1853, p. 4.\n\nOf the songs which are sung in connection with the wooden spoon\npresentation, the following is given as a specimen.\n\n   \"Air,--_Yankee Doodle_.\n\n \"Come, Juniors, join this jolly tune\n  Our fathers sang before us;\n  And praise aloud the wooden spoon\n  In one long, swelling chorus.\n    Yes! let us, Juniors, shout and sing\n      The spoon and all its glory,--\n    Until the welkin loudly ring\n      And echo back the story.\n\n \"Who would not place this precious boon\n  Above the Greek Oration?\n  Who would not choose the wooden spoon\n  Before a dissertation?\n    Then, let, &c.\n\n \"Some pore o'er classic works jejune,\n  Through all their life at College,--\n  I would not pour, but use the spoon\n  To fill my mind with knowledge.\n    So let, &c.\n\n \"And if I ever have a son\n  Upon my knee to dandle,\n  I'll feed him with a wooden spoon\n  Of elongated handle.\n    Then let, &c.\n\n \"Most college honors vanish soon,\n  Alas! returning never,\n  But such a noble wooden spoon\n  Is tangible for ever.\n    So let, &c.\n\n \"Now give, in honor of the spoon,\n  Three cheers, long, loud, and hearty,\n  And three for every honored June\n  In coch-le-au-re-a-ti.[88]\n    Yes! let us, Juniors, shout and sing\n      The spoon and all its glory,--\n    Until the welkin loudly ring\n      And echo back the story.\"\n    _Songs of Yale_, 1853, p. 37.\n\n\nWRANGLER. In the University of Cambridge, Eng., at the conclusion\nof the tenth term, the final examination in the Senate-House takes\nplace. A certain number of those who pass this examination in the\nbest manner are called _Wranglers_.\n\nThe usual number of _Wranglers_--whatever Wrangler may have meant\nonce, it now implies a First Class man in Mathematics--is\nthirty-seven or thirty-eight. Sometimes it falls to thirty-five,\nand occasionally rises above forty.--_Bristed's Five Years in an\nEng. Univ._, Ed. 2d, p. 227.\n\nSee SENIOR WRANGLER.\n\n\nWRANGLERSHIP. The office of a _Wrangler_.\n\n\nHe may be considered pretty safe for the highest _Wranglership_\nout of Trinity.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d,\np. 103.\n\n\nWRESTLING-MATCH. At Harvard College, it was formerly the custom,\non the first Monday of the term succeeding the Commencement\nvacation, for the Sophomores to challenge the Freshmen who had\njust entered College to a wrestling-match. A writer in the New\nEngland Magazine, 1832, in an article entitled \"Harvard College\nForty Years Ago,\" remarks as follows on this subject: \"Another\ncustom, not enjoined by the government, had been in vogue from\ntime immemorial. That was for the Sophomores to challenge the\nFreshmen to a wrestling-match. If the Sophomores were thrown, the\nJuniors gave a similar challenge. If these were conquered, the\nSeniors entered the lists, or treated the victors to as much wine,\npunch, &c. as they chose to drink. In my class, there were few who\nhad either taste, skill, or bodily strength for this exercise, so\nthat we were easily laid on our backs, and the Sophomores were\nacknowledged our superiors, in so far as 'brute force' was\nconcerned. Being disgusted with these customs, we held a\nclass-meeting, early in our first quarter, and voted unanimously\nthat we should never send a Freshman on an errand; and, with but\none dissenting voice, that we would not challenge the next class\nthat should enter to wrestle. When the latter vote was passed, our\nmoderator, pointing at the dissenting individual with the finger\nof scorn, declared it to be a vote, _nemine contradicente_. We\ncommenced Sophomores, another Freshman Class entered, the Juniors\nchallenged them, and were thrown. The Seniors invited them to a\ntreat, and these barbarous customs were soon after\nabolished.\"--Vol. III. p. 239.\n\nThe Freshman Class above referred to, as superior to the Junior,\nwas the one which graduated in 1796, of which Mr. Thomas Mason,\nsurnamed \"the College Lion,\" was a member,--\"said,\" remarks Mr.\nBuckingham, \"to be the greatest _wrestler_ that was ever in\nCollege. He was settled as a clergyman at Northfield, Mass.,\nresigned his office some years after, and several times\nrepresented that town in the Legislature of Massachusetts.\"\nCharles Prentiss, the wit of the Class of '95, in a will written\non his departure from college life, addresses Mason as follows:--\n\n \"Item. Tom M----n, COLLEGE LION,\n  Who'd ne'er spend cash enough to buy one,\n  The BOANERGES of a pun,\n  A man of science and of fun,\n  That quite uncommon witty elf,\n  Who darts his bolts and shoots himself,\n  Who oft has bled beneath my jokes,\n  I give my old _tobacco-box_.\"\n    _Buckingham's Reminiscences_, Vol. II. p. 271.\n\nThe fame which Mr. Mason had acquired while in College for bodily\nstrength and skill in wrestling, did not desert him after he left.\nWhile settled as a minister at Northfield, a party of young men\nfrom Vermont challenged the young men of that town to a bout at\nwrestling. The challenge was accepted, and on a given day the two\nparties assembled at Northfield. After several rounds, when it\nbegan to appear that the Vermonters were gaining the advantage, a\nproposal was made, by some who had heard of Mr. Mason's exploits,\nthat he should be requested to take part in the contest. It had\nnow grown late, and the minister, who usually retired early, had\nalready betaken himself to bed. Being informed of the request of\nthe wrestlers, for a long time he refused to go, alleging as\nreasons his ministerial capacity, the force of example, &c.\nFinding these excuses of no avail, he finally arose, dressed\nhimself, and repaired to the scene of action. Shouts greeted him\non his arrival, and he found himself on the wrestling-field, as he\nhad stood years ago at Cambridge. The champion of the Vermonters\ncame forward, flushed with his former victories. After playing\naround him for some time, Mr. Mason finally threw him. Having by\nthis time collected his ideas of the game, when another antagonist\nappeared, tripping up his heels with perfect ease, he suddenly\ntwitched him off his centre and laid him on his back. Victory was\ndeclared in favor of Northfield, and the good minister was borne\nhome in triumph.\n\nSimilar to these statements are those of Professor Sidney Willard\nrelative to the same subject, contained in his late work entitled\n\"Memories of Youth and Manhood.\" Speaking of the observances in\nvogue at Harvard College in the year 1794, he says:--\"Next to\nbeing indoctrinated in the Customs, so called, by the Sophomore\nClass, there followed the usual annual exhibition of the athletic\ncontest between that class and the Freshman Class, namely, the\nwrestling-match. On some day of the second week in the term, after\nevening prayers, the two classes assembled on the play-ground and\nformed an extended circle, from which a stripling of the Sophomore\nClass advanced into the area, and, in terms justifying the vulgar\nuse of the derivative word Sophomorical, defied his competitors,\nin the name of his associates, to enter the lists. He was matched\nby an equal in stature, from that part of the circle formed by the\nnew-comers. Beginning with these puny athletes, as one and another\nwas prostrated on either side, the contest advanced through the\nintermediate gradations of strength and skill, with increasing\nexcitement of the parties and spectators, until it reached its\nsummit by the struggle of the champion or coryph\u00e6us in reserve on\neach of the opposite sides. I cannot now affirm with certainty the\nresult of the contest; whether it was a drawn battle, whether it\nended with the day, or was postponed for another trial. It\nprobably ended in the defeat of the younger party, for there were\nmore and mightier men among their opponents. Had we been\nvictorious, it would have behooved us, according to established\nprecedents, to challenge the Junior Class, which was not done.\nSuch a result, if it had taken place, could not fade from the\nmemory of the victors; while failure, on the contrary, being an\nissue to be looked for, would soon be dismissed from the thoughts\nof the vanquished. Instances had occurred of the triumph of the\nFreshman Class, and one of them recent, when a challenge in due\nform was sent to the Juniors, who, thinking the contest too\ndoubtful, wisely resolved to let the victors rejoice in their\nlaurels already won; and, declining to meet them in the gymnasium,\ninvited them to a sumptuous feast instead.\n\n\"Wrestling was, at an after period, I cannot say in what year,\nsuperseded by football; a grovelling and inglorious game in\ncomparison. Wrestling is an art; success in the exercise depends\nnot on mere bodily strength. It had, at the time of which I have\nspoken, its well-known and acknowledged technical rules, and any\nviolation of them, alleged against one who had prostrated his\nadversary, became a matter of inquiry. If it was found that the\nact was not achieved _secundum artem_, it was void, and might be\nfollowed by another trial.\"--Vol. I. pp. 260, 261.\n\nRemarks on this subject are continued in another part of the work\nfrom which the above extract is made, and the story of Thomas\nMason is related, with a few variations from the generally\nreceived version. \"Wrestling,\" says Professor Willard, \"was\nreduced to an art, which had its technical terms for the movement\nof the limbs, and the manner of using them adroitly, with the\nskill acquired by practice in applying muscular force at the right\ntime and in the right degree. Success in the art, therefore,\ndepended partly on skill; and a violation of the rules of the\ncontest vitiated any apparent triumph gained by mere physical\nstrength. There were traditionary accounts of some of our\npredecessors who were commemorated as among the coryph\u00e6i of\nwrestlers; a renown that was not then looked upon with contempt.\nThe art of wrestling was not then confined to the literary\ngymnasium. It was practised in every rustic village. There were\neven migrating braves and Hectors, who, in their wanderings from\ntheir places of abode to villages more or less distant, defied the\nchiefest of this order of gymnasts to enter the lists. In a\ncountry town of Massachusetts remote from the capital, one of\nthese wanderers appeared about half a century since, and issued a\ngeneral challenge against the foremost wrestlers. The clergyman of\nthe town, a son of Harvard, whose fame in this particular had\ntravelled from the academic to the rustic green, was apprised of\nthe challenge, and complied with the solicitation of some of his\nyoung parishioners to accept it in their behalf. His triumph over\nthe challenger was completed without agony or delay, and having\nprostrated him often enough to convince him of his folly, he threw\nhim over the stone wall, and gravely admonished him against\nrepeating his visit, and disturbing the peace of his\nparish.\"--Vol. I. p. 315.\n\nThe peculiarities of Thomas Mason were his most noticeable\ncharacteristics. As an orator, his eloquence was of the _ore\nrotundo_ order; as a writer, his periods were singularly\nJohnsonian. He closed his ministerial labors in Northfield,\nFebruary 28, 1830, on which occasion he delivered a farewell\ndiscourse, taking for his text, the words of Paul to Timothy: \"The\ntime of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I\nhave finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there\nis laid up for me a crown of righteousness.\"\n\nAs a specimen of his style of writing, the following passages are\npresented, taken from this discourse:--\"Time, which forms the\nscene of all human enterprise, solicitude, toil, and improvement,\nand which fixes the limitations of all human pleasures and\nsufferings, has at length conducted us to the termination of our\nlong-protracted alliance. An assignment of the reasons of this\nmeasure must open a field too extended and too diversified for our\npresent survey. Nor could a development of the whole be any way\ninteresting to us, to whom alone this address is now submitted.\nSuffice it to say, that in the lively exercise of mutual and\nunimpaired friendship and confidence, the contracting parties,\nafter sober, continued, and unimpassioned deliberation, have\nyielded to existing circumstances, as a problematical expedient of\nsocial blessing.\"\n\nAfter commenting upon the declaration of Paul, he continued: \"The\nApostle proceeds, 'I have fought a good fight' Would to God I\ncould say the same! Let me say, however, without the fear of\ncontradiction, 'I have fought a fight!' How far it has been\n'good,' I forbear to decide.\" His summing up was this: \"You see,\nmy hearers, all I can say, in common with the Apostle in the text,\nis this: 'The time of my departure is at hand,'--and, 'I have\nfinished my course.'\"\n\nReferring then to the situation which he had occupied, he said:\n\"The scene of our alliance and co-operation, my friends, has been\none of no ordinary cast and character. The last half-century has\nbeen pregnant with novelty, project, innovation, and extreme\nexcitement. The pillars of the social edifice have been shaken,\nand the whole social atmosphere has been decomposed by alchemical\ndemagogues and revolutionary apes. The sickly atmosphere has\nsuffused a morbid humor over the whole frame, and left the social\nbody little more than 'the empty and bloody skin of an immolated\nvictim.'\n\n\"We pass by the ordinary incidents of alienation, which are too\nnumerous, and too evanescent to admit of detail. But seasons and\ncircumstances of great alarm are not readily forgotten. We have\nwitnessed, and we have felt, my friends, a political convulsion,\nwhich seemed the harbinger of inevitable desolation. But it has\npassed by with a harmless explosion, and returning friends have\npaused in wonder, at a moment's suspension of friendship. Mingled\nwith the factitious mass, there was a large spice of sincerity\nwhich sanctified the whole composition, and restored the social\nbody to sanity, health, and increased strength and vigor.\n\n\"Thrice happy must be our reflections could we stop here, and\ncontemplate the ascending prosperity and increasing vigor of this\nreligious community. But the one half has not yet been told,--the\nbeginning has hardly been begun. Could I borrow the language of\nthe spirits of wrath,--was my pen transmuted to a viper's tooth\ndipped in gore,--was my paper transformed to a vellum which no\nlight could illume, and which only darkness could render legible,\nI could, and I would, record a tale of blood, of which the foulest\nmiscreant must burn in ceaseless anguish only once to have been\nsuspected. But I refer to imagination what description can never\nreach.\"\n\nWhat the author referred to in this last paragraph no one knew,\nnor did he ever advance any explanation of these strange words.\n\nNear the close of his discourse, he said: \"Standing in the place\nof a Christian minister among you, through the whole course of my\nministrations, it has been my great and leading aim ever to\nmaintain and exhibit the character and example of a Christian man.\nWith clerical foppery, grimace, craft, and hypocrisy, I have had\nno concern. In the free participation of every innocent\nentertainment and delight, I have pursued an open, unreserved\ncourse, equally removed from the mummery of superstition and the\ndissipation of infidelity. And though I have enjoyed my full share\nof honor from the scandal of bigotry and malice, yet I may safely\ncongratulate myself in the reflection, that by this liberal and\nindependent progress were men weighed in the balance of\nintellectual, social, and moral worth, I have yet never lost a\nsingle friend who was worth preserving.\"--pp. 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11.\n\n\n\n_Y_.\n\n\nYAGER FIGHTS. At Bowdoin College, \"_Yager Fights_,\" says a\ncorrespondent, \"are the annual conflicts which occur between the\ntownsmen and the students. The Yagers (from the German _Jager_, a\nhunter, a chaser) were accustomed, when the lumbermen came down\nthe river in the spring, to assemble in force, march up to the\nCollege yard with fife and drum, get famously drubbed, and retreat\nin confusion to their dens. The custom has become extinct within\nthe past four years, in consequence of the non-appearance of the\nYagers.\"\n\n\nYALENSIAN. A student at or a member of Yale College.\n\nIn making this selection, we have been governed partly by poetic\nmerit, but more by the associations connected with various pieces\ninserted, in the minds of the present generation of _Yalensians_.\n--_Preface to Songs of Yale_, 1853.\n\nThe _Yalensian_ is off for Commencement.--_Yale Lit. Mag._, Vol.\nXIX. p. 355.\n\n\nYANKEE. According to the account of this word as given by Dr.\nWilliam Gordon, it appears to have been in use among the students\nof Harvard College at a very early period. A citation from his\nwork will show this fact in its proper light.\n\n\"You may wish to know the origin of the term _Yankee_. Take the\nbest account of it which your friend can procure. It was a cant,\nfavorite word with Farmer Jonathan Hastings, of Cambridge, about\n1713. Two aged ministers, who were at the College in that town,\nhave told me, they remembered it to have been then in use among\nthe students, but had no recollection of it before that period.\nThe inventor used it to express excellency. A _Yankee_ good horse,\nor _Yankee_ cider, and the like, were an excellent good horse and\nexcellent cider. The students used to hire horses of him; their\nintercourse with him, and his use of the term upon all occasions,\nled them to adopt it, and they gave him the name of Yankee Jon. He\nwas a worthy, honest man, but no conjurer. This could not escape\nthe notice of the collegiates. Yankee probably became a by-word\namong them to express a weak, simple, awkward person; was carried\nfrom the College with them when they left it, and was in that way\ncirculated and established through the country, (as was the case\nin respect to Hobson's choice, by the students at Cambridge, in\nOld England,) till, from its currency in New England, it was at\nlength taken up and unjustly applied to the New-Englanders in\ncommon, as a term of reproach.\"--_American War_, Ed. 1789, Vol. I.\npp. 324, 325. _Thomas's Spy_, April, 1789, No. 834.\n\nIn the Massachusetts Magazine, Vol. VII., p. 301, the editor, the\nRev. Thaddeus Mason Harris, D.D., of Dorchester, referring to a\nletter written by the Rev. John Seccombe, and dated \"Cambridge,\nSept. 27, 1728,\" observes: \"It is a most humorous narrative of the\nfate of a goose roasted at 'Yankee Hastings's,' and it concludes\nwith a poem on the occasion, in the mock-heroic.\" The fact of the\nname is further substantiated in the following remarks by the Rev.\nJohn Langdon Sibley, of Harvard College: \"Jonathan Hastings,\nSteward of the College from 1750 to 1779,... was a son of Jonathan\nHastings, a tanner, who was called 'Yankee Hastings,' and lived on\nthe spot at the northwest corner of Holmes Place in Old Cambridge,\nwhere, not many years since, a house was built by the late William\nPomeroy.\"--_Father Abbey's Will_, Cambridge, Mass., 1854, pp. 7,\n8.\n\n\nYEAR. At the English universities, the undergraduate course is\nthree years and a third. Students of the first year are called\nFreshmen, and the other classes at Cambridge are, in popular\nphrase, designated successively Second-year Men, Third-year Men,\nand Men who are just going out. The word _year_ is often used in\nthe sense of class.\n\nThe lecturer stands, and the lectured sit, even when construing,\nas the Freshmen are sometimes asked to do; the other _Years_ are\nonly called on to listen.--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng.\nUniv._, Ed. 2d, p. 18.\n\nOf the \"_year_\" that entered with me at Trinity, three men died\nbefore the time of graduating.--_Ibid._, p. 330.\n\n\nYEOMAN-BEDELL. At the University of Cambridge, Eng., the\n_yeoman-bedell_ in processions precedes the esquire-bedells,\ncarrying an ebony mace, tipped with silver.--_Cam. Guide_.\n\nAt the University of Oxford, the yeoman-bedels bear the silver\nstaves in procession. The vice-chancellor never walks out without\nbeing preceded by a yeoman-bedel with his insignium of\noffice.--_Guide to Oxford_.\n\nSee BEADLE.\n\n\nYOUNG BURSCH. In the German universities, a name given to a\nstudent during his third term, or _semester_.\n\nThe fox year is then over, and they wash the eyes of the new-baked\n_Young Bursche_, since during the fox-year he was held to be\nblind, the fox not being endued with reason.--_Howitt's Student\nLife of Germany_, Am. ed., p. 124.\n\n\n\n\nA LIST OF AMERICAN COLLEGES\n\nREFERRED TO IN THIS WORK, IN CONNECTION WITH PARTICULAR WORDS OR\nCUSTOMS.\n\nAMHERST COLLEGE, Amherst, Mass.,                   10 references.\nANDERSON COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE, Ind.,                3 references.\nBACON COLLEGE, Ky.,                                 1 reference.\nBETHANY COLLEGE, Bethany, Va.,                      2 references.\nBOWDOIN COLLEGE, Brunswick, Me.,                   17 references.\nBROWN UNIVERSITY, Providence, R.I.,                 2 references.\nCENTRE COLLEGE, Danville, Ky.,                      4 references.\nCOLUMBIA [KING'S] COLLEGE, New York.,               5 references.\nCOLUMBIAN COLLEGE, Washington, D.C.,                1 reference.\nDARTMOUTH COLLEGE, Hanover, N.H.,                  27 references.\nHAMILTON COLLEGE, Clinton, N.Y.,                   16 references.\nHARVARD COLLEGE, Cambridge, Mass.,                399 references.\nJEFFERSON COLLEGE, Canonsburg, Penn.,               8 references.\nKING'S COLLEGE. See COLUMBIA.\nMIDDLEBURY COLLEGE, Middlebury, Vt.,               11 references.\nNEW JERSEY, COLLEGE OF, Princeton, N.J.,           29 references.\nNEW YORK, UNIVERSITY OF, New York.,                 1 reference.\nNORTH CAROLINA, UNIVERSITY OF, Chapel Hill, N.C.,   3 references.\nPENNSYLVANIA, UNIVERSITY OF, Philadelphia, Penn.,   3 references.\nPRINCETON COLLEGE. See NEW JERSEY, COLLEGE OF.\nRUTGER'S COLLEGE, New Brunswick, N.J.,              2 references.\nSHELBY COLLEGE, Shelbyville, Ky.,                   2 references.\nSOUTH CAROLINA COLLEGE, Columbia, S.C.,             3 references.\nTRINITY COLLEGE, Hartford, Conn.,                  11 references.\nUNION COLLEGE, Schenectady, N.Y.,                  41 references.\nVERMONT, UNIVERSITY OF, Burlington, Vt.,           25 references.\nVIRGINIA, UNIVERSITY OF, Albemarle Co., Va.,       14 references.\nWASHINGTON COLLEGE, Washington, Penn.,              5 references.\nWESLEYAN UNIVERSITY, Middletown, Conn.,             5 references.\nWESTERN RESERVE COLLEGE, Hudson, Ohio.,             1 reference.\nWEST POINT, N.Y.,                                   1 reference.\nWILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE, Williamsburg, Va.,        3 references.\nWILLIAMS COLLEGE, Williamstown, Mass.,             43 references.\nYALE COLLEGE, New Haven, Conn.,                   264 references.\n\n\n\n\nTHE END.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n\n[01]    Hon. Levi Woodbury, whose subject was \"Progress.\"\n\n[02]    _Vide_ Aristophanes, _Aves_.\n\n[03]    Alcestis of Euripides.\n\n[04]    See BRICK MILL.\n\n[05]    At Harvard College, sixty-eight Commencements were held in\n        the old parish church which \"occupied a portion of the\n        space between Dane Hall and the old Presidential House.\"\n        The period embraced was from 1758 to 1834. There was no\n        Commencement in 1764, on account of the small-pox; nor\n        from 1775 to 1781, seven years, on account of the\n        Revolutionary war. The first Commencement in the new\n        meeting-house was held in 1834. In 1835, there was rain at\n        Commencement, for the first time in thirty-five years.\n\n[06]    The graduating class usually waited on the table at dinner\n        on Commencement Day.\n\n[07]    Rev. John Willard, S.T.D., of Stafford, Conn., a graduate\n        of the class of 1751.\n\n[08]     \"Men, some to pleasure, some to business, take;\n          But every woman is at heart a rake.\"\n\n[09]    Rev. Joseph Willard, S.T.D.\n\n[10]    The Rev. Dr. Simeon Howard, senior clergyman of the\n        Corporation, presided at the public exercises and\n        announced the degrees.\n\n[11]    See under THESIS and MASTER'S QUESTION.\n\n[12]    The old way of spelling the word SOPHOMORE, q.v.\n\n[13]    Speaking of Bachelors who are reading for fellowships,\n        Bristed says, they \"wear black gowns with two strings\n        hanging loose in front.\"--_Five Years in an Eng. Univ._,\n        Ed. 2d, p. 20.\n\n[14]    Bristed speaks of the \"blue and silver gown\" of Trinity\n        Fellow-Commoners.--_Five Years in an Eng. Univ._, Ed. 2d,\n        p. 34.\n\n[15]    \"A gold-tufted cap at Cambridge designates a Johnian or\n        Small-College Fellow-Commoner.\"--_Ibid._, p. 136.\n\n[16]    \"The picture is not complete without the 'men,' all in\n        their academicals, as it is Sunday. The blue gown of\n        Trinity has not exclusive possession of its own walks:\n        various others are to be discerned, the Pembroke looped at\n        the sleeve, the Christ's and Catherine curiously crimped\n        in front, and the Johnian with its unmistakable\n        'Crackling.'\"--_Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ._,\n        Ed. 2d, p. 73.\n\n        \"On Saturday evenings, Sundays, and Saints' days the\n        students wear surplices instead of their gowns, and very\n        innocent and exemplary they look in them.\"--_Ibid._, p.\n        21.\n\n[17]    \"The ignorance of the popular mind has often represented\n        academicians riding, travelling, &c. in cap and gown. Any\n        one who has had experience of the academic costume can\n        tell that a sharp walk on a windy day in it is no easy\n        matter, and a ride or a row would be pretty near an\n        impossibility. Indeed, during these two hours [of hard\n        exercise] it is as rare to see a student in a gown, as it\n        is at other times to find him beyond the college walks\n        without one.\"--_Ibid._, p. 19.\n\n[18]    Downing College.\n\n[19]    St. John's College.\n\n[20]    See under IMPOSITION.\n\n[21]     \"Narratur et prisci Catonis\n          S\u00e6p\u00e8 mero caluisse virtus.\"\n            Horace, Ode _Ad Amphoram_.\n\n[22]    Education: a Poem before [Greek: Phi. Beta. Kappa.] Soc.,\n        1799, by William Biglow.\n\n[23]    2 Samuel x. 4.\n\n[24]    A printed \"Order of Exhibition\" was issued at Harvard\n        College in 1810, for the first time.\n\n[25]    In reference to cutting lead from the old College.\n\n[26]    Senior, as here used, indicates an officer of college, or\n        a member of either of the three upper classes, agreeable\n        to Custom No. 3, above.\n\n[27]    The law in reference to footballs is still observed.\n\n[28]    See SOPHOMORE.\n\n[29]    I.e. TUTOR.\n\n[30]    Abbreviated for Cousin John, i.e. a privy.\n\n[31]    Joseph Willard, President of Harvard College from 1781 to\n        1804.\n\n[32]    Timothy Lindall Jennison, Tutor from 1785 to 1788.\n\n[33]    James Prescott, graduated in 1788.\n\n[34]    Robert Wier, graduated in 1788.\n\n[35]    Joseph Willard.\n\n[36]    Dr. Samuel Williams, Professor of Mathematics and Natural\n        Philosophy.\n\n[37]    Dr. Eliphalet Pearson, Professor of Hebrew and other\n        Oriental Languages.\n\n[38]    Eleazar James, Tutor from 1781 to 1789.\n\n[39]    Jonathan Burr, Tutor 1786, 1787.\n\n[40]     \"Flag of the free heart's hope and home!\n          By angel hands to valor given.\"\n            _The American Flag_, by J.R. Drake.\n\n[41]    Charles Prentiss, who when this was written was a member\n        of the Junior Class. Both he and Mr. Biglow were fellows\n        of \"infinite jest,\" and were noted for the superiority of\n        their talents and intellect.\n\n[42]    Mr. Biglow was known in college by the name of Sawney, and\n        was thus frequently addressed by his familiar friends in\n        after life.\n\n[43]    Charles Pinckney Sumner, afterwards a lawyer in Boston,\n        and for many years sheriff of the county of Suffolk.\n\n[44]    A black man who sold pies and cakes.\n\n[45]    Written after a general pruning of the trees around\n        Harvard College.\n\n[46]    Doctor of Medicine, or Student of Medicine.\n\n[47]    Referring to the masks and disguises worn by the members\n        at their meetings.\n\n[48]    A picture representing an examination and initiation into\n        the Society, fronting the title-page of the Catalogue.\n\n[49]    Leader Dam, _Armig._, M.D. et ex off L.K. et LL.D. et\n        J.U.D. et P.D. et M.U.D, etc., etc., et ASS.\n\n        He was an empiric, who had offices at Boston and\n        Philadelphia, where he sold quack medicines of various\n        descriptions.\n\n[50]    Christophe, the black Prince of Hayti.\n\n[51]    It is said he carried the bones of Tom Paine, the infidel,\n        to England, to make money by exhibiting them, but some\n        difficulty arising about the duty on them, he threw them\n        overboard.\n\n[52]    He promulgated a theory that the earth was hollow, and\n        that there was an entrance to it at the North Pole.\n\n[53]    Alexander the First of Russia was elected a member, and,\n        supposing the society to be an honorable one, forwarded to\n        it a valuable present.\n\n[54]    He made speeches on the Fourth of July at five or six\n        o'clock in the morning, and had them printed and ready for\n        sale, as soon as delivered, from his cart on Boston\n        Common, from which he sold various articles.\n\n[55]    Tibbets, a gambler, was attacked by Snelling through the\n        columns of the New England Galaxy.\n\n[56]    Referring to the degree given to the Russian Alexander,\n        and the present received in return.\n\n[57]    1851.\n\n[58]    See DIG. In this case, those who had parts at two\n        Exhibitions are thus designated.\n\n[59]    Jonathan Leonard, who afterwards graduated in the class of\n        1786.\n\n[60]    1851.\n\n[61]    William A. Barron, who was graduated in 1787, and was\n        tutor from 1793 to 1800, was \"among his contemporaries in\n        office ... social and playful, fond of _bon-mots_,\n        conundrums, and puns.\" Walking one day with Shapleigh and\n        another gentleman, the conversation happened to turn upon\n        the birthplace of Shapleigh, who was always boasting that\n        two towns claimed him as their citizen, as the towns,\n        cities, and islands of Greece claimed Homer as a native.\n        Barron, with all the good humor imaginable, put an end to\n        the conversation by the following epigrammatic\n        impromptu:--\n\n         \"Kittery and York for Shapleigh's birth contest;\n          Kittery won the prize, but York came off the best.\"\n\n[62]    In Brady and Tate, \"Hear, O my people.\"\n\n[63]    In Brady and Tate, \"instruction.\"\n\n[64]    Watts, \"hear.\"\n\n[65]    See BOHN.\n\n[66]    The Triennial Catalogue of Harvard College was first\n        printed in a pamphlet form in the year 1778.\n\n[67]    Jesse Olds, a classmate, afterwards a clergyman in a\n        country town.\n\n[68]    Charles Prentiss, a member of the Junior Class when this\n        was written; afterwards editor of the Rural\n        Repository.--_Buckingham's Reminiscences_, Vol. II. pp.\n        273-275.\n\n[69]    William Biglow was known in college by the name of Sawney,\n        and was frequently addressed by this sobriquet in after\n        life, by his familiar friends.\n\n[70]    Charles Pinckney Sumner,--afterwards a lawyer in Boston,\n        and for many years Sheriff of the County of Suffolk.\n\n[71]    Theodore Dehon, afterwards a clergyman of the Episcopal\n        Church, and Bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina.\n\n[72]    Thomas Mason, a member of the class after Prentiss, said\n        to be the greatest _wrestler_ that was ever in College. He\n        was settled as a clergyman at Northfield, Mass.; resigned\n        his office some years after, and several times represented\n        that town in the Legislature of Massachusetts. See under\n        WRESTLING-MATCH.\n\n[73]    The Columbian Centinel, published at Boston, of which\n        Benjamin Russell was the editor.\n\n[74]    \"Ashen,\" on _Ed.'s Broadside_.\n\n[75]     \"A pot of grease,\n          A woollen fleece.\"--_Ed's Broadside_.\n\n[76]    \"Rook.\"--_Ed.'s Broadside_. \"Hook.\"--_Gent. Mag._, May,\n        1732.\n\n[77]    \"Burrage.\"--_Ed.'s Broadside_.\n\n[78]    \"That.\"--_Ed.'s Broadside_.\n\n[79]    \"Beauties.\"--_Ed.'s Broadside_.\n\n[80]    \"My.\"--_Ed.'s Broadside_.\n\n[81]    \"I've\" omitted in _Ed.'s Broadside_.\n\n            Nay, I've two more\n          What Matthew always wanted.--_Gent. Mag._, June, 1732.\n\n[82]     \"But silly youth,\n          I love the mouth.\"--_Ed.'s Broadside_.\n\n[83]    This stanza, although found in the London Magazine, does\n        not appear in the Gentleman's Magazine, or on the Editor's\n        Broadside. It is probably an interpolation.\n\n[84]    \"Cou'd.\"--_Gent. Mag._, June, 1732.\n\n[85]    \"Do it.\"--_Ed.'s Broadside_.\n\n[86]    \"Tow'rds Cambridge I'll get thee.\"--_Ed.'s Broadside_.\n\n[87]    \"If, madam, you will let me.\"--_Gent. Mag._, June, 1732.\n\n[88]    See COCHLEAUREATUS.\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"13725":"\n\n\nSTORIES FROM THE ODYSSEY\n\nRetold by\n\nH. L. HAVELL B.A.\n\nLate Reader in English in the University of Halle\nFormerly Scholar of University College Oxford\n\nAuthor of _Stories from Herodotus_, _Stories from Greek Tragedy_,\n_Stories from the \u00c6neid_, _Stories from the Iliad_, etc.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: Reading from Homer]\n\n\n\n            \"O well for him whose will is strong!\n            He suffers, but he will not suffer long;\n            He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong:\n            For him nor moves the loud world's random mock\n            Nor all Calamity's hugest waves confound\n            Who seems a promontory of rock,\n            That compass'd round with turbulent sound\n            In middle ocean meets the surging shock,\n            Tempest-buffeted, citadel-crown'd.\"\n                                            TENNYSON\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\nTELEMACHUS, PENELOPE, AND THE SUITORS\n\nTHE ASSEMBLY; THE VOYAGE OF TELEMACHUS\n\nTHE VISIT TO NESTOR AT PYLOS\n\nTELEMACHUS AT SPARTA\n\nODYSSEUS AND CALYPSO\n\nODYSSEUS AMONG THE PH\u00c6ACIANS\n\nTHE WANDERINGS OF ODYSSEUS\n\nTHE VISIT TO HADES\n\nTHE SIRENS; SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS; THRINACIA\n\nODYSSEUS LANDS IN ITHACA\n\nODYSSEUS AND EUM\u00c6US\n\nTHE RETURN OF TELEMACHUS\n\nTHE MEETING OF TELEMACHUS AND ODYSSEUS\n\nTHE HOME-COMING OF ODYSSEUS\n\nTHE BEGGAR IRUS\n\nPENELOPE AND THE WOOERS\n\nODYSSEUS AND PENELOPE\n\nTHE END DRAWS NEAR; SIGNS AND WONDERS\n\nTHE BOW OF ODYSSEUS\n\nTHE SLAYING OF THE WOOERS\n\nODYSSEUS AND PENELOPE\n\nCONCLUSION\n\nPRONOUNCING LIST OF NAMES\n\n\n\n\nILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\nREADING FROM HOMER (L. Alma Tadema)\n\nPENELOPE (The Vatican, Rome)\n\nTELEMACHUS DEPARTING FROM NESTOR (Henry Howard)\n\nODYSSEUS AND NAUSICA\u00c4 (Charles Gleyre)\n\nODYSSEUS AND POLYPHEMUS (J. M. W. Turner)\n\nCIRCE (Sir E. Burne-Jones)\n\nTHE RETURN OF ODYSSEUS (L. F. Sch\u00fctzenberger)\n\nODYSSEUS AND EURYCLEIA (Christian G. Heyne)\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nThe impersonal character of the Homeric poems has left us entirely in\nthe dark as to the birthplace, the history, and the date, of their\nauthor. So complete is the darkness which surrounds the name of Homer\nthat his very existence has been disputed, and his works have been\ndeclared to be an ingenious compilation, drawn from the productions of\na multitude of singers. It is not my intention here to enter into the\nendless and barren controversy which has raged round this question. It\nwill be more to the purpose to try and form some general idea of the\ncharacteristics of the Greek Epic; and to do this it is necessary to\ngive a brief review of the political and social conditions in which it\nwas produced.\n\nI\n\nThe world as known to Homer is a mere fragment of territory, including\na good part of the mainland of Greece, with the islands and coast\ndistricts of the \u00c6g\u00e6an. Outside of these limits his knowledge of\ngeography is narrow indeed. He has heard of Sicily, which he speaks of\nunder the name of Thrinacia; and he speaks once of Libya, or the north\ncoast of Africa, as a district famous for its breed of sheep. There is\none vague reference to the vast Scythian or Tartar race (called by\nHomer Thracians), who live on the milk of mares; and he mentions a\ncopper-coloured people, the \"Red-faces,\" who dwell far remote in the\neast and west. The Nile is mentioned, under the name of \u00c6gyptus; and\nthe Egyptians are celebrated by the poet as a people skilled in\nmedicine, a statement which is repeated by Herodotus. The Phoenicians\nappear several times in the _Odyssey_, and we hear once or twice of\nthe Sidonians, as skilled workers in metal. As soon as we pass these\nboundaries, we enter at once into the region of fairyland.\n\nII\n\nIn speaking of the religion of the Homeric Greeks we have to draw a\ndistinction between the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_. In the _Iliad_ the\ngods play a much livelier and more human part than in the latter poem,\nand it is highly remarkable that the only comic scenes in the first\nand greatest of epics are those in which the gods are the chief\nactors--as when the lame Heph\u00e6stus takes upon him the office of\ncupbearer at the Olympian banquet, or when Artemis gets her ears boxed\nby the angry Hera. It would almost seem as if there were a vein of\ndeliberate satire running through these descriptions, so daring is the\ntreatment of the divine personages.\n\nIn the _Odyssey_, on the other hand, religion has become more\nspiritual. Olympus is no longer the mountain of that name, but a vague\nterm, like our \"heaven,\" denoting a place remote from all earthly\ncares and passions, a far-off abode in the stainless ether, where the\ngods dwell in everlasting peace, and from which they occasionally\ndescend, to give an eye to the righteous and unrighteous deeds of men.\n\nIn his conception of the state of the soul after death Homer is very\ninteresting. His _Hades_, or place of departed spirits, is a dim,\nshadowy region beyond the setting of the sun, where, after life's\ntrials are over, the souls of men keep up a faint and feeble being. It\nis highly significant that the word which in Homer means \"self\" has\nalso the meaning of \"body\"--showing how intimately the sense of\npersonal identity was associated with the condition of bodily\nexistence. The disembodied spirit is compared to a shadow, a dream, or\na waft of smoke. \"Alas!\" cries Achilles, after a visit from the ghost\nof Patroclus, \"I perceive that even in the halls of Hades there is a\nspirit and a phantom, but understanding none at all\"; for the mental\ncondition of these cold, uncomfortable ghosts is as feeble as their\nbodily form is shadowy and unsubstantial. They hover about with a\nfitful motion, uttering thin, gibbering cries, like the voice of a\nbat, and before they can obtain strength to converse with a visitor\nfrom the other world, they have to be fortified by a draught of fresh\nblood. The subject is summed up by Achilles, when Odysseus felicitates\nhim on the honour which he enjoys, even in Hades: \"Tell me not of\ncomfort in death,\" he says: \"I had rather be the thrall of the poorest\nwight that ever tilled a thankless soil for bread, than rule as king\nover all the shades of the departed.\"\n\nIII\n\nHomeric society is essentially aristocratic. At its head stands the\nking, who may be a great potentate, like Agamemnon, ruling over a wide\nextent of territory, or a petty prince, like Odysseus, who exercises a\nsort of patriarchal authority within the limits of a small island. The\nperson of the king is sacred, and his office is hereditary. He bears\nthe title of _Diogenes_, \"Jove-born,\" and is under the especial\nprotection of the supreme ruler of Olympus. He is leader in war, chief\njudge, president of the council of elders, and representative of the\nstate at the public sacrifices. The symbol of his office is the\nsceptre, which in some cases is handed down as an heirloom from father\nto son.\n\nNext to the king stand the elders, a title which has no reference to\nage, but merely denotes those of noble birth and breeding. The elders\nform a senate, or deliberative body, before which all questions of\npublic importance are laid by the king. Their decisions are afterwards\ncommunicated to the general assembly of the people, who signify their\napproval or dissent by tumultuous cries, but have no power of altering\nor reversing the measures proposed by the nobles. Thus we have already\nthe three main elements of political life: king, lords, and\ncommons--though the position of the last is at present almost entirely\npassive.\n\nIV\n\nThe morality of the Homeric age is such as we may expect to find among\na people which has only partially emerged from barbarism. Crimes of\nviolence are very common, and a familiar figure in the society of this\nperiod is that of the fugitive, who \"has slain a man,\" and is flying\nfrom the vengeance of his family. Patroclus, when a mere boy, kills\nhis youthful playmate in a quarrel over a game of knucklebones--an\nincident which may be seen illustrated in one of the statues in the\nBritish Museum. One of the typical scenes of Hellenic life depicted on\nthe shield of Achilles is a trial for homicide; and such cases were of\nso frequent occurrence that they afford materials for a simile in the\nlast book of the _Iliad_.\n\nWhere life is held so cheap, opinion is not likely to be very strict\nin matters of property. And we find accordingly a general acquiescence\nin \"the good old rule, the ancient plan, that they may take who have\nthe power, and they may keep who can.\" Cattle-lifting is as common as\nit formerly was on the Scottish border. The bold buccaneer is a\ncharacter as familiar as in the good old days when Drake and Raleigh\nsinged the Spanish king's beard, with this important difference, that\nthe buccaneer of ancient Greece plundered Greek and barbarian with\nfine impartiality. A common question addressed to persons newly\narrived from the sea is, \"Are you a merchant, a traveller, or a\npirate?\" And this curious query implies no reproach, and calls for no\nresentment. Still more startling are the terms in which Autolycus, the\nmaternal grandfather of Odysseus, is spoken of. This worthy, we are\ninformed, \"surpassed all mankind in thieving and lying\"; and the\ninformation is given in a manner which shows that the poet intended it\nas a grave compliment. In another passage the same hero is celebrated\nas an accomplished burglar. So low was the standard of Homeric ethics\nin this respect; and even in the historical age of Greece, want of\nhonesty and want of truthfulness were too often conspicuous failings\nin some of her most famous men.\n\nEven more shocking to the moral sense is the wild ferocity which\nsometimes breaks out in the language and conduct of both men and\nwomen. The horrible practice of mutilating the dead after a battle is\nviewed with indifference, and even with complacency, by the bravest\nwarriors. Even Patroclus, the most amiable of the heroes in the\n_Iliad_, proposes to inflict this dastardly outrage on the body of the\nfallen Sarpedon. Achilles drags the body of Hector behind his chariot\nfrom the battlefield, and keeps it in his tent for many days, that he\nmay repeat this hideous form of vengeance in honour of his slaughtered\nfriend. When the dying Hector begs him to restore his body to the\nTrojans for burial he replies with savage taunts, and wishes that he\ncould find it in his heart to carve the flesh of Hector and eat it\nraw! And Hecuba, the venerable Queen of Troy, expresses herself in\nsimilar terms when Priam is preparing to set forth on his mission to\nthe tent of Achilles.\n\nTurning now to the more attractive side of the picture, we shall find\nmuch to admire in the character of Homer's heroes. In the first place\nwe have to note their intense vitality and keen sense of pleasure,\nnatural to a young and vigorous people. The outlook on life is\ngenerally bright and cheerful, and there is hardly any trace of that\ncorroding pessimism which meets us in later literature. Cases of\nsuicide, so common in the tragedians, are almost unknown.\n\nIn one respect, and that too a point of the very highest importance,\nthe Greeks of this age were far in advance of those who came after\nthem, and not behind the most polished nations of modern Europe. We\nrefer to the beauty, the tenderness, and the purity of their domestic\nrelations. The whole story of the _Odyssey_ is founded on the faithful\nwedded love of Odysseus and Penelope, and the contrasted example of\nAgamemnon and his demon wife is repeatedly held up to scorn and\nabhorrence. The world's poetry affords no nobler scene than the\nparting of Hector and Andromache in the _Iliad_, nor has the ideal of\nperfect marriage ever found grander expression than in the words\naddressed by Odysseus to Nausica\u00e4: \"There is nothing mightier and\nnobler than when man and wife are of one mind and heart in a house, a\ngrief to their foes, and to their friends a great joy, but their own\nhearts know it best.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Butcher and Lang's translation.]\n\nHospitality in a primitive state of society, where inns are unknown,\nis not so much a virtue as a necessity. Even in these early times the\nGreeks, within the limits of their little world, were great\ntravellers, and their swift chariots, and galleys propelled by sail\nand oar, enabled them to make considerable journeys with speed and\nsafety. Arrived at their destination for the night they were sure of a\nwarm welcome at the first house at which they presented themselves;\nand he who played the host on one occasion expected and found a like\nreturn when, perhaps years afterwards, he was brought by business or\npleasure to the home of his former guest. Nor were these privileges\nconfined to the wealthy and noble, who were able, when the time came,\nto make payment in kind, but the poorest and most helpless outcast,\nthe beggar, the fugitive, and the exile, found countenance and\nprotection, when he made his plea in the name of Zeus, the god of\nhospitality.\n\nV\n\nThis frankness and simplicity of manners runs through the whole life\nof the Homeric Greek, and is reflected in every page of the two great\nepics which are the lasting monuments of that bright and happy age. As\ncivilisation advances, and life becomes more complicated and\nartificial, human activity tends more and more to split up into an\ninfinite number of minute occupations, and the whole time and energy\nof each individual are not more than sufficient to make him master in\nsome little corner of art, science, or industry. A vast system of\ncommerce brings the products of the whole world to our doors; and it\nis almost appalling to think of the millions of toiling hands and busy\nbrains which must pass all their days in unceasing toil, in order that\nthe humblest citizen may find his daily wants supplied. To give only\none example: how vast and tremendous is the machinery which must be\nset at work before a single letter or post-card can reach its\ndestination! This multiplication of needs, and endless subdivision of\nlabour, too often results in stunting and crippling the development of\nthe individual, so that it becomes harder, as time advances, to find a\ncomplete man, with all his faculties matured by equable and harmonious\ngrowth.\n\nVery different were the conditions of life in the Homeric age. Then\nthe wealthy man's house was a little world in itself, capable of\nsupplying all the simple wants of its inhabitants. The women spun wool\nand flax, the produce of the estate, and wove them into cloth and\nlinen, to be dyed and wrought into garments by the same skilful hands.\nOn the sunny slopes of the hills within sight of the doors the grapes\nwere ripening against the happy time of vintage, when merry troops of\nchildren would bring them home with dance and song to be trodden in\nthe winepress. Nearer at hand was the well-kept orchard, bowing under\nits burden of apples, pears, and figs; and groves of grey olive-trees\npromised abundance of oil. In the valleys waved rich harvests of wheat\nand barley, which were reaped, threshed, ground, and made into bread,\nby the master's thralls. Herds of oxen, and flocks of sheep and goats,\nroved on the broad upland pastures, and in the forest multitudes of\nswine were fattening on the beech-mast and acorns.\n\nAnd the owner of all these blessings was no luxurious drone, living in\nidleness on the labour of other men's hands. He was, in the fullest\nsense of the word, the father of his household. His was the vigilant\neye which watched and directed every member in the little army of\nworkers, and his the generous hand which dealt out bountiful reward\nfor faithful service. If need were he could take his share in the\nhardest field labour, and plough a straight furrow, or mow a heavy\ncrop of grass from dawn till sunset without breaking his fast. Nothing\nwas too great or too little to engage his attention, as the necessity\narose. He was a warrior, whose single prowess might go far in deciding\nthe issue of a hard-fought battle--an orator, discoursing with weighty\neloquence on grave questions of state--a judge, whose decisions helped\nto build up the as yet unwritten code of law. Descending from these\nhigh altitudes, he could take up his bow and spear, and go forth to\nhunt the boar and the stag, or wield the woodman's axe, or the\ncarpenter's saw and chisel. He could kill, dress, and serve his own\ndinner; and when the strenuous day was over, he could tune the harp,\ndiscourse sweet music, and sing of the deeds of heroes and gods.\n\nSuch was the versatility, and such the many-sided energy, of the Greek\nas he appears in the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_. And as these two poems\ncontain the elements of all subsequent thought and progress in the\nGreek nation, so in the typical character of Odysseus are concentrated\nall the qualities which distinguish the individual Greek--his\ninsatiable curiosity, which left no field of thought unexplored--his\nspirit of daring enterprise, which carried the banner of civilisation\nto the borders of India and the Straits of Gibraltar--and his subtlety\nand craft, which in a later age made him a byword to the grave\nmoralists of Rome.\n\nIn the _Iliad_ Odysseus is constantly exhibited as a contrast to the\nyouthful Achilles. Wherever prudence, experience, and policy, are\nrequired, Odysseus comes to the front. In Achilles, with his furious\npassions and ill-regulated impulses, there is always something of the\nbarbarian; while Odysseus in all his actions obeys the voice of\nreason. It will readily be seen that such a character, essentially\nintellectual, always moving within due measure, never breaking out\ninto eccentricity or excess, would appeal less to the popular\nimagination than the fiery nature of Pelides, \"strenuous, passionate,\nimplacable, and fierce.\" And on this ground we may partly explain the\nunamiable light in which Odysseus appears in later Greek literature.\nAlready in Pindar we find him singled out for disapproval. In\nSophocles he has sunk still lower; and in Euripides his degradation is\ncompleted.\n\nVI\n\nSpace does not allow us to give a detailed criticism of the _Odyssey_\nas a poem, and determine its relation to the _Iliad_. We must content\nourselves with quoting the words of the most eloquent of ancient\ncritics, which sum up the subject with admirable brevity and insight:\n\"Homer in his _Odyssey_ may be compared to the setting sun: he is\nstill as great as ever, but he has lost his fervent heat. The strain\nis now pitched in a lower key than in the 'Tale of Troy divine': we\nbegin to miss that high and equable sublimity which never flags or\nsinks, that continuous current of moving incidents, those rapid\ntransitions, that force of eloquence, that opulence of imagery which\nis ever true to nature. Like the sea when it retires upon itself and\nleaves its shores waste and bare, henceforth the tide of sublimity\nbegins to ebb, and draws us away into the dim region of myth and\nlegend.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Longinus: \"On the Sublime.\" Translated by H.L. Havell,\nB.A. p. 20. Macmillan & Co.]\n\n\n\n\nSTORIES FROM THE ODYSSEY\n\n\n\n\nTelemachus, Penelope, and the Suitors\n\n\nI\n\nIn a high, level spot, commanding a view of the sea, stands the house\nof Odysseus, the mightiest prince in Ithaca. It is a spacious\nbuilding, two storeys high, constructed entirely of wood, and\nsurrounded on all sides by a strong wooden fence. Within the\nenclosure, and in front of the house, is a wide courtyard, containing\nthe stables, and other offices of the household.\n\nA proud maiden was Penelope, when Odysseus wedded her in her youthful\nbloom, and made her the mistress of his fair dwelling and his rich\ndomain. One happy year they lived together, and a son was born to\nthem, whom they named Telemachus. Then war arose between Greece and\nAsia, and Odysseus was summoned to join the train of chieftains who\nfollowed Agamemnon to win back Helen, his brother's wife. Ten years\nthe war lasted; then Troy was taken, and those who had survived the\nstruggle returned to their homes. Among these was Odysseus, who set\nsail with joyful heart, hoping, before many days were passed, to take\nup anew the thread of domestic happiness which had been so rudely\nbroken. But since that hour he has vanished from sight, and for ten\nlong years from the fall of Troy the house has been mourning its\nabsent lord.\n\nDuring the last three years a new trouble has been present, to fill\nthe cup of Penelope's sorrow to the brim. A host of suitors, drawn\nfrom the most powerful families in Ithaca and the neighbouring\nislands, have beset the house of Odysseus, desiring to wed his wife\nand possess her wealth. All her friends urge her to make choice of a\nhusband from that clamorous band; for no one now believes that there\nis any hope left of Odysseus' return. Only Penelope still clings to\nthe belief that he is yet living, and will one day come home. So for\nthree years she has put them off by a cunning trick. She began to\nweave a shroud for her father-in-law, Laertes, promising that, as soon\nas the garment was finished, she would wed one of the suitors. Then\nall day long she wove that choice web; and every night she undid the\nwork of the day, unravelling the threads which she had woven. So for\nthree years she beguiled the suitors, but at last she was betrayed by\nher handmaids, and the fraud was discovered. The princes upbraided her\nloudly for her deceit, and became more importunate than ever. The\nsubstance of Odysseus was wasting away; for day after day the wooers\ncame thronging to the house, a hundred strong, and feasted at the\nexpense of its absent master, and drank up his wine.\n\nNo hope seems left to the heartbroken, faithful wife. Even her son has\ngrown impatient at the waste of his goods, and urges her to make the\nhard choice, and the hateful hour is at hand which will part her for\never from the scene of her brief wedded joy.\n\n[Illustration: Penelope]\n\nII\n\nIt was the hour of noon, and the sun was beating hot on the rocky\nhills of Ithaca, when a solitary wayfarer was seen approaching the\nouter gateway which led into the courtyard of Odysseus' house. He was\na man of middle age, dressed like a chieftain, and carrying a long\nspear in his hand. Passing through the covered gateway he halted\nabruptly, and gazed in astonishment at the strange sight which met his\neyes. All was noise and bustle in the courtyard, where a busy troop of\nservants were preparing the materials for a great feast. Some were\ncarrying smoking joints of roast meat, others were filling huge bowls\nwith wine and water, and others were washing the tables and setting\nthem out to dry. In the portico before the house sat a great company\nof young nobles, comely of aspect, and daintily attired, taking their\nease on couches of raw ox-hide, and playing at draughts to while away\nthe time until the banquet should be ready. Loud was their talk, and\nboisterous their laughter, as of men who have no respect for\nthemselves or for others. \"Surely this was the house of Odysseus,\"\nmurmured the stranger to himself, \"but now it seems like a den of\nthieves. But who is that tall and goodly lad, who sits apart, with\ngloomy brow, and seems ill-pleased with the doings of that riotous\ncrew? Surely I should know that face, the very face of my old friend\nas I knew him long years ago.\"\n\nAs he spoke, the youth who had attracted his notice glanced in his\ndirection, and seeing a stranger standing unheeded at the entrance, he\nrose from his seat and came with hasty step and heightened colour\ntowards him. \"Forgive me, friend,\" he said, with hand outstretched in\nwelcome, \"that I marked thee not before. My thoughts were far away.\nBut come into the house, and sit down to meat, and when thou hast\neaten we will inquire the reason of thy coming.\"\n\nSo saying, and taking the stranger's spear, he led him into the great\nhall of the house, and sat down with him in a corner, remote from the\nnoise of the revel. And a handmaid bare water in a golden ewer, and\npoured it over their hands into a basin of silver; and when they had\nwashed, a table was set before them, heaped with delicate fare. Then\nhost and guest took their meal together, and comforted their hearts\nwith wine.\n\nBefore they had finished, the whole company came trooping in from the\ncourtyard, and filled the room with uproar, calling aloud for food and\ndrink. Not a chair was left empty, and the servants hurried to and\nfro, supplying the wants of these unwelcome visitors. Vast quantities\nof flesh were consumed, and many a stout jar of wine was drained to\nthe dregs, to supply the wants of that greedy multitude.\n\nWhen at last their hunger was appeased, and every goblet stood empty,\nPhemius, the minstrel, stood up in their midst, and after striking a\nfew chords on his harp, began to sing a famous lay. Then the youth who\nhad been entertaining the stranger drew closer his chair, and thus\naddressed him, speaking low in his ear: \"Thou seest what fair company\nwe keep, how wanton they are, and how gay. Yet there was once a man\nwho would have driven them, like beaten hounds, from this hall, even\nhe whose substance they are devouring. But his bones lie whitening at\nthe bottom of the sea, and we who are left must tamely suffer this\nwrong. But now thou hast eaten, and I may question thee without\nreproach. Say, therefore, who art thou, and where is thy home? Comest\nthou for the first time to Ithaca, or art thou an old friend of this\nhouse, bound to us by ties of ancient hospitality?\"\n\n\"My name is Mentes,\" answered the stranger, \"and I am a prince of the\nTaphians, a bold race of sailors. I am a friend of this house, well\nknown to its master, Odysseus, and his father, Laertes. Be of good\ncheer, for he whom thou mournest is not dead, nor shall his coming be\nmuch longer delayed. But tell me now of a truth, art not thou the son\nof that man? I knew him well, and thou hast the very face and eyes of\nOdysseus.\"\n\n\"My mother calls me his son,\" replied the youth, who was indeed\nTelemachus himself, \"and I am bound to believe her. Would that it were\notherwise! I have little cause to bless my birth.\"\n\n\"Yet shalt thou surely be blest,\" said Mentes; \"thou art not unmarked\nof the eye of Heaven. But answer me once more, what means this lawless\nriot in the house? And what cause has brought all these men hither?\"\n\n\"This also thou shalt know,\" replied Telemachus. \"These are the\nprinces who have come to woo my mother; and while she keeps them\nwaiting for her answer they eat up my father's goods. Ere long,\nmethinks, they will make an end of me also.\"\n\n\"Fit wooers indeed for the wife of such a man!\" said Mentes with a\nbitter smile. \"Would that he were standing among them now as I saw him\nonce in my father's house, armed with helmet and shield and spear! He\nwould soon wed them to another bride. But whether it be God's will\nthat he return or not, 'tis for thee to devise means to drive these\nmen from thy house. Take heed, therefore, to my words, and do as I bid\nthee. To-morrow thou shalt summon the suitors to the place of\nassembly, and charge them that they depart to their homes. And do thou\nthyself fit out a ship, with twenty rowers, and get thee to Pylos,\nwhere the aged Nestor dwells, and inquire of him concerning thy\nfather. From Pylos proceed to Sparta, the kingdom of Menelaus; he was\nthe last of the Greeks to reach home, after the fall of Troy; and\nperchance thou mayest learn something from him. And if thou hearest\nsure tidings of thy father's death, then get thee home, and raise a\ntomb to his memory, and keep his funeral feast. Then let thy mother\nwed whom she will; and if these men still beset thee, thou must devise\nmeans to slay them, either by guile or openly. Thou art now a man, and\nmust play a man's part. Hast thou not heard of the fame which Orestes\nwon, when he slew the murderer of his sire? Be thou valiant, even as\nhe; tall thou art, and fair, and shouldst be a stout man of thy hands.\nBut 'tis time for me to be going; my ship awaits me in the harbour,\nand my comrades will be tired of waiting for me.\"\n\n\"Stay yet awhile,\" answered Telemachus, \"until thou hast refreshed\nthyself with the bath; and I will give thee a costly gift to bear with\nthee as a memorial of thy visit.\" But even as he spoke Mentes rose\nfrom his seat and, gliding like a shadow through the sunlit doorway,\ndisappeared. Telemachus followed, in wonder and displeasure; but no\ntrace of the strange visitor was to be seen. Looking upward he saw a\ngreat sea-eagle winging his way towards the shore; and a voice seemed\nto whisper in his ear: \"No mortal was thy guest, but the great goddess\nAthene, daughter of Zeus, and ever thy father's true comrade and\nfaithful ally.\"\n\nIII\n\nWith a strange elation of spirits Telemachus returned to the hall, and\nsat down among the suitors. Hitherto he had shown a certain weakness\nand indecision of character, natural in a young lad, who had grown up\nwithout the strong guiding hand of a father, and who, since the first\ndawn of his manhood, had been surrounded by a host of subtle foes. But\nthe words of Athene have gone home, and he resolves that from this\nhour he will take his proper place in the house as his mother's\nguardian and the heir of a great prince.\n\nThere was an unwonted stillness among that lawless troop, and they sat\nsilent and attentive in the great, dimly lighted chamber. For the\nminstrel was singing a sweet and solemn strain, which told of the\nhome-coming of the Greeks from Troy, and of all the disasters which\nbefell them on the way. Suddenly the singer paused in the midst of his\nlay, for his fine ear had caught the sound of a sobbing sigh. Looking\nround, he saw a tall and stately lady standing in the doorway which\nled to the women's apartments at the back of the house. She was\nclosely veiled, but he instantly recognised the form of Penelope, his\nbeloved mistress.\n\n\"Phemius,\" said Penelope, in a tone of gentle reproach, \"hast thou no\nother lay to sing, but must needs recite this tale of woe, which fills\nmy soul with tears, by calling up the image of him for whom I sorrow\nnight and day?\"\n\nPhemius stood abashed, and ventured no reply; but Telemachus answered\nfor him. \"Mother,\" he said, \"blame not the sweet minstrel for his\nsong. The bard is not the author of the woes of which he sings, but\nZeus assigns to each his portion of good and ill; and thou must submit\nto his ordinance, like many another lady who has lost her lord. Thou\nhast thy province in the house, and I mine; thine is to govern thy\nhandmaids, and mine to take the lead where the men are gathered\ntogether. And I say that the minstrel has chosen well.\"\n\nThere was a new note of command in the voice of Telemachus as he\nuttered these words. Penelope heard it, and wondered what change had\ncome over her son; but a hundred bold eyes were gazing insolently at\nher, and without another word she turned away, and ascended the steep\nstairs which led to her bower. There she reclined on a couch, and her\ntears flowed freely; for the song of Phemius had reopened the fountain\nof her grief. Presently the sound of sobbing died away, and she drew\nher breath gently in a sweet and placid sleep.\n\nThe sudden appearance of Penelope had excited the suitors, and they\nbegan to brawl noisily among themselves. Presently Telemachus raised\nhis voice, commanding silence for the minstrel. \"And I have something\nelse to say unto you,\" he added. \"To-morrow at dawn I bid you come to\nthe place of assembly, that we may make an end of these wild doings in\nmy house. I will bear it no longer, but will publish your evil deeds\nto the ears of gods and men.\"\n\nAmong the suitors there was a certain Antinous, a tall and stout\nfellow, of commanding presence, who was looked up to by the others as\na sort of leader, being the boldest and most brutal in the band. And\nnow he answered for the rest \"Heaven speed thy boasting, young\nbraggart!\" he cried in rude and jeering tones. \"It will be a happy day\nfor the men of Ithaca when they have thee for their king.\"\n\n\"I claim not the kingdom,\" answered Telemachus firmly, \"but I am\nresolved to be master in my own house.\"\n\nBy the side of Antinous sat Eurymachus, who was next to him in power\nand rank. This was a smooth and subtle villain, not less dangerous\nthan Antinous, but glib and plausible of speech. And he too made\nanswer after his kind: \"Telemachus, thou sayest well, and none can\ndispute thy right. But with thy good leave I would ask thee concerning\nthe stranger. He seemed a goodly man; but why did he start up and\nleave us so suddenly? Did he bring any tidings of thy father?\"\n\n\"There can be no tidings of him,\" answered Telemachus sadly, \"except\nthat we shall never see him again. And as to this stranger, it was\nMentes, a friend of my father's, and prince of the Taphians.\"\n\nNight was now coming on, the suitors departed to their homes, and\nTelemachus, who meditated an early start next day, retired early to\nhis chamber. The room where he slept stood in the courtyard, apart\nfrom the house, and was reached by a stairway. He was attended by an\naged dame, Eurycleia, who had nursed him in his infancy. And all night\nlong he lay sleepless, pondering on the perils and the adventures\nwhich awaited him.\n\n\n\n\nThe Assembly; The Voyage of Telemachus\n\n\nI\n\nAt the first peep of dawn Telemachus was afoot, and summoning the\nheralds he ordered them to make proclamation of an assembly to be held\nin a public place in the town of Ithaca. Then he went down to the\nplace of assembly, with two favourite hounds following close at his\nheels; and when he arrived he found the princes and elders of the\npeople already gathered together. All eyes were turned to the gallant\nlad, as he sat down on his father's seat among the noblest of the sons\nof Ithaca. Never had he worn so princely an air, or seemed so worthy\nof his mighty sire.\n\nThen the old chieftain \u00c6gyptus began the debate; he was bent double\nwith age, and one of his sons, Antiphus, had followed Odysseus to\nTroy, while another, Eurynomus, was among the suitors of Penelope. It\nwas of Antiphus that he thought, as he stood up and made harangue\namong the elders:\n\n\"Who has summoned us hither, and what is his need? Never have we met\ntogether in council since the day when Odysseus set sail from Ithaca.\nHath any tidings come of the return of those who followed him to Troy,\nor is it some other business of public moment which has called us\nhither? But whoever sent out this summons, I doubt not he is a worthy\nman, and may Zeus accomplish his purpose, whatever it be.\"\n\nSuch chance sayings were regarded as a sign of Heaven's will, and\nTelemachus rejoiced in spirit at the old man's blessing. And forthwith\nhe stood up in the midst, and, taking the sceptre from the herald's\nhand, rushed at once into the subject of which his mind was full.\n\n\"Behold me here, old man,\" he said, addressing \u00c6gyptus. \"It is I who\nhave called you together, and surely not without a cause. Is it not\nenough that I have lost my brave father, whose gentleness and\nloving-kindness ye all knew, when he was your king? But must I sit\nstill, day after day, and see the fattest of my flocks and herds\nslaughtered, and the red wine poured out wastefully, by these men who\nhave come to woo my mother? Take shame to yourselves, and restrain\nthem; fear the reproach of men, and the wrath of Heaven, and suffer me\nnot thus to be evilly entreated, unless ye harbour revengeful thoughts\nagainst my father, for some wrong which he has done you.\"\n\nHe had spoken thus far, when tears choked his voice, and flinging the\nsceptre on the ground he returned to his seat. There was a general\nfeeling of compassion among his hearers, and not one of the suitors\nventured to answer him, save only Antinous, who began in his wonted\nstyle of brutal insolence, upbraiding Telemachus in violent terms, and\nthrowing all the blame on Penelope, who, he said, had beguiled them\nfor three years by holding out promises which she never meant to\nfulfil. Then he told the story of Penelope's web, and concluded his\nspeech with these words:\n\n\"As long as thy mother continues in this mind, so long will we stay\nhere and consume thy living. If thou wouldst be quit of us, send her\nto her father's house and bid her marry the man of her choice.\"\n\nTelemachus replied: \"How can I drive away the mother who bare me and\nnourished me? And where shall I find means to pay back her dower? But\nmost of all I dread my mother's curse. No, never shall that word be\nspoken by me. Therefore, if ye know aught of fair and honest dealing,\ndepart from my house, and live on your own goods; but if it seems good\nto you to eat up another man's living, then will I appeal to the\njustice of heaven, and pray for vengeance on your heads.\"\n\n\"Behold, his prayer is answered,\" cried Halitherses, a venerable\nelder, with snow-white beard, who was skilled in augury; and looking\nup they saw two eagles winging their way at full speed towards the\nplace of assembly. Now the two great birds hovered over the meeting;\nand just at this moment they wheeled round and attacked each other\nfiercely with beak and claw. After fighting for some time they shot\naway to the right and were soon lost to view. Then Halitherses spake\nagain, interpreting the omen: \"Hearken, men of Ithaca, to my words,\nand to you, the suitors of Penelope, especially do I speak. Woe is\ncoming upon you; I see it rising and swelling as a wave. Not long\nshall Odysseus be absent, but even now he is near at hand hatching\nmischief for those who sit here. And many another shall suffer,\nbesides these who have done the wrong. Therefore, I say, let us stop\ntheir evil deeds, or let them cease themselves. The hour is near at\nhand which I foretold, when Odysseus embarked for Troy: I said that\nafter many sufferings, having lost all his comrades, unknown to all in\nthe twentieth year he should come home. And now all these things are\ncoming to pass.\"\n\nThen up rose Eurymachus, in an angry and scornful mood. \"Old man,\"\nsaid he, \"go home and prophesy to thine own children, lest some harm\nbefall thee here. Thinkest thou that every fowl of the air is a\nmessenger from heaven? Odysseus has perished, and would that thou\nhadst perished with him! Art thou not ashamed to take sides with this\nmalapert boy, feeding his passion and folly with thy crazy prophecies?\nDoubtless thou lookest to him for favour and reward, but thou wilt\nfind that his friendship will cost thee dear. Telemachus has heard our\nanswer to his complaint; let him keep his eloquence for his froward\nmother, and bring her to a better mind, for neither his speeches nor\nthy prophecies will turn us from our purpose.\"\n\nThe principal object of the meeting was now attained: the villainy of\nthe suitors had been publicly exposed, and they were left without\nexcuse or hope of mercy when the day of reckoning should arrive.\nAccordingly Telemachus, dismissing the subject of his wrongs, now\nspoke of his intended voyage to Pylos and Sparta, and begged for the\nloan of a ship to carry him and his comrades to the mainland.\n\nNo response was made to his request; but one man still attempted to\nrouse public opinion against the suitors. This was Mentor, an old\nfriend of Odysseus, who had been left in charge of his household on\nhis departure from Ithaca. \"Is there not one among you,\" he cried\nindignantly, \"who will speak a word for Telemachus, or testify against\nthe wickedness of these men? No more let kings be gentle and merciful\ntowards their people, as was Odysseus when he ruled over you, loving\nand tender-hearted as a father. Let righteousness give place to\noppression, if these are its rewards. There you sit, like cowed and\nbeaten men, and suffer a handful of worthless men to lord it over you\nall.\"\n\nAfter this last appeal, which was as fruitless as the others, the\nmeeting broke up, and the suitors returned to their revels in the\nhouse of Odysseus.\n\nII\n\nFull of anxious thought, Telemachus went down to the shore, wondering\nhow he should find means to accomplish his voyage. Stooping down, he\nbathed his hands in the sea, and after this act of purification he\nlifted up his hands and prayed to Athene: \"O thou who camest yesterday\nto our house, and badest me go on this quest, give ear and help me in\nthis strait.\"\n\nHe had hardly finished his prayer when he heard a footstep, and\nlooking round saw Mentor, who had come to his aid at the meeting,\napproaching from the town. \"Be not cast down,\" said Mentor, \"remember\nwhose son thou art, and all shall be well with thee. As to this\nvoyage, that shall be my care. I will find thee a ship, and will go\nwith thee to Pylos. Meanwhile go thou home and make ready all things\nfor victualling the ship, corn and wine and barley-meal, and bestow\nthem heedfully in vessels and in bags of leather. Ships there are in\nplenty, new and old, in seagirt Ithaca; I will choose the best of them\nall, and man her with a crew who will serve thee freely and with all\ngoodwill.\"\n\nAway went Telemachus, much comforted in spirit, though his heart\nfluttered when he thought of the great adventure which lay before him.\nWhen he entered the courtyard of his house he found the suitors\nflaying goats and singeing swine for the midday feast. Antinous hailed\nhis coming with a rude laugh, and running up to him seized his hand\nand said mockingly: \"Well met, Sir Eloquence! Thy face, I see, is full\nof care, as of one who is bent on high designs. But lay thy graver\nburdens aside for awhile, and eat and drink with us. Thou shalt want\nneither ship nor men to carry thee to holy Pylos.\"\n\nTelemachus snatched his hand away, and answered sternly: \"My thoughts\nare not of feasting and merry-making, nor would I eat and drink with\nyou if they were. I am no longer a child, to be flouted and robbed\nwithout a word. I tell you I shall find it in my heart to do you a\nmischief, before many days are passed. But now I am going, as I said,\non this journey. I must go as a passenger, since ye will not lend me a\nship.\"\n\nMany a scornful face was turned upon him, and many a taunt aimed at\nhim, as he uttered these bold words. \"We are all undone!\" cried one in\npretended alarm, \"Telemachus is gone to gather an army in Pylos or in\nSparta, and he will come back with his mighty men and take all our\nlives.\" \"Or perhaps he is going to bring poison from Ephyra,\" said\nanother, \"and he will cast it in the bowl, and we shall be all dead\ncorpses.[1]\" And a third cried: \"Take care of thyself, Telemachus, or\nwe shall have double labour because of thee, in dividing thy goods\namong us.\"\n\n[Footnote 1: 2 Kings xix. 35.]\n\nBut the taunts of fools and knaves have no sting for honest ears.\nWithout another word Telemachus left that gibing mob, and went\nstraight to the strong-room where his father's treasure was stored.\nThere lay heaps of gold and silver, and chests full of fine raiment,\nand great jars of fragrant olive-oil. Along the wall was a long row of\nportly casks, filled with the choicest wine; there they had stood\nuntouched for twenty years, awaiting the master's return. All this\nwealth was given in charge to Eurycleia, the nurse of Telemachus, a\nwise and careful dame, who watched the chamber day and night. Her\nTelemachus now summoned, and said: \"Fill me twelve jars of wine--not\nthe best, which thou art keeping for my father, but the next best to\nthat. And take twenty measures of barley-meal, and store it in sacks\nof leather, and keep all these things together till I send for them.\nKeep close counsel, and above all let not my mother know. I am going\nto Sparta and to sandy Pylos to inquire of my father's return; and I\nshall start in the evening when my mother is gone to rest.\"\n\n\"Who put such a thought into thy heart?\" cried Eurycleia in wailing\ntones. \"Why wilt thou take this dreadful journey, thou, an only child,\nso loved, and so dear? Odysseus is lost for ever, and if thou go we\nshall lose thee too, for the suitors will plot thy ruin while thou art\nfar away.\"\n\n\"Fear nothing for me,\" answered Telemachus, \"Heaven's eye is upon me,\nand the hand of Zeus is spread over me. Swear to me now that thou wilt\nnot tell my mother until twelve days have past.\" Eurycleia swore as he\nbade her, and at once set about making the preparations for his\njourney.\n\nThe suitors were in high spirits at the result of the meeting, and\nthey ate heavily and drank deeply to celebrate their triumph. Hence it\nhappened that they retired to rest earlier than usual, being drowsy\nfrom their intemperate revel; and when Telemachus returned to the\nbanquet-hall he found all the guests departed, and the servants\nremoving the remains of the feast. Soon afterwards Mentor appeared,\nand announced that the ship lay ready at her moorings outside the\nharbour. The stores were carried down to the sea, and stowed under the\nrowers' benches. \"All hands on board!\" cried Mentor, and took his\nplace in the stern, Telemachus sitting by his side. The crew sat ready\nat their oars, the ship was cast loose from the moorings, and a few\nvigorous strokes impelled her into deep water. Then a strong breeze\nsprang up from the west, the big sail was set, and the good ship\nbounded joyfully over the waves, with the white wake roaring behind.\nThe oars were shipped, the sheets made fast, and all the company\npledged each other in brimming cups, drinking to their prosperous\nvoyage.\n\n\n\n\nThe Visit to Nestor at Pylos\n\n\nI\n\nSo all night long the ship clave her way; and at sunrise they reached\nthe flat, sandy coast of Pylos. There they found a great multitude\nassembled, keeping the feast of Poseidon with sacrifices of oxen. The\nsolemn rite was nearly ended when they brought their vessel to land.\n\n\"Courage, now,\" said Mentor to Telemachus, seeing the young lad\nsomewhat abashed by the presence of so large a company. \"Remember whom\nthou seekest, and lay thy modest scruples aside. Thou seest that\nvenerable man, still tall and erect, though he numbers more than a\nhundred years. That is Nestor, son of Neleus, wisest of the Greeks, a\nking and the friend and counsellor of kings. Go straight to him, and\ntell him thy errand.\"\n\nSeeing Telemachus, who was a homebred youth, still hanging back, in\ndread of that august presence, Mentor renewed his friendly\nremonstrances, \"What, still tongue-tied?\" he said, taking him by the\narm, and leading him forward. \"Heaven mend thy wits, poor lad! Knowest\nthou not that thou art a child of great hopes, and a favourite of\nheaven?\"\n\nWhen they came to the place where Nestor was seated with his sons,\nthey found them busy preparing the feast which followed the sacrifice.\nAs soon as those of Nestor's company saw the strangers they came\nforward in a body to greet them, and made them sit down in places of\nhonour, where soft fleeces were heaped up on the level sand. A youth,\nabout the same age as Telemachus, placed a goblet of gold in Mentor's\nhand, and gave him that portion of the flesh which was set apart as an\noffering to the gods. \"Welcome, friend,\" he said, after pledging him\nfrom the cup. \"Put up thy prayer with us to the lord Poseidon, for it\nis to his feast that ye have come. And when thou hast prayed, give the\ncup to thy young companion, who has been bred, methinks, as I have, to\ndeeds of piety.\"\n\nMentor first asked a blessing on their hosts, and then prayed for a\nprosperous issue to their own adventure. After him Telemachus uttered\nhis prayer in similar words, and then they all sat down to meat. When\nthey had finished, Nestor looked earnestly at them, and asked them who\nthey were, and what was the purpose of their journey. \"Are ye\nmerchants,\" he said, \"or bold buccaneers, who roam the seas, a peril\nto others, and ever in peril themselves?\"\n\nTelemachus, cheered by good fare, and encouraged by the kind manner of\nNestor, answered confidently, and explained the nature of his errand.\n\"Concerning all the other Greeks,\" he added, \"we know at least the\nmanner of their death; but even this poor comfort is denied to the\nwife and son of Odysseus. Therefore, if thou hast aught to tell, I\nbeseech thee by thy friendship with my father, let me know all, and\nsoften not the tale, out of kindness or pity to me.\"\n\n\"Ah! my friend,\" answered Nestor. \"What woeful memories thou hast\nawakened by thy words!--perils by land and perils by water, long years\nof siege and battle, sleepless nights and toilsome days. Ill-fated\nland of Troy! the grave of Grecian chivalry! There lies heroic Ajax,\nthere lies Achilles, and Patroclus, sage in counsel, and there lies\nAntilochus, my own dear son, fleet of foot and strong of hand. And art\nthou indeed the son of Odysseus, whom none could match in craft and\nstrategy? But why do I ask? When thou speakest, I seem to hear the\nvery tones of his voice. He was my friend, one with me in mind and\nheart, and during all the time of the siege we took counsel together\nfor the weal of Greece. But when the war was over disasters came thick\nand fast upon the host. And first, division arose between the two sons\nof Atreus; Agamemnon wished to abide in Troy until sacrifice had been\noffered to appease the anger of Athene, but Menelaus advised immediate\ndeparture. The party of Menelaus, of whom I was one, launched their\nships and sailed to Tenedos; there Odysseus, who had set sail with us,\nput back to the mainland of Asia, wishing to do a favour to Agamemnon.\nBut I, and Diomede with me, set forth at once, and, crossing the sea\nfrom Lesbos, came to Euboea; thence, after sacrifice to Poseidon, I\nsteered due south, and parting from Diomede at Argos continued my\nvoyage, and landed safe in Pylos. Thus it happened that I was not\nwitness of the good or evil fortunes of the other Greeks on their\nvoyage home, and know only by rumour how they fared. Of Agamemnon's\nfate thou hast surely heard thyself, how he was murdered on his own\nhearth by the treachery of \u00c6gisthus, and how the murder was avenged by\nOrestes. Happy the father who has such a son! And such, methinks, art\nthou.\"\n\n\"Ay,\" answered Telemachus, when Nestor had finished his long story, \"I\nhave heard of that glorious deed; and would to heaven that by the\nmight of my hands I might so take vengeance on the evil men who have\ncome to woo my mother, and who fill my house with injury and outrage.\"\n\n\"Ah! thou hast reminded me,\" said Nestor. \"I heard of the shameful\nwrong which thou hast suffered. But do not despair! Who knows but that\nOdysseus will yet return, and make them drink the cup which they have\nfilled? It may well come to pass, if Athene continues to thy house the\nfavour which she showed thy father, plain for all eyes to see, in the\nland of Troy.\"\n\n\"Nay, 'tis too much to hope,\" answered Telemachus with a sigh, \"the\nthing is too hard--even a god could hardly bring it to pass.\"\n\n\"Now out on thy faint heart!\" cried Mentor, who hitherto had sat\nsilent. \"Better for him that his homecoming should be long delayed\nthan that he should have died, like Agamemnon, fresh from his victory.\nHeaven will guide him yet to his own door, though now he be at the\nuttermost parts of the earth.\"\n\nTelemachus shook his head as he answered: \"No more of that, I pray\nthee; it can never be.\" Then, addressing Nestor, he said: \"I would\nfain ask thee more concerning the manner of Agamemnon's death. Where\nwas Menelaus when that foul deed was done? And how did \u00c6gisthus\ncontrive to slay a man mightier far than himself?\"\n\n\"Thou askest well,\" replied Nestor. \"Menelaus was far away, or we\nshould have another tale to tell. And had the return of Menelaus not\nbeen delayed, vengeance would have been forestalled by many years.\nYea, the dogs would have eaten the flesh of that vile churl, and not a\ntear would have been shed for him. But this is how it fell out: while\nwe were toiling and warring at Troy, \u00c6gisthus sat close to the ear of\nClyt\u00e6mnestra, Agamemnon's wife, and poured sweet poison into her mind.\nFor a long while she refused to hearken to his base proposals, for she\nwas of a good understanding, and moreover there was ever at her side a\nminstrel, into whose care Agamemnon had given her when he went to\nTroy. But \u00c6gisthus seized upon the minstrel, and left him on a desert\nisland to be devoured by carrion birds. Then Clyt\u00e6mnestra yielded to\nhis suit, and he brought her to his own house.\n\n\"But as to thy question concerning Menelaus, he left Troy in my\ncompany, as I told thee, and we sailed together as far as Sunium.\nThere Menelaus lost his steersman, who was visited by Apollo with\nsudden death, as he sat by the helm; so he remained there to bury his\ncomrade. But his misfortunes were not yet over; for when he reached\nthe steep headland at Malea a violent storm arose, and parted his\nfleet. Some of his ships ran into Crete for shelter, while he himself\nwas carried away to Egypt, where he remained many days, and gathered\nstore of wealth.\n\n\"Now thou understandest why \u00c6gisthus was able to work his will on\nAgamemnon, and why he escaped vengeance so long. For seven years he\nsat on the throne of golden Mycen\u00e6, and grievously oppressed the\npeople. But in the eighth year came Orestes, and cut him off in the\nfulness of his sin; and on that very day Menelaus came to him, loaded\nwith the treasures of Egypt.\n\n\"Far and long had he wandered; but so do not thou, my child. Leave not\nthy house unguarded, while so many foes are gathered against thee,\nlest when thou return thou find thyself stripped of all. But to\nMenelaus I would have thee go; him thou must by all means consult; for\nwho knows what he may have learnt on that wondrous voyage? Vast is the\nspace of water over which he has travelled, not to be measured in one\nyear by a bird in her speediest flight. If thou wilt, thou canst go to\nSparta in thy ship, or if thou choose to go by land, my chariots and\nmy horses are thine for this service, and my sons shall guide you on\nthe way.\"\n\nII\n\nAmid such talk as this, with many a brave story \"of moving accidents\nby flood and field,\" and many a pithy saw from the white-haired\nNestor, who had lived so long and seen so much, the hours glided\nswiftly by, and the red sun was stooping to the horizon when Mentor\nrose from his seat and said: \"We must be going; the hour of rest is at\nhand, and to-morrow we have far to go.\"\n\n\"Tarry yet a little,\" said Nestor, \"and eat a morsel and drink a cup\nwith us. And after that, if ye are fain to sleep, ye shall have fit\nlodging in my house. Heaven forbid that I should suffer such guests as\nyou to sleep on the cold deck, covered with dew, as if I were some\nneedy wretch, with never a blanket to spare for a friend. May the gods\npreserve me from such a reproach!\"\n\n\"Thou sayest well,\" answered Mentor, \"and Telemachus shall be thy\nguest to-night. But for me, I pray thee have me excused. My place is\non the ship, that I may give an eye to the crew, for I am the only man\nof experience among them. And to-morrow I must go to Elis, to recover\na debt of long standing due to me there. I leave Telemachus to thy\ncare, that thou mayest cherish him and speed him on his way.\"\n\nAs he said these words, while all eyes were fixed upon him, the\nspeaker vanished from sight, and in his stead a great sea-eagle rose\ninto the air, and sped westwards towards the setting sun. Long they\nsat speechless and amazed, and Nestor was the first to break the\nsilence. \"Great things are in store for thee, my son,\" said he to\nTelemachus, \"since thou keepest such company thus early in life. This\nwas none other than Jove's mighty daughter, Athene, who honoured thy\nfather so highly among the Greeks. Be gracious to us, our queen, and\nlet thy blessing rest on me and on my house! and I will offer to thee\na yearling heifer, that hath never felt the yoke. To thee will I\nsacrifice her, when I have made gilt her horns with gold.\"\n\nThen Nestor led the way to his house, and Telemachus sat down with him\nand his sons in the hall. And they filled a bowl with wine eleven\nyears old, exceeding choice, which was reserved for honoured guests.\nAnd after they had finished the bowl, and offered prayer to Athene,\nthey parted for the night. For Telemachus a bed was prepared in the\nportico, and close by him slept Pisistratus, the youngest of Nestor's\nsons.\n\nWhen Telemachus rose next morning he found his host already afoot,\ngiving orders to his sons to prepare the sacrifice to Athene. One was\nsent to fetch the heifer, another to summon the goldsmith, and a third\nto bring up the crew of Telemachus' ship, while the rest busied\nthemselves in raising the altar and making all ready for the\nsacrifice.\n\nPresently the heifer was driven lowing into the courtyard, and the\ngoldsmith followed with the instruments of his art. Nestor gave him\ngold, and the smith beat it into thin leaf with his hammer, and laid\nit skilfully over the horns of the heifer. A handmaid brought pure\nwater, and barley-meal in a basket, while one of Nestor's sons stood\nready with an axe, and another held a bowl to catch the blood. Then\nNestor dipped his hands in the water, took barley-meal from the basket\nand sprinkled it on the head of the beast, and cutting a tuft of hair\nfrom the forehead cast it into the fire. The prayer was spoken, and\nall due rites being ended he who held the axe smote the heifer on the\nhead, just behind the horns. The women raised the sacrificial cry as\nthe heifer dropped to the ground; and next they whose office it was\nlifted up the victim's head, and Pisistratus cut the throat. When the\nlast quiver of life was over they flayed the carcass, cut strips of\nflesh from the thighs, and enveloping them in fat, burnt them on the\naltar. The gods had now their share of the feast; the rest was cut\ninto slices, and broiled over the live embers.\n\nWhile the meal was preparing, Telemachus enjoyed the refreshment of a\nbath; and Polycaste, the youngest of Nestor's daughters, waited on\nhim; for such was the patriarchal simplicity of those days. When he\nhad bathed, and finished his morning meal, the chariot was brought\nout, and a strong pair of horses led under the yoke. And the\nhouse-dame came with a basket, loaded with wine and delicate viands,\nand placed it behind the seat. Telemachus took his place by the side\nof Pisistratus, who was to drive the horses; the last farewells were\nspoken, Pisistratus cracked his whip, and away they went under the\nechoing gateway, and on through the streets of Pylos.\n\n[Illustration: Telemachus departing from Nestor]\n\nThat night they slept at the house of a friend, and early next day\nthey continued their journey. The way grew steep and difficult, great\nmasses of mountains rose near at hand, and at length they entered a\nwide valley, covered with waving fields of corn. By sunset they\nreached the end of their journey, and drew up before the stately\nportals of King Menelaus.\n\n\n\n\nTelemachus at Sparta\n\n\nI\n\nMenelaus was keeping the double marriage feast of his son and\ndaughter, and his house was thronged with wedding guests. All sat\nsilent and attentive, listening to the strains of a harper, and\nwatching the gambols of a pair of tumblers, who were whirling in giddy\nreels round the hall. Presently voices were heard at the entrance, and\none of the squires of Menelaus came and informed his master that two\nstrangers of noble mien were standing without, craving hospitality.\n\"Shall I bring them in,\" asked the squire, \"or send them on to another\nhouse?\"\n\n\"Hast thou lost thy wits?\" answered Menelaus in some heat, being\ntouched in his most sensitive point. \"Shall we, who owe so much to the\nkindness of strangers, in the long years of our wanderings, send any\nman from our doors? Unyoke the horses, and bid our new guests enter.\"\n\nFour or five servants hastened to do his bidding. The horses, covered\nwith sweat from their hard journey, were unyoked and led into the\nstable, and Telemachus, with his companion, was ushered with all\ncourtesy into the great hall of Menelaus. The palace was one of the\nwealthiest and most splendid in Greece; and Telemachus, accustomed to\na much humbler style of dwelling, stood amazed at the glories which\nmet his eyes. After bathing and changing their raiment they returned\nto the hall, and were assigned places close to the chair of Menelaus.\n\nThe prince greeted them kindly, and said: \"Welcome to our halls, young\nsirs. Ye are, as I see, of no mean descent, for Zeus has set his stamp\non your faces,[1] and none can mistake the signs of kingly birth. When\nye have eaten, we will inquire of you further.\"\n\n[Footnote 1: In Homer, all kings and their families are supposed to be\ndescended from Zeus.]\n\nA plentiful and delicate meal was promptly set before the young\ntravellers, and they ate and drank with keen appetite. When they had\nfinished, Telemachus said to Pisistratus, speaking low, that he might\nnot be overheard: \"Dear son of Nestor, is not this a brave place! Hast\nthou ever seen such lavish ornament of silver, and gold, and ivory?\nSurely such is the dwelling of Olympian Zeus; more magnificent it can\nhardly be.\"\n\nThe quick ear of Menelaus caught his last words, and he answered,\nsmiling: \"Nay, my friend, no mortal may vie with the everlasting\nglories of Zeus. But whether any man can equal me in riches, I know\nnot. For indeed I wandered far and long to gather all this treasure,\nto Cyprus, and Phoenicia, and Egypt, to \u00c6thiopia, and Sidon, and the\nAfric shore, a land unmatched in its countless multitudes of sheep.\nThere the ewes bring forth young three times a year, and the poorest\nshepherd has abundance of cheese, and flesh, and milk. From all these\nlands I gathered many a costly freight, and now I dwell in the midst\nof plenty. Nevertheless my heart is sad, when I think of all that I\nhave lost. Had I returned home straight from Troy, I should have come\nback a poor man, for my house had gone to waste in my absence; but I\nshould not have had to mourn for the death of my brother, struck down,\nas doubtless ye have heard, by a murderer's hand. And then the thought\nlies heavy upon me of all those who fell in my cause at Troy, and\nespecially of one who was dear to me above all, Odysseus, ever the\nforemost in every toil and adventure. His image haunts me by day and\nby night, marring my slumbers, and making my food taste bitter in my\nmouth. He was a man of many woes, and sorrowful is the lot of his wife\nPenelope and Telemachus his son.\"\n\nAt this mention of his father Telemachus could not control his tears,\nbut covered his face with his mantle, and wept without restraint.\nMenelaus saw his emotion, and began to suspect who he was; but for the\npresent he said nothing.\n\nA slight stir was now heard at the back of the hall, and a low murmur\nwent round among the guests, who whispered to each other: \"The Queen!\nThe Queen!\" And in she came softly, with slow and stately step, Helen,\nthe daughter of Tyndareus, and wife of Menelaus, fairest among all the\nhigh-born dames of Greece. Her wondrous beauty was now ripened into\nmatronly perfection, but now and then a shadow seemed to pass over her\nface, like the ghost of an old sin, long repented and forgiven. A\nhandmaid set a chair for her, throwing over it a soft rug, and brought\na footstool for her feet, while another bare a silver basket, with\nrims of gold, and placed it ready, filled with purple yarn. When Helen\nwas seated, she gazed long and earnestly at Telemachus, and then,\nturning to her husband, she said; \"Menelaus, shall I utter the thought\nwhich is in my heart? Nay, speak I must. Ne'er saw I such a likeness,\neither in man or woman, as is the likeness of this fair youth to\nOdysseus. Surely this is Telemachus, whom he left an infant in Ithaca\nwhen the host was summoned to Troy to fight in a worthless woman's\ncause.\"\n\n\"I have marked it too,\" answered Menelaus. \"Such were his very hands\nand feet, and the carriage of his head, and the glance of his eye.\nMoreover, when I made mention of Odysseus he covered his face, and\nwept full sore.\"\n\nTelemachus was still too much distressed to speak, and Pisistratus had\nto answer for him: \"Thou sayest truly, my lord; it is Telemachus\nhimself. Nestor sent me with him to inquire of thee, and crave counsel\nof thy wisdom. He is left like an orphan in his home, with none to aid\nhim, and take his father's place.\"\n\nThen Menelaus drew near to Telemachus, and taking his hand kindly\nsaid: \"Welcome again, and thrice welcome to these halls, thou son of\nmy trustiest friend and helper! It was the dream of my life to bring\nOdysseus and all his household from Ithaca, and give him a home and a\ncity in this land, that we might grow old together in friendship and\nloving-kindness, never to be parted until death. But envious heaven\nhas blighted my hopes and hindered his return.\"\n\nAt these sad words every eye was moist, and all sat silent, absorbed\nin sorrowful memories. Pisistratus was the first to speak, and his\nwords roused the rest from their melancholy mood. \"Son of Atreus,\" he\nsaid, \"my father has often spoken of thy wisdom, and perchance it has\ntaught thee that sorrow is an ill guest at a banquet. The dead,\nindeed, claim their due, and he would be hard-hearted who would grudge\nthem the poor tribute of a tear. But we cannot mourn for ever, even\nfor such a one as my brother Antilochus, whom I never saw, but thou\nknewest him well, stout in battle, and swift in the pursuit.\"\n\n\"'Tis well said,\" replied Menelaus. \"Thou art wise beyond thy years,\nand a true son of Nestor. Happy is he, beyond the common lot of men,\nand smooth and fair runs the thread of his Destiny. He dwells in a\ngreen old age in his father's house, and sees his sons growing up\naround him, true heirs of his valour and prudence. Now let us banish\ncare, and get to our supper, for the day is far spent, and we have\nmatter for talk which will last us all the morrow.\"\n\nWhen they had finished eating, and the cups were about to be\nreplenished, Helen rose from her seat, and, whispering a few words to\nthe cupbearer, left the hall. In a few minutes she returned, carrying\nin her hand a small phial, whose contents she poured into the great\nmixing-bowl from which the cups were filled. \"Now, drink,\" she said,\n\"and fear not that black care will pay us a second visit to-night. I\nhave poured into the wine a drug of wondrous potency and virtue, which\nwas given me in Egypt by Polydamna, the wife of Thon. Many such drugs\nthe soil of Egypt bears, some baneful and some good. And the Egyptians\nare skilled in such craft beyond all mankind. He who drinks of this\ndrug will be armed for that day against all the assaults of sorrow,\nand will not shed one tear, though his father and mother were to die,\nno, not though he saw his brother or his son slain before his eyes. So\nmighty is the virtue of this drug.\" And when they had drunk of the\nmagic potion Helen began again: \"'Tis now the witching hour, when all\nhearts are opened, and the burden of life presses lightest on men's\nshoulders. Come, let me tell you a story, one among many, of the deeds\nand the hardihood of Odysseus. It was in the days of the siege, and\nthe Trojans were kept close prisoners in their city by the leaguer of\nthe Greeks. Then he disguised himself as a beggar, clothed himself in\nfilthy rags, and marred his goodly person with cruel stripes. In such\nfashion he entered the foemen's walls, as if he were a slave flying\nfrom a hard master.[1] And I alone in all the city knew who he was. So\nI brought him to my house, and began to question him; but he made as\nif he understood not. But when I entertained him as an honoured guest,\nand swore a solemn oath not to betray him, he trusted me, and declared\nall the purpose of the Greeks. At dead of night he stole out into the\ntown, and, having slain many of the Trojans with the edge of the\nsword, he went back to the camp, and brought much information to his\nfriends.\n\n[Footnote 1: Compare the stratagem of Zopyrus, in \"Stories from Greek\nHistory.\"]\n\n\"When morning came, the voice of wailing rose high in the streets of\nTroy; but my heart rejoiced, for I was filled with longing for my\nhome, and my eyes were opened to the folly which I had wrought by the\nbeguilement of Aphrodite, when I left my fatherland and broke faith\nwith my lord.\"\n\n\"Tis a good story, and thou hast told it well, fair wife,\" said\nMenelaus. \"Now hear my tale. It was the time when I and the other\nchampions were shut up in the wooden horse; and Odysseus was with us.\nThen thou camest thither, led, I suppose, by some god, hostile to\nGreece, who wished to work our ruin; and Deiphobus followed thee.\nThree times thou didst pace around our hollow ambush, feeling it with\nthy hands, and calling aloud to the princes of Greece by name; and thy\nvoice was like the voice of all their wives. There we sat, I, and\nDiomede, and the rest, and heard thee calling. Now I and Diomede were\nminded to answer thee, or to go forth and confer with thee; but\nOdysseus suffered it not, and when one of our number was about to lift\nup his voice he pressed his hands on that foolish mouth, and\nrestrained him by force until thou hadst left the place. And so he\nsaved all our lives.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Telemachus, \"he had a heart of iron. But what has it\navailed him? It could not save him from ruin. Howbeit, no more of\nthis; 'tis time to go to rest and forget our cares in sleep.\"\n\nII\n\nEarly next morning Telemachus found his host sitting by his bedside;\nand as soon as he was dressed Menelaus led him to a quiet place, and\ninquired the reason of his coming. He listened with attention while\nTelemachus explained the purpose of his visit; but when he heard of\nthe suitors, and their riot and waste, he was filled with indignation.\n\n\"What!\" he cried, \"would these dastards fill the seat and wed the wife\nof that mighty man? Their lot shall be the lot of a pair of fawns,\nleft by the mother hind in a lion's lair. The hind goes forth to\npasture, and in her absence the lion returns, and devours them where\nthey lie. Even so shall Odysseus return, and bring swift destruction\non the whole crew.\n\n\"But thou hast asked me what I know of the fortunes of Odysseus, since\nhe departed from Troy; and verily I will tell thee all that I have\nheard, without turning aside in my tale. I must go back to the time\nwhen I lay wind-bound with my ships in a little island off the mouth\nof the Nile. The island is called Pharos, and it is distant a day's\nvoyage from the river's mouth. I had lain there twenty days, and still\nnot a breath of air ruffled the glassy surface of the sea. All our\nstores were consumed, and we had nothing to eat but the fish which my\nmen caught with rudely fashioned hooks and lines. One day I left my\nmen busy with their angling, and wandered away along the shore, full\nof sad thoughts, and wondering how all this would end. Suddenly I\nheard a light footstep on the pebbles, and there stepped forth from\nbehind a tall rock a young maiden in white, flowing robes. Full of\ndread I saw her coming towards me; for I knew that she was no mortal\nwoman. But her look was gracious, and her voice was sweet; so I took\ncourage as she said: 'Who art thou, stranger, and why lingerest thou\nwith thy company in this desert place? I am Eidothea, daughter of\nProteus, the ancient one of the sea; and I am ready to help thee, if\nthou wilt tell me thy need.'\n\n\"Then I told her how I had been kept an unwilling captive on the\nisland, and begged her to let me know what power I had offended, that\nhe might be appeased by sacrifice, and suffer the wind to blow. 'There\nis one who can tell thee all that thou desirest to know,' answered\nshe. 'Yea, Proteus, my father, will show thee how to win thy path\nacross the watery waste. No secrets are hidden from him, neither on\nearth nor in the sea; and he can tell thee all that hath befallen in\nthy house in the long years of thine absence. Now hearken, and I will\ntell thee how thou mayest wring from him all his secrets. Every day at\nnoon he comes forth from the sea, and lays him down to sleep in a\nrocky cave; and about him are couched his herd of seals. I will bring\nthee to the place in the early morning, and set thee in ambush to\nawait his coming. Choose three of the stoutest of thy men to aid thee\nin the adventure, and as soon as thou seest him asleep rush upon him\nand hold him fast. He will struggle hard, and take a hundred different\nshapes; but loose him not until he return to his own form, and then\nwill he reveal to thee all that he has to tell.'\n\n\"So saying, the goddess disappeared beneath the waves. Next morning I\nwent with three picked men to the appointed place, and soon Eidothea\narrived, bearing four hides of seals, freshly flayed. Then she\nhollowed out four pits in the sand for us to lie in, and clothed us in\nthe skins, and couched us together. Now that bed had like to have been\nour last, for we were stifled by the dreadful stench of the seabred\nseals. But the goddess saw our distress, and found a remedy; for she\nbrought ambrosia and set it beneath our nostrils, and that heavenly\nperfume overpowered the noisome stench.\n\n\"So all the morning we lay and wafted patiently, and at noon the seals\ncame up out of the sea and lay down in order on the sand. Last of all\ncame Proteus, and counted his herd, reckoning us among their number,\nwith no suspicion of guile. We waited until he was fast asleep, and\nthen we rushed from our ambush and seized him hand and foot. Long and\nhard was the struggle, and many the shapes which he took. First he\nbecame a bearded lion, then a snake, then a leopard, then a huge boar;\nafter these he turned into running water and a tall, leafy tree. But\nwe only held him the more firmly, and at last he grew weary and spake\nto me in his own shape: 'What wouldst thou have, son of Atreus, and\nwho has taught thee to outwit me and take me captive by craft?'\n\n\"'Thou knowest my need,' I answered; 'why dost thou waste thy words?\nTell me rather how I may find release from my present strait'\n\n\"'Hear, then,' said he: 'thou hast forgotten thy duty to Zeus and the\nother gods. Not a victim bled, not a prayer was offered, when thou\ndidst embark on this voyage. Go back to Egypt, to the holy waters of\nNile, and there pay thy vows, and offer a great sacrifice to their\noffended deity; thus, and thus only, canst thou win thy return to\nthine own country and thy stately home.'\n\n\"When I heard this my heart was broken within me, to think of that\nlong and perilous path across the misty deep. Nevertheless I consented\nto take that journey, for I saw no other way of escape. And after I\nhad promised to obey him, I began to inquire further of the fate of\nNestor and the rest, whom I left behind me on my way home.\n\n\"''Tis a grievous story that thou requirest of me,' said Proteus, 'and\nthou shalt have little joy in the hearing. Many have been taken and\nmany left. Two only perished in returning, and one is still living, a\nprisoner of the sea. Ajax has paid his debt to Athene, whose shrine he\npolluted; and this was the manner of his death: when his vessel was\nshattered by that great tempest, he himself escaped to a rock, for\nPoseidon came to his aid. But even the peril which he had just escaped\ncould not subdue his haughtiness and his pride, and he uttered an\nimpious vaunt, boasting that in despite of heaven he had escaped a\nwatery grave. Then Poseidon was wroth, and smote the rock with his\ntrident, and that half of the rock on which Ajax was sitting fell into\nthe sea, bearing him with it. So he died, when he had drunk the brine.\n\n\"'Now harden thy heart, and learn how thy brother Agamemnon fell.\nAfter a long and stormy voyage he at length brought his shattered\nvessels safe into harbour, and set foot on his native soil at Argos.\nWith tears of joy and thankfulness he fell on his knees and kissed the\nsod, trusting that now his sorrows were passed. Now there was a\nwatchman whom \u00c6gisthus had posted on a high place commanding the sea\nto look out for Agamemnon's return. A whole year he watched, for he\nhad been promised a great reward. And when he saw the king's face he\nwent with all speed to tell his master. Forthwith \u00c6gisthus prepared an\nambush of twenty armed men; these he kept in hiding at the back of the\nhall, while he ordered his servants to prepare a great banquet. Then\nhe went to meet Agamemnon with horses and with chariots, and brought\nhim to his house, and made good cheer. And when he had feasted him he\nsmote and slew him, as a man slaughters an ox in his stall.'\n\n\"At that tale of horror I fell upon the sand, weeping bitterly, for I\nhad no desire to live any longer or look on the light of the sun. Long\nI lay mourning, as one who had lost all hope, but at last Proteus\nchecked the torrent of my passion, and bade me take thought of my own\nhomecoming. 'This is no time,' he said, 'to melt away in womanish\ngrief. Haste thee to take vengeance, if so be that Orestes hath not\nforestalled thee, and slain his father's murderer.'\n\n\"Somewhat comforted by these words, I took courage to ask who was the\nman of whom he had spoken as a prisoner of the sea. 'It is the son of\nLaertes,' answered Proteus, 'Odysseus, whose home is in Ithaca. I\nmyself saw him on an island, in the house of the nymph Calypso; and\nsore he wept because he could not leave the goddess, who holds him in\nthrall, and will not suffer him to return to his country.'\n\n\"Lastly, he told me concerning my own fate. 'Thou, Menelaus,' he said,\n'art exempt from the common lot of men, because thou art the husband\nof Helen, and she is a daughter of Zeus. Therefore it is not appointed\nfor thee to die, but when thine hour is come the gods shall convey\nthee to the Elysian fields, where dwell the elect spirits in\neverlasting blessedness. There falls not snow nor rain, there blows no\nrude blast, but the fresh cool breath of the west comes softly from\nOcean to refresh them that dwell in that happy clime.'\"\n\nThus happily ended the story of the Spartan prince's wanderings. And\nwhen he had finished, he pressed Telemachus to prolong his visit; but\nthat prudent youth declined the invitation, pleading the necessity of\na speedy return to Ithaca, that he might keep an eye on the doings of\nthe suitors. Menelaus was compelled to allow the justice of his plea,\nand accordingly all things were made ready for a speedy departure.\n\nIII\n\nWe must now return to Ithaca, and see what reception was preparing for\nTelemachus when he came back from his adventurous journey. Two or\nthree days after he left Ithaca the suitors were gathered before the\ndoors of Odysseus, playing at quoits, or hurling their javelins at a\nmark. Presently a young noble came up to the group, and addressing\nAntinous, who was watching the sport, asked him if he had heard aught\nof Telemachus. \"I would fain know how long he is like to be absent\nfrom Ithaca,\" he said; \"for he has borrowed my ship, and I have need\nof her. Know ye when he is to return from Pylos?\"\n\nAntinous heard him with amazement; for neither he nor any other of the\nsuitors knew that Telemachus had sailed from Ithaca, supposing him to\nbe absent on his farm. So he questioned the youth closely as to the\ntime and manner of that voyage, how the crew was composed, and whether\nthe vessel was lent willingly, or taken by force. \"Of my own free will\nI lent her,\" answered the lad, \"why should I not help him in his need?\nAs to the crew, they were all picked men, and well born; and the\ncaptain was Mentor, or some god in his likeness; for I saw Mentor\nyesterday in the town, and not a ship has touched at Ithaca since they\nsailed.\"\n\nWhen he who had lent the ship was departed the suitors left their\nsports, and drawing close together began to converse in low tones.\nThey were full of anger against Telemachus because of this journey,\nwhich gave the lie to their malicious prophecies, and was not without\nprospect of danger to themselves. Accordingly Antinous found ready\nhearers when he stood up and spoke as follows:--\"This forward boy must\nbe put down, or he will mar our wooing. It is a great deed which he\nhas done, and he will not stop here, unless we find means to cut short\nhis adventures. Now hear what I advise: let us man a ship and moor her\nin the narrow sea between Ithaca and Samos, and lie in wait for him\nthere. This cruise of his is like to cost him dear.\"\n\nThe plan was highly approved, and the whole body rose and entered the\nhouse together, resolved to act at once on the advice of Antinous.\nBefore long news of their wicked designs came to the ears of Penelope,\nwho was still ignorant of her son's departure; for Eurycleia had kept\nher counsel well. The evil tidings were brought by Medon, a servant in\nthe house of Odysseus, who had overheard the suitors plotting\ntogether, while he stood concealed behind a buttress of the courtyard\nfence. Without delay he went in search of Penelope, whom he found\nsitting with her handmaids in her chamber. As soon as he appeared on\nthe threshold Penelope looked at him reproachfully, and said: \"What\nmessage bringest thou from thy fair masters? Is it their pleasure that\nmy maidens should leave their tasks and spread the board for them? Out\non your feasting and your wooing! May this be the last morsel that ye\never taste! Ungrateful men, have ye forgotten all the good deeds that\nwere wrought here by the hands of Odysseus, and all the kindness that\nye received from him? Yes, all is forgotten; ye have no thought in\nyour hearts but to grow fat at his cost, and devour his living.\"\n\n\"Alas! lady,\" answered Medon, \"would that this were the worst! But I\nam the bearer of heavier news than this. Telemachus has sailed to\nPylos, to inquire concerning his father, and the suitors have plotted\nto slay him on his way home.\" Having delivered his message, Medon left\nthe chamber, and the door was shut.\n\nLong Penelope sat without a word, struck dumb by this cruel blow.\nThen, as if seized by a sudden thought, she rose from her seat, and\ntook two paces towards the door. But her strength failing her she\ntottered backward, and sank down upon the ground, leaning against the\nwall. Her handmaids gathered round her, and would have lifted her up,\nbut she waved them off and at last gave utterance to her feelings in\nwailing and broken tones:\n\n\"Woeful beyond the lot of all women on earth is my portion! First, I\nlost my lion-hearted lord, rich in every excellent gift, a hero among\nheroes; and now the powers of the air[1] have carried off my child, my\nwell-beloved, without one word of farewell. Hearts of stone, why did\nye not tell me of his going? Had I known his purpose I would have\nprevailed on him to stay, or he must have left me dead in these halls.\nGo, one of you, and call Dolius, the keeper of my garden and orchard,\nand send him to tell all to Laertes, if haply he may devise some way\nto turn the hearts of the people, and save his race from being utterly\ncut off.\"\n\n[Footnote 1: Demons, to whom sudden disappearance was attributed.]\n\n\"Sweet lady,\" answered Eurycleia, who was sitting among the women, \"I\nwill tell thee all the truth, and then thou shalt slay me, if it be\nthy will. I was privy to this journey, and Telemachus made me swear a\nsolemn oath not to reveal it to thee until twelve days were passed, or\nthou hadst heard of it from others. For he feared that thou wouldst\nwaste thy fair cheeks with weeping. But be not cast down; I am sure\nthat the gods hate not so utterly the house of Odysseus, nor purpose\nto destroy it altogether. Vex not the old man Laertes in his sorrow,\nbut go wash thyself, put on clean raiment, and go up and pray to\nAthene in thy upper chamber to guard and keep thy son from harm.\"\n\nThen Penelope was comforted, and dried her tears, and went up with her\nhandmaids to the upper chamber. There she made her offering before the\nshrine of Athene, and lifted up her voice in prayer: \"Daughter of\nZeus, stern warrior maiden, if ever my lord Odysseus offered\nacceptable sacrifice to thee, remember now his service, save my son,\nand let not the wooers work evil against him.\" When her prayer was\nended the women joined their voices with hers, and called again and\nagain on the awful name of Athene. After that they left her, and she\nsank down on a couch, exhausted by her emotions, and full of anxious\nthought. At length she ceased her weary tossing, and fell into a quiet\nand refreshing sleep.\n\nAthene had heard her prayer, and being full of pity for the sorely\ntried lady she resolved to find means to soothe her troubled spirit.\nSo she made a phantom, like in form and in feature to Iphthime, a\nsister of Penelope, who lived with her husband in distant Pher\u00e6. And\nthe phantom came to the house of Penelope, and entering her chamber by\nthe keyhole, stood by her bedside and spake to her thus: \"Sorrow not\nat all, nor vex thy soul for the sake of Telemachus. The gods love thy\nson, and will bring him safe home.\"\n\nThen wise Penelope made answer, slumbering right sweetly at the gates\nof dreams: \"Dear sister, what has brought thee hither from thy far\ndistant home? Thou biddest me take comfort, but my heart is torn with\nfear and grief for my brave lord, and yet more for Telemachus, who is\nencompassed with perils by sea and by land.\" \"Fear nothing,\" answered\nthe dim phantom. \"He has a mighty helper by his side, even Pallas\nAthene, who sent me hither to strengthen and console thee.\" With that\nthe ghostly visitor vanished as it came, and left Penelope much\ncheered by the clear vision which had brought her words of healing at\nthe blackest hour of the night.\n\nMeanwhile Antinous had taken steps to carry out his villainous design.\nAt nightfall he went down to the sea with twenty picked men, boarded\nthe vessel which had been prepared for their use, and sailed out to a\nlittle island which lies in the middle of the strait between Samos and\nIthaca. There they anchored in a sheltered bay, and waited for the\ncoming of Telemachus.\n\n\n\n\nOdysseus and Calypso\n\n\nI\n\nWe have waited long for the appearance of Odysseus, and at last he is\nabout to enter the scene, which he will never leave again until the\nfinal act of the great drama is played out. Hitherto he has been\npursued by the malice of Poseidon, who wrecked his fleet, drowned all\nhis men, and kept him confined for seven years in Calypso's island, in\nvengeance for the blinding of his son Polyphemus.\n\nBut now the prayers of Athene have prevailed, and Hermes, the\nmessenger of the gods, is on his way from Olympus, bearing a\nperemptory summons to Calypso to let Odysseus depart. Shod with his\ngolden, winged sandals, which bear him, swift as the wind, over moist\nand dry, and holding in his hand his magic wand, Hermes skimmed like a\nseagull over the blue waters of the \u00c6g\u00e6an, until he came to that far\ndistant isle. Arrived there, he went straight to the great cavern\nwhere Calypso dwelt; and he found her there, walking about her room,\nweaving with a golden shuttle, and singing sweetly at her work. A\ngreat fire was blazing on the hearth, sending forth a sweet odour of\ncedar and sandal-wood. Round about the cavern grew a little wood of\nblossoming trees, \"alder and poplar tall, and cypress sweet of smell\";\nand there owls and hawks and cormorants built their nests. Over the\nthreshold was trained a wide-branching vine, with many a purple\ncluster and wealth of rustling leaves. Four springs of clear water\nwelled up before the cave, and wandered down to the meadows where the\nviolet and parsley grew. It was a choice and cool retreat, meet\ndwelling for a lovely nymph.\n\nCalypso greeted her visitor kindly, bade him be seated, and set nectar\nand ambrosia before him. And when he had refreshed himself, he told\nhis message. \"I bear the commands of Zeus,\" he said, \"and to do his\nhigh will have I travelled this long and weary way. It is said that\nthou keepest with thee a man of many woes, who has suffered more than\nany of those who fought at Troy. Him thou art commanded to send away\nfrom thee with all speed; for it is not destined for him to end his\ndays here, but the hour has come when he must go back to his home and\ncountry, Zeus has spoken, and thou must obey.\"\n\nThis was bitter news to Calypso, for she loved Odysseus, and would\nhave made him immortal, that he might abide with her for ever. She\nwrung her hands, and said in a mournful voice: \"Now I know of a truth\nthat the gods are a jealous race, and will not suffer one of their\nkind to wed with a mortal mate. Therefore Orion fell by the unseen\narrows of Artemis, when fair Aurora chose him for her lord; and\ntherefore Zeus slew Iasion with his lightning, because he was loved of\nDemeter. Is not Odysseus mine? Did I not save him and cherish him when\nhe was flung naked and helpless on these shores? But since no other\ndeity may evade or frustrate the will of Zeus, let him go, and I will\nshow him how he may reach his own country without scathe.\"\n\nWhen he had heard Calypso's answer, Hermes took leave of her, and\nreturned to Olympus, and the nymph went down to the part of the shore\nwhere she knew Odysseus was accustomed to sit. There he would remain\nall day, gazing tearfully over the barren waste of waters, and wearing\nout his soul with ceaseless lamentation. For he had long grown weary\nof his soft slavery in Calypso's cave, and yearned with exceeding\ngreat desire for the familiar hills of Ithaca, so rugged, but so dear.\nAnd there Calypso found him now, sitting on a rock with dejected mien.\nShe sat down at his side, and said: \"A truce to thy complaints, thou\nman of woes! Thou hast thy wish; I will let thee go with all\ngood-will, and I will show thee how to build a broad raft, which\nshall bear thee across the misty deep. I will victual her with corn\nand wine, and clothe thee in new garments, and send a breeze behind\nthee to waft thee safe. Thus am I commanded by the gods, whose\ndwelling is in the wide heaven, and their will I do. Up now and fell\nme yon tall trees for timber to make the raft.\"\n\nOdysseus was by nature a very shrewd and cautious man, and he feared\nthat Calypso was contriving some mischief against him, in revenge for\nhis coldness. He looked at her doubtfully, and answered: \"I fear thee,\nnymph, and I mistrust thy purpose. How shall a man cross this dreadful\ngulf, where no ship is ever seen, on a raft? And though that were\npossible, I will never leave thee against thy will. Swear to me now\nthat thou intendest me no harm.\"\n\nCalypso smiled at his suspicions, and patted him on the shoulder as\nshe answered: \"Thou art a sad rogue, and very deep of wit, as anyone\nmay see by these words of thine. Now hear me swear: Witness, thou\nearth, and the wide heaven above us, and the dark waterfall of Styx,\nthe greatest and most awful thing by which a god may swear, that I\nintend no ill, but only good, to this man.\"\n\nHaving sworn that oath Calypso rose, and bidding Odysseus follow led\nthe way to her cave. There she set meat before him, such as mortal men\neat, and wine to drink; but she herself was served by her handmaids\nwith immortal food, and nectar, the wine of the gods. When they had\nsupped, Calypso looked at Odysseus and said: \"And wilt thou indeed\nleave me, thou strange man? Am I not tall and fair, and worthy to be\ncalled a daughter of heaven? And is thy Penelope so rare a dame, that\nthou preferrest her to me! Ah! if thou knewest all the toils which\nawait thee before thou reachest thy home, and all the perils prepared\nfor thee there, thou wouldst renounce thy purpose, and dwell for ever\nwith me. Nevertheless go, if go thou must, and my blessing go with\nthee.\"\n\nHer words were kind, but some anger lurked in her tone, which Odysseus\nhastened to appease. \"Fair goddess,\" he answered, \"be not wroth with\nme. I know that thou art more lovely far than my wife Penelope; for\nthou art divine, and she is but a mortal woman. Nevertheless I long\nday and night to see her face, and to sit beneath the shadow of my own\nrooftree. And if I be stricken again by the hand of Heaven on the\npurple sea, I will bear it, for I have a very patient heart. Long have\nI toiled, and much have I suffered, amid waves and wars. If more\nremains, I will endure that also.\"\n\nII\n\nAt early dawn, when the eastern wave was just silvered by the dim\nlight, Calypso roused Odysseus, and equipped him for the task of the\nday. First she gave him a weighty two-edged axe, well balanced on its\nhaft of olive-wood, and an adze, freshly ground; then she showed him\nwhere the tall trees grew, and bade him fall to work with the axe.\nTwenty great trees fell beneath his sturdy strokes, and he trimmed the\ntrunks with the axe, and stripped off the bark. Meanwhile Calypso had\nbrought him an augur, and he bored the timbers, and fitted them\ntogether, and fastened them with bolts and cross-pieces. So the raft\ngrew under his hands, broad as the floor of a stout merchantship. And\nhe fenced her with bulwarks, piling up blocks of wood to steady them.\nLast of all he made mast and sail and rigging; and when all was ready\nhe thrust the frail vessel with rollers and levers down to the sea.\n\nFour times the sun had risen and set before his labour was ended; and\non the fifth day Calypso brought him provisions for the voyage, a\ngreat goatskin bottle full of water, and a smaller one of wine, and a\nsack of corn, with other choice viands as a relish to his bread.\n\nA joyful man was Odysseus when he spread his sail, and took his place\nat the helm, and waved a last farewell to his gentle friend. A fair\nbreeze wafted him swiftly from the shore, and ere long that lovely\nisland, at once his home and his prison for seven long years, became a\nmere shadow in the distance. All night he sat sleepless, tiller in\nhand, watching the pilot stars, the Pleiades, and Bo\u00f6tes, and the\nBear, named also the Wain, which turns on one spot, and watches Orion,\nand never dips into the ocean stream. For the goddess Calypso had\nbidden him keep that star on the left hand as he sailed the seas. Thus\nhe voyaged for seventeen days, and on the eighteenth he saw afar off,\ndimly outlined, a range of hills, rising, like the back of a shield,\nabove the horizon's verge.\n\nNow Poseidon, his great enemy, had been absent for many days on a far\njourney, and thus had taken no part in the council at Olympus when\nZeus had issued his order for the release of Odysseus. Just at this\ntime he was on his way back to Olympus, and caught sight of the bold\nvoyager steering towards the nearest land. \"Ha! art thou there?\" said\nthe implacable god, shaking his head; \"and have the other powers\nplotted against me in my absence, to frustrate my just anger? Thy\nwanderings are well-nigh over, poor wretch! But thou shalt taste once\nmore of my vengeance, before thou reachest yonder shore.\"\n\nSo saying the lord of ocean took his trident and stirred up the deep;\nand the clouds came trooping at his call, covering the sky with a\nblack curtain. Soon a great tempest broke loose, blowing in violent\nand fitful blasts from all the four quarters of heaven. Then pale fear\ngot hold of Odysseus, as he saw the great curling billows heaving\nround his frail craft. \"Woe is me!\" he cried, \"when shall my troubles\nhave an end? Surely the goddess spoke truth, when she foretold me that\nI should perish amid the waves, and never see my home again. Here I\nlie helpless, given over to destruction, the sport of all the winds of\nheaven. Happy, thrice happy, were my comrades who fell fighting\nbravely and found honourable burial in the soil of Troy! Would that I\nhad died on that great day when the battle raged fiercest over the\nbody of Pelides; then should I have found death with honour, but now I\nam doomed to a miserable and dishonoured end.\"\n\nThe words were hardly uttered when a huge toppling wave struck the\nraft with tremendous force, carrying away mast and sail, and hurling\nOdysseus into the sea. Deep down he sank, and the waters darkened over\nhis head, for he was encumbered by the weight of his clothes. At last\nhe rose to the surface, gasping, and spitting out the brine, and\nthough sore spent, he swam towards the raft, and hauled himself on\nboard. There he sat clinging to the dismasted and rudderless vessel,\nwhich was tossed to and fro from wave to wave, as the winds of autumn\nsport with the light thistledown and drive it hither and thither.\n\nBut help was at hand. There was a certain ocean nymph, named Ino,\ndaughter of Cadmus, who had once been a mortal woman, but now was\nnumbered among the immortal powers. She saw and pitied Odysseus, and\nboarding the raft addressed him in this wise: \"Poor man, why is\nPoseidon so wroth with thee that he maltreats thee thus? Yet shall he\nnot destroy thee, for all his malice. Only do as I bid thee, and thou\nshalt get safely to land: take this veil, and when thou hast stripped\noff thy garments, bind it across thy breast. Then leave the raft to\nits fate, and swim manfully to land; and when thou art safe fling the\nveil back into the sea, and go thy way.\"\n\nSo saying the goddess sank beneath the waves, leaving Odysseus with\nher veil in his hand. But that cautious veteran did not at once act on\nher advice, for he feared that some treachery was intended against\nhim. He resolved therefore to remain on the raft as long as her\ntimbers held together, and only to have recourse to the veil in the\nlast extremity.\n\nHe had just taken this prudent resolution, when another wave, more\nhuge than the last, thundered down on the raft, scattering her\ntimbers, as the wind scatters a heap of chaff. Odysseus clung fast to\none beam and, mounting it, sat astride as on a horse, until he had\nstripped off his clothes. Then he bound the veil round him, flung\nhimself head foremost into the billows, and swam lustily towards land.\n\nThe storm was now subsiding, and a steady breeze succeeded, blowing\nfrom the north, which helped that much-tried hero in his struggle for\nlife. Yet for two days and two nights he battled with the waves, and\nwhen day broke on the third day he found himself close under a\nfrowning wall of cliffs, at whose foot the sea was breaking with a\nnoise like thunder. Odysseus ceased swimming, and trod the water,\nlooking anxiously round for an opening in the cliffs where he might\nland. While he hesitated, a great foaming wave came rushing landward,\nthreatening to sweep him against that rugged shore; but Odysseus saw\nhis danger in time, and succeeded in gaining a rocky mass which stood\nabove the surface just before him, and clutching it with hands and\nknees, contrived to keep his hold until the huge billow was past. In\nanother moment he was caught by the recoil of the wave, and flung back\ninto the boiling surf, with fingers torn and bleeding. With desperate\nexertions he fought his way out into the comparatively calm water,\noutside the line of breakers, and swam parallel to the shore, until he\nsaw with delight a sheltered inlet, whence a river flowed into the\nsea. Murmuring a prayer to the god of the river he steered for land,\nand a few strokes brought him to a smooth sandy beach, where he lay\nfor a long time without sense or motion. All his flesh was swollen by\nhis long immersion in the water, the skin was stripped from his hands,\nand when his breath came back to him he felt as weak as a child. Then\na deadly nausea came over him, and the water which he had swallowed\ngushed up through his mouth and nostrils. Somewhat relieved by this,\nhe rose to his feet, and tottering to the river's brink loosed the\nveil from his waist, and dropped it into the flowing water. For he\nremembered the request of Ino, to whom he owed his life.\n\nHe had indeed escaped the sea; but his position seemed almost\nhopeless. There he lay, naked, and more dead than alive, without food\nor shelter, in a strange land, without a sign of human habitation in\nview. Crawling painfully to a bed of rushes he lay down and considered\nwhat was best for him to do. He could not remain where he was, for it\nwas an exposed place, with no protection from the dew, and open to the\nchill breeze from the river, which blows at early dawn. A few hours of\nsuch a vigil would certainly kill him in his exhausted state. If, on\nthe other hand, he sought the shelter of the woods, he feared that he\nwould fall a prey to some prowling beast.\n\nAt last he determined to face the less certain peril, and made his way\ninto a thicket not far from the river side. Searching for a place\nwhere he might lie he soon came upon two dense bushes of olive, whose\nleaves and branches were so closely interwoven that they formed a sort\nof natural arbour, impenetrable by sun, or rain, or wind. \"In good\ntime!\" murmured Odysseus, as he crept beneath that green roof, and\nscooped out a deep bed for himself in the fallen leaves. There he lay\ndown, and piled the leaves high over him. And as a careful housewife\nin some remote farmhouse, where there are no neighbours near, covers\nup a burning brand among the ashes, so that it may last all night, and\npreserve the seed of fire; so lay Odysseus, nursing the spark of life,\nin his deep bed of leaves. And soon he forgot all his troubles in a\ndeep and dreamless sleep.\n\n\n\n\nOdysseus among the Ph\u00e6acians\n\n\nI\n\nThe land on which Odysseus had thus been cast like a piece of broken\nwreckage was called Ph\u00e6acia, and derived its name from the Ph\u00e6acians,\na race of famous mariners, who had settled there some fifty years\nbefore, having been driven from their former seat by the Cyclopes, a\nsavage tribe, who dwelt on their borders. The Ph\u00e6acians were an\nunwarlike people, and being in no condition to resist the fierce\nassaults of these lawless neighbours, they abandoned their homes and\nbuilt a new city on a little peninsula, connected with the mainland by\na narrow isthmus. Defended by strong walls they were now safe against\nall attacks, and they soon grew rich and prosperous in the exercise of\na thriving trade.\n\nAt this time the king of the Ph\u00e6acians was Alcinous, who had a fair\ndaughter, named Nausica\u00e4. On the night when Odysseus lay couched in\nhis bed of leaves Nausica\u00e4 was sleeping in her bower, and with her\nwere two handmaids, whose beds were set on either side of the door.\nAnd in a dream she seemed to hear one of her girlish friends, the\ndaughter of a neighbouring house, speaking to her thus: \"Nausica\u00e4, why\nart thou grown so careless as to suffer all the raiment in thy\nfather's house to remain unwashen, when thy bridal day is so near?\nWouldst thou be wedded in soiled attire, and have all thy friends clad\nunseemly, to put thee to shame? These are a woman's cares, by which\nshe wins a good report among men, and gladdens her mother's heart.\nArise, therefore, at break of day, and beg thy father to let harness\nthe mules to the wain, that thou mayest take the linen to the place of\nwashing, far away by the river's side. I will go with thee, and help\nthee in the work.\"\n\nSo dreamed Nausica\u00e4, and so spake the vision. But the voice which\nseemed the voice of her friend came from no mortal lips; it was Athene\nherself who had visited the maiden's bower, in her care for Odysseus,\nthat he might get safe conduct to the city of the Ph\u00e6acians. And when\nshe had done her errand the goddess went back to Olympus, where is the\nsteadfast, everlasting seat of the blessed gods, not shaken of any\nwind, nor wet with rain, nor chilled by snow, but steeped for ever in\ncloudless, sunny air. There the gods abide for ever and take their\ndelight.\n\nNausica\u00e4 rose betimes, with her mind full of the dream, and went down\nto the hall, where she found her mother sitting by the hearth with her\nwomen, spinning the bright sea-purple thread. Inquiring for her father\nshe learnt that he had but that moment gone forth to attend the\ncouncil of elders, and hastening after him she found him before the\ndoors of the house.\n\n\"Father,\" she said, \"may I have the waggon to take the household\nraiment to the place of washing? Thou thyself hast ever need of clean\ngarments when thou goest to the council, and my brothers will reproach\nme if they lack clean raiment when they go to the dance.\"\n\nThus spake the maiden, being ashamed to make mention of her own\nmarriage. But Alcinous knew, and smiled to himself, as he ordered his\nthralls to prepare the waggon. So when they had harnessed the mules,\nNausica\u00e4 and her handmaids brought the soiled garments, and bestowed\nthem behind the seat. And her mother brought a basket with food for\nthe midday meal and oil for her daughter and the other maidens when\nthey took their bath. Then they took their seats, Nausica\u00e4 grasped the\nreins, and they went off at a sharp trot towards the riverside.\n\nAfter a pleasant drive, they came to the place where stood a row of\ncisterns on the river's bank. There they unharnessed the mules, and\nleft them to crop the sweet clover in the water-meadows. Then they\nunloaded the waggon, threw the garments into washing-troughs, and trod\nthem with their feet until they were thoroughly cleansed, and having\nwrung them out, they spread them on the white pebbly beach to dry.\nWhile the garments were bleaching in the wholesome sun and air, they\ntook their bath, and afterwards sat down to the midday meal. When that\nwas ended, they threw off their veils, and stood up to play at ball.\n\nIt was a pretty and graceful sight; they were all comely maidens,\nglowing with youth and health. Their sport was accompanied by dance\nand song, and as they chased the flying ball, keeping time with hand\nand foot and voice, they seemed like a choir of mountain nymphs, led\nby Artemis, when she goes forth to the chase, in the wild valleys of\nArcady or Laced\u00e6mon. Tallest and fairest of them all was Nausica\u00e4, who\nled the sport, moving like a queen among her vassals.\n\nPresently they grew tired of their sport, and Nausica\u00e4 flung the ball\nfor the last time to one of her handmaids. The girl missed the ball,\nand it fell into the middle of the river, whereupon the whole company\nset up a sharp cry. The sound came to the ears of Odysseus, and woke\nhim from his long slumber. He sat up in his bed of leaves and communed\nwith himself: \"Behold I hear the shrill cry of women, or perhaps of\nthe nymphs who haunt this wild place. Now may I learn of what sort are\nthe natives of this land, whether they be fierce and inhospitable, or\ngentle and kind to strangers.\" Plucking a leafy bough, and holding it\nbefore him to cover himself, he stepped forth from the thicket, and\ncame in sight of that gentle company. Grim and dreadful he looked,\nlike a hungry lion, buffeted by rain and wind, who goes forth in a\ntempest to seek his prey; for he was haggard with long fasting, and\nsore disfigured by his battle with the sea; his eyes glared with\nfamine, and his hair and beard hung ragged and unkempt about his face.\nAt this fearful apparition the maidens fled shrieking along the river\nbank, all but Nausica\u00e4, who stood her ground, and gazed fearlessly,\nthough in wonder, while Odysseus came slowly forward. When he was\nstill some way off he stopped, fearing to offend her delicacy if he\ncame nearer. Then with a gesture of entreaty he began to speak, and\nNausica\u00e4 knew at once that it was no common man who stood before her.\n\n\"Have pity on me, O queen!\" he began, in soft and insinuating tones.\n\"Art thou a goddess, or a mortal woman? If thou art a goddess, thou\nseemest to me most like to Artemis, daughter of great Zeus, both in\nface, and in stature, and in form. But if thou art mortal, then thrice\nblessed are thy father and mother, and thrice blessed thy brethren,\nand their spirits are refreshed because of thee, when thou goest, a\nvery rose of beauty, to the dance. Happy the man who wins thee for his\nbride! Never yet have I seen the like of thee among all the children\nof men. Only once have I beheld aught to compare unto thee, a young\npalm-tree which I saw growing tall and straight by the altar of Apollo\nat Delos. I saw it, and was amazed, for it was wondrous fair; and even\nso is my soul filled with wonder and dread when I look upon thy face,\nso that I am afraid to draw near unto thee, though sore is my need.\nYesterday I was flung naked on thy coast, after a voyage of twenty\ndays. Many things have I suffered, and more, I ween, remains for me in\nstore; for I am a man of many woes. Have compassion on me, dread lady!\nI am thy suppliant, and to thee first I address my prayer. Show me the\nway to the city, and give me a cloth to wrap round me, that I may go\namong the people without shame. And may the gods give thee all,\nwhatsoever thy heart desireth, a husband and a home, and happy wedded\nlove, shedding warmth in thine house, and a strong defence against all\nills from without, but above all a sacred treasure in thy husband's\nheart, and in thine.\"\n\n\"Whatever be thy misfortunes,\" answered Nausica\u00e4, \"I am sure they are\nnot the fruit of thine own folly or wickedness. And since thou art\ncome as a suppliant to this land of ours, thou shalt want nothing,\nwhether it be raiment, or aught else that befits thy state. I will\nshow thee our city, and tell thee the name of the people. Know that\nthou hast come to the country of the Ph\u00e6acians, whose ruler and king\nis Alcinous, and I am his daughter.\"\n\nThen she called to her handmaids, who were looking on, half\nfrightened, half curious, from behind rocks and trees, a long way off,\nready to resume their flight at the slightest alarm: \"Come hither, and\nfear not the man; neither he nor any other shall ever come to this\nland with thoughts of harm; for we are very dear to the immortal gods.\nFar away we dwell amidst the rolling seas, remote from the haunts of\nmen. But this is some hapless wanderer, driven by chance to our\nshores, and we must cherish him, for from Zeus come all strangers and\nbeggars, and a little gift is a great thing to them. Take the stranger\nto a sheltered place, where he may wash and dress him, and give him\nwherewithal to clothe himself, and after that, meat and drink.\"\n\nWhen they heard the words of their mistress the girls came stealing\ntimidly back, one by one. And they gave Odysseus clean raiment, and\nwhen he had washed and clothed himself, he came back to the place\nwhere Nausica\u00e4 was waiting. Wonderful was the change which had been\nmade in his appearance by the refreshing bath and fitting apparel.\nInstead of the squalid, battered wretch who had begged for countenance\nand shelter, Nausica\u00e4 saw before her a stalwart, stately man,\nbroad-shouldered, and deep of chest, with dark clustering hair and\nbeard, like the curling hyacinth, and an air of majesty and command.\n\n\"Hear me, friends,\" whispered Nausica\u00e4, as she saw him coming,\n\"methinks some god hath wrought a miracle on this man, who but now was\nso hideous to behold. Would that we might prevail with him to make his\nabode among us! She would be a proud maiden who should wed with such\nas him. Now give the stranger food and drink.\" And they did so, and\nOdysseus ate and drank with keen appetite, having tasted nothing for\nmany days. While he was eating, the maidens folded the garments and\nplaced them in the waggon, and when he had finished, Nausica\u00e4 mounted\nthe waggon, and bidding him and the handmaids follow on foot started\nthe mules and drove slowly towards the city. When they reached the\ncultivated lands outside the walls she drew up, and addressed Odysseus\nthus: \"Stranger, I may not go with thee further, for I fear the\nenvious tongues of the citizens, who will point the finger at us and\nsay: 'See what a tall and handsome stranger Nausica\u00e4 hath brought with\nher!--some seafaring man whom she hath brought with her to be her\nhusband, since she despises the men of her own nation.' And this will\nbe a reproach unto me. Therefore wait thou awhile, and do as I bid\nthee. Not far from here is a temple and grove of Athene, a fair\ncoppice of poplar-trees, and a spring of clear water. Go thou thither,\nand wait until we have time to reach my father's house, then rise and\ngo into the city and inquire for the dwelling of Alcinous. A little\nchild could show thee the way, for there is none like it in all the\ncity.\"\n\n[Illustration: Odysseus and Nausica\u00e4]\n\nSo saying, Nausica\u00e4 drove on, leaving Odysseus where he was. He soon\nfound the temple, and going in knelt down and prayed to the goddess to\ncontinue her favour. When he thought that Nausica\u00e4 had had time to\nreach home, he rose and went into the city. The road lay along a\nnarrow causeway, which connected the city with the mainland, and on\neither side was a sheltered haven, with ships drawn up on the beach.\nPassing through the gates he came next to the place of assembly, in\nfront of a temple of Poseidon, with a circle of massive stones bedded\ndeeply in the earth. Wherever he looked he saw signs of a busy\nseafaring people--masts, and oars, and great coils of rope--and his\nears were filled with the sound of saw and hammer from the\nshipwrights' yards.\n\nII\n\nAs he stood thus gazing about him, he saw a young maiden coming\ntowards him, carrying a pitcher. He inquired of her the way to the\nhouse of Alcinous, and she bade him follow her, as she was going that\nway. \"My father's house,\" she said, \"is close to the house which thou\nseekest. But thou art a stranger, I perceive, and not of this land;\nwalk therefore warily, and regard no man, for the Ph\u00e6acians love not\nthe face of the stranger, nor are they given to hospitality. Their\nhome is the deep, and their ships are as swift as a bird--swift as a\nthought--for they are the favourites of Poseidon.\"\n\nSo saying, the maiden led the way swiftly, and Odysseus followed,\nkeeping close behind. He remarked with wonder that though the streets\nwere full of people, so that they had to walk carefully, and thread\ntheir way through the crowd, none seemed to notice him or his\ncompanion, or gave any sign of being conscious of their presence. The\ntruth was that the supposed maiden was none other than his patron\ngoddess Athene, who so ordered it that he was invisible to all eyes\nbut hers.\n\nAs they went, his companion entertained him with an account of the\nfamily history of the Ph\u00e6acian king, Alcinous, whose father,\nNausithous, was the son of Poseidon. Alcinous married Arete, who was\nrelated to him by blood, and was honoured exceedingly by her husband\nand by all the Ph\u00e6acians. \"She is the idol of her household,\"\ncontinued the maiden, \"and all eyes follow her with love and reverence\nwhen she goes through the town. So high is her character that even men\nconsult her in their differences, and defer to her judgment. If thou\ncanst enlist her on thy side, thou wilt soon obtain the safe conduct\nwhich thou desirest, and reach thy home in safety and honour.\"\n\nThey had now reached a large enclosed piece of land, surrounded by a\ntall fence, above which appeared the boughs of goodly trees, laden\nwith their burden of fruit. \"Here is the garden of Alcinous,\"\nwhispered the maiden, \"and yonder is the gate. Enter boldly in, and\nseek out the queen, who is now sitting at meat with her husband's\nguests. Make thy petition to her, for if her heart incline unto thee\nall will be well.\"\n\nWith that word she vanished from his sight, and left him standing at\nthe gates of Alcinous. Wondering greatly he entered the garden, and\ngazed about him. So fair a sight had never met his eyes. Fruit-trees\nwithout number stood ranged in ordered rows, pear-trees, and\npomegranates, and rosy apples, the luscious fig, and olives in their\nbloom. Their fruit never failed, summer or winter, all the year round.\nThere blows the warm west wind without ceasing, nursing the tender\nblossom, and mellowing the swelling fruit. He saw pears and figs\nhanging on the trees in every stage of growth. Another part of the\nenclosure was set apart for the cultivation of the vine; and here also\nthe same wonder was to be seen, springtime and summer dancing\nhand-in-hand, and yellow autumn treading close in their footsteps.\nSide by side hung the ripe, purple cluster, the crude grape just\nturning from green to red, and tiny green bunches lately formed from\nthe blossom. There the labour of the vintagers never ceased, and the\nwinepress overflowed without end.\n\nBetween the rows of fruit-trees were garden-beds, in which grew all\nmanner of flowers and useful herbs; and the whole was watered by a\nperennial stream, divided into channels which brought the water to\nevery part of the garden.\n\nTurning with a sigh from that paradise of colour and perfume, Odysseus\npassed on to the house, and stood for a while, scanning that stately\nstructure. His eyes were almost blinded by the light which flashed\nfrom the outer walls, which were built of solid brass, with a coping\nof blue steel. The doors were of gold, with silver lintel and\ndoorposts, and brazen threshold. Then he entered the hall, still\nunseen of all eyes; and here new wonders awaited him. Within the\ndoorway on either side sat dogs wrought in silver and gold, living\ncreatures, that know neither age nor death, which Heph\u00e6stus, the\ndivine artificer, made, in the wisdom of his heart, to guard the house\nof the prince Alcinous day and night. At intervals stood figures of\nyouths fashioned in gold, with torches in their hands, which at\nnight-time shed a blaze of light throughout the hall. And all round\nthe walls were set rows of seats, covered with richly woven cloths,\nthe work of women's hands. There sat the noble chieftains of Ph\u00e6acia,\nfeasting on the bounty of their king.\n\nFar within, visible through a wide-opened door, was seen another\nchamber, where a troop of domestics were busy at their tasks. Some\nwere grinding the yellow grain in hand-mills, others were walking to\nand fro at the loom, and others sat plying distaff and spindle,\nnodding their heads like poplars waving in the wind. Very choice was\nthe fabric woven in that chamber, for the women of Ph\u00e6acia were famed\nbeyond all others for their skill in weaving, even as the men\nsurpassed all the world in seamanship.\n\nSuch were the glories of the house of Alcinous, and when Odysseus had\ngazed his fill he began to think of the purpose for which he had come.\nThe feasters were just pouring a libation to Hermes, to be followed by\na parting cup, before they went home. At that very moment their eyes\nwere opened, and they saw Odysseus kneeling at the feet of Arete, and\nheard him utter these words:\n\n\"Great queen, daughter of a race divine, behold me, a toil-worn\nwanderer, who hath come hither to implore thy grace. Intercede for me,\nI pray thee, with thy husband, that he may send me speedily to my\nnative land: and may it be well with thee, and with all this fair\ncompany, and with the children who come after thee.\"\n\nThereupon he sat down by the hearth in the ashes near the fire; and\nfor awhile not a word was spoken, but all sat gazing at him in wonder.\nAt last an aged Ph\u00e6acian broke the silence, and said, looking at\nAlcinous: \"My prince, it becomes thee not to suffer this stranger to\nsit on the ground in the ashes. Behold, we are all waiting for thee to\nspeak and declare thy will. Give this poor man thy hand, and set him\non a seat, that he may know that his prayer is granted. And let them\ngive him to eat, and fill a bowl for a libation to Zeus, in whose care\nare all suppliants.\"\n\nAlcinous rose in response to the words of the elder, who was famed\namong the Ph\u00e6acians for his eloquence and wisdom, and taking Odysseus\nby the hand raised him from his abject posture, and seated him by his\nside. Food and drink were placed before him, and while he was eating,\nAlcinous ordered a bowl to be filled for a libation to Zeus, the god\nof hospitality. The wine was served out to the guests, the libations\nwere poured, and then Alcinous began to speak again, unfolding his\npurpose towards Odysseus.\n\n\"Here me, ye princes of Ph\u00e6acia. Go ye now to your rest, and to-morrow\nwe will call an assembly of all the elders, and make a great feast and\nsacrifice, and after that we will take counsel how we may best send\nthe stranger on his way. Safe and sound we will bring him to his\nnative land, but after that he must take up his portion, according as\nthe Fates have ordained for him, and spun the thread of his life,\nrough or smooth, from the hour when his mother bare him. I speak as\nsupposing our guest to be a man; but if he be a god, come down from\nheaven, then I fear that the gods are devising some snare against us.\nFor never has it been their wont to appear among us in disguise, but\nat sacrifice and at feast they freely consort with us in their own\nshape, seeing that we are of their own kin.\"\n\n\"Alcinous,\" answered Odysseus, \"let not this fear trouble thee. I am\nno god, as thou mayest see right well. If ye know any man conspicuous\nfor the burden of sorrow which he bears, ye may learn my lot from his.\nBut none, methinks, can equal the sum of what I have endured by the\nordinance of heaven. Care sits by my side day and night, but within me\nis a monitor whose voice I must obey, even my hungry belly, that calls\naloud to be filled, and will not let me alone to chew the cud of\nbitter thought. Shameless he is, and clamorous exceedingly. Therefore\nlet me sup and question me no further to-night; but rouse thee betimes\nto-morrow, and send me with all speed to my native land. Let me once\nsee my possessions, and my household, and my stately home, and then I\nwill close mine eyes in peace.\"\n\nA murmur of approval went round the hall as Odysseus ended his speech.\nOne by one the guests took leave of Alcinous, and he and his hosts sat\nawhile conversing together, while the servants were removing the\nremnants of the feast, and setting the house in order for the night.\nArete was the first to speak, for she recognised the garments which\nOdysseus was wearing as the work of her own hands. \"Friend,\" said she,\n\"let me ask thee one question. How camest thou by this raiment? For\nsurely thou hast not brought it with thee in thy voyage across the\ndeep. Say who thou art and whence thou comest.\"\n\nThus challenged Odysseus told her all the story of his shipwreck on\nthe island of Calypso, of his long sojourn there, of his voyage on the\nraft, his second shipwreck, and his landing on the coast of Ph\u00e6acia.\nConcluding he touched feelingly on his meeting with Nausica\u00e4, and the\nkindness, courtesy, and modesty of her behaviour. \"Never saw I such\ngrace and prudence,\" he added, \"in one so young and so lovely.\"\n\n\"Yet in this she did not well,\" replied Alcinous, \"that she brought\nthee not straightway to this house, but suffered thee to find thy way\nalone.\"\n\n\"Nay, blame her not,\" answered Odysseus, \"she bade me come hither with\nherself and the maidens, but I feared to offend thee, and chose to\ncome alone.\"\n\n\"Think not that I am so hasty, or given to causeless anger,\" said\nAlcinous; \"excess in all things is evil.\"[1] Then he looked earnestly\nat Odysseus, and continued, after a pause: \"I would to heaven that thy\nthoughts were as mine; then wouldst thou abide for ever in this land,\nand take my daughter to wife, and I would give thee house and lands.\nBut I see that thou art steadfastly purposed to leave us; and none\nshall detain thee against thy will. To-morrow thou shalt go. I will\nappoint a ship and a crew, and they shall bear thee sleeping to thine\nown land, yea though it be more distant than far Euboea, which lies,\nas I am told, in the uttermost parts of the earth. Yet the Ph\u00e6acians\nwent thither in their ships, and returned on the same day. They have\nno equals, as thou shalt soon learn, in seamanship, and no ships in\nall the world are like mine.\"\n\n[Footnote 1: _Nothing too much_, the corner-stone of Greek morality.]\n\nAfter some further talk they parted for the night, and Odysseus, after\nall his hardships, was right glad to lay him down in the soft bed\nprepared for him in the gallery before the house. But before he closed\nhis eyes he muttered a prayer to Zeus that Alcinous might abide by his\npromise, and send him safely home.\n\nIII\n\nNext day was appointed for a great feast in the palace of Alcinous, to\nwhich all the chief men of Ph\u00e6acia were invited, and when Odysseus\nreturned to the house, after some hours spent in a visit to the town,\nhefound the courts and galleries thronged with a great company. The\npreparations for the banquet were on a heroic scale: twelve sheep,\neight fat swine, and two oxen, the choicest of the herd, were\nslaughtered, and a goodly row of casks, filled with the finest\nvintages, gave further token that Alcinous was no niggardly host.\n\n\"Come,\" said Alcinous, meeting Odysseus at the gate. \"The guests are\nseated, and all is ready. Trouble not thyself as to the manner of thy\nhome-coming; that is cared for already, and the ship lies at her\nmoorings. But to-day is a day of good cheer, when thou shalt learn how\ngay and joyous a life the Ph\u00e6acians live.\"\n\nAs he spoke, they entered the banquet hall, and Odysseus sat down by\nthe side of Alcinous. Rich and dainty was the fare, and many times the\ngreat wine-bowls were filled and emptied; for the Ph\u00e6acians were a\nluxurious race, much given to the pleasures of the table. Among the\nguests Odysseus was especially struck by one venerable figure, who sat\nby himself against a pillar, on which hung a harp within reach of his\nhands. Odysseus noticed that he ate slowly and deliberately, and\nseemed to feel for the cup when he wished to drink, \"It is Demodocus,\nthe blind harper,\" whispered Alcinous. \"We shall presently have a\ntaste of his quality. He is a rare minstrel.\"\n\nAccordingly, when the last course was removed, the harp was placed in\nthe singer's hands, and after striking a deep chord he began to sing,\nchoosing for his theme a famous tale of Troy, which told how Achilles\nand Odysseus quarrelled at a banquet, and reviled each other with\nbitter words, and how Agamemnon rejoiced in spirit because of the\nstrife; for he had heard an oracle from Apollo, foretelling that when\nthe noblest of the Greeks fell out Troy's end would be near at hand.\n\nOdysseus listened, and a flood of emotion filled his mind, so sad were\nthe memories recalled by the minstrel's lay. Of all his gallant peers,\nfor ten years his companions in many a joyful feast, and many a high\nadventure, how many were left? And he, among the last of the\nsurvivors, was now growing old, after twenty years of war and\nwandering, far from his wife and home. He was now, indeed, on the eve\nof his return; but at what a price had it been won! And who could tell\nwhat heavy trials awaited him when once more he set foot on his native\nsoil? Was it not but too probable that he would find his house made\ndesolate, Telemachus dead, and Penelope wedded to another?\n\nOverpowered by these gloomy forebodings, he covered his face, and wept\naloud. When Demodocus paused in his singing he wiped away his tears,\nand poured a drink-offering from his cup; but every time the minstrel\nresumed his lay a new fit of weeping succeeded. At last, Alcinous, who\nhad hitherto been totally absorbed in that rare minstrelsy, observed\nhis guest's emotion, and partly divining the cause came to his relief.\n\"How say ye, fair sirs?\" he said, rising and addressing the company.\n\"Shall we go forth for awhile, and show the stranger that we have\nother and manlier pastimes, now that we have eaten and drunken, and\ncheered our souls with song? Let him not say of us when he goes home\nthat we sit all day by the wine-cup, but let him learn that the\nPh\u00e6acians surpass all mankind in boxing, and in wrestling, and in\nleaping, and in the speed of their feet.\"\n\nSo saying he rose from his seat and led the way to the place of\nassembly. Crowds soon flocked to see the friendly trial of strength\nand skill. The first event was the foot race, and this was followed by\nmatches of wrestling, boxing, leaping, and throwing the weight.\nOdysseus stood watching the Ph\u00e6acians at their sports, and thinking of\nthe mighty feats which he had witnessed and shared at the funeral\ngames of Patroclus. Presently he felt a hand on his shoulder, and\nheard himself challenged by a young Ph\u00e6acian, whose name was Euryalus,\nin these terms: \"Why so gloomy, father? Away with care! All is ready\nfor thy departure, and thou shalt soon be home again. But come, give\nus a proof of thy manhood, if thou knowest aught of games of skill.\nThou seemest a stout fellow, and I doubt not that thou wilt acquit\nthee well.\"\n\n\"Friend,\" answered Odysseus, \"mock me not. Thou seest how broken I am,\nand worn by my long battle with the sea; and care sits heavy on my\nheart, forbidding me to think of the things which thou namest.\"\n\n\"Nay,\" said Euryalus, with a scornful laugh, \"I see that I was\nmistaken in thee. Thou art plainly no athlete, but some cunning\nmerchant, with thy head full of thy cargo, and fingers only skilled in\ncounting thy gains.\"\n\nThen Odysseus bent his brows, and answered with a stern look: \"Friend,\nthou art over-saucy of thy tongue. But so it ever is; the gods\ndispense their gifts with sparing hand, and give not all excellence to\nthe same man. One man is mean of aspect, but heaven's grace descends\nupon his lips, so that men look upon him with delight while he\ndiscourses smoothly with a winning modesty. He is the observed of all\nobservers, and when he walks through the town all eyes follow him as\nif he were a god. Another again is glorious, like a very god, in the\nsplendour of his face and form, but no grace attends upon his speech.\nEven so thou art conspicuous for thy beauty, as though the hand of a\ngod had fashioned thee, but in understanding thou art naught. Thou\nhast stung me by thy unseemly words; I am not ignorant of manly\nsports, as thou sayest, but I tell thee that I was among the foremost\nas long as I trusted in my youth and in the might of my hands. But now\nI am sore spent with woe and pain, for many things have I suffered in\nbattles by land, and buffeting with the sea. Nevertheless, broken as I\nam, I will give proof of my strength, for thou hast provoked me\nbitterly by thy wanton words.\"\n\nThereupon, without waiting to throw off his cloak, he sprang into the\narena, and caught up a massy disc of iron, far heavier than those with\nwhich the Ph\u00e6acians had been throwing. Poising it lightly, with one\nhand he flung it, as one who flings a ball. The Ph\u00e6acians sank back in\ndismay as they saw the huge mass flying high over their heads, and\nwhen it fell all rushed to the spot to mark the distance. There it\nlay, far beyond the longest cast of the native athletes, and Odysseus\npointed to it, and said: \"Reach that mark, my young masters, if ye\ncan! And if any among you have a mind to try a match with me in boxing\nor in wrestling, or in the foot race, they shall have their will; only\nwith the sons of Alcinous I will not strive, for he is my host, and it\nwere not fitting or prudent to challenge them. Whatever a man can do\nwith his hands I can do: I can send an arrow sure and strong, and\nstrike down my foe, and herein can no archer surpass me, save one\nonly, Philoctetes, who bare the bow of Hercules; and I can fling a\njavelin farther than another man can shoot an arrow. Only in speed of\nfoot I fear that some of you may surpass me; for my knees are yet weak\nfrom long fasting and fighting with the waves.\"\n\nNot one of the Ph\u00e6acians took up the challenge, but all sat mute,\ngazing in wonder and awe at this strange man, who had just given such\nsignal proof of the power of his arm. At last Alcinous answered and\nsaid: \"Stranger, none here can take thy words amiss, for, as thou\nsayest, thou hast been bitterly provoked. But hear me now in turn, and\npush not thy quarrel further, but rest satisfied with the proof of thy\nprowess which thou hast given. I will speak to thee frankly, that thou\nmayest know what manner of men the Ph\u00e6acians are. We are not mighty\nmen of valour, like thee, yet we too have our own peculiar excellence.\nWe are good runners, and none can approach us in all that belongs to\nthe mariner's art. But at home we live softly, loving the banquet, and\nmusic and dancing, clean raiment, warm baths, and long repose.\" Then\nturning to his attendants he added: \"Go, some of you, and bring hither\nthe harper Demodocus, and clear a space for the dancers, that our\nguest may see something of the native sports of Ph\u00e6acia.\"\n\nThen those whose business it was chose a fair level space for the\ndance, and when Demodocus arrived he took his harp and struck up a\nlively measure. A fair troop of boys stood in a circle around him, and\nthe dance began. Alcinous had not overrated the skill of his people in\nthis graceful pastime, and Odysseus was filled with wonder as he\nwatched the intricate yet ordered movements of the youthful troop.\n\nWhen the dance was ended, Demodocus sang a soft lay of love, and after\nthat the two most skilful dancers, one of whom was Laodamas, a son of\nAlcinous, stood up to dance a reel together. One of them held a\ncrimson ball, and, keeping time to the music flung it high into the\nair; while the other leaped high from the ground, and caught the ball\nas it fell. Then they flung the ball with lightning rapidity from hand\nto hand, so that it seemed a mere streak of crimson shooting backward\nand forward; and all the time the dance went gaily on, while the whole\ncompany of the Ph\u00e6acians kept up a merry din, beating time to the\nmusic with their feet.\n\n\"Of a truth,\" said Odysseus, addressing Alcinous, \"thou hast not\nboasted for naught; never saw I such dancing in all my long travels.\"\nA proud man was Alcinous to hear such praise from such a man, and he\nwas not slow to testify his gratitude. \"Hear me,\" he said, \"ye princes\nof Ph\u00e6acia! Methinks our guest is a man of exceeding shrewd wit. Let\nus bestow on him a parting gift, that he may remember us, and rejoice\nin spirit when he thinks of his sojourn in Ph\u00e6acia. Thirteen there\nare, of whom I am one, who sit in high places, and are notable men in\nthe land; let each of us give him a change of raiment and a talent of\ngold. And Euryalus shall crave pardon of him for his ill-chosen words,\nand appease him with a gift.\"\n\nThe generous proposal was well received, and each of the twelve nobles\nsent his body-servant to fetch the gifts. Euryalus also was prompt to\nmake his peace with Odysseus. He presented him with a fine sword of\ntempered bronze, with silver hilt, and scabbard of ivory. \"Behold my\npeace-offering,\" he said, \"and take my goodwill with the gift. Forget\nmy foolish words, and think of me kindly when thou art safe among\nthine own people.\"\n\nOdysseus acknowledged the courtesy of Euryalus in becoming terms, and\nthen the whole company rose and went back to the palace of Alcinous,\nwhere they found the gifts for Odysseus all set in order against his\ndeparture. Then Alcinous brought a golden goblet, beautifully\nfashioned, and richly chased, and bade Arete bring a coffer to hold\nthe gifts. The coffer was displayed, and was in itself a gift of no\nmean value, being a choice piece of work.\n\n\"Now bid thy handmaids prepare a bath for our guest,\" said Alcinous to\nhis wife, and \"Receive this as a memorial of me,\" he added, placing\nthe goblet in Odysseus' hands, \"that thou mayest remember me all the\ndays of thy life, when thou pourest libations to Zeus and the other\ndeathless gods.\"\n\nArete gave the order as required, and while the bath was preparing she\narranged all the gifts in the coffer. Then closing the lid she said to\nOdysseus: \"Make all fast with thine own hands, that none may meddle\nwith thy goods as thou liest asleep on thy passage across the sea.\"\nOdysseus made fast the cord, securing it with an intricate and cunning\nknot, which he had learnt from the great sorceress Circe; and when he\nhad finished he was summoned by the eldest of the handmaids to the\nbath. When he had bathed and put on fresh raiment he came back to the\ndining-hall; and as he entered he saw Nausica\u00e4 leaning against a\npillar. Sweet was the maiden's face, and kind her eyes, as she gazed\nwith innocent admiration on the stately figure of her father's guest.\n\"Farewell, my friend,\" said she, \"and when thou arrivest home think\nsometimes of her to whom thou owest thy life.\"\n\n\"Fair daughter of Alcinous,\" answered Odysseus, \"if that day ever\ncomes--if I ever see my home again, by favour of Zeus, the lord of\nHera--be assured that I shall remember thee in my prayers, as long as\nthis life which thou hast given me shall last.\" And so he parted from\nthe maiden, and she went back to her mother's bower.\n\nOdysseus again received a place of honour by the side of Alcinous, and\na goodly portion of meat was set before him. Looking round the circle\nof guests he saw Demodocus, the blind harper, sitting in their midst,\nand wishing to show him honour, he cut off a choice piece from the\nflesh which had been set before him, and bade a servant carry it to\nthe bard, and greet him in the giver's name. The servant did as he was\nbidden, and Demodocus received the portion of honour with becoming\ngratitude.\n\nWhen the banquet was drawing towards its close Odysseus approached the\nminstrel, and after praising his former lay, which told of the\ndisastrous homeward voyage of the Greeks, he begged him to sing the\nLay of the Wooden Horse, the device by which Troy was taken. Demodocus\ncomplied, and taking his harp began to chant that famous lay, which\ntold how the Greeks burnt their tents and sailed away, leaving the\nwooden monster behind them, how the Trojans dragged the horse into the\ncity, and how the fatal engine sent forth its burden of armed men in\nthe night. The name of Odysseus, the arch-plotter, occurred again and\nagain as the tale went on; and once more Odysseus was moved to tears\nby the memories which the words of the bard awakened.\n\nAlcinous observed his emotion, and called to Demodocus to cease his\nsong. \"We vex our guest,\" he said, \"for whose sake we are gathered\nhere. Doubtless the minstrel has touched some hidden spring of sorrow.\nBut come now,\" he continued, addressing Odysseus, \"we have honoured\nthee exceedingly, and given thee of our best. Wilt thou not repay us\nby telling something of thyself? Let us hear thy name, and say of what\nland and of what city thou art, that our ships may know whither to\nsteer their course. For know that we mariners of Ph\u00e6acia need no\npilots nor rudders, but our ships by their own instinct take us to\nwhatsoever place we would visit, gliding like phantoms, invisible,\nswift as thought. Nor has any vessel from our ports ever suffered\nshipwreck or harm.\n\n\"Thou likewise hast been a great traveller, and seen many lands and\nnations, both such as are wild and fierce and such as are gentle and\nof godly mind. Tell us then the tale of thy wanderings, and say why\nthou weepest ever at the name of Troy.\"\n\nAll the guests bent forward with eager faces, and strained their ears\nto catch Odysseus' answer; for there was something mysterious about\nthis strange guest, something which marked him as a man of no common\nstamp, and their curiosity, which had hitherto been held in check by\nthe laws of courtesy, was now set free from all restraint by the frank\nquestion of Alcinous.\n\n\"Illustrious prince,\" answered Odysseus, after a moment's pause,\n\"methinks it were best to sit silent and listen to the sweet voice of\nthe harper; for what better thing has life to offer than a full cup\nand brave minstrelsy heard at the quiet hour of eventide? But if thou\nmust needs hear a tale of sorrow it is not for me to deny thee. First\nof all I will tell thee my name. I am Odysseus, son of Laertes, and my\nname is in all men's mouths because of my deep wit and manifold wiles,\nyea, the renown thereof reaches even unto heaven. My home is the sunny\nisle of Ithaca, last in a line of islands lying in the western sea. It\nis a rugged land, but a nurse of gallant sons; and sweet, ah! very\nsweet, is the name of home. Never hath my heart been turned from that\ndear spot, no, not by all the loveliness of Calypso, nor by all the\nwitchery of Circe, but ever I remained faithful to the one lodestar of\nmy life.\"\n\nHere Odysseus began the wondrous story of his wanderings, which kept\nhis hearers spellbound until far into the night.\n\n\n\n\nThe Wanderings of Odysseus\n\n\nI\n\nAfter leaving Troy, Odysseus first sailed to the coast of Thrace, and\ncollected a rich booty in a sudden raid on the district. But while his\nmen lingered to enjoy the first-fruits of their spoil, the wild tribes\nof the neighbourhood rallied their forces, and falling upon the\ninvaders, while they were engaged in a drunken revel, drove them with\ngreat slaughter to their ships. No sooner had they put to sea than a\nwild tempest came down upon them from the north, and drove them to\nseek shelter again on the mainland, where they lay for two days and\nnights in constant dread of another attack from the injured Thracians.\nOn the third day they set sail again and got as far as Malea, the\nsouthernmost headland of Greece. Here they were again driven from\ntheir course, and after nine days' tossing on the waves they reached\nthe land of the Lotus-Eaters.\n\nWhen his men had refreshed themselves, Odysseus sent three of their\nnumber to explore the country and learn the manners of the\ninhabitants. Presently these three came to the dwellings of the\nLotus-Eaters, who received them kindly and gave them to eat of the\nlotus-plant. With the first taste of that magic food the men forgot\nthe purpose for which they had been sent, forgot their friends and\ntheir home, and had no desire left in life but to remain there all\ntheir days and feast with the Lotus-Eaters. In this state they were\nfound by Odysseus, who compelled them by force, though they wept and\ncomplained bitterly, to return to their ships. There he bound them\nfast under the benches, and bade the rest take to their oars and fly\nfrom that seductive clime, lest others should fall under the same\nfatal spell.\n\nII\n\nThence they came to the land of the Cyclopes, a rude and monstrous\ntribe, but favoured of the immortal gods, by whose bounty they live.\nThey toil not, neither do they sow, nor till the ground, but the earth\nof herself brings forth for them a bountiful living, wheat and barley,\nand huge swelling clusters of the grape. Naught know they of law or\ncivil life, but each lives in his cave on the wild mountain-side,\ndwelling apart, careless of his neighbours, with his wife and\nchildren.\n\nIt was a dark, cloudy night, and a thick mist overspread the sea, when\nsuddenly Odysseus heard the booming of breakers on a rocky shore.\nBefore an order could be given, or any measure taken for the safety of\nthe ships, the little fleet was caught by a strong landward current,\nand whirled pell-mell through a narrow passage between the cliffs into\na land-locked harbour. Drawing their breath with relief at their\nwonderful escape, they beached their vessels on the level sand and lay\ndown to wait for the day.\n\nIn the morning they found that they had been driven to the landward\nshore of a long island, which formed a natural breakwater to a\nspacious bay, with a narrow entrance at either end. The island was\nthickly covered with woods, giving shelter to a multitude of wild\ngoats, its only inhabitants. For the Cyclopes have no ships, so that\nthe goats were left in undisturbed possession, though the place was\nwell suited for human habitation, with a deep, rich soil, and\nplentiful springs of water.\n\nThe first care of Odysseus was to supply the crews of his vessels,\nwhich were twelve in number, with fresh meat. Armed with bows and\nspears, he and a picked body of men scoured the woods in search of\ngame. They soon obtained a plentiful booty, and nine goats were\nassigned to each vessel, with ten for that of Odysseus. So all that\nday till the setting of the sun they sat and feasted on fat venison\nand drank of the wine which they had taken in their raid on the\nThracians.\n\nEarly next morning Odysseus manned his own galley, and set forth to\nexplore the mainland, leaving the rest of the crews to await his\nreturn on the island. As they drew near the opposite shore of the bay,\nthe mariners came in view of a gigantic cavern overshadowed by\nlaurel-trees. Round the front of the cavern was a wide court-yard\nrudely fenced with huge blocks of stone and unhewn trunks of trees.\n\nHaving moored his vessel in a sheltered place, Odysseus chose twelve\nof his men to accompany him on his perilous adventure, and charging\nthe others to keep close, and not stir from the ship, he prepared for\nhis visit to the Cyclops, who dwelt apart from his brethren in the\ncavern. Amongst the spoils obtained in Thrace was a small store of\npeculiarly rich and generous wine, which had been given him by a\npriest of Apollo whom he had protected, with his wife and child, while\nhis men were pillaging the town. Twelve jars of this precious vintage\nthe priest brought forth from a secret hiding-place, known only to\nhimself and his wife and one trusty servant. So potent was the wine\nthat it needed but one measure of it to twenty of water to make a\nfragrant and comfortable drink, from which few could refrain. Odysseus\nnow filled a great goatskin bottle with this wine, and carried it with\nhim. And well it was for him that he did so.\n\nDuring the day the Cyclops was abroad, watching his flocks as they\ngrazed on the mountain pastures; so that when Odysseus and his men\ncame to the cavern, they had ample time to look about them. The\ncourtyard was fenced off into pens, well stocked with ewes and\nshe-goats, with their young--huge beasts, rivalling in stature their\ngigantic shepherd. Within the cavern was a sort of dairy, with great\npiles of cheeses, and vessels brimming with whey.\n\n\"Quick now,\" whispered one of the men to Odysseus. \"Let us take of the\ncheeses, and drive off the best of the lambs and kids to the ship\nbefore the Cyclops returns; for methinks he will give us but sorry\nwelcome if he finds us here.\" \"Nay,\" answered Odysseus, \"I will wait\nfor the master, that I may see him face to face. It may be that he\nwill bestow on me some gift, such as strangers receive from their\nhosts.\" So they remained, and having kindled a fire they prepared\nsavoury meat, and ate of the cheeses which they found in the cave.\nThen they waited, until the lengthening shadows showed that evening\nwas drawing near.\n\nWhile they sat thus, conversing in low tones, and casting fearful\nglances towards the cavern's mouth, all at once they heard a sound\nlike the trampling of many feet, accompanied by loud bleatings, which\nwere answered by the ewes and she-goats in the courtyard. Then a vast\nshadow darkened the cavern's entrance, and in came Polyphemus, driving\nhis flock before him. At the sight of that fearful monster, huge as a\nmountain, with one vast red eye glaring in the middle of his forehead,\nOdysseus and his comrades fled in terror to the darkest corner of the\ncave. The Cyclops bore in one hand a mighty log for his evening fire.\nFlinging it down with a crash that awakened all the echoes of the\ncavern, he closed the entrance with an immense mass of stone, which\nserved as a door. Then he sat down and began to milk the ewes and\nshe-goats. Half of the milk he curdled for cheese, and half he kept\nfor drinking. So when he had strained off the whey, and pressed the\ncurds into wicker-baskets, he kindled a fire, and as the flame blazed\nup, illumining every corner of the cavern, he caught sight of the\nintruders, and with a voice which sounded like the roaring of a\ntorrent cried out: \"Who are ye that have come to the cave of\nPolyphemus, and what would ye have of him?\"\n\nWhen he heard that appalling voice, and looked at that horrible face,\nfitfully lighted up by the blaze of the fire, Odysseus felt his heart\nstand still with terror. Nevertheless he manned himself to answer, and\nspake boldly thus: \"We are Greeks, driven from our course in our\nvoyage from Troy, and brought by the winds and waves to these shores.\nAnd we are they who have served Agamemnon, son of Atreus, whose fame\nnow fills the whole earth; so mighty was the city which he overthrew,\nwith all the host within her. And now we have come to kneel at thy\nfeet and beseech thee of thy favour to bestow on us some gift such as\nstrangers receive. Have pity on us, great and mighty as thou art, and\nforget not that Zeus hath the stranger and the suppliant in his\nkeeping.\"\n\nBut there was no sign of pity or mercy in the Cyclops' face as he made\nanswer: \"Thou art full simple, my friend, or unversed in the ways of\nthis land, if thou thinkest that I and my brethren care aught for Zeus\nor any other god. Nay, we are mightier far than they, and if thou\nseekest aught of me thou must seek it of my favour, and not of my\nfears. But tell me truly, where didst thou moor thy vessel on thy\nlanding? Lies she near at hand, or on a distant part of the coast?\"\n\nOdysseus easily divined the purpose of Polyphemus in putting this\nquestion, and answered accordingly: \"My ship was wrecked on a distant\npart of your coast, dashed all to pieces against the rocks; and I and\nthese twelve escaped by swimming.\"\n\nPolyphemus made no reply, but sprang up and seized two of the men,\ngrasping them easily together in one hand, and dashed their brains out\nagainst the rocky ground. Then he cut them in pieces and made his\nsupper on them. Fearful it was to see him as he ate, crunching up\nflesh and bones and marrow all together, like a ravening lion. When he\nhad devoured the last morsel he took a deep draught of milk, and lay\ndown on the cavern floor among his flocks to sleep.\n\nAs soon as the heavy breathing of Polyphemus showed that he was fast\nasleep, Odysseus crept from his corner, resolved to slay the cannibal\ngiant on the spot. He had already drawn his sword, when a sudden\nthought made him pause. If he killed Polyphemus, how was he to escape\nfrom the cavern? The entrance was blocked by that ponderous stone,\nwhich a hundred men could not have moved; and he and his men must in\nthat case perish miserably of hunger and thirst. Restrained by this\nreflection, he put up his sword, and went back to his companions to\nwait for day.\n\nPolyphemus rose early, and after milking his flocks he laid hold of\ntwo more of the miserable captives, butchered them in the same manner,\nand made his breakfast on their warm, quivering bodies. Then he drove\nforth his sheep and goats, pushing aside the door of rock, and set it\nback in its place, as a man sets the lid on a quiver. They heard his\nwild cries, as he called to his flocks, and their loud bleatings as he\ndrove them out to pasture; then the sounds grew fainter and fainter,\nand silence settled on the vast, shadowy cave.\n\nForthwith Odysseus began to devise means to escape from that murderous\nden, and avenge the slaughter of his friends. As he peered about in\nthe twilight, he caught sight of a mighty stake of green olive-wood,\ntall and stout as the mast of a twenty-oared galley,[1] which had been\ncut by the Cyclops for a staff, and laid aside to season. Odysseus cut\noff about a fathom's length, and with the help of his comrades made it\nround and smooth, and tapered it off at one end to a point. Then he\nhardened the sharp end in the fire, and when it was ready he hid the\nrude weapon away under a pile of refuse. Of the twelve who had\nfollowed him from the ship, there only remained eight; four of these\nwere chosen by lot to aid him in his plan of vengeance; and Odysseus\nnoted with satisfaction that they were the stoutest and bravest of the\ncompany. All being now ready, they sat down to wait for the return of\nPolyphemus.\n\n[Footnote 1: Imitated, with characteristic amplification, by Milton,\n\"Paradise Lost,\" i. 292 (Satan's spear).]\n\nThe setting sun was pouring his level rays through the chinks of the\ndoorway when they heard the ponderous tread of the Cyclops\napproaching. This time he drove the whole of his flocks into the cave,\nleaving the courtyard empty. Having milked the herd, he laid hands on\ntwo of Odysseus' comrades, and slaughtered and devoured them as\nbefore. The moment had now come for Odysseus to carry out his design.\nSo he filled a wooden bowl with unmixed wine, and drawing near to\nPolyphemus addressed him thus:\n\n\"Take, Polyphemus, and drink of this wine, now that thou hast eaten of\nhuman flesh. I warrant that thou hast never tasted such a choice\nvintage as this, and I brought it as a gift to thy divinity, that thou\nmightest have pity, and let me go in peace. Little did I dream to find\nthee so cruel and so wild. Who in all the world will ever draw near to\nthee again, after the hideous deeds which thou hast wrought?\"\n\nPolyphemus took the cup and drained it to the bottom. Then he rolled\nhis great eye with ecstasy, as the last drop trickled down his\nmonstrous gullet, and holding out the cup said with a sort of growling\ngood humour: \"Give me to drink again, and make haste and tell me thy\nname, that I may bestow on thee a gift of hospitality to gladden thy\nheart. I and my brethren have wine in plenty, for the earth gives us\nof her abundance, and the soft rain of heaven swells the grape to\nripeness; but this is a drink divine, fit for the banquets of\nOlympus.\"\n\nAgain the cup was filled, and yet a third time; and Polyphemus drank\nout every drop. Before long his great head began to droop, and his eye\nblinked mistily, like the red sun looming through a fog. Seeing that\nthe good wine was doing its work, Odysseus lost no time in telling his\nname. \"Thou askest how I am called,\" he said in cozening tones, \"and\nthou shalt hear, that I may receive the gift which thou hast promised\nme. My name is Noman; so call me my father and my mother, and all my\nfriends.\" When he heard that, Polyphemus \"grinned horribly a ghastly\nsmile,\" and answered: \"This shall be thy gift: I will eat thee last of\nall, for the sake of thy good wine.\"\n\nWith that he sank down backward on the floor, and lay like a\nleviathan, with his head lolling sideways, and his mouth gaping,\nburied in drunken sleep.\n\n\"Now is our time!\" whispered Odysseus, and taking the sharpened stake\nfrom its hiding place he thrust the point into the glowing embers of\nthe fire. As soon as he saw that the weapon was red hot and about to\nburst into flame, he took it up, and gave it to his men. Then,\nbreathing a prayer to Heaven for strength and courage, they stole\nsoftly to the place where the Cyclops lay. Odysseus clambered up to\nthe forehead of the Cyclops, holding on by his hair, and while the\nothers pressed the glowing point of the ponderous stake into the\nmonster's eye he whirled it round by means of a thong, as men turn an\nauger to bore a ship's timber. The point hissed and sputtered as it\nsank deep into the pulpy substance of the eye, and there was an acrid\nsmell of burning flesh, while the great shaggy eyebrow took fire, and\ncracked like a burning bush. \"It is a fine tempering bath for this\ngood spear of ours,\" muttered Odysseus, as he worked away at the\nstrap. \"Temper it well--Polyphemus shall have it as a parting gift\"\n\nAt first the Cyclops writhed and groaned in his sleep; then with a\nroar as of a hundred lions he awoke, and started up to a sitting\nposture, scattering his puny tormentors, who fled in wild haste, and\nhid themselves in the angle of a projecting rock. Polyphemus rose\nslowly to his feet, tore the stake from the empty eye-socket, and\nflung it from him, still uttering his fearful cries. His brethren\nheard him, and quitting their caverns, came flocking round his gate,\nto see what had befallen. \"What ails thee, Polyphemus,\" they asked,\n\"that thou makest this dreadful din, murdering our sleep? Is anyone\nstealing thy sheep or thy goats? Or seeks anyone to slay thee by force\nor by guile?\"\n\n\"Friends,\" answered the afflicted giant, \"Noman is slaying me by\nguile, neither by force.\"\n\n\"Go to,\" replied his brethren, \"if no man is using thee despitefully,\nwhy callest thou to us? Thou art stricken, it seems, with some sore\ndisease: pray, then, to thy father Poseidon, and cumber us no more.\"\nSo away they went, growling at their broken sleep, and left their\nblinded brother to roar alone.\n\nMeanwhile Odysseus had been hard at work, taking measures to escape\nwith his comrades from the cave. Among the flocks of Polyphemus were\nseveral big rams, with fleeces of remarkable thickness and beauty. Of\nthese he took three at a time, and lashed them together, side by side,\nwith osiers, which served Polyphemus for a bed. Each middle ram bore\none of the men firmly bound with osiers under his belly; while the two\noutside rams served to conceal that living burden. Last of all\nOdysseus provided for his own safety. There was one monster ram, the\nleader of the flock, with a grand fleece which trailed on the ground,\nlike the leaves of the weeping ash. Him Odysseus reserved for himself,\nand creeping under his belly hauled himself up until he was entirely\nhidden by the drooping fleece, and so hung on steadfastly, waiting for\nthe day.\n\nAt last the weary vigil was over, the huge stone portal was rolled\naside, and the male sheep and goats went forth to pasture, while the\nfemales remained in their pens, bleating and in pain, for they were\nswollen with milk, and there was none to relieve them. As the rams\nwent past Polyphemus felt their backs, to see if the men were there;\nbut the simple monster never thought of feeling under their bellies.\nLast in the train came the big ram, with Odysseus clinging underneath.\nThen said Polyphemus, as his great hands passed over his back: \"Dear\nram, why art thou the last to leave the cave? Thou wast never wont to\nbe a sluggard, but ever thou tookest the lead, walking with long\nstrides, whether thou wast cropping the tender, flowering grass, or\ngoing down to the waterside, or returning at even to the fold. Surely\nthou art heavy with sorrow for thy master's eye, which the villain\nNoman and his pitiful mates have blinded. Would that thou hadst a\nvoice, to tell me where he is skulking from my fury! Then would I pour\nforth his brains like water on the ground, and lighten my heart of the\nwoe which hath been brought upon me by the hands of this nithering[1]\nNoman.\"\n\n[Footnote 1: See Scott, \"Ivanhoe.\"]\n\nSo saying he let the ram go, and as soon as he was clear of the\ncourtyard Odysseus dropped to the ground, and ran to loose his\ncomrades. With all speed they made their way down to the ship, driving\nthe rams before them, with many a fearful backward glance. Right glad\nwere their friends to see them again, though their faces fell when\nthey saw their numbers reduced by half. But there was no time for\nregrets, for Polyphemus was already close upon them, groping his way\npainfully from rock to rock. So they flung the sheep on board, shoved\noff the vessel, and took to their oars. While they were still within\nearshot Odysseus bade his men cease rowing, and standing up in the\nstern called aloud to the Cyclops in mocking tones: \"How likest thou\nmy gift for thy hospitality, my gentle host? Methinks thou art paid in\nfull, and canst not complain that I have not given thee good measure.\"\n\nWhen he heard that, Polyphemus bellowed with rage, and tearing up a\ngreat boulder from the side of the cliff he flung it with mighty force\nin the direction of the voice. It fell into the sea right in front of\nthe ship, and raised a billow which washed her back to the shore.\nOdysseus pushed her off with a long pole, and signalled to his men to\ngive way. They rowed for dear life, and had attained twice the former\ndistance from the shore when Odysseus stopped them again, though they\nbesought him earnestly to forego his rash purpose, and to refrain from\nprovoking Polyphemus more. But he, being exceeding wroth for the\nmurder of his men, would not be persuaded; and lifting up his voice he\nspake again: \"Cyclops, if anyone ask thee to whom thou owest the loss\nof thine eye, say that it was Odysseus, the son of Laertes, who reft\nthee of sight, and his home is in rocky Ithaca.\"\n\n[Illustration: Odysseus and Polyphemus]\n\nNow it happened that many a year back Polyphemus had heard a prophecy,\nforetelling that he should one day be blinded by a certain Odysseus.\nSo when he heard that name he was stricken to the very heart, and\ncried aloud: \"This, then, is the fulfilment of the oracle! Verily I\nthought that some tall and proper man would come hither to assail me,\nbut now I have been outwitted, made drunk, and blinded, by this\nlittle, paltry wretch.\" After a pause he spoke again, thinking to\nfight that man of many wiles with his own weapons. \"Come hither,\nOdysseus,\" he said, softening his big voice as well as he could, \"that\nI may entertain thee with loving-kindness; and afterwards I will pray\nto Poseidon, whose son I am, to send a fair breeze for thy homeward\nvoyage. And he also shall heal my hurt, and give me back my sight.\"\n\nOdysseus laughed aloud at the poor monster's simplicity, whereupon\nPolyphemus lifted up his hands to heaven, and prayed to his sire, the\nlord Poseidon: \"Hear me, thou who holdest the earth in thine arms, if\nI am indeed thy son. Grant me that Odysseus may never reach his home,\nor if that is fixed beyond repeal, let him come home in evil plight,\nwith the loss of all his men, on a strange ship, to a house of\nwoe.\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Compare Dido's curse (\"Stories from the \u00c6neid,\" p. 84).]\n\nSuch was the curse of Polyphemus, to be fulfilled, as we shall see, to\nthe letter. And having uttered it he flung another rock, which fell\njust short of the vessel's stern, and raised a wave which washed her\ntowards the island. Soon they reached the harbour where the rest of\nthe fleet lay moored. Joyful were the greetings of their comrades, who\nhad given them up for lost; and a merry feast they made on the flesh\nof the fat sheep, though their mirth was checkered by sadness when\nthey thought of the brave six who had come to so horrible an end in\nthe Cyclops' cave.\n\nAfter leaving the land of the Cyclopes they came next to the \u00c6olian\nisland, where dwelt \u00c6olus with his wife and twelve sons and daughters.\nThe island floated on the sea, and all around it tall cliffs ran sheer\ndown to the water, crowned on their summit by a wall of brass. Here\nthey remained a whole month, and were hospitably entertained by \u00c6olus,\nrevelling in the abundance of his wealthy house, and whiling away the\ntime with music, and dance, and song, and brave stories of the Trojan\nwar. And when they departed he gave Odysseus a leathern bag, tied with\na silver cord, in which were confined all the winds that blow, except\nonly the good west wind, which he left free to blow behind them and\nspeed them on their way.\n\nSo for nine days and nights they sailed without let or hindrance, and\non the tenth they came in sight of Ithaca, which they approached so\nnear that they saw the smoke and flame of the beacon-fires along the\ncoast. Odysseus was worn out with watching, for during all the voyage\nhe had not closed his eyes, but had sat the whole time with his hand\non the sheet, and suffered no one to relieve him. But now within sight\nof his native land he sank down in utter weariness, and fell into a\ndeep sleep.\n\nThat fatal moment of weakness led to a long train of disasters. His\nmen had long gazed with curious and jealous eyes at the mysterious\nwallet, which they supposed to be full of gold and silver. As long as\nOdysseus was on his guard they durst not give utterance to their\nthoughts; but when they saw him overtaken by slumber they began to\nmurmur among themselves. And thus they spake one to another: \"Behold\nhow this man is honoured and beloved whithersoever he goes! He left\nTroy-land laden with booty, and thereto hath \u00c6olus added this rich\ntreasure, while we must come home with empty hands. Go to, let us have\nsight of all this gold and silver.\"\n\nSo waking folly prevailed over slumbering prudence. In a moment the\nsilver cord was loosened, and all the boisterous winds rushed forth\nand bore them weeping and wailing far from their native land. Roused\nby the tumult of the tempest, and the despairing cries of his men,\nOdysseus sprang up, just in time to see the last glimpse of the hills\nof Ithaca as they melted in the distance. His first impulse was to\nfling himself into the sea and perish; but mastering his frenzy he\ncovered his face, and sat down in speechless misery, while the winds\nbore them swiftly back to the isle of \u00c6olus.\n\nWith a heavy heart Odysseus went up to the house where he had been\nreceived so kindly, and told his sorrowful tale. \"Pity my weakness,\"\nhe pleaded, \"and let me not suffer for the sins of my men.\" But \u00c6olus\nwas not to be moved. \"Begone,\" he said sternly, \"quit this island at\nonce, thou caitiff! Heaven hath set the seal of its hatred upon thee,\nand I may not give countenance to such as thou. Out of my sight!\" he\nthundered, and Odysseus crept sadly back to his ship.\n\nThen for six days they voyaged on, toiling continually at the oar, for\nnow there was no favourable wind to waft them on. They were almost\ndead with fatigue when they sighted land on the seventh day, and came\nto anchor in a sheltered bay, surrounded on all sides by towering\ncliffs, with a narrow entrance, guarded by a tall spire of rock on\neither side The place was called L\u00e6strygonia, and the nights in that\ncountry are so short that the shepherd as he drives home his flocks at\nsundown meets his fellow-toiler on his way to the pasture.\n\nThe cautious Odysseus moored his ship close to the entrance of the\nharbour, while all the others came to anchor at the head of the bay\nunder the shadow of the cliffs; for there was not a wave, not a\nripple, in that sheltered spot, but the water slumbered, as in a\nmountain tarn. Having secured his vessel, by making fast her cable to\nthe rocks, he scaled the cliff with a few of his men, and seeing smoke\nrising in the distance he sent three scouts to explore the country,\nmeantime going back to his ship to await their return.\n\nSooner than he expected he saw two of the men descending the cliff in\nheadlong haste, and as they drew near he could read on their white,\nterror-stricken faces what sort of news they had to bring. Their\nreport was as dismal as their looks. When they left the coast they\nstruck into a level road cut through the forest, and presently came to\na spring on the outskirts of a town. Here they met a maiden, drawing\nwater at the well, who told them that she was the daughter of\nAntiphates, king of that country, and offered to conduct them to her\nfather's house. They went with her, and when she had brought them home\nshe left them to summon her father.\n\n\"As soon as we caught sight of him,\" continued he who was telling the\nstory, \"we were stricken with terror, for he was of monstrous stature\nand hideous to behold. One of us he seized, and rent him in pieces on\nthe spot; but we two fled for our lives. There is no time to lose. The\ntown is in uproar, and before long the whole cannibal tribe will be\nupon us.\"\n\nHardly had he finished when a multitude of these huge savages was seen\nrushing along the edge of the cliffs which overlooked the harbour.\nArming themselves with great rocks, they began to bombard the ships\nwhich had taken the inside station; and a dreadful din arose of\nshattered timbers, mingled with the cries of dying men. Not one ship\nescaped destruction, and when that part of their work was ended the\nbarbarians swarmed down the cliffs, speared the floating corpses, and\ndragged them to land for a cannibal feast.\n\nAll this time Odysseus and his crew had been helpless spectators of\nthis scene of massacre. But when they saw that all was over they cut\ntheir cable, and taking to their oars rowed with might and main until\na wide space of open water divided them from that ill-fated shore,\nwhere all their friends had found a grave.\n\nIV\n\nOf the thirteen vessels with which Odysseus sailed from Troy only one\nwas now left. Weary and broken in spirit they voyaged on over the\nwaste of waters; and when, after two or three days' sail, they landed\non a low-lying coast, they lay down for two days and two nights, like\nmen whose last hope in life was gone. On the third morning Odysseus\nroused himself, and ascending a rising ground saw to his dismay that\nthey had landed on a small island. On all sides stretched the\nboundless sea, without a trace of land on the whole horizon.\n\nAs he was descending the hill he heard a rustling in a neighbouring\nthicket, and a tall stag with branching antlers stepped forth, and\nbegan to make his way down to a little stream which skirted the foot\nof the hill. From the high ground on which he stood Odysseus had a\nfull view of the beast's broad back, and taking steady aim he flung\nhis spear and pierced him through the spine. Odysseus' eyes glistened\nwhen he saw the splendid quarry at his feet, for never had he seen so\nfine a buck. Not without effort he took the carcass on his back, and\nbore it down to his ship, where he found his men still lying\nlistlessly where he had left them. \"Courage, comrades,\" he cried, as\nhe flung his heavy burden on the sand. \"We shall not die before our\nday, and while we have life we must eat and drink. Better a full\nsorrow than a fasting.\"[1] So they ate and drank, and made good cheer.\n\n[Footnote 1: See the whole incident imitated in Virgil (\"Stories from\nthe \u00c6neid,\" p. 49).]\n\nNext day Odysseus divided his whole crew into two companies, two and\ntwenty each, with himself as captain of one division, and Eurylochus,\nhis faithful squire, in command of the other. Then he drew lots with\nEurylochus to determine which of the two should undertake the perilous\nduty of exploring the island. The lot fell upon Eurylochus, and he at\nonce set forth with his party, pursued by the prayers and tears of\nthose who remained behind.\n\nPassing the low hills which skirted the coast, they struck into a\nforest path, and presently came to an open glade, in the midst of\nwhich stood a fair stone dwelling. And as they came and drew nigh unto\nthe house they saw a strange sight: before the doors stalked and\nglared a multitude of wolves and lions, and other beasts of prey, and\nwhen they saw the men these fearful creatures came fawning round them,\nlike hounds welcoming their master, and did them no harm.\n\nQuaking with wonder and fear, they came and stood on the threshold,\nthrough which they caught sight of a young and lovely dame, pacing to\nand fro about her loom, and weaving a wondrous web, fair and large,\nsuch as the daughters of the gods are wont to weave. And as she plied\nher task, she sang to herself in a low and thrilling voice, sad and\nsweet as the notes of the \u00c6olian harp. Presently she turned her face\nto the doorway, and saw the men standing without. With a bright smile\nshe came forward, and bade them enter; and they all went in, save only\nEurylochus, who was older than the rest, and liked not the look in\nthat fair lady's eyes.\n\n\"Welcome, fair youths,\" she said, \"to the halls of Circe, daughter of\nthe sun. Sit ye down, while I prepare you a posset to slake your\nthirst on this hot day.\" So they sat down, and Circe took wine, and\ngrated cheese, and honey, and barley-meal, and mixed them in a bowl,\nmuttering strange words, and adding a single drop from a little phial\nwhich she took from a secret cupboard. Then she gave them to drink,\ntouching them, as she did so, with a wand; and no sooner had they\ntasted than their form and countenance was changed into the likeness\nof swine, though they kept the mind and feelings of men. Circe now\ndrove them all together into a stye, and flung down beechmast, and\nacorns, and cornel berries, for them to eat.\n\nIt was drawing towards noon when Odysseus saw a solitary figure\ndescending the slope which led down to the beach. \"Eurylochus!\" he\ncried, recognising the familiar features of his squire. \"Why comest\nthou alone?\" For some time Eurylochus was unable to utter a word; at\nlast he spoke, in a broken and altered voice, while his face was\nblanched with deadly terror. \"They are gone,\" he faltered--\"spirited\naway--vanished without a sign. The place is haunted: let us away!\"\n\nWithout a word, Odysseus caught up his sword and bow, and ordered\nEurylochus to show him the way to the place where he had lost his men.\nBut Eurylochus clung to his knees, and besought him to remain, and\nprepare for instant flight. Seeing him to be unnerved by terror,\nOdysseus bade him stay by the ship, and he himself set out alone to\nlearn the secrets of this mysterious island.\n\nJust before coming within sight of Circe's palace, he saw, standing in\nhis path, a fair and comely youth, who greeted him kindly, and took\nhim by the hand. There was something more than human beauty in the\nface of this stranger, and his words showed more than human knowledge\nof Odysseus and his affairs; for indeed he was no other than Hermes,\nthe messenger of the gods, sent down from heaven to aid Odysseus in\nthis strait. \"Son of Laertes,\" he said, \"why goest thou thus unwarily,\neven as a silly bird into the net of the fowler? Pause awhile, or,\ninstead of setting free thy men, thou wilt become even as they are.\"\nSo saying he stooped down, and with careful hands tore up a little\nplant which was growing at their feet; the flower of it was white as\nmilk, and the root was black. \"Take this plant,\" he said, giving it to\nOdysseus. \"It is the magic herb, Moly, and no human hand may pluck it;\nhaving this, thou mayest defy all the spells of Circe. And when thou\ncomest to the house of that fair witch, she will offer thee a potion,\nmixed with baneful drugs: drink thou thereof, for it shall do thee no\nharm. But when she smites thee with her wand draw thou thy sword and\nmake as though thou wouldst slay her; and she will be filled with\nfear, for none ever resisted her power before. Then do thou compel her\nto swear a great oath that she will devise no further ill against\nthee.\" As the last words were uttered Hermes vanished, leaving\nOdysseus standing with the plant in his hand.\n\n[Illustration: Circe]\n\nAnd as the god had spoken, even so it came to pass. Circe welcomed\nOdysseus with the same treacherous smile, gave him to drink of the\nsame cup, and struck him with her wand in the same manner; but when\nshe saw him standing, unchanged and unmoved, threatening her with\ndrawn sword, she feared exceedingly, and falling at his feet spake\nthus in pitiful tones: \"Who art thou, that thou yieldest not to the\npower of my drugs, which never mortal resisted before? Art thou that\nOdysseus of whom Hermes spake, telling me that he should come hither\non his voyage from Troy? Put up thy sword, and thou shalt be my guest\nto-night, and for many days to come.\"\n\n\"No guest will I be of thine,\" answered Odysseus sternly, \"unless thou\nwilt swear a great oath to do me no hurt. Before that I will not trust\nthee, or receive aught at thy hands. Hast thou not turned my men into\nswine, and didst thou not seek even now to put thy wicked spells upon\nme?\"\n\nThen Circe took the oath that was required of her, and thus secured\nOdysseus consented to remain. Forthwith his beautiful hostess summoned\nher handmaids, sweet nymphs of rivers, and woods, and springs, and\nbade them make all things ready to entertain the wanderer. With white\nfeet tripping nimbly, and many a curious glance at the majestic\nstranger, the maidens hastened to obey her command. And soon the\ntables, which were all of silver, were set forth with golden vessels,\nthe chairs spread with purple tapestries, and the rich red wine\nmingled in a silver bowl. Others prepared a bath for Odysseus, and\nwhen he had bathed, more than mortal health and vigour seemed to enter\nhis limbs, such virtue had Circe shed into the water.\n\nAfter that they sat down to meat; but Odysseus, whose mind was full of\nhis comrades, left every dish untasted, and sat without uttering a\nword. When she observed it, Circe rallied him for his sullenness: \"Art\nthou afraid to eat?\" she said, smiling: \"have I not sworn to do thee\nno harm? Ah! thou art thinking of thy friends. Come, then, and I will\nrestore them to thee.\" So she brought him to the stye where they were\nconfined together, and opening the gate drove them all forth, a herd\nof bristly swine. Then she anointed them one by one with another drug;\nand instantly the bristles fell away from them, and they became men\nagain, only younger and fairer to behold than they were before. With\ntears of joy they embraced Odysseus, and the whole place rang with\ntheir happy greetings, so that even Circe was moved by the tender\nscene.\n\nWhen they had grown calmer she bade Odysseus go down to the sea, and\nbring back all the rest of his company to take up their abode in her\nhouse. Being now quite reassured as to her purpose, he hesitated not\nto obey, and went down alone to carry the message from Circe. Arrived\nat the ship he was hailed by his comrades as one returned from the\ndead; but putting aside their eager questions he told them to beach\nthe vessel, stow away all her tackle, and follow him to the house of\nCirce, where they would find all their fellows feasting and making\nmerry.\n\nMuch cheered by his words the men set to work with willing hands, and\nbefore an hour had passed the whole company was reunited under Circe's\nhospitable roof. The dreaded witch had laid aside all her terrors, and\nnow appeared only in the character of a kind and generous hostess,\nwhose sole care was for the comfort and welfare of her guests. Days\nlengthened into weeks, and weeks into months, and still they lingered\non in that luxurious clime, as if there were no such place as Ithaca,\nand no wide waste of sea to be crossed.\n\nAt last, when they had lived a whole year on the island, Odysseus' men\nbegan to grow weary of their long inaction, and begged their leader to\nobtain Circe's permission to depart. Not without some misgivings,\nOdysseus preferred his request. \"Deem me not ungrateful,\" he said, \"if\nmy heart turns ever to my wife and home. I am but a mortal man, with\nhuman needs and frailties, and no fit mate for a goddess like thee.\nAnd my men weary me with their importunity, when thou art not near.\"\n\nCirce heard him graciously, knowing well that they must part. \"I will\nnot keep thee,\" she said, \"against thy will. But a long journey lies\nbefore thee, even to the very ends of the earth, and not until that is\npast canst thou set thy sail for home. To the halls of Hades thou must\ngo, and consult the spirit of Theban Teiresias, who alone among all\nthe dead hath an understanding heart, while the rest are but flitting\nshadows. Now hearken, and I will tell thee all that thou must do. When\nthou leavest these shores thou shalt sail ever southward, until thou\nhast reached the farther side of the River Oceanus, and come to the\nshadowy grove which stands at the confines of the realm of Persephone.\nThere thou shalt land with thy company, and dig a trench a cubit in\nlength and breadth, and pour about it a libation of mead and water and\nwine; and after that thou shalt offer a sacrifice of black sheep, in\nsuch wise that the blood thereof shall flow into the trench and fill\nit. Thither will flock the whole multitude of departed spirits, to\ndrink of the blood; but do thou draw thy sword, and hold it over the\ntrench, nor suffer any of the other spirits to draw near until thou\nhast seen Teiresias and hearkened to his lore.\"\n\nAll that night Odysseus remained in deep conference with Circe, and as\nsoon as day dawned he went to rouse his men who were sleeping in the\nouter chamber. \"Up, comrades!\" he cried, \"all is prepared, and we must\nembark without delay.\" His loud summons proved fatal to one of the\ncompany, a certain Elpenor, the youngest of them all, who, the night\nbefore, had lain down to sleep on the housetop, for the sake of the\ncoolness, being heated with wine. Roused suddenly by the voice of\nOdysseus, he staggered to his feet, and, still half asleep, stumbled\nover the parapet in his haste, and fell headlong from the roof.\n\nIn the hurry of their departure the body was left where it lay, and\nOdysseus, when they reached the ship, did not notice his absence. They\nfound that Circe had been there before them, and left the victims for\nsacrifice bound to the vessel's side. She herself was nowhere to be\nseen, and so without another word of farewell they launched their\ngalley and put out into the deep.\n\n\n\n\nThe Visit to Hades\n\n\nI\n\nA clear, strong wind came down from the north, sent by the favour of\nthe mighty enchantress Circe, and over the trackless sea they sped,\nwhere never furrow of mortal ship was seen before. After a long day's\nsail they came to the farther shore of the ocean stream, which\nsurrounds the earth as with a girdle. There is the abode of the people\ncalled the Cimmerians, wrapped in shadow and mist; for never doth the\nsun look down upon them with his rays, neither when he climbs the\nstarry sky, nor yet when he goeth down unto the place of his rest. And\nthus they dwell miserably under the curse of perpetual night.\n\nAs they peered through the gloom they saw what seemed a grove of dusky\ntrees, in shape like the poplar and willow, fringing the shore. \"It is\nthe sign which Circe gave me,\" whispered Odysseus to his awestruck\ncomrades; \"we are at the very gates of Hades.\" Landing in silence,\nthey carried the victims for sacrifice to the verge of the grove, and\nOdysseus with his sword dug a trench, a cubit in length and breadth,\nand poured about it a libation of mead and water and wine. Then the\nsheep were slaughtered, and the trench was filled to the brim with\ntheir blood. When the solemn rite was ended, Odysseus called in a loud\nvoice to the spirits of the dead, and waited in breathless expectation\nwith his men.\n\nPresently a rustling sound was heard, like the sound of the autumn\nwind in the dry leaves of the forest; it grew louder and louder, and\nout of the gloom the ghosts came flocking, youths and maidens cut off\nin their bloom, old men with all their burden of sorrow, and warriors\nslain in battle, still wearing the bloodstained armour.[1] With a wild\nunearthly cry they came crowding to the trench, eager to drink of the\nblood. But Odysseus, though quaking with fear, stood his ground\nfirmly, and held his drawn sword over the trench to keep off the\nmultitude, until he had seen and spoken with Teiresias.\n\n[Footnote 1: Compare \"Stories from the \u00c6neid,\" p. 119.]\n\nAmong the hosts of spirits there was one who lingered near the trench,\nand seemed by his beseeching gestures and earnest looks to desire\nspeech with Odysseus. When his first fears were over Odysseus\nrecognised the features of Elpenor, who had come to an untimely end on\nthe morning of their journey, and whose body still lay unburied in the\nhouse of Circe. Registering a mental vow to perform all due rites to\nthat poor spirit on his homeward voyage, Odysseus warned him back, and\nstood waiting for the coming of the seer.\n\nAt last came one with tottering footsteps, leaning on a golden\nsceptre, and halted on the farther edge of the trench. It seemed a\nvery aged man, with flowing white beard, and sightless eyes; and\nOdysseus knew by these signs that he was in the presence of Teiresias,\nthe famous prophet of Thebes, who alone among departed spirits\npreserves his understanding, while the rest are flitting phantoms,\nwith no sense at all. \"What wouldst thou of me, Odysseus, son of\nLaertes,\" said the spectre in faltering tones, \"and wherefore hast\nthou left the glad light of day to visit this drear and joyless realm\nof the dead? Draw back from the trench, and put up thy sword in its\nsheath, that I may drink of the blood and tell thee all that thou\nwouldst know.\"\n\nThereupon Odysseus fell back, and sheathed his sword; and Teiresias,\nwhen he had drunk of the blood, spoke again in firmer and clearer\ntones: \"Thou art fain to hear of thy home-coming, illustrious hero;\nbut thy path to Ithaca shall be beset with sorrows, because of the\nwrath of Poseidon, whose son, Polyphemus, thou hast blinded.\nNevertheless thou and all thy company shall return safe to Ithaca, if\nonly ye leave untouched the sacred flocks and herds of Helios,[1] when\nye come to the island of Thrinacia. But if harm befall them at your\nhands, from that hour thy ship and all her crew are doomed and forfeit\nto destruction: and though thou thyself escape, yet thou shalt return\nafter many days, in evil plight, to a house of woe.[2] And now learn\nhow thou mayest at last appease the anger of the god who pursues thee\nwith his vengeance. When thou art once more master in thine own house\nthou shalt go on a far journey, carrying with thee an oar of thy\nvessel, until thou comest to a people that dwell far from the sea, and\nknow naught of ships or the mariner's art. And there shalt meet thee\nby the way a man who shall say that thou bearest a winnowing shovel[3]\non thy shoulder; and this shall be a sign unto thee, whereby thou\nshalt know that thou hast reached the end of thy journey. Then plant\nthy oar in the ground, and offer sacrifice to Poseidon. This shall be\nthe end of thy toils, and death shall come softly upon thee where thou\ndwellest in a green old age among thy happy people.\"\n\n[Footnote 1: The sun god.]\n\n[Footnote 2: The very words of Polyphemus, p. 93.]\n\n[Footnote 3: The oar.]\n\nWhen he had thus spoken Teiresias vanished into the darkness; and one\nby one the spirits came up to the trench, as Odysseus suffered them,\nand having drunk of the blood obtained strength to speak and answer\nhis questions. First among them was the spirit of his mother,\nAnticleia, daughter of Autolycus, who had been hovering near during\nhis conference with Teiresias. When she had drunk she said: \"Whence\ncomest thou, my son? Art thou still wandering on thy long voyage from\nTroy, or hast thou been in Ithaca, and seen thy wife?\"\n\n\"Nay, mother,\" answered Odysseus, \"I am wandering still, still\ntreading the path of woe, since the day when I followed Agamemnon to\nTroy. But tell me now, and answer me truly, what was the manner of thy\ndeath? Came it slowly, by long disease, or did Artemis lay thee low in\na moment with a painless arrow from her bow?[1] And tell me of my\nfather and my son whom I left in Ithaca; do they still hold my\npossessions, or hath some other thrust them with violence from my\nseat? Tell me also of Penelope, my wedded wife, whether she abides\nsteadfast and guards my goods, or whether she is gone to cheer some\nother man's heart.\"\n\n[Footnote 1: Sudden death was ascribed to Artemis or Apollo.]\n\n\"Steadfast indeed she is,\" replied Anticleia, \"and wondrous patient of\nheart; all her thoughts are ever of thee. No one has yet usurped thy\nplace in Ithaca, but Telemachus still reaps thy fields and sits down\nto meat with the noblest in the land. As to thy father, he comes no\nmore to the town, but dwells continually on his farm. He lives not\ndelicately, as princes use, but is clad in sorry raiment, and sleeps\nin the winter among the ashes of the hearth with his thralls, and in\nsummer on a bed of dry leaves in his vineyard. There he lies forsaken,\nheavy with years and sorrows, mourning for thee. And in such wise also\ndeath came upon me, neither by wasting sickness nor by the gentle\nshafts of Artemis, but my sore longing for thee, Odysseus, and for thy\nsweet counsels, at last broke my heart.\"\n\nA flood of tenderness overpowered Odysseus at these sad words, and he\nsprang forward with arms outstretched to clasp his mother to his\nbreast. Thrice he essayed to embrace her, and thrice his arms closed\non emptiness,[1] while that ghostly presence still flitted before him\nlike a shadow or a dream. \"O my mother,\" cried Odysseus in deep\ndistress, \"why dost thou mock me thus? Come to my heart, dear mother;\nlet me hold thee in mine arms once more, and mingle my tears with\nthine. Or art thou but the shadow of a shade, a phantom sent by\nPersephone to deceive me?\"\n\n[Footnote 1: Compare \"Stories from the \u00c6neid,\" p. 24.]\n\n\"Persephone deceives thee not,\" answered the ghost, \"but this is the\nfashion of mortals when they die. Flesh and bone and sinew are\nconsumed by the might of fire, but the spirit takes flight and hovers\never like a winged dream. But make haste and get thee back to the\ndaylight, and keep all that thou hast seen in memory that thou mayest\ntell it to thy wife.\"\n\nWhen the spirit of Anticleia was gone, a shadowy throng pressed\nforward to the trench, all the ghosts of noble dames, wives and\ndaughters of princes. And Odysseus kept his place, sword in hand,\nsuffering them only to drink one by one, that he might question them\nand learn their story. There he saw Alcmene, the mother of Hercules,\nand Leda, to whose twin sons, Castor and Pollux, a strange destiny was\nallotted; for after their death they rose to life again on alternate\ndays, one lying in the tomb, while the other walked the earth as a\nliving man. There too was Iphimedeia, mother of the giants Otus and\nEphialtes, who at nine years of age were nine fathoms in height and\nnine cubits in breadth. Haughty were they, and presumptuous in their\nyouth; for they made war on the gods, and piled Ossa on Olympus, and\nPelion on Ossa, that they might scale the sky. But they perished in\ntheir impiety, shot down by the bolts of Apollo's golden bow. Last\ncame Eriphyle, the false wife, who sold her husband's life for a\nglittering bribe.\n\nThat dream of fair women melted away and another ghostly band\nsucceeded, the souls of great captains and mighty men of war. Foremost\namong these was seen one of regal port, around whom was gathered a\nchoice company of veteran warriors, all gored and gashed with recent\nwounds. He who seemed their leader stretched out his hands towards\nOdysseus with a piteous gesture, and tears such as spirits weep[1]\ngushed from his eyes. Instantly Odysseus recognised in that stricken\nspirit his great commander Agamemnon, once the proud captain of a\nthousand ships, now wandering, forlorn and feeble, with all his glory\nfaded.\n\n[Footnote 1: \"Tears such as _angels_ weep,\" Milton, \"Paradise Lost,\"\ni. 619.]\n\n\"Royal son of Atreus,\" he said, in a voice broken with weeping, \"is it\nhere that I find thee, great chieftain of the embattled Greeks? Say,\nhow comest thou hither, and what arm aimed the stroke which laid thee\nlow?\" \"Not in honour's field did I fall,\" answered Agamemnon, \"nor yet\namid the waves. It was a traitor's hand that cut me off, the hand of\n\u00c6gisthus, and the guile of my accursed wife. He feasted me at his\nboard, and slaughtered me as one slaughters a stalled ox; and all my\ncompany fell with me in that den of butchery. It was pitiful to see\nall that brave band of veterans writhing in their death agony among\nthe tables loaded with good cheer, and goblets brimming with wine. But\nthat which gave me my sorest pang was the dying shriek of Cassandra,\ndaughter of Priam, who was struck down at my side by the dagger of\nClyt\u00e6mnestra. Then the murderess turned away and left me with staring\neyes and mouth gaping in death. For naught is so vile, naught so\ncruel, as a woman who hath hardened her heart to tread the path of\ncrime. Even so did she break her marriage vows, and afterwards slew\nthe husband of her youth. I thought to have found far other welcome\nwhen I passed under the shadow of mine own roof-tree. But this\ndemon-wife imagined evil against me, and brought infamy on the very\nname of woman.\"\n\n\"Strange ordinance of Zeus!\" said Odysseus musingly, \"which hath\nturned the choicest blessing of man's life, the love of woman, into\nthe bitterest of curses for thee and for thy house. Yea, and upon all\nthe land of Hellas hath woe been brought by the deed of a\nwoman--Helen, thy brother's wife.\"\n\n\"Ay, trust them not,\" replied Agamemnon bitterly, \"Never give thy\nheart into a woman's keeping; she will rifle thy very soul's flower,\nand then laugh thee to scorn. But why do I speak thus to thee? Thou\nhast indeed a treasure in thy wife; no wiser head, no truer heart,\nthan hers. Happy art thou, and sweet the refuge which is prepared for\nthee after all thy toils, Well I remember the day when we set sail\nfrom Greece, and how fondly thou spakest of her, thy young bride, with\nher babe at her breast. Now he will be a tall youth, and with what joy\nwill he look into the eyes of his father, whom he was then too young\nto know!\"\n\nAfter that Odysseus was silent, his mind full of sweet and anxious\nthoughts. Meanwhile other familiar forms had drawn near, the spirits\nof warriors renowned, whose very names were as a battle-cry when they\ndwelt on earth: Achilles, Patroclus, and Antilochus, and farther off,\nlooming dimly in the darkness, the gigantic shade of Ajax. Achilles\nwas the first to speak. \"Son of Laertes,\" he said, \"thou man of\ndaring, hast thou reached the limit of thy rashness, or wilt thou go\nyet further? Are there no perils left for thee in the land of the\nliving that thou must invade the very realm of Hades, the sunless\nhaunts of the dead?\"\n\n\"I came to inquire of Teiresias,\" answered Odysseus, \"concerning my\nreturn to Ithaca. All my life I am a bondslave to toil and woe; but\nthou, Achilles, wast happy in thy life, honoured as a god by all the\nsons of Hellas; and now thou art happy, even in death, for honour\nwaits on thy footsteps still.\"\n\n\"Tell me not of comfort in death,\" replied Achilles. \"Rather would I\nbreathe the air of heaven, yea, though I were thrall to a man of\nlittle substance, than reign as king over all the shades of the dead.\nBut give me some news of my son, Neoptolemus. Came he to fight with\nthe Trojans after I was gone, and did he acquit him well? And knowest\nthou aught of my father, Peleus? Lives he still in honour and comfort\namong my people, or has he been driven into beggary by violent men,\nnow that he is old and I am not near to aid him? Oh, for an hour of\nlife, with such might as was mine when I fought in the van for Greece?\nThen should they pay a bitter reckoning, whosoever they be that wrong\nhim and keep him from his own.\"\n\n\"Of Peleus,\" answered Odysseus, \"I have heard nothing, but of thy son,\nNeoptolemus, I can tell thee much, for I myself brought him from\nScyros to fight in Helen's cause, and thereafter my eye was ever upon\nhim, to mark how he bore himself. In council none could vie with him,\nsave only Nestor and myself; ne'er saw I so rare a wit in so young a\nhead. And when the Greeks were arrayed in battle against the Trojans\nhe was never seen to hang back, but fought ever in the van among the\nforemost champions, like a mighty man of war. Nor was it only in the\nclamour and heat of war that he proved his mettle; for in that\nperilous hour when we lay ambushed in the wooden horse, when the\nstoutest hearts among us quailed, he never changed colour, but sat\nfingering his spear and sword, waiting for the signal to go forth to\nthe assault. And after we had sacked the lofty towers of Troy he\nreceived a goodly portion of the spoil, and a special prize of honour,\nand so departed, untouched by point or blade, to his father's house.\"\n\nWhen he heard these brave tidings of his son, Achilles rejoiced in\nspirit, and strode with lofty gait along the plain of asphodel.\n\nSo one by one the spirits came up, and inquired of Odysseus of their\ndear ones at home. Only the soul of Ajax, son of Telamon, stood\nsullenly aloof; for between him and Odysseus there was an old quarrel.\nAfter the death of Achilles a dispute arose among the surviving\nchieftains for the possession of his armour. It was decided to refer\nthe matter to the Trojan captives in the camp, and they were asked who\nof all the Greeks had done them most harm. They answered in favour of\nOdysseus, who accordingly received the armour. Thereupon Ajax fell\ninto a frenzy of rage, and slew himself. When Odysseus saw him, and\nmarked his unforgiving mood, he was filled with remorse and pity, and\nstrove to soften his resentment with gentle words. \"Ah! son of\nTelamon,\" he said, \"canst thou not forgive me, even here? Sorely the\nArgives mourned thee, and heavy was the loss brought on them by thy\nrash act. Thou wast a very tower of strength to the host, and we wept\nfor thee as for a second Achilles. Draw near, great prince, subdue thy\nhaughty spirit, and speak to me as thou wast wont to speak before the\nwill of heaven set enmity between us.\"\n\nThus earnestly Odysseus pleaded, but there was no reply, and the angry\nspirit passed away into the gloom of Erebus.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Compare the silence of Dido, \"Stories from the \u00c6neid,\" p.\n123.]\n\nII\n\nOdysseus still lingered, hoping yet to have speech with other souls of\nheroes who had once rivalled him in valour and wisdom while they dwelt\nin the flesh. But he was destined to see another and more awful\nvision. Suddenly the pall of darkness which shrouded the secrets of\nthe nether abyss was lifted, and the whole realm of Hades was exposed\nto view. There he saw the place of torment, where great malefactors\natone for their crime, and Minos, the infernal judge, sitting at the\ngates, passing sentence, and giving judgment among the shades. Within\nappeared the gigantic form of Tityos, stretched at full length along\nthe ground, and two vultures sat ever at his side, tearing his liver.\nThis was his punishment for violence offered to Leto, the mother of\nApollo and Artemis. Not far from him appeared Tantalus, plunged up to\nthe neck in a cool stream; the water lapped against his chin, but he\nhad not power to drink it, though he was tormented with a burning\nthirst. As often as he stooped to drink, the water was swallowed up,\nand the earth lay dry as the desert sand at his feet. And nodding\nboughs of trees drooped, heavy with delicious fruit, over his head;\nbut when he put forth his hand to pluck the fruit, a furious gust of\nwind swept it away far beyond his reach. And yet another famous\ncriminal he saw, Sisyphus, the most cunning and most covetous of the\nsons of men. He was toiling painfully up a steep mountain's side,\nheaving a weighty stone before him, and straining with hands and feet\nto push it to the summit. But every time he approached the top, the\nstone slipped through his hands, and thundered and smoked down the\nmountain's side till it reached the plain.\n\nOther wonders and terrors might still have been revealed, but as that\nhardy watcher stood at his post a great tumult and commotion arose in\nthat populous city of the dead, and the whole multitude of its ghostly\ndenizens came rushing towards the trench, as if resolved to expel the\ndaring intruder. Odysseus' heart failed him when he saw the air thick\nwith hovering spectres, who glared with dreadful eyes, and filled the\nair with the sound of their unearthly voices. Turning his back on that\nplace of horror he made his way slowly towards the shore, where he\nfound his men anxiously awaiting him.\n\n\n\n\nThe Sirens; Scylla and Charybdis; Thrinacia\n\n\nI\n\nFollowing the same course as on his outward voyage, Odysseus put in\nagain at the island of Circe, where his first duty was to bury the\nbody of the young Elpenor, whose ghost he had seen in an attitude of\nmute reproach at the threshold of Hades. They were again received with\nall hospitality by Circe.\n\nAfter the evening meal Circe drew Odysseus apart, and questioned him\non all that he had seen and heard on that strange journey, from which\nhe had returned, as she said, like one ransomed from death. And when\nhe had told his story she instructed him as to the course which he had\nto steer on leaving the island, and warned him against the manifold\nperils of the voyage.\n\n\"First,\" said she, \"thou wilt come to the rocks of the Sirens, maidens\nof no mortal race, who beguile the ears of all that hear them. Woe to\nhim who draws near to listen to their song! He shall never see the\nfaces of his wife and children again, or feel their arms about his\nneck, but there he shall perish, and there his bones shall rot.\nTherefore take heed, and when thou drawest near the place stop the\nears of thy men with wax, and bid them bind thee fast with cords, that\nthou mayest hear the song of the Sirens. And when that seducing melody\nfills thine ears, thou wilt beg and implore thy comrades to set thee\nfree, that thou mayest draw near and have speech of the Sirens. Then\nlet them bind thee more firmly to the mast, and take to their oars,\nand fly the enchanted rocks.\n\n\"This peril past, thou hast the choice of two different routes. One of\nthese will bring thee to the Wandering Isles, which stand, front to\nfront, with steep slippery sides of rock, running sheer down to the\nsea. Between them lies a narrow way, which is the very gate of death.\nFor if aught living attempts to pass between, those rocky jaws close\nupon it and grind it to powder. Only the doves which bear ambrosia to\nFather Zeus can pass that awful strait, and one of these pays toll\nwith her life as she passes, but Zeus sends another to fill her place.\nAnd one ship sailed safely through, even the famous _Argo_ when she\nbore Jason and his crew on their voyage from the land of \u00c6etes. All\nothers when they essayed the task perished, and were brought to naught\nin a whirlwind of foam and fire.\n\n\"But if thou takest the other way thou wilt come to another strait,\nguarded day and night by two sleepless sentinels, Scylla and\nCharybdis. On one side thereof towers a lofty peak, shrouded, even in\nthe noon of summer, in clouds and thick darkness. No mortal man could\nclimb that steep and slippery rock, not though he had twenty hands and\ntwenty feet; for the side is smooth as polished marble, and in the\nmidst of the cliff is a shadowy cave overlooking the track by which\nthou must guide thy ship, Odysseus. Deep down it goes into the heart\nof the mountain, so that a man in his lusty prime could not shoot an\narrow from his ship to the bottom of that yawning pit In the cave\ndwells Scylla, and yelps without ceasing. Her voice is thin and\nshrill, like the cry of a hound newly littered, but she herself is a\nmonster horrible to behold, so that neither man nor god could face her\nwithout affright. Twelve feet hath she, and six necks of prodigious\nlength, and on each neck a fearful head, whose ravening jaws are armed\nwith triple rows of teeth. As far as her waist she is hidden in the\nhollow cave, but she thrusts out her serpent necks from the abyss, and\nfishes in the waters for dolphins and sea-dogs and other creatures\nwhose pasture is the sea. On every ship that passes her den she levies\na tribute of six of her crew.\n\n\"On the other side of the strait thou wilt see a second rock, lying\nflat and low, about a bowshot from the first. There stands a great\nfig-tree, thick with leaves, and under it sits Charybdis, sucking down\nthe water, and belching it up again three times a day. Beware that\nthou approach not when she sucks down the water, for then none could\nsave thee from destruction, no, not Poseidon himself. Rather steer thy\ngalley past Scylla's cave, for it is better to lose six of thy men\nthan to lose them all.\n\n\"Next thou shalt come to the island of Thrinacia, where graze the oxen\nof Helios and his goodly sheep--seven herds of oxen, and as many fair\nflocks of sheep, and fifty in each flock and herd. They are not born,\nneither do they die, and two goddesses have charge of them,\nfair-haired nymphs, the daughters of Helios. Take heed that thou harm\nnot the sacred beasts, that it may be well with thee, and that thou\nand thy company may come safely home.\"\n\nII\n\nOnce more they were afloat, and the brave little vessel bounded gaily\nover the waves, her canvas bellying in the wind. For some hours they\nsailed on thus, and Odysseus recited to his men all that he had heard\nfrom Circe. Then suddenly the wind dropped, and the sail hung idly to\nthe mast. Having furled and stowed the sail, they took to their oars,\nwhile the sea went down, and at last sunk to a level calm. In the\ndistance a low-lying coast appeared, which Odysseus knew to be the\nisland of the Sirens, Forthwith he began to make his preparations to\nmeet the danger which lay before them. Taking a ball of wax he cut it\ninto small pieces, and having worked each piece in his hand until it\nwas soft and plastic he carefully stopped the ears of all his men with\nthe wax. Then two of the crew, to whom he had already given his\norders, bound him hand and foot to the mast of the vessel. All being\nready, they rowed forward until they came within full view of the\nisland. And there, in a low-lying meadow hard by the sea, sat the\nSirens; lovely they were of aspect, and gracious of mien; but all\naround them were piled the bones of men who had fallen victims to\ntheir wicked wit,[1] fleshless ribs, from which the skin still hung in\nyellow shreds, and grinning skulls, gazing with eyeless sockets at the\nsea.\n\n[Footnote 1: Shakespeare, \"Hamlet.\"]\n\nAs the ship drew near, the whole choir lifted up their voices and\nbegan to sing a sweet and piercing strain, which thrilled the very\nmarrow of Odysseus as he listened. The winds hovered near on flagging\nwing, the sea lay locked in deep repose, and all nature paused with\nattentive ear, to catch the SONG OF THE SIRENS.\n\n  \"Mighty warrior, sage renowned,\n    Turn, O turn thy bark this way!\n  Rest upon this holy ground,\n    Listen to the Sirens' lay.\n  Never yet was seaman found\n    Passing our enchanted bay,\n  But he paused, and left our bound\n    Filled with wisdom from his stay.\n  All we know, whatever befell\n    On the tented fields of Troy,\n  All the lore that Time can tell,\n    All the mystic fount of joy.\"\n\nIt was a strain cunningly calculated to flatter a deep, subtle spirit\nlike that of Odysseus. To know all! to read all secrets, and unravel\nthe tangled skein of human destiny! What a bribe was this to this\nrestless and eager mind! Then the voices of the witch-women were so\nliquid, and the music so lovely, that they took the very air with\nravishment, and melted the hearer's soul within him. Odysseus\nstruggled to break his bonds, and nodded to his men to come and loose\nhim. But they, who had been warned of this very thing, rose up and\nbound him with fresh cords. Then they grasped their oars again, the\nwater roared under their sturdy strokes, and soon they were out of\nhearing of that seductive melody.\n\nThey had not long lost sight of the Sirens' Rocks when they heard the\nbooming of breakers, which warned them that the fearful strait between\nScylla and Charybdis was close at hand. A strong current caught the\ngalley and whirled her with appalling swiftness towards the point of\ndanger. The water boiled and eddied around them, and the blinding\nspray was dashed into their faces. Then a sudden panic came upon the\ncrew, so that they dropped their oars, and sat helpless and unnerved,\nexpecting instant death. In this emergency, Odysseus summoned up all\nhis courage, and strode up and down between the benches, exhorting,\nentreating, and calling each man by name. \"Why sit ye thus,\" he cried,\n\"huddled together like sheep? Row, men, row for your lives! And thou,\nhelmsman, steer straight for the passage, lest we fall into a direr\nstrait, and be crushed between the Wandering Rocks. We have faced a\nworse peril than this, when we were penned together in the Cyclops'\ncave; and we shall escape this time also, if only ye will keep a stout\nheart.\"\n\nCirce had cautioned Odysseus on no account to attempt resistance when\nhe approached the cave of Scylla; nevertheless, he put on his armour,\nand took his stand on the prow of the vessel, holding in each hand a\nlance.\n\nSo on they sped, steering close to the tall cliff under which Scylla\nlay hid, and gazing fearfully at the boiling whirlpool on the other\nside. Just as they passed, a huge column of water shot into the air,\nbelched up from the vast maw of Charybdis, and the galley was half\nswamped under a fountain of falling water. When that ended, a black\nyawning chasm appeared, the very throat, as it seemed, of Charybdis,\ninto which the water rushed in a roaring torrent.\n\nOdysseus was gazing intently at this wondrous sight when he heard a\nsharp cry, and, looking back he saw six of his men, the stoutest of\nthe crew, dangling high in the air, firmly clutched in the six\nsharklike jaws of Scylla. There they hung for a moment, like fishes\njust caught by the angler's hook; the next instant they were dragged\ninto the black mouth of the cavern, calling with their last breath on\ntheir leader's name. This was the most pitiful thing that Odysseus had\never beheld, in all his long years of travel on the sea.\n\nIII\n\nThe last trial was now at hand, and if they could stand this final\ntest a happy home-coming was promised to them all. By next day's dawn\nthey ran down to the fair isle of Helios, and as they drew near they\nheard the lowing of oxen and the bleating of sheep. Then Odysseus\nremembered the warnings of Circe and Teiresias, and sought to persuade\nhis men to sail past the island and fly from the reach of temptation.\nBut they murmured against him, and Eurylochus, his lieutenant, gave\nvoice to their feelings thus: \"Thou man of iron, thou hast no pity on\nus, but thinkest that we are all as hardy and as strong as thou art.\nHungry and weary as we are, wouldst thou have us turn away from this\nfair isle, where we could prepare a comfortable meal, and take\nrefreshing sleep? Shall we add the horrors of night to the horrors of\nthe sea, and confront the demons of storm that haunt the caverns of\ndarkness? Nay, suffer us to abide here to-night, and to-morrow we will\nhoist sail again.\"\n\nOdysseus saw by the looks of his men that it would be useless to\nstrain his authority, and so he gave way, though with sore reluctance,\nonly exacting a solemn oath from the whole company that they would\nkeep their hands off the cattle of Helios. When each in turn had taken\nthe oath they landed on the shore of a sheltered bay, and encamped by\na fair spring of fresh water.\n\nDuring the night it began to blow hard, and early next morning, as the\nweather was still stormy and the wind contrary, they hauled up their\ngalley and bestowed her in a roomy cave, beyond the reach of wind and\nwater. Odysseus repeated his warnings, and the crew then dispersed, to\nwhile away the time until the weather should mend.\n\nFor a whole month they had nothing but contrary gales from the south\nand east, and long before that time had run out they had come to the\nend of their store of provisions. For some time they contrived to live\non the fish which they caught by angling from the rocks, though this\nwas but poor fare for the robust appetites of those heroic days.\n\nAll this time Odysseus kept a careful watch over the movements of his\nmen, fearing that they might be driven by hunger to break the oath\nwhich they had taken. But one morning he wandered away to a distant\npart of the island, that he might spend an hour in solitary prayer and\nmeditation. Having found a secluded spot, he washed his hands, and\nprayed earnestly to the gods for succour: and when he had prayed,\nheaven so ordered it that he fell into a deep sleep.\n\nThen the demon of mischief entered into the heart of Eurylochus, a\nfactious knave, who had more than once thwarted the counsels of\nOdysseus. \"Comrades,\" he said, \"let us make an end of this misery.\nDeath in any shape is loathly to us poor mortals, but death by hunger\nis the most hideous of all. Come, let us take the choicest of the\nherds of Helios, and feast upon them, after sacrifice to the gods.\nWhen we return to Ithaca we will build a temple to Helios, and appease\nhim with rich offerings. And even though he choose to wreck our ship\nand drown us all, I would rather swallow the brine, and so make an\nend, than waste away by inches on a desert island.\"\n\nThe famishing sailors lent a ready ear to his words, and having picked\nout the fattest of the oxen they slaughtered them and offered\nsacrifice, plucking the leaves of an oak as a substitute for the\nbarley-meal for sprinkling between the horns of the victims, and\npouring libations of water instead of wine. When the vain rite was\nfinished, they spitted slices of the meat, and roasted them over the\nglowing embers.\n\nMeanwhile Odysseus had awakened from his sleep, and made his way, not\nwithout forebodings of ill, back to the camp. As he approached, the\nsteam of roasting meat was borne to his nostrils. \"Woe is me!\" he\ncried, \"the deed is done! What a price must we now pay for one hour of\nsleep.\"\n\nVengeance, indeed, was already prepared. Helios received prompt news\nof the sacrilege from one of the nymphs who had charge of his flocks\nand herds, and hastened to Olympus to demand speedy punishment for the\ntransgressors, vowing that if they escaped he would leave the earth in\ndarkness and carry the lamp of day to the nether world. Zeus promised\nthat the retribution should be swift and complete, and Helios\nthereupon returned immediately to his daily round, knowing full well\nthat the father of gods would keep his word.\n\nWhen Odysseus entered the camp he rebuked his men bitterly for their\nimpiety. But no words, and no repentance, could now repair the\nmischief; the cattle were slain, and in that very hour dire portents\noccurred, to show them the enormity of their crime. A strange moaning\nsound, like the lowing of kine, came from the meat on the spits, and\nthe hides of the slaughtered beasts crawled and writhed.\n\nIn spite of these dreadful omens they continued for six days to feast\nupon the herds of Helios. On the seventh day the wind blew fair, and\nthey launched their vessel and continued their voyage. The last\nvestige of the island had hardly been lost to view when the sky became\nblack with clouds, and a violent squall struck the ship, snapping her\nmast, which fell upon the helmsman, and dashed out his brains. A\nmoment after, a deafening peal of thunder broke overhead, and the\navenging bolt of Zeus fell upon the ship, scattering her timbers, and\nstrewing the charred carcasses of the crew upon the waves.\n\nOdysseus alone escaped with his life from that tremendous stroke, and\nclinging to a spar floated all day, until he came in sight of the\nstrait between Scylla and Charybdis. By the favour of heaven he was\nonce more preserved from this great peril, and on the tenth day after\nthe loss of his vessel he was thrown ashore by the waves on the island\nof Calypso.\n\n\n\n\nOdysseus lands in Ithaca\n\nI\n\nThe last farewell has been spoken, the good ship is loosed from her\nmoorings, and Alcinous is standing on the quay, surrounded by the\nnobles of Ph\u00e6acia, to bid his illustrious guest god-speed. The picked\ncrew bend to their oars, and the galley leaps forward, like a mettled\nsteed who knows his master's voice. The setting sun is just gilding\nthe towers of the city as they cross the harbour bar. Swift as a\nfalcon the magic vessel skims over the swelling waters, and the\ntoil-worn hero lays him down to rest on a soft couch prepared for him\nin the stern. Then a deep and deathlike sleep falls upon him, and he\nlies breathing gently as an infant, while the soft southern breeze\nplays with his dark clustering hair.\n\nThere is a certain haven in the island of Ithaca, protected by two\nlofty headlands, leaving a narrow passage between them. Within, the\nwater is so still that ships lie there without moorings, safe and\nmotionless. At the head of the haven is a long-leaved olive-tree,\novershadowing a cool and pleasant cave, sacred to the \"Nymphs called\nNaiads, of the running brooks.\"[1] Inside the cave are bowls and\npitchers of stone, and great stone looms, at which the Naiads weave\ntheir fine fabrics of sea-purple dye. It is a favourite haunt of the\nhoney-bee, whose murmurs mingled with the splashing of perennial\nsprings make drowsy music in the place. There are two gates to the\ncavern, one towards the north, where mortal feet may pass, and the\nother on the south side, which none may enter save the gods alone.\n\n[Footnote 1: Shakespeare, \"Tempest.\"]\n\nThe day-star was gazing on that still, glassy mere as the Ph\u00e6acians\nsteered between the sentinel cliffs and drove their galley ashore in\nfront of the cave. They lifted Odysseus, still sleeping, from the\nstern, and laid him down gently, couch and all, on the sand. Then they\nbrought all the rich gifts, and set them down by the root of the\nolive-tree, out of the reach of any chance wayfarer; and having\nbestowed all safely they launched their ship, and started on their\nvoyage home.\n\nBut they were destined to pay dear for their good service to the\nstranger. Poseidon marked their course with a jealous eye, and he went\nto his brother, Zeus, and thus preferred his complaint: \"Behold now\nthis man hath reached home in safety and honour, and brought the oath\nto naught which I sware against him, when I vowed that he should\nreturn to Ithaca in evil plight! Is my power to be defied, and my\nworship slighted, by these Ph\u00e6acians, who are of mine own race?\"\n\n\"Thine honour is in thine own hands,\" answered Zeus. \"Assert thy\npower, lift up thy hand and strike, that all men may fear to infringe\nthy privilege as lord of the sea.\"\n\nHaving thus obtained his brother's consent, Poseidon went and took his\nstand by the harbour mouth at Ph\u00e6acia, and as soon as the vessel drew\nnear he smote her with his hand, and turned her with all her crew into\na rock, which remains there, rooted in the sea, unto this day.\n\nII\n\nTwilight had not yielded to day when Odysseus awoke from his\ntrancelike sleep, and gazed in bewilderment around him. His senses had\nnot yet fully come back to him, and after his twenty years' absence he\nknew not where he was. All seemed strange--the winding paths, the\nharbour, the cliffs, and the very trees. With a cry of dismay he\nsprang to his feet, and cried aloud: \"Good lack, what land have I come\nto now, and who be they that dwell there? Are they savage and rude, or\ngentle and hospitable to strangers?\" Then his eye fell on the gifts\nwhich had been brought with him from Ph\u00e6acia. What was he to do with\nall this wealth? \"Now this is a sorry trick which the Ph\u00e6acians have\nplayed me,\" he muttered again, \"to carry me to a strange land, when\nthey had promised to convey me safe to Ithaca.\"\n\nSo unworthily did Odysseus deem of his benefactors that he fell to\ncounting his goods, for fear lest they should have carried off a\nportion of the gifts while he slept. He found the tale complete, and\nwhen he had finished counting them he wandered disconsolate along the\nsand, mourning for the country which he thought still far away. As he\nwent thus, with heavy steps and downcast eyes, a shadow fell across\nhis path, and looking up he saw a fair youth, clad and armed like a\nyoung prince, who stood before him and smiled in his face with kindly\neyes. Glad to meet anyone of so friendly an aspect, Odysseus greeted\nhim, asked for his countenance and protection, and inquired the name\nof the country.\n\n\"Either thou art simple,\" answered the youth, \"or thy home is far\naway, if thou knowest not this land. It is a place not unknown to\nfame, but named with honour wherever mortal speech is heard. Rugged\nindeed it is, and unfit for horses and for chariots, but rich in corn\nand wine, and blessed by the soft rain of heaven. On its green\npastures roam countless flocks and herds, and streams pour their\nabundance from its forest-clad hills. Therefore the name of Ithaca is\nspoken far and wide, and hath reached even to the distant land of\nTroy.\"\n\nThe wanderer's heart burned within him when he heard his dear native\nisland described with such loving praise. But dissembling his joy he\nset his nimble wits to work, and began to spin a fine fiction for the\nstranger's ear. \"I have heard of Ithaca,\" he said, \"as thou sayest,\neven in Troy, where I fought under Idomeneus, King of Crete. And now I\nam an exile, flying from the vengeance of Idomeneus, whose son,\nOrsilochus, I slew, because he sought to deprive me of my share in the\nTrojan spoil. For he bore a grudge against me, because I would not pay\ncourt to his father at Troy, but made a party of my own, and fought\nfor my own hand. For him I laid an ambush, and slew him in a secret\nplace, under cover of night. Then I fled down to the sea, and bribed\nthe crew of a Phoenician ship to carry me and my goods to Pylos. But\nthe storm wind drove them out of their course, and they put in here\nfor shelter. Sore battered and weary we landed here, having hardly\nescaped with our lives; and while I slept they brought my goods\nashore, and sailed away for Sidon, leaving me alone with my sorrow.\"\n\nIntent on his tale, Odysseus had not noticed the sudden change which\nhad come over his hearer; for his eyes had been turned away, as he\nstrove to spell out the features of the country, which still seemed\nunfamiliar. Now he looked round again, and instead of that dainty\nyouth he saw a stately female form, tall and fair, in aspect like the\nmighty goddess Athene. And in truth it was the daughter of Zeus\nherself who answered him, smiling and touching him with a playful\ngesture. \"Thou naughty rogue!\" she said, \"wilt thou never forget thy\ncunning shifts, wherein none can surpass thee, no, not the gods\nthemselves? Yea, thou hast a knavish wit, and no man can equal thee in\ncraft, as no god can rival me. Yet for all thy skill thou knewest me\nnot for Pallas Athene, who is ever near thee in all thy trials, and\nmade thee dear to all the Ph\u00e6acians. And now am I come to help thee\nhide thy goods, and weave a plot to ensnare the foes who beset thy\nhouse. Thou hast still much to endure, before thy final triumph, and\nthou must enter thy halls as a stranger, and suffer many things by the\nhands of violent men.\"\n\n\"It is hard, O goddess,\" answered Odysseus, \"for a mortal man to know\nthee, keen though he be of wit; for thou appearest in a hundred\nshapes. Yet well I know that thou wast kind to me in days of old, when\nI fought with the Greeks at Troy. But since that time I have never\nseen thee, in all my wanderings and perils, save once in Ph\u00e6acia. Now\ntell me truly, I implore thee, what is this place where I am\nwandering? Thou saidst 'twas Ithaca, but in that I think thou speakest\nfalsely, with intent to deceive me; or is this indeed my native land?\"\n\n\"Ever the same Odysseus as of old,\" said Athene, smiling again,\n\"cautious and wary, and hard to convince. Verily thou art a man after\nmine own heart, and therefore can I never leave thee or forsake thee\nin all thy cares. Any other man would have rushed to embrace his wife,\nafter so many years of wandering; but thou must needs prove her and\nmake trial of her constancy, before thou takest her to thy heart. And\nif thou wouldst know why I held aloof from thee so long, it was\nbecause of Poseidon, my father's brother, who ever pursued thee with\nhis ire. Yet I knew that thou wouldst return at last, and have waited\npatiently for that hour, And now I will open thine eyes, that thou\nmayest know the land of thy birth.\"\n\nAs she spoke she touched his eyes, and a mist seemed to fall away from\nthem, so that he recognised every feature of the place, the slopes of\nNeritus, waving with forest trees, the spreading olive-tree, the\nharbour, and the cavern where he had many a time sacrificed to the\nnymphs. Then Odysseus rejoiced in spirit, and kneeling down he kissed\nhis native soil, and put up a prayer to the guardian deities of the\nplace: \"Greeting, lovely Naiads, maiden daughters of Zeus! Ne'er hoped\nI to see your faces again, Give ear unto my prayer, and if I live and\nprosper by the favour of Athene I will pay you rich offerings, as I\nwas wont to do.\"\n\n\"Doubt not my good-will,\" said Athene, when he had finished; \"that is\nassured thee. But it is time to secure these goods of thine in a safe\nhiding-place. After that we will advise what is next to be done.\"\n\nWith that she dived into the cave, closely followed by Odysseus, and\nshowed him where he best might conceal his treasure. When all was\nsafely bestowed, she set a great stone in the mouth of the cavern, and\nsat down at the foot of the olive-tree, motioning Odysseus to take his\nplace at her side. \"Now mark my words,\" began Athene, \"thou hast a\nheavy task before thee, to purge thy house of the shameless crew who\nfor three years past have held the mastery there, and sought to tempt\nthy wife from her loyalty to thee. All this time she has been putting\nthem off with promises which she has no mind to fulfil.\"\n\n\"Tis well,\" answered Odysseus, \"that thou hast warned me; else had I\nfallen in my own hall, even as Agamemnon fell. But come, contrive some\ncunning device, whereby I may avenge me, and be thou at my side to aid\nme, that my heart fail me not. Pour into me the same might and the\nsame valour as when we sacked Priam's royal citadel; then should I\nfear nothing, though I fought single-handed against three hundred\nmen.\"\n\n\"I will not fail thee, of that be sure,\" replied Athene, \"when the\ntime comes to enter on that task. They shall pay full dear for thy\nsubstance which they devour, even with their very blood and brains,\nwhich shall be shed upon the ground like water. But thou must not\nappear among them in this fashion. I will give thee a disguise which\nnone can penetrate, not even Penelope herself. And when thou leavest\nthis place, go first to the swineherd, who abides ever by his charge,\nfaithful to thee and to thy house. Thou wilt find him sitting by the\nswine on their feeding ground, near Raven's Rock and the fountain\nArethusa, where there is abundance of acorns and fair water. Remain\nthere and inquire of him concerning all things, while I go to Sparta\nto summon Telemachus, thy son, who went to visit Menelaus to ask news\nof thee.\"\n\n\"Why didst thou permit him to go on a vain errand?\" asked Odysseus.\n\"Was it that he might suffer as I have suffered, in wandering o'er the\ndeep, while others devour his living?\"\n\n\"Be not over anxious for him,\" answered Athene; \"I myself sent him on\nthat quest, that he might win a good name among men. And now he sits\nsecure in the wealthy house of Menelaus, dwelling in luxury and\nhonour. The wooers have laid an ambush against his return; but all\ntheir malice shall be brought to naught.\"\n\nIt was now time for Odysseus to start on his way to the swineherd. But\nfirst he had to submit to a strange transformation. Athene touched him\nwith a rod which she was carrying, and instantly the flesh shrivelled\non his limbs, the clustering locks fell away from his head, and the\nkeen, piercing glance of his eyes was quenched. He who a moment before\nhad been a mighty man in his prime was now become a wrinkled, aged\nbeggar, clad in miserable, grimy rags, with a staff, and a tattered\nscrip, hanging by a cord from his shoulder. For a cloak she gave him\nan old deer's hide, from which all the hair was gone. Thus totally\ndisguised, he parted from the goddess, and started inland, following a\nrugged mountain path, while Athene went to summon Telemachus from\nSparta.\n\n\n\n\nOdysseus and Eum\u00e6us\n\n\nI\n\nThe office of swineherd was a position of great trust and importance\namong the patriarchal chieftains of Homeric Greece. The principal diet\nwas the flesh of swine and oxen, and these animals formed the chief\npart of their wealth. Eum\u00e6us, the chief swineherd of Odysseus, lived\napart in a lonely place among the hills, where he had enclosed a wide\nspace of ground with a stone fence defended at the top with brambles,\nand in front by a palisade of oak. Within the fence were twelve styes,\nand in each stye were fifty sows with their young. The boars had their\nquarters outside the enclosure, and their number had been greatly\ndiminished by the constant demand for hog's flesh among the suitors.\nStill, they reached the formidable total of three hundred and fifty--a\nnoisy and ravenous multitude.\n\nIt was no light task to provide shelter for nearly a thousand swine,\nwith their young; yet Eum\u00e6us had undertaken this duty during his\nmaster's long absence, without the knowledge of Laertes or Penelope.\nAnd here he was sitting, on this sunny morning, cutting up a\nwell-tanned ox-hide to make straps for sandals, while four dogs, large\nand fierce as wolves, prowled near at hand. Three of his helpers were\ngone with the swine to their feeding ground, and the fourth had been\nsent to the town with a fat hog for the wooers.\n\nSuddenly the dogs rushed forward, baying furiously, and an old man in\ntattered raiment appeared at the gate of the courtyard. It would have\ngone hard with the stranger if Eum\u00e6us had not promptly come to the\nrescue, and driven the dogs off with a volley of stones. \"Old man,\"\nsaid Eum\u00e6us, as the dogs slunk away yelping, \"it was well that I was\nnear, or thou hadst surely been torn to pieces, and brought shame on\nme. I have trouble enough without that. Here I sit, fattening my\nmaster's swine for other men's tables, while he wanders, perchance,\namong strangers, in poverty and want. But come into my hut, and when\nthou hast comforted thy soul with meat and wine thou shalt tell thy\ntale of sorrow.\"\n\nOdysseus (for he it was, though sorely disfigured) followed Eum\u00e6us\ninto the hut, and sat down on a shaggy goatskin, which the swineherd\nspread for him on a heap of brushwood. \"Heaven bless thee,\" he said,\nwhen he was seated, \"for this kindly welcome!\" \"I do but my duty,\"\nanswered Eum\u00e6us. \"The stranger and the beggar are sacred, by law\ndivine. 'Tis but little that I can do, who serve young and haughty\nmasters, in the absence of my true lord, who would have rewarded me\nnobly, and given me a plot of ground and a wife, had he been here to\nsee how Heaven blesses the work of my hands. But he is gone to swell\nthe host of those who fell in Helen's cause. Cursed be she, and all\nher race, for she hath robbed me of the kindest master that ever man\nserved.\"\n\nIn the midst of his sorrow, Eum\u00e6us forgot not his duties as host.\nGoing out he took two young swine, slaughtered and dressed them, and\nset the flesh, all smoking on the spits, before Odysseus. Then he\nmixed wine in a bowl of ivy wood, and sitting down opposite to his\nguest bade him eat and drink.\n\n\"'Tis but poor fare which I have to offer you,\" he said. \"The best of\nthe herd ever goes to the young lords who are wooing my mistress.\nTheir wantonness and riot calls aloud to Heaven for vengeance. They\nare worse than the wildest band of robbers that ever lived by open\npillage and violence. Such waste of good meat and wine was never seen\nbefore. For a wealthy man was Odysseus, and his flocks and herds still\nrange over all the hills of Ithaca. And from every flock the fattest\nand the choicest is driven off day by day to feed their dainty\nmouths.\"\n\nOdysseus fell to with keen appetite, for he had eaten nothing since he\nleft Ph\u00e6acia. And when he had satisfied his hunger he pledged Eum\u00e6us\nin a full cup, and led him on to discourse on his favourite theme--the\nvirtues and the sorrows of his lord. \"Tell me more,\" he said, \"of thy\nmaster. Who knows but that I may have met him in my travels, for I\nhave wandered in many lands.\"\n\n\"Old man,\" answered Eum\u00e6us, \"I see thy bent. Thou wouldst forge some\nglozing tale to beguile the ears of that poor stricken lady, Penelope.\nMany a beggar has come to her doors crammed full of lies to amuse her\nwidowed heart; and she listens, and doubts, and weeps. And thou too,\nmethinks, hast a like fertile fancy; for hunger and want are rare\ninventors. But save thy wits for a better purpose; thou canst not\nbring him back to life, or clothe with warm flesh his bones, long\nsince picked clean by carrion birds or ravenous fish. He is lost for\never, and sorrow is the portion of us who remain, but especially of\nme, for he was dearer to me than father and mother, dearer than my\nnative land.\"\n\n\"Friend,\" said Odysseus, \"thou hast misjudged me sorely, in thinking\nme one of those greedy mendicants who tell lies for the sake of meat\nand drink. Believe me or not, I will say what is in my heart, and when\nmy words are proved true by the event I will claim my reward. Odysseus\nis near at hand, and ere many days have passed he shall be seen in\nIthaca, and take vengeance on those who oppress his wife and son. I\nswear it by this table at which I have eaten, and by the hearth of\nOdysseus, and by Zeus, the god of hospitality.\"\n\nEum\u00e6us remained totally unconvinced by this solemn assertion. \"Talk no\nmore of him,\" he said with emotion, \"it cuts me to the heart to hear\nhis very name. Would that it might be as thou sayest!--but 'tis an\nidle dream. Peace be unto his ashes! And may the gods at least\npreserve unto us his son, Telemachus, who lately departed on a witless\nerrand, led thereto, as I think, by some malign deity who hates the\nhouse of Odysseus. But no more of this! Tell me rather of thyself, who\nand whence thou art, and how thou camest to Ithaca.\"\n\nEum\u00e6us had not extolled the fertile invention of Odysseus for nothing.\nForthwith he began a wondrous tale of adventure, a little epic in\nitself, with some points of resemblance to his own true story. \"I am a\nnative of Crete,\" he began, \"and the son of a wealthy man. When my\nfather died I received but a scanty portion of his goods.\nNevertheless, because of my valour and the might of my hands, I won a\nnoble and wealthy lady for my wife. Thou wouldst not deem, perhaps, to\nsee me now, that I was once a mighty man of war; yet even in the\nstubble we may judge what the wheat has been. From my youth up I lived\namidst the clash of shield and spear, and loved battle and ambush,\nsiege and foray. But I cared not for plodding industry, which gives\nincrease unto a house, and fills it with the bright faces of children.\nSuch I was as Heaven made me, a man of war and blood.\n\n\"Before the sons of Greece went up to Troy I was nine times chosen\ncaptain of an armed band to make war in the land of strangers, and\ncame back laden with booty, so that my name was known and dreaded in\nCrete. And when the summons went round in all the coasts of Greece to\nfollow the banner of Agamemnon, who but I was chosen by the common\nvoice to share the command with Idomeneus? I was fain to renounce that\nhard and perilous service, but it might not be; so for nine years I\nfought at Troy, and after our return to Crete I abode but one month\nwith my wife and children, for at the end of that time my spirit\ncalled me to Egypt. I manned nine ships, and on the fifth day the\nnorth wind brought me safe with all my company to the land of Nile.\n\n\"Then I sent out a few chosen men to explore the country, and kept\nmyself close with the rest of my force until they should bring back\ntheir report. But my scouts forgot their duty, and carried away by\nlust of plunder began to harry and ravage the fields of the Egyptians.\nQuickly the hue and cry went round, and an armed multitude, both horse\nand foot, came suddenly upon us, breathing fury and vengeance. We\ncould make no stand against such a host, and all my comrades were\nspeedily slain or taken captive. When I saw that all was lost I threw\naway helmet and shield, dropped my spear, and falling on my knees\nbefore the chief captain of the Egyptians begged him to spare my life.\nHe heard my petition, set me on his chariot, and brought me to his\nhome. There I remained seven years and gathered much wealth; for I had\nfound favour in the eyes of the Egyptians, and they gave me freely of\ntheir possessions.\n\n\"In the eighth year there came a certain Phoenician to Egypt, a crafty\nand covetous rogue, and he persuaded me to go with him to Phoenicia.\nSo I went, and abode with him a whole year, and when the spring came\nround again I sailed with him to Africa, whither he was bound with a\nfreight of merchandise. His purpose was to sell me in Africa as a\nslave for a great price; but Zeus willed it otherwise, for as we\nsailed southwards from Crete a great storm arose, and the ship went\ndown with all her men, while I escaped by clinging to the mast, and\nafter nine days was carried by the winds and the waves to Thesprotia,\nwhere I was kindly entreated by the king of that country.\n\n\"There I had news of Odysseus, who had touched at that coast on his\nvoyage to Ithaca, and stayed as a guest in that same house. This I\nheard from the king's own lips, and he showed me all the treasure\nwhich Odysseus had left in his charge, while he himself went on a\njourney to Dodona, to inquire of the oracle concerning the manner of\nhis return. Thou wouldst wonder to behold all the wealth which thy\nlord had gathered, an exceeding great store.\n\n\"Odysseus himself I saw not; for it chanced that a ship was sailing\nfor Dulichium, and the king commended me to her captain, bidding him\ncarry me thither with all care and tenderness. Now this man was a\nvillain, and be devised evil against me; for when we left the coast of\nThesprotia, he stripped me of the raiment which the king had given me,\nclothed me in these rags, and bound me with cords, intending to sell\nme as a slave. In the evening he landed in Ithaca, leaving me, bound\nas I was, in the ship. But I broke my bonds, and escaped by swimming\nto another part of the coast, where I lay all night in a thicket. In\nthe morning they sought me with great outcry, but found me not; and\nafter awhile they sailed away. When they were gone I arose, and was\nled by Heaven's hand to thy doors.\"\n\nThe swineherd listened attentively to the well-imagined tale, and when\nit was ended he said: \"Hapless man, thou hast been the very sport of\nDestiny, and my heart is big when I think of thy wanderings and thy\nwoes. But as touching Odysseus, that part of thy story likes me not;\nmethinks 'tis a cunning invention to flatter my ears. Long ago I was\ndeceived by a false report, brought hither by a wandering exile like\nthee, who said that he had seen Odysseus repairing his ships in Crete,\nand bade us look for his coming in the autumn of that year. Since then\nI have closed my ears against all such rumours, and therefore I say,\ntell me no more of him, for I cannot and will not believe but that he\nis dead.\"\n\nII\n\nEvening was now coming on, and it was time for the herdsmen to return\nwith their charge from the feeding-ground. Presently, with huge\ncommotion, and multitudinous din, the swine were driven home and\npenned in their styes. Then Eum\u00e6us called to his helpers, and bade\nthem bring the best of the herd to make savoury meat for his guest\n\"Spare not,\" he said, \"to bring the fattest and choicest of them all,\nfor why should we be careful, when strangers devour our labour?\" So\nthey brought a hog of five years old, exceeding fat, and having\nslaughtered it they offered sacrifice, not forgetting a prayer for the\nreturn of Odysseus. When all rites of religion were duly paid, they\nroasted the flesh, and served it on wooden platters. Odysseus was\nhonoured by Eum\u00e6us with a choice portion of the loin.\n\nWhen they had finished, night came on, dark and stormy, with furious\ngusts of rain and wind. Just as they were about to retire to rest,\nOdysseus, who seldom spoke without a purpose, turned to his kind host\nand said: \"Eum\u00e6us, the good wine has loosened my tongue, and moved me\nto tell thee a story of long ago, when these withered limbs were in\ntheir lusty prime, and my heart burned with the fire of youth. Then I\nwas chosen with Menelaus and Odysseus to lead an ambush under the\nwalls of Troy. With a picked company we took up our position in a\nmarshy place, and lay down in our armour among the rushes. It was a\nbitter night, with snow and frost, and our shields were soon coated\nwith ice. Now it chanced that I had left my cloak in the camp, and\nwhile the others lay warm in their thick woollen mantles, I was\nperishing with cold. At last I could bear it no longer, so I nudged\nOdysseus, who was lying next to me, with my elbow, and said to him:\n'Son of Laertes, the cold is killing me. I came in my folly without a\ncloak, and I can never hold out until dawn in this cruel frost.' And\nhe, ever ready of wit as he was, instantly contrived means to relieve\nme. Whispering to me to keep counsel he rose on his elbow, and called\nto the others, saying: 'Comrades, I have been warned in a dream that\nour numbers are too weak for the task which has been laid upon us.\nWill not one of you run down to the camp, and ask Agamemnon to send us\nfurther succour?'\n\n\"Thereupon one of our men arose, and flinging off his cloak ran off to\ncarry the message to Agamemnon. And I lay wrapped in the garment, warm\nand safe, until the dawn. Ah! those were brave days; what changes have\nI seen since then!\"\n\n\"I read thy meaning,\" said Eum\u00e6us; \"and as a reward for thy good story\nthou shalt sleep in comfort to-night. But to-morrow thou must make\nshift to wear thine own rags again, for I am but ill furnished with\nchanges of raiment. When Telemachus returns he will supply all thy\nwants, and send thee whithersoever thou art minded to go.\"\n\nSo saying he drew a truckle-bed close to the fire, and heaped it with\nthe skins of sheep and goats. There Odysseus lay down to rest, and\nEum\u00e6us threw over him a stout mantle of his own. All the other\nherdsmen slept in the hut; but Eum\u00e6us, ever watchful for his master's\nproperty, went out, armed to the teeth, to pass the night among the\nswine, under the shelter of a hollow rock, which kept off the cold\nnorth wind. And Odysseus was glad when he saw that good servant so\nfaithful to his trust.\n\n\n\n\nThe Return of Telemachus\n\n\nI\n\nWhile these important events were happening in Ithaca, Telemachus was\nliving as an honoured guest in the house of Menelaus. One night, while\nhe lay between sleeping and waking, full of anxious thought, Athene\nappeared to him in her own person, and addressed him thus: \"Thou\nlingerest too long here, Telemachus. It is time for thee to return and\nkeep an eye on thy goods, lest thou be stripped of all in thy absence.\nThy mother's kinsmen are urgent with her to wed Eurymachus, the\nwealthiest of the wooers; and, if she yield, it may be that she will\ntake of thy heritage to increase the house of the man who wins her.\nTherefore make haste and get thee home, that thou mayest be at hand to\ndefend thy rights. Know also that the wooers are lying in wait for\nthee in the strait between Ithaca and Samos, with intent to slay thee;\ntake heed then that thou shun that passage, and sail home by another\nway. And when thou art come to Ithaca, go straight to the dwelling of\nEum\u00e6us, and send him down to Penelope with news of thy return.\"\n\nSuch a message, brought by such a messenger, was not to be neglected.\nTelemachus at once roused Pisistratus, the son of Nestor, who was\nsleeping near, and declared his intention of starting at once; but\nwhen Pisistratus pointed out how displeasing such conduct would be to\ntheir princely host he consented to wait till morning.\n\nAccordingly, when day was come, he went to Menelaus, and asked leave\nto depart at once. Menelaus consented, only insisting that he should\nremain for the morning meal. While this was preparing, the generous\nprince went to his treasure chamber, and returned laden with a\nsplendid silver bowl, the work of Phoenician artists, which he had\nreceived when he visited the King of Sidon on his voyage from Troy.\nAnd Helen brought an embroidered robe, the work of her own fair hands,\nas a wedding gift for his future bride.\n\nAs soon as they had eaten they mounted the chariot, and drove slowly\nthrough the outer gate of the courtyard, Menelaus and Helen following\non foot Here they drew up to say farewell, and Menelaus pledged them\nin a bowl of wine, wishing them god-speed. \"And forget not,\" he added,\n\"to greet Nestor for me when ye come to Pylos, for he was ever gentle\nto me as a father when we sojourned in the land of Troy.\"\n\n\"I will not forget to carry thy message,\" answered Telemachus; \"would\nthat I were as sure to see my father when I come to Ithaca, that I\nmight tell him of thy noble hospitality, and show him thy gifts.\"\n\nHardly had the words been uttered when a clamour of voices was heard,\nand a crowd of men and women ran past, pursuing with loud cries an\neagle, which had just seized a great white goose from the courtyard,\nand was carrying her off in his talons. Straight over the chariot he\nflew, and with a scream of triumph sped away to the mountains with his\nbooty. \"Consider now, my prince,\" said Pisistratus, \"whether this omen\nwas sent to us or to thee.\"\n\nMenelaus, who was somewhat slow of wit, paused to deliberate; but\nbefore he could frame an answer, the quick brain of Helen was ready\nwith an interpretation. \"The eagle is thy father, Odysseus,\" she said\nto Telemachus, \"and the meaning of the omen is that he is already in\nIthaca, or close at hand, bringing death and doom to his foes.\"\n\nThus encouraged by fair portents, they took leave of their kind hosts,\nand started on their way to Pylos, where they arrived on the following\nday. As they drew near to the house of Nestor, Telemachus begged his\nfriend to drive straight down to the sea. \"For I know,\" he said, \"that\nthy father will constrain me to abide with him, and will take no\ndenial; and I wish to embark for Ithaca without further delay.\"\nPisistratus agreed, and avoiding the house of Nestor they passed on to\nthe place where the ship lay moored.\n\nHaving summoned his crew, Telemachus was preparing to embark, when a\nman armed and equipped as a traveller approached the vessel, and\ninquired who he was and whither he was bound. Having received an\nanswer, he requested Telemachus to carry him to Ithaca. \"My name,\" he\nsaid, \"is Theoclymenus, and I am descended from Melampus, the famous\nseer, from whom I have inherited the prophetic gift. I am an exile\nfrom my native land of Argos, for I have slain a man of my own tribe,\nand am flying from the avenger of blood. Set me, I pray thee, on thy\nship, and take me with you, for sore is my need.\"\n\n\"Heaven forbid,\" answered Telemachus, \"that I should deny thee, seeing\nthat thy very life is at stake. Make haste, and come on board\"; and he\nmade room for the stranger to sit by him in the stern of the vessel.\n\nAfter a quick and prosperous voyage they sighted the coast of Ithaca,\nand landed on a deserted part of the coast within easy reach of the\nswineherd's dwelling. Here Telemachus dismissed his company, bidding\nthem take the galley round to the harbour of Ithaca, and promising to\nreward them for their good service. He was just about to depart when\nTheoclymenus detained him and asked where he was to find shelter.\nTelemachus answered in some embarrassment. \"'Twere no friendly act,\"\nhe said, \"to send thee to my house, for my mother lives apart in her\nown chamber and sees no man, and I fear lest thou suffer some harm\nfrom the lawless men who riot in my halls. Therefore I advise thee to\ngo to Eurymachus, who is now the most powerful man in Ithaca, and\nhopes to sit in my father's seat; but perchance Zeus will send him\nanother issue of his wooing.\"\n\nJust as he spoke a rushing of wings was heard on the right, and they\nsaw a falcon passing close at hand with a dove clutched in his talons,\nand tearing his prey so that the feathers fluttered down at their\nfeet. Then Theoclymenus, who was deeply skilled in augury, drew\nTelemachus apart and said: \"It is a manifest sign of victory to thee\nand to thy house.\" \"May Heaven fulfil thy prophecy,\" answered\nTelemachus, \"and if thy words prove true I will load thee with\nbenefits, and give thee cause to bless this hour.\" Being now convinced\nthat he had found a friend, he called Peir\u00e6us, in whom he had full\nconfidence, and bade him take Theoclymenus under his care until he\nhimself returned to the town. Peir\u00e6us readily undertook the charge,\nand this point being settled they thrust out from the shore and rowed\naway in the direction of the harbour, while Telemachus strode off with\nrapid footsteps along the path which led to the swineherd's hut.\n\nII\n\nOn the evening before the arrival of Telemachus Odysseus was sitting\nafter supper with Eum\u00e6us and the other herdsmen, and wishing to learn\nthe purpose of Eum\u00e6us towards him he said: \"I will no longer be a\nburden to thee and thy fellows. To-morrow I will go to the town and\nbeg my living, if thou wilt send one of thy men to show me the way.\nPerchance also I might visit the house of Odysseus, and have speech\nwith Penelope. And it may be that the wooers will take me into their\nservice, for I would have thee know that by favour of Hermes I am\nright skilful of my hands, and no one can match me in laying a fire\nand cleaving dry logs, in carving and roasting meat, and in pouring of\nwine.\"\n\nBut this proposal found no favour with the honest swineherd. \"Who put\nsuch a thought,\" he asked, \"into thy mind? Serve with the wooers! They\nwould put a speedy end to thy service, and pay thee thy wages in\nblood. Those who wait upon them are of a different sort from thee--gay\nstriplings, daintily clad, with glossy hair and comely faces. Remain\nwith us until Telemachus comes home; thou art no burden either to me\nor to my men.\"\n\n\"Be it so, then,\" answered Odysseus, \"and may Heaven requite thee for\nthy goodness to a poor homeless outcast, who wanders in misery, driven\nby hunger from door to door! And since I am still to be thy guest,\ntell me something of thy master's mother, and of the father whom he\nleft behind when he went to the wars. Do they still live, or have they\ngone to their rest?\"\n\n\"This also thou shalt know,\" replied Eum\u00e6us. \"Laertes his father still\nlives, though sore stricken with years and sorrows; for his son's long\nabsence and his wife's miserable end have brought him to the verge of\nthe grave. She died long ago, and by such a death as I pray may never\ncome to anyone who is dear to me--she, my kind mistress, who brought\nme up with her youngest daughter, and hardly loved me less. As long as\nshe lived I would often go down to the house, and she ever entertained\nme kindly, and gave me something to carry back with me to my dwelling\non the land. Full well she knew how to sweeten the lot of a thrall\nwith pleasant words, and little acts of tenderness and love. But now I\nseldom leave my charge, for since the wooers brought this curse upon\nmy master's house Penelope hides her face from us, and has no comfort\nfor us either in word or deed.\"\n\nOdysseus listened with deep interest, and when Eum\u00e6us paused he\nexpressed a desire to hear the story of his life. \"How was it,\" he\nasked, \"that already in early childhood thou wast cast on the mercy of\nstrangers? Wast thou taken captive in war, or did robbers seize thee\nas thou satst watching sheep on the lonely hills, and sell thee into\nbondage?\"\n\n\"Fill thy cup,\" answered Eum\u00e6us, \"we will pledge each other in a\nhearty draught, and then thou shalt hear my tale. The nights are long\nat this season, and we shall have time enough to sleep when I have\ndone. Fate has dealt hardly with me, even as with thee; and we can\nfind some comfort in telling over our sorrows to each other.\n\n\"There is a certain island called Syria, lying north of Ortygia, not\nvery large or populous, but a good land, rich in pasture, with waving\ncornfields and goodly vineyards. There famine never comes, nor\nsickness, but all the people reach a good old age, and then die by the\npainless shafts of Artemis or of Apollo. There are two cities which\ndivide the territory equally between them; and there was one king over\nboth, my father, Ctesius, son of Ormenus.\n\n\"When I was still very young there came to the island a Phoenician\nship, laden with trinkets for barter. Now in my father's house was a\nPhoenician woman, tall and fair, and skilled in needlework. She was my\nnurse, and I was wont to run about the town with her. One day, as she\nwas washing clothes not far from the ship, she was recognised by a\nPhoenician sailor as being of his own race, and he inquired how she\ncame to the island. She answered that she was a native of Sidon, and a\nrich man's daughter, stolen from her home by pirates, and sold across\nthe seas. 'And hast thou a mind to see thy native land again?' asked\nthe fellow. 'Thy father and mother still live and prosper'; for she\nhad told him that her father's name was Arybas. 'I will go with you,'\nanswered the woman, 'if ye will swear an oath to carry me home\nunharmed.' They all swore to do as she said, and after that she\ninstructed them how to proceed. 'Keep close counsel,' she said, 'and\nlet none of you seem to know me when ye meet me in the street, nor yet\nby the well, lest anyone tell it to my master; for if he suspects that\naught is amiss it will be the ruin of us all. Lose no time in selling\nyour wares, and when the ship is freighted for her homeward voyage let\none of you come up to the house and give me a sign. I will not come\nempty-handed, but will bring with me vessels of gold to pay for my\npassage. Furthermore, I have charge of my master's child, a knowing\nlittle lad; and, if it be possible, I will bring him with me, that ye\nmay sell him for a great price.'\n\n\"The bargain was struck, and the woman departed. Then for a whole year\nthey remained among us and traded; at last, when they had sold out all\ntheir goods, and stowed their cargo, they sent up a man to my father's\nhouse, to warn the woman that the time was come. He brought with him a\nnecklace of gold and amber, a thing of most rare device; and while my\nmother and her women were handling it, and bargaining for the price,\nthe fellow made a sign to my nurse. When he was gone she took me by\nthe hand and led me with her into the courtyard before the house.\nThere she found tables set with vessels of gold, where my father had\nbeen dining with his guests. They had now gone forth to attend the\ncouncil, and the place was deserted; so she caught up three goblets\nand hid them in her bosom. Then with one rapid glance round, to make\nsure that she was not observed, she hastened down to the spot where\nthe Phoenician ship lay moored; and I, poor child, followed her,\nfearing nothing.\n\n\"Evening was coming on as we reached the shore, and the crew were\nsitting ready at their oars, only waiting for our arrival. They took\nus on board, rowed their galley into open water, and, a strong breeze\nspringing up from the land, they hoisted sail, and were soon beyond\nthe reach of pursuit. On the seventh day of the voyage the hand of\nvengeance fell upon the woman, and she was struck dead by an invisible\nblow. They flung her body to the fishes, and soon after we landed in\nIthaca, where they sold me as a slave to Laertes.\"\n\n\"Twas a sad fate for one of thy tender years,\" remarked Odysseus, when\nEum\u00e6us had finished his story. \"Nevertheless thou wast happy to find\nsuch a master--happier far than I, who am still a vagabond and a\nwanderer in my old age.\"\n\n\n\n\nThe Meeting of Telemachus and Odysseus\n\n\nI\n\nEarly next day Eum\u00e6us and Odysseus were preparing their morning meal,\nwhen they heard the sound of footsteps approaching the hut. The hounds\npricked up their ears at the sound, and ran fawning round the\nnew-comer, who was evidently well known to them. Odysseus called to\nEum\u00e6us, who was busy drawing wine, and said: \"Some friend of thine is\ncoming; for the dogs fawn upon him, and bark not.\"\n\nEven as he spoke, a tall figure appeared in the open doorway, and his\nown dear son stood before him. Eum\u00e6us sprang up amazed, and let fall\nthe pitcher into which he had been drawing the wine. Then with a cry\nof joy he ran to greet his young lord, kissed his hands and his face,\nand wept over him. Even as a father yearns over his only son, just\nreturned from abroad after a ten years' absence, so Eum\u00e6us yearned\nover Telemachus, and hailed him as one returned from the dead. \"Thou\nart come, Telemachus,\" he faltered at last, when his emotion suffered\nhim to speak, \"thou art come back again, dear as mine own life! Ne'er\nthought I to see thee again, after thou wast gone to Pylos. Sit thee\ndown, that I may feast mine eyes upon thee; seldom dost thou come this\nway, but abidest in the house, to watch the wasteful deeds of the\nwooers.\"\n\nOdysseus, in his character of beggar, rose respectfully from his seat,\nto make room for the young prince, but Telemachus motioned him to\nresume his place, and sat down himself on a heap of brushwood, on\nwhich the swineherd had spread a fleece. While Eum\u00e6us was bringing\nbread and meat, and filling the cups with wine, Telemachus questioned\nhim as to his mother, and learnt that no change had occurred in her\nrelation to the wooers since he left Ithaca. Breakfast being over,\nEum\u00e6us, in answer to his inquiry, told him the story of the supposed\nstranger. \"I have done what I could for him,\" he added, when he had\nrepeated what he had heard from Odysseus. \"Now I deliver him unto\nthee, to do with him as thou wilt; all his hopes are in thy grace.\"\n\n\"What can I do?\" answered Telemachus, in perplexity. \"Thou knowest\nthat I am not master in my own house, and my mother is torn between\ntwo purposes: whether to wait still in patience for her lord's coming,\nor to choose a new husband from the noblest of the suitors. Neither\nshe nor I can give protection to such a guest as this. Therefore I\nwill bestow upon him a new cloak and doublet, with sandals for his\nfeet, and arm him with a good sword, and send him whithersoever he\nchooses to go. Or if thou art willing, thou canst keep him here with\nthee, and I will send down food and raiment for him, that he may not\nbe a burden to thee and thy men. But I will not allow him to go among\nthe wooers, and suffer ill-treatment which I have no power to\nprevent.\"\n\nOdysseus, who had not seen his son since he was an infant, desired to\nlearn something more of his mind and character; and in order to draw\nhim into further speech he asked, with an air of indignation, who the\nwooers were, and how it was that he submitted to their violence. \"Is\nthe public voice against thee,\" he asked, \"or art thou at feud with\nthy brethren, so that they will not help thee? If I were in thy place\nI would fall upon them singlehanded, for it were better to die once\nfor all than tamely to submit to such outrage.\"\n\n\"Behold I will tell thee all the truth,\" answered Telemachus. \"'Tis\nneither by the consent of the people nor by the ill-will of my\nbrethren, that this evil hath come upon me. But Heaven hath ordained\nthat the honours and the burden of our house should ever rest upon one\nalone. Laertes, my grandsire, was an only son, and Odysseus was the\nsole issue of his marriage; and even so I am the only child of\nOdysseus. Therefore I sit helpless and alone, at the mercy of this\nruffian band. But enough of this! We have no hope left, save in the\njustice of Heaven.\" Then he turned to Eum\u00e6us, and said: \"Make haste\nnow, go down to the house, and tell Penelope that I have come back\nsafe from Pylos. Let none else hear it, but come back hither at once,\nwhen thou hast delivered thy message, and I will wait here until thy\nreturn.\"\n\n\"Shall I not go to Laertes, and tell him also?\" asked the swineherd.\n\"Since the day of thy departure he has tasted neither meat nor drink,\nbut sits alone in his sorrow, and will not be comforted.\"\n\n\"My mother can send a handmaid to inform him,\" answered Telemachus.\n\"But as for thee, see that thou return here straightway, and lose no\ntime.\"\n\nII\n\nSoon after the departure of Eum\u00e6us, Odysseus and Telemachus were\nsitting before the door of the hut, each lost in his own thoughts,\nwhen their attention was attracted by the strange behaviour of the\ndogs. These animals, which had been lying basking in the sun, all at\nonce started up with a stifled cry, and ran whining, with every sign\nof terror, to a distant corner of the courtyard. \"What ails the\nhounds?\" said Telemachus, looking up in surprise. But Odysseus was not\nlong before he saw the cause of their alarm: standing at the outer\ngate was a tall female figure, of majestic countenance, and more than\nmortal beauty. Telemachus saw her not, but Odysseus instantly knew who\nshe was, and, obeying a gesture of her hand, he rose from his seat and\nwent out through the gate. She led him to a place where they were out\nof hearing, and then said: \"It is time for thee to reveal thyself to\nthy son, that together ye may contrive destruction for the wooers.\nWhen the hour of reckoning comes, I shall be near to aid you.\"\nThereupon she touched him with her wand, and in a moment he was once\nmore the old Odysseus, still in the full vigour of his manhood, dark\nand sunburnt, with thick black hair and curling beard. His rags also\nhad been replaced by fair clean raiment; and thus completely\ntransformed he went back to the hut to reveal himself to Telemachus.\nAthene, having done her part, had forthwith disappeared.\n\nFear came upon Telemachus, and he marvelled exceedingly, when the real\nOdysseus appeared before him. \"Who art thou,\" he asked, \"that comest\nback in a moment thus wondrously transfigured? If thou be a god, as\nmethinks thou art, let me find favour in thy sight, and we will honour\nthee with rich offerings of gold, and with humble prayers.\"\n\n\"No god am I,\" answered Odysseus, \"but thine own dear father, for\nwhose sake thou hast suffered so long with groanings and tears.\"\n\nWith that he kissed him, and giving vent to the tenderness which he\nhad hitherto restrained he lifted up his voice and wept. But\nTelemachus could not yet believe that it was indeed his father whom he\nsaw before him. \"It cannot be,\" he said, drawing back in affright. \"It\nis mere magic and glamour practised against me by some hostile power,\nto mock my sorrow. No being of flesh and blood could work such a\nchange upon himself. A moment since thou wast an old man in sordid\nraiment, and now thou art like unto the sons of heaven.\"\n\n\"Forbear!\" said Odysseus, \"no more amazement! I am thy father, and no\nother; if not, thou shalt never see him more. Much have I suffered,\nand wandered far, and now in the twentieth year I am come back to my\nnative land. This change at which thou marvellest is no work of mine,\nbut was wrought by Athene, daughter of Zeus. The gods can deal with us\nas they will, both for our glory and for our shame.\"\n\nThen Telemachus was convinced, and fell into his father's arms, and\nthey wept long and sore over each other, for joy and grief are near\nneighbours. Presently they grew calmer, and Odysseus, in answer to his\nson's inquiry, told how the Ph\u00e6acians had conveyed him to Ithaca, and\nof all the treasures which he had brought with him.\n\n\"But now we must speak of a sterner task,\" said Odysseus, when his\nstory was ended. \"Tell me now the number of the wooers, that I may\nknow how many and what manner of men they be, and thereafter contrive\nhow we may best assail them, whether by ourselves or with others to\nhelp us.\"\n\n\"Father,\" answered Telemachus, \"I knew thy high renown, as a warrior\nmighty in word and deed. But I fear me greatly that this task is too\nhard for us; how shall two men prevail against so many? Listen now and\nI will tell thee their number. From Dulichium are two and fifty, with\nsix men-servants, from Same twenty-four, from Zacynthus twenty, and\nfrom Ithaca itself twelve, all proper men and tall. If we twain fall\nupon such a host, we may find the work of vengeance a bitter morsel,\nand our bane. It were better, then, to look for some other help.\"\n\n\"Helpers we shall find, and stout ones too,\" said Odysseus. \"What\nsayest thou to Athene and her father, Zeus? Is their aid enough or\nshall we look for more?\"\n\n\"Mighty indeed are the champions thou namest,\" replied Telemachus,\n\"though throned far remote among the clouds; supreme are they in\nsovereignty, both on earth and in heaven.\"\n\n\"Thou sayest well,\" answered Odysseus; \"and ere long the wooers shall\nfeel their might. Now learn further what thou must do. To-morrow thou\nshalt go up to the house, and join the company of the wooers, and\nafterwards the swineherd will bring me thither in the disguise of a\nbeggar old and miserable. If the wooers use me despitefully seek not\nto prevent it, but let thy heart endure, even though they beat me, or\ndrag me by the feet through the doors. Thou mayest reprove them\ngently, and bid them cease from their wantonness, but they will not\nheed thee for their lives are forfeit already. Mark further, and take\nheed what I say. When the time to strike is come I will give thee a\nsignal, and, forthwith, thou shalt remove all the weapons from the\nhalls, and make excuse to the wooers, saying that thou art bestowing\nthem in a safe place, out of reach of the smoke. Leave only two swords\nand two shields and two spears, as weapons for ourselves. But above\nall I charge thee to let none know of my coming--neither Laertes, nor\nEum\u00e6us, nor Penelope herself. Alone we must work, and watch the temper\nof the thralls, to see if there be any on our side.\"\n\nIII\n\nMeanwhile the faithful swineherd made all haste to carry his message\nto Penelope. Just as he was approaching the house, he met one of the\ncrew of Telemachus' ship coming up from the harbour on the same\nerrand. So they went together, and while Eum\u00e6us conveyed the tidings\nprivately to Penelope, he who was sent from the ship delivered his\nreport in the hearing of the whole household.\n\nGreat was the dismay of the suitors when they learnt that their foul\nplot had been frustrated. One by one they stole out of the house to a\nsecret place of meeting; and when they were all assembled they began\nto devise what was next to be done. While they were debating they were\njoined by Antinous and the crew of the ship which had been lying in\nwait for Telemachus in the strait. Always the foremost in violent\ncounsels, Antinous breathed out threatenings and slaughter against the\nyoung prince. \"The boy only escaped us by a miracle,\" he said. \"All\nday long we had sentinels on all the heights commanding the sea, and\nat night we patrolled the waters in our ship. Yet for all our\nvigilance he has slipped through our hands. But I will not be baffled\nthus,\" he added, stamping with fury. \"This wretched boy must die, or\nwe shall never accomplish our purpose. Let us make haste and slay him\nbefore he comes back to the town, or he will call a meeting of the\npeople and proclaim to all Ithaca that we sought to slay him, and\nfailed. Then the whole city will rise against us, and we shall have to\nfly for our lives.\"\n\nThen another of the wooers rose up and rebuked Antinous for his\nbloodthirsty counsels. This man's name was Amphinomus, and he was the\nchief among the wooers who came from Dulichium. More than any of the\nother suitors he found favour with Penelope, for he was a prudent man\nand a just, and his voice was pleasant to her ear. \"Remember,\" he\nsaid, \"that Telemachus is of royal race; and it is a dreadful thing to\nshed the blood of kings. I will have no hand in such an act, without\nsure and manifest sign that it is the will of Zeus.\"\n\nThe speech of Amphinomus was received with a murmur of applause; for\nmost of the wooers were averse to the violent measures proposed by\nAntinous. So they arose, and returned to the house.\n\nPenelope had heard of their plotting from the herald, Medon, and\nobeying a sudden impulse she came down from her chamber, and standing\nin the doorway began to upbraid Antinous for his wicked purpose. \"Thou\nhast the name of a wise and eloquent man,\" she said, \"but thy fame is\nbetter than thy deeds. Wretch, why dost thou lay snares against the\nlife of my son? Hast thou never heard how thy father came to this\nhouse, flying from the wrath of the Ithacans, who would have slain\nhim, because he had joined the Taphian pirates in a raid on the\nThesprotians, who were our allies? But Odysseus stood between him and\ntheir fury, and saved his life. A fair return thou art making for that\ngood service, devouring his substance, paying court to his wife, and\ncompassing the death of his son.\"\n\nAntinous sat biting his lips, and made no answer; but Eurymachus, a\nsubtler villain, smooth and specious, but all the more dangerous,\nspoke for him, and said: \"Sage daughter of Icarius, fear nothing for\nthy son Telemachus, for while I live no man shall offer him violence.\nBy this sword I swear it, and I care not who hears me, the man who\nseeks to harm him shall die by my hand. I at least have not forgotten\nthe loving-kindness of thy lord, Odysseus, on whose knees I have often\nsat, and taken food and drink from his hand. Therefore I love\nTelemachus as a brother, and I swear to thee that none of the wooers\nshall do him any harm.\"\n\n\n\n\nThe Home-coming of Odysseus\n\n\nI\n\nWhen Eum\u00e6us came back from his errand, Odysseus, who in the meantime\nhad resumed his disguise, was helping Telemachus to prepare the\nevening meal. Telemachus questioned him about the ship which the\nwooers had sent out to waylay him on his return from Pylos, but Eum\u00e6us\nhad been in such haste to get back to his farm that he had not stopped\nto inquire about the matter. \"But thus much I can tell thee,\" he said:\n\"as I was crossing the hill which overlooks the town I saw a galley,\nbristling with spear and helm, entering the harbour; and I believe\nthat this was the ship of which thou speakest\"\n\n\"No doubt of it,\" answered Telemachus, with a significant glance at\nhis father. Then they all fell to their suppers with hearty appetite,\nand soon afterwards retired to rest.\n\nThe first chill of dawn was still in the air when Telemachus roused\nthe swineherd, and announced his intention of proceeding at once to\nthe town. \"I know,\" he said, \"that my mother will have no peace until\nshe sees me with her own eyes. Now as to this stranger, I charge thee\nto take him with thee into the town, that he may beg his bread from\nhouse to house. Burdened as I am already, and full of care, I cannot\nprovide for him. If he thinks it hard, all the worse for him.\"\n\n\"Thou sayest well,\" answered Odysseus; \"I have no mind to remain here.\nI am too old to take orders from a master, and it is better to beg my\nliving in the town than in the fields. Therefore I will go, when I\nhave warmed me at the fire, and the sun is up; for I am ill equipped\nto face the frosts of morning.\"\n\nAway went Telemachus, covering the ground with rapid strides, his mind\noccupied all the way with thoughts of vengeance against the wooers.\nThe first who saw him when he crossed the threshold of his home was\nhis old nurse, Eurycleia, who was just then spreading fleeces on the\nseats in the great hall. With a cry of joy she ran and fell on his\nneck, and kissed him; and all the faithful handmaids of Penelope\ncrowded round to welcome their young master home. The sound of their\nvoices reached the ears of Penelope, and with swift steps she came\ngliding into the hall, fair as Artemis, or golden Aphrodite. When she\nsaw Telemachus she flung her arms round his neck and covered his face\nwith kisses. \"Welcome,\" she sobbed, \"Telemachus, my heart's darling,\nrestored to me beyond all hope! Say, hast thou brought any news of thy\nfather?\"\n\nBut Telemachus was too full of the stern task which lay before him to\nleave room for softer emotions. Gently extricating himself from his\nmother's embrace he said: \"Dear mother, thou shalt hear all in due\nseason; at present I have other work to do. Go thou to thy chamber,\nand put on clean raiment, and when thou hast purified thyself pray to\nall the immortal gods to hasten the day of atonement for those who\nhave wronged our house. I will return presently, when I have done my\nbusiness in the town.\"\n\nThe gentle Penelope went to do her son's bidding, and Telemachus\nstarted for the town, with two hounds following close at his heels. He\nseemed taller and manlier after his short absence, and many an eye\nfollowed him with wonder as he passed through the streets. Presently\nhe came to the place where the wooers were assembled, and they came\ncrowding about him with false words of welcome. But he turned his back\non them with scorn, and seeing a little group of his father's friends,\namong whom were Mentor and the aged Halitherses, he went and sat down\namong them. While they were questioning him about his travels, Peir\u00e6us\ncame up, bringing with him the seer, Theoclymenus, whom Telemachus had\nleft in his charge the day before. \"I restore to thee thy guest,\" said\nPeir\u00e6us, \"who has been entertained in all honour at my house; and if\nthou wilt send thy handmaids, I will deliver unto them the treasure\nwhich thou hast brought with thee from Pylos.\"\n\n\"I thank thee,\" answered Telemachus; \"Theoclymenus shall go with me;\nbut as to the treasure, do thou keep it for me until these evil days\nare passed. If aught untoward befall me, I had rather it remained with\nthee than that it should fall into the hands of the wooers.\"\n\nHaving taken leave of his friends, he returned to the house, taking\nTheoclymenus with him. And when they had bathed and put on fresh\nraiment, they sat down to meat. The meal proceeded in silence, and at\nlast Penelope, who was sitting near, busy with her distaff, and\nlonging impatiently to hear her son's news, said in a tone of\ndispleasure: \"Hast thou no word for thy mother, Telemachus? Or art\nthou keeping thy tidings until the wooers return? Surely I thought in\nthis rare interval of quiet to hear how thou hast fared and what thou\nhast learnt on this journey. But if thou hast naught to tell me, I\nwill go to my widowed bed, and weep away the hours until dawn.\"\n\nRoused from his reverie by his mother's reproaches, Telemachus gave a\nbrief account of his visit to Nestor and Menelaus, and of what they\nhad told him. Penelope was musing on her son's report, when\nTheoclymenus, the second-sighted man, started up from his seat, and\ncried: \"I see him, I see him! He is landed in Ithaca, he is coming\nhither, he is here! Woe unto the suitors! Their hour is at hand, and\nnot one of them shall escape.\"\n\nPenelope had heard such prophecies too often to pay much heed to the\nseer's vision. \"Ah! my friend,\" she said, with a sad smile, \"I can but\npray that thy words will be fulfilled; if ever they are, it shall be a\nhappy day for thee.\"\n\nAt this moment the wooers came trooping in, filling the house with\nriot and uproar; and there was an end of all quiet converse for that\nday.\n\nII\n\nIt was past noon before Odysseus and Eum\u00e6us set out for the town; for\nEum\u00e6us had conceived a great liking for his guest, and listened with\ndelight to his wonderful tales of adventure. \"Come,\" he said at last,\nwhen Odysseus had finished one of his long stories. \"It is time to be\ngoing, though I would willingly have kept thee here. But my young lord\nhas spoken and we must obey.\" \"Lead on,\" said Odysseus, \"I know what\nthou wouldst say; but first give me a staff to lean on, for I heard\nthee say that the path was rough.\"\n\nSo saying he threw his tattered wallet over his shoulder, and taking a\nstout staff, which Eum\u00e6us offered him, started with his friend across\nthe hills. After a toilsome walk they reached the top of the hill\nwhich overlooked the town, and descending the slope they came to a\ncopious spring of water, well fenced with stones, and shaded by a\ngrove of alders. The water descended into a basin from the face of a\nrock in a cool and copious stream; and on either side stood an altar\nto the nymphs. \"It is the common fountain of the townspeople,\"\nexplained Eum\u00e6us. \"The altars and the basin which receives the water\nare the work of our ancient kings.\"\n\nOdysseus paused a moment, lost in the memories which were awakened by\nthat familiar scene. But his reverie was rudely interrupted. While he\nstood gazing at the fountain, he heard a rude voice hailing them from\nthe road, and looking round he saw a man leading a pair of fine goats\ntowards the town. It was Melanthius, his own goatherd, who was\nbringing the best of his flock to make savoury meat for the wooers.\n\n\"Here are two birds of a feather!\" shouted the fellow, in jeering\ntones--\"that wretched swineherd, and a ravenous beggar. A fine guest\nthou art bringing to our young masters, and a fair welcome, without\ndoubt, they will give him. Were it not better that I took him with me\nto my farm? He could sweep out the pens, and gather green shoots for\nthe kids; and we would give him whey to drink, and put some flesh on\nthese shrunk shanks[1] of his. But the lazy knave will do no work; he\nwould rather rub his shoulders against every door-post, begging for\nbroken meat. Broken bones will be his portion, if the wooers see him\nnear the house of Odysseus.\"\n\n[Footnote 1: \"A world too wide for his shrunk shanks,\"--Shakespeare:\n\"As You Like It.\"]\n\nWhile he uttered these taunts Melanthius had gradually come close to\nOdysseus, and with the last word he lifted up his foot and kicked him\nwith all his force on the hip. Odysseus stood like a rock, and stirred\nnot an inch from his ground; his first impulse was to seize the\nruffian by the ankles, and dash out his brains on the road; but he\nchecked himself with a great effort, and said not a word.\n\nBut Eum\u00e6us rebuked the goatherd, and invoked the vengeance of heaven\nagainst him. \"Would that our noble master were here!\" he cried, \"he\nwould soon make an end of thee, thou braggart! Unfaithful herdsman,\nthat rovest ever about the town, leaving thy flock to underlings!\"\n\n\"Go to, thou dog!\" retorted Melanthius, with a savage laugh. \"Wilt\nthou be ever harping on that string? Thy noble master is dust long\nago, and I would that Telemachus were lying with him. As for thee, I\nwill one day cast thee bound into a ship, and sell thee across the\nseas for a great price.\"\n\nWith that he left them, and stepped briskly out towards the house,\nwhile Odysseus and Eum\u00e6us followed more slowly. Presently they came to\nan extensive enclosure, standing conspicuously on a high level plateau\noverlooking the town. Behind the fence towered the roof of a great\ntimber house. They passed through the outer gates, and as they entered\nthe courtyard they heard the sounds of a harp, and the steam of roast\nflesh was borne to their nostrils.\n\n\"Take heed now,\" said Eum\u00e6us, lowering his voice, as they approached\nthe door of the house. \"I will go in first, and do thou follow me\nclose, lest anyone find thee outside and do thee some hurt.\"\n\n\"Fear nothing for me,\" answered Odysseus, \"I am no stranger to blows,\nfor I have been sore buffeted on land and sea. The belly is a stern\ntaskmaster, which compels us to face both wounds and death.\"\n\nSo saying he stepped aside to let Eum\u00e6us pass, then checked him with a\nhasty exclamation; for he had seen something which sent a pang of\nsorrow to his heart. Heaped up against the wall by the doorway was a\ngreat pile of refuse, left there until the thralls should carry it\naway and lay it on the fields; and there, grievously neglected, and\nalmost blind with age, lay a great gaunt hound, to all seeming more\ndead than alive. What was the emotion of Odysseus when he recognised\nin that poor creature his old favourite, Argus, whom he had reared\nwith his own hand, and trained to the chase, in the old days before he\nsailed to Troy! As he stooped down with a caressing gesture the hound\nfeebly raised his head; a strange light came into his eyes, he drooped\nhis ears, and wagged his tail, but was too weak to stir from the place\nwhere he lay. Odysseus brushed away a tear, and said to Eum\u00e6us: \"'Tis\nstrange that so fine a hound should lie thus uncared for in his old\nage. Or do his looks belie his qualities? Handsome he must have been,\nas I can see still; but perhaps his beauty was all he had to boast\nof.\"\n\n\"He was my master's favourite hound,\" answered Eum\u00e6us, \"and there was\nnone swifter or keener of scent in all the land. Formerly the young\nmen would take him with them to hunt the wild goat or the hare or the\ndeer; but now that he is sore stricken with years not one of the women\nwill bring him a morsel to eat, or a little water to drink. So it ever\nis when the master is absent; for a slave has no conscience when his\nowner's eye is not upon him.\"\n\nWhen Eum\u00e6us had entered the house, Odysseus lingered awhile, gazing\nsadly at the faithful Argus. The old hound raised himself, and\nstruggled painfully to drag himself to his master's feet; but the\neffort was too much for him, and he sank back on his sorry bed, and\nbreathed his last.\n\nWith a heavy heart Odysseus turned away, and passing into the hall sat\ndown on the threshold and laid his scrip beside him. Telemachus was\nthe first to notice him, and calling the swineherd, who was sitting\nnear, he gave him a loaf of bread and a good handful of meat, and bade\nhim carry it to the beggar. \"And tell him to go round and beg of all\nthe wooers,\" he said: \"want and modesty agree ill together.\" Eum\u00e6us\nbrought the gift and the message, which Odysseus received with a\nblessing on the giver. And when he had eaten he rose and went round\nthe hall, begging of the wooers. All gave him something until he came\nto Antinous, who stared at him insolently and asked who he was.\n\n\"I saw the fellow,\" answered Melanthius, \"a little while ago. Eum\u00e6us\nbrought him hither, but who he is I know not.\"\n\n\"Ah! thou rogue,\" said Antinous to the swineherd, \"we know thy ways!\nWhy didst thou bring this caitiff to the town? Are there not beggars\nenough here already to mar our pleasure when we sit down to meat? 'Tis\nnought to thee, it seems, that these palmer-worms come swarming round\nthe house to devour thy master's living.\"\n\n[Illustration: The Return of Odysseus]\n\n\"He is no guest of my inviting,\" answered Eum\u00e6us. \"I would not invite\nto this house any wandering stranger, unless he were a prophet, or\nleech, or shipwright, or minstrel; and he is none of these. But thou\nart ever hard on the servants of Odysseus, and especially on me; yet I\ncare not, so long as I satisfy Penelope and my young lord,\nTelemachus.\"\n\n\"Eum\u00e6us, thou art overbold of speech,\" said Telemachus; then turning\nto Antinous he added: \"I thank thee for thy fatherly care, but we are\nnot so poor that we need to drive the stranger from our doors--heaven\nforbid! Give him something; 'tis I that bid thee: but thou art ever\nbetter at taking than at giving.\"\n\n\"I will give him something, thou malapert boy,\" answered Antinous,\ngrinding his teeth with rage, \"something which will keep him from the\nhouse for three months to come.\" As he spoke he thrust forward a heavy\nfootstool from under the table, and placed it ready at hand.\n\nMeanwhile, Odysseus, having filled his wallet, was preparing to return\nto his place on the threshold. But first he came to Antinous, and\naddressed to him a long harangue in the common style of the\nprofessional beggar, who had seen better days and been brought to want\nby the malice of fortune. He concluded with a fragment of the story\nwhich he had already told to Eum\u00e6us.\n\nAntinous heard him to the end with ill-disguised impatience, and then\nbroke out in angry tones: \"Who brought this wretched fellow here to\nvex us? Stand off from my table, thou shameless varlet! Egypt, sayest\nthou? I will send thee to Egypt, and with a vengeance, too! It is a\nshame to see how they have squandered good meat on a dog like thee\";\nand he pointed to the wallet, now filled with the cheap bounty of the\nwooers.\n\nOdysseus drew back and made for the door, saying as he went: \"Of a\ntruth, I wonder to find so princely a presence wedded to so mean a\ntemper.\"\n\nWhen he heard that Antinous began to curse and to swear, and lifting\nthe footstool he hurled it with all his force at the retreating figure\nof Odysseus. It struck him on the shoulder, with a crash that vibrated\nthrough the hall; but Odysseus heeded it not, but passed on without a\npause or a stumble to his place on the threshold. When he was seated\nhe complained loudly of the brutal conduct of Antinous. \"Accursed be\nhe,\" he said, \"who lifts up his hand against a helpless beggar; may\nHeaven requite him for this foul deed!\"\n\n\"Thou hadst best be quiet,\" said Antinous, \"or we will drag thee by\nthe heels through the hall, until we have stripped the flesh off thy\nbones.\"\n\nBut this was too much even for the wooers. \"Antinous,\" said one of\nthem, \"it was ill done of thee to strike the hapless wanderer. Take\nheed that thou bring not a curse upon thyself, if there be gods in\nheaven to see such deeds. And what if a god should visit this house in\nsome strange disguise, to make trial of our hearts? It were no new\nthing.\"\n\nA chill seemed to have fallen on the company after this shameful\nincident. The wooers had ceased their clamour, and sat talking in low\ntones together; Odysseus and Telemachus sat silent in their places,\nbrooding gloomily on the outrage; Antinous alone remained unmoved,\nbeing hardened, within and without, against all reproach.\n\nWhen Penelope, who was sitting among her maidens in her chamber, heard\nhow the stranger had been ill-treated, she cried: \"So may Apollo smite\nthee, Antinous, thou godless man!\" \"Ay,\" said Eurycleia, \"if prayers\ncould slay them, not one of these men would see to-morrow's dawn.\"\n\n\"Go, one of you,\" said Penelope, \"and bring hither the swineherd. I\nwould fain speak with this stranger; who knows but he may have\nsomewhat to tell me of Odysseus, my lord?\" Eum\u00e6us was summoned, and\nhaving heard the desire of Penelope, he answered: \"My queen, there is\na rare pleasure awaiting thee. This man hath a tongue to charm thy\nvery soul. Three days and nights he abode with me, and all that time\nhe kept us spellbound by the tale of his adventures. It was as if we\nwere listening to the lay of some rare minstrel, a god-gifted man, who\nsways all hearts as he will by the magic of his voice. And he brings\nsure tidings of Odysseus too, if we may believe what he says.\"\n\n\"Call him hither,\" answered Penelope, \"that he may speak to me face to\nface. If his news be true, we may yet see the day when these men shall\npay a heavy price for their plunder of our house.\"\n\nAs she spoke, a loud sneeze was heard in the room below. \"It was my\nson,\" said Penelope, laughing, \"I know it by the sound; and it is a\nsign that my words will be fulfilled. Make haste now, and bring the\nstranger to me.\"\n\nEum\u00e6us went, and presently returned with a message from the supposed\nbeggar, to say that he feared fresh violence from the wooers, if he\nleft his place by the door and passed through them again. The truth\nwas that Odysseus feared recognition if he appeared before his wife in\nbroad daylight; so he affected to complain of the indifference of\nTelemachus, who had allowed the savage deed of Antinous to go\nunpunished, and begged permission to wait until the evening, when the\nwooers would be gone home, and he could tell his story unmolested.\n\n\"He says well,\" answered Penelope, when she had heard the message.\n\"And he seems to be a man of sense. We will wait until evening, as he\ndesires.\"\n\nThe day was waning when Eum\u00e6us returned to the hall, and the wooers\nhad already begun their evening pastimes. The swineherd went up to\nTelemachus, and said to him in a low tone: \"It is time for me to\nreturn to my farm, that I may give an eye to the things which I have\nin charge. I leave thee to look to the house, and all that it\ncontains; but above all be careful of thyself, for there are many here\nwho wish thee ill.\"\n\n\n\n\nThe Beggar Irus\n\n\nJust after Eum\u00e6us had left, a huge, ungainly fellow came slouching up\nto the place where Odysseus was sitting, and eyed him with a look of\ngreat disfavour. He was the town beggar, known far and wide in Ithaca\nas the greediest and laziest knave in the whole island. His real name\nwas Arn\u00e6us, but from being employed to run errands about the place he\nhad received the nickname of Irus. Highly indignant at finding his\nrights usurped by a new-comer, and thinking to find in that battered\nold man an easy victim, he began to rate his supposed rival in a big,\nblustering voice: \"Give place, old man, to thy betters, and force me\nnot to use my hands upon thee. Begone, and that quickly, or it shall\nbe the worse for thee; out of the way, I say!\"\n\nWith a stern look Odysseus answered him, and said: \"What possesses\nthee, fellow, that thou seekest a quarrel with me? Thou art, as I\nperceive, a beggar like me, and I grudge thee not anything which thou\nmayest receive in the way of alms from those who sit here. There is\nroom on this threshold for us both. But I warn thee not to provoke me\nto blows, for old as I am I will set a mark upon thee which thou wilt\ncarry to thy death.\"\n\nTrusting in his size, and encouraged by the nods and winks of the\nwooers who sat near, Irus was only too ready to take up the challenge.\n\"Hark to the old starveling cur!\" he shouted. \"How glib of tongue he\nis, like any scolding hag! Get thee to thy fists then, since thou wilt\nhave it so, and I will knock all thy teeth out, if thou hast any\nleft\"; and he thrust Odysseus with his foot.\n\nAll the wooers now came running up, and crowded round the exasperated\nbeggars, hoping to see fine sport. Antinous took the lead, such a\nscene being exactly to his taste. \"Here is matter for mirth,\" he\ncried, laughing, \"for many a day. Make a ring quickly, and let them\nfight it out.\"\n\nIn the courtyard there was a red smouldering fire, on which two huge\nsausages were roasting, a sort of haggis made by filling the belly of\na goat with fat and blood. It was determined to give one of these\nmesses to the winner in the fight; and he also was henceforth to have\nthe sole right to receive the broken meats at the wooers' feasts.\n\nOdysseus now pretended to draw back, as if he feared an encounter with\na man younger than himself; but at last he consented to the match, on\ncondition that the wooers would swear an oath not to strike him a foul\nblow while he was fighting with Irus. To this they all agreed, and\nforthwith Odysseus stripped to the waist, and girded his rags about\nhis loins. By some strange magic his limbs seemed to have filled out;\nand when the wooers saw his mighty chest and broad shoulders they\ncried out in amazement \"Methinks Irus will pay dearly for his ire,\"[1]\nsaid one. \"Look what a brawny thigh the old carle shows under his\nrags!\"\n\n[Footnote 1: The pun is an attempt to reproduce a similar word-play in\nthe original.]\n\nIrus himself was not less astonished than dismayed, so that they were\nobliged to use force to make him face his opponent; and as he stood\nthere quaking with fear Antinous reviled him bitterly, and threatened,\nif he were defeated, to carry him to the mainland, and hand him over\nto a robber chieftain, nicknamed the Mutilator, and notorious for his\ncruelties. \"He will carve thee into collops and fling them to his\ndogs,\" said the ferocious prince.\n\nLittle encouraged, as may be supposed, this prospect, Irus in his\ndespair aimed a blow at Odysseus, and struck him on the right\nshoulder. Then Odysseus, who had resolved to put forth but half his\nforce, lest he should betray himself to the wooers, struck the\nwretched man under the ear. There was a crash of broken bones, and\ndown went Irus in the dust, spitting blood, and beating the ground\nwith his heels. The wooers hailed his fall with shouts of laughter,\nand Odysseus, seizing the prostrate beggar by the foot, dragged him\nthrough the courtyard gate, and propped him against the wall. \"Sit\nthere,\" he said, placing his staff in his hand, \"and keep off dogs and\nswine. Methinks thou hast had enough of playing the tyrant among\nstrangers and beggars.\"\n\nWhen he returned to his place on the threshold he found the wooers in\nhigh good humour at the defeat of Irus. \"May heaven fulfil all thy\nheart's desire!\" cried one who sat near, \"seeing that thou hast rid us\nof that hungry, brawling rogue.\" His words had a meaning which he\nlittle guessed, and Odysseus rejoiced when he heard them. Then\nAntinous brought the pudding, all steaming from the fire, and set it\nby him; and Amphinomus gave him two loaves, and filled a cup with\nwine. \"Hail, old friend!\" he said, offering the cup, \"and mayest thou\nlive to see happier days.\"\n\nThis Amphinomus differed in character from the other suitors, being a\nprudent and fair-minded man. Odysseus knew him and his father well,\nand being willing to save him, if possible, he looked earnestly at\nhim, and said: \"Amphinomus, thou seemest to be a man of understanding,\nand therefore I will give thee a word of warning. Hark, in thine ear!\nQuit this company at once! The day of doom is very near to them all,\nand I would not that thou shouldst perish with them.\"\n\nThese words, spoken in a low and solemn tone, so that none besides\nmight hear, sent a chill to the heart of Amphinomus. Slowly and sadly\nhe went back to his seat, his mind full of dark foreboding.\nNevertheless, he did not profit by the warning; for he had thrown in\nhis lot with that guilty band, and had to drink of the same cup.\n\n\n\n\nPenelope and the Wooers\n\n\nI\n\n\"How slowly move the hours,\" said Penelope to Eurycleia, yawning and\nthen laughing in sheer vacancy of spirit. \"How would it be if I showed\nmyself to the wooers? I hate them, it is true, but it would serve to\npass the time, and I could caution my son not to be so familiar with\nthese treacherous friends.\"\n\n\"Do so, my child,\" answered Eurycleia, \"but first wash and anoint\nthyself, and go not among them with this tear-stained face. And waste\nnot thy life in perpetual mourning; think what a comfort thou hast in\nthy son.\"\n\n\"Speak not to me of such vanities,\" answered Penelope; \"why should I\nwish to preserve this poor remnant of my beauty? Foul or fair, what\nmatters it in my widowed state? But send two of my handmaids hither to\nattend me, for it is not seemly that I should go alone among the men.\"\n\nWhile the nurse was gone to fetch the maidens, a sudden drowsiness\noverpowered Penelope, and she sank back in her chair, subdued by a\nshort but trancelike sleep. And while she slumbered, invisible hands\nwere busy with her person, washing away all the stains which sorrow\nhad left on her face, and shedding upon her immortal loveliness, such\nas clothes the Queen of Love herself, when she joins the sister Graces\nin the dance. The voices of the women entering her chamber roused her\nfrom that strange sleep, and sitting up she rubbed her cheeks and\nsaid: \"Wondrous soft was the slumber which overtook me in my sorrow!\nWould that it were death which had come upon me with like softness,\nthat I might no longer waste away in mourning for the excellence of my\ndear, dear lord!\"\n\nThereupon she arose, and descending the stairs stood in the open\ndoorway of the hall, with a handmaid on either side. A murmur of\nsurprise and admiration went round the whole company, for never had\nshe seemed so wondrous fair. Turning to Telemachus she said: \"My son,\nwith grief I perceive that thy understanding increaseth not with thy\ngrowth, but rather becometh less. Who would think, seeing thee thus\ntall and comely, like a prince's true son, that thou wouldst suffer\nsuch deeds to be wrought upon the stranger within thy gates? What if\nhe had come by his death through this violence? What shame and infamy\nto thee!\"\n\n\"Mother,\" answered Telemachus, \"thou hast some reason for thine anger.\nHowbeit, I have a man's wit, and am not, as thou sayest, more foolish\nthan a child. But what can one do against so many? And as to this\nstranger, thou wouldst know that thy fears are idle, if thou couldst\nsee Irus as he now sits at the gate, rolling his head like a drunkard,\nwith no strength to stand on his feet or stir from his place. Would\nthat all the wooers were in the same plight!\"\n\nWhile Telemachus was defending himself, Eurymachus had been gazing\nwith bold eyes on that fair lady; and now he addressed her with smooth\nwords of flattery: \"Daughter of Icarius, sage Penelope, if all the\nGreeks could behold thee as now thou art, this house would not contain\nthe multitude of thy wooers. Thou surpassest all the daughters of men\nin beauty, and in stature, and in thy even-balanced wit\"\n\n\"Eurymachus,\" answered Penelope, \"all the bloom of my womanhood was\nblighted on the evil day when the Greeks embarked for Troy, and\nOdysseus, my lord, went with them. But now I am like some poor hunted\ncreature, hard beset by the hounds of fate. Well I remember my\nhusband's parting words. Holding my right hand he said: 'Dear wife, I\nam going into the midst of perils, and it may be that we shall never\nsee each other again. Be thou but faithful to thy trust, and remember\nwhose daughter thou art; and when thou seest thy son with a beard on\nhis cheeks, thou art free to marry whom thou wilt.' Such were his\nwords, and now they shall shortly be fulfilled. I see the day\napproaching which shall make me another man's wife; better for me if I\nwere the bride of death! For who ever beheld such wooing as yours?\n'Twas ever the custom among those who sought the daughter of a wealthy\nhouse in marriage to bring with them their own sheep and oxen to make\ngood cheer for the friends of the bride; but ye sit here as unbidden\nguests, and devour my living.\"\n\nOdysseus smiled to himself with pleasure when he heard this artful\nspeech of Penelope, for he perceived her intention, which was to draw\ngifts from the wooers, and raise their hopes by the prospect of her\napproaching marriage. And the artifice was successful, for the wooers,\nfollowing the lead of Antinous and Eurymachus, at once despatched\ntheir servants to bring the bride gifts from their houses. Antinous\ngave a splendid embroidered robe, with twelve golden clasps,\nEurymachus a necklace of amber and gold, and Eurydamas a pair of\njewelled earrings. These and other costly offerings were brought to\nPenelope in her chamber.\n\nII\n\nWhen evening came on, the wooers ordered three braziers to be set up\nin the hall, to give them light as they sat at their pastimes. The\nbraziers were fed with dry chips of pine-wood, and the maid-servants\nrelieved each other from time to time in the duty of keeping up the\nfires. Presently Odysseus drew near to the handmaids, and said: \"Go ye\nand attend the queen in her chamber, I will serve the fires, and give\nlight to the company. Yea, though they sit here all night they shall\nnot tire me out, for I am a much-enduring man.\"\n\nThe women laughed, and glanced at one another; and one of them, whose\nname was Melantho, spoke bitterly to Odysseus, and reviled him,\nsaying: \"Thou wretched old man, why goest thou not to find a bed in\nthe smithy, or wherever else thou canst, instead of loitering here,\nand vexing us with thy prate? Either thou hast drunk a cup too much,\nor else thou art stricken in thy wits. Get thee gone, lest a stronger\nthan Irus lay his hand upon thee and break thy bones.\"\n\n\"Now will I go straightway to Telemachus,\" answered Odysseus fiercely,\n\"yonder where he sits, and tell him what thou sayest, thou vixen, that\nhe may hew thee in pieces on the spot.\"\n\nSo menacing were his looks and his tones that the women fled quaking\nfrom the hall and left him to tend the fires. So there he stood in\nview of the whole company, to their eyes a poor outcast, intent on his\nmenial task; but thoughts other than of the fires filled his heart.\n\nAs he stooped over one of the braziers and stirred the fuel into a\nblaze, Eurymachus noticed the red gleam which was reflected from the\nsmooth, bald crown of the supposed beggar. \"Look!\" he cried, laughing\nand pointing at Odysseus, \"surely this man is a favourite of heaven;\nfor see how the light shines like a crown of glory on his hairless\npate!\"\n\nThen he called to Odysseus, and said: \"How sayest thou, friend, wilt\nthou be my thrall, and work on my farm among the hills for a fixed\nwage? Thy business would be to repair the stone fences and work on the\nplantation; thou wouldst have a whole coat to thy back, and shoes to\nthy feet, and thy penny fee, and bread to eat all the year round. But\nI can read thine answer in thy face: thou wouldst rather crouch and\nwhine for bread than do aught useful to earn thy living.\"\n\n\"Eurymachus,\" answered Odysseus firmly, \"I would that I could prove my\nmanhood against thine in any trial of strength and endurance. Let it\nbe a match of mowing, in a rich meadow-land, on the longest day in\nspring, and let us ply the scythe together, fasting, from dawn till\neve. Or give me a stout pair of oxen, mighty beasts, equal in\nstrength, and both well filled with fodder, and set me to plough a\nfield of four acres, of rich, deep soil--then wouldst thou see if I\ncould drive a straight furrow. Or stand by my side on the perilous\nedge of battle, with equal arms, and try whether I would flinch sooner\nthan thou. A great man and a mighty thou seemest to thyself, having\nnever learnt what true manhood is. Poor windy braggart, if Odysseus\nset foot in this house again, the doors would seem too narrow to thee\nin thy haste to escape.\"\n\n\"Thou saucy knave!\" cried Eurymachus, incensed by this daring speech,\n\"I will teach thee respect for thy betters\"; and seizing a footstool\nhe prepared to hurl it at the offender's head. But Odysseus sprang\naside and ran to Amphinomus for protection; the heavy missile flew\nhurtling through the air, and struck one of the servants, who was just\ncrossing the room, on the arm. Down went the man with a cry of pain,\nand the wooers raised an uproar throughout the hall. \"A murrain on\nthis begging loon!\" exclaimed one. \"Why came he hither to bring strife\namong us?\"\n\n\"Ye are mad, my masters!\" said Telemachus, raising his voice; \"verily\nye are flown with insolence and wine.[1] Ye had better go home and\nsleep off your liquor before worse comes of it.\"\n\n[Footnote 1: Milton, \"Paradise Lost,\" i. 502.]\n\nThe wooers were indeed in a dangerous mood, and they began to finger\ntheir weapons, and utter fierce threats against Telemachus. But\nAmphinomus interposed, and by exerting all his influence induced them\nto forgo their murderous purpose and disperse quietly to their homes.\n\n\n\n\nOdysseus and Penelope\n\n\nAs soon as the house was quiet, Telemachus, obeying a sign from his\nfather, prepared to convey the weapons which hung about the hall to an\ninner chamber, out of the reach of the wooers. First he ordered\nEurycleia to keep the women out of the way, and having barred the\ndoors leading to the inner apartments, he took down helmet and spear\nand shield from the walls, and carried them, with his father's help,\nto the upper room. When this important task was performed he withdrew\nfor the night, and Odysseus was left alone in the hall to await the\ncoming of Penelope.\n\nPresently the doors were opened, and by the flickering light of the\nbraziers Odysseus, for the first time after twenty years, saw the face\nof his wife. Lovely indeed she seemed in his eyes, not less than when\nhe wedded her in her maiden bloom. Her handmaids brought a chair of\nsilver and ivory, a work of most rare device, and set it by the fire\nwith a soft fleece upon it. Penelope took the seat prepared for her\nand gazed curiously at the stranger, who sat crouched in the shadow of\na pillar, avoiding her eye. Meanwhile the women were bustling about\nthe hall, removing the remains of the feast, and heaping fresh fuel on\nthe fires. Among them was Melantho, who had spoken so roughly to\nOdysseus an hour or two before. When she saw Odysseus she began\nrailing at him again, and rudely bade him begone. Penelope soon\nreduced her to silence, and then calling Eurycleia she bade her place\na seat for the stranger.\n\n\"Now tell me,\" began Penelope, when the chair had been brought, \"who\nart thou, and of what country? And who were thy father and mother?\"\n\n\"Ah! lady,\" answered Odysseus, \"I beseech thee, question me not as to\nmy country and my friends, lest thou open anew the fountain of my\ngrief. It is not seemly to sit weeping and wailing in a stranger's\nhouse; and I fear that thou wilt say that my tears are the tears of\ndrunkenness.\"\n\nPenelope pressed him for an answer. \"Thou surely art of some country,\"\nshe said, smiling; \"or art thou one of those of whom old stories tell,\nborn of stocks and stones?\"\n\n\"Since thou urgest it so strongly,\" replied Odysseus, \"I cannot deny\nthee. In the broad realm of Crete there is a certain city, Cnosus by\nname; there reigned Minos, and begat Deucalion, my famous sire. To\nDeucalion two sons were born, Idomeneus the elder, and myself, whom he\nnamed \u00c6thon. When war arose between the Greeks and Trojans, Idomeneus\nsailed to fight for the sons of Atreus, and I was left behind in my\nfather's house. Then it was that I saw Odysseus, who was driven by\nstress of weather to seek shelter on our coasts. When he had anchored\nhis ships in the harbour, he came up to the town and inquired for\nIdomeneus, whom he said was his friend, honoured and beloved; but we\ntold him that Idomeneus had departed ten days before. Then I received\nhim in my house, and feasted him and all his company for twelve days;\nfor all that time the north wind blew, so that a man could not stand\nup against it. On the thirteenth day the wind ceased and they put out\nto sea.\"\n\nPenelope's tears flowed fast as she listened to that cunning fiction,\nwhich seemed to bring her husband before her eyes. Odysseus watched\nher, with eyes set like horn or iron, as she sat before him sobbing\nand rocking herself to and fro; but his heart grew big within him, and\nhe could hardly keep back his own tears. At length she grew calmer,\nand wishing to try him, asked him this searching question: \"If thou\ndidst indeed entertain my husband in thy house, tell me what manner of\nman he was, and what garments he had on, and who they were that\nattended him.\"\n\n\"It is hard,\" answered Odysseus, \"to tell thee of what thou askest,\nafter twenty years; nevertheless I will attempt to call up his image\nfrom the past. He wore a purple woollen cloak, of two folds, and it\nwas held by a golden brooch with a double clasp; and on the brooch was\nfashioned a hound, holding in his jaws a fawn; and so skilfully was it\nwrought that the figures seemed to live, the fawn struggling to\nescape, and the hound clenching his fangs to hold him--so rare a piece\nit was. Under his cloak, Odysseus wore a close-fitting tunic, which\nglistened like the peel of a dried onion; for very soft and fine was\nthe texture. I cannot tell whether these were the garments which he\nhad on when he left you; it may be that they were a gift received on\nhis voyage, for he had many friends. Even so I gave him a sword of\nbronze and a mantle, and a fringed tunic, when I bade him adieu.\nFurther, I would have thee know that he had a squire with him,\nsomewhat older than himself, a round-shouldered man, dark of\ncomplexion, and with curling hair. His name was Eurybates, and\nOdysseus held him in high regard.\"\n\nWhat were the emotions of Penelope, when she heard the raiment and\nornaments which her husband was wearing the last time she saw him thus\ndescribed down to the minutest detail! For a long time she remained\nsilent, overpowered by her feelings; and when she spoke again there\nwas a ring of sincere warmth and friendliness in her voice. \"I pitied\nthee before,\" she said, \"seeing thee thus forlorn, but now thou shalt\nbe my dear and honoured guest, for I know that thou hast spoken the\ntruth. These garments, and the golden brooch, were a gift from my own\nhands to my dear lord. Alas! I shall never see him again. Cursed be\nthe day that parted me from him, and sent him to the land of Troy,\nthat name abhorred of my soul!\"\n\n\"Lady,\" answered Odysseus, \"no one could blame thee, or say that thou\nsorrowest beyond measure, for such a husband as thine. He was indeed a\nman of rare and god-like gifts. Nevertheless be comforted; for ere\nmany days are passed thou wilt see him here, safe and sound, and\nloaded with the wealth which he has gathered in his wanderings.\" Then\nhe went on to repeat the story which he had already told to Eum\u00e6us,\nwith some further facts, drawn from his own experience in the last ten\nyears; and concluded with this solemn adjuration: \"Witness, this\nhearth of Odysseus, to which I am come, and witness Zeus, the supreme\nlord of heaven, if I lie! Ere yonder moon hath waned, Odysseus will be\nsitting under this roof.\"\n\nPenelope shook her head sadly, as she replied: \"It will be a happy day\nfor thee, if thy prophecy is confirmed by the event. But what am I\nsaying? 'Tis an empty dream. But come, let the maidens prepare a bath\nfor thee, and afterwards them shalt sleep sound in a soft, warm bed.\nWell hast thou deserved to receive all honour and worship at my hands,\nand woe unto him that shall seek to harm thee! I will put a speedy end\nto his wooing. For what wilt thou say of me, when thou art wandering\nin distant lands, if I suffer thee to abide here thus poorly clad,\nunwashed, and uncared for? Few and evil are the days of our life; and\nthe best we can do is to win a good name by our gentle deeds while we\nlive, and leave a fair memory behind us when we die.\"\n\n\"I doubt not thy goodness,\" replied Odysseus; \"but I have long been a\nstranger to the comforts of which thou speakest, and they suit not my\nforlorn and desolate state. Nor would I that any of thy handmaids\nshould wash my feet, and mock my infirmities; but if thou hast here an\naged house-dame, like unto me in years and in sorrows, I grudge not\nthat such a one should wait upon me.\"\n\n\"Thou speakest as a prudent man,\" said Penelope, \"and I have such an\naged dame as thou describest among my household. She was the first who\ntook my ill-fated husband in her arms when his mother bare him, and\nshe nursed him tenderly and well. She shall wash thy feet, old though\nshe be, and feeble.\" Then she called Eurycleia, who was sitting near,\nand said to her: \"Come hither, nurse, and wash the stranger's feet.\nWho knows but thy master is now in like evil case, grown old before\nhis time through care and misery?\"\n\nWhen she heard that, the old woman lifted up her voice and wept:\n\"Odysseus,\" she cried, \"child of my sorrow, what have I not borne for\nthee! Pious thou wast, and righteous in all thy dealings, yet Zeus\nhath chosen thee out from among all men to be the object of his hate.\nYea, and perchance even now he is mocked in the house of strangers, as\nthese women were lately mocking thee. Yea, I will wash thee, as\nPenelope bids me, and for thy sake also, for my heart is moved with\npity because of thy woes.\"\n\nWith such speed as her years allowed, the dame went and fetched warm\nwater, and a vessel for washing the feet. She set them down in front\nof Odysseus, and before she began her task, stood for some time\npeering curiously into his face. \"Hear me, friend,\" she said, after a\nwhile, \"of all the strangers that ever entered these doors, ne'er saw\nI one so like unto Odysseus as thou art, in form, and in voice, and in\nfeet.\"\n\n\"So said everyone who saw us together,\" answered Odysseus. But her\nwords filled him with alarm, and recalled to his mind an old scar,\njust above the knee, caused by a wound which he had received from a\nwild boar while hunting in his boyhood in the valleys of Parnassus,\nduring a visit to Autolycus, Penelope's father. If his old nurse\nshould discover the scar she would be certain to recognise him, and\nthe consequences of the premature discovery might be fatal. However,\nhe had now no excuse for declining the bath, so he drew back his chair\ninto the shadow, still hoping to escape detection.\n\nBut Eurycleia, whose suspicions were already aroused, was not thus to\nbe evaded. As she handled the limb her fingers felt the well-known\nmark, and she let the foot fall with a loud cry. The vessel was\noverset, and the water ran over the floor. Half laughing and half\nweeping, the old woman fell upon his neck. \"Thou art Odysseus, dear\nchild!\" she cried, \"and yet I knew thee not till I had touched thee\nwith my hands.\"\n\n[Illustration: Odysseus and Eurycleia]\n\nDuring all this scene Penelope had been sitting like one in a dream,\nlost in the memories awakened by the supposed beggar's story. The\nnurse now turned to rouse her from her reverie, and tell her the\njoyful news; but Odysseus, seeing her intention, pressed a heavy hand\non her mouth, and, drawing her down to him with the other, said in a\nfierce whisper: \"Peace, woman, or I will slay thee! Wouldst thou\ndestroy him whom thou hast nursed at thine own breast?\"\n\nEurycleia had now recovered from the shock of that sudden recognition.\n\"Fear me not,\" she said, \"I will be as secret as the grave. But see,\nthe water is all spilt; I go to fetch more.\" And so with a grave face,\nbut a heart bounding with delight, the faithful old creature brought a\nfresh supply of water, and proceeded with the task of washing her\nmaster's feet.\n\nWhen he resumed his place by the fire, he found Penelope in a soft and\npensive mood, and dwelling, as was her wont, on the sorrows of her\nwidowed state. \"Friend,\" she said, with a gentle sigh, \"I will not\nkeep thee much longer from thy rest, for the hour approaches which\nbrings sweet oblivion to careworn hearts--all save mine. For the night\nbrings me no respite from my woes, but rather increases them. When the\nday's duties are over, and all the house is still, I lie tossing\nceaselessly, torn by conflicting doubts and fears. E'en as the wakeful\nbird sits darkling all night long, and pours her endless plaint, now\nlow and mellow, now piercing high and shrill, so wavers my spirit in\nits purpose, and threads the unending maze of thought. Sweet home of\nmy wedded joy, must I leave thee, and all the faces which I love so\nwell, and the great possessions which he gave into my keeping? Shall I\nbecome a byword among the people, as false to the memory of my true\nlord? Yet how can I face the reproaches of my son, who since he is\ncome to manhood grows more impatient day by day, seeing the waste of\nhis wealth, of which I am the cause?\n\n\"But I wished to ask thee concerning a dream which I had last night.\nThere are twenty geese which I keep about the house, and I take\npleasure in seeing them crop the grain from the water trough. In my\ndream I saw a great eagle swoop down from the mountains and slay them\nall, breaking their necks, There they lay dead in one heap;\nand I made loud lament for the slaying of my geese, so that the women\ngathered round me to comfort me. But the eagle descended again, and\nalighted on a jutting beam of the roof, and thus spake unto me with a\nhuman voice: 'Take comfort, daughter of Icarius; no dream is this, but\na waking vision, which shall surely be fulfilled. The geese are the\nwooers, and I the eagle am thy husband, who will shortly come and give\nthem to their doom.' Even as he said this I awoke, and going to the\nwindow I saw the geese by the door, cropping the grain from the\ntrough, as is their wont.\"\n\n\"Lady,\" answered Odysseus, \"there is but one interpretation of thy\ndream, and thy husband declared it with his own voice. Death looms\nnear at hand for the wooers, and not one of them shall escape.\"\n\nBut Penelope shook her head. \"It is ill trusting in dreams,\" she said,\n\"and hard to discern the false from the true. There are two gates from\nwhich flitting dreams are sent to men: one is of horn, and the other\nof ivory: and the dreams which pass through the ivory gate are sent to\nbeguile, while those which come from the gate of horn are a true\nmessage to him who sees them. And my dream, I believe, was sent me\nfrom the gate of ivory. Yea, the day is approaching, the hateful day,\nwhich shall part me for ever from the house of Odysseus; and this\nshall be the manner of the trial whereby I will prove which of the\nwooers is to win me: I will set up twelve axes, like the trestles on\nwhich the keel of a ship is laid, in the hall, and he who can send an\narrow through the line of double axeheads from the further end of the\nhall shall win me for his bride. This device I learnt from Odysseus,\nwho was wont thus to prove his skill in archery. Then farewell my\nhome, the house of my lord, the home of my love, so fair, so full of\nplenty, which will haunt me in my dreams even unto life's end.\"\n\n\"Tis well-imagined, this trial of the wooers,\" answered Odysseus, \"and\nI counsel thee to put them to the proof without delay; for I am sure\nthat Odysseus will return here again before ever one of these men\nshall string his bow and shoot an arrow through the line of axes.\"\n\n\"Well, my friend,\" said Penelope, \"I will now bid thee good-night,\nthough gladly would I sit here till to-morrow's dawn, and let thee\ndiscourse to enchant mine ear. But there is a time for all things, and\nI would not rob thee of thy needful rest. Therefore I will go and lay\nmy head on my uneasy pillow, and the women shall lay a bed for thee\nhere, or where thou choosest.\"\n\n\n\n\nThe End draws near; Signs and Wonders\n\n\nTrue to his character as a wandering beggar, Odysseus lay down to rest\non a pile of sheepskins in the portico of the house. His mind was full\nof the events of the day, and of the terrible task which he had to\nperform on the morrow. When he thought of all the insults which had\nbeen heaped upon him in his own house, he ground his teeth with rage,\nand muttered bitter curses against the wooers. As if on purpose to\nprovoke him further, just at this moment Melantho, and several of the\nother women, who slept in the town, came forth from the house, and\npassed by him with shrill laughter and merry gibes. Then his heart\ngrowled within him, even as a mother-hound growls over her whelps when\nshe sees a stranger approaching, and in a sudden impulse of fury he\nstarted up to slay those faithless women on the spot; but repressing\nhis mad purpose he smote his breast and rebuked his fiery spirit. Had\nhe not borne even worse than this on the day when the Cyclops devoured\nhis comrades in the cave?\n\nWhen anger and shame had had their turn, other and more pressing\nanxieties came crowding upon him, banishing sleep from his eyelids.\nHow was he with such help as Telemachus could give him to overpower\nand slay a hundred men in the prime of their youth and strength? It\nseemed an impossible feat, and his heart quaked within him as he\ncounted those fearful odds.\n\nAt last sleep came upon him unawares, and in a dream he saw his divine\nfriend and helper, Athene, standing by him, robed in awful beauty.\n\"Where is thy faith?\" she asked, in sweet and solemn tones. \"Dost thou\ndoubt my power to help thee? Know this, that with me at thy side thou\ncouldst rout and slay a thousand armed men. Sleep on, then, and vex\nthyself no more; in a few short hours all thy trials shall be passed,\nand thou shalt rest in triumph under thine own roof-tree.\" Then she\ntouched his brow with her finger, and departed; and after that he\nslept on soundly until dawn.\n\nIn the first grey light of morning he awoke, roused by a sound as of\none wailing within the house. He sat up in his bed and listened: it\nwas the voice of Penelope, his wife; for she too had had her dreams,\nsweet, indeed, while they lasted, but bitter to her waking memory. She\nthought that her husband came to her, in all the glory of his manhood,\neven as when he set out for Troy, and put his arms about her, and\nkissed her tenderly. Therefore she wept and wailed, thinking that it\nwas another false vision, sent by some hostile deity to mock her\nwidowhood.\n\nWhat a sound was that for the lonely watcher before the house!\n\"Patience, fond, sad heart!\" he murmured to himself, \"this very night\nthou shalt hold me in thine arms, and sob out thy sorrows on my\nbreast.\" With that he rose to his feet, and lifting up his hands to\nheaven put up a prayer to Zeus: \"Dread sire of gods, if with good will\nye have brought me thus far, after so many perils by land and by\nwater, send me a sign from heaven, and reveal unto me your purpose by\nthe lips of one of those that be within the house.\"\n\nA loud peal of thunder was heard in answer to his prayer; and a second\nsign was sent by the voice of a woman in the house. She was one of\ntwelve maid-servants, whose duty it was to grind wheat and barley for\nthe daily supply of bread. The others had finished their task, but\nshe, being old and weak, was still toiling at her mill. When she heard\nthe thunder she stopped for a moment, and thus uttered her complaint:\n\"Thunder in a clear sky! That bodes ill to some that be here. Heaven\ngrant that it may be to the wooers, for whom day by day I suffer this\ncruel toil, making meal for them! May this be the very last time that\nthey sit down to meat in this house!\" So saying, she returned to her\nlabour, and Odysseus rejoiced at the double sign which had been\nvouchsafed to him.\n\nBy this time the whole household was afoot, and a score of busy hands\nwere at work, under the direction of Eurycleia, preparing for the\ncoming of the wooers. For it was a general holiday, being the festival\nof Apollo, and the guests were expected earlier than usual. Some went\nto the public fountain to fetch water, some swept and sprinkled the\nfloor, and some sponged the tables and scoured the drinking vessels.\nPresently the herdsmen came in, driving before them the beasts for\nsacrifice; and of these the first to arrive was Eum\u00e6us, who brought\nthree fat hogs as his part of the daily tribute. Leaving his charge to\ngrub about in the courtyard, he came up to Odysseus, and inquired how\nhe had fared among the wooers on the previous day. \"I fared ill,\"\nanswered Odysseus, \"and ill fare the villains who deal thus with the\nstranger under another man's roof!\"\n\nA rude voice here broke in upon him, and Melanthius the goatherd\nthrust himself between them, jostling Odysseus, and reviling him in\nbrutal terms, \"What, still loitering here, thou vagabond? Wilt thou go\nbegging at other men's tables, or art thou waiting to taste of my\nfists?\" Odysseus deigned no reply, but shook his head, biding his\ntime.\n\nAnother herdsman now entered the courtyard; this was Philoetius, who\nhad charge of the herds of Odysseus on the mainland. He brought a\nheifer and two or three fat goats, having crossed over to Ithaca by\nthe ferry. When he saw Odysseus he took Eum\u00e6us aside, and inquired who\nhe was. \"He is of kingly aspect,\" remarked the new-comer, \"in spite of\nhis wretched garb. But even kings may come to beggary, if it be\nHeaven's will.\"\n\nHaving heard from Eum\u00e6us what he had to tell, Philoetius approached\nOdysseus, and taking his right hand greeted him kindly, saying:\n\"Welcome, old friend, for my master's sake! E'en such, methinks, is\nhis case, if he still lives and looks upon the daylight. Ah! what a\nthought is that! It brings the sweat of agony to my brow when I think\nthat even now he may be wandering in rags from door to door, begging\nfor a morsel of bread, while his flocks and herds roam in thousands on\nthe hills. What shall I do? It is not to be borne that all this wealth\nshould increase and multiply, to feed the mouths of thieves and\nrogues. Often have I resolved to drive off my cattle into a far\ncountry, and no longer to abet these men in their riotous living; but\nmy duty to Telemachus, and the hope that even now my lord may return,\nstill hold me back.\"\n\nPerceiving the neatherd to be loyal and staunch, Odysseus resolved to\ntake him partly into his confidence, and answered accordingly: \"Thy\nhope is nearer to fulfilment than thou thinkest. Hear me swear, by the\nhearth of Odysseus, and by the board at which I have fed, that before\nthou leavest Ithaca thou shalt see thy master with thine own\neyes--thou shalt see him slaying the wooers who play the master here.\"\n\n\"Would that I might live to behold that day!\" cried Philoetius. \"May I\nnever eat bread again, if the wooers felt not the might of my hands.\"\nEum\u00e6us also declared himself ready to risk all by the side of\nOdysseus.\n\nWhile they were thus conversing, the whole body of the wooers came\nthronging into the house, and the daily banquet began. At the inner\nend of the hall, commanding the door which led to the women's\nquarters, was a sort of platform or dais of stone, raised to some\nheight above the general level of the floor, and facing the main\nentrance. Here Telemachus, as giver of the feast, was seated; and\nwhile the servants were handing round the dishes he called Odysseus\nfrom his place by the door, and made him sit down by his side. \"Sit\ndown here,\" he said, \"and eat and drink thy fill. And you, sirs,\" he\nadded, addressing the wooers, \"keep a guard on your hands and your\ntongues. This is no tavern, but my own house, and I will not suffer my\nguest to be wronged by word or deed under my roof.\"\n\nThis bold speech passed for the present unchallenged, though many a\nthreatening look was directed at the young prince. By order of\nTelemachus, Odysseus received an equal portion with the other guests,\nand the banquet proceeded. Presently a new instance of the wooers'\nbrutality was given, as if they were resolved to keep the edge of his\nanger fresh and keen. The author of this outrage was Ctesippus, a\nwealthy lord of Same. Taking up a bullock's foot from a basket, in\nwhich the refuse of the meal was thrown, he made this merry jest: \"The\nstranger has received an equal share of our meat, as is but right; for\nwho would wish to stint a guest of Telemachus? And now I will make him\na present over and above, that he may bestow somewhat on the\nbathwoman, or some other of the servants.\" Suiting the action to the\nword he hurled the missile with savage force at Odysseus; but he, ever\non the alert, avoided it by bowing his head, and it struck the wall\nwith a crash.\n\n\"Ctesippus,\" said Telemachus sternly, \"it is well for thee that thou\nhast missed, else thou hadst died by my hand. Is it not enough that ye\nslaughter my cattle and pour out my wine like water, but must I sit\nhere day after day while ye fill my house with riot and injury and\noutrage?\"\n\nThe wooers sat silent, being somewhat abashed by the just rebuke; and\nafter a long pause, one of them, whose name was Agelaus, answered\nmildly: \"Telemachus says well, for indeed he hath been sorely\nprovoked. Let there be an end of these mad doings, which it is a shame\nto see. And if Telemachus will be advised by me he will urge his\nmother to make choice of a husband, that he may henceforth dwell\nunmolested in his father's house. Why will she delay us further?\nSurely by this time she must have given up all hope of ever seeing\nOdysseus again.\"\n\n\"Now by the woes of my father!\" answered Telemachus, \"I hinder her not\nfrom wedding whom she pleases; nay, I bid her do so, and offer bridal\ngifts besides. But I cannot drive her by force from my doors.\"\n\nHis words had a strange effect on the wooers: with one accord they\nbroke out into a yelling peal of laughter, like women in a hysteric\nfit, while their eyes were filled with tears. And, more awful still!\ntheir meat dropped blood as they conveyed it to their lips, and an\nunearthly wailing was heard, like the cry of a spirit in torment.\n\nAmong those present was Theoclymenus, the man of second sight, and in\nthat very hour the vision came upon him, and he cried aloud from the\nplace where he sat: \"Woe unto you, ye doomed and miserable men! Thick\ndarkness is wrapped about you, the darkness of the grave! All the air\nis loud with wailing, and your cheeks are wet with tears. See, see!\nthe walls and the rafters are sprinkled with blood, and the porch and\nthe courtyard are thronged with ghosts, hurrying downward to the\nnether pit; and the sun has died out of heaven, and all the house lies\nin darkness and the shadow of death.\"\n\nBut the wooers had now recovered from their strange fit, and they\nlaughed gaily at the terrible warning of the seer. \"Poor man!\" said\nEurymachus, \"he has left his wits at home. Go, someone, and show him\nthe way to the town, if he finds it so dark here.\"\n\n\"I need no guide,\" answered Theoclymenus, \"I have eyes and ears, and\nfeet, and a steady brain, so that I shall not go astray. Farewell,\nunhappy men! Your hour of grace is past.\" And forthwith he arose and\nwent his way to the town.\n\nWhen he was gone the wooers began jeering at Telemachus, and taunted\nhim with the behaviour of his guests. \"Thou hast a rare taste,\" said\none, \"in the choice of thy company! First, this filthy beggar that\ncumbers the ground with his greedy carcass, and after him comes the\nmad prophet, and screams like a raven over our meat\"\n\nOne meaning glance passed between Telemachus and his father; the day\nwas drawing on, and they cared not now to bandy words with the wooers.\nAnd so the merry feast came to an end with jesting, and mirth, and\nlaughter; and after a few short hours they were to sit down to\nsupper--such a supper as they had never tasted before, with a hero and\na goddess to spread the board.\n\n\n\n\nThe Bow of Odysseus\n\n\nI\n\nThe time had now arrived for the great trial of strength and skill of\nwhich Penelope had spoken, and which was to decide deeper and deadlier\nissues than those of marriage. Among the treasures which Odysseus had\nleft behind him was a famous bow, which he had received as a gift from\nIphitus, son of Eurytus, whom he met in his youth during a visit to\nMessene. He who strung this bow, and shot an arrow through a line of\naxes set up in the hall, was to be rewarded by the hand of Penelope.\n\n\"Mother, it is time!\" whispered Telemachus, soon after the departure\nof Theoclymenus. Obeying the signal, Penelope, who had been sitting in\nthe hall listening to the talk of the wooers, left her place, and\nascending a steep staircase made her way to the store-room, which was\nsituated at the farther end of the house. In her hand she carried a\nbrazen key with a handle of ivory; and when she came to the door, she\nloosened the strap which served to draw the bolt from the outside, and\ninserting the key drew back the bolt. The double doors flew open with\na crash, and the treasury with all its wealth was revealed. Great\ncoffers of cedar-wood lined the walls, filled with fine raiment, which\nher own hands had wrought. It was a cool and quiet retreat, dimly\nlighted, remote from all rude sounds, full of fragrant odours, and fit\nto guard the possessions of a prince. And there, hanging from a pin,\nand heedfully wrapped in its case, was seen the fatal bow. She took it\ndown, and, sitting on one of the coffers, laid it on her knees, and\ngazed on it fondly with her eyes full of tears. How often had she seen\nit in the hands of Odysseus, when he went forth at sunrise to hunt the\nhare and the deer! How often had she taken it from him when he came\nback at evening loaded with the spoils of the chase! And now a keen\nshaft from this very bow was to cut the last tender chord of memory,\nand make her another man's wife!\n\nWith a heavy heart she took the bow with its quiver in her hands, and\ndescending the staircase re-entered the hall, followed by her maidens,\nwho carried a chest containing the axes.\n\n\"Behold the bow, fair sirs!\" she said to the wooers, \"and behold me,\nthe prize for this fine feat of archery!\" Therewith she gave the bow\nto Eum\u00e6us, who received it with tears; and Philoetius wept likewise\nwhen he saw the treasured weapon of his lord. These signs of emotion\nstirred the anger of Antinous, who rebuked the herdsmen fiercely.\n\"Peace, fools!\" he cried. \"Peace, miserable churls! Why pierce ye the\nheart of the lady with your howlings? Has she not grief enough\nalready? Go forth, and howl with the dogs outside, and we will make\ntrial of the bow; yet me thinks it will be long ere anyone here shall\nstring it\"\n\n\"Anyone save thyself, thou wouldst say!\" rejoined Telemachus with a\nloud laugh. Then, seeing his mother regarding him with gentle\nreproach, he added: \"Tis strange that I should feel so gay and light\nof heart at the moment when I am about to lose my mother. Zeus,\nmethinks, has turned my brain, and made me laugh when I should weep.\nBut come, ye bold wooers, which of you will be the first to enter the\nlists for this matchless prize, a lady without peer in all the land of\nHellas? Why sit ye thus silent? Must I show you the way? So be it,\nthen; and if I can bend the bow, and shoot an arrow straight, the\nprize shall be mine, and my mother shall abide here in her widowed\nstate.\"\n\nSo saying he sprang up, flung off his cloak, and laid aside his sword.\nAnd first he made a long shallow trench in the floor of the hall, and\nset up the axes with their double heads in a straight line, stamping\ndown the earth about the handles to make all firm. Then he took the\nbow from Eum\u00e6us; it was a weighty and powerful weapon, fashioned from\nthe horns of an ibex, which were firmly riveted into a massive bridge,\nand great force was required to string it. Telemachus set the end\nagainst the floor, and strove with all his might to drive the string\ninto its socket. Three times he tried, and failed; but the fourth\ntime, making a great effort, he was on the point of succeeding, when\nhis father nodded to him to desist. \"Plague on it!\" cried Telemachus,\nlaying the bow aside with an air of vexation, \"must I be called a\npoltroon all my life, or is it that I have not yet attained the full\nmeasure of my strength? Let the others now take their turn.\"\n\nThen one by one the wooers rose up, in the order in which they sat,\nand tried to bend the bow. The first to essay it was Leiodes, a\nsoothsayer, and a man of gentle and godly mind. But he was a soft\nliver, unpractised in all manly pastimes, and the bow was like iron in\nhis white, womanish hands. \"I fear that this bow will make an end of\nmany a bold spirit,\" he said, little guessing how true his words were\nto prove; \"for better it were to die than to go away beaten and broken\nmen, after all the long years of our wooing.\"\n\n\"Fie on thee!\" cried Antinous, \"thinkest thou that there are no better\nmen here than thou art? Doubt not that one of those present shall bend\nthe bow and win the lady.\" Then he called Melanthius, and bade him\nlight a fire, and bring a ball of lard to anoint the bow and make it\neasier to bend. The lard was brought, and the wooers sat in turn by\nthe fire, rubbing and anointing the bow, but all to no purpose. Only\nAntinous and Eurymachus still held back, each in the full assurance\nthat he, and none other, had strength to bend the bow.\n\nII\n\nOdysseus sat watching the wooers from his place at the upper end of\nthe hall, and his heart misgave him when he thought of the appalling\ntask which he had undertaken. He had acquitted himself like a hero in\nmany a hard-fought field, but never in all his life had he faced such\nodds as these. While he thus mused, and weighed the chances in his\nmind, he saw Eum\u00e6us and Philoetius leave the hall together, and pass\nout through the courtyard gate. Then a sudden thought struck him, and\nmuttering to himself, \"I must risk it,\" he rose and followed the two\nmen. He found them talking together outside the courtyard fence, and\nin order to make trial of their temper he addressed them in these\ncautious terms: \"Tell me truly, good friends, which side would ye\ntake, if by some miracle Odysseus suddenly appeared in this house?\nWould ye be for the wooers or for him?\"\n\nEum\u00e6us and Philoetius with one voice protested that they were ready to\nhazard their lives for the rights of their master, whereupon Odysseus\nhesitated no longer, but answered: \"The miracle has been wrought; I am\nhe! After twenty years of toil and wandering Heaven hath brought me\nhome. I have watched ye both, and I know that ye alone among all the\nthralls remain true to me. Only continue steadfast for this day, and\nyour reward is assured. I will build houses for ye both, close to my\nown, and ye shall dwell there with your wives, as my friends and\nneighbours, equals in honour with Telemachus, my son.\"\n\nThe swineherd and neatherd listened with amazement, willing to\nbelieve, but still half in doubt; but when Odysseus showed them the\nscar, which they had seen many a time before, they were convinced, and\nembraced their old master with tears and cries of joy. Having allowed\nthem some moments to indulge their feelings, Odysseus checked them\nwith a warning gesture. \"Take heed to yourselves,\" he said, \"or your\ncries will betray us. And now mark what I shall tell you. I will go\nback to the house first, and do ye two follow me one by one. To thee,\nPhiloetius, I give charge to make fast the gate of the courtyard, with\nbolt, and with bar, and with cord. And thou, Eum\u00e6us, when the time\ncomes, shalt bring the bow and place it in my hands, whether the\nwooers cry out on thee or not; and when thou hast given me the bow, go\nstraightway and command the women to make fast the doors of their\napartments, and remain quiet by their work until I have finished what\nI have to do.\"\n\nAt the moment when Odysseus returned to his place in the hall,\nEurymachus was just making a last attempt to bend the bow. \"Out on\nit!\" he cried, finding all his efforts of no avail. \"It is a shame to\nthink how far beneath Odysseus we all are in the strength of our\nhands; 'tis this that stings me, much more than the loss of the lady.\"\n\n\"Thou mistakest the cause,\" answered Antinous. \"This day is the holy\nfeast of the divine archer, Apollo, and doubtless he is jealous\nbecause we try our skill in his own art on his sacred day. Let us\nleave the axes where they stand, and try our fortune again to-morrow.\"\n\nThe proposal was received with general applause, and forthwith the\nwhole company called loud for wine, and began drinking heavily to\ndrown their disappointment Odysseus watched the progress of the revel\nwith grim satisfaction, and when the flushed faces and thick talk of\nthe wooers showed that they were far gone in drunkenness he asked,\nwith an air of deep humility, to be allowed to try his hand at\nstringing the bow. His request was greeted with a loud cry of contempt\nand indignation from all the wooers; and Antinous especially was\nhighly incensed, threatening him with dire pains and penalties for his\npresumption. Hereupon Penelope interposed, and rebuked Antinous for\nhis violence. \"Why should not the stranger try his skill with the\nrest?\" asked she. \"Thinkest thou that the poor man will win me for his\nwife if he succeeds? Sure I am that he is not so foolish as to\nentertain such a thought.\"\n\n\"'Tis not for that,\" said Eurymachus, answering her. \"He cannot be so\nmad as that. But what a shame to all this noble company if a houseless\nbeggar should accomplish a feat which none of us was able to perform.\"\n\n\"Talk not of shame,\" replied Penelope with scorn. \"Are ye not covered\nwith shame already, by your foul deeds done in this house in the\nabsence of its lord? Give him the bow, I say! And if he string it, by\nApollo's grace, I will clothe him in a new cloak and doublet, and give\nhim a sharp javelin, to keep off dogs and men, and a two-edged sword,\nand sandals for his feet, and give him safe conduct to whatsoever\nplace he desires to reach.\"\n\nThe decisive moment was at hand, and Telemachus saw the necessity of\nremoving his mother from the scene of the approaching conflict.\n\"Mother,\" he said in a tone of authority, \"leave these things to me; I\nam master here. Evening draws on, and it is time for thee to retire.\"\n\nWhen Penelope had withdrawn, Eum\u00e6us took the bow, and was about to\ncarry it to Odysseus, but paused half-way, in doubt and alarm, for a\nperfect storm of threats and abuse assailed his ears. \"Halt, thou dog!\nPut down the bow! Art thou tired of thy life?\" Appalled by the\nmenacing cries of the wooers, the swineherd stood hesitating; but\nTelemachus raised his voice, and commanded him instantly to deliver\nthe bow to Odysseus. \"I will teach thee,\" he said, \"who is thy master;\nthou shalt carry the marks of my hands to thy farm, if thou do not as\nI tell thee. Would that I could as easily drive the whole of this\ndrunken rout from my doors!\"\n\n\"Well bragged, Sir Valiant!\" cried Antinous; and all the wooers\nlaughed boisterously when they heard him. Seizing his opportunity\nwhile their attention was thus diverted, Eum\u00e6us came and placed the\nbow in the hands of Odysseus; then, calling Eurycleia, he bade her\nmake fast the door of the women's apartments. Meanwhile Philoetius\nsecured the gates of the courtyard, and returning to his place sat\nwatching the movements of Odysseus. With anxious eye the hero\nscrutinised the great weapon, turning it this way and that, to see if\nit had been injured by worms or natural decay. To his great joy he\nfound that it was sound and untouched. Then, easily as a minstrel\nfastens a new cord to a lyre, without effort he strung the bow, and\nbending it made the string twang loud and clear, like the shrill voice\nof the swallow.\n\nA hundred mocking eyes and sneering faces had been turned towards him,\nas he sat fingering the bow and weighing it in his hands; but pale\ngrew those faces now, and blank was that gaze. To add to their terror,\nat this moment a loud peal of thunder shook the house. Filled with\nhigh courage by the happy omen, Odysseus took an arrow, and, fitting\nit to the string, sent it with sure aim from the place where he sat\nalong the whole line of axeheads, from the first to the last.\n\n\"Telemachus,\" he said, \"thy guest hath not shamed thee. My hand is\nfirm, and mine eye is true, poor worn-out wanderer though I be. Now\nlet us give these fair guests their supper, and afterwards entertain\nthem with music and with dancing, which are the fit accompaniment of a\nfeast.\"\n\nThen he beckoned to his son to draw near; and Telemachus made haste,\nand came and stood by his father's side, armed with sword and lance.\n\n\n\n\nThe Slaying of the Wooers\n\n\nI\n\nStripping off his rags, and girding them round his waist, Odysseus\ntook the quiver, and poured out all the arrows on the ground at his\nfeet. \"Now guide my hand, Apollo,\" he cried, \"and make sure mine aim,\nfor this time I will shoot at a mark which never man hit before.\"\n\nTherewith he bent his bow again, and pointed the arrow at Antinous,\nwho just at that moment was raising a full goblet of wine to his lips.\nLittle thought that proud and insolent man, as the wine gleamed red\nbefore him, that he had tasted his last morsel, and drunk his last\ndrop. He was in the prime of his manhood, surrounded by his friends,\nand in the midst of a joyous revel; who would dream of death and doom\nin such an hour? Yet at that very instant he felt a sharp, sudden\npang, and fell back in his seat, pierced through the throat by the\narrow of Odysseus. The blood poured from his nostrils, he let fall the\ncup, and spurning the table with his feet in his agony he overset it,\nand the bread and meat were scattered on the floor.\n\nThen arose a wild clamour and uproar among the wooers, and starting\nfrom their seats they sought eagerly for the weapons which were wont\nto hang along the walls; but not a spear, not a shield, was to be\nseen. Finding themselves thus baffled, they turned furiously on\nOdysseus, shouting, \"Down with the knave!\" \"Hew him in pieces!\" \"Fling\nhis carcass to the vultures!\" As yet they had not recognised him, and\nthey thought that he had slain Antinous by mischance.\n\nThey were soon undeceived. \"Ye dogs!\" he cried, in a terrible voice,\n\"long have ye made my house into a den of thieves, thinking that I had\ndied long ago in a distant land. Ye have devoured my living, and wooed\nmy wife, and mishandled my servants, having no fear of god or man\nbefore your eyes. But now are ye all fallen into the pit which ye have\ndigged, and are fast bound in the bonds of death.\"\n\nLike beaten hounds, that dastardly crew cowered before the man whom\nthey had wronged, and every heart quaked with fear. Presently\nEurymachus stood forward, and tried to make terms for them all. \"If\nthou be indeed Odysseus,\" he said, \"thou speakest justly concerning\nthe evil doings of the wooers. And there lies the cause of the\nmischief, Antinous, struck down by thy righteous hand. He it was who\nsought to slay Telemachus, that he might usurp thy place, and make\nhimself king in Ithaca. But now that he is gone to his own place, let\nus, the rest, find favour in thy sight. And as for thy possessions\nwhich have been wasted, we will pay thee back out of our own goods, as\nmuch as thou shalt require.\"\n\nBut there were no signs of relenting on that stern, set face. \"Talk\nnot to me of payment,\" he answered, with a brow as black as night; \"ye\nshall pay me with your lives, every one of you. Fight, if ye will, or\ndie like sheep. Not one of you shall escape.\"\n\nThus driven to extremity, Eurymachus drew his sword and shouting to\nthe others to follow his example he picked up a table to serve him as\na shield, and raising his war-cry rushed at Odysseus. In the midst of\nhis onset an arrow struck him in the liver, and he fell doubled-up\nover a table, smiting the floor with his forehead. Then he rolled over\nwith a groan, and his eyes grew dim in death.\n\nBefore Odysseus could fix another arrow to the string, Amphinomus was\nupon him, with sword uplifted to slay him. Telemachus saw his father's\nperil, and thrust Amphinomus in the back with his spear. The fall of\ntheir leaders arrested the advance of the wooers, and they drew back\nin a body to the lower end of the hall. Leaving the spear in the body\nof the fallen man, Telemachus ran to fetch armour for himself and\nOdysseus, and the two herdsmen. Quickly he brought shields and helmets\nand lances for the four, and they arrayed themselves and took their\nstand together on the platform.\n\nWhile these preparations were in progress, Odysseus continued\nshowering his arrows among the huddled troop of terrified men; and at\nevery shot one of the wooers fell. At last Melanthius, the goatherd,\nmade a desperate effort to save his party. Assisted by several of the\nwooers, he climbed up the wall of the banquet-room, and made his exit\nthrough the open timbers at the top into a narrow passage which gave\naccess to the inner part of the house. Presently he returned, laden\nwith spears and shields and helmets, which he had found in the chamber\nwhere they had been stored away by Telemachus.\n\nWhat was the dismay of Odysseus when he saw his enemies arming\nthemselves with spear and shield, and brandishing long lances in their\nhands! \"Telemachus!\" he cried, \"we are betrayed! The women have sold\nus to the wooers.\" \"Alas! I have erred,\" answered Telemachus, \"for I\nleft the door of the armoury open, and one of them has observed it.\"\n\nWhile they thus debated, Eum\u00e6us saw the goatherd making his way out of\nthe hall again by the same exit. \"It is the traitor Melanthius,\" he\nwhispered; \"now have we need of prompt action, or we are all undone.\"\n\nOdysseus had now recovered his courage, and he issued his orders\nwithout losing another moment. \"Go thou with the neatherd,\" he said to\nEum\u00e6us, \"and seize that villain before he has time to return. Bind him\nhand and foot, and come back with all speed to the hall\"\n\nAt the side of the hall, close to the platform where Odysseus and his\nparty were stationed, there was a door leading into the passage\nalready mentioned. Through this the two men passed, and made their way\nstealthily to the armoury. There they waited on either side of the\ndoor for Melanthius, whom they heard moving within. Before long he\ncame out, bearing in one hand a helmet, and in the other an old\nbattered shield, once the property of Laertes. Together they fell upon\nhim, dragged him down by the hair, and having bound him tight with a\nlong cord they hauled him up to a beam of the roof and left him\nhanging. \"Long and sweet be thy slumbers, goatherd!\" said Eum\u00e6us as he\ncontemplated his work, \"thou hast a soft bed, such as thou lovest.\nRest there till the morning light shall call thee to make breakfast\nfor the wooers.\"\n\nWhen they returned to the hall they found that a new ally had joined\ntheir party, in the person of Mentor, the old friend of Odysseus. No\none saw when he came thither; but there he was, and right glad they\nwere to see him. Very different were the feelings of the wooers when\nthey saw their enemies thus reinforced, and one of them, named\nAgelaus, cried out upon Mentor, and threatened him, saying: \"Give\nplace, rash man, or thou wilt bring destruction on thyself and all thy\nhouse.\"\n\nWhen he heard that, Mentor was wroth, and rebuked Odysseus as slow of\nhand and cold of heart. \"Why standest thou idle?\" he cried. \"Get thee\nto thy weapons, and finish the work which thou hast to do, if thou art\nverily that Odysseus who wrought such havoc among the Trojans in the\nnine years' war.\"\n\nWith these words the supposed Mentor vanished as mysteriously as he\nhad appeared, and a little swallow was seen darting hither and thither\namong the smoke-blackened beams of the roof.\n\nThe wooers understood not in whose presence they had been, and,\nthinking that Mentor had fled before their threats, they took courage\nagain, and prepared to make a fresh assault. Agelaus now took the\nlead, and at his command six of them advanced and hurled their spears.\nBut they were all dazed with drink, and weakened by long habits of\nloose indulgence, and not one of their weapons took effect.\n\n\"Now hurl ye your spears!\" shouted Odysseus, and the four lances flew,\nand four wooers bit the dust. At the next discharge from the wooers\nTelemachus received a slight wound on the wrist, and Eum\u00e6us was\nsimilarly injured on the shoulder by the spear of the brutal\nCtesippus. A moment after Ctesippus himself was struck down by the\nlance of Philoetius, who mocked him as he fell saying: \"There is for\nthe ox-foot which thou didst lately bestow on Odysseus, thou noisy\nrailer!\"\n\nAnd so the great fight went on, and at every cast of the spear\nOdysseus and his men added another to the list of the slain. Seeing\ntheir numbers dwindling fast, the wretched remnant of the wooers lost\nheart altogether and huddled together like sheep at the end of the\nhall. To complete their discomfiture a terrible voice was suddenly\nheard in the air, and a gleam as from a bright shield was seen high up\namong the rafters. \"Tis Athene herself come to our aid!\" cried\nOdysseus; \"advance, and make an end of them. Athene is on our side!\"\nForthwith they all sprang down from the platform and charged the\nwooers, of whom some dozen still remained alive. What followed was not\na battle, but a massacre. Like a drove of kine plunging frantically\nover a field, tortured by the sting of the hovering gadfly--like a\nflock of small birds scattered by the sudden swoop of a falcon--the\npanic-stricken wooers fled hither and thither through the hall,\nseeking shelter behind pillars and under tables from the blows which\nrained upon them. But vain was their flight. In a very short time the\nlast of that guilty band was sent to his account, and the great act of\nvengeance was completed.\n\nII\n\nLike a lion fresh from the slaughter stood Odysseus, leaning on his\nspear, and covered with blood from head to foot. As he glared round\nhim to see if any of his foes were still alive, his eye fell on\nPhemius, the minstrel, who was crouching in a corner near the side\ndoor, and clinging in terror to his harp. Seeing the stern gaze of\nOdysseus fixed upon him Phemius sprang forward, with a sudden impulse,\nand threw himself at the conqueror's feet, \"Pity me, Odysseus,\" he\ncried, \"and spare me! Thy days will be darkened by remorse if thou\nslay the sweet minstrel whom gods and men revere. I am no common\nschool-taught bard, who sings what he has learned by rote; but in mine\nown heart is a sweet fountain of melody, which shall be shed like the\ndew from heaven on thy fame, and keep it green for ever. Therefore\nstay thy hand, and harm me not. Telemachus, thy son, knows that it was\nnot of mine own will, nor for greed of gain, that I sang among the\nwooers, but they compelled me by force, being so many, and all\nstronger than I.\"\n\nThus appealed to, Telemachus readily confirmed what the minstrel had\nsaid, which was indeed the literal truth. Then he thought of the\ntrusty Medon, who had been kind to him when a child, and remained\nloyal to the last to him and Penelope. \"I trust he has not been slain\namong the wooers,\" he said. \"Medon, if thou art still alive, come\nforth and fear nothing.\"\n\nWhen he heard that, Medon, who had been huddled in a heap behind a\nchair, covered with a freshly-flayed ox-hide, flung off his covering,\nand came running to Telemachus. The poor man was still half-mad with\nterror. \"Here I am!\" he gasped, with staring eyes, \"speak to thy\nfather, that he slay me not in his rage and his fury,\"\n\nOdysseus smiled grimly at the poor serving-man, and bade him be of\ngood cheer. \"Live,\" he said, \"thou and the minstrel, that ye may know,\nand tell it also to others, how much better are good deeds than evil.\nNow go ye forth and wait in the courtyard until I have finished what\nremains to be done.\" So forth they went, and sat down by the altar of\nZeus, glancing fearfully about them, as if expecting every moment to\nbe their last.\n\nAs soon as they were gone Odysseus walked slowly up and down the hall\nto see if any of the wooers still survived. But there was no sound or\nmotion, save the tread of his own feet, to break the awful stillness\nin that chamber of death. There they lay, stark and silent, heap upon\nheap, like a great draught of fishes which have been hauled to shore\nin a drag-net, and have gasped out their lives on the beach. Having\nassured himself that he had not done the work negligently, he bade\nTelemachus summon the nurse, Eurycleia. Telemachus obeyed, and going\nto the door of the women's apartments, he smote upon it, and called\naloud to the nurse. A moment after the bolts were drawn back, and\nEurycleia entered the hall. When she saw Odysseus standing among the\nheaps of slain wooers, she opened her mouth to utter a cry of triumph,\nbut Odysseus checked her, saying: \"Hold thy peace, dame, and give not\nvoice to thy joy: it is an impious thing to exult over the dead. They\nare the victims of heaven's righteous law, and I was but the\ninstrument of divine vengeance. Tell me now which of the women in the\nhouse have dishonoured me, and which of them be blameless.\"\n\n\"Behold I will tell thee all the truth,\" answered the nurse; \"fifty\nwomen there are in all in thy house, that card the wool and bear the\nyoke of bondage. And of these twelve have been faithless, honouring\nneither me nor Penelope, their mistress. But now let me go and tell\nthe news to thy wife, who all this time has been lying in a deep\nsleep.\"\n\n\"Rouse her not yet,\" said Odysseus, \"but go quickly and send those\nguilty women hither.\"\n\nWhile Eurycleia was gone to summon the maid-servants, Telemachus and\nthe two herdsmen began, by the command of Odysseus, to set the hall in\norder, and wash away the traces of slaughter. Presently, with loud\nweeping and lamentation, the wretched women entered, and were\ncompelled to assist in the horrid task. The bodies of the slain were\ncarried out, and laid in order along the wall of the courtyard. Then\nthey washed and scoured the tables, and scraped the floor with spades;\nand when all was ready Odysseus bade his son and the two others to\ndrive the women forth, and slay them with the edge of the sword. So\nthese three drove them into a corner of the courtyard, and Eum\u00e6us and\nPhiloetius drew their swords to slay them. But Telemachus held them\nback saying: \"Let them die in shame, even as they have lived.\" So they\ntook a long ship's cable, which was lying in an outhouse, and\nstretched it across an angle of the wall; to this they attached twelve\nnooses, and left the women hanging there by the neck until they were\ndead.\n\nA horrid death was reserved for the traitor Melanthius. Dragging him\nout into the courtyard, they cut off his nose and ears, and his hands\nand feet, and so left him to die.\n\nAfter that they washed themselves and went back to the hall. Then\nOdysseus bade Eurycleia kindle a fire, and bring sulphur to purify the\nchamber. And having thoroughly cleansed the house from the fumes of\nslaughter, he sat down to wait for the coming of his wife.\n\n\n\n\nOdysseus and Penelope\n\n\nI\n\nHer face beaming with joy, and her feet stumbling over one another in\ntheir haste, Eurycleia ascended to the chamber where Penelope lay\nsleeping. \"Awake, Penelope, awake!\" she cried, standing by the\nbedside; \"come and see with thine own eyes the fulfilment of all thy\nhopes. Odysseus has come home at last, and all the wooers lie slain by\nhis hand!\"\n\n\"Thou art mad, nurse,\" answered Penelope pettishly, turning in her bed\nand rubbing her eyes; \"why mockest thou me in my sorrow with thy\nfolly? and why hast thou disturbed me in the sweetest sleep that ever\nI had since the fatal, the accursed day when my lord sailed for Troy?\nBut for thy years and thy faithful service I would have paid thee\nunkindly for this wanton insult\"\n\n\"Heaven forbid that I should mock or insult thee, dear child!\" cried\nthe nurse, her eyes filling with tears. \"I have told thee naught but\nthe truth. The stranger whom we thought a beggar was Odysseus himself.\nTelemachus knew this all the time, but kept it from thee by the\ncommand of his father.\"\n\n\"May the gods ever bless thee for these tidings!\" said Penelope,\nspringing from the couch, and throwing her arms round the nurse's\nneck. \"But tell me truly, how did he with his single hand gain the\nmastery over such a multitude?\"\n\n\"I saw not how it was done,\" answered Eurycleia. \"I heard but the\ngroans of the men as they were stricken, for I was shut up with the\nhandmaids in the women's chamber. When it was over, he called me, and\nI found him standing among the slain, like a lion by his prey. It was\na sight to gladden thy heart.\"\n\nBut Penelope's first impulse of joyful surprise had passed, and a cold\nfit of doubt and distrust succeeded, \"It cannot be!\" she murmured;\n\"some god has taken the likeness of my husband, and slain the wooers.\"\nEven when Eurycleia told her how she had discovered the scar, while\nwashing the feet of Odysseus, she remained unshaken in her unbelief.\n\"The counsels of the gods,\" she said, \"are beyond our knowing, and\nthey can take upon them disguises too deep for a poor woman's wit. But\ncome, let us go and see the slaughtered wooers, and their slayer,\nwhoever he be.\"\n\nII\n\nOdysseus was sitting bowed over the fire, which shone redly on his\nface, as he leaned his head upon his hand. He was still clothed in his\nbeggar's rags, and strangely disfigured by the magic power of Athene;\nwhile the red stains of slaughter, which still lay thick upon him,\nserved to render his disguise yet deeper. Small wonder then that\nPenelope hesitated long to acknowledge him for her husband, as she sat\nsome way off scanning his features with timid yet attentive gaze, like\none who strives to decipher a blurred and blotted manuscript. More\nthan once she started up, as if about to fall upon his neck; then the\ngleam which had lighted up her face died away, her arms drooped\nlistlessly at her side, and she remained motionless and cold.\n\nWhen this had lasted for some time, Telemachus, who was present,\nrebuked his mother in angry terms, saying: \"Fie upon thee, my mother!\nhast thou no heart at all? Why holdest thou thus aloof from my father,\nwho has come back to thee after twenty years of suffering and toil?\nBut 'twas ever thus with thee--thou art harder than stone.\"\n\n\"My child,\" answered Penelope, \"I am sore amazed; I cannot speak, or\nask any question, or look him in the face. But if this man be indeed\nmy husband, he knows how to convince me, and scatter all my doubts to\nthe winds, for there are secrets between us whereof no one knoweth,\nsave only ourselves.\"\n\nOdysseus smiled at his wife's caution. \"Not in vain,\" he thought, \"is\nshe known to all the world as the prudent Penelope.\" Then, in order to\ngive her time, he turned to Telemachus and said: \"Come not between my\nwife and me, Telemachus; we shall know each other in due season. I\nhave another charge for thee, and do thou mark heedfully what I shall\nsay. We have slain the noblest in the land, not one, but many, who\nleave a host of friends to take up their cause: how then shall we\nescape the blood feud? We had best look to it warily and well.\"\n\n\"Father,\" answered Telemachus, \"thou hast the name of wise, beyond all\nliving men. Be it thine, therefore, to declare thy counsel, and I will\nfollow it, to the utmost stretch of my power.\"\n\n\"Thus, then, shalt thou do,\" said Odysseus: \"let all the household put\non clean raiment, and bid the minstrel take his harp and make sweet\nmusic for the festal dance. Then foot it merrily, everyone, that all\nthey who pass by the house may think that ye are keeping the marriage\nfeast. In this wise the rumour of the wooers' death shall not reach\nthe town until we have had time to collect our men and prepare for our\ndefence.\"\n\nTelemachus went forthwith to carry out his father's orders. The whole\nhousehold, men and women, arrayed themselves in festal attire, and\nsoon the hall echoed to the throbbing notes of the lyre, and the loud\npatter of the dancers' feet. And those who heard it from without said\nto one another: \"So the long wooing of our queen has come to an end at\nlast! Fickle woman, that could not endure unto the end, and keep faith\nwith the husband of her youth!\"\n\nIII\n\nAfter giving his orders to Telemachus, Odysseus had retired to refresh\nhimself with the bath, and put on fresh raiment, while Penelope\nremained seated in her former place. After an interval of some length\nhe re-entered the hall, and sat down face to face with his wife. But\nwhat miracle was this? The haggard, timeworn beggar was gone, and in\nhis place sat her husband, as she had known him in the days of old,\nwith the added dignity which he had gained by twenty years of\nstrenuous life. But the frost which had lain upon her spirit during\nher long period of weary waiting was not easily to be broken, and\nstill she doubted. After a long silence Odysseus spoke, and now for\nthe first time his tones had a ring of reproach: \"Still not a word for\nthy husband, who has come back to thee after twenty years? Surely the\nvery demon of unbelief possesses thee!\" Even then Penelope made no\nanswer, for she was waiting to put the final test, and at length\nOdysseus gave her the opportunity. \"Go, Eurycleia,\" he said, \"and\nprepare a bed for me; I will leave this iron-hearted wife and go to my\nrest.\"\n\n\"Ay, do so,\" said Penelope, \"take the bed from the chamber which he\nbuilt with his own hands, and lay it in another room, that he may\nslumber there.\" This she said to prove him, for the bed and the\nchamber had a secret history, known only to herself and her husband\nand the faithful nurse.\n\nOdysseus rose bravely to the test: whether divining his wife's purpose\nor not, he exclaimed, with an air of surprise and indignation: \"Lady,\nwhat meanest thou by this order? Who hath moved my bed from its place?\nHe must be of more than mortal skill who could remove it, for it was\nfashioned in wondrous wise, and with my own hands I wrought it, to be\na sign and a secret between thee and me. And this was the manner of\nthe work. Within the courtyard there grew an olive-tree, a fair tree\nand a large, with a world of green leaves, and a stem like a stout\npillar. Round this I built the walls of the chamber with close-fitting\nstones, and roofed it over, and hung the door on its hinges. Then I\nwent to work on the tree, lopping off the boughs, and smoothing the\ntrunk with the adze, so as to fashion it into a bedpost, and beginning\nfrom this I made the frame of a bed, and decorated it with gold and\nsilver and ivory, and over the frame I stretched broad bands of\nox-hide, stained with bright purple. This I tell thee as a sign by\nwhich thou mayest know me.\"\n\nThe last shadow was now removed, and before Odysseus had well ended\nwhat he was saying Penelope sprang towards him, threw her arms round\nhis neck, and covered his face with kisses. \"Be not angry with me, my\ndear lord,\" she murmured tenderly, \"because I held back so long, and\ngave thee not loving welcome, as I do now. Thou art very wise, and\nknowest the dangers which beset a lonely woman who is over hasty to\nbelieve when a stranger comes and calls himself her husband. Many\nthere be that lie in wait to lay snares for a weak and loving heart.\nBut now I know thee for mine own dear love, and now is the winter of\nmy widowhood made glorious summer, since I have seen thy face again.\"\n\nSo they sat locked in each other's arms, that valiant, long-suffering\nman, and his faithful wife, two brave and patient souls, parted so\nlong, and tried so hard, but now united once more in wedded love and\nbliss. The hours went by unheeded, and day would have overtaken them\nin that trance of delight, had not Athene marked them with pity from\nher heavenly seat, and stayed the steeds of the morning in the east,\nand prolonged the reign of night, that the joy of that first meeting\nmight not be broken until they had tasted all its honey to the lees.\n\n\n\n\nConclusion\n\n\nI\n\nEarly next day Odysseus rose and donned his armour, and having charged\nPenelope to keep close in her chamber, and admit no one into the\nhouse, he set forth to visit Laertes on his farm, attended by\nTelemachus and the two faithful herdsmen, all armed to the teeth.\nArrived at the farmhouse he left his companions there, bidding them\nprepare the morning meal, and went out alone to find his father.\nPassing through the courtyard gate, he entered a large plot of ground,\nplanted by Laertes as a garden and orchard; and there he found the old\nman, who was digging about the roots of a young tree. With strange\nemotions Odysseus noted every detail of his dress and figure--the\nsoiled and tattered coat, the gaiters of clouted leather, the old\ngauntlets on his hands, and the goatskin cap. He who had once been the\nwealthiest prince in Ithaca had now the appearance of an ancient\nserving-man, broken down with years and toil.\n\nBut in the midst of his sorrow a freakish whim came into the head of\nOdysseus, characteristic of his subtle and tortuous nature.\nApproaching his father, who was still stooping over his work, he said\nto him in a disguised voice: \"Old man, I perceive that thou art well\nskilled in the gardener's art: never saw I a garden better tended--not\na tree, not a shrub, but bears witness to thy fostering care. And be\nnot wroth with me if I say that is a wonder to see the keeper of so\nfair a garden himself so squalid and unkempt. Surely he whom thou\nservest must be an ungrateful master. Tell me his name, if thou wilt,\nand answer me truly if this be indeed the land of Ithaca to which I am\ncome, as I heard from a man whom I met by the way. He seemed a\nchurlish fellow, and would not stay to answer my questions; for I was\nfain to ask him concerning a friend whom I once entertained in my\nhouse, a native of Ithaca, as he told me, and a son of one Laertes.\nMany days he dwelt with me, eating and drinking of the best, and I\nsent him away laden with rich gifts, gold and silver, and costly\nraiment.\"\n\n\"Friend,\" answered Laertes, shedding tears, \"to Ithaca indeed art thou\ncome, but he of whom thou askest is no longer here. In vain were thy\ngifts bestowed, for he who would have repaid thee richly for all thy\nkindness hath perished long ago, and his bones lie bleaching on the\nbare earth, or at the bottom of the sea. Tell me, how long is it since\nthou didst receive him, and who art thou, and where is thy home?\"\n\n\"I am a man of Alybas,\" replied Odysseus, \"the son of Apheidas the son\nof Polypemon, and Eperitus is my name; and it is now five years since\nOdysseus departed from my home. Fair omens attended him on his\nstarting, and we parted in high hopes that we should meet again in his\nown land.\"\n\nAt these words of Odysseus the poor old man was overwhelmed with\nsorrow, and he heaped dust upon his grey head, groaning in bitterness\nof spirit. Odysseus was moved with pity at the sight of his distress,\nand thinking that he had now tried him enough, he revealed himself,\npointing as proofs to the scar above his knee, and to certain trees\nwhich Laertes had allowed him to call his own when he walked with him,\nhand-in-hand, as a little child, through the garden.\n\nThe sudden shock of joyful recognition was too much for the old man,\nand he fell fainting into his son's arms. When he was somewhat\nrecovered they went back together towards the house, and on the way\nOdysseus spoke of the slaying of the wooers, and of the danger which\nthreatened him from the vengeance of their friends.\n\nII\n\nMeanwhile the news of the wooers' violent death had spread like\nwildfire through the island, and their kinsmen went with loud clamour\nto the house of Odysseus to carry away the dead bodies. When this was\ndone they gathered together at the place of assembly to devise some\nplan of vengeance; and Eupeithes, the father of Antinous, made violent\noutcry against Odysseus for his great act of savage justice.\n\nWhile they were debating, Medon and Phemius appeared on the scene, and\ndescribed the manner in which the wooers had met their end. \"The hand\nof Heaven,\" said Medon, \"was made manifest in the deed. I myself saw\nAthene leading the onset, and your sons were laid low like ripe\nsheaves before the sickle.\" This report chilled their courage not a\nlittle; and Halitherses, seeing the effect produced, exerted all his\neloquence to put an end to the blood feud. Nevertheless more than half\nof those present persisted in their purpose, and donning their armour\nwent forth from the town to meet the party of Odysseus.\n\nThe encounter took place in front of the farmhouse, where Odysseus and\nthe others had just taken their morning meal. Laertes, who seemed to\nhave recovered all the vigour of his youth, led the attack, and by a\nwell-aimed cast of his lance struck down Eupeithes, the leader of the\nopposing party. This success was followed up by a vigorous charge, in\nthe midst of which a supernatural voice was heard in the air, striking\nterror into the assailants of Odysseus, who turned and fled in wild\npanic towards the town. They were hotly pursued, and not a man would\nhave been left alive had not Zeus himself interposed to stay the\nslaughter. By his command Athene acted as mediator between Odysseus\nand the kinsmen of the wooers, and an oath of amnesty was taken on\nboth sides, confirmed with solemn prayer and sacrifice.\n\n\n\n\nPRONOUNCING LIST OF NAMES\n\n\n[Transcriber's note: The orignial list contains characters that are\nnot found in normal ASCII, indicating the long or short stress to be\nput on the vowels. These are rendered below by the characters in\n[square brackets], thus: A \")\" indicates a short vowel, and a \"=\"\nindicates a long. So \"hay\" would be rendered as \"h[=a]\" and \"aha\"\nwould be \"[)a]h[)a]\" and so on.]\n\nAchilles     ([)a]kil'ez)\n\u00c6etes        ([=e]-[=e]'-tez)\n\u00c6g\u00e6an        ([=e]g[=e]'an)\n\u00c6gisthus     ([=e]gis'thus)\n\u00c6gyptus      ([=e]gyp'tus)\n\u00c6olus        ([=e]'[)o]lus)\n\u00c6thon        ([=e]'thon)\nAgamemnon    ([)a]g[)a]m[)e]m'non)\nAgelaus      ([)a]g[)e]l[=a]'us)\nAjax         ([=a]'jax)\nAlcinous     (als[)i]n'-[)o]-us)\nAlcmene      (alkm[=e]'n[=e])\nAlybas       ([=a]l'[)i]bas)\nAmphinomus   (amph[)i]n'[)o]mus)\nAnticleia    (ant[)i]kl[=i]'a)\nAntilochus   (ant[)i]l'[)o]chus)\nAntiphates   (ant[)i]ph'[)a]t[=e]z)\nAntinous     (ant[)i]n'[)o]us)\nAntiphus     (an't[)i]fus)\nApheidas     ([)a]f[=i]'das)\nAphrodite    ([)a]fr[)o]d[=i]'t[=e])\nArcady       (ar'c[)a]d[)i])\nArete        ([=a]r[=e]'t[=e])\nArethusa     ([)a]r[)e]thy[=u]'s[)a])\nArn\u00e6us       (arn[=e]'us)\nArtemis      (ar't[)e]mis)\nArybas       ([)a]'ribas)\nAthene       ([)a]th[=e]'n[=e])\nAtreus       ([=a]'tr[=u]s)\nAurora       ([=o]r[=o]'r[)a])\n\nBo\u00f6tes       (b[)o][=o]'t[=e]z)\n\nCalypso      (k[)a]l[)i]p's[=o])\nCassandra    (cassan'dr[)a])\nCharybdis    (k[)a]rib'dis)\nCimmerians   (simm[)e]'r[)i]ans)\nCirce        (s[)i]r's[=e])\nClyt\u00e6mnestra (cl[=i]t[=e]mn[)e]s'tr[)a])\nCnosus       (kn[=o]'s[)u]s)\nCtesippus    (kt[)e]'s[)i]pus)\nCtesius      (kt[=e]'s[)i]us)\nCyclopes     (s[=i]kl[=o]'p[=e]z)\nCyclops      (s[=i]'klops)\n\nDeiphobus    (d[=e][)i]f'[)o]bus)\nDelos        (d[)e]'los)\nDemeter      (d[=e]m[=e]'t[=e]r)\nDemodocus    (d[=e]m[)o]'d[)o]cus)\nDeucalion    (d[=u]ka'l[)i]on)\nDiomede      (d[)i]'[)o]meed)\nDodona       (d[=o]-d[=o]'n[)a])\nDolius       (d[)o]l'[)i]us)\nDulichium    (dy[=u]l[)i]'-k[)i]um)\n\nEidothea     ([=i]d[=o]'th[)i]-[)e][)a])\nElis         ([=e]'lis)\nElpenor      ([)e]lp[=e]'n[=o]r)\nEperitus     ([)e]p[=e]'r[)i]tus)\nEphialtes    ([)e]f[)i]al't[=e]z)\nEphyra       ([)e]f'[)i]r[)a])\nEriphyle     ([)e]r[)i]f[=i]'l[=e])\nEuboea       (y[=u]b[=e]'a)\nEum\u00e6us       (y[=u]m[=e]'us)\nEupeithes    (y[=u]p[=i]'th[=e]z)\nEurymachus   (y[=u]r[)i]'m[)a]kus)\nEurynomus    (y[=u]r[)i]'n[)o]mus)\nEurycleia    (y[=u]r[=i]cl[=i]'[)a])\nEuryalus     (y[=u]r[=i]'[)a]lus)\nEurylochus   (y[=u]r[)i]l'[)o]kus)\nEurydamas    (y[=u]r[)i]d'[)a]mas)\nEurytus      (y[=u]'r[)i]tus)\n\nHades        (h[=a]'d[=e]z)\nHalitherses  (h[)a]l[)i]ther's[=e]z)\nHelios       (h[)e]'l[)i]os)\nHeph\u00e6stus    (h[=e]f[=e]s'tus)\nHera         (h[=e]'r[)a])\nHercules     (her'c[)u]l[=e]z)\nHermes       (her'm[=e]z)\n\nIasion       ([=i][)a]'s[)i]on)\nIcarius      ([=i]k[)a]'r[)i]us)\nIdomeneus    ([=i]d[=o]m'[)e]ny[=u]s)\nIno          ([=i]'n[)o])\nIphimedeia   (if[)i]m[)e]d[=i]'[)a])\nIphitus      (if'[)i]tus)\nIphthime     (ifth[=i]'m[=e])\nIrus         ([=i]'rus)\nIthaca       ([)i]th'[)a]c[)a])\n\nLaced\u00e6mon    (l[)a]s[)e]d[=e]'mon)\nLaertes      (l[=a][)e]r't[=e]z)\nL\u00e6strygonia  (l[=e]str[)i]g[)o]'n[)i][)a])\nLeda         (l[=e]'d[)a])\nLeiodes      (l[=i][=o]'d[=e]z)\nLesbos       (l[)e]z'bos)\nLeto         (l[=e]'t[=o])\n\nMalea        (m[)a]l'[)e][)a])\nMedon        (med'on)\nMelampus     (m[)e]lam'pus)\nMelanthius   (m[)e]lan'th[)i]us)\nMelantho     (m[)e]lan'th[=o])\nMenelaus     (m[)e]n[)e]l[=a]'us)\nMentes       (men'tez)\nMentor       (men't[=o]r)\nMessene      (mess[=e]'n[=e])\nMinos        (m[=i]'nos)\nMycen\u00e6       (m[=i]s[=e]'n[=e])\n\nNausicaa     (naus[)i]k'[)a]-[)a])\nNeleus       (n[=e]'ly[=u]s)\nNeoptolemus  (neopt[)o]l'[)e]mus)\nNeritus      (n[=e]'r[)i]tus)\nNestor       (n[)e]s't[=o]r)\n\nOceanus      (os[=e]'anus)\nOdysseus     (odis'y[=u]s)\nOrestes      ([)o]r[)e]s't[=e]z)\nOrion        ([=o]r[=i]'on)\nOrmenius     (orm[)e]n'[)i]us)\nOrsilochus   (ors[)i]l'[)o]kus)\nOrtygia      (ort[)i]'g[)i][)a])\nOtus         ([)o]'tus)\n\nPatroclus    (p[)a]tr[)o]'clus)\nPeir\u00e6us      (p[=i]r[=e]'us)\nPeleus       (p[=e]'ly[=u]s)\nPelides      (p[)e]l[=i]'d[=e]z)\nPelion       (p[=e]'l[)i]on)\nPenelope     (p[=e]n[)e]l'[)o]p[=e])\nPersephone   (pers[)e]f'[)o]n[=e])\nPharos       (f[=a]'ros)\nPh\u00e6acia      (f[=e][=a]'si[)a])\nPhemius      (f[=e]'m[)i]us)\nPher\u00e6        (f[=e]'r[=e])\nPhiloctetes  (f[)i]lokt[=e]'t[=e]z)\nPhiloetius   (f[)i]l[=e]'t[)i]us)\nPisistratus  (p[=i]sis'tr[)a]tus)\nPleiades     (pl[=i]'ad[=e]z)\nPolycaste    (p[)o]l[)i]cas't[=e])\nPolydamna    (p[)o]l[)i]dam'na)\nPolypemon    (p[)o]l[)i]p[=e]'mon)\nPolyphemus   (p[)o]l[)i]f[=e]'mus)\nPoseidon     (p[)o]s[=i]'don)\nProteus      (pr[=o]'ty[=u]s)\nPylos        (p[=i]'los)\n\nSame         (s[=a]'m[=e])\nScylla       (sil'l[)a])\nScyros       (sk[=i]'ros)\nSirens       (s[=i]'rens)\nSisyphus     (s[)i]'s[)i]fus)\nSunium       (sy[=u]'n[)i]um)\n\nTantalus     (tan't[)a]lus)\nTeiresias    (t[=i]r[)e]'s[)i]as)\nTelamon      (t[)e]l'[)a]mon)\nTelemachus   (t[=e]l[=e]'m[)a]kus)\nTenedos      (t[)e]n'[)e]dos)\nTheoclymenus (th[)e][)o]cly'm[)e]nus)\nThesprotia   (th[)e]spr[=o]'t[=i][)a])\nThon         (th[=o]n)\nTityos       (t[)i]t'[)i]os)\nTyndareus    (tin'd[)a]ry[=u]s)\n\nZacynthus    (z[)a]kin'thus)\nZeus         (zy[=u]s)\n\n\n"}
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{"13910":"\n\n\n\n[Transcribers note: subscripts in the text are\nrepresented by _{X} markup]\n\n\n\nA BOOK OF EXPOSITION\n\nEDITED BY\n\nHOMER HEATH NUGENT\n\nLAFLIN INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH AT THE RENSSELAER\nPOLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE\n\n\n1922\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nIt is a pleasure to acknowledge indebtedness to my wife for assistance\nin editing and to Dr. Ray Palmer Baker, Head of the Department of\nEnglish at the Institute, for suggestions and advice without which this\ncollection would hardly have been made.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n  INTRODUCTION\n\n  THE EXPOSITION OF A MECHANISM\n    THE LEVERS OR THE HUMAN BODY. SIR ARTHUR KEITH\n\n  THE EXPOSITION OF A MACHINE\n    THE MERGENTHALER LINOTYPE. PHILIP T. DODGE\n\n  THE EXPOSITION OF A PROCESS IN NATURE\n    THE PEA WEEVIL. JEAN HENRI FABRE. Translated by Bernard Miall\n\n  THE EXPOSITION OF A MANUFACTURING PROCESS\n    MODERN PAPER-MAKING. J. W. BUTLER PAPER COMPANY\n\n  THE EXPOSITION OF AN IDEA\n    THE GOSPEL OF RELAXATION. WILLIAM JAMES\n    SCIENCE AND RELIGION. CHARLES PROTEUS STEINMETZ\n\n  BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL NOTES\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nThe articles here presented are modern and unhackneyed. Selected\nprimarily as models for teaching the methods of exposition employed in\nthe explanation of mechanisms, processes, and ideas, they are\nnevertheless sufficiently representative of certain tendencies in\nscience to be of intrinsic value. Indeed, each author is a recognized\nauthority.\n\nAnother feature is worthy of mention. Although the material covers so\nwide a field--anatomy, zo\u00f6logy, physics, psychology, and applied\nscience--that the collection will appeal to instructors in every type of\ncollege and technical school, the selections are related in such a way\nas to produce an impression of unity. This relation is apparent between\nthe first selection, which deals with the student's body, and the third,\nwhich deals with another organism in nature. The second and fourth\nselections deal with kindred aspects of modern industry--the manufacture\nof paper and the Linotype machine, by which it is used. The fifth\nselection is a protest against certain developments of the industrial\nregime; the last, an attempt to reconcile the spirit of science with\nthat of religion. While monotony has been avoided, the essays form a\ndistinct unit.\n\nIn most cases, selections are longer than usual, long enough in fact to\nintroduce a student to each field. As a result, he can be made to feel\nthat every subject is of importance and to realize that every chapter\ncontains a fund of valuable information. Instead of confusing him by\nhaving him read twenty selections in, let us say, six weeks, it is\npossible by assigning but six in the same period, to impress him\ndefinitely with each.\n\nThe text-book machinery has been sequestered in the Biographical and\nCritical Notes at the end of the book. Their character and position are\nintended to permit instructors freedom of treatment. Some may wish to\ntest a student's ability in the use of reference books by having him\nreport on allusions. Some may wish to explain these themselves. A few\nmay find my experience helpful. For them suggestions are included in the\nCritical Notes. In general, I have assumed that instructors will prefer\ntheir own methods and have tried to leave them unhampered.\n\n\n\n\nTHE EXPOSITION OF A MECHANISM\n\nTHE LEVERS OF THE HUMAN BODY[1]\n\n_Sir Arthur Keith_\n\n\nIn all the foregoing chapters we have been considering only the muscular\nengines of the human machine, counting them over and comparing their\nconstruction and their mechanism with those of the internal-combustion\nengine of a motor cycle. But of the levers or crank-pins through which\nmuscular engines exert their power we have said nothing hitherto. Nor\nshall we get any help by now spending time on the levers of a motor\ncycle. We have already confessed that they are arranged in a way which\nis quite different from that which we find in the human machine. In the\nmotor cycle all the levers are of that complex kind which are called\nwheels, and the joints at which these levers work are also circular, for\nthe joints of a motor cycle are the surfaces between the axle and the\nbushes, which have to be kept constantly oiled. No, we freely admit that\nthe systems of levers in the human machine are quite unlike those of a\nmotor cycle. They are more simple, and it is easy to find in our bodies\nexamples of all the three orders of levers. The joints at which bony\nlevers meet and move on each other are very different from those we find\nin motor cycles. Indeed, I must confess they are not nearly so simple.\nAnd, lastly, I must not forget to mention another difference. These\nlevers we are going to study are living--at least, are so densely\ninhabited by myriads of minute bone builders that we must speak of them\nas living. I want to lay emphasis on that fact because I did not insist\nenough on the living nature of muscular engines.\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 1.--Showing a chisel 10 inches long used as a lever\nof the first order.]\n\nWe are all well acquainted with levers. We apply them every day. A box\narrives with its lid nailed down; we take a chisel, use it as a lever,\npry the lid open, and see no marvel in what we have done (Fig. 1). And\nyet we thereby did with ease what would have been impossible for us even\nif we had put out the whole of our unaided strength. The use of levers\nis an old discovery; more than 1500 years before Christ, Englishmen,\nliving on Salisbury Plain, applied the invention when they raised the\ngreat stones at Stonehenge and at Avebury; more than 2000 years earlier\nstill, Egyptians employed it in raising the pyramids. Even at that time\nmen had made great progress; they were already reaping the rewards of\ndiscoveries and inventions. But none, I am sure, surprised them more\nthan the discovery of the lever; by its use one man could exert the\nstrength of a hundred men. They soon observed that levers could be used\nin three different ways. The instance already given, the prying open of\na lid by using a chisel as a lever, is an example of one way (Fig. 1);\nit is then used as a lever of the first order. Now in the first order,\none end of the lever is applied to the point of resistance, which in the\ncase just mentioned was the lid of the box. At the other end we apply\nour strength, force, or power. The edge of the box against which the\nchisel is worked serves as a fulcrum and lies between the handle where\nthe power is applied and the bevelled edge which moves the resistance or\nweight. A pair of ordinary weighing scales also exemplifies the first\norder of levers. The knife edge on which the beam is balanced serves as\na fulcrum; it is placed exactly in the middle of the beam, which we\nshall suppose to be 10 inches long. If we place a 1-lb. weight in one\nscale to represent the resistance to be overcome, the weight will be\nlifted the moment that a pound of sugar has been placed in the opposite\nscale--the sugar thus representing the power. If, however, we move the\nknife-edge or fulcrum so that it is only 1 inch from the sugar end of\nthe beam and 9 inches from the weight end, then we find that we have to\npour in 9 lb. of sugar to equalise the 1-lb. weight. The chisel used in\nprying open the box lid was 10 inches long; it was pushed under the lid\nfor a distance of 1 inch, leaving 9 inches for use as a power lever. By\nusing a lever in this way, we increased our strength ninefold. The\nlonger we make the power arm, the nearer we push the fulcrum towards the\nweight or resistance end, the greater becomes our power. This we shall\nfind is a discovery which Nature made use of many millions of years ago\nin fashioning the body of man and of beast. When we apply our force to\nthe long end of a lever, we increase our power. We may also apply it, as\nNature has done in our bodies, for another purpose. We have just noted\nthat if the weight end of the beam of a pair of scales is nine times the\nlength of the sugar end, that a 1-lb. weight will counterpoise 9 lb. of\nsugar. We also see that the weight scale moves at nine times the speed\nof the sugar scale. Now it often happens that Nature wants to increase,\nnot the power, but the speed with which a load is lifted. In that case\nthe \"sugar scale\" is placed at the long end of the beam and the \"weight\nscale\" at the short end; it then takes a 9-lb. weight to raise a single\npound of sugar, but the sugar scale moves with nine times the speed of\nthe weight scale. Nature often sacrifices power to obtain speed. The arm\nis used as a lever of this kind when a cricket ball is thrown.\n\nNothing could look less like a pair of scales than a man's head or\nskull, and yet when we watch how it is poised and the manner in which it\nis moved, we find that it, too, acts as a lever of the first order. The\nfulcrum on which it moves is the atlas--the first vertebra of the spine\n(Fig. 2). When a man stands quite erect, with the head well thrown back,\nthe ear passages are almost directly over the fulcrum. It will be\nconvenient to call that part of the head which is behind the ear\npassages the _post-fulcral,_ and the part which is in front the\n_pre-fulcral._ Now the face is attached to the pre-fulcral part of the\nlever and represents the weight or load to be moved, while the muscles\nof the neck, which represent the power, are yoked to the post-fulcral\nend of the lever. The hinder part of the head serves as a crank-pin for\nseven pairs of neck muscles, but in Fig. 2 only the chief pair is drawn,\nknown as the _complex_ muscles. When that pair is set in action, the\npost-fulcral end of the head lever is tilted downwards, while the\npre-fulcral end, on which the face is set, is turned upwards.\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 2.--The skull as a lever of the first order.]\n\nThe complex muscles thus tilt the head backwards and the face upwards,\nbut where are the muscles which serve as their opponents or antagonists\nand reverse the movement? In a previous chapter it has been shown that\nevery muscle has to work against an opponent or antagonist muscle. Here\nwe seem to come across a defect in the human machine, for the _greater\nstraight_ muscles in the front of the neck, which serve as opposing\nmuscles, are not only much smaller but at a further disadvantage by\nbeing yoked to the pre-fulcral end of the lever, very close to the cup\non which the head rocks. However, if the _greater straight_ muscles lose\npower by working on a very short lever, they gain, in speed; we set them\nquickly and easily into action when we give a nod of recognition. All\nthe strength or power is yoked to the post-fulcral end of the head; the\npre-fulcral end of its lever is poorly guarded. Japanese wrestlers know\nthis fact very well, and seek to gain victory by pressing up the poorly\nguarded pre-fulcral lever of the head, thus producing a deadly lock at\nthe fulcral joint. Indeed, it will be found that those who use the\njiu-jitsu method of fighting have discovered a great deal about the\nconstruction and weaknesses of the levers of the human body.\n\nMerely to poise the head on the atlas may seem to you as easy a matter\nas balancing the beam of a pair of scales on an upright support. I am\nnow going to show that a great number of difficulties had to be overcome\nbefore our heads could be safely poised on our necks. The head had to be\nbalanced in such a way that through the pivot or joint on which it rests\na safe passageway could be secured for one of the most delicate and most\nimportant of all the parts or structures of the human machine. We have\nnever found a good English name for this structure, so we use its clumsy\nLatin one--_Medulla oblongata_--or medulla for short. In the medulla are\nplaced offices or centres which regulate the vital operations carried\non by the heart and by the lungs. It has also to serve as a passageway\nfor thousands of delicate gossamer-like nerve fibres passing from the\nbrain, which fills the whole chamber of the skull, to the spinal cord,\nsituated in the canal of the backbone. By means of these delicate fibres\nthe brain dispatches messages which control the muscular engines of the\nlimbs and trunk. Through it, too, ascend countless fibres along which\nmessages pass from the limbs and trunk to the brain. In creating a\nmovable joint for the head, then, a safe passage had to be obtained for\nthe medulla--that part of the great nerve stem which joins the brain to\nthe spinal cord. The medulla is part of the brain stem.\n\nThis was only one of the difficulties which had to be overcome. The eyes\nare set on the pre-fulcral lever of the head. For our safety we must be\nable to look in all directions--over this shoulder or that. We must also\nbe able to turn our heads so that our ears may discover in which\ndirection a sound is reaching us. In fashioning a fulcral joint for the\nhead, then, two different objects had to be secured: free mobility for\nthe head, and a safe transit for the medullary part of the brain stem.\nHow well these objects have been attained is known to all of us, for we\ncan move our heads in the freest manner and suffer no damage whatsoever.\nIndeed, so strong and perfect is the joint that damage to it is one of\nthe most uncommon accidents of life.\n\nLet us see, then, how this triumph in engineering has been secured. In\nher inventive moods Nature always hits on the simplest plan possible. In\nthis case she adopted a ball-and-socket joint--the kind by which older\nastronomers mounted their telescopes. By such a joint the telescope\nbecomes, just as the head is, a lever of the first order. The eyeglass\nis placed at one end of the lever, while the object-glass, which can be\nswept across the face of the heavens, is placed at the other or more\ndistant end. In the human body the first vertebra of the backbone--the\natlas--is trimmed to form a socket, while an adjacent part of the base\nof the skull is shaped to play the part of ball. The kind of joint to be\nused having been hit upon, the next point was to secure a safe passage\nfor the brain stem. That, too, was worked out in the simplest fashion.\nThe central parts of both ball and socket were cut away, or, to state\nthe matter more exactly, were never formed. Thus a passage was obtained\nright through the centre of the fulcral joint of the head. The centre of\nthe joint was selected because when a lever is set in motion the part at\nthe fulcrum moves least, and the medulla, being placed at that point, is\nleast exposed to disturbance when we bend our heads backwards, forwards,\nor from side to side. When we examine the base of the skull, all that we\nsee of the ball of the joint are two knuckles of bone (Fig. 3, A),\ncovered by smooth slippery cartilage or gristle, to which anatomists\ngive the name of occipital condyles. If we were to try to complete the\nball, of which they form a part, we should close up the great\nopening--the _foramen magnum_--which provides a passageway for the brain\nstem on its way to the spinal canal. All that is to be seen of the\nsocket or cup is two hollows on the upper surface of the atlas into\nwhich the occipital condyles fit (Fig. 3, B). Merely two parts of the\nbrim of the cup have been preserved to provide a socket for the\ncondyles or ball.\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 3.--A, The opening in the base of the skull, by\nwhich the brain stem passes to the spinal canal. The two occipital\ncondyles represent part of the ball which fits into the cup formed by\nthe atlas. B, The parts of the socket on the ring of the atlas.]\n\nAs we bend our heads, the occipital condyles revolve or glide on the\nsockets of the atlas. But what will happen if we roll our heads\nbackwards to such an extent that the bony edge of the opening in the\nbase of the skull is made to press hard against the brain stem and crush\nit? That, of course, would mean instant death. Such an accident has been\nmade impossible (1) by making the opening in the base of the skull so\nmuch larger than the brain stem that in extreme movements there can be\nno scissors-like action; (2) the muscles which move the head on the\natlas arrest all movements long before the danger-point is reached; (3)\neven if the muscles are caught off their guard, as they sometimes are,\ncertain strong ligaments--fastenings of tough fibres--are so set as\nautomatically to jam the joint before the edge of the foramen can come\nin contact with the brain stem.\n\nThese are only some of the devices which Nature had to contrive in order\nto secure a safe passageway for the brain stem. But in obtaining safety\nfor the brain stem, the movements of the head on the atlas had to be\nlimited to mere nodding or side-to-side bending. The movements which are\nso necessary to us, that of turning our heads so that we can sweep our\neyes along the whole stretch of the skyline from right to left, and from\nleft to right, were rendered impossible. This defect was also overcome\nin a simple manner. The joints between the first and second\nvertebrae--the atlas and axis--were so modified that a turning movement\ncould take place between them instead of between the atlas and skull.\nWhen we turn or rotate our heads, the atlas, carrying the skull upon it,\nswings or turns on the axis. When we search for the manner in which this\nhas been accomplished, we see again that Nature has made use of the\nsimplest means at her disposal. When we examine a vertebra in the course\nof construction within an unborn animal, we see that it is really made\nup by the union of four parts (see Fig. 4): a central block which\nbecomes the \"body\" or supporting part; a right and a left arch which\nenclose a passage for the spinal cord; and, lastly, a fourth part in\nfront of the central block which becomes big and strong only in the\nfirst vertebra--the atlas. When we look at the atlas (Fig. 4), we see\nthat it is merely a ring made up of three of the parts--the right and\nleft arches and the fourth element,--but the body is missing. A glance\nat Fig. 4, B, will show what has become of the body of the atlas. It\nhas been joined to the central block of the second vertebra--the\naxis--and projects upwards within the front part of the ring of the\natlas, and thus forms a pivot round which rotatory movements of the head\ncan take place. Here we have in the atlas an approach to the formation\nof a wheel--a wheel which has its axle or pivot placed at some distance\nfrom its centre, and therefore a complete revolution of the atlas is\nimpossible. A battery of small muscles is attached to the lateral levers\nof the atlas and can swing it freely, and the head which it carries, a\ncertain number of degrees to both right and left. The extent of the\nmovements is limited by stout check ligaments. Thus, by the simple\nexpedient of allowing the body of the atlas to be stolen by the axis, a\npivot was obtained round which the head could be turned on a horizontal\nplane.\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 4.--A, The original parts of the first or atlas\nvertebra. B, Showing the \"body\" of the first vertebra fixed to the\nsecond, thus forming the pivot on which the head turns.]\n\nNature thus set up a double joint for the movements of the head, one\nbetween the atlas and axis for rotatory movements, another between the\natlas and skull for nodding and side-to-side movements. And all these\nshe increased by giving flexibility to the whole length of the neck.\nMakers of modern telescopes have imitated the method Nature invented\nwhen fixing the human head to the spine. Their instruments are mounted\nwith a double joint--one for movements in a horizontal plane, the other\nfor movements in a vertical plane. We thus see that the young engineer,\nas well as the student of medicine, can learn something from the\nconstruction of the human body.\n\nIn low forms of vertebrate animals like the fish and frog, the head is\njoined directly to the body, there being no neck.\n\nNo matter what part of the human body we examine, we shall find that its\nmechanical work is performed by means of bony levers. Having seen how\nthe head is moved as a lever of the first order, we are now to choose a\npart which will show us the plan on which levers of the second order\nwork, and there are many reasons why we should select the foot. It is a\npart which we are all familiar with; every day we can see it at rest and\nin action. The foot, as we have already noted, serves as a lever in\nwalking. It is a bent or arched lever (Fig. 6); when we stand on one\nfoot, the whole weight of our body rests on the summit of the arch. We\nare thus going to deal with a lever of a complex kind.\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 5.--Showing a chisel used as a lever of the second\norder.]\n\nIn using a chisel to pry open the lid of a box, we may use it as a lever\neither of the first or of the second order. We have already seen (Fig.\n1) that, in using it as a lever of the first order, we pushed the handle\ndownwards, while the bevelled end was raised, forcing open the lid. The\nedge of the box served as a rest or fulcrum for the chisel. If, however,\nafter inserting the bevelled edge under the lid, we raise the handle\ninstead of depressing it, we change the chisel into a lever of the\nsecond order. The lid is not now forced up on the bevelled edge, but is\nraised on the side of the chisel, some distance from the bevelled edge,\nwhich thus comes to represent the fulcrum. By using a chisel in this\nway, we reverse the positions of the weight and fulcrum and turn it into\na lever of the second order. Suppose we push the side of the\nchisel--which is 10 inches long--under the lid to the extent of 1 inch,\nthen the advantage we gain in power is as 1 to 10; we thereby increase\nour strength tenfold. If we push the chisel under the lid for half its\nlength, then our advantage stands as 10 to 5; our strength is only\ndoubled. If we push it still further for two-thirds of its length, then\nour gain in strength is only as 10 to 6.6; our power is increased by\nonly one-third. Now this has an important bearing on the problem we are\ngoing to investigate, for the weight of our body falls on the foot, so\nthat only about one-third of the lever--that part of it which is formed\nby the heel--projects behind the point on which the weight of the body\nrests. The strength of the muscles which act on the heel will be\nincreased only by about one-third.\n\nWe have already seen that a double engine, made up of the\n_gastrocnemius_ and _soleus_, is the power which is applied to the heel\nwhen we walk, and that the pad of the foot, lying across the sole in\nline with the ball of the great toe, serves as a fulcrum or rest. The\nweight of the body falls on the foot between the fulcrum in front and\nthe power behind, as in a lever of the second order. We have explained\nwhy the power of the muscles of the calf is increased the more the\nweight of the body is shifted towards the toes, but it is also evident\nthat the speed and the extent to which the body is lifted are\ndiminished. If, however, the weight be shifted more towards the heel,\nthe muscles of the calf, although losing in power, can lift their load\nmore quickly and to a greater extent.\n\nWe must look closely at the foot lever if we are to understand it. It is\narched or bent; the front pillar of the arch stretches from the summit\nor keystone, where the weight of the body is poised, to the pad of the\nfoot or fulcrum (Fig. 6); the posterior pillar, projecting as the heel,\nextends from the summit to the point at which the muscular power is\napplied. A foot with a short anterior pillar and a long posterior pillar\nor heel is one designed for power, not speed. It is one which will serve\na hill-climber well or a heavy, corpulent man. The opposite kind, one\nwith a short heel and a long pillar in front, is well adapted for\nrunning and sprinting--for speed. Now, we do find among the various\nraces of mankind that some have been given long heels, such as the\ndark-skinned natives of Africa and of Australia, while other races have\nbeen given relatively short, stumpy heels, of which sort the natives of\nEurope and of China may be cited as examples. With long heels less\npowerful muscular engines are required, and hence in dark races the calf\nof the leg is but ill developed, because the muscles which move the heel\nare small. We must admit, however, that the gait of dark-skinned races\nis usually easy and graceful. We Europeans, on the other hand, having\nshort heels, need more powerful muscles to move them, and hence our\ncalves are usually well developed, but our gait is apt to be jerky.\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 6.--The bones forming the arch of the foot, seen\nfrom the inner side.]\n\nIf we had the power to make our heels longer or shorter at will, we\nshould be able, as is the case in a motor cycle, to alter our\n\"speed-gear\" according to the needs of the road. With a steep hill in\nfront of us, we should adopt a long, slow, powerful heel; while going\ndown an incline a short one would best suit our needs. With its\nfour-change speed-gear a motor cycle seems better adapted for easy and\neconomical travelling than the human machine. If, however, the human\nmachine has no change of gear, it has one very marvellous\nmechanism--which we may call a _compensatory_ mechanism, for want of a\nshort, easy name. The more we walk, the more we go hill-climbing, the\nmore powerful do the muscular engines of the heel become. It is quite\ndifferent with the engine of a motor cycle; the more it is used, the\nmore does it become worn out. It is because a muscular engine is living\nthat it can respond to work by growing stronger and quicker.\n\nI have no wish to extol the human machine unduly, nor to run down the\nmotor cycle because of certain defects. There is one defect, however,\nwhich is inherent in all motor machines which man has invented, but from\nwhich the human machine is almost completely free. We can illustrate the\ndefect best by comparing the movements of the heel with those of the\ncrank-pin of an engine. One serves as the lever by which the\ngastrocnemius helps to propel the body; the other serves the same\npurpose in the propulsion of a motor cycle. On referring to Fig. 7, A,\nthe reader will see that the piston-rod and the crank-pin are in a\nstraight line; in such a position the engine is powerless to move the\ncrank-pin until the flywheel is started, thus setting the crank-pin in\nmotion. Once started, the leverage increases, until the crank-pin stands\nat right angles to the piston-rod--a point of maximum power which is\nreached when the piston is in the position shown in Fig. 7, B. Then the\nleverage decreases until the second dead centre is reached (Fig. 7, C);\nfrom that point the leverage is increased until the second maximum is\nreached (Fig. 7, D), whereafter it decreases until the arrival at the\nfirst position completes the cycle. Thus, in each revolution there are\ntwo points where all leverage or power is lost, points which are\nsurmounted because of the momentum given by the flywheel. Clearly we\nshould get most out of an engine if it could be kept working near the\npoints of maximum leverage--with the lever as nearly as possible at\nright angles to the crank-pin.\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 7.--Showing the crank-pin of an engine at: A, First\ndead centre. B, First maximum leverage. C, Second dead centre. D, Second\nmaximum leverage.]\n\nNow, we have seen that the tendon of Achilles is the piston cord, and\nthe heel the crank-pin, of the muscular engine represented by the\ngastrocnemius and soleus. In the standing posture the heel slopes\ndownwards and backwards, and is thus in a position, as regards its\npiston cord, considerably beyond the point of maximum leverage. As the\nheel is lifted by the muscles, it gradually becomes horizontal and at\nright angles to its tendon or piston cord. As the heel rises, then, it\nbecomes a more effective lever; the muscles gain in power. The more the\nfoot is arched, the more obliquely is the heel set and the greater is\nthe strength needed to start it moving. Hence, races like the European\nand Mongolian, which have short as well as steeply set heels, need large\ncalf muscles. It is at the end of the upward stroke that the heel\nbecomes most effective as a lever, and it is just then that we most need\npower to propel our bodies in a forward direction. It will be noted that\nthe heel, unlike the crank-pin of an engine, never reaches, never even\napproaches, that point of powerlessness known to engineers as a dead\ncentre. Work is always performed within the limits of the most effective\nworking radius of the lever. It is a law for all the levers of the body;\nthey are set and moved in such a way as to avoid the occurrence of dead\ncentres. Think what our condition would have been were this not so; why,\nwe should require revolving fly-wheels set in all our joints!\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 8.--The arch of the foot from the inner side,\nshowing some of the muscles which maintain it.]\n\nAnother property is essential in a lever: it must be rigid; otherwise it\nwill bend, and power will be lost. Now, if the foot were a rigid lever,\nthere would be missing two of its most useful qualities. It could no\nlonger act as a spring or buffer to the body, nor could it adapt its\nsole to the various kinds of surfaces on which we have to tread or\nstand. Nature, with her usual ingenuity, has succeeded in combining\nthose opposing qualities--rigidity, suppleness, and elasticity or\nspringiness--by resorting to her favorite device, the use of muscular\nengines. The arch is necessarily constructed of a number of bones which\ncan move on each other to a certain extent, so that the foot may adapt\nitself to all kinds of roads and paths. It is true that the bones of the\narch are loosely bound together by passive ties or ligaments, but as\nthese cannot be lengthened or shortened at will, Nature had to fall back\non the use of muscular engines for the maintenance of the foot as an\narched lever. Some of these are shown in Fig. 8. The foot, then, is a\nlever of a very remarkable kind; all the time we stand or walk, its\nrigidity, its power to serve as a lever, has to be maintained by an\nelaborate battery of muscular engines all kept constantly at work. No\nwonder our feet and legs become tired when we have to stand a great\ndeal. Some of these engines, the larger ones, are kept in the leg, but\ntheir tendons or piston cords descend below the ankle-joint to be fixed\nto various parts of the arch, and thus help to keep it up (Fig. 8).\nWithin the sole of the foot has been placed an installation of seventeen\nsmall engines, all of them springing into action when we stand up, thus\nhelping to maintain the foot as a rigid yet flexible lever.\n\nWe have already seen why our muscles are so easily exhausted when we\nstand stock-still; they then get no rest at all. Now, it sometimes\nhappens in people who have to stand for long periods at a stretch that\nthese muscular engines which maintain the arch are overtaxed; the arch\nof the foot gives way. The foot becomes flat and flexible, and can no\nlonger serve as a lever. Many men and women thus become permanently\ncrippled; they cannot step off their toes, but must shuffle along on the\ninner sides of their feet. But if the case of the overworked muscles\nwhich maintain the arch is hard in grown-up people, it is even harder in\nboys and girls who have to stand quite still for a long time, or who\nhave to carry such burdens as are beyond their strength. When we are\nyoung, the bony levers and muscular engines of our feet have not only\ntheir daily work to do, but they have continually to effect those\nwonderful alterations which we call growth. Hence, the muscular engines\nof young people need special care; they must be given plenty of work to\ndo, but that kind of active action which gives them alternate strokes of\nwork and rest. Even the engine of a motor cycle has three strokes of\nplay for one of work. Our engines, too, must have a liberal supply of\nthe right kind of fuel. But even with all those precautions, we have to\nconfess that the muscular engines of the foot do sometimes break down,\nand the leverage of the foot becomes threatened. Nor have we succeeded\nin finding out why they are so liable to break down in some boys and\ngirls and not in others. Some day we shall discover this too.\n\nWe are now to look at another part of the human machine so that we may\nstudy a lever of the third order. The lever formed by the forearm and\nhand will suit our purpose very well. It is pivoted or jointed at the\nelbow; the elbow is its fulcrum (Fig. 9 B). At the opposite end of the\nlever, in the, upturned palm of the hand, we shall place a weight of 1\nlb. to represent the load to be moved. The power which we are to yoke to\nthe lever is a strong muscular engine we have not mentioned before,\ncalled the _brachialis anticus_, or front brachial muscle. It lies in\nthe upper arm, where it is fixed to the bone of that part--the humerus.\nIt is attached to one of the bones of the forearm--the ulna--just beyond\nthe elbow.\n\nIn the second order of lever, we have seen that the muscle worked on one\nend, while the weight rested on the lever somewhere between the muscular\nattachment and the fulcrum. In levers of the third order, the load is\nplaced at the end of the lever, and the muscle is attached somewhere\nbetween the load and the fulcrum (Fig. 9 A). In the example we are\nconsidering, the brachial muscle is attached about half an inch beyond\nthe fulcrum at the elbow, while the total length of the lever, measured\nfrom the elbow to the palm, is 12 inches. Now, it is very evident that\nthe muscle or power being attached so close to the elbow, works under a\ngreat disadvantage as regards strength. It could lift a 24-lb. weight\nplaced on the forearm directly over its attachment as easily as a single\npound weight placed on the palm. But, then, there is this advantage: the\n1-lb. weight placed in the hand moves with twenty-four times the speed\nof the 24-lb. weight situated near the elbow. What is lost in strength\nis gained in speed. Whenever Nature wishes to move a light load quickly,\nshe employs levers of the third order.\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 9A.--A chisel used as a lever of the third order. W,\nweight; P, power; F, fulcrum.]\n\nWe have often to move our forearm very quickly, sometimes to save our\nlives. The difference of one-hundredth of a second may mean life or\ndeath to us on the face of a cliff when we clutch at a branch or jutting\nrock to save a fall. The quickness of a blow we give or fend depends on\nthe length of our reach. A long forearm and hand are ill adapted for\nlifting heavy burdens; strength is sacrificed if they are too long.\nHence, we find that the laboring peoples of the world--Europeans and\nMongolians--have usually short forearms and hands, while the peoples who\nlive on such bounties as Nature may provide for them have relatively\nlong forearms and hands.\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 9B.--The forearm and hand as a lever of the third\norder.]\n\nNow, man differs from anthropoid apes, which are distant cousins of his,\nin having a forearm which is considerably shorter than the upper arm;\nwhereas in anthropoid apes the forearm is much the longer. That fact\nsurprises us at first, especially when we remember that anthropoids\nspend most of their lives amongst trees and use their arms much more\nthan their legs in swinging the weight of their heavy bodies from branch\nto branch and from tree to tree. A long forearm and hand give them a\nlong and quick reach, so that they can seize distant branches and swing\nthemselves along safely and at a good pace. Our first thought is to\nsuppose that a long forearm, being a weak lever, will be ill adapted\nfor climbing. But when you look at Fig. 10, the explanation becomes\nplain. When a branch is seized by the hand, and the whole weight of the\nbody is supported from it, the entire machinery of the arm changes its\naction. The forearm is no longer the lever which the brachial muscle\nmoves (Fig. 10), but now becomes the base from which it acts. The part\nwhich was its piston cord now serves as its base of fixation, and what\nwas its base of fixation to the humerus becomes its piston cord. The\nhumerus has become a lever of the third order; its fulcrum is at the\nelbow; the weight of the body is attached to it at the shoulder and\nrepresents the load which has to be lifted. We also notice that the\nbrachial muscle is attached a long way up the humerus, thus increasing\nits power very greatly, although the rate at which it helps in lifting\nthe body is diminished. We can see, then, why the humerus is short and\nthe forearm long in anthropoid apes; shortening the humerus makes it\nmore powerful as a lever for lifting the body. That is why anthropoids\nare strong and agile tree-climbers. But then watch them use those long\nhands and forearms for the varied and precise movements we have to\nperform in our daily lives, and you will see how clumsy they are.\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 10.--Showing the action of the brachialis anticus in\nthe arm of an anthropoid ape.]\n\nIn the human machine the levers of the arm have been fashioned, not for\nclimbing, but for work of another kind--the kind which brings us a\nlivelihood. We must have perfect control over our hands; the longer the\nlever of the forearm is made, the more difficult does control of the\nhand become. Hence, in the human machine the forearm is made relatively\nshort and the upper arm long.\n\nWe have just seen that the brachial muscle could at one time move the\nforearm and hand, but that when they are fixed it could then use the\nhumerus as a lever and thereby lift the weight of the body. What should\nwe think of a metal engine which could reverse its action so that it\ncould act through its piston-rod at one time and through its cylinder at\nanother? Yet that is what a great number of the muscular engines of the\nhuman machine do every day.\n\nThere is another little point, but an important one, which I must\nmention before this chapter is finished. I have spoken of the forearm\nand hand as if they formed a single solid lever. Of course that is not\nso; there are joints at the wrist where the hand can be moved on the\nforearm. But when a weight is placed in the hand, these joints became\nfixed by the action of muscles. The fixing muscles are placed in the\nforearm, both in front and behind, and are set in action the moment the\nhand is loaded. The wrist joint is fixed just in the same way as the\njoints of the foot are made rigid by muscles when it has to serve as a\nlever. Even when we take a pen in our hand and write, these engines\nwhich balance and fix the wrist have to be in action all the time. The\nsteadiness of our writing depends on how delicately they are balanced.\nLike the muscles of the foot, the fixers of the wrist may become\noverworked and exhausted, as occasionally happens in men and women who\ndo not hold their pens correctly and write for long spells day after\nday. The break-down which happens in them is called \"writer's cramp,\"\nbut it is a disaster of the same kind as that which overtakes the foot\nwhen its arch collapses, and its utility as a lever is lost.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 1: From _The Engines of the Human Body_, Chapters VI and VII.\nJ.B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, 1920; Williams and Norgate,\nLondon, 1920.]\n\n\n\n\nTHE EXPOSITION OF A MACHINE\n\nTHE MERGENTHALER LINOTYPE[2]\n\n_Philip T. Dodge_\n\n\nThe Mergenthaler Linotype machine appeared in crude form about 1886.\nThis machine differs widely from all others in that it is adapted to\nproduce the type-faces for each line properly justified on the edge of a\nsolid slug or linotype.\n\nThese slugs, automatically produced and assembled by the machine, are\nused in the same manner as other type-forms, whether for direct printing\nor for electrotyping, and are remelted after use.\n\n\nGENERAL ORGANIZATION\n\nThe general organization of the machine will first be described. After\nthis the details will be more fully explained and attention plainly\ndirected to the various parts which require special consideration.\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 1.]\n\nThe machine contains, as the vital element, about sixteen hundred\nmatrices, such as are shown in Fig. 1, each consisting of a small brass\nplate having in one edge the female character or matrix proper, and in\nthe upper end a series of teeth, used as hereinafter explained for\ndistributing the matrices after use to their proper places in the\nmagazine of the machine. There are in the machine a number of matrices\nfor each letter and also matrices representing special characters, and\nspaces or quadrats of different thicknesses for use in table-work. There\nis a series of finger keys representing the various characters and\nspaces, and the machine is so organized that on manipulating the keys it\nselects the matrices in the order in which their characters are to\nappear in print, and assembles them in a line, with wedge-shaped spaces\nor justifiers between the words. The series of matrices thus assembled\nin line forms a line matrix, or, in other words, a line of female dies\nadapted to mold or form a line of raised type on a slug cast against the\nmatrices. After the matrix line is composed, it is automatically\ntransferred to the face of a slotted mold into which molten type-metal\nis delivered to form a slug or linotype against the matrices. This done,\nthe matrices are returned to the magazine and distributed, to be again\ncomposed in new relations for succeeding lines.\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 2.]\n\nFig. 2 illustrates the general organization of the machine.\n\n_A_ represents an inclined channelled magazine in which the matrices are\nstored. Each channel has at the lower end an escapement _B_ to release\nthe matrices one at a time. Each of these escapements is connected by a\nrod _C_ and intermediate devices to one of the finger-keys in the\nkeyboard _D_. These keys represent the various characters as in a\ntypewriter. The keys are depressed in the order in which the characters\nand spaces are to appear, and the matricies, released successively from\nthe lower end of the magazine, descend between the guides _E_ to the\nsurface of an inclined travelling belt _F_, by which they are carried\ndownward and delivered successively into a channel in the upper part of\nthe assembling elevator _G_, in which they are advanced by a star-shaped\nwheel, seen at the right.\n\nThe wedge-shaped spaces or justifiers _I_ are held in a magazine _H_,\nfrom which they are delivered at proper intervals by finger-key _J_ in\nthe keyboard, so that they may pass downward and assume their proper\npositions in the line of matrices.\n\nWhen the composition of the line is completed, the assembling elevator\n_G_ is raised and the line is transferred, as indicated by dotted lines,\nfirst to the left and then downward to the casting position in front of\nthe slotted mold seated in and extending through the vertical wheel _K_,\nas shown in Figs. 2 and 3. The line of matrices is pressed against and\ncloses the front of the mold, the characters on the matrices standing\ndirectly opposite the slot in the mold, as shown. The back of the mold\ncommunicates with and is closed by the mouth of a melting-pot _M_,\ncontaining a supply of molten metal and heated by a Bunsen burner\nunderneath. Within the pot is a vertical pump-plunger which acts at the\nproper time to drive the molten metal through the perforated mouth of\nthe pot into the mold and into all the characters in the matrices. The\nmetal, solidifying, forms a slug or linotype bearing on its edge, in\nrelief, type-characters produced from the matrices. The matrices and the\npot are immediately separated from the mold, and the mold wheel rotates\nuntil the slug contained in the mold is presented in front of an ejector\nblade, where the slug is ejected from the mold through a pair of knives,\nwhich trim the sides to the required size, into the receiving galley, as\nshown in Fig. 4.\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 3.]\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 4.]\n\nAfter the line of matrices and spaces has served its purpose, it is\nraised from the casting position and moved to the right, as shown by the\ndotted lines and arrows in Fig. 2. The teeth in the upper ends of the\nmatrices are engaged with a toothed bar _R_, known as the second\nelevator. This elevator swings upward, as shown by dotted lines,\ncarrying the matrices to the level of the upper end of the magazine, and\nleaving the spaces or justifiers behind to be transferred to their\nmagazine _H_.\n\nThe distributing mechanism consists essentially of a fixed bar _T_,\nlying in a horizontal position above the upper end of the magazine, and\nhaving along its lower edge, as shown in Fig. 2, horizontal teeth to\nengage the teeth in the upper end of the matrices and hold them in\nsuspension. The teeth of the matrix for each letter differ in number or\narrangement, or both, from the teeth of matrices bearing other letters,\nand the teeth on the lower edge of the distributor bar are\ncorrespondingly varied in arrangement at different points in the length\nof the bar. (See Fig. 2.)\n\nThe matrices are moved forward into engagement with the distributor bar\nand also into engagement with the threads of horizontal screws _U_,\nwhich are extended parallel with the distributor bar and constantly\nrotated so that they cause the matrices to travel one after another\nalong the distributor and over the mouths of the channels in the\nmagazines. Each matrix is held in suspension until it arrives over its\nproper channel, where for the first time its teeth bear such relation to\nthose of the bar that it is released and permitted to fall into the\nmagazine.\n\nThe speed of the machine, which is commonly from four to five thousand\nems per hour, but which has reached ten thousand and upward in\ncompetitive trials, is due to the fact that the matrices pursue a\ncirculatory course, leaving the magazine at the lower end, passing\nthence to the line and to the casting mechanism, and finally returning\nto the top of the magazine. This permits the composition of one line,\nthe casting of another, and the distribution of a third to proceed\nsimultaneously.\n\n\nASSEMBLING AND KEYBOARD MECHANISMS\n\nThe matrices pass through the magazine by gravity. Their release is\neffected by mechanisms shown in Figs. 5 and 6, which are vertical\nsections through the magazine, the keyboard, and intermediate\nconnections. Under each channel of the magazine, there is an escapement\n_B_, consisting of a small lever rocking at its centre on a horizontal\npivot, and carrying at its opposite ends two dogs or pawls _b, b_, which\nare projected up alternately into the magazine by the motion of the\nlever. The key-rod _C_, suspended from the rear end of the escapement\n_B_, tends to hold the lower pawl _b_ in an elevated position, as shown\nin Fig. 5, so that it engages under the upper ear of the foremost matrix\nto prevent its escape.\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 5.]\n\nWhen the escapement _B_ is rocked, it withdraws the lower pawl _b_, as\nshown in Fig. 6, at the same time raising the upper pawl, so that it\nengages and momentarily arrests the next matrix. As soon as the first\nmatrix has escaped, the escapement resumes its original position, the\nupper pawl falling, while the lower one rises so as to hold the second\nmatrix, which assumes the position previously occupied by the one\nreleased.\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 6.]\n\nThus it is that the alternate rising and falling of the two escapement\npawls permits the matrices to escape one at a time. It is evident that\nthe escapements could be operated directly by rods connected with the\nfinger-keys, but this direct connection is objectionable because of the\nlabor required on the part of the operator, and the danger that the keys\nmay not be fully depressed. Moreover, it is essential that the\nescapements should act individually with moderate speed to the end that\nthe matrices may be properly engaged and disengaged by the pawls. For\nthese reasons, and to secure easy and uniform action of the parts, the\nmechanism shown in Figs. 5 and 6 is introduced between the finger-keys\nand escapements. The vertical rods _C_, which actuate the escapements,\nare guided in the main frame, and each is urged downward by a spring\n_c_. Each rod _C_ terminates directly over one end of a rising and\nfalling yoke-bar _c2_, turning on a pivot _c3_ at the opposite\nend. Each of the yokes _c2_ is slotted vertically to admit an\neccentric _c4_ turning on a pivot therein. A constantly rotating\nrubber-covered roll _c5_ is extended across the entire keyboard\nbeneath the cams, which stand normally as shown in Fig. 5, out of\ncontact with the roll. When the parts are in this position, the cam-yoke\nis sustained at its free end by the yoke-trigger _c8_, and a\ncross-bar in the cam engages a vertical pin _c7_ on the frame,\nwhereby the cam is prevented from falling on to the roller, as it has a\ntendency to do. Each of the yoke-triggers _c6_ is connected with a\nvertical bar _c8_, which is in turn connected to the rear end of a\nfinger-key lever _D_. The parts stand normally at rest in the position\nshown in Fig. 5, the roll _c5_ turning freely under the cam without\neffect upon it.\n\nWhen the finger-key is depressed, it raises the bar _c8_, which in\nturn trips the yoke-trigger _c6_ from under the cam-yoke _c2_,\npermitting the latter to fall, thereby lowering the cam _c4_ into\nperipheral engagement with the rubber roll, at the same time disengaging\nthe cam from the stop-pin _c7_. The roll, engaging frictionally with\nthe cam, causes the latter to turn on its centre in the direction\nindicated by the arrow in Fig. 6.\n\nOwing to the eccentric shape of the cam, its rotation while resting on\nthe roller causes it to lift the yoke _c2_ above its original\nposition, so that it acts upon the escapement rod _C_, lifting it and\ncausing it to reverse the position of the escapement _B_, to release the\nmatrix, as plainly seen in Fig. 6.\n\nWhile this is taking place, the yoke-trigger _c6_ resumes its first\nposition, as shown in dotted lines in Fig. 6, so that as the rotating\ncam lowers the yoke, it is again supported in its first position, the\ncam at the same time turning forward by momentum out of engagement with\nthe roll until arrested in its original position by the pin _c7_.\n\nIt will be observed that the parts between each key lever and escapement\noperate independently of the others, so that a number of cams may be in\nengagement with the rollers at one time, and a number of escapements at\ndifferent stages of their action at one time.\n\nThe matrices falling from the magazine descend through the front\nchannels and are received on the inclined belt _F_, on which they are\ncarried over and guided on the upper rounding surface of the assembler\nentrance-block _f1_, by which they are guided downward in front of\nthe star-wheel _f2_, which pushes them forward one after another.\n\nThe spaces or justifiers _I_, released from their magazine _H_, as\nheretofore described, descend into the assembler _G_ in front of the\nstar-wheel in the same manner as the matrices.\n\nThe line in course of composition is sustained at its front end by a\nyielding finger or resistant _g_, secured to a horizontal assembler\nslide _g2_, the purpose of these parts being to hold the line\ntogether in compact form.\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 7.]\n\nAs the matrices approach the line, their upper ends are carried over a\nspring _g3_, projecting through the assembler face-plate from the\nrear, as shown in Fig. 7, its purpose being to hold the matrices forward\nand prevent them from falling back in such a manner that succeeding\nmatrices and spaces or justifiers will pass improperly ahead of them.\nThe descending matrices also pass beneath a long depending spring\n_g4_, which should be so adjusted as barely to permit the passage of\nthe thickest matrix.\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 8.]\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 9.]\n\nAfter the composition of the line is completed in the assembling\nelevator _G_, as shown in Fig. 8, the elevator is raised as shown in\nFig. 9, so as to present the line between the depending fingers of the\ntransfer-carriage _N_, which then moves to the left to the position\nshown by dotted lines in Fig. 9, thereby bringing the line into the\nfirst elevator _O_, which then descends, carrying the line of matrices\ndownwards, as shown in Fig. 10, to its position in front of the mold and\nbetween the confining jaws _P_, _P_, mounted in the main frame, which\ndetermine the length of the line.\n\nFigs. 11 and 12 show the casting mechanism in vertical section from\nfront to rear. When the first elevator _O_ lowers the line, as just\ndescribed, the mold and the pot _M_ stand in their rearward positions,\nas shown in Fig. 11.\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 10.]\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 11.]\n\nThe mold-carrying wheel is sustained by a horizontal slide, and as soon\nas the matrix line is lowered to the casting position, a cam at the\nrear pushes the slide and mold wheel forward until the front face of the\nmold is closed tightly against the rear face of the matrix line, as\nshown in Fig. 12.\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 12.]\n\nWhile this is taking place, the pot, having its supporting legs mounted\non a horizontal shaft, swings forward until its mouth is closed tightly\nagainst the back of the mold, as shown in Fig. 12. While the parts are\nin this position, the justifying bar _Q_ is driven up and pushes the\nspaces or justifiers upward through the line of matrices until the line\nis expanded or elongated to fill completely the gap between jaws _P_,\n_P_.\n\nIn order to secure exact alignment of the matrices vertically and\nhorizontally, the bar _Q_ acts repeatedly on the spaces, and the line\nis slightly unlocked endwise and relocked. This is done that the\nmatrices may be temporarily released to facilitate the accurate\nadjustment demanded. While the justified line is locked fast between the\njaws, the elevator, and the mold, the plunger _m2_ in the pot\ndescends and drives the molten metal before it through the spout or\nmouth of the pot into the mold, which is filled under pressure, so that\na solid slug is produced against the matrices. The pot then retreats,\nand its mouth breaks away from the back of the slug in the mold, while,\nat the same time, the mold retreats to draw the type-characters on the\ncontained slug out of the matrices. The mold wheel now revolves,\ncarrying the rear edge of the slug past a stationary trimming-knife, not\nshown, and around to the position in front of the ejector, as previously\ndescribed and shown in Fig. 4, whereupon the ejector advances and drives\nthe slug between two side trimming-knives into the galley at the front.\n\n\nDISTRIBUTION\n\nAfter the casting action the first elevator _O_ rises and carries the\nmatrix line above the original or composing level, as shown in Fig. 13.\nThe line is then drawn horizontally to the right until the teeth of the\nmatrices engage the toothed elevator bar _R_, which swings upward with\nthe matrices, thus separating the matrices from the spaces or justifiers\n_I_, which remain suspended in the frame, so that they may be pushed to\nthe right, as indicated by the arrow, into their magazine.\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 13.]\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 14.]\n\nWhen the line of matrices is raised to the distributor, it is necessary\nthat the matrices shall be separated and presented one at a time to the\ndistributor bar, between the threads of the horizontal carrier-screws.\nThis is accomplished as shown in Figs. 14 and 15. A horizontal pusher or\nline-shifter _S_ carries the line of matrices forward from the elevator\nbar _R_ into the so-called distributor box, containing at its opposite\nsides two rails _u_, having near their forward ends shoulders _u2_,\nagainst which the forward matrix abuts so as to prevent further advance\nof the line, which is urged constantly forward by the follower or\nline-shifter _S_. A vertically reciprocating lifting finger _V_ has its\nupper end shouldered to engage beneath the foremost matrix, so as to\npush it upward until its upper ears are lifted above the detaining\nshoulder _u2_, so that they may ride forward on the upwardly inclined\ninner ends of the rails, as shown in Fig. 14. The matrices thus lifted\nare engaged by the screws and carried forward, and, as they move\nforward, they are gradually raised by the rails until the teeth finally\nengage themselves on the distributor bar _T_, from which they are\nsuspended as they are carried forward, over the mouth of the magazine,\nuntil they fall into their respective channels, as shown in Fig. 15.\n\nThe distributor box also contains on opposite sides shorter rails,\n_u4_, adapted to engage the lower ends of the matrices, to hold them\nin position as they are lifted. The lifting finger _V_ is mounted on a\nhorizontal pivot in one end of an elbow lever mounted on pivot _v2_\nand actuated by a cam on the end of one of the carrier-screws, as shown\nin Figs. 2 and 15.\n\n\nTRIMMING-KNIVES\n\nIn practice there is occasionally found a slight irregularity in the\nthickness of slugs, and thin fins are sometimes cast around the forward\nedges. For the purpose of reducing them to a uniform thickness, they are\ndriven on their way to the galley between two vertical knives, as shown\nin Figs. 4 and 16. The inner knife is stationary, but the outer knife is\nadjustable in order that it may accommodate slugs of different\nthicknesses. This adjustment is made by the knife being seated at its\nouter edge against a supporting bar or wedge, having at opposite ends\ntwo inclined surfaces seated against supporting screws in the\nknife-block. A lever engages a pin on the wedge for the purpose of\nmoving it endwise; when moving in one direction, it forces the knife\ninward toward the stationary knife, and when moved in the other\ndirection, it forces it to retreat under the influence of a spring\nseated in the block. The wedge is provided with a series of teeth\nengaged by a spring-actuated pin or dog, whereby the wedge and the knife\nare stopped in proper positions to insure the exact space required\nbetween the two knives.\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 15.]\n\nThe back knife, secured to the frame for trimming the base of the slug\nas it is carried past by the revolving wheel, should be kept moderately\nsharp and adjusted so as to fit closely against the back of the passing\nmold. Particular attention should be paid to this feature. The edge of\nthe knife must bear uniformly across the face of the mold.\n\n[Illustration: Fig. 16.]\n\nThe front knives, between which the slug is ejected, should not be made\ntoo sharp. After being sharpened, the thin edge can be advantageously\nremoved by the use of a thin oilstone applied against the side face;\nthat is, against the face past which the slug is carried.\n\nThe stationary or left-hand knife should be so adjusted as to align\nexactly with the inner side of the mold. Under proper conditions this\nknife does not trim the side face of the slug, but acts only to remove\nany slight fins or projections at the front edge.\n\nThe right-hand knife, adjustable by means of a wedge and lever, should\nstand exactly parallel with the stationary knife. It trims the side of\nthe slug on which the ribs are formed, and it serves to bring the slug\nto the exact thickness required.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 2: From Theodore L. De Vinne's _Modern Methods of Book\nComposition_, pp. 403-425. The Century Company, New York, 1904.]\n\n\n\n\nTHE EXPOSITION OF A PROCESS IN NATURE\n\nTHE PEA WEEVIL[3]\n\n_Jean Henri Fabre_\n\n\nPeas are held in high esteem by mankind. From remote ages man has\nendeavored, by careful culture, to produce larger, tenderer, and sweeter\nvarieties. Of an adaptable character, under careful treatment the plant\nhas evolved in a docile fashion, and has ended by giving us what the\nambition of the gardener desired. To-day we have gone far beyond the\nyield of the Varrons and Columelles, and further still beyond the\noriginal pea; from the wild seeds confided to the soil by the first man\nwho thought to scratch up the surface of the earth, perhaps with the\nhalf-jaw of a cave-bear, whose powerful canine tooth would serve him as\na ploughshare!\n\nWhere is it, this original pea, in the world of spontaneous vegetation?\nOur own country has nothing resembling it. Is it to be found elsewhere?\nOn this point botany is silent, or replies only with vague\nprobabilities.\n\nWe find the same ignorance elsewhere on the subject of the majority of\nour alimentary vegetables. Whence comes wheat, the blessed grain which\ngives us bread? No one knows. You will not find it here, except in the\ncare of man; nor will you find it abroad. In the East, the birthplace\nof agriculture, no botanist has ever encountered the sacred ear growing\nof itself on unbroken soil.\n\nBarley, oats, and rye, the turnip and the beet, the beetroot, the\ncarrot, the pumpkin, and so many other vegetable products, leave us in\nthe same perplexity; their point of departure is unknown to us, or at\nmost suspected behind the impenetrable cloud of the centuries. Nature\ndelivered them to us in the full vigor of the thing untamed, when their\nvalue as food was indifferent, as to-day she offers us the sloe, the\nbullace, the blackberry, the crab; she gave them to us in the state of\nimperfect sketches, for us to fill out and complete; it was for our\nskill and our labor patiently to induce the nourishing pulp which was\nthe earliest form of capital, whose interest is always increasing in the\nprimordial bank of the tiller of the soil.\n\nAs storehouses of food the cereal and the vegetable are, for the greater\npart, the work of man. The fundamental species, a poor resource in their\noriginal state, we borrowed as they were from the natural treasury of\nthe vegetable world; the perfected race, rich in alimentary materials,\nis the result of our art.\n\nIf wheat, peas, and all the rest are indispensable to us, our care, by a\njust return, is absolutely necessary to them. Such as our needs have\nmade them, incapable of resistance in the bitter struggle for survival,\nthese vegetables, left to themselves without culture, would rapidly\ndisappear, despite the numerical abundance of their seeds, as the\nfoolish sheep would disappear were there no more sheep-folds.\n\nThey are our work, but not always our exclusive property. Wherever food\nis amassed, the consumers collect from the four corners of the sky; they\ninvite themselves to the feast of abundance, and the richer the food the\ngreater their numbers. Man, who alone is capable of inducing agrarian\nabundance, is by that very fact the giver of an immense banquet at which\nlegions of feasters take their place. By creating more juicy and more\ngenerous fruits, he calls to his enclosures, despite himself, thousands\nand thousands of hungry creatures, against whose appetites his\nprohibitions are helpless. The more he produces, the larger is the\ntribute demanded of him. Wholesale agriculture and vegetable abundance\nfavor our rival, the insect.\n\nThis is the immanent law. Nature, with an equal zeal, offers her mighty\nbreast to all her nurslings alike; to those who live by the goods of\nothers no less than to the producers. For us, who plough, sow, and reap,\nand weary ourselves with labor, she ripens the wheat; she ripens it also\nfor the little Calender-beetle, which, although exempted from the labor\nof the fields, enters our granaries none the less, and there, with its\npointed beak, nibbles our wheat, grain by grain, to the husk.\n\nFor us, who dig, weed, and water, bent with fatigue and burned by the\nsun, she swells the pods of the pea; she swells them also for the\nweevil, which does no gardener's work, yet takes its share of the\nharvest at its own hour, when the earth is joyful with the new life of\nspring.\n\nLet us follow the manoeuvres of this insect which takes its tithe of the\ngreen pea. I, a benevolent rate-payer, will allow it to take its dues;\nit is precisely to benefit it that I have sown a few rows of the beloved\nplant in a corner of my garden. Without other invitation on my part than\nthis modest expenditure of seed-peas, it arrives punctually during the\nmonth of May. It has learned that this stony soil, rebellious at the\nculture of the kitchen-gardener, is bearing peas for the first time. In\nall haste therefore it has hurried, an agent of the entomological\nrevenue system, to demand its dues.\n\nWhence does it come? It is impossible to say precisely. It has come from\nsome shelter, somewhere, in which it has passed the winter in a state of\ntorpor. The plane-tree, which sheds its rind during the heats of the\nsummer, furnishes an excellent refuge for homeless insects under its\npartly detached sheets of bark.\n\nI have often found our weevil in such a winter refuge. Sheltered under\nthe dead covering of the plane, or otherwise protected while the winter\nlasts, it awakens from its torpor at the first touch of a kindly sun.\nThe almanac of the instincts has aroused it; it knows as well as the\ngardener when the pea-vines are in flower, and seeks its favorite plant,\njourneying thither from every side, running with quick, short steps, or\nnimbly flying.\n\nA small head, a fine snout, a costume of ashen grey sprinkled with\nbrown, flattened wing-covers, a dumpy, compact body, with two large\nblack dots on the rear segment--such is the summary portrait of my\nvisitor. The middle of May approaches, and with it the van of the\ninvasion.\n\nThey settle on the flowers, which are not unlike white-winged\nbutterflies. I see them at the base of the blossom or inside the cavity\nof the \"keel\" of the flower, but the majority explore the petals and\ntake possession of them. The time for laying the eggs has not yet\narrived. The morning is mild; the sun is warm without being oppressive.\nIt is the moment of nuptial flights; the time of rejoicing in the\nsplendor of the sunshine. Everywhere are creatures rejoicing to be\nalive. Couples come together, part, and re-form. When towards noon the\nheat becomes too great, the weevils retire into the shadow, taking\nrefuge singly in the folds of the flowers whose secret corners they know\nso well. To-morrow will be another day of festival, and the next day\nalso, until the pods, emerging from the shelter of the \"keel\" of the\nflower, are plainly visible, enlarging from day to day.\n\nA few gravid females, more pressed for time than the others, confide\ntheir eggs to the growing pod, flat and meager as it issues from its\nfloral sheath. These hastily laid batches of eggs, expelled perhaps by\nthe exigencies of an ovary incapable of further delay, seem to me in\nserious danger; for the seed in which the grub must establish itself is\nas yet no more than a tender speck of green, without firmness and\nwithout any farinaceous tissue. No larva could possibly find sufficient\nnourishment there, unless it waited for the pea to mature.\n\nBut is the grub capable of fasting for any length of time when once\nhatched? It is doubtful. The little I have seen tells me that the\nnewborn grub must establish itself in the midst of its food as quickly\nas possible, and that it perishes unless it can do so. I am therefore of\nopinion that such eggs as are deposited in immature pods are lost.\nHowever, the race will hardly suffer by such a loss, so fertile is the\nlittle beetle. We shall see directly how prodigal the female is of her\neggs, the majority of which are destined to perish.\n\nThe important part of the maternal task is completed by the end of May,\nwhen the shells are swollen by the expanding peas, which have reached\ntheir final growth, or are but little short of it. I was anxious to see\nthe female Bruchus at work in her quality of Curculionid, as our\nclassification declares her.[4] The other weevils are Rhyncophora,\nbeaked insects, armed with a drill with which to prepare the hole in\nwhich the egg is laid. The Bruchus possesses only a short snout or\nmuzzle, excellently adapted for eating soft tissues, but valueless as a\ndrill.\n\nThe method of installing the family is consequently absolutely\ndifferent. There are no industrious preparations as with the Balinidae,\nthe Larinidae, and the Rhynchitides. Not being equipped with a long\noviscapt, the mother sows her eggs in the open, with no protection\nagainst the heat of the sun and the variations of temperature. Nothing\ncould be simpler, and nothing more perilous to the eggs, in the absence\nof special characteristics which, would enable them to resist the\nalternate trials of heat and cold, moisture and drought.\n\nIn the caressing sunlight of ten o'clock in the morning, the mother runs\nup and down the chosen pod, first on one side, then on the other, with\na jerky, capricious, unmethodical gait. She repeatedly extrudes a short\noviduct, which oscillates right and left as though to graze the skin of\nthe pod. An egg follows, which is abandoned as soon as laid.\n\nA hasty touch of the oviduct, first here, then there, on the green skin\nof the pea-pod, and that is all. The egg is left there, unprotected, in\nthe full sunlight. No choice of position is made such as might assist\nthe grub when it seeks to penetrate its larder. Some eggs are laid on\nthe swellings created by the peas beneath; others in the barren valleys\nwhich separate them. The first are close to the peas, the second at some\ndistance from them. In short, the eggs of the Bruchus are laid at\nrandom, as though on the wing.\n\nWe observe a still more serious vice: the number of eggs is out of all\nproportion to the number of peas in the pod. Let us note at the outset\nthat each grub requires one pea; it is the necessary ration, and is\nlargely sufficient for one larva, but is not enough for several, nor\neven for two. One pea to each grub, neither more nor less, is the\nunchangeable rule.\n\nWe should expect to find signs of a procreative economy which would\nimpel the female to take into account the number of peas contained in\nthe pod which she has just explored; we might expect her to set a\nnumerical limit on her eggs in conformity with that of the peas\navailable. But no such limit is observed. The rule of one pea to one\ngrub is always contradicted by the multiplicity of consumers.\n\nMy observations are unanimous on this point. The number of eggs\ndeposited on one pod always exceeds the number of peas available, and\noften to a scandalous degree. However meager the contents of the pod,\nthere is a superabundance of consumers. Dividing the sum of the eggs\nupon such or such a pod by that of the peas contained therein, I find\nthere are five to eight claimants for each pea; I have found ten, and\nthere is no reason why this prodigality should not go still further.\nMany are called, but few are chosen! What is to become of all these\nsupernumeraries, perforce excluded from the banquet for want of space?\n\nThe eggs are of a fairly bright amber yellow, cylindrical in form,\nsmooth, and rounded at the ends. Their length is at most a twenty-fifth\nof an inch. Each is affixed to the pod by means of a slight network of\nthreads of coagulated albumen. Neither wind nor rain can loosen their\nhold.\n\nThe mother not infrequently emits them two at a time, one above the\nother; not infrequently, also, the uppermost of the two eggs hatches\nbefore the other, while the latter fades and perishes. What was lacking\nto this egg, that it should fail to produce a grub? Perhaps a bath of\nsunlight; the incubating heat of which the outer egg has robbed it.\nWhether on account of the fact that it is shadowed by the other egg, or\nfor other reasons, the elder of the eggs in a group of two rarely\nfollows the normal course, but perishes on the pod, dead without having\nlived.\n\nThere are exceptions to this premature end; sometimes the two eggs\ndevelop equally well; but such cases are exceptional, so that the\nBruchid family would be reduced to about half its dimensions if the\nbinary system were the rule. To the detriment of our peas and to the\nadvantage of the beetle, the eggs are commonly laid one by one and in\nisolation.\n\nA recent emergence is shown by a little sinuous ribbon-like mark, pale\nor whitish, where the skin of the pod is raised and withered, which\nstarts from the egg and is the work of the newborn larva; a\nsub-epidermic tunnel along which the grub works its way, while seeking a\npoint from which it can escape into a pea. This point once attained, the\nlarva, which is scarcely a twenty-fifth of an inch in length, and is\nwhite with a black head, perforates the envelope and plunges into the\ncapacious hollow of the pod.\n\nIt has reached the peas and crawls upon the nearest. I have observed it\nwith the magnifier. Having explored the green globe, its new world, it\nbegins to sink a well perpendicularly into the sphere. I have often seen\nit halfway in, wriggling its tail in the effort to work the quicker. In\na short time the grub disappears and is at home. The point of entry,\nminute, but always easily recognizable by its brown coloration on the\npale green background of the pea, has no fixed location; it may be at\nalmost any point on the surface of the pea, but an exception is usually\nmade of the lower half; that is, the hemisphere whose pole is formed by\nthe supporting stem.\n\nIt is precisely in this portion that the germ is found, which will not\nbe eaten by the larva, and will remain capable of developing into a\nplant, in spite of the large aperture made by the emergence of the adult\ninsect. Why is this particular portion left untouched? What are the\nmotives that safeguard the germ?\n\nIt goes without saying that the Bruchus is not considering the\ngardener. The pea is meant for it and for no one else. In refusing the\nfew bites that would lead to the death of the seed, it has no intention\nof limiting its destruction. It abstains from other motives.\n\nLet us remark that the peas touch laterally, and are pressed one against\nthe other, so that the grub, when searching for a point of attack,\ncannot circulate at will. Let us also note that the lower pole expands\ninto the umbilical excrescence, which is less easy of perforation than\nthose parts protected by the skin alone. It is even possible that the\numbilicum, whose organization differs from that of the rest of the pea,\ncontains a peculiar sap that is distasteful to the little grub.\n\nSuch, doubtless, is the reason why the peas exploited by the Bruchus are\nstill able to germinate. They are damaged, but not dead, because the\ninvasion was conducted from the free hemisphere, a portion less\nvulnerable and more easy of access. Moreover, as the pea in its entirety\nis too large for a single grub to consume, the consumption is limited to\nthe portion preferred by the consumer, and this portion is not the\nessential portion of the pea.\n\nWith other conditions, with very much smaller or very much larger seeds,\nwe shall observe very different results. If too small, the germ will\nperish, gnawed like the rest by the insufficiently provisioned inmate;\nif too large, the abundance of food will permit of several inmates.\nExploited in the absence of the pea, the cultivated vetch and the broad\nbean afford us an excellent example; the smaller seed, of which all but\nthe skin is devoured, is left incapable of germination; but the large\nbean, even though it may have held a number of grubs, is still capable\nof sprouting.\n\nKnowing that the pod always exhibits a number of eggs greatly in excess\nof the enclosed peas, and that each pea is the exclusive property of one\ngrub, we naturally ask what becomes of the superfluous grubs. Do they\nperish outside when the more precocious have one by one taken their\nplaces in their vegetable larder? or do they succumb to the intolerant\nteeth of the first occupants? Neither explanation is correct. Let us\nrelate the facts.\n\nOn all old peas--they are at this stage dry--from which the adult\nBruchus has emerged, leaving a large round hole of exit, the\nmagnifying-glass will show a variable number of fine reddish\npunctuations, perforated in the centre. What are these spots, of which I\ncount five, six, and even more on a single pea? It is impossible to be\nmistaken: they are the points of entry of as many grubs. Several grubs\nhave entered the pea, but of the whole group only one has survived,\nfattened, and attained the adult age. And the others? We shall see.\n\nAt the end of May, and in June, the period of egg-laying, let us inspect\nthe still green and tender peas. Nearly all the peas invaded show us the\nmultiple perforations already observed on the dry peas abandoned by the\nweevils. Does this actually mean that there are several grubs in the\npea? Yes. Skin the peas in question, separate the cotyledons, and break\nthem up as may be necessary. We shall discover several grubs, extremely\nyouthful, curled up comma-wise, fat and lively, each in a little round\nniche in the body of the pea.\n\nPeace and welfare seem to reign in the little community. There is no\nquarrelling, no jealousy between neighbors. The feast has commenced;\nfood is abundant, and the feasters are separated one from another by the\nwalls of uneaten substance. With this isolation in separate cells no\nconflicts need be feared; no sudden bite of the mandibles, whether\nintentional or accidental. All the occupants enjoy the same rights of\nproperty, the same appetite, and the same strength. How does this\ncommunal feast terminate?\n\nHaving first opened them, I place a number of peas which are found to be\nwell peopled in a glass test-tube. I open others daily. In this way I\nkeep myself informed as to the progress of the various larvae. At first\nnothing noteworthy is to be seen. Isolated in its narrow chamber, each\ngrub nibbles the substance around it, peacefully and parsimoniously. It\nis still very small; a mere speck of food is a feast; but the contents\nof one pea will not suffice the whole number to the end. Famine is\nahead, and all but one must perish.\n\nSoon, indeed, the aspect of things is entirely changed. One of the\ngrubs--that which occupies the central position in the pea--begins to\ngrow more quickly than the others. Scarcely has it surpassed the others\nin size when the latter cease to eat, and no longer attempt to burrow\nforwards. They lie motionless and resigned; they die that gentle death\nwhich comes to unconscious lives. Henceforth the entire pea belongs to\nthe sole survivor. Now what has happened that these lives around the\nprivileged one should be thus annihilated? In default of a satisfactory\nreply, I will propose a suggestion.\n\nIn the centre of the pea, less ripened than the rest of the seed by the\nchemistry of the sun, may there not be a softer pulp, of a quality\nbetter adapted to the infantile digestion of the grub? There, perhaps,\nbeing nourished by tenderer, sweeter, and perhaps, more tasty tissues,\nthe stomach becomes more vigorous, until it is fit to undertake less\neasily digested food. A nursling is fed on milk before proceeding to\nbread and broth. May not the central portion of the pea be the\nfeeding-bottle of the Bruchid?\n\nWith equal rights, fired by an equal ambition, all the occupants of the\npea bore their way towards the delicious morsel. The journey is\nlaborious, and the grubs must rest frequently in their provisional\nniches. They rest; while resting they frugally gnaw the riper tissues\nsurrounding them; they gnaw rather to open a way than to fill their\nstomachs.\n\nFinally one of the excavators, favored by the direction taken, attains\nthe central portion. It establishes itself there, and all is over; the\nothers have only to die. How are they warned that the place is taken? Do\nthey hear their brother gnawing at the walls of his lodging? can they\nfeel the vibration set up by his nibbling mandibles? Something of the\nkind must happen, for from that moment they make no attempt to burrow\nfurther. Without struggling against the fortunate winner, without\nseeking to dislodge him, those which are beaten in the race give\nthemselves up to death. I admire this candid resignation on the part of\nthe departed.\n\nAnother condition--that of space--is also present as a factor. The pea\nweevil is the largest of our Bruchidae. When it attains the adult\nstage, it requires a certain amplitude of lodging, which the other\nweevils do not require in the same degree. A pea provides it with a\nsufficiently spacious cell; nevertheless, the cohabitation of two in one\npea would be impossible; there would be no room, even were the two to\nput up with a certain discomfort. Hence the necessity of an inevitable\ndecimation, which will suppress all the competitors save one.\n\nNow the superior volume of the broad bean, which is almost as much\nbeloved by the weevil as the pea, can lodge a considerable community,\nand the solitary can live as a cenobite. Without encroaching on the\ndomain of their neighbors, five or six or more can find room in the one\nbean.\n\nMoreover, each grub can find its infant diet; that is, that layer which,\nremote from the surface, hardens only gradually and remains full of sap\nuntil a comparatively late period. This inner layer represents the crumb\nof a loaf, the rest of the bean being the crust.\n\nIn a pea, a sphere of much less capacity, it occupies the central\nportion; a limited point at which the grub develops, and lacking which\nit perishes; but in the bean it lines the wide adjoining faces of the\ntwo flattened cotyledons. No matter where the point of attack is made,\nthe grub has only to bore straight down when it quickly reaches the\nsofter tissues. What is the result? I have counted the eggs adhering to\na bean-pod and the beans included in the pod, and comparing the two\nfigures I find that there is plenty of room for the whole family at the\nrate of five or six dwellers in each bean. No superfluous larvae perish\nof hunger when barely issued from the egg; all have their share of the\nample provision; all live and prosper. The abundance of food balances\nthe prodigal fertility of the mother.\n\nIf the Bruchus were always to adopt the broad bean for the establishment\nof her family, I could well understand the exuberant allowance of eggs\nto one pod; a rich foodstuff easily obtained evokes a large batch of\neggs. But the case of the pea perplexes me. By what aberration does the\nmother abandon her children to starvation on this totally insufficient\nvegetable? Why so many grubs to each pea when one pea is sufficient only\nfor one grub?\n\nMatters are not so arranged in the general balance-sheet of life. A\ncertain foresight seems to rule over the ovary so that the number of\nmouths is in proportion to the abundance or scarcity of the food\nconsumed. The Scarabaeus, the Sphex, the Necrophorus, and other insects\nwhich prepare and preserve alimentary provision for their families, are\nall of a narrowly limited fertility, because the balls of dung, the dead\nor paralyzed insects, or the buried corpses of animals on which their\noffspring are nourished are provided only at the cost of laborious\nefforts.\n\nThe ordinary bluebottle, on the contrary, which lays her eggs upon\nbutcher's meat or carrion, lays them in enormous batches. Trusting in\nthe inexhaustible riches represented by the corpse, she is prodigal of\noffspring, and takes no account of numbers. In other cases the provision\nis acquired by audacious brigandage, which exposes the newly born\noffspring to a thousand mortal accidents. In such cases the mother\nbalances the chances of destruction by an exaggerated flux of eggs.\nSuch is the case with the Meloides, which, stealing the goods of others\nunder conditions of the greatest peril, are accordingly endowed with a\nprodigious fertility.\n\nThe Bruchus knows neither the fatigues of the laborious, obliged to\nlimit the size of her family, nor the misfortunes of the parasite,\nobliged to produce an exaggerated number of offspring. Without painful\nsearch, entirely at her ease, merely moving in the sunshine over her\nfavorite plant, she can insure a sufficient provision for each of her\noffspring; she can do so, yet is foolish enough to over-populate the pod\nof the pea; a nursery insufficiently provided, in which the great\nmajority will perish of starvation. This ineptitude is a thing I cannot\nunderstand; it clashes too completely with the habitual foresight of the\nmaternal instinct.\n\nI am inclined to believe that the pea is not the original food plant of\nthe Bruchus. The original plant must rather have been the bean, one seed\nof which is capable of supporting a dozen or more larvae. With the\nlarger cotyledon the crying disproportion between the number of eggs and\nthe available provision disappears.\n\nMoreover, it is indubitable that the bean is of earlier date than the\npea. Its exceptional size and its agreeable flavor would certainly have\nattracted the attention of man from the remotest periods. The bean is a\nready-made mouthful, and would be of the greatest value to the hungry\ntribe. Primitive man would at an early date have sown it beside his\nwattled hut. Coming from Central Asia by long stages, their wagons drawn\nby shaggy oxen and rolling on the circular discs cut from the trunks of\ntrees, the early immigrants would have brought to our virgin land, first\nthe bean, then the pea, and finally the cereal, that best of safeguards\nagainst famine. They taught us the care of herds, and the use of bronze,\nthe material of the first metal implement. Thus the dawn of civilization\narose over France. With the bean did those ancient teachers also\ninvoluntarily bring us the insect which to-day disputes it with us? It\nis doubtful; the Bruchidae seem to be indigenous. At all events, I find\nthem levying tribute from various indigenous plants, wild vegetables\nwhich have never tempted the appetite of man. They abound in particular\nupon the great forest vetch (_Lathyrus latifolius_), with its\nmagnificent heads of flowers and long handsome pods. The seeds are not\nlarge, being indeed smaller than the garden pea; but, eaten to the very\nskin, as they invariably are, each is sufficient to the needs of its\ngrub.\n\nWe must not fail to note their number. I have counted more than twenty\nin a single pod, a number unknown in the case of the pea, even in the\nmost prolific varieties. Consequently this superb vetch is in general\nable to nourish without much loss the family confided to its pod.\n\nWhere the forest vetch is lacking, the Bruchus, none the less, bestows\nits habitual prodigality of eggs upon another vegetable of similar\nflavor, but incapable of nourishing all the grubs: for example, the\ntravelling vetch (_Vicia peregrina_) or the cultivated vetch (_Vicia\nsaliva_). The number of eggs remains high even upon insufficient pods,\nbecause the original food-plant offered a copious provision, both in the\nmultiplicity and the size of the seeds. If the Bruchus is really a\nstranger, let us regard the bean as the original food-plant; if\nindigenous, the large vetch.\n\nSometime in the remote past we received the pea, growing it at first in\nthe prehistoric vegetable garden which already supplied the bean. It was\nfound a better article of diet than the broad bean, which to-day, after\nsuch good service, is comparatively neglected. The weevil was of the\nsame opinion as man, and without entirely forgetting the bean and the\nvetch it established the greater part of its tribe upon the pea, which\nfrom century to century was more widely cultivated. To-day we have to\nshare our peas; the Bruchidae take what they need, and bestow their\nleavings on us.\n\nThis prosperity of the insect which is the offspring of the abundance\nand equality of our garden products is from another point of view\nequivalent to decadence. For the weevil, as for ourselves, progress in\nmatters of food and drink is not always beneficial. The race would\nprofit better if it remained frugal. On the bean and the vetch the\nBruchus founded colonies in which the infant mortality was low. There\nwas room for all. On the pea-vine, delicious though its fruits may be,\nthe greater part of its offspring die of starvation. The rations are\nfew, and the hungry mouths are multitudinous.\n\nWe will linger over this problem no longer. Let us observe the grub\nwhich has now become the sole tenant of the pea by the death of its\nbrothers. It has had no part in their death; chance has favored it, that\nis all. In the centre of the pea, a wealthy solitude, it performs the\nduty of a grub, the sole duty of eating. It nibbles the walls enclosing\nit, enlarging its lodgment, which is always entirely filled by its\ncorpulent body. It is well shaped, fat, and shining with health. If I\ndisturb it, it turns gently in its niche and sways its head. This is its\nmanner of complaining of my importunities. Let us leave it in peace.\n\nIt profits so greatly and so swiftly by its position that by the time\nthe dog-days have come it is already preparing for its approaching\nliberation. The adult is not sufficiently well equipped to open for\nitself a way out through the pea, which is now completely hardened. The\nlarva knows of this future helplessness, and with consummate art\nprovides for its release. With its powerful mandibles it bores a channel\nof exit, exactly round, with extremely clean-cut sides. The most skilful\nivory-carver could do no better.\n\nTo prepare the door of exit in advance is not enough; the grub must also\nprovide for the tranquillity essential to the delicate processes of\nnymphosis. An intruder might enter by the open door and injure the\nhelpless nymph. This passage must therefore remain closed. But how?\n\nAs the grub bores the passage of exit, it consumes the farinaceous\nmatter without leaving a crumb. Having come to the skin of the pea, it\nstops short. This membrane, semi-translucid, is the door to the chamber\nof metamorphosis, its protection against the evil intentions of external\ncreatures.\n\nIt is also the only obstacle which the adult will encounter at the\nmoment of exit. To lessen the difficulty of opening it, the grub takes\nthe precaution of gnawing at the inner side of the skin, all round the\ncircumference, so as to make a line of least resistance. The perfect\ninsect will only have to heave with its shoulder and strike a few blows\nwith its head in order to raise the circular door and knock it off like\nthe lid of a box. The passage of exit shows through the diaphanous skin\nof the pea as a large circular spot, which is darkened by the obscurity\nof the interior. What passes behind it is invisible, hidden as, it is\nbehind a sort of ground-glass window.\n\nA pretty invention, this little closed porthole, this barricade against\nthe invader, this trap-door raised by a push when the time has come for\nthe hermit to enter the world. Shall we credit it to the Bruchus? Did\nthe ingenious insect conceive the undertaking? Did it think out a plan\nand work out a scheme of its own devising? This would be no small\ntriumph for the brain of a weevil. Before coming to a conclusion, let us\ntry an experiment.\n\nI deprive certain occupied peas of their skin, and I dry them with\nabnormal rapidity, placing them in glass test-tubes. The grubs prosper\nas well as in the intact peas. At the proper time the preparations for\nemergence are made.\n\nIf the grub acts on its own inspiration, if it ceases to prolong its\nboring directly it recognizes that the outer coating, auscultated from\ntime to time, is sufficiently thin, what will it do under the conditions\nof the present test? Feeling itself at the requisite distance from the\nsurface, it will stop boring; it will respect the outer layer of the\nbare pea, and will thus obtain the indispensable protecting screen.\n\nNothing of the kind occurs. In every case the passage is completely\nexcavated; the entrance gapes wide open, as large and as carefully\nexecuted as though the skin of the pea were in its place. Reasons of\nsecurity have failed to modify the usual method of work. This open\nlodging has no defence against the enemy; but the grub exhibits no\nanxiety on this score.\n\nNeither is it thinking of the outer enemy when it bores down to the skin\nwhen the pea is intact, and then stops short. It suddenly stops because\nthe innutritious skin is not to its taste. We ourselves remove the\nparchment-like skins from a mess of pease-pudding, as from a culinary\npoint of view they are so much waste matter. The larva of the Bruchus,\nlike ourselves, dislikes the skin of the pea. It stops short at the\nhorny covering, simply because it is checked by an uneatable substance.\nFrom this aversion a little miracle arises; but the insect has no sense\nof logic; it is passively obedient to the superior logic of facts. It\nobeys its instinct, as unconscious of its act as is a crystal when it\nassembles, in exquisite order, its battalions of atoms.\n\nSooner or later during the month of August we see a shadowy circle form\non each inhabited pea; but only one on each seed. These circles of\nshadow mark the doors of exit. Most of them open in September. The lid,\nas though cut out with a punch, detaches itself cleanly and falls to the\nground, leaving the orifice free. The Bruchus emerges, freshly clad, in\nits final form.\n\nThe weather is delightful. Flowers are abundant, awakened by the summer\nshowers; and the weevils visit them in the lovely autumn weather. Then,\nwhen the cold sets in, they take up their winter quarters in any\nsuitable retreat. Others, still numerous, are less hasty in quitting\nthe native seed. They remain within during the whole winter, sheltered\nbehind the trap-door, which they take care not to touch. The door of the\ncell will not open on its hinges, or, to be exact, will not yield along\nthe line of least resistance, until the warm days return. Then the late\narrivals will leave their shelter and rejoin the more impatient, and\nboth will be ready for work when the pea-vines are in flower.\n\nTo take a general view of the instincts in their inexhaustible variety\nis, for the observer, the great attraction of the entomological world,\nfor nowhere do we gain a clearer sight of the wonderful way in which the\nprocesses of life are ordered. Thus regarded, entomology is not, I know,\nto the taste of everybody; the simple creature absorbed in the doings\nand habits of insects is held in low esteem. To the terrible\nutilitarian, a bushel of peas preserved from the weevil is of more\nimportance than a volume of observations which bring no immediate\nprofit.\n\nYet who has told you, O man of little faith, that what is useless to-day\nwill not be useful to-morrow? If we learn the customs of insects or\nanimals, we shall understand better how to protect our goods. Do not\ndespise disinterested knowledge, or you may rue the day. It is by the\naccumulation of ideas, whether immediately applicable or otherwise, that\nhumanity has done, and will continue to do, better to-day than\nyesterday, and better to-morrow than to-day. If we live on peas and\nbeans, which we dispute with the weevil, we also live by knowledge, that\nmighty kneading-trough in which the bread of progress is mixed and\nleavened. Knowledge is well worth a few beans.\n\nAmong other things, knowledge tells us: \"The seedsman need not go to the\nexpense of waging war upon the weevil. When the peas arrive in the\ngranary, the harm is already done; it is irreparable, but not\ntransmissible. The untouched peas have nothing to fear from the\nneighborhood of those which have been attacked, however long the mixture\nis left. From the latter the weevils will issue when their time has\ncome; they will fly away from the storehouse if escape is possible; if\nnot, they will perish without in any way attacking the sound peas. No\neggs, no new generation will ever be seen upon or within the dried peas\nin the storehouse; there the adult weevil can work no further mischief.\"\n\nThe Bruchus is not a sedentary inhabitant of granaries: it requires the\nopen air, the sun, the liberty of the fields. Frugal in everything, it\nabsolutely disdains the hard tissues of the vegetable; its tiny mouth is\ncontent with a few honeyed mouthfuls, enjoyed upon the flowers. The\nlarvae, on the other hand, require the tender tissues of the green pea\ngrowing in the pod. For these reasons the granary knows no final\nmultiplication on the part of the despoiler.\n\nThe origin of the evil is in the kitchen-garden. It is there that we\nought to keep a watch on the misdeeds of the Bruchus, were it not for\nthe fact that we are nearly always weaponless when it comes to fighting\nan insect. Indestructible by reason of its numbers, its small size, and\nits cunning, the little creature laughs at the anger of man. The\ngardener curses it, but the weevil is not disturbed; it imperturbably\ncontinues its trade of levying tribute. Happily we have assistants more\npatient and more clear-sighted than ourselves.\n\nDuring the first week of August, when the mature Bruchus begins to\nemerge, I notice a little Chalcidian, the protector of our peas. In my\nrearing-cages it issues under my eyes in abundance from the peas\ninfested by the grub of the weevil. The female has a reddish head and\nthorax; the abdomen is black, with a long augur-like oviscapt. The male,\na little smaller, is black. Both sexes have reddish claws and\nthread-like antennae.\n\nIn order to escape from the pea, the slayer of the weevil makes an\nopening in the centre of the circular trap-door which the grub of the\nweevil prepared in view of its future deliverance. The slain has\nprepared the way for the slayer. After this detail the rest may be\ndivined.\n\nWhen the preliminaries to the metamorphosis are completed, when the\npassage of escape is bored and furnished with its lid of superficial\nmembrane, the female Chalcidian arrives in a busy mood. She inspects the\npeas, still on the vine, and enclosed in their pods; she auscultates\nthem with her antennae; she discovers, hidden under the general\nenvelope, the weak points in the epidermic covering of the peas. Then,\napplying her oviscapt, she thrusts it through the side of the pod and\nperforates the circular trap-door. However far withdrawn into the centre\nof the pea, the Bruchus, whether larvae or nymph, is reached by the long\noviduct. It receives an egg in its tender flesh, and the thing is done.\nWithout possibility of defence, since it is by now a somnolent grub or a\nhelpless pupa, the embryo weevil is eaten until nothing but skin\nremains. What a pity that we cannot at will assist the multiplication of\nthis eager exterminator! Alas! our assistants have got us in a vicious\ncircle, for if we wished to obtain the help of any great number of\nChalcidians we should be obliged in the first place to breed a\nmultiplicity of Bruchidae.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 3: From _Social Life in the Insect World_, translated by\nBernard Miall, Chapter XVIII. The Century Company, New York, 1913.]\n\n[Footnote 4: This classification is now superseded; the Pea and Bee\nWeevils--_Bruchus pisi_ and _Bruchus lenti_--are classed as Bruchidae,\nin the series of Phytophaga. Most of the other weevils are classed as\nCurculionidae, series Rhyncophora.--(Trans.)]\n\n\n\n\nTHE EXPOSITION OF A MANUFACTURING PROCESS\n\nMODERN PAPER-MAKING[5]\n\n_J.W. Butler Paper Company_\n\n\nThough the steady march of progress and invention has given to the\nmodern paper-maker marvelous machines by which the output is increased a\nthousandfold over that of the old, slow methods, he still has many of\nthe same difficulties to overcome that confronted his predecessor. While\nthe use of wood pulp has greatly changed the conditions as regards the\ncheaper grades of this staple, the ragman is to-day almost as important\nto the manufacturer of the higher grades as he was one hundred years ago\nwhen the saving of rags was inculcated as a domestic virtue and a\npatriotic duty. Methods have changed, but the material remains the same.\nIn a complete modern mill making writing and other high-grade papers,\nthe process begins with unsightly rags as the material from which to\nform the white sheets that are to receive upon their spotless polished\nsurface the thoughts of philosophers and statesmen, the tender messages\nof affection, the counsels and admonitions of ministers, the decisions\nof grave and learned judges, and all the\n\n    Wisdom of things, mysterious, divine, that\n    Illustriously doth on paper shine,\n\nas was duly set forth in rhyme by the _Boston News Letter_ in 1769.\n\"The bell cart will go through Boston about the end of next month,\" it\nannounced, and appealed to the inhabitants of that modern seat of\nlearning and philosophy to save their rags for the occasion, and thus\nencourage the industry.\n\nThe rags do not come to the mammoth factories of to-day in bell carts,\nbut by the carload in huge bales gathered from all sections of this\ngreat Republic, as well as from lands beyond the eastern and western\noceans. The square, compact, steam-compressed bundles are carried by\nelevators well up toward the top of the building, where they await the\nknife of the \"opener.\" When they have been opened, the \"feeder\" throws\nthe contents by armfuls into the \"thrasher.\" The novice or layman,\nignorant of the state in which rags come to the mill, will find their\ncondition a most unpleasant surprise, especially disagreeable to his\nolfactory nerves. Yet the unsavory revelation comes with more force a\nlittle farther on, in the \"assorting-room.\" The \"thrasher\" is a great\ncylindrical receptacle, revolving rapidly, which is supplied with long\nwooden beaters or arms passing through a wooden cylinder and driven by\npower. When the rags have been tossed in, there ensues a great pounding\nand thrashing, and the dust is carried off in suction air-tubes, while\nthe whipped rags are discharged and carried to the \"sorting\" and\n\"shredding\" room. Here the rags are assorted as to size, condition, and\nthe presence of buttons, hooks and eyes, or other material that must be\nremoved. Then those that need further attention are passed on to the\n\"shredders,\" these as well as the \"sorters\" being women. The\n\"shredders\" stand along a narrow counter; in front of each one there is\nfastened a long scythe-blade with its back toward the operator and its\npoint extending upward, the shank being firmly fixed to the table or\noperating board. Here buttons, hard seams, and all similar intruders are\ndisposed of, and the larger pieces of rags are cut into numerous small\nones on the scythe-blades. The rags thus prepared are tossed by the\nwomen into receptacles in the tables. The work in this room is the most\ndisagreeable and unwholesome in the entire process of manufacture, and\nthis despite the fact that these rags, too, have been thrashed, and\nfreed from an amount of dust and dirt beyond belief.\n\nWhile one is watching the operations carried on here, it is impossible\nto repress the wish that rags might be bought otherwise than by the\npound, for, unfortunately, filth, dust, and dirt weigh, and to wash rags\nonly reduces the weight. While this is a true reflection of the\ncondition in the average mill, it is pleasant to know, however, there\nare others of the higher class that are decided exceptions as far as\ndust and dirt are concerned. Such are the mills making high-grade ledger\nand bond papers, as well as the mill manufacturing the paper that is\nused for the printing of our \"greenbacks,\" to which further reference\nwill be made later. In these exceptional mills everything is neat and\nperfectly clean, all the stock used being new and fresh from the cotton\nor linen mills, or from factories producing cloth goods, like shirt and\ncorset factories, and others of the same sort. The sorting and shredding\nroom is always large and light, with windows on all sides, and well\nventilated, offering a decided contrast in many respects to the less\ncleanly mills first referred to where the women must wear bonnets or\nhoods for the protection of the hair. In either case the process is\ncertainly an improvement over the old plan of leaving the rags to decay\nin a cellar to expedite the removal of the glutinous matter from them.\n\nFrom the \"sorting\" and \"shredding\" room the rags are conveyed to the\n\"cutter,\" where they are cut and chopped by revolving knives, leaving\nthem in small pieces and much freer from dust and grit. Various\ningenious devices are employed for removing metal and other hard and\ninjurious matter, magnetic brushes serving this purpose in some mills.\nWhen the \"cutter\" has finished its work, the still very dirty rags go\nfor a further cleansing to the \"devil,\" or \"whipper,\" a hollow cone with\nspikes projecting within, against which work the spikes of a drum,\ndashing the rags about at great speed. Human lives are often freed of\ntheir baser elements and restored to purity and beauty through the\nchastening influences of tribulation or adversity; in like manner the\n\"whipper\" carries the rags forward a step in the process of purification\nthat is necessary before they can be brought to their highest\nusefulness. But the cleansing process, which is only a preparation for\nwhat is to follow, does not end with the \"whipper,\" which has served\nmerely to loosen, not to dislodge, a great deal of dust and dirt. The\nfinal operation in the preliminary cleaning is performed by the \"duster\"\nproper, which is a conical revolving sieve. As the mass of rags is\ntossed and shaken about, the loosened dust is carried away by the\nsuction of the air, which draws the dust particles into tubes furnished\nwith suction fans. In most modern mills the rags are carried forward\nfrom the \"duster\" on an endless belt, and a careful watch is kept upon\nthem as they emerge to detect the presence of unchopped pieces, buttons,\nor other foreign substances. The journey of the rags over this endless\nbelt or conveyor terminates in a receiving-room, in the floor of which\nthere are several openings, and immediately below these the mouths of\nthe \"digesters,\" which are in a room beneath. The \"digesters,\" as they\nare suggestively and appropriately termed, are huge revolving boilers,\nusually upright, which often have as great a diameter as eight feet,\nwith a height of twenty-two feet and a digestive capacity of upward of\nfive tons of rags each. The rags that are to be \"cooked\" are fed in to\nthe \"digesters\" through the openings in the floor, and the great movable\nmanhole plates are then put in place and closed, hermetically sealing\nthe openings or mouths through which the boilers have been fed, these\nhaving first been charged with a mixed solution of lime and soda and\nwith live hot steam in lieu of gastric juice as a digesting fluid and\nforce. In some mills the boilers are placed in a horizontal position,\nwhile in others they are in the form of a large ball or globe, in either\ncase being operated in the manner described; those of upright form,\nhowever, are most commonly in use. The rags are boiled under steam\npressure of about forty pounds to the square inch, and the cooking is\ncontinued from twelve to fourteen hours.\n\nIt is here that the process of cleaning begins in earnest; and as the\nmass of rags is tumbled about in its scalding bath of steam-heated\nlime-water, or \"milk of lime,\" the coloring and glutinous matters, as\nwell as all other impurities, are loosened from the fibers, which are in\nthe end so cleansed and purified as to come forth unstained and of\nvirgin purity. Having been sufficiently boiled and digested, the mushy\nmaterial, still looking dark and forbidding, is emptied onto the floor\nbelow or into receptacles placed directly beneath the boilers, where the\ncolor and dirt are allowed to drain off. The mass is then conveyed to\nthe \"washers,\" great tub-like receptacles, which are known as\n\"Hollanders,\" from the fact that these rag engines were invented in\nHolland about the year 1750 A.D. They are oval-shaped tubs, about twenty\nfeet long, nine feet wide, and three feet high, varying somewhat\naccording to the conditions. Each tub is divided for two-thirds of its\nlength by an upright partition, or \"mid-feather,\" as it is called, which\nmakes a narrow course around the vat. On one side of the partition, the\ntub is raised in a half-circle, close to which revolves an iron roll\nabout three or four feet in diameter, and covered with knives; in the\nbottom of the tub, and directly under the revolving roll, is another set\nof knives called a \"bed-plate,\" which is stationary, and against which\nthe roll can be lowered. But let us not anticipate. When the emptyings\nfrom the boiler have been thrown into the \"washer,\" a continuous stream\nof water is turned in at one end, the knife-roll having been adjusted so\nas to open up the rags as they are set in motion. These then begin a\nlively chase around the edge of the vat, through the race-course formed\nby the \"mid-feather,\" and under the rag-opening knives, where the water\nis given a chance to wash out all impurities, then on up the incline\nover the \"back-fall,\" so-called from the elevation in the tub. A\ncylinder of wire-cloth, partly immersed in the moving mass, holds back\nthe now rapidly whitening fibers, while the dirty water escapes into\nbuckets inside the wire-cloth drum, and is discharged into and through\nan escape-spout. The heavy particles of dirt settle into what is termed\na \"sand-trap\" at the bottom of the tub.\n\nAs the water clears, the roll is lowered closer and closer to the bottom\nof the bed-plate, in order to open up the fibers more thoroughly for the\nfree circulation of the water among them. When the several agencies of\nthe \"washer\" have accomplished their purpose and the water runs clear\nand unsullied, a bleaching material is put into the mass, which in the\ncourse of from two to six hours becomes as white as milk. The dirty\noffscourings of all ragdom, first seen in the original bales, and\ngathered from the four corners of the globe, have endured many\nbuffetings, many bruisings and tribulations, and having been washed come\nforth pure, sweet, and clean. From the washers the rags are precipitated\nthrough a trap into drainers, which are chambers made of stone and\nbrick, with a false bottom through which the water is allowed to drain.\nThis rag pulp, now called half stock, is kept in this receptacle until\nthe water and liquor are thoroughly drained off, when it becomes a white\nand compact mass of fibers.\n\nThe rags should stand in the drainers for at least one week, though\nbetter results are obtained if they are left for a period two or three\ntimes as long, as the fibers become more subdued. The process of\npaper-making as it has already been described, applies more\nparticularly to papers made from rags. To-day, a very large proportion\nof the cheaper papers are made from wood, either entirely or in part,\nand these wood-made papers are subjected to a different treatment, to\nwhich further reference will be made.\n\nFrom the drainer the mass is carted to the beating engine, or \"beater,\"\nwhich is very similar in construction to the washer just described. The\nknives on the roll in the beater are grouped three together instead of\ntwo, and are placed nearer the bottom or bed-plate in order to separate\nmore thoroughly the fibers. In the beater are performed many and varying\nmanipulations, designed not only to secure a more perfect product but\nalso to produce different varieties of paper. It is the theory of the\nbeating process that the fibers are not cut, but are drawn out to their\nutmost extent. In watching the operations of the \"beater,\" one notices\non the surface of the slowly revolving mass of fibers, floating bluing,\nsuch as the thrifty housewife uses to whiten fine fabrics. This familiar\nagency of the laundry is introduced into the solution of fibers with the\nsame end in view that is sought in the washtub--to give the clear white\ncolor that is so desirable. Many of the inventions and discoveries by\nwhich the world has profited largely have been due primarily to some\nfortunate accident, and according to a pretty story upon which\npaper-makers have set the seal of their belief for more than one hundred\nand fifty years, the use of bluing was brought about in the same way.\nAbout the year 1746, so runs the story, a Mrs. Buttonshaw, the wife of\nan English paper-maker, accidentally dropped into a tub of pulp the bag\nof bluing, or its contents, which she was about to use in a washing of\nfine linen. Frightened at what she had done and considering it the part\nof wisdom to keep silence, she discreetly held her peace and awaited\nresults. But when her husband had expressed great wonder and admiration\nover the paper made from that particular pulp, and had sold it in London\nat an advance of several shillings over the price of his other paper,\nwhich had not met with any such accident, she realized that the time for\nsilence had passed. Her account of the happy accident led her grateful\nhusband to purchase a costly scarlet cloak for her on his next visit to\nLondon town. This accident brought about another result which was to\nprove of inestimable value to the future paper-maker--the use of bluing\nin paper when especial whiteness is desired.\n\nImportant as the bluing or coloring is, however, it is only one of the\nnumerous operations or manipulations that take place in the beater. Many\nof these, such as engine-sizing and body-coloring, require skill and\nconstant watchfulness. Here, too, if anywhere, adulteration takes place.\nIt is sometimes necessary to secure a fine-appearing paper at small\ncost, and it is profitable to add to its weight. In such cases a process\nof \"loading\" takes place here, and clay or cheap, heavy fibers are\nadded. Clay is of value not only to increase the weight but also to\nrender the paper more opaque, so as to prevent type or illustrations\nfrom showing through, while at the same time it makes possible a\nsmoother surface by filling the pores in the paper. But while it adds to\nthe weight, clay must, of necessity, weaken the paper. In engine-sizing,\nwhich is done in the beater, the size is thoroughly incorporated with\nthe fibers as these revolve or flow around the engine. This sizing\nrenders the paper more nearly impervious to moisture. The difference\nbetween a paper that is sized and that has a repellent surface which\nprevents the ink from settling into it when it is written upon, and an\nordinary blotting-paper with its absorbent surface, is due entirely to\nthe fact that the former is most carefully treated with sizing both in\nthe beating engine and in the size tub or vat referred to later, whereas\nin the latter paper it is omitted. If the paper is to be tinted or\nbody-colored, colors made from aniline are generally used. Only in the\nhighest grade of writing-paper and in some few papers that demand colors\nfast to the light is any other order of coloring matter employed. As may\nbe easily imagined, considerable skill is required to secure exactly the\ndesired tint, and to get the coloring matter so evenly mixed that each\nsmall fiber shall receive its proper tint, and thus to insure that the\npaper when finished shall be of uniform color and not present a mottled\nappearance.\n\nWhen the operations of the beating engine have been completed, a most\ninteresting process begins which marks a vast advance over the earlier\nmethod of forming the sheets of paper with mould and deckel, straining\noff the water, and shaking the frame with a quick motion to mat the\nfibers together. The patient striving toward something better which has\nmarked all the centuries since man first learned to carve his rude\nrecords, finds its consummation in the process of making paper in a\ncontinuous web. This result is accomplished by a machine first invented\nby Louis Robert, a workman in a mill at Enonnes, France, who obtained a\nFrench patent, with a bounty of eight thousand francs for its\ndevelopment. This he later sold to M. Didot, the proprietor of the mill,\nwho crossed the Channel into England, where, with the aid of a skilled\nmechanic, the machine was in a measure perfected, and then sold to Henry\nand Sealy Fourdrinier. They, with the further aid of Bryan Donkin, their\nemployee and expert engineer, made many additional improvements, and\nsank in the enterprise some sixty thousand pounds sterling, for which\ntheir only reward was blighted hopes and embittered lives. In 1847 the\nLondon _Times_ made a fruitless appeal on behalf of the surviving\nbrother, who was eighty years of age and in great poverty. It is seldom\nthat the world voluntarily makes return to those who have bestowed upon\nit great material or moral benefits, though it is ever ready to expend\nits treasure for engines of destruction and to magnify and reward those\nwho have been most successful in destroying human life.\n\nThe first \"machine\" mill was started at Frogmore, Hertz, England, in\n1803, which was the year of the great Louisiana Purchase by the United\nStates, and it is not difficult to say which event has been productive\nof the greater and more beneficial results to this nation. Through this\ninvention and its improvements, the modern newspaper and magazine, with\ntheir tens and hundreds of thousands of copies daily, have been made\npossible, and men of all classes have been brought in touch with the\nbest thought of the day. Whatever makes for greater intelligence and\nenlightenment throughout a nation makes for the greater stability of\nthe national life, and gives new emphasis to Bulwer's words:\n\n    Take away the sword; States can be saved without it--bring the pen.\n\nIf to-day the power of the pen over the sword is greater than it has\never been before, its increased and increasing influence must be\ncredited in large measure to the inventive genius and the\npublic-spirited enterprise that has made possible the great output of\nour modern paper-mills. So thoroughly did these forces do their work in\nthe beginning that in the century that has elapsed since the Fourdrinier\nbrothers sacrificed themselves and their means in the perfecting of\ntheir machine, there have been really no changes in the fundamental\nprinciple. Those that have been made have been in the nature of further\ndevelopment and improvement, such as increasing the speed and widening\nthe web, thereby multiplying the product many fold.\n\nBut let us resume the interesting journey of the rags, which had reached\na state of purification and perfection as pulp, and which we left in the\nbeaters. In some grades of paper the perfected and prepared pulp is\ntaken from the beaters and passed through what is known as a \"refining\"\nor \"Jordan\" engine for the purpose of more thoroughly separating the\nfibers and reducing them to extreme fineness. The refining engines are,\nhowever, used only in the manufacture of certain grades of paper. The\npulp is next taken from the beater or refining engine, as the case may\nbe, to what is called a \"stuff-chest,\" an inclosed vat partly filled\nwith water, in which a contrivance for shaking and shifting, properly\ncalled an \"agitator,\" keeps the fibers in suspension.\n\nFrom the stuff-chest the mixture is pumped into what is known as the\n\"mixing\" or \"regulating\" box. Here the stream first passes over the\n\"sand-tables\" in a continuous flow. These are composed of little troughs\nwith cross-pieces, and are covered at the bottom with long-haired felt,\nto catch any sand or dirt that may still adhere after the numerous\noperations to which the pulp has been subjected. The flow is then forced\nthrough the \"screen,\" which is a horizontal piece of metal pierced with\nslots. For very fine paper these slots are so small as to be only one\none-hundredth of an inch in width. They are usually about a quarter of\nan inch apart. Through these tiny apertures the fibers must find their\nway, leaving behind in their difficult passage all lumps, dirt, or\nknotted fibers which would mar the perfection of the product toward\nwhich they are tending. A vibrating motion is given to the screen as the\nflow passes over it, or revolving strainers may be used.\n\nWhen the screen has finished its work, the water carrying the pulp in\nsolution flows in an even stream, the volume of which varies according\nto the width of the web of paper to be produced, through a\ndischarge-cock onto the Fourdrinier or cylinder machine, as the case may\nbe, each of which will be duly described. This stream has a filmy\nappearance and is of diverse color, depending upon the shade of paper to\nbe produced. From its consistency, which is about that of milk, it is\ndifficult to imagine that it floats separate particles of fiber in such\nquantities as, when gathered on the wire cloth and passed to a felt\nblanket and then pressed between rollers, to form in a second of time a\nbroad web of embryo paper sufficiently strong and firm to take definite\nform. Man's mastery of the process by which this startling and wonderful\nchange is effected has come as one of the rewards of his long and\npatient study.\n\nThe Fourdrinier machine, which preserves at least the name of the\nenterprising developers of the invention, takes up the work that was\nformerly done by the molder. The wire cloth upon which the fibers are\ndischarged is an endless belt, the full width of the paper machine. Upon\nthis the fibers spread out evenly, being aided by a fan-shaped rubber or\noil cloth, which delivers the smooth stream under a gate regulated to\ninsure perfect evenness and to fix uniformly the fibers of the web now\ncommencing its final formation. Deckel-straps of india-rubber are\nfastened on both sides of the wire screen, and move with it, thus\nholding the watery pulp in place. The deckel-straps are adjustable and\nfix or regulate the width of the paper. These and the gate, or \"slicer,\"\nare attached to what is termed the deckel-frame, which corresponds to\nthe deckel used by paper-makers in the days when the manufacture was\ncarried on by hand. As the stream flows onto the endless belt of wire\ncloth, the water which has borne the fibers filters into the trough\nbeneath. Being charged with very fine fibers, size, coloring matter, and\nother similar ingredients, it is carried back into the pulp-chest to\nsave these materials, as well as to contribute again to the extra supply\nof water needed. For this reason the trough into which it falls from the\nrevolving \"wire\" is called the \"save-all.\" A shaking motion is imparted\nto the \"wire\" from the frame upon which rest the rolls that keep it in\nits never-ending round. This aids in draining away the water and mats or\ninterlaces the fibers together. At the end of the \"save-all,\" where the\nfibers are to leave the \"wire\" for the next stage of their journey,\nsuction-boxes are placed, provided with an air-pump to take up the\nsurplus water that has not yet found its way through the meshes. Between\nthese suction-boxes above the wire is a wire-covered roll which\nimpresses the newly formed sheet; this impression cylinder is called a\n\"dandy roll,\" and it is from this that the web receives the markings or\nimpressions that characterize different papers. All watermarks,\npatterns, and designs which it is desired to have appear in the paper\nare put upon this roll and here impressed upon the soft sheet, which is\nclarified and left transparent at the point of contact. Thus the\nimpression is permanently fixed in the fiber, so that it can be seen at\nany time by holding the sheet to the light. The power of suggestiveness\nis a quality which is highly esteemed wherever it is found, and which\nfrequently furnishes a standard of judgment.\n\nJudged by such a criterion, the impression cylinder, or \"dandy roll,\"\nhas an added value, for in all probability its operation suggested the\nidea of printing from cylinders, as in our present web or perfecting\npresses.\n\nThe matted pulp, now having sufficient body, passes on between two rolls\ncovered with felt which deliver the web of damp paper upon an endless\nbelt of moist felt, while the \"wire\" passes under and back to continue\na fresh supply. The paper is as yet too fragile to travel alone, and\nthe web felt carries it between two metal rolls called the first\npress-rolls. These squeeze out more water, give a greater degree of\ncompactness to the fibers, smooth the upper surface, and finally deliver\nthe web of paper to a second felt apron which carries it under and to\nthe back of the second press-rolls. In this way the under surface comes\nto the top, and is in its turn subjected to the smoothing process. A\ndelicate scraper or blade, the length of the press-rolls, is so placed\non each roll that should the endless web from any cause be broken, the\nblade may operate with sufficient force to prevent the wet paper from\nclinging to the rolls and winding about them. From this point the paper\ntravels alone, having become firm and strong enough to sustain its own\nweight; passing above the second press-rolls, it resumes its onward\njourney around the drying cylinders, passing over and under and over and\nunder. The drying cylinders are hollow and heated by steam, their\ntemperature being regulated according to requirements. These driers,\nmade from iron or steel, are usually from three to four feet in diameter\nand vary in length according to the width of the machine. There are from\ntwelve to fifty of these cylinders, their number depending upon the\ncharacter and weight of the paper to be produced, very heavy sheets\nrequiring many more drying cylinders than sheets of lighter weight.\n\nStrange, almost phenomenal, conditions come about in the transformation\nfrom filmy pulp to finished paper. A sheet which, though formed, is at\nthe first press-roll too fragile to carry its own weight, becomes\npossessed of a final strength and power that is almost incredible. The\nmyriad of minute fibers composing the sheet, upon drying uniformly,\npossesses great aggregate strength. A sheet of paper yields readily to\ntearing, but the same sheet, when a perfectly even tension is applied,\nwill demonstrate that it is possessed of wonderful resisting power. In\nevidence may be cited an instance that seems almost beyond belief.\nThrough some curious mishap a web of heavy paper, in fact, bristol\nboard, which had been thoroughly formed, was suddenly superheated and\nthen cooled while still on the driers. This was caused by a difference\nin temperature of the driers and resulted in the sudden contraction of\nthe web of bristol; the strain on the machine was so great that not only\nwere the driving-cogs broken on two of the driers around which the paper\nwas at the moment passing, but the driers themselves were actually\nlifted out of place, showing a resisting power in the paper of at least\nseveral tons. The paper now passes to the upright stack of rolls which\nare known as \"calenders.\" The word is derived from calendra; a\ncorruption of cylindrus, a roller or cylinder. They are simply rollers\nrevolving in contact, and heated from the interior by steam. These\ncalenders are used for giving to the paper a smooth and even surface,\nand are also employed in the smoothing and finishing of cloth. The speed\nwith which the paper passes through these cylinders is remarkable, from\none hundred to five hundred feet running through and over the machine in\na minute; and in some of the most recent mills the web is as wide as one\nhundred and fifty-six inches (thirteen feet); this is very nearly double\nthe average machine width of a very few years ago, while the speed has\nincreased in proportionate ratio; only a few years ago the maximum speed\nwas from two hundred and fifty to three hundred feet per minute; at this\nwriting (1900) there are machines in operation which run as high as five\nhundred feet per minute. But great as has been the increase in the\nproduction of paper, the demand has kept pace steadily. The wonderful\nproduct of the rag-bag holds an invincible position in the world's\neconomy.\n\nFor machine-finished book and print papers, as well as for other cheaper\ngrades, the process ends with the calenders, after which the paper is\nslit into required widths by disc-knives which are revolving, and so cut\ncontinuously. Paper intended for web newspaper presses is taken off in\ncontinuous rolls of the widths required, varying from seventeen to\nseventy-six inches, according to the size of the paper to be printed.\nThese reels contain from fifteen to twenty-five thousand lineal feet of\npaper, or from three to five miles. The amount of paper used in\ndisseminating the news of the day is enormous; sometimes one or two\nmills are required to manufacture the supply for a single metropolitan\ndaily, while one New York newspaper claims to have used four hundred and\nfifty tons of paper in one Christmas edition, which is about four times\nthe amount of its regular daily consumption.\n\nAfter having been slit into the proper widths by the revolving knives,\nordinary flat and book papers are cut into sheets by a straight knife\nrevolving at proper intervals on a horizontal drum. The paper, in\nsheets, is carried by a travelling apron to a receiving table at the end\nof the machine, where the sheets as they fall are carefully examined by\nexperts, usually women, who remove any that may be imperfect.\n\nThe entire length of a paper machine, from the screens to the calenders,\nis about one hundred and twenty-five feet, while the height varies, the\naverage being about ten feet. The machines, while necessarily of the\nfinest adjustment, are ponderous and heavy, weighing in some cases as\nmuch as four hundred tons, this being the weight of the machine itself,\nexclusive of its foundations. The machine-room is of necessity well\nlighted and thoroughly ventilated, and should be kept clean throughout,\nas cleanliness is an essential factor in the making of good paper. While\nthe same general process applies to all classes of paper made, the\nparticular character of any paper that is to be produced determines\nexactly the details of the process through which it shall pass and\nregulates the deviations to be made from the general operations in order\nto secure special results. For example, some papers are wanted with a\nrough or \"antique\" finish, as it is called; in such cases calendering is\nomitted. Another special process is that by which the paper is made with\na ragged or \"deckel-edge;\" this result is obtained in some mills by\nplaying a stream of water upon the edge of the pulp, crushing and\nthinning it, and thus giving it a jagged appearance. At the present time\nthis \"deckel-edge\" paper is being quite extensively used in high-class\nbookwork. In the case of writing papers, as has already been stated in\nthe description of the beating engines, a vegetable sizing made from\nresinous matter is introduced into the paper pulp while it is still in\nsolution, and mixes with it thoroughly, thus filling more or less\ncompletely the pores of the pulp fibers. This is found sufficient for\nall ordinary book-papers, for papers that are to be printed upon in the\nusual way, and for the cheapest grades of writing-paper, where the\nrequirements are not very exacting and where a curtailment of expense is\nnecessary. For the higher grades of writing-paper, however, a distinctly\nseparate and additional process is required. These papers while on the\nmachine in web form are passed through a vat which is called the\nsize-tub, and which is filled with a liquid sizing made of gelatine from\nclippings of the horns, hides, and hoofs of cattle, this gelatine or\nglue being mixed with dissolved alum and made fluid in the vat. Papers\nwhich are treated in this way are known as \"animal,\" or \"tub-sized.\"\n\nWe have duly described machine-dried papers, but these higher grades of\nwriting-papers are dried by what is known as the loft, or pole-dried\nprocess. Such paper is permitted to dry very slowly in a loft specially\nconstructed for the purpose, where it is hung on poles several days,\nduring which time the loft is kept at a temperature of about 100\u00b0\nFahrenheit.\n\nAnother detail of considerable importance is that of the \"finish\" or\nsurface of the paper. When paper with a particularly high or glossy\nsurface is desired, it is subjected to a separate process, after leaving\nthe paper machine, known as supercalendering.\n\n\"Supercalendering\" is effected by passing the web through a stack of\nrolls which are similar to the machine calenders already described.\nThese rolls are composed of metal cylinders, alternating with rolls made\nof solidified paper or cotton, turned exactly true, the top and bottom\nrolls being of metal and heavier than the others; a stack of\nsupercalenders is necessarily composed of an odd number of rolls, as\nseven, nine, or eleven. The paper passes and repasses through these\ncalenders until the requisite degree of smoothness and polish has been\nacquired. The friction in this machine produces so much electricity that\nground wires are often used to carry it off in order that the paper may\nnot become so highly charged as to attract dust or cause the sheets to\ncling together. When the fine polish has been imparted, the rolls of\npaper go to the cutting machines, which are automatic in action, cutting\nregular sheets of the required length as the paper is fed to them in a\ncontinuous web. In the manufacture of some high grades of paper, such as\nlinens and bonds, where an especially fine, smooth surface is required,\nthe sheets after being cut are arranged in piles of from twelve to\nfifteen sheets, plates of zinc are inserted alternately between them,\nand they are subjected to powerful hydraulic pressure. This process is\ntermed \"plating,\" and is, of course, very much more expensive than the\nprocess of supercalendering described above.\n\nFrom the cutters, the sheets are carried to the inspectors, who are\nseated in a row along an extended board table before two divisions with\npartitions ten or twelve inches high, affording spaces for the sheets\nbefore and after sorting. The work of inspection is performed by women,\nwho detect almost instantly any blemish or imperfection in the finished\nproduct as it passes through their hands. If the paper is to be ruled\nfor writing purposes, it is then taken to the ruling machines, where it\nis passed under revolving discs or pens, set at regular intervals. These\nconvey the ruling ink to the paper as it passes on through the machine,\nand thus form true and continuous lines. If the paper is to be folded\nafter ruling, as in the case of fine note-papers, the sheets pass on\nfrom the ruling machine to the folding machines, which are entirely\nautomatic in their action. The paper is stacked at the back of the first\nfolding guide and is fed in by the action of small rubber rollers which\nloosen each sheet from the one beneath, and push it forward until it is\ncaught by the folding apparatus. Man's mechanical ingenuity has given to\nthe machines of his invention something that seems almost like human\nintelligence, and in the case of the folding machine, the action is so\nregular and perfect that there seems to be no need of an attendant, save\nto furnish a constant supply of sheets. The folding completed, cutting\nmachines are again brought into requisition, to cut and trim the sheets\nto the size of folded note or letter-paper, which is the final operation\nbefore they are sent out into the world on their mission of usefulness.\nThe finished paper may or may not have passed through the ruling and\nfolding process, but in either case it goes from the cutters to the\nwrappers and packers, and then to the shipping-clerks, all of whom\nperform the duties indicated by their names. The wonderful\ntransformation wrought by the magic wand of science and human invention\nis complete, and what came into the factory as great bales of offensive\nrags, disgusting to sight and smell, goes forth as delicate, beautiful,\nperfected paper, redeemed from filth, and glorified into a high and\nnoble use. Purity and beauty have come from what was foul and\nunwholesome; the highly useful has been summoned forth from the\nseemingly useless; a product that is one of the essential factors in the\nworld's progress, and that promises to serve an ever-increasing purpose,\nhas been developed from a material that apparently held not the\nslightest promise. Well might the _Boston News Letter_ of 1769 exclaim\nin quaint old rhyme:\n\n    Rags are as beauties which conceal\u00e8d lie,\n    But when in paper, charming to the eye!\n    Pray save your rags, new beauties to discover,\n    For of paper truly every one's a lover;\n    By the pen and press such knowledge is displayed\n    As would not exist if paper was not made.\n\nAnd well may man pride himself on this achievement, this marvelous\ntransformation, which represents the fruitage of centuries of striving\nand endeavor!\n\nUp to this point the reference has been almost entirely to paper made\nfrom rags, but radical improvements have been made, caused by the\nintroduction of wood pulp, and these are of such importance that the\naccount would not be complete without some mention of them. These\nchanges are mainly in the methods of manipulating the wood to obtain the\npulp, for when that is ready, the process from and including the\n\"washers\" and \"beaters,\" is very similar to that already described. All\npapers, whether made from rags or wood, depend upon vegetable fiber for\ntheir substance and fundamental base, and it is found that the different\nfibers used in paper-making, when finally subdued, do not differ, in\nfact, whether obtained from rags or from the tree growing in the forest.\nIn the latter case the raw wood is subjected to chemical treatment which\ndestroys all resinous and foreign matters, leaving merely the cellular\ntissue, which, it is found, does not differ in substance from the cell\ntissue obtained after treating rags. In either case this cellular\ntissue, through the treatment to which the raw material is subjected,\nbecomes perfectly plastic or moldable, and while the paper made from one\ndiffers slightly in certain characteristics from the paper made from the\nother, they are nevertheless very similar, and it might be safe to\npredict that further perfecting of processes will eventually make them\npractically alike.\n\nThe woods used for this purpose are principally poplar and spruce, and\nthere are three classes of the wood pulp: (1) mechanical wood, (2) soda\nprocess wood, and (3) sulphite wood pulp. The first method was invented\nin Germany in 1844. The logs are hewn in the forest, roughly barked, and\nshipped to the factory, where the first operation is to cut them up by\nsteam saws into blocks about two feet in length. Any bark that may still\ncling to the log is removed by a rapidly revolving corrugated wheel of\nsteel, while the larger blocks are split by a steam splitter. The next\nstage of their journey takes these blocks to a great millstone set\nperpendicularly instead of horizontally. Here a very strong and\ningenious machine receives one block at a time, and with an\nautomatically elastic pressure holds it sidewise against the millstone,\nwhich, like the mills of the gods, \"grinds exceeding fine,\" and with the\naid of constantly flowing water rapidly reduces these blocks to a pulpy\nform. This pulp is carried into tanks, from which it is passed between\nrollers, which leave it in thick, damp sheets, which are folded up\nevenly for shipment, or for storage for future use. If a paper-mill is\noperated in connection with the pulp-mill, the wood pulp is not\nnecessarily rolled out in sheets, but is pumped directly from the tanks\nto the beaters.\n\nIn the preparation of pulp by the other processes, the blocks are first\nthrown into a chipping machine with great wheels, the short, slanting\nknives of which quickly cut the blocks into small chips.\n\nIn the soda process, invented by M. Meliner in France in 1865, the chips\nfrom spruce and poplar logs are boiled under pressure in a strong\nsolution of caustic soda.\n\nWhen sulphite wood pulp is to be prepared, the chips are conveyed from\nthe chipper into hoppers in the upper part of the building. Here they\nare thrown into great upright iron boilers or digesters charged with\nlime-water and fed with the fumes of sulphur which is burned for the\npurpose in a furnace adjoining the building and which thus forms acid\nsulphide of lime. The sulphite process was originally invented by a\ncelebrated Philadelphia chemist, but was perfected in Europe.\n\nThe \"cooking,\" or boiling, to which the wood is subjected in both the\nsoda and sulphite processes, effects a complete separation of all\nresinous and foreign substances from the fine and true cell tissue, or\ncellulose, which is left a pure fiber, ready for use as described. In\nthe case of all fibers, whether rag or wood, painstaking work counts,\nand the excellence of the paper is largely dependent upon the time and\ncare given to the reduction of the pulp from the original raw material.\n\nChemical wood pulp of the best quality makes an excellent product, and\nis largely used for both print and book paper; it is frequently mixed\nwith rag pulp, making a paper that can scarcely be distinguished from\nthat made entirely from fine rags, though it is not of the proper\nfirmness for the best flat or writing papers. All ordinary newspapers,\nas well as some of the cheaper grades of book and wrapping paper, are\nmade entirely from wood, the sulphite or soda process supplying the\nfiber, and ground wood being used as a filler. In the average newspaper\nof to-day's issue, twenty-five per cent of sulphite fiber is sufficient\nto carry seventy-five per cent of the ground wood filler. The value of\nthe idea is an economical one entirely, as the ground wood employed\ncosts less than any other of the component parts of a print-paper sheet.\n\nThe cylinder machine, to which reference was made earlier in the\nchapter, was patented in 1809 by a prominent paper-maker of England, Mr.\nJohn Dickinson. In this machine, a cylinder covered with wire cloth\nrevolves with its lower portion dipping into a vat of pulp, while by\nsuction a partial vacuum is maintained in the cylinder, causing the pulp\nto cling to the wire until it is conveyed to a covered cylinder, which\ntakes it up and carries it forward in a manner similar to the system\nalready described. This machine is employed in making straw-board and\nother heavy and cheap grades of paper.\n\nGenerous Mother Nature, who supplies man's wants in such bountiful\nfashion, has furnished on her plains and in her forests an abundance of\nmaterial that may be transformed into this fine product of human\ningenuity. Esparto, a Spanish grass grown in South Africa, has entered\nlargely into the making of print-paper in England. Mixed with rags it\nmakes an excellent product, but the chemicals required to free it from\nresin and gritty silica are expensive, while the cost of importation has\nrendered its use in America impractical. Flax, hemp, manila, jute and\nstraw, and of course old paper that has been once used, are extensively\nemployed in this manufacture, the process beginning with the chemical\ntreatment and boiling that are found necessary in the manipulation of\nrags. The successful use of these materials has met demands that would\nnot otherwise have been supplied. As a result, the price has been so\ncheapened that the demand for paper has greatly increased, and its use\nhas been extended to many and various purposes.\n\nMany additional items of interest might be described in connection with\nthe methods of manufacturing paper, but as this work is intended for the\ngeneral reader, rather than for the manufacturer, those wishing further\ninformation are referred to technical works on the subject.\n\nThe best linen rags are used for the highest grades of writing and bond\npapers, while ordinary note, letter, and flat papers are made from\ncotton rags. In some mills, such as the government mill at Dalton,\nMassachusetts, where the government paper is made for banknotes, and in\nothers where the finest ledger papers are manufactured, none but new,\nclean rags are used. These come from the remnants left in the making of\nlinen goods. In the government mill where is made the paper for our\nnational currency, or \"greenbacks,\" there is a special attachment on the\nmachine for introducing into the paper the silk threads that are always\nto be seen in our paper money. This attachment is just above the \"wire\"\non the machine, and consists of a little conducting trough, through\nwhich flows, from a receptacle near the machine, a stream of water\nholding the silk threads in solution. The trough extends across the\nmachine, and is provided at intervals with openings through which the\nshort pieces of silk thread are automatically released, and sprinkled\ncontinuously onto the web of pulp as it passes beneath. The paper is\nthus distinguished, and infringement and possible counterfeiting are\nmade extremely difficult by the fact that the government absolutely\nforbids the making of paper by others under a similar process, as well\nas the production of any paper containing these silk threads. The laws\nof the United States pertaining to anything that borders on infringement\nof our various money issues, both metal and currency, are most rigid;\nanything approaching a similarity of impression is prohibited, and a\ncut, stamp, or impression of any character that approaches in its\nappearance any money issue of our government is considered a violation\nof the law against counterfeiting, and is dealt with severely. The\ngovernment takes the same uncompromising position in regard to the\nfabrics used in printing its paper-money issues, and it will be quickly\nseen that the silk thread process described above it is so great a\nvariation from anything required in the mercantile world that it would\nbe difficult to produce a paper at all similar without an ulterior\npurpose being at once apparent. For this reason the silk thread\ninterspersion is in reality a very effective medium in preventing\ncounterfeiting, not only on account of its peculiar appearance but also\nbecause of the elaborate methods necessary in its production.\n\nIn those mills making the finest grades of paper, much of the process of\nthrashing, beating, dusting, and cleaning necessary in the ordinary mill\nis omitted. The cleanliness and brightness which are reached only at the\n\"washer\" and \"beater\" engines in the process of manufacturing the lower\ngrades of paper from cheaper rags, prevail at every step in these higher\ngrade mills.\n\nOne of the first requisites in making good paper, especially the better\ngrades, is an abundance of pure water, and spring-water, where\navailable, is preferred.\n\nThe effort has been made in the description given to cover the process\nof making paper from the crudest rags. In enumerating the several kinds\nof paper in another chapter, brief reference will be made to the varying\nmethods required in their manufacture. In this chapter, no attempt has\nbeen made to cover more than the principal divisions or varieties of\npaper--writing, print, and wrapping papers.\n\nThe United States, with characteristic enterprise, leads the world in\npaper-making, supplying about one-third of all that is used on the\nglobe. The city of Holyoke, in Massachusetts, is the greatest paper\ncenter in the world, turning out each working-day some two hundred tons\nof paper, nearly one-half of which is \"tub-sized,\" \"loft-dried\"\nwritings. The region in the vicinity of Holyoke is dotted with\npaper-mills, and within a few miles of the city is made about one-half\nof all the \"loft-dried\" writings produced in the United States. The tiny\nacorn planted two centuries ago has waxed with the years, gaining\nstrength and vigor with the increasing strength of the nation, till now\nit has become a giant oak, whose branches extend to the lands beyond the\nseas.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 5: From _The Story of Paper-making_, Chapter V.J.W. Butler\nPaper Company, Chicago, 1901.]\n\n\n\n\nTHE EXPOSITION OF AN IDEA\n\nTHE GOSPEL OF RELAXATION[6]\n\n_William James_\n\n\nI wish in the following hour to take certain psychological doctrines and\nshow their practical applications to mental hygiene,--to the hygiene of\nour American life more particularly. Our people, especially in academic\ncircles, are turning towards psychology nowadays with great\nexpectations; and, if psychology is to justify them, it must be by\nshowing fruits in the pedagogic and therapeutic lines.\n\nThe reader may possibly have heard of a peculiar theory of the emotions,\ncommonly referred to in psychological literature as the Lange-James\ntheory. According to this theory, our emotions are mainly due to those\norganic stirrings that are aroused in us in a reflex way by the stimulus\nof the exciting object or situation. An emotion of fear, for example, or\nsurprise, is not a direct effect of the object's presence on the mind,\nbut an effect of that still earlier effect, the bodily commotion which\nthe object suddenly excites; so that, were this bodily commotion\nsuppressed, we should not so much _feel_ fear as call the situation\nfearful; we should not feel surprise, but coldly recognize that the\nobject was indeed astonishing. One enthusiast has even gone so far as to\nsay that when we feel sorry it is because we weep, when we feel afraid\nit is because we run away, and not conversely. Some of you may perhaps\nbe acquainted with the paradoxical formula. Now, whatever exaggeration\nmay possibly lurk in this account of our emotions (and I doubt myself\nwhether the exaggeration be very great), it is certain that the main\ncore of it is true, and that the mere giving way to tears, for example,\nor to the outward expression of an anger-fit, will result for the moment\nin making the inner grief or anger more acutely felt. There is,\naccordingly, no better known or more generally useful precept in the\nmoral training of youth, or in one's personal self-discipline, than that\nwhich bids us pay primary attention to what we do and express, and not\nto care too much for what we feel. If we only check a cowardly impulse\nin time, for example, or if we only _don't_ strike the blow or rip out\nwith the complaining or insulting word that we shall regret as long as\nwe live, our feelings themselves will presently be the calmer and\nbetter, with no particular guidance from us on their own account. Action\nseems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and\nby regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the\nwill, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.\n\nThus the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our spontaneous\ncheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully, to look round cheerfully,\nand to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there. If such\nconduct does not make you soon feel cheerful, nothing else on that\noccasion can. So to feel brave, act as if we _were_ brave, use all our\nwill to that end, and a courage-fit will very likely replace the fit of\nfear. Again, in order to feel kindly toward a person to whom we have\nbeen inimical, the only way is more or less deliberately to smile, to\nmake sympathetic inquiries, and to force ourselves to say genial things.\nOne hearty laugh together will bring enemies into a closer communion of\nheart than hours spent on both sides in inward wrestling with the mental\ndemon of uncharitable feeling. To wrestle with a bad feeling only pins\nour attention on it, and keeps it still fastened in the mind; whereas,\nif we act as if from some better feeling, the old bad feeling soon folds\nits tent like an Arab, and silently steals away.\n\nThe best manuals of religious devotion accordingly reiterate the maxim\nthat we must let our feelings go, and pay no regard to them whatever. In\nan admirable and widely successful little book called _The Christian's\nSecret of a Happy Life_, by Mrs. Hannah Whitall Smith, I find this\nlesson on almost every page. _Act_ faithfully, and you really have\nfaith, no matter how cold and even how dubious you may feel. \"It is your\npurpose God looks at,\" writes Mrs. Smith, \"not your feelings about that\npurpose; and your purpose, or will, is therefore the only thing you need\nattend to.... Let your emotions come or let them go, just as God\npleases, and make no account of them either way.... They really have\nnothing to do with the matter. They are not the indicators of your\nspiritual state, but are merely the indicators of your temperament or of\nyour present physical condition.\"\n\nBut you all know these facts already, so I need no longer press them on\nyour attention. From our acts and from our attitudes ceaseless inpouring\ncurrents of sensation come, which help to determine from moment to\nmoment what our inner states shall be: that is a fundamental law of\npsychology which I will therefore proceed to assume.\n\nA Viennese neurologist of considerable reputation has recently written\nabout the _Binnenleben,_ as he terms it, or buried life of human beings.\nNo doctor, this writer says, can get into really profitable relations\nwith a nervous patient until he gets some sense of what the patient's\n_Binnenleben_ is, of the sort of unuttered inner atmosphere in which his\nconsciousness dwells alone with the secrets of its prison-house. This\ninner personal tone is what we can't communicate or describe\narticulately to others; but the wraith and ghost of it, so to speak, are\noften what our friends and intimates feel as our most characteristic\nquality. In the unhealthy-minded, apart from all sorts of old regrets,\nambitions checked by shames and aspirations obstructed by timidities, it\nconsists mainly of bodily discomforts not distinctly localized by the\nsufferer, but breeding a general self-mistrust and sense that things are\nnot as they should be with him. Half the thirst for alcohol that exists\nin the world exists simply because alcohol acts as a temporary\nanaesthetic and effacer to all these morbid feelings that never ought to\nbe in a human being at all. In the healthy-minded, on the contrary,\nthere are no fears or shames to discover; and the sensations that pour\nin from the organism only help to swell the general vital sense of\nsecurity and readiness for anything that may turn up.\n\nConsider, for example, the effects of a well-toned _motor-apparatus,_\nnervous and muscular, on our general personal self-consciousness, the\nsense of elasticity and efficiency that results. They tell us that in\nNorway the life of the women has lately been entirely revolutionized by\nthe new order of muscular feelings with which the use of the _ski_, or\nlong snow-shoes, as a sport for both sexes, has made the women\nacquainted. Fifteen years ago the Norwegian women were even more than\nthe women of other lands votaries of the old-fashioned ideal of\nfemininity, \"the domestic angel,\" the \"gentle and refining influence\"\nsort of thing. Now these sedentary fireside tabby-cats of Norway have\nbeen trained, they say, by the snow-shoes into lithe and audacious\ncreatures, for whom no night is too dark or height too giddy, and who\nare not only saying good-bye to the traditional feminine pallor and\ndelicacy of constitution, but actually taking the lead in every\neducational and social reform. I cannot but think that the tennis and\ntramping and skating habits and the bicycle-craze which are so rapidly\nextending among our dear sisters and daughters in this country are going\nalso; to lead to a sounder and heartier moral tone, which will send its\ntonic breath through all our American life.\n\nI hope that here in America more and more the ideal of the well-trained\nand vigorous body will be maintained neck by neck with that of the\nwell-trained and vigorous mind as the two coequal halves of the higher\neducation for men and women alike. The strength of the British Empire\nlies in the strength of character of the individual Englishman, taken\nall alone by himself. And that strength, I am persuaded, is perennially\nnourished and kept up by nothing so much as by the national worship, in\nwhich all classes meet, of athletic outdoor life and sport.\n\nI recollect, years ago, reading a certain work by an American doctor on\nhygiene and the laws of life and the type of future humanity. I have\nforgotten its author's name and its title, but I remember well an awful\nprophecy that it contained about the future of our muscular system.\nHuman perfection, the writer said, means ability to cope with the\nenvironment; but the environment will more and more require mental power\nfrom us, and less and less will ask for bare brute strength. Wars will\ncease, machines will do all our heavy work, man will become more and\nmore a mere director of nature's energies, and less and less an exerter\nof energy on his own account. So that, if the _homo sapiens_ of the\nfuture can only digest his food and think, what need will he have of\nwell-developed muscles at all? And why, pursued this writer, should we\nnot even now be satisfied with a more delicate and intellectual type of\nbeauty than that which pleased our ancestors? Nay, I have heard a\nfanciful friend make a still further advance in this \"new-man\"\ndirection. With our future food, he says, itself prepared in liquid form\nfrom the chemical elements of the atmosphere, pepsinated or\nhalf-digested in advance, and sucked up through a glass tube from a tin\ncan, what need shall we have of teeth, or stomachs even? They may go,\nalong with our muscles and our physical courage, while, challenging even\nmore and more our proper admiration, will grow the gigantic domes of our\ncrania, arching over our spectacled eyes, and animating our flexible\nlittle lips to those floods of learned and ingenious talk which will\nconstitute our most congenial occupation.\n\nI am sure that your flesh creeps at this apocalyptic vision. Mine\ncertainly did so; and I cannot believe that our muscular vigor will ever\nbe a superfluity. Even if the day ever dawns in which it will not be\nneeded for fighting the old heavy battles against Nature, it will still\nalways be needed to furnish the background of sanity, serenity, and\ncheerfulness to life, to give moral elasticity to our disposition, to\nround off the wiry edge of our fretfulness, and make us good-humored and\neasy to approach. Weakness is too apt to be what the doctors call\nirritable weakness. And that blessed internal peace and confidence, that\n_acquiescentia in seipso_, as Spinoza used to call it, that wells up\nfrom every part of the body of a muscularly well-trained human being,\nand soaks the indwelling soul of him with satisfaction, is, quite apart\nfrom every consideration of its mechanical utility, an element of\nspiritual hygiene of supreme significance.\n\nAnd now let me go a step deeper into mental hygiene, and try to enlist\nyour insight and sympathy in a cause which I believe is one of paramount\npatriotic importance to us Yankees. Many years ago a Scottish medical\nman, Dr. Clouston, a mad-doctor as they call him there, or what we\nshould call an asylum physician (the most eminent one in Scotland),\nvisited this country, and said something that has remained in my memory\never since. \"You Americans,\" he said, \"wear too much expression on your\nfaces. You are living like an army with all its reserves engaged in\naction. The duller countenances of the British population betoken a\nbetter scheme of life. They suggest stores of reserved nervous force to\nfall back upon, if any occasion should arise that requires it. This\ninexcitability, this presence at all times of power not used, I regard,\"\ncontinued Dr. Clouston, \"as the great safeguard of our British people.\nThe other thing in you gives me a sense of insecurity, and you ought\nsomehow to tone yourselves down. You really do carry too much\nexpression, you take too intensely the trivial moments of life.\"\n\nNow Dr. Clouston is a trained reader of the secrets of the soul as\nexpressed upon the countenance, and the observation of his which I quote\nseems to me to mean a great deal. And all Americans who stay in Europe\nlong enough to get accustomed to the spirit, that reigns and expresses\nitself there, so unexcitable as compared with ours, make a similar\nobservation when they return to their native shores. They find a\nwild-eyed look upon their compatriots' faces, either of too desperate\neagerness and anxiety or of too intense responsiveness and good-will. It\nis hard to say whether the men or the women show it most. It is true\nthat we do not all feel about it as Dr. Clouston felt. Many of us, far\nfrom deploring it, admire it. We say: \"What intelligence it shows! How\ndifferent from the stolid cheeks, the codfish eyes, the slow, inanimate\ndemeanor we have been seeing in the British Isles!\" Intensity, rapidity,\nvivacity of appearance, are indeed with us something of a nationally\naccepted ideal; and the medical notion of \"irritable weakness\" is not\nthe first thing suggested by them to our mind, as it was to Dr.\nClouston's. In a weekly paper not very long ago I remember reading a\nstory in which, after describing the beauty and interest of the\nheroine's personality, the author summed up her charms by saying that to\nall who looked upon her an impression as of \"bottled lightning\" was\nirresistibly conveyed.\n\nBottled lightning, in truth, is one of our American ideals, even of a,\nyoung girl's character! Now it is most ungracious, and it may seem to\nsome persons unpatriotic, to criticise in public the physical\npeculiarities of one's own people, of one's own family, so to speak.\nBesides, it may be said, and said with justice, that there are plenty of\nbottled-lightning temperaments in other countries, and plenty of\nphlegmatic temperaments here; and that, when all is said and done, the\nmore or less of tension about which I am making such a fuss is a small\nitem in the sum total of a nation's life, and not worth solemn treatment\nat a time when agreeable rather than disagreeable things should be\ntalked about. Well, in one sense the more or less of tension in our\nfaces and in our unused muscles _is_ a small thing: not much mechanical\nwork is done by these contractions. But it is not always the material\nsize of a thing that measures its importance: often it is its place and\nfunction. One of the most philosophical remarks I ever heard made was by\nan unlettered workman who was doing some repairs at my house many years\nago. \"There is very little difference between one man and another,\" he\nsaid, \"when you go to the bottom of it. But what little there is, is\nvery important.\" And the remark certainly applies to this case. The\ngeneral over-contraction may be small when estimated in foot-pounds,\nbut its importance is immense on account of its _effects on the\nover-contracted person's spiritual life_. This follows as a necessary\nconsequence from the theory of our emotions to which I made reference at\nthe beginning of this article. For by the sensations that so incessantly\npour in from the over-tense excited body the over-tense and excited\nhabit of mind is kept up; and the sultry, threatening, exhausting,\nthunderous inner atmosphere never quite clears away. If you never wholly\ngive yourself up to the chair you sit in, but always keep your leg- and\nbody-muscles half contracted for a rise; if you breathe eighteen or\nnineteen instead of sixteen times a minute, and never quite breathe out\nat that,--what mental mood _can_ you be in but one of inner panting and\nexpectancy, and how can the future and its worries possibly forsake your\nmind? On the other hand, how can they gain admission to your mind if\nyour brow be unruffled, your respiration calm and complete, and your\nmuscles all relaxed?\n\nNow what is the cause of this absence of repose, this bottled-lightning\nquality in us Americans? The explanation of it that is usually given is\nthat it comes from the extreme dryness of our climate and the acrobatic\nperformances of our thermometer, coupled with the extraordinary\nprogressiveness of our life, the hard work, the railroad speed, the\nrapid success, and all the other things we know so well by heart. Well,\nour climate is certainly exciting, but hardly more so than that of many\nparts of Europe, where nevertheless no bottled-lightning girls are\nfound. And the work done and the pace of life are as extreme in every\ngreat capital of Europe as they are here. To me both of these pretended\ncauses are utterly insufficient to explain the facts.\n\nTo explain them, we must go not to physical geography, but to psychology\nand sociology. The latest chapter both in sociology and in psychology to\nbe developed in a manner that approaches adequacy is the chapter on the\nimitative impulse. First Bagehot, then Tarde, then Royce and Baldwin\nhere, have shown that invention and imitation, taken together, form, one\nmay say, the entire warp and woof of human life, in so far as it is\nsocial. The American over-tension and jerkiness and breathlessness and\nintensity and agony of expression are primarily social, and only\nsecondarily physiological, phenomena. They are _bad habits_, nothing\nmore or less, bred of custom and example, born of the imitation of bad\nmodels and the cultivation of false personal ideals. How are idioms\nacquired, how do local peculiarities of phrase and accent come about?\nThrough an accidental example set by some one, which struck the ears of\nothers, and was quoted and copied till at last every one in the locality\nchimed in. Just so it is with national tricks of vocalization or\nintonation, with national manners, fashions of movement and gesture, and\nhabitual expressions of face. We, here in America, through following a\nsuccession of pattern-setters whom it is now impossible to trace, and\nthrough influencing each other in a bad direction, have at last settled\ndown collectively into what, for better or worse, is our own\ncharacteristic national type,--a type with the production of which, so\nfar as these habits go, the climate and conditions have had practically\nnothing at all to do.\n\nThis type; which we have thus reached by our imitativeness, we now have\nfixed upon us, for better or worse. Now no type can be _wholly_\ndisadvantageous; but, so far as our type follows the bottled-lightning\nfashion, it cannot be wholly good. Dr. Clouston was certainly right in\nthinking that eagerness, breathlessness, and anxiety are not signs of\nstrength: they are signs of weakness and of bad co-ordination. The even\nforehead, the slab-like cheek, the codfish eye, may be less interesting\nfor the moment; but they are more promising signs than intense\nexpression is of what we may expect of their possessor in the long run.\nYour dull, unhurried worker gets over a great deal of ground, because he\nnever goes backward or breaks down. Your intense, convulsive worker\nbreaks down and has bad moods so often that you never know where he may\nbe when you most need his help,--he may be having one of his \"bad days.\"\nWe say that so many of our fellow-countrymen collapse, and have to be\nsent abroad to rest their nerves, because they work so hard. I suspect\nthat this is an immense mistake. I suspect that neither the nature nor\nthe amount of our work is accountable for the frequency and severity of\nour breakdowns, but that their cause lies rather in those absurd\nfeelings of hurry and having no time, in that breathlessness and\ntension, that anxiety of feature and that solicitude for results, that\nlack of inner harmony and ease, in short, by which with us the work is\nso apt to be accompanied, and from which a European who should do the\nsame work would nine times out of ten be free. These perfectly wanton\nand unnecessary tricks of inner attitude and outer manner in us, caught\nfrom the social atmosphere, kept up by tradition, and idealized by many\nas the admirable way of life, are the last straws that break the\nAmerican camel's back, the final overflowers of our measure of wear and\ntear and fatigue.\n\nThe voice, for example, in a surprisingly large number of us has a tired\nand plaintive sound. Some of us are really tired (for I do not mean\nabsolutely to deny that our climate has a tiring quality); but far more\nof us are not tired at all, or would not be tired at all unless we had\ngot into a wretched trick of feeling tired, by following the prevalent\nhabits of vocalization and expression. And if talking high and tired,\nand living excitedly and hurriedly, would only enable us to _do_ more by\nthe way, even while breaking us down in the end, it would be different.\nThere would be some compensation, some excuse, for going on so. But the\nexact reverse is the case. It is your relaxed and easy worker, who is in\nno hurry, and quite thoughtless most of the while of consequences, who\nis your efficient worker; and tension and anxiety, and present and\nfuture, all mixed up together in our mind at once, are the surest drags\nupon steady progress and hindrances to our success. My colleague,\nProfessor M\u00fcnsterberg, an excellent observer, who came here recently,\nhas written some notes on America to German papers. He says in substance\nthat the appearance of unusual energy in America is superficial and\nillusory, being really due to nothing but the habits of jerkiness and\nbad co-ordination for which we have to thank the defective training of\nour people. I think myself that it is high time for old legends and\ntraditional opinions to be changed; and that, if any one should begin\nto write about Yankee inefficiency and feebleness, and inability to do\nanything with time except to waste it, he would have a very pretty\nparadoxical thesis to sustain, with a great many facts to quote, and a\ngreat deal of experience to appeal to in its proof.\n\nWell, my friends, if our dear American character is weakened by all this\nover-tension,--and I think, whatever reserves you may make, that you\nwill agree as to the main facts,--where does the remedy lie? It lies, of\ncourse, where lay the origins of the disease. If a vicious fashion and\ntaste are to blame for the thing, the fashion and taste must be changed.\nAnd, though it is no small thing to inoculate seventy millions of people\nwith new standards, yet, if there is to be any relief, that will have to\nbe done. We must change ourselves from a race that admires jerk and snap\nfor their own sakes, and looks down upon low voices and quiet ways as\ndull, to one that, on the contrary, has calm for its ideal, and for\ntheir own sakes loves harmony, dignity, and ease.\n\nSo we go back to the psychology of imitation again. There is only one\nway to improve ourselves, and that is by some of us setting an example\nwhich the others may pick up and imitate till the new fashion spreads\nfrom east to west. Some of us are in more favorable positions than\nothers to set new fashions. Some are much more striking personally and\nimitable, so to speak. But no living person is sunk so low as not to be\nimitated by somebody. Thackeray somewhere says of the Irish nation that\nthere never was an Irishman so poor that he didn't have a still poorer\nIrishman living at his expense; and, surely, there is no human being\nwhose example doesn't work contagiously in _some_ particular. The very\nidiots at our public institutions imitate each other's peculiarities.\nAnd, if you should individually achieve calmness and harmony in your own\nperson, you may depend upon it that a wave of imitation will spread from\nyou, as surely as the circles spread outward when a stone is dropped\ninto a lake.\n\nFortunately, we shall not have to be absolute pioneers. Even now in New\nYork they have formed a society for the improvement of our national\nvocalization, and one perceives its machinations already in the shape of\nvarious newspaper paragraphs intended to stir up dissatisfaction with\nthe awful thing that it is. And, better still than that, because more\nradical and general, is the gospel of relaxation, as one may call it,\npreached by Miss Annie Payson Call, of Boston, in her admirable little\nvolume called _Power Through Repose_, a book that ought to be in the\nhands of every teacher and student in America of either sex. You need\nonly be followers, then, on a path already opened up by others. But of\none thing be confident: others still will follow you.\n\nAnd this brings me to one more application of psychology to practical\nlife, to which I will call attention briefly, and then close. If one's\nexample of easy and calm ways is to be effectively contagious, one feels\nby instinct that the less voluntarily one aims at getting imitated, the\nmore unconscious one keeps in the matter, the more likely one is to\nsucceed. _Become the imitable thing,_ and you may then discharge your\nminds of all responsibility for the imitation. The laws of social\nnature will take care of that result. Now the psychological principle on\nwhich this precept reposes is a law of very deep and widespread\nimportance in the conduct of our lives, and at the same time a law which\nwe Americans most grievously neglect. Stated technically, the law is\nthis: that _strong feeling about one's self tends to arrest the free\nassociation of one's objective ideas and motor processes._ We get the\nextreme example of this in the mental disease called melancholia.\n\nA melancholic patient is filled through and through with intensely\npainful emotion about himself. He is threatened, he is guilty, he is\ndoomed, he is annihilated, he is lost. His mind is fixed as if in a\ncramp on these feelings of his own situation, and in all the books on\ninsanity you may read that the usual varied flow of his thoughts has\nceased. His associative processes, to use the technical phrase, are\ninhibited; and his ideas stand stock-still, shut up to their one\nmonotonous function of reiterating inwardly the fact of the man's\ndesperate estate. And this inhibitive influence is not due to the mere\nfact that his emotion is _painful_. Joyous emotions about the self also\nstop the association of our ideas. A saint in ecstasy is as motionless\nand irresponsive and one-idea'd as a melancholiac. And, without going as\nfar as ecstatic saints, we know how in every one a great or sudden\npleasure may paralyze the flow of thought. Ask young people returning\nfrom a party or a spectacle, and all excited about it, what it was. \"Oh,\nit was _fine!_ it was _fine!_ it was _fine!_\" is all the information you\nare likely to receive until the excitement has calmed down. Probably\nevery one of my hearers has been made temporarily half-idiotic by some\ngreat success or piece of good fortune. \"_Good!_ GOOD! GOOD!\" is all we\ncan at such times say to ourselves until we smile at our own very\nfoolishness.\n\nNow from all this we can draw an extremely practical conclusion. If,\nnamely, we wish our trains of ideation and volition to be copious and\nvaried and effective, we must form the habit of freeing them from the\ninhibitive influence of reflection upon them, of egoistic pre-occupation\nabout their results. Such a habit, like other habits, can be formed.\nPrudence and duty and self-regard, emotions of ambition and emotions of\nanxiety, have, of course, a needful part to play in our lives. But\nconfine them as far as possible to the occasions when you are making\nyour general resolutions and deciding on your plan of campaign, and keep\nthem out of the details. When once a decision is reached and execution\nis the order of the day, dismiss absolutely all responsibility and care\nabout the outcome. _Unclamp_, in a word, your intellectual and practical\nmachinery, and let it run free; and the service it will do you will be\ntwice as good. Who are the scholars who get \"rattled\" in the\nrecitation-room? Those who think of the possibilities of failure and\nfeel the great importance of the act. Who are those who do recite well?\nOften those who are most indifferent. _Their_ ideas reel themselves out\nof their memory of their own accord. Why do we hear the complaint so\noften that social life in New England is either less rich and expressive\nor more fatiguing than it is in some other parts of the world? To what\nis the fact, if fact it be, due unless to the over-active conscience of\nthe people, afraid of either saying something too trivial and obvious,\nor something insincere, or something unworthy of one's interlocutor, or\nsomething in some way or other not adequate to the occasion? How can\nconversation possibly steer itself through such a sea of\nresponsibilities and inhibitions as this? On the other hand,\nconversation does flourish and society is refreshing, and neither dull\non the one hand nor exhausting from its efforts on the other, wherever\npeople forget their scruples and take the brakes off their hearts, and\nlet their tongues wag as automatically and irresponsibly as they will.\n\nThey talk much in pedagogic circles to-day about the duty of the teacher\nto prepare for every lesson in advance. To some extent this is useful.\nBut we Yankees are assuredly not those to whom such a general doctrine\nshould be preached. We are only too careful as it is. The advice I\nshould give to most teachers would be in the words of one who is herself\nan admirable teacher. Prepare yourself in the _subject so well that it\nshall be always on tap_: then in the class-room trust your spontaneity\nand fling away all further care.\n\nMy advice to students, especially to girl-students, would be somewhat\nsimilar. Just as a bicycle-chain may be too tight, so may one's\ncarefulness and conscientiousness be so tense as to hinder the running\nof one's mind. Take, for example, periods when there are many successive\ndays of examination pending. One ounce of good nervous tone in an\nexamination is worth many pounds of anxious study for it in advance. If\nyou want really to do your best at an examination, fling away the book\nthe day before, say to yourself, \"I won't waste another minute on this\nmiserable thing, and I don't care an iota whether I succeed or not.\" Say\nthis sincerely and feel it; and go out and play, or go to bed and sleep,\nand I am sure the results next day will encourage you to use the method\npermanently. I have heard this advice given to a student by Miss Call,\nwhose book on muscular relaxation I quoted a moment ago. In her later\nbook, entitled _As a Matter of Course_, the gospel of moral relaxation,\nof dropping things from the mind, and not \"caring,\" is preached with\nequal success. Not only our preachers, but our friends the theosophists\nand mind-curers of various religious sects are also harping on this\nstring. And with the doctors, the Delsarteans, the various mind-curing\nsects, and such writers as Mr. Dresser, Prentice Mulford, Mr. Horace\nFletcher, and Mr. Trine to help, and the whole band of schoolteachers\nand magazine-readers chiming in, it really looks as if a good start\nmight be made in the direction of changing our American mental habit\ninto something more indifferent and strong.\n\nWorry means always and invariably inhibition of associations and loss of\neffective power. Of course, the sovereign cure for worry is religious\nfaith; and this, of course, you also know. The turbulent billows of the\nfretful surface leave the deep parts of the ocean undisturbed, and to\nhim who has a hold on vaster and more permanent realities the hourly\nvicissitudes of his personal destiny seem relatively insignificant\nthings. The really religious person is accordingly unshakable and full\nof equanimity, and calmly ready for any duty that the day may bring\nforth. This is charmingly illustrated by a little work with which I\nrecently became acquainted, \"The Practice of the Presence of God, the\nBest Ruler of a Holy Life, by Brother Lawrence, being Conversations and\nLetters of Nicholas Herman of Lorraine, Translated from the French.\"[7]\nI extract a few passages, the conversations being given in indirect\ndiscourse. Brother Lawrence was a Carmelite friar, converted at Paris in\n1666. \"He said that he had been footman to M. Fieubert, the Treasurer,\nand that he was a great awkward fellow, who broke everything. That he\nhad desired to be received into a monastery, thinking that he would\nthere be made to smart for his awkwardness and the faults he should\ncommit, and so he should sacrifice to God his life, with its pleasures;\nbut that God had disappointed him, he having met with nothing but\nsatisfaction in that state....\n\n\"That he had long been troubled in mind from a certain belief that he\nshould be damned; that all the men in the world could not have persuaded\nhim to the contrary; but that he had thus reasoned with himself about\nit: _I engaged in a religious life only for the love of God, and I have\nendeavored to act only for Him; whatever becomes of me, whether I be\nlost or saved, I will always continue to act purely for the love of God.\nI shall have this good at least, that till death I shall have done all\nthat is in me to love Him ..._ That since then he had passed his life in\nperfect liberty and continual joy.\n\n\"That when an occasion of practicing some virtue offered, he addressed\nhimself to God, saying, 'Lord, I cannot do this unless Thou enablest\nme'; and that then he received strength more than sufficient. That, when\nhe had failed in his duty, he only confessed his fault, saying to God,\n'I shall never do otherwise, if You leave me to myself: it is You who\nmust hinder my failing, and mend what is amiss.' That after this he gave\nhimself no further uneasiness about it.\n\n\"That he had been lately sent into Burgundy to buy the provision of wine\nfor the society, which was a very unwelcome task for him, because he had\nno turn for business, and because he was lame, and could not go about\nthe boat but by rolling himself over the casks. That, however, he gave\nhimself no uneasiness about it, nor about the purchase of the wine. That\nhe said to God, 'It was his business he was about,' and that he\nafterward found it well performed. That he had been sent into Auvergne,\nthe year before, upon the same account; that he could not tell how the\nmatter passed, but that it proved very well.\n\n\"So, likewise, in his business in the kitchen (to which he had naturally\na great aversion), having accustomed himself to do everything there for\nthe love of God, and with prayer upon all occasions, for his grace to do\nhis work well, he had found everything easy during fifteen years that he\nhad been employed there.\n\n\"That he was very well pleased with the post he was now in, but that he\nwas as ready to quit that as the former, since he was always pleasing\nhimself in every condition, by doing little things for the love of God.\n\n\"That the goodness of God assured him He would not forsake him utterly,\nand that He would give him strength to bear whatever evil He permitted\nto happen to him; and, therefore, that he feared nothing, and had no\noccasion to consult with anybody about his state. That, when he had\nattempted to do it, he had always come away more perplexed.\"\n\nThe simple-heartedness of the good Brother Lawrence, and the relaxation\nof all unnecessary solicitudes and anxieties in him is a refreshing\nspectacle.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe need of feeling responsible all the livelong day has been preached\nlong enough in our New England. Long enough exclusively, at any\nrate,--and long enough to the female sex. What our girl-students and\nwomen-teachers most need nowadays is not the exacerbation, but rather\nthe toning-down of their moral tensions. Even now I fear that some one\nof my fair hearers may be making an undying resolve to become\nstrenuously relaxed, cost what it will, for the remainder of her life.\nIt is needless to say that that is not the way to do it. The way to do\nit, paradoxical as it may seem, is genuinely not to care whether you are\ndoing it or not. Then, possibly, by the grace of God, you may all at\nonce find that you _are_ doing it, and, having learned what the trick\nfeels like, you may (again by the grace of God) be enabled to go on.\n\nAnd that something like this may be the happy experience of all my\nhearers is, in closing, my most earnest wish.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 6: From _Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on\nSome of Life's Problems_. Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1902.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Fleming H. Revell Company, New York (AUTHOR).]\n\n\n\n\nSCIENCE AND RELIGION[8]\n\n_Charles Proteus Steinmetz_\n\n\nThe problem of religion--that is, of the relations of man with the\nsupernatural, with God and immortality, with the soul, our personality\nor the ego, and its existence or nonexistence after death--is the\ngreatest and deepest which ever confronted mankind. In the present state\nof human knowledge, science can give no definite and final conclusions\non these subjects, because of the limitations inherent in science.\n\nWe must realize that all our knowledge and information and the entire\nstructure of science are ultimately derived from the perceptions of our\nsenses and thereby limited in the same manner and to the same extent as\nour sense perceptions and our intellect are limited. The success or\nfailure of scientific achievement largely depends on the extent to which\nwe can abstract--that is, make our observations and conclusions\nindependent of the limitations of the human mind. But there are\nlimitations inherent in the human mind beyond which our intellect cannot\nreach, and therefore science does not and cannot show us the world as it\nactually is, with its true facts and laws, but only as it appears to us\nwithin the inherent limitations of the human mind.\n\nThe greatest limitation of the human mind is that all its perceptions\nare finite, and our intellect cannot grasp the conception of infinity.\nThe same limitation therefore applies to the world as it appears to our\nreasoning intellect, and in the world of science there is no infinity,\nand conceptions such as God and the immortality of the ego are beyond\nthe realm of empirical science. Science deals only with finite events in\nfinite time and space, and the farther we pass onward in space or time,\nthe more uncertain becomes the scientific reasoning, until, in trying to\napproach the infinite, we are lost in the fog of unreasonable\ncontradiction, \"beyond science\"--that is, \"transcendental\".\n\nThus, we may never know and understand the infinite, whether in nature,\nin the ultimate deductions from the laws of nature in time and in space,\nor beyond nature, on such transcendental conceptions as God and\nimmortality. But we may approach these subjects as far as the\nlimitations of our mind permit, reach the border line beyond which we\ncannot go, and so derive some understanding of how far these subjects\nmay appear nonexisting or unreasonable, merely because they are beyond\nthe limitations of our intellect.\n\nThere appear to me two promising directions of approach--first, from the\ncomplex of thought and research, which in physics has culminated in the\ntheory of relativity; and, second, in a study of the gaps found in the\nstructure of empirical science and what they may teach us.\n\nAll events of nature occur in space and in time. Whatever we perceive,\nwhatever record we receive through our senses, always is attached to,\nand contained in, space and time. But are space and time real existing\nthings? Have they an absolute reality outside of our mind, as a part or\nframework of nature, as entities--that is, things that are? Or are they\nmerely a conception of the human mind, a form given by the character of\nour mind to the events of nature--that is, to the hypothetical cause of\nour sense perceptions? Kant, the greatest and most critical of all\nphilosophers, in his _Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der Reinen\nVernunft)_, concludes that space and time have no absolute existence,\nbut are categories--that is, forms in which the human mind conceives his\nrelation to nature. The same idea is expressed by the poet-philosopher\nGoethe in his dramatic autobiography _Faust_ (in the second part), when\nhe refers to the \"M\u00fctter,\" to the marriage of Achilles and Helena\n\"outside of all time.\" It is found in ancient time. So Revelation speaks\nof \"there should be time no longer\" (hoti chronos ouketi\nestai).\n\nThe work of the great mathematicians of the nineteenth century--Gauss,\nRiemann, Lobatschefsky, Bolyai--offered further evidence that space is\nnot an empirical deduction from nature, but a conception of the mind, by\nshowing that various forms of space can be conceived, differing from one\nanother and from the form in which the mind has cast the events of\nnature (the \"Euclidean\" space). Finally, physical science, in the theory\nof relativity, has deduced the same conclusions: space and time do not\nexist in nature by themselves, as empty space and empty time, but their\nexistence is only due to things and events as they occur in nature. They\nare relative in the relation between us and the events of nature, so\nmuch so that they are not fixed and invariable in their properties, but\ndepend upon the observer and the conditions of observation.\n\nWe can get an idea of how utterly our perception of nature depends on\nthe particular form of our time conception by picturing to ourselves how\nnature would look if our time perception were 100,000 times faster, or\n100,000 times slower.\n\nIn the first case, with our sense perceptions 100,000 times faster, all\nevents in nature would appear to us 100,000 times slower. This would\nthen be a stationary and immovable world. The only motion which we could\nsee with our eyes would be that of the cannon ball, which would crawl\nslowly along, at less than a snail's pace. The express train going at\nsixty miles per hour would appear to stand still, and deliberate\nexperiment be required to discover its motion. By noting its position on\nthe track, and noting it again after a period of time as long as five\nminutes appears to us now, we should find its position changed by three\ninches. It would be a dangerous world, as there would be many\nobjects--not distinguishable to the senses from other harmless\nobjects--contact with which would be dangerous, even fatal; and one and\nthe same object (as the express train) might sometimes be harmless (when\nat rest), sometimes dangerous (when in motion), without our senses being\nable to see any difference.\n\nOn the other hand, with our sense perceptions 100,000 times slower, all\nevents in nature would appear to us to occur 100,000 times faster. There\nwould be little rest in nature, and we should see plants, and even\nstones, move. We should observe, in a period of time not longer than a\nminute or two appear to us now, a plant start from seed, grow up,\nflower, bring fruit, and die. Sun and moon would be luminous bands\ntraversing the sky; day and night alternate seconds of light and\ndarkness. Much of nature, all moving things, would be invisible to us.\nIf I moved my arm, it would disappear, to reappear again when I held it\nstill. It would be a usual occurrence to have somebody suddenly appear\nand just as suddenly disappear from our midst, or to see only a part of\na body. The vanishing and the appearance of objects would be common\noccurrences in nature; and we should speak of \"vanishing\" and\n\"appearing,\" instead of \"moving\" and \"stopping.\" Collisions, usually\nharmless, with invisible objects would be common occurrences.\n\nAs seen, nature and its laws would appear to us very different from what\nwe find them now, with our present time perception.\n\nThus philosophy, mathematics, and physical science agree that space and\ntime cannot be entities, but are conceptions of the human mind in its\nrelation to nature. But what does this mean, and what conclusions follow\nfrom it?\n\nThe space of our conception is three-dimensional--that is, extended in\nthree directions. For instance, the north-south direction, the east-west\ndirection, and the up-down direction. Any place or \"point\" in space thus\nis located, relative to some other point, by giving its three distances\nfrom the latter, in three (arbitrarily chosen) directions.\n\nTime has only one dimension--that is, extends in one direction only,\nfrom the past to the future--and a moment or \"point\" in time thus is\nlocated, with reference to another point in time, by one time distance.\n\nBut there is a fundamental difference between our space conception and\nour time conception, in that we can pass through time only in one\ndirection, from the past to the future, while we can pass through space\nin any direction, from north to south, as well as from south to\nnorth--that is, time is irreversible, flows uniformly in one direction,\nwhile space is reversible, can be traversed in any direction. This means\nthat when we enter a thing in space, as a house, we can approach it,\npass through it, leave it, come back to it, and the thing therefore\nappears permanent to us, and we know, even when we have left the house\nand do not see it any more, that it still exists, and that we can go\nback to it again and enter it. Not so with time. On approaching a thing\nin time, an event such as a human life, it extends from a point in\ntime--birth--over a length of time--the life--to an end point in\ntime--death--just as the house in space extends from a point in\nspace--say the north wall--over a length of space--its extent--to an end\npoint in space--say the south wall. But when we pass beyond the end\npoint of an event in time--the death of a life--we cannot go back to the\nevent any more; the event has ceased, ended, the life is extinct.\n\nBut let us imagine that the same irreversibility applied to the\nconception of space--that is, that we could move through space only from\nnorth to south, and not in the opposite direction. Then a thing in\nspace, as a house, would not exist for us until we approached it. When\nwe were approaching it, it would first appear indistinctly, and more and\nmore distinctly the nearer we approached it, just as an event in time\ndoes not exist until we reach the point of its beginning, but may appear\nin anticipation, in time perspective, when we approach it, the more\ndistinctly, the closer we approach it, until we reach the threshold of\nthe time span covered by the event, and the event begins to exist, the\nlife is born. So to us, if we could move only from north to south, the\nhouse would begin to exist only when we reached its north door. That\npoint would be the \"birth\" of the house. Passing through the span of\nspace covered by the house--this would for us be its existence, its\n\"life,\" and when we stepped out of the south door the house would cease\nto exist for us, we could never enter it and turn back to it again--that\nis, it would be dead and extinct, just as the life when we pass beyond\nits end point in time. Thus birth and death, appearance and extinction\nof an event in time, as our life, are the same as the beginning and end\npoint of a thing in space, like a house. But the house appears to us to\nexist permanently, whether we are in it, within the length between\nbeginning and end point, or not; while the event in time, our life,\nappears to us to exist only during the length of time when we are\nbetween its beginning and its end point in time, and before and after it\ndoes not exist for us, because we cannot go back to it or ahead into it.\nBut assume time were reversible, like space--that is, we could go\nthrough it in any direction. There would then be no such thing as birth\nor origin, and death or extinction, but our life would exist\npermanently, as a part or span of time, just as the house exists as a\npart or section of space, and the question of immortality, of extinction\nor nonextinction by death, would then be meaningless. We should not\nexist outside of the span of time covered by our life, just as we do not\nexist outside of the part of space covered by our body in space, and to\nreach an event, as our life, we should have to go to the part of space\nand to the part of time where it occurs; but there would be no more\nextinction of the life by going beyond its length in time as there is\nextinction of a house by going outside of its door, and everything, like\na human being, would have four extensions or dimensions--three\nextensions in space and one in time.[9]\n\nIf space and time, and therefore the characteristics of space and time,\nare not real things or entities, but conceptions of the human mind, then\nthose transcendental questions, as that of immortality after death and\nexistence before birth, are not problems of fact in nature or outside of\nnature, but are meaningless, just as the question whether a house exists\nfor an observer outside of the space covered by it. In other words, the\nquestions of birth and death, of extinction or immortality, are merely\nthe incidental results of the peculiarity of our conceptions of time,\nthe peculiarity that the time of our conceptions is irreversible, flows\ncontinuously at a uniform rate in the same direction from the past to\nthe future.\n\nBut if time has no reality, is not an existing entity, then these\ntranscendental problems resulting from our time conception, of\nextinction or immortality, have no real existence, but are really\nphenomena of the human mind, and cease to exist if we go beyond the\nlimitations of our mind, beyond our peculiar time conception.\n\nIt is interesting to realize that the modern development of science, in\nthe relativity theory, has proved not only that time is not real, but a\nconception, but also has proved that the time of our conception does not\nflow uniformly at constant rate from past to future, but that the rate\nof the flow of time varies with the conditions; the rate of time flow of\nan event slows down with the motion relative to the event.\n\nBut the conception of a reversal of the flow of time is no more\nillogical than the conception of a change of the rate of the flow of\ntime. It is inconceivable, because it is beyond the limitations of our\nmind.\n\nThus we see that the questions of life and death, of extinction and\nimmortality, are not absolute problems, but merely the result of the\nlimitations of our mind in its conception of time, and have no existence\noutside of us.\n\nAfter all, to some extent we conceive time as reversible, in the\nconception of historical time. In history we go back in time at our\nwill, and traverse with the mind's eye the times of the past, and we\nthen find that death and extinction do not exist in history, but the\nevents of history, the lives of those who made history, exist just as\nmuch outside of the span of time of their physiological life--that is,\nare immortal in historical time. They may fade and become more\nindistinct with the distance in time, just as things in space become\nmore indistinct with the distance in space, but they can be brought back\nto full clearness and distinction by again approaching the things and\nevents, the former moving through space, the latter moving through the\nhistorical time--that is, by looking up and studying the history of the\ntime.\n\n\nTHE ENTITY \"X\"\n\nScientifically, life is a physico-chemical process. Transformations of\nmatter, with which the chemist deals, and transformations of energy,\nwith which the physicist deals, are all that is comprised in the\nphenomenon of life; and mind, intellect, soul, personality, the ego, are\nmere functions of the physico-chemical process of life, vanishing when\nthis process ceases, but are not a part of the transformations of matter\nand of energy. If you thus speak of \"mental energy,\" it scientifically\nis a misnomer, and mind is not energy in the physical sense. It is true\nthat mental effort, intellectual work, is accompanied by transformations\nof matter, chemical changes in the brain, and by transformations of\nenergy. But the mental activity is not a part of the energy or of the\nmatter which is transformed, but the balance of energy and of matter\ncloses.\n\nIn the energy transformations accompanying mental activity, just as much\nenergy of one form appears as energy of some other form is consumed, and\nthe mental activity is no part of the energy. In the transformations of\nmatter accompanying mental activity, just as much matter of one form\nappears as matter of some other form is consumed, and the mental\nactivity is no part of either--that is, neither energy nor matter has\nbeen transformed into mental activity, nor has energy or matter been\nproduced by mental activity. All attempts to account for the mental\nactivity as produced by the expenditure of physical energy, or as\nproducing physical energy--that is, exerting forces and action--have\nfailed and must fail, and so must any attempt to record or observe and\nmeasure mental activity by physical methods--that is, methods sensitive\nto the action of physical forces.\n\nBut what, then, is mind? Is it a mere phenomenon, accompanying the\nphysico-chemical reactions of life and vanishing with the end of the\nreaction, just as the phenomenon of a flame may accompany a chemical\nreaction, and vanish when the reaction is completed? Or is mind an\nentity, just like the entity energy and the entity matter, but differing\nfrom either of them--in short, a third entity? We have compared mind\nwith the phenomenon of a flame accompanying a chemical reaction; but,\nafter all, the flame is not a mere phenomenon, but is an entity, is\nenergy.\n\nMore than once, in the apparently continuous and unbroken structure of\nscience, wide gaps have been discovered into which new sections of\nknowledge fitted, sections the existence of which had never been\nsuspected. So in Mendelejeff's _Periodic System of the Elements_ all\nchemical elements fitted in without gaps--in a continuous series (except\na few missing links, which were gradually discovered and filled in).\nNevertheless, the whole group of six noble gases, from helium to\nemanium, were discovered and fitted into the periodic system at a place\nwhere nobody had suspected a gap.\n\nOne of the most interesting of such unsuspected gaps in the structure of\nscience is the following, because of its pertinency to the subject of\nour discussion.\n\nIn studying the transformations of matter, the chemist records them by\nequations of the form:\n\n(1) 2H_{2} + O_{2} = 2H_{2}O, which means:\n\nTwo gram molecules of hydrogen H_{2}(2 X 2 = 4 grams) and 1 gram\nmolecule of oxygen O_{2}(1 X 32 grams), combine to 2 gram molecules of\nwater vapor H_{2}O (2 X 18 = 36 grams).\n\nFor nearly a hundred years chemists wrote and accepted this equation;\ninnumerable times it has been experimentally proved by combining 4 parts\nof hydrogen and 32 parts of oxygen to 36 parts of water vapor; so that\nthis chemical equation would appear as correct and unquestionable as\nanything can be.\n\nNevertheless, it is wrong, or rather incomplete. It does not give the\nwhole event, but omits an essential part of it, and now we write it:\n\n(2) 2H_{2} + O_{2} = 2H_{2}O + 293,000 J., which means:\n\nThe matter _and energy_ of 2 gram molecules of hydrogen, and the matter\n_and energy_ of 1 gram molecule of oxygen, combine to the matter _and\nenergy_ of 2 gram molecules of water vapor and 293,000 joules, or units,\nof _free energy_.\n\nFor a hundred years the chemists thus saw only the material\ntransformation as represented by equation (1), but overlooked and did\nnot recognize the energy transformation coincident with the\ntransformation of matter, though every time the experiment was made, the\n293,000 J. of energy in equation (2) made themselves felt as flame, as\nheat and mechanical force, sometimes even explosively shattering the\ncontainer in which the experiment was made. But the flame and the\nexplosion appeared only as an incidental phenomenon without\nsignificance, as it represents and contains no part of the matter, but\nequation (1) gives the complete balance of matter in transformation. It\nwas much later that the scientists realized the significance of the\nflame accompanying the material transformation as not a mere incidental\nphenomenon, but as the manifestation of the entity energy, permanent and\nindestructible, like matter, and the complete equation (2) appeared,\ngiving the balance of energy as well as the balance of matter--that is,\ncoincident with the transformation of matter is a transformation of\nenergy, and both are indissoluble from each other, either involves the\nother, and both may be called different aspects of the same phenomenon.\n\nBut we have seen, when mental activity occurs in our mind, chemical and\nphysical transformations accompany it, are coincident with it, and\napparently indissoluble from it. Does there possibly exist the same\nrelation between mental activity and the transformations of energy and\nmatter, as we have seen to exist between the latter two? Are mental\nactivity, energy transformation, and transformation of matter three\naspects of the same biochemical phenomenon?\n\nIf for nearly a hundred years equation (1) was considered complete,\nuntil we found that one side was incomplete, and arrived at the more\ncomplete equation (2), the question may well be raised: Is equation (2)\ncomplete, dealing as it does with two entities, matter and energy, or is\nit not possibly still incomplete, and a third entity should appear in\nthe equation, an entity \"X,\" as I may call it, differing from energy and\nfrom matter, just as energy and matter differ from each other, and\ntherefore not recognizable and measurable by the means which measure\nenergy or matter, just as energy cannot be measured by the same means as\nmatter?\n\nThat is, the complete equation of transformation would read:\n\n(3) 2H_{2} + O_{2} = 2H_{2}O + 293,000 J. + X, involving all three\nentities, matter, energy, and mind, pertaining, respectively, to the\nrealm of chemistry, of physics, and of psychology, or possibly a broader\nscience of which psychology is one branch.\n\nThere is no scientific evidence whatsoever of the existence of such a\nthird entity, \"X,\" but all our deductions have been by analogy, which\nproves nothing--that is, by speculation, dreaming, and unavoidably\nso--since in these conceptions we are close to the border line of the\nhuman mind where logical reasoning loses itself in the fog of\ncontradiction. But at the same time there is no evidence against the\nconception of an entity \"X\"; it is not illogical, at least no more so\nthan all such general conceptions, no more so than, for instance, that\nof energy or of matter. As empirical science deals with energy and\nmatter, and entity \"X\" is neither, it could not be observed by any of\nthe methods of experimental physics or chemistry.\n\nIf mind is a third entity, correlated with the entities of energy and\nof matter, we should expect that mental activity, or entity \"X,\" should\noccur not only in the highly complex transformations of energy and of\nmatter taking place in the brains of the highest orders of living\nbeings, but that entity \"X\" should appear in all physico-chemical\nreactions, just as energy transformations always occur in\ntransformations of matter, and inversely. But this seems not so, and in\nmost of the transformations of energy and of matter entity \"X\" does not\nappear. However, we have no satisfactory means of recognizing entity\n\"X,\" no methods of studying it. Therefore, it may well be that it is\nnoticed only in those rare instances when it appears of high intensity,\nbut in most reactions entity \"X\" may be so small or appear in such way\nas to escape observation by the means and by the methods now available.\nLike energy or matter, entity \"X\" may have many forms in which it is not\nrecognized by us, just as for a long time the flame was not recognized\nas the entity energy.\n\nTo illustrate, again by analogy: In many transformations of matter,\nindeed, in most of the more complex ones of the organic world, the\nconcurrent energy transformation is of such slowness and of such low\nintensity that it appears nonexisting, and can be discovered and\nmeasured only by the delicate experiments devised by science.\nFurthermore, the energy may appear in different forms. Thus the 293,000\nJ. of energy in equation (2) may appear as heat, or as electrical\nenergy, or as a combination of heat, light, sound, and mechanical\nenergy. Now assume that we could observe and notice only one of the\nforms of energy--for instance, only electrical energy. We should then\nfind that in the equation (1) we only sometimes get energy--that is,\nelectrical energy--under special peculiar conditions, but usually do not\nseem to get any of the entity energy, simply because we do not recognize\nit in the form in which it appears. Analogously, there might be a term\nof entity \"X\" in all transformations, even such simple ones as equation\n(3), but entity \"X\" may appear in a far different, simpler form. It\nwould mean that \"mind\" is only one form of entity \"X,\" perhaps the\nhigh-grade form, as it appears in highly complex reactions. In the\nsimpler physico-chemical processes of nature, entity \"X\" also would\nappear, but in other, simpler forms. It would mean that things such as\nmind and intellect are not limited to the higher living beings, but\ncharacteristics akin thereto would be found grading down throughout all\nliving and inanimate nature. This does not appear unreasonable when we\nconsider that some characteristics of life are found throughout all\nnature, even in the crystal which, in its mother liquor, repairs a\nlesion, \"heals a wound,\" or which, in the colloidal solution, may be\n\"poisoned\" by prussic acid.\n\nAssume, then, that mind, intellect, personality, the ego, were forms of\na third entity, an entity \"X,\" correlated in nature with the entities\nenergy and matter. Then, just as energy and matter continuously change\ntheir forms, so with the transformations of energy and of matter, entity\n\"X\" would continuously change, disappear in one form and reappear in\nanother form. Entity \"X\" could therefore not exist permanently in one\nand the same form, and the permanency of the ego--that is,\nimmortality--would still be illogical, would not exist within the realm\nof science, but would carry us beyond the limitations of the human mind\ninto the unknowable. Permanency of the ego--that is, individual\nimmortality--would require a form of entity \"X,\" in which it is not\nfurther transformable. This would be the case if the transformations of\nentity \"X\" are not completely reversible, but tend one definite\ndirection, from lower-grade to higher-grade forms, and the latter thus\nwould gradually build up to increasing permanency. There is nothing\nunreasonable in this, but a similar condition--in the reverse\ndirection--exists with the transformations of energy. They also are not\ncompletely reversible, but tend in a definite direction, from higher- to\nlower-grade form--unavailable heat energy (the increase of entropy by\nthe second law of thermodynamics). Thus in infinite time the universe\nshould come to a standstill, in spite of the law of conservation of\nenergy, by all energy becoming unavailable for further\ntransformation--that is, becoming dead energy. If entity \"X\" existed,\ncould it not also have become unavailable for further transformation by\nreaching its maximum high-grade form and thus become not susceptible to\nfurther change--that is, \"immortal\"--just as the unavailable heat of the\nphysicist is \"immortal,\" and not capable of further transformation? Here\nwe are again in the fog of illogic, beyond the limitations. However, it\nsounds familiar to the Nirvana of the Buddhist.\n\nPhysics and chemistry obviously could not deal with entity \"X,\" and the\nmost delicate and sensitive physical or chemical instruments could get\nno indication of it, and all attempts at investigation by physical or\nchemical means thus must be doomed to failure. But such investigations\nof entity \"X\" belong to the realm of the science of psychology, or,\nrather, a broader science, of which psychology is one branch dealing\nwith one form of entity \"X,\" mind, just as, for instance,\nelectro-physics is one branch of the broader science of physics, dealing\nwith electrical energy, while physics deals with all forms of energy.\n\nIn concluding, I wish to say that nothing in the preceding speculations\ncan possibly encourage spiritism or other pseudo-science. On the\ncontrary, from the preceding it is obvious that the alleged\nmanifestations of spiritism must be fake or self-deception, since they\nare manifestations of energy. Entity \"X,\" if it exists, certainly is not\nenergy, and therefore could not manifest itself as such.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 8: From _Harpers Magazine_ for February, 1922.]\n\n[Footnote 9: It is interesting to note that the relativity theory leads\nto the conception of a symmetrical four-dimensional world space\n(Minkowski), in which in general each of the four dimensions comprises\nspace and time conceptions, and the segregation into three dimensions of\nspace and one dimension of time occurs only under special conditions of\nobservation. (AUTHOR.)]\n\n\n\n\nBIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL NOTES\n\n\nSIR ARTHUR KEITH, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S., born in Aberdeen, 1866, was\neducated at the University of Aberdeen; at University College, London;\nand at the University of Leipzig. From 1899 to 1902, he was Secretary of\nthe Anatomical Society of Great Britain, and was President of the Royal\nAnthropological Institute from 1912 to 1914. At present he is Hunterian\nProfessor and Conservator of Museum, Royal College of Surgeons, London,\nand also holds the Fullerian Professorship of Physiology, Royal\nInstitution of Great Britain and Ireland. Beginning with his\n_Introduction to the Study of Anthropoid Apes_ in 1896, he has produced\nsome ten volumes. Among them are _Human Embryology and Morphology_\n(1901); _Ancient Types of Man_ (1911); _The Human Body_ (1912); _Menders\nof the Maimed_ (1919); and _Nationality and Race_ (1920). He was\nknighted in 1921.\n\n\"The Levers of the Human Body\" is helpful in illustrating the value of\ndiagrams and of analogy in the exposition of a mechanism. It may be used\nalso for teaching the student to adapt his work to the audience, for,\nalthough prepared at first for an immature audience, its material has\nsince been so adapted that in addition to the general reader it is of\nparticular interest to the physician and to the engineer.\n\n\nThe series of volumes in which _Modern Methods of Book Composition_\nappears, is but one of the distinguished services in improving the\npractice of typography rendered by THEODORE LOW DE VINNE (1828-1914). At\nhis invitation, the chapter, \"Mechanical Composition,\" was contributed\nby PHILIP T. DODGE, President of the Mergenthaler Linotype Company.\n\n\"The Mergenthaler Linotype,\" which is taken from Mr. Dodge's chapter, is\nwell adapted for teaching the correlation of diagrams and text in the\nexposition of mechanisms and machines.\n\n\nSome idea of the length of JEAN HENRI FABRE'S life (1823-1915) may be\nobtained when we recall that his place as a scientist was established\nearly enough for Victor Hugo to refer to him as the \"insects' Homer\" and\nfor Darwin to refer to him in _The Origin of Species_ as \"that\nincomparable observer.\" By 1841, Fabre had escaped from the poverty of\nhis boyhood and had qualified as a pupil teacher at the Normal College\nat Vaucluse. Later, he became Professor of Physics and Chemistry at the\n_lyc\u00e9e_ of Ajaccio and, by 1852, held a similar position at Avignon. The\ngreater part of his life was spent in the study of insects. The results\nare recorded in several volumes. An interesting _Life_, written by the\nAbb\u00e9 Augustin Fabre and translated by Mr. Miall, was published in 1921.\n\n\"The Pea Weevil,\" which offers an example of the exposition of a process\nachieved by impersonal narration, should prove especially helpful in\nshowing the student how interest may be secured in such work.\n\n\nThe J.W. BUTLER PAPER COMPANY, which published the little volume from\nwhich the selection is taken, is recognized as an important factor in\nthe industry.\n\n\"Modern Paper-making\" may be utilized in teaching the emphasis placed on\nchronological order in the impersonal narration of a process; the\nexplanation of machines by generalized description in such narration;\nand the methods employed in explaining alternate or parallel steps in\nthe process.\n\n\nWILLIAM JAMES (1842-1910), like his equally distinguished brother,\nreceived his elementary education in New York City and in Europe. From\n1861 to 1863, he studied at the Lawrence Scientific School, Harvard\nUniversity, leaving to join the Thayer Expedition to Brazil. He was\ngraduated in 1870 from the Harvard Medical School and, two years later,\nwas appointed Instructor in Anatomy and Physiology. In 1885, while\nAssistant Professor of Physiology at the Medical School, he was\nappointed Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. His\nlater work at the University is well-known. Among his published works\nare his _Principles of Psychology_ (1889); _The Will to Believe_ (1897);\n_The Varieties of Religious Experience_ (1902); _Pragmatism_ (1907);\n_Memories and Studies_ (1911); and _Essays in Radical Empiricism_\n(1912). His _Letters_, edited by his son, appeared in 1920.\n\n\"The Gospel of Relaxation\" offers a model in the adaptation of\nscientific material to a lay audience, through the way in which the\nauthor makes clear the Lange-James Theory by concrete examples and\npractical applications.\n\n\nCHARLES PROTEUS STEINMETZ (1865-), born in Breslau, Germany, was\neducated at Breslau, Berlin, and Zurich. For twenty-five years he has\nbeen Consulting Engineer to the General Electric Company, and for twenty\nyears Professor of Electro-physics at Union University. Besides several\nauthoritative volumes on subjects within his field, he is the author of\n_America and the New Epoch_ (1906) and is a frequent contributor to\nliterary as well as to technical journals.\n\n\"Science and Religion\" may be used to show the student how even so\ntechnical a topic as the Einstein Theory may be rendered concrete for\nthe general reader through analogy and specific examples.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"14285":"\n\n\n\n\nHom\u00e8re\nL\u0092ILIADE\n\nTraduction Charles-Ren\u00e9-Marie Leconte de L'Isle\n\n\nTable des mati\u00e8res\n\nChants\n\nChant 1\nChant 2\nChant 3\nChant 4\nChant 5\nChant 6\nChant 7\nChant 8\nChant 9\nChant 10\nChant 11\nChant 12\nChant 13\nChant 14\nChant 15\nChant 16\nChant 17\nChant 18\nChant 19\nChant 20\nChant 21\nChant 22\nChant 23\nChant 24\n\n\n\nChant 1\n\nChante, d\u00e9esse, du P\u00e8l\u00e8iade Akhilleus la col\u00e8re d\u00e9sastreuse, qui\nde maux infinis accabla les Akhaiens, et pr\u00e9cipita chez Aid\u00e8s tant\nde fortes \u00e2mes de h\u00e9ros, livr\u00e9s eux-m\u00eames en p\u00e2ture aux chiens et\n\u00e0 tous les oiseaux carnassiers. Et le dessein de Zeus\ns'accomplissait ainsi, depuis qu'une querelle avait divis\u00e9\nl'Atr\u00e9ide, roi des hommes, et le divin Akhilleus.\n\nQui d'entre les dieux les jeta dans cette dissension? Le fils de\nZeus et de L\u00e8t\u00f4. Irrit\u00e9 contre le roi, il suscita dans l'arm\u00e9e un\nmal mortel, et les peuples p\u00e9rissaient, parce que l'Atr\u00e9ide avait\ncouvert d'opprobre Khrys\u00e8s le sacrificateur.\n\nEt celui-ci \u00e9tait venu vers les nefs rapides des Akhaiens pour\nracheter sa fille; et, portant le prix infini de\nl'affranchissement, et, dans ses mains, les bandelettes de\nl'Archer Apoll\u00f4n, suspendues au sceptre d'or, il conjura tous les\nAkhaiens, et surtout les deux Atr\u00e9ides, princes des peuples:\n\n-- Atr\u00e9ides, et vous, anciens aux belles kn\u00e8mides, que les dieux\nqui habitent les demeures olympiennes vous donnent de d\u00e9truire la\nville de Priamos et de vous retourner heureusement; mais rendez-\nmoi ma fille bien-aim\u00e9e et recevez le prix de l'affranchissement,\nsi vous r\u00e9v\u00e9rez le fils de Zeus, l'archer Apoll\u00f4n.\n\nEt tous les Akhaiens, par des rumeurs favorables, voulaient qu'on\nrespect\u00e2t le sacrificateur et qu'on re\u00e7\u00fbt le prix splendide; mais\ncela ne plut point \u00e0 l'\u00e2me de l'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n, et il le chassa\noutrageusement, et il lui dit cette parole violente:\n\n-- Prends garde, vieillard, que je te rencontre aupr\u00e8s des nefs\ncreuses, soit que tu t'y attardes, soit que tu reviennes, de peur\nque le sceptre et les bandelettes du dieu ne te prot\u00e8gent plus. Je\nn'affranchirai point ta fille. La vieillesse l'atteindra, en ma\ndemeure, dans Argos, loin de sa patrie, tissant la toile et\npartageant mon lit. Mais, va! ne m'irrite point, afin de t'en\nretourner sauf.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le vieillard trembla et ob\u00e9it. Et il allait,\nsilencieux, le long du rivage de la mer aux bruits sans nombre.\nEt, se voyant \u00e9loign\u00e9, il conjura le roi Apoll\u00f4n que L\u00e8t\u00f4 \u00e0 la\nbelle chevelure enfanta:\n\n-- Entends-moi, porteur de l'arc d'argent, qui prot\u00e8ges Khrys\u00e8 et\nKilla la sainte, et commandes fortement sur T\u00e9n\u00e9dos, Smintheus! Si\njamais j'ai orn\u00e9 ton beau temple, si jamais j'ai br\u00fbl\u00e9 pour toi\nles cuisses grasses des taureaux et des ch\u00e8vres, exauce mon voeu:\nque les Danaens expient mes larmes sous tes fl\u00e8ches!\n\nIl parla ainsi en priant, et Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n l'entendit; et, du\nsommet Olympien, il se pr\u00e9cipita, irrit\u00e9 dans son coeur, portant\nl'arc sur ses \u00e9paules, avec le plein carquois. Et les fl\u00e8ches\nsonnaient sur le dos du dieu irrit\u00e9, \u00e0 chacun de ses mouvements.\nEt il allait, semblable \u00e0 la nuit.\n\nAssis \u00e0 l'\u00e9cart, loin des nefs, il lan\u00e7a une fl\u00e8che, et un bruit\nterrible sortit de l'arc d'argent. Il frappa les mulets d'abord et\nles chiens rapides; mais, ensuite, il per\u00e7a les hommes eux-m\u00eames\ndu trait qui tue. Et sans cesse les b\u00fbchers br\u00fblaient, lourds de\ncadavres.\n\nDepuis neuf jours les fl\u00e8ches divines sifflaient \u00e0 travers\nl'arm\u00e9e; et, le dixi\u00e8me, Akhilleus convoqua les peuples dans\nl'agora. H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux bras blancs le lui avait inspir\u00e9, anxieuse des\nDanaens et les voyant p\u00e9rir. Et quand ils furent tous r\u00e9unis, se\nlevant au milieu d'eux, Akhilleus aux pieds rapides parla ainsi:\n\n-- Atr\u00e9ide, je pense qu'il nous faut reculer et reprendre nos\ncourses errantes sur la mer, si toutefois nous \u00e9vitons la mort,\ncar, toutes deux, la guerre et la contagion domptent les Akhaiens.\nH\u00e2tons-nous d'interroger un divinateur ou un sacrificateur, ou un\ninterpr\u00e8te des songes, car le songe vient de Zeus. Qu'il dise\npourquoi Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n est irrit\u00e9, soit qu'il nous reproche des\nvoeux n\u00e9glig\u00e9s ou qu'il demande des h\u00e9catombes promises. Sachons\nsi, content de la graisse fumante des agneaux et des belles\nch\u00e8vres, il \u00e9cartera de nous cette contagion.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il s'assit. Et le Thestoride Kalkhas,\nl'excellent divinateur, se leva. Il savait les choses pr\u00e9sentes,\nfutures et pass\u00e9es, et il avait conduit \u00e0 Ilion les nefs\nAkhaiennes, \u00e0 l'aide de la science sacr\u00e9e dont l'avait dou\u00e9\nPhoibos Apoll\u00f4n. Tr\u00e8s sage, il dit dans l'agora:\n\n-- \u00d4 Akhilleus, cher \u00e0 Zeus, tu m'ordonnes d'expliquer la col\u00e8re\ndu roi Apoll\u00f4n l'archer. Je le ferai, mais promets d'abord et jure\nque tu me d\u00e9fendras de ta parole et de tes mains; car, sans doute,\nje vais irriter l'homme qui commande \u00e0 tous les Argiens et \u00e0 qui\ntous les Akhaiens ob\u00e9issent. Un roi est trop puissant contre un\ninf\u00e9rieur qui l'irrite. Bien que, dans l'instant, il refr\u00e8ne sa\ncol\u00e8re, il l'assouvit un jour, apr\u00e8s l'avoir couv\u00e9e dans son\ncoeur. Dis-moi donc que tu me prot\u00e9geras.\n\nEt Akhilleus aux pieds rapides, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi:\n\n-- Dis sans peur ce que tu sais. Non! par Apoll\u00f4n, cher \u00e0 Zeus, et\ndont tu d\u00e9couvres aux Danaens les volont\u00e9s sacr\u00e9es, non! nul\nd'entre eux, Kalkhas, moi vivant et les yeux ouverts, ne portera\nsur toi des mains violentes aupr\u00e8s des nefs creuses, quand m\u00eame tu\nnommerais Agamemn\u00f4n, qui se glorifie d'\u00eatre le plus puissant des\nAkhaiens.\n\nEt le divinateur irr\u00e9prochable prit courage et dit:\n\n-- Apoll\u00f4n ne vous reproche ni voeux ni h\u00e9catombes; mais il venge\nson sacrificateur, qu'Agamemn\u00f4n a couvert d\u0092opprobre, car il n'a\npoint d\u00e9livr\u00e9 sa fille, dont il a refus\u00e9 le prix\nd'affranchissement. Et c'est pour cela que l'archer Apoll\u00f4n vous\naccable de maux; et il vous en accablera, et il n'\u00e9cartera point\nles lourdes k\u00e8res de la contagion, que vous n'ayez rendu \u00e0 son\np\u00e8re bien-aim\u00e9 la jeune fille aux sourcils arqu\u00e9s, et qu'une\nh\u00e9catombe sacr\u00e9e n'ait \u00e9t\u00e9 conduite \u00e0 Khrys\u00e8. Alors nous\napaiserons le dieu.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il s'assit. Et le h\u00e9ros Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n, qui\ncommande au loin, se leva, plein de douleur; et une noire col\u00e8re\nemplissait sa poitrine, et ses yeux \u00e9taient pareils \u00e0 des feux\nflambants. Furieux contre Kalkhas, il parla ainsi:\n\n-- Divinateur malheureux, jamais tu ne m'as rien dit d'agr\u00e9able.\nLes maux seuls te sont doux \u00e0 pr\u00e9dire. Tu n'as jamais ni bien\nparl\u00e9 ni bien agi; et voici maintenant qu'au milieu des Danaens,\ndans l'agora, tu proph\u00e9tises que l'archer Apollon nous accable de\nmaux parce que je n\u0092ai point voulu recevoir le prix splendide de\nla vierge Khrys\u00e8is, aimant mieux la retenir dans ma demeure\nlointaine. En effet, je la pr\u00e9f\u00e8re \u00e0 Klytaimnestr\u00e8, que j'ai\n\u00e9pous\u00e9e vierge. Elle ne lui est inf\u00e9rieure ni par le corps, ni par\nla taille, ni par l'intelligence, ni par l'habilet\u00e9 aux travaux.\nMais je la veux rendre. Je pr\u00e9f\u00e8re le salut des peuples \u00e0 leur\ndestruction. Donc, pr\u00e9parez-moi promptement un prix, afin que,\nseul d'entre tous les Argiens, je ne sois point d\u00e9pouill\u00e9. Cela ne\nconviendrait point; car, vous le voyez, ma part m'est retir\u00e9e.\n\nEt le divan Akhilleus aux pieds rapides lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Tr\u00e8s orgueilleux Atr\u00e9ide, le plus avare des hommes, comment les\nmagnanimes Akhaiens te donneraient-ils un autre prix? Avons-nous\ndes d\u00e9pouilles \u00e0 mettre en commun? Celles que nous avons enlev\u00e9es\ndes villes saccag\u00e9es ont \u00e9t\u00e9 distribu\u00e9es, et il ne convient point\nque les hommes en fassent un nouveau partage. Mais toi, remets\ncette jeune fille \u00e0 son dieu, et nous, Akhaiens, nous te rendrons\nle triple et le quadruple, si jamais Zeus nous donne de d\u00e9truire\nTroi\u00e8 aux fortes murailles.\n\nEt le roi Agamemn\u00f4n, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi:\n\n-- Ne crois point me tromper, quelque brave que tu sois, Akhilleus\nsemblable \u00e0 un dieu, car tu ne me s\u00e9duiras ni ne me persuaderas.\nVeux-tu, tandis que tu gardes ta part, que je reste assis dans mon\nindigence, en affranchissant cette jeune fille? Si les magnanimes\nAkhaiens satisfont mon coeur par un prix d'une valeur \u00e9gale, soit.\nSinon, je ravirai le tien, ou celui d'Aias, ou celui d'Odysseus;\net je l'emporterai, et celui-l\u00e0 s'indignera vers qui j'irai. Mais\nnous songerons \u00e0 ceci plus tard. Donc, lan\u00e7ons une nef noire \u00e0 la\nmer divine, munie d'avirons, charg\u00e9e d'une h\u00e9catombe, et faisons-y\nmonter Khrys\u00e8is aux belles joues, sous la conduite d'un chef,\nAias, Idom\u00e9neus, ou le divin Odysseus, ou toi-m\u00eame, P\u00e8l\u00e9ide, le\nplus effrayant des hommes, afin d'apaiser l'archer Apoll\u00f4n par les\nsacrifices accomplis.\n\nEt Akhilleus aux pieds rapides, le regardant d'un oeil sombre,\nparla ainsi;\n\n-- Ah! rev\u00eatu d'impudence, \u00e2pre au gain! Comment un seul d'entre\nles Akhaiens se h\u00e2terait-il de t'ob\u00e9ir, soit qu'il faille tendre\nune embuscade, soit qu'on doive combattre courageusement contre\nles hommes? Je ne suis point venu pour ma propre cause attaquer\nles Troiens arm\u00e9s de lances, car ils ne m'ont jamais nui. Jamais\nils ne m'ont enlev\u00e9 ni mes boeufs ni mes chevaux; jamais, dans la\nfructueuse Phthi\u00e8, ils n'ont ravag\u00e9 mes moissons: car un grand\nnombre de montagnes ombrag\u00e9es et la mer sonnante nous s\u00e9parent.\nMais nous t'avons suivi pour te plaire, impudent! pour venger\nM\u00e9n\u00e9laos et toi, oeil de chien! Et tu ne t'en soucies ni ne t'en\nsouviens, et tu me menaces de m'enlever la r\u00e9compense pour\nlaquelle j'ai tant travaill\u00e9 et que m'ont donn\u00e9e les fils des\nAkhaiens! Certes, je n'ai jamais une part \u00e9gale \u00e0 la tienne quand\non saccage une ville troienne bien peupl\u00e9e; et cependant mes mains\nportent le plus lourd fardeau de la guerre imp\u00e9tueuse. Et, quand\nvient l'heure du partage, la meilleure part est pour toi; et,\nployant sous la fatigue du combat, je retourne vers mes nefs,\nsatisfait d'une r\u00e9compense modique. Aujourd'hui, je pars pour la\nPhthi\u00e8, car mieux vaut regagner ma demeure sur mes nefs\n\u00e9peronn\u00e9es. Et je ne pense point qu'apr\u00e8s m'avoir outrag\u00e9 tu\nrecueilles ici des d\u00e9pouilles et des richesses.\n\nEt le roi des hommes, Agamemn\u00f4n, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Fuis, si ton coeur t'y pousse. Je ne te demande point de rester\npour ma cause. Mille autres seront avec moi, surtout le tr\u00e8s sage\nZeus. Tu m'es le plus odieux des rois nourris par le Kronide. Tu\nne te plais que dans la dissension, la guerre et le combat. Si tu\nes brave, c'est que les dieux l'ont voulu sans doute. Retourne\ndans ta demeure avec tes nefs et tes compagnons; commande aux\nMyrmidones; je n'ai nul souci de ta col\u00e8re, mais je te pr\u00e9viens de\nceci; puisque Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n m'enl\u00e8ve Khrys\u00e8is, je la renverrai\nsur une de mes nefs avec mes compagnons, et moi-m\u00eame j'irai sous\nta tente et j'en entra\u00eenerai Breis\u00e8is aux belles joues, qui fut\nton partage, afin que tu comprennes que je suis plus puissant que\ntoi, et que chacun redoute de se dire mon \u00e9gal en face.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le P\u00e8l\u00e9i\u00f4n fut ampli d'angoisse, et son coeur,\ndans sa m\u00e2le poitrine, d\u00e9lib\u00e9ra si, prenant l'\u00e9p\u00e9e aigu\u00eb sur sa\ncuisse, il \u00e9carterait la foule et tuerait l'Atr\u00e9ide, ou s'il\napaisent sa col\u00e8re et refr\u00e9nerait sa fureur.\n\nEt tandis qu'il d\u00e9lib\u00e9rait dans son \u00e2me et dans son esprit, et\nqu'il arrachait sa grande \u00e9p\u00e9e de la gaine, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 vint de\nl'Ouranos, car H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux bras blancs l'avait envoy\u00e9e, aimant et\nprot\u00e9geant les deux rois. Elle se tint en arri\u00e8re et saisit le\nP\u00e8l\u00e9i\u00f4n par sa chevelure blonde; visible pour lui seul, car nul\nautre ne la voyait. Et Akhilleus, stup\u00e9fait, se retourna, et\naussit\u00f4t il reconnut Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, dont les yeux \u00e9taient terribles, et\nil lui dit en paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Pourquoi es-tu venue, fille de Zeus temp\u00e9tueux? Est-ce afin de\nvoir l'outrage qui m'est fait par l'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n? Mais je te\nle dis, et ma parole s'accomplira, je pense: il va rendre l\u0092\u00e2me \u00e0\ncause de son insolence.\n\nEt Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Je suis venue de l'Ouranos pour apaiser ta col\u00e8re, si tu veux\nob\u00e9ir. La divine H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux bras blancs m'a envoy\u00e9e, vous aimant et\nvous prot\u00e9geant tous deux. Donc, arr\u00eate; ne prends point l'\u00e9p\u00e9e en\nmain, venge-toi en paroles, quoi qu'il arrive. Et je te le dis, et\nceci s'accomplira: bient\u00f4t ton injure te sera pay\u00e9e par trois fois\nautant de pr\u00e9sents splendides. R\u00e9prime-toi et ob\u00e9is-nous.\n\nEt Akhilleus aux pieds rapides, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi:\n\n-- D\u00e9esse, il faut observer ton ordre, bien que je sois irrit\u00e9\ndans l'\u00e2me. Cela est pour le mieux sans doute, car les dieux\nexaucent qui leur ob\u00e9it.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, frappant d'une main lourde la poign\u00e9e\nd'argent, il repoussa sa grande \u00e9p\u00e9e dans la gaine et n'enfreignit\npoint l'ordre d'Ath\u00e8n\u00e8.\n\nEt celle-ci retourna aupr\u00e8s des autres dieux, dans les demeures\nolympiennes de Zeus temp\u00e9tueux.\n\nEt le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide, d\u00e9bordant de col\u00e8re, interpella l'Atr\u00e9ide avec\nd'\u00e2pres paroles:\n\n-- Lourd de vin, oeil de chien, coeur de cerf! jamais tu n'as os\u00e9,\ndans ton \u00e2me, t'armer pour le combat avec les hommes, ni tendre\ndes embuscades avec les princes des Akhaiens. Cela t'\u00e9pouvanterait\ncomme la mort elle-m\u00eame. Certes, il est beaucoup plus ais\u00e9, dans\nla vaste arm\u00e9e Akhaienne, d'enlever la part de celui qui te\ncontredit, roi qui manges ton peuple, parce que tu commandes \u00e0 des\nhommes vils. S'il n'en \u00e9tait pas ainsi, Atr\u00e9ide, cette insolence\nserait la derni\u00e8re. Mais je te le dis, et j'en jure un grand\nserment: par ce sceptre qui ne produit ni feuilles, ni rameaux, et\nqui ne reverdira plus, depuis qu'il a \u00e9t\u00e9 tranch\u00e9 du tronc sur les\nmontagnes et que l'airain l'a d\u00e9pouill\u00e9 de feuilles et d'\u00e9corce;\net par le sceptre que les fils des Akhaiens portent aux mains\nquand ils jugent et gardent les lois au nom de Zeus, je te le jure\npar un grand serment: certes, bient\u00f4t le regret d'Akhilleus\nenvahira tous les fils des Akhaiens, et tu g\u00e9miras de ne pouvoir\nles d\u00e9fendre, quand ils tomberont en foule sous le tueur d'hommes\nHekt\u00f4r; et tu seras irrit\u00e9 et d\u00e9chir\u00e9 au fond de ton \u00e2me d'avoir\noutrag\u00e9 le plus brave des Akhaiens.\n\nAinsi parla le P\u00e8l\u00ebide, et il jeta contre terre le sceptre aux\nclous d'or, et il s'assit. Et l'Atr\u00e9ide s'irritait aussi; mais\nl'excellent agor\u00e8te des Pyliens, l'harmonieux Nest\u00f4r, se leva.\n\nEt la parole coulait de sa langue, douce comme le miel. Et il\navait d\u00e9j\u00e0 v\u00e9cu deux \u00e2ges d'hommes n\u00e9s et nourris avec lui dans la\ndivine Pylos, et il r\u00e9gnait sur le troisi\u00e8me \u00e2ge. Tr\u00e8s sage, il\ndit dans l'agora:\n\n-- \u00d4 dieux! Certes. un grand deuil envahit la terre Akhaienne!\nVoici que Priamos se r\u00e9jouira et que les fils de Priamos et tous\nles autres Troiens se r\u00e9jouiront aussi dans leur coeur, quand ils\napprendront vos querelles, \u00e0 vous qui \u00eates au-dessus des Danaens\ndans l'agora et dans le combat. Mais laissez-vous persuader, car\nvous \u00eates tous deux moins \u00e2g\u00e9s que moi. J'ai v\u00e9cu autrefois avec\ndes hommes plus braves que vous, et jamais ils ne m'ont cru\nmoindre qu'eux. Non, jamais je n'ai vu et je ne reverrai des\nhommes tels que Peirithoos, et Dryas, prince des peuples, Kain\u00e9os,\nExadios, Polyph\u00e8mos semblable \u00e0 un dieu, et Th\u00e8seus Aig\u00e9ide pareil\naux immortels. Certes, ils \u00e9taient les plus braves des hommes\nnourris sur la terre, et ils combattaient contre les plus braves,\nles centaures des montagnes; et ils les tu\u00e8rent terriblement. Et\nj'\u00e9tais avec eux, \u00e9tant all\u00e9 loin de Pylos et de la terre d'Api\u00e8,\net ils m'avaient appel\u00e9, et je combattais selon mes forces, car\nnul des hommes qui sont aujourd'hui sur la terre n'aurait pu leur\nr\u00e9sister. Mais ils \u00e9coutaient mes conseils et s'y conformaient.\nOb\u00e9issez donc, car cela est pour le mieux. Il n'est point permis \u00e0\nAgamemn\u00f4n, bien que le plus puissant, d'enlever au P\u00e8l\u00e9ide la\nvierge que lui ont donn\u00e9e les fils des Akhaiens, mais tu ne dois\npoint aussi, P\u00e8l\u00e9ide, r\u00e9sister au roi, car tu n'es point l'\u00e9gal de\nce porte sceptre que Zeus a glorifi\u00e9. Si tu es le plus brave, si\nune m\u00e8re divine t'a enfant\u00e9, celui-ci est le plus puissant et\ncommande \u00e0 un plus grand nombre. Atr\u00e9ide, renonce \u00e0 ta col\u00e8re, et\nje supplie Akhilleus de r\u00e9primer la sienne, car il est le solide\nbouclier des Akhaiens dans la guerre mauvaise.\n\nEt le roi Agamemn\u00f4n parla ainsi:\n\n-- Vieillard, tu as dit sagement et bien; mais cet homme veut \u00eatre\nau-dessus de tous, commander \u00e0 tous et dominer sur tous. Je ne\npense point que personne y consente. Si les dieux qui vivent\ntoujours l'ont fait brave, lui ont-ils permis d'insulter?\n\nEt le divin Akhilleus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Certes, je m\u00e9riterais d'\u00eatre nomm\u00e9 l\u00e2che et vil si, \u00e0 chacune\nde tes paroles, je te complaisais en toute chose. Commande aux\nautres, mais non \u00e0 moi, car ne pense point que je t'ob\u00e9isse jamais\nplus d\u00e9sormais. Je te dirai ceci; garde-le dans ton esprit: Je ne\ncombattrai point contre aucun autre \u00e0 cause de cette vierge,\npuisque vous m'enlevez ce que vous m'avez donn\u00e9. Mais tu\nn'emporteras rien contre mon gr\u00e9 de toutes les autres choses qui\nsont dans ma nef noire et rapide. Tente-le, fais-toi ce danger, et\nque ceux-ci le voient, et aussit\u00f4t ton sang noir ruissellera\nautour de ma lance.\n\nS'\u00e9tant ainsi outrag\u00e9s de paroles, ils se lev\u00e8rent et rompirent\nl'agora aupr\u00e8s des nefs des Akhaiens. Et le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide se retira,\navec le M\u00e9noitiade et ses compagnons, vers ses tentes. Et\nl'Atr\u00e9ide lan\u00e7a \u00e0 la mer une nef rapide, l'arma de vingt avirons,\ny mit une h\u00e9catombe pour le dieu et y conduisit lui-m\u00eame Khrys\u00e8is\naux belles joues. Et le chef fut le subtil Odysseus.\n\nEt comme ils naviguaient sur les routes marines, l'Atr\u00e9ide ordonna\naux peuples de se purifier. Et ils se purifiaient tous, et ils\njetaient leurs souillures dans la mer, et ils sacrifiaient \u00e0\nApoll\u00f4n des h\u00e9catombes choisies de taureaux et de ch\u00e8vres, le long\ndu rivage de la mer inf\u00e9conde. Et l'odeur en montait vers\nl'Ouranos, dans un tourbillon de fum\u00e9e.\n\nEt pendant qu'ils faisaient ainsi, Agamemn\u00f4n n'oubliait ni sa\ncol\u00e8re, ni la menace faite \u00e0 Akhilleus. Et il interpella\nTalthybios et Eurybat\u00e8s, qui \u00e9taient ses h\u00e9rauts familiers.\n\n-- Allez \u00e0 la tente du P\u00e8l\u00e9ide Akhilleus. Saisissez de la main\nBreis\u00e8is aux belles joues; et, s'il ne la donnait pas, j'irai la\nsaisir moi-m\u00eame avec un plus grand nombre, et ceci lui sera plus\ndouloureux.\n\nEt il les envoya avec ces \u00e2pres paroles. Et ils marchaient \u00e0\nregret le long du rivage de la mer inf\u00e9conde, et ils parvinrent\naux tentes et aux nefs des Myrmidones. Et ils trouv\u00e8rent le\nP\u00e8l\u00e9ide assis aupr\u00e8s de sa tente et de sa nef noire, et Akhilleus\nne fut point joyeux de les voir. Enray\u00e9s et pleins de respect, ils\nse tenaient devant le roi, et ils ne lui parlaient, ni ne\nl'interrogeaient. Et il les comprit dans son \u00e2me et dit:\n\n-- Salut, messagers de Zeus et des hommes! Approchez. Vous n'\u00eates\npoint coupables envers moi, mais bien Agamemn\u00f4n, qui vous envoie\npour la vierge Breis\u00e8is. Debout, divin Patroklos, am\u00e8ne-la, et\nqu'ils l'entra\u00eenent! Mais qu'ils soient t\u00e9moins devant les dieux\nheureux, devant les hommes mortels et devant ce roi f\u00e9roce, si\njamais on a besoin de moi pour conjurer la destruction de tous;\ncar, certes, il est plein de fureur dans ses pens\u00e9es mauvaises, et\nil ne se souvient de rien, et il ne pr\u00e9voit rien, de fa\u00e7on que les\nAkhaiens combattent saufs aupr\u00e8s des nefs.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Patroklos ob\u00e9it \u00e0 son compagnon bien-aim\u00e9. Il\nconduisit hors de la tente Breis\u00e8is aux belles joues, et il la\nlivra pour \u00eatre entra\u00een\u00e9e. Et les h\u00e9rauts retourn\u00e8rent aux nefs\ndes anciens, et la jeune femme allait les suivant \u00e0 contrecoeur.\nEt Akhilleus, en pleurant, s'assit, loin des siens, sur le rivage\nblanc d'\u00e9cume, et, regardant la haute mer toute noire, les mains\n\u00e9tendues, il supplia sa m\u00e8re bien-aim\u00e9e:\n\n-- M\u00e8re! puisque tu m'as enfant\u00e9 pour vivre peu de temps,\nl'Olympien Zeus qui tonne dans les nues devrait m'accorder au\nmoins quelque honneur; mais il le fait maintenant moins que\njamais. Et voici que l'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n, qui commande au loin,\nm'a couvert d'opprobre, et qu'il poss\u00e8de ma r\u00e9compense qu'il m'a\nenlev\u00e9e.\n\nIl parla ainsi, versant des larmes. Et sa m\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable\nl'entendit, assise au fond de l'ab\u00eeme, aupr\u00e8s de son vieux p\u00e8re.\nEt, aussit\u00f4t, elle \u00e9mergea de la blanche mer, comme une nu\u00e9e; et,\ns'asseyant devant son fils qui pleurait, elle le caressa de la\nmain et lui parla:\n\n-- Mon enfant, pourquoi pleures-tu? Quelle amertume est entr\u00e9e\ndans ton \u00e2me? Parle, ne cache rien afin que nous sachions tous\ndeux.\n\nEt Akhilleus aux pieds rapides parla avec un profond soupir:\n\n-- Tu le sais; pourquoi te dire ce que tu sais? Nous sommes all\u00e9s\ncontre Th\u00e8b\u00e8 la sainte, ville d'\u00ca\u00e9ti\u00f4n, et nous l'avons saccag\u00e9e,\net nous en avons tout enlev\u00e9; et les fils des Akhaiens, s'\u00e9tant\npartag\u00e9 les d\u00e9pouilles, donn\u00e8rent \u00e0 l'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n Khrys\u00e8is\naux belles joues. Mais bient\u00f4t Khrys\u00e8s, sacrificateur de l'archer\nApoll\u00f4n, vint aux nefs rapides des Akhaiens rev\u00eatus d'airain, pour\nracheter sa fille. Et il portait le prix infini de\nl'affranchissement, et, dans ses mains les bandelettes de l'archer\nApoll\u00f4n, suspendues au sceptre d'or. Et, suppliant, il pria tous\nles Akhaiens, et surtout les deux Atr\u00e9ides, princes des peuples.\nEt tous les Akhaiens, par des rumeurs favorables, voulaient qu'on\nrespect\u00e2t le sacrificateur et qu'on re\u00e7\u00fbt le prix splendide. Mais\ncela ne plut point \u00e0 l'\u00e2me de l'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n, et il le chassa\noutrageusement avec une parole violente. Et le vieillard irrit\u00e9 se\nretira. Mais Apoll\u00f4n exau\u00e7a son voeu, car il lui est tr\u00e8s cher. Il\nenvoya contre les Argiens une fl\u00e8che mauvaise; et les peuples\np\u00e9rissaient amoncel\u00e9s; et les traits du dieu sifflaient au travers\nde la vaste arm\u00e9e Akhaienne. Un divinateur sage interpr\u00e9tait dans\nl'agora les volont\u00e9s sacr\u00e9es d'Apoll\u00f4n. Aussit\u00f4t, le premier, je\nvoulus qu'on apais\u00e2t le dieu. Mais la col\u00e8re saisit l'Atr\u00e9ide, et,\nse levant soudainement, il pronon\u00e7a une menace qui s'est\naccomplie. Les Akhaiens aux sourcils arqu\u00e9s ont conduit la jeune\nvierge \u00e0 Khrys\u00e8, sur une nef rapide, et portant des pr\u00e9sents au\ndieu; mais deux h\u00e9rauts viennent d'entra\u00eener de ma tente la vierge\nBreis\u00e8is que les Akhaiens m'avaient donn\u00e9e. Pour toi, si tu le\nveux, secours ton fils bien-aim\u00e9. Monte \u00e0 l'Ouranos Olympien et\nsupplie Zeus, si jamais tu as touch\u00e9 son coeur par tes paroles ou\npar tes actions. Souvent je t'ai entendue, dans les demeures\npaternelles, quand tu disais que, seule parmi les immortels, tu\navais d\u00e9tourn\u00e9 un indigne traitement du Kroni\u00f4n qui amasse les\nnu\u00e9es, alors que les autres Olympiens, H\u00e8r\u00e8 et Poseida\u00f4n et Pallas\nAth\u00e8n\u00e8 le voulaient encha\u00eener. Et toi, d\u00e9esse, tu accourus, et tu\nle d\u00e9livras de ses liens, en appelant dans le vaste Olympes le\ng\u00e9ant aux cent mains que les dieux nomment Briar\u00e9\u00f4s, et les hommes\nAigai\u00f4s. Et celui-ci \u00e9tait beaucoup plus fort que son p\u00e8re, et il\ns'assit, orgueilleux de sa gloire, aupr\u00e8s du Kroni\u00f4n; et les dieux\nheureux en furent \u00e9pouvant\u00e9, et n'encha\u00een\u00e8rent point Zeus.\nMaintenant rappelle ceci en sa m\u00e9moire; presse ses genoux; et que,\nvenant en aide aux Troiens, ceux-ci repoussent, avec un grand\nmassacre, les Akhaiens contre la mer et dans leurs nefs. Que les\nArgiens jouissent de leur roi, et que l'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n qui\ncommande au loin souffre de sa faute, puisqu'il a outrag\u00e9 le plus\nbrave des Akhaiens.\n\nEt Th\u00e9tis, r\u00e9pandant des larmes, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- H\u00e9las! mon enfant, pourquoi t'ai-je enfant\u00e9 et nourri pour une\ndestin\u00e9e mauvaise! Oh! que n'es-tu rest\u00e9 dans tes nefs, calme et\nsans larmes du moins, puisque tu ne dois vivre que peu de jours!\nMais te voici tr\u00e8s malheureux et devant mourir tr\u00e8s vite, parce\nque je t'ai enfant\u00e9 dans mes demeures pour une destin\u00e9e mauvaise!\nCependant, j'irai dans l'Olympos neigeux, et je parlerai \u00e0 Zeus\nqui se r\u00e9jouit de la foudre, et peut-\u00eatre m'\u00e9coutera-t-il. Pour\ntoi, assis dans tes nefs rapides, reste irrit\u00e9 contre les Akhaiens\net abstiens-toi du combat. Zeus est all\u00e9 hier du c\u00f4t\u00e9 de\nl'Ok\u00e9anos, \u00e0 un festin que lui ont donn\u00e9 les Aithiopiens\nirr\u00e9prochables, et tous les dieux l'ont suivi. Le douzi\u00e8me jour il\nreviendra dans l'Olympos. Alors j'irai dans la demeure d'airain de\nZeus et je presserai ses genoux, et je pense qu'il en sera touch\u00e9.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, elle partit et laissa Akhilleus irrit\u00e9 dans son\ncoeur au souvenir de la jeune femme \u00e0 la belle ceinture qu'on lui\navait enlev\u00e9e par violence.\n\nEt Odysseus, conduisant l'h\u00e9catombe sacr\u00e9e, parvint \u00e0 Krys\u00e8. Et\nles Akhaiens, \u00e9tant entr\u00e9s dans le port profond, pli\u00e8rent les\nvoiles qui furent d\u00e9pos\u00e9es dans la nef noire. Ils abattirent\njoyeusement sur l'avant le m\u00e2t d\u00e9gag\u00e9 de ses manoeuvres; et,\nmenant la nef \u00e0 force d'avirons, apr\u00e8s avoir amarr\u00e9 les c\u00e2bles et\nmouill\u00e9 les roches, ils descendirent sur le rivage de la mer, avec\nl'h\u00e9catombe promise \u00e0 l'archer Apoll\u00f4n. Khrys\u00e8is sortit aussit\u00f4t\nde la nef, et le subtil Odysseus, la conduisant vers l'autel, la\nremit aux mains de son p\u00e8re bien-aim\u00e9, et dit:\n\n-- \u00d4 Khrys\u00e8s! le roi des hommes, Agamemn\u00f4n, m'a envoy\u00e9 pour te\nrendre ta fille et pour sacrifier une h\u00e9catombe sacr\u00e9e \u00e0 Phoibos\nen faveur des Danaens, afin que nous apaisions le dieu qui accable\nles Argiens de calamit\u00e9s d\u00e9plorables.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il lui remit aux mains sa fille bien-aim\u00e9e, et\nle vieillard la re\u00e7ut plein de joie. Aussit\u00f4t les Akhaiens\nrang\u00e8rent la riche h\u00e9catombe dans l'ordre consacr\u00e9, autour de\nl'autel b\u00e2ti selon le rite. Et ils se lav\u00e8rent les mains, et ils\npr\u00e9par\u00e8rent les orges sal\u00e9es; et Khrys\u00e8s, \u00e0 haute voix, les bras\nlev\u00e9s, priait pour eux:\n\n-- Entends-moi, porteur de l'arc d'argent, qui prot\u00e8ges Khrys\u00e8 et\nla divine Killa, et commandes fortement sur T\u00e9n\u00e9dos. D\u00e9j\u00e0 tu as\nexauc\u00e9 ma pri\u00e8re; tu m'as honor\u00e9 et tu as couvert d'affliction les\npeuples des Akhaiens. Maintenant \u00e9coute mon voeu, et d\u00e9tourne loin\nd'eux la contagion.\n\nIl parla ainsi en priant, et Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n l'exau\u00e7a. Et, apr\u00e8s\navoir pri\u00e9 et r\u00e9pandu les orges sal\u00e9es, renversant en arri\u00e8re le\ncou des victimes, ils les \u00e9gorg\u00e8rent et les \u00e9corch\u00e8rent. On coupa\nles cuisses, on les couvrit de graisse des deux c\u00f4t\u00e9s, et on posa\nsur elles les entrailles crues.\n\nEt le vieillard les br\u00fblait sur du bois sec et les arrosait d'une\nlibation de vin rouge. Les jeunes hommes, aupr\u00e8s de lui, tenaient\nen mains des broches \u00e0 cinq pointes. Et, les cuisses \u00e9tant\nconsum\u00e9es, ils go\u00fbt\u00e8rent les entrailles; et, s\u00e9parant le reste en\nplusieurs morceaux, ils les trans-fix\u00e8rent de leurs broches et les\ntirent cuire avec soin, et le tout fut retir\u00e9 du feu. Apr\u00e8s avoir\nachev\u00e9 ce travail, ils pr\u00e9par\u00e8rent le repas; et tous furent\nconvi\u00e9s, et nul ne se plaignit, dans son \u00e2me, de l'in\u00e9galit\u00e9 des\nparts.\n\nAyant assouvi la faim et la soif, les jeunes hommes couronn\u00e8rent\nde vin les pat\u00e8res et les r\u00e9partirent entre tous \u00e0 pleines coupes.\nEt, durant tout le jour, les jeunes Akhaiens apais\u00e8rent le dieu\npar leurs hymnes, chantant le joyeux paian et c\u00e9l\u00e9brant l'archer\nApoll\u00f4n qui se r\u00e9jouissait dans son coeur de les entendre.\n\nQuand H\u00e9lios tomba et que les ombres furent venues, ils se\ncouch\u00e8rent aupr\u00e8s des c\u00e2bles, \u00e0 la proue de leur nef; et quand\n\u00c9\u00f4s, aux doigts ros\u00e9s, n\u00e9e au matin, apparut, ils s'en\nretourn\u00e8rent vers la vaste arm\u00e9e des Akhaiens, et l'archer Apoll\u00f4n\nleur envoya un vent propice. Et ils dress\u00e8rent le m\u00e2t, et ils\nd\u00e9ploy\u00e8rent les voiles blanches; et le vent les gonfla par le\nmilieu; et l'onde pourpr\u00e9e sonnait avec bruit autour de la car\u00e8ne\nde la nef qui courait sur l'eau en faisant sa route.\n\nPuis, \u00e9tant parvenus \u00e0 la vaste arm\u00e9e des Akhaiens, ils tir\u00e8rent\nla nef noire au plus haut des sables de la plage; et, l'ayant\nassujettie sur de longs rouleaux, ils se dispers\u00e8rent parmi les\ntentes et les nefs.\n\nMais le divin fils de P\u00e8leus, Akhilleus aux pieds rapides, assis\naupr\u00e8s de ses nefs l\u00e9g\u00e8res, couvait son ressentiment; et il ne se\nmontrait plus ni dans l'agora qui illustre les hommes, ni dans le\ncombat. Et il restait l\u00e0, se d\u00e9vorant le coeur et regrettant le\ncri de guerre et la m\u00eal\u00e9e.\n\nQuand \u00c9\u00f4s, reparut pour la douzi\u00e8me fois, les dieux qui vivent\ntoujours revinrent ensemble dans l'Olympos, et Zeus marchait en\nt\u00eate. Et Th\u00e9tis n'oublia point les pri\u00e8res de son fils; et,\n\u00e9mergeant de l'\u00e9cume de la mer, elle monta, matinale, \u00e0 travers le\nvaste Ouranos, jusqu'\u00e0 l'Olympos, o\u00f9 elle trouva celui qui voit\ntout, le Kronide, assis loin des autres dieux, sur le plus haut\nfa\u00eete de l'Olympos aux cimes nombreuses. Elle s'assit devant lui,\nembrassa ses genoux de la main gauche, lui toucha le menton de la\nmain droite, et le suppliant, elle dit au roi Zeus Kroni\u00f4n:\n\n-- P\u00e8re Zeus! si jamais, entre les immortels, je t'ai servi, soit\npar mes paroles, soit par mes actions, exauce ma pri\u00e8re. Honore\nmon fils qui, de tous les vivants, est le plus proche de la mort.\nVoici que le roi des hommes, Agamemn\u00f4n, l\u0092a outrag\u00e9, et qu'il\nposs\u00e8de sa r\u00e9compense qu'il lui a enlev\u00e9e. Mais toi, du moins,\nhonore-le, Olympien, tr\u00e8s sage Zeus, et donne le dessus aux\nTroyens jusqu'\u00e0 ce que les Akhaiens aient honor\u00e9 mon fils et lui\naient rendu hommage.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et Zeus, qui amasse les nu\u00e9es, ne r\u00e9pondit pas\net resta longtemps muet. Et Th\u00e9tis, ayant saisi ses genoux qu'elle\ntenait embrass\u00e9s, dit une seconde fois:\n\n-- Consens et promets avec sinc\u00e9rit\u00e9, ou refuse-moi, car tu ne\npeux craindre rien. Que je sache si je suis la plus m\u00e9pris\u00e9e des\nd\u00e9esses!\n\nEt Zeus qui amasse les nu\u00e9es, avec un profond soupir, lui dit:\n\n-- Certes, ceci va causer de grands malheurs, quand tu m'auras mis\nen lutte avec H\u00e8r\u00e8, et quand elle m'aura irrit\u00e9 par des paroles\noutrageantes. Elle ne cesse, en effet, parmi les dieux immortels,\nde me reprocher de soutenir les Troiens dans le combat.\nMaintenant, retire-toi en h\u00e2te, de peur que H\u00e8r\u00e8 t'aper\u00e7oive. Je\nsongerai \u00e0 faire ce que tu demandes, et je t'en donne pour gage le\nsigne de ma t\u00eate, afin que tu sois convaincue. Et c'est le plus\ngrand de mes signes pour les immortels. Et je ne puis ni r\u00e9voquer,\nni renier, ni n\u00e9gliger ce que j'ai promis par un signe de ma t\u00eate.\n\nEt le Kroni\u00f4n, ayant parl\u00e9, fron\u00e7a ses sourcils bleus. Et la\nchevelure ambroisienne s'agita sur la t\u00eate immortelle du roi, et\nle vaste Olympos en fut \u00e9branl\u00e9.\n\nTous deux s'\u00e9tant ainsi parl\u00e9, se s\u00e9par\u00e8rent. Et Th\u00e9tis sauta dans\nla mer profonde du haut de l'Olympos \u00e9blouissant, et Zeus rentra\ndans sa demeure. Et tous les dieux se lev\u00e8rent de leurs si\u00e8ges \u00e0\nl'aspect de leur p\u00e8re, et nul n'osa l'attendre, et tous\ns'empress\u00e8rent au-devant de lui, et il s'assit sur son thr\u00f4ne.\nMais H\u00e8r\u00e8 n'avait pas \u00e9t\u00e9 tromp\u00e9e, l'ayant vu se concerter avec la\nfille du vieillard de la mer, Th\u00e9tis aux pieds d'argent. Et elle\nadressa d'amers reproches \u00e0 Zeus Kroni\u00f4n:\n\n-- Qui d'entre les dieux, \u00f4 plein de ruses, s'est encore concert\u00e9\navec toi? Il te pla\u00eet sans cesse de prendre, loin de moi, de\nsecr\u00e8tes r\u00e9solutions, et jamais tu ne me dis ce que tu m\u00e9dites.\n\nEt le p\u00e8re des dieux et des hommes lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- H\u00e8r\u00e8, n'esp\u00e8re point conna\u00eetre toutes mes pens\u00e9es. Elles te\nseraient terribles, bien que tu sois mon \u00e9pouse. Celle qu'il\nconvient que tu saches, aucun des dieux et des hommes ne la\nconna\u00eetra avant toi; mais pour celle que je m\u00e9dite loin des dieux,\nne la recherche ni ne l'examine.\n\nEt la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux yeux de boeuf lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Terrible Kronide, quelle parole as-tu dite? Certes, je ne t'ai\njamais interrog\u00e9 et n'ai point recherch\u00e9 tes pens\u00e9es, et tu\nm\u00e9dites ce qu'il te pla\u00eet dans ton esprit. Mais je tremble que la\nfille du vieillard de la mer, Th\u00e9tis aux pieds d'argent, ne t'ait\ns\u00e9duit; car, d\u00e8s le matin, elle s'est assise aupr\u00e8s de toi et elle\na saisi tes genoux. Tu lui as promis, je pense, que tu honorerais\nAkhilleus et que tu ferais tomber un grand nombre d'hommes aupr\u00e8s\ndes nefs des Akhaiens.\n\nEt Zeus qui amasse les nu\u00e9es lui r\u00e9pondit, et il dit:\n\n-- Insens\u00e9e! tu me soup\u00e7onnes sans cesse et je ne puis me cacher\nde toi. Mais, dans ton impuissance, tu ne feras que t'\u00e9loigner de\nmon coeur, et ta peine en sera plus terrible. Si tes soup\u00e7ons sont\nvrais, sache qu'il me pla\u00eet d'agir ainsi. Donc, tais-toi et ob\u00e9is\n\u00e0 mes paroles. Prends garde que tous les dieux Olympiens ne\npuissent te d\u00e9fendre, si j'\u00e9tends sur toi mes mains sacr\u00e9es.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable H\u00e8ra aux yeux de boeuf fut saisie\nde crainte, et elle demeura muette, domptant son coeur altier. Et,\ndans la demeure de Zeus, les dieux ouraniens g\u00e9mirent.\n\nEt l'illustre ouvrier H\u00e8phaistos commen\u00e7a de parler, pour consoler\nsa m\u00e8re bien-aim\u00e9e, H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux bras blancs:\n\n-- Certes, nos maux seront funestes et intol\u00e9rables, si vous vous\nquerellez ainsi pour des mortels, et si vous mettez le tumulte\nparmi les dieux. Nos festins brillants perdront leur joie, si le\nmal l'emporte. Je conseille \u00e0 ma m\u00e8re, bien qu'elle soit d\u00e9j\u00e0\npersuad\u00e9e de ceci, de calmer Zeus, mon p\u00e8re bien-aim\u00e9, afin qu'il\nne s'irrite point de nouveau et qu'il ne trouble plus nos festins.\nCertes, si l'Olympien qui darde les \u00e9clairs le veut, il peut nous\npr\u00e9cipiter de nos tr\u00f4nes, car il est le plus puissant. Tente donc\nde le fl\u00e9chir par de douces paroles, et aussit\u00f4t l'Olympien nous\nsera bienveillant.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, s'\u00e9tant \u00e9lanc\u00e9, il remit une coupe profonde\naux mains de sa m\u00e8re bien-aim\u00e9e et lui dit:\n\n-- Sois patiente, ma m\u00e8re, et, bien qu'afflig\u00e9e, supporte ta\ndisgr\u00e2ce, de peur que je te voie maltrait\u00e9e, toi qui m'es ch\u00e8re,\net que, malgr\u00e9 ma douleur, je ne puisse te secourir, car\nl'Olympien est un terrible adversaire. D\u00e9j\u00e0, une fois, comme je\nvoulais te d\u00e9fendre, il me saisit par un pied et me rejeta du haut\ndes demeures divines. Tout un jour je roulai, et, avec H\u00e9lios, qui\nse couchait, je tombai dans L\u00e8mnos, presque sans vie. L\u00e0 les\nhommes Sintiens me re\u00e7urent dans ma chute.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et la divine H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux bras blancs sourit, et elle\nre\u00e7ut la coupe de son fils. Et il versait, par la droite, \u00e0 tous\nles autres dieux, puisant le doux nektar dans le krat\u00e8re. Et un\nrire inextinguible s'\u00e9leva parmi les dieux heureux, quand ils\nvirent H\u00e8phaistos s'agiter dans la demeure.\n\nEt ils se livraient ainsi au festin, tout le jour, jusqu'au\ncoucher de H\u00e9lios. Et nul d'entre eux ne fut priv\u00e9 d'une \u00e9gale\npart du repas, ni des sons de la lyre magnifique que tenait\nApoll\u00f4n, tandis que les Muses chantaient tour \u00e0 tour d'une belle\nvoix. Mais apr\u00e8s que la brillante lumi\u00e8re H\u00e9lienne se fut couch\u00e9e,\neux aussi se retir\u00e8rent, chacun dans la demeure que l'illustre\nH\u00e8phaistos boiteux des deux pieds avait construite habilement. Et\nl'Olympien Zeus, qui darde les \u00e9clairs, se rendit vers sa couche,\nl\u00e0 o\u00f9 il reposait quand le doux sommeil le saisissait. Et il s'y\nendormit, et, aupr\u00e8s de lui, H\u00e8r\u00e8 au tr\u00f4ne d'or.\n\n\nChant 2\n\nLes dieux et les cavaliers arm\u00e9s de casques dormaient tous dans la\nnuit; mais le profond sommeil ne saisissait point Zeus, et il\ncherchait dans son esprit comment il honorerait Akhilleus et\ntuerait une foule d'hommes aupr\u00e8s des nefs des Akhaiens. Et ce\ndessein lui parut le meilleur, dans son esprit, d'envoyer un songe\nmenteur \u00e0 l'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n. Et, l'ayant appel\u00e9, il lui dit ces\nparoles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Va, songe menteur, vers les nefs rapides des Akhaiens. Entre\ndans la tente de l'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n et porte-lui tr\u00e8s fid\u00e8lement\nmon ordre. Qu'il arme la foule des Akhaiens chevelus, car voici\nqu'il va s'emparer de la ville aux larges rues des Troiens. Les\nimmortels qui habitent les demeures Olympiennes ne sont plus\ndivis\u00e9s, car H\u00e8r\u00e8 les a tous fl\u00e9chis par ses supplications, et les\ncalamit\u00e9s sont suspendues sur les Troiens.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, l'ayant entendu, le songe partit. Et il\nparvint aussit\u00f4t aux nefs rapides des Akhaiens, et il s'approcha\nde l'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n qui dormait sous sa tente et qu'un sommeil\nambroisien enveloppait. Et il se tint aupr\u00e8s de la t\u00eate du roi. Et\nil \u00e9tait semblable au N\u00e8l\u00e8i\u00f4n Nest\u00f4r, qui, de tous les vieillards,\n\u00e9tait le plus honor\u00e9 d'Agamemn\u00f4n. Et, sous cette forme, le songe\ndivin parla ainsi:\n\n-- Tu dors, fils du brave Atreus dompteur de chevaux? Il ne faut\npas qu'un homme sage \u00e0 qui les peuples ont \u00e9t\u00e9 confi\u00e9s, et qui a\ntant de soucis dans l'esprit, dorme toute la nuit. Et maintenant,\n\u00e9coute-moi sans tarder, car je te suis envoy\u00e9 par Zeus qui, de\nloin, s'inqui\u00e8te de toi et te prend en piti\u00e9. Il t'ordonne d'armer\nla foule des Akhaiens chevelus, car voici que tu vas t'emparer de\nla ville aux larges rues des Troiens. Les immortels qui habitent\nles demeures Olympiennes ne sont plus divis\u00e9s, car H\u00e8r\u00e8 les a tous\nfl\u00e9chis par ses supplications, et les calamit\u00e9s sont suspendues\nsur les Troiens. Garde ces paroles dans ton esprit et n'oublie\nrien quand le doux sommeil t'aura quitt\u00e9.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il disparut et le laissa rouler dans son esprit\nces paroles qui ne devaient point s'accomplir. Et l'insens\u00e9 crut\nqu'il allait s'emparer, ce jour-l\u00e0, de la ville de Priamos, ne\nsachant point ce que Zeus m\u00e9ditait. Et le Kronide se pr\u00e9parait \u00e0\nr\u00e9pandre encore, en de terribles batailles, les douleurs et les\ng\u00e9missements sur les Troiens et sur les Danaens.\n\nEt l'Atr\u00e9ide s'\u00e9veilla, et la voix divine r\u00e9sonnait autour de lui.\nIl se leva et rev\u00eatit sa tunique moelleuse, belle et neuve. Et il\nse couvrit d'un large manteau et noua \u00e0 ses pieds robustes de\nbelles sandales, et il suspendit \u00e0 ses \u00e9paules l'\u00e9p\u00e9e aux clous\nd'argent. Enfin, il prit le sceptre immortel de ses p\u00e8res et\nmarcha ainsi vers les nefs des Akhaiens rev\u00eatus d'airain.\n\nEt la divine \u00c9\u00f4s gravit le haut Olympos, annon\u00e7ant la lumi\u00e8re \u00e0\nZeus et aux immortels. Et l'Atr\u00e9ide ordonna aux h\u00e9rauts \u00e0 la voix\nsonore de convoquer \u00e0 l'agora les Akhaiens chevelus. Et ils les\nconvoqu\u00e8rent, et tous accoururent en foule; et l'Atr\u00e9ide r\u00e9unit un\nconseil de chefs magnanimes, aupr\u00e8s de la nef de Nest\u00f4r, roi de\nPylos. Et, les ayant r\u00e9unis, il consulta leur sagesse:\n\n-- Amis, entendez-moi. Un songe divin m'a \u00e9t\u00e9 envoy\u00e9 dans mon\nsommeil, au milieu de la nuit ambroisienne. Et il \u00e9tait semblable\nau divin Nest\u00f4r par le visage et la stature, et il s'est arr\u00eat\u00e9\nau-dessus de ma t\u00eate, et il m'a parl\u00e9 ainsi:\n\n-- Tu dors, fils du brave Atreus dompteur de chevaux? Il ne faut\npoint qu'un homme sage \u00e0 qui les peuples ont \u00e9t\u00e9 confi\u00e9s, et qui a\ntant de soucis dans l'esprit, dorme toute la nuit. Et maintenant,\n\u00e9coute-moi sans tarder, car je te suis envoy\u00e9 par Zeus qui, de\nloin, s'inqui\u00e8te de toi et te prend en piti\u00e9. Il t'ordonne d'armer\nla foule des Akhaiens chevelus, car voici que tu vas t'emparer de\nla ville aux larges rues des Troiens. Les immortels qui habitent\nles demeures Olympiennes ne sont plus divis\u00e9s, car H\u00e8r\u00e8 les a tous\nfl\u00e9chis par ses supplications, et les calamit\u00e9s sont suspendues\nsur les Troiens. Garde ces paroles dans ton esprit.\u0092\n\nEn parlant ainsi il s'envola, et le doux sommeil me quitta.\nMaintenant, songeons \u00e0 armer les fils des Akhaiens. D'abord, je\nles tenterai par mes paroles, comme il est permis, et je les\npousserai \u00e0 fuir sur leurs nefs charg\u00e9es de rameurs. Vous, par vos\nparoles, forcez-les de rester.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il s'assit. Et Nest\u00f4r se leva, et il \u00e9tait roi\nde la sablonneuse Pylos, et, les haranguant avec sagesse, il leur\ndit:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis! rois et princes des Argiens, si quelqu'autre des\nAkhaiens nous e\u00fbt dit ce songe, nous aurions pu croire qu'il\nmentait, et nous l'aurions repouss\u00e9; mais celui qui l'a entendu se\nglorifie d'\u00eatre le plus puissant dans l'arm\u00e9e. Songeons donc \u00e0\narmer les fils des Akhaiens.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il sortit le premier de l'agora. Et les autres\nrois porte sceptres se lev\u00e8rent et ob\u00e9irent au prince des peuples.\nEt les peuples accouraient. Ainsi des essaims d'abeilles\ninnombrables sortent toujours et sans cesse d'une roche creuse et\nvolent par l\u00e9gions sur les fleurs du printemps, et les unes\ntourbillonnent d'un c\u00f4t\u00e9, et les autres de l'autre. Ainsi la\nmultitude des peuples, hors des nefs et des tentes, s'avan\u00e7ait\nvers l'agora, sur le rivage immense. Et, au milieu d'eux, Ossa,\nmessag\u00e8re de Zeus, excitait et h\u00e2tait leur course, et ils se\nr\u00e9unissaient.\n\nEt l'agora \u00e9tait pleine de tumulte, et la terre g\u00e9missait sous le\npoids des peuples. Et, comme les clameurs redoublaient, les\nh\u00e9rauts \u00e0 la voix sonore les contraignaient de se taire et\nd'\u00e9couter les rois divins. Et la foule s'assit et resta\nsilencieuse; et le divin Agamemn\u00f4n se leva, tenant son sceptre.\nH\u00e8phaistos, l'ayant fait, l'avait donn\u00e9 au roi Zeus Kroni\u00f4n. Zeus\nle donna au messager, tueur d'Argos; et le roi Herm\u00e9ias le donna \u00e0\nP\u00e9lops, dompteur de chevaux, et P\u00e9lops le donna au prince des\npeuples Atreus. Atreus, en mourant, le laissa \u00e0 Thyest\u00e8s riche en\ntroupeaux, et Thyest\u00e8s le laissa \u00e0 Agamemn\u00f4n, afin que ce dernier\nle port\u00e2t et command\u00e2t sur un grand nombre d'\u00eeles et sur tout\nArgos. Appuy\u00e9 sur ce sceptre, il parla ainsi aux Argiens:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis! h\u00e9ros Danaens, serviteurs d'Ar\u00e8s, Zeus Kronide\nm'accable de maux terribles. L'impitoyable! Autrefois il me promit\nque je reviendrais apr\u00e8s avoir conquis Ilios aux fortes murailles;\nmais il me trompait, et voici qu'il me faut rentrer sans gloire\ndans Argos, ayant perdu un grand nombre d'hommes. Et cela pla\u00eet au\ntout puissant Zeus qui a renvers\u00e9 et qui renversera tant de hautes\ncitadelles, car sa force est tr\u00e8s grande. Certes, ceci sera une\nhonte dans la post\u00e9rit\u00e9, que la race courageuse et innombrable des\nAkhaiens ait combattu tant d'ann\u00e9es, et vainement, des hommes\nmoins nombreux, sans qu'on puisse pr\u00e9voir la fin de la lutte. Car,\nsi, ayant scell\u00e9 par serment d'inviolables trait\u00e9s, nous, Akhaiens\net Troiens, nous faisions un d\u00e9nombrement des deux races; et que,\nles habitants de Troi\u00e8 s'\u00e9tant r\u00e9unis, nous nous rangions par\nd\u00e9cades, comptant un seul Troien pour pr\u00e9senter la coupe \u00e0 chacune\nd'elles, certes, beaucoup de d\u00e9cades manqueraient d'\u00e9chansons,\ntant les fils des Argiens sont plus nombreux que les Troiens qui\nhabitent cette ville. Mais voici que de nombreux alli\u00e9s, habiles \u00e0\nlancer la pique, s'opposent victorieusement \u00e0 mon d\u00e9sir de\nrenverser la citadelle populeuse de Troi\u00e8. Neuf ann\u00e9es du grand\nZeus se sont \u00e9coul\u00e9es d\u00e9j\u00e0, et le bois de nos nefs se corrompt, et\nles cordages tombent en poussi\u00e8re; et nos femmes et nos petits\nenfants restent en nous attendant dans nos demeures, et la t\u00e2che\nest inachev\u00e9e pour laquelle nous sommes venus. Allons! fuyons tous\nsur nos nefs vers la ch\u00e8re terre natale. Nous ne prendrons jamais\nla grande Troi\u00e8!\n\nIl parla ainsi, et ses paroles agit\u00e8rent l'esprit de la multitude\nqui n'avait point assist\u00e9 au conseil. Et l'agora fut agit\u00e9e comme\nles vastes flots de la mer Ikarienne que remuent l'Euros et le\nNotos \u00e9chapp\u00e9s des nu\u00e9es du p\u00e8re Zeus, ou comme un champ d'\u00e9pis\nque bouleverse Z\u00e9phyros qui tombe imp\u00e9tueusement sur la grande\nmoisson. Telle l'agora \u00e9tait agit\u00e9e. Et ils se ruaient tous vers\nles nefs, avec des clameurs, et soulevant de leurs pieds un nuage\nimmobile de poussi\u00e8re. Et ils s'exhortaient \u00e0 saisir les nefs et \u00e0\nles tra\u00eener \u00e0 la mer divine. Les cris montaient dans l'Ouranos,\nh\u00e2tant le d\u00e9part; et ils d\u00e9gageaient les canaux et retiraient d\u00e9j\u00e0\nles rouleaux des nefs. Alors, les Argiens se seraient retir\u00e9s,\ncontre la destin\u00e9e, si H\u00e8r\u00e8 n'avait parl\u00e9 ainsi \u00e0 Ath\u00e8n\u00e8:\n\n-- Ah fille indompt\u00e9e de Zeus temp\u00e9tueux, les Argiens fuiront-ils\nvers leurs demeures et la ch\u00e8re terre natale, sur le vaste dos de\nla mer, laissant \u00e0 Priamos et aux Troiens leur gloire et\nl'Argienne H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 pour laquelle tant d'Akhaiens sont morts devant\nTroi\u00e8, loin de la ch\u00e8re patrie? Va trouver le peuple des Akhaiens\narm\u00e9s d'airain. Retiens chaque guerrier par de douces paroles, et\nne permets pas qu'on tra\u00eene les nefs \u00e0 la mer.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et la divine Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs ob\u00e9it. Et\nelle sauta du fa\u00eete de l'Olympos, et, parvenue aussit\u00f4t aux nefs\nrapides des Akhaiens, elle trouva Odysseus, semblable \u00e0 Zeus par\nl'intelligence, qui restait immobile. Et il ne saisissait point sa\nnef noire bien construite, car la douleur emplissait son coeur et\nson \u00e2me. Et, s'arr\u00eatant aupr\u00e8s de lui, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs\nparla ainsi:\n\n-- Divin Laertiade, sage Odysseus, fuirez-vous donc tous dans vos\nnefs charg\u00e9es de rameurs, laissant \u00e0 Priamos et aux Troiens leur\ngloire et l'Argienne H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 pour laquelle tant d'Akhaiens sont\nmorts devant Troi\u00e8, loin de la ch\u00e8re patrie? Va! h\u00e2te-toi d'aller\nvers le peuple des Akhaiens. Retiens chaque guerrier par de douces\nparoles, et ne permets pas qu'on tra\u00eene les nefs \u00e0 la mer.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et il reconnut la voix de la d\u00e9esse, et il\ncourut, jetant son manteau que releva le h\u00e9raut Eurybat\u00e8s\nd'Ithak\u00e8, qui le suivait. Et, rencontrant l'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n, il\nre\u00e7ut de lui le sceptre immortel de ses p\u00e8res, et, avec ce\nsceptre, il marcha vers les nefs des Akhaiens rev\u00eatus d'airain. Et\nquand il se trouvait en face d'un roi ou d'un homme illustre, il\nl'arr\u00eatait par de douces paroles:\n\n-- Malheureux! Il ne te convient pas de trembler comme un l\u00e2che.\nReste et arr\u00eate les autres. Tu ne sais pas la vraie pens\u00e9e de\nl'Atr\u00e9ide. Maintenant il tente les fils des Akhaiens, et bient\u00f4t\nil les punira. Nous n'avons point tous entendu ce qu'il a dit dans\nle conseil. Craignons que, dans sa col\u00e8re, il outrage les fils des\nAkhaiens, car la col\u00e8re d'un roi nourrisson de Zeus est\nredoutable, et le tr\u00e8s sage Zeus l'aime, et sa gloire vient de\nZeus.\n\nMais quand il rencontrait quelque guerrier obscur et plein de\nclameurs, il le frappait du sceptre et le r\u00e9primait par de rudes\nparoles:\n\n-- Arr\u00eate, mis\u00e9rable! \u00e9coute ceux qui te sont sup\u00e9rieurs, l\u00e2che et\nsans force, toi qui n'as aucun rang ni dans le combat ni dans le\nconseil. Certes, tous les Akhaiens ne seront point rois ici. La\nmultitude des ma\u00eetres ne vaut rien. Il ne faut qu'un chef, un seul\nroi, \u00e0 qui le fils de Kronos empli de ruses a remis le sceptre et\nles lois, afin qu'il r\u00e8gne sur tous.\n\nAinsi Odysseus refr\u00e9nait puissamment l'arm\u00e9e. Et ils se\npr\u00e9cipitaient de nouveau, tumultueux, vers l'agora, loin des nefs\net des tentes, comme lorsque les flots aux bruits sans nombre se\nbrisent en grondant sur le vaste rivage, et que la haute mer en\nretentit. Et tous \u00e9taient assis \u00e0 leurs rangs. Et, seul, Thersit\u00e8s\npoursuivait ses clameurs. Il abondait en paroles insolentes et\noutrageantes, m\u00eame contre les rois, et parlait sans mesure, afin\nd'exciter le rire des Argiens. Et c'\u00e9tait l'homme le plus difforme\nqui f\u00fbt venu devant Ilios. Il \u00e9tait louche et boiteux, et ses\n\u00e9paules recourb\u00e9es se rejoignaient sur sa poitrine, et quelques\ncheveux \u00e9pars poussaient sur sa t\u00eate pointue. Et il ha\u00efssait\nsurtout Akhilleus et Odysseus, et il les outrageait. Et il\npoussait des cris injurieux contre le divin Agamemn\u00f4n. Les\nAkhaiens le m\u00e9prisaient et le ha\u00efssaient, mais, d'une voix haute,\nil outrageait ainsi Agamemn\u00f4n:\n\n-- Atr\u00e9ide, que te faut-il encore, et que veux-tu? Tes tentes sont\npleines d'airain et de nombreuses femmes fort belles que nous te\ndonnons d'abord, nous, Akhaiens, quand nous prenons une ville. As-\ntu besoin de l'or qu'un Troien dompteur de chevaux t'apportera\npour l'affranchissement de son fils que j'aurai amen\u00e9 encha\u00een\u00e9, ou\nqu'un autre Akhaien aura dompt\u00e9? Te faut-il une jeune femme que tu\nposs\u00e8des et que tu ne quittes plus? Il ne convient point qu'un\nchef accable de maux les Akhaiens. \u00d4 l\u00e2ches! opprobres vivants!\nAkhaiennes et non Akhaiens! Retournons dans nos demeures avec les\nnefs; laissons-le, seul devant Troi\u00e8, amasser des d\u00e9pouilles, et\nqu'il sache si nous lui \u00e9tions n\u00e9cessaires ou non. N'a-t-il point\noutrag\u00e9 Akhilleus, meilleur guerrier que lui, et enlev\u00e9 sa\nr\u00e9compense? Certes, Akhilleus n'a point de col\u00e8re dans l'\u00e2me, car\nc'e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9, Atr\u00e9ide, ta derni\u00e8re insolence!\n\nIl parla ainsi, outrageant Agamemn\u00f4n, prince des peuples. Et le\ndivin Odysseus, s'arr\u00eatant devant lui, le regarda d'un oeil sombre\net lui dit rudement:\n\n-- Thersit\u00e8s, infatigable harangueur, silence! Et cesse de t'en\nprendre aux rois. Je ne pense point qu'il soit un homme plus vil\nque toi parmi ceux qui sont venus devant Troi\u00e8 avec les Atr\u00e9ides,\net tu ne devrais point haranguer avec le nom des rois \u00e0 la bouche,\nni les outrager, ni exciter au retour. Nous ne savons point quelle\nsera notre destin\u00e9e, et s'il est bon ou mauvais que nous partions.\nEt voici que tu te plais \u00e0 outrager l'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n, prince\ndes peuples, parce que les h\u00e9ros Danaens l'ont combl\u00e9 de dons! Et\nc'est pour cela que tu harangues? Mais je te le dis, et ma parole\ns'accomplira: si je te rencontre encore plein de rage comme\nmaintenant, que ma t\u00eate saute de mes \u00e9paules, que je ne sois plus\nnomm\u00e9 le p\u00e8re de T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, si je ne te saisis, et, t'ayant\narrach\u00e9 ton v\u00eatement, ton manteau et ce qui couvre ta nudit\u00e9, je\nne te renvoie, sanglotant, de l'agora aux nefs rapides, en te\nfrappant de coups terribles\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il le frappa du sceptre sur le dos et les\n\u00e9paules. Et Thersit\u00e8s se courba, et les larmes lui tomb\u00e8rent des\nyeux. Une tumeur saignante lui gonfla le dos sous le coup du\nsceptre d'or, et il s'assit, tremblant et g\u00e9missant, hideux \u00e0\nvoir, et il essuya ses yeux. Et les Akhaiens, bien que soucieux,\nrirent aux \u00e9clats; et, se regardant les uns les autres, ils se\ndisaient:\n\n-- Certes, Odysseus a d\u00e9j\u00e0 fait mille choses excellentes, par ses\nsages conseils et par sa science guerri\u00e8re; mais ce qu'il a fait\nde mieux, entre tous les Argiens, a \u00e9t\u00e9 de r\u00e9duire au silence ce\nharangueur injurieux. De longtemps, il se gardera d'outrager les\nrois par ses paroles injurieuses.\n\nLa multitude parlait ainsi. Et le preneur de villes, Odysseus, se\nleva, tenant son sceptre. Aupr\u00e8s de lui, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs,\nsemblable \u00e0 un h\u00e9raut, ordonna \u00e0 la foule de se taire, afin que\ntous les fils des Akhaiens, les plus proches et les plus \u00e9loign\u00e9s,\npussent entendre et comprendre. Et l'excellent agor\u00e8te parla\nainsi:\n\n-- Roi Atr\u00e9ide, voici que les Akhaiens veulent te couvrir\nd'opprobre en face des hommes vivants, et ils ne tiennent point la\npromesse qu'ils te firent, en venant d'Argos f\u00e9conde en chevaux,\nde ne retourner qu'apr\u00e8s avoir renvers\u00e9 la forte muraille d'Ilios.\nEt voici qu'ils pleurent, pleins du d\u00e9sir de leurs demeures, comme\ndes enfants et des veuves. Certes, c'est une am\u00e8re douleur de fuir\napr\u00e8s tant de maux soufferts. Je sais, il est vrai, qu'un\nvoyageur, \u00e9loign\u00e9 de sa femme depuis un seul mois, s'irrite aupr\u00e8s\nde sa nef charg\u00e9e de rameurs, que retiennent les vents d'hiver et\nla mer soulev\u00e9e. Or, voici neuf ann\u00e9es bient\u00f4t que nous sommes\nici. Je n'en veux donc point aux Akhaiens de s'irriter aupr\u00e8s de\nleurs nefs \u00e9peronn\u00e9es; mais il est honteux d'\u00eatre rest\u00e9s si\nlongtemps et de s'en retourner les mains vides. Souffrez donc,\namis, et demeurez ici quelque temps encore, afin que nous sachions\nsi Kalkhas a dit vrai ou faux. Et nous le savons, et vous en \u00eates\ntous t\u00e9moins, vous que les k\u00e8res de la mort n'ont point emport\u00e9s.\n\u00c9tait-ce donc hier? Les nefs des Akhaiens \u00e9taient r\u00e9unies devant\nAulis, portant les calamit\u00e9s \u00e0 Priamos et aux Troiens. Et nous\n\u00e9tions autour de la source, aupr\u00e8s des autels sacr\u00e9s, offrant aux\nimmortels de compl\u00e8tes h\u00e9catombes, sous un beau platane; et, \u00e0 son\nombre, coulait une eau vive, quand nous v\u00eemes un grand prodige. Un\ndragon terrible, au dos ensanglant\u00e9, envoy\u00e9 de l'Olympien lui-\nm\u00eame, sortit de dessous l'autel et rampa vers le platane. L\u00e0\n\u00e9taient huit petits passereaux, tout jeunes, sur la branche la\nplus haute et blottis sous les feuilles; et la m\u00e8re qui les avait\nenfant\u00e9s \u00e9tait la neuvi\u00e8me. Et le dragon les d\u00e9vorait cruellement,\net ils criaient, et la m\u00e8re, d\u00e9sol\u00e9e, volait tout autour de ses\npetits. Et, comme elle emplissait l'air de cris, il la saisit par\nune aile; et quand il eut mang\u00e9 la m\u00e8re et les petits, le dieu qui\nl'avait envoy\u00e9 en fit un signe m\u00e9morable; car le fils de Kronos\nempli de ruses le changea en pierre. Et nous admirions ceci, et\nles choses terribles qui \u00e9taient dans les h\u00e9catombes des dieux. Et\nvoici que Kalkhas nous r\u00e9v\u00e9la aussit\u00f4t les volont\u00e9s divines:\n\n-- Pourquoi \u00eates-vous muets, Akhaiens chevelus? Ceci est un grand\nsigne du tr\u00e8s sage Zeus; et ces choses s'accompliront fort tard,\nmais la gloire n'en p\u00e9rira jamais. De m\u00eame que ce dragon a mang\u00e9\nles petits passereaux, et ils \u00e9taient huit, et la m\u00e8re qui les\navait enfant\u00e9s, et elle \u00e9tait la neuvi\u00e8me, de m\u00eame nous\ncombattrons pendant neuf ann\u00e9es, et, dans la dixi\u00e8me, nous\nprendrons Troi\u00e8 aux larges rues.\u0092\n\n-- C'est ainsi qu'il parla, et ses paroles se sont accomplies.\nRestez donc tous, Akhaiens aux belles kn\u00e8mides, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que\nnous prenions la grande citadelle de Priamos.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et les Argiens, par des cris \u00e9clatants,\napplaudissaient la harangue du divin Odysseus. Et, \u00e0 ces cris, les\nnefs creuses rendirent des sons terribles. Et le cavalier\nG\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r leur dit:\n\n-- Ah! certes, ceci est une agora d'enfants \u00e9trangers aux fatigues\nde la guerre! O\u00f9 iront nos paroles et nos serments? Les conseils\net la sagesse des hommes, et les libations de vin pur, et les\nmains serr\u00e9es en gage de notre foi commune, tout sera-t-il jet\u00e9 au\nfeu? Nous ne combattons qu'en paroles vaines, et nous n'avons rien\ntrouv\u00e9 de bon apr\u00e8s tant d'ann\u00e9es. Atr\u00e9ide, sois donc in\u00e9branlable\net commande les Argiens dans les rudes batailles. Laisse p\u00e9rir un\nou deux l\u00e2ches qui conspirent contre les Akhaiens et voudraient\nregagner Argos avant de savoir si Zeus temp\u00e9tueux a menti. Mais\nils n'y r\u00e9ussiront pas. Moi, je dis que le terrible Kroni\u00f4n\nengagea sa promesse le jour o\u00f9 les Argiens montaient dans les nefs\nrapides pour porter aux Troiens les K\u00e8res de la mort, car il tonna\n\u00e0 notre droite, par un signe heureux. Donc, que nul ne se h\u00e2te de\ns'en retourner avant d'avoir entra\u00een\u00e9 la femme de quelque Troien\net veng\u00e9 le rapt de H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 et tous les maux qu'il a caus\u00e9s. Et si\nquelqu'un veut fuir malgr\u00e9 tout, qu'il saisisse sa nef noire et\nbien construite, afin de trouver une prompte mort. Mais, \u00f4 roi,\nd\u00e9lib\u00e8re avec une pens\u00e9e droite et \u00e9coute mes conseils. Ce que je\ndirai ne doit pas \u00eatre n\u00e9glig\u00e9. S\u00e9pare les hommes par races et par\ntribus, et que celles-ci se viennent en aide les unes les autres.\nSi tu fais ainsi, et que les Akhaiens t'ob\u00e9issent, tu conna\u00eetras\nla l\u00e2chet\u00e9 ou le courage des chefs et des hommes, car chacun\ncombattra selon ses forces. Et si tu ne renverses point cette\nville, tu sauras si c'est par la volont\u00e9 divine ou par la faute\ndes hommes.\n\nEt le roi Agamemn\u00f4n, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi\n\n-- Certes, vieillard, tu surpasses dans l'agora tous les fils des\nAkhaiens. \u00d4 p\u00e8re Zeus! Ath\u00e8n\u00e8! Apoll\u00f4n! Si j'avais dix conseillers\ntels que toi parmi les Akhaiens, la ville du roi Priamos tomberait\nbient\u00f4t, emport\u00e9e et saccag\u00e9e par nos mains! Mais le Kronide Zeus\ntemp\u00e9tueux m'a accabl\u00e9 de maux en me jetant au milieu de querelles\nfatales. Akhilleus et moi nous nous sommes divis\u00e9s \u00e0 cause d'une\njeune vierge, et je me suis irrit\u00e9 le premier. Si jamais nous nous\nr\u00e9unissons, la ruine des Troiens ne sera point retard\u00e9e, m\u00eame d'un\njour. Maintenant, allez prendre votre repas, afin que nous\ncombattions. Et que, d'abord, chacun aiguise sa lance, consolide\nson bouclier, donne \u00e0 manger \u00e0 ses chevaux, s'occupe attentivement\nde son char et de toutes les choses de la guerre, afin que nous\nfassions tout le jour l'oeuvre du terrible Ar\u00e8s. Et nous n'aurons\nnul rel\u00e2che, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que la nuit s\u00e9pare les hommes furieux. La\ncourroie du bouclier pr\u00e9servateur sera tremp\u00e9e de la sueur de\nchaque poitrine, et la main guerri\u00e8re se fatiguera autour de la\nlance, et le cheval fumera, inond\u00e9 de sueur, en tra\u00eenant le char\nsolide. Et, je le dis, celui que je verrai loin du combat, aupr\u00e8s\ndes nefs \u00e9peronn\u00e9es, celui-l\u00e0 n'\u00e9vitera point les chiens et les\noiseaux carnassiers.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et les Argiens jet\u00e8rent de grands cris, avec le\nbruit que fait la mer quand le Notos la pousse contre une c\u00f4te\n\u00e9lev\u00e9e, sur un roc avanc\u00e9 que les flots ne cessent jamais\nd'assi\u00e9ger, de quelque c\u00f4t\u00e9 que soufflent les vents. Et ils\ncoururent, se dispersant au milieu des nefs; et la fum\u00e9e sortit\ndes tentes, et ils prirent leur repas. Et chacun d'eux sacrifiait\n\u00e0 l'un des dieux qui vivent toujours, afin d'\u00e9viter les blessures\nd'Ar\u00e8s et la mort. Et le roi des hommes, Agamemn\u00f4n, sacrifia un\ntaureau gras, de cinq ans, au tr\u00e8s puissant Kroni\u00f4n, et il\nconvoqua les plus illustres des Panakhaiens, Nest\u00f4r, le roi\nIdom\u00e9neus, les deux Aias et le fils de Tydeus. Odysseus, \u00e9gal \u00e0\nZeus par l'intelligence, fut le sixi\u00e8me. M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, brave au\ncombat, vint de lui-m\u00eame, sachant les desseins de son fr\u00e8re.\nEntourant le taureau, ils prirent les orges sal\u00e9es, et, au milieu\nd'eux, le roi des hommes, Agamemn\u00f4n, dit en priant:\n\n-- Zeus! Tr\u00e8s glorieux, tr\u00e8s grand, qui amasses les noires nu\u00e9es\net qui habites l'aith\u00e8r! puisse H\u00e9lios ne point se coucher et la\nnuit ne point venir avant que j'aie renvers\u00e9 la demeure enflamm\u00e9e\nde Priamos, apr\u00e8s avoir br\u00fbl\u00e9 ses portes et bris\u00e9, de l'\u00e9p\u00e9e, la\ncuirasse de Hekt\u00f4r sur sa poitrine, vu la foule de ses compagnons,\ncouch\u00e9s autour de lui dans la poussi\u00e8re, mordre de leurs dents la\nterre!\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le Kroni\u00f4n accepta le sacrifice, mais il ne\nl'exau\u00e7a pas, lui r\u00e9servant de plus longues fatigues. Et, apr\u00e8s\nqu'ils eurent pri\u00e9 et jet\u00e9 les orges sal\u00e9es, ils renvers\u00e8rent la\nt\u00eate du taureau; et, l'ayant \u00e9gorg\u00e9 et d\u00e9pouill\u00e9, ils coup\u00e8rent\nles cuisses qu'ils couvrirent deux fois de graisse; et, posant\npar-dessus des morceaux sanglants, ils les r\u00f4tissaient avec des\nrameaux sans feuilles, et ils tenaient les entrailles sur le feu.\nEt quand les cuisses furent r\u00f4ties et qu'ils eurent go\u00fbt\u00e9 aux\nentrailles, ils coup\u00e8rent le reste par morceaux qu'ils\nembroch\u00e8rent et firent r\u00f4tir avec soin, et ils retir\u00e8rent le tout.\nEt, apr\u00e8s ce travail, ils pr\u00e9par\u00e8rent le repas, et aucun ne put se\nplaindre d'une part in\u00e9gale. Puis, ayant assouvi la faim et la\nsoif, le cavalier G\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r parla ainsi:\n\n-- Tr\u00e8s glorieux roi des hommes, Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n, ne tardons pas\nplus longtemps \u00e0 faire ce que Zeus nous permet d'accomplir.\nAllons! que les h\u00e9rauts, par leurs clameurs, rassemblent aupr\u00e8s\ndes nefs l'arm\u00e9e des Akhaiens rev\u00eatus d'airain; et nous, nous\nm\u00ealant \u00e0 la foule guerri\u00e8re des Akhaiens, excitons \u00e0 l'instant\nl'imp\u00e9tueux Ar\u00e8s.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le roi des hommes, Agamnemn\u00f4n, ob\u00e9it, et il\nordonna aux h\u00e9rauts \u00e0 la voix \u00e9clatante d'appeler au combat les\nAkhaiens chevelus. Et, autour de l'Atr\u00e9i\u00f4n, les rois divins\ncouraient \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0, rangeant l'arm\u00e9e. Et, au milieu d'eux, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8\naux yeux clairs portait l'Aigide glorieuse, imp\u00e9rissable et\nimmortelle. Et cent franges d'or bien tissues, chacune du prix de\ncent boeufs, y \u00e9taient suspendues. Avec cette aigide, elle allait\nardemment \u00e0 travers l'arm\u00e9e des Akhaiens, poussant chacun en\navant, lui mettant la force et le courage au coeur, afin qu'il\nguerroy\u00e2t et combatt\u00eet sans rel\u00e2che. Et aussit\u00f4t il leur semblait\nplus doux de combattre que de retourner sur leurs nefs creuses\nvers la ch\u00e8re terre natale. Comme un feu ardent qui br\u00fble une\ngrande for\u00eat au fa\u00eete d'une montagne, et dont la lumi\u00e8re\nresplendit au loin, de m\u00eame s'allumait dans l'Ouranos l'airain\n\u00e9tincelant des hommes qui marchaient.\n\nComme les multitudes ail\u00e9es des oies, des grues ou des cygnes au\nlong cou, dans les prairies d'Asios, sur les bords du Kaystrios,\nvolent \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0, agitant leurs ailes joyeuses, et se devan\u00e7ant les\nuns les autres avec des cris dont la prairie r\u00e9sonne, de m\u00eame les\ninnombrables tribus Akhaiennes roulaient en torrents dans la\nplaine du Skamandros, loin des nefs et des tentes; et, sous leurs\npieds et ceux des chevaux, la terre mugissait terriblement. Et ils\ns'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent dans la plaine fleurie du Skamandros, par milliers,\ntels que les feuilles et les fleurs du printemps. Aussi nombreux\nque les tourbillons infinis de mouches qui bourdonnent autour de\nl'\u00e9table, dans la saison printani\u00e8re, quand le lait abondant\nblanchit les vases, les Akhaiens chevelus s'arr\u00eataient dans la\nplaine en face des Troiens, d\u00e9sirant les d\u00e9truire. Comme les\nbergers reconnaissent ais\u00e9ment leurs immenses troupeaux de ch\u00e8vres\nconfondus dans les p\u00e2turages, ainsi les chefs rangeaient leurs\nhommes. Et le grand roi Agamemn\u00f4n \u00e9tait au milieu d'eux, semblable\npar les yeux et la t\u00eate \u00e0 Zeus qui se r\u00e9jouit de la foudre, par la\nstature \u00e0 Ar\u00e8s, et par l'ampleur de la poitrine \u00e0 Poseida\u00f4n. Comme\nun taureau l'emporte sur le reste du troupeau et s'\u00e9l\u00e8ve au-dessus\ndes g\u00e9nisses qui l'environnent, de m\u00eame Zeus, en ce jour, faisait\nresplendir l'Atr\u00e9ide entre d'innombrables h\u00e9ros.\n\nEt maintenant, Muses, qui habitez les demeures Olympiennes, vous\nqui \u00eates d\u00e9esses, et pr\u00e9sentes \u00e0 tout, et qui savez toutes choses,\ntandis que nous ne savons rien et n'entendons seulement qu'un\nbruit de gloire, dites les rois et les princes des Danaens. Car je\nne pourrais nommer ni d\u00e9crire la multitude, m\u00eame ayant dix\nlangues, dix bouches, une voix infatigable et une poitrine\nd'airain, si les Muses Olympiades, filles de Zeus temp\u00e9tueux, ne\nme rappellent ceux qui vinrent sous Ilios. Je dirai donc les chefs\net toutes les nefs.\n\nP\u00e8n\u00e9l\u00e9\u00f4s et L\u00e8itos, et Ark\u00e9silaos, et Protho\u00e8n\u00f4r, et Klonios\ncommandaient aux Boi\u00f4tiens. Et c'\u00e9taient ceux qui habitaient Hyri\u00e8\net la pierreuse Aulis, et Skhoinos, et Sk\u00f4los, et les nombreuses\ncollines d'\u00c9t\u00e9\u00f4n, et Thesp\u00e9ia, et Graia, et la grande Mikal\u00e8sos;\net ceux qui habitaient autour de Harma et d'Eil\u00e9sios et d'\u00c9rythra;\net ceux qui habitaient \u00c9l\u00e9\u00f4n et Hil\u00e8, et P\u00e9t\u00e9\u00f4n, Okali\u00e8 et M\u00e9d\u00e9\u00f4n\nbien b\u00e2tie, K\u00f4pa et Eutr\u00e8sis et Thisb\u00e9 abondante en colombes; et\nceux qui habitaient Kor\u00f4n\u00e9ia et Haliartos aux grandes prairies; et\nceux qui habitaient Plataia; et ceux qui vivaient dans Glissa; et\nceux qui habitaient la cit\u00e9 bien b\u00e2tie de Hypoth\u00e8ba, et la sainte\nOnkhestos, bois sacr\u00e9 de Poseida\u00f4n; et ceux qui habitaient Arn\u00e8\nqui abonde en raisin, et Mid\u00e9ia, et la sainte Nissa, et la ville\nfronti\u00e8re Anth\u00e8d\u00f4n. Et ils \u00e9taient venus sur cinquante nefs, et\nchacune portait cent vingt jeunes Boi\u00f4tiens.\n\nEt ceux qui habitaient Aspl\u00e8d\u00f4n et Orkhom\u00e8nos de Mynias \u00e9taient\ncommand\u00e9s par Askalaphos et Ialm\u00e9nos, fils d'Ar\u00e8s. Et Astyokh\u00e8\nAz\u00e9ide les avait enfant\u00e9s dans la demeure d'Akt\u00f4r; le puissant\nAr\u00e8s ayant surpris la vierge innocente dans les chambres hautes.\nEt ils \u00e9taient venus sur trente nefs creuses.\n\nEt Skh\u00e9dios et \u00c9pistrophos, fils du magnanime Iphitos Naubolide,\ncommandaient aux Ph\u00f4k\u00e8ens. Et c'\u00e9taient ceux qui habitaient\nKiparissos et la pierreuse Pyth\u00f4n et la sainte Krissa, et Daulis\net Panop\u00e8; et ceux qui habitaient autour d'An\u00e9m\u00f4r\u00e9ia et de\nHyampolis; et ceux qui habitaient aupr\u00e8s du divin fleuve K\u00e8phisos\net qui poss\u00e9daient Lilaia, \u00e0 la source du K\u00e8phisos. Et ils \u00e9taient\nvenus sur quarante nefs noires, et leurs chefs les rang\u00e8rent \u00e0 la\ngauche des Boi\u00f4tiens.\n\nEt l'agile Aias Oil\u00e8ide commandait aux Lokriens. Il \u00e9tait beaucoup\nmoins grand qu'Aias T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien, et sa cuirasse \u00e9tait de lin; mais,\npar la lance, il excellait entre les Panhell\u00e8nes et les Akhaiens.\nEt il commandait \u00e0 ceux qui habitaient Kynos et Kalliaros, et\nB\u00e8ssa et Scarph\u00e8, et l'heureuse Aug\u00e9ia, et Tarph\u00e8, et Thronios,\naupr\u00e8s du Boagrios. Et tous ces Lokriens, qui habitaient au-del\u00e0\nde la sainte Euboi\u00e8, \u00e9taient venus sur quarante nefs noires.\n\nEt les Abantes, pleins de courage, qui habitaient l'Euboia et\nKhalkis, et Eir\u00e9tria, et Histiaia qui abonde en raisin, et la\nmaritime K\u00e8rinthos, et la haute citadelle de Di\u00f4s; et ceux qui\nhabitaient Karistos et Styra \u00e9taient command\u00e9s par \u00c9l\u00e9ph\u00e8n\u00f4r\nKhalkodontiade, de la race d'Ar\u00e8s; et il \u00e9tait le prince des\nmagnanimes Abantes. Et les Abantes agiles, aux cheveux flottant\nsur le dos, braves guerriers, d\u00e9siraient percer de pr\u00e8s les\ncuirasses ennemies de leurs piques de fr\u00eane. Et ils \u00e9taient venus\nsur quarante nefs noires.\n\nEt ceux qui habitaient Ath\u00e8nes, ville forte et bien b\u00e2tie du\nmagnanime \u00c9r\u00e9khtheus que nourrit Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, fille de Zeus, apr\u00e8s que\nla terre f\u00e9conde l'eut enfant\u00e9, et qu'elle pla\u00e7a dans le temple\nabondant o\u00f9 les fils des Ath\u00e8naiens offrent chaque ann\u00e9e, pour lui\nplaire, des h\u00e9catombes de taureaux et d'agneaux; ceux-l\u00e0 \u00e9taient\ncommand\u00e9s par M\u00e9n\u00e8stheus, fils de P\u00e9t\u00e9os. Jamais aucun homme\nvivant, si ce n'\u00e9tait Nest\u00f4r, qui \u00e9tait plus \u00e2g\u00e9, ne fut son \u00e9gal\npour ranger en bataille les cavaliers et les porte boucliers. Et\nils \u00e9taient venus sur cinquante nefs noires.\n\nEt Aias avait amen\u00e9 douze nefs de Salamis, et il les avait plac\u00e9es\naupr\u00e8s des Ath\u00e8naiens.\n\nEt ceux qui habitaient Argos et la forte Tiryntha, Hermion\u00e8 et\nAsin\u00e8 aux golfes profonds, Troix\u00e8n\u00e8, Ei\u00f4na et \u00c9pidauros qui abonde\nen vignes; et ceux qui habitaient Aigina et Mas\u00e8s \u00e9taient\ncommand\u00e9s par Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s, hardi au combat, et par Sth\u00e9n\u00e9l\u00f4s, fils de\nl'illustre Kapaneus, et par Euryalos, semblable aux dieux, fils du\nroi M\u00e8kisteus Tali\u00f4nide. Mais Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s, hardi au combat, les\ncommandait tous. Et ils \u00e9taient venus sur quatre-vingts nefs\nnoires.\n\nEt ceux qui habitaient la ville forte et bien b\u00e2tie de Myk\u00e8n\u00e8, et\nla riche Korinthos et Kl\u00e9\u00f4n; et ceux qui habitaient Orn\u00e9ia et\nl'heureuse Araithyr\u00e9\u00e8, et Siki\u00f4n o\u00f9 r\u00e9gna, le premier, Adr\u00e8stos;\net ceux qui habitaient Hip\u00e9r\u00e8sia et la haute Gonoessa et Pell\u00e8na,\net qui vivaient autour d'Aigion et de la grande H\u00e9lik\u00e8, et sur\ntoute la c\u00f4te, \u00e9taient command\u00e9s par le roi Agamemn\u00f4n Atr\u00e9ide. Et\nils \u00e9taient venus sur cent nefs, et ils \u00e9taient les plus nombreux\net les plus braves des guerriers. Et l'Atr\u00e9ide, rev\u00eatu de l'airain\nsplendide, \u00e9tait fier de commander \u00e0 tous les h\u00e9ros, \u00e9tant lui-\nm\u00eame tr\u00e8s brave, et ayant amen\u00e9 le plus de guerriers.\n\nEt ceux qui habitaient la grande Lak\u00e9daim\u00f4n dans sa creuse vall\u00e9e,\net Pharis et Sparta, et Messa qui abonde en colombes, et Brys\u00e9ia\net l'heureuse Aug\u00e9ia, Amykla et la maritime H\u00e9los; et ceux qui\nhabitaient Laas et Oitylos, \u00e9taient command\u00e9s par M\u00e9n\u00e9laos hardi\nau combat, et s\u00e9par\u00e9s des guerriers de son fr\u00e8re. Et ils \u00e9taient\nvenus sur soixante nefs. Et M\u00e9n\u00e9laos \u00e9tait au milieu d'eux,\nconfiant dans son courage, et les excitant \u00e0 combattre; car, plus\nqu'eux, il d\u00e9sirait venger le rapt de H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 et les maux qui en\nvenaient.\n\nEt ceux qui habitaient Pylos et l'heureuse Ar\u00e8n\u00e8, et Thryos\ntravers\u00e9e par l'Alph\u00e9os, et Aipy habilement construite, et\nKipariss\u00e8 et Amphig\u00e8n\u00e9ia, Pt\u00e9l\u00e9on, H\u00e9los et D\u00f4rion, o\u00f9 les Muses,\nayant rencontr\u00e9 le Thrakien Thamyris qui venait d'Oikhali\u00e8, de\nchez le roi Eurytos l'Oikhalien, le rendirent muet, parce qu'il\ns'\u00e9tait vant\u00e9 de vaincre en chantant les Muses elles-m\u00eames, filles\nde Zeus temp\u00e9tueux. Et celles-ci, irrit\u00e9es, lui \u00f4t\u00e8rent la science\ndivine de chanter et de jouer de la kithare. Et ceux-l\u00e0 \u00e9taient\ncommand\u00e9s par le cavalier G\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r. Et ils \u00e9taient venus\nsur quatre-vingt-dix nefs creuses.\n\nEt ceux qui habitaient l'Arkadia, aux pieds de la haute montagne\nde Kill\u00e8n\u00e8 o\u00f9 naissent les hommes braves, aupr\u00e8s du tombeau\nd'Aipytios; et ceux qui habitaient Ph\u00e9n\u00e9os et Orkhom\u00e9nos riche en\ntroupeaux, et Rip\u00e8, et Strati\u00e8, et Enisp\u00e8 battue des vents; et\nceux qui habitaient T\u00e9g\u00e9\u00e8 et l'heureuse Mantin\u00e9\u00e8, et Stimph\u00e8los et\nParrhasi\u00e8, \u00e9taient command\u00e9s par le fils d'Ankaios, le roi\nAgap\u00e8n\u00f4r. Et ils \u00e9taient venus sur cinquante nefs, et dans chacune\nil y avait un grand nombre d'Arkadiens belliqueux. Et le roi\nAgamemn\u00f4n leur avait donn\u00e9 des nefs bien construites pour\ntraverser la noire mer, car ils ne s'occupaient point des travaux\nde la mer.\n\nEt ceux qui habitaient Bouprasios et la divine \u00c9lis, et la terre\nqui renferme Hyrinin\u00e8 et la ville fronti\u00e8re de Myrsin\u00e8, et la\nroche Ol\u00e9nienne et Aleisios, \u00e9taient venus sous quatre chefs, et\nchaque chef conduisait dix nefs rapides o\u00f9 \u00e9taient de nombreux\n\u00c9p\u00e9iensAmphimakhos et Thalpios commandaient les uns; et le premier\n\u00e9tait fils de Kl\u00e9atos, et le second d'Eurytos Aktori\u00f4n. Et le\nrobuste Di\u00f4r\u00e8s Amarynk\u00e9ide commandait les autres, et le divin\nPolyxeinos commandait aux derniers; et il \u00e9tait fils d'Agasth\u00e9neus\nAug\u00e9iade.\n\nEt ceux qui habitaient Douliki\u00f4n et les saintes \u00eeles Ekhinades qui\nsont \u00e0 l'horizon de la mer, en face de l'\u00c9lis, \u00e9taient command\u00e9s\npar M\u00e9g\u00e8s Phyl\u00e9ide, semblable \u00e0 Ar\u00e8s. Et il \u00e9tait fils de Phyleus,\nhabile cavalier cher \u00e0 Zeus, qui, s'\u00e9tant irrit\u00e9 contre son p\u00e8re,\ns'\u00e9tait r\u00e9fugi\u00e9 \u00e0 Doulikhi\u00f4n. Et ils \u00e9taient venus sur quarante\nnefs noires.\n\nEt Odysseus commandait les magnanimes K\u00e9phall\u00e8niens, et ceux qui\nhabitaient Ithak\u00e8 et le N\u00e8ritos aux for\u00eats agit\u00e9es, et ceux qui\nhabitaient Krokyl\u00e9ia et l'aride Aigilipa et Zakyntos et Samos, et\nceux qui habitaient l'\u00c9peiros sur la rive oppos\u00e9e. Et Odysseus,\n\u00e9gal \u00e0 Zeus par l'intelligence, les commandait. Et ils \u00e9taient\nvenus sur douze nefs rouges.\n\nEt Thoas Andraimonide commandait les Ait\u00f4liens qui habitaient\nPleur\u00f4n et Ol\u00e9nos, et Pyl\u00e8n\u00e8, et la maritime Khalkis, et la\npierreuse Kalid\u00f4n. Car les fils du magnanime Oineus \u00e9taient morts,\net lui-m\u00eame \u00e9tait mort, et le blond M\u00e9l\u00e9agros \u00e9tait mort, et Thoas\ncommandait maintenant les Ait\u00f4liens. Et ils \u00e9taient venus sur\nquarante nefs noires.\n\nEt Idom\u00e9neus, habile \u00e0 lancer la pique, commandait les Kr\u00e8tois et\nceux qui habitaient Kn\u00f4ssos et la forte Gorcyna, et les villes\npopuleuses de Lyktos, de Mil\u00e8tos, de Lykastos, de Phaistos et de\nRhyti\u00f4n, et d'autres qui habitaient aussi la Kr\u00e8t\u00e8 aux cent\nvilles. Et Idom\u00e9neus, habile \u00e0 lancer la pique, les commandait\navec M\u00e8rion\u00e8s, pareil au tueur d'hommes Ar\u00e8s. Et ils \u00e9taient venus\nsur quatre-vingts nefs noires.\n\nEt Tl\u00e8pol\u00e9mos H\u00e8raklide, tr\u00e8s fort et tr\u00e8s grand, avait conduit de\nRhodos, sur neuf nefs, les fiers Rhodiens qui habitaient les trois\nparties de Rhodos: Lindos, I\u00e8lissos et la riche Kameiros. Et\nTl\u00e8pol\u00e9mos, habile \u00e0 lancer la pique, les commandait. Et\nAstyokh\u00e9ia avait donn\u00e9 ce fils au grand H\u00e8rakl\u00e8s, apr\u00e8s que ce\ndernier l'eut emmen\u00e9e d'\u00c9phyr\u00e8, des bords du Sell\u00e8is, o\u00f9 il avait\nrenvers\u00e9 beaucoup de villes d\u00e9fendues par des jeunes hommes. Et\nTl\u00e8pol\u00e9mos, \u00e9lev\u00e9 dans la belle demeure, tua l'oncle de son p\u00e8re,\nLikymnios, race d'Ar\u00e8s. Et il construisit des nefs, rassembla une\ngrande multitude et s'enfuit sur la mer, car les fils et les\npetits-fils du grand H\u00e8rakl\u00e8s le mena\u00e7aient. Ayant err\u00e9 et subi\nbeaucoup de maux, il arriva dans Rhodos, o\u00f9 ils se partag\u00e8rent en\ntrois tribus, et Zeus, qui commande aux dieux et aux hommes, les\naima et les combla de richesses.\n\nEt Nireus avait amen\u00e9 de Sym\u00e8 trois nefs. Et il \u00e9tait n\u00e9 d'Aglai\u00e8\net du roi Kharopos, et c'\u00e9tait le plus beau de tous les Danaens,\napr\u00e8s l'irr\u00e9prochable P\u00e8l\u00e9i\u00f4n, mais il n'\u00e9tait point brave et\ncommandait peu de guerriers.\n\nEt ceux qui habitaient Nisyros et Krapathos, et Kasos, et K\u00f4s,\nville d'Eurypylos, et les \u00eeles Kalynades, \u00e9taient command\u00e9s par\nPheidippos et Antiphos, deux fils du roi Thessalos H\u00e8rakl\u00e9ide. Et\nils \u00e9taient venus sur trente nefs creuses.\n\nEt je nommerai aussi ceux qui habitaient Argos P\u00e9lasgique, et Alos\net Alop\u00e8, et ceux qui habitaient Trakin\u00e8 et la Phthi\u00e8, et la\nHellas aux belles femmes. Et ils se nommaient Myrmidones, ou\nHell\u00e8nes, ou Akhaiens, et Akhilleus commandait leurs cinquante\nnefs. Mais ils ne se souvenaient plus des clameurs de la guerre,\nn'ayant plus de chef qui les men\u00e2t. Car le divin Akhilleus aux\npieds rapides \u00e9tait couch\u00e9 dans ses nefs, irrit\u00e9 au souvenir de la\nvierge Breis\u00e8is aux beaux cheveux qu'il avait emmen\u00e9e de\nLyrn\u00e8ssos, apr\u00e8s avoir pris cette ville et renvers\u00e9 les murailles\nde Th\u00e8b\u00e8 avec de grandes fatigues. L\u00e0, il avait tu\u00e9 les belliqueux\nM\u00e8nytos et \u00c9pistrophos, fils du roi \u00c9v\u00e8nos S\u00e9l\u00e8piade. Et, dans sa\ndouleur, il restait couch\u00e9 mais il devait se relever bient\u00f4t.\n\nEt ceux qui habitaient Phylak\u00e8 et la fertile Pyrrhasos consacr\u00e9e \u00e0\nD\u00e8m\u00e8t\u00e8r, et It\u00f4n riche en troupeaux, et la maritime Antr\u00f4n, et\nPt\u00e9l\u00e9os aux grasses prairies, \u00e9taient command\u00e9s par le brave\nPr\u00f4t\u00e9silaos quand il vivait; mais d\u00e9j\u00e0 la terre noire le\nrenfermait; et sa femme se meurtrissait le visage, seule \u00e0\nPhylak\u00e8, dans sa demeure abandonn\u00e9e; car un guerrier Dardanien le\ntua, comme il s'\u00e9lan\u00e7ait de sa nef, le premier de tous les\nAkhaiens. Mais ses guerriers n'\u00e9taient point sans chef, et ils\n\u00e9taient command\u00e9s par un nourrisson d'Ar\u00e8s, Podark\u00e8s, fils\nd'Iphiklos riche en troupeaux, et il \u00e9tait fr\u00e8re du magnanime\nPr\u00f4t\u00e9silaos. Et ce h\u00e9ros \u00e9tait l'a\u00een\u00e9 et le plus brave, et ses\nguerriers le regrettaient. Et ils \u00e9taient venus sur quarante nefs\nnoires.\n\nEt ceux qui habitaient Ph\u00e9ra, aupr\u00e8s du lac Boib\u00e8is, et Boib\u00e8, et\nGlaphyra, et I\u00f4lkos, \u00e9taient command\u00e9s, sur onze nefs, par le fils\nbien-aim\u00e9 d'Adm\u00e8t\u00e8s, Eum\u00e8los, qu'Alk\u00e8stis, la gloire des femmes et\nla plus belle des filles de P\u00e8lias, avait donn\u00e9 \u00e0 Adm\u00e8t\u00e8s.\n\nEt ceux qui habitaient M\u00e8th\u00f4n\u00e8 et Thaumak\u00e8, et M\u00e9liboia et l'aride\nOliz\u00f4n, Philokt\u00e8t\u00e8s, tr\u00e8s excellent archer, les commandait, sur\nsept nefs. Et dans chaque nef \u00e9taient cinquante rameurs,\nexcellents archers, et tr\u00e8s braves. Et Philokt\u00e8t\u00e8s \u00e9tait couch\u00e9\ndans une \u00eele, en proie \u00e0 des maux terribles, dans la divine\nL\u00e8mn\u00f4s, o\u00f9 les fils des Akhaiens le laiss\u00e8rent, souffrant de la\nmauvaise blessure d'un serpent venimeux. C'est l\u00e0 qu'il gisait,\nplein de tristesse. Mais les Argiens devaient bient\u00f4t se souvenir,\ndans leurs nefs, du roi Philokt\u00e8t\u00e8s. Et ses guerriers n'\u00e9taient\npoint sans chef, s'ils regrettaient celui-l\u00e0. Et M\u00e9d\u00f4n les\ncommandait, et il \u00e9tait fils du brave Oileus, de qui Rh\u00e8n\u00e8 l'avait\ncon\u00e7u.\n\nEt ceux qui habitaient Trikk\u00e8 et la montueuse Ithom\u00e8, et Oikhali\u00e8,\nville d'Eurytos Oikhalien, \u00e9taient command\u00e9s par les deux fils\nd'Askl\u00e8pios, Podaleirios et Makha\u00f4n. Et ils \u00e9taient venus sur\ntrente nefs creuses.\n\nEt ceux qui habitaient Orm\u00e9nios et la fontaine Hyp\u00e9r\u00e9ia, et\nAst\u00e9ri\u00f4n, et les cimes neigeuses du Titanos, \u00e9taient command\u00e9s par\nEurypylos, illustre fils d'\u00c9vaim\u00f4n. Et ils \u00e9taient venus sur\nquarante nefs noires.\n\nEt ceux qui habitaient Argissa et Gyrt\u00f4n\u00e8, Orth\u00e8 et \u00c9lon\u00e8, et la\nblanche Olooss\u00f4n, \u00e9taient command\u00e9s par le belliqueux Polypoit\u00e8s,\nfils de Peirithoos qu'engendra l'\u00e9ternel Zeus. Et l'illustre\nHippodam\u00e9ia le donna pour fils \u00e0 Peirithoos le jour o\u00f9 celui-ci\ndompta les centaures f\u00e9roces et les chassa du P\u00e8li\u00f4n jusqu'aux\nmonts Aithiens. Et Polypoit\u00e8s ne commandait point seul, mais avec\nL\u00e9onteus, nourrisson d'Ar\u00e8s, et fils du magnanime Koronos\nKain\u00e9ide. Et ils \u00e9taient venus sur quarante nefs noires.\n\nEt Gouneus avait amen\u00e9 de Kyphos, sur vingt-deux nefs, les \u00c9ni\u00e8nes\net les braves P\u00e9raibes qui habitaient la froide D\u00f4d\u00f4n\u00e8, et ceux\nqui habitaient les champs baign\u00e9s par l'heureux Titar\u00e8sios qui\njette ses belles eaux dans le P\u00e8n\u00e9ios, et ne se m\u00eale point au\nP\u00e8n\u00e9ios aux tourbillons d'argent, mais coule \u00e0 sa surface comme de\nl'huile. Et sa source est Styx par qui jurent les dieux.\n\nEt Prothoos, fils de Tenthr\u00e8d\u00f4n, commandait les Magn\u00e8tes qui\nhabitaient aupr\u00e8s du P\u00e8n\u00e9ios et du P\u00e8li\u00f4n aux for\u00eats secou\u00e9es par\nle vent. Et l'agile Prothoos les commandait, et ils \u00e9taient venus\nsur quarante nefs noires.\n\nEt tels \u00e9taient les rois et les chefs des Danaens.\n\nDis-moi, Muse, quel \u00e9tait le plus brave, et qui avait les\nmeilleurs chevaux parmi ceux qui avaient suivi les Atr\u00e9ides.\n\nLes meilleurs chevaux \u00e9taient ceux du Ph\u00e8r\u00e8tiade Eum\u00e8los. Et ils\n\u00e9taient rapides comme les oiseaux, du m\u00eame poil, du m\u00eame \u00e2ge et de\nla m\u00eame taille. Apoll\u00f4n \u00e0 l'arc d'argent \u00e9leva et nourrit sur le\nmont Pi\u00e9r\u00e8 ces cavales qui portaient la terreur d'Ar\u00e8s. Et le plus\nbrave des guerriers \u00e9tait Aias T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien, depuis qu'Akhilleus se\nlivrait \u00e0 sa col\u00e8re; car celui-ci \u00e9tait de beaucoup le plus fort,\net les chevaux qui tra\u00eenaient l'irr\u00e9prochable P\u00e8l\u00e9i\u00f4n \u00e9taient de\nbeaucoup les meilleurs. Mais voici qu'il \u00e9tait couch\u00e9 dans sa nef\n\u00e9peronn\u00e9e, couvant sa fureur contre Agamemn\u00f4n. Et ses guerriers,\nsur le rivage de la mer, lan\u00e7aient pacifiquement le disque, la\npique ou la fl\u00e8che; et les chevaux, aupr\u00e8s des chars, broyaient le\nlotos et le s\u00e9linos des marais; et les chars solides restaient\nsous les tentes des chefs; et ceux-ci, regrettant leur roi cher \u00e0\nAr\u00e8s, erraient \u00e0 travers le camp et ne combattaient point.\n\nEt les Akhaiens roulaient sur la terre comme un incendie; et la\nterre mugissait comme lorsque Zeus tonnant la fouette \u00e0 coups de\nfoudre autour des rochers Arimiens o\u00f9 l'on dit que Typh\u00f4eus est\ncouch\u00e9. Ainsi la terre rendait un grand mugissement sous les pieds\ndes Akhaiens qui franchissaient rapidement la plaine.\n\nEt la l\u00e9g\u00e8re Iris, qui va comme le vent, envoy\u00e9e de Zeus\ntemp\u00eatueux, vint annoncer aux Troiens la nouvelle effrayante. Et\nils \u00e9taient r\u00e9unis, jeunes et vieux, \u00e0 l'agora, devant les\nvestibules de Priamos. Et la l\u00e9g\u00e8re Iris s'approcha, semblable par\nle visage et la voix \u00e0 Polit\u00e8s Priamide, qui, se fiant \u00e0 la\nrapidit\u00e9 de sa course, s'\u00e9tait assis sur la haute tombe du vieux\nAisy\u00e8tas, pour observer le moment o\u00f9 les Akhaiens se\npr\u00e9cipiteraient hors des nefs.\n\nEt la l\u00e9g\u00e8re Iris, \u00e9tant semblable \u00e0 lui, parla ainsi:\n\n-- \u00d4 vieillard! tu te plais aux paroles sans fin, comme autrefois,\ndu temps de la paix; mais voici qu'une bataille in\u00e9vitable se\npr\u00e9pare. Certes, j'ai vu un grand nombre de combats, mais je n'ai\npoint encore vu une arm\u00e9e aussi formidable et aussi innombrable.\nElle est pareille aux feuilles et aux grains de sable; et voici\nqu'elle vient, \u00e0 travers la plaine, combattre autour de la ville.\nHekt\u00f4r, c'est \u00e0 toi d'agir. Il y a de nombreux alli\u00e9s dans la\ngrande ville de Priamos, de races et de langues diverses. Que\nchaque chef arme les siens et les m\u00e8ne au combat.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et Hekt\u00f4r reconnut sa voix, et il rompit\nl'agora, et tous coururent aux armes. Et les portes s'ouvrirent,\net la foule des hommes, fantassins et cavaliers, en sortit \u00e0 grand\nbruit. Et il y avait, en avant de la ville, une haute colline qui\ns'inclinait de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s dans la plaine; et les hommes la\nnommaient Bat\u00e9ia, et les immortels, le tombeau de l'agile Myrinn\u00e8.\nL\u00e0, se rang\u00e8rent les Troiens et les alli\u00e9s.\n\nEt le grand Hekt\u00f4r Priamide au beau casque commandait les Troiens,\net il \u00e9tait suivi d'hommes nombreux et braves qui d\u00e9siraient\nfrapper de la pique.\n\nEt le vaillant fils d'Ankhis\u00e8s, Ain\u00e9ias, commandait les\nDardaniens. Et la divine Aphrodit\u00e8 l'avait donn\u00e9 pour fils \u00e0\nAnkhis\u00e8s, s'\u00e9tant unie \u00e0 un mortel, quoique d\u00e9esse, sur les c\u00eemes\nde l'Ida. Et il ne commandait point seul; mais les deux\nAnt\u00e9norides l'accompagnaient, Arkhilokhos et Akamas, habiles \u00e0\ntous les combats.\n\nEt ceux qui habitaient Z\u00e9l\u00e9ia, aux pieds de la derni\u00e8re cha\u00eene de\nl'Ida, les riches Troadiens qui boivent l'eau profonde de\nl'Ais\u00e8pos, \u00e9taient command\u00e9s par l'illustre fils de Lyka\u00f4n,\nPandaros, \u00e0 qui Apoll\u00f4n lui-m\u00eame avait donn\u00e9 son arc.\n\nEt ceux qui habitaient Adr\u00e8st\u00e9ia et Apeisos, et Pithy\u00e9ia et les\nhauteurs de T\u00e8r\u00e9i\u00e8, \u00e9taient command\u00e9s par Adr\u00e8stos et par Amphios\n\u00e0 la cuirasse de lin. Et ils \u00e9taient tous deux fils de M\u00e9rops, le\nPerk\u00f4sien, qui, n'ayant point d'\u00e9gal dans la science divinatoire,\nleur d\u00e9fendit de tenter la guerre qui d\u00e9vore les hommes; mais ils\nne lui ob\u00e9irent point, parce que les k\u00e8res de la noire mort les\nentra\u00eenaient.\n\nEt ceux qui habitaient Perk\u00f4t\u00e8 et Praktios, et S\u00e8stos et Abydos,\net la divine Arisb\u00e8, \u00e9taient command\u00e9s par Asios Hyrtakide, que\ndes chevaux grands et ardents avaient amen\u00e9 des bords du fleuve\nSell\u00e8is.\n\nEt les tribus P\u00e9lasgiques habiles \u00e0 lancer la pique, et ceux qui\nhabitaient Larissa aux plaines fertiles, \u00e9taient command\u00e9s par\nHippothoos et Pyleus, nourrissons d'Ar\u00e8s, fils du P\u00e9lasge L\u00e8thos\nTeutamide.\n\nEt Akamas commandait les Thrakiens, et le h\u00e9ros Peir\u00f4s ceux\nqu'enferme le Hellespontos rapide.\n\nEt Euph\u00e8mos commandait les braves Kikoniens, et il \u00e9tait fils de\nTroiz\u00e8nos K\u00e9ade, cher \u00e0 Zeus.\n\nEt Pyraikhm\u00e8s commandait les archers Paiones, venus de la terre\nlointaine d'Amyd\u00f4n et du large Axios qui r\u00e9pand ses belles eaux\nsur la terre.\n\nEt le brave Pylaim\u00e9neus commandait les Paphlagones, du pays des\n\u00c9n\u00e8tiens, o\u00f9 naissent les mules sauvages. Et ils habitaient aussi\nKyt\u00f4ros et S\u00e9samos, et les belles villes du fleuve Parth\u00e9nios, et\nKr\u00f4mna, et Aigialos et la haute \u00c9rythinos.\n\nEt Dios et \u00c9pistrophos commandaient les Haliz\u00f4nes, venus de la\nlointaine Alyb\u00e8, o\u00f9 germe l'argent.\n\nEt Khromis et le divinateur Eunomos commandaient les Mysiens. Mais\nEunomos ne devina point la noire mort, et il devait tomber sous la\nmain du rapide Aiakide, dans le fleuve o\u00f9 celui-ci devait tuer\ntant de Troiens.\n\nEt Phorkys commandait les Phrygiens, avec Askanios pareil \u00e0 un\ndieu. Et ils \u00e9taient venus d'Askani\u00e8, d\u00e9sirant le combat.\n\nEt Mesthl\u00e8s et Antiphos, fils de Pylaim\u00e9neus, n\u00e9s sur les bords du\nlac de Gyg\u00e9ia, commandaient les Maiones qui habitent aux pieds du\nTm\u00f4los.\n\nEt Nast\u00e8s commandait les Kariens au langage barbare qui habitaient\nMil\u00e8tos et les hauteurs Phthiriennes, et les bords du Maiandros \u00e9t\nles cimes de Mykal\u00e8. Et Amphimakhos et Nast\u00e8s les commandaient, et\nils \u00e9taient les fils illustres de Nomi\u00f4n. Et Amphimakhos\ncombattait charg\u00e9 d'or comme une femme, et ceci ne lui fit point\n\u00e9viter la noire mort, le malheureux! Car il devait tomber sous la\nmain du rapide Aiakide, dans le fleuve, et le brave Akhilleus\ndevait enlever son or.\n\nEt l'irr\u00e9prochable Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n commandait les Lykiens, avec\nl'irr\u00e9prochable Glaukos. Et ils \u00e9taient venus de la lointaine\nLyki\u00e8 et du Xanthos plein de tourbillons.\n\n\nChant 3\n\nQuand tous, de chaque c\u00f4t\u00e9, se furent rang\u00e9s sous leurs chefs, les\nTroiens s'avanc\u00e8rent, pleins de clameurs et de bruit, comme des\noiseaux. Ainsi, le cri des grues monte dans l'air, quand, fuyant\nl'hiver et les pluies abondantes, elles volent sur les flots\nd'Ok\u00e9anos, portant le massacre et la k\u00e8r de la mort aux Pygm\u00e9es.\nEt elles livrent dans l'air un rude combat. Mais les Akhaiens\nallaient en silence, respirant la force, et, dans leur coeur,\nd\u00e9sirant s'entre aider. Comme le Notos enveloppe les hauteurs de\nla montagne d'un brouillard odieux au berger et plus propice au\nvoleur que la nuit m\u00eame, de sorte qu'on ne peut voir au-del\u00e0 d'une\npierre qu'on a jet\u00e9e; de m\u00eame une noire poussi\u00e8re montait sous les\npieds de ceux qui marchaient, et ils traversaient rapidement la\nplaine.\n\nEt quand ils furent proches les uns des autres, le divin\nAlexandros apparut en t\u00eate des Troiens, ayant une peau de l\u00e9opard\nsur les \u00e9paules, et l'arc recourb\u00e9 et l'\u00e9p\u00e9e. Et, agitant deux\npiques d'airain, il appelait les plus braves des Argiens \u00e0\ncombattre un rude combat. Et d\u00e8s que M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, cher \u00e0 Ar\u00e8s, l'eut\naper\u00e7u qui devan\u00e7ait l'arm\u00e9e et qui marchait \u00e0 grands pas, comme\nun lion se r\u00e9jouit, quand il a faim, de rencontrer un cerf cornu\nou une ch\u00e8vre sauvage, et d\u00e9vore sa proie, bien que les chiens\nagiles et les ardents jeunes hommes le poursuivent, de m\u00eame\nM\u00e9n\u00e9laos se r\u00e9jouit quand il vit devant lui le divin Alexandros.\nEt il esp\u00e9ra se venger de celui qui l'avait outrag\u00e9, et il sauta\ndu char avec ses armes.\n\nEt d\u00e8s que le divin Alexandros l'eut aper\u00e7u en t\u00eate de l'arm\u00e9e,\nson coeur se serra, et il recula parmi les siens pour \u00e9viter la\nk\u00e8r de la mort. Si quelqu'un, dans les gorges des montagnes, voit\nun serpent, il saute en arri\u00e8re, et ses genoux tremblent, et ses\njoues p\u00e2lissent. De m\u00eame le divin Alexandros, craignant le fils\nd'Atreus, rentra dans la foule des hardis Troiens.\n\nEt Hekt\u00f4r, l'ayant vu, l'accabla de paroles am\u00e8res:\n\n-- Mis\u00e9rable P\u00e2ris, qui n'as que ta beaut\u00e9, trompeur et eff\u00e9min\u00e9,\npl\u00fbt aux dieux que tu ne fusses point n\u00e9, ou que tu fusses mort\navant tes derni\u00e8res noces! Certes, cela e\u00fbt mieux valu de\nbeaucoup, plut\u00f4t que d'\u00eatre l'opprobre et la ris\u00e9e de tous! Voici\nque les Akhaiens chevelus rient de m\u00e9pris, car ils croyaient que\ntu combattais hardiment hors des rangs, parce que ton visage est\nbeau; mais il n'y a dans ton coeur ni force ni courage. Pourquoi,\n\u00e9tant un l\u00e2che, as-tu travers\u00e9 la mer sur tes nefs rapides, avec\ntes meilleurs compagnons, et, m\u00eal\u00e9 \u00e0 des \u00e9trangers, as-tu enlev\u00e9\nune tr\u00e8s belle jeune femme du pays d'Apy, parente d'hommes\nbelliqueux? Immense malheur pour ton p\u00e8re, pour ta ville et pour\ntout le peuple; joie pour nos ennemis et honte pour toi-m\u00eame! Et\ntu n'as point os\u00e9 attendre M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, cher \u00e0 Ar\u00e8s. Tu saurais\nmaintenant de quel guerrier tu retiens la femme. Ni ta kithare, ni\nles dons d'Aphrodite, ta chevelure et ta beaut\u00e9, ne t'auraient\nsauv\u00e9 d'\u00eatre tra\u00een\u00e9 dans la poussi\u00e8re. Mais les Troiens ont trop\nde respect, car autrement, tu serais d\u00e9j\u00e0 rev\u00eatu d'une tunique de\npierres, pour prix des maux que tu as caus\u00e9s.\n\nEt le divin Alexandros lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Hekt\u00f4r, tu m'as r\u00e9primand\u00e9 justement. Ton coeur est toujours\nindompt\u00e9, comme la hache qui fend le bois et accro\u00eet la force de\nl'ouvrier constructeur de nefs. Telle est l'\u00e2me indompt\u00e9e qui est\ndans ta poitrine. Ne me reproche point les dons aimables\nd'Aphrodite d'or. Il ne faut point rejeter les dons glorieux des\ndieux, car eux seuls en disposent, et nul ne les pourrait prendre\n\u00e0 son gr\u00e9. Mais si tu veux maintenant que je combatte et que je\nlutte, arr\u00eate les Troiens et les Akhaiens, afin que nous\ncombattions moi et M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, cher \u00e0 Ar\u00e8s, au milieu de tous, pour\nH\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 et pour toutes ses richesses. Et le vainqueur emportera\ncette femme et toutes ses richesses, et, apr\u00e8s avoir \u00e9chang\u00e9 des\nserments inviolables, vous, Troiens, habiterez la f\u00e9conde Troi\u00e8,\net les Akhaiens retourneront dans Argos, nourrice de chevaux, et\ndans l'Akhai\u00e8 aux belles femmes.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Hekt\u00f4r en eut une grande joie, et il s'avan\u00e7a,\narr\u00eatant les phalanges des Troiens, \u00e0 l'aide de sa pique qu'il\ntenait par le milieu. Et ils s'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent. Et les Akhaiens\nchevelus tiraient sur lui et le frappaient de fl\u00e8ches et de\npierres. Mais le roi des hommes, Agamemn\u00f4n, cria \u00e0 voix haute:\n\n-- Arr\u00eatez, Argiens! ne frappez point, fils des Akhaiens! Hekt\u00f4r\nau casque mouvant semble vouloir dire quelques mots.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et ils cess\u00e8rent et firent silence, et Hekt\u00f4r\nparla au milieu d'eux:\n\n-- Ecoutez, Troiens et Akhaiens, ce que dit Alexandros qui causa\ncette guerre. Il d\u00e9sire que les Troiens et les Akhaiens d\u00e9posent\nleurs belles armes sur la terre nourrici\u00e8re, et que lui et\nM\u00e9n\u00e9laos, cher \u00e0 Ar\u00e8s, combattent, seuls, au milieu de tous, pour\nH\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 et pour toutes ses richesses. Et le vainqueur emportera\ncette femme et toutes ses richesses, et nous \u00e9changerons des\nserments inviolables.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous rest\u00e8rent silencieux. Et M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, hardi\nau combat, leur dit:\n\n-- Ecoutez-moi maintenant. Une grande douleur serre mon coeur, et\nj'esp\u00e8re que les Argiens et les Troiens vont cesser la guerre, car\nvous avez subi des maux infinis pour ma querelle et pour l'injure\nque m'a faite Alexandros. Que celui des deux \u00e0 qui sont r\u00e9serv\u00e9es\nla moire et la mort, meure donc; et vous, cessez aussit\u00f4t de\ncombattre. Apportez un agneau noir pour Gaia et un agneau blanc\npour H\u00e9lios, et nous en apporterons autant pour Zeus. Et vous\nam\u00e8nerez Priamos lui-m\u00eame, pour qu'il se lie par des serments, car\nses enfants sont parjures et sans foi, et que personne ne puisse\nvioler les serments de Zeus. L'esprit des jeunes hommes est l\u00e9ger,\nmais, dans ses actions, le vieillard regarde \u00e0 la fois l'avenir et\nle pass\u00e9 et agit avec \u00e9quit\u00e9.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et les Troiens et les Akhaiens se r\u00e9jouirent,\nesp\u00e9rant mettre fin \u00e0 la guerre mauvaise. Et ils retinrent les\nchevaux dans les rangs, et ils se d\u00e9pouill\u00e8rent de leurs armes\nd\u00e9pos\u00e9es sur la terre. Et il y avait peu d'espace entre les deux\narm\u00e9es. Et Hekt\u00f4r envoya deux h\u00e9rauts \u00e0 la ville pour apporter\ndeux agneaux et appeler Priamos. Et le roi Agamemn\u00f4n envoya\nTalthybios aux nefs creuses pour y prendre un agneau, et\nTalthybios ob\u00e9it au divin Agamemn\u00f4n.\n\nEt la messag\u00e8re Iris s'envola chez H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 aux bras blancs, s'\u00e9tant\nfaite semblable \u00e0 sa belle-soeur Laodik\u00e8, la plus belle des filles\nde Priamos, et qu'avait \u00e9pous\u00e9e l'Ant\u00e9noride \u00c9lika\u00f4n.\n\nEt elle trouva H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 dans sa demeure, tissant une grande toile\ndouble, blanche comme le marbre, et y retra\u00e7ant les nombreuses\nbatailles que les Troiens dompteurs de chevaux et les Akhaiens\nrev\u00eatus d'airain avaient subies pour elle par les mains d'Ar\u00e8s. Et\nIris aux pieds l\u00e9gers, s'\u00e9tant approch\u00e9e, lui dit:\n\n-- Viens, ch\u00e8re nymphe, voir le spectacle admirable des Troiens\ndompteurs de chevaux et des Akhaiens rev\u00eatus d'airain. Ils\ncombattaient tant\u00f4t dans la plaine, pleins de la fureur d'Ar\u00e8s, et\nles voici maintenant assis en silence, appuy\u00e9s sur leurs\nboucliers, et la guerre a cess\u00e9, et les piques sont enfonc\u00e9es en\nterre. Alexandros et M\u00e9n\u00e9laos cher \u00e0 Ar\u00e8s combattront pour toi, de\nleurs longues piques, et tu seras l'\u00e9pouse bien-aim\u00e9e du\nvainqueur.\n\nEt la d\u00e9esse, ayant ainsi parl\u00e9, jeta dans son coeur un doux\nsouvenir de son premier mari, et de son pays, et de ses parents.\nEt H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8, s'\u00e9tant couverte aussit\u00f4t de voiles blancs, sortit de\nla chambre nuptiale en pleurant; et deux femmes la suivaient,\nAithr\u00e8, fille de Pittheus, et Klym\u00e9n\u00e8 aux yeux de boeuf. Et voici\nqu'elles arriv\u00e8rent aux portes Skaies. Priamos, Panthoos,\nThymoit\u00e8s, Lampos, Klytios, lbk\u00e9ta\u00f4n, nourrisson d'Ar\u00e8s, Oukal\u00e9g\u00f4n\net Ant\u00e8n\u00f4r, tr\u00e8s sages tous deux, si\u00e9geaient, vieillards\nv\u00e9n\u00e9rables, au-dessus des portes Skaies. Et la vieillesse les\n\u00e9cartait de la guerre; mais c'\u00e9taient d'excellents agor\u00e8tes; et\nils \u00e9taient pareils \u00e0 des cigales qui, dans les bois, assises sur\nun arbre, \u00e9l\u00e8vent leur voix m\u00e9lodieuse. Tels \u00e9taient les princes\ndes Troiens, assis sur la tour. Et quand ils virent H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 qui\nmontait vers eux, ils se dirent les uns aux autres, et \u00e0 voix\nbasse, ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\nCertes, il est juste que les Troiens et les Akhaiens aux belles\nkn\u00e8mides subissent tant de maux, et depuis si longtemps, pour une\ntelle femme, car elle ressemble aux d\u00e9esses immortelles par sa\nbeaut\u00e9. Mais, malgr\u00e9 cela, qu'elle s'en retourne sur ses nefs, et\nqu'elle ne nous laisse point, \u00e0 nous et \u00e0 nos enfants, un souvenir\nmis\u00e9rable.\n\nIls parlaient ainsi, et Priamos appela H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8:\n\n-- Viens, ch\u00e8re enfant, approche, assieds-toi aupr\u00e8s de moi, afin\nde revoir ton premier mari, et tes parents, et tes amis. Tu n'es\npoint la cause de nos malheurs. Ce sont les dieux seuls qui m'ont\naccabl\u00e9 de cette rude guerre Akhaienne. Dis-moi le nom de ce\nguerrier d'une haute stature; quel est cet Akhaien grand et\nvigoureux? D'autres ont une taille plus \u00e9lev\u00e9e, mais je n'ai\njamais vu de mes yeux un homme aussi beau et majestueux. Il a\nl'aspect d'un roi.\n\nEt H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8, la divine femme, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Tu m'es v\u00e9n\u00e9rable et redoutable, p\u00e8re bien-aim\u00e9. Que n'ai-je\nsubi la noire mort quand j'ai suivi ton fils, abandonnant ma\nchambre nuptiale et ma fille n\u00e9e en mon pays lointain, et mes\nfr\u00e8res, et les ch\u00e8res compagnes de ma jeunesse! Mais telle n'a\npoint \u00e9t\u00e9 ma destin\u00e9e, et c'est pour cela que je me consume en\npleurant. Je te dirai ce que tu m'as demand\u00e9. Cet homme est le roi\nAgamemn\u00f4n Atr\u00e9ide, qui commande au loin, roi habile et brave\nguerrier. Et il fut mon beau-fr\u00e8re, \u00e0 moi inf\u00e2me, s'il m'est\npermis de dire qu'il le fut.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et le vieillard, plein d'admiration, s'\u00e9cria:\n\n-- \u00d4 heureux Atr\u00e9ide, n\u00e9 pour d'heureuses destin\u00e9es! Certes, de\nnombreux fils des Akhaiens te sont soumis. Autrefois, dans la\nPhrygi\u00e8 f\u00e9conde en vignes, j'ai vu de nombreux Phrygiens, habiles\ncavaliers, tribus belliqueuses d'Otreus et de Mygd\u00f4n \u00e9gal aux\ndieux, et qui \u00e9taient camp\u00e9s sur les bords du Sangarios. Et\nj'\u00e9tais au milieu d'eux, \u00e9tant leur alli\u00e9, quand vinrent les\nAmazones viriles. Mais ils n'\u00e9taient point aussi nombreux que les\nAkhaiens.\n\nPuis, ayant vu Odysseus, le vieillard interrogea H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8:\n\n-- Dis-moi aussi, ch\u00e8re enfant, qui est celui-ci. Il est moins\ngrand que l'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n, mais plus large des \u00e9paules et de\nla poitrine. Et ses armes sont couch\u00e9es sur la terre nourrici\u00e8re,\net il marche, parmi les hommes, comme un b\u00e9lier charg\u00e9 de laine au\nmilieu d'un grand troupeau de brebis blanches.\n\nEt H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8, fille de Zeus, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Celui-ci est le subtil Laertiade Odysseus, nourri dans le pays\nst\u00e9rile d'Ithak\u00e8. Et il est plein de ruses et de prudence.\n\nEt le sage Ant\u00e8n\u00f4r lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 femme! tu as dit une parole vraie. Le divin Odysseus vint\nautrefois ici, envoy\u00e9 pour toi, avec M\u00e9n\u00e9laos cher \u00e0 Ar\u00e8s, et je\nles re\u00e7us dans mes demeures, et j'ai appris \u00e0 conna\u00eetre leur\naspect et leur sagesse. Quand ils venaient \u00e0 l'agora des Troiens,\ndebout, M\u00e9n\u00e9laos surpassait Odysseus des \u00e9paules, mais, assis, le\nplus majestueux \u00e9tait Odysseus. Et quand ils haranguaient devant\ntous, certes, M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, bien que le plus jeune, parlait avec force\net concision, en peu de mots, mais avec une clart\u00e9 pr\u00e9cise et\nallant droit au but. Et quand le subtil Odysseus se levait, il se\ntenait immobile, les yeux baiss\u00e9s, n'agitant le sceptre ni en\navant ni en arri\u00e8re, comme un agor\u00e8te inexp\u00e9riment\u00e9. On e\u00fbt dit\nqu'il \u00e9tait plein d'une sombre col\u00e8re et tel qu'un insens\u00e9. Mais\nquand il exhalait de sa poitrine sa voix sonore, ses paroles\npleuvaient, semblables aux neiges de l'hiver. En ce moment, nul\nn'aurait os\u00e9 lutter contre lui; mais, au premier aspect, nous ne\nl'admirions pas autant.\n\nAyant vu Aias, une troisi\u00e8me fois le vieillard interrogea H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8:\n\n-- Qui est cet autre guerrier Akhaien, grand et athl\u00e9tique, qui\nsurpasse tous les Argiens de la t\u00eate et des \u00e9paules?\n\nEt H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 au long p\u00e9plos, la divine femme, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Celui-ci est le grand Aias, le bouclier des Akhaiens. Et voici,\nparmi les Kr\u00e8tois, Idom\u00e9neus tel qu'un dieu, et les princes\nKr\u00e8tois l'environnent. Souvent, M\u00e9n\u00e9laos cher \u00e0 Ar\u00e8s le re\u00e7ut dans\nnos demeures, quand il venait de la Kr\u00e8t\u00e8. Et voici tous les\nautres Akhaiens aux yeux noirs, et je les reconnais, et je\npourrais dire leurs noms. Mais je ne vois point les deux princes\ndes peuples, Kast\u00f4r dompteur de chevaux et Polydeuk\u00e8s invincible\nau pugilat, mes propres fr\u00e8res, car une m\u00eame m\u00e8re nous a enfant\u00e9s.\nN'auraient-ils point quitt\u00e9 l'heureuse Lak\u00e9daim\u00f4n, ou, s'ils sont\nvenus sur leurs nefs rapides, ne veulent-ils point se montrer au\nmilieu des hommes, \u00e0 cause de ma honte et de mon opprobre?\n\nElle parla ainsi, mais d\u00e9j\u00e0 la terre f\u00e9conde les renfermait, \u00e0\nLak\u00e9daim\u00f4n, dans la ch\u00e8re patrie.\n\nEt les h\u00e9rauts, \u00e0 travers la ville, portaient les gages sinc\u00e8res\ndes dieux, deux agneaux, et, dans une outre de peau de ch\u00e8vre, le\nvin joyeux, fruit de la terre. Et le h\u00e9raut Idaios portait un\nkrat\u00e8re \u00e9tincelant et des coupes d'or; et, s'approchant, il excita\nle vieillard par ces paroles:\n\n-- L\u00e8ve-toi, Laom\u00e9dontiade! Les princes des Troiens dompteurs de\nchevaux et des Akhaiens rev\u00eatus d'airain t'invitent \u00e0 descendre\ndans la plaine, afin que vous \u00e9changiez des serments inviolables.\nEt Alexandros et M\u00e9n\u00e9laos cher \u00e0 Ar\u00e8s combattront pour H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 avec\nleurs longues piques, et ses richesses appartiendront au\nvainqueur. Et tous, ayant fait alliance et \u00e9chang\u00e9 des serments\ninviolables, nous, Troiens, habiterons la f\u00e9conde Troi\u00e8, et les\nAkhaiens retourneront dans Argos nourrice de chevaux et dans\nl'Akhai\u00e8 aux belles femmes.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le vieillard fr\u00e9mit, et il ordonna \u00e0 ses\ncompagnons d'atteler les chevaux, et ils ob\u00e9irent promptement. Et\nPriamos monta, tenant les r\u00eanes, et, aupr\u00e8s de lui, Ant\u00e8n\u00f4r entra\ndans le beau char; et, par les portes Skaies, tous deux pouss\u00e8rent\nles chevaux agiles dans la plaine.\n\nEt quand ils furent arriv\u00e9s au milieu des Troiens et des Akhaiens,\nils descendirent du char sur la terre nourrici\u00e8re et se plac\u00e8rent\nau milieu des Troiens et des Akhaiens.\n\nEt, aussit\u00f4t, le roi des hommes, Agamemn\u00f4n, se leva, ainsi que le\nsubtil Odysseus. Puis, les h\u00e9rauts v\u00e9n\u00e9rables r\u00e9unirent les gages\nsinc\u00e8res des dieux, m\u00ealant le vin dans le krat\u00e8re et versant de\nl'eau sur les mains des rois. Et l'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n, tirant le\ncouteau toujours suspendu \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la grande gaine de l'\u00e9p\u00e9e,\ncoupa du poil sur la t\u00eate des agneaux, et les h\u00e9rauts le\ndistribu\u00e8rent aux princes des Troiens et des Akhaiens. Et, au\nmilieu d'eux, l'Atr\u00e9ide pria, \u00e0 haute voix, les mains \u00e9tendues:\n\n-- P\u00e8re Zeus, qui commandes du haut de l'Ida, tr\u00e8s glorieux, tr\u00e8s\ngrand! H\u00e9lios, qui vois et entends tout! fleuves et Gaia! et vous\nqui, sous la terre, ch\u00e2tiez les parjures, soyez tous t\u00e9moins,\nscellez nos serments inviolables. Si Alexandros tue M\u00e9n\u00e9laos,\nqu'il garde H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 et toutes ses richesses, et nous retournerons\nsur nos nefs rapides; mais si le blond M\u00e9n\u00e9laos tue Alexandros,\nque les Troiens rendent H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 et toutes ses richesses, et qu'ils\npayent aux Argiens, comme il est juste, un tribut dont se\nsouviendront les hommes futurs. Mais si, Alexandros mort, Priamos\net les fils de Priamos refusaient de payer ce tribut, je resterai\net combattrai pour ceci, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que je termine la guerre.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, de l'airain cruel, il trancha la gorge des\nagneaux et il les jeta palpitants sur la terre et rendant l'\u00e2me,\ncar l'airain leur avait enlev\u00e9 la vie. Et tous, puisant le vin du\nkrat\u00e8re avec des coupes, ils le r\u00e9pandirent et pri\u00e8rent les dieux\nqui vivent toujours. Et les Troiens et les Akhaiens disaient:\n\n-- Zeus, tr\u00e8s glorieux, tr\u00e8s grand, et vous, dieux immortels! que\nla cervelle de celui qui violera le premier ce serment, et la\ncervelle de ses fils, soient r\u00e9pandues sur la terre comme ce vin,\net que leurs femmes soient outrag\u00e9es par autrui!\n\nMais le Kroni\u00f4n ne les exau\u00e7a point. Et le Dardanide Priamos parla\net leur dit:\n\n-- Ecoutez-moi, Troiens et Akhaiens aux belles kn\u00e8mides. Je\nretourne vers la hauteur d'Ilios, car je ne saurais voir de mes\nyeux mon fils bien-aim\u00e9 lutter contre M\u00e9n\u00e9laos cher \u00e0 Ar\u00e8s. Zeus\net les dieux immortels savent seuls auquel des deux est r\u00e9serv\u00e9e\nla mort.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, le divin vieillard pla\u00e7a les agneaux dans le\nchar, y monta, et saisit les r\u00eanes. Et Ant\u00e8n\u00f4r, aupr\u00e8s de lui,\nentra dans le beau char, et ils retourn\u00e8rent vers Ilios.\n\nEt le Priamide Hekt\u00f4r et le divin Odysseus mesur\u00e8rent l'ar\u00e8ne\nd'abord, et remu\u00e8rent les sorts dans un casque, pour savoir qui\nlancerait le premier la pique d'airain. Et les peuples priaient et\nlevaient les mains vers les dieux, et les Troiens et les Akhaiens\ndisaient:\n\n-- P\u00e8re Zeus, qui commandes au haut de l'Ida, tr\u00e8s glorieux, tr\u00e8s\ngrand! que celui qui nous a caus\u00e9 tant de maux descende chez\nAid\u00e8s, et puissions-nous sceller une alliance et des trait\u00e9s\ninviolables!\n\nIls parl\u00e8rent ainsi, et le grand Hekt\u00f4r au casque mouvant agita\nles sorts en d\u00e9tournent les yeux, et celui de P\u00e2ris sortit le\npremier. Et tous s'assirent en rangs, chacun aupr\u00e8s de ses chevaux\nagiles et de ses armes \u00e9clatantes. Et le divin Alexandros, l'\u00e9poux\nde H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 aux beaux cheveux, couvrit ses \u00e9paules de ses belles\narmes. Et il mit autour de ses jambes ses belles kn\u00e8mides aux\nagrafes d'argent, et, sur sa poitrine, la cuirasse de son fr\u00e8re\nLyka\u00f4n, faite \u00e0 sa taille; et il suspendit \u00e0 ses \u00e9paules l'\u00e9p\u00e9e\nd'airain aux clous d'argent. Puis il prit le bouclier vaste et\nlourd, et il mit sur sa t\u00eate guerri\u00e8re un riche casque orn\u00e9 de\ncrins, et ce panache s'agitait fi\u00e8rement; et il saisit une forte\npique faite pour ses mains. Et le brave M\u00e9n\u00e9laos se couvrit aussi\nde ses armes.\n\nTous deux, s'\u00e9tant arm\u00e9s, avanc\u00e8rent au milieu des Troiens et des\nAkhaiens, se jetant de sombres regards; et les Troiens dompteurs\nde chevaux et les Akhaiens aux belles kn\u00e8mides les regardaient\navec terreur. Ils s'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent en face l'un de l'autre, agitant\nles piques et pleins de fureur.\n\nEt Alexandros lan\u00e7a le premier sa longue pique et frappa le\nbouclier poli de l'Atr\u00e9ide, mais il ne per\u00e7a point l'airain, et la\npointe se ploya sur le dur bouclier. Et M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, levant sa pique,\nsupplia le p\u00e8re Zeus:\n\n-- P\u00e8re Zeus! fais que je punisse le divin Alexandros, qui le\npremier m'a outrag\u00e9, et fais qu'il tombe sous mes mains, afin que,\nparmi les hommes futurs, chacun tremble d'outrager l'h\u00f4te qui\nl'aura re\u00e7u avec bienveillance!\n\nAyant parl\u00e9 ainsi, il brandit sa longue pique, et, la lan\u00e7ant, il\nen frappa le bouclier poli du Priamide. Et la forte pique, \u00e0\ntravers le bouclier \u00e9clatant, per\u00e7a la riche cuirasse et d\u00e9chira\nla tunique aupr\u00e8s du flanc. Et Alexandros, se courbant, \u00e9vita la\nnoire k\u00e8r. Et l'Atr\u00e9ide, ayant tir\u00e9 l'\u00e9p\u00e9e aux clous d'argent, en\nfrappa le c\u00f4ne du casque; mais l'\u00e9p\u00e9e, rompue en trois ou quatre\nmorceaux, tomba de sa main, et l'Atr\u00e9ide g\u00e9mit en regardant le\nvaste Ouranos:\n\n-- P\u00e8re Zeus! nul d'entre les dieux n'est plus inexorable que toi.\nCertes, j'esp\u00e9rais me venger de l'outrage d'Alexandros et l'\u00e9p\u00e9e\ns'est rompue dans ma main, et la pique a \u00e9t\u00e9 vainement lanc\u00e9e, et\nje ne l'ai point frapp\u00e9!\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, d'un bond, il le saisit par les crins du\ncasque, et il le tra\u00eena vers les Akhaiens aux belles kn\u00e8mides. Et\nle cuir habilement orn\u00e9, qui liait le casque sous le menton,\n\u00e9touffait le cou d\u00e9licat d'Alexandros; et l'Atr\u00e9ide l'e\u00fbt tra\u00een\u00e9\net e\u00fbt remport\u00e9 une grande gloire, si la fille de Zeus, Aphrodit\u00e8,\nayant vu cela, n'e\u00fbt rompu le cuir de boeuf; et le casque vide\nsuivit la main musculeuse de M\u00e9n\u00e9laos. Et celui-ci le fit\ntournoyer et le jeta au milieu des Akhaiens aux belles kn\u00e8mides,\net ses chers compagnons l'emport\u00e8rent. Puis, il se rua de nouveau\nd\u00e9sirant tuer le Priamide de sa pique d'airain; mais Aphrodit\u00e8,\n\u00e9tant d\u00e9esse, enleva tr\u00e8s facilement Alexandros en l'enveloppant\nd'une nu\u00e9e \u00e9paisse, et elle le d\u00e9posa dans sa chambre nuptiale,\nsur son lit parfum\u00e9. Et elle sortit pour appeler H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8, qu\u0092elle\ntrouva sur la haute tour, au milieu de la foule des Troiennes. Et\nla divine Aphrodit\u00e8, s'\u00e9tant faite semblable \u00e0 une vieille femme\nhabile \u00e0 tisser la laine, et qui la tissait pour H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 dans la\npopuleuse Lak\u00e9daim\u00f4n, et qui aimait H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8, saisit celle-ci par sa\nrobe nektar\u00e9enne et lui dit:\n\n-- Viens! Alexandros t'invite \u00e0 revenir. Il est couch\u00e9, plein de\nbeaut\u00e9 et richement v\u00eatu, sur son lit habilement travaill\u00e9. Tu ne\ndirais point qu'il vient de lutter contre un homme, mais tu\ncroirais qu'il va aux danses, ou qu'il repose au retour des\ndanses.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et elle troubla le coeur de H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8. Mais d\u00e8s que\ncelle-ci eut vu le beau cou de la d\u00e9esse, et son sein d'o\u00f9\nnaissent les d\u00e9sirs, et ses yeux \u00e9clatants, elle fut saisie de\nterreur, et, la nommant de son nom, elle lui dit:\n\n-- \u00d4 mauvaise! Pourquoi veux-tu me tromper encore? Me conduiras-tu\ndans quelque autre ville populeuse de la Phrygi\u00e8 ou de l'heureuse\nMaioni\u00e8, si un homme qui t'est cher y habite? Est-ce parce que\nM\u00e9n\u00e9laos, ayant vaincu le divin Alexandros, veut m'emmener dans\nses demeures, moi qui me suis odieuse, que tu viens de nouveau me\ntendre des pi\u00e8ges? Va plut\u00f4t! abandonne la demeure des dieux, ne\nretourne plus dans l'Olympos, et reste aupr\u00e8s de lui, toujours\ninqui\u00e8te; et prends-le sous ta garde, jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'il fasse de\ntoi sa femme ou son esclave! Pour moi, je n'irai plus orner son\nlit, car ce serait trop de honte, et toutes les Troiennes me\nbl\u00e2meraient, et j'ai trop d'amers chagrins dans le coeur.\n\nEt la divine Aphrodit\u00e8, pleine de col\u00e8re, lui dit:\n\n-- Malheureuse! crains de m'irriter, de peur que je t'abandonne\ndans ma col\u00e8re, et que je te ha\u00efsse autant que je t'ai aim\u00e9e, et\nque, jetant des haines inexorables entre les Troiens et les\nAkhaiens, je te fasse p\u00e9rir d'une mort violente!\n\nElle parla ainsi, et H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8, fille de Zeus, fut saisie de terreur,\net, couverte de sa robe \u00e9clatante de blancheur, elle marcha en\nsilence, s'\u00e9loignant des Troiennes, sur les pas de la d\u00e9esse.\n\nEt quand elles furent parvenues \u00e0 la belle demeure d'Alexandros,\ntoutes les servantes se mirent \u00e0 leur t\u00e2che, et la divine femme\nmonta dans la haute chambre nuptiale. Aphrodit\u00e8 qui aime les\nsourires avan\u00e7a un si\u00e8ge pour elle aupr\u00e8s d'Alexandros, et H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8,\nfille de Zeus temp\u00e9tueux, s'y assit en d\u00e9tournant les yeux; mais\nelle adressa ces reproches \u00e0 son \u00e9poux:\n\n-- Te voici revenu du combat. Que n'y restais-tu, mort et dompt\u00e9\npar l'homme brave qui fut mon premier mari! Ne te vantais-tu pas\nde l'emporter sur M\u00e9n\u00e9laos cher \u00e0 Ar\u00e8s, par ton courage, par ta\nforce et par ta lance? Va! d\u00e9fie encore M\u00e9n\u00e9laos cher \u00e0 Ar\u00e8s, et\ncombats de nouveau contre lui; mais non, je te conseille plut\u00f4t de\nne plus lutter contre le blond M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, de peur qu'il te dompte\naussit\u00f4t de sa lance!\n\nEt P\u00e2ris, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi:\n\n-- Femme! ne blesse pas mon coeur par d'am\u00e8res paroles. Il est\nvrai, M\u00e9n\u00e9laos m'a vaincu \u00e0 l'aide d'Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, mais je le vaincrai\nplus tard, car nous avons aussi des dieux qui nous sont amis.\nViens! couchons-nous et aimons-nous! Jamais le d\u00e9sir ne m'a br\u00fbl\u00e9\nainsi, m\u00eame lorsque, naviguant sur mes nefs rapides, apr\u00e8s t'avoir\nenlev\u00e9e de l'heureuse Lak\u00e9daim\u00f4n, je m'unis d'amour avec toi dans\nl'\u00eele de Krana\u00e8, tant je t'aime maintenant et suis saisi de\nd\u00e9sirs!\n\nIl parla ainsi et marcha vers son lit, et l'\u00e9pouse le suivit, et\nils se couch\u00e8rent dans le lit bien construit.\n\nCependant l'Atr\u00e9ide courait comme une b\u00eate f\u00e9roce au travers de la\nfoule, cherchant le divin Alexandros. Et nul des Troiens ni des\nillustres alli\u00e9s ne put montrer Alexandros \u00e0 M\u00e9n\u00e9laos cher \u00e0 Ar\u00e8s.\nEt certes, s'ils l'avaient vu, ils ne l'auraient point cach\u00e9, car\nils le ha\u00efssaient tous comme la noire k\u00e8r. Et le roi des hommes,\nAgamemn\u00f4n, leur parla ainsi:\n\n-- Ecoutez-moi, Troiens, Dardaniens et alli\u00e9s. La victoire,\ncertes, est \u00e0 M\u00e9n\u00e9laos cher \u00e0 Ar\u00e8s. Rendez-nous donc l'Argienne\nH\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 et ses richesses, et payez, comme il est juste, un tribut\ndont se souviendront les hommes futurs.\n\nL'Atr\u00e9ide parla ainsi, et tous les Akhaiens applaudirent.\n\n\nChant 4\n\nLes dieux, assis aupr\u00e8s de Zeus, \u00e9taient r\u00e9unis sur le pav\u00e9 d'or,\net la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable H\u00e8b\u00e8 versait le nektar, et tous, buvant les coupes\nd'or, regardaient la ville des Troiens. Et le Kronide voulut\nirriter H\u00e8r\u00e8 par des paroles mordantes, et il dit:\n\n-- Deux d\u00e9esses d\u00e9fendent M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, H\u00e8r\u00e8 l'Argienne et la\nprotectrice Ath\u00e8n\u00e8; mais elles restent assises et ne font que\nregarder, tandis qu'Aphrodit\u00e8 qui aime les sourires ne quitte\njamais Alexandros et \u00e9carte de lui les k\u00e8res. Et voici qu'elle l'a\nsauv\u00e9 comme il allait p\u00e9rir. Mais la victoire est \u00e0 M\u00e9n\u00e9laos cher\n\u00e0 Ar\u00e8s. Songeons donc \u00e0 ceci. Faut-il exciter de nouveau la guerre\nmauvaise et le rude combat, ou sceller l'alliance entre les deux\npeuples? S'il pla\u00eet \u00e0 tous les dieux, la ville du roi Priamos\nrestera debout, et M\u00e9n\u00e9laos emm\u00e8nera l'Argienne H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et les d\u00e9esses Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 et H\u00e8r\u00e8 se mordirent les\nl\u00e8vres, et, assises \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 l'une de l'autre, elles m\u00e9ditaient la\ndestruction des Troiens. Et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 restait muette, irrit\u00e9e contre\nson p\u00e8re Zeus, et une sauvage col\u00e8re la br\u00fblait; mais H\u00e8r\u00e8 ne put\ncontenir la sienne et dit:\n\nTr\u00e8s dur Kronide, quelle parole as-tu dite? Veux-tu rendre vaines\ntoutes mes fatigues et la sueur que j'ai su\u00e9e? J'ai lass\u00e9 mes\nchevaux en rassemblant les peuples contre Priamos et contre ses\nenfants. Fais donc, mais les dieux ne t'approuveront pas.\n\nEt Zeus qui amasse les nu\u00e9es, tr\u00e8s irrit\u00e9, lui dit:\n\n-- Malheureuse! Quels maux si grands Priamos et les enfants de\nPriamos t'ont-ils caus\u00e9s, que tu veuilles sans rel\u00e2che d\u00e9truire la\nforte citadelle d'Ilios? Si, dans ses larges murailles, tu pouvais\nd\u00e9vorer Priamos et les enfants de Priamos et les autres Troiens,\npeut-\u00eatre ta haine serait elle assouvie. Fais selon ta volont\u00e9, et\nque cette dissension cesse d\u00e9sormais entre nous. Mais je te dirai\nceci, et garde mes paroles dans ton esprit: Si jamais je veux\naussi d\u00e9truire une ville habit\u00e9e par des hommes qui te sont amis,\nne t'oppose point \u00e0 ma col\u00e8re et laisse-moi agir, car c'est \u00e0\ncontrecoeur que je te livre celle-ci. De toutes les villes\nhabit\u00e9es par les hommes terrestres, sous H\u00e9lios et sous l'Ouranos\n\u00e9toil\u00e9, aucune ne m'est plus ch\u00e8re que la ville sacr\u00e9e d'Ilios, o\u00f9\nsont Priamos et le peuple de Priamos qui tient la lance. L\u00e0, mon\nautel n'a jamais manqu\u00e9 de nourriture, de libations, et de\ngraisse; car nous avons cet honneur en partage.\n\nEt la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux yeux de boeuf lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Certes, j'ai trois villes qui me sont tr\u00e8s ch\u00e8res, Argos,\nSpart\u00e8 et Myk\u00e8n\u00e8 aux larges rues. D\u00e9truis-les quand tu les ha\u00efras,\net je ne les d\u00e9fendrai point; mais je m'opposerais en vain \u00e0 ta\nvolont\u00e9, puisque tu es infiniment plus puissant. Il ne faut pas\nque tu rendes mes fatigues vaines. Je suis d\u00e9esse aussi, et ma\nrace est la tienne. Le subtil Kronos m'a engendr\u00e9e, et je suis\ndeux fois v\u00e9n\u00e9rable, par mon origine et parce que je suis ton\n\u00e9pouse, \u00e0 toi qui commandes \u00e0 tous les immortels. C\u00e9dons-nous donc\ntour \u00e0 tour, et les dieux immortels nous ob\u00e9iront. Ordonne\nqu'Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 se m\u00eale au rude combat des Troiens et des Akhaiens.\nQu'elle pousse les Troiens \u00e0 outrager, les premiers, les fiers\nAkhaiens, malgr\u00e9 l'alliance jur\u00e9e.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et le p\u00e8re des hommes et des dieux le voulut, et\nil dit \u00e0 Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Va tr\u00e8s promptement au milieu des Troiens et des Akhaiens, et\npousse les Troiens \u00e0 outrager, les premiers, les fiers Akhaiens,\nmalgr\u00e9 l'alliance jur\u00e9e.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il excita Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 d\u00e9j\u00e0 pleine de ce d\u00e9sir, et\nelle se pr\u00e9cipita des sommets de l'Olympos. Comme un signe\nlumineux que le fils du subtil Kronos envoie aux marins et aux\npeuples nombreux, et d'o\u00f9 jaillissent mille \u00e9tincelles, Pallas\nAth\u00e8n\u00e8 s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a sur la terre et tomba au milieu des deux arm\u00e9es.\nEt sa vue emplit de frayeur les Troiens dompteurs de chevaux et\nles Akhaiens aux belles kn\u00e8mides. Et ils se disaient entre eux: --\nCertes, la guerre mauvaise et le rude combat vont recommencer, ou\nZeus va sceller l'alliance entre les deux peuples, car il r\u00e8gle la\nguerre parmi les hommes.\u0092\n\nIls parlaient ainsi, et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 se m\u00eala aux Troiens, semblable au\nbrave Laodokos Ant\u00e9noride, et cherchant Pandaros \u00e9gal aux dieux.\nEt elle trouva debout le brave et irr\u00e9prochable fils de Lyka\u00f4n,\net, autour de lui, la foule des hardis porte boucliers qui\nl'avaient suivi des bords de l'Ais\u00e8pos. Et, s'\u00e9tant approch\u00e9e,\nAth\u00e8n\u00e8 lui dit en paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Te laisseras-tu persuader par moi, brave fils de Lyka\u00f4n, et\noserais-tu lancer une fl\u00e8che rapide \u00e0 M\u00e9n\u00e9laos? Certes, tu serais\ncombl\u00e9 de gloire et de gratitude par tous les Troiens et surtout\npar le roi Alexandros. Et il te ferait de riches pr\u00e9sents, s'il\nvoyait le brave M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, fils d'Atreus, dompt\u00e9 par ta fl\u00e8che et\nmontant sur le b\u00fbcher fun\u00e9raire. Courage! Tire contre le noble\nM\u00e9n\u00e9laos, et promets une belle h\u00e9catombe \u00e0 l'illustre archer\nApoll\u00f4n Lykien, quand tu seras de retour dans la citadelle de\nZ\u00e9l\u00e9i\u00e8 la sainte.\n\nAth\u00e8n\u00e8 parla ainsi, et elle persuada l'insens\u00e9. Et il tira de\nl'\u00e9tui un arc luisant, d\u00e9pouille d'une ch\u00e8vre sauvage et\nbondissante qu'il avait perc\u00e9e \u00e0 la poitrine, comme elle sortait\nd'un creux de rocher. Et elle \u00e9tait tomb\u00e9e morte sur la pierre. Et\nses cornes \u00e9taient hautes de seize palmes. Un excellent ouvrier\nles travailla, les polit et les dora \u00e0 chaque extr\u00e9mit\u00e9. Et\nPandaros, ayant band\u00e9 cet arc, le posa \u00e0 terre, et ses braves\ncompagnons le couvrirent de leurs boucliers, de peur que les fils\ndes courageux Akhaiens vinssent \u00e0 se ruer avant que le brave\nM\u00e9n\u00e9laos, chef des Akhaiens, ne f\u00fbt frapp\u00e9.\n\nEt Pandaros ouvrit le carquois et en tira une fl\u00e8che neuve, ail\u00e9e,\nsource d'am\u00e8res douleurs. Et il promit \u00e0 l'illustre archer Apoll\u00f4n\nLykien une belle h\u00e9catombe d'agneaux premiers-n\u00e9s, quand il serait\nde retour dans la citadelle de Z\u00e9l\u00e9i\u00e8 la sainte.\n\nEt il saisit \u00e0 la fois la fl\u00e8che et le nerf de boeuf, et, les\nayant attir\u00e9s, le nerf toucha sa mamelle, et la pointe d'airain\ntoucha l'arc, et le nerf vibra avec force, et la fl\u00e8che aigu\u00eb\ns'\u00e9lan\u00e7a, d\u00e9sirant voler au travers de la foule.\n\nMais les dieux heureux ne t'oubli\u00e8rent point, M\u00e9n\u00e9laos! Et la\nterrible fille de Zeus se tint la premi\u00e8re devant toi pour\nd\u00e9tourner la fl\u00e8che am\u00e8re. Elle la d\u00e9tourna comme une m\u00e8re chasse\nune mouche loin de son enfant envelopp\u00e9 par le doux sommeil. Et\nelle la dirigea l\u00e0 o\u00f9 les anneaux d'or du baudrier forment comme\nune seconde cuirasse. Et la fl\u00e8che am\u00e8re tomba sur le solide\nbaudrier, et elle le per\u00e7a ainsi que la cuirasse artistement orn\u00e9e\net la mitre qui, par-dessous, garantissait la peau des traits. Et\nla fl\u00e8che la per\u00e7a aussi, et elle effleura la peau du h\u00e9ros, et un\nsang noir jaillit de la blessure.\n\nComme une femme Maionienne ou Karienne teint de pourpre l'ivoire\ndestin\u00e9 \u00e0 orner le mors des chevaux, et qu'elle garde dans sa\ndemeure, et que tous les cavaliers d\u00e9sirent, car il est l'ornement\nd'un roi, la parure du cheval et l'orgueil du cavalier, ainsi,\nM\u00e9n\u00e9laos, le sang rougit tes belles cuisses et tes jambes\njusqu'aux chevilles. Et le roi des hommes, Agamemn\u00f4n, fr\u00e9mit de\nvoir ce sang noir couler de la blessure; et M\u00e9n\u00e9laos cher \u00e0 Ar\u00e8s\nfr\u00e9mit aussi. Mais quand il vit que le fer de la fl\u00e8che avait \u00e0\npeine p\u00e9n\u00e9tr\u00e9, son coeur se raffermit; et, au milieu de ses\ncompagnons qui se lamentaient, Agamemn\u00f4n qui commande au loin,\nprenant la main de M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, lui dit en g\u00e9missant:\n\n-- Cher fr\u00e8re, c'\u00e9tait ta mort que je d\u00e9cidais par ce trait\u00e9, en\nt'envoyant seul combattre les Troiens pour tous les Akhaiens,\npuisqu'ils t'ont frapp\u00e9 et ont foul\u00e9 aux pieds des serments\ninviolables. Mais ces serments ne seront point vains, ni le sang\ndes agneaux, ni les libations sacr\u00e9es, ni le gage de nos mains\nunies. Si l'Olympien ne les frappe point maintenant, il les punira\nplus tard; et ils expieront par des calamit\u00e9s terribles cette\ntrahison qui retombera sur leurs t\u00eates, sur leurs femmes et sur\nleurs enfants. Car je le sais, dans mon esprit, un jour viendra o\u00f9\nla sainte Ilios p\u00e9rira, et Priamos, et le peuple de Priamos habile\n\u00e0 manier la lance. Zeus Kronide qui habite l'aith\u00e8r agitera d'en\nhaut sur eux sa terrible Aigide, indign\u00e9 de cette trahison qui\nsera ch\u00e2ti\u00e9e. \u00d4 M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, ce serait une am\u00e8re douleur pour moi si,\naccomplissant tes destin\u00e9es, tu mourais. Couvert d'opprobre je\nretournerais dans Argos, car les Akhaiens voudraient aussit\u00f4t\nrentrer dans la terre natale, et nous abandonnerions l'Argienne\nH\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 comme un triomphe \u00e0 Priamos et aux Troiens. Et les\norgueilleux Troiens diraient, foulant la tombe de l'illustre\nM\u00e9n\u00e9laos:\n\n-- Plaise aux dieux qu'Agamemn\u00f4n assouvisse toujours ainsi sa\ncol\u00e8re! Il a conduit ici l'arm\u00e9e inutile des Akhaiens, et voici\nqu'il est retourn\u00e9 dans son pays bien-aim\u00e9, abandonnant le brave\nM\u00e9n\u00e8laos!\u0092\n\n-- Ils parleront ainsi un jour; mais, alors, que la profonde terre\nm'engloutisse!\n\nEt le blond M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, le rassurant, parla ainsi:\n\n-- Reprends courage, et n'effraye point le peuple des Akhaiens. Le\ntrait aigu ne m'a point bless\u00e9 \u00e0 mort, et le baudrier m'a\npr\u00e9serv\u00e9, ainsi que la cuirasse, le tablier et la mitre que de\nbons armuriers ont forg\u00e9e.\n\nEt Agamemn\u00f4n qui commande au loin, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi:\n\n-- Plaise aux dieux que cela soit, \u00f4 cher M\u00e9n\u00e9laos! Mais un\nm\u00e9decin soignera ta blessure et mettra le rem\u00e8de qui apaise les\nnoires douleurs.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et appela le h\u00e9raut divin Talthybios:\n\n-- Talthybios, appelle le plus promptement possible\nl'irr\u00e9prochable m\u00e9decin Makha\u00f4n Askl\u00e9piade, afin qu'il voie le\nbrave M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, prince des Akhaiens, qu'un habile archer Troien ou\nLykien a frapp\u00e9 d'une fl\u00e8che. Il triomphe, et nous sommes dans le\ndeuil.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le h\u00e9raut lui ob\u00e9it. Et il chercha, parmi le\npeuple des Akhaiens aux tuniques d'airain, le h\u00e9ros Makha\u00f4n, qu'il\ntrouva debout au milieu de la foule belliqueuse des porte\nboucliers qui l'avaient suivi de Trikk\u00e8, nourrice de chevaux. Et,\ns'approchant, il dit ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- L\u00e8ve-toi, Askl\u00e9piade! Agamemn\u00f4n, qui commande au loin,\nt'appelle, afin que tu voies le brave M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, fils d'Atreus,\nqu'un habile archer Troien ou Lykien a frapp\u00e9 d'une fl\u00e8che. Il\ntriomphe, et nous sommes dans le deuil.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le coeur de Makha\u00f4n fut \u00e9mu dans sa poitrine.\nEt ils march\u00e8rent \u00e0 travers l'arm\u00e9e immense des Akhaiens; et quand\nils furent arriv\u00e9s \u00e0 l'endroit o\u00f9 le blond M\u00e9n\u00e9laos avait \u00e9t\u00e9\nbless\u00e9 et \u00e9tait assis, \u00e9gal aux dieux, en un cercle form\u00e9 par les\nprinces, aussit\u00f4t Makha\u00f4n arracha le trait du solide baudrier, en\nployant les crochets aigus; et il d\u00e9tacha le riche baudrier, et le\ntablier et la mitre que de bons armuriers avaient forg\u00e9e. Et,\napr\u00e8s avoir examin\u00e9 la plaie faite par la fl\u00e8che am\u00e8re, et suc\u00e9 le\nsang, il y versa adroitement un doux baume que Khir\u00f4n avait\nautrefois donn\u00e9 \u00e0 son p\u00e8re qu'il aimait.\n\nEt tandis qu'ils s'empressaient autour de M\u00e9n\u00e9laos hardi au\ncombat, l'arm\u00e9e des Troiens, porteurs de boucliers, s'avan\u00e7ait, et\nles Akhaiens se couvrirent de nouveau de leurs armes, d\u00e9sirant\ncombattre.\n\nEt le divin Agamemn\u00f4n n'h\u00e9sita ni se ralentit, mais il se pr\u00e9para\nen h\u00e2te pour la glorieuse bataille. Et il laissa ses chevaux et\nson char orn\u00e9 d'airain; et le serviteur Eurym\u00e9d\u00f4n, fils de\nPtol\u00e9maios Peiraide, les retint \u00e0 l'\u00e9cart, et l'Atr\u00e9ide lui\nordonna de ne point s'\u00e9loigner, afin qu'il p\u00fbt monter dans le\nchar, si la fatigue l'accablait pendant qu'il donnait partout ses\nordres. Et il marcha \u00e0 travers la foule des hommes. Et il\nencourageait encore ceux des Danaens aux rapides chevaux, qu'il\nvoyait pleins d'ardeur:\n\n-- Argiens! ne perdez rien de cette ardeur imp\u00e9tueuse, car le p\u00e8re\nZeus ne prot\u00e9gera point le parjure. Ceux qui, les premiers, ont\nviol\u00e9 nos trait\u00e9s, les vautours mangeront leur chair; et, quand\nnous aurons pris leur ville, nous emm\u00e8nerons sur nos nefs leurs\nfemmes bien-aim\u00e9es et leurs petits enfants.\n\nEt ceux qu'il voyait lents au rude combat, il leur disait ces\nparoles irrit\u00e9es:\n\n-- Argiens promis \u00e0 la pique ennemie! l\u00e2ches, n'avez-vous point de\nhonte? Pourquoi restez-vous glac\u00e9s de peur, comme des biches qui,\napr\u00e8s avoir couru \u00e0 travers la vaste plaine, s'arr\u00eatent \u00e9puis\u00e9es\net n'ayant plus de force au coeur? C'est ainsi que, glac\u00e9s de\npeur, vous vous arr\u00eatez et ne combattez point. Attendez-vous que\nles Troiens p\u00e9n\u00e8trent jusqu'aux nefs aux belles poupes, sur le\nrivage de la blanche mer, et que le Kroni\u00f4n vous aide?\n\nC'est ainsi qu'il donnait ses ordres en parcourant la foule des\nhommes. Et il parvint l\u00e0 o\u00f9 les Kr\u00e8tois s'armaient autour du brave\nIdom\u00e9neus. Et Idom\u00e9neus, pareil \u00e0 un fort sanglier, \u00e9tait au\npremier rang; et M\u00e8rion\u00e8s h\u00e2tait les derni\u00e8res phalanges. Et le\nroi des hommes, Agamemn\u00f4n, ayant vu cela, s'en r\u00e9jouit et dit \u00e0\nIdom\u00e9neus ces paroles flatteuses:\n\n-- Idom\u00e9neus, certes, je t'honore au-dessus de tous les Danaens\naux rapides chevaux, soit dans le combat, soit dans les repas,\nquand les princes des Akhaiens m\u00ealent le vin vieux dans les\nkrat\u00e8res. Et si les autres Akhaiens chevelus boivent avec mesure,\nta coupe est toujours aussi pleine que la mienne, et tu bois selon\nton d\u00e9sir. Cours donc au combat, et sois tel que tu as toujours\n\u00e9t\u00e9.\n\nEt le prince des Kr\u00e8tois, Idom\u00e9neus, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\nAtr\u00e9ide, je te serai toujours fid\u00e8le comme je te l'ai promis. Va!\nencourage les autres Akhaiens chevelus, afin que nous combattions\npromptement, puisque les Troiens ont viol\u00e9 nos trait\u00e9s. La mort et\nles calamit\u00e9s les accableront, puisque, les premiers, ils se sont\nparjur\u00e9s.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et l'Atr\u00e9ide s'\u00e9loigna, plein de joie. Et il alla\nvers les Aias, \u00e0 travers la foule des hommes. Et les Aias\ns'\u00e9taient arm\u00e9s, suivis d'un nuage de guerriers. Comme une nu\u00e9e\nqu'un chevrier a vue d'une hauteur, s'\u00e9largissant sur la mer, sous\nle souffle de Z\u00e9phyros, et qui, par tourbillons \u00e9pais, lui\nappara\u00eet de loin plus noire que la poix, de sorte qu'il s'inqui\u00e8te\net pousse ses ch\u00e8vres dans une caverne; de m\u00eame les noires\nphalanges h\u00e9riss\u00e9es de boucliers et de piques des jeunes hommes\nnourrissons de Zeus se mouvaient derri\u00e8re les Aias pour le rude\ncombat. Et Agamemn\u00f4n qui commande au loin, les ayant vus, se\nr\u00e9jouit et dit ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Aias! Princes des Argiens aux tuniques d'airain, il ne serait\npoint juste de vous ordonner d'exciter vos hommes, car vous les\npressez de combattre bravement. P\u00e8re Zeus! Ath\u00e8n\u00e8! Apoll\u00f4n! que\nvotre courage emplisse tous les coeurs! Bient\u00f4t la ville du roi\nPriamos, s'il en \u00e9tait ainsi, serait renvers\u00e9e, d\u00e9truite et\nsaccag\u00e9e par nos mains.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il les laissa et marcha vers d'autres. Et il\ntrouva Nest\u00f4r, l'harmonieux agor\u00e8te des Pyliens, qui animait et\nrangeait en bataille ses compagnons autour du grand P\u00e9lag\u00f4n,\nd'Alast\u00f4r, de Khromios, de Haim\u00f4n et de Bias, prince des peuples.\nEt il rangeait en avant les cavaliers, les chevaux et les chars,\net en arri\u00e8re les fantassins braves et nombreux, pour \u00eatre le\nrempart de la guerre, et les l\u00e2ches au milieu, afin que chacun\nd'eux combatt\u00eet forc\u00e9ment. Et il enseignait les cavaliers, leur\nordonnant de contenir les chevaux et de ne point courir au hasard\ndans la m\u00eal\u00e9e:\n\n-- Que nul ne s'\u00e9lance en avant des autres pour combattre les\nTroiens, et que nul ne recule, car vous serez sans force. Que le\nguerrier qui abandonnera son char pour un autre combatte plut\u00f4t de\nla pique, car ce sera pour le mieux, et c'est ainsi que les hommes\nanciens, qui ont eu ce courage et cette prudence, ont renvers\u00e9 les\nvilles et les murailles.\n\nEt le vieillard les exhortait ainsi, \u00e9tant habile dans la guerre\ndepuis longtemps. Et Agamemn\u00f4n qui commande au loin, l'ayant vu,\nse r\u00e9jouit et lui dit ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- \u00d4 vieillard! pl\u00fbt aux dieux que tes genoux eussent autant de\nvigueur, que tu eusses autant de force que ton coeur a de courage!\nMais la vieillesse, qui est la m\u00eame pour tous, t'accable. Pl\u00fbt aux\ndieux qu'elle accabl\u00e2t plut\u00f4t tout autre guerrier, et que tu\nfusses des plus jeunes\n\nEt le cavalier G\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Certes, Atr\u00e9ide, je voudrais \u00eatre encore ce que j'\u00e9tais quand\nje tuai le divin \u00c9reuthali\u00f4n. Mais les dieux ne prodiguent point\ntous leurs dons aux hommes. Alors, j'\u00e9tais jeune, et voici que la\nvieillesse s'est empar\u00e9e de moi. Mais tel que je suis, je me\nm\u00ealerai aux cavaliers et je les exciterai par mes conseils et par\nmes paroles, car c'est la part des vieillards.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et l'Atr\u00e9ide, joyeux, alla plus loin. Et il trouva\nle cavalier M\u00e9n\u00e8stheus immobile, et autour de lui les Ath\u00e8naiens\nbelliqueux, et, aupr\u00e8s, le subtil Odysseus, et autour de ce\ndernier la foule hardie des K\u00e9phall\u00e8niens. Et ils n'avaient point\nentendu le cri de guerre, car les phalanges des Troiens dompteurs\nde chevaux et des Akhaiens commen\u00e7aient de s'\u00e9branler. Et ils se\ntenaient immobiles, attendant que d'autres phalanges Akhaiennes,\ns'\u00e9lan\u00e7ant contre les Troiens, commen\u00e7assent le combat. Et\nAgamemn\u00f4n, les ayant vus, les injuria et leur dit ces paroles\nail\u00e9es:\n\n-- \u00d4 fils de P\u00e9t\u00e9os, d'un roi issu de Zeus, et toi, qui es\ntoujours plein de ruses subtiles, pourquoi, saisis de terreur,\nattendez-vous que d'autres combattent? Il vous appartenait de\ncourir en avant dans le combat furieux, ainsi que vous assistez\nles premiers \u00e0 mes festins, o\u00f9 se r\u00e9unissent les plus v\u00e9n\u00e9rables\ndes Akhaiens. L\u00e0, sans doute, il vous est doux de manger des\nviandes r\u00f4ties et de boire des coupes de bon vin autant qu'il vous\npla\u00eet. Et voici que, maintenant, vous verriez avec joie dix\nphalanges des Akhaiens combattre avant vous, arm\u00e9es de l'airain\nmeurtrier!\n\nEt le subtil Odysseus, avec un sombre regard, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Atr\u00e9ide, quelle parole s'est \u00e9chapp\u00e9e de ta bouche? Comment\noses-tu dire que nous h\u00e9sitons devant le combat? Lorsque nous\npousserons le rude Ar\u00e8s contre les Troiens dompteurs de chevaux,\ntu verras, si tu le veux, et si cela te pla\u00eet le p\u00e8re bien-aim\u00e9 de\nT\u00e8l\u00e9makhos au milieu des Troiens dompteurs de chevaux. Mais tu as\ndit une parole vaine.\n\nEt Agamemn\u00f4n qui commande au loin, le voyant irrit\u00e9, sourit, et,\nse r\u00e9tractant, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Subtil Odysseus, divin Laertiade, je ne veux t'adresser ni\ninjures ni reproches. Je sais que ton coeur, dans ta poitrine, est\nplein de desseins excellents, car tes pens\u00e9es sont les miennes.\nNous r\u00e9parerons ceci, si j'ai mal parl\u00e9. Va donc, et que les dieux\nrendent mes paroles vaines!\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il les laissa et alla vers d'autres. Et il\ntrouva Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s, l'orgueilleux fils de Tydeus, immobile au milieu\nde ses chevaux et de ses chars solides. Et Sth\u00e9n\u00e9los, fils de\nKapaneus, \u00e9tait aupr\u00e8s de lui. Et Agamemn\u00f4n qui commande au loin,\nles ayant vus, l'injuria et lui dit ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Ah! fils du brave Tydeus dompteur de chevaux, pourquoi\ntrembles-tu et regardes-tu entre les rangs? Certes, Tydeus n'avait\npoint coutume de trembler, mais il combattait hardiment l'ennemi,\net hors des rangs, en avant de ses compagnons. Je ne l'ai point vu\ndans la guerre, mais on dit qu'il \u00e9tait au-dessus de tous. Il vint\n\u00e0 Myk\u00e8n\u00e8 avec Polyneik\u00e8s \u00e9gal aux dieux, pour rassembler les\npeuples et faire une exp\u00e9dition contre les saintes murailles de\nTh\u00e8b\u00e8. Et ils nous conjuraient de leur donner de courageux alli\u00e9s,\net tous y consentaient, mais les signes contraires de Zeus nous en\nemp\u00each\u00e8rent. Et ils partirent, et quand ils furent arriv\u00e9s aupr\u00e8s\nde l'Asopos plein de joncs et d'herbes, Tydeus fut l'envoy\u00e9 des\nAkhaiens. Et il partit, et il trouva les Kadm\u00e9i\u00f4nes, en grand\nnombre, mangeant dans la demeure de la force \u00c9t\u00e9okl\u00e9enne. Et l\u00e0,\nle cavalier Tydeus ne fut point effray\u00e9, bien qu'\u00e9tranger et seul\nau milieu des nombreux Kadm\u00e9i\u00f4nes. Et il les provoqua aux luttes\net les vainquit ais\u00e9ment, car Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 le prot\u00e9geait. Mais les\ncavaliers Kadm\u00e9i\u00f4nes, pleins de col\u00e8re, lui dress\u00e8rent, \u00e0 son\nd\u00e9part, une embuscade de nombreux guerriers' command\u00e9s par Mai\u00f4n\nHaimonide, tel que les immortels, et par Lyk\u00e9phont\u00e8s, hardi\nguerrier, fils d'Autophonos. Et Tydeus les tua tous et n'en laissa\nrevenir qu'un seul. Ob\u00e9issant aux signes des dieux, il laissa\nrevenir Mai\u00f4n. Tel \u00e9tait Tydeus l'Ait\u00f4lien; mais il a engendr\u00e9 un\nfils qui ne le vaut point dans le combat, s'il parle mieux dans\nl'Agora.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le brave Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s ne r\u00e9pondit rien, plein de\nrespect pour le roi v\u00e9n\u00e9rable. Mais le fils de l'illustre Kapaneus\nr\u00e9pondit \u00e0 l'Atr\u00e9ide:\n\n-- Atr\u00e9ide, ne mens point, sachant que tu mens. Certes nous nous\nglorifions de valoir beaucoup mieux que nos p\u00e8res, nous qui,\nconfiants dans les signes des dieux, et avec l'aide de Zeus, avons\npris Th\u00e8b\u00e8 aux sept portes, ayant conduit sous ses fortes\nmurailles des peuples moins nombreux. Nos p\u00e8res ont p\u00e9ri par leurs\npropres fautes. Ne compare donc point leur gloire \u00e0 la n\u00f4tre.\n\nEt le robuste Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s, avec un sombre regard, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ami, tais-toi et ob\u00e9is. Je ne m'irrite point de ce que le\nprince des peuples, Agamemn\u00f4n, excite les Akhaiens aux belles\nkn\u00e8mides \u00e0 combattre; car si les Akhaiens d\u00e9truisent les Troiens\net prennent la sainte Ilios, il en aura la gloire; mais si les\nAkhaiens sont d\u00e9truits, il en portera le deuil. Occupons-nous tous\ndeux de la guerre imp\u00e9tueuse.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et sauta de son char \u00e0 terre avec ses armes, et\nl'airain retentit terriblement sur la poitrine du roi, et ce bruit\naurait troubl\u00e9 le coeur du plus brave.\n\nEt comme le flot de la mer roule avec rapidit\u00e9 vers le rivage,\npouss\u00e9 par Z\u00e9phyros, et, se gonflant d'abord sur la haute mer, se\nbrise violemment contre terre, et se h\u00e9risse autour des\npromontoires en vomissant l'\u00e9cume de la mer, de m\u00eame les phalanges\npress\u00e9es des Danaens se ruaient au combat. Et chaque chef donnait\nses ordres, et le reste marchait en silence. On e\u00fbt dit une grande\nmultitude muette, pleine de respect pour ses chefs. Et les armes\nbrillantes resplendissaient tandis qu'ils marchaient en ordre.\nMais, tels que les nombreuses brebis d'un homme riche, et qui\nb\u00ealent sans cesse \u00e0 la voix des agneaux, tandis qu'on trait leur\nlait blanc dans l'\u00e9table, les Troiens poussaient des cris confus\net tumultueux de tous les points de la vaste arm\u00e9e. Et leurs cris\n\u00e9taient pouss\u00e9s en beaucoup de langues diverses, par des hommes\nvenus d'un grand nombre de pays lointains.\n\nEt Ar\u00e8s excitait les uns, et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs excitait les\nautres, et partout allaient la crainte et la terreur et la\nfurieuse et insatiable \u00c9ris, soeur et compagne d'Ar\u00e8s tueur\nd'hommes, et qui, d'abord, est faible, et qui, les pieds sur la\nterre, porte bient\u00f4t sa t\u00eate dans l'Ouranos. Et elle s'avan\u00e7ait \u00e0\ntravers la foule, \u00e9veillant la haine et multipliant les\ng\u00e9missements des hommes.\n\nEt quand ils se furent rencontr\u00e9s, ils m\u00eal\u00e8rent leurs boucliers,\nleurs piques et la force des hommes aux cuirasses d'airain; et les\nboucliers bomb\u00e9s se heurt\u00e8rent, et un vaste tumulte retentit. Et\non entendait les cris de victoire et les hurlements des hommes qui\nrenversaient ou \u00e9taient renvers\u00e9s, et le sang inondait la terre.\nComme des fleuves, gonfl\u00e9s par l'hiver, tombent du haut des\nmontagnes et m\u00ealent leurs eaux furieuses dans une vall\u00e9e qu'ils\ncreusent profond\u00e9ment, et dont un berger entend de loin le fracas,\nde m\u00eame le tumulte des hommes confondus roulait.\n\nEt, le premier, Antilokhos tua Ekh\u00e9p\u00f4los Thalysiade, courageux\nTroien, brave entre tous ceux qui combattaient en avant. Et il le\nfrappa au casque couvert de crins \u00e9pais, et il per\u00e7a le front, et\nla pointe d'airain entra dans l'os. Et le Troien tomba comme une\ntour dans le rude combat. Et le roi Elph\u00e8n\u00f4r Khalkodontiade,\nprince des magnanimes Abantes, le prit par les pieds pour le\ntra\u00eener \u00e0 l'abri des traits et le d\u00e9pouiller de ses armes; mais sa\ntentative fut br\u00e8ve, car le magnanime Ag\u00e8n\u00f4r, l'ayant vu tra\u00eener\nle cadavre, le per\u00e7a au c\u00f4t\u00e9, d'une pique d'airain, sous le\nbouclier, tandis qu'il se courbait, et le tua. Et, sur lui, se rua\nun combat furieux de Troiens et d'Akhaiens; et, comme des loups,\nils se jetaient les uns sur les autres, et chaque guerrier en\nrenversait un autre.\n\nC'est l\u00e0 qu'Aias T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien tua Simo\u00e9isios, fils d'Anth\u00e9mi\u00f4n,\njeune et beau, et que sa m\u00e8re, descendant de l'Ida pour visiter\nses troupeaux avec ses parents, avait enfant\u00e9 sur les rives du\nSimo\u00e9is, et c'est pourquoi on le nommait Simo\u00e9isios. Mais il ne\nrendit pas \u00e0 ses parents bien-aim\u00e9s le prix de leurs soins, car sa\nvie fut br\u00e8ve, ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 dompt\u00e9 par la pique du magnanime Aias. Et\ncelui-ci le frappa \u00e0 la poitrine, pr\u00e8s de la mamelle droite, et la\npique d'airain sortit par l'\u00e9paule. Et Simo\u00e9isios tomba dans la\npoussi\u00e8re comme un peuplier dont l'\u00e9corce est lisse, et qui,\npoussant au milieu d'un grand marais, commence \u00e0 se couvrir de\nhauts rameaux, quand un constructeur de chars le tranche \u00e0 l'aide\ndu fer aiguis\u00e9 pour en faire la roue d'un beau char; et il g\u00eet,\nfl\u00e9tri, aux bords du fleuve. Et le divin Aias d\u00e9pouilla ainsi\nSimo\u00e9isios Anth\u00e9mionide.\n\nEt le Priamide Antiphos \u00e0 la cuirasse \u00e9clatante, du milieu de la\nfoule, lan\u00e7a contre Aias sa pique aigu\u00eb; mais elle le manqua et\nfrappa \u00e0 l'aine Leukos, brave compagnon d'Odysseus, tandis qu'il\ntra\u00eenait le cadavre, et le cadavre lui \u00e9chappa des mains. Et\nOdysseus, irrit\u00e9 de cette mort, s'avan\u00e7a, arm\u00e9 de l'airain\n\u00e9clatant, au-del\u00e0 des premiers rangs, regardant autour de lui et\nagitant sa pique \u00e9clatante. Et les Troiens recul\u00e8rent devant\nl'homme mena\u00e7ant; mais il ne lan\u00e7a point sa pique en vain, car il\nfrappa D\u00e8moko\u00f4n, fils naturel de Priamos, et qui \u00e9tait venu\nd'Abydos avec ses chevaux rapides. Et Odysseus, vengeant son\ncompagnon, frappa D\u00e8moko\u00f4n \u00e0 la tempe, et la pointe d'airain\nsortit par l'autre tempe, et l'obscurit\u00e9 couvrit ses yeux. Et il\ntomba avec bruit, et ses armes retentirent. Et les Troiens les\nplus avanc\u00e9s recul\u00e8rent, et m\u00eame l'illustre Hekt\u00f4r. Et les\nAkhaiens poussaient de grands cris, entra\u00eenant les cadavres et se\nruant en avant. Et Apoll\u00f4n s'indigna, les ayant vus du fa\u00eete de\nPergamos, et d'une voix haute il excita les Troiens:\n\n-- Troiens, dompteurs de chevaux, ne le c\u00e9dez point aux Akhaiens.\nLeur peau n'est ni de pierre ni de fer pour r\u00e9sister, quand elle\nen est frapp\u00e9e, \u00e0 l'airain qui coupe la chair. Akhilleus, le fils\nde Th\u00e9tis \u00e0 la belle chevelure, ne combat point; il couve, pr\u00e8s de\nses nefs, la col\u00e8re qui lui ronge le coeur.\n\nAinsi parla le dieu terrible du haut de la citadelle. Et\nTritog\u00e9n\u00e9ia, la glorieuse fille de Zeus, marchant au travers de la\nfoule, excitait les Akhaiens l\u00e0 o\u00f9 ils reculaient.\n\nEt la Moire saisit Di\u00f4r\u00e8s Amarynk\u00e9ide, et il fut frapp\u00e9 \u00e0 la\ncheville droite d'une pierre anguleuse. Et ce fut l'Imbraside\nPeiros, prince des Thrakiens, et qui \u00e9tait venu d'Ainos, qui le\nfrappa. Et la pierre rude fracassa les deux tendons et les os. Et\nDi\u00f4r\u00e8s tomba \u00e0 la renverse dans la poussi\u00e8re, \u00e9tendant les mains\nvers ses compagnons et respirant \u00e0 peine. Et Peiros accourut et\nenfon\u00e7a sa pique pr\u00e8s du nombril, et les intestins se r\u00e9pandirent\n\u00e0 terre, et l'obscurit\u00e9 couvrit ses yeux. Et comme Peiros\ns'\u00e9lan\u00e7ait, l'Ait\u00f4lien Moas le frappa de sa pique dans la\npoitrine, au-dessus de la mamelle, et l'airain traversa le poumon.\nPuis il accourut, arracha de la poitrine la pique terrible, et,\ntirant son \u00e9p\u00e9e aigu\u00eb, il ouvrit le ventre de l'homme et le tua.\nMais il ne le d\u00e9pouilla point de ses armes, car les Thrakiens aux\ncheveux ras et aux longues lances entour\u00e8rent leur chef, et\nrepouss\u00e8rent Moas, tout robuste, hardi et grand qu'il \u00e9tait. Et il\nrecula loin d'eux. Ainsi les deux chefs, l'un des Thrakiens,\nl'autre des \u00c9p\u00e9iens aux tuniques d'airain, \u00e9taient couch\u00e9s c\u00f4te \u00e0\nc\u00f4te dans la poussi\u00e8re, et les cadavres s'amassaient autour d'eux.\n\nSi un guerrier, sans peur du combat, et que l'airain aigu n'e\u00fbt\nencore ni frapp\u00e9 ni bless\u00e9, e\u00fbt parcouru la m\u00eal\u00e9e furieuse, et que\nPallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 l'e\u00fbt conduit par la main, \u00e9cartant de lui\nl'imp\u00e9tuosit\u00e9 des traits, certes, il e\u00fbt vu, en ce jour, une\nmultitude de Troiens et d'Akhaiens renvers\u00e9s et couch\u00e9s\nconfus\u00e9ment sur la poussi\u00e8re.\n\n\nChant 5\n\nAlors, Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 donna la force et l'audace au Tyd\u00e9ide\nDiom\u00e8d\u00e8s, afin qu'il s'illustr\u00e2t entre tous les Argiens et\nremport\u00e2t une grande gloire. Et elle fit jaillir de son casque et\nde son bouclier un feu inextinguible, semblable \u00e0 l'\u00e9toile de\nl'automne qui \u00e9clate et resplendit hors de l'Ok\u00e9anos. Tel ce feu\njaillissait de sa t\u00eate et de ses \u00e9paules. Et elle le poussa dans\nla m\u00eal\u00e9e o\u00f9 tous se ruaient tumultueusement.\n\nParmi les Troiens vivait Dar\u00e8s, riche et irr\u00e9prochable\nsacrificateur de H\u00e8phaistos, et il avait deux fils, Phygeus et\nIdaios, habiles \u00e0 tous les combats. Et tous deux, sur un m\u00eame\nchar, se ru\u00e8rent contre le Tyd\u00e9ide, qui \u00e9tait \u00e0 pied. Et,\nlorsqu'ils se furent rapproch\u00e9s, Phygeus, le premier, lan\u00e7a sa\nlongue pique, et la pointe effleura l'\u00e9paule gauche du Tyd\u00e9ide,\nmais il ne le blessa point. Et celui-ci, \u00e0 son tour, lan\u00e7a sa\npique, et le trait ne fut point inutile qui partit de sa main, car\nil s'enfon\u00e7a dans la poitrine, entre les mamelles, et jeta le\nguerrier \u00e0 bas. Et Idaios s'enfuit, abandonnant son beau char et\nn'osant d\u00e9fendre son fr\u00e8re tu\u00e9. Certes, il n'e\u00fbt point, pour cela,\n\u00e9vit\u00e9 la noire mort; mais H\u00e8phaistos, l'ayant envelopp\u00e9 d'une\nnu\u00e9e, l'enleva, afin que la vieillesse de leur vieux p\u00e8re ne f\u00fbt\npoint d\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9e. Et le fils du magnanime Tydeus saisit leurs\nchevaux, qu'il remit \u00e0 ses compagnons pour \u00eatre conduits aux nefs\ncreuses.\n\nEt les magnanimes Troiens, voyant les deux fils de Dar\u00e8s, l'un en\nfuite et l'autre mort aupr\u00e8s de son char, furent troubl\u00e9s jusqu'au\nfond de leurs coeurs. Mais Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs, saisissant le\nfurieux Ar\u00e8s par la main, lui parla ainsi:\n\n-- Ar\u00e8s, Ar\u00e8s, fl\u00e9au des hommes, tout sanglant, et qui renverses\nles murailles, ne laisserons-nous point combattre les Troiens et\nles Akhaiens? Que le p\u00e8re Zeus accorde la gloire \u00e0 qui il voudra.\nRetirons-nous et \u00e9vitons la col\u00e8re de Zeus.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, elle conduisit le furieux Ar\u00e8s hors du combat\net le fit asseoir sur la haute rive du Skamandros. Et les Danaens\nrepouss\u00e8rent les Troiens. Chacun des chefs tua un guerrier. Et, le\npremier, le roi Agamemn\u00f4n pr\u00e9cipita de son char le grand Odios,\nchef des Aliz\u00f4nes. Comme celui-ci fuyait, il lui enfon\u00e7a sa pique\ndans le dos, entre les \u00e9paules, et elle traversa la poitrine, et\nles armes d'Odios r\u00e9sonn\u00e8rent dans sa chute.\n\nEt Idom\u00e9neus tua Phaistos, fils du Mai\u00f4nien B\u00f4ros, qui \u00e9tait venu\nde la fertile Tarn\u00e8, l'illustre Idom\u00e9neus le per\u00e7a \u00e0 l'\u00e9paule\ndroite, de sa longue pique, comme il montait sur son char. Et il\ntomba, et une ombre affreuse l'enveloppa, et les serviteurs\nd'Idom\u00e9neus le d\u00e9pouill\u00e8rent.\n\nEt l'Atr\u00e9ide M\u00e9n\u00e9laos tua de sa pique aigu\u00eb Skamandrios habile \u00e0\nla chasse, fils de Strophios. C'\u00e9tait un excellent chasseur\nqu'Art\u00e9mis avait instruit elle-m\u00eame \u00e0 percer les b\u00eates fauves, et\nqu'elle avait nourri dans les bois, sur les montagnes. Mais ni son\nhabilet\u00e9 \u00e0 lancer les traits, ni Art\u00e9mis qui se r\u00e9jouit de ses\nfl\u00e8ches, ne lui servirent. Comme il fuyait, l'illustre Atr\u00e9ide\nM\u00e9n\u00e9laos le per\u00e7a de sa pique dans le dos, entre les deux \u00e9paules,\net lui traversa la poitrine. Et il tomba sur la face, et ses armes\nr\u00e9sonn\u00e8rent.\n\nEt M\u00e8rion\u00e8s tua Ph\u00e9r\u00e9klos, fils du charpentier Harm\u00f4n, qui\nfabriquait adroitement toute chose de ses mains et que Pallas\nAth\u00e8n\u00e8 aimait beaucoup. Et c'\u00e9tait lui qui avait construit pour\nAlexandros ces nefs \u00e9gales qui devaient causer tant de maux aux\nTroiens et \u00e0 lui-m\u00eame; car il ignorait les oracles des dieux. Et\nM\u00e8rion\u00e8s, poursuivant Ph\u00e9r\u00e9klos, le frappa \u00e0 la fesse droite, et\nla pointe p\u00e9n\u00e9tra dans l'os jusque dans la vessie. Et il tomba en\ng\u00e9missant, et la mort l'enveloppa.\n\nEt M\u00e9g\u00e8s tua P\u00e8daios, fils ill\u00e9gitime d'Ant\u00e8n\u00f4r, mais que la\ndivine Th\u00e9an\u00f4 avait nourri avec soin au milieu de ses enfants\nbien-aim\u00e9s, afin de plaire \u00e0 son mari. Et l'illustre Phyl\u00e9ide,\ns'approchant de lui, le frappa de sa pique aigu\u00eb derri\u00e8re la t\u00eate.\nEt l'airain, \u00e0 travers les dents, coupa la langue, et il tomba\ndans la poussi\u00e8re en serrant de ses dents le froid airain.\n\nEt l'\u00c9vaimonide Eurypylos tua le divin Hyps\u00e8n\u00f4r, fils du magnanime\nDolopi\u00f4n, sacrificateur du Skamandros, et que le peuple honorait\ncomme un dieu. Et l'illustre fils d'\u00c9vaim\u00f4n, Eurypylos, se ruant\nsur lui, comme il fuyait, le frappa de l'\u00e9p\u00e9e \u00e0 l'\u00e9paule et lui\ncoupa le bras, qui tomba sanglant et lourd. Et la mort pourpr\u00e9e et\nla Moire violente emplirent ses yeux.\n\nTandis qu'ils combattaient ainsi dans la rude m\u00eal\u00e9e, nul n'aurait\npu reconna\u00eetre si le Tyd\u00e9ide \u00e9tait du c\u00f4t\u00e9 des Troiens ou du c\u00f4t\u00e9\ndes Akhaiens. Il courait \u00e0 travers la plaine, semblable \u00e0 un\nfleuve furieux et d\u00e9bord\u00e9 qui roule imp\u00e9tueusement et renverse les\nponts. Ni les digues ne l'arr\u00eatent, ni les enclos des vergers\nverdoyants, car la pluie de Zeus abonde, et les beaux travaux des\njeunes hommes sont d\u00e9truits. Ainsi les \u00e9paisses phalanges des\nTroiens se dissipaient devant le Tyd\u00e9ide, et leur multitude ne\npouvait soutenir son choc.\n\nEt l'illustre fils de Lyka\u00f4n, l'ayant aper\u00e7u se ruant par la\nplaine et dispersant les phalanges, tendit aussit\u00f4t contre lui son\narc recourb\u00e9, et, comme il s'\u00e9lan\u00e7ait, le frappa \u00e0 l'\u00e9paule\ndroite, au d\u00e9faut de la cuirasse. Et la fl\u00e8che acerbe vola en\nsifflant et s'enfon\u00e7a, et la cuirasse ruissela de sang. Et\nl'illustre fils de Lyka\u00f4n s'\u00e9cria d'une voix haute:\n\n-- Courage, Troiens, cavaliers magnanimes! Le plus brave des\nAkhaiens est bless\u00e9, et je ne pense pas qu'il supporte longtemps\nma fl\u00e8che violente, s'il est vrai que le roi, fils de Zeus, m'ait\npouss\u00e9 \u00e0 quitter la Lyki\u00e8.\n\nIl parla ainsi orgueilleusement, mais la fl\u00e8che rapide n'avait\npoint tu\u00e9 le Tyd\u00e9ide, qui, reculant, s'arr\u00eata devant ses chevaux\net son char, et dit \u00e0 Sth\u00e9n\u00e9los, fils de Kapaneus:\n\n-- H\u00e2te-toi, ami Kapan\u00e9ide! Descends du char et retire cette\nfl\u00e8che am\u00e8re.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Sth\u00e9n\u00e9los, sautant \u00e0 bas du char, arracha de\nl'\u00e9paule la fl\u00e8che rapide. Et le sang jaillit sur la tunique, et\nDiom\u00e8d\u00e8s hardi au combat pria ainsi:\n\n-- Entends-moi, fille indompt\u00e9e de Zeus temp\u00e9tueux! Si jamais tu\nnous as prot\u00e9g\u00e9s, mon p\u00e8re et moi, dans la guerre cruelle, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8!\nsecours-moi de nouveau. Accorde-moi de tuer ce guerrier. Am\u00e8ne-le\nau-devant de ma pique imp\u00e9tueuse, lui qui m'a bless\u00e9 le premier,\net qui s'en glorifie, et qui pense que je ne verrai pas longtemps\nencore la splendide lumi\u00e8re de H\u00e9lios.\n\nIl parla ainsi en priant, et Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 l'exau\u00e7a. Elle rendit\ntous ses membres, et ses pieds et ses mains plus agiles; et\ns'approchant, elle lui dit en paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Reprends courage, \u00f4 Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s, et combats contre les Troiens,\ncar j'ai mis dans ta poitrine l'intr\u00e9pide vigueur que poss\u00e9dait le\nporte-bouclier, le cavalier Tydeus. Et j'ai dissip\u00e9 le nuage qui\n\u00e9tait sur tes yeux, afin que tu reconnaisses les dieux et les\nhommes. Si un immortel venait te tenter, ne lutte point contre les\ndieux immortels; mais si Aphrodit\u00e8, la fille de Zeus, descendait\ndans la m\u00eal\u00e9e, frappe-la de l'airain aigu.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs s'\u00e9loigna, et le Tyd\u00e9ide\nretourna \u00e0 la charge, m\u00eal\u00e9 aux premiers rangs. Et, nagu\u00e8re, il\n\u00e9tait, certes, plein d'ardeur pour combattre les Troiens, mais son\ncourage est maintenant trois fois plus grand. Il est comme un lion\nqui, dans un champ o\u00f9 paissaient des brebis laineuses, au moment\no\u00f9 il sautait vers l'\u00e9table, a \u00e9t\u00e9 bless\u00e9 par un p\u00e2tre, et non\ntu\u00e9. Cette blessure accro\u00eet ses forces. Il entre dans l'\u00e9table et\ndisperse les brebis, qu'on n'ose plus d\u00e9fendre. Et celles-ci\ngisent \u00e9gorg\u00e9es, les unes sur les autres; et le lion bondit hors\nde l'enclos. Ainsi le brave Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s se rua sur les Troiens.\n\nAlors, il tua Astynoos et Hypeir\u00f4n, princes des peuples. Et il\nper\u00e7a l'un, de sa pique d'airain, au-dessus de la mamelle; et, de\nsa grande \u00e9p\u00e9e, il brisa la clavicule de l'autre et s\u00e9para la t\u00eate\nde l'\u00e9paule et du dos. Puis, les abandonnant, il se jeta sur Abas\net Polyeidos, fils du vieux Eurydamas, interpr\u00e8te des songes. Mais\nle vieillard ne les avait point consult\u00e9s au d\u00e9part de ses\nenfants. Et le brave Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s les tua.\n\nEt il se jeta sur Xanthos et Tho\u00f4n, fils tardifs de Phainopos, qui\nles avait eus dans sa triste vieillesse, et qui n'avait point\nengendr\u00e9 d'autres enfants \u00e0 qui il p\u00fbt laisser ses biens. Et le\nTyd\u00e9ide les tua, leur arrachant l'\u00e2me et ne laissant que le deuil\net les tristes douleurs \u00e0 leur p\u00e8re, qui ne devait point les\nrevoir vivants au retour du combat, et dont l'h\u00e9ritage serait\npartag\u00e9 selon la loi.\n\nEt Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s saisit deux fils du Dardanide Priamos, mont\u00e9s sur un\nm\u00eame char, Ekh\u00e9m\u00f4n et Khromios. Comme un lion, bondissant sur des\nboeufs, brise le cou d'une g\u00e9nisse ou d'un taureau paissant dans\nles bois, ainsi le fils de Tydeus, les renversant tous deux de\nleur char, les d\u00e9pouilla de leurs armes et remit leurs chevaux \u00e0\nses compagnons pour \u00eatre conduits aux nefs.\n\nMais Ain\u00e9ias, le voyant dissiper les lignes des guerriers,\ns'avan\u00e7a \u00e0 travers la m\u00eal\u00e9e et le bruissement des piques,\ncherchant de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s le divin Pandaros. Et il rencontra le\nbrave et irr\u00e9prochable fils de Lyka\u00f4n, et, s'approchant, il lui\ndit:\n\n-- Pandaros! o\u00f9 sont ton arc et tes fl\u00e8ches? Et ta gloire, quel\nguerrier pourrait te la disputer? Qui pourrait, en Lyki\u00e8, se\nglorifier de l'emporter sur toi? Allons, tends les mains vers Zeus\net envoie une fl\u00e8che \u00e0 ce guerrier. Je ne sais qui il est, mais il\ntriomphe et il a d\u00e9j\u00e0 inflig\u00e9 de grands maux aux Troiens. D\u00e9j\u00e0 il\na fait ployer les genoux d'une multitude de braves. Peut-\u00eatre est-\nce un dieu irrit\u00e9 contre les Troiens \u00e0 cause de sacrifices\nn\u00e9glig\u00e9s. Et la col\u00e8re d'un dieu est lourde.\n\nEt l'illustre fils de Lyka\u00f4n lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ain\u00e9ias, conseiller des Troiens rev\u00eatus d'airain, je crois que\nce guerrier est le Tyd\u00e9ide. Je le reconnais \u00e0 son bouclier, \u00e0 son\ncasque aux trois c\u00f4nes et \u00e0 ses chevaux. Cependant, je ne sais si\nce n'est point un dieu. Si ce guerrier est le brave fils de\nTydeus, comme je l'ai dit, certes, il n'est point ainsi furieux\nsans l'appui d'un dieu. Sans doute, un des immortels, couvert\nd'une nu\u00e9e, se tient aupr\u00e8s de lui et d\u00e9tourne les fl\u00e8ches\nrapides. D\u00e9j\u00e0 je l'ai frapp\u00e9 d'un trait \u00e0 l'\u00e9paule droite, au\nd\u00e9faut de la cuirasse. J'\u00e9tais certain de l'avoir envoy\u00e9 chez\nAid\u00e8s, et voici que je ne l'ai point tu\u00e9. Sans doute quelque dieu\nest irrit\u00e9 contre nous. Ni mes chevaux ni mon char ne sont ici.\nJ'ai, dans les demeures de Lyka\u00f4n, onze beaux chars tout neufs,\ncouverts de larges draperies. Aupr\u00e8s de chacun d'eux sont deux\nchevaux qui paissent l'orge et l'avoine. Certes, le belliqueux\nvieillard Lyka\u00f4n, quand je partis de mes belles demeures, me donna\nde nombreux conseils. Il m'ordonna, mont\u00e9 sur mon char et tra\u00een\u00e9\npar mes chevaux, de devancer tous les Troiens dans les m\u00e2les\ncombats. J'aurais mieux fait d'ob\u00e9ir; mais je ne le voulus point,\nd\u00e9sirant \u00e9pargner mes chevaux accoutum\u00e9s \u00e0 manger abondamment, et\nde peur qu'ils manquassent de nourriture au milieu de guerriers\nassi\u00e9g\u00e9s. Je les laissai, et vins \u00e0 pied vers Ilios, certain de\nmon arc, dont je ne devais pas me glorifier cependant. D\u00e9j\u00e0, je\nl'ai tendu contre deux chefs, l'Atr\u00e9ide et le Tyd\u00e9ide, et je les\nai bless\u00e9s, et j'ai fait couler leur sang, et je n'ai fait que les\nirriter. Certes, ce fut par une mauvaise destin\u00e9e que je d\u00e9tachais\ndu mur cet arc recourb\u00e9, le jour funeste o\u00f9 je vins, dans la\nriante Ilios, commander aux Troiens, pour plaire au divin Hekt\u00f4r.\nSi je retourne jamais, et si je revois de mes yeux ma patrie et ma\nfemme et ma haute demeure, qu'aussit\u00f4t un ennemi me coupe la t\u00eate,\nsi je ne jette, bris\u00e9 de mes mains, dans le feu \u00e9clatant, cet arc\nqui m'aura \u00e9t\u00e9 un compagnon inutile!\n\nEt le chef des Troiens, Ain\u00e9ias, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ne parle point tant. Rien ne changera si nous ne poussons \u00e0 cet\nhomme, sur notre char et nos chevaux, et couverts de nos armes.\nTiens! monte sur mon char, et vois quels sont les chevaux de Tr\u00f4s,\nhabiles \u00e0 poursuivre ou \u00e0 fuir rapidement dans la plaine. Ils nous\nram\u00e8neront saufs dans la ville, si Zeus donne la victoire au\nTyd\u00e9ide Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s. Viens! saisis le fouet et les belles r\u00eanes, et\nje descendrai pour combattre; ou combats toi-m\u00eame, et je guiderai\nles chevaux.\n\nEt l'illustre fils de Lyka\u00f4n lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ain\u00e9ias, charge-toi des r\u00eanes et des chevaux. Ils tra\u00eeneront\nmieux le char sous le conducteur accoutum\u00e9, si nous prenions la\nfuite devant le fils de Tydeus. Peut-\u00eatre, pleins de terreur,\nresteraient-ils inertes et ne voudraient-ils plus nous emporter\nhors du combat, n'entendant plus ta voix.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, ils mont\u00e8rent sur le char brillant et\npouss\u00e8rent les chevaux rapides contre le Tyd\u00e9ide. Et l'illustre\nfils de Kapaneus, Sth\u00e9n\u00e9los, les vit; et aussit\u00f4t il dit au\nTyd\u00e9ide ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Tyd\u00e9ide Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s, le plus cher \u00e0 mon \u00e2me, je vois deux braves\nguerriers qui se pr\u00e9parent \u00e0 te combattre. Tous deux sont pleins\nde force. L'un est l'habile archer Pandaros, qui se glorifie\nd'\u00eatre le fils de Lyka\u00f4n. L'autre est Ain\u00e9ias, qui se glorifie\nd'\u00eatre le fils du magnanime Ankhis\u00e8s, et qui a pour m\u00e8re Aphrodit\u00e8\nelle-m\u00eame. Reculons donc, et ne te jette point en avant, si tu ne\nveux perdre ta ch\u00e8re \u00e2me.\n\nEt le brave Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s, le regardant d'un oeil sombre, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ne parle point de fuir, car je ne pense point que tu me\npersuades. Ce n'est point la coutume de ma race de fuir et de\ntrembler. Je poss\u00e8de encore toutes mes forces. J'irai au-devant de\nces guerriers. Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 ne me permet point de craindre. Leurs\nchevaux rapides ne nous les arracheront point tous deux, si, du\nmoins, un seul en r\u00e9chappe. Mais je te le dis, et souviens-toi de\nmes paroles: si la sage Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 me donnait la gloire de les tuer\ntous deux, arr\u00eate nos chevaux rapides, attache les r\u00eanes au char,\ncours aux chevaux d'Ain\u00e9ias et pousse-les parmi les Akhaiens aux\nbelles kn\u00e8mides. Ils sont de la race de ceux que le pr\u00e9voyant Zeus\ndonna \u00e0 Tr\u00f4s en \u00e9change de son fils Ganym\u00e8d\u00e8s, et ce sont les\nmeilleurs chevaux qui soient sous \u00c9\u00f4s et H\u00e9lios. Le roi des\nhommes, Ankhis\u00e8s, \u00e0 l'insu de Laom\u00e9d\u00f4n, fit saillir des cavales\npar ces \u00e9talons, et il en eut six rejetons. Il en retient quatre\nqu'il nourrit \u00e0 la cr\u00e8che, et il a donn\u00e9 ces deux-ci, rapides \u00e0 la\nfuite, \u00e0 Ain\u00e9ias. Si nous les enlevons, nous remporterons une\ngrande gloire.\n\nPendant qu'ils se parlaient ainsi, les deux Troiens poussaient\nvers eux leurs chevaux rapides, et le premier, l'illustre fils de\nLyka\u00f4n, s'\u00e9cria:\n\n-- Tr\u00e8s brave et tr\u00e8s excellent guerrier, fils de l'illustre\nTydeus, mon trait rapide, ma fl\u00e8che am\u00e8re, ne t'a point tu\u00e9; mais\nje vais tenter de te percer de ma pique.\n\nIl parla, et, lan\u00e7ant sa longue pique, frappa le bouclier du\nTyd\u00e9ide. La pointe d'airain siffla et s'enfon\u00e7a dans la cuirasse,\net l'illustre fils de Lyka\u00f4n cria \u00e0 voix haute:\n\n-- Tu es bless\u00e9 dans le ventre! Je ne pense point que tu survives\nlongtemps, et tu vas me donner une grande gloire.\n\nEt le brave Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s lui r\u00e9pondit avec calme:\n\n-- Tu m'as manqu\u00e9, loin de m'atteindre; mais je ne pense pas que\nvous vous reposiez avant qu'un de vous, au moins, ne tombe et ne\nrassasie de son sang Ar\u00e8s, l'audacieux combattant.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et lan\u00e7a sa pique. Et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 la dirigea au-dessus\ndu nez, aupr\u00e8s de l'oeil, et l'airain indompt\u00e9 traversa les\nblanches dents, coupa l'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 de la langue et sortit sous le\nmenton. Et Pandaros tomba du char, et ses armes brillantes, aux\ncouleurs vari\u00e9es, r\u00e9sonn\u00e8rent sur lui, et les chevaux aux pieds\nrapides fr\u00e9mirent, et la vie et les forces de l'homme furent\nbris\u00e9es.\n\nAlors Ain\u00e9ias s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a avec son bouclier et sa longue pique, de\npeur que les Akhaiens n'enlevassent le cadavre. Et, tout autour,\nil allait comme un lion confiant dans ses forces, brandissant sa\npique et son bouclier bomb\u00e9, pr\u00eat \u00e0 tuer celui qui oserait\napprocher, et criant horriblement. Mais le Tyd\u00e9ide saisit de sa\nmain un lourd rocher que deux hommes, de ceux qui vivent\naujourd'hui, ne pourraient soulever. Seul, il le remua facilement.\nEt il en frappa Ain\u00e9ias \u00e0 la cuisse, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 le f\u00e9mur tourne dans le\ncotyle. Et la pierre rugueuse heurta le cotyle, rompit les deux\nmuscles sup\u00e9rieurs et d\u00e9chira la peau. Le h\u00e9ros, tombant sur les\ngenoux, s'appuya d'une main lourde sur la terre, et une nuit noire\ncouvrit ses yeux. Et le roi des hommes, Ain\u00e9ias, e\u00fbt sans doute\np\u00e9ri, si la fille de Zeus, Aphrodit\u00e8, ne l'e\u00fbt aper\u00e7u: car elle\n\u00e9tait sa m\u00e8re, l'ayant con\u00e7u d'Ankhis\u00e8s, comme il paissait ses\nboeufs. Elle jeta ses bras blancs autour de son fils bien-aim\u00e9 et\nl'enveloppa des plis de son p\u00e9plos \u00e9clatant, afin de le garantir\ndes traits, et de peur qu'un des guerriers Danaens enfon\u00e7\u00e2t\nl'airain dans sa poitrine et lui arrach\u00e2t l'\u00e2me. Et elle enleva\nhors de la m\u00eal\u00e9e son fils bien-aim\u00e9.\n\nMais le fils de Kapaneus n'oublia point l'ordre que lui avait\ndonn\u00e9 Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s hardi au combat. Il arr\u00eata brusquement les chevaux\naux sabots massifs, en attachant au char les r\u00eanes tendues; et, se\npr\u00e9cipitant vers les chevaux aux longues crini\u00e8res d'Ain\u00e9ias, il\nles poussa du c\u00f4t\u00e9 des Akhaiens aux belles kn\u00e8mides. Et il les\nremit \u00e0 son cher compagnon Deipylos, qu'il honorait au-dessus de\ntous, tant leurs \u00e2mes \u00e9taient d'accord, afin que celui-ci les\nconduis\u00eet aux nefs creuses.\n\nPuis le h\u00e9ros, remontant sur son char, saisit les belles r\u00eanes,\net, tra\u00een\u00e9 par ses chevaux aux sabots massifs, suivit le Tyd\u00e9ide.\nEt celui-ci, de l'airain meurtrier, pressait ardemment Aphrodit\u00e8,\nsachant que c'\u00e9tait une d\u00e9esse pleine de faiblesse, et qu'elle\nn'\u00e9tait point de ces divinit\u00e9s qui se m\u00ealent aux luttes des\nguerriers, comme Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 ou comme \u00c9ny\u00f4, la destructrice des\ncitadelles. Et, la poursuivant dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e tumultueuse, le fils\ndu magnanime Tydeus bondit, et de sa pique aigu\u00eb blessa sa main\nd\u00e9licate. Et aussit\u00f4t l'airain per\u00e7a la peau divine \u00e0 travers le\np\u00e9plos que les Kharites avaient tiss\u00e9 elles-m\u00eames. Et le sang\nimmortel de la d\u00e9esse coula, subtil, et tel qu'il sort des dieux\nheureux. Car ils ne mangent point de pain, ils ne boivent point le\nvin ardent, et c'est pourquoi ils n'ont point notre sang et sont\nnomm\u00e9s immortels. Elle poussa un grand cri et laissa tomber son\nfils; mais Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n le releva de ses mains et l'enveloppa\nd'une noire nu\u00e9e, de peur qu'un des cavaliers Danaens enfon\u00e7\u00e2t\nl'airain dans sa poitrine et lui arrach\u00e2t l'\u00e2me. Et Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s hardi\nau combat cria d'une voix haute \u00e0 la d\u00e9esse:\n\n-- Fille de Zeus, fuis la guerre et le combat. Ne te suffit-il pas\nde tromper de faibles femmes? Si tu retournes jamais au combat,\ncertes, je pense que la guerre et son nom seul te feront trembler\nd\u00e9sormais.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Aphrodit\u00e8 s'envola, pleine d'affliction et\ng\u00e9missant profond\u00e9ment. Iris aux pieds rapides la conduisit hors\nde la m\u00eal\u00e9e, accabl\u00e9e de douleurs, et son beau corps \u00e9tait devenu\nnoir. Et elle rencontra l'imp\u00e9tueux Ar\u00e8s assis \u00e0 la gauche de la\nbataille. Sa pique et ses chevaux rapides \u00e9taient couverts d'une\nnu\u00e9e. Et Aphrodit\u00e8, tombant \u00e0 genoux, supplia son fr\u00e8re bien-aim\u00e9\nde lui donner ses chevaux li\u00e9s par des courroies d'or:\n\n-- Fr\u00e8re bien-aim\u00e9, secours-moi! Donne-moi tes chevaux pour que\nj'aille dans l'Olympos, qui est la demeure des immortels. Je\nsouffre cruellement d'une blessure que m'a faite le guerrier\nmortel Tyd\u00e9ide, qui combattrait maintenant le p\u00e8re Zeus lui-m\u00eame.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et Ar\u00e8s lui donna ses chevaux aux aigrettes\ndor\u00e9es. Et, g\u00e9missant dans sa ch\u00e8re \u00e2me, elle monta sur le char.\nIris monta aupr\u00e8s d'elle, prit les r\u00eanes en mains et frappa les\nchevaux du fouet, et ceux-ci s'envol\u00e8rent et atteignirent aussit\u00f4t\nle haut Olympos, demeure des dieux. Et la rapide Iris arr\u00eata les\nchevaux aux pieds prompts comme le vent, et, sautant du char, leur\ndonna leur nourriture immortelle. Et la divine Aphrodit\u00e8 tomba aux\ngenoux de Di\u00f4n\u00e8 sa m\u00e8re; et celle-ci, entourant sa fille de ses\nbras, la caressa et lui dit:\n\n-- Quel Ouranien, ch\u00e8re fille, t'a ainsi trait\u00e9e, comme si tu\navais ouvertement commis une action mauvaise?\n\nEt Aphrodit\u00e8 qui aime les sourires lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- L'audacieux Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s, fils de Tydeus, m'a bless\u00e9e, parce que\nj'emportais hors de la m\u00eal\u00e9e mon fils bien-aim\u00e9 Ain\u00e9ias, qui m'est\nle plus cher de tous les hommes. La bataille furieuse n'est plus\nseulement entre les Troiens et les Akhaiens, mais les Danaens\ncombattent d\u00e9j\u00e0 contre les immortels.\n\nEt l'illustre d\u00e9esse Di\u00f4n\u00e8 lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Subis et endure ton mal, ma fille, bien que tu sois afflig\u00e9e.\nD\u00e9j\u00e0 plusieurs habitants des demeures ouraniennes, par leurs\ndiscordes mutuelles, ont beaucoup souffert de la part des hommes.\nAr\u00e8s a subi de grands maux quand Otos et le robuste \u00c9phialt\u00e8s,\nfils d'Alo\u00e8, le li\u00e8rent de fortes cha\u00eenes. Il resta treize mois\nencha\u00een\u00e9 dans une prison d'airain. Et peut-\u00eatre qu'Ar\u00e8s,\ninsatiable de combats, e\u00fbt p\u00e9ri, si la belle \u00c9riboia, leur\nmar\u00e2tre, n'e\u00fbt averti Herm\u00e9ias, qui d\u00e9livra furtivement Ar\u00e8s\nrespirant \u00e0 peine, tant les lourdes cha\u00eenes l'avaient dompt\u00e9. H\u00e8r\u00e8\nsouffrit aussi quand le vigoureux Amphitryonade la blessa \u00e0 la\nmamelle droite d'une fl\u00e8che \u00e0 trois pointes, et une irr\u00e9m\u00e9diable\ndouleur la saisit. Et le grand Aid\u00e8s souffrit entre tous quand le\nm\u00eame homme, fils de Zeus temp\u00e9tueux, le blessa, sur le seuil du\nHad\u00e8s, au milieu des morts, d'une fl\u00e8che rapide, et l'accabla de\ndouleurs. Et il vint dans la demeure de Zeus, dans le grand\nOlympos, plein de maux et g\u00e9missant dans son coeur, car la fl\u00e8che\n\u00e9tait fix\u00e9e dans sa large \u00e9paule et torturait son \u00e2me. Et Pai\u00e8\u00f4n,\nr\u00e9pandant de doux baumes sur la plaie, gu\u00e9rit Aid\u00e8s, car il\nn'\u00e9tait point mortel comme un homme. Et tel \u00e9tait H\u00e8rakl\u00e8s, impie,\nirr\u00e9sistible, se souciant peu de commettre des actions mauvaises\net frappant de ses fl\u00e8ches les dieux qui habitent l'Olympos. C'est\nla divine Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs qui a excit\u00e9 un insens\u00e9 contre\ntoi. Et le fils de Tydeus ne sait pas, dans son \u00e2me, qu'il ne vit\npas longtemps celui qui lutte contre les immortels. Ses enfants,\nassis sur ses genoux, ne le nomment point leur p\u00e8re au retour de\nla guerre et de la rude bataille. Maintenant, que le Tyd\u00e9ide\ncraigne, malgr\u00e9 sa force, qu'un plus redoutable que toi ne le\ncombatte. Qu'il craigne que la sage fille d'Adr\u00e8st\u00e8s, Aigial\u00e9ia,\nla noble femme du dompteur de chevaux Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s, g\u00e9misse bient\u00f4t en\ns'\u00e9veillant et en troublant ses serviteurs, parce qu'elle pleurera\nson premier mari, le plus brave des Akhaiens!\n\nElle parla ainsi, et, de ses deux mains, \u00e9tancha la plaie, et\ncelle-ci fut gu\u00e9rie, et les am\u00e8res douleurs furent calm\u00e9es.\n\nMais H\u00e8r\u00e8 et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, qui les regardaient, tent\u00e8rent d'irriter le\nKronide Zeus par des paroles mordantes. Et la divine Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux\nyeux clairs parla ainsi la premi\u00e8re:\n\n-- P\u00e8re Zeus, peut-\u00eatre seras-tu irrit\u00e9 de ce que je vais dire;\nmais voici qu'Aphrodit\u00e8, en cherchant \u00e0 mener quelque femme\nAkhaienne au milieu des Troiens qu'elle aime tendrement, en\ns'effor\u00e7ant de s\u00e9duire par ses caresses une des Akhaiennes au beau\np\u00e9plos, a d\u00e9chir\u00e9 sa main d\u00e9licate \u00e0 une agrafe d'or.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et le p\u00e8re des hommes et des dieux sourit, et,\nappelant Aphrodit\u00e8 d'or, il lui dit:\n\n-- Ma fille, les travaux de la guerre ne te sont point confi\u00e9s,\nmais \u00e0 l'imp\u00e9tueux Ar\u00e8s et \u00e0 Ath\u00e8n\u00e8. Ne songe qu'aux douces joies\ndes Hym\u00e9n\u00e9es.\n\nEt ils parlaient ainsi entre eux. Et Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s hardi au combat se\nruait toujours sur Ain\u00e9ias, bien qu'il s\u00fbt qu'Apoll\u00f4n le couvrait\ndes deux mains. Mais il ne respectait m\u00eame plus un grand dieu,\nd\u00e9sirant tuer Ain\u00e9ias et le d\u00e9pouiller de ses armes illustres. Et\ntrois fois il se rua, d\u00e9sirant le tuer, et trois fois Apoll\u00f4n\nrepoussa son bouclier \u00e9clatant. Mais, quand il bondit une\nquatri\u00e8me fois, semblable \u00e0 un dieu, Apoll\u00f4n lui dit d'une voix\nterrible:\n\n-- Prends garde, Tyd\u00e9ide, et ne t'\u00e9gale point aux dieux, car la\nrace des dieux immortels n'est point semblable \u00e0 celle des hommes\nqui marchent sur la terre.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le Tyd\u00e9ide recula un peu, de peur d'exciter la\ncol\u00e8re de l'archer Apoll\u00f4n. Et celui-ci d\u00e9posa Ain\u00e9ias loin de la\nm\u00eal\u00e9e, dans la sainte Pergamos, o\u00f9 \u00e9tait b\u00e2ti son temple. Et L\u00e8t\u00f4\net Art\u00e9mis qui se r\u00e9jouit de ses fl\u00e8ches prirent soin de ce\nguerrier et l'honor\u00e8rent dans le vaste sanctuaire. Et Apoll\u00f4n \u00e0\nl'arc d'argent suscita une image vaine semblable \u00e0 Ain\u00e9ias et\nportant des armes pareilles. Et autour de cette image les Troiens\net les divins Akhaiens se frappaient sur les peaux de boeuf qui\ncouvraient leurs poitrines, sur les boucliers bomb\u00e9s et sur les\ncuirasses l\u00e9g\u00e8res. Alors, le roi Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n dit \u00e0 l'imp\u00e9tueux\nAr\u00e8s:\n\n-- Ar\u00e8s, Ar\u00e8s, fl\u00e9au des hommes sanglant, et qui renverses les\nmurailles, ne vas-tu pas chasser hors de la m\u00eal\u00e9e ce guerrier, le\nTyd\u00e9ide, qui, certes, combattrait maintenant m\u00eame contre le p\u00e8re\nZeus? D\u00e9j\u00e0 il a bless\u00e9 la main d'Aphrodit\u00e8, puis il a bondi sur\nmoi, semblable \u00e0 un dieu.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il retourna s'asseoir sur la haute Pergamos, et\nle cruel Ar\u00e8s, se m\u00ealant aux Troiens, les excita \u00e0 combattre,\nayant pris la forme de l'imp\u00e9tueux Akamas, prince des Thrakiens.\nEt il exhorta les fils de Priamos, nourrissons de Zeus:\n\n-- \u00d4 fils du roi Priamos, nourris par Zeus, jusqu'\u00e0 quand\nlaisserez-vous les Akhaiens massacrer votre peuple? Attendrez-vous\nqu'ils combattent autour de nos portes solides? Un guerrier est\ntomb\u00e9 que nous honorions autant que le divin Hekt\u00f4r, Ain\u00e9ias, fils\ndu magnanime Ankhis\u00e8s. Allons! Enlevons notre brave compagnon hors\nde la m\u00eal\u00e9e.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il excita la force et le courage de chacun. Et\nSarp\u00e8d\u00f4n dit ces dures paroles au divin Hekt\u00f4r:\n\n-- Hekt\u00f4r, qu'est devenu ton ancien courage? Tu te vantais nagu\u00e8re\nde sauver ta ville, sans l'aide des autres guerriers, seul, avec\ntes fr\u00e8res et tes parents, et je n'en ai gu\u00e8re encore aper\u00e7u\naucun, car ils tremblent tous comme des chiens devant le lion.\nC'est nous, vos alli\u00e9s, qui combattons. Me voici, moi, qui suis\nvenu de tr\u00e8s loin pour vous secourir. Elle est \u00e9loign\u00e9e, en effet,\nla Lyki\u00e8 o\u00f9 coule le Xanthos plein de tourbillons. J'y ai laiss\u00e9\nma femme bien-aim\u00e9e et mon petit enfant, et mes nombreux domaines\nque le pauvre convoite. Et, cependant, j'excite les Lykiens au\ncombat, et je suis pr\u00eat moi-m\u00eame \u00e0 lutter contre les hommes, bien\nque je n'aie rien \u00e0 redouter ou \u00e0 perdre des maux que vous\napportent les Akhaiens, ou des biens qu'ils veulent vous enlever.\nEt tu restes immobile, et tu ne commandes m\u00eame pas \u00e0 tes guerriers\nde r\u00e9sister et de d\u00e9fendre leurs femmes! Ne crains-tu pas\nqu'envelopp\u00e9s tous comme dans un filet de lin, vous deveniez la\nproie des guerriers ennemis? Sans doute, les Akhaiens renverseront\nbient\u00f4t votre ville aux nombreux habitants. C'est \u00e0 toi qu'il\nappartient de songer \u00e0 ces choses, nuit et jour, et de supplier\nles princes alli\u00e9s, afin qu'ils tiennent fermement et qu'ils\ncessent leurs durs reproches.\n\nSarp\u00e8d\u00f4n parla ainsi, et il mordit l'\u00e2me de Hekt\u00f4r, et celui-ci\nsauta aussit\u00f4t de son char avec ses armes, et, brandissant deux\nlances aigu\u00ebs, courut de toutes parts \u00e0 travers l'arm\u00e9e,\nl'excitant \u00e0 combattre un rude combat. Et les Troiens revinrent \u00e0\nla charge et tinrent t\u00eate aux Akhaiens. Et les Argiens les\nattendirent de pied ferme.\n\nAinsi que, dans les aires sacr\u00e9es, \u00e0 l'aide des vanneurs et du\nvent, la blonde D\u00e8m\u00e8t\u00e8r s\u00e9pare le bon grain de la paille, et que\ncelle-ci, amoncel\u00e9e, est couverte d'une poudre blanche, de m\u00eame\nles Akhaiens \u00e9taient envelopp\u00e9s d'une poussi\u00e8re blanche qui\nmontait du milieu d'eux vers l'Ouranos, et que soulevaient les\npieds des chevaux frappant la terre, tandis que les guerriers se\nm\u00ealaient de nouveau et que les conducteurs de chars les ramenaient\nau combat. Et le furieux Ar\u00e8s, couvert d'une nu\u00e9e, allait de\ntoutes parts, excitant les Troiens. Et il ob\u00e9issait ainsi aux\nordres que lui avait donn\u00e9s Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n qui porte une \u00e9p\u00e9e\nd'or, quand celui-ci avait vu partir Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, protectrice des\nDanaens.\n\nEt l'archer Apoll\u00f4n fit sortir Ain\u00e9ias du sanctuaire et remplit de\nvigueur la poitrine du prince des peuples. Et ce dernier reparut\nau milieu de ses compagnons, pleins de joie de le voir vivant,\nsain et sauf et poss\u00e9dant toutes ses forces. Mais ils ne lui\ndirent rien, car les travaux que leur pr\u00e9paraient Ar\u00e8s, fl\u00e9au des\nhommes, Apoll\u00f4n et \u00c9ris, ne leur permirent point de l'interroger.\n\nEt les deux Aias, Odysseus et Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s exhortaient les Danaens au\ncombat; et ceux-ci, sans craindre les forces et l'imp\u00e9tuosit\u00e9 des\nTroiens, les attendaient de pied ferme, semblables \u00e0 ces nu\u00e9es que\nle Kroni\u00f4n arr\u00eate \u00e0 la cime des montagnes, quand le Bor\u00e9as et les\nautres vents violents se sont calm\u00e9s, eux dont le souffle disperse\nles nuages \u00e9pais et immobiles. Ainsi les Danaens attendaient les\nTroiens de pied ferme. Et l'Atr\u00e9ide, courant \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0 au milieu\nd'eux, les excitait ainsi:\n\n-- Amis, soyez des hommes! ruez-vous, d'un coeur ferme, dans la\nrude bataille. Ce sont les plus braves qui \u00e9chappent en plus grand\nnombre \u00e0 la mort; mais ceux qui fuient n'ont ni force ni gloire.\n\nIl parla, et, lan\u00e7ant sa longue pique, il per\u00e7a, au premier rang,\nle guerrier D\u00e8iko\u00f4n Pergaside, compagnon du magnanime Ain\u00e9ias, et\nque les Troiens honoraient autant que les fils de Priamos, parce\nqu'il \u00e9tait toujours parmi les premiers au combat. Et le roi\nAgamemn\u00f4n le frappa de sa pique dans le bouclier qui n'arr\u00eata\npoint le coup, car la pique le traversa et entra dans le ventre en\nd\u00e9chirant le ceinturon. Et il tomba avec bruit, et ses armes\nr\u00e9sonn\u00e8rent sur son corps.\n\nAlors, Ain\u00e9ias tua deux braves guerriers Danaens, fils de Diokl\u00e8s,\nKr\u00e8th\u00f4n et Orsilokhos. Et leur p\u00e8re habitait Ph\u00e8r\u00e8 bien b\u00e2tie, et\nil \u00e9tait riche, et il descendait du fleuve Alph\u00e9ios qui coule\nlargement sur la terre des Pyliens. Et l'Alph\u00e9ios avait engendr\u00e9\nOrsilokhos, chef de nombreux guerriers; et Orsilokhos avait\nengendr\u00e9 le magnanime Diokl\u00e8s, et de Diokl\u00e8s \u00e9taient n\u00e9s deux fils\njumeaux, Kr\u00e8th\u00f4n et Orsilokhos, habiles \u00e0 tous les combats. Tout\njeunes encore, ils vinrent sur leurs nefs noires vers Ilios aux\nbons chevaux, ayant suivi les Argiens pour la cause et l'honneur\ndes Atr\u00e9ides, Agamemn\u00f4n et M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, et c'est l\u00e0 que la mort les\natteignit. Comme deux jeunes lions nourris par leur m\u00e8re sur le\nsommet des montagnes, au fond des \u00e9paisses for\u00eats, et qui enl\u00e8vent\nles boeufs et les brebis, et qui d\u00e9vastent les \u00e9tables jusqu'\u00e0 ce\nqu'ils soient tu\u00e9s de l'airain aigu par les mains des p\u00e2tres, tels\nils tomb\u00e8rent tous deux, frapp\u00e9s par les mains d'Ain\u00e9ias, pareils\n\u00e0 des pins \u00e9lev\u00e9s.\n\nEt M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, hardi au combat, eut piti\u00e9 de leur chute, et il\ns'avan\u00e7a au premier rang, v\u00eatu de l'airain \u00e9tincelant et\nbrandissant sa pique. Et Ar\u00e8s l'excitait afin qu'il tomb\u00e2t sous\nles mains d'Ain\u00e9ias. Mais Antilokhos, fils du magnanime Nest\u00f4r, le\nvit et s'avan\u00e7a au premier rang, car il craignait pour le prince\ndes peuples, dont la mort e\u00fbt rendu leurs travaux inutiles. Et ils\ncroisaient d\u00e9j\u00e0 leurs piques aigu\u00ebs, pr\u00eats \u00e0 se combattre, quand\nAntilokhos vint se placer aupr\u00e8s du prince des peuples. Et\nAin\u00e9ias, bien que tr\u00e8s brave, recula, voyant les deux guerriers\npr\u00eats \u00e0 l'attaquer. Et ceux-ci entra\u00een\u00e8rent les morts parmi les\nAkhaiens, et, les remettant \u00e0 leurs compagnons, revinrent\ncombattre au premier rang.\n\nAlors ils tu\u00e8rent Pylaim\u00e9n\u00e8s, \u00e9gal \u00e0 Ar\u00e8s, chef des magnanimes\nPaphlagones porteurs de boucliers. Et l'illustre Atr\u00e9ide M\u00e9n\u00e9laos\nle per\u00e7a de sa pique \u00e0 la clavicule. Et Antilokhos frappa au\ncoude, d'un coup de pierre, le conducteur de son char, le brave\nAtymniade Myd\u00f4n, comme il faisait reculer ses chevaux aux sabots\nmassifs. Et les blanches r\u00eanes orn\u00e9es d'ivoire s'\u00e9chapp\u00e8rent de\nses mains, et Antilokhos, sautant sur lui, le per\u00e7a \u00e0 la tempe\nd'un coup d'\u00e9p\u00e9e. Et, ne respirant plus, il tomba du beau char, la\nt\u00eate et les \u00e9paules enfonc\u00e9es dans le sable qui \u00e9tait creus\u00e9 en\ncet endroit. Ses chevaux le foul\u00e8rent aux pieds, et Antilokhos les\nchassa vers l'arm\u00e9e des Akhaiens.\n\nMais Hekt\u00f4r, les ayant aper\u00e7us tous deux, se rua \u00e0 travers la\nm\u00eal\u00e9e en poussant des cris. Et les braves phalanges des Troiens le\nsuivaient, et devant elles marchaient Ar\u00e8s et la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable \u00c9ny\u00f4.\nCelle-ci menait le tumulte immense du combat, et Ar\u00e8s, brandissant\nune grande pique, allait tant\u00f4t devant et tant\u00f4t derri\u00e8re Hekt\u00f4r.\n\nEt Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s hardi au combat ayant vu Ar\u00e8s, fr\u00e9mit. Comme un\nvoyageur troubl\u00e9 s'arr\u00eate, au bout d'une plaine immense, sur le\nbord d'un fleuve imp\u00e9tueux qui tombe dans la mer, et qui recule \u00e0\nla vue de l'onde bouillonnante, ainsi le Tyd\u00e9ide recula et dit aux\nsiens:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis, combien nous admirions justement le divin Hekt\u00f4r,\nhabile \u00e0 lancer la pique et audacieux en combattant! Quelque dieu\nse tient toujours \u00e0 son c\u00f4t\u00e9 et d\u00e9tourne de lui la mort.\nMaintenant, voici qu'Ar\u00e8s l'accompagne, semblable \u00e0 un guerrier.\nC'est pourquoi reculons devant les Troiens et ne vous h\u00e2tez point\nde combattre les dieux.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et les Troiens approch\u00e8rent. Alors, Hekt\u00f4r tua\ndeux guerriers habiles au combat et mont\u00e9s sur un m\u00eame char,\nM\u00e9n\u00e8sth\u00e8s et Ankhialos.\n\nEt le grand T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien Aias eut piti\u00e9 de leur chute, et, marchant\nen avant, il lan\u00e7a sa pique brillante. Et il frappa Amphi\u00f4n, fils\nde S\u00e9lagos, qui habitait Paisos, et qui \u00e9tait fort riche. Mais sa\nMoire l'avait envoy\u00e9 secourir les Priamides. Et le T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien Aias\nl'atteignit au ceinturon, et la longue pique resta enfonc\u00e9e dans\nle bas-ventre. Et il tomba avec bruit, et l'illustre Aias accourut\npour le d\u00e9pouiller de ses armes. Mais les Troiens le couvrirent\nd'une gr\u00eale de piques aigu\u00ebs et brillantes, et son bouclier en fut\nh\u00e9riss\u00e9. Cependant, pressant du pied le cadavre, il en arracha sa\npique d'airain; mais il ne put enlever les belles armes, \u00e9tant\naccabl\u00e9 de traits. Et il craignit la vigoureuse attaque des braves\nTroiens qui le pressaient de leurs piques et le firent reculer,\nbien qu'il f\u00fbt grand, fort et illustre.\n\nEt c'est ainsi qu'ils luttaient dans la rude m\u00eal\u00e9e. Et voici que\nla Moire violente amena, en face du divin Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n, le grand et\nvigoureux H\u00e8raklide Tl\u00e8pol\u00e9mos. Et quand ils se furent rencontr\u00e9s\ntous deux, le fils et le petit-fils de Zeus qui amasse les nu\u00e9es,\nTl\u00e8pol\u00e9mos, le premier, parla ainsi:\n\n-- Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n, chef des Lykiens, quelle n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 te pousse\ntremblant dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e, toi qui n'es qu'un guerrier inhabile? Des\nmenteurs disent que tu es fils de Zeus temp\u00e9tueux, tandis que tu\nes loin de valoir les guerriers qui naquirent de Zeus, aux temps\nantiques des hommes, tels que le robuste H\u00e8rakl\u00e8s au coeur de\nlion, mon p\u00e8re. Et il vint ici autrefois, \u00e0 cause des chevaux de\nLaom\u00e9d\u00f4n et, avec six nefs seulement et peu de compagnons, il\nrenversa Ilios et d\u00e9peupla ses rues. Mais toi, tu n'es qu'un\nl\u00e2che, et tes guerriers succombent. Et je ne pense point que, m\u00eame\n\u00e9tant brave, tu aies apport\u00e9 de Lyki\u00e8 un grand secours aux\nTroiens, car, tu\u00e9 par moi, tu vas descendre au seuil d'Aid\u00e8s.\n\nEt Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n, chef des Lykiens, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Tl\u00e8pol\u00e9mos, certes, H\u00e8rakl\u00e8s renversa la sainte Ilios, gr\u00e2ce \u00e0\nla t\u00e9m\u00e9rit\u00e9 de l'illustre Laom\u00e9d\u00f4n qui lui adressa injustement de\nmauvaises paroles et lui refusa les cavales qu'il \u00e9tait venu\nchercher de si loin. Mais, pour toi, je te pr\u00e9dis la mort et la\nnoire k\u00e8r, et je vais t'envoyer, tu\u00e9 par ma pique et me donnant\nune grande gloire, vers Aid\u00e8s qui a d'illustres chevaux.\n\nSarp\u00e8d\u00f4n parla ainsi. Et Tl\u00e8pol\u00e9mos leva sa pique de fr\u00eane, et les\ndeux longues piques s'\u00e9lanc\u00e8rent en m\u00eame temps de leurs mains. Et\nSarp\u00e8d\u00f4n le frappa au milieu du cou, et la pointe am\u00e8re le\ntraversa de part en part. Et la noire nuit enveloppa les yeux de\nTl\u00e8pol\u00e9mos. Mais celui-ci avait perc\u00e9 de sa longue pique la cuisse\ngauche de Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n, et la pointe \u00e9tait rest\u00e9e engag\u00e9e dans l'os,\net le Kronide, son p\u00e8re, avait d\u00e9tourn\u00e9 la mort de lui. Et les\nbraves compagnons de Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n l'enlev\u00e8rent hors de la m\u00eal\u00e9e. Et il\ng\u00e9missait, tra\u00eenant la longue pique de fr\u00eane rest\u00e9e dans la\nblessure, car aucun d'eux n'avait song\u00e9 \u00e0 l'arracher de la cuisse\ndu guerrier, pour qu'il p\u00fbt monter sur son char, tant ils se\nh\u00e2taient.\n\nDe leur c\u00f4t\u00e9, les Akhaiens aux belles kn\u00e8mides emportaient\nTl\u00e8pol\u00e9mos hors de la m\u00eal\u00e9e. Et le divin Odysseus au coeur ferme,\nl'ayant aper\u00e7u, s'affligea dans son \u00e2me; et il d\u00e9lib\u00e9ra dans son\nesprit et dans son coeur s'il poursuivrait le fils de Zeus qui\ntonne hautement, ou s'il arracherait l'\u00e2me \u00e0 une multitude de\nLykiens. Mais il n'\u00e9tait point dans la destin\u00e9e du magnanime\nOdysseus de tuer avec l'airain aigu le brave fils de Zeus. C'est\npourquoi Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 lui inspira de se jeter sur la foule des Lykiens.\nAlors il tua Koiranos et Alast\u00f4r, et Khromios et Alkandros et\nHalios, et No\u00e8m\u00f4n et Prytanis. Et le divin Odysseus e\u00fbt tu\u00e9 une\nplus grande foule de Lykiens, si le grand Hekt\u00f4r au casque mouvant\nne l'e\u00fbt aper\u00e7u. Et il s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a aux premiers rangs, arm\u00e9 de\nl'airain \u00e9clatant, jetant la terreur parmi les Danaens. Et\nSarp\u00e8d\u00f4n, fils de Zeus, se r\u00e9jouit de sa venue et lui dit cette\nparole lamentable:\n\n-- Priamide, ne permets pas que je reste la proie des Danaens, et\nviens \u00e0 mon aide, afin que je puisse au moins expirer dans votre\nville, puisque je ne dois plus revoir la ch\u00e8re patrie, et ma femme\nbien-aim\u00e9e et mon petit enfant.\n\nMais Hekt\u00f4r au casque mouvant ne lui r\u00e9pondit pas, et il s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a\nen avant, plein du d\u00e9sir de repousser promptement les Argiens et\nd'arracher l'\u00e2me \u00e0 une foule d'entre eux. Et les compagnons du\ndivin Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n le d\u00e9pos\u00e8rent sous le beau h\u00eatre de Zeus\ntemp\u00e9tueux, et le brave P\u00e9lag\u00f4n, qui \u00e9tait le plus cher de ses\ncompagnons, lui arracha hors de la cuisse la pique de fr\u00eane. Et\nson \u00e2me d\u00e9faillit, et une nu\u00e9e \u00e9paisse couvrit ses yeux. Mais le\nsouffle de Bor\u00e9as le ranima, et il ressaisit son \u00e2me qui\ns'\u00e9vanouissait.\n\nEt les Akhaiens, devant Ar\u00e8s et Hekt\u00f4r au casque d'airain, ne\nfuyaient point vers les nefs noires et ne se ruaient pas non plus\ndans la m\u00eal\u00e9e, mais reculaient toujours, ayant aper\u00e7u Ar\u00e8s parmi\nles Troiens. Alors, quel fut le guerrier qui, le premier, fut tu\u00e9\npar Hekt\u00f4r Priamide et par Ar\u00e8s v\u00eatu d'airain, et quel fut le\ndernier? Teuthras, semblable \u00e0 un dieu, et l'habile cavalier\nOrest\u00e8s, et Tr\u00e8khos, combattant Ait\u00f4lien; Oinomaos et l'Oinopide\nH\u00e9l\u00e9nos, et Oresbios qui portait une mitre brillante. Et celui-ci\nhabitait Hyl\u00e8, o\u00f9 il prenait soin de ses richesses, au milieu du\nlac K\u00e8phisside, non loin des riches tribus des Boi\u00f4tiens.\n\nEt la divine H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux bras blancs, voyant que les Argiens\np\u00e9rissaient dans la rude m\u00eal\u00e9e, dit \u00e0 Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Ah! fille indomptable de Zeus temp\u00e9tueux, certes, nous aurons\nvainement promis \u00e0 M\u00e9n\u00e9laos qu'il retournerait dans sa patrie\napr\u00e8s avoir renvers\u00e9 Ilios aux fortes murailles, si nous laissons\nainsi le cruel Ar\u00e8s r\u00e9pandre sa fureur. Viens, et souvenons-nous\nde notre courage imp\u00e9tueux.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et la divine Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs ob\u00e9it. La\nv\u00e9n\u00e9rable d\u00e9esse H\u00e8r\u00e8, fille du grand Kronos, se h\u00e2ta de mettre \u00e0\nses chevaux leurs harnais d'or. H\u00e8b\u00e8 attacha promptement les roues\nau char, aux deux bouts de l'essieu de fer. Et les roues \u00e9taient\nd'airain \u00e0 huit rayons, et les jantes \u00e9taient d'un or\nincorruptible, mais, par-dessus, \u00e9taient pos\u00e9es des bandes\nd'airain admirables \u00e0 voir. Les deux moyeux \u00e9taient rev\u00eatus\nd'argent, et le si\u00e8ge \u00e9tait suspendu \u00e0 des courroies d'or et\nd'argent, et deux cercles \u00e9taient plac\u00e9s en avant d'o\u00f9 sortait le\ntimon d'argent, et, \u00e0 l'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 du timon, H\u00e8r\u00e8 lia le beau joug\nd'or et les belles courroies d'or. Puis, avide de discorde et de\ncris de guerre, elle soumit au joug ses chevaux aux pieds rapides.\n\nEt Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, fille de Zeus temp\u00e9tueux, laissa tomber sur le pav\u00e9 de\nla demeure paternelle le p\u00e9plos subtil, aux ornements vari\u00e9s,\nqu'elle avait fait et achev\u00e9 de ses mains. Et elle rev\u00eatit la\ncuirasse de Zeus qui amasse les nu\u00e9es, et l'armure de la guerre\nlamentable. Elle pla\u00e7a autour de ses \u00e9paules l'Aigide aux longues\nfranges, horrible, et que la fuite environnait. Et l\u00e0, se tenaient\nla discorde, la force et l'effrayante poursuite, et la t\u00eate\naffreuse, horrible et divine du monstre Gorg\u00f4. Et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 posa sur\nsa t\u00eate un casque h\u00e9riss\u00e9 d'aigrettes, aux quatre c\u00f4nes d'or, et\nqui e\u00fbt recouvert les habitants de cent villes. Et elle monta sur\nle char splendide, et elle saisit une pique lourde, grande,\nsolide, avec laquelle elle domptait la foule des hommes h\u00e9ro\u00efques,\ncontre lesquels elle s'irritait, \u00e9tant la fille d'un p\u00e8re\npuissant.\n\nH\u00e8r\u00e8 pressa du fouet les chevaux rapides, et, devant eux,\ns'ouvrirent d'elles-m\u00eames les portes ouraniennes que gardaient les\nHeures. Et celles-ci, veillant sur le grand Ouranos et sur\nl'Olympos, ouvraient ou fermaient la nu\u00e9e \u00e9paisse qui flottait\nautour. Et les chevaux dociles franchirent ces portes, et les\nd\u00e9esses trouv\u00e8rent le Kroni\u00f4n assis, loin des dieux, sur le plus\nhaut sommet de l'Olympos aux cimes sans nombre. Et la divine H\u00e8r\u00e8\naux bras blancs, retenant ses chevaux, parla ainsi au tr\u00e8s haut\nZeus Kronide:\n\n-- Zeus, ne r\u00e9primeras-tu pas les cruelles violences d'Ar\u00e8s qui\ncause impudemment tant de ravages parmi les peuples Akhaiens? J'en\nai une grande douleur; et voici qu'Aphrodit\u00e8 et Apoll\u00f4n \u00e0 l'arc\nd'argent se r\u00e9jouissent d'avoir excit\u00e9 cet insens\u00e9 qui ignore\ntoute justice. P\u00e8re Zeus, ne t'irriteras-tu point contre moi, si\nje chasse de la m\u00eal\u00e9e Ar\u00e8s rudement ch\u00e2ti\u00e9?\n\nEt Zeus qui amasse les nu\u00e9es lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Va! excite contre lui la d\u00e9vastatrice Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, qui est\naccoutum\u00e9e \u00e0 lui infliger de rudes ch\u00e2timents.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et la divine H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux bras blancs ob\u00e9it, et elle\nfrappa ses chevaux, et ils s'envol\u00e8rent entre la terre et\nl'Ouranos \u00e9toil\u00e9. Autant un homme, assis sur une roche \u00e9lev\u00e9e, et\nregardant la mer pourpr\u00e9e, voit d'espace a\u00e9rien, autant les\nchevaux des dieux en franchirent d'un saut. Et quand les deux\nd\u00e9esses furent parvenues devant Ilios, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 le Skamandros et le\nSimo\u00efs unissent leurs cours, la divine H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux bras blancs d\u00e9tela\nses chevaux et les enveloppa d'une nu\u00e9e \u00e9paisse. Et le Simo\u00efs fit\ncro\u00eetre pour eux une p\u00e2ture ambroisienne. Et les d\u00e9esses,\nsemblables dans leur vol \u00e0 de jeunes colombes, se h\u00e2t\u00e8rent de\nsecourir les Argiens.\n\nEt quand elles parvinrent l\u00e0 o\u00f9 les Akhaiens luttaient en foule\nautour de la force du dompteur de chevaux Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s, tels que des\nlions mangeurs de chair crue, ou de sauvages et opini\u00e2tres\nsangliers, la divine H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux bras blancs s'arr\u00eata et jeta un\ngrand cri, ayant pris la forme du magnanime Stent\u00f4r \u00e0 la voix\nd'airain, qui criait aussi haut que cinquante autres:\n\n-- Honte \u00e0 vous, \u00f4 Argiens, fiers d'\u00eatre beaux, mais couverts\nd'opprobre! Aussi longtemps que le divin Akhilleus se rua dans la\nm\u00eal\u00e9e, jamais les Troiens n'os\u00e8rent passer les portes\nDardaniennes; et, maintenant, voici qu'ils combattent loin\nd'Ilios, devant les nefs creuses!\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, elle ranima le courage de chacun. Et la d\u00e9esse\nAth\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs, cherchant le Tyd\u00e9ide, rencontra ce roi\naupr\u00e8s de ses chevaux et de son char. Et il rafra\u00eechissait la\nblessure que lui avait faite la fl\u00e8che de Pandaros. Et la sueur\nl'inondait sous le large ceinturon d'o\u00f9 pendait son bouclier\nbomb\u00e9; et ses mains \u00e9taient lasses. Il soulevait son ceinturon et\n\u00e9tanchait un sang noir. Et la d\u00e9esse, aupr\u00e8s du joug, lui parla\nainsi:\n\n-- Certes, Tydeus n'a point engendr\u00e9 un fils semblable \u00e0 lui.\nTydeus \u00e9tait de petite taille, mais c'\u00e9tait un homme. Je lui\nd\u00e9fendis vainement de combattre quand il vint seul, envoy\u00e9 \u00e0 Th\u00e8b\u00e8\npar les Akhaiens, au milieu des innombrables Kadm\u00e9i\u00f4nes. Et je lui\nordonnai de s'asseoir paisiblement \u00e0 leurs repas, dans leurs\ndemeures. Cependant, ayant toujours le coeur aussi ferme, il\nprovoqua les jeunes Kadm\u00e9i\u00f4nes et les vainquit ais\u00e9ment, car\nj'\u00e9tais sa protectrice assidue. Certes, aujourd'hui, je te\nprot\u00e8ge, je te d\u00e9fends et je te pousse \u00e0 combattre ardemment les\nTroiens. Mais la fatigue a rompu tes membres, ou la crainte t'a\nsaisi le coeur, et tu n'es plus le fils de l'excellent cavalier\nTydeus Oin\u00e9ide.\n\nEt le brave Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Je te reconnais, d\u00e9esse, fille de Zeus temp\u00e9tueux. Je te\nparlerai franchement et ne te cacherai rien. Ni la crainte ni la\nfaiblesse ne m'accablent, mais je me souviens de tes ordres. Tu\nm'as d\u00e9fendu de combattre les dieux heureux, mais de frapper de\nl'airain aigu Aphrodit\u00e8, la fille de Zeus, si elle descendait dans\nla m\u00eal\u00e9e. C'est pourquoi je recule maintenant, et j'ai ordonn\u00e9 \u00e0\ntous les Argiens de se r\u00e9unir ici, car j'ai reconnu Ar\u00e8s qui\ndirige le combat.\n\nEt la divine Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Tyd\u00e9ide Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s, le plus cher \u00e0 mon coeur, ne crains ni Ar\u00e8s\nni aucun des autres immortels, car je suis pour toi une\nprotectrice assidue. Viens! pousse contre Ar\u00e8s tes chevaux aux\nsabots massifs; frappe-le, et ne respecte pas le furieux Ar\u00e8s, ce\ndieu changeant et insens\u00e9 qui, nagu\u00e8re, nous avait promis, \u00e0 moi\net \u00e0 H\u00e8r\u00e8, de combattre les Troiens et de secourir les Argiens, et\nqui, maintenant, s'est tourn\u00e9 du c\u00f4t\u00e9 des Troiens et oublie ses\npromesses.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, elle saisit de la main Sth\u00e9n\u00e9los pour le faire\ndescendre du char, et celui-ci sauta promptement \u00e0 terre. Et elle\nmonta aupr\u00e8s du divin Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s, et l'essieu du char g\u00e9mit sous le\npoids, car il portait une d\u00e9esse puissante et un brave guerrier.\nEt Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, saisissant le fouet et les r\u00eanes, poussa vers\nAr\u00e8s les chevaux aux sabots massifs. Et le dieu venait de tuer le\ngrand P\u00e9riphas, le plus brave des Ait\u00f4liens, illustre fils\nd'Okh\u00e8sios; et, tout sanglant, il le d\u00e9pouillait; mais Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 mit\nle casque d'Aid\u00e8s, pour que le puissant Ar\u00e8s ne la reconn\u00fbt pas.\nEt d\u00e8s que le fl\u00e9au des hommes, Ar\u00e8s, eut aper\u00e7u le divin\nDiom\u00e8d\u00e8s, il laissa le grand P\u00e9riphas \u00e9tendu dans la poussi\u00e8re, l\u00e0\no\u00f9, l'ayant tu\u00e9, il lui avait arrach\u00e9 l'\u00e2me, et il marcha droit \u00e0\nl'habile cavalier Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s.\n\nEt quand ils se furent rapproch\u00e9s l'un de l'autre, Ar\u00e8s, le\npremier, lan\u00e7a sa pique d'airain par-dessus le joug et les r\u00eanes\ndes chevaux, voulant arracher l'\u00e2me du Tyd\u00e9ide; mais la divine\nAth\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs, saisissant le trait d'une main, le\nd\u00e9tourna du char, afin de le rendre inutile. Puis, Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s hardi\nau combat lan\u00e7a imp\u00e9tueusement sa pique d'airain, et Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8\nla dirigea dans le bas ventre, sous le ceinturon.\n\nEt le dieu fut bless\u00e9, et la pique, ramen\u00e9e en arri\u00e8re, d\u00e9chira sa\nbelle peau, et le f\u00e9roce Ar\u00e8s poussa un cri aussi fort que la\nclameur de dix mille guerriers se ruant dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e. Et\nl'\u00e9pouvante saisit les Akhaiens et les Troiens, tant avait retenti\nle cri d'Ar\u00e8s insatiable de combats. Et, comme appara\u00eet, au-\ndessous des nu\u00e9es, une noire vapeur chass\u00e9e par un vent br\u00fblant,\nainsi Ar\u00e8s apparut au brave Tyd\u00e9ide Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s, tandis qu'il\ntraversait le vaste Ouranos, au milieu des nuages. Et il parvint \u00e0\nla demeure des dieux, dans le haut Olympos. Et il s'assit aupr\u00e8s\nde Zeus Kroni\u00f4n, g\u00e9missant dans son coeur; et, lui montrant le\nsang immortel qui coulait de sa blessure, il lui dit en paroles\nail\u00e9es:\n\n-- P\u00e8re Zeus, ne t'indigneras-tu point de voir ces violences?\nToujours, nous, les dieux, nous nous faisons souffrir cruellement\npour la cause des hommes. Mais c'est toi qui es la source de nos\nquerelles, car tu as enfant\u00e9 une fille insens\u00e9e, perverse et\ninique. Nous, les dieux Olympiens, nous t'ob\u00e9issons et nous te\nsommes \u00e9galement soumis; mais jamais tu ne bl\u00e2mes ni ne r\u00e9primes\ncelle-ci, et tu lui permets tout, parce que tu as engendr\u00e9 seul\ncette fille funeste qui pousse le fils de Tydeus, le magnanime\nDiom\u00e8d\u00e8s, \u00e0 se jeter furieux sur les dieux immortels. Il a bless\u00e9\nd'abord la main d'Aphrodit\u00e8, puis, il s'est ru\u00e9 sur moi, semblable\n\u00e0 un dieu, et si mes pieds rapides ne m'avaient emport\u00e9, je\nsubirais mille maux, couch\u00e9 vivant au milieu des cadavres et livr\u00e9\nsans force aux coups de l'airain.\n\nEt Zeus qui amasse les nu\u00e9es, le regardant d'un oeil sombre, lui\nr\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Cesse de te plaindre \u00e0 moi, dieu changeant! Je te hais le plus\nentre tous les Olympiens, car tu n'aimes que la discorde, la\nguerre et le combat, et tu as l'esprit intraitable de ta m\u00e8re,\nH\u00e8r\u00e8, que mes paroles r\u00e9priment \u00e0 peine. C'est son exemple qui\ncause tes maux. Mais je ne permettrai pas que tu souffres plus\nlongtemps, car tu es mon fils, et c'est de moi que ta m\u00e8re t'a\ncon\u00e7u. M\u00e9chant comme tu es, si tu \u00e9tais n\u00e9 de quelque autre dieu,\ndepuis longtemps d\u00e9j\u00e0 tu serais le dernier des Ouraniens.\n\nIl parla ainsi et ordonna \u00e0 Pai\u00e8\u00f4n de le gu\u00e9rir, et celui-ci le\ngu\u00e9rit en arrosant sa blessure de doux rem\u00e8des liquides, car il\nn'\u00e9tait point mortel. Aussi vite le lait blanc s'\u00e9paissit quand on\nl'agite, aussi vite le furieux Ar\u00e8s fut gu\u00e9ri. H\u00e8b\u00e8 le baigna et\nle rev\u00eatit de beaux v\u00eatements, et il s'assit, fier de cet honneur,\naupr\u00e8s de Zeus Kroni\u00f4n. Et l'Argienne H\u00e8r\u00e8 et la protectrice\nAth\u00e8n\u00e8 rentr\u00e8rent dans la demeure du grand Zeus, apr\u00e8s avoir\nchass\u00e9 le cruel Ar\u00e8s de la m\u00eal\u00e9e guerri\u00e8re.\n\n\nChant 6\n\nLivr\u00e9e \u00e0 elle-m\u00eame, la rude bataille des Troiens et des Akhaiens\nse r\u00e9pandit confus\u00e9ment \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0 par la plaine. Et ils se\nfrappaient, les uns les autres, de leurs lances d'airain, entre\nles eaux courantes du Simo\u00efs et du Xanthos.\n\nEt, le premier, Aias T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien enfon\u00e7a la phalange des Troiens et\nralluma l'esp\u00e9rance de ses compagnons, ayant perc\u00e9 un guerrier, le\nplus courageux d'entre les Thrakiens, le fils d'Euss\u00f4ros, Akamas,\nqui \u00e9tait robuste et grand. Il frappa le c\u00f4ne du casque \u00e0\nl'\u00e9paisse crini\u00e8re de cheval, et la pointe d'airain, ouvrant le\nfront, s'enfon\u00e7a \u00e0 travers l'os, et les t\u00e9n\u00e8bres couvrirent ses\nyeux.\n\nEt Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s hardi au combat tua Axylos Teuthranide qui habitait\ndans Arisb\u00e8 bien b\u00e2tie, \u00e9tait riche et bienveillant aux hommes, et\nles recevait tous avec amiti\u00e9, sa demeure \u00e9tant au bord de la\nroute. Mais nul alors ne se mit au-devant de lui pour d\u00e9tourner la\nsombre mort. Et Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s le tua, ainsi que son serviteur Kal\u00e9sios,\nqui dirigeait ses chevaux, et tous deux descendirent sous la\nterre.\n\nEt Euryalos tua Dr\u00e8sos et Opheltios, et il se jeta sur Ais\u00e8pos et\nP\u00e8dasos, que la nymphe na\u00efade Abarbar\u00e9\u00e8 avait con\u00e7us autrefois de\nl'irr\u00e9prochable Boukoli\u00f4n. Et Boukoli\u00f4n \u00e9tait fils du noble\nLaom\u00e9d\u00f4n, et il \u00e9tait son premier-n\u00e9, et sa m\u00e8re l'avait enfant\u00e9\nen secret. En paissant ses brebis, il s'\u00e9tait uni \u00e0 la nymphe sur\nune m\u00eame couche; et, enceinte, elle avait enfant\u00e9 deux fils\njumeaux; mais le M\u00e8kist\u00e8iade brisa leur force et leurs souples\nmembres, et arracha leurs armures de leurs \u00e9paules.\n\nEt Polypoit\u00e8s prompt au combat tua Astyalos; et Odysseus tua\nPidyt\u00e8s le Perkosien, par la lance d'airain; et Teukros tua le\ndivin Ar\u00e9ta\u00f4n.\n\nEt Antilokhos Nestor\u00e9ide tua Abl\u00e8ros de sa lance \u00e9clatante; et le\nroi des hommes, Agamemn\u00f4n, tua \u00c9latos qui habitait la haute\nP\u00e8dasos, sur les bords du Sam\u00e9o\u00efs au beau cours. Et le h\u00e9ros\nL\u00e8itos tua Phylakos qui fuyait, et Eurypylos tua M\u00e9lanthios. Puis,\nM\u00e9n\u00e9laos hardi au combat prit Adr\u00e8stos vivant. Arr\u00eat\u00e9s par une\nbranche de tamaris, les deux chevaux de celui-ci, ayant rompu le\nchar pr\u00e8s du timon, s'enfuyaient, \u00e9pouvant\u00e9s, par la plaine, du\nc\u00f4t\u00e9 de la ville, avec d'autres chevaux effray\u00e9s, et Adr\u00e8stos\navait roul\u00e9 du char, aupr\u00e8s de la roue, la face dans la poussi\u00e8re.\nEt l'Atr\u00e9ide M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, arm\u00e9 d'une longue lance, s'arr\u00eata devant\nlui; et Adr\u00e8stos saisit ses genoux et le supplia:\n\n-- Laisse-moi la vie, fils d'Atreus, et accepte une riche ran\u00e7on.\nUne multitude de choses pr\u00e9cieuses sont dans la demeure de mon\np\u00e8re, et il est riche. Il a de l'airain, de l'or et du fer ouvrag\u00e9\ndont il te fera de larges dons, s'il apprend que je vis encore sur\nles nefs des Argiens.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et d\u00e9j\u00e0 il persuadait le coeur de M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, et\ncelui-ci allait le remettre \u00e0 son serviteur pour qu'il l'emmen\u00e2t\nvers les nefs rapides des Akhaiens; mais Agamemn\u00f4n vint en courant\nau-devant de lui, et lui cria cette dure parole:\n\n-- \u00d4 l\u00e2che M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, pourquoi prendre ainsi piti\u00e9 des hommes?\nCertes, les Troiens ont accompli d'excellentes actions dans ta\ndemeure! que nul n'\u00e9vite une fin terrible et n'\u00e9chappe de nos\nmains! pas m\u00eame l'enfant dans le sein de sa m\u00e8re! qu'ils meurent\ntous avec Ilios, sans s\u00e9pulture et sans m\u00e9moire!\n\nPar ces paroles \u00e9quitables, le h\u00e9ros changea l'esprit de son fr\u00e8re\nqui repoussa le h\u00e9ros Adr\u00e8stos. Et le roi Agamemn\u00f4n le frappa au\nfront et le renversa, et l'Atr\u00e9ide, lui mettant le pied sur la\npoitrine, arracha la lance de fr\u00eane.\n\nEt Nest\u00f4r, \u00e0 haute voix, animait les Argiens:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis, h\u00e9ros Danaens, serviteurs d'Ar\u00e8s, que nul ne s'attarde,\ndans son d\u00e9sir des d\u00e9pouilles et pour en porter beaucoup vers les\nnefs! Tuons des hommes! Vous d\u00e9pouillerez ensuite \u00e0 loisir les\nmorts couch\u00e9s dans la plaine!\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il excitait la force et le courage de chacun.\nEt les Troiens, dompt\u00e9s par leur l\u00e2chet\u00e9, eussent regagn\u00e9 la haute\nIlios, devant les Akhaiens chers \u00e0 Ar\u00e8s, si le Priamide H\u00e9l\u00e9nos,\nle plus illustre de tous les divinateurs, ayant abord\u00e9 Ain\u00e9ias et\nHekt\u00f4r, ne leur e\u00fbt dit:\n\n-- Ain\u00e9ias et Hekt\u00f4r, puisque le fardeau des Troiens et des\nLykiens p\u00e8se tout entier sur vous qui \u00eates les princes du combat\net des d\u00e9lib\u00e9rations, debout ici, arr\u00eatez de toutes parts ce\npeuple devant les portes, avant qu'ils se r\u00e9fugient tous jusque\ndans les bras des femmes et soient en ris\u00e9e aux ennemis. Et quand\nvous aurez exhort\u00e9 toutes les phalanges, nous combattrons,\nin\u00e9branlables, contre les Danaens, bien que rompus de lassitude;\nmais la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 le veut. Puis, Hekt\u00f4r, rends-toi \u00e0 la ville, et\ndis \u00e0 notre m\u00e8re qu'ayant r\u00e9uni les femmes \u00e2g\u00e9es dans le temple\nd'Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs, au sommet de la citadelle, et ouvrant\nles portes de la maison sacr\u00e9e, elle pose sur les genoux d'Ath\u00e8n\u00e8\n\u00e0 la belle chevelure le p\u00e9plos le plus riche et le plus grand qui\nsoit dans sa demeure, et celui qu'elle aime le plus; et qu'elle\ns'engage \u00e0 sacrifier dans son temple douze g\u00e9nisses d'un an encore\nindompt\u00e9es, si elle prend piti\u00e9 de la ville et des femmes\nTroiennes et de leurs enfants, et si elle d\u00e9tourne de la sainte\nIlios le fils de Tydeus, le f\u00e9roce guerrier qui r\u00e9pand le plus de\nterreur et qui est, je pense, le plus brave des Akhaiens. Jamais\nnous n'avons autant redout\u00e9 Akhilleus, ce chef des hommes, et\nqu'on dit le fils d'une d\u00e9esse; car Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s est plein d'une\ngrande fureur, et nul ne peut \u00e9galer son courage.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Hekt\u00f4r ob\u00e9it \u00e0 son fr\u00e8re. Et il sauta hors du\nchar avec ses armes, et, agitant deux lances aigu\u00ebs, il allait de\ntous c\u00f4t\u00e9s par l'arm\u00e9e, excitant au combat, et il suscita une rude\nbataille. Et tous, s'\u00e9tant retourn\u00e9s, firent t\u00eate aux Akhaiens; et\nceux-ci, reculant, cess\u00e8rent le carnage, car ils croyaient qu'un\nimmortel \u00e9tait descendu de l'Ouranos \u00e9toil\u00e9 pour secourir les\nTroiens, ces derniers revenant ainsi \u00e0 la charge. Et, d'une voix\nhaute, Hekt\u00f4r excitait les Troiens:\n\n-- Braves Troiens, et vous, alli\u00e9s venus de si loin, soyez des\nhommes! Souvenez-vous de tout votre courage, tandis que j'irai\nvers Ilios dire \u00e0 nos vieillards prudents et \u00e0 nos femmes de\nsupplier les dieux et de leur vouer des h\u00e9catombes.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, Hekt\u00f4r au beau casque s'\u00e9loigna, et le cuir\nnoir qui bordait tout autour l'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 du bouclier arrondi\nheurtait ses talons et son cou.\n\nEt Glaukos, fils de Hippolokhos, et le fils de Tydeus, prompts \u00e0\ncombattre, s'avanc\u00e8rent entre les deux arm\u00e9es. Et quand ils furent\nen face l'un de l'autre, le premier, Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s hardi au combat lui\nparla ainsi:\n\n-- Qui es-tu entre les hommes mortels, \u00f4 tr\u00e8s brave? Je ne t'ai\njamais vu jusqu'ici dans le combat qui glorifie les guerriers; et\ncertes, maintenant, tu l'emportes de beaucoup sur eux tous par ta\nfermet\u00e9, puisque tu as attendu ma longue lance. Ce sont les fils\ndes malheureux qui s'opposent \u00e0 mon courage. Mais si tu es quelque\nimmortel, et si tu viens de l'Ouranos, je ne combattrai point\ncontre les Ouraniens. Car le fils de Dryas, le brave Lykoorgos, ne\nv\u00e9cut pas longtemps, lui qui combattait contre les dieux\nouraniens. Et il poursuivait, sur le sacr\u00e9 Nysa, les nourrices du\nfurieux Dionysos; et celles-ci, frapp\u00e9es du fouet du tueur\nd'hommes Lykoorgos, jet\u00e8rent leurs Thyrses; et Dionysos, effray\u00e9,\nsauta dans la mer, et Th\u00e9tis le re\u00e7ut dans son sein, tremblant et\nsaisi d'un grand frisson \u00e0 cause des menaces du guerrier. Et les\ndieux qui vivent en repos furent irrit\u00e9s contre celui-ci; et le\nfils de Kronos le rendit aveugle, et il ne v\u00e9cut pas longtemps,\nparce qu'il \u00e9tait odieux \u00e0 tous les immortels. Moi, je ne voudrais\npoint combattre contre les dieux heureux. Mais si tu es un des\nmortels qui mangent les fruits de la terre, approche, afin\nd'atteindre plus promptement aux bornes de la mort.\n\nEt l'illustre fils de Hippolokhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Magnanime Tyd\u00e9ide, pourquoi t'informes-tu de ma race? La\ng\u00e9n\u00e9ration des hommes est semblable \u00e0 celle des feuilles. Le vent\nr\u00e9pand les feuilles sur la terre, et la for\u00eat germe et en produit\nde nouvelles, et le temps du printemps arrive. C'est ainsi que la\ng\u00e9n\u00e9ration des hommes na\u00eet et s'\u00e9teint. Mais si tu veux savoir\nquelle est ma race que connaissent de nombreux guerriers, sache\nqu'il est une ville, \u00c9phyr\u00e8, au fond de la terre d'Argos f\u00e9conde\nen chevaux. L\u00e0 v\u00e9cut Sisyphos, le plus rus\u00e9 des hommes, Sisyphos\nAiolid\u00e8s; et il engendra Glaukos, et Glaukos engendra\nl'irr\u00e9prochable Bell\u00e9rophont\u00e8s, \u00e0 qui les dieux donn\u00e8rent la\nbeaut\u00e9 et la vigueur charmante. Mais Proitos, qui \u00e9tait le plus\npuissant des Argiens, car Zeus les avait soumis \u00e0 son sceptre, eut\ncontre lui de mauvaises pens\u00e9es et le chassa de son peuple. Car la\nfemme de Proitos, la divine Ant\u00e9ia, d\u00e9sira ardemment s'unir au\nfils de Glaukos par un amour secret; mais elle ne persuada point\nle sage et prudent Bell\u00e9rophont\u00e8s; et, pleine de mensonge, elle\nparla ainsi au roi Proitos:\n\n-- Meurs, Proitos, ou tue Bell\u00e9rophont\u00e8s qui, par violence, a\nvoulu s'unir d'amour \u00e0 moi.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et, \u00e0 ces paroles, la col\u00e8re saisit le roi. Et\nil ne tua point Bell\u00e9rophont\u00e8s, redoutant pieusement ce meurtre\ndans son esprit; mais il l'envoya en Lyki\u00e8 avec des tablettes o\u00f9\nil avait trac\u00e9 des signes de mort, afin qu'il les rem\u00eet \u00e0 son\nbeau-p\u00e8re et que celui-ci le tu\u00e2t. Et Bell\u00e9rophont\u00e8s alla en Lyki\u00e8\nsous les heureux auspices des dieux. Et quand il y fut arriv\u00e9, sur\nles bords du rapide Xanthos, le roi de la grande Lyki\u00e8 le re\u00e7ut\navec honneur, lui fut hospitalier pendant neuf jours et sacrifia\nneuf boeufs. Mais quand E\u00f4s aux doigts ros\u00e9s reparut pour la\ndixi\u00e8me fois, alors il l'interrogea et demanda \u00e0 voir les signes\nenvoy\u00e9s par son gendre Proitos. Et, quand il les eut vus, il lui\nordonna d'abord de tuer l'indomptable Khimaira. Celle-ci \u00e9tait n\u00e9e\ndes dieux et non des hommes, lion par devant, dragon par\nl'arri\u00e8re, et ch\u00e8vre par le milieu du corps. Et elle soufflait des\nflammes violentes. Mais il la tua, s'\u00e9tant fi\u00e9 aux prodiges des\ndieux. Puis, il combattit les Solymes illustres, et il disait\navoir entrepris l\u00e0 le plus rude combat des guerriers. Enfin il tua\nles Amazones viriles. Comme il revenait, le roi lui tendit un\npi\u00e8ge rus\u00e9, ayant choisi et plac\u00e9 en embuscade les plus braves\nguerriers de la grande Lyki\u00e8. Mais nul d'entre eux ne revit sa\ndemeure, car l'irr\u00e9prochable Bell\u00e9rophont\u00e8s les tua tous. Et le\nroi connut alors que cet homme \u00e9tait de la race illustre d'un\ndieu, et il le retint et lui donna sa fille et la moiti\u00e9 de sa\ndomination royale. Et les Lykiens lui choisirent un domaine, le\nmeilleur de tous, plein d'arbres et de champs, afin qu'il le\ncultiv\u00e2t. Et sa femme donna trois enfants au brave Bell\u00e9rophont\u00e8s:\nIsandros, Hippolokhos et Laodam\u00e9ia. Et le sage Zeus s'unit \u00e0\nLaodam\u00e9ia, et elle enfanta le divin Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n couvert d'airain.\nMais quand Bell\u00e9rophont\u00e8s fut en haine aux dieux, il errait seul\ndans le d\u00e9sert d'Al\u00e8ios. Ar\u00e8s insatiable de guerre tua son fils\nIsandros, tandis que celui-ci combattait les illustres Solymes.\nArt\u00e9mis aux r\u00eanes d'or, irrit\u00e9e, tua Laodam\u00e9ia; et Hippolokhos m'a\nengendr\u00e9, et je dis que je suis n\u00e9 de lui. Et il m'a envoy\u00e9 \u00e0\nTroi\u00e8, m'ordonnant d'\u00eatre le premier parmi les plus braves, afin\nde ne point d\u00e9shonorer la g\u00e9n\u00e9ration de mes p\u00e8res qui ont habit\u00e9\n\u00c9phyr\u00e8 et la grande Lyki\u00e8. Je me glorifie d'\u00eatre de cette race et\nde ce sang.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s brave au combat fut joyeux, et il\nenfon\u00e7a sa lance dans la terre nourrici\u00e8re, et il dit avec\nbienveillance au prince des peuples:\n\n-- Tu es certainement mon ancien h\u00f4te paternel. Autrefois, le\nnoble Oineus re\u00e7ut pendant vingt jours dans ses demeures\nhospitali\u00e8res l'irr\u00e9prochable Bell\u00e9rophont\u00e8s. Et ils se firent de\nbeaux pr\u00e9sents. Oineus donna un splendide ceinturon de pourpre, et\nBell\u00e9rophont\u00e8s donna une coupe d'or tr\u00e8s creuse que j'ai laiss\u00e9e,\nen partant, dans mes demeures. Je ne me souviens point de Tydeus,\ncar il me laissa tout petit quand l'arm\u00e9e des Akhaiens p\u00e9rit\ndevant Th\u00e8b\u00e8. C'est pourquoi je suis un ami pour toi dans Argos,\net tu seras le mien en Lyki\u00e8 quand j'irai vers ce peuple. \u00c9vitons\nnos lances, m\u00eame dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e. J'ai \u00e0 tuer assez d'autres Troiens\nillustres et d'alli\u00e9s, soit qu'un dieu me les am\u00e8ne, soit que je\nles atteigne, et toi assez d'Akhaiens, si tu le peux. Echangeons\nnos armes, afin que tous sachent que nous sommes des h\u00f4tes\npaternels.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9 tous deux, ils descendirent de leurs chars et se\nserr\u00e8rent la main et \u00e9chang\u00e8rent leur foi. Mais le Kronide Zeus\ntroubla l'esprit de Glaukos qui donna au Tyd\u00e9ide Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s des\narmes d'or du prix de cent boeufs pour des armes d'airain du prix\nde neuf boeufs.\n\nD\u00e8s que Hekt\u00f4r fut arriv\u00e9 aux portes Skaies et au h\u00eatre, toutes\nles femmes et toutes les filles des Troiens couraient autour de\nlui, s'inqui\u00e9tant de leurs fils, de leurs fr\u00e8res, de leurs\nconcitoyens et de leurs maris. Et il leur ordonna de supplier\ntoutes ensemble les dieux, un grand deuil \u00e9tant r\u00e9serv\u00e9 \u00e0 beaucoup\nd'entre elles. Et quand il fut parvenu \u00e0 la belle demeure de\nPriamos aux portiques \u00e9clatants, -- et l\u00e0 s'\u00e9levaient cinquante\nchambres nuptiales de pierre polie, construites les unes aupr\u00e8s\ndes autres, o\u00f9 couchaient les fils de Priamos avec leurs femmes\nl\u00e9gitimes; et, en face, dans la cour, \u00e9taient douze hautes\nchambres nuptiales de pierre polie, construites les unes aupr\u00e8s\ndes autres, o\u00f9 couchaient les gendres de Priamos avec leurs femmes\nchastes, -- sa m\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable vint au-devant de lui, comme elle\nallait chez Laodik\u00e8, la plus belle de ses filles, et elle lui prit\nla main et parla ainsi:\n\n-- Enfant, pourquoi as-tu quitt\u00e9 la rude bataille? Les fils odieux\ndes Akhaiens nous pressent sans doute et combattent autour de la\nville, et tu es venu tendre les mains vers Zeus, dans la\ncitadelle? Attends un peu, et je t'apporterai un vin mielleux afin\nque tu en fasses des libations au p\u00e8re Zeus et aux autres\nimmortels, et que tu sois ranim\u00e9, en ayant bu; car le vin augmente\nla force du guerrier fatigu\u00e9; et ta fatigue a \u00e9t\u00e9 grande, tandis\nque tu d\u00e9fendais tes concitoyens.\n\nEt le grand Hekt\u00f4r au casque mouvant lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ne m'apporte pas un vin mielleux, m\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable, de peur que\ntu m'affaiblisses et que je perde force et courage. Je craindrais\nde faire des libations de vin pur \u00e0 Zeus avec des mains souill\u00e9es,\ncar il n'est point permis, plein de sang et de poussi\u00e8re,\nd'implorer le Kr\u00f4ni\u00f4n qui amasse les nu\u00e9es. Donc, porte des\nparfums et r\u00e9unis les femmes \u00e2g\u00e9es dans le temple d'Ath\u00e8n\u00e8\nd\u00e9vastatrice; et d\u00e9pose sur les genoux d'Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 \u00e0 la belle\nchevelure le p\u00e9plos le plus riche et le plus grand qui soit dans\nta demeure, et celui que tu aimes le plus; et promets de sacrifier\ndans son temple douze g\u00e9nisses d'un an, encore indompt\u00e9es, si elle\nprend piti\u00e9 de la ville et des femmes Troiennes et de leurs\nenfants, et si elle d\u00e9tourne de la sainte Ilios le fils de Tydeus,\nle f\u00e9roce guerrier qui r\u00e9pand le plus de terreur. Va donc au\ntemple d'Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 d\u00e9vastatrice, et moi, j'irai vers P\u00e2ris, afin de\nl'appeler, si pourtant il veut entendre ma voix. Pl\u00fbt aux dieux\nque la terre s'ouvr\u00eet sous lui! car l'Olympien l'a certainement\nnourri pour la ruine enti\u00e8re des Troiens, du magnanime Priamos et\nde ses fils. Si je le voyais descendre chez Aid\u00e8s, mon \u00e2me serait\nd\u00e9livr\u00e9e de ses am\u00e8res douleurs.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et H\u00e9kab\u00e8 se rendit \u00e0 sa demeure et commanda aux\nservantes; et celles-ci, par la ville, r\u00e9unirent les femmes \u00e2g\u00e9es.\nPuis H\u00e9kab\u00e8 entra dans sa chambre nuptiale parfum\u00e9e o\u00f9 \u00e9taient des\np\u00e9plos diversement peints, ouvrage des femmes Sidoniennes que le\ndivin Alexandros avait ramen\u00e9es de Sid\u00f4n, dans sa navigation sur\nla haute mer par o\u00f9 il avait conduit H\u00e9l\u00e8n\u00e8 n\u00e9e d'un p\u00e8re divin.\nEt, pour l'offrir \u00e0 Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, H\u00e9kab\u00e8 en prit un, le plus beau, le\nplus vari\u00e9 et le plus grand; et il brillait comme une \u00e9toile et il\n\u00e9tait plac\u00e9 le dernier. Et elle se mit en marche, et les femmes\n\u00e2g\u00e9es la suivaient.\n\nEt quand elles furent arriv\u00e9es dans le temple d'Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, Th\u00e9an\u00f4 aux\nbelles joues, fille de Kiss\u00e8is, femme du dompteur de chevaux\nAnt\u00e8n\u00f4r, leur ouvrit les portes, car les Troiens l'avaient faite\npr\u00eatresse d'Ath\u00e8n\u00e8. Et toutes, avec un g\u00e9missement, tendirent les\nmains vers Ath\u00e8n\u00e8. Et Th\u00e9an\u00f4 aux belles joues, ayant re\u00e7u le\np\u00e9plos, le d\u00e9posa sur les genoux d'Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 \u00e0 la belle chevelure,\net, en le lui vouant, elle priait la fille du grand Zeus:\n\n-- V\u00e9n\u00e9rable Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, gardienne de la ville, tr\u00e8s divine d\u00e9esse,\nbrise la lance de Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s, et fais-le tomber lui-m\u00eame devant les\nportes Skaies, afin que nous te sacrifiions dans ton temple douze\ng\u00e9nisses d'un an, encore indompt\u00e9es, si tu prends piti\u00e9 de la\nville, des femmes Troiennes et de leurs enfants.\n\nElle parla ainsi dans son voeu, et elles suppliaient ainsi la\nfille du grand Zeus; mais Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 les refusa.\n\nEt Hekt\u00f4r gagna les belles demeures d'Alexandros, que celui-ci\navait construites lui-m\u00eame \u00e0 l'aide des meilleurs ouvriers de la\nriche Troi\u00e8. Et ils avaient construit une chambre nuptiale, une\nmaison et une cour, aupr\u00e8s des demeures de Priamos et de Hekt\u00f4r,\nau sommet de la citadelle. Ce fut l\u00e0 que Hekt\u00f4r, cher \u00e0 Zeus,\nentra. Et il tenait \u00e0 la main une lance haute de dix coud\u00e9es; et\nune pointe d'airain \u00e9tincelait \u00e0 l'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 de la lance, fix\u00e9e\npar un anneau d'or. Et, dans la chambre nuptiale, il trouva\nAlexandros qui s'occupait de ses belles armes, polissant son\nbouclier, sa cuirasse et ses arcs recourb\u00e9s. Et l'Argienne H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8\n\u00e9tait assise au milieu de ses femmes, dirigeant leurs beaux\ntravaux.\n\nEt Hekt\u00f4r, ayant regard\u00e9 P\u00e2ris, lui dit ces paroles outrageantes:\n\n-- Mis\u00e9rable! la col\u00e8re que tu as ressentie n'\u00e9tait point bonne.\nNos troupes p\u00e9rissent autour de la ville, sous les hautes\nmurailles. Gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 toi, les clameurs de la guerre montent avec\nfureur autour de cette ville, et tu bl\u00e2merais toi-m\u00eame celui que\ntu verrais s'\u00e9loigner de la rude bataille. L\u00e8ve-toi donc, si tu ne\nveux voir la ville consum\u00e9e bient\u00f4t par la flamme ardente.\n\nEt le divin Alexandros lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Hekt\u00f4r, puisque tu ne m'as point bl\u00e2m\u00e9 avec violence, mais dans\nla juste mesure, je te r\u00e9pondrai. Je ne restais point dans ma\nchambre nuptiale par col\u00e8re ou par indignation contre les Troiens,\nmais pour me livrer \u00e0 la douleur. Maintenant que mon \u00e9pouse me\nconseille par de douces paroles de retourner au combat, je crois,\ncomme elle, que cela est pour le mieux. La victoire exauce tour \u00e0\ntour les guerriers. Mais attends que je rev\u00eate mes armes\nbelliqueuses, ou pr\u00e9c\u00e8de-moi, je vais te suivre.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Hekt\u00f4r ne lui r\u00e9pondit rien; et H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 dit \u00e0\nHekt\u00f4r ces douces paroles:\n\n-- Mon fr\u00e8re, fr\u00e8re d'une mis\u00e9rable chienne de malheur, et\nhorrible! Pl\u00fbt aux dieux qu'au jour m\u00eame o\u00f9 ma m\u00e8re m'enfanta un\nfurieux souffle de vent m'e\u00fbt emport\u00e9e sur une montagne ou ab\u00eem\u00e9e\ndans la mer tumultueuse, et que l'onde m'e\u00fbt engloutie, avant que\nces choses fussent arriv\u00e9es! Mais, puisque les dieux avaient\nr\u00e9solu ces maux, je voudrais \u00eatre la femme d'un meilleur guerrier,\net qui souffr\u00eet au moins de l'indignation et des ex\u00e9crations des\nhommes. Mais celui-ci n'a point un coeur in\u00e9branlable, et il ne\nl'aura jamais, et je pense qu'il en portera bient\u00f4t la peine.\nViens, mon fr\u00e8re, entre et prends ce si\u00e8ge, car ton \u00e2me est pleine\nd'un lourd souci, gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 moi, chienne que je suis, et gr\u00e2ce au\ncrime d'Alexandros. Zeus nous a fait \u00e0 tous deux une mauvaise\ndestin\u00e9e, afin que nous soyons c\u00e9l\u00e8bres par l\u00e0 chez les hommes qui\nna\u00eetront dans l'avenir.\n\nEt le grand Hekt\u00f4r au casque mouvant lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ne me fais point asseoir, H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8, bien que tu m'aimes, car tu\nne me persuaderas point. Mon coeur est plein du d\u00e9sir de secourir\nles Troiens qui regrettent vivement mon absence. Mais excite\nP\u00e2ris, et qu'il se h\u00e2te de me suivre, tandis que je serai encore\ndans la ville. Je vais, dans ma demeure, revoir mes serviteurs, ma\nfemme bien-aim\u00e9e et mon petit enfant. Je ne sais s'il me sera\npermis de les revoir jamais plus, ou si les dieux me dompteront\npar les mains des Akhaiens.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, Hekt\u00f4r au casque mouvant sortit et parvint\nbient\u00f4t \u00e0 ses demeures, et il n'y trouva point Andromakh\u00e8 aux bras\nblancs, car elle \u00e9tait sortie avec son fils et une servante au\nbeau p\u00e9plos, et elle se tenait sur la tour, pleurant et g\u00e9missant.\nHekt\u00f4r, n'ayant point trouv\u00e9 dans ses demeures sa femme\nirr\u00e9prochable, s'arr\u00eata sur le seuil et parla ainsi aux servantes:\n\n-- Venez, servantes, et dites-moi la v\u00e9rit\u00e9. O\u00f9 est all\u00e9e, hors\ndes demeures, Andromakh\u00e8 aux bras blancs? Est-ce chez mes soeurs,\nou chez mes belles-soeurs au beau p\u00e9plos, ou dans le temple\nd'Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 avec les autres Troiennes qui apaisent la puissante\nd\u00e9esse \u00e0 la belle chevelure?\n\nEt la vigilante intendante lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Hekt\u00f4r, puisque tu veux que nous disions la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, elle n'est\npoint all\u00e9e chez tes soeurs, ni chez tes belles-soeurs au beau\np\u00e9plos, ni dans le temple d'Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 avec les autres Troiennes qui\napaisent la puissante d\u00e9esse \u00e0 la belle chevelure; mais elle est\nau fa\u00eete de la vaste tour d'Ilios, ayant appris une grande\nvictoire des Akhaiens sur les Troiens. Et, pleine d'\u00e9garement,\nelle s'est h\u00e2t\u00e9e de courir aux murailles, et la nourrice, aupr\u00e8s\nd'elle, portait l'enfant.\n\nEt la femme intendante parla ainsi. Hekt\u00f4r, \u00e9tant sorti de ses\ndemeures, reprit son chemin \u00e0 travers les rues magnifiquement\nconstruites et populeuses, et, traversant la grande ville, il\narriva aux portes Skaies par o\u00f9 il devait sortir dans la plaine.\nEt sa femme, qui lui apporta une riche dot, accourut au-devant de\nlui, Andromakh\u00e8, fille du magnanime \u00ca\u00e9ti\u00f4n qui habita sous le\nPlakos couvert de for\u00eats, dans Th\u00e8b\u00e8 Hypoplakienne, et qui\ncommanda aux Kilikiens. Et sa fille \u00e9tait la femme de Hekt\u00f4r au\ncasque d'airain. Et quand elle vint au-devant de lui, une servante\nl'accompagnait qui portait sur le sein son jeune fils, petit\nenfant encore, le Hektor\u00e9ide bien-aim\u00e9, semblable \u00e0 une belle\n\u00e9toile. Hekt\u00f4r le nommait Skamandrios, mais les autres Troiens\nAstyanax, parce que Hekt\u00f4r seul prot\u00e9geait Troi\u00e8. Et il sourit en\nregardant son fils en silence; mais Andromakh\u00e8, se tenant aupr\u00e8s\nde lui en pleurant, prit sa main et lui parla ainsi:\n\n-- Malheureux, ton courage te perdra; et tu n'as piti\u00e9 ni de ton\nfils enfant, ni de moi, mis\u00e9rable, qui serai bient\u00f4t ta veuve, car\nles Akhaiens te tueront en se ruant tous contre toi. Il vaudrait\nmieux pour moi, apr\u00e8s t'avoir perdu, subir la s\u00e9pulture, car rien\nne me consolera quand tu auras accompli ta destin\u00e9e, et il ne me\nrestera que mes douleurs. Je n'ai plus ni mon p\u00e8re ni ma m\u00e8re\nv\u00e9n\u00e9rable. Le divin Akhilleus tua mon p\u00e8re, quand il saccagea la\nville populeuse des Kilikiens, Th\u00e8b\u00e8 aux portes hautes. Il tua\n\u00ca\u00e9ti\u00f4n, mais il ne le d\u00e9pouilla point, par un respect pieux. Il le\nbr\u00fbla avec ses belles armes et il lui \u00e9leva un tombeau, et les\nnymphes orestiades, filles de Zeus temp\u00e9tueux, plant\u00e8rent des\normes autour. J'avais sept fr\u00e8res dans nos demeures; et tous\ndescendirent en un jour chez Aid\u00e8s, car le divin Akhilleus aux\npieds rapides les tua tous, aupr\u00e8s de leurs boeufs aux pieds lents\net de leurs blanches brebis. Et il emmena, avec les autres\nd\u00e9pouilles, ma m\u00e8re qui r\u00e9gnait sous le Plakos plant\u00e9 d'arbres, et\nil l'affranchit bient\u00f4t pour une grande ran\u00e7on; mais Art\u00e9mis qui\nse r\u00e9jouit de ses fl\u00e8ches la per\u00e7a dans nos demeures. Hekt\u00f4r! Tu\nes pour moi un p\u00e8re, une m\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable, un fr\u00e8re et un \u00e9poux\nplein de jeunesse! Aie piti\u00e9! Reste sur cette tour; ne fais point\nton fils orphelin et ta femme veuve. R\u00e9unis l'arm\u00e9e aupr\u00e8s de ce\nfiguier sauvage o\u00f9 l'acc\u00e8s de la ville est le plus facile. D\u00e9j\u00e0,\ntrois fois, les plus courageux des Akhaiens ont tent\u00e9 cet assaut,\nles deux Aias, l'illustre Idom\u00e9neus, les Atr\u00e9ides et le brave fils\nde Tydeus, soit par le conseil d'un divinateur, soit par le seul\n\u00e9lan de leur courage.\n\nEt le grand Hekt\u00f4r au casque mouvant lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Certes, femme, ces inqui\u00e9tudes me poss\u00e8dent aussi, mais je\nredouterais cruellement les Troiens et les Troiennes aux longs\np\u00e9plos tra\u00eenants, si, comme un l\u00e2che, je fuyais le combat. Et mon\ncoeur ne me pousse point \u00e0 fuir, car j'ai appris \u00e0 \u00eatre toujours\naudacieux et \u00e0 combattre, parmi les premiers, pour la gloire de\nmon p\u00e8re et pour la mienne. Je sais, dans mon esprit et dans mon\ncoeur, qu'un jour viendra o\u00f9 la sainte Troi\u00e8 p\u00e9rira, et Priamos,\net le brave peuple de Priamos. Mais ni le malheur futur des\nTroiens ni celui de H\u00e9kab\u00e8 elle-m\u00eame, du roi Priamos et de mes\nfr\u00e8res courageux qui tomberont en foule sous les guerriers\nennemis, ne m'afflige autant que le tien, quand un Akhaien\ncuirass\u00e9 d'airain te ravira la libert\u00e9 et t'emm\u00e8nera pleurante! Et\ntu tisseras la toile de l'\u00e9tranger, et tu porteras de force l'eau\nde Mess\u00e8is et de Hyp\u00e9r\u00e9i\u00e8, car la dure n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 le voudra. Et,\nsans doute, quelqu'un dira, te voyant r\u00e9pandre des larmes: --\nCelle-ci est la femme de Hekt\u00f4r qui \u00e9tait le plus brave des\nTroiens dompteurs de chevaux quand il combattait autour de Troi\u00e8.\u0092\n-- Quelqu'un dira cela, et tu seras d\u00e9chir\u00e9e d'une grande douleur,\nen songeant \u00e0 cet \u00e9poux que tu auras perdu, et qui, seul, pourrait\nfinir ta servitude. Mais que la lourde terre me recouvre mort,\navant que j'entende tes cris et que je te voie arracher d'ici!\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, l'illustre Hekt\u00f4r tendit les mains vers son\nfils, mais l'enfant se rejeta en arri\u00e8re dans le sein de la\nnourrice \u00e0 la belle ceinture, \u00e9pouvant\u00e9 \u00e0 l'aspect de son p\u00e8re\nbien-aim\u00e9, et de l'airain et de la queue de cheval qui s'agitait\nterriblement sur le c\u00f4ne du casque. Et le p\u00e8re bien-aim\u00e9 sourit et\nla m\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable aussi. Et l'illustre Hekt\u00f4r \u00f4ta son casque et le\nd\u00e9posa resplendissant sur la terre. Et il baisa son fils bien-\naim\u00e9, et, le ber\u00e7ant dans ses bras, il supplia Zeus et les autres\ndieux:\n\n-- Zeus, et vous, dieux, faites que mon fils s'illustre comme moi\nparmi les Troiens, qu'il soit plein de force et qu'il r\u00e8gne\npuissamment dans Troi\u00e8! Qu'on dise un jour, le voyant revenir du\ncombat: Celui-ci est plus brave que son p\u00e8re! Qu'ayant tu\u00e9 le\nguerrier ennemi, il rapporte de sanglantes d\u00e9pouilles, et que le\ncoeur de sa m\u00e8re en soit r\u00e9joui!\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il d\u00e9posa son enfant entre les bras de sa femme\nbien-aim\u00e9e, qui le re\u00e7ut sur son sein parfum\u00e9, en pleurant et en\nsouriant; et le guerrier, voyant cela, la caressa de la main et\nlui dit:\n\n-- Malheureuse, ne te d\u00e9sesp\u00e8re point \u00e0 cause de moi. Aucun\nguerrier ne m'enverra chez Aid\u00e8s contre ma destin\u00e9e, et nul homme\nvivant ne peut fuir sa destin\u00e9e, l\u00e2che ou brave. Mais retourne\ndans tes demeures, prends soin de tes travaux, de la toile et de\nla quenouille, et mets tes servantes \u00e0 leur t\u00e2che. Le souci de la\nguerre appartient \u00e0 tous les guerriers qui sont n\u00e9s dans Ilios, et\nsurtout \u00e0 moi.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, l'illustre Hekt\u00f4r reprit son casque \u00e0 flottante\nqueue de cheval. Et l'\u00e9pouse bien-aim\u00e9e retourna vers ses\ndemeures, regardant en arri\u00e8re et versant des larmes. Et aussit\u00f4t\nqu'elle fut arriv\u00e9e aux demeures du tueur d'hommes Hekt\u00f4r, elle y\ntrouva ses nombreuses servantes en proie \u00e0 une grande douleur. Et\ncelles-ci pleuraient, dans ses demeures, Hekt\u00f4r encore vivant, ne\npensant pas qu'il rev\u00eent jamais plus du combat, ayant \u00e9chapp\u00e9 aux\nmains guerri\u00e8res des Akhaiens.\n\nEt P\u00e2ris ne s'attardait point dans ses hautes demeures mais, ayant\nrev\u00eatu ses armes excellentes, d'un airain vari\u00e9, il parcourait la\nville, de ses pieds rapides, tel qu'un \u00e9talon qui, longtemps\nnourri d'orge \u00e0 la cr\u00e8che, ses liens \u00e9tant rompus, court dans la\nplaine en frappant la terre et saute dans le fleuve au beau cours\no\u00f9 il a coutume de se baigner. Et il redresse la t\u00eate, et ses\ncrins flottent \u00e9pars sur ses \u00e9paules, et, fier de sa beaut\u00e9, ses\njarrets le portent d'un trait aux lieux o\u00f9 paissent les chevaux.\nAinsi P\u00e2ris Priamide, sous ses armes \u00e9clatantes comme l'\u00e9clair,\ndescendait de la hauteur de Pergamos; et ses pieds rapides le\nportaient; et voici qu'il rencontra le divin Hekt\u00f4r, son fr\u00e8re,\ncomme celui-ci quittait le lieu o\u00f9 il s'\u00e9tait entretenu avec\nAndromakh\u00e8.\n\nEt, le premier, le roi Alexandros lui dit:\n\n-- Fr\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9r\u00e9, sans doute je t'ai retard\u00e9 et je ne suis point\nvenu promptement comme tu me l'avais ordonn\u00e9.\n\nHekt\u00f4r au casque mouvant lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ami, aucun guerrier, avec \u00e9quit\u00e9, ne peut te bl\u00e2mer dans le\ncombat, car tu es brave; mais tu te lasses vite, et tu refuses\nalors de combattre, et mon coeur est attrist\u00e9 par les outrages que\nt'adressent les Troiens qui subissent tant de maux \u00e0 cause de toi.\nMais, allons! et nous apaiserons ces ressentiments, si Zeus nous\ndonne d'offrir un jour, dans nos demeures, un libre krat\u00e8re aux\ndieux ouraniens qui vivent toujours, apr\u00e8s avoir chass\u00e9 loin de\nTroi\u00e8 les Akhaiens aux belles kn\u00e8mides.\n\n\nChant 7\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, l'illustre Hekt\u00f4r sortit des portes, et son\nfr\u00e8re Alexandros l'accompagnait, et tous deux, dans leur coeur,\n\u00e9taient pleins du d\u00e9sir de combattre. Comme un dieu envoie un vent\npropice aux matelots suppliants qui se sont \u00e9puis\u00e9s \u00e0 battre la\nmer de leurs avirons polis, de sorte que leurs membres sont rompus\nde fatigue, de m\u00eame les Priamides apparurent aux Troiens qui les\nd\u00e9siraient.\n\nEt aussit\u00f4t Alexandros tua le fils du roi Ar\u00e8ithoos, M\u00e9n\u00e8sthios,\nqui habitait dans Arn\u00e8, et que Ar\u00e8ithoos qui combattait avec une\nmassue engendra de Philom\u00e9dousa aux yeux de boeuf. Et Hekt\u00f4r tua,\nde sa pique aigu\u00eb, Eion\u00e8os; et l'airain le frappa au cou, sous le\ncasque, et brisa ses forces. Et Glaukos, fils de Hippolokhos, chef\ndes Lykiens, blessa, de sa pique, entre les \u00e9paules, au milieu de\nla m\u00eal\u00e9e, Iphinoos Dexiade qui sautait sur ses chevaux rapides. Et\nil tomba sur la terre, et ses forces furent bris\u00e9es.\n\nEt la divine Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs, ayant vu les Argiens qui\np\u00e9rissaient dans la rude bataille, descendit \u00e0 la h\u00e2te du fa\u00eete de\nl'Olympos devant la sainte Ilios, et Apoll\u00f4n accourut vers elle,\nvoulant donner la victoire aux Troiens, et l'ayant vue de la\nhauteur de Pergamos. Et ils se rencontr\u00e8rent aupr\u00e8s du h\u00eatre, et\nle roi Apoll\u00f4n, fils de Zeus, parla le premier:\n\n-- Pourquoi, pleine d'ardeur, viens-tu de nouveau de l'Olympos,\nfille du grand Zeus? Est-ce pour assurer aux Danaens la victoire\ndouteuse? Car tu n'as nulle piti\u00e9 des Troiens qui p\u00e9rissent. Mais,\nsi tu veux m'en croire, ceci sera pour le mieux. Arr\u00eatons pour\naujourd'hui la guerre et le combat. Tous lutteront ensuite jusqu'\u00e0\nla chute de Troi\u00e8, puisqu'il vous pla\u00eet, \u00e0 vous, immortels, de\nrenverser cette ville.\n\nEt la d\u00e9esse aux yeux clairs, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Qu'il en soit ainsi, \u00f4 archer! C'est dans ce m\u00eame dessein que\nje suis venue de l'Olympos vers les Troiens et les Akhaiens. Mais\ncomment arr\u00eateras-tu le combat des guerriers?\n\nEt le roi Apoll\u00f4n, fils de Zeus, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Excitons le solide courage de Hekt\u00f4r dompteur de chevaux, et\nqu'il provoque, seul, un des Danaens \u00e0 combattre un rude combat.\nEt les Akhaiens aux kn\u00e8mides d'airain exciteront un des leurs \u00e0\ncombattre le divin Hekt\u00f4r.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et la divine Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs consentit. Et\nH\u00e9l\u00e9nos, le cher fils de Priamos, devina dans son esprit ce qu'il\navait plu aux dieux de d\u00e9cider, et il s'approcha de Hekt\u00f4r et lui\nparla ainsi:\n\n-- Hekt\u00f4r Priamide, \u00e9gal \u00e0 Zeus en sagesse, voudras-tu m'en\ncroire, moi qui suis ton fr\u00e8re? Fais que les Troiens et tous les\nAkhaiens s'arr\u00eatent, et provoque le plus brave des Akhaiens \u00e0\ncombattre contre toi un rude combat. Ta moire n'est point de\nmourir et de subir aujourd'hui ta destin\u00e9e, car j'ai entendu la\nvoix des dieux qui vivent toujours.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Hekt\u00f4r s'en r\u00e9jouit, et, s'avan\u00e7ant en t\u00eate des\nTroiens, il arr\u00eata leurs phalanges \u00e0 l'aide de la pique qu'il\ntenait par le milieu, et tous s'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent. Et Agamemn\u00f4n contint\naussi les Akhaiens aux belles kn\u00e8mides. Et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 et Apoll\u00f4n qui\nporte l'arc d'argent, semblables \u00e0 des vautours, s'assirent sous\nle h\u00eatre \u00e9lev\u00e9 du p\u00e8re Zeus temp\u00e9tueux qui se r\u00e9jouit des\nguerriers. Et les deux arm\u00e9es, par rangs \u00e9pais, s'assirent,\nh\u00e9riss\u00e9es et brillantes de boucliers, de casques et de piques.\nComme, au souffle de Z\u00e9phyros, l'ombre se r\u00e9pand sur la mer qui\ndevient toute noire, de m\u00eame les rangs des Akhaiens et des Troiens\ncouvraient la plaine. Et Hekt\u00f4r leur parla ainsi:\n\n-- \u00c9coutez-moi, Troiens et Akhaiens aux belles kn\u00e8mides, afin que\nje vous dise ce que mon coeur m'ordonne de dire. Le sublime\nKronide n'a point scell\u00e9 notre alliance, mais il songe \u00e0 nous\naccabler tous de calamit\u00e9s, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que vous preniez Troi\u00e8 aux\nfortes tours, ou que vous soyez dompt\u00e9s aupr\u00e8s des nefs qui\nfendent la mer. Puisque vous \u00eates les princes des Panakhaiens, que\ncelui d'entre vous que son courage poussera \u00e0 combattre contre moi\nsorte des rangs et combatte le divin Hekt\u00f4r. Je vous le dis, et\nque Zeus soit t\u00e9moin: si celui-l\u00e0 me tue de sa pique d'airain, me\nd\u00e9pouillant de mes armes, il les emportera dans ses nefs creuses;\nmais il renverra mon corps dans ma demeure, afin que les Troiens\net les femmes des Troiens br\u00fblent mon cadavre sur un b\u00fbcher; et,\nsi je le tue, et qu'Apoll\u00f4n me donne cette gloire, j'emporterai\nses armes dans la sainte Ilios et je les suspendrai dans le temple\nde l'archer Apoll\u00f4n; mais je renverrai son corps aux nefs solides,\nafin que les Akhaiens chevelus l'ensevelissent. Et ils lui\n\u00e9l\u00e8veront un tombeau sur le rivage du large Hell\u00e8spontos. Et\nquelqu'un d'entre les hommes futurs, naviguant sur la noire mer,\ndans sa nef solide, dira, voyant ce tombeau d'un guerrier mort\ndepuis longtemps: -- Celui-ci fut tu\u00e9 autrefois par l'illustre\nHekt\u00f4r dont le courage \u00e9tait grand.\u0092 Il le dira, et ma gloire ne\nmourra jamais.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous rest\u00e8rent muets, n'osant refuser ni\naccepter. Alors M\u00e9n\u00e9laos se leva et dit, plein de reproches, et\nsoupirant profond\u00e9ment:\n\n-- H\u00e9las! Akhaiennes mena\u00e7antes, et non plus Akhaiens! certes,\nceci nous sera un grand opprobre, si aucun des Danaens ne se l\u00e8ve\ncontre Hekt\u00f4r. Mais que la terre et l'eau vous manquent, \u00e0 vous\nqui restez assis sans courage et sans gloire! Moi, je m'armerai\ndonc contre Hekt\u00f4r, car la victoire enfin est entre les mains des\ndieux immortels.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il se couvrait de ses belles armes. Alors,\nM\u00e9n\u00e9laos, tu aurais trouv\u00e9 la fin de ta vie sous les mains de\nHekt\u00f4r, car il \u00e9tait beaucoup plus fort que toi, si les rois des\nAkhaiens, s'\u00e9tant lev\u00e9s, ne t'eussent retenu. Et l'Atr\u00e9ide\nAgamemn\u00f4n qui commande au loin lui prit la main et lui dit:\n\n-- Insens\u00e9 M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, nourrisson de Zeus, d'o\u00f9 te vient cette\nd\u00e9mence? Contiens-toi, malgr\u00e9 ta douleur. Cesse de vouloir\ncombattre contre un meilleur guerrier que toi, le Priamide Hekt\u00f4r,\nque tous redoutent. Akhilleus, qui est beaucoup plus fort que toi\ndans la bataille qui illustre les guerriers, craint de le\nrencontrer. Reste donc assis dans les rangs de tes compagnons, et\nles Akhaiens exciteront un autre combattant. Bien que le Priamide\nsoit brave et insatiable de guerre, je pense qu'il se reposera\nvolontiers, s'il \u00e9chappe \u00e0 ce rude combat.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et l'esprit du h\u00e9ros fut persuad\u00e9 par les paroles\nsages de son fr\u00e8re, et il lui ob\u00e9it. Et ses serviteurs, joyeux,\nenlev\u00e8rent les armes de ses \u00e9paules. Et Nest\u00f4r se leva au milieu\ndes Argiens et dit:\n\n-- Ah! certes, un grand deuil envahit la terre Akhaienne! Et le\nvieux cavalier P\u00e8leus, excellent et sage agor\u00e8te des Myrmid\u00f4nes,\nva g\u00e9mir grandement, lui qui, autrefois, m'interrogeant dans sa\ndemeure, apprenait, plein de joie, quels \u00e9taient les p\u00e8res et les\nfils de tous les Akhaiens! Quand il saura que tous sont \u00e9pouvant\u00e9s\npar Hekt\u00f4r, il \u00e9tendra souvent les mains vers les immortels, afin\nque son \u00e2me, hors de son corps, descende dans la demeure d'Aid\u00e8s!\nPl\u00fbt \u00e0 vous, \u00f4 Zeus, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 et Apoll\u00f4n, que je fusse plein de\njeunesse, comme au temps o\u00f9, pr\u00e8s du rapide K\u00e9ladont\u00e8s, les\nPyliens combattaient les Arkadiens arm\u00e9s de piques, sous les murs\nde Ph\u00e9ia o\u00f9 viennent les eaux courantes du Iardanos. Au milieu\nd'eux \u00e9tait le divin guerrier \u00c9reuthali\u00f4n, portant sur ses \u00e9paules\nles armes du roi Ar\u00e8ithoos, du divin Ar\u00e8ithoos que les hommes et\nles femmes aux belles ceintures appelaient le porte-massue, parce\nqu'il ne combattait ni avec l'arc, ni avec la longue pique, mais\nqu'il rompait les rangs ennemis \u00e0 l'aide d'une massue de fer.\nLykoorgos le tua par ruse, et non par force, dans une route\n\u00e9troite, o\u00f9 la massue de fer ne put \u00e9carter de lui la mort. L\u00e0,\nLykoorgos, le pr\u00e9venant, le per\u00e7a de sa pique dans le milieu du\ncorps, et le renversa sur la terre. Et il le d\u00e9pouilla des armes\nque lui avait donn\u00e9es le rude Ar\u00e8s. D\u00e8s lors, Lykoorgos les porta\ndans la guerre; mais, devenu vieux dans ses demeures, il les donna\n\u00e0 son cher compagnon \u00c9reuthali\u00f4n, qui, \u00e9tant ainsi arm\u00e9,\nprovoquait les plus braves. Et tous tremblaient, pleins de\ncrainte, et nul n'osait. Et mon coeur hardi me poussa \u00e0 combattre,\nconfiant dans mes forces, bien que le plus jeune de tous. Et je\ncombattis, et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 m'accorda la victoire, et je tuai ce tr\u00e8s\nrobuste et tr\u00e8s brave guerrier dont le grand corps couvrit un\nvaste espace. Pl\u00fbt aux dieux que je fusse ainsi plein de jeunesse\net que mes forces fussent intactes! Hekt\u00f4r au casque mouvant\ncommencerait aussit\u00f4t le combat. Mais vous ne vous h\u00e2tez point de\nlutter contre Hekt\u00f4r, vous qui \u00eates les plus braves des\nPanakhaiens.\n\nEt le vieillard leur fit ces reproches, et neuf d'entre eux se\nlev\u00e8rent. Et le premier fut le roi des hommes, Agamemn\u00f4n. Puis, le\nbrave Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s Tyd\u00e9ide se leva. Et apr\u00e8s eux se lev\u00e8rent les Aias\nrev\u00eatus d'une grande force, et Idom\u00e9neus et le compagnon\nd'Idom\u00e9neus, M\u00e8rion\u00e8s, semblable au tueur de guerriers Ar\u00e8s, et\nEurypylos, l'illustre fils d'\u00c9vaim\u00f4n, et Thoas Andraimonide et le\ndivin Odysseus. Tous voulaient combattre contre le divin Hekt\u00f4r.\nEt le cavalier G\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r dit au milieu d'eux:\n\n-- Remuez maintenant tous les sorts, et celui qui sera choisi par\nle sort combattra pour tous les Akhaiens aux belles kn\u00e8mides, et\nil se r\u00e9jouira de son courage, s'il \u00e9chappe au rude combat et \u00e0 la\nlutte dangereuse.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et chacun marqua son signe, et tous furent m\u00eal\u00e9s\ndans le casque de l'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n. Et les peuples priaient,\n\u00e9levant les mains vers les dieux, et chacun disait, regardant le\nlarge Ouranos:\n\n-- P\u00e8re Zeus, fais sortir le signe d'Aias, ou du fils de Tydeus,\nou du roi de la tr\u00e8s riche Myk\u00e8n\u00e8!\n\nIls parl\u00e8rent ainsi, et le cavalier G\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r agita le\ncasque et en fit sortir le signe d'Aias que tous d\u00e9siraient. Un\nh\u00e9raut le prit, le pr\u00e9sentant par la droite aux princes Akhaiens.\nEt ceux qui ne le reconnaissaient point le refusaient. Mais quand\nil parvint \u00e0 celui qui l'avait marqu\u00e9 et jet\u00e9 dans le casque, \u00e0\nl'illustre Aias, celui-ci le reconnut aussit\u00f4t, et, le laissant\ntomber \u00e0 ses pieds, il dit, plein de joie:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis, ce signe est le mien; et je m'en r\u00e9jouis dans mon\ncoeur, et je pense que je dompterai le divin Hect\u00f4r. Allons!\npendant que je rev\u00eatirai mes armes belliqueuses, suppliez tout\nbas, afin que les Troiens ne vous entendent point, le roi Zeus\nKroni\u00f4n; ou priez-le tout haut, car nous ne craignons personne.\nQuel guerrier pourrait me dompter ais\u00e9ment, \u00e0 l'aide de sa force\nou de ma faiblesse? Je suis n\u00e9 dans Salamis, et je n'y ai point\n\u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9lev\u00e9 sans gloire.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous suppliaient le p\u00e8re Zeus Kroni\u00f4n, et\nchacun disait, regardant le vaste Ouranos:\n\n-- P\u00e8re Zeus, qui commandes de l'Ida, tr\u00e8s auguste, tr\u00e8s grand,\ndonne la victoire \u00e0 Aias et qu'il remporte une gloire brillante;\nmais, si tu aimes Hekt\u00f4r et le prot\u00e8ges, fais que le courage et la\ngloire des deux guerriers soient \u00e9gaux.\n\nIls parl\u00e8rent ainsi, et Aias s'armait de l'airain \u00e9clatant. Et\napr\u00e8s qu'il eut couvert son corps de ses armes, il marcha en\navant, pareil au monstrueux Ar\u00e8s que le Kroni\u00f4n envoie au milieu\ndes guerriers qu'il pousse \u00e0 combattre, le coeur plein de fureur.\nAinsi marchait le grand Aias, rempart des Akhaiens, avec un\nsourire terrible, \u00e0 grands pas, et brandissant sa longue pique. Et\nles Argiens se r\u00e9jouissaient en le regardant, et un tremblement\nsaisit les membres des Troiens, et le coeur de Hekt\u00f4r lui-m\u00eame\npalpita dans sa poitrine; mais il ne pouvait reculer dans la foule\ndes siens, ni fuir le combat, puisqu'il l'avait demand\u00e9. Et Aias\ns'approcha, portant un bouclier fait d'airain et de sept peaux de\nboeuf, et tel qu'une tour. Et l'excellent ouvrier Tykhios qui\nhabitait Hyl\u00e8 l'avait fabriqu\u00e9 \u00e0 l'aide de sept peaux de forts\ntaureaux, recouvertes d'une plaque d'airain. Et Aias T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien,\nportant ce bouclier devant sa poitrine, s'approcha de Hekt\u00f4r, et\ndit ces paroles mena\u00e7antes:\n\n-- Maintenant, Hekt\u00f4r, tu sauras, seul \u00e0 seul, quels sont les\nchefs des Danaens, sans compter Akhilleus au coeur de lion, qui\nrompt les phalanges des guerriers. Il repose aujourd'hui, sur le\nrivage de la mer, dans ses nefs aux poupes recourb\u00e9es, irrit\u00e9\ncontre Agamemn\u00f4n le prince des peuples; mais nous pouvons tous\ncombattre contre toi. Commence donc le combat.\n\nEt Hekt\u00f4r au casque mouvant lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Divin Aias T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien, prince des peuples, ne m'\u00e9prouve point\ncomme si j'\u00e9tais un faible enfant ou une femme qui ignore les\ntravaux de la guerre. Je sais combattre et tuer les hommes, et\nmouvoir mon dur bouclier de la main droite ou de la main gauche,\net il m'est permis de combattre audacieusement. Je sais, dans la\nrude bataille, de pied ferme marcher au son d'Ar\u00e8s, et me jeter\ndans la m\u00eal\u00e9e sur mes cavales rapides. Mais je ne veux point\nfrapper un homme tel que toi par surprise, mais en face, si je\npuis.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il lan\u00e7a sa longue pique vibrante et frappa le\ngrand bouclier d'Aias. Et la pique irr\u00e9sistible p\u00e9n\u00e9tra \u00e0 travers\nles sept peaux de boeuf jusqu'\u00e0 la derni\u00e8re lame d'airain. Et le\ndivin Aias lan\u00e7a aussi sa longue pique, et il en frappa le\nbouclier \u00e9gal du Priamide; et la pique solide p\u00e9n\u00e9tra dans le\nbouclier \u00e9clatant, et, per\u00e7ant la cuirasse artistement faite,\nd\u00e9chira la tunique sur le flanc. Mais le Priamide se courba et\n\u00e9vita la noire k\u00e8r.\n\nEt tous deux, relevant leurs piques, se ru\u00e8rent, semblables \u00e0 des\nlions mangeurs de chair crue, ou \u00e0 des sangliers dont la vigueur\nest grande. Et le Priamide frappa de sa pique le milieu du\nbouclier, mais il n'en per\u00e7a point l'airain, et la pointe s'y\ntordit. Et Aias, bondissant, frappa le bouclier, qu'il traversa de\nsa pique, et il arr\u00eata Hekt\u00f4r qui se ruait, et il lui blessa la\ngorge, et un sang noir en jaillit. Mais Hekt\u00f4r au casque mouvant\nne cessa point de combattre, et, reculant, il prit de sa forte\nmain une pierre grande, noire et rugueuse, qui gisait sur la\nplaine, et il frappa le milieu du grand bouclier couvert de sept\npeaux de boeuf, et l'airain r\u00e9sonna sourdement. Et Aias, soulevant\n\u00e0 son tour une pierre plus grande encore, la lan\u00e7a en lui\nimprimant une force immense. Et, de cette pierre, il brisa le\nbouclier, et les genoux du Priamide fl\u00e9chirent, et il tomba \u00e0 la\nrenverse sous le bouclier. Mais Apoll\u00f4n le releva aussit\u00f4t. Et\nd\u00e9j\u00e0 ils se seraient frapp\u00e9s tous deux de leurs \u00e9p\u00e9es, en se ruant\nl'un contre l'autre, si les h\u00e9rauts, messagers de Zeus et des\nhommes, n'\u00e9taient survenus, l'un du c\u00f4t\u00e9 des Troiens, l'autre du\nc\u00f4t\u00e9 des Akhaiens cuirass\u00e9s, Talthybios et Idaios, sages tous\ndeux. Et ils lev\u00e8rent leurs sceptres entre les deux guerriers, et\nIdaios, plein de conseils prudents, leur dit:\n\n-- Ne combattez pas plus longtemps, mes chers fils. Zeus qui\namasse les nu\u00e9es vous aime tous deux, et tous deux vous \u00eates tr\u00e8s\nbraves, comme nous le savons tous. Mais voici la nuit, et il est\nbon d'ob\u00e9ir \u00e0 la nuit.\n\nEt le T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien Aias lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Idaios, ordonne \u00e0 Hekt\u00f4r de parler. C'est lui qui a provoqu\u00e9 au\ncombat les plus braves d'entre nous. Qu'il d\u00e9cide, et j'ob\u00e9irai,\net je ferai ce qu'il fera.\n\nEt le grand Hekt\u00f4r au casque mouvant lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Aias, un dieu t'a donn\u00e9 la prudence, la force et la grandeur,\net tu l'emportes par ta lance sur tous les Akhaiens. Cessons pour\naujourd'hui la lutte et le combat. Nous combattrons de nouveau\nplus tard, jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'un dieu en d\u00e9cide et donne \u00e0 l'un de nous\nla victoire. Voici la nuit, et il est bon d'ob\u00e9ir \u00e0 la nuit, afin\nque tu r\u00e9jouisses, aupr\u00e8s des nefs Akhaiennes, tes concitoyens et\ntes compagnons, et que j'aille, dans la grande ville du roi\nPriamos, r\u00e9jouir les Troiens et les Troiennes orn\u00e9es de longues\nrobes, qui prieront pour moi dans les temples divins. Mais\nfaisons-nous de mutuels et illustres dons, afin que les Akhaiens\net les Troiens disent: Ils ont combattu pour la discorde qui br\u00fble\nle coeur, et voici qu'ils se sont s\u00e9par\u00e9s avec amiti\u00e9.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il offrit \u00e0 Aias l'\u00e9p\u00e9e aux clous d'argent,\navec la gaine et les courroies artistement travaill\u00e9es, et Aias\nlui donna un ceinturon \u00e9clatant, couleur de pourpre. Et ils se\nretir\u00e8rent, l'un vers l'arm\u00e9e des Akhaiens, l'autre vers les\nTroiens. Et ceux-ci se r\u00e9jouirent en foule, quand ils virent\nHekt\u00f4r vivant et sauf, \u00e9chapp\u00e9 des mains invaincues et de la force\nd'Aias. Et ils l'emmen\u00e8rent vers la ville, apr\u00e8s avoir d\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9\nde son salut.\n\nEt, de leur c\u00f4t\u00e9, les Akhaiens bien arm\u00e9s conduisirent au divin\nAgamemn\u00f4n Aias joyeux de sa victoire. Et quand ils furent arriv\u00e9s\naux tentes de l'Atr\u00e9ide, le roi des hommes Agamemn\u00f4n sacrifia au\npuissant Kroni\u00f4n un taureau de cinq ans. Apr\u00e8s l'avoir \u00e9corch\u00e9,\ndispos\u00e9 et coup\u00e9 adroitement en morceaux, ils perc\u00e8rent ceux-ci de\nbroches, les firent r\u00f4tir avec soin et les retir\u00e8rent du feu.\nPuis, ils pr\u00e9par\u00e8rent le repas et se mirent \u00e0 manger, et aucun ne\nput se plaindre, en son \u00e2me, de manquer d'une part \u00e9gale. Mais le\nh\u00e9ros Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n, qui commande au loin, honora Aias du dos\nentier. Et, tous ayant bu et mang\u00e9 selon leur soif et leur faim,\nle vieillard Nest\u00f4r ouvrit le premier le conseil et parla ainsi,\nplein de prudence:\n\n-- Atr\u00e9ides, et vous, chefs des Akhaiens, beaucoup d'Akhaiens\nchevelus sont morts, dont le rude Ar\u00e8s a r\u00e9pandu le sang noir sur\nles bords du clair Skamandros, et dont les \u00e2mes sont descendues\nchez Aid\u00e8s. C'est pourquoi il faut suspendre le combat d\u00e8s la\nlueur du matin. Puis, nous \u00e9tant r\u00e9unis, nous enl\u00e8verons les\ncadavres \u00e0 l'aide de nos boeufs et de nos mulets, et nous les\nbr\u00fblerons devant les nefs, afin que chacun en rapporte les cendres\n\u00e0 ses fils, quand tous seront de retour dans la terre de la\npatrie. Et nous leur \u00e9l\u00e8verons, autour d'un seul b\u00fbcher, un m\u00eame\ntombeau dans la plaine. Et tout aupr\u00e8s, nous construirons aussit\u00f4t\nde hautes tours qui nous prot\u00e9geront nous et nos nefs. Et nous y\nmettrons des portes solides pour le passage des cavaliers, et nous\ncreuserons en dehors un foss\u00e9 profond qui arr\u00eatera les cavaliers\net les chevaux, si les braves Troiens poussent le combat jusque\nl\u00e0.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous les rois l'approuv\u00e8rent.\n\nEt l'agora tumultueuse et troubl\u00e9e des Troiens s'\u00e9tait r\u00e9unie\ndevant les portes de Priamos, sur la haute citadelle d'Ilios. Et\nle sage Ant\u00e8n\u00f4r parla ainsi le premier:\n\n-- \u00c9coutez-moi, Troiens, Dardaniens et alli\u00e9s, afin que je dise ce\nque mon coeur m'ordonne. Allons! rendons aux Atr\u00e9ides l'Argienne\nH\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 et toutes ses richesses, et qu'ils les emm\u00e8nent. Nous\ncombattons maintenant contre les serments sacr\u00e9s que nous avons\njur\u00e9s, et je n'esp\u00e8re rien de bon pour nous, si vous ne faites ce\nque je dis.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il s'assit. Et alors se leva du milieu de tous\nle divin Alexandros, l'\u00e9poux de H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 \u00e0 la belle chevelure. Et il\nr\u00e9pondit en paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Ant\u00e8n\u00f4r, ce que tu as dit ne m'est point agr\u00e9able. Tu aurais pu\nconcevoir de meilleurs desseins, et, si tu as parl\u00e9 s\u00e9rieusement,\ncertes, les dieux t'ont ravi l'esprit. Mais je parle devant les\nTroiens dompteurs de chevaux, et je repousse ce que tu as dit. Je\nne rendrai point cette femme. Pour les richesses que j'ai\nemport\u00e9es d'Argos dans ma demeure, je veux les rendre toutes, et\nj'y ajouterai des miennes.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il s'assit. Et, au milieu de tous, se leva le\nDardanide Priamos, semblable \u00e0 un dieu par sa prudence. Et, plein\nde sagesse, il parla ainsi et dit:\n\n-- \u00c9coutez-moi, Troiens, Dardaniens et alli\u00e9s, afin que je dise ce\nque mon coeur m'ordonne. Maintenant, prenez votre repas comme\nd'habitude, et faites tour \u00e0 tour bonne garde. Que d\u00e8s le matin\nIdaios se rende aux nefs creuses, afin de porter aux Atr\u00e9ides\nAgamemn\u00f4n et M\u00e9n\u00e9laos l'offre d'Alexandros d'o\u00f9 viennent nos\ndiscordes. Et qu'il leur demande, par de sages paroles, s'ils\nveulent suspendre la triste guerre jusqu'\u00e0 ce que nous ayons br\u00fbl\u00e9\nles cadavres. Nous combattrons ensuite de nouveau, en attendant\nque le sort d\u00e9cide entre nous et donne la victoire \u00e0 l'un des deux\npeuples.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et ceux qui l'\u00e9coutaient ob\u00e9irent, et l'arm\u00e9e prit\nson repas comme d'habitude. D\u00e8s le matin, Idaios se rendit aux\nnefs creuses. Et il trouva les Danaens, nourrissons de Zeus,\nr\u00e9unis dans l'agora, aupr\u00e8s de la poupe de la nef d'Agamemn\u00f4n. Et,\nse tenant au milieu d'eux, il parla ainsi:\n\n-- Atr\u00e9ides et Akhaiens aux belles kn\u00e8mides, Priamos et les\nillustres Troiens m'ordonnent de vous porter l'offre d'Alexandros\nd'o\u00f9 viennent nos discordes, si toutefois elle vous est agr\u00e9able.\nToutes les richesses qu'Alexandros a rapport\u00e9es dans Ilios sur ses\nnefs creuses, -- pl\u00fbt aux dieux qu'il f\u00fbt mort auparavant! -- il\nveut les rendre et y ajouter des siennes; mais il refuse de rendre\nla jeune \u00e9pouse de l'illustre M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, malgr\u00e9 les supplications\ndes Troiens. Et ils m'ont aussi ordonn\u00e9 de vous demander si vous\nvoulez suspendre la triste guerre jusqu'\u00e0 ce que nous ayons br\u00fbl\u00e9\nles cadavres. Nous combattrons ensuite de nouveau, en attendant\nque le sort d\u00e9cide entre nous et donne la victoire \u00e0 l'un des deux\npeuples.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous rest\u00e8rent muets. Et Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s hardi au\ncombat parla ainsi:\n\n-- Qu'aucun de nous n'accepte les richesses d'Alexandros ni H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8\nelle-m\u00eame. Il est manifeste pour tous, f\u00fbt-ce pour un enfant, que\nle supr\u00eame d\u00e9sastre est suspendu sur la t\u00eate des Troiens.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous les fils des Akhaiens pouss\u00e8rent des\nacclamations, admirant les paroles du dompteur de chevaux\nDiom\u00e8d\u00e8s. Et le roi Agamemn\u00f4n dit \u00e0 Idaios\n\n-- Idaios, tu as entendu la r\u00e9ponse des Akhaiens. Ils t'ont\nr\u00e9pondu, et ce qu'ils disent me pla\u00eet. Cependant, je ne vous\nrefuse point de br\u00fbler vos morts et d'honorer par le feu les\ncadavres de ceux qui ont succomb\u00e9. Que l'\u00e9poux de H\u00e8r\u00e8, Zeus qui\ntonne dans les hauteurs, soit t\u00e9moin de notre trait\u00e9!\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il \u00e9leva son sceptre vers tous les dieux. Et\nIdaios retourna dans la sainte Ilios, o\u00f9 les Troiens et les\nDardaniens \u00e9taient r\u00e9unis en agora, attendant son retour. Et il\narriva, et, au milieu d'eux, il rendit compte de son message. Et\naussit\u00f4t ils s'empress\u00e8rent de transporter, ceux-ci les cadavres,\nceux-l\u00e0 le bois du b\u00fbcher. Et les Argiens, de leur c\u00f4t\u00e9,\ns'exhortaient, loin des nefs creuses, \u00e0 relever leurs morts et \u00e0\nconstruire le b\u00fbcher.\n\nH\u00e9lios, \u00e0 son lever, frappait les campagnes de ses rayons, et,\nmontant dans l'Ouranos, sortait doucement du cours profond de\nl'Ok\u00e9anos. Et les deux arm\u00e9es accouraient l'une vers l'autre.\nAlors, il leur fut difficile de reconna\u00eetre leurs guerriers; mais\nquand ils eurent lav\u00e9 leur poussi\u00e8re sanglante, ils les d\u00e9pos\u00e8rent\nsur les chars en r\u00e9pandant des larmes br\u00fblantes. Et le grand\nPriamos ne leur permit point de g\u00e9mir, et ils amass\u00e8rent les morts\nsur le b\u00fbcher, se lamentant dans leur coeur. Et, apr\u00e8s les avoir\nbr\u00fbl\u00e9s, ils retourn\u00e8rent vers la sainte Ilios.\n\nDe leur c\u00f4t\u00e9, les Akhaiens aux belles kn\u00e8mides amass\u00e8rent les\ncadavres sur le b\u00fbcher, tristes dans leur coeur. Et, apr\u00e8s les\navoir br\u00fbl\u00e9s, ils s'en retourn\u00e8rent vers les nefs creuses. \u00c9\u00f4s\nn'\u00e9tait point lev\u00e9e encore, et d\u00e9j\u00e0 la nuit \u00e9tait douteuse, quand\nun peuple des Akhaiens vint \u00e9lever dans la plaine un seul tombeau\nsur l'unique b\u00fbcher. Et, non loin, d'autres guerriers\nconstruisirent, pour se prot\u00e9ger eux-m\u00eames et les nefs, de hautes\ntours avec des portes solides pour le passage des cavaliers. Et\nils creus\u00e8rent, au dehors et tout autour, un foss\u00e9 profond, large\net grand, qu'ils d\u00e9fendirent avec des pieux. Et c'est ainsi que\ntravaillaient les Akhaiens chevelus.\n\nEt les dieux, assis aupr\u00e8s du foudroyant Zeus, regardaient avec\nadmiration ce grand travail des Akhaiens aux tuniques d'airain.\nEt, au milieu d'eux, Poseida\u00f4n qui \u00e9branle la terre parla ainsi:\n\n-- P\u00e8re Zeus, qui donc, parmi les mortels qui vivent sur la terre\nimmense, fera conna\u00eetre d\u00e9sormais aux immortels sa pens\u00e9e et ses\ndesseins? Ne vois-tu pas que les Akhaiens chevelus ont construit\nune muraille devant leurs nefs, avec un foss\u00e9 tout autour, et\nqu'ils n'ont point offert d'illustres h\u00e9catombes aux dieux? La\ngloire de ceci se r\u00e9pandra autant que la lumi\u00e8re d'\u00c9\u00f4s; et les\nmurs que Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n et moi avons \u00e9lev\u00e9s au h\u00e9ros Laom\u00e9d\u00f4n\nseront oubli\u00e9s.\n\nEt Zeus qui amasse les nu\u00e9es, avec un profond soupir, lui\nr\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ah! Tr\u00e8s puissant, qui \u00e9branles la terre, qu'as-tu dit? Un\ndieu, moins dou\u00e9 de force que toi, n'aurait point cette crainte.\nCertes, ta gloire se r\u00e9pandra aussi loin que la lumi\u00e8re d'\u00c9\u00f4s.\nReprends courage, et quand les Akhaiens chevelus auront regagn\u00e9\nsur leurs nefs la terre bien-aim\u00e9e de la patrie, engloutis tout\nentier dans la mer ce mur \u00e9croul\u00e9, couvre de nouveau de sables le\nvaste rivage, et que cette immense muraille des Akhaiens\ns'\u00e9vanouisse devant toi.\n\nEt ils s'entretenaient ainsi. Et H\u00e9lios se coucha, et le travail\ndes Akhaiens fut termin\u00e9. Et ceux-ci tuaient des boeufs sous les\ntentes, et ils prenaient leurs repas. Et plusieurs nefs avaient\napport\u00e9 de Lemnos le vin qu'avait envoy\u00e9 le I\u00e8sonide Eun\u00e8os, que\nHypsipyl\u00e8 avait con\u00e7u du prince des peuples I\u00e8s\u00f4n. Et le I\u00e8sonide\navait donn\u00e9 aux Atr\u00e9ides mille mesures de vin. Et les Akhaiens\nchevelus leur achetaient ce vin, ceux-ci avec de l'airain, ceux-l\u00e0\navec du fer brillant; les uns avec des peaux de boeufs, les autres\navec les boeufs eux-m\u00eames, et d'autres avec leurs esclaves. Et\ntous enfin pr\u00e9paraient l'excellent repas.\n\nEt, pendant toute la nuit, les Akhaiens chevelus mangeaient; et\nles Troiens aussi et les alli\u00e9s mangeaient dans la ville. Et, au\nmilieu de la nuit, le sage Zeus, leur pr\u00e9parant de nouvelles\ncalamit\u00e9s, tonna terriblement; et la p\u00e2le crainte les saisit. Et\nils r\u00e9pandaient le vin hors des coupes, et aucun n'osa boire avant\nde faire des libations au tr\u00e8s puissant Kroni\u00f4n. Enfin, s'\u00e9tant\ncouch\u00e9s, ils go\u00fbt\u00e8rent la douceur du sommeil.\n\n\nChant 8\n\n\u00c9\u00f4s au p\u00e9plos couleur de safran \u00e9clairait toute la terre, et Zeus\nqui se r\u00e9jouit de la foudre convoqua l'agora des dieux sur le plus\nhaut fa\u00eete de l'Olympos aux sommets sans nombre. Et il leur parla,\net ils \u00e9coutaient respectueusement:\n\n-- \u00c9coutez-moi tous, dieux et d\u00e9esses, afin que je vous dise ce\nque j'ai r\u00e9solu dans mon coeur. Et que nul dieu, m\u00e2le ou femelle,\nne r\u00e9siste \u00e0 mon ordre; mais ob\u00e9issez tous, afin que j'ach\u00e8ve\npromptement mon oeuvre. Car si j'apprends que quelqu'un des dieux\nest all\u00e9 secourir soit les Troiens, soit les Danaens, celui-l\u00e0\nreviendra dans l'Olympos honteusement ch\u00e2ti\u00e9. Et je le saisirai,\net je le jetterai au loin, dans le plus creux des gouffres de la\nterre, au fond du noir Tartaros qui a des portes de fer et un\nseuil d'airain, au-dessous de la demeure d'Aid\u00e8s, autant que la\nterre est au-dessous de l'Ouranos. Et il saura que je suis le plus\nfort de tous les dieux. Debout, dieux! tentez-le, et vous le\nsaurez. Suspendez une cha\u00eene d'or du fa\u00eete de l'Ouranos, et tous,\ndieux et d\u00e9esses, attachez-vous \u00e0 cette cha\u00eene. Vous n'entra\u00eenerez\njamais, malgr\u00e9 vos efforts, de l'Ouranos sur la terre, Zeus le\nmod\u00e9rateur supr\u00eame. Et moi, certes, si je le voulais, je vous\nenl\u00e8verais tous, et la terre et la mer, et j'attacherais cette\ncha\u00eene au fa\u00eete de l'Olympos, et tout y resterait suspendu, tant\nje suis au-dessus des dieux et des hommes!\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous rest\u00e8rent muets, stup\u00e9faits de ces\nparoles, car il avait durement parl\u00e9. Et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, la d\u00e9esse aux\nyeux clairs, lui dit:\n\n-- \u00d4 notre p\u00e8re! Kronide, le plus haut des rois, nous savons bien\nque ta force ne le c\u00e8de \u00e0 aucune autre; mais nous g\u00e9missons sur\nles Danaens, habiles \u00e0 lancer la pique, qui vont p\u00e9rir par une\ndestin\u00e9e mauvaise. Certes, nous ne combattrons pas, si tu le veux\nainsi, mais nous conseillerons les Argiens, afin qu'ils ne\np\u00e9rissent point tous, gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 ta col\u00e8re.\n\nEt Zeus qui amasse les nu\u00e9es, souriant, lui dit:\n\n-- Reprends courage, Tritog\u00e9n\u00e9ia, ch\u00e8re enfant. Certes, j'ai parl\u00e9\ntr\u00e8s rudement, mais je veux \u00eatre doux pour toi.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il lia au char les chevaux aux pieds d'airain,\nrapides, ayant pour crini\u00e8res des chevelures d'or; et il\ns'enveloppa d'un v\u00eatement d'or; et il prit un fouet d'or bien\ntravaill\u00e9, et il monta sur son char. Et il frappa les chevaux du\nfouet, et ils vol\u00e8rent aussit\u00f4t entre la terre et l'Ouranos\n\u00e9toil\u00e9. Il parvint sur l'Ida qui abonde en sources, o\u00f9 vivent les\nb\u00eates sauvages, et sur le Gargaros, o\u00f9 il poss\u00e8de une enceinte\nsacr\u00e9e et un autel parfum\u00e9. Le p\u00e8re des hommes et des dieux y\narr\u00eata ses chevaux, les d\u00e9lia et les enveloppa d'une grande nu\u00e9e.\nEt il s'assit sur le fa\u00eete, plein de gloire, regardant la ville\ndes Troiens et les nefs des Akhaiens.\n\nEt les Akhaiens chevelus s'armaient, ayant mang\u00e9 en h\u00e2te sous les\ntentes; et les Troiens aussi s'armaient dans la ville; et ils\n\u00e9taient moins nombreux, mais br\u00fblants du d\u00e9sir de combattre, par\nn\u00e9cessit\u00e9, pour leurs enfants et pour leurs femmes. Et les portes\ns'ouvraient, et les peuples, fantassins et cavaliers, se ruaient\nau dehors, et il s'\u00e9levait un bruit immense.\n\nEt quand ils se furent rencontr\u00e9s, les piques et les forces des\nguerriers aux cuirasses d'airain se m\u00eal\u00e8rent confus\u00e9ment, et les\nboucliers bomb\u00e9s se heurt\u00e8rent, et il s'\u00e9leva un bruit immense. On\nentendait les cris de joie et les lamentations de ceux qui tuaient\nou mouraient, et la terre ruisselait de sang; et tant qu'\u00c9\u00f4s\nbrilla et que le jour sacr\u00e9 monta, les traits frapp\u00e8rent les\nhommes, et les hommes tombaient. Mais quand H\u00e9lios fut parvenu au\nfa\u00eete de l'Ouranos, le p\u00e8re Zeus \u00e9tendit ses balances d'or, et il\ny pla\u00e7a deux k\u00e8res de la mort qui rend immobile \u00e0 jamais, la k\u00e8r\ndes Troiens dompteurs de chevaux et la k\u00e8r des Akhaiens aux\ncuirasses d'airain. Il \u00e9leva les balances, les tenant par le\nmilieu, et le jour fatal des Akhaiens s'inclina; et la destin\u00e9e\ndes Akhaiens toucha la terre nourrici\u00e8re, et celle des Troiens\nmonta vers le large Ouranos. Et il roula le tonnerre immense sur\nl'Ida, et il lan\u00e7a l'ardent \u00e9clair au milieu du peuple guerrier\ndes Akhaiens; et, l'ayant vu, ils rest\u00e8rent stup\u00e9faits et p\u00e2les de\nterreur.\n\nNi Idom\u00e9neus, ni Agamemn\u00f4n, ni les deux Aias, serviteurs d'Ar\u00e8s,\nn'os\u00e8rent rester. Le G\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r, rempart des Akhaiens, resta\nseul, mais contre son gr\u00e9, par la chute de son cheval. Le divin\nAlexandros, l'\u00e9poux de H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 aux beaux cheveux, avait perc\u00e9 le\ncheval d'une fl\u00e8che au sommet de la t\u00eate, endroit mortel, l\u00e0 o\u00f9\ncroissent les premiers crins. Et, l'airain ayant p\u00e9n\u00e9tr\u00e9 dans la\ncervelle, le cheval, saisi de douleur, se roulait et \u00e9pouvantait\nles autres chevaux. Et, comme le vieillard se h\u00e2tait de couper les\nr\u00eanes avec l'\u00e9p\u00e9e, les rapides chevaux de Hekt\u00f4r, portant leur\nbrave conducteur, approchaient dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e, et le vieillard e\u00fbt\nperdu la vie, si Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s ne l'e\u00fbt vu. Et il jeta un cri terrible,\nappelant Odysseus:\n\n-- Divin Laertiade, subtil Odysseus, pourquoi fuis-tu, tournant le\ndos comme un l\u00e2che dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e? Crains qu'on ne te perce d'une\npique dans le dos, tandis que tu fuis. Reste, et repoussons ce\nrude guerrier loin de ce vieillard.\n\nIl parla ainsi, mais le divin et patient Odysseus ne l'entendit\npoint et passa outre vers les nefs creuses des Akhaiens. Et le\nTyd\u00e9ide, bien que seul, se m\u00eala aux combattants avanc\u00e9s, et se\ntint debout devant les chevaux du vieux N\u00e8l\u00e8ide, et il lui dit ces\nparoles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- \u00d4 vieillard, voici que de jeunes guerriers te pressent avec\nfureur. Ta force est dissoute, la lourde vieillesse t'accable, ton\nserviteur est faible et tes chevaux sont lents. Mais monte sur mon\nchar, et tu verras quels sont les chevaux de Tr\u00f4s que j'ai pris \u00e0\nAin\u00e9ias, et qui savent, avec une rapidit\u00e9 \u00e9gale, poursuivre\nl'ennemi ou fuir \u00e0 travers la plaine. Que nos serviteurs prennent\nsoin de tes chevaux, et poussons ceux-ci sur les Troiens dompteurs\nde chevaux, et que Hekt\u00f4r sache si ma pique est furieuse entre mes\nmains.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le cavalier G\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r lui ob\u00e9it. Et les\ndeux braves serviteurs, Sth\u00e9n\u00e9los et Eurym\u00e9d\u00f4n, prirent soin de\nses cavales. Et les deux rois mont\u00e8rent sur le char de Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s,\net Nest\u00f4r saisit les r\u00eanes brillantes et fouetta les chevaux; et\nils approch\u00e8rent. Et le fils de Tydeus lan\u00e7a sa pique contre le\nPriamide qui venait \u00e0 lui, et il le manqua; mais il frappa dans la\npoitrine, pr\u00e8s de la mamelle, \u00c9niopeus, fils du magnanime\nTh\u00e8baios, et qui tenait les r\u00eanes des chevaux. Et celui-ci tomba\ndu char, et ses chevaux rapides recul\u00e8rent, et il perdit l'\u00e2me et\nla force. Une am\u00e8re douleur enveloppa l'\u00e2me de Hekt\u00f4r \u00e0 cause de\nson compagnon; mais il le laissa gisant, malgr\u00e9 sa douleur, et\nchercha un autre brave conducteur. Et ses chevaux n'en manqu\u00e8rent\npas longtemps, car il trouva promptement le hardi Ark\u00e9ptol\u00e9mos\nIphitide; et il lui confia les chevaux rapides, et il lui remit\nles r\u00eanes en main.\n\nAlors, il serait arriv\u00e9 un d\u00e9sastre, et des actions furieuses\nauraient \u00e9t\u00e9 commises, et les Troiens auraient \u00e9t\u00e9 renferm\u00e9s dans\nIlios comme des agneaux, si le p\u00e8re des hommes et des dieux ne\ns'\u00e9tait aper\u00e7u de ceci. Et il tonna fortement, lan\u00e7ant la foudre\n\u00e9clatante devant les chevaux de Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s; et l'ardente flamme du\nsoufre br\u00fblant jaillit. Les chevaux effray\u00e9s s'abattirent sous le\nchar, et les r\u00eanes splendides \u00e9chapp\u00e8rent des mains de Nest\u00f4r; et\nil craignit dans son coeur, et il dit \u00e0 Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s:\n\n-- Tyd\u00e9ide! retourne, fais fuir les chevaux aux sabots \u00e9pais. Ne\nvois-tu point que Zeus ne t'aide pas? Voici que Zeus Kronide donne\nmaintenant la victoire \u00e0 Hekt\u00f4r, et il nous la donnera aussi,\nselon sa volont\u00e9. Le plus brave des hommes ne peut rien contre la\nvolont\u00e9 de Zeus dont la force est sans \u00e9gale.\n\nEt Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s hardi au combat lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Oui, vieillard, tu as dit vrai, et selon la justice; mais une\nam\u00e8re douleur envahit mon \u00e2me. Hekt\u00f4r dira, haranguant les\nTroiens: Le Tyd\u00e9ide a fui devant moi vers ses nefs!' Avant qu'il\nse glorifie de ceci, que la terre profonde m'engloutisse!\n\nEt le cavalier G\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ah! fils du brave Tydeus, qu'as-tu dit? Si Hekt\u00f4r te nommait\nl\u00e2che et faible, ni les Troiens, ni les Dardaniens, ne l'en\ncroiraient, ni les femmes des magnanimes Troiens porteurs de\nboucliers, elles dont tu as renvers\u00e9 dans la poussi\u00e8re les jeunes\n\u00e9poux.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il prit la fuite, poussant les chevaux aux\nsabots massifs \u00e0 travers la m\u00eal\u00e9e. Et les Troiens et Hekt\u00f4r, avec\nde grands cris, les accablaient de traits; et le grand Hekt\u00f4r au\ncasque mouvant cria d'une voix haute:\n\n-- Tyd\u00e9ide, certes, les cavaliers Danaens t'honoraient entre tous,\nte r\u00e9servant la meilleure place, et les viandes, et les coupes\npleines. Aujourd'hui, ils t'auront en m\u00e9pris, car tu n'es plus\nqu'une femme! Va donc, fille l\u00e2che! Tu es par ma faute sur nos\ntours, et tu emm\u00e8neras point nos femmes dans tes nefs. Auparavant,\nje t'aurai donn\u00e9 la mort.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le Tyd\u00e9ide h\u00e9sita, voulant fuir et combattre\nface \u00e0 face. Et il h\u00e9sita trois fois dans son esprit et dans son\ncoeur; et trois fois le sage Zeus tonna du haut des monts Idaiens,\nen signe de victoire pour les Troiens. Et Hekt\u00f4r, d'une voix\npuissante, animait les Troiens:\n\n-- Troiens, Lykiens et hardis Dardaniens, amis, soyez des hommes\net souvenez-vous de votre force et de votre courage. Je sens que\nle Kroni\u00f4n me promet la victoire et une grande gloire, et r\u00e9serve\nla d\u00e9faite aux Danaens. Les insens\u00e9s! Ils ont \u00e9lev\u00e9 ces murailles\ninutiles et m\u00e9prisables qui n'arr\u00eateront point ma force; et mes\nchevaux sauteront ais\u00e9ment par-dessus le foss\u00e9 profond. Mais quand\nj'aurai atteint les nefs creuses, souvenez-vous de pr\u00e9parer le feu\ndestructeur, afin que je br\u00fble les nefs, et qu'aupr\u00e8s des nefs je\ntue les Argiens eux-m\u00eames, aveugl\u00e9s par la fum\u00e9e.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il dit \u00e0 ses chevaux:\n\n-- Xanthos, Podargos, Aith\u00f4n et divin Lampos, payez-moi les soins\ninfinis d'Andromakh\u00e8, fille du magnanime \u00ca\u00e9ti\u00f4n, qui vous pr\u00e9sente\nle doux froment et vous verse du vin, quand vous le d\u00e9sirez, m\u00eame\navant moi qui me glorifie d'\u00eatre son jeune \u00e9poux. H\u00e2tez-vous donc,\ncourez! Si nous ne pouvons enlever le bouclier de Nest\u00f4r, qui est\ntout en or ainsi que ses poign\u00e9es, et dont la gloire est parvenue\njusqu'\u00e0 l'Ouranos, et la riche cuirasse de Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s dompteur de\nchevaux, et que H\u00e8phaistos a forg\u00e9e avec soin, j'esp\u00e8re que les\nAkhaiens remonteront cette nuit m\u00eame dans leurs nefs rapides.\n\nIl parla ainsi dans son d\u00e9sir, et le v\u00e9n\u00e9rable H\u00e8r\u00e8 s'en indigna;\net elle s'agita sur son tr\u00f4ne, et le vaste Olympos s'\u00e9branla. Et\nelle dit en face au grand Poseida\u00f4n:\n\n-- Toi qui \u00e9branle la terre, ah! Tout-puissant, ton coeur n'est-il\npoint \u00e9mu dans ta poitrine quand les Danaens p\u00e9rissent? Ils\nt'offrent cependant, dans H\u00e9lik\u00e8 et dans Aigas, un grand nombre de\nbeaux pr\u00e9sents. Donne-leur donc la victoire. Si nous voulions,\nnous tous qui soutenons les Danaens, repousser les Troiens et\nr\u00e9sister \u00e0 Zeus dont la voix sonne au loin, il serait bient\u00f4t seul\nassis sur l'Ida.\n\nEt le puissant qui \u00e9branle la terre, plein de col\u00e8re, lui dit:\n\n-- Audacieuse H\u00e8r\u00e8, qu'as-tu dit? Je ne veux point que nous\ncombattions Zeus Kroni\u00f4n, car il est bien plus fort que nous.\n\nEt tandis qu'ils se parlaient ainsi, tout l'espace qui s\u00e9parait\nles nefs du foss\u00e9 \u00e9tait empli confus\u00e9ment de chevaux et de\nporteurs de boucliers, car Hekt\u00f4r Priamide, semblable \u00e0\nl'imp\u00e9tueux Ar\u00e8s, les avait enferm\u00e9s l\u00e0, Zeus l'ayant glorifi\u00e9. Et\nil e\u00fbt consum\u00e9 les nefs \u00e9gales, \u00e0 l'aide du feu, si la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable\nH\u00e8r\u00e8 n'e\u00fbt inspir\u00e9 \u00e0 Agamemn\u00f4n de ranimer \u00e0 la h\u00e2te les Akhaiens.\nEt il parcourut les tentes et les nefs des Akhaiens, portant \u00e0 sa\nmain robuste un grand manteau pourpr\u00e9. Et il s'arr\u00eata sur la\ngrande et noire nef d'Odysseus, qui \u00e9tait au centre de toutes,\nafin d'\u00eatre entendu des deux extr\u00e9mit\u00e9s, des tentes d'Aias\nT\u00e9lam\u00f4niade \u00e0 celles d'Akhilleus, car tous deux avaient tir\u00e9 sur\nle sable leurs nefs \u00e9gales aux bouts du camp, certains de leur\nforce et de leur courage. Et l\u00e0, d'une voix haute, il cria aux\nAkhaiens:\n\n-- Honte \u00e0 vous, Argiens couverts d'opprobre, qui n'avez qu'une\nvaine beaut\u00e9! Que sont devenues vos paroles orgueilleuses, quand,\n\u00e0 Lemnos, mangeant la chair des boeufs aux longues cornes, et\nbuvant les krat\u00e8res pleins de vin, vous vous vantiez d'\u00eatre les\nplus braves et de vaincre les Troiens, un contre cent et contre\ndeux cents? Et maintenant, nous ne pouvons m\u00eame r\u00e9sister \u00e0 un seul\nd'entre eux, \u00e0 Hekt\u00f4r qui va consumer nos nefs par le feu. P\u00e8re\nZeus! as-tu d\u00e9j\u00e0 accabl\u00e9 d'un tel d\u00e9sastre quelqu'un des rois\ntout-puissants, et l'as-tu priv\u00e9 de tant de gloire? Certes, je\nn'ai jamais pass\u00e9 devant tes temples magnifiques, quand je vins\nici pour ma ruine, sur ma nef charg\u00e9e de rameurs, plein du d\u00e9sir\nde renverser les hautes murailles de Troi\u00e8, sans br\u00fbler sur tes\nnombreux autels la graisse et les cuisses des boeufs. \u00d4 Zeus!\nexauce donc mon voeu: que nous puissions au moins \u00e9chapper et nous\nenfuir, et que les Troiens ne tuent pas tous les Akhaiens!\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le p\u00e8re Zeus eut piti\u00e9 de ses larmes, et il\npromit par un signe que les peuples ne p\u00e9riraient pas. Et il\nenvoya un aigle, le plus s\u00fbr des oiseaux, tenant entre ses serres\nle jeune faon d'une biche agile. Et l'aigle jeta ce faon sur\nl'autel magnifique de Zeus, o\u00f9 les Akhaiens sacrifiaient \u00e0 Zeus,\nsource de tous les oracles. Et quand ils virent l'oiseau envoy\u00e9\npar Zeus, il retourn\u00e8rent dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e et se ru\u00e8rent sur les\nTroiens.\n\nEt alors aucun des Danaens innombrables ne put se glorifier,\npoussant ses chevaux rapides au-del\u00e0 du foss\u00e9, d'avoir devanc\u00e9 le\nTyd\u00e9ide et combattu le premier. Et, tout d'abord, il tua un\nguerrier Troien, Ag\u00e9laos Phradmonide, qui fuyait. Et il lui\nenfon\u00e7a sa pique dans le dos, entre les \u00e9paules; et la pique\ntraversa la poitrine. Le Troien tomba du char, et ses armes\nretentirent.\n\nEt les Atr\u00e9ides le suivaient, et les deux Aias pleins d'une\nvigueur indomptable, et Idom\u00e9neus, et M\u00e8rion\u00e8s, tel qu'Ar\u00e8s,\ncompagnon d'Idom\u00e9neus, et le tueur d'hommes Euryalos, et\nEurypylos, fils illustre d'\u00c9vaim\u00f4n. Et Teukros survint le\nneuvi\u00e8me, avec son arc tendu, et se tenant derri\u00e8re le bouclier\nd'Aias T\u00e9lam\u00f4niade. Et quand le grand Aias soulevait le bouclier,\nTeukros, regardant de toutes parts, ajustait et frappait un ennemi\ndans la m\u00eal\u00e9e, et celui-ci tombait mort. Et il revenait aupr\u00e8s\nd'Aias comme un enfant vers sa m\u00e8re, et Aias l'abritait de\nl'\u00e9clatant bouclier.\n\nQuel fut le premier Troien que tua l'irr\u00e9prochable Teukros?\nD'abord Orsilokhos, puis Orm\u00e9nos, et Oph\u00e9lest\u00e8s, et Dait\u00f4r, et\nKhromios, et le divin Lykophont\u00e8s, et Amopa\u00f4n Polyaimonide, et\nM\u00e9nalippos. Et il les coucha tour \u00e0 tour sur la terre nourrici\u00e8re.\nEt le roi des hommes, Agamemn\u00f4n, plein de joie de le voir\nrenverser de ses fl\u00e8ches les phalanges des Troiens, s'approcha et\nlui dit:\n\n-- Cher Teukros T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien, prince des peuples, continue \u00e0 lancer\ntes fl\u00e8ches pour le salut des Danaens, et pour glorifier ton p\u00e8re\nT\u00e9lam\u00f4n qui t'a nourri et soign\u00e9 dans ses demeures tout petit et\nbien que b\u00e2tard. Et je te le dis, et ma parole s'accomplira: si\nZeus temp\u00e9tueux et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 me donnent de renverser la forte\ncitadelle d'Ilios, le premier apr\u00e8s moi tu recevras une glorieuse\nr\u00e9compense: un tr\u00e9pied, deux chevaux et un char, et une femme qui\npartagera ton lit.\n\nEt l'irr\u00e9prochable Teukros lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Tr\u00e8s illustre Atr\u00e9ide, pourquoi m'excites-tu quand je suis\nplein d'ardeur? Certes, je ferai de mon mieux et selon mes forces.\nDepuis que nous les repoussons vers Ilios, je tue les guerriers de\nmes fl\u00e8ches. J'en ai lanc\u00e9 huit, et toutes se sont enfonc\u00e9es dans\nla chair des jeunes hommes imp\u00e9tueux; mais je ne puis frapper ce\nchien enrag\u00e9!\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il lan\u00e7a une fl\u00e8che contre Hekt\u00f4r, plein du\nd\u00e9sir de l'atteindre, et il le manqua. Et la fl\u00e8che per\u00e7a la\npoitrine de l'irr\u00e9prochable Gorgythi\u00f4n, brave fils de Priamos,\nqu'avait enfant\u00e9 la belle Kathan\u00e9ira, venue d'Aisim\u00e8, et semblable\naux d\u00e9esses par sa beaut\u00e9. Et, comme un pavot, dans un jardin,\npenche la t\u00eate sous le poids de ses fruits et des ros\u00e9es\nprintani\u00e8res, de m\u00eame le Priamide pencha la t\u00eate sous le poids de\nson casque. Et Teukros lan\u00e7a une autre fl\u00e8che contre Hekt\u00f4r, plein\ndu d\u00e9sir de l'atteindre, et il le manqua encore; et il per\u00e7a, pr\u00e8s\nde la mamelle, le brave Arkh\u00e9ptol\u00e9mos, conducteur des chevaux de\nHekt\u00f4r; et Arkh\u00e9ptol\u00e9mos tomba du char; ses chevaux rapides\nrecul\u00e8rent, et sa vie et sa force furent an\u00e9anties. Le regret amer\nde son compagnon serra le coeur de Hekt\u00f4r, mais, malgr\u00e9 sa\ndouleur, il le laissa gisant, et il ordonna \u00e0 son fr\u00e8re K\u00e9bri\u00f4n de\nprendre les r\u00eanes, et ce dernier ob\u00e9it.\n\nAlors, Hekt\u00f4r sauta du char \u00e9clatant, poussant un cri terrible;\net, saisissant une pierre, il courut \u00e0 Teukros, plein du d\u00e9sir de\nl'en frapper. Et le T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien avait tir\u00e9 du carquois une fl\u00e8che\nam\u00e8re, et il la pla\u00e7ait sur le nerf, quand Hekt\u00f4r au casque\nmouvant, comme il tendait l'arc, le frappa de la pierre dure \u00e0\nl'\u00e9paule, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 la clavicule s\u00e9pare le cou de la poitrine, \u00e0 un\nendroit mortel. Et le nerf de l'arc fut bris\u00e9, et le poignet fut\n\u00e9cras\u00e9, et l'arc s'\u00e9chappa de sa main, et il tomba \u00e0 genoux. Mais\nAias n'abandonna point son fr\u00e8re tomb\u00e9, et il accourut, le\ncouvrant de son bouclier. Puis, ses deux chers compagnons,\nM\u00e8kisteus, fils d'Ekhios, et le divin Alast\u00f4r, emport\u00e8rent vers\nles nefs creuses Teukros qui poussait des g\u00e9missements.\n\nEt l'Olympien rendit de nouveau le courage aux Troiens, et ils\nrepouss\u00e8rent les Akhaiens jusqu'au foss\u00e9 profond; et Hekt\u00f4r\nmarchait en avant, r\u00e9pandant la terreur de sa force. Comme un\nchien qui poursuit de ses pieds rapides un sanglier sauvage ou un\nlion, le touche aux cuisses et aux fesses, \u00e9piant l'instant o\u00f9 il\nse retournera, de m\u00eame Hekt\u00f4r poursuivait les Akhaiens chevelus,\ntuant toujours celui qui restait en arri\u00e8re. Et les Akhaiens\nfuyaient. Et beaucoup tombaient sous les mains des Troiens, en\ntraversant les pieux et le foss\u00e9. Mais les autres s'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent\naupr\u00e8s des nefs, s'animant entre eux, levant les bras et suppliant\ntous les dieux. Et Hekt\u00f4r poussait de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s ses chevaux aux\nbelles crini\u00e8res, ayant les yeux de Gorg\u00f4 et du sanguinaire Ar\u00e8s.\nEt la divine H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux bras blancs, \u00e0 cette vue, fut saisie de\npiti\u00e9 et dit \u00e0 Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Ah! fille de Zeus temp\u00e9tueux, ne secourrons-nous point, en ce\ncombat supr\u00eame, les Danaens qui p\u00e9rissent? Car voici que, par une\ndestin\u00e9e mauvaise, ils vont p\u00e9rir sous la violence d'un seul\nhomme. Le Priamide Hekt\u00f4r est plein d'une fureur intol\u00e9rable, et\nil les accable de maux.\n\nEt la divine Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Certes, le Priamide aurait d\u00e9j\u00e0 perdu la force avec la vie et\nserait tomb\u00e9 mort sous la main des Argiens, sur sa terre natale,\nsi mon p\u00e8re, toujours irrit\u00e9, dur et inique, ne s'opposait \u00e0 ma\nvolont\u00e9. Et il ne se souvient plus que j'ai souvent secouru son\nfils accabl\u00e9 de travaux par Eurystheus. H\u00e8rakl\u00e8s criait vers\nl'Ouranos, et Zeus m'envoya pour le secourir. Certes, si j'avais\npr\u00e9vu ceci, quand H\u00e8rakl\u00e8s fut envoy\u00e9 dans les demeures aux portes\nmassives d'Aid\u00e8s, pour enlever, de l'\u00c9r\u00e9bos, le chien du ha\u00efssable\nAid\u00e8s, certes, il n'aurait point repass\u00e9 l'eau courante et\nprofonde de Styx! Et Zeus me hait, et il c\u00e8de aux d\u00e9sirs de Th\u00e9tis\nqui a embrass\u00e9 ses genoux et lui a caress\u00e9 la barbe, le suppliant\nd'honorer Akhilleus le destructeur de citadelles. Et il me nommera\nencore sa ch\u00e8re fille aux yeux clairs! Mais attelle nos chevaux\naux sabots massifs, tandis que j'irai dans la demeure de Zeus\nprendre l'Aigide et me couvrir de mes armes guerri\u00e8res. Je verrai\nsi le Priamide Hekt\u00f4r au casque mouvant sera joyeux de nous voir\ndescendre toutes deux dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e. Certes, plus d'un Troien\ncouch\u00e9 devant les nefs des Akhaiens va rassasier les chiens et les\noiseaux carnassiers de sa graisse et de sa chair!\n\nElle parla ainsi, et la divine H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux bras blancs ob\u00e9it. Et la\ndivine et v\u00e9n\u00e9rable H\u00e8r\u00e8, fille du grand Kronos, se h\u00e2ta d'atteler\nles chevaux li\u00e9s par des harnais d'or. Et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, fille de Zeus\ntemp\u00e9tueux, laissa tomber son riche p\u00e9plos, qu'elle avait\ntravaill\u00e9 de ses mains, sur le pav\u00e9 de la demeure de son p\u00e8re, et\nelle prit la cuirasse de Zeus qui amasse les nu\u00e9es, et elle se\nrev\u00eatit de ses armes pour la guerre lamentable.\n\nEt elle monta dans le char flamboyant, et elle saisit la lance\nlourde, grande et solide, avec laquelle, \u00e9tant la fille d'un p\u00e8re\ntout-puissant, elle dompte la foule des h\u00e9ros contre qui elle\ns'irrite. Et H\u00e8r\u00e8 frappa du fouet les chevaux rapides, et les\nportes de l'Ouranos s'ouvrirent d'elles-m\u00eames en criant, gard\u00e9es\npar les Heures qui sont charg\u00e9es d'ouvrir le grand Ouranos et\nl'Olympos, ou de les fermer avec un nuage \u00e9pais. Et ce fut par l\u00e0\nque les d\u00e9esses pouss\u00e8rent les chevaux ob\u00e9issant \u00e0 l'aiguillon. Et\nle p\u00e8re Zeus, les ayant vues de l'Ida, fut saisi d'une grande\ncol\u00e8re, et il envoya la messag\u00e8re Iris aux ailes d'or:\n\n-- Va! h\u00e2te-toi, l\u00e9g\u00e8re Iris! Fais-les reculer, et qu'elles ne se\npr\u00e9sentent point devant moi, car ceci serait dangereux pour elles.\nJe le dis, et ma parole s'accomplira: J'\u00e9craserai les chevaux\nrapides sous leur char que je briserai, et je les en pr\u00e9cipiterai,\net, avant dix ans, elles ne gu\u00e9riront point des plaies que leur\nfera la foudre. Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs saura qu'elle a combattu\nson p\u00e8re. Ma col\u00e8re n'est point aussi grande contre H\u00e8r\u00e8, car elle\nest habitu\u00e9e \u00e0 toujours r\u00e9sister \u00e0 ma volont\u00e9.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et la messag\u00e8re Iris aux pieds prompts comme le\nvent s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a, et elle descendit des cimes Idaiennes dans le grand\nOlympos, et elle les arr\u00eata aux premi\u00e8res portes de l'Olympos aux\nvall\u00e9es sans nombre, et elle leur dit les paroles de Zeus:\n\n-- O\u00f9 allez-vous? Pourquoi votre coeur est-il ainsi troubl\u00e9? Le\nKronide ne veut pas qu'on vienne en aide aux Argiens. Voici la\nmenace du fils de Kronos, s'il agit selon sa parole: il \u00e9crasera\nles chevaux rapides sous votre char qu'il brisera, et il vous en\npr\u00e9cipitera, et, avant dix ans, vous ne gu\u00e9rirez point des plaies\nque vous fera la foudre. Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs, tu sauras que tu\nas combattu ton p\u00e8re! Sa col\u00e8re n'est point aussi grande contre\nH\u00e8r\u00e8, car elle est habitu\u00e9e \u00e0 toujours r\u00e9sister \u00e0 sa volont\u00e9. Mais\ntoi, tr\u00e8s violente et audacieuse chienne, oseras-tu lever ta lance\nterrible contre Zeus?\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, Iris aux pieds rapides s'envola, et H\u00e8r\u00e8 dit \u00e0\nAth\u00e8n\u00e8:\n\n-- Ah! fille de Zeus temp\u00e9tueux, je ne puis permettre que nous\ncombattions contre Zeus pour des mortels. Que l'un meure, que\nl'autre vive, soit! Et que Zeus d\u00e9cide, comme il est juste, et\nselon sa volont\u00e9, entre les Troiens et les Danaens.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, elle fit retourner les chevaux aux sabots\nmassifs, et les Heures d\u00e9tel\u00e8rent les chevaux aux belles crini\u00e8res\net les attach\u00e8rent aux cr\u00e8ches divines, et appuy\u00e8rent le char\ncontre le mur \u00e9clatant. Et les d\u00e9esses, le coeur triste,\ns'assirent sur des si\u00e8ges d'or au milieu des autres dieux. Et le\np\u00e8re Zeus poussa du haut de l'Ida, vers l'Olympos, son char aux\nbelles roues et ses chevaux, et il parvint aux si\u00e8ges des dieux.\nEt l'illustre qui \u00e9branle la terre d\u00e9tela les chevaux, posa le\nchar sur un autel et le couvrit d'un voile de lin. Et Zeus \u00e0 la\ngrande voix s'assit sur son tr\u00f4ne d'or, et le large Olympos\ntrembla sous lui. Et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 et H\u00e8r\u00e8 \u00e9taient assises loin de Zeus,\net elles ne lui parlaient ni ne l'interrogeaient; mais il les\ndevina et dit:\n\n-- Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 et H\u00e8r\u00e8, pourquoi \u00eates-vous ainsi afflig\u00e9es? Vous ne\nvous \u00eates point longtemps fatigu\u00e9es, du moins, dans la bataille\nqui illustre les guerriers, afin d'an\u00e9antir les Troiens pour qui\nvous avez tant de haine. Non! Tous les dieux de l'Olympos ne me\nr\u00e9sisteront point, tant la force de mes mains invincibles est\ngrande. La terreur a fait trembler vos beaux membres avant d'avoir\nvu la guerre et la m\u00eal\u00e9e violente. Et je le dis, et ma parole se\nserait accomplie: frapp\u00e9es toutes deux de la foudre, vous ne\nseriez point revenues sur votre char dans l'Olympos qui est la\ndemeure des immortels.\n\nEt il parla ainsi, et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 et H\u00e8r\u00e8 g\u00e9missaient, assises \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9\nl'une de l'autre, et m\u00e9ditant le malheur des Troiens. Et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8\nrestait muette, irrit\u00e9e contre son p\u00e8re Zeus, et une sauvage\ncol\u00e8re la br\u00fblait; mais H\u00e8r\u00e8 ne put contenir la sienne, et elle\ndit:\n\n-- Tr\u00e8s dur Kronide, quelle parole as-tu dite? Nous savons bien\nque ta force est grande, mais nous g\u00e9missons sur les belliqueux\nDanaens qui vont p\u00e9rir par une destin\u00e9e mauvaise. Nous ne\ncombattrons point, si tu le veux; mais nous aiderons les Argiens\nde nos conseils, afin qu'ils ne p\u00e9rissent point tous par ta\ncol\u00e8re.\n\nEt Zeus qui amasse les nu\u00e9es lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Certes, au retour d'\u00c9\u00f4s, tu pourras voir, v\u00e9n\u00e9rable H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux\nyeux de boeuf, le tout-puissant Kroni\u00f4n mieux d\u00e9truire encore\nl'arm\u00e9e innombrable des Argiens; car le brave Hekt\u00f4r ne cessera\npoint de combattre, que le rapide P\u00e8l\u00e9i\u00f4n ne se soit lev\u00e9 aupr\u00e8s\ndes nefs, le jour o\u00f9 les Akhaiens combattront sous leurs poupes,\nluttant dans un \u00e9troit espace sur le cadavre de Patroklos. Ceci\nest fatal. Je me soucie peu de ta col\u00e8re, quand m\u00eame tu irais aux\nderni\u00e8res limites de la terre et de la mer, o\u00f9 sont couch\u00e9s\nIap\u00e9tos et Kronos, loin des vents et de la lumi\u00e8re de H\u00e9lios, fils\nde Hyp\u00e9ri\u00f4n, dans l'enceinte du creux Tartaros. Quand m\u00eame tu\nirais l\u00e0, je me soucie peu de ta col\u00e8re, car rien n'est plus\nimpudent que toi.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux bras blancs ne r\u00e9pondit rien. Et la\nbrillante lumi\u00e8re H\u00e9lienne tomba dans l'Ok\u00e9anos, laissant la noire\nnuit sur la terre nourrici\u00e8re. La lumi\u00e8re disparut contre le gr\u00e9\ndes Troiens, mais la noire nuit fut la bienvenue des Akhaiens qui\nla d\u00e9siraient ardemment.\n\nEt l'illustre Hekt\u00f4r r\u00e9unit l'agora des Troiens, les ayant\nconduits loin des nefs, sur les bords du fleuve tourbillonnant, en\nun lieu o\u00f9 il n'y avait point de cadavres. Et ils descendirent de\nleurs chevaux pour \u00e9couter les paroles de Hekt\u00f4r cher \u00e0 Zeus. Et\nil tenait \u00e0 la main une pique de onze coud\u00e9es, \u00e0 la brillante\npointe d'airain retenue par un anneau d'or. Et, appuy\u00e9 sur cette\npique, il dit aux Troiens ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- \u00c9coutez-moi, Troiens, Dardaniens et alli\u00e9s. J'esp\u00e9rais ne\nretourner dans Ilios battue des vents qu'apr\u00e8s avoir d\u00e9truit les\nnefs et tous les Akhaiens; mais les t\u00e9n\u00e8bres sont venues qui ont\nsauv\u00e9 les Argiens et les nefs sur le rivage de la mer. C'est\npourquoi, ob\u00e9issons \u00e0 la nuit noire, et pr\u00e9parons le repas.\nD\u00e9telez les chevaux aux belles crini\u00e8res et donnez-leur de la\nnourriture. Amenez promptement de la ville des boeufs et de\ngrasses brebis, et apportez un doux vin de vos demeures, et\namassez beaucoup de bois, afin que, toute la nuit, jusqu'au retour\nd'\u00c9\u00f4s qui na\u00eet le matin, nous allumions beaucoup de feux dont\nl'\u00e9clat s'\u00e9l\u00e8ve dans l'Ouranos, et afin que les Akhaiens chevelus\nne profitent pas de la nuit pour fuir sur le vaste dos de la mer.\nQu'ils ne montent point tranquillement du moins sur leurs nefs, et\nque chacun d'eux, en montant sur sa nef, emporte dans son pays une\nblessure faite par nos piques et nos lances aigu\u00ebs! Que tout autre\nredoute d\u00e9sormais d'apporter la guerre lamentable aux Troiens\ndompteurs de chevaux. Que les h\u00e9rauts chers \u00e0 Zeus appellent, par\nla ville, les jeunes enfants et les vieillards aux tempes blanches\n\u00e0 se r\u00e9unir sur les tours \u00e9lev\u00e9es par les dieux; et que les femmes\ntimides, chacune dans sa demeure, allument de grands feux, afin\nqu'on veille avec vigilance, de peur qu'on entre par surprise dans\nla ville, en l'absence des hommes. Qu'il soit fait comme je le\ndis, magnanimes Troiens, car mes paroles sont salutaires. D\u00e8s le\nretour d'\u00c9\u00f4s je parlerai encore aux Troiens dompteurs de chevaux.\nJe me vante, ayant suppli\u00e9 Zeus et les autres dieux, de chasser\nbient\u00f4t d'ici ces chiens que les k\u00e8res ont amen\u00e9s sur les nefs\nnoires. Veillons sur nous-m\u00eames pendant la nuit; mais, d\u00e8s la\npremi\u00e8re heure du matin, couvrons-nous de nos armes et poussons\nl'imp\u00e9tueux Ar\u00e8s sur les nefs creuses. Je saurai si le brave\nDiom\u00e8d\u00e8s Tyd\u00e9ide me repoussera loin des nefs jusqu'aux murailles,\nou si, le per\u00e7ant de l'airain, j'emporterai ses d\u00e9pouilles\nsanglantes. Demain, il pourra se glorifier de sa force, s'il\nr\u00e9siste \u00e0 ma pique; mais j'esp\u00e8re plut\u00f4t que, demain, quand H\u00e9lios\nse l\u00e8vera, il tombera des premiers, tout sanglant, au milieu d'une\nfoule de ses compagnons. Et pl\u00fbt aux dieux que je fusse immortel\net toujours jeune, et honor\u00e9 comme Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 et Apoll\u00f4n, autant qu'il\nest certain que ce jour sera funeste aux Argiens!\n\nHekt\u00f4r parla ainsi, et les Troiens pouss\u00e8rent des acclamations. Et\nils d\u00e9tach\u00e8rent du joug les chevaux mouill\u00e9s de sueur, et ils les\nli\u00e8rent avec des lani\u00e8res aupr\u00e8s des chars; et ils amen\u00e8rent\npromptement de la ville des boeufs et des brebis grasses; et ils\napport\u00e8rent un doux vin et du pain de leurs demeures, et ils\namass\u00e8rent beaucoup de bois. Puis, ils sacrifi\u00e8rent de compl\u00e8tes\nh\u00e9catombes aux immortels, et le vent en portait la fum\u00e9e \u00e9paisse\net douce dans l'Ouranos. Mais les dieux heureux n'en voulurent\npoint et la d\u00e9daign\u00e8rent, car ils ha\u00eessaient la sainte Ilios, et\nPriamos, et le peuple de Priamos aux piques de fr\u00eane.\n\nEt les Troiens, pleins d'esp\u00e9rance, passaient la nuit sur le\nsentier de la guerre, ayant allum\u00e9 de grands feux. Comme, lorsque\nles astres \u00e9tincellent dans l'Ouranos autour de la claire S\u00e9l\u00e8n\u00e8,\net que le vent ne trouble point l'air, on voit s'\u00e9clairer les\ncimes et les hauts promontoires et les vall\u00e9es, et que l'aith\u00e8r\ninfini s'ouvre au fa\u00eete de l'Ouranos, et que le berger joyeux voit\nluire tous les astres; de m\u00eame, entre les nefs et l'eau courante\ndu Xanthos, les feux des Troiens brillaient devant Ilios. Mille\nfeux br\u00fblaient ainsi dans la plaine; et, pr\u00e8s de chacun, \u00e9taient\nassis cinquante guerriers autour de la flamme ardente. Et les\nchevaux, mangeant l'orge et l'avoine, se tenaient aupr\u00e8s des\nchars, attendant \u00c9\u00f4s au beau tr\u00f4ne.\n\n\nChant 9\n\nTandis que les Troiens pla\u00e7aient ainsi leurs gardes, le d\u00e9sir de\nla fuite, qui accompagne la froide terreur, saisissait les\nAkhaiens. Et les plus braves \u00e9taient frapp\u00e9s d'une accablante\ntristesse.\n\nDe m\u00eame, lorsque les deux vents Bor\u00e9as et Z\u00e9phyros, soufflant de\nla Thr\u00e8k\u00e8, bouleversent la haute mer poissonneuse, et que l'onde\nnoire se gonfle et se d\u00e9roule en masses d'\u00e9cume, ainsi, dans leurs\npoitrines, se d\u00e9chirait le coeur des Akhaiens. Et l'Atr\u00e9ide,\nfrapp\u00e9 d'une grande douleur, ordonna aux h\u00e9rauts \u00e0 la voix sonore\nd'appeler, chacun par son nom, et sans clameurs, les hommes \u00e0\nl'agora. Et lui-m\u00eame appela les plus proches. Et tous vinrent\ns'asseoir dans l'agora, pleins de tristesse. Et Agamemn\u00f4n se leva,\nversant des larmes, comme une source abondante qui tombe largement\nd'une roche \u00e9lev\u00e9e. Et, avec un profond soupir, il dit aux\nArgiens:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis, rois et chefs des Argiens, le Kronide Zeus m'a accabl\u00e9\nd'un lourd malheur, lui qui m'avait solennellement promis que je\nne m'en retournerais qu'apr\u00e8s avoir d\u00e9truit Ilios aux murailles\nsolides. Maintenant, il m\u00e9dite une fraude funeste, et il m'ordonne\nde retourner sans gloire dans Argos, quand j'ai perdu tant de\nguerriers d\u00e9j\u00e0! Et ceci pla\u00eet au tout-puissant Zeus qui a renvers\u00e9\nles citadelles de tant de villes, et qui en renversera encore, car\nsa puissance est tr\u00e8s grande. Allons! ob\u00e9issez tous \u00e0 mes paroles:\nfuyons sur nos nefs vers la terre bien-aim\u00e9e de la patrie. Nous ne\nprendrons jamais Ilios aux larges rues.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous rest\u00e8rent muets, et les fils des Akhaiens\n\u00e9taient tristes et silencieux. Enfin, Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s hardi au combat\nparla au milieu d'eux:\n\n-- Atr\u00e9ide, je combattrai le premier tes paroles insens\u00e9es, comme\nil est permis, \u00f4 roi, dans l'agora; et tu ne t'en irriteras pas,\ncar toi-m\u00eame tu m'as outrag\u00e9 d\u00e9j\u00e0 au milieu des Danaens, me\nnommant faible et l\u00e2che. Et ceci, les Argiens le savent, jeunes et\nvieux. Certes, le fils du subtil Kronos t'a dou\u00e9 in\u00e9galement. Il\nt'a accord\u00e9 le sceptre et les honneurs supr\u00eames, mais il ne t'a\npoint donn\u00e9 la fermet\u00e9 de l'\u00e2me, qui est la plus grande vertu.\nMalheureux! penses-tu que les fils des Akhaiens soient aussi\nfaibles et aussi l\u00e2ches que tu le dis? Si ton coeur te pousse \u00e0\nretourner en arri\u00e8re, va! voici la route; et les nombreuses nefs\nqui t'ont suivi de Myk\u00e8n\u00e8 sont l\u00e0, aupr\u00e8s du rivage de la mer.\nMais tous les autres Akhaiens chevelus resteront jusqu'\u00e0 ce que\nnous ayons renvers\u00e9 Ilios. Et s'ils veulent eux-m\u00eames fuir sur\nleurs nefs vers la terre bien-aim\u00e9e de la patrie, moi et Sth\u00e9n\u00e9los\nnous combattrons jusqu'\u00e0 ce que nous ayons vu la fin d'Ilios, car\nnous sommes venus ici sur la foi des dieux!\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous les fils des Akhaiens applaudirent,\nadmirant le discours du dompteur de chevaux Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s. Et le\ncavalier Nest\u00f4r, se levant au milieu d'eux, parla ainsi:\n\n-- Tyd\u00e9ide, tu es le plus hardi au combat, et tu es aussi le\npremier \u00e0 l'agora parmi tes \u00e9gaux en \u00e2ge. Nul ne bl\u00e2mera tes\nparoles, et aucun des Akhaiens ne les contredira mais tu n'as pas\ntout dit. \u00c0 la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, tu es jeune, et tu pourrais \u00eatre le moins\n\u00e2g\u00e9 de mes fils; et, cependant, tu parles avec prudence devant les\nrois des Argiens, et comme il convient. C'est \u00e0 moi de tout\npr\u00e9voir et de tout dire, car je me glorifie d'\u00eatre plus vieux que\ntoi. Et nul ne bl\u00e2mera mes paroles, pas m\u00eame le roi Agamemn\u00f4n. Il\nest sans intelligence, sans justice et sans foyers domestiques,\ncelui qui aime les affreuses discordes intestines. Mais ob\u00e9issons\nmaintenant \u00e0 la nuit noire: pr\u00e9parons notre repas, pla\u00e7ons des\ngardes choisies aupr\u00e8s du foss\u00e9 profond, en avant des murailles.\nC'est aux jeunes hommes de prendre ce soin, et c'est \u00e0 toi,\nAtr\u00e9ide, qui es le chef supr\u00eame, de le leur commander. Puis, offre\nun repas aux chefs, car ceci est convenable et t'appartient. Tes\ntentes sont pleines du vin que les nefs des Akhaiens t'apportent\nchaque jour de la Thr\u00e8k\u00e8, \u00e0 travers l'immensit\u00e9 de la haute mer.\nTu peux ais\u00e9ment beaucoup offrir, et tu commandes \u00e0 un grand\nnombre de serviteurs. Quand les chefs seront assembl\u00e9s, ob\u00e9is \u00e0\nqui te donnera le meilleur conseil; car les Akhaiens ont tous\nbesoin de sages conseils au moment o\u00f9 les ennemis allument tant de\nfeux aupr\u00e8s des nefs. Qui de nous pourrait s'en r\u00e9jouir? Cette\nnuit, l'arm\u00e9e sera perdue ou sauv\u00e9e.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous, l'ayant \u00e9cout\u00e9, ob\u00e9irent. Et les gardes\narm\u00e9es sortirent, conduites par le Nestor\u00e9ide Thrasym\u00e8d\u00e8s, prince\ndes peuples, par Askalaphos et Ialm\u00e9nos, fils d'Ar\u00e8s, par\nM\u00e8rion\u00e8s, Aphar\u00e8os et D\u00e8ipiros, et par le divin Lykom\u00e8d\u00e8s, fils de\nKr\u00e9\u00f4n. Et les sept chefs des gardes conduisaient, chacun, cent\njeunes guerriers arm\u00e9s de longues piques. Et ils se plac\u00e8rent\nentre le foss\u00e9 et la muraille, et ils allum\u00e8rent des feux et\nprirent leur repas. Et l'Atr\u00e9ide conduisit les chefs des Akhaiens\nsous sa tente et leur offrit un abondant repas. Et tous \u00e9tendirent\nles mains vers les mets. Et, quand ils eurent assouvi la soif et\nla faim, le premier d'entre eux, le vieillard Nest\u00f4r, qui avait\nd\u00e9j\u00e0 donn\u00e9 le meilleur conseil, parla ainsi, plein de sagesse, et\ndit:\n\n-- Tr\u00e8s illustre Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n, roi des hommes, je commencerai\net je finirai par toi, car tu commandes \u00e0 de nombreux peuples, et\nZeus t'a donn\u00e9 le sceptre et les droits afin que tu les gouvernes.\nC'est pourquoi il faut que tu saches parler et entendre, et\naccueillir les sages conseils, si leur coeur ordonne aux autres\nchefs de t'en donner de meilleurs. Et je te dirai ce qu'il y a de\nmieux \u00e0 faire, car personne n'a une meilleure pens\u00e9e que celle que\nje m\u00e9dite maintenant, et depuis longtemps, depuis le jour o\u00f9 tu as\nenlev\u00e9, \u00f4 race divine, contre notre gr\u00e9, la vierge Breis\u00e8is de la\ntente d'Akhilleus irrit\u00e9. Et j'ai voulu te dissuader, et, c\u00e9dant \u00e0\nton coeur orgueilleux, tu as outrag\u00e9 le plus brave des hommes, que\nles immortels m\u00eames honorent, et tu lui as enlev\u00e9 sa r\u00e9compense.\nD\u00e9lib\u00e9rons donc aujourd'hui, et cherchons comment nous pourrons\napaiser Akhilleus par des pr\u00e9sents pacifiques et par des paroles\nflatteuses.\n\nEt le roi des hommes, Agamemn\u00f4n, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 vieillard, tu ne mens point en rappelant mes injustices. J'ai\ncommis une offense, et je ne le nie point. Un guerrier que Zeus\naime dans son coeur l'emporte sur tous les guerriers. Et c'est\npour l'honorer qu'il accable aujourd'hui l'arm\u00e9e des Akhaiens.\nMais, puisque j'ai failli en ob\u00e9issant \u00e0 de funestes pens\u00e9es, je\nveux maintenant apaiser Akhilleus et lui offrir des pr\u00e9sents\ninfinis. Et je vous dirai quels sont ces dons illustres: sept\ntr\u00e9pieds vierges du feu, dix talents d'or, vingt bassins qu'on\npeut exposer \u00e0 la flamme, douze chevaux robustes qui ont toujours\nremport\u00e9 les premiers prix par la rapidit\u00e9 de leur course. Et il\nne manquerait plus de rien, et il serait combl\u00e9 d'or celui qui\nposs\u00e9derait les prix que m'ont rapport\u00e9s ces chevaux aux sabots\nmassifs. Et je donnerai encore au P\u00e8l\u00e9ide sept belles femmes\nLesbiennes, habiles aux travaux, qu'il a prises lui-m\u00eame dans\nLesbos bien peupl\u00e9e, et que j'ai choisies, car elles \u00e9taient plus\nbelles que toutes les autres femmes. Et je les lui donnerai, et,\navec elles, celle que je lui ai enlev\u00e9e, la vierge Breis\u00e8is; et je\njurerai un grand serment qu'elle n'a point connu mon lit, et que\nje l'ai respect\u00e9e. Toutes ces choses lui seront livr\u00e9es aussit\u00f4t.\nEt si les dieux nous donnent de renverser la grande ville de\nPriamos, il remplira abondamment sa nef d'or et d'airain. Et quand\nnous, Akhaiens, partagerons la proie, qu'il choisisse vingt femmes\nTroiennes, les plus belles apr\u00e8s l'Argienne H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8. Et si nous\nretournons dans la fertile Argos, en Akhai\u00e8, qu'il soit mon\ngendre, et je l'honorerai autant qu'Orest\u00e8s, mon unique fils\nnourri dans les d\u00e9lices. J'ai trois filles dans mes riches\ndemeures, Khrysoth\u00e9mis, Laodik\u00e8 et Iphianassa. Qu'il emm\u00e8ne, sans\nlui assurer une dot, celle qu'il aimera le mieux, dans les\ndemeures de P\u00e8leus. Ce sera moi qui la doterai, comme jamais\npersonne n'a dot\u00e9 sa fille, car je lui donnerai sept villes tr\u00e8s\nillustres: Kardamyl\u00e8, \u00c9nop\u00e8, Hira aux pr\u00e9s verdoyants, la divine\nPh\u00e8ra, Anth\u00e9ia aux gras p\u00e2turages, la belle Aip\u00e9ia et P\u00e8dasos\nriche en vignes. Toutes sont aux bords de la mer, aupr\u00e8s de la\nsablonneuse Pylos. Leurs habitants abondent en boeufs et en\ntroupeaux, et, par leurs dons, ils l'honoreront comme un dieu; et,\nsous son sceptre, ils lui payeront de riches tributs. Je lui\ndonnerai tout cela s'il d\u00e9pose sa col\u00e8re. Qu'il s'apaise donc.\nAid\u00e8s seul est implacable et indompt\u00e9, et c'est pourquoi, de tous\nles dieux, il est le plus ha\u00ef des hommes. Qu'il me c\u00e8de comme il\nest juste, puisque je suis plus puissant et plus \u00e2g\u00e9 que lui.\n\nEt le cavalier G\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Tr\u00e8s illustre Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n, roi des hommes, certes, ils ne\nsont point \u00e0 m\u00e9priser les pr\u00e9sents que tu offres au roi Akhilleus.\nAllons! envoyons promptement des messagers choisis sous la tente\ndu P\u00e8l\u00e9ide Akhilleus. Je les d\u00e9signerai moi-m\u00eame, et ils ob\u00e9iront.\nQue Phoinix aim\u00e9 de Zeus les conduise, et ce seront le grand Aias\net le divin Odysseus, suivis des h\u00e9rauts Hodios et Eurybat\u00e8s.\nTrempons nos mains dans l'eau, et supplions en silence Zeus\nKronide de nous prendre en piti\u00e9.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous furent satisfaits de ses paroles. Et les\nh\u00e9rauts vers\u00e8rent aussit\u00f4t de l'eau sur leurs mains, et les jeunes\nhommes emplirent les krat\u00e8res de vin qu'ils distribu\u00e8rent, selon\nl'ordre, \u00e0 pleines coupes. Et, apr\u00e8s avoir bu autant qu'ils le\nvoulaient, ils sortirent de la tente de l'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n. Et le\ncavalier G\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r exhorta longuement chacun d'eux, et\nsurtout Odysseus, \u00e0 faire tous leurs efforts pour apaiser et\nfl\u00e9chir l'irr\u00e9prochable P\u00e8l\u00e9ide. Et ils allaient le long du rivage\nde la mer aux bruits sans nombre, suppliant celui qui entoure la\nterre de leur accorder de toucher le grand coeur de l'Aiakide.\n\nEt ils parvinrent aux nefs et aux tentes des Myrmidones. Et ils\ntrouv\u00e8rent le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide qui charmait son \u00e2me en jouant d'une kithare\naux doux sons, belle, artistement faite et surmont\u00e9e d'un joug\nd'argent, et qu'il avait prise parmi les d\u00e9pouilles, apr\u00e8s avoir\nd\u00e9truit la ville d'\u00ca\u00e9ti\u00f4n. Et il charmait son \u00e2me, et il chantait\nles actions glorieuses des hommes. Et Patroklos, seul, \u00e9tait assis\naupr\u00e8s de lui, l'\u00e9coutant en silence jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'il e\u00fbt cess\u00e9 de\nchanter.\n\nEt ils s'avanc\u00e8rent, pr\u00e9c\u00e9d\u00e9s par le divin Odysseus, et ils\ns'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent devant le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide. Et Akhilleus, \u00e9tonn\u00e9, se leva de\nson si\u00e8ge, avec sa kithare, et Patroklos se leva aussi en voyant\nles guerriers. Et Akhilleus aux pieds rapides leur parla ainsi:\n\n-- Je vous salue, guerriers. Certes, vous \u00eates les bienvenus, mais\nquelle n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 vous am\u00e8ne, vous qui, malgr\u00e9 ma col\u00e8re, m'\u00eates\nles plus chers parmi les Akhaiens?\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, le divin Akhilleus les conduisit et les fit\nasseoir sur des si\u00e8ges aux draperies pourpr\u00e9es. Et aussit\u00f4t il dit\n\u00e0 Patroklos:\n\n-- Fils de M\u00e9noitios, apporte un grand krat\u00e8re, fais un doux\nm\u00e9lange, et pr\u00e9pare des coupes pour chacun de nous, car des hommes\ntr\u00e8s chers sont venus sous ma tente.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Patroklos ob\u00e9it \u00e0 son cher compagnon. Et\nAkhilleus \u00e9tendit sur un grand billot, aupr\u00e8s du feu, le dos d'une\nbrebis, celui d'une ch\u00e8vre grasse et celui d'un porc gras. Et\ntandis qu'Autom\u00e9d\u00f4n maintenait les chairs, le divin Akhilleus les\ncoupait par morceaux et les embrochait. Et le M\u00e9noitiade, homme\nsemblable \u00e0 un dieu, allumait un grand feu. Et quand la flamme\ntomba et s'\u00e9teignit, il \u00e9tendit les broches au-dessus des charbons\nen les appuyant sur des pierres, et il les aspergea de sel sacr\u00e9.\nEt Patroklos, ayant r\u00f4ti les chairs et les ayant pos\u00e9es sur la\ntable, distribua le pain dans de belles corbeilles. Et Akhilleus\ncoupa les viandes, et il s'assit en face du divin Odysseus, et il\nordonna \u00e0 Patroklos de sacrifier aux dieux. Et celui-ci fit des\nlibations dans le feu. Et tous \u00e9tendirent les mains vers les mets\nofferts. Et quand ils eurent assouvi la faim et la soif, Aias fit\nsigne \u00e0 Phoinix. Aussit\u00f4t le divin Odysseus le comprit, et,\nremplissant sa coupe de vin, il parla ainsi \u00e0 Akhilleus:\n\n-- Salut, Akhilleus! Aucun de nous n'a manqu\u00e9 d'une part \u00e9gale,\nsoit sous la tente de l'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n, soit ici. Les mets y\nabondent \u00e9galement. Mais il ne nous est point permis de go\u00fbter la\njoie des repas, car nous redoutons un grand d\u00e9sastre, \u00f4 race\ndivine! et nous l'attendons, et nous ne savons si nos nefs solides\np\u00e9riront ou seront sauv\u00e9es, \u00e0 moins que tu ne t'armes de ton\ncourage. Voici que les Troiens orgueilleux et leurs alli\u00e9s venus\nde loin ont assis leur camp devant nos murailles et nos nefs. Et\nils ont allum\u00e9 des feux sans nombre, et ils disent que rien ne les\nretiendra plus et qu'ils vont se jeter sur nos nefs noires. Et le\nKronide Zeus a lanc\u00e9 l'\u00e9clair, montrant \u00e0 leur droite des signes\npropices. Hekt\u00f4r, appuy\u00e9 par Zeus, et tr\u00e8s orgueilleux de sa\nforce, est plein d'une fureur terrible, n'honorant plus ni les\nhommes ni les dieux. Une rage s'est empar\u00e9e de lui. Il fait des\nimpr\u00e9cations pour que la divine \u00c9\u00f4s reparaisse promptement. Il se\nvante de rompre bient\u00f4t les \u00e9perons de nos nefs et de consumer\ncelles-ci dans le feu ardent, et de massacrer les Akhaiens\naveugl\u00e9s par la fum\u00e9e. Je crains bien, dans mon esprit, que les\ndieux n'accomplissent ses menaces, et que nous p\u00e9rissions\nin\u00e9vitablement devant Troi\u00e8, loin de la fertile Argos nourrice de\nchevaux. L\u00e8ve-toi, si tu veux, au dernier moment, sauver les fils\ndes Akhaiens de la rage des Troiens. Sinon, tu seras saisi de\ndouleur, car il n'y a point de rem\u00e8de contre un mal accompli.\nSonge donc maintenant \u00e0 reculer le dernier jour des Danaens. \u00d4\nami, ton p\u00e8re P\u00e8leus te disait, le jour o\u00f9 il t'envoya, de la\nPhthi\u00e8, vers Agamemn\u00f4n: -- Mon fils, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 et H\u00e8r\u00e8 te donneront\nla victoire, s'il leur pla\u00eet; mais r\u00e9prime ton grand coeur dans ta\npoitrine, car la bienveillance est au-dessus de tout. Fuis la\ndiscorde qui engendre les maux, afin que les Argiens, jeunes et\nvieux, t'honorent.' Ainsi parlait le vieillard, et tu as oubli\u00e9\nses paroles; mais aujourd'hui apaise-toi, refr\u00e8ne la col\u00e8re qui\nronge le coeur, et Agamemn\u00f4n te fera des pr\u00e9sents dignes de toi.\nSi tu veux m'\u00e9couter, je te dirai ceux qu'il promet de remettre\nsous tes tentes: -- sept tr\u00e9pieds vierges du feu, dix talents\nd'or, vingt bassins qu'on peut exposer \u00e0 la flamme, douze chevaux\nrobustes qui ont toujours remport\u00e9 les premiers prix par la\nrapidit\u00e9 de leur course. Et il ne manquerait plus de rien, et il\nserait combl\u00e9 d'or, celui qui poss\u00e9derait les prix qu'ont\nrapport\u00e9s \u00e0 l'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n ces chevaux aux sabots massifs. Et\nil te donnera encore sept belles femmes Lesbiennes, habiles aux\ntravaux, que tu as prises toi-m\u00eame dans Lesbos bien peupl\u00e9e, et\nqu'il a choisies, car elles \u00e9taient plus belles que toutes les\nautres femmes. Et il te les donnera, et, avec elles, celle qu'il\nt'a enlev\u00e9e, la vierge Breis\u00e8is; et il jurera un grand serment\nqu'elle n'a point connu son lit et qu'il l'a respect\u00e9e. Toutes ces\nchoses te seront livr\u00e9es aussit\u00f4t. Mais si les dieux nous donnent\nde renverser la grande ville de Priamos, tu rempliras abondamment\nta nef d'or et d'airain. Et quand nous, Akhaiens, nous partagerons\nla proie, tu choisiras vingt femmes Troiennes, les plus belles\napr\u00e8s l'Argienne H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8. Et si nous retournons dans la fertile\nArgos, en Akhai\u00e8, tu seras son gendre, et il t'honorera autant\nqu'Orest\u00e8s, son unique fils nourri dans les d\u00e9lices. Il a trois\nfilles dans ses riches demeures: Krysoth\u00e9mis, Laodik\u00e8 et\nIphianassa. Tu emm\u00e8neras, sans lui assurer une dot, celle que tu\naimeras le mieux, dans les demeures de P\u00e8leus. Ce sera lui qui la\ndotera comme jamais personne n'a dot\u00e9 sa fille, car il te donnera\nsept villes tr\u00e8s illustres: Kardamyl\u00e8, \u00c9nop\u00e8, Hira aux pr\u00e9s\nverdoyants, la divine Ph\u00e8ra, Anth\u00e9ia aux gras p\u00e2turages, la belle\nAip\u00e9ia et P\u00e8dasos riche en vignes. Toutes sont aux bords de la\nmer, aupr\u00e8s de la sablonneuse Pylos. Leurs habitants abondent en\nboeufs et en troupeaux. Et, par leurs dons, ils t'honoreront comme\nun dieu; et, sous ton sceptre, ils te payeront de riches tributs.\nEt il te donnera tout cela si tu d\u00e9poses ta col\u00e8re. Mais si\nl'Atr\u00e9ide et ses pr\u00e9sents te sont odieux, aie piti\u00e9 du moins des\nPanakhaiens accabl\u00e9s de douleur dans leur camp et qui t'honoreront\ncomme un dieu. Certes, tu leur devras une grande gloire, et tu\ntueras Hekt\u00f4r qui viendra \u00e0 ta rencontre et qui se vante que nul\nne peut se comparer \u00e0 lui de tous les Danaens que les nefs ont\napport\u00e9s ici.\n\nEt Akhilleus aux pieds rapides lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Divin Laertiade, tr\u00e8s subtil Odysseus, il faut que je dise\nclairement ce que j'ai r\u00e9solu et ce qui s'accomplira, afin que\nvous n'insistiez pas tour \u00e0 tour. Celui qui cache sa pens\u00e9e dans\nson \u00e2me et ne dit point la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 m'est plus odieux que le seuil\nd'Aid\u00e8s. Je dirai donc ce qui me semble pr\u00e9f\u00e9rable. Ni l'Atr\u00e9ide\nAgamemn\u00f4n, ni les autres Danaens ne me persuaderont, puisqu'il ne\nm'a servi \u00e0 rien de combattre sans rel\u00e2che les guerriers ennemis.\nCelui qui reste au camp et celui qui combat avec courage ont une\nm\u00eame part. Le l\u00e2che et le brave remportent le m\u00eame honneur, et\nl'homme oisif est tu\u00e9 comme celui qui agit. Rien ne m'est rest\u00e9\nd'avoir souffert des maux sans nombre et d'avoir expos\u00e9 mon \u00e2me en\ncombattant. Comme l'oiseau qui porte \u00e0 ses petits sans plume la\nnourriture qu'il a ramass\u00e9e et dont il n'a rien gard\u00e9 pour lui-\nm\u00eame, j'ai pass\u00e9 sans sommeil d'innombrables nuits, j'ai lutt\u00e9\ncontre les hommes pendant des journ\u00e9es sanglantes, pour la cause\nde vos femmes; j'ai d\u00e9vast\u00e9, \u00e0 l'aide de mes nefs, douze villes,\ndemeures des hommes; sur terre, j'en ai pris onze autour de la\nfertile Ilios; j'ai rapport\u00e9 de toutes ces villes mille choses\npr\u00e9cieuses et superbes, et j'ai tout donn\u00e9 \u00e0 l'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n,\ntandis qu'assis aupr\u00e8s des nefs rapides, il n'en distribuait\nqu'une moindre part aux rois et aux chefs et se r\u00e9servait la plus\ngrande. Du moins ceux-ci ont gard\u00e9 ce qu'il leur a donn\u00e9; mais, de\ntous les Akhaiens, \u00e0 moi seul il m'a enlev\u00e9 ma r\u00e9compense! Qu'il\nse r\u00e9jouisse donc de cette femme et qu'il en jouisse! Pourquoi les\nArgiens combattent-ils les Troiens? Pourquoi les Atr\u00e9ides ont-ils\nconduit ici cette nombreuse arm\u00e9e? N'est-ce point pour la cause de\nH\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 \u00e0 la belle chevelure? Sont-ils les seuls de tous les hommes\nqui aiment leurs femmes? Tout homme sage et bon aime la sienne et\nen prend soin. Et moi aussi, j'aimais celle-ci dans mon coeur,\nbien que captive. Maintenant que, de ses mains, il m'a arrach\u00e9 ma\nr\u00e9compense, et qu'il m'a vol\u00e9, il ne me persuadera, ni ne me\ntrompera plus, car je suis averti. Qu'il d\u00e9lib\u00e8re avec toi, \u00f4\nOdysseus, et avec les autres rois, afin d'\u00e9loigner des nefs la\nflamme ardente. D\u00e9j\u00e0 il a fait sans moi de nombreux travaux; il a\nconstruit un mur et creus\u00e9 un foss\u00e9 profond et large, d\u00e9fendu par\ndes pieux. Mais il n'en a pas r\u00e9prim\u00e9 davantage la violence du\ntueur d'hommes Hekt\u00f4r. Quand je combattais au milieu des Akhaiens,\nHekt\u00f4r ne sortait que rarement de ses murailles. \u00c0 peine se\nhasardait-il devant les portes Skaies et aupr\u00e8s du h\u00eatre. Et il\nm'y attendit une fois, et \u00e0 peine put-il \u00e9chapper \u00e0 mon\nimp\u00e9tuosit\u00e9. Maintenant, puisque je ne veux plus combattre le\ndivin Hekt\u00f4r, demain, ayant sacrifi\u00e9 \u00e0 Zeus et \u00e0 tous les dieux,\nje tra\u00eenerai \u00e0 la mer mes nefs charg\u00e9es; et tu verras, si tu le\nveux et si tu t'en soucies, mes nefs voguer, d\u00e8s le matin, sur le\nHellespontos poissonneux, sous l'effort vigoureux des rameurs. Et\nsi l'illustre qui entoure la terre me donne une heureuse\nnavigation, le troisi\u00e8me jour j'arriverai dans la fertile Phthi\u00e8,\no\u00f9 sont les richesses que j'y ai laiss\u00e9es quand je vins ici pour\nmon malheur. Et j'y conduirai l'or et le rouge airain, et les\nbelles femmes et le fer luisant que le sort m'a accord\u00e9s, car le\nroi Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n m'a arrach\u00e9 la r\u00e9compense qu'il m'avait\ndonn\u00e9e. Et r\u00e9p\u00e8te-lui ouvertement ce que je dis, afin que les\nAkhaiens s'indignent, s'il esp\u00e8re tromper de nouveau quelqu'autre\ndes Danaens. Mais, bien qu'il ait l'impudence d'un chien, il\nn'oserait me regarder en face. Je ne veux plus ni d\u00e9lib\u00e9rer, ni\nagir avec lui, car il m'a tromp\u00e9 et outrag\u00e9. C'est assez. Mais\nqu'il reste en repos dans sa m\u00e9chancet\u00e9, car le tr\u00e8s sage Zeus lui\na ravi l'esprit. Ses dons me sont odieux, et lui, je l'honore\nautant que la demeure d'Aid\u00e8s. Et il me donnerait dix et vingt\nfois plus de richesses qu'il n'en a et qu'il n'en aura, qu'il n'en\nvient d'Orkhom\u00e9nos, ou de Th\u00e8ba dans l'Aigyptia, o\u00f9 les tr\u00e9sors\nabondent dans les demeures, qui a cent portes, et qui, par\nchacune, voit sortir deux cents guerriers avec chevaux et chars;\net il me ferait autant de pr\u00e9sents qu'il y a de grains de sable et\nde poussi\u00e8re, qu'il n'apaiserait point mon coeur avant d'avoir\nexpi\u00e9 l'outrage sanglant qu'il m'a fait. Et je ne prendrai point\npour femme l\u00e9gitime la fille de l'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n, f\u00fbt-elle plus\nbelle qu'Aphrodit\u00e8 d'or et plus habile aux travaux qu'Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux\nyeux clairs. Je ne la prendrai point pour femme l\u00e9gitime. Qu'il\nchoisisse un autre Akhaien qui lui plaise et qui soit un roi plus\npuissant. Si les dieux me gardent, et si je rentre dans ma\ndemeure, P\u00e8leus me choisira lui-m\u00eame une femme l\u00e9gitime. Il y a,\ndans l'Akhai\u00e8, la Hellas et la Phthi\u00e8, de nombreuses jeunes filles\nde chefs guerriers qui d\u00e9fendent les citadelles, et je ferai de\nl'une d'elles ma femme l\u00e9gitime bien-aim\u00e9e. Et mon coeur g\u00e9n\u00e9reux\nme pousse \u00e0 prendre une femme l\u00e9gitime et \u00e0 jouir des biens acquis\npar le vieillard P\u00e8leus. Toutes les richesses que renfermait la\ngrande Ilios aux nombreux habitants pendant la paix, avant la\nvenue des fils des Akhaiens, ne sont point d'un prix \u00e9gal \u00e0 la\nvie, non plus que celles que renferme le sanctuaire de pierre de\nl'archer Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n, dans l'\u00e2pre Pyth\u00f4. Les boeufs, les\ngrasses brebis, les tr\u00e9pieds, les blondes crini\u00e8res des chevaux,\ntout cela peut \u00eatre conquis; mais l'\u00e2me qui s'est une fois\n\u00e9chapp\u00e9e d'entre nos dents ne peut \u00eatre ressaisie ni rappel\u00e9e. Ma\nm\u00e8re, la d\u00e9esse Th\u00e9tis aux pieds d'argent, m'a dit que deux k\u00e8res\nm'\u00e9taient offertes pour arriver \u00e0 la mort. Si je reste et si je\ncombats autour de la ville des Troiens, je ne retournerai jamais\ndans mes demeures, mais ma gloire sera immortelle. Si je retourne\nvers ma demeure, dans la terre bien-aim\u00e9e de ma patrie, je perdrai\ntoute gloire, mais je vivrai tr\u00e8s vieux, et la mort ne me saisira\nqu'apr\u00e8s de tr\u00e8s longues ann\u00e9es. Je conseille \u00e0 tous les Akhaiens\nde retourner vers leurs demeures, car vous ne verrez jamais le\ndernier jour de la haute Ilios. Zeus qui tonne puissamment la\nprot\u00e8ge de ses mains et a rempli son peuple d'une grande audace.\nPour vous, allez porter ma r\u00e9ponse aux chefs des Akhaiens, car\nc'est l\u00e0 le partage des anciens; et ils chercheront dans leur\nesprit un meilleur moyen de sauver les nefs et les tribus\nAkhaiennes, car ma col\u00e8re rend inutile celui qu'ils avaient\ntrouv\u00e9. Et Phoinix restera et couchera ici, afin de me suivre\ndemain, sur mes nefs, dans notre patrie, s'il le d\u00e9sire, du moins,\ncar je ne le contraindrai point.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous rest\u00e8rent muets, accabl\u00e9s de ce discours\net de ce dur refus. Enfin, le vieux cavalier Phoinix parla ainsi,\nversant des larmes, tant il craignait pour les nefs des Akhaiens:\n\n-- Si d\u00e9j\u00e0 tu as r\u00e9solu ton retour, illustre Akhilleus, et si tu\nrefuses d'\u00e9loigner des nefs rapides la violence du feu\ndestructeur, parce que la col\u00e8re est tomb\u00e9e dans ton coeur,\ncomment, cher fils, pourrai-je t'abandonner et rester seul ici? Le\nvieux cavalier P\u00e8leus m'ordonna de t'accompagner le jour o\u00f9 il\nt'envoya, loin de la Phthi\u00e8, vers Agamemn\u00f4n, tout jeune encore,\nignorant la guerre lamentable et l'agora o\u00f9 les hommes deviennent\nillustres. Et il m'ordonna de t'accompagner afin que je pusse\nt'enseigner \u00e0 parler et \u00e0 agir. C'est pourquoi je ne veux point me\ns\u00e9parer de toi, cher fils, m\u00eame quand un dieu me promettrait de\nm'\u00e9pargner la vieillesse et me rendrait \u00e0 ma jeunesse florissante,\ntel que j'\u00e9tais quand je quittai pour la premi\u00e8re fois la Hellas\naux belles femmes, fuyant la col\u00e8re de mon p\u00e8re Amynt\u00f4r Orm\u00e9nide.\nEt il s'\u00e9tait irrit\u00e9 contre moi \u00e0 cause de sa concubine aux beaux\ncheveux qu'il aimait et pour laquelle il m\u00e9prisait sa femme\nl\u00e9gitime, ma m\u00e8re. Et celle-ci me suppliait toujours, \u00e0 genoux, de\ns\u00e9duire cette concubine, pour que le vieillard la pr\u00eet en haine.\nEt je lui ob\u00e9is, et mon p\u00e8re, s'en \u00e9tant aper\u00e7u, se r\u00e9pandit en\nimpr\u00e9cations, et supplia les odieuses Erinnyes, leur demandant que\nje ne sentisse jamais sur mes genoux un fils bien-aim\u00e9, n\u00e9 de moi;\net les dieux, Zeus le souterrain et la cruelle Pers\u00e9phon\u00e9ia\naccomplirent ses impr\u00e9cations. Alors je ne pus me r\u00e9soudre dans\nmon \u00e2me \u00e0 rester dans les demeures de mon p\u00e8re irrit\u00e9. Et de\nnombreux amis et parents, venus de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s, me retinrent. Et\nils tu\u00e8rent beaucoup de grasses brebis et de boeufs noirs aux\npieds lents; et ils pass\u00e8rent \u00e0 l'ardeur du feu les porcs lourds\nde graisse, et ils burent, par grandes cruches, le vin du\nvieillard. Et pendant neuf nuits ils dormirent autour de moi, et\nchacun me gardait tour \u00e0 tour. L'un se tenait sous le portique de\nla cour, l'autre dans le vestibule de la salle bien ferm\u00e9e. Et le\nfeu ne s'\u00e9teignait jamais. Mais, dans l'obscurit\u00e9 de la dixi\u00e8me\nnuit, ayant rompu les portes de la salle, j'\u00e9chappai facilement \u00e0\nmes gardiens et aux serviteurs, et je m'enfuis loin de la grande\nHellas, et j'arrivai dans la fertile Phthi\u00e8, nourrice de brebis,\naupr\u00e8s du roi P\u00e8leus. Et il me re\u00e7ut avec bienveillance, et il\nm'aima comme un p\u00e8re aime un fils unique, n\u00e9 dans son extr\u00eame\nvieillesse, au milieu de ses domaines. Et il me fit riche, et il\nme donna \u00e0 gouverner un peuple, aux confins de la Phthi\u00e8, et je\ncommandai aux Dolopiens. Et je t'ai aim\u00e9 de m\u00eame dans mon coeur, \u00f4\nAkhilleus \u00e9gal aux dieux. Et tu ne voulais t'asseoir aux repas et\nmanger dans tes demeures qu'assis sur mes genoux, et rejetant\nparfois le vin et les mets dont tu \u00e9tais rassasi\u00e9, sur ma poitrine\net ma tunique, comme font les petits enfants. Et j'ai beaucoup\nsouffert et beaucoup travaill\u00e9 pour toi, pensant que, si les dieux\nm'avaient refus\u00e9 une post\u00e9rit\u00e9, je t'adopterais pour fils, \u00f4\nAkhilleus semblable aux dieux, afin que tu pusses un jour me\nd\u00e9fendre des outrages et de la mort. \u00d4 Akhilleus, apaise ta grande\n\u00e2me, car il ne te convient pas d 'avoir un coeur sans piti\u00e9. Les\ndieux eux-m\u00eames sont exorables, bien qu'ils n'aient point d'\u00e9gaux\nen vertu, en honneurs et en puissance; et les hommes les\nfl\u00e9chissent cependant par les pri\u00e8res, par les voeux, par les\nlibations et par l'odeur des sacrifices, quand ils les ont\noffens\u00e9s en leur d\u00e9sob\u00e9issant. Les pri\u00e8res, filles du grand Zeus,\nboiteuses, rid\u00e9es et louches, suivent \u00e0 grand'peine At\u00e8. Et celle-\nci, dou\u00e9e de force et de rapidit\u00e9, les pr\u00e9c\u00e8de de tr\u00e8s loin et\ncourt sur la face de la terre en maltraitant les hommes. Et les\npri\u00e8res la suivent, en gu\u00e9rissant les maux qu'elle a faits,\nsecourant et exau\u00e7ant celui qui les v\u00e9n\u00e8re, elles qui sont filles\nde Zeus. Mais elles supplient Zeus Kroni\u00f4n de faire poursuivre et\nch\u00e2tier par At\u00e8 celui qui les repousse et les renie. C'est\npourquoi, \u00f4 Akhilleus, rends aux filles de Zeus l'honneur qui\nfl\u00e9chit l'\u00e2me des plus braves. Si l'Atr\u00e9ide ne t'offrait point de\npr\u00e9sents, s'il ne t'en annon\u00e7ait point d'autres encore, s'il\ngardait sa col\u00e8re, je ne t'exhorterais point \u00e0 d\u00e9poser la tienne,\net \u00e0 secourir les Argiens qui, cependant, d\u00e9sesp\u00e8rent du salut.\nMais voici qu'il t'offre d\u00e8s aujourd'hui de nombreux pr\u00e9sents et\nqu'il t'en annonce d'autres encore, et qu'il t'envoie, en\nsuppliants, les premiers chefs de l'arm\u00e9e Akhaienne, ceux qui te\nsont chers entre tous les Argiens. Ne m\u00e9prise donc point leurs\nparoles, afin que nous ne bl\u00e2mions point la col\u00e8re que tu\nressentais; car nous avons appris que les anciens h\u00e9ros qu'une\nviolente col\u00e8re avait saisis se laissaient fl\u00e9chir par des\npr\u00e9sents et par des paroles pacifiques. Je me souviens d'une\nhistoire antique. Certes, elle n'est point r\u00e9cente. Amis, je vous\nla dirai: les Kour\u00e8tes combattaient les Ait\u00f4liens belliqueux,\nautour de la ville de Kalid\u00f4n; et les Kour\u00e8tes voulaient la\nsaccager. Et Art\u00e9mis au si\u00e8ge d'or avait attir\u00e9 cette calamit\u00e9 sur\nles Ait\u00f4liens, irrit\u00e9e qu'elle \u00e9tait de ce qu'Oineus ne lui e\u00fbt\npoint offert de pr\u00e9mices dans ses grasses prairies. Tous les dieux\navaient joui de ses h\u00e9catombes; mais, oublieux ou imprudent, il\nn'avait point sacrifi\u00e9 \u00e0 la seule fille du grand Zeus, ce qui\ncausa des maux amers; car, dans sa col\u00e8re, la race divine qui se\nr\u00e9jouit de ses fl\u00e8ches suscita un sanglier sauvage, aux blanches\nd\u00e9fenses, qui causa des maux innombrables, d\u00e9vasta les champs\nd'Oineus et arracha de grands arbres, avec racines et fleurs.\n\nEt le fils d'Oineus, M\u00e9l\u00e9agros, tua ce sanglier, apr\u00e8s avoir\nappel\u00e9, des villes prochaines, des hommes chasseurs et des chiens.\nEt cette b\u00eate sauvage ne fut point dompt\u00e9e par peu de chasseurs,\net elle en fit monter plusieurs sur le b\u00fbcher. Mais Art\u00e9mis excita\nla discorde et la guerre entre les Kour\u00e8tes et les magnanimes\nAit\u00f4liens, \u00e0 cause de la hure du sanglier et de sa d\u00e9pouille\nh\u00e9riss\u00e9e. Aussi longtemps que M\u00e9l\u00e9agros cher \u00e0 Ar\u00e8s combattit, les\nKour\u00e8tes, vaincus, ne purent rester hors de leurs murailles; mais\nla col\u00e8re, qui trouble l'esprit des plus sages, envahit l'\u00e2me de\nM\u00e9l\u00e9agros, et irrit\u00e9 dans son coeur contre sa m\u00e8re Althai\u00e8, il\nresta inactif aupr\u00e8s de sa femme l\u00e9gitime, la belle Kl\u00e9opatr\u00e8,\nfille de la vierge Marpiss\u00e8 \u00c9v\u00e9nide et d'Idaios, le plus brave des\nhommes qui fussent alors sur la terre. Et celui-ci avait tendu son\narc contre le roi Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n, \u00e0 cause de la belle nymphe\nMarpiss\u00e8. Et le p\u00e8re et la m\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable de Kl\u00e9opatr\u00e8 l'avaient\nsurnomm\u00e9e Alkyon\u00e8, parce que la m\u00e8re d' Alky\u00f4n avait g\u00e9mi\nam\u00e8rement quand l' archer Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n la ravit. Et M\u00e9l\u00e9agros\nrestait aupr\u00e8s de Kl\u00e9opatr\u00e8, couvant une ardente col\u00e8re dans son\ncoeur, \u00e0 cause des impr\u00e9cations de sa m\u00e8re qui suppliait en\ng\u00e9missant les dieux de venger le meurtre fraternel. Et, les genoux\nploy\u00e9s, le sein baign\u00e9 de pleurs, frappant de ses mains la terre\nnourrici\u00e8re, elle conjurait Aid\u00e8s et la cruelle Pers\u00e9phon\u00e9ia de\ndonner la mort \u00e0 son fils M\u00e9l\u00e9agros. Et \u00c9rinnys \u00e0 l'\u00e2me\nimplacable, qui erre dans la nuit, l'entendit du fond de l'\u00c9r\u00e9bos.\nEt les Kour\u00e8tes se ru\u00e8rent, en fureur et en tumulte, contre les\nportes de la ville, et ils heurtaient les tours. Et les vieillards\nAit\u00f4liens suppli\u00e8rent M\u00e9l\u00e9agros; et ils lui envoy\u00e8rent les sacr\u00e9s\nsacrificateurs des dieux, afin qu'il sort\u00eet et secour\u00fbt les siens.\nEt ils lui offrirent un tr\u00e8s riche pr\u00e9sent, lui disant de choisir\nle plus fertile et le plus beau domaine de l'heureuse Kalyd\u00f4n,\nvaste de cinquante arpents, moiti\u00e9 en vignes, moiti\u00e9 en terres\narables. Et le vieux cavalier Oineus le suppliait, debout sur le\nseuil \u00e9lev\u00e9 de la chambre nuptiale et frappant les portes\nmassives. Et ses soeurs et sa m\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable le suppliaient aussi;\nmais il ne les \u00e9coutait point, non plus que ses plus chers\ncompagnons, et ils ne pouvaient apaiser son coeur. Mais d\u00e9j\u00e0 les\nKour\u00e8tes escaladaient les tours, incendiaient la ville et\napprochaient de la chambre nuptiale. Alors, la belle jeune femme\nle supplia \u00e0 son tour, et elle lui rappela les calamit\u00e9s qui\naccablent les habitants d'une ville prise d'assaut: les hommes\ntu\u00e9s, les demeures r\u00e9duites en cendre, les enfants et les jeunes\nfemmes emmen\u00e9s. Et enfin son \u00e2me fut \u00e9branl\u00e9e au tableau de ces\nmis\u00e8res. Et il se leva, rev\u00eatit ses armes \u00e9clatantes, et recula le\ndernier jour des Ait\u00f4liens, car il avait d\u00e9pos\u00e9 sa col\u00e8re. Et ils\nne lui firent point de nombreux et riches pr\u00e9sents, et cependant\nil les sauva ainsi. Mais ne songe point \u00e0 ces choses, ami, et\nqu'un dieu contraire ne te d\u00e9termine point \u00e0 faire de m\u00eame. Il\nserait plus honteux pour toi de ne secourir les nefs que lorsqu'\nelles seront en flammes. Viens! re\u00e7ois ces pr\u00e9sents, et les\nAkhaiens t'honoreront comme un dieu. Si tu combattais plus tard,\nsans accepter ces dons, tu serais moins honor\u00e9, m\u00eame si tu\nrepoussais le danger loin des nefs.\n\nEt Akhilleus aux pieds rapides lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 Phoinix, p\u00e8re divin et v\u00e9n\u00e9rable, je n'ai nul besoin\nd'honneurs. Je suis assez honor\u00e9 par la volont\u00e9 de Zeus qui me\nretient aupr\u00e8s de mes nefs aux poupes recourb\u00e9es, et je le serai\ntant qu'il y aura un souffle dans ma poitrine et que mes genoux\npourront se mouvoir. Mais je te le dis, garde mes paroles dans ton\nesprit: Ne trouble point mon coeur, en pleurant et en g\u00e9missant, \u00e0\ncause du h\u00e9ros Atr\u00e9ide, car il ne te convient point de l'aimer, \u00e0\nmoins de me devenir odieux, \u00e0 moi qui t'aime. Il est juste que tu\nha\u00efsses celui qui me hait. R\u00e8gne avec moi et d\u00e9fends ta part de\nmon honneur. Ceux-ci vont partir, et tu resteras ici, couch\u00e9 sur\nun lit moelleux; et, aux premi\u00e8res lueurs d'\u00c9\u00f4s, nous d\u00e9lib\u00e9rerons\ns'il nous faut retourner vers notre patrie, ou rester.\n\nIl parla, et, de ses sourcils, il fit signe \u00e0 Patroklos, afin que\ncelui-ci pr\u00e9par\u00e2t le lit \u00e9pais de Phoinix et que les envoy\u00e9s\nsortissent promptement de la tente. Mais le T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien Aias,\nsemblable \u00e0 un dieu, parla ainsi:\n\n-- Divin Laertiade, tr\u00e8s subtil Odysseus, allons-nous-en! Ces\ndiscours n' auront point de fin, et il nous faut rapporter\npromptement une r\u00e9ponse, bien que mauvaise, aux Danaens qui nous\nattendent. Akhilleus garde une col\u00e8re orgueilleuse dans son coeur\nimplacable. Dur, il se soucie peu de l'amiti\u00e9 de ses compagnons\nqui l'honorent entre tous aupr\u00e8s des nefs. \u00d4 inexorable!\nn'accepte-t-on point le prix du meurtre d'un fr\u00e8re ou d'un fils?\nEt celui qui a tu\u00e9 reste au milieu de son peuple, d\u00e8s qu'il a\nexpi\u00e9 son crime, et son ennemi, satisfait, s'apaise. Les dieux ont\nallum\u00e9 dans ta poitrine une sombre et inextinguible col\u00e8re, \u00e0\ncause d'une seule jeune fille, quand nous t'en offrons sept tr\u00e8s\nbelles et un grand nombre d'autres pr\u00e9sents. C'est pourquoi,\nprends un esprit plus doux, et respecte ta demeure, puisque nous\nsommes tes h\u00f4tes domestiques envoy\u00e9s par la foule des Danaens, et\nque nous d\u00e9sirons \u00eatre les plus chers de tes amis, entre tous les\nAkhaiens.\n\nEt Akhilleus aux pieds rapides lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Divin Aias T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien, prince des peuples, ce que tu as dit est\nsage, mais mon coeur se gonfle de col\u00e8re quand je songe \u00e0\nl'Atr\u00e9ide qui m'a outrag\u00e9 au milieu des Danaens, comme il e\u00fbt fait\nd'un mis\u00e9rable. Allez donc, et rapportez votre message. Je ne me\nsoucierai plus de la guerre sanglante avant que le divin Hekt\u00f4r,\nle fils du brave Priamos, ne soit parvenu jusqu'aux tentes et aux\nnefs des Myrmidones, apr\u00e8s avoir massacr\u00e9 les Argiens et incendi\u00e9\nleurs nefs. C'est devant ma tente et ma nef noire que je\nrepousserai le furieux Hekt\u00f4r loin de la m\u00eal\u00e9e.\n\nIl parla ainsi. Et chacun, ayant saisi une coupe profonde, fit ses\nlibations, et ils s'en retourn\u00e8rent vers les nefs, et Odysseus les\nconduisait.\n\nEt Patroklos commanda \u00e0 ses compagnons et aux servantes de\npr\u00e9parer promptement le lit \u00e9pais de Phoinix. Et, lui ob\u00e9issant,\nelles pr\u00e9par\u00e8rent le lit, comme il l'avait command\u00e9. Et elles le\nfirent de peaux de brebis, de couvertures et de fins tissus de\nlin. Et le vieillard se coucha, en attendant la divine \u00c9\u00f4s. Et\nAkhilleus se coucha dans le fond de la tente bien construite, et,\naupr\u00e8s de lui, se coucha une femme qu'il avait amen\u00e9e de Lesbos,\nla fille de Phorbas, Diom\u00e8da aux belles joues. Et Patroklos se\ncoucha dans une autre partie de la tente, et, aupr\u00e8s de lui, se\ncoucha la belle Iphis que lui avait donn\u00e9e le divin Akhilleus\nquand il prit la haute Skyros, citadelle d'\u00c9nyeus.\n\nEt, les envoy\u00e9s \u00e9tant arriv\u00e9s aux tentes de l'Atr\u00e9ide, les fils\ndes Akhaiens, leur offrant des coupes d'or, s'empress\u00e8rent autour\nd'eux, et ils les interrogeaient. Et, le premier, le roi des\nhommes, Agamemn\u00f4n, les interrogea ainsi:\n\n-- Dis-moi, Odysseus, tr\u00e8s digne de louanges, illustre gloire des\nAkhaiens, veut-il d\u00e9fendre les nefs de la flamme ardente, ou\nrefuse-t-il, ayant gard\u00e9 sa col\u00e8re dans son coeur orgueilleux?\n\nEt le patient et divin Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Tr\u00e8s illustre Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n, roi des hommes, il ne veut\npoint \u00e9teindre sa col\u00e8re, et il n'est que plus irrit\u00e9. Il refuse\ntes dons. Il te conseille de d\u00e9lib\u00e9rer avec les autres Argiens\ncomment tu sauveras les nefs et l'arm\u00e9e des Akhaiens. Il menace,\nd\u00e8s les premi\u00e8res lueurs d'\u00c9\u00f4s, de tra\u00eener \u00e0 la mer ses nefs\nsolides; et il exhorte les autres Argiens \u00e0 retourner vers leur\npatrie, car il dit que vous ne verrez jamais le dernier jour de la\nhaute Ilios, et que Zeus qui tonne puissamment la prot\u00e8ge de ses\nmains et a rempli son peuple d'une grande audace. Il a parl\u00e9\nainsi, et ceux qui m'ont suivi, Aias et les deux h\u00e9rauts pleins de\nprudence peuvent l'affirmer. Et le vieillard Phoinix s'est couch\u00e9\nsous sa tente, et il l'emm\u00e8nera demain sur ses nefs vers leur\nch\u00e8re patrie, s'il le d\u00e9sire, car il ne veut point le contraindre.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous rest\u00e8rent muets, accabl\u00e9s de ce discours\net de ces dures paroles. Et les fils des Akhaiens rest\u00e8rent\nlongtemps muets et tristes. Enfin, Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s hardi au combat parla\nainsi:\n\n-- Tr\u00e8s illustre roi des hommes, Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n, pl\u00fbt aux dieux\nque tu n'eusses point suppli\u00e9 l'irr\u00e9prochable P\u00e8l\u00e9ide, en lui\noffrant des dons infinis! Il avait un coeur orgueilleux, et tu as\nenfl\u00e9 son orgueil. Laissons-le; qu'il parte ou qu'il reste. Il\ncombattra de nouveau quand il lui plaira et qu'un dieu l'y\npoussera. Allons! faites tous ce que je vais dire. Reposons-nous,\npuisque nous avons ranim\u00e9 notre \u00e2me en buvant et en mangeant, ce\nqui donne la force et le courage. Mais aussit\u00f4t que la belle \u00c9\u00f4s\naux doigts ros\u00e9s para\u00eetra, rangeons l'arm\u00e9e et les chars devant\nles nefs. Alors, Atr\u00e9ide, exhorte les hommes au combat, et combats\ntoi-m\u00eame aux premiers rangs.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous les rois applaudirent, admirant les\nparoles de l'habile cavalier Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s. Et apr\u00e8s avoir fait des\nlibations, ils se retir\u00e8rent sous leurs tentes, o\u00f9 ils se\ncouch\u00e8rent et s'endormirent.\n\n\nChant 10\n\nLes chefs des Panakhaiens dormaient dans la nuit, aupr\u00e8s des nefs,\ndompt\u00e9s par le sommeil; mais le doux sommeil ne saisissait point\nl'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n, prince des peuples, et il roulait beaucoup de\npens\u00e9es dans son esprit.\n\nDe m\u00eame que l'\u00e9poux de H\u00e8r\u00e8 lance la foudre, ce grand bruit\npr\u00e9curseur des batailles am\u00e8res, ou de la pluie abondante, ou de\nla gr\u00eale press\u00e9e, ou de la neige qui blanchit les campagnes; de\nm\u00eame Agamemn\u00f4n poussait de nombreux soupirs du fond de sa\npoitrine, et tout son coeur tremblait quand il contemplait le camp\ndes Troiens et la multitude des feux qui br\u00fblaient devant Ilios,\net qu'il entendait le son des fl\u00fbtes et la rumeur des hommes. Et\nil regardait ensuite l'arm\u00e9e des Akhaiens, et il arrachait ses\ncheveux qu'il vouait \u00e0 l'\u00e9ternel Zeus, et il g\u00e9missait dans son\ncoeur magnanime.\n\nEt il vit que le mieux \u00e9tait de se rendre aupr\u00e8s du N\u00e8l\u00e8i\u00f4n Nest\u00f4r\npour d\u00e9lib\u00e9rer sur le moyen de sauver ses guerriers et de trouver\nun rem\u00e8de aux maux qui accablaient tous les Danaens. Et, s'\u00e9tant\nlev\u00e9, il rev\u00eatit une tunique, attacha de belles sandales \u00e0 ses\npieds robustes, s'enveloppa de la peau rude d'un lion grand et\nfauve, et saisit une lance.\n\nEt voici que la m\u00eame terreur envahissait M\u00e9n\u00e9laos. Le sommeil\nn'avait point ferm\u00e9 ses paupi\u00e8res, et il tremblait en songeant aux\nsouffrances des Argiens qui, pour sa cause ayant travers\u00e9 la vaste\nmer, \u00e9taient venus devant Troi\u00e8, pleins d'ardeur belliqueuse. Et\nil couvrit son large dos de la peau tachet\u00e9e d'un l\u00e9opard, posa un\ncasque d'airain sur sa t\u00eate, saisit une lance de sa main robuste\net sortit pour \u00e9veiller son fr\u00e8re qui commandait \u00e0 tous les\nArgiens, et qu'ils honoraient comme un dieu. Et il le rencontra,\nrev\u00eatu de ses belles armes, aupr\u00e8s de la poupe de sa nef; et\nAgamemn\u00f4n fut joyeux de le voir, et le brave M\u00e9n\u00e9laos parla ainsi\nle premier:\n\n-- Pourquoi t'armes-tu, fr\u00e8re? Veux-tu envoyer un de nos\ncompagnons \u00e9pier les Troiens? Je crains qu'aucun de ceux qui te le\npromettront n'ose, seul dans la nuit divine, \u00e9pier les guerriers\nennemis. Celui qui le fera, certes, sera plein d'audace.\n\nEt le roi Agamemn\u00f4n, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi:\n\n-- Il nous faut \u00e0 tous deux un sage conseil, \u00f4 M\u00e9n\u00e9laos,\nnourrisson de Zeus, qui nous aide \u00e0 sauver les Argiens et les\nnefs, puisque l'esprit de Zeus nous est contraire, et qu'il se\ncompla\u00eet aux sacrifices de Hekt\u00f4r beaucoup plus qu'aux n\u00f4tres; car\nje n'ai jamais ni vu, ni entendu dire qu'un seul homme ait\naccompli, en un jour, autant de rudes travaux que Hekt\u00f4r cher \u00e0\nZeus contre les fils des Akhaiens, bien qu'il ne soit n\u00e9 ni d'une\nd\u00e9esse ni d'un dieu. Et je pense que les Argiens se souviendront\nam\u00e8rement et longtemps de tous les maux qu'il leur a faits. Mais,\nva! Cours vers les nefs; appelle Aias et Idom\u00e9neus. Moi, je vais\ntrouver le divin Nest\u00f4r, afin qu'il se l\u00e8ve et vienne vers la\ntroupe sacr\u00e9e des gardes, et qu'il leur commande. Ils l'\u00e9couteront\navec plus de respect que d'autres, car son fils est \u00e0 leur t\u00eate,\navec M\u00e8rion\u00e8s, le compagnon d'Idom\u00e9neus. C'est \u00e0 eux que nous\navons donn\u00e9 le commandement des gardes.\n\nEt le brave M\u00e9n\u00e9laos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Comment faut-il ob\u00e9ir \u00e0 ton ordre? Resterai-je au milieu d'eux,\nen t'attendant, ou reviendrai-je promptement vers toi, apr\u00e8s les\navoir avertis?\n\nEt le roi des hommes, Agamemn\u00f4n, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Reste, afin que nous ne nous \u00e9garions point tous deux en venant\nau hasard au-devant l'un de l'autre, car le camp a de nombreuses\nroutes. Parle \u00e0 voix haute sur ton chemin et recommande la\nvigilance. Adjure chaque guerrier au nom de ses p\u00e8res et de ses\ndescendants; donne des louanges \u00e0 tous, et ne montre point un\nesprit orgueilleux. Il faut que nous agissions ainsi par nous-\nm\u00eames, car, d\u00e8s le berceau, Zeus nous a inflig\u00e9 cette lourde\nt\u00e2che.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il cong\u00e9dia son fr\u00e8re, apr\u00e8s lui avoir donn\u00e9 de\nsages avis, et il se rendit aupr\u00e8s de Nest\u00f4r, prince des peuples.\nEt il le trouva sous sa tente, non loin de sa nef noire, couch\u00e9\nsur un lit \u00e9pais. Et autour de lui \u00e9taient r\u00e9pandues ses armes aux\nreflets vari\u00e9s, le bouclier, les deux lances, et le casque\n\u00e9tincelant, et le riche ceinturon que ceignait le vieillard quand\nil s'armait pour la guerre terrible, \u00e0 la t\u00eate des siens; car il\nne se laissait point accabler par la triste vieillesse. Et,\ns'\u00e9tant soulev\u00e9, la t\u00eate appuy\u00e9e sur le bras, il parla ainsi \u00e0\nl'Atr\u00e9ide:\n\n-- Qui es-tu, qui viens seul vers les nefs, \u00e0 travers le camp, au\nmilieu de la nuit noire, quand tous les hommes mortels sont\nendormis? Cherches-tu quelque garde ou quelqu'un de tes\ncompagnons? Parle, ne reste pas muet en m'approchant. Que te faut-\nil?\n\nEt le roi des hommes, Agamemn\u00f4n, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 Nest\u00f4r N\u00e8l\u00e8iade, illustre gloire des Akhaiens, reconnais\nl'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n, celui que Zeus accable entre tous de travaux\ninfinis, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que le souffle manque \u00e0 ma poitrine et que mes\ngenoux cessent de se mouvoir. J'erre ainsi, parce que le doux\nsommeil n'abaisse point mes paupi\u00e8res, et que la guerre et la\nruine des Akhaiens me rongent de soucis. Je tremble pour les\nDanaens, et je suis troubl\u00e9, et mon coeur n'est plus ferme, et il\nbondit hors de mon sein, et mes membres illustres fr\u00e9missent. Si\ntu sais ce qu'il faut entreprendre, et puisque tu ne dors pas,\nviens; rendons-nous aupr\u00e8s des gardes, et sachons si, rompus de\nfatigue, ils dorment et oublient de veiller. Les guerriers ennemis\nne sont pas \u00e9loign\u00e9s, et nous ne savons s'ils ne m\u00e9ditent point de\ncombattre cette nuit.\n\nEt le cavalier G\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n, tr\u00e8s illustre roi des hommes, le prudent\nZeus n'accordera peut-\u00eatre pas \u00e0 Hekt\u00f4r tout ce qu'il esp\u00e8re; et\nje pense qu'il ressentira \u00e0 son tour de cruelles douleurs si\nAkhilleus arrache de son coeur sa col\u00e8re fatale. Mais je te\nsuivrai volontiers, et nous appellerons les autres chefs: le\nTyd\u00e9ide illustre par sa lance, et Odysseus, et l'agile Aias, et le\nrobuste fils de Phyleus, et le divin Aias aussi, et le roi\nIdom\u00e9neus. Les nefs de ceux-ci sont tr\u00e8s \u00e9loign\u00e9es. Cependant, je\nbl\u00e2me hautement M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, bien que je l'aime et le v\u00e9n\u00e8re, et m\u00eame\nquand tu t'en irriterais contre moi. Pourquoi dort-il et te\nlaisse-t-il agir seul? Il devrait lui-m\u00eame exciter tous les chefs,\ncar une inexorable n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 nous assi\u00e8ge.\n\nEt le roi des hommes, Agamemn\u00f4n, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 vieillard, je t'ai parfois pouss\u00e9 \u00e0 le bl\u00e2mer, car il est\nsouvent n\u00e9gligent et ne veut point agir, non qu'il manque\nd'intelligence ou d'activit\u00e9, mais parce qu'il me regarde et\nattend que je lui donne l'exemple. Mais voici qu'il s'est lev\u00e9\navant moi et qu'il m'a rencontr\u00e9. Et je l'ai envoy\u00e9 appeler ceux\nque tu nommes. Allons! nous les trouverons devant les portes, au\nmilieu des gardes; car c'est l\u00e0 que j'ai ordonn\u00e9 qu'ils se\nr\u00e9unissent.\n\nEt le cavalier G\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Nul d'entre les Argiens ne s'irritera contre lui et ne\nr\u00e9sistera \u00e0 ses exhortations et \u00e0 ses ordres.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il se couvrit la poitrine d'une tunique,\nattacha de belles sandales \u00e0 ses pieds robustes, agrafa un manteau\nfait d'une double laine pourpr\u00e9e, saisit une forte lance \u00e0 pointe\nd'airain et s'avan\u00e7a vers les nefs des Akhaiens cuirass\u00e9s. Et le\ncavalier G\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r, parlant \u00e0 haute voix, \u00e9veilla Odysseus\n\u00e9gal \u00e0 Zeus en prudence; et celui-ci, aussit\u00f4t qu'il eut entendu,\nsortit de sa tente et leur dit:\n\n-- Pourquoi errez-vous seuls aupr\u00e8s des nefs, \u00e0 travers le camp,\nau milieu de la nuit divine? Quelle n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 si grande vous y\noblige?\n\nEt le cavalier G\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Laertiade, issu de Zeus, subtil Odysseus, ne t'irrite pas. Une\nprofonde inqui\u00e9tude trouble les Akhaiens. Suis-nous donc et\n\u00e9veillons chaque chef, afin de d\u00e9lib\u00e9rer s'il faut fuir ou\ncombattre.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le subtil Odysseus, \u00e9tant rentr\u00e9 sous sa tente,\njeta un bouclier \u00e9clatant sur ses \u00e9paules et revint \u00e0 eux. Et ils\nse rendirent aupr\u00e8s du Tyd\u00e9ide Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s, et ils le virent hors de\nsa tente avec ses armes. Et ses compagnons dormaient autour, le\nbouclier sous la t\u00eate. Leurs lances \u00e9taient plant\u00e9es droites, et\nl'airain brillait comme l'\u00e9clair de Zeus. Et le h\u00e9ros dormait\naussi, couch\u00e9 sur la peau d'un boeuf sauvage, un tapis splendide\nsous la t\u00eate. Et le cavalier G\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r, s'approchant, le\npoussa du pied et lui parla rudement:\n\n-- L\u00e8ve-toi, fils de Tydeus! Pourquoi dors-tu pendant cette nuit?\nN'entends-tu pas les Troiens, dans leur camp, sur la hauteur, non\nloin des nefs? Peu d'espace nous s\u00e9pare d'eux.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s, sortant aussit\u00f4t de son repos, lui\nr\u00e9pondit par ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Tu ne te m\u00e9nages pas assez, vieillard. Les jeunes fils des\nAkhaiens ne peuvent-ils aller de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s dans le camp \u00e9veiller\nchacun des rois? Vieillard, tu es infatigable, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9.\n\nEt le cavalier G\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Certes, ami, tout ce que tu as dit est tr\u00e8s sage. J'ai des\nguerriers nombreux et des fils irr\u00e9prochables. Un d'entre eux\naurait pu parcourir le camp. Mais une dure n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 assi\u00e8ge les\nAkhaiens; la vie ou la mort des Argiens est sur le tranchant de\nl'\u00e9p\u00e9e. Viens donc, et, si tu me plains, car tu es plus jeune que\nmoi, \u00e9veille l'agile Aias et le fils de Phyleus.\n\nIl parla ainsi et Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s, se couvrant les \u00e9paules de la peau\nd'un grand lion fauve, prit une lance, courut \u00e9veiller les deux\nrois et les amena. Et bient\u00f4t ils arriv\u00e8rent tous au milieu des\ngardes, dont les chefs ne dormaient point et veillaient en armes,\navec vigilance. Comme des chiens qui gardent activement des brebis\ndans l'\u00e9table, et qui, entendant une b\u00eate f\u00e9roce sortie des bois\nsur les montagnes, hurlent contre elle au milieu des cris des\np\u00e2tres; de m\u00eame veillaient les gardes, et le doux sommeil\nn'abaissait point leurs paupi\u00e8res pendant cette triste nuit; mais\nils \u00e9taient tourn\u00e9s du c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la plaine, \u00e9coutant si les Troiens\ns'avan\u00e7aient. Et le vieillard Nest\u00f4r, les ayant vus, en fut\nr\u00e9joui; et, les f\u00e9licitant, il leur dit en paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- C'est ainsi, chers enfants, qu'il faut veiller. Que le sommeil\nne saisisse aucun d'entre vous, de peur que nous ne soyons le\njouet de l'ennemi.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il passa le foss\u00e9, et les rois Argiens\nconvoqu\u00e9s au conseil le suivirent, et, avec eux, M\u00e8rion\u00e8s et\nl'illustre fils de Nest\u00f4r, appel\u00e9s \u00e0 d\u00e9lib\u00e9rer aussi. Et,\nlorsqu'ils eurent pass\u00e9 le foss\u00e9, ils s'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent en un lieu d'o\u00f9\nl'on voyait le champ de bataille, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 le robuste Hekt\u00f4r, ayant\nd\u00e9fait les Argiens, avait commenc\u00e9 sa retraite d\u00e8s que la nuit eut\nr\u00e9pandu ses t\u00e9n\u00e8bres. Et c'est l\u00e0 qu'ils d\u00e9lib\u00e9raient entre eux.\nEt le cavalier G\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r parla ainsi le premier:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis, quelque guerrier, s\u00fbr de son coeur audacieux, veut-il\naller au milieu des Troiens magnanimes? Peut-\u00eatre se saisirait-il\nd'un ennemi sorti de son camp, ou entendrait-il les Troiens qui\nd\u00e9lib\u00e8rent entre eux, soit qu'ils veuillent rester loin des nefs,\nsoit qu'ils ne veuillent retourner dans leur ville, qu'ayant\ndompt\u00e9 les Akhaiens. Il apprendrait tout et reviendrait vers nous,\nsans blessure, et il aurait une grande gloire sous l'Ouranos,\nparmi les hommes, ainsi qu'une noble r\u00e9compense. Les chefs qui\ncommandent sur nos nefs, tous, tant qu'ils sont, lui donneraient,\nchacun, une brebis noire allaitant un agneau, et ce don serait\nsans \u00e9gal; et toujours il serait admis \u00e0 nos repas et \u00e0 nos f\u00eates.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous rest\u00e8rent muets, mais le brave Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s\nr\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Nest\u00f4r, mon coeur et mon esprit courageux me poussent \u00e0 entrer\ndans le camp prochain des guerriers ennemis; mais, si quelque\nh\u00e9ros veut me suivre, mon espoir sera plus grand et ma confiance\nsera plus ferme. Quand deux hommes marchent ensemble, l'un con\u00e7oit\navant l'autre ce qui est utile. Ce n'est pas qu'un seul ne le\npuisse, mais son esprit est plus lent et sa r\u00e9solution est\nmoindre.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et beaucoup voulurent le suivre: les deux Aias,\nnourrissons d'Ar\u00e8s, et le fils de Nest\u00f4r, et M\u00e8rion\u00e8s, et\nl'Atr\u00e9ide M\u00e9n\u00e9laos illustre par sa lance. L\u0092audacieux Odysseus\nvoulut aussi p\u00e9n\u00e9trer dans le camp des Troiens. Et le roi des\nhommes, Agamemn\u00f4n, parla ainsi au milieu d'eux:\n\n-- Tyd\u00e9ide Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s, le plus cher \u00e0 mon \u00e2me, choisis, dans le\nmeilleur de ces h\u00e9ros, le compagnon que tu voudras, puisque tous\ns'offrent \u00e0 toi; mais ne n\u00e9glige point, par respect, le plus\nrobuste pour un plus faible, m\u00eame s'il \u00e9tait un roi plus puissant.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il craignait pour le blond M\u00e9n\u00e9laos mais le\nbrave Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Puisque tu m'ordonnes de choisir moi-m\u00eame un compagnon, comment\npourrais-je oublier le divin Odysseus qui montre dans tous les\ntravaux un coeur irr\u00e9prochable et un esprit viril, et qui est aim\u00e9\nde Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8? S'il m'accompagne, nous reviendrons tous deux du\nmilieu des flammes, car il est plein d'intelligence.\n\nEt le patient et divin Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Tyd\u00e9ide Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s, ne me loue ni ne me bl\u00e2me outre mesure. Tu\nparles au milieu des Argiens qui me connaissent. Allons! la nuit\npasse; d\u00e9j\u00e0 l'aube est proche; les \u00e9toiles s'inclinent. Les deux\npremi\u00e8res parties de la nuit se sont \u00e9coul\u00e9es, et la troisi\u00e8me\nseule nous reste.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, ils se couvrirent de leurs lourdes armes.\nThrasym\u00e8d\u00e8s, ferme au combat, donna au Tyd\u00e9ide une \u00e9p\u00e9e \u00e0 deux\ntranchants, car la sienne \u00e9tait rest\u00e9e sur les nefs, et un\nbouclier. Et Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s mit sur sa t\u00eate un casque fait d'une peau de\ntaureau, terne et sans crini\u00e8re, tel qu'en portaient les plus\njeunes guerriers. Et M\u00e8rion\u00e8s donna \u00e0 Odysseus un arc, un carquois\net une \u00e9p\u00e9e. Et le Laertiade mit sur sa t\u00eate un casque fait de\npeau, fortement li\u00e9, en dedans, de courroies, que les dents\nblanches d'un sanglier h\u00e9rissaient de toutes parts au dehors, et\ncouvert de poils au milieu. Autolykos avait autrefois enlev\u00e9 ce\ncasque dans \u00c9l\u00e9\u00f4n, quand il for\u00e7a la solide demeure d'Amynt\u00f4r\nOrm\u00e9nide; et il le donna, dans Skand\u00e9ia, au Kyth\u00e9rien Amphidamas;\net Amphidamas le donna \u00e0 son h\u00f4te Molos, et Molos \u00e0 son fils\nM\u00e8rion\u00e8s. Maintenant Odysseus le mit sur sa t\u00eate.\n\nEt apr\u00e8s avoir rev\u00eatu leurs armes, les deux guerriers partirent,\nquittant les autres chefs. Et Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 envoya, au bord de la\nroute, un h\u00e9ron propice, qu'ils ne virent point dans la nuit\nobscure, mais qu'ils entendirent crier. Et Odysseus, tout joyeux,\npria Ath\u00e8n\u00e8:\n\n-- Entends-moi, fille de Zeus temp\u00e9tueux, toi qui viens \u00e0 mon aide\ndans tous mes travaux, et \u00e0 qui je ne cache rien de tout ce que je\nfais. \u00c0 cette heure, sois-moi favorable encore, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8! Accorde-\nnous de revenir vers nos nefs illustres, ayant accompli une grande\naction qui soit am\u00e8re aux Troiens.\n\nEt le brave Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s la pria aussi:\n\n-- Entends-moi, fille indompt\u00e9e de Zeus! Prot\u00e8ge-moi maintenant,\ncomme tu prot\u00e9geas le divin Tydeus, mon p\u00e8re, dans Th\u00e8b\u00e8, o\u00f9 il\nfut envoy\u00e9 par les Akhaiens. Il laissa les Akhaiens cuirass\u00e9s sur\nles bords de l'As\u00f4pos; et il portait une parole pacifique aux\nKadm\u00e9iens; mais, au retour, il accomplit des actions m\u00e9morables,\navec ton aide, d\u00e9esse, qui le prot\u00e9geais! Maintenant, sois-moi\nfavorable aussi, et je te sacrifierai une g\u00e9nisse d'un an, au\nlarge front, indompt\u00e9e, car elle n'aura jamais \u00e9t\u00e9 soumise au\njoug. Et je te la sacrifierai, en r\u00e9pandant de l'or sur ses\ncornes.\n\nIls parl\u00e8rent ainsi en priant, et Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 les entendit. Et,\napr\u00e8s qu'ils eurent pri\u00e9 la fille du grand Zeus, ils s'avanc\u00e8rent\ncomme deux lions, \u00e0 travers la nuit \u00e9paisse et le carnage et les\ncadavres et les armes et le sang noir.\n\nMais Hekt\u00f4r aussi n'avait point permis aux Troiens magnanimes de\ndormir; et il avait convoqu\u00e9 les plus illustres des chefs et des\nprinces, et il d\u00e9lib\u00e9rait prudemment avec eux:\n\n-- Qui d'entre vous m\u00e9ritera une grande r\u00e9compense, en me\npromettant d'accomplir ce que je d\u00e9sire? Cette r\u00e9compense sera\nsuffisante. Je lui donnerai un char et deux chevaux au beau col,\nles meilleurs entre tous ceux qui sont aupr\u00e8s des nefs rapides des\nAkhaiens. Il remporterait une grande gloire celui qui oserait\napprocher des nefs rapides, et reconna\u00eetre si les Argiens veillent\ntoujours devant les nefs, ou si, dompt\u00e9s par nos mains, ils se\npr\u00e9parent \u00e0 fuir et ne veulent plus m\u00eame veiller pendant la nuit,\naccabl\u00e9s par la fatigue.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous rest\u00e8rent muets. Et il y avait, parmi les\nTroiens, Dol\u00f4n, fils d'Eum\u00e8dos, divin h\u00e9raut, riche en or et en\nairain. Dol\u00f4n n'\u00e9tait point beau, mais il avait des pieds agiles;\net c'\u00e9tait un fils unique avec cinq soeurs. Il se leva, et il dit\n\u00e0 Hekt\u00f4r et aux Troiens:\n\n-- Hekt\u00f4r, mon coeur et mon esprit courageux me poussent \u00e0 aller\nvers les nefs rapides, \u00e0 la d\u00e9couverte; mais l\u00e8ve ton sceptre et\njure que tu me donneras les chevaux et le char orn\u00e9 d'airain qui\nportent l'irr\u00e9prochable P\u00e8l\u00e9i\u00f4n. Je ne te serai point un espion\ninhabile et au-dessous de ton attente. J'irai de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s dans\nle camp, et je parviendrai jusqu'\u00e0 la nef d'Agamemn\u00f4n, o\u00f9, sans\ndoute, les premiers d'entre les rois d\u00e9lib\u00e8rent s'il faut fuir ou\ncombattre.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le Priamide saisit son sceptre et fit ce\nserment:\n\n-- Que l'\u00e9poux de H\u00e8r\u00e8, Zeus au grand bruit, le sache: nul autre\nguerrier Troien ne sera jamais tra\u00een\u00e9 par ces chevaux, car ils\nn'illustreront que toi seul, selon ma promesse.\n\nIl parla ainsi, jurant un vain serment, et il excita Dol\u00f4n. Et\ncelui-ci jeta aussit\u00f4t sur ses \u00e9paules un arc recourb\u00e9, se couvrit\nde la peau d'un loup blanc, mit sur sa t\u00eate un casque de peau de\nbelette, et prit une lance aigu\u00eb. Et il s'avan\u00e7a vers les nefs,\nhors du camp; mais il ne devait point revenir des nefs rendre\ncompte \u00e0 Hekt\u00f4r de son message. Lorsqu'il eut d\u00e9pass\u00e9 la foule des\nhommes et des chevaux, il courut rapidement. Et le divin Odysseus\nle vit arriver et dit \u00e0 Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s:\n\n-- \u00d4 Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s, cet homme vient du camp ennemi. Je ne sais s'il\nveut espionner nos nefs, ou d\u00e9pouiller quelque cadavre parmi les\nmorts. Laissons-le nous d\u00e9passer un peu dans la plaine, et nous le\npoursuivrons, et nous le prendrons aussit\u00f4t. S'il court plus\nrapidement que nous, pousse-le vers les nefs, loin de son camp, en\nle mena\u00e7ant de ta lance, afin qu'il ne se r\u00e9fugie point dans la\nville.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, ils se cach\u00e8rent hors du chemin parmi les\ncadavres, et le Troien les d\u00e9passa promptement dans son\nimprudence. Et il s'\u00e9tait \u00e0 peine \u00e9loign\u00e9 de la longueur d'un\nsillon que tracent deux mules, qui valent mieux que les boeufs\npour tracer un sillon dans une terre dure, que les deux guerriers\nle suivirent. Et il les entendit, et il s'arr\u00eata inquiet. Et il\npensait dans son esprit que ses compagnons accouraient pour le\nrappeler par l'ordre de Hekt\u00f4r; mais \u00e0 une port\u00e9e de trait\nenviron, il reconnut des guerriers ennemis, et agitant ses jambes\nrapides, il prit la fuite, et les deux Argiens le poussaient avec\nautant de h\u00e2te.\n\nAinsi que deux bons chiens de chasse, aux dents aigu\u00ebs,\npoursuivent de pr\u00e8s, dans un bois, un faon ou un li\u00e8vre qui les\ndevance en criant, ainsi le Tyd\u00e9ide et Odysseus, le destructeur de\ncitadelles, poursuivaient ardemment le Troien, en le rejetant loin\nde son camp. Et, comme il allait bient\u00f4t se m\u00ealer aux gardes en\nfuyant vers les nefs, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 donna une plus grande force au\nTyd\u00e9ide, afin qu'il ne frapp\u00e2t point le second coup, et qu'un des\nAkhaiens cuirass\u00e9s ne p\u00fbt se glorifier d'avoir fait la premi\u00e8re\nblessure. Et le robuste Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s, agitant sa lance, parla ainsi:\n\n-- Arr\u00eate, ou je te frapperai de ma lance, et je ne pense pas que\ntu \u00e9vites longtemps de recevoir la dure mort de ma main.\n\nIl parla ainsi et fit partir sa lance qui ne per\u00e7a point le\nTroien; mais la pointe du trait effleura seulement l'\u00e9paule droite\net s'enfon\u00e7a en terre. Et Dol\u00f4n s'arr\u00eata plein de crainte,\n\u00e9pouvant\u00e9, tremblant, p\u00e2le, et ses dents claquaient.\n\nEt les deux guerriers, haletants, lui saisirent les mains, et il\nleur dit en pleurant:\n\n-- Prenez-moi vivant. Je me rach\u00e8terai. J'ai dans mes demeures de\nl'or et du fer propre \u00e0 \u00eatre travaill\u00e9. Pour mon affranchissement,\nmon p\u00e8re vous en donnera la plus grande part, s'il apprend que je\nsuis vivant sur les nefs des Akhaiens.\n\nEt le subtil Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Prends courage, et que la mort ne soit pas pr\u00e9sente \u00e0 ton\nesprit; mais dis-moi la v\u00e9rit\u00e9. Pourquoi viens-tu seul, de ton\ncamp, vers les nefs, par la nuit obscure, quand tous les hommes\nmortels sont endormis? Serait-ce pour d\u00e9pouiller les cadavres\nparmi les morts, ou Hekt\u00f4r t'a-t-il envoy\u00e9 observer ce qui se\npasse aupr\u00e8s des nefs creuses, ou viens-tu de ton propre\nmouvement?\n\nEt Dol\u00f4n, dont les membres tremblaient, leur r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Hekt\u00f4r, contre ma volont\u00e9, m'a pouss\u00e9 \u00e0 ma ruine. Ayant promis\nde me donner les chevaux aux sabots massifs de l'illustre P\u00e8l\u00e9i\u00f4n\net son char orn\u00e9 d'airain, il m'a ordonn\u00e9 d'aller et de\nm'approcher, pendant la nuit obscure et rapide, des guerriers\nennemis, et de voir s'ils gardent toujours leurs nefs rapides, ou\nsi, dompt\u00e9s par nos mains, vous d\u00e9lib\u00e9rez, pr\u00eats \u00e0 fuir, et ne\npouvant m\u00eame plus veiller, \u00e9tant rompus de fatigue.\n\nEt le subtil Odysseus, en souriant, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Certes, tu esp\u00e9rais, dans ton esprit, une grande r\u00e9compense, en\nd\u00e9sirant les chevaux du brave Aiakide, car ils ne peuvent \u00eatre\ndompt\u00e9s et conduits par des guerriers mortels, sauf par Akhilleus\nqu'une m\u00e8re immortelle a enfant\u00e9. Mais dis-moi la v\u00e9rit\u00e9. O\u00f9 as-tu\nlaiss\u00e9 Hekt\u00f4r, prince des peuples? O\u00f9 sont ses armes belliqueuses\net ses chevaux? O\u00f9 sont les sentinelles et les tentes des autres\nTroiens? Dis-nous s'ils d\u00e9lib\u00e8rent entre eux, soit qu'ils aient\ndessein de rester o\u00f9 ils sont, loin des nefs, soit qu'ils d\u00e9sirent\nne rentrer dans la ville qu'apr\u00e8s avoir dompt\u00e9 les Akhaiens.\n\nEt Dol\u00f4n, fils d'Eum\u00e8dos, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Je te dirai toute la v\u00e9rit\u00e9. Hekt\u00f4r, dans le conseil, d\u00e9lib\u00e8re\naupr\u00e8s du tombeau du divin Ilos, loin du bruit. Il n'y a point de\ngardes autour du camp, car tous les Troiens veillent devant leurs\nfeux, press\u00e9s par la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 et s'excitant les uns les autres;\nmais les alli\u00e9s, venus de diverses contr\u00e9es, dorment tous, se\nfiant \u00e0 la vigilance des Troiens, et n'ayant avec eux ni leurs\nenfants, ni leurs femmes.\n\nEt le subtil Odysseus lui dit:\n\n-- Sont-ils m\u00eal\u00e9s aux braves Troiens, ou dorment-ils \u00e0 l'\u00e9cart?\nParle clairement, afin que je comprenne.\n\nEt Dol\u00f4n, fils d'Eum\u00e8dos, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Je te dirai toute la v\u00e9rit\u00e9. Aupr\u00e8s de la mer sont les Kariens,\nles Paiones aux arcs recourb\u00e9s, les L\u00e9l\u00e9ges, les Kauk\u00f4nes et les\ndivins P\u00e9lasges; du c\u00f4t\u00e9 de Thymbr\u00e8 sont les Lykiens, les Mysiens\norgueilleux, les cavaliers Phrygiens et les Maiones qui combattent\nsur des chars. Mais pourquoi me demandez-vous ces choses? Si vous\nd\u00e9sirez entrer dans le camp des Troiens, les Thr\u00e8kiens r\u00e9cemment\narriv\u00e9s sont \u00e0 l'\u00e9cart, aux extr\u00e9mit\u00e9s du camp, et leur roi,\nRh\u00e8sos Eion\u00e9ide, est avec eux. J'ai vu ses grands et magnifiques\nchevaux. Ils sont plus blancs que la neige, et semblables aux\nvents quand ils courent. Et j'ai vu son char orn\u00e9 d'or et\nd'argent, et ses grandes armes d'or, admirables aux yeux, et qui\nconviennent moins \u00e0 des hommes mortels qu'aux dieux qui vivent\ntoujours. Maintenant, conduisez-moi vers vos nefs rapides, ou,\nm'attachant avec des liens solides, laissez-moi ici jusqu'\u00e0 votre\nretour, quand vous aurez reconnu si j'ai dit la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 ou si j'ai\nmenti.\n\nEt le robuste Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s, le regardant d'un oeil sombre, lui\nr\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Dol\u00f4n, ne pense pas m'\u00e9chapper, puisque tu es tomb\u00e9 entre nos\nmains, bien que tes paroles soient bonnes. Si nous acceptons le\nprix de ton affranchissement, et si nous te renvoyons, certes, tu\nreviendras aupr\u00e8s des nefs rapides des Akhaiens, pour espionner ou\ncombattre; mais, si tu perds la vie, dompt\u00e9 par mes mains, tu ne\nnuiras jamais plus aux Argiens.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et comme Dol\u00f4n le suppliait en lui touchant la\nbarbe de la main, il le frappa brusquement de son \u00e9p\u00e9e au milieu\nde la gorge et trancha les deux muscles. Et le Troien parlait\nencore quand sa t\u00eate tomba dans la poussi\u00e8re. Et ils arrach\u00e8rent\nle casque de peau de belette, et la peau de loup, et l'arc\nflexible et la longue lance. Et le divin Odysseus, les soulevant\nvers le ciel, les voua, en priant, \u00e0 la d\u00e9vastatrice Ath\u00e8n\u00e8.\n\n-- R\u00e9jouis-toi de ces armes, d\u00e9esse! Nous t'invoquons, toi qui es\nla premi\u00e8re entre tous les Olympiens immortels. Conduis-nous o\u00f9\nsont les guerriers Thr\u00e8kiens, leurs chevaux et leurs tentes.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, levant les bras, il posa ces armes sur un\ntamaris qu'il marqua d'un signe en nouant les roseaux et les\nlarges branches, afin de les reconna\u00eetre au retour, dans la nuit\nnoire.\n\nEt ils march\u00e8rent ensuite \u00e0 travers les armes et la plaine\nsanglante, et ils parvinrent bient\u00f4t aux tentes des guerriers\nThr\u00e8kiens. Et ceux-ci dormaient, rompus de fatigue; et leurs\nbelles armes \u00e9taient couch\u00e9es \u00e0 terre aupr\u00e8s d'eux, sur trois\nrangs. Et, aupr\u00e8s de chaque homme, il y avait deux chevaux. Et, au\nmilieu, dormait Rh\u00e8sos, et, aupr\u00e8s de lui, ses chevaux rapides\n\u00e9taient attach\u00e9s avec des courroies, derri\u00e8re le char.\n\nEt Odysseus le vit le premier, et il le montra \u00e0 Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s:\n\n-- Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s, voici l'homme et les chevaux dont nous a parl\u00e9 Dol\u00f4n\nque nous avons tu\u00e9. Allons! use de ta force et sers-toi de tes\narmes. D\u00e9tache ces chevaux, ou je le ferai moi-m\u00eame si tu\npr\u00e9f\u00e8res.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs donna une grande force \u00e0\nDiom\u00e8d\u00e8s. Et il tuait \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0; et ceux qu'il frappait de l'\u00e9p\u00e9e\ng\u00e9missaient, et la terre ruisselait de sang. Comme un lion,\ntombant au milieu de troupeaux sans gardiens, se rue sur les\nch\u00e8vres et les brebis; ainsi le fils de Tydeus se rua sur les\nThr\u00e8kiens, jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'il en e\u00fbt tu\u00e9 douze. Et d\u00e8s que le\nTyd\u00e9ide avait frapp\u00e9, Odysseus, qui le suivait, tra\u00eenait \u00e0 l'\u00e9cart\nle cadavre par les pieds, pensant dans son esprit que les chevaux\naux belles crini\u00e8res passeraient plus librement, et ne\ns'effaroucheraient point, n'\u00e9tant pas accoutum\u00e9s \u00e0 marcher sur les\nmorts. Et, lorsque le fils de Tydeus s'approcha du roi, ce fut le\ntreizi\u00e8me qu'il priva de sa ch\u00e8re \u00e2me. Et sur la t\u00eate de Rh\u00e8sos,\nqui r\u00e2lait, un songe fatal planait cette nuit-l\u00e0, sous la forme de\nl'Oin\u00e9ide, et par la volont\u00e9 d'Ath\u00e8n\u00e8.\n\nCependant le patient Odysseus d\u00e9tacha les chevaux aux sabots\nmassifs, et, les liant avec les courroies, il les conduisit hors\ndu camp, les frappant de son arc, car il avait oubli\u00e9 de saisir le\nfouet \u00e9tincelant rest\u00e9 dans le beau char. Et, alors, il siffla\npour avertir le divin Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s. Et celui-ci d\u00e9lib\u00e9rait dans son\nesprit si, avec plus d'audace encore, il n'entra\u00eenerait point, par\nle timon, le char o\u00f9 \u00e9taient d\u00e9pos\u00e9es les belles armes, ou s'il\narracherait la vie \u00e0 un plus grand nombre de Thr\u00e8kiens. Pendant\nqu'il d\u00e9lib\u00e9rait ainsi dans son esprit, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 s'approcha et lui\ndit:\n\n-- Songe au retour, fils du magnanime Tydeus, de peur qu'un dieu\nn'\u00e9veille les Troiens et que tu ne sois contraint de fuir vers les\nnefs creuses.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et il comprit les paroles de la d\u00e9esse, et il\nsauta sur les chevaux, et Odysseus les frappa de son arc, et ils\nvolaient vers les nefs rapides des Akhaiens. Mais Apoll\u00f4n \u00e0 l'arc\nd'argent de ses yeux per\u00e7ants vit Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aupr\u00e8s du fils de Tydeus.\nIrrit\u00e9, il entra dans le camp des Troiens et r\u00e9veilla le chef\nThr\u00e8kien Hippoko\u00f4n, brave parent de Rh\u00e8sos. Et celui-l\u00e0, se\nlevant, vit d\u00e9serte la place o\u00f9 \u00e9taient les chevaux rapides, et\nles hommes palpitant dans leur sang; et il g\u00e9mit, appelant son\ncher compagnon par son nom. Et une immense clameur s'\u00e9leva parmi\nles Troiens qui accouraient; et ils s'\u00e9tonnaient de cette action\naudacieuse, et que les hommes qui l'avaient accomplie fussent\nretourn\u00e9s sains et saufs vers les nefs creuses.\n\nEt quand ceux-ci furent arriv\u00e9s l\u00e0 o\u00f9 ils avaient tu\u00e9 l'espion de\nHekt\u00f4r, Odysseus, cher \u00e0 Zeus, arr\u00eata les chevaux rapides. Et le\nTyd\u00e9ide, sautant \u00e0 terre, remit aux mains d'Odysseus les\nd\u00e9pouilles sanglantes, et remonta. Et ils excit\u00e8rent les chevaux\nqui volaient avec ardeur vers les nefs creuses. Et, le premier,\nNest\u00f4r entendit leur bruit et dit:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis, chefs et princes des Argiens, mentirai-je ou dirai-je\nvrai? Mon coeur m'ordonne de parler. Le galop de chevaux rapides\nfrappe mes oreilles. Plaise aux dieux que, d\u00e9j\u00e0, Odysseus et le\nrobuste Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s aient enlev\u00e9 aux Troiens des chevaux aux sabots\nmassifs; mais je crains avec v\u00e9h\u00e9mence, dans mon esprit, que les\nplus braves des Argiens n'aient pu \u00e9chapper \u00e0 la foule des\nTroiens!\n\nIl avait \u00e0 peine parl\u00e9, et les deux rois arriv\u00e8rent et\ndescendirent. Et tous, pleins de joie, les salu\u00e8rent de la main,\navec des paroles flatteuses. Et, le premier, le cavalier G\u00e9rennien\nNest\u00f4r les interrogea:\n\n-- Dis-moi, Odysseus combl\u00e9 de louanges, gloire des Akhaiens,\ncomment avez-vous enlev\u00e9 ces chevaux? Est-ce en entrant dans le\ncamp des Troiens, ou avez-vous rencontr\u00e9 un dieu qui vous en ait\nfait don? Ils sont semblables aux rayons de H\u00e9lios! Je me m\u00eale,\ncertes, toujours aux Troiens, et je ne pense pas qu'on m'ait vu\nrester aupr\u00e8s des nefs, bien que je sois vieux; mais je n'ai\njamais vu de tels chevaux. Je soup\u00e7onne qu'un dieu vous les a\ndonn\u00e9s, car Zeus qui amasse les nu\u00e9es vous aime tous deux, et\nAth\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs, fille de Zeus temp\u00e9tueux, vous aime aussi.\n\nEt le subtil Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Nest\u00f4r N\u00e8l\u00e8iade, gloire des Akhaiens, sans doute un dieu, s'il\nl'e\u00fbt voulu, nous e\u00fbt donn\u00e9 des chevaux m\u00eame au-dessus de ceux-ci,\ncar les dieux peuvent tout. Mais ces chevaux, sur lesquels tu\nm'interroges, \u00f4 vieillard, sont Thr\u00e8kiens et arriv\u00e9s r\u00e9cemment. Le\nhardi Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s a tu\u00e9 leur roi et douze des plus braves compagnons\nde celui-ci. Nous avons tu\u00e9, non loin des nefs, un quatorzi\u00e8me\nguerrier, un espion que Hekt\u00f4r et les illustres Troiens envoyaient\ndans notre camp.\n\nIl parla ainsi, joyeux, et fit sauter le foss\u00e9 aux chevaux. Et les\nautres chefs Argiens, joyeux aussi, vinrent jusqu'\u00e0 la tente\nsolide du Tyd\u00e9ide. Et ils attach\u00e8rent, avec de bonnes courroies,\nles \u00e9talons Thr\u00e8kiens \u00e0 la cr\u00e8che devant laquelle les rapides\nchevaux de Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s se tenaient, broyant le doux froment. Et\nOdysseus posa les d\u00e9pouilles sanglantes de Dol\u00f4n sur la poupe de\nsa nef, pour qu'elles fussent vou\u00e9es \u00e0 Ath\u00e8n\u00e8. Et tous deux, \u00e9tant\nentr\u00e9s dans la mer pour enlever leur sueur, lav\u00e8rent leurs jambes,\nleurs cuisses et leurs \u00e9paules. Et apr\u00e8s que l'eau de la mer eut\nenlev\u00e9 leur sueur et qu'ils se furent ranim\u00e9s, ils entr\u00e8rent dans\ndes baignoires polies. Et, s'\u00e9tant parfum\u00e9s d'une huile \u00e9paisse,\nils s'assirent pour le repas du matin, puisant dans un plein\nkrat\u00e8re pour faire, en honneur d'Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, des libations de vin\ndoux.\n\n\nChant 11\n\n\u00c9\u00f4s quitta le lit du brillant Tith\u00f4n, afin de porter la lumi\u00e8re\naux immortels et aux vivants. Et Zeus envoya \u00c9ris vers les nefs\nrapides des Akhaiens, portant dans ses mains le signe terrible de\nla guerre. Et elle s'arr\u00eata sur la nef large et noire d'Odysseus,\nqui \u00e9tait au centre, pour que son cri f\u00fbt entendu de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s,\ndepuis les tentes du T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien Aias jusqu'\u00e0 celles d'Akhilleus;\ncar ceux-ci, confiants dans leur courage et la force de leurs\nmains, avaient plac\u00e9 leurs nefs \u00e9gales aux deux extr\u00e9mit\u00e9s du\ncamp. De ce lieu, la d\u00e9esse poussa un cri retentissant et horrible\nqui souffla au coeur de chacun des Akhaiens un ardent d\u00e9sir de\nguerroyer et de combattre sans rel\u00e2che. Et, aussit\u00f4t, la guerre\nleur fut plus douce que le retour, sur les nefs creuses, dans la\nterre bien-aim\u00e9e de la patrie.\n\nEt l'Atr\u00e9ide, \u00e9levant la voix, ordonna aux Argiens de s'armer; et\nlui-m\u00eame se couvrit de l'airain \u00e9clatant. Et, d'abord, il entoura\nses jambes de belles kn\u00e8mides retenues par des agrafes d'argent.\nEnsuite, il ceignit sa poitrine d'une cuirasse que lui avait\nautrefois donn\u00e9e Kinyr\u00e8s, son h\u00f4te. Kinyr\u00e8s, ayant appris dans\nKypros par la renomm\u00e9e que les Akhaiens voguaient vers Ilios sur\nleurs nefs, avait fait ce pr\u00e9sent au roi. Et cette cuirasse avait\ndix cannelures en \u00e9mail noir, douze en or, vingt en \u00e9tain. Et\ntrois dragons azur\u00e9s s'enroulaient jusqu'au col, semblables aux\nIris que le Kroni\u00f4n fixa dans la nu\u00e9e pour \u00eatre un signe aux\nvivants.\n\nEt il suspendit \u00e0 ses \u00e9paules l'\u00e9p\u00e9e o\u00f9 \u00e9tincelaient des clous\nd'or dans la ga\u00eene d'argent soutenue par des courroies d'or. Il\ns'abrita tout entier sous un beau bouclier aux dix cercles\nd'airain et aux vingt bosses d'\u00e9tain blanc, au milieu desquelles\nil y en avait une d'\u00e9mail noir o\u00f9 s'enroulait Gorg\u00f4 \u00e0 l'aspect\neffrayant et aux regards horribles. Aupr\u00e8s \u00e9taient la Crainte et\nla Terreur. Et ce bouclier \u00e9tait suspendu \u00e0 une courroie d'argent\no\u00f9 s'enroulait un dragon azur\u00e9 dont le col se terminait en trois\nt\u00eates. Et il mit un casque chevelu orn\u00e9 de quatre c\u00f4nes et\nd'aigrettes de crin qui s'agitaient terriblement. Et il prit deux\nlances solides aux pointes d'airain qui brillaient jusqu'\u00e0\nl'Ouranos. Et Ath\u00e8nai\u00e8 et H\u00e8r\u00e8 \u00e9veill\u00e8rent un grand bruit pour\nhonorer le roi de la riche Myk\u00e8n\u00e8.\n\nEt les chefs ordonn\u00e8rent aux conducteurs des chars de retenir les\nchevaux aupr\u00e8s du foss\u00e9, tandis qu'ils se ruaient couverts de\nleurs armes. Et une immense clameur s'\u00e9leva avant le jour. Et les\nchars et les chevaux, rang\u00e9s aupr\u00e8s du foss\u00e9, suivaient \u00e0 peu de\ndistance les guerriers; ceux-ci les pr\u00e9c\u00e9d\u00e8rent, et le cruel\nKronide excita un grand tumulte et fit pleuvoir du haut de\nl'aith\u00e8r des ros\u00e9es teintes de sang, en signe qu'il allait\npr\u00e9cipiter chez Aid\u00e8s une foule de t\u00eates illustres.\n\nDe leur c\u00f4t\u00e9, les Troiens se rangeaient sur la hauteur autour du\ngrand Hekt\u00f4r, de l'irr\u00e9prochable Polydamas, d'Ain\u00e9ias qui, dans\nIlios, \u00e9tait honor\u00e9 comme un dieu par les Troiens, des trois\nAnt\u00e9norides, Polybos, le divin Ag\u00e8n\u00f4r et le jeune Akamas,\nsemblable aux immortels.\n\nEt, entre les premiers combattants, Hekt\u00f4r portait son bouclier\npoli. De m\u00eame qu'une \u00e9toile d\u00e9sastreuse s'\u00e9veille, brillante, et\ns'avance \u00e0 travers les nu\u00e9es obscures, de m\u00eame Hekt\u00f4r apparaissait\nen t\u00eate des premiers combattants, ou au milieu d'eux, et leur\ncommandant \u00e0 tous; et il resplendissait, couvert d'airain, pareil\n\u00e0 l'\u00e9clair du p\u00e8re Zeus temp\u00eatueux.\n\nEt, comme deux troupes oppos\u00e9es de moissonneurs qui tranchent les\ngerbes dans le champ d'un homme riche, les Troiens et les Akhaiens\ns'entretuaient, se ruant les uns contre les autres, oublieux de la\nfuite funeste, in\u00e9branlables et tels que des loups.\n\nEt la d\u00e9sastreuse \u00c9ris se r\u00e9jouissait de les voir, car, seule de\ntous les dieux, elle assistait au combat. Et les autres immortels\n\u00e9taient absents, et chacun d'eux \u00e9tait assis, tranquille dans sa\nbelle demeure, sur les sommets de l'Olympos. Et ils bl\u00e2maient le\nKroni\u00f4n qui amasse les noires nu\u00e9es, parce qu'il voulait donner\nune grande gloire aux Troiens. Mais le p\u00e8re Zeus, assis \u00e0 l'\u00e9cart,\nne s'inqui\u00e9tait point d'eux. Et il si\u00e9geait, plein de gloire,\nregardant la ville des Troiens et les nefs des Akhaiens, et\nl'\u00e9clat de l'airain, et ceux qui reculaient, et ceux qui\ns'\u00e9lan\u00e7aient.\n\nTant que l'aube dura et que le jour sacr\u00e9 prit de la force, les\ntraits siffl\u00e8rent des deux c\u00f4t\u00e9s et les hommes moururent; mais,\nvers l'heure o\u00f9 le b\u00fbcheron prend son repas dans les gorges de la\nmontagne, et que, les bras rompus d'avoir coup\u00e9 les grands arbres,\net le coeur d\u00e9faillant, il ressent le d\u00e9sir d'une douce\nnourriture, les Danaens, s'exhortant les uns les autres, rompirent\nles phalanges. Et Agamemn\u00f4n bondit le premier et tua le guerrier\nBian\u00f4r, prince des peuples, et son compagnon Oileus qui conduisait\nles chevaux. Et celui-ci, sautant du char, lui avait fait face. Et\nl'Atr\u00e9ide, comme il sautait, le frappa au front de la lance aigu\u00eb,\net le casque \u00e9pais ne r\u00e9sista point \u00e0 l'airain qui y p\u00e9n\u00e9tra,\nbrisa le cr\u00e2ne et traversa la cervelle du guerrier qui s'\u00e9lan\u00e7ait.\nEt le roi des hommes, Agamemn\u00f4n, les abandonna tous deux en ce\nlieu, apr\u00e8s avoir arrach\u00e9 leurs cuirasses \u00e9tincelantes.\n\nPuis, il s'avan\u00e7a pour tuer Isos et Antiphos, deux fils de\nPriamos, l'un b\u00e2tard et l'autre l\u00e9gitime, mont\u00e9s sur le m\u00eame char.\nEt le b\u00e2tard tenait les r\u00eanes, et l'illustre Antiphos combattait.\nAkhilleus les avait autrefois saisis et li\u00e9s avec des branches\nd'osier, sur les sommets de l'Ida, comme ils paissaient leurs\nbrebis; et il avait accept\u00e9 le prix de leur affranchissement. Mais\nvoici que l'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n qui commandait au loin per\u00e7a Isos\nd'un coup de lance au-dessus de la mamelle, et, frappant Antiphos\nde l'\u00e9p\u00e9e aupr\u00e8s de l'oreille, le renversa du char. Et, comme il\nleur arrachait leurs belles armes, il les reconnut, les ayant vus\naupr\u00e8s des nefs, quand Akhilleus aux pieds rapides les y avait\namen\u00e9s des sommets de l'Ida.\n\nAinsi un lion brise ais\u00e9ment, dans son antre, les saisissant avec\nses fortes dents, les faibles petits d'une biche l\u00e9g\u00e8re, et\narrache leur \u00e2me d\u00e9licate. Et la biche accourt, mais elle ne peut\nles secourir, car une profonde terreur la saisit; et elle s'\u00e9lance\n\u00e0 travers les fourr\u00e9s de ch\u00eanes des bois, effar\u00e9e et suant\nd'\u00e9pouvante devant la fureur de la puissante b\u00eate f\u00e9roce. De m\u00eame\nnul ne put conjurer la perte des Priamides, et tous fuyaient\ndevant les Argiens.\n\nEt le roi Agamemn\u00f4n saisit sur le m\u00eame char Peisandros et le brave\nHippolokhos, fils tous deux du belliqueux Antimakhos. Et celui-ci,\nayant accept\u00e9 l'or et les pr\u00e9sents splendides d'Alexandros,\nn'avait pas permis que H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 f\u00fbt rendue au brave M\u00e9n\u00e9laos. Et\ncomme l'Atr\u00e9ide se ruait sur eux, tel qu'un lion, ils furent\ntroubl\u00e9s; et, les souples r\u00eanes \u00e9tant tomb\u00e9es de leurs mains,\nleurs chevaux rapides les emportaient. Et, prostern\u00e9s sur le char,\nils suppliaient Agamemn\u00f4n:\n\n-- Prends-nous vivants, fils d'Atreus, et re\u00e7ois le prix de notre\naffranchissement. De nombreuses richesses sont amass\u00e9es dans les\ndemeures d'Antimakhos, l'or, l'airain et le fer propre \u00e0 \u00eatre\ntravaill\u00e9. Notre p\u00e8re t'en donnera la plus grande partie pour\nnotre affranchissement, s'il apprend que nous sommes vivants sur\nles nefs des Akhaiens.\n\nEn pleurant, ils adressaient au roi ces douces paroles, mais ils\nentendirent une dure r\u00e9ponse:\n\n-- Si vous \u00eates les fils du brave Antimakhos qui, autrefois, dans\nl'agora des Troiens, conseillait de tuer nos envoy\u00e9s, M\u00e9n\u00e9laos et\nle divin Odysseus, et de ne point les laisser revenir vers les\nAkhaiens, maintenant vous allez payer l'injure de votre p\u00e8re.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, frappant de sa lance Peisandros \u00e0 la poitrine,\nil le renversa dans la poussi\u00e8re, et, comme Hippolokhos sautait,\nil le tua \u00e0 terre; et, lui coupant les bras et le cou, il le fit\nrouler comme un tronc mort \u00e0 travers la foule. Et il les abandonna\npour se ruer sur les phalanges en d\u00e9sordre, suivi des Akhaiens aux\nbelles kn\u00e8mides. Et les pi\u00e9tons tuaient les pi\u00e9tons qui fuyaient,\net les cavaliers tuaient les cavaliers. Et, sous leurs pieds, et\nsous les pieds sonores des chevaux, une grande poussi\u00e8re montait\nde la plaine dans l'air. Et le roi Agamemn\u00f4n allait, tuant\ntoujours et excitant les Argiens.\n\nAinsi, quand la flamme d\u00e9sastreuse d\u00e9vore une \u00e9paisse for\u00eat, et\nquand le vent qui tourbillonne l'active de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s, les arbres\ntombent sous l'imp\u00e9tuosit\u00e9 du feu. De m\u00eame, sous l'Atr\u00e9ide\nAgamemn\u00f4n, tombaient les t\u00eates des Troiens en fuite. Les chevaux\nentra\u00eenaient, effar\u00e9s, la t\u00eate haute, les chars vides \u00e0 travers\nles rangs, et regrettaient leurs conducteurs irr\u00e9prochables qui\ngisaient contre terre, plus agr\u00e9ables aux oiseaux carnassiers qu'\u00e0\nleurs femmes.\n\nEt Zeus conduisit Hekt\u00f4r loin des lances, loin de la poussi\u00e8re,\nloin du carnage et du sang. Et l'Atr\u00e9ide, excitant les Danaens,\npoursuivait ardemment l'ennemi. Et les Troiens, aupr\u00e8s du tombeau\nde l'antique Dardanide Ilos, se pr\u00e9cipitaient dans la plaine,\nd\u00e9sirant rentrer dans la ville. Et ils approchaient du figuier, et\nl'Atr\u00e9ide les poursuivait, baignant de leur sang ses mains rudes,\net poussant des cris. Et, lorsqu'ils furent parvenus au h\u00eatre et\naux portes Skaies, ils s'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent, s'attendant les uns les\nautres. Et la multitude fuyait dispers\u00e9e \u00e0 travers la plaine,\ncomme un troupeau de vaches qu'un lion, brusquement survenu,\n\u00e9pouvante au milieu de la nuit; mais une seule d'entre elles meurt\nchaque fois. Le lion, l'ayant saisie de ses fortes dents, lui\nbrise le cou, boit son sang et d\u00e9vore ses entrailles. Ainsi\nl'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n les poursuivait, tuant toujours le dernier; et\nils fuyaient. Un grand nombre d'entre eux tombait, la t\u00eate la\npremi\u00e8re, ou se renversait du haut des chars sous les mains de\nl'Atr\u00e9ide dont la lance \u00e9tait furieuse. Mais, quand on fut parvenu\n\u00e0 la ville et \u00e0 ses hautes murailles, le p\u00e8re des hommes et des\ndieux descendit de l'Ouranos sur les sommets de l'Ida aux sources\nabondantes, avec la foudre aux mains, et il appela la messag\u00e8re\nIris aux ailes d'or:\n\n-- Va! rapide Iris, et dis \u00e0 Hekt\u00f4r qu'il se tienne en repos et\nqu'il ordonne au reste de l'arm\u00e9e de combattre l'ennemi aussi\nlongtemps qu'il verra le prince des peuples, Agamemn\u00f4n, se jeter\nfurieux aux premiers rangs et rompre les lignes des guerriers.\nMais, d\u00e8s que l'Atr\u00e9ide, frapp\u00e9 d'un coup de lance ou bless\u00e9 d'une\nfl\u00e8che, remontera sur son char, je rendrai au Priamide la force de\ntuer; et il tuera, \u00e9tant parvenu aux nefs bien construites,\njusqu'\u00e0 ce que H\u00e9lios tombe et que la nuit sacr\u00e9e s'\u00e9l\u00e8ve.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et la rapide Iris aux pieds prompts comme le vent\nlui ob\u00e9it. Et elle descendit des sommets de l'Ida vers la sainte\nIlios, et elle trouva le fils du belliqueux Priamos, le divin\nHekt\u00f4r, debout sur son char solide. Et Iris aux pieds rapides\ns'approcha et lui dit:\n\n-- Fils de Priamos, Hekt\u00f4r, \u00e9gal \u00e0 Zeus en sagesse, le p\u00e8re Zeus\nm'envoie te dire ceci: Tiens-toi en repos, et ordonne au reste de\nl'arm\u00e9e de combattre l'ennemi, aussi longtemps que tu verras le\nprince des peuples, Agamemn\u00f4n, se jeter furieux aux premiers rangs\ndes combattants et rompre les lignes des guerriers; mais d\u00e8s que\nl'Atr\u00e9ide, frapp\u00e9 d'un coup de lance ou bless\u00e9 d'une fl\u00e8che,\nremontera sur son char, Zeus te rendra la force de tuer, et tu\ntueras, \u00e9tant parvenu aux nefs bien construites, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que\nH\u00e9lios tombe et que la nuit sacr\u00e9e s'\u00e9l\u00e8ve.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, Iris aux pieds rapides disparut. Et Hekt\u00f4r,\nsautant du haut de son char, avec ses armes, et agitant ses lances\naigu\u00ebs, courut de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s \u00e0 travers l'arm\u00e9e, l'excitant au\ncombat. Et les Troiens, se retournant, firent face aux Akhaiens.\nEt les Argiens s'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent, serrant leurs phalanges pour soutenir\nle combat; mais Agamemn\u00f4n se rua en avant, voulant combattre le\npremier.\n\nDites-moi maintenant, Muses qui habitez les demeures ouraniennes,\ncelui des Troiens ou des illustres alli\u00e9s qui s'avan\u00e7a le premier\ncontre Agamemn\u00f4n. Ce fut Iphidamas Ant\u00e9noride, grand et robuste,\n\u00e9lev\u00e9 dans la fertile Thr\u00e8ki\u00e8, nourrice de brebis. Et son a\u00efeul\nmaternel Kisseus, qui engendra Th\u00e9an\u00f4 aux belles joues, l'\u00e9leva\ntout enfant dans ses demeures; et quand il eut atteint la\nglorieuse pubert\u00e9, il le retint en lui donnant sa fille pour\nfemme. Et quand le jeune guerrier apprit l'arriv\u00e9e des Akhaiens,\nil quitta sa demeure nuptiale et vint avec douze nefs aux poupes\nrecourb\u00e9es qu'il laissa \u00e0 Perkop\u00e8. Et il vint \u00e0 pied jusque dans\nIlios. Et ce fut lui qui s'avan\u00e7a contre Agamemn\u00f4n. Tous deux\ns'\u00e9tant rencontr\u00e9s, l'Atr\u00e9ide le manqua de sa lance qui se\nd\u00e9tourna du but. Et Iphidamas frappa au-dessous de la cuirasse,\nsur le ceinturon; et il poussa sa lance avec vigueur, sans la\nquitter; mais il ne per\u00e7a point le ceinturon habilement fait, et\nla pointe de l'arme, rencontrant une lame d'argent, se tordit\ncomme du plomb. Et Agamemn\u00f4n qui commande au loin, rapide comme un\nlion, saisit la lance, et, l'arrachant, frappa de son \u00e9p\u00e9e\nl'Ant\u00e9noride au cou, et le tua. Ainsi ce malheureux, en secourant\nses concitoyens, s'endormit d'un sommeil d'airain, loin de sa\njeune femme dont il n'avait point vu le bonheur. Et il lui avait\nfait de nombreux pr\u00e9sents, lui ayant d'abord donn\u00e9 cent boeufs, et\nlui ayant promis mille ch\u00e8vres et brebis. Et voici que l'Atr\u00e9ide\nAgamemn\u00f4n le d\u00e9pouilla, et rentra dans la foule des Akhaiens,\nemportant ses belles armes.\n\nEt l'illustre guerrier Ko\u00f4n, l'a\u00een\u00e9 des Ant\u00e9norides, l'aper\u00e7ut, et\nune am\u00e8re douleur obscurcit ses yeux quand il vit son fr\u00e8re mort.\nEn se cachant, il frappa le divin Agamemn\u00f4n d'un coup de lance au\nmilieu du bras, sous le coude, et la pointe de l'arme brillante\ntraversa le bras. Et le roi des hommes, Agamemn\u00f4n, frissonna;\nmais, loin d'abandonner le combat, il se rua sur Ko\u00f4n, arm\u00e9 de sa\nlance solide. Et celui-ci tra\u00eenait par les pieds son fr\u00e8re\nIphidamas, n\u00e9 du m\u00eame p\u00e8re, et il appelait les plus braves \u00e0 son\naide. Mais, comme il l'entra\u00eenait, l'Atr\u00e9ide le frappa de sa lance\nd'airain sous son bouclier rond, et il le tua; et il lui coupa la\nt\u00eate sur le corps m\u00eame d'Iphidamas. Ainsi les deux fils d'Ant\u00e8n\u00f4r,\nsous la main du roi Atr\u00e9ide, accomplissant leurs destin\u00e9es,\ndescendirent aux demeures d'Aid\u00e8s.\n\nEt l'Atr\u00e9ide continua d'enfoncer les lignes des guerriers \u00e0 coups\nde lance, d'\u00e9p\u00e9e ou de lourdes roches, aussi longtemps que le sang\ncoula, chaud, de sa blessure; mais d\u00e8s que la plaie fut dess\u00e9ch\u00e9e,\nque le sang s'arr\u00eata, les douleurs aigu\u00ebs dompt\u00e8rent sa force,\nsemblables \u00e0 ces douleurs am\u00e8res que les filles de H\u00e8r\u00e8, les\n\u00c9ileithyes, envoient comme des traits acerbes \u00e0 la femme qui\nenfante. Ainsi les douleurs aigu\u00ebs dompt\u00e8rent la force de\nl'Atr\u00e9ide. Il monta sur son char, ordonnant au conducteur des\nchevaux de les pousser vers les nefs creuses, car il d\u00e9faillait\ndans son coeur. Et il dit aux Danaens, criant \u00e0 haute voix pour\n\u00eatre entendu:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis, chefs et princes des Argiens, c'est \u00e0 vous maintenant\nd'\u00e9loigner le combat d\u00e9sastreux des nefs qui traversent la mer,\npuisque le sage Zeus ne me permet pas de combattre les Troiens\npendant toute la dur\u00e9e du jour.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le conducteur du char fouetta les chevaux aux\nbeaux crins du c\u00f4t\u00e9 des nefs creuses, et ils couraient avec\nardeur, le poitrail \u00e9cumant, soulevant la poussi\u00e8re et entra\u00eenant\nleur roi bless\u00e9, loin du combat. Et d\u00e8s que Hekt\u00f4r s'aper\u00e7ut de la\nretraite d'Agamemn\u00f4n, il excita \u00e0 haute voix les Troiens et les\nLykiens.\n\n-- Troiens, Lykiens et Dardaniens, hardis combattants, soyez des\nhommes! Amis, souvenez-vous de votre courage intr\u00e9pide. Ce\nguerrier si brave se retire, et Zeus Kronide veut me donner une\ngrande gloire. Poussez droit vos chevaux aux durs sabots sur les\nrobustes Danaens, afin de remporter une gloire sans \u00e9gale.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il excita la force et le courage de chacun. De\nm\u00eame qu'un chasseur excite les chiens aux blanches dents contre un\nsauvage sanglier ou contre un lion, de m\u00eame le Priamide Hekt\u00f4r,\nsemblable au cruel Ar\u00e8s, excita les magnanimes Troiens contre les\nAkhaiens. Et lui-m\u00eame, s\u00fbr de son courage, se rua des premiers\ndans la m\u00eal\u00e9e, semblable au tourbillon orageux qui tombe sur la\nhaute mer et la bouleverse.\n\nEt, maintenant, quel fut le premier, quel fut le dernier que tua\nle Priamide Hekt\u00f4r, quand Zeus voulut le glorifier? Assaios,\nd'abord, et Autonoos, et Opit\u00e8s, et Dolops Klytide, et Ophelti\u00f4n,\net Ag\u00e9laos, et Aisymnos, Oros et le magnanime Hipponoos. Et il tua\nchacun de ces princes Danaens. Puis, il tomba sur la multitude,\ntel que Z\u00e9phyros qui agite les nu\u00e9es, lorsqu'il flagelle les\nvapeurs temp\u00eatueuses amass\u00e9es par le Notos furieux, qu'il d\u00e9roule\nles flots \u00e9normes, et, de ses souffles \u00e9pars, disperse l'\u00e9cume\ndans les hauteurs de l'air. De m\u00eame, Hekt\u00f4r fit tomber une foule\nde t\u00eates guerri\u00e8res.\n\nAlors, c'e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 le jour d'un d\u00e9sastre fatal et de maux\nincurables, et les Argiens, dans leur fuite, eussent succomb\u00e9\naupr\u00e8s des nefs, si Odysseus n'e\u00fbt exhort\u00e9 le Tyd\u00e9ide Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s:\n\n-- Tyd\u00e9ide, avons-nous oubli\u00e9 notre courage intr\u00e9pide? Viens\naupr\u00e8s de moi, tr\u00e8s cher; car ce nous serait un grand opprobre si\nHekt\u00f4r au casque mouvant s'emparait des nefs.\n\nEt le robuste Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Me voici, certes, pr\u00eat \u00e0 combattre. Mais notre joie sera br\u00e8ve,\npuisque Zeus qui amasse les nu\u00e9es veut donner la victoire aux\nTroiens.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il renversa Tymbraios de son char, l'ayant\nfrapp\u00e9 de sa lance \u00e0 la mamelle gauche. Et Odysseus tua Moli\u00f4n, le\ndivin compagnon de Thymbraios. Et ils abandonn\u00e8rent les deux\nguerriers ainsi \u00e9loign\u00e9s du combat, et ils se jet\u00e8rent dans la\nm\u00eal\u00e9e. Et comme deux sangliers audacieux qui reviennent sur les\nchiens chasseurs, ils contraignirent les Troiens de reculer, et\nles Akhaiens, en proie au divin Hekt\u00f4r, respir\u00e8rent un moment. Et\nles deux rois prirent un char et deux guerriers tr\u00e8s braves, fils\ndu Perkosien M\u00e9rops, habile divinateur, qui avait d\u00e9fendu \u00e0 ses\nfils de partir pour la guerre fatale. Mais ils ne lui ob\u00e9irent\npas, et les k\u00e8res de la mort les entra\u00een\u00e8rent. Et l'illustre\nTyd\u00e9ide Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s leur enleva l'\u00e2me et la vie, et les d\u00e9pouilla de\nleurs belles armes, tandis qu'Odysseus tuait Hippodamos et\nHypeirokhos. Alors, le Kroni\u00f4n, les regardant du haut de l'Ida,\nr\u00e9tablit le combat, afin qu'ils se tuassent \u00e9galement des deux\nc\u00f4t\u00e9s.\n\nEt le fils de Tydeus blessa de sa lance \u00e0 la cuisse le h\u00e9ros\nAgastrophos Paionide. Et les chevaux du Paionide \u00e9taient trop\n\u00e9loign\u00e9s pour l'aider \u00e0 fuir; et il g\u00e9missait dans son \u00e2me de ce\nque le conducteur du char l'e\u00fbt retenu en arri\u00e8re, tandis qu'il\ns'\u00e9lan\u00e7ait \u00e0 pied parmi les combattants, jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'il e\u00fbt\nperdu la douce vie. Mais Hekt\u00f4r, l'ayant vu aux premi\u00e8res lignes,\nse rua en poussant de grands cris, suivi des phalanges Troiennes.\nEt le hardi Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s, \u00e0 cette vue, frissonna et dit \u00e0 Odysseus\ndebout pr\u00e8s de lui:\n\n-- C'est sur nous que le furieux Hekt\u00f4r roule ce tourbillon\nsinistre; mais restons in\u00e9branlables, et nous repousserons son\nattaque.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il lan\u00e7a sa longue pique qui ne se d\u00e9tourna pas\ndu but, car le coup atteignit la t\u00eate du Priamide, au sommet du\ncasque. La pointe d'airain ne p\u00e9n\u00e9tra point et fut repouss\u00e9e, et\nle triple airain du casque que Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n avait donn\u00e9 au\nPriamide le garantit; mais il recula aussit\u00f4t, rentra dans la\nfoule, et, tombant sur ses genoux, appuya contre terre sa main\nrobuste, et la noire nuit couvrit ses yeux.\n\nEt, pendant que Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s, suivant de pr\u00e8s le vol imp\u00e9tueux de sa\nlance, la relevait \u00e0 l'endroit o\u00f9 elle \u00e9tait tomb\u00e9e, Hekt\u00f4r,\nranim\u00e9, monta sur son char, se perdit dans la foule et \u00e9vita la\nnoire mort. Et le robuste Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s, le mena\u00e7ant de sa lance, lui\ncria:\n\n-- \u00d4 chien! tu as de nouveau \u00e9vit\u00e9 la mort qui a pass\u00e9 pr\u00e8s de\ntoi. Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n t'a sauv\u00e9 encore une fois, lui que tu\nsupplies toujours au milieu du choc des lances. Mais, certes, je\nte tuerai si je te retrouve et qu'un des dieux me vienne en aide.\nMaintenant, je vais attaquer tous ceux que je pourrai saisir.\n\nEt, parlant ainsi, il tua l'illustre Paionide.\n\nMais Alexandros, l'\u00e9poux de H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 \u00e0 la belle chevelure, appuy\u00e9\ncontre la colonne du tombeau de l'antique guerrier Dardanide Ilos,\ntendit son arc contre le Tyd\u00e9ide Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s, prince des peuples. Et,\ncomme celui-ci arrachait la cuirasse brillante, le bouclier et le\ncasque \u00e9pais du robuste Agastrophos, Alexandros tendit l'arc de\ncorne et per\u00e7a d'une fl\u00e8che certaine le pied droit de Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s;\net, \u00e0 travers le pied, la fl\u00e8che s'enfon\u00e7a en terre. Et\nAlexandros, riant aux \u00e9clats, sortit de son abri, et dit en se\nvantant:\n\n-- Te voil\u00e0 bless\u00e9! ma fl\u00e8che n'a pas \u00e9t\u00e9 vaine. Pl\u00fbt aux dieux\nqu'elle se f\u00fbt enfonc\u00e9e dans ton ventre et que je t'eusse tu\u00e9! Les\nTroiens, qui te redoutent, comme des ch\u00e8vres en face d'un lion,\nrespireraient plus \u00e0 l'aise.\n\nEt l'intr\u00e9pide et robuste Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Mis\u00e9rable archer, aussi vain de tes cheveux que de ton arc,\ns\u00e9ducteur de vierges! si tu combattais face \u00e0 face contre moi, tes\nfl\u00e8ches te seraient d'un vain secours. Voici que tu te glorifies\npour m'avoir perc\u00e9 le pied! Je m'en soucie autant que si une femme\nou un enfant m'avait atteint par imprudence. Le trait d'un l\u00e2che\nest aussi vil que lui. Mais celui que je touche seulement de ma\nlance expire aussit\u00f4t. Sa femme se d\u00e9chire les joues, ses enfants\nsont orphelins, et il rougit la terre de son sang, et il se\ncorrompt, et il y a autour de lui plus d'oiseaux carnassiers que\nde femmes en pleurs.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et l'illustre Odysseus se pla\u00e7a devant lui; et, se\nbaissant, il arracha la fl\u00e8che de son pied; mais aussit\u00f4t il\nressentit dans tout le corps une am\u00e8re douleur. Et, le coeur\nd\u00e9faillant, il monta sur son char, ordonnant au conducteur de le\nramener aux nefs creuses.\n\nEt l'illustre Odysseus, rest\u00e9 seul, car tous les Argiens s'\u00e9taient\nenfuis, g\u00e9mit et se dit dans son coeur magnanime:\n\n-- H\u00e9las! que vais-je devenir? Ce serait une grande honte que de\nreculer devant cette multitude; mais ne serait-il pas plus cruel\nde mourir seul ici, puisque le Kroni\u00f4n a mis tous les Danaens en\nfuite? Mais pourquoi d\u00e9lib\u00e9rer dans mon coeur? Je sais que les\nl\u00e2ches seuls reculent dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e. Le brave, au contraire,\ncombat de pied ferme, soit qu'il frappe, soit qu'il soit frapp\u00e9.\n\nPendant qu'il d\u00e9lib\u00e9rait ainsi dans son esprit et dans son coeur,\nles phalanges des Troiens porteurs de boucliers survinrent et\nenferm\u00e8rent de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s leur fl\u00e9au. De m\u00eame que les chiens\nvigoureux et les jeunes chasseurs entourent un sanglier, dans\nl'\u00e9paisseur d'un bois, et que celui-ci leur fait t\u00eate en aiguisant\nses blanches d\u00e9fenses dans ses m\u00e2choires torses, et que tous\nl'environnent malgr\u00e9 ses d\u00e9fenses furieuses et son aspect\nhorrible; de m\u00eame, les Troiens se pressaient autour d'Odysseus\ncher \u00e0 Zeus. Mais le Laertiade blessa d'abord l'irr\u00e9prochable\nDeiopis \u00e0 l'\u00e9paule, de sa lance aigu\u00eb; et il tua Tho\u00f4n et Ennomos.\nEt comme Khersidamas sautait de son char, il le per\u00e7a sous le\nbouclier, au nombril; et le Troien roula dans la poussi\u00e8re,\nsaisissant la terre \u00e0 pleines mains. Et le Laertiade les\nabandonna, et il blessa de sa lance Kharops Hippaside, fr\u00e8re de\nl'illustre S\u00f4kos. Et S\u00f4kos, semblable \u00e0 un dieu, accourant au\nsecours de son fr\u00e8re, s'approcha et lui dit:\n\n-- \u00d4 Odysseus, insatiable de ruses et de travaux, aujourd'hui tu\ntriompheras des deux Hippasides, et, les ayant tu\u00e9s, tu enl\u00e8veras\nleurs armes, ou, frapp\u00e9 de ma lance, tu perdras la vie.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il frappa le bouclier arrondi, et la lance\nsolide per\u00e7a le bouclier \u00e9tincelant, et, \u00e0 travers la cuirasse\nhabilement travaill\u00e9e, d\u00e9chira la peau au-dessus des poumons; mais\nAth\u00e8n\u00e8 ne permit pas qu'elle p\u00e9n\u00e9tr\u00e2t jusqu'aux entrailles. Et\nOdysseus, sentant que le coup n'\u00e9tait pas mortel, recula et dit \u00e0\nS\u00f4kos:\n\n-- Malheureux! voici que la mort accablante va te saisir. Tu me\ncontrains de ne plus combattre les Troiens, mais je t'apporte\naujourd'hui la noire mort; et, dompt\u00e9 par ma lance, tu vas me\ncombler de gloire et rendre ton \u00e2me \u00e0 Aid\u00e8s aux beaux chevaux.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, comme S\u00f4kos fuyait, il le frappa de sa lance\ndans le dos, entre les \u00e9paules, et lui traversa la poitrine. Il\ntomba avec bruit, et le divin Odysseus s'\u00e9cria en se glorifiant:\n\n-- \u00d4 S\u00f4kos, fils de l'habile cavalier Hippasos, la mort t'a\ndevanc\u00e9 et tu n'as pu lui \u00e9chapper. Ah! malheureux! ton p\u00e8re et ta\nm\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable ne fermeront point tes yeux, et les seuls oiseaux\ncarnassiers agiteront autour de toi leurs lourdes ailes. Mais\nquand je serai mort, les divins Akhaiens c\u00e9l\u00e9breront mes\nfun\u00e9railles.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il arracha de son bouclier et de son corps la\nlance solide du brave S\u00f4kos, et aussit\u00f4t son sang jaillit de la\nplaie, et son coeur se troubla. Et les magnanimes Troiens, voyant\nle sang d'Odysseus, se ru\u00e8rent en foule sur lui; et il reculait,\nen appelant ses compagnons. Et il cria trois fois aussi haut que\nle peut un homme, et le brave M\u00e9n\u00e9laos l'entendit trois fois et\ndit aussit\u00f4t au T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien Aias:\n\n-- Divin Aias T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien, prince des peuples, j'entends la voix du\npatient Odysseus, semblable \u00e0 celle d'un homme que les Troiens\nauraient envelopp\u00e9 dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e. Allons \u00e0 travers la foule. Il\nfaut le secourir. Je crains qu'il ait \u00e9t\u00e9 abandonn\u00e9 au milieu des\nTroiens, et que, malgr\u00e9 son courage, il p\u00e9risse, laissant d'amers\nregrets aux Danaens.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a, et le divin Aias le suivit, et ils\ntrouv\u00e8rent Odysseus au milieu des Troiens qui l'enveloppaient.\n\nAinsi des loups affam\u00e9s, sur les montagnes, hurlent autour d'un\nvieux cerf qu'un chasseur a bless\u00e9 d'une fl\u00e8che. Il a fui, tant\nque son sang a \u00e9t\u00e9 ti\u00e8de et que ses genoux ont pu se mouvoir; mais\nd\u00e8s qu'il est tomb\u00e9 sous le coup de la fl\u00e8che rapide, les loups\ncarnassiers le d\u00e9chirent sur les montagnes, au fond des bois. Et\nvoici qu'un lion survient qui enl\u00e8ve la proie, tandis que les\nloups s'enfuient \u00e9pouvant\u00e9s. Ainsi les robustes Troiens se\npressaient autour du subtil et prudent Odysseus qui, se ruant \u00e0\ncoups de lance, \u00e9loignait sa derni\u00e8re heure. Et Aias, portant un\nbouclier semblable \u00e0 une tour, parut \u00e0 son c\u00f4t\u00e9, et les Troiens\nprirent la fuite \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0. Et le brave M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, saisissant\nOdysseus par la main, le retira de la m\u00eal\u00e9e, tandis qu'un\nserviteur faisait approcher le char.\n\nEt Aias, bondissant au milieu des Troiens, tua Doryklos, b\u00e2tard de\nPriamos, et Pandokos, et Lysandros, et Pyrasos, et Pylart\u00e8s. De\nm\u00eame qu'un fleuve, gonfl\u00e9 par les pluies de Zeus, descend, comme\nun torrent, des montagnes dans la plaine, emportant un grand\nnombre de ch\u00eanes d\u00e9racin\u00e9s et de pins, et roule ses limons dans la\nmer; de m\u00eame l'illustre Aias, se ruant dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e, tuait les\nhommes et les chevaux.\n\nHekt\u00f4r ignorait ceci, car il combattait vers la gauche, sur les\nrives du fleuve Skamandros, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 les t\u00eates des hommes tombaient\nen plus grand nombre, et o\u00f9 de grandes clameurs s'\u00e9levaient autour\ndu cavalier Nest\u00f4r et du brave Idom\u00e9neus. Hekt\u00f4r les assi\u00e9geait de\nsa lance et de ses chevaux, et rompait les phalanges des\nguerriers; mais les divins Akhaiens n'eussent point recul\u00e9, si\nAlexandros, l'\u00e9poux de la belle H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8, n'e\u00fbt bless\u00e9 \u00e0 l'\u00e9paule\ndroite, d'une fl\u00e8che \u00e0 trois pointes, le brave Makha\u00f4n, prince des\npeuples. Alors les vigoureux Akhaiens craignirent, s'ils\nreculaient, d'exposer la vie de ce guerrier.\n\nEt, aussit\u00f4t, Idom\u00e9neus dit au divin Nest\u00f4r:\n\n-- \u00d4 Nest\u00f4r N\u00e8l\u00e8iade, gloire des Akhaiens, h\u00e2te-toi, monte sur ton\nchar avec Makha\u00f4n, et pousse vers les nefs tes chevaux aux sabots\nmassifs. Un m\u00e9decin vaut plusieurs hommes, car il sait extraire\nles fl\u00e8ches et r\u00e9pandre les doux baumes dans les blessures.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le cavalier G\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r lui ob\u00e9it. Et il\nmonta sur son char avec Makha\u00f4n, fils de l'irr\u00e9prochable m\u00e9decin\nAskl\u00e8pios. Et il flagellait les chevaux, et ceux-ci volaient\nardemment vers les nefs creuses.\n\nCependant K\u00e9brion\u00e8s, assis aupr\u00e8s de Hekt\u00f4r sur le m\u00eame char, vit\nau loin le trouble des Troiens et dit au Priamide:\n\n-- Hekt\u00f4r, tandis que nous combattons ici les Danaens, \u00e0\nl'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 de la m\u00eal\u00e9e, les autres Troiens fuient p\u00eale-m\u00eale avec\nleurs chars. C'est le T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien Aias qui les a rompus. Je le\nreconnais bien, car il porte un vaste bouclier sur ses \u00e9paules.\nC'est pourquoi il nous faut pousser nos chevaux et notre char de\nce c\u00f4t\u00e9, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 les cavaliers et les pi\u00e9tons s'entretuent et o\u00f9\ns'\u00e9l\u00e8ve une immense clameur.\n\nIl parla ainsi et frappa du fouet \u00e9clatant les chevaux aux belles\ncrini\u00e8res; et, sous le fouet, ceux-ci entra\u00een\u00e8rent rapidement le\nchar entre les Troiens et les Akhaiens, \u00e9crasant les cadavres et\nles armes. Et les jantes et les moyeux des roues \u00e9taient asperg\u00e9s\ndu sang qui jaillissait sous les sabots des chevaux. Et le\nPriamide, plein du d\u00e9sir de p\u00e9n\u00e9trer dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e et de rompre\nles phalanges, apportait le trouble et la mort aux Danaens, et il\nassi\u00e9geait leurs lignes \u00e9branl\u00e9es, en les attaquant \u00e0 coups de\nlance, d'\u00e9p\u00e9e et de lourdes roches. Mais il \u00e9vitait d'attaquer le\nT\u00e9lam\u00f4nien Aias.\n\nAlors le p\u00e8re Zeus saisit Aias d'une crainte soudaine. Et celui-\nci, \u00e9tonn\u00e9, s'arr\u00eata. Et, rejetant sur son dos son bouclier aux\nsept peaux de boeuf, il recula, regardant toujours la foule.\nSemblable \u00e0 une b\u00eate fauve, il reculait pas \u00e0 pas, faisant face \u00e0\nl'ennemi. Comme un lion fauve que les chiens et les p\u00e2tres\nchassent loin de l'\u00e9table des boeufs, car ils veillaient avec\nvigilance, sans qu'il ait pu savourer les chairs grasses dont il\n\u00e9tait avide, bien qu'il se soit pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9 avec fureur, et qui,\naccabl\u00e9 sous les torches et les traits que lui lancent des mains\naudacieuses, s'\u00e9loigne, au matin, plein de tristesse et fr\u00e9missant\nde rage; de m\u00eame Aias reculait, le coeur troubl\u00e9, devant les\nTroiens, craignant pour les nefs des Akhaiens.\n\nDe m\u00eame un \u00e2ne t\u00eatu entre dans un champ, malgr\u00e9 les efforts des\nenfants qui brisent leurs b\u00e2tons sur son dos. Il continue \u00e0 pa\u00eetre\nla moisson, sans se soucier des faibles coups qui l'atteignent, et\nse retire \u00e0 grand'peine quand il est rassasi\u00e9. Ainsi les\nmagnanimes Troiens et leurs alli\u00e9s frappaient de leurs lances\nAias, le grand fils de T\u00e9lam\u00f4n. Ils frappaient son bouclier, et le\npoursuivaient; mais Aias, reprenant parfois ses forces\nimp\u00e9tueuses, se retournait et repoussait les phalanges des\ncavaliers Troiens; puis, il reculait de nouveau, les emp\u00eachant\nainsi de se pr\u00e9cipiter tous \u00e0 la fois vers les nefs rapides. Or,\nil combattait seul dans l'intervalle qui s\u00e9parait les Troiens et\nles Akhaiens. Et les traits h\u00e9rissaient son grand bouclier, ou\ns'enfon\u00e7aient en terre sans se rassasier de sa chair blanche dont\nils \u00e9taient avides.\n\nEt l'illustre fils d'\u00c9vaim\u00f4n, Eurypylos, l'aper\u00e7ut ainsi assi\u00e9g\u00e9\nd'un nuage de traits. Et il accourut \u00e0 ses c\u00f4t\u00e9s, et il lan\u00e7a sa\npique \u00e9clatante. Et il per\u00e7a le Phausiade Apisa\u00f4n, prince des\npeuples, dans le foie, sous le diaphragme, et il le tua. Et\nEurypylos, s'\u00e9lan\u00e7ant, lui arracha ses armes. Mais lorsque le\ndivin Alexandros le vit emportant les armes d'Apisa\u00f4n, il tendit\nson arc contre lui et il le per\u00e7a d'une fl\u00e8che \u00e0 la cuisse droite.\nLe roseau se brisa, la cuisse s'engourdit, et l'\u00c9vaim\u00f4nide,\nrentrant dans la foule de ses compagnons, afin d'\u00e9viter la mort,\ncria d'une voix haute afin d'\u00eatre entendu des Danaens:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis, chefs et princes des Argiens, arr\u00eatez et retournez-\nvous. \u00c9loignez la derni\u00e8re heure d'Aias qui est accabl\u00e9 de traits,\net qui, je pense, ne sortira pas vivant de la m\u00eal\u00e9e terrible.\nSerrez-vous donc autour d'Aias, le grand fils de T\u00e9lam\u00f4n.\n\nEurypylos, bless\u00e9, parla ainsi; mais ses compagnons se press\u00e8rent\nautour de lui, le bouclier inclin\u00e9 et la lance en arr\u00eat. Et Aias,\nles ayant rejoints, fit avec eux face \u00e0 l'ennemi. Et ils\ncombattirent de nouveau, tels que des flammes ardentes.\n\nMais les cavales du N\u00e8l\u00e8ide emportaient loin du combat, et\ncouvertes d'\u00e9cume, Nest\u00f4r, et Makha\u00f4n, prince des peuples.\n\nEt le divin Akhilleus aux pieds rapides les reconnut. Et, debout\nsur la poupe de sa vaste nef, il regardait le rude combat et la\nd\u00e9faite lamentable. Et il appela son compagnon Patroklos. Celui-ci\nl'entendit et sortit de ses tentes, semblable \u00e0 Ar\u00e8s. Et ce fut\nl'origine de son malheur. Et le brave fils de M\u00e9noitios dit le\npremier:\n\n-- Pourquoi m'appelles-tu, Akhilleus? Que veux-tu de moi?\n\nEt Akhilleus aux pieds rapides lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Divin M\u00e9noitiade, tr\u00e8s cher \u00e0 mon \u00e2me, j'esp\u00e8re maintenant que\nles Akhaiens ne tarderont pas \u00e0 tomber suppliants \u00e0 mes genoux,\ncar une intol\u00e9rable n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 les assi\u00e8ge. Va donc, Patroklos cher\n\u00e0 Zeus, et demande \u00e0 Nest\u00f4r quel est le guerrier bless\u00e9 qu'il\nram\u00e8ne du combat. Il ressemble \u00e0 l'Askl\u00e8piade Makha\u00f4n, mais je\nn'ai point vu son visage, et les chevaux l'ont emport\u00e9 rapidement.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Patroklos ob\u00e9it \u00e0 son cher compagnon, et il\ns'\u00e9lan\u00e7a vers les tentes et les nefs des Akhaiens.\n\nEt quand Nest\u00f4r et Makha\u00f4n furent arriv\u00e9s aux tentes du N\u00e8l\u00e8ide,\nils saut\u00e8rent du char sur la terre nourrici\u00e8re. Et le serviteur du\nvieillard, Eurym\u00e8d\u00f4n, d\u00e9tela les chevaux. Et les deux rois, ayant\ns\u00e9ch\u00e9 leur sueur au vent de la mer, entr\u00e8rent sous la tente et\nprirent des si\u00e8ges, et H\u00e9kam\u00e8d\u00e8 aux beaux cheveux leur pr\u00e9para \u00e0\nboire. Et Nest\u00f4r l'avait amen\u00e9e de T\u00e9n\u00e9dos qu'Akhilleus venait de\nd\u00e9truire; et c'\u00e9tait la fille du magnanime Arsinoos, et les\nAkhaiens l'avaient donn\u00e9e au N\u00e8l\u00e8ide parce qu'il les surpassait\ntous par sa prudence.\n\nElle posa devant eux une belle table aux pieds de m\u00e9tal azur\u00e9, et,\nsur cette table, un bassin d'airain poli avec des oignons pour\nexciter \u00e0 boire, et du miel vierge et de la farine sacr\u00e9e; puis,\nune tr\u00e8s-belle coupe enrichie de clous d'or, que le vieillard\navait apport\u00e9e de ses demeures. Et cette coupe avait quatre anses\net deux fonds, et, sur chaque anse, deux colombes d'or semblaient\nmanger. Tout autre l'e\u00fbt soulev\u00e9e avec peine quand elle \u00e9tait\nremplie, mais le vieux Nest\u00f4r la soulevait facilement.\n\nEt la jeune femme, semblable aux d\u00e9esses, pr\u00e9para une boisson de\nvin de Pramneios, et sur ce vin elle r\u00e2pa, avec de l'airain, du\nfromage de ch\u00e8vre, qu'elle aspergea de blanche farine. Et, apr\u00e8s\nces pr\u00e9paratifs, elle invita les deux rois \u00e0 boire; et ceux-ci,\nayant bu et \u00e9tanch\u00e9 la soif br\u00fblante, charm\u00e8rent leur repos en\nparlant tour \u00e0 tour.\n\nEt le divin Patroklos parut alors \u00e0 l'entr\u00e9e de la tente. Et le\nvieillard, l'ayant aper\u00e7u, se leva de son si\u00e8ge \u00e9clatant, le prit\npar la main et voulut le faire asseoir; mais Patroklos recula et\nlui dit:\n\n-- Je ne puis me reposer, divin vieillard, et tu ne me persuaderas\npas. Il est terrible et irritable celui qui m'envoie te demander\nquel est le guerrier bless\u00e9 que tu as ramen\u00e9. Mais je le vois et\nje reconnais Makha\u00f4n, prince des peuples. Maintenant je\nretournerai vers Akhilleus pour lui donner cette nouvelle, car tu\nsais, divin vieillard, combien il est impatient et prompt \u00e0\naccuser, m\u00eame un innocent.\n\nEt le cavalier G\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Pourquoi Akhilleus a-t-il ainsi piti\u00e9 des fils des Akhaiens que\nles traits ont perc\u00e9s? Ignore-t-il donc le deuil qui enveloppe\nl'arm\u00e9e? D\u00e9j\u00e0 les plus braves gisent sur leurs nefs, frapp\u00e9s ou\nbless\u00e9s. Le robuste Tyd\u00e9ide Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s est bless\u00e9, et Odysseus\nillustre par sa lance, et Agamemn\u00f4n. Une fl\u00e8che a perc\u00e9 la cuisse\nd'Eurypylos, et c'est aussi une fl\u00e8che qui a frapp\u00e9 Makha\u00f4n que je\nviens de ramener du combat. Mais le brave Akhilleus n'a ni souci\nni piti\u00e9 des Danaens. Attend-il que les nefs rapides soient en\nproie aux flammes, malgr\u00e9 les Argiens, et que ceux-ci p\u00e9rissent\njusqu'au dernier? Je n'ai plus la force qui animait autrefois mes\nmembres agiles. Pl\u00fbt aux dieux que je fusse florissant de jeunesse\net de vigueur, comme au temps o\u00f9 une dissension s'\u00e9leva entre nous\net les \u00c9lidiens, \u00e0 cause d'un enl\u00e8vement de boeufs, quand je tuai\nle robuste Hypeirokhide Itymoneus qui habitait \u00c9lis, et dont\nj'enlevai les boeufs par repr\u00e9sailles. Et il les d\u00e9fendait, mais\nje le frappai d'un coup de lance, aux premiers rangs, et il tomba.\nEt ses tribus sauvages s'enfuirent en tumulte, et nous enlev\u00e2mes\nun grand butin: cinquante troupeaux de boeufs, autant de brebis,\nautant de porcs et autant de ch\u00e8vres, cent cinquante cavales baies\net leurs nombreux poulains. Et nous les conduis\u00eemes, pendant la\nnuit, dans Pylos, la ville de N\u00e8leus. Et N\u00e8leus se r\u00e9jouit dans\nson coeur, parce que j'avais fait toutes ces choses, ayant\ncombattu pour la premi\u00e8re fois. Et, au lever du jour, les h\u00e9rauts\nconvoqu\u00e8rent ceux dont les troupeaux avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 emmen\u00e9s dans la\nfertile \u00c9lis; et les chefs Pyliens, s'\u00e9tant r\u00e9unis, partag\u00e8rent le\nbutin. Mais alors les \u00c9p\u00e9iens nous opprimaient, car nous \u00e9tions\npeu nombreux et nous avions beaucoup souffert dans Pylos, depuis\nque H\u00e8rakl\u00e8s nous avait accabl\u00e9s, il y avait quelques ann\u00e9es, en\ntuant les premiers de la ville. Et nous \u00e9tions douze fils\nirr\u00e9prochables de N\u00e8leus, et j'\u00e9tais rest\u00e9 le dernier, car tous\nles autres avaient p\u00e9ri; et c'est pourquoi les orgueilleux \u00c9p\u00e9iens\ncuirass\u00e9s nous accablaient d'injustes outrages. Le vieillard\nN\u00e8leus re\u00e7ut en partage un troupeau de boeufs et un troupeau de\nbrebis, trois cents t\u00eates de b\u00e9tail et leurs bergers, car la\ndivine \u00c9lis lui avait beaucoup enlev\u00e9 de richesses. Le roi des\nhommes, Aug\u00e9ias, avait retenu quatre de ses chevaux, avec leurs\nchars, qui se rendaient aux jeux, et il n'avait renvoy\u00e9 que le\nconducteur plein de tristesse de cette perte. Et le vieux N\u00e8leus\nen fut tr\u00e8s irrit\u00e9; et c'est pourquoi il re\u00e7ut une grande part du\nbutin; mais il distribua le reste au peuple par portions \u00e9gales.\nEt comme nous partagions le butin, en faisant des sacrifices, les\n\u00c9p\u00e9iens survinrent, le troisi\u00e8me jour, en grand nombre, avec leurs\nchevaux aux sabots massifs, et les deux Molionides, jeunes encore,\net inhabiles malgr\u00e9 leur force et leur courage. Or, Thry\u00f4essa\ns'\u00e9levait sur une hauteur, non loin de l'Alph\u00e9os, aux confins de\nla sablonneuse Pylos. Et l'ennemi l'assi\u00e9geait, d\u00e9sirant la\nd\u00e9truire. Mais, comme ils traversaient les plaines, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8,\npendant la nuit, descendit vers nous du haut de l'Olympos pour\nnous appeler aux armes; et elle rassembla ais\u00e9ment les peuples\ndans Pylos. Et tous \u00e9taient pleins d'ardeur. N\u00e8leus me d\u00e9fendit de\nm'armer, et il cacha mes chevaux, car il pensait que je n'\u00e9tais\npas assez fort pour combattre. Mais je partis \u00e0 pied, et je\nm'illustrai au milieu des cavaliers, parce que Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 me guidait\nau combat. Et tous, cavaliers et pi\u00e9tons Pyliens, nous attend\u00eemes\nla divine \u00c9\u00f4s aupr\u00e8s d'Ar\u00e8n\u00e8, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 le fleuve Miny\u00e9ios tombe dans\nla mer. Vers midi, arriv\u00e9s sur les bords sacr\u00e9s de l'Alph\u00e9os, nous\nf\u00eemes de grands sacrifices au puissant Zeus, offrant aussi un\ntaureau \u00e0 l'Alph\u00e9os, un autre taureau \u00e0 Poseida\u00f4n, et une g\u00e9nisse\nindompt\u00e9e \u00e0 Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs. Puis, chacun de nous, ayant\npris son repas dans les rangs, se coucha avec ses armes sur les\nrives du fleuve. Cependant les magnanimes \u00c9p\u00e9iens assi\u00e9geaient la\nville, d\u00e9sirant la d\u00e9truire; et voici que les durs travaux d'Ar\u00e8s\nleur apparurent. Quand H\u00e9lios resplendit sur la terre, nous\ncour\u00fbmes au combat, en suppliant Zeus et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8. Et d\u00e8s que les\nPyliens et les \u00c9p\u00e9iens se furent attaqu\u00e9s, le premier je tuai un\nguerrier et je me saisis de ses chevaux aux sabots massifs. Et\nc'\u00e9tait le brave Moulios, gendre d'Aug\u00e9ias, car il avait \u00e9pous\u00e9 sa\nfille, la blonde Agam\u00e8d\u00e8, qui connaissait toutes les plantes\nm\u00e9dicinales qui poussent sur la vaste terre. Et je le per\u00e7ai de ma\nlance d'airain, comme il s'\u00e9lan\u00e7ait, et il tomba dans la\npoussi\u00e8re; et je sautai sur son char, et je combattis aux premiers\nrangs; et les magnanimes \u00c9p\u00e9iens s'enfuirent \u00e9pouvant\u00e9s, quand ils\nvirent tomber ce guerrier, chef des cavaliers, le plus brave\nd'entre eux. Et je me jetai sur eux, semblable \u00e0 une noire\ntemp\u00eate. Je m'emparai de cinquante chars, et je tuai de ma lance\ndeux guerriers sur chaque char. Sans doute j'eusse tu\u00e9 aussi les\ndeux jeunes Aktorides, si leur a\u00efeul Poseida\u00f4n qui commande au\nloin ne les e\u00fbt enlev\u00e9s de la m\u00eal\u00e9e, en les enveloppant d'une nu\u00e9e\n\u00e9paisse. Alors Zeus accorda aux Pyliens une grande victoire. Nous\npoursuiv\u00eemes au loin l'ennemi \u00e0 travers la plaine, tuant les\nhommes et enlevant de belles armes, et poussant nos chevaux\njusqu'\u00e0 Bouprasios f\u00e9conde en fruits, jusqu'\u00e0 la pierreuse Ol\u00e8n\u00e8\net Al\u00e8sios qu'on nomme maintenant Kol\u00f4n\u00e8. Et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 rappela\nl'arm\u00e9e, et je tuai encore un guerrier; et les Akhaiens, quittant\nBouprasios, ramen\u00e8rent leurs chevaux rapides vers Pylos. Et tous\nrendaient gr\u00e2ces parmi les dieux \u00e0 Zeus, et parmi les guerriers \u00e0\nNest\u00f4r. Tel je fus au milieu des braves; mais Akhilleus n'use de\nsa force que pour lui seul, et je pense qu'il ressentira un jour\nd'amers regrets, quand toute l'arm\u00e9e Akhaienne aura p\u00e9ri. \u00d4 ami,\nM\u00e9noitios t'adressa de sages paroles quand, loin de la Phthi\u00e8, il\nt'envoya vers Agamemn\u00f4n. Nous \u00e9tions l\u00e0, le divin Odysseus et moi,\net nous entend\u00eemes facilement ce qu'il te dit dans ses demeures.\nEt nous \u00e9tions venus vers les riches demeures de P\u00e8leus,\nparcourant l'Akhai\u00e8 fertile, afin de rassembler les guerriers.\nNous y trouv\u00e2mes le h\u00e9ros M\u00e9noitios, et toi, et Akhilleus. Et le\nvieux cavalier P\u00e8leus br\u00fblait, dans ses cours int\u00e9rieures, les\ncuisses grasses d'un boeuf en l'honneur de Zeus qui se r\u00e9jouit de\nla foudre. Et il tenait une coupe d'or, et il r\u00e9pandait des\nlibations de vin noir sur les feux sacr\u00e9s, et vous pr\u00e9pariez les\nchairs du boeuf. Nous restions debout sous le vestibule; mais\nAkhilleus, surpris, se leva, nous conduisit par la main, nous fit\nasseoir et posa devant nous la nourriture hospitali\u00e8re qu'il est\nd'usage d'offrir aux \u00e9trangers. Et, apr\u00e8s nous \u00eatre rassasi\u00e9s de\nboire et de manger, je commen\u00e7ai \u00e0 parler, vous exhortant \u00e0 nous\nsuivre. Et vous y consent\u00eetes volontiers, et les deux vieillards\nvous adress\u00e8rent de sages paroles. D'abord, le vieux P\u00e8leus\nrecommanda \u00e0 Akhilleus de surpasser tous les autres guerriers en\ncourage; puis le fils d'Akt\u00f4r, M\u00e9noitios, te dit: -- Mon fils,\nAkhilleus t'est sup\u00e9rieur par la naissance, mais tu es plus \u00e2g\u00e9\nque lui. Ses forces sont plus grandes que les tiennes, mais parle-\nlui avec sagesse, avertis-le, guide-le, et il ob\u00e9ira aux\nexcellents conseils.'\n\nLe vieillard te donna ces instructions, mais tu les as oubli\u00e9es.\nParle donc au brave Akhilleus; peut-\u00eatre \u00e9coutera-t-il tes\nparoles. Qui sait si, gr\u00e2ces \u00e0 un dieu, tu ne toucheras point son\ncoeur? Le conseil d'un ami est bon \u00e0 suivre. Mais si, dans son\nesprit, il redoute quelque oracle ou un avertissement que lui a\ndonn\u00e9 sa m\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable de la part de Zeus, qu'il t'envoie\ncombattre au moins, et que l'arm\u00e9e des Myrmidones te suive; et\npeut-\u00eatre sauveras-tu les Danaens. S'il te confiait ses belles\narmes, peut-\u00eatre les Troiens te prendraient-ils pour lui, et,\ns'enfuyant, laisseraient-ils respirer les fils accabl\u00e9s des\nAkhaiens; et le repos est de courte dur\u00e9e \u00e0 la guerre. Or, des\ntroupes riches repousseraient ais\u00e9ment vers la ville, loin des\nnefs et des tentes, des hommes fatigu\u00e9s par le combat.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il remua le coeur de Patroklos, et celui-ci se\nh\u00e2ta de retourner vers les nefs de l'Aiakide Akhilleus. Mais,\nlorsque, dans sa course, il fut arriv\u00e9 aux nefs du divin Odysseus,\nl\u00e0 o\u00f9 \u00e9taient l'agora et le lieu de justice, et o\u00f9 l'on dressait\nles autels des dieux, il rencontra le magnanime \u00c9vaim\u00f4nide\nEurypylos qui revenait du combat, boitant et la cuisse perc\u00e9e\nd'une fl\u00e8che. Et la sueur tombait de sa t\u00eate et de ses \u00e9paules, et\nun sang noir sortait de sa profonde blessure; mais son coeur \u00e9tait\ntoujours ferme. Et, en le voyant, le robuste fils de M\u00e9noitios fut\nsaisi de compassion, et il lui dit ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Ah! malheureux chefs et princes des Danaens, serez-vous donc,\nloin de vos amis, loin de la terre natale, la p\u00e2ture des chiens\nqui se rassasieront de votre graisse blanche dans Ilios? Mais dis-\nmoi, divin h\u00e9ros Eurypylos, les Akhaiens soutiendront-ils l'effort\ndu cruel Hekt\u00f4r, ou p\u00e9riront-ils sous sa lance?\n\nEt le sage Eurypylos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Divin Patroklos, il n'y a plus de salut pour les Akhaiens, et\nils p\u00e9riront devant les nefs noires. Les plus robustes et les plus\nbraves gisent dans leurs nefs, frapp\u00e9s ou bless\u00e9s par les mains\ndes Troiens dont les forces augmentent toujours. Mais sauve-moi en\nme ramenant dans ma nef noire. Arrache cette fl\u00e8che de ma cuisse,\nbaigne d'une eau ti\u00e8de la plaie et le sang qui en coule, et verse\ndans ma blessure ces doux et excellents baumes que tu tiens\nd'Akhilleus qui les a re\u00e7us de Kheir\u00f4n, le plus juste des\ncentaures. Des deux m\u00e9decins, Podaleirios et Makha\u00f4n, l'un, je\npense, est dans sa tente, bless\u00e9 lui-m\u00eame et manquant de m\u00e9decins,\net l'autre soutient dans la plaine le dur combat contre les\nTroiens.\n\nEt le robuste fils de M\u00e9noitios lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- H\u00e9ros Eurypylos, comment finiront ces choses, et que ferons-\nnous? Je vais r\u00e9p\u00e9ter \u00e0 Akhilleus les paroles du cavalier\nG\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r, rempart des Akhaiens; mais, cependant, je ne\nt'abandonnerai pas dans ta d\u00e9tresse.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, le soutenant contre sa poitrine, il conduisit\nle prince des peuples jusque dans sa tente. Et le serviteur\nd'Eurypylos, en le voyant, pr\u00e9para un lit de peaux de boeuf; et le\nh\u00e9ros s'y coucha; et le M\u00e9noitiade, \u00e0 l'aide d'un couteau, retira\nde la cuisse le trait acerbe et aigu, lava le sang noir avec de\nl'eau ti\u00e8de, et, de ses mains, exprima dans la plaie le suc d'une\nracine am\u00e8re qui adoucissait et calmait. Et toutes les douleurs du\nh\u00e9ros disparurent, et la blessure se ferma, et le sang cessa de\ncouler.\n\n\nChant 12\n\nAinsi le robuste fils de M\u00e9noitios prenait soin d'Eurypylos dans\nses tentes. Et les Argiens et les Troiens combattaient avec\nfureur, et le foss\u00e9 et la vaste muraille ne devaient pas longtemps\nprot\u00e9ger les Danaens. Quand ils l'avaient \u00e9lev\u00e9e pour sauvegarder\nles nefs rapides et le nombreux butin, ils n'avaient point offert\nde riches h\u00e9catombes aux dieux, et cette muraille, ayant \u00e9t\u00e9\nconstruite malgr\u00e9 les dieux, ne devait pas \u00eatre de longue dur\u00e9e.\n\nTant que Hekt\u00f4r fut vivant, et que le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide garda sa col\u00e8re, et\nque la ville du roi Priamos fut \u00e9pargn\u00e9e, le grand mur des\nAkhaiens subsista; mais, apr\u00e8s que les plus illustres des Troiens\nfurent morts, et que, parmi les Argiens, les uns eurent p\u00e9ri et\nles autres surv\u00e9cu, et que la ville de Priamos eut \u00e9t\u00e9 renvers\u00e9e\ndans la dixi\u00e8me ann\u00e9e, les Argiens s'en retourn\u00e8rent dans leur\nch\u00e8re patrie.\n\nAlors, Poseida\u00f4n et Apoll\u00f4n se d\u00e9cid\u00e8rent \u00e0 d\u00e9truire cette\nmuraille, en r\u00e9unissant la violence des fleuves qui coulent \u00e0 la\nmer des sommets de l'Ida: le Rh\u00e8sos, le Heptaporos, le Kar\u00e8sos, le\nRhodios, le Gr\u00e8nikos, l'Ais\u00e9pos, le divin Skamandros et le Simo\u00efs,\no\u00f9 tant de casques et de boucliers roul\u00e8rent dans la poussi\u00e8re\navec la foule des guerriers demi-dieux. Et Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n les\nr\u00e9unit tous, et, pendant neuf jours, dirigea leurs courants contre\ncette muraille. Et Zeus pleuvait continuellement, afin que les\nd\u00e9bris fussent submerg\u00e9s plus t\u00f4t par la mer. Et Poseida\u00f4n lui-\nm\u00eame, le trident en main, fit s'\u00e9crouler, sous l'effort des eaux,\nles poutres et les pierres et les fondements que les Akhaiens\navaient p\u00e9niblement construits. Et il mit la muraille au niveau du\nrapide Hellespontos; et, sur ces d\u00e9bris, les sables s'\u00e9tant\namoncel\u00e9s comme auparavant sur le vaste rivage, le dieu fit\nretourner les fleuves dans les lits o\u00f9 ils avaient coutume de\nrouler leurs belles eaux.\n\nAinsi, dans l'avenir, devaient faire Poseida\u00f4n et Apoll\u00f4n. Mais,\naujourd'hui, autour du mur solide, \u00e9clataient les clameurs de la\nguerre et le combat; et les poutres des tours criaient sous les\ncoups, et les Argiens, sous le fouet de Zeus, \u00e9taient accul\u00e9s\ncontre les nefs creuses, redoutant le robuste Hekt\u00f4r, ma\u00eetre de la\nfuite. Et celui-ci combattait toujours, semblable \u00e0 un tourbillon.\n\nDe m\u00eame, quand un sanglier ou un lion, fier de sa vigueur, se\nretourne contre les chiens et les chasseurs, ceux-ci, se serrant,\ns'arr\u00eatent en face et lui dardent un grand nombre de traits; mais\nson coeur orgueilleux ne tremble ni ne s'\u00e9pouvante, et son audace\ncause sa perte. Il tente souvent d'enfoncer les lignes des\nchasseurs, et l\u00e0 o\u00f9 il se rue, elles c\u00e8dent toujours. Ainsi, se\nruant dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e, Hekt\u00f4r exhortait ses compagnons \u00e0 franchir le\nfoss\u00e9; mais ses chevaux rapides n'osaient eux-m\u00eames avancer, et,\nen hennissant, ils s'arr\u00eataient sur le bord, car le foss\u00e9 creux\nles effrayait, ne pouvant \u00eatre franchi ou travers\u00e9 facilement. Des\ndeux c\u00f4t\u00e9s se dressaient de hauts talus h\u00e9riss\u00e9s de pals aigus\nplant\u00e9s par les fils des Akhaiens, \u00e9pais, solides et tourn\u00e9s\ncontre les guerriers ennemis. Des chevaux tra\u00eenant un char l\u00e9ger\nn'auraient pu y p\u00e9n\u00e9trer ais\u00e9ment; mais les hommes de pied\nd\u00e9siraient tenter l'escalade. Et alors Polydamas s'approcha du\nbrave Hekt\u00f4r et lui dit:\n\n-- Hekt\u00f4r, et vous, chefs des Troiens et des alli\u00e9s, nous poussons\nimprudemment \u00e0 travers ce foss\u00e9 nos chevaux rapides, car le\npassage en est difficile. Des pals aigus s'y dressent en effet, et\nderri\u00e8re eux monte le mur des Akhaiens. On ne peut ici ni\ncombattre sur les chars, ni en descendre. La voie est \u00e9troite, et\nje pense que nous y p\u00e9rirons. Puisse Zeus qui tonne dans les\nhauteurs accabler les Argiens de mille maux et venir en aide aux\nTroiens aussi s\u00fbrement que je voudrais voir \u00e0 l'instant ceux-l\u00e0\np\u00e9rir tous, sans gloire, loin d'Argos. Mais, s'ils reviennent sur\nnous et nous repoussent des nefs, nous serons pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9s dans le\nfoss\u00e9 creux; et je ne pense pas qu'un seul d'entre nous, dans sa\nfuite, puisse regagner la ville. \u00c9coutez donc et ob\u00e9issez \u00e0 mes\nparoles. Que les conducteurs retiennent les chevaux au bord de ce\nfoss\u00e9, et nous, \u00e0 pied, couverts de nos armes, nous suivrons tous\nHekt\u00f4r, et les Akhaiens ne r\u00e9sisteront pas, si, en effet, leur\nruine est proche.\n\nPolydamas parla ainsi, et ce sage conseil plut \u00e0 Hekt\u00f4r, et,\naussit\u00f4t, il sauta de son char avec ses armes; et, comme le divin\nHekt\u00f4r, les autres Troiens saut\u00e8rent aussi de leurs chars, et ils\nordonn\u00e8rent aux conducteurs de ranger les chevaux sur le bord du\nfoss\u00e9; et, se divisant en cinq corps, ils suivirent leurs chefs.\n\nAvec Hekt\u00f4r et l'irr\u00e9prochable Polydamas marchaient les plus\nnombreux et les plus braves, ceux qui d\u00e9siraient avec le plus\nd'ardeur enfoncer la muraille; et leur troisi\u00e8me chef \u00e9tait\nK\u00e9brion\u00e8s, car Hekt\u00f4r avait laiss\u00e9 \u00e0 la garde du char un moins\nbrave guerrier. Et le deuxi\u00e8me corps \u00e9tait command\u00e9 par Alkathoos,\nP\u00e2ris et Ag\u00e8n\u00f4r. Et le troisi\u00e8me corps ob\u00e9issait \u00e0 H\u00e9l\u00e9nos et au\ndivin D\u00e8iphobos, deux fils de Priamos, et au h\u00e9ros Asios Hyrtakide\nque ses chevaux au poil roux et de haute taille avaient amen\u00e9\nd'Arisba et des bords du Sell\u00e8is. Et le chef du quatri\u00e8me corps\n\u00e9tait le noble fils d'Ankhis\u00e8s, Ain\u00e9ias; et avec lui commandaient\nles deux Ant\u00e9norides, Ark\u00e9lokhos et Akamas, habiles au combat. Et\nSarp\u00e8d\u00f4n, avec Glaukos et le magnanime Ast\u00e9ropaios, commandait les\nillustres alli\u00e9s. Et ces guerriers \u00e9taient les plus courageux\napr\u00e8s Hekt\u00f4r, car il les surpassait tous.\n\nEt s'\u00e9tant couverts de leurs boucliers de cuir, ils all\u00e8rent droit\naux Danaens, ne pensant pas que ceux-ci pussent r\u00e9sister, et\ncertains d'envahir les nefs noires. Ainsi les Troiens et leurs\nalli\u00e9s venus de loin ob\u00e9issaient au sage conseil de\nl'irr\u00e9prochable Polydamas; mais le Hyrtakide Asios, prince des\nhommes, ne voulut point abandonner ses chevaux et leur conducteur,\net il s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a avec eux vers les nefs rapides. Insens\u00e9! Il ne\ndevait point, ayant \u00e9vit\u00e9 la noire k\u00e8r, fier de ses chevaux et de\nson char, revenir des nefs vers la haute Ilios; et d\u00e9j\u00e0 la triste\nmoire l'enveloppait de la lance de l'illustre Deukalide Idom\u00e9neus.\n\nEt il se rua sur la gauche des nefs, \u00e0 l'endroit o\u00f9 les Akhaiens\nramenaient dans le camp leurs chevaux et leurs chars. Il trouva\nles portes ouvertes, car ni les battants, ni les barri\u00e8res\nn'\u00e9taient ferm\u00e9s, afin que les guerriers, dans leur fuite, pussent\nregagner les nefs. Plein d'orgueil, il poussa ses chevaux de ce\nc\u00f4t\u00e9, et ses compagnons le suivaient avec de per\u00e7antes clameurs,\nne pensant pas que les Akhaiens pussent r\u00e9sister, et certains\nd'envahir les nefs noires.\n\nLes insens\u00e9s! Ils rencontr\u00e8rent devant les portes deux braves\nguerriers, fils magnanimes des belliqueux Lapithes. Et l'un \u00e9tait\nle robuste Polypoit\u00e8s, fils de Peirithoos, et l'autre, L\u00e9onteus,\nsemblable au tueur Ar\u00e8s. Et tous deux, devant les hautes portes,\nils se tenaient comme deux ch\u00eanes, sur les montagnes, bravant les\ntemp\u00eates et la pluie, affermis par leurs larges racines. Ainsi,\ncertains de leurs forces et de leur courage, ils attendaient le\nchoc du grand Asios et ne reculaient point.\n\nEt, droit au mur bien construit, avec de grandes clameurs, se\nruaient, le bouclier sur la t\u00eate, le prince Asios, Iam\u00e8n\u00e8s,\nOrest\u00e8s, Adamas Asiade, Tho\u00f4n et Oinomaos. Et, par leurs cris, les\ndeux Lapithes exhortaient les Akhaiens \u00e0 venir d\u00e9fendre les nefs.\nMais, voyant les Troiens escalader la muraille, les Danaens pleins\nde terreur poussaient de grands cris. Alors, les deux Lapithes, se\njetant devant les portes, combattirent tels que deux sangliers\nsauvages qui, sur les montagnes, forc\u00e9s par les chasseurs et les\nchiens, se retournent imp\u00e9tueusement et brisent les arbustes dont\nils arrachent les racines. Et ils grincent des dents jusqu'\u00e0 ce\nqu'un trait leur ait arrach\u00e9 la vie.\n\nAinsi l'airain \u00e9clatant r\u00e9sonnait sur la poitrine des deux\nguerriers frapp\u00e9s par les traits; et ils combattaient\ncourageusement, confiants dans leurs forces et dans leurs\ncompagnons.\n\nEt ceux-ci lan\u00e7aient des pierres du haut des tours bien\nconstruites, pour se d\u00e9fendre, eux, leurs tentes et leurs nefs\nrapides. Et de m\u00eame que la lourde neige, que la violence du vent\nqui agite les nu\u00e9es noires verse, \u00e9paisse, sur la terre\nnourrici\u00e8re, de m\u00eame les traits pleuvaient des mains des Akhaiens\net des Troiens. Et les casques et les boucliers bomb\u00e9s sonnaient,\nheurt\u00e9s par les pierres. Alors, g\u00e9missant et se frappant les\ncuisses, Asios Hyrtakide parla ainsi, indign\u00e9:\n\n-- P\u00e8re Zeus! certes, tu n'aimes qu'\u00e0 mentir, car je ne pensais\npas que les h\u00e9ros Akhaiens pussent soutenir notre vigueur et nos\nmains in\u00e9vitables. Voici que, pareils aux gu\u00eapes au corsage\nmobile, ou aux abeilles qui b\u00e2tissent leurs ruches dans un sentier\nardu, et qui n'abandonnent point leurs demeures creuses, mais\nd\u00e9fendent leur jeune famille contre les chasseurs, voici que ces\ndeux guerriers, seuls devant les portes, ne reculent point,\nattendant d'\u00eatre morts ou vainqueurs.\n\nIl parla ainsi, mais il ne fl\u00e9chit point l'\u00e2me de Zeus qui, dans\nson coeur, voulait glorifier Hekt\u00f4r.\n\nEt d'autres aussi combattaient autour des portes; mais, \u00e0 qui\nn'est point dieu, il est difficile de tout raconter. Et \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0,\nautour du mur, roulait un feu d\u00e9vorant de pierres. Et les Argiens,\nen g\u00e9missant de cette n\u00e9cessit\u00e9, combattaient pour leurs nefs. Et\ntous les dieux \u00e9taient tristes qui soutenaient les Danaens dans\nles batailles.\n\nEt, alors, le robuste fils de Peirithoos, Polypoit\u00e8s, frappa\nDamasos de sa lance, sur le casque d'airain; mais le casque ne\nr\u00e9sista point, et la pointe d'airain, rompant l'os, \u00e9crasa la\ncervelle, et l'homme furieux fut dompt\u00e9. Et Polypoit\u00e8s tua ensuite\nPyl\u00f4n et Orm\u00e8nios. Et le fils d'Antimakhos, L\u00e9onteus, nourrisson\nd'Ar\u00e8s, de sa lance per\u00e7a Hippomakhos \u00e0 la ceinture, \u00e0 travers le\nbaudrier. Puis, ayant tir\u00e9 l'\u00e9p\u00e9e aigu\u00eb hors de la gaine, et se\nruant dans la foule, il frappa Antiphat\u00e8s, et celui-ci tomba \u00e0 la\nrenverse. Puis, L\u00e9onteus entassa M\u00e9n\u00f4n, Iam\u00e8nos et Orest\u00e8s sur la\nterre nourrici\u00e8re.\n\nEt tandis que les deux Lapithes enlevaient leurs armes splendides,\nderri\u00e8re Polydamas et Hekt\u00f4r accouraient de jeunes guerriers,\nnombreux et tr\u00e8s braves, pleins du d\u00e9sir de rompre la muraille et\nde br\u00fbler les nefs. Mais ils h\u00e9sit\u00e8rent au bord du foss\u00e9. En\neffet, comme ils allaient le franchir, ils virent un signe\naugural. Un aigle, volant dans les hautes nu\u00e9es, apparut \u00e0 leur\ngauche, et il portait entre ses serres un grand dragon sanglant,\nmais qui vivait et palpitait encore, et combattait toujours, et\nmordait l'aigle \u00e0 la poitrine et au cou. Et celui-ci, vaincu par\nla douleur, le laissa choir au milieu de la foule, et s'envola\ndans le vent en poussant des cris. Et les Troiens fr\u00e9mirent\nd'horreur en face du dragon aux couleurs vari\u00e9es qui gisait au\nmilieu d'eux, signe de Zeus temp\u00e9tueux. Et alors Polydamas parla\nainsi au brave Hekt\u00f4r:\n\n-- Hekt\u00f4r, toujours, dans l'agora, tu repousses et tu bl\u00e2mes mes\nconseils prudents, car tu veux qu'aucun guerrier ne dise autrement\nque toi, dans l'agora ou dans le combat; et il faut que nous ne\nservions qu'\u00e0 augmenter ton pouvoir. Mais je parlerai cependant,\ncar mes paroles seront bonnes. N'allons point assi\u00e9ger les nefs\nAkhaiennes, car ceci arrivera, si un vrai signe est apparu aux\nTroiens, pr\u00eats \u00e0 franchir le foss\u00e9, cet aigle qui, volant dans les\nhautes nu\u00e9es, portait entre ses serres ce grand dragon sanglant,\nmais vivant encore, et qui l'a laiss\u00e9 choir avant de le livrer en\np\u00e2ture \u00e0 ses petits dans son aire. C'est pourquoi, m\u00eame si nous\nrompions de force les portes et les murailles des Akhaiens, m\u00eame\ns'ils fuyaient, nous ne reviendrions point par les m\u00eames chemins\net en bon ordre; mais nous abandonnerions de nombreux Troiens que\nles Akhaiens auraient tu\u00e9s avec l'airain, en d\u00e9fendant leurs nefs.\nAinsi doit parler tout augure savant dans les prodiges divins, et\nles peuples doivent lui ob\u00e9ir.\n\nEt Hekt\u00f4r au casque mouvant, le regardant d'un oeil sombre, lui\ndit:\n\n-- Polydamas, certes, tes paroles ne me plaisent point, et, sans\ndoute, tu le sais, tes conseils auraient pu \u00eatre meilleurs. Si tu\nas parl\u00e9 sinc\u00e8rement, c'est que les dieux t'ont ravi\nl'intelligence, puisque tu nous ordonnes d'oublier la volont\u00e9 de\nZeus qui tonne dans les hauteurs, et les promesses qu'il m'a\nfaites et confirm\u00e9es par un signe de sa t\u00eate. Tu veux que nous\nob\u00e9issions \u00e0 des oiseaux qui \u00e9tendent leurs ailes! Je ne m'en\ninqui\u00e8te point, je n'en ai nul souci, soit qu'ils volent \u00e0 ma\ndroite, vers \u00c9\u00f4s ou H\u00e9lios, soit qu'ils volent \u00e0 ma gauche, vers\nle sombre couchant. Nous n'ob\u00e9irons qu'\u00e0 la volont\u00e9 du grand Zeus\nqui commande aux hommes mortels et aux immortels. Le meilleur des\naugures est de combattre pour sa patrie. Pourquoi crains-tu la\nguerre et le combat? M\u00eame quand nous tomberions tous autour des\nnefs des Argiens, tu ne dois point craindre la mort, car ton coeur\nne te pousse point \u00e0 combattre courageusement. Mais si tu te\nretires de la m\u00eal\u00e9e, si tu pousses les guerriers \u00e0 fuir, aussit\u00f4t,\nfrapp\u00e9 de ma lance, tu rendras l'esprit.\n\nIl parla ainsi et s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a, et tous le suivirent avec une clameur\nimmense. Et Zeus qui se r\u00e9jouit de la foudre souleva, des cimes de\nl'Ida, un tourbillon de vent qui couvrit les nefs de poussi\u00e8re,\namollit le courage des Akhaiens et assura la gloire \u00e0 Hekt\u00f4r et\naux Troiens qui, confiants dans les signes de Zeus et dans leur\nvigueur, tentaient de rompre la grande muraille des Akhaiens.\n\nEt ils arrachaient les cr\u00e9neaux, et ils d\u00e9molissaient les\nparapets, et ils \u00e9branlaient avec des leviers les piles que les\nAkhaiens avaient pos\u00e9es d'abord en terre pour soutenir les tours.\nEt ils les arrachaient, esp\u00e9rant d\u00e9truire la muraille des\nAkhaiens. Mais les Danaens ne reculaient point, et, couvrant les\nparapets de leurs boucliers de peaux de boeuf, ils en repoussaient\nles ennemis qui assi\u00e9geaient la muraille.\n\nEt les deux Aias couraient \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0 sur les tours, ranimant le\ncourage des Akhaiens. Tant\u00f4t par des paroles flatteuses, tant\u00f4t\npar de rudes paroles, ils excitaient ceux qu'ils voyaient se\nretirer du combat:\n\n-- Amis! vous, les plus vaillants des Argiens, ou les moins\nbraves, car tous les guerriers ne sont pas \u00e9gaux dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e,\nc'est maintenant, vous le voyez, qu'il faut combattre, tous tant\nque vous \u00eates. Que nul ne se retire vers les nefs devant les\nmenaces de l'ennemi. En avant! Exhortez-vous les uns les autres.\nPeut-\u00eatre que l'Olympien foudroyant Zeus nous donnera de repousser\nles Troiens jusque dans la ville.\n\nEt c'est ainsi que d'une voix belliqueuse ils excitaient les\nAkhaiens.\n\nDe m\u00eame que, par un jour d'hiver, tombent les flocons amoncel\u00e9s de\nla neige, quand le sage Zeus, manifestant ses traits, les r\u00e9pand\nsur les hommes mortels, et que les vents se taisent, tandis que la\nneige couvre les cimes des grandes montagnes, et les hauts\npromontoires, et les campagnes herbues, et les vastes travaux des\nlaboureurs, et qu'elle tombe aussi sur les rivages de la mer\n\u00e9cumeuse o\u00f9 les flots la fondent, pendant que la pluie de Zeus\nenveloppe tout le reste; de m\u00eame une gr\u00eale de pierres volait des\nAkhaiens aux Troiens et des Troiens aux Akhaiens, et un\nretentissement s'\u00e9levait tout autour de la muraille.\n\nMais ni les Troiens ni l'illustre Hekt\u00f4r n'auraient alors rompu\nles portes de la muraille ni la longue barri\u00e8re, si le sage Zeus\nn'e\u00fbt pouss\u00e9 son fils Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n contre les Argiens, comme un lion\ncontre des boeufs aux cornes recourb\u00e9es.\n\nEt il tenait devant lui un bouclier d'une rondeur \u00e9gale, beau,\nrev\u00eatu de lames d'airain que l'ouvrier avait appliqu\u00e9es sur\nd'\u00e9paisses peaux de boeuf, et entour\u00e9 de longs cercles d'or. Et,\ntenant ce bouclier et agitant deux lances, Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n s'avan\u00e7ait,\ncomme un lion nourri sur les montagnes, qui, depuis longtemps\naffam\u00e9, est excit\u00e9 par son coeur audacieux \u00e0 enlever les brebis\njusque dans l'enclos profond, et qui, bien qu'elles soient gard\u00e9es\npar les chiens et par les pasteurs arm\u00e9s de lances, ne recule\npoint sans tenter le p\u00e9ril, mais d'un bond saisit sa proie, s'il\nn'est d'abord perc\u00e9 par un trait rapide. Ainsi le coeur du divin\nSarp\u00e8d\u00f4n le poussait \u00e0 enfoncer le rempart et \u00e0 rompre les\nparapets. Et il dit \u00e0 Glaukos, fils de Hippolokhos:\n\n-- Glaukos, pourquoi, dans la Lyki\u00e8, sommes-nous grandement\nhonor\u00e9s par les meilleures places, les viandes et les coupes\npleines, et sommes-nous regard\u00e9s comme des dieux? Pourquoi\ncultivons-nous un grand domaine florissant, sur les rives du\nXanthos, une terre plant\u00e9e de vignes et de bl\u00e9? C'est afin que\nnous soyons debout, en t\u00eate des Lykiens, dans l'ardente bataille.\nC'est afin que chacun des Lykiens bien arm\u00e9s dise: Nos rois, qui\ngouvernent la Lyki\u00e8, ne sont pas sans gloire. S'ils mangent les\ngrasses brebis, s'ils boivent le vin excellent et doux, ils sont\npleins de courage et de vigueur, et ils combattent en t\u00eate des\nLykiens.' \u00d4 ami, si en \u00e9vitant la guerre nous pouvions rester\njeunes et immortels, je ne combattrais pas au premier rang et je\nne t'enverrais pas \u00e0 la bataille glorieuse; mais mille chances de\nmort nous enveloppent, et il n'est point permis \u00e0 l'homme vivant\nde les \u00e9viter ni de les fuir. Allons! donnons une grande gloire \u00e0\nl'ennemi ou \u00e0 nous.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Glaukos ne recula point et lui ob\u00e9it. Et ils\nallaient, conduisant la foule des Lykiens. Et le fils de P\u00e9t\u00e9os,\nM\u00e9n\u00e8stheus, fr\u00e9mit en les voyant, car ils se ruaient \u00e0 l'assaut de\nsa tour. Et il jeta les yeux sur la muraille des Akhaiens,\ncherchant quelque chef qui v\u00eent d\u00e9fendre ses compagnons. Et il\naper\u00e7ut les deux Aias, insatiables de combats, et, aupr\u00e8s d'eux,\nTeukros qui sortait de sa tente. Mais ses clameurs ne pouvaient\n\u00eatre entendues, tant \u00e9tait immense le retentissement qui montait\ndans l'Ouranos, fracas des boucliers heurt\u00e9s, des casques aux\ncrini\u00e8res de chevaux, des portes assi\u00e9g\u00e9es et que les Troiens\ns'effor\u00e7aient de rompre. Et, alors, M\u00e9n\u00e8stheus envoya vers Aias le\nh\u00e9raut Tho\u00f4s:\n\n-- Va! divin Tho\u00f4s, appelle Aias, ou m\u00eame les deux \u00e0 la fois, ce\nqui serait bien mieux, car c'est de ce c\u00f4t\u00e9 que la ruine nous\nmenace. Voici que les chefs Lykiens se ruent sur nous, imp\u00e9tueux\ncomme ils le sont toujours dans les rudes batailles. Mais si le\ncombat retient ailleurs les deux Aias, am\u00e8ne au moins le robuste\nT\u00e9lam\u00f4nien et l'excellent archer Teukros.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Tho\u00f4s, l'ayant entendu, ob\u00e9it, et, courant sur\nla muraille des Argiens cuirass\u00e9s, s'arr\u00eata devant les Aias et\nleur dit aussit\u00f4t.\n\n-- Aias, chefs des Argiens cuirass\u00e9s, le fils bien-aim\u00e9 du divin\nP\u00e9t\u00e9os vous demande d'accourir \u00e0 son aide, tous deux si vous le\npouvez, ce qui serait bien mieux, car c'est de ce c\u00f4t\u00e9 que la\nruine nous menace. Voici que les chefs Lykiens se ruent sur nous,\nimp\u00e9tueux comme ils le sont toujours dans les rudes batailles.\nMais si le combat vous retient tous deux, que le robuste Aias\nT\u00e9lam\u00f4nien vienne au moins, et, avec lui, l'excellent archer\nTeukros.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, sans tarder, le grand T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien dit aussit\u00f4t\n\u00e0 l'Oiliade:\n\n-- Aias, toi et le brave Lykom\u00e8d\u00e8s, in\u00e9branlables, excitez les\nDanaens au combat. Moi, j'irai \u00e0 l'aide de M\u00e9n\u00e8stheus, et je\nreviendrai apr\u00e8s l'avoir secouru.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, le T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien Aias s'\u00e9loigna avec son fr\u00e8re\nTeukros n\u00e9 du m\u00eame p\u00e8re que lui, et, avec eux, Pandi\u00f4n, qui\nportait l'arc de Teukros.\n\nEt quand ils eurent atteint la tour du magnanime M\u00e9n\u00e8stheus, ils\nse plac\u00e8rent derri\u00e8re le mur \u00e0 l'instant m\u00eame du danger, car les\nillustres princes et chefs des Lykiens montaient \u00e0 l'assaut de la\nmuraille, semblables \u00e0 un noir tourbillon. Et ils se\nrencontr\u00e8rent, et une horrible clameur s'\u00e9leva de leur choc.\n\nEt Aias T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien, le premier, tua un compagnon de Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n, le\nmagnanime \u00c9pikleus. Et il le frappa d'un rude bloc de marbre qui\ngisait, \u00e9norme, en dedans du mur, au sommet du rempart, pr\u00e8s des\ncr\u00e9neaux, et tel que, de ses deux mains, un jeune guerrier, de\nceux qui vivent de nos jours, ne soul\u00e8verait point le pareil.\nAias, de son bras tendu, l'enleva en l'air, brisa le casque aux\nquatre c\u00f4nes et \u00e9crasa enti\u00e8rement la t\u00eate du guerrier. Et celui-\nci tomba du fa\u00eete de la tour, comme un plongeur, et son esprit\nabandonna ses ossements.\n\nEt Teukros per\u00e7a d'une fl\u00e8che le bras nu du brave Glaukos, fils de\nHippolokhos, \u00e0 l'instant o\u00f9 celui-ci escaladait la haute muraille,\net il l'\u00e9loigna du combat. Et Glaukos sauta du mur pour que nul\ndes Akhaiens ne v\u00eet sa blessure et ne l'insult\u00e2t.\n\nEt Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n, le voyant fuir, fut saisi de douleur; mais, sans\noublier de combattre, il frappa le Thestoride Alkma\u00f4n de sa lance,\net, la ramenant \u00e0 lui, il entra\u00eena l'homme la face contre terre,\net les armes d'airain du Thestoride retentirent dans sa chute. Et\nSarp\u00e8d\u00f4n saisit de ses mains vigoureuses un cr\u00e9neau du mur, et il\nl'arracha tout entier, et la muraille resta b\u00e9ante, livrant un\nchemin \u00e0 la multitude.\n\nEt Aias et Teukros firent face tous deux. Et Teukros frappa\nSarp\u00e8d\u00f4n sur le baudrier splendide qui entourait la poitrine, mais\nZeus d\u00e9tourna la fl\u00e8che du corps de son fils, afin qu'il ne f\u00fbt\npoint tu\u00e9 devant les nefs. Et Aias, d'un bond, frappa le bouclier\nde Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n, et la lance y p\u00e9n\u00e9tra, r\u00e9primant l'imp\u00e9tuosit\u00e9 du\nguerrier qui s'\u00e9loigna du mur, mais sans se retirer, car son coeur\nesp\u00e9rait la victoire. Et, se retournant, il exhorta ainsi les\nnobles Lykiens:\n\n-- \u00d4 Lykiens, pourquoi laissez-vous de c\u00f4t\u00e9 votre ardent courage?\nIl m'est difficile, tout robuste que je suis, de renverser seul\ncette muraille et de frayer un chemin vers les nefs. Accourez\ndonc. Toutes nos forces r\u00e9unies r\u00e9ussiront mieux.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, touch\u00e9s de ses reproches, ils se pr\u00e9cipit\u00e8rent\nautour de leur roi. Et les Argiens, de leur c\u00f4t\u00e9, derri\u00e8re la\nmuraille, renfor\u00e7aient leurs phalanges, car une lourde t\u00e2che leur\n\u00e9tait r\u00e9serv\u00e9e. Et les illustres Lykiens, ayant rompu la muraille,\nne pouvaient cependant se frayer un chemin jusqu'aux nefs. Et les\nbelliqueux Danaens, les ayant arr\u00eat\u00e9s, ne pouvaient non plus les\nrepousser loin de la muraille.\n\nDe m\u00eame que deux hommes, la mesure \u00e0 la main, se querellent sur le\npartage d'un champ commun et se disputent la plus petite portion\ndu terrain, de m\u00eame, s\u00e9par\u00e9s par les cr\u00e9neaux, les combattants\nheurtaient de toutes parts les boucliers au grand orbe et les\nd\u00e9fenses plus l\u00e9g\u00e8res. Et beaucoup \u00e9taient bless\u00e9s par l'airain\ncruel; et ceux qui, en fuyant, d\u00e9couvraient leur dos, \u00e9taient\nperc\u00e9s, m\u00eame \u00e0 travers les boucliers. Et les tours et les cr\u00e9neaux\n\u00e9taient inond\u00e9s du sang des guerriers. Et les Troiens ne pouvaient\nmettre en fuite les Akhaiens, mais ils se contenaient les uns les\nautres. Telles sont les balances d'une ouvri\u00e8re \u00e9quitable. Elle\ntient les poids d'un c\u00f4t\u00e9 et la laine de l'autre, et elle les p\u00e8se\net les \u00e9galise, afin d'apporter \u00e0 ses enfants un ch\u00e9tif salaire.\nAinsi le combat restait \u00e9gal entre les deux partis, jusqu'au\nmoment o\u00f9 Zeus accorda une gloire \u00e9clatante au Priamide Hekt\u00f4r\nqui, le premier, franchit le mur des Akhaiens. Et il cria d'une\nvoix retentissante, afin d'\u00eatre entendu des Troiens:\n\n-- En avant, cavaliers Troiens! Rompez la muraille des Argiens, et\nallumez de vos mains une immense flamme ardente.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous l'entendirent, et ils se jet\u00e8rent sur la\nmuraille, escaladant les cr\u00e9neaux et dardant les lances aigu\u00ebs. Et\nHekt\u00f4r portait une pierre \u00e9norme, lourde, pointue, qui gisait\ndevant les portes, telle que deux tr\u00e8s robustes hommes de nos\njours n'en pourraient soulever la pareille de terre, sur leur\nchariot. Mais, seul, il l'agitait facilement, car le fils du\nsubtil Kronos la lui rendait l\u00e9g\u00e8re. De m\u00eame qu'un berger porte\nais\u00e9ment dans sa main la toison d'un b\u00e9lier, et en trouve le poids\nl\u00e9ger, de m\u00eame Hekt\u00f4r portait la pierre soulev\u00e9e droit aux ais\ndoubles qui d\u00e9fendaient les portes, hautes, solides et \u00e0 deux\nbattants. Deux poutres les fermaient en dedans, travers\u00e9es par une\ncheville.\n\nEt, s'approchant, il se dressa sur ses pieds et frappa la porte\npar le milieu, et le choc ne fut pas inutile. Il rompit les deux\ngonds, et la pierre enfon\u00e7a le tout et tomba lourdement de l'autre\nc\u00f4t\u00e9. Et ni les poutres bris\u00e9es, ni les battants en \u00e9clats ne\nr\u00e9sist\u00e8rent au choc de la pierre. Et l'illustre Hekt\u00f4r sauta dans\nle camp, semblable \u00e0 une nuit rapide, tandis que l'airain dont il\n\u00e9tait rev\u00eatu resplendissait. Et il brandissait deux lances dans\nses mains, et nul, except\u00e9 un dieu, n'e\u00fbt pu l'arr\u00eater dans son\n\u00e9lan.\n\nEt le feu luisait dans ses yeux. Et il commanda \u00e0 la multitude des\nTroiens de franchir la muraille, et tous lui ob\u00e9irent. Les uns\nescalad\u00e8rent la muraille, les autres enfonc\u00e8rent les portes, et\nles Danaens s'enfuirent jusqu'aux nefs creuses, et un immense\ntumulte s'\u00e9leva.\n\n\nChant 13\n\nEt d\u00e8s que Zeus eut pouss\u00e9 Hekt\u00f4r et les Troiens jusqu'aux nefs,\nles y laissant soutenir seuls le rude combat, il tourna ses yeux\nsplendides sur la terre des cavaliers Thr\u00e8kiens, des Mysiens, qui\ncombattent de pr\u00e8s, et des illustres Hippomolgues qui se\nnourrissent de lait, pauvres, mais les plus justes des hommes. Et\nZeus ne jetait plus ses yeux splendides sur Troi\u00e8, ne pensant\npoint dans son esprit qu'aucun des immortels os\u00e2t secourir ou les\nTroiens, ou les Danaens.\n\nMais celui qui \u00e9branle la terre ne veillait pas en vain, et il\nregardait la guerre et le combat, assis sur le plus haut sommet de\nla Samothr\u00e8k\u00e8 feuillue, d'o\u00f9 apparaissaient tout l'Ida et la ville\nde Priamos et les nefs des Akhaiens. Et l\u00e0, assis hors de la mer,\nil prenait piti\u00e9 des Akhaiens dompt\u00e9s par les Troiens, et\ns'irritait profond\u00e9ment contre Zeus. Et, aussit\u00f4t, il descendit du\nsommet escarp\u00e9, et les hautes montagnes et les for\u00eats tremblaient\nsous les pieds immortels de Poseida\u00f4n qui marchait. Et il fit\ntrois pas, et, au quatri\u00e8me, il atteignit le terme de sa course,\nAigas, o\u00f9, dans les gouffres de la mer, \u00e9taient ses illustres\ndemeures d'or, \u00e9clatantes et incorruptibles.\n\nEt l\u00e0, il attacha au char ses chevaux rapides, dont les pieds\n\u00e9taient d'airain et les crini\u00e8res d'or. Et il se rev\u00eatit d'or lui-\nm\u00eame, saisit le fouet d'or habilement travaill\u00e9, et monta sur son\nchar. Et il allait sur les eaux, et, de toutes parts, les c\u00e9tac\u00e9s,\n\u00e9mergeant de l'ab\u00eeme, bondissaient, joyeux, et reconnaissaient\nleur roi. Et la mer s'ouvrait avec all\u00e9gresse, et les chevaux\nvolaient rapidement sans que l'\u00e9cume mouill\u00e2t l'essieu d'airain.\nEt les chevaux agiles le port\u00e8rent jusqu'aux nefs.\n\nEt il y avait un antre large dans les gouffres de la mer profonde,\nentre T\u00e9n\u00e9dos et l'\u00e2pre Imbros. L\u00e0, Poseida\u00f4n qui \u00e9branle la terre\narr\u00eata ses chevaux, les d\u00e9lia du char, leur offrit la nourriture\ndivine et leur mit aux pieds des entraves d'or solides et\nindissolubles, afin qu'ils attendissent en paix le retour de leur\nroi. Et il s'avan\u00e7a vers l'arm\u00e9e des Akhaiens.\n\nEt les Troiens amoncel\u00e9s, semblables \u00e0 la flamme, tels qu'une\ntemp\u00eate, pleins de fr\u00e9missements et de clameurs, se pr\u00e9cipitaient,\nfurieux, derri\u00e8re le Priamide Hekt\u00f4r. Et ils esp\u00e9raient se saisir\ndes nefs des Akhaiens et y tuer tous les Akhaiens. Mais Poseida\u00f4n\nqui entoure la terre et qui la secoue, sorti de la mer profonde,\nexcitait les Argiens, ayant rev\u00eatu le corps de Kalkhas et pris sa\nvoix infatigable. Et il parla ainsi aux deux Aias, pleins d'ardeur\neux-m\u00eames:\n\n-- Aias! Vous sauverez les hommes d'Akhai\u00e8, si vous vous souvenez\nde votre courage et non de la fuite d\u00e9sastreuse. Ailleurs, je ne\ncrains pas les efforts des Troiens qui ont franchi notre grande\nmuraille, car les braves Akhaiens soutiendront l'attaque; mais\nc'est ici, je pense, que nous aurons \u00e0 subir de plus grands maux,\ndevant Hekt\u00f4r, plein de rage, semblable \u00e0 la flamme, et qui se\nvante d'\u00eatre le fils du tr\u00e8s puissant Zeus. Puisse un des dieux\nvous inspirer de lui r\u00e9sister courageusement! Et vous, exhortez\nvos compagnons, afin de rejeter le Priamide, malgr\u00e9 son audace,\nloin des nefs rapides, m\u00eame quand l'Olympien l'exciterait.\n\nCelui qui entoure la terre et qui l'\u00e9branle parla ainsi, et, les\nfrappant de son sceptre, il les remplit de force et de courage et\nrendit l\u00e9gers leurs pieds et leurs mains. Et lui-m\u00eame s'\u00e9loigna\naussit\u00f4t, comme le rapide \u00e9pervier, qui, s'\u00e9lan\u00e7ant \u00e0 tire-d'aile\ndu fa\u00eete d'un rocher escarp\u00e9, poursuit dans la plaine un oiseau\nd'une autre race. Ainsi, Poseida\u00f4n qui \u00e9branle la terre s'\u00e9loigna\nd'eux. Et aussit\u00f4t le premier des deux, le rapide Aias Oil\u00e8iade,\ndit au T\u00e9lam\u00f4niade:\n\n-- Aias, sans doute un des dieux Olympiens, ayant pris la forme du\ndivinateur, vient de nous ordonner de combattre aupr\u00e8s des nefs.\nCar ce n'est point l\u00e0 le divinateur Kalkhas. J'ai facilement\nreconnu les pieds de celui qui s'\u00e9loigne. Les dieux sont ais\u00e9s \u00e0\nreconna\u00eetre. Je sens mon coeur, dans ma poitrine, plein d'ardeur\npour la guerre et le combat, et mes mains et mes pieds sont plus\nl\u00e9gers.\n\nEt le T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien Aias lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Et moi aussi, je sens mes mains rudes fr\u00e9mir autour de ma\nlance, et ma force me secouer et mes pieds m'emporter en avant. Et\nvoici que je suis pr\u00eat \u00e0 lutter seul contre le Priamide Hekt\u00f4r qui\nne se lasse jamais de combattre.\n\nEt tandis qu'ils se parlaient ainsi, joyeux de l'ardeur guerri\u00e8re\nque le dieu avait mise dans leurs coeurs, celui-ci, loin d'eux,\nencourageait les Akhaiens qui reposaient leur \u00e2me aupr\u00e8s des nefs\nrapides, car leurs membres \u00e9taient rompus de fatigue, et une am\u00e8re\ndouleur les saisissait \u00e0 la vue des Troiens qui avaient franchi la\ngrande muraille. Et des larmes coulaient de leurs paupi\u00e8res, et\nils n'esp\u00e9raient plus fuir leur ruine. Mais celui qui \u00e9branle la\nterre ranima facilement leurs braves phalanges. Et il exhorta\nTeukros, L\u00e8itos, P\u00e9n\u00e9l\u00e9os, Thoas, D\u00e8ipyros, M\u00e8rion\u00e8s et\nAntilokhos, habiles au combat. Et il leur dit en paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- \u00d4 honte! jeunes guerriers Argiens, je me fiais en votre courage\npour sauver nos nefs, mais, si vous suspendez le combat, voici que\nle jour est venu d'\u00eatre dompt\u00e9s par les Troiens. \u00d4 douleur! je\nvois de mes yeux ce grand prodige terrible que je ne pensais point\nvoir jamais, les Troiens sur nos nefs! Eux qui, auparavant,\n\u00e9taient semblables aux cerfs fuyards, p\u00e2ture des lynx, des\nl\u00e9opards et des loups, errants par les for\u00eats, sans force et\ninhabiles au combat! Car les Troiens n'osaient, auparavant, braver\nen face la vigueur des Akhaiens; et, maintenant, loin de la ville,\nils combattent aupr\u00e8s des nefs creuses, gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 la l\u00e2chet\u00e9 du chef\net \u00e0 la n\u00e9gligence des hommes qui refusent de d\u00e9fendre les nefs\nrapides, et s'y laissent tuer. Mais, s'il est vrai que l'Atr\u00e9ide\nAgamemn\u00f4n qui r\u00e8gne au loin soit coupable d'avoir outrag\u00e9 le\nP\u00e8l\u00e9i\u00f4n aux pieds rapides, nous est-il permis pour cela\nd'abandonner le combat? R\u00e9parons ce mal. Les esprits justes se\ngu\u00e9rissent ais\u00e9ment de l'erreur. Vous ne pouvez sans honte oublier\nvotre courage, \u00e9tant parmi les plus braves. Je ne m'inqui\u00e9terais\npoint d'un l\u00e2che qui fuirait le combat, mais, contre vous, je\nm'indigne dans mon coeur. \u00d4 pleins de mollesse, bient\u00f4t vous aurez\ncaus\u00e9 par votre inaction un mal irr\u00e9parable. Que la honte et mes\nreproches entrent dans vos \u00e2mes, car voici qu'un grand combat\ns'engage et que le brave Hekt\u00f4r, ayant rompu nos portes et nos\nbarri\u00e8res, combat aupr\u00e8s des nefs.\n\nEt, parlant ainsi, celui qui \u00e9branle la terre excitait les\nAkhaiens. Et autour des deux Aias se pressaient de solides\nphalanges qu'auraient lou\u00e9es Ar\u00e8s et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 qui excite les\nguerriers. Et les plus braves attendaient les Troiens et le divin\nHekt\u00f4r, lance contre lance, bouclier contre bouclier, casque\ncontre casque, homme contre homme. Et les crini\u00e8res, sur les c\u00f4nes\nsplendides, se m\u00ealaient, tant les rangs \u00e9taient \u00e9pais; et les\nlances s'agitaient entre les mains audacieuses, et tous\nmarchaient, pleins du d\u00e9sir de combattre.\n\nMais sur eux se ruent une foule de Troiens, derri\u00e8re Hekt\u00f4r qui\ns'\u00e9lan\u00e7ait. De m\u00eame qu'une roche d\u00e9sastreuse qu'un torrent, gonfl\u00e9\npar une immense pluie, roule, d\u00e9racin\u00e9e, de la cime d'un mont, et\nqui se pr\u00e9cipite \u00e0 travers tous les obstacles jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'elle\narrive \u00e0 la plaine o\u00f9, bien qu'arr\u00eat\u00e9e dans sa course, elle remue\nencore; de m\u00eame Hekt\u00f4r mena\u00e7ait d'arriver jusqu'\u00e0 la mer, aux\ntentes et aux nefs des Akhaiens; mais il se heurta contre les\nmasses \u00e9paisses d'hommes, contraint de s'arr\u00eater. Et les fils des\nAkhaiens le repouss\u00e8rent en le frappant de leurs \u00e9p\u00e9es et de leurs\nlances aigu\u00ebs. Alors, reculant, il s'\u00e9cria d'une voix haute aux\nTroiens:\n\n-- Troiens, Lykiens et Dardaniens belliqueux, restez fermes. Les\nAkhaiens ne me r\u00e9sisteront pas longtemps, bien qu'ils se dressent\nmaintenant comme une tour; mais ils vont fuir devant ma lance, si\nle plus grand des dieux, l'\u00e9poux tonnant de H\u00e8r\u00e8, m'encourage.\n\nIl parla ainsi, excitant la force et la vaillance de chacun. Et le\nPriamide D\u00e8iphobos, plein de fiert\u00e9, marchait d'un pied l\u00e9ger au\nmilieu d'eux, couvert de son bouclier d'une rondeur \u00e9gale. Et\nM\u00e8rion\u00e8s lan\u00e7a contre lui sa pique \u00e9tincelante, qui, ne s'\u00e9garant\npoint, frappa le bouclier d'une rondeur \u00e9gale et fait de peau de\ntaureau; mais la longue lance y p\u00e9n\u00e9tra \u00e0 peine et se brisa \u00e0 son\nextr\u00e9mit\u00e9. Et D\u00e8iphobos \u00e9loigna de sa poitrine le bouclier de peau\nde taureau, craignant la lance du brave M\u00e8rion\u00e8s; mais ce h\u00e9ros\nrentra dans la foule de ses compagnons, indign\u00e9 d'avoir manqu\u00e9 la\nvictoire et rompu sa lance. Et il courut vers les nefs des\nAkhaiens, afin d'y chercher une longue pique qu'il avait laiss\u00e9e\ndans sa tente. Mais d'autres combattaient, et une immense clameur\ns'\u00e9levait de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s.\n\nEt Teukros T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien tua, le premier, le brave guerrier Imbrios,\nfils de Ment\u00f4r et riche en chevaux. Et, avant l'arriv\u00e9e des fils\ndes Akhaiens, il habitait P\u00e8daios, avec M\u00e8d\u00e9sikast\u00e8, fille\nill\u00e9gitime de Priamos; mais, apr\u00e8s l'arriv\u00e9e des nefs aux doubles\navirons des Danaens, il vint \u00e0 Ilios et s'illustra parmi les\nTroiens.\n\nEt le fils de T\u00e9lam\u00f4n, de sa longue lance, le per\u00e7a sous\nl'oreille, et il tomba, comme un fr\u00eane qui, tranch\u00e9 par l'airain\nsur le sommet d'un mont \u00e9lev\u00e9, couvre la terre de son feuillage\nd\u00e9licat. Il tomba ainsi, et ses belles armes d'airain sonn\u00e8rent\nautour de lui. Et Teukros accourut pour le d\u00e9pouiller; mais\nHekt\u00f4r, comme il s'\u00e9lan\u00e7ait, lan\u00e7a contre lui sa pique \u00e9clatante.\nEt le T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien la vit et l'\u00e9vita, et la lance du Priamide frappa\ndans la poitrine Amphimakhos, fils de Kt\u00e9atos Aktorionide, qui\ns'avan\u00e7ait. Et sa chute retentit et ses armes sonn\u00e8rent sur lui.\nEt Hekt\u00f4r s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a pour d\u00e9pouiller du casque bien adapt\u00e9 aux\ntempes le magnanime Amphimakhos. Mais Aias se rua sur lui, arm\u00e9\nd'une pique \u00e9tincelante; et, comme Hekt\u00f4r \u00e9tait enti\u00e8rement\nenvelopp\u00e9 de l'airain effrayant, Aias frappa seulement le bouclier\nbomb\u00e9 et le repoussa violemment loin des deux cadavres que les\nAkhaiens entra\u00een\u00e8rent.\n\nEt Stikhios et le divin M\u00e9n\u00e8stheus, princes des Ath\u00e8naiens,\nport\u00e8rent Amphimakhos dans les tentes des Akhaiens, et les Aias,\navides du combat imp\u00e9tueux, se saisirent d'Imbrios. De m\u00eame que\ndeux lions, arrachant une ch\u00e8vre aux dents aigu\u00ebs des chiens,\nl'emportent \u00e0 travers les taillis \u00e9pais en la tenant loin de terre\ndans leurs m\u00e2choires, de m\u00eame les deux Aias enlev\u00e8rent Imbrios et\nle d\u00e9pouill\u00e8rent de ses armes. Et Aias Oil\u00e8iade, furieux de la\nmort d'Amphimakhos, coupa la t\u00eate du Troien, et, la jetant comme\nune boule au travers de la multitude, l'envoya rouler dans la\npoussi\u00e8re, sous les pieds de Hekt\u00f4r. Et alors, Poseida\u00f4n, irrit\u00e9\nde la mort de son petit-fils tu\u00e9 dans le combat, courut aux tentes\ndes Akhaiens, afin d'exciter les Danaens et de pr\u00e9parer des\ncalamit\u00e9s aux Troiens.\n\nEt Idom\u00e9neus, illustre par sa lance, le rencontra. Et celui-ci\nquittait un de ses compagnons qui, dans le combat, avait \u00e9t\u00e9\nfrapp\u00e9 au jarret par l'airain aigu et emport\u00e9 par les siens. Et\nIdom\u00e9neus, l'ayant confi\u00e9 aux m\u00e9decins, sortait de sa tente, plein\ndu d\u00e9sir de retourner au combat. Et le roi qui \u00e9branle la terre\nlui parla ainsi, ayant pris la figure et la voix de l'Andraimonide\nThoas, qui, dans tout Pleur\u00f4n et la haute Kalyd\u00f4n, commandait aux\nAit\u00f4liens, et que ceux-ci honoraient comme un dieu:\n\n-- Idom\u00e9neus, prince des Kr\u00e8tois, o\u00f9 sont tes menaces et celles\ndes Akhaiens aux Troiens?\n\nEt le prince des Kr\u00e8tois, Idom\u00e9neus, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 Thoas, aucun guerrier n'est en faute, autant que j'en puis\njuger, car nous combattons tous; aucun n'est retenu par la p\u00e2le\ncrainte, aucun, par indolence, ne refuse le combat dangereux; mais\ncela pla\u00eet sans doute au tr\u00e8s puissant Zeus que les Akhaiens\np\u00e9rissent ici, sans gloire et loin d'Argos. Thoas, toi qui,\ntoujours plein d'ardeur guerri\u00e8re, as coutume d'encourager les\nfaibles, ne cesse pas dans ce moment, et ranime la vaillance de\nchaque guerrier.\n\nEt Poseida\u00f4n qui \u00e9branle la terre lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Idom\u00e9neus, ne puisse-t-il jamais revenir de la terre Troienne,\npuisse-t-il \u00eatre la proie des chiens, le guerrier qui, en ce jour,\ncessera volontairement de combattre! Va! et reviens avec tes\narmes. Il faut nous concerter. Peut-\u00eatre serons-nous tous deux de\nquelque utilit\u00e9. L'union des guerriers est utile, m\u00eame celle des\nplus timides; et nous saurons combattre les h\u00e9ros.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, le dieu rentra dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e des hommes, et\nIdom\u00e9neus regagna ses tentes et rev\u00eatit ses belles armes. Il\nsaisit deux lances et accourut, semblable au feu fulgurant que le\nKroni\u00f4n, de sa main, pr\u00e9cipite des cimes de l'Olympos enflamm\u00e9,\ncomme un signe rayonnant aux hommes vivants. Ainsi resplendissait\nl'airain sur la poitrine du roi qui accourait.\n\nEt M\u00e8rion\u00e8s, son brave compagnon, le rencontra non loin de la\ntente. Et il venait chercher une lance d'airain. Et Idom\u00e9neus lui\nparla ainsi:\n\n-- M\u00e8rion\u00e8s aux pieds rapides, fils de Molos, le plus cher de mes\ncompagnons, pourquoi quittes-tu la guerre et le combat? Es-tu\nbless\u00e9, et la pointe du trait te tourmente-t-elle? Viens-tu\nm'annoncer quelque chose? Certes, pour moi, je n'ai pas le dessein\nde rester dans mes tentes, mais je d\u00e9sire le combat.\n\nEt le sage M\u00e8rion\u00e8s lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Idom\u00e9neus, prince des Kr\u00e8tois cuirass\u00e9s, je viens afin de\nprendre une lance, si, dans tes tentes, il en reste une; car j'ai\nrompu la mienne sur le bouclier de l'orgueilleux D\u00e8iphobos.\n\nEt Idom\u00e9neus, prince des Kr\u00e8tois, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Si tu veux des lances, tu en trouveras une, tu en trouveras\nvingt, appuy\u00e9es \u00e9tincelantes contre les parois de ma tente. Ce\nsont des lances Troiennes enlev\u00e9es \u00e0 ceux que j'ai tu\u00e9s, car je\ncombats de pr\u00e8s les guerriers ennemis; et c'est pourquoi j'ai des\nlances, des boucliers bomb\u00e9s, des casques et des cuirasses\n\u00e9clatantes.\n\nEt le sage M\u00e8rion\u00e8s lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Dans ma tente et dans ma nef noire abondent aussi les\nd\u00e9pouilles Troiennes; mais elles sont trop \u00e9loign\u00e9es. Je ne pense\npas aussi avoir jamais oubli\u00e9 mon courage. Je combats au premier\nrang, parmi les guerriers illustres, \u00e0 l'heure o\u00f9 la m\u00eal\u00e9e\nretentit. Quelques-uns des Akhaiens cuirass\u00e9s peuvent ne m'avoir\npoint vu, mais toi, tu me connais.\n\nEt Idom\u00e9neus, prince des Kr\u00e8tois, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Je sais quel est ton courage. Pourquoi me parler ainsi? Si nous\n\u00e9tions choisis parmi les plus braves pour une embuscade, car c'est\nl\u00e0 que le courage des guerriers \u00e9clate, l\u00e0 on distingue le brave\ndu l\u00e2che, car celui-ci change \u00e0 tout instant de couleur, et son\ncoeur n'est point assez ferme pour attendre tranquillement en\nplace; et il remue sans cesse, tant\u00f4t sur un pied, tant\u00f4t sur\nl'autre; et son coeur tremble dans sa poitrine par crainte de la\nmort, et ses dents claquent, tandis que le brave ne change point\nde couleur, et il ne redoute rien au premier rang des guerriers,\ndans l'embuscade, et il souhaite l'ardent combat; certes, donc,\naucun de nous ne bl\u00e2merait en cet instant ni ton courage ni ton\nbras; et si tu \u00e9tais bless\u00e9 alors, ce ne serait point \u00e0 l'\u00e9paule\nou dans le dos que tu serais frapp\u00e9 d'un trait, mais en pleine\npoitrine ou dans le ventre, tandis que tu te pr\u00e9cipiterais dans la\nm\u00eal\u00e9e des combattants. Va! ne parlons plus, inactifs, comme des\nenfants, de peur que ceci nous soit reproch\u00e9 injurieusement. Va\ndans ma tente, et prends une lance solide.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et M\u00e8rion\u00e8s, semblable au rapide Ar\u00e8s, saisit\npromptement dans la tente une lance d'airain, et il marcha avec\nIdom\u00e9neus, plein du d\u00e9sir de combattre. Ainsi marche le d\u00e9sastreux\nAr\u00e8s avec la Terreur, sa fille bien-aim\u00e9e, forte et indomptable,\nqui \u00e9pouvante le plus brave. Ils descendent de la Thr\u00e8k\u00e8 vers les\n\u00c9pirotes ou les magnanimes Phl\u00e8gyens, et ils n'exaucent point les\ndeux peuples \u00e0 la fois, mais ils accordent la gloire \u00e0 l'un ou \u00e0\nl'autre. Ainsi M\u00e8rion\u00e8s et Idom\u00e9neus, princes des hommes,\nmarchaient, arm\u00e9s de l'airain splendide.\n\nEt M\u00e8rion\u00e8s, le premier, parla ainsi:\n\n-- Deukalide, de quel c\u00f4t\u00e9 veux-tu entrer dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e? \u00c0 droite,\nau centre, ou \u00e0 gauche? C'est l\u00e0 que les Akhaiens chevelus\nfaiblissent.\n\nEt Idom\u00e9neus, prince des Kr\u00e8tois, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- D'autres sont au centre qui d\u00e9fendent les nefs, les deux Aias\net Teukros, le plus habile archer d'entre les Akhaiens, et brave\naussi de pied ferme. Ils suffiront \u00e0 repousser le Priamide Hekt\u00f4r.\nQuelque brave qu'il soit, et quelle que soit son ardeur \u00e0\ncombattre, il ne r\u00e9ussira pas \u00e0 dompter leur courage et leurs\nmains invincibles et \u00e0 br\u00fbler les nefs, \u00e0 moins que le Kroni\u00f4n\nlui-m\u00eame ne jette l'ardente foudre sur les nefs rapides. Jamais le\ngrand T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien Aias ne le c\u00e9dera \u00e0 aucun homme n\u00e9 mortel et\nnourri des dons de D\u00e8m\u00e8t\u00e8r, vuln\u00e9rable par l'airain ou par de\nlourds rochers. Il ne reculerait m\u00eame pas devant l'imp\u00e9tueux\nAkhilleus, s'il ne peut cependant lutter contre lui en agilit\u00e9.\nAllons vers la gauche de l'arm\u00e9e, et voyons promptement si nous\nremporterons une grande gloire, ou si nous la donnerons \u00e0\nl'ennemi.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et M\u00e8rion\u00e8s, semblable au rapide Ar\u00e8s, s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a du\nc\u00f4t\u00e9 o\u00f9 Idom\u00e9neus ordonnait d'aller. Et d\u00e8s que les Troiens eurent\nvu Idom\u00e9neus, semblable \u00e0 la flamme par son courage, avec son\ncompagnon brillant sous ses armes, s'exhortant les uns les autres,\nils se jet\u00e8rent sur lui. Et le combat fut \u00e9gal entre eux tous\ndevant les poupes des nefs.\n\nDe m\u00eame que les vents temp\u00e9tueux, en un jour de s\u00e9cheresse,\nsoul\u00e8vent par les chemins de grands tourbillons de poussi\u00e8re, de\nm\u00eame tous se ru\u00e8rent dans une m\u00eal\u00e9e furieuse afin de s'entretuer\nde l'airain aigu. Et la multitude des guerriers se h\u00e9rissa de\nlongues lances qui per\u00e7aient la chair des combattants. Et la\nsplendeur de l'airain, des casques \u00e9tincelants, des cuirasses\npolies et des boucliers, \u00e9blouissait les yeux. Et il e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9\nimpitoyable celui qui, loin de s'attrister de ce combat, s'en f\u00fbt\nr\u00e9joui.\n\nEt les deux fils puissants de Kronos, dans leur volont\u00e9 contraire,\naccablaient ainsi les h\u00e9ros de lourdes calamit\u00e9s. Zeus voulait\ndonner la victoire \u00e0 Hekt\u00f4r et aux Troiens, afin d'honorer\nAkhilleus aux pieds rapides; et il ne voulait pas d\u00e9truire les\ntribus Akhaiennes devant Ilios, mais honorer Th\u00e9tis et son fils\nmagnanime. Et Poseida\u00f4n, sorti en secret de la blanche mer,\nencourageait les Akhaiens, et il g\u00e9missait de les voir dompt\u00e9s par\nles Troiens, et il s'irritait contre Zeus. Et tous deux avaient la\nm\u00eame origine et le m\u00eame p\u00e8re, mais Zeus \u00e9tait le plus \u00e2g\u00e9 et\nsavait plus de choses. Et c'est pourquoi Poseida\u00f4n ne secourait\npoint ouvertement les Argiens, mais, sous la forme d'un guerrier,\nparcourait l'arm\u00e9e en les encourageant.\n\nEt tous deux avaient \u00e9tendu \u00e9galement sur l'un et l'autre parti\nles cha\u00eenes du combat violent et de la guerre d\u00e9sastreuse, cha\u00eenes\ninfrangibles, indissolubles, et qui rompaient les genoux d'un\ngrand nombre de h\u00e9ros.\n\nEt Idom\u00e9neus, bien qu'\u00e0 demi blanc de vieillesse, exhortant les\nDanaens, bondit sur les Troiens qu'il fit reculer. Et il tua\nOthryoneus de Kab\u00e8sos qui, venu r\u00e9cemment, attir\u00e9 par le bruit de\nla guerre, demandait Kassandr\u00e8, la plus belle des filles de\nPriamos. Et il n'offrait point de pr\u00e9sents, mais il avait promis\nde repousser les fils des Akhaiens loin de Troi\u00e8. Et le vieillard\nPriamos avait jur\u00e9 de lui donner sa fille, et, sur cette promesse,\nil combattait bravement. Et, comme il s'avan\u00e7ait avec fiert\u00e9,\nIdom\u00e9neus le frappa de sa lance \u00e9tincelante, et la cuirasse\nd'airain ne r\u00e9sista point au coup qui p\u00e9n\u00e9tra au milieu du ventre.\nEt il tomba avec bruit, et Idom\u00e9neus s'\u00e9cria en l'insultant:\n\n-- Othryoneus! je te proclame le premier des hommes si tu tiens la\nparole donn\u00e9e au Dardanide Priamos. Il t'a promis sa fille, et\nc'est nous qui accomplirons sa promesse. Et nous te donnerons la\nplus belle des filles d'Agamemn\u00f4n, venue d'Argos pour t'\u00e9pouser,\nsi tu veux avec nous d\u00e9truire la ville bien peupl\u00e9e d'Ilios. Mais\nsuis-nous dans les nefs qui traversent la mer, afin de convenir de\ntes noces, car nous aussi, nous sommes d'excellents beaux-p\u00e8res!\n\nEt le h\u00e9ros Idom\u00e9neus parla ainsi, et il le tra\u00eenait par un pied \u00e0\ntravers la m\u00eal\u00e9e. Et, pour venger Othryoneus, Asios accourut, \u00e0\npied devant son char, et ses chevaux, retenus par leur conducteur,\nsoufflaient sur ses \u00e9paules. Et il d\u00e9sirait percer Idom\u00e9neus, mais\ncelui-ci l'atteignit le premier, de sa lance, dans la gorge, sous\nle menton. Et la lance passa au travers du cou, et Asios tomba\ncomme un ch\u00eane ou comme un peuplier, ou comme un pin \u00e9lev\u00e9 que des\nconstructeurs de nefs, sur les montagnes, coupent de leurs haches\nr\u00e9cemment aiguis\u00e9es. Ainsi le guerrier gisait \u00e9tendu devant ses\nchevaux et son char, grin\u00e7ant des dents et saisissant la poussi\u00e8re\nsanglante. Et le conducteur, \u00e9perdu, ne songeait pas \u00e0 \u00e9viter\nl'ennemi en faisant retourner les chevaux. Et le brave Antilokhos\nle frappa de sa lance, et la cuirasse d'airain ne r\u00e9sista pas au\ncoup qui p\u00e9n\u00e9tra au milieu du ventre. Et l'homme tomba, expirant,\ndu char habilement fait, et le fils du magnanime Nest\u00f4r,\nAntilokhos, entra\u00eena les chevaux du c\u00f4t\u00e9 des Akhaiens aux belles\nkn\u00e8mides.\n\nEt D\u00e8iphobos, triste de la mort d'Asios, s'approchant d'Idom\u00e9neus,\nlui lan\u00e7a sa pique \u00e9tincelante. Mais Idom\u00e9neus, l'ayant aper\u00e7ue,\n\u00e9vita la pique d'airain en se couvrant de son bouclier d'une\nrondeur \u00e9gale fait de peaux de boeuf et d'airain brillant, et\nqu'il portait \u00e0 l'aide de deux manches. Et il en \u00e9tait enti\u00e8rement\ncouvert, et l'airain vola par-dessus, effleurant le bouclier qui\nr\u00e9sonna. Mais la lance ne s'\u00e9chappa point en vain d'une main\nvigoureuse, et, frappant Hyps\u00e8n\u00f4r Hippaside, prince des peuples,\nelle s'enfon\u00e7a dans son foie et rompit ses genoux. Et D\u00e8iphobos\ncria en se glorifiant:\n\n-- Asios ne mourra pas non veng\u00e9, et, en allant aux portes solides\nd'Aid\u00e8s, il se r\u00e9jouira dans son brave coeur, car je lui ai donn\u00e9\nun compagnon.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et ses paroles orgueilleuses emplirent les Argiens\nde douleur, et surtout le brave Antilokhos. Mais, bien\nqu'attrist\u00e9, il n'oublia point son compagnon, et, courant tout\nautour, il le couvrit de son bouclier. Et deux autres compagnons\nbien-aim\u00e9s de Hyps\u00e8n\u00f4r, M\u00e9kisteus et le divin Alast\u00f4r,\nl'emport\u00e8rent en g\u00e9missant dans les nefs creuses.\n\nEt Idom\u00e9neus ne laissait point reposer son courage, et il d\u00e9sirait\ntoujours envelopper quelque Troien de la nuit noire, ou tomber\nlui-m\u00eame en sauvant les Akhaiens de leur ruine. Alors p\u00e9rit le\nfils bien-aim\u00e9 d'Aisy\u00e9tas nourri par Zeus, le h\u00e9ros Alkathoos,\ngendre d'Ankhis\u00e8s. Et il avait \u00e9pous\u00e9 Hippodam\u00e9ia, l'a\u00een\u00e9e des\nfilles d'Ankhis\u00e8s, tr\u00e8s ch\u00e8re, dans leur demeure, \u00e0 son p\u00e8re et \u00e0\nsa m\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable. Et elle l'emportait sur toutes ses compagnes\npar la beaut\u00e9, l'habilet\u00e9 aux travaux et la prudence et c'est\npourquoi un grand chef l'avait \u00e9pous\u00e9e dans la large Troi\u00e8. Et\nPoseida\u00f4n dompta Alkathoos par les mains d'Idom\u00e9neus. Et il\n\u00e9teignit ses yeux \u00e9tincelants, et il encha\u00eena ses beaux membres,\nde fa\u00e7on \u00e0 ce qu'il ne p\u00fbt ni fuir ni se d\u00e9tourner, mais que, tout\ndroit comme une colonne ou un arbre \u00e9lev\u00e9, il re\u00e7\u00fbt au milieu de\nla poitrine la lance du h\u00e9ros Idom\u00e9neus. Et sa cuirasse d'airain,\nqui \u00e9loignait de lui la mort, r\u00e9sonna, rompue par la lance. Et sa\nchute retentit, et la pointe d'airain, dans son coeur qui\npalpitait, remua jusqu'\u00e0 ce que le rude Ar\u00e8s e\u00fbt \u00e9puis\u00e9 la force\nde la lance. Et Idom\u00e9neus cria d'une voix terrible en se\nglorifiant:\n\n-- D\u00e8iphobos! je pense que les choses sont au moins \u00e9gales. En\nvoici trois de tu\u00e9s pour un, et tu te vantais en vain. Malheureux!\nose m'attendre, et tu verras ce que vaut la race de Zeus. Zeus\nengendra Min\u00f4s, gardien de la Kr\u00e8t\u00e8, et Min\u00f4s engendra un fils,\nl'irr\u00e9prochable Deukali\u00f4n, et Deukali\u00f4n m'engendra pour \u00eatre le\nchef de nombreux guerriers dans la grande Kr\u00e8t\u00e8, et mes nefs m'ont\namen\u00e9 ici pour ton malheur, celui de ton p\u00e8re et celui des\nTroiens.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et D\u00e8iphobos d\u00e9lib\u00e9ra s'il irait chercher pour\nsoutien quelque autre des Troiens magnanimes, ou s'il combattrait\nseul. Et il vit qu'il valait mieux aller vers Ain\u00e9ias. Et il le\ntrouva debout aux derniers rangs, car il \u00e9tait irrit\u00e9 contre le\ndivin Priamos qui ne l'honorait pas, bien qu'il f\u00fbt brave entre\ntous les guerriers. Et D\u00e8iphobos, s'approchant, lui dit en paroles\nail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Ain\u00e9ias, prince des Troiens, si la gloire te touche, viens\nprot\u00e9ger ton beau-fr\u00e8re. Suis-moi, allons vers Alkathoos qui,\n\u00e9poux de ta soeur, a autrefois nourri ton enfance dans ses\ndemeures. Idom\u00e9neus, illustre par sa lance, l'a tu\u00e9.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le coeur d'Ain\u00e9ias fut \u00e9branl\u00e9 dans sa\npoitrine, et il marcha pour combattre Idom\u00e9neus. Mais celui-ci ne\nfut point saisi par la peur comme un enfant, et il attendit, de\nm\u00eame qu'un sanglier des montagnes, certain de sa force, attend,\ndans un lieu d\u00e9sert, le tumulte des chasseurs qui s'approchent.\nSon dos se h\u00e9risse, ses yeux lancent du feu, et il aiguise ses\nd\u00e9fenses pour repousser aussit\u00f4t les chiens et les chasseurs. De\nm\u00eame Idom\u00e9neus, illustre par sa lance, ne recula point devant\nAin\u00e9ias qui accourait au combat. Et il appela ses compagnons\nAskalaphos, Aphar\u00e8os, D\u00e8ipyros, M\u00e8rion\u00e8s et Antilokhos. Et il leur\ndit en paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Accourez, amis, car je suis seul, et je crains Ain\u00e9ias aux\npieds rapides qui vient sur moi. Il est tr\u00e8s brave, et c'est un\ntueur d'hommes, et il est dans la fleur de la jeunesse, \u00e0 l'\u00e2ge o\u00f9\nla force est la plus grande. Si nous \u00e9tions du m\u00eame \u00e2ge, avec mon\ncourage, une grande gloire nous serait donn\u00e9e, \u00e0 lui ou \u00e0 moi.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous, avec une m\u00eame ardeur, ils l'entour\u00e8rent,\nle bouclier sur l'\u00e9paule. Et Ain\u00e9ias, de son c\u00f4t\u00e9, appela aussi\nses compagnons, D\u00e8iphobos, P\u00e2ris et le divin Ag\u00e8n\u00f4r, comme lui\nprinces des Troiens. Et leurs troupes les suivaient, telles que\ndes troupeaux de brebis qui suivent le b\u00e9lier hors du p\u00e2turage,\npour aller boire. Et le berger se r\u00e9jouit dans son \u00e2me. De m\u00eame le\ncoeur d'Ain\u00e9ias fut joyeux dans sa poitrine, en voyant la foule\ndes guerriers qui le suivaient.\n\nEt, autour d'Alkathoos, tous dard\u00e8rent leurs longues lances, et,\nsur les poitrines, l'horrible airain retentissait, tandis qu'ils\nse frappaient \u00e0 l'envi. Et deux braves guerriers, Ain\u00e9ias et\nIdom\u00e9neus semblable \u00e0 Ar\u00e8s, d\u00e9siraient surtout se percer de\nl'airain cruel. Et Ain\u00e9ias, le premier, lan\u00e7a sa pique contre\nIdom\u00e9neus; mais celui-ci, l'ayant aper\u00e7ue, \u00e9vita la pique d'airain\nqui s'enfon\u00e7a en vibrant dans la terre, inutile, bien que partie\nd'une main vigoureuse.\n\nEt Idom\u00e9neus frappa Oinomaos au milieu du ventre, et la cuirasse\nfut rompue, et l'airain s'enfon\u00e7a dans les intestins, et le\nguerrier tomba en saisissant la terre avec les mains. Et Idom\u00e9neus\narracha la lance du cadavre, mais il ne put d\u00e9pouiller les \u00e9paules\nde leurs belles armes, car il \u00e9tait accabl\u00e9 par les traits. Et il\nn'avait plus les pieds vigoureux avec lesquels il s'\u00e9lan\u00e7ait\nautrefois pour reprendre sa pique ou pour \u00e9viter celle de\nl'ennemi. Il \u00e9loignait encore de pied ferme son jour fatal, mais\nil ne pouvait plus fuir ais\u00e9ment.\n\nEt D\u00e8iphobos, comme il se retirait lentement, toujours irrit\u00e9\ncontre lui, voulut le frapper de sa lance \u00e9tincelante; mais il le\nmanqua, et la lance per\u00e7a Askalaphos, fils de Ar\u00e8s. Et la forte\nlance s'enfon\u00e7a dans l'\u00e9paule, et le guerrier tomba, saisissant la\nterre avec ses mains.\n\nEt le terrible Ar\u00e8s plein de clameurs ignorait que son fils f\u00fbt\ntomb\u00e9 mort dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e violente. Et il \u00e9tait assis au sommet de\nl'Olympos, sous les nu\u00e9es d'or, retenu par la volont\u00e9 de Zeus,\nainsi que les autres dieux immortels, loin du combat.\n\nEt tous se ru\u00e8rent autour d'Askalaphos. Et comme D\u00e8iphobos\nenlevait son casque brillant, M\u00e8rion\u00e8s, semblable au rapide Ar\u00e8s,\nbondit, et, de sa lance, per\u00e7a le bras du Troien qui laissa\n\u00e9chapper le casque sonore. Et M\u00e8rion\u00e8s bondit de nouveau comme un\nvautour, et arracha du bras bless\u00e9 sa forte lance, et rentra dans\nles rangs de ses compagnons. Et Polit\u00e8s, fr\u00e8re de D\u00e8iphobos,\nentourant celui-ci de ses bras, l'entra\u00eena hors de la m\u00eal\u00e9e,\nderri\u00e8re les rangs, o\u00f9 se tenaient ses chevaux rapides, et le char\n\u00e9clatant, et leur conducteur. Et ils le port\u00e8rent dans la ville,\npoussant des g\u00e9missements. Et le sang coulait de sa blessure\nfra\u00eeche. Et les autres combattaient toujours, et une immense\nclameur s'\u00e9levait.\n\nEt Ain\u00e9ias, se ruant sur Aphar\u00e8os Kal\u00e8toride, le frappa \u00e0 la gorge\nde sa lance aigu\u00eb; et la t\u00eate s'inclina, et le bouclier tomba, et\nle casque aussi, et la mort fatale l'enveloppa.\n\nEt Antilokhos, apercevant le dos de Tho\u00f4n, le frappa\nimp\u00e9tueusement, et il trancha la veine qui, courant le long du\ndos, arrive au cou. Le Troien tomba \u00e0 la renverse sur la\npoussi\u00e8re, \u00e9tendant les deux mains vers ses compagnons bien-aim\u00e9s.\nEt Antilokhos accourut, et, regardant autour de lui, enleva ses\nbelles armes de ses \u00e9paules. Et les Troiens, l'entourant aussit\u00f4t,\naccablaient de traits son beau et large bouclier; mais ils ne\npurent d\u00e9chirer avec l'airain cruel le corps d\u00e9licat d'Antilokhos,\ncar Poseida\u00f4n qui \u00e9branle la terre prot\u00e9geait le Nest\u00f4ride contre\nla multitude des traits. Et celui-ci ne s'\u00e9loignait point de\nl'ennemi, mais il tournait sur lui-m\u00eame, agitant sans cesse sa\nlance et cherchant qui il pourrait frapper de loin, ou de pr\u00e8s.\n\nEt Adamas Asiade, l'ayant aper\u00e7u dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e, le frappa de\nl'airain aigu au milieu du bouclier; mais Poseida\u00f4n aux cheveux\nbleus refusa au Troien la vie d'Antilokhos, et la moiti\u00e9 du trait\nresta dans le bouclier comme un pieu \u00e0 demi br\u00fbl\u00e9, et l'autre\ntomba sur la terre. Et comme Adamas fuyait la mort dans les rangs\nde ses compagnons, M\u00e8rion\u00e8s, le poursuivant, le per\u00e7a entre les\nparties m\u00e2les et le nombril, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 une plaie est mortelle pour les\nhommes lamentables. C'est l\u00e0 qu'il enfon\u00e7a sa lance, et Adamas\ntomba palpitant sous le coup, comme un taureau, dompt\u00e9 par la\nforce des liens, que des bouviers ont men\u00e9 sur les montagnes.\nAinsi Adamas bless\u00e9 palpita, mais peu de temps, car le h\u00e9ros\nM\u00e8rion\u00e8s arracha la lance de la plaie, et les t\u00e9n\u00e8bres se\nr\u00e9pandirent sur les yeux du Troien.\n\nEt H\u00e9l\u00e9nos, de sa grande \u00e9p\u00e9e de Thr\u00e8k\u00e8, frappa D\u00e8ipyros \u00e0 la\ntempe, et le casque roula sur la terre, et un des Akhaiens le\nramassa sous les pieds des combattants. Et la nuit couvrit les\nyeux de D\u00e8ipyros.\n\nEt la douleur saisit le brave Atr\u00e9ide M\u00e9n\u00e9laos qui s'avan\u00e7a contre\nle prince H\u00e9l\u00e9nos, en lan\u00e7ant sa longue pique. Et le Troien\nbandait son arc, et tous deux dard\u00e8rent \u00e0 la fois, l'un sa lance\naigu\u00eb, l'autre la fl\u00e8che jaillissant du nerf. Et le Priamide\nfrappa de sa fl\u00e8che la cuirasse bomb\u00e9e, et le trait acerbe y\nrebondit. De m\u00eame que, dans l'aire spacieuse, les f\u00e8ves noires ou\nles pois, au souffle du vent et sous l'effort du vanneur,\nrejaillissent du large van, de m\u00eame la fl\u00e8che acerbe rebondit loin\nde la cuirasse de l'illustre M\u00e9n\u00e9laos.\n\nEt le brave Atr\u00e9ide frappa la main qui tenait l'arc poli, et la\nlance aigu\u00eb attacha la main \u00e0 l'arc, et H\u00e9l\u00e9nos rentra dans la\nfoule de ses compagnons, \u00e9vitant la mort et tra\u00eenant le fr\u00eane de\nla lance suspendu \u00e0 sa main. Et le magnanime Ag\u00e8n\u00f4r arracha le\ntrait de la blessure qu'il entoura d'une fronde en laine qu'un\nserviteur tenait \u00e0 son c\u00f4t\u00e9.\n\nEt Peisandros marcha contre l'illustre M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, et la moire\nfatale le conduisait au seuil de la mort, pour qu'il f\u00fbt dompt\u00e9\npar toi, M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, dans le rude combat. Quand ils se furent\nrencontr\u00e9s, l'Atr\u00e9ide le manqua, et Peisandros frappa le bouclier\nde l'illustre M\u00e9n\u00e9laos; mais il ne put traverser l'airain, et le\nlarge bouclier repoussa la pique dont la pointe se rompit. Et\nPeisandros se r\u00e9jouissait dans son esprit, esp\u00e9rant la victoire,\net l'illustre Atr\u00e9ide, ayant tir\u00e9 l'\u00e9p\u00e9e aux clous d'argent, sauta\nsur lui; mais le Troien saisit, sous le bouclier, la belle hache \u00e0\ndeux tranchants, au manche d'olivier, faite d'un airain excellent,\net ils combattirent.\n\nPeisandros frappa le c\u00f4ne du casque au sommet, pr\u00e8s de la\ncrini\u00e8re, et lui-m\u00eame fut atteint au front, au-dessus du nez. Et\nses os cri\u00e8rent, et ses yeux ensanglant\u00e9s jaillirent \u00e0 ses pieds,\ndans la poussi\u00e8re; et il se renversa et tomba. Et M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, lui\nmettant le pied sur la poitrine, lui arracha ses armes et dit en\nse glorifiant:\n\n-- Vous laisserez ainsi les nefs des cavaliers Danaens, \u00f4\nparjures, insatiables de la rude bataille! Vous ne m'avez \u00e9pargn\u00e9\nni un outrage, ni un opprobre, mauvais chiens, qui n'avez pas\nredout\u00e9 la col\u00e8re terrible de Zeus hospitalier qui tonne fortement\net qui d\u00e9truira votre haute citadelle; car vous \u00eates venus sans\ncause, apr\u00e8s avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 re\u00e7us en amis, m'enlever, avec toutes mes\nrichesses, la femme que j'avais \u00e9pous\u00e9e vierge. Et, maintenant,\nvoici que vous tentez de jeter la flamme d\u00e9sastreuse sur nos nefs\nqui traversent la mer, et de tuer les h\u00e9ros Akhaiens! Mais vous\nserez r\u00e9prim\u00e9s, bien que remplis de fureur guerri\u00e8re. \u00d4 p\u00e8re Zeus,\non dit que tu surpasses en sagesse tous les hommes et tous les\ndieux, et c'est de toi que viennent ces choses! N'es-tu pas\nfavorable aux Troiens parjures, dont l'esprit est impie, et qui ne\npeuvent \u00eatre rassasi\u00e9s par la guerre d\u00e9sastreuse? Certes, la\nsati\u00e9t\u00e9 nous vient de tout, du sommeil, de l'amour, du chant et de\nla danse charmante, qui, cependant, nous plaisent plus que la\nguerre; mais les Troiens sont insatiables de combats.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, l'irr\u00e9prochable M\u00e9n\u00e9laos arracha les armes\nsanglantes du cadavre, et les remit \u00e0 ses compagnons; et il se\nm\u00eala de nouveau \u00e0 ceux qui combattaient en avant. Et le fils du\nroi Pylaim\u00e9neus, Harpali\u00f4n, se jeta sur lui. Et il avait suivi son\np\u00e8re bien-aim\u00e9 \u00e0 la guerre de Troi\u00e8, et il ne devait point\nretourner dans la terre de la patrie. De sa pique il frappa le\nmilieu du bouclier de l'Atr\u00e9ide, mais l'airain ne put le\ntraverser, et Harpali\u00f4n, \u00e9vitant la mort, se r\u00e9fugia dans la foule\nde ses compagnons, regardant de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s pour ne pas \u00eatre frapp\u00e9\nde l'airain. Et, comme il fuyait, M\u00e8rion\u00e8s lui lan\u00e7a une fl\u00e8che\nd'airain, et il le per\u00e7a \u00e0 la cuisse droite, et la fl\u00e8che p\u00e9n\u00e9tra,\nsous l'os, jusque dans la vessie. Et il tomba entre les bras de\nses chers compagnons, rendant l'\u00e2me. Il gisait comme un ver sur la\nterre, et son sang noir coulait, baignant la terre. Et les\nmagnanimes Paphlagones, s'empressant et g\u00e9missant, le d\u00e9pos\u00e8rent\nsur son char pour \u00eatre conduit \u00e0 la sainte Ilios; et son p\u00e8re,\nr\u00e9pandant des larmes, allait avec eux, nul n'ayant veng\u00e9 son fils\nmort.\n\nEt P\u00e2ris, irrit\u00e9 dans son \u00e2me de cette mort, car Harpali\u00f4n \u00e9tait\nson h\u00f4te entre les nombreux Paphlagones, lan\u00e7a une fl\u00e8che\nd'airain. Et il y avait un guerrier Akhaien, Eukh\u00e8nor, fils du\ndivinateur Polyidos, riche et brave, et habitant Korinthos. Et il\n\u00e9tait mont\u00e9 sur sa nef, subissant sa destin\u00e9e, car le bon Polyidos\nlui avait dit souvent qu'il mourrait, dans ses demeures, d'un mal\ncruel, ou que les Troiens le tueraient parmi les nefs des\nAkhaiens. Et il avait voulu \u00e9viter \u00e0 la fois la lourde amende des\nAkhaiens, et la maladie cruelle qui l'aurait accabl\u00e9 de douleurs,\nmais P\u00e2ris le per\u00e7a au-dessous de l'oreille, et l'\u00e2me s'envola de\nses membres, et une horrible nu\u00e9e l'enveloppa.\n\nTandis qu'ils combattaient, pareils au feu ardent, Hekt\u00f4r cher \u00e0\nZeus ignorait qu'\u00e0 la gauche des nefs ses peuples \u00e9taient d\u00e9faits\npar les Argiens, tant celui qui \u00e9branle la terre animait les\nDanaens et les p\u00e9n\u00e9trait de sa force. Et le Priamide se tenait l\u00e0\no\u00f9 il avait franchi les portes et o\u00f9 il enfon\u00e7ait les \u00e9paisses\nlignes des Danaens porteurs de boucliers. L\u00e0, les nefs d'Aias et\nde Pr\u00f4t\u00e9silaos avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 tir\u00e9es sur le rivage de la blanche mer,\net le mur y \u00e9tait peu \u00e9lev\u00e9. L\u00e0 aussi \u00e9taient les plus furieux\ncombattants, et les chevaux, les Boi\u00f4tiens, les Ia\u00f4nes aux longs\nv\u00eatements, les Lokriens, les Phthiotes et les illustres \u00c9p\u00e9iens,\nqui soutenaient l'assaut autour des nefs et ne pouvaient repousser\nle divin Hekt\u00f4r semblable \u00e0 la flamme.\n\nEt l\u00e0 \u00e9taient aussi les braves Ath\u00e8naiens que conduisait\nM\u00e9n\u00e8stheus, fils de P\u00e9t\u00e9os, suivi de Pheidas, de Stikhios et du\ngrand Bias. Et les chefs des \u00c9p\u00e9iens \u00e9taient M\u00e9g\u00e8s Phyl\u00e9ide,\nAmphi\u00f4n et Drakios. Et les chefs des Phthiotes \u00e9taient M\u00e9d\u00f4n et\nl'agile M\u00e9n\u00e9ptol\u00e8mos. M\u00e9d\u00f4n \u00e9tait fils b\u00e2tard du divin Oileus, et\nfr\u00e8re d'Aias, et il habitait Phylak\u00e8, loin de la terre de la\npatrie, ayant tu\u00e9 le fr\u00e8re de sa belle-m\u00e8re \u00c9riopis; et\nM\u00e9n\u00e9ptol\u00e8mos \u00e9tait fils d'Iphiklos Phylakide. Et ils combattaient\ntous deux en t\u00eate des Phthiotes magnanimes, parmi les Boi\u00f4tiens,\npour d\u00e9fendre les nefs.\n\nEt Aias, le fils agile d'Oileus, se tenait toujours aupr\u00e8s d'Aias\nT\u00e9lam\u00f4nien. Comme deux boeufs noirs tra\u00eenent ensemble, d'un\nsouffle \u00e9gal, une lourde charrue dans une terre nouvelle, tandis\nque la sueur coule de la racine de leurs cornes, et que, li\u00e9s \u00e0\ndistance au m\u00eame joug, ils vont dans le sillon, ouvrant du soc la\nterre profonde, de m\u00eame les deux Aias allaient ensemble. Mais de\nnombreux et braves guerriers suivaient le T\u00e9lam\u00f4niade et portaient\nson bouclier, quand la fatigue et la sueur rompaient ses genoux.\nEt les Lokriens ne suivaient pas le magnanime Oil\u00e8iade, car il ne\nleur plaisait pas de combattre en ligne. Ils n'avaient ni casques\nd'airain h\u00e9riss\u00e9s de crins de cheval, ni boucliers bomb\u00e9s, ni\nlances de fr\u00eane; et ils \u00e9taient venus devant Troi\u00e8 avec des arcs\net des frondes de laine, et ils en accablaient et en rompaient\nsans cesse les phalanges Troiennes. Et les premiers combattaient,\ncouverts de leurs belles armes, contre les Troiens et Hekt\u00f4r arm\u00e9\nd'airain, et les autres, cach\u00e9s derri\u00e8re ceux-l\u00e0, lan\u00e7aient sans\ncesse des fl\u00e8ches innombrables.\n\nAlors, les Troiens se fussent enfuis mis\u00e9rablement, loin des\ntentes et des nefs, vers la sainte Ilios, si Polydamas n'e\u00fbt dit\nau brave Hekt\u00f4r:\n\n-- Hekt\u00f4r, il est impossible que tu \u00e9coutes un conseil. Parce\nqu'un dieu t'a donn\u00e9 d'exceller dans la guerre, tu veux aussi\nl'emporter par la sagesse. Mais tu ne peux tout poss\u00e9der. Les\ndieux accordent aux uns le courage, aux autres l'art de la danse,\n\u00e0 l'autre la kithare et le chant. Le pr\u00e9voyant Zeus mit un esprit\nsage en celui-ci, et les hommes en profitent, et il sauvegarde les\ncit\u00e9s, et il recueille pour lui-m\u00eame le fruit de sa prudence. La\ncouronne de la guerre \u00e9clate de toutes parts autour de toi, et les\nTroiens magnanimes qui ont franchi la muraille fuient avec leurs\narmes, ou combattent en petit nombre contre beaucoup, dispers\u00e9s\nautour des nefs. Retourne, et appelle ici tous les chefs, afin que\nnous d\u00e9lib\u00e9rions en conseil si nous devons nous ruer sur les nefs,\nen esp\u00e9rant qu'un dieu nous accorde la victoire, ou s'il nous faut\nreculer avant d'\u00eatre entam\u00e9s. Je crains que les Akhaiens ne\nvengent leur d\u00e9faite d'hier, car il y a dans les nefs un homme\ninsatiable de guerre, qui, je pense, ne s'abstiendra pas longtemps\nde combat.\n\nPolydamas parla ainsi, et son conseil prudent persuada Hekt\u00f4r, et\nil sauta de son char \u00e0 terre avec ses armes, et il dit en paroles\nail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Polydamas, retiens ici tous les chefs. Moi, j'irai au milieu du\ncombat et je reviendrai bient\u00f4t, les ayant convoqu\u00e9s.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et se pr\u00e9cipita, pareil \u00e0 une montagne neigeuse,\nparmi les Troiens et les alli\u00e9s, avec de hautes clameurs. Et,\nayant entendu la voix de Hekt\u00f4r, ils accouraient tous aupr\u00e8s du\nPanthoide Polydamas. Et le Priamide Hekt\u00f4r allait, cherchant parmi\nles combattants, D\u00e8iphobos et le roi H\u00e9l\u00e9nos, et l'Asiade Adamas\net le Hyrtakide Asios. Et il les trouva tous, ou bless\u00e9s, ou\nmorts, autour des nefs et des poupes des Akhaiens, ayant rendu\nl'\u00e2me sous les mains des Argiens.\n\nEt il vit, \u00e0 la gauche de cette bataille meurtri\u00e8re, le divin\nAlexandros, l'\u00e9poux de H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 \u00e0 la belle chevelure, animant ses\ncompagnons au combat. Et, s'arr\u00eatant devant lui, il lui dit ces\nparoles outrageantes:\n\n-- Mis\u00e9rable P\u00e2ris, dou\u00e9 d'une grande beaut\u00e9, s\u00e9ducteur de femmes,\no\u00f9 sont D\u00e8iphobos, le roi H\u00e9l\u00e9nos, et l'Asiade Adamas et le\nHyrtakide Asios? O\u00f9 est Othryoneus? Aujourd'hui la sainte Ilios\ncroule de son fa\u00eete, et tu as \u00e9vit\u00e9 seul cette ruine terrible.\n\nEt le divin Alexandros lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Hekt\u00f4r, tu te plais \u00e0 m'accuser quand je ne suis point\ncoupable. Parfois je me suis retir\u00e9 du combat, mais ma m\u00e8re ne m'a\npoint enfant\u00e9 l\u00e2che. Depuis que tu as excit\u00e9 la lutte de nos\ncompagnons aupr\u00e8s des nefs, nous avons combattu sans cesse les\nDanaens. Ceux que tu demandes sont morts. Seuls, D\u00e8iphobos et le\nroi H\u00e9l\u00e9nos ont \u00e9t\u00e9 tous deux bless\u00e9s \u00e0 la main par de longues\nlances; mais le Kroni\u00f4n leur a \u00e9pargn\u00e9 la mort. Conduis-nous donc\no\u00f9 ton coeur et ton esprit t'ordonnent d'aller, et nous serons\nprompts \u00e0 te suivre, et je ne pense pas que nous cessions le\ncombat tant que nos forces le permettront. Il n'est permis \u00e0\npersonne de combattre au-del\u00e0 de ses forces.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, le h\u00e9ros fl\u00e9chit l'\u00e2me de son fr\u00e8re, et ils\ncoururent l\u00e0 o\u00f9 la m\u00eal\u00e9e \u00e9tait la plus furieuse, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 \u00e9taient\nK\u00e9brion\u00e8s et l'irr\u00e9prochable Polydamas, Phak\u00e8s, Orthaios, le divin\nPolyphoit\u00e8s, et Palmys, et Askanios et Moros, fils de Hippoti\u00f4n.\nEt ceux-ci avaient succ\u00e9d\u00e9 depuis la veille aux autres guerriers\nde la fertile Askani\u00e8, et d\u00e9j\u00e0 Zeus les poussait au combat.\n\nEt tous allaient, semblables aux tourbillons de vent que le p\u00e8re\nZeus envoie avec le tonnerre par les campagnes, et dont le bruit\nse m\u00eale au retentissement des grandes eaux bouillonnantes et\nsoulev\u00e9es de la mer aux rumeurs sans nombre, qui se gonflent,\nblanches d'\u00e9cume, et roulent les unes sur les autres.\n\nAinsi les Troiens se succ\u00e9daient derri\u00e8re leurs chefs \u00e9clatants\nd'airain. Et le Priamide Hekt\u00f4r les menait, semblable au terrible\nAr\u00e8s, et il portait devant lui son bouclier \u00e9gal fait de peaux\n\u00e9paisses recouvertes d'airain. Et autour de ses tempes\nresplendissait son casque mouvant, et, sous son bouclier, il\nmarchait contre les phalanges, cherchant \u00e0 les enfoncer de tous\nc\u00f4t\u00e9s. Mais il n'\u00e9branla point l'\u00e2me des Akhaiens dans leurs\npoitrines, et Aias, le premier, s'avan\u00e7a en le provoquant:\n\n-- Viens, malheureux! Pourquoi tentes-tu d'effrayer les Argiens?\nNous ne sommes pas inhabiles au combat. C'est le fouet fatal de\nZeus qui nous \u00e9prouve. Tu esp\u00e8res sans doute, dans ton esprit,\nd\u00e9truire nos nefs, mais nos mains te repousseront, et bient\u00f4t ta\nville bien peupl\u00e9e sera prise et renvers\u00e9e par nous. Et je te le\ndis, le temps viendra o\u00f9, fuyant, tu supplieras le p\u00e8re Zeus et\nles autres immortels pour que tes chevaux soient plus rapides que\nl'\u00e9pervier, tandis qu'ils t'emporteront vers la ville \u00e0 travers la\npoussi\u00e8re de la plaine.\n\nEt, comme il parlait ainsi, un aigle vola \u00e0 sa droite dans les\nhauteurs, et les Akhaiens se r\u00e9jouirent de cet augure. Et\nl'illustre Hekt\u00f4r lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Aias, orgueilleux et insens\u00e9, qu'as-tu dit? Pl\u00fbt aux dieux que\nje fusse le fils de Zeus temp\u00e9tueux, et que la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable H\u00e8r\u00e8\nm'e\u00fbt enfant\u00e9, aussi vrai que ce jour sera fatal aux Argiens, et\nque tu tomberas toi-m\u00eame, si tu oses attendre ma longue lance qui\nd\u00e9chirera ton corps d\u00e9licat, et que tu rassasieras les chiens\nd'Ilios et les oiseaux carnassiers de ta graisse et de ta chair,\naupr\u00e8s des nefs des Akhaiens!\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il se rua en avant, et ses compagnons le\nsuivirent avec une immense clameur que l'arm\u00e9e r\u00e9p\u00e9ta par\nderri\u00e8re. Et les Argiens, se souvenant de leur vigueur,\nr\u00e9pondirent par d'autres cris, et la clameur des deux peuples\nmonta jusque dans l'aith\u00e8r, parmi les splendeurs de Zeus.\n\n\nChant 14\n\n\nTout en buvant, Nest\u00f4r entendit la clameur des hommes, et il dit \u00e0\nl'Askl\u00e8piade ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Divin Makha\u00f4n, que deviendront ces choses? Voici que la clameur\ndes jeunes hommes grandit autour des nefs. Reste ici, et bois ce\nvin qui r\u00e9chauffe, tandis que H\u00e9kam\u00e8d\u00e8 aux beaux cheveux fait\nti\u00e9dir l'eau qui lavera le sang de ta plaie. Moi, j'irai sur la\nhauteur voir ce qui en est.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il saisit dans sa tente le bouclier de son\nfils, le brave Thrasym\u00e8d\u00e8s qui, lui-m\u00eame, avait pris le bouclier\n\u00e9clatant d'airain de son p\u00e8re, et il saisit aussi une forte lance\n\u00e0 pointe d'airain, et, sortant de la tente, il vit une chose\nlamentable: les Akhaiens boulevers\u00e9s et les Troiens magnanimes les\npoursuivant, et le mur des Akhaiens renvers\u00e9. De m\u00eame, quand\nl'onde silencieuse de la grande mer devient toute noire, dans le\npressentiment des vents imp\u00e9tueux, et reste immobile, ne sachant\nencore de quel c\u00f4t\u00e9 ils souffleront; de m\u00eame, le vieillard,\nh\u00e9sitant, ne savait s'il se m\u00ealerait \u00e0 la foule des cavaliers\nDanaens, ou s'il irait rejoindre Agamemn\u00f4n, le prince des peuples.\nMais il jugea qu'il \u00e9tait plus utile de rejoindre l'Atr\u00e9ide.\n\nEt Troiens et Danaens s'entre-tuaient dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e, et l'airain\nsolide sonnait autour de leurs corps, tandis qu'ils se frappaient\nde leurs \u00e9p\u00e9es et de leurs lances \u00e0 deux pointes.\n\nEt Nest\u00f4r rencontra, venant des nefs, les rois divins que l'airain\navait bless\u00e9s, le Tyd\u00e9ide, et Odysseus, et l'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n.\nLeurs nefs \u00e9taient \u00e9loign\u00e9es du champ de bataille, ayant \u00e9t\u00e9\ntir\u00e9es les premi\u00e8res sur le sable de la blanche mer; car celles\nqui vinrent les premi\u00e8res s'avan\u00e7aient jusque dans la plaine, et\nle mur prot\u00e9geait leurs poupes. Tout large qu'il \u00e9tait, le rivage\nne pouvait contenir toutes les nefs sans resserrer le camp; et les\nAkhaiens les avaient rang\u00e9es par files, dans la gorge du rivage,\nentre les deux promontoires.\n\nEt les rois, l'\u00e2me attrist\u00e9e dans leur poitrine, venaient\nensemble, appuy\u00e9s sur leurs lances. Et leur esprit s'effraya quand\nils virent le vieux Nest\u00f4r, et le roi Agamemn\u00f4n lui dit aussit\u00f4t:\n\n-- \u00d4 Nest\u00f4r N\u00e8l\u00e8iade, gloire des Akhaiens, pourquoi reviens-tu de\nce combat fatal? Je crains que le brave Hekt\u00f4r n'accomplisse la\nmenace qu'il a faite, dans l'agora des Troiens, de ne rentrer dans\nIlios qu'apr\u00e8s avoir br\u00fbl\u00e9 les nefs et tu\u00e9 tous les Akhaiens. Il\nl'a dit et il le fait. Ah! certes, les Akhaiens aux belles\nkn\u00e8mides ont contre moi la m\u00eame col\u00e8re qu'Akhilleus, et ils ne\nveulent plus combattre autour des nefs.\n\nEt le cavalier G\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Certes, tu dis vrai, et Zeus qui tonne dans les hauteurs n'y\npeut rien lui-m\u00eame. Le mur est renvers\u00e9 que nous nous flattions\nd'avoir \u00e9lev\u00e9 devant les nefs comme un rempart inaccessible. Et\nvoici que les Troiens combattent maintenant au milieu des nefs, et\nnous ne saurions reconna\u00eetre, en regardant avec le plus\nd'attention, de quel c\u00f4t\u00e9 les Akhaiens roulent boulevers\u00e9s.\nMais ils tombent partout, et leurs clameurs montent dans\nl'Ouranos. Pour nous, d\u00e9lib\u00e9rons sur ces calamit\u00e9s, si toutefois\nune r\u00e9solution peut \u00eatre utile. Je ne vous engage point \u00e0\nretourner dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e, car un bless\u00e9 ne peut combattre.\n\nEt le roi des hommes, Agamemn\u00f4n, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Nest\u00f4r, puisque le combat est au milieu des nefs, et que le mur\net le foss\u00e9 ont \u00e9t\u00e9 inutiles qui ont co\u00fbt\u00e9 tant de travaux aux\nDanaens, et qui devaient, pensions-nous, \u00eatre un rempart\ninaccessible, c'est qu'il pla\u00eet, sans doute, au tr\u00e8s-puissant Zeus\nque les Akhaiens p\u00e9rissent tous, sans gloire, loin d'Argos. Je\nreconnaissais autrefois qu'il secourait les Danaens, mais je sais\nmaintenant qu'il honore les Troiens comme des bienheureux, et\nqu'il encha\u00eene notre vigueur et nos mains. Allons, ob\u00e9issez \u00e0 mes\nparoles. Tra\u00eenons \u00e0 la mer les nefs qui en sont le plus\nrapproch\u00e9es. Restons sur nos ancres jusqu'\u00e0 la nuit; et, si les\nTroiens cessent le combat, nous pourrons mettre \u00e0 la mer divine le\nreste de nos nefs. Il n'y a nulle honte \u00e0 fuir notre ruine enti\u00e8re\n\u00e0 l'aide de la nuit, et mieux vaut fuir les maux que d'en \u00eatre\naccabl\u00e9.\n\nEt le sage Odysseus, le regardant d'un oeil sombre, lui dit:\n\n-- Atr\u00e9ide, quelle parole mauvaise a pass\u00e9 \u00e0 travers tes dents? Tu\ndevrais conduire une arm\u00e9e de l\u00e2ches au lieu de nous commander,\nnous \u00e0 qui Zeus a donn\u00e9 de poursuivre les guerres rudes, de la\njeunesse \u00e0 la vieillesse, et jusqu'\u00e0 la mort. Ainsi, tu veux\nrenoncer \u00e0 la grande ville des Troiens pour laquelle nous avons\nsouffert tant de maux? Tais-toi. Que nul d'entre les Akhaiens\nn'entende cette parole que n'aurait d\u00fb prononcer aucun homme d'un\nesprit juste, un roi \u00e0 qui ob\u00e9issent des peuples aussi nombreux\nque ceux auxquels tu commandes parmi les Akhaiens. Moi, je\ncondamne cette parole que tu as dite, cet ordre de tra\u00eener \u00e0 la\nmer les nefs bien construites, loin des clameurs du combat. Ne\nserait-ce pas combler les d\u00e9sirs des Troiens d\u00e9j\u00e0 victorieux?\nComment les Akhaiens soutiendraient-ils le combat, pendant qu'ils\ntra\u00eeneraient les nefs \u00e0 la mer? Ils ne songeraient qu'aux nefs et\nn\u00e9gligeraient le combat. Ton conseil nous serait fatal, prince des\npeuples!\n\nEt le roi des hommes, Agamemn\u00f4n, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 Odysseus, tes rudes paroles ont p\u00e9n\u00e9tr\u00e9 dans mon coeur. Je ne\nveux point que les fils des Akhaiens tra\u00eenent \u00e0 la mer, contre\nleur gr\u00e9, les nefs bien construites. Maintenant, si quelqu'un a un\nmeilleur conseil \u00e0 donner, jeune ou vieux, qu'il parle, et sa\nparole me remplira de joie.\n\nEt le brave Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s parla ainsi au milieu d'eux:\n\n-- Celui-l\u00e0 est pr\u00e8s de vous, et nous ne chercherons pas\nlongtemps, si vous voulez ob\u00e9ir. Et vous ne me bl\u00e2merez point de\nparler parce que je suis le plus jeune, car je suis n\u00e9 d'un p\u00e8re\nillustre et je descends d'une race glorieuse. Et mon p\u00e8re est\nTydeus qui occupe un large s\u00e9pulcre dans Th\u00e8b\u00e8. Portheus engendra\ntrois fils irr\u00e9prochables qui habitaient Pleur\u00f4n et la haute\nKalyd\u00f4n: Agrios, M\u00e9las, et le troisi\u00e8me \u00e9tait le cavalier Oineus,\nle p\u00e8re de mon p\u00e8re, et le plus brave des trois. Et celui-ci\ndemeura chez lui, mais mon p\u00e8re habita Argos. Ainsi le voulurent\nZeus et les autres dieux. Et mon p\u00e8re \u00e9pousa une des filles\nd'Adrest\u00e8s, et il habitait une maison pleine d'abondance, car il\nposs\u00e9dait beaucoup de champs fertiles entour\u00e9s de grands vergers.\nEt ses brebis \u00e9taient nombreuses, et il \u00e9tait illustre par sa\nlance entre tous les Akhaiens. Vous savez que je dis la v\u00e9rit\u00e9,\nque ma race n'est point vile, et vous ne m\u00e9priserez point mes\nparoles. Allons vers le champ de bataille, bien que bless\u00e9s, loin\ndes traits, afin que nous ne recevions pas blessure sur blessure;\nmais animons et excitons les Akhaiens qui d\u00e9j\u00e0 se lassent et\ncessent de combattre courageusement.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et ils l'\u00e9cout\u00e8rent volontiers et lui ob\u00e9irent. Et\nle roi des hommes, Agamemn\u00f4n, les pr\u00e9c\u00e9dait. Et l'illustre qui\n\u00e9branle la terre les vit et vint \u00e0 eux sous la forme d'un\nvieillard. Il prit la main droite de l'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n, et il\nlui dit:\n-- Atr\u00e9ide, maintenant le coeur f\u00e9roce d'Akhilleus se r\u00e9jouit dans\nsa poitrine, en voyant la fuite et le carnage des Akhaiens. Il a\nperdu l'esprit. Qu'un dieu lui rende autant de honte! Tous les\ndieux heureux ne sont point irrit\u00e9s contre toi. Les princes et les\nchefs des Troiens empliront encore la plaine de poussi\u00e8re, et tu\nles verras fuir vers leur ville, loin des nefs et des tentes.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il se pr\u00e9cipita vers la plaine en poussant un\ngrand cri, tel que celui que neuf ou dix mille hommes qui se ruent\nau combat pourraient pousser de leurs poitrines. Tel fut le cri du\nroi qui \u00e9branle la terre. Et il versa la force dans le coeur des\nAkhaiens, avec le d\u00e9sir de guerroyer et de combattre.\n\nH\u00e8r\u00e8 regardait, assise sur un tr\u00f4ne d'or, au sommet de l'Olympos,\net elle reconnut aussit\u00f4t son fr\u00e8re qui s'agitait dans la\nglorieuse bataille, et elle se r\u00e9jouit dans son coeur. Et elle vit\nZeus assis au fa\u00eete de l'Ida o\u00f9 naissent les sources, et il lui\n\u00e9tait odieux. Aussit\u00f4t, la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux yeux de boeuf songea\nau moyen de tromper Zeus temp\u00e9tueux, et ceci lui sembla meilleur\nd'aller le trouver sur l'Ida, pour exciter en lui le d\u00e9sir\namoureux de sa beaut\u00e9, afin qu'un doux et profond sommeil ferm\u00e2t\nses paupi\u00e8res et obscurc\u00eet ses pens\u00e9es.\n\nEt elle entra dans la chambre nuptiale que son fils bien-aim\u00e9\nH\u00e8phaistos avait faite. Et il avait adapt\u00e9 aux portes solides un\nverrou secret, et aucun des dieux n'aurait pu les ouvrir. Elle\nentra et ferma les portes resplendissantes. Et, d'abord, elle lava\nson beau corps avec de l'ambroisie; puis elle se parfuma d'une\nhuile divine dont l'ar\u00f4me se r\u00e9pandit dans la demeure de Zeus, sur\nla terre et dans l'Ouranos. Et son beau corps \u00e9tant parfum\u00e9, elle\npeigna sa chevelure et tressa de ses mains ses cheveux \u00e9clatants,\nbeaux et divins, qui flottaient de sa t\u00eate immortelle. Et elle\nrev\u00eatit une khlamyde divine qu'Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 avait faite elle-m\u00eame et\norn\u00e9e de mille merveilles, et elle la fixa sur sa poitrine avec\ndes agrafes d'or. Et elle mit une ceinture \u00e0 cent franges, et \u00e0\nses oreilles bien perc\u00e9es des pendants travaill\u00e9s avec soin et\norn\u00e9s de trois pierres pr\u00e9cieuses. Et la gr\u00e2ce l'enveloppait tout\nenti\u00e8re. Ensuite, la d\u00e9esse mit un beau voile blanc comme H\u00e9lios,\net, \u00e0 ses beaux pieds, de belles sandales. S'\u00e9tant ainsi par\u00e9e,\nelle sortit de sa chambre nuptiale, et, appelant Aphrodit\u00e8 loin\ndes autres dieux, elle lui dit:\n\n-- M'accorderas-tu, ch\u00e8re fille, ce que je vais te demander, ou me\nrefuseras-tu, irrit\u00e9e de ce que je prot\u00e8ge les Danaens, et toi les\nTroiens?\n\nEt la fille de Zeus, Aphrodit\u00e8, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- V\u00e9n\u00e9rable H\u00e8r\u00e8, fille du grand Kronos, dis ce que tu d\u00e9sires.\nMon coeur m'ordonne de te satisfaire, si je le puis, et si c'est\npossible.\n\nEt la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable H\u00e8r\u00e8 qui m\u00e9dite des ruses lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Donne-moi l'amour et le d\u00e9sir \u00e0 l'aide desquels tu domptes les\ndieux immortels et les hommes mortels. Je vais voir, aux limites\nde la terre, Ok\u00e9anos, origine des dieux, et la maternelle T\u00e9thys,\nqui m'ont \u00e9lev\u00e9e et nourrie dans leurs demeures, m'ayant re\u00e7ue de\nRh\u00e9i\u00e8, quand Zeus au large regard jeta Kronos sous la terre et\nsous la mer st\u00e9rile. Je vais les voir, afin d'apaiser leurs\ndissensions am\u00e8res. D\u00e9j\u00e0, depuis longtemps, ils ne partagent plus\nle m\u00eame lit, parce que la col\u00e8re est entr\u00e9e dans leur coeur. Si je\npuis les persuader par mes paroles, et si je les rends au m\u00eame\nlit, pour qu'ils puissent s'unir d'amour, ils m'appelleront leur\nbien-aim\u00e9e et v\u00e9n\u00e9rable.\n\nEt Aphrodit\u00e8 qui aime les sourires lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Il n'est point permis de te rien refuser, \u00e0 toi qui couches\ndans les bras du grand Zeus.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et elle d\u00e9tacha de son sein la ceinture aux\ncouleurs vari\u00e9es o\u00f9 r\u00e9sident toutes les volupt\u00e9s, et l'amour, et\nle d\u00e9sir, et l'entretien amoureux, et l'\u00e9loquence persuasive qui\ntrouble l'esprit des sages. Et elle mit cette ceinture entre les\nmains de H\u00e8r\u00e8, et elle lui dit:\n\n-- Re\u00e7ois cette ceinture aux couleurs vari\u00e9es, o\u00f9 r\u00e9sident toutes\nles volupt\u00e9s, et mets-la sur ton sein, et tu ne reviendras pas\nsans avoir fait ce que tu d\u00e9sires.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux yeux de boeuf rit, et,\nen riant, elle mit la ceinture sur son sein. Et Aphrodit\u00e8, la\nfille de Zeus, rentra dans sa demeure, et H\u00e8r\u00e8, joyeuse, quitta le\nfa\u00eete de l'Olympos. Puis, traversant la Pi\u00e8ri\u00e8 et la riante\n\u00c9mathi\u00e8, elle gagna les montagnes neigeuses des Thr\u00e8kiens, et ses\npieds ne touchaient point la terre. Et, de l'Athos, elle descendit\nvers la mer agit\u00e9e et parvint \u00e0 Lemnos, la ville du divin Thoas,\no\u00f9 elle rencontra Hypnos, fr\u00e8re de Thanatos. Elle lui prit la main\net lui dit ces paroles:\n\n-- Hypnos, roi de tous les dieux et de tous les hommes, si jamais\ntu m'as \u00e9cout\u00e9e, ob\u00e9is-moi aujourd'hui, et je ne cesserai de te\nrendre gr\u00e2ces. Endors, sous leurs paupi\u00e8res, les yeux splendides\nde Zeus, d\u00e8s que je serai couch\u00e9e dans ses bras, et je te donnerai\nun beau tr\u00f4ne incorruptible, tout en or, qu'a fait mon fils\nH\u00e8phaistos qui boite des deux pieds; et il y joindra un escabeau\nsur lequel tu appuieras tes beaux pieds pendant le repas.\n\nEt le doux Hypnos, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi:\n\n-- H\u00e8r\u00e8, v\u00e9n\u00e9rable d\u00e9esse, fille du grand Kronos, j'assoupirai\nais\u00e9ment tout autre des dieux \u00e9ternels, et m\u00eame le fleuve Ok\u00e9anos,\ncette source de toutes choses; mais je n'approcherai point du\nKroni\u00f4n Zeus et je ne l'endormirai point, \u00e0 moins qu'il me\nl'ordonne. D\u00e9j\u00e0 il m'a averti, gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 toi, le jour o\u00f9 son fils\nmagnanime naviguait loin d'Ilios, de la cit\u00e9 d\u00e9vast\u00e9e des Troiens.\nEt j'enveloppai doucement les membres de Zeus temp\u00eatueux, tandis\nque tu m\u00e9ditais des calamit\u00e9s, et que, r\u00e9pandant sur la mer le\nsouffle des vents furieux, tu poussais H\u00e8rakl\u00e8s vers Ko\u00f4s bien\npeupl\u00e9e, loin de tous ses amis. Et Zeus, s'\u00e9veillant indign\u00e9,\ndispersa tous les dieux par l'Ouranos; et il me cherchait pour me\npr\u00e9cipiter du haut de l'aith\u00e8r dans la mer, si Nyx qui dompte les\ndieux et les hommes, et que je suppliais en fuyant, ne m'e\u00fbt\nsauv\u00e9. Et Zeus, bien que tr\u00e8s irrit\u00e9, s'apaisa, craignant de\nd\u00e9plaire \u00e0 la rapide Nyx. Et maintenant tu m'ordonnes de courir le\nm\u00eame danger!\n\nIl parla ainsi, et la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux yeux de boeuf lui\nr\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Hypnos, pourquoi t'inqui\u00e9ter ainsi? Penses-tu que Zeus au large\nregard s'irrite pour les Troiens autant que pour son fils\nH\u00e8rakl\u00e8s? Viens, et je te donnerai pour \u00e9pouse une des plus jeunes\nKharites, Pasith\u00e9i\u00e8, que tu d\u00e9sires sans cesse.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et Hypnos, plein de joie, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Jure, par l'eau de Styx, un inviolable serment; touche d'une\nmain la terre et de l'autre la mer marbr\u00e9e, et qu'ils soient\nt\u00e9moins, les dieux souterrains qui vivent autour de Kronos, que tu\nme donneras Pasith\u00e9i\u00e8 que je d\u00e9sire sans cesse.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et la d\u00e9esse H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux bras blancs jura aussit\u00f4t\ncomme il le d\u00e9sirait, et elle nomma tous les dieux sous-tartar\u00e9ens\nqu'on nomme Titans. Et, apr\u00e8s ce serment, ils quitt\u00e8rent tous deux\nLemnos et Imbros, couverts d'une nu\u00e9e et faisant rapidement leur\nchemin. Et, laissant la mer \u00e0 Lektos, ils parvinrent \u00e0 l'Ida qui\nabonde en b\u00eates fauves et en sources, et sous leurs pieds se\nmouvait la cime des bois. L\u00e0, Hypnos resta en arri\u00e8re, de peur que\nZeus le v\u00eet, et il monta dans un grand pin n\u00e9 sur l'Ida, et qui\ns'\u00e9levait jusque dans l'aith\u00e8r. Et il se blottit dans les \u00e9pais\nrameaux du pin, semblable \u00e0 l'oiseau bruyant que les hommes\nappellent Khalkis et les dieux Kymindis.\n\nH\u00e8r\u00e8 gravit rapidement le haut Gargaros, au fa\u00eete de l'Ida. Et\nZeus qui amasse les nu\u00e9es la vit, et aussit\u00f4t le d\u00e9sir s'empara de\nlui, comme autrefois, quand ils partag\u00e8rent le m\u00eame lit, loin de\nleurs parents bien-aim\u00e9s. Il s'approcha et lui dit:\n\n-- H\u00e8r\u00e8, pourquoi as-tu quitt\u00e9 l'Olympos? Tu n'as ni tes chevaux,\nni ton char.\n\nEt la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable H\u00e8r\u00e8 qui m\u00e9dite des ruses lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Je vais voir, aux limites de la terre, Ok\u00e9anos, origine des\ndieux, et la maternelle T\u00e9thys, qui m'ont \u00e9lev\u00e9e et nourrie dans\nleurs demeures. Je vais les voir, afin d'apaiser leurs dissensions\nam\u00e8res. D\u00e9j\u00e0, depuis longtemps, ils ne partagent plus le m\u00eame lit,\nparce que la col\u00e8re est entr\u00e9e dans leur coeur. Mes chevaux, qui\nme portent sur la terre et sur la mer, sont aux pieds de l'Ida aux\nnombreuses sources, et c'est \u00e0 cause de toi que j'ai quitt\u00e9\nl'Olympos, craignant ta col\u00e8re, si j'allais, en te le cachant,\ndans la demeure du profond Ok\u00e9anos.\n\nEt Zeus qui amasse les nu\u00e9es lui dit:\n\n-- H\u00e8r\u00e8, attends et tu partiras ensuite, mais couchons-nous pleins\nd'amour. Jamais le d\u00e9sir d'une d\u00e9esse ou d'une femme n'a dompt\u00e9\nainsi tout mon coeur. Jamais je n'ai tant aim\u00e9, ni l'\u00e9pouse\nd'Ixi\u00f4n, qui enfanta Peirithoos semblable \u00e0 un dieu par la\nsagesse, ni la fille d'Akrisi\u00f4n, la belle Dana\u00e8, qui enfanta\nPerseus, le plus illustre de tous les hommes, ni la fille du\nmagnanime Phoinix, qui enfanta Min\u00f4s et Rhadamanth\u00e8s, ni S\u00e9m\u00e9l\u00e8\nqui enfanta Di\u00f4nysos, la joie des hommes, ni Alkm\u00e8n\u00e8 qui enfanta\naussi dans Th\u00e8b\u00e8 mon robuste fils H\u00e8rakl\u00e8s, ni la reine D\u00e8m\u00e8t\u00e8r\naux beaux cheveux, ni l'illustre L\u00e8t\u00f4, ni toi-m\u00eame; car je n'ai\njamais ressenti pour toi tant de d\u00e9sir et tant d'amour.\n\nEt la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable H\u00e8r\u00e8 pleine de ruses lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Tr\u00e8s-redoutable Kronide, qu'as-tu dit? Tu d\u00e9sires que nous nous\nunissions d'amour, maintenant, sur le fa\u00eete de l'Ida ouvert \u00e0 tous\nles regards! Si quelqu'un des dieux qui vivent toujours nous\nvoyait couch\u00e9s et en avertissait tous les autres! Je n'oserais\nplus rentrer dans tes demeures, en sortant de ton lit, car ce\nserait honteux. Mais, si tels sont ton d\u00e9sir et ta volont\u00e9, la\nchambre nuptiale que ton fils H\u00e8phaistos a faite a des portes\nsolides. C'est l\u00e0 que nous irons dormir, puisqu'il te pla\u00eet que\nnous partagions le m\u00eame lit.\n\nEt Zeus qui amasse les nu\u00e9es lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ne crains pas qu'aucun dieu te voie, ni aucun homme. Je\nt'envelopperai d'une nu\u00e9e d'or, telle que H\u00e9lios lui-m\u00eame ne la\np\u00e9n\u00e9trerait pas, bien que rien n'\u00e9chappe \u00e0 sa lumi\u00e8re.\n\nEt le fils de Kronos prit l'\u00c9pouse dans ses bras. Et sous eux la\nterre divine enfanta une herbe nouvelle, le lotos brillant de\nros\u00e9e, et le safran, et l'hyacinthe \u00e9paisse et molle, qui les\nsoulevaient de terre. Et ils s'endormirent, et une belle nu\u00e9e d'or\nles enveloppait, et d'\u00e9tincelantes ros\u00e9es en tombaient.\n\nAinsi dormait, tranquille, le p\u00e8re Zeus sur le haut Gargaros,\ndompt\u00e9 par le sommeil et par l'amour, en tenant l'\u00c9pouse dans ses\nbras. Et le doux Hypnos courut aux nefs des Akhaiens en porter la\nnouvelle \u00e0 celui qui \u00e9branle la terre, et il lui dit en paroles\nail\u00e9es:\n\n-- H\u00e2te-toi, Poseida\u00f4n, de venir en aide aux Akhaiens, et donne-\nleur la victoire au moins quelques instants, pendant que Zeus\ndort, car je l'ai assoupi mollement, et H\u00e8r\u00e8 l'a s\u00e9duit par\nl'amour, afin qu'il s'endorm\u00eet.\n\nIl parla ainsi et retourna vers les illustres tribus des hommes;\nmais il excita plus encore Poseida\u00f4n \u00e0 secourir les Danaens, et\nPoseida\u00f4n, s'\u00e9lan\u00e7ant aux premiers rangs, s'\u00e9cria:\n\n-- Argiens! laisserons-nous de nouveau la victoire au Priamide\nHekt\u00f4r, afin qu'il prenne les nefs et se glorifie? Il triomphe,\nparce que Akhilleus reste, le coeur irrit\u00e9, dans ses nefs creuses;\nmais nous n'aurons plus un si grand regret d'Akhilleus, si nous\nsavons nous d\u00e9fendre les uns les autres. Allons! ob\u00e9issez-moi\ntous. Couverts de nos meilleurs et de nos plus grands boucliers,\nles casques \u00e9clatants en t\u00eate et les longues piques en main,\nallons! Et je vous conduirai, et je ne pense pas que le Priamide\nHekt\u00f4r nous attende, bien qu'il soit plein d'audace. Que les plus\nbraves c\u00e8dent leurs boucliers l\u00e9gers, s'ils en ont de tels, aux\nguerriers plus faibles, et qu'ils s'abritent sous de plus grands!\n\nIl parla ainsi, et chacun ob\u00e9it. Et les rois eux-m\u00eames, quoique\nbless\u00e9s, rang\u00e8rent les lignes. Le Tyd\u00e9ide, Odysseus et l'Atr\u00e9ide\nAgamemn\u00f4n, parcourant les rangs, \u00e9changeaient les armes, donnant\nles plus fortes aux plus robustes, et les plus faibles aux moins\nvigoureux. Et tous s'avanc\u00e8rent, rev\u00eatus de l'airain \u00e9clatant, et\ncelui qui \u00e9branle la terre les pr\u00e9c\u00e9dait, tenant dans sa forte\nmain une longue et terrible \u00e9p\u00e9e, semblable \u00e0 l'\u00e9clair, telle\nqu'on ne peut l'affronter dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e lamentable, et qui p\u00e9n\u00e8tre\nles hommes de terreur.\n\nEt l'illustre Hekt\u00f4r, de son c\u00f4t\u00e9, rangeait les Troiens en\nbataille. Et tous deux pr\u00e9paraient une lutte horrible, Poseida\u00f4n \u00e0\nla chevelure bleue et l'illustre Hekt\u00f4r, celui-ci secourant les\nTroiens et celui-l\u00e0 les Akhaiens. Et la mer inondait la plage\njusqu'aux tentes et aux nefs, et les deux peuples se heurtaient\navec une grande clameur; mais ni l'eau de la mer qui roule sur le\nrivage, pouss\u00e9e par le souffle furieux de Bor\u00e9as, ni le\ncr\u00e9pitement d'un vaste incendie qui br\u00fble une for\u00eat, dans les\ngorges des montagnes, ni le vent qui rugit dans les grands ch\u00eanes,\nne sont aussi terribles que n'\u00e9tait immense la clameur des\nAkhaiens et des Troiens, se ruant les uns sur les autres.\n\nEt, le premier, l'illustre Hekt\u00f4r lan\u00e7a sa pique contre Aias qui\ns'\u00e9tait retourn\u00e9 sur lui, et il ne le manqua pas, car la pique\nfrappa la poitrine l\u00e0 o\u00f9 les deux baudriers se croisent, celui du\nbouclier et celui de l'\u00e9p\u00e9e aux clous d'argent; et ils\npr\u00e9serv\u00e8rent la chair d\u00e9licate. Hekt\u00f4r fut afflig\u00e9 qu'un trait\nrapide se f\u00fbt vainement \u00e9chapp\u00e9 de sa main; et, fuyant la mort, il\nse retira dans la foule de ses compagnons. Mais, comme il se\nretirait, le grand T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien Aias saisit une des roches qui\nretenaient les c\u00e2bles des nefs, et qui se rencontraient sous les\npieds des combattants, et il en frappa Hekt\u00f4r dans la poitrine,\nau-dessus du bouclier, pr\u00e8s du cou, apr\u00e8s l'avoir soulev\u00e9e et\nl'avoir fait tourbillonner. De m\u00eame qu'un ch\u00eane tombe, d\u00e9racin\u00e9\npar l'\u00e9clair du grand Zeus, et que l'odeur du soufre s'en exhale,\net que chacun s'en \u00e9pouvante, tant est terrible la foudre du grand\nZeus; de m\u00eame la force de Hekt\u00f4r tomba dans la poussi\u00e8re. Et sa\npique \u00e9chappa de sa main, et son casque tomba, et son bouclier\naussi, et toutes ses armes d'airain r\u00e9sonn\u00e8rent.\n\nEt les fils des Akhaiens accoururent avec de grands cris, esp\u00e9rant\nl'entra\u00eener, et ils lanc\u00e8rent d'innombrables traits; mais aucun ne\nput blesser le prince des peuples, car les plus braves le\nprot\u00e9g\u00e8rent aussit\u00f4t: Polydamas, Ain\u00e9ias, et le divin Ag\u00e8n\u00f4r, et\nSarp\u00e8d\u00f4n, le chef des Lykiens, et l'irr\u00e9prochable Glaukos. Aucun\nne n\u00e9gligea de le secourir, et tous tenaient devant lui leurs\nboucliers bomb\u00e9s. Et ses compagnons l'emport\u00e8rent dans leurs bras,\nloin de la m\u00eal\u00e9e, jusqu'\u00e0 l'endroit o\u00f9 se tenaient ses chevaux\nrapides, et son char, et leur conducteur. Et ils l'emport\u00e8rent\nvers la ville, poussant des g\u00e9missements. Et quand ils furent\nparvenus au gu\u00e9 du Xanthos tourbillonnant qu'engendra l'immortel\nZeus, ils le d\u00e9pos\u00e8rent du char sur la terre, et ils le\nbaign\u00e8rent, et, revenant \u00e0 lui, il ouvrit les yeux. Mais, tombant\n\u00e0 genoux, il vomit un sang noir, et, de nouveau, il se renversa\ncontre terre, et une nuit noire l'enveloppa, tant le coup d'Aias\nl'avait dompt\u00e9.\n\nLes Argiens, voyant qu'on enlevait Hekt\u00f4r, se ru\u00e8rent avec plus\nd'ardeur sur les Troiens et ne song\u00e8rent qu'\u00e0 combattre. Le\npremier, le fils d'Oileus, le rapide Aias, de sa lance aigu\u00eb, en\nbondissant, blessa ios \u00c9nopide, que l'irr\u00e9prochable nymphe N\u00e8is\nenfanta d'\u00c9nops qui paissait ses troupeaux sur les rives du\nSatnio\u00efs. Et l'illustre Oil\u00e8iade le blessa de sa lance dans le\nventre, et il tomba \u00e0 la renverse, et, autour de lui, les Troiens\net les Danaens engag\u00e8rent une lutte terrible. Et le Panthoide\nPolydamas vint le venger, et il frappa Protho\u00e8n\u00f4r Ar\u00e8ilykide \u00e0\nl'\u00e9paule droite, et la forte lance entra dans l'\u00e9paule. Protho\u00e8n\u00f4r\nrenvers\u00e9 saisit la poussi\u00e8re avec ses mains, et Polydamas s'\u00e9cria\ninsolemment:\n\n-- Je ne pense pas qu'un trait inutile soit parti de la main du\nmagnanime Panthoide. Un Argien l'a re\u00e7u dans le corps, et il\ns'appuiera dessus pour descendre dans les demeures d'Aid\u00e8s.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et les Argiens furent remplis de douleur en\nl'entendant se glorifier ainsi. Et le belliqueux T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien Aias\nfut troubl\u00e9, ayant vu Protho\u00e8n\u00f4r tomber aupr\u00e8s de lui. Et aussit\u00f4t\nil lan\u00e7a sa pique contre Polydamas qui se retirait; mais celui-ci\n\u00e9vita la mort en sautant de c\u00f4t\u00e9, et l'Ant\u00e9noride Arkh\u00e9lokhos\nre\u00e7ut le coup, car les dieux lui destinaient la mort. Et il fut\nfrapp\u00e9 \u00e0 la derni\u00e8re vert\u00e8bre du cou, et les deux muscles furent\ntranch\u00e9s, et sa t\u00eate, sa bouche et ses narines touch\u00e8rent la terre\navant ses genoux.\n\nEt Aias cria \u00e0 l'irr\u00e9prochable Polydamas:\n\n-- Vois, Polydamas, et dis la v\u00e9rit\u00e9. Ce guerrier mort ne suffit-\nil pas pour venger Protho\u00e8n\u00f4r? Il ne me semble ni l\u00e2che, ni d'une\nrace vile. C'est le fr\u00e8re du dompteur de chevaux Ant\u00e8n\u00f4r, ou son\nfils, car il a le visage de cette famille.\n\nEt il parla ainsi, le connaissant bien. Et la douleur saisit les\nTroiens. Alors, Akamas, debout devant son fr\u00e8re mort, blessa d'un\ncoup de lance le Boi\u00f4tien Promakhos, comme celui-ci tra\u00eenait le\ncadavre par les pieds. Et Akamas, triomphant, cria:\n\n-- Argiens destin\u00e9s \u00e0 la mort, et toujours prodigues de menaces,\nla lutte et le deuil ne seront pas pour nous seuls, et vous aussi\nvous mourrez! Voyez! votre Promakhos dort dompt\u00e9 par ma lance, et\nmon fr\u00e8re n'est pas rest\u00e9 longtemps sans vengeance; aussi, tout\nhomme souhaite de laisser dans ses demeures un fr\u00e8re qui le venge.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et ses paroles insultantes remplirent les Argiens\nde douleur, et elles irrit\u00e8rent surtout l'\u00e2me de P\u00e9n\u00e9l\u00e9\u00f4s qui se\nrua sur Akamas. Mais celui-ci n'osa pas soutenir le choc du roi\nP\u00e9n\u00e9l\u00e9\u00f4s qui blessa Ilioneus, fils de ce Phorbas, riche en\ntroupeaux, que Herm\u00e8s aimait entre tous les Troiens, et \u00e0 qui il\navait donn\u00e9 de grands biens. Et il le frappa sous le sourcil, au\nfond de l'oeil, d'o\u00f9 la pupille fut arrach\u00e9e. Et la lance,\ntraversant l'oeil, sortit derri\u00e8re la t\u00eate, et Ilioneus, les mains\n\u00e9tendues, tomba. Puis, P\u00e9n\u00e9l\u00e9\u00f4s, tirant de la ga\u00eene son \u00e9p\u00e9e\naigu\u00eb, coupa la t\u00eate qui roula sur la terre avec le casque, et la\nforte lance encore fix\u00e9e dans l'oeil. Et P\u00e9n\u00e9l\u00e9\u00f4s la saisit, et,\nla montrant aux Troiens, il leur cria:\n\n-- Allez de ma part, Troiens, dire au p\u00e8re et \u00e0 la m\u00e8re de\nl'illustre Ilioneus qu'ils g\u00e9missent dans leurs demeures. Ah!\nl'\u00e9pouse de l'Al\u00e9g\u00e9noride Promakhos ne se r\u00e9jouira pas non plus au\nretour de son \u00e9poux bien-aim\u00e9, quand les fils des Akhaiens, loin\nde Troi\u00e8, s'en retourneront sur leurs nefs!\n\nIl parla ainsi, et la p\u00e2le terreur saisit les Troiens, et chacun\nd'eux regardait autour de lui, cherchant comment il \u00e9viterait la\nmort.\n\nDites-moi maintenant, Muses qui habitez les demeures Olympiennes,\ncelui des Akhaiens qui enleva le premier des d\u00e9pouilles\nsanglantes, quand l'illustre qui \u00e9branle la terre eut fait pencher\nla victoire?\n\nLe premier, Aias T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien frappa Hyrthios Gyrtiade, chef des\nbraves Mysiens. Et Antilokhos tua Phalk\u00e8s et Merm\u00e9ros, et M\u00e8rion\u00e8s\ntua Morys et Hippoti\u00f4n, et Teukros tua Protho\u00f4n et P\u00e9riph\u00e8t\u00e8s, et\nl'Atr\u00e9ide M\u00e9n\u00e9laos blessa au c\u00f4t\u00e9 le prince des peuples Hyp\u00e9r\u00e9n\u00f4r.\nIl lui d\u00e9chira les intestins, et l'\u00e2me s'\u00e9chappa par l'horrible\nblessure, et un brouillard couvrit ses yeux. Mais Aias, l'agile\nfils d'Oileus, en tua bien plus encore, car nul n'\u00e9tait son \u00e9gal\npour atteindre ceux que Zeus met en fuite.\n\n\nChant 15\n\nLes Troiens franchissaient, dans leur fuite, les pieux et le\nfoss\u00e9, et beaucoup tombaient sous les mains des Danaens. Et ils\ns'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent aupr\u00e8s de leurs chars, p\u00e2les de terreur.\n\nMais Zeus s'\u00e9veilla, sur les sommets de l'Ida, aupr\u00e8s de H\u00e8r\u00e8 au\ntr\u00f4ne d'or. Et, se levant, il regarda et vit les Troiens et les\nAkhaiens, et les premiers en pleine d\u00e9route, et les Argiens, ayant\nau milieu d'eux le roi Poseida\u00f4n, les poussant avec fureur. Et il\nvit Hekt\u00f4r gisant dans la plaine, entour\u00e9 de ses compagnons,\nrespirant \u00e0 peine et vomissant le sang, car ce n'\u00e9tait pas le plus\nfaible des Akhaiens qui l'avait bless\u00e9.\n\nEt le p\u00e8re des hommes et des dieux fut rempli de piti\u00e9 en le\nvoyant, et, avec un regard sombre, il dit \u00e0 H\u00e8r\u00e8:\n\n-- \u00d4 astucieuse! ta ruse a \u00e9loign\u00e9 le divin Hekt\u00f4r du combat et\nmis ses troupes en fuite. Je ne sais si tu ne recueilleras pas la\npremi\u00e8re le fruit de tes ruses, et si je ne t'accablerai point de\ncoups. Ne te souvient-il plus du jour o\u00f9 tu \u00e9tais suspendue dans\nl'air, avec une enclume \u00e0 chaque pied, les mains li\u00e9es d'une\nsolide cha\u00eene d'or, et o\u00f9 tu pendais ainsi de l'aith\u00e8r et des\nnu\u00e9es? Tous les dieux, par le grand Olympos, te regardaient avec\ndouleur et ne pouvaient te secourir, car celui que j'aurais saisi,\nje l'aurais pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9 de l'Ouranos, et il serait arriv\u00e9 sur la\nterre, respirant \u00e0 peine. Et cependant ma col\u00e8re, \u00e0 cause des\nsouffrances du divin H\u00e8rakl\u00e8s, n'\u00e9tait point assouvie. C'\u00e9tait toi\nqui, l'accablant de maux, avais appel\u00e9 Bor\u00e9as et les temp\u00eates sur\nla mer st\u00e9rile, et qui l'avais rejet\u00e9 vers Ko\u00f4s bien peupl\u00e9e. Mais\nje le d\u00e9livrai et le ramenai dans Argos f\u00e9conde en chevaux.\nSouviens-toi de ces choses et renonce \u00e0 tes ruses, et sache qu'il\nne te suffit pas, pour me tromper, de te donner \u00e0 moi sur ce lit,\nloin des dieux.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable H\u00e8r\u00e8 frissonna et lui r\u00e9pondit en\nparoles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Que Gaia le sache, et le large Ouranos, et l'eau souterraine de\nStyx, ce qui est le plus grand serment des dieux heureux, et ta\nt\u00eate sacr\u00e9e, et notre lit nuptial que je n'attesterai jamais en\nvain! Ce n'est point par mon conseil que Poseida\u00f4n qui \u00e9branle la\nterre a dompt\u00e9 les Troiens et Hekt\u00f4r. Son coeur seul l'a pouss\u00e9,\nayant compassion des Akhaiens d\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9s autour de leurs nefs.\nMais j'irai et je lui conseillerai, \u00f4 Zeus qui amasses les noires\nnu\u00e9es, de se retirer o\u00f9 tu le voudras.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et le p\u00e8re des dieux et des hommes sourit, et\nlui r\u00e9pondit ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Si tu penses comme moi, \u00e9tant assise au milieu des immortels, \u00f4\nv\u00e9n\u00e9rable H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux yeux de boeuf, Poseida\u00f4n lui-m\u00eame, quoi qu'il\nveuille, se conformera aussit\u00f4t \u00e0 notre volont\u00e9. Si tu as dit la\nv\u00e9rit\u00e9 dans ton coeur, va dans l'assembl\u00e9e des dieux, appelle Iris\net l'illustre archer Apoll\u00f4n, afin que l'une aille, vers l'arm\u00e9e\ndes Akhaiens cuirass\u00e9s, dire au roi Poseida\u00f4n qu'il se retire de\nla m\u00eal\u00e9e, et qu'il rentre dans ses demeures; et que Phoibos\nApoll\u00f4n ranime les forces de Hekt\u00f4r et apaise les douleurs qui\nl'accablent, afin que le Priamide attaque de nouveau les Akhaiens\net les mette en fuite. Et ils fuiront jusqu'aux nefs du P\u00e8l\u00e9ide\nAkhilleus qui suscitera son compagnon Patroklos. Et l'illustre\nHekt\u00f4r tuera Patroklos devant Ilios, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 celui-ci aura dompt\u00e9\nune multitude de guerriers, et, entre autres, mon fils, le divin\nSarp\u00e8d\u00f4n. Et le divin Akhilleus, furieux, tuera Hekt\u00f4r. Et,\nd\u00e9sormais, je repousserai toujours les Troiens loin des nefs,\njusqu'au jour o\u00f9 les Akhaiens prendront la haute Ilios par les\nconseils d'Ath\u00e8n\u00e8. Mais je ne d\u00e9poserai point ma col\u00e8re, et je ne\npermettrai \u00e0 aucun des immortels de secourir les Danaens, tant que\nne seront point accomplis et le d\u00e9sir du P\u00e8l\u00e9ide et la promesse\nque j'ai faite par un signe de ma t\u00eate, le jour o\u00f9 la d\u00e9esse\nTh\u00e9tis, embrassant mes genoux, m'a suppli\u00e9 d'honorer Akhilleus, le\nd\u00e9vastateur de citadelles.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et la d\u00e9esse H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux bras blancs se h\u00e2ta de\nmonter des cimes de l'Ida dans le haut Olympos. Ainsi vole la\npens\u00e9e d'un homme qui, ayant parcouru de nombreuses contr\u00e9es et se\nsouvenant de ce qu'il a vu, se dit: J'\u00e9tais l\u00e0! La v\u00e9n\u00e9rable H\u00e8r\u00e8\nvola aussi promptement, et elle arriva dans l'assembl\u00e9e des dieux,\nsur le haut Olympos o\u00f9 sont les demeures de Zeus. Et tous se\nlev\u00e8rent en la voyant, et lui offrirent la coupe qu'elle re\u00e7ut de\nTh\u00e9mis aux belles joues, car celle-ci \u00e9tait venue la premi\u00e8re au-\ndevant d'elle et lui avait dit en paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- H\u00e8r\u00e8, pourquoi viens-tu, toute troubl\u00e9e? Est-ce le fils de\nKronos, ton \u00e9poux, qui t'a effray\u00e9e?\n\nEt la d\u00e9esse H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux bras blancs lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Divine Th\u00e9mis, ne m'interroge point. Tu sais combien son \u00e2me\nest orgueilleuse et dure. Pr\u00e9side le festin des dieux dans ces\ndemeures. Tu sauras avec tous les immortels les desseins fatals de\nZeus. Je ne pense pas que ni les hommes, ni les dieux puissent se\nr\u00e9jouir d\u00e9sormais dans leurs festins.\n\nLa v\u00e9n\u00e9rable H\u00e8r\u00e8 parla et s'assit. Et les dieux s'attrist\u00e8rent\ndans les demeures de Zeus; mais la fille de Kronos sourit\nam\u00e8rement, tandis que son front \u00e9tait sombre au-dessus de ses\nsourcils bleus; et elle dit indign\u00e9e:\n\n-- Insens\u00e9s que nous sommes nous nous irritons contre Zeus et nous\nvoulons le dompter, soit par la flatterie, soit par la violence;\net, assis \u00e0 l'\u00e9cart, il ne s'en soucie ni ne s'en \u00e9meut, sachant\nqu'il l'emporte sur tous les dieux immortels par la force et la\npuissance. Subissez donc les maux qu'il lui pla\u00eet d'envoyer \u00e0\nchacun de vous. D\u00e9j\u00e0 le malheur atteint Ar\u00e8s; son fils a p\u00e9ri dans\nla m\u00eal\u00e9e, Askalaphos, celui de tous les hommes qu'il aimait le\nmieux, et que le puissant Ar\u00e8s disait \u00eatre son fils.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et Ar\u00e8s, frappant de ses deux mains ses cuisses\nvigoureuses, dit en g\u00e9missant:\n\n-- Ne vous irritez point, habitants des demeures Olympiennes, si\nje descends aux nefs des Akhaiens pour venger le meurtre de mon\nfils, quand m\u00eame ma destin\u00e9e serait de tomber parmi les morts, le\nsang et la poussi\u00e8re, frapp\u00e9 de l'\u00e9clair de Zeus!\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il ordonna \u00e0 la Crainte et \u00e0 la Fuite d'atteler\nses chevaux, et il se couvrit de ses armes splendides. Et, alors,\nune col\u00e8re bien plus grande et bien plus terrible se f\u00fbt soulev\u00e9e\ndans l'\u00e2me de Zeus contre les immortels, si Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, craignant pour\ntous les dieux, n'e\u00fbt saut\u00e9 dans le parvis, hors du tr\u00f4ne o\u00f9 elle\n\u00e9tait assise. Et elle arracha le casque de la t\u00eate d'Ar\u00e8s, et le\nbouclier de ses \u00e9paules et la lance d'airain de sa main robuste,\net elle r\u00e9primanda l'imp\u00e9tueux Ar\u00e8s:\n\n-- Insens\u00e9! tu perds l'esprit et tu vas p\u00e9rir. As-tu des oreilles\npour ne point entendre? N'as-tu plus ni intelligence, ni pudeur?\nN'as-tu point \u00e9cout\u00e9 les paroles de la d\u00e9esse H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux bras blancs\nque Zeus a envoy\u00e9e dans l'Olympos? Veux-tu, toi-m\u00eame, frapp\u00e9 de\nmille maux, revenir, accabl\u00e9 et g\u00e9missant, apr\u00e8s avoir attir\u00e9 des\ncalamit\u00e9s sur les autres dieux? Zeus laissera aussit\u00f4t les Troiens\net les Akhaiens magnanimes, et il viendra nous pr\u00e9cipiter de\nl'Olympos, innocents ou coupables. Je t'ordonne d'apaiser la\ncol\u00e8re du meurtre de ton fils. D\u00e9j\u00e0 de plus braves et de plus\nvigoureux que lui sont morts, ou seront tu\u00e9s. Il est difficile de\nsauver de la mort les g\u00e9n\u00e9rations des hommes.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, elle fit asseoir l'imp\u00e9tueux Ar\u00e8s sur son\ntr\u00f4ne. Puis, H\u00e8r\u00e8 appela, hors de l'Olympos, Apoll\u00f4n et Iris, qui\nest la messag\u00e8re de tous les dieux immortels, et elle leur dit en\nparoles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Zeus vous ordonne de venir promptement sur l'Ida, et, quand\nvous l'aurez vu, faites ce qu'il vous ordonnera.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable H\u00e8r\u00e8 rentra et s'assit sur son\ntr\u00f4ne. Et les deux immortels s'envol\u00e8rent \u00e0 la h\u00e2te, et ils\narriv\u00e8rent sur l'Ida o\u00f9 naissent les sources et les b\u00eates fauves.\nEt ils virent Zeus au large regard assis sur le fa\u00eete du Gargaros,\net il s'\u00e9tait envelopp\u00e9 d'une nu\u00e9e parfum\u00e9e. Et ils s'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent\ndevant Zeus qui amasse les nu\u00e9es. Et, satisfait, dans son esprit,\nqu'ils eussent ob\u00e9i promptement aux ordres de l'\u00e9pouse bien-aim\u00e9e,\nil dit d'abord en paroles ail\u00e9es \u00e0 Iris:\n\n-- Va! rapide Iris, parle au roi Poseida\u00f4n, et sois une messag\u00e8re\nfid\u00e8le. Dis-lui qu'il se retire de la m\u00eal\u00e9e, et qu'il reste, soit\ndans l'assembl\u00e9e des dieux, soit dans la mer divine. Mais s'il\nn'ob\u00e9issait pas \u00e0 mes ordres et s'il les m\u00e9prisait, qu'il d\u00e9lib\u00e8re\net r\u00e9fl\u00e9chisse dans son esprit. Malgr\u00e9 sa vigueur, il ne pourra\nsoutenir mon attaque, car mes forces surpassent de beaucoup les\nsiennes, et je suis l'a\u00een\u00e9. Qu'il craigne donc de se croire l'\u00e9gal\nde celui que tous les autres dieux redoutent.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et la rapide Iris aux pieds a\u00e9riens descendit du\nfa\u00eete des cimes Idaiennes, vers la sainte Ilios. Comme la neige\nvole du milieu des nu\u00e9es, ou la gr\u00eale chass\u00e9e par le souffle\nimp\u00e9tueux de Bor\u00e9as, ainsi volait la rapide Iris; et, s'arr\u00eatant\ndevant lui, elle dit \u00e0 l'illustre qui \u00e9branle la terre:\n\n-- Poseida\u00f4n aux cheveux bleus, je suis envoy\u00e9e par Zeus\ntemp\u00e9tueux. Il te commande de te retirer de la m\u00eal\u00e9e et de rester,\nsoit dans l'assembl\u00e9e des dieux, soit dans la mer divine. Si tu\nn'ob\u00e9issais pas \u00e0 ses ordres, et si tu les m\u00e9prisais, il te menace\nde venir te combattre, et il te conseille d'\u00e9viter son bras, car\nses forces sont de beaucoup sup\u00e9rieures aux tiennes, et il est\nl'a\u00een\u00e9. Il t'avertit de ne point te croire l'\u00e9gal de celui que\ntous les dieux redoutent.\n\nEt l'illustre qui \u00e9branle la terre, indign\u00e9, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ah! certes, bien qu'il soit grand, il parle avec orgueil, s'il\nveut me r\u00e9duire par la force, moi, son \u00e9gal. Nous sommes trois\nfr\u00e8res n\u00e9s de Kronos, et qu'enfanta Rh\u00e9i\u00e8: Zeus, moi et Aid\u00e8s qui\ncommande aux ombres. On fit trois parts du monde, et chacun de\nnous re\u00e7ut la sienne. Et le sort d\u00e9cida que j'habiterais toujours\nla blanche mer, et Aid\u00e8s eut les noires t\u00e9n\u00e8bres, et Zeus eut le\nlarge Ouranos, dans les nu\u00e9es et dans l'aith\u00e8r. Mais le haut\nOlympos et la terre furent communs \u00e0 tous. C'est pourquoi je ne\nferai point la volont\u00e9 de Zeus, bien qu'il soit puissant. Qu'il\ngarde tranquillement sa part; il ne m'\u00e9pouvantera pas comme un\nl\u00e2che. Qu'il menace \u00e0 son gr\u00e9 les fils et les filles qu'il a\nengendr\u00e9s, puisque la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 les contraint de lui ob\u00e9ir.\n\nEt la rapide Iris aux pieds a\u00e9riens lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Poseida\u00f4n aux cheveux bleus, me faut-il rapporter \u00e0 Zeus cette\nparole dure et hautaine? Ne changeras-tu point? L'esprit des sages\nn'est point inflexible, et tu sais que les \u00c9rinnyes suivent les\na\u00een\u00e9s.\n\nEt Poseida\u00f4n qui \u00e9branle la terre lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- D\u00e9esse Iris, tu as bien parl\u00e9. Il est bon qu'un messager\nposs\u00e8de la prudence; mais une am\u00e8re douleur emplit mon esprit et\nmon coeur quand Zeus veut, par des paroles violentes, r\u00e9duire son\n\u00e9gal en honneurs et en droits. Je c\u00e9derai, quoique indign\u00e9; mais\nje te le dis, et je le menacerai de ceci: Si, malgr\u00e9 nous, -- moi,\nla d\u00e9vastatrice Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, H\u00e8r\u00e8, Herm\u00e8s et le roi H\u00e8phaistos, -- il\n\u00e9pargne la haute Ilios et refuse de la d\u00e9truire et de donner la\nvictoire aux Argiens, qu'il sache que notre haine sera inexorable.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il laissa le peuple des Akhaiens et rentra dans\nla mer. Et les h\u00e9ros Akhaiens le regrettaient. Et alors Zeus qui\namasse les nu\u00e9es dit \u00e0 Apoll\u00f4n:\n\n-- Va maintenant, cher Phoibos, vers Hekt\u00f4r arm\u00e9 d'airain, car\nvoici que celui qui \u00e9branle la terre est rentr\u00e9 dans la mer,\nfuyant ma fureur. Certes, ils auraient entendu un combat terrible\nles dieux souterrains qui vivent autour de Kronos; mais il vaut\nmieux pour tous deux que, malgr\u00e9 sa col\u00e8re, il ait \u00e9vit\u00e9 mes\nmains, car cette lutte aurait fait couler de grandes sueurs. Mais\ntoi, prends l'aigide aux franges d'or, afin d'\u00e9pouvanter, en la\nsecouant, les h\u00e9ros Akhaiens. Archer, prends soin de l'illustre\nHekt\u00f4r et remplis-le d'une grande force, pour qu'il chasse les\nAkhaiens jusqu'aux nefs et jusqu'au Hellespontos; et je songerai\nalors comment je permettrai aux Akhaiens de respirer.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Apoll\u00f4n se h\u00e2ta d'ob\u00e9ir \u00e0 son p\u00e8re. Et il\ndescendit du fa\u00eete de l'Ida, semblable \u00e0 un \u00e9pervier tueur de\ncolombes, et le plus imp\u00e9tueux des oiseaux. Et il trouva le divin\nHekt\u00f4r, le fils du sage Priamos, non plus couch\u00e9, mais assis, et\nse ranimant, et reconnaissant ses compagnons autour de lui. Et le\nr\u00e2le et la sueur avaient disparu par la seule pens\u00e9e de Zeus\ntemp\u00e9tueux. Et Apoll\u00f4n s'approcha et lui dit:\n\n-- Hekt\u00f4r, fils de Priamos, pourquoi rester assis, sans forces,\nloin des tiens? Es-tu la proie de quelque douleur?\n\nEt Hekt\u00f4r au casque mouvant lui r\u00e9pondit d'une voix faible:\n\n-- Qui es-tu, \u00f4 le meilleur des dieux, qui m'interroges ainsi? Ne\nsais-tu pas qu'aupr\u00e8s des nefs Akhaiennes, tandis que je tuais ses\ncompagnons, le brave Aias m'a frapp\u00e9 d'un rocher dans la poitrine\net a rompu mes forces et mon courage?\n\nCertes, j'ai cru voir aujourd'hui les morts et la demeure d'Aid\u00e8s,\nen rendant ma ch\u00e8re \u00e2me.\n\nEt le royal archer Apoll\u00f4n lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Prends courage! Du haut de l'Ida, le Kroni\u00f4n a envoy\u00e9 pour te\nsecourir Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n \u00e0 l'\u00e9p\u00e9e d'or. Toi et ta haute citadelle,\nje vous ai prot\u00e9g\u00e9s et je vous prot\u00e8ge toujours. Viens! excite les\ncavaliers \u00e0 pousser leurs chevaux rapides vers les nefs creuses,\net j'irai devant toi, et j'aplanirai la voie aux chevaux, et je\nmettrai en fuite les h\u00e9ros Akhaiens.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il remplit le prince des peuples d'une grande\nforce. Comme un \u00e9talon, longtemps retenu \u00e0 la cr\u00e8che et nourri\nd'orge abondante, qui rompt son lien, et qui court, frappant la\nterre de ses quatre pieds, se plonger dans le fleuve clair, et\nqui, la t\u00eate haute, secouant ses crins sur ses \u00e9paules, fier de sa\nbeaut\u00e9, bondit ais\u00e9ment jusqu'aux lieux accoutum\u00e9s o\u00f9 paissent les\ncavales; de m\u00eame Hekt\u00f4r, \u00e0 la voix du dieu, courait de ses pieds\nrapides, excitant les cavaliers. Comme des chiens et des\ncampagnards qui poursuivent un cerf rameux, ou une ch\u00e8vre sauvage\nqui se d\u00e9robe sous une roche creuse ou dans la for\u00eat sombre, et\nqu'ils ne peuvent atteindre, quand un lion \u00e0 longue barbe,\nsurvenant tout \u00e0 coup \u00e0 leurs cris, les disperse aussit\u00f4t malgr\u00e9\nleur imp\u00e9tuosit\u00e9, de m\u00eame les Danaens, poursuivant l'ennemi de\nleurs lances \u00e0 deux pointes, s'\u00e9pouvant\u00e8rent en voyant Hekt\u00f4r\nparcourir les lignes Troiennes, et leur \u00e2me tomba \u00e0 leurs pieds.\n\nEt Thoas Andraimonide les excitait. Et c'\u00e9tait le meilleur\nguerrier Ait\u00f4lien, habile au combat de la lance et ferme dans la\nm\u00eal\u00e9e. Et peu d'Akhaiens l'emportaient sur lui dans l'agora. Et il\ns'\u00e9cria:\n\n-- Ah! certes, je vois de mes yeux un grand prodige. Voici le\nPriamide \u00e9chapp\u00e9 \u00e0 la mort. Chacun de nous esp\u00e9rait qu'il avait\np\u00e9ri par les mains d'Aias T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien; mais sans doute un dieu l'a\nsauv\u00e9 de nouveau, lui qui a rompu les genoux de tant de Danaens,\net qui va en rompre encore, car ce n'est point sans l'aide de Zeus\ntonnant qu'il revient furieux au combat. Mais, allons! et ob\u00e9issez\ntous. Que la multitude retourne aux nefs, et tenons ferme, nous\nqui sommes les plus braves de l'arm\u00e9e. Tendons vers lui nos\ngrandes lances, et je ne pense pas qu'il puisse, malgr\u00e9 ses\nforces, enfoncer les lignes des Danaens.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous l'entendirent et ob\u00e9irent. Et autour de\nlui \u00e9taient les Aias et le roi Idom\u00e9neus, et Teukros et M\u00e8rion\u00e8s,\net M\u00e9g\u00e8s semblable \u00e0 Ar\u00e8s; et ils se pr\u00e9paraient au combat,\nr\u00e9unissant les plus braves, contre Hekt\u00f4r et les Troiens. Et,\nderri\u00e8re eux, la multitude retournait vers les nefs des Akhaiens.\n\nEt les Troiens frapp\u00e8rent les premiers. Hekt\u00f4r les pr\u00e9c\u00e9dait,\naccompagn\u00e9 de Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n, les \u00e9paules couvertes d'une nu\u00e9e et\ntenant l'aigide terrible, aux longues franges, que le forgeron\nH\u00e8phaistos donna \u00e0 Zeus pour \u00e9pouvanter les hommes. Et, tenant\nl'aigide en main, il menait les Troiens. Et les Argiens les\nattendaient de pied ferme, et une clameur s'\u00e9leva des deux c\u00f4t\u00e9s.\nLes fl\u00e8ches jaillissaient des nerfs et les lances des mains\nrobustes; et les unes p\u00e9n\u00e9traient dans la chair des jeunes hommes,\net les autres entraient en terre, avides de sang, mais sans avoir\nperc\u00e9 le beau corps des combattants.\n\nAussi longtemps que Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n tint l'aigide immobile en ses\nmains, les traits perc\u00e8rent des deux c\u00f4t\u00e9s, et les guerriers\ntomb\u00e8rent; mais quand il la secoua devant la face des cavaliers\nDanaens, en poussant des cris terribles, leur coeur se troubla\ndans leurs poitrines, et ils oubli\u00e8rent leur force et leur\ncourage.\n\nComme un troupeau de boeufs, ou un grand troupeau de brebis, que\ndeux b\u00eates f\u00e9roces, au milieu de la nuit, bouleversent\nsoudainement, en l'absence de leur gardien, de m\u00eame les Akhaiens\nfurent saisis de terreur, et Apoll\u00f4n les mit en fuite et donna la\nvictoire \u00e0 Hekt\u00f4r et aux Troiens. Alors, dans cette fuite, chaque\nhomme tua un autre homme. Hekt\u00f4r tua Stikhios et Ark\u00e9silaos, l'un,\nchef des Boi\u00f4tiens aux tuniques d'airain, l'autre, fid\u00e8le\ncompagnon du magnanime M\u00e9n\u00e8stheus. Et Ain\u00e9ias tua M\u00e9d\u00f4n et Iasos.\nEt M\u00e9d\u00f4n \u00e9tait b\u00e2tard du divin Oileus et fr\u00e8re d'Aias; mais il\nhabitait Phylak\u00e8, loin de sa patrie, ayant tu\u00e9 le fr\u00e8re de sa\nbelle-m\u00e8re \u00c9riopis, femme d'Oileus. Et Iasos \u00e9tait un chef\nAth\u00e8naien et fils de Sph\u00e8los Boukolide.\n\nEt Polydamas tua M\u00e8kistheus, et Polit\u00e8s tua Ekhios qui combattait\naux premiers rangs. Et le divin Ag\u00e8n\u00f4r tua Kl\u00f4nios, et P\u00e2ris\nfrappa au sommet de l'\u00e9paule, par derri\u00e8re, D\u00e8iokhos qui fuyait,\net l'airain le traversa.\n\nTandis que les vainqueurs d\u00e9pouillaient les cadavres de leurs\narmes, les Akhaiens franchissaient les pieux, dans le foss\u00e9, et\nfuyaient \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0, derri\u00e8re la muraille, contraints par la\nn\u00e9cessit\u00e9. Mais Hekt\u00f4r commanda \u00e0 haute voix aux Troiens de se\nruer sur les nefs et de laisser l\u00e0 les d\u00e9pouilles sanglantes:\n\n-- Celui que je verrai loin des nefs, je lui donnerai la mort. Ni\nses fr\u00e8res, ni ses soeurs ne mettront son corps sur le b\u00fbcher, et\nles chiens le d\u00e9chireront devant notre ville.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il poussa les chevaux du fouet, en entra\u00eenant\nles Troiens, et tous, avec des cris mena\u00e7ants et une clameur\nimmense, ils poussaient leurs chars en avant. Et Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n\njeta facilement du pied les bords du foss\u00e9 dans le milieu, et, le\ncomblant, le fit aussi large que l'espace parcouru par le trait\nque lance un guerrier vigoureux. Et tous s'y jet\u00e8rent en foule, et\nApoll\u00f4n, les pr\u00e9c\u00e9dant avec l'aigide \u00e9clatante, renversa le mur\ndes Akhaiens aussi ais\u00e9ment qu'un enfant renverse, aupr\u00e8s de la\nmer, les petits monceaux de sable qu'il a amass\u00e9s et qu'il\ndisperse en se jouant. Ainsi, archer Apoll\u00f4n, tu dispersas\nl'oeuvre qui avait co\u00fbt\u00e9 tant de peines et de mis\u00e8res aux Argiens,\net tu les mis en fuite.\n\nEt ils s'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent aupr\u00e8s des nefs, s'exhortant les uns les\nautres; et, les mains \u00e9tendues vers les dieux, ils les\nimploraient. Et le G\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r, rempart des Akhaiens, priait,\nles bras lev\u00e9s vers l'Ouranos \u00e9toil\u00e9:\n\n-- P\u00e8re Zeus! si jamais, dans la fertile Argos, br\u00fblant pour toi\nles cuisses grasses des boeufs et des brebis, nous t'avons suppli\u00e9\nde nous accorder le retour, et si tu l'as promis d'un signe de ta\nt\u00eate, souviens-toi, \u00f4 Olympien! \u00c9loigne notre jour supr\u00eame, et ne\npermets pas que les Akhaiens soient dompt\u00e9s par les Troiens.\n\nIl parla ainsi en priant, et le sage Zeus entendit la pri\u00e8re du\nvieux N\u00e8l\u00e8iade et tonna. Et, au bruit du tonnerre, les Troiens,\ncroyant comprendre la pens\u00e9e de Zeus temp\u00eatueux, se ru\u00e8rent plus\nfurieux sur les Argiens. Comme les grandes lames de la haute mer\nassi\u00e8gent les flancs d'une nef, pouss\u00e9es par la violence du vent,\ncar c'est elle qui gonfle les eaux; de m\u00eame les Troiens\nescaladaient le mur avec de grandes clameurs; et ils poussaient\nleurs chevaux et combattaient devant les nefs \u00e0 coups de lances\naigu\u00ebs; et les Akhaiens, du haut de leurs nefs noires, les\nrepoussaient avec ces longs pieux, couch\u00e9s dans les nefs, et qui,\ncercl\u00e9s d'airain, servent dans le combat naval.\n\nTant que les Akhaiens et les Troiens combattirent au-del\u00e0 du mur,\nloin des nefs rapides, Patroklos, assis sous la tente de\nl'irr\u00e9prochable Eurypylos, le charma par ses paroles et baigna sa\nblessure de baumes qui gu\u00e9rissent les douleurs am\u00e8res; mais quand\nil vit que les Troiens avaient franchi le mur, et que les Akhaiens\nfuyaient avec des cris, il g\u00e9mit, et frappa ses cuisses de ses\nmains, et il dit en pleurant:\n\n-- Eurypylos, je ne puis rester plus longtemps, bien que tu\nsouffres, car voici une m\u00eal\u00e9e supr\u00eame. Qu'un de tes compagnons te\nsoigne; il faut que je retourne vers Akhilleus et que je l'exhorte\n\u00e0 combattre. Qui sait si, un dieu m'aidant, je ne toucherai point\nson \u00e2me? Le conseil d'un ami est excellent.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il s'\u00e9loigna.\n\nCependant les Akhaiens soutenaient l'assaut des Troiens. Et ceux-\nci ne pouvaient rompre les phalanges des Danaens et envahir les\ntentes et les nefs, et ceux-l\u00e0 ne pouvaient repousser l'ennemi\nloin des nefs. Comme le bois dont on construit une nef est mis de\nniveau par un habile ouvrier \u00e0 qui Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 a enseign\u00e9 toute sa\nscience, de m\u00eame le combat \u00e9tait partout \u00e9gal autour des nefs.\n\nEt le Priamide attaqua l'illustre Aias. Et tous deux soutenaient\nle travail du combat autour des nefs, et l'un ne pouvait \u00e9loigner\nl'autre pour incendier les nefs, et l'autre ne pouvait repousser\nle premier que soutenait un dieu. Et l'illustre Aias frappa de sa\nlance Kal\u00e8t\u00f4r, fils de Klytios, comme celui-ci portait le feu sur\nles nefs; et Kal\u00e8t\u00f4r tomba renvers\u00e9, laissant \u00e9chapper la torche\nde ses mains. Et quand Hekt\u00f4r vit son parent tomber dans la\npoussi\u00e8re devant la nef noire, il cria aux Troiens et aux Lykiens:\n\n-- Troiens, Lykiens et Dardaniens belliqueux, n'abandonnez point\nle combat \u00e9troitement engag\u00e9, mais enlevez le fils de Klytios, et\nque les Akhaiens ne le d\u00e9pouillent point de ses armes.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et lan\u00e7a sa pique \u00e9clatante contre Aias, mais il\nle manqua, et il atteignit Lykoph\u00f4n, fils de Mast\u00f4r, compagnon\nd'Aias, et qui habitait avec celui-ci, depuis qu'il avait tu\u00e9 un\nhomme dans la divine Kyth\u00e8r\u00e8. Et le Priamide le frappa de sa lance\naigu\u00eb au-dessus de l'oreille, aupr\u00e8s d'Aias, et Lykoph\u00f4n tomba du\nhaut de la poupe sur la poussi\u00e8re, et ses forces furent dissoutes.\nEt Aias, fr\u00e9missant, appela son fr\u00e8re:\n\n-- Ami Teukros, notre fid\u00e8le compagnon est mort, lui qui, loin de\nKyth\u00e8r\u00e8, vivait aupr\u00e8s de nous et que nous honorions autant que\nnos parents bien-aim\u00e9s. Le magnanime Hekt\u00f4r l'a tu\u00e9. O\u00f9 sont tes\nfl\u00e8ches mortelles et l'arc que t'a donn\u00e9 Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n?\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Teukros l'entendit, et il accourut, tenant en\nmain son arc recourb\u00e9 et le carquois plein de fl\u00e8ches. Et il lan\u00e7a\nses fl\u00e8ches aux Troiens. Et il frappa Kl\u00e9itos, fils de Peis\u00e8n\u00f4r,\ncompagnon de l'illustre Panthoide Polydamas, dont il conduisait le\nchar et les chevaux \u00e0 travers les phalanges boulevers\u00e9es, afin de\nplaire \u00e0 Hekt\u00f4r et aux Troiens. Mais le malheur l'accabla sans que\nnul p\u00fbt le secourir; et la fl\u00e8che fatale entra derri\u00e8re le cou, et\nil tomba du char, et les chevaux recul\u00e8rent, secouant le char\nvide.\n\nEt le prince Polydamas, l'ayant vu, accourut promptement aux\nchevaux et les confia \u00e0 Astynoos, fils de Protia\u00f4n, lui\nrecommandant de les tenir pr\u00e8s de lui. Et il se m\u00eala de nouveau\naux combattants.\n\nEt Teukros lan\u00e7a une fl\u00e8che contre Hekt\u00f4r, et il l'e\u00fbt retranch\u00e9\ndu combat, aupr\u00e8s des nefs des Akhaiens, s'il l'avait atteint, et\nlui e\u00fbt arrach\u00e9 l'\u00e2me; mais il ne put \u00e9chapper au regard du sage\nZeus qui veillait sur Hekt\u00f4r. Et Zeus priva de cette gloire le\nT\u00e9lam\u00f4nien Teukros, car il rompit le nerf bien tendu, comme\nTeukros tendait l'arc excellent. Et la fl\u00e8che \u00e0 pointe d'airain\ns'\u00e9gara, et l'arc tomba des mains de l'archer. Et Teukros fr\u00e9mit\net dit \u00e0 son fr\u00e8re:\n\n-- Ah! certes, quelque dieu nous traverse dans le combat. Il m'a\narrach\u00e9 l'arc des mains et rompu le nerf tout neuf que j'y avais\nattach\u00e9 moi-m\u00eame ce matin, afin qu'il p\u00fbt lancer beaucoup de\nfl\u00e8ches.\n\nEt le grand T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien Aias lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 ami, laisse ton arc et tes fl\u00e8ches, puisqu'un dieu jaloux des\nDanaens disperse tes traits. Prends une longue lance, mets un\nbouclier sur tes \u00e9paules et combats les Troiens en excitant les\ntroupes. Que ce ne soit pas du moins sans peine qu'ils se rendent\nma\u00eetres de nos nefs bien construites. Mais souvenons-nous de\ncombattre.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Teukros, d\u00e9posant son arc dans sa tente, saisit\nune solide lance \u00e0 pointe d'airain, mit un bouclier \u00e0 quatre lames\nsur ses \u00e9paules, un excellent casque \u00e0 crini\u00e8re sur sa t\u00eate, et se\nh\u00e2ta de revenir aupr\u00e8s d'Aias. Mais quand Hekt\u00f4r eut vu que les\nfl\u00e8ches de Teukros lui \u00e9taient devenues inutiles, il cria \u00e0 haute\nvoix aux Troiens et aux Lykiens:\n\n-- Troiens, Lykiens et belliqueux Dardaniens, soyez des hommes, et\nsouvenez-vous de votre force et de votre courage aupr\u00e8s des nefs\ncreuses! Je vois de mes yeux les fl\u00e8ches d'un brave archer bris\u00e9es\npar Zeus. Il est facile de comprendre \u00e0 qui le puissant Kroni\u00f4n\naccorde ou refuse son aide, qui il menace et qui il veut couvrir\nde gloire. Maintenant, il brise les forces des Akhaiens et il nous\nprot\u00e8ge. Combattez fermement autour des nefs. Si l'un de vous est\nbless\u00e9 et meurt, qu'il meure sans regrets, car il est glorieux de\nmourir pour la patrie, car il sauvera sa femme, ses enfants et\ntout son patrimoine, si les Akhaiens retournent, sur leurs nefs,\ndans la ch\u00e8re terre de leurs a\u00efeux.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il excita la force et le courage de chacun. Et\nAias, de son c\u00f4t\u00e9, exhortait ses compagnons:\n\n-- \u00d4 honte! c'est maintenant, Argiens, qu'il faut p\u00e9rir ou sauver\nles nefs. Esp\u00e9rez-vous, si Hekt\u00f4r au casque mouvant se saisit de\nvos nefs, retourner \u00e0 pied dans la patrie? Ne l'entendez-vous\npoint exciter ses guerriers, ce Hekt\u00f4r qui veut br\u00fbler nos nefs?\nCe n'est point aux danses qu'il les pousse, mais au combat. Le\nmieux est de leur opposer nos bras et notre vigueur. Il faut\nmourir promptement ou vivre, au lieu de nous consumer dans un\ncombat sans fin contre des hommes qui ne nous valent pas.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il ranima le courage de chacun. Alors Hekt\u00f4r\ntua Skh\u00e9dios, fils de P\u00e9rim\u00e8d\u00e8s, chef des Ph\u00f4k\u00e8ens; et Aias tua\nLaodamas, chef des hommes de pied, fils illustre d'Ant\u00e8n\u00f4r. Et\nPolydamas tua Otos le Kyll\u00e9nien, compagnon du Phyl\u00e9ide, chef des\nmagnanimes \u00c9p\u00e9iens. Et M\u00e9g\u00e8s, l'ayant vu, s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a sur Polydamas;\nmais celui-ci, s'\u00e9tant courb\u00e9, \u00e9chappa au coup de la pique, car\nApoll\u00f4n ne permit pas que le Panthoide tomb\u00e2t parmi les\ncombattants; et la pique de M\u00e9g\u00e8s per\u00e7a la poitrine de Kreismos\nqui tomba avec bruit. Et comme le Phyl\u00e9ide lui arrachait ses\narmes, le brave Dolops Lamp\u00e9tide se jeta sur lui, Dolops\nqu'engendra le Laom\u00e9dontiade Lampos, le meilleur des hommes\nmortels. Et il per\u00e7a de sa lance le milieu du bouclier de M\u00e9g\u00e8s,\nmais son \u00e9paisse cuirasse pr\u00e9serva celui-ci. C'\u00e9tait la cuirasse\nque Phyleus apporta autrefois d'\u00c9phyr\u00e8, des bords du fleuve\nSell\u00e8is. Et son h\u00f4te, le roi des hommes, Euph\u00e8t\u00e8s, la lui avait\ndonn\u00e9e, pour la porter dans les m\u00eal\u00e9es comme un rempart contre\nl'ennemi. Et, maintenant, elle pr\u00e9serva son fils de la mort. Et\nM\u00e9g\u00e8s frappa de son \u00e9p\u00e9e le c\u00f4ne du casque d'airain \u00e0 crini\u00e8re de\ncheval, et l'aigrette rompue tomba dans la poussi\u00e8re, ayant \u00e9t\u00e9\nteinte r\u00e9cemment d'une couleur de pourpre. Et tandis que M\u00e9g\u00e8s\ncombattait encore et esp\u00e9rait la victoire, le brave M\u00e9n\u00e9laos\naccourut \u00e0 son aide, et, venant \u00e0 la d\u00e9rob\u00e9e, frappa l'\u00e9paule du\nTroien. Et la pointe d'airain traversa la poitrine, et le guerrier\ntomba sur la face.\n\nEt les deux Akhaiens s'\u00e9lan\u00e7aient pour le d\u00e9pouiller de ses armes\nd'airain; mais Hekt\u00f4r excita les parents de Dolops, et surtout il\nr\u00e9primanda le Hik\u00e9taonide, le brave M\u00e9nalippos, qui paissait,\navant la guerre, ses boeufs aux pieds flexibles dans Perk\u00f4t\u00e8, mais\nqui vint \u00e0 Ilios quand les nefs Danaennes aux doubles avirons\narriv\u00e8rent. Et il brillait parmi les Troiens, et il habitait\naupr\u00e8s de Priamos qui l'honorait \u00e0 l'\u00e9gal de ses fils. Et Hekt\u00f4r\nlui adressa ces paroles dures et s\u00e9v\u00e8res:\n\n-- Ainsi, M\u00e9nalippos, nous restons inertes. Ton parent mort ne\ntouche-t-il point ton coeur? Ne vois-tu pas qu'ils arrachent les\narmes de Dolops? Suis-moi. Ce n'est plus de loin qu'il faut\ncombattre les Argiens. Nous les tuerons, ou la haute Ilios sera\nprise et ils \u00e9gorgeront ses citoyens.\n\nEn parlant ainsi, il s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a, et M\u00e9nalippos le suivit, semblable\n\u00e0 un dieu. Et le grand T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien Aias exhortait les Akhaiens:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis! soyez des hommes. Ayez honte de fuir et faites face au\ncombat. Les braves sont plut\u00f4t sauv\u00e9s que tu\u00e9s, et les l\u00e2ches\nseuls n'ont ni gloire, ni salut.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et les Akhaiens retinrent ses paroles dans leur\nesprit, pr\u00eats \u00e0 s'entre-aider; et ils faisaient comme un mur\nd'airain autour des nefs; et Zeus excitait les Troiens contre eux.\nEt le brave M\u00e9n\u00e9laos anima ainsi Antilokhos:\n\n-- Antilokhos, nul d'entre les Akhaiens n'est plus jeune que toi,\nni plus rapide, ni plus brave au combat. Pl\u00fbt aux dieux que tu\npusses tuer quelque Troien!\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il le laissa excit\u00e9 par ces paroles. Et\nAntilokhos se jeta parmi les combattants et lan\u00e7a sa pique\n\u00e9clatante, et les Troiens recul\u00e8rent; mais la pique ne fut point\nlanc\u00e9e en vain, car elle per\u00e7a \u00e0 la poitrine, pr\u00e8s de la mamelle,\nM\u00e9nalippos, l'orgueilleux fils de Hik\u00e9ta\u00f4n. Et il tomba et ses\narmes sonn\u00e8rent. Et le brave Antilokhos se jeta sur lui, comme un\nchien sur un faon qu'un chasseur a perc\u00e9 tandis qu'il bondissait\nhors du g\u00eete. Ainsi, M\u00e9nalippos, le belliqueux Antilokhos sauta\nsur toi pour t'arracher tes armes; mais le divin Hekt\u00f4r, l'ayant\nvu, courut sur lui \u00e0 travers la m\u00eal\u00e9e. Et Antilokhos ne l'attendit\npas, quoique brave, et il prit la fuite, comme une b\u00eate fauve qui,\nayant tu\u00e9 un chien, ou le bouvier au milieu des boeufs, fuit avant\nque la foule des hommes la poursuive. Ainsi fuyait le Nest\u00f4ride.\nEt les Troiens et Hekt\u00f4r, avec de grands cris, l'accablaient de\ntraits violents; mais il leur fit face, arriv\u00e9 aupr\u00e8s de ses\ncompagnons.\n\nEt les Troiens, semblables \u00e0 des lions mangeurs de chair crue, se\nruaient sur les nefs, accomplissant ainsi les ordres de Zeus, car\nil leur inspirait la force et il troublait l'\u00e2me des Argiens,\nvoulant donner une grande gloire au Priamide Hekt\u00f4r, et le laisser\njeter la flamme ardente sur les nefs aux poupes recourb\u00e9es, afin\nd'exaucer la fatale pri\u00e8re de Th\u00e9tis. Et le sage Zeus attendait\nqu'il e\u00fbt vu le feu embraser une nef, et alors il repousserait les\nTroiens loin des nefs et rendrait la victoire aux Danaens. C'est\npourquoi il entra\u00eenait vers les nefs creuses le Priamide Hekt\u00f4r\nd\u00e9j\u00e0 plein d'ardeur, furieux, agitant sa lance comme Ar\u00e8s, ou\npareil \u00e0 un incendie terrible qui gronde sur les montagnes, dans\nl'\u00e9paisseur d'une for\u00eat profonde. Et la bouche de Hekt\u00f4r \u00e9cumait,\net ses yeux flambaient sous ses sourcils, et son casque s'agitait\nsur sa t\u00eate guerri\u00e8re.\n\nEt Zeus lui venait en aide, l'honorant et le glorifiant parmi les\nhommes, car sa vie devait \u00eatre br\u00e8ve, et voici que Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8\npr\u00e9parait le jour fatal o\u00f9 il tomberait sous la violence du\nP\u00e8l\u00e9ide.\n\nEt il tentait de rompre les lignes des guerriers, se ruant l\u00e0 o\u00f9\nil voyait la m\u00eal\u00e9e la plus press\u00e9e et les armes les plus belles.\nMais, malgr\u00e9 son d\u00e9sir, il ne pouvait rompre l'arm\u00e9e ennemie, car\ncelle-ci r\u00e9sistait comme une tour, ou comme une roche \u00e9norme et\nhaute qui, se dressant pr\u00e8s de la blanche mer, soutient le souffle\nrugissant des vents et le choc des grandes lames qui se brisent\ncontre elle. Ainsi les Danaens soutenaient fermement l'assaut des\nTroiens et ne fuyaient point, tandis que Hekt\u00f4r, \u00e9clatant comme le\nfeu, bondissait de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e.\n\nComme l'eau de la mer, enfl\u00e9e par les vents qui soufflent avec\nv\u00e9h\u00e9mence du milieu des nu\u00e9es, assi\u00e8ge une nef rapide et la couvre\ntout enti\u00e8re d'\u00e9cume, tandis que le vent fr\u00e9mit dans la voile et\nque les matelots sont \u00e9pouvant\u00e9s, parce que la mort est proche; de\nm\u00eame le coeur des Akhaiens se rompait dans leurs poitrines.\n\nOu, quand il arrive qu'un lion d\u00e9sastreux tombe au milieu des\nboeufs innombrables qui paissent dans un vaste mar\u00e9cage, de m\u00eame\nque le bouvier, ne sachant point combattre les b\u00eates fauves pour\nle salut de ses boeufs noirs, va tant\u00f4t \u00e0 un bout, tant\u00f4t \u00e0\nl'autre bout du troupeau, tandis que le lion bondit au milieu des\ng\u00e9nisses qui s'\u00e9pouvantent et en d\u00e9vore une; de m\u00eame les Akhaiens\n\u00e9taient boulevers\u00e9s par Hekt\u00f4r et par le p\u00e8re Zeus.\n\nCependant, le Priamide n'avait tu\u00e9 que le seul P\u00e9riph\u00e8t\u00e8s de\nMyk\u00e8n\u00e8, fils bien-aim\u00e9 de Kypreus, qui portait \u00e0 la force\nH\u00e8rakl\u00e9enne les ordres du roi Eurystheus. Il \u00e9tait n\u00e9 fils\nexcellent d'un p\u00e8re indigne, et, par toutes les vertus, par son\ncourage et par sa sagesse, il \u00e9tait le premier des Myk\u00e8naiens. Et\nil donna une grande gloire \u00e0 Hekt\u00f4r, car, en se retournant, il\nheurta le bord du grand bouclier qui le couvrait tout entier et le\npr\u00e9servait des traits; et, les pieds embarrass\u00e9s, il tomba en\narri\u00e8re, et, dans sa chute, son casque r\u00e9sonna autour de ses\ntempes. Alors, Hekt\u00f4r, l'ayant vu, accourut et lui per\u00e7a la\npoitrine d'un coup de lance, au milieu de ses compagnons qui\nn'os\u00e8rent le secourir, tant ils redoutaient le divin Hekt\u00f4r.\n\nEt les Argiens qui, d'abord, \u00e9taient devant les nefs, se\nr\u00e9fugiaient maintenant au milieu de celles qui, les premi\u00e8res,\navaient \u00e9t\u00e9 tir\u00e9es sur le sable. Puis, c\u00e9dant \u00e0 la force, ils\nabandonn\u00e8rent aussi les intervalles de celles-ci, mais, s'arr\u00eatant\ndevant les tentes, ils ne se dispers\u00e8rent point dans le camp, car\nla honte et la terreur les retenaient, et ils s'exhortaient les\nuns les autres.\n\nAlors, le G\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r, rempart des Akhaiens, attestant leurs\nparents, adjura chaque guerrier:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis, soyez des hommes! Craignez la honte en face des autres\nhommes. Souvenez-vous de vos fils, de vos femmes, de vos domaines,\nde vos parents qui vivent encore ou qui sont morts. Je vous adjure\nen leur nom de tenir ferme et de ne pas fuir.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il ranima leur force et leur courage. Alors,\nAth\u00e8n\u00e8 dissipa la nu\u00e9e \u00e9paisse qui couvrait leurs yeux, et la\nlumi\u00e8re se fit de toutes parts, autant sur les nefs que sur le\nchamp de bataille. Et ceux qui fuyaient, comme ceux qui luttaient,\net ceux qui combattaient aupr\u00e8s des nefs rapides, virent le brave\nHekt\u00f4r et ses compagnons.\n\nEt il ne plut point \u00e0 l'\u00e2me du magnanime Aias de rester o\u00f9 \u00e9taient\nles autres fils des Akhaiens. Et il s'avan\u00e7a, traversant les\npoupes des nefs et agitant un grand pieu cercl\u00e9 d'airain et long\nde vingt-deux coud\u00e9es. Comme un habile cavalier qui, ayant mis\nensemble quatre chevaux tr\u00e8s agiles, les pousse vers une grande\nville, sur le chemin public, et que les hommes et les femmes\nadmirent, tandis qu'il saute de l'un \u00e0 l'autre, et qu'ils courent\ntoujours; de m\u00eame Aias marchait rapidement sur les poupes des\nnefs, et sa voix montait dans l'Ouranos, tandis qu'il excitait par\nde grandes clameurs les Danaens \u00e0 sauver les tentes et les nefs.\n\nHekt\u00f4r, de son c\u00f4t\u00e9, ne restait point dans la foule des Troiens\nbien arm\u00e9s. Comme un aigle fauve qui tombe sur une multitude\nd'oiseaux, paissant le long d'un fleuve, oies, grues et cygnes aux\nlongs cous; de m\u00eame Hekt\u00f4r se pr\u00e9cipita sur une nef \u00e0 proue bleue.\nEt, de sa grande main, Zeus le poussait par derri\u00e8re, et tout son\npeuple avec lui. Et, de nouveau, une violente m\u00eal\u00e9e s'engagea\nautour des nefs. On e\u00fbt dit des hommes infatigables et indompt\u00e9s\nse ruant \u00e0 un premier combat, tant ils luttaient tous avec ardeur.\nEt les Akhaiens, n'esp\u00e9rant pas \u00e9chapper au carnage, se croyaient\ndestin\u00e9s \u00e0 la mort, et les Troiens esp\u00e9raient, dans leur coeur,\nbr\u00fbler les nefs et tuer les h\u00e9ros Akhaiens. Et ils se ruaient,\navec ces pens\u00e9es, les uns contre les autres.\n\nHekt\u00f4r saisit la poupe de la nef belle et rapide qui avait amen\u00e9\nPr\u00f4t\u00e9silaos \u00e0 Troi\u00e8 et qui n'avait point d\u00fb le ramener dans la\nterre de la patrie. Et les Akhaiens et les Troiens s'entre-tuaient\npour cette nef. Et l'imp\u00e9tuosit\u00e9 des fl\u00e8ches et des piques ne leur\nsuffisant plus, ils se frappaient, dans une m\u00eame pens\u00e9e, avec les\ndoubles haches tranchantes, les grandes \u00e9p\u00e9es et les lances\naigu\u00ebs. Et beaucoup de beaux glaives \u00e0 poign\u00e9e noire tombaient sur\nle sable des mains et des \u00e9paules des hommes qui combattaient, et\nla terre \u00e9tait tremp\u00e9e d'un sang noir. Mais Hekt\u00f4r saisissant de\nses mains les ornements de la poupe, et s'y attachant, cria aux\nTroiens:\n\n-- Apportez le feu, et poussez des clameurs en vous ruant! Zeus\nnous offre le jour de la vengeance en nous livrant ces nefs qui,\nvenues vers Ilios contre la volont\u00e9 des dieux, nous ont apport\u00e9\ntant de calamit\u00e9s, par la l\u00e2chet\u00e9 des vieillards qui me retenaient\net retenaient l'arm\u00e9e quand je voulais marcher et combattre ici.\nMais si le pr\u00e9voyant Zeus aveuglait alors notre esprit, maintenant\nc'est lui-m\u00eame qui nous excite et nous pousse!\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous se jet\u00e8rent avec plus de fureur sur les\nAkhaiens. Et Aias ne put soutenir plus longtemps l'assaut, car il\n\u00e9tait accabl\u00e9 de traits; et il recula, de peur de mourir, jusqu'au\nbanc des rameurs, long de sept pieds, et il abandonna la poupe de\nla nef. Mais, du banc o\u00f9 il \u00e9tait, il \u00e9loignait \u00e0 coups de lance\nchaque Troien qui apportait le feu infatigable. Et, avec\nd'horribles cris, il exhortait les Danaens:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis, h\u00e9ros Danaens, serviteurs d'Ar\u00e8s, soyez des hommes!\nSouvenez-vous de votre force et de votre courage. Pensez-vous\ntrouver derri\u00e8re vous d'autres d\u00e9fenseurs, ou une muraille plus\ninaccessible qui vous pr\u00e9serve de la mort? Nous n'avons point ici\nde ville ceinte de tours d'o\u00f9 nous puissions repousser l'ennemi et\nassurer notre salut. Mais nous sommes ici dans les plaines des\nTroiens bien arm\u00e9s, accul\u00e9s contre la mer, loin de la terre de la\npatrie, et notre salut est dans nos mains et non dans la lassitude\ndu combat.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, furieux, il traversait de sa lance aigu\u00eb\nchaque Troien qui apportait le feu sur les nefs creuses afin de\nplaire \u00e0 Hekt\u00f4r et de lui ob\u00e9ir. Et, ceux-l\u00e0, Aias les traversait\nde sa lance aigu\u00eb, et il en tua douze devant les nefs.\n\n\nChant 16\n\nEt ils combattaient ainsi pour les nefs bien construites. Et\nPatroklos se tenait devant le prince des peuples, Akhilleus,\nversant de chaudes larmes, comme une source d'eau noire qui flue\ndu haut d'un rocher. Et le divin Akhilleus en eut compassion, et\nil lui dit ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Pourquoi pleures-tu, Patroklos, comme une petite fille qui\ncourt apr\u00e8s sa m\u00e8re, saisit sa robe et la regarde en pleurant\njusqu'\u00e0 ce que celle-ci la prenne dans ses bras? Semblable \u00e0 cette\nenfant, \u00f4 Patroklos, tu verses des larmes abondantes. Quel message\nas-tu pour les Myrmidones ou pour moi? As-tu seul re\u00e7u quelque\nnouvelle de la Phthi\u00e8? On dit cependant que le fils d'Akt\u00f4r,\nM\u00e9noitios, et l'Aiakide P\u00e8leus vivent encore parmi les Myrmidones.\nCertes, nous serions accabl\u00e9s, s'ils \u00e9taient morts. Mais peut-\u00eatre\npleures-tu pour les Argiens qui p\u00e9rissent aupr\u00e8s des nefs creuses,\npar leur propre iniquit\u00e9? Parle, ne me cache rien afin que nous\nsachions tous deux.\n\nEt le cavalier Patroklos, avec un profond soupir, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 Akhilleus, fils de P\u00e8leus, le plus brave des Akhaiens, ne\nt'irrite point, car de grandes calamit\u00e9s accablent les Akhaiens.\nD\u00e9j\u00e0 les plus braves d'entre eux gisent dans les nefs, frapp\u00e9s et\nbless\u00e9s. Le robuste Tyd\u00e9ide Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s est bless\u00e9, et Odysseus\nillustre par sa lance, et Agamemn\u00f4n. Eurypylos a la cuisse perc\u00e9e\nd'une fl\u00e8che; et les m\u00e9decins les soignent et baignent leurs\nblessures avec des baumes. Mais toi, Akhilleus, tu es implacable!\n\u00d4 P\u00e8l\u00e8iade, dou\u00e9 d'un courage inutile, qu'une col\u00e8re telle que la\ntienne ne me saisisse jamais! \u00c0 qui viendras-tu d\u00e9sormais en aide,\nsi tu ne sauves pas les Argiens de cette ruine terrible? \u00d4\ninexorable! Le cavalier P\u00e8leus n'est point ton p\u00e8re, Th\u00e9tis ne t'a\npoint con\u00e7u. La mer bleue t'a enfant\u00e9 et ton \u00e2me est dure comme\nles hauts rochers. Si tu fuis l'accomplissement d'un oracle, et si\nta m\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable t'a averti de la part de Zeus, au moins envoie-\nmoi promptement \u00e0 la t\u00eate des Myrmidones, et que j'apporte une\nlueur de salut aux Danaens! Laisse-moi couvrir mes \u00e9paules de tes\narmes. Les Troiens reculeront, me prenant pour toi, et les fils\nbelliqueux des Akhaiens respireront, et nous chasserons\nfacilement, nouveaux combattants, ces hommes \u00e9cras\u00e9s de fatigue,\nloin des tentes et des nefs, vers leur ville.\n\nIl parla ainsi, suppliant, l'insens\u00e9! cherchant la mort et la k\u00e8r\nfatale. Et Akhilleus aux pieds rapides lui r\u00e9pondit en g\u00e9missant:\n\n-- Divin Patroklos, qu'as-tu dit? Je ne m'inqui\u00e8te d'aucun oracle,\net ma m\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable ne m'a rien annonc\u00e9 de la part de Zeus. Mais\nun noir chagrin est dans mon coeur et trouble mon esprit, depuis\nque cet homme, dont la puissance est la plus haute, m'a arrach\u00e9 ma\nr\u00e9compense, \u00e0 moi qui suis son \u00e9gal! Tel est le noir chagrin qui\nme ronge. Cette jeune femme que j'avais conquise par ma lance,\napr\u00e8s avoir renvers\u00e9 une ville aux fortes murailles, et que les\nfils des Akhaiens m'avaient donn\u00e9e en r\u00e9compense, le roi Atr\u00e9ide\nAgamemn\u00f4n me l'a arrach\u00e9e des mains, comme \u00e0 un vil vagabond! Mais\noublions le pass\u00e9. Sans doute je ne puis nourrir dans mon coeur\nune col\u00e8re \u00e9ternelle. J'avais r\u00e9solu de ne la d\u00e9poser que le jour\no\u00f9 les clameurs de la guerre parviendraient jusqu'\u00e0 mes nefs.\nCouvre donc tes \u00e9paules de mes armes illustres, et m\u00e8ne les braves\nMyrmidones au combat, puisqu'une noire nu\u00e9e de Troiens enveloppe\nles nefs. Voici que les Argiens sont accul\u00e9s contre le rivage de\nla mer, dans un espace tr\u00e8s-\u00e9troit, et toute la ville des Troiens\ns'est ru\u00e9e sur eux avec audace, car ils ne voient point le front\nde mon casque resplendir. Certes, dans leur fuite, ils empliraient\nles foss\u00e9s des champs de leurs cadavres, si le roi Agamemn\u00f4n ne\nm'avait point outrag\u00e9; et maintenant ils assi\u00e8gent le camp. La\nlance furieuse du Tyd\u00e9ide Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s ne s'agite plus dans ses mains\npour sauver les Danaens de la mort, et je n'entends plus la voix\nde l'Atr\u00e9ide sortir de sa t\u00eate d\u00e9test\u00e9e, mais celle du tueur\nd'hommes Hekt\u00f4r, qui excite les Troiens de toutes parts. Et la\nclameur de ceux-ci remplit toute la plaine, et ils bouleversent\nles Akhaiens. Va, Patroklos, rue-toi sur eux, et repousse cette\nruine loin des nefs. Ne les laisse pas d\u00e9truire les nefs par le\nfeu ardent, et que le doux retour ne nous soit pas ravi. Mais\ngarde mes paroles dans ton esprit, si tu veux que je sois honor\u00e9\net glorifi\u00e9 par tous les Danaens, et qu'ils me rendent cette belle\njeune femme et un grand nombre de pr\u00e9sents splendides, par\nsurcro\u00eet. Repousse les Troiens loin des nefs et reviens. Si\nl'\u00c9poux de H\u00e8r\u00e8, qui tonne au loin, te donne la victoire, ne\ndompte pas sans moi les Troiens belliqueux; car tu me couvrirais\nde honte, si, les ayant vaincus, et plein de l'orgueil et de\nl'ivresse du combat, tu menais l'arm\u00e9e \u00e0 Ilios. Crains qu'un des\ndieux \u00e9ternels ne se rue sur toi du haut de l'Olympos, surtout\nl'archer Apoll\u00f4n qui prot\u00e8ge les Troiens. Reviens apr\u00e8s avoir\nsauv\u00e9 les nefs, et laisse-les combattre dans la plaine. Qu'il vous\nplaise, \u00f4 p\u00e8re Zeus, \u00f4 Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, \u00f4 Apoll\u00f4n, que nul d'entre les\nTroiens et les Akhaiens n'\u00e9vite la mort, et que, seuls, nous\nsurvivions tous deux et renversions les murailles sacr\u00e9es d'Ilios!\n\nEt ils se parlaient ainsi. Mais Aias ne suffisait plus au combat,\ntant il \u00e9tait accabl\u00e9 de traits. Et l'esprit de Zeus et les\nTroiens illustres l'emportaient sur lui; et son casque splendide,\ndont les aigrettes \u00e9taient rompues par les coups, sonnait autour\nde ses tempes, et son \u00e9paule fatigu\u00e9e ne pouvait plus soutenir le\npoids du bouclier. Et cependant, malgr\u00e9 la nu\u00e9e des traits, ils ne\npouvaient l'\u00e9branler, bien que respirant \u00e0 peine, inond\u00e9 de la\nsueur de tous ses membres, et haletant sous des maux multipli\u00e9s.\n\nEt Hekt\u00f4r frappa de sa grande \u00e9p\u00e9e la lance de fr\u00eane d'Aias, et il\nla coupa l\u00e0 o\u00f9 la pointe se joignait au bois; et le T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien\nAias n'agita plus dans sa main qu'une lance mutil\u00e9e, car la pointe\nd'airain, en tombant, sonna contre terre. Et Aias, dans son coeur\nirr\u00e9prochable, reconnut avec horreur l'oeuvre des dieux, et vit\nque Zeus qui tonne dans les hauteurs, domptant son courage,\ndonnait la victoire aux Troiens. Et il se retira loin des traits,\net les Troiens jet\u00e8rent le feu infatigable sur la nef rapide, et\nla flamme inextinguible enveloppa aussit\u00f4t la poupe, et Akhilleus,\nfrappant ses cuisses, dit \u00e0 Patroklos:\n\n-- H\u00e2te-toi, divin Patroklos! Je vois le feu ardent sur les nefs.\nSi elles br\u00fblent, nous ne pourrons plus songer au retour. Rev\u00eats\npromptement mes armes, et j'assemblerai mon peuple.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Patroklos se couvrit de l'airain splendide. Il\nattacha de belles kn\u00e8mides \u00e0 ses jambes avec des agrafes d'argent;\nil mit sur sa poitrine la cuirasse \u00e9tincelante, aux mille reflets,\ndu rapide Akhilleus, et il suspendit \u00e0 ses \u00e9paules l'\u00e9p\u00e9e d'airain\naux clous d'argent. Puis, il prit le grand et solide bouclier, et\nil posa sur sa noble t\u00eate le casque magnifique \u00e0 la terrible\naigrette de crins, et de ses mains il saisit de fortes piques;\nmais il laissa la lance lourde, immense et solide, de\nl'irr\u00e9prochable Aiakide, la lance P\u00e8liade que Kheir\u00f4n avait\napport\u00e9e \u00e0 son p\u00e8re bien-aim\u00e9 des cimes du P\u00e8lios, afin d'\u00eatre la\nmort des h\u00e9ros. Et Patroklos ordonna \u00e0 Autom\u00e9d\u00f4n, qu'il honorait\nle plus apr\u00e8s Akhilleus, et qui lui \u00e9tait le plus fid\u00e8le dans le\ncombat, d'atteler les chevaux au char. Et c'est pourquoi Autom\u00e9d\u00f4n\nsoumit au joug les chevaux rapides, Xanthos et Balios, qui, tous\ndeux, volaient comme le vent, et que la Harpye Podarg\u00e8 avait\ncon\u00e7us de Z\u00e9phyros, lorsqu'elle paissait dans une prairie aux\nbords du fleuve Ok\u00e9anos. Et Autom\u00e9d\u00f4n lia au-del\u00e0 du timon\nl'irr\u00e9prochable P\u00e8dasos qu'Akhilleus avait amen\u00e9 de la ville\nsaccag\u00e9e de \u00ca\u00e9ti\u00f4n. Et P\u00e8dasos, bien que mortel, suivait les\nchevaux immortels.\n\nEt Akhilleus armait les Myrmidones sous leurs tentes. De m\u00eame que\ndes loups mangeurs de chair crue et pleins d'une grande force qui,\nd\u00e9vorant un grand cerf rameux qu'ils ont tu\u00e9 sur les montagnes,\nvont en troupe, la gueule rouge de sang et vomissant le sang,\nlaper de leurs langues l\u00e9g\u00e8res les eaux de la source noire, tandis\nque leur ventre s'enfle et que leur coeur est toujours intr\u00e9pide;\nde m\u00eame les chefs des Myrmidones se pressaient autour du brave\ncompagnon du rapide Aiakide. Et, au milieu d'eux, le belliqueux\nAkhilleus excitait les porteurs de boucliers et les chevaux.\n\nEt Akhilleus cher \u00e0 Zeus avait conduit \u00e0 Troi\u00e8 cinquante nefs\nrapides, et cinquante guerriers \u00e9taient assis sur les bancs de\nrameurs de chacune, et cinq chefs les commandaient sous ses\nordres.\n\nEt le premier chef \u00e9tait M\u00e9n\u00e8sthios \u00e0 la cuirasse \u00e9tincelante, aux\nmille reflets, fils du fleuve Sperkhios qui tombait de Zeus. Et la\nbelle Polydor\u00e8, fille de P\u00e8leus, femme mortelle \u00e9pouse d'un dieu,\nl'avait con\u00e7u de l'infatigable Sperkhios; mais B\u00f4ros, fils de\nP\u00e9ri\u00e8reus, l'ayant \u00e9pous\u00e9e en la dotant richement, passait pour\n\u00eatre le p\u00e8re de M\u00e9n\u00e8sthios.\n\nEt le deuxi\u00e8me chef \u00e9tait le brave Eud\u00f4ros, con\u00e7u en secret, et\nqu'avait enfant\u00e9 la belle Polym\u00e8l\u00e8, habile dans les danses, fille\nde Phylas. Et le tueur d'Argos l'aima, l'ayant vue dans un choeur\nde la tumultueuse Art\u00e9mis \u00e0 l'arc d'or. Et l'illustre Herm\u00e9ias,\nmontant aussit\u00f4t dans les combles de la demeure, coucha\nsecr\u00e8tement avec elle, et elle lui donna un fils illustre, l'agile\net brave Eud\u00f4ros. Et apr\u00e8s qu'Eil\u00e9ithya qui pr\u00e9side aux douloureux\nenfantements l'eut conduit \u00e0 la lumi\u00e8re, et qu'il eut vu la\nsplendeur de H\u00e9lios, le robuste Aktoride Ekh\u00e9khleus conduisit\nPolym\u00e8l\u00e8 dans ses demeures et lui fit mille dons nuptiaux. Et le\nvieux Phylas \u00e9leva et nourrit avec soin Eud\u00f4ros, comme s'il \u00e9tait\nson fils.\n\nEt le troisi\u00e8me chef \u00e9tait le brave Peisandros Maimalide qui\nexcellait au combat de la lance, parmi les Myrmidones, apr\u00e8s\nPatroklos.\n\nEt le quatri\u00e8me chef \u00e9tait le vieux cavalier Phoinix, et le\ncinqui\u00e8me \u00e9tait l'irr\u00e9prochable Akhim\u00e9d\u00f4n, fils de Laerkeus.\n\nEt Akhilleus, les ayant tous rang\u00e9s sous leurs chefs, leur dit en\nparoles s\u00e9v\u00e8res:\n\n-- Myrmidones, qu'aucun de vous n'oublie les menaces que, dans les\nnefs rapides, vous adressiez aux Troiens, durant les jours de ma\ncol\u00e8re, quand vous m'accusiez moi-m\u00eame, disant: -- \u00d4 dur fils de\nP\u00e8leus, sans doute une m\u00e8re farouche t'a nourri de fiel, toi qui\nretiens de force tes compagnons sur leurs nefs! Que nous\nretournions au moins dans nos demeures sur les nefs qui fendent la\nmer, puisqu'une col\u00e8re inexorable est entr\u00e9e dans ton coeur. --\nSouvent vous me parliez ainsi. Aujourd'hui, voici le grand combat\ndont vous \u00e9tiez avides. Que chacun de vous, avec un coeur solide,\nlutte donc contre les Troiens.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il excita la force et le courage de chacun, et\nils serr\u00e8rent leurs rangs. De m\u00eame qu'un homme fortifie de pierres\n\u00e9paisses le mur d'une haute maison qui soutiendra l'effort des\nvents, de m\u00eame les casques et les boucliers bomb\u00e9s se press\u00e8rent,\ntous se soutenant les uns les autres, boucliers contre boucliers,\ncasques \u00e0 crini\u00e8res \u00e9tincelantes contre casques, homme contre\nhomme. Et Patroklos et Autom\u00e9d\u00f4n, qui n'avaient qu'une \u00e2me, se\nmirent en t\u00eate des Myrmidones.\n\nMais Akhilleus entra sous sa tente, et souleva le couvercle d'un\ncoffre riche et bien fait, et plein de tuniques, de manteaux\nimp\u00e9n\u00e9trables au vent et de tapis velus. Et l\u00e0 se trouvait une\ncoupe d'un beau travail dans laquelle le vin ardent n'avait \u00e9t\u00e9\nvers\u00e9 que pour Akhilleus seul entre tous les hommes, et qui\nn'avait fait de libations qu'au p\u00e8re Zeus seul entre tous les\ndieux. Et, l'ayant retir\u00e9e du coffre, il la purifia avec du\nsoufre, puis il la lava avec de l'eau pure et claire, et il lava\nses mains aussi; et, puisant le vin ardent, faisant des libations\net regardant l'Ouranos, il pria debout au milieu de tous, et Zeus\nqui se r\u00e9jouit de la foudre l'entendit et le vit:\n\n-- Zeus! roi D\u00f4d\u00f4naien, P\u00e9lasgique, qui, habitant au loin,\ncommandes sur D\u00f4d\u00f4n\u00e8 envelopp\u00e9e par l'hiver, au milieu de tes\ndivinateurs, les Selles, qui ne se lavent point les pieds et\ndorment sur la terre, si tu as d\u00e9j\u00e0 exauc\u00e9 ma pri\u00e8re, et si, pour\nm'honorer, tu as rudement ch\u00e2ti\u00e9 le peuple des Akhaiens, accomplis\nencore mon voeu! Je reste dans l'enceinte de mes nefs, mais\nj'envoie mon compagnon combattre en t\u00eate de nombreux Myrmidones. \u00d4\nPr\u00e9voyant Zeus! donne-lui la victoire, affermis son coeur dans sa\npoitrine, et que Hekt\u00f4r apprenne que mon compagnon sait combattre\nseul et que ses mains robustes n'attendent point pour agir que je\nme rue dans le carnage d'Ar\u00e8s. Mais, ayant repouss\u00e9 la guerre et\nses clameurs loin des nefs, qu'il revienne, sain et sauf, vers mes\nnefs rapides, avec mes armes et mes braves compagnons!\n\nIl parla ainsi en priant, et le sage Zeus l'entendit, et il exau\u00e7a\nune partie de sa pri\u00e8re, et il rejeta l'autre. Il voulut bien que\nPatroklos repouss\u00e2t la guerre et le combat loin des nefs, mais il\nne voulut pas qu'il rev\u00eent sain et sauf du combat. Apr\u00e8s avoir\nfait des libations et suppli\u00e9 le p\u00e8re Zeus, le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide rentra sous\nsa tente et d\u00e9posa la coupe dans le coffre; et il sortit de\nnouveau pour regarder la rude m\u00eal\u00e9e des Troiens et des Akhaiens.\n\nEt les Myrmidones, rang\u00e9s sous le magnanime Patroklos, se ru\u00e8rent,\npleins d'ardeur, contre les Troiens. Et ils se r\u00e9pandaient\nsemblables \u00e0 des gu\u00eapes, nich\u00e9es sur le bord du chemin, et que des\nenfants se plaisent \u00e0 irriter dans leurs nids. Et ces insens\u00e9s\npr\u00e9parent un grand mal pour beaucoup; car, si un voyageur les\nexcite involontairement au passage, les gu\u00eapes au coeur intr\u00e9pide\ntourbillonnent et d\u00e9fendent leurs petits. Ainsi les braves\nMyrmidones se r\u00e9pandaient hors des nefs; et une immense clameur\ns'\u00e9leva; et Patroklos exhorta ainsi ses compagnons \u00e0 voix haute:\n\n-- Myrmidones, compagnons du P\u00e8l\u00e9ide Akhilleus, amis, soyez des\nhommes, et souvenez-vous de votre force et de votre courage, afin\nd'honorer le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide, le plus brave des hommes, aupr\u00e8s des nefs\ndes Argiens, et nous, ses belliqueux compagnons. Et que l'Atr\u00e9ide\nAgamemn\u00f4n qui commande au loin reconnaisse sa faute, lui qui a\noutrag\u00e9 le plus brave des Akhaiens.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il excita leur force et leur courage, et ils se\nru\u00e8rent avec fureur sur les Troiens, et les nefs r\u00e9sonn\u00e8rent des\nhautes clameurs des Akhaiens. Et, alors, les Troiens virent le\nbrave fils de M\u00e9noitios et son compagnon, tous deux\nresplendissants sous leurs armes. Leurs coeurs en furent \u00e9mus, et\nleurs phalanges se troubl\u00e8rent; et ils crurent que le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide aux\npieds rapides avait d\u00e9pos\u00e9 sa col\u00e8re aupr\u00e8s des nefs. Et chacun\nregardait de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s comment il \u00e9viterait la mort.\n\nEt Patroklos, le premier, lan\u00e7a sa pique \u00e9clatante au plus \u00e9pais\nde la m\u00eal\u00e9e tumultueuse, autour de la poupe de la nef du magnanime\nPr\u00f4t\u00e9silaos. Et il frappa Pyraikhm\u00e8s, qui avait amen\u00e9 les\ncavaliers Paiones d'Amyd\u00f4n\u00e8 et des bords de l'Axios au large\ncours; et il le frappa \u00e0 l'\u00e9paule droite, et Pyraikhm\u00e8s tomba dans\nla poussi\u00e8re en g\u00e9missant, et les Paiones prirent la fuite.\nPatroklos les dispersa tous ainsi, ayant tu\u00e9 leur chef qui\nexcellait dans le combat. Et il arracha le feu de la nef, et il\nl'\u00e9teignit. Et les Troiens, dans un immense tumulte, s'enfuirent\nloin de la nef \u00e0 demi br\u00fbl\u00e9e, et les Danaens, sortant en foule des\nnefs creuses, se jet\u00e8rent sur eux, et une haute clameur s'\u00e9leva.\nDe m\u00eame que, le foudroyant Zeus ayant dissip\u00e9 les nu\u00e9es noires au\nfa\u00eete d'une grande montagne, tout appara\u00eet soudainement, les\ncavernes, les cimes aigu\u00ebs et les bois, et qu'une immense s\u00e9r\u00e9nit\u00e9\nse r\u00e9pand dans l'aith\u00e8r; de m\u00eame les Danaens respir\u00e8rent apr\u00e8s\navoir \u00e9loign\u00e9 des nefs la flamme ennemie. Mais ce ne fut point la\nfin du combat. Les Troiens, repouss\u00e9s des nefs noires par les\nAkhaiens belliqueux, ne fuyaient point boulevers\u00e9s, mais ils\nr\u00e9sistaient encore, bien que c\u00e9dant \u00e0 la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9. Alors, dans la\nm\u00eal\u00e9e \u00e9largie, chaque chef Akhaien tua un guerrier.\n\nEt, le premier de tous, le brave fils de M\u00e9noitios per\u00e7a de sa\npique aigu\u00eb la cuisse d'Ar\u00e8ilykos qui fuyait. L'airain traversa la\ncuisse et brisa l'os, et l'homme tomba la face contre terre. Et le\nbrave M\u00e9n\u00e9laos frappa Thoas \u00e0 l'endroit de la poitrine que le\nbouclier ne couvrait pas, et il rompit ses forces. Et le Phyl\u00e9ide,\nvoyant Amphiklos qui s'\u00e9lan\u00e7ait, le pr\u00e9vint en le frappant au bas\nde la cuisse, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 les muscles sont tr\u00e8s-\u00e9pais; et la pointe\nd'airain d\u00e9chira les nerfs, et l'obscurit\u00e9 couvrit les yeux\nd'Amphiklos. Et la lance aigu\u00eb du Nest\u00f4ride blessa Atymnios, et\nl'airain traversa les entrailles, et le Troien tomba devant\nAntilokhos. Et Maris, irrit\u00e9 de la mort de son fr\u00e8re, et debout\ndevant le cadavre, lan\u00e7a sa pique contre Antilokhos; mais le divin\nThrasym\u00e8d\u00e8s le pr\u00e9vint, comme il allait frapper, et le per\u00e7a pr\u00e8s\nde l'\u00e9paule, et la pointe d'airain, tranchant tous les muscles,\nd\u00e9pouilla l'os de toute sa chair. Et Maris tomba avec bruit, et un\nnoir brouillard couvrit ses yeux. Ainsi descendirent dans l'\u00c9r\u00e9bos\ndeux fr\u00e8res, braves compagnons de Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n, et tous deux fils\nd'Amis\u00f4daros qui avait nourri l'indomptable Khimaira pour la\ndestruction des hommes.\n\nAias Oiliade saisit vivant Kl\u00e9oboulos embarrass\u00e9 dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e, et\nil le tua en le frappant de son \u00e9p\u00e9e \u00e0 la gorge, et toute l'\u00e9p\u00e9e y\nentra chaude de sang, et la mort pourpr\u00e9e et la Moire violente\nobscurcirent ses yeux. P\u00e8n\u00e9l\u00e9\u00f4s et Lyk\u00f4n, s'attaquant, se\nmanqu\u00e8rent de leurs lances et combattirent avec leurs \u00e9p\u00e9es. Lyk\u00f4n\nfrappa le c\u00f4ne du casque \u00e0 aigrette de crins, et l'\u00e9p\u00e9e se rompit;\nmais P\u00e8n\u00e9l\u00e9\u00f4s le per\u00e7a au cou, sous l'oreille, et l'\u00e9p\u00e9e y entra\ntout enti\u00e8re, et la t\u00eate fut suspendue \u00e0 la peau, et Lyk\u00f4n fut\ntu\u00e9. Et M\u00e8rion\u00e8s, poursuivant avec rapidit\u00e9 Akamas qui montait sur\nson char, le frappa \u00e0 l'\u00e9paule droite, et le Troien tomba du char,\net une nu\u00e9e obscurcit ses yeux.\n\nIdom\u00e9neus frappa de sa pique \u00c9rymas dans la bouche, et la pique\nd'airain p\u00e9n\u00e9tra jusque dans la cervelle en brisant les os blancs;\net toutes les dents furent \u00e9branl\u00e9es, et les deux yeux s'emplirent\nde sang, et le sang jaillit de la bouche et des narines, et la\nnu\u00e9e noire de la mort l'enveloppa.\n\nAinsi les chefs Danaens tu\u00e8rent chacun un guerrier. De m\u00eame que\ndes loups f\u00e9roces se jettent, dans les montagnes, sur des agneaux\nou des chevreaux que les bergers imprudents ont laiss\u00e9s, dispers\u00e9s\n\u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0, et qui les emportent tout tremblants; de m\u00eame les\nDanaens bouleversaient les Troiens qui fuyaient tumultueusement,\noubliant leur force et leur courage.\n\nEt le grand Aias d\u00e9sirait surtout atteindre Hekt\u00f4r arme d'airain;\nmais celui-ci, habile au combat, couvrant ses larges \u00e9paules de\nson bouclier de peau de taureau, observait le bruit strident des\nfl\u00e8ches et le son des piques. Et il comprenait les chances du\ncombat; et toujours ferme, il prot\u00e9geait ses chers compagnons. De\nm\u00eame qu'une nu\u00e9e monte de l'Olympos jusque dans l'Ouranos, quand\nZeus excite la temp\u00eate dans la s\u00e9r\u00e9nit\u00e9 de l'aith\u00e8r, de m\u00eame la\nclameur et la fuite s'\u00e9lan\u00e7aient des nefs. Et les Troiens ne\nrepass\u00e8rent point le foss\u00e9 ais\u00e9ment. Les chevaux rapides de Hekt\u00f4r\nl'emport\u00e8rent loin de son peuple que le foss\u00e9 profond arr\u00eatait. Et\nune multitude de chevaux s'y pr\u00e9cipitaient, brisant les timons et\nabandonnant les chars des princes. Et Patroklos les poursuivait\navec fureur, exhortant les Danaens et m\u00e9ditant la ruine des\nTroiens. Et ceux-ci, pleins de clameurs, emplissaient les chemins\nde leur fuite; et une vaste poussi\u00e8re montait vers les nu\u00e9es, et\nles chevaux aux sabots massifs couraient vers la ville, loin des\nnefs et des tentes. Et Patroklos poussait, avec des cris\nmena\u00e7ants, cette arm\u00e9e boulevers\u00e9e. Et les hommes tombaient hors\ndes chars sous les essieux, et les chars bondissants\nretentissaient. Et les chevaux immortels et rapides, illustres\npr\u00e9sents des dieux \u00e0 P\u00e8leus, franchirent le foss\u00e9 profond, pleins\ndu d\u00e9sir de la course. Et le coeur de Patroklos le poussait vers\nHekt\u00f4r, afin de le frapper de sa pique; mais les chevaux rapides\ndu Priamide l'avaient emport\u00e9.\n\nDans les jours de l'automne, quand la terre est accabl\u00e9e sous de\nnoirs tourbillons, et quand Zeus r\u00e9pand une pluie abondante,\nirrit\u00e9 contre les hommes qui jugeaient avec iniquit\u00e9 dans l'agora\net chassaient la justice, sans respect des dieux, de m\u00eame qu'ils\nvoient maintenant les torrents creuser leurs campagnes et se\npr\u00e9cipiter dans la mer pourpr\u00e9e du haut des rochers escarp\u00e9s,\nd\u00e9truisant de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s les travaux des hommes; de m\u00eame on voyait\nles cavales troiennes courir \u00e9pouvant\u00e9es. Et Patroklos, ayant\nrompu les premi\u00e8res phalanges, les repoussa vers les nefs et ne\nleur permit pas de regagner la ville qu'elles d\u00e9siraient\natteindre. Et il les massacrait, en les poursuivant, entre les\nnefs, le fleuve et les hautes murailles, et il tirait vengeance\nd'un grand nombre d'hommes. Et il frappa d'abord Pronoos, de sa\npique \u00e9clatante, dans la poitrine d\u00e9couverte par le bouclier. Et\nles forces du Troien furent rompues, et il retentit en tombant. Et\nil attaqua Thest\u00f4r, fils d'\u00c9nops. Et Thest\u00f4r \u00e9tait affaiss\u00e9 sur le\nsi\u00e8ge du char, l'esprit troubl\u00e9; et les r\u00eanes lui \u00e9taient tomb\u00e9es\ndes mains. Patroklos le frappa de sa lance \u00e0 la joue droite, et\nl'airain passa \u00e0 travers les dents, et, comme il le ramenait, il\narracha l'homme du char. Ainsi un homme, assis au fa\u00eete d'un haut\nrocher qui avance, \u00e0 l'aide de l'hame\u00e7on brillant et de la ligne,\nattire un grand poisson hors de la mer. Ainsi Patroklos enleva du\nchar, \u00e0 l'aide de sa lance \u00e9clatante, Thest\u00f4r, la bouche b\u00e9ante;\net celui-ci, en tombant, rendit l'\u00e2me. Puis il frappa d'une pierre\ndans la t\u00eate \u00c9ryalos, qui s'\u00e9lan\u00e7ait, et dont la t\u00eate s'ouvrit en\ndeux, sous le casque solide, et qui tomba et rendit l'\u00e2me,\nenvelopp\u00e9 par la mort. Puis, Patroklos coucha, dompt\u00e9s, sur la\nterre nourrici\u00e8re, \u00c9rymas, Amphot\u00e9ros, \u00c9palt\u00e8s, Tl\u00e9pol\u00e9mos\nDamastoride, \u00c9khios, Pyr\u00e8s, Ipheus, \u00c9vippos et l'Arg\u00e9ade\nPolym\u00e8los. Mais Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n, voyant ses compagnons tu\u00e9s et d\u00e9pouill\u00e9s\nde leurs armes par les mains du M\u00e9noitiade Patroklos, exhorta les\nirr\u00e9prochables Lykiens:\n\n-- \u00d4 honte! Pourquoi fuyez-vous, Lykiens? Vous \u00eates maintenant\nbien rapides! J'irai contre ce guerrier, et je saurai s'il me\ndomptera, lui qui a accabl\u00e9 les Troiens de tant de maux et qui a\nrompu les genoux de tant de braves.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il sauta avec ses armes, de son char, sur la\nterre. Et Patroklos le vit et sauta de son char. De m\u00eame que deux\nvautours aux becs recourb\u00e9s et aux serres aigu\u00ebs, sur une roche\nescarp\u00e9e luttent avec de grands cris; de m\u00eame ils se ru\u00e8rent l'un\nsur l'autre avec des clameurs. Et le fils du subtil Kronos les\nayant vus, fut rempli de compassion, et il dit \u00e0 H\u00e8r\u00e8, sa soeur et\nson \u00e9pouse:\n\n-- H\u00e9las! voici que la destin\u00e9e de Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n qui m'est tr\u00e8s-cher\nparmi les hommes, est d'\u00eatre tu\u00e9 par le M\u00e9noitiade Patroklos, et\nmon coeur h\u00e9sitant d\u00e9lib\u00e8re dans ma poitrine si je le\ntransporterai vivant du combat lamentable au milieu du riche\npeuple de Lyki\u00e8, ou si je le dompterai par les mains du\nM\u00e9noitiade.\n\nEt la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux yeux de boeuf lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Redoutable Kronide, quelle parole as-tu dite? Tu veux\naffranchir de la triste mort un homme mortel depuis longtemps vou\u00e9\nau destin? Fais-le, mais nous tous, les dieux, nous ne\nt'approuverons pas. Je te dirai ceci, et retiens-le dans ton\nesprit: Si tu envoies Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n vivant dans ses demeures, songe\nque, d\u00e9sormais, chacun des dieux voudra aussi sauver un fils bien-\naim\u00e9 de la rude m\u00eal\u00e9e. Il y a, en effet, beaucoup de fils des\ndieux qui combattent autour de la grande ville de Priamos, de ces\ndieux que tu auras irrit\u00e9s. Si Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n t'est cher et que ton\ncoeur le plaigne, laisse-le tomber dans la rude m\u00eal\u00e9e sous les\nmains du M\u00e9noitiade Patroklos; mais d\u00e8s qu'il aura rendu l'\u00e2me et\nla vie, envoie Thanatos et le doux Hypnos afin qu'ils le\ntransportent chez le peuple de la grande Lyki\u00e8. Ses parents et ses\nconcitoyens l'enseveliront, et ils lui \u00e9l\u00e8veront un tombeau et une\ncolonne; car c'est l\u00e0 l'honneur des morts.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et le p\u00e8re des hommes et des dieux consentit. Et\nil versa sur la terre une pluie de sang, afin d'honorer son fils\nbien-aim\u00e9 que Patroklos devait tuer dans la fertile Troi\u00e8, loin de\nsa patrie.\n\nEt les deux h\u00e9ros s'\u00e9tant rencontr\u00e9s, Patroklos frappa dans le\nventre l'illustre Thrasym\u00e8d\u00e8s qui conduisait le char du roi\nSarp\u00e8d\u00f4n, et il le tua. Et Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a; mais sa pique\n\u00e9clatante, s'\u00e9tant \u00e9gar\u00e9e, blessa \u00e0 l'\u00e9paule le cheval P\u00e8dasos qui\nhennit, tomba dans la poussi\u00e8re et rendit l'\u00e2me. Et ses compagnons\nse cabr\u00e8rent, et le joug cria, et les r\u00eanes furent entrem\u00eal\u00e9es.\nMais le brave Autom\u00e9d\u00f4n mit fin \u00e0 ce trouble. Il se leva, et,\ntirant la longue \u00e9p\u00e9e qui pendait sur sa cuisse robuste, il\ntrancha les traits qui \u00e9taient au-del\u00e0 du timon. Et les deux\nautres chevaux, se remettant au joug, ob\u00e9irent aux r\u00eanes, et les\ndeux guerriers continu\u00e8rent le combat lamentable.\n\nAlors la pique \u00e9clatante de Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n s'\u00e9gara encore, car la pointe\nd'airain effleura l'\u00e9paule gauche de Patroklos sans le blesser. Et\ncelui-ci se rua avec l'airain, et le trait ne s'\u00e9chappa point\nvainement de sa main, car il frappa Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n \u00e0 cette cloison qui\nenferme le coeur vivant. Et il tomba comme tombe un ch\u00eane, ou un\npeuplier, ou un grand pin que les b\u00fbcherons, sur les montagnes,\ncoupent de leurs haches tranchantes, pour construire des nefs. Et\nil \u00e9tait \u00e9tendu devant ses chevaux et son char, grin\u00e7ant des dents\net saisissant la poussi\u00e8re sanglante. De m\u00eame qu'un taureau\nmagnanime qu'un lion fauve a saisi parmi les boeufs aux pieds\nflexibles, et qui meurt en mugissant sous les dents du lion, de\nm\u00eame le roi des Lykiens porteurs de boucliers g\u00e9missait, dompt\u00e9\npar Patroklos. Et il appela son cher compagnon\n\n-- Ami Glaukos, brave entre les hommes, c'est maintenant qu'il te\nfaut combattre intr\u00e9pidement. Si la m\u00eal\u00e9e lamentable ne trouble\npoint ton coeur, sois prompt. Les appelant de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s, exhorte\nles chefs Lykiens \u00e0 combattre pour Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n, et combats toi-m\u00eame\npour moi. Je serais \u00e0 jamais ton opprobre et ta honte si les\nAkhaiens me d\u00e9pouillaient de mes armes dans le combat des nefs.\nSois ferme, et exhorte tout mon peuple.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et l'ombre de la mort couvrit ses yeux et ses\nnarines. Et Patroklos, lui mettant le pied sur la poitrine,\narracha sa lance, et les entrailles la suivirent, et le M\u00e9noitiade\narracha en m\u00eame temps sa lance et l'\u00e2me de Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n.\n\nLes Myrmidones saisirent les chevaux haletants et qui voulaient\nfuir depuis que le char de leurs ma\u00eetres \u00e9tait vide. Mais, en\nentendant la voix de Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n, Glaukos ressentit une am\u00e8re\ndouleur, et son coeur fut d\u00e9chir\u00e9 de ne pouvoir le secourir.\nPressant de sa main son bras cruellement bless\u00e9 par la fl\u00e8che que\nlui avait lanc\u00e9e Teukros, du haut de la muraille, en d\u00e9fendant ses\ncompagnons, il supplia ainsi l'archer Apoll\u00f4n:\n\n-- Entends-moi, \u00f4 roi! soit de la riche Lyki\u00e8, soit de Troi\u00e8, car\ntu peux entendre de tout lieu les plaintes de l'homme qui g\u00e9mit,\net voici que la douleur me ronge. Je subis une blessure cruelle,\net ma main est en proie \u00e0 de grands maux, et mon sang coule sans\ncesse, et mon \u00e9paule est tr\u00e8s-lourde, et je ne puis ni saisir ma\nlance, ni combattre l'ennemi. Et voici que le plus illustre des\nhommes est mort, Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n, fils de Zeus qui n'a point secouru son\nfils. Mais toi, \u00f4 roi! gu\u00e9ris cette blessure am\u00e8re, apaise mon\nmal, afin que j'excite les Lykiens \u00e0 combattre et que je combatte\nmoi-m\u00eame pour ce cadavre.\n\nIl parla ainsi en priant, et Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n l'entendit et apaisa\naussit\u00f4t sa douleur. Et le sang noir cessa de couler de sa\nblessure am\u00e8re, et la force lui fut rendue. Glaukos connut dans\nson esprit que le grand dieu avait exauc\u00e9 sa pri\u00e8re, et il se\nr\u00e9jouit. Et d'abord, courant de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s, il excita les chefs\nLykiens \u00e0 combattre pour Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n puis, marchant \u00e0 grands pas vers\nles Troiens, il chercha Polydamas Panthoide, le divin Ag\u00e8n\u00f4r,\nAin\u00e9ias et Hekt\u00f4r arm\u00e9 d'airain, et il leur dit ces paroles\nail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Hekt\u00f4r, tu oublies tes alli\u00e9s qui, pour toi, rendent l'\u00e2me loin\nde leurs amis et de la terre de la patrie, et tu refuses de les\nsecourir. Le chef des Lykiens porteurs de boucliers est mort,\nSarp\u00e8d\u00f4n, qui prot\u00e9geait la Lyki\u00e8 par sa justice et par sa vertu.\nAr\u00e8s d'airain l'a tu\u00e9 par la lance de Patroklos. Venez, amis, et\nindignez-vous. Que les Myrmidones, irrit\u00e9s \u00e0 cause de tant\nd'Akhaiens que nous avons tu\u00e9s de nos lances rapides aupr\u00e8s des\nnefs, n'enl\u00e8vent point les armes et n'insultent point le cadavre\nde Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et une intol\u00e9rable et irr\u00e9sistible douleur saisit\nles Troiens, car Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n, bien qu'\u00e9tranger, \u00e9tait le rempart de\nleur ville, et des peuples nombreux le suivaient, et lui-m\u00eame\nexcellait dans le combat. Et ils march\u00e8rent avec ardeur droit aux\nDanaens, men\u00e9s par Hekt\u00f4r irrit\u00e9 \u00e0 cause de Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n. Mais le\ncoeur solide de Patroklos M\u00e9noitiade excitait aussi les Akhaiens,\net il dit aux deux Aias prompts aux combats:\n\n-- Aias! soyez aujourd'hui tels que vous avez toujours \u00e9t\u00e9 parmi\nles plus braves et les meilleurs. Il est tomb\u00e9 l'homme qui, le\npremier, a franchi le mur des Akhaiens, Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n! Insultons ce\ncadavre et arrachons ses armes de ses \u00e9paules, et tuons de\nl'airain tous ceux de ses compagnons qui voudraient le d\u00e9fendre.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et les Aias se h\u00e2t\u00e8rent de lui venir en aide; et\nde chaque c\u00f4t\u00e9, Troiens, Lykiens, Myrmidones et Akhaiens, serrant\nleurs phalanges, se ruaient avec d'horribles clameurs autour du\ncadavre, et les armes des hommes retentissaient. Et Zeus r\u00e9pandit\nsur la m\u00eal\u00e9e une obscurit\u00e9 affreuse, afin que le labeur du combat\npour son fils bien-aim\u00e9 f\u00fbt plus terrible. Et d'abord les Troiens\nrepouss\u00e8rent les Akhaiens aux sourcils arqu\u00e9s; et un des meilleurs\nparmi les Myrmidones fut tu\u00e9, le divin \u00c9peigeus, fils du magnanime\nAgakleus. Et \u00c9peigeus commandait autrefois dans Boud\u00e9i\u00f4n bien\npeupl\u00e9e; mais, ayant tu\u00e9 son brave beau-fr\u00e8re, il vint en\nsuppliant aupr\u00e8s de P\u00e8leus et de Th\u00e9tis aux pieds d'argent, qui\nl'envoy\u00e8rent, avec le m\u00e2le Akhilleus, vers Ilios aux beaux\nchevaux, combattre les Troiens. Et comme il mettait la main sur le\ncadavre, l'illustre Hekt\u00f4r le frappa d'une pierre \u00e0 la t\u00eate, et la\nt\u00eate se fendit en deux, sous le casque solide; et il tomba la face\nsur le cadavre. Puis, l'affreuse mort l'enveloppa lui-m\u00eame, et\nPatroklos fut saisi de douleur, \u00e0 cause de son compagnon tu\u00e9.\n\nEt il se rua \u00e0 travers les combattants, semblable \u00e0 un \u00e9pervier\nrapide qui terrifie les geais et les \u00e9tourneaux. Ainsi le cavalier\nPatroklos se rua contre les Lykiens et les Troiens, irrit\u00e9 dans\nson coeur \u00e0 cause de son compagnon. Et il frappa d'une pierre au\ncou Sth\u00e9n\u00e9laos Ithaim\u00e9nide, et les nerfs furent rompus; et les\npremiers rangs et l'illustre Hekt\u00f4r recul\u00e8rent d'autant d'espace\nqu'en parcourt une pique bien lanc\u00e9e, dans le combat contre des\nhommes intr\u00e9pides ou dans les jeux. Autant recul\u00e8rent les Troiens\net s'avanc\u00e8rent les Akhaiens.\n\nEt, le premier, Glaukos, chef des Lykiens porteurs de boucliers,\nse retournant, tua le magnanime Bathykleus, fils bien-aim\u00e9 de\nKhalk\u00f4n, qui habitait l'Hellas et qui \u00e9tait illustre parmi les\nMyrmidones par ses domaines et par ses richesses. Et, Bathykleus\nle poursuivant, Glaukos se retourna subitement et le frappa de sa\nlance au milieu de la poitrine, et il tomba avec bruit, et une\nlourde douleur saisit les Akhaiens quand le guerrier tomba, et les\nTroiens se r\u00e9jouirent; mais les Akhaiens infatigables, se\nsouvenant de leur courage, se jet\u00e8rent en foule autour du cadavre.\n\nAlors M\u00e8rion\u00e8s tua un guerrier Troien, le brave Laog\u00f4n, fils\nd'On\u00e8t\u00f4r, pr\u00eatre de Zeus Idaien, et que le peuple honorait comme\nun dieu. Il le frappa sous la m\u00e2choire et l'oreille, et l'\u00e2me\nabandonna aussit\u00f4t ses membres, et l'affreux brouillard\nl'enveloppa. Et Ain\u00e9ias lan\u00e7a sa pique d'airain contre M\u00e8rion\u00e8s,\net il esp\u00e9rait l'atteindre sous le bouclier, comme il s'\u00e9lan\u00e7ait;\nmais celui-ci \u00e9vita la pique d'airain en se courbant, et la longue\npique s'enfon\u00e7a en terre et vibra jusqu'\u00e0 ce que le robuste Ar\u00e8s\ne\u00fbt \u00e9puis\u00e9 sa force. Et la pique d'Ain\u00e9ias vibrait ainsi parce\nqu'elle \u00e9tait partie d'une main vigoureuse. Et Ain\u00e9ias, irrit\u00e9,\nlui dit:\n\n-- M\u00e8rion\u00e8s, bien que tu sois un agile sauteur, ma pique t'e\u00fbt\nrendu immobile \u00e0 jamais, si je t'avais atteint.\n\nEt M\u00e8rion\u00e8s illustre par sa lance lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ain\u00e9ias, il te sera difficile, malgr\u00e9 ta vigueur, de rompre les\nforces de tous ceux qui te combattront. Si moi aussi, je\nt'atteignais de l'airain aigu, bien que tu sois robuste et\nconfiant dans tes forces, tu me donnerais la gloire et ton \u00e2me \u00e0\nAid\u00e8s illustre par ses chevaux.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le robuste fils de M\u00e9noitios le r\u00e9primanda:\n\n-- M\u00e8rion\u00e8s, pourquoi tant parler, \u00e9tant brave? \u00d4 ami! ce n'est\npoint par des paroles outrageantes que tu repousseras les Troiens\nloin de ce cadavre. La fin de la guerre est dans nos mains. Les\nparoles conviennent \u00e0 l'agora. Il ne s'agit point ici de parler,\nmais de combattre.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et marcha en avant, et le divin M\u00e8rion\u00e8s le\nsuivit. Et de m\u00eame que les b\u00fbcherons font un grand tumulte dans\nles gorges des montagnes, et que l'\u00e9cho retentit au loin; de m\u00eame\nla grande plaine fr\u00e9missait sous les guerriers qui frappaient, de\nleurs \u00e9p\u00e9es et de leurs lances, l'airain et le cuir des solides\nboucliers; et nul n'aurait plus reconnu le divin Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n, tant il\n\u00e9tait couvert de traits, de sang et de poussi\u00e8re. Et tous se\nruaient sans cesse autour de son cadavre, comme les mouches qui\nbourdonnent, au printemps, dans l'\u00e9table, autour des vases remplis\nde lait. C'est ainsi qu'ils se ruaient en foule autour de ce\ncadavre.\n\nEt Zeus, ne d\u00e9tournant point ses yeux splendides de la rude m\u00eal\u00e9e,\nd\u00e9lib\u00e9rait dans son esprit sur la mort de Patroklos, h\u00e9sitant si\nl'illustre Hekt\u00f4r le tuerait de suite avec l'airain, dans la\nm\u00eal\u00e9e, sur le divin Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n, et lui arracherait ses armes des\n\u00e9paules, ou si la rude m\u00eal\u00e9e serait prolong\u00e9e pour la mort d'un\nplus grand nombre. Et il sembla meilleur \u00e0 Zeus que le brave\ncompagnon du P\u00e8l\u00e9ide Akhilleus repouss\u00e2t, vers la ville, Hekt\u00f4r et\nles Troiens, et arrach\u00e2t l'\u00e2me de beaucoup de guerriers. Et c'est\npourquoi il amollit le courage de Hekt\u00f4r qui, montant sur son\nchar, prit la fuite en ordonnant aux Troiens de fuir aussi, car il\navait reconnu les balances sacr\u00e9es de Zeus. Et les illustres\nLykiens ne rest\u00e8rent point, et ils prirent aussi la fuite en\nvoyant leur roi couch\u00e9, le coeur perc\u00e9, au milieu des cadavres,\ncar beaucoup \u00e9taient tomb\u00e9s pendant que le Kroni\u00f4n excitait le\ncombat. Et les Akhaiens arrach\u00e8rent des \u00e9paules de Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n ses\nbelles armes resplendissantes, et le robuste fils de M\u00e9noitios les\ndonna \u00e0 ses compagnons pour \u00eatre port\u00e9es aux nefs creuses. Et\nalors Zeus qui amasse les nu\u00e9es dit \u00e0 Apoll\u00f4n:\n\n-- Va maintenant, cher Phoibos. Purifie Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n, hors de la\nm\u00eal\u00e9e, du sang noir qui le souille. Lave-le dans les eaux du\nfleuve, et, l'ayant oint d'ambroisie, couvre-le de v\u00eatements\nimmortels. Puis, remets-le aux Jumeaux rapides, Hypnos et\nThanatos, pour qu'ils le portent chez le riche peuple de la grande\nLyki\u00e8. Ses parents et ses amis l'enseveliront et lui \u00e9l\u00e8veront un\ntombeau et une colonne, car c'est l\u00e0 l'honneur des morts.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Apoll\u00f4n, se h\u00e2tant d'ob\u00e9ir \u00e0 son p\u00e8re,\ndescendit des cimes Idaiennes dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e et enleva Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n\nloin des traits. Et il le transporta pour le laver dans les eaux\ndu fleuve, l'oignit d'ambroisie, le couvrit de v\u00eatements immortels\net le confia aux Jumeaux rapides, Hypnos et Thanatos, qui le\ntransport\u00e8rent aussit\u00f4t chez le riche peuple de la grande Lyki\u00e8.\n\nEt Patroklos, excitant Autom\u00e9d\u00f4n et ses chevaux, poursuivait les\nLykiens et les Troiens, pour son malheur, l'insens\u00e9! car s'il\navait ob\u00e9i \u00e0 l'ordre du P\u00e8l\u00e9ide, il aurait \u00e9vit\u00e9 la k\u00e8r mauvaise\nde la noire mort. Mais l'esprit de Zeus est plus puissant que\ncelui des hommes. Il terrifie le brave que lui-m\u00eame a pouss\u00e9 au\ncombat, et il lui enl\u00e8ve la victoire.\n\nEt, maintenant, quel fut le premier, quel fut le dernier que tu\ntuas, \u00f4 Patroklos, quand les dieux pr\u00e9par\u00e8rent ta mort? Adr\u00e8st\u00e8s,\nAutonoos et Ekh\u00e9klos, P\u00e9rimos M\u00e9gade et \u00c9pist\u00f4r, et M\u00e9lanippos;\npuis, \u00c9lasos, Moulios et Phylart\u00e8s. Il tua ceux-ci, et les autres\n\u00e9chapp\u00e8rent par la fuite. Et alors les fils des Akhaiens eussent\npris la haute Ilios par les mains de Patroklos furieux, si Phoibos\nApoll\u00f4n, debout au fa\u00eete d'une tour solide, pr\u00e9parant la perte du\nM\u00e9noitiade, ne f\u00fbt venu en aide aux Troiens. Et trois fois\nPatroklos s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a jusqu'au relief de la haute muraille, et trois\nfois Apoll\u00f4n le repoussa de ses mains immortelles, en heurtant son\nbouclier \u00e9clatant. Et, quand il s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a une quatri\u00e8me fois,\nsemblable \u00e0 un dieu, l'archer Apoll\u00f4n lui dit ces paroles\nmena\u00e7antes:\n\n-- Retire-toi, divin Patroklos. Il n'est pas dans ta destin\u00e9e de\nrenverser de ta lance la haute citadelle des magnanimes Troiens.\nAkhilleus lui-m\u00eame ne le pourra point, bien qu'il te soit tr\u00e8s-\nsup\u00e9rieur.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Patroklos recula au loin pour \u00e9viter la col\u00e8re\nde l'archer Apoll\u00f4n. Et Hekt\u00f4r, retenant ses chevaux aux sabots\nsolides pr\u00e8s des Portes Skaies, h\u00e9sitait s'il retournerait au\ncombat, ou s'il ordonnerait aux troupes de se renfermer dans les\nmurailles.\n\nEt Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n s'approcha de lui, semblable au jeune et brave\nguerrier Asios, fils de Dymas, fr\u00e8re de H\u00e9kab\u00e8 et oncle du\ndompteur de chevaux Hekt\u00f4r, et qui habitait la Phrygi\u00e8 sur les\nbords du Sangarios. Et, semblable \u00e0 Asios, Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n dit \u00e0\nHekt\u00f4r:\n\n-- Hekt\u00f4r, pourquoi t'\u00e9loignes-tu du combat? Cela ne te convient\npas. Pl\u00fbt aux dieux que je te fusse sup\u00e9rieur autant que je te\nsuis inf\u00e9rieur, il te serait fatal d'avoir quitt\u00e9 le combat.\nAllons, pousse tes chevaux aux sabots massifs contre Patroklos. Tu\nle tueras peut-\u00eatre, et Apoll\u00f4n te donnera la victoire.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, le dieu rentra dans la foule des guerriers. Et\nl'illustre Hekt\u00f4r ordonna au brave K\u00e9brion\u00e8s d'exciter ses chevaux\nvers la m\u00eal\u00e9e. Et Apoll\u00f4n, au milieu de la foule, r\u00e9pandit le\ntrouble parmi les Argiens et accorda la victoire \u00e0 Hekt\u00f4r et aux\nTroiens. Et le Priamide, laissant tous les autres Danaens,\npoussait vers le seul Patroklos ses chevaux aux sabots massifs. Et\nPatroklos, de son c\u00f4t\u00e9, sauta de son char, tenant sa pique de la\nmain gauche. Et il saisit de la droite un morceau de marbre, rude\net anguleux, d'abord cach\u00e9 dans sa main, et qu'il lan\u00e7a avec\neffort. Et ce ne fut pas en vain, car cette pierre aigu\u00eb frappa au\nfront le conducteur de chevaux K\u00e9brion\u00e8s, b\u00e2tard de l'illustre\nPriamos. Et la pierre coupa les deux sourcils, et l'os ne r\u00e9sista\npas, et les yeux du Troien jaillirent \u00e0 ses pieds dans la\npoussi\u00e8re. Et, semblable au plongeur, il tomba du char, et son \u00e2me\nabandonna ses membres. Et le cavalier Patroklos cria avec une\nraillerie am\u00e8re:\n\n-- Ah! certes, voici un homme agile! Comme il plonge! Vraiment, il\nrassasierait de coquillages toute une multitude, en sautant de sa\nnef dans la mer, m\u00eame si elle \u00e9tait agit\u00e9e, puisqu'il plonge aussi\nais\u00e9ment du haut d'un char. Certes, il y a d'excellents plongeurs\nparmi les Troiens!\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a sur le h\u00e9ros K\u00e9brion\u00e8s, comme un\nlion imp\u00e9tueux qui va d\u00e9vaster une \u00e9table et recevoir une blessure\nen pleine poitrine, car il se perd par sa propre ardeur. Ainsi,\nPatroklos, tu te ruas sur K\u00e9brion\u00e8s. Et le Priamide sauta de son\nchar, et tous deux lutt\u00e8rent pour le cadavre, comme deux lions\npleins de faim combattent, sur les montagnes, pour une biche\n\u00e9gorg\u00e9e. Ainsi, sur le cadavre de K\u00e9brion\u00e8s, les deux habiles\nguerriers, Patroklos M\u00e9noitiade et l'illustre Hekt\u00f4r, d\u00e9siraient\nse percer l'un l'autre de l'airain cruel. Et le Priamide tenait le\ncadavre par la t\u00eate et ne l\u00e2chait point prise, tandis que\nPatroklos le tenait par les pieds. Et les Troiens et les Danaens\nengag\u00e8rent alors un rude combat.\n\nDe m\u00eame que l'Euros et le Notos, par leur rencontre furieuse,\nbouleversent, dans les gorges des montagnes, une haute for\u00eat de\nh\u00eatres, de fr\u00eanes et de cornouillers \u00e0 \u00e9corce \u00e9paisse, qui\nheurtent leurs vastes rameaux et se rompent avec bruit; ainsi les\nTroiens et les Akhaiens, se ruant les uns sur les autres,\ncombattaient et ne fuyaient point honteusement. Et les lances\naigu\u00ebs, et les fl\u00e8ches ail\u00e9es qui jaillissaient des nerfs\ns'enfon\u00e7aient autour de K\u00e9brion\u00e8s, et de lourds rochers brisaient\nles bouchers. Et l\u00e0, K\u00e9brion\u00e8s gisait, grand, oublieux des chevaux\net du char, et dans un tourbillon de poussi\u00e8re. Aussi longtemps\nque H\u00e9lios tint le milieu de l'Ouranos, les traits jaillirent des\ndeux c\u00f4t\u00e9s, et les deux peuples p\u00e9rissaient \u00e9galement; mais\nlorsqu'il d\u00e9clina, les Akhaiens furent les plus forts et ils\nentra\u00een\u00e8rent le h\u00e9ros K\u00e9brion\u00e8s loin des traits et du tumulte des\nTroiens, et ils lui arrach\u00e8rent ses armes des \u00e9paules.\n\nEt Patroklos, m\u00e9ditant la perte des Troiens, se rua en avant. Il\nse rua trois fois, tel que le rapide Ar\u00e8s, poussant des cris\nhorribles, et il tua neuf guerriers. Mais quand il s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a une\nquatri\u00e8me fois, semblable \u00e0 un dieu, alors, Patroklos, la fin de\nta vie approcha! Phoibos \u00e0 travers la m\u00eal\u00e9e, vint \u00e0 lui, terrible.\nEt le M\u00e9noitiade ne vit point le dieu qui s'\u00e9tait envelopp\u00e9 d'une\n\u00e9paisse nu\u00e9e. Et Phoibos se tint derri\u00e8re lui et le frappa de la\nmain dans le dos, entre les larges \u00e9paules, et ses yeux furent\ntroubl\u00e9s par le vertige. Et Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n lui arracha de la t\u00eate\nson casque, qui roula sous les pieds des chevaux en retentissant,\net dont l'aigrette fut souill\u00e9e de sang et de poussi\u00e8re. Et il\nn'\u00e9tait point arriv\u00e9 \u00e0 ce casque d'\u00eatre souill\u00e9 de poussi\u00e8re quand\nil prot\u00e9geait le beau front du divin Akhilleus; mais Zeus voulait\ndonner ce casque au Priamide Hekt\u00f4r, afin qu'il le port\u00e2t, car sa\nmort \u00e9tait proche.\n\nEt la longue et lourde lance de Patroklos se brisa dans sa main,\net le roi Apoll\u00f4n, fils de Zeus, d\u00e9tacha sa cuirasse. Son esprit\nfut saisi de stupeur, et ses membres furent inertes, et il\ns'arr\u00eata stup\u00e9fait.\n\nAlors le Dardanien Panthoide Euphorbos, excellent cavalier, et\nhabile, entre les meilleurs, \u00e0 lancer la pique, et qui avait d\u00e9j\u00e0\npr\u00e9cipit\u00e9 vingt guerriers de leurs chars, s'approcha du M\u00e9noitiade\npar derri\u00e8re et le blessa d'un coup de lance aigu\u00eb. Et ce fut le\npremier qui te blessa, dompteur de chevaux Patroklos! Mais il ne\nt'abattit point, et, retirant sa lance, il recula aussit\u00f4t dans la\nfoule, redoutant Patroklos d\u00e9sarm\u00e9. Et celui-ci, frapp\u00e9 par un\ndieu et par la lance d'un homme, recula aussi dans la foule de ses\ncompagnons, pour \u00e9viter la mort.\n\nEt d\u00e8s que Hekt\u00f4r eut vu le magnanime Patroklos se retirer, bless\u00e9\npar l'airain aigu, il se jeta sur lui et le frappa dans le c\u00f4t\u00e9\nd'un coup de lance qui le traversa. Et le M\u00e9noitiade tomba avec\nbruit, et la douleur saisit le peuple des Akhaiens. De m\u00eame un\nlion dompte dans le combat un robuste sanglier, car ils\ncombattaient ardemment sur le fa\u00eete des montagnes, pour un peu\nd'eau qu'ils voulaient boire tous deux; mais le lion dompte avec\nviolence le sanglier haletant. Ainsi le Priamide Hekt\u00f4r arracha\nl'\u00e2me du brave fils de M\u00e9noitios, et, plein d'orgueil, il\nl'insulta par ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Patroklos, tu esp\u00e9rais sans doute renverser notre ville et\nemmener, captives sur tes nefs, nos femmes, dans ta ch\u00e8re terre\nnatale? \u00d4 insens\u00e9! c'est pour les prot\u00e9ger que les rapides chevaux\nde Hekt\u00f4r l'ont men\u00e9 au combat, car je l'emporte par ma lance sur\ntous les Troiens belliqueux, et j'\u00e9loigne leur dernier jour. Mais\ntoi, les oiseaux carnassiers te mangeront. Ah! malheureux! le\nbrave Akhilleus ne t'a point sauv\u00e9, lui qui, t'envoyant combattre,\ntandis qu'il restait, te disait sans doute: -- Ne reviens point,\ndompteur de chevaux Patroklos, dans les nefs creuses, avant\nd'avoir arrach\u00e9 de sa poitrine la cuirasse sanglante du tueur\nd'hommes Hekt\u00f4r. Il t'a parl\u00e9 ainsi sans doute, et il t'a persuad\u00e9\ndans ta d\u00e9mence!\n\nEt le cavalier Patroklos, respirant \u00e0 peine, lui r\u00e9pondit::\n\n-- Hekt\u00f4r, maintenant tu te glorifies, car le Kronide et Apoll\u00f4n\nt'ont donn\u00e9 la victoire. Ils m'ont ais\u00e9ment dompt\u00e9, en m'enlevant\nmes armes des \u00e9paules; mais, si vingt guerriers tels que toi\nm'avaient attaqu\u00e9, ils seraient tous morts par ma lance. C'est la\nMoire violente et le fils de L\u00e8t\u00f4, et, parmi les hommes,\nEuphorbos, qui me tuent; mais toi, tu n'es venu que le dernier. Je\nte le dis, garde mes paroles dans ton esprit: Tu ne vivras point\nlongtemps, et ta mort est proche. La Moire violente va te dompter\npar les mains de l'irr\u00e9prochable Aiakide Akhilleus.\n\nIl parla ainsi et mourut, et son \u00e2me abandonna son corps et\ndescendit chez Aid\u00e8s, en pleurant sa destin\u00e9e, sa force et sa\njeunesse.\n\nEt l'illustre Hekt\u00f4r r\u00e9pondit au cadavre du M\u00e9noitiade:\n\n-- Patroklos, pourquoi m'annoncer la mort? Qui sait si Akhilleus,\nle fils de Th\u00e9tis aux beaux cheveux, ne rendra point l'esprit sous\nma lance?\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il lui mit le pied sur le corps, et, le\nrepoussant, arracha de la plaie sa lance d'airain. Et aussit\u00f4t il\ncourut sur Autom\u00e9d\u00f4n, le divin compagnon du rapide Aiakide,\nvoulant l'abattre; mais les chevaux immortels, pr\u00e9sents splendides\nque les dieux avaient faits \u00e0 P\u00e8leus, enlev\u00e8rent Autom\u00e9d\u00f4n.\n\n\nChant 17\n\nEt le brave M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, fils d'Atreus, ayant vu que Patroklos avait\n\u00e9t\u00e9 tu\u00e9 par les Troiens, courut aux premiers rangs, arm\u00e9 de\nl'airain splendide. Et il allait autour du cadavre, comme une\nvache g\u00e9missante, qui n'avait point encore connu l'enfantement,\ncourt autour du veau son premier-n\u00e9. Ainsi le blond M\u00e9n\u00e9laos\nallait autour de Patroklos, et, le gardant de sa lance et de son\nbouclier \u00e9gal, il se pr\u00e9parait \u00e0 tuer celui qui approcherait. Et\nle Panthoide, habile \u00e0 lancer la pique, n'oublia point\nl'irr\u00e9prochable Patroklos qui gisait l\u00e0, et il s'arr\u00eata devant le\ncadavre, et il dit au brave M\u00e9n\u00e9laos:\n\n-- Atr\u00e9ide M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, illustre prince des peuples, recule, laisse\nce cadavre, et livre-moi ces d\u00e9pouilles sanglantes, car, le\npremier d'entre les Troiens et les alli\u00e9s, j'ai bless\u00e9 Patroklos\nde ma lance dans la rude m\u00eal\u00e9e. Laisse-moi donc remporter cette\ngloire parmi les Troiens, ou je te frapperai et j'arracherai ta\nch\u00e8re \u00e2me.\n\nEt le blond M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, indign\u00e9, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- P\u00e8re Zeus! quelle honte de se vanter au-del\u00e0 de ses forces! Ni\nla rage du l\u00e9opard, ni celle du lion, ni celle du sanglier f\u00e9roce\ndont l'\u00e2me est toujours furieuse dans sa vaste poitrine, ne\nsurpassent l'orgueil des fils de Panthos! Le robuste cavalier\nHyp\u00e9r\u00e8n\u00f4r se glorifiait de sa jeunesse lorsqu'il m'insulta, disant\nque j'\u00e9tais le plus l\u00e2che des Danaens; et je pense que ses pieds\nrapides ne le porteront plus d\u00e9sormais vers l'\u00e9pouse bien-aim\u00e9e et\nles parents v\u00e9n\u00e9rables. Ainsi je romprai tes forces si tu me tiens\nt\u00eate; et je t'avertis de rentrer dans la foule et de ne point me\nbraver, avant que le malheur soit tomb\u00e9 sur toi. L'insens\u00e9 seul ne\nreconna\u00eet que ce qui est accompli.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il ne persuada point Euphorbos qui lui\nr\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Divin M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, certes, maintenant tu vas payer le sang de mon\nfr\u00e8re que tu as tu\u00e9. Tu t'en glorifies, et tu as rendu sa femme\nveuve dans la profonde chambre nuptiale, et tu as accabl\u00e9 ses\nparents d'une douleur am\u00e8re. Et moi, je vengerai ces malheureux et\nje remettrai aux mains de Panthos et de la divine Phrontis ta t\u00eate\net tes armes. Mais ne retardons pas plus longtemps le combat qui\nam\u00e8nera la victoire ou la d\u00e9faite de l'un de nous.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il frappa le bouclier d'une rondeur \u00e9gale; mais\nil ne put le traverser, et la pointe d'airain se recourba sur le\nsolide bouclier. Et l'Atr\u00e9ide M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, suppliant le p\u00e8re Zeus, se\nrua avec l'airain; et comme Euphorbos reculait, il le per\u00e7a \u00e0 la\ngorge, et la pointe, pouss\u00e9e par une main robuste, traversa le cou\nd\u00e9licat. Et le Panthoide tomba avec bruit, et ses armes\nretentirent sur lui. Et ses cheveux, qui avaient les reflets de\nl'or et de l'argent, et qui \u00e9taient semblables aux cheveux des\nKharites, furent souill\u00e9s de sang. De m\u00eame qu'un jeune olivier\nqu'un homme a plant\u00e9 dans un lieu solitaire, o\u00f9 l'eau jaillit\nabondante et nourrit sa verdeur, et que le souffle des vents\nmobiles balance, tandis qu'il se couvre de fleurs blanches, mais\nqu'un grand tourbillon enveloppe brusquement, arrache et renverse\ncontre terre; de m\u00eame l'Atr\u00e9ide M\u00e9n\u00e9laos tua le brave Panthoide\nEuphorbos, et le d\u00e9pouilla de ses armes.\n\nQuand un lion montagnard, s\u00fbr de sa force, enl\u00e8ve la meilleure\nvache d'un grand troupeau qui pa\u00eet, lui brise le cou avec ses\nfortes dents, boit son sang et mange ses entrailles, les chiens et\nles bergers poussent, de loin, de grandes clameurs et n'approchent\npoint, parce que la bl\u00eame terreur les a saisis. De m\u00eame nul\nd'entre les Troiens n'osait attaquer l'illustre M\u00e9n\u00e9laos; et il\ne\u00fbt ais\u00e9ment enlev\u00e9 les belles armes du Panthoide, si Phoibos\nApoll\u00f4n, par envie, n'e\u00fbt excit\u00e9 contre lui Hekt\u00f4r semblable au\nrapide Ar\u00e8s. Et, sous la forme de Ment\u00e8s, chef des Kikones, il dit\nau Priamide ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Hekt\u00f4r, o\u00f9 cours-tu ainsi? pourquoi poursuis-tu follement les\nchevaux du brave Akhilleus, qui ne peuvent \u00eatre ni soumis, ni\nconduits par aucun homme mortel, autre qu'Akhilleus qu'une m\u00e8re\nimmortelle a enfant\u00e9? Voici, pendant ce temps, que le brave\nM\u00e9n\u00e9laos, fils d'Atreus, pour d\u00e9fendre Patroklos, a tu\u00e9 le plus\ncourageux des Troiens, le Panthoide Euphorbos, et rompu sa vigueur\nimp\u00e9tueuse.\n\nLe dieu parla ainsi et rentra dans la foule des hommes. Et une\nam\u00e8re douleur saisit le coeur sombre de Hekt\u00f4r. Il regarda autour\nde lui dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e, et il vit M\u00e9n\u00e9laos enlevant les belles armes\nd'Euphorbos, et le Panthoide gisant contre terre, et le sang qui\ncoulait de la plaie ouverte. Avec de hautes clameurs, arm\u00e9 de\nl'airain \u00e9clatant, et semblable au feu inextinguible de\nH\u00e8phaistos, il s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a aux premiers rangs. Et le fils d'Atreus\nl'entendit et le vit, et il g\u00e9mit, disant dans son coeur\nmagnanime:\n\n-- H\u00e9las! si j'abandonne ces belles armes et Patroklos qui est\nmort pour ma cause, les Danaens qui me verront seront indign\u00e9s;\nmais si je combats seul contre Hekt\u00f4r et les Troiens, je crains\nque cette multitude m'enveloppe, car Hekt\u00f4r au casque mouvant m\u00e8ne\navec lui tous les Troiens. Mais pourquoi d\u00e9lib\u00e9rer dans ma ch\u00e8re\n\u00e2me? Quand un homme veut lutter contre un autre homme qu'un dieu\nhonore, aussit\u00f4t une lourde calamit\u00e9 est suspendue sur lui. C'est\npourquoi aucun Danaen ne me bl\u00e2mera de me retirer devant Hekt\u00f4r,\npuisqu'il est pouss\u00e9 par un dieu. Si j'entendais le brave Aias\ndans la m\u00eal\u00e9e, nous retournerions tous deux au combat, m\u00eame contre\nun dieu, et nous sauverions ce cadavre pour le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide Akhilleus,\net dans nos maux ceci serait pour le mieux.\n\nEt tandis qu'il d\u00e9lib\u00e9rait dans son esprit et dans son coeur, les\nphalanges Troiennes arrivaient conduites par Hekt\u00f4r. M\u00e9n\u00e9laos\nrecula et abandonna le cadavre, mais en se retournant, comme un\nlion \u00e0 longue barbe que les chiens et les bergers chassent de\nl'\u00e9table avec des lances et des cris, et dont le coeur farouche\nest troubl\u00e9, et qui ne s'\u00e9loigne qu'\u00e0 regret de l'enclos. Ainsi le\nblond M\u00e9n\u00e9laos s'\u00e9loigna de Patroklos. Et il se retourna d\u00e8s qu'il\neut rejoint ses compagnons, et, cherchant partout des yeux le\ngrand Aias T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien, il le vit \u00e0 la gauche de la m\u00eal\u00e9e,\nexhortant ses compagnons et les excitant \u00e0 combattre, car Phoibos\nApoll\u00f4n avait jet\u00e9 une grande terreur en eux. Et M\u00e9n\u00e9laos courut \u00e0\nlui et lui dit aussit\u00f4t:\n\n-- Aias, viens, ami! h\u00e2tons-nous pour Patroklos qui est mort, et\nrapportons au moins son cadavre \u00e0 Akhilleus, car c'est Hekt\u00f4r au\ncasque mouvant qui a ses armes.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et l'\u00e2me du brave Aias fut remu\u00e9e, et il se jeta\naux premiers rangs, avec le blond M\u00e9n\u00e9laos.\n\nEt le Priamide, apr\u00e8s avoir d\u00e9pouill\u00e9 Patroklos de ses armes\nillustres, l'entra\u00eenait pour lui couper la t\u00eate avec l'airain et\nlivrer son cadavre aux chiens troiens; mais Aias arriva, portant\nun bouclier semblable \u00e0 une tour. Et Hekt\u00f4r rentra dans la foule\nde ses compagnons; et, montant sur son char, il donna les belles\narmes aux Troiens, pour \u00eatre port\u00e9es \u00e0 Ilios et pour r\u00e9pandre le\nbruit de sa gloire.\n\nEt Aias marchait autour du M\u00e9noitiade, le couvrant de son\nbouclier, comme une lionne autour de ses petits. Elle les menait \u00e0\ntravers la for\u00eat, quand les chasseurs surviennent. Aussit\u00f4t,\npleine de fureur, elle fronce les sourcils et en couvre ses yeux.\nAinsi Aias marchait autour du h\u00e9ros Patroklos, et le brave Atr\u00e9ide\nM\u00e9n\u00e9laos se tenait pr\u00e8s de lui, avec un grand deuil dans la\npoitrine.\n\nMais le fils de Hippolokhos, Glaukos, chef des hommes de Lyki\u00e8,\nregardant Hekt\u00f4r d'un oeil sombre, lui dit ces dures paroles:\n\n-- Hekt\u00f4r, tu as l'aspect du plus brave des hommes, mais tu n'es\npas tel dans le combat, et tu ne m\u00e9rites point ta gloire, car tu\nne sais que fuir. Songe maintenant \u00e0 sauver ta ville et ta\ncitadelle, seul avec les peuples n\u00e9s dans Ilios. Jamais plus les\nLykiens ne lutteront contre les Danaens pour Troi\u00e8, puisque tu\nn'en as point de reconnaissance, bien qu'ils combattent\n\u00e9ternellement. L\u00e2che comment d\u00e9fendrais-tu m\u00eame un faible guerrier\ndans la m\u00eal\u00e9e, puisque tu as abandonn\u00e9, en proie aux Akhaiens,\nSarp\u00e8d\u00f4n, ton h\u00f4te et ton compagnon, lui qui, vivant, fut d'un si\ngrand secours \u00e0 ta ville et \u00e0 toi-m\u00eame, et que maintenant tu\nabandonnes aux chiens! C'est pourquoi, si les Lykiens m'ob\u00e9issent,\nnous retournerons dans nos demeures, et la ruine d'Ilios sera\nproche. Si les Troiens avaient l'audace et la force de ceux qui\ncombattent pour la patrie, nous tra\u00eenerions dans Ilios, dans la\ngrande ville de Priamos, le cadavre de Patroklos; et, aussit\u00f4t,\nles Argiens nous rendraient les belles armes de Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n et\nSarp\u00e8d\u00f4n lui-m\u00eame; car il a \u00e9t\u00e9 tu\u00e9, le compagnon de cet homme qui\nest le plus formidable des Argiens aupr\u00e8s des nefs et qui a les\nplus braves compagnons. Mais tu n'as pas os\u00e9 soutenir l'attaque du\nmagnanime Aias, ni ses regards, dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e; et tu as redout\u00e9 de\ncombattre, car il l'emporte de beaucoup sur toi!\n\nEt, le regardant d'un oeil sombre, Hekt\u00f4r au casque mouvant lui\nr\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Glaukos, pourquoi parles-tu si outrageusement? Certes, ami, je\nte croyais sup\u00e9rieur en prudence \u00e0 tous ceux qui habitent la\nfertile Lyki\u00e8, et maintenant je te bl\u00e2me d'avoir parl\u00e9 ainsi,\ndisant que je n'ai pas os\u00e9 attendre le grand Aias. Jamais ni le\nbruit des chars, ni le retentissement de la m\u00eal\u00e9e ne m'ont\n\u00e9pouvant\u00e9; mais l'esprit de Zeus temp\u00e9tueux terrifie ais\u00e9ment le\nbrave et lui enl\u00e8ve la victoire, bien qu'il l'ait pouss\u00e9 au\ncombat. Mais viens et tu verras en ce jour si je suis un l\u00e2che,\ncomme tu le dis, et si je saurai rompre la vigueur des Danaens qui\nd\u00e9fendront le cadavre de Patroklos.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il exhorta les Troiens \u00e0 voix haute:\n\n-- Troiens, Lykiens et braves Dardaniens, soyez des hommes, amis!\nSouvenez-vous de votre force et de votre courage, tandis que je\nvais rev\u00eatir les armes de l'irr\u00e9prochable Akhilleus, enlev\u00e9es \u00e0\nPatroklos que j'ai tu\u00e9.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, Hekt\u00f4r, s'\u00e9loignant de la m\u00eal\u00e9e, courut\nrapidement vers ses compagnons qui portaient \u00e0 Ilios les armes\nillustres du P\u00e8l\u00e9ide. Et, loin de la m\u00eal\u00e9e lamentable, il changea\nd'armes et donna les siennes pour \u00eatre port\u00e9es dans la sainte\nIlios. Et il se couvrit des armes immortelles du P\u00e8l\u00e9ide\nAkhilleus, que les dieux ouraniens avaient donn\u00e9es \u00e0 P\u00e8leus. Et\ncelui-ci, \u00e9tant vieux, les avait donn\u00e9es \u00e0 son fils; mais le fils\nne devait point vieillir sous les armes paternelles.\n\nEt quand Zeus qui amasse les nu\u00e9es vit Hekt\u00f4r couvert des armes du\ndivin P\u00e8l\u00e9ide, il secoua la t\u00eate et dit dans son esprit:\n\n-- \u00d4 malheureux! tu ne songes point \u00e0 la mort qui est proche de\ntoi, et tu rev\u00eats les armes immortelles du plus brave des hommes,\ndevant qui tous les guerriers fr\u00e9missent; et tu as tu\u00e9 son\ncompagnon si doux et si courageux, et tu as outrageusement arrach\u00e9\nses armes de sa t\u00eate et de ses \u00e9paules! Mais je te donnerai une\ngrande gloire en retour de ce que Andromakh\u00e8 ne recevra point,\napr\u00e8s le combat, les armes illustres du P\u00e8l\u00e9ide.\n\nZeus parla ainsi, et il scella sa promesse en abaissant ses\nsourcils bleus. Et il adapta les armes au corps du Priamide qui,\nhardi et furieux comme Ar\u00e8s, sentit couler dans tous ses membres\nla force et le courage. Et, poussant de hautes clameurs, il\napparut aux illustres alli\u00e9s et aux Troiens, semblable \u00e0\nAkhilleus, car il resplendissait sous les armes du magnanime\nP\u00e8l\u00e9ide. Et, allant de l'un \u00e0 l'autre, il les exhortait tous:\nMesthl\u00e8s, Glaukos, M\u00e9d\u00f4n, Thersilokhos, Ast\u00e9ropaios, Deisin\u00f4r,\nHippothoos et Phorkis, et Khromios et le divinateur Ennomos. Et,\nles excitant par des paroles rapides, il leur parla ainsi:\n\n-- Entendez-moi, innombrables peuples alli\u00e9s et voisins d'Ilios!\nJe n'ai point appel\u00e9 une multitude inactive quand je vous ai\nconvoqu\u00e9s de vos villes, mais je vous ai demand\u00e9 de d\u00e9fendre\nardemment les femmes des Troiens et leurs petits enfants contre\nles Akhaiens belliqueux. Pour vous, j'ai \u00e9puis\u00e9 mes peuples de\nvivres et de pr\u00e9sents et j'ai nourri vos forces. Que chacun\ncombatte donc, triomphe ou p\u00e9risse, car c'est le sort de la\nguerre. Celui qui entra\u00eenera le corps de Patroklos vers les\nTroiens dompteurs de chevaux aura, pour sa part, la moiti\u00e9 des\nd\u00e9pouilles, et j'aurai l'autre moiti\u00e9, et sa gloire sera \u00e9gale \u00e0\nla mienne.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous, les lances tendues, se ru\u00e8rent sur les\nDanaens, esp\u00e9rant arracher au T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien Aias le cadavre de\nPatroklos. Les insens\u00e9s! Il devait plut\u00f4t arracher, sur ce\ncadavre, l'\u00e2me de beaucoup d'entre eux. Et il dit au brave\nM\u00e9n\u00e9laos:\n\n-- Divin M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, \u00f4 ami! je n'esp\u00e8re pas que nous revenions de ce\ncombat, et, certes, je crains moins pour le cadavre de Patroklos,\nque les chiens troiens et les oiseaux carnassiers vont bient\u00f4t\nd\u00e9vorer, que pour ma t\u00eate et la tienne, car Hekt\u00f4r couvre le champ\nde bataille comme une nu\u00e9e, et la lourde ruine pend sur nous.\nH\u00e2te-toi, appelle les princes des Danaens, s'ils t'entendent.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le brave M\u00e9n\u00e9laos s'empressa d'appeler \u00e0 grands\ncris les Danaens:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis! Princes et chefs des Argiens, vous qui mangez aux repas\ndes Atr\u00e9ides Agamemn\u00f4n et M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, et qui commandez les\nphalanges, car tout honneur et toute gloire viennent de Zeus;\ncomme il m'est difficile de vous reconna\u00eetre dans le tourbillon de\nla m\u00eal\u00e9e, que chacun de vous accoure de lui-m\u00eame, indign\u00e9 que\nPatroklos soit livr\u00e9 en p\u00e2ture aux chiens troiens.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le rapide Aias, fils d'Oileus, vint le premier,\nen courant \u00e0 travers la m\u00eal\u00e9e, et, apr\u00e8s lui, Idom\u00e9neus, et le\ncompagnon d'Idom\u00e9neus, M\u00e8rion\u00e8s, semblable au tueur d'hommes Ar\u00e8s.\nMais qui pourrait, dans son esprit, dire les noms de tous ceux qui\nvinrent r\u00e9tablir le combat des Akhaiens?\n\nEt les Troiens avan\u00e7aient, et Hekt\u00f4r les menait. De m\u00eame que le\nlarge courant d'un fleuve tomb\u00e9 de Zeus se pr\u00e9cipite \u00e0 la mer, et\nque la mer s'enfle hors de son lit, et que les rivages r\u00e9sonnent\nau loin; de m\u00eame retentissait la clameur des Troiens. Mais les\nAkhaiens se tenaient debout autour du M\u00e9noitiade, n'ayant qu'une\n\u00e2me et couverts de leurs boucliers d'airain. Et Zeus r\u00e9pandait une\nnu\u00e9e \u00e9paisse sur leurs casques \u00e9clatants; car il n'avait point ha\u00ef\nle M\u00e9noitiade pendant que, vivant, il \u00e9tait le compagnon de\nl'Aiakide; et il ne voulait pas qu'il f\u00fbt livr\u00e9 en p\u00e2ture aux\nchiens troiens; et il anima ses compagnons \u00e0 le d\u00e9fendre.\n\nEt, d'abord, les Troiens repouss\u00e8rent les Akhaiens aux sourcils\narqu\u00e9s. Ceux-ci prirent la fuite, abandonnant le cadavre; et les\nTroiens ne les poursuivirent point, malgr\u00e9 leur d\u00e9sir du meurtre;\nmais ils entra\u00eenaient le cadavre. Et les Akhaiens ne\nl'abandonn\u00e8rent pas longtemps; et, les ramenant aussit\u00f4t, Aias, le\npremier des Danaens par l'aspect h\u00e9ro\u00efque et les actions, apr\u00e8s\nl'irr\u00e9prochable P\u00e8l\u00e9ide, se rua aux premiers rangs, semblable par\nla fureur \u00e0 un sanglier qui, rebroussant \u00e0 travers les taillis,\ndisperse les chiens et les jeunes hommes. Ainsi le grand Aias,\nfils de l'illustre T\u00e9lam\u00f4n, dispersa ais\u00e9ment les phalanges\nTroiennes qui se pressaient autour de Patroklos, esp\u00e9rant\nl'entra\u00eener dans Ilios et remporter cette gloire.\n\nEt Hippothoos, fils du P\u00e9lasge L\u00e8thos, ayant li\u00e9 le tendon par une\ncourroie, tra\u00eenait Patroklos par un pied dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e, afin de\nplaire \u00e0 Hekt\u00f4r et aux Troiens; mais il lui en arriva malheur,\nsans que nul p\u00fbt le sauver, car le T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien, se ruant au milieu\nde la foule, le frappa sur son casque d'airain, et le casque \u00e0\ncrini\u00e8re fut bris\u00e9 par la grande lance et la main vigoureuse\nd'Aias, et l'airain de la pointe traversa la cervelle qui jaillit\nsanglante de la plaie, et ses forces furent rompues. Il l\u00e2cha le\npied du magnanime Patroklos et tomba lui-m\u00eame sur le cadavre, loin\nde Lariss\u00e8; et il ne rendit point \u00e0 ses parents bien-aim\u00e9s les\nsoins qu'ils lui avaient donn\u00e9s, et sa vie fut br\u00e8ve, ayant \u00e9t\u00e9\nainsi dompt\u00e9 par le magnanime Aias.\n\nHekt\u00f4r lan\u00e7a contre Aias sa pique \u00e9clatante, mais celui-ci,\nl'ayant aper\u00e7ue, \u00e9vita la pique d'airain qui frappa le magnanime\nSkh\u00e9dios, fils d'Iphitos, et le plus brave des Ph\u00f4k\u00e8ens, et qui\nhabitait la grande Panop\u00e8, commandant \u00e0 de nombreux peuples. La\npique le per\u00e7a au milieu de la gorge, et la pointe d'airain sortit\nau sommet de l'\u00e9paule. Il tomba avec bruit et ses armes\nretentirent sur lui. Et Aias per\u00e7a au milieu du ventre le brave\nPhorkys, fils de Phainops, qui d\u00e9fendait le corps de Hippothoos.\nL'airain rompit le creux de la cuirasse et d\u00e9chira les entrailles.\nIl tomba, saisissant la terre avec ses mains, et les premiers\nrangs, ainsi que Hekt\u00f4r, recul\u00e8rent. Et les Argiens, avec de\ngrands cris, entra\u00een\u00e8rent, morts, Phorkys et Hippothoos, et\nenlev\u00e8rent leurs armes.\n\nAlors, les Troiens eussent \u00e9t\u00e9 mis en fuite par les braves\nAkhaiens et fussent rentr\u00e9s dans Ilios, dompt\u00e9s par leur propre\nl\u00e2chet\u00e9, et les Akhaiens eussent remport\u00e9 la victoire, malgr\u00e9\nZeus, par leur vigueur et leur courage, si Apoll\u00f4n lui-m\u00eame n'e\u00fbt\nexcit\u00e9 Ain\u00e9ias, sous la forme du h\u00e9raut P\u00e9riphas \u00c9pytide qui avait\nvieilli, aupr\u00e8s de son vieux p\u00e8re, dans l'\u00e9tude et la science de\nla sagesse. Semblable \u00e0 P\u00e9riphas, le fils de Zeus parla ainsi:\n\n-- Ain\u00e9ias, comment sauveriez-vous la sainte Ilios, m\u00eame malgr\u00e9 la\nvolont\u00e9 d'un dieu? En \u00e9tant tels que des guerriers que j'ai vus,\nconfiants dans leur propre courage, autant que dans la vigueur et\nle nombre de leur peuple. Zeus nous offre la victoire plut\u00f4t\nqu'aux Danaens, mais vous \u00eates des l\u00e2ches qui ne savez pas\ncombattre.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Ain\u00e9ias reconnut l'archer Apoll\u00f4n, et il cria\naussit\u00f4t \u00e0 Hekt\u00f4r:\n\n-- Hekt\u00f4r, et vous, chefs des Troiens et des alli\u00e9s, c'est une\nhonte de fuir vers Ilios, vaincus, \u00e0 cause de notre l\u00e2chet\u00e9, par\nles braves Akhaiens. Voici qu'un des dieux s'est approch\u00e9 de moi,\net il m'a dit que le tr\u00e8s puissant Zeus nous \u00e9tait propice dans le\ncombat. C'est pourquoi, marchons aux Danaens, et qu'ils\nn'emportent pas sans peine, jusqu'aux nefs, Patroklos mort.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a parmi les premiers combattants, et\nles Troiens firent face aux Akhaiens. Et Ain\u00e9ias blessa d'un coup\nde lance Leiokritos, fils d'Arisbas, et brave compagnon de\nLykom\u00e8d\u00e8s. Et le brave Lykom\u00e8d\u00e8s fut saisi de compassion en le\nvoyant tomber. Il s'approcha, et, lan\u00e7ant sa pique brillante, il\nper\u00e7a dans le foie le Hippaside Apisa\u00f4n, prince des peuples, et il\nrompit ses forces. Le Hippaside \u00e9tait venu de la fertile Paioni\u00e8,\net il \u00e9tait le premier des Paiones, apr\u00e8s Ast\u00e9ropaios. Et le brave\nAst\u00e9ropaios fut saisi de compassion en le voyant tomber, et il se\nrua en avant pour combattre les Danaens, mais vainement, car les\nAkhaiens se tenaient tous, h\u00e9riss\u00e9s de lances, autour de\nPatroklos. Et Aias les exhortait ardemment, et il leur ordonnait\nde ne point s'\u00e9carter du cadavre en s'\u00e9lan\u00e7ant hors des rangs,\nmais de rester autour de Patroklos et de tenir ferme. Le grand\nAias commandait ainsi; et la terre \u00e9tait baign\u00e9e d'un sang\npourpr\u00e9, et tous tombaient les uns sur les autres, Troiens, alli\u00e9s\net Danaens; mais ceux-ci p\u00e9rissaient en plus petit nombre, car ils\nn'oubliaient point de s'entr'aider dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e. Et tous\nluttaient, pareils \u00e0 un incendie; et nul n'aurait pu dire si\nH\u00e9lios brillait, ou S\u00e9l\u00e8n\u00e8, tant les braves qui s'agitaient autour\ndu M\u00e9noitiade \u00e9taient envelopp\u00e9s d'un noir brouillard.\n\nAilleurs, d'autres Troiens et d'autres Akhaiens aux belles\nkn\u00e8mides combattaient \u00e0 l'aise sous un air serein; et l\u00e0 se\nr\u00e9pandait l'\u00e9tincelante splendeur de H\u00e9lios, et il n'y avait de\nnu\u00e9es ni sur la terre, ni sur les montagnes. Et ils combattaient\nmollement, \u00e9vitant les traits de part et d'autre, et s\u00e9par\u00e9s par\nun large espace. Mais, au centre, sous le noir brouillard, les\nplus braves, se frappant de l'airain cruel, subissaient tous les\nmaux de la guerre. Et l\u00e0, deux excellents guerriers, Thrasym\u00e8d\u00e8s\net Antilokhos, ne savaient pas que l'irr\u00e9prochable Patroklos f\u00fbt\nmort. Ils pensaient qu'il \u00e9tait vivant et qu'il combattait les\nTroiens au fort de la m\u00eal\u00e9e, tandis qu'eux-m\u00eames luttaient pour le\nsalut de leurs compagnons, loin du M\u00e9noitiade, comme Nest\u00f4r le\nleur avait ordonn\u00e9, quand il les envoya des nefs noires au combat.\n\nEt, pendant tout le jour, le carnage continua autour de Patroklos,\ndu brave compagnon du rapide Aiakide, et tous avaient les genoux,\nles pieds, les mains et les yeux souill\u00e9s de poussi\u00e8re et de sang.\nDe m\u00eame qu'un homme ordonne \u00e0 ses serviteurs de tendre une grande\npeau de boeuf tout impr\u00e9gn\u00e9e de graisse liquide, et que ceux-ci la\ntendent en cercle, et que, sous leurs efforts, la graisse p\u00e9n\u00e8tre\ndans la peau; de m\u00eame, de tous les c\u00f4t\u00e9s, les combattants\ntra\u00eenaient \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0 le cadavre dans un \u00e9troit espace, les Troiens\nvers Ilios et les Akhaiens vers les nefs creuses; et un affreux\ntumulte s'\u00e9levait, qui e\u00fbt r\u00e9joui Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 et Ar\u00e8s qui irrite le\ncombat. Ainsi Zeus heurta, tout le jour, la m\u00eal\u00e9e des hommes et\ndes chevaux sur le cadavre de Patroklos.\n\nMais le divin Akhilleus ignorait la mort du M\u00e9noitiade, car les\nhommes combattaient, loin des nefs, sous les murailles de Troi\u00e8.\nEt il pensait que Patroklos reviendrait vivant, apr\u00e8s avoir pouss\u00e9\njusqu'aux portes de la ville, sachant qu'il ne devait point\nrenverser Ilios sans lui, et m\u00eame avec lui. Souvent, en effet, il\nl'avait entendu dire \u00e0 sa m\u00e8re qui lui r\u00e9v\u00e9lait la pens\u00e9e de Zeus;\nmais sa m\u00e8re ne lui avait pas annonc\u00e9 un si grand malheur, et il\nne savait pas que son plus cher compagnon p\u00e9rirait.\n\nEt tous, autour du cadavre, combattaient, infatigables, de leurs\nlances aigu\u00ebs, et s'entre-tuaient. Et les Akhaiens cuirass\u00e9s\ndisaient:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis! il serait honteux de retourner vers les nefs creuses!\nQue la noire terre nous engloutisse ici, plut\u00f4t que de laisser les\nbraves Troiens entra\u00eener ce cadavre vers leur ville et remporter\ncette gloire!\n\nEt les Troiens magnanimes disaient:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis! si la moire veut que nous tombions tous ici, soit! mais\nque nul ne recule!\n\nChacun parlait ainsi et animait le courage de ses compagnons, et\nils combattaient, et le retentissement de l'airain montait dans\nl'Ouranos, par les airs st\u00e9riles. Et les chevaux de l'Aiakide\npleuraient, hors de la m\u00eal\u00e9e, parce qu'ils avaient perdu leur\nconducteur couch\u00e9 sur la poussi\u00e8re par le tueur d'hommes Hekt\u00f4r.\nEt, vainement, Autom\u00e9d\u00f4n, le fils du brave Dior\u00e8s, les excitait du\nfouet ou leur adressait de flatteuses paroles, ils ne voulaient\npoint aller vers le large Hellespontos, ni vers la m\u00eal\u00e9e des\nAkhaiens; et, de m\u00eame qu'une colonne qui reste debout sur la tombe\nd'un homme ou d'une femme, ils restaient immobiles devant le beau\nchar, la t\u00eate courb\u00e9e vers la terre. Et de chaudes larmes\ntombaient de leurs paupi\u00e8res, car ils regrettaient leur\nconducteur; et leurs crini\u00e8res florissantes pendaient, souill\u00e9es,\ndes deux c\u00f4t\u00e9s du joug. Et le Kroni\u00f4n fut saisi de compassion en\nles voyant, et, secouant la t\u00eate, il dit dans son esprit:\n\n-- Ah! malheureux! pourquoi vous avons-nous donn\u00e9s au roi P\u00e8leus\nqui est mortel, vous qui ne conna\u00eetrez point la vieillesse et qui\n\u00eates immortels? \u00c9tait-ce pour que vous subissiez aussi les\ndouleurs humaines? Car l'homme est le plus malheureux de tous les\n\u00eatres qui respirent, ou qui rampent sur la terre. Mais le Priamide\nHekt\u00f4r ne vous conduira jamais, ni vous, ni vos chars splendides.\nN'est-ce pas assez qu'il poss\u00e8de les armes et qu'il s'en glorifie?\nJe remplirai vos genoux et votre \u00e2me de vigueur, afin que vous\nrameniez Autom\u00e9d\u00f4n de la m\u00eal\u00e9e, vers les nefs creuses; car je\ndonnerai la victoire aux Troiens, jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'ils touchent aux\nnefs bien construites, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que H\u00e9lios tombe et que l'ombre\nsacr\u00e9e arrive.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il inspira une grande force aux chevaux, et\nceux-ci, secouant la poussi\u00e8re de leurs crins sur la terre,\nentra\u00een\u00e8rent rapidement le char l\u00e9ger entre les Troiens et les\nAkhaiens. Et Autom\u00e9d\u00f4n, bien que pleurant son compagnon, excitait\nl'imp\u00e9tuosit\u00e9 des chevaux, tel qu'un vautour sur des oies. Et il\ns'\u00e9loignait ainsi de la foule des Troiens, et il revenait se ruer\ndans la m\u00eal\u00e9e; mais il poursuivait les guerriers sans les tuer, ne\npouvant \u00e0 la fois, seul sur le char sacr\u00e9, combattre de la lance\net diriger les chevaux rapides. Enfin, un de ses compagnons,\nAlkim\u00e9d\u00f4n, fils de Laerkeus Aimonide, le vit de ses yeux, et,\ns'arr\u00eatant aupr\u00e8s du char, dit \u00e0 Autom\u00e9d\u00f4n:\n\n-- Autom\u00e9d\u00f4n, quel dieu t'ayant mis dans l'\u00e2me un dessein insens\u00e9,\nt'a ravi l'esprit? Tu veux combattre seul aux premiers rangs,\ncontre les Troiens, et ton compagnon est mort, et Hekt\u00f4r se\nglorifie de porter sur ses \u00e9paules les armes de l'Aiakide!\n\nEt le fils de Dior\u00e8s, Autom\u00e9d\u00f4n, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Alkim\u00e9d\u00f4n, nul des Akhaiens ne pourrait dompter les chevaux\nimmortels, si ce n'est toi. Patroklos, vivant, seul le pouvait,\n\u00e9tant semblable aux dieux par sa prudence. Maintenant, la mort et\nla moire l'ont saisi. Prends le fouet et les r\u00eanes splendides, et\nje descendrai pour combattre.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Alkim\u00e9d\u00f4n monta sur le char et prit le fouet et\nles r\u00eanes, et Autom\u00e9d\u00f4n descendit; mais l'illustre Hekt\u00f4r, l'ayant\nvu, dit aussit\u00f4t \u00e0 Ain\u00e9ias:\n\n-- Ain\u00e9ias, prince des Troiens cuirass\u00e9s, je vois les deux chevaux\ndu rapide Aiakide qui courent dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e avec des conducteurs\nvils, et j'esp\u00e8re les saisir, si tu veux m'aider, car, sans doute,\nces hommes n'oseront point nous tenir t\u00eate.\n\nIl parla, et l'irr\u00e9prochable fils d'Ankhis\u00e8s consentit, et ils\nmarch\u00e8rent, abritant leurs \u00e9paules des cuirs secs et solides que\nrecouvrait l'airain. Et avec eux marchaient Khromios et Ar\u00e8tos\nsemblable \u00e0 un dieu. Et les insens\u00e9s esp\u00e9raient tuer les deux\nAkhaiens et se saisir des chevaux au large cou; mais ils ne\ndevaient point revenir sans avoir r\u00e9pandu leur sang sous les mains\nd'Autom\u00e9d\u00f4n. Et celui-ci supplia le p\u00e8re Zeus, et, plein de force\net de courage dans son coeur sombre, il dit \u00e0 son compagnon\nfid\u00e8le, Alkim\u00e9d\u00f4n:\n\n-- Alkim\u00e9d\u00f4n, ne retiens point les chevaux loin de moi, mais\nqu'ils soufflent sur mon dos, car je ne pense pas que la fureur du\nPriamide Hekt\u00f4r s'apaise, avant qu'il nous ait tu\u00e9s et qu'il ait\nsaisi les chevaux aux belles crini\u00e8res d'Akhilleus, ou qu'il soit\nlui-m\u00eame tomb\u00e9 sous nos mains.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il appela les Aias et M\u00e9n\u00e9laos:\n\n-- Aias et M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, chefs des Argiens, remettez ce cadavre aux\nplus braves, et qu'ils le d\u00e9fendent, et qu'ils repoussent la foule\ndes hommes; mais \u00e9loignez notre dernier jour, \u00e0 nous qui sommes\nvivants, car voici que Hekt\u00f4r et Ain\u00e9ias, les plus terribles des\nTroiens, se ruent sur nous \u00e0 travers la m\u00eal\u00e9e lamentable. Mais la\ndestin\u00e9e est sur les genoux des dieux! Je lance ma pique, me\nconfiant en Zeus.\n\nIl parla, et il lan\u00e7a sa longue pique, et il frappa le bouclier\n\u00e9gal d'Ar\u00e8tos. Et le bouclier n'arr\u00eata point l'airain qui le\ntraversa et entra dans le ventre \u00e0 travers le baudrier. De m\u00eame,\nquand un jeune homme, arm\u00e9 d'une hache tranchante, frappe entre\nles deux cornes d'un boeuf sauvage, il coupe le nerf, et l'animal\nbondit et tombe. De m\u00eame Ar\u00e8tos bondit, et tomba \u00e0 la renverse, et\nla pique, \u00e0 travers les entrailles, rompit ses forces. Et Hekt\u00f4r\nlan\u00e7a sa pique \u00e9clatante contre Autom\u00e9d\u00f4n; mais celui-ci, l'ayant\nvu, \u00e9vita en se baissant la pique d'airain qui, par-dessus lui,\nplongea en terre et vibra jusqu'\u00e0 ce que Ar\u00e8s e\u00fbt \u00e9puis\u00e9 sa\nvigueur. Et tous deux se jetaient l'un sur l'autre avec leurs\n\u00e9p\u00e9es, quand les rapides Aias, \u00e0 la voix de leur compagnon, se\nru\u00e8rent \u00e0 travers la m\u00eal\u00e9e. Et Hekt\u00f4r, Ain\u00e9ias et Khromios pareil\n\u00e0 un dieu recul\u00e8rent, laissant Ar\u00e8tos couch\u00e9, le ventre ouvert. Et\nAutom\u00e9d\u00f4n, pareil au rapide Ar\u00e8s, le d\u00e9pouillant de ses armes, dit\nen se glorifiant:\n\n-- Du moins, j'ai un peu soulag\u00e9 ma douleur de la mort du\nM\u00e9noitiade, bien que je n'aie tu\u00e9 qu'un homme tr\u00e8s inf\u00e9rieur \u00e0\nlui.\n\nEt il mit sur le char les d\u00e9pouilles sanglantes, et il y monta,\nles pieds et les mains sanglants, comme un lion qui vient de\nmanger un taureau.\n\nEt, de nouveau, la m\u00eal\u00e9e affreuse et lamentable recommen\u00e7a sur\nPatroklos. Et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, descendant de l'Ouranos, anima le combat,\ncar Zeus au large regard l'avait envoy\u00e9e afin d'encourager les\nDanaens, son esprit \u00e9tant chang\u00e9. De m\u00eame que l'Ouranien Zeus\nenvoie aux vivants une Iris pourpr\u00e9e, signe de guerre ou de\nfroides temp\u00eates, qui interrompt les travaux des hommes et nuit\naux troupeaux; de m\u00eame Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, s'enveloppant d'une nu\u00e9e pourpr\u00e9e,\nse m\u00eala \u00e0 la foule des Akhaiens. Et, d'abord, elle excita le fils\nd'Atreus, parlant ainsi au brave M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, sous la forme de\nPhoinix \u00e0 la voix m\u00e2le:\n\n-- Quelle honte et quelle douleur pour toi, M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, si les\nchiens rapides des Troiens mangeaient, sous leurs murailles, le\ncher compagnon de l'illustre Akhilleus Mais sois ferme, et\nencourage tout ton peuple.\n\nEt le brave M\u00e9n\u00e9laos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Phoinix, mon p\u00e8re, vieillard v\u00e9n\u00e9rable, pl\u00fbt aux dieux\nqu'Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 me donn\u00e2t la force et repouss\u00e2t loin de moi les traits.\nJ'irais et je d\u00e9fendrais Patroklos, car, en mourant, il a\nviolemment d\u00e9chir\u00e9 mon coeur. Mais la vigueur de Hekt\u00f4r est comme\ncelle du feu, et il ne cesse de tuer avec l'airain, et Zeus lui\ndonne la victoire.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs se r\u00e9jouit parce qu'il\nl'avait implor\u00e9e avant tous les dieux. Et elle r\u00e9pandit la vigueur\ndans ses \u00e9paules et dans ses genoux, et elle mit dans sa poitrine\nl'audace de la mouche qui, toujours et vainement chass\u00e9e, se pla\u00eet\n\u00e0 mordre, car le sang de l'homme lui est doux. Et elle mit cette\naudace dans son coeur sombre; et, retournant vers Patroklos, il\nlan\u00e7a sa pique brillante. Et parmi les Troiens se trouvait Pod\u00e8s,\nfils d'\u00ca\u00e9ti\u00f4n, riche, brave, et tr\u00e8s honor\u00e9 par Hekt\u00f4r entre tous\nles autres, parce qu'il \u00e9tait son plus cher convive. Le blond\nM\u00e9n\u00e9laos le frappa sur le baudrier, comme il fuyait; et l'airain\nle traversa, et il tomba avec bruit, et l'Atr\u00e9ide M\u00e9n\u00e9laos\nentra\u00eena son cadavre du c\u00f4t\u00e9 des Akhaiens. Et Apoll\u00f4n excita\nHekt\u00f4r, sous la forme de Phainops Asiade qui habitait Abydos, et\nqui \u00e9tait le plus cher des h\u00f4tes du Priamide. Et l'archer Apoll\u00f4n\ndit \u00e0 celui-ci, sous la forme de Phainops:\n\n-- Hekt\u00f4r, qui d'entre les Akhaiens te redoutera d\u00e9sormais, si tu\ncrains M\u00e9n\u00e9laos qui n'est qu'un faible guerrier, et qui enl\u00e8ve\nseul ce cadavre, apr\u00e8s avoir tu\u00e9 ton compagnon fid\u00e8le, brave entre\nles hommes, Pod\u00e8s, fils d'\u00ca\u00e9ti\u00f4n?\n\nIl parla ainsi, et la noire nu\u00e9e de la douleur enveloppa Hekt\u00f4r,\net il se rua aux premiers rangs, arm\u00e9 de l'airain splendide. Et\nalors le Kroni\u00f4n saisit l'aigide aux franges \u00e9clatantes, et il\ncouvrit l'Ida de nu\u00e9es, et, fulgurant, il tonna fortement,\nsecouant l'aigide, donnant la victoire aux Troiens et mettant les\nAkhaiens en fuite.\n\nEt, le premier, le Boi\u00f4tien P\u00e8n\u00e9l\u00e9\u00f4s prit la fuite, bless\u00e9 par\nPolydamas d'un coup de lance qui lui avait travers\u00e9 le haut de\nl'\u00e9paule jusqu'\u00e0 l'os. Et Hekt\u00f4r blessa \u00e0 la main L\u00e8itos, fils du\nmagnanime Alektry\u00f4n; et il le mit en fuite, \u00e9pouvant\u00e9 et regardant\nde tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s, car il n'esp\u00e9rait plus pouvoir tenir une lance pour\nle combat.\n\nEt comme Hekt\u00f4r se jetait sur L\u00e8itos, Idom\u00e9neus le frappa \u00e0 la\ncuirasse, au-dessous de la mamelle, mais la longue pique se rompit\nl\u00e0 o\u00f9 la pointe s'unit au bois, et les Troiens pouss\u00e8rent des\nclameurs; et, contre Idom\u00e9neus Deukalide debout sur son char,\nHekt\u00f4r lan\u00e7a sa pique qui s'\u00e9gara et per\u00e7a le conducteur de\nM\u00e8rion\u00e8s, Koiranos, qui l'avait suivi de la populeuse Lyktos.\nIdom\u00e9neus \u00e9tant venu \u00e0 pied des nefs aux doubles avirons, il e\u00fbt\ndonn\u00e9 une grande gloire aux Troiens, si Koiranos n'e\u00fbt amen\u00e9\naussit\u00f4t les chevaux rapides. Et il fut le salut d'Idom\u00e9neus, et\nil lui conserva la lumi\u00e8re; mais lui-m\u00eame rendit l'\u00e2me sous le\ntueur d'hommes Hekt\u00f4r qui le per\u00e7a entre la m\u00e2choire et l'oreille.\nLa pique \u00e9branla les dents et trancha la moiti\u00e9 de la langue.\nKoiranos tomba du char, laissant tra\u00eener les r\u00eanes. Et M\u00e8rion\u00e8s,\nles saisissant \u00e0 terre, dit \u00e0 Idom\u00e9neus:\n\n-- Fouette maintenant les rapides chevaux jusqu'aux nefs; tu vois\ncomme moi que la victoire \u00e9chappe aux Akhaiens.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Idom\u00e9neus fouetta les chevaux aux belles\ncrini\u00e8res, jusqu'aux nefs creuses, car la crainte avait envahi son\ncoeur. Et le magnanime Aias et M\u00e9n\u00e9laos reconnurent aussi que la\nvictoire \u00e9chappait aux Akhaiens et que Zeus la donnait aux\nTroiens. Et le grand T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien Aias dit le premier:\n\n-- \u00d4 dieux! le plus insens\u00e9 comprendrait maintenant que le p\u00e8re\nZeus donne la victoire aux Troiens. Tous leurs traits portent, que\nce soit la main d'un l\u00e2che qui les envoie ou d'un brave; Zeus les\ndirige, et les n\u00f4tres tombent vains et impuissants sur la terre.\nAllons, songeons au moins au meilleur moyen d'entra\u00eener le cadavre\nde Patroklos, et nous r\u00e9jouirons ensuite nos compagnons par notre\nretour. Ils s'attristent en nous regardant, car ils pensent que\nnous n'\u00e9chapperons pas aux mains in\u00e9vitables et \u00e0 la vigueur du\ntueur d'hommes Hekt\u00f4r, mais que nous serons rejet\u00e9s vers les nefs\nnoires. Pl\u00fbt aux dieux qu'un de nous annon\u00e7\u00e2t promptement ce\nmalheur au P\u00e8l\u00e9ide! Je ne pense pas qu'il sache que son cher\ncompagnon est mort. Mais je ne sais qui nous pourrions envoyer\nparmi les Akhaiens. Un brouillard noir nous enveloppe tous, les\nhommes et les chevaux. P\u00e8re Zeus, d\u00e9livre de cette obscurit\u00e9 les\nfils des Akhaiens; rends-nous la clart\u00e9, que nos yeux puissent\nvoir; et si tu veux nous perdre dans ta col\u00e8re, que ce soit du\nmoins \u00e0 la lumi\u00e8re!\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le p\u00e8re Zeus eut compassion de ses larmes, et\nil dispersa aussit\u00f4t le brouillard et dissipa la nu\u00e9e. H\u00e9lios\nbrilla, et toute l'arm\u00e9e apparut. Et Aias dit au brave M\u00e9n\u00e9laos:\n\n-- Divin M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, cherche maintenant Antilokhos, le magnanime\nfils de Nest\u00f4r, si toutefois il est encore vivant, et qu'il se\nh\u00e2te d'aller dire au belliqueux Akhilleus que le plus cher de ses\ncompagnons est mort.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le brave M\u00e9n\u00e9laos se h\u00e2ta d'ob\u00e9ir, et il\ns'\u00e9loigna, comme un lion qui, fatigu\u00e9 d'avoir lutt\u00e9 contre les\nchiens et les hommes, s'\u00e9loigne de l'enclos; car, toute la nuit,\npar leur vigilance, ils ne lui ont point permis d'enlever les\nboeufs gras. Il s'est ru\u00e9 sur eux, plein du d\u00e9sir des chairs\nfra\u00eeches; mais la foule des traits a vol\u00e9 de leurs mains\naudacieuses, ainsi que les torches ardentes qu'il redoute malgr\u00e9\nsa fureur; et, vers le matin, il s'\u00e9loigne, le coeur attrist\u00e9. De\nm\u00eame le brave M\u00e9n\u00e9laos s'\u00e9loignait contre son gr\u00e9 du corps de\nPatroklos, car il craignait que les Akhaiens terrifi\u00e9s ne\nl'abandonnassent en proie \u00e0 l'ennemi. Et il exhorta M\u00e8rion\u00e8s et\nles Aias:\n\n-- Aias, chefs des Argiens, et toi, M\u00e8rion\u00e8s, souvenez-vous de la\ndouceur du malheureux Patroklos! Pendant sa vie, il \u00e9tait plein de\ndouceur pour tous; et, maintenant, la mort et la moire l'ont\nsaisi!\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, le blond M\u00e9n\u00e9laos s'\u00e9loigna, regardant de tous\nles c\u00f4t\u00e9s, comme l'aigle qui, dit-on, est, de tous les oiseaux de\nl'Ouranos, celui dont la vue est la plus per\u00e7ante, car, des\nhauteurs o\u00f9 il vit, il aper\u00e7oit le li\u00e8vre qui g\u00eete sous un arbuste\nfeuillu; et il tombe aussit\u00f4t sur lui, le saisit et lui arrache\nl'\u00e2me. De m\u00eame, divin M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, tes yeux clairs regardaient de\ntous c\u00f4t\u00e9s, dans la foule des Akhaiens, s'ils voyaient, vivant, le\nfils de Nest\u00f4r. Et M\u00e9n\u00e9laos le reconnut, \u00e0 la gauche de la m\u00eal\u00e9e,\nexcitant ses compagnons au combat. Et, s'approchant, le blond\nM\u00e9n\u00e9laos lui dit:\n\n-- Viens, divin Antilokhos! apprends une triste nouvelle. Pl\u00fbt aux\ndieux que ceci ne f\u00fbt jamais arriv\u00e9! Sans doute tu sais d\u00e9j\u00e0 qu'un\ndieu accable les Akhaiens et donne la victoire aux Troiens. Le\nmeilleur des Akhaiens a \u00e9t\u00e9 tu\u00e9, Patroklos, qui laisse de grands\nregrets aux Danaens. Mais toi, cours aux nefs des Akhaiens, et\nannonce ce malheur au P\u00e8l\u00e9ide. Qu'il vienne promptement sauver son\ncadavre nu, car Hekt\u00f4r au casque mouvant poss\u00e8de ses armes.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Antilokhos, accabl\u00e9 par ces paroles, resta\nlongtemps muet, et ses yeux s'emplirent de larmes, et la voix lui\nmanqua; mais il ob\u00e9it \u00e0 l'ordre de M\u00e9n\u00e9laos. Et il remit ses armes\n\u00e0 l'irr\u00e9prochable Laodokos, son ami, qui conduisait ses chevaux\naux sabots massifs, et il s'\u00e9loigna en courant. Et ses pieds\nl'emportaient, pleurant, afin d'annoncer au P\u00e8l\u00e9ide Akhilleus la\ntriste nouvelle.\n\nEt tu ne voulus point, divin M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, venir en aide aux\ncompagnons attrist\u00e9s d'Antilokhos, aux Pyliens qui le\nregrettaient. Et il leur laissa le divin Thrasym\u00e8d\u00e8s, et il\nretourna aupr\u00e8s du h\u00e9ros Patroklos, et, parvenu jusqu'aux Aias, il\nleur dit:\n\n-- J'ai envoy\u00e9 Antilokhos vers les nefs, afin de parler au P\u00e8l\u00e9i\u00f4n\naux pieds rapides; mais je ne pense pas que le P\u00e8l\u00e8iade vienne\nmaintenant, bien que tr\u00e8s irrit\u00e9 contre le divin Hekt\u00f4r, car il ne\npeut combattre sans armes. Songeons, pour le mieux, de quelle\nfa\u00e7on nous entra\u00eenerons ce cadavre, et comment nous \u00e9viterons\nnous-m\u00eames la mort et la moire \u00e0 travers le tumulte des Troiens.\n\nEt le grand Aias T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Tu as bien dit, \u00f4 illustre M\u00e9n\u00e9laos. Toi et M\u00e8rion\u00e8s, enlevez\npromptement le cadavre et emportez-le hors de la m\u00eal\u00e9e; et,\nderri\u00e8re vous, nous repousserons les Troiens et le divin Hekt\u00f4r,\nnous qui avons la m\u00eame \u00e2me et le m\u00eame nom, et qui savons affronter\ntous deux le combat terrible.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, dans leurs bras, ils enlev\u00e8rent le cadavre. Et\nles Troiens pouss\u00e8rent des cris horribles en voyant les Akhaiens\nenlever Patroklos. Et ils se ru\u00e8rent, semblables \u00e0 des chiens qui,\ndevan\u00e7ant les chasseurs, s'amassent sur un sanglier bless\u00e9 qu'ils\nveulent d\u00e9chirer. Mais s'il se retourne, confiant dans sa force,\nils s'arr\u00eatent et fuient \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0. Ainsi les Troiens se ruaient en\nfoule, frappant de l'\u00e9p\u00e9e et de la lance; mais, quand les Aias se\nretournaient et leur tenaient t\u00eate, ils changeaient de couleur, et\naucun n'osait les combattre pour leur disputer ce cadavre.\n\nEt ils emportaient ainsi avec ardeur le cadavre, hors de la m\u00eal\u00e9e,\nvers les nefs creuses. Et le combat les suivait, acharn\u00e9 et\nterrible, comme un incendie qui \u00e9clate brusquement dans une ville;\net les maisons croulent dans une vaste flamme que tourmente la\nviolence du vent. Ainsi le tumulte sans tr\u00eave des chevaux et des\nhommes poursuivait les Akhaiens. Comme des mulets vigoureux, se\nh\u00e2tant, malgr\u00e9 le travail et la sueur, tra\u00eenent par l'\u00e2pre chemin\nd'une montagne, soit une poutre, soit un m\u00e2t; ainsi M\u00e9n\u00e9laos et\nM\u00e8rion\u00e8s emportaient \u00e0 la h\u00e2te le cadavre. Et derri\u00e8re eux, les\nAias repoussaient les Troiens, comme une colline bois\u00e9e, qui\ns'\u00e9tend par la plaine, repousse les courants furieux des fleuves\nrapides qui ne peuvent la rompre et qu'elle rejette toujours vers\nla plaine. Ainsi les Aias repoussaient la foule des Troiens qui\nles poursuivaient, conduits par Ain\u00e9ias Ankhisiade et par\nl'illustre Hekt\u00f4r. Comme une troupe d'\u00e9tourneaux et de geais vole\nen poussant des cris aigus, \u00e0 l'approche de l'\u00e9pervier qui tue les\npetits oiseaux, de m\u00eame les fils des Akhaiens couraient avec des\nclameurs per\u00e7antes, devant Ain\u00e9ias et Hekt\u00f4r, et oublieux du\ncombat. Et les belles armes des Danaens en fuite emplissaient les\nbords du foss\u00e9 et le foss\u00e9 lui-m\u00eame; mais le carnage ne cessait\npoint.\n\n\nChant 18\n\nEt ils combattaient ainsi, comme le feu ardent. Et Antilokhos vint\n\u00e0 Akhilleus aux pieds rapides, et il le trouva devant ses nefs aux\nantennes dress\u00e9es, songeant dans son esprit aux choses accomplies\nd\u00e9j\u00e0; et, g\u00e9missant, il disait dans son coeur magnanime:\n\n-- \u00d4 dieux! pourquoi les Akhaiens chevelus, dispers\u00e9s par la\nplaine, sont-ils repouss\u00e9s tumultueusement vers les nefs? Que les\ndieux m'\u00e9pargnent ces cruelles douleurs qu'autrefois ma m\u00e8re\nm'annon\u00e7a, quand elle me disait que le meilleur des Myrmidones,\nmoi vivant, perdrait la lumi\u00e8re de H\u00e9lios sous les mains des\nTroiens. Sans doute il est d\u00e9j\u00e0 mort, le brave fils de M\u00e9noitios,\nle malheureux! Certes, j'avais ordonn\u00e9 qu'ayant repouss\u00e9 le feu\nennemi, il rev\u00eent aux nefs sans combattre Hekt\u00f4r.\n\nTandis qu'il roulait ceci dans son esprit et dans son coeur, le\nfils de l'illustre Nest\u00f4r s'approcha de lui, et, versant de\nchaudes larmes, dit la triste nouvelle:\n\n-- H\u00e9las! fils du belliqueux P\u00e8leus, certes, tu vas entendre une\ntriste nouvelle; et pl\u00fbt aux dieux que ceci ne f\u00fbt point arriv\u00e9!\nPatroklos g\u00eet mort, et tous combattent pour son cadavre nu, car\nHekt\u00f4r poss\u00e8de ses armes.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et la noire nu\u00e9e de la douleur enveloppa\nAkhilleus, et il saisit de ses deux mains la poussi\u00e8re du foyer et\nla r\u00e9pandit sur sa t\u00eate, et il en souilla sa belle face; et la\nnoire poussi\u00e8re souilla sa tunique nektar\u00e9enne; et, lui-m\u00eame,\n\u00e9tendu tout entier dans la poussi\u00e8re, gisait, et des deux mains\narrachait sa chevelure. Et les femmes, que lui et Patroklos\navaient prises, hurlaient violemment, afflig\u00e9es dans leur coeur;\net toutes, hors des tentes, entouraient le belliqueux Akhilleus,\net elles se frappaient la poitrine, et leurs genoux \u00e9taient\nrompus. Antilokhos aussi g\u00e9missait, r\u00e9pandant des larmes, et\ntenait les mains d'Akhilleus qui sanglotait dans son noble coeur.\nEt le Nest\u00f4ride craignait qu'il se tranch\u00e2t la gorge avec\nl'airain.\n\nAkhilleus poussait des sanglots terribles, et sa m\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable\nl'entendit, assise dans les gouffres de la mer, aupr\u00e8s de son\nvieux p\u00e8re. Et elle se lamenta aussit\u00f4t. Et autour de la d\u00e9esse\n\u00e9taient rassembl\u00e9es toutes les n\u00e8r\u00e8ides qui sont au fond de la\nmer: Glauk\u00e8, et Thal\u00e9ia, et Kymodok\u00e8, et N\u00e8sai\u00e8, et Sp\u00e9i\u00f4, et\nTho\u00e8, et Hali\u00e8 aux yeux de boeuf, et Kymotho\u00e8, et Alkai\u00e8, et\nLimnor\u00e9ia, et M\u00e9lit\u00e8, et Iaira, et Amphitho\u00e8, et Agav\u00e8, et L\u00f4t\u00f4,\net Pr\u00f4t\u00f4, et Ph\u00e9rousa, Dynam\u00e9n\u00e8, et Dexam\u00e9n\u00e8 et Amphinom\u00e8, et\nKallianassa, et D\u00f4ris, et Panop\u00e8, et l'illustre Galat\u00e9ia, et\nN\u00e8mert\u00e8s, et Abseud\u00e8s, et Kallian\u00e9ira, et Klym\u00e9n\u00e8, et Ian\u00e9ira, et\nIanassa, et Maira, et Oreithya, et Amath\u00e9ia aux beaux cheveux, et\nles autres n\u00e8r\u00e8ides qui sont dans la profonde mer. Et elles\nemplissaient la grotte d'argent, et elles se frappaient la\npoitrine, et Th\u00e9tis se lamentait ainsi:\n\n-- Ecoutez-moi, soeurs n\u00e8r\u00e8ides, afin que vous sachiez les\ndouleurs qui d\u00e9chirent mon \u00e2me, h\u00e9las! \u00e0 moi, malheureuse, qui ai\nenfant\u00e9 un homme illustre, un fils irr\u00e9prochable et brave, le plus\ncourageux des h\u00e9ros, et qui a grandi comme un arbre. Je l'ai \u00e9lev\u00e9\ncomme une plante dans une terre fertile, et je l'ai envoy\u00e9 vers\nIlios, sur ses nefs aux poupes recourb\u00e9es, combattre les Troiens.\nEt je ne le verrai point revenir dans mes demeures, dans la maison\nP\u00e8l\u00e9ienne. Voici qu'il est vivant, et qu'il voit la lumi\u00e8re de\nH\u00e9lios, et qu'il souffre, et je ne puis le secourir. Mais j'irai\nvers mon fils bien-aim\u00e9, et je saurai de lui-m\u00eame quelle douleur\nl'accable loin du combat.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, elle quitta la grotte, et toutes la suivaient,\npleurantes; et l'eau de la mer s'ouvrait devant elles. Puis, elles\nparvinrent \u00e0 la riche Troie, et elles abord\u00e8rent l\u00e0 o\u00f9 les\nMyrmidones, autour d'Akhilleus aux pieds rapides, avaient tir\u00e9\nleurs nombreuses nefs sur le rivage. Et sa m\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable le\ntrouva poussant de profonds soupirs; et elle prit, en pleurant, la\nt\u00eate de son fils, et elle lui dit en g\u00e9missant ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Mon enfant, pourquoi pleures-tu? Quelle douleur envahit ton\n\u00e2me? Parle, ne me cache rien, afin que nous sachions tous deux.\nZeus, ainsi que je l'en avais suppli\u00e9 de mes mains \u00e9tendues, a\nrejet\u00e9 tous les fils des Akhaiens aupr\u00e8s des nefs, et ils\nsouffrent de grands maux, parce que tu leur manques.\n\nEt Akhilleus aux pieds rapides, avec de profonds soupirs, lui\nr\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ma m\u00e8re, l'Olympien m'a exauc\u00e9; mais qu'en ai-je retir\u00e9,\npuisque mon cher compagnon Patroklos est mort, lui que j'honorais\nentre tous autant que moi-m\u00eame? Je l'ai perdu. Hekt\u00f4r, l'ayant\ntu\u00e9, lui a arrach\u00e9 mes belles, grandes et admirables armes,\npr\u00e9sents splendides des dieux \u00e0 P\u00e8leus, le jour o\u00f9 ils te firent\npartager le lit d'un homme mortel. Pl\u00fbt aux dieux que tu fusses\nrest\u00e9e avec les d\u00e9esses de la mer, et que P\u00e8leus e\u00fbt \u00e9pous\u00e9 plut\u00f4t\nune femme mortelle! Maintenant, une douleur \u00e9ternelle emplira ton\n\u00e2me, \u00e0 cause de la mort de ton fils que tu ne verras plus revenir\ndans tes demeures; car je ne veux plus vivre, ni m'inqui\u00e9ter des\nhommes, \u00e0 moins que Hekt\u00f4r, perc\u00e9 par ma lance, ne rende l'\u00e2me, et\nque Patroklos M\u00e9noitiade, livr\u00e9 en p\u00e2ture aux chiens, ne soit\nveng\u00e9.\n\nEt Th\u00e9tis, versant des larmes, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Mon enfant, dois-tu donc bient\u00f4t mourir, comme tu le dis? C'est\nta mort qui doit suivre celle de Hekt\u00f4r!\n\nEt Akhille\u00f9s aux pieds rapides, en g\u00e9missant lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Je mourrai donc, puisque je n'ai pu secourir mon compagnon,\npendant qu'on le tuait. Il est mort loin de la patrie, et il m'a\nconjur\u00e9 de le venger. Je mourrai maintenant, puisque je ne\nretournerai point dans la patrie, et que je n'ai sauv\u00e9 ni\nPatroklos, ni ceux de mes compagnons qui sont tomb\u00e9s en foule sous\nle divin Hekt\u00f4r, tandis que j'\u00e9tais assis sur mes nefs, inutile\nfardeau de la terre, moi qui l'emporte sur tous les Akhaiens dans\nle combat; car d'autres sont meilleurs dans l'agora. Ah! que la\ndissension p\u00e9risse parmi les dieux! et, parmi les hommes, p\u00e9risse\nla col\u00e8re qui trouble le plus sage, et qui, plus douce que le miel\nliquide, se gonfle, comme la fum\u00e9e dans la poitrine des hommes!\nC'est ainsi que le roi des hommes, Agamemn\u00f4n, a provoqu\u00e9 ma\ncol\u00e8re. Mais oublions le pass\u00e9, malgr\u00e9 nos douleurs, et, dans\nnotre poitrine, ployons notre \u00e2me \u00e0 la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9. Je chercherai\nHekt\u00f4r qui m'a enlev\u00e9 cette ch\u00e8re t\u00eate, et je recevrai la mort\nquand il plaira \u00e0 Zeus et aux autres dieux immortels. La force\nH\u00e8rakl\u00e9enne n'\u00e9vita point la mort, lui qui \u00e9tait tr\u00e8s-cher au roi\nZeus Kroni\u00f4n; mais l'in\u00e9vitable col\u00e8re de H\u00e8r\u00e8 et la moire le\ndompt\u00e8rent. Si une moire semblable m'attend, on me couchera mort\nsur le b\u00fbcher, mais, auparavant, je remporterai une grande gloire.\nEt que la Troadienne, ou la Dardanienne, essuie de ses deux mains\nses joues d\u00e9licates couvertes de larmes, car je la contraindrai de\ng\u00e9mir mis\u00e9rablement; et elles comprendront que je me suis\nlongtemps \u00e9loign\u00e9 du combat. Ne me retiens donc pas, malgr\u00e9 ta\ntendresse, car tu ne me persuaderas point.\n\nEt la d\u00e9esse Th\u00e9tis aux pieds d'argent lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Certes, mon fils, tu as bien dit: il est beau de venger la\nruine cruelle de ses compagnons. Mais tes armes d'airain, belles\net splendides, sont parmi les Troiens. Hekt\u00f4r au casque mouvant se\nglorifie d'en avoir couvert ses \u00e9paules; mais je ne pense pas\nqu'il s'en r\u00e9jouisse longtemps, car le meurtre est aupr\u00e8s de lui.\nN'entre point dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e d'Ar\u00e8s avant que tu m'aies revue de\ntes yeux. Je reviendrai demain, comme H\u00e9lios se l\u00e8vera, avec de\nbelles armes venant du roi H\u00e8phaistos.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, elle quitta son fils et dit \u00e0 ses soeurs de la\nmer:\n\n-- Rentrez \u00e0 la h\u00e2te dans le large sein de la mer, et retournez\ndans les demeures de notre vieux p\u00e8re, et dites-lui tout ceci.\nMoi, je vais dans le vaste Olympos, aupr\u00e8s de l'illustre ouvrier\nH\u00e8phaistos, afin de lui demander de belles armes splendides pour\nmon fils.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et les n\u00e8r\u00e8ides disparurent aussit\u00f4t sous l'eau\nde la mer, et la d\u00e9esse Th\u00e9tis aux pieds d'argent monta de nouveau\ndans l'Olympos, afin d'en rapporter de belles et illustres armes\npour son fils.\n\nEt, tandis que ses pieds la portaient dans l'Olympos, les\nAkhaiens, avec un grand tumulte, vers les nefs et le Hellespontos,\nfuyaient devant le tueur d'hommes Hekt\u00f4r.\n\nEt les Akhaiens aux belles kn\u00e8mides n'avaient pu enlever hors des\ntraits le cadavre de Patroklos, du compagnon d'Akhilleus; et tout\nle peuple de Troi\u00e8, et les chevaux, et le Priamide Hekt\u00f4r,\nsemblable \u00e0 la flamme par sa fureur, poursuivaient toujours\nPatroklos. Et, trois fois, l'illustre Hekt\u00f4r le saisit par les\npieds, d\u00e9sirant l'entra\u00eener, et excitant les Troiens, et, trois\nfois, les Aias, rev\u00eatus d'une force imp\u00e9tueuse, le repouss\u00e8rent\nloin du cadavre; et lui, certain de son courage, tant\u00f4t se ruait\ndans la m\u00eal\u00e9e, tant\u00f4t s'arr\u00eatait avec de grands cris, mais jamais\nne reculait. De m\u00eame que les bergers campagnards ne peuvent\nchasser loin de sa proie un lion fauve et affam\u00e9, de m\u00eame les deux\nAias ne pouvaient repousser le Priamide Hekt\u00f4r loin du cadavre; et\nil l'e\u00fbt entra\u00een\u00e9, et il e\u00fbt remport\u00e9 une grande gloire, si la\nrapide Iris aux pieds a\u00e9riens vers le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide ne f\u00fbt venue \u00e0 la\nh\u00e2te de l'Olympos, afin qu'il se montr\u00e2t. H\u00e8r\u00e8 l'avait envoy\u00e9e,\nZeus et les autres dieux l'ignorant. Et, debout aupr\u00e8s de lui,\nelle dit en paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- L\u00e8ve-toi, P\u00e8l\u00e9ide, le plus effrayant des hommes, et secours\nPatroklos pour qui on combat avec fureur devant les nefs. C'est l\u00e0\nque tous s'entre-tuent, les Akhaiens pour le d\u00e9fendre, et les\nTroiens pour l'entra\u00eener vers Ilios battue des vents. Et\nl'illustre Hekt\u00f4r esp\u00e8re surtout l'entra\u00eener, et il veut mettre,\napr\u00e8s l'avoir coup\u00e9e, la t\u00eate de Patroklos au bout d'un pieu.\nL\u00e8ve-toi; ne reste pas plus longtemps inerte, et que la honte te\nsaisisse en songeant \u00e0 Patroklos devenu le jouet des chiens\ntroiens. Ce serait un opprobre pour toi, si son cadavre \u00e9tait\nsouill\u00e9.\n\nEt le divin et rapide Akhilleus lui dit:\n\n-- D\u00e9esse Iris, qui d'entre les dieux t'a envoy\u00e9e vers moi?\n\nEt la rapide Iris aux pieds a\u00e9riens lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- H\u00e8r\u00e8, la glorieuse \u00e9pouse de Zeus, m'a envoy\u00e9e; et le sublime\nKronide et tous les immortels qui habitent l'Olympos neigeux\nl'ignorent.\n\nEt Akhilleus aux pieds rapides, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi:\n\n-- Comment irais-je au combat, puisqu'ils ont mes armes? Ma m\u00e8re\nbien-aim\u00e9e me le d\u00e9fend, avant que je l'aie vue, de mes yeux,\nrepara\u00eetre avec de belles armes venant de H\u00e8phaistos. Je ne puis\nrev\u00eatir celles d'aucun autre guerrier, sauf le bouclier d'Aias\nT\u00e9lam\u00f4niade; mais il combat sans doute aux premiers rangs, tuant\nles ennemis, de sa lance, autour du cadavre de Patroklos.\n\nEt la rapide Iris aux pieds a\u00e9riens lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Certes, nous savons que tes belles armes te sont enlev\u00e9es;\nmais, tel que te voil\u00e0, apparais aux Troiens sur le bord du foss\u00e9;\net ils reculeront \u00e9pouvant\u00e9s, et les braves fils des Akhaiens\nrespireront. Il ne s'agit que de respirer un moment.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, la rapide Iris disparut. Et Akhilleus cher \u00e0\nZeus se leva; et, sur ses robustes \u00e9paules, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 mit l'aigide\nfrang\u00e9e; et la grande d\u00e9esse ceignit la t\u00eate du h\u00e9ros d'une nu\u00e9e\nd'or sur laquelle elle alluma une flamme resplendissante. De m\u00eame,\ndans une \u00eele lointaine, la fum\u00e9e monte vers l'aith\u00e8r, du milieu\nd'une ville assi\u00e9g\u00e9e. Tout le jour, les citoyens ont combattu avec\nfureur hors de la ville; mais, au d\u00e9clin de H\u00e9lios, ils allument\ndes feux ardents dont la splendeur monte dans l'air, et sera peut-\n\u00eatre vue des peuples voisins qui viendront sur leurs nefs les\nd\u00e9livrer d'Ar\u00e8s. Ainsi, une haute clart\u00e9 montait de la t\u00eate d'\nAkhilleus jusque dans l'aith\u00e8r. Et il s'arr\u00eata sur le bord du\nfoss\u00e9, sans se m\u00ealer aux Akhaiens, car il ob\u00e9issait \u00e0 l'ordre\nprudent de sa m\u00e8re. L\u00e0, debout, il poussa un cri, et Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8\ncria aussi, et un immense tumulte s'\u00e9leva parmi les Troiens. Et\nl'illustre voix de l'Aiakide \u00e9tait semblable au son strident de la\ntrompette, autour d'une ville assi\u00e9g\u00e9e par des ennemis acharn\u00e9s.\n\nEt, d\u00e8s que les Troiens eurent entendu la voix d'airain de\nl'Aiakide, ils fr\u00e9mirent tous; et les chevaux aux belles crini\u00e8res\ntourn\u00e8rent les chars, car ils pressentaient des malheurs, et leurs\nconducteurs furent \u00e9pouvant\u00e9s quand ils virent cette flamme\ninfatigable et horrible qui br\u00fblait sur la t\u00eate du magnanime\nP\u00e8l\u00e9i\u00f4n et que nourrissait la d\u00e9esse aux yeux clairs Ath\u00e8n\u00e8. Et,\ntrois fois, sur le bord du foss\u00e9, le divin Akhilleus cria, et,\ntrois fois, les Troiens furent boulevers\u00e9s, et les illustres\nalli\u00e9s; et douze des plus braves p\u00e9rirent au milieu de leurs chars\net de leurs lances.\n\nMais les Akhaiens, emportant avec ardeur Patroklos hors des\ntraits, le d\u00e9pos\u00e8rent sur un lit. Et ses chers compagnons\npleuraient autour, et, avec eux, marchait Akhilleus aux pieds\nrapides. Et il versait de chaudes larmes, voyant son cher\ncompagnon couch\u00e9 dans le cercueil, perc\u00e9 par l'airain aigu, lui\nqu'il avait envoy\u00e9 au combat avec ses chevaux et son char, et\nqu'il ne devait point revoir vivant.\n\nEt la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux yeux de boeuf commanda \u00e0 l'infatigable\nH\u00e9lios de retourner aux sources d'Ok\u00e9anos, et H\u00e9lios disparut \u00e0\nregret; et les divins Akhaiens mirent fin \u00e0 la m\u00eal\u00e9e violente et \u00e0\nla guerre lamentable. Et les Troiens, abandonnant aussi le rude\ncombat, d\u00e9li\u00e8rent les chevaux rapides, et s'assembl\u00e8rent pour\nl'agora, avant le repas. Et l'agora les vit debout, aucun ne\nvoulant s'asseoir, car la terreur les tenait depuis qu'Akhilleus\navait reparu, lui qui, depuis longtemps, ne se m\u00ealait plus au\ncombat. Et le sage Polydamas Panthoide commen\u00e7a de parler. Et seul\nil voyait le pass\u00e9 et l'avenir. Et c'\u00e9tait le compagnon de Hekt\u00f4r,\n\u00e9tant n\u00e9 la m\u00eame nuit; mais il le surpassait en sagesse, autant\nque Hekt\u00f4r l'emportait en courage. Plein de prudence, il leur dit\ndans l'agora:\n\n-- Amis, d\u00e9lib\u00e9rez m\u00fbrement. Je conseille de marcher vers la\nville, et de ne point attendre la divine \u00c9\u00f4s aupr\u00e8s des nefs, car\nnous sommes loin des murs. Aussi longtemps que cet homme a \u00e9t\u00e9\nirrit\u00e9 contre le divin Agamemn\u00f4n, il \u00e9tait plus ais\u00e9 de dompter\nles Akhaiens. Et je me r\u00e9jouissais de coucher aupr\u00e8s des nefs\nrapides, esp\u00e9rant saisir les nefs aux deux rangs d'avirons; mais\nje redoute maintenant le rapide P\u00e8l\u00e9i\u00f4n; car, dans son coeur\nindomptable, il ne voudra point rester dans la plaine o\u00f9 les\nTroyens et les Akhaiens d\u00e9ploient la force d'Ar\u00e8s, mais il\ncombattra pour s'emparer de notre ville et de nos femmes. Allons\nvers Ilios; ob\u00e9issez-moi et faites ainsi. Maintenant, la nuit\ncontraire retient le rapide P\u00e8l\u00e9i\u00f4n; mais s'il nous attaque demain\navec fureur, celui qui le sentira, alors fuira volontiers vers la\nsainte Ilios, s'il lui \u00e9chappe. Et les chiens et les oiseaux\ncarnassiers mangeront une foule de Troiens. Plaise aux dieux qu'on\nne me le dise jamais! Si vous ob\u00e9issez \u00e0 mes paroles, bien qu'\u00e0\nregret, nous reprendrons des forces cette nuit; et ses tours, ses\nhautes portes et leurs barri\u00e8res longues et solides prot\u00e9geront la\nville. Demain, arm\u00e9s d\u00e8s le matin, nous serons debout sur nos\ntours; et le travail lui sera lourds s'il vient de ses nefs\nassi\u00e9ger nos murailles. Et il s'en retournera vers les nefs, ayant\n\u00e9puis\u00e9 ses chevaux au grand cou \u00e0 courir sous les murs de la\nville. Et il ne pourra point p\u00e9n\u00e9trer dans Ilios et il ne la\nd\u00e9truira jamais, et, auparavant, les chiens rapides le mangeront.\n\nEt Hekt\u00f4r au casque mouvant, avec un sombre regard, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Polydamas, il me d\u00e9pla\u00eet que tu nous ordonnes de nous renfermer\nencore dans la ville. N'\u00eates-vous donc point las d'\u00eatre enferm\u00e9s\ndans nos tours? Autrefois, tous les hommes qui parlent des langues\ndiverses vantaient la ville de Priamos, abondante en or, riche en\nairain. Aujourd'hui, les tr\u00e9sors qui \u00e9taient dans nos demeures\nsont dissip\u00e9s. Depuis que le grand Zeus est irrit\u00e9, la plupart de\nnos biens ont \u00e9t\u00e9 transport\u00e9s en Phrygi\u00e8 et dans la belle Maioni\u00e8.\nEt maintenant que le fils du subtil Kronos m'a donn\u00e9 la victoire\naupr\u00e8s des nefs et m'a permis d'acculer les Akhaiens \u00e0 la mer, \u00f4\ninsens\u00e9, ne r\u00e9pands point de telles pens\u00e9es dans le peuple. Aucun\ndes Troiens ne t'ob\u00e9ira, je ne le permettrai point. Allons! faites\nce que je vais dire. Prenez le repas dans les rangs. N'oubliez\npoint de veiller, chacun \u00e0 son tour. Si quelque Troien craint pour\nses richesses, qu'il les donne au peuple afin que tous en\nprofitent, et cela vaudra mieux que d'en faire jouir les Akhaiens.\nDemain, d\u00e8s le matin, nous recommencerons le rude combat aupr\u00e8s\ndes nefs creuses. Et, si le divin Akhilleus se l\u00e8ve aupr\u00e8s des\nnefs, la rencontre lui sera rude; car je ne le fuira pas dans le\ncombat violent, mais je lui tiendrai courageusement t\u00eate. Ou il\nremportera une grande gloire, ou je triompherai. Ar\u00e8s est commun \u00e0\ntous, et, souvent, il tue celui qui voulait tuer.\n\nHekt\u00f4r parla ainsi, et les Troiens applaudirent, les insens\u00e9s! car\nPallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 leur avait ravi l'esprit. Et ils applaudirent les\nparoles funestes de Hekt\u00f4r, et ils n'\u00e9cout\u00e8rent point le sage\nconseil de Polydamas, et ils prirent leur repas dans les rangs.\n\nMais les Akhaiens, pendant toute la nuit, pleur\u00e8rent autour de\nPatroklos. Et le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide menait le deuil lamentable, posant ses\nmains tueuses d'hommes sur la poitrine de son compagnon, et\ng\u00e9missant, comme une lionne \u00e0 longue barbe dont un chasseur a\nenlev\u00e9 les petits dans une \u00e9paisse for\u00eat. Elle arrive trop tard,\net elle g\u00e9mit, cherchant par toutes les vall\u00e9es les traces de\nl'homme; et une violente col\u00e8re la saisit. Ainsi Akhilleus, avec\nde profonds soupirs, dit aux Myrmidones:\n\n-- \u00d4 dieux! Certes, j'ai prononc\u00e9 une parole vaine, le jour o\u00f9,\nconsolant le h\u00e9ros M\u00e9noitios dans ses demeures, je lui disais que\nje ram\u00e8nerais son fils illustre, apr\u00e8s qu'il aurait renvers\u00e9 Ilios\net pris sa part des d\u00e9pouilles. Mais Zeus n'accomplit pas tous les\nd\u00e9sirs des hommes. Nous rougirons tous deux la terre devant Troi\u00e8,\net le vieux cavalier P\u00e8leus ne me reverra plus dans ses demeures,\nni ma m\u00e8re Th\u00e9tis, car cette terre me gardera. \u00d4 Patroklos,\npuisque je subirai la tombe le dernier, je ne t'ensevelirai point\navant de t'avoir apport\u00e9 les armes et la t\u00eate de Hekt\u00f4r, ton\nmagnanime meurtrier. Et je tuerai devant ton b\u00fbcher douze\nillustres fils des Troiens, car je suis irrit\u00e9 de ta mort. Et,\npendant ce temps, tu resteras couch\u00e9 sur mes nefs aux poupes\nrecourb\u00e9es; et autour de toi, les Troiennes et les Dardaniennes au\nlarge sein que nous avons conquises tous deux par notre force et\nnos lances, apr\u00e8s avoir renvers\u00e9 beaucoup de riches cit\u00e9s d'hommes\naux diverses langues, g\u00e9miront nuit et jour en versant des larmes.\n\nLe divin Akhilleus parla ainsi, et il ordonna \u00e0 ses compagnons de\nmettre un grand tr\u00e9pied sur le feu, afin de laver promptement les\nsouillures sanglantes de Patroklos. Et ils mirent sur le feu\nardent le tr\u00e9pied des ablutions, et ils y vers\u00e8rent l'eau; et, au-\ndessous, ils allum\u00e8rent le bois. Et la flamme enveloppa le ventre\ndu tr\u00e9pied, et l'eau chauffa. Et quand l'eau fut chaude dans le\ntr\u00e9pied brillant, ils lav\u00e8rent Patroklos; et, l'ayant oint d'une\nhuile grasse, ils emplirent ses plaies d'un baume de neuf ans; et,\nle d\u00e9posant sur le lit, ils le couvrirent d'un lin l\u00e9ger, de la\nt\u00eate aux pieds, et, par-dessus, d'un v\u00eatement blanc. Ensuite,\npendant toute la nuit, les Myrmidones g\u00e9mirent, pleurant\nPatroklos. Mais Zeus dit \u00e0 H\u00e8r\u00e8 sa soeur et son \u00e9pouse:\n\n-- Tu as enfin r\u00e9ussi, v\u00e9n\u00e9rable H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux yeux de boeuf! Voici\nqu'Akhilleus aux pieds rapides s'est lev\u00e9. Les Akhaiens chevelus\nne seraient-ils point n\u00e9s de toi?\n\nEt la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux yeux de boeuf lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Tr\u00e8s dur Kronide, quelle parole as-tu dite? Un homme, bien que\nmortel, et dou\u00e9 de peu d'intelligence, peut se venger d'un autre\nhomme; et moi, qui suis la plus puissante des d\u00e9esses, et par ma\nnaissance, et parce que je suis ton \u00e9pouse \u00e0 toi qui r\u00e8gnes sur\nles immortels, je ne pourrais m\u00e9diter la perte des Troiens!\n\nEt ils parlaient ainsi. Et Th\u00e9tis aux pieds d'argent parvint \u00e0 la\ndemeure de H\u00e8phaistos, incorruptible, \u00e9toil\u00e9e, admirable aux\nimmortels eux-m\u00eames; faite d'airain, et que le Boiteux avait\nconstruite de ses mains.\n\nEt elle le trouva suant et se remuant autour des soufflets, et\nhaletant. Et il forgeait vingt tr\u00e9pieds pour \u00eatre plac\u00e9s autour de\nsa demeure solide. Et il les avait pos\u00e9s sur des roues d'or afin\nqu'ils se rendissent d'eux-m\u00eames \u00e0 l'assembl\u00e9e divine, et qu'ils\nen revinssent de m\u00eame. Il ne leur manquait, pour \u00eatre finis, que\ndes anses aux formes vari\u00e9es. H\u00e8phaistos les pr\u00e9parait et en\nforgeait les attaches. Et tandis qu'il travaillait \u00e0 ces oeuvres\nhabiles, la d\u00e9esse Th\u00e9tis aux pieds d'argent s'approcha. Et Kharis\naux belles bandelettes, qu'avait \u00e9pous\u00e9e l'illustre Boiteux des\ndeux pieds, l'ayant vue, lui prit la main et lui dit:\n\n-- \u00d4 Th\u00e9tis au large p\u00e9plos, v\u00e9n\u00e9rable et ch\u00e8re, pourquoi viens-tu\ndans notre demeure o\u00f9 nous te voyons si rarement? Mais suis-moi,\net je t'offrirai les mets hospitaliers.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, la tr\u00e8s noble d\u00e9esse la conduisit. Et, l'ayant\nfait asseoir sur un tr\u00f4ne aux clous d'argent, beau et\ning\u00e9nieusement fait, elle pla\u00e7a un escabeau sous ses pieds et\nappela l'illustre ouvrier H\u00e8phaistos:\n\n-- Viens, H\u00e8phaistos! Th\u00e9tis a besoin de toi.\n\nEt l'illustre Boiteux des deux pieds lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Certes, elle est toute puissante sur moi, la d\u00e9esse v\u00e9n\u00e9rable\nqui est entr\u00e9e ici. C'est elle qui me sauva, quand je fus\npr\u00e9cipit\u00e9 d'en haut par ma m\u00e8re impitoyable qui voulait me cacher\naux dieux parce que j'\u00e9tais boiteux. Que de douleurs j'eusse\nendur\u00e9es alors, si Th\u00e9tis, et Eurynom\u00e8, la fille d'Ok\u00e9anos au\nreflux rapide, ne m'avaient re\u00e7u dans leur sein! Pour elles, dans\nleur grotte profonde, pendant neuf ans, je forgeai mille\nornements, des agrafes, des noeuds, des colliers et des bracelets.\nEt l'immense fleuve Ok\u00e9anos murmurait autour de la grotte. Et elle\nn'\u00e9tait connue ni des dieux, ni des hommes, mais seulement de\nTh\u00e9tis et d'Eurynom\u00e8 qui m'avaient sauv\u00e9. Et, maintenant, puisque\nTh\u00e9tis aux beaux cheveux vient dans ma demeure, je lui rendrai\ngr\u00e2ce de m'avoir sauv\u00e9. Mais toi, offre-lui les mets hospitaliers,\ntandis que je d\u00e9poserai mes soufflets et tous mes instruments.\n\nIl parla ainsi. Et le corps monstrueux du dieu se redressa de\nl'enclume; et il boitait, chancelant sur ses jambes gr\u00eales et\ntorses. Et il \u00e9loigna les soumets du feu, et il d\u00e9posa dans un\ncoffre d'argent tous ses instruments familiers. Puis, une \u00e9ponge\nessuya sa face, ses deux mains, son cou robuste et sa poitrine\nvelue. Il mit une tunique, prit un sceptre \u00e9norme et sortit de la\nforge en boitant. Et deux servantes soutenaient les pas du roi.\nElles \u00e9taient d'or, semblables aux vierges vivantes qui pensent et\nparlent, et que les dieux ont instruites. Soutenu par elles et\nmarchant \u00e0 pas lourds, il vint s'asseoir aupr\u00e8s de Th\u00e9tis, sur un\ntr\u00f4ne brillant. Et il prit les mains de la d\u00e9esse et lui dit:\n\n-- Th\u00e9tis au long p\u00e9plos, v\u00e9n\u00e9rable et ch\u00e8re, pourquoi es-tu venue\ndans ma demeure o\u00f9 nous te voyons si rarement? Parle. Mon coeur\nm'ordonne d'accomplir ton d\u00e9sir, si je le puis, et si c'est\npossible.\n\nEt Th\u00e9tis, versant des larmes, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- H\u00e8phaistos! parmi toutes les d\u00e9esses qui sont dans l'Olympos,\nen est-il une qui ait subi des maux aussi cruels que ceux dont\nm'accable le Kronide Zeus? Seule, entre les d\u00e9esses de la mer, il\nm'a soumise \u00e0 un homme, \u00e0 l'Aiakide P\u00e8leus; et j'ai subi \u00e0 regret\nla couche d'un homme! Et, maintenant, accabl\u00e9 par la triste\nvieillesse, il g\u00eet dans sa demeure. Mais voici que j'ai d'autres\ndouleurs. Un fils est n\u00e9 de moi, le plus illustre des h\u00e9ros, et il\na grandi comme un arbre, et je l'ai nourri comme une plante dans\nune terre fertile. Et je l'ai envoy\u00e9 vers Ilios sur ses nefs aux\npoupes recourb\u00e9es, pour combattre les Troiens, et je ne le verrai\nplus revenir dans ma demeure, dans la maison P\u00e8l\u00e9ienne. Pendant\nqu'il est vivant et qu'il voit la lumi\u00e8re de H\u00e9lios, il est\ntriste, et je ne puis le secourir. Les fils des Akhaiens lui\navaient donn\u00e9 pour r\u00e9compense une vierge que le roi Agamemn\u00f4n lui\na enleva des mains, et il en g\u00e9missait dans son coeur. Mais voici\nque les Troiens ont repouss\u00e9 les Akhaiens jusqu'aux nefs et les y\nont renferm\u00e9s. Les princes des Argiens ont suppli\u00e9 mon fils et lui\nont offert de nombreux et illustres pr\u00e9sents. Il a refus\u00e9 de\nd\u00e9tourner lui-m\u00eame leur ruine, mais il a envoy\u00e9 Patroklos au\ncombat, couvert de ses armes et avec tout son peuple. Et, ce jour-\nl\u00e0, sans doute, ils eussent renvers\u00e9 la ville, si Apoll\u00f4n n'e\u00fbt\ntu\u00e9 aux premiers rangs le brave fils de M\u00e9noitios qui accablait\nles Troiens, et n'e\u00fbt donn\u00e9 la victoire \u00e0 Hekt\u00f4r. Et, maintenant,\nj'embrasse tes genoux! Donne \u00e0 mon fils, qui doit bient\u00f4t mourir,\nun bouclier, un casque, de belles kn\u00e8mides avec leurs agrafes et\nune cuirasse, car son cher compagnon, tu\u00e9 par les Troiens, a perdu\nses armes, et il g\u00e9mit, couch\u00e9 sur la terre!\n\nEt l'illustre Boiteux des deux pieds lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Rassure-toi, et n'aie plus d'inqui\u00e9tudes dans ton esprit. Pl\u00fbt\naux dieux que je pusse le sauver de la mort lamentable quand le\nlourd destin le saisira, aussi ais\u00e9ment que je vais lui donner de\nbelles armes qui empliront d'admiration la multitude des hommes.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il la quitta, et, retournant \u00e0 ses soufflets,\nil les approcha du feu et leur ordonna de travailler. Et ils\nr\u00e9pandirent leur souffle dans vingt fourneaux, tant\u00f4t violemment,\ntant\u00f4t plus lentement, selon la volont\u00e9 de H\u00e8phaistos, pour\nl'accomplissement de son oeuvre. Et il jeta dans le feu le dur\nairain et l'\u00e9tain, et l'or pr\u00e9cieux et l'argent. Il posa sur un\ntronc une vaste enclume, et il saisit d'une main le lourd marteau\net de l'autre la tenaille. Et il fit d'abord un bouclier grand et\nsolide, aux ornements vari\u00e9s, avec un contour triple et\nresplendissant et une attache d'argent. Et il mit cinq bandes au\nbouclier, et il y tra\u00e7a, dans son intelligence, une multitude\nd'images. Il y repr\u00e9senta la terre et l'Ouranos, et la mer, et\nl'infatigable H\u00e9lios, et l'orbe enfl\u00e9 de S\u00e9l\u00e8n\u00e8, et tous les\nastres dont l'Ouranos est couronn\u00e9: les Pl\u00e8iades, les Hyades, la\nforce d'Ori\u00f4n, et l'Ourse, qu'on nomme aussi le Chariot qui se\ntourne sans cesse vers Ori\u00f4n, et qui, seule, ne tombe point dans\nles eaux de l'Ok\u00e9anos.\n\nEt il fit deux belles cit\u00e9s des hommes. Dans l'une on voyait des\nnoces et des festins solennels. Et les \u00e9pouses, hors des chambres\nnuptiales, \u00e9taient conduites par la ville, et de toutes parts\nmontait le chant d'hym\u00e9n\u00e9e, et les jeunes hommes dansaient en\nrond, et les fl\u00fbtes et les kithares r\u00e9sonnaient, et les femmes,\ndebout sous les portiques, admiraient ces choses.\n\nEt les peuples \u00e9taient assembl\u00e9s dans l'agora, une querelle\ns'\u00e9tant \u00e9lev\u00e9e. Deux hommes se disputaient pour l'amende d'un\nmeurtre. L'un affirmait au peuple qu'il avait pay\u00e9 cette amende,\net l'autre niait l'avoir re\u00e7ue. Et tous deux voulaient qu'un\narbitre fin\u00eet leur querelle, et les citoyens les applaudissaient\nl'un et l'autre. Les h\u00e9rauts apaisaient le peuple, et les\nvieillards \u00e9taient assis sur des pierres polies, en un cercle\nsacr\u00e9. Les h\u00e9rauts portaient des sceptres en main; et les\nplaideurs, prenant le sceptre, se d\u00e9fendaient tour \u00e0 tour. Deux\ntalents d'or \u00e9taient d\u00e9pos\u00e9s au milieu du cercle pour celui qui\nparlerait selon la justice.\n\nPuis, deux arm\u00e9es, \u00e9clatantes d'airain, entouraient l'autre cit\u00e9.\nEt les ennemis offraient aux citoyens, ou de d\u00e9truire la ville, ou\nde la partager, elle et tout ce qu'elle renfermait. Et ceux-ci n'y\nconsentaient pas, et ils s'armaient secr\u00e8tement pour une\nembuscade; et, sur les murailles veillaient les femmes, les\nenfants et les vieillards. Mais les hommes marchaient, conduits\npar Ar\u00e8s et par Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, tous deux en or, v\u00eatus d'or, beaux et\ngrands sous leurs armes, comme il \u00e9tait convenable pour des dieux;\ncar les hommes \u00e9taient plus petits. Et, parvenus au lieu commode\npour l'embuscade, sur les bords du fleuve o\u00f9 boivent les\ntroupeaux, ils s'y cachaient, couverts de l'airain brillant.\n\nDeux sentinelles, plac\u00e9es plus loin, guettaient les brebis et les\nboeufs aux cornes recourb\u00e9es. Et les animaux s'avan\u00e7aient suivis\nde deux bergers qui se charmaient en jouant de la fl\u00fbte, sans se\ndouter de l'emb\u00fbche.\n\nEt les hommes cach\u00e9s accouraient; et ils tuaient les boeufs et les\nbeaux troupeaux de blanches brebis, et les bergers eux-m\u00eames.\nPuis, ceux qui veillaient devant les tentes, entendant ce tumulte\nparmi les boeufs, et montant sur leurs chars rapides, arrivaient\naussit\u00f4t et combattaient sur les bords du fleuve. Et ils se\nfrappaient avec les lances d'airain, parmi la discorde et le\ntumulte et la k\u00e8r fatale. Et celle-ci blessait un guerrier, ou\nsaisissait cet autre sans blessure, ou tra\u00eenait celui-l\u00e0 par les\npieds, \u00e0 travers le carnage, et ses v\u00eatements d\u00e9gouttaient de\nsang. Et tous semblaient des hommes vivants qui combattaient et\nqui entra\u00eenaient de part et d'autre les cadavres.\n\nPuis, H\u00e8phaistos repr\u00e9senta une terre grasse et molle et trois\nfois labour\u00e9e. Et les laboureurs menaient dans ce champ les\nattelages qui retournaient la terre. Parvenus au bout, un homme\nleur offrait \u00e0 chacun une coupe de vin doux; et ils revenaient,\nd\u00e9sirant achever les nouveaux sillons qu'ils creusaient. Et la\nterre \u00e9tait d'or, et semblait noire derri\u00e8re eux, et comme d\u00e9j\u00e0\nlabour\u00e9e. Tel \u00e9tait ce miracle de H\u00e8phaistos.\n\nPuis, il repr\u00e9senta un champ de hauts \u00e9pis que des moissonneurs\ncoupaient avec des faux tranchantes. Les \u00e9pis tombaient, \u00e9pais,\nsur les bords du sillon, et d'autres \u00e9taient li\u00e9s en gerbes. Trois\nhommes liaient les gerbes, et, derri\u00e8re eux, des enfants prenaient\ndans leurs bras les \u00e9pis et les leur offraient sans cesse. Le roi,\nen silence, le sceptre en main et le coeur joyeux, \u00e9tait debout\naupr\u00e8s des sillons. Des h\u00e9rauts, plus loin, sous un ch\u00eane,\npr\u00e9paraient, pour le repas, un grand boeuf qu'ils avaient tu\u00e9, et\nles femmes saupoudraient les viandes avec de la farine blanche,\npour le repas des moissonneurs.\n\nPuis, H\u00e8phaistos repr\u00e9senta une belle vigne d'or charg\u00e9e de\nraisins, avec des rameaux d'or sombre et des pieds d'argent.\nAutour d'elle un foss\u00e9 bleu, et, au-dessus, une haie d'\u00e9tain. Et\nla vigne n'avait qu'un sentier o\u00f9 marchaient les vendangeurs. Les\njeunes filles et les jeunes hommes qui aiment la ga\u00eet\u00e9 portaient\nle doux fruit dans des paniers d'osier. Un enfant, au milieu\nd'eux, jouait harmonieusement d'une kithare sonore, et sa voix\nfra\u00eeche s'unissait aux sons des cordes. Et ils le suivaient\nchantant, dansant avec ardeur, et frappant tous ensemble la terre.\n\nPuis, H\u00e8phaistos repr\u00e9senta un troupeau de boeufs aux grandes\ncornes. Et ils \u00e9taient faits d'or et d'\u00e9tain, et, hors de\nl'\u00e9table, en mugissant, ils allaient au p\u00e2turage, le long du\nfleuve sonore qui abondait en roseaux. Et quatre bergers d'or\nconduisaient les boeufs, et neuf chiens rapides les suivaient. Et\nvoici que deux lions horribles saisissaient, en t\u00eate des vaches,\nun taureau beuglant; et il \u00e9tait entra\u00een\u00e9, poussant de longs\nmugissements. Les chiens et les bergers les poursuivaient; mais\nles lions d\u00e9chiraient la peau du grand boeuf, et buvaient ses\nentrailles et son sang noir. Et les bergers excitaient en vain les\nchiens rapides qui refusaient de mordre les lions, et n'aboyaient\nde pr\u00e8s que pour fuir aussit\u00f4t.\n\nPuis, l'illustre Boiteux des deux pieds repr\u00e9senta un grand pacage\nde brebis blanches, dans une grande vall\u00e9e; et des \u00e9tables, des\nenclos et des bergeries couvertes.\n\nPuis, l'illustre Boiteux des deux pieds repr\u00e9senta un choeur de\ndanses, semblable \u00e0 celui que, dans la grande Kn\u00f4ssos, Daidalos\nfit autrefois pour Ariadn\u00e8 aux beaux cheveux; et les adolescents\net les belles vierges dansaient avec ardeur en se tenant par la\nmain. Et celles-ci portaient des robes l\u00e9g\u00e8res, et ceux-l\u00e0 des\ntuniques finement tiss\u00e9es qui brillaient comme de l'huile. Elles\nportaient de belles couronnes, et ils avaient des \u00e9p\u00e9es d'or\nsuspendues \u00e0 des baudriers d'argent. Et, habilement, ils dansaient\nen rond avec rapidit\u00e9, comme la roue que le potier, assis au\ntravail, sent courir sous sa main. Et ils tournaient ainsi en\ns'enla\u00e7ant par dessins vari\u00e9s; et la foule charm\u00e9e se pressait\nautour. Et deux sauteurs qui chantaient, bondissaient eux-m\u00eames au\nmilieu du choeur.\n\nPuis, H\u00e8phaistos, tout autour du bouclier admirablement travaill\u00e9,\nrepr\u00e9senta la grande force du fleuve Ok\u00e9anos.\n\nEt, apr\u00e8s le bouclier grand et solide, il fit la cuirasse plus\n\u00e9clatante que la splendeur du feu. Et il fit le casque \u00e9pais,\nbeau, orn\u00e9, et adapt\u00e9 aux tempes du P\u00e8l\u00e9ide, et il le surmonta\nd'une aigrette d'or. Puis il fit les kn\u00e8mides d'\u00e9tain flexible.\n\nEt, quand l'illustre Boiteux des deux pieds eut achev\u00e9 ces armes,\nil les d\u00e9posa devant la m\u00e8re d'Akhilleus, et celle-ci, comme\nl'\u00e9pervier, sauta du fa\u00eete de l'Olympos neigeux, emportant les\narmes resplendissantes que H\u00e8phaistos avait faites.\n\n\nChant 19\n\n\u00c9\u00f4s au p\u00e9plos couleur de safran sortait des flots d'Ok\u00e9anos pour\nporter la lumi\u00e8re aux immortels et aux hommes. Et Th\u00e9tis parvint\naux nefs avec les pr\u00e9sents du dieu. Et elle trouva son fils bien-\naim\u00e9 entourant de ses bras Patroklos et pleurant am\u00e8rement. Et,\nautour de lui, ses compagnons g\u00e9missaient. Mais la d\u00e9esse parut au\nmilieu d'eux, prit la main d'Akhilleus et lui dit:\n\n-- Mon enfant, malgr\u00e9 notre douleur, laissons-le, puisqu'il est\nmort par la volont\u00e9 des dieux. Re\u00e7ois de H\u00e8phaistos ces armes\nillustres et belles, telles que jamais aucun homme n'en a port\u00e9\nsur ses \u00e9paules.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, la d\u00e9esse les d\u00e9posa devant Akhilleus, et les\narmes merveilleuses r\u00e9sonn\u00e8rent. La terreur saisit les Myrmidones,\net nul d'entre eux ne put en soutenir l'\u00e9clat, et ils trembl\u00e8rent;\nmais Akhilleus, d\u00e8s qu'il les vit, se sentit plus furieux, et,\nsous ses paupi\u00e8res, ses yeux br\u00fblaient, terribles, et tels que la\nflamme. Il se r\u00e9jouissait de tenir dans ses mains les pr\u00e9sents\nsplendides du dieu; et, apr\u00e8s avoir admir\u00e9, plein de joie, ce\ntravail merveilleux, aussit\u00f4t il dit \u00e0 sa m\u00e8re ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Ma m\u00e8re, certes, un dieu t'a donn\u00e9 ces armes qui ne peuvent\n\u00eatre que l'oeuvre des immortels, et qu'un homme ne pourrait faire.\nJe vais m'armer \u00e0 l'instant. Mais je crains que les mouches\np\u00e9n\u00e8trent dans les blessures du brave fils de M\u00e9noitios, y\nengendrent des vers, et, souillant ce corps o\u00f9 la vie est \u00e9teinte,\ncorrompent tout le cadavre.\n\nEt la d\u00e9esse Th\u00e9tis aux pieds d'argent lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Mon enfant, que ces inqui\u00e9tudes ne soient point dans ton\nesprit. Loin de Patroklos j'\u00e9carterai moi-m\u00eame les essaims impurs\ndes mouches qui mangent les guerriers tu\u00e9s dans le combat. Ce\ncadavre resterait couch\u00e9 ici toute une ann\u00e9e, qu'il serait encore\nsain, et plus frais m\u00eame. Mais toi, appelle les h\u00e9ros Akhaiens \u00e0\nl'agora, et, renon\u00e7ant \u00e0 ta col\u00e8re contre le prince des peuples\nAgamemn\u00f4n, h\u00e2te-toi de t'armer et rev\u00eats-toi de ton courage.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, elle le remplit de vigueur et d'audace; et elle\nversa dans les narines de Patroklos l'ambroisie et le nektar\nrouge, afin que le corps f\u00fbt incorruptible.\n\nEt le divin Akhilleus courait sur le rivage de la mer, poussant\ndes cris horribles, et excitant les h\u00e9ros Akhaiens. Et ceux qui,\nauparavant, restaient dans les nefs, et les pilotes qui tenaient\nles gouvernails, et ceux m\u00eames qui distribuaient les vivres aupr\u00e8s\ndes nefs, tous allaient \u00e0 l' agora o\u00f9 Akhilleus reparaissait,\napr\u00e8s s'\u00eatre \u00e9loign\u00e9 longtemps du combat. Et les deux serviteurs\nd'Ar\u00e8s, le belliqueux Tyd\u00e9ide et le divin Odysseus, boitant et\nappuy\u00e9s sur leurs lances, car ils souffraient encore de leurs\nblessures, vinrent s'asseoir aux premiers rangs. Et le roi des\nhommes, Agamemn\u00f4n, vint le dernier, \u00e9tant bless\u00e9 aussi, Ko\u00f4n\nAnt\u00e9noride l'ayant frapp\u00e9 de sa lance d'airain, dans la rude\nm\u00eal\u00e9e. Et quand tous les Akhaiens furent assembl\u00e9s, Akhilleus aux\npieds rapides, se levant au milieu d'eux, parla ainsi:\n\n-- Atr\u00e9ide, n'e\u00fbt-il pas mieux valu nous entendre, quand, pleins\nde col\u00e8re, nous avons consum\u00e9 notre coeur pour cette jeune femme?\nPl\u00fbt aux dieux que la fl\u00e8che d'Art\u00e9mis l'e\u00fbt tu\u00e9e sur les nefs, le\njour o\u00f9 je la pris dans Lyrnessos bien peupl\u00e9e! Tant d'Akhaiens\nn'auraient pas mordu la vaste terre sous des mains ennemies, \u00e0\ncause de ma col\u00e8re. Ceci n'a servi qu'\u00e0 Hekt\u00f4r et aux Troiens; et\nje pense que les Akhaiens se souviendront longtemps de notre\nquerelle. Mais oublions le pass\u00e9, malgr\u00e9 notre douleur; et, dans\nnotre poitrine, soumettons notre \u00e2me \u00e0 la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9. Aujourd'hui,\nje d\u00e9pose ma col\u00e8re. Il ne convient pas que je sois toujours\nirrit\u00e9. Mais toi, appelle promptement au combat les Akhaiens\nchevelus, afin que je marche aux Troiens et que je voie s'ils\nveulent dormir aupr\u00e8s des nefs. Il courbera volontiers les genoux,\ncelui qui aura \u00e9chapp\u00e9 \u00e0 nos lances dans le combat.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et les Akhaiens aux belles kn\u00e8mides se r\u00e9jouirent\nque le magnanime P\u00e8l\u00e9i\u00f4n renon\u00e7\u00e2t \u00e0 sa col\u00e8re. Et le roi des\nhommes, Agamemn\u00f4n, parla de son si\u00e8ge, ne se levant point au\nmilieu d'eux:\n\n-- \u00d4 chers h\u00e9ros Danaens, serviteurs d'Ar\u00e8s, il est juste\nd'\u00e9couter celui qui parle, et il ne convient point de\nl'interrompre, car cela est p\u00e9nible, m\u00eame pour le plus habile. Qui\npourrait \u00e9couter et entendre au milieu du tumulte des hommes? La\nvoix sonore du meilleur agor\u00e8te est vaine. Je parlerai au P\u00e8l\u00e9ide.\nVous, Argiens, \u00e9coutez mes paroles, et que chacun connaisse ma\npens\u00e9e. Souvent les Akhaiens m'ont accus\u00e9, mais je n'ai point\ncaus\u00e9 leurs maux. Zeus, la moire, \u00c9rinnyes qui errent dans les\nt\u00e9n\u00e8bres, ont jet\u00e9 la fureur dans mon \u00e2me, au milieu de l'agora,\nle jour o\u00f9 j'ai enlev\u00e9 la r\u00e9compense d'Akhilleus. Mais qu'aurais-\nje fait? Une d\u00e9esse accomplit tout, la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable fille de Zeus, la\nfatale At\u00e8 qui \u00e9gare les hommes. Ses pieds a\u00e9riens ne touchent\npoint la terre, mais elle passe sur la t\u00eate des hommes qu'elle\nblesse, et elle n'encha\u00eene pas qu'eux. Autrefois, en effet, elle a\n\u00e9gar\u00e9 Zeus qui l'emporte sur les hommes et les dieux. H\u00e8r\u00e8 trompa\nle Kronide par ses ruses, le jour o\u00f9 Alkm\u00e9n\u00e8 allait enfanter la\nforce H\u00e8racl\u00e9enne, dans Th\u00e8b\u00e8 aux fortes murailles. Et, plein de\njoie, Zeus dit au milieu de tous les dieux: -- \u00c9coutez-moi, dieux\net d\u00e9esses, afin que je dise ce que mon esprit m'inspire.\nAujourd'hui, Eileithya, qui pr\u00e9side aux douloureux enfantements,\nappellera \u00e0 la lumi\u00e8re un homme de ceux qui sont de ma race et de\nmon sang, et qui commandera sur tous ses voisins.\u0092 Et la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable\nH\u00e8r\u00e8 qui m\u00e9dite des ruses parla ainsi: -- Tu mens, et tu\nn'accompliras point tes paroles. Allons, Olympien! jure, par un\ninviolable serment, qu'il commandera sur tous ses voisins, l'homme\nde ton sang et de ta race qui, aujourd'hui, tombera d'entre les\ngenoux d'une femme.\u0092 Elle parla ainsi, et Zeus ne comprit point sa\nruse, et il jura un grand serment dont il devait souffrir dans la\nsuite. Et, quittant \u00e0 la h\u00e2te le fa\u00eete de l'Olympos, H\u00e8r\u00e8 parvint\ndans Argos Akhaienne o\u00f9 elle savait que l'illustre \u00e9pouse de\nSth\u00e9n\u00e9los Pers\u00e8iade portait un fils dans son sein. Et elle le fit\nna\u00eetre avant le temps, \u00e0 sept mois. Et elle retarda les douleurs\nde l'enfantement et les couches d'Alkm\u00e9n\u00e8. Puis, l'annon\u00e7ant au\nKroni\u00f4n Zeus, elle lui dit: -- P\u00e8re Zeus qui tiens la foudre\n\u00e9clatante, je t'annoncerai ceci: l'homme illustre est n\u00e9 qui\ncommandera sur les Argiens. C'est Eurystheus, fils de Sth\u00e9n\u00e9los\nPers\u00e8iade. Il est de ta race, et il n'est pas indigne de commander\nsur les Argiens.\u0092 Elle parla ainsi, et une douleur aigu\u00eb et\nprofonde blessa le coeur de Zeus. Et, saisissant At\u00e8 par ses\ntresses brillantes, il jura, par un inviolable serment, qu'elle ne\nreviendrait plus jamais dans l'Olympos et dans l'Ouranos \u00e9toil\u00e9,\nAt\u00e8, qui \u00e9gare tous les esprits. Il parla ainsi, et, la faisant\ntournoyer, il la jeta, de l'Ouranos \u00e9toil\u00e9, au milieu des hommes.\nEt c'est par elle qu'il g\u00e9missait, quand il voyait son fils bien-\naim\u00e9 accabl\u00e9 de travaux sous le joug violent d'Eurystheus. Et il\nen est ainsi de moi. Quand le grand Hekt\u00f4r au casque mouvant\naccablait les Argiens aupr\u00e8s des poupes des nefs, je ne pouvais\noublier cette fureur qui m'avait \u00e9gar\u00e9. Mais, puisque je t'ai\noffens\u00e9 et que Zeus m'a ravi l'esprit, je veux t'apaiser et te\nfaire des pr\u00e9sents infinis. Va donc au combat et encourage les\ntroupes; et je pr\u00e9parerai les pr\u00e9sents que le divin Odysseus, hier\nsous tes tentes, t'a promis. Ou, si tu le d\u00e9sires, attends, malgr\u00e9\nton ardeur \u00e0 combattre. Des h\u00e9rauts vont t'apporter ces pr\u00e9sents,\nde ma nef, et tu verras ce que je veux te donner pour t'apaiser.\n\nEt Akhilleus aux pieds rapides lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Tr\u00e8s llustre Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n, roi des hommes, si tu veux me\nfaire ces pr\u00e9sents, comme cela est juste, ou les garder, tu le\npeux. Ne songeons maintenant qu'\u00e0 combattre. Il ne s'agit ni\nd'\u00e9viter le combat, ni de perdre le temps, mais d'accomplir un\ngrand travail. Il faut qu'on revoie Akhilleus aux premiers rangs,\nenfon\u00e7ant de sa lance d'airain les phalanges troiennes, et que\nchacun de vous se souvienne de combattre un ennemi.\n\nEt le sage Odysseus, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi:\n\n-- Bien que tu sois brave, \u00f4 Akhilleus semblable \u00e0 un dieu, ne\npousse point vers Ilios, contre les Troiens, les fils des Akhaiens\nqui n'ont point mang\u00e9; car la m\u00eal\u00e9e sera longue, d\u00e8s que les\nphalanges des guerriers se seront heurt\u00e9es, et qu'un dieu leur\naura inspir\u00e9 \u00e0 tous la vigueur. Ordonne que les Akhaiens se\nnourrissent de pain et de vin dans les nefs rapides. Cela seul\ndonne la force et le courage. Un guerrier ne peut, sans manger,\ncombattre tout un jour, jusqu'\u00e0 la chute de H\u00e9lios. Quelle que\nsoit son ardeur, ses membres sont lourds, la soif et la faim le\ntourmentent, et ses genoux sont rompus. Mais celui qui a bu et\nmang\u00e9 combat tout un jour contre l'ennemi, plein de courage, et\nses membres ne sont las que lorsque tous se retirent de la m\u00eal\u00e9e.\nRenvoie l'arm\u00e9e et ordonne-lui de pr\u00e9parer le repas. Et le roi des\nhommes, Agamemn\u00f4n, fera porter ses pr\u00e9sents au milieu de l'agora,\nafin que tous les Akhaiens les voient de leurs yeux; et tu te\nr\u00e9jouiras dans ton cour. Et Agamemn\u00f4n jurera, debout, au milieu\ndes Argiens, qu'il n'est jamais entr\u00e9 dans le lit de Breis\u00e8is, et\nqu'il ne l'a point poss\u00e9d\u00e9e, comme c'est la coutume, \u00f4 roi, des\nhommes et des femmes. Et toi, Akhilleus, apaise ton coeur dans ta\npoitrine. Ensuite, Agamemn\u00f4n t'offrira un festin sous sa tente,\nafin que rien ne manque \u00e0 ce qui t'est d\u00fb. Et toi. Atr\u00e9ide, sois\nplus \u00e9quitable d\u00e9sormais. Il est convenable qu'un roi apaise celui\nqu'il a offens\u00e9 le premier.\n\nEt le roi des hommes, Agamemn\u00f4n. lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Laertiade, je me r\u00e9jouis de ce que tu as dit. Tu n'as rien\noubli\u00e9, et tu as tout expliqu\u00e9 convenablement. Certes, je veux\nfaire ce serment, car mon coeur me l'ordonne et je ne me\nparjurerai point devant les dieux. Qu'Akhilleus attende, malgr\u00e9\nson d\u00e9sir de combattre, et que tous attendent r\u00e9unis, jusqu'\u00e0 ce\nque les pr\u00e9sents soient apport\u00e9s de mes tentes et que nous ayons\nconsacr\u00e9 notre alliance. Et toi, Odysseus, je te le commande et te\nl'ordonne, prends les plus illustres des jeunes fils des Akhaiens,\net qu'ils apportent de mes nefs tout ce que tu as promis hier au\nP\u00e8l\u00e9ide; et am\u00e8ne aussi les femmes. Et Talthybios pr\u00e9parera\npromptement, dans le vaste camp des Akhaiens, le sanglier qui sera\ntu\u00e9, en offrande \u00e0 Zeus et \u00e0 H\u00e9lios.\n\nEt Akhilleus aux pieds rapides, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi:\n\n--Atr\u00e9ide Agnmemn\u00f4n, tr\u00e8s llustre roi des hommes, tu t'inqui\u00e9teras\nde ceci quand la guerre aura pris fin et quand ma fureur sera\nmoins grande dans ma poitrine. Ils gisent encore sans s\u00e9pulture\nceux qu'a tu\u00e9s le Priamide Hekt\u00f4r, tandis que Zeus lui donnait la\nvictoire, et vous songez \u00e0 manger! J'ordonnerai plut\u00f4t aux fils\ndes Akhaiens de combattre maintenant, sans avoir mang\u00e9, et de ne\npr\u00e9parer un grand repas qu'au coucher de H\u00e9lios, apr\u00e8s avoir veng\u00e9\nnotre injure. Pour moi, rien n'entrera auparavant dans ma bouche,\nni pain, ni vin. Mon compagnon est mort; il est couch\u00e9 sous ma\ntente, perc\u00e9 de l'airain aigu, les pieds du c\u00f4t\u00e9 de l'entr\u00e9e, et\nmes autres compagnons pleurent autour de lui. Et je n'ai plus\nd'autre d\u00e9sir dans le coeur que le carnage, le sang et le\ng\u00e9missement des guerriers.\n\nEt le sage Odysseus, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi:\n\n-- \u00d4 Akhilleus P\u00e8l\u00e9ide, le plus brave des Akhaiens, tu l'emportes\nde beaucoup sur moi, et tu vaux beaucoup mieux que moi par ta\nlance, mais ma sagesse est sup\u00e9rieure \u00e0 la tienne, car je suis ton\na\u00een\u00e9, et je sais plus de choses. C'est pourquoi, c\u00e8de \u00e0 mes\nparoles. Le combat accable bient\u00f4t des hommes qui ont faim.\nL'airain couche d'abord sur la terre une moisson \u00e9paisse, mais\nelle diminue quand Zeus, qui est le juge du combat des hommes,\nincline ses balances. Ce n'est point par leur ventre vide que les\nAkhaiens doivent pleurer les morts. Les n\u00f4tres tombent en grand\nnombre tous les jours; quand donc pourrions-nous respirer? Il\nfaut, avec un esprit patient, ensevelir nos morts, et pleurer ce\njour-l\u00e0; mais ceux que la guerre ha\u00efssable a \u00e9pargn\u00e9s, qu'ils\nmangent et boivent, afin que, v\u00eatus de l'airain indompt\u00e9, ils\npuissent mieux combatte l'ennemi, et sans rel\u00e2che. Qu'aucun de\nvous n'attende un meilleur conseil, car tout autre serait fatal \u00e0\nqui resterait aupr\u00e8s des nefs des Argiens. Mais, bient\u00f4t, marchons\ntous ensemble contre les Troiens dompteurs de chevaux, et\nsoulevons une rude m\u00eal\u00e9e.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il choisit pour le suivre les fils de\nl'illustre Nest\u00f4r, et M\u00e9g\u00e8s Phyl\u00e9ide, et Thoas, et M\u00e8rion\u00e8s, et le\nKr\u00e9iontiade Lykom\u00e8d\u00e8s, et M\u00e9lanippos. Et ils arriv\u00e8rent aux tentes\nde l'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n, et aussit\u00f4t Odysseus parla, et le travail\ns'acheva. Et ils emport\u00e8rent de la tente les sept tr\u00e9pieds qu'il\navait promis, et vingt splendides coupes. Et ils emmen\u00e8rent douze\nchevaux et sept belles femmes habiles aux travaux, et la huiti\u00e8me\nfut Breis\u00e8is aux belles joues. Et Odysseus marchait devant avec\ndix talents d'or qu'il avait pes\u00e9s; et les jeunes hommes d'Akhai\u00e8\nportaient ensemble les autres pr\u00e9sents, et ils les d\u00e9pos\u00e8rent au\nmilieu de l'agora.\n\nAlors Agamemn\u00f4n se leva. Talthybios, semblable \u00e0 un dieu par la\nvoix, debout aupr\u00e8s du prince des peuples, tenait un sanglier dans\nses mains. Et l'Atr\u00e9ide saisit le couteau toujours suspendu aupr\u00e8s\nde la grande ga\u00eene de son \u00e9p\u00e9e, et, coupant les soies du sanglier,\nles mains lev\u00e9es vers Zeus, il les lui voua. Et les Argiens, assis\nen silence, \u00e9coutaient le roi respectueusement. Et, suppliant, il\ndit, regardant le large Ouranos:\n\n-- Qu'ils le sachent tous, Zeus le plus haut et le tr\u00e8s puissant,\net Gaia, et H\u00e9lios, et les Erinnyes qui, sous la terre, punissent\nles hommes parjures:je n'ai jamais port\u00e9 la main sur la vierge\nBreis\u00e8is, ni partag\u00e9 son lit, et je ne l'ai soumise \u00e0 aucun\ntravail; mais elle est rest\u00e9e intacte dans mes tentes. Et si je ne\njure point la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, que les dieux m'envoient tous les maux dont\nils accablent celui qui les outrage en se parjurant.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, de l'airain cruel, il coupa la gorge du\nsanglier. Et Talthybios jeta, en tournant, la victime dans les\ngrands flots de la blanche mer, pour \u00eatre mang\u00e9e par les poissons.\nEt, se levant au milieu des belliqueux Argiens, Akhilleus dit:\n\n-- P\u00e8re Zeus! certes, tu causes de grands maux aux hommes.\nL'Atr\u00e9ide n'e\u00fbt jamais excit\u00e9 la col\u00e8re dans ma poitrine, et il ne\nm'e\u00fbt jamais enlev\u00e9 cette jeune femme contre ma volont\u00e9 dans un\nmauvais dessein, si Zeus n'e\u00fbt voulu donner la mort \u00e0 une foule\nd'Akhaiens. Maintenant, allez manger, afin que nous combattions.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il rompit aussit\u00f4t l'agora, et tous se\ndispers\u00e8rent, chacun vers sa nef. Et les magnanimes Myrmidones\nemport\u00e8rent les pr\u00e9sents vers la nef du divin Akhilleus, et ils\nles d\u00e9pos\u00e8rent dans les tentes, faisant asseoir les femmes et\nliant les chevaux aupr\u00e8s des chevaux.\n\nEt d\u00e8s que Breis\u00e8is, semblable \u00e0 Aphrodit\u00e8 d'or, eut vu Patroklos\nperc\u00e9 de l'airain aigu, elle se lamenta en l'entourant de ses\nbras, et elle d\u00e9chira de ses mains sa poitrine, son cou d\u00e9licat et\nson beau visage. Et la jeune femme, semblable aux d\u00e9esses, dit en\npleurant:\n\n-- O Patroklos, si doux pour moi, malheureuse! Je t'ai laiss\u00e9\nvivant quand je quittai cette tente, et voici que je te retrouve\nmort, prince des peuples! Pour moi le mal suit le mal. L'homme \u00e0\nqui mon p\u00e8re et ma m\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable m'avaient donn\u00e9e, je l'ai vu,\ndevant sa ville, perc\u00e9 de l'airain aigu. Et mes trois fr\u00e8res, que\nma m\u00e8re avait enfant\u00e9s, et que j'aimais, trouv\u00e8rent aussi leur\njour fatal. Et tu ne me permettais point de pleurer, quand le\nrapide Akhilleus eut tu\u00e9 mon \u00e9poux et renvers\u00e9 la ville du divin\nMyn\u00e8s, et tu me disais que tu ferais de moi la jeune \u00e9pouse du\ndivin Akhilleus, et que tu me conduirais sur tes nefs dans la\nPhthi\u00e8, pour y faire le festin nuptial au milieu des Myrmidones.\nAussi toi qui \u00e9tais si doux, je pleurerai toujours ta mort.\n\nElle parla ainsi, en pleurant. Et les autres jeunes femmes\ng\u00e9missaient, semblant pleurer sur Patroklos, et d\u00e9plorant leurs\npropres mis\u00e8res.\n\nEt les princes v\u00e9n\u00e9rables des Akhaiens, r\u00e9unis autour d'Akhilleus,\nle suppliaient de manger, mais il ne le voulait pas:\n\n-- Je vous conjure, si mes chers compagnons veulent m'\u00e9couter, de\nne point m'ordonner de boire et de manger, car je suis en proie \u00e0\nune am\u00e8re douleur. Je puis attendre jusqu'au coucher de H\u00e9lios.\n\nIl parla ainsi et renvoya les autres rois, sauf les deux Atr\u00e9ides,\nle divin Odysseus, Nest\u00f4r, Idom\u00e9neus et le vieux cavalier Phoinix,\nqui rest\u00e8rent pour charmer sa tristesse. Mais rien ne devait le\nconsoler, avant qu'il se f\u00fbt jet\u00e9 dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e sanglante. Et le\nsouvenir renouvelait ses g\u00e9missements, et il disait:\n\n-- Certes, autrefois, \u00f4 malheureux, le plus cher de mes\ncompagnons, tu m'appr\u00eatais toi-m\u00eame, avec soin, un excellent\nrepas, quand les Akhaiens portaient la guerre lamentable aux\nTroiens dompteurs de chevaux. Et, maintenant, tu g\u00ees, perc\u00e9 par\nl'airain, et mon coeur, plein du regret de ta mort, se refuse \u00e0\ntoute nourriture. Je ne pourrais subir une douleur plus am\u00e8re,\nm\u00eame si j'apprenais la mort de mon p\u00e8re qui, peut-\u00eatre, dans la\nPhthi\u00e8, verse en ce moment des larmes, priv\u00e9 du secours de son\nfils, tandis que, sur une terre \u00e9trang\u00e8re je combats les Troiens\ndompteurs de chevaux pour la cause de l'ex\u00e9crable H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8; ou m\u00eame,\nsi je regrettais mon fils bien-aim\u00e9, qu'on \u00e9l\u00e8ve \u00e0 Skyros,\nN\u00e9optol\u00e9mos semblable \u00e0 un dieu, s'il vit encore. Autrefois,\nj'esp\u00e9rais dans mon coeur que je mourrais seul devant Troi\u00e8, loin\nd'Argos f\u00e9conde en chevaux, et que tu conduirais mon fils, de\nSkyros vers la Phthi\u00e8, sur ta nef rapide; et que tu lui remettrais\nmes domaines, mes serviteurs et ma haute et grande demeure. Car je\npense que P\u00e8leus n'existe plus, ou que, s'il tra\u00eene un reste de\nvie, il attend, accabl\u00e9 par l'affreuse vieillesse, qu'on lui porte\nla triste nouvelle de ma mort.\n\nIl parla ainsi en pleurant, et les princes v\u00e9n\u00e9rables g\u00e9mirent,\nchacun se souvenant de ce qu'il avait laiss\u00e9 dans ses demeures. Et\nle Kroni\u00f4n, les voyant pleurer, fut saisi de compassion, et il dit\n\u00e0 Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Ma fille, d\u00e9laisses-tu d\u00e9j\u00e0 ce h\u00e9ros? Akhilleus n'est-il plus\nrien dans ton esprit? Devant ses nefs aux antennes dress\u00e9es, il\nest assis, g\u00e9missant sur son cher compagnon. Les autres mangent,\net lui reste sans nourriture. Va! verse dans sa poitrine le nektar\net la douce ambroisie, pour que la faim ne l'accable point.\n\nEt, parlant ainsi, il excita Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 d\u00e9j\u00e0 pleine d'ardeur. Et,\nsemblable \u00e0 l'aigle marin aux cris per\u00e7ants, elle sauta de\nl'Ouranos dans l'aith\u00e8r; et tandis que les Akhaiens s'armaient\nsous les tentes, elle versa dans la poitrine d'Akhilleus le nektar\net l'ambroisie d\u00e9sirable, pour que la faim mauvaise ne rompit pas\nses genoux. Puis, elle retourna dans la solide demeure de son p\u00e8re\ntr\u00e8s puissant, et les Akhaiens se r\u00e9pandirent hors des nefs\nrapides.\n\nDe m\u00eame que les neiges \u00e9paisses volent dans l'air, refroidies par\nle souffle imp\u00e9tueux de l'aith\u00e9r\u00e9en Bor\u00e9as, de m\u00eame, hors des\nnefs, se r\u00e9pandaient les casques solides et resplendissants, et\nles boucliers bomb\u00e9s, et les cuirasses \u00e9paisses, et les lances de\nfr\u00eane. Et la splendeur en montait dans l'Ouranos, et toute la\nterre, au loin, riait de l'\u00e9clat de l'airain, et retentissait du\ntr\u00e9pignement des pieds des guerriers. Et, au milieu d'eux,\ns'armait le divin Akhilleus; et ses dents grin\u00e7aient, et ses yeux\nflambaient comme le feu, et une affreuse douleur emplissait son\ncoeur; et, furieux contre les Troiens, il se couvrit des armes que\nle dieu H\u00e8phaistos lui avait faites. Et, d'abord, il attacha\nautour de ses jambes, par des agrafes d'argent, les belles\nkn\u00e8mides. Puis il couvrit sa poitrine de la cuirasse. Il suspendit\nl'\u00e9p\u00e9e d'airain aux clous d'argent \u00e0 ses \u00e9paules, et il saisit le\nbouclier immense et solide d'o\u00f9 sortait une longue clart\u00e9, comme\nde S\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8. De m\u00eame que la splendeur d'un ardent incendie appara\u00eet\nde loin, sur la mer, aux matelots, et br\u00fble, dans un enclos\nsolitaire, au fa\u00eete des montagnes, tandis que les rapides\ntemp\u00eates, sur la mer poissonneuse, les emportent loin de leurs\namis; de m\u00eame l'\u00e9clat du beau et solide bouclier d'Akhilleus\nmontait dans l'air. Et il mit sur sa t\u00eate le casque lourd. Et le\ncasque \u00e0 crini\u00e8re luisait comme un astre, et les crins d'or que\nH\u00e8phaistos avait pos\u00e9s autour se mouvaient par masses. Et le divin\nAkhilleus essaya ses armes, pr\u00e9sents illustres, afin de voir si\nelles convenaient \u00e0 ses membres. Et elles \u00e9taient comme des ailes\nqui enlevaient le prince des peuples. Et il retira de l'\u00e9tui la\nlance paternelle, lourde, immense et solide, que ne pouvait\nsoulever aucun des Akhaiens, et que, seul, Akhilleus savait\nmanier; la lance P\u00e8liade que, du fa\u00eete du P\u00e8lios, Khir\u00f4n avait\napport\u00e9e \u00e0 P\u00e8leus, pour le meurtre des h\u00e9ros.\n\nEt Autom\u00e9d\u00f4n et Alkimos li\u00e8rent les chevaux au joug avec de belles\ncourroies; ils leur mirent les freins dans la bouche, et ils\nraidirent les r\u00eanes vers le si\u00e8ge du char. Et Autom\u00e9d\u00f4n y monta,\nsaisissant d'une main habile le fouet brillant, et Akhilleus y\nmonta aussi, tout resplendissant sous ses armes, comme le matinal\nHyp\u00e9rionade, et il dit rudement aux chevaux de son p\u00e8re:\n\n-- Xanthos et Balios, illustres enfants de Podarg\u00e8, ramenez cette\nfois votre conducteur parmi les Danaens, quand nous serons\nrassasi\u00e9s du combat, et ne l'abandonnez point mort comme\nPatroklos.\n\nEt le cheval aux pieds rapides, Xanthos, lui parla sous le joug;\net il inclina la t\u00eate, et toute sa crini\u00e8re. flottant autour du\ntimon, tombait jusqu'\u00e0 terre. Et la d\u00e9esse H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux bras blancs\nlui permit de parler:\n\n-- Certes, nous te sauverons aujourd'hui, tr\u00e8s brave Akhilleus;\ncependant, ton dernier jour approche. Ne nous en accuse point,\nmais le grand Zeus et la moire puissante. Ce n'est ni par notre\nlenteur, ni par notre l\u00e2chet\u00e9 que les Troiens ont arrach\u00e9 tes\narmes des \u00e9paules de Patroklos. C'est le dieu excellent que L\u00e8t\u00f4\naux beaux cheveux a enfant\u00e9, qui, ayant tu\u00e9 le M\u00e9noitiade au\npremier rang, a donn\u00e9 la victoire \u00e0 Hekt\u00f4r. Quand notre course\nserait telle que le souffle de Z\u00e9phyros, le plus rapide des vents,\ntu n'en tomberais pas moins sous les coups d'un dieu et d'un\nhomme.\n\nEt comme il parlait, les \u00c9rinnyes arr\u00eat\u00e8rent sa voix, et Akhilleus\naux pieds rapides lui r\u00e9pondit, furieux:\n\n-- Xanthos, pourquoi m'annoncer la mort? Que t'importe? Je sais\nque ma destin\u00e9e est de mourir ici, loin de mon p\u00e8re et de ma m\u00e8re,\nmais je ne m'arr\u00eaterai qu'apr\u00e8s avoir assouvi les Troiens de\ncombats.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, avec de grands cris, il poussa aux premiers\nrangs les chevaux aux sabots massifs.\n\n\nChant 20\n\nAupr\u00e8s des nefs aux poupes recourb\u00e9es, et autour de toi, fils de\nP\u00e8leus, les Akhaiens insatiables de combats s'armaient ainsi, et\nles Troiens, de leur c\u00f4t\u00e9, se rangeaient sur la hauteur de la\nplaine.\n\nEt Zeus ordonna \u00e0 Th\u00e9mis de convoquer les dieux \u00e0 l'agora, de\ntoutes les cimes de l'Olympos. Et celle-ci, volant \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0, leur\ncommanda de se rendre \u00e0 la demeure de Zeus. Et aucun des fleuves\nn'y manqua, sauf Ok\u00e9anos; ni aucune des nymphes qui habitent les\nbelles for\u00eats, et les sources des fleuves et les prairies herbues.\nEt tous les dieux vinrent s'asseoir, dans la demeure de Zeus qui\namasse les nu\u00e9es, sous les portiques brillants que H\u00e8phaistos\navait habilement construits pour le p\u00e8re Zeus. Et ils vinrent\ntous; et Poseida\u00f4n, ayant entendu la d\u00e9esse, vint aussi de la mer;\net il s'assit au milieu d'eux, et il interrogea la pens\u00e9e de Zeus:\n\n-- Pourquoi, \u00f4 foudroyant, convoques-tu de nouveau les dieux \u00e0\nl'agora? Serait-ce pour d\u00e9lib\u00e9rer sur les Troiens et les Akhaiens?\nBient\u00f4t, en effet, ils vont engager la bataille ardente.\n\nEt Zeus qui amasse les nu\u00e9es, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi:\n\n-- Tu as dit, Poseida\u00f4n, dans quel dessein je vous ai tous r\u00e9unis,\ncar ces peuples p\u00e9rissables m'occupent en effet. Assis au fa\u00eete de\nl'Olympos, je me r\u00e9jouirai en les regardant combattre, mais vous,\nallez tous vers les Troiens et les Akhaiens. Secourez les uns ou\nles autres, selon que votre coeur vous y poussera; car si\nAkhilleus combat seul et librement les Troiens, jamais ils ne\nsoutiendront la rencontre du rapide P\u00e8l\u00e9i\u00f4n. D\u00e9j\u00e0, son aspect seul\nles a \u00e9pouvant\u00e9s; et, maintenant qu'il est plein de fureur \u00e0 cause\nde son compagnon, je crains qu'il renverse les murailles d'Ilios,\nmalgr\u00e9 le destin.\n\nLe Kroni\u00f4n parla, suscitant une guerre in\u00e9luctable. Et tous les\ndieux, oppos\u00e9s les uns aux autres, se pr\u00e9par\u00e8rent au combat. Et,\ndu c\u00f4t\u00e9 des nefs, se rang\u00e8rent H\u00e8r\u00e8, et Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, et\nPoseida\u00f4n qui entoure la terre, et Herm\u00e8s utile et plein de\nsagesse, et H\u00e8phaistos, boiteux et fr\u00e9missant dans sa force. Et,\ndu c\u00f4t\u00e9 des Troiens, se rang\u00e8rent Ar\u00e8s aux armes mouvantes, et\nPhoibos aux longs cheveux, et Art\u00e9mis joyeuse de ses fl\u00e8ches, et\nL\u00e8t\u00f4, et Xanthos, et Aphrodit\u00e8 qui aime les sourires.\n\nTant que les dieux ne se m\u00eal\u00e8rent point aux guerriers, les\nAkhaiens furent pleins de confiance et d'orgueil, parce\nqu\u0092Akhilleus avait reparu, apr\u00e8s s'\u00eatre \u00e9loign\u00e9 longtemps du\ncombat. Et la terreur rompit les genoux des Troiens quand ils\nvirent le P\u00e8l\u00e9i\u00f4n aux pieds rapides, resplendissant sous ses armes\net pareil au terrible Ar\u00e8s. Mais quand les dieux se furent m\u00eal\u00e9s\naux guerriers, la violente \u00c9ris excita les deux peuples. Et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8\npoussa des cris, tant\u00f4t aupr\u00e8s du foss\u00e9 creux, hors des murs,\ntant\u00f4t le long des rivages retentissants. Et Ar\u00e8s, semblable \u00e0 une\nnoire temp\u00eate, criait aussi, soit au fa\u00eete d'Ilios, en excitant\nles Troiens, soit le long des belles collines du Simo\u00efs. Ainsi les\ndieux heureux engag\u00e8rent la m\u00eal\u00e9e violente entre les deux peuples.\n\nEt le p\u00e8re des hommes et des dieux tonna longuement dans les\nhauteurs; et Poseida\u00f4n \u00e9branla la terre immense et les cimes des\nmontagnes; et les racines de l'Ida aux nombreuses sources\ntrembl\u00e8rent, et la ville des Troiens et les nefs des Akhaiens. Et\nle souterrain Aid\u00f4neus, le roi des morts, trembla, et il sauta,\n\u00e9pouvant\u00e9, de son tr\u00f4ne; et il cria, craignant que Poseida\u00f4n qui\n\u00e9branle la terre l'entr'ouvr\u00eet, et que les demeures affreuses et\ninfectes, en horreur aux dieux eux-m\u00eames, fussent vues des mortels\net des immortels: tant fut terrible le retentissement du choc des\ndieux.\n\nEt Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n, avec ses fl\u00e8ches empenn\u00e9es, marchait contre le\nroi Poseida\u00f4n; et la d\u00e9esse Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs contre Ar\u00e8s, et\nArt\u00e9mis, soeur de l'archer Apoll\u00f4n, joyeuse de porter les sonores\nfl\u00e8ches dor\u00e9es, contre H\u00e8r\u00e8; et, contre L\u00e8t\u00f4, le sage et utile\nHerm\u00e8s; et, contre H\u00e8phaistos, le grand fleuve aux profonds\ntourbillons, que les dieux nomment Xanthos, et les hommes\nSkamandros. Ainsi les dieux marchaient contre les dieux.\n\nMais Akhilleus ne d\u00e9sirait rencontrer que le Priamide Hekt\u00f4r dans\nla m\u00eal\u00e9e, et il ne songeait qu'\u00e0 boire le sang du brave Priamide.\nEt Apoll\u00f4n qui soul\u00e8ve les peuples excita Ain\u00e9ias contre le\nP\u00e8l\u00e9ide, et il le remplit d'une grande force, et semblable par la\nvoix \u00e0 Lyka\u00f4n, fils de Priamos, le fils de Zeus dit \u00e0 Ain\u00e9ias:\n\n-- Ain\u00e9ias, prince des Troiens, o\u00f9 est la promesse que tu faisais\naux rois d'Ilios de combattre le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide Akhilleus?\n\nEt Ain\u00e9ias, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi:\n\n-- Priamide, pourquoi me pousses-tu \u00e0 combattre l'orgueilleux\nP\u00e8l\u00e9i\u00f4n? Je ne tiendrais pas t\u00eate pour la premi\u00e8re fois au rapide\nAkhilleus. D\u00e9j\u00e0, autrefois, de sa lance, il m'a chass\u00e9 de l'Ida,\nquand, ravissant nos boeufs, il d\u00e9truisit Lyrnessos et P\u00e8dasos;\nmais Zeus me sauva, en donnant la force et la rapidit\u00e9 \u00e0 mes\ngenoux. Certes, je serais tomb\u00e9 sous les mains d'Akhilleus et\nd'Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 qui marchait devant lui et l'excitait \u00e0 tuer les L\u00e9l\u00e9ges\net les Troiens, \u00e0 l'aide de sa lance d'airain. Aucun guerrier ne\npeut lutter contre Akhilleus. Un des dieux est toujours aupr\u00e8s de\nlui qui le pr\u00e9serve. Ses traits vont droit au but, et ne\ns'arr\u00eatent qu'apr\u00e8s s'\u00eatre enfonc\u00e9s dans le corps de l'homme. Si\nun dieu rendait le combat \u00e9gal entre nous, il ne me dompterait pas\nais\u00e9ment, bien qu'il se vante d'\u00eatre tout entier d'airain.\n\nEt le roi Apoll\u00f4n, fils de Zeus, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- H\u00e9ros, il t'appartient aussi d'invoquer les dieux \u00e9ternels. On\ndit aussi, en effet, qu'Aphrodit\u00e8, fille de Zeus, t'a enfant\u00e9, et\nlui est n\u00e9 d'une d\u00e9esse inf\u00e9rieure. Ta m\u00e8re est fille de Zeus, et\nla sienne est fille du Vieillard de la mer. Pousse droit \u00e0 lui\nl'airain indomptable, et que ses paroles injurieuses et ses\nmenaces ne t'arr\u00eatent pas.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il inspira une grande force au prince des\npeuples, qui courut en avant, arm\u00e9 de l'airain splendide. Mais le\nfils d'Ankhis\u00e8s, courant au P\u00e8l\u00e9ide \u00e0 travers la m\u00eal\u00e9e des hommes,\nfut aper\u00e7u par H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux bras blancs, et celle-ci, r\u00e9unissant les\ndieux, leur dit:\n\n-- Poseida\u00f4n et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, songez \u00e0 ceci dans votre esprit: Ain\u00e9ias,\narm\u00e9 de l'airain splendide, court au P\u00e8l\u00e9ide, et Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n\nl'y excite. Allons, \u00e9cartons ce dieu, et qu'un de nous assiste\nAkhilleus et lui donne la force et l'intr\u00e9pidit\u00e9. Qu'il sache que\nles plus puissants des immortels l'aiment, et que ce sont les plus\nfaibles qui viennent en aide aux Troiens dans le combat. Tous,\nnous sommes descendus de l'Ouranos dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e, afin de le\npr\u00e9server des Troiens, en ce jour; et il subira ensuite ce que la\ndestin\u00e9e lui a fil\u00e9 avec le lin, depuis que sa m\u00e8re l'a enfant\u00e9.\nSi Akhilleus, dans ce combat, ne ressent pas l'inspiration des\ndieux, il redoutera la rencontre d'un immortel, car l'apparition\ndes dieux \u00e9pouvante les hommes.\n\nEt Poseida\u00f4n qui \u00e9branle la terre lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- H\u00e8r\u00e8, ne t'irrite point hors de raison, car cela ne te convient\npas. Je ne veux point que nous combattions les autres dieux, \u00e9tant\nde beaucoup plus forts qu'eux. Asseyons-nous hors de la m\u00eal\u00e9e, sur\nla colline, et laissons aux hommes le souci de la guerre. Si Ar\u00e8s\ncommence le combat, ou Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n, et s'ils arr\u00eatent\nAkhilleus et l'emp\u00eachent d'agir, alors une lutte terrible\ns'engagera entre eux et nous, et je pense que, promptement\nvaincus, ils retourneront dans l'Ouranos, vers l'assembl\u00e9e des\nimmortels, rudement dompt\u00e9s par nos mains irr\u00e9sistibles.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, Poseida\u00f4n aux cheveux bleus les pr\u00e9c\u00e9da vers la\nmuraille haute du divin H\u00e8rakl\u00e8s. Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 et les Troiens avaient\nautrefois \u00e9lev\u00e9 cette enceinte pour le mettre \u00e0 l'abri de la\nBaleine, quand ce monstre le poursuivait du rivage dans la plaine.\nL\u00e0, Poseida\u00f4n et les autres dieux s'assirent, s'\u00e9tant envelopp\u00e9s\nd'une \u00e9paisse nu\u00e9e. Et, de leur c\u00f4t\u00e9, les immortels, d\u00e9fenseurs\nd'Ilios, s'assirent sur les collines du Simo\u00efs, autour de toi,\narcher Apoll\u00f4n, et de toi, Ar\u00e8s, destructeur des citadelles! Ainsi\ntous les dieux \u00e9taient assis, et ils m\u00e9ditaient, retardant le\nterrible combat, bien que Zeus, tranquille dans les hauteurs, les\ny e\u00fbt excit\u00e9s.\n\nEt toute la plaine \u00e9tait emplie et resplendissait de l'airain des\nchevaux et des hommes, et la terre retentissait sous les pieds des\ndeux arm\u00e9es. Et, au milieu de tous, s'avan\u00e7aient, pr\u00eats \u00e0\ncombattre, Ain\u00e9ias Ankhisiade et le divin Akhilleus. Et Ain\u00e9ias\nmarchait, mena\u00e7ant, secouant son casque solide et portant devant\nsa poitrine son bouclier terrible, et brandissant sa lance\nd'airain. Et le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide se ruait sur lui, comme un lion dangereux\nque toute une foule d\u00e9sire tuer. Et il avance, m\u00e9prisant ses\nennemis; mais, d\u00e8s qu'un des jeunes hommes l'a bless\u00e9, il ouvre la\ngueule, et l'\u00e9cume jaillit \u00e0 travers ses dents, et son coeur rugit\ndans sa poitrine, et il se bat les deux flancs et les reins de sa\nqueue, s'animant au combat. Puis, les yeux flambants, il bondit\navec force droit sur les hommes, afin de les d\u00e9chirer ou d'en \u00eatre\ntu\u00e9 lui-m\u00eame. Ainsi sa force et son orgueil poussaient Akhilleus\ncontre le magnanime Ain\u00e9ias. Et, quand ils se furent rencontr\u00e9s,\nle premier, le divin Akhilleus aux pieds rapides parla ainsi:\n\n-- Ain\u00e9ias, pourquoi sors-tu de la foule des guerriers? D\u00e9sires-tu\nme combattre dans l'espoir de commander aux Troiens dompteurs de\nchevaux, avec la puissance de Priamos? Mais si tu me tuais,\nPriamos ne te donnerait point cette r\u00e9compense, car il a des fils,\net lui-m\u00eame n'est pas insens\u00e9. Les Troiens, si tu me tuais,\nt'auraient-ils promis un domaine excellent o\u00f9 tu jouirais de tes\nvignes et de tes moissons? Mais je pense que tu le m\u00e9riteras peu\nais\u00e9ment, car d\u00e9j\u00e0 je t'ai vu fuir devant ma lance. Ne te\nsouviens-tu pas que je t'ai pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9 d\u00e9j\u00e0 des cimes Idaiennes,\nloin de tes boeufs, et que, sans te retourner dans ta fuite, tu te\nr\u00e9fugias \u00e0 Lyrnessos? Mais, l'ayant renvers\u00e9e, avec l'aide de Zeus\net d'Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, j'en emmenai toutes les femmes qui pleuraient leur\nlibert\u00e9. Zeus et les autres dieux te sauv\u00e8rent. Cependant, je ne\npense pas qu'ils te sauvent aujourd'hui comme tu l'esp\u00e8res. Je te\nconseille donc de ne pas me tenir t\u00eate, et de rentrer dans la\nfoule avant qu'il te soit arriv\u00e9 malheur. L'insens\u00e9 ne conna\u00eet son\nmal qu'apr\u00e8s l'avoir subi.\n\nEt Ain\u00e9ias lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- N'esp\u00e8re point, par des paroles, m'\u00e9pouvanter comme un enfant,\ncar moi aussi je pourrais me r\u00e9pandre en outrages. L'un et l'autre\nnous connaissons notre race et nos parents, sachant tous deux la\ntradition des anciens hommes, bien que tu n'aies jamais vu mes\nparents, ni moi les tiens. On dit que tu es le fils de l'illustre\nP\u00e8leus et que ta m\u00e8re est la nymphe marine Th\u00e9tis aux beaux\ncheveux. Moi, je me glorifie d'\u00eatre le fils du magnanime Ankhis\u00e8s,\net ma m\u00e8re est Aphrodit\u00e8. Les uns ou les autres, aujourd'hui,\npleureront leur fils bien-aim\u00e9; car je ne pense point que des\nparoles enfantines nous \u00e9loignent du combat. Veux-tu bien\nconna\u00eetre ma race, c\u00e9l\u00e8bre parmi la multitude des hommes? Zeus qui\namasse les nu\u00e9es engendra d'abord Dardanos, et celui-ci b\u00e2tit\nDardani\u00e8. Et la sainte Ilios, citadelle des hommes, ne s'\u00e9levait\npoint encore dans la plaine, et les peuples habitaient aux pieds\nde l'Ida o\u00f9 abondent les sources. Et Dardanos engendra le roi\n\u00c9rikhthonios, qui fut le plus riche des hommes. Dans ses mar\u00e9cages\npaissaient trois mille juments fi\u00e8res de leurs poulains. Et\nBor\u00e9as, sous la forme d'un cheval aux crins bleus, les aima et les\ncouvrit comme elles paissaient, et elles firent douze poulines qui\nbondissaient dans les champs fertiles, courant sur la cime des\n\u00e9pis sans les courber. Et quand elles bondissaient sur le large\ndos de la mer, elles couraient sur la cime des \u00e9cumes blanches. Et\n\u00c9rikthonios engendra le roi des Troiens, Tr\u00f4os. Et Tr\u00f4os engendra\ntrois fils irr\u00e9prochables, Ilos, Assarakos et le divin Ganym\u00e8d\u00e8s,\nqui fut le plus beau des hommes mortels, et que les dieux\nenlev\u00e8rent \u00e0 cause de sa beaut\u00e9, afin qu'il f\u00fbt l'\u00e9chanson de Zeus\net qu'il habit\u00e2t parmi les immortels. Et Ilos engendra l'illustre\nLaom\u00e9d\u00f4n, et Laom\u00e9d\u00f4n engendra Tithonos, Priamos, Lampos, Klytios\net Hik\u00e9ta\u00f4n, nourrisson d'Ar\u00e8s. Mais Assarakos engendra Kapys, qui\nengendra Ankhis\u00e8s, et Ankhis\u00e8s m'a engendr\u00e9, comme Priamos a\nengendr\u00e9 le divin Hekt\u00f4r. Je me glorifie de ce sang et de cette\nrace. Zeus, comme il le veut, augmente ou diminue la vertu des\nhommes, \u00e9tant le plus puissant. Mais, debout dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e, ne\nparlons point plus longtemps comme de petits enfants. Nous\npourrions ais\u00e9ment amasser plus d'injures que n'en porterait une\nnef \u00e0 cent avirons. La langue des hommes est rapide et abonde en\ndiscours qui se multiplient de part et d'autre, et tout ce que tu\ndiras, tu pourras l'entendre. Faut-il que nous luttions d'injures\net d'outrages, comme des femmes furieuses qui combattent sur une\nplace publique \u00e0 coups de mensonges et de v\u00e9rit\u00e9s, car la col\u00e8re\nles m\u00e8ne? Les paroles ne me feront pas reculer avant que tu n'aies\ncombattu. Agis donc promptement, et go\u00fbtons tous deux de nos\nlances d'airain.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il poussa violemment la lance d'airain contre\nle terrible bouclier, dont l'orbe r\u00e9sonna sous le coup. Et le\nP\u00e8l\u00e9ide, de sa main vigoureuse, tendit le bouclier loin de son\ncorps, craignant que la longue lance du magnanime Ain\u00e9ias pass\u00e2t\nau travers. L'insens\u00e9 ne songeait pas que les pr\u00e9sents glorieux\ndes dieux r\u00e9sistent ais\u00e9ment aux forces des hommes.\n\nLa forte lance du belliqueux Ain\u00e9ias ne traversa point le\nbouclier, car l'or, pr\u00e9sent d'un dieu, arr\u00eata le coup, qui per\u00e7a\ndeux lames. Et il y en avait encore trois que le Boiteux avait\ndispos\u00e9es ainsi: deux lames d'airain par-dessus, deux lames\nd'\u00e9tain au-dessous, et, au milieu, une lame d'or qui arr\u00eata la\npique d'airain. Alors Akhilleus jeta sa longue lance, qui frappa\nle bord du bouclier \u00e9gal d'Ain\u00e9ias, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 l'airain et le cuir\n\u00e9taient le moins \u00e9pais. Et la lance du P\u00e8liade traversa le\nbouclier qui retentit. Et Ain\u00e9ias le tendit loin de son corps, en\nse courbant, plein de crainte. Et la lance, par-dessus son dos,\ns'enfon\u00e7a en terre, ayant rompu les deux lames du bouclier qui\nabritait le Troien. Et celui-ci resta \u00e9pouvant\u00e9, et la douleur\ntroubla ses yeux, quand il vit la grande lance enfonc\u00e9e aupr\u00e8s de\nlui.\n\nEt Akhilleus, arrachant de la ga\u00eene son \u00e9p\u00e9e aigu\u00eb, se rua avec un\ncri terrible. Et Ain\u00e9ias saisit un lourd rocher, tel que deux\nhommes de maintenant ne pourraient le porter; mais il le remuait\nais\u00e9ment. Alors, Ain\u00e9ias e\u00fbt frapp\u00e9 Akhilleus, qui se ruait, soit\nau casque, soit au bouclier qui le pr\u00e9servait de la mort, et le\nP\u00e8l\u00e9ide, avec l'\u00e9p\u00e9e, lui e\u00fbt arrach\u00e9 l'\u00e2me, si Poseida\u00f4n qui\n\u00e9branle la terre ne s'en f\u00fbt aper\u00e7u. Et aussit\u00f4t, il dit, au\nmilieu des dieux immortels:\n\n-- H\u00e9las! je g\u00e9mis sur le magnanime Ain\u00e9ias, qui va descendre chez\nAid\u00e8s, dompt\u00e9 par le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide. L'archer Apoll\u00f4n a persuad\u00e9\nl'insens\u00e9 et ne le sauvera point. Mais, innocent qu'il est,\npourquoi subirait-il les maux m\u00e9rit\u00e9s par d'autres? N'a-t-il point\ntoujours offert des pr\u00e9sents agr\u00e9ables aux dieux qui habitent le\nlarge Ouranos? Allons! sauvons-le de la mort, de peur que le\nKronide ne s'irrite si Akhilleus le tue. Sa destin\u00e9e est de\nsurvivre, afin que la race de Dardanos ne p\u00e9risse point, lui que\nle Kronide a le plus aim\u00e9 parmi tous les enfants que lui ont\ndonn\u00e9s les femmes mortelles. Le Kroni\u00f4n est plein de haine pour la\nrace de Priamos. La force d'Ain\u00e9ias commandera sur les Troiens, et\nles fils de ses fils r\u00e9gneront, et ceux qui na\u00eetront dans les\ntemps \u00e0 venir.\n\nEt la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux yeux de boeuf lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Poseida\u00f4n, vois s'il te convient, dans ton esprit, de sauver\nAin\u00e9ias ou de laisser le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide Akhilleus le tuer; car nous avons\nsouvent jur\u00e9, moi et Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, au milieu des dieux, que\njamais nous n'\u00e9loignerions le jour fatal d'un Troien, m\u00eame quand\nTroi\u00e8 br\u00fblerait tout enti\u00e8re dans le feu allum\u00e9 par les fils des\nAkhaiens.\n\nEt, d\u00e8s que Poseida\u00f4n qui \u00e9branle la terre eut entendu ces\nparoles, il se jeta dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e, \u00e0 travers le retentissement des\nlances, jusqu'au lieu o\u00f9 se trouvaient Ain\u00e9ias et Akhilleus. Et il\ncouvrit d'un brouillard les yeux du P\u00e8l\u00e9ide; et, arrachant du\nbouclier du magnanime Ain\u00e9ias la lance \u00e0 pointe d'airain, il la\nposa aux pieds d'Akhilleus. Puis, il enleva de terre Ain\u00e9ias; et\ncelui-ci franchit les \u00e9paisses masses de guerriers et de chevaux,\npouss\u00e9 par la main du dieu. Et quand il fut arriv\u00e9 aux derni\u00e8res\nlignes de la bataille, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 les Kauk\u00f4nes s'armaient pour le\ncombat, Poseida\u00f4n qui \u00e9branle la terre, s'approchant, lui dit ces\nparoles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Ain\u00e9ias, qui d'entre les dieux t'a persuad\u00e9, insens\u00e9, de\ncombattre Akhilleus, qui est plus fort que toi et plus cher aux\nimmortels? Recule quand tu le rencontreras, de peur que, malgr\u00e9 la\nmoire, tu descendes chez Aid\u00e8s. Mais, quand Akhilleus aura subi la\ndestin\u00e9e et la mort, ose combattre aux premiers rangs, car aucun\nautre des Akhaiens ne te tuera.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il le quitta. Puis, il dispersa l'\u00e9pais\nbrouillard qui couvrait les yeux d'Akhilleus, et celui-ci vit tout\nclairement de ses yeux, et, plein de col\u00e8re, il dit dans son\nesprit:\n\n-- \u00d4 dieux! certes, voici un grand prodige. Ma lance g\u00eet sur la\nterre, devant moi, et je ne vois plus le guerrier contre qui je\nl'ai jet\u00e9e et que je voulais tuer! Certes, Ain\u00e9ias est cher aux\ndieux immortels. Je pensais qu'il s'en vantait faussement. Qu'il\nvive! Il n'aura plus le d\u00e9sir de me braver, maintenant qu'il a\n\u00e9vit\u00e9 la mort. Mais, allons! j'exhorterai les Danaens belliqueux\net j'\u00e9prouverai la force des autres Troiens.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il courut \u00e0 travers les rangs, commandant \u00e0\nchaque guerrier:\n\n-- Ne restez pas plus longtemps loin de l'ennemi, divins Akhaiens!\nMarchez, homme contre homme, et pr\u00eats au combat. Il m'est\ndifficile, malgr\u00e9 ma force, de poursuivre et d'attaquer seul tant\nde guerriers; ni Ar\u00e8s, bien qu'il soit un dieu immortel, ni\nAth\u00e8n\u00e8, n'y suffiraient. Je vous aiderai de mes mains, de mes\npieds, de toute ma vigueur, sans jamais faiblir; et je serai\npartout, au travers de la m\u00eal\u00e9e; et je ne pense pas qu'aucun\nTroien se r\u00e9jouisse de rencontrer ma lance.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, de son c\u00f4t\u00e9, l'illustre Hekt\u00f4r animait les\nTroiens, leur promettant qu'il combattrait Akhilleus:\n\n-- Troiens magnanimes, ne craignez point Akhilleus. Moi aussi,\navec des paroles, je combattrais jusqu'aux immortels; mais, avec\nla lance, ce serait impossible, car ils sont les plus forts.\nAkhilleus ne r\u00e9ussira point dans tout ce qu'il dit. S'il accomplit\nune de ses menaces, il n'accomplira point l'autre. Je vais marcher\ncontre lui, quand m\u00eame il serait tel que le feu par ses mains.\nOui! quand m\u00eame il serait tel que le feu par ses mains, quand il\nserait par sa vigueur tel que le feu ardent.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et aussit\u00f4t les Troiens tendirent leurs lances, et\nils se serr\u00e8rent, et une grande clameur s'\u00e9leva. Mais Phoibos\nApoll\u00f4n s'approcha de Hekt\u00f4r et lui dit:\n\n-- Hekt\u00f4r, ne sors point des rangs contre Akhilleus. Reste dans le\ntumulte de la m\u00eal\u00e9e, de peur qu'il te perce de la lance ou de\nl'\u00e9p\u00e9e, de loin ou de pr\u00e8s.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le Priamide rentra dans la foule des guerriers,\nplein de crainte, d\u00e8s qu'il eut entendu la voix du dieu.\n\nEt Akhilleus, v\u00eatu de courage et de force, se jeta sur les Troiens\nen poussant des cris horribles. Et il tua d'abord le brave\nIphiti\u00f4n Otrynt\u00e9ide, chef de nombreux guerriers, et que la nymphe\nN\u00e8is avait con\u00e7u du destructeur de citadelles Otrynteus, sous le\nneigeux Tm\u00f4los, dans la fertile Hyd\u00e8. Comme il se ruait en avant,\nle divin Akhilleus le frappa au milieu de la t\u00eate, et celle-ci se\nfendit en deux, et Iphiti\u00f4n tomba avec bruit, et le divin\nAkhilleus se glorifia ainsi:\n\n-- Te voil\u00e0 couch\u00e9 sur la terre, Otrynt\u00e9ide, le plus effrayant des\nhommes! Tu es mort ici, toi qui es n\u00e9 non loin du lac Gygaios o\u00f9\nest ton champ paternel, sur les bords poissonneux du Hyllos et du\nHermos tourbillonnant.\n\nIl parla ainsi, triomphant, et le brouillard couvrit les yeux de\nIphiti\u00f4n, que les chars des Akhaiens d\u00e9chir\u00e8rent de leurs roues\naux premiers rangs. Et, apr\u00e8s lui, Akhilleus tua D\u00e8mol\u00e9\u00f4n, brave\nfils d'Ant\u00e8n\u00f4r. Et il lui rompit la tempe \u00e0 travers le casque\nd'airain, et le casque d'airain n'arr\u00eata point le coup, et la\npointe irr\u00e9sistible brisa l'os en \u00e9crasant toute la cervelle. Et\nc'est ainsi qu'Akhilleus tua D\u00e8mol\u00e9\u00f4n qui se ruait sur lui.\n\nEt comme Hippodamas, sautant de son char, fuyait, Akhilleus le\nper\u00e7a dans le dos d'un coup de lance. Et le Troien rendit l'\u00e2me en\nmugissant comme un taureau que des jeunes hommes entra\u00eenent \u00e0\nl'autel du dieu de H\u00e9lik\u00e8, de Poseida\u00f4n qui se r\u00e9jouit du\nsacrifice. Et c'est ainsi qu'il mugissait et que son \u00e2me abandonna\nses ossements.\n\nPuis Akhilleus poursuivit de sa lance le divin Polyd\u00f4ros Priamide,\n\u00e0 qui son p\u00e8re ne permettait point de combattre, \u00e9tant le dernier-\nn\u00e9 de ses enfants et le plus aim\u00e9 de tous. Et il surpassait tous\nles hommes \u00e0 la course. Et il courait, dans une ardeur de\njeunesse, fier de son agilit\u00e9, parmi les premiers combattants;\nmais le divin Akhilleus, plus rapide que lui, le frappa dans le\ndos, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 les agrafes d'or attachaient le baudrier sur la double\ncuirasse. Et la pointe de la lance le traversa jusqu'au nombril,\net il tomba, hurlant, sur les genoux; et une nu\u00e9e noire\nl'enveloppa, tandis que, courb\u00e9 sur la terre, il retenait ses\nentrailles \u00e0 pleines mains.\n\nHekt\u00f4r, voyant son fr\u00e8re Polyd\u00f4ros renvers\u00e9 et retenant ses\nentrailles avec ses mains, sentit un brouillard sur ses yeux, et\nil ne put se r\u00e9soudre \u00e0 combattre plus longtemps de loin, et il\nvint \u00e0 Akhilleus, secouant sa lance aigu\u00eb et semblable \u00e0 la\nflamme. Et Akhilleus le vit, et bondit en avant, et dit en\ntriomphant:\n\n-- Voici donc l'homme qui m'a d\u00e9chir\u00e9 le coeur et qui a tu\u00e9 mon\nirr\u00e9prochable compagnon! Ne nous \u00e9vitons pas plus longtemps dans\nles d\u00e9tours de la m\u00eal\u00e9e.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, regardant le divin Hekt\u00f4r d'un oeil sombre, il\ndit:\n\n-- Viens! approche, afin de mourir plus vite!\n\nEt Hekt\u00f4r au casque mouvant lui r\u00e9pondit sans crainte:\n\n-- P\u00e8l\u00e9ide, n'esp\u00e8re point m'\u00e9pouvanter par des paroles comme un\npetit enfant. Moi aussi je pourrais parler injurieusement et avec\norgueil. Je sais que tu es brave et que je ne te vaux pas; mais\nnos destin\u00e9es sont sur les genoux des dieux. Bien que je sois\nmoins fort que toi, je t'arracherai peut-\u00eatre l'\u00e2me d'un coup de\nma lance. Elle aussi, elle a une pointe per\u00e7ante.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, secouant sa lance, il la jeta; mais Ath\u00e8n\u00e8,\nd'un souffle, l'\u00e9carta de l'illustre Akhilleus, et la repoussa\nvers le divin Hekt\u00f4r, et la fit tomber \u00e0 ses pieds. Et Akhilleus,\nfurieux, se rua pour le tuer, en jetant des cris horribles; mais\nApoll\u00f4n enleva ais\u00e9ment le Priamide, comme le peut un dieu; et il\nl'enveloppa d'une \u00e9paisse nu\u00e9e. Et trois fois le divin Akhilleus\naux pieds rapides, se pr\u00e9cipitant, per\u00e7a cette nu\u00e9e \u00e9paisse de sa\nlance d'airain. Et, une quatri\u00e8me fois, semblable \u00e0 un daim\u00f4n, il\nse rua en avant, et il cria ces paroles outrageantes:\n\n-- Chien! de nouveau tu \u00e9chappes \u00e0 la mort. Elle t'a approch\u00e9 de\npr\u00e8s, mais Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n t'a sauv\u00e9, lui \u00e0 qui tu fais des voeux\nquand tu marches \u00e0 travers le retentissement des lances. Je te\ntuerai, si je te rencontre encore, et si quelque dieu me vient en\naide. Maintenant, je poursuivrai les autres Troiens.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il per\u00e7a Dryops au milieu de la gorge, et\nl'homme tomba \u00e0 ses pieds, et il l'abandonna. Puis, il frappa de\nsa lance, au genou, le large et grand D\u00e9mokhos Phil\u00e9toride; puis,\navec sa forte \u00e9p\u00e9e, il lui arracha l'\u00e2me. Et, courant sur Laogonos\net Dardanos, fils de Bias, il les renversa tous deux de leur char,\nl'un d'un coup de lance, l'autre d'un coup d'\u00e9p\u00e9e.\n\nEt Tr\u00f4os Alastoride, pensant qu'Akhilleus l'\u00e9pargnerait, ne le\ntuerait point et le prendrait vivant, ayant piti\u00e9 de sa jeunesse,\nvint embrasser ses genoux. Et l'insens\u00e9 ne savait pas que le\nP\u00e8l\u00e9ide \u00e9tait inexorable, et qu'il n'\u00e9tait ni doux, ni tendre,\nmais f\u00e9roce. Et comme le Troien embrassait ses genoux en le\nsuppliant, Akhilleus lui per\u00e7a le foie d'un coup d'\u00e9p\u00e9e et le lui\narracha. Un sang noir jaillit du corps de Tr\u00f4os, et le brouillard\nde la mort enveloppa ses yeux.\n\nEt Akhilleus per\u00e7a Moulios d'un coup de lance, de l'une \u00e0 l'autre\noreille. Et de son \u00e9p\u00e9e \u00e0 lourde poign\u00e9e il fendit par le milieu\nla t\u00eate de l'Ag\u00e8n\u00f4ride Ekheklos; et l'\u00e9p\u00e9e fuma ruisselante de\nsang, et la noire mort et la moire violente couvrirent ses yeux.\n\nEt il frappa Deukali\u00f4n l\u00e0 o\u00f9 se r\u00e9unissent les nerfs du coude. La\npointe d'airain lui engourdit le bras, et il resta immobile,\nvoyant la mort devant lui. Et Akhilleus, d'un coup d'\u00e9p\u00e9e, lui\nenleva la t\u00eate, qui tomba avec le casque. La moelle jaillit des\nvert\u00e8bres, et il resta \u00e9tendu contre terre.\n\nPuis, Akhilleus se jeta sur le brave Rhigmos, fils de Peireus, qui\n\u00e9tait venu de la fertile Thr\u00e8k\u00e8. Et il le per\u00e7a de sa lance dans\nle ventre, et l'homme tomba de son char. Et comme Ar\u00e9ithoos,\ncompagnon de Rhigmos, faisait retourner les chevaux, Akhilleus, le\nper\u00e7ant dans le dos d'un coup de lance, le renversa du char; et\nles chevaux s'enfuirent \u00e9pouvant\u00e9s.\n\nDe m\u00eame qu'un vaste incendie gronde dans les gorges profondes\nd'une montagne aride, tandis que l'\u00e9paisse for\u00eat br\u00fble et que le\nvent secoue et roule la flamme; de m\u00eame Akhilleus courait, tel\nqu'un daim\u00f4n, tuant tous ceux qu'il poursuivait, et la terre noire\nruisselait de sang.\n\nDe m\u00eame que deux boeufs au large front foulent, accoupl\u00e9s, l'orge\nblanche dans une aire arrondie, et que les tiges fr\u00eales laissent\n\u00e9chapper les graines sous les pieds des boeufs qui mugissent; de\nm\u00eame, sous le magnanime Akhilleus, les chevaux aux sabots massifs\nfoulaient les cadavres et les boucliers. Et tout l'essieu \u00e9tait\ninond\u00e9 de sang, et toutes les parois du char ruisselaient des\ngouttes de sang qui jaillissaient des roues et des sabots des\nchevaux. Et le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide \u00e9tait avide de gloire, et le sang souillait\nses mains in\u00e9vitables.\n\n\nChant 21\n\nEt quand les Troiens furent arriv\u00e9s au gu\u00e9 du fleuve au beau\ncours, du Xanthos tourbillonnant qu'engendra l'immortel Zeus, le\nP\u00e8l\u00e9ide, partageant leurs phalanges, les rejeta dans la plaine,\nvers la ville, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 les Akhaiens fuyaient, la veille, boulevers\u00e9s\npar la fureur de l'illustre Hekt\u00f4r.\n\nEt les uns se pr\u00e9cipitaient \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0 dans leur fuite, et, pour les\narr\u00eater, H\u00e8r\u00e8 r\u00e9pandit devant eux une nu\u00e9e \u00e9paisse; et les autres\nroulaient dans le fleuve profond aux tourbillons d'argent. Ils y\ntombaient avec un grand bruit, et les eaux et les rives\nretentissaient, tandis qu'ils nageaient \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0, en poussant des\ncris, au milieu des tourbillons.\n\nDe m\u00eame que des sauterelles volent vers un fleuve, chass\u00e9es par\nl'incendie, et que le feu infatigable \u00e9clate brusquement avec plus\nde violence, et qu'elles se jettent, \u00e9pouvant\u00e9es, dans l'eau; de\nm\u00eame, devant Akhilleus, le cours retentissant du Xanthos aux\nprofonds tourbillons s'emplissait confus\u00e9ment de chevaux et\nd'hommes.\n\nEt le divin Akhilleus, laissant sa lance sur le bord, appuy\u00e9e\ncontre un tamaris, et ne gardant que son \u00e9p\u00e9e, sauta lui-m\u00eame dans\nle fleuve, semblable \u00e0 un daim\u00f4n, et m\u00e9ditant un oeuvre terrible.\nEt il frappait tout autour de lui; et il excitait de l'\u00e9p\u00e9e les\ng\u00e9missements des bless\u00e9s, et le sang rougissait l'eau.\n\nDe m\u00eame que les poissons qui fuient un grand dauphin emplissent,\n\u00e9pouvant\u00e9s, les retraites secr\u00e8tes des baies tranquilles, tandis\nqu'il d\u00e9vore tous ceux qu'il saisit; de m\u00eame les Troiens, \u00e0\ntravers le courant imp\u00e9tueux du fleuve, se cachaient sous les\nrochers. Et quand Akhilleus fut las de tuer, il tira du fleuve\ndouze jeunes hommes vivants qui devaient mourir, en offrande \u00e0\nPatroklos M\u00e9noitiade. Et les retirant du fleuve, tremblants comme\ndes faons, il leur lia les mains derri\u00e8re le dos avec les belles\ncourroies qui retenaient leurs tuniques retrouss\u00e9es, et les remit\n\u00e0 ses compagnons pour \u00eatre conduits aux nefs creuses. Puis, il se\nrua en avant pour tuer encore.\n\nEt il aper\u00e7ut un fils du Dardanide Priamos, Lyka\u00f4n, qui sortait du\nfleuve. Et il l'avait autrefois enlev\u00e9, dans une marche de nuit,\nloin du verger de son p\u00e8re. Et Lyka\u00f4n taillait avec l'airain\ntranchant les jeunes branches d'un figuier pour en faire les deux\nh\u00e9micycles d'un char. Et le divin Akhilleus survint brusquement\npour son malheur, et, l'emmenant sur ses nefs, il le vendit \u00e0\nLemnos bien b\u00e2tie, et le fils de J\u00e8s\u00f4n l'acheta. Et \u00ca\u00e9ti\u00f4n\nd'Imbros, son h\u00f4te, l'ayant rachet\u00e9 \u00e0 grand prix, l'envoya dans la\ndivine Arisb\u00e8, d'o\u00f9 il revint en secret dans la demeure\npaternelle. Et, depuis onze jours, il se r\u00e9jouissait avec ses\namis, \u00e9tant revenu de Lemnos, et, le douzi\u00e8me, un dieu le rejeta\naux mains d'Akhilleus, qui devait l'envoyer violemment chez Aid\u00e8s.\nEt d\u00e8s que le divin Akhilleus aux pieds rapides l'eut reconnu qui\nsortait nu du fleuve, sans casque, sans bouclier et sans lance,\ncar il avait jet\u00e9 ses armes, \u00e9tant rompu de fatigue et couvert de\nsueur, aussit\u00f4t le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide irrit\u00e9 se dit dans son esprit\nmagnanime:\n\n-- \u00d4 dieux! certes, voici un grand prodige. Sans doute aussi les\nTroiens magnanimes que j'ai tu\u00e9s se rel\u00e8veront des t\u00e9n\u00e8bres\nnoires, puisque celui-ci, que j'avais vendu dans la sainte Lemnos,\nrepara\u00eet, ayant \u00e9vit\u00e9 la mort. La profondeur de la blanche mer qui\nengloutit tant de vivants ne l'a point arr\u00eat\u00e9. Allons! il sentira\nla pointe de ma lance, et je verrai et je saurai s'il s'\u00e9vadera de\nm\u00eame, et si la terre f\u00e9conde le retiendra, elle qui dompte le\nbrave.\n\nIl pensait ainsi, immobile. Et Lyka\u00f4n vint \u00e0 lui, tremblant et\nd\u00e9sirant embrasser ses genoux, car il voulait \u00e9viter la mort\nmauvaise et la k\u00e8r noire. Et le divin Akhilleus leva sa longue\nlance pour le frapper; mais Lyka\u00f4n saisit ses genoux en se\ncourbant, et la lance, avide de mordre la chair, par-dessus son\ndos s'enfon\u00e7a en terre. Et, tenant d'une main la lance aigu\u00eb qu'il\nne l\u00e2chait point, et de l'autre bras entourant les genoux\nd'Akhilleus, il le supplia par ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- J'embrasse tes genoux, Akhilleus! honore-moi, aie piti\u00e9 de moi!\nJe suis ton suppliant, \u00f4 race divine! J'ai go\u00fbt\u00e9 sous ton toit les\ndons de D\u00e8m\u00e8t\u00e8r, depuis le jour o\u00f9 tu m'enlevas de nos beaux\nvergers pour me vendre, loin de mon p\u00e8re et de mes amis, dans la\nsainte Lemnos, o\u00f9 je te valu le prix de cent boeufs. Et je fus\nrachet\u00e9 pour trois fois autant. Voici le douzi\u00e8me jour, apr\u00e8s tant\nde maux soufferts, que je suis rentr\u00e9 dans Ilios, et de nouveau la\nmoire fatale me remet dans tes mains! Je dois \u00eatre odieux au p\u00e8re\nZeus, qui me livre \u00e0 toi de nouveau. Sans doute elle m'a enfant\u00e9\npour peu de jours ma m\u00e8re Laotho\u00e8, fille du vieux Alteus qui\ncommande aux belliqueux L\u00e9l\u00e9ges, et qui habite la haute P\u00e8dasos\nsur les bords du fleuve Satnio\u00efs. Et Priamos poss\u00e9da Laotho\u00e8 parmi\ntoutes ses femmes, et elle eut deux fils, et tu les auras tu\u00e9s\ntous deux. En t\u00eate des hommes de pied tu as dompt\u00e9 Polyd\u00f4ros \u00e9gal\n\u00e0 un dieu, en le per\u00e7ant de ta lance aigu\u00eb. Et voici que le\nmalheur est maintenant sur moi, car je n'\u00e9viterai pas tes mains,\npuisqu'un dieu m'y a jet\u00e9. Mais je te le dis, et que mes paroles\nsoient dans ton esprit: ne me tue point, puisque je ne suis pas le\nfr\u00e8re ut\u00e9rin de Hekt\u00f4r, qui a tu\u00e9 ton compagnon doux et brave.\n\nEt l'illustre fils de Priamos parla ainsi, suppliant; mais il\nentendit une voix inexorable:\n\n-- Insens\u00e9! ne parle plus jamais du prix de ton affranchissement.\nAvant le jour supr\u00eame de Patroklos, il me plaisait d'\u00e9pargner les\nTroiens. J'en ai pris un grand nombre vivants et je les ai vendus.\nMaintenant, aucun des Troiens qu'un dieu me jettera dans les mains\nn'\u00e9vitera la mort, surtout les fils de Priamos. Ami, meurs!\nPourquoi g\u00e9mir en vain? Patroklos est bien mort, qui valait\nbeaucoup mieux que toi. Regarde! Je suis beau et grand, je suis n\u00e9\nd'un noble p\u00e8re; une d\u00e9esse m'a enfant\u00e9; et cependant la mort et\nla moire violente me saisiront, le matin, le soir ou \u00e0 midi, et\nquelqu'un m'arrachera l'\u00e2me, soit d'un coup de lance, soit d'une\nfl\u00e8che.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et les genoux et le coeur manqu\u00e8rent au Priamide.\nEt, l\u00e2chant la lance, il s'assit, les mains \u00e9tendues. Et\nAkhilleus, tirant son \u00e9p\u00e9e aigu\u00eb, le frappa au cou, pr\u00e8s de la\nclavicule, et l'airain entra tout entier. Lyka\u00f4n tomba sur la\nface; un sang noir jaillit et ruissela par terre. Et Akhilleus, le\nsaisissant par les pieds, le jeta dans le fleuve, et il l'insulta\nen paroles rapides:\n\n-- Va! reste avec les poissons, qui boiront tranquillement le sang\nde ta blessure. Ta m\u00e8re ne te d\u00e9posera point sur le lit fun\u00e8bre,\nmais le Skamandros tourbillonnant t'emportera dans la vaste mer,\net quelque poisson, sautant sur l'eau, d\u00e9vorera la chair blanche\nde Lyka\u00f4n dans la noire horreur de l'ab\u00eeme. P\u00e9rissez tous, jusqu'\u00e0\nce que nous renversions la sainte Ilios! Fuyez, et moi je vous\ntuerai en vous poursuivant. Il ne vous sauvera point, le fleuve au\nbeau cours, aux tourbillons d'argent, \u00e0 qui vous sacrifiez tant de\ntaureaux et tant de chevaux vivants que vous jetez dans ses\ntourbillons; mais vous p\u00e9rirez tous d'une mort violente, jusqu'\u00e0\nce que vous ayez expi\u00e9 le meurtre de Patroklos et le carnage des\nAkhaiens que vous avez tu\u00e9s, moi absent, aupr\u00e8s des nefs rapides.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le fleuve irrit\u00e9 d\u00e9lib\u00e9rait dans son esprit\ncomment il r\u00e9primerait la fureur du divin Akhilleus et\nrepousserait cette calamit\u00e9 loin des Troiens.\n\nEt le fils de P\u00e8leus, avec sa longue lance, sauta sur Ast\u00e9ropaios,\nfils de P\u00e8l\u00e9g\u00f4n, afin de le tuer. Et le large Axios engendra\nP\u00e8l\u00e9g\u00f4n, et il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 con\u00e7u par l'a\u00een\u00e9e des filles\nd'Akessam\u00e8nos, P\u00e9riboia, qui s'\u00e9tait unie \u00e0 ce fleuve aux profonds\ntourbillons. Et Akhilleus courait sur Ast\u00e9ropaios qui, hors du\nfleuve, l'attendait, deux lances aux mains; car le Xanthos, irrit\u00e9\n\u00e0 cause des jeunes hommes qu'Akhilleus avait \u00e9gorg\u00e9s dans ses\neaux, avait inspir\u00e9 la force et le courage au P\u00e8l\u00e9gonide. Et quand\nils se furent rencontr\u00e9s, le divin P\u00e8l\u00e9ide aux pieds rapides lui\nparla ainsi:\n\n-- Qui es-tu parmi les hommes, toi qui oses m'attendre? Ce sont\nles fils des malheureux qui s'opposent \u00e0 mon courage.\n\nEt l'illustre fils de P\u00e8l\u00e9g\u00f4n lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Magnanime P\u00e8l\u00e9ide, pourquoi demander quelle est ma race? Je\nviens de la Paioni\u00e8 fertile et lointaine, et je commande les\nPaiones aux longues lances. Il y a onze jours que je suis arriv\u00e9\ndans Ilios. Je descends du large fleuve Axios qui r\u00e9pand ses eaux\nlimpides sur la terre, et qui engendra l'illustre P\u00e8l\u00e9g\u00f4n; et on\ndit que P\u00e8l\u00e9g\u00f4n est mon p\u00e8re. Maintenant, divin Akhilleus,\ncombattons!\n\nIl parla ainsi, mena\u00e7ant. Et le divin Akhilleus leva la lance\nP\u00e8liade, et le h\u00e9ros Ast\u00e9ropaios, de ses deux mains \u00e0 la fois,\njeta ses deux lances; et l'une, frappant le bouclier, ne put le\nrompre, arr\u00eat\u00e9e par la lame d'or, pr\u00e9sent d'un dieu; et l'autre\neffleura le coude du bras droit. Le sang noir jaillit, et l'arme,\navide de mordre la chair, s'enfon\u00e7a en terre. Alors Akhilleus\nlan\u00e7a sa pique rapide contre Ast\u00e9ropaios, voulant le tuer; mais il\nle manqua, et la pique de fr\u00eane, en fr\u00e9missant, s'enfon\u00e7a presque\nen entier dans le tertre du bord. Et le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide, tirant son \u00e9p\u00e9e\naigu\u00eb, se jeta sur Ast\u00e9ropaios qui s'effor\u00e7ait d'arracher du\nrivage la lance d'Akhilleus. Et, trois fois, il l'\u00e9branla pour\nl'arracher, et comme il allait, une quatri\u00e8me fois, tenter de\nrompre la lance de fr\u00eane de l'Aiakide, celui-ci lui arracha l'\u00e2me,\nl'ayant frapp\u00e9 dans le ventre, au nombril. Et toutes les\nentrailles s'\u00e9chapp\u00e8rent de la plaie, et la nuit couvrit ses yeux.\nEt Akhilleus, se jetant sur lui, le d\u00e9pouilla de ses armes, et\ndit, triomphant:\n\n-- Reste l\u00e0, couch\u00e9. Il n'\u00e9tait pas ais\u00e9 pour toi de combattre les\nenfants du tout-puissant Kroni\u00f4n, bien que tu sois n\u00e9 d'un fleuve\nau large cours, et moi je me glorifie d'\u00eatre de la race du grand\nZeus. P\u00e8leus Aiakide qui commande aux nombreux Myrmidones m'a\nengendr\u00e9, et Zeus a engendr\u00e9 Aiakos. Autant Zeus est sup\u00e9rieur aux\nfleuves qui se jettent imp\u00e9tueusement dans la mer, autant la race\nde Zeus est sup\u00e9rieure \u00e0 celle des fleuves. Voici un grand fleuve\naupr\u00e8s de toi; qu'il te sauve, s'il peut. Mais il n'est point\npermis de lutter contre Zeus Kroni\u00f4n. Le roi Akh\u00e9loios lui-m\u00eame ne\nse compare point \u00e0 Zeus, ni la grande violence du profond Ok\u00e9anos\nd'o\u00f9 sont issus toute la mer, tous les fleuves, toutes les\nfontaines et toutes les sources. Mais lui-m\u00eame redoute la foudre\ndu grand Zeus, l'horrible tonnerre qui prolonge son retentissement\ndans l'Ouranos.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et arrachant du rivage sa lance d'airain, il le\nlaissa mort sur le sable, et baign\u00e9 par l'eau noire. Et les\nanguilles et les poissons l'environnaient, mangeant la graisse de\nses reins. Et Akhilleus se jeta sur les cavaliers Paiones qui\ns'enfuirent le long du fleuve tourbillonnant, quand ils virent\nleur brave chef, dans le rude combat, tu\u00e9 d'un coup d'\u00e9p\u00e9e par les\nmains d'Akhilleus.\n\nEt il tua Thersilokos, et Myd\u00f4n, et Astypylos, et Mn\u00e8sos, et\nThrasios, et Ainios, et Orph\u00e9lest\u00e8s. Et le rapide Akhilleus e\u00fbt\ntu\u00e9 beaucoup d'autres Paiones, si le fleuve aux profonds\ntourbillons, irrit\u00e9, et semblable \u00e0 un homme, ne lui e\u00fbt dit du\nfond d'un tourbillon:\n\n-- \u00d4 Akhilleus, certes, tu es tr\u00e8s brave; mais tu \u00e9gorges\naffreusement les hommes, et les dieux eux-m\u00eames te viennent en\naide. Si le fils de Kronos te livre tous les Troiens pour que tu\nles d\u00e9truises, du moins, les chassant hors de mon lit, tue-les\ndans la plaine. Mes belles eaux sont pleines de cadavres, et je ne\npuis mener \u00e0 la mer mon cours divin entrav\u00e9 par les morts, et tu\nne cesses de tuer. Arr\u00eate, car l'horreur me saisit, \u00f4 prince des\npeuples!\n\nEt Akhilleus aux pieds rapides lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Je ferai ce que tu veux, divin Skamandros; mais je ne cesserai\npoint d'\u00e9gorger les Troiens insolents avant de les avoir enferm\u00e9s\ndans leur ville, et d'avoir trouv\u00e9 Hekt\u00f4r face \u00e0 face, afin qu'il\nme tue, ou que je le tue.\n\nIl parla ainsi et se jeta comme un daim\u00f4n sur les Troiens. Et le\nfleuve aux profonds tourbillons dit \u00e0 Apoll\u00f4n:\n\n-- H\u00e9las! fils de Zeus, toi qui portes l'arc d'argent, tu n'ob\u00e9is\npas au Kroni\u00f4n qui t'avait command\u00e9 de venir en aide aux Troiens,\net de les prot\u00e9ger jusqu'au moment o\u00f9 le cr\u00e9puscule du soir\ncouvrira de son ombre la terre f\u00e9conde.\n\nIl parla ainsi; mais Akhilleus sauta du rivage au milieu de l'eau,\net le fleuve se gonfla en bouillonnant, et, furieux, il roula ses\neaux boulevers\u00e9es, soulevant tous les cadavres dont il \u00e9tait\nplein, et qu'avait faits Akhilleus, et les rejetant sur ses bords\nen mugissant comme un taureau. Mais il sauvait ceux qui vivaient\nencore, en les cachant parmi ses belles eaux, dans ses tourbillons\nprofonds.\n\nEt l'eau tumultueuse et terrible montait autour d'Akhilleus en\nheurtant son bouclier avec fureur, et il chancelait sur ses pieds.\nEt, alors, il saisit des deux mains un grand orme qui, tombant\nd\u00e9racin\u00e9, en d\u00e9chirant toute la berge, amassa ses branches\n\u00e9paisses en travers du courant, et, couch\u00e9 tout entier, fit un\npont sur le fleuve. Et Akhilleus, sautant de l\u00e0 hors du gouffre,\ns'\u00e9lan\u00e7a, \u00e9pouvant\u00e9, dans la plaine. Mais le grand fleuve ne\ns'arr\u00eata point, et il assombrit la cime de ses flots, afin\nd'\u00e9loigner le divin Akhilleus du combat, et de reculer la chute\nd'Ilios.\n\nEt le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide fuyait par bonds d'un jet de lance, avec\nl'imp\u00e9tuosit\u00e9 de l'aigle noir, de l'aigle chasseur, le plus fort\net le plus rapide des oiseaux. C'est ainsi qu'il fuyait. Et\nl'airain retentissait horriblement sur sa poitrine; et il se\nd\u00e9robait en courant, mais le fleuve le poursuivait toujours \u00e0\ngrand bruit.\n\nQuand un fontainier a men\u00e9, d'une source profonde, un cours d'eau\n\u00e0 travers les plantations et les jardins, et qu'il a \u00e9cart\u00e9 avec\nsa houe tous les obstacles \u00e0 l'\u00e9coulement, les cailloux roulent\navec le flot qui murmure, et court sur la pente, et devance le\nfontainier lui-m\u00eame. C'est ainsi que le fleuve pressait toujours\nAkhilleus, malgr\u00e9 sa rapidit\u00e9, car les dieux sont plus puissants\nque les hommes. Et toutes les fois que le divin et rapide\nAkhilleus tentait de s'arr\u00eater, afin de voir si tous les immortels\nqui habitent le large Ouranos voulaient l'\u00e9pouvanter, autant de\nfois l'eau du fleuve divin se d\u00e9roulait par-dessus ses \u00e9paules.\nEt, triste dans son coeur, il bondissait vers les hauteurs; mais\nle Xanthos furieux heurtait obliquement ses genoux et d\u00e9robait le\nfond sous ses pieds. Et le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide hurla vers le large Ouranos:\n\n-- P\u00e8re Zeus! aucun des dieux ne veut-il me d\u00e9livrer de ce fleuve,\nmoi, mis\u00e9rable! Je subirais ensuite ma destin\u00e9e. Certes, nul\nd'entre les Ouraniens n'est plus coupable que ma m\u00e8re bien-aim\u00e9e\nqui m'a menti, disant que je devais p\u00e9rir par les fl\u00e8ches rapides\nd'Apoll\u00f4n sous les murs des Troiens cuirass\u00e9s. Pl\u00fbt aux dieux que\nHekt\u00f4r, le plus brave des hommes nourris ici, m'e\u00fbt tu\u00e9! Un brave\nau moins e\u00fbt tu\u00e9 un brave. Et, maintenant, voici que ma destin\u00e9e\nest de subir une mort honteuse, \u00e9touff\u00e9 dans ce grand fleuve,\ncomme un petit porcher qu'un torrent a noy\u00e9, tandis qu'il le\ntraversait par un mauvais temps!\n\nIl parla ainsi, et aussit\u00f4t Poseida\u00f4n et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 s'approch\u00e8rent de\nlui sous des formes humaines; et, prenant sa main entre leurs\nmains, ils le rassur\u00e8rent. Et Poseida\u00f4n qui \u00e9branle la terre lui\ndit:\n\n-- P\u00e8l\u00e9ide, rassure-toi, et cesse de craindre. Nous te venons en\naide, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 et moi, et Zeus nous approuve. Ta destin\u00e9e n'est\npoint de mourir dans ce fleuve, et tu le verras bient\u00f4t s'apaiser.\nMais nous te conseillerons sagement, si tu nous ob\u00e9is. Ne cesse\npoint d'agir de tes mains dans la rude m\u00eal\u00e9e, que tu n'aies\nrenferm\u00e9 les Troiens dans les illustres murailles d'Ilios, ceux du\nmoins qui t'auront \u00e9chapp\u00e9. Puis, ayant arrach\u00e9 l'\u00e2me de Hekt\u00f4r,\nretourne vers les nefs. Nous te r\u00e9servons une grande gloire.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, ils rejoignirent les immortels. Et Akhilleus,\nexcit\u00e9 par les paroles des dieux, s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a dans la plaine o\u00f9 l'eau\nd\u00e9bordait de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s, soulevant les belles armes des guerriers\nmorts, et les cadavres aussi. Et ses genoux le soutinrent contre\nle courant imp\u00e9tueux, et le large fleuve ne put le retenir, car\nAth\u00e8n\u00e8 lui avait donn\u00e9 une grande vigueur. Mais le Skamandros\nn'apaisa point sa fureur, et il s'irrita plus encore contre le\nP\u00e8l\u00e9ide, et, soulevant toute son onde, il appela le Simo\u00efs \u00e0\ngrands cris:\n\n-- Cher fr\u00e8re, brisons tous deux la vigueur de cet homme qui\nrenversera bient\u00f4t la grande ville du roi Priamos, car les Troiens\nne combattent plus. Viens tr\u00e8s promptement \u00e0 mon aide. Emplis-toi\nde toute l'eau des sources, enfle tous les torrents, et hausse une\ngrande houle pleine de bruit, de troncs d'arbres et de rochers,\nafin que nous arr\u00eations cet homme f\u00e9roce qui triomphe, et ose tout\nce qu'osent les dieux. Je jure ceci: \u00e0 quoi lui serviront sa\nforce, sa beaut\u00e9 et ses belles armes, quand tout cela sera couch\u00e9\nau fond de mon lit, sous la boue? Et, lui-m\u00eame, je l'envelopperai\nde sables et de limons, et les Akhaiens ne pourront recueillir ses\nos, tant je les enfouirai sous la boue. Et la boue sera son\ns\u00e9pulcre, et quand les Akhaiens voudront l'ensevelir, il n'aura\nplus besoin de tombeau!\n\nIl parla ainsi, et sur Akhilleus il se rua tout bouillonnant de\nfureur, plein de bruit, d'\u00e9cume, de sang et de cadavres. Et l'onde\npourpr\u00e9e du fleuve tomb\u00e9 de Zeus se dressa, saisissant le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide.\nEt, alors, H\u00e8r\u00e8 poussa un cri, craignant que le grand fleuve\ntourbillonnant englout\u00eet Akhilleus, et elle dit aussit\u00f4t \u00e0 son\nfils bien-aim\u00e9 H\u00e8phaistos\n\nVa, H\u00e8phaistos, mon fils! combats le Xanthos tourbillonnant que\nnous t'avons donn\u00e9 pour adversaire. Va! allume promptement tes\nflammes innombrables. Moi, j'exciterai, du sein de la mer, la\nviolence de Z\u00e9phyros et du temp\u00e9tueux Notos, afin que l'incendie\nd\u00e9vore les t\u00eates et les armes des Troiens. Et toi, br\u00fble tous les\narbres sur les rives du Xanthos, embrase-le lui-m\u00eame, et n'\u00e9coute\nni ses flatteries, ni ses menaces; mais d\u00e9ploie toute ta violence,\njusqu'\u00e0 ce que je t'avertisse; et, alors, \u00e9teins l'incendie\ninfatigable.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et H\u00e8phaistos alluma le vaste feu qui, d'abord,\nconsuma dans la plaine les nombreux cadavres qu'avait faits\nAkhilleus. Et toute la plaine fut dess\u00e9ch\u00e9e, et l'eau divine fut\nr\u00e9prim\u00e9e. De m\u00eame que Bor\u00e9as, aux jours d'automne, s\u00e8che les\njardins r\u00e9cemment arros\u00e9s et r\u00e9jouit le jardinier, de m\u00eame le feu\ndess\u00e9cha la plaine et br\u00fbla les cadavres. Puis, H\u00e8phaistos tourna\ncontre le fleuve sa flamme resplendissante; et les ormes\nbr\u00fblaient, et les saules, et les tamaris; et le lotos br\u00fblait, et\nle gla\u00efeul, et le cypr\u00e8s, qui abondaient tous autour du fleuve aux\nbelles eaux. Et les anguilles et les poissons nageaient \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0,\nou plongeaient dans les tourbillons, poursuivis par le souffle du\nsage H\u00e8phaistos. Et la force m\u00eame du fleuve fut consum\u00e9e, et il\ncria ainsi:\n\n-- H\u00e8phaistos! aucun des dieux ne peut lutter contre toi. Je ne\ncombattrai point tes feux br\u00fblants. Cesse donc. Le divin Akhilleus\npeut chasser tous les Troiens de leur ville. Pourquoi les secourir\net que me fait leur querelle?\n\nIl parla ainsi, br\u00fblant, et ses eaux limpides bouillonnaient. De\nm\u00eame qu'un vase bout sur un grand feu qui fond la graisse d'un\nsanglier gras, tandis que la flamme du bois sec l'enveloppe; de\nm\u00eame le beau cours du Xanthos br\u00fblait, et l'eau bouillonnait, ne\npouvant plus couler dans son lit, tant le souffle ardent du sage\nH\u00e8phaistos la d\u00e9vorait. Alors, le Xanthos implora H\u00e8r\u00e8 en paroles\nrapides:\n\n-- H\u00e8r\u00e8! pourquoi ton fils me tourmente-t-il ainsi? Je ne suis\npoint, certes, aussi coupable que les autres dieux qui secourent\nles Troiens. Je m'arr\u00eaterai moi-m\u00eame, si tu ordonnes \u00e0 ton fils de\ncesser. Et je jure aussi de ne plus retarder le dernier jour des\nTroiens, quand m\u00eame Troi\u00e8 p\u00e9rirait par le feu, quand m\u00eame les fils\nbelliqueux des Akhaiens la consumeraient tout enti\u00e8re!\n\nEt la d\u00e9esse H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux bras blancs, l'ayant entendu, dit aussit\u00f4t \u00e0\nson fils bien-aim\u00e9 H\u00e8phaistos:\n\n-- H\u00e8phaistos, arr\u00eate, mon illustre fils! Il ne convient pas qu'un\ndieu soit tourment\u00e9 \u00e0 cause d'un homme.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et H\u00e8phaistos \u00e9teignit le vaste incendie et\nl'eau reprit son beau cours; et la force du Xanthos \u00e9tant dompt\u00e9e,\nils cess\u00e8rent le combat; et, bien qu'irrit\u00e9e, H\u00e8r\u00e8 les apaisa tous\ndeux.\n\nMais, alors, une querelle terrible s'\u00e9leva parmi les autres dieux,\net leur esprit leur inspira des pens\u00e9es ennemies. Et ils coururent\nles uns sur les autres; et la terre large rendit un son immense;\net, au-dessus, le grand Ouranos retentit. Et Zeus, assis sur\nl'Olympos, se mit \u00e0 rire; et la joie emplit son coeur quand il vit\nla dissension des dieux. Et ils ne retard\u00e8rent point le combat.\nAr\u00e8s, qui rompt les boucliers, attaqua, le premier, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8. Et il\nlui dit cette parole outrageante, en brandissant sa lance\nd'airain:\n\n-- Mouche \u00e0 chien! pourquoi pousses-tu les dieux au combat? Tu as\nune audace insatiable et un esprit toujours violent. Ne te\nsouvient-il plus que tu as excit\u00e9 le Tyd\u00e9ide Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s contre moi,\net que tu as conduit sa lance et d\u00e9chir\u00e9 mon beau corps? Je pense\nque tu vas expier tous les maux que tu m'as caus\u00e9s.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il frappa l'horrible aigide \u00e0 franges d'or qui\nne craint m\u00eame point la foudre de Zeus. C'est l\u00e0 que le sanglant\nAr\u00e8s frappa de sa longue lance la d\u00e9esse. Et celle-ci, reculant,\nsaisit, de sa main puissante, un rocher noir, \u00e2pre, immense, qui\ngisait dans la plaine, et dont les anciens hommes avaient fait la\nborne d'un champ. Elle en frappa le terrible Ar\u00e8s \u00e0 la gorge et\nrompit ses forces. Et il tomba, couvrant de son corps sept\narpents; et ses cheveux furent souill\u00e9s de poussi\u00e8re, et ses armes\nretentirent sur lui. Et Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 rit et l'insulta\norgueilleusement en paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\nInsens\u00e9, qui luttes contre moi, ne sais-tu pas que je me glorifie\nd'\u00eatre beaucoup plus puissante que toi? C'est ainsi que les\n\u00c9rinnyes vengent ta m\u00e8re qui te punit, dans sa col\u00e8re, d'avoir\nabandonn\u00e9 les Akhaiens pour secourir les Troiens insolents.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, elle d\u00e9tourna ses yeux splendides. Et voici\nqu'Aphrodit\u00e8, la fille de Zeus, conduisait par la main, hors de la\nm\u00eal\u00e9e, Ar\u00e8s respirant \u00e0 peine et recueillant ses esprits. Et la\nd\u00e9esse H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux bras blancs, l'ayant vue, dit \u00e0 Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 ces paroles\nail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, fille de Zeus temp\u00e9tueux, vois-tu cette mouche \u00e0 chien\nqui emm\u00e8ne, hors de la m\u00eal\u00e9e, Ar\u00e8s, le fl\u00e9au des vivants?\nPoursuis-la.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, pleine de joie, se jeta sur\nAphrodit\u00e8, et, la frappant de sa forte main sur la poitrine, elle\nfit fl\u00e9chir ses genoux et son coeur.\n\nAr\u00e8s et Aphrodit\u00e8 rest\u00e8rent ainsi, \u00e9tendus tous deux sur la terre\nf\u00e9conde; et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 les insulta par ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Que ne sont-ils ainsi, tous les alli\u00e9s des Troiens qui\ncombattent les Akhaiens cuirass\u00e9s! Que n'ont-ils tous l'audace\nd'Aphrodit\u00e8 qui, bravant ma force, a secouru Ar\u00e8s! Bient\u00f4t nous\ncesserions de combattre, apr\u00e8s avoir saccag\u00e9 la haute citadelle\nd'Ilios.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et la d\u00e9esse H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux bras blancs rit. Et le\npuissant qui \u00e9branle la terre dit \u00e0 Apoll\u00f4n:\n\n-- Phoibos, pourquoi restons-nous \u00e9loign\u00e9s l'un de l'autre? Il ne\nconvient point, quand les autres dieux sont aux mains, que nous\nretournions, sans combat, dans l'Ouranos, dans la demeure d'airain\nde Zeus. Commence, car tu es le plus jeune, et il serait honteux \u00e0\nmoi de t'attaquer, puisque je suis l'a\u00een\u00e9 et que je sais plus de\nchoses. Insens\u00e9! as-tu donc un coeur tellement oublieux, et ne te\nsouvient-il plus des maux que nous avons subis \u00e0 Ilios, quand,\nseuls d'entre les dieux, exil\u00e9s par Zeus, il fallut servir\nl'insolent Laom\u00e9d\u00f4n pendant une ann\u00e9e? Une r\u00e9compense nous fut\npromise, et il nous commandait. Et j'entourai d'une haute et belle\nmuraille la ville des Troiens, afin qu'elle f\u00fbt inexpugnable; et\ntoi, Phoibos, tu menais pa\u00eetre, sur les nombreuses cimes de l'Ida\ncouvert de for\u00eats, les boeufs aux pieds tors et aux cornes\nrecourb\u00e9es. Mais quand les Heures charmantes amen\u00e8rent le jour de\nla r\u00e9compense, le parjure Laom\u00e9d\u00f4n nous la refusa, nous chassant\navec outrage. M\u00eame, il te mena\u00e7a de te lier les mains et les\npieds, et de te vendre dans les \u00eeles lointaines. Et il jura aussi\nde nous couper les oreilles avec l'airain. Et nous part\u00eemes,\nirrit\u00e9s dans l'\u00e2me, \u00e0 cause de la r\u00e9compense promise qu'il nous\nrefusait. Est-ce de cela que tu es reconnaissant \u00e0 son peuple? Et\nne devrais-tu pas te joindre \u00e0 nous pour exterminer ces Troiens\nparjures, eux, leurs enfants et leurs femmes?\n\nEt le royal archer Apoll\u00f4n lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Poseida\u00f4n qui \u00e9branles la terre, tu me nommerais insens\u00e9, si je\ncombattais contre toi pour les hommes mis\u00e9rables qui verdissent un\njour semblables aux feuilles, et qui mangent les fruits de la\nterre, et qui se fl\u00e9trissent et meurent bient\u00f4t. Ne combattons\npoint, et laissons-les lutter entre eux.\n\nIl parla ainsi et s'\u00e9loigna, ne voulant point, par respect,\ncombattre le fr\u00e8re de son p\u00e8re. Et la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable Art\u00e9mis, sa soeur,\nchasseresse de b\u00eates fauves, lui adressa ces paroles injurieuses:\n\n-- Tu fuis, \u00f4 archer! et tu laisses la victoire \u00e0 Poseida\u00f4n?\nL\u00e2che, pourquoi portes-tu un arc inutile? Je ne t'entendrai plus\nd\u00e9sormais, dans les demeures paternelles, te vanter comme\nauparavant, au milieu des dieux immortels, de combattre Poseida\u00f4n\n\u00e0 forces \u00e9gales!\n\nElle parla ainsi, et l'archer Apoll\u00f4n ne lui r\u00e9pondit pas; mais la\nv\u00e9n\u00e9rable \u00e9pouse de Zeus, pleine de col\u00e8re, insulta de ces paroles\ninjurieuses Art\u00e9mis qui se r\u00e9jouit de ses fl\u00e8ches:\n\n-- Chienne hargneuse, comment oses-tu me tenir t\u00eate? Il te sera\ndifficile de me r\u00e9sister, bien que tu lances des fl\u00e8ches et que tu\nsois comme une lionne pour les femmes que Zeus te permet de tuer \u00e0\nton gr\u00e9. Il est plus ais\u00e9 de percer, sur les montagnes, les b\u00eates\nfauves et les biches sauvages que de lutter contre plus puissant\nque soi. Mais si tu veux tenter le combat, viens! et tu sauras\ncombien ma force est sup\u00e9rieure \u00e0 la tienne, bien que tu oses me\ntenir t\u00eate!\n\nElle parla ainsi, et saisissant d'une main les deux mains\nd'Art\u00e9mis, de l'autre elle lui arracha le carquois des \u00e9paules, et\nelle l'en souffleta en riant. Et comme Art\u00e9mis s'agitait \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0,\nles fl\u00e8ches rapides se r\u00e9pandirent de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s. Et Art\u00e9mis\ns'envola, pleurante, comme une colombe qui, loin d'un \u00e9pervier, se\nr\u00e9fugie sous une roche creuse, car sa destin\u00e9e n'est point de\np\u00e9rir. Ainsi, pleurante, elle s'enfuit, abandonnant son arc.\n\nAlors, le messager, tueur d'Argos, dit \u00e0 L\u00e8t\u00f4:\n\n-- L\u00e8t\u00f4, je ne combattrai point contre toi. Il est dangereux d'en\nvenir aux mains avec les \u00e9pouses de Zeus qui amasse les nu\u00e9es.\nH\u00e2te-toi, et va te vanter parmi les dieux immortels de m'avoir\ndompt\u00e9 par ta force.\n\nIl parla ainsi; et L\u00e8t\u00f4, ramassant l'arc et les fl\u00e8ches \u00e9parses\ndans la poussi\u00e8re, et les emportant, suivit sa fille. Et celle-ci\nparvint \u00e0 l'Olympos, \u00e0 la demeure d'airain de Zeus. Et, pleurante,\nelle s'assit sur les genoux de son p\u00e8re, et son p\u00e9plos ambroisien\nfr\u00e9missait. Et le p\u00e8re Kronide lui demanda, en souriant doucement:\n\n-- Ch\u00e8re fille, qui d'entre les dieux t'a maltrait\u00e9e ainsi\nt\u00e9m\u00e9rairement, comme si tu avais commis une faute devant tous?\n\nEt Art\u00e9mis \u00e0 la belle couronne lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- P\u00e8re, c'est ton \u00e9pouse, H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux bras blancs, qui m'a frapp\u00e9e,\nelle qui r\u00e9pand sans cesse la dissension parmi les immortels.\n\nEt tandis qu'ils se parlaient ainsi, Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n descendit\ndans la sainte Ilios, car il craignait que les Danaens ne\nrenversassent ses hautes murailles avant le jour fatal. Et les\nautres dieux \u00e9ternels retourn\u00e8rent dans l'Olympos, les uns irrit\u00e9s\net les autres triomphants; et ils s'assirent aupr\u00e8s du p\u00e8re qui\namasse les nu\u00e9es.\nMais Akhilleus bouleversait les Troiens et leurs chevaux aux\nsabots massifs. De m\u00eame que la fum\u00e9e monte d'une ville qui br\u00fble,\njusque dans le large Ouranos; car la col\u00e8re des dieux est sur elle\net accable de maux tous ses habitants; de m\u00eame Akhilleus accablait\nles Troiens.\n\nEt le vieux Priamos, debout sur une haute tour, reconnut le f\u00e9roce\nAkhilleus bouleversant et chassant devant lui les phalanges\nTroiennes qui ne lui r\u00e9sistaient plus. Et il descendit de la tour\nen se lamentant, et il dit aux gardes illustres des portes:\n\n-- Tenez les portes ouvertes, tant que les peuples mis en fuite\naccourront vers la ville. Certes, voici qu'Akhilleus les a\nboulevers\u00e9s et qu'il approche; mais d\u00e8s que les phalanges\nrespireront derri\u00e8re les murailles, refermez les battants massifs,\ncar je crains que cet homme d\u00e9sastreux se rue dans nos murs.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et ils ouvrirent les portes en retirant les\nbarri\u00e8res, et ils offrirent le salut aux phalanges. Et Apoll\u00f4n\ns'\u00e9lan\u00e7a au-devant des Troiens pour les secourir. Et ceux-ci, vers\nles hautes murailles et la ville, d\u00e9vor\u00e9s de soif et couverts de\npoussi\u00e8re, fuyaient. Et, furieux, Akhilleus les poursuivait de sa\nlance, le coeur toujours plein de rage et du d\u00e9sir de la gloire.\n\nAlors, sans doute, les fils des Akhaiens eussent pris Troi\u00e8 aux\nportes \u00e9lev\u00e9es, si Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n n'e\u00fbt excit\u00e9 le divin Ag\u00e8n\u00f4r,\nbrave et irr\u00e9prochable fils d'Ant\u00e8n\u00f4r. Et il lui versa l'audace\ndans le coeur, et pour le sauver des lourdes mains de la mort, il\nse tint aupr\u00e8s, appuy\u00e9 contre un h\u00eatre et envelopp\u00e9 d'un \u00e9pais\nbrouillard.\n\nMais d\u00e8s qu'Ag\u00e8n\u00f4r eut reconnu le destructeur de citadelles\nAkhilleus, il s'arr\u00eata, roulant mille pens\u00e9es dans son esprit, et\nil se dit dans son brave coeur, en g\u00e9missant:\n\n-- H\u00e9las! fuirai-je devant le brave Akhilleus, comme tous ceux-ci\ndans leur \u00e9pouvante? Il me saisira et me tuera comme un l\u00e2che que\nje serai. Mais si, les laissant se disperser devant le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide\nAkhilleus, je fuyais \u00e0 travers la plaine d'Ilios jusqu'aux cimes\nde l'Ida, je m'y cacherais au milieu des taillis \u00e9pais; et, le\nsoir, apr\u00e8s avoir lav\u00e9 mes sueurs au fleuve, je reviendrais \u00e0\nIlios. Mais pourquoi mon esprit d\u00e9lib\u00e8re-t-il ainsi? Il me verra\nquand je fuirai \u00e0 travers la plaine, et, me poursuivant de ses\npieds rapides, il me saisira. Et alors je n'\u00e9viterai plus la mort\net les k\u00e8res, car il est bien plus fort que tous les autres\nhommes. Pourquoi n'irais-je pas \u00e0 sa rencontre devant la ville?\nSans doute son corps est vuln\u00e9rable \u00e0 l'airain aigu, quoique le\nKronide Zeus lui donne la victoire.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, et son brave coeur l'excitant \u00e0 combattre, il\nattendit Akhilleus. De m\u00eame qu'une panth\u00e8re qui, du fond d'une\n\u00e9paisse for\u00eat, bondit, au-devant du chasseur, et que les\naboiements des chiens ne troublent ni n'\u00e9pouvantent; et qui,\nbless\u00e9e d'un trait ou de l'\u00e9p\u00e9e, ou m\u00eame perc\u00e9e de la lance, ne\nrecule point avant qu'elle ait d\u00e9chir\u00e9 son ennemi ou qu'il l'ait\ntu\u00e9e; de m\u00eame le fils de l'illustre Ant\u00e8n\u00f4r, le divin Ag\u00e8n\u00f4r, ne\nvoulait point reculer avant de combattre Akhilleus. Et, tendant\nson bouclier devant lui, et brandissant sa lance, il s'\u00e9cria:\n\n-- Certes, tu as esp\u00e9r\u00e9 trop t\u00f4t, illustre Akhilleus, que tu\nrenverserais aujourd'hui la ville des braves Troiens. Insens\u00e9! tu\nsubiras encore bien des maux pour cela. Nous sommes, dans Ilios,\nun grand nombre d'hommes courageux qui saurons d\u00e9fendre nos\nparents bien-aim\u00e9s, nos femmes et nos enfants; et c'est ici que tu\nsubiras ta destin\u00e9e, bien que tu sois un guerrier terrible et\nplein d'audace.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et lan\u00e7a sa pique aigu\u00eb d'une main vigoureuse. Et\nil frappa la jambe d'Akhilleus, au-dessous du genou. Et l'airain\nr\u00e9sonna contre l'\u00e9tain r\u00e9cemment forg\u00e9 de la kn\u00e8mide qui repoussa\nle coup, car elle \u00e9tait le pr\u00e9sent d'un dieu. Et le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide se\njeta sur le divin Ag\u00e8n\u00f4r. Mais Apoll\u00f4n lui refusa la victoire, car\nil lui enleva l'Ant\u00e9noride en le couvrant d'un brouillard \u00e9pais,\net il le retira sain et sauf du combat. Puis il d\u00e9tourna par une\nruse le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide des Troiens, en se tenant devant lui, sous la\nforme d'Ag\u00e8n\u00f4r. Et il le fuyait, se laissant poursuivre \u00e0 travers\nla plaine fertile et le long du Skamandros tourbillonnant, et le\ndevan\u00e7ant \u00e0 peine pour l'\u00e9garer. Et, pendant ce temps, les Troiens\n\u00e9pouvant\u00e9s rentraient en foule dans Ilios qui s'en emplissait. Et\nils ne s'arr\u00eataient point hors de la ville et des murs, pour\nsavoir qui avait p\u00e9ri ou qui fuyait; mais ils s'engloutissaient\nardemment dans Ilios, tous ceux que leurs pieds et leurs genoux\navaient sauv\u00e9s.\n\n\nChant 22\n\nAinsi les Troiens, chass\u00e9s comme des faons, rentraient dans la\nville. Et ils s\u00e9chaient leur sueur, et ils buvaient, apaisant leur\nsoif. Et les Akhaiens approchaient des murs, en lignes serr\u00e9es et\nle bouclier aux \u00e9paules. Mais la moire fatale fit que Hekt\u00f4r resta\ndevant Ilios et les portes Skaies. Et Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n dit au\nP\u00e8l\u00e9ide:\n\n-- P\u00e8l\u00e9ide aux pieds rapides, toi qui n'es qu'un mortel, pourquoi\npoursuis-tu un dieu immortel? Ne vois-tu pas que je suis un dieu?\nMais ta fureur n'a point de fin. Ne songes-tu donc plus aux\nTroiens que tu poursuivais, et qui se sont enferm\u00e9s dans leur\nville, tandis que tu t'\u00e9cartais de ce c\u00f4t\u00e9? Cependant tu ne me\ntueras point, car je ne suis pas mortel.\n\nEt Akhilleus aux pieds rapides lui r\u00e9pondit, plein de col\u00e8re:\n\n-- \u00d4 Apoll\u00f4n, le plus funeste de tous les dieux, tu m'as aveugl\u00e9\nen m'\u00e9cartant des murailles! Sans doute, de nombreux Troiens\nauraient encore mordu la terre avant de rentrer dans Ilios, et tu\nm'as enlev\u00e9 une grande gloire. Tu les as sauv\u00e9s ais\u00e9ment, ne\nredoutant point ma vengeance. Mais, certes, je me vengerais de\ntoi, si je le pouvais!\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a vers la ville, en m\u00e9ditant de\ngrandes actions, tel qu'un cheval victorieux qui emporte ais\u00e9ment\nun char dans la plaine. Ainsi Akhilleus agitait rapidement ses\npieds et ses genoux. Et le vieux Priamos l'aper\u00e7ut le premier, se\nruant \u00e0 travers la plaine, et resplendissant comme l'\u00e9toile\ncaniculaire dont les rayons \u00e9clatent parmi les astres innombrables\nde la nuit, et qu'on nomme le chien d'Ori\u00f4n. Et c'est la plus\n\u00e9clatante des \u00e9toiles, mais c'est aussi un signe funeste qui\npr\u00e9sage une fi\u00e8vre ardente aux mis\u00e9rables hommes mortels. Et\nl'airain resplendissait ainsi autour de la poitrine d'Akhilleus\nqui accourait.\n\nEt le vieillard se lamentait en se frappant la t\u00eate, et il levait\nses mains, et il pleurait, poussant des cris et suppliant son fils\nbien-aim\u00e9. Et celui-ci \u00e9tait debout devant les portes, plein du\nd\u00e9sir de combattre Akhilleus. Et le vieillard, les mains \u00e9tendues,\nlui dit d'une voix lamentable:\n\n-- Hekt\u00f4r, mon fils bien-aim\u00e9, n'attends point cet homme, \u00e9tant\nseul et loin des tiens, de peur que, tu\u00e9 par le P\u00e8l\u00e9i\u00f4n, tu ne\nsubisses ta destin\u00e9e, car il est bien plus fort que toi. Ah! le\nmis\u00e9rable, que n'est-il aussi cher aux dieux qu'\u00e0 moi! Bient\u00f4t les\nchiens et les oiseaux le d\u00e9voreraient \u00e9tendu contre terre, et ma\ndouleur affreuse serait apais\u00e9e. De combien de braves enfants ne\nm'a-t-il point priv\u00e9, en les tuant, ou en les vendant aux \u00eeles\nlointaines! Et je ne vois point, au milieu des Troiens rentr\u00e9s\ndans Ilios, mes deux fils Lyka\u00f4n et Polyd\u00f4ros, qu'a enfant\u00e9s\nLaotho\u00e8, la plus noble des femmes. S'ils sont vivants sous les\ntentes, certes, nous les rach\u00e8terons avec de l'or et de l'airain,\ncar j'en ai beaucoup, et le vieux et illustre Alt\u00e8s en a beaucoup\ndonn\u00e9 \u00e0 sa fille; mais s'ils sont morts, leur m\u00e8re et moi qui les\navons engendr\u00e9s, nous les pleurerons jusque dans les demeures\nd'Aid\u00e8s! Mais la douleur de nos peuples sera bien moindre si tu\nn'es pas dompt\u00e9 par Akhilleus. Mon fils, rentre \u00e0 la h\u00e2te dans nos\nmurs, pour le salut des Troiens et des Troiennes. Ne donne pas une\ntelle gloire au P\u00e8l\u00e9ide, et ne te prive pas de la douce vie. Aie\npiti\u00e9 de moi, malheureux, qui vis encore, et \u00e0 qui le p\u00e8re Zeus\nr\u00e9serve une affreuse destin\u00e9e aux limites de la vieillesse, ayant\nvu tous les maux m'accabler: mes fils tu\u00e9s, mes filles enlev\u00e9es,\nmes foyers renvers\u00e9s, mes petits-enfants \u00e9cras\u00e9s contre terre et\nles femmes de mes fils entra\u00een\u00e9es par les mains inexorables des\nAkhaiens! Et moi-m\u00eame, le dernier, les chiens mangeurs de chair\ncrue me d\u00e9chireront sous mes portiques, apr\u00e8s que j'aurai \u00e9t\u00e9\nfrapp\u00e9 de l'airain, ou qu'une lance m'aura arrach\u00e9 l'\u00e2me. Et ces\nchiens, gardiens de mon seuil et nourris de ma table dans mes\ndemeures, furieux, et ayant bu tout mon sang, se coucheront sous\nmes portiques! On peut regarder un jeune homme perc\u00e9 de l'airain\naigu et couch\u00e9 mort dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e, car il est toujours beau, bien\nqu'il soit nu; mais une barbe blanche et les choses de la pudeur\nd\u00e9chir\u00e9es par les chiens, c'est la plus mis\u00e9rable des destin\u00e9es\npour les mis\u00e9rables mortels!\n\nLe vieillard parla ainsi, et il arrachait ses cheveux blancs; mais\nil ne fl\u00e9chissait point l'\u00e2me de Hekt\u00f4r. Et voici que sa m\u00e8re\ng\u00e9missait et pleurait, et que, d\u00e9couvrant son sein et soulevant\nd'une main sa mamelle, elle dit ces paroles lamentables:\n\n-- Hekt\u00f4r, mon fils, respecte ce sein et prends piti\u00e9 de moi! Si\njamais je t'ai donn\u00e9 cette mamelle qui apaisait tes vagissements\nd'enfant, souviens-t'en, mon cher fils! Fuis cet homme, rentre\ndans nos murs, ne t'arr\u00eate point pour le combattre. Car s'il te\ntuait, ni moi qui t'ai enfant\u00e9, ni ta femme richement dot\u00e9e, nous\nne te pleurerons sur ton lit fun\u00e8bre; mais, loin de nous, aupr\u00e8s\ndes nefs des Argiens, les chiens rapides te mangeront!\n\nEt ils g\u00e9missaient ainsi, conjurant leur fils bien-aim\u00e9 mais ils\nne fl\u00e9chissaient point l'\u00e2me de Hekt\u00f4r, qui attendait le grand\nAkhilleus. De m\u00eame qu'un dragon montagnard nourri d'herbes\nv\u00e9n\u00e9neuses, et plein de rage, se tord devant son repaire avec des\nyeux horribles, en attendant un homme qui approche; de m\u00eame\nHekt\u00f4r, plein d'un ferme courage, ne reculait point. Et, le\nbouclier appuy\u00e9 contre le relief de la tour, il se disait dans son\ncoeur:\n\n-- Malheur \u00e0 moi si je rentre dans les murailles! Polydamas\nm'accablera de reproches, lui qui me conseillait de ramener les\nTroiens dans la ville, cette nuit fatale o\u00f9 le divin Akhilleus\ns'est lev\u00e9. Je ne l'ai point \u00e9cout\u00e9, et, certes, son conseil \u00e9tait\nle meilleur. Et voici que j'ai perdu mon peuple par ma folie. Je\ncrains maintenant les Troiens et les Troiennes aux longs p\u00e9plos.\nLe plus l\u00e2che pourra dire: -- Hekt\u00f4r, trop confiant dans ses\nforces, a perdu son peuple!\u0092 Ils parleront ainsi. Mieux vaut ne\nrentrer qu'apr\u00e8s avoir tu\u00e9 Akhilleus, ou bien mourir glorieusement\npour Ilios. Si, d\u00e9posant mon bouclier bomb\u00e9 et mon casque solide,\net appuyant ma lance au mur, j'allais au-devant du brave\nAkhilleus? Si je lui promettais de rendre aux Atr\u00e9ides H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 et\ntoutes les richesses qu'Alexandros a port\u00e9es \u00e0 Troi\u00e8 sur ses nefs\ncreuses? Car c'est l\u00e0 l'origine de nos querelles. Si j'offrais aux\nAkhaiens de partager tout ce que la ville renferme, ayant fait\njurer par serment aux Troiens de ne rien cacher et de partager\ntous les tr\u00e9sors que contient la riche Ilios? Mais \u00e0 quoi songe\nmon esprit? Je ne supplierai point Akhilleus, car il n'aurait ni\nrespect ni piti\u00e9 pour moi, et, d\u00e9sarm\u00e9 que je serais, il me\ntuerait comme une femme. Non! Il ne s'agit point maintenant de\ncauser du ch\u00eane ou du rocher comme le jeune homme et la jeune\nfille qui parlent entre eux; mais or il s'agit de combattre et de\nvoir \u00e0 qui l'Olympien donnera la victoire.\n\nEt il songeait ainsi, attendant Akhilleus. Et le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide\napprochait semblable \u00e0 l'imp\u00e9tueux guerrier Ar\u00e8s et brandissant de\nla main droite la terrible lance P\u00e8lienne. Et l'airain\nresplendissait, semblable \u00e0 l'\u00e9clair, ou au feu ardent, ou \u00e0\nH\u00e9lios qui se l\u00e8ve. Mais d\u00e8s que Hekt\u00f4r l'eut vu, la terreur le\nsaisit et il ne put l'attendre; et, laissant les portes derri\u00e8re\nlui, il s'enfuit \u00e9pouvant\u00e9. Et le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a de ses pieds\nrapides.\n\nDe m\u00eame que, sur les montagnes, un \u00e9pervier, le plus rapide des\noiseaux, poursuit une colombe tremblante qui fuit d'un vol oblique\net qu'il presse avec des cris aigus, d\u00e9sirant l'atteindre et la\nsaisir; de m\u00eame Akhilleus se pr\u00e9cipitait, et Hekt\u00f4r, tremblant,\nfuyait devant lui sous les murs des Troiens, en agitant ses genoux\nrapides. Et ils pass\u00e8rent aupr\u00e8s de la colline et du haut figuier,\n\u00e0 travers le chemin et le long des murailles. Et ils parvinrent\npr\u00e8s du fleuve au beau cours, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 jaillissent les deux fontaines\ndu Skamandros tourbillonnant. Et l'une coule, ti\u00e8de, et une fum\u00e9e\ns'en exhale comme d'un grand feu; et l'autre filtre, pendant\nl'\u00e9t\u00e9, froide comme la gr\u00eale, ou la neige, ou le dur cristal de\nl'eau.\n\nEt aupr\u00e8s des fontaines, il y avait deux larges et belles cuves de\npierre o\u00f9 les femmes des Troiens et leurs filles charmantes\nlavaient leurs robes splendides, au temps de la paix, avant\nl'arriv\u00e9e des Akhaiens. Et c'est l\u00e0 qu'ils couraient tous deux,\nl'un fuyant, et l'autre le poursuivant. Et c'\u00e9tait un brave qui\nfuyait, et un plus brave qui le poursuivait avec ardeur. Et ils ne\nse disputaient point une victime, ni le dos d'un boeuf, prix de la\ncourse parmi les hommes; mais ils couraient pour la vie de Hekt\u00f4r\ndompteur de chevaux.\n\nDe m\u00eame que deux chevaux rapidement \u00e9lanc\u00e9s, dans les jeux\nfun\u00e9raires d'un guerrier, pour atteindre la borne et remporter un\nprix magnifique, soit un tr\u00e9pied, soit une femme; de m\u00eame ils\ntourn\u00e8rent trois fois, de leurs pieds rapides, autour de la ville\nde Priamos. Et tous les dieux les regardaient. Et voici que le\np\u00e8re des dieux et des hommes parla ainsi:\n\n-- \u00d4 malheur! certes, je vois un homme qui m'est cher fuir autour\ndes murailles. Mon coeur s'attriste sur Hekt\u00f4r, qui a souvent\nbr\u00fbl\u00e9 pour moi de nombreuses cuisses de boeuf, sur les cimes du\ngrand Ida ou dans la citadelle d'Ilios. Le divin Akhilleus le\npoursuit ardemment, de ses pieds rapides, autour de la ville de\nPriamos. Allons, d\u00e9lib\u00e9rez, \u00f4 dieux immortels. L'arracherons-nous\n\u00e0 la mort, ou dompterons-nous son courage par les mains du P\u00e8l\u00e9ide\nAkhilleus?\n\nEt la d\u00e9esse Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 p\u00e8re foudroyant qui amasses les nu\u00e9es, qu'as-tu dit? Tu veux\narracher \u00e0 la mort lugubre cet homme mortel que la destin\u00e9e a\nmarqu\u00e9 pour mourir! Fais-le; mais jamais, nous, les dieux, nous ne\nt'approuverons.\n\nEt Zeus qui amasse les nu\u00e9es, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi:\n\n-- Rassure-toi, Tritog\u00e9n\u00e9ia, ch\u00e8re fille. Je n'ai point parl\u00e9 dans\nune volont\u00e9 arr\u00eat\u00e9e, et je veux te complaire. Va, et agis comme tu\nle voudras.\n\nIl parla ainsi, excitant Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 d\u00e9j\u00e0 pleine d'ardeur; et elle\ns'\u00e9lan\u00e7a du fa\u00eete de l'Olympos.\n\nEt, cependant, le rapide Akhilleus pressait sans rel\u00e2che Hekt\u00f4r,\nde m\u00eame qu'un chien presse, sur les montagnes, le faon d'une\nbiche. Il le poursuit \u00e0 travers les taillis et les vall\u00e9es des\nbois; et quand il se cache tremblant sous un buisson, le chien\nflaire sa trace et le d\u00e9couvre aussit\u00f4t. De m\u00eame Hekt\u00f4r ne pouvait\nse d\u00e9rober au rapide P\u00e8l\u00e9iade. Autant de fois il voulait regagner\nles portes Dardaniennes et l'abri des tours hautes et solides d'o\u00f9\nles Troiens pouvaient le secourir de leurs fl\u00e8ches, autant de fois\nAkhilleus le poursuivait en le chassant vers la plaine; mais\nHekt\u00f4r revenait toujours vers Ilios. De m\u00eame que, dans un songe,\non poursuit un homme qui fuit, sans qu'on puisse l'atteindre et\nqu'il puisse \u00e9chapper, de m\u00eame l'un ne pouvait saisir son ennemi,\nni celui-ci lui \u00e9chapper. Mais comment Hekt\u00f4r e\u00fbt-il \u00e9vit\u00e9 plus\nlongtemps les k\u00e8res de la mort, si Apoll\u00f4n, venant \u00e0 son aide pour\nla derni\u00e8re fois, n'e\u00fbt vers\u00e9 la vigueur dans ses genoux rapides?\n\nEt le divin Akhilleus ordonnait \u00e0 ses peuples, par un signe de\nt\u00eate, de ne point lancer contre Hekt\u00f4r de fl\u00e8ches mortelles, de\npeur que quelqu'un le tu\u00e2t et remport\u00e2t cette gloire avant lui.\nMais, comme ils revenaient pour la quatri\u00e8me fois aux fontaines du\nSkamandros, le p\u00e8re Zeus d\u00e9ploya ses balances d'or, et il y mit\ndeux k\u00e8res de la mort violente, l'une pour Akhilleus et l'autre\npour Hekt\u00f4r dompteur de chevaux. Et il les \u00e9leva en les tenant par\nle milieu, et le jour fatal de Hekt\u00f4r descendit vers les demeures\nd'Aid\u00e8s, et Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n l'abandonna, et la d\u00e9esse Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux\nyeux clairs, s'approchant du P\u00e8l\u00e9ide, lui dit ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- J'esp\u00e8re enfin, illustre Akhilleus cher \u00e0 Zeus, que nous allons\nremporter une grande gloire aupr\u00e8s des nefs Akhaiennes, en tuant\nHekt\u00f4r insatiable de combats. Il ne peut plus nous \u00e9chapper, m\u00eame\nquand l'archer Apoll\u00f4n, faisant mille efforts pour le sauver, se\nprosternerait devant le p\u00e8re Zeus temp\u00e9tueux. Arr\u00eate-toi, et\nrespire. Je vais persuader le Priamide de venir \u00e0 toi et de te\ncombattre.\n\nAth\u00e8n\u00e8 parla ainsi, et Akhilleus, plein de joie, s'arr\u00eata, appuy\u00e9\nsur sa lance d'airain. Et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, le quittant, s'approcha du divin\nHekt\u00f4r, \u00e9tant semblable \u00e0 D\u00e8iphobos par le corps et par la voix.\nEt, debout aupr\u00e8s de lui, elle lui dit ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- \u00d4 mon fr\u00e8re, voici que le rapide Akhilleus te presse en te\npoursuivant autour de la ville de Priamos. Tenons ferme et faisons\nt\u00eate tous deux \u00e0 l'ennemi.\n\nEt le grand Hekt\u00f4r au casque mouvant lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- D\u00e8iphobos, certes, tu \u00e9tais d\u00e9j\u00e0 le plus cher de mes fr\u00e8res, de\ntous ceux que H\u00e9kab\u00e8 et Priamos ont engendr\u00e9s; mais je dois\nt'honorer bien plus dans mon coeur, aujourd'hui que, pour me\nsecourir, tu es sorti de nos murailles, o\u00f9 tous les autres restent\nenferm\u00e9s.\n\nEt la d\u00e9esse Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 mon fr\u00e8re, notre p\u00e8re et notre m\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable m'ont suppli\u00e9 \u00e0\ngenoux, et tous mes compagnons aussi, de rester dans les murs, car\ntous sont \u00e9pouvant\u00e9s; mais mon \u00e2me \u00e9tait en proie \u00e0 une am\u00e8re\ndouleur. Maintenant, combattons bravement, et ne laissons point\nnos lances en repos, et voyons si Akhilleus, nous ayant tu\u00e9s,\nemportera nos d\u00e9pouilles sanglantes vers les nefs creuses, ou s'il\nsera dompt\u00e9 par ta lance.\n\nAth\u00e8n\u00e8 parla ainsi avec ruse et elle le pr\u00e9c\u00e9da. Et d\u00e8s qu'ils se\nfurent rencontr\u00e9s, le grand Hekt\u00f4r au casque mouvant parla ainsi\nle premier:\n\n-- Je ne te fuirai pas plus longtemps, fils de P\u00e8leus. Je t'ai fui\ntrois fois autour de la grande ville de Priamos et je n'ai point\nos\u00e9 attendre ton attaque; mais voici que mon coeur me pousse \u00e0 te\ntenir t\u00eate. Je tuerai ou je serai tu\u00e9. Mais attestons les dieux,\net qu'ils soient les fid\u00e8les t\u00e9moins et les gardiens de nos\npactes. Je ne t'outragerai point cruellement, si Zeus me donne la\nvictoire et si je t'arrache l'\u00e2me; mais, Akhilleus, apr\u00e8s t'avoir\nd\u00e9pouill\u00e9 de tes belles armes, je rendrai ton cadavre aux\nAkhaiens. Fais de m\u00eame, et promets-le.\n\nEt Akhilleus aux pieds rapides, le regardant d'un oeil sombre, lui\nr\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Hekt\u00f4r, le plus ex\u00e9crable des hommes, ne me parle point de\npactes. De m\u00eame qu'il n'y a point d'alliances entre les lions et\nles hommes, et que les loups et les agneaux, loin de s'accorder,\nse ha\u00efssent toujours; de m\u00eame il m'est impossible de ne pas te\nha\u00efr, et il n'y aura point de pactes entre nous avant qu'un des\ndeux ne tombe, rassasiant de son sang le terrible guerrier Ar\u00e8s.\nRappelle tout ton courage. C'est maintenant que tu vas avoir\nbesoin de toute ton adresse et de toute ta vigueur, car tu n'as\nplus de refuge, et voici que Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 va te dompter par ma\nlance, et que tu expieras en une fois les maux de mes compagnons\nque tu as tu\u00e9s dans ta fureur!\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, brandissant sa longue pique, il la lan\u00e7a; mais\nl'illustre Hekt\u00f4r la vit et l'\u00e9vita; et la pique d'airain, passant\nau-dessus de lui, s'enfon\u00e7a en terre. Et Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, l'ayant\narrach\u00e9e, la rendit \u00e0 Akhilleus, sans que le prince des peuples,\nHekt\u00f4r, s'en aper\u00e7\u00fbt. Et le Priamide dit au brave P\u00e8l\u00e9ide:\n\n-- Tu m'as manqu\u00e9, \u00f4 Akhilleus semblable aux dieux! Zeus ne\nt'avait point enseign\u00e9 ma destin\u00e9e, comme tu le disais; mais ce\nn'\u00e9taient que des paroles vaines et rus\u00e9es, afin de m'effrayer et\nde me faire oublier ma force et mon courage. Ce ne sera point dans\nle dos que tu me perceras de ta lance, car je cours droit \u00e0 toi.\nFrappe donc ma poitrine, si un dieu te l'accorde, et tente\nmaintenant d'\u00e9viter ma lance d'airain. Pl\u00fbt aux dieux que tu la\nre\u00e7usses tout enti\u00e8re dans le corps! La guerre serait plus facile\naux Troiens si je te tuais, car tu es leur pire fl\u00e9au.\n\nIl parla ainsi en brandissant sa longue pique, et il la lan\u00e7a; et\nelle frappa, sans d\u00e9vier, le milieu du bouclier du P\u00e8l\u00e9ide; mais\nle bouclier la repoussa au loin. Et Hekt\u00f4r, irrit\u00e9 qu'un trait\ninutile se f\u00fbt \u00e9chapp\u00e9 de sa main, resta plein de trouble, car il\nn'avait que cette lance. Et il appela \u00e0 grands cris D\u00e8iphobos au\nbouclier brillant, et il lui demanda une autre lance; mais,\nD\u00e8iphobos ayant disparu, Hekt\u00f4r, dans son esprit, connut sa\ndestin\u00e9e, et il dit:\n\n-- Malheur \u00e0 moi! voici que les dieux m'appellent \u00e0 la mort. Je\ncroyais que le h\u00e9ros D\u00e8iphobos \u00e9tait aupr\u00e8s de moi; mais il est\ndans nos murs. C'est Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 qui m'a tromp\u00e9. La mauvaise mort est\nproche; la voil\u00e0, plus de refuge. Ceci plaisait d\u00e8s longtemps \u00e0\nZeus et au fils de Zeus, Apoll\u00f4n, qui tous deux cependant\nm'\u00e9taient bienveillants. Et voici que la moire va me saisir! Mais,\ncertes, je ne mourrai ni l\u00e2chement, ni sans gloire, et\nj'accomplirai une grande action qu'apprendront les hommes futurs.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, tirant l'\u00e9p\u00e9e aigu\u00eb qui pendait, grande et\nlourde, sur son flanc, il se jeta sur Akhilleus, semblable \u00e0\nl'aigle qui, planant dans les hauteurs, descend dans la plaine \u00e0\ntravers les nu\u00e9es obscures, afin d'enlever la faible brebis ou le\nli\u00e8vre timide. Ainsi se ruait Hekt\u00f4r, en brandissant l'\u00e9p\u00e9e aigu\u00eb.\nEt Akhilleus, emplissant son coeur d'une rage f\u00e9roce, se rua aussi\nsur le Priamide. Et il portait son beau bouclier devant sa\npoitrine, et il secouait son casque \u00e9clatant aux quatre c\u00f4nes et\naux splendides crini\u00e8res d'or mouvantes que H\u00e8phaistos avait\nfix\u00e9es au sommet. Comme Hesp\u00e9ros, la plus belle des \u00e9toiles\nouraniennes, se l\u00e8ve au milieu des astres de la nuit, ainsi\nresplendissait l'\u00e9clair de la pointe d'airain que le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide\nbrandissait, pour la perte de Hekt\u00f4r, cherchant sur son beau corps\nla place o\u00f9 il frapperait. Les belles armes d'airain que le\nPriamide avait arrach\u00e9es au cadavre de Patroklos le couvraient en\nentier, sauf \u00e0 la jointure du cou et de l'\u00e9paule, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 la fuite\nde l'\u00e2me est la plus prompte. C'est l\u00e0 que le divin Akhilleus\nenfon\u00e7a sa lance, dont la pointe traversa le cou de Hekt\u00f4r; mais\nla lourde lance d'airain ne trancha point le gosier, et il pouvait\nencore parler. Il tomba dans la poussi\u00e8re, et le divin Akhilleus\nse glorifia ainsi:\n\n-- Hekt\u00f4r, tu pensais peut-\u00eatre, apr\u00e8s avoir tu\u00e9 Patroklos,\nn'avoir plus rien \u00e0 craindre? Tu ne songeais point \u00e0 moi qui \u00e9tais\nabsent. Insens\u00e9! un vengeur plus fort lui restait sur les nefs\ncreuses, et c'\u00e9tait moi qui ai rompu tes genoux! Va! les chiens et\nles oiseaux te d\u00e9chireront honteusement, et les Akhaiens\nenseveliront Patroklos!\n\nEt Hekt\u00f4r au casque mouvant lui r\u00e9pondit, parlant \u00e0 peine:\n\n-- Je te supplie par ton \u00e2me, par tes genoux, par tes parents, ne\nlaisse pas les chiens me d\u00e9chirer aupr\u00e8s des nefs Akhaiennes.\nAccepte l'or et l'airain que te donneront mon p\u00e8re et ma m\u00e8re\nv\u00e9n\u00e9rable. Renvoie mon corps dans mes demeures, afin que les\nTroiens et les Troiennes me d\u00e9posent avec honneur sur le b\u00fbcher.\n\nEt Akhilleus aux pieds rapides, le regardant d'un oeil sombre, lui\ndit:\n\n-- Chien! ne me supplie ni par mes genoux, ni par mes parents.\nPl\u00fbt aux dieux que j'eusse la force de manger ta chair crue, pour\nle mal que tu m'as fait! Rien ne sauvera ta t\u00eate des chiens, quand\nm\u00eame on m'apporterait dix et vingt fois ton prix, et nulle autres\npr\u00e9sents; quand m\u00eame le Dardanide Priamos voudrait te racheter ton\npoids d'or! Jamais la m\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable qui t'a enfant\u00e9 ne te\npleurera couch\u00e9 sur un lit fun\u00e8bre. Les chiens et les oiseaux te\nd\u00e9chireront tout entier!\n\nEt Hekt\u00f4r au casque mouvant lui r\u00e9pondit en mourant:\n\n-- Certes, je pr\u00e9voyais, te connaissant bien, que je ne te\nfl\u00e9chirais point, car ton coeur est de fer. Souviens-toi que les\ndieux me vengeront le jour o\u00f9 P\u00e2ris et Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n te tueront,\nmalgr\u00e9 ton courage, devant les portes Skaies.\n\nEt la mort l'ayant interrompu, son \u00e2me s'envola de son corps chez\nAid\u00e8s, pleurant sa destin\u00e9e mauvaise, sa vigueur et sa jeunesse.\n\nEt Akhilleus dit \u00e0 son cadavre:\n\n-- Meurs! Je subirai ma destin\u00e9e quand Zeus et les autres dieux le\nvoudront.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il arracha sa lance d'airain du cadavre, et, la\nposant \u00e0 l'\u00e9cart, il d\u00e9pouilla les \u00e9paules du Priamide de ses\narmes sanglantes. Et les fils des Akhaiens accoururent, et ils\nadmiraient la grandeur et la beaut\u00e9 de Hekt\u00f4r; et chacun le\nblessait de nouveau, et ils disaient en se regardant:\n\n-- Certes, Hekt\u00f4r est maintenant plus ais\u00e9 \u00e0 manier que le jour o\u00f9\nil incendiait les nefs.\n\nIls parlaient ainsi, et chacun le frappait. Mais aussit\u00f4t que le\ndivin Akhilleus aux pieds rapides eut d\u00e9pouill\u00e9 le Priamide de ses\narmes, debout au milieu des Akhaiens, il leur dit ces paroles\nail\u00e9es:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis, princes et chefs des Argiens, puisque les dieux m'ont\ndonn\u00e9 de tuer ce guerrier qui nous a accabl\u00e9s de plus de maux que\ntous les autres \u00e0 la fois, allons assi\u00e9ger la ville, et sachons\nquelle est la pens\u00e9e des Troiens: s'ils veulent, le Priamide \u00e9tant\nmort, abandonner la citadelle, ou y rester, bien qu'ils aient\nperdu Hekt\u00f4r. Mais \u00e0 quoi songe mon esprit? Il g\u00eet aupr\u00e8s des\nnefs, mort, non pleur\u00e9, non enseveli, Patroklos, que je\nn'oublierai jamais tant que je vivrai, et que mes genoux\nremueront! M\u00eame quand les morts oublieraient chez Aid\u00e8s, moi je me\nsouviendrai de mon cher compagnon. Et maintenant, \u00f4 fils des\nAkhaiens, chantez les paians et retournons aux nefs en entra\u00eenant\nce cadavre. Nous avons remport\u00e9 une grande gloire, nous avons tu\u00e9\nle divin Hekt\u00f4r, \u00e0 qui les Troiens adressaient des voeux, dans\nleur ville, comme \u00e0 un dieu.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il outragea indignement le divin Hekt\u00f4r. Il lui\nper\u00e7a les tendons des deux pieds, entre le talon et la cheville,\net il y passa des courroies. Et il l'attacha derri\u00e8re le char,\nlaissant tra\u00eener la t\u00eate. Puis, d\u00e9posant les armes illustres dans\nle char, il y monta lui-m\u00eame, et il fouetta les chevaux, qui\ns'\u00e9lanc\u00e8rent avec ardeur. Et le Priamide Hekt\u00f4r \u00e9tait ainsi tra\u00een\u00e9\ndans un tourbillon de poussi\u00e8re, et ses cheveux noirs en \u00e9taient\nsouill\u00e9s, et sa t\u00eate \u00e9tait ensevelie dans la poussi\u00e8re, cette t\u00eate\nautrefois si belle que Zeus livrait maintenant \u00e0 l'ennemi, pour\n\u00eatre outrag\u00e9e sur la terre de la patrie.\n\nAinsi toute la t\u00eate de Hekt\u00f4r \u00e9tait souill\u00e9e de poussi\u00e8re. Et sa\nm\u00e8re, arrachant ses cheveux et d\u00e9chirant son beau voile, g\u00e9missait\nen voyant de loin son fils. Et son p\u00e8re pleurait mis\u00e9rablement, et\nles peuples aussi hurlaient et pleuraient par la ville. On e\u00fbt dit\nque la haute Ilios croulait tout enti\u00e8re dans le feu. Et les\npeuples retenaient \u00e0 grand'peine le vieux Priamos d\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9 qui\nvoulait sortir des portes Dardaniennes. Et, se prosternant devant\neux, il les suppliait, les nommant par leurs noms:\n\n-- Mes amis, laissez-moi sortir seul de la ville, afin que j'aille\naux nefs des Akhaiens. Je supplierai cet homme impie qui accomplit\nd'horribles actions. Il respectera peut-\u00eatre mon \u00e2ge, il aura\npeut-\u00eatre piti\u00e9 de ma vieillesse; car son p\u00e8re aussi est vieux,\nP\u00e8leus, qui l'a engendr\u00e9 et nourri pour la ruine des Troiens, et\nsurtout pour m'accabler de maux. Que de fils florissants il m'a\ntu\u00e9s! Et je g\u00e9mis moins sur eux tous ensemble que sur le seul\nHekt\u00f4r, dont le regret douloureux me fera descendre aux demeures\nd'Aid\u00e8s. Pl\u00fbt aux dieux qu'il f\u00fbt mort dans nos bras! Au moins,\nsur son cadavre, nous nous serions rassasi\u00e9s de larmes et de\nsanglots, la m\u00e8re malheureuse qui l'a enfant\u00e9 et moi!\n\nIl parla ainsi en pleurant. Et tous les citoyens pleuraient. Et,\nparmi les Troiennes, H\u00e9kab\u00e8 commen\u00e7a le deuil sans fin:\n\n-- Mon enfant! pourquoi suis-je encore vivante, malheureuse,\npuisque tu es mort? Toi qui, les nuits et les jours, \u00e9tais ma\ngloire dans Ilios, et l'unique salut des Troiens et des Troiennes,\nqui, dans la ville, te recevaient comme un dieu! Certes, tu\nfaisais toute leur gloire, quand tu vivais; mais voici que la\nmoire et la mort t'ont saisi!\n\nElle parla ainsi en pleurant. Et la femme de Hekt\u00f4r ne savait rien\nencore, aucun messager ne lui ayant annonc\u00e9 que son \u00e9poux \u00e9tait\nrest\u00e9 hors des portes. Et, dans sa haute demeure ferm\u00e9e, elle\ntissait une toile double, splendide et orn\u00e9e de fleurs vari\u00e9es. Et\nelle ordonnait aux servantes \u00e0 la belle chevelure de pr\u00e9parer,\ndans la demeure, et de mettre un grand tr\u00e9pied sur le feu, afin\nqu'un bain chaud f\u00fbt pr\u00eat pour Hekt\u00f4r \u00e0 son retour du combat.\nL'insens\u00e9e ignorait qu'Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs avait tu\u00e9 Hekt\u00f4r par\nles mains d'Akhilleus, loin de tous les bains. Mais elle entendit\ndes lamentations et des hurlements sur la tour. Et ses membres\ntrembl\u00e8rent, et la navette lui tomba des mains, et elle dit aux\nservantes \u00e0 la belle chevelure:\n\n-- Venez. Que deux d'entre vous me suivent, afin que je voie ce\nqui nous arrive, car j'ai entendu la voix de la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable m\u00e8re de\nHekt\u00f4r. Mon coeur bondit dans ma poitrine, et mes genoux\nd\u00e9faillent. Peut-\u00eatre quelque malheur menace-t-il les fils de\nPriamos. Plaise aux dieux que mes paroles soient vaines! Mais je\ncrains que le divin Akhilleus, ayant \u00e9cart\u00e9 le brave Hekt\u00f4r de la\nville, le poursuive dans la plaine et dompte son courage. Car mon\n\u00e9poux ne reste point dans la foule des guerriers, et il combat en\nt\u00eate de tous, ne le c\u00e9dant \u00e0 aucun.\n\nElle parla ainsi et sortit de sa demeure, semblable \u00e0 une\nbakkhante et le coeur palpitant, et les servantes la suivaient.\nArriv\u00e9e sur la tour, au milieu de la foule des hommes, elle\ns'arr\u00eata, regardant du haut des murailles, et reconnut Hekt\u00f4r\ntra\u00een\u00e9 devant la ville. Et les chevaux rapides le tra\u00eenaient\nindignement vers les nefs creuses des Akhaiens. Alors, une nuit\nnoire couvrit ses yeux, et elle tomba \u00e0 la renverse, inanim\u00e9e. Et\ntous les riches ornements se d\u00e9tach\u00e8rent de sa t\u00eate, la\nbandelette, le noeud, le r\u00e9seau, et le voile que lui avait donn\u00e9\nAphrodit\u00e8 d'or le jour o\u00f9 Hekt\u00f4r au casque mouvant l'avait emmen\u00e9e\nde la demeure d'\u00ca\u00e9ti\u00f4n, apr\u00e8s lui avoir donn\u00e9 une grande dot. Et\nles soeurs et les belles-soeurs de Hekt\u00f4r l'entouraient et la\nsoutenaient dans leurs bras, tandis qu'elle respirait \u00e0 peine. Et\nquand elle eut recouvr\u00e9 l'esprit, elle dit, g\u00e9missant au milieu\ndes Troiennes:\n\n-- Hekt\u00f4r! \u00f4 malheureuse que je suis! Nous sommes n\u00e9s pour une\nm\u00eame destin\u00e9e: toi, dans Troi\u00e8 et dans la demeure de Priamos; moi,\ndans Th\u00e8b\u00e8, sous le mont Plakos couvert de for\u00eats, dans la demeure\nd'\u00ca\u00e9ti\u00f4n, qui m'\u00e9leva toute petite, p\u00e8re malheureux d'une\nmalheureuse. Pl\u00fbt aux dieux qu'il ne m'e\u00fbt point engendr\u00e9e!\nMaintenant tu descends vers les demeures d'Aid\u00e8s, dans la terre\ncreuse, et tu me laisses, dans notre demeure, veuve et accabl\u00e9e de\ndeuil. Et ce petit enfant que nous avons engendr\u00e9 tous deux,\nmalheureux que nous sommes! tu ne le prot\u00e9geras pas, Hekt\u00f4r,\npuisque tu es mort, et lui ne te servira point de soutien. M\u00eame\ns'il \u00e9chappait \u00e0 cette guerre lamentable des Akhaiens, il ne peut\ns'attendre qu'au travail et \u00e0 la douleur, car ils lui enl\u00e8veront\nses biens. Le jour qui fait un enfant orphelin lui \u00f4te aussi tous\nses jeunes amis. Il est triste au milieu de tous, et ses joues\nsont toujours baign\u00e9es de larmes. Indigent, il s'approche des\ncompagnons de son p\u00e8re, prenant l'un par le manteau et l'autre par\nla tunique. Si l'un d'entre eux, dans sa piti\u00e9, lui offre une\npetite coupe, elle mouille ses l\u00e8vres sans rafra\u00eechir son palais.\nLe jeune homme, assis entre son p\u00e8re et sa m\u00e8re, le repousse de la\ntable du festin, et, le frappant de ses mains, lui dit des paroles\ninjurieuses: -- Va-t'en! ton p\u00e8re n'est pas des n\u00f4tres!\u0092 Et\nl'enfant revient en pleurant aupr\u00e8s de sa m\u00e8re veuve. Astyanax,\nqui autrefois mangeait la moelle et la graisse des brebis sur les\ngenoux de son p\u00e8re; qui, lorsque le sommeil le prenait et qu'il\ncessait de jouer, dormait dans un doux lit, aux bras de sa\nnourrice, et le coeur rassasi\u00e9 de d\u00e9lices; maintenant Astyanax,\nque les Troiens nommaient ainsi, car Hekt\u00f4r d\u00e9fendait seul leurs\nhautes murailles, subira mille maux, \u00e9tant priv\u00e9 de son p\u00e8re bien-\naim\u00e9. Et voici, Hekt\u00f4r, que les vers rampants te mangeront aupr\u00e8s\ndes nefs \u00e9peronn\u00e9es, loin de tes parents, apr\u00e8s que les chiens se\nseront rassasi\u00e9s de ta chair. Tu poss\u00e9dais, dans tes demeures, de\nbeaux et doux v\u00eatements, oeuvre des femmes; mais je les br\u00fblerai\ntous dans le feu ardent, car ils ne te serviront pas et tu ne\nseras pas enseveli avec eux. Qu'ils soient donc br\u00fbl\u00e9s en ton\nhonneur au milieu des Troiens et des Troiennes!\n\nElle parla ainsi en pleurant, et toutes les femmes se lamentaient\ncomme elle.\n\n\nChant 23\n\nEt tandis qu'ils g\u00e9missaient ainsi par la ville, les Akhaiens\narriv\u00e8rent aux nefs et au Hellespontos. Et ils se dispers\u00e8rent, et\nchacun rentra dans sa nef. Mais Akhilleus ne permit point aux\nMyrmidones de se s\u00e9parer, et il dit \u00e0 ses braves compagnons:\n\n-- Myrmidones aux chevaux rapides, mes chers compagnons, ne\nd\u00e9tachons point des chars nos chevaux aux sabots massifs; mais,\navec nos chevaux et nos chars, pleurons Patroklos, car tel est\nl'honneur d\u00fb aux morts. Apr\u00e8s nous \u00eatre rassasi\u00e9s de deuil, nous\nd\u00e9lierons nos chevaux, et, tous, nous prendrons notre repas ici.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et ils se lamentaient, et Akhilleus le premier.\nEt, en g\u00e9missant, ils pouss\u00e8rent trois fois les chevaux aux belles\ncrini\u00e8res autour du cadavre; et Th\u00e9tis augmentait leur d\u00e9sir de\npleurer. Et, dans le regret du h\u00e9ros Patroklos, les larmes\nbaignaient les armes et arrosaient le sable. Au milieu d'eux, le\nP\u00e8l\u00e9ide commen\u00e7a le deuil lamentable, en posant ses mains tueuses\nd'homme sur la poitrine de son ami:\n\n-- Sois content de moi, \u00f4 Patroklos, dans les demeures d'Aid\u00e8s.\nTout ce que je t'ai promis, je l'accomplirai. Hekt\u00f4r, jet\u00e9 aux\nchiens, sera d\u00e9chir\u00e9 par eux; et, pour te venger, je tuerai devant\nton b\u00fbcher douze nobles fils des Troiens.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il outragea indignement le divin Hekt\u00f4r en le\ncouchant dans la poussi\u00e8re devant le lit du M\u00e9noitiade. Puis, les\nMyrmidones quitt\u00e8rent leurs splendides armes d'airain, d\u00e9tel\u00e8rent\nleurs chevaux hennissants et s'assirent en foule autour de la nef\ndu rapide Aiakide, qui leur offrit le repas fun\u00e8bre. Et beaucoup\nde boeufs blancs mugissaient sous le fer, tandis qu'on les\n\u00e9gorgeait ainsi qu'un grand nombre de brebis et de ch\u00e8vres\nb\u00ealantes. Et beaucoup de porcs gras cuisaient devant la flamme du\nfeu. Et le sang coulait abondamment autour du cadavre. Et les\nprinces Akhaiens conduisirent le prince P\u00e8l\u00e9i\u00f4n aux pieds rapides\nvers le divin Agamemn\u00f4n, mais non sans peine, car le regret de son\ncompagnon emplissait son coeur.\n\nEt quand ils furent arriv\u00e9s \u00e0 la tente d'Agamemn\u00f4n, celui-ci\nordonna aux h\u00e9rauts de poser un grand tr\u00e9pied sur le feu, afin que\nle P\u00e8l\u00e9ide, s'il y consentait, lav\u00e2t le sang qui le souillait.\nMais il s'y refusa toujours et jura un grand serment:\n\n-- Non! par Zeus, le plus haut et le meilleur des dieux, je ne\npurifierai point ma t\u00eate que je n'aie mis Patroklos sur le b\u00fbcher,\n\u00e9lev\u00e9 son tombeau et coup\u00e9 ma chevelure. Jamais, tant que je\nvivrai, une telle douleur ne m'accablera plus. Mais achevons ce\nrepas odieux. Roi des hommes, Agamemn\u00f4n, commande qu'on apporte,\nd\u00e8s le matin, le bois du b\u00fbcher, et qu'on l'appr\u00eate, car il est\njuste d'honorer ainsi Patroklos, qui subit les noires t\u00e9n\u00e8bres. Et\nle feu infatigable le consumera promptement \u00e0 tous les yeux, et\nles peuples retourneront aux travaux de la guerre.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et les princes, l'ayant entendu, lui ob\u00e9irent. Et\ntous, pr\u00e9parant le repas, mang\u00e8rent; et aucun ne se plaignit d'une\npart in\u00e9gale. Puis, ils se retir\u00e8rent sous les tentes pour y\ndormir.\n\nMais le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide \u00e9tait couch\u00e9, g\u00e9missant, sur le rivage de la mer\naux bruits sans nombre, au milieu des Myrmidones, en un lieu o\u00f9\nles flots blanchissaient le bord. Et le doux sommeil, lui versant\nl'oubli de ses peines, l'enveloppa, car il avait fatigu\u00e9 ses beaux\nmembres en poursuivant Hekt\u00f4r autour de la haute Ilios. Et l'\u00e2me\ndu malheureux Patroklos lui apparut, avec la grande taille, les\nbeaux yeux, la voix et jusqu'aux v\u00eatements du h\u00e9ros. Elle s'arr\u00eata\nsur la t\u00eate d'Akhilleus et lui dit:\n\n-- Tu dors, et tu m'oublies, Akhilleus. Vivant, tu ne me\nn\u00e9gligeais point, et, mort, tu m'oublies. Ensevelis-moi, afin que\nje passe promptement les portes d'Aid\u00e8s. Les \u00e2mes, ombres des\nmorts, me chassent et ne me laissent point me m\u00ealer \u00e0 elles au-\ndel\u00e0 du fleuve; et je vais, errant en vain autour des larges\nportes de la demeure d'Aid\u00e8s. Donne-moi la main; je t'en supplie\nen pleurant, car je ne reviendrai plus du Had\u00e8s, quand vous\nm'aurez livr\u00e9 au b\u00fbcher. Jamais plus, vivants tous deux, nous ne\nnous confierons l'un \u00e0 l'autre, assis loin de nos compagnons, car\nla k\u00e8r odieuse qui m'\u00e9tait \u00e9chue d\u00e8s ma naissance m'a enfin saisi.\nTa moire fatale, \u00f4 Akhilleus \u00e9gal aux dieux, est aussi de mourir\nsous les murs des Troiens magnanimes! Mais je te demande ceci, et\npuisses-tu me l'accorder: Akhilleus, que mes ossements ne soient\npoint s\u00e9par\u00e9s des tiens, mais qu'ils soient unis comme nous\nl'avons \u00e9t\u00e9 dans tes demeures. Quand M\u00e9noitios m'y conduisit tout\nenfant, d'Opo\u00e8n, parce que j'avais tu\u00e9 d\u00e9plorablement, dans ma\ncol\u00e8re, le fils d'Amphidamas, en jouant aux d\u00e9s, le cavalier\nP\u00e8leus me re\u00e7ut dans ses demeures, m'y \u00e9leva avec tendresse et me\nnomma ton compagnon. Qu'une seule urne re\u00e7oive donc nos cendres,\ncette urne d'or que t'a donn\u00e9e ta m\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable.\n\nEt Akhilleus aux pieds rapides lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Pourquoi es-tu venu, \u00f4 t\u00eate ch\u00e8re! et pourquoi me commander ces\nchoses? Je t'ob\u00e9irai, et les accomplirai promptement. Mais reste,\nque je t'embrasse un moment, au moins! Adoucissons notre am\u00e8re\ndouleur.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il \u00e9tendit ses mains affectueuses; mais il ne\nsaisit rien, et l'\u00e2me rentra en terre comme une fum\u00e9e, avec un\n\u00e2pre murmure. Et Akhilleus se r\u00e9veilla stup\u00e9fait et, frappant ses\nmains, il dit ces paroles lugubres:\n\n-- \u00d4 dieux! l'\u00e2me existe encore dans le Had\u00e8s, mais comme une\nvaine image, et sans corps. L'\u00e2me du malheureux Patroklos m'est\napparue cette nuit, pleurant et se lamentant, et semblable \u00e0 lui-\nm\u00eame; et elle m'a ordonn\u00e9 d'accomplir ses voeux.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il excita la douleur de tous les Myrmidones; et\n\u00c9\u00f4s aux doigts couleur de rose les trouva g\u00e9missant autour du\ncadavre.\n\nMais le roi Agamemn\u00f4n pressa les hommes et les mulets de sortir\ndes tentes et d'amener le bois. Et un brave guerrier les\ncommandait, M\u00e8rion\u00e8s, compagnon du courageux Idom\u00e9neus. Et ils\nallaient, avec les haches qui tranchent le bois, et les cordes\nbien tress\u00e9es, et les mulets marchaient devant eux. Et,\nfranchissant les pentes, et les rudes mont\u00e9es et les pr\u00e9cipices,\nils arriv\u00e8rent aux sommets de l'Ida o\u00f9 abondent les sources. Et,\naussit\u00f4t, de leurs haches pesantes, ils abattirent les ch\u00eanes\nfeuillus qui tombaient \u00e0 grand bruit. Et les Akhaiens y attelaient\nles mulets qui d\u00e9voraient la terre de leurs pieds, se h\u00e2tant\nd'emporter vers le camp leur charge \u00e0 travers les broussailles\n\u00e9paisses. Et les Akhaiens tra\u00eenaient aussi les troncs feuillus,\nainsi que le commandait M\u00e8rion\u00e8s, le compagnon d'Idom\u00e9neus qui\naime les braves. Et ils d\u00e9pos\u00e8rent le bois sur le rivage, l\u00e0 o\u00f9\nAkhilleus avait marqu\u00e9 le grand tombeau de Patroklos et le sien.\n\nPuis, ayant amass\u00e9 un immense monceau, ils s'assirent, attendant.\nEt Akhilleus ordonna aux braves Myrmidones de se couvrir de leurs\narmes et de monter sur leurs chars. Et ils se h\u00e2taient de s'armer\net de monter sur leurs chars, guerriers et conducteurs. Et,\nderri\u00e8re les cavaliers, s'avan\u00e7aient des nu\u00e9es d'hommes de pied;\net, au milieu d'eux, Patroklos \u00e9tait port\u00e9 par ses compagnons, qui\ncouvraient son cadavre de leurs cheveux qu'ils arrachaient. Et,\ntriste, le divin Akhilleus soutenait la t\u00eate de son irr\u00e9prochable\ncompagnon qu'il allait envoyer dans le Had\u00e8s.\n\nEt quand ils furent arriv\u00e9s au lieu marqu\u00e9 par Akhilleus, ils\nd\u00e9pos\u00e8rent le corps et b\u00e2tirent le b\u00fbcher. Et le divin Akhilleus\naux pieds rapides eut une autre pens\u00e9e. Et il coupa, \u00e0 l'\u00e9cart, sa\nchevelure blonde qu'il avait laiss\u00e9e cro\u00eetre pour le fleuve\nSperkhios; et, g\u00e9missant, il dit, les yeux sur la mer sombre:\n\n-- Sperkhios! c'est en vain que mon p\u00e8re P\u00e8leus te promit qu'\u00e0 mon\nretour dans la ch\u00e8re terre de la patrie je couperais ma chevelure,\net que je te sacrifierais de saintes h\u00e9catombes et cinquante\nb\u00e9liers, \u00e0 ta source, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 sont ton temple et ton autel parfum\u00e9.\nLe vieillard te fit ce voeu; mais tu n'as point exauc\u00e9 son d\u00e9sir,\ncar je ne reverrai plus la ch\u00e8re terre de la patrie. C'est au\nh\u00e9ros Patroklos que j'offre ma chevelure pour qu'il l'emporte.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il d\u00e9posa sa chevelure entre les mains de son\ncher compagnon, augmentant ainsi la douleur de tous, et la lumi\u00e8re\nde H\u00e9lios f\u00fbt tomb\u00e9e tandis qu'ils pleuraient encore, si\nAkhilleus, s'approchant d'Agamemn\u00f4n, ne lui e\u00fbt dit:\n\n-- Atr\u00e9ide, \u00e0 qui tout le peuple Akhaien ob\u00e9it, plus tard il\npourra se rassasier de larmes. Commande-lui de s'\u00e9loigner du\nb\u00fbcher et de pr\u00e9parer son repas. Nous, les chefs, qui avons un\nplus grand souci de Patroklos, restons seuls.\n\nEt le roi des hommes, Agamemn\u00f4n, l'ayant entendu, renvoya aussit\u00f4t\nle peuple vers les nefs \u00e9gales; et les ensevelisseurs, restant\nseuls, amass\u00e8rent le bois. Et ils firent le b\u00fbcher de cent pieds\nsur toutes ses faces, et, sur son fa\u00eete, ils d\u00e9pos\u00e8rent, pleins de\ntristesse, le cadavre de Patroklos. Puis, ils \u00e9gorg\u00e8rent et\n\u00e9corch\u00e8rent devant le b\u00fbcher une foule de brebis grasses et de\nboeufs aux pieds flexibles. Et le magnanime Akhilleus, couvrant\ntout le cadavre de leur graisse, de la t\u00eate aux pieds, entassa\ntout autour leurs chairs \u00e9corch\u00e9es. Et, s'inclinant sur le lit\nfun\u00e8bre, il y pla\u00e7a des amphores de miel et d'huile. Puis, il jeta\nsur le b\u00fbcher quatre chevaux aux beaux cous. Neuf chiens familiers\nmangeaient autour de sa table. Il en tua deux qu'il jeta dans le\nb\u00fbcher. Puis, accomplissant une mauvaise pens\u00e9e, il \u00e9gorgea douze\nnobles enfants des Troiens magnanimes. Puis, il mit le feu au\nb\u00fbcher, afin qu'il f\u00fbt consum\u00e9, et il g\u00e9mit, appelant son cher\ncompagnon:\n\n-- Sois content de moi, \u00f4 Patroklos! dans le Had\u00e8s, car j'ai\naccompli tout ce que je t'ai promis. Le feu consume avec toi douze\nnobles enfants des magnanimes Troiens. Pour le Priamide Hekt\u00f4r, je\nne le livrerai point au feu, mais aux chiens.\n\nIl parla ainsi dans sa col\u00e8re; mais les chiens ne devaient point\nd\u00e9chirer Hekt\u00f4r, car, jour et nuit, la fille de Zeus, Aphrodit\u00e8,\nles chassait au loin, oignant le corps d'une huile ambroisienne,\nafin que le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide ne le d\u00e9chir\u00e2t point en le tra\u00eenant. Et\nPhoibos Apoll\u00f4n enveloppait d'une nu\u00e9e ouranienne le lieu o\u00f9 \u00e9tait\ncouch\u00e9 le cadavre, de peur que la force de H\u00e9lios n'en dess\u00e9ch\u00e2t\nles nerfs et les chairs.\n\nMais le b\u00fbcher de Patroklos ne br\u00fblait point. Alors le divin\nAkhilleus aux pieds rapides pria \u00e0 l'\u00e9cart les deux vents Bor\u00e9as\net Z\u00e9phyros, leur promettant de riches sacrifices. Et, faisant des\nlibations avec une coupe d'or, il les supplia de venir, afin de\nconsumer promptement le cadavre, en enflammant le b\u00fbcher. Et la\nrapide Iris entendit ses pri\u00e8res et s'envola en messag\u00e8re aupr\u00e8s\ndes vents. Et, rassembl\u00e9s en foule dans la demeure du violent\nZ\u00e9phyros, ils c\u00e9l\u00e9braient un festin. Et la rapide Iris survint et\ns'arr\u00eata sur le seuil de pierre. Et, d\u00e8s qu'ils l'eurent vue de\nleurs yeux, tous se lev\u00e8rent, et chacun l'appela pr\u00e8s de lui. Mais\nelle ne voulut point s'asseoir et leur dit:\n\n-- Ce n'est pas le temps de m'asseoir. Je retourne aux bouches de\nl'Ok\u00e9anos, dans la terre des Aithiopiens, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 ils sacrifient des\nh\u00e9catombes aux immortels, et j'en ai ma part. Mais Akhilleus\nappelle Bor\u00e9as et le sonore Z\u00e9phyros. Il les supplie de venir,\nleur promettant de riches sacrifices s'ils excitent le feu \u00e0\nconsumer le b\u00fbcher sur lequel g\u00eet Patroklos que pleurent tous les\nAkhaiens.\n\nElle parla ainsi et s'envola. Et les deux vents se ru\u00e8rent avec un\nbruit immense, chassant devant eux les nu\u00e9es tumultueuses. Et ils\ntravers\u00e8rent la mer, et l'eau se souleva sous leur souffle\nviolent; et ils arriv\u00e8rent devant la riche Troi\u00e8 et se jet\u00e8rent\nsur le feu; et toute la nuit, soufflant horriblement, ils\nirrit\u00e8rent les flammes du b\u00fbcher; et, toute la nuit, le rapide\nAkhilleus, puisant le vin \u00e0 pleine coupe d'un krat\u00e8re d'or, et le\nr\u00e9pandant, arrosa la terre, appelant l'\u00e2me du malheureux\nPatroklos. Comme un p\u00e8re qui se lamente, en br\u00fblant les ossements\nde son jeune fils dont la mort accable ses malheureux parents de\ntristesse; de m\u00eame Akhilleus g\u00e9missait en br\u00fblant les ossements de\nson compagnon, se roulant devant le b\u00fbcher, et se lamentant.\n\nEt quand l'\u00e9toile du matin reparut, messag\u00e8re de lumi\u00e8re, et,\napr\u00e8s elle, quand \u00c9\u00f4s au p\u00e9plos couleur de safran se r\u00e9pandit sur\nla mer, alors le b\u00fbcher s'apaisa et la flamme s'\u00e9teignit, et les\nvents partirent, s'en retournant dans leur demeure, \u00e0 travers la\nmer thr\u00e8kienne, dont les flots soulev\u00e9s grondaient. Et le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide,\nquittant le b\u00fbcher, se coucha accabl\u00e9 de fatigue, et le doux\nsommeil le saisit. Mais bient\u00f4t le bruit et le tumulte de ceux qui\nse rassemblaient autour de l'Atr\u00e9ide le r\u00e9veill\u00e8rent. Et il se\nleva, et leur dit:\n\n-- Atr\u00e9ides, et vous, princes des Akhaiens, \u00e9teignez avec du vin\nnoir toutes les parties du b\u00fbcher que le feu a br\u00fbl\u00e9es, et nous\nrecueillerons les os de Patroklos M\u00e9noitiade. Ils sont faciles \u00e0\nreconna\u00eetre, car le cadavre \u00e9tait au milieu du b\u00fbcher, et, loin de\nlui tout autour, br\u00fblaient confus\u00e9ment les chevaux et les hommes.\nD\u00e9posons dans une urne d'or ces os recouverts d'une double\ngraisse, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que je descende moi-m\u00eame dans le Had\u00e8s. Je ne\ndemande point maintenant un grand s\u00e9pulcre. Que celui-ci soit\nsimple. Mais vous, Akhaiens, qui survivrez sur vos nefs bien\nconstruites, vous nous \u00e9l\u00e8verez, apr\u00e8s ma mort, un vaste et grand\ntombeau.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et ils ob\u00e9irent au rapide P\u00e8l\u00e9i\u00f4n. Et ils\n\u00e9teignirent d'abord avec du vin noir toutes les parties du b\u00fbcher\nque le feu avait br\u00fbl\u00e9es; et la cendre \u00e9paisse tomba. Puis, en\npleurant, ils d\u00e9pos\u00e8rent dans une urne d'or, couverts d'une double\ngraisse, les os blancs de leur compagnon plein de douceur, et ils\nmirent, sous la tente du P\u00e8l\u00e9ide, cette urne envelopp\u00e9e d'un voile\nl\u00e9ger. Puis, marquant la place du tombeau, ils en creus\u00e8rent les\nfondements autour du b\u00fbcher, et ils mirent la terre en monceau, et\nils partirent, ayant \u00e9lev\u00e9 le tombeau.\n\nMais Akhilleus retint le peuple en ce lieu, et le fit asseoir en\nun cercle immense, et il fit apporter des nefs les prix: des\nvases, des tr\u00e9pieds, des chevaux, des mulets, des boeufs aux\nfortes t\u00eates, des femmes aux belles ceintures, et du fer brillant.\nEt, d'abord, il offrit des prix illustres aux cavaliers rapides:\nune femme irr\u00e9prochable, habile aux travaux, et un tr\u00e9pied \u00e0 anse,\ncontenant vingt-deux mesures, pour le premier vainqueur; pour le\nsecond, une jument de six ans, indompt\u00e9e et pleine d'un mulet;\npour le troisi\u00e8me, un vase tout neuf, beau, blanc, et contenant\nquatre mesures; pour le quatri\u00e8me, deux talents d'or; et pour le\ncinqui\u00e8me, une urne neuve \u00e0 deux anses. Et le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide se leva et\ndit aux Argiens:\n\n-- Atr\u00e9ides, et vous, tr\u00e8s braves Akhaiens, voici, dans\nl'enceinte, les prix offerts aux cavaliers. Si les Akhaiens\nluttaient aujourd'hui pour un autre mort, certes, j'emporterais\nces prix dans mes tentes, car vous savez que mes chevaux\nl'emportent sur tous, \u00e9tant immortels. Poseida\u00f4n les donna \u00e0 mon\np\u00e8re P\u00e8leus qui me les a donn\u00e9s. Mais ni moi, ni mes chevaux aux\nsabots massifs nous ne combattrons. Ils ont perdu l'irr\u00e9prochable\nvigueur de leur doux conducteur qui baignait leurs crini\u00e8res\nd'huile liquide, apr\u00e8s les avoir lav\u00e9es dans une eau pure; et\nmaintenant ils pleurent, les crini\u00e8res pendantes, et ils restent\nimmobiles et pleins de tristesse. Mais vous qui, parmi tous les\nAkhaiens, vous confiez en vos chevaux et en vos chars solides,\ndescendez dans l'enceinte.\n\nLe P\u00e8l\u00e9ide parla ainsi, et de rapides cavaliers se lev\u00e8rent. Et,\nle premier, se leva le roi des hommes, Eum\u00e8los, le fils bien-aim\u00e9\nd'Adm\u00e8t\u00e8s, tr\u00e8s habile \u00e0 mener un char. Et apr\u00e8s lui, se leva le\nbrave Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s Tyd\u00e9ide, conduisant sous le joug les chevaux de\nTr\u00f4os qu'il avait enlev\u00e9s autrefois \u00e0 Ain\u00e9ias, quand celui-ci fut\nsauv\u00e9 par Apoll\u00f4n. Et, apr\u00e8s Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s, se leva le blond M\u00e9n\u00e9laos\nAtr\u00e9ide, aim\u00e9 de Zeus. Et il conduisait sous le joug deux chevaux\nrapides: Aith\u00e8, jument d'Agamemn\u00f4n, et Podargos, qui lui\nappartenait. Et l'Ankhisiade Ekh\u00e9p\u00f4los avait donn\u00e9 Aith\u00e8 \u00e0\nAgamemn\u00f4n, afin de ne point le suivre vers la haute Ilios. Et il\n\u00e9tait rest\u00e9, vivant dans les d\u00e9lices, car Zeus lui avait donn\u00e9 de\ngrandes richesses, et il habitait la grande Siki\u00f4n. Et M\u00e9n\u00e9laos la\nconduisait sous le joug, pleine d'ardeur. Et, apr\u00e8s l'Atr\u00e9ide, se\nleva, conduisant deux beaux chevaux, Antilokhos, l'illustre fils\ndu magnanime roi Nest\u00f4r N\u00e8l\u00e8iade. Et les chevaux rapides qui\ntra\u00eenaient son char \u00e9taient pyliens. Et le p\u00e8re, debout aupr\u00e8s de\nson fils, donnait des conseils excellents au jeune homme d\u00e9j\u00e0\nplein de prudence:\n\n-- Antilokhos, certes, Zeus et Poseida\u00f4n, t'ayant aim\u00e9 tout jeune,\nt'ont enseign\u00e9 \u00e0 mener un char; c'est pourquoi on ne peut\nt'instruire davantage. Tu sais tourner habilement la borne, mais\ntes chevaux sont lourds, et je crains un malheur. Les autres ne te\nsont pas sup\u00e9rieurs en science, mais leurs chevaux sont plus\nrapides. Allons, ami, r\u00e9fl\u00e9chis \u00e0 tout, afin que les prix ne\nt'\u00e9chappent pas. Le b\u00fbcheron vaut mieux par l'adresse que par la\nforce. C'est par son art que le pilote dirige sur la noire mer une\nnef rapide, battue par les vents; et le conducteur de chars\nl'emporte par son habilet\u00e9 sur le conducteur de chars. Celui qui\ns'abandonne \u00e0 ses chevaux et \u00e0 son char vagabonde follement \u00e7\u00e0 et\nl\u00e0, et ses chevaux s'emportent dans le stade, et il ne peut les\nretenir. Mais celui qui sait les choses utiles, quand il conduit\ndes chevaux lourds, regardant toujours la borne, l'effleure en la\ntournant. Et il ne l\u00e2che point tout d'abord les r\u00eanes en cuir de\nboeuf, mais, les tenant d'une main ferme, il observe celui qui le\npr\u00e9c\u00e8de. Je vais te montrer la borne. On la reconna\u00eet ais\u00e9ment. L\u00e0\ns'\u00e9l\u00e8ve un tronc dess\u00e9ch\u00e9, d'une aune environ hors de terre et que\nla pluie ne peut nourrir. C'est le tronc d'un ch\u00eane ou d'un pin.\nDevant lui sont deux pierres blanches, pos\u00e9es de l'un et l'autre\nc\u00f4t\u00e9, au d\u00e9tour du chemin, et, en de\u00e7\u00e0 comme au-del\u00e0, s'\u00e9tend\nl'hippodrome aplani. C'est le tombeau d'un homme mort autrefois,\nou une limite plant\u00e9e par les anciens hommes, et c'est la borne\nque le divin Akhilleus aux pieds rapides vous a marqu\u00e9e. Quand tu\nen approcheras, pousse tout aupr\u00e8s tes chevaux et ton char.\nPenche-toi, de ton char bien construit, un peu sur la gauche, et\nexcite le cheval de droite de la voix et du fouet, en lui l\u00e2chant\ntoutes les r\u00eanes. Que ton cheval de gauche rase la borne, de fa\u00e7on\nque le moyeu de la roue la touche presque; mais \u00e9vite de heurter\nla pierre, de peur de blesser tes chevaux et de briser ton char,\nce qui ferait la joie des autres, mais ta propre honte. Enfin,\nami, sois adroit et prudent. Si tu peux d\u00e9passer la borne le\npremier, il n'en est aucun qui ne te poursuive vivement, mais nul\nne te devancera, quand m\u00eame on pousserait derri\u00e8re toi le divin\nAtr\u00e9i\u00f4n, ce rapide cheval d'Adrest\u00e8s, qui \u00e9tait de race divine, ou\nm\u00eame les illustres chevaux de Laom\u00e9d\u00f4n qui furent nourris ici.\n\nEt le N\u00e8l\u00e8i\u00f4n Nest\u00f4r, ayant ainsi parl\u00e9 et enseign\u00e9 toute chose \u00e0\nson fils, se rassit. Et, le cinqui\u00e8me, M\u00e8rion\u00e8s conduisait deux\nchevaux aux beaux crins.\n\nPuis, ils mont\u00e8rent tous sur leurs chars, et ils jet\u00e8rent les\nsorts; et Akhilleus les remua, et Antilokhos Nest\u00f4r\u00e9ide vint le\npremier, puis le roi Eum\u00e8los, puis l'Atr\u00e9ide M\u00e9n\u00e9laos illustre par\nsa lance, puis M\u00e8rion\u00e8s, et le dernier fut le Tyd\u00e9ide, le plus\nbrave de tous. Et ils se plac\u00e8rent dans cet ordre, et Akhilleus\nleur marqua la borne, au loin dans la plaine; et il envoya comme\ninspecteur le divin Phoinix, compagnon de son p\u00e8re, afin qu'il\nsurveill\u00e2t la course et d\u00eet la v\u00e9rit\u00e9.\n\nEt tous ensemble, levant le fouet sur les chevaux et les excitant\ndu fouet et de la voix, s'\u00e9lanc\u00e8rent dans la plaine, loin des\nnefs. Et la poussi\u00e8re montait autour de leurs poitrines, comme un\nnuage ou comme une temp\u00eate; et les crini\u00e8res flottaient au vent;\net les chars tant\u00f4t semblaient s'enfoncer en terre, et tant\u00f4t\nbondissaient au-dessus. Mais les conducteurs se tenaient fermes\nsur leurs si\u00e8ges, et leur coeur palpitait du d\u00e9sir de la victoire,\net chacun excitait ses chevaux qui volaient, soulevant la\npoussi\u00e8re de la plaine.\n\nMais quand les chevaux rapides, ayant atteint la limite de la\ncourse, revinrent vers la blanche mer, l'ardeur des combattants et\nla vitesse de la course devinrent visibles. Et les rapides juments\ndu Ph\u00e8r\u00e8tiade parurent les premi\u00e8res; et les chevaux troiens de\nDiom\u00e8d\u00e8s les suivaient de si pr\u00e8s, qu'ils semblaient monter sur le\nchar. Et le dos et les larges \u00e9paules d'Eum\u00e8los \u00e9taient chauff\u00e9s\nde leur souffle, car ils posaient sur lui leurs t\u00eates. Et, certes,\nDiom\u00e8d\u00e8s e\u00fbt vaincu ou rendu la lutte \u00e9gale, si Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n,\nirrit\u00e9 contre le fils de Tydeus, n'e\u00fbt fait tomber de ses mains le\nfouet splendide. Et des larmes de col\u00e8re jaillirent de ses yeux,\nquand il vit les juments d'Eum\u00e8los se pr\u00e9cipiter plus rapides, et\nses propres chevaux se ralentir, n'\u00e9tant plus aiguillonn\u00e9s.\n\nMais Apoll\u00f4n, retardant le Tyd\u00e9ide, ne put se cacher d'Ath\u00e8n\u00e8. Et,\ncourant au prince des peuples, elle lui rendit son fouet et\nremplit ses chevaux de vigueur. Puis, furieuse, et poursuivant le\nfils d'Adm\u00e8t\u00e8s, elle brisa le joug des juments, qui se d\u00e9rob\u00e8rent.\nEt le timon tomba rompu; et Eum\u00e8los aussi tomba aupr\u00e8s de la roue,\nse d\u00e9chirant les bras, la bouche et les narines. Et il resta muet,\nle front meurtri et les yeux pleins de larmes.\n\nAlors, Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s, le devan\u00e7ant, poussa ses chevaux aux sabots\nmassifs, bien au-del\u00e0 de tous, car Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 leur avait donn\u00e9 une\ngrande vigueur et accordait la victoire au Tyd\u00e9ide. Et, apr\u00e8s lui,\nle blond M\u00e9n\u00e9laos Atr\u00e9ide menait son char, puis Antilokhos, qui\nexhortait les chevaux de son p\u00e8re:\n\n-- Prenez courage, et courez plus rapidement. Certes, je ne vous\nordonne point de lutter contre les chevaux du brave Tyd\u00e9ide, car\nAth\u00e8n\u00e8 donne la vitesse \u00e0 leurs pieds et accorde la victoire \u00e0\nleur ma\u00eetre; mais atteignez les chevaux de l'Atr\u00e9ide, et ne\nfaiblissez point, de peur que Aith\u00e8, qui n'est qu'une jument, vous\ncouvre de honte.\n\nPourquoi tardez-vous, mes braves? Mais je vous le dis, et, certes,\nceci s'accomplira: Nest\u00f4r, le prince des peuples, ne se souciera\nplus de vous; et il vous percera de l'airain aigu, si, par\nl\u00e2chet\u00e9, nous ne remportons qu'un prix vil. H\u00e2tez-vous et\npoursuivez promptement l'Atr\u00e9ide. Moi, je vais m\u00e9diter une ruse,\net je le devancerai au d\u00e9tour du chemin, et je le tromperai.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et les chevaux, effray\u00e9s des menaces du prince,\ncoururent plus rapidement. Et le brave Antilokhos vit que le\nchemin se r\u00e9tr\u00e9cissait. La terre \u00e9tait d\u00e9fonc\u00e9e par l'amas des\neaux de l'hiver, et une partie du chemin \u00e9tait rompue, formant un\ntrou profond. C'\u00e9tait l\u00e0 que se dirigeait M\u00e9n\u00e9laos pour \u00e9viter le\nchoc des chars. Et Antilokhos y poussa aussi ses chevaux aux\nsabots massifs, hors de la voie, sur le bord du terrain en pente.\nEt l'Atr\u00e9ide fut saisi de crainte et dit \u00e0 Antilokhos:\n\n-- Antilokhos, tu m\u00e8nes tes chevaux avec imprudence. Le chemin est\n\u00e9troit, mais il sera bient\u00f4t plus large. Prends garde de nous\nbriser tous deux en heurtant mon char.\n\nIl parla ainsi, mais Antilokhos, comme s'il ne l'avait point\nentendu, aiguillonna plus encore ses chevaux. Aussi rapides que le\njet d'un disque que lance de l'\u00e9paule un jeune homme qui \u00e9prouve\nses forces, les deux chars s'\u00e9lanc\u00e8rent de front. Mais l'Atr\u00e9ide\nralentit sa course et attendit, de peur que les chevaux aux sabots\nmassifs, se heurtant dans le chemin, ne renversassent les chars,\net qu'Antilokhos et lui, en se h\u00e2tant pour la victoire, ne fussent\npr\u00e9cipit\u00e9s dans la poussi\u00e8re. Mais le blond M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, irrit\u00e9, lui\ndit:\n\n-- Antilokhos, aucun homme n'est plus perfide que toi! Va! c'est\nbien faussement que nous te disions sage. Mais tu ne remporteras\npoint le prix sans te parjurer.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il exhorta ses chevaux et leur cria:\n\n-- Ne me retardez pas, et n'ayez point le coeur triste. Leurs\npieds et leurs genoux seront plus t\u00f4t fatigu\u00e9s que les v\u00f4tres, car\nils sont vieux tous deux.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et ses chevaux, effray\u00e9s par la voix du roi,\ns'\u00e9lanc\u00e8rent, et atteignirent aussit\u00f4t ceux d'Antilokhos.\n\nCependant les Argiens, assis dans le stade, regardaient les chars\nqui volaient dans la plaine, en soulevant la poussi\u00e8re. Et\nIdom\u00e9neus, chef des Kr\u00e8tois, les vit le premier. \u00c9tant assis hors\ndu stade, sur une hauteur, il entendit une voix qui excitait les\nchevaux, et il vit celui qui accourait le premier, dont toute la\nrobe \u00e9tait rouge, et qui avait au front un signe blanc, rond comme\nl'orbe de S\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8. Et il se leva et dit aux Argiens:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis, princes et chefs des Argiens, voyez-vous ces chevaux\ncomme moi? Il me semble que ce sont d'autres chevaux et un autre\nconducteur qui tiennent maintenant la t\u00eate. Peut-\u00eatre les premiers\nau d\u00e9part ont-ils subi un malheur dans la plaine. Je les ai vus\ntourner la borne et je ne les vois plus, et cependant j'embrasse\ntoute la plaine troienne. Ou les r\u00eanes auront \u00e9chapp\u00e9 au\nconducteur et il n'a pu tourner la borne heureusement, ou il est\ntomb\u00e9, brisant son char, et ses juments furieuses se sont\nd\u00e9rob\u00e9es. Mais regardez vous-m\u00eames; je ne vois point clairement\nencore; cependant, il me semble que c'est un guerrier Ait\u00f4lien qui\ncommande parmi les Argiens, le brave fils de Tydeus dompteur de\nchevaux, Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s.\n\nEt le rapide Aias, fils d'Oileus, lui r\u00e9pondit am\u00e8rement:\n\n-- Idom\u00e9neus, pourquoi toujours bavarder? Ce sont ces m\u00eames\njuments aux pieds a\u00e9riens qui arrivent \u00e0 travers la vaste plaine.\nTu n'es certes pas le plus jeune parmi les Argiens, et les yeux\nqui sortent de ta t\u00eate ne sont point les plus per\u00e7ants. Mais tu\nbavardes sans cesse. Il ne te convient pas de tant parler, car\nbeaucoup d'autres ici valent mieux que toi. Ce sont les juments\nd'Eum\u00e8los qui arrivent les premi\u00e8res, et c'est lui qui tient\ntoujours les r\u00eanes.\n\nEt le chef des Kr\u00e8tois, irrit\u00e9, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Aias, excellent pour la querelle, homme injurieux, le dernier\ndes Argiens, ton \u00e2me est toute f\u00e9roce! Allons! d\u00e9posons un\ntr\u00e9pied, ou un vase, et prenons tous deux pour arbitre l'Atr\u00e9ide\nAgamemn\u00f4n. Qu'il dise quels sont ces chevaux, et tu le sauras \u00e0\ntes d\u00e9pens.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le rapide Aias, fils d'Oileus, plein de col\u00e8re,\nse leva pour lui r\u00e9pondre par d'outrageantes paroles, et il y\naurait eu une querelle entre eux, si Akhilleus, s'\u00e9tant lev\u00e9,\nn'e\u00fbt parl\u00e9:\n\n-- Ne vous adressez pas plus longtemps d'injurieuses paroles, Aias\net Idom\u00e9neus. Cela ne convient point, et vous bl\u00e2meriez qui en\nferait autant. Restez assis, et regardez. Ces chevaux qui se\nh\u00e2tent pour la victoire vont arriver. Vous verrez alors quels sont\nles premiers et les seconds.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le Tyd\u00e9ide arriva, agitant sans rel\u00e2che le\nfouet sur ses chevaux, qui, en courant, soulevaient une haute\npoussi\u00e8re qui enveloppait leur conducteur. Et le char, orn\u00e9 d'or\net d'\u00e9tain, \u00e9tait enlev\u00e9 par les chevaux rapides; et l'orbe des\nroues laissait \u00e0 peine une trace dans la poussi\u00e8re, tant ils\ncouraient rapidement. Et le char s'arr\u00eata au milieu du stade; et\ndes flots de sueur coulaient de la t\u00eate et du poitrail des\nchevaux. Et Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s sauta de son char brillant et appuya le fouet\ncontre le joug. Et, sans tarder, le brave Sth\u00e9n\u00e9los saisit le\nprix. Il remit la femme et le tr\u00e9pied \u00e0 deux anses \u00e0 ses\nmagnanimes compagnons, et lui-m\u00eame d\u00e9tela les chevaux.\n\nEt, apr\u00e8s Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s, le N\u00e8l\u00e8i\u00f4n Antilokhos arriva, poussant ses\nchevaux et devan\u00e7ant M\u00e9n\u00e9laos par ruse et non par la rapidit\u00e9 de\nsa course. Et M\u00e9n\u00e9laos le poursuivait de pr\u00e8s. Autant est pr\u00e8s de\nla roue un cheval qui tra\u00eene son ma\u00eetre, sur un char, dans la\nplaine, tandis que les derniers crins de sa queue touchent les\njantes, et qu'il court \u00e0 travers l'espace; autant M\u00e9n\u00e9laos suivait\nde pr\u00e8s le brave Antilokhos. Bien que rest\u00e9 en arri\u00e8re \u00e0 un jet de\ndisque, il l'avait atteint aussit\u00f4t, car Aith\u00e8 aux beaux crins, la\njument d'Agamemn\u00f4n, avait redoubl\u00e9 d'ardeur; et si la course des\ndeux chars e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 plus longue, l'Atr\u00e9ide e\u00fbt sans doute devanc\u00e9\nAntilokhos. Et M\u00e8rion\u00e8s, le brave compagnon d'Idom\u00e9neus, venait, \u00e0\nun jet de lance, derri\u00e8re l'illustre M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, ses chevaux \u00e9tant\ntr\u00e8s lourds, et lui-m\u00eame \u00e9tant peu habile \u00e0 conduire un char dans\nle stade.\n\nMais le fils d'Adm\u00e8t\u00e8s venait le dernier de tous, tra\u00eenant son\nbeau char et poussant ses chevaux devant lui. Et le divin\nAkhilleus aux pieds rapides, le voyant, en eut compassion, et,\ndebout au milieu des Argiens, il dit ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Ce guerrier excellent ram\u00e8ne le dernier ses chevaux aux sabots\nmassifs. Donnons-lui donc le second prix, comme il est juste, et\nle fils de Tydeus emportera le premier.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous y consentirent; et il allait donner \u00e0\nEum\u00e9los la jument promise, si Antilokhos, le fils du magnanime\nNest\u00f4r, se levant, n'e\u00fbt r\u00e9pondu \u00e0 bon droit au P\u00e8l\u00e9ide Akhilleus:\n\n-- \u00d4 Akhilleus, je m'irriterai violemment contre toi, si tu fais\nce que tu as dit. Tu veux m'enlever mon prix, parce que, malgr\u00e9\nson habilet\u00e9, Eum\u00e8los a vu son char se rompre! Il devait supplier\nles immortels. Il ne serait point arriv\u00e9 le dernier. Si tu as\ncompassion de lui, et s'il t'est cher, il y a, sous ta tente,\nbeaucoup d'or, de l'airain, des brebis, des captives et des\nchevaux aux sabots massifs. Donne-lui un plus grand prix que le\nmien, d\u00e8s maintenant, et que les Akhaiens y applaudissent, soit;\nmais je ne c\u00e9derai point mon prix. Que le guerrier qui voudrait me\nle disputer combatte d'abord contre moi.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le divin Akhilleus aux pieds vigoureux rit,\napprouvant Antilokhos, parce qu'il l'aimait; et il lui r\u00e9pondit\nces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Antilokhos, si tu veux que je prenne dans ma tente un autre\nprix pour Eum\u00e8los, je le ferai. Je lui donnerai la cuirasse que\nj'enlevai \u00e0 Ast\u00e9ropaios. Elle est d'or et entour\u00e9e d'\u00e9tain\nbrillant. Elle est digne de lui.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il ordonna \u00e0 son cher compagnon Autom\u00e9d\u00f4n de\nl'apporter de sa tente, et Autom\u00e9d\u00f4n partit et l'apporta. Et\nAkhilleus la remit aux mains d'Eum\u00e8los, qui la re\u00e7ut avec joie.\n\nEt M\u00e9n\u00e9laos se leva au milieu de tous, triste et violemment irrit\u00e9\ncontre Antilokhos. Un h\u00e9raut lui mit le sceptre entre les mains et\nordonna aux Argiens de faire silence, et le divin guerrier parla\nainsi:\n\n--Antilokhos, toi qui \u00e9tais plein de sagesse, pourquoi en as-tu\nmanqu\u00e9? Tu as d\u00e9shonor\u00e9 ma gloire; tu as jet\u00e9 en travers des miens\ntes chevaux qui leur sont bien inf\u00e9rieurs. Vous, princes et chefs\ndes Argiens, jugez \u00e9quitablement entre nous. Que nul d'entre les\nAkhaiens aux tuniques d'airain ne puisse dire: M\u00e9n\u00e9laos a opprim\u00e9\nAntilokhos par des paroles mensong\u00e8res et a ravi son prix, car ses\nchevaux ont \u00e9t\u00e9 vaincus, mais lui l'a emport\u00e9 par sa puissance.\nMais je jugerai moi-m\u00eame, et je ne pense pas qu'aucun des Danaens\nme bl\u00e2me, car mon jugement sera droit. Antilokhos, approche,\nenfant de Zeus, comme il est juste. Debout, devant ton char,\nprends en main ce fouet que tu agitais sur tes chevaux, et jure\npar Poseida\u00f4n qui entoure la terre que tu n'as point travers\u00e9 ma\ncourse par ruse.\n\nEt le sage Antilokhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Pardonne maintenant, car je suis beaucoup plus jeune que toi,\nroi M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, et tu es plus \u00e2g\u00e9 et plus puissant. Tu sais quels\nsont les d\u00e9fauts d'un jeune homme; l'esprit est tr\u00e8s vif et la\nr\u00e9flexion tr\u00e8s l\u00e9g\u00e8re. Que ton coeur s'apaise. Je te donnerai moi-\nm\u00eame cette jument indompt\u00e9e que j'ai re\u00e7ue; et, si tu me demandais\nplus encore, j'aimerais mieux te le donner aussi, \u00f4 fils de Zeus,\nque de sortir pour toujours de ton coeur et d'\u00eatre en ex\u00e9cration\naux dieux.\n\nLe fils du magnanime Nest\u00f4r parla ainsi et remit la jument entre\nles mains de M\u00e9n\u00e9laos; et le coeur de celui-ci se remplit de joie,\ncomme les \u00e9pis sous la ros\u00e9e, quand les campagnes s'emplissent de\nla moisson croissante. Ainsi, ton coeur fut joyeux, \u00f4 M\u00e9n\u00e9laos! Et\nil r\u00e9pondit en paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Antilokhos, ma col\u00e8re ne te r\u00e9siste pas, car tu n'as jamais \u00e9t\u00e9\nni l\u00e9ger, ni injurieux. La jeunesse seule a \u00e9gar\u00e9 ta prudence;\nmais prends garde d\u00e9sormais de tromper tes sup\u00e9rieurs par des\nruses. Un autre d'entre les Akhaiens ne m'e\u00fbt point apais\u00e9 aussi\nvite; mais toi, ton p\u00e8re excellent et ton fr\u00e8re, vous avez subi\nbeaucoup de maux pour ma cause. Donc, je me rends \u00e0 ta pri\u00e8re, et\nje te donne cette jument qui m'appartient, afin que tous les\nAkhaiens soient t\u00e9moins que mon coeur n'a jamais \u00e9t\u00e9 ni\norgueilleux, ni dur.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il donna la jument \u00e0 No\u00e8m\u00f4n, compagnon\nd'Antilokhos. Lui-m\u00eame, il prit le vase splendide, et M\u00e8rion\u00e8s\nre\u00e7ut les deux talents d'or, prix de sa course. Et le cinqui\u00e8me\nprix restait, l'urne \u00e0 deux anses. Et Akhilleus, la portant \u00e0\ntravers l'assembl\u00e9e des Argiens, la donna \u00e0 Nest\u00f4r, et lui dit:\n\n-- Re\u00e7ois ce pr\u00e9sent, vieillard, et qu'il te soit un souvenir des\nfun\u00e9railles de Patroklos, que tu ne reverras plus parmi les\nArgiens. Je te donne ce prix que tu n'as point disput\u00e9; car tu ne\ncombattras point avec les cestes, tu ne lutteras point, tu ne\nlanceras point la pique et tu ne courras point, car la lourde\nvieillesse t'accable.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il lui mit l'urne aux mains, et Nest\u00f4r la\nrecevant avec joie, lui r\u00e9pondit ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Mon fils, certes, tu as bien parl\u00e9. Ami, je n'ai plus, en\neffet, mes membres vigoureux. Mes pieds sont lourds et mes bras ne\nsont plus agiles. Pl\u00fbt aux dieux que je fusse jeune, et que ma\nforce f\u00fbt telle qu'\u00e0 l'\u00e9poque o\u00f9 les \u00c9p\u00e9iens ensevelirent le roi\nAmarinkeus dans Bouprasi\u00f4n! Ses fils d\u00e9pos\u00e8rent des prix, et aucun\nguerrier ne fut mon \u00e9gal parmi les \u00c9p\u00e9iens, les Pyliens et les\nmagnanimes Ait\u00f4liens. Je vainquis au pugilat Klydom\u00e8deus, fils\nd'\u00c9nops; \u00e0 la lutte, Agkaios le Pleur\u00f4nien qui se leva contre moi.\nJe courus plus vite que le brave Iphiklos; je triomphai, au combat\nde la lance, de Phyleus et de Polyd\u00f4ros; mais, \u00e0 la course des\nchars, par leur nombre, les Aktori\u00f4nes remport\u00e8rent la victoire,\net ils m'enlev\u00e8rent ainsi les plus beaux prix. Car ils \u00e9taient\ndeux: et l'un tenait fermement les r\u00eanes, et l'autre le fouet. Tel\nj'\u00e9tais autrefois, et maintenant de plus jeunes accomplissent ces\ntravaux, et il me faut ob\u00e9ir \u00e0 la triste vieillesse; mais, alors,\nj'excellais parmi les h\u00e9ros. Va! continue par d'autres combats les\nfun\u00e9railles de ton compagnon. J'accepte ce pr\u00e9sent avec joie, et\nmon coeur se r\u00e9jouit de ce que tu te sois souvenu de moi qui te\nsuis bienveillant, et de ce que tu m'aies honor\u00e9, comme il est\njuste qu'on m'honore parmi les Argiens. Que les dieux, en retour,\nte comblent de leurs gr\u00e2ces!\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide s'en retourna \u00e0 travers la grande\nassembl\u00e9e des Akhaiens, apr\u00e8s avoir \u00e9cout\u00e9 jusqu'au bout la propre\nlouange du N\u00e8l\u00e8iade.\n\nEt il d\u00e9posa les prix pour le rude combat des poings. Et il amena\ndans l'enceinte, et il lia de ses mains une mule laborieuse, de\nsix ans, indompt\u00e9e et presque indomptable; et il d\u00e9posa une coupe\nronde pour le vaincu. Et, debout, il dit au milieu des Argiens:\n\n-- Atr\u00e9ides, et vous Akhaiens aux belles kn\u00e8mides, j'appelle, pour\ndisputer ces prix, deux hommes vigoureux \u00e0 se frapper de leurs\npoings lev\u00e9s. Que tous les Akhaiens le sachent, celui \u00e0 qui\nApoll\u00f4n donnera la victoire, conduira dans sa tente cette mule\npatiente, et le vaincu emportera cette coupe ronde.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et aussit\u00f4t un homme vigoureux et grand se leva,\n\u00c9p\u00e9ios, fils de Panopeus, habile au combat du poing. Il saisit la\nmule laborieuse et dit:\n\n-- Qu'il vienne, celui qui veut emporter cette coupe, car je ne\npense pas qu'aucun des Akhaiens puisse emmener cette mule, m'ayant\nvaincu par le poing; car, en cela, je me glorifie de l'emporter\nsur tous. N'est-ce point assez que je sois inf\u00e9rieur dans le\ncombat? Aucun homme ne peut exceller en toutes choses. Mais, je le\ndis, et ma parole s'accomplira: je briserai le corps de mon\nadversaire et je romprai ses os. Que ses amis s'assemblent ici en\ngrand nombre pour l'emporter, quand il sera tomb\u00e9 sous mes mains.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous rest\u00e8rent muets. Et le seul Euryalos se\nleva, homme illustre, fils du roi M\u00e8kisteus Talionide qui,\nautrefois, alla dans Th\u00e8b\u00e8 aux fun\u00e9railles d'Oidipous, et qui\nl'emporta sur tous les Kadm\u00e9i\u00f4nes. Et l'illustre Tyd\u00e9ide\ns'empressait autour d'Euryalos, l'animant de ses paroles, car il\nlui souhaitait la victoire. Et il lui mit d'abord une ceinture, et\nil l'arma de courroies faites du cuir d'un boeuf sauvage.\n\nPuis, les deux combattants s'avanc\u00e8rent au milieu de l'enceinte.\nEt tous deux, levant \u00e0 la fois leurs mains vigoureuses, se\nfrapp\u00e8rent \u00e0 la fois, en m\u00ealant leurs poings lourds. Et on\nentendait le bruit des m\u00e2choires frapp\u00e9es; et la sueur coulait\nchaude de tous leurs membres. Mais le divin \u00c9p\u00e9ios, se ruant en\navant, frappa de tous les c\u00f4t\u00e9s la face d'Euryalos qui ne put\nr\u00e9sister plus longtemps, et dont les membres d\u00e9faillirent. De m\u00eame\nque le poisson qui est jet\u00e9, par le souffle furieux de Bor\u00e9as,\ndans les algues du bord, et que l'eau noire ressaisit; de m\u00eame\nEuryalos frapp\u00e9 bondit. Mais le magnanime \u00c9p\u00e9ios le releva lui-\nm\u00eame, et ses chers compagnons, l'entourant, l'emmen\u00e8rent \u00e0 travers\nl'assembl\u00e9e, les pieds tra\u00eenants, vomissant un sang \u00e9pais, et la\nt\u00eate pench\u00e9e. Et ils l'emmenaient ainsi, en le soutenant, et ils\nemport\u00e8rent aussi la coupe ronde.\n\nEt le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide d\u00e9posa les prix de la lutte difficile devant les\nDanaens: un grand tr\u00e9pied fait pour le feu, et destin\u00e9 au\nvainqueur, et que les Akhaiens, entre eux, estim\u00e8rent du prix de\ndouze boeufs; et, pour le vaincu, une femme habile aux travaux et\nvalant quatre boeufs. Et le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide, debout, dit au milieu des\nArgiens:\n\n-- Qu'ils se l\u00e8vent, ceux qui osent combattre pour ce prix.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et aussit\u00f4t le grand T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien Aias se leva; et\nle sage Odysseus, plein de ruses, se leva aussi. Et tous deux,\ns'\u00e9tant munis de ceintures, descendirent dans l'enceinte et se\nsaisirent de leurs mains vigoureuses, tels que deux poutres qu'un\nhabile charpentier unit au sommet d'une maison pour r\u00e9sister \u00e0 la\nviolence du vent. Ainsi leurs reins, sous leurs mains vigoureuses,\ncraqu\u00e8rent avec force, et leur sueur coula abondamment, et\nd'\u00e9paisses tumeurs, rouges de sang, s'\u00e9lev\u00e8rent sur leurs flancs\net leurs \u00e9paules. Et tous deux d\u00e9siraient ardemment la victoire et\nle tr\u00e9pied qui en \u00e9tait le prix; mais Odysseus ne pouvait \u00e9branler\nAias, et Aias ne pouvait renverser Odysseus. Et d\u00e9j\u00e0 ils\nfatiguaient l'attente des Akhaiens aux belles kn\u00e8mides; mais le\ngrand T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien Aias dit alors \u00e0 Odysseus:\n\n-- Divin Laertiade, tr\u00e8s sage Odysseus, enl\u00e8ve-moi, ou je\nt'enl\u00e8verai, et Zeus fera le reste.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il l'enleva; mais Odysseus n'oublia point ses\nruses, et, le frappant du pied sur le jarret, il fit ployer ses\nmembres, et, le renversant, tomba sur lui. Et les peuples \u00e9tonn\u00e9s\nles admiraient. Alors le divin et patient Odysseus voulut \u00e0 son\ntour enlever Aias; mais il le souleva \u00e0 peine, et ses genoux\nploy\u00e8rent, et tous deux tomb\u00e8rent c\u00f4te \u00e0 c\u00f4te, et ils furent\nsouill\u00e9s de poussi\u00e8re. Et, comme ils se relevaient une troisi\u00e8me\nfois, Akhilleus se leva lui-m\u00eame et les retint:\n\n-- Ne combattez pas plus longtemps et ne vous \u00e9puisez pas. La\nvictoire est \u00e0 tous deux. Allez donc, emportant des prix \u00e9gaux, et\nlaissez combattre les autres Akhaiens.\n\nIl parla ainsi; et, l'ayant entendu, ils lui ob\u00e9irent; et,\nsecouant leur poussi\u00e8re, ils se couvrirent de leurs v\u00eatements.\n\nAlors le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide d\u00e9posa les prix de la course: un tr\u00e8s beau\nkrat\u00e8re d'argent contenant six mesures. Et il surpassait par sa\nbeaut\u00e9 tous ceux qui \u00e9taient sur la terre. Les habiles Sid\u00f4nes\nl'avaient admirablement travaill\u00e9; et des Phoinikes l'avaient\namen\u00e9, \u00e0 travers la mer bleue; et, arriv\u00e9s au port, ils l'avaient\ndonn\u00e9 \u00e0 Thoas. Le Iasonide Euneus l'avait c\u00e9d\u00e9 au h\u00e9ros Patroklos\npour l'affranchissement du Priamide Lyka\u00f4n; et Akhilleus le\nproposa en prix aux plus habiles coureurs dans les jeux fun\u00e8bres\nde son ami. Puis, il offrit un boeuf \u00e9norme et tr\u00e8s gras; puis,\nenfin, un demi talent d'or. Et, debout, il dit au milieu des\nArgiens:\n\n-- Qu'ils se l\u00e8vent, ceux qui veulent combattre pour ce prix.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, aussit\u00f4t, le rapide Aias, fils d'Oileus, se\nleva; puis le sage Odysseus, puis Antilokhos, fils de Nest\u00f4r. Et\ncelui-ci d\u00e9passait tous les jeunes hommes \u00e0 la course. Ils se\nplac\u00e8rent de front, et Akhilleus leur montra le but, et ils se\npr\u00e9cipit\u00e8rent. L'Oiliade les devan\u00e7ait tous; puis, venait le divin\nOdysseus. Autant la navette qu'une belle femme manie habilement,\napproche de son sein, quand elle tire le fil \u00e0 elle, autant\nOdysseus \u00e9tait proche d'Aias, mettant ses pieds dans les pas de\ncelui-ci, avant que leur poussi\u00e8re se f\u00fbt \u00e9lev\u00e9e. Ainsi le divin\nOdysseus chauffait de son souffle la t\u00eate d'Aias. Et tous les\nAkhaiens applaudissaient \u00e0 son d\u00e9sir de la victoire et\nl'excitaient \u00e0 courir. Et comme ils approchaient du but, Odysseus\npria en lui-m\u00eame Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs:\n\n-- Exauce-moi, d\u00e9esse! soutiens-moi heureusement dans ma course.\n\nIl parla ainsi; et Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, l'exau\u00e7ant, rendit ses membres\nplus agiles et ses pieds plus l\u00e9gers. Et comme ils revenaient aux\nprix, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 poussa Aias qui tomba, en courant, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 s'\u00e9tait\namass\u00e9 le sang des boeufs mugissants qu'Akhilleus aux pieds\nrapides avait tu\u00e9s devant le corps de Patroklos; et sa bouche et\nses narines furent emplies de fumier et du sang des boeufs; et le\ndivin et patient Odysseus, le devan\u00e7ant, saisit le krat\u00e8re\nd'argent. Et l'illustre Aias prit le boeuf; et se tenant d'une\nmain \u00e0 l'une des cornes du boeuf sauvage, et rejetant le fumier de\nsa bouche, il dit au milieu des Argiens:\n\n-- Malheur \u00e0 moi! certes, la d\u00e9esse Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 a embarrass\u00e9 mes pieds,\nelle qui accompagne et secourt toujours Odysseus, comme une m\u00e8re.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous, en l'entendant, se mirent \u00e0 rire. Et\nAntilokhos enleva le dernier prix, et il dit en riant aux Argiens:\n\n-- Je vous le dis \u00e0 tous, et vous le voyez, amis; maintenant et\ntoujours, les immortels honorent les vieillards. Aias est un peu\nplus \u00e2g\u00e9 que moi; mais Odysseus est de la g\u00e9n\u00e9ration des hommes\nanciens. Cependant, il a une verte vieillesse, et il est difficile\n\u00e0 tous les Akhaiens, si ce n'est \u00e0 Akhilleus, de lutter avec lui \u00e0\nla course.\n\nIl parla ainsi, louant le P\u00e8l\u00e9i\u00f4n aux pieds rapides. Et Akhilleus\nlui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Antilokhos, tu ne m'auras point lou\u00e9 en vain, et je te donnerai\nencore un autre demi-talent d'or.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il le lui donna, et Antilokhos le re\u00e7ut avec\njoie. Puis, le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide d\u00e9posa dans l'enceinte une longue lance, un\nbouclier et un casque; et c'\u00e9taient les armes que Patroklos avait\nenlev\u00e9es \u00e0 Sarp\u00e8d\u00f4n. Et, debout, il dit au milieu des Argiens:\n\n-- Que deux guerriers, parmi les plus braves, et couverts de leurs\narmes d'airain, combattent devant la foule. \u00c0 celui qui,\natteignant le premier le corps de l'autre, aura fait couler le\nsang noir \u00e0 travers les armes, je donnerai cette belle \u00e9p\u00e9e\nThr\u00e8kienne, aux clous d'argent, que j'enlevai \u00e0 Ast\u00e9ropaios. Quant\n\u00e0 ces armes, elles seront communes; et je leur offrirai \u00e0 tous\ndeux un beau repas dans mes tentes.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, aussit\u00f4t, le grand T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien Aias se leva;\net, apr\u00e8s lui, le brave Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s Tyd\u00e9ide se leva aussi. Et tous\ndeux, \u00e0 l'\u00e9cart, s'\u00e9tant arm\u00e9s, se pr\u00e9sent\u00e8rent au milieu de tous,\npr\u00eats \u00e0 combattre et se regardant avec des yeux terribles. Et la\nterreur saisit tous les Akhaiens. Et quand les h\u00e9ros se furent\nrencontr\u00e9s, trois fois, se jetant l'un sur l'autre, ils\ns'attaqu\u00e8rent ardemment. Aias per\u00e7a le bouclier de Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s, mais\nil n'atteignit point le corps que prot\u00e9geait la cuirasse. Et le\nTyd\u00e9ide dirigea la pointe de sa lance, au-dessus du grand\nbouclier, pr\u00e8s du cou; mais les Akhaiens, craignant pour Aias,\nf\u00eerent cesser le combat et leur donn\u00e8rent des prix \u00e9gaux.\nCependant le h\u00e9ros Akhilleus donna au Tyd\u00e9ide la grande \u00e9p\u00e9e, avec\nla ga\u00eene et le riche baudrier.\n\nPuis, le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide d\u00e9posa un disque de fer brut que lan\u00e7ait\nautrefois la force immense d'\u00ca\u00e9ti\u00f4n. Et le divin Akhilleus aux\npieds rapides, ayant tu\u00e9 E\u00e9ti\u00f4n, avait emport\u00e9 cette masse dans\nses nefs, avec d'autres richesses. Et, debout, il dit au milieu\ndes Argiens:\n\n-- Qu'ils se l\u00e8vent, ceux qui veulent tenter ce combat. Celui qui\nposs\u00e9dera ce disque, s'il a des champs fertiles qui s'\u00e9tendent au\nloin, ne manquera point de fer pendant cinq ann\u00e9es enti\u00e8res. Ni\nses bergers, ni ses laboureurs n'iront en acheter \u00e0 la ville, car\nce disque lui en fournira.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le belliqueux Polypoit\u00e8s se leva; et, apr\u00e8s\nlui, la force du divin L\u00e9onteus; puis, Aias T\u00e9lam\u00f4niade, puis le\ndivin \u00c9p\u00e9ios. Et ils prirent place; et le divin \u00c9p\u00e9ios saisit le\ndisque, et, le faisant tourner, le lan\u00e7a; et tous les Akhaiens se\nmirent \u00e0 rire. Le second qui le lan\u00e7a fut L\u00e9onteus, rejeton\nd'Ar\u00e8s. Le troisi\u00e8me fut le grand T\u00e9lam\u00f4nien Aias qui, de sa main\nvigoureuse, le jeta bien au-del\u00e0 des autres. Mais quand le\nbelliqueux Polypoit\u00e8s l'eut saisi, il le lan\u00e7a plus loin que tous,\nde l'espace entier que franchit le b\u00e2ton recourb\u00e9 d'un bouvier,\nque celui-ci fait voler \u00e0 travers les vaches vagabondes.\n\nEt les Akhaiens pouss\u00e8rent des acclamations, et les compagnons du\nbrave Polypoit\u00e8s emport\u00e8rent dans les nefs creuses le prix de leur\nroi.\n\nPuis, le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide d\u00e9posa, pour les archers habiles, dix grandes\nhaches \u00e0 deux tranchants et dix petites haches, toutes en fer. Et\nil fit dresser dans l'enceinte le m\u00e2t noir d'une nef \u00e9peronn\u00e9e;\net, au sommet du m\u00e2t, il fit lier par un lien l\u00e9ger une colombe\ntremblante, but des fl\u00e8ches:\n\n-- Celui qui atteindra la colombe emportera les haches \u00e0 deux\ntranchants dans sa tente; et celui qui, moins adroit, et manquant\nl'oiseau, aura coup\u00e9 le lien, emportera les petites haches.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le prince Teukros se leva aussit\u00f4t; et apr\u00e8s\nlui, M\u00e8rion\u00e8s, brave compagnon d'Idom\u00e9neus, se leva aussi. Et les\nsorts ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 remu\u00e9s dans un casque d'airain, celui de Teukros\nparut le premier. Et, aussit\u00f4t, il lan\u00e7a une fl\u00e8che avec vigueur,\noubliant de vouer \u00e0 l'archer Apoll\u00f4n une illustre h\u00e9catombe\nd'agneaux premiers-n\u00e9s. Et il manqua l'oiseau car Apoll\u00f4n lui\nenvia cette gloire; mais il atteignit, aupr\u00e8s du pied, le lien qui\nretenait l'oiseau; et la fl\u00e8che am\u00e8re trancha le lien, et la\ncolombe s'envola dans l'Ouranos, tandis que le lien retombait. Et\nles Akhaiens pouss\u00e8rent des acclamations. Mais, aussit\u00f4t,\nM\u00e8rion\u00e8s, saisissant l'arc de la main de Teukros, car il tenait la\nfl\u00e8che pr\u00eate, voua \u00e0 l'archer Apoll\u00f4n une illustre h\u00e9catombe\nd'agneaux premiers-n\u00e9s, et, tandis que la colombe montait en\ntournoyant vers les hautes nu\u00e9es, il l'atteignit sous l'aile. Le\ntrait la traversa et revint s'enfoncer en terre aux pieds de\nM\u00e8rion\u00e8s; et l'oiseau tomba le long du m\u00e2t noir de la nef\n\u00e9peronn\u00e9e, le cou pendant, et les plumes \u00e9parses, et son \u00e2me\ns'envola de son corps. Et tous furent saisis d'admiration. Et\nM\u00e8rion\u00e9s prit les dix haches \u00e0 deux tranchants, et Teukros emporta\nles petites haches dans sa tente.\n\nPuis, le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide d\u00e9posa une longue lance et un vase neuf et orn\u00e9,\ndu prix d'un boeuf; et ceux qui devaient lancer la pique se\nlev\u00e8rent. Et l'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n qui commande au loin se leva; et\nM\u00e8rion\u00e8s, brave compagnon d'Idom\u00e9neus, se leva aussi. Mais le\ndivin et rapide Akhilleus leur dit:\n\n-- Atr\u00e9ide, nous savons combien tu l'emportes sur tous par ta\nforce et ton habilet\u00e9 \u00e0 la lance. Emporte donc ce prix dans tes\nnefs creuses. Mais, si tu le veux, et tel est mon d\u00e9sir, donne\ncette lance au h\u00e9ros M\u00e8rion\u00e8s.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le roi des hommes Agamemn\u00f4n y consentit. Et\nAkhilleus donna la lance d'airain \u00e0 M\u00e8rion\u00e9s, et le roi Atr\u00e9ide\nremit le vase magnifique au h\u00e9raut Talthybios.\n\n\nChant 24\n\nEt les luttes ayant pris fin, les peuples se dispers\u00e8rent,\nrentrant dans les nefs, afin de prendre leur repas et de jouir du\ndoux sommeil. Mais Akhilleus pleurait, se souvenant de son cher\ncompagnon; et le sommeil qui dompte tout ne le saisissait pas. Et\nil se tournait \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0, regrettant la force de Patroklos et son\ncoeur h\u00e9ro\u00efque. Et il se souvenait des choses accomplies et des\nmaux soufferts ensemble, et de tous leurs combats en traversant la\nmer dangereuse. Et, \u00e0 ce souvenir, il versait des larmes, tant\u00f4t\ncouch\u00e9 sur le c\u00f4t\u00e9, tant\u00f4t sur le dos, tant\u00f4t le visage contre\nterre. Puis, il se leva brusquement, et, plein de tristesse, il\nerra sur le rivage de la mer. Et les premi\u00e8res lueurs d'\u00c9\u00f4s\ns'\u00e9tant r\u00e9pandues sur les flots et sur les plages, il attela ses\nchevaux rapides, et, liant Hekt\u00f4r derri\u00e8re le char, il le tra\u00eena\ntrois fois autour du tombeau du M\u00e9noitiade. Puis, il rentra de\nnouveau dans sa tente pour s'y reposer, et il laissa Hekt\u00f4r\n\u00e9tendu, la face dans la poussi\u00e8re.\n\nMais Apoll\u00f4n, plein de piti\u00e9 pour le guerrier sans vie, \u00e9loignait\ndu corps toute souillure et le couvrait tout entier de l'aigide\nd'or, afin que le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide, en le tra\u00eenant, ne le d\u00e9chir\u00e2t point.\nC'est ainsi que, furieux, Akhilleus outrageait Hekt\u00f4r; et les\ndieux heureux qui le regardaient en avaient piti\u00e9, et ils\nexcitaient le vigilant tueur d'Argos \u00e0 l'enlever. Et ceci plaisait\n\u00e0 tous les dieux, sauf \u00e0 H\u00e8r\u00e8, \u00e0 Poseida\u00f4n et \u00e0 la vierge aux yeux\nclairs, qui, tous trois, gardaient leur ancienne haine pour la\nsainte Ilios, pour Priamos et son peuple, \u00e0 cause de l'injure\nd'Alexandros qui m\u00e9prisa les d\u00e9esses quand elles vinrent dans sa\ncabane, o\u00f9 il couronna celle qui le remplit d'un d\u00e9sir funeste.\n\nEt quand \u00c9\u00f4s se leva pour la douzi\u00e8me fois, Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n parla\nainsi au milieu des immortels:\n\n-- \u00d4 dieux! vous \u00eates injustes et cruels. Pour vous, nagu\u00e8re,\nHekt\u00f4r ne br\u00fblait-il pas les cuisses des boeufs et des meilleures\nch\u00e8vres? Et, maintenant, vous ne voulez pas m\u00eame rendre son\ncadavre \u00e0 sa femme, \u00e0 sa m\u00e8re, \u00e0 son fils, \u00e0 son p\u00e8re Priamos et \u00e0\nses peuples, pour qu'ils le revoient et qu'ils le br\u00fblent, et\nqu'ils accomplissent ses fun\u00e9railles. \u00d4 dieux! vous ne voulez\nprot\u00e9ger que le f\u00e9roce Akhilleus dont les desseins sont\nha\u00efssables, dont le coeur est inflexible dans sa poitrine, et qui\nest tel qu'un lion excit\u00e9 par sa grande force et par sa rage, qui\nse jette sur les troupeaux des hommes pour les d\u00e9vorer. Ainsi\nAkhilleus a perdu toute compassion, et cette honte qui perd ou qui\naide les hommes. D'autres aussi peuvent perdre quelqu'un qui leur\nest tr\u00e8s cher, soit un fr\u00e8re, soit un fils; et ils pleurent et\ng\u00e9missent, puis ils se consolent, car les moires ont donn\u00e9 aux\nhommes un esprit patient. Mais lui, apr\u00e8s avoir priv\u00e9 le divin\nHekt\u00f4r de sa ch\u00e8re \u00e2me, l'attachant \u00e0 son char, il le tra\u00eene\nautour du tombeau de son compagnon. Cela n'est ni bon, ni juste.\nQu'il craigne, bien que tr\u00e8s brave, que nous nous irritions contre\nlui, car, dans sa fureur, il outrage une poussi\u00e8re insensible.\n\nEt, pleine de col\u00e8re, H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux bras blancs lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Tu parles bien, archer, si on accorde des honneurs \u00e9gaux \u00e0\nAkhilleus et \u00e0 Hekt\u00f4r. Mais le Priamide a suc\u00e9 la mamelle d'une\nfemme mortelle, tandis qu'Akhilleus est n\u00e9 d'une d\u00e9esse que j'ai\nnourrie moi-m\u00eame et \u00e9lev\u00e9e avec tendresse, et que j'ai unie au\nguerrier P\u00e8leus cher aux immortels. Vous avez tous assist\u00e9 \u00e0 leurs\nnoces, \u00f4 dieux! et tu as pris part au festin, tenant ta kithare,\ntoi, protecteur des mauvais, et toujours perfide.\n\nEt Zeus qui amasse les nu\u00e9es, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi:\n\n-- H\u00e8r\u00e8, ne t'irrite point contre les dieux. Un honneur \u00e9gal ne\nsera point fait \u00e0 ces deux h\u00e9ros; mais Hekt\u00f4r \u00e9tait le plus cher\naux dieux parmi les hommes qui sont dans Ilios. Et il m'\u00e9tait cher\n\u00e0 moi-m\u00eame, car il n'oublia jamais les dons qui me sont agr\u00e9ables,\net jamais il n'a laiss\u00e9 mon autel manquer d'un repas abondant, de\nlibations et de parfums, car nous avons ces honneurs en partage.\nMais, certes, nous ne ferons point enlever furtivement le brave\nHekt\u00f4r, ce qui serait honteux, car Akhilleus serait averti par sa\nm\u00e8re qui est aupr\u00e8s de lui nuit et jour. Qu'un des dieux appelle\nTh\u00e9tis aupr\u00e8s de moi, et je lui dirai de sages paroles, afin\nqu'Akhilleus re\u00e7oive les pr\u00e9sents de Priamos et rende Hekt\u00f4r.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et la messag\u00e8re Iris aux pieds tourbillonnants\npartit. Entre Samos et Imbros, elle sauta dans la noire mer qui\nretentit. Et elle s'enfon\u00e7a dans les profondeurs comme le plomb\nqui, attach\u00e9 \u00e0 la corne d'un boeuf sauvage, descend, portant la\nmort aux poissons voraces. Et elle trouva Th\u00e9tis dans sa grotte\ncreuse; et autour d'elle les d\u00e9esses de la mer \u00e9taient assises en\nfoule. Et l\u00e0, Th\u00e9tis pleurait la destin\u00e9e de son fils\nirr\u00e9prochable qui devait mourir devant la riche Troi\u00e8, loin de sa\npatrie. Et, s'approchant, la rapide Iris lui dit:\n\n-- L\u00e8ve-toi, Th\u00e9tis. Zeus aux desseins \u00e9ternels t'appelle.\n\nEt la d\u00e9esse Th\u00e9tis aux pieds d'argent lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Pourquoi le grand dieu m'appelle-t-il? Je crains de me m\u00ealer\naux immortels, car je subis d'innombrables douleurs. J'irai\ncependant, et, quoi qu'il ait dit, il n'aura point parl\u00e9 en vain.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, la noble d\u00e9esse prit un voile bleu, le plus\nsombre de tous, et se h\u00e2ta de partir. Et la rapide Iris aux pieds\na\u00e9riens allait devant. Et l'eau de la mer s'entrouvrit devant\nelles; et, montant sur le rivage, elles s'\u00e9lanc\u00e8rent dans\nl'Ouranos. Et elles trouv\u00e8rent l\u00e0 le Kronide au large regard, et,\nautour de lui, les \u00e9ternels dieux heureux, assis et rassembl\u00e9s. Et\nTh\u00e9tis s'assit aupr\u00e8s du p\u00e8re Zeus, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 lui ayant c\u00e9d\u00e9 sa\nplace. H\u00e8r\u00e8 lui mit en main une belle coupe d'or, en la consolant;\net Th\u00e9tis, ayant bu, la lui rendit. Et le p\u00e8re des dieux et des\nhommes parla le premier:\n\n-- D\u00e9esse Th\u00e9tis, tu es venue dans l'Olympos malgr\u00e9 ta tristesse,\ncar je sais que tu as dans le coeur une douleur insupportable.\nCependant, je te dirai pourquoi je t'ai appel\u00e9e. Depuis neuf jours\nune dissension s'est \u00e9lev\u00e9e entre les immortels \u00e0 cause du cadavre\nde Hekt\u00f4r, et d'Akhilleus destructeur de citadelles. Les dieux\nexcitaient le vigilant tueur d'Argos \u00e0 enlever le corps du\nPriamide; mais je prot\u00e8ge la gloire d'Akhilleus, car j'ai gard\u00e9\nmon respect et mon amiti\u00e9 pour toi. Va donc promptement \u00e0 l'arm\u00e9e\ndes Argiens, et donne des ordres \u00e0 ton fils. Dis-lui que les dieux\nsont irrit\u00e9s, et que moi-m\u00eame, plus que tous, je suis irrit\u00e9\ncontre lui, parce que, dans sa fureur, il retient Hekt\u00f4r aupr\u00e8s\ndes nefs aux poupes recourb\u00e9es. S'il me redoute, qu'il le rende.\nCependant, j'enverrai Iris au magnanime Priamos afin que, se\nrendant aux nefs des Akhaiens, il rach\u00e8te son fils bien-aim\u00e9, et\nqu'il porte des pr\u00e9sents qui fl\u00e9chissent le coeur d'Akhilleus.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et la d\u00e9esse Th\u00e9tis aux pieds d'argent ob\u00e9it. Et,\ndescendant \u00e0 la h\u00e2te du fa\u00eete de l'Olympos, elle parvint \u00e0 la\ntente de son fils, et elle l'y trouva g\u00e9missant. Et, autour de\nlui, ses compagnons pr\u00e9paraient activement le repas. Et une grande\nbrebis laineuse avait \u00e9t\u00e9 tu\u00e9e sous la tente. Et, aupr\u00e8s\nd'Akhilleus, s'assit la m\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable. Et, le caressant de la\nmain, elle lui dit:\n\n-- Mon enfant, jusques \u00e0 quand, pleurant et g\u00e9missant, consumeras-\ntu ton coeur, oubliant de manger et de dormir? Cependant il est\ndoux de s'unir par l'amour \u00e0 une femme. Je ne te verrai pas\nlongtemps vivant; voici venir la mort et la moire toute-puissante.\nMais \u00e9coute, car je te suis envoy\u00e9e par Zeus. Il dit que tous les\ndieux sont irrit\u00e9s contre toi, et que, plus que tous les\nimmortels, il est irrit\u00e9 aussi, parce que, dans ta fureur, tu\nretiens Hekt\u00f4r aupr\u00e8s des nefs \u00e9peronn\u00e9es, et que tu ne le\nrenvoies point. Rends-le donc, et re\u00e7ois le prix de son cadavre.\n\nEt Akhilleus aux pieds rapides, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi:\n\n-- Qu'on apporte donc des pr\u00e9sents et qu'on emporte ce cadavre,\npuisque l'Olympien lui-m\u00eame le veut.\n\nEt, aupr\u00e8s des nefs, la m\u00e8re et le fils se parlaient ainsi en\nparoles rapides. Et le Kronide envoya Iris vers la sainte Ilios:\n\n-- Va, rapide Iris. Quitte ton si\u00e8ge dans l'Olympos, et ordonne,\ndans Ilios, au magnanime Priamos qu'il aille aux nefs des Akhaiens\nafin de racheter son fils bien-aim\u00e9, et qu'il porte \u00e0 Akhilleus\ndes pr\u00e9sents qui fl\u00e9chissent son coeur. Qu'aucun autre Troien ne\nle suive, sauf un h\u00e9raut v\u00e9n\u00e9rable qui conduise les mulets et le\nchar rapide, et ram\u00e8ne vers la ville le cadavre de Hekt\u00f4r que le\ndivin Akhilleus a tu\u00e9. Et qu'il n'ait ni inqui\u00e9tude, ni terreur.\nNous lui donnerons pour guide le tueur d'Argos qui le conduira\njusqu'\u00e0 Akhilleus. Et quand il sera entr\u00e9 dans la tente\nd'Akhilleus, celui-ci ne le tuera point, et m\u00eame il le d\u00e9fendra\ncontre tous, car il n'est ni violent, ni insens\u00e9, ni impie, et il\nrespectera un suppliant.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et la messag\u00e8re Iris aux pieds tourbillonnants\ns'\u00e9lan\u00e7a et parvint aux demeures de Priamos, pleines de\ng\u00e9missements et de deuil. Et les fils \u00e9taient assis dans la cour\nautour de leur p\u00e8re, et ils trempaient de larmes leurs v\u00eatements.\nEt, au milieu d'eux, le vieillard s'enveloppait dans son manteau,\net sa t\u00eate blanche et ses \u00e9paules \u00e9taient souill\u00e9es de la cendre\nqu'il y avait r\u00e9pandue de ses mains, en se roulant sur la terre.\nEt ses filles et ses belles-filles se lamentaient par les\ndemeures, se souvenant de tant de braves guerriers tomb\u00e9s morts\nsous les mains des Argiens. Et la messag\u00e8re de Zeus, s'approchant\nde Priamos, lui parla \u00e0 voix basse, car le tremblement agitait les\nmembres du vieillard:\n\n-- Rassure-toi, Priamos Dardanide, et ne tremble pas. Je ne viens\npoint t'annoncer de malheur, mais une heureuse nouvelle. Je suis\nenvoy\u00e9e par Zeus qui, de loin, prend souci de toi et te plaint.\nL'Olympien t'ordonne de racheter le divin Hekt\u00f4r, et de porter \u00e0\nAkhilleus des pr\u00e9sents qui fl\u00e9chissent son coeur. Qu'aucun autre\nTroien ne te suive, sauf un h\u00e9raut v\u00e9n\u00e9rable qui conduise les\nmulets et le char rapide, et ram\u00e8ne vers la ville le cadavre de\nHekt\u00f4r que le divin Akhilleus a tu\u00e9. N'aie ni inqui\u00e9tude, ni\nterreur. Le tueur d'Argos sera ton guide et il te conduira jusqu'\u00e0\nAkhilleus. Et quand il t'aura men\u00e9 dans la tente d'Akhilleus,\ncelui-ci ne te tuera point, et m\u00eame il te d\u00e9fendra contre tous,\ncar il n'est ni violent, ni insens\u00e9, ni impie, et il respectera un\nsuppliant.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, la rapide Iris partit. Et Priamos ordonna \u00e0 ses\nfils d'atteler les mulets au char, et d'y attacher une corbeille.\nEt il se rendit dans la chambre nuptiale, parfum\u00e9e, en bois de\nc\u00e8dre, et haute, et qui contenait beaucoup de choses admirables.\nEt il appela sa femme H\u00e9kab\u00e8, et il lui dit:\n\n-- \u00d4 ch\u00e8re! un messager oympien m'est venu de Zeus, afin qu'allant\naux nefs des Akhaiens, je rach\u00e8te mon fils bien-aim\u00e9, et que je\nporte \u00e0 Akhilleus des pr\u00e9sents qui fl\u00e9chissent son coeur. Dis-moi\nce que tu penses dans ton esprit. Pour moi, mon courage et mon\ncoeur me poussent vers les nefs et la grande arm\u00e9e des Akhaiens.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et la femme se lamenta et r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Malheur \u00e0 moi! Tu as perdu cette prudence qui t'a illustr\u00e9\nparmi les \u00e9trangers et ceux auxquels tu commandes. Tu veux aller\nseul vers les nefs des Akhaiens, et rencontrer cet homme qui t'a\ntu\u00e9 tant de braves enfants! Sans doute ton coeur est de fer. D\u00e8s\nqu'il t'aura vu et saisi, cet homme f\u00e9roce et sans foi n'aura\npoint piti\u00e9 de toi et ne te respectera point, et nous te\npleurerons seuls dans nos demeures. Lorsque la moire puissante\nre\u00e7ut Hekt\u00f4r naissant dans ses langes, apr\u00e8s que je l'eus enfant\u00e9,\nelle le destina \u00e0 rassasier les chiens rapides, loin de ses\nparents, sous les yeux d'un guerrier f\u00e9roce. Que ne puis-je,\nattach\u00e9e \u00e0 cet homme, lui manger le coeur! Alors seraient expi\u00e9s\nles maux de mon fils qui, cependant, n'est point mort en l\u00e2che, et\nqui, sans rien craindre et sans fuir, a combattu jusqu'\u00e0 la fin\npour les Troiens et les Troiennes.\n\nEt le divin vieillard Priamos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ne tente point de me retenir, et ne sois point dans nos\ndemeures un oiseau de mauvais augure. Si quelque homme terrestre\nm'avait parl\u00e9, soit un divinateur, soit un hi\u00e9rophante, je\ncroirais qu'il a menti, et je ne l'\u00e9couterais point; mais j'ai vu\net entendu une d\u00e9esse, et je pars, car sa parole s'accomplira. Si\nma destin\u00e9e est de p\u00e9rir aupr\u00e8s des nefs des Akhaiens aux tuniques\nd'airain, soit! Akhilleus me tuera; tandis que je me rassasierai\nde sanglots en embrassant mon fils.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il ouvrit les beaux couvercles de ses coffres.\nEt il prit douze p\u00e9plos magnifiques, douze couvertures simples,\nautant de tapis, autant de beaux manteaux et autant de tuniques.\nIl prit dix talents pesant d'or, deux tr\u00e9pieds \u00e9clatants, quatre\nvases et une coupe magnifique que les guerriers thr\u00e8kiens lui\navaient donn\u00e9e, pr\u00e9sent merveilleux, quand il \u00e9tait all\u00e9 en envoy\u00e9\nchez eux. Mais le vieillard en priva ses demeures, d\u00e9sirant dans\nson coeur racheter son fils. Et il chassa loin du portique tous\nles Troiens, en leur adressant ces paroles injurieuses:\n\n-- Allez, mis\u00e9rables couverts d'opprobre! N'avez-vous point de\ndeuil dans vos demeures? Pourquoi vous occupez-vous de moi? Vous\nr\u00e9jouissez-vous des maux dont le Kronide Zeus m'accable, et de ce\nque j'ai perdu mon fils excellent? Vous en sentirez aussi la\nperte, car, maintenant qu'il est mort, vous serez une proie plus\nfacile pour les Akhaiens. Pour moi avant de voir de mes yeux la\nville renvers\u00e9e et saccag\u00e9e, je descendrai dans les demeures\nd'Aid\u00e8s!\n\nIl parla ainsi, et de son sceptre il repoussait les hommes, et\nceux-ci se retiraient devant le vieillard qui les chassait. Et il\nappelait ses fils avec menace, injuriant H\u00e9l\u00e9nos et P\u00e2ris, et le\ndivin Agath\u00f4n, et Pamm\u00f4n, et Antiph\u00f4n, et le brave Polit\u00e8s, et\nD\u00e8iphobos, et Hippothoos, et le divin Aganos. Et le vieillard, les\nappelant tous les neuf, leur commandait rudement:\n\n-- H\u00e2tez-vous, mis\u00e9rables et inf\u00e2mes enfants! Pl\u00fbt aux dieux que\ntous ensemble, au lieu de Hekt\u00f4r, vous fussiez tomb\u00e9s devant les\nnefs rapides! Malheureux que je suis! J'avais engendr\u00e9, dans la\ngrande Troi\u00e8, des fils excellents, et pas un d'entre eux ne m'est\nrest\u00e9, ni l'illustre M\u00e8st\u00f4r, ni Tr\u00f4ilos dompteur de chevaux, ni\nHekt\u00f4r qui \u00e9tait comme un dieu parmi les hommes, et qui ne\nsemblait pas \u00eatre le fils d'un homme, mais d'un dieu. Ar\u00e8s me les\na tous enlev\u00e9s, et il ne me reste que des l\u00e2ches, des menteurs,\ndes sauteurs qui ne sont habiles qu'aux danses, des voleurs\npublics d'agneaux et de chevreaux! Ne vous h\u00e2terez-vous point de\nme pr\u00e9parer ce char? N'y placerez-vous point toutes ces choses,\nafin que je parte?\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, redoutant les menaces de leur p\u00e8re, ils\namen\u00e8rent le beau char neuf, aux roues solides, attel\u00e9 de mulets,\net ils y attach\u00e8rent une corbeille. Et ils prirent contre la\nmuraille le joug de buis, bossu\u00e9 et garni d'anneaux; et ils\nprirent aussi les courroies du timon, longues de neuf coud\u00e9es,\nqu'ils attach\u00e8rent au bout du timon poli en les passant dans\nl'anneau. Et ils les li\u00e8rent trois fois autour du bouton; puis,\nles r\u00e9unissant, ils les fix\u00e8rent par un noeud. Et ils apport\u00e8rent\nde la chambre nuptiale les pr\u00e9sents infinis destin\u00e9s au rachat de\nHekt\u00f4r, et ils les amass\u00e8rent sur le char. Puis, ils mirent sous\nle joug les mulets aux sabots solides que les Mysiens avaient\nautrefois donn\u00e9s \u00e0 Priamos. Et ils amen\u00e8rent aussi \u00e0 Priamos les\nchevaux que le vieillard nourrissait lui-m\u00eame \u00e0 la cr\u00e8che polie.\nEt, sous les hauts portiques, le h\u00e9raut et Priamos, tous deux\npleins de prudence, les attel\u00e8rent.\n\nPuis, H\u00e9kab\u00e8, le coeur triste, s'approcha d'eux, portant de sa\nmain droite un doux vin dans une coupe d'or, afin qu'ils fissent\ndes libations. Et, debout devant les chevaux, elle dit \u00e0 Priamos:\n\n-- Prends, et fais des libations au p\u00e8re Zeus, et prie-le, afin de\nrevenir dans tes demeures du milieu des ennemis, puisque ton coeur\nte pousse vers les nefs, malgr\u00e9 moi. Supplie le Kroni\u00f4n Idaien qui\namasse les noires nu\u00e9es et qui voit toute la terre d'Ilios.\nDemande-lui d'envoyer \u00e0 ta droite celui des oiseaux qu'il aime le\nmieux, et dont la force est la plus grande; et, le voyant de tes\nyeux, tu marcheras, rassur\u00e9, vers les nefs des cavaliers Danaens.\nMais si Zeus qui tonne au loin ne t'envoie point ce signe, je ne\nte conseille point d'aller vers les nefs des Argiens, malgr\u00e9 ton\nd\u00e9sir.\n\nEt Priamos semblable \u00e0 un dieu, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi:\n\n-- \u00d4 femme, je ne repousserai point ton conseil. Il est bon\nd'\u00e9lever ses mains vers Zeus, afin qu'il ait piti\u00e9 de nous.\n\nLe vieillard parla ainsi, et il ordonna \u00e0 une servante de verser\nune eau pure sur ses mains. Et la servante apporta le bassin et le\nvase. Et Priamos, s'\u00e9tant lav\u00e9 les mains, re\u00e7ut la coupe de\nH\u00e9kab\u00e8; et, priant, debout au milieu de la cour, il r\u00e9pandit le\nvin, regardant l'Ouranos et disant:\n\n-- P\u00e8re Zeus, qui r\u00e8gnes sur l'Ida, tr\u00e8s glorieux, tr\u00e8s grand,\naccorde-moi de trouver gr\u00e2ce devant Akhilleus et de lui inspirer\nde la compassion. Envoie \u00e0 ma droite celui de tous les oiseaux que\ntu aimes le mieux, et dont la force est la plus grande, afin que,\nle voyant de mes yeux, je marche, rassur\u00e9, vers les nefs des\ncavaliers Danaens.\n\nIl parla ainsi en priant, et le sage Zeus l'entendit, et il envoya\nle plus v\u00e9ridique des oiseaux, l'aigle noir, le chasseur, celui\nqu'on nomme le tachet\u00e9. Autant s'ouvrent les portes de la demeure\nd'un homme riche, autant s'ouvraient ses deux ailes. Et il\napparut, volant \u00e0 droite au-dessus de la ville; et tous se\nr\u00e9jouirent de le voir, et leur coeur f\u00fbt joyeux dans leurs\npoitrines.\n\nEt le vieillard monta aussit\u00f4t sur le beau char, et il le poussa\nhors du vestibule et du portique sonore. Et les mulets tra\u00eenaient\nd'abord le char aux quatre roues, et le sage Idaios les\nconduisait. Puis, venaient les chevaux que Priamos excitait du\nfouet, et tous l'accompagnaient par la ville, en g\u00e9missant, comme\ns'il allait \u00e0 la mort. Et quand il fut descendu d'Ilios dans la\nplaine, tous revinrent dans la ville, ses fils et ses gendres.\n\nEt Zeus au large regard, les voyant dans la plaine, eut piti\u00e9 du\nvieux Priamos, et, aussit\u00f4t, il dit \u00e0 son fils bien-aim\u00e9 Herm\u00e9ias:\n\n-- Herm\u00e9ias, puisque tu te plais avec les hommes et que tu peux\nexaucer qui tu veux, va! conduis Priamos aux nefs creuses des\nAkhaiens, et fais qu'aucun des Danaens ne l'aper\u00e7oive avant qu'il\nparvienne au P\u00e8l\u00e9ide.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le messager tueur d'Argos ob\u00e9it. Et aussit\u00f4t il\nattacha \u00e0 ses talons de belles ailes immortelles et d'or qui le\nportaient sur la mer et sur la terre immense comme le souffle du\nvent. Et il prit la verge qui, selon qu'il le veut, ferme les\npaupi\u00e8res des hommes ou les \u00e9veille. Et, la tenant \u00e0 la main,\nl'illustre tueur d'Argos s'envola et parvint aussit\u00f4t \u00e0 Troi\u00e8 et\nau Hellespontos. Et il s'approcha, semblable \u00e0 un jeune homme\nroyal dans la fleur de sa belle jeunesse.\n\nEt les deux vieillards, ayant d\u00e9pass\u00e9 la grande tombe d'Ilos,\narr\u00eat\u00e8rent les mulets et les chevaux pour les faire boire au\nfleuve. Et d\u00e9j\u00e0 l'ombre du soir se r\u00e9pandait sur la terre. Et le\nh\u00e9raut aper\u00e7ut Herm\u00e9ias, non loin, et il dit \u00e0 Priamos:\n\n-- Prends garde, Dardanide! Ceci demande de la prudence. Je vois\nun homme, et je pense que nous allons p\u00e9rir. Fuyons promptement\navec les chevaux, ou supplions-le en embrassant ses genoux. Peut-\n\u00eatre aura-t-il piti\u00e9 de nous.\n\nIl parla ainsi et l'esprit de Priamos fut troubl\u00e9, et il eut peur,\net ses cheveux se tinrent droits sur sa t\u00eate courb\u00e9e, et il resta\nstup\u00e9fait. Mais Herm\u00e9ias, s'approchant, lui prit la main et\nl'interrogea ainsi:\n\n-- P\u00e8re, o\u00f9 m\u00e8nes-tu ces chevaux et ces mulets, dans la nuit\nsolitaire, tandis que tous les autres hommes dorment? Ne crains-tu\npas les Akhaiens pleins de force, ces ennemis redoutables qui sont\npr\u00e8s de toi? Si quelqu'un d'entre eux te rencontrait par la nuit\nnoire et rapide, emmenant tant de richesses, que ferais-tu? C'est\nun vieillard qui te suit, et tu n'es plus assez jeune pour\nrepousser un guerrier qui vous attaquerait. Mais, loin de te\nnuire, je te pr\u00e9serverai de tout mal, car tu me sembles mon p\u00e8re\nbien-aim\u00e9.\n\nEt le vieux et divin Priamos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Mon cher fils, tu as dit la v\u00e9rit\u00e9. Mais un des dieux me\nprot\u00e8ge encore, puisqu'il envoie heureusement sur mon chemin un\nguide tel que toi. Ton corps et ton visage sont beaux, ton esprit\nest sage, et tu es n\u00e9 de parents heureux.\n\nEt le messager, tueur d'Argos, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Vieillard, tu n'as point parl\u00e9 au hasard. Mais r\u00e9ponds, et dis\nla v\u00e9rit\u00e9. Envoies-tu ces tr\u00e9sors nombreux et pr\u00e9cieux \u00e0 des\nhommes \u00e9trangers, afin qu'on te les conserve? ou, dans votre\nterreur, abandonnez-vous tous la sainte Ilios, car un guerrier\nillustre est mort, ton fils, qui, dans le combat, ne le c\u00e9dait\npoint aux Akhaiens?\n\nEt le vieux et divin Priamos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Qui donc es-tu, \u00f4 excellent! Et de quels parents es-tu n\u00e9, toi\nqui parles si bien de la destin\u00e9e de mon fils malheureux?\n\nEt le messager, tueur d'Argos, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Tu m'interroges, vieillard, sur le divin Hekt\u00f4r. Je l'ai vu\nsouvent de mes yeux dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e glorieuse, quand, repoussant\nvers les nefs les Argiens dispers\u00e9s, il les tuait de l'airain\naigu. Immobiles, nous l'admirions; car Akhilleus, irrit\u00e9 contre\nl'Atr\u00e9ide, ne nous permettait point de combattre. Je suis son\nserviteur, et la m\u00eame nef bien construite nous a port\u00e9s. Je suis\nun des Myrmidones et mon p\u00e8re est Polykt\u00f4r. Il est riche et vieux\ncomme toi. Il a sept fils et je suis le septi\u00e8me. Ayant tir\u00e9 au\nsort avec eux, je fus d\u00e9sign\u00e9 pour suivre Akhilleus. J'allais\nmaintenant des nefs dans la plaine. Demain matin les Akhaiens aux\nsourcils arqu\u00e9s porteront le combat autour de la ville. Ils se\nplaignent du repos, et les rois des Akhaiens ne peuvent retenir\nles guerriers avides de combattre.\n\nEt le vieux et divin Priamos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Si tu es le serviteur du P\u00e8l\u00e8iade Akhilleus, dis-moi toute la\nv\u00e9rit\u00e9. Mon fils est-il encore aupr\u00e8s des nefs, ou d\u00e9j\u00e0 Akhilleus\na-t-il tranch\u00e9 tous ses membres, pour les livrer \u00e0 ses chiens?\n\nEt le messager, tueur d'Argos, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 vieillard, les chiens ne l'ont point encore mang\u00e9, ni les\noiseaux, mais il est couch\u00e9 devant la nef d'Akhilleus, sous la\ntente. Voici douze jours et le corps n'est point corrompu, et les\nvers, qui d\u00e9vorent les guerriers tomb\u00e9s dans le combat, ne l'ont\npoint mang\u00e9. Mais Akhilleus le tra\u00eene sans piti\u00e9 autour du tombeau\nde son cher compagnon, d\u00e8s que la divine \u00c9\u00f4s repara\u00eet, et il ne le\nfl\u00e9trit point. Tu admirerais, si tu le voyais, combien il est\nfrais. Le sang est lav\u00e9, il est sans aucune souillure, et toutes\nles blessures sont ferm\u00e9es que beaucoup de guerriers lui ont\nfaites. Ainsi les dieux heureux prennent soin de ton fils, tout\nmort qu'il est, parce qu'il leur \u00e9tait cher.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le vieillard, plein de joie, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 mon enfant, certes, il est bon d'offrir aux immortels les\npr\u00e9sents qui leur sont dus. Jamais mon fils, quand il vivait, n'a\noubli\u00e9, dans ses demeures, les dieux qui habitent l'Olympos, et\nvoici qu'ils se souviennent de lui dans la mort. Re\u00e7ois cette\nbelle coupe de ma main, fais qu'on me rende Hekt\u00f4r, et conduis-\nmoi, \u00e0 l'aide des dieux, jusqu'\u00e0 la tente du P\u00e8l\u00e9ide.\n\nEt le messager, tueur d'Argos, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Vieillard, tu veux tenter ma jeunesse, mais tu ne me\npersuaderas point de prendre tes dons \u00e0 l'insu d'Akhilleus. Je le\ncrains, en effet, et je le v\u00e9n\u00e8re trop dans mon coeur pour le\nd\u00e9pouiller, et il m'en arriverait malheur. Mais je\nt'accompagnerais jusque dans l'illustre Argos, sur une nef rapide,\nou \u00e0 pied; et aucun, si je te conduis, ne me bravera en\nt'attaquant.\n\nHerm\u00e9ias, ayant ainsi parl\u00e9, sauta sur le char, saisit le fouet et\nles r\u00eanes et inspira une grande force aux chevaux et aux mulets.\nEt ils arriv\u00e8rent au foss\u00e9 et aux tours des nefs, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 les gardes\nachevaient de prendre leur repas. Et le messager, tueur d'Argos,\nr\u00e9pandit le sommeil sur eux tous; et, soulevant les barres, il\nouvrit les portes, et il fit entrer Priamos et ses pr\u00e9sents\nsplendides dans le camp, et ils parvinrent \u00e0 la grande tente du\nP\u00e8l\u00e8iade. Et les Myrmidones l'avaient faite pour leur roi avec des\nplanches de sapin, et ils l'avaient couverte d'un toit de joncs\ncoup\u00e9s dans la prairie. Et tout autour ils avaient fait une grande\nenceinte de pieux; et la porte en \u00e9tait ferm\u00e9e par un seul tronc\nde sapin, barre \u00e9norme que trois hommes, les Akhaiens, ouvraient\net fermaient avec peine, et que le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide soulevait seul. Le\nbienveillant Herm\u00e9ias la retira pour Priamos, et il conduisit le\nvieillard dans l'int\u00e9rieur de la cour, avec les illustres pr\u00e9sents\ndestin\u00e9s \u00e0 Akhilleus aux pieds rapides. Et il sauta du char sur la\nterre, et il dit:\n\n-- \u00d4 vieillard, je suis Herm\u00e9ias, un dieu immortel, et Zeus m'a\nenvoy\u00e9 pour te conduire. Mais je vais te quitter, et je ne me\nmontrerai point aux yeux d'Akhilleus, car il n'est point digne\nd'un Immortel de prot\u00e9ger ainsi ouvertement les mortels. Toi,\nentre, saisis les genoux du P\u00e8l\u00e9i\u00f4n et supplie-le au nom de son\np\u00e8re, de sa m\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable et de son fils, afin de toucher son\ncoeur.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, Herm\u00e9ias monta vers le haut Olympos; et Priamos\nsauta du char sur la terre, et il laissa Idaios pour garder les\nchevaux et les mulets, et il entra dans la tente o\u00f9 Akhilleus cher\n\u00e0 Zeus \u00e9tait assis. Et il le trouva. Ses compagnons \u00e9taient assis\n\u00e0 l'\u00e9cart; et seuls, le h\u00e9ros Autom\u00e9d\u00f4n et le nourrisson d'Ar\u00e8s\nAlkimos le servaient. D\u00e9j\u00e0 il avait cess\u00e9 de manger et de boire,\net la table \u00e9tait encore devant lui. Et le grand Priamos entra\nsans \u00eatre vu d'eux, et, s'approchant, il entoura de ses bras les\ngenoux d'Akhilleus, et il baisa les mains terribles et meurtri\u00e8res\nqui lui avaient tu\u00e9 tant de fils.\n\nQuand un homme a encouru une grande peine, ayant tu\u00e9 quelqu'un\ndans sa patrie, et quand, exil\u00e9 chez un peuple \u00e9tranger, il entre\ndans une riche demeure, tous ceux qui le voient restent\nstup\u00e9faits. Ainsi Akhilleus fut troubl\u00e9 en voyant le divin\nPriamos; et les autres, pleins d'\u00e9tonnement, se regardaient entre\neux. Et Priamos dit ces paroles suppliantes:\n\n-- Souviens-toi de ton p\u00e8re, \u00f4 Akhilleus \u00e9gal aux dieux! Il est de\nmon \u00e2ge et sur le seuil fatal de la vieillesse. Ses voisins\nl'oppriment peut-\u00eatre en ton absence, et il n'a personne qui\n\u00e9carte loin de lui l'outrage et le malheur; mais, au moins, il\nsait que tu es vivant, et il s'en r\u00e9jouit dans son coeur, et il\nesp\u00e8re tous les jours qu'il verra son fils bien-aim\u00e9 de retour\nd'Ilios. Mais, moi, malheureux! qui ai engendr\u00e9 des fils\nirr\u00e9prochables dans la grande Troi\u00e8, je ne sais s'il m'en reste un\nseul. J'en avais cinquante quand les Akhaiens arriv\u00e8rent. Dix-neuf\n\u00e9taient sortis du m\u00eame sein, et plusieurs femmes avaient enfant\u00e9\nles autres dans mes demeures. L'imp\u00e9tueux Ar\u00e8s a rompu les genoux\ndu plus grand nombre. Un seul d\u00e9fendait ma ville et mes peuples,\nHekt\u00f4r, que tu viens de tuer tandis qu'il combattait pour sa\npatrie. Et c'est pour lui que je viens aux nefs des Akhaiens; et\nje t'apporte, afin de le racheter, des pr\u00e9sents infinis. Respecte\nles dieux, Akhilleus, et, te souvenant de ton p\u00e8re, aie piti\u00e9 de\nmoi qui suis plus malheureux que lui, car j'ai pu, ce qu'aucun\nhomme n'a encore fait sur la terre, approcher de ma bouche les\nmains de celui qui a tu\u00e9 mes enfants!\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il remplit Akhilleus du regret de son p\u00e8re. Et\nle P\u00e8l\u00e8iade, prenant le vieillard par la main, le repoussa\ndoucement. Et ils se souvenaient tous deux; et Priamos, prostern\u00e9\naux pieds d'Akhilleus, pleurait de toutes ses larmes le tueur\nd'hommes Hekt\u00f4r; et Akhilleus pleurait son p\u00e8re et Patroklos, et\nleurs g\u00e9missements retentissaient sous la tente.\n\nPuis, le divin Akhilleus, s'\u00e9tant rassasi\u00e9 de larmes, sentit sa\ndouleur s'apaiser dans sa poitrine, et il se leva de son si\u00e8ge; et\nplein de piti\u00e9 pour cette t\u00eate et cette barbe blanche, il releva\nle vieillard de sa main et lui dit ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Ah! malheureux! Certes, tu as subi des peines sans nombre dans\nton coeur. Comment as-tu os\u00e9 venir seul vers les nefs des Akhaiens\net soutenir la vue de l'homme qui t'a tu\u00e9 tant de braves enfants?\nTon coeur est de fer. Mais prends ce si\u00e8ge, et, bien qu'afflig\u00e9s,\nlaissons nos douleurs s'apaiser, car le deuil ne nous rend rien.\nLes dieux ont destin\u00e9 les mis\u00e9rables mortels \u00e0 vivre pleins de\ntristesse, et, seuls, ils n'ont point de soucis. Deux tonneaux\nsont au seuil de Zeus, et l'un contient les maux, et l'autre les\nbiens. Et le foudroyant Zeus, m\u00ealant ce qu'il donne, envoie tant\u00f4t\nle mal et tant\u00f4t le bien. Et celui qui n'a re\u00e7u que des dons\nmalheureux est en proie \u00e0 l'outrage, et la mauvaise faim le ronge\nsur la terre f\u00e9conde, et il va \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0, non honor\u00e9 des dieux ni\ndes hommes. Ainsi les dieux firent \u00e0 P\u00e8leus des dons illustres d\u00e8s\nsa naissance, et plus que tous les autres hommes il fut combl\u00e9 de\nf\u00e9licit\u00e9s et de richesses, et il commanda aux Myrmidones, et,\nmortel, il fut uni \u00e0 une d\u00e9esse. Mais les dieux le frapp\u00e8rent d'un\nmal: il fut priv\u00e9 d'une post\u00e9rit\u00e9 h\u00e9riti\u00e8re de sa puissance, et il\nn'engendra qu'un fils qui doit bient\u00f4t mourir et qui ne soignera\npoint sa vieillesse; car, loin de ma patrie, je reste devant\nTroi\u00e8, pour ton affliction et celle de tes enfants. Et toi-m\u00eame,\nvieillard, nous avons appris que tu \u00e9tais heureux autrefois, et\nque sur toute la terre qui va jusqu'\u00e0 Lesbos de Makar, et, vers le\nnord, jusqu'\u00e0 la Phrygi\u00e8 et le large Hellespontos, tu \u00e9tais\nillustre \u00f4 vieillard, par tes richesses et par tes enfants. Et\nvoici que les dieux t'ont frapp\u00e9 d'une calamit\u00e9, et, depuis la\nguerre et le carnage, des guerriers environnent ta ville. Sois\nferme, et ne te lamente point dans ton coeur sur l'in\u00e9vitable\ndestin\u00e9e. Tu ne feras point revivre ton fils par tes g\u00e9missements.\nCrains plut\u00f4t de subir d'autres maux.\n\nEt le vieux et divin Priamos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ne me dis point de me reposer, \u00f4 nourrisson de Zeus, tant que\nHekt\u00f4r est couch\u00e9 sans s\u00e9pulture devant tes tentes. Rends-le-moi\npromptement, afin je le voie de mes yeux, et re\u00e7ois les pr\u00e9sents\nnombreux que nous te portons. Puisses-tu en jouir et retourner\ndans la terre de ta patrie, puisque tu m'as laiss\u00e9 vivre et voir\nla lumi\u00e8re de H\u00e9lios.\n\nEt Akhilleus aux pieds rapides, le regardant d'un oeil sombre, lui\nr\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Vieillard, ne m'irrite pas davantage. Je sais que je dois te\nrendre Hekt\u00f4r. La m\u00e8re qui m'a enfant\u00e9, la fille du Vieillard de\nla mer, m'a \u00e9t\u00e9 envoy\u00e9e par Zeus. Et je sais aussi, Priamos, et tu\nn'as pu me cacher, qu'un des dieux t\u0092a conduit aux nefs rapides\ndes Akhaiens. Aucun homme, bien que jeune et brave, n'e\u00fbt os\u00e9\nvenir jusqu'au camp. Il n'e\u00fbt point \u00e9chapp\u00e9 aux gardes, ni soulev\u00e9\nais\u00e9ment les barri\u00e8res de nos portes. Ne r\u00e9veille donc point les\ndouleurs de mon \u00e2me. Bien que je t'aie re\u00e7u, vieillard, comme un\nsuppliant sous mes tentes, crains que je viole les ordres de Zeus\net que je te tue.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le vieillard trembla et ob\u00e9it. Et le P\u00e8l\u00e9ide\nsauta comme un lion hors de la tente. Et il n'\u00e9tait point seul, et\ndeux serviteurs le suivirent, le h\u00e9ros Autom\u00e9d\u00f4n et Alkimos. Et\nAkhilleus les honorait entre tous ses compagnons depuis la mort de\nPatroklos. Et ils d\u00e9tel\u00e8rent les chevaux et les mulets, et ils\nfirent entrer le h\u00e9raut de Priamos et lui donn\u00e8rent un si\u00e8ge. Puis\nils enlev\u00e8rent du beau char les pr\u00e9sents infinis qui rachetaient\nHekt\u00f4r; mais ils y laiss\u00e8rent deux manteaux et une riche tunique\npour envelopper le cadavre qu'on allait emporter dans Ilios.\n\nEt Akhilleus, appelant les femmes, leur ordonna de laver le\ncadavre et de le parfumer \u00e0 l'\u00e9cart, afin que Priamos ne v\u00eet point\nson fils, et de peur qu'en le voyant, le p\u00e8re ne p\u00fbt contenir sa\ncol\u00e8re dans son coeur irrit\u00e9, et qu'Akhilleus, furieux, le tu\u00e2t,\nen violant les ordres de Zeus. Et apr\u00e8s que les femmes, ayant lav\u00e9\net parfum\u00e9 le cadavre, l'eurent envelopp\u00e9 du beau manteau et de la\ntunique, Akhilleus le souleva lui-m\u00eame du lit fun\u00e8bre, et, avec\nl'aide de ses compagnons, il le pla\u00e7a sur le beau char. Puis, il\nappela en g\u00e9missant son cher compagnon:\n\n-- Ne t'irrite point contre moi, Patroklos, si tu apprends, chez\nAid\u00e8s, que j'ai rendu le divin Hekt\u00f4r \u00e0 son p\u00e8re bien-aim\u00e9; car il\nm'a fait des pr\u00e9sents honorables, dont je te r\u00e9serve, comme il est\njuste, une part \u00e9gale.\n\nLe divin Akhilleus, ayant ainsi parl\u00e9, rentra dans sa tente. Et il\nreprit le si\u00e8ge poli qu'il occupait en face de Priamos, et il lui\ndit:\n\n-- Ton fils t'est rendu, vieillard, comme tu l'as d\u00e9sir\u00e9. Il est\ncouch\u00e9 sur un lit. Tu le verras et tu l'emporteras au retour\nd'\u00c9\u00f4s. Maintenant, songeons au repas. Niob\u00e8 aux beaux cheveux\nelle-m\u00eame se souvint de manger apr\u00e8s que ses douze enfants eurent\np\u00e9ri dans ses demeures, six filles et autant de fils florissants\nde jeunesse. Apoll\u00f4n, irrit\u00e9 contre Niob\u00e8, tua ceux-ci de son arc\nd'argent; et Art\u00e9mis qui se r\u00e9jouit de ses fl\u00e8ches tua celles-l\u00e0,\nparce que Niob\u00e8 s'\u00e9tait \u00e9gal\u00e9e \u00e0 L\u00e8t\u00f4 aux belles joues, disant que\nla d\u00e9esse n'avait con\u00e7u que deux enfants, tandis qu'elle en avait\ncon\u00e7u de nombreux. Elle le disait, mais les deux enfants de L\u00e8t\u00f4\ntu\u00e8rent tous les siens. Et depuis neuf jours ils \u00e9taient couch\u00e9s\ndans le sang, et nul ne les ensevelissait: le Kroni\u00f4n avait chang\u00e9\nces peuples en pierres; mais, le dixi\u00e8me jour, les dieux les\nensevelirent. Et, cependant, Niob\u00e8 se souvenait de manger\nlorsqu'elle \u00e9tait fatigu\u00e9e de pleurer. Et maintenant, au milieu\ndes rochers et des montagnes d\u00e9sertes, sur le Sipylos, o\u00f9 sont les\nretraites des nymphes divines qui dansent autour de l'Akh\u00e9l\u00f4ios,\nbien que chang\u00e9e en pierre par les dieux, elle souffre encore.\nAllons, divin vieillard, mangeons. Tu pleureras ensuite ton fils\nbien-aim\u00e9, quand tu l'auras conduit dans Ilios. L\u00e0, il te fera\nr\u00e9pandre des larmes.\n\nLe rapide Akhilleus parla ainsi, et, se levant, il tua une brebis\nblanche. Et ses compagnons, l'ayant \u00e9corch\u00e9e, la pr\u00e9par\u00e8rent avec\nsoin. Et, la coupant en morceaux, ils les fix\u00e8rent \u00e0 des broches,\nles r\u00f4tirent et les retir\u00e8rent \u00e0 temps. Et Autom\u00e9d\u00f4n, prenant le\npain, le distribua sur la table dans de belles corbeilles. Et\nAkhilleus distribua lui-m\u00eame les chairs. Tous \u00e9tendirent les mains\nsur les mets qui \u00e9taient devant eux. Et quand ils n'eurent plus le\nd\u00e9sir de boire et de manger, le Dardanide Priamos admira combien\nAkhilleus \u00e9tait grand et beau et semblable aux dieux. Et Akhilleus\nadmirait aussi le Dardanide Priamos, son aspect v\u00e9n\u00e9rable et ses\nsages paroles. Et, quand ils se furent admir\u00e9s longtemps, le vieux\net divin Priamos parla ainsi:\n\n-- Fais que je puisse me coucher promptement, nourrisson de Zeus,\nafin que je jouisse du doux sommeil; car mes yeux ne se sont point\nferm\u00e9s sous mes paupi\u00e8res depuis que mon fils a rendu l'\u00e2me sous\ntes mains. Je n'ai fait que me lamenter et subir des douleurs\ninfinies, prostern\u00e9 sur le fumier, dans l'enceinte de ma cour. Et\nje n'ai pris quelque nourriture, et je n'ai bu de vin qu'ici.\nAuparavant, je n'avais rien mang\u00e9.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Akhilleus ordonna \u00e0 ses compagnons et aux\nfemmes de pr\u00e9parer des lits sous le portique, et d'y \u00e9tendre de\nbelles \u00e9toffes pourpr\u00e9es, puis des tapis, et, par-dessus, des\ntuniques de laine. Et les femmes, sortant de la tente avec des\ntorches aux mains, pr\u00e9par\u00e8rent aussit\u00f4t deux lits. Et alors\nAkhilleus aux pieds rapides dit avec bienveillance:\n\nTu dormiras hors de la tente, cher vieillard, de peur qu'un des\nAkhaiens, venant me consulter, comme ils en ont coutume, ne\nt'aper\u00e7oive dans la nuit noire et rapide. Et aussit\u00f4t il en\navertirait le prince des peuples Agamemn\u00f4n, et peut-\u00eatre que le\nrachat du cadavre serait retard\u00e9. Mais r\u00e9ponds-moi, et dis la\nv\u00e9rit\u00e9. Combien de jours d\u00e9sires-tu pour ensevelir le divin\nHekt\u00f4r, afin que je reste en repos pendant ce temps, et que je\nretienne les peuples?\n\nEt le vieux et divin Priamos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Si tu veux que je rende de justes honneurs au divin Hekt\u00f4r, en\nfaisant cela, Akhilleus, tu exauceras mon voeu le plus cher. Tu\nsais que nous sommes renferm\u00e9s dans la ville, et loin de la\nmontagne o\u00f9 le bois doit \u00eatre coup\u00e9, et que les Troiens sont\nsaisis de terreur. Pendant neuf jours nous pleurerons Hekt\u00f4r dans\nnos demeures; le dixi\u00e8me, nous l'ensevelirons, et le peuple fera\nle repas fun\u00e8bre; le onzi\u00e8me, nous le placerons dans le tombeau,\net, le douzi\u00e8me, nous combattrons de nouveau, s'il le faut.\n\nEt le divin Akhilleus aux pieds rapides lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Vieillard Priamos, il en sera ainsi, selon ton d\u00e9sir; et\npendant ce temps, j'arr\u00eaterai la guerre.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il serra la main droite du vieillard afin qu'il\ncess\u00e2t de craindre dans son coeur. Et le h\u00e9raut et Priamos, tous\ndeux pleins de sagesse, s'endormirent sous le portique de la\ntente. Et Akhilleus s'endormit dans le fond de sa tente bien\nconstruite, et Breis\u00e8is aux belles joues coucha aupr\u00e8s de lui.\n\nEt tous les dieux et les hommes qui combattent \u00e0 cheval dormaient\ndans la nuit, dompt\u00e9s par le doux sommeil; mais le sommeil ne\nsaisit point le bienveillant Herm\u00e9ias, qui songeait \u00e0 emmener le\nroi Priamos du milieu des nefs, sans \u00eatre vu des gardes sacr\u00e9s des\nportes. Et il s'approcha de sa t\u00eate et il lui dit:\n\n-- \u00d4 vieillard! ne crains-tu donc aucun malheur, que tu dormes\nainsi au milieu d'hommes ennemis, apr\u00e8s qu'Akhilleus t'a \u00e9pargn\u00e9?\nMaintenant que tu as rachet\u00e9 ton fils bien-aim\u00e9 par de nombreux\npr\u00e9sents, les fils qui te restent en donneront trois fois autant\npour te racheter vivant, si l'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n te d\u00e9couvre, et si\ntous les Akhaiens l'apprennent.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le vieillard trembla; et il ordonna au h\u00e9raut\nde se lever. Et Herm\u00e9ias attela leurs mulets et leurs chevaux, et\nil les conduisit rapidement \u00e0 travers le camp, et nul ne les vit.\nEt quand ils furent arriv\u00e9s au gu\u00e9 du fleuve au beau cours, du\nXanthos tourbillonnant que l'immortel Zeus engendra, Herm\u00e9ias\nremonta vers le haut Olympos.\n\nEt d\u00e9j\u00e0 \u00c9\u00f4s au p\u00e9plos couleur de safran se r\u00e9pandait sur toute la\nterre, et les deux vieillards poussaient les chevaux vers la\nville, en pleurant et en se lamentant, et les mulets portaient le\ncadavre. Et nul ne les aper\u00e7ut, parmi les hommes et les femmes aux\nbelles ceintures, avant Kassandr\u00e8 semblable \u00e0 Aphrodit\u00e8 d'or. Et,\ndu haut de Pergamos, elle vit son p\u00e8re bien-aim\u00e9, debout sur le\nchar, et le h\u00e9raut, et le corps que les mulets amenaient sur le\nlit fun\u00e8bre. Et aussit\u00f4t elle pleura, et elle cria, par toute la\nville:\n\n-- Voyez, Troiens et Troiennes! Si vous alliez autrefois au-devant\nde Hekt\u00f4r, le coeur plein de joie, quand il revenait vivant du\ncombat, voyez celui qui \u00e9tait l'orgueil de la ville et de tout un\npeuple!\n\nElle parla ainsi, et nul parmi les hommes et les femmes ne resta\ndans la ville, tant un deuil irr\u00e9sistible les entra\u00eenait tous. Et\nils coururent, au-del\u00e0 des portes, au-devant du cadavre. Et, les\npremi\u00e8res, l'\u00e9pouse bien-aim\u00e9e et la m\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable, arrachant\nleurs cheveux, se jet\u00e8rent sur le char en embrassant la t\u00eate de\nHekt\u00f4r. Et tout autour la foule pleurait. Et certes, tout le jour,\njusqu'\u00e0 la chute de H\u00e9lios, ils eussent g\u00e9mi et pleur\u00e9 devant les\nportes, si Priamos, du haut de son char, n'e\u00fbt dit \u00e0 ses peuples:\n\n-- Retirez-vous, afin que je passe avec les mulets. Nous nous\nrassasierons de larmes quand j'aurai conduit ce corps dans ma\ndemeure.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, se s\u00e9parant, ils laiss\u00e8rent le char passer.\nPuis, ayant conduit Hekt\u00f4r dans les riches demeures, ils le\nd\u00e9pos\u00e8rent sur un lit sculpt\u00e9, et ils appel\u00e8rent les chanteurs\nfun\u00e8bres, et ceux-ci g\u00e9mirent un chant lamentable auquel\nsucc\u00e9daient les plaintes des femmes. Et, parmi celles-ci,\nAndromakh\u00e8 aux bras blancs commen\u00e7a le deuil, tenant dans ses\nmains la t\u00eate du tueur d'hommes Hekt\u00f4r:\n\n-- \u00d4 homme! tu es mort jeune, et tu m'as laiss\u00e9e veuve dans mes\ndemeures, et je ne pense pas qu'il parvienne \u00e0 la pubert\u00e9, ce fils\nenfant que nous avons engendr\u00e9 tous deux, \u00f4 malheureux que nous\nsommes! Avant cela, cette ville sera renvers\u00e9e de son fa\u00eete,\npuisque son d\u00e9fenseur a p\u00e9ri, toi qui la prot\u00e9geais, et ses femmes\nfid\u00e8les et ses petits enfants. Elles seront enlev\u00e9es sur les nefs\ncreuses, et moi avec elles. Et toi, mon enfant, tu me suivras et\ntu me subiras de honteux travaux, te fatiguant pour un ma\u00eetre\nf\u00e9roce! ou bien un Akhaien, te faisant tourner de la main, te\njettera du haut d'une tour pour une mort affreuse, furieux que\nHekt\u00f4r ait tu\u00e9 ou son fr\u00e8re, ou son p\u00e8re, ou son fils; car de\nnombreux Akhaiens sont tomb\u00e9s, mordant la terre, sous ses mains.\nEt ton p\u00e8re n'\u00e9tait pas doux dans le combat, et c'est pour cela\nque les peuples le pleurent par la ville. \u00d4 Hekt\u00f4r! tu accables\ntes parents d'un deuil inconsolable, et tu me laisses surtout en\nproie \u00e0 d'affreuses douleurs, car, en mourant, tu ne m'auras point\ntendu les bras de ton lit, et tu ne m'auras point dit quelque sage\nparole dont je puisse me souvenir, les jours et les nuits, en\nversant des larmes.\n\nElle parla ainsi en pleurant, et les femmes g\u00e9mirent avec elle;\net, au milieu de celles-ci, H\u00e9kab\u00e8 continua le deuil d\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9:\n\n-- Hekt\u00f4r, le plus cher de tous mes enfants, certes, les dieux\nt'aimaient pendant ta vie, car ils ont veill\u00e9 sur toi dans la\nmort. Akhilleus aux pieds rapides a vendu tous ceux de mes fils\nqu'il a pu saisir, par-del\u00e0 la mer st\u00e9rile, \u00e0 Samos, \u00e0 Imbros, et\ndans la barbare Lemnos. Et il t'a arrach\u00e9 l'\u00e2me avec l'airain\naigu, et il t'a tra\u00een\u00e9 autour du tombeau de son compagnon\nPatroklos que tu as tu\u00e9 et qu'il n'a point fait revivre; et,\nmaintenant, te voici couch\u00e9 comme si tu venais de mourir dans nos\ndemeures, frais et semblable \u00e0 un homme que l'archer Apoll\u00f4n vient\nde frapper de ses divines fl\u00e8ches.\n\nElle parla ainsi en pleurant, et elle excita les g\u00e9missements des\nfemmes; et, au milieu de celles-ci, H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 continua le deuil:\n\n-- Hekt\u00f4r, tu \u00e9tais le plus cher de tous mes fr\u00e8res, car\nAlexandros, plein de beaut\u00e9, est mon \u00e9poux, lui qui m'a conduite\ndans Troi\u00e8. Pl\u00fbt aux dieux que j'eusse p\u00e9ri auparavant! Voici d\u00e9j\u00e0\nla vingti\u00e8me ann\u00e9e depuis que je suis venue, abandonnant ma\npatrie, et jamais tu ne m'as dit une parole injurieuse ou dure, et\nsi l'un de mes fr\u00e8res, ou l'une des mes soeurs, ou ma belle-m\u00e8re,\n-- car Priamos me fut toujours un p\u00e8re plein de douceur, -- me\nbl\u00e2mait dans nos demeures, tu les avertissais et tu les apaisais\npar ta douceur et par tes paroles bienveillantes. C'est pour cela\nque je te pleure en g\u00e9missant, moi, malheureuse, qui n'aurai plus\njamais un protecteur ni un ami dans la grande Troi\u00e8, car tous\nm'ont en horreur.\n\nElle parla ainsi en pleurant, et tout le peuple g\u00e9mit.\n\nMais le vieux Priamos leur dit:\n\n-- Troiens, amenez maintenant le bois dans la ville, et ne\ncraignez point les emb\u00fbches profondes des Argiens, car Akhilleus,\nen me renvoyant des nefs noires, m'a promis de ne point nous\nattaquer avant qu'\u00c9\u00f4s ne soit revenue pour la douzi\u00e8me fois.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous, attelant aux chars les boeufs et les\nmulets, aussit\u00f4t se rassembl\u00e8rent devant la ville. Et, pendant\nneuf jours, ils amen\u00e8rent des monceaux de bois. Et quand \u00c9\u00f4s\nreparut pour la dixi\u00e8me fois \u00e9clairant les mortels, ils plac\u00e8rent,\nen versant des larmes, le brave Hekt\u00f4r sur le faite du b\u00fbcher, et\nils y mirent le feu. Et quand \u00c9\u00f4s aux doigts ros\u00e9s, n\u00e9e au matin,\nreparut encore, tout le peuple se rassembla autour du b\u00fbcher de\nl'illustre Hekt\u00f4r. Et, apr\u00e8s s'\u00eatre rassembl\u00e9s, ils \u00e9teignirent\nd'abord le b\u00fbcher o\u00f9 la force du feu avait br\u00fbl\u00e9, avec du vin\nnoir. Puis, ses fr\u00e8res et ses compagnons recueillirent en\ng\u00e9missant ses os blancs; et les larmes coulaient sur leurs joues.\nEt ils d\u00e9pos\u00e8rent dans une urne d'or ses os fumants, et ils\nl'envelopp\u00e8rent de p\u00e9plos pourpr\u00e9s. Puis, ils la mirent dans une\nfosse creuse recouverte de grandes pierres, et, au-dessus, ils\n\u00e9lev\u00e8rent le tombeau. Et des sentinelles veillaient de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s\nde peur que les Akhaiens aux belles kn\u00e8mides ne se jetassent sur\nla ville. Puis, le tombeau \u00e9tant achev\u00e9, ils se retir\u00e8rent et se\nr\u00e9unirent en foule, afin de prendre part \u00e0 un repas solennel, dans\nles demeures du roi Priamos, nourrisson de Zeus.\n\nEt c'est ainsi qu'ils accomplirent les fun\u00e9railles de Hekt\u00f4r\ndompteur de chevaux.\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"14286":"\n\n\n\n\nHom\u00e8re\n\nTraduction Charles-Ren\u00e9-Marie Leconte de L'Isle\n\nL\u0092ODYSS\u00c9E\n\n\nTable des mati\u00e8res\n\nChants\n\n1.\n2.\n3.\n4.\n5.\n6.\n7.\n8.\n9.\n10.\n11.\n12.\n13.\n15.\n16.\n17.\n18.\n19.\n20.\n21.\n22.\n23.\n24.\n\n\n\n1.\n\nDis-moi, Muse, cet homme subtil qui erra si longtemps, apr\u00e8s qu'il\neut renvers\u00e9 la citadelle sacr\u00e9e de Troi\u00e8. Et il vit les cit\u00e9s de\npeuples nombreux, et il connut leur esprit; et, dans son coeur, il\nendura beaucoup de maux, sur la mer, pour sa propre vie et le\nretour de ses compagnons Mais il ne les sauva point, contre son\nd\u00e9sir; et ils p\u00e9rirent par leur impi\u00e9t\u00e9, les insens\u00e9s! ayant mang\u00e9\nles boeufs de H\u00e8lios Hyp\u00e9rionade. Et ce dernier leur ravit l'heure\ndu retour. Dis-moi une partie de ces choses, D\u00e9esse, fille de\nZeus. Tous ceux qui avaient \u00e9vit\u00e9 la noire mort, \u00e9chapp\u00e9s de la\nguerre et de la mer, \u00e9taient rentr\u00e9s dans leurs demeures; mais\nOdysseus restait seul, loin de son pays et de sa femme, et la\nv\u00e9n\u00e9rable Nymphe Kalyps\u00f4, la tr\u00e8s-noble d\u00e9esse, le retenait dans\nses grottes creuses, le d\u00e9sirant pour mari. Et quand le temps\nvint, apr\u00e8s le d\u00e9roulement des ann\u00e9es, o\u00f9 les Dieux voulurent\nqu'il rev\u00eet sa demeure en Ithak\u00e8, m\u00eame alors il devait subir des\ncombats au milieu des siens. Et tous les Dieux le prenaient en\npiti\u00e9, except\u00e9 Poseida\u00f4n, qui \u00e9tait toujours irrit\u00e9 contre le\ndivin Odysseus, jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'il f\u00fbt rentr\u00e9 dans son pays.\n\nEt Poseida\u00f4n \u00e9tait all\u00e9 chez les Aithiopiens qui habitent au loin\net sont partag\u00e9s en deux peuples, dont l'un regarde du c\u00f4t\u00e9 de\nHyp\u00e9ri\u00f4n, au couchant, et l'autre au levant. Et le Dieu y \u00e9tait\nall\u00e9 pour une h\u00e9catombe de taureaux et d'agneaux. Et comme il se\nr\u00e9jouissait, assis \u00e0 ce repas, les autres Dieux \u00e9taient r\u00e9unis\ndans la demeure royale de Zeus Olympien. Et le P\u00e8re des hommes et\ndes Dieux commen\u00e7a de leur parler, se rappelant dans son coeur\nl'irr\u00e9prochable Aigisthos que l'illustre Orest\u00e8s Agamemnonide\navait tu\u00e9. Se souvenant de cela, il dit ces paroles aux Immortels:\n\n-- Ah! combien les hommes accusent les Dieux! Ils disent que leurs\nmaux viennent de nous, et, seuls, ils aggravent leur destin\u00e9e par\nleur d\u00e9mence. Maintenant, voici qu'Aigisthos, contre le destin, a\n\u00e9pous\u00e9 la femme de l'Atr\u00e9ide et a tu\u00e9 ce dernier, sachant quelle\nserait sa mort terrible; car nous l'avions pr\u00e9venu par Herm\u00e9ias,\nle vigilant tueur d'Argos, de ne point tuer Agamemn\u00f4n et de ne\npoint d\u00e9sirer sa femme, de peur que l'Atr\u00e9ide Orest\u00e8s se venge\u00e2t,\nayant grandi et d\u00e9sirant revoir son pays. Herm\u00e9ias parla ainsi,\nmais son conseil salutaire n'a point persuad\u00e9 l'esprit\nd'Aigisthos, et, maintenant, celui-ci a tout expi\u00e9 d'un coup.\n\nEt Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, la D\u00e9esse aux yeux clairs, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 notre P\u00e8re, Kronide, le plus haut des Rois! celui-ci du moins\na \u00e9t\u00e9 frapp\u00e9 d'une mort juste. Qu'il meure ainsi celui qui agira\nde m\u00eame! Mais mon coeur est d\u00e9chir\u00e9 au souvenir du brave Odysseus,\nle malheureux! qui souffre depuis longtemps loin des siens, dans\nune \u00eele, au milieu de la mer, et o\u00f9 en est le centre. Et, dans\ncette \u00eele plant\u00e9e d'arbres, habite une D\u00e9esse, la fille dangereuse\nd'Atlas, lui qui conna\u00eet les profondeurs de la mer, et qui porte\nles hautes colonnes dress\u00e9es entre la terre et l'Ouranos. Et sa\nfille retient ce malheureux qui se lamente et qu'elle flatte\ntoujours de molles et douces paroles, afin qu'il oublie Ithak\u00e8;\nmais il d\u00e9sire revoir la fum\u00e9e de son pays et souhaite de mourir.\nEt ton coeur n'est point touch\u00e9, Olympien, par les sacrifices\nqu'Odysseus accomplissait pour toi aupr\u00e8s des nefs Argiennes,\ndevant la grande Troi\u00e8. Zeus, pourquoi donc es-tu si irrit\u00e9 contre\nlui?\n\nEt Zeus qui amasse les nu\u00e9es, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi:\n\n-- Mon enfant, quelle parole s'est \u00e9chapp\u00e9e d'entre tes dents?\nComment pourrais-je oublier le divin Odysseus, qui, par\nl'intelligence, est au-dessus de tous les hommes, et qui offrait\nle plus de sacrifices aux Dieux qui vivent toujours et qui\nhabitent le large Ouranos? Mais Poseida\u00f4n qui entoure la terre est\nconstamment irrit\u00e9 \u00e0 cause du Kykl\u00f4ps qu'Odysseus a aveugl\u00e9,\nPolyph\u00e8mos tel qu'un Dieu, le plus fort des Kykl\u00f4pes. La Nymphe\nTho\u00f4sa, fille de Phorkyn, ma\u00eetre de la mer sauvage, l'enfanta,\ns'\u00e9tant unie \u00e0 Poseida\u00f4n dans ses grottes creuses. C'est pour cela\nque Poseida\u00f4n qui secoue la terre, ne tuant point Odysseus, le\ncontraint d'errer loin de son pays. Mais nous, qui sommes ici,\nassurons son retour; et Poseida\u00f4n oubliera sa col\u00e8re, car il ne\npourra rien, seul, contre tous les dieux immortels.\n\nEt la D\u00e9esse Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 notre P\u00e8re, Kronide, le plus haut des Rois! s'il pla\u00eet aux\nDieux heureux que le sage Odysseus retourne en sa demeure,\nenvoyons le Messager Herm\u00e9ias, tueur d'Argos, dans l'\u00eele Ogygi\u00e8,\nafin qu'il avertisse la Nymphe \u00e0 la belle chevelure que nous avons\nr\u00e9solu le retour d'Odysseus \u00e0 l'\u00e2me forte et patiente.\n\nEt moi j'irai \u00e0 Ithak\u00e8, et j'exciterai son fils et lui inspirerai\nla force, ayant r\u00e9uni l'agora des Akhaiens chevelus, de chasser\ntous les Pr\u00e9tendants qui \u00e9gorgent ses brebis nombreuses et ses\nboeufs aux jambes torses et aux cornes recourb\u00e9es. Et je\nl'enverrai \u00e0 Spart\u00e8 et dans la sablonneuse Pylos, afin qu'il\ns'informe du retour de son p\u00e8re bien-aim\u00e9, et qu'il soit tr\u00e8s\nhonor\u00e9 parmi les hommes.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, elle attacha \u00e0 ses pieds de belles sandales\nambroisiennes, dor\u00e9es, qui la portaient sur la mer et sur\nl'immense terre comme le souffle du vent. Et elle prit une forte\nlance, arm\u00e9e d'un airain aigu, lourde, grande et solide, avec\nlaquelle elle dompte la foule des hommes h\u00e9ro\u00efques contre qui,\nfille d'un p\u00e8re puissant, elle est irrit\u00e9e. Et, s'\u00e9tant \u00e9lanc\u00e9e du\nfaite de l'Olympos, elle descendit au milieu du peuple d'Ithak\u00e8,\ndans le vestibule d'Odysseus, au seuil de la cour, avec la lance\nd'airain en main, et semblable \u00e0 un \u00e9tranger, au chef des\nTaphiens, \u00e0 Ment\u00e8s.\n\nEt elle vit les pr\u00e9tendants insolents qui jouaient aux jetons\ndevant les portes, assis sur la peau des boeufs qu'ils avaient\ntu\u00e9s eux-m\u00eames. Et des h\u00e9rauts et des serviteurs s'empressaient\nautour d'eux; et les uns m\u00ealaient l'eau et le vin dans les\nkrat\u00e8res; et les autres lavaient les tables avec les \u00e9ponges\nporeuses; et, les ayant dress\u00e9es, partageaient les viandes\nabondantes. Et, le premier de tous, le divin T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos vit\nAth\u00e8n\u00e8. Et il \u00e9tait assis parmi les pr\u00e9tendants, le coeur triste,\nvoyant en esprit son brave p\u00e8re revenir soudain, chasser les\npr\u00e9tendants hors de ses demeures, ressaisir sa puissance et r\u00e9gir\nses biens.\n\nOr, songeant \u00e0 cela, assis parmi eux, il vit Ath\u00e8n\u00e8: et il alla\ndans le vestibule, indign\u00e9 qu'un \u00e9tranger rest\u00e2t longtemps debout\n\u00e0 la porte. Et il s'approcha, lui prit la main droite, re\u00e7ut la\nlance d'airain et dit ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Salut, \u00c9tranger. Tu nous seras ami, et, apr\u00e8s le repas, tu nous\ndiras ce qu'il te faut.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il le conduisit, et Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 le suivit. Et\nlorsqu'ils furent entr\u00e9s dans la haute demeure, il appuya la lance\ncontre une longue colonne, dans un arsenal luisant o\u00f9 \u00e9taient d\u00e9j\u00e0\nrang\u00e9es beaucoup d'autres lances d'Odysseus \u00e0 l'\u00e2me ferme et\npatiente. Et il fit asseoir Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, ayant mis un beau tapis bien\ntravaill\u00e9 sur le thr\u00f4ne, et, sous ses pieds, un escabeau. Pour\nlui-m\u00eame il pla\u00e7a aupr\u00e8s d'elle un si\u00e8ge sculpt\u00e9, loin des\npr\u00e9tendants, afin que l'\u00e9tranger ne souffert point du repas\ntumultueux, au milieu de convives injurieux, et afin de\nl'interroger sur son p\u00e8re absent. Et une servante versa, pour les\nablutions, de l'eau dans un bassin d'argent, d'une belle aigui\u00e8re\nd'or; et elle dressa aupr\u00e8s d'eux une table luisante. Puis, une\nintendante v\u00e9n\u00e9rable apporta du pain et couvrit la table de mets\nnombreux et r\u00e9serv\u00e9s; et un d\u00e9coupeur servit les plats de viandes\ndiverses et leur offrit des coupes d'or; et un h\u00e9raut leur servait\nsouvent du vin.\n\nEt les pr\u00e9tendants insolents entr\u00e8rent. Ils s'assirent en ordre\nsur des si\u00e8ges et sur des thr\u00f4nes: et des h\u00e9rauts versaient de\nl'eau sur leurs mains; et les servantes entassaient le pain dans\nles corbeilles, et les jeunes hommes emplissaient de vin les\nkrat\u00e8res. Puis, les pr\u00e9tendants mirent la main sur les mets; et,\nquand leur faim et leur soif furent assouvies, ils d\u00e9sir\u00e8rent\nautre chose, la danse et le chant, ornements des repas. Et un\nh\u00e9raut mit une tr\u00e8s belle kithare aux mains de Ph\u00e8mios, qui\nchantait l\u00e0 contre son gr\u00e9. Et il joua de la kithare et commen\u00e7a\nde bien chanter.\n\nMais T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos dit \u00e0 Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs, en penchant la t\u00eate,\nafin que les autres ne pussent entendre:\n\n-- Cher \u00c9tranger, seras-tu irrit\u00e9 de mes paroles? La kithare et le\nchant plaisent ais\u00e9ment \u00e0 ceux-ci, car ils mangent impun\u00e9ment le\nbien d'autrui, la richesse d'un homme dont les ossements blanchis\npourrissent \u00e0 la pluie, quelque part, sur la terre ferme ou dans\nles flots de la mer qui les roule. Certes, s'ils le voyaient de\nretour \u00e0 Ithak\u00e8, tous pr\u00e9f\u00e9reraient des pieds rapides \u00e0\nl'abondance de l'or et aux riches v\u00eatements! Mais il est mort,\nsubissant une mauvaise destin\u00e9e; et il ne nous reste plus\nd'esp\u00e9rance, quand m\u00eame un des habitants de la terre nous\nannoncerait son retour, car ce jour n'arrivera jamais.\n\nMais parle-moi, et r\u00e9ponds sinc\u00e8rement. Qui es-tu, et de quelle\nrace? O\u00f9 est ta ville et quels sont tes parents? Sur quelle nef\nes-tu venu? Quels matelots t'ont conduit \u00e0 Ithak\u00e8, et qui sont-\nils? Car je ne pense pas que tu sois venu \u00e0 pied. Et dis-moi vrai,\nafin que je sache: viens-tu pour la premi\u00e8re fois, ou bien es-tu\nun h\u00f4te de mon p\u00e8re? Car beaucoup d'hommes connaissent notre\ndemeure, et Odysseus aussi visitait les hommes.\n\nEt la D\u00e9esse Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Je te dirai des choses sinc\u00e8res. Je me vante d'\u00eatre Ment\u00e8s,\nfils du brave Ankhialos, et je commande aux Taphiens, amis des\navirons. Et voici que j'ai abord\u00e9 ici avec une nef et des\ncompagnons, voguant sur la noire mer vers des hommes qui parlent\nune langue \u00e9trang\u00e8re, vers T\u00e9m\u00e9s\u00e8, o\u00f9 je vais chercher de l'airain\net o\u00f9 je porte du fer luisant. Et ma nef s'est arr\u00eat\u00e9e l\u00e0, pr\u00e8s de\nla campagne, en dehors de la ville, dans le port Rh\u00e9itr\u00f4s, sous le\nN\u00e9ios couvert de bois. Et nous nous honorons d'\u00eatre unis par\nl'hospitalit\u00e9, d\u00e8s l'origine, et de p\u00e8re en fils. Tu peux aller\ninterroger sur ceci le vieux Laert\u00e8s, car on dit qu'il ne vient\nplus \u00e0 la ville, mais qu'il souffre dans une campagne \u00e9loign\u00e9e,\nseul avec une vieille femme qui lui sert \u00e0 manger et \u00e0 boire,\nquand il s'est fatigu\u00e9 \u00e0 parcourir sa terre fertile plant\u00e9e de\nvignes. Et je suis venu, parce qu'on disait que ton p\u00e8re \u00e9tait de\nretour; mais les Dieux entravent sa route. Car le divin Odysseus\nn'est point encore mort sur la terre; et il vit, retenu en quelque\nlieu de la vaste mer, dans une \u00eele entour\u00e9e des flots; et des\nhommes rudes et farouches, ses ma\u00eetres, le retiennent par la\nforce.\n\nMais, aujourd'hui, je te pr\u00e9dirai ce que les immortels m'inspirent\net ce qui s'accomplira, bien que je ne sois point un divinateur et\nque j'ignore les augures. Certes, il ne restera point longtemps\nloin de la ch\u00e8re terre natale, m\u00eame \u00e9tant charg\u00e9 de liens de fer.\nEt il trouvera les moyens de revenir, car il est fertile en ruses.\nMais parle, et dis-moi sinc\u00e8rement si tu es le vrai fils\nd'Odysseus lui-m\u00eame. Tu lui ressembles \u00e9trangement par la t\u00eate et\nla beaut\u00e9 des yeux. Car nous nous sommes rencontr\u00e9s souvent, avant\nson d\u00e9part pour Troi\u00e8, o\u00f9 all\u00e8rent aussi, sur leurs nefs creuses,\nles autres chefs Argiens. Depuis ce temps je n'ai plus vu\nOdysseus, et il ne m'a plus vu.\n\nEt le sage T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00c9tranger, je te dirai des choses tr\u00e8s sinc\u00e8res. Ma m\u00e8re dit que\nje suis fils d'Odysseus, mais moi, je n'en sais rien, car nul ne\nsait par lui-m\u00eame qui est son p\u00e8re. Que ne suis-je plut\u00f4t le fils\nde quelque homme heureux qui d\u00fbt vieillir sur ses domaines! Et\nmaintenant, on le dit, c'est du plus malheureux des hommes mortels\nque je suis n\u00e9, et c'est ce que tu m'as demand\u00e9.\n\nEt la d\u00e9esse Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Les dieux ne t'ont point fait sortir d'une race sans gloire\ndans la post\u00e9rit\u00e9, puisque P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia t'a enfant\u00e9 tel que te\nvoil\u00e0. Mais parle, et r\u00e9ponds-moi sinc\u00e8rement. Quel est ce repas?\nPourquoi cette assembl\u00e9e? En avais-tu besoin? Est-ce un festin ou\nune noce? Car ceci n'est point pay\u00e9 en commun, tant ces convives\nmangent avec insolence et arrogance dans cette demeure! Tout\nhomme, d'un esprit sens\u00e9 du moins, s'indignerait de te voir au\nmilieu de ces choses honteuses.\n\nEt le sage T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00c9tranger, puisque tu m'interroges sur ceci, cette demeure fut\nautrefois riche et honor\u00e9e, tant que le h\u00e9ros habita le pays;\nmais, aujourd'hui, les dieux, source de nos maux, en ont d\u00e9cid\u00e9\nautrement, et ils ont fait de lui le plus ignor\u00e9 d'entre tous les\nhommes. Et je ne le pleurerais point ainsi, m\u00eame le sachant mort,\ns'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 frapp\u00e9 avec ses compagnons, parmi le peuple des\nTroiens, ou s'il \u00e9tait mort entre des mains amies, apr\u00e8s la\nguerre. Alors les Panakhaiens lui eussent b\u00e2ti un tombeau, et il\ne\u00fbt l\u00e9gu\u00e9 \u00e0 son fils une grande gloire dans la post\u00e9rit\u00e9. Mais,\naujourd'hui, les Harpyes l'ont enlev\u00e9 obscur\u00e9ment, et il est mort,\net nul n'a rien su, ni rien appris de lui, et il ne m'a laiss\u00e9 que\nles douleurs et les lamentations.\n\nMais je ne g\u00e9mis point uniquement sur lui, et les Dieux m'ont\nenvoy\u00e9 d'autres peines am\u00e8res. Tous ceux qui commandent aux \u00eeles,\n\u00e0 Doulikios, \u00e0 Sam\u00e8, \u00e0 Zakyntos couverte de bois, et ceux qui\ncommandent dans la rude Ithak\u00e8, tous recherchent ma m\u00e8re et\n\u00e9puisent ma demeure. Et ma m\u00e8re ne peut refuser des noces odieuses\nni mettre fin \u00e0 ceci; et ces hommes \u00e9puisent ma demeure en\nmangeant, et ils me perdront bient\u00f4t aussi.\n\nEt, pleine de piti\u00e9, Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ah! sans doute, tu as grand besoin d'Odysseus qui mettrait la\nmain sur ces pr\u00e9tendants injurieux! Car s'il survenait et se\ntenait debout sur le seuil de la porte, avec le casque et le\nbouclier et deux piques, tel que je le vis pour la premi\u00e8re fois\nbuvant et se r\u00e9jouissant dans notre demeure, \u00e0 son retour\nd'Ephyr\u00e8, d'aupr\u00e8s d'Illos Merm\u00e9rida\u00efde; -- car Odysseus \u00e9tait\nall\u00e9 chercher l\u00e0, sur une nef rapide, un poison mortel, pour y\ntremper ses fl\u00e8ches arm\u00e9es d'une pointe d'airain; et Illos ne\nvoulut point le lui donner, redoutant les dieux qui vivent\n\u00e9ternellement, mais mon p\u00e8re, qui l'aimait beaucoup, le lui donna;\n-- si donc Odysseus, tel que je le vis, survenait au milieu des\npr\u00e9tendants, leur destin\u00e9e serait br\u00e8ve et leurs noces seraient\nam\u00e8res! Mais il appartient aux dieux de d\u00e9cider s'il reviendra, ou\nnon, les punir dans sa demeure. Je t'exhorte donc \u00e0 chercher\ncomment tu pourras les chasser d'ici.\n\nMaintenant, \u00e9coute, et souviens-toi de mes paroles. Demain, ayant\nr\u00e9uni l'agora des h\u00e9ros Akhaiens, parle-leur, et prends les dieux\n\u00e0 t\u00e9moin. Contrains les pr\u00e9tendants de se retirer chez eux. Que ta\nm\u00e8re, si elle d\u00e9sire d'autres noces, retourne dans la demeure de\nson p\u00e8re qui a une grande puissance. Ses proches la marieront et\nlui donneront une aussi grande dot qu'il convient \u00e0 une fille\nbien-aim\u00e9e. Et je te conseillerai sagement, si tu veux m'en\ncroire. Arme ta meilleure nef de vingt rameurs, et va t'informer\nde ton p\u00e8re parti depuis si longtemps, afin que quelqu'un des\nhommes t'en parle, ou que tu entendes un de ces bruits de Zeus qui\ndispense le mieux la gloire aux hommes.\n\nRends-toi d'abord \u00e0 Pylos et interroge le divin Nest\u00f4r; puis \u00e0\nSpart\u00e8, aupr\u00e8s du blond M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, qui est revenu le dernier des\nAkhaiens cuirass\u00e9s d'airain. Si tu apprends que ton p\u00e8re est\nvivant et revient, attends encore une ann\u00e9e, malgr\u00e9 ta douleur;\nmais si tu apprends qu'il est mort, ayant cess\u00e9 d'exister, reviens\ndans la ch\u00e8re terre natale, pour lui \u00e9lever un tombeau et c\u00e9l\u00e9brer\nde grandes fun\u00e9railles comme il convient, et donner ta m\u00e8re \u00e0 un\nmari. Puis, lorsque tu auras fait et achev\u00e9 tout cela, songe, de\nl'esprit et du coeur, \u00e0 tuer les pr\u00e9tendants dans ta demeure, par\nruse ou par force. Il ne faut plus te livrer aux choses\nenfantines, car tu n'en as plus l'\u00e2ge. Ne sais-tu pas de quelle\ngloire s'est couvert le divin Orest\u00e8s parmi les hommes, en tuant\nle meurtrier de son p\u00e8re illustre, Aigisthos aux ruses perfides?\nToi aussi, ami, que voil\u00e0 grand et beau, sois brave, afin que les\nhommes futurs te louent. Je vais redescendre vers ma nef rapide et\nmes compagnons qui s'irritent sans doute de m'attendre. Souviens-\ntoi, et ne n\u00e9glige point mes paroles.\n\nEt le sage T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00c9tranger, tu m'as parl\u00e9 en ami, comme un p\u00e8re \u00e0 son fils, et je\nn'oublierai jamais tes paroles. Mais reste, bien que tu sois\npress\u00e9, afin que t'\u00e9tant baign\u00e9 et ayant charm\u00e9 ton coeur, tu\nretournes vers ta nef, plein de joie, avec un pr\u00e9sent riche et\npr\u00e9cieux qui te viendra de moi et sera tel que des amis en offrent\n\u00e0 leurs h\u00f4tes.\n\nEt la d\u00e9esse Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ne me retiens plus, il faut que je parte. Quand je reviendrai,\ntu me donneras ce pr\u00e9sent que ton coeur me destine, afin que je\nl'emporte dans ma demeure. Qu'il soit fort beau, et que je puisse\nt'en offrir un semblable.\n\nEt Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs, ayant ainsi parl\u00e9, s'envola et disparut\ncomme un oiseau; mais elle lui laissa au coeur la force et\nl'audace et le souvenir plus vif de son p\u00e8re. Et lui, le coeur\nplein de crainte, pensa dans son esprit que c'\u00e9tait un Dieu. Puis,\nle divin jeune homme s'approcha des Pr\u00e9tendants. Et l'Aoide tr\u00e8s\nillustre chantait, et ils \u00e9taient assis, l'\u00e9coutant en silence. Et\nil chantait le retour fatal des Akhaiens, que Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 leur\navait inflig\u00e9 au sortir de Troi\u00e8. Et, de la haute chambre, la\nfille d'Ikarios, la sage P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia, entendit ce chant divin, et\nelle descendit l'escalier \u00e9lev\u00e9, non pas seule, mais suivie de\ndeux servantes. Et quand la divine femme fut aupr\u00e8s des\npr\u00e9tendants, elle resta debout contre la porte, sur le seuil de la\nsalle solidement construite, avec un beau voile sur les joues, et\nles honn\u00eates servantes se tenaient \u00e0 ses c\u00f4t\u00e9s. Et elle pleura et\ndit \u00e0 l'Aoide divin:\n\n-- Ph\u00e8mios, tu sais d'autres chants par lesquels les Aoides\nc\u00e9l\u00e8brent les actions des hommes et des Dieux. Assis au milieu de\nceux-ci, chante-leur une de ces choses, tandis qu'ils boivent du\nvin en silence; mais cesse ce triste chant qui d\u00e9chire mon coeur\ndans ma poitrine, puisque je suis la proie d'un deuil que je ne\npuis oublier. Car je pleure une t\u00eate bien aim\u00e9e, et je garde le\nsouvenir\n\u00e9ternel de l'homme dont la gloire emplit Hellas et Argos.\n\nEt le sage T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ma m\u00e8re, pourquoi d\u00e9fends-tu que ce doux Aoide nous r\u00e9jouisse,\ncomme son esprit le lui inspire? Les Aoides ne sont responsables\nde rien, et Zeus dispense ses dons aux po\u00e8tes comme il lui pla\u00eet.\nIl ne faut point t'indigner contre celui-ci parce qu'il chante la\nsombre destin\u00e9e des Danaens, car les hommes chantent toujours les\nchoses les plus r\u00e9centes. Aie donc la force d'\u00e2me d'\u00e9couter.\nOdysseus n'a point perdu seul, \u00e0 Troi\u00e8, le jour du retour, et\nbeaucoup d'autres y sont morts aussi. Rentre dans ta demeure;\ncontinue tes travaux \u00e0 l'aide de la toile et du fuseau, et remets\ntes servantes \u00e0 leur t\u00e2che. La parole appartient aux hommes, et\nsurtout \u00e0 moi qui commande ici.\n\n\u00c9tonn\u00e9e, P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia s'en retourna chez elle, emportant dans son\ncoeur les sages paroles de son fils. Remont\u00e9e dans les hautes\nchambres, avec ses femmes, elle pleura Odysseus, son cher mari,\njusqu'\u00e0 ce que Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs e\u00fbt r\u00e9pandu un doux sommeil\nsur ses paupi\u00e8res.\n\nEt les pr\u00e9tendants firent un grand bruit dans la sombre demeure,\net tous d\u00e9siraient partager son lit. Et le sage T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos\ncommen\u00e7a de leur parler:\n\n-- Pr\u00e9tendants de ma m\u00e8re, qui avez une insolence arrogante,\nmaintenant r\u00e9jouissons-nous, mangeons et ne poussons point de\nclameurs, car il est bien et convenable d'\u00e9couter un tel Aoide qui\nest semblable aux Dieux par sa voix; mais, d\u00e8s l'aube, rendons-\nnous tous \u00e0 l'agora, afin que je vous d\u00e9clare nettement que vous\nayez tous \u00e0 sortir d'ici. Faites d'autres repas, mangez vos biens\nen vous recevant tour \u00e0 tour dans vos demeures; mais s'il vous\npara\u00eet meilleur de d\u00e9vorer impun\u00e9ment la subsistance d'un seul\nhomme, d\u00e9vorez-la. Moi, je supplierai les Dieux qui vivent\ntoujours, afin que Zeus ordonne que votre action soit punie, et\nvous p\u00e9rirez peut-\u00eatre sans vengeance dans cette demeure.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous, se mordant les l\u00e8vres, s'\u00e9tonnaient que\nT\u00e8l\u00e9makhos parl\u00e2t avec cette audace. Et Antinoos, fils\nd'Eupeith\u00e8s, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, certes, les Dieux m\u00eames t'enseignent \u00e0 parler haut\net avec audace; mais puisse le Kroni\u00f4n ne point te faire roi dans\nIthak\u00e8 entour\u00e9e des flots, bien qu'elle soit ton h\u00e9ritage par ta\nnaissance!\n\nEt le sage T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Antinoos, quand tu t'irriterais contre moi \u00e0 cause de mes\nparoles, je voudrais \u00eatre roi par la volont\u00e9 de Zeus. Penses-tu\nqu'il soit mauvais de l'\u00eatre parmi les hommes? Il n'est point\nmalheureux de r\u00e9gner. On poss\u00e8de une riche demeure, et on est\nhonor\u00e9. Mais beaucoup d'autres rois Akhaiens, jeunes et vieux,\nsont dans Ithak\u00e8 entour\u00e9e des flots. Qu'un d'entre eux r\u00e8gne,\npuisque le divin Odysseus est mort. Moi, du moins, je serai le\nma\u00eetre de la demeure et des esclaves que le divin Odysseus a\nconquis pour moi.\n\nEt Eurymakhos, fils de Polybos, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, il appartient aux Dieux de d\u00e9cider quel sera\nl'Akhaien qui r\u00e9gnera dans Ithak\u00e8 entour\u00e9e des flots. Pour toi,\nposs\u00e8de tes biens et commande en ta demeure, et que nul ne te\nd\u00e9pouille jamais par violence et contre ton gr\u00e9, tant que Ithak\u00e8\nsera habit\u00e9e. Mais je veux, ami, t'interroger sur cet \u00e9tranger.\nD'o\u00f9 est-il? De quelle terre se vante-t-il de sortir? O\u00f9 est sa\nfamille? O\u00f9 est son pays? Apporte-t-il quelque nouvelle du retour\nde ton p\u00e8re? Est-il venu r\u00e9clamer une dette? Il est parti\npromptement et n'a point daign\u00e9 se faire conna\u00eetre. Son aspect,\nd'ailleurs, n'est point celui d'un mis\u00e9rable.\n\nEt le sage T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Eurymakhos, certes, mon p\u00e8re ne reviendra plus, et je n'en\ncroirais pas la nouvelle, s'il m'en venait; et je ne me soucie\npoint des pr\u00e9dictions que ma m\u00e8re demande au divinateur qu'elle a\nappel\u00e9 dans cette demeure. Mais cet h\u00f4te de mes p\u00e8res est de\nTaphos; et il se vante d'\u00eatre Ment\u00e8s, fils du brave Ankhialos, et\nil commande aux Taphiens, amis des avirons.\n\nEt T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos parla ainsi; mais, dans son coeur, il avait reconnu\nla d\u00e9esse immortelle. Donc, les pr\u00e9tendants, se livrant aux danses\net au chant, se r\u00e9jouissaient en attendant le soir, et comme ils\nse r\u00e9jouissaient, la nuit survint. Alors, d\u00e9sirant dormir, chacun\nd'eux rentra dans sa demeure.\n\nEt T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos monta dans la chambre haute qui avait \u00e9t\u00e9 construite\npour lui dans une belle cour, et d'o\u00f9 l'on voyait de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s.\nEt il se coucha, l'esprit plein de pens\u00e9es. Et la sage Eurykl\u00e9ia\nportait des flambeaux allum\u00e9s et elle \u00e9tait fille d'Ops\nPeis\u00e8n\u00f4ride, et Laert\u00e8s l'avait achet\u00e9e, dans sa premi\u00e8re\njeunesse, et pay\u00e9e du prix de vingt boeufs, et il l'honorait dans\nsa demeure, autant qu'une chaste \u00e9pouse; mais il ne s'\u00e9tait point\nuni \u00e0 elle, pour \u00e9viter la col\u00e8re de sa femme. Elle portait des\nflambeaux allum\u00e9s aupr\u00e8s de T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, \u00e9tant celle qui l'aimait\nle plus, l'ayant nourri et \u00e9lev\u00e9 depuis son enfance. Elle ouvrit\nles portes de la chambre solidement construite. Et il s'assit sur\nle lit, \u00f4ta sa molle tunique et la remit entre les mains de la\nvieille femme aux sages conseils. Elle plia et arrangea la tunique\navec soin et la suspendit \u00e0 un clou aupr\u00e8s du lit sculpt\u00e9. Puis,\nsortant de la chambre, elle attira la porte par un anneau d'argent\ndans lequel elle poussa le verrou \u00e0 l'aide d'une courroie. Et\nT\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, couvert d'une toison de brebis, m\u00e9dita, pendant toute\nla nuit, le voyage que Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 lui avait conseill\u00e9.\n\n\n2.\n\nQuand E\u00f4s aux doigts ros\u00e9s, n\u00e9e au matin, apparut, le cher fils\nd'Odysseus quitta son lit. Et il se v\u00eatit, et il suspendit une\n\u00e9p\u00e9e \u00e0 ses \u00e9paules, et il attacha de belles sandales \u00e0 ses pieds\nbrillants, et, semblable \u00e0 un dieu, il se h\u00e2ta de sortir de sa\nchambre. Aussit\u00f4t, il ordonna aux h\u00e9rauts \u00e0 la voix \u00e9clatante de\nconvoquer les Akhaiens chevelus \u00e0 l'agora. Et ils les\nconvoqu\u00e8rent, et ceux-ci se r\u00e9unirent rapidement. Et quand ils\nfurent r\u00e9unis, T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos se rendit \u00e0 l'agora, tenant \u00e0 la main\nune lance d'airain. Et il n'\u00e9tait point seul, mais deux chiens\nrapides le suivaient. Et Pallas avait r\u00e9pandu sur lui une gr\u00e2ce\ndivine, et les peuples l'admiraient tandis qu'il s'avan\u00e7ait. Et il\ns'assit sur le si\u00e8ge de son p\u00e8re, que les vieillards lui c\u00e9d\u00e8rent.\n\nEt, aussit\u00f4t parmi eux, le h\u00e9ros Aigyptios parla le premier. Il\n\u00e9tait courb\u00e9 par la vieillesse et il savait beaucoup de choses. Et\nson fils bien-aim\u00e9, le brave Antiphos, \u00e9tait parti, sur les nefs\ncreuses, avec le divin Odysseus, pour Ilios, nourrice de beaux\nchevaux; mais le f\u00e9roce Kykl\u00f4ps l'avait tu\u00e9 dans sa caverne\ncreuse, et en avait fait son dernier repas. Il lui restait trois\nautres fils, et un d'entre eux, Eurynomos, \u00e9tait parmi les\npr\u00e9tendants. Les deux autres s'occupaient assid\u00fbment des biens\npaternels. Mais Aigyptios g\u00e9missait et se lamentait, n'oubliant\npoint Antiphos. Et il parla ainsi en pleurant, et il dit:\n\n-- \u00c9coutez maintenant, Ithak\u00e8siens, ce que je vais dire. Nous\nn'avons jamais r\u00e9uni l'agora, et nous ne nous y sommes point assis\ndepuis que le divin Odysseus est parti sur ses nefs creuses. Qui\nnous rassemble ici aujourd'hui? Quelle n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 le presse? Est-ce\nquelqu'un d'entre les jeunes hommes ou d'entre les vieillards? A-\nt-il re\u00e7u quelque nouvelle de l'arm\u00e9e, et veut-il nous dire\nhautement ce qu'il a entendu le premier? Ou d\u00e9sire-t-il parler de\nchoses qui int\u00e9ressent tout le peuple? Il me semble plein de\njustice. Que Zeus soit propice \u00e0 son dessein, quel qu'il soit.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le cher fils d'Odysseus se r\u00e9jouit de cette\nlouange, et il ne resta pas plus longtemps assis, dans son d\u00e9sir\nde parler. Et il se leva au milieu de l'agora, et le sage h\u00e9raut\nPeis\u00e8n\u00f4r lui mit le sceptre en main. Et, se tournant vers\nAigyptios, il lui dit:\n\n-- \u00d4 vieillard, il n'est pas loin, et, d\u00e8s maintenant, tu peux le\nvoir, celui qui a convoqu\u00e9 le peuple, car une grande douleur\nm'accable. Je n'ai re\u00e7u aucune nouvelle de l'arm\u00e9e que je puisse\nvous rapporter hautement apr\u00e8s l'avoir apprise le premier, et je\nn'ai rien \u00e0 dire qui int\u00e9resse tout le peuple; mais j'ai \u00e0 parler\nde mes propres int\u00e9r\u00eats et du double malheur tomb\u00e9 sur ma demeure;\ncar, d'une part, j'ai perdu mon p\u00e8re irr\u00e9prochable, qui autrefois\nvous commandait, et qui, pour vous aussi, \u00e9tait doux comme un\np\u00e8re; et, d'un autre c\u00f4t\u00e9, voici maintenant, -- et c'est un mal\npire qui d\u00e9truira bient\u00f4t ma demeure et d\u00e9vorera tous mes biens, -\n- que des pr\u00e9tendants assi\u00e8gent ma m\u00e8re contre sa volont\u00e9. Et ce\nsont les fils bien-aim\u00e9s des meilleurs d'entre ceux qui si\u00e8gent\nici. Et ils ne veulent point se rendre dans la demeure d'Ikarios,\np\u00e8re de P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia, qui dotera sa fille et la donnera \u00e0 qui lui\nplaira davantage. Et ils envahissent tous les jours notre demeure,\ntuant mes boeufs, mes brebis et mes ch\u00e8vres grasses, et ils en\nfont des repas magnifiques, et ils boivent mon vin noir\neffront\u00e9ment et d\u00e9vorent tout. Il n'y a point ici un homme tel\nqu'Odysseus qui puisse repousser cette ruine loin de ma demeure,\net je ne puis rien, moi qui suis inhabile et sans force guerri\u00e8re.\nCertes, je le ferais si j'en avais la force, car ils commettent\ndes actions intol\u00e9rables, et ma maison p\u00e9rit honteusement.\n\nIndignez-vous donc, vous-m\u00eames. Craignez les peuples voisins qui\nhabitent autour d'Ithak\u00e8, et la col\u00e8re des dieux qui puniront ces\nactions iniques. Je vous supplie, par Zeus Olympien, ou par Th\u00e9mis\nqui r\u00e9unit ou qui disperse les agoras des hommes, venez \u00e0 mon\naide, amis, et laissez-moi subir au moins ma douleur dans la\nsolitude. Si jamais mon irr\u00e9prochable p\u00e8re Odysseus a opprim\u00e9 les\nAkhaiens aux belles kn\u00e8mides, et si, pour venger leurs maux, vous\nles excitez contre moi, consumez plut\u00f4t vous-m\u00eames mes biens et\nmes richesses; car, alors, peut-\u00eatre verrions-nous le jour de\nl'expiation. Nous pourrions enfin nous entendre devant tous,\nexpliquant les choses jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'elles soient r\u00e9solues.\n\nIl parla ainsi, irrit\u00e9, et il jeta son sceptre contre terre en\nversant des larmes, et le peuple fut rempli de compassion, et tous\nrestaient dans le silence, et nul n'osait r\u00e9pondre aux paroles\nirrit\u00e9es de T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos. Et Antinoos seul, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla\nainsi:\n\n-- T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, agor\u00e8te orgueilleux et plein de col\u00e8re, tu as parl\u00e9\nen nous outrageant, et tu veux nous couvrir d'une tache honteuse.\nLes pr\u00e9tendants Akhaiens ne t'ont rien fait. C'est plut\u00f4t ta m\u00e8re,\nqui, certes, m\u00e9dite mille ruses. Voici d\u00e9j\u00e0 la troisi\u00e8me ann\u00e9e, et\nbient\u00f4t la quatri\u00e8me, qu'elle se joue du coeur des Akhaiens. Elle\nles fait tous esp\u00e9rer, promet \u00e0 chacun, envoie des messages et\nm\u00e9dite des desseins contraires. Enfin, elle a ourdi une autre ruse\ndans son esprit. Elle a tiss\u00e9 dans ses demeures une grande toile,\nlarge et fine, et nous a dit:\n\n-- Jeunes hommes, mes pr\u00e9tendants, puisque le divin Odysseus est\nmort, cessez de h\u00e2ter mes noces jusqu'\u00e0 ce que j'aie achev\u00e9, pour\nque mes fils ne restent pas inutiles, ce linceul du h\u00e9ros Laert\u00e8s,\nquand la Moire mauvaise de la mort inexorable l'aura saisi, afin\nqu'aucune des femmes Akhaiennes ne puisse me reprocher, devant\ntout le peuple, qu'un homme qui a poss\u00e9d\u00e9 tant de biens ait \u00e9t\u00e9\nenseveli sans linceul.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et notre coeur g\u00e9n\u00e9reux fut aussit\u00f4t persuad\u00e9.\nEt, alors, pendant le jour, elle tissait la grande toile, et,\npendant la nuit, ayant allum\u00e9 les torches, elle la d\u00e9faisait.\nAinsi, trois ans, elle cacha sa ruse et trompa les Akhaiens; mais\nquand vint la quatri\u00e8me ann\u00e9e, et quand les saisons\nrecommenc\u00e8rent, une de ses femmes, sachant bien sa ruse, nous la\ndit. Et nous la trouv\u00e2mes d\u00e9faisant sa belle toile. Mais, contre\nsa volont\u00e9, elle fut contrainte de l'achever. Et c'est ainsi que\nles pr\u00e9tendants te r\u00e9pondent, afin que tu le saches dans ton\nesprit, et que tous les Akhaiens le sachent aussi. Renvoie ta m\u00e8re\net ordonne-lui de se marier \u00e0 celui que son p\u00e8re choisira et qui\nlui plaira \u00e0 elle-m\u00eame. Si elle a abus\u00e9 si longtemps les fils des\nAkhaiens, c'est qu'elle songe, dans son coeur, \u00e0 tous les dons que\nlui a faits Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, \u00e0 sa science des travaux habiles, \u00e0 son esprit\nprofond, \u00e0 ses ruses. Certes, nous n'avons jamais entendu dire\nrien de semblable des Akhaiennes aux belles chevelures, qui\nv\u00e9curent autrefois parmi les femmes anciennes, Tyr\u00f4, Alkm\u00e8n\u00e8 et\nMyk\u00e8n\u00e8 aux beaux cheveux. Nulle d'entre elles n'avait des arts\n\u00e9gaux \u00e0 ceux de P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia; mais elle n'en use pas avec droiture.\nDonc, les pr\u00e9tendants consumeront tes troupeaux et tes richesses\ntant qu'elle gardera le m\u00eame esprit que les dieux mettent\nmaintenant dans sa poitrine. \u00c0 la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, elle remportera une\ngrande gloire, mais il ne t'en restera que le regret de tes biens\ndissip\u00e9s; car nous ne retournerons point \u00e0 nos travaux, et nous\nn'irons point en quelque autre lieu, avant qu'elle ait \u00e9pous\u00e9\ncelui des Akhaiens qu'elle choisira.\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Antinoos, je ne puis renvoyer de ma demeure, contre son gr\u00e9,\ncelle qui m'a enfant\u00e9 et qui m'a nourri. Mon p\u00e8re vit encore\nquelque part sur la terre, ou bien il est mort, et il me sera dur\nde rendre de nombreuses richesses \u00e0 Ikarios, si je renvoie ma\nm\u00e8re. J'ai d\u00e9j\u00e0 subi beaucoup de maux \u00e0 cause de mon p\u00e8re, et les\ndieux m'en enverront d'autres apr\u00e8s que ma m\u00e8re, en quittant ma\ndemeure, aura suppli\u00e9 les odieuses \u00c9rinnyes, et ce sont les hommes\nqui la vengeront. Et c'est pourquoi je ne prononcerai point une\ntelle parole. Si votre coeur s'en indigne, sortez de ma demeure,\nsongez \u00e0 d'autres repas, mangez vos propres biens en des festins\nr\u00e9ciproques. Mais s'il vous semble meilleur et plus \u00e9quitable de\nd\u00e9vorer impun\u00e9ment la subsistance d'un seul homme, faites! Moi,\nj'invoquerai les dieux \u00e9ternels. Et si jamais Zeus permet qu'un\njuste retour vous ch\u00e2tie, vous p\u00e9rirez sans vengeance dans ma\ndemeure.\n\nT\u00e8l\u00e9makhos parla ainsi, et Zeus qui regarde au loin fit voler du\nhaut sommet d'un mont deux aigles qui s'enlev\u00e8rent au souffle du\nvent, et, c\u00f4te \u00e0 c\u00f4te, \u00e9tendirent leurs ailes. Et quand ils furent\nparvenus au-dessus de l'agora bruyante, secouant leurs plumes\n\u00e9paisses, ils en couvrirent toutes les t\u00eates, en signe de mort.\nEt, de leurs serres, se d\u00e9chirant la t\u00eate et le cou, ils\ns'envol\u00e8rent sur la droite \u00e0 travers les demeures et la ville des\nIthak\u00e8siens. Et ceux-ci, stup\u00e9faits, voyant de leurs yeux ces\naigles, cherchaient dans leur esprit ce qu'ils pr\u00e9sageaient. Et le\nvieux h\u00e9ros Halithers\u00e8s Mastoride leur parla. Et il l'emportait\nsur ses \u00e9gaux en \u00e2ge pour expliquer les augures et les destin\u00e9es.\nEt, tr\u00e8s-sage, il parla ainsi au milieu de tous:\n\n-- \u00c9coutez maintenant, Ithak\u00e8siens, ce que je vais dire. Ce signe\ns'adresse plus particuli\u00e8rement aux pr\u00e9tendants. Un grand danger\nest suspendu sur eux, car Odysseus ne restera pas longtemps encore\nloin de ses amis; mais voici qu'il est quelque part pr\u00e8s d'ici et\nqu'il pr\u00e9pare aux pr\u00e9tendants la K\u00e8r et le carnage. Et il arrivera\nmalheur \u00e0 beaucoup parmi ceux qui habitent l'illustre Ithak\u00e8.\nVoyons donc, d\u00e8s maintenant, comment nous \u00e9loignerons les\nPr\u00e9tendants, \u00e0 moins qu'ils se retirent d'eux-m\u00eames, et ceci leur\nserait plus salutaire. Je ne suis point, en effet, un divinateur\ninexp\u00e9riment\u00e9, mais bien instruit; car je pense qu'elles vont\ns'accomplir les choses que j'ai pr\u00e9dites \u00e0 Odysseus quand les\nArgiens partirent pour Ilios, et que le subtil Odysseus les\ncommandait. Je dis qu'apr\u00e8s avoir subi une foule de maux et perdu\ntous ses compagnons, il reviendrait dans sa demeure vers la\nvingti\u00e8me ann\u00e9e. Et voici que ces choses s'accomplissent.\n\nEt Eurymakhos, fils de Polybos, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 Vieillard, va dans ta maison faire des pr\u00e9dictions \u00e0 tes\nenfants, de peur qu'il leur arrive malheur dans l'avenir; mais ici\nje suis de beaucoup meilleur divinateur que toi. De nombreux\noiseaux volent sous les rayons de H\u00e8lios, et tous ne sont pas\npropres aux augures. Certes, Odysseus est mort au loin, et pl\u00fbt\naux dieux que tu fusses mort comme lui! Tu ne prof\u00e9rerais pas tant\nde pr\u00e9dictions vaines, et tu n'exciterais pas ainsi T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos\nd\u00e9j\u00e0 irrit\u00e9, avec l'espoir sans doute qu'il t'offrira un pr\u00e9sent\ndans sa maison. Mais je te le dis, et ceci s'accomplira: Si, le\ntrompant par ta science ancienne et tes paroles, tu pousses ce\njeune homme \u00e0 la col\u00e8re, tu lui seras surtout funeste; car tu ne\npourras rien contre nous; et nous t'infligerons, \u00f4 vieillard, une\namende que tu d\u00e9ploreras dans ton coeur, la supportant avec peine;\net ta douleur sera accablante.\n\nMoi, je conseillerai \u00e0 T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos d'ordonner que sa m\u00e8re retourne\nchez Ikarios, afin que les siens c\u00e9l\u00e8brent ses noces et lui\nfassent une dot illustre, telle qu'il convient d'en faire \u00e0 une\nfille bien-aim\u00e9e. Je ne pense pas qu'avant cela les fils des\nAkhaiens restent en repos et renoncent \u00e0 l'\u00e9pouser; car nous ne\ncraignons personne, ni, certes, T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, bien qu'il parle\nbeaucoup; et nous n'avons nul souci, \u00f4 Vieillard, de tes vaines\npr\u00e9dictions, et tu ne nous en seras que plus odieux. Les biens de\nT\u00e8l\u00e9makhos seront de nouveau consum\u00e9s, et ce sera ainsi tant que\nP\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia retiendra les Akhaiens par l'espoir de ses noces. Et,\nen effet, c'est \u00e0 cause de sa vertu que nous attendons de jour en\njour, en nous la disputant, et que nous n'irons point chercher\nailleurs d'autres \u00e9pouses.\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Eurymakhos, et tous, tant que vous \u00eates, illustres pr\u00e9tendants,\nje ne vous supplierai ni ne vous parlerai plus longtemps. Les\ndieux et tous les Akhaiens savent maintenant ces choses. Mais\ndonnez-moi promptement une nef rapide et vingt compagnons qui\nfendent avec moi les chemins de la mer. J'irai \u00e0 Spart\u00e8 et dans la\nsablonneuse Pylos m'informer du retour de mon p\u00e8re depuis\nlongtemps absent. Ou quelqu'un d'entre les hommes m'en parlera, ou\nj'entendrai la renomm\u00e9e de Zeus qui porte le plus loin la gloire\ndes hommes. Si j'entends dire que mon p\u00e8re est vivant et revient,\nj'attendrai encore une ann\u00e9e, bien qu'afflig\u00e9. Si j'entends dire\nqu'il est mort et ne doit plus repara\u00eetre, je reviendrai dans la\nch\u00e8re terre de la patrie, je lui \u00e9l\u00e8verai un tombeau, je\nc\u00e9l\u00e9brerai d'illustres fun\u00e9railles, telles qu'il convient, et je\ndonnerai ma m\u00e8re \u00e0 un mari.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il s'assit. Et au milieu d'eux se leva Ment\u00f4r,\nqui \u00e9tait le compagnon de l'irr\u00e9prochable Odysseus. Et celui-ci,\ncomme il partait, lui confia toute sa maison, lui remit ses biens\nen garde et voulut qu'on ob\u00e9isse au vieillard. Et, au milieu\nd'eux, plein de sagesse, il parla et dit:\n\n-- \u00c9coutez-moi maintenant, Ithak\u00e8siens, quoi que je dise. Craignez\nqu'un roi porte-sceptre ne soit plus jamais ni bienveillant, ni\ndoux, et qu'il ne m\u00e9dite plus de bonnes actions dans son esprit,\nmais qu'il soit cruel d\u00e9sormais et veuille l'iniquit\u00e9, puisque nul\nne se souvient du divin Odysseus parmi les peuples auxquels il\ncommandait aussi doux qu'un p\u00e8re. Je ne reproche point aux\npr\u00e9tendants orgueilleux de commettre des actions violentes dans un\nesprit inique, car ils jouent leurs t\u00eates en consumant la demeure\nd'Odysseus qu'ils pensent ne plus revoir. Maintenant, c'est contre\ntout le peuple que je m'irrite, contre vous qui restez assis en\nfoule et qui n'osez point parler, ni r\u00e9primer les pr\u00e9tendants peu\nnombreux, bien que vous soyez une multitude.\n\nEt l'Eu\u00e8noride Lei\u00f4kritos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ment\u00f4r, injurieux et stupide, qu'as-tu dit? Tu nous exhortes \u00e0\nnous retirer! Certes, il serait difficile de chasser violemment du\nfestin tant de jeunes hommes. M\u00eame si l'Ithak\u00e8sien Odysseus,\nsurvenant lui-m\u00eame, songeait dans son esprit \u00e0 chasser les\nillustres pr\u00e9tendants assis au festin dans sa demeure, certes, sa\nfemme, bien qu'elle le d\u00e9sire ardemment, ne se r\u00e9jouirait point\nalors de le revoir, car il rencontrerait une mort honteuse, s'il\ncombattait contre un si grand nombre. Tu n'as donc point bien\nparl\u00e9. Allons! dispersons-nous, et que chacun retourne \u00e0 ses\ntravaux. Ment\u00f4r et Halithers\u00e8s pr\u00e9pareront le voyage de\nT\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, puisqu'ils sont d\u00e8s sa naissance ses amis paternels.\nMais je pense qu'il restera longtemps ici, \u00e9coutant des nouvelles\ndans Ithak\u00e8, et qu'il n'accomplira point son dessein.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il rompit aussit\u00f4t l'agora, et ils se\ndispers\u00e8rent, et chacun retourna vers sa demeure. Et les\npr\u00e9tendants se rendirent \u00e0 la maison du divin Odysseus.\n\nEt T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos s'\u00e9loigna sur le rivage de la mer, et, plongeant ses\nmains dans la blanche mer, il supplia Ath\u00e8n\u00e8:\n\n-- Entends-moi, d\u00e9esse qui es venue hier dans ma demeure, et qui\nm'as ordonn\u00e9 d'aller sur une nef, \u00e0 travers la mer sombre,\nm'informer de mon p\u00e8re depuis longtemps absent. Et voici que les\nAkhaiens m'en emp\u00eachent, et surtout les orgueilleux pr\u00e9tendants.\n\nIl parla ainsi en priant, et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 parut aupr\u00e8s de lui, semblable\n\u00e0 Ment\u00f4r par l'aspect et par la voix, et elle lui dit ces paroles\nail\u00e9es:\n\n-- T\u00e8lemakhos, tu ne seras ni un l\u00e2che, ni un insens\u00e9, si\nl'excellent esprit de ton p\u00e8re est en toi, tel qu'il le poss\u00e9dait\npour parler et pour agir, et ton voyage ne sera ni inutile, ni\nimparfait. Si tu n'\u00e9tais le fils d'Odysseus et de P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia, je\nn'esp\u00e9rerais pas que tu pusses accomplir ce que tu entreprends,\ncar peu de fils sont semblables \u00e0 leur p\u00e8re. La plupart sont\nmoindres, peu son meilleurs que leurs parents. Mais tu ne seras ni\nun l\u00e2che, ni un insens\u00e9, puisque l'intelligence d'Odysseus est\nrest\u00e9e en toi, et tu dois esp\u00e9rer accomplir ton dessein. C'est\npourquoi oublie les projets et les r\u00e9solutions des pr\u00e9tendants\ninsens\u00e9s, car ils ne sont ni prudents, ni \u00e9quitables, et ils ne\nsongent point \u00e0 la mort et \u00e0 la k\u00e8r noire qui vont les faire p\u00e9rir\ntous en un seul jour. Ne tarde donc pas plus longtemps \u00e0 faire ce\nque tu as r\u00e9solu. Moi qui suis le compagnon de ton p\u00e8re, je te\npr\u00e9parerai une nef rapide et je t'accompagnerai.\n\nMais retourne \u00e0 ta demeure te m\u00ealer aux pr\u00e9tendants. Appr\u00eate nos\nvivres; enferme le vin dans les amphores, et, dans les outres\n\u00e9paisses, la farine, moelle des hommes. Moi, je te r\u00e9unirai des\ncompagnons volontaires parmi le peuple. Il y a beaucoup de nefs,\nneuves et vieilles, dans Ithak\u00e8 entour\u00e9e des flots. Je choisirai\nla meilleure de toutes, et nous la conduirons, bien arm\u00e9e, sur la\nmer vaste.\n\nAinsi parla Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, fille de Zeus; et T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos ne tarda pas plus\nlongtemps, d\u00e8s qu'il eut entendu la voix de la D\u00e9esse. Et, le\ncoeur triste, il se h\u00e2ta de retourner dans sa demeure. Et il\ntrouva les pr\u00e9tendants orgueilleux d\u00e9pouillant les ch\u00e8vres et\nfaisant r\u00f4tir les porcs gras dans la cour. Et Antinoos, en riant,\nvint au-devant de T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos; et, lui prenant la main, il lui\nparla ainsi:\n\n-- T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, agor\u00e8te orgueilleux et plein de col\u00e8re, qu'il n'y\nait plus dans ton coeur ni soucis, ni mauvais desseins. Mange et\nbois en paix comme auparavant. Les Akhaiens agiront pour toi. Ils\nchoisiront une nef et des rameurs, afin que tu ailles promptement\n\u00e0 la divine Pylos t'informer de ton illustre p\u00e8re.\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Antinoos, il ne m'est plus permis de m'asseoir au festin et de\nme r\u00e9jouir en paix avec vous, orgueilleux! N'est-ce pas assez,\npr\u00e9tendants, que vous ayez d\u00e9j\u00e0 d\u00e9vor\u00e9 mes meilleures richesses,\ntandis que j'\u00e9tais enfant? Maintenant, je suis plus grand, et j'ai\n\u00e9cout\u00e9 les conseils des autres hommes, et la col\u00e8re a grandi dans\nmon coeur. Je tenterai donc de vous apporter la k\u00e8r fatale, soit\nen allant \u00e0 Pylos, soit ici, par le peuple. Certes, je partirai,\net mon voyage ne sera point inutile. J'irai sur une nef lou\u00e9e,\npuisque je n'ai moi-m\u00eame ni nef, ni rameurs, et qu'il vous a plu\nde m'en r\u00e9duire l\u00e0.\n\nAyant parl\u00e9, il arracha vivement sa main de la main d'Antinoos. Et\nles Pr\u00e9tendants pr\u00e9paraient le repas dans la maison. Et ces jeunes\nhommes orgueilleux poursuivaient T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos de paroles\noutrageantes et railleuses:\n\n-- Certes, voici que T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos m\u00e9dite notre destruction, soit\nqu'il ram\u00e8ne des alli\u00e9s de la sablonneuse Pylos, soit qu'il en\nram\u00e8ne de Spart\u00e8. Il le d\u00e9sire du moins avec ardeur. Peut-\u00eatre\naussi veut-il aller dans la fertile terre d'Ephyr\u00e8, afin d'en\nrapporter des poisons mortels qu'il jettera dans nos krat\u00e8res pour\nnous tuer tous.\n\nEt un autre de ces jeunes hommes orgueilleux disait:\n\n-- Qui sait si, une fois parti sur sa nef creuse, il ne p\u00e9rira pas\nloin des siens, ayant err\u00e9 comme Odysseus? Il nous donnerait ainsi\nun plus grand travail. Nous aurions \u00e0 partager ses biens, et nous\ndonnerions cette demeure \u00e0 sa m\u00e8re et \u00e0 celui qu'elle \u00e9pouserait.\n\nIls parlaient ainsi. Et T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos monta dans la haute chambre de\nson p\u00e8re, o\u00f9 \u00e9taient amoncel\u00e9s l'or et l'airain, et les v\u00eatements\ndans les coffres, et l'huile abondante et parfum\u00e9e. Et l\u00e0 aussi\n\u00e9taient des muids de vieux vin doux. Et ils \u00e9taient rang\u00e9s contre\nle mur, enfermant la boisson pure et divine r\u00e9serv\u00e9e \u00e0 Odysseus\nquand il reviendrait dans sa patrie, apr\u00e8s avoir subi beaucoup de\nmaux. Et les portes \u00e9taient bien ferm\u00e9es au double verrou, et une\nfemme les surveillait nuit et jour avec une active vigilance; et\nc'\u00e9tait Eurykl\u00e9ia, fille d'Ops Peis\u00e8n\u00f4ride. Et T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, l'ayant\nappel\u00e9e dans la chambre, lui dit:\n\n-- Nourrice, puise dans les amphores le plus doux de ces vins\nparfum\u00e9s que tu conserves dans l'attente d'un homme tr\u00e8s-\nmalheureux, du divin Odysseus, s'il revient jamais, ayant \u00e9vit\u00e9 la\nk\u00e8r et la mort. Emplis douze vases et ferme-les de leurs\ncouvercles. Verse de la farine dans des outres bien cousues, et\nqu'il y en ait vingt mesures. Que tu le saches seule, et r\u00e9unis\ntoutes ces provisions, je les prendrai \u00e0 la nuit, quand ma m\u00e8re\nsera retir\u00e9e dans sa chambre, d\u00e9sirant son lit. Je vais \u00e0 Spart\u00e8\net \u00e0 la sablonneuse Pylos pour m'informer du retour de mon p\u00e8re\nbien-aim\u00e9.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et sa ch\u00e8re nourrice Eurykl\u00e9ia g\u00e9mit, et, se\nlamentant, elle dit ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Pourquoi, cher enfant, as-tu cette pens\u00e9e? Tu veux aller \u00e0\ntravers tant de pays, \u00f4 fils unique et bien-aim\u00e9? Mais le divin\nOdysseus est mort, loin de la terre de la patrie, chez un peuple\ninconnu. Et les pr\u00e9tendants te tendront aussit\u00f4t des pi\u00e8ges, et tu\np\u00e9riras par ruse, et ils partageront tes biens. Reste donc ici\naupr\u00e8s des tiens! Il ne faut pas que tu subisses des maux et que\ntu erres sur la mer indompt\u00e9e.\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Rassure-toi, nourrice; ce dessein n'est point sans l'avis d'un\ndieu. Mais jure que tu ne diras rien \u00e0 ma ch\u00e8re m\u00e8re avant onze ou\ndouze jours, \u00e0 moins qu'elle me demande ou qu'elle sache que je\nsuis parti, de peur qu'en pleurant elle blesse son beau corps.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et la vieille femme jura le grand serment des\ndieux. Et, apr\u00e8s avoir jur\u00e9 et accompli les formes du serment,\nelle puisa aussit\u00f4t le vin dans les amphores et versa la farine\ndans les outres bien cousues.\n\nEt T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, entrant dans sa demeure, se m\u00eala aux Pr\u00e9tendants.\nAlors la d\u00e9esse Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs songea \u00e0 d'autres soins.\nEt, semblable \u00e0 T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, elle marcha par la ville, parlant aux\nhommes qu'elle avait choisis et leur ordonnant de se r\u00e9unir \u00e0 la\nnuit sur une nef rapide. Elle avait demand\u00e9 cette nef rapide \u00e0\nNo\u00e8m\u00f4n, le cher fils de Phronios, et celui-ci la lui avait confi\u00e9e\ntr\u00e8s-volontiers. Et H\u00e8lios tomba, et tous les chemins se\ncouvrirent d'ombre. Alors Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 lan\u00e7a \u00e0 la mer la nef rapide et y\nd\u00e9posa les agr\u00e8s ordinaires aux nefs bien pont\u00e9es. Puis, elle la\npla\u00e7a \u00e0 l'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 du port. Et, autour de la nef, se r\u00e9unirent\ntous les excellents compagnons, et la d\u00e9esse exhortait chacun\nd'eux.\n\nAlors la d\u00e9esse Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs songea \u00e0 d'autres soins. Se\nh\u00e2tant d'aller \u00e0 la demeure du divin Odysseus, elle y r\u00e9pandit le\ndoux sommeil sur les Pr\u00e9tendants. Elle les troubla tandis qu'ils\nbuvaient, et fit tomber les coupes de leurs mains. Et ils\ns'empressaient de retourner par la ville pour se coucher, et, \u00e0\npeine \u00e9taient-ils couch\u00e9s, le sommeil ferma leurs paupi\u00e8res. Et la\nD\u00e9esse Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs, ayant appel\u00e9 T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos hors de la\nmaison, lui parla ainsi, ayant pris l'aspect et la voix de Ment\u00f4r:\n\n-- T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, d\u00e9j\u00e0 tes compagnons aux belles kn\u00e8mides sont assis,\nl'aviron aux mains, pr\u00eats \u00e0 servir ton ardeur. Allons, et ne\ntardons pas plus longtemps \u00e0 faire route.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 le pr\u00e9c\u00e9da aussit\u00f4t, et il suivit\nen h\u00e2te les pas de la d\u00e9esse; et, parvenus \u00e0 la mer et \u00e0 la nef,\nils trouv\u00e8rent leurs compagnons chevelus sur le rivage. Et le\ndivin T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos leur dit:\n\n-- Venez, amis. Emportons les provisions qui sont pr\u00e9par\u00e9es dans\nma demeure. Ma m\u00e8re et ses femmes ignorent tout. Ma nourrice seule\nest instruite.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il les pr\u00e9c\u00e9da et ils le suivirent. Et ils\ntransport\u00e8rent les provisions dans la nef bien pont\u00e9e, ainsi que\nle leur avait ordonn\u00e9 le cher fils d'Odysseus. Et T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos monta\ndans la nef, conduit par Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 qui s'assit \u00e0 la poupe. Et aupr\u00e8s\nd'elle s'assit T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos. Et ses compagnons d\u00e9tach\u00e8rent le c\u00e2ble\net se rang\u00e8rent sur les bancs de rameurs. Et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux\nclairs fit souffler un vent favorable, Z\u00e9phyros, qui les poussait\nen r\u00e9sonnant sur la mer sombre. Puis, T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos ordonna \u00e0 ses\ncompagnons de dresser le m\u00e2t, et ils lui ob\u00e9irent. Et ils\ndress\u00e8rent le m\u00e2t de sapin sur sa base creuse et ils le fix\u00e8rent\navec des c\u00e2bles. Puis, ils d\u00e9ploy\u00e8rent les voiles blanches\nretenues par des courroies, et le vent les gonfla par le milieu.\nEt le flot pourpr\u00e9 r\u00e9sonnait le long de la car\u00e8ne de la nef qui\nmarchait et courait sur la mer, faisant sa route. Puis, ayant li\u00e9\nla m\u00e2ture sur la nef rapide et noire, ils se lev\u00e8rent debout, avec\ndes krat\u00e8res pleins de vin, faisant des libations aux Dieux\n\u00e9ternels et surtout \u00e0 la fille aux yeux clairs de Zeus. Et, toute\nla nuit, jusqu'au jour, la D\u00e9esse fit route avec eux.\n\n\n3.\n\nH\u00e8lios, quittant son beau lac, monta dans l'Ouranos d'airain, afin\nde porter la lumi\u00e8re aux immortels et aux hommes mortels sur la\nterre f\u00e9conde. Et ils arriv\u00e8rent \u00e0 Pylos, la citadelle bien b\u00e2tie\nde N\u00e8leus. Et les Pyliens, sur le rivage de la mer, faisaient des\nsacrifices de taureaux enti\u00e8rement noirs \u00e0 Poseida\u00f4n aux cheveux\nbleus. Et il y avait neuf rangs de si\u00e8ges, et sur chaque rang cinq\ncents hommes \u00e9taient assis, et devant chaque rang il y avait neuf\ntaureaux \u00e9gorg\u00e9s. Et ils go\u00fbtaient les entrailles et ils br\u00fblaient\nles cuisses pour le dieu, quand ceux d'Ithak\u00e8 entr\u00e8rent dans le\nport, serr\u00e8rent les voiles de la nef \u00e9gale, et, l'ayant amarr\u00e9e,\nen sortirent. Et T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos sortit aussi de la nef, conduit par\nAth\u00e8n\u00e8. Et, lui parlant la premi\u00e8re, la d\u00e9esse Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux\nclairs lui dit:\n\n-- T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, il ne te convient plus d'\u00eatre timide, maintenant\nque tu as travers\u00e9 la mer pour l'amour de ton p\u00e8re, afin de\nt'informer quelle terre le renferme, et quelle a \u00e9t\u00e9 sa destin\u00e9e.\nAllons! va droit au dompteur de chevaux Nest\u00f4r, et voyons quelle\npens\u00e9e il cache dans sa poitrine. Supplie-le de te dire la v\u00e9rit\u00e9.\nIl ne mentira pas, car il est plein de sagesse.\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ment\u00f4r, comment l'aborder et comment le saluer? Je n'ai point\nl'exp\u00e9rience des sages discours, et un jeune homme a quelque honte\nd'interroger un vieillard.\n\nEt Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, la d\u00e9esse aux yeux clairs, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, tu y songeras dans ton esprit, ou un dieu te\nl'inspirera, car je ne pense pas que tu sois n\u00e9 et que tu aies \u00e9t\u00e9\n\u00e9lev\u00e9 sans la bienveillance des dieux.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 le pr\u00e9c\u00e9da rapidement et il\nsuivit aussit\u00f4t la d\u00e9esse. Et ils parvinrent \u00e0 l'assembl\u00e9e o\u00f9\nsi\u00e9geaient les hommes Pyliens. L\u00e0 \u00e9tait assis Nest\u00f4r avec ses\nfils, et, tout autour, leurs compagnons pr\u00e9paraient le repas,\nfaisaient r\u00f4tir les viandes et les embrochaient. Et d\u00e8s qu'ils\neurent vu les \u00e9trangers, ils vinrent tous \u00e0 eux, les accueillant\ndu geste, et ils les firent asseoir. Et le Nest\u00f4ride Peisistratos,\ns'approchant le premier, les prit l'un et l'autre par la main et\nleur fit place au repas, sur des peaux moelleuses qui couvraient\nle sable marin, aupr\u00e8s de son fr\u00e8re Thrasym\u00e8d\u00e8s et de son p\u00e8re.\nPuis, il leur offrit des portions d'entrailles, versa du vin dans\nune coupe d'or, et, la pr\u00e9sentant \u00e0 Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, fille de Zeus\ntemp\u00e9tueux, il lui dit:\n\n-- Maintenant, \u00f4 mon h\u00f4te, supplie le roi Poseida\u00f4n. Ce festin\nauquel vous venez tous deux prendre part est \u00e0 lui. Apr\u00e8s avoir\nfait des libations et implor\u00e9 le dieu, comme il convient, donne\ncette coupe de vin doux \u00e0 ton compagnon, afin qu'il fasse \u00e0 son\ntour des libations. Je pense qu'il supplie aussi les immortels.\nTous les hommes ont besoin des dieux. Mais il est plus jeune que\ntoi et semble \u00eatre de mon \u00e2ge, c'est pourquoi je te donne d'abord\ncette coupe d'or.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il lui mit aux mains la coupe de vin doux, et\nAth\u00e8n\u00e8 se r\u00e9jouit de la sagesse et de l'\u00e9quit\u00e9 du jeune homme,\nparce qu'il lui avait offert d'abord la coupe d'or. Et aussit\u00f4t\nelle supplia le roi Poseida\u00f4n:\n\n-- Entends-moi, Poseida\u00f4n qui contient la terre! Ne nous refuse\npas, \u00e0 nous qui t'en supplions, d'accomplir notre dessein.\nGlorifie d'abord Nest\u00f4r et ses fils, et sois aussi favorable \u00e0\ntous les Pyliens en r\u00e9compense de cette illustre h\u00e9catombe. Fais,\nenfin, que T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos et moi nous retournions, ayant accompli\nl'oeuvre pour laquelle nous sommes venus sur une nef noire et\nrapide.\n\nElle pria ainsi, exau\u00e7ant elle-m\u00eame ses voeux. Et elle donna la\nbelle coupe ronde \u00e0 T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, et le cher fils d'Odysseus supplia\naussi le dieu. Et d\u00e8s que les Pyliens eurent r\u00f4ti les chairs\nsup\u00e9rieures, ils les retir\u00e8rent du feu, et, les distribuant par\nportions, ils c\u00e9l\u00e9br\u00e8rent le festin splendide. Et d\u00e8s qu'ils\neurent assouvi le besoin de boire et de manger, le cavalier\nG\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r leur parla ainsi:\n\n-- Maintenant, nous pouvons demander qui sont nos h\u00f4tes,\npuisqu'ils sont rassasi\u00e9s de nourriture.\n\u00d4 nos h\u00f4tes, qui \u00eates-vous? Naviguez-vous pour quelque trafic, ou\nbien, \u00e0 l'aventure, comme des pirates qui, jouant leur vie,\nportent le malheur aux \u00e9trangers?\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit avec assurance, car Ath\u00e8n\u00e8\navait mis la fermet\u00e9 dans son coeur, afin qu'il s'inform\u00e2t de son\np\u00e8re absent et qu'une grande gloire lui f\u00fbt acquise par l\u00e0 parmi\nles hommes:\n\n-- \u00d4 Nest\u00f4r N\u00e8l\u00e8iade, grande gloire des Akhaiens, tu demandes d'o\u00f9\nnous sommes, et je puis te le dire. Nous venons d'Ithak\u00e8, sous le\nN\u00e8ios, pour un int\u00e9r\u00eat priv\u00e9, et non public, que je t'apprendrai.\nJe cherche \u00e0 entendre parler de l'immense gloire de mon p\u00e8re, le\ndivin et patient Odysseus qui, autrefois, dit-on, combattant avec\ntoi, a renvers\u00e9 la ville des Troiens. Nous avons su dans quel lieu\nchacun de ceux qui combattaient contre les Troiens a subi la mort\ncruelle; mais le Kroni\u00f4n, au seul Odysseus, a fait une mort\nignor\u00e9e; et aucun ne peut dire o\u00f9 il a p\u00e9ri, s'il a \u00e9t\u00e9 dompt\u00e9 sur\nla terre ferme par des hommes ennemis, ou dans la mer, sous les\n\u00e9cumes d'Amphitrite. C'est pour lui que je viens, \u00e0 tes genoux, te\ndemander de me dire, si tu le veux, quelle a \u00e9t\u00e9 sa mort cruelle,\nsoit que tu l'aies vue de tes yeux, soit que tu l'aies apprise de\nquelque voyageur; car sa m\u00e8re l'a enfant\u00e9 pour \u00eatre tr\u00e8s\nmalheureux. Ne me flatte point d'esp\u00e9rances vaines, par\ncompassion; mais parle-moi ouvertement, je t'en supplie, si jamais\nmon p\u00e8re, l'excellent Odysseus, soit par ses paroles, soit par ses\nactions, a tenu les promesses qu'il t'avait faites, chez le peuple\ndes Troiens, o\u00f9 vous, Akhaiens, avez subi tant de maux. Souviens-\nt'en maintenant, et dis-moi la v\u00e9rit\u00e9.\n\nEt le cavalier G\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 ami, tu me fais souvenir des maux que nous, fils indomptables\ndes Akhaiens, nous avons subis chez le peuple Troien, soit en\npoursuivant notre proie, sur nos nefs, \u00e0 travers la mer sombre, et\nconduits par Akhilleus, soit en combattant autour de la grande\nville du roi Priamos, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 tant de guerriers excellents ont \u00e9t\u00e9\ntu\u00e9s. C'est l\u00e0 que gisent le brave Aias, et Akhilleus, et\nPatroklos semblable aux dieux par la sagesse, et mon fils bien-\naim\u00e9 Antilokhos, robuste et irr\u00e9prochable, habile \u00e0 la course et\ncourageux combattant. Et nous avons subi bien d'autres maux, et\nnul, parmi les hommes mortels, ne pourrait les raconter tous. Et\ntu pourrais rester ici et m'interroger pendant cinq ou six ans,\nque tu retournerais, plein de tristesse, dans la terre de la\npatrie, avant de conna\u00eetre tous les maux subis par les divins\nAkhaiens. Et, pendant neuf ans, nous avons assi\u00e9g\u00e9 Troi\u00e8 par mille\nruses, et le Kroni\u00f4n ne nous donna la victoire qu'avec peine. L\u00e0,\nnul n'\u00e9gala jamais le divin Odysseus par la sagesse, car ton p\u00e8re\nl'emportait sur tous par ses ruses sans nombre, si vraiment tu es\nson fils.\n\nMais l'admiration me saisit en te regardant. Tes paroles sont\nsemblables aux siennes, et on ne te croirait pas si jeune, tant tu\nsais parler comme lui. L\u00e0-bas, jamais le divin Odysseus et moi,\ndans l'agora ou dans le conseil, nous n'avons parl\u00e9 diff\u00e9remment;\net nous donnions aux Akhaiens les meilleurs avis, ayant le m\u00eame\nesprit et la m\u00eame sagesse.\n\nEnfin, apr\u00e8s avoir renvers\u00e9 la haute citadelle de Priamos, nous\npart\u00eemes sur nos nefs, et un dieu dispersa les Akhaiens. D\u00e9j\u00e0\nZeus, sans doute, pr\u00e9parait, dans son esprit, un triste retour aux\nAkhaiens; car tous n'\u00e9taient point prudents et justes, et une\ndestin\u00e9e terrible \u00e9tait r\u00e9serv\u00e9e \u00e0 beaucoup d'entre eux, \u00e0 cause\nde la col\u00e8re d'Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs qui a un p\u00e8re effrayant, et\nqui jeta la discorde entre les deux Atr\u00e9ides. Et ceux-ci avaient\nconvoqu\u00e9 tous les Akhaiens \u00e0 l'agora, sans raison et contre\nl'usage, au coucher de H\u00e8lios, et les fils des Akhaiens y vinrent,\nalourdis par le vin, et les Atr\u00e9ides leur expliqu\u00e8rent pourquoi\nils avaient convoqu\u00e9 le peuple. Alors M\u00e9n\u00e9laos leur ordonna de\nsonger au retour sur le vaste dos de la mer; mais cela ne plut\npoint \u00e0 Agamemn\u00f4n, qui voulait retenir le peuple et sacrifier de\nsaintes h\u00e9catombes, afin d'apaiser la violente col\u00e8re d'Ath\u00e8n\u00e8. Et\nl'insens\u00e9 ne savait pas qu'il ne pourrait l'apaiser, car l'esprit\ndes Dieux \u00e9ternels ne change point aussi vite. Et tandis que les\nAtr\u00e9ides, debout, se disputaient avec d'\u00e2pres paroles, tous les\nAkhaiens aux belles kn\u00e8mides se lev\u00e8rent, dans une grande clameur,\npleins de r\u00e9solutions contraires.\n\nEt nous dorm\u00eemes pendant la nuit, m\u00e9ditant un dessein fatal, car\nZeus pr\u00e9parait notre plus grand malheur. Et, au matin, tra\u00eenant\nnos nefs \u00e0 la mer divine, nous y d\u00e9pos\u00e2mes notre butin et les\nfemmes aux ceintures d\u00e9nou\u00e9es. Et la moiti\u00e9 de l'arm\u00e9e resta\naupr\u00e8s du Roi Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n; et nous, partant sur nos nefs,\nnous naviguions. Un dieu apaisa la mer o\u00f9 vivent les monstres, et,\nparvenus promptement \u00e0 T\u00e9n\u00e9dos, nous f\u00eemes des sacrifices aux\ndieux, d\u00e9sirant revoir nos demeures. Mais Zeus irrit\u00e9, nous\nrefusant un prompt retour, excita de nouveau une fatale\ndissension. Et quelques-uns, remontant sur leurs nefs \u00e0 double\nrang d'avirons, et parmi eux \u00e9tait le roi Odysseus plein de\nprudence, retourn\u00e8rent vers l'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n, afin de lui\ncomplaire.\n\nPour moi, ayant r\u00e9uni les nefs qui me suivaient, je pris la fuite,\ncar je savais quels malheurs pr\u00e9parait le dieu. Et le brave fils\nde Tydeus, excitant ses compagnons, prit aussi la fuite; et le\nblond M\u00e9n\u00e9laos nous rejoignit plus tard \u00e0 Lesbos, o\u00f9 nous\nd\u00e9lib\u00e9rions sur la route \u00e0 suivre. Irions-nous par le nord de\nl'\u00e2pre Khios, ou vers l'\u00eele Psyri\u00e8, en la laissant \u00e0 notre gauche,\nou par le sud de Khios, vers Mimas battue des vents? Ayant suppli\u00e9\nZeus de nous montrer un signe, il nous le montra et nous ordonna\nde traverser le milieu de la mer d'Euboia, afin d'\u00e9viter notre\nperte. Et un vent sonore commen\u00e7a de souffler; et nos nefs, ayant\nparcouru rapidement les chemins poissonneux, arriv\u00e8rent dans la\nnuit \u00e0 G\u00e9raistos; et l\u00e0, apr\u00e8s avoir travers\u00e9 la grande mer, nous\nbr\u00fbl\u00e2mes pour Poseida\u00f4n de nombreuses cuisses de taureaux.\n\nLe quatri\u00e8me jour, les nefs \u00e9gales et les compagnons du dompteur\nde chevaux Tyd\u00e9ide Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s s'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent dans Argos, mais je\ncontinuai ma route vers Pylos, et le vent ne cessa pas depuis\nqu'un dieu lui avait permis de souffler. C'est ainsi que je suis\narriv\u00e9, cher fils, ne sachant point quels sont ceux d'entre les\nAkhaiens qui se sont sauv\u00e9s ou qui ont p\u00e9ri. Mais ce que j'ai\nappris, tranquille dans mes demeures, il est juste que tu en sois\ninstruit, et je ne te le cacherai point. On dit que l'illustre\nfils du magnanime Akhilleus a ramen\u00e9 en s\u00fbret\u00e9 les Myrmidones\nhabiles \u00e0 manier la lance. Philokt\u00e8t\u00e8s, l'illustre fils de Paian,\na aussi ramen\u00e9 les siens, et Idom\u00e9neus a reconduit dans la Kr\u00e8t\u00e8\nceux de ses compagnons qui ont \u00e9chapp\u00e9 \u00e0 la guerre, et la mer ne\nlui en a ravi aucun. Tu as entendu parler de l'Atr\u00e9ide, bien\nqu'habitant au loin; et tu sais comment il revint, et comment\nAigisthos lui infligea une mort lamentable. Mais le meurtrier est\nmort mis\u00e9rablement, tant il est bon qu'un homme laisse un fils qui\nle venge. Et Orest\u00e8s a tir\u00e9 vengeance d'Aigisthos qui avait tu\u00e9\nson illustre p\u00e8re. Et toi, ami, que je vois si beau et si grand,\nsois brave, afin qu'on parle bien de toi parmi les hommes futurs.\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 Nest\u00f4r N\u00e8l\u00e8iade, grande gloire des Akhaiens, certes, Orest\u00e8s\na tir\u00e9 une juste vengeance, et tous les Akhaiens l'en glorifient,\net les hommes futurs l'en glorifieront. Pl\u00fbt aux dieux que j'eusse\nla force de faire expier aux pr\u00e9tendants les maux qu'ils me font\net l'opprobre dont ils me couvrent. Mais les dieux ne nous ont\npoint destin\u00e9s \u00e0 \u00eatre honor\u00e9s, mon p\u00e8re et moi, et, maintenant, il\nme faut tout subir avec patience.\n\nEt le cavalier G\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 ami, ce que tu me dis m'a \u00e9t\u00e9 rapport\u00e9, que de nombreux\npr\u00e9tendants, \u00e0 cause de ta m\u00e8re, t'opprimaient dans ta demeure.\nMais, dis-moi, souffres-tu ces maux sans r\u00e9sistance, ou bien les\npeuples, ob\u00e9issant \u00e0 l'oracle d'un dieu, t'ont-ils pris en haine!\nQui sait si Odysseus ne ch\u00e2tiera pas un jour leur iniquit\u00e9\nviolente, seul, ou aid\u00e9 de tous les Akhaiens? Qu'Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux\nclairs puisse t'aimer autant qu'elle aimait le glorieux Odysseus,\nchez le peuple des Troiens, o\u00f9, nous, Akhaiens, nous avons subi\ntant de maux! Non, je n'ai jamais vu les Dieux aimer aussi\nmanifestement un homme que Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aimait Odysseus. Si elle\nvoulait t'aimer ainsi et te prot\u00e9ger, chacun des pr\u00e9tendants\noublierait bient\u00f4t ses d\u00e9sirs de noces!\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 vieillard, je ne pense pas que ceci arrive jamais. Les\ngrandes choses que tu pr\u00e9vois me troublent et me jettent dans la\nstupeur. Elles tromperaient mes esp\u00e9rances, m\u00eame si les dieux le\nvoulaient.\n\nAlors, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, la d\u00e9esse aux yeux clairs, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, quelle parole s'est \u00e9chapp\u00e9e d'entre tes dents! Un\ndieu peut ais\u00e9ment sauver un homme, m\u00eame de loin. J'aimerais\nmieux, apr\u00e8s avoir subi de nombreuses douleurs, revoir le jour du\nretour et revenir dans ma demeure, plut\u00f4t que de p\u00e9rir \u00e0 mon\narriv\u00e9e, comme Agamemn\u00f4n par la perfidie d'Aigisthos et de\nKlytaimnestr\u00e8. Cependant, les dieux eux-m\u00eames ne peuvent \u00e9loigner\nde l'homme qu'ils aiment la mort commune \u00e0 tous, quand la Moire\nfatale de la rude mort doit les saisir.\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ment\u00f4r, n'en parlons pas plus longtemps, malgr\u00e9 notre\ntristesse. Odysseus ne reviendra jamais, et d\u00e9j\u00e0 les dieux\nimmortels lui ont inflig\u00e9 la mort et la noire k\u00e8r. Maintenant, je\nveux interroger Nest\u00f4r, car il l'emporte sur tous par\nl'intelligence et par la justice. \u00d4 Nest\u00f4r N\u00e8l\u00e8iade, dis-moi la\nv\u00e9rit\u00e9; comment a p\u00e9ri l'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n qui commandait au loin?\nQuelle mort lui pr\u00e9parait le perfide Aigisthos? Certes, il a tu\u00e9\nun homme qui lui \u00e9tait bien sup\u00e9rieur. O\u00f9 \u00e9tait M\u00e9n\u00e9laos? Non dans\nl'Argos Akha\u00efque, sans doute; et il errait au loin parmi les\nhommes, et Aigisthos, en son absence, a commis le meurtre.\n\nEt le cavalier G\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Certes, mon enfant, je te dirai la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 sur ces choses, et tu\nles sauras, telles qu'elles sont arriv\u00e9es. Si le blond M\u00e9n\u00e9laos\nAtr\u00e9ide, \u00e0 son retour de Troi\u00e8, avait trouv\u00e9, dans ses demeures,\nAigisthos vivant, sans doute celui-ci e\u00fbt p\u00e9ri, et n'e\u00fbt point \u00e9t\u00e9\nenseveli, et les chiens et les oiseaux carnassiers l'eussent\nmang\u00e9, gisant dans la plaine, loin d'Argos; et aucune Akhaienne ne\nl'e\u00fbt pleur\u00e9, car il avait commis un grand crime. En effet, tandis\nque nous subissions devant Ilios des combats sans nombre, lui,\ntranquille en une retraite, dans Argos nourrice de chevaux,\ns\u00e9duisait par ses paroles l'\u00e9pouse Agamemnonienne. Et certes, la\ndivine Klytaimnestr\u00e8 repoussa d'abord cette action indigne, car\nelle ob\u00e9issait \u00e0 ses bonnes pens\u00e9es; et aupr\u00e8s d'elle \u00e9tait un\nAoide \u00e0 qui l'Atr\u00e9ide, en partant pour Troi\u00e8, avait confi\u00e9 la\ngarde de l'\u00c9pouse.\n\nMais quand la moire des dieux eut d\u00e9cid\u00e9 que l'Aoide mourrait, on\njeta celui-ci dans une \u00eele d\u00e9serte et on l'y abandonna pour \u00eatre\nd\u00e9chir\u00e9 par les oiseaux carnassiers. Alors, ayant tous deux les\nm\u00eames d\u00e9sirs, Aigisthos conduisit Klytaimnestr\u00e8 dans sa demeure.\nEt il br\u00fbla de nombreuses cuisses sur les autels des dieux, et il\ny suspendit de nombreux ornements et des v\u00eatements d'or, parce\nqu'il avait accompli le grand dessein qu'il n'e\u00fbt jamais os\u00e9\nesp\u00e9rer dans son \u00e2me. Et nous naviguions loin de Troi\u00e8, l'Atr\u00e9ide\net moi, ayant l'un pour l'autre la m\u00eame amiti\u00e9. Mais, comme nous\narrivions \u00e0 Sounios, sacr\u00e9 promontoire des Ath\u00e8naiens, Phoibos\nApoll\u00f4n tua soudainement de ses douces fl\u00e8ches le pilote de\nM\u00e9n\u00e9laos, Phrontis On\u00e8toride, au moment o\u00f9 il tenait le gouvernail\nde la nef qui marchait. Et c'\u00e9tait le plus habile de tous les\nhommes \u00e0 gouverner une nef, aussi souvent que soufflaient les\ntemp\u00eates. Et M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, bien que press\u00e9 de continuer sa course,\ns'arr\u00eata en ce lieu pour ensevelir son compagnon et c\u00e9l\u00e9brer ses\nfun\u00e9railles.\n\nPuis, reprenant son chemin \u00e0 travers la mer sombre, sur ses nefs\ncreuses, il atteignit le promontoire Mal\u00e9ien. Alors Zeus \u00e0 la\ngrande voix, s'opposant \u00e0 sa marche, r\u00e9pandit le souffle des vents\nsonores qui soulev\u00e8rent les grands flots pareils \u00e0 des montagnes.\nEt les nefs se s\u00e9par\u00e8rent, et une partie fut pouss\u00e9e en Kr\u00e8t\u00e8, o\u00f9\nhabitent les Kyd\u00f4nes, sur les rives du Iardanos. Mais il y a, sur\nles c\u00f4tes de Gortyna, une roche escarp\u00e9e et plate qui sort de la\nmer sombre. L\u00e0, le Notos pousse les grands flots vers Phaistos, \u00e0\nla gauche du promontoire; et cette roche, tr\u00e8s petite, rompt les\ngrands flots. C'est l\u00e0 qu'ils vinrent, et les hommes \u00e9vit\u00e8rent \u00e0\npeine la mort; et les flots fracass\u00e8rent les nefs contre les\nrochers, et le vent et la mer pouss\u00e8rent cinq nefs aux proues\nbleues vers le fleuve Aigyptos.\n\nEt M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, amassant beaucoup de richesses et d'or, errait parmi\nles hommes qui parlent une langue \u00e9trang\u00e8re. Pendant ce temps,\nAigisthos accomplissait dans ses demeures son lamentable dessein,\nen tuant l'Atr\u00e9ide et en soumettant son peuple. Et il commanda\nsept ann\u00e9es dans la riche Myk\u00e8n\u00e8. Et, dans la huiti\u00e8me ann\u00e9e, le\ndivin Orest\u00e8s revint d'Ath\u00e9na, et il tua le meurtrier de son p\u00e8re,\nle perfide Aigisthos, qui avait tu\u00e9 son illustre p\u00e8re.\n\nEt, quand il l'eut tu\u00e9, il offrit aux Argiens le repas fun\u00e9raire\nde sa malheureuse m\u00e8re et du l\u00e2che Aigisthos. Et ce jour-l\u00e0,\narriva le brave M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, apportant autant de richesses que sa nef\nen pouvait contenir. Mais toi, ami, ne reste pas plus longtemps\n\u00e9loign\u00e9 de ta maison, ayant ainsi laiss\u00e9 dans tes demeures tant\nd'hommes orgueilleux, de peur qu'ils consument tes biens et se\npartagent tes richesses, car tu aurais fait un voyage inutile. Je\nt'exhorte cependant \u00e0 te rendre aupr\u00e8s de M\u00e9n\u00e9laos. Il est\nr\u00e9cemment arriv\u00e9 de pays \u00e9trangers, d'o\u00f9 il n'esp\u00e9rait jamais\nrevenir; et les temp\u00eates l'ont pouss\u00e9 \u00e0 travers la grande mer que\nles oiseaux ne pourraient traverser dans l'espace d'une ann\u00e9e,\ntant elle est vaste et horrible. Va maintenant avec ta nef et tes\ncompagnons; ou, si tu veux aller par terre, je te donnerai un char\net des chevaux, et mes fils te conduiront dans la divine\nLak\u00e9daim\u00f4n o\u00f9 est le blond M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, afin que tu le pries de te\ndire la v\u00e9rit\u00e9. Et il ne te dira pas de mensonges, car il est\ntr\u00e8s-sage.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et H\u00e8lios descendit, et les t\u00e9n\u00e8bres arriv\u00e8rent.\n\nEt la d\u00e9esse Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs lui dit:\n\n-- Vieillard, tu as parl\u00e9 convenablement. Mais tranchez les\nlangues des victimes, et m\u00ealez le vin, afin que nous fassions des\nlibations \u00e0 Poseida\u00f4n et aux autres immortels. Puis, nous\nsongerons \u00e0 notre lit, car voici l'heure. D\u00e9j\u00e0 la lumi\u00e8re est sous\nl'horizon, et il ne convient pas de rester plus longtemps au\nfestin des dieux; mais il faut nous retirer.\n\nLa fille de Zeus parla ainsi, et tous ob\u00e9irent \u00e0 ses paroles. Et\nles h\u00e9rauts leur vers\u00e8rent de l'eau sur les mains, et les jeunes\nhommes couronn\u00e8rent les krat\u00e8res de vin et les distribu\u00e8rent entre\ntous \u00e0 pleines coupes. Et ils jet\u00e8rent les langues dans le feu. Et\nils firent, debout, des libations; et, apr\u00e8s avoir fait des\nlibations et bu autant que leur coeur le d\u00e9sirait, alors, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8\net T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos voulurent tous deux retourner \u00e0 leur nef creuse.\n\nMais, aussit\u00f4t, Nest\u00f4r les retint et leur dit:\n\n-- Que Zeus et tous les autres dieux immortels me pr\u00e9servent de\nvous laisser retourner vers votre nef rapide, en me quittant,\ncomme si j'\u00e9tais un homme pauvre qui n'a dans sa maison ni\nv\u00eatements ni tapis, afin que ses h\u00f4tes y puissent dormir\nmollement! Certes, je poss\u00e8de beaucoup de v\u00eatements et de beaux\ntapis. Et jamais le cher fils du h\u00e9ros Odysseus ne passera la nuit\ndans sa nef tant que je vivrai, et tant que mes enfants habiteront\nma maison royale et y recevront les \u00e9trangers qui viennent dans ma\ndemeure.\n\nEt la d\u00e9esse Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Tu as bien parl\u00e9, cher vieillard. Il convient que tu persuades\nT\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, afin que tout soit pour le mieux. Il te suivra donc\npour dormir dans ta demeure, et je retournerai vers notre nef\nnoire pour donner des ordres \u00e0 nos compagnons, car je me glorifie\nd'\u00eatre le plus \u00e2g\u00e9 d'entre eux. Ce sont des jeunes hommes, du m\u00eame\n\u00e2ge que le magnanime T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, et ils l'ont suivi par amiti\u00e9. Je\ndormirai dans la nef noire et creuse, et, d\u00e8s le matin, j'irai\nvers les magnanimes Kauk\u00f4nes, pour une somme qui m'est due et qui\nn'est pas m\u00e9diocre. Quand T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos sera dans ta demeure, envoie-\nle sur le char, avec ton fils, et donne-lui tes chevaux les plus\nrapides et les plus vigoureux.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs disparut semblable \u00e0 un\naigle, et la stupeur saisit tous ceux qui la virent. Et le\nvieillard, l'ayant vue de ses yeux, fut plein d'admiration, et il\nprit la main de T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos et il lui dit ces paroles:\n\n-- \u00d4 ami, tu ne seras ni faible ni l\u00e2che, puisque les dieux eux-\nm\u00eames te conduisent, bien que tu sois si jeune. C'est l\u00e0 un des\nhabitants des demeures Olympiennes, la fille de Zeus, la\nd\u00e9vastatrice Tritog\u00e9n\u00e9ia, qui honorait ton p\u00e8re excellent entre\ntous les Argiens. C'est pourquoi, \u00f4 reine, sois-moi favorable!\nDonne-nous une grande gloire, \u00e0 moi, \u00e0 mes fils et \u00e0 ma v\u00e9n\u00e9rable\n\u00e9pouse, et je te sacrifierai une g\u00e9nisse d'un an, au front large,\nindompt\u00e9e, et que nul autre n'a soumise au joug; et je te la\nsacrifierai apr\u00e8s avoir r\u00e9pandu de l'or sur ses cornes.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Pallas-Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 l'entendit.\n\nEt le cavalier G\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r, en t\u00eate de ses fils et de ses\ngendres, retourna vers sa belle demeure. Et quand ils furent\narriv\u00e9s \u00e0 l'illustre demeure du roi, ils s'assirent en ordre sur\ndes gradins et sur des thr\u00f4nes. Et le vieillard m\u00eala pour eux un\nkrat\u00e8re de vin doux, \u00e2g\u00e9 de onze ans, dont une servante \u00f4ta le\ncouvercle. Et le vieillard, ayant m\u00eal\u00e9 le vin dans le krat\u00e8re,\nsupplia Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, faisant des libations \u00e0 la fille de Zeus\ntemp\u00e9tueux. Et chacun d'eux, ayant fait des libations et bu autant\nque son coeur le d\u00e9sirait, retourna dans sa demeure pour y dormir.\nEt le cavalier G\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r fit coucher T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, le cher\nfils du divin Odysseus, en un lit sculpt\u00e9, sous le portique\nsonore, aupr\u00e8s du brave Peisistratos, le plus jeune des fils de la\nmaison royale. Et lui-m\u00eame s'endormit au fond de sa haute demeure,\nl\u00e0 o\u00f9 l'\u00e9pouse lui avait pr\u00e9par\u00e9 un lit.\n\nEt quand \u00c9\u00f4s aux doigts ros\u00e9s, n\u00e9e au matin, apparut, le cavalier\nG\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r se leva de son lit. Puis, \u00e9tant sorti, il s'assit\nsur les pierres polies, blanches et brillantes comme de l'huile,\nqui \u00e9taient devant les hautes portes, et sur lesquelles s'asseyait\nautrefois N\u00e8leus semblable aux dieux par la sagesse. Mais celui-\nci, dompt\u00e9 par la K\u00e8r, \u00e9tait descendu chez Aid\u00e9s. Et, maintenant,\nle G\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r, rempart des Akhaiens, s'asseyait \u00e0 sa place,\ntenant le sceptre. Et ses fils, sortant des chambres nuptiales, se\nr\u00e9unirent autour de lui: Ekh\u00e9phr\u00f4n, et Stratios, et Perseus, et\nAr\u00e8tos, et le divin Thrasym\u00e8d\u00e8s. Et le h\u00e9ros Peisistratos vint le\nsixi\u00e8me. Et ils firent approcher T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos semblable \u00e0 un dieu,\net le cavalier G\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r commen\u00e7a de leur parler:\n\n-- Mes chers enfants, satisfaites promptement mon d\u00e9sir, afin que\nje me rende favorable, avant tous les dieux, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 qui s'est\nmontr\u00e9e ouvertement \u00e0 moi au festin sacr\u00e9 de Poseida\u00f4n. Que l'un\nde vous aille dans la campagne chercher une g\u00e9nisse que le bouvier\nam\u00e8nera, et qu'il revienne \u00e0 la h\u00e2te. Un autre se rendra \u00e0 la nef\nnoire du magnanime T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, et il am\u00e8nera tous ses compagnons,\net il n'en laissera que deux. Un autre ordonnera au fondeur d'or\nLaerkeus de venir r\u00e9pandre de l'or sur les cornes de la g\u00e9nisse;\net les autres resteront aupr\u00e8s de moi. Ordonnez aux servantes de\npr\u00e9parer un festin sacr\u00e9 dans la demeure, et d'apporter des\nsi\u00e8ges, du bois et de l'eau pure.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous lui ob\u00e9irent. La g\u00e9nisse vint de la\ncampagne, et les compagnons du magnanime T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos vinrent de la\nnef \u00e9gale et rapide. Et l'ouvrier vint, portant dans ses mains les\ninstruments de son art, l'enclume, le maillet et la tenaille, avec\nlesquels il travaillait l'or. Et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 vint aussi, pour jouir du\nsacrifice. Et le vieux cavalier Nest\u00f4r donna de l'or, et l'ouvrier\nle r\u00e9pandit et le fixa sur les cornes de la g\u00e9nisse, afin que la\nd\u00e9esse se r\u00e9jou\u00eet en voyant cet ornement. Stratios et le divin\nEkh\u00e9phr\u00f4n amen\u00e8rent la g\u00e9nisse par les cornes, et Ar\u00e8tos apporta,\nde la chambre nuptiale, dans un bassin fleuri, de l'eau pour leurs\nmains, et une servante apporta les orges dans une corbeille. Et le\nbrave Thrasym\u00e8d\u00e8s se tenait pr\u00eat \u00e0 tuer la g\u00e9nisse, avec une hache\ntranchante \u00e0 la main, et Perseus tenait un vase pour recevoir le\nsang. Alors, le vieux cavalier Nest\u00f4r r\u00e9pandit l'eau et les orges,\net supplia Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, en jetant d'abord dans le feu quelques poils\narrach\u00e9s de la t\u00eate.\n\nEt, apr\u00e8s qu'ils eurent pri\u00e9 et r\u00e9pandu les orges, aussit\u00f4t, le\nnoble Thrasym\u00e8d\u00e8s, fils de Nest\u00f4r, frappa, et il trancha d'un coup\nde hache les muscles du cou; et les forces de la g\u00e9nisse furent\nrompues. Et les filles, les belles-filles et la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable \u00e9pouse\nde Nest\u00f4r, Eurydik\u00e8, l'a\u00een\u00e9e des filles de Klym\u00e9nos, hurl\u00e8rent\ntoutes.\n\nPuis, relevant la g\u00e9nisse qui \u00e9tait largement \u00e9tendue, ils la\nsoutinrent, et Peisistratos, chef des hommes, l'\u00e9gorgea. Et un\nsang noir s'\u00e9chappa de sa gorge, et le souffle abandonna ses os.\nAussit\u00f4t ils la divis\u00e8rent. Les cuisses furent coup\u00e9es, selon le\nrite, et recouvertes de graisse des deux c\u00f4t\u00e9s. Puis, on d\u00e9posa,\npar-dessus, les entrailles saignantes. Et le vieillard les br\u00fblait\nsur du bois, faisant des libations de vin rouge. Et les jeunes\nhommes tenaient en mains des broches \u00e0 cinq pointes. Les cuisses\n\u00e9tant consum\u00e9es, ils go\u00fbt\u00e8rent les entrailles; puis, divisant les\nchairs avec soin, ils les embroch\u00e8rent et les r\u00f4tirent, tenant en\nmains les broches aigu\u00ebs.\n\nPendant ce temps, la belle Polykast\u00e8, la plus jeune des filles de\nNest\u00f4r N\u00e8l\u00e8iade, baigna T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos et, apr\u00e8s l'avoir baign\u00e9 et\nparfum\u00e9 d'une huile grasse, elle le rev\u00eatit d'une tunique et d'un\nbeau manteau. Et il sortit du bain, semblable par sa beaut\u00e9 aux\nImmortels. Et le prince des peuples vint s'asseoir aupr\u00e8s de\nNest\u00f4r.\n\nLes autres, ayant r\u00f4ti les chairs, les retir\u00e8rent du feu et\ns'assirent au festin. Et les plus illustres, se levant, versaient\ndu vin dans les coupes d'or. Et quand ils eurent assouvi la soif\net la faim, le cavalier G\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r commen\u00e7a de parler au\nmilieu d'eux:\n\n-- Mes enfants, donnez promptement \u00e0 T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos des chevaux au\nbeau poil, et liez-les au char, afin qu'il fasse son voyage.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, l'ayant entendu, ils lui ob\u00e9irent aussit\u00f4t. Et\nils li\u00e8rent promptement au char deux chevaux rapides. Et la\nservante intendante y d\u00e9posa du pain et du vin et tous les mets\ndont se nourrissent les rois \u00e9lev\u00e9s par Zeus. Et T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos monta\ndans le beau char, et, aupr\u00e8s de lui, le Nestoride Peisistratos,\nchef des hommes, monta aussi et prit les r\u00eanes en mains. Puis, il\nfouetta les chevaux, et ceux-ci s'\u00e9lanc\u00e8rent avec ardeur dans la\nplaine, laissant derri\u00e8re eux la ville escarp\u00e9e de Pylos. Et, tout\nle jour, ils secou\u00e8rent le joug qui les retenait des deux c\u00f4t\u00e9s.\n\nAlors, H\u00e8lios tomba, et les chemins s'emplirent d'ombre. Et ils\narriv\u00e8rent \u00e0 Ph\u00e8ra, dans la demeure de Diokleus, fils\nd'Orthilokhos que l'Alph\u00e9ios engendra. L\u00e0, ils pass\u00e8rent la nuit,\net Diokleus leur fit les dons de l'hospitalit\u00e9.\n\nEt quand \u00c9\u00f4s aux doigts ros\u00e9s, n\u00e9e au matin, apparut, ils\nattel\u00e8rent les chevaux et mont\u00e8rent sur le beau char, et ils\nsortirent du vestibule et du portique sonore. Et Peisistratos\nfouetta les chevaux, qui s'\u00e9lanc\u00e8rent ardemment dans la plaine\nfertile. Et ils achev\u00e8rent leur route, tant les chevaux rapides\ncouraient avec vigueur. Et H\u00e8lios tomba de nouveau, et les chemins\ns'emplirent d'ombre.\n\n\n4.\n\nEt ils parvinrent \u00e0 la vaste et creuse Lak\u00e9daim\u00f4n. Et ils se\ndirig\u00e8rent vers la demeure du glorieux M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, qu'ils trouv\u00e8rent\nc\u00e9l\u00e9brant dans sa demeure, au milieu de nombreux convives, les\nnoces de son fils et de sa fille irr\u00e9prochable qu'il envoyait au\nfils du belliqueux Akhilleus. D\u00e8s longtemps, devant Troi\u00e8, il\nl'avait promise et fianc\u00e9e, et les dieux accomplissaient leurs\nnoces, et M\u00e9n\u00e9laos l'envoyait, avec un char et des chevaux, vers\nl'illustre ville des Myrmidones, auxquels commandait le fils\nd'Akhilleus.\n\nEt il mariait une Spartiate, fille d'Alekt\u00f4r, \u00e0 son fils, le\nrobuste M\u00e9gapenth\u00e8s, que, dans sa vieillesse, il avait eu d'une\ncaptive. Car les dieux n'avaient plus accord\u00e9 d'enfants \u00e0 H\u00e9l\u00e8n\u00e8\ndepuis qu'elle avait enfant\u00e9 sa fille gracieuse, Hermion\u00e8,\nsemblable \u00e0 Aphrodit\u00e8 d'or.\n\nEt les voisins et les compagnons du glorieux M\u00e9n\u00e9laos \u00e9taient\nassis au festin, dans la haute et grande demeure; et ils se\nr\u00e9jouissaient, et un Aoide divin chantait au milieu d'eux, en\njouant de la fl\u00fbte, et deux danseurs bondissaient au milieu d'eux,\naux sons du chant.\n\nEt le h\u00e9ros T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos et l'illustre fils de Nest\u00f4r s'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent,\neux et leurs chevaux, dans le vestibule de la maison. Et le\nserviteur familier du glorieux M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, Et\u00e9\u00f4neus, accourant et\nles ayant vus, alla rapidement les annoncer dans les demeures du\nprince des peuples. Et, se tenant debout aupr\u00e8s de lui, il dit ces\nparoles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, nourri par Zeus, voici deux \u00e9trangers qui semblent\n\u00eatre de la race du grand Zeus. Dis-moi s'il faut d\u00e9teler leurs\nchevaux rapides, ou s'il faut les renvoyer vers quelqu'autre qui\nles re\u00e7oive.\n\nEt le blond M\u00e9n\u00e9laos lui r\u00e9pondit en g\u00e9missant:\n\n-- \u00c9t\u00e9\u00f4neus Bo\u00e8thoide, tu n'\u00e9tais pas insens\u00e9 avant ce moment, et\nvoici que tu prononces comme un enfant des paroles sans raison.\nNous avons souvent re\u00e7u, en grand nombre, les pr\u00e9sents de\nl'hospitalit\u00e9 chez des hommes \u00e9trangers, avant de revenir ici. Que\nZeus nous affranchisse de nouvelles mis\u00e8res dans l'avenir! Mais\nd\u00e9lie les chevaux de nos h\u00f4tes et conduis-les eux-m\u00eames \u00e0 ce\nfestin.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Et\u00e9\u00f4neus sortit \u00e0 la h\u00e2te des demeures, et il\nordonna aux autres serviteurs fid\u00e8les de le suivre. Et ils\nd\u00e9li\u00e8rent les chevaux suant sous le joug, et ils les attach\u00e8rent\naux cr\u00e8ches, en pla\u00e7ant devant eux l'orge blanche et l'\u00e9peautre\nm\u00eal\u00e9s. Et ils appuy\u00e8rent le char contre le mur poli. Puis, ils\nconduisirent les \u00e9trangers dans la demeure divine.\n\nEt ceux-ci regardaient, admirant la demeure du roi nourrisson de\nZeus. Et la splendeur de la maison du glorieux M\u00e9n\u00e9laos \u00e9tait\nsemblable \u00e0 celle de H\u00e8lios et de S\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8. Et quand ils furent\nrassasi\u00e9s de regarder, ils entr\u00e8rent, pour se laver, dans des\nbaignoires polies. Et apr\u00e8s que les servantes les eurent lav\u00e9s et\nparfum\u00e9s d'huile, et rev\u00eatus de tuniques et de manteaux moelleux,\nils s'assirent sur des thr\u00f4nes aupr\u00e8s de l'Atr\u00e9ide M\u00e9n\u00e9laos. Et\nune servante, pour laver leurs mains, versa de l'eau, d'une belle\naigui\u00e8re d'or, dans un bassin d'argent; et elle dressa devant eux\nune table polie; et la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable intendante, pleine de\nbienveillance, y d\u00e9posa du pain et des mets nombreux. Et le\nd\u00e9coupeur leur offrit les plateaux couverts de viandes\ndiff\u00e9rentes, et il posa devant eux des coupes d'or. Et le blond\nM\u00e9n\u00e9laos, leur donnant la main droite, leur dit:\n\n-- Mangez et r\u00e9jouissez-vous. Quand vous serez rassasi\u00e9s de\nnourriture, nous vous demanderons qui vous \u00eates parmi les hommes.\nCertes, la race de vos a\u00efeux n'a point failli, et vous \u00eates d'une\nrace de rois porte-sceptres nourris par Zeus, car jamais des\nl\u00e2ches n'ont enfant\u00e9 de tels fils.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, saisissant de ses mains le dos gras d'une\ng\u00e9nisse, honneur qu'on lui avait fait \u00e0 lui-m\u00eame, il le pla\u00e7a\ndevant eux. Et ceux-ci \u00e9tendirent les mains vers les mets offerts.\nEt quand ils eurent assouvi le besoin de manger et de boire,\nT\u00e8l\u00e9makhos dit au fils de Nest\u00f4r, en approchant la t\u00eate de la\nsienne, afin de n'\u00eatre point entendu:\n\n-- Vois, Nestoride, tr\u00e8s-cher \u00e0 mon coeur, la splendeur de\nl'airain et la maison sonore, et l'or, et l'\u00e9mail, et l'argent et\nl'ivoire. Sans doute, telle est la demeure de l'olympien Zeus,\ntant ces richesses sont nombreuses. L'admiration me saisit en les\nregardant.\n\nEt le blond M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, ayant compris ce qu'il disait, leur adressa\nces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Chers enfants, aucun vivant ne peut lutter contre Zeus, car ses\ndemeures et ses richesses sont immortelles. Il y a des hommes plus\nou moins riches que moi; mais j'ai subi bien des maux, et j'ai\nerr\u00e9 sur mes nefs pendant huit ann\u00e9es, avant de revenir. Et j'ai\nvu Kypros et la Phoinik\u00e8, et les Aigyptiens, et les Aithiopiens,\net les Sid\u00f4nes, et les \u00c9rembes, et la Liby\u00e8 o\u00f9 les agneaux sont\ncornus et o\u00f9 les brebis mettent bas trois fois par an. L\u00e0, ni le\nroi ni le berger ne manquent de fromage, de viandes et de lait\ndoux, car ils peuvent traire le lait pendant toute l'ann\u00e9e. Et\ntandis que j'errais en beaucoup de pays, amassant des richesses,\nun homme tuait tra\u00eetreusement mon fr\u00e8re, aid\u00e9 par la ruse d'une\nfemme perfide. Et je r\u00e8gne, plein de tristesse malgr\u00e9 mes\nrichesses. Mais vous devez avoir appris ces choses de vos p\u00e8res,\nquels qu'ils soient. Et j'ai subi des maux nombreux, et j'ai\nd\u00e9truit une ville bien peupl\u00e9e qui renfermait des tr\u00e9sors\npr\u00e9cieux. Pl\u00fbt aux dieux que j'en eusse trois fois moins dans mes\ndemeures, et qu'ils fussent encore vivants les h\u00e9ros qui ont p\u00e9ri\ndevant la grande Troi\u00e8, loin d'Argos o\u00f9 paissent les beaux\nchevaux! Et je pleure et je g\u00e9mis sur eux tous. Souvent, assis\ndans mes demeures, je me plais \u00e0 m'attrister en me souvenant, et\ntant\u00f4t je cesse de g\u00e9mir, car la lassitude du deuil arrive\npromptement.\n\nMais, bien qu'attrist\u00e9, je les regrette moins tous ensemble qu'un\nseul d'entre eux, dont le souvenir interrompt mon sommeil et\nchasse ma faim; car Odysseus a support\u00e9 plus de travaux que tous\nles Akhaiens. Et d'autres douleurs lui \u00e9taient r\u00e9serv\u00e9es dans\nl'avenir; et une tristesse incurable me saisit \u00e0 cause de lui qui\nest depuis si longtemps absent. Et nous ne savons s'il est vivant\nou mort; et le vieux Laert\u00e8s le pleure, et la sage P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia, et\nT\u00e8l\u00e9makhos qu'il laissa tout enfant dans ses demeures.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il donna \u00e0 T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos le d\u00e9sir de pleurer \u00e0\ncause de son p\u00e8re; et, entendant parler de son p\u00e8re, il se couvrit\nles yeux de son manteau pourpr\u00e9, avec ses deux mains, et il\nr\u00e9pandit des larmes hors de ses paupi\u00e8res. Et M\u00e9n\u00e9laos le\nreconnut, et il d\u00e9lib\u00e9ra dans son esprit et dans son coeur s'il le\nlaisserait se souvenir le premier de son p\u00e8re, ou s'il\nl'interrogerait en lui disant ce qu'il pensait.\n\nPendant qu'il d\u00e9lib\u00e9rait ainsi dans son esprit et dans son coeur,\nH\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 sortit de la haute chambre nuptiale parfum\u00e9e, semblable \u00e0\nArt\u00e9mis qui porte un arc d'or. Aussit\u00f4t Adrest\u00e8 lui pr\u00e9senta un\nbeau si\u00e8ge, Alkipp\u00e8 apporta un tapis de laine moelleuse, et Phyl\u00f4\nlui offrit une corbeille d'argent que lui avait donn\u00e9e Alkandr\u00e8,\nfemme de Polybos, qui habitait dans Th\u00e8b\u00e8 Aigyptienne, o\u00f9 de\nnombreuses richesses \u00e9taient renferm\u00e9es dans les demeures. Et\nPolybos donna \u00e0 M\u00e9n\u00e9laos deux baignoires d'argent, et deux\ntr\u00e9pieds, et dix talents d'or; et Alkandr\u00e8 avait aussi offert de\nbeaux pr\u00e9sents \u00e0 H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8: Une quenouille d'or et une corbeille\nd'argent massif dont la bordure \u00e9tait d'or. Et la servante Phyl\u00f4\nla lui apporta, pleine de fil pr\u00e9par\u00e9, et, par-dessus, la\nquenouille charg\u00e9e de laine violette. H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 s'assit, avec un\nescabeau sous les pieds, et aussit\u00f4t elle interrogea ainsi son\n\u00e9poux:\n\n-- Savons-nous, divin M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, qui sont ces hommes qui se\nglorifient d'\u00eatre entr\u00e9s dans notre demeure? Mentirai-je ou dirai-\nje la v\u00e9rit\u00e9? Mon esprit me l'ordonne. Je ne pense pas avoir\njamais vu rien de plus ressemblant, soit un homme, soit une femme;\net l'admiration me saisit tandis que je regarde ce jeune homme,\ntant il est semblable au fils du magnanime Odysseus, \u00e0 T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos\nqu'il laissa tout enfant dans sa demeure, quand pour moi, chienne,\nles Akhaiens vinrent \u00e0 Troi\u00e8, portant la guerre audacieuse.\n\nEt le blond M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi;\n\n-- Je reconnais comme toi, femme, que ce sont l\u00e0 les pieds, les\nmains, l'\u00e9clair des yeux, la t\u00eate et les cheveux d'Odysseus. Et\nvoici que je me souvenais de lui et que je me rappelais combien de\nmis\u00e8res il avait patiemment subies pour moi. Mais ce jeune homme\nr\u00e9pand de ses paupi\u00e8res des larmes am\u00e8res, couvrant ses yeux de\nson manteau pourpr\u00e9.\n\nEt le Nestoride Peisistratos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\nAtr\u00e9ide M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, nourri par Zeus, prince des peuples, certes, il\nest le fils de celui que tu dis. Mais il est sage, et il pense\nqu'il ne serait pas convenable, d\u00e8s son arriv\u00e9e, de prononcer des\nparoles t\u00e9m\u00e9raires devant toi dont nous \u00e9coutons la voix comme\ncelle d'un dieu. Le cavalier G\u00e9rennien Nest\u00f4r m'a ordonn\u00e9 de\nl'accompagner. Et il d\u00e9sire te voir, afin que tu le conseilles ou\nque tu l'aides; car il subit beaucoup de maux, \u00e0 cause de son p\u00e8re\nabsent, dans sa demeure o\u00f9 il a peu de d\u00e9fenseurs. Cette destin\u00e9e\nest faite \u00e0 T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, et son p\u00e8re est absent, et il n'a\npersonne, parmi son peuple, qui puisse d\u00e9tourner de lui les\ncalamit\u00e9s.\n\nEt le blond M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi:\n\n-- \u00d4 dieux! certes, le fils d'un homme que j'aime est entr\u00e9 dans\nma demeure, d'un h\u00e9ros qui, pour ma cause, a subi tant de combats.\nJ'avais r\u00e9solu de l'honorer entre tous les Akhaiens, si l'olympien\nZeus qui tonne au loin nous e\u00fbt donn\u00e9 de revenir sur la mer et sur\nnos nefs rapides. Et je lui aurais \u00e9lev\u00e9 une ville dans Argos, et\nje lui aurais b\u00e2ti une demeure; et il aurait transport\u00e9 d'Ithak\u00e8\nses richesses et sa famille et tout son peuple dans une des villes\no\u00f9 je commande et qui aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 quitt\u00e9e par ceux qui l'habitent.\nEt, souvent, nous nous fussions visit\u00e9s tour \u00e0 tour, nous aimant\net nous charmant jusqu'\u00e0 ce que la noire nu\u00e9e de la mort nous e\u00fbt\nenvelopp\u00e9s. Mais, sans doute, un dieu nous a envi\u00e9 cette destin\u00e9e,\npuisque, le retenant seul et malheureux, il lui refuse le retour.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il excita chez tous le d\u00e9sir de pleurer. Et\nl'Argienne H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8, fille de Zeus, pleurait; et T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos pleurait\naussi, et l'Atr\u00e9ide M\u00e9n\u00e9laos; et le fils de Nest\u00f4r avait les yeux\npleins de larmes, et il se souvenait dans son esprit de\nl'irr\u00e9prochable Antilokhos que l'illustre fils de la splendide \u00c9\u00f4s\navait tu\u00e9 et, se souvenant, il dit en paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Atr\u00e9ide, souvent le vieillard Nest\u00f4r m'a dit, quand nous nous\nsouvenions de toi dans ses demeures, et quand nous nous\nentretenions, que tu l'emportais sur tous par ta sagesse. C'est\npourquoi, maintenant, \u00e9coute-moi. Je ne me plais point \u00e0 pleurer\napr\u00e8s le repas; mais nous verserons des larmes quand \u00c9\u00f4s n\u00e9e au\nmatin reviendra. Il faut pleurer ceux qui ont subi leur destin\u00e9e.\nC'est l\u00e0, certes, la seule r\u00e9compense des mis\u00e9rables mortels de\ncouper pour eux sa chevelure et de mouiller ses joues de larmes.\nMon fr\u00e8re aussi est mort, et il n'\u00e9tait pas le moins brave des\nArgiens, tu le sais. Je n'en ai pas \u00e9t\u00e9 t\u00e9moin, et je ne l'ai\npoint vu, mais on dit qu'Antilokhos l'emportait sur tous, quand il\ncourait et quand il combattait.\n\nEt le blond M\u00e9n\u00e9laos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 cher, tu parles comme un homme sage et plus \u00e2g\u00e9 que toi\nparlerait et agirait, comme le fils d'un sage p\u00e8re. On reconna\u00eet\nfacilement l'illustre race d'un homme que le Kroni\u00f4n a honor\u00e9,\nqu'il a bien mari\u00e9 et qui est bien n\u00e9. C'est ainsi qu'il a accord\u00e9\ntous les jours \u00e0 Nest\u00f4r de vieillir en paix dans sa demeure, au\nmilieu de fils sages et qui excellent par la lance. Mais retenons\nles pleurs qui viennent de nous \u00e9chapper. Souvenons-nous de notre\nrepas et versons de l'eau sur nos mains. T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos et moi, demain\nmatin, nous parlerons et nous nous entretiendrons.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Asphali\u00f4n, fid\u00e8le serviteur de l'illustre\nM\u00e9n\u00e9laos, versa de l'eau sur leurs mains, et tous \u00e9tendirent les\nmains vers les mets plac\u00e9s devant eux.\n\nEt alors H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8, fille de Zeus, eut une autre pens\u00e9e, et,\naussit\u00f4t, elle versa dans le vin qu'ils buvaient un baume, le\nn\u00e9penth\u00e8s, qui donne l'oubli des maux. Celui qui aurait bu ce\nm\u00e9lange ne pourrait plus r\u00e9pandre des larmes de tout un jour, m\u00eame\nsi sa m\u00e8re et son p\u00e8re \u00e9taient morts, m\u00eame si on tuait devant lui\npar l'airain son fr\u00e8re ou son fils bien-aim\u00e9, et s'il le voyait de\nses yeux. Et la fille de Zeus poss\u00e9dait cette liqueur excellente\nque lui avait donn\u00e9e Polydamna, femme de Th\u00f4s, en Aigypti\u00e8, terre\nfertile qui produit beaucoup de baumes, les uns salutaires et les\nautres mortels. L\u00e0 tous les m\u00e9decins sont les plus habiles d'entre\nles hommes, et ils sont de la race de Pai\u00e8\u00f4n. Apr\u00e8s l'avoir\npr\u00e9par\u00e9, H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 ordonna de verser le vin, et elle parla ainsi:\n\n-- Atr\u00e9ide M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, nourrisson de Zeus, certes, ceux-ci sont fils\nd'hommes braves, mais Zeus dispense comme il le veut le bien et le\nmal, car il peut tout. C'est pourquoi, maintenant, mangeons, assis\ndans nos demeures, et charmons-nous par nos paroles. Je vous dirai\ndes choses qui vous plairont. Cependant, je ne pourrai raconter,\nni m\u00eame rappeler tous les combats du patient Odysseus, tant cet\nhomme brave a fait et support\u00e9 de travaux chez le peuple des\nTroiens, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 les Akhaiens ont \u00e9t\u00e9 accabl\u00e9s de mis\u00e8res. Se\ncouvrant lui-m\u00eame de plaies honteuses, les \u00e9paules envelopp\u00e9es de\nvils haillons et semblable \u00e0 un esclave, il entra dans la vaste\nville des guerriers ennemis, s'\u00e9tant fait tel qu'un mendiant, et\nbien diff\u00e9rent de ce qu'il \u00e9tait aupr\u00e8s des nefs des Akhaiens.\nC'est ainsi qu'il entra dans la ville des Troiens, inconnu de\ntous. Seule, je le reconnus et je l'interrogeais mais il me\nr\u00e9pondit avec ruse. Puis, je le baignai et je le parfumais\nd'huile, et je le couvris de v\u00eatements, et je jurais un grand\nserment, promettant de ne point r\u00e9v\u00e9ler Odysseus aux Troiens avant\nqu'il f\u00fbt retourn\u00e9 aux nefs rapides et aux tentes. Et alors il me\nd\u00e9couvrit tous les projets des Akhaiens. Et, apr\u00e8s avoir tu\u00e9 avec\nle long airain un grand nombre de Troiens, il retourna vers les\nArgiens, leur rapportant beaucoup de secrets. Et les Troiennes\ng\u00e9missaient lamentablement; mais mon esprit se r\u00e9jouissait, car\nd\u00e9j\u00e0 j'avais dans mon coeur le d\u00e9sir de retourner vers ma demeure,\net je pleurais sur la mauvaise destin\u00e9e qu'Aphrodit\u00e8 m'avait\nfaite, quand elle me conduisit, en me trompant, loin de la ch\u00e8re\nterre de la patrie, et de ma fille, et de la chambre nuptiale, et\nd'un mari qui n'est priv\u00e9 d'aucun don, ni d'intelligence, ni de\nbeaut\u00e9.\n\nEt le blond M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi:\n\n-- Tu as dit toutes ces choses, femme, comme il convient. Certes,\nj'ai connu la pens\u00e9e et la sagesse de beaucoup de h\u00e9ros, et j'ai\nparcouru beaucoup de pays, mais je n'ai jamais vu de mes yeux un\ncoeur tel que celui du patient Odysseus, ni ce que ce vaillant\nhomme fit et affronta dans le cheval bien travaill\u00e9 o\u00f9 nous \u00e9tions\ntous entr\u00e9s, nous, les princes des Argiens, afin de porter le\nmeurtre et la k\u00e8r aux Troiens. Et tu vins l\u00e0, et sans doute un\ndieu te l'ordonna qui voulut accorder la gloire aux Troiens, et\nD\u00e8iphobos semblable \u00e0 un dieu te suivait. Et tu fis trois fois le\ntour de l'emb\u00fbche creuse, en la frappant; et tu nommais les\nprinces des Danaens en imitant la voix des femmes de tous les\nArgiens; et nous, moi, Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s et le divin Odysseus, assis au\nmilieu, nous \u00e9coutions ta voix. Et Diom\u00e8d\u00e8s et moi nous voulions\nsortir imp\u00e9tueusement plut\u00f4t que d'\u00e9couter de l'int\u00e9rieur, mais\nOdysseus nous arr\u00eata et nous retint malgr\u00e9 notre d\u00e9sir. Et les\nautres fils des Akhaiens restaient muets, et Antiklos, seul,\nvoulut te r\u00e9pondre: mais Odysseus lui comprima la bouche de ses\nmains robustes, et il sauva tous les Akhaiens; et il le contint\nainsi jusqu'\u00e0 ce que Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 t'e\u00fbt \u00e9loign\u00e9e.\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Atr\u00e9ide M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, nourrisson de Zeus, prince des peuples, cela\nest triste, mais ces actions n'ont point \u00e9loign\u00e9 de lui la\nmauvaise mort, et m\u00eame si son coeur e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 de fer. Mais conduis-\nnous \u00e0 nos lits, afin que nous jouissions du doux sommeil.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et l'Argienne H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 ordonna aux servantes de\npr\u00e9parer les lits sous le portique, d'amasser des v\u00eatements beaux\net pourpr\u00e9s, de les couvrir de tapis et de recouvrir ceux-ci de\nlaines \u00e9paisses. Et les servantes sortirent des demeures, portant\ndes torches dans leurs mains, et elles \u00e9tendirent les lits, et un\nh\u00e9raut conduisit les h\u00f4tes. Et le h\u00e9ros T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos et l'illustre\nfils de Nest\u00f4r s'endormirent sous le portique de la maison. Et\nl'Atr\u00e9ide s'endormit au fond de la haute demeure, et H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 au\nlarge p\u00e9plos, la plus belle des femmes, se coucha aupr\u00e8s de lui.\n\nMais quand \u00c9\u00f4s aux doigts ros\u00e9s, n\u00e9e au matin, apparut, le brave\nM\u00e9n\u00e9laos se leva de son lit, mit ses v\u00eatements, suspendit une \u00e9p\u00e9e\naigu\u00eb autour de ses \u00e9paules et attacha de belles sandales \u00e0 ses\npieds luisants. Et, semblable \u00e0 un dieu, sortant de la chambre\nnuptiale, il s'assit aupr\u00e8s de T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos et il lui parla:\n\n-- H\u00e9ros T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, quelle n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 t'a pouss\u00e9 vers la divine\nLak\u00e9daim\u00f4n, sur le large dos de la mer? Est-ce un int\u00e9r\u00eat public\nou priv\u00e9? Dis-le-moi avec v\u00e9rit\u00e9.\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Atr\u00e9ide M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, nourrisson de Zeus, prince des peuples, je\nviens afin que tu me dises quelque chose de mon p\u00e8re. Ma maison\nest ruin\u00e9e, mes riches travaux p\u00e9rissent. Ma demeure est pleine\nd'hommes ennemis qui \u00e9gorgent mes brebis grasses et mes boeufs aux\npieds flexibles et aux fronts sinueux. Ce sont les pr\u00e9tendants de\nma m\u00e8re, et ils ont une grande insolence. C'est pourquoi,\nmaintenant, je viens \u00e0 tes genoux, afin que, me parlant de la mort\nlamentable de mon p\u00e8re, tu me dises si tu l'as vue de tes yeux, ou\nsi tu l'as apprise d'un voyageur. Certes, une m\u00e8re malheureuse l'a\nenfant\u00e9. Ne me trompe point pour me consoler, et par piti\u00e9; mais\nraconte-moi franchement tout ce que tu as vu. Je t'en supplie, si\njamais mon p\u00e8re, le brave Odysseus, par la parole ou par l'action,\na tenu ce qu'il avait promis, chez le peuple des Troiens, o\u00f9 les\nAkhaiens ont subi tant de mis\u00e8res, souviens-t'en et dis-moi la\nv\u00e9rit\u00e9.\n\nEt, avec un profond soupir, le blond M\u00e9n\u00e9laos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 dieux! certes, des l\u00e2ches veulent coucher dans le lit d'un\nbrave! Ainsi une biche a d\u00e9pos\u00e9 dans le repaire d'un lion robuste\nses faons nouveau-n\u00e9s et qui t\u00e8tent, tandis qu'elle va pa\u00eetre sur\nles hauteurs ou dans les vall\u00e9es herbues; et voici que le lion,\nrentrant dans son repaire, tue mis\u00e9rablement tous les faons. Ainsi\nOdysseus leur fera subir une mort mis\u00e9rable. Plaise au p\u00e8re Zeus,\n\u00e0 Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, \u00e0 Apoll\u00f4n, qu'Odysseus se m\u00eale aux Pr\u00e9tendants tel qu'il\n\u00e9tait dans Lesbos bien b\u00e2tie, quand se levant pour lutter contre\nle Philom\u00e8l\u00e9ide, il le terrassa rudement. Tous les Akhaiens s'en\nr\u00e9jouirent. La vie des Pr\u00e9tendants serait br\u00e8ve et leurs noces\nseraient am\u00e8res! Mais les choses que tu me demandes en me\nsuppliant, je te les dirai sans te rien cacher, telles que me les\na dites le Vieillard v\u00e9ridique de la mer. Je te les dirai toutes\net je ne te cacherai rien.\n\nMalgr\u00e9 mon d\u00e9sir du retour, les dieux me retinrent en Aigypti\u00e8,\nparce que je ne leur avais point offert les h\u00e9catombes qui leur\n\u00e9taient dues. Les Dieux, en effet, ne veulent point que nous\noubliions leurs commandements. Et il y a une \u00eele, au milieu de la\nmer onduleuse, devant l'Aigypti\u00e8, et on la nomme Pharos, et elle\nest \u00e9loign\u00e9e d'autant d'espace qu'une nef creuse, que le vent\nsonore pousse en poupe, peut en franchir en un jour entier. Et\ndans cette \u00eele il y a un port excellent d'o\u00f9, apr\u00e8s avoir puis\u00e9\nune eau profonde, on tra\u00eene \u00e0 la mer les nefs \u00e9gales. L\u00e0, les\ndieux me retinrent vingt jours, et les vents marins ne souffl\u00e8rent\npoint qui m\u00e8nent les nefs sur le large dos de la mer. Et mes\nvivres \u00e9taient d\u00e9j\u00e0 \u00e9puis\u00e9s, et l'esprit de mes hommes \u00e9tait\nabattu, quand une d\u00e9esse me regarda et me prit en piti\u00e9, la fille\ndu Vieillard de la mer, de l'illustre Pr\u00f4teus, Eidoth\u00e9\u00e8. Et je\ntouchai son \u00e2me, et elle vint au-devant de moi tandis que j'\u00e9tais\nseul, loin de mes compagnons qui, sans cesse, erraient autour de\nl'\u00eele, p\u00eachant \u00e0 l'aide des hame\u00e7ons recourb\u00e9s, car la faim\ntourmentait leur ventre. Et, se tenant pr\u00e8s de moi, elle parla\nainsi:\n\n-- Tu es grandement insens\u00e9, \u00f4 \u00e9tranger, ou tu as perdu l'esprit,\nou tu restes ici volontiers et tu te plais \u00e0 souffrir, car,\ncertes, voici longtemps que tu es retenu dans l'\u00eele, et tu ne peux\ntrouver aucune fin \u00e0 cela, et le coeur de tes compagnons s'\u00e9puise.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et, lui r\u00e9pondant aussit\u00f4t, je dis:\n\n-- Je te dirai avec v\u00e9rit\u00e9, qui que tu sois entre les d\u00e9esses, que\nje ne reste point volontairement ici; mais je dois avoir offens\u00e9\nles Immortels qui habitent le large Ouranos. Dis-moi donc, car les\ndieux savent tout, quel est celui des immortels qui me retarde en\nroute et qui s'oppose \u00e0 ce que je retourne en fendant la mer\npoissonneuse.\n\nJe parlais ainsi, et, aussit\u00f4t, l'illustre d\u00e9esse me r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 \u00e9tranger, je te r\u00e9pondrai avec v\u00e9rit\u00e9. C'est ici qu'habite le\nv\u00e9ridique Vieillard de la mer, l'immortel Pr\u00f4teus Aigyptien qui\nconna\u00eet les profondeurs de toute la mer et qui est esclave de\nPoseida\u00f4n. On dit qu'il est mon p\u00e8re et qu'il m'a engendr\u00e9e. Si tu\npeux le saisir par ruse, il te dira ta route et comment tu\nretourneras \u00e0 travers la mer poissonneuse; et, de plus, il te\ndira, \u00f4 enfant de Zeus, si tu le veux, ce qui est arriv\u00e9 dans tes\ndemeures, le bien et le mal, pendant ton absence et ta route\nlongue et difficile.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et, aussit\u00f4t, je lui r\u00e9pondis:\n\n-- Maintenant, explique-moi les ruses du Vieillard, de peur que,\nme voyant, il me pr\u00e9vienne et m'\u00e9chappe, car un dieu est difficile\n\u00e0 dompter pour un homme mortel.\n\nJe parlais ainsi, et, aussit\u00f4t, l'illustre d\u00e9esse me r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 \u00e9tranger, je te r\u00e9pondrai avec v\u00e9rit\u00e9. Quand H\u00e8lios atteint\nle milieu de l'Ouranos, alors le v\u00e9ridique Vieillard marin sort de\nla mer, sous le souffle de Z\u00e9phyros, et couvert d'une brume\n\u00e9paisse. \u00c9tant sorti, il s'endort sous les grottes creuses. Autour\nde lui, les phoques sans pieds de la belle Halosydn\u00e8, sortant\naussi de la blanche mer, s'endorment, innombrables, exhalant\nl'\u00e2cre odeur de la mer profonde. Je te conduirai l\u00e0, au lever de\nla lumi\u00e8re, et je t'y placerai comme il convient, et tu choisiras\ntrois de tes compagnons parmi les plus braves qui sont sur tes\nnefs aux bancs de rameurs. Maintenant, je te dirai toutes les\nruses du Vieillard.\n\nD'abord il comptera et il examinera les phoques; puis, les ayant\ns\u00e9par\u00e9s par cinq, il se couchera au milieu d'eux comme un berger\nau milieu d'un troupeau de brebis. D\u00e8s que vous le verrez presque\nendormi, alors souvenez-vous de votre courage et de votre force,\net retenez-le malgr\u00e9 son d\u00e9sir de vous \u00e9chapper, et ses efforts.\nIl se fera semblable \u00e0 toutes les choses qui sont sur la terre,\naux reptiles, \u00e0 l'eau, au feu ardent; mais retenez-le\nvigoureusement et serrez-le plus fort. Mais quand il t'interrogera\nlui-m\u00eame et que tu le verras tel qu'il \u00e9tait endormi, n'use plus\nde violence et l\u00e2che le Vieillard. Puis, \u00f4 H\u00e9ros, demande-lui quel\ndieu t'afflige, et il te dira comment retourner \u00e0 travers la mer\npoissonneuse.\n\nElle parla ainsi et sauta dans la mer agit\u00e9e. Et je retournai vers\nmes nefs, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 elles \u00e9taient tir\u00e9es sur la plage, et mon coeur\nagitait de nombreuses pens\u00e9es tandis que j'allais. Puis, \u00e9tant\narriv\u00e9 \u00e0 ma nef et \u00e0 la mer, nous pr\u00e9par\u00e2mes le repas, et la nuit\ndivine survint, et alors nous nous endorm\u00eemes sur le rivage de la\nmer.\n\nEt quand \u00c9\u00f4s aux doigts ros\u00e9s, n\u00e9e au matin, apparut, je marchais\nvers le rivage de la mer large, en suppliant les dieux; et je\nconduisais trois de mes compagnons, me confiant le plus dans leur\ncourage. Pendant ce temps, la d\u00e9esse, \u00e9tant sortie du large sein\nde la mer, en apporta quatre peaux de phoques r\u00e9cemment \u00e9corch\u00e9s,\net elle pr\u00e9para une ruse contre son p\u00e8re. Et elle s'\u00e9tait assise,\nnous attendant, apr\u00e8s avoir creus\u00e9 des lits dans le sable marin.\nEt nous v\u00eenmes aupr\u00e8s d'elle. Et elle nous pla\u00e7a et couvrit chacun\nde nous d'une peau. C'\u00e9tait une embuscade tr\u00e8s dure, car l'odeur\naffreuse des phoques nourris dans la mer nous affligeait\ncruellement. Qui peut en effet coucher aupr\u00e8s d'un monstre marin?\nMais la d\u00e9esse nous servit tr\u00e8s utilement, et elle mit dans les\nnarines de chacun de nous l'ambroisie au doux parfum qui chassa\nl'odeur des b\u00eates marines. Et nous attend\u00eemes, d'un esprit\npatient, toute la dur\u00e9e du matin. Enfin, les phoques sortirent,\ninnombrables, de la mer, et vinrent se coucher en ordre le long du\nrivage. Et, vers midi, le Vieillard sortit de la mer, rejoignit\nles phoques gras, les compta, et nous les premiers parmi eux, ne\nse doutant point de la ruse; puis, il se coucha lui-m\u00eame.\nAussit\u00f4t, avec des cris, nous nous jet\u00e2mes sur lui en l'entourant\nde nos bras; mais le Vieillard n'oublia pas ses ruses adroites, et\nil se changea d'abord en un lion \u00e0 longue crini\u00e8re, puis en\ndragon, en panth\u00e8re, en grand sanglier, en eau, en arbre au vaste\nfeuillage. Et nous le tenions avec vigueur et d'un coeur ferme;\nmais quand le Vieillard plein de ruses se vit r\u00e9duit, alors il\nm'interrogea et il me dit:\n\n-- Qui d'entre les dieux, fils d'Atreus, t'a instruit, afin que tu\nme saisisses malgr\u00e9 moi? Que d\u00e9sires-tu?\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, lui r\u00e9pondant, je lui dis:\n\n-- Tu le sais, Vieillard. Pourquoi me tromper en m'interrogeant?\nDepuis longtemps d\u00e9j\u00e0 je suis retenu dans cette \u00eele, et je ne puis\ntrouver fin \u00e0 cela, et mon coeur s'\u00e9puise. Dis-moi donc, car les\ndieux savent tout, quel est celui des immortels qui me d\u00e9tourne de\nma route et qui m'emp\u00eache de retourner \u00e0 travers la mer\npoissonneuse?\n\nJe parlai ainsi, et lui, me r\u00e9pondant, dit:\n\n-- Avant tout, tu devais sacrifier \u00e0 Zeus et aux autres dieux,\nafin d'arriver tr\u00e8s promptement dans ta patrie, en naviguant sur\nla noire mer. Ta destin\u00e9e n'est point de revoir tes amis ni de\nregagner ta demeure bien construite et la terre de la patrie,\navant que tu ne sois retourn\u00e9 vers les eaux du fleuve Aigyptos\ntomb\u00e9 de Zeus, et que tu n'aies offert de sacr\u00e9es h\u00e9catombes aux\ndieux immortels qui habitent le large Ouranos. Alors les dieux\nt'accorderont la route que tu d\u00e9sires.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, aussit\u00f4t, mon cher coeur se brisa parce qu'il\nm'ordonnait de retourner en Aigypti\u00e8, \u00e0 travers la noire mer, par\nun chemin long et difficile. Mais, lui r\u00e9pondant, je parlai ainsi:\n\n-- Je ferai toutes ces choses, Vieillard, ainsi que tu me le\nrecommandes; mais dis-moi, et r\u00e9ponds avec v\u00e9rit\u00e9, s'ils sont\nrevenus sains et saufs avec leurs nefs tous les Akhaiens que\nNest\u00f4r et moi nous avions laiss\u00e9s en partant de Troi\u00e8, ou si\nquelqu'un d'entre eux a p\u00e9ri d'une mort soudaine, dans sa nef, ou\ndans les bras de ses amis, apr\u00e8s la guerre?\n\nJe parlai ainsi, et, me r\u00e9pondant, il dit:\n\n-- Atr\u00e9ide, ne m'interroge point, car il ne te convient pas de\nconna\u00eetre ma pens\u00e9e, et je ne pense pas que tu restes longtemps\nsans pleurer, apr\u00e8s avoir tout entendu. Beaucoup d'Akhaiens ont\n\u00e9t\u00e9 dompt\u00e9s, beaucoup sont vivants. Tu as vu toi-m\u00eame les choses\nde la guerre. Deux chefs des Akhaiens cuirass\u00e9s d'airain ont p\u00e9ri\nau retour; un troisi\u00e8me est vivant et retenu au milieu de la mer\nlarge. Aias a \u00e9t\u00e9 dompt\u00e9 sur sa nef aux longs avirons. Poseida\u00f4n\nle conduisit d'abord vers les grandes roches de Gyras et le sauva\nde la mer; et sans doute il e\u00fbt \u00e9vit\u00e9 la mort, bien que ha\u00ef\nd'Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, s'il n'e\u00fbt dit une parole impie et s'il n'e\u00fbt commis une\naction mauvaise. Il dit que, malgr\u00e9 les dieux, il \u00e9chapperait aux\ngrands flots de la mer. Et Poseida\u00f4n entendit cette parole\norgueilleuse, et, aussit\u00f4t, de sa main robuste saisissant le\ntrident, il frappa la roche de Gyras et la fendit en deux; et une\npartie resta debout, et l'autre, sur laquelle Aias s'\u00e9tait\nr\u00e9fugi\u00e9, tomba et l'emporta dans la grande mer onduleuse. C'est\nainsi qu'il p\u00e9rit, ayant bu l'eau sal\u00e9e.\n\nTon fr\u00e8re \u00e9vita la mort et il s'\u00e9chappa sur sa nef creuse, et la\nv\u00e9n\u00e9rable H\u00e8r\u00e8 le sauva; mais \u00e0 peine avait-il vu le haut cap des\nMal\u00e9iens, qu'une temp\u00eate, l'ayant saisi, l'emporta, g\u00e9missant, \u00e0\nl'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 du pays o\u00f9 Thyest\u00e8s habitait autrefois, et o\u00f9 habitait\nalors le Thyestade Aigisthos. L\u00e0, le retour paraissait sans\ndanger, et les dieux firent changer les vents et regagn\u00e8rent leurs\ndemeures. Et Agamemn\u00f4n, joyeux, descendit sur la terre de la\npatrie, et il la baisait, et il versait des larmes abondantes\nparce qu'il l'avait revue avec joie. Mais une sentinelle le vit du\nhaut d'un rocher o\u00f9 le tra\u00eetre Aigisthos l'avait plac\u00e9e, lui ayant\npromis en r\u00e9compense deux talents d'or. Et, de l\u00e0, elle veillait\ndepuis toute une ann\u00e9e, de peur que l'Atr\u00e9ide arriv\u00e2t en secret et\nse souvint de sa force et de son courage. Et elle se h\u00e2ta d'aller\nl'annoncer, dans ses demeures, au prince des peuples. Aussit\u00f4t\nAigisthos m\u00e9dita une emb\u00fbche rus\u00e9e, et il choisit, parmi le\npeuple, vingt hommes tr\u00e8s braves, et il les pla\u00e7a en embuscade,\net, d'un autre c\u00f4t\u00e9, il ordonna de pr\u00e9parer un repas. Et lui-m\u00eame\nil invita, m\u00e9ditant de honteuses actions, le prince des peuples\nAgamemn\u00f4n \u00e0 le suivre avec ses chevaux et ses chars. Et il mena\nainsi \u00e0 la mort l'Atr\u00e9ide imprudent, et il le tua pendant le\nrepas, comme on \u00e9gorge un boeuf \u00e0 l'\u00e9table. Et aucun des\ncompagnons d'Agamemn\u00f4n ne fut sauv\u00e9, ni m\u00eame ceux d'Aigisthos; et\ntous furent \u00e9gorg\u00e9s dans la demeure royale.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et ma ch\u00e8re \u00e2me fut bris\u00e9e aussit\u00f4t, et je\npleurais couch\u00e9 sur le sable, et mon coeur ne voulait plus vivre\nni voir la lumi\u00e8re de H\u00e8lios. Mais, apr\u00e8s que je me fus rassasi\u00e9\nde pleurer, le v\u00e9ridique Vieillard de la mer me dit:\n\n-- Ne pleure point davantage, ni plus longtemps, sans agir, fils\nd'Atreus, car il n'y a en cela nul rem\u00e8de; mais tente plut\u00f4t tr\u00e8s\npromptement de regagner la terre de la patrie. Ou tu saisiras\nAigisthos encore vivant, ou Orest\u00e8s, te pr\u00e9venant, l'aura tu\u00e9, et\ntu seras pr\u00e9sent au repas fun\u00e8bre.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, dans ma poitrine, mon coeur et mon esprit\ng\u00e9n\u00e9reux, quoique tristes, se r\u00e9jouirent de nouveau, et je lui dis\nces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Je connais maintenant la destin\u00e9e de ceux-ci mais nomme-moi le\ntroisi\u00e8me, celui qui, vivant ou mort, est retenu au milieu de la\nmer large. Je veux le conna\u00eetre, quoique plein de tristesse.\n\nJe parlai ainsi, et, me r\u00e9pondant, il dit:\n\n-- C'est le fils de Laert\u00e8s qui avait ses demeures dans Ithak\u00e8. Je\nl'ai vu versant des larmes abondantes dans l'\u00eele et dans les\ndemeures de la nymphe Kalyps\u00f4 qui le retient de force; et il ne\npeut regagner la terre de la patrie. Il n'a plus en effet de nefs\narm\u00e9es d'avirons ni de compagnons qui puissent le reconduire sur\nle large dos de la mer. Pour toi, \u00f4 divin M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, ta destin\u00e9e\nn'est point de subir la Moire et la mort dans Argos nourrice de\nchevaux; mais les dieux t'enverront dans la prairie \u00c9lysienne, aux\nbornes de la terre, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 est le blond Rhadamanthos. L\u00e0, il est\ntr\u00e8s facile aux hommes de vivre. Ni neige, ni longs hivers, ni\npluie; mais toujours le Fleuve Ok\u00e9anos envoie les douces haleines\nde Z\u00e9phyros, afin de rafra\u00eechir les hommes. Et ce sera ta\ndestin\u00e9e, parce que tu poss\u00e8des H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 et que tu es gendre de\nZeus.\n\n-- Il parla ainsi, et il plongea dans la mer \u00e9cumeuse. Et je\nretournai vers mes nefs avec mes divins compagnons. Et mon coeur\nagitait de nombreuses pens\u00e9es tandis que je marchais. \u00c9tant\narriv\u00e9s \u00e0 ma nef et \u00e0 la mer, nous pr\u00e9par\u00e2mes le repas, et la nuit\nsolitaire survint, et nous nous endorm\u00eemes sur le rivage de la\nmer. Et quand \u00c9\u00f4s aux doigts ros\u00e9s, n\u00e9e au matin, apparut, nous\ntra\u00een\u00e2mes nos nefs \u00e0 la mer divine. Puis, dressant les m\u00e2ts et\nd\u00e9ployant les voiles des nefs \u00e9gales, mes compagnons s'assirent\nsur les bancs de rameurs, et tous, assis en ordre, frapp\u00e8rent de\nleurs avirons la mer \u00e9cumeuse. Et j'arr\u00eatai de nouveau mes nefs\ndans le fleuve Aigyptos tomb\u00e9 de Zeus, et je sacrifiais de saintes\nh\u00e9catombes. Et, apr\u00e8s avoir apais\u00e9 la col\u00e8re des dieux qui vivent\ntoujours, j'\u00e9levai un tombeau \u00e0 Agamemn\u00f4n, afin que sa gloire se\nr\u00e9pand\u00eet au loin. Ayant accompli ces choses, je retournai, et les\ndieux m'envoy\u00e8rent un vent propice et me ramen\u00e8rent promptement\ndans la ch\u00e8re patrie. Maintenant, reste dans mes demeures jusqu'au\nonzi\u00e8me ou au douzi\u00e8me jour; et, alors, je te renverrai dignement,\net je te ferai des pr\u00e9sents splendides, trois chevaux et un beau\nchar; et je te donnerai aussi une belle coupe afin que tu fasses\ndes libations aux dieux immortels et que tu te souviennes toujours\nde moi.\n\nEt le sage T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Atr\u00e9ide, ne me retiens pas ici plus longtemps. Certes, je\nconsumerais toute une ann\u00e9e assis aupr\u00e8s de toi, que je n'aurais\nle regret ni de ma demeure, ni de mes parents, tant je suis\nprofond\u00e9ment charm\u00e9 de tes paroles et de tes discours; mais d\u00e9j\u00e0\nje suis un souci pour mes compagnons dans la divine Pylos, et tu\nme retiens longtemps ici. Mais que le don, quel qu'il soit, que tu\nd\u00e9sires me faire, puisse \u00eatre emport\u00e9 et conserv\u00e9. Je ne conduirai\npoint de chevaux dans Ithak\u00e8, et je te les laisserai ici dans\nl'abondance. Car tu poss\u00e8des de vastes plaines o\u00f9 croissent\nabondamment le lotos, le souchet et le froment, et l'avoine et\nl'orge. Dans Itakh\u00e8 il n'y a ni routes pour les chars, ni\nprairies; elle nourrit plut\u00f4t les ch\u00e8vres que les chevaux et pla\u00eet\nmieux aux premi\u00e8res. Aucune des \u00eeles qui s'inclinent \u00e0 la mer\nn'est grande, ni munie de prairies, et Ithak\u00e8 par-dessus toutes.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le brave M\u00e9n\u00e9laos rit, et il lui prit la main,\net il lui dit:\n\n-- Tu es d'un bon sang, cher enfant, puisque tu parles ainsi. Je\nchangerai ce pr\u00e9sent, car je le puis. Parmi tous les tr\u00e9sors qui\nsont dans ma demeure je te donnerai le plus beau et le plus\npr\u00e9cieux. Je te donnerai un beau krat\u00e8re tout en argent et dont\nles bords sont orn\u00e9s d'or. C'est l'ouvrage de H\u00e8phaistos, et le\nh\u00e9ros illustre, roi des Sid\u00f4nes, quand il me re\u00e7ut dans sa\ndemeure, \u00e0 mon retour, me le donna; et je veux te le donner.\n\nEt ils se parlaient ainsi, et les convives revinrent dans la\ndemeure du roi divin. Et ils amenaient des brebis, et ils\napportaient le vin qui donne la vigueur; et les \u00e9pouses aux belles\nbandelettes apportaient le pain. Et ils pr\u00e9paraient ainsi le repas\ndans la demeure.\n\nMais les pr\u00e9tendants, devant la demeure d'Odysseus, se plaisaient\n\u00e0 lancer les disques \u00e0 courroies de peau de ch\u00e8vre sur le pav\u00e9\norn\u00e9 o\u00f9 ils d\u00e9ployaient d'habitude leur insolence. Antinoos et\nEurymakhos semblable \u00e0 un Dieu y \u00e9taient assis, et c'\u00e9taient les\nchefs des pr\u00e9tendants et les plus braves d'entre eux. Et No\u00e8m\u00f4n,\nfils de Phronios, s'approchant d'eux, dit \u00e0 Antinoos:\n\n-- Antinoos, savons-nous, ou non, quand T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos revient de la\nsablonneuse Pylos? Il est parti, emmenant ma nef dont j'ai besoin\npour aller dans la grande \u00c9lis, o\u00f9 j'ai douze cavales et de\npatients mulets encore indompt\u00e9s dont je voudrais mettre quelques-\nuns sous le joug.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous rest\u00e8rent stup\u00e9faits, car ils ne pensaient\npas que T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos f\u00fbt parti pour la N\u00e8l\u00e9ienne Pylos, mais ils\ncroyaient qu'il \u00e9tait dans les champs, aupr\u00e8s des brebis ou du\nberger. Et, aussit\u00f4t, Antinoos, fils d'Eupeith\u00e8s, lui dit:\n\n-- Dis-moi avec v\u00e9rit\u00e9 quand il est parti, et quels jeunes hommes\nchoisis dans Ithak\u00e8 l'ont suivi. Sont-ce des mercenaires ou ses\nesclaves? Ils ont donc pu faire ce voyage! Dis-moi ceci avec\nv\u00e9rit\u00e9, afin que je sache s'il t'a pris ta nef noire par force et\ncontre ton gr\u00e9, ou si, t'ayant persuad\u00e9 par ses paroles, tu la lui\nas donn\u00e9e volontairement.\n\nEt le fils de Phronios, No\u00e8m\u00f4n, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Je la lui ai donn\u00e9e volontairement. Comment aurais-je fait\nautrement? Quand un tel homme, ayant tant de soucis, adresse une\ndemande, il est difficile de refuser. Les jeunes hommes qui l'ont\nsuivi sont des n\u00f4tres et les premiers du peuple, et j'ai reconnu\nque leur chef \u00e9tait Ment\u00f4r, ou un dieu qui est tout semblable \u00e0\nlui; car j'admire ceci: j'ai vu le divin Ment\u00f4r, hier, au matin,\net cependant il \u00e9tait parti sur la nef pour Pylos!\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il regagna la demeure de son p\u00e8re. Et l'esprit\ng\u00e9n\u00e9reux des deux hommes fut troubl\u00e9. Et les pr\u00e9tendants\ns'assirent ensemble, se reposant de leurs jeux. Et le fils\nd'Eupeith\u00e8s, Antinoos, leur parla ainsi, plein de tristesse, et\nune noire col\u00e8re emplissait son coeur, et ses yeux \u00e9taient comme\ndes feux flambants:\n\n-- \u00d4 dieux! voici une grande action orgueilleusement accomplie, ce\nd\u00e9part de T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos! Nous disions qu'il n'en serait rien, et cet\nenfant est parti t\u00e9m\u00e9rairement, malgr\u00e9 nous, et il a tra\u00een\u00e9 une\nnef \u00e0 la mer, apr\u00e8s avoir choisi les premiers parmi le peuple! Il\na commenc\u00e9, et il nous r\u00e9serve des calamit\u00e9s, \u00e0 moins que Zeus ne\nrompe ses forces avant qu'il nous porte malheur. Mais donnez-moi\npromptement une nef rapide et vingt compagnons, afin que je lui\ntende une embuscade \u00e0 son retour, dans le d\u00e9troit d'Ithak\u00e8 et de\nl'\u00e2pre Samos; et, \u00e0 cause de son p\u00e8re, il aura couru la mer pour\nsa propre ruine.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous l'applaudirent et donn\u00e8rent des ordres, et\naussit\u00f4t ils se lev\u00e8rent pour entrer dans la demeure d'Odysseus.\n\nMais P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia ne fut pas longtemps sans conna\u00eetre leurs paroles\net ce qu'ils agitaient dans leur esprit, et le h\u00e9raut M\u00e9d\u00f4n, qui\nles avait entendus, le lui dit, \u00e9tant au seuil de la cour, tandis\nqu'ils ourdissaient leur dessein \u00e0 l'int\u00e9rieur. Et il se h\u00e2ta\nd'aller l'annoncer par les demeures \u00e0 P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia. Et comme il\nparaissait sur le seuil, P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia lui dit:\n\n-- H\u00e9raut, pourquoi les illustres pr\u00e9tendants t'envoient-ils? Est-\nce pour dire aux servantes du divin Odysseus de cesser de\ntravailler afin de pr\u00e9parer leur repas? Si, du moins, ils ne me\nrecherchaient point en mariage, s'ils ne s'entretenaient point ici\nni ailleurs, si, enfin, ils prenaient ici leur dernier repas! Vous\nqui vous \u00eates rassembl\u00e9s pour consumer tous les biens et la\nrichesse du sage T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, n'avez-vous jamais entendu dire par\nvos p\u00e8res, quand vous \u00e9tiez enfants, quel \u00e9tait Odysseus parmi vos\nparents? Il n'a jamais trait\u00e9 personne avec iniquit\u00e9, ni parl\u00e9\ninjurieusement en public, bien que ce soit le droit des rois\ndivins de ha\u00efr l'un et d'aimer l'autre; mais lui n'a jamais\nviolent\u00e9 un homme. Et votre mauvais esprit et vos indignes actions\napparaissent, et vous n'avez nulle reconnaissance des bienfaits\nre\u00e7us.\n\nEt M\u00e9d\u00f4n plein de sagesse lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\nPl\u00fbt aux dieux, reine, que tu subisses maintenant tes pires\nmalheurs! mais les pr\u00e9tendants m\u00e9ditent un dessein plus\npernicieux. Que le Kroni\u00f4n ne l'accomplisse pas! Ils veulent tuer\nT\u00e8l\u00e9makhos avec l'airain aigu, \u00e0 son retour dans sa demeure; car\nil est parti, afin de s'informer de son p\u00e8re, pour la sainte Pylos\net la divine Lak\u00e9daim\u00f4n.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et les genoux de P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia et son cher coeur\nfurent bris\u00e9s, et longtemps elle resta muette, et ses yeux\ns'emplirent de larmes, et sa tendre voix fut haletante, et, lui\nr\u00e9pondant, elle dit enfin:\n\n-- H\u00e9raut, pourquoi mon enfant est-il parti? O\u00f9 \u00e9tait la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9\nde monter sur les nefs rapides qui sont pour les hommes les\nchevaux de la mer et qui traversent les eaux immenses? Veut-il que\nson nom m\u00eame soit oubli\u00e9 parmi les hommes?\n\nEt M\u00e9d\u00f4n plein de sagesse lui r\u00e9pondit\n\n-- Je ne sais si un dieu l'a pouss\u00e9, ou s'il est all\u00e9 de lui-m\u00eame\nvers Pylos, afin de s'informer si son p\u00e8re revient ou s'il est\nmort.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il sortit de la demeure d'Odysseus. Et une\ndouleur d\u00e9chirante enveloppa l'\u00e2me de P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia, et elle ne put\nm\u00eame s'asseoir sur ses si\u00e8ges, quoiqu'ils fussent nombreux dans la\nmaison; mais elle s'assit sur le seuil de la belle chambre\nnuptiale, et elle g\u00e9mit mis\u00e9rablement, et, de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s, les\nservantes jeunes et vieilles, qui \u00e9taient dans la demeure,\ng\u00e9missaient aussi.\n\nEt P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia leur dit en pleurant:\n\n-- \u00c9coutez, amies! les Olympiens m'ont accabl\u00e9e de maux entre\ntoutes les femmes n\u00e9es et nourries avec moi. J'ai perdu d'abord\nmon brave mari au coeur de lion, ayant toutes les vertus parmi les\nDanaens, illustre, et dont la gloire s'est r\u00e9pandue dans la grande\nHellas et tout Argos; et maintenant voici que les temp\u00eates ont\nemport\u00e9 obscur\u00e9ment mon fils bien-aim\u00e9 loin de ses demeures, sans\nque j'aie appris son d\u00e9part! Malheureuses! aucune de vous n'a\nsong\u00e9 dans son esprit \u00e0 me faire lever de mon lit, bien que\nsachant, certes, qu'il allait monter sur une nef creuse et noire.\nSi j'avais su qu'il se pr\u00e9parait \u00e0 partir, ou il serait rest\u00e9\nmalgr\u00e9 son d\u00e9sir, ou il m'e\u00fbt laiss\u00e9e morte dans cette demeure.\nMais qu'un serviteur appelle le vieillard Dolios, mon esclave, que\nmon p\u00e8re me donna quand je vins ici, et qui cultive mon verger,\nafin qu'il aille dire promptement toutes ces choses \u00e0 Laert\u00e8s, et\nque celui-ci prenne une r\u00e9solution dans son esprit, et vienne en\ndeuil au milieu de ce peuple qui veut d\u00e9truire sa race et celle du\ndivin Odysseus.\n\nEt la bonne nourrice Eurykl\u00e9ia lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ch\u00e8re nymphe, tue-moi avec l'airain cruel ou garde-moi dans ta\ndemeure! Je ne te cacherai rien. Je savais tout, et je lui ai\nport\u00e9 tout ce qu'il m'a demand\u00e9, du pain et du vin. Et il m'a fait\njurer un grand serment que je ne te dirais rien avant le douzi\u00e8me\njour, si tu ne le demandais pas, ou si tu ignorais son d\u00e9part. Et\nil craignait qu'en pleurant tu blessasses ton beau corps. Mais\nbaigne-toi et rev\u00eats de purs v\u00eatements, et monte dans la haute\nchambre avec tes femmes. L\u00e0, supplie Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, fille de Zeus\ntemp\u00e9tueux, afin qu'elle sauve T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos de la mort. N'afflige\npoint un vieillard. Je ne pense point que la race de l'Arkeisiade\nsoit ha\u00efe des dieux heureux. Mais Odysseus ou T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos poss\u00e8dera\nencore ces hautes demeures et ces champs fertiles.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et la douleur de P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia cessa, et ses larmes\ns'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent. Elle se baigna, se couvrit de purs v\u00eatements, et,\nmontant dans la chambre haute avec ses femmes, elle r\u00e9pandit les\norges sacr\u00e9es d'une corbeille et supplia Ath\u00e8n\u00e8:\n\n-- Entends-moi, fille indompt\u00e9e de Zeus temp\u00e9tueux. Si jamais,\ndans ses demeures, le subtil Odysseus a br\u00fbl\u00e9 pour toi les cuisses\ngrasses des boeufs et des agneaux, souviens-t'en et garde-moi mon\ncher fils. Romps le mauvais dessein des insolents pr\u00e9tendants.\nElle parla ainsi en g\u00e9missant, et la d\u00e9esse entendit sa pri\u00e8re.\n\nEt les pr\u00e9tendants s'agitaient tumultueusement dans les salles\nd\u00e9j\u00e0 noires. Et chacun de ces jeunes hommes insolents disait:\n\n-- D\u00e9j\u00e0 la reine, d\u00e9sir\u00e9e par beaucoup, pr\u00e9pare, certes, nos\nnoces, et elle ne sait pas que le meurtre de son fils est proche.\n\nChacun d'eux parlait ainsi, mais elle connaissait leurs desseins,\net Antinoos leur dit:\n\n-- Insens\u00e9s! cessez tous ces paroles t\u00e9m\u00e9raires, de peur qu'on les\nr\u00e9p\u00e8te \u00e0 P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia; mais levons-nous, et accomplissons en silence\nce que nous avons tous approuv\u00e9 dans notre esprit.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il choisit vingt hommes tr\u00e8s braves qui se\nh\u00e2t\u00e8rent vers le rivage de la mer et la nef rapide. Et ils\ntra\u00een\u00e8rent d'abord la nef \u00e0 la mer, \u00e9tablirent le m\u00e2t et les\nvoiles dans la nef noire, et li\u00e8rent comme il convenait les\navirons avec des courroies. Puis, ils tendirent les voiles\nblanches, et leurs braves serviteurs leur apport\u00e8rent des armes.\nEnfin, s'\u00e9tant embarqu\u00e9s, ils pouss\u00e8rent la nef au large et ils\nprirent leur repas, en attendant la venue de Hesp\u00e9ros.\n\nMais, dans la chambre haute, la sage P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia s'\u00e9tait couch\u00e9e,\nn'ayant mang\u00e9 ni bu, et se demandant dans son esprit si son\nirr\u00e9prochable fils \u00e9viterait la mort, ou s'il serait dompt\u00e9 par\nles orgueilleux pr\u00e9tendants. Comme un lion entour\u00e9 par une foule\nd'hommes s'agite, plein de crainte, dans le cercle perfide, de\nm\u00eame le doux sommeil saisit P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia tandis qu'elle roulait en\nelle-m\u00eame toutes ces pens\u00e9es. Et elle s'endormit, et toutes ses\npeines disparurent.\n\nAlors la d\u00e9esse aux yeux clairs, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, eut une autre pens\u00e9e, et\nelle forma une image semblable \u00e0 Iphthim\u00e8, \u00e0 la fille du magnanime\nIkarios, qu'Eum\u00e8los qui habitait Ph\u00e9r\u00e8 avait \u00e9pous\u00e9e. Et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8\nl'envoya dans la demeure du divin Odysseus, afin d'apaiser les\npeines et les larmes de P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia qui se lamentait et pleurait.\nEt l'image entra dans la chambre nuptiale le long de la courroie\ndu verrou, et, se tenant au-dessus de sa t\u00eate, elle lui dit:\n\n-- Tu dors, P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia, afflig\u00e9e dans ton cher coeur; mais les\ndieux qui vivent toujours ne veulent pas que tu pleures, ni que tu\nsois triste, car ton fils reviendra, n'ayant jamais offens\u00e9 les\ndieux.\n\nEt la sage P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia, doucement endormie aux portes des Songes,\nlui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 soeur, pourquoi es-tu venue ici, o\u00f9 je ne t'avais encore\njamais vue, tant la demeure est \u00e9loign\u00e9e o\u00f9 tu habites? Pourquoi\nm'ordonnes-tu d'apaiser les maux et les peines qui me tourmentent\ndans l'esprit et dans l'\u00e2me? J'ai perdu d'abord mon brave mari au\ncoeur de lion, ayant toutes les vertus parmi les Danaens,\nillustre, et dont la gloire s'est r\u00e9pandue dans la grande Hellas\net tout Argos; et, maintenant, voici que mon fils bien-aim\u00e9 est\nparti sur une nef creuse, l'insens\u00e9! sans exp\u00e9rience des travaux\net des discours. Et je pleure sur lui plus que sur son p\u00e8re; et je\ntremble, et je crains qu'il souffre chez le peuple vers lequel il\nest all\u00e9, ou sur la mer. De nombreux ennemis lui tendent des\nemb\u00fbches et veulent le tuer avant qu'il revienne dans la terre de\nla patrie.\n\nEt la vague image lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Prends courage, et ne redoute rien dans ton esprit. Il a une\ncompagne telle que les autres hommes en souhaiteraient volontiers,\ncar elle peut tout. C'est Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, et elle a compassion de\ntes g\u00e9missements, et, maintenant, elle m'envoie te le dire.\n\nEt la sage P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Si tu es d\u00e9esse, et si tu as entendu la voix de la d\u00e9esse,\nparle-moi du malheureux Odysseus. Vit-il encore quelque part, et\nvoit-il la lumi\u00e8re de H\u00e8lios, ou est-il mort et dans les demeures\nd'Aid\u00e8s?\n\nEt la vague image lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Je ne te dirai rien de lui. Est-il vivant ou mort?\n\nIl ne faut point parler de vaines paroles.\n\nEn disant cela, elle s'\u00e9vanouit le long du verrou dans un souffle\nde vent. Et la fille d'Ikarios se r\u00e9veilla, et son cher coeur se\nr\u00e9jouit parce qu'un songe v\u00e9ridique lui \u00e9tait survenu dans l'ombre\nde la nuit.\n\nEt les pr\u00e9tendants naviguaient sur les routes humides, m\u00e9ditant\ndans leur esprit le meurtre cruel de T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos. Et il y a une \u00eele\nau milieu de la mer pleine de rochers, entre Ithak\u00e8 et l'\u00e2pre\nSamos, Ast\u00e9ris, qui n'est pas grande, mais o\u00f9 se trouvent pour les\nnefs des ports ayant une double issue. C'est l\u00e0 que s'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent\nles Akhaiens embusqu\u00e9s.\n\n\n5.\n\nE\u00f4s sortait du lit de l'illustre Tith\u00f4n, afin de porter la lumi\u00e8re\naux Immortels et aux mortels. Et les dieux \u00e9taient assis en\nconseil, et au milieu d'eux \u00e9tait Zeus qui tonne dans les hauteurs\net dont la puissance est la plus grande. Et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 leur rappelait\nles nombreuses traverses d'Odysseus. Et elle se souvenait de lui\navec tristesse parce qu'il \u00e9tait retenu dans les demeures d'une\nNymphe:\n\n-- P\u00e8re Zeus, et vous, dieux heureux qui vivez toujours, craignez\nqu'un roi porte-sceptre ne soit plus jamais ni doux, ni cl\u00e9ment,\nmais que, loin d'avoir des pens\u00e9es \u00e9quitables, il soit dur et\ninjuste, si nul ne se souvient du divin Odysseus parmi ceux sur\nlesquels il a r\u00e9gn\u00e9 comme un p\u00e8re plein de douceur. Voici qu'il\nest \u00e9tendu, subissant des peines cruelles, dans l'\u00eele et dans les\ndemeures de la Nymphe Kalyps\u00f4 qui le retient de force, et il ne\npeut retourner dans la terre de la patrie, car il n'a ni nefs\narm\u00e9es d'avirons, ni compagnons, qui puissent le conduire sur le\nvaste dos de la mer. Et voici maintenant qu'on veut tuer son fils\nbien-aim\u00e9 \u00e0 son retour dans ses demeures, car il est parti, afin\nde s'informer de son p\u00e8re, pour la divine Pylos et l'illustre\nLak\u00e9daim\u00f4n.\n\nEt Zeus qui amasse les nu\u00e9es lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Mon enfant, quelle parole s'est \u00e9chapp\u00e9e d'entre tes dents?\nN'as-tu point d\u00e9lib\u00e9r\u00e9 toi-m\u00eame dans ton esprit pour qu'Odysseus\nrevint et se venge\u00e2t? Conduis T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos avec soin, car tu le\npeux, afin qu'il retourne sain et sauf dans la terre de la patrie,\net les pr\u00e9tendants reviendront sur leur nef.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il dit \u00e0 Herm\u00e9ias, son cher fils:\n\n-- Herm\u00e9ias, qui es le messager des dieux, va dire \u00e0 la Nymphe aux\nbeaux cheveux que nous avons r\u00e9solu le retour d'Odysseus. Qu'elle\nle laisse partir. Sans qu'aucun dieu ou qu'aucun homme mortel le\nconduise, sur un radeau uni par des liens, seul, et subissant de\nnouvelles douleurs, il parviendra le vingti\u00e8me jour \u00e0 la fertile\nSkh\u00e9ri\u00e8, terre des Phaiakiens qui descendent des Dieux. Et les\nPhaiakiens, dans leur esprit, l'honoreront comme un dieu, et ils\nle renverront sur une nef dans la ch\u00e8re terre de la patrie, et ils\nlui donneront en abondance de l'airain, de l'or et des v\u00eatements,\nde sorte qu'Odysseus n'en e\u00fbt point rapport\u00e9 autant de Troi\u00e8, s'il\n\u00e9tait revenu sain et sauf, ayant re\u00e7u sa part du butin. Ainsi sa\ndestin\u00e9e est de revoir ses amis et de rentrer dans sa haute\ndemeure et dans la terre de la patrie.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le messager-tueur d'Argos ob\u00e9it. Et il attacha\naussit\u00f4t \u00e0 ses pieds de belles sandales, immortelles et d'or, qui\nle portaient, soit au-dessus de la mer, soit au-dessus de la terre\nimmense, pareil au souffle du vent. Et il prit aussi la baguette \u00e0\nl'aide de laquelle il charme les yeux des hommes, ou il les\nr\u00e9veille, quand il le veut. Tenant cette baguette dans ses mains,\nle puissant Tueur d'Argos, s'envolant vers la Pi\u00e9ri\u00e8, tomba de\nl'Aith\u00e8r sur la mer et s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a, rasant les flots, semblable \u00e0 la\nmouette qui, autour des larges golfes de la mer indompt\u00e9e, chasse\nles poissons et plonge ses ailes robustes dans l'\u00e9cume sal\u00e9e.\nSemblable \u00e0 cet oiseau, Herm\u00e8s rasait les flots innombrables.\n\nEt, quand il fut arriv\u00e9 \u00e0 l'\u00eele lointaine, il passa de la mer\nbleue sur la terre, jusqu'\u00e0 la vaste grotte que la nymphe aux\nbeaux cheveux habitait, et o\u00f9 il la trouva. Et un grand feu\nbr\u00fblait au foyer, et l'odeur du c\u00e8dre et du thuia ardents\nparfumait toute l'\u00eele. Et la nymphe chantait d'une belle voix,\ntissant une toile avec une navette d'or. Et une for\u00eat verdoyante\nenvironnait la grotte, l'aune, le peuplier et le cypr\u00e8s odorant,\no\u00f9 les oiseaux qui d\u00e9ploient leurs ailes faisaient leurs nids: les\nchouettes, les \u00e9perviers et les bavardes corneilles de mer qui\ns'inqui\u00e8tent toujours des flots. Et une jeune vigne, dont les\ngrappes m\u00fbrissaient, entourait la grotte, et quatre cours d'eau\nlimpide, tant\u00f4t voisins, tant\u00f4t allant \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0, faisaient verdir\nde molles prairies de violettes et d'aches. M\u00eame si un immortel\ns'en approchait, il admirerait et serait charm\u00e9 dans son esprit.\nEt le puissant messager-tueur d'Argos s'arr\u00eata et, ayant tout\nadmir\u00e9 dans son esprit, entra aussit\u00f4t dans la vaste grotte.\n\nEt l'illustre d\u00e9esse Kalyps\u00f4 le reconnut, car les dieux immortels\nne sont point inconnus les uns aux autres, m\u00eame quand ils\nhabitent, chacun, une demeure lointaine. Et Herm\u00e8s ne vit pas dans\nla grotte le magnanime Odysseus, car celui-ci pleurait, assis sur\nle rivage; et, d\u00e9chirant son coeur de sanglots et de g\u00e9missements,\nil regardait la mer agit\u00e9e et versait des larmes. Mais l'illustre\nd\u00e9esse Kalyps\u00f4 interrogea Herm\u00e9ias, \u00e9tant assise sur un thr\u00f4ne\nsplendide:\n\n-- Pourquoi es-tu venu vers moi, Herm\u00e9ias \u00e0 la baguette d'or,\nv\u00e9n\u00e9rable et cher, que je n'ai jamais vu ici? Dis ce que tu\nd\u00e9sires. Mon coeur m'ordonne de te satisfaire, si je le puis et si\ncela est possible. Mais suis-moi, afin que je t'offre les mets\nhospitaliers.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, la d\u00e9esse dressa une table en la couvrant\nd'ambroisie et m\u00eala le rouge nektar. Et le messager-tueur d'Argos\nbut et mangea, et quand il eut achev\u00e9 son repas et satisfait son\n\u00e2me, il dit \u00e0 la d\u00e9esse:\n\n-- Tu me demandes pourquoi un dieu vient vers toi, d\u00e9esse; je te\nr\u00e9pondrai avec v\u00e9rit\u00e9, comme tu le d\u00e9sires. Zeus m'a ordonn\u00e9 de\nvenir, malgr\u00e9 moi, car qui parcourrait volontiers les immenses\neaux sal\u00e9es o\u00f9 il n'y a aucune ville d'hommes mortels qui font des\nsacrifices aux dieux et leur offrent de saintes h\u00e9catombes? Mais\nil n'est point permis \u00e0 tout autre dieu de r\u00e9sister \u00e0 la volont\u00e9\nde Zeus temp\u00e9tueux. On dit qu'un homme est aupr\u00e8s de toi, le plus\nmalheureux de tous les hommes qui ont combattu pendant neuf ans\nautour de la ville de Priamos, et qui l'ayant saccag\u00e9e dans la\ndixi\u00e8me ann\u00e9e, mont\u00e8rent sur leurs nefs pour le retour. Et ils\noffens\u00e8rent Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, qui souleva contre eux le vent, les grands\nflots et le malheur. Et tous les braves compagnons d'Odysseus\np\u00e9rirent, et il fut lui-m\u00eame jet\u00e9 ici par le vent et les flots.\nMaintenant, Zeus t'ordonne de le renvoyer tr\u00e8s promptement, car sa\ndestin\u00e9e n'est point de mourir loin de ses amis, mais de les\nrevoir et de rentrer dans sa haute demeure et dans la terre de la\npatrie.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et l'illustre d\u00e9esse Kalyps\u00f4 fr\u00e9mit, et, lui\nr\u00e9pondant, elle dit en paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Vous \u00eates injustes, \u00f4 dieux, et les plus jaloux des autres\ndieux, et vous enviez les d\u00e9esses qui dorment ouvertement avec les\nhommes qu'elles choisissent pour leurs chers maris. Ainsi, quand\n\u00c9\u00f4s aux doigts ros\u00e9s enleva Ori\u00f4n, vous f\u00fbtes jaloux d'elle, \u00f4\ndieux qui vivez toujours, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que la chaste Art\u00e9mis au\nthr\u00f4ne d'or e\u00fbt tu\u00e9 Ori\u00f4n de ses douces fl\u00e8ches, dans Ortygi\u00e8;\nainsi, quand D\u00e8m\u00e8t\u00e8r aux beaux cheveux, c\u00e9dant \u00e0 son \u00e2me, s'unit\nd'amour \u00e0 Iasi\u00f4n sur une terre r\u00e9cemment labour\u00e9e, Zeus, l'ayant\nsu aussit\u00f4t, le tua en le frappant de la blanche foudre; ainsi,\nmaintenant, vous m'enviez, \u00f4 dieux, parce que je garde aupr\u00e8s de\nmoi un homme mortel que j'ai sauv\u00e9 et recueilli seul sur sa\ncar\u00e8ne, apr\u00e8s que Zeus eut fendu d'un jet de foudre sa nef rapide\nau milieu de la mer sombre. Tous ses braves compagnons avaient\np\u00e9ri, et le vent et les flots l'avaient pouss\u00e9 ici. Et je l'aimai\net je le recueillis, et je me promettais de le rendre immortel et\nde le mettre pour toujours \u00e0 l'abri de la vieillesse. Mais il\nn'est point permis \u00e0 tout autre dieu de r\u00e9sister \u00e0 la volont\u00e9 de\nZeus temp\u00e9tueux. Puisqu'il veut qu'Odysseus soit de nouveau errant\nsur la mer agit\u00e9e, soit; mais je ne le renverrai point moi-m\u00eame,\ncar je n'ai ni nefs arm\u00e9es d'avirons, ni compagnons qui le\nreconduisent sur le vaste dos de la mer. Je lui r\u00e9v\u00e9lerai\nvolontiers et ne lui cacherai point ce qu'il faut faire pour qu'il\nparvienne sain et sauf dans la terre de la patrie.\n\nEt le messager tueur d'Argos lui r\u00e9pondit aussit\u00f4t:\n\n-- Renvoie-le d\u00e8s maintenant, afin d'\u00e9viter la col\u00e8re de Zeus, et\nde peur qu'il s'enflamme contre toi \u00e0 l'avenir.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, le puissant Tueur d'Argos s'envola, et la\nv\u00e9n\u00e9rable nymphe, apr\u00e8s avoir re\u00e7u les ordres de Zeus, alla vers\nle magnanime Odysseus. Et elle le trouva assis sur le rivage, et\njamais ses yeux ne tarissaient de larmes, et sa douce vie se\nconsumait \u00e0 g\u00e9mir dans le d\u00e9sir du retour, car la nymphe n'\u00e9tait\npoint aim\u00e9e de lui. Certes, pendant la nuit, il dormait contre sa\nvolont\u00e9 dans la grotte creuse, sans d\u00e9sir, aupr\u00e8s de celle qui le\nd\u00e9sirait; mais, le jour, assis sur les rochers et sur les rivages,\nil d\u00e9chirait son coeur par les larmes, les g\u00e9missements et les\ndouleurs, et il regardait la mer indompt\u00e9e en versant des larmes.\n\nEt l'illustre d\u00e9esse, s'approchant, lui dit:\n\n-- Malheureux, ne te lamente pas plus longtemps ici, et ne consume\npoint ta vie, car je vais te renvoyer promptement. Va! fais un\nlarge radeau avec de grands arbres tranch\u00e9s par l'airain, et pose\npar-dessus un banc tr\u00e8s \u00e9lev\u00e9, afin qu'il te porte sur la mer\nsombre. Et j'y placerai moi-m\u00eame du pain, de l'eau et du vin rouge\nqui satisferont ta faim, et je te donnerai des v\u00eatements, et je\nt'enverrai un vent propice afin que tu parviennes sain et sauf\ndans la terre de la patrie, si les dieux le veulent ainsi qui\nhabitent le large Ouranos et qui sont plus puissants que moi par\nl'intelligence et la sagesse.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et le patient et divin Odysseus fr\u00e9mit et il lui\ndit en paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Certes, tu as une autre pens\u00e9e, d\u00e9esse, que celle de mon\nd\u00e9part, puisque tu m'ordonnes de traverser sur un radeau les\ngrandes eaux de la mer, difficiles et effrayantes, et que\ntraversent \u00e0 peine les nefs \u00e9gales et rapides se r\u00e9jouissant du\nsouffle de Zeus. Je ne monterai point, comme tu le veux, sur un\nradeau, \u00e0 moins que tu ne jures par le grand serment des dieux que\ntu ne pr\u00e9pares point mon malheur et ma perte.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et l'illustre d\u00e9esse Kalyps\u00f4 rit, et elle le\ncaressa de la main, et elle lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Certes, tu es menteur et rus\u00e9, puisque tu as pens\u00e9 et parl\u00e9\nainsi. Que Gaia le sache, et le large Ouranos sup\u00e9rieur, et l'eau\nsouterraine de Styx, ce qui est le plus grand et le plus terrible\nserment des dieux heureux, que je ne pr\u00e9pare ni ton malheur, ni ta\nperte. Je t'ai offert et conseill\u00e9 ce que je tenterais pour moi-\nm\u00eame, si la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 m'y contraignait. Mon esprit est \u00e9quitable,\net je n'ai point dans ma poitrine un coeur de fer, mais\ncompatissant.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, l'illustre d\u00e9esse le pr\u00e9c\u00e9da promptement, et il\nallait sur les traces de la d\u00e9esse. Et tous deux parvinrent \u00e0 la\ngrotte creuse. Et il s'assit sur le thr\u00f4ne d'o\u00f9 s'\u00e9tait lev\u00e9\nHerm\u00e9ias et la Nymphe pla\u00e7a devant lui les choses que les hommes\nmortels ont coutume de manger et de boire. Elle-m\u00eame s'assit\naupr\u00e8s du divin Odysseus, et les servantes plac\u00e8rent devant elle\nl'ambroisie et le nektar. Et tous deux \u00e9tendirent les mains vers\nles mets plac\u00e9s devant eux; et quand ils eurent assouvi la faim et\nla soif, l'illustre d\u00e9esse Kalyps\u00f4 commen\u00e7a de parler:\n\n-- Divin Laertiade, subtil Odysseus, ainsi, tu veux donc retourner\ndans ta demeure et dans la ch\u00e8re terre de la patrie? Cependant,\nre\u00e7ois mon salut. Si tu savais dans ton esprit combien de maux il\nest dans ta destin\u00e9e de subir avant d'arriver \u00e0 la terre de la\npatrie, certes, tu resterais ici avec moi, dans cette demeure, et\ntu serais immortel, bien que tu d\u00e9sires revoir ta femme que tu\nregrettes tous les jours. Et certes, je me glorifie de ne lui \u00eatre\ninf\u00e9rieure ni par la beaut\u00e9, ni par l'esprit, car les mortelles ne\npeuvent lutter de beaut\u00e9 avec les immortelles.\n\nEt le subtil Odysseus, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi:\n\n-- V\u00e9n\u00e9rable d\u00e9esse, ne t'irrite point pour cela contre moi. Je\nsais en effet que la sage P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia t'est bien inf\u00e9rieure en\nbeaut\u00e9 et majest\u00e9. Elle est mortelle, et tu ne conna\u00eetras point la\nvieillesse; et, cependant, je veux et je d\u00e9sire tous les jours\nrevoir le moment du retour et regagner ma demeure. Si quelque dieu\nm'accable encore de maux sur la sombre mer, je les subirai avec un\ncoeur patient. J'ai d\u00e9j\u00e0 beaucoup souffert sur les flots et dans\nla guerre; que de nouvelles mis\u00e8res m'arrivent, s'il le faut.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et H\u00e8lios tomba et les t\u00e9n\u00e8bres survinrent; et\ntous deux, se retirant dans le fond de la grotte creuse, se\ncharm\u00e8rent par l'amour, couch\u00e9s ensemble. Et quand \u00c9\u00f4s aux doigts\nros\u00e9s, n\u00e9e au matin, apparut, aussit\u00f4t Odysseus rev\u00eatit sa tunique\net son manteau, et la nymphe se couvrit d'une grande robe blanche,\nl\u00e9g\u00e8re et gracieuse; et elle mit autour de ses reins une belle\nceinture d'or, et, sur sa t\u00eate, un voile. Enfin, pr\u00e9parant le\nd\u00e9part du magnanime Odysseus, elle lui donna une grande hache\nd'airain, bien en main, \u00e0 deux tranchants et au beau manche fait\nde bois d'olivier. Et elle lui donna ensuite une doloire aiguis\u00e9e.\nEt elle le conduisit \u00e0 l'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 de l'\u00eele o\u00f9 croissaient de\ngrands arbres, des aunes, des peupliers et des pins qui\natteignaient l'Ouranos, et dont le bois sec flotterait plus\nl\u00e9g\u00e8rement. Et, lui ayant montr\u00e9 le lieu o\u00f9 les grands arbres\ncroissaient, l'illustre d\u00e9esse Kalyps\u00f4 retourna dans sa demeure.\n\nEt aussit\u00f4t Odysseus trancha les arbres et fit promptement son\ntravail. Et il en abattit vingt qu'il \u00e9brancha, \u00e9quarrit et aligna\nau cordeau. Pendant ce temps l'illustre d\u00e9esse Kalyps\u00f4 apporta des\ntari\u00e8res; et il per\u00e7a les bois et les unit entre eux, les liant\navec des chevilles et des cordes. Aussi grande est la cale d'une\nnef de charge que construit un excellent ouvrier, aussi grand\n\u00e9tait le radeau construit par Odysseus. Et il \u00e9leva un pont qu'il\nfit avec des ais \u00e9pais; et il tailla un m\u00e2t auquel il attacha\nl'antenne. Puis il fit le gouvernail, qu'il munit de claies de\nsaule afin qu'il r\u00e9sist\u00e2t au choc des flots; puis il amassa un\ngrand lest. Pendant ce temps, l'illustre d\u00e9esse Kalyps\u00f4 apporta de\nla toile pour faire les voiles, et il les fit habilement et il les\nlia aux antennes avec des cordes. Puis il conduisit le radeau \u00e0 la\nmer large, \u00e0 l'aide de leviers. Et le quatri\u00e8me jour tout le\ntravail \u00e9tait achev\u00e9; et le cinqui\u00e8me jour la divine Kalyps\u00f4 le\nrenvoya de l'\u00eele, l'ayant baign\u00e9 et couvert de v\u00eatements parfum\u00e9s.\nEt la d\u00e9esse mit sur le radeau une outre de vin noir, puis une\noutre plus grande pleine d'eau, puis elle lui donna, dans un sac\nde cuir, une grande quantit\u00e9 de vivres fortifiants, et elle lui\nenvoya un vent doux et propice.\n\nEt le divin Odysseus, joyeux, d\u00e9ploya ses voiles au vent propice;\net, s'\u00e9tant assis \u00e0 la barre, il gouvernait habilement, sans que\nle sommeil ferm\u00e2t ses paupi\u00e8res. Et il contemplait les Pl\u00e8iades,\net le Bouvier qui se couchait, et l'Ourse qu'on nomme le Chariot,\net qui tourne en place en regardant Ori\u00f4n, et, seule, ne touche\npoint les eaux de l'Ok\u00e9anos. L'illustre d\u00e9esse Kalyps\u00f4 lui avait\nordonn\u00e9 de naviguer en la laissant toujours \u00e0 gauche. Et, pendant\ndix-sept jours, il fit route sur la mer, et, le dix-huiti\u00e8me,\napparurent les monts bois\u00e9s de la terre des Phaiakiens. Et cette\nterre \u00e9tait proche, et elle lui apparaissait comme un bouclier sur\nla mer sombre.\n\nEt le puissant qui \u00e9branle la terre revenait du pays des\nAithiopiens, et du haut des montagnes des Solymes, il vit de loin\nOdysseus traversant la mer; et son coeur s'\u00e9chauffa violemment, et\nsecouant la t\u00eate, il dit dans son esprit:\n\n-- \u00d4 dieux! les immortels ont d\u00e9cid\u00e9 autrement d'Odysseus tandis\nque j'\u00e9tais chez les Aithiopiens. Voici qu'il approche de la terre\ndes Phaiakiens, o\u00f9 sa destin\u00e9e est qu'il rompe la longue cha\u00eene de\nmis\u00e8res qui l'accablent. Mais je pense qu'il va en subir encore.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il amassa les nu\u00e9es et souleva la mer. Et il\nsaisit de ses mains son trident et il d\u00e9cha\u00eena la temp\u00eate de tous\nles vents. Et il enveloppa de nuages la terre et la mer, et la\nnuit se rua de l'Ouranos. Et l'Euros et le Notos souffl\u00e8rent, et\nle violent Z\u00e9phyros et l'imp\u00e9tueux Bor\u00e9as, soulevant de grandes\nlames. Et les genoux d'Odysseus et son cher coeur furent bris\u00e9s,\net il dit avec tristesse dans son esprit magnanime:\n\n-- Ah! malheureux que je suis! Que va-t-il m'arriver? Je le\ncrains, la d\u00e9esse ne m'a point tromp\u00e9 quand elle m'a dit que je\nsubirais des maux nombreux sur la mer, avant de parvenir \u00e0 la\nterre de la patrie. Certes, voici que ses paroles s'accomplissent.\nDe quelles nu\u00e9es Zeus couronne le large Ouranos! La mer est\nsoulev\u00e9e, les temp\u00eates de tous les vents sont d\u00e9cha\u00een\u00e9es, et voici\nma ruine supr\u00eame. Trois et quatre fois heureux les Danaens qui\nsont morts autrefois, devant la grande Troi\u00e8, pour plaire aux\nAtr\u00e9ides! Pl\u00fbt aux dieux que j'eusse subi ma destin\u00e9e et que je\nfusse mort le jour o\u00f9 les Troiens m'assi\u00e9geaient de leurs lances\nd'airain autour du cadavre d'Akhilleus! Alors on e\u00fbt accompli mes\nfun\u00e9railles, et les Akhaiens eussent c\u00e9l\u00e9br\u00e9 ma gloire. Maintenant\nma destin\u00e9e est de subir une mort obscure!\n\nIl parla ainsi, et une grande lame, se ruant sur lui, effrayante,\nrenversa le radeau. Et Odysseus en fut enlev\u00e9, et le gouvernail\nfut arrach\u00e9 de ses mains; et la temp\u00eate horrible des vents\nconfondus brisa le m\u00e2t par le milieu; et l'antenne et la voile\nfurent emport\u00e9es \u00e0 la mer; et Odysseus resta longtemps sous l'eau,\nne pouvant \u00e9merger de suite, \u00e0 cause de l'imp\u00e9tuosit\u00e9 de la mer.\nEt il reparut enfin, et les v\u00eatements que la divine Kalyps\u00f4 lui\navait donn\u00e9s \u00e9taient alourdis, et il vomit l'eau sal\u00e9e, et l'\u00e9cume\nruisselait de sa t\u00eate. Mais, bien qu'afflig\u00e9, il n'oublia point le\nradeau, et, nageant avec vigueur \u00e0 travers les flots, il le\nressaisit, et, se sauvant de la mort, il s'assit. Et les grandes\nlames imp\u00e9tueuses emportaient le radeau \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0. De m\u00eame que\nl'automnal Bor\u00e9as chasse par les plaines les feuilles dess\u00e9ch\u00e9es,\nde m\u00eame les vents chassaient \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0 le radeau sur la mer. Tant\u00f4t\nl'Euros le c\u00e9dait \u00e0 Z\u00e9phyros afin que celui-ci l'entra\u00een\u00e2t, tant\u00f4t\nle Notos le c\u00e9dait \u00e0 Bor\u00e9as.\n\nEt la fille de Kadmos, In\u00f4 aux beaux talons, qui autrefois \u00e9tait\nmortelle, le vit. Maintenant elle se nomme Leukoth\u00e9\u00e8 et partage\nles honneurs des dieux dans les flots de la mer. Et elle prit en\npiti\u00e9 Odysseus errant et accabl\u00e9 de douleurs. Et elle \u00e9mergea de\nl'ab\u00eeme, semblable \u00e0 un plongeon, et, se posant sur le radeau,\nelle dit \u00e0 Odysseus\n\n-- Malheureux! pourquoi Poseida\u00f4n qui \u00e9branle la terre est-il si\ncruellement irrit\u00e9 contre toi, qu'il t'accable de tant de maux?\nMais il ne te perdra pas, bien qu'il le veuille. Fais ce que je\nvais te dire, car tu ne me sembles pas manquer de sagesse. Ayant\nrejet\u00e9 tes v\u00eatements, abandonne le radeau aux vents et nage de tes\nbras jusqu'\u00e0 la terre des Phaiakiens, o\u00f9 tu dois \u00eatre sauv\u00e9.\nPrends cette bandelette immortelle, \u00e9tends-la sur ta poitrine et\nne crains plus ni la douleur, ni la mort. D\u00e8s que tu auras saisi\nle rivage de tes mains, tu la rejetteras au loin dans la sombre\nmer en te d\u00e9tournant.\n\nLa d\u00e9esse, ayant ainsi parl\u00e9, lui donna la bandelette puis elle se\nreplongea dans la mer tumultueuse, semblable \u00e0 un plongeon, et le\nflot noir la recouvrit. Mais le patient et divin Odysseus\nh\u00e9sitait, et il dit, en g\u00e9missant, dans son esprit magnanime:\n\n-- H\u00e9las! je crains qu'un des immortels ourdisse une ruse contre\nmoi en m'ordonnant de me jeter hors du radeau; mais je ne lui\nob\u00e9irai pas ais\u00e9ment, car cette terre est encore tr\u00e8s \u00e9loign\u00e9e o\u00f9\nelle dit que je dois \u00e9chapper \u00e0 la mort; mais je ferai ceci, et il\nme semble que c'est le plus sage: aussi longtemps que ces pi\u00e8ces\nde bois seront unies par leurs liens, je resterai ici et je\nsubirai mon mal patiemment, et d\u00e8s que la mer aura rompu le\nradeau, je nagerai, car je ne pourrai rien faire de mieux.\n\nTandis qu'il pensait ainsi dans son esprit et dans son coeur,\nPoseida\u00f4n qui \u00e9branle la terre souleva une lame immense,\neffrayante, lourde et haute, et il la jeta sur Odysseus. De m\u00eame\nque le vent qui souffle avec violence disperse un monceau de\npailles s\u00e8ches qu'il emporte \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0, de m\u00eame la mer dispersa les\nlongues poutres, et Odysseus monta sur une d'entre elles comme sur\nun cheval qu'on dirige. Et il d\u00e9pouilla les v\u00eatements que la\ndivine Kalyps\u00f4 lui avait donn\u00e9s, et il \u00e9tendit aussit\u00f4t sur sa\npoitrine la bandelette de Leukoth\u00e9\u00e8; puis, s'allongeant sur la\nmer, il \u00e9tendit les bras, plein du d\u00e9sir de nager. Et le puissant\nqui \u00e9branle la terre le vit, et secouant la t\u00eate, il dit dans son\nesprit:\n\n-- Va! subis encore mille maux, errant sur la mer, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que\ntu abordes ces hommes nourris par Zeus; mais j'esp\u00e8re que tu ne te\nriras plus de mes ch\u00e2timents.\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il poussa ses chevaux aux belles crini\u00e8res et\nparvint \u00e0 Aigas, o\u00f9 sont ses demeures illustres.\n\nMais Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, la fille de Zeus, eut d'autres pens\u00e9es. Elle rompit\nle cours des vents, et elle leur ordonna de cesser et de\ns'endormir. Et elle excita, seul, le rapide Bor\u00e9as, et elle\nrefr\u00e9na les flots, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que le divin Odysseus, ayant \u00e9vit\u00e9\nla k\u00e8r et la mort, se f\u00fbt m\u00eal\u00e9 aux Phaiakiens habiles aux travaux\nde la mer.\n\nEt, pendant deux nuits et deux jours, Odysseus erra par les flots\nsombres, et son coeur vit souvent la mort; mais quand \u00c9\u00f4s aux\nbeaux cheveux amena le troisi\u00e8me jour, le vent s'apaisa, et la\ns\u00e9r\u00e9nit\u00e9 tranquille se fit; et, se soulevant sur la mer, et\nregardant avec ardeur, il vit la terre toute proche. De m\u00eame qu'\u00e0\ndes fils est rendue la vie d\u00e9sir\u00e9e d'un p\u00e8re qui, en proie \u00e0 un\ndieu contraire, a longtemps subi de grandes douleurs, mais que les\ndieux ont enfin d\u00e9livr\u00e9 de son mal, de m\u00eame la terre et les bois\napparurent joyeusement \u00e0 Odysseus. Et il nageait s'effor\u00e7ant de\nfouler de ses pieds cette terre. Mais, comme il n'en \u00e9tait \u00e9loign\u00e9\nque de la port\u00e9e de la voix, il entendit le son de la mer contre\nles rochers. Et les vastes flots se brisaient, effrayants, contre\nla c\u00f4te aride, et tout \u00e9tait envelopp\u00e9 de l'\u00e9cume de la mer. Et il\nn'y avait l\u00e0 ni ports, ni abris pour les nefs, et le rivage \u00e9tait\nh\u00e9riss\u00e9 d'\u00e9cueils et de rochers. Alors, les genoux et le cher\ncoeur d'Odysseus furent bris\u00e9s, et, g\u00e9missant, il dit dans son\nesprit magnanime:\n\n-- H\u00e9las! Zeus m'a accord\u00e9 de voir une terre inesp\u00e9r\u00e9e, et je suis\narriv\u00e9 ici, apr\u00e8s avoir sillonn\u00e9 les eaux, et je ne sais comment\nsortir de la mer profonde. Les rochers aigus se dressent, les\nflots imp\u00e9tueux \u00e9cument de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s et la c\u00f4te est escarp\u00e9e. La\nprofonde mer est proche, et je ne puis appuyer mes pieds nulle\npart, ni \u00e9chapper \u00e0 mes mis\u00e8res, et peut-\u00eatre le grand flot va-t-\nil me jeter contre ces roches, et tous mes efforts seront vains.\nSi je nage encore, afin de trouver ailleurs une plage heurt\u00e9e par\nles eaux, ou un port, je crains que la temp\u00eate me saisisse de\nnouveau et me rejette, malgr\u00e9 mes g\u00e9missements, dans la haute mer\npoissonneuse; ou m\u00eame qu'un dieu me livre \u00e0 un monstre marin, de\nceux que l'illustre Amphitrit\u00e8 nourrit en grand nombre. Je sais,\nen effet, combien l'illustre qui \u00e9branle la terre est irrit\u00e9\ncontre moi.\n\nTandis qu'il d\u00e9lib\u00e9rait ainsi dans son esprit et dans son coeur,\nune vaste lame le porta vers l'\u00e2pre rivage, et il y e\u00fbt d\u00e9chir\u00e9 sa\npeau et bris\u00e9 ses os, si Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, la d\u00e9esse aux yeux clairs, ne\nl'e\u00fbt inspir\u00e9. Emport\u00e9 en avant, de ses deux mains il saisit la\nroche et il l'embrassa en g\u00e9missant jusqu'\u00e0 ce que le flot immense\nse f\u00fbt d\u00e9roul\u00e9, et il se sauva ainsi; mais le reflux, se ruant sur\nlui, le frappa et le remporta en mer. De m\u00eame que les petites\npierres restent, en grand nombre, attach\u00e9es aux articulations\ncreuses du polypode arrach\u00e9 de son abri, de m\u00eame la peau de ses\nmains vigoureuses s'\u00e9tait d\u00e9chir\u00e9e au rocher, et le flot vaste le\nrecouvrit. L\u00e0, enfin, le malheureux Odysseus e\u00fbt p\u00e9ri malgr\u00e9 la\ndestin\u00e9e, si Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, la d\u00e9esse aux yeux clairs, ne l'e\u00fbt inspir\u00e9\nsagement. Il revint sur l'eau, et, traversant les lames qui le\npoussaient \u00e0 la c\u00f4te, il nagea, examinant la terre et cherchant\ns'il trouverait quelque part une plage heurt\u00e9e par les flots, ou\nun port. Et quand il fut arriv\u00e9, en nageant, \u00e0 l'embouchure d'un\nfleuve au beau cours, il vit que cet endroit \u00e9tait excellent et\nmis \u00e0 l'abri du vent par des roches \u00e9gales. Et il examina le cours\ndu fleuve, et, dans son esprit, il dit en suppliant:\n\n-- Entends-moi, \u00f4 roi, qui que tu sois! Je viens \u00e0 toi en te\nsuppliant avec ardeur, et fuyant hors de la mer la col\u00e8re de\nPoseida\u00f4n. Celui qui vient errant est v\u00e9n\u00e9rable aux dieux\nimmortels et aux hommes. Tel je suis maintenant en abordant ton\ncours, car je t'approche apr\u00e8s avoir subi de nombreuses mis\u00e8res.\nPrends piti\u00e9, \u00f4 roi! Je me glorifie d'\u00eatre ton suppliant.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le fleuve s'apaisa, arr\u00eatant son cours et les\nflots; et il se fit tranquille devant Odysseus, et il le\nrecueillit \u00e0 son embouchure. Et les genoux et les bras vigoureux\ndu Laertiade \u00e9taient rompus, et son cher coeur \u00e9tait accabl\u00e9 par\nla mer. Tout son corps \u00e9tait gonfl\u00e9, et l'eau sal\u00e9e remplissait sa\nbouche et ses narines. Sans haleine et sans voix, il gisait sans\nforce, et une violente fatigue l'accablait. Mais, ayant respir\u00e9 et\nrecouvr\u00e9 l'esprit, il d\u00e9tacha la bandelette de la d\u00e9esse et la\njeta dans le fleuve, qui l'emporta \u00e0 la mer, o\u00f9 In\u00f4 la saisit\naussit\u00f4t de ses ch\u00e8res mains. Alors Odysseus, s'\u00e9loignant du\nfleuve, se coucha dans les joncs. Et il baisa la terre et dit en\ng\u00e9missant dans son esprit magnanime:\n\n-- H\u00e9las! que va-t-il m'arriver et que vais-je souffrir, si je\npasse la nuit dangereuse dans le fleuve? Je crains que la mauvaise\nfra\u00eecheur et la ros\u00e9e du matin ach\u00e8vent d'affaiblir mon \u00e2me. Le\nfleuve souffle en effet, au matin, un air froid. Si je montais sur\nla hauteur, vers ce bois ombrag\u00e9, je m'endormirais sous les\narbustes \u00e9pais, et le doux sommeil me saisirait, \u00e0 moins que le\nfroid et la fatigue s'y opposent. Mais je crains d'\u00eatre la proie\ndes b\u00eates fauves.\n\nAyant ainsi d\u00e9lib\u00e9r\u00e9, il vit que ceci \u00e9tait pour le mieux, et il\nse h\u00e2ta vers la for\u00eat qui se trouvait sur la hauteur, pr\u00e8s de la\nc\u00f4te. Et il aper\u00e7ut deux arbustes entrelac\u00e9s, dont l'un \u00e9tait un\nolivier sauvage et l'autre un olivier. Et l\u00e0, ni la violence\nhumide des vents, ni H\u00e8lios \u00e9tincelant de rayons, ni la pluie ne\np\u00e9n\u00e9trait, tant les rameaux entrelac\u00e9s \u00e9taient touffus. Et\nOdysseus s'y coucha, apr\u00e8s avoir amass\u00e9 un large lit de feuilles,\net si abondant, que deux ou trois hommes s'y seraient blottis par\nle temps d'hiver le plus rude. Et le patient et divin Odysseus,\njoyeux de voir ce lit, se coucha au milieu, en se couvrant de\nl'abondance des feuilles. De m\u00eame qu'un berger, \u00e0 l'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9\nd'une terre o\u00f9 il n'a aucun voisin, recouvre ses tisons de cendre\nnoire et conserve ainsi le germe du feu, afin de ne point aller le\nchercher ailleurs; de m\u00eame Odysseus \u00e9tait cach\u00e9 sous les feuilles,\net Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 r\u00e9pandit le sommeil sur ses yeux et ferma ses paupi\u00e8res,\npour qu'il se repos\u00e2t promptement de ses rudes travaux.\n\n\n6.\n\nAinsi dormait l\u00e0 le patient et divin Odysseus, dompt\u00e9 par le\nsommeil et par la fatigue, tandis qu'Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 se rendait \u00e0 la ville\net parmi le peuple des hommes Phaiakiens qui habitaient autrefois\nla grande Hyp\u00e9ri\u00e8, aupr\u00e8s des kykl\u00f4pes insolents qui les\nopprimaient, \u00e9tant beaucoup plus forts qu'eux. Et Nausithoos,\nsemblable \u00e0 un dieu, les emmena de l\u00e0 et les \u00e9tablit dans l'\u00eele de\nSkh\u00e9ri\u00e8, loin des autres hommes. Et il b\u00e2tit un mur autour de la\nville, \u00e9leva des demeures, construisit les temples des dieux et\npartagea les champs. Mais, d\u00e9j\u00e0, dompt\u00e9 par la k\u00e8r, il \u00e9tait\ndescendu chez Aid\u00e9s. Et maintenant r\u00e9gnait Alkinoos, instruit dans\nla sagesse par les dieux. Et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, la d\u00e9esse aux yeux clairs, se\nrendait \u00e0 sa demeure, m\u00e9ditant le retour du magnanime Odysseus. Et\nelle entra promptement dans la chambre orn\u00e9e o\u00f9 dormait la jeune\nvierge semblable aux Immortelles par la gr\u00e2ce et la beaut\u00e9,\nNausikaa, fille du magnanime Alkinoos. Et deux servantes, belles\ncomme les Kharites, se tenaient des deux c\u00f4t\u00e9s du seuil, et les\nportes brillantes \u00e9taient ferm\u00e9es.\n\nAth\u00e8n\u00e8, comme un souffle du vent, approcha du lit de la jeune\nvierge, et, se tenant au-dessus de sa t\u00eate, lui parla, semblable \u00e0\nla fille de l'illustre marin Dymas, laquelle \u00e9tait du m\u00eame \u00e2ge\nqu'elle, et qu'elle aimait. Semblable \u00e0 cette jeune fille, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8\naux yeux clairs parla ainsi:\n\n-- Nausikaa, pourquoi ta m\u00e8re t'a-t-elle enfant\u00e9e si n\u00e9gligente?\nEn effet, tes belles robes gisent n\u00e9glig\u00e9es, et tes noces\napprochent o\u00f9 il te faudra rev\u00eatir les plus belles et en offrir \u00e0\nceux qui te conduiront. La bonne renomm\u00e9e, parmi les hommes, vient\ndes beaux v\u00eatements, et le p\u00e8re et la m\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable s'en\nr\u00e9jouissent. Allons donc laver tes robes, au premier lever du\njour, et je te suivrai et t'aiderai, afin que nous finissions\npromptement, car tu ne seras plus longtemps vierge. D\u00e9j\u00e0 les\npremiers du peuple te recherchent, parmi tous les Phaiakiens d'o\u00f9\nsort ta race. Allons! demande \u00e0 ton illustre p\u00e8re, d\u00e8s le matin,\nqu'il fasse pr\u00e9parer les mulets et le char qui porteront les\nceintures, les p\u00e9plos et les belles couvertures. Il est mieux que\ntu montes aussi sur le char que d'aller \u00e0 pied, car les lavoirs\nsont tr\u00e8s \u00e9loign\u00e9s de la ville.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs retourna dans l'Olympos,\no\u00f9 sont toujours, dit-on, les solides demeures des dieux, que le\nvent n'\u00e9branle point, o\u00f9 la pluie ne coule point, dont la neige\nn'approche point, mais o\u00f9 la s\u00e9r\u00e9nit\u00e9 vole sans nuage et\nqu'enveloppe une splendeur \u00e9clatante dans laquelle les dieux\nheureux se r\u00e9jouissent sans cesse. C'est l\u00e0 que remonta la d\u00e9esse\naux yeux clairs, apr\u00e8s qu'elle eut parl\u00e9 \u00e0 la jeune vierge.\n\nEt aussit\u00f4t la brillante \u00c9\u00f4s se leva et r\u00e9veilla Nausikaa au beau\np\u00e9plos, qui admira le songe qu'elle avait eu. Et elle se h\u00e2ta\nd'aller par les demeures, afin de pr\u00e9venir ses parents, son cher\np\u00e8re et sa m\u00e8re, qu'elle trouva dans l'int\u00e9rieur. Et sa m\u00e8re \u00e9tait\nassise au foyer avec ses servantes, filant la laine teinte de\npourpre marine; et son p\u00e8re sortait avec les rois illustres, pour\nse rendre au conseil o\u00f9 l'appelaient les nobles Phaiakiens. Et,\ns'arr\u00eatant pr\u00e8s de son cher p\u00e8re, elle lui dit:\n\n-- Cher p\u00e8re, ne me feras-tu point pr\u00e9parer un char large et\n\u00e9lev\u00e9, afin que je porte au fleuve et que je lave nos beaux\nv\u00eatements qui gisent salis? Il te convient, en effet, \u00e0 toi qui\nt'assieds au conseil parmi les premiers, de porter de beaux\nv\u00eatements. Tu as cinq fils dans ta maison royale; deux sont\nmari\u00e9s, et trois sont encore des jeunes hommes florissants. Et\nceux-ci veulent aller aux danses, couverts de v\u00eatements propres et\nfrais, et ces soins me sont r\u00e9serv\u00e9s.\n\nElle parla ainsi, n'osant nommer \u00e0 son cher p\u00e8re ses noces\nfleuries; mais il la comprit et il lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Je ne te refuserai, mon enfant, ni des mulets, ni autre chose.\nVa, et mes serviteurs te pr\u00e9pareront un char large et \u00e9lev\u00e9 propre\n\u00e0 porter une charge.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il commanda aux serviteurs, et ils ob\u00e9irent.\nIls firent sortir un char rapide et ils le dispos\u00e8rent, et ils\nmirent les mulets sous le joug et les li\u00e8rent au char. Et Nausikaa\napporta de sa chambre ses belles robes, et elle les d\u00e9posa dans le\nchar. Et sa m\u00e8re enfermait d'excellents mets dans une corbeille,\net elle versa du vin dans une outre de peau de ch\u00e8vre. La jeune\nvierge monta sur le char, et sa m\u00e8re lui donna dans une fiole d'or\nune huile liquide, afin qu'elle se parfum\u00e2t avec ses femmes. Et\nNausikaa saisit le fouet et les belles r\u00eanes, et elle fouetta les\nmulets afin qu'ils courussent; et ceux-ci, faisant un grand bruit,\ns'\u00e9lanc\u00e8rent, emportant les v\u00eatements et Nausikaa, mais non pas\nseule, car les autres femmes allaient avec elle.\n\nEt quand elles furent parvenues au cours limpide du fleuve, l\u00e0 o\u00f9\n\u00e9taient les lavoirs pleins toute l'ann\u00e9e, car une belle eau\nabondante y d\u00e9bordait, propre \u00e0 laver toutes les choses souill\u00e9es,\nelles d\u00e9li\u00e8rent les mulets du char, et elles les men\u00e8rent vers le\nfleuve tourbillonnant, afin qu'ils pussent manger les douces\nherbes. Puis, elles saisirent de leurs mains, dans le char, les\nv\u00eatements qu'elles plong\u00e8rent dans l'eau profonde, les foulant\ndans les lavoirs et disputant de promptitude. Et, les ayant lav\u00e9s\net purifi\u00e9s de toute souillure, elles les \u00e9tendirent en ordre sur\nles rochers du rivage que la mer avait baign\u00e9s. Et s'\u00e9tant elles-\nm\u00eames baign\u00e9es et parfum\u00e9es d'huile luisante, elles prirent leur\nrepas sur le bord du fleuve. Et les v\u00eatements s\u00e9chaient \u00e0 la\nsplendeur de H\u00e8lios.\n\nApr\u00e8s que Nausikaa et ses servantes eurent mang\u00e9, elles jou\u00e8rent \u00e0\nla balle, ayant d\u00e9nou\u00e9 les bandelettes de leur t\u00eate. Et Nausikaa\naux beaux bras commen\u00e7a une m\u00e9lop\u00e9e. Ainsi Art\u00e9mis marche sur les\nmontagnes, joyeuse de ses fl\u00e8ches, et, sur le T\u00e8yg\u00e9tos escarp\u00e9 ou\nl'\u00c9rymanthos, se r\u00e9jouit des sangliers et des cerfs rapides. Et\nles nymphes agrestes, filles de Zeus temp\u00e9tueux, jouent avec elle,\net L\u00e8t\u00f4 se r\u00e9jouit dans son coeur. Art\u00e9mis les d\u00e9passe toutes de\nla t\u00eate et du front, et on la reconna\u00eet facilement, bien qu'elles\nsoient toutes belles. Ainsi la jeune vierge brillait au milieu de\nses femmes.\n\nMais quand il fallut plier les beaux v\u00eatements, atteler les mulets\net retourner vers la demeure, alors Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, la d\u00e9esse aux yeux\nclairs, eut d'autres pens\u00e9es, et elle voulut qu'Odysseus se\nr\u00e9veill\u00e2t et v\u00eet la vierge aux beaux yeux, et qu'elle le conduis\u00eet\n\u00e0 la ville des Phaiakiens. Alors, la jeune reine jeta une balle \u00e0\nl'une de ses femmes, et la balle s'\u00e9gara et tomba dans le fleuve\nprofond. Et toutes pouss\u00e8rent de hautes clameurs, et le divin\nOdysseus s'\u00e9veilla. Et, s'asseyant, il d\u00e9lib\u00e9ra dans son esprit et\ndans son coeur:\n\n-- H\u00e9las! \u00e0 quels hommes appartient cette terre o\u00f9 je suis venu?\nSont-ils injurieux, sauvages, injustes, ou hospitaliers, et leur\nesprit craint-il les dieux? J'ai entendu des clameurs de jeunes\nfilles. Est-ce la voix des nymphes qui habitent le sommet des\nmontagnes et les sources des fleuves et les marais herbus, ou\nsuis-je pr\u00e8s d'entendre la voix des hommes? Je m'en assurerai et\nje verrai.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, le divin Odysseus sortit du milieu des\narbustes, et il arracha de sa main vigoureuse un rameau \u00e9pais afin\nde voiler sa nudit\u00e9 sous les feuilles. Et il se h\u00e2ta, comme un\nlion des montagnes, confiant dans ses forces, marche \u00e0 travers les\npluies et les vents. Ses yeux luisent ardemment, et il se jette\nsur les boeufs, les brebis ou les cerfs sauvages, car son ventre\nle pousse \u00e0 attaquer les troupeaux et \u00e0 p\u00e9n\u00e9trer dans leur solide\ndemeure. Ainsi Odysseus parut au milieu des jeunes filles aux\nbeaux cheveux, tout nu qu'il \u00e9tait, car la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 l\u0092y\ncontraignait. Et il leur apparut horrible et souill\u00e9 par l'\u00e9cume\nde la mer, et elles s'enfuirent, \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0, sur les hauteurs du\nrivage. Et, seule, la fille d'Alkinoos resta, car Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 avait mis\nl'audace dans son coeur et chass\u00e9 la crainte de ses membres. Elle\nresta donc seule en face d'Odysseus.\n\nEt celui-ci d\u00e9lib\u00e9rait, ne sachant s'il supplierait la vierge aux\nbeaux yeux, en saisissant ses genoux, ou s'il la prierait de loin,\navec des paroles flatteuses, de lui donner des v\u00eatements et de lui\nmontrer la ville. Et il vit qu'il valait mieux la supplier de loin\npar des paroles flatteuses, de peur que, s'il saisissait ses\ngenoux, la s'irrit\u00e2t dans son esprit. Et, aussit\u00f4t, il lui adressa\nla vierge ce discours flatteur et adroit:\n\n-- Je te supplie, \u00f4 reine, que tu sois d\u00e9esse ou mortelle! si tu\nes d\u00e9esse, de celles qui habitent le large Ouranos, tu me sembles\nArt\u00e9mis, fille du grand Zeus, par la beaut\u00e9, la stature et la\ngr\u00e2ce; si tu es une des mortelles qui habitent sur la terre, trois\nfois heureux ton p\u00e8re et ta m\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable! trois fois heureux tes\nfr\u00e8res! Sans doute leur \u00e2me est pleine de joie devant ta gr\u00e2ce,\nquand ils te voient te m\u00ealer aux choeurs dansants! Mais plus\nheureux entre tous celui qui, te comblant de pr\u00e9sents d'hym\u00e9n\u00e9e,\nte conduira dans sa demeure! Jamais, en effet, je n'ai vu de mes\nyeux un homme aussi beau, ni une femme aussi belle, et je suis\nsaisi d'admiration. Une fois, \u00e0 D\u00e8los, devant l'autel d'Apoll\u00f4n,\nje vis une jeune tige de palmier. J'\u00e9tais all\u00e9 l\u00e0, en effet, et un\npeuple nombreux m'accompagnait dans ce voyage qui devait me porter\nmalheur. Et, en voyant ce palmier, je restai longtemps stup\u00e9fait\ndans l'\u00e2me qu'un arbre aussi beau f\u00fbt sorti de terre. Ainsi je\nt'admire, \u00d4 femme, et je suis stup\u00e9fait, et je tremble de saisir\ntes genoux, car je suis en proie \u00e0 une grande douleur. Hier, apr\u00e8s\nvingt jours, je me suis enfin \u00e9chapp\u00e9 de la sombre mer. Pendant ce\ntemps-l\u00e0, les flots et les rapides temp\u00eates m'ont entra\u00een\u00e9 de\nl'\u00eele d'Ogygi\u00e8, et voici qu'un dieu m'a pouss\u00e9 ici, afin que j'y\nsubisse encore peut-\u00eatre d'autres maux, car je ne pense pas en\navoir vu la fin, et les dieux vont sans doute m'en accabler de\nnouveau. Mais, \u00f4 reine, aie piti\u00e9 de moi, car c'est vers toi, la\npremi\u00e8re, que je suis venu, apr\u00e8s avoir subi tant de mis\u00e8res. Je\nne connais aucun des hommes qui habitent cette ville et cette\nterre. Montre-moi la ville et donne moi quelque lambeau pour me\ncouvrir, si tu as apport\u00e9 ici quelque enveloppe de v\u00eatements. Que\nles dieux t'accordent autant de choses que tu en d\u00e9sires: un mari,\nune famille et une heureuse concorde; car rien n'est plus\nd\u00e9sirable et meilleur que la concorde \u00e0 l'aide de laquelle on\ngouverne sa famille. Le mari et l'\u00e9pouse accablent ainsi leurs\nennemis de douleurs et leurs amis de joie, et eux-m\u00eames sont\nheureux.\n\nEt Nausikaa aux bras blancs lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00c9tranger, car, certes, tu n'es semblable ni \u00e0 un l\u00e2che, ni \u00e0 un\ninsens\u00e9, Zeus Olympien dispense la richesse aux hommes, aux bons\net aux m\u00e9chants, \u00e0 chacun, comme il veut. C'est lui qui t'a fait\ncette destin\u00e9e, et il faut la subir patiemment. Maintenant, \u00e9tant\nvenu vers notre terre et notre ville, tu ne manqueras ni de\nv\u00eatements, ni d'aucune autre des choses qui conviennent \u00e0 un\nmalheureux qui vient en suppliant. Et je te montrerai la ville et\nje te dirai le nom de notre peuple. Les Phaiakiens habitent cette\nville et cette terre, et moi, je suis la fille du magnanime\nAlkinoos, qui est le premier parmi les Phaiakiens par le pouvoir\net la puissance.\n\nElle parla ainsi et commanda \u00e0 ses servantes aux belles\nchevelures:\n\n-- Venez pr\u00e8s de moi, servantes. O\u00f9 fuyez-vous pour avoir vu cet\nhomme? Pensez-vous que ce soit quelque ennemi? Il n'y a point\nd'homme vivant, et il ne peut en \u00eatre un seul qui porte la guerre\nsur la terre des Phaiakiens, car nous sommes tr\u00e8s chers aux dieux\nimmortels, et nous habitons aux extr\u00e9mit\u00e9s de la mer onduleuse, et\nnous n'avons aucun commerce avec les autres hommes. Mais si\nquelque malheureux errant vient ici, il nous faut le secourir, car\nles h\u00f4tes et les mendiants viennent de Zeus, et le don, m\u00eame\nmodique, qu'on leur fait, lui est agr\u00e9able. C'est pourquoi,\nservantes, donnez \u00e0 notre h\u00f4te \u00e0 manger et \u00e0 boire, et lavez-le\ndans le fleuve, \u00e0 l'abri du vent.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et les servantes s'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent et s'exhort\u00e8rent\nl'une l'autre, et elles conduisirent Odysseus \u00e0 l'abri du vent,\ncomme l'avait ordonn\u00e9 Nausikaa, fille du magnanime Alkinoos, et\nelles plac\u00e8rent aupr\u00e8s de lui des v\u00eatements, un manteau et une\ntunique, et elles lui donn\u00e8rent l'huile liquide dans la fiole\nd'or, et elles lui command\u00e8rent de se laver dans le courant du\nfleuve. Mais alors le divin Odysseus leur dit:\n\n-- Servantes, \u00e9loignez-vous un peu, afin que je lave l'\u00e9cume de\nmes \u00e9paules et que je me parfume d'huile, car il y a longtemps que\nmon corps manque d'onction. Je ne me laverai point devant vous,\ncar je crains, par respect, de me montrer nu au milieu de jeunes\nfilles aux beaux cheveux.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, se retirant, elles rapport\u00e8rent ces paroles \u00e0\nla vierge Nausikaa.\n\nEt le divin Odysseus lava dans le fleuve l'\u00e9cume sal\u00e9e qui\ncouvrait son dos, ses flancs et ses \u00e9paules; et il purifia sa t\u00eate\ndes souillures de la mer indompt\u00e9e. Et, apr\u00e8s s'\u00eatre enti\u00e8rement\nbaign\u00e9 et parfum\u00e9 d'huile, il se couvrit des v\u00eatements que la\njeune vierge lui avait donn\u00e9s. Et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, fille de Zeus, le fit\npara\u00eetre plus grand et fit tomber de sa t\u00eate sa chevelure boucl\u00e9e\nsemblable aux fleurs d'hyacinthe. De m\u00eame un habile ouvrier qui\nr\u00e9pand de l'or sur de l'argent, et que H\u00e8phaistos et Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8\nont instruit, ach\u00e8ve de brillantes oeuvres avec un art accompli,\nde m\u00eame Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 r\u00e9pandit la gr\u00e2ce sur sa t\u00eate et sur ses \u00e9paules.\nEt il s'assit ensuite \u00e0 l'\u00e9cart, sur le rivage de la mer,\nresplendissant de beaut\u00e9 et de gr\u00e2ce. Et la vierge, l'admirant,\ndit \u00e0 ses servantes aux beaux cheveux:\n\n-- \u00c9coutez-moi, servantes aux bras blancs, afin que je dise\nquelque chose. Ce n'est pas malgr\u00e9 tous les dieux qui habitent\nl'Olympos que cet homme divin est venu chez les Phaiakiens. Il me\nsemblait d'abord m\u00e9prisable, et maintenant il est semblable aux\ndieux qui habitent le large Ouranos. Pl\u00fbt aux dieux qu'un tel\nhomme f\u00fbt nomm\u00e9 mon mari, qu'il habit\u00e2t ici et qu'il lui pl\u00fbt d'y\nrester! Mais, vous, servantes, offrez \u00e0 notre h\u00f4te \u00e0 boire et \u00e0\nmanger.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et les servantes l'entendirent et lui ob\u00e9irent;\net elles offrirent \u00e0 Odysseus \u00e0 boire et \u00e0 manger. Et le divin\nOdysseus buvait et mangeait avec voracit\u00e9, car il y avait\nlongtemps qu'il n'avait pris de nourriture. Mais Nausikaa aux bras\nblancs eut d'autres pens\u00e9es; elle posa les v\u00eatements pli\u00e9s dans le\nchar, y monta apr\u00e8s avoir attel\u00e9 les mulets aux sabots massifs,\net, exhortant Odysseus, elle lui dit:\n\n-- L\u00e8ve-toi, \u00e9tranger, afin d'aller \u00e0 la ville et que je te\nconduise \u00e0 la demeure de mon p\u00e8re prudent, o\u00f9 je pense que tu\nverras les premiers d'entre les Phaiakiens. Mais fais ce que je\nvais te dire, car tu me sembles plein de sagesse: aussi longtemps\nque nous irons \u00e0 travers les champs et les travaux des hommes,\nmarche rapidement avec les servantes, derri\u00e8re les mulets et le\nchar, et, moi, je montrerai le chemin; mais quand nous serons\narriv\u00e9s \u00e0 la ville, qu'environnent de hautes tours et que partage\nen deux un beau port dont l'entr\u00e9e est \u00e9troite, o\u00f9 sont conduites\nles nefs, chacune \u00e0 une station s\u00fbre, et devant lequel est le beau\ntemple de Poseida\u00f4n dans l'agora pav\u00e9e de grandes pierres\ntaill\u00e9es; -- et l\u00e0 aussi sont les armements des noires nefs, les\ncordages et les antennes et les avirons qu'on polit, car les arcs\net les carquois n'occupent point les Phaiakiens, mais seulement\nles m\u00e2ts, et les avirons des nefs, et les nefs \u00e9gales sur\nlesquelles ils traversent joyeux la mer pleine d'\u00e9cume; -- \u00e9vite\nalors leurs am\u00e8res paroles, de peur qu'un d'entre eux me bl\u00e2me en\narri\u00e8re, car ils sont tr\u00e8s insolents, et que le plus m\u00e9chant, nous\nrencontrant, dise peut-\u00eatre: -- Quel est cet \u00e9tranger grand et\nbeau qui suit Nausikaa? O\u00f9 l'a-t-elle trouv\u00e9? Certes, il sera son\nmari. Peut-\u00eatre l'a-t-elle re\u00e7u avec bienveillance, comme il\nerrait hors de sa nef conduite par des hommes \u00e9trangers, car\naucuns n'habitent pr\u00e8s d'ici; ou peut-\u00eatre encore un dieu qu'elle\na suppli\u00e9 ardemment est-il descendu de l'Ouranos, et elle le\nposs\u00e9dera tous les jours. Elle a bien fait d'aller au-devant d'un\nmari \u00e9tranger, car, certes, elle d\u00e9daigne les Phaiakiens illustres\net nombreux qui la recherchent! -- Ils parleraient ainsi, et leurs\nparoles seraient honteuses pour moi. Je bl\u00e2merais moi-m\u00eame celle\nqui, \u00e0 l'insu de son cher p\u00e8re et de sa m\u00e8re, irait seule parmi\nles hommes avant le jour des noces.\n\n\u00c9coute donc mes paroles, \u00e9tranger, afin d'obtenir de mon p\u00e8re des\ncompagnons et un prompt retour. Nous trouverons aupr\u00e8s du chemin\nun beau bois de peupliers consacr\u00e9 \u00e0 Ath\u00e8n\u00e8. Une source en coule\net une prairie l'entoure, et l\u00e0 sont le verger de mon p\u00e8re et ses\njardins florissants, \u00e9loign\u00e9s de la ville d'une port\u00e9e de voix. Il\nfaudra t'arr\u00eater l\u00e0 quelque temps, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que nous soyons\narriv\u00e9es \u00e0 la ville et \u00e0 la maison de mon p\u00e8re. D\u00e8s que tu\npenseras que nous y sommes parvenues, alors, marche vers la ville\ndes Phaiakiens et cherche les demeures de mon p\u00e8re, le magnanime\nAlkinoos. Elles sont faciles \u00e0 reconna\u00eetre, et un enfant pourrait\ny conduire; car aucune des maisons des Phaiakiens n'est telle que\nla demeure du h\u00e9ros Alkinoos. Quand tu seras entr\u00e9 dans la cour,\ntraverse promptement la maison royale afin d'arriver jusqu'\u00e0 ma\nm\u00e8re. Elle est assise \u00e0 son foyer, \u00e0 la splendeur du feu, filant\nune laine pourpr\u00e9e admirable \u00e0 voir. Elle est appuy\u00e9e contre une\ncolonne et ses servantes sont assises autour d'elle. Et, \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9\nd'elle, est le thr\u00f4ne de mon p\u00e8re, o\u00f9 il s'assied, pour boire du\nvin, semblable \u00e0 un immortel. En passant devant lui, embrasse les\ngenoux de ma m\u00e8re, afin que, joyeux, tu voies promptement le jour\ndu retour, m\u00eame quand tu serais tr\u00e8s loin de ta demeure. En effet,\nsi ma m\u00e8re t'est bienveillante dans son \u00e2me, tu peux esp\u00e9rer\nrevoir tes amis, et rentrer dans ta demeure bien b\u00e2tie et dans la\nterre de la patrie.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, elle frappa les mulets du fouet brillant, et\nles mulets, quittant rapidement les bords du fleuve, couraient\navec ardeur et en tr\u00e9pignant. Et Nausikaa les guidait avec art des\nr\u00eanes et du fouet, de fa\u00e7on que les servantes et Odysseus\nsuivissent \u00e0 pied. Et H\u00e8lios tomba, et ils parvinrent au bois\nsacr\u00e9 d'Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, o\u00f9 le divin Odysseus s'arr\u00eata. Et, aussit\u00f4t, il\nsupplia la fille du magnanime Zeus:\n\n-- Entends-moi, fille indompt\u00e9e de Zeus temp\u00eatueux! Exauce-moi\nmaintenant, puisque tu ne m'as point secouru quand l'illustre qui\nentoure la terre m'accablait. Accorde-moi d'\u00eatre le bien venu chez\nles Phaiakiens, et qu'ils aient piti\u00e9.\n\nIl parla ainsi en suppliant, et Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 l'entendit, mais\nelle ne lui apparut point, respectant le fr\u00e8re de son p\u00e8re; car il\ndevait \u00eatre violemment irrit\u00e9 contre le divin Odysseus jusqu'\u00e0 ce\nque celui-ci f\u00fbt arriv\u00e9 dans la terre de la patrie.\n\n\n7.\n\nTandis que le patient et divin Odysseus suppliait ainsi Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, la\nvigueur des mulets emportait la jeune vierge vers la ville. Et\nquand elle fut arriv\u00e9e aux illustres demeures de son p\u00e8re, elle\ns'arr\u00eata dans le vestibule; et, de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s, ses fr\u00e8res,\nsemblables aux immortels, s'empress\u00e8rent autour d'elle, et ils\nd\u00e9tach\u00e8rent les mulets du char, et ils port\u00e8rent les v\u00eatements\ndans la demeure. Puis la vierge rentra dans sa chambre o\u00f9 la\nvieille servante \u00e9pirote Eurym\u00e9dousa alluma du feu. Des nefs \u00e0\ndeux rangs d'avirons l'avaient autrefois amen\u00e9e du pays des\n\u00e9pirotes, et on l'avait donn\u00e9e en r\u00e9compense \u00e0 Alkinoos, parce\nqu'il commandait \u00e0 tous les Phaiakiens et que le peuple l'\u00e9coutait\ncomme un dieu. Elle avait allait\u00e9 Nausikaa aux bras blancs dans la\nmaison royale, et elle allumait son feu et elle pr\u00e9parait son\nrepas.\n\nEt, alors, Odysseus se leva pour aller \u00e0 la ville, et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8,\npleine de bienveillance pour lui, l'enveloppa d'un \u00e9pais\nbrouillard, de peur qu'un des Phaiakiens insolents, le\nrencontrant, l'outrage\u00e2t par ses paroles et lui demand\u00e2t qui il\n\u00e9tait. Mais, quand il fut entr\u00e9 dans la belle ville, alors Ath\u00e8n\u00e8,\nla d\u00e9esse aux yeux clairs, sous la figure d'une jeune vierge\nportant une urne, s'arr\u00eata devant lui, et le divin Odysseus\nl'interrogea:\n\n-- \u00d4 mon enfant, ne pourrais-tu me montrer la demeure du h\u00e9ros\nAlkinoos qui commande parmi les hommes de ce pays? Je viens ici,\nd'une terre lointaine et \u00e9trang\u00e8re, comme un h\u00f4te, ayant subi\nbeaucoup de maux, et je ne connais aucun des hommes qui habitent\ncette ville et cette terre.\n\nEt la d\u00e9esse aux yeux clairs, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- H\u00f4te v\u00e9n\u00e9rable, je te montrerai la demeure que tu me demandes,\ncar elle est aupr\u00e8s de celle de mon p\u00e8re irr\u00e9prochable. Mais viens\nen silence, et je t'indiquerai le chemin. Ne parle point et\nn'interroge aucun de ces hommes, car ils n'aiment point les\n\u00e9trangers et ils ne re\u00e7oivent point avec amiti\u00e9 quiconque vient de\nloin. Confiants dans leurs nefs l\u00e9g\u00e8res et rapides, ils traversent\nles grandes eaux, et celui qui \u00e9branle la terre leur a donn\u00e9 des\nnefs rapides comme l'aile des oiseaux et comme la pens\u00e9e.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 le pr\u00e9c\u00e9da promptement, et il\nmarcha derri\u00e8re la d\u00e9esse, et les illustres navigateurs Phaiakiens\nne le virent point tandis qu'il traversait la ville au milieu\nd'eux, car Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable d\u00e9esse aux beaux cheveux, ne le\npermettait point, ayant envelopp\u00e9 Odysseus d'un \u00e9pais brouillard,\ndans sa bienveillance pour lui. Et Odysseus admirait le port, les\nnefs \u00e9gales, l'agora des h\u00e9ros et les longues murailles fortifi\u00e9es\nde hauts pieux, admirables \u00e0 voir. Et, quand ils furent arriv\u00e9s \u00e0\nl'illustre demeure du roi, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, la d\u00e9esse aux yeux clairs, lui\nparla d'abord:\n\n-- Voici, h\u00f4te, mon p\u00e8re, la demeure que tu m'as demand\u00e9 de te\nmontrer. Tu trouveras les rois, nourrissons de Zeus, prenant leur\nrepas. Entre, et ne crains rien dans ton \u00e2me. D'o\u00f9 qu'il vienne,\nl'homme courageux est celui qui accomplit le mieux tout ce qu'il\nfait. Va d'abord \u00e0 la reine, dans la maison royale. Son nom est\nAr\u00e8t\u00e8, et elle le m\u00e9rite, et elle descend des m\u00eames parents qui\nont engendr\u00e9 le roi Alkinoos. Poseida\u00f4n qui \u00e9branle la terre\nengendra Nausithoos que con\u00e7ut P\u00e9riboia, la plus belle des femmes\net la plus jeune fille du magnanime Eurym\u00e9d\u00f4n qui commanda\nautrefois aux fiers g\u00e9ants. Mais il perdit son peuple impie et\np\u00e9rit lui-m\u00eame. Poseida\u00f4n s'unit \u00e0 P\u00e9riboia, et il engendra le\nmagnanime Nausithoos qui commanda aux Phaiakiens. Et Nausithoos\nengendra Rh\u00e8x\u00e8n\u00f4r et Alkinoos. Apoll\u00f4n \u00e0 l'arc d'argent frappa le\npremier qui venait de se marier dans la maison royale et qui ne\nlaissa point de fils, mais une fille unique, Ar\u00e8t\u00e8, qu'\u00e9pousa\nAlkinoos. Et il l'a honor\u00e9e plus que ne sont honor\u00e9es toutes les\nautres femmes qui, sur la terre, gouvernent leur maison sous la\npuissance de leurs maris. Et elle est honor\u00e9e par ses chers\nenfants non moins que par Alkinoos, ainsi que par les peuples, qui\nla regardent comme une d\u00e9esse et qui recueillent ses paroles quand\nelle marche par la ville. Elle ne manque jamais de bonnes pens\u00e9es\ndans son esprit, et elle leur est bienveillante, et elle apaise\nleurs diff\u00e9rends. Si elle t'est favorable dans son \u00e2me, tu peux\nesp\u00e9rer revoir tes amis et rentrer dans ta haute demeure et dans\nla terre de la patrie.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs s'envola sur la mer\nindompt\u00e9e, et elle abandonna l'aimable Skh\u00e9ri\u00e8, et elle arriva \u00e0\nMarath\u00f4n, et, \u00e9tant parvenue dans Ath\u00e9na aux larges rues, elle\nentra dans la forte demeure d'Erekhtheus.\n\nEt Odysseus se dirigea vers l'illustre maison d'Alkinoos, et il\ns'arr\u00eata, l'\u00e2me pleine de pens\u00e9es, avant de fouler le pav\u00e9\nd'airain. En effet, la haute demeure du magnanime Alkinoos\nresplendissait comme H\u00e8lios ou S\u00e9l\u00e8n\u00e8. De solides murs d'airain,\ndes deux c\u00f4t\u00e9s du seuil, enfermaient la cour int\u00e9rieure, et leur\npinacle \u00e9tait d'\u00e9mail. Et des portes d'or fermaient la solide\ndemeure, et les poteaux des portes \u00e9taient d'argent sur le seuil\nd'airain argent\u00e9, et, au-dessus, il y avait une corniche d'or, et,\ndes deux c\u00f4t\u00e9s, il y avait des chiens d'or et d'argent que\nH\u00e8phaistos avait faits tr\u00e8s habilement, afin qu'ils gardassent la\nmaison du magnanime Alkinoos, \u00e9tant immortels et ne devant point\nvieillir. Dans la cour, autour du mur, des deux c\u00f4t\u00e9s, \u00e9taient des\nthr\u00f4nes solides, rang\u00e9s jusqu'\u00e0 l'entr\u00e9e int\u00e9rieure et recouverts\nde l\u00e9gers p\u00e9plos, ouvrage des femmes. L\u00e0, si\u00e9geaient les princes\ndes Phaiakiens, mangeant et buvant toute l'ann\u00e9e. Et des figures\nde jeunes hommes, en or, se dressaient sur de beaux autels,\nportant aux mains des torches flambantes qui \u00e9clairaient pendant\nla nuit les convives dans la demeure. Et cinquante servantes\nhabitaient la maison, et les unes broyaient sous la meule le grain\nm\u00fbr, et les autres, assises, tissaient les toiles et tournaient la\nquenouille agit\u00e9e comme les feuilles du haut peuplier, et une\nhuile liquide distillait de la trame des tissus. Autant les\nPhaiakiens \u00e9taient les plus habiles de tous les hommes pour voguer\nen mer sur une nef rapide, autant leurs femmes l'emportaient pour\ntravailler les toiles, et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 leur avait accord\u00e9 d'accomplir de\ntr\u00e8s beaux et tr\u00e8s habiles ouvrages. Et, au del\u00e0 de la cour,\naupr\u00e8s des portes, il y avait un grand jardin de quatre arpents,\nentour\u00e9 de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s par une haie. L\u00e0, croissaient de grands\narbres florissants qui produisaient, les uns la poire et la\ngrenade, les autres les belles oranges, les douces figues et les\nvertes olives. Et jamais ces fruits ne manquaient ni ne cessaient,\net ils duraient tout l'hiver et tout l'\u00e9t\u00e9, et Z\u00e9phyros, en\nsoufflant, faisait cro\u00eetre les uns et m\u00fbrir les autres; la poire\nsucc\u00e9dait \u00e0 la poire, la pomme m\u00fbrissait apr\u00e8s la pomme, et la\ngrappe apr\u00e8s la grappe, et la figue apr\u00e8s la figue. L\u00e0, sur la\nvigne fructueuse, le raisin s\u00e9chait, sous l'ardeur de H\u00e8lios, en\nun lieu d\u00e9couvert, et, l\u00e0, il \u00e9tait cueilli et foul\u00e9; et, parmi\nles grappes, les unes perdaient leurs fleurs tandis que d'autres\nm\u00fbrissaient. Et \u00e0 la suite du jardin, il y avait un verger qui\nproduisait abondamment toute l'ann\u00e9e. Et il y avait deux sources,\ndont l'une courait \u00e0 travers tout le jardin, tandis que l'autre\njaillissait sous le seuil de la cour, devant la haute demeure, et\nles citoyens venaient y puiser de l'eau. Et tels \u00e9taient les\nsplendides pr\u00e9sents des dieux dans la demeure d'Alkinoos.\n\nLe patient et divin Odysseus, s'\u00e9tant arr\u00eat\u00e9, admira toutes ces\nchoses, et, quand il les eut admir\u00e9es, il passa rapidement le\nseuil de la demeure. Et il trouva les princes et les chefs des\nPhaiakiens faisant des libations au vigilant tueur d'Argos, car\nils finissaient par lui, quand ils songeaient \u00e0 gagner leurs lits.\nEt le divin et patient Odysseus, traversa la demeure, envelopp\u00e9 de\nl'\u00e9pais brouillard que Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 avait r\u00e9pandu autour de lui,\net il parvint \u00e0 Ar\u00e8t\u00e8 et au roi Alkinoos. Et Odysseus entoura de\nses bras les genoux d'Ar\u00e8t\u00e8, et le brouillard divin tomba. Et, \u00e0\nsa vue, tous rest\u00e8rent muets dans la demeure, et ils l'admiraient.\nMais Odysseus fit cette pri\u00e8re:\n\n-- Ar\u00e8t\u00e8, fille du divin Rh\u00e8x\u00e8n\u00f4r, je viens \u00e0 tes genoux, et vers\nton mari et vers ses convives, apr\u00e8s avoir beaucoup souffert. Que\nles dieux leur accordent de vivre heureusement, et de laisser \u00e0\nleurs enfants les biens qui sont dans leurs demeures et les\nr\u00e9compenses que le peuple leur a donn\u00e9es! Mais pr\u00e9parez mon\nretour, afin que j'arrive promptement dans ma patrie, car il y a\nlongtemps que je subis de nombreuses mis\u00e8res, loin de mes amis.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il s'assit dans les cendres du foyer, devant le\nfeu, et tous restaient muets.\nEnfin, le vieux h\u00e9ros Ekh\u00e9n\u00e8os parla ainsi. C'\u00e9tait le plus \u00e2g\u00e9 de\ntous les Phaiakiens, et il savait beaucoup de choses anciennes, et\nil l'emportait sur tous par son \u00e9loquence. Plein de sagesse, il\nparla ainsi au milieu de tous:\n\n-- Alkinoos, il n'est ni bon, ni convenable pour toi, que ton h\u00f4te\nsoit assis dans les cendres du foyer. Tes convives attendent tous\nta d\u00e9cision. Mais h\u00e2te-toi; fais asseoir ton h\u00f4te sur un thr\u00f4ne\norn\u00e9 de clous d'argent, et commande aux h\u00e9rauts de verser du vin,\nafin que nous fassions des libations \u00e0 Zeus foudroyant qui\naccompagne les suppliants v\u00e9n\u00e9rables. Pendant ce temps, l'\u00e9conome\noffrira \u00e0 ton h\u00f4te les mets qui sont dans la demeure.\n\nD\u00e8s que la force sacr\u00e9e d'Alkinoos eut entendu ces paroles, il\nprit par la main le sage et subtil Odysseus, et il le fit lever du\nfoyer, et il le fit asseoir sur un thr\u00f4ne brillant d'o\u00f9 s'\u00e9tait\nretir\u00e9 son fils, le brave Laodamas, qui si\u00e9geait \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de lui et\nqu'il aimait le plus. Une servante versa de l'eau d\u0092une belle\naigui\u00e8re d'or dans un bassin d'argent, pour qu'il lav\u00e2t ses mains,\net elle dressa devant lui une table polie. Et la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable\n\u00e9conome, gracieuse pour tous, apporta le pain et de nombreux mets.\nEt le sage et divin Odysseus buvait et mangeait. Alors Alkinoos\ndit \u00e0 un h\u00e9raut:\n\n-- Pontonoos, m\u00eale le vin dans le krat\u00e8re et distribue-le \u00e0 tous\ndans la demeure, afin que nous fassions des libations \u00e0 Zeus\nfoudroyant qui accompagne les suppliants v\u00e9n\u00e9rables.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Pontonoos m\u00eala le doux vin, et il le distribua\nen go\u00fbtant d'abord \u00e0 toutes les coupes. Et ils firent des\nlibations, et ils burent autant que leur \u00e2me le d\u00e9sirait, et\nAlkinoos leur parla ainsi:\n\n-- \u00c9coutez-moi, princes et chefs des Phaiakiens, afin que je dise\nce que mon coeur m'inspire dans ma poitrine. Maintenant que le\nrepas est achev\u00e9, allez dormir dans vos demeures. Demain matin,\nayant convoqu\u00e9 les vieillards, nous exercerons l'hospitalit\u00e9\nenvers notre h\u00f4te dans ma maison, et nous ferons de justes\nsacrifices aux dieux; puis nous songerons au retour de notre h\u00f4te,\nafin que, sans peine et sans douleur, et par nos soins, il arrive\nplein de joie dans la terre de sa patrie, quand m\u00eame elle serait\ntr\u00e8s lointaine. Et il ne subira plus ni maux, ni mis\u00e8res, jusqu'\u00e0\nce qu'il ait foul\u00e9 sa terre natale. L\u00e0, il subira ensuite la\ndestin\u00e9e que les lourdes Moires lui ont fil\u00e9e d\u00e8s l'instant o\u00f9 sa\nm\u00e8re l'enfanta. Qui sait s'il n'est pas un des immortels descendu\nde l'Ouranos? Les dieux auraient ainsi m\u00e9dit\u00e9 quelque autre\ndessein; car ils se sont souvent, en effet, manifest\u00e9s \u00e0 nous,\nquand nous leur avons offert d'illustres h\u00e9catombes, et ils se\nsont assis \u00e0 nos repas, aupr\u00e8s de nous et comme nous; et si un\nvoyageur Phaiakien les rencontre seul sur sa route, ils ne se\ncachent point de lui, car nous sommes leurs parents, de m\u00eame que\nles kykl\u00f4pes et la race sauvage des g\u00e9ants.\n\nEt le prudent Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Alkinoos, que d'autres pens\u00e9es soient dans ton esprit. Je ne\nsuis point semblable aux immortels qui habitent le large Ouranos\nni par l'aspect, ni par la d\u00e9marche; mais je ressemble aux hommes\nmortels, de ceux que vous savez \u00eatre le plus accabl\u00e9s de mis\u00e8res.\nC'est \u00e0 ceux-ci que je suis semblable par mes maux. Et les\ndouleurs infinies que je pourrais raconter, certes, je les ai\ntoutes souffertes par la volont\u00e9 des dieux. Mais laissez-moi\nprendre mon repas malgr\u00e9 ma tristesse; car il n'est rien de pire\nqu'un ventre affam\u00e9, et il ne se laisse pas oublier par l'homme le\nplus afflig\u00e9 et dont l'esprit est le plus tourment\u00e9 d'inqui\u00e9tudes.\nAinsi, j'ai dans l'\u00e2me un grand deuil, et la faim et la soif\nm'ordonnent de manger et de boire et de me rassasier, quelques\nmaux que j'aie subis. Mais h\u00e2tez-vous, d\u00e8s qu'E\u00f4s repara\u00eetra, de\nme renvoyer, malheureux que je suis, dans ma patrie, afin qu'apr\u00e8s\navoir tant souffert, la vie ne me quitte pas sans que j'aie revu\nmes biens, mes serviteurs et ma haute demeure!\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous l'applaudirent, et ils s'exhortaient \u00e0\nreconduire leur h\u00f4te, parce qu'il avait parl\u00e9 convenablement.\nPuis, ayant fait des libations et bu autant que leur \u00e2me le\nd\u00e9sirait, ils all\u00e8rent dormir, chacun dans sa demeure. Mais le\ndivin Odysseus resta, et, aupr\u00e8s de lui, Ar\u00e8t\u00e8 et le divin\nAlkinoos s'assirent, et les servantes emport\u00e8rent les vases du\nrepas. Et Ar\u00e8t\u00e8 aux bras blancs parla la premi\u00e8re, ayant reconnu\nle manteau, la tunique, les beaux v\u00eatements qu'elle avait faits\nelle-m\u00eame avec ses femmes. Et elle dit \u00e0 Odysseus ces paroles\nail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Mon h\u00f4te, je t'interrogerai la premi\u00e8re. Qui es-tu? D'o\u00f9 viens-\ntu? Qui t'a donn\u00e9 ces v\u00eatements? Ne dis-tu pas qu'errant sur la\nmer, tu es venu ici?\n\nEt le prudent Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Il me serait difficile, reine, de raconter de suite tous les\nmaux dont les dieux Ouraniens m'ont accabl\u00e9; mais je te dirai ce\nque tu me demandes d'abord. Il y a au milieu de la mer une \u00eele,\nOgygi\u00e8, qu'habite Kalyps\u00f4, d\u00e9esse dangereuse, aux beaux cheveux,\nfille rus\u00e9e d'Atlas; et aucun des Dieux ni des hommes mortels\nn'habite avec elle. Un daim\u00f4n m'y conduisit seul, malheureux que\nj'\u00e9tais! car Zeus, d'un coup de la blanche foudre, avait fendu en\ndeux ma nef rapide au milieu de la noire mer o\u00f9 tous mes braves\ncompagnons p\u00e9rirent. Et moi, serrant de mes bras la car\u00e8ne de ma\nnef au double rang d'avirons, je fus emport\u00e9 pendant neuf jours,\net, dans la dixi\u00e8me nuit noire, les dieux me pouss\u00e8rent dans l'\u00eele\nOgygi\u00e8, o\u00f9 habitait Kalyps\u00f4, la d\u00e9esse dangereuse aux beaux\ncheveux. Et elle m'accueillit avec bienveillance, et elle me\nnourrit, et elle me disait qu'elle me rendrait immortel et qu'elle\nm'affranchirait pour toujours de la vieillesse; mais elle ne put\npersuader mon coeur dans ma poitrine.\n\nEt je passai l\u00e0 sept ann\u00e9es, et je mouillais de mes larmes les\nv\u00eatements immortels que m'avait donn\u00e9s Kalyps\u00f4. Mais quand vint la\nhuiti\u00e8me ann\u00e9e, alors elle me pressa elle-m\u00eame de m'en retourner,\nsoit par ordre de Zeus, soit que son coeur e\u00fbt chang\u00e9. Elle me\nrenvoya sur un radeau li\u00e9 de cordes, et elle me donna beaucoup de\npain et de vin, et elle me couvrit de v\u00eatements divins, et elle me\nsuscita un vent propice et doux. Je naviguais pendant dix-sept\njours, faisant ma route sur la mer, et, le dix-huiti\u00e8me jour, les\nmontagnes ombrag\u00e9es de votre terre m'apparurent, et mon cher coeur\nfut joyeux. Malheureux! j'allais \u00eatre accabl\u00e9 de nouvelles et\nnombreuses mis\u00e8res que devait m'envoyer Poseida\u00f4n qui \u00e9branle la\nterre.\n\nEt il excita les vents, qui m'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent en chemin; et il souleva\nla mer immense, et il voulut que les flots, tandis que je\ng\u00e9missais, accablassent le radeau, que la temp\u00eate dispersa; et je\nnageai, fendant les eaux, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que le vent et le flot\nm'eurent port\u00e9 \u00e0 terre, o\u00f9 la mer me jeta d'abord contre de grands\nrochers, puis me porta en un lieu plus favorable; car je nageai de\nnouveau jusqu'au fleuve, \u00e0 un endroit accessible, libre de rochers\net \u00e0 l'abri du vent. Et je raffermis mon esprit, et la nuit divine\narriva. Puis, \u00e9tant sorti du fleuve tomb\u00e9 de Zeus, je me couchai\nsous les arbustes, o\u00f9 j'amassai des feuilles, et un dieu m'envoya\nun profond sommeil. L\u00e0, bien qu'afflig\u00e9 dans mon cher coeur, je\ndormis toute la nuit jusqu'au matin et tout le jour. Et H\u00e8lios\ntombait, et le doux sommeil me quitta. Et j'entendis les servantes\nde ta fille qui jouaient sur le rivage, et je la vis elle-m\u00eame, au\nmilieu de toutes, semblable aux immortelles. Je la suppliais, et\nelle montra une sagesse excellente bien sup\u00e9rieure \u00e0 celle qu'on\npeut esp\u00e9rer d'une jeune fille, car la jeunesse, en effet, est\ntoujours imprudente. Et elle me donna aussit\u00f4t de la nourriture et\ndu vin rouge, et elle me fit baigner dans le fleuve, et elle me\ndonna des v\u00eatements. Je t'ai dit toute la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, malgr\u00e9 mon\naffliction.\n\nEt Alkinoos, lui r\u00e9pondant, lui dit:\n\n-- Mon h\u00f4te, certes, ma fille n'a point agi convenablement,\npuisqu'elle ne t'a point conduit, avec ses servantes, dans ma\ndemeure, car tu l'avais suppli\u00e9e la premi\u00e8re.\n\nEt le subtil Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- H\u00e9ros, ne bl\u00e2me point, \u00e0 cause de moi, la jeune vierge\nirr\u00e9prochable. Elle m'a ordonn\u00e9 de la suivre avec ses femmes, mais\nje ne l'ai point voulu, craignant de t'irriter si tu avais vu\ncela; car nous, race des hommes, sommes soup\u00e7onneux sur la terre.\n\nEt Alkinoos, lui r\u00e9pondant, dit:\n\n-- Mon h\u00f4te, mon cher coeur n'a point coutume de s'irriter sans\nraison dans ma poitrine, et les choses \u00e9quitables sont toujours\nles plus puissantes sur moi. Plaise au p\u00e8re Zeus, \u00e0 Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, \u00e0\nApoll\u00f4n, que, tel que tu es, et sentant en toutes choses comme\nmoi, tu veuilles rester, \u00e9pouser ma fille, \u00eatre appel\u00e9 mon gendre!\nJe te donnerais une demeure et des biens, si tu voulais rester.\nMais aucun des Phaiakiens ne te retiendra malgr\u00e9 toi, car ceci ne\nserait point agr\u00e9able au p\u00e8re Zeus. Afin que tu le saches bien,\ndemain je d\u00e9ciderai ton retour.\n\nJusque-l\u00e0, dors, dompt\u00e9 par le sommeil; et mes hommes profiteront\ndu temps paisible, afin que tu parviennes dans ta patrie et dans\nta demeure, ou partout o\u00f9 il te plaira d'aller, m\u00eame par-del\u00e0\nl'Euboi\u00e8, que ceux de notre peuple qui l'ont vue disent la plus\nlointaine des terres, quand ils y conduisirent le blond\nRhadamanthos, pour visiter Tityos, le fils de Gaia. Ils y all\u00e8rent\net en revinrent en un seul jour. Tu sauras par toi-m\u00eame combien\nmes nefs et mes jeunes hommes sont habiles \u00e0 frapper la mer de\nleurs avirons.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le subtil et divin Odysseus, plein de joie, fit\ncette supplication:\n\n-- P\u00e8re Zeus! qu'il te plaise qu'Alkinoos accomplisse ce qu'il\npromet, et que sa gloire soit immortelle sur la terre f\u00e9conde si\nje rentre dans ma patrie!\n\nEt tandis qu'ils se parlaient ainsi, Ar\u00e8t\u00e8 ordonna aux servantes\naux bras blancs de dresser un lit sous le portique, d'y mettre\nplusieurs couvertures pourpr\u00e9es, et d'\u00e9tendre par-dessus des tapis\net des manteaux laineux. Et les servantes sortirent de la demeure\nen portant des torches flambantes; et elles dress\u00e8rent un beau lit\n\u00e0 la h\u00e2te, et, s'approchant d'Odysseus, elles lui dirent:\n\n-- L\u00e8ve-toi, notre h\u00f4te, et va dormir: ton lit est pr\u00e9par\u00e9.\n\nElles parl\u00e8rent ainsi, et il lui sembla doux de dormir. Et ainsi\nle divin et patient Odysseus s'endormit dans un lit profond, sous\nle portique sonore. Et Alkinoos dormait aussi au fond de sa haute\ndemeure. Et, aupr\u00e8s de lui, la Reine, ayant pr\u00e9par\u00e9 le lit, se\ncoucha.\n\n\n8.\n\nQuand \u00c9\u00f4s aux doigts ros\u00e9s, n\u00e9e au matin, apparut, la force sacr\u00e9e\nd'Alkinoos se leva de son lit, et le d\u00e9vastateur de citadelles, le\ndivin et subtil Odysseus se leva aussi; et la Force sacr\u00e9e\nd'Alkinoos le conduisit \u00e0 l'agora des Phaiakiens, aupr\u00e8s des nefs.\nEt, d\u00e8s leur arriv\u00e9e, ils s'assirent l'un pr\u00e8s de l'autre sur des\npierres polies. Et Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 parcourait la ville, sous la\nfigure d'un h\u00e9raut prudent d'Alkinoos; et, m\u00e9ditant le retour du\nmagnanime Odysseus, elle abordait chaque homme et lui disait:\n\n-- Princes et chefs des Phaiakiens, allez \u00e0 l'agora, afin\nd'entendre l'\u00e9tranger qui est arriv\u00e9 r\u00e9cemment dans la demeure du\nsage Alkinoos, apr\u00e8s avoir err\u00e9 sur la mer. Il est semblable aux\nimmortels.\n\nAyant parl\u00e9 ainsi, elle excitait l'esprit de chacun, et bient\u00f4t\nl'agora et les si\u00e8ges furent pleins d'hommes rassembl\u00e9s; et ils\nadmiraient le fils prudent de Laert\u00e8s, car Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 avait r\u00e9pandu\nune gr\u00e2ce divine sur sa t\u00eate et sur ses \u00e9paules, et l'avait rendu\nplus grand et plus majestueux, afin qu'il par\u00fbt plus agr\u00e9able,\nplus fier et plus v\u00e9n\u00e9rable aux Phaiakiens et qu'il accompl\u00eet\ntoutes les choses par lesquelles ils voudraient l'\u00e9prouver. Et,\napr\u00e8s que tous se furent r\u00e9unis, Alkinoos leur parla ainsi:\n\n-- \u00c9coutez-moi, princes et chefs des Phaiakiens, afin que je dise\nce que mon coeur m'inspire dans ma poitrine. Je ne sais qui est\ncet \u00e9tranger errant qui est venu dans ma demeure, soit du milieu\ndes hommes qui sont du c\u00f4t\u00e9 d'\u00c9\u00f4s, soit de ceux qui habitent du\nc\u00f4t\u00e9 de Hesp\u00e9ros. Il nous demande d'aider \u00e0 son prompt retour.\nNous le reconduirons, comme cela est d\u00e9j\u00e0 arriv\u00e9 pour d'autres;\ncar aucun homme entr\u00e9 dans ma demeure n'a jamais pleur\u00e9 longtemps\nici, d\u00e9sirant son retour. Allons! tirons \u00e0 la mer divine une nef\nnoire et neuve, et que cinquante-deux jeunes hommes soient choisis\ndans le peuple parmi les meilleurs de tous. Liez donc \u00e0 leurs\nbancs les avirons de la nef, et pr\u00e9parons promptement dans ma\ndemeure un repas que je vous offre. Les jeunes hommes accompliront\nmes ordres, et vous tous, rois porteurs de sceptres, venez dans ma\nbelle demeure, afin que nous honorions notre h\u00f4te dans la maison\nroyale. Que nul ne refuse, et appelez le divin aoide D\u00e8modokos,\ncar un dieu lui a donn\u00e9 le chant admirable qui charme, quand son\n\u00e2me le pousse \u00e0 chanter.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il marcha devant, et les porteurs de sceptres\nle suivaient, et un h\u00e9raut courut vers le divin aoide. Et\ncinquante-deux jeunes hommes, choisis dans le peuple, all\u00e8rent,\ncomme Alkinoos l'avait ordonn\u00e9, sur le rivage de la mer indompt\u00e9e.\n\u00c9tant arriv\u00e9s \u00e0 la mer et \u00e0 la nef, ils tra\u00een\u00e8rent la noire nef \u00e0\nla mer profonde, dress\u00e8rent le m\u00e2t, pr\u00e9par\u00e8rent les voiles,\nli\u00e8rent les avirons avec des courroies, et, faisant tout comme il\nconvenait, \u00e9tendirent les blanches voiles et pouss\u00e8rent la nef au\nlarge. Puis, ils se rendirent \u00e0 la grande demeure du sage\nAlkinoos. Et le portique, et la salle, et la demeure \u00e9taient\npleins d'hommes rassembl\u00e9s, et les jeunes hommes et les vieillards\n\u00e9taient nombreux.\n\nEt Alkinoos tua pour eux douze brebis, huit porcs aux blanches\ndents et deux boeufs aux pieds flexibles. Et ils les \u00e9corch\u00e8rent,\net ils pr\u00e9par\u00e8rent le repas agr\u00e9able.\n\nEt le h\u00e9raut vint, conduisant le divin aoide. La Muse l'aimait\nplus que tous, et elle lui avait donn\u00e9 de conna\u00eetre le bien et le\nmal, et, l'ayant priv\u00e9 des yeux, elle lui avait accord\u00e9 le chant\nadmirable. Le h\u00e9raut pla\u00e7a pour lui, au milieu des convives, un\nthr\u00f4ne aux clous d'argent, appuy\u00e9 contre une longue colonne; et,\nau-dessus de sa t\u00eate, il suspendit la kithare sonore, et il lui\nmontra comment il pourrait la prendre. Puis, il dressa devant lui\nune belle table et il y mit une corbeille et une coupe de vin,\nafin qu'il b\u00fbt autant de fois que son \u00e2me le voudrait. Et tous\n\u00e9tendirent les mains vers les mets plac\u00e9s devant eux.\n\nApr\u00e8s qu'ils eurent assouvi leur faim et leur soif, la Muse excita\nl'aoide \u00e0 c\u00e9l\u00e9brer la gloire des hommes par un chant dont la\nrenomm\u00e9e \u00e9tait parvenue jusqu'au large Ourancs. Et c'\u00e9tait la\nquerelle d'Odysseus et du P\u00e8l\u00e9ide Akhilleus, quand ils se\nquerell\u00e8rent autrefois en paroles violentes dans un repas offert\naux dieux. Et le roi des hommes, Agamemn\u00f4n, se r\u00e9jouissait dans\nson \u00e2me parce que les premiers d'entre les Akhaiens se\nquerellaient. En effet, la pr\u00e9diction s'accomplissait que lui\navait faite Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n, quand, dans la divine Pyth\u00f4, il avait\npass\u00e9 le seuil de pierre pour interroger l'oracle; et alors se\npr\u00e9paraient les maux des Troiens et des Danaens, par la volont\u00e9 du\ngrand Zeus.\n\nEt l'illustre aoide chantait ces choses, mais Odysseus ayant saisi\nde ses mains robustes son grand manteau pourpr\u00e9, l'attira sur sa\nt\u00eate et en couvrit sa belle face, et il avait honte de verser des\nlarmes devant les Phaiakiens. Mais quand le divin aoide cessait de\nchanter, lui-m\u00eame cessait de pleurer, et il \u00e9cartait son manteau,\net, prenant une coupe ronde, il faisait des libations aux dieux.\nPuis, quand les princes des Phaiakiens excitaient l'aoide \u00e0\nchanter de nouveau, car ils \u00e9taient charm\u00e9s de ses paroles, de\nnouveau Odysseus pleurait, la t\u00eate cach\u00e9e. Il se cachait de tous\nen versant des larmes; mais Alkinoos le vit, seul, \u00e9tant assis\naupr\u00e8s de lui, et il l'entendit g\u00e9mir, et aussit\u00f4t il dit aux\nPhaiakiens habiles \u00e0 manier les avirons:\n\n-- \u00c9coutez-moi, princes et chefs des Phaiakiens. D\u00e9j\u00e0 nous avons\nsatisfait notre \u00e2me par ce repas et par les sons de la kithare qui\nsont la joie des repas. Maintenant, sortons, et livrons-nous \u00e0\ntous les jeux, afin que notre h\u00f4te raconte \u00e0 ses amis, quand il\nsera retourn\u00e9 dans sa patrie, combien nous l'emportons sur les\nautres hommes au combat des poings, \u00e0 la lutte, au saut et \u00e0 la\ncourse.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il marcha le premier et tous le suivirent. Et\nle h\u00e9raut suspendit la kithare sonore \u00e0 la colonne, et, prenant\nD\u00e8modokos par la main, il le conduisit hors des demeures, par le\nm\u00eame chemin qu'avaient pris les princes des Phaiakiens afin\nd'admirer les jeux. Et ils all\u00e8rent \u00e0 l'agora, et une foule\ninnombrable suivait. Puis, beaucoup de robustes jeunes hommes se\nlev\u00e8rent, Akron\u00e9\u00f4s, Okyalos, \u00c9latreus, Nauteus, Prymneus,\nAnkhialos, \u00c9rethmeus, Ponteus, Pr\u00f4teus, Tho\u00f4n, Anab\u00e8sin\u00e9\u00f4s,\nAmphialos, fils de Polin\u00e9os Tektonide, et Euryalos semblable au\ntueur d'hommes Ar\u00e8s, et Naubolid\u00e8s qui l'emportait par la force et\nla beaut\u00e9 sur tous les Phaiakiens, apr\u00e8s l'irr\u00e9prochable Laodamas.\nEt les trois fils de l'irr\u00e9prochable Alkinoos se lev\u00e8rent aussi,\nLaodamas, Halios et le divin Klyton\u00e8os.\n\nEt ils combattirent d'abord \u00e0 la course, et ils s'\u00e9lanc\u00e8rent des\nbarri\u00e8res, et, tous ensemble, ils volaient rapidement, soulevant\nla poussi\u00e8re de la plaine. Mais celui qui les devan\u00e7ait de plus\nloin \u00e9tait l'irr\u00e9prochable Klyton\u00e8os. Autant les mules qui\nach\u00e8vent un sillon ont franchi d'espace, autant il les pr\u00e9c\u00e9dait,\nles laissant en arri\u00e8re, quand il revint devant le peuple. Et\nd'autres engag\u00e8rent le combat de la lutte, et dans ce combat\nEuryalos l'emporta sur les plus vigoureux. Et Amphialos fut\nvainqueur en sautant le mieux, et \u00c9latreus fut le plus fort au\ndisque, et Laodamas, l'illustre fils d'Alkinoos, au combat des\npoings. Mais, apr\u00e8s qu'ils eurent charm\u00e9 leur \u00e2me par ces combats,\nLaodamas, fils d'Alkinoos, parla ainsi:\n\n-- Allons, amis, demandons \u00e0 notre h\u00f4te s'il sait aussi combattre.\nCertes, il ne semble point sans courage. Il a des cuisses et des\nbras et un cou tr\u00e8s vigoureux, et il est encore jeune, bien qu'il\nait \u00e9t\u00e9 affaibli par beaucoup de malheurs; car je pense qu'il\nn'est rien de pire que la mer pour \u00e9puiser un homme, quelque\nvigoureux qu'il soit.\n\nEt Euryalos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Laodamas, tu as bien parl\u00e9. Maintenant, va, provoque-le, et\nrapporte-lui nos paroles.\n\nEt l'illustre fils d'Alkinoos, ayant \u00e9cout\u00e9 ceci, s'arr\u00eata au\nmilieu de l'ar\u00e8ne et dit \u00e0 Odysseus:\n\n-- Allons, h\u00f4te, mon p\u00e8re, viens tenter nos jeux, si tu y es\nexerc\u00e9 comme il convient que tu le sois. Il n'y a point de plus\ngrande gloire pour les hommes que celle d'\u00eatre brave par les pieds\net par les bras. Viens donc, et chasse la tristesse de ton \u00e2me.\nTon retour n'en subira pas un long retard, car d\u00e9j\u00e0 ta nef est\ntra\u00een\u00e9e \u00e0 la mer et tes compagnons sont pr\u00eats \u00e0 partir.\n\nEt le subtil Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Laodamas, pourquoi me provoques-tu \u00e0 combattre? Les douleurs\nremplissent mon \u00e2me plus que le d\u00e9sir des jeux. J'ai d\u00e9j\u00e0 subi\nbeaucoup de maux et support\u00e9 beaucoup de travaux, et maintenant,\nassis dans votre agora, j'implore mon retour, priant le roi et\ntout le peuple.\n\nEt Euryalos, lui r\u00e9pondant, l'outragea ouvertement:\n\n-- Tu parais, mon h\u00f4te, ignorer tous les jeux o\u00f9 s'exercent les\nhommes, et tu ressembles \u00e0 un chef de matelots marchands qui, sur\nune nef de charge, n'a souci que de gain et de provisions, plut\u00f4t\nqu'\u00e0 un athl\u00e8te.\n\nEt le subtil Odysseus, avec un sombre regard, lui dit:\n\n-- Mon h\u00f4te, tu n'as point parl\u00e9 convenablement, et tu ressembles\n\u00e0 un homme insolent. Les dieux ne dispensent point \u00e9galement leurs\ndons \u00e0 tous les hommes, la beaut\u00e9, la prudence ou l'\u00e9loquence.\nSouvent un homme n'a point de beaut\u00e9, mais un dieu l'orne par la\nparole, et tous sont charm\u00e9s devant lui, car il parle avec\nassurance et une douce modestie, et il domine l'agora, et, quand\nil marche par la ville, on le regarde comme un dieu. Un autre est\nsemblable aux dieux par sa beaut\u00e9, mais il ne lui a point \u00e9t\u00e9\naccord\u00e9 de bien parler. Ainsi, tu es beau, et un dieu ne t'aurait\npoint form\u00e9 autrement, mais tu manques d'intelligence, et, comme\ntu as mal parl\u00e9, tu as irrit\u00e9 mon coeur dans ma ch\u00e8re poitrine. Je\nn'ignore point ces combats, ainsi que tu le dis. J'\u00e9tais entre les\npremiers, quand je me confiais dans ma jeunesse et dans la vigueur\nde mes bras. Maintenant, je suis accabl\u00e9 de mis\u00e8res et de\ndouleurs, ayant subi de nombreux combats parmi les hommes ou en\ntraversant les flots dangereux. Mais, bien que j'aie beaucoup\nsouffert, je tenterai ces jeux, car ta parole m'a mordu, et tu\nm'as irrit\u00e9 par ce discours.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, sans rejeter son manteau, s'\u00e9lan\u00e7ant\nimp\u00e9tueusement, il saisit une pierre plus grande, plus \u00e9paisse,\nplus lourde que celle dont les Phaiakiens avaient coutume de se\nservir dans les jeux, et, l'ayant fait tourbillonner, il la jeta\nd'une main vigoureuse. Et la pierre rugit, et tous les Phaiakiens\nhabiles \u00e0 manier les avirons courb\u00e8rent la t\u00eate sous l'imp\u00e9tuosit\u00e9\nde la pierre qui vola bien au del\u00e0 des marques de tous les autres.\nEt Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 accourut promptement, et, posant une marque, elle dit,\nayant pris la figure d'un homme:\n\n-- M\u00eame un aveugle, mon h\u00f4te, pourrait reconna\u00eetre ta marque en la\ntouchant, car elle n'est point m\u00eal\u00e9e \u00e0 la foule des autres, mais\nelle est bien au del\u00e0. Aie donc confiance, car aucun des\nPhaiakiens n'atteindra l\u00e0, loin de te d\u00e9passer.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et le patient et divin Odysseus fut joyeux, et\nil se r\u00e9jouissait d'avoir dans l'agora un compagnon bienveillant.\nEt il dit avec plus de douceur aux Phaiakiens:\n\n-- Maintenant, jeunes hommes, atteignez cette pierre. Je pense que\nje vais bient\u00f4t en jeter une autre aussi loin, et m\u00eame au del\u00e0.\nMon \u00e2me et mon coeur m'excitent \u00e0 tenter tous les autres combats.\nQue chacun de vous se fasse ce p\u00e9ril, car vous m'avez grandement\nirrit\u00e9. Au ceste, \u00e0 la lutte, \u00e0 la course, je ne refuse aucun des\nPhaiakiens, sauf le seul Laodamas. Il est mon h\u00f4te. Qui pourrait\ncombattre un ami? L'insens\u00e9 seul et l'homme de nulle valeur le\ndisputent \u00e0 leur h\u00f4te dans les jeux, au milieu d'un peuple\n\u00e9tranger, et ils s'avilissent ainsi. Mais je n'en r\u00e9cuse ni n'en\nrepousse aucun autre. Je n'ignore aucun des combats qui se livrent\nparmi les hommes. Je sais surtout tendre un arc r\u00e9cemment poli, et\nle premier j'atteindrais un guerrier lan\u00e7ant des traits dans la\nfoule des hommes ennemis, m\u00eame quand de nombreux compagnons\nl'entoureraient et tendraient l'arc contre moi. Le seul\nPhilokt\u00e8t\u00e8s l'emportait sur moi par son arc, chez le peuple des\nTroiens, toutes les fois que les Akhaiens lan\u00e7aient des fl\u00e8ches.\nMais je pense \u00eatre maintenant le plus habile de tous les mortels\nqui se nourrissent de pain sur la terre. Certes, je ne voudrais\npoint lutter contre les anciens h\u00e9ros, ni contre H\u00e9rakl\u00e8s, ni\ncontre Eurytos l'Oikhalien, car ils luttaient, comme archers, m\u00eame\navec les dieux. Le grand Eurytos mourut tout jeune, et il ne\nvieillit point dans ses demeures. En effet, Apoll\u00f4n irrit\u00e9 le tua,\nparce qu'il l'avait provoqu\u00e9 au combat de l'arc. Je lance la pique\naussi bien qu'un autre lance une fl\u00e8che. Seulement, je crains\nqu'un des Phaiakiens me surpasse \u00e0 la course, ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 affaibli\npar beaucoup de fatigues au milieu des flots, car je ne poss\u00e9dais\npas une grande quantit\u00e9 de vivres dans ma nef, et mes chers genoux\nsont rompus.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous rest\u00e8rent muets, et le seul Alkinoos lui\nr\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Mon h\u00f4te, tes paroles me plaisent. Ta force veut prouver la\nvertu qui te suit partout, \u00e9tant irrit\u00e9, car cet homme t'a d\u00e9fi\u00e9;\nmais aucun n'oserait douter de ton courage, si du moins il n'a\npoint perdu le jugement. Maintenant, comprends bien ce que je vais\ndire, afin que tu parles favorablement de nos h\u00e9ros quand tu\nprendras tes repas dans tes demeures, aupr\u00e8s de ta femme et de tes\nenfants, et que tu te souviennes de notre vertu et des travaux\ndans lesquels Zeus nous a donn\u00e9 d'exceller d\u00e8s le temps de nos\nanc\u00eatres. Nous ne sommes point les plus forts au ceste, ni des\nlutteurs irr\u00e9prochables, mais nous courons rapidement et nous\nexcellons sur les nefs. Les repas nous sont chers, et la kithare\net les danses, et les v\u00eatements renouvel\u00e9s, les bains chauds et\nles lits. Allons! vous qui \u00eates les meilleurs danseurs Phaiakiens,\ndansez, afin que notre h\u00f4te, de retour dans sa demeure, dise \u00e0 ses\namis combien nous l'emportons sur tous les autres hommes dans la\nscience de la mer, par la l\u00e9g\u00e8ret\u00e9 des pieds, \u00e0 la danse et par le\nchant. Que quelqu'un apporte aussit\u00f4t \u00e0 D\u00e8modokos sa kithare\nsonore qui est rest\u00e9e dans nos demeures.\n\nAlkinoos semblable \u00e0 un dieu parla ainsi, et un h\u00e9raut se leva\npour rapporter la kithare harmonieuse de la maison royale. Et les\nneuf chefs des jeux, \u00e9lus par le sort, se lev\u00e8rent, car c'\u00e9taient\nles r\u00e9gulateurs de chaque chose dans les jeux. Et ils aplanirent\nla place du choeur, et ils dispos\u00e8rent un large espace. Et le\nh\u00e9raut revint, apportant la kithare sonore \u00e0 D\u00e8modokos; et celui-\nci se mit au milieu, et autour de lui se tenaient les jeunes\nadolescents habiles \u00e0 danser. Et ils frappaient de leurs pieds le\nchoeur divin, et Odysseus admirait la rapidit\u00e9 de leurs pieds, et\nil s'en \u00e9tonnait dans son \u00e2me.\n\nMais l'aoide commen\u00e7a de chanter admirablement l'amour d'Ar\u00e8s et\nd'Aphrodit\u00e8 \u00e0 la belle couronne, et comment ils s'unirent dans la\ndemeure de H\u00e8phaistos. Ar\u00e8s fit de nombreux pr\u00e9sents, et il\nd\u00e9shonora le lit du roi H\u00e8phaistos. Aussit\u00f4t H\u00e8lios, qui les avait\nvus s'unir, vint l'annoncer \u00e0 H\u00e8phaistos, qui entendit l\u00e0 une\ncruelle parole. Puis, m\u00e9ditant profond\u00e9ment sa vengeance, il se\nh\u00e2ta d'aller \u00e0 sa forge, et, dressant une grande enclume, il\nforgea des liens qui ne pouvaient \u00eatre ni rompus, ni d\u00e9nou\u00e9s.\nAyant achev\u00e9 cette trame pleine de ruse, il se rendit dans la\nchambre nuptiale o\u00f9 se trouvait son cher lit. Et il suspendit de\ntous c\u00f4t\u00e9s, en cercle, ces liens qui tombaient des poutres autour\ndu lit comme les toiles de l'araign\u00e9e, et que nul ne pouvait voir,\npas m\u00eame les dieux heureux. Ce fut ainsi qu'il ourdit sa ruse. Et,\napr\u00e8s avoir envelopp\u00e9 le lit, il feignit d'aller \u00e0 Lemnos, ville\nbien b\u00e2tie, celle de toutes qu'il aimait le mieux sur la terre.\nAr\u00e8s au frein d'or le surveillait, et quand il vit partir\nl'illustre ouvrier H\u00e8phaistos, il se h\u00e2ta, dans son d\u00e9sir\nd'Aphrodit\u00e8 \u00e0 la belle couronne, de se rendre \u00e0 la demeure de\nl'illustre H\u00e8phaistos. Et Aphrodit\u00e8, revenant de voir son tout-\npuissant p\u00e8re Zeus, \u00e9tait assise. Et Ar\u00e8s entra dans la demeure,\net il lui prit la main, et il lui dit:\n\n-- Allons, ch\u00e8re, dormir sur notre lit. H\u00e8phaistos n'est plus ici;\nil est all\u00e9 \u00e0 Lemnos, chez les Sintiens au langage barbare.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il sembla doux \u00e0 la d\u00e9esse de lui c\u00e9der, et ils\nmont\u00e8rent sur le lit pour y dormir, et, aussit\u00f4t, les liens\nhabilement dispos\u00e9s par le subtil H\u00e8phaistos les envelopp\u00e8rent. Et\nils ne pouvaient ni mouvoir leurs membres, ni se lever, et ils\nreconnurent alors qu'ils ne pouvaient fuir. Et l'illustre boiteux\ndes deux pieds approcha, car il \u00e9tait revenu avant d'arriver \u00e0 la\nterre de Lemnos, H\u00e8lios ayant veill\u00e9 pour lui et l'ayant averti.\n\nEt il rentra dans sa demeure, afflig\u00e9 en sa ch\u00e8re poitrine. Il\ns'arr\u00eata sous le vestibule, et une violente col\u00e8re le saisit, et\nil cria horriblement, et il fit que tous les dieux l'entendirent:\n\n-- P\u00e8re Zeus, et vous, dieux heureux qui vivez toujours, venez\nvoir des choses honteuses et intol\u00e9rables. Moi qui suis boiteux,\nla fille de Zeus, Aphrodit\u00e8, me d\u00e9shonore, et elle aime le\npernicieux Ar\u00e8s parce qu'il est beau et qu'il ne boite pas. Si je\nsuis laid, certes, je n'en suis pas cause, mais la faute en est \u00e0\nmon p\u00e8re et \u00e0 ma m\u00e8re qui n'auraient pas d\u00fb m'engendrer. Voyez\ncomme ils sont couch\u00e9s unis par l'amour. Certes, en les voyant sur\nce lit, je suis plein de douleur, mais je ne pense pas qu'ils\ntentent d'y dormir encore, bien qu'ils s'aiment beaucoup; et ils\nne pourront s'unir, et mon pi\u00e8ge et mes liens les retiendront\njusqu'\u00e0 ce que son p\u00e8re m'ait rendu toute la dot que je lui ai\nlivr\u00e9e \u00e0 cause de sa fille aux yeux de chien, parce qu'elle \u00e9tait\nbelle.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous les dieux se rassembl\u00e8rent dans la demeure\nd'airain. Poseida\u00f4n qui entoure la terre vint, et le tr\u00e8s utile\nHerm\u00e9ias vint aussi, puis le royal archer Apoll\u00f4n. Les d\u00e9esses,\npar pudeur, rest\u00e8rent seules dans leurs demeures. Et les dieux qui\ndispensent les biens \u00e9taient debout dans le vestibule. Et un rire\nimmense s'\u00e9leva parmi les dieux heureux quand ils virent l'ouvrage\ndu prudent H\u00e8phaistos; et, en le regardant, ils disaient entre\neux:\n\n-- Les actions mauvaises ne valent pas la vertu. Le plus lent a\natteint le rapide. Voici que H\u00e8phaistos, bien que boiteux, a\nsaisi, par sa science Ar\u00e8s, qui est le plus rapide de tous les\ndieux qui habitent l'Olympos, et c'est pourquoi il se fera payer\nune amende.\n\nIls se parlaient ainsi entre eux. Et le roi Apoll\u00f4n, fils de Zeus,\ndit \u00e0 Herm\u00e9ias:\n\n-- Messager Herm\u00e9ias, fils de Zeus, qui dispense les biens,\ncertes, tu voudrais sans doute \u00eatre envelopp\u00e9 de ces liens\nindestructibles, afin de coucher dans ce lit, aupr\u00e8s d'Aphrodit\u00e8\nd'or?\n\nEt le messager Herm\u00e9ias lui r\u00e9pondit aussit\u00f4t:\n\n-- Pl\u00fbt aux dieux, \u00f4 royal archer Apoll\u00f4n, que cela arriv\u00e2t, et\nque je fusse envelopp\u00e9 de liens trois fois plus inextricables, et\nque tous les dieux et les d\u00e9esses le vissent, pourvu que je fusse\ncouch\u00e9 aupr\u00e8s d'Aphrodit\u00e8 d'or!\n\nIl parla, ainsi, et le rire des dieux immortels \u00e9clata. Mais\nPoseida\u00f4n ne riait pas, et il suppliait l'illustre H\u00e8phaistos de\nd\u00e9livrer Ar\u00e8s, et il lui disait ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- D\u00e9livre-le, et je te promets qu'il te satisfera, ainsi que tu\nle d\u00e9sires, et comme il convient entre dieux immortels.\n\nEt l'illustre ouvrier H\u00e8phaistos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Poseida\u00f4n qui entoures la terre, ne me demande point cela. Les\ncautions des mauvais sont mauvaises. Comment pourrais-je te\ncontraindre, parmi les dieux immortels, si Ar\u00e8s \u00e9chappait \u00e0 sa\ndette et \u00e0 mes liens?\n\nEt Poseida\u00f4n qui \u00e9branle la terre lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- H\u00e8phaistos, si Ar\u00e8s, reniant sa dette, prend la fuite, je te la\npayerai moi-m\u00eame.\n\nEt l'illustre boiteux des deux pieds lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Il ne convient point que je refuse ta parole, et cela ne sera\npoint.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, la force de H\u00e8phaistos rompit les liens. Et\ntous deux, libres des liens inextricables, s'envol\u00e8rent aussit\u00f4t,\nAr\u00e8s dans la Thr\u00e8k\u00e8, et Aphrodit\u00e8 qui aime les sourires dans\nKypros, \u00e0 Paphos o\u00f9 sont ses bois sacr\u00e9s et ses autels parfum\u00e9s.\nL\u00e0, les Kharites la baign\u00e8rent et la parfum\u00e8rent d'une huile\nambroisienne, comme il convient aux dieux immortels, et elles la\nrev\u00eatirent de v\u00eatements pr\u00e9cieux, admirables \u00e0 voir.\n\nAinsi chantait l'illustre aoide, et, dans son esprit, Odysseus se\nr\u00e9jouissait de l'entendre, ainsi que tous les Phaiakiens habiles \u00e0\nmanier les longs avirons des nefs.\n\nEt Alkinoos ordonna \u00e0 Halios et \u00e0 Laodamas de danser seuls, car\nnul ne pouvait lutter avec eux. Et ceux-ci prirent dans leurs\nmains une belle boule pourpr\u00e9e que le sage Polybos avait faite\npour eux. Et l'un, courb\u00e9 en arri\u00e8re, la jetait vers les sombres\nnu\u00e9es, et l'autre la recevait avant qu'elle e\u00fbt touch\u00e9 la terre\ndevant lui. Apr\u00e8s avoir ainsi admirablement jou\u00e9 de la boule, ils\ndans\u00e8rent alternativement sur la terre f\u00e9conde; et tous les jeunes\nhommes, debout dans l'agora, applaudirent, et un grand bruit\ns'\u00e9leva. Alors, le divin Odysseus dit \u00e0 Alkinoos:\n\n-- Roi Alkinoos, le plus illustre de tout le peuple, certes, tu\nm'as annonc\u00e9 les meilleurs danseurs, et cela est manifeste.\nL'admiration me saisit en les regardant.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et la force sacr\u00e9e d'Alkinoos fut remplie de joie,\net il dit aussit\u00f4t aux Phaiakiens qui aiment les avirons:\n\n-- \u00c9coutez, princes et chefs des Phaiakiens. Notre h\u00f4te me semble\nplein de sagesse. Allons! Il convient de lui offrir les dons\nhospitaliers. Douze rois illustres, douze princes, commandent ce\npeuple, et moi, je suis le treizi\u00e8me. Apportez-lui, chacun, un\nmanteau bien lav\u00e9, une tunique et un talent d'or pr\u00e9cieux. Et,\naussit\u00f4t, nous apporterons tous ensemble ces pr\u00e9sents, afin que\nnotre h\u00f4te, les poss\u00e9dant, si\u00e8ge au repas, l'\u00e2me pleine de joie.\nEt Euryalos l'apaisera par ses paroles, puisqu'il n'a point parl\u00e9\nconvenablement.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous, ayant applaudi, ordonn\u00e8rent qu'on\napport\u00e2t les pr\u00e9sents, et chacun envoya un h\u00e9raut. Et Euryalos,\nr\u00e9pondant \u00e0 Alkinoos, parla ainsi:\n\n-- Roi Alkinoos, le plus illustre de tout le peuple, j'apaiserai\nnotre h\u00f4te, comme tu me l'ordonnes, et je lui donnerai cette \u00e9p\u00e9e\nd'airain, dont la poign\u00e9e est d'argent et dont la gocine est\nd'ivoire r\u00e9cemment travaill\u00e9. Ce don sera digne de notre h\u00f4te.\n\nEn parlant ainsi, il mit l'\u00e9p\u00e9e aux clous d'argent entre les mains\nd'Odysseus, et il lui dit en paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Salut, h\u00f4te, mon p\u00e8re! si j'ai dit une parole mauvaise, que les\ntemp\u00eates l'emportent! Que les dieux t'accordent de retourner dans\nta patrie et de revoir ta femme, car tu as longtemps souffert loin\nde tes amis.\n\nEt le subtil Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Et toi, ami, je te salue. Que les dieux t'accordent tous les\nbiens. Puisses-tu n'avoir jamais le regret de cette \u00e9p\u00e9e que tu me\ndonnes en m'apaisant par tes paroles.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il suspendit l'\u00e9p\u00e9e aux clous d'argent autour\nde ses \u00e9paules. Puis, H\u00e8lios tomba, et les splendides pr\u00e9sents\nfurent apport\u00e9s, et les h\u00e9rauts illustres les d\u00e9pos\u00e8rent dans la\ndemeure d'Alkinoos; et les irr\u00e9prochables fils d'Alkinoos, les\nayant re\u00e7us, les plac\u00e8rent devant leur m\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable. Et la force\nsacr\u00e9e d'Alkinoos commanda aux Phaiakiens de venir dans sa\ndemeure, et ils s'assirent sur des thr\u00f4nes \u00e9lev\u00e9s, et la force\nd'Alkinoos dit \u00e0 Ar\u00e8t\u00e8:\n\n-- Femme, apporte un beau coffre, le plus beau que tu aies, et tu\ny renfermeras un manteau bien lav\u00e9 et une tunique. Qu'on mette un\nvase sur le feu, et que l'eau chauffe, afin que notre h\u00f4te,\ns'\u00e9tant baign\u00e9, contemple les pr\u00e9sents que lui ont apport\u00e9s les\nirr\u00e9prochables Phaiakiens, et qu'il se r\u00e9jouisse du repas, en\n\u00e9coutant le chant de l'aoide. Et moi, je lui donnerai cette belle\ncoupe d'or, afin qu'il se souvienne de moi tous les jours de sa\nvie, quand il fera, dans sa demeure, des libations \u00e0 Zeus et aux\nautres dieux.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Ar\u00e8t\u00e8 ordonna aux servantes de mettre\npromptement un grand vase sur le feu. Et elles mirent sur le feu\nardent le grand vase pour le bain: et elles y vers\u00e8rent de l'eau,\net elles allum\u00e8rent le bois par-dessous. Et le feu enveloppa le\nvase \u00e0 trois pieds, et l'eau chauffa.\n\nEt, pendant ce temps, Ar\u00e8t\u00e8 descendit, de sa chambre nuptiale,\npour son h\u00f4te, un beau coffre, et elle y pla\u00e7a les pr\u00e9sents\nsplendides, les v\u00eatements et l'or que les Phaiakiens lui avaient\ndonn\u00e9s. Elle-m\u00eame y d\u00e9posa un manteau et une belle tunique, et\nelle dit \u00e0 Odysseus ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Vois toi-m\u00eame ce couvercle, et ferme-le d'un noeud, afin que\npersonne, en route, ne puisse te d\u00e9rober quelque chose, car tu\ndormiras peut-\u00eatre d'un doux sommeil dans la nef noire.\n\nAyant entendu cela, le patient et divin Odysseus ferma aussit\u00f4t le\ncouvercle \u00e0 l'aide d'un noeud inextricable que la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable Kirk\u00e8\nlui avait enseign\u00e9 autrefois. Puis, l'intendante l'invita \u00e0 se\nbaigner, et il descendit dans la baignoire, et il sentit, plein de\njoie, l'eau chaude, car il y avait longtemps qu'il n'avait us\u00e9 de\nces soins, depuis qu'il avait quitt\u00e9 la demeure de Kalyps\u00f4 aux\nbeaux cheveux, o\u00f9 ils lui \u00e9taient toujours donn\u00e9s comme \u00e0 un dieu.\nEt les servantes, l'ayant baign\u00e9, le parfum\u00e8rent d'huile et le\nrev\u00eatirent d'une tunique et d'un beau manteau; et, sortant du\nbain, il revint au milieu des hommes buveurs de vin. Et Nausikaa,\nqui avait re\u00e7u des dieux la beaut\u00e9, s'arr\u00eata sur le seuil de la\ndemeure bien construite, et, regardant Odysseus qu'elle admirait,\nelle lui dit ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Salut, mon h\u00f4te! Plaise aux dieux, quand tu seras dans la terre\nde la patrie, que tu te souviennes de moi \u00e0 qui tu dois la vie.\n\nEt le subtil Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Nausikaa, fille du magnanime Alkinoos, si, maintenant, Zeus, le\nretentissant \u00e9poux de H\u00e8r\u00e8, m'accorde de voir le jour du retour et\nde rentrer dans ma demeure, l\u00e0, certes, comme \u00e0 une d\u00e9esse, je\nt'adresserai des voeux tous les jours de ma vie, car tu m'as\nsauv\u00e9, \u00f4 vierge!\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il s'assit sur un thr\u00f4ne aupr\u00e8s du roi\nAlkinoos. Et les hommes faisaient les parts et m\u00e9langeaient le\nvin. Et un h\u00e9raut vint, conduisant l'aoide harmonieux, D\u00e8modokos\nv\u00e9n\u00e9rable au peuple, et il le pla\u00e7a au milieu des convives, appuy\u00e9\ncontre une haute colonne. Alors Odysseus, coupant la plus forte\npart du dos d'un porc aux blanches dents, et qui \u00e9tait envelopp\u00e9e\nde graisse, dit au h\u00e9raut:\n\n-- Prends, h\u00e9raut, et offre, afin, qu'il la mange, cette chair \u00e0\nD\u00e8modokos. Moi aussi je l'aime, quoique je sois afflig\u00e9. Les\naoides sont dignes d'honneur et de respect parmi tous les hommes\nterrestres, car la Muse leur a enseign\u00e9 le chant, et elle aime la\nrace des aoides.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le h\u00e9raut d\u00e9posa le mets aux mains du h\u00e9ros\nD\u00e8modokos, et celui-ci le re\u00e7ut, plein de joie. Et tous \u00e9tendirent\nles mains vers la nourriture plac\u00e9e devant eux. Et, apr\u00e8s qu'ils\nse furent rassasi\u00e9s de boire et de manger, le subtil Odysseus dit\n\u00e0 D\u00e8modokos:\n\n-- D\u00e8modokos, je t'honore plus que tous les hommes mortels, soit\nque la Muse, fille de Zeus, t'ait instruit, soit Apoll\u00f4n. Tu as\nadmirablement chant\u00e9 la destin\u00e9e des Akhaiens, et tous les maux\nqu'ils ont endur\u00e9s, et toutes les fatigues qu'ils ont subies,\ncomme si toi-m\u00eame avais \u00e9t\u00e9 pr\u00e9sent, ou comme si tu avais tout\nappris d'un Argien. Mais chante maintenant le cheval de bois\nqu'\u00c9p\u00e9ios fit avec l'aide d'Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, et que le divin Odysseus\nconduisit par ses ruses dans la citadelle, tout rempli d'hommes\nqui renvers\u00e8rent Ilios. Si tu me racontes exactement ces choses,\nje d\u00e9clarerai \u00e0 tous les hommes qu'un dieu t'a dou\u00e9 avec\nbienveillance du chant divin.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et l'Aoide, inspir\u00e9 par un Dieu, commen\u00e7a de\nchanter. Et il chanta d'abord comment les Argiens, \u00e9tant mont\u00e9s\nsur les nefs aux bancs de rameurs, s'\u00e9loign\u00e8rent apr\u00e8s avoir mis\nle feu aux tentes. Mais les autres Akhaiens \u00e9taient assis d\u00e9j\u00e0\naupr\u00e8s de l'illustre Odysseus, enferm\u00e9s dans le cheval, au milieu\nde l'agora des Troiens. Et ceux-ci, eux-m\u00eames, avaient tra\u00een\u00e9 le\ncheval dans leur citadelle. Et l\u00e0, il se dressait, tandis qu'ils\nprof\u00e9raient mille paroles, assis autour de lui. Et trois desseins\nleur plaisaient, ou de fendre ce bois creux avec l'airain\ntranchant, ou de le pr\u00e9cipiter d'une hauteur sur les rochers, ou\nde le garder comme une vaste offrande aux dieux. Ce dernier\ndessein devait \u00eatre accompli, car leur destin\u00e9e \u00e9tait de p\u00e9rir,\napr\u00e8s que la ville eut re\u00e7u dans ses murs le grand cheval de bois\no\u00f9 \u00e9taient assis les princes des Akhaiens, devant porter le\nmeurtre et la k\u00e8r aux Troiens. Et D\u00e8modokos chanta comment les\nfils des Akhaiens, s'\u00e9tant pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9s du cheval, leur creuse\nembuscade, saccag\u00e8rent la ville. Puis, il chanta la d\u00e9vastation de\nla ville escarp\u00e9e, et Odysseus et le divin M\u00e9n\u00e9laos semblable \u00e0\nAr\u00e8s assi\u00e9geant la demeure de D\u00e8iphobos, et le tr\u00e8s rude combat\nqui se livra en ce lieu, et comment ils vainquirent avec l'aide de\nla magnanime Ath\u00e8n\u00e8.\n\nL'illustre aoide chantait ces choses, et Odysseus d\u00e9faillait, et,\nsous ses paupi\u00e8res, il arrosait ses joues de larmes. De m\u00eame\nqu'une femme entoure de ses bras et pleure son mari bien aim\u00e9\ntomb\u00e9 devant sa ville et son peuple, laissant une mauvaise\ndestin\u00e9e \u00e0 sa ville et \u00e0 ses enfants; et de m\u00eame que, le voyant\nmort et encore palpitant, elle se jette sur lui en hurlant, tandis\nque les ennemis, lui frappant le dos et les \u00e9paules du bois de\nleurs lances, l'emm\u00e8nent en servitude afin de subir le travail et\nla douleur, et que ses jours sont fl\u00e9tris par un tr\u00e8s mis\u00e9rable\nd\u00e9sespoir; de m\u00eame Odysseus versait des larmes am\u00e8res sous ses\npaupi\u00e8res, en les cachant \u00e0 tous les autres convives. Et le seul\nAlkinoos, \u00e9tant assis aupr\u00e8s de lui, s'en aper\u00e7ut, et il\nl'entendit g\u00e9mir profond\u00e9ment, et aussit\u00f4t il dit aux Phaiakiens\nhabiles dans la science de la mer:\n\n-- \u00c9coutez, princes et chefs des Phaiakiens, et que D\u00e8modokos\nfasse taire sa kithare sonore. Ce qu'il chante ne pla\u00eet pas\n\u00e9galement \u00e0 tous. D\u00e8s le moment o\u00f9 nous avons achev\u00e9 le repas et\no\u00f9 le divin aoide a commenc\u00e9 de chanter, notre h\u00f4te n'a point\ncess\u00e9 d'\u00eatre en proie \u00e0 un deuil cruel, et la douleur a envahi son\ncoeur. Que D\u00e8modokos cesse donc, afin que, nous et notre h\u00f4te,\nnous soyons tous \u00e9galement satisfaits. Ceci est de beaucoup le\nplus convenable. Nous avons pr\u00e9par\u00e9 le retour de notre h\u00f4te\nv\u00e9n\u00e9rable et des pr\u00e9sents amis que nous lui avons offerts parce\nque nous l'aimons. Un h\u00f4te, un suppliant, est un fr\u00e8re pour tout\nhomme qui peut encore s'attendrir dans l'\u00e2me.\n\nC'est pourquoi, \u00e9tranger, ne me cache rien, par ruse, de tout ce\nque je vais te demander, car il est juste que tu parles\nsinc\u00e8rement. Dis-moi comment se nommaient ta m\u00e8re, ton p\u00e8re, ceux\nqui habitaient ta ville, et tes voisins. Personne, en effet, parmi\nles hommes, l\u00e2ches ou illustres, n'a manqu\u00e9 de nom, depuis qu'il\nest n\u00e9. Les parents qui nous ont engendr\u00e9s nous en ont donn\u00e9 \u00e0\ntous. Dis-moi aussi ta terre natale, ton peuple et ta ville, afin\nque nos nefs qui pensent t'y conduisent; car elles n'ont point de\npilotes, ni de gouvernails, comme les autres nefs, mais elles\npensent comme les hommes, et elles connaissent les villes et les\nchamps fertiles de tous les hommes, et elles traversent rapidement\nla mer, couvertes de brouillards et de nu\u00e9es, sans jamais craindre\nd'\u00eatre maltrait\u00e9es ou de p\u00e9rir. Cependant j'ai entendu autrefois\nmon p\u00e8re Nausithoos dire que Poseida\u00f4n s'irriterait contre nous,\nparce que nous reconduisons impun\u00e9ment tous les \u00e9trangers. Et il\ndisait qu'une solide nef des Phaiakiens p\u00e9rirait au retour d'un\nvoyage sur la mer sombre, et qu'une grande montagne serait\nsuspendue devant notre ville. Ainsi parlait le vieillard. Peut-\n\u00eatre ces choses s'accompliront-elles, peut-\u00eatre n'arriveront-elles\npoint. Ce sera comme il plaira au dieu.\n\nMais parle, et dis-nous dans quels lieux tu as err\u00e9, les pays que\ntu as vus, et les villes bien peupl\u00e9es et les hommes, cruels et\nsauvages, ou justes et hospitaliers et dont l'esprit pla\u00eet aux\ndieux. Dis pourquoi tu pleures en \u00e9coutant la destin\u00e9e des\nArgiens, des Danaens et d'Ilios! Les dieux eux-m\u00eames ont fait ces\nchoses et voulu la mort de tant de guerriers, afin qu'on les\nchant\u00e2t dans les jours futurs. Un de tes parents est-il mort\ndevant Ilios? \u00c9tait-ce ton gendre illustre ou ton beau-p\u00e8re, ceux\nqui nous sont le plus chers apr\u00e8s notre propre sang? Est-ce encore\nun irr\u00e9prochable compagnon? Un sage compagnon, en effet, n'est pas\nmoins qu'un fr\u00e8re.\n\n\n9.\n\nEt le subtil Odysseus, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi:\n\n-- Roi Alkinoos, le plus illustre de tout le peuple, il est doux\nd'\u00e9couter un aoide tel que celui-ci, semblable aux dieux par la\nvoix. Je ne pense pas que rien soit plus agr\u00e9able. La joie saisit\ntout ce peuple, et tes convives, assis en rang dans ta demeure,\n\u00e9coutent l'aoide. Et les tables sont charg\u00e9es de pain et de\nchairs, et l'\u00e9chanson, puisant le vin dans le krat\u00e8re, en remplit\nles coupes et le distribue. Il m'est tr\u00e8s doux, dans l'\u00e2me, de\nvoir cela. Mais tu veux que je dise mes douleurs lamentables, et\nje n'en serai que plus afflig\u00e9. Que dirai-je d'abord? Comment\ncontinuer? comment finir? car les dieux Ouraniens m'ont accabl\u00e9 de\nmaux innombrables. Et maintenant je dirai d'abord mon nom, afin\nque vous le sachiez et me connaissiez, et, qu'ayant \u00e9vit\u00e9 la\ncruelle mort, je sois votre h\u00f4te, bien qu'habitant une demeure\nlointaine.\n\nJe suis Odysseus Laertiade, et tous les hommes me connaissent par\nmes ruses, et ma gloire est all\u00e9e jusqu'\u00e0 l'Ouranos. J'habite la\ntr\u00e8s illustre Ithak\u00e8, o\u00f9 se trouve le mont N\u00e8ritos aux arbres\nbattus des vents. Et plusieurs autres \u00eeles sont autour, et\nvoisines, Doulikhios, et Sam\u00e8, et Zakynthos couverte de for\u00eats. Et\nIthak\u00e8 est la plus \u00e9loign\u00e9e de la terre ferme et sort de la mer du\nc\u00f4t\u00e9 de la nuit; mais les autres sont du c\u00f4t\u00e9 d'\u00c9\u00f4s et de H\u00e8lios.\nElle est \u00e2pre, mais bonne nourrice de jeunes hommes, et il n'est\npoint d'autre terre qu'il me soit plus doux de contempler. Certes,\nla noble d\u00e9esse Kalyps\u00f4 m'a retenu dans ses grottes profondes, me\nd\u00e9sirant pour mari; et, de m\u00eame, Kirk\u00e8, pleine de ruses, m'a\nretenu dans sa demeure, en l'\u00eele Aiai\u00e8, me voulant aussi pour\nmari; mais elles n'ont point persuad\u00e9 mon coeur dans ma poitrine,\ntant rien n'est plus doux que la patrie et les parents pour celui\nqui, loin des siens, habite m\u00eame une riche demeure dans une terre\n\u00e9trang\u00e8re. Mais je te raconterai le retour lamentable que me fit\nZeus \u00e0 mon d\u00e9part de Troi\u00e8.\n\nD'Ilios le vent me poussa chez les Kik\u00f4nes, \u00e0 Ismaros. L\u00e0, je\nd\u00e9vastai la ville et j'en tuai les habitants; et les femmes et les\nabondantes d\u00e9pouilles enlev\u00e9es furent partag\u00e9es, et nul ne partit\npriv\u00e9 par moi d'une part \u00e9gale. Alors, j'ordonnai de fuir d'un\npied rapide, mais les insens\u00e9s n'ob\u00e9irent pas. Et ils buvaient\nbeaucoup de vin, et ils \u00e9gorgeaient sur le rivage les brebis et\nles boeufs noirs aux pieds flexibles.\n\nEt, pendant ce temps, des Kik\u00f4nes fugitifs avaient appel\u00e9 d'autres\nKik\u00f4nes, leurs voisins, qui habitaient l'int\u00e9rieur des terres. Et\nceux-ci \u00e9taient nombreux et braves, aussi habiles \u00e0 combattre sur\ndes chars qu'\u00e0 pied, quand il le fallait. Et ils vinrent aussit\u00f4t,\nvers le matin, en aussi grand nombre que les feuilles et les\nfleurs printani\u00e8res. Alors la mauvaise destin\u00e9e de Zeus nous\naccabla, malheureux, afin que nous subissions mille maux. Et ils\nnous combattirent aupr\u00e8s de nos nefs rapides; et des deux c\u00f4t\u00e9s\nnous nous frappions de nos lances d'airain. Tant que dura le matin\net que la lumi\u00e8re sacr\u00e9e grandit, malgr\u00e9 leur multitude, le combat\nfut soutenu par nous; mais quand H\u00e8lios marqua le moment de d\u00e9lier\nles boeufs, les Kik\u00f4nes dompt\u00e8rent les Akhaiens, et six de mes\ncompagnons aux belles kn\u00e8mides furent tu\u00e9s par nef, et les autres\n\u00e9chapp\u00e8rent \u00e0 la mort et \u00e0 la k\u00e8r.\n\nEt nous naviguions loin de l\u00e0, joyeux d'avoir \u00e9vit\u00e9 la mort et\ntristes dans le coeur d'avoir perdu nos chers compagnons; et mes\nnefs arm\u00e9es d'avirons des deux c\u00f4t\u00e9s ne s'\u00e9loign\u00e8rent pas avant\nque nous eussions appel\u00e9 trois fois chacun de nos compagnons tu\u00e9s\nsur la plage par les Kik\u00f4nes. Et Zeus qui amasse les nu\u00e9es souleva\nBor\u00e9as et une grande temp\u00eate, et il enveloppa de nu\u00e9es la terre et\nla mer, et la nuit se rua de l'Ouranos.\n\nEt les nefs \u00e9taient emport\u00e9es hors de leur route, et la force du\nvent d\u00e9chira les voiles en trois ou quatre morceaux; et, craignant\nla mort, nous les serr\u00e2mes dans les nefs. Et celles-ci, avec de\ngrands efforts, furent tir\u00e9es sur le rivage, o\u00f9, pendant deux\nnuits et deux jours, nous rest\u00e2mes gisants, accabl\u00e9s de fatigue et\nde douleur. Mais quand \u00c9\u00f4s aux beaux cheveux amena le troisi\u00e8me\njour, ayant dress\u00e9 les m\u00e2ts et d\u00e9ploy\u00e9 les blanches voiles, nous\nnous ass\u00eemes sur les bancs, et le vent et les pilotes nous\nconduisirent; et je serais arriv\u00e9 sain et sauf dans la terre de la\npatrie, si la mer et le courant du cap Mal\u00e9ien et Bor\u00e9as ne\nm'avaient port\u00e9 par del\u00e0 Kyth\u00e8r\u00e8. Et nous f\u00fbmes entra\u00een\u00e9s, pendant\nneuf jours, par les vents contraires, sur la mer poissonneuse:\nmais, le dixi\u00e8me jour, nous abord\u00e2mes la terre des Lotophages qui\nse nourrissent d'une fleur. L\u00e0, \u00e9tant mont\u00e9s sur le rivage, et\nayant puis\u00e9 de l'eau, mes compagnons prirent leur repas aupr\u00e8s des\nnefs rapides. Et, alors, je choisis deux de mes compagnons, et le\ntroisi\u00e8me fut un h\u00e9raut, et je les envoyai afin d'apprendre quels\n\u00e9taient les hommes qui vivaient sur cette terre.\n\nEt ceux-l\u00e0, \u00e9tant partis, rencontr\u00e8rent les Lotophages, et les\nLotophages ne leur firent aucun mal, mais ils leur offrirent le\nlotos \u00e0 manger. Et d\u00e8s qu'ils eurent mang\u00e9 le doux lotos, ils ne\nsong\u00e8rent plus ni \u00e0 leur message, ni au retour; mais, pleins\nd'oubli, ils voulaient rester avec les Lotophages et manger du\nlotos. Et, les reconduisant aux nefs, malgr\u00e9 leurs larmes, je les\nattachai sous les bancs des nefs creuses; et j'ordonnai \u00e0 mes\nchers compagnons de se h\u00e2ter de monter dans nos nefs rapides, de\npeur qu'en mangeant le lotos, ils oubliassent le retour.\n\nEt ils y mont\u00e8rent, et, s'asseyant en ordre sur les bancs de\nrameurs, ils frapp\u00e8rent de leurs avirons la blanche mer, et nous\nnavigu\u00e2mes encore, tristes dans le coeur.\n\nEt nous parv\u00eenmes \u00e0 la terre des kyklopes orgueilleux et sans lois\nqui, confiants dans les dieux immortels, ne plantent point de\nleurs mains et ne labourent point. Mais, n'\u00e9tant ni sem\u00e9es, ni\ncultiv\u00e9es, toutes les plantes croissent pour eux, le froment et\nl'orge, et les vignes qui leur donnent le vin de leurs grandes\ngrappes que font cro\u00eetre les pluies de Zeus. Et les agoras ne leur\nsont point connues, ni les coutumes; et ils habitent le fa\u00eete des\nhautes montagnes, dans de profondes cavernes, et chacun d'eux\ngouverne sa femme et ses enfants, sans nul souci des autres.\n\nUne petite \u00eele est devant le port de la terre des kyklopes, ni\nproche, ni \u00e9loign\u00e9e. Elle est couverte de for\u00eats o\u00f9 se multiplient\nles ch\u00e8vres sauvages. Et la pr\u00e9sence des hommes ne les a jamais\neffray\u00e9es, car les chasseurs qui supportent les douleurs dans les\nbois et les fatigues sur le sommet des montagnes ne parcourent\npoint cette \u00eele. On n'y fait point pa\u00eetre de troupeaux et on n'y\nlaboure point; mais elle n'est ni ensemenc\u00e9e ni labour\u00e9e; elle\nmanque d'habitants et elle ne nourrit que des ch\u00e8vres b\u00ealantes. En\neffet, les kyklopes n'ont point de nefs peintes en rouge, et ils\nn'ont point de onstructeurs de nefs \u00e0 bancs de rameurs qui les\nportent vers les villes des hommes, comme ceux-ci traversent la\nmer les uns vers les autres, afin que, sur ces nefs, ils puissent\nvenir habiter cette \u00eele. Mais celle-ci n'est pas st\u00e9rile, et elle\nproduirait toutes choses selon les saisons. Il y a de molles\nprairies arros\u00e9es sur le bord de la blanche mer, et des vignes y\ncro\u00eetraient abondamment, et cette terre donnerait facilement des\nmoissons, car elle est tr\u00e8s grasse. Son port est s\u00fbr, et on n'y a\nbesoin ni de cordes, ni d'ancres jet\u00e9es, ni de lier les c\u00e2bles; et\nles marins peuvent y rester aussi longtemps que leur \u00e2me le d\u00e9sire\net attendre le vent. Au fond du port, une source limpide coule\nsous une grotte, et l'aune cro\u00eet autour.\n\nC'est l\u00e0 que nous f\u00fbmes pouss\u00e9s, et un dieu nous y conduisit\npendant une nuit obscure, car nous ne pouvions rien voir. Et un\n\u00e9pais brouillard enveloppait les nefs, et S\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e9 ne luisait point\ndans l'Ouranos, \u00e9tant couverte de nuages. Et aucun de nous ne vit\nl'\u00eele de ses yeux, ni les grandes lames qui roulaient vers le\nrivage, avant que nos nefs aux bancs de rameurs n'y eussent\nabord\u00e9. Alors nous serr\u00e2mes toutes les voiles et nous descend\u00eemes\nsur le rivage de la mer, puis, nous \u00e9tant endormis, nous\nattend\u00eemes la divine E\u00f4s.\n\nQuand \u00c9\u00f4s aux doigts ros\u00e9s, n\u00e9e au matin, apparut, admirant l'\u00eele,\nnous la parcour\u00fbmes. Et les nymphes, filles de Zeus temp\u00e9tueux,\nfirent lever les ch\u00e8vres montagnardes, afin que mes compagnons\npussent faire leur repas. Et, aussit\u00f4t, on retira des nefs les\narcs recourb\u00e9s et les lances \u00e0 longues pointes d'airain, et,\ndivis\u00e9s en trois corps, nous lan\u00e7\u00e2mes nos traits, et un dieu nous\ndonna une chasse abondante. Douze nefs me suivaient, et \u00e0 chacune\nle sort accorda neuf ch\u00e8vres, et dix \u00e0 la mienne. Ainsi, tout le\njour, jusqu'\u00e0 la chute de H\u00e8lios, nous mange\u00e2mes, assis, les\nchairs abondantes, et nous b\u00fbmes le vin rouge; mais il en restait\nencore dans les nombreuses amphores que nous avions enlev\u00e9es de la\ncitadelle sacr\u00e9e des Kik\u00f4nes. Et nous apercevions la fum\u00e9e sur la\nterre prochaine des kyklopes, et nous entendions leur voix, et\ncelle des brebis et des ch\u00e8vres. Et quand H\u00e8lios tomba, la nuit\nsurvint, et nous nous endorm\u00eemes sur le rivage de la mer. Et quand\n\u00c9\u00f4s aux doigts ros\u00e9s, n\u00e9e au matin, apparut, ayant convoqu\u00e9\nl'agora, je dis \u00e0 tous mes compagnons:\n\n-- Restez ici, mes chers compagnons. Moi, avec ma nef et mes\nrameurs, j'irai voir quels sont ces hommes, s'ils sont injurieux,\nsauvages et injustes, ou s'ils sont hospitaliers et craignant les\ndieux.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, je montai sur ma nef et j'ordonnai \u00e0 mes\ncompagnons d'y monter et de d\u00e9tacher le c\u00e2ble. Et ils mont\u00e8rent,\net, assis en ordre sur les bancs de rameurs, ils frapp\u00e8rent la\nblanche mer de leurs avirons.\n\nQuand nous f\u00fbmes parvenus \u00e0 cette terre prochaine, nous v\u00eemes, \u00e0\nson extr\u00e9mit\u00e9, une haute caverne ombrag\u00e9e de lauriers, pr\u00e8s de la\nmer. Et l\u00e0, reposaient de nombreux troupeaux de brebis et de\nch\u00e8vres. Aupr\u00e8s, il y avait un enclos pav\u00e9 de pierres taill\u00e9es et\nentour\u00e9 de grands pins et de ch\u00eanes aux feuillages \u00e9lev\u00e9s. L\u00e0\nhabitait un homme g\u00e9ant qui, seul et loin de tous, menait pa\u00eetre\nses troupeaux, et ne se m\u00ealait point aux autres, mais vivait \u00e0\nl'\u00e9cart, faisant le mal. Et c'\u00e9tait un monstre prodigieux, non\nsemblable \u00e0 un homme qui mange le pain, mais au faite bois\u00e9 d'une\nhaute montagne, qui se dresse, seul, au milieu des autres sommets.\n\nEt alors j'ordonnai \u00e0 mes chers compagnons de rester aupr\u00e8s de la\nnef et de la garder. Et j'en choisis douze des plus braves, et je\npartis, emportant une outre de peau de ch\u00e8vre, pleine d'un doux\nvin noir que m'avait donn\u00e9 Maron, fils d'Euanth\u00e9os, sacrificateur\nd'Apoll\u00f4n, et qui habitait Ismaros, parce que nous l'avions\n\u00e9pargn\u00e9 avec sa femme et ses enfants, par respect. Et il habitait\ndans le bois sacr\u00e9 de Phoibos Apoll\u00f4n: il me fit de beaux\npr\u00e9sents, car il me donna sept talents d'or bien travaill\u00e9s, un\nkrat\u00e8re d'argent massif, et, dans douze amphores, un vin doux, pur\net divin, qui n'\u00e9tait connu dans sa demeure ni de ses serviteurs,\nni de ses servantes, mais de lui seul, de sa femme et de\nl'intendante. Toutes les fois qu'on buvait ce doux vin rouge, on y\nm\u00ealait, pour une coupe pleine, vingt mesures d'eau, et son ar\u00f4me\nparfumait encore le krat\u00e8re, et il e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 dur de s'en abstenir.\nEt j'emportai une grande outre pleine de ce vin, et des vivres\ndans un sac, car mon \u00e2me courageuse m'excitait \u00e0 m'approcher de\ncet homme g\u00e9ant, dou\u00e9 d'une grande force, sauvage, ne connaissant\nni la justice ni les lois.\n\nEt nous arriv\u00e2mes rapidement \u00e0 son antre, sans l'y trouver, car il\npaissait ses troupeaux dans les gras p\u00e2turages; et nous entr\u00e2mes,\nadmirant tout ce qu'on voyait l\u00e0. Les claies \u00e9taient charg\u00e9es de\nfromages, et les \u00e9tables \u00e9taient pleines d'agneaux et de\nchevreaux, et ceux-ci \u00e9taient renferm\u00e9s en ordre et s\u00e9par\u00e9s, les\nplus jeunes d'un c\u00f4t\u00e9, et les nouveau-n\u00e9s de l'autre. Et tous les\nvases \u00e0 traire \u00e9taient pleins, dans lesquels la cr\u00e8me flottait sur\nle petit lait. Et mes compagnons me suppliaient d'enlever les\nfromages et de retourner, en chassant rapidement vers la nef les\nagneaux et les chevreaux hors des \u00e9tables, et de fuir sur l'eau\nsal\u00e9e. Et je ne le voulus point, et, certes, cela e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 le plus\nsage; mais je d\u00e9sirais voir cet homme, afin qu'il me fit les\npr\u00e9sents hospitaliers. Bient\u00f4t sa vue ne devait pas \u00eatre agr\u00e9able\n\u00e0 mes compagnons.\n\nAlors, ranimant le feu et mangeant les fromages, nous\nl'attend\u00eemes, assis. Et il revint du p\u00e2turage, et il portait un\nvaste monceau de bois sec, afin de pr\u00e9parer son repas, et il le\njeta \u00e0 l'entr\u00e9e de la caverne, avec retentissement. Et nous nous\ncach\u00e2mes, \u00e9pouvant\u00e9s, dans le fond de l'antre. Et il poussa dans\nla caverne large tous ceux de ses gras troupeaux qu'il devait\ntraire, laissant dehors les m\u00e2les, b\u00e9liers et boucs, dans le haut\nenclos. Puis, soulevant un \u00e9norme bloc de pierre, si lourd que\nvingt-deux chars solides, \u00e0 quatre roues, n'auraient pu le remuer,\nil le mit en place. Telle \u00e9tait la pierre immense qu'il pla\u00e7a\ncontre la porte. Puis, s'asseyant, il commen\u00e7a de traire les\nbrebis et les ch\u00e8vres b\u00ealantes, comme il convenait, et il mit les\npetits sous chacune d'elles. Et il fit cailler aussit\u00f4t la moiti\u00e9\ndu lait blanc qu'il d\u00e9posa dans des corbeilles tress\u00e9es, et il\nversa l'autre moiti\u00e9 dans les vases, afin de la boire en mangeant\net qu'elle lui serv\u00eet pendant son repas. Et quand il eut achev\u00e9\ntout ce travail \u00e0 la h\u00e2te, il alluma le feu, nous aper\u00e7ut et nous\ndit:\n\n-- \u00d4 \u00e9trangers, qui \u00eates-vous? D'o\u00f9 venez-vous sur la mer? Est-ce\npour un trafic, ou errez-vous sans but, comme des pirates qui\nvagabondent sur la mer, exposant leurs \u00e2mes au danger et portant\nles calamit\u00e9s aux autres hommes?\n\nIl parla ainsi, et notre cher coeur fut \u00e9pouvant\u00e9 au son de la\nvoix du monstre et \u00e0 sa vue. Mais, lui r\u00e9pondant ainsi, je dis:\n\n-- Nous sommes des Akhaiens venus de Troi\u00e8, et nous errons\nentra\u00een\u00e9s par tous les vents sur les vastes flots de la mer,\ncherchant notre demeure par des routes et des chemins inconnus.\nAinsi Zeus l'a voulu. Et nous nous glorifions d'\u00eatre les guerriers\nde l'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n, dont la gloire, certes, est la plus grande\nsous l'Ouranos. En effet, il a renvers\u00e9 une vaste ville et dompt\u00e9\ndes peuples nombreux. Et nous nous prosternons, en suppliants, \u00e0\ntes genoux, pour que tu nous sois hospitalier, et que tu nous\nfasses les pr\u00e9sents qu'on a coutume de faire \u00e0 des h\u00f4tes. \u00d4\nexcellent, respecte les dieux, car nous sommes tes suppliants, et\nZeus est le vengeur des suppliants et des \u00e9trangers dignes d'\u00eatre\nre\u00e7us comme des h\u00f4tes v\u00e9n\u00e9rables.\n\nJe parlai ainsi, et il me r\u00e9pondit avec un coeur farouche:\n\n-- Tu es insens\u00e9, \u00f4 \u00e9tranger, et tu viens de loin, toi qui\nm'ordonnes de craindre les Dieux et de me soumettre \u00e0 eux. Les\nkyklopes ne se soucient point de Zeus temp\u00e9tueux, ni des dieux\nheureux, car nous sommes plus forts qu'eux. Pour \u00e9viter la col\u00e8re\nde Zeus, je n'\u00e9pargnerai ni toi, ni tes compagnons, \u00e0 moins que\nmon \u00e2me ne me l'ordonne. Mais dis-moi o\u00f9 tu as laiss\u00e9, pour venir\nici, ta nef bien construite. Est-ce loin ou pr\u00e8s? que je le sache.\n\nIl parla ainsi, me tentant; mais il ne put me tromper, car je\nsavais beaucoup de choses, et je lui r\u00e9pondis ces paroles rus\u00e9es:\n\n-- Poseida\u00f4n qui \u00e9branle la terre a bris\u00e9 ma nef pouss\u00e9e contre\nles rochers d'un promontoire \u00e0 l'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 de votre terre, et le\nvent l'a jet\u00e9e hors de la mer et, avec ceux-ci, j'ai \u00e9chapp\u00e9 \u00e0 la\nmort.\n\nJe parlai ainsi, et, dans son coeur farouche, il ne me r\u00e9pondit\nrien; mais, en se ruant, il \u00e9tendit les mains sur mes compagnons,\net il en saisit deux et les \u00e9crasa contre terre comme des petits\nchiens. Et leur cervelle jaillit et coula sur la terre. Et, les\ncoupant membre \u00e0 membre, il pr\u00e9para son repas. Et il les d\u00e9vora\ncomme un lion montagnard, et il ne laissa ni leurs entrailles, ni\nleurs chairs, ni leurs os pleins de moelle. Et nous, en g\u00e9missant,\nnous levions nos mains vers Zeus, en face de cette chose affreuse,\net le d\u00e9sespoir envahit notre \u00e2me.\n\nQuand le kykl\u00f4ps eut empli son vaste ventre en mangeant les chairs\nhumaines et en buvant du lait sans mesure, il s'endormit \u00e9tendu au\nmilieu de l'antre, parmi ses troupeaux. Et je voulus, dans mon\ncoeur magnanime, tirant mon \u00e9p\u00e9e aigu\u00eb de la gaine et me jetant\nsur lui, le frapper \u00e0 la poitrine, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 les entrailles entourent\nle foie; mais une autre pens\u00e9e me retint. En effet, nous aurions\np\u00e9ri de m\u00eame d'une mort affreuse, car nous n'aurions pu mouvoir de\nnos mains le lourd rocher qu'il avait plac\u00e9 devant la haute\nentr\u00e9e. C'est pourquoi nous attend\u00eemes en g\u00e9missant la divine \u00c9\u00f4s.\n\nQuand \u00c9\u00f4s aux doigts ros\u00e9s, n\u00e9e au matin, apparut, il alluma le\nfeu et se mit \u00e0 traire ses illustres troupeaux. Et il pla\u00e7a les\npetits sous leurs m\u00e8res. Puis, ayant achev\u00e9 tout ce travail \u00e0 la\nh\u00e2te, il saisit de nouveau deux de mes compagnons et pr\u00e9para son\nrepas. Et d\u00e8s qu'il eut mang\u00e9, \u00e9cartant sans peine la grande\npierre, il poussa hors de l'antre ses gras troupeaux. Et il remit\nle rocher en place, comme le couvercle d'un carquois. Et il mena\navec beaucoup de bruit ses gras troupeaux sur la montagne.\n\nEt je restai, m\u00e9ditant une action terrible et cherchant comment je\nme vengerais et comment Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 exaucerait mon voeu. Et ce dessein\nme sembla le meilleur dans mon esprit. La grande massue du kykl\u00f4ps\ngisait au milieu de l'enclos, un olivier vert qu'il avait coup\u00e9\nafin de s'y appuyer quand il serait sec. Et ce tronc nous semblait\ntel qu'un m\u00e2t de nef de charge \u00e0 vingt avirons qui fend les vastes\nflots. Telles \u00e9taient sa longueur et son \u00e9paisseur. J'en coupai\nenviron une brasse que je donnai \u00e0 mes compagnons, leur ordonnant\nde l'\u00e9quarrir. Et ils l'\u00e9quarrirent, et je taillai le bout de\nl'\u00e9pieu en pointe, et je le passai dans le feu ardent pour le\ndurcir; puis je le cachai sous le fumier qui \u00e9tait abondamment\nr\u00e9pandu dans toute la caverne, et j'ordonnai \u00e0 mes compagnons de\ntirer au sort ceux qui le soul\u00e8veraient avec moi pour l'enfoncer\ndans l'oeil du kykl\u00f4ps quand le doux sommeil l'aurait saisi. Ils\ntir\u00e8rent au sort, qui marqua ceux m\u00eames que j'aurais voulu\nprendre. Et ils \u00e9taient quatre, et j'\u00e9tais le cinqui\u00e8me, car ils\nm'avaient choisi.\n\nLe soir, le kykl\u00f4ps revint, ramenant ses troupeaux du p\u00e2turage;\net, aussit\u00f4t, il les poussa tous dans la vaste caverne et il n'en\nlaissa rien dans l'enclos, soit par d\u00e9fiance, soit qu'un dieu le\nvoul\u00fbt ainsi. Puis, il pla\u00e7a l'\u00e9norme pierre devant l'entr\u00e9e, et,\ns'\u00e9tant assis, il se mit \u00e0 traire les brebis et les ch\u00e8vres\nb\u00ealantes. Puis, il mit les petits sous leurs m\u00e8res. Ayant achev\u00e9\ntout ce travail \u00e0 la h\u00e2te, il saisit de nouveau deux de mes\ncompagnons et pr\u00e9para son repas. Alors, tenant dans mes mains une\ncoupe de vin noir, je m'approchai du kykl\u00f4ps et je lui dis:\n\n-- Kykl\u00f4ps, prends et bois ce vin apr\u00e8s avoir mang\u00e9 des chairs\nhumaines, afin de savoir quel breuvage renfermait notre nef. Je\nt'en rapporterais de nouveau, si, me prenant en piti\u00e9, tu me\nrenvoyais dans ma demeure: mais tu es furieux comme on ne peut\nl'\u00eatre davantage. Insens\u00e9! Comment un seul des hommes innombrables\npourra-t-il t'approcher d\u00e9sormais, puisque tu manques d'\u00e9quit\u00e9?\n\nJe parlai ainsi, et il prit et but plein de joie; puis, ayant bu\nle doux breuvage, il m'en demanda de nouveau:\n\n-- Donne-m'en encore, cher, et dis-moi promptement ton nom, afin\nque je te fasse un pr\u00e9sent hospitalier dont tu te r\u00e9jouisses. La\nterre f\u00e9conde rapporte aussi aux kyklopes un vin g\u00e9n\u00e9reux, et les\npluies de Zeus font cro\u00eetre nos vignes; mais celui-ci est fait de\nnektar et d'ambroisie.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et de nouveau je lui donnai ce vin ardent. Et je\nlui en offris trois fois, et trois fois il le but dans sa d\u00e9mence.\nMais d\u00e8s que le vin eut troubl\u00e9 son esprit, alors je lui parlai\nainsi en paroles flatteuses:\n\n-- Kykl\u00f4ps, tu me demandes mon nom illustre. Je te le dirai, et tu\nme feras le pr\u00e9sent hospitalier que tu m'as promis. Mon nom est\nPersonne. Mon p\u00e8re et ma m\u00e8re et tous mes compagnons me nomment\nPersonne.\n\nJe parlai ainsi, et, dans son \u00e2me farouche, il me r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Je mangerai Personne apr\u00e8s tous ses compagnons, tous les autres\navant lui. Ceci sera le pr\u00e9sent hospitalier que je te ferai.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il tomba \u00e0 la renverse, et il gisait, courbant\nson cou monstrueux, et le sommeil qui dompte tout le saisit, et de\nsa gorge jaillirent le vin et des morceaux de chair humaine; et il\nvomissait ainsi, plein de vin. Aussit\u00f4t je mis l'\u00e9pieu sous la\ncendre, pour l'\u00e9chauffer; et je rassurai mes compagnons, afin\nqu'\u00e9pouvant\u00e9s, ils ne m'abandonnassent pas. Puis, comme l'\u00e9pieu\nd'olivier, bien que vert, allait s'enflammer dans le feu, car il\nbr\u00fblait violemment, alors je le retirai du feu. Et mes compagnons\n\u00e9taient autour de moi, et un daim\u00f4n nous inspira un grand courage.\nAyant saisi l'\u00e9pieu d'olivier aigu par le bout, ils l'enfonc\u00e8rent\ndans l'oeil du kykl\u00f4ps, et moi, appuyant dessus, je le tournais,\ncomme un constructeur de nefs troue le bois avec une tari\u00e8re,\ntandis que ses compagnons la fixent des deux c\u00f4t\u00e9s avec une\ncourroie, et qu'elle tourne sans s'arr\u00eater. Ainsi nous tournions\nl'\u00e9pieu enflamm\u00e9 dans son oeil. Et le sang chaud en jaillissait,\net la vapeur de la pupille ardente br\u00fbla ses paupi\u00e8res et son\nsourcil; et les racines de l'oeil fr\u00e9missaient, comme lorsqu'un\nforgeron plonge une grande hache ou une doloire dans l'eau froide,\net qu'elle crie, stridente, ce qui donne la force au fer. Ainsi\nson oeil faisait un bruit strident autour de l'\u00e9pieu d'olivier. Et\nil hurla horriblement, et les rochers en retentirent. Et nous nous\nenfu\u00eemes \u00e9pouvant\u00e9s. Et il arracha de son oeil l'\u00e9pieu souill\u00e9 de\nbeaucoup de sang, et, plein de douleur, il le rejeta. Alors, \u00e0\nhaute voix, il appela les kyklopes qui habitaient autour de lui\nles cavernes des promontoires battus des vents. Et, entendant sa\nvoix, ils accoururent de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s, et, debout autour de l'antre,\nils lui demandaient pourquoi il se plaignait:\n\n-- Pourquoi, Polyph\u00e8mos, pousses-tu de telles clameurs dans la\nnuit divine et nous r\u00e9veilles-tu? Souffres-tu? Quelque mortel a-t-\nil enlev\u00e9 tes brebis? Quelqu'un veut-il te tuer par force ou par\nruse?\n\nEt le robuste Polyph\u00e8mos leur r\u00e9pondit du fond de son antre:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis, qui me tue par ruse et non par force? Personne.\n\nEt ils lui r\u00e9pondirent en paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Certes, nul ne peut te faire violence, puisque tu es seul. On\nne peut \u00e9chapper aux maux qu'envoie le grand Zeus. Supplie ton\np\u00e8re, le roi Poseida\u00f4n.\n\nIls parl\u00e8rent ainsi et s'en all\u00e8rent. Et mon cher coeur rit, parce\nque mon nom les avait tromp\u00e9s, ainsi que ma ruse irr\u00e9prochable.\n\nMais le kykl\u00f4ps, g\u00e9missant et plein de douleurs, t\u00e2tant avec les\nmains, enleva le rocher de la porte, et, s'asseyant l\u00e0, \u00e9tendit\nles bras, afin de saisir ceux de nous qui voudraient sortir avec\nles brebis. Il pensait, certes, que j'\u00e9tais insens\u00e9. Aussit\u00f4t, je\nsongeai \u00e0 ce qu'il y avait de mieux \u00e0 faire pour sauver mes\ncompagnons et moi-m\u00eame de la mort. Et je m\u00e9ditai ces ruses et ce\ndessein, car il s'agissait de la vie, et un grand danger nous\nmena\u00e7ait. Et ce dessein me parut le meilleur dans mon esprit.\n\nLes m\u00e2les des brebis \u00e9taient forts et laineux, beaux et grands, et\nils avaient une laine de couleur violette. Je les attachai par\ntrois avec l'osier tordu sur lequel dormait le kykl\u00f4ps monstrueux\net f\u00e9roce. Celui du milieu portait un homme, et les deux autres,\nde chaque c\u00f4t\u00e9, cachaient mes compagnons. Et il y avait un b\u00e9lier,\nle plus grand de tous. J'embrassai son dos, suspendu sous son\nventre, et je saisis fortement de mes mains sa laine tr\u00e8s \u00e9paisse,\ndans un esprit patient. Et c'est ainsi qu'en g\u00e9missant nous\nattend\u00eemes la divine \u00c9\u00f4s.\n\nEt quand \u00c9\u00f4s aux doigts ros\u00e9s, n\u00e9e au matin, apparut, alors le\nkykl\u00f4ps poussa les m\u00e2les des troupeaux au p\u00e2turage. Et les\nfemelles b\u00ealaient dans les \u00e9tables, car il n'avait pu les traire\net leurs mamelles \u00e9taient lourdes. Et lui, accabl\u00e9 de douleurs,\nt\u00e2tait le dos de tous les b\u00e9liers qui passaient devant lui, et\nl'insens\u00e9 ne s'apercevait point que mes compagnons \u00e9taient li\u00e9s\nsous le ventre des b\u00e9liers laineux. Et celui qui me portait dans\nsa laine \u00e9paisse, alourdi, sortit le dernier, tandis que je\nroulais mille pens\u00e9es. Et le robuste Polyph\u00e8mos, le t\u00e2tant, lui\ndit:\n\n-- B\u00e9lier paresseux, pourquoi sors-tu le dernier de tous de mon\nantre? Auparavant, jamais tu ne restais derri\u00e8re les autres, mais,\nle premier, tu paissais les tendres fleurs de l'herbe, et, le\npremier, marchant avec fiert\u00e9, tu arrivais au cours des fleuves,\net, le premier, le soir, tu rentrais \u00e0 l'enclos. Maintenant, te\nvoici le dernier. Regrettes-tu l'oeil de ton ma\u00eetre qu'un m\u00e9chant\nhomme a arrach\u00e9, \u00e0 l'aide de ses mis\u00e9rables compagnons, apr\u00e8s\nm'avoir dompt\u00e9 l'\u00e2me par le vin, Personne, qui n'\u00e9chappera pas, je\npense, \u00e0 la mort? Pl\u00fbt aux dieux que tu pusses entendre, parler,\net me dire o\u00f9 il se d\u00e9robe \u00e0 ma force! Aussit\u00f4t sa cervelle\n\u00e9cras\u00e9e coulerait \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0 dans la caverne, et mon coeur se\nconsolerait des maux que m'a faits ce mis\u00e9rable Personne!\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il laissa sortir le b\u00e9lier. \u00c0 peine \u00e9loign\u00e9s de\npeu d'espace de l'antre et de l'enclos, je quittai le premier le\nb\u00e9lier et je d\u00e9tachai mes compagnons. Et nous pouss\u00e2mes\npromptement hors de leur chemin les troupeaux charg\u00e9s de graisse,\njusqu'\u00e0 ce que nous fussions arriv\u00e9s \u00e0 notre nef. Et nos chers\ncompagnons nous revirent, nous du moins qui avions \u00e9chapp\u00e9 \u00e0 la\nmort, et ils nous regrettaient; aussi ils g\u00e9missaient, et ils\npleuraient les autres. Mais, par un froncement de sourcils, je\nleur d\u00e9fendis de pleurer, et j'ordonnai de pousser promptement les\ntroupeaux laineux dans la nef, et de fendre l'eau sal\u00e9e. Et\naussit\u00f4t ils s'embarqu\u00e8rent, et, s'asseyant en ordre sur les bancs\nde rameurs, ils frapp\u00e8rent la blanche mer de leurs avirons. Mais\nquand nous f\u00fbmes \u00e9loign\u00e9s de la distance o\u00f9 porte la voix, alors\nje dis au kykl\u00f4ps ces paroles outrageantes:\n\n-- Kykl\u00f4ps, tu n'as pas mang\u00e9 dans ta caverne creuse, avec une\ngrande violence, les compagnons d'un homme sans courage, et le\nch\u00e2timent devait te frapper, malheureux! toi qui n'as pas craint\nde manger tes h\u00f4tes dans ta demeure. C'est pourquoi Zeus et les\nautres dieux t'ont ch\u00e2ti\u00e9.\n\nJe parlai ainsi, et il entra aussit\u00f4t dans une plus violente\nfureur, et, arrachant la cime d'une grande montagne, il la lan\u00e7a.\nEt elle tomba devant notre nef \u00e0 noire proue, et l'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 de la\npoupe manqua \u00eatre bris\u00e9e, et la mer nous inonda sous la chute de\nce rocher qui la fit refluer vers le rivage, et le flot nous\nremporta jusqu'\u00e0 toucher le bord. Mais, saisissant un long pieu,\nje repoussai la nef du rivage, et, d'un signe de t\u00eate, j'ordonnai\n\u00e0 mes compagnons d'agiter les avirons afin d'\u00e9chapper \u00e0 la mort,\net ils se courb\u00e8rent sur les avirons. Quand nous nous f\u00fbmes une\nseconde fois \u00e9loign\u00e9s \u00e0 la m\u00eame distance, je voulus encore parler\nau kykl\u00f4ps, et tous mes compagnons s'y opposaient par des paroles\nsuppliantes:\n\n-- Malheureux! pourquoi veux-tu irriter cet homme sauvage? D\u00e9j\u00e0,\nen jetant ce rocher dans la mer, il a ramen\u00e9 notre nef contre\nterre, o\u00f9, certes, nous devions p\u00e9rir; et s'il entend tes paroles\nou le son de ta voix, il pourra briser nos t\u00eates et notre nef sous\nun autre rocher qu'il lancera, tant sa force est grande.\n\nIls parlaient ainsi, mais ils ne persuad\u00e8rent point mon coeur\nmagnanime, et je lui parlai de nouveau injurieusement:\n\n-- Kykl\u00f4ps, si quelqu'un parmi les hommes mortels t'interroge sur\nla perte honteuse de ton oeil, dis-lui qu'il a \u00e9t\u00e9 arrach\u00e9 par le\nd\u00e9vastateur de citadelles Odysseus, fils de Laert\u00e8s, et qui habite\ndans Ithak\u00e8.\n\nJe parlai ainsi, et il me r\u00e9pondit en g\u00e9missant:\n\n-- \u00d4 dieux! voici que les anciennes pr\u00e9dictions qu'on m'a faites\nse sont accomplies. Il y avait ici un excellent et grand\ndivinateur, T\u00e8l\u00e9mos Eurymide, qui l'emportait sur tous dans la\ndivination, et qui vieillit en proph\u00e9tisant au milieu des\nkyklopes. Et il me dit que toutes ces choses s'accompliraient qui\nme sont arriv\u00e9es, et que je serais priv\u00e9 de la vue par Odysseus.\nEt je pensais que ce serait un homme grand et beau qui viendrait\nici, rev\u00eatu d'une immense force. Et c'est un homme de rien, petit\net sans courage, qui m'a priv\u00e9 de mon oeil apr\u00e8s m'avoir dompt\u00e9\navec du vin! Viens ici, Odysseus, afin que je te fasse les\npr\u00e9sents de l'hospitalit\u00e9. Je demanderai \u00e0 l'illustre qui \u00e9branle\nla terre de te reconduire. Je suis son fils, et il se glorifie\nd'\u00eatre mon p\u00e8re, et il me gu\u00e9rira, s'il le veut, et non quelque\nautre des dieux immortels ou des hommes mortels.\n\nIl parla ainsi et je lui r\u00e9pondis:\n\n-- Pl\u00fbt aux dieux que je t'eusse arrach\u00e9 l'\u00e2me et la vie, et\nenvoy\u00e9 dans la demeure d'Aid\u00e8s aussi s\u00fbrement que celui qui\n\u00e9branle la terre ne gu\u00e9rira point ton oeil.\n\nJe parlais ainsi, et, aussit\u00f4t, il supplia le roi Poseida\u00f4n, en\n\u00e9tendant les mains vers l'Ouranos \u00e9toil\u00e9:\n\n-- Entends-moi, Poseida\u00f4n aux cheveux bleus, qui contiens la\nterre! Si je suis ton fils, et si tu te glorifies d'\u00eatre mon p\u00e8re,\nfais que le d\u00e9vastateur de citadelles, Odysseus, fils de Laert\u00e8s,\net qui habite dans Ithak\u00e8, ne retourne jamais dans sa patrie. Mais\nsi sa destin\u00e9e est de revoir ses amis et de rentrer dans sa\ndemeure bien construite et dans la terre de sa patrie, qu'il n'y\nparvienne que tardivement, apr\u00e8s avoir perdu tous ses compagnons,\net sur une nef \u00e9trang\u00e8re, et qu'il souffre encore en arrivant dans\nsa demeure!\n\nIl pria ainsi, et l'illustre aux cheveux bleus l'entendit.\n\nPuis, il souleva un plus lourd rocher, et, le faisant tourner, il\nle jeta avec une immense force. Et il tomba \u00e0 l'arri\u00e8re de la nef\n\u00e0 proue bleue, manquant d'atteindre l'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 du gouvernail, et\nla mer se souleva sous le coup; mais le flot, cette fois, emporta\nla nef et la poussa vers l'\u00eele; et nous parv\u00eenmes bient\u00f4t l\u00e0 o\u00f9\n\u00e9taient les autres nefs \u00e0 bancs de rameurs. Et nos compagnons y\n\u00e9taient assis, pleurant et nous attendant toujours. Ayant abord\u00e9,\nnous tir\u00e2mes la nef sur le sable et nous descend\u00eemes sur le rivage\nde la mer.\n\nEt nous partage\u00e2mes les troupeaux du kykl\u00f4ps, apr\u00e8s les avoir\nretir\u00e9s de la nef creuse, et nul ne fut priv\u00e9 d'une part \u00e9gale. Et\nmes compagnons me donn\u00e8rent le b\u00e9lier, outre ma part, et apr\u00e8s le\npartage. Et, l'ayant sacrifi\u00e9 sur le rivage \u00e0 Zeus Kronide qui\namasse les noires nu\u00e9es et qui commande \u00e0 tous, je br\u00fblai ses\ncuisses. Mais Zeus ne re\u00e7ut point mon sacrifice; mais, plut\u00f4t, il\nsongeait \u00e0 perdre toutes mes nefs \u00e0 bancs de rameurs et tous mes\nchers compagnons.\n\nEt nous nous repos\u00e2mes l\u00e0, tout le jour, jusqu'\u00e0 la chute de\nH\u00e8lios, mangeant les chairs abondantes et buvant le doux vin. Et\nquand H\u00e8lios tomba et que les ombres survinrent, nous dorm\u00eemes sur\nle rivage de la mer.\n\nEt quand \u00c9\u00f4s aux doigts ros\u00e9s, n\u00e9e au matin, apparut, je commandai\n\u00e0 mes compagnons de s'embarquer et de d\u00e9tacher les c\u00e2bles. Et,\naussit\u00f4t, ils s'embarqu\u00e8rent, et, s'asseyant en ordre sur les\nbancs, ils frapp\u00e8rent la blanche mer de leurs avirons. Et, de l\u00e0,\nnous navigu\u00e2mes, tristes dans le coeur, bien que joyeux d'avoir\n\u00e9chapp\u00e9 \u00e0 la mort, car nous avions perdu nos chers compagnons.\n\n\n10.\n\nEt nous arriv\u00e2mes \u00e0 l'\u00eele Aioli\u00e8, o\u00f9 habitait Aiolos Hippotade\ncher aux dieux immortels. Et un mur d'airain qu'on ne peut rompre\nentourait l'\u00eele enti\u00e8re, et une roche escarp\u00e9e la bordait de toute\npart. Douze enfants \u00e9taient n\u00e9s dans la maison royale d'Aiolos:\nsix filles et six fils pleins de jeunesse. Et il unit ses filles \u00e0\nses fils afin qu'elles fussent les femmes de ceux-ci, et tous\nprenaient leur repas aupr\u00e8s de leur p\u00e8re bien-aim\u00e9 et de leur m\u00e8re\nv\u00e9n\u00e9rable, et de nombreux mets \u00e9taient plac\u00e9s devant eux. Pendant\nle jour, la maison et la cour retentissaient, parfum\u00e9es; et,\npendant la nuit tous dormaient aupr\u00e8s de leurs femmes chastes, sur\ndes tapis et sur des lits sculpt\u00e9s.\n\nEt nous entr\u00e2mes dans la ville et dans les belles demeures. Et\ntout un mois Aiolos m'accueillit, et il m'interrogeait sur Ilios,\nsur les nefs des Argiens et sur le retour des Akhaiens. Et je lui\nracontai toutes ces choses comme il convenait. Et quand je lui\ndemandai de me laisser partir et de me renvoyer, il ne me refusa\npoint et il pr\u00e9para mon retour. Et il me donna une outre, faite de\nla peau d'un boeuf de neuf ans, dans laquelle il enferma le\nsouffle des vents temp\u00e9tueux; car le Kroni\u00f4n l'avait fait le\nma\u00eetre des vents, et lui avait donn\u00e9 de les soulever ou de les\napaiser, selon sa volont\u00e9. Et, avec un splendide c\u00e2ble d'argent,\nil l'attacha dans ma nef creuse, afin qu'il n'en sort\u00eet aucun\nsouffle. Puis il envoya le seul Z\u00e9phyros pour nous emporter, les\nnefs et nous. Mais ceci ne devait point s'accomplir, car nous\ndevions p\u00e9rir par notre d\u00e9mence.\n\nEt, sans rel\u00e2che, nous navigu\u00e2mes pendant neuf jours et neuf\nnuits, et au dixi\u00e8me jour la terre de la patrie apparaissait d\u00e9j\u00e0,\net nous apercevions les feux des habitants. Et, dans ma fatigue,\nle doux sommeil me saisit. Et j'avais toujours tenu le gouvernail\nde la nef, ne l'ayant c\u00e9d\u00e9 \u00e0 aucun de mes compagnons, afin\nd'arriver promptement dans la terre de la patrie. Et mes\ncompagnons parl\u00e8rent entre eux, me soup\u00e7onnant d'emporter dans ma\ndemeure de l'or et de l'argent, pr\u00e9sents du magnanime Aiolos\nHippotade. Et ils se disaient entre eux:\n\n-- Dieux! combien Odysseus est aim\u00e9 de tous les hommes et tr\u00e8s\nhonor\u00e9 de tous ceux dont il aborde la ville et la terre! Il a\nemport\u00e9 de Troi\u00e8, pour sa part du butin, beaucoup de choses belles\net pr\u00e9cieuses, et nous rentrons dans nos demeures, les mains\nvides, apr\u00e8s avoir fait tout ce qu'il a fait. Et voici que, par\namiti\u00e9, Aiolos l'a combl\u00e9 de pr\u00e9sents! Mais voyons \u00e0 la h\u00e2te ce\nqu'il y a dans cette outre, et combien d'or et d'argent on y a\nrenferm\u00e9.\n\nIls parlaient ainsi, et leur mauvais dessein l'emporta. Ils\nouvrirent l'outre, et tous les vents en jaillirent. Et aussit\u00f4t la\ntemp\u00eate furieuse nous emporta sur la mer, pleurants, loin de la\nterre de la patrie. Et, m'\u00e9tant r\u00e9veill\u00e9, je d\u00e9lib\u00e9rai dans mon\ncoeur irr\u00e9prochable si je devais p\u00e9rir en me jetant de ma nef dans\nla mer, ou si, restant parmi les vivants, je souffrirais en\nsilence. Je restai et supportai mes maux. Et je gisais cach\u00e9 dans\nle fond de ma nef, tandis que tous \u00e9taient de nouveau emport\u00e9s par\nles tourbillons du vent vers l'\u00eele Aioli\u00e8. Et mes compagnons\ng\u00e9missaient.\n\n\u00c9tant descendus sur le rivage, nous puis\u00e2mes de l'eau, et mes\ncompagnons prirent aussit\u00f4t leur repas aupr\u00e8s des nefs rapides.\nApr\u00e8s avoir mang\u00e9 et bu, je choisis un h\u00e9raut et un autre\ncompagnon, et je me rendis aux illustres demeures d'Aiolos. Et je\nle trouvai faisant son repas avec sa femme et ses enfants. Et, en\narrivant, nous nous ass\u00eemes sur le seuil de la porte. Et tous\n\u00e9taient stup\u00e9faits et ils m'interrog\u00e8rent:\n\n-- Pourquoi es-tu revenu, Odysseus? Quel daim\u00f4n t'a port\u00e9 malheur?\nN'avions-nous pas assur\u00e9 ton retour, afin que tu parvinsses dans\nla terre de ta patrie, dans tes demeures, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 il te plaisait\nd'arriver?\n\nIls parlaient ainsi, et je r\u00e9pondis, triste dans le coeur:\n\n-- Mes mauvais compagnons m'ont perdu, et, avant eux, le sommeil\nfuneste. Mais venez \u00e0 mon aide, amis, car vous en avez le pouvoir.\n\nJe parlai ainsi, t\u00e2chant de les apaiser par des paroles\nflatteuses; mais ils rest\u00e8rent muets, et leur p\u00e8re me r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Sors promptement de cette \u00eele, \u00f4 le pire des vivants! Il ne\nm'est point permis de recueillir ni de reconduire un homme qui est\nodieux aux dieux heureux. Va! car, certes, si tu es revenu, c'est\nque tu es odieux aux dieux heureux.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il me chassa de ses demeures tandis que je\nsoupirais profond\u00e9ment. Et nous naviguions de l\u00e0, tristes dans le\ncoeur; et l'\u00e2me de mes compagnons \u00e9tait accabl\u00e9e par la fatigue\ncruelle des avirons, car le retour ne nous semblait plus possible,\n\u00e0 cause de notre d\u00e9mence. Et nous navigu\u00e2mes ainsi six jours et\nsix nuits. Et, le septi\u00e8me jour, nous arriv\u00e2mes \u00e0 la haute ville\nde Lamos, dans la Laistrygoni\u00e8 T\u00e9l\u00e9pyle. L\u00e0, le pasteur qui rentre\nappelle le pasteur qui sort en l'entendant. L\u00e0, le pasteur qui ne\ndort pas gagne un salaire double, en menant pa\u00eetre les boeufs\nd'abord, et, ensuite, les troupeaux aux blanches laines, tant les\nchemins du jour sont proches des chemins de la nuit.\n\nEt nous abord\u00e2mes le port illustre entour\u00e9 d'un haut rocher. Et,\ndes deux c\u00f4t\u00e9s, les rivages escarp\u00e9s se rencontraient, ne laissant\nqu'une entr\u00e9e \u00e9troite. Et mes compagnons conduisirent l\u00e0 toutes\nles nefs \u00e9gales, et ils les amarr\u00e8rent, les unes aupr\u00e8s des\nautres, au fond du port, o\u00f9 jamais le flot ne se soulevait, ni\npeu, ni beaucoup, et o\u00f9 il y avait une constante tranquillit\u00e9. Et,\nmoi seul, je retins ma nef noire en dehors, et je l'amarrai aux\npointes du rocher. Puis, je montai sur le fa\u00eete des \u00e9cueils, et je\nne vis ni les travaux des boeufs, ni ceux des hommes, et je ne vis\nque de la fum\u00e9e qui s'\u00e9levait de terre. Alors, je choisis deux de\nmes compagnons et un h\u00e9raut, et je les envoyai pour savoir quels\nhommes nourris de pain habitaient cette terre.\n\nEt ils partirent, prenant un large chemin par o\u00f9 les chars\nportaient \u00e0 la ville le bois des hautes montagnes. Et ils\nrencontr\u00e8rent devant la ville, allant chercher de l'eau, une jeune\nvierge, fille du robuste Laistryg\u00f4n Antiphat\u00e8s. Et elle descendait\n\u00e0 la fontaine limpide d'Artaki\u00e8. Et c'est l\u00e0 qu'on puisait de\nl'eau pour la ville. S'approchant d'elle, ils lui demand\u00e8rent quel\n\u00e9tait le roi qui commandait \u00e0 ces peuples; et elle leur montra\naussit\u00f4t la haute demeure de son p\u00e8re. \u00c9tant entr\u00e9s dans\nl'illustre demeure, ils y trouv\u00e8rent une femme haute comme une\nmontagne, et ils en furent \u00e9pouvant\u00e9s. Mais elle appela aussit\u00f4t\nde l'agora l'illustre Antiphat\u00e8s son mari, qui leur pr\u00e9para une\nlugubre destin\u00e9e, car il saisit un de mes compagnons pour le\nd\u00e9vorer. Et les deux autres, pr\u00e9cipitant leur fuite, revinrent aux\nnefs.\n\nAlors, Antiphat\u00e8s poussa des clameurs par la ville, et les\nrobustes Laistrygones, l'ayant entendu, se ruaient de toutes\nparts, innombrables, et pareils, non \u00e0 des hommes, mais \u00e0 des\ng\u00e9ants. Et ils lan\u00e7aient de lourdes pierres arrach\u00e9es au rocher,\net un horrible retentissement s'\u00e9leva d'hommes mourants et de nefs\n\u00e9cras\u00e9es. Et les Laistrygones transper\u00e7aient les hommes comme des\npoissons, et ils emportaient ces tristes mets. Pendant qu'ils les\ntuaient ainsi dans l'int\u00e9rieur du port, je tirai de la gaine mon\n\u00e9p\u00e9e aigu\u00eb et je coupai les c\u00e2bles de ma nef noire, et, aussit\u00f4t,\nj'ordonnai \u00e0 mes compagnons de se courber sur les avirons, afin de\nfuir notre perte. Et tous ensemble se courb\u00e8rent sur les avirons,\ncraignant la mort. Ainsi ma nef gagna la pleine mer, \u00e9vitant les\nlourdes pierres mais toutes les autres p\u00e9rirent en ce lieu.\n\nEt nous naviguions loin de l\u00e0, tristes dans le coeur d'avoir perdu\ntous nos chers compagnons, bien que joyeux d'avoir \u00e9vit\u00e9 la mort.\nEt nous arriv\u00e2mes \u00e0 l'\u00eele Aiai\u00e8, et c'est l\u00e0 qu'habitait Kirk\u00e8 aux\nbeaux cheveux, v\u00e9n\u00e9rable et \u00e9loquente d\u00e9esse, soeur du prudent\nAi\u00e8t\u00e8s. Et tous deux \u00e9taient n\u00e9s de H\u00e8lios qui \u00e9claire les hommes,\net leur m\u00e8re \u00e9tait Pers\u00e8, qu'engendra Ok\u00e9anos. Et l\u00e0, sur le\nrivage, nous conduis\u00eemes notre nef dans une large rade, et un dieu\nnous y mena. Puis, \u00e9tant descendus, nous rest\u00e2mes l\u00e0 deux jours,\nl'\u00e2me accabl\u00e9e de fatigue et de douleur. Mais quand \u00c9\u00f4s aux beaux\ncheveux amena le troisi\u00e8me jour, prenant ma lance et mon \u00e9p\u00e9e\naigu\u00eb, je quittai la nef et je montai sur une hauteur d'o\u00f9 je\npusse voir des hommes et entendre leurs voix. Et, du sommet\nescarp\u00e9 o\u00f9 j'\u00e9tais mont\u00e9, je vis s'\u00e9lever de la terre large, \u00e0\ntravers une for\u00eat de ch\u00eanes \u00e9pais, la fum\u00e9e des demeures de Kirk\u00e8.\nPuis, je d\u00e9lib\u00e9rai, dans mon esprit et dans mon coeur, si je\npartirais pour reconna\u00eetre la fum\u00e9e que je voyais. Et il me parut\nplus sage de regagner ma nef rapide et le rivage de la mer, de\nfaire prendre le repas \u00e0 mes compagnons et d'envoyer reconna\u00eetre\nle pays.\n\nMais, comme, d\u00e9j\u00e0, j'\u00e9tais pr\u00e8s de ma nef, un dieu qui, sans\ndoute, eut compassion de me voir seul, envoya sur ma route un\ngrand cerf au bois \u00e9lev\u00e9 qui descendait des p\u00e2turages de la for\u00eat\npour boire au fleuve, car la force de H\u00e8lios le poussait. Et,\ncomme il s'avan\u00e7ait, je le frappai au milieu de l'\u00e9pine du dos, et\nla lame d'airain le traversa, et, en bramant, il tomba dans la\npoussi\u00e8re et son esprit s'envola. Je m'\u00e9lan\u00e7ai, et je retirai la\nlance d'airain de la blessure. Je la laissai \u00e0 terre, et,\narrachant toute sorte de branches pliantes, j'en fis une corde\ntordue de la longueur d'une brasse, et j'en liai les pieds de\nl'\u00e9norme b\u00eate. Et, la portant \u00e0 mon cou, je descendis vers ma nef,\nappuy\u00e9 sur ma lance, car je n'aurais pu retenir un animal aussi\ngrand, d'une seule main, sur mon \u00e9paule. Et je le jetai devant la\nnef, et je ranimai mes compagnons en adressant des paroles\nflatteuses \u00e0 chacun d'eux:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis, bien que malheureux, nous ne descendrons point dans les\ndemeures d'Aid\u00e8s avant notre jour fatal. Allons, hors de la nef\nrapide, songeons \u00e0 boire et \u00e0 manger, et ne souffrons point de la\nfaim.\n\nJe parlai ainsi, et ils ob\u00e9irent \u00e0 mes paroles, et ils\ndescendirent sur le rivage de la mer, admirant le cerf, et combien\nil \u00e9tait grand. Et apr\u00e8s qu'ils se furent r\u00e9jouis de le regarder,\ns'\u00e9tant lav\u00e9 les mains, ils pr\u00e9par\u00e8rent un excellent repas. Ainsi,\ntout le jour, jusqu'\u00e0 la chute de H\u00e8lios, nous rest\u00e2mes assis,\nmangeant les chairs abondantes et buvant le vin doux. Et quand\nH\u00e8lios tomba et que les ombres survinrent, nous nous endorm\u00eemes\nsur le rivage de la mer. Et quand \u00c9\u00f4s aux doigts ros\u00e9s, n\u00e9e au\nmatin, apparut, alors, ayant convoqu\u00e9 l'agora, je parlai ainsi:\n\n-- \u00c9coutez mes paroles et supportez patiemment vos maux,\ncompagnons. \u00d4 amis! nous ne savons, en effet, o\u00f9 est le couchant,\no\u00f9 le levant, de quel c\u00f4t\u00e9 H\u00e8lios se l\u00e8ve sur la terre pour\n\u00e9clairer les hommes, ni de quel c\u00f4t\u00e9 il se couche. D\u00e9lib\u00e9rons donc\npromptement, s'il est n\u00e9cessaire; mais je ne le pense pas. Du\nfa\u00eete de la hauteur o\u00f9 j'ai mont\u00e9, j'ai vu que cette terre est une\n\u00eele que la mer sans bornes environne. Elle est petite, et j'ai vu\nde la fum\u00e9e s'\u00e9lever \u00e0 travers une for\u00eat de ch\u00eanes \u00e9pais.\n\nJe parlai ainsi, et leur cher coeur fut bris\u00e9, se souvenant des\ncrimes du Laistryg\u00f4n Antiphat\u00e8s et de la violence du magnanime\nkykl\u00f4ps mangeur d'hommes. Et ils pleuraient, r\u00e9pandant des larmes\nabondantes. Mais il ne servait \u00e0 rien de g\u00e9mir. Je divisai mes\nbraves compagnons, et je donnai un chef \u00e0 chaque troupe. Je\ncommandai l'une, et Eurylokhos semblable \u00e0 un dieu commanda\nl'autre. Et les sorts ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 promptement jet\u00e9s dans un casque\nd'airain, ce fut celui du magnanime Eurylokhos qui sortit. Et il\npartit \u00e0 la h\u00e2te, et en pleurant, avec vingt-deux compagnons, et\nils nous laiss\u00e8rent g\u00e9missants.\n\nEt ils trouv\u00e8rent, dans une vall\u00e9e, en un lieu d\u00e9couvert, les\ndemeures de Kirk\u00e8, construites en pierres polies. Et tout autour\nerraient des loups montagnards et des lions. Et Kirk\u00e8 les avait\ndompt\u00e9s avec des breuvages perfides; et ils ne se jetaient point\nsur les hommes, mais ils les approchaient en remuant leurs longues\nqueues, comme des chiens caressant leur ma\u00eetre qui se l\u00e8ve du\nrepas, car il leur donne toujours quelques bons morceaux. Ainsi\nles loups aux ongles robustes et les lions entouraient,\ncaressants, mes compagnons; et ceux-ci furent effray\u00e9s de voir ces\nb\u00eates f\u00e9roces, et ils s'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent devant les portes de la d\u00e9esse\naux beaux cheveux. Et ils entendirent Kirk\u00e8 chantant d'une belle\nvoix dans sa demeure et tissant une grande toile ambroisienne,\ntelle que sont les ouvrages l\u00e9gers, gracieux et brillants des\nd\u00e9esses. Alors Polyt\u00e8s, chef des hommes, le plus cher de mes\ncompagnons, et que j'honorais le plus, parla le premier:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis, quelque femme, tissant une grande toile, chante d'une\nbelle voix dans cette demeure, et tout le mur en r\u00e9sonne. Est-ce\nune d\u00e9esse ou une mortelle? Poussons promptement un cri.\n\nIl les persuada ainsi, et ils appel\u00e8rent en criant. Et Kirk\u00e8\nsortit aussit\u00f4t, et, ouvrant les belles portes, elle les invita,\net tous la suivirent imprudemment. Eurylokhos resta seul dehors,\nayant soup\u00e7onn\u00e9 une emb\u00fbche. Et Kirk\u00e8, ayant fait entrer mes\ncompagnons, les fit asseoir sur des si\u00e8ges et sur des thr\u00f4nes. Et\nelle m\u00eala, avec du vin de Pramnios, du fromage, de la farine et du\nmiel doux; mais elle mit dans le pain des poisons, afin de leur\nfaire oublier la terre de la patrie. Et elle leur offrit cela, et\nils burent, et, aussit\u00f4t, les frappant d'une baguette, elle les\nrenferma dans les \u00e9tables \u00e0 porcs. Et ils avaient la t\u00eate, la\nvoix, le corps et les soies du porc, mais leur esprit \u00e9tait le\nm\u00eame qu'auparavant. Et ils pleuraient, ainsi renferm\u00e9s; et Kirk\u00e8\nleur donna du gland de ch\u00eane et du fruit de cornouiller \u00e0 manger,\nce que mangent toujours les porcs qui couchent sur la terre.\n\nMais Eurylokhos revint \u00e0 la h\u00e2te vers la nef noire et rapide nous\nannoncer la dure destin\u00e9e de nos compagnons. Et il ne pouvait\nparler, malgr\u00e9 son d\u00e9sir, et son coeur \u00e9tait frapp\u00e9 d'une grande\ndouleur, et ses yeux \u00e9taient pleins de larmes, et son \u00e2me\nrespirait le deuil. Mais, comme nous l'interrogions tous avec\nempressement, il nous raconta la perte de ses compagnons:\n\n-- Nous avons march\u00e9 \u00e0 travers la for\u00eat, comme tu l'avais ordonn\u00e9,\nillustre Odysseus, et nous avons rencontr\u00e9, dans une vall\u00e9e, en un\nlieu d\u00e9couvert, de belles demeures construites en pierres polies.\nL\u00e0, une d\u00e9esse, ou une mortelle, chantait harmonieusement en\ntissant une grande toile. Et mes compagnons l'appel\u00e8rent en\ncriant. Aussit\u00f4t, elle sortit, et, ouvrant la belle porte, elle\nles invita, et tous la suivirent imprudemment, et, moi seul, je\nrestai, ayant soup\u00e7onn\u00e9 une emb\u00fbche. Et tous les autres\ndisparurent \u00e0 la fois, et aucun n'a reparu, bien que je les aie\nlongtemps \u00e9pi\u00e9s et attendus.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et je jetai sur mes \u00e9paules une grande \u00e9p\u00e9e\nd'airain aux clous d'argent et un arc, et j'ordonnai \u00e0 Eurylokhos\nde me montrer le chemin. Mais, ayant saisi mes genoux de ses\nmains, en pleurant, il me dit ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Ne me ram\u00e8ne point l\u00e0 contre mon gr\u00e9, \u00f4 divin, mais laisse-moi\nici. Je sais que tu ne reviendras pas et que tu ne ram\u00e8neras aucun\nde nos compagnons. Fuyons promptement avec ceux-ci, car, sans\ndoute, nous pouvons encore \u00e9viter la dure destin\u00e9e.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et je lui r\u00e9pondis:\n\n-- Eurylokhos, reste donc ici, mangeant et buvant aupr\u00e8s de la nef\nnoire et creuse. Moi, j'irai, car une n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 inexorable me\ncontraint.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, je m'\u00e9loignai de la mer et de la nef, et\ntraversant les vall\u00e9es sacr\u00e9es, j'arrivai \u00e0 la grande demeure de\nl'empoisonneuse Kirk\u00e8. Et Herm\u00e9ias \u00e0 la baguette d'or vint \u00e0 ma\nrencontre, comme j'approchais de la demeure, et il \u00e9tait semblable\n\u00e0 un jeune homme dans toute la gr\u00e2ce de l'adolescence. Et, me\nprenant la main, il me dit:\n\n-- \u00d4 malheureux o\u00f9 vas-tu seul, entre ces collines, ignorant ces\nlieux. Tes compagnons sont enferm\u00e9s dans les demeures de Kirk\u00e8, et\nils habitent comme des porcs des \u00e9tables bien closes. Viens-tu\npour les d\u00e9livrer? Certes, je ne pense pas que tu reviennes toi-\nm\u00eame, et tu resteras l\u00e0 o\u00f9 ils sont d\u00e9j\u00e0. Mais je te d\u00e9livrerai de\nce mal et je te sauverai. Prends ce rem\u00e8de excellent, et le\nportant avec toi, rends-toi aux demeures de Kirk\u00e8, car il\n\u00e9loignera de ta t\u00eate le jour fatal. Je te dirai tous les mauvais\ndesseins de Kirk\u00e8. Elle te pr\u00e9parera un breuvage et elle mettra\nles poisons dans le pain, mais elle ne pourra te charmer, car\nl'excellent rem\u00e8de que je te donnerai ne le permettra pas. Je vais\nte dire le reste. Quand Kirk\u00e8 t'aura frapp\u00e9 de sa longue baguette,\njette-toi sur elle, comme si tu voulais la tuer. Alors, pleine de\ncrainte, elle t'invitera \u00e0 coucher avec elle. Ne refuse point le\nlit d'une d\u00e9esse, afin qu\u0092elle d\u00e9livre tes compagnons et qu'elle\nte traite toi-m\u00eame avec bienveillance. Mais ordonne-lui de jurer\npar le grand serment des dieux heureux, afin qu'elle ne te tende\naucune autre emb\u00fbche, et que, t'ayant mis nu, elle ne t'enl\u00e8ve\npoint ta virilit\u00e9.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, le tueur d'Argos me donna le rem\u00e8de qu'il\narracha de terre, et il m'en expliqua la nature. Et sa racine est\nnoire et sa fleur semblable \u00e0 du lait. Les dieux la nomment m\u00f4ly.\nIl est difficile aux hommes mortels de l'arracher, mais les dieux\npeuvent tout. Puis Herm\u00e9ias s'envola vers le grand Olympos, sur\nl'\u00eele bois\u00e9e, et je marchai vers la demeure de Kirk\u00e8, et mon coeur\nroulait mille pens\u00e9es tandis que je marchais.\n\nEt, m'arr\u00eatant devant la porte de la d\u00e9esse aux beaux cheveux, je\nl'appelai, et elle entendit ma voix, et, sortant aussit\u00f4t, elle\nouvrit les portes brillantes et elle m'invita. Et, l'ayant suivie,\ntriste dans le coeur, elle me fit entrer, puis asseoir sur un\nthr\u00f4ne \u00e0 clous d'argent, et bien travaill\u00e9. Et j'avais un escabeau\nsous les pieds. Aussit\u00f4t elle pr\u00e9para dans une coupe d'or le\nbreuvage que je devais boire, et, m\u00e9ditant le mal dans son esprit,\nelle y m\u00eala le poison. Apr\u00e8s me l'avoir donn\u00e9, et comme je buvais,\nelle me frappa de sa baguette et elle me dit:\n\n-- Va maintenant dans l'\u00e9table \u00e0 porcs, et couche avec tes\ncompagnons.\n\nElle parla ainsi, mais je tirai de la gaine mon \u00e9p\u00e9e aigu\u00eb et je\nme jetai sur elle comme si je voulais la tuer. Alors, poussant un\ngrand cri, elle se prosterna, saisit mes genoux et me dit ces\nparoles ail\u00e9es, en pleurant:\n\n-- Qui es-tu parmi les hommes? O\u00f9 est ta ville? O\u00f9 sont tes\nparents? Je suis stup\u00e9faite qu'ayant bu ces poisons tu ne sois pas\ntransform\u00e9. Jamais aucun homme, pour les avoir seulement fait\npasser entre ses dents, n'y a r\u00e9sist\u00e9. Tu as un esprit indomptable\ndans ta poitrine, ou tu es le subtil Odysseus qui devait arriver\nici, \u00e0 son retour de Troi\u00e8, sur sa nef noire et rapide, ainsi que\nHerm\u00e9ias \u00e0 la baguette d'or me l'avait toujours pr\u00e9dit. Mais,\nremets ton \u00e9p\u00e9e dans sa gaine, et couchons-nous tous deux sur mon\nlit, afin que nous nous unissions, et que nous nous confiions l'un\n\u00e0 l'autre.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et, lui r\u00e9pondant, je lui dis:\n\n-- \u00d4 Kirk\u00e8! comment me demandes-tu d'\u00eatre doux pour toi qui as\nchang\u00e9, dans tes demeures, mes compagnons en porcs, et qui me\nretiens ici moi-m\u00eame, m'invitant \u00e0 monter sur ton lit, dans la\nchambre nuptiale, afin qu'\u00e9tant nu, tu m'enl\u00e8ves ma virilit\u00e9?\nCertes, je ne veux point monter sur ton lit, \u00e0 moins que tu ne\njures par un grand serment, \u00f4 d\u00e9esse, que tu ne me tendras aucune\nautre emb\u00fbche.\n\nJe parlais ainsi, et aussit\u00f4t elle jura comme je le lui demandais;\net apr\u00e8s qu'elle eut jur\u00e9 et prononc\u00e9 toutes les paroles du\nserment, alors je montai sur son beau lit. Et les servantes\ns'agitaient dans la demeure; et elles \u00e9taient quatre, et elles\nprenaient soin de toute chose. Et elles \u00e9taient n\u00e9es des sources\ndes for\u00eats et des fleuves sacr\u00e9s qui coulent \u00e0 la mer. L'une\nd'elles jeta sur les thr\u00f4nes de belles couvertures pourpr\u00e9es, et,\npardessus, de l\u00e9g\u00e8res toiles de lin. Une autre dressa devant les\nthr\u00f4nes des tables d'argent sur lesquelles elle posa des\ncorbeilles d'or. Une troisi\u00e8me m\u00eala le vin doux et mielleux dans\nun krat\u00e8re d'argent et distribua des coupes d'or. La quatri\u00e8me\napporta de l'eau et alluma un grand feu sous un grand tr\u00e9pied, et\nl'eau chauffa. Et quand l'eau eut chauff\u00e9 dans l'airain brillant,\nelle me mit au bain, et elle me lava la t\u00eate et les \u00e9paules avec\nl'eau doucement vers\u00e9e du grand tr\u00e9pied. Et quand elle m'eut lav\u00e9\net parfum\u00e9 d'huile grasse, elle me rev\u00eatit d'une tunique et d'un\nbeau manteau. Puis elle me fit asseoir sur un thr\u00f4ne d'argent bien\ntravaill\u00e9, et j'avais un escabeau sous mes pieds. Une servante\nversa, d'une belle aigui\u00e8re d'or dans un bassin d'argent, de l'eau\npour les mains, et dressa devant moi une table polie. Et la\nv\u00e9n\u00e9rable intendante, bienveillante pour tous, apporta du pain\nqu'elle pla\u00e7a sur la table ainsi que beaucoup de mets. Et Kirk\u00e8\nm'invita \u00e0 manger, mais cela ne plut point \u00e0 mon \u00e2me.\n\nEt j'\u00e9tais assis, ayant d'autres pens\u00e9es et pr\u00e9voyant d'autres\nmaux. Et Kirk\u00e8, me voyant assis, sans manger, et plein de\ntristesse, s'approcha de moi et me dit ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Pourquoi, Odysseus, restes-tu ainsi muet et te rongeant le\ncoeur, sans boire et sans manger? Crains-tu quelque autre emb\u00fbche?\nTu ne dois rien craindre, car j'ai jur\u00e9 un grand serment.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et, lui r\u00e9pondant, je dis:\n\n-- \u00d4 Kirk\u00e8, quel homme \u00e9quitable et juste oserait boire et manger,\navant que ses compagnons aient \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9livr\u00e9s, et qu'il les ait vus\nde ses yeux? Si, dans ta bienveillance, tu veux que je boive et\nque je mange, d\u00e9livre mes compagnons et que je les voie.\n\nJe parlai ainsi, et Kirk\u00e8 sortit de ses demeures, tenant une\nbaguette \u00e0 la main, et elle ouvrit les portes de l'\u00e9table \u00e0 porcs.\nElle en chassa mes compagnons semblables \u00e0 des porcs de neuf ans.\nIls se tenaient devant nous, et, se penchant, elle frotta chacun\nd'eux d'un autre baume, et de leurs membres tomb\u00e8rent aussit\u00f4t les\npoils qu'avait fait pousser le poison funeste que leur avait donn\u00e9\nla v\u00e9n\u00e9rable Kirk\u00e8; et ils redevinrent des hommes plus jeunes\nqu'ils n'\u00e9taient auparavant, plus beaux et plus grands. Et ils me\nreconnurent, et tous, me serrant la main, pleuraient de joie, et\nla demeure retentissait de leurs sanglots. Et la d\u00e9esse elle-m\u00eame\nfut prise de piti\u00e9. Puis, la noble d\u00e9esse, s'approchant de moi, me\ndit:\n\n-- Divin Laertiade, subtil Odysseus, va maintenant vers ta nef\nrapide et le rivage de la mer. Fais tirer, avant tout, ta nef sur\nle sable. Cachez ensuite vos richesses et vos armes dans une\ncaverne, et revenez aussit\u00f4t, toi-m\u00eame et tes chers compagnons.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et mon esprit g\u00e9n\u00e9reux fut persuad\u00e9, et je me\nh\u00e2tai de retourner \u00e0 ma nef rapide et au rivage de la mer, et je\ntrouvai aupr\u00e8s de ma nef rapide mes chers compagnons g\u00e9missant\nmis\u00e9rablement et versant des larmes abondantes. De m\u00eame que les\ng\u00e9nisses, retenues loin de la prairie, s'empressent autour des\nvaches qui, du p\u00e2turage, reviennent \u00e0 l'\u00e9table apr\u00e8s s'\u00eatre\nrassasi\u00e9es d'herbes, et vont toutes ensemble au-devant d'elles,\nsans que les enclos puissent les retenir, et mugissent sans\nrel\u00e2che autour de leurs m\u00e8res; de m\u00eame, quand mes compagnons me\nvirent de leurs yeux, ils m'entour\u00e8rent en pleurant, et leur coeur\nfut aussi \u00e9mu que s'ils avaient revu leur patrie et la ville de\nl'\u00e2pre Ithak\u00e8, o\u00f9 ils \u00e9taient n\u00e9s et avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 nourris. Et, en\npleurant, ils me dirent ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- \u00c0 ton retour, \u00f4 divin! nous sommes aussi joyeux que si nous\nvoyions Ithak\u00e8 et la terre de la patrie. Mais dis-nous comment\nsont morts nos compagnons.\n\nIls parlaient ainsi, et je leur r\u00e9pondis par ces douces paroles:\n\n-- Avant tout, tirons la nef sur le rivage, et cachons dans une\ncaverne nos richesses et toutes nos armes. Puis, suivez-moi tous \u00e0\nla h\u00e2te, afin de revoir, dans les demeures sacr\u00e9es de Kirk\u00e8, vos\ncompagnons mangeant et buvant et jouissant d'une abondante\nnourriture.\nJe parlai ainsi, et ils ob\u00e9irent promptement \u00e0 mes paroles; mais\nle seul Eurylokhos tentait de les retenir, et il leur dit ces\nparoles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Ah! malheureux, o\u00f9 allez-vous? Vous voulez donc subir les maux\nqui vous attendent dans les demeures de Kirk\u00e8, elle qui nous\nchangera en porcs, en loups et en lions, et dont nous garderons de\nforce la demeure? Elle fera comme le kyklops, quand nos compagnons\nvinrent dans sa caverne, conduits par l'audacieux Odysseus. Et ils\ny ont p\u00e9ri par sa d\u00e9mence.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et je d\u00e9lib\u00e9rai dans mon esprit si, ayant tir\u00e9 ma\ngrande \u00e9p\u00e9e de sa gaine, le long de la cuisse, je lui couperais la\nt\u00eate et la jetterais sur le sable, malgr\u00e9 notre parent\u00e9; mais tous\nmes autres compagnons me retinrent par de flatteuses paroles:\n\n-- \u00d4 divin! laissons-le, si tu y consens, rester aupr\u00e8s de la nef\net la garder. Nous, nous te suivrons \u00e0 la demeure sacr\u00e9e de Kirk\u00e8.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, ils s'\u00e9loign\u00e8rent de la nef et de la mer, mais\nEurylokhos ne resta point aupr\u00e8s de la nef creuse, et il nous\nsuivit, craignant mes rudes menaces. Pendant cela, Kirk\u00e8, dans ses\ndemeures, baigna et parfuma d'huile mes autres compagnons, et elle\nles rev\u00eatit de tuniques et de beaux manteaux, et nous les\ntrouv\u00e2mes tous faisant leur repas dans les demeures. Et quand ils\nse furent r\u00e9unis, ils se racont\u00e8rent tous leurs maux, les uns aux\nautres, et ils pleuraient, et la maison retentissait de leurs\nsanglots. Et la noble d\u00e9esse, s'approchant, me dit:\n\n-- Divin Laertiade, subtil Odysseus, ne vous livrez pas plus\nlongtemps \u00e0 la douleur. Je sais moi-m\u00eame combien vous avez subi de\nmaux sur la mer poissonneuse et combien d'hommes injustes vous ont\nfait souffrir sur la terre. Mais, mangez et buvez, et ranimez\nvotre coeur dans votre poitrine, et qu'il soit tel qu'il \u00e9tait\nquand vous avez quitt\u00e9 la terre de l'\u00e2pre Ithak\u00e8, votre patrie.\nCependant, jamais vous n'oublierez vos mis\u00e8res, et votre esprit ne\nsera jamais plus dans la joie, car vous avez subi des maux\ninnombrables.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et notre coeur g\u00e9n\u00e9reux lui ob\u00e9it. Et nous\nrest\u00e2mes l\u00e0 toute une ann\u00e9e, mangeant les chairs abondantes et\nbuvant le doux vin. Mais, \u00e0 la fin de l'ann\u00e9e, quand les heures\neurent accompli leur tour, quand les mois furent pass\u00e9s et quand\nles longs jours se furent \u00e9coul\u00e9s, alors, mes chers compagnons\nm'appel\u00e8rent et me dirent:\n\n-- Malheureux, souviens-toi de ta patrie, si toutefois il est dans\nta destin\u00e9e de survivre et de rentrer dans ta haute demeure et\ndans la terre de la patrie.\n\nIls parl\u00e8rent ainsi, et mon coeur g\u00e9n\u00e9reux fut persuad\u00e9. Alors,\ntout le jour, jusqu'\u00e0 la chute de H\u00e8lios, nous rest\u00e2mes assis,\nmangeant les chairs abondantes et buvant le doux vin. Et quand\nH\u00e8lios tomba, et quand la nuit vint, mes compagnons s'endormirent\ndans la demeure obscure. Et moi, \u00e9tant mont\u00e9 dans le lit splendide\nde Kirk\u00e8, je saisis ses genoux en la suppliant, et la d\u00e9esse\nentendit ma voix. Et je lui dis ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- \u00d4 Kirk\u00e8, tiens la promesse que tu m'as faite de me renvoyer\ndans ma demeure, car mon \u00e2me me pousse, et mes compagnons\naffligent mon cher coeur et g\u00e9missent autour de moi, quand tu n'es\npas l\u00e0.\n\nJe parlai ainsi, et la noble D\u00e9esse me r\u00e9pondit aussit\u00f4t:\n\n-- Divin Laertiade, subtil Odysseus, vous ne resterez pas plus\nlongtemps malgr\u00e9 vous dans ma demeure; mais il faut accomplir un\nautre voyage et entrer dans la demeure d'Aid\u00e8s et de l'implacable\nPers\u00e9phon\u00e9ia, afin de consulter l'\u00e2me du Th\u00e9bain Teir\u00e9sias, du\ndivinateur aveugle, dont l'esprit est toujours vivant.\nPers\u00e9phon\u00e9ia n'a accord\u00e9 qu'\u00e0 ce seul mort l'intelligence et la\npens\u00e9e. Les autres ne seront que des ombres autour de toi.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et mon cher coeur fut dissous, et je pleurais,\nassis sur le lit, et mon \u00e2me ne voulait plus vivre, ni voir la\nlumi\u00e8re de H\u00e8lios. Mais, apr\u00e8s avoir pleur\u00e9 et m'\u00eatre rassasi\u00e9 de\ndouleur, alors, lui r\u00e9pondant, je lui dis:\n\n-- \u00d4 Kirk\u00e8, qui me montrera le chemin? Personne n'est jamais\narriv\u00e9 chez Aid\u00e9s sur une nef noire.\n\nJe parlai ainsi, et la noble d\u00e9esse me r\u00e9pondit aussit\u00f4t:\n\n-- Divin Laertiade, subtil Odysseus, n'aie aucun souci pour ta\nnef. Assieds-toi, apr\u00e8s avoir dress\u00e9 le m\u00e2t et d\u00e9ploy\u00e9 les\nblanches voiles; et le souffle de Bor\u00e9as conduira ta nef. Mais\nquand tu auras travers\u00e9 l'Ok\u00e9anos, jusqu'au rivage \u00e9troit et aux\nbois sacr\u00e9s de Pers\u00e9phon\u00e9ia, o\u00f9 croissent de hauts peupliers et\ndes saules st\u00e9riles, alors arr\u00eate ta nef dans l'Ok\u00e9anos aux\nprofonds tourbillons, et descends dans la noire demeure d'Aid\u00e8s,\nl\u00e0 o\u00f9 coulent ensemble, dans l'Akh\u00e9r\u00f4n, le Pyriphl\u00e9g\u00e9th\u00f4n et le\nKokytos qui est un courant de l'eau de Styx. Il y a une roche au\nconfluent des deux fleuves retentissants. Tu t'en approcheras,\nh\u00e9ros, comme je te l'ordonne, et tu creuseras l\u00e0 une fosse d'une\ncoud\u00e9e dans tous les sens, et, sur elle, tu feras des libations \u00e0\ntous les morts, de lait mielleux d'abord, puis de vin doux, puis\nenfin d'eau, et tu r\u00e9pandras par-dessus de la farine blanche. Prie\nalors les t\u00eates vaines des morts et promets, d\u00e8s que tu seras\nrentr\u00e9 dans Ithak\u00e8, de sacrifier dans tes demeures la meilleure\nvache st\u00e9rile que tu poss\u00e9deras, d'allumer un b\u00fbcher form\u00e9 de\nchoses pr\u00e9cieuses, et de sacrifier, \u00e0 part, au seul Teir\u00e9sias un\nb\u00e9lier enti\u00e8rement noir, le plus beau de tes troupeaux. Puis,\nayant pri\u00e9 les illustres \u00e2mes des morts, sacrifie un m\u00e2le et une\nbrebis noire, tourne-toi vers l'\u00c9r\u00e9bos, et, te penchant, regarde\ndans le cours du fleuve, et les innombrables \u00e2mes des morts qui ne\nsont plus accourront. Alors, ordonne et commande \u00e0 tes compagnons\nd'\u00e9corcher les animaux \u00e9gorg\u00e9s par l'airain aigu, de les br\u00fbler et\nde les vouer aux dieux, \u00e0 l'illustre Aid\u00e9s et \u00e0 l'implacable\nPers\u00e9phon\u00e9ia. Tire ton \u00e9p\u00e9e aigu\u00eb de sa gaine, le long de ta\ncuisse, et ne permets pas aux ombres vaines des morts de boire le\nsang, avant que tu aies entendu Teir\u00e9sias. Aussit\u00f4t le divinateur\narrivera, \u00f4 chef des peuples, et il te montrera ta route et\ncomment tu la feras pour ton retour, et comment tu traverseras la\nmer poissonneuse.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et aussit\u00f4t \u00c9\u00f4s s'assit sur son thr\u00f4ne d'or. Et\nKirk\u00e8 me rev\u00eatit d'une tunique et d'un manteau. Elle-m\u00eame se\ncouvrit d'une longue robe blanche, l\u00e9g\u00e8re et gracieuse, ceignit\nses reins d'une belle ceinture et mit sur sa t\u00eate un voile couleur\nde feu. Et j'allai par la demeure, excitant mes compagnons, et je\ndis \u00e0 chacun d'eux ces douces paroles:\n\n-- Ne dormez pas plus longtemps, et chassez le doux sommeil, afin\nque nous partions, car la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable Kirk\u00e8 me l'a permis.\n\nJe parlai ainsi, et leur coeur g\u00e9n\u00e9reux fut persuad\u00e9. Mais je\nn'emmenai point tous mes compagnons sains et saufs. Elp\u00e8n\u00f4r, un\nd'eux, jeune, mais ni tr\u00e8s brave, ni intelligent, \u00e0 l'\u00e9cart de ses\ncompagnons, s'\u00e9tait endormi au fa\u00eete des demeures sacr\u00e9es de\nKirk\u00e8, ayant beaucoup bu et recherchant la fra\u00eecheur. Entendant le\nbruit que faisaient ses compagnons, il se leva brusquement,\noubliant de descendre par la longue \u00e9chelle. Et il tomba du haut\ndu toit, et son cou fut rompu, et son \u00e2me descendit chez Aid\u00e9s.\nMais je dis \u00e0 mes compagnons rassembl\u00e9s:\n\n-- Vous pensiez peut-\u00eatre que nous partions pour notre demeure et\npour la ch\u00e8re terre de la patrie? Mais Kirk\u00e8 nous ordonne de\nsuivre une autre route, vers la demeure d'Aid\u00e8s et de l'implacable\nPers\u00e9phon\u00e9ia, afin de consulter l'\u00e2me du Th\u00e9bain Teir\u00e9sias.\n\nJe parlai ainsi, et leur cher coeur fut bris\u00e9, et ils s'assirent,\npleurant et s'arrachant les cheveux. Mais il n'y a nul rem\u00e8de \u00e0\ng\u00e9mir. Et nous parv\u00eenmes \u00e0 notre nef rapide et au rivage de la\nmer, en versant des larmes abondantes. Et, pendant ce temps, Kirk\u00e8\n\u00e9tait venue, apportant dans la nef un b\u00e9lier et une brebis noire;\net elle s'\u00e9tait ais\u00e9ment cach\u00e9e \u00e0 nos yeux car qui pourrait voir\nun dieu et le suivre de ses yeux, s'il ne le voulait pas?\n\n\n11.\n\n\u00c9tant arriv\u00e9s \u00e0 la mer, nous tra\u00een\u00e2mes d'abord notre nef \u00e0 la mer\ndivine. Puis, ayant dress\u00e9 le m\u00e2t, avec les voiles blanches de la\nnef noire, nous y port\u00e2mes les victimes offertes. Et, nous-m\u00eames\nnous y pr\u00eemes place, pleins de tristesse et versant des larmes\nabondantes. Et Kirk\u00e8 \u00e0 la belle chevelure, d\u00e9esse terrible et\n\u00e9loquente, fit souffler pour nous un vent propice derri\u00e8re la nef\n\u00e0 proue bleue, et ce vent, bon compagnon, gonfla la voile.\n\nToutes choses \u00e9tant mises en place sur la nef, nous nous ass\u00eemes,\net le vent et le pilote nous dirigeaient. Et, tout le jour, les\nvoiles de la nef qui courait sur la mer furent d\u00e9ploy\u00e9es, et\nH\u00e8lios tomba, et tous les chemins s'emplirent d'ombre. Et la nef\narriva aux bornes du profond Ok\u00e9anos.\n\nL\u00e0, \u00e9taient le peuple et la ville des Kimm\u00e9riens, toujours\nenvelopp\u00e9s de brouillards et de nu\u00e9es; et jamais le brillant\nH\u00e8lios ne les regardait de ses rayons, ni quand il montait dans\nl'Ouranos \u00e9toil\u00e9, ni quand il descendait de l'Ouranos sur la\nterre; mais une affreuse nuit \u00e9tait toujours suspendue sur les\nmis\u00e9rables hommes. Arriv\u00e9s l\u00e0, nous arr\u00eat\u00e2mes la nef, et, apr\u00e8s en\navoir retir\u00e9 les victimes, nous march\u00e2mes le long du cours\nd'Ok\u00e9anos, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que nous fussions parvenus dans la contr\u00e9e\nque nous avait indiqu\u00e9e Kirk\u00e8. Et P\u00e9rim\u00e8d\u00e8s et Eurylokhos\nportaient les victimes.\n\nAlors je tirai mon \u00e9p\u00e9e aigu\u00eb de sa gaine, le long de ma cuisse,\net je creusai une fosse d'une coud\u00e9e dans tous les sens, et j'y\nfis des libations pour tous les morts, de lait mielleux d'abord,\npuis de vin doux, puis enfin d'eau, et, par-dessus, je r\u00e9pandis la\nfarine blanche. Et je priai les t\u00eates vaines des morts,\npromettant, d\u00e8s que je serais rentr\u00e9 dans Ithak\u00e8, de sacrifier\ndans mes demeures la meilleure vache st\u00e9rile que je poss\u00e9derais,\nd'allumer un b\u00fbcher form\u00e9 de choses pr\u00e9cieuses, et de sacrifier \u00e0\npart, au seul Teir\u00e9sias, un b\u00e9lier enti\u00e8rement noir, le plus beau\nde mes troupeaux. Puis, ayant pri\u00e9 les g\u00e9n\u00e9rations des morts,\nj'\u00e9gorgeai les victimes sur la fosse, et le sang noir y coulait.\nEt les \u00e2mes des morts qui ne sont plus sortaient en foule de\nl'\u00c9r\u00e9bos. Les nouvelles \u00e9pouses, les jeunes hommes, les vieillards\nqui ont subi beaucoup de maux, les tendres vierges ayant un deuil\ndans l'\u00e2me, et les guerriers aux armes sanglantes, bless\u00e9s par les\nlances d'airain, tous s'amassaient de toutes parts sur les bords\nde la fosse, avec un fr\u00e9missement immense. Et la terreur p\u00e2le me\nsaisit.\n\nAlors j'ordonnai \u00e0 mes compagnons d'\u00e9corcher les victimes qui\ngisaient \u00e9gorg\u00e9es par l'airain cruel, de les br\u00fbler et de les\nvouer aux dieux, \u00e0 l'illustre Aid\u00e8s et \u00e0 l'implacable\nPers\u00e9phon\u00e9ia. Et je m'assis, tenant l'\u00e9p\u00e9e aigu\u00eb tir\u00e9e de sa\ngaine, le long de ma cuisse; et je ne permettais pas aux t\u00eates\nvaines des morts de boire le sang, avant que j'eusse entendu\nTeir\u00e9sias.\n\nLa premi\u00e8re, vint l'\u00e2me de mon compagnon Elp\u00e8n\u00f4r. Et il n'avait\npoint \u00e9t\u00e9 enseveli dans la vaste terre, et nous avions laiss\u00e9 son\ncadavre dans les demeures de Kirk\u00e8, non pleur\u00e9 et non enseveli,\ncar un autre souci nous pressait. Et je pleurai en le voyant, et\nje fus plein de piti\u00e9 dans le coeur. Et je lui dis ces paroles\nail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Elp\u00e8n\u00f4r, comment es-tu venu dans les \u00e9paisses t\u00e9n\u00e8bres? Comment\nas-tu march\u00e9 plus vite que moi sur ma nef noire?\n\nJe parlai ainsi, et il me r\u00e9pondit en pleurant:\n\n-- Divin Laertiade, subtil Odysseus, la mauvaise volont\u00e9 d'un\ndaim\u00f4n et l'abondance du vin m'ont perdu. Dormant sur la demeure\nde Kirk\u00e8, je ne songeai pas \u00e0 descendre par la longue \u00e9chelle, et\nje tombai du haut du toit, et mon cou fut rompu, et je descendis\nchez Aid\u00e8s. Maintenant, je te supplie par ceux qui sont loin de\ntoi, par ta femme, par ton p\u00e8re qui t'a nourri tout petit, par\nT\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, l'enfant unique que tu as laiss\u00e9 dans tes demeures! Je\nsais qu'en sortant de la demeure d'Aid\u00e8s tu retourneras sur ta nef\nbien construite \u00e0 l'\u00eele Aiai\u00e8. L\u00e0, \u00f4 roi, je te demande de te\nsouvenir de moi, et de ne point partir, me laissant non pleur\u00e9 et\nnon enseveli, de peur que je ne te cause la col\u00e8re des dieux; mais\nde me br\u00fbler avec toutes mes armes. \u00c9l\u00e8ve sur le bord de la mer\n\u00e9cumeuse le tombeau de ton compagnon malheureux. Accomplis ces\nchoses, afin qu'on se souvienne de moi dans l'avenir, et plante\nsur mon tombeau l'aviron dont je me servais quand j'\u00e9tais avec mes\ncompagnons.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, lui r\u00e9pondant, je dis:\n\n-- Malheureux, j'accomplirai toutes ces choses.\n\nNous nous parlions ainsi tristement, et je tenais mon \u00e9p\u00e9e au-\ndessus du sang, tandis que, de l'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la fosse, mon\ncompagnon parlait longuement. Puis, arriva l'\u00e2me de ma m\u00e8re morte,\nd'Antikl\u00e9ia, fille du magnanime Autolykos, que j'avais laiss\u00e9e\nvivante en partant pour la sainte Ilios. Et je pleurai en la\nvoyant, le coeur plein de piti\u00e9; mais, malgr\u00e9 ma tristesse, je ne\nlui permis pas de boire le sang avant que j'eusse entendu\nTeir\u00e9sias. Et l'\u00e2me du Th\u00e9bain Teir\u00e9sias arriva, tenant un sceptre\nd'or, et elle me reconnut et me dit:\n\n-- Pourquoi, \u00f4 malheureux, ayant quitt\u00e9 la lumi\u00e8re de H\u00e8lios, es-\ntu venu pour voir les morts et leur pays lamentable? Mais recule\nde la fosse, \u00e9carte ton \u00e9p\u00e9e, afin que je boive le sang, et je te\ndirai la v\u00e9rit\u00e9.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, me reculant, je remis dans la gaine mon \u00e9p\u00e9e\naux clous d'argent. Et il but le sang noir, et, alors,\nl'irr\u00e9prochable divinateur me dit:\n\n-- Tu d\u00e9sires un retour tr\u00e8s facile, illustre Odysseus, mais un\ndieu te le rendra difficile; car je ne pense pas que celui qui\nentoure la terre apaise sa col\u00e8re dans son coeur, et il est irrit\u00e9\nparce que tu as aveugl\u00e9 son fils. Vous arriverez cependant, apr\u00e8s\navoir beaucoup souffert, si tu veux contenir ton esprit et celui\nde tes compagnons. En ce temps, quand ta nef solide aura abord\u00e9\nl'\u00eele Thrinaki\u00e8, o\u00f9 vous \u00e9chapperez \u00e0 la sombre mer, vous\ntrouverez l\u00e0, paissant, les boeufs et les gras troupeaux de H\u00e8lios\nqui voit et entend tout. Si vous les laissez sains et saufs, si tu\nte souviens de ton retour, vous parviendrez tous dans Ithak\u00e8,\napr\u00e8s avoir beaucoup souffert; mais, si tu les blesses, je te\npr\u00e9dis la perte de ta nef et de tes compagnons. Tu \u00e9chapperas\nseul, et tu reviendras mis\u00e9rablement, ayant perdu ta nef et tes\ncompagnons, sur une nef \u00e9trang\u00e8re. Et tu trouveras le malheur dans\nta demeure et des hommes orgueilleux qui consumeront tes\nrichesses, recherchant ta femme et lui offrant des pr\u00e9sents. Mais,\ncertes, tu te vengeras de leurs outrages en arrivant. Et, apr\u00e8s\nque tu auras tu\u00e9 les pr\u00e9tendants dans ta demeure, soit par ruse,\nsoit ouvertement avec l'airain aigu, tu partiras de nouveau, et tu\niras, portant un aviron l\u00e9ger, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que tu rencontres des\nhommes qui ne connaissent point la mer et qui ne salent point ce\nqu'ils mangent, et qui ignorent les nefs aux proues rouges et les\navirons qui sont les ailes des nefs. Et je te dirai un signe\nmanifeste qui ne t'\u00e9chappera pas. Quand tu rencontreras un autre\nvoyageur qui croira voir un fl\u00e9au sur ta brillante \u00e9paule, alors,\nplante l'aviron en terre et fais de saintes offrandes au roi\nPoseida\u00f4n, un b\u00e9lier, un taureau et un verrat. Et tu retourneras\ndans ta demeure, et tu feras, selon leur rang, de saintes\nh\u00e9catombes \u00e0 tous les dieux immortels qui habitent le large\nOuranos. Et la douce mort te viendra de la mer et te tuera consum\u00e9\nd'une heureuse vieillesse, tandis qu'autour de toi les peuples\nseront heureux. Et je t'ai dit, certes, des choses vraies.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et je lui r\u00e9pondis:\n\n-- Teir\u00e9sias, les dieux eux-m\u00eames, sans doute, ont r\u00e9solu ces\nchoses. Mais dis-moi la v\u00e9rit\u00e9. Je vois l'\u00e2me de ma m\u00e8re qui est\nmorte. Elle se tait et reste loin du sang, et elle n'ose ni\nregarder son fils, ni lui parler. Dis-moi, \u00f4 roi, comment elle me\nreconna\u00eetra.\n\nJe parlai ainsi, et il me r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Je t'expliquerai ceci ais\u00e9ment. Garde mes paroles dans ton\nesprit. Tous ceux des morts qui ne sont plus, \u00e0 qui tu laisseras\nboire le sang, te diront des choses vraies; celui \u00e0 qui tu\nrefuseras cela s'\u00e9loignera de toi.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, l'\u00e2me du roi Teir\u00e9sias, apr\u00e8s avoir rendu ses\noracles, rentra dans la demeure d'Aid\u00e8s; mais je restai sans\nbouger jusqu'\u00e0 ce que ma m\u00e8re f\u00fbt venue et e\u00fbt bu le sang noir. Et\naussit\u00f4t elle me reconnut, et elle me dit, en g\u00e9missant, ces\nparoles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Mon fils, comment es-tu venu sous le noir brouillard, vivant\nque tu es? Il est difficile aux vivants de voir ces choses. Il y a\nentre celles-ci et eux de grands fleuves et des courants violents,\nOk\u00e9anos d'abord qu'on ne peut traverser, \u00e0 moins d'avoir une nef\nbien construite. Si, maintenant, longtemps errant en revenant de\nTroi\u00e8, tu es venu ici sur ta nef et avec tes compagnons, tu n'as\ndonc point revu Ithak\u00e8, ni ta demeure, ni ta femme?\n\nElle parla ainsi, et je lui r\u00e9pondis:\n\n-- Ma m\u00e8re, la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 m'a pouss\u00e9 vers les demeures d'Aid\u00e8s,\nafin de demander un oracle \u00e0 l'\u00e2me du Th\u00e9bain Teir\u00e9sias. Je n'ai\npoint en effet abord\u00e9 ni l'Akhai\u00e8, ni notre terre; mais j'ai\ntoujours err\u00e9, plein de mis\u00e8res, depuis le jour o\u00f9 j'ai suivi le\ndivin Agamemn\u00f4n \u00e0 Ilios qui nourrit d'excellents chevaux, afin d'y\ncombattre les Troiens. Mais dis-moi la v\u00e9rit\u00e9. Comment la k\u00e8r de\nla cruelle mort t'a-t-elle dompt\u00e9e? Est-ce par une maladie? Ou\nbien Art\u00e9mis qui se r\u00e9jouit de ses fl\u00e8ches t'a-t-elle atteinte de\nses doux traits? Parle-moi de mon p\u00e8re et de mon fils. Mes biens\nsont-ils encore entre leurs mains, ou quelque autre parmi les\nhommes les poss\u00e8de-t-il? Tous, certes, pensent que je ne\nreviendrai plus. Dis-moi aussi les desseins et les pens\u00e9es de ma\nfemme que j'ai \u00e9pous\u00e9e. Reste-t-elle avec son enfant? Garde-t-elle\ntoutes mes richesses intactes? ou d\u00e9j\u00e0, l'un des premiers Akhaiens\nl'a-t-il emmen\u00e9e?\n\nJe parlai ainsi, et, aussit\u00f4t, ma m\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable me r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Elle reste toujours dans tes demeures, le coeur afflig\u00e9,\npleurant, et consumant ses jours et ses nuits dans le chagrin. Et\nnul autre ne poss\u00e8de ton beau domaine; et T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos jouit,\ntranquille, de tes biens, et prend part \u00e0 de beaux repas, comme il\nconvient \u00e0 un homme qui rend la justice, car tous le convient. Et\nton p\u00e8re reste dans son champ; et il ne vient plus \u00e0 la ville, et\nil n'a plus ni lits moelleux, ni manteaux, ni couvertures\nluisantes. Mais, l'hiver, il dort avec ses esclaves dans les\ncendres pr\u00e8s du foyer, et il couvre son corps de haillons; et\nquand vient l'\u00e9t\u00e9, puis l'automne verdoyant, partout, dans sa\nvigne fertile, on lui fait un lit de feuilles tomb\u00e9es, et il se\ncouche l\u00e0, triste; et une grande douleur s'accro\u00eet dans son coeur,\net il pleure ta destin\u00e9e, et la dure vieillesse l'accable. Pour\nmoi, je suis morte, et j'ai subi la destin\u00e9e; mais Art\u00e9mis habile\n\u00e0 lancer des fl\u00e8ches ne m'a point tu\u00e9e de ses doux traits dans ma\ndemeure, et la maladie ne m'a point saisie, elle qui enl\u00e8ve l'\u00e2me\ndu corps affreusement fl\u00e9tri; mais le regret, le chagrin de ton\nabsence, illustre Odysseus, et le souvenir de ta bont\u00e9, m'ont\npriv\u00e9e de la douce vie.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et je voulus, agit\u00e9 dans mon esprit, embrasser\nl'\u00e2me de ma m\u00e8re morte. Et je m'\u00e9lan\u00e7ai trois fois, et mon coeur\nme poussait \u00e0 l'embrasser, et trois fois elle se dissipa comme une\nombre, semblable \u00e0 un songe. Et une vive douleur s'accrut dans mon\ncoeur, et je lui dis ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Ma m\u00e8re, pourquoi ne m'attends-tu pas quand je d\u00e9sire\nt'embrasser? M\u00eame chez Aid\u00e8s, nous entourant de nos chers bras,\nnous nous serions rassasi\u00e9s de deuil! N'es-tu qu'une image que\nl'illustre Pers\u00e9phon\u00e9ia suscite afin que je g\u00e9misse davantage?\n\nJe parlai ainsi, et ma m\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable me r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- H\u00e9las! mon enfant, le plus malheureux de tous les hommes,\nPers\u00e9phon\u00e9ia, fille de Zeus, ne se joue point de toi; mais telle\nest la loi des mortels quand ils sont morts. En effet, les nerfs\nne soutiennent plus les chairs et les os, et la force du feu\nardent les consume aussit\u00f4t que la vie abandonne les os blancs, et\nl'\u00e2me vole comme un songe. Mais retourne promptement \u00e0 la lumi\u00e8re\ndes vivants, et souviens-toi de toutes ces choses, afin de les\nredire \u00e0 P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia.\n\nNous parlions ainsi, et les femmes et les filles des h\u00e9ros\naccoururent, excit\u00e9es par l'illustre Pers\u00e9phon\u00e9ia. Et elles\ns'assemblaient, innombrables, autour du sang noir. Et je songeais\ncomment je les interrogerais tour \u00e0 tour; et il me sembla\nmeilleur, dans mon esprit, de tirer mon \u00e9p\u00e9e aigu\u00eb de la gaine, le\nlong de ma cuisse, et de ne point leur permettre de boire, toutes\n\u00e0 la fois, le sang noir. Et elles approch\u00e8rent tour \u00e0 tour, et\nchacune disait son origine, et je les interrogeais l'une apr\u00e8s\nl'autre.\n\nEt je vis d'abord Tyr\u00f4, n\u00e9e d'un noble p\u00e8re, car elle me dit\nqu'elle \u00e9tait la fille de l'irr\u00e9prochable Salmoneus et la femme de\nKr\u00e8theus Aioliade. Et elle aimait le divin fleuve \u00c9nipeus, qui est\nle plus beau des fleuves qui coulent sur la terre; et elle se\npromenait le long des belles eaux de l'\u00c9nipeus. Sous la figure de\nce dernier, celui qui entoure la terre et qui la secoue sortit des\nbouches du fleuve tourbillonnant; et une lame bleue, \u00e9gale en\nhauteur \u00e0 une montagne, enveloppa, en se recourbant, le dieu et la\nfemme mortelle. Et il d\u00e9noua sa ceinture de vierge, et il r\u00e9pandit\nsur elle le sommeil. Puis, ayant accompli le travail amoureux, il\nprit la main de Tyr\u00f4 et lui dit:\n\n-- R\u00e9jouis-toi, femme, de mon amour. Dans une ann\u00e9e tu enfanteras\nde beaux enfants, car la couche des immortels n'est point\ninf\u00e9conde. Nourris et \u00e9l\u00e8ve-les. Maintenant, va vers ta demeure,\nmais prends garde et ne me nomme pas. Je suis pour toi seule\nPoseida\u00f4n qui \u00e9branle la terre.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il plongea dans la mer agit\u00e9e. Et Tyr\u00f4, devenue\nenceinte, enfanta P\u00e9li\u00e8s et N\u00e8leus, illustres serviteurs du grand\nZeus. Et P\u00e9li\u00e8s riche en troupeaux habita la grande Iaolk\u00f4s, et\nN\u00e8leus la sablonneuse Pylos. Puis, la reine des femmes con\u00e7ut de\nson mari, Ais\u00f4n, Ph\u00e9r\u00e8s et le dompteur de chevaux Hamytha\u00f4r.\n\nPuis, je vis Antiop\u00e8, fille d'Aisopos, qui se glorifiait d'avoir\ndormi dans les bras de Zeus. Elle en eut deux fils, Amphi\u00f4n et\nZ\u00e8thos, qui, les premiers, b\u00e2tirent Th\u00e8b\u00e8 aux sept portes et\nl'environn\u00e8rent de tours. Car ils n'auraient pu, sans ces tours,\nhabiter la grande Th\u00e8b\u00e8, malgr\u00e9 leur courage.\n\nPuis, je vis Alkm\u00e8n\u00e8, la femme d'Amphitry\u00f4n, qui con\u00e7ut H\u00e8rakl\u00e8s\nau coeur de lion dans l'embrassement du magnanime Zeus; puis,\nM\u00e8gar\u00e8, fille de l'orgueilleux Kr\u00e8i\u00f4n, et qu'eut pour femme\nl'Amphitryonade indomptable dans sa force.\n\nPuis, je vis la m\u00e8re d'Oidipous, la belle \u00c9pikast\u00e8, qui commit un\ngrand crime dans sa d\u00e9mence, s'\u00e9tant mari\u00e9e \u00e0 son fils. Et celui-\nci, ayant tu\u00e9 son p\u00e8re, \u00e9pousa sa m\u00e8re. Et les dieux r\u00e9v\u00e9l\u00e8rent\nces actions aux hommes. Et Oidipous, subissant de grandes douleurs\ndans la d\u00e9sirable Th\u00e8b\u00e8, commanda aux Kadm\u00e9iones par la volont\u00e9\ncruelle des dieux. Et \u00c9pikast\u00e8 descendit dans les demeures aux\nportes solides d'Aid\u00e8s, ayant attach\u00e9, saisie de douleur, une\ncorde \u00e0 une haute poutre, et laissant \u00e0 son fils les innombrables\nmaux que font souffrir les \u00c9rinnyes d'une m\u00e8re.\n\nPuis, je vis la belle Khl\u00f4ris qu'autrefois N\u00e8leus \u00e9pousa pour sa\nbeaut\u00e9, apr\u00e8s lui avoir offert les pr\u00e9sents nuptiaux. Et c'\u00e9tait\nla plus jeune fille d'Amphi\u00f4n laside qui commanda autrefois\npuissamment sur Orkhom\u00e8nos Miny\u00e8\u00e9nne et sur Pylos. Et elle con\u00e7ut\nde lui de beaux enfants, Nest\u00f4r, Khromios et l'orgueilleux\nP\u00e9riklym\u00e9nos. Puis, elle enfanta l'illustre P\u00e8r\u00f4, l'admiration des\nhommes qui la suppliaient tous, voulant l'\u00e9pouser; mais N\u00e8leus ne\nvoulait la donner qu'\u00e0 celui qui enl\u00e8verait de Phylak\u00e8 les boeufs\nau large front de la Force Iphikl\u00e9enne. Seul, un divinateur\nirr\u00e9prochable le promit; mais la moire contraire d'un dieu, les\nrudes liens et les bergers l'en emp\u00each\u00e8rent. Cependant, quand les\njours et les mois se furent \u00e9coul\u00e9s, et que, l'ann\u00e9e achev\u00e9e, les\nsaisons recommenc\u00e8rent, alors la force Iphikl\u00e9enne d\u00e9livra\nl'irr\u00e9prochable divinateur, et le dessein de Zeus s'accomplit.\n\nPuis, je vis L\u00e8d\u00e8, femme de Tyndaros. Et elle con\u00e7ut de Tyndaros\ndes fils excellents, Kastor dompteur de chevaux et Polydeuk\u00e8s\nformidable par ses poings. La terre nourrici\u00e8re les enferme,\nencore vivants, et, sous la terre, ils sont honor\u00e9s par Zeus. Ils\nvivent l'un apr\u00e8s l'autre et meurent de m\u00eame, et sont \u00e9galement\nhonor\u00e9s par les dieux.\n\nPuis, je vis Iphim\u00e9d\u00e9ia, femme d'A\u00f4leus, et qui disait s'\u00eatre unie\n\u00e0 Poseida\u00f4n. Et elle enfanta deux fils dont la vie fut br\u00e8ve, le\nh\u00e9ros Otos et l'illustre \u00c9phialt\u00e8s, et ils \u00e9taient les plus grands\net les plus beaux qu'e\u00fbt nourris la terre f\u00e9conde, apr\u00e8s\nl'illustre Ori\u00f4n. Ayant neuf ans, ils \u00e9taient larges de neuf\ncoud\u00e9es, et ils avaient neuf brasses de haut. Et ils menac\u00e8rent\nles immortels de porter dans l'Olympos le combat de la guerre\ntumultueuse. Et ils tent\u00e8rent de poser l'Ossa sur l'Olympos et le\nP\u00e8lios bois\u00e9 sur l'Ossa, afin d'atteindre l'Ouranos. Et peut-\u00eatre\neussent-ils accompli leurs menaces, s'ils avaient eu leur pubert\u00e9;\nmais le fils de Zeus, qu'enfanta L\u00e8t\u00f4 aux beaux cheveux, les tua\ntous deux, avant que le duvet fleurit sur leurs joues et qu'une\nbarbe \u00e9paisse couvr\u00eet leurs mentons.\n\nPuis, je vis Phaidr\u00e8, et Prokris, et la belle Ariadn\u00e8, fille du\nsage Min\u00f4s, que Th\u00e8seus conduisit autrefois de la Kr\u00e8t\u00e8 dans la\nterre sacr\u00e9e des Ath\u00e9naiens; mais il ne le put pas, car Art\u00e9mis,\nsur l'avertissement de Dionysos, retint Ariadn\u00e8 dans Di\u00e8 entour\u00e9e\ndes flots.\n\nPuis, je vis Mair\u00e8, et Klym\u00e9n\u00e8, et la funeste \u00c9riphyl\u00e8 qui trahit\nson mari pour de l'or.\n\nMais je ne pourrais ni vous dire combien je vis de femmes et de\nfilles de h\u00e9ros, ni vous les nommer avant la fin de la nuit\ndivine. Voici l'heure de dormir, soit dans la nef rapide avec mes\ncompagnons, soit ici; car c'est aux dieux et \u00e0 vous de prendre\nsoin de mon d\u00e9part.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous rest\u00e8rent immobiles et pleins de plaisir\ndans la demeure obscure. Alors, Ar\u00e8t\u00e8 aux bras blancs parla la\npremi\u00e8re:\n\n-- Phaiakiens, que penserons-nous de ce h\u00e9ros, de sa beaut\u00e9, de sa\nmajest\u00e9 et de son esprit immuable? Il est, certes, mon h\u00f4te, et\nc'est un honneur que vous partagez tous. Mais ne vous h\u00e2tez point\nde le renvoyer sans lui faire des pr\u00e9sents, car il ne poss\u00e8de\nrien. Par la bont\u00e9 des Dieux nous avons beaucoup de richesses dans\nnos demeures.\n\nAlors, le vieux h\u00e9ros Ekh\u00e9neus parla ainsi, et c'\u00e9tait le plus\nvieux des Phaiakiens:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis, la reine prudente nous parle selon le sens droit.\nOb\u00e9issez donc. C'est \u00e0 Alkinoos de parler et d'agir, et nous\nl'imiterons.\n\nEt Alkinoos dit:\n\n-- Je ne puis parler autrement, tant que je vivrai et que je\ncommanderai aux Phaiakiens habiles dans la navigation. Mais que\nnotre h\u00f4te reste, malgr\u00e9 son d\u00e9sir de partir, et qu'il attende le\nmatin, afin que je r\u00e9unisse tous les pr\u00e9sents. Le soin de son\nretour me regarde plus encore que tous les autres, car je commande\npour le peuple.\n\nEt le subtil Odysseus, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi:\n\n-- Roi Alkinoos, le plus illustre de tout le peuple, si vous\nm'ordonniez de rester ici toute l'ann\u00e9e, tandis que vous\npr\u00e9pareriez mon d\u00e9part et que vous r\u00e9uniriez de splendides\npr\u00e9sents, j'y consentirais volontiers; car il vaudrait mieux pour\nmoi rentrer les mains pleines dans ma ch\u00e8re patrie. J'en serais\nplus aim\u00e9 et plus honor\u00e9 de tous ceux qui me verraient de retour\ndans Ithak\u00e8.\n\nEt Alkinoos lui dit:\n\n-- \u00d4 Odysseus, certes, nous ne pouvons te soup\u00e7onner d'\u00eatre un\nmenteur et un voleur, comme tant d'autres vagabonds, que nourrit\nla noire terre, qui ne disent que des mensonges dont nul ne peut\nrien comprendre. Mais ta beaut\u00e9, ton \u00e9loquence, ce que tu as\nracont\u00e9, d'accord avec l'Aoide, des maux cruels des Akhaiens et\ndes tiens, tout a p\u00e9n\u00e9tr\u00e9 en nous. Dis-moi donc et parle avec\nv\u00e9rit\u00e9, si tu as vu quelques-uns de tes illustres compagnons qui\nt'ont suivi \u00e0 Ilios et que la destin\u00e9e a frapp\u00e9s l\u00e0. La nuit sera\nencore longue, et le temps n'est point venu de dormir dans nos\ndemeures. Dis-moi donc tes travaux admirables. Certes, je\nt'\u00e9couterai jusqu'au retour de la divine \u00c9\u00f4s, si tu veux nous dire\ntes douleurs.\n\nEt le subtil Odysseus parla ainsi:\n\n-- Roi Alkinoos, le plus illustre de tout le peuple, il y a un\ntemps de parler et un temps de dormir; mais, si tu d\u00e9sires\nm'entendre, certes, je ne refuserai pas de raconter les mis\u00e8res et\nles douleurs de mes compagnons, de ceux qui ont p\u00e9ri auparavant,\nou qui, ayant \u00e9chapp\u00e9 \u00e0 la guerre lamentable des Troiens, ont p\u00e9ri\nau retour par la ruse d'une femme perfide.\n\nApr\u00e8s que la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable Pers\u00e9phon\u00e9ia eut dispers\u00e9 \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0 les \u00e2mes\ndes femmes, survint l'\u00e2me pleine de tristesse de l'Atr\u00e9ide\nAgamemn\u00f4n; et elle \u00e9tait entour\u00e9e de toutes les \u00e2mes de ceux qui\navaient subi la destin\u00e9e et qui avaient p\u00e9ri avec lui dans la\ndemeure d'Aigisthos.\n\nAyant bu le sang noir, il me reconnut aussit\u00f4t, et il pleura, en\nversant des larmes am\u00e8res, et il \u00e9tendit les bras pour me saisir;\nmais la force qui \u00e9tait en lui autrefois n'\u00e9tait plus, ni la\nvigueur qui animait ses membres souples. Et je pleurai en le\nvoyant, plein de piti\u00e9 dans mon coeur, et je lui dis ces paroles\nail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n, roi des hommes, comment la k\u00e8r de la dure\nmort t'a-t-elle dompt\u00e9? Poseida\u00f4n t'a-t-il dompt\u00e9 dans tes nefs en\nexcitant les immenses souffles des vents terribles, ou des hommes\nennemis t'ont-ils frapp\u00e9 sur la terre ferme, tandis que tu\nenlevais leurs boeufs et leurs beaux troupeaux de brebis, ou bien\nque tu combattais pour ta ville et pour tes femmes?\n\nJe parlai ainsi, et, aussit\u00f4t, il me r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Divin Laertiade, subtil Odysseus, Poseida\u00f4n ne m'a point dompt\u00e9\nsur mes nefs, en excitant les immenses souffles des vents\nterribles, et des hommes ennemis ne m'ont point frapp\u00e9 sur la\nterre ferme; mais Aigisthos m'a inflig\u00e9 la k\u00e8r et la mort \u00e0 l'aide\nde ma femme perfide. M'ayant convi\u00e9 \u00e0 un repas dans la demeure, il\nm'a tu\u00e9 comme un boeuf \u00e0 l'\u00e9table. J'ai subi ainsi une tr\u00e8s\nlamentable mort. Et, autour de moi, mes compagnons ont \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9gorg\u00e9s\ncomme des porcs aux dents blanches, qui sont tu\u00e9s dans les\ndemeures d'un homme riche et puissant, pour des noces, des festins\nsacr\u00e9s ou des repas de f\u00eate. Certes, tu t'es trouv\u00e9 au milieu du\ncarnage de nombreux guerriers, entour\u00e9 de morts, dans la terrible\nm\u00eal\u00e9e; mais tu aurais g\u00e9mi dans ton coeur de voir cela. Et nous\ngisions dans les demeures, parmi les krat\u00e8res et les tables\ncharg\u00e9es, et toute la salle \u00e9tait souill\u00e9e de sang. Et j'entendais\nla voix lamentable de la fille de Priamos, Kassandr\u00e8, que la\nperfide Klytaimnestr\u00e8 \u00e9gorgeait aupr\u00e8s de moi. Et comme j'\u00e9tais\n\u00e9tendu mourant, je soulevai mes mains vers mon \u00e9p\u00e9e; mais la femme\naux yeux de chien s'\u00e9loigna et elle ne voulut point fermer mes\nyeux et ma bouche au moment o\u00f9 je descendais dans la demeure\nd'Aid\u00e8s. Rien n'est plus cruel, ni plus impie qu'une femme qui a\npu m\u00e9diter de tels crimes. Ainsi, certes, Klytaimnestr\u00e8 pr\u00e9para le\nmeurtre mis\u00e9rable du premier mari qui la poss\u00e9da, et je p\u00e9ris\nainsi, quand je croyais rentrer dans ma demeure, bien accueilli de\nmes enfants, de mes servantes et de mes esclaves! Mais cette\nfemme, pleine d'affreuses pens\u00e9es, couvrira de sa honte toutes les\nautres femmes futures, et m\u00eame celles qui auront la sagesse en\npartage.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et je lui r\u00e9pondis:\n\n-- \u00d4 dieux! combien, certes, Zeus qui tonne hautement n'a-t-il\npoint ha\u00ef la race d'Atreus \u00e0 cause des actions des femmes! D\u00e9j\u00e0, \u00e0\ncause de H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 beaucoup d'entre nous sont morts, et Klytaimnestr\u00e8\npr\u00e9parait sa trahison pendant que tu \u00e9tais absent.\n\nJe parlai ainsi, et il me r\u00e9pondit aussit\u00f4t:\n\n-- C'est pourquoi, maintenant, ne sois jamais trop bon envers ta\nfemme, et ne lui confie point toutes tes pens\u00e9es, mais n'en dis\nque quelques-unes et cache-lui en une partie. Mais pour toi,\nOdysseus, ta perte ne te viendra point de ta femme, car la sage\nfille d'Ikarios, P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia, est pleine de prudence et de bonnes\npens\u00e9es dans son esprit. Nous l'avons laiss\u00e9e nouvellement mari\u00e9e\nquand nous sommes partis pour la guerre, et son fils enfant \u00e9tait\nsuspendu \u00e0 sa mamelle; et maintenant celui-ci s'assied parmi les\nhommes; et il est heureux, car son cher p\u00e8re le verra en arrivant,\net il embrassera son p\u00e8re. Pour moi, ma femme n'a point permis \u00e0\nmes yeux de se rassasier de mon fils, et m'a tu\u00e9 auparavant. Mais\nje te dirai une autre chose; garde mon conseil dans ton esprit:\nFais aborder ta nef dans la ch\u00e8re terre de la patrie, non\nouvertement, mais en secret; car il ne faut point se confier dans\nles femmes. Maintenant, parle et dis-moi la v\u00e9rit\u00e9. As-tu entendu\ndire que mon fils f\u00fbt encore vivant, soit \u00e0 Orkhom\u00e9nos, soit dans\nla sablonneuse Pylos, soit aupr\u00e8s de M\u00e9n\u00e9laos dans la grande\nSparta? En effet, le divin Orest\u00e8s n'est point encore mort sur la\nterre.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et je lui r\u00e9pondis:\n\n-- Atr\u00e9ide, pourquoi me demandes-tu ces choses? Je ne sais s'il\nest mort ou vivant. Il ne faut point parler inutilement.\n\nEt nous \u00e9changions ainsi de tristes paroles, afflig\u00e9s et r\u00e9pandant\ndes larmes. Et l'\u00e2me du P\u00e8l\u00e8iade Akhilleus survint, celle de\nPatroklos, et celle de l'irr\u00e9prochable Antilokhos, et celle d'Aias\nqui \u00e9tait le plus grand et le plus beau de tous les Akhaiens,\napr\u00e8s l'irr\u00e9prochable P\u00e8l\u00e9i\u00f4n. Et l'\u00e2me du rapide Aiakide me\nreconnut, et, en g\u00e9missant, il me dit ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Divin Laertiade, subtil Odysseus, malheureux, comment as-tu pu\nm\u00e9diter quelque chose de plus grand que tes autres actions?\nComment as-tu os\u00e9 venir chez Aid\u00e9s o\u00f9 habitent les images vaines\ndes hommes morts?\n\nIl parla ainsi, et je lui r\u00e9pondis:\n\n-- \u00d4 Akhilleus, fils de P\u00e8leus, le plus brave des Akhaiens, je\nsuis venu pour l'oracle de Teir\u00e9sias, afin qu'il m'apprenne\ncomment je parviendrai dans l'\u00e2pre Ithak\u00e8, car je n'ai abord\u00e9 ni\nl'Akhai\u00e8, ni la terre de ma patrie, et j'ai toujours souffert.\nMais toi, Akhilleus, aucun des anciens hommes n'a \u00e9t\u00e9, ni aucun\ndes hommes futurs ne sera plus heureux que toi. Vivant, nous,\nAkhaiens, nous t'honorions comme un dieu, et, maintenant, tu\ncommandes \u00e0 tous les morts. Tel que te voil\u00e0, et bien que mort, ne\nte plains pas, Akhilleus.\n\nJe parlai ainsi, et il me r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ne me parle point de la mort, illustre Odysseus. J'aimerais\nmieux \u00eatre un laboureur, et servir, pour un salaire, un homme\npauvre et pouvant \u00e0 peine se nourrir, que de commander \u00e0 tous les\nmorts qui ne sont plus. Mais parle-moi de mon illustre fils.\nCombat-il au premier rang, ou non? Dis-moi ce que tu as appris de\nl'irr\u00e9prochable P\u00e8leus. Poss\u00e8de-t-il encore les m\u00eames honneurs\nparmi les nombreux Myrmidones, ou le m\u00e9prisent-ils dans Hellas et\ndans la Phthi\u00e8, parce que ses mains et ses pieds sont li\u00e9s par la\nvieillesse? En effet, je ne suis plus l\u00e0 pour le d\u00e9fendre, sous la\nsplendeur de H\u00e8lios, tel que j'\u00e9tais autrefois devant la grande\nTroi\u00e8, quand je domptais les plus braves, en combattant pour les\nAkhaiens. Si j'apparaissais ainsi, un instant, dans la demeure de\nmon p\u00e8re, certes, je dompterais de ma force et de mes mains\nin\u00e9vitables ceux qui l'outragent ou qui lui enl\u00e8vent ses honneurs.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et je lui r\u00e9pondis:\n\n-- Certes, je n'ai rien appris de l'irr\u00e9prochable P\u00e8leus; mais je\nte dirai toute la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, comme tu le d\u00e9sires, sur ton cher fils\nN\u00e9optol\u00e9mos. Je l'ai conduit moi-m\u00eame, sur une nef creuse, de\nl'\u00eele Skyros vers les Akhaiens aux belles kn\u00e8mides. Quand nous\nconvoquions l'agora devant la ville Troi\u00e8, il parlait le premier\nsans se tromper jamais, et l'illustre Nest\u00f4r et moi nous luttions\nseuls contre lui. Toutes les fois que nous, Akhaiens, nous\ncombattions autour de la ville des Troiens, jamais il ne restait\ndans la foule des guerriers, ni dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e; mais il courait en\navant, ne le c\u00e9dant \u00e0 personne en courage. Et il tua beaucoup de\nguerriers dans le combat terrible, et je ne pourrais ni les\nrappeler, ni les nommer tous, tant il en a tu\u00e9 en d\u00e9fendant les\nAkhaiens. C'est ainsi qu'il tua avec l'airain le h\u00e9ros T\u00e8l\u00e9phide\nEurypylos; et autour de celui-ci de nombreux K\u00e8t\u00e9iens furent tu\u00e9s\n\u00e0 cause des pr\u00e9sents des femmes. Et Eurypylos \u00e9tait le plus beau\ndes hommes que j'aie vus, apr\u00e8s le divin Memn\u00f4n. Et quand nous\nmont\u00e2mes, nous, les princes des Akhaiens, dans le cheval qu'avait\nfait \u00c9p\u00e9ios, c'est \u00e0 moi qu'ils remirent le soin d'ouvrir ou de\nfermer cette \u00e9norme emb\u00fbche. Et les autres chefs des Akhaiens\nversaient des larmes, et les membres de chacun tremblaient; mais\nlui, je ne le vis jamais ni p\u00e2lir, ni trembler, ni pleurer. Et il\nme suppliait de le laisser sortir du cheval, et il secouait son\n\u00e9p\u00e9e et sa lance lourde d'airain, en m\u00e9ditant la perte des\nTroiens. Et quand nous e\u00fbmes renvers\u00e9 la haute ville de Priamos,\nil monta, avec une illustre part du butin, sur sa nef, sain et\nsauf, n'ayant jamais \u00e9t\u00e9 bless\u00e9 de l'airain aigu, ni de pr\u00e8s ni de\nloin, comme il arrive toujours dans la guerre, quand Ar\u00e8s m\u00eale\nfurieusement les guerriers.\n\nJe parlai ainsi, et l'\u00e2me de l'Aiakide aux pieds rapides\ns'\u00e9loigna, marchant fi\u00e8rement sur la prairie d'asphod\u00e8le, et\njoyeuse, parce que je lui avais dit que son fils \u00e9tait illustre\npar son courage.\n\nEt les autres \u00e2mes de ceux qui ne sont plus s'avan\u00e7aient\ntristement, et chacune me disait ses douleurs; mais, seule, l'\u00e2me\ndu T\u00e9lamoniade Aias restait \u00e0 l'\u00e9cart, irrit\u00e9e \u00e0 cause de la\nvictoire que j'avais remport\u00e9e sur lui, aupr\u00e8s des nefs, pour les\narmes d'Akhilleus. La m\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable de l'Aiakide les d\u00e9posa\ndevant tous, et nos juges furent les fils des Troiens et Pallas\nAth\u00e8n\u00e8. Pl\u00fbt aux dieux que je ne l'eusse point emport\u00e9 dans cette\nlutte qui envoya sous la terre une telle t\u00eate, Aias, le plus beau\net le plus brave des Akhaiens apr\u00e8s l'irr\u00e9prochable P\u00e8l\u00e9i\u00f4n! Et je\nlui adressai ces douces paroles:\n\n-- Aias, fils irr\u00e9prochable de T\u00e9lam\u00f4n, ne devrais-tu pas, \u00e9tant\nmort, d\u00e9poser ta col\u00e8re \u00e0 cause des armes fatales que les dieux\nnous donn\u00e8rent pour la ruine des Argiens? Ainsi, tu as p\u00e9ri, toi\nqui \u00e9tais pour eux comme une tour! Et les Akhaiens ne t'ont pas\nmoins pleur\u00e9 que le P\u00e8l\u00e8iade Akhilleus. Et la faute n'en est \u00e0\npersonne. Zeus, seul, dans sa haine pour l'arm\u00e9e des Danaens, t'a\nlivr\u00e9 \u00e0 la moire. Viens, \u00f4 roi, \u00e9coute ma pri\u00e8re, et dompte ta\ncol\u00e8re et ton coeur magnanime.\n\nJe parlai ainsi, mais il ne me r\u00e9pondit rien, et il se m\u00eala, dans\nl'\u00c9r\u00e9bos, aux autres \u00e2mes des morts qui ne sont plus. Cependant,\nil m'e\u00fbt parl\u00e9 comme je lui parlais, bien qu'il f\u00fbt irrit\u00e9; mais\nj'aimai mieux, dans mon cher coeur, voir les autres \u00e2mes des\nmorts.\n\nEt je vis Min\u00f4s, l'illustre fils de Zeus, et il tenait un sceptre\nd'or, et, assis, il jugeait les morts. Et ils s'asseyaient et se\nlevaient autour de lui, pour d\u00e9fendre leur cause, dans la vaste\ndemeure d'Aid\u00e8s.\n\nPuis, je vis le grand Ori\u00f4n chassant, dans la prairie d'asphod\u00e8le,\nles b\u00eates fauves qu'il avait tu\u00e9es autrefois sur les montagnes\nsauvages, en portant dans ses mains la massue d'airain qui ne se\nbrisait jamais.\n\nPuis, je vis Tityos, le fils de l'illustre Gaia, \u00e9tendu sur le sol\net long de neuf pl\u00e8thres. Et deux vautours, des deux c\u00f4t\u00e9s,\nfouillaient son foie avec leurs becs; et, de ses mains, il ne\npouvait les chasser; car, en effet, il avait outrag\u00e9 par violence\nL\u00e8t\u00f4, l'illustre concubine de Zeus, comme elle allait \u00e0 Pyth\u00f4, le\nlong du riant Panopeus.\n\nEt je vis Tantalos, subissant de cruelles douleurs, debout dans un\nlac qui lui baignait le menton. Et il \u00e9tait l\u00e0, souffrant la soif\net ne pouvant boire. Toutes les fois, en effet, que le vieillard\nse penchait, dans son d\u00e9sir de boire, l'eau d\u00e9croissait absorb\u00e9e,\net la terre noire apparaissait autour de ses pieds, et un daim\u00f4n\nla dess\u00e9chait. Et des arbres \u00e9lev\u00e9s laissaient pendre leurs fruits\nsur sa t\u00eate, des poires, des grenades, des oranges, des figues\ndouces et des olives vertes. Et toutes les fois que le vieillard\nvoulait les saisir de ses mains, le vent les soulevait jusqu'aux\nnu\u00e9es sombres.\n\nEt je vis Sisyphos subissant de grandes douleurs et poussant un\nimmense rocher avec ses deux mains. Et il s'effor\u00e7ait, poussant ce\nrocher des mains et des pieds jusqu'au fa\u00eete d'une montagne. Et\nquand il \u00e9tait pr\u00e8s d'atteindre ce fa\u00eete, alors la force lui\nmanquait, et l'immense rocher roulait jusqu'au bas. Et il\nrecommen\u00e7ait de nouveau, et la sueur coulait de ses membres, et la\npoussi\u00e8re s'\u00e9levait au-dessus de sa t\u00eate.\n\nEt je vis la force H\u00e8rakl\u00e9enne, ou son image, car lui-m\u00eame est\naupr\u00e8s des dieux immortels, jouissant de leurs repas et poss\u00e9dant\nH\u00e8b\u00e8 aux beaux talons, fille du magnanime Zeus et de H\u00e8r\u00e8 aux\nsandales d'or. Et, autour de la force H\u00e8rakl\u00e9enne, la rumeur des\nmorts \u00e9tait comme celle des oiseaux, et ils fuyaient de toutes\nparts.\n\nEt H\u00e8rakl\u00e8s s'avan\u00e7ait, semblable \u00e0 la nuit sombre, l'arc en main,\nla fl\u00e8che sur le nerf, avec un regard sombre, comme un homme qui\nva lancer un trait. Un effrayant baudrier d'or entourait sa\npoitrine, et des images admirables y \u00e9taient sculpt\u00e9es, des ours,\ndes sangliers sauvages et des lions terribles, des batailles, des\nm\u00eal\u00e9es et des combats tueurs d'hommes, car un tr\u00e8s habile ouvrier\navait fait ce baudrier. Et, m'ayant vu, il me reconnut aussit\u00f4t,\net il me dit en g\u00e9missant ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Divin Laertiade, subtil Odysseus, sans doute tu es mis\u00e9rable et\nune mauvaise destin\u00e9e te conduit, ainsi que moi, quand j'\u00e9tais\nsous la clart\u00e9 de H\u00e8lios. J'\u00e9tais le fils du Kroni\u00f4n Zeus, mais je\nsubissais d'innombrables mis\u00e8res, opprim\u00e9 par un homme qui m'\u00e9tait\ninf\u00e9rieur et qui me commandait de lourds travaux. Il m'envoya\nautrefois ici pour enlever le chien Kerb\u00e9ros, et il pensait que ce\nserait mon plus cruel travail; mais j'enlevai Kerb\u00e9ros et je le\ntra\u00eenai hors des demeures d'Aid\u00e8s, car Herm\u00e9ias et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux\nclairs m'avaient aid\u00e9.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il rentra dans la demeure d'Aid\u00e8s. Et moi, je\nrestai l\u00e0, immobile, afin de voir quelques-uns des hommes\nh\u00e9ro\u00efques qui \u00e9taient morts dans les temps antiques; et peut-\u00eatre\neuss\u00e9-je vu les anciens h\u00e9ros que je d\u00e9sirais, Th\u00e8seus,\nPeirithoos, illustres enfants des dieux; mais l'innombrable\nmultitude des morts s'agita avec un si grand tumulte que la p\u00e2le\nterreur me saisit, et je craignis que l'illustre Pers\u00e9phon\u00e9ia\nm'envoy\u00e2t, du Had\u00e8s, la t\u00eate de l'horrible monstre Gorg\u00f4nien. Et\naussit\u00f4t je retournai vers ma nef, et j'ordonnai \u00e0 mes compagnons\nd'y monter et de d\u00e9tacher le c\u00e2ble. Et aussit\u00f4t ils s'assirent sur\nles bancs de la nef, et le courant emporta celle-ci sur le fleuve\nOk\u00e9anos, \u00e0 l'aide de la force des avirons et du vent favorable.\n\n\n12.\n\nLa nef, ayant quitt\u00e9 le fleuve Ok\u00e9anos, courut sur les flots de la\nmer, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 H\u00e8lios se l\u00e8ve, o\u00f9 \u00c9\u00f4s, n\u00e9e au matin, a ses demeures et\nses choeurs, vers l'\u00eele Aiai\u00e8. \u00c9tant arriv\u00e9s l\u00e0, nous tir\u00e2mes la\nnef sur le sable; puis, descendant sur le rivage de la mer, nous\nnous endorm\u00eemes en attendant la divine \u00c9\u00f4s.\n\nEt quand \u00c9\u00f4s aux doigts ros\u00e9s, n\u00e9e au matin, apparut, j'envoyai\nmes compagnons vers la demeure de Kirk\u00e8, afin d'en rapporter le\ncadavre d'Elp\u00e8n\u00f4r qui n'\u00e9tait plus. Puis, ayant coup\u00e9 des arbres\nsur la hauteur du rivage, nous f\u00eemes ses fun\u00e9railles, tristes et\nversant d'abondantes larmes. Et quand le cadavre et les armes du\nmort eurent \u00e9t\u00e9 br\u00fbl\u00e9s, ayant construit le tombeau surmont\u00e9 d'une\ncolonne, nous plant\u00e2mes l'aviron au sommet. Et ces choses furent\nfaites; mais, en revenant du Had\u00e8s, nous ne retourn\u00e2mes point chez\nKirk\u00e8. Elle vint elle-m\u00eame \u00e0 la h\u00e2te, et, avec elle, vinrent ses\nservantes qui portaient du pain, des chairs abondantes et du vin\nrouge. Et la noble d\u00e9esse au milieu de nous, parla ainsi:\n\n-- Malheureux, qui, vivants, \u00eates descendus dans la demeure\nd'Aid\u00e8s, vous mourrez deux fois, et les autres hommes ne meurent\nqu'une fois. Allons! mangez et buvez pendant tout le jour, jusqu'\u00e0\nla chute de H\u00e8lios; et, \u00e0 la lumi\u00e8re naissante, vous naviguerez,\net je vous dirai la route, et je vous avertirai de toute chose, de\npeur que vous subissiez encore des maux cruels sur la mer ou sur\nla terre.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et elle persuada notre \u00e2me g\u00e9n\u00e9reuse. Et,\npendant tout le jour, jusqu'\u00e0 la chute de H\u00e8lios, nous rest\u00e2mes,\nmangeant les chairs abondantes et buvant le vin doux. Et, quand\nH\u00e8lios tomba, le soir survint, et mes compagnons s'endormirent\naupr\u00e8s des c\u00e2bles de la nef. Mais Kirk\u00e8, me prenant par la main,\nme conduisit loin de mes compagnons, et, s'\u00e9tant couch\u00e9e avec moi,\nm'interrogea sur les choses qui m'\u00e9taient arriv\u00e9es. Et je lui\nracontai tout, et, alors, la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable Kirk\u00e8 me dit:\n\n-- Ainsi, tu as accompli tous ces travaux. Maintenant, \u00e9coute ce\nque je vais te dire. Un dieu lui-m\u00eame fera que tu t'en souviennes.\nTu rencontreras d'abord les Seir\u00e8nes qui charment tous les hommes\nqui les approchent; mais il est perdu celui qui, par imprudence,\n\u00e9coute leur chant, et jamais sa femme et ses enfants ne le\nreverront dans sa demeure, et ne se r\u00e9jouiront. Les Seir\u00e8nes le\ncharment par leur chant harmonieux, assises dans une prairie,\nautour d'un grand amas d'ossements d'hommes et de peaux en\nputr\u00e9faction. Navigue rapidement au del\u00e0, et bouche les oreilles\nde tes compagnons avec de la cire molle, de peur qu'aucun d'eux\nentende. Pour toi, \u00e9coute-les, si tu veux; mais que tes compagnons\nte lient, \u00e0 l'aide de cordes, dans la nef rapide, debout contre le\nm\u00e2t, par les pieds et les mains, avant que tu \u00e9coutes avec une\ngrande volupt\u00e9 la voix des Seir\u00e8nes. Et, si tu pries tes\ncompagnons, si tu leur ordonnes de te d\u00e9lier, qu'ils te chargent\nde plus de liens encore.\nApr\u00e8s que vous aurez navigu\u00e9 au del\u00e0, je ne puis te dire, des deux\nvoies que tu trouveras, laquelle choisir; mais tu te d\u00e9cideras\ndans ton esprit. Je te les d\u00e9crirai cependant. L\u00e0, se dressent\ndeux hautes roches, et contre elles retentissent les grands flots\nd'Amphitrite aux yeux bleus. Les dieux heureux les nomment les\nErrantes. Et jamais les oiseaux ne volent au del\u00e0, pas m\u00eame les\ntimides colombes qui portent l'ambroisie au p\u00e8re Zeus. Souvent une\nd'elles tombe sur la roche, mais le p\u00e8re en cr\u00e9e une autre, afin\nque le nombre en soit complet. Jamais aucune nef, ayant approch\u00e9\nces roches, n'en a \u00e9chapp\u00e9; et les flots de la mer et la temp\u00eate\npleine d'\u00e9clairs emportent les bancs de rameurs et les corps des\nhommes. Et une seule nef, sillonnant la mer, a navigu\u00e9 au del\u00e0:\nArg\u00f4, ch\u00e8re \u00e0 tous les dieux, et qui revenait de la terre\nd'Ai\u00e8t\u00e8s. Et m\u00eame, elle allait \u00eatre jet\u00e9e contre les grandes\nroches, mais H\u00e8r\u00e8 la fit passer outre, car J\u00e8s\u00f4n lui \u00e9tait cher.\n\nTels sont ces deux \u00e9cueils. L'un, de son fa\u00eete aigu, atteint le\nhaut Ouranos, et une nu\u00e9e bleue l'environne sans cesse, et jamais\nla s\u00e9r\u00e9nit\u00e9 ne baigne son sommet, ni en \u00e9t\u00e9, ni en automne; et\njamais aucun homme mortel ne pourrait y monter ou en descendre,\nquand il aurait vingt bras et vingt pieds, tant la roche est haute\net semblable \u00e0 une pierre polie. Au milieu de l'\u00e9cueil il y a une\ncaverne noire dont l'entr\u00e9e est tourn\u00e9e vers l'\u00c9r\u00e9bos et c'est de\ncette caverne, illustre Odysseus, qu'il faut approcher ta nef\ncreuse. Un homme dans la force de la jeunesse ne pourrait, de sa\nnef, lancer une fl\u00e8che jusque dans cette caverne profonde. Et\nc'est l\u00e0 qu'habite Skyll\u00e8 qui pousse des rugissements et dont la\nvoix est aussi forte que celle d'un jeune lion. C'est un monstre\nprodigieux, et nul n'est joyeux de l'avoir vu, pas m\u00eame un Dieu.\nElle a douze pieds difformes, et six cous sortent longuement de\nson corps, et \u00e0 chaque cou est attach\u00e9e une t\u00eate horrible, et dans\nchaque gueule pleine de la noire mort il y a une triple rang\u00e9e de\ndents \u00e9paisses et nombreuses. Et elle est plong\u00e9e dans la caverne\ncreuse jusqu'aux reins; mais elle \u00e9tend au dehors ses t\u00eates, et,\nregardant autour de l'\u00e9cueil, elle saisit les dauphins, les chiens\nde mer et les autres monstres innombrables qu'elle veut prendre et\nque nourrit la g\u00e9missante Amphitrit\u00e8. Jamais les marins ne\npourront se glorifier d'avoir pass\u00e9 aupr\u00e8s d'elle sains et saufs\nsur leur nef, car chaque t\u00eate enl\u00e8ve un homme hors de la nef \u00e0\nproue bleue. L'autre \u00e9cueil voisin que tu verras, Odysseus, est\nmoins \u00e9lev\u00e9, et tu en atteindrais le sommet d'un trait. Il y croit\nun grand figuier sauvage charg\u00e9 de feuilles, et, sous ce figuier,\nla divine Kharybdis engloutit l'eau noire. Et elle la revomit\ntrois fois par jour et elle l'engloutit trois fois horriblement.\nEt si tu arrivais quand elle l'engloutit, celui qui \u00e9branle la\nterre, lui-m\u00eame, voudrait te sauver, qu'il ne le pourrait pas.\nPousse donc rapidement ta nef le long de Skyll\u00e8, car il vaut mieux\nperdre six hommes de tes compagnons, que de les perdre tous.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et je lui r\u00e9pondis:\n\n-- Parle, d\u00e9esse, et dis-moi la v\u00e9rit\u00e9. Si je puis \u00e9chapper \u00e0 la\nd\u00e9sastreuse Kharybdis, ne pourrai-je attaquer Skyll\u00e8, quand elle\nsaisira mes compagnons?\n\nJe parlai ainsi, et la noble D\u00e9esse me r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Malheureux, tu songes donc encore aux travaux de la guerre? Et\ntu ne veux pas c\u00e9der, m\u00eame aux dieux immortels! Mais Skyll\u00e8 n'est\npoint mortelle, et c'est un monstre cruel, terrible et sauvage, et\nqui ne peut \u00eatre combattu. Aucun courage ne peut en triompher. Si\ntu ne te h\u00e2tes point, ayant saisi tes armes pr\u00e8s de la roche, je\ncrains que, se ruant de nouveau, elle emporte autant de t\u00eates\nqu'elle a d\u00e9j\u00e0 enlev\u00e9 d'hommes. Vogue donc rapidement, et invoque\nKrata\u00efs, m\u00e8re de Skyll\u00e8, qui l'a enfant\u00e9e pour la perte des\nhommes, afin qu'elle l'apaise, et que celle-ci ne se pr\u00e9cipite\npoint de nouveau.\nTu arriveras ensuite \u00e0 l'\u00eele Thrinaki\u00e8. L\u00e0, paissent les boeufs et\nles gras troupeaux de H\u00e8lios. Et il a sept troupeaux de boeufs et\nautant de brebis, cinquante par troupeau. Et ils ne font point de\npetits, et ils ne meurent point, et leurs pasteurs sont deux\nnymphes divines, Pha\u00e9thousa et Lamp\u00e9ti\u00e8, que la divine N\u00e9aira a\ncon\u00e7ues du Hyp\u00e9rionide H\u00e8lios. Et leur m\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable les enfanta\net les nourrit, et elle les laissa dans l'\u00eele Thrinaki\u00e8, afin\nqu'elles habitassent au loin, gardant les brebis paternelles et\nles boeufs aux cornes recourb\u00e9es. Si, songeant \u00e0 ton retour, tu ne\ntouches point \u00e0 ces troupeaux, vous rentrerez tous dans Ithak\u00e8,\napr\u00e8s avoir beaucoup souffert; mais si tu les blesses, alors je te\npr\u00e9dis la perte de ta nef et de tes compagnons. Et tu \u00e9chapperas\nseul, mais tu rentreras tard et mis\u00e9rablement dans ta demeure,\nayant perdu tous tes compagnons.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et aussit\u00f4t \u00c9\u00f4s s'assit sur son thr\u00f4ne d'or, et\nla noble d\u00e9esse Kirk\u00e8 disparut dans l'\u00eele. Et, retournant vers ma\nnef, j'excitai mes compagnons \u00e0 y monter et \u00e0 d\u00e9tacher les c\u00e2bles.\nEt ils mont\u00e8rent aussit\u00f4t, et ils s'assirent en ordre sur les\nbancs, et ils frapp\u00e8rent la blanche mer de leurs avirons. Kirk\u00e8\naux beaux cheveux, terrible et v\u00e9n\u00e9rable d\u00e9esse, envoya derri\u00e8re\nla nef \u00e0 proue bleue un vent favorable qui emplit la voile; et,\ntoutes choses \u00e9tant mises en place sur la nef, nous nous ass\u00eemes,\net le vent et le pilote nous conduisirent. Alors, triste dans le\ncoeur, je dis \u00e0 mes compagnons:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis, il ne faut pas qu'un seul, et m\u00eame deux seulement\nd'entre nous, sachent ce que m'a pr\u00e9dit la noble d\u00e9esse Kirk\u00e8;\nmais il faut que nous le sachions tous, et je vous le dirai. Nous\nmourrons apr\u00e8s, ou, \u00e9vitant le danger, nous \u00e9chapperons \u00e0 la mort\net \u00e0 la k\u00e8r. Avant tout, elle nous ordonne de fuir le chant et la\nprairie des divines Seir\u00e8nes, et \u00e0 moi seul elle permet de les\n\u00e9couter; mais liez-moi fortement avec des cordes, debout contre\nle, m\u00e2t, afin que j'y reste immobile, et, si je vous supplie et\nvous ordonne de me d\u00e9lier, alors, au contraire, chargez-moi de\nplus de liens.\n\nEt je disais cela \u00e0 mes compagnons, et, pendant ce temps, la nef\nbien construite approcha rapidement de l'\u00eele des Seir\u00e8nes, tant le\nvent favorable nous poussait; mais il s'apaisa aussit\u00f4t, et il fit\nsilence, et un daim\u00f4n assoupit les flots. Alors, mes compagnons,\nse levant, pli\u00e8rent les voiles et les d\u00e9pos\u00e8rent dans la nef\ncreuse; et, s'\u00e9tant assis, ils blanchirent l'eau avec leurs\navirons polis. Et je coupai, \u00e0 l'aide de l'airain tranchant, une\ngrande masse ronde de cire, dont je pressai les morceaux dans mes\nfortes mains; et la cire s'amollit, car la chaleur du roi H\u00e8lios\n\u00e9tait br\u00fblante, et j'employais une grande force. Et je fermai les\noreilles de tous mes compagnons. Et, dans la nef, ils me li\u00e8rent\navec des cordes, par les pieds et les mains, debout contre le m\u00e2t.\nPuis, s'asseyant, ils frapp\u00e8rent de leurs avirons la mer \u00e9cumeuse.\n\nEt nous approch\u00e2mes \u00e0 la port\u00e9e de la voix, et la nef rapide,\n\u00e9tant proche, fut promptement aper\u00e7ue par les Seir\u00e8nes, et elles\nchant\u00e8rent leur chant harmonieux:\n\n-- Viens, \u00f4 illustre Odysseus, grande gloire des Akhaiens. Arr\u00eate\nta nef, afin d'\u00e9couter notre voix. Aucun homme n'a d\u00e9pass\u00e9 notre\n\u00eele sur sa nef noire sans \u00e9couter notre douce voix; puis, il\ns'\u00e9loigne, plein de joie, et sachant de nombreuses choses. Nous\nsavons, en effet, tout ce que les Akhaiens et les Troiens ont subi\ndevant la grande Troi\u00e8 par la volont\u00e9 des dieux, et nous savons\naussi tout ce qui arrive sur la terre nourrici\u00e8re.\n\nElles chantaient ainsi, faisant r\u00e9sonner leur belle voix, et mon\ncoeur voulait les entendre; et, en remuant les sourcils, je fis\nsigne \u00e0 mes compagnons de me d\u00e9tacher; mais ils agitaient plus\nardemment les avirons; et, aussit\u00f4t, P\u00e9rim\u00e8d\u00e8s et Eurylokhos, se\nlevant, me charg\u00e8rent de plus de liens.\n\nApr\u00e8s que nous les e\u00fbmes d\u00e9pass\u00e9es et que nous n'entend\u00eemes plus\nleur voix et leur chant, mes chers compagnons retir\u00e8rent la cire\nde leurs oreilles et me d\u00e9tach\u00e8rent; mais, \u00e0 peine avions-nous\nlaiss\u00e9 l'\u00eele, que je vis de la fum\u00e9e et de grands flots et que\nj'entendis un bruit immense. Et mes compagnons, frapp\u00e9s de\ncrainte, laiss\u00e8rent les avirons tomber de leurs mains. Et le\ncourant emportait la nef, parce qu'ils n'agitaient plus les\navirons. Et moi, courant \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0, j'exhortai chacun d'eux par de\ndouces paroles:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis, nous n'ignorons pas les maux. N'avons nous pas endur\u00e9\nun mal pire quand le kykl\u00f4ps nous tenait renferm\u00e9s dans sa caverne\ncreuse avec une violence horrible? Mais, alors, par ma vertu, par\nmon intelligence et ma sagesse, nous lui avons \u00e9chapp\u00e9. Je ne\npense pas que vous l'ayez oubli\u00e9. Donc, maintenant, faites ce que\nje dirai; ob\u00e9issez tous. Vous, assis sur les bancs, frappez de vos\navirons les flots profonds de la mer; et toi, pilote, je t'ordonne\nceci, retiens-le dans ton esprit, puisque tu tiens le gouvernail\nde la nef creuse. Dirige-la en dehors de cette fum\u00e9e et de ce\ncourant, et gagne cet autre \u00e9cueil. Ne cesse pas d'y tendre avec\nvigueur, et tu d\u00e9tourneras notre perte.\n\nJe parlai ainsi, et ils ob\u00e9irent promptement \u00e0 mes paroles; mais\nje ne leur dis rien de Skyll\u00e8, cette irr\u00e9m\u00e9diable tristesse, de\npeur qu'\u00e9pouvant\u00e9s, ils cessassent de remuer les avirons, pour se\ncacher tous ensemble dans le fond de la nef. Et alors j'oubliai\nles ordres cruels de Kirk\u00e8 qui m'avait recommand\u00e9 de ne point\nm'armer. Et, m'\u00e9tant rev\u00eatu de mes armes splendides, et, ayant\npris deux, longues lances, je montai sur la proue de la nef d'o\u00f9\nje croyais apercevoir d'abord la rocheuse Skyll\u00e8 apportant la mort\n\u00e0 mes compagnons. Mais je ne pus la voir, mes yeux se fatiguaient\n\u00e0 regarder de tous les c\u00f4t\u00e9s de la roche noire.\n\nEt nous traversions ce d\u00e9troit en g\u00e9missant. D'un c\u00f4t\u00e9 \u00e9tait\nSkyll\u00e8; et, de l'autre, la divine Kharybdis engloutissait\nl'horrible eau sal\u00e9e de la mer; et, quand elle la revomissait,\ncelle-ci bouillonnait comme dans un bassin sur un grand feu, et\nelle la lan\u00e7ait en l'air, et l'eau pleuvait sur les deux \u00e9cueils.\nEt, quand elle engloutissait de nouveau l'eau sal\u00e9e de la mer,\nelle semblait boulevers\u00e9e jusqu'au fond, et elle rugissait\naffreusement autour de la roche; et le sable bleu du fond\napparaissait, et la p\u00e2le terreur saisit mes compagnons. Et nous\nregardions Kharybdis, car c'\u00e9tait d'elle que nous attendions notre\nperte; mais, pendant ce temps, Skyll\u00e8 enleva de la nef creuse six\nde mes plus braves compagnons. Et, comme je regardais sur la nef,\nje vis leurs pieds et leurs mains qui passaient dans l'air; et ils\nm'appelaient dans leur d\u00e9sespoir.\n\nDe m\u00eame qu'un p\u00eacheur, du haut d'un rocher, avec une longue\nbaguette, envoie dans la mer, aux petits poissons, un app\u00e2t\nenferm\u00e9 dans la corne d'un boeuf sauvage, et jette chaque poisson\nqu'il a pris, palpitant, sur le rocher; de m\u00eame Skyll\u00e8 emportait\nmes compagnons palpitants et les d\u00e9vorait sur le seuil, tandis\nqu'ils poussaient des cris et qu'ils tendaient vers moi leurs\nmains. Et c'\u00e9tait la chose la plus lamentable de toutes celles que\nj'aie vues dans mes courses sur la mer.\n\nApr\u00e8s avoir fui l'horrible Kharybdis et Skyll\u00e8, nous arriv\u00e2mes \u00e0\nl'\u00eele irr\u00e9prochable du dieu. Et l\u00e0 \u00e9taient les boeufs\nirr\u00e9prochables aux larges fronts et les gras troupeaux du\nHyp\u00e9rionide H\u00e8lios. Et comme j'\u00e9tais encore en mer, sur la nef\nnoire, j'entendis les mugissements des boeufs dans les \u00e9tables et\nle b\u00ealement des brebis; et la parole du divinateur aveugle, du\nTh\u00e9bain Teir\u00e9sias, me revint \u00e0 l'esprit, et Kirk\u00e8 aussi qui\nm'avait recommand\u00e9 d'\u00e9viter l'\u00eele de H\u00e8lios qui charme les hommes.\nAlors, triste dans mon coeur, je parlai ainsi \u00e0 mes compagnons:\n\n-- \u00c9coutez mes paroles, compagnons, bien qu'accabl\u00e9s de maux, afin\nque je vous dise les oracles de Teir\u00e9sias et de Kirk\u00e8 qui m'a\nrecommand\u00e9 de fuir promptement l'\u00eele de H\u00e8lios qui donne la\nlumi\u00e8re aux hommes. Elle m'a dit qu'un grand malheur nous mena\u00e7ait\nici. Donc, poussez la nef noire au del\u00e0 de cette \u00eele.\n\nJe parlai ainsi, et leur cher coeur fut bris\u00e9. Et, aussit\u00f4t,\nEurylokhos me r\u00e9pondit par ces paroles funestes:\n\n-- Tu es dur pour nous, \u00f4 Odysseus! Ta force est grande, et tes\nmembres ne sont jamais fatigu\u00e9s, et tout te semble de fer. Tu ne\nveux pas que tes compagnons, charg\u00e9s de fatigue et de sommeil,\ndescendent \u00e0 terre, dans cette \u00eele entour\u00e9e des flots o\u00f9 nous\naurions pr\u00e9par\u00e9 un repas abondant; et tu ordonnes que nous errions\n\u00e0 l'aventure, pendant la nuit rapide, loin de cette \u00eele, sur la\nsombre mer! Les vents de la nuit sont dangereux et perdent les\nnefs. Qui de nous \u00e9viterait la k\u00e8r fatale, si, soudainement,\nsurvenait une temp\u00eate du Notos ou du violent Z\u00e9phyros qui perdent\nle plus s\u00fbrement les nefs, m\u00eame malgr\u00e9 les dieux? Maintenant donc,\nob\u00e9issons \u00e0 la nuit noire, et pr\u00e9parons notre repas aupr\u00e8s de la\nnef rapide. Nous y remonterons demain, au matin, et nous fendrons\nla vaste mer.\n\nEurylokhos parla ainsi, et mes compagnons l'approuv\u00e8rent. Et je\nvis s\u00fbrement qu'un daim\u00f4n m\u00e9ditait leur perte. Et je lui dis ces\nparoles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Eurylokhos, vous me faites violence, car je suis seul; mais\njure-moi, par un grand serment, que, si nous trouvons quelque\ntroupeau de boeufs ou de nombreuses brebis, aucun de vous, de peur\nde commettre un crime, ne tuera ni un boeuf, ni une brebis. Mangez\ntranquillement les vivres que nous a donn\u00e9s l'immortelle Kirk\u00e8.\n\nJe parlai ainsi, et, aussit\u00f4t, ils me le jur\u00e8rent comme je l'avais\nordonn\u00e9. Et, apr\u00e8s qu'ils eurent prononc\u00e9 toutes les paroles du\nserment, nous arr\u00eat\u00e2mes la nef bien construite, dans un port\nprofond, aupr\u00e8s d'une eau douce; et mes compagnons sortirent de la\nnef et pr\u00e9par\u00e8rent \u00e0 la h\u00e2te leur repas. Puis, apr\u00e8s s'\u00eatre\nrassasi\u00e9s de boire et de manger, ils pleur\u00e8rent leurs chers\ncompagnons que Skyll\u00e8 avait enlev\u00e9s de la nef creuse et d\u00e9vor\u00e9s.\nEt, tandis qu'ils pleuraient, le doux sommeil les saisit. Mais,\nvers la troisi\u00e8me partie de la nuit, \u00e0 l'heure o\u00f9 les astres\ns'inclinent, Zeus qui amasse les nu\u00e9es excita un vent violent,\navec de grands tourbillons; et il enveloppa la terre et la mer de\nbrouillards, et l'obscurit\u00e9 tomba de l'Ouranos.\n\nEt quand \u00c9\u00f4s aux doigts ros\u00e9s, n\u00e9e au matin, apparut, nous\ntra\u00een\u00e2mes la nef \u00e0 l'abri dans une caverne profonde. L\u00e0 \u00e9taient\nles belles demeures des nymphes et leurs si\u00e8ges. Et alors, ayant\nr\u00e9uni l'agora, je parlai ainsi:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis, il y a dans la nef rapide \u00e0 boire et \u00e0 manger.\nAbstenons-nous donc de ces boeufs, de peur d'un grand malheur. En\neffet, ce sont les boeufs terribles et les illustres troupeaux\nd'un dieu, de H\u00e8lios, qui voit et entend tout.\n\nJe parlai ainsi, et leur esprit g\u00e9n\u00e9reux fut persuad\u00e9. Et, tout un\nmois, le Notos souffla perp\u00e9tuellement; et aucun des autres vents\nne soufflait, que le Notos et l'Euros. Et aussi longtemps que mes\ncompagnons eurent du pain et du vin rouge, ils s'abstinrent des\nboeufs qu'ils d\u00e9siraient vivement; mais quand tous les vivres\nfurent \u00e9puis\u00e9s, la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 nous contraignant, nous f\u00eemes, \u00e0\nl'aide d'hame\u00e7ons recourb\u00e9s, notre proie des poissons et des\noiseaux qui nous tombaient entre les mains. Et la faim tourmentait\nnotre ventre.\n\nAlors, je m'enfon\u00e7ai dans l'\u00eele, afin de supplier les dieux, et de\nvoir si un d'entre eux me montrerait le chemin du retour. Et\nj'allai dans l'\u00eele, et, laissant mes compagnons, je lavai mes\nmains \u00e0 l'abri du vent, et je suppliai tous les dieux qui habitent\nle large Olympos. Et ils r\u00e9pandirent le doux sommeil sur mes\npaupi\u00e8res. Alors, Eurylokhos inspira \u00e0 mes compagnons un dessein\nfatal:\n\n-- \u00c9coutez mes paroles, compagnons, bien que souffrant beaucoup de\nmaux. Toutes les morts sont odieuses aux mis\u00e9rables hommes, mais\nmourir par la faim est tout ce qu'il y a de plus lamentable.\nAllons! saisissons les meilleurs boeufs de H\u00e8lios, et sacrifions-\nles aux immortels qui habitent le large Ouranos. Si nous rentrons\ndans Ithak\u00e8, dans la terre de la patrie, nous \u00e9l\u00e8verons aussit\u00f4t \u00e0\nH\u00e8lios un beau temple o\u00f9 nous placerons toute sorte de choses\npr\u00e9cieuses; mais, s'il est irrit\u00e9 \u00e0 cause de ses boeufs aux cornes\ndress\u00e9es, et s'il veut perdre la nef, et si les autres dieux y\nconsentent, j'aime mieux mourir en une fois, \u00e9touff\u00e9 par les\nflots, que de souffrir plus longtemps dans cette \u00eele d\u00e9serte.\n\nEurylokhos parla ainsi, et tous l'applaudirent. Et, aussit\u00f4t, ils\nentra\u00een\u00e8rent les meilleurs boeufs de H\u00e8lios, car les boeufs noirs\nau large front paissaient non loin de la nef \u00e0 proue bleue. Et,\nles entourant, ils les vou\u00e8rent aux immortels; et ils prirent les\nfeuilles d'un jeune ch\u00eane, car ils n'avaient point d'orge blanche\ndans la nef. Et, apr\u00e8s avoir pri\u00e9, ils \u00e9gorg\u00e8rent les boeufs et\nles \u00e9corch\u00e8rent; puis, ils r\u00f4tirent les cuisses recouvertes d'une\ndouble graisse, et ils pos\u00e8rent par-dessus les entrailles crues.\nEt, n'ayant point de vin pour faire les libations sur le feu du\nsacrifice, ils en firent avec de l'eau, tandis qu'ils r\u00f4tissaient\nles entrailles. Quand les cuisses furent consum\u00e9es, ils go\u00fbt\u00e8rent\nles entrailles. Puis, ayant coup\u00e9 le reste en morceaux, ils les\ntravers\u00e8rent de broches.\n\nAlors, le doux sommeil quitta mes paupi\u00e8res, et je me h\u00e2tai de\nretourner vers la mer et vers la nef rapide. Mais quand je fus\npr\u00e8s du lieu o\u00f9 celle-ci avait \u00e9t\u00e9 pouss\u00e9e, la douce odeur vint\nau-devant de moi. Et, g\u00e9missant, je criai vers les dieux\nimmortels:\n\n-- P\u00e8re Zeus, et vous, dieux heureux et immortels, certes, c'est\npour mon plus grand malheur que vous m'avez envoy\u00e9 ce sommeil\nfatal. Voici que mes compagnons, rest\u00e9s seuls ici, ont commis un\ngrand crime.\n\nAussit\u00f4t, Lamp\u00e9ti\u00e8 au large p\u00e9plos alla annoncer \u00e0 H\u00e8lios\nHyp\u00e9rionide que mes compagnons avaient tu\u00e9 ses boeufs, et le\nHyp\u00e9rionide, irrit\u00e9 dans son coeur, dit aussit\u00f4t aux autres dieux:\n\n-- P\u00e8re Zeus, et vous, dieux heureux et immortels, vengez-moi des\ncompagnons du Laertiade Odysseus. Ils ont tu\u00e9 audacieusement les\nboeufs dont je me r\u00e9jouissais quand je montais \u00e0 travers l'Ouranos\n\u00e9toil\u00e9, et quand je descendais de l'Ouranos sur la terre. Si vous\nne me donnez pas une juste compensation pour mes boeufs, je\ndescendrai dans la demeure d'Aid\u00e8s, et j'\u00e9clairerai les morts.\n\nEt Zeus qui amasse les nu\u00e9es, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi:\n\n-- H\u00e8lios, \u00e9claire toujours les immortels et les hommes mortels\nsur la terre f\u00e9conde. Je br\u00fblerai bient\u00f4t de la blanche foudre\nleur nef fracass\u00e9e au milieu de la sombre mer.\n\nEt j'appris cela de Kalyps\u00f4 aux beaux cheveux, qui le savait du\nmessager Herm\u00e9ias.\n\n\u00c9tant arriv\u00e9 \u00e0 la mer et \u00e0 ma nef, je fis des reproches violents \u00e0\nchacun de mes compagnons; mais nous ne pouvions trouver aucun\nrem\u00e8de au mal, car les boeufs \u00e9taient d\u00e9j\u00e0 tu\u00e9s. Et d\u00e9j\u00e0 les\nprodiges des dieux s'y manifestaient: les peaux rampaient comme\ndes serpents, et les chairs mugissaient autour des broches, cuites\nou crues, et on e\u00fbt dit les voix des boeufs eux-m\u00eames. Et, pendant\nsix jours, mes chers compagnons mang\u00e8rent les meilleurs boeufs de\nH\u00e8lios, les ayant tu\u00e9s. Quand Zeus amena le septi\u00e8me jour, le vent\ncessa de souffler par tourbillons. Alors, \u00e9tant mont\u00e9s sur la nef,\nnous la pouss\u00e2mes au large; et, le m\u00e2t \u00e9tant dress\u00e9, nous\nd\u00e9ploy\u00e2mes les blanches voiles. Et nous abandonn\u00e2mes l'\u00eele, et\naucune autre terre n'\u00e9tait en vue, et rien ne se voyait que\nl'Ouranos et la mer.\n\nAlors le Kroni\u00f4n suspendit une nu\u00e9e \u00e9paisse sur la nef creuse qui\nne marchait plus aussi vite, et, sous elle, la mer devint toute\nnoire. Et aussit\u00f4t le strident Z\u00e9phyros souffla avec un grand\ntourbillon, et la temp\u00eate rompit les deux c\u00e2bles du m\u00e2t, qui tomba\ndans le fond de la nef avec tous les agr\u00e8s. Et il s'abattit sur la\npoupe, brisant tous les os de la t\u00eate du pilote, qui tomba de son\nbanc, semblable \u00e0 un plongeur. Et son \u00e2me g\u00e9n\u00e9reuse abandonna ses\nossements. En m\u00eame temps, Zeus tonna et lan\u00e7a la foudre sur la\nnef, et celle-ci, frapp\u00e9e de la foudre de Zeus, tourbillonna et\ns'emplit de soufre, et mes compagnons furent pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9s.\nSemblables \u00e0 des corneilles marines, ils \u00e9taient emport\u00e9s par les\nflots, et un dieu leur refusa le retour. Moi, je marchai sur la\nnef jusqu'\u00e0 ce que la force de la temp\u00eate e\u00fbt arrach\u00e9 ses flancs.\nEt les flots l'emportaient, inerte, \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0. Le m\u00e2t avait \u00e9t\u00e9\nrompu \u00e0 la base, mais une courroie de peau de boeuf y \u00e9tait rest\u00e9e\nattach\u00e9e. Avec celle-ci je le liai \u00e0 la car\u00e8ne, et, m'asseyant\ndessus, je fus emport\u00e9 par la violence des vents.\n\nAlors, il est vrai, le Z\u00e9phyros apaisa ses tourbillons, mais le\nNotos survint, m'apportant d'autres douleurs, car, de nouveau,\nj'\u00e9tais entra\u00een\u00e9 vers la funeste Kharybdis. Je fus emport\u00e9 toute\nla nuit, et, au lever de H\u00e8lios, j'arrivai aupr\u00e8s de Skyll\u00e8 et de\nl'horrible Kharybdis, comme celle-ci engloutissait l'eau sal\u00e9e de\nla mer. Et je saisis les branches du haut figuier, et j'\u00e9tais\nsuspendu en l'air comme un oiseau de nuit, ne pouvant appuyer les\npieds, ni monter, car les racines \u00e9taient loin, et les rameaux\nimmenses et longs ombrageaient Kharybdis; mais je m'y attachai\nfermement, jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'elle e\u00fbt revomi le m\u00e2t et la car\u00e8ne. Et\nils tard\u00e8rent longtemps pour mes d\u00e9sirs.\n\n\u00c0 l'heure o\u00f9 le juge, afin de prendre son repas, sort de l'agora\no\u00f9 il juge les nombreuses contestations des hommes, le m\u00e2t et la\ncar\u00e8ne rejaillirent de Kharybdis; et je me laissai tomber avec\nbruit parmi les longues pi\u00e8ces de bois et, m'asseyant dessus, je\nnageai avec mes mains pour avirons. Et le p\u00e8re des dieux et des\nhommes ne permit pas \u00e0 Skyll\u00e8 de me voir, car je n'aurais pu\n\u00e9chapper \u00e0 la mort. Et je fus emport\u00e9 pendant neuf jours, et, la\ndixi\u00e8me nuit, les dieux me pouss\u00e8rent \u00e0 l'\u00eele Ogygi\u00e8, qu'habitait\nKalyps\u00f4, \u00e9loquente et v\u00e9n\u00e9rable d\u00e9esse aux beaux cheveux, qui me\nrecueillit et qui m'aima. Mais pourquoi te dirais-je ceci? D\u00e9j\u00e0 je\nte l'ai racont\u00e9 dans ta demeure, \u00e0 toi et \u00e0 ta chaste femme; et il\nm'est odieux de raconter de nouveau les m\u00eames choses.\n\n\n13.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous, dans les demeures obscures, restaient\nmuets et charm\u00e9s. Et Alkinoos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 Odysseus, puisque tu es venu dans ma haute demeure d'airain,\nje ne pense pas que tu erres de nouveau et que tu subisses\nd'autres maux pour ton retour, car tu en as beaucoup souffert. Et\nje dis ceci \u00e0 chacun de vous qui, dans mes demeures, buvez\nl'honorable vin rouge et qui \u00e9coutez l'aoide. D\u00e9j\u00e0 sont enferm\u00e9s\ndans le beau coffre les v\u00eatements, et l'or bien travaill\u00e9, et tous\nles pr\u00e9sents que les chefs des Phaiakiens ont offerts \u00e0 notre\nh\u00f4te; mais, allons! que chacun de nous lui donne encore un grand\ntr\u00e9pied et un bassin. R\u00e9unis de nouveau, nous nous ferons aider\npar tout le peuple, car il serait difficile \u00e0 chacun de nous de\ndonner autant.\n\nAlkinoos parla ainsi, et ses paroles plurent \u00e0 tous, et chacun\nretourna dans sa demeure pour y dormir.\n\nQuand \u00c9\u00f4s aux doigts ros\u00e9s, n\u00e9e au matin, apparut, ils se h\u00e2t\u00e8rent\nvers la nef, portant l'airain solide. Et la force sacr\u00e9e\nd'Alkinoos d\u00e9posa les pr\u00e9sents dans la nef; et il les rangea lui-\nm\u00eame sous les bancs des rameurs, afin que ceux-ci, en se courbant\nsur les avirons, ne les heurtassent point. Puis, ils retourn\u00e8rent\nvers les demeures d'Alkinoos et pr\u00e9par\u00e8rent le repas.\n\nAu milieu d'eux, la force sacr\u00e9e d'Alkinoos \u00e9gorgea un boeuf pour\nZeus Kronide qui amasse les nu\u00e9es et qui commande \u00e0 tous. Et ils\nbr\u00fbl\u00e8rent les cuisses, et ils prirent, charm\u00e9s, l'illustre repas;\net au milieu d'eux chantait le divin aoide D\u00e8modokos, honor\u00e9 des\npeuples. Mais Odysseus tournait souvent la t\u00eate vers H\u00e8lios qui\n\u00e9claire toutes choses, press\u00e9 de se rendre \u00e0 la nef, et d\u00e9sirant\nson d\u00e9part. De m\u00eame que le laboureur d\u00e9sire son repas, quand tout\nle jour ses boeufs noirs ont tra\u00een\u00e9 la charrue dans le sillon, et\nqu'il voit enfin la lumi\u00e8re de H\u00e8lios tomber, et qu'il se rend \u00e0\nson repas, les genoux rompus de fatigue; de m\u00eame Odysseus vit\ntomber avec joie la lumi\u00e8re de H\u00e8lios, et, aussit\u00f4t, il dit aux\nPhaiakiens habiles aux avirons, et surtout \u00e0 Alkinoos:\n\n-- Roi Alkinoos, le plus illustre de tout le peuple, renvoyez-moi\nsain et sauf, et faites des libations. Je vous salue tous. D\u00e9j\u00e0 ce\nque d\u00e9sirait mon cher coeur est accompli; mon retour est d\u00e9cid\u00e9,\net je poss\u00e8de vos chers pr\u00e9sents dont les dieux Ouraniens m'ont\nfait une richesse. Plaise aux dieux que je retrouve dans ma\ndemeure ma femme irr\u00e9prochable et mes amis sains et saufs! Pour\nvous, qui vous r\u00e9jouissez ici de vos femmes et de vos chers\nenfants, que les dieux vous donnent la vertu et vous pr\u00e9servent de\ntout malheur public!\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous l'applaudirent et d\u00e9cid\u00e8rent de renvoyer\nleur h\u00f4te qui parlait toujours si convenablement. Et, alors, la\nforce d'Alkinoos dit au h\u00e9raut:\n\n-- Pontonoos, distribue, du krat\u00e8re plein, du vin \u00e0 tous, dans la\ndemeure, afin qu'ayant pri\u00e9 le P\u00e8re peus, nous renvoyions notre\nh\u00f4te dans sa patrie.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Pontonoos m\u00eala le vin mielleux et le distribua\n\u00e0 tous. Et ils firent des libations aux dieux heureux qui habitent\nle large Ouranos, mais sans quitter leurs si\u00e8ges.\n\nEt le divin Odysseus se leva. Et, mettant aux mains d'Ar\u00e8t\u00e8 une\ncoupe ronde, il dit ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Salut, \u00f4 reine! et sois heureuse jusqu'\u00e0 ce que t'arrivent la\nvieillesse et la mort qui sont in\u00e9vitables pour les hommes. Moi,\nje pars. Toi, r\u00e9jouis-toi, dans ta demeure, de tes enfants, de tes\npeuples et du roi Alkinoos.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, le divin Odysseus sortit, et la force\nd'Alkinoos envoya le h\u00e9raut pour le pr\u00e9c\u00e9der vers la nef rapide et\nle rivage de la mer. Et Ar\u00e8t\u00e8 envoya aussi ses servantes, et l'une\nportait une blanche khlamide et une tunique, et l'autre un coffre\npeint, et une troisi\u00e8me du pain et du vin rouge.\n\nEtant arriv\u00e9s \u00e0 la nef et \u00e0 la mer, aussit\u00f4t les marins joyeux\nmont\u00e8rent sur la nef creuse et y d\u00e9pos\u00e8rent le vin et les vivres.\nPuis ils \u00e9tendirent sur la poupe de la nef creuse un lit et une\ntoile de lin, afin qu'Odysseus f\u00fbt mollement couch\u00e9. Et il entra\ndans la nef, et il se coucha en silence. Et, s'\u00e9tant assis en\nordre sur les bancs, ils d\u00e9tach\u00e8rent le c\u00e2ble de la pierre trou\u00e9e;\npuis, se courbant, ils frapp\u00e8rent la mer de leurs avirons. Et un\ndoux sommeil se r\u00e9pandit sur les paupi\u00e8res d'Odysseus, invincible,\ntr\u00e8s agr\u00e9able et semblable \u00e0 la mort.\n\nDe m\u00eame que, dans une plaine, un quadrige d'\u00e9talons, excit\u00e9 par\nles morsures du fouet, d\u00e9vore rapidement la route, de m\u00eame la nef\n\u00e9tait enlev\u00e9e, et l'eau noire et immense de la mer sonnante se\nruait par derri\u00e8re. Et la nef courait ferme et rapide, et\nl'\u00e9pervier, le plus rapide des oiseaux, n'aurait pu la suivre.\nAinsi, courant avec vitesse, elle fendait les eaux de la mer,\nportant un homme ayant des pens\u00e9es \u00e9gales \u00e0 celles des dieux, et\nqui, en son \u00e2me, avait subi des maux innombrables, dans les\ncombats des hommes et sur les mers dangereuses. Et maintenant il\ndormait en s\u00fbret\u00e9, oublieux de tout ce qu'il avait souffert.\n\nEt quand la plus brillante des \u00e9toiles se leva, celle qui annonce\nla lumi\u00e8re d'\u00c9\u00f4s n\u00e9e au matin, alors la nef qui fendait la mer\naborda l'\u00eele.\n\nLe port de Phorkys, vieillard de la mer, est sur la c\u00f4te d'Ithak\u00e8.\nDeux promontoires abrupts l'enserrent et le d\u00e9fendent des vents\nviolents et des grandes eaux; et les nefs \u00e0 bancs de rameurs,\nquand elles y sont entr\u00e9es, y restent sans c\u00e2bles. \u00c0 la pointe du\nport, un olivier aux rameaux \u00e9pais croit devant l'antre obscur,\nfrais et sacr\u00e9, des nymphes qu'on nomme naiades. Dans cet antre il\ny a des krat\u00e8res et des amphores de pierre o\u00f9 les abeilles font\nleur miel, et de longs m\u00e9tiers \u00e0 tisser o\u00f9 les nymphes travaillent\ndes toiles pourpr\u00e9es admirables \u00e0 voir. Et l\u00e0 sont aussi des\nsources in\u00e9puisables. Et il y a deux entr\u00e9es, l'une, pour les\nhommes, vers le Bor\u00e9as, et l'autre, vers le Notos, pour les dieux.\nEt jamais les hommes n'entrent par celle-ci, mais seulement les\ndieux.\n\nEt d\u00e8s que les Phaiakiens eurent reconnu ce lieu, ils y\nabord\u00e8rent. Et une moiti\u00e9 de la nef s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a sur la plage, tant\nelle \u00e9tait vigoureusement pouss\u00e9e par les bras des rameurs. Et\nceux-ci, \u00e9tant sortis de la nef \u00e0 bancs de rameurs, transport\u00e8rent\nd'abord Odysseus hors de la nef creuse, et, avec lui, le lit\nbrillant et la toile de lin; et ils le d\u00e9pos\u00e8rent endormi sur le\nsable. Et ils transport\u00e8rent aussi les choses que lui avaient\ndonn\u00e9es les illustres Phaiakiens \u00e0 son d\u00e9part, ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 inspir\u00e9s\npar la magnanime Ath\u00e8n\u00e8. Et ils les d\u00e9pos\u00e8rent donc aupr\u00e8s des\nracines de l'olivier, hors du chemin, de peur qu'un passant y\ntouch\u00e2t avant le r\u00e9veil d'Odysseus. Puis, ils retourn\u00e8rent vers\nleurs demeures.\n\nMais celui qui \u00e9branle la terre n'avait point oubli\u00e9 les menaces\nqu'il avait faites au divin Odysseus, et il interrogea la pens\u00e9e\nde Zeus:\n\n-- P\u00e8re Zeus, je ne serai plus honor\u00e9 par les dieux immortels,\npuisque les Phaiakiens ne m'honorent point, eux qui sont cependant\nde ma race. En effet, je voulais qu'Odysseus souffert encore\nbeaucoup de maux avant de rentrer dans sa demeure, mais je ne lui\nrefusais point enti\u00e8rement le retour, puisque tu l'as promis et\njur\u00e9. Et voici qu'ils l'ont conduit sur la mer, dormant dans leur\nnef rapide, et qu'ils l'ont d\u00e9pos\u00e9 dans Ithak\u00e8. Et ils l'ont\ncombl\u00e9 de riches pr\u00e9sents, d'airain, d'or et de v\u00eatements tiss\u00e9s,\nsi nombreux, qu'Odysseus n'en e\u00fbt jamais rapport\u00e9 autant de Troi\u00e8,\ns'il en \u00e9tait revenu sain et sauf, avec sa part du butin.\n\nEt Zeus qui amasse les nu\u00e9es, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi:\n\n-- \u00d4 dieu! toi qui entoures la terre, qu'as-tu dit? Les immortels\nne te m\u00e9priseront point, car il serait difficile de m\u00e9priser le\nplus ancien et le plus illustre des dieux; mais si quelque mortel,\ninf\u00e9rieur en force et en puissance, ne te respecte point, ta\nvengeance ne sera pas tardive. Fais comme tu le veux et comme il\nte plaira.\n\nEt Poseida\u00f4n qui \u00e9branle la terre lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Je le ferai aussit\u00f4t, ainsi que tu le dis, toi qui amasses les\nnu\u00e9es, car j'attends ta volont\u00e9 et je la respecte. Maintenant, je\nveux perdre la belle nef des Phaiakiens, qui revient de son voyage\nsur la mer sombre, afin qu'ils s'abstiennent d\u00e9sormais de\nreconduire les \u00e9trangers; et je placerai une grande montagne\ndevant leur ville.\n\nEt Zeus qui amasse les nu\u00e9es lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 Poseida\u00f4n, il me semble que ceci sera pour le mieux. Quand la\nmultitude sortira de la ville pour voir la nef, transforme, pr\u00e8s\nde terre, la nef rapide en un rocher, afin que tous les hommes\nl'admirent, et place une grande montagne devant leur ville.\n\nEt Poseida\u00f4n qui \u00e9branle la terre, ayant entendu cela, s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a\nvers Skh\u00e9ri\u00e8, o\u00f9 habitaient les Phai\u00e0kiens. Et comme la nef,\nvigoureusement pouss\u00e9e, arrivait, celui qui \u00e9branle la terre, la\nfrappant de sa main, la transforma en rocher aux profondes\nracines, et s'\u00e9loigna. Et les Phaiakiens illustres par les longs\navirons se dirent les uns aux autres:\n\n-- O dieux! qui donc a fix\u00e9 notre nef rapide dans la mer, comme\nelle revenait vers nos demeures?\n\nChacun parlait ainsi, et ils ne comprenaient pas comment cela\ns'\u00e9tait fait. Mais Alkinoos leur dit:\n\n-- O dieux! Certes, voici que les anciens oracles de mon p\u00e8re se\nsont accomplis, car il me disait que Poseida\u00f4n s'irriterait contre\nnous, parce que nous reconduisions tous les \u00e9trangers sains et\nsaufs. Et il me dit qu'une belle nef des Phaiakiens se perdrait \u00e0\nson retour d'un voyage sur la sombre mer, et qu'une grande\nmontagne serait plac\u00e9e devant notre ville. Ainsi parla le\nvieillard, et les choses se sont accomplies. Allons! faites ce que\nje vais dire. Ne reconduisons plus les \u00e9trangers, quel que soit\ncelui d'entre eux qui vienne vers notre ville. Faisons un\nsacrifice de douze taureaux choisis \u00e0 Poseida\u00f4n, afin qu'il nous\nprenne en piti\u00e9 et qu'il ne place point cette grande montagne\ndevant notre ville.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et les Phaiakiens craignirent, et ils pr\u00e9par\u00e8rent\nles taureaux. Et les peuples, les chefs et les princes des\nPhaiakiens suppliaient le roi Poseida\u00f4n, debout autour de l'autel.\n\nMais le divin Odysseus se r\u00e9veilla couch\u00e9 sur la terre de la\npatrie, et il ne la reconnut point, ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 longtemps \u00e9loign\u00e9.\nEt la d\u00e9esse Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 l'enveloppa d'une nu\u00e9e, afin qu'il\nrest\u00e2t inconnu et qu'elle l'instruis\u00eet de toute chose, et que sa\nfemme, ses concitoyens et ses amis ne le reconnussent point avant\nqu'il e\u00fbt r\u00e9prim\u00e9 l'insolence des pr\u00e9tendants. Donc, tout lui\nsemblait chang\u00e9, les chemins, le port, les hautes roches et les\narbres verdoyants. Et, se levant, et debout, il regarda la terre\nde la patrie. Et il pleura, et, se frappant les cuisses de ses\ndeux mains, il dit en g\u00e9missant:\n\n-- \u00d4 malheureux! Dans quelle terre des hommes suis-je venu? Ceux-\nci sont-ils injurieux, cruels et iniques? sont-ils hospitaliers,\net leur esprit est-il pieux? o\u00f9 porter toutes ces richesses? o\u00f9\naller moi-m\u00eame? Pl\u00fbt aux dieux que je fusse rest\u00e9 avec les\nPhaiakiens! J'aurais trouv\u00e9 quelque autre roi magnanime qui m'e\u00fbt\naim\u00e9 et donn\u00e9 des compagnons pour mon retour. Maintenant, je ne\nsais o\u00f9 porter ces richesses, ni o\u00f9 les laisser, de peur qu'elles\nsoient la proie d'\u00e9trangers. O dieux! ils ne sont point, en effet,\nv\u00e9ridiques ni justes, les princes et les chefs des Phaiakiens qui\nm'ont conduit dans une terre \u00e9trang\u00e8re, et qui me disaient qu'ils\nme conduiraient s\u00fbrement dans Ithak\u00e8! Mais ils ne l'ont point\nfait. Que Zeus qu'on supplie me venge d'eux, lui qui veille sur\nles hommes et qui punit ceux qui agissent mal! Mais je compterai\nmes richesses, et je verrai s'ils ne m'en ont rien enlev\u00e9 en les\ntransportant hors de la nef creuse.\n\nAyant parl\u00e9 ainsi, il compta les beaux tr\u00e9pieds et les bassins, et\nl'or et les beaux v\u00eatements tiss\u00e9s; mais rien n'en manquait. Et il\npleurait la terre de sa patrie, et il se jeta en g\u00e9missant sur le\nrivage de la mer aux bruits sans nombre. Et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 s'approcha de\nlui sous la figure d'un jeune homme pasteur de brebis, tel que\nsont les fils des rois, ayant un beau v\u00eatement sur ses \u00e9paules,\ndes sandales sous ses pieds d\u00e9licats, et une lance \u00e0 la main. Et\nOdysseus, joyeux de la voir, vint \u00e0 elle, et il lui dit ces\nparoles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- \u00d4 ami! puisque je te rencontre le premier en ce lieu, salut! Ne\nviens pas \u00e0 moi dans un esprit ennemi. Sauve ces richesses et moi.\nJe te supplie comme un dieu et je me mets \u00e0 tes chers genoux. Dis-\nmoi la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, afin que je la sache. Quelle est cette terre? Quels\nhommes l'habitent? Quel est ton peuple? Est-ce une belle \u00eele, ou\nest-ce la c\u00f4te avanc\u00e9e dans la mer d'une terre fertile?\n\nEt la d\u00e9esse Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Tu es insens\u00e9, \u00f4 \u00e9tranger, ou tu viens de loin, puisque tu me\ndemandes quelle est cette terre, car elle n'est point aussi\nm\u00e9prisable, et beaucoup la connaissent, soit les peuples qui\nhabitent du c\u00f4t\u00e9 d'E\u00f4s et de H\u00e8lios, ou du c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la nuit\nobscure. Certes, elle est \u00e2pre et non faite pour les chevaux; mais\nelle n'est point st\u00e9rile, bien que petite. Elle poss\u00e8de beaucoup\nde froment et beaucoup de vignes, car la pluie et la ros\u00e9e y\nabondent. Elle a de bons p\u00e2turages pour les ch\u00e8vres et les vaches,\net des for\u00eats de toute sorte d'arbres, et elle est arros\u00e9e de\nsources qui ne tarissent point. C'est ainsi, \u00e9tranger, que le nom\nd'Ithak\u00e8 est parvenu jusqu'\u00e0 Troi\u00e8 qu'on dit si \u00e9loign\u00e9e de la\nterre Akhaienne.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et le patient et divin Odysseus fut rempli de\njoie, se r\u00e9jouissant de sa patrie que nommait Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, la\nfille de Zeus temp\u00e9tueux. Et il lui dit en paroles ail\u00e9es, mais en\nlui cachant la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, car il n'oubliait point son esprit rus\u00e9:\n\n-- J'avais entendu parler d'Ithak\u00e8 dans la grande Kr\u00e8t\u00e8 situ\u00e9e au\nloin sur la mer. Maintenant je suis venu ici avec mes richesses,\net j'en ai laiss\u00e9 autant \u00e0 mes enfants. Je fuis, car j'ai tu\u00e9 le\nfils bien-aim\u00e9 d'Idom\u00e9neus, Orsilokhos aux pieds rapides, qui,\ndans la grande Kr\u00e8t\u00e8, l'emportait sur tous les hommes par la\nrapidit\u00e9 de ses pieds. Et je le tuai parce qu'il voulait m'enlever\nma part du butin, que j'avais rapport\u00e9e de Troi\u00e8, et pour laquelle\nj'avais subi mille maux dans les combats des hommes ou en\nparcourant les mers. Car je ne servais point, pour plaire \u00e0 son\np\u00e8re, dans la plaine Troienne, et je commandais \u00e0 d'autres\nguerriers que les siens. Et, dans les champs, m'\u00e9tant mis en\nembuscade avec un de mes compagnons, je per\u00e7ai de ma lance\nd'airain Orsilokhos qui venait \u00e0 moi. Et comme la nuit noire\ncouvrait tout l'Ouranos, aucun homme ne nous vit, et je lui\narrachai l'\u00e2me sans t\u00e9moin. Et quand je l'eus tu\u00e9 de l'airain\naigu, je me rendis aussit\u00f4t dans une nef des illustres Phaiakiens,\net je les priai de me recevoir, et je leur donnai une part de mes\nrichesses. Je leur demandai de me porter \u00e0 Pylos ou dans la divine\n\u00c9lis, o\u00f9 commandent les \u00c9p\u00e9iens; mais la force du vent les en\n\u00e9loigna malgr\u00e9 eux, car ils ne voulaient point me tromper. Et nous\nsommes venus ici \u00e0 l'aventure, cette nuit; et nous sommes entr\u00e9s\ndans le port; et, sans songer au repas, bien que manquant de\nforces, nous nous sommes tous couch\u00e9s en sortant de la nef. Et le\ndoux sommeil m'a saisi, tandis que j'\u00e9tais fatigu\u00e9. Et les\nPhaiakiens, ayant retir\u00e9 mes richesses de leur nef creuse, les ont\nd\u00e9pos\u00e9es sur le sable o\u00f9 j'\u00e9tais moi-m\u00eame couch\u00e9. Puis ils sont\npartis pour la belle Sid\u00f4n et m'ont laiss\u00e9 plein de tristesse.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et la d\u00e9esse Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs se mit \u00e0 rire,\net, le caressant de la main, elle prit la figure d'une femme belle\net grande et habile aux travaux, et elle lui dit ces paroles\nail\u00e9es:\n\n-- \u00d4 fourbe, menteur, subtil et insatiable de ruses qui te\nsurpasserait en adresse, si ce n'est peut-\u00eatre un dieu! Tu ne veux\ndonc pas, m\u00eame sur la terre de ta patrie, renoncer aux ruses et\naux paroles trompeuses qui t'ont \u00e9t\u00e9 ch\u00e8res d\u00e8s ta naissance? Mais\nne parlons pas ainsi. Nous connaissons tous deux ces ruses; et de\nm\u00eame que tu l'emportes sur tous les hommes par la sagesse et\nl'\u00e9loquence, ainsi je me glorifie de l'emporter par l\u00e0 sur tous\nles dieux. N'as-tu donc point reconnu Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, fille de\nZeus, moi qui t'assiste toujours dans tous tes travaux et qui te\nprot\u00e8ge? moi qui t'ai rendu cher \u00e0 tous les Phaiakiens? Viens\ndonc, afin que je te conseille et que je t'aide \u00e0 cacher les\nrichesses que j'ai inspir\u00e9 aux illustres Phaiakiens de te donner \u00e0\nton retour dans tes demeures. Je te dirai les douleurs que tu es\ndestin\u00e9 \u00e0 subir dans tes demeures bien construites. Subis-les par\nn\u00e9cessit\u00e9; ne confie \u00e0 aucun homme ni \u00e0 aucune femme tes courses\net ton arriv\u00e9e; mais supporte en silence tes maux nombreux et les\noutrages que te feront les hommes.\n\nEt le subtil Odysseus, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi:\n\n-- Il est difficile \u00e0 un homme qui te rencontre de te reconna\u00eetre,\n\u00f4 d\u00e9esse! m\u00eame au plus sage; car tu prends toutes les figures.\nCertes, je sais que tu m'\u00e9tais bienveillante, quand nous, les fils\ndes Akhaiens, nous combattions devant Troi\u00e8; mais quand nous e\u00fbmes\nrenvers\u00e9 la haute citadelle de Priamos, nous mont\u00e2mes sur nos\nnefs, et un dieu dispersa les Akhaiens. Et, depuis, je ne t'ai\npoint revue, fille de Zeus; et je n'ai point senti ta pr\u00e9sence sur\nma nef pour \u00e9loigner de moi le malheur; mais toujours, le coeur\naccabl\u00e9 dans ma poitrine, j'ai err\u00e9, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que les dieux\nm'aient d\u00e9livr\u00e9 de mes maux. Et tu m'as encourag\u00e9 par tes paroles\nchez le riche peuple des Phaiakiens, et tu m'as conduit toi-m\u00eame \u00e0\nleur ville. Maintenant je te supplie par ton p\u00e8re! Je ne pense\npoint, en effet, \u00eatre arriv\u00e9 dans Ithak\u00e8, car je vois une terre\n\u00e9trang\u00e8re, et je pense que tu me parles ainsi pour te jouer de moi\net tromper mon esprit. Dis-moi donc sinc\u00e8rement si je suis arriv\u00e9\ndans ma ch\u00e8re patrie.\n\nEt la d\u00e9esse Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Tu as donc toujours cette pens\u00e9e dans ta poitrine? Mais je ne\npuis permettre que tu sois malheureux, car tu es \u00e9loquent,\nintelligent et sage. Un autre homme, de retour apr\u00e8s avoir tant\nerr\u00e9, d\u00e9sirerait ardemment revoir sa femme et ses enfants dans ses\ndemeures; mais toi, tu ne veux parler et apprendre qu'apr\u00e8s avoir\n\u00e9prouv\u00e9 ta femme qui est assise dans tes demeures, passant les\njours et les nuits dans les g\u00e9missements et les larmes. Certes, je\nn'ai jamais craint ce qu'elle redoute, et je savais dans mon\nesprit que tu reviendrais, ayant perdu tous tes compagnons. Mais\nje ne pouvais m'opposer au fr\u00e8re de mon p\u00e8re, \u00e0 Poseida\u00f4n qui\n\u00e9tait irrit\u00e9 dans son coeur contre toi, parce que tu avais aveugl\u00e9\nson cher fils. Et, maintenant, je te montrerai la terre d'Ithak\u00e8,\nafin que tu croies. Ce port est celui de Phorkys, le Vieillard de\nla mer, et, \u00e0 la pointe du port, voici l'olivier \u00e9pais devant\nl'antre haut et obscur des nymphes sacr\u00e9es qu'on nomme na\u00efades.\nC'est cette caverne o\u00f9 tu sacrifiais aux nymphes de compl\u00e8tes\nh\u00e9catombes. Et voici le mont N\u00e8ritos couvert de for\u00eats.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, la d\u00e9esse dissipa la nu\u00e9e, et la terre apparut.\nEt le patient et divin Odysseus fut plein de joie, se r\u00e9jouissant\nde sa patrie. Et il baisa la terre f\u00e9conde, et, aussit\u00f4t, levant\nles mains, il supplia les Nymphes:\n\n-- Nymphes, na\u00efades, filles de Zeus, je disais que je ne vous\nreverrais plus! Et, maintenant, je vous salue d'une voix joyeuse.\nJe vous offrirai des pr\u00e9sents, comme autrefois, si la\nd\u00e9vastatrice, fille de Zeus, me laisse vivre et fait grandir mon\ncher fils.\n\nEt la d\u00e9esse Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Prends courage, et que ceci ne t'inqui\u00e8te point; mais d\u00e9posons\naussit\u00f4t tes richesses au fond de l'antre divin, o\u00f9 elles seront\nen s\u00fbret\u00e9, et d\u00e9lib\u00e9rons tous deux sur ce qu'il y a de mieux \u00e0\nfaire.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, la d\u00e9esse entra dans la grotte obscure,\ncherchant un lieu secret; et Odysseus y porta aussit\u00f4t l'or et le\ndur airain, et les beaux v\u00eatements que les Phaiakiens lui avaient\ndonn\u00e9s. Il les y d\u00e9posa, et Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, fille de Zeus\ntemp\u00e9tueux, ferma l'entr\u00e9e avec une pierre. Puis, tous deux,\ns'\u00e9tant assis au pied de l'olivier sacr\u00e9, m\u00e9dit\u00e8rent la perte des\npr\u00e9tendants insolents. Et la d\u00e9esse Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs parla\nla premi\u00e8re:\n\n-- Divin Laertiade, subtil Odysseus, songe comment tu mettras la\nmain sur les pr\u00e9tendants insolents qui commandent depuis trois ans\ndans ta maison, recherchant ta femme divine et lui faisant des\npr\u00e9sents. Elle attend toujours ton retour, g\u00e9missant dans son\ncoeur, et elle donne de l'espoir et elle fait des promesses \u00e0\nchacun d'eux, et elle leur envoie des messagers; mais son esprit a\nd'autres pens\u00e9es.\n\nEt le subtil Odysseus, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi:\n\n-- O dieux! je devais donc, comme l'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n, p\u00e9rir d'une\nmauvaise mort dans mes demeures, si tu ne m'eusses averti \u00e0 temps,\n\u00f4 d\u00e9esse! Mais dis-moi comment nous punirons ces hommes. Debout\naupr\u00e8s de moi, souffle dans mon coeur une grande audace, comme au\njour o\u00f9 nous avons renvers\u00e9 les grandes murailles de Troi\u00e8. Si tu\nrestes, pleine d'ardeur, aupr\u00e8s de moi, \u00f4 Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs,\net si tu m'aides, \u00f4 v\u00e9n\u00e9rable d\u00e9esse, je combattrai seul trois\ncents guerriers.\n\nEt la d\u00e9esse Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Certes, je serai aupr\u00e8s de toi et je ne te perdrai pas de vue,\nquand nous accomplirons ces choses. Et j'esp\u00e8re que le large pav\u00e9\nsera souill\u00e9 du sang et de la cervelle de plus d'un de ces\npr\u00e9tendants qui mangent tes richesses. Je vais te rendre inconnu \u00e0\ntous les hommes. Je riderai ta belle peau sur tes membres courb\u00e9s;\nje ferai tomber tes cheveux blonds de ta t\u00eate; je te couvrirai de\nhaillons qui font qu'on se d\u00e9tourne de celui qui les porte; je\nternirai tes yeux maintenant si beaux, et tu appara\u00eetras \u00e0 tous\nles pr\u00e9tendants comme un mis\u00e9rable, ainsi qu'\u00e0 ta femme et au fils\nque tu as laiss\u00e9s dans tes demeures. Va d'abord trouver le porcher\nqui garde tes porcs, car il te veut du bien, et il aime ton fils\net la sage P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia. Tu le trouveras surveillant les porcs; et\nceux-ci se nourrissent aupr\u00e8s de la roche du Corbeau et de la\nfontaine Ar\u00e9thous\u00e8, mangeant le gland qui leur plait et buvant\nl'eau noire. Reste l\u00e0, et interroge-le avec soin sur toute chose,\njusqu'\u00e0 ce que je revienne de Spart\u00e8 aux belles femmes, o\u00f9\nj'appellerai, \u00f4 Odysseus, ton cher fils T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos qui est all\u00e9\ndans la grande Lak\u00e9daim\u00f4n, vers M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, pour s'informer de toi\net apprendre si tu vis encore.\n\nEt le subtil Odysseus, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi:\n\n-- Pourquoi ne lui avoir rien dit, toi qui sais tout? Est-ce pour\nqu'il soit errant et subisse mille maux sur la mer indompt\u00e9e,\ntandis que ceux-ci mangent ses richesses?\n\nEt la d\u00e9esse Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Qu'il ne soit point une inqui\u00e9tude pour toi. Je l'ai conduit l\u00e0\nmoi-m\u00eame, afin qu'il se fasse une bonne renomm\u00e9e; mais il ne\nsouffre aucune douleur, et il est assis, tranquille, dans les\ndemeures de l'Atr\u00e9ide, o\u00f9 tout lui est abondamment offert. \u00c0 la\nv\u00e9rit\u00e9, les jeunes pr\u00e9tendants lui tendent une emb\u00fbche sur leur\nnef noire, d\u00e9sirant le tuer avant qu'il rentre dans la terre de sa\npatrie; mais je ne pense pas que cela soit, et je pense plut\u00f4t que\nla terre recevra auparavant plus d'un de ces pr\u00e9tendants qui\nmangent tes richesses.\n\nEn parlant ainsi, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 le toucha d'une baguette et elle dess\u00e9cha\nsa belle peau sur ses membres courb\u00e9s, et elle fit tomber ses\nblonds cheveux de sa t\u00eate. Elle chargea tout son corps de\nvieillesse; elle ternit ses yeux, si beaux auparavant; elle lui\ndonna un v\u00eatement en haillons, d\u00e9chir\u00e9, sale et souill\u00e9 de fum\u00e9e;\nelle le couvrit ensuite de la grande peau nue d'un cerf rapide, et\nelle lui donna enfin un b\u00e2ton et une besace mis\u00e9rable attach\u00e9e par\nune courroie tordue.\n\nIls se s\u00e9par\u00e8rent apr\u00e8s s'\u00eatre ainsi entendus, et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 se rendit\ndans la divine Lak\u00e9daim\u00f4n, aupr\u00e8s du fils d'Odysseus.\n\n14:\n\nEt Odysseus s'\u00e9loigna du port, par un \u00e2pre sentier, \u00e0 travers les\nbois et les hauteurs, vers le lieu o\u00f9 Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 lui avait dit qu'il\ntrouverait son divin porcher, qui prenait soin de ses biens plus\nque tous les serviteurs qu'il avait achet\u00e9s, lui, le divin\nOdysseus.\n\nEt il le trouva assis sous le portique, en un lieu d\u00e9couvert o\u00f9 il\navait construit de belles et grandes \u00e9tables autour desquelles on\npouvait marcher. Et il les avait construites, pour ses porcs, de\npierres superpos\u00e9es et entour\u00e9es d'une haie \u00e9pineuse, en l'absence\ndu roi, sans l'aide de sa ma\u00eetresse et du vieux Laert\u00e8s. Et il\navait plant\u00e9 au dehors des pieux \u00e9pais et nombreux, en coeur noir\nde ch\u00eane; et, dans l'int\u00e9rieur, il avait fait douze parcs \u00e0 porcs.\nDans chacun \u00e9taient couch\u00e9es cinquante femelles pleines; et les\nm\u00e2les couchaient dehors; et ceux-ci \u00e9taient beaucoup moins\nnombreux, car les divins pr\u00e9tendants les diminuaient en les\nmangeant, et le porcher leur envoyait toujours le plus gras et le\nmeilleur de tous; et il n'y en avait plus que trois cent soixante.\nQuatre chiens, semblables \u00e0 des b\u00eates fauves, et que le prince des\nporchers nourrissait, veillaient toujours sur les porcs.\n\nEt celui-ci adaptait \u00e0 ses pieds des sandales qu'il taillait dans\nla peau d'une vache colori\u00e9e. Et trois des autres porchers \u00e9taient\ndispers\u00e9s, faisant pa\u00eetre leurs porcs; et le quatri\u00e8me avait \u00e9t\u00e9\nenvoy\u00e9 par n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 \u00e0 la ville, avec un porc pour les pr\u00e9tendants\norgueilleux, afin que ceux-ci, l'ayant tu\u00e9, d\u00e9vorassent sa chair.\n\nEt aussit\u00f4t les chiens aboyeurs virent Odysseus, et ils\naccoururent en hurlant; mais Odysseus s'assit plein de ruse, et le\nb\u00e2ton tomba de sa main. Alors il e\u00fbt subi un indigne traitement\naupr\u00e8s de l'\u00e9table qui \u00e9tait \u00e0 lui; mais le porcher accourut\npromptement de ses pieds rapides; et le cuir lui tomba des mains,\net, en criant, il chassa les chiens \u00e0 coups de pierres, et il dit\nau roi:\n\n-- \u00d4 vieillard, certes, ces chiens allaient te d\u00e9chirer et me\ncouvrir d'opprobre. Les dieux m'ont fait assez d'autres maux. Je\nreste ici, g\u00e9missant, et pleurant un roi divin, et je nourris ses\nporcs gras, pour que d'autres que lui les mangent; et peut-\u00eatre\nsouffre-t-il de la faim, errant parmi les peuples \u00e9trangers, s'il\nvit encore et s'il voit la lumi\u00e8re de H\u00e8lios. Mais suis-moi, et\nentrons dans l'\u00e9table, \u00f4 vieillard, afin que, rassasi\u00e9 dans ton\n\u00e2me de nourriture et de vin, tu me dises d'o\u00f9 tu es et quels maux\ntu as subis.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, le divin porcher le pr\u00e9c\u00e9da dans l'\u00e9table, et,\nl'introduisant, il le fit asseoir sur des branches \u00e9paisses qu'il\nrecouvrit de la peau d'une ch\u00e8vre sauvage et velue. Et, s'\u00e9tant\ncouch\u00e9 sur cette peau grande et \u00e9paisse, Odysseus se r\u00e9jouit\nd'\u00eatre re\u00e7u ainsi, et il dit:\n\n-- Que Zeus, \u00f4 mon h\u00f4te, et les autres dieux immortels t'accordent\nce que tu d\u00e9sires le plus, car tu me re\u00e7ois avec bont\u00e9.\n\nEt le porcher Eumaios lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Etranger, il ne m'est point permis de m\u00e9priser m\u00eame un h\u00f4te\nplus mis\u00e9rable encore, car les \u00e9trangers et les pauvres viennent\nde Zeus, et le pr\u00e9sent modique que nous leur faisons lui pla\u00eet;\ncar cela seul est au pouvoir d'esclaves toujours tremblants que\ncommandent de jeunes rois. Certes, les dieux s'opposent au retour\nde celui qui m'aimait et qui m'e\u00fbt donn\u00e9 un domaine aussi grand\nqu'un bon roi a coutume d'en donner \u00e0 son serviteur qui a beaucoup\ntravaill\u00e9 pour lui et dont un dieu a fait fructifier le labeur;\net, aussi, une demeure, une part de ses biens et une femme\nd\u00e9sirable. Ainsi mon travail a prosp\u00e9r\u00e9, et le roi m'e\u00fbt\ngrandement r\u00e9compens\u00e9, s'il \u00e9tait devenu vieux ici; mais il a\np\u00e9ri. Pl\u00fbt aux dieux que la race des H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 e\u00fbt p\u00e9ri enti\u00e8rement,\npuisqu'elle a rompu les genoux de tant de guerriers! car mon\nma\u00eetre aussi, pour la cause d'Agamemn\u00f4n, est all\u00e9 vers Ilios\nnourrice de chevaux, afin de combattre les Troiens.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il ceignit sa tunique, qu'il releva, et, allant\nvers les \u00e9tables o\u00f9 \u00e9tait enferm\u00e9 le troupeau de porcs, il prit\ndeux jeunes pourceaux, les \u00e9gorgea, alluma le feu, les coupa et\nles traversa de broches, et, les ayant fait r\u00f4tir, les offrit \u00e0\nOdysseus, tout chauds autour des broches. Puis, il les couvrit de\nfarine blanche, m\u00eala du vin doux dans une coupe grossi\u00e8re, et,\ns'asseyant devant Odysseus, il l'exhorta \u00e0 manger et lui dit:\n\n-- Mange maintenant, \u00f4 \u00e9tranger, cette nourriture destin\u00e9e aux\nserviteurs, car les pr\u00e9tendants mangent les porcs gras, n'ayant\naucune pudeur, ni aucune bont\u00e9. Mais les dieux heureux n'aiment\npas les actions impies, et ils aiment au contraire la justice et\nles actions \u00e9quitables. M\u00eame les ennemis barbares qui envahissent\nune terre \u00e9trang\u00e8re, \u00e0 qui Zeus accorde le butin, et qui\nreviennent vers leurs demeures avec des nefs pleines, sentent\nl'inqui\u00e9tude et la crainte dans leurs \u00e2mes. Mais ceux-ci ont\nappris sans doute, ayant entendu la voix d'un dieu, la mort fatale\nd'Odysseus, car ils ne veulent point rechercher des noces\nl\u00e9gitimes, ni retourner chez eux; mais ils d\u00e9vorent immod\u00e9r\u00e9ment,\net sans rien \u00e9pargner, les biens du roi; et, toutes les nuits et\ntous les jours qui viennent de Zeus, ils sacrifient, non pas une\nseule victime, mais deux au moins. Et ils puisent et boivent le\nvin sans mesure. Certes, les richesses de mon ma\u00eetre \u00e9taient\ngrandes. Aucun h\u00e9ros n'en avait autant, ni sur la noire terre\nferme, ni dans Ithak\u00e8 elle-m\u00eame. Vingt hommes n'ont point tant de\nrichesses. Je t'en ferai le compte: douze troupeaux de boeufs sur\nla terre ferme, autant de brebis, autant de porcs, autant de\nlarges \u00e9tables de ch\u00e8vres. Le tout est surveill\u00e9 par des pasteurs\n\u00e9trangers. Ici, \u00e0 l'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 de l'\u00eele, onze grands troupeaux de\nch\u00e8vres paissent sous la garde de bons serviteurs; et chacun de\nceux-ci m\u00e8ne tous les jours aux pr\u00e9tendants la meilleure des\nch\u00e8vres engraiss\u00e9es. Et moi, je garde ces porcs et je les prot\u00e8ge,\nmais j'envoie aussi aux pr\u00e9tendants le meilleur et le plus gras.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Odysseus mangeait les chairs et buvait le vin\nen silence, m\u00e9ditant le malheur des pr\u00e9tendants. Apr\u00e8s qu'il eut\nmang\u00e9 et bu et satisfait son \u00e2me, Eumaios lui remit pleine de vin\nla coupe o\u00f9 il avait bu lui-m\u00eame. Et Odysseus la re\u00e7ut, et, joyeux\ndans son coeur, il dit \u00e0 Eumaios ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- O ami, quel est cet homme qui t'a achet\u00e9 de ses propres\nrichesses, et qui, dis-tu, \u00e9tait si riche et si puissant? Tu dis\naussi qu'il a p\u00e9ri pour la cause d'Agamemn\u00f4n? Dis-moi son nom, car\nje le connais peut-\u00eatre. Zeus et les autres dieux immortels\nsavent, en effet, si je viens vous annoncer que je l'ai vu, car\nj'ai beaucoup err\u00e9.\n\nEt le chef des porchers lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 vieillard, aucun voyageur errant et apportant des nouvelles\nne persuadera sa femme et son cher fils. Que de mendiants affam\u00e9s\nmentent effront\u00e9ment et ne veulent point dire la v\u00e9rit\u00e9! Chaque\n\u00e9tranger qui vient parmi le peuple d'Ithak\u00e8 va trouver ma\nma\u00eetresse et lui fait des mensonges. Elle les re\u00e7oit avec bont\u00e9,\nles traite bien et les interroge sur chaque chose. Puis elle\ng\u00e9mit, et les larmes tombent de ses paupi\u00e8res, comme c'est la\ncoutume de la femme dont le mari est mort. Et toi, vieillard, tu\ninventerais aussit\u00f4t une histoire, afin qu'elle te donn\u00e2t un\nmanteau, une tunique, des v\u00eatements. Mais d\u00e9j\u00e0 les chiens rapides\net les oiseaux carnassiers ont arrach\u00e9 sa chair de ses os, et il a\nperdu l'\u00e2me; ou les poissons l'ont mang\u00e9 dans la mer, et ses os\ngisent sur le rivage, couverts d'un monceau de sable. Il a p\u00e9ri\nainsi, laissant \u00e0 ses amis et \u00e0 moi de grandes douleurs; car, dans\nquelque lieu que j'aille, je ne trouverai jamais un autre ma\u00eetre\naussi bon, m\u00eame quand j'irais dans la demeure de mon p\u00e8re et de ma\nm\u00e8re, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 je suis n\u00e9 et o\u00f9 ceux-ci m'ont \u00e9lev\u00e9. Et je ne les\npleure point tant, et je ne d\u00e9sire point tant les revoir de mes\nyeux sur la terre de ma patrie, que je ne suis saisi du regret\nd'Odysseus absent. Et maintenant qu'il n'est point l\u00e0, \u00f4 \u00e9tranger,\nje le respecte en le nommant, car il m'aimait beaucoup et prenait\nsoin de moi; c'est pourquoi je l'appelle mon fr\u00e8re a\u00een\u00e9, bien\nqu'il soit absent au loin.\n\nEt le patient et divin Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 ami, puisque tu nies mes paroles, et que tu affirmes qu'il ne\nreviendra pas, ton esprit est toujours incr\u00e9dule. Cependant, je ne\nparle point au hasard, et je jure par serment qu'Odysseus\nreviendra. Qu'on me r\u00e9compense de cette bonne nouvelle quand il\nsera rentr\u00e9 dans ses demeures. Je n'accepterai rien auparavant,\nmalgr\u00e9 ma mis\u00e8re; mais, alors seulement, qu'on me donne des\nv\u00eatements, un manteau et une tunique. Il m'est odieux, non moins\nque les portes d'Aid\u00e8s, celui qui, pouss\u00e9 par la mis\u00e8re, parle\nfaussement. Que Zeus, le premier des dieux, le sache! Et cette\ntable hospitali\u00e8re, et le foyer de l'irr\u00e9prochable Odysseus o\u00f9 je\nme suis assis! Certes, toutes les choses que j'annonce\ns'accompliront. Odysseus arrivera ici dans cette m\u00eame ann\u00e9e, m\u00eame\n\u00e0 la fin de ce mois; m\u00eame dans peu de jours il rentrera dans sa\ndemeure et il punira chacun de ceux qui outragent sa femme et son\nillustre fils.\n\nEt le porcher Eumaios lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 vieillard, je ne te donnerai point cette r\u00e9compense d'une\nbonne nouvelle, car jamais Odysseus ne reviendra vers sa demeure.\nBois donc en repos; ne parlons plus de cela, et ne me rappelle\npoint ces choses, car je suis triste dans mon coeur quand\nquelqu'un se souvient de mon glorieux ma\u00eetre. Mais j'accepte ton\nserment; qu'Odysseus revienne, comme je le d\u00e9sire, ainsi que\nP\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia, le vieux Laert\u00e8s et le divin T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos. Maintenant,\nje g\u00e9mis sur cet enfant, T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, qu'a engendr\u00e9 Odysseus, et\nque les dieux ont nourri comme une jeune plante. J'esp\u00e9rais que,\nparmi les hommes, il ne serait inf\u00e9rieur \u00e0 son p\u00e8re bien-aim\u00e9, ni\nen sagesse, ni en beaut\u00e9; mais quelqu'un d'entre les immortels, ou\nd'entre les hommes, a troubl\u00e9 son esprit calme, et il est all\u00e9\nvers la divine Pylos pour s'informer de son p\u00e8re, et les\npr\u00e9tendants insolents lui tendent une embuscade au retour, afin\nque la race du divin Arkeisios p\u00e9risse enti\u00e8rement dans Ithak\u00e8.\nMais laissons-le, soit qu'il p\u00e9risse, soit qu'il \u00e9chappe, et que\nle Kroni\u00f4n le couvre de sa main! Pour toi, vieillard, raconte-moi\ntes malheurs, et parle avec v\u00e9rit\u00e9, afin que je t'entende. Qui es-\ntu? quel est ton peuple? o\u00f9 sont tes parents et ta ville? sur\nquelle nef es-tu venu? comment des marins t'ont-ils men\u00e9 \u00e0 Ithak\u00e8?\nqui sont-ils? car je pense que tu n'es pas venu ici \u00e0 pied?\n\nEt le subtil Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Je te dirai, en effet, ces choses avec v\u00e9rit\u00e9; mais, quand m\u00eame\ncette nourriture et ton vin doux dureraient un long temps, quand\nm\u00eame nous resterions ici, mangeant tranquillement, tandis que\nd'autres travaillent, il me serait facile, pendant toute une\nann\u00e9e, de te raconter les douleurs que j'ai subies par la volont\u00e9\ndes dieux. Je me glorifie d'\u00eatre n\u00e9 dans la vaste Kr\u00e8t\u00e8 et d'\u00eatre\nle fils d'un homme riche. Beaucoup d'autres fils lui \u00e9taient n\u00e9s\ndans ses demeures, d'une femme l\u00e9gitime, et y avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9lev\u00e9s.\nPour moi, c'est une m\u00e8re achet\u00e9e et concubine qui m'a enfant\u00e9;\nmais Kast\u00f4r Hylakide m'aima autant que ses enfants l\u00e9gitimes; et\nje me glorifie d'avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 engendr\u00e9 par lui qui, autrefois, \u00e9tait\nhonor\u00e9 comme un dieu par les Kr\u00e8tois, \u00e0 cause de ses domaines, de\nses richesses et de ses fils illustres. Mais les k\u00e8res de la mort\nl'emport\u00e8rent aux demeures d'Aid\u00e8s, et ses fils magnanimes\npartag\u00e8rent ses biens et les tir\u00e8rent au sort. Et ils m'en\ndonn\u00e8rent une tr\u00e8s petite part avec sa maison.\n\nMais, par ma vertu, j'\u00e9pousai une fille d'hommes tr\u00e8s riches, car\nje n'\u00e9tais ni insens\u00e9, ni l\u00e2che. Maintenant tout est fl\u00e9tri en\nmoi, mais, cependant, tu peux juger en regardant le chaume; et,\ncertes, j'ai subi des maux cruels. Ar\u00e8s et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 m'avaient donn\u00e9\nl'audace et l'intr\u00e9pidit\u00e9, et quand, m\u00e9ditant la perte des\nennemis, je choisissais des hommes braves pour une embuscade,\njamais, en mon coeur courageux, je n'avais la mort devant les\nyeux; mais, courant aux premiers rangs, je tuais de ma lance celui\ndes guerriers ennemis qui me le c\u00e9dait en agilit\u00e9. Tel j'\u00e9tais\ndans la guerre; mais les travaux et les soins de la famille, par\nlesquels on \u00e9l\u00e8ve les chers enfants, ne me plaisaient point; et\nj'aimais seulement les nefs arm\u00e9es d'avirons, les combats, les\ntraits aigus et les fl\u00e8ches; et ces armes cruelles qui sont\nhorribles aux autres hommes me plaisaient, car un dieu me les\npr\u00e9sentait toujours \u00e0 l'esprit. Ainsi chaque homme se r\u00e9jouit de\nchoses diff\u00e9rentes. En effet, avant que les fils des Akhaiens\neussent mis le pied devant Troi\u00e8, j'avais neuf fois command\u00e9 des\nguerriers et des nefs rapides contre des peuples \u00e9trangers, et\ntout m'avait r\u00e9ussi. Je choisissais d'abord ma part l\u00e9gitime du\nbutin, et je recevais ensuite beaucoup de dons; et ma maison\ns'accroissait, et j'\u00e9tais craint et respect\u00e9 parmi les Kr\u00e8tois.\n\nMais quand l'irr\u00e9prochable Zeus eut d\u00e9cid\u00e9 cette odieuse\nexp\u00e9dition qui devait rompre les genoux \u00e0 tant de h\u00e9ros, alors les\npeuples nous ordonn\u00e8rent, \u00e0 moi et \u00e0 l'illustre Idom\u00e9neus, de\nconduire nos nefs \u00e0 Ilios, et nous ne p\u00fbmes nous y refuser \u00e0 cause\ndes rumeurs mena\u00e7antes du peuple. L\u00e0, nous, fils des Akhaiens,\nnous combatt\u00eemes pendant neuf ann\u00e9es, et, la dixi\u00e8me, ayant\nsaccag\u00e9 la ville de Priamos, nous rev\u00eenmes avec nos nefs vers nos\ndemeures; mais un dieu dispersa les Akhaiens. Mais \u00e0 moi,\nmalheureux, le sage Zeus imposa d'autres maux. Je restai un seul\nmois dans ma demeure, me r\u00e9jouissant de mes enfants, de ma femme\net de mes richesses; et mon coeur me poussa ensuite \u00e0 naviguer\nvers l'Aigypti\u00e8 sur mes nefs bien construites, avec de divins\ncompagnons. Et je pr\u00e9parai neuf nefs, et aussit\u00f4t les \u00e9quipages en\nfurent r\u00e9unis. Pendant six jours mes chers compagnons prirent de\njoyeux repas, car j'offris beaucoup de sacrifices aux dieux, et,\nen m\u00eame temps, des mets \u00e0 mes hommes. Le septi\u00e8me jour, \u00e9tant\npartis de la grande Kr\u00e8t\u00e8, nous navigu\u00e2mes ais\u00e9ment au souffle\npropice de Bor\u00e9as, comme au courant d'un fleuve; et aucune de mes\nnefs n'avait souffert mais, en repos et sains et saufs, nous\nrest\u00e2mes assis et le vent et les pilotes conduisaient les nefs;\net, le cinqui\u00e8me jour, nous parv\u00eenmes au beau fleuve Aigyptos. Et\nj'arr\u00eatai mes nefs recourb\u00e9es dans le fleuve Aigyptos. L\u00e0,\nj'ordonnai \u00e0 mes chers compagnons de rester aupr\u00e8s des nefs pour\nles garder, et j'envoyai des \u00e9claireurs pour aller \u00e0 la\nd\u00e9couverte. Mais ceux-ci, \u00e9gar\u00e9s par leur audace et confiants dans\nleurs forces, d\u00e9vast\u00e8rent aussit\u00f4t les beaux champs des hommes\nAigyptiens, entra\u00eenant les femmes et les petits enfants et tuant\nles hommes. Et aussit\u00f4t le tumulte arriva jusqu'\u00e0 la ville. Et les\nhabitants, entendant ces clameurs, accoururent au lever d'\u00c9\u00f4s, et\ntoute la plaine se remplit de pi\u00e9tons et de cavaliers et de\nl'\u00e9clat de l'airain. Et le foudroyant Zeus mit mes compagnons en\nfuite, et aucun d'eux ne soutint l'attaque, et la mort les\nenvironna de toutes parts. L\u00e0, un grand nombre des n\u00f4tres fut tu\u00e9\npar l'airain aigu, et les autres furent emmen\u00e9s vivants pour \u00eatre\nesclaves. Mais Zeus lui-m\u00eame mit cette r\u00e9solution dans mon esprit.\nPl\u00fbt aux dieux que j'eusse d\u00fb mourir en Aigypti\u00e8 et subir alors ma\ndestin\u00e9e, car d'autres malheurs m'attendaient. Ayant aussit\u00f4t\nretir\u00e9 mon casque de ma t\u00eate et mon bouclier de mes \u00e9paules, et\njet\u00e9 ma lance, je courus aux chevaux du roi, et j'embrassai ses\ngenoux, et il eut piti\u00e9 de moi, et il me sauva; et, m'ayant fait\nmonter dans son char, il m'emmena dans ses demeures. Certes, ses\nguerriers m'entouraient, voulant me tuer de leurs lances de fr\u00eane,\ncar ils \u00e9taient tr\u00e8s irrit\u00e9s; mais il m'arracha \u00e0 eux, craignant\nla col\u00e8re de Zeus hospitalier qui ch\u00e2tie surtout les mauvaises\nactions. Je restai l\u00e0 sept ans, et j'amassai beaucoup de richesses\nparmi les Aigyptiens, car tous me firent des pr\u00e9sents.\n\nMais vers la huiti\u00e8me ann\u00e9e, arriva un homme de la Phoiniki\u00e8,\nplein de mensonges, et qui avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 caus\u00e9 beaucoup de maux aux\nhommes. Et il me persuada par ses mensonges d'aller en Phoiniki\u00e8,\no\u00f9 \u00e9taient sa demeure et ses biens. Et je restai l\u00e0 une ann\u00e9e\nenti\u00e8re aupr\u00e8s de lui. Et quand les jours et les mois se furent\n\u00e9coul\u00e9s, et que, l'ann\u00e9e \u00e9tant accomplie, les saisons revinrent,\nil me fit monter sur une nef, sous pr\u00e9texte d'aller avec lui\nconduire un chargement en Liby\u00e8, mais pour me vendre et retirer de\nmoi un grand prix. Et je le suivis, le soup\u00e7onnant, mais\ncontraint. Et la nef, pouss\u00e9e par le souffle propice de Bor\u00e9as,\napprochait de la Kr\u00e8t\u00e8, quand Zeus m\u00e9dita notre ruine. Et d\u00e9j\u00e0\nnous avions laiss\u00e9 la Kr\u00e8t\u00e8, et rien n'apparaissait plus que\nl'Ouranos et la mer. Alors, le Kroni\u00f4n suspendit une nu\u00e9e noire\nsur la nef creuse, et sous cette nu\u00e9e toute la mer devint noire\naussi. Et Zeus tonna, et il lan\u00e7a la foudre sur la nef, qui se\nrenversa, frapp\u00e9e par la foudre de Zeus, et se remplit de fum\u00e9e.\nEt tous les hommes furent pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9s de la nef, et ils \u00e9taient\nemport\u00e9s, comme des oiseaux de mer, par les flots, autour de la\nnef noire, et un dieu leur refusa le retour. Alors Zeus me mit\nentre les mains le long m\u00e2t de la nef \u00e0 proue bleue, afin que je\npusse fuir la mort; et l'ayant embrass\u00e9, je fus la proie des vents\nfurieux. Et je fus emport\u00e9 pendant neuf jours, et, dans la dixi\u00e8me\nnuit noire, une grande lame me jeta sur la terre des Thespr\u00f4tes.\n\nAlors le h\u00e9ros Pheid\u00f4n, le roi des Thespr\u00f4tes, m'accueillit\ng\u00e9n\u00e9reusement; car je rencontrai d'abord son cher fils, et celui-\nci me conduisit, accabl\u00e9 de froid et de fatigue, et, me soutenant\nde la main, m'emmena dans les demeures de son p\u00e8re. Et celui-ci me\ndonna des v\u00eatements, un manteau et une tunique. L\u00e0, j'entendis\nparler d'Odysseus. Pheid\u00f4n me dit que, lui ayant donn\u00e9\nl'hospitalit\u00e9, il l'avait trait\u00e9 en ami, comme il retournait dans\nla terre de sa patrie. Et il me montra les richesses qu'avait\nr\u00e9unies Odysseus, de l'airain, de l'or et du fer tr\u00e8s difficile \u00e0\ntravailler, le tout assez abondant pour nourrir jusqu'\u00e0 sa dixi\u00e8me\ng\u00e9n\u00e9ration. Et tous ces tr\u00e9sors \u00e9taient d\u00e9pos\u00e9s dans les demeures\ndu roi. Et celui-ci me disait qu'Odysseus \u00e9tait all\u00e9 \u00e0 D\u00f4d\u00f4n\u00e8 pour\napprendre du grand Ch\u00eane la volont\u00e9 de Zeus, et pour savoir\ncomment, depuis longtemps absent, il rentrerait dans la terre\nd'Ithak\u00e8, soit ouvertement, soit en secret. Et Pheid\u00f4n me jura, en\nfaisant des libations dans sa demeure, que la nef et les hommes\n\u00e9taient pr\u00eats qui devaient conduire Odysseus dans la ch\u00e8re terre\nde sa patrie. Mais il me renvoya d'abord, profitant d'une nef des\nThespr\u00f4tes qui allait \u00e0 Doulikhios. Et il ordonna de me mener au\nroi Akastos; mais ces hommes prirent une r\u00e9solution funeste pour\nmoi, afin, sans doute, que je subisse toutes les mis\u00e8res.\n\nQuand la nef fut \u00e9loign\u00e9e de terre, ils song\u00e8rent aussit\u00f4t \u00e0 me\nr\u00e9duire en servitude; et, m'arrachant mon v\u00eatement, mon manteau et\nma tunique, ils jet\u00e8rent sur moi ce mis\u00e9rable haillon et cette\ntunique d\u00e9chir\u00e9e, tels que tu les vois. Vers le soir ils\nparvinrent aux champs de la riante Ithak\u00e8, et ils me li\u00e8rent aux\nbancs de la nef avec une corde bien tordue; puis ils descendirent\nsur le rivage de la mer pour prendre leur repas. Mais les dieux\neux-m\u00eames d\u00e9tach\u00e8rent ais\u00e9ment mes liens. Alors, enveloppant ma\nt\u00eate de ce haillon, je descendis \u00e0 la mer par le gouvernail, et\npressant l'eau de ma poitrine et nageant des deux mains, j'abordai\ntr\u00e8s loin d'eux. Et je montai sur la c\u00f4te, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 croissait un bois\nde ch\u00eanes touffus, et je me couchai contre terre, et ils me\ncherchaient en g\u00e9missant; mais, ne me voyant point, ils jug\u00e8rent\nqu'il \u00e9tait mieux de ne plus me chercher; car les dieux m'avaient\nais\u00e9ment cach\u00e9 d'eux, et ils m'ont conduit \u00e0 l'\u00e9table d'un homme\nexcellent, puisque ma destin\u00e9e est de vivre encore.\n\nEt le porcher Eumaios lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Etranger tr\u00e8s malheureux, certes, tu as fortement \u00e9mu mon coeur\nen racontant les mis\u00e8res que tu as subies et tes courses errantes;\nmais, en parlant d'Odysseus, je pense que tu n'as rien dit de\nsage, et tu ne me persuaderas point. Comment un homme tel que toi\npeut-il mentir aussi effront\u00e9ment? Je sais trop que penser du\nretour de mon ma\u00eetre. Certes, il est tr\u00e8s odieux \u00e0 tous les dieux,\npuisqu'ils ne l'ont point dompt\u00e9 par la main des Troiens, ou\nqu'ils ne lui ont point permis, apr\u00e8s la guerre, de mourir entre\nles bras de ses amis. Car tous les Akhaiens lui eussent \u00e9lev\u00e9 un\ntombeau, et une grande gloire e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 accord\u00e9e \u00e0 son fils dans\nl'avenir. Et maintenant les Harpyes l'ont d\u00e9chir\u00e9 sans gloire, et\nmoi, s\u00e9par\u00e9 de tous, je reste aupr\u00e8s de mes porcs; et je ne vais\npoint \u00e0 la ville, si ce n'est quand la sage P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia m'ordonne\nd'y aller, quand elle a re\u00e7u quelque nouvelle. Et, alors, tous\ns'empressent de m'interroger, ceux qui s'attristent de la longue\nabsence de leur roi et ceux qui se r\u00e9jouissent de d\u00e9vorer\nimpun\u00e9ment ses richesses. Mais il ne m'est point agr\u00e9able de\ndemander ou de r\u00e9pondre depuis qu'un Ait\u00f4lien m'a tromp\u00e9 par ses\nparoles. Ayant tu\u00e9 un homme, il avait err\u00e9 en beaucoup de pays, et\nil vint dans ma demeure, et je le re\u00e7us avec amiti\u00e9. Il me dit\nqu'il avait vu, parmi les Kr\u00e8tois, aupr\u00e8s d'Idom\u00e9neus, mon ma\u00eetre\nr\u00e9parant ses nefs que les temp\u00eates avaient bris\u00e9es. Et il me dit\nqu'Odysseus allait revenir, soit cet \u00e9t\u00e9, soit cet automne,\nramenant de nombreuses richesses avec ses divins compagnons. Et\ntoi, vieillard, qui as subi tant de maux, et que la destin\u00e9e a\nconduit vers moi, ne cherche point \u00e0 me plaire par des mensonges,\ncar je ne t'honorerai, ni ne t'aimerai pour cela, mais par respect\npour Zeus hospitalier et par compassion pour toi.\n\nEt le subtil Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Certes, tu as dans ta poitrine un esprit incr\u00e9dule, puisque\nayant jur\u00e9 par serment, je ne t'ai point persuad\u00e9. Mais faisons un\npacte, et que les dieux qui habitent l'Olympos soient t\u00e9moins. Si\nton roi revient dans cette demeure, donne-moi des v\u00eatements, un\nmanteau et une tunique, et fais-moi conduire \u00e0 Doulikhios, ainsi\nque je le d\u00e9sire; mais si ton roi ne revient pas comme je te le\ndis, ordonne \u00e0 tes serviteurs de me jeter du haut d'un grand\nrocher, afin que, d\u00e9sormais, un mendiant craigne de mentir.\n\nEt le divin porcher lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00c9tranger, je perdrais ainsi ma bonne renomm\u00e9e et ma vertu parmi\nles hommes, maintenant et \u00e0 jamais, moi qui t'ai conduit dans mon\n\u00e9table et qui t'ai offert les dons de l'hospitalit\u00e9, si je te\ntuais et si je t'arrachais ta ch\u00e8re \u00e2me. Comment supplierais-je\nensuite le Kroni\u00f4n Zeus? Mais voici l'heure du repas, et mes\ncompagnons vont arriver promptement, afin que nous pr\u00e9parions un\nbon repas dans l'\u00e9table.\n\nTandis qu'ils se parlaient ainsi, les porcs et les porchers\narriv\u00e8rent. Et ils enferm\u00e8rent les porcs, comme de coutume, pour\nla nuit, et une immense rumeur s'\u00e9leva du milieu des animaux qui\nallaient \u00e0 l'enclos. Puis le divin porcher dit \u00e0 ses compagnons:\n\n-- Amenez-moi un porc excellent, afin que je le tue pour cet h\u00f4te\nqui vient de loin, et nous nous en d\u00e9lecterons aussi, nous qui\nsouffrons beaucoup, et qui surveillons les porcs aux dents\nblanches, tandis que d'autres mangent impun\u00e9ment le fruit de notre\ntravail.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il fendit du bois avec l'airain tranchant. Et\nles porchers amen\u00e8rent un porc tr\u00e8s gras ayant cinq ans. Et ils\nl'\u00e9tendirent devant le foyer. Mais Eumaios n'oublia point les\nimmortels, car il n'avait que de bonnes pens\u00e9es; et il jeta\nd'abord dans le feu les soies de la t\u00eate du porc aux dents\nblanches, et il pria tous les dieux, afin que le subtil Odysseus\nrevint dans ses demeures. Puis, levant les bras, il frappa la\nvictime d'un morceau de ch\u00eane qu'il avait r\u00e9serv\u00e9, et la vie\nabandonna le porc. Et les porchers l'\u00e9gorg\u00e8rent, le br\u00fbl\u00e8rent et\nle coup\u00e8rent par morceaux. Et Eumaios, retirant les entrailles\nsaignantes, qu'il recouvrit de la graisse prise au corps, les jeta\ndans le feu apr\u00e8s les avoir saupoudr\u00e9es de fleur de farine d'orge.\nEt les porchers, divisant le reste, travers\u00e8rent les viandes de\nbroches, les firent r\u00f4tir avec soin et les retir\u00e8rent du feu. Puis\nils les d\u00e9pos\u00e8rent sur des disques. Eumaios se leva, faisant les\nparts, car il avait des pens\u00e9es \u00e9quitables; et il fit en tout sept\nparts. Il en consacra une aux nymphes et \u00e0 Herm\u00e8s, fils de Mai\u00e8,\net il distribua les autres \u00e0 chacun; mais il honora Odysseus du\ndos entier du porc aux dents blanches. Et le h\u00e9ros, le subtil\nOdysseus, s'en glorifia, et dit \u00e0 Eumaios:\n\n-- Plaise aux dieux, Eumaios, que tu sois toujours cher au p\u00e8re\nZeus, puisque, tel que je suis, tu m'as honor\u00e9 de cette part\nexcellente.\n\nEt le porcher Eumaios lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Mange heureusement, mon h\u00f4te, et d\u00e9lecte-toi de ces mets tels\nqu'ils sont. Un dieu nous les a donn\u00e9s et nous laissera en jouir,\ns'il le veut; car il peut tout.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il offrit les pr\u00e9mices aux dieux \u00e9ternels.\nPuis, ayant fait des libations avec du vin rouge, il mit une coupe\nentre les mains d'Odysseus destructeur des citadelles. Et celui-ci\ns'assit devant le dos du porc; et M\u00e9saulios, que le chef des\nporchers avait achet\u00e9 en l'absence de son ma\u00eetre, et sans l'aide\nde sa ma\u00eetresse et du vieux Laert\u00e8s, distribua les parts. Il\nl'avait achet\u00e9 de ses propres richesses \u00e0 des Taphiens.\n\nEt tous \u00e9tendirent les mains vers les mets plac\u00e9s devant eux. Et\napr\u00e8s qu'ils eurent assouvi le besoin de boire et de manger,\nM\u00e9saulios enleva le pain, et tous, rassasi\u00e9s de nourriture,\nall\u00e8rent \u00e0 leurs lits.\n\nMais la nuit vint, mauvaise et noire; et Zeus plut toute la nuit,\net le grand Z\u00e9phyros soufflait charg\u00e9 d'eau. Alors Odysseus parla\nainsi, pour \u00e9prouver le porcher qui prenait tant de soins de lui,\nafin de voir si, retirant son propre manteau, il le lui donnerait,\nou s'il avertirait un de ses compagnons:\n\n-- \u00c9coutez-moi maintenant, toi, Eumaios, et vous, ses compagnons,\nafin que je vous parle en me glorifiant, car le vin insens\u00e9 m'y\npousse, lui qui excite le plus sage \u00e0 chanter, \u00e0 rire, \u00e0 danser,\net \u00e0 prononcer des paroles qu'il e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 mieux de ne pas dire;\nmais d\u00e8s que j'ai commenc\u00e9 \u00e0 \u00eatre bavard, je ne puis rien cacher.\nPl\u00fbt aux dieux que je fusse jeune et que ma force f\u00fbt grande,\ncomme au jour o\u00f9 nous tend\u00eemes une embuscade sous Troi\u00e8. Les chefs\n\u00e9taient Odysseus et l'Atr\u00e9ide M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, et je commandais avec eux,\ncar ils m'avaient choisi eux-m\u00eames. Quand nous f\u00fbmes arriv\u00e9s \u00e0 la\nville, sous la haute muraille, nous nous couch\u00e2mes avec nos armes,\ndans un marais, au milieu de roseaux et de broussailles \u00e9paisses.\nLa nuit vint, mauvaise, et le souffle de Bor\u00e9as \u00e9tait glac\u00e9. Puis\nla neige tomba, froide, et le givre couvrait nos boucliers. Et\ntous avaient leurs manteaux et leurs tuniques; et ils dormaient\ntranquilles, couvrant leurs \u00e9paules de leurs boucliers. Pour moi,\nj'avais laiss\u00e9 mon manteau \u00e0 mes compagnons comme un insens\u00e9; mais\nje n'avais point pens\u00e9 qu'il d\u00fbt faire un si grand froid, et je\nn'avais que mon bouclier et une tunique brillante. Quand vint la\nderni\u00e8re partie de la nuit, \u00e0 l'heure o\u00f9 les astres s'inclinent,\nayant touch\u00e9 du coude Odysseus, qui \u00e9tait aupr\u00e8s de moi, je lui\ndis ces paroles qu'il comprit aussit\u00f4t: -- Divin Laertiade, subtil\nOdysseus, je ne vivrai pas longtemps et ce froid me tuera, car je\nn'ai point de manteau et un daim\u00f4n m'a tromp\u00e9 en me persuadant de\nne prendre que ma seule tunique; et maintenant il n'y a plus aucun\nrem\u00e8de.' Je parlai ainsi, et il m\u00e9dita aussit\u00f4t un projet dans son\nesprit, aussi prompt qu'il l'\u00e9tait toujours pour d\u00e9lib\u00e9rer ou pour\ncombattre. Et il me dit \u00e0 voix basse: -- Tais-toi maintenant, de\npeur qu'un autre parmi les Akhaiens t'entende.' Il parla ainsi,\net, appuy\u00e9 sur le coude, il dit: -- \u00c9coutez-moi, amis. Un songe\ndivin m'a r\u00e9veill\u00e9. Nous sommes loin des nefs; mais qu'un de nous\naille pr\u00e9venir le prince des peuples, l'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n, afin\nqu'il ordonne \u00e0 un plus grand nombre de sortir des nefs et de\nvenir ici.' Il parla ainsi, et aussit\u00f4t Thoas Andraimonide se\nleva, jeta son manteau pourpr\u00e9 et courut vers les nefs, et je me\ncouchai oiseusement dans son manteau, jusqu'\u00e0 la clart\u00e9 d'E\u00f4s au\nthr\u00f4ne d'or. pl\u00fbt aux Dieux que je fusse aussi jeune et que ma\nforce f\u00fbt aussi grande! un des porchers, dans ces \u00e9tables, me\ndonnerait un manteau, par amiti\u00e9 et par respect pour un homme\nbrave. Mais maintenant, je suis m\u00e9pris\u00e9, \u00e0 cause des mis\u00e9rables\nhaillons qui me couvrent le corps.\n\nEt le porcher Eumaios lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 vieillard, tu as racont\u00e9 une histoire irr\u00e9prochable, et tu\nn'auras point dit en vain une parole excellente. C'est pourquoi tu\nne manqueras ni d'un manteau, ni d'aucune chose qui convienne \u00e0 un\nsuppliant malheureux venu de loin; mais, au matin, tu reprendras\ntes haillons, car ici nous n'avons pas beaucoup de manteaux, ni de\ntuniques de rechange, et chaque homme n'en a qu'une. Quand le cher\nfils d'Odysseus sera revenu, il te donnera lui-m\u00eame des v\u00eatements,\nun manteau et une tunique, et il te fera conduire o\u00f9 ton coeur\nd\u00e9sire aller.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il se leva, approcha le feu du lit de peaux de\nch\u00e8vres et de brebis o\u00f9 Odysseus se coucha, et il jeta sur lui un\ngrand et \u00e9pais manteau de rechange et dont il se couvrait quand\nles mauvais temps survenaient. Et Odysseus se coucha, et, aupr\u00e8s\nde lui, les jeunes porchers s'endormirent; mais il ne plut point \u00e0\nEumaios de reposer dans son lit loin de ses porcs, et il sortit,\narm\u00e9. Et Odysseus se r\u00e9jouissait qu'il pr\u00eet tant de soin de ses\nbiens pendant son absence. Et, d'abord, Eumaios mit une \u00e9p\u00e9e aigu\u00eb\nautour de ses robustes \u00e9paules; puis, il se couvrit d'un \u00e9pais\nmanteau qui garantissait du vent: et il prit aussi la peau d'une\ngrande ch\u00e8vre, et il saisit une lance aigu\u00eb pour se d\u00e9fendre des\nchiens et des hommes; et il alla dormir o\u00f9 dormaient ses porcs,\nsous une pierre creuse, \u00e0 l'abri de Bor\u00e9as.\n\n\n15.\n\nEt Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 se rendit dans la grande Lak\u00e9daim\u00f4n, vers\nl'illustre fils du magnanime Odysseus, afin de l'avertir et de\nl'exciter au retour. Et elle trouva T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos et l'illustre fils\nde Nest\u00f4r dormant sous le portique de la demeure de l'illustre\nM\u00e9n\u00e9laos. Et le Nestoride dormait paisiblement; mais le doux\nsommeil ne saisissait point T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, et il songeait \u00e0 son p\u00e8re,\ndans son esprit, pendant la nuit solitaire. Et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux\nclairs, se tenant pr\u00e8s de lui, parla ainsi:\n\n-- T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, il ne serait pas bien de rester plus longtemps loin\nde ta demeure et de tes richesses laiss\u00e9es en proie \u00e0 des hommes\ninsolents qui d\u00e9voreront et se partageront tes biens; car tu\naurais fait un voyage inutile. Excite donc tr\u00e8s promptement\nl'illustre M\u00e9n\u00e9laos \u00e0 te renvoyer, afin que tu retrouves ton\nirr\u00e9prochable m\u00e8re dans tes demeures. D\u00e9j\u00e0 son p\u00e8re et ses fr\u00e8res\nlui ordonnent d'\u00e9pouser Eurymakhos, car il l'emporte sur tous les\npr\u00e9tendants par les pr\u00e9sents qu'il offre et la plus riche dot\nqu'il promet. Prends garde que, contre son gr\u00e9, elle emporte ces\nrichesses de ta demeure. Tu sais, en effet, quelle est l'\u00e2me d'une\nfemme; elle veut toujours enrichir la maison de celui qu'elle\n\u00e9pouse. Elle ne se souvient plus de ses premiers enfants ni de son\npremier mari mort, et elle n'y songe plus. Quand tu seras de\nretour, confie donc, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que les dieux t'aient donn\u00e9 une\nfemme v\u00e9n\u00e9rable, toutes tes richesses \u00e0 la meilleure de tes\nservantes. Mais je te dirai autre chose. Garde mes paroles dans\nton esprit. Les plus braves des pr\u00e9tendants te tendent une\nembuscade dans le d\u00e9troit d'Ithak\u00e8 et de la st\u00e9rile Samos,\nd\u00e9sirant te tuer avant que tu rentres dans ta patrie; mais je ne\npense pas qu'ils le fassent, et, auparavant, la terre enfermera\nplus d'un de ces pr\u00e9tendants qui mangent tes biens. Conduis ta nef\nbien construite loin des \u00eeles, et navigue la nuit. Celui des\nimmortels qui veille sur toi t'enverra un vent favorable. Et d\u00e8s\nque tu seras arriv\u00e9 au rivage d'Ithak\u00e8, envoie la nef et tous tes\ncompagnons \u00e0 la ville, et va d'abord chez le porcher qui garde tes\nporcs et qui t'aime. Dors chez lui, et envoie-le \u00e0 la ville\nannoncer \u00e0 l'irr\u00e9prochable P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia que tu la salues et que tu\nreviens de Pylos.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, elle remonta dans le haut Olympos. Et\nT\u00e8l\u00e9makhos \u00e9veilla le Nestoride de son doux sommeil en le poussant\ndu pied, et il lui dit:\n\n-- L\u00e8ve-toi, Nestoride Peisistratos, et lie au char les chevaux au\nsabot massif afin que nous partions.\n\nEt le Nestoride Peisistratos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, nous ne pouvons, quelque h\u00e2te que nous ayons,\npartir dans la nuit t\u00e9n\u00e9breuse. Bient\u00f4t E\u00f4s para\u00eetra. Attendons au\nmatin et jusqu'\u00e0 ce que le h\u00e9ros Atr\u00e9ide M\u00e9n\u00e9laos illustre par sa\nlance ait plac\u00e9 ses pr\u00e9sents dans le char et t'ait renvoy\u00e9 avec\ndes paroles amies. Un h\u00f4te se souvient toujours d'un homme aussi\nhospitalier qui l'a re\u00e7u avec amiti\u00e9.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et aussit\u00f4t \u00c9\u00f4s s'assit sur son thr\u00f4ne d'or, et le\nbrave M\u00e9n\u00e9laos s'approcha d'eux, ayant quitt\u00e9 le lit o\u00f9 \u00e9tait\nH\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 aux beaux cheveux. Et d\u00e8s que le cher fils du divin\nOdysseus l'eut reconnu, il se h\u00e2ta de se v\u00eatir de sa tunique\nbrillante, et, jetant un grand manteau sur ses \u00e9paules, il sortit\ndu portique, et dit \u00e0 M\u00e9n\u00e9laos:\n\n-- Divin Atr\u00e9ide M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, prince des peuples, renvoie-moi d\u00e8s\nmaintenant dans la ch\u00e8re terre de la patrie, car voici que je\nd\u00e9sire en mon \u00e2me revoir ma demeure.\n\nEt le brave M\u00e9n\u00e9laos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, je ne te retiendrai pas plus longtemps, puisque tu\nd\u00e9sires t'en retourner. Je m'irrite \u00e9galement contre un homme qui\naime ses h\u00f4tes outre mesure ou qui les hait. Une conduite\nconvenable est la meilleure. Il est mal de renvoyer un h\u00f4te qui\nveut rester, ou de retenir celui qui veut partir; mais il faut le\ntraiter avec amiti\u00e9 s'il veut rester, ou le renvoyer s'il veut\npartir. Reste cependant jusqu'\u00e0 ce que j'aie plac\u00e9 sur ton char de\nbeaux pr\u00e9sents que tu verras de tes yeux, et je dirai aux\nservantes de pr\u00e9parer un repas abondant dans mes demeures \u00e0 l'aide\ndes mets qui s'y trouvent. Il est honorable, glorieux et utile de\nparcourir une grande \u00e9tendue de pays apr\u00e8s avoir mang\u00e9. Si tu veux\nparcourir Hellas et Argos, je mettrai mes chevaux sous le joug et\nje te conduirai vers les villes des hommes, et aucun d'eux ne nous\nrenverra outrageusement, mais chacun te donnera quelque chose, ou\nun tr\u00e9pied d'airain, ou un bassin, ou deux mulets, ou une coupe\nd'or.\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Divin Atr\u00e9ide M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, prince des peuples, je veux rentrer\ndans nos demeures, car je n'ai laiss\u00e9 derri\u00e8re moi aucun gardien\nde mes richesses, et je crains, ou de p\u00e9rir en cherchant mon divin\np\u00e8re, ou, loin de mes demeures, de perdre mes richesses.\n\nEt le brave M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, l'ayant entendu, ordonna aussit\u00f4t \u00e0 sa femme\net \u00e0 ses servantes de pr\u00e9parer dans les demeures un repas\nabondant, \u00e0 l'aide des mets qui s'y trouvaient. Et alors le\nBo\u00e8thoide Et\u00e9\u00f4nteus, qui sortait de son lit et qui n'habitait pas\nloin du roi, arriva pr\u00e8s de lui. Et le brave M\u00e9n\u00e9laos lui ordonna\nd'allumer du feu et de faire r\u00f4tir les viandes. Et le Bo\u00e8thoide\nob\u00e9it d\u00e8s qu'il eut entendu. Et M\u00e9n\u00e9laos rentra dans sa chambre\nnuptiale parfum\u00e9e, et H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 et M\u00e9gapenth\u00e8s allaient avec lui.\nQuand ils furent arriv\u00e9s l\u00e0 o\u00f9 les choses pr\u00e9cieuses \u00e9taient\nenferm\u00e9es, l'Atr\u00e9ide prit une coupe ronde, et il ordonna \u00e0 son\nfils M\u00e9gapenth\u00e8s d'emporter un krat\u00e8re d'argent. Et H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8\ns'arr\u00eata devant un coffre o\u00f9 \u00e9taient enferm\u00e9s les v\u00eatements aux\ncouleurs vari\u00e9es qu'elle avait travaill\u00e9s elle-m\u00eame. Et H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8, la\ndivine femme, prit un p\u00e9plos, le plus beau de tous par ses\ncouleurs diverses, et le plus grand, et qui resplendissait comme\nune \u00e9toile; et il \u00e9tait plac\u00e9 sous tous les autres. Et ils\nretourn\u00e8rent par les demeures jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'ils fussent arriv\u00e9s\naupr\u00e8s de T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos. Et le brave M\u00e9n\u00e9laos lui dit:\n\n-- T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, que Zeus, le puissant mari de H\u00e8r\u00e8, accomplisse le\nretour que tu d\u00e9sires dans ton \u00e2me! De tous mes tr\u00e9sors qui sont\nenferm\u00e9s dans ma demeure je te donnerai le plus beau et le plus\npr\u00e9cieux, ce krat\u00e8re bien travaill\u00e9, d'argent massif, et dont les\nbords sont enrichis d'or. C'est l'ouvrage de H\u00e8phaistos, et\nl'illustre h\u00e9ros, roi des Sid\u00f4nes, me l'offrit, quand il me re\u00e7ut\ndans sa demeure, \u00e0 mon retour; et, moi, je veux te l'offrir.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, le h\u00e9ros Atr\u00e9ide lui mit la coupe ronde entre\nles mains; et le robuste M\u00e9gapenth\u00e8s posa devant lui le splendide\nkrat\u00e8re d'argent, et H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8, tenant le p\u00e9plos \u00e0 la main,\ns'approcha et lui dit:\n\n-- Et moi aussi, cher enfant, je te ferai ce pr\u00e9sent, ouvrage des\nmains de H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8, afin que tu le donnes \u00e0 la femme bien-aim\u00e9e que\ntu \u00e9pouseras. Jusque-l\u00e0, qu'il reste aupr\u00e8s de ta ch\u00e8re m\u00e8re. En\nquittant notre demeure pour la terre de ta patrie, r\u00e9jouis-toi de\nmon souvenir.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, elle lui mit le p\u00e9plos entre les mains, et il\nle re\u00e7ut avec joie. Et le h\u00e9ros Peisistratros pla\u00e7a les pr\u00e9sents\ndans une corbeille, et il les admirait dans son \u00e2me. Puis, le\nblond M\u00e9n\u00e9laos les conduisit dans les demeures o\u00f9 ils s'assirent\nsur des si\u00e8ges et sur des thr\u00f4nes. Et une servante versa, d'une\nbelle aigui\u00e8re d'or dans un bassin d'argent, de l'eau pour laver\nleurs mains; et, devant eux, elle dressa la table polie. Et\nl'irr\u00e9prochable intendante, pleine de gr\u00e2ce pour tous, couvrit la\ntable de pain et de mets nombreux; et le Bo\u00e8thoide coupait les\nviandes et distribuait les parts, et le fils de l'illustre\nM\u00e9n\u00e9laos versait le vin. Et tous \u00e9tendirent les mains vers les\nmets plac\u00e9s devant eux.\n\nApr\u00e8s qu'ils eurent assouvi la faim et la soif, T\u00e9l\u00e9makhos et\nl'illustre fils de Nest\u00f4r, ayant mis les chevaux sous le joug,\nmont\u00e8rent sur le beau char et sortirent du vestibule et du\nportique sonore. Et le blond M\u00e9n\u00e9laos Atr\u00e9ide allait avec eux,\nportant \u00e0 la main une coupe d'or pleine de vin doux, afin de faire\nune libation avant le d\u00e9part. Et, se tenant devant les chevaux, il\nparla ainsi:\n\n-- Salut, \u00f4 jeunes hommes! Portez mon salut au prince des peuples\nNest\u00f4r, qui \u00e9tait aussi doux qu'un p\u00e8re pour moi, quand les fils\ndes Akhaiens combattaient devant Troi\u00e8.\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 divin, nous r\u00e9p\u00e9terons toutes tes paroles \u00e0 Nest\u00f4r. Plaise\naux dieux que, de retour dans Ithak\u00e8 et dans la demeure\nd'Odysseus, je puisse dire avec quelle amiti\u00e9 tu m'as re\u00e7u, toi\ndont j'emporte les beaux et nombreux pr\u00e9sents.\n\nEt tandis qu'il parlait ainsi, un aigle s'envola \u00e0 sa droite,\nportant dans ses serres une grande oie blanche domestique. Les\nhommes et les femmes le poursuivaient avec des cris; et l'aigle,\ns'approchant, passa \u00e0 la droite des chevaux. Et tous, l'ayant vu,\nse r\u00e9jouirent dans leurs \u00e2mes; et le Nestoride Peisistratos dit le\npremier:\n\n-- D\u00e9cide, divin M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, prince des peuples, si un dieu nous\nenvoie ce signe, ou \u00e0 toi.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et M\u00e9n\u00e9laos cher \u00e0 Ar\u00e8s songeait comment il\nr\u00e9pondrait sagement; mais H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8 au large p\u00e9plos le devan\u00e7a et\ndit:\n\n-- \u00c9coutez-moi, et je proph\u00e9tiserai ainsi que les immortels me\nl'inspirent, et je pense que ceci s'accomplira. De m\u00eame que\nl'aigle, descendu de la montagne o\u00f9 est sa race et o\u00f9 sont ses\npetits, a enlev\u00e9 l'oie dans les demeures, ainsi Odysseus, apr\u00e8s\navoir beaucoup souffert et beaucoup err\u00e9, reviendra dans sa maison\net se vengera. Peut-\u00eatre d\u00e9j\u00e0 est-il dans sa demeure, apportant la\nmort aux pr\u00e9tendants.\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Puisse Zeus, le tonnant mari de H\u00e8r\u00e8, le vouloir ainsi, et,\nd\u00e9sormais, je t'adresserai des pri\u00e8res comme \u00e0 une d\u00e9esse.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il fouetta les chevaux, et ceux-ci s'\u00e9lanc\u00e8rent\nrapidement par la ville et la plaine. Et, ce jour entier, ils\ncoururent tous deux sous le joug. Et H\u00e8lios tomba, et tous les\nchemins devinrent sombres.\n\nEt ils arriv\u00e8rent \u00e0 Ph\u00e8ra, dans la demeure de Diokleus, fils\nd'Orsilokhos que l'Alph\u00e9ios avait engendr\u00e9. Et ils y dormirent la\nnuit, car il leur offrit l'hospitalit\u00e9. Mais quand \u00c9\u00f4s aux doigts\nros\u00e9s, n\u00e9e au matin, apparut, ils attel\u00e8rent leurs chevaux, et,\nmontant sur leur beau char, ils sortirent du vestibule et du\nportique sonore. Et ils excit\u00e8rent les chevaux du fouet, et ceux-\nci couraient avec ardeur. Et ils parvinrent bient\u00f4t \u00e0 la haute\nville de Pylos. Alors T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos dit au fils de Nest\u00f4r:\n\n-- Nestoride, comment accompliras-tu ce que tu m'as promis? Nous\nnous glorifions d'\u00eatre h\u00f4tes \u00e0 jamais, \u00e0 cause de l'amiti\u00e9 de nos\np\u00e8res, de notre \u00e2ge qui est le m\u00eame, et de ce voyage qui nous\nunira plus encore. \u00d4 divin, ne me conduis pas plus loin que ma\nnef, mais laisse-moi ici, de peur que le vieillard me retienne\nmalgr\u00e9 moi dans sa demeure, d\u00e9sirant m'honorer; car il est\nn\u00e9cessaire que je parte tr\u00e8s promptement.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le Nestoride d\u00e9lib\u00e9ra dans son esprit comment\nil accomplirait convenablement sa promesse. Et, en d\u00e9lib\u00e9rant,\nceci lui sembla la meilleure r\u00e9solution. Il tourna les chevaux du\nc\u00f4t\u00e9 de la nef rapide et du rivage de la mer. Et il d\u00e9posa les\npr\u00e9sents splendides sur la poupe de la nef, les v\u00eatements et l'or\nque M\u00e9n\u00e9laos avait donn\u00e9s, et il dit \u00e0 T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos ces paroles\nail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Maintenant, monte \u00e0 la h\u00e2te et presse tous tes compagnons,\navant que je rentre \u00e0 la maison et que j'avertisse le vieillard.\nCar je sais dans mon esprit et dans mon coeur quelle est sa grande\n\u00e2me. Il ne te renverrait pas, et, lui-m\u00eame, il viendrait ici te\nchercher, ne voulant pas que tu partes les mains vides. Et,\ncertes, il sera tr\u00e8s irrit\u00e9.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il poussa les chevaux aux belles crini\u00e8res vers\nla ville des Pyliens, et il parvint rapidement \u00e0 sa demeure.\n\nEt aussit\u00f4t T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos excita ses compagnons:\n\n-- Compagnons, pr\u00e9parez les agr\u00e8s de la nef noire, montons-y et\nfaisons notre route.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, d\u00e8s qu'ils l'eurent entendu, ils mont\u00e8rent sur\nla nef et s'assirent sur les bancs. Et, tandis qu'ils se\npr\u00e9paraient, il suppliait Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 \u00e0 l'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 de la nef. Et voici\nqu'un \u00e9tranger survint, qui, ayant tu\u00e9 un homme, fuyait Argos; et\nc'\u00e9tait un divinateur de la race de M\u00e9lampous. Et celui-ci\nhabitait autrefois Pylos nourrice de brebis, et il \u00e9tait riche\nparmi les Pyliens, et il poss\u00e9dait de belles demeures; mais il\ns'enfuit loin de sa patrie vers un autre peuple, par crainte du\nmagnanime N\u00e8leus, le plus illustre des vivants, qui lui avait\nretenu de force ses nombreuses richesses pendant une ann\u00e9e, tandis\nque lui-m\u00eame \u00e9tait charg\u00e9 de liens et subissait de nouvelles\ndouleurs dans la demeure de Phylas; car il avait outrag\u00e9 Iphikl\u00e8s,\n\u00e0 cause de la fille de N\u00e8leus, pouss\u00e9 par la cruelle d\u00e9esse\n\u00c9rinnys. Mais il \u00e9vita la mort, ayant chass\u00e9 les boeufs mugissants\nde Phylak\u00e8 \u00e0 Pylos et s'\u00e9tant veng\u00e9 de l'outrage du divin N\u00e8leus;\net il conduisit vers son fr\u00e8re la jeune fille qu'il avait \u00e9pous\u00e9e,\net sa destin\u00e9e fut d'habiter parmi les Argiens qu'il commanda. L\u00e0,\nil s'unit \u00e0 sa femme et b\u00e2tit une haute demeure.\n\nEt il engendra deux fils robustes, Antiphat\u00e8s et Mantios.\nAntiphat\u00e8s engendra le magnanime Oikleus, et Oikleus engendra\nAmphiaraos, sauveur du peuple, que Zeus temp\u00e9tueux et Apollon\naim\u00e8rent au-dessus de tous. Mais il ne parvint pas au seuil de la\nvieillesse, et il p\u00e9rit \u00e0 Th\u00e8b\u00e8, trahi par sa femme que des\npr\u00e9sents avaient s\u00e9duite. Et deux fils naquirent de lui, Alkma\u00f4n\net Amphilokhos. Et Mantios engendra Polypheideus et Klitos. Mais\n\u00c9\u00f4s au thr\u00f4ne d'or enleva Klitos \u00e0 cause de sa beaut\u00e9 et le mit\nparmi les immortels. Et, quand Amphiaraos fut mort, Apollon rendit\nle magnanime Polypheideus le plus habile des divinateurs. Et\ncelui-ci, irrit\u00e9 contre son p\u00e8re, se retira dans la Hyp\u00e9r\u00e8si\u00e8, o\u00f9\nil habita, proph\u00e9tisant pour tous les hommes. Et ce fut son fils\nqui survint, et il se nommait Th\u00e9oklym\u00e9nos. Et, s'arr\u00eatant aupr\u00e8s\nde T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, qui priait et faisait des libations \u00e0 l'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9\nde la nef noire, il lui dit ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- \u00d4 ami, puisque je te trouve faisant des libations en ce lieu,\nje te supplie par ces libations, par le dieu invoqu\u00e9, par ta\npropre t\u00eate et par tes compagnons, dis-moi la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 et ne me\ncache rien. Qui es-tu? D'o\u00f9 viens-tu? O\u00f9 est ta ville? O\u00f9 sont tes\nparents?\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Etranger, je te dirai la v\u00e9rit\u00e9. Ma famille est d'Ithak\u00e8 et mon\np\u00e8re est Odysseus, s'il vit encore; mais d\u00e9j\u00e0 sans doute il a p\u00e9ri\nd'une mort lamentable. Je suis venu ici, avec mes compagnons et ma\nnef noire, pour m'informer de mon p\u00e8re depuis longtemps absent.\n\nEt le divin Th\u00e9oklym\u00e9nos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Moi, je fuis loin de ma patrie, ayant tu\u00e9 un homme. Ses fr\u00e8res\net ses compagnons nombreux habitent Argos nourrice de chevaux et\ncommandent aux Akhaiens. Je fuis leur vengeance et la k\u00e8r noire,\npuisque ma destin\u00e9e est d'errer parmi les hommes. Laisse-moi\nmonter sur ta nef, puisque je viens en suppliant, de peur qu'ils\nme tuent, car je pense qu'ils me poursuivent.\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Certes, je ne te chasserai point de ma nef \u00e9gale. Suis-moi;\nnous t'accueillerons avec amiti\u00e9 et de notre mieux.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il prit la lance d'airain de Th\u00e9oklym\u00e9nos et il\nla d\u00e9posa sur le pont de la nef aux deux rangs d'avirons; et il y\nmonta lui-m\u00eame, et il s'assit sur la poupe, et il y fit asseoir\nTh\u00e9oklym\u00e9nos aupr\u00e8s de lui. Et ses compagnons d\u00e9tach\u00e8rent le\nc\u00e2ble, et il leur ordonna d'appareiller, et ils se h\u00e2t\u00e8rent\nd'ob\u00e9ir. Ils dress\u00e8rent le m\u00e2t de sapin sur le pont creux et ils\nle soutinrent avec des cordes, et ils d\u00e9ploy\u00e8rent les blanches\nvoiles tenues ouvertes \u00e0 l'aide de courroies. Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux\nclairs leur envoya un vent propice qui soufflait avec force, et la\nnef courait rapidement sur l'eau sal\u00e9e de la mer. H\u00e8lios tomba et\ntous les chemins devinrent sombres. Et la nef, pouss\u00e9e par un vent\npropice de Zeus, d\u00e9passa Ph\u00e9ras et la divine \u00c9lis o\u00f9 commandent\nles \u00c9p\u00e9iens. Puis T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos s'engagea entre les \u00eeles rocheuses,\nse demandant s'il \u00e9viterait la mort ou s'il serait fait captif.\n\nMais Odysseus et le divin porcher et les autres p\u00e2tres prenaient\nde nouveau leur repas dans l'\u00e9table; et quand ils eurent assouvi\nla faim et la soif, alors Odysseus dit au porcher, afin de voir\ns'il l'aimait dans son coeur, s'il voudrait le retenir dans\nl'\u00e9table ou s'il l'engagerait \u00e0 se rendre \u00e0 la ville:\n\n-- \u00c9coutez-moi, Eumaios, et vous, ses compagnons. Je d\u00e9sire aller\nau matin \u00e0 la ville, afin d'y mendier et de ne plus vous \u00eatre \u00e0\ncharge. Donnez-moi donc un bon conseil et un conducteur qui me\nm\u00e8ne. J'irai, errant \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0, par n\u00e9cessit\u00e9, afin qu'on m'accorde\n\u00e0 boire et \u00e0 manger. Et j'entrerai dans la demeure du divin\nOdysseus, pour en donner des nouvelles \u00e0 la sage P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia. Et je\nme m\u00ealerai aux pr\u00e9tendants insolents, afin qu'ils me donnent \u00e0\nmanger, car ils ont des mets en abondance. Je ferai m\u00eame aussit\u00f4t\nau milieu d'eux tout ce qu'ils m'ordonneront. Car je te le dis,\n\u00e9coute-moi et retiens mes paroles dans ton esprit: par la faveur\ndu messager Herm\u00e9ias qui honore tous les travaux des hommes, aucun\nne pourrait lutter avec moi d'adresse pour allumer du feu, fendre\nle bois sec et l'amasser afin qu'il br\u00fble bien, pr\u00e9parer le repas,\nverser le vin et s'acquitter de tous les soins que les pauvres\nrendent aux riches.\n\nEt le porcher Eumaios, tr\u00e8s irrit\u00e9, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- H\u00e9las! mon h\u00f4te, quel dessein a con\u00e7u ton esprit? Certes, si tu\nd\u00e9sires te m\u00ealer \u00e0 la foule des pr\u00e9tendants, c'est que tu veux\np\u00e9rir. Leur insolence et leur violence sont mont\u00e9es jusqu'\u00e0\nl'Ouranos de fer. Leurs serviteurs ne te ressemblent pas; ce sont\ndes jeunes hommes v\u00eatus de beaux manteaux et de belles tuniques,\nbeaux de t\u00eate et de visage, qui chargent les tables polies de\npain, de viandes et de vins. Reste ici; aucun ne se plaint de ta\npr\u00e9sence, ni moi, ni mes compagnons. D\u00e8s que le cher fils\nd'Odysseus sera revenu, il te donnera une tunique et un manteau,\net il te fera reconduire l\u00e0 o\u00f9 ton \u00e2me t'ordonne d'aller.\n\nEt le patient et divin Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Plaise aux dieux, Eumaios, que tu sois aussi cher au p\u00e8re Zeus\nqu'\u00e0 moi, puisque tu as mis fin \u00e0 mes courses errantes et \u00e0 mes\npeines; car il n'est rien de pire pour les hommes que d'errer\nainsi, et celui d'entre eux qui vagabonde subit l'inqui\u00e9tude et la\ndouleur et les angoisses d'un ventre affam\u00e9. Maintenant, puisque\ntu me retiens et que tu m'ordonnes d'attendre T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, parle-\nmoi de la m\u00e8re du divin Odysseus, et de son p\u00e8re qu'il a laiss\u00e9 en\npartant sur le seuil de la vieillesse. Vivent-ils encore sous la\nsplendeur de H\u00e8lios, ou sont-ils morts et dans les demeures\nd'Aid\u00e8s?\n\nEt le chef des porchers lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Mon h\u00f4te, je te dirai la v\u00e9rit\u00e9. Laert\u00e8s vit encore, mais il\nsupplie toujours Zeus, dans ses demeures, d'enlever son \u00e2me de son\ncorps, car il g\u00e9mit tr\u00e8s am\u00e8rement sur son fils qui est absent, et\nsur sa femme qu'il avait \u00e9pous\u00e9e vierge; et la mort de celle-ci\nl'accable surtout de tristesse et lui fait sentir l'horreur de la\nvieillesse. Elle est morte d'une mort lamentable par le regret de\nson illustre fils. Ainsi, bient\u00f4t, mourra ici quiconque m'a aim\u00e9.\nAussi longtemps qu'elle a v\u00e9cu, malgr\u00e9 sa douleur, elle aimait \u00e0\nme questionner et \u00e0 m'interroger; car elle m'avait \u00e9lev\u00e9 elle-\nm\u00eame, avec son illustre fille Klym\u00e9n\u00e8 au large p\u00e9plos, qu'elle\navait enfant\u00e9e la derni\u00e8re. Elle m'\u00e9leva avec sa fille et elle\nm'honora non moins que celle-ci. Mais, quand nous f\u00fbmes arriv\u00e9s\ntous deux \u00e0 la pubert\u00e9, Klym\u00e9n\u00e8 fut mari\u00e9e \u00e0 un Samien qui donna\nde nombreux pr\u00e9sents \u00e0 ses parents. Et alors Antikl\u00e9ia me donna un\nmanteau, une tunique, de belles sandales, et elle m'envoya aux\nchamps, et elle m'aima plus encore dans son coeur. Et, maintenant,\nje suis priv\u00e9 de tous ces biens; mais les dieux ont f\u00e9cond\u00e9 mon\ntravail, et, par eux, j'ai mang\u00e9 et bu, et j'ai donn\u00e9 aux\nsuppliants v\u00e9n\u00e9rables. Cependant, il m'est amer de ne plus\nentendre les paroles de ma ma\u00eetresse; mais le malheur et des\nhommes insolents sont entr\u00e9s dans sa demeure, et les serviteurs\nsont priv\u00e9s de parler ouvertement \u00e0 leur ma\u00eetresse, de\nl'interroger, de manger et de boire avec elle et de rapporter aux\nchamps les pr\u00e9sents qui r\u00e9jouissent l'\u00e2me des serviteurs.\n\nEt le patient Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- O dieux! ainsi, porcher Eumaios, tu as \u00e9t\u00e9 enlev\u00e9 tout jeune \u00e0\nta patrie et \u00e0 tes parents. Raconte-moi tout, et dis la v\u00e9rit\u00e9. La\nville aux larges rues a-t-elle \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9truite o\u00f9 habitaient ton p\u00e8re\net ta m\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable, ou des hommes ennemis t'ont-ils saisi,\ntandis que tu \u00e9tais aupr\u00e8s de tes brebis ou de tes boeufs,\ntransport\u00e9 dans leur nef et vendu dans les demeures d'un homme qui\ndonna de toi un bon prix?\n\nEt le chef des porchers lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Etranger, puisque tu m'interroges sur ces choses, \u00e9coute en\nsilence et r\u00e9jouis-toi de boire ce vin en repos. Les nuits sont\nlongues et laissent le temps de dormir et le temps d'\u00eatre charm\u00e9\npar les r\u00e9cits. Il ne faut pas que tu dormes avant l'heure, car\nbeaucoup de sommeil fait du mal. Si le coeur et l'\u00e2me d'un d'entre\nceux-ci lui ordonnent de dormir, qu'il sorte; et, au lever d'\u00c9\u00f4s,\napr\u00e8s avoir mang\u00e9, il conduira les porcs du ma\u00eetre. Pour nous,\nmangeant et buvant dans l'\u00e9table, nous nous charmerons par le\nsouvenir de nos douleurs; car l'homme qui a beaucoup souffert et\nbeaucoup err\u00e9 est charm\u00e9 par le souvenir de ses douleurs. Je vais\ndonc te r\u00e9pondre, puisque tu m'interroges.\n\nIl y a une \u00eele qu'on nomme Syr\u00e8, au-dessous d'Ortygi\u00e8, du c\u00f4t\u00e9 o\u00f9\nH\u00e8lios tourne. Elle est moins grande, mais elle est agr\u00e9able et\nproduit beaucoup de boeufs, de brebis, de vin et de froment; et\njamais la famine n'afflige son peuple, ni aucune maladie ne frappe\nles mortels mis\u00e9rables hommes. Quand les g\u00e9n\u00e9rations ont vieilli\ndans leur ville, Apoll\u00f4n \u00e0 l'arc d'argent et Art\u00e9mis surviennent\net les tuent de leurs fl\u00e8ches illustres. Il y a deux villes qui se\nsont partag\u00e9 tout le pays, et mon p\u00e8re Kt\u00e8sios Orm\u00e9nide, semblable\naux immortels, commandait \u00e0 toutes deux, quand survinrent des\nPhoinikes illustres par leurs nefs, habiles et rus\u00e9s, amenant sur\nleur nef noire mille choses frivoles. Il y avait dans la demeure\nde mon p\u00e8re une femme de Phoiniki\u00e8, grande, belle et habile aux\nbeaux ouvrages des mains. Et les Phoinikes rus\u00e9s la s\u00e9duisirent.\nTandis qu'elle allait laver, un d'eux, dans la nef creuse, s'unit\n\u00e0 elle par l'amour qui trouble l'esprit des femmes luxurieuses,\nm\u00eame de celles qui sont sages. Et il lui demanda ensuite qui elle\n\u00e9tait et, d'o\u00f9 elle venait; et, aussit\u00f4t, elle lui parla de la\nhaute demeure de son p\u00e8re:\n\n-- Je me glorifie d'\u00eatre de Sid\u00f4n riche en airain, et je suis la\nfille du riche Arybas. Des pirates Taphiens m'ont enlev\u00e9e dans les\nchamps, transport\u00e9e ici dans les demeures de Kt\u00e8sios qui leur a\ndonn\u00e9 de moi un bon prix.\n\nEt l'homme lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Certes, si tu voulais revenir avec nous vers tes demeures, tu\nreverrais la haute maison de ton p\u00e8re et de ta m\u00e8re, et eux-m\u00eames,\ncar ils vivent encore et sont riches.\n\nEt la femme lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Que cela soit, si les marins veulent me jurer par serment\nqu'ils me reconduiront saine et sauve.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et tous le lui jur\u00e8rent, et, apr\u00e8s qu'ils eurent\njur\u00e9 et prononc\u00e9 toutes les paroles du serment, la femme leur dit\nencore:\n\n-- Maintenant, qu'aucun de vous, me rencontrant, soit dans la rue,\nsoit \u00e0 la fontaine, ne me parle, de peur qu'on le dise au\nvieillard; car, me soup\u00e7onnant, il me chargerait de liens et\nm\u00e9diterait votre mort. Mais gardez mes paroles dans votre esprit,\net h\u00e2tez-vous d'acheter des vivres. Et quand la nef sera charg\u00e9e\nde provisions, qu'un messager vienne promptement m'avertir dans la\ndemeure. Je vous apporterai tout l'or qui me tombera sous les\nmains, et m\u00eame je vous ferai, selon mon d\u00e9sir, un autre pr\u00e9sent.\nJ'\u00e9l\u00e8ve, en effet, dans les demeures, le fils de Kt\u00e8sios, un\nenfant remuant et courant dehors. Je le conduirai dans la nef, et\nvous en aurez un grand prix en le vendant \u00e0 des \u00e9trangers.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, elle rentra dans nos belles demeures. Et les\nPhoinikes rest\u00e8rent toute une ann\u00e9e aupr\u00e8s de nous, rassemblant de\nnombreuses richesses dans leur nef creuse. Et quand celle-ci fut\npleine, ils envoy\u00e8rent \u00e0 la femme un messager pour lui annoncer\nqu'ils allaient partir. Et ce messager plein de ruses vint \u00e0 la\ndemeure de mon p\u00e8re avec un collier d'or orn\u00e9 d'\u00e9maux. Et ma m\u00e8re\nv\u00e9n\u00e9rable et toutes les servantes se passaient ce collier de mains\nen mains et l'admiraient, et elles lui offrirent un prix; mais il\nne r\u00e9pondit rien; et, ayant fait un signe \u00e0 la femme, il retourna\nvers la nef. Alors, la femme, me prenant par la main, sortit de la\ndemeure. Et elle trouva dans le vestibule des coupes d'or sur les\ntables des convives auxquels mon p\u00e8re avait offert un repas. Et\nceux-ci s'\u00e9taient rendus \u00e0 l'agora du peuple. Elle saisit aussit\u00f4t\ntrois coupes qu'elle cacha dans son sein, et elle sortit, et je la\nsuivis sans songer \u00e0 rien. H\u00e8lios tomba, et tous les chemins\ndevinrent sombres; et nous arriv\u00e2mes promptement au port o\u00f9 \u00e9tait\nla nef rapide des Phoinikes qui, nous ayant mis dans la nef, y\nmont\u00e8rent et sillonn\u00e8rent les chemins humides; et Zeus leur envoya\nun vent propice. Et nous navigu\u00e2mes pendant six jours et six\nnuits; mais quand le Kroni\u00f4n Zeus amena le septi\u00e8me jour, Art\u00e9mis,\nqui se r\u00e9jouit de ses fl\u00e8ches, tua la femme, qui tomba avec bruit\ndans la sentine comme une poule de mer et les marins la jet\u00e8rent\npour \u00eatre mang\u00e9e par les poissons et par les phoques, et je restai\nseul, g\u00e9missant dans mon coeur. Et le vent et le flot pouss\u00e8rent\nles Phoinikes jusqu'\u00e0 Ithak\u00e8, o\u00f9 Laert\u00e8s m'acheta de ses propres\nrichesses. Et c'est ainsi que j'ai vu de mes yeux cette terre.\n\nEt le divin Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Eumaios, certes, tu as profond\u00e9ment \u00e9mu mon coeur en me\nracontant toutes les douleurs que tu as d\u00e9j\u00e0 subies: mais Zeus a\nm\u00eal\u00e9 pour toi le bien au mal, puisque tu es entr\u00e9, apr\u00e8s avoir\nbeaucoup souffert, dans la demeure d'un homme excellent qui t'a\ndonn\u00e9 abondamment \u00e0 boire et \u00e0 manger, et chez qui ta vie est\npaisible; mais moi, je ne suis arriv\u00e9 ici qu'apr\u00e8s avoir err\u00e9 \u00e0\ntravers de nombreuses villes des hommes!\n\nEt ils se parlaient ainsi. Puis ils s'endormirent, mais peu de\ntemps; et, aussit\u00f4t, \u00c9\u00f4s au beau thr\u00f4ne parut.\n\nPendant ce temps les compagnons de T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, ayant abord\u00e9,\npli\u00e8rent les voiles et abattirent le m\u00e2t et conduisirent la nef\ndans le port, \u00e0 force d'avirons. Puis, ils jet\u00e8rent les ancres et\nli\u00e8rent les c\u00e2bles. Puis, \u00e9tant sortis de la nef, ils pr\u00e9par\u00e8rent\nleur repas sur le rivage de la mer et m\u00eal\u00e8rent le vin rouge. Et\nquand ils eurent assouvi la faim et la soif, le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos\nleur dit:\n\n-- Conduisez la nef noire \u00e0 la ville; moi, j'irai vers mes champs\net mes bergers. Ce soir, je m'en reviendrai apr\u00e8s avoir vu les\ntravaux des champs; et demain, au matin, je vous offrirai, pour ce\nvoyage, un bon repas de viandes et de vin doux.\n\nEt, alors, le divin Th\u00e9oklym\u00e9nos lui dit:\n\n-- Et moi, cher enfant, o\u00f9 irai-je? Quel est celui des hommes qui\ncommandent dans l'\u00e2pre Ithak\u00e8 dont je dois gagner la demeure?\nDois-je me rendre aupr\u00e8s de ta m\u00e8re, dans ta propre maison?\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Je ne te dirais point de te rendre \u00e0 une autre demeure que la\nmienne, et les dons hospitaliers ne t'y manqueraient pas; mais ce\nserait le pire pour toi. Je serais absent, et ma m\u00e8re ne te\nverrait point, car elle tisse la toile, loin des pr\u00e9tendants, dans\nla chambre sup\u00e9rieure; mais je t'indiquerai un autre homme vers\nqui tu iras, Eurymakhos, illustre fils du prudent Polybos, que les\nIthak\u00e8siens regardent comme un dieu. C'est de beaucoup l'homme le\nplus illustre, et il d\u00e9sire ardemment \u00e9pouser ma m\u00e8re et poss\u00e9der\nles honneurs d'Odysseus. Mais l'olympien Zeus qui habite l'aith\u00e8r\nsait s'ils ne verront pas tous leur dernier jour avant leurs\nnoces.\n\nIl parlait ainsi quand un \u00e9pervier, rapide messager d'Apoll\u00f4n,\nvola \u00e0 sa droite, tenant entre ses serres une colombe dont il\nr\u00e9pandait les plumes entre la nef et T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos. Alors\nTh\u00e9oklym\u00e9nos, entra\u00eenant celui-ci loin de ses compagnons, le prit\npar la main et lui dit:\n\n-- T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, cet oiseau ne vole point \u00e0 ta droite sans qu'un\ndieu l'ait voulu. Je reconnais, l'ayant regard\u00e9, que c'est un\nsigne augural. Il n'y a point de race plus royale que la v\u00f4tre\ndans Ithak\u00e8, et vous y serez toujours puissants.\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit aussit\u00f4t:\n\n-- Plaise aux dieux, \u00e9tranger, que ta parole s'accomplisse! Je\nt'aimerai, et je te ferai de nombreux pr\u00e9sents, et nul ne pourra\nse dire plus heureux que toi.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il dit \u00e0 son fid\u00e8le compagnon Peiraios:\n\n-- Peiraios Klytide, tu m'es le plus cher des compagnons qui m'ont\nsuivi \u00e0 Pylos. Conduis maintenant cet \u00e9tranger dans ta demeure;\naie soin de lui et honore-le jusqu'\u00e0 ce que je revienne.\n\nEt Peiraios illustre par sa lance lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, quand m\u00eame tu devrais rester longtemps ici, j'aurai\nsoin de cet \u00e9tranger, et rien ne lui manquera de ce qui est d\u00fb \u00e0\nun h\u00f4te.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il entra dans la nef, et il ordonna \u00e0 ses\ncompagnons d'y monter et de d\u00e9tacher les c\u00e2bles. Et T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos,\nayant li\u00e9 de belles sandales \u00e0 ses pieds, prit sur le pont de la\nnef une lance solide et brillante \u00e0 pointe d'airain. Et, tandis\nque ses compagnons d\u00e9tachaient les c\u00e2bles et naviguaient vers la\nville, comme l'avait ordonn\u00e9 T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, le cher fils du divin\nOdysseus, les pieds du jeune homme le portaient rapidement vers\nl'\u00e9table o\u00f9 \u00e9taient enferm\u00e9s ses nombreux porcs aupr\u00e8s desquels\ndormait le porcher fid\u00e8le et attach\u00e9 \u00e0 ses ma\u00eetres.\n\n\n16.\n\nAu lever d'\u00c9\u00f4s, Odysseus et le divin porcher pr\u00e9par\u00e8rent le repas,\net ils allum\u00e8rent le feu, et ils envoy\u00e8rent les p\u00e2tres avec les\ntroupeaux de porcs. Alors les chiens aboyeurs n'aboy\u00e8rent pas \u00e0\nl'approche de T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, mais ils remuaient la queue. Et le divin\nOdysseus, les ayant vus remuer la queue et ayant entendu un bruit\nde pas, dit \u00e0 Eumaios ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Eumaios, certes, un de tes compagnons approche, ou un homme\nbien connu, car les chiens n'aboient point, et ils remuent la\nqueue, et j'entends un bruit de pas.\n\nIl avait \u00e0 peine ainsi parl\u00e9, quand son cher fils s'arr\u00eata sous le\nportique. Et le porcher stup\u00e9fait s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a, et le vase dans lequel\nil m\u00ealait le vin rouge tomba de ses mains; et il courut au-devant\ndu ma\u00eetre, et il baisa sa t\u00eate, ses beaux yeux et ses mains, et il\nversait des larmes, comme un p\u00e8re plein de tendresse qui revient\nd'une terre lointaine, dans la dixi\u00e8me ann\u00e9e, et qui embrasse son\nfils unique, engendr\u00e9 dans sa vieillesse, et pour qui il a\nsouffert bien des maux. Ainsi le porcher couvrait de baisers le\ndivin T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos; et il l'embrassait comme s'il e\u00fbt \u00e9chapp\u00e9 \u00e0 la\nmort, et il lui dit, en pleurant, ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Tu es donc revenu, T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, douce lumi\u00e8re. Je pensais que je\nne te reverrais plus, depuis ton d\u00e9part pour Pylos. H\u00e2te-toi\nd'entrer, cher enfant, afin que je me d\u00e9lecte \u00e0 te regarder, toi\nqui reviens de loin. Car tu ne viens pas souvent dans tes champs\net vers tes p\u00e2tres; mais tu restes loin d'eux, et il te pla\u00eet de\nsurveiller la multitude funeste des pr\u00e9tendants.\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Qu'il en soit comme tu le d\u00e9sires, p\u00e8re. C'est pour toi que je\nsuis venu, afin de te voir de mes yeux et de t'entendre, et pour\nque tu me dises si ma m\u00e8re est rest\u00e9e dans nos demeures, ou si\nquelqu'un l'a \u00e9pous\u00e9e. Certes, peut-\u00eatre le lit d'Odysseus, \u00e9tant\nabandonn\u00e9, reste-t-il en proie aux araign\u00e9es immondes.\n\nEt le chef des porchers lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ta m\u00e8re est rest\u00e9e, avec un coeur patient, dans tes demeures;\nelle pleure nuit et jour, accabl\u00e9e de chagrins.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il prit sa lance d'airain. Et T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos entra\net passa le seuil de pierre. Et son p\u00e8re Odysseus voulut lui c\u00e9der\nsa place; mais T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos le retint et lui dit:\n\n-- Assieds-toi, \u00f4 \u00e9tranger. Je trouverai un autre si\u00e8ge dans cette\n\u00e9table, et voici un homme qui me le pr\u00e9parera.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Odysseus se rassit, et le porcher amassa des\nbranches vertes et mit une peau par-dessus, et le cher fils\nd'Odysseus s'y assit. Puis le porcher pla\u00e7a devant eux des\nplateaux de chairs r\u00f4ties que ceux qui avaient mang\u00e9 la veille\navaient laiss\u00e9es. Et il entassa \u00e0 la h\u00e2te du pain dans des\ncorbeilles, et il m\u00eala le vin rouge dans un vase grossier, et il\ns'assit en face du divin Odysseus. Puis, ils \u00e9tendirent les mains\nvers la nourriture plac\u00e9e devant eux. Et, apr\u00e8s qu'ils eurent\nassouvi la faim et la soif, T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos dit au divin porcher:\n\n-- Dis-moi, p\u00e8re, d'o\u00f9 vient cet \u00e9tranger? Comment des marins\nl'ont-ils amen\u00e9 \u00e0 Ithak\u00e8? Qui se glorifie-t-il d'\u00eatre? Car je ne\npense pas qu'il soit venu ici \u00e0 pied.\n\nEt le porcher Eumaios lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Certes, mon enfant, je te dirai la v\u00e9rit\u00e9. Il se glorifie\nd'\u00eatre n\u00e9 dans la grande Kr\u00e8t\u00e8. Il dit qu'en errant il a parcouru\nde nombreuses villes des hommes, et, sans doute, un dieu lui a\nfait cette destin\u00e9e. Maintenant, s'\u00e9tant \u00e9chapp\u00e9 d'une nef de\nmarins Thespr\u00f4tes, il est venu dans mon \u00e9table, et je te le\nconfie. Fais de lui ce que tu veux. Il dit qu'il est ton\nsuppliant.\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Eumaios, certes, tu as prononc\u00e9 une parole douloureuse. Comment\nle recevrais-je dans ma demeure? Je suis jeune et je ne pourrais\nr\u00e9primer par la force de mes mains un homme qui l'outragerait le\npremier. L'esprit de ma m\u00e8re h\u00e9site, et elle ne sait si,\nrespectant le lit de son mari et la voix du peuple, elle restera\ndans sa demeure pour en prendre soin, ou si elle suivra le plus\nillustre d'entre les Akhaiens qui l'\u00e9pousera et lui fera de\nnombreux pr\u00e9sents. Mais, certes, puisque cet \u00e9tranger est venu\ndans ta demeure, je lui donnerai de beaux v\u00eatements, un manteau et\nune tunique, une \u00e9p\u00e9e \u00e0 double tranchant et des sandales, et je le\nrenverrai o\u00f9 son coeur d\u00e9sire aller. Si tu y consens, garde-le\ndans ton \u00e9table. J'enverrai ici des v\u00eatements et du pain, afin\nqu'il mange et qu'il ne soit point \u00e0 charge \u00e0 toi et \u00e0 tes\ncompagnons. Mais je ne le laisserai point approcher des\npr\u00e9tendants, car ils ont une grande insolence, de peur qu'ils\nl'outragent, ce qui me serait une am\u00e8re douleur. Que pourrait\nfaire l'homme le plus vigoureux contre un si grand nombre? Ils\nseront toujours les plus forts.\n\nEt le patient et divin Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 ami, certes, puisqu'il m'est permis de r\u00e9pondre, mon coeur\nest d\u00e9chir\u00e9 de t'entendre dire que les pr\u00e9tendants, malgr\u00e9 toi, et\ntel que te voil\u00e0, commettent de telles iniquit\u00e9s dans tes\ndemeures. Dis-moi si tu leur c\u00e8des volontairement, ou si les\npeuples, ob\u00e9issant aux dieux, te ha\u00efssent? Accuses-tu tes fr\u00e8res?\nCar c'est sur leur appui qu'il faut compter, quand une dissension\npublique s'\u00e9l\u00e8ve. Pl\u00fbt aux dieux que je fusse jeune comme toi,\n\u00e9tant plein de courage, ou que je fusse le fils irr\u00e9prochable\nd'Odysseus, ou lui-m\u00eame, et qu'il rev\u00eent, car tout espoir n'en est\npoint perdu! Je voudrais qu'un ennemi me coup\u00e2t la t\u00eate, si je ne\npartais aussit\u00f4t pour la demeure du Laertiade Odysseus, pour \u00eatre\nleur ruine \u00e0 tous! Et si, \u00e9tant seul, leur multitude me domptait,\nj'aimerais mieux \u00eatre tu\u00e9 dans mes demeures que de voir ces choses\nhonteuses: mes h\u00f4tes maltrait\u00e9s, mes servantes mis\u00e9rablement\nviol\u00e9es dans mes belles demeures, mon vin \u00e9puis\u00e9, mes vivres\nd\u00e9vor\u00e9s effront\u00e9ment, et cela pour un dessein inutile qui ne\ns'accomplira point!\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00c9tranger, je te dirai la v\u00e9rit\u00e9. Le peuple n'est point irrit\u00e9\ncontre moi, et je n'accuse point de fr\u00e8res sur l'appui desquels il\nfaut compter, quand une dissension publique s'\u00e9l\u00e8ve. Le Kroni\u00f4n\nn'a donn\u00e9 qu'un seul fils \u00e0 chaque g\u00e9n\u00e9ration de toute notre race.\nArkeisios n'a engendr\u00e9 que le seul Laert\u00e8s, et Laert\u00e8s n'a\nengendr\u00e9 que le seul Odysseus, et Odysseus n'a engendr\u00e9 que moi\ndans ses demeures o\u00f9 il m'a laiss\u00e9 et o\u00f9 il n'a point \u00e9t\u00e9 caress\u00e9\npar moi. Et, maintenant, de nombreux ennemis sont dans ma demeure.\nCeux qui dominent dans les \u00eeles, \u00e0 Doulikhios, \u00e0 Sam\u00e8, \u00e0 Zakynthos\ncouverte de bois, et ceux qui dominent dans l'\u00e2pre Ithak\u00e8, tous\nrecherchent ma m\u00e8re et ruinent ma maison. Et ma m\u00e8re ne refuse ni\nn'accepte ces noces odieuses; et tous mangent mes biens, ruinent\nma maison, et bient\u00f4t ils me tueront moi-m\u00eame. Mais, certes, ces\nchoses sont sur les genoux des dieux. Va, p\u00e8re Eumaios, et dis \u00e0\nla prudente P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia que je suis sauv\u00e9 et revenu de Pylos. Je\nresterai ici. Reviens, n'ayant parl\u00e9 qu'\u00e0 elle seule; et qu'aucun\ndes autres Akhaiens ne t'entende, car tous m\u00e9ditent ma perte.\n\nEt le porcher Eumaios lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- J'entends et je comprends ce que tu m'ordonnes de faire. Mais\ndis-moi la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, et si, dans ce m\u00eame voyage, je porterai cette\nnouvelle \u00e0 Laert\u00e8s qui est malheureux. Auparavant, bien que\ng\u00e9missant sur Odysseus, il surveillait les travaux, et, quand son\n\u00e2me le lui ordonnait, il buvait et mangeait avec ses serviteurs\ndans sa maison; mais depuis que tu es parti sur une nef pour\nPylos, on dit qu'il ne boit ni ne mange et qu'il ne surveille plus\nles travaux, mais qu'il reste soupirant et g\u00e9missant, et que son\ncorps se dess\u00e8che autour de ses os.\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Cela est tr\u00e8s triste; mais cependant ne va pas \u00e0 lui malgr\u00e9 sa\ndouleur. Si les destin\u00e9es pouvaient \u00eatre choisies par les hommes,\nnous nous choisirions le jour du retour de mon p\u00e8re. Reviens donc\napr\u00e8s avoir parl\u00e9 \u00e0 ma m\u00e8re, et ne t'\u00e9loigne pas vers Laert\u00e8s et\nvers ses champs; mais dis \u00e0 ma m\u00e8re d'envoyer promptement, et en\nsecret, l'intendante annoncer mon retour au vieillard.\n\nIl parla ainsi, excitant le porcher qui attacha ses sandales \u00e0 ses\npieds et partit pour la ville. Mais le porcher Eumaios ne cacha\npoint son d\u00e9part \u00e0 Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, et celle-ci apparut, semblable \u00e0 une\nfemme belle, grande et habile aux beaux ouvrages. Et elle s'arr\u00eata\nsur le seuil de l'\u00e9table, \u00e9tant visible seulement \u00e0 Odysseus; et\nT\u00e8l\u00e9makhos ne la vit pas, car les dieux ne se manifestent point \u00e0\ntous les hommes. Et Odysseus et les chiens la virent, et les\nchiens n'aboy\u00e8rent point, mais ils s'enfuirent en g\u00e9missant au\nfond de l'\u00e9table. Alors Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 fit un signe avec ses sourcils, et\nle divin Odysseus le comprit, et, sortant, il se rendit au-del\u00e0 du\ngrand mur de l'\u00e9table; et il s'arr\u00eata devant Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, qui lui dit:\n\n-- Divin Laertiade, subtil Odysseus, parle maintenant \u00e0 ton fils\net ne lui cache rien, afin de pr\u00e9parer le carnage et la mort des\npr\u00e9tendants et d'aller \u00e0 la ville. Je ne serai pas longtemps loin\nde vous et j'ai h\u00e2te de combattre.\n\nAth\u00e8n\u00e8 parla ainsi, et elle le frappa de sa baguette d'or. Et elle\nle couvrit des beaux v\u00eatements qu'il portait auparavant, et elle\nle grandit et le rajeunit; et ses joues devinrent plus brillantes,\net sa barbe devint noire. Et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, ayant fait cela, disparut.\n\nAlors Odysseus rentra dans l'\u00e9table, et son cher fils resta\nstup\u00e9fait devant lui; et il d\u00e9tourna les yeux, craignant que ce\nf\u00fbt un dieu, et il lui dit ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- \u00c9tranger, tu m'apparais tout autre que tu \u00e9tais auparavant; tu\nas d'autres v\u00eatements et ton corps n'est plus le m\u00eame. Si tu es un\ndes dieux qui habitent le large Ouranos, apaise-toi. Nous\nt'offrirons de riches sacrifices et nous te ferons des pr\u00e9sents\nd'or. \u00c9pargne-nous.\n\nEt le patient et divin Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Je ne suis point un des dieux. Pourquoi me compares-tu aux\ndieux? Je suis ton p\u00e8re, pour qui tu soupires et pour qui tu as\nsubi de nombreuses douleurs et les outrages des hommes.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il embrassa son fils, et ses larmes coul\u00e8rent\nde ses joues sur la terre, car il les avait retenues jusque-l\u00e0.\nMais T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, ne pouvant croire que ce f\u00fbt son p\u00e8re, lui dit de\nnouveau:\n\n-- Tu n'es pas mon p\u00e8re Odysseus, mais un dieu qui me trompe, afin\nque je soupire et que je g\u00e9misse davantage. Jamais un homme mortel\nne pourrait, dans son esprit, accomplir de telles choses, si un\ndieu, survenant, ne le faisait, ais\u00e9ment, et comme il le veut,\npara\u00eetre jeune ou vieux. Certes, tu \u00e9tais vieux, il y a peu de\ntemps, et v\u00eatu mis\u00e9rablement, et voici que tu es semblable aux\ndieux qui habitent le large Ouranos.\n\nEt le sage Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, il n'est pas bien \u00e0 toi, devant ton cher p\u00e8re,\nd'\u00eatre tellement surpris et de rester stup\u00e9fait. Jamais plus un\nautre Odysseus ne reviendra ici. C'est moi qui suis Odysseus et\nqui ai souffert des maux innombrables, et qui reviens, apr\u00e8s vingt\nann\u00e9es, dans la terre de la patrie. C'est la d\u00e9vastatrice Ath\u00e8n\u00e8\nqui a fait ce prodige. Elle me fait appara\u00eetre tel qu'il lui\npla\u00eet, car elle le peut. Tant\u00f4t elle me rend semblable \u00e0 un\nmendiant, tant\u00f4t \u00e0 un homme jeune ayant de beaux v\u00eatements sur son\ncorps; car il est facile aux dieux qui habitent le large Ouranos\nde glorifier un homme mortel ou de le rendre mis\u00e9rable.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il s'assit. Alors T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos embrassa son brave\np\u00e8re en versant des larmes. Et le d\u00e9sir de pleurer les saisit tous\nles deux, et ils pleuraient abondamment, comme les aigles aux cris\nstridents, ou les vautours aux serres recourb\u00e9es, quand les p\u00e2tres\nleur ont enlev\u00e9 leurs petits avant qu'ils pussent voler. Ainsi,\nsous leurs sourcils, ils versaient des larmes. Et, avant qu'ils\neussent cess\u00e9 de pleurer, la lumi\u00e8re de H\u00e8lios f\u00fbt tomb\u00e9e, si\nT\u00e8l\u00e9makhos n'e\u00fbt dit aussit\u00f4t \u00e0 son p\u00e8re:\n\n-- P\u00e8re, quels marins t'ont conduit sur leur nef dans Ithak\u00e8?\nQuels sont-ils? Car je ne pense pas que tu sois venu ici \u00e0 pied.\n\nEt le patient et divin Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Mon enfant, je te dirai la v\u00e9rit\u00e9. Les illustres marins\nPhaiakiens m'ont amen\u00e9, car ils ont coutume de reconduire tous les\nhommes qui viennent chez eux. M'ayant amen\u00e9, \u00e0 travers la mer,\ndormant sur leur nef rapide, ils m'ont d\u00e9pos\u00e9 sur la terre\nd'Ithak\u00e8; et ils m'ont donn\u00e9 en abondance des pr\u00e9sents splendides,\nde l'airain, de l'or et de beaux v\u00eatements. Par le conseil des\ndieux toutes ces choses sont d\u00e9pos\u00e9es dans une caverne; et je suis\nvenu ici, averti par Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, afin que nous d\u00e9lib\u00e9rions sur le\ncarnage de nos ennemis. Dis-moi donc le nombre des pr\u00e9tendants,\npour que je sache combien d'hommes braves ils sont; et je verrai,\ndans mon coeur irr\u00e9prochable, si nous devons les combattre seuls,\nou si nous chercherons un autre appui.\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 p\u00e8re, certes, j'ai appris ta grande gloire, et je sais que tu\nes tr\u00e8s brave et plein de sagesse; mais tu as dit une grande\nparole, et la stupeur me saisit, car deux hommes seuls ne peuvent\nlutter contre tant de robustes guerriers. Les pr\u00e9tendants ne sont\npas seulement dix, ou deux fois dix, mais ils sont beaucoup plus,\net je vais te dire leur nombre, afin que tu le saches. Il y a\nd'abord cinquante-deux jeunes hommes choisis de Doulikhios, suivis\nde six serviteurs; puis vingt-quatre de Sam\u00e8; puis vingt jeunes\nAkhaiens de Zakynthos; puis les douze plus braves, qui sont\nd'Ithak\u00e8. Avec ceux-ci se trouvent M\u00e9d\u00f4n, h\u00e9raut et aoide divin,\net deux serviteurs habiles \u00e0 pr\u00e9parer les repas. Si nous les\nattaquons tous ainsi r\u00e9unis, vois si tu ne souffriras point\nam\u00e8rement et terriblement de leur violence. Mais tu peux appeler \u00e0\nnotre aide un alli\u00e9 qui nous secoure d'un coeur empress\u00e9.\n\nEt le patient et divin Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Je te le dis. \u00c9coute-moi avec attention. Vois si Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 et son\np\u00e8re Zeus suffiront, et si je dois appeler un autre alli\u00e9 \u00e0\nl'aide.\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ceux que tu nommes sont les meilleurs alli\u00e9s. Ils sont assis\ndans les hautes nu\u00e9es, et ils commandent aux hommes et aux dieux\nimmortels.\n\nEt le patient et divin Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ils ne seront pas longtemps \u00e9loign\u00e9s, dans la rude m\u00eal\u00e9e, quand\nla force d'Ar\u00e8s d\u00e9cidera entre nous et les pr\u00e9tendants dans nos\ndemeures. Mais toi, d\u00e8s le lever d'\u00c9\u00f4s, retourne \u00e0 la maison et\nparle aux pr\u00e9tendants insolents. Le porcher me conduira ensuite \u00e0\nla ville, semblable \u00e0 un vieux mendiant. S'ils m'outragent dans\nnos demeures, que ton cher coeur supporte avec patience mes\nsouffrances. M\u00eame s'ils me tra\u00eenaient par les pieds hors de la\nmaison, m\u00eame s'ils me frappaient de leurs armes, regarde tout\npatiemment. Par des paroles flatteuses, demande-leur seulement de\ncesser leurs outrages. Mais ils ne t'\u00e9couteront point, car leur\njour fatal est proche. Quand Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux nombreux conseils aura\naverti mon esprit, je te ferai signe de la t\u00eate, et tu me\ncomprendras. Transporte alors dans le r\u00e9duit de la chambre haute\ntoutes les armes d'Ar\u00e8s qui sont dans la grande salle. Et si les\npr\u00e9tendants t'interrogent sur cela, dis-leur en paroles\nflatteuses: \u00abJe les ai mises \u00e0 l'abri de la fum\u00e9e, car elles ne\nsont plus telles qu'elles \u00e9taient autrefois, quand Odysseus les\nlaissa \u00e0 son d\u00e9part pour Troi\u00e8; mais elles sont souill\u00e9es par la\ngrande vapeur du feu. Puis, le Kroni\u00f4n m'a inspir\u00e9 une autre\npens\u00e9e meilleure, et je crains qu'excit\u00e9s par le vin, et une\nquerelle s'\u00e9levant parmi vous, vous vous blessiez les uns les\nautres et vous souilliez le repas et vos noces futures, car le fer\nattire l'homme.\u00bb Tu laisseras pour nous seuls deux \u00e9p\u00e9es, deux\nlances, deux boucliers, que nous puissions saisir quand nous nous\njetterons sur eux. Puis, Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 et le tr\u00e8s sage Zeus leur\ntroubleront l'esprit. Maintenant, je te dirai autre chose. Retiens\nceci dans ton esprit. Si tu es de mon sang, que nul ne sache\nqu'Odysseus est revenu, ni Laert\u00e8s, ni le porcher, ni aucun des\nserviteurs, ni P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia elle-m\u00eame. Que seuls, toi, et moi, nous\nconnaissions l'esprit des servantes et des serviteurs, afin de\nsavoir quel est celui qui nous honore et qui nous respecte dans\nson coeur, et celui qui n'a point souci de nous et qui te m\u00e9prise.\n\nEt son illustre fils lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 p\u00e8re, certes, je pense que tu conna\u00eetras bient\u00f4t mon courage,\ncar je ne suis ni paresseux ni mou; mais je pense aussi que ceci\nn'est pas ais\u00e9 pour nous deux, et je te demande d'y songer. Tu\nserais longtemps \u00e0 \u00e9prouver chaque serviteur en parcourant les\nchamps, tandis que les pr\u00e9tendants, tranquilles dans tes demeures,\nd\u00e9vorent effront\u00e9ment tes richesses et n'en \u00e9pargnent rien. Mais\nt\u00e2che de reconna\u00eetre les servantes qui t'outragent et celles qui\nsont fid\u00e8les. Cependant, il ne faut pas \u00e9prouver les serviteurs\ndans les demeures. Fais-le plus tard, si tu as vraiment quelque\nsigne de Zeus temp\u00e9tueux.\n\nEt tandis qu'ils se parlaient ainsi, la nef bien construite qui\navait port\u00e9 T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos et tous ses compagnons \u00e0 Pylos \u00e9tait\narriv\u00e9e \u00e0 Ithak\u00e8 et entra dans le port profond. L\u00e0, ils tra\u00een\u00e8rent\nla nef noire \u00e0 terre. Puis, les magnanimes serviteurs enlev\u00e8rent\ntous les agr\u00e8s et port\u00e8rent aussit\u00f4t les splendides pr\u00e9sents dans\nles demeures de Klytios. Puis, ils envoy\u00e8rent un messager \u00e0 la\ndemeure d'Odysseus, afin d'annoncer \u00e0 la prudente P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia que\nT\u00e8l\u00e9makhos \u00e9tait all\u00e9 aux champs, apr\u00e8s avoir ordonn\u00e9 de conduire\nla nef \u00e0 la ville, et pour que l'illustre reine, rassur\u00e9e, ne\nvers\u00e2t plus de larmes. Et leur messager et le divin porcher se\nrencontr\u00e8rent, charg\u00e9s du m\u00eame message pour la noble femme. Mais\nquand ils furent arriv\u00e9s \u00e0 la demeure du divin roi, le h\u00e9raut dit,\nau milieu des servantes:\n\n-- Ton cher fils, \u00f4 reine, est arriv\u00e9.\n\nEt le porcher, s'approchant de P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia, lui r\u00e9p\u00e9ta tout ce que\nson cher fils avait ordonn\u00e9 de lui dire. Et, apr\u00e8s avoir accompli\nson message, il se h\u00e2ta de rejoindre ses porcs, et il quitta les\ncours et la demeure.\n\nEt les pr\u00e9tendants, attrist\u00e9s et soucieux dans l'\u00e2me, sortirent de\nla demeure et s'assirent aupr\u00e8s du grand mur de la cour, devant\nles portes. Et, le premier, Eurymakhos, fils de Polybos, leur dit:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis, certes, une audacieuse entreprise a \u00e9t\u00e9 accomplie, ce\nvoyage de T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, que nous disions qu'il n'accomplirait pas.\nTra\u00eenons donc \u00e0 la mer une solide nef noire et r\u00e9unissons tr\u00e8s\npromptement des rameurs qui avertiront nos compagnons de revenir \u00e0\nla h\u00e2te.\n\nIl n'avait pas achev\u00e9 de parler, quand Amphinomos, tourn\u00e9 vers la\nmer, vit une nef entrer dans le port profond. Et les marins, ayant\nserr\u00e9 les voiles, ne se servaient que des avirons. Alors, il se\nmit \u00e0 rire, et il dit aux pr\u00e9tendants:\n\n-- N'envoyons aucun message. Les voici entr\u00e9s. Ou quelque dieu les\naura avertis, ou ils ont vu revenir l'autre nef et n'ont pu\nl'atteindre.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous, se levant, coururent au rivage de la mer.\nEt aussit\u00f4t les marins tra\u00een\u00e8rent la nef noire \u00e0 terre, et les\nmagnanimes serviteurs enlev\u00e8rent tous les agr\u00e8s. Puis ils se\nrendirent tous \u00e0 l'agora; et ils ne laiss\u00e8rent s'asseoir ni les\njeunes, ni les vieux. Et Antinoos, fils d'Eupeith\u00e8s, leur dit:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis, les dieux ont pr\u00e9serv\u00e9 cet homme de tout mal. Tous les\njours, de nombreuses sentinelles \u00e9taient assises sur les hauts\nrochers battus des vents. M\u00eame \u00e0 la chute de H\u00e8lios, jamais nous\nn'avons dormi \u00e0 terre; mais, naviguant sur la nef rapide, nous\nattendions la divine \u00c9\u00f4s, \u00e9piant T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos afin de le tuer au\npassage. Mais quelque Dieu l'a reconduit dans sa demeure.\nD\u00e9lib\u00e9rons donc ici sur sa mort. Il ne faut pas que T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos\nnous \u00e9chappe, car je ne pense pas que, lui vivant, nous\naccomplissions notre dessein. Il est, en effet, plein de sagesse\net d'intelligence, et, d\u00e9j\u00e0, les peuples ne nous sont pas\nfavorables. H\u00e2tons-nous avant qu'il r\u00e9unisse les Akhaiens \u00e0\nl'agora, car je ne pense pas qu'il tarde \u00e0 le faire. Il excitera\nleur col\u00e8re, et il dira, se levant au milieu de tous, que nous\navons m\u00e9dit\u00e9 de le tuer, mais que nous ne l'avons point rencontr\u00e9.\nEt, l'ayant entendu, ils n'approuveront point ce mauvais dessein.\nCraignons qu'ils m\u00e9ditent notre malheur, qu'ils nous chassent dans\nnos demeures, et que nous soyons contraints de fuir chez des\npeuples \u00e9trangers. Pr\u00e9venons T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos en le tuant loin de la\nville, dans les champs, ou dans le chemin. Nous prendrons sa vie\net ses richesses que nous partagerons \u00e9galement entre nous, et\nnous donnerons cette demeure \u00e0 sa m\u00e8re, quel que soit celui qui\nl'\u00e9pousera. Si mes paroles ne vous plaisent pas, si vous voulez\nqu'il vive et conserve ses biens paternels, ne consumons pas,\nassembl\u00e9s ici, ses ch\u00e8res richesses; mais que chacun de nous,\nretir\u00e9 dans sa demeure, recherche P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia \u00e0 l'aide de pr\u00e9sents,\net celui-l\u00e0 l'\u00e9pousera qui lui fera le plus de pr\u00e9sents et qui\nl'obtiendra par le sort.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous rest\u00e8rent muets. Et, alors, Amphinomos,\nl'illustre fils du roi Nisos Ar\u00e8tiade, leur parla. C'\u00e9tait le chef\ndes pr\u00e9tendants venus de Doulikhios herbue et fertile en bl\u00e9, et\nil plaisait plus que les autres \u00e0 P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia par ses paroles et\nses pens\u00e9es. Et il leur parla avec prudence, et il leur dit:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis, je ne veux point tuer T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos. Il est terrible de\ntuer la race des rois. Mais interrogeons d'abord les desseins des\ndieux. Si les lois du grand Zeus nous approuvent, je tuerai moi-\nm\u00eame T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos et j'exciterai les autres \u00e0 m'imiter; mais si les\ndieux nous en d\u00e9tournent, je vous engagerai \u00e0 ne rien\nentreprendre.\n\nAmphinomos parla ainsi, et ce qu'il avait dit leur plut. Et,\naussit\u00f4t, ils se lev\u00e8rent et entr\u00e8rent dans la demeure d'Odysseus,\net ils s'assirent sur des thr\u00f4nes polis. Et, alors, la prudente\nP\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia r\u00e9solut de para\u00eetre devant les pr\u00e9tendants tr\u00e8s\ninjurieux. En effet, elle avait appris la mort destin\u00e9e \u00e0 son fils\ndans les demeures. Le h\u00e9raut M\u00e9d\u00f4n, qui savait leurs desseins, les\nlui avait dits. Et elle se h\u00e2ta de descendre dans la grande salle\navec ses femmes. Et quand la noble femme se fut rendue aupr\u00e8s des\npr\u00e9tendants, elle s'arr\u00eata sur le seuil de la belle salle, avec un\nbeau voile sur les joues. Et elle r\u00e9primanda Antinoos et lui dit:\n\n-- Antinoos, injurieux et mauvais, on dit que tu l'emportes sur\ntes \u00e9gaux en \u00e2ge, parmi le peuple d'Ithak\u00e8, par ta sagesse et par\ntes paroles. Mais tu n'es point ce qu'on dit. Insens\u00e9! Pourquoi\nm\u00e9dites-tu le meurtre et la mort de T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos? Tu ne te soucies\npoint des pri\u00e8res des suppliants; mais Zeus n'est-il pas leur\nt\u00e9moin? C'est une pens\u00e9e impie que de m\u00e9diter la mort d'autrui. Ne\nsais-tu pas que ton p\u00e8re s'est r\u00e9fugi\u00e9 ici, fuyant le peuple qui\n\u00e9tait tr\u00e8s irrit\u00e9 contre lui? Avec des pirates Taphiens, il avait\npill\u00e9 les Thespr\u00f4tes qui \u00e9taient nos amis, et le peuple voulait le\ntuer, lui d\u00e9chirer le coeur et d\u00e9vorer ses nombreuses richesses.\nMais Odysseus les en emp\u00eacha et les retint. Et voici que,\nmaintenant, tu ruines honteusement sa maison, tu recherches sa\nfemme, tu veux tuer son fils et tu m'accables moi-m\u00eame de\ndouleurs! Je t'ordonne de t'arr\u00eater et de faire que les autres\ns'arr\u00eatent.\n\nEt Eurymakhos, fils de Polybos, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Fille d'Ikarios, sage P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia, reprends courage et n'aie\npoint ces inqui\u00e9tudes dans ton esprit. L'homme n'existe point et\nn'existera jamais qui, moi vivant et les yeux ouverts, portera la\nmain sur ton fils T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos. Je le dis, en effet, et ma parole\ns'accomplirait: aussit\u00f4t son sang noir ruissellerait autour de ma\nlance. Souvent, le destructeur de citadelles Odysseus, me faisant\nasseoir sur ses genoux, m'a offert de ses mains de la chair r\u00f4tie\net du vin rouge. C'est pourquoi T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos m'est le plus cher de\ntous les hommes. Je l'invite \u00e0 ne point craindre la mort de la\npart des pr\u00e9tendants mais on ne peut l'\u00e9viter de la part d'un\ndieu.\n\nIl parla ainsi, la rassurant, et il m\u00e9ditait la mort de\nT\u00e8l\u00e9makhos. Et P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia remonta dans la haute chambre splendide,\no\u00f9 elle pleura son cher mari Odysseus, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux\nyeux clairs eut r\u00e9pandu le doux sommeil sur ses paupi\u00e8res.\n\nEt, vers le soir, le divin porcher revint aupr\u00e8s d'Odysseus et de\nson fils. Et ceux-ci, sacrifiant un porc d'un an, pr\u00e9paraient le\nrepas dans l'\u00e9table. Mais Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 s'approchant du Laertiade\nOdysseus, et le frappant de sa baguette, l'avait de nouveau rendu\nvieux. Et elle lui avait couvert le corps de haillons, de peur que\nle porcher, le reconnaissant, all\u00e2t l'annoncer \u00e0 la prudente\nP\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia qui oublierait peut-\u00eatre sa prudence.\n\nEt, le premier, T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui dit:\n\n-- Tu es revenu, divin Eumaios! Que dit-on dans la ville? Les\npr\u00e9tendants insolents sont-ils de retour de leur embuscade, ou\nsont-ils encore \u00e0 m'\u00e9pier au passage?\n\nEt le porcher Eumaios lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Je ne me suis point inqui\u00e9t\u00e9 de cela en traversant la ville,\ncar mon coeur m'a ordonn\u00e9 de revenir tr\u00e8s promptement ici, apr\u00e8s\navoir port\u00e9 mon message; mais j'ai rencontr\u00e9 un h\u00e9raut rapide\nenvoy\u00e9 par tes compagnons, et qui a, le premier, parl\u00e9 \u00e0 ta m\u00e8re.\nMais je sais ceci, et mes yeux l'ont vu: \u00e9tant hors de la ville,\nsur la colline de Herm\u00e9ias, j'ai vu une nef rapide entrer dans le\nport. Elle portait beaucoup d'hommes, et elle \u00e9tait charg\u00e9e de\nboucliers et de lances \u00e0 deux pointes. Je pense que c'\u00e9taient les\npr\u00e9tendants eux-m\u00eames, mais je n'en sais rien.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et la force sacr\u00e9e de T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos se mit \u00e0 rire en\nregardant son p\u00e8re \u00e0 l'insu du porcher. Et, apr\u00e8s avoir termin\u00e9\nleur travail, ils pr\u00e9par\u00e8rent le repas, et ils mang\u00e8rent, et\naucun, dans son \u00e2me, ne fut priv\u00e9 d'une part \u00e9gale. Et, quand ils\neurent assouvi la soif et la faim, ils se couch\u00e8rent et\ns'endormirent.\n\n\n17.\n\nQuand \u00c9\u00f4s aux doigts ros\u00e9s, n\u00e9e au matin, apparut, T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, le\ncher fils du divin Odysseus, attacha de belles sandales \u00e0 ses\npieds, saisit une lance solide qui convenait \u00e0 ses mains, et, pr\u00eat\n\u00e0 partir pour la ville, il dit au porcher:\n\n-- P\u00e8re, je vais \u00e0 la ville, afin que ma m\u00e8re me voie, car je ne\npense pas qu'elle cesse, avant de me revoir, de pleurer et de\ng\u00e9mir. Et je t'ordonne ceci. M\u00e8ne \u00e0 la ville ce malheureux\n\u00e9tranger afin qu'il y mendie sa nourriture. Celui qui voudra lui\ndonner \u00e0 manger et \u00e0 boire le fera. Je ne puis, accabl\u00e9 moi-m\u00eame\nde douleurs, supporter tous les hommes. Si cet \u00e9tranger s'en\nirrite, ceci sera plus cruel pour lui; mais, certes, j'aime \u00e0\nparler sinc\u00e8rement.\n\nEt le subtil Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 ami, je ne d\u00e9sire point \u00eatre retenu ici. Il vaut mieux\nmendier sa nourriture \u00e0 la ville qu'aux champs. Me donnera qui\nvoudra. Je ne veux point rester davantage dans tes \u00e9tables afin\nd'ob\u00e9ir \u00e0 tous les ordres d'un chef. Va donc, et celui-ci me\nconduira, comme tu le lui ordonnes, d\u00e8s que je me serai r\u00e9chauff\u00e9\nau feu et que la chaleur sera venue: car, n'ayant que ces\nhaillons, je crains que le froid du matin me saisisse, et on dit\nque la ville est loin d'ici.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos sortit de l'\u00e9table et marcha\nrapidement en m\u00e9ditant la perte des pr\u00e9tendants. Puis, \u00e9tant\narriv\u00e9 aux demeures bien peupl\u00e9es, il appuya sa lance contre une\nhaute colonne, et il entra, passant le seuil de pierre. Et,\naussit\u00f4t, la nourrice Eurykl\u00e9ia, qui \u00e9tendait des peaux sur les\nthr\u00f4nes bien travaill\u00e9s, le vit la premi\u00e8re. Et elle s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a,\nfondant en larmes. Et les autres servantes du patient Odysseus se\nrassembl\u00e8rent autour de lui, et elles l'entouraient de leurs bras,\nbaisant sa t\u00eate et ses \u00e9paules. Et la sage P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia sortit \u00e0 la\nh\u00e2te de la chambre nuptiale, semblable \u00e0 Art\u00e9mis ou \u00e0 Aphrodit\u00e8\nd'or. Et, en pleurant, elle jeta ses bras autour de son cher fils,\net elle baisa sa t\u00eate et ses beaux yeux, et elle lui dit, en\ng\u00e9missant, ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Tu es donc revenu, T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, douce lumi\u00e8re. Je pensais ne\nplus te revoir depuis que tu es all\u00e9 sur une nef \u00e0 Pylos, en\nsecret et contre mon gr\u00e9, afin de t'informer de ton cher p\u00e8re.\nMais dis-moi promptement ce que tu as appris.\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ma m\u00e8re, n'excite point mes larmes et ne remue point mon coeur\ndans ma poitrine, \u00e0 moi qui viens d'\u00e9chapper \u00e0 la mort. Mais\nbaigne ton corps, prends des v\u00eatements frais, monte avec tes\nservantes dans les chambres hautes et voue \u00e0 tous les dieux de\ncompl\u00e8tes h\u00e9catombes que tu sacrifieras si Zeus m'accorde de me\nvenger. Pour moi, je vais \u00e0 l'agora, o\u00f9 je vais chercher un h\u00f4te\nqui m'a suivi quand je suis revenu. Je l'ai envoy\u00e9 en avant avec\nmes divins compagnons, et j'ai ordonn\u00e9 \u00e0 Peiraios de l'emmener\ndans sa demeure, de prendre soin de lui et de l'honorer jusqu'\u00e0 ce\nque je vinsse.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et sa parole ne fut pas vaine. Et P\u00e9n\u00e8lop\u00e9ia\nbaigna son corps, prit des v\u00eatements frais, monta avec ses\nservantes dans les chambres hautes et voua \u00e0 tous les dieux de\ncompl\u00e8tes h\u00e9catombes qu'elle devait leur sacrifier si Zeus\naccordait \u00e0 son fils de se venger.\n\nT\u00e8l\u00e9makhos sortit ensuite de sa demeure, tenant sa lance. Et deux\nchiens aux pieds rapides le suivaient, et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 r\u00e9pandit sur lui\nune gr\u00e2ce divine. Tous les peuples l'admiraient au passage; et les\npr\u00e9tendants insolents s'empress\u00e8rent autour de lui, le f\u00e9licitant\n\u00e0 l'envi, mais, au fond de leur \u00e2me, m\u00e9ditant son malheur. Et il\nse d\u00e9gagea de leur multitude et il alla s'asseoir l\u00e0 o\u00f9 \u00e9taient\nMent\u00f4r, Antiphos et Halithers\u00e8s, qui \u00e9taient d'anciens amis de son\np\u00e8re. Il s'assit l\u00e0, et ils l'interrog\u00e8rent sur chaque chose. Et\nPeiraios illustre par sa lance vint \u00e0 eux, conduisant son h\u00f4te \u00e0\nl'agora, \u00e0 travers la ville. Et T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos ne tarda pas \u00e0 se\ntourner du c\u00f4t\u00e9 de l'\u00e9tranger. Mais Peiraios dit le premier:\n\n-- T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, envoie promptement des servantes \u00e0 ma demeure, afin\nque je te remette les pr\u00e9sents que t'a faits M\u00e9n\u00e9laos.\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Peiraios, nous ne savons comment tourneront les choses. Si les\npr\u00e9tendants insolents me tuent en secret dans mes demeures et se\npartagent mes biens paternels, je veux que tu poss\u00e8des ces\npr\u00e9sents, et j'aime mieux que tu en jouisses qu'eux. Si je leur\nenvoie la k\u00e8r et la mort, alors tu me les rapporteras, joyeux,\ndans mes demeures, et je m'en r\u00e9jouirai.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il conduisit vers sa demeure son h\u00f4te\nmalheureux. Et d\u00e8s qu'ils furent arriv\u00e9s ils d\u00e9pos\u00e8rent leurs\nmanteaux sur des si\u00e8ges et sur des thr\u00f4nes, et ils se baign\u00e8rent\ndans des baignoires polies. Et, apr\u00e8s que les servantes les eurent\nbaign\u00e9s et parfum\u00e9s d'huile, elles les couvrirent de tuniques et\nde riches manteaux, et ils s'assirent sur des thr\u00f4nes. Une\nservante leur versa de l'eau, d'une belle aigui\u00e8re d'or dans un\nbassin d'argent, pour se laver les mains, et elle dressa devant\neux une table polie que la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable intendante, pleine de\nbienveillance pour tous, couvrit de pain qu'elle avait apport\u00e9 et\nde nombreux mets. Et P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia s'assit en face d'eux, \u00e0 l'entr\u00e9e\nde la salle, et, se penchant de son si\u00e8ge, elle filait des laines\nfines. Puis, ils \u00e9tendirent les mains vers les mets plac\u00e9s devant\neux; et, apr\u00e8s qu'ils eurent assouvi la soif et la faim, la\nprudente P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia leur dit la premi\u00e8re:\n\n-- T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, je remonterai dans ma chambre nuptiale et je me\ncoucherai sur le lit plein de mes soupirs et arros\u00e9 de mes larmes\ndepuis le jour o\u00f9 Odysseus est all\u00e9 \u00e0 Ilios avec les Atr\u00e9ides, et\ntu ne veux pas, avant l'entr\u00e9e des pr\u00e9tendants insolents dans\ncette demeure, me dire tout ce que tu as appris sur le retour de\nton p\u00e8re!\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ma m\u00e8re, je vais te dire la v\u00e9rit\u00e9. Nous sommes all\u00e9s \u00e0 Pylos,\naupr\u00e8s du prince des peuples Nest\u00f4r. Et celui-ci m'a re\u00e7u dans ses\nhautes demeures, et il m'a combl\u00e9 de soins, comme un p\u00e8re\naccueille son fils r\u00e9cemment arriv\u00e9 apr\u00e8s une longue absence.\nC'est ainsi que lui et ses illustres fils m'ont accueilli. Mais il\nm'a dit qu'aucun des hommes terrestres ne lui avait rien appris du\nmalheureux Odysseus mort ou vivant. Et il m'a envoy\u00e9 avec un char\net des chevaux vers l'Atr\u00e9ide M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, illustre par sa lance. Et\nl\u00e0 j'ai vu l'Argienne H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8, pour qui tant d'Argiens et de\nTroiens ont souffert par la volont\u00e9 des dieux. Et le brave\nM\u00e9n\u00e9laos m'a demand\u00e9 aussit\u00f4t pourquoi je venais dans la divine\nLak\u00e9daim\u00f4n; et je lui ai dit la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, et, alors, il m'a r\u00e9pondu\nainsi:\n\n-- \u00d4 dieux! certes, des l\u00e2ches veulent coucher dans le lit d'un\nbrave! Ainsi une biche a d\u00e9pos\u00e9 dans le repaire d'un lion robuste\nses faons nouveau-n\u00e9s et qui tettent, tandis qu'elle va pa\u00eetre sur\nles hauteurs ou dans les vall\u00e9es herbues; et voici que le lion,\nrentrant dans son repaire, tue mis\u00e9rablement tous les faons. Ainsi\nOdysseus leur fera subir une mort mis\u00e9rable. Plaise au p\u00e8re Zeus,\n\u00e0 Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, \u00e0 Apoll\u00f4n, qu'Odysseus se m\u00eale aux pr\u00e9tendants, tel\nqu'il \u00e9tait dans Lesbos bien b\u00e2tie, quand, se levant pour lutter\ncontre le Philom\u00e8l\u00e9ide, il le terrassa rudement! Tous les Akhaiens\ns'en r\u00e9jouirent. La vie des pr\u00e9tendants serait br\u00e8ve et leurs\nnoces seraient am\u00e8res. Mais les choses que tu me demandes en me\nsuppliant, je te les dirai sans te rien cacher, telles que me les\na dites le Vieillard v\u00e9ridique de la mer. Je te les dirai toutes\net je ne te cacherai rien. Il m'a dit qu'il avait vu Odysseus\nsubissant de cruelles douleurs dans l'\u00eele et dans les demeures de\nla nymphe Kalyps\u00f4, qui le retient de force. Et il ne pouvait\nregagner la terre de sa patrie. Il n'avait plus, en effet, de nefs\narm\u00e9es d'avirons, ni de compagnons pour le reconduire sur le large\ndos de la mer.\n\n-- C'est ainsi que m'a parl\u00e9 l'Atr\u00e9ide M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, illustre par sa\nlance. Puis, je suis parti, et les immortels m'ont envoy\u00e9 un vent\npropice et m'ont ramen\u00e9 promptement dans la terre de la patrie.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et l'\u00e2me de P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia fut \u00e9mue dans sa poitrine.\nEt le divin Th\u00e9oklym\u00e9nos leur dit:\n\n-- \u00d4 v\u00e9n\u00e9rable femme du Laertiade Odysseus, certes, T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos ne\nsait pas tout. \u00c9coute donc mes paroles. Je te pr\u00e9dirai des choses\nvraies et je ne te cacherai rien. Que Zeus, le premier des dieux,\nle sache! et cette table hospitali\u00e8re, et la maison du brave\nOdysseus o\u00f9 je suis venu! Certes, Odysseus est d\u00e9j\u00e0 dans la terre\nde la patrie. Cach\u00e9 ou errant, il s'informe des choses funestes\nqui se passent et il pr\u00e9pare la perte des pr\u00e9tendants. Tel est le\nsigne que j'ai vu sur la nef et que j'ai r\u00e9v\u00e9l\u00e9 \u00e0 T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos.\n\nEt la prudente P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Plaise aux dieux, \u00e9tranger, que tes paroles s'accomplissent! Tu\nconna\u00eetras alors mon amiti\u00e9, et je te ferai de nombreux pr\u00e9sents,\net chacun te dira un homme heureux.\n\nEt c'est ainsi qu'ils se parlaient. Et les pr\u00e9tendants, devant la\ndemeure d'Odysseus, sur le beau pav\u00e9, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 ils avaient coutume\nd'\u00eatre insolents, se r\u00e9jouissaient en lan\u00e7ant les disques et les\ntraits. Mais quand le temps de prendre le repas fut venu, et quand\nles troupeaux arriv\u00e8rent de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s des champs avec ceux qui\nles amenaient ordinairement, alors M\u00e9d\u00f4n, qui leur plaisait le\nplus parmi les h\u00e9rauts et qui mangeait avec eux, leur dit:\n\n-- Jeunes hommes, puisque vous avez charm\u00e9 votre \u00e2me par ces jeux,\nentrez dans la demeure, afin que nous pr\u00e9parions le repas. Il est\nbon de prendre son repas quand le temps en est venu.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous se lev\u00e8rent et entr\u00e8rent dans la maison.\nEt quand ils furent entr\u00e9s, ils d\u00e9pos\u00e8rent leurs manteaux sur les\nsi\u00e8ges et sur les thr\u00f4nes. Puis, ils \u00e9gorg\u00e8rent les grandes brebis\net les ch\u00e8vres grasses. Et ils \u00e9gorg\u00e8rent aussi les porcs gras et\nune g\u00e9nisse indompt\u00e9e, et ils pr\u00e9par\u00e8rent le repas.\n\nPendant ce temps, Odysseus et le divin porcher se disposaient \u00e0 se\nrendre des champs \u00e0 la ville, et le chef des porchers, le premier,\nparla ainsi:\n\n-- Etranger, allons! puisque tu d\u00e9sires aller aujourd'hui \u00e0 la\nville, comme mon ma\u00eetre l'a ordonn\u00e9. Certes, j'aurais voulu te\nfaire gardien des \u00e9tables; mais je respecte mon ma\u00eetre et je\ncrains qu'il s'irrite, et les menaces des ma\u00eetres sont \u00e0 redouter.\nAllons donc maintenant. Le jour s'incline d\u00e9j\u00e0, et le froid est\nplus vif vers le soir.\n\nEt le subtil Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- J'entends et je comprends, et je ferai avec intelligence ce que\ntu ordonnes. Allons, et conduis-moi, et donne-moi un b\u00e2ton, afin\nque je m'appuie, puisque tu dis que le chemin est difficile.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il jeta sur ses \u00e9paules sa mis\u00e9rable besace\npleine de trous et ferm\u00e9e par une courroie tordue. Et Eumaios lui\ndonna un b\u00e2ton \u00e0 son go\u00fbt, et ils partirent, laissant les chiens\net les porchers garder les \u00e9tables. Et Eumaios conduisait ainsi\nvers la ville son roi semblable \u00e0 un vieux et mis\u00e9rable mendiant,\nappuy\u00e9 sur un b\u00e2ton et couvert de haillons.\n\nEn avan\u00e7ant sur la route difficile, ils approch\u00e8rent de la ville\net de la fontaine aux belles eaux courantes o\u00f9 venaient puiser les\ncitoyens. Ithakos, N\u00e8ritos et Polykt\u00f4r l'avaient construite, et,\ntout autour, il y avait un bois sacr\u00e9 de peupliers rafra\u00eechis par\nl'eau qui coulait en cercle r\u00e9gulier. Et l'eau glac\u00e9e tombait\naussi de la cime d'une roche, et, au-dessous, il y avait un autel\ndes nymphes o\u00f9 sacrifiaient tous les voyageurs.\n\nCe fut l\u00e0 que M\u00e9lanthios, fils de Dolios, les rencontra tous deux.\nIl conduisait les meilleures ch\u00e8vres de ses troupeaux pour les\nrepas des pr\u00e9tendants, et deux bergers le suivaient. Alors, ayant\nvu Odysseus et Eumaios, il les insulta grossi\u00e8rement et\nhonteusement, et il remua l'\u00e2me d'Odysseus:\n\n-- Voici qu'un mis\u00e9rable conduit un autre mis\u00e9rable, et c'est\nainsi qu'un dieu r\u00e9unit les semblables! Ignoble porcher, o\u00f9 m\u00e8nes-\ntu ce mendiant vorace, vile calamit\u00e9 des repas, qui usera ses\n\u00e9paules en s'appuyant \u00e0 toutes les portes, demandant des restes et\nnon des \u00e9p\u00e9es et des bassins. Si tu me le donnais, j'en ferais le\ngardien de mes \u00e9tables, qu'il nettoierait. Il porterait le\nfourrage aux chevaux, et buvant au moins du petit lait, il\nengraisserait. Mais, sans doute, il ne sait faire que le mal, et\nil ne veut point travailler, et il aime mieux, parmi le peuple,\nmendier pour repa\u00eetre son ventre insatiable. Je te dis ceci, et ma\nparole s'accomplira: s'il entre dans les demeures du divin\nOdysseus, les escabeaux des hommes voleront autour de sa t\u00eate par\nla demeure, le frapperont et lui meurtriront les flancs.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, l'insens\u00e9 se rua et frappa Odysseus \u00e0 la\ncuisse, mais sans pouvoir l'\u00e9branler sur le chemin. Et Odysseus\nresta immobile, d\u00e9lib\u00e9rant s'il lui arracherait l'\u00e2me d'un coup de\nb\u00e2ton, ou si, le soulevant de terre, il lui \u00e9craserait la t\u00eate\ncontre le sol. Mais il se contint dans son \u00e2me. Et le porcher,\nayant vu cela, s'indigna, et il dit en levant les mains:\n\n-- Nymphes Kr\u00e8niades, filles de Zeus, si jamais Odysseus a br\u00fbl\u00e9\npour vous les cuisses grasses et odorantes des agneaux et des\nchevreaux, accomplissez mon voeu. Que ce h\u00e9ros revienne et qu'une\ndivinit\u00e9 le conduise! Certes, alors, \u00f4 M\u00e9lanthios, il troublerait\nles joies que tu go\u00fbtes en errant sans cesse, plein d'insolence,\npar la ville, tandis que de mauvais bergers perdent les troupeaux.\n\nEt le chevrier M\u00e9lanthios lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 dieux! Que dit ce chien rus\u00e9? Mais bient\u00f4t je le conduirai\nmoi-m\u00eame, sur une nef noire, loin d'Ithak\u00e8, et un grand prix m'en\nreviendra. Pl\u00fbt aux dieux qu'Apoll\u00f4n \u00e0 l'arc d'argent tu\u00e2t\naujourd'hui T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos dans ses demeures, ou qu'il f\u00fbt tu\u00e9 par les\npr\u00e9tendants, aussi vrai qu'Odysseus, au loin, a perdu le jour du\nretour!\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il les laissa marcher en silence, et, les\ndevan\u00e7ant, il parvint rapidement aux demeures du roi. Et il y\nentra aussit\u00f4t, et il s'assit parmi les pr\u00e9tendants, aupr\u00e8s\nd'Eurymakhos qui l'aimait beaucoup. Et on lui offrit sa part des\nviandes, et la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable intendante lui apporta du pain \u00e0 manger.\n\nAlors, Odysseus et le divin porcher, \u00e9tant arriv\u00e9s, s'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent;\net le son de la kithare creuse vint jusqu'\u00e0 eux, car Ph\u00e8mios\ncommen\u00e7ait \u00e0 chanter au milieu des pr\u00e9tendants. Et Odysseus, ayant\nprit la main du porcher, lui dit:\n\n-- Eumaios, certes, voici les belles demeures d'Odysseus. Elles\nsont faciles \u00e0 reconna\u00eetre au milieu de toutes les autres, tant\nelles en sont diff\u00e9rentes. La cour est orn\u00e9e de murs et de pieux,\net les portes \u00e0 deux battants sont solides. Aucun homme ne\npourrait les forcer. Je comprends que beaucoup d'hommes prennent\nl\u00e0 leur repas, car l'odeur s'en \u00e9l\u00e8ve, et la kithare r\u00e9sonne, elle\ndont les dieux ont fait le charme des repas.\n\nEt le porcher Eumaios lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Tu as tout compris ais\u00e9ment, car tu es tr\u00e8s intelligent; mais\nd\u00e9lib\u00e9rons sur ce qu'il faut faire. Ou tu entreras le premier dans\nles riches demeures, au milieu des pr\u00e9tendants, et je resterai\nici; ou, si tu veux rester, j'irai devant. Mais ne tarde pas\ndehors, de peur qu'on te frappe et qu'on te chasse. Je t'engage \u00e0\nte d\u00e9cider.\n\nEt le patient et divin Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Je sais, je comprends, et je ferai avec intelligence ce que tu\ndis. Va devant, et je resterai ici. J'ai l'habitude des blessures,\net mon \u00e2me est patiente sous les coups, car j'ai subi bien des\nmaux sur la mer et dans la guerre. Advienne que pourra. Il ne\nm'est point possible de cacher la faim cruelle qui ronge mon\nventre et qui fait souffrir tant de maux aux hommes, et qui pousse\nsur la mer indompt\u00e9e les nefs \u00e0 bancs de rameurs pour apporter le\nmalheur aux ennemis.\n\nEt ils se parlaient ainsi, et un chien, qui \u00e9tait couch\u00e9 l\u00e0, leva\nla t\u00eate et dressa les oreilles. C'\u00e9tait Argos, le chien du\nmalheureux Odysseus qui l'avait nourri lui-m\u00eame autrefois, et qui\nn'en jouit pas, \u00e9tant parti pour la sainte Ilios. Les jeunes\nhommes l'avaient autrefois conduit \u00e0 la chasse des ch\u00e8vres\nsauvages, des cerfs et des li\u00e8vres; et, maintenant, en l'absence\nde son ma\u00eetre, il gisait, d\u00e9laiss\u00e9, sur l'amas de fumier de mulets\net de boeufs qui \u00e9tait devant les portes, et y restait jusqu'\u00e0 ce\nque les serviteurs d'Odysseus l'eussent emport\u00e9 pour engraisser\nson grand verger. Et le chien Argos gisait l\u00e0, rong\u00e9 de vermine.\nEt, aussit\u00f4t, il reconnut Odysseus qui approchait, et il remua la\nqueue et dressa les oreilles; mais il ne put pas aller au-devant\nde son ma\u00eetre, qui, l'ayant vu, essuya une larme, en se cachant\nais\u00e9ment d'Eumaios. Et, aussit\u00f4t, il demanda \u00e0 celui-ci:\n\n-- Eumaios, voici une chose prodigieuse. Ce chien gisant sur ce\nfumier a un beau corps. Je ne sais si, avec cette beaut\u00e9, il a \u00e9t\u00e9\nrapide \u00e0 la course, ou si c'est un de ces chiens que les hommes\nnourrissent \u00e0 leur table et que les rois \u00e9l\u00e8vent \u00e0 cause de leur\nbeaut\u00e9.\n\nEt le porcher Eumaios lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- C'est le chien d'un homme mort au loin. S'il \u00e9tait encore, par\nles formes et les qualit\u00e9s, tel qu'Odysseus le laissa en allant \u00e0\nTroi\u00e8, tu admirerais sa rapidit\u00e9 et sa force. Aucune b\u00eate fauve\nqu'il avait aper\u00e7ue ne lui \u00e9chappait dans les profondeurs des\nbois, et il \u00e9tait dou\u00e9 d'un flair excellent. Maintenant les maux\nl'accablent. Son ma\u00eetre est mort loin de sa patrie, et les\nservantes n\u00e9gligentes ne le soignent point. Les serviteurs,\nauxquels leurs ma\u00eetres ne commandent plus, ne veulent plus agir\navec justice, car le retentissant Zeus \u00f4te \u00e0 l'homme la moiti\u00e9 de\nsa vertu, quand il le soumet \u00e0 la servitude.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il entra dans la riche demeure, qu'il traversa\npour se rendre au milieu des illustres pr\u00e9tendants. Et, aussit\u00f4t,\nla k\u00e8r de la noire mort saisit Argos comme il venait de revoir\nOdysseus apr\u00e8s la vingti\u00e8me ann\u00e9e.\n\nEt le divin T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos vit, le premier, Eumaios traverser la\ndemeure, et il lui fit signe pour l'appeler promptement \u00e0 lui. Et\nle porcher, ayant regard\u00e9, prit le si\u00e8ge vide du d\u00e9coupeur qui\nservait alors les viandes abondantes aux pr\u00e9tendants, et qui les\nd\u00e9coupait pour les convives. Et Eumaios, portant ce si\u00e8ge devant\nla table de T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, s'y assit. Et un h\u00e9raut lui offrit une\npart des mets et du pain pris dans une corbeille.\n\nEt, apr\u00e8s lui, Odysseus entra dans la demeure, semblable \u00e0 un\nmis\u00e9rable et vieux mendiant, appuy\u00e9 sur un b\u00e2ton et couvert de\nv\u00eatements en haillons. Et il s'assit sur le seuil de fr\u00eane, en\ndedans des portes, et il s'adossa contre le montant de cypr\u00e8s\nqu'un ouvrier avait autrefois habilement poli et dress\u00e9 avec le\ncordeau. Alors, T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, ayant appel\u00e9 le porcher, prit un pain\nentier dans la belle corbeille, et des viandes, autant que ses\nmains purent en prendre, et dit:\n\n-- Porte ceci, et donne-le \u00e0 l'\u00e9tranger, et ordonne lui de\ndemander \u00e0 chacun des pr\u00e9tendants. La honte n'est pas bonne \u00e0\nl'indigent.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le porcher, l'ayant entendu, s'approcha\nd'Odysseus et lui dit ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, \u00f4 \u00e9tranger, te donne ceci, et il t'ordonne de\ndemander \u00e0 chacun des pr\u00e9tendants. Il dit que la honte n'est pas\nbonne \u00e0 l'indigent.\n\nEt le subtil Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Roi Zeus! accorde-moi que T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos soit heureux entre tous\nles hommes, et que tout ce qu'il d\u00e9sire s'accomplisse!\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, prenant la nourriture des deux mains, il la\nposa \u00e0 ses pieds sur sa besace trou\u00e9e, et il mangea pendant que le\ndivin aoide chantait dans les demeures. Mais le divin aoide se\ntut, et les pr\u00e9tendants \u00e9lev\u00e8rent un grand tumulte, et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8,\ns'approchant du Laertiade Odysseus, l'excita \u00e0 demander aux\npr\u00e9tendants, afin de reconna\u00eetre ceux qui \u00e9taient justes et ceux\nqui \u00e9taient iniques. Mais aucun d'eux ne devait \u00eatre sauv\u00e9 de la\nmort. Et Odysseus se h\u00e2ta de prier chacun d'eux en commen\u00e7ant par\nla droite et en tendant les deux mains, comme ont coutume les\nmendiants. Et ils lui donnaient, ayant piti\u00e9 de lui, et ils\ns'\u00e9tonnaient, et ils se demandaient qui il \u00e9tait et d'o\u00f9 il\nvenait. Alors, le chevrier M\u00e9lanthios leur dit:\n\n-- \u00c9coutez-moi, pr\u00e9tendants de l'illustre reine, je parlerai de\ncet \u00e9tranger que j'ai d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu. C'est assur\u00e9ment le porcher qui l'a\nconduit ici; mais je ne sais o\u00f9 il est n\u00e9.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Antinoos r\u00e9primanda le porcher par ces paroles:\n\n-- \u00d4 porcher, pourquoi as-tu conduit cet homme \u00e0 la ville?\nN'avons-nous pas assez de vagabonds et de mendiants, calamit\u00e9 des\nrepas? Trouves-tu qu'il ne suffit pas de ceux qui sont r\u00e9unis ici\npour d\u00e9vorer les biens de ton ma\u00eetre, que tu aies encore appel\u00e9\ncelui-ci?\n\nEt le porcher Eumaios lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Antinoos, tu ne dis pas de bonnes paroles, bien que tu sois\nillustre. Quel homme peut appeler un \u00e9tranger, afin qu'il vienne\nde loin, s'il n'est de ceux qui sont habiles, un divinateur, un\nm\u00e9decin, un ouvrier qui taille le bois, ou un grand aoide qui\ncharme en chantant? Ceux-l\u00e0 sont illustres parmi les hommes sur la\nterre immense. Mais personne n'appelle un mendiant, s'il ne d\u00e9sire\nse nuire \u00e0 soi-m\u00eame. Tu es le plus dur des pr\u00e9tendants pour les\nserviteurs d'Odysseus, et surtout pour moi; mais je n'en ai nul\nsouci, tant que la sage P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia et le divin T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos vivront\ndans leurs demeures.\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui dit:\n\n-- Tais-toi, et ne lui r\u00e9ponds point tant de paroles. Antinoos a\ncoutume de chercher querelle par des paroles injurieuses et\nd'exciter tous les autres.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il dit ensuite \u00e0 Antinoos ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Antinoos, tu prends soin de moi comme un p\u00e8re de son fils, toi\nqui ordonnes imp\u00e9rieusement \u00e0 un \u00e9tranger de sortir de ma demeure!\nmais qu'un dieu n'accomplisse point cet ordre. Donne \u00e0 cet homme.\nJe ne t'en bl\u00e2merai point. Je te l'ordonne m\u00eame. Tu n'offenseras\nainsi ni ma m\u00e8re, ni aucun des serviteurs qui sont dans la demeure\ndu divin Odysseus. Mais telle n'est point la pens\u00e9e que tu as dans\nta poitrine, et tu aimes mieux manger davantage toi-m\u00eame que de\ndonner \u00e0 un autre.\n\nEt Antinoos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, agor\u00e8te orgueilleux et plein de col\u00e8re, qu'as-tu\ndit? Si tous les pr\u00e9tendants lui donnaient autant que moi, il\nserait retenu loin de cette demeure pendant trois mois au moins.\n\nIl parla ainsi, saisissant et montrant l'escabeau sur lequel il\nappuyait ses pieds brillants sous la table. Mais tous les autres\ndonn\u00e8rent \u00e0 Odysseus et emplirent sa besace de viandes et de pain.\nEt d\u00e9j\u00e0 Odysseus s'en retournait pour go\u00fbter les dons des\nAkhaiens, mais il s'arr\u00eata aupr\u00e8s d'Antinoos et lui dit:\n\n-- Donne-moi, ami, car tu ne parais pas le dernier des Akhaiens\nmais plut\u00f4t le premier d'entre eux, et tu es semblable \u00e0 un roi.\nIl t'appartient de me donner plus abondamment que les autres, et\nje te louerai sur la terre immense. En effet, moi aussi,\nautrefois, j'ai habit\u00e9 une demeure parmi les hommes; j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9\nriche et heureux, et j'ai souvent donn\u00e9 aux \u00e9trangers, quels\nqu'ils fussent et quelle que f\u00fbt leur mis\u00e8re. Je poss\u00e9dais de\nnombreux serviteurs et tout ce qui fait vivre heureux et fait dire\nqu'on est riche; mais Zeus Kroni\u00f4n a tout d\u00e9truit, car telle a \u00e9t\u00e9\nsa volont\u00e9. Il m'envoya avec des pirates vagabonds dans l'Aigypti\u00e8\nlointaine, afin que j'y p\u00e9risse. Le cinqui\u00e8me jour j'arr\u00eatai mes\nnefs \u00e0 deux rangs d'avirons dans le fleuve Aigyptos. Alors\nj'ordonnai \u00e0 mes chers compagnons de rester aupr\u00e8s des nefs pour\nles garder, et j'envoyai des \u00e9claireurs pour aller \u00e0 la\nd\u00e9couverte. Mais ceux-ci, \u00e9gar\u00e9s par leur audace et confiants dans\nleurs forces, d\u00e9vast\u00e8rent aussit\u00f4t les beaux champs des hommes\nAigyptiens, entra\u00eenant les femmes et les petits enfants et tuant\nles hommes. Et aussit\u00f4t le tumulte arriva jusqu'\u00e0 la ville, et les\nhabitants, entendant ces clameurs, accoururent au lever d'\u00c9\u00f4s, et\ntoute la plaine se remplit de pi\u00e9tons et de cavaliers et de\nl'\u00e9clat de l'airain. Et le foudroyant Zeus mit mes compagnons en\nfuite, et aucun d'eux ne soutint l'attaque, et la mort les\nenvironna de toutes parts. L\u00e0, un grand nombre des n\u00f4tres fut tu\u00e9\npar l'airain aigu, et les autres furent emmen\u00e9s vivants pour \u00eatre\nesclaves. Et les Aigyptiens me donn\u00e8rent \u00e0 Dm\u00e8t\u00f4rlaside, qui\ncommandait \u00e0 Kypros, et il m'y emmena, et de l\u00e0 je suis venu ici,\napr\u00e8s avoir beaucoup souffert.\n\nEt Antinoos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Quel dieu a conduit ici cette peste, cette calamit\u00e9 des repas?\nTiens-toi au milieu de la salle, loin de ma table, si tu ne veux\nvoir bient\u00f4t une Aigypti\u00e8 et une Kypros am\u00e8res, aussi s\u00fbrement que\ntu es un audacieux et impudent mendiant. Tu t'arr\u00eates devant\nchacun, et ils te donnent inconsid\u00e9r\u00e9ment, rien ne les emp\u00eachant\nde donner ce qui ne leur appartient pas, car ils ont tout en\nabondance.\n\nEt le subtil Odysseus dit en s'en retournant:\n\n-- \u00d4 dieux! Tu n'as pas les pens\u00e9es qui conviennent \u00e0 ta beaut\u00e9;\net \u00e0 celui qui te le demanderait dans ta propre demeure tu ne\ndonnerais pas m\u00eame du sel, toi qui, assis maintenant \u00e0 une table\n\u00e9trang\u00e8re, ne peux supporter la pens\u00e9e de me donner un peu de\npain, quand tout abonde ici.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Antinoos fut grandement irrit\u00e9 dans son coeur,\net, le regardant d'un oeil sombre, il lui dit ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Je ne pense pas que tu sortes sain et sauf de cette demeure,\npuisque tu as prononc\u00e9 cet outrage.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il saisit son escabeau et en frappa l'\u00e9paule\ndroite d'Odysseus \u00e0 l'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 du dos. Mais Odysseus resta ferme\ncomme une pierre, et le trait d'Antinoos ne l'\u00e9branla pas. Il\nsecoua la t\u00eate en silence, en m\u00e9ditant la mort du pr\u00e9tendant.\nPuis, il retourna s'asseoir sur le seuil, posa \u00e0 terre sa besace\npleine et dit aux pr\u00e9tendants:\n\n-- \u00c9coutez-moi, pr\u00e9tendants de l'illustre reine, afin que je dise\nce que mon coeur m'ordonne dans ma poitrine. Il n'y a ni douleur,\nni honte, quand un homme est frapp\u00e9, combattant pour ses biens,\nsoit des boeufs, soit de grasses brebis; mais Antinoos m'a frapp\u00e9\nparce que mon ventre est rong\u00e9 par la faim cruelle qui cause tant\nde maux aux hommes. Donc, s'il est des dieux et des \u00c9rinnyes pour\nles mendiants, Antinoos, avant ses noces, rencontrera la mort.\n\nEt Antinoos, le fils d'Eupeith\u00e8s, lui dit:\n\n-- Mange en silence, \u00e9tranger, ou sors, de peur que, parlant comme\ntu le fais, les jeunes hommes te tra\u00eenent, \u00e0 travers la demeure,\npar les pieds ou par les bras, et te mettent en pi\u00e8ces.\n\nIl parla ainsi, mais tous les autres le bl\u00e2m\u00e8rent rudement, et un\ndes jeunes hommes insolents lui dit:\n\n-- Antinoos, tu as mal fait de frapper ce malheureux vagabond.\nInsens\u00e9! si c'\u00e9tait un des dieux Ouraniens? Car les dieux, qui\nprennent toutes les formes, errent souvent par les villes,\nsemblables \u00e0 des \u00e9trangers errants, afin de reconna\u00eetre la justice\nou l'iniquit\u00e9 des hommes.\n\nLes pr\u00e9tendants parl\u00e8rent ainsi, mais leurs paroles ne touch\u00e8rent\npoint Antinoos. Et une grande douleur s'\u00e9leva dans le coeur de\nT\u00e8l\u00e9makhos \u00e0 cause du coup qui avait \u00e9t\u00e9 port\u00e9. Cependant, il ne\nversa point de larmes, mais il secoua la t\u00eate en silence, en\nm\u00e9ditant la mort du pr\u00e9tendant. Et la prudente P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia, ayant\nappris qu'un \u00e9tranger avait \u00e9t\u00e9 frapp\u00e9 dans la demeure, dit \u00e0 ses\nservantes:\n\n-- Puisse Apoll\u00f4n illustre par son arc frapper ainsi Antinoos!\n\nEt Eurynom\u00e8 l'intendante lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Si nous pouvions accomplir nos propres voeux, aucun de ceux-ci\nne verrait le retour du beau matin.\n\nEt la prudente P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia lui dit:\n\n-- Nourrice, tous me sont ennemis, car ils m\u00e9ditent le mal; mais\nAntinoos, plus que tous, est pour moi semblable \u00e0 la noire k\u00e8r. Un\nmalheureux \u00e9tranger mendie dans la demeure, demandant \u00e0 chacun,\ncar la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 le presse, et tous lui donnent; mais Antinoos le\nfrappe d'un escabeau \u00e0 l'\u00e9paule droite!\n\nElle parla ainsi au milieu de ses servantes. Et le divin Odysseus\nacheva son repas, et P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia fit appeler le divin porcher et\nlui dit:\n\n-- Va, divin Eumaios, et ordonne \u00e0 l'\u00e9tranger de venir, afin que\nje le salue et l'interroge. Peut-\u00eatre qu'il a entendu parler du\nmalheureux Odysseus, ou qu'il l'a vu de ses yeux, car il semble\nlui-m\u00eame avoir beaucoup err\u00e9.\n\nEt le porcher Eumaios lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Pl\u00fbt aux dieux, reine, que tous les Akhaiens fissent silence et\nqu'il charm\u00e2t ton cher coeur de ses paroles! Je l'ai retenu dans\nl'\u00e9table pendant trois nuits et trois jours, car il \u00e9tait d'abord\nvenu vers moi apr\u00e8s s'\u00eatre enfui d'une nef. Et il n'a point achev\u00e9\nde dire toute sa destin\u00e9e malheureuse. De m\u00eame qu'on r\u00e9v\u00e8re un\naoide instruit par les dieux \u00e0 chanter des paroles douces aux\nhommes, et qu'on ne veut jamais cesser de l'\u00e9couter quand il\nchante, de m\u00eame celui-ci m'a charm\u00e9 dans mes demeures. Il dit\nqu'il est un h\u00f4te paternel d'Odysseus et qu'il habitait la Kr\u00e8t\u00e8\no\u00f9 commande la race de Min\u00f4s. Apr\u00e8s avoir subi beaucoup de maux,\nerrant \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0, il est venu ici. Il dit qu'il a entendu parler\nd'Odysseus chez le riche peuple des Thespr\u00f4tes, et qu'il vit\nencore, et qu'il rapporte de nombreuses richesses dans sa demeure.\n\nEt la prudente P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Va! Appelle-le, afin qu'il parle devant moi. Les pr\u00e9tendants se\nr\u00e9jouissent, assis les uns devant les portes, les autres dans la\ndemeure, car leur esprit est joyeux. Leurs richesses restent\nintactes dans leurs maisons, leur pain et leur vin doux, dont se\nnourrissent leurs serviteurs seulement. Mais, tous les jours, dans\nnotre demeure, ils tuent nos boeufs, nos brebis et nos ch\u00e8vres\ngrasses, et ils les mangent, et ils boivent notre vin rouge\nimpun\u00e9ment, et ils ont d\u00e9j\u00e0 consum\u00e9 beaucoup de richesses. Il n'y\na point ici d'homme tel qu'Odysseus pour chasser cette ruine hors\nde la demeure. Mais si Odysseus revenait et abordait la terre de\nla patrie, bient\u00f4t, avec son fils, il aurait r\u00e9prim\u00e9 les\ninsolences de ces hommes.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos \u00e9ternua tr\u00e8s fortement, et toute\nla maison en retentit. Et P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia se mit \u00e0 rire, et, aussit\u00f4t,\nelle dit \u00e0 Eumaios ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Va! Appelle cet \u00e9tranger devant moi. Ne vois-tu pas que mon\nfils a \u00e9ternu\u00e9 comme j'achevais de parler? Que la mort de tous les\npr\u00e9tendants s'accomplisse ainsi, et que nul d'entre eux n'\u00e9vite la\nk\u00e8r et la mort! Mais je te dirai ceci; retiens-le dans ton esprit:\nsi je reconnais que cet \u00e9tranger me dit la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, je lui donnerai\nde beaux v\u00eatements, un manteau et une tunique.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et le porcher, l'ayant entendue, s'approcha\nd'Odysseus et lui dit ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- P\u00e8re \u00e9tranger, la sage P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia, la m\u00e8re de T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos,\nt'appelle. Son \u00e2me lui ordonne de t'interroger sur son mari, bien\nqu'elle subisse beaucoup de douleurs. Si elle reconna\u00eet que tu lui\nas dit la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, elle te donnera un manteau et une tunique dont\ntu as grand besoin; et tu demanderas ton pain parmi le peuple, et\ntu satisferas ta faim, et chacun te donnera s'il le veut.\n\nEt le patient et divin Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Eumaios, je dirai bient\u00f4t toute la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 \u00e0 la fille d'Ikarios,\nla tr\u00e8s sage P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia. Je sais toute la destin\u00e9e d'Odysseus, et\nnous avons subi les m\u00eames maux. Mais je crains la multitude des\npr\u00e9tendants insolents. Leur orgueil et leur violence sont mont\u00e9s\njusqu'\u00e0 l'Ouranos de fer. Voici qu'un d'entre eux, comme je\ntraversais innocemment la salle, m'ayant frapp\u00e9, m'a fait un grand\nmal. Et T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos n'y a point pris garde, ni aucun autre. Donc,\nmaintenant, engage P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia, malgr\u00e9 sa h\u00e2te, \u00e0 attendre dans ses\ndemeures jusqu'\u00e0 la chute de H\u00e8lios. Alors, tandis que je serai\nassis aupr\u00e8s du foyer, elle m'interrogera sur le jour du retour de\nson mari. Je n'ai que des v\u00eatements en haillons; tu le sais,\npuisque c'est toi que j'ai suppli\u00e9 le premier.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le porcher le quitta apr\u00e8s l'avoir entendu. Et,\nd\u00e8s qu'il parut sur le seuil, P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia lui dit:\n\n-- Tu ne l'am\u00e8nes pas, Eumaios? Pourquoi refuse-t-il? Craint-il\nquelque outrage, ou a-t-il honte? La honte n'est pas bonne \u00e0\nl'indigent.\n\nEt le porcher Eumaios lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Il parle comme il convient et comme chacun pense. Il veut\n\u00e9viter l'insolence des pr\u00e9tendants orgueilleux. Mais il te prie\nd'attendre jusqu'au coucher de H\u00e8lios. Il te sera ainsi plus\nfacile, \u00f4 reine, de parler seule \u00e0 cet \u00e9tranger et de l'\u00e9couter.\n\nEt la prudente P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Cet \u00e9tranger, quel qu'il soit, ne semble point sans prudence;\net, en effet, aucun des plus injurieux parmi les hommes mortels\nn'a m\u00e9dit\u00e9 plus d'iniquit\u00e9s que ceux-ci.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et le divin porcher retourna dans l'assembl\u00e9e\ndes pr\u00e9tendants, apr\u00e8s avoir tout dit. Et, penchant la t\u00eate vers\nT\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, afin que les autres ne l'entendissent pas, il dit ces\nparoles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- \u00d4 ami, je pars, afin d'aller garder tes porcs et veiller sur\ntes richesses et les miennes. Ce qui est ici te regarde. Mais\nconserve-toi et songe dans ton \u00e2me \u00e0 te pr\u00e9server. De nombreux\nAkhaiens ont de mauvais desseins, mais que Zeus les perde avant\nqu'ils nous nuisent!\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Il en sera ainsi, p\u00e8re. Mais pars avant la nuit. Reviens\ndemain, au matin, et am\u00e8ne les belles victimes. C'est aux\nimmortels et \u00e0 moi de nous inqui\u00e9ter de tout le reste.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le porcher s'assit de nouveau sur le si\u00e8ge\npoli, et l\u00e0 il contenta son \u00e2me en buvant et en mangeant; puis, se\nh\u00e2tant de retourner vers ses porcs, il laissa les cours et la\ndemeure pleines de convives qui se charmaient par la danse et le\nchant, car d\u00e9j\u00e0 le soir \u00e9tait venu.\n\n\n18.\n\nEt il vint un mendiant qui errait par la ville et qui mendiait\ndans Ithak\u00e8. Et il \u00e9tait renomm\u00e9 par son ventre insatiable, car il\nmangeait et buvait sans cesse; mais il n'avait ni force, ni\ncourage, bien qu'il f\u00fbt beau et grand. Il se nommait Arnaios, et\nc'\u00e9tait le nom que sa m\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable lui avait donn\u00e9 \u00e0 sa\nnaissance; mais les jeunes hommes le nommaient tous Iros, parce\nqu'il faisait volontiers les messages, quand quelqu'un le lui\nordonnait. Et d\u00e8s qu'il fut arriv\u00e9, il voulut chasser Odysseus de\nsa demeure, et, en l'injuriant, il lui dit ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Sors du portique, vieillard, de peur d'\u00eatre tra\u00een\u00e9 aussit\u00f4t par\nles pieds. Ne comprends-tu pas que tous me font signe et\nm'ordonnent de te tra\u00eener dehors? Cependant, j'ai piti\u00e9 de toi.\nL\u00e8ve-toi donc, de peur qu'il y ait de la discorde entre nous et\nque nous en venions aux mains.\n\nEt le subtil Odysseus, le regardant d'un oeil sombre, lui dit:\n\n-- Malheureux! Je ne te fais aucun mal, je ne te dis rien, et je\nne t'envie pas \u00e0 cause des nombreux dons que tu pourras recevoir.\nCe seuil nous servira \u00e0 tous deux. Il ne faut pas que tu sois\nenvieux d'un \u00e9tranger, car tu me sembles un vagabond comme moi, et\nce sont les dieux qui distribuent les richesses. Ne me provoque\ndonc pas aux coups et n'\u00e9veille pas ma col\u00e8re, de peur que je\nsouille de sang ta poitrine et tes l\u00e8vres, bien que je sois vieux.\nDemain je n'en serai que plus tranquille, et je ne pense pas que\ntu reviennes apr\u00e8s cela dans la demeure du Laertiade Odysseus.\n\nEt le mendiant Iros, irrit\u00e9, lui dit:\n\n-- \u00d4 dieux! comme ce mendiant parle avec facilit\u00e9, semblable \u00e0 une\nvieille enfum\u00e9e. Mais je vais le maltraiter en le frappant des\ndeux mains, et je ferai tomber toutes ses dents de ses m\u00e2choires,\ncomme celles d'un sanglier mangeur de moissons! Maintenant, ceins-\ntoi, et que tous ceux-ci nous voient combattre. Mais comment\nlutteras-tu contre un homme jeune?\n\nAinsi, devant les hautes portes, sur le seuil poli, ils se\nquerellaient de toute leur \u00e2me. Et la force sacr\u00e9e d'Antinoos les\nentendit, et, se mettant \u00e0 rire, il dit aux pr\u00e9tendants:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis! jamais rien de tel n'est arriv\u00e9. Quel plaisir un dieu\nnous envoie dans cette demeure! L'\u00e9tranger et Iros se querellent\net vont en venir aux coups. Mettons-les promptement aux mains.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous se lev\u00e8rent en riant, et ils se r\u00e9unirent\nautour des mendiants en haillons, et Antinoos, fils d'Eupeith\u00e8s,\nleur dit:\n\n-- \u00c9coutez-moi, illustres pr\u00e9tendants, afin que je parle. Des\npoitrines de ch\u00e8vres sont sur le feu, pour le repas, et pleines de\nsang et de graisse. Celui qui sera vainqueur et le plus fort\nchoisira la part qu'il voudra. Il assistera toujours \u00e0 nos repas,\net nous ne laisserons aucun autre mendiant demander parmi nous.\n\nAinsi parla Antinoos, et ses paroles plurent \u00e0 tous. Mais le\nsubtil Odysseus parla ainsi, plein de ruse:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis, il n'est pas juste qu'un vieillard fl\u00e9tri par la\ndouleur lutte contre un homme jeune; mais la faim, mauvaise\nconseill\u00e8re, me pousse \u00e0 me faire couvrir de plaies. Cependant,\njurez tous par un grand serment qu'aucun de vous, pour venir en\naide \u00e0 Iros, ne me frappera de sa forte main, afin que je sois\ndompt\u00e9.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous jur\u00e8rent comme il l'avait demand\u00e9. Et la\nforce sacr\u00e9e de T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui dit:\n\n-- \u00c9tranger, si ton coeur et ton \u00e2me courageuse t'invitent \u00e0\nchasser cet homme, ne crains aucun des Akhaiens. Celui qui te\nfrapperait aurait \u00e0 combattre contre plusieurs, car je t'ai donn\u00e9\nl'hospitalit\u00e9, et deux rois prudents, Eurymakhos et Antinoos,\nm'approuvent.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous l'approuv\u00e8rent. Et Odysseus ceignit ses\nparties viriles avec ses haillons, et il montra ses cuisses belles\net grandes, et ses larges \u00e9paules, et sa poitrine et ses bras\nrobustes. Et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, s'approchant de lui, augmenta les membres du\nprince des peuples. Et tous les pr\u00e9tendants furent tr\u00e8s surpris,\net ils se dirent les uns aux autres:\n\n-- Certes, bient\u00f4t Iros ne sera plus Iros, et il aura ce qu'il a\ncherch\u00e9. Quelles cuisses montre ce vieillard en retirant ses\nhaillons!\n\nIls parl\u00e8rent ainsi, et l'\u00e2me de Iros fut troubl\u00e9e; mais les\nserviteurs, apr\u00e8s l'avoir ceint de force, le conduisirent, et\ntoute sa chair tremblait sur ses os. Et Antinoos le r\u00e9primanda et\nlui dit:\n\n-- Puisses-tu n'\u00eatre jamais n\u00e9, n'\u00e9tant qu'un fanfaron, puisque tu\ntrembles, plein de crainte, devant un vieillard fl\u00e9tri par la\nmis\u00e8re! Mais je te dis ceci, et ma parole s'accomplira: si celui-\nci est vainqueur et le plus fort, je t'enverrai sur la terre\nferme, jet\u00e9 dans une nef noire, chez le roi \u00c9kh\u00e9tos, le plus\nf\u00e9roce de tous les hommes, qui te coupera le nez et les oreilles\navec l'airain tranchant, qui t'arrachera les parties viriles et\nles donnera, sanglantes, \u00e0 d\u00e9vorer aux chiens.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et une plus grande terreur fit trembler la chair\nd'Iros. Et on le conduisit au milieu, et tous deux lev\u00e8rent leurs\nbras. Alors, le patient et divin Odysseus d\u00e9lib\u00e9ra s'il le\nfrapperait de fa\u00e7on \u00e0 lui arracher l'\u00e2me d'un seul coup, ou s'il\nne ferait que l'\u00e9tendre contre terre. Et il jugea que ceci \u00e9tait\nle meilleur, de ne le frapper que l\u00e9g\u00e8rement de peur que les\nAkhaiens le reconnussent.\n\nTous deux ayant lev\u00e9 les bras, Iros le frappa \u00e0 l'\u00e9paule droite;\nmais Odysseus le frappa au cou, sous l'oreille, et brisa ses os,\net un sang noir emplit sa bouche, et il tomba dans la poussi\u00e8re en\ncriant, et ses dents furent arrach\u00e9es, et il battit la terre de\nses pieds. Les pr\u00e9tendants insolents, les bras lev\u00e9s, mouraient de\nrire. Mais Odysseus le tra\u00eena par un pied, \u00e0 travers le portique,\njusque dans la cour et jusqu'aux portes, et il l'adossa contre le\nmur de la cour, lui mit un b\u00e2ton \u00e0 la main, et lui adressa ces\nparoles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Maintenant, reste l\u00e0, et chasse les chiens et les porcs, et ne\nte crois plus le ma\u00eetre des \u00e9trangers et des mendiants, mis\u00e9rable!\nde peur d'un mal pire.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, jetant sur son \u00e9paule sa pauvre besace pleine\nde trous suspendue \u00e0 une courroie tordue, il revint s'asseoir sur\nle seuil. Et tous les pr\u00e9tendants rentr\u00e8rent en riant, et ils lui\ndirent:\n\n-- Que Zeus et les autres dieux immortels, \u00e9tranger, t'accordent\nce que tu d\u00e9sires le plus et ce qui est cher \u00e0 ton coeur! car tu\nemp\u00eaches cet insatiable de mendier. Nous l'enverrons bient\u00f4t sur\nla terre ferme, chez le roi \u00c9kh\u00e9tos, le plus f\u00e9roce de tous les\nhommes.\n\nIls parlaient ainsi, et le divin Odysseus se r\u00e9jouit de leur voeu.\nEt Antinoos pla\u00e7a devant lui une large poitrine de ch\u00e8vre pleine\nde sang et de graisse. Et Amphinomos prit dans une corbeille deux\npains qu'il lui apporta, et, l'honorant d'une coupe d'or, il lui\ndit:\n\n-- Salut, p\u00e8re \u00c9tranger. Que la richesse que tu poss\u00e9dais te soit\nrendue, car, maintenant, tu es accabl\u00e9 de beaucoup de maux.\n\nEt le subtil Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Amphinomos, tu me sembles plein de prudence, et tel que ton\np\u00e8re, car j'ai appris par la renomm\u00e9e que Nisos \u00e9tait \u00e0 Doulikhios\nun homme honn\u00eate et riche. On dit que tu es n\u00e9 de lui, et tu\nsembles un homme sage. Je te dis ceci; \u00e9coute et comprends-moi.\nRien n'est plus mis\u00e9rable que l'homme parmi tout ce qui respire ou\nrampe sur la terre, et qu'elle nourrit. Jamais, en effet, il ne\ncroit que le malheur puisse l'accabler un jour, tant que les dieux\nlui conservent la force et que ses genoux se meuvent; mais quand\nles dieux heureux lui ont envoy\u00e9 les maux, il ne veut pas les\nsubir d'un coeur patient. Tel est l'esprit des hommes terrestres,\nsemblable aux jours changeants qu'am\u00e8ne le p\u00e8re des hommes et des\ndieux. Moi aussi, autrefois, j'\u00e9tais heureux parmi les guerriers,\net j'ai commis beaucoup d'actions injustes, dans ma force et dans\nma violence, me fiant \u00e0 l'aide de mon p\u00e8re et de mes fr\u00e8res. C'est\npourquoi qu'aucun homme ne soit inique, mais qu'il accepte en\nsilence les dons des dieux. Je vois les pr\u00e9tendants, pleins de\npens\u00e9es iniques, consumant les richesses et outrageant la femme\nd'un homme qui, je le dis, ne sera pas longtemps \u00e9loign\u00e9 de ses\namis et de la terre de la patrie. Qu'un daim\u00f4n te ram\u00e8ne dans ta\ndemeure, de peur qu'il te rencontre quand il reviendra dans la\nch\u00e8re terre de la patrie. Ce ne sera pas, en effet, sans carnage,\nque tout se d\u00e9cidera entre les pr\u00e9tendants et lui, quand il\nreviendra dans ses demeures.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, faisant une libation, il but le vin doux et\nremit la coupe entre les mains du prince des peuples. Et celui-ci,\nle coeur d\u00e9chir\u00e9 et secouant la t\u00eate, allait \u00e0 travers la salle,\ncar, en effet, son \u00e2me pr\u00e9voyait des malheurs. Mais cependant il\nne devait pas \u00e9viter la k\u00e8r, et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 l'emp\u00eacha de partir, afin\nqu'il f\u00fbt tu\u00e9 par les mains et par la lance de T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos. Et il\nalla s'asseoir de nouveau sur le thr\u00f4ne d'o\u00f9 il s'\u00e9tait lev\u00e9.\n\nAlors, la d\u00e9esse Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs mit dans l'esprit de la\nfille d'Ikarios, de la prudente P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia, d'appara\u00eetre aux\npr\u00e9tendants, afin que leur coeur f\u00fbt transport\u00e9, et qu'elle-m\u00eame\nf\u00fbt plus honor\u00e9e encore par son mari et par son fils. P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia\nse mit donc \u00e0 rire l\u00e9g\u00e8rement, et elle dit:\n\n-- Eurynom\u00e8, voici que mon \u00e2me m'excite maintenant \u00e0 appara\u00eetre\naux pr\u00e9tendants odieux. Je dirai \u00e0 mon fils une parole qui lui\nsera tr\u00e8s utile. Je lui conseillerai de ne point se m\u00ealer aux\npr\u00e9tendants insolents qui lui parlent avec amiti\u00e9 et m\u00e9ditent sa\nmort.\n\nEt Eurynom\u00e8 l'intendante lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Mon enfant, ce que tu dis est sage; fais-le. Donne ce conseil \u00e0\nton fils, et ne lui cache rien. Lave ton corps et parfume tes\njoues avec de l'huile, et ne sors pas avec un visage sillonn\u00e9 de\nlarmes, car rien n'est pire que de pleurer continuellement. En\neffet, ton fils est maintenant tel que tu suppliais ardemment les\ndieux qu'il devint.\n\nEt la prudente P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Eurynom\u00e8, ne me parle point, tandis que je g\u00e9mis, de laver et\nde parfumer mon corps. Les dieux qui habitent l'Olympos m'ont ravi\nma splendeur, du jour o\u00f9 Odysseus est parti sur ses nefs creuses.\nMais ordonne \u00e0 Autono\u00e8 et \u00e0 Hippodamia de venir, afin de\nm'accompagner dans les demeures. Je ne veux point aller seule au\nmilieu des hommes, car j'en aurais honte.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et la vieille femme sortit de la maison afin\nd'avertir les servantes et qu'elles vinssent \u00e0 la h\u00e2te.\n\nEt, alors, la d\u00e9esse Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs eut une autre pens\u00e9e,\net elle r\u00e9pandit le doux sommeil sur la fille d'Ikarios. Et celle-\nci s'endormit, pench\u00e9e en arri\u00e8re, et sa force l'abandonna sur le\nlit de repos. Et, alors, la noble d\u00e9esse lui fit des dons\nimmortels, afin qu'elle f\u00fbt admir\u00e9e des Akhaiens. Elle purifia son\nvisage avec de l'ambroisie, de m\u00eame que Kyth\u00e9r\u00e9ia \u00e0 la belle\ncouronne se parfume, quand elle se rend aux choeurs charmants des\nKharites. Elle la fit para\u00eetre plus grande, plus majestueuse, et\nelle la rendit plus blanche que l'ivoire r\u00e9cemment travaill\u00e9. Cela\nfait, la noble d\u00e9esse s'\u00e9loigna, et les deux servantes aux bras\nblancs, ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 appel\u00e9es, arriv\u00e8rent de la maison, et le doux\nsommeil quitta P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia. Et elle pressa ses joues avec ses\nmains, et elle s'\u00e9cria:\n\n-- Certes, malgr\u00e9 mes peines, le doux sommeil m'a envelopp\u00e9e.\nPuisse la chaste Art\u00e9mis m'envoyer une mort aussi douce! Je ne\nconsumerais plus ma vie \u00e0 g\u00e9mir dans mon coeur, regrettant mon\ncher mari qui avait toutes les vertus et qui \u00e9tait le plus\nillustre des Akhaiens.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, elle descendit des chambres splendides. Et elle\nn'\u00e9tait point seule, car deux servantes la suivaient. Et quand la\ndivine femme arriva aupr\u00e8s des pr\u00e9tendants, elle s'arr\u00eata sur le\nseuil de la salle richement orn\u00e9e, ayant un beau voile sur les\njoues. Et les servantes prudentes se tenaient \u00e0 ses c\u00f4t\u00e9s. Et les\ngenoux des pr\u00e9tendants furent rompus, et leur coeur fut transport\u00e9\npar l'amour, et ils d\u00e9siraient ardemment dormir avec elle dans\nleurs lits. Mais elle dit \u00e0 son fils T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos:\n\n-- T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, ton esprit n'est pas ferme, ni ta pens\u00e9e. Quand tu\n\u00e9tais encore enfant, tu avais des pens\u00e9es plus s\u00e9rieuses; mais,\naujourd'hui que tu es grand et parvenu au terme de la pubert\u00e9, et\nque chacun dit que tu es le fils d'un homme heureux, et que\nl'\u00e9tranger admire ta grandeur et ta beaut\u00e9, ton esprit n'est plus\n\u00e9quitable, ni ta pens\u00e9e. Comment as-tu permis qu'une telle action\nmauvaise ait \u00e9t\u00e9 commise dans tes demeures et qu'un h\u00f4te ait \u00e9t\u00e9\nainsi outrag\u00e9? Qu'arrivera-t-il donc, si un \u00e9tranger assis dans\nnos demeures souffre un tel outrage? La honte et l'opprobre seront\npour toi parmi les hommes.\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ma m\u00e8re, je ne te bl\u00e2me point de t'irriter; mais je comprends\net je sais dans mon \u00e2me ce qui est juste ou injuste. Il y a peu de\ntemps j'\u00e9tais encore enfant, et je ne puis avoir une \u00e9gale\nprudence en toute chose. Ces hommes, assis les uns aupr\u00e8s des\nautres, m\u00e9ditent ma perte et je n'ai point de soutiens. Mais le\ncombat de l'\u00e9tranger et d'Iros ne s'est point termin\u00e9 selon le\nd\u00e9sir des pr\u00e9tendants, et notre h\u00f4te l'a emport\u00e9 par sa force.\nPlaise au p\u00e8re Zeus, \u00e0 Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, \u00e0 Apoll\u00f4n, que les pr\u00e9tendants,\ndompt\u00e9s dans nos demeures, courbent bient\u00f4t la t\u00eate, les uns sous\nle portique, les autres dans la demeure, et que leurs forces\nsoient rompues; de m\u00eame qu'Iros est assis devant les portes\next\u00e9rieures, baissant la t\u00eate comme un homme ivre et ne pouvant ni\nse tenir debout, ni revenir \u00e0 sa place accoutum\u00e9e, parce que ses\nforces sont rompues.\n\nEt ils se parlaient ainsi. Eurymakhos dit \u00e0 P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia:\n\n-- Fille d'Ikarios, sage P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia, si tous les Akhaiens de\nl'Argos d'Iasos te voyaient, demain, d'autres nombreux pr\u00e9tendants\nviendraient s'asseoir \u00e0 nos repas dans ces demeures, car tu\nl'emportes sur toutes les femmes par la beaut\u00e9, la majest\u00e9 et\nl'intelligence.\n\nEt la sage P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Eurymakhos, certes, les immortels m'ont enlev\u00e9 ma vertu et ma\nbeaut\u00e9 depuis que les Argiens sont partis pour Ilios, et\nqu'Odysseus est parti avec eux; mais s'il revenait et gouvernait\nma vie, ma renomm\u00e9e serait meilleure et je serais plus belle.\nMaintenant je suis afflig\u00e9e, tant un daim\u00f4n ennemi m'a envoy\u00e9 de\nmaux. Quand Odysseus quitta la terre de la patrie, il me prit la\nmain droite et il me dit:\n\n-- \u00d4 femme, je ne pense pas que les Akhaiens aux belles kn\u00e8mides\nreviennent tous sains et saufs de Troi\u00e8. On dit, en effet, que les\nTroiens sont de braves guerriers, lanceurs de piques et de\nfl\u00e8ches, et bons conducteurs de chevaux rapides qui d\u00e9cident\npromptement de la victoire dans la m\u00eal\u00e9e du combat furieux. Donc,\nje ne sais si un dieu me sauvera, ou si je mourrai l\u00e0, devant\nTroi\u00e8. Mais toi, prends soin de toute chose, et souviens-toi, dans\nmes demeures, de mon p\u00e8re et de ma m\u00e8re, comme maintenant, et plus\nencore quand je serai absent. Puis, quand tu verras ton fils\narriv\u00e9 \u00e0 la pubert\u00e9, \u00e9pouse celui que tu choisiras et abandonne ta\ndemeure. Il parla ainsi, et toutes ces choses sont accomplies, et\nla nuit viendra o\u00f9 je subirai d'odieuses noces, car Zeus m'a ravi\nle bonheur. Cependant, une douleur am\u00e8re a saisi mon coeur et mon\n\u00e2me, et vous ne suivez pas la coutume ancienne des pr\u00e9tendants.\nCeux qui voulaient \u00e9pouser une noble femme, fille d'un homme\nriche, et qui se la disputaient, amenaient dans sa demeure des\nboeufs et de grasses brebis, et ils offraient \u00e0 la jeune fille des\nrepas et des pr\u00e9sents splendides, et ils ne d\u00e9voraient pas\nimpun\u00e9ment les biens d'autrui.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et le patient et divin Odysseus se r\u00e9jouit parce\nqu'elle attirait leurs pr\u00e9sents et charmait leur \u00e2me par de douces\nparoles, tandis qu'elle avait d'autres pens\u00e9es.\n\nEt Antinoos, fils d'Eupeith\u00e8s, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Fille d'Ikarios, sage P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia, accepte les pr\u00e9sents que\nchacun des Akhaiens voudra apporter ici. Il n'est pas convenable\nde refuser des pr\u00e9sents, et nous ne retournerons point \u00e0 nos\ntravaux et nous ne ferons aucune autre chose avant que tu aies\n\u00e9pous\u00e9 celui des Akhaiens que tu pr\u00e9f\u00e9reras.\n\nAntinoos parla ainsi, et ses paroles furent approuv\u00e9es de tous. Et\nchacun envoya un h\u00e9raut pour apporter les pr\u00e9sents. Et celui\nd'Antinoos apporta un tr\u00e8s beau p\u00e9plos aux couleurs vari\u00e9es et\norn\u00e9 de douze anneaux d'or o\u00f9 s'attachaient autant d'agrafes\nrecourb\u00e9es. Et celui d'Eurymakhos apporta un riche collier d'or et\nd'ambre \u00e9tincelant, et semblable \u00e0 H\u00e8lios. Et les deux serviteurs\nd'Eurydamas des boucles d'oreilles merveilleuses et bien\ntravaill\u00e9es et resplendissantes de gr\u00e2ce. Et le serviteur de\nPeisandros Polyktoride apporta un collier, tr\u00e8s riche ornement. Et\nles h\u00e9rauts apport\u00e8rent aux autres Akhaiens d'aussi beaux\npr\u00e9sents. Et la noble femme remonta dans les chambres hautes,\ntandis que les servantes portaient ces pr\u00e9sents magnifiques.\n\nMais les pr\u00e9tendants rest\u00e8rent jusqu'\u00e0 ce que le soir f\u00fbt venu, se\ncharmant par la danse et le chant. Et le soir sombre survint\ntandis qu'ils se charmaient ainsi. Aussit\u00f4t, ils dress\u00e8rent trois\nlampes dans les demeures, afin d'en \u00eatre \u00e9clair\u00e9s, et ils\ndispos\u00e8rent, autour, du bois depuis fort longtemps dess\u00e9ch\u00e9 et\nr\u00e9cemment fendu \u00e0 l'aide de l'airain. Puis ils enduisirent les\ntorches. Et les servantes du subtil Odysseus les allumaient tour \u00e0\ntour; mais le patient et divin Odysseus leur dit:\n\n-- Servantes du roi Odysseus depuis longtemps absent, rentrez dans\nla demeure o\u00f9 est la reine v\u00e9n\u00e9rable. R\u00e9jouissez-la, assises dans\nla demeure; tournez les fuseaux et pr\u00e9parez les laines. Seul\nj'allumerai ces torches pour les \u00e9clairer tous. Et, m\u00eame s'ils\nvoulaient attendre la brillante \u00c9\u00f4s, ils ne me lasseraient point,\ncar je suis plein de patience.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et les servantes se mirent \u00e0 rire, se regardant\nles unes les autres. Et M\u00e9lanth\u00f4 aux belles joues lui r\u00e9pondit\ninjurieusement. Dolios l'avait engendr\u00e9e, et P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia l'avait\nnourrie et \u00e9lev\u00e9e comme sa fille et entour\u00e9e de d\u00e9lices; mais elle\nne prenait point part \u00e0 la douleur de P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia, et elle s'\u00e9tait\nunie d'amour \u00e0 Eurymakhos, et elle l'aimait; et elle adressa ces\nparoles injurieuses \u00e0 Odysseus:\n\n-- Mis\u00e9rable \u00e9tranger, tu es priv\u00e9 d'intelligence, puisque tu ne\nveux pas aller dormir dans la demeure de quelque ouvrier, ou dans\nquelque bouge, et puisque tu dis ici de vaines paroles au milieu\nde nombreux h\u00e9ros et sans rien craindre. Certes, le vin te trouble\nl'esprit, ou il est toujours tel, et tu ne prononces que de vaines\nparoles. Peut-\u00eatre es-tu fier d'avoir vaincu le vagabond Iros?\nMais crains qu'un plus fort qu'Iros se l\u00e8ve bient\u00f4t, qui\nt'accablera de ses mains robustes et qui te chassera d'ici souill\u00e9\nde sang.\n\nEt le subtil Odysseus, la regardant d'un oeil sombre, lui\nr\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Chienne! je vais r\u00e9p\u00e9ter \u00e0 T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos ce que tu oses dire, afin\nqu'ici m\u00eame il te coupe en morceaux!\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il \u00e9pouvanta les servantes; et elles\ns'enfuirent \u00e0 travers la demeure, tremblantes de terreur et\ncroyant qu'il disait vrai. Et il alluma les torches, se tenant\ndebout et les surveillant toutes; mais il m\u00e9ditait dans son esprit\nd'autres desseins qui devaient s'accomplir. Et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 ne permit\npas que les pr\u00e9tendants insolents cessassent de l'outrager, afin\nque la col\u00e8re entr\u00e2t plus avant dans le coeur du Laertiade\nOdysseus. Alors, Eurymakhos, fils de Polybos, commen\u00e7a de railler\nOdysseus, excitant le rire de ses compagnons:\n\n-- Ecoutez-moi, pr\u00e9tendants de l'illustre reine, afin que je dise\nce que mon coeur m'ordonne dans ma poitrine. Cet homme n'est pas\nvenu dans la demeure d'Odysseus sans qu'un dieu l'ait voulu. La\nsplendeur des torches me semble sortir de son corps et de sa t\u00eate,\no\u00f9 il n'y a plus absolument de cheveux.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il dit au destructeur de citadelles Odysseus:\n\n-- \u00c9tranger, si tu veux servir pour un salaire, je t'emm\u00e8nerai \u00e0\nl'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 de mes champs. Ton salaire sera suffisant. Tu\nr\u00e9pareras les haies et tu planteras les arbres. Je te donnerai une\nnourriture abondante, des v\u00eatements et des sandales. Mais tu ne\nsais faire que le mal; tu ne veux point travailler, et tu aimes\nmieux mendier parmi le peuple afin de satisfaire ton ventre\ninsatiable.\n\nEt le subtil Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Eurymakhos, pl\u00fbt aux dieux que nous pussions lutter en\ntravaillant, au printemps, quand les jours sont longs, promenant,\ntous deux \u00e0 jeun, la faux recourb\u00e9e dans un pr\u00e9, et jusqu'au soir,\ntant qu'il y aura de l'herbe \u00e0 couper! Pl\u00fbt aux dieux que j'eusse\n\u00e0 conduire deux grands boeufs gras, rassasi\u00e9s de fourrage, et de\nforce \u00e9gale, dans un vaste champ de quatre arpents! Tu verrais\nalors si je saurais tracer un profond sillon et faire ob\u00e9ir la\ngl\u00e8be \u00e0 la charrue. Si le Kroni\u00f4n excitait une guerre, aujourd'hui\nm\u00eame, et si j'avais un bouclier, deux lances, et un casque\nd'airain autour des tempes, tu me verrais alors m\u00eal\u00e9 aux premiers\ncombattants et tu ne m'outragerais plus en me raillant parce que\nj'ai faim. Mais tu m'outrages dans ton insolence, et ton esprit\nest cruel, et tu te crois grand et brave parce que tu es m\u00eal\u00e9 \u00e0 un\npetit nombre de l\u00e2ches. Mais si Odysseus revenait et abordait la\nterre de la patrie, aussit\u00f4t ces larges portes seraient trop\n\u00e9troites pour ta fuite, tandis que tu te sauverais hors du\nportique.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Eurymakhos fut tr\u00e8s irrit\u00e9 dans son coeur, et,\nle regardant d'un oeil sombre, il dit ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Ah! mis\u00e9rable, certes je vais t'accabler de maux, puisque tu\nprononces de telles paroles au milieu de nombreux h\u00e9ros, et sans\nrien craindre. Certes, le vin te trouble l'esprit, ou il est\ntoujours tel, et c'est pour cela que tu prononces de vaines\nparoles. Peut-\u00eatre es-tu fier parce que tu as vaincu le mendiant\nIros?\n\nComme il parlait ainsi, il saisit un escabeau; mais Odysseus\ns'assit aux genoux d'Amphinomos de Doulikhios pour \u00e9chapper \u00e0\nEurymakhos, qui atteignit \u00e0 la main droite l'enfant qui portait \u00e0\nboire, et l'urne tomba en r\u00e9sonnant, et lui-m\u00eame, g\u00e9missant, se\nrenversa dans la poussi\u00e8re. Et les pr\u00e9tendants, en tumulte dans\nles demeures sombres, se disaient les uns aux autres:\n\n-- Pl\u00fbt aux dieux que cet \u00e9tranger errant e\u00fbt p\u00e9ri ailleurs et ne\nf\u00fbt point venu nous apporter tant de trouble! Voici que nous nous\nquerellons pour un mendiant, et que la joie de nos repas est\nd\u00e9truite parce que le mal l'emporte!\n\nEt la force sacr\u00e9e de T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos leur dit:\n\n-- Malheureux, vous devenez insens\u00e9s. Ne mangez ni ne buvez\ndavantage, car quelque dieu vous excite. Allez dormir, rassasi\u00e9s,\ndans vos demeures, quand votre coeur vous l'ordonnera, car je ne\ncontrains personne.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous se mordirent les l\u00e8vres, admirant\nT\u00e8l\u00e9makhos parce qu'il avait parl\u00e9 avec audace.\n\nAlors, Amphinomos, l'illustre fils du roi Nisos Ar\u00e8tiade, leur\ndit:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis, qu'aucun ne r\u00e9ponde par des paroles irrit\u00e9es \u00e0 cette\njuste r\u00e9primande. Ne frappez ni cet \u00e9tranger, ni aucun des\nserviteurs qui sont dans la maison du divin Odysseus. Allons! que\nle verseur de vin distribue les coupes, afin que nous fassions des\nlibations et que nous allions dormir dans nos demeures. Laissons\ncet \u00e9tranger ici, aux soins de T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos qui l'a re\u00e7u dans sa\nch\u00e8re demeure.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et ses paroles furent approuv\u00e9es de tous. Et le\nh\u00e9ros Moulios, h\u00e9raut de Doulikhios et serviteur d'Amphinomos,\nm\u00eala le vin dans le krat\u00e8re et le distribua comme il convenait. Et\ntous firent des libations aux dieux heureux et burent le vin doux.\nEt, apr\u00e8s avoir fait des libations et bu autant que leur \u00e2me le\nd\u00e9sirait, ils se h\u00e2t\u00e8rent d'aller dormir, chacun dans sa demeure.\n\n\n19.\n\nMais le divin Odysseus resta dans la demeure, m\u00e9ditant avec Ath\u00e8n\u00e8\nla mort des pr\u00e9tendants. Et, aussit\u00f4t, il dit \u00e0 T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos ces\nparoles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, il faut transporter toutes les armes guerri\u00e8res\nhors de la salle, et, quand les pr\u00e9tendants te les demanderont,\nles tromper par ces douces paroles: -- \u0091Je les ai mises \u00e0 l'abri\nde la fum\u00e9e, car elles ne sont pas telles qu'elles \u00e9taient\nautrefois, quand Odysseus les laissa \u00e0 son d\u00e9part pour Troi\u00e8; mais\nelles sont souill\u00e9es par la grande vapeur du feu. Puis, le Kroni\u00f4n\nm'a inspir\u00e9 une autre pens\u00e9e meilleure, et je crains qu'excit\u00e9s\npar le vin, et une querelle s'\u00e9levant parmi vous, vous vous\nblessiez les uns les autres et vous souilliez le repas et vos\nnoces futures, car le fer attire l'homme.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos ob\u00e9it \u00e0 son cher p\u00e8re et, ayant\nappel\u00e9 la nourrice Eurykl\u00e9ia, il lui dit:\n\n-- Nourrice, enferme les femmes dans les demeures, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que\nj'aie transport\u00e9 dans la chambre nuptiale les belles armes de mon\np\u00e8re, qui ont \u00e9t\u00e9 n\u00e9glig\u00e9es et que la fum\u00e9e a souill\u00e9es pendant\nl'absence de mon p\u00e8re, car j'\u00e9tais encore enfant. Maintenant, je\nveux les transporter l\u00e0 o\u00f9 la vapeur du feu n'ira pas.\n\nEt la ch\u00e8re nourrice Eurykl\u00e9ia lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Plaise aux dieux, mon enfant, que tu aies toujours la prudence\nde prendre soin de la maison et de conserver toutes tes richesses!\nMais qui t'accompagnera en portant une lumi\u00e8re, puisque tu ne veux\npas que les servantes t'\u00e9clairent?\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ce sera cet \u00e9tranger. Je ne le laisserai pas sans rien faire,\npuisqu'il a mang\u00e9 \u00e0 ma table, bien qu'il vienne de loin.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et sa parole ne fut point vaine. Et Eurykl\u00e9ia\nferma les portes des grandes demeures. Puis, Odysseus et son\nillustre fils se h\u00e2t\u00e8rent de transporter les casques, les\nboucliers bomb\u00e9s et les lances aigu\u00ebs. Et Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 portant\ndevant eux une lanterne d'or, les \u00e9clairait vivement; et, alors,\nT\u00e8l\u00e9makhos dit aussit\u00f4t \u00e0 son p\u00e8re:\n\n-- \u00d4 p\u00e8re, certes, je vois de mes yeux un grand prodige! Voici que\nles murs de la demeure, et ses belles poutres, et ses solives de\nsapin, et ses hautes colonnes, brillent comme un feu ardent.\nCertes, un des dieux qui habitent le large Ouranos est entr\u00e9 ici.\n\nEt le subtil Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Tais-toi, et retiens ton esprit, et ne m'interroge pas. Telle\nest la coutume des dieux qui habitent l'Olympos. Toi, va dormir.\nJe resterai ici, afin d'\u00e9prouver les servantes et ta m\u00e8re. Dans sa\ndouleur elle va m'interroger sur beaucoup de choses.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos sortit de la salle, et il monta,\n\u00e9clair\u00e9 par les torches flambantes, dans la chambre o\u00f9 il avait\ncoutume de dormir. L\u00e0, il s'endormit, en attendant le matin; et le\ndivin Odysseus resta dans la demeure, m\u00e9ditant avec Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 la mort\ndes pr\u00e9tendants.\n\nEt la prudente P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia, semblable \u00e0 Art\u00e9mis ou \u00e0 Aphrodit\u00e8\nd'or, sortit de sa chambre nuptiale. Et les servantes plac\u00e8rent\npour elle, devant le feu, le thr\u00f4ne o\u00f9 elle s'asseyait. Il \u00e9tait\nd'ivoire et d'argent, et travaill\u00e9 au tour. Et c'\u00e9tait l'ouvrier\nIkmalios qui l'avait fait autrefois, ainsi qu'un escabeau pour\nappuyer les pieds de la reine, et qui \u00e9tait recouvert d'une grande\npeau. Ce fut l\u00e0 que s'assit la prudente P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia.\n\nAlors, les femmes aux bras blancs vinrent de la demeure, et elles\nemport\u00e8rent les pains nombreux, et les tables, et les coupes dans\nlesquelles les pr\u00e9tendants insolents avaient bu. Et elles jet\u00e8rent\n\u00e0 terre le feu des torches, et elles amass\u00e8rent, par-dessus, du\nbois qui devait les \u00e9clairer et les chauffer. Et, alors, M\u00e9lanth\u00f4\ninjuria de nouveau Odysseus:\n\n-- \u00c9tranger, te voil\u00e0 encore qui erres dans la demeure, \u00e9piant les\nfemmes! Sors d'ici, mis\u00e9rable, apr\u00e8s t'\u00eatre rassasi\u00e9, ou je te\nfrapperai de ce tison!\n\nEt le sage Odysseus, la regardant d'un oeil sombre, lui dit:\n\n-- Malheureuse! pourquoi m'outrager avec fureur? Est-ce parce que\nje suis v\u00eatu de haillons et que je mendie parmi le peuple, comme\nla n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 m'y contraint? Tels sont les mendiants et les\nvagabonds. Et moi aussi, autrefois, j'\u00e9tais heureux, et j'habitais\nune riche demeure, et je donnais aux vagabonds, quels qu'ils\nfussent et quels que fussent leurs besoins. Et j'avais de nombreux\nserviteurs et tout ce qui rend heureux et fait appeler un homme\nriche; mais le Kroni\u00f4n Zeus m'a tout enlev\u00e9, le voulant ainsi.\nC'est pourquoi, femme, crains de perdre un jour la beaut\u00e9 dont tu\nes orn\u00e9e parmi les servantes; crains que ta ma\u00eetresse irrit\u00e9e te\npunisse, ou qu'Odysseus revienne, car tout espoir n'est pas perdu.\nMais s'il a p\u00e9ri, et s'il ne doit plus revenir, son fils\nT\u00e8l\u00e9makhos le remplace par la volont\u00e9 d'Apoll\u00f4n, et rien de ce que\nfont les femmes dans les demeures ne lui \u00e9chappera, car rien n'est\nplus au-dessus de son \u00e2ge.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et la prudente P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia, l'ayant entendu,\nr\u00e9primanda sa servante et lui dit:\n\n-- Chienne audacieuse, tu ne peux me cacher ton insolence\neffront\u00e9e que tu payeras de ta t\u00eate, car tu sais bien, m'ayant\nentendue toi-m\u00eame, que je veux, \u00e9tant tr\u00e8s afflig\u00e9e, interroger\ncet \u00e9tranger sur mon mari.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et elle dit \u00e0 l'intendante Eurynom\u00e8:\n\n-- Eurynom\u00e8, approche un si\u00e8ge et recouvre-le d'une peau afin que\ncet \u00e9tranger, s'\u00e9tant assis, m'\u00e9coute et me r\u00e9ponde, car je veux\nl'interroger.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et Eurynom\u00e8 approcha \u00e0 la h\u00e2te un si\u00e8ge poli\nqu'elle recouvrit d'une peau, et le patient et divin Odysseus s'y\nassit, et la prudente P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia lui dit:\n\n-- \u00c9tranger, je t'interrogerai d'abord sur toi-m\u00eame. Qui es-tu?\nD'o\u00f9 viens-tu? O\u00f9 sont ta ville et tes parents?\n\nEt le sage Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 femme, aucune des mortelles qui sont sur la terre immense ne\nte vaut, et, certes, ta gloire est parvenue jusqu'au large\nOuranos, telle que la gloire d'un roi irr\u00e9prochable qui, v\u00e9n\u00e9rant\nles dieux, commande \u00e0 de nombreux et braves guerriers et r\u00e9pand la\njustice. Et par lui la terre noire produit l'orge et le bl\u00e9, et\nles arbres sont lourds de fruits, et les troupeaux multiplient, et\nla mer donne des poissons, et, sous ses lois \u00e9quitables, les\npeuples sont heureux et justes. C'est pourquoi, maintenant, dans\nta demeure, demande-moi toutes les autres choses, mais non ma race\net ma patrie. N'emplis pas ainsi mon \u00e2me de nouvelles douleurs en\nme faisant souvenir, car je suis tr\u00e8s afflig\u00e9, et je ne veux pas\npleurer et g\u00e9mir dans une maison \u00e9trang\u00e8re, car il est honteux de\npleurer toujours. Peut-\u00eatre qu'une de tes servantes m'outragerait,\nou que tu t'irriterais toi-m\u00eame, disant que je pleure ainsi ayant\nl'esprit troubl\u00e9 par le vin.\n\nEt la prudente P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00c9tranger, certes, les dieux m'ont ravi ma vertu et ma beaut\u00e9 du\njour o\u00f9 les Argiens sont partis pour Ilios, et, avec eux, mon mari\nOdysseus. S'il revenait et gouvernait ma vie, ma gloire serait\nplus grande et plus belle. Mais, maintenant, je g\u00e9mis, tant un\ndaim\u00f4n funeste m'a accabl\u00e9e de maux. Voici que ceux qui dominent\ndans les \u00eeles, \u00e0 Doulikhios, \u00e0 Sam\u00e8, \u00e0 Zakynthos couverte de bois,\net ceux qui habitent l'\u00e2pre Ithak\u00e8 elle-m\u00eame, tous me recherchent\nmalgr\u00e9 moi et ruinent ma maison. Et je ne prends plus soin des\n\u00e9trangers, ni des suppliants, ni des h\u00e9rauts qui agissent en\npublic; mais je regrette Odysseus et je g\u00e9mis dans mon cher coeur.\nEt les pr\u00e9tendants h\u00e2tent mes noces, et je m\u00e9dite des ruses. Et,\nd'abord, un dieu m'inspira de tisser dans mes demeures une grande\ntoile, large et fine, et je leur dis aussit\u00f4t: -- Jeunes hommes,\nmes pr\u00e9tendants, puisque le divin Odysseus est mort, cessez de\nh\u00e2ter mes noces, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que j'aie achev\u00e9, pour que mes fils ne\nrestent pas inutiles, ce linceul du h\u00e9ros Laert\u00e8s, quand la moire\nmauvaise, de la mort inexorable l'aura saisi, afin qu'aucune des\nfemmes akhaiennes ne puisse me reprocher devant tout le peuple\nqu'un homme qui a poss\u00e9d\u00e9 tant de biens ait \u00e9t\u00e9 enseveli sans\nlinceul.' -- Je parlai ainsi, et leur coeur g\u00e9n\u00e9reux fut persuad\u00e9;\net alors, pendant le jour, je tissais la grande toile, et pendant\nla nuit, ayant allum\u00e9 des torches, je la d\u00e9faisais. Ainsi, pendant\ntrois ans, je cachai ma ruse et trompai les Akhaiens; mais quand\nvint la quatri\u00e8me ann\u00e9e, et quand les saisons recommenc\u00e8rent,\napr\u00e8s le cours des mois et des jours nombreux, alors avertis par\nmes chiennes de servantes, ils me surprirent et me menac\u00e8rent, et,\ncontre ma volont\u00e9, je fus contrainte d'achever ma toile. Et,\nmaintenant, je ne puis plus \u00e9viter mes noces, ne trouvant plus\naucune ruse. Et mes parents m'exhortent \u00e0 me marier, et mon fils\nsupporte avec peine que ceux-ci d\u00e9vorent ses biens, auxquels il\ntient; car c'est aujourd'hui un homme, et il peut prendre soin de\nsa maison, et Zeus lui a donn\u00e9 la gloire. Mais toi, \u00e9tranger, dis-\nmoi ta race et ta patrie, car tu ne sors pas du ch\u00eane et du rocher\ndes histoires antiques.\n\nEt le sage Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 femme v\u00e9n\u00e9rable du Laertiade Odysseus, ne cesseras-tu point\nde m'interroger sur mes parents? Je te r\u00e9pondrai donc, bien que tu\nrenouvelles ainsi mes maux innombrables; mais c'est l\u00e0 la destin\u00e9e\nd'un homme depuis longtemps absent de la patrie, tel que moi qui\nai err\u00e9 parmi les villes des hommes, \u00e9tant accabl\u00e9 de maux. Je te\ndirai cependant ce que tu me demandes.\n\nLa Kr\u00e8t\u00e8 est une terre qui s'\u00e9l\u00e8ve au milieu de la sombre mer,\nbelle et fertile, o\u00f9 habitent d'innombrables hommes et o\u00f9 il y a\nquatre-vingt-dix villes. On y parle des langages diff\u00e9rents, et on\ny trouve des Akhaiens, de magnanimes Kr\u00e8tois indig\u00e8nes, des\nKyd\u00f4nes, trois tribus de D\u00f4riens et les divins P\u00e9lasges. Sur eux\ntous domine la grande ville de Kn\u00f4ssos, o\u00f9 r\u00e9gna Min\u00f4s qui\ns'entretenait tous les neuf ans avec le grand Zeus, et qui fut le\np\u00e8re du magnanime Deukali\u00f4n mon p\u00e8re. Et Deukali\u00f4n nous engendra,\nmoi et le roi Idom\u00e9neus. Et Idom\u00e9neus alla, sur ses nefs \u00e0 proues\nrecourb\u00e9es, \u00e0 Ilios, avec les Atr\u00e9ides. Mon nom illustre est\nAith\u00f4n, et j'\u00e9tais le plus jeune. Idom\u00e9neus \u00e9tait l'a\u00een\u00e9 et le\nplus brave. Je vis alors Odysseus et je lui offris les dons\nhospitaliers. En effet, comme il allait \u00e0 Ilios, la violence du\nvent l'avait pouss\u00e9 en Kr\u00e8t\u00e8, loin du promontoire Mal\u00e9ien, dans\nAmnisos o\u00f9 est la caverne des Ilithyies; et, dans ce port\ndifficile, \u00e0 peine \u00e9vita-t-il la temp\u00eate. Arriv\u00e9 \u00e0 la ville, il\ndemanda Idom\u00e9neus, qu'il appelait son h\u00f4te cher et v\u00e9n\u00e9rable. Mais\n\u00c9\u00f4s avait reparu pour la dixi\u00e8me ou onzi\u00e8me fois depuis que, sur\nses nefs \u00e0 proue recourb\u00e9e, Idom\u00e9neus \u00e9tait parti pour Ilios.\nAlors, je conduisis Odysseus dans mes demeures, et je le re\u00e7us\navec amiti\u00e9, et je le comblai de soins \u00e0 l'aide des richesses que\nje poss\u00e9dais et je lui donnai, ainsi qu'\u00e0 ses compagnons, de la\nfarine, du vin rouge, et des boeufs \u00e0 tuer, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que leur\n\u00e2me f\u00fbt rassasi\u00e9e. Et les divins Akhaiens rest\u00e8rent l\u00e0 douze\njours, car le grand et temp\u00e9tueux Bor\u00e9as soufflait et les\narr\u00eatait, excit\u00e9 par quelque daim\u00f4n. Mais le vent tomba le\ntreizi\u00e8me jour, et ils partirent.\n\nIl parlait ainsi, disant ces nombreux mensonges semblables \u00e0 la\nv\u00e9rit\u00e9; et P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia, en l'\u00e9coutant, pleurait, et ses larmes\nruisselaient sur son visage, comme la neige ruisselle sur les\nhautes montagnes, apr\u00e8s que Z\u00e9phyros l'a amoncel\u00e9e et que l'Euros\nla fond en torrents qui emplissent les fleuves. Ainsi les belles\njoues de P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia ruisselaient de larmes tandis qu'elle pleurait\nson mari. Et Odysseus \u00e9tait plein de compassion en voyant pleurer\nsa femme; mais ses yeux, comme la corne et le fer, restaient\nimmobiles sous ses paupi\u00e8res, et il arr\u00eatait ses larmes par\nprudence. Et apr\u00e8s qu'elle se fut rassasi\u00e9e de larmes et de deuil,\nP\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia, lui r\u00e9pondant, dit de nouveau:\n\n-- Maintenant, \u00e9tranger, je pense que je vais t'\u00e9prouver, et je\nverrai si, comme tu le dis, tu as re\u00e7u dans tes demeures mon mari\net ses divins compagnons. Dis-moi quels \u00e9taient les v\u00eatements qui\nle couvraient, quel il \u00e9tait lui-m\u00eame, et quels \u00e9taient les\ncompagnons qui le suivaient.\n\nEt le sage Odysseus, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi:\n\n-- \u00d4 femme, il est bien difficile, apr\u00e8s tant de temps, de te\nr\u00e9pondre, car voici la vingti\u00e8me ann\u00e9e qu'Odysseus est venu dans\nma patrie et qu'il en est parti. Cependant, je te dirai ce dont je\nme souviens dans mon esprit. Le divin Odysseus avait un double\nmanteau de laine pourpr\u00e9e qu'attachait une agrafe d'or \u00e0 deux\ntuyaux, et orn\u00e9e, par-dessus, d'un chien qui tenait sous ses\npattes de devant un jeune cerf tremblant. Et tous admiraient,\ns'\u00e9tonnant que ces deux animaux fussent d'or, ce chien qui voulait\n\u00e9touffer le faon, et celui-ci qui, palpitant sous ses pieds,\nvoulait s'enfuir. Et je vis aussi sur le corps d'Odysseus une\ntunique splendide. Fine comme une pelure d'oignon, cette tunique\nbrillait comme H\u00e8lios. Et, certes, toutes les femmes l'admiraient.\nMais, je te le dis, et retiens mes paroles dans ton esprit: je ne\nsais si Odysseus portait ces v\u00eatements dans sa demeure, ou si\nquelqu'un de ses compagnons les lui avait donn\u00e9s comme il montait\nsur sa nef rapide, ou bien quelqu'un d'entre ses h\u00f4tes, car\nOdysseus \u00e9tait aim\u00e9 de beaucoup d'hommes, et peu d'Akhaiens\n\u00e9taient semblables \u00e0 lui. Je lui donnai une \u00e9p\u00e9e d'airain, un\ndouble et grand manteau pourpr\u00e9 et une tunique longue, et je le\nconduisis avec respect sur sa nef \u00e0 bancs de rameurs. Un h\u00e9raut,\nun peu plus \u00e2g\u00e9 que lui, le suivait, et je te dirai quel il \u00e9tait.\nIl avait les \u00e9paules hautes, la peau brune et les cheveux cr\u00e9pus,\net il se nommait Eurybat\u00e8s, et Odysseus l'honorait entre tous ses\ncompagnons, parce qu'il \u00e9tait plein de sagesse.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le d\u00e9sir de pleurer saisit P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia, car elle\nreconnut ces signes certains que lui d\u00e9crivait Odysseus. Et, apr\u00e8s\nqu'elle se fut rassasi\u00e9e de larmes et de deuil, elle dit de\nnouveau:\n\n-- Maintenant, \u00f4 mon h\u00f4te, auparavant mis\u00e9rable, tu seras aim\u00e9 et\nhonor\u00e9 dans mes demeures. J'ai moi-m\u00eame donn\u00e9 \u00e0 Odysseus ces\nv\u00eatements que tu d\u00e9cris et qui \u00e9taient pli\u00e9s dans ma chambre\nnuptiale, et j'y ai attach\u00e9 cette agrafe brillante. Mais je ne le\nverrai plus de retour dans la ch\u00e8re terre de la patrie! C'est par\nune mauvaise destin\u00e9e qu'Odysseus, montant dans sa nef creuse, est\nparti pour cette Troi\u00e8 fatale qu'on ne devrait plus nommer.\n\nEt le sage Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 femme v\u00e9n\u00e9rable du Laertiade Odysseus, ne fl\u00e9tris point ton\nbeau visage et ne te consume point dans ton coeur \u00e0 pleurer.\nCependant, je ne te bl\u00e2me en rien. Quelle femme pleurerait un\njeune mari dont elle a con\u00e7u des enfants, apr\u00e8s s'\u00eatre unie\nd'amour \u00e0 lui, plus que tu dois pleurer Odysseus qu'on dit\nsemblable aux dieux? Mais cesse de g\u00e9mir et \u00e9coute-moi. Je te\ndirai la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 et je ne te cacherai rien. J'ai entendu parler du\nretour d'Odysseus chez le riche peuple des Thespr\u00f4tes o\u00f9 il a paru\nvivant, et il rapporte de nombreuses richesses qu'il a amass\u00e9es\nparmi beaucoup de peuples; mais il a perdu ses chers compagnons et\nsa nef creuse, dans la noire mer, en quittant Thrinaki\u00e8. Zeus et\nH\u00e8lios \u00e9taient irrit\u00e9s, parce que ses compagnons avaient tu\u00e9 les\nboeufs de H\u00e8lios; et ils ont tous p\u00e9ri dans la mer tumultueuse.\nMais la mer a jet\u00e9 Odysseus, attach\u00e9 \u00e0 la car\u00e8ne de sa nef, sur la\nc\u00f4te des Phaiakiens qui descendent des dieux. Et ils l'ont honor\u00e9\ncomme un dieu, et ils lui ont fait de nombreux pr\u00e9sents, et ils\nont voulu le ramener sain et sauf dans sa demeure. Odysseus serait\ndonc d\u00e9j\u00e0 revenu depuis longtemps, mais il lui a sembl\u00e9 plus utile\nd'amasser d'autres richesses en parcourant beaucoup de terres; car\nil sait un plus grand nombre de ruses que tous les hommes mortels,\net nul ne pourrait lutter contre lui. Ainsi me parla Pheid\u00f4n, le\nroi des Thespr\u00f4tes. Et il me jura, en faisant des libations dans\nsa demeure, que la nef et les hommes \u00e9taient pr\u00eats qui devaient\nreconduire Odysseus dans la ch\u00e8re terre de sa patrie. Mais il me\nrenvoya d'abord, profitant d'une nef des Thespr\u00f4tes qui allait \u00e0\nDoulikhios fertile en bl\u00e9. Et il me montra les richesses qu'avait\nr\u00e9unies Odysseus, de l'airain, de l'or et du fer tr\u00e8s difficile \u00e0\ntravailler, le tout assez abondant pour nourrir jusqu'\u00e0 sa dixi\u00e8me\ng\u00e9n\u00e9ration. Et il me disait qu'Odysseus \u00e9tait all\u00e9 \u00e0 D\u00f4d\u00f4n\u00e8 pour\napprendre du grand ch\u00eane la volont\u00e9 de Zeus, et pour savoir\ncomment, depuis longtemps absent, il rentrerait dans la terre\nd'Ithak\u00e8, soit ouvertement, soit en secret. Ainsi Odysseus est\nsauv\u00e9, et il viendra bient\u00f4t, et, d\u00e9sormais, il ne sera pas\nlongtemps \u00e9loign\u00e9 de ses amis et de sa patrie. Et je te ferai un\ngrand serment: Qu'ils le sachent, Zeus, le meilleur et le plus\ngrand des dieux, et la demeure du brave Odysseus o\u00f9 je suis\narriv\u00e9! Tout s'accomplira comme je le dis. Odysseus reviendra\navant la fin de cette ann\u00e9e, avant la fin de ce mois, dans\nquelques jours.\n\nEt la prudente P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Plaise aux dieux, \u00e9tranger, que tes paroles s'accomplissent! Je\nte prouverais aussit\u00f4t mon amiti\u00e9 par de nombreux pr\u00e9sents et\nchacun te dirait heureux; mais je sens dans mon coeur que jamais\nOdysseus ne reviendra dans sa demeure et que ce n'est point lui\nqui te renverra. Il n'y a point ici de chefs tels qu'Odysseus\nparmi les hommes, si jamais il en a exist\u00e9, qui cong\u00e9dient les\n\u00e9trangers apr\u00e8s les avoir accueillis et honor\u00e9s. Maintenant,\nservantes, baignez notre h\u00f4te, et pr\u00e9parez son lit avec des\nmanteaux et des couvertures splendides, afin qu'il ait chaud en\nattendant \u00c9\u00f4s au thr\u00f4ne d'or. Puis, au matin, baignez et parfumez-\nle, afin qu'assis dans la demeure, il prenne son repas aupr\u00e8s de\nT\u00e8l\u00e9makhos. Il arrivera malheur \u00e0 celui d'entre eux qui\nl'outragera. Et qu'il ne soit soumis \u00e0 aucun travail, quel que\nsoit celui qui s'en irrite. Comment, \u00f4 \u00e9tranger, reconna\u00eetrais-tu\nque je l'emporte sur les autres femmes par l'intelligence et par\nla sagesse, si, manquant de v\u00eatements, tu t'asseyais en haillons\nau repas dans les demeures? La vie des hommes est br\u00e8ve. Celui qui\nest injuste et commet des actions mauvaises, les hommes le\nchargent d'impr\u00e9cations tant qu'il est vivant, et ils le\nmaudissent quand il est mort; mais celui qui est irr\u00e9prochable et\nqui a fait de bonnes actions, les \u00e9trangers r\u00e9pandent au loin sa\ngloire, et tous les hommes le louent.\n\nEt le sage Odysseus, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi:\n\n-- \u00d4 femme v\u00e9n\u00e9rable du Laertiade Odysseus, les beaux v\u00eatements et\nles couvertures splendides me sont odieux, depuis que, sur ma nef\naux longs avirons, j'ai quitt\u00e9 les montagnes neigeuses de la\nKr\u00e8t\u00e8. Je me coucherai, comme je l'ai d\u00e9j\u00e0 fait pendant tant de\nnuits sans sommeil, sur une mis\u00e9rable couche, attendant la belle\net divine \u00c9\u00f4s. Les bains de pieds non plus ne me plaisent point,\net aucune servante ne me touchera les pieds, \u00e0 moins qu'il n'y en\nait une, vieille et prudente, parmi elles, et qui ait autant\nsouffert que moi. Je n'emp\u00eache point celle-ci de me laver les\npieds.\n\nEt la prudente P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Cher h\u00f4te, aucun homme n'est plus sage que toi de tous les\n\u00e9trangers amis qui sont venus dans cette demeure, car tout ce que\ntu dis est plein de sagesse. J'ai ici une femme \u00e2g\u00e9e et tr\u00e8s\nprudente qui nourrit et qui \u00e9leva autrefois le malheureux\nOdysseus, et qui l'avait re\u00e7u dans ses bras quand sa m\u00e8re l'eut\nenfant\u00e9. Elle lavera tes pieds, bien qu'elle soit faible. Viens,\nl\u00e8ve-toi, prudente Eurykl\u00e9ia; lave les pieds de cet \u00e9tranger qui a\nl'\u00e2ge de ton ma\u00eetre. Peut-\u00eatre que les pieds et les mains\nd'Odysseus ressemblent aux siens, car les hommes vieillissent vite\ndans le malheur.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et la vieille femme cacha son visage dans ses\nmains, et elle versa de chaudes larmes et elle dit ces paroles\nlamentables:\n\n-- H\u00e9las! je suis sans force pour te venir en aide, \u00f4 mon enfant!\nAssur\u00e9ment Zeus te hait entre tous les hommes, bien que tu aies un\nesprit pieux. Aucun homme n'a br\u00fbl\u00e9 plus de cuisses grasses \u00e0 Zeus\nqui se r\u00e9jouit de la foudre, ni d'aussi compl\u00e8tes h\u00e9catombes. Tu\nle suppliais de te laisser parvenir \u00e0 une pleine vieillesse et de\nte laisser \u00e9lever ton fils illustre, et voici qu'il t'a enlev\u00e9 le\njour du retour! Peut-\u00eatre aussi que d'autres femmes l'outragent,\nquand il entre dans les illustres demeures o\u00f9 parviennent les\n\u00e9trangers, comme ces chiennes-ci t'outragent toi-m\u00eame. Tu fuis\nleurs injures et leurs paroles honteuses, et tu ne veux point\nqu'elles te lavent; et la fille d'Ikarios, la prudente P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia,\nm'ordonne de le faire, et j'y consens. C'est pourquoi je laverai\ntes pieds, pour l'amour de P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia et de toi, car mon coeur est\n\u00e9mu de tes maux. Mais \u00e9coute ce que je vais dire: de tous les\nmalheureux \u00e9trangers qui sont venus ici, aucun ne ressemble plus\nque toi \u00e0 Odysseus. Tu as son corps, sa voix et ses pieds.\n\nEt le sage Odysseus, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi:\n\n-- \u00d4 vieille femme, en effet, tous ceux qui nous ont vus tous deux\nde leurs yeux disent que nous nous ressemblons beaucoup. Tu as\nparl\u00e9 avec sagesse.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et la vieille femme prit un bassin splendide dans\nlequel on lavait les pieds, et elle y versa beaucoup d'eau froide,\npuis de l'eau chaude. Et Odysseus s'assit devant le foyer, en se\ntournant vivement du c\u00f4t\u00e9 de l'ombre, car il craignit aussit\u00f4t,\ndans son esprit, qu'en le touchant elle reconn\u00fbt sa cicatrice et\nque tout f\u00fbt d\u00e9couvert. Eurykl\u00e9ia, s'approchant de son roi, lava\nses pieds, et aussit\u00f4t elle reconnut la cicatrice de la blessure\nqu'un sanglier lui avait faite autrefois de ses blanches dents sur\nle Parn\u00e8sos, quand il \u00e9tait all\u00e9 chez Autolykos et ses fils.\nAutolykos \u00e9tait l'illustre p\u00e8re de sa m\u00e8re, et il surpassait tous\nles hommes pour faire du butin et de faux serments. Un dieu lui\navait fait ce don, Herm\u00e9ias, pour qui il br\u00fblait des chairs\nd'agneaux et de chevreaux et qui l'accompagnait toujours. Et\nAutolykos \u00e9tant venu chez le riche peuple d'Ithak\u00e8, il trouva le\nfils nouveau-n\u00e9 de sa fille. Et Eurykl\u00e9ia, apr\u00e8s le repas, posa\nl'enfant sur les chers genoux d'Autolykos et lui dit:\n\n-- Autolykos, donne toi-m\u00eame un nom au cher fils de ta fille,\npuisque tu l'as appel\u00e9 par tant de voeux.\n\nEt Autolykos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Mon gendre et ma fille, donnez-lui le nom que je vais dire. Je\nsuis venu ici tr\u00e8s irrit\u00e9 contre un grand nombre d'hommes et de\nfemmes sur la face de la terre nourrici\u00e8re. Que son nom soit donc\nOdysseus. Quand il sera parvenu \u00e0 la pubert\u00e9, qu'il vienne sur le\nParn\u00e8sos, dans la grande demeure de son a\u00efeul maternel o\u00f9 sont mes\nrichesses, et je lui en ferai de nombreux pr\u00e9sents, et je le\nrenverrai plein de joie.\n\nEt, \u00e0 cause de ces paroles, Odysseus y alla, afin de recevoir de\nnombreux pr\u00e9sents. Et Autolykos et les fils d'Autolykos le\nsalu\u00e8rent des mains et le re\u00e7urent avec de douces paroles.\nAmphith\u00e9\u00e8, la m\u00e8re de sa m\u00e8re, l'embrassa, baisant sa t\u00eate et ses\ndeux beaux yeux. Et Autolykos ordonna \u00e0 ses fils illustres de\npr\u00e9parer le repas. Aussit\u00f4t, ceux-ci ob\u00e9irent et amen\u00e8rent un\ntaureau de cinq ans qu'ils \u00e9corch\u00e8rent. Puis, le pr\u00e9parant, ils le\ncoup\u00e8rent en morceaux qu'ils embroch\u00e8rent, firent r\u00f4tir avec soin\net distribu\u00e8rent. Et tout le jour, jusqu'\u00e0 la chute de H\u00e8lios, ils\nmang\u00e8rent, et nul dans son \u00e2me ne manqua d'une part \u00e9gale. Quand\nH\u00e8lios tomba et que les t\u00e9n\u00e8bres survinrent, ils se couch\u00e8rent et\ns'endormirent, mais quand \u00c9\u00f4s aux doigts ros\u00e9s, n\u00e9e au matin,\napparut, les fils d'Autolykos et leurs chiens partirent pour la\nchasse, et le divin Odysseus alla avec eux. Et ils gravirent le\nhaut Parn\u00e8sos couvert de bois, et ils p\u00e9n\u00e9tr\u00e8rent bient\u00f4t dans les\ngorges battues des vents. H\u00e8lios, \u00e0 peine sorti du cours profond\nd'Ok\u00e9anos, frappait les campagnes, quand les chasseurs parvinrent\ndans une vall\u00e9e. Et les chiens les pr\u00e9c\u00e9daient, flairant une\npiste; et derri\u00e8re eux venaient les fils d'Autolykos, et, avec\neux, apr\u00e8s les chiens, le divin Odysseus marchait agitant une\nlongue lance.\n\nL\u00e0, dans le bois \u00e9pais, \u00e9tait couch\u00e9 un grand sanglier. Et la\nviolence humide des vents ne p\u00e9n\u00e9trait point ce hallier, et le\nsplendide H\u00e8lios ne le per\u00e7ait point de ses rayons, et la pluie\nn'y tombait point, tant il \u00e9tait \u00e9pais; et le sanglier \u00e9tait\ncouch\u00e9 l\u00e0, sous un monceau de feuilles. Et le bruit des hommes et\ndes chiens parvint jusqu'\u00e0 lui, et, quand les chasseurs\narriv\u00e8rent, il sortit du hallier \u00e0 leur rencontre, les soies\nh\u00e9riss\u00e9es sur le cou et le feu dans les yeux, et il s'arr\u00eata pr\u00e8s\ndes chasseurs. Alors, le premier, Odysseus, levant sa longue\nlance, de sa forte main, se rua, d\u00e9sirant le percer; mais le\nsanglier, le pr\u00e9venant, le blessa au genou d'un coup oblique de\nses d\u00e9fenses et enleva profond\u00e9ment les chairs, mais sans arriver\njusqu'\u00e0 l'os. Et Odysseus le frappa \u00e0 l'\u00e9paule droite, et la\npointe de la lance brillante le traversa de part en part, et il\ntomba \u00e9tendu dans la poussi\u00e8re, et son \u00e2me s'envola. Aussit\u00f4t les\nchers fils d'Autolykos, s'empressant autour de la blessure de\nl'irr\u00e9prochable et divin Odysseus, la band\u00e8rent avec soin et\narr\u00eat\u00e8rent le sang noir par une incantation; puis, ils rentr\u00e8rent\naux demeures de leur cher p\u00e8re. Et Autolykos et les fils\nd'Autolykos, ayant gu\u00e9ri Odysseus et lui ayant fait de riches\npr\u00e9sents, le renvoy\u00e8rent plein de joie dans sa ch\u00e8re Ithak\u00e8. L\u00e0,\nson p\u00e8re et sa m\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable se r\u00e9jouirent de son retour et\nl'interrog\u00e8rent sur chaque chose et sur cette blessure qu'il avait\nre\u00e7ue. Et il leur raconta qu'un sanglier l'avait bless\u00e9 de ses\nd\u00e9fenses blanches, \u00e0 la chasse, o\u00f9 il \u00e9tait all\u00e9 sur le Parn\u00e8sos\navec les fils d'Autolykos.\n\nEt voici que la vieille femme, touchant de ses mains cette\ncicatrice, la reconnut et laissa retomber le pied dans le bassin\nd'airain qui r\u00e9sonna et se renversa, et toute l'eau fut r\u00e9pandue \u00e0\nterre. Et la joie et la douleur envahirent \u00e0 la fois l'\u00e2me\nd'Eurykl\u00e9ia, et ses yeux s'emplirent de larmes, et sa voix fut\nentrecoup\u00e9e; et, saisissant le menton d'Odysseus, elle lui dit:\n\n-- Certes, tu es Odysseus mon cher enfant! Je ne t'ai point\nreconnu avant d'avoir touch\u00e9 tout mon ma\u00eetre.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et elle fit signe des yeux \u00e0 P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia pour lui\nfaire entendre que son cher mari \u00e9tait dans la demeure; mais, du\nlieu o\u00f9 elle \u00e9tait, P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia ne put la voir ni la comprendre,\ncar Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 avait d\u00e9tourn\u00e9 son esprit. Alors, Odysseus, serrant de\nla main droite la gorge d'Eurykl\u00e9ia, et l'attirant \u00e0 lui de\nl'autre main, lui dit:\n\n-- Nourrice, pourquoi veux-tu me perdre, toi qui m'as nourri toi-\nm\u00eame de ta mamelle? Maintenant, voici qu'ayant subi bien des maux,\nj'arrive apr\u00e8s vingt ans dans la terre de la patrie. Mais, puisque\ntu m'as reconnu, et qu'un dieu te l'a inspir\u00e9, tais-toi, et que\npersonne ne t'entende, car je te le dis, et ma parole\ns'accomplira: Si un dieu tue par mes mains les pr\u00e9tendants\ninsolents, je ne t'\u00e9pargnerai m\u00eame pas, bien que tu sois ma\nnourrice, quand je tuerai les autres servantes dans mes demeures.\n\nEt la prudente Eurykl\u00e9ia lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Mon enfant, quelle parole s'\u00e9chappe d'entre tes dents? Tu sais\nque mon \u00e2me est constante et ferme. Je me tairai comme la pierre\nou le fer. Mais je te dirai autre chose; garde mes paroles dans\nton esprit: Si un dieu dompte par tes mains les pr\u00e9tendants\ninsolents, je t'indiquerai dans les demeures les femmes qui te\nm\u00e9prisent et celles qui sont innocentes.\n\nEt le sage Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Nourrice, pourquoi me les indiquerais-tu? Il n'en est pas\nbesoin. J'en jugerai moi-m\u00eame et je les reconna\u00eetrai. Garde le\nsilence et remets le reste aux dieux.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et la vieille femme traversa la salle pour\nrapporter un autre bain de pieds, car toute l'eau s'\u00e9tait\nr\u00e9pandue. Puis, ayant lav\u00e9 et parfum\u00e9 Odysseus, elle approcha son\nsi\u00e8ge du feu, afin qu'il se chauff\u00e2t, et elle cacha la cicatrice\nsous les haillons. Et la sage P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia dit de nouveau:\n\n-- \u00c9tranger, je t'interrogerai encore quelques instants; car\nl'heure du sommeil est douce, et le sommeil lui-m\u00eame est doux pour\nle malheureux. Pour moi, un dieu m'a envoy\u00e9 une grande affliction.\nLe jour, du moins, je surveille en pleurant les travaux des\nservantes de cette maison et je charme ainsi ma douleur; mais\nquand la nuit vient et quand le sommeil saisit tous les hommes, je\nme couche sur mon lit, et, autour de mon coeur imp\u00e9n\u00e9trable, les\npens\u00e9es am\u00e8res irritent mes peines. Ainsi que la fille de\nPandaros, la verte A\u00e8d\u00f4n, chante, au retour du printemps, sous les\nfeuilles \u00e9paisses des arbres, d'o\u00f9 elle r\u00e9pand sa voix sonore,\npleurant son cher fils Itylos qu'engendra le roi Z\u00e9thoios, et\nqu'elle tua autrefois, dans sa d\u00e9mence, avec l'airain; ainsi mon\n\u00e2me est agit\u00e9e \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0, h\u00e9sitant si je dois rester aupr\u00e8s de mon\nfils, garder avec soin mes richesses, mes servantes et ma haute\ndemeure, et respecter le lit de mon mari et la voix du peuple, ou\nsi je dois me marier, parmi les Akhaiens qui me recherchent dans\nmes demeures, \u00e0 celui qui est le plus noble et qui m'offrira le\nplus de pr\u00e9sents. Tant que mon fils est rest\u00e9 enfant et sans\nraison, je n'ai pu ni me marier, ni abandonner la demeure de mon\nmari; mais voici qu'il est grand et parvenu \u00e0 la pubert\u00e9, et il me\nsupplie de quitter ces demeures, irrit\u00e9 qu'il est \u00e0 cause de ses\nbiens que d\u00e9vorent les Akhaiens. Mais \u00e9coute, et interpr\u00e8te moi ce\nsonge. Vingt oies, sortant de l'eau, mangent du bl\u00e9 dans ma\ndemeure, et je les regarde, joyeuse. Et voici qu'un grand aigle au\nbec recourb\u00e9, descendu d'une haute montagne, tombe sur leurs cous\net les tue. Et elles restent toutes amass\u00e9es dans les demeures,\ntandis que l'aigle s'\u00e9l\u00e8ve dans l'aith\u00e8r divin. Et je pleure et je\ng\u00e9mis dans mon songe: et les Akhaiennes aux beaux cheveux se\nr\u00e9unissent autour de moi qui g\u00e9mis am\u00e8rement parce que l'aigle a\ntu\u00e9 mes oies. Mais voici qu'il redescend sur le fa\u00eete de la\ndemeure, et il me dit avec une voix d'homme:\n\n-- Rassure-toi, fille de l'illustre Ikarios; ceci n'est point un\nsonge, mais une chose heureuse qui s'accomplira. Les oies sont les\npr\u00e9tendants, et moi, qui semble un aigle, je suis ton mari qui\nsuis revenu pour infliger une mort honteuse \u00e0 tous les\npr\u00e9tendants. Il parle ainsi, et le sommeil me quitte, et, les\ncherchant des yeux, je vois mes oies qui mangent le bl\u00e9 dans le\nbassin comme auparavant.\n\nEt le sage Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 femme, personne ne pourrait expliquer ce songe autrement; et\ncertes, Odysseus lui-m\u00eame t'a dit comment il s'accomplira. La\nperte des pr\u00e9tendants est manifeste, et aucun d'entre eux\nn'\u00e9vitera les k\u00e8res et la mort.\n\nEt la sage P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00c9tranger, certes, les songes sont difficiles \u00e0 expliquer, et\ntous ne s'accomplissent point pour les hommes. Les songes sortent\npar deux portes, l'une de corne et l'autre d'ivoire. Ceux qui\nsortent de l'ivoire bien travaill\u00e9 trompent par de vaines paroles\nqui ne s'accomplissent pas; mais ceux qui sortent par la porte de\ncorne polie disent la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 aux hommes qui les voient. Je ne\npense pas que celui-ci sorte de l\u00e0 et soit heureux pour moi et mon\nfils. Voici venir le jour honteux qui m'emm\u00e8nera de la demeure\nd'Odysseus, car je vais proposer une \u00e9preuve. Odysseus avait dans\nses demeures des haches qu'il rangeait en ordre comme des m\u00e2ts de\nnefs, et, debout, il les traversait de loin d'une fl\u00e8che. Je vais\nproposer cette \u00e9preuve aux pr\u00e9tendants. Celui qui, de ses mains,\ntendra le plus facilement l'arc et qui lancera une fl\u00e8che \u00e0\ntravers les douze anneaux des haches, celui-l\u00e0 je le suivrai loin\nde cette demeure si belle, qui a vu ma jeunesse, qui est pleine\nd'abondance, et dont je me souviendrai, je pense, m\u00eame dans mes\nsonges!\n\nEt le sage Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 femme v\u00e9n\u00e9rable du Laertiade Odysseus, ne retarde pas\ndavantage cette \u00e9preuve dans tes demeures. Le prudent Odysseus\nreviendra avant qu'ils aient tendu le nerf, tir\u00e9 l'arc poli et\nenvoy\u00e9 la fl\u00e8che \u00e0 travers le fer.\n\nEt la prudente P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Si tu voulais, \u00e9tranger, assis \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de moi, me charmer dans\nmes demeures, le sommeil ne se r\u00e9pandrait pas sur mes paupi\u00e8res;\nmais les hommes ne peuvent rester sans sommeil, et les immortels,\nsur la terre f\u00e9conde, ont fait la part de toute chose aux mortels.\nCertes, je remonterai donc dans la haute chambre, et je me\ncoucherai sur mon lit plein d'affliction et arros\u00e9 de mes larmes\ndepuis le jour o\u00f9 Odysseus est parti pour cette Ilios fatale qu'on\nne devrait plus nommer. Je me coucherai l\u00e0; et toi, couche dans\ncette salle, sur la terre ou sur le lit qu'on te fera.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, elle monta dans sa haute chambre splendide,\nmais non pas seule, car deux servantes la suivaient. Et quand elle\neut mont\u00e9 avec les servantes dans la haute chambre, elle pleura\nOdysseus, son cher mari, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs e\u00fbt\nr\u00e9pandu le doux sommeil sur ses paupi\u00e8res.\n\n\n20.\n\nEt le divin Odysseus se coucha dans le vestibule, et il \u00e9tendit\nune peau de boeuf encore saignante, et, pardessus, les nombreuses\npeaux de brebis que les Akhaiens avaient sacrifi\u00e9es; et Eurykl\u00e9ia\njeta un manteau sur lui, quand il se fut couch\u00e9. C'est l\u00e0\nqu'Odysseus \u00e9tait couch\u00e9, m\u00e9ditant dans son esprit la mort des\npr\u00e9tendants, et plein de vigilance.\n\nEt les femmes qui s'\u00e9taient depuis longtemps livr\u00e9es aux\npr\u00e9tendants sortirent de la maison, riant entre elles et songeant\n\u00e0 la joie. Alors, le coeur d'Odysseus s'agita dans sa poitrine, et\nil d\u00e9lib\u00e9rait dans son \u00e2me, si, se jetant sur elles, il les\ntuerait toutes, ou s'il les laisserait pour la derni\u00e8re fois\ns'unir aux pr\u00e9tendants insolents. Et son coeur aboyait dans sa\npoitrine, comme une chienne qui tourne autour de ses petits aboie\ncontre un inconnu et d\u00e9sire le combattre. Ainsi son coeur aboyait\ndans sa poitrine contre ces outrages; et, se frappant la poitrine,\nil r\u00e9prima son coeur par ces paroles:\n\n-- Souffre encore, \u00f4 mon coeur! Tu as subi des maux pires le jour\no\u00f9 le kykl\u00f4ps indomptable par sa force mangea mes braves\ncompagnons. Tu le supportas courageusement, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que ma\nprudence t'e\u00fbt retir\u00e9 de la caverne o\u00f9 tu pensais mourir.\n\nIl parla ainsi, apaisant son cher coeur dans sa poitrine, et son\ncoeur s'apaisa et patienta. Mais Odysseus se retournait \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0.\nDe m\u00eame qu'un homme tourne et retourne, sur un grand feu ardent,\nun ventre plein de graisse et de sang, de m\u00eame il s'agitait d'un\nc\u00f4t\u00e9 et de l'autre, songeant comment, seul contre une multitude,\nil mettrait la main sur les pr\u00e9tendants insolents. Et voici\nqu'Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, \u00e9tant descendue de l'Ouranos, s'approcha de lui,\nsemblable \u00e0 une femme, et, se tenant pr\u00e8s de sa t\u00eate, lui dit ces\nparoles:\n\n-- Pourquoi veilles-tu, \u00f4 le plus malheureux de tous les hommes?\nCette demeure est la tienne, ta femme est ici, et ton fils aussi,\nlui que chacun d\u00e9sirerait pour fils.\n\nEt le sage Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Certes, d\u00e9esse, tu as parl\u00e9 tr\u00e8s sagement, mais je songe dans\nmon \u00e2me comment je mettrai la main sur les pr\u00e9tendants insolents,\ncar je suis seul, et ils se r\u00e9unissent ici en grand nombre. Et\nj'ai une autre pens\u00e9e plus grande dans mon esprit. Serai-je tu\u00e9\npar la volont\u00e9 de Zeus et par la tienne? \u00c9chapperai-je? Je\nvoudrais le savoir de toi.\n\nEt la d\u00e9esse aux yeux clairs, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Insens\u00e9! Tout homme a confiance dans le plus faible de ses\ncompagnons, qui n'est qu'un mortel, et de peu de sagesse. Mais\nmoi, je suis d\u00e9esse, et je t'ai prot\u00e9g\u00e9 dans tous tes travaux, et\nje te le dis hautement: Quand m\u00eame cinquante arm\u00e9es d'hommes\nparlant des langues diverses nous entoureraient pour te tuer avec\nl'\u00e9p\u00e9e, tu n'en ravirais pas moins leurs boeufs et leurs grasses\nbrebis. Dors donc. Il est cruel de veiller toute la nuit. Bient\u00f4t\ntu \u00e9chapperas \u00e0 tous tes maux.\n\nElle parla ainsi et r\u00e9pandit le sommeil sur ses paupi\u00e8res. Puis,\nla noble d\u00e9esse remonta dans l'Olympos, d\u00e8s que le sommeil eut\nsaisi Odysseus, enveloppant ses membres et apaisant les peines de\nson coeur. Et sa femme se r\u00e9veilla; et elle pleurait, assise sur\nson lit moelleux. Et, apr\u00e8s qu'elle se fut rassasi\u00e9e de larmes, la\nnoble femme supplia d'abord la v\u00e9n\u00e9rable d\u00e9esse Art\u00e9mis, fille de\nZeus:\n\n-- Art\u00e9mis, v\u00e9n\u00e9rable d\u00e9esse, fille de Zeus, pl\u00fbt aux dieux que tu\nm'arrachasses l'\u00e2me, \u00e0 l'instant m\u00eame, avec tes fl\u00e8ches, ou que\nles temp\u00eates pussent m'emporter par les routes sombres et me jeter\ndans les courants du rapide Ok\u00e9anos! Ainsi, les temp\u00eates\nemport\u00e8rent autrefois les filles de Pandaros. Les dieux avaient\nfait mourir leurs parents et elles \u00e9taient rest\u00e9es orphelines dans\nleurs demeures, et la divine Aphrodit\u00e8 les nourrissait de fromage,\nde miel doux et de vin parfum\u00e9. H\u00e8r\u00e8 les doua, plus que toutes les\nautres femmes, de beaut\u00e9 et de prudence, et la chaste Art\u00e9mis\nd'une haute taille, et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 leur enseigna \u00e0 faire de beaux\nouvrages. Alors, la divine Aphrodit\u00e8 monta dans le haut Olympos,\nafin de demander, pour ces vierges, d'heureuses noces \u00e0 Zeus qui\nse r\u00e9jouit de la foudre et qui conna\u00eet les bonnes et les mauvaises\ndestin\u00e9es des hommes mortels. Et, pendant ce temps, les Harpyes\nenlev\u00e8rent ces vierges et les donn\u00e8rent aux odieuses \u00c9rinnyes pour\nles servir. Que les Olympiens me perdent ainsi! Qu'Art\u00e9mis aux\nbeaux cheveux me frappe, afin que je revoie au moins Odysseus sous\nla terre odieuse, plut\u00f4t que r\u00e9jouir l'\u00e2me d'un homme indigne! On\npeut supporter son mal, quand, apr\u00e8s avoir pleur\u00e9 tout le jour, le\ncoeur g\u00e9missant, on dort la nuit; car le sommeil, ayant ferm\u00e9\nleurs paupi\u00e8res, fait oublier \u00e0 tous les hommes les biens et les\nmaux. Mais l'insomnie cruelle m'a envoy\u00e9 un daim\u00f4n qui a couch\u00e9\ncette nuit aupr\u00e8s de moi, semblable \u00e0 ce qu'\u00e9tait Odysseus quand\nil partit pour l'arm\u00e9e. Et mon coeur \u00e9tait consol\u00e9, pensant que ce\nn'\u00e9tait point un songe, mais la v\u00e9rit\u00e9.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et, aussit\u00f4t, \u00c9\u00f4s au thr\u00f4ne d'or apparut. Et le\ndivin Odysseus entendit la voix de P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia qui pleurait. Et il\npensa et il lui vint \u00e0 l'esprit que, plac\u00e9e au-dessus de sa t\u00eate,\nelle l'avait reconnu. C'est pourquoi, ramassant le manteau et les\ntoisons sur lesquelles il \u00e9tait couch\u00e9, il les pla\u00e7a sur le thr\u00f4ne\ndans la salle; et, jetant dehors la peau de boeuf, il leva les\nmains et supplia Zeus:\n\n-- P\u00e8re Zeus! si, par la volont\u00e9 des dieux, tu m'as ramen\u00e9 dans ma\npatrie, \u00e0 travers la terre et la mer, et apr\u00e8s m'avoir accabl\u00e9 de\ntant de maux, fais qu'un de ceux qui s'\u00e9veillent dans cette\ndemeure dise une parole heureuse, et, qu'au dehors, un de tes\nsignes m'apparaisse.\n\nIl parla ainsi en priant, et le tr\u00e8s sage Zeus l'entendit, et,\naussit\u00f4t, il tonna du haut de l'Olympos \u00e9clatant et par-dessus les\nnu\u00e9es, et le divin Odysseus s'en r\u00e9jouit. Et, aussit\u00f4t, une femme\noccup\u00e9e \u00e0 moudre \u00e9leva la voix dans la maison. Car il y avait non\nloin de l\u00e0 douze meules du prince des peuples, et autant de\nservantes les tournaient, pr\u00e9parant l'huile et la farine, moelle\ndes hommes. Et elles s'\u00e9taient endormies, apr\u00e8s avoir moulu le\ngrain, et l'une d'elles n'avait pas fini, et c'\u00e9tait la plus\nfaible de toutes. Elle arr\u00eata sa meule et dit une parole heureuse\npour le roi:\n\n-- P\u00e8re Zeus, qui commandes aux dieux et aux hommes, certes, tu as\ntonn\u00e9 fortement du haut de l'Ouranos \u00e9toil\u00e9 o\u00f9 il n'y a pas un\nnuage. C'est un de tes signes \u00e0 quelqu'un. Accomplis donc mon\nsouhait, \u00e0 moi, malheureuse: Que les pr\u00e9tendants, en ce jour et\npour la derni\u00e8re fois, prennent le repas d\u00e9sirable dans la demeure\nd'Odysseus! Ils ont rompu mes genoux sous ce dur travail de moudre\nleur farine; qu'ils prennent aujourd'hui leur dernier repas!\n\nElle parla ainsi, et le divin Odysseus se r\u00e9jouit de cette parole\nheureuse et du tonnerre de Zeus, et il se dit qu'il allait punir\nles coupables. Et les autres servantes se rassemblaient dans les\nbelles demeures d'Odysseus, et elles allum\u00e8rent un grand feu dans\nle foyer. Et le divin T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos se leva de son lit et se couvrit\nde ses v\u00eatements. Il suspendit une \u00e9p\u00e9e \u00e0 ses \u00e9paules et il\nattacha de belles sandales \u00e0 ses pieds brillants; puis, il saisit\nune forte lance \u00e0 pointe d'airain, et, s'arr\u00eatant, comme il\npassait le seuil, il dit \u00e0 Eurykl\u00e9ia:\n\n-- Ch\u00e8re nourrice, comment avez-vous honor\u00e9 l'\u00e9tranger dans la\ndemeure? Lui avez-vous donn\u00e9 un lit et de la nourriture, ou g\u00eet-il\nn\u00e9glig\u00e9? Car ma m\u00e8re est souvent ainsi, bien que prudente; elle\nhonore inconsid\u00e9r\u00e9ment le moindre des hommes et renvoie le plus\nm\u00e9ritant sans honneurs.\n\nEt la prudente Eurykl\u00e9ia lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- N'accuse point ta m\u00e8re innocente, mon enfant. L'\u00e9tranger s'est\nassis et il a bu du vin autant qu'il l'a voulu; mais il a refus\u00e9\nde manger davantage quand ta m\u00e8re l'invitait elle-m\u00eame. Elle a\nordonn\u00e9 aux servantes de pr\u00e9parer son lit; mais lui, comme un\nhomme plein de soucis et malheureux, a refus\u00e9 de dormir dans un\nlit, sous des couvertures; et il s'est couch\u00e9, dans le vestibule,\nsur une peau de boeuf encore saignante et sur des peaux de brebis;\net nous avons jet\u00e9 un manteau par-dessus.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos sortit de la demeure, tenant sa\nlance \u00e0 la main. Et deux chiens rapides le suivaient. Et il se\nh\u00e2ta vers l'agora des Akhaiens aux belles kn\u00e8mides. Et Eurykl\u00e9ia,\nfille d'Ops Peis\u00e8noride, la plus noble des femmes, dit aux\nservantes:\n\n-- Allons! h\u00e2tez-vous! Balayez la salle, arrosez-la, jetez des\ntapis pourpr\u00e9s sur les beaux thr\u00f4nes, \u00e9pongez les tables, purifiez\nles krat\u00e8res et les coupes rondes; et qu'une partie d'entre vous\naille puiser de l'eau \u00e0 la fontaine et revienne aussit\u00f4t. Les\npr\u00e9tendants ne tarderont pas \u00e0 arriver, et ils viendront d\u00e8s le\nmatin, car c'est une f\u00eate pour tous.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et les servantes, l'ayant entendue, lui\nob\u00e9irent. Et les unes all\u00e8rent \u00e0 la fontaine aux eaux noires, et\nles autres travaillaient avec ardeur dans la maison. Puis, les\npr\u00e9tendants insolents entr\u00e8rent; et ils se mirent \u00e0 fendre du\nbois. Et les servantes revinrent de la fontaine, et, apr\u00e8s elles,\nle porcher qui amenait trois de ses meilleurs porcs. Et il les\nlaissa manger dans l'enceinte des haies. Puis il adressa \u00e0\nOdysseus ces douces paroles:\n\n-- \u00c9tranger, les Akhaiens te traitent-ils mieux, ou t'outragent-\nils comme auparavant?\n\nEt le prudent Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Puissent les dieux, Eumaios, ch\u00e2tier leur insolence, car ils\ncommettent des actions outrageantes et honteuses dans une demeure\n\u00e9trang\u00e8re, et ils n'ont plus la moindre pudeur.\n\nEt, comme ils se parlaient ainsi, le chevrier M\u00e9lanthios\ns'approcha d'eux, conduisant, pour le repas des pr\u00e9tendants, les\nmeilleures ch\u00e8vres de tous ses troupeaux, et deux bergers le\nsuivaient. Et il attacha les ch\u00e8vres sous le portique sonore, et\nil dit \u00e0 Odysseus, en l'injuriant de nouveau:\n\n-- \u00c9tranger, es-tu encore ici \u00e0 importuner les hommes en leur\ndemandant avec insistance? Ne passeras-tu point les portes? Je ne\npense pas que nous nous s\u00e9parions avant que tu aies \u00e9prouv\u00e9 nos\nmains, car tu demandes \u00e0 sati\u00e9t\u00e9, et il y a d'autres repas parmi\nles Akhaiens.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le prudent Odysseus ne r\u00e9pondit rien, et il\nresta muet, mais secouant la t\u00eate et m\u00e9ditant sa vengeance. Puis,\narriva Philoitios, chef des bergers, conduisant aux pr\u00e9tendants\nune g\u00e9nisse st\u00e9rile et des ch\u00e8vres grasses. Des bateliers, de ceux\nqui faisaient passer les hommes, l'avaient amen\u00e9. Il attacha les\nanimaux sous le portique sonore, et, s'approchant du porcher, il\nlui dit:\n\n-- Porcher, quel est cet \u00e9tranger nouvellement venu dans notre\ndemeure? D'o\u00f9 est-il? Quelle est sa race et quelle est sa patrie?\nLe malheureux! certes, il est semblable \u00e0 un roi: mais les dieux\naccablent les hommes qui errent sans cesse, et ils destinent les\nrois eux-m\u00eames au malheur.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, tendant la main droite \u00e0 Odysseus, il lui dit\nces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Salut, p\u00e8re \u00e9tranger! Que la richesse t'arrive bient\u00f4t, car\nmaintenant, tu es accabl\u00e9 de maux! P\u00e8re Zeus, aucun des dieux\nn'est plus cruel que toi, car tu n'as point piti\u00e9 des hommes que\ntu as engendr\u00e9s toi-m\u00eame pour \u00eatre accabl\u00e9s de mis\u00e8res et d'am\u00e8res\ndouleurs! La sueur me coule, et mes yeux se remplissent de larmes\nen voyant cet \u00e9tranger, car je me souviens d'Odysseus, et je pense\nqu'il erre peut-\u00eatre parmi les hommes, couvert de semblables\nhaillons, s'il vit encore et s'il voit la lumi\u00e8re de H\u00e8lios. Mais,\ns'il est mort et s'il est dans les demeures d'Aid\u00e8s, je g\u00e9mirai\ntoujours au souvenir de l'irr\u00e9prochable Odysseus qui m'envoya,\ntout jeune, garder ses boeufs chez le peuple des K\u00e9phall\u00e9niens. Et\nmaintenant ils sont innombrables, et aucun autre ne poss\u00e8de une\ntelle race de boeufs aux larges fronts. Et les pr\u00e9tendants\nm'ordonnent de les leur amener pour qu'ils les mangent; et ils ne\ns'inqui\u00e8tent point du fils d'Odysseus dans cette demeure, et ils\nne respectent ni ne craignent les dieux, et ils d\u00e9sirent avec\nardeur partager les biens d'un roi absent depuis longtemps.\nCependant, mon coeur h\u00e9site dans ma ch\u00e8re poitrine. Ce serait une\nmauvaise action, T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos \u00e9tant vivant, de m'en aller chez un\nautre peuple, aupr\u00e8s d'hommes \u00e9trangers, avec mes boeufs; et,\nd'autre part, il est dur de rester ici, gardant mes boeufs pour\ndes \u00e9trangers et subissant mille maux. D\u00e9j\u00e0, depuis longtemps, je\nme serais enfui vers quelque roi \u00e9loign\u00e9, car, ici, rien n'est\ntol\u00e9rable; mais je pense que ce malheureux reviendra peut-\u00eatre et\ndispersera les pr\u00e9tendants dans ses demeures.\n\nEt le prudent Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Bouvier, tu ne ressembles ni \u00e0 un m\u00e9chant homme, ni \u00e0 un\ninsens\u00e9, et je reconnais que ton esprit est plein de prudence.\nC'est pourquoi je te le jure par un grand serment: que Zeus, le\npremier des dieux, le sache! Et cette table hospitali\u00e8re, et cette\ndemeure du brave Odysseus o\u00f9 je suis venu! Toi pr\u00e9sent, Odysseus\nreviendra ici, et tu le verras de tes yeux, si tu le veux, tuer\nles pr\u00e9tendants qui oppriment ici.\n\n-- \u00c9tranger, puisse le Kroni\u00f4n accomplir tes paroles! Tu sauras\nalors \u00e0 qui appartiendront ma force et mes mains.\n\nEt Eumaios suppliait en m\u00eame temps tous les dieux de ramener le\ntr\u00e8s sage Odysseus dans ses demeures.\n\nEt tandis qu'ils se parlaient ainsi, les pr\u00e9tendants pr\u00e9paraient\nle meurtre et la mort de T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos. Mais, en ce moment, un aigle\nvola \u00e0 leur gauche, tenant une colombe tremblante.\n\nAlors Amphinomos leur dit:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis, notre dessein de tuer T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos ne s'accomplira pas.\nNe songeons plus qu'au repas.\n\nAinsi parla Amphinomos, et sa parole leur plut. Puis, entrant dans\nla demeure du divin Odysseus, ils d\u00e9pos\u00e8rent leurs manteaux sur\nles si\u00e8ges et sur les thr\u00f4nes, ils sacrifi\u00e8rent les grandes\nbrebis, les ch\u00e8vres grasses, les porcs et la g\u00e9nisse indompt\u00e9e. Et\nils distribu\u00e8rent les entrailles r\u00f4ties. Puis ils m\u00eal\u00e8rent le vin\ndans les krat\u00e8res; et le porcher distribuait les coupes, et\nPhiloitios, le chef des bouviers, distribuait le pain dans de\nbelles corbeilles, et M\u00e9lanthios versait le vin. Et ils \u00e9tendirent\nles mains vers les mets plac\u00e9s devant eux. Mais T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos vit\nasseoir Odysseus, qui m\u00e9ditait des ruses, aupr\u00e8s du seuil de\npierre, dans la salle, sur un si\u00e8ge grossier, et il pla\u00e7a devant\nlui, sur une petite table, une part des entrailles. Puis, il versa\ndu vin dans une coupe d'or, et il lui dit:\n\n-- Assieds-toi l\u00e0, parmi les hommes, et bois du vin. J'\u00e9carterai\nmoi-m\u00eame, loin de toi, les outrages de tous les pr\u00e9tendants, car\ncette demeure n'est pas publique; c'est la maison d'Odysseus, et\nil l'a construite pour moi. Et vous, pr\u00e9tendants, retenez vos\ninjures et vos mains, de peur que la discorde se manifeste ici.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous, mordant leurs l\u00e8vres, admiraient\nT\u00e8l\u00e9makhos et comme il avait parl\u00e9 avec audace. Et Antinoos, fils\nd'Eupeith\u00e8s, leur dit:\n\n-- Nous avons entendu, Akhaiens, les paroles s\u00e9v\u00e8res de\nT\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, car il nous a rudement menac\u00e9s. Certes, le Kroni\u00f4n\nZeus ne l'a point permis; mais, sans cela, nous l'aurions d\u00e9j\u00e0\nfait taire dans cette demeure, bien qu'il soit un habile agor\u00e8te.\n\nAinsi parla Antinoos, et T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos ne s'en inqui\u00e9ta point. Et les\nh\u00e9rauts conduisirent \u00e0 travers la ville l'h\u00e9catombe sacr\u00e9e, et les\nAkhaiens chevelus se r\u00e9unirent dans le bois \u00e9pais de l'archer\nApoll\u00f4n.\n\nEt, apr\u00e8s avoir r\u00f4ti les chairs sup\u00e9rieures, les pr\u00e9tendants\ndistribu\u00e8rent les parts et prirent leur repas illustre; et, comme\nl'avait ordonn\u00e9 T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, le cher fils du divin Odysseus, les\nserviteurs apport\u00e8rent \u00e0 celui-ci une part \u00e9gale \u00e0 celles de tous\nles autres convives; mais Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 ne voulut pas que les pr\u00e9tendants\ncessassent leurs outrages, afin qu'une plus grande col\u00e8re entr\u00e2t\ndans le coeur du Laertiade Odysseus. Et il y avait parmi les\npr\u00e9tendants un homme tr\u00e8s inique. Il se nommait Kt\u00e8sippos, et il\navait sa demeure dans Sam\u00e8. Confiant dans les richesses de son\np\u00e8re, il recherchait la femme d'Odysseus absent depuis longtemps.\nEt il dit aux pr\u00e9tendants insolents:\n\n-- \u00c9coutez-moi, illustres pr\u00e9tendants. D\u00e9j\u00e0 cet \u00e9tranger a re\u00e7u\nune part \u00e9gale \u00e0 la n\u00f4tre, comme il convient, car il ne serait ni\nbon, ni juste de priver les h\u00f4tes de T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, quels que soient,\nceux qui entrent dans sa demeure. Mais moi aussi, je lui ferai un\npr\u00e9sent hospitalier, afin que lui-m\u00eame donne un salaire aux\nbaigneurs ou aux autres serviteurs qui sont dans la maison du\ndivin Odysseus.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il saisit dans une corbeille un pied de boeuf\nqu'il lan\u00e7a d'une main vigoureuse; mais Odysseus l'\u00e9vita en\nbaissant la t\u00eate, et il sourit sardoniquement dans son \u00e2me; et le\npied de boeuf frappa le mur bien construit. Alors T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos\nr\u00e9primanda ainsi Kt\u00e8sippos:\n\n-- Kt\u00e8sippos, certes, il vaut beaucoup mieux pour toi que tu\nn'aies point frapp\u00e9 mon h\u00f4te, et qu'il ait lui-m\u00eame \u00e9vit\u00e9 ton\ntrait, car, certes, je t'eusse frapp\u00e9 de ma lance aigu\u00eb au milieu\ndu corps, et, au lieu de tes noces, ton p\u00e8re e\u00fbt fait ton\ns\u00e9pulcre. C'est pourquoi qu'aucun de vous ne montre son insolence\ndans ma demeure, car je comprends et je sais quelles sont les\nbonnes et les mauvaises actions, et je ne suis plus un enfant.\nJ'ai longtemps souffert et regard\u00e9 ces violences, tandis que mes\nbrebis \u00e9taient \u00e9gorg\u00e9es, et que mon vin \u00e9tait \u00e9puis\u00e9, et que mon\npain \u00e9tait mang\u00e9 car il est difficile \u00e0 un seul de s'opposer \u00e0\nplusieurs mais ne m'outragez pas davantage. Si vous avez le d\u00e9sir\nde me tuer avec l'airain, je le veux bien, et il vaut mieux que je\nmeure que de voir vos honteuses actions, mes h\u00f4tes chass\u00e9s et mes\nservantes indignement viol\u00e9es dans mes belles demeures.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous rest\u00e8rent muets. Et le Damastoride Ag\u00e9laos\ndit enfin:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis, \u00e0 cette parole juste, il ne faut point r\u00e9pondre\ninjurieusement, ni frapper cet \u00e9tranger, ou quelqu'un des\nserviteurs qui sont dans les demeures du divin Odysseus; mais je\nparlerai doucement \u00e0 T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos et \u00e0 sa m\u00e8re; puiss\u00e9-je plaire au\ncoeur de tous deux. Aussi longtemps que votre \u00e2me dans vos\npoitrines a esp\u00e9r\u00e9 le retour du tr\u00e8s sage Odysseus en sa demeure,\nnous n'avons eu aucune col\u00e8re de ce que vous reteniez, les faisant\nattendre, les pr\u00e9tendants dans vos demeures. Puisque Odysseus\ndevait revenir, cela valait mieux en effet. Maintenant il est\nmanifeste qu'il ne reviendra plus. Va donc \u00e0 ta m\u00e8re et dis-lui\nqu'elle \u00e9pouse le plus illustre d'entre nous, et celui qui lui\nfera le plus de pr\u00e9sents. Tu jouiras alors des biens paternels,\nmangeant et buvant; et ta m\u00e8re entrera dans la maison d'un autre.\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ag\u00e9laos, non, par Zeus et par les douleurs de mon pere qui est\nmort ou qui erre loin d'Ithak\u00e8, non, je ne m'oppose point aux\nnoces de ma m\u00e8re, et je l'engage \u00e0 \u00e9pouser celui qu'elle choisira\net qui lui fera le plus de pr\u00e9sents; mais je crains de la chasser\nde cette demeure par des paroles rigoureuses, de peur qu'un dieu\nn'accomplisse pas ceci.\n\nAinsi parla T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, et Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 excita un rire immense\nparmi les pr\u00e9tendants, et elle troubla leur esprit, et ils riaient\navec des m\u00e2choires contraintes, et ils mangeaient les chairs\ncrues, et leurs yeux se remplissaient de larmes, et leur \u00e2me\npressentait le malheur.\nAlors, le divin Th\u00e9oklym\u00e9nos leur dit:\n\n-- Ah! malheureux! quel malheur allez-vous subir! Vos t\u00eates, vos\nvisages, vos genoux sont envelopp\u00e9s par la nuit; vous sanglotez,\nvos joues sont couvertes de larmes; ces colonnes et ces murailles\nsont souill\u00e9es de sang; le portique et la cour sont pleins\nd'ombres qui se h\u00e2tent vers les t\u00e9n\u00e8bres de l'\u00c9r\u00e9bos; H\u00e8lios p\u00e9rit\ndans l'Ouranos, et le brouillard fatal s'avance!\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous se mirent \u00e0 rire de lui; et Eurymakhos,\nfils de Polybos, dit le premier:\n\n-- Tu es insens\u00e9, \u00e9tranger r\u00e9cemment arriv\u00e9! Chassez-le aussit\u00f4t\nde cette demeure, et qu'il aille \u00e0 l'agora, puisqu'il prend le\njour pour la nuit.\n\nEt le divin Th\u00e9oklym\u00e9nos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Eurymakhos, n'ordonne point de me chasser d'ici. Il me suffit\nde mes yeux, de mes oreilles, de mes pieds et de l'esprit\n\u00e9quitable qui est dans ma poitrine. Je sortirai d'ici, car je\ndevine le malheur qui est suspendu sur vous; et nul d'entre vous\nn'y \u00e9chappera, \u00f4 pr\u00e9tendants, hommes injurieux qui commettez des\nactions iniques dans la demeure du divin Odysseus!\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il sortit des riches demeures et retourna chez\nPeiraios qui l'avait accueilli avec bienveillance. Et les\npr\u00e9tendants, se regardant les uns les autres, irritaient\nT\u00e8l\u00e9makhos en raillant ses h\u00f4tes. Et l'un de ces jeunes hommes\ninsolents dit:\n\n-- T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, aucun donneur d'hospitalit\u00e9 n'est plus \u00e0 plaindre\nque toi. Tu as encore, il est vrai, ce vagabond affam\u00e9, priv\u00e9 de\npain et de vin, sans courage et qui ne sait rien faire, inutile\nfardeau de la terre, mais l'autre est all\u00e9 proph\u00e9tiser ailleurs.\n\u00c9coute-moi; ceci est pour le mieux; jetons tes deux h\u00f4tes sur une\nnef et envoyons-les aux Sik\u00e8les. Chacun vaudra un bon prix.\n\nAinsi parlaient les pr\u00e9tendants, et T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos ne s'inqui\u00e9ta point\nde leurs paroles; mais il regardait son p\u00e8re, en silence,\nattendant toujours qu'il m\u00eet la main sur les pr\u00e9tendants\ninsolents.\n\nEt la fille d'Ikarios, la sage P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia, accoud\u00e9e sur son beau\nthr\u00f4ne, \u00e9coutait les paroles de chacun d'eux dans les demeures. Et\nils riaient joyeusement en continuant leur repas, car ils avaient\nd\u00e9j\u00e0 beaucoup mang\u00e9.\n\nMais, bient\u00f4t, jamais f\u00eate ne devait leur \u00eatre plus funeste que\ncelle que leur pr\u00e9paraient une d\u00e9esse et un homme brave, car, les\npremiers, ils avaient commis de honteuses actions.\n\n\n21.\n\nAlors, la d\u00e9esse Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs inspira \u00e0 la fille\nd'Ikarios, \u00e0 la prudente P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia, d'apporter aux pr\u00e9tendants\nl'arc et le fer brillant, pour l'\u00e9preuve qui, dans les demeures\nd'Odysseus, devait \u00eatre le commencement du carnage. Elle gravit la\nlongue \u00e9chelle de la maison, tenant \u00e0 la main la belle clef\nrecourb\u00e9e, d'airain et \u00e0 poign\u00e9e d'ivoire; et elle se h\u00e2ta de\nmonter avec ses servantes dans la chambre haute o\u00f9 \u00e9taient\nrenferm\u00e9s les tr\u00e9sors du roi, l'airain, l'or et le fer difficile \u00e0\ntravailler. L\u00e0, se trouvaient l'arc recourb\u00e9, le carquois porte-\nfl\u00e8ches et les fl\u00e8ches terribles qui le remplissaient. Iphitos\nEurythide, de Lak\u00e9daim\u00f4n, semblable aux immortels, les avait\ndonn\u00e9s \u00e0 Odysseus, l'ayant rencontr\u00e9 \u00e0 Mess\u00e8n\u00e8, dans la demeure du\nbrave Orsilokhos, o\u00f9 Odysseus \u00e9tait venu pour une r\u00e9clamation de\ntout le peuple qui l'en avait charg\u00e9. En effet, les Mess\u00e8niens\navaient enlev\u00e9 d'Ithak\u00e8, sur leurs nefs, trois cents brebis et\nleurs bergers. Et, pour cette r\u00e9clamation, Odysseus \u00e9tait venu,\ntout jeune encore, car son p\u00e8re et les autres vieillards l'avaient\nenvoy\u00e9. Et Iphitos \u00e9tait venu de son c\u00f4t\u00e9, cherchant douze cavales\nqu'il avait perdues et autant de mules patientes, et qui, toutes,\ndevaient lui attirer la mort; car, s'\u00e9tant rendu aupr\u00e8s du\nmagnanime fils de Zeus, H\u00e9rakl\u00e8s, illustre par ses grands travaux,\ncelui-ci le tua dans ses demeures, bien qu'il f\u00fbt son h\u00f4te. Et il\nle tua indignement, sans respecter ni les dieux, ni la table o\u00f9 il\nl'avait fait asseoir, et il retint ses cavales aux sabots\nvigoureux. Ce fut en cherchant celles-ci qu'Iphitos rencontra\nOdysseus et qu'il lui donna cet arc qu'avait port\u00e9 le grand\nEurytos et qu'il laissa en mourant \u00e0 son fils dans ses hautes\ndemeures. Et Odysseus donna \u00e0 celui-ci une \u00e9p\u00e9e aigu\u00eb et une forte\nlance. Ce fut le commencement d'une triste amiti\u00e9, et qui ne fut\npas longue, car ils ne se re\u00e7urent point \u00e0 leurs tables, et le\nfils de Zeus tua auparavant l'Eurytide Iphitos semblable aux\nimmortels. Et le divin Odysseus se servait de cet arc \u00e0 Ithak\u00e8,\nmais il ne l'emporta point sur ses nefs noires en partant pour la\nguerre, et il le laissa dans ses demeures, en m\u00e9moire de son cher\nh\u00f4te.\n\nEt quand la noble femme fut arriv\u00e9e \u00e0 la chambre haute, elle monta\nsur le seuil de ch\u00eane qu'autrefois un ouvrier habile avait poli et\najust\u00e9 au cordeau, et auquel il avait adapt\u00e9 des battants et de\nbrillantes portes. Elle d\u00e9tacha aussit\u00f4t la courroie de l'anneau,\nfit entrer la clef et ouvrit les verrous. Et, semblables \u00e0 un\ntaureau qui mugit en paissant dans un pr\u00e9, les belles portes\nr\u00e9sonn\u00e8rent, frapp\u00e9es par la clef, et s'ouvrirent aussit\u00f4t.\n\nEt P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia monta sur le haut plancher o\u00f9 \u00e9taient les coffres\nqui renfermaient les v\u00eatements parfum\u00e9s, et elle d\u00e9tacha du clou\nl'arc et le carquois brillant. Et, s'asseyant l\u00e0, elle les posa\nsur ses genoux, et elle pleura am\u00e8rement. Et, apr\u00e8s s'\u00eatre\nrassasi\u00e9e de larmes et de deuil, elle se h\u00e2ta d'aller \u00e0 la grande\nsalle, vers les pr\u00e9tendants insolents, tenant \u00e0 la main l'arc\nrecourb\u00e9 et le carquois porte-fl\u00e8ches et les fl\u00e8ches terribles qui\nle remplissaient. Et les servantes portaient le coffre o\u00f9 \u00e9taient\nle fer et l'airain des jeux du roi.\n\nEt la noble femme, \u00e9tant arriv\u00e9e aupr\u00e8s des pr\u00e9tendants, s'arr\u00eata\nsur le seuil de la belle salle, un voile l\u00e9ger sur ses joues et\ndeux servantes \u00e0 ses c\u00f4t\u00e9s. Et, aussit\u00f4t, elle parla aux\npr\u00e9tendants et elle leur dit:\n\n-- \u00c9coutez-moi, illustres pr\u00e9tendants qui, pour manger et boire\nsans cesse, avez envahi la maison d'un homme absent depuis\nlongtemps, et qui d\u00e9vorez ses richesses, sans autre pr\u00e9texte que\ncelui de m'\u00e9pouser. Voici, \u00f4 pr\u00e9tendants, l'\u00e9preuve qui vous est\npropos\u00e9e. Je vous apporte le grand arc du divin Odysseus. Celui\nqui, de ses mains, tendra le plus facilement cet arc et lancera\nune fl\u00e8che \u00e0 travers les douze haches, je le suivrai, et il me\nconduira loin de cette demeure qui a vu ma jeunesse, qui est belle\net pleine d'abondance, et dont je me souviendrai, je pense, m\u00eame\ndans mes songes.\n\nElle parla ainsi et elle ordonna au porcher Eumaios de porter aux\npr\u00e9tendants l'arc et le fer brillant. Et Eumaios les prit en\npleurant et les porta; et le bouvier pleura aussi en voyant l'arc\ndu roi. Et Antinoos les r\u00e9primanda et leur dit:\n\n-- Rustres stupides, qui ne pensez qu'au jour le jour, pourquoi\npleurez-vous, mis\u00e9rables, et remuez-vous ainsi dans sa poitrine\nl'\u00e2me de cette femme qui est en proie \u00e0 la douleur, depuis qu'elle\na perdu son cher mari? Mangez en silence, ou' allez pleurer dehors\net laissez ici cet arc. Ce sera pour les pr\u00e9tendants une \u00e9preuve\ndifficile, car je ne pense pas qu'on tende ais\u00e9ment cet arc poli.\nIl n'y a point ici un seul homme tel que Odysseus. Je l'ai vu moi-\nm\u00eame, et je m'en souviens, mais j'\u00e9tais alors un enfant.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il esp\u00e9rait, dans son \u00e2me, tendre l'arc et\nlancer une fl\u00e8che \u00e0 travers le fer; mais il devait, certes, go\u00fbter\nle premier une fl\u00e8che partie des mains de l'irr\u00e9prochable Odysseus\nqu'il avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 outrag\u00e9 dans sa demeure et contre qui il avait\nexcit\u00e9 tous ses compagnons. Alors, la force sacr\u00e9e de T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos\nparla ainsi:\n\n-- \u00d4 dieux! Certes, le Kroni\u00f4n Zeus m'a rendu insens\u00e9. Voici que\nma ch\u00e8re m\u00e8re, bien que tr\u00e8s prudente, dit qu'elle va suivre un\nautre homme et quitter cette demeure! Et voici que je ris et que\nje me r\u00e9jouis dans mon esprit insens\u00e9! Tentez donc, \u00f4 pr\u00e9tendants,\nl'\u00e9preuve propos\u00e9e! Il n'est point de telle femme dans la terre\nAkhaienne, ni dans la sainte Pylos, ni dans Argos, ni dans Myk\u00e8n\u00e8,\nni dans Ithak\u00e8, ni dans la noire \u00c9peiros. Mais vous le savez,\nqu'est-il besoin de louer ma m\u00e8re? Allons, ne retardez pas\nl'\u00e9preuve; h\u00e2tez-vous de tendre cet arc, afin que nous voyions qui\nvous \u00eates. Moi-m\u00eame je ferai l'\u00e9preuve de cet arc; et, si je le\ntends, si je lance une fl\u00e8che \u00e0 travers le fer, ma m\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable,\n\u00e0 moi qui g\u00e9mis, ne quittera point ces demeures avec un autre\nhomme et ne m'abandonnera point, moi qui aurai accompli les nobles\njeux de mon p\u00e8re!\n\nIl parla ainsi, et, se levant, il retira son manteau pourpr\u00e9 et\nson \u00e9p\u00e9e aigu\u00eb de ses \u00e9paules, puis, ayant creus\u00e9 un long foss\u00e9,\nil dressa en ligne les anneaux des haches, et il pressa la terre\ntout autour. Et tous furent stup\u00e9faits de son adresse, car il ne\nl'avait jamais vu faire. Puis, se tenant debout sur le seuil, il\nessaya l'arc. Trois fois il faillit le tendre, esp\u00e9rant tirer le\nnerf et lancer une fl\u00e8che \u00e0 travers le fer, et trois fois la force\nlui manqua. Et comme il le tentait une quatri\u00e8me fois, Odysseus\nlui fit signe et le retint malgr\u00e9 son d\u00e9sir. Alors la force sacr\u00e9e\nde T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos parla ainsi:\n\n-- \u00d4 dieux! ou je ne serai jamais qu'un homme sans force, ou je\nsuis trop jeune encore et je n'ai point la vigueur qu'il faudrait\npour repousser un guerrier qui m'attaquerait. Allons! vous qui\nm'\u00eates sup\u00e9rieurs par la force, essayez cet arc et terminons cette\n\u00e9preuve.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il d\u00e9posa l'arc sur la terre, debout et appuy\u00e9\ncontre les battants polis de la porte, et il mit la fl\u00e8che aigu\u00eb\naupr\u00e8s de l'arc au bout recourb\u00e9; puis, il retourna s'asseoir sur\nle thr\u00f4ne qu'il avait quitt\u00e9. Et Antinoos, fils d'Eupeith\u00e8s, dit\naux pr\u00e9tendants:\n\n-- Compagnons, levez-vous tous, et avancez, l'un apr\u00e8s l'autre,\ndans l'ordre qu'on suit en versant le vin.\n\nAinsi parla Antinoos, et ce qu'il avait dit leur plut. Et Lei\u00f4d\u00e8s,\nfils d'Oinops, se leva le premier. Et il \u00e9tait leur sacrificateur,\net il s'asseyait toujours le plus pr\u00e8s du beau krat\u00e8re. Il\nn'aimait point les actions iniques et il s'irritait sans cesse\ncontre les pr\u00e9tendants. Et il saisit le premier l'arc et le trait\nrapide. Et, debout sur le seuil, il essaya l'arc; mais il ne put\nle tendre et il se fatigua vainement les bras. Alors, il dit aux\npr\u00e9tendants:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis, je ne tendrai point cet arc; qu'un autre le prenne. Cet\narc doit priver de leur coeur et de leur \u00e2me beaucoup de braves\nguerriers, car il vaut mieux mourir que de nous retirer vivants,\nn'ayant point accompli ce que nous esp\u00e9rions ici. Qu'aucun\nn'esp\u00e8re donc plus, dans son \u00e2me, \u00e9pouser P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia, la femme\nd'Odysseus. Apr\u00e8s avoir \u00e9prouv\u00e9 cet arc, chacun de vous verra\nqu'il lui faut rechercher quelque autre femme parmi les Akhaiennes\naux beaux p\u00e9plos, et \u00e0 laquelle il fera des pr\u00e9sents. P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia\n\u00e9pousera ensuite celui qui lui fera le plus de pr\u00e9sents et \u00e0 qui\nelle est destin\u00e9e.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il d\u00e9posa l'arc appuy\u00e9 contre les battants\npolis de la porte, et il mit la fl\u00e8che aigu\u00eb aupr\u00e8s de l'arc au\nbout recourb\u00e9. Puis, il retourna s'asseoir sur le thr\u00f4ne qu'il\navait quitt\u00e9. Alors, Antinoos le r\u00e9primanda et lui dit:\n\n-- Lei\u00f4d\u00e8s, quelle parole s'est \u00e9chapp\u00e9e d'entre tes dents? Elle\nest mauvaise et funeste, et je suis irrit\u00e9 de l'avoir entendue.\nCet arc doit priver de leur coeur et de leur \u00e2me beaucoup de\nbraves guerriers, parce que tu n'as pu le tendre! Ta m\u00e8re\nv\u00e9n\u00e9rable ne t'a point enfant\u00e9 pour tendre les arcs, mais,\nbient\u00f4t, d'autres pr\u00e9tendants illustres tendront celui-ci.\n\nIl parla ainsi et il donna cet ordre au chevrier M\u00e9lanthios:\n\n-- M\u00e9lanthios, allume promptement du feu dans la demeure et place\ndevant le feu un grand si\u00e8ge couvert de peaux. Apporte le large\ndisque de graisse qui est dans la maison, afin que les jeunes\nhommes, l'ayant fait chauffer, en amollissent cet arc, et que nous\nterminions cette \u00e9preuve.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et aussit\u00f4t M\u00e9lanthios alluma un grand feu, et il\npla\u00e7a devant le feu un si\u00e8ge couvert de peaux; et les jeunes\nhommes, ayant chauff\u00e9 le large disque de graisse qui \u00e9tait dans la\nmaison, en amollirent l'arc, et ils ne purent le tendre, car ils\n\u00e9taient de beaucoup trop faibles. Et il ne restait plus\nqu'Antinoos et le divin Eurymakhos, chefs des pr\u00e9tendants et les\nplus braves d'entre eux.\n\nAlors, le porcher et le bouvier du divin Odysseus sortirent\nensemble de la demeure, et le divin Odysseus sortit apr\u00e8s eux. Et\nquand ils furent hors des portes, dans la cour, Odysseus,\npr\u00e9cipitant ses paroles, leur dit:\n\n-- Bouvier, et toi, porcher, vous dirai-je quelque chose et ne\nvous cacherai-je rien? Mon \u00e2me, en effet, m'ordonne de parler.\nViendriez-vous en aide \u00e0 Odysseus s'il revenait brusquement et si\nun dieu le ramenait? \u00c0 qui viendriez-vous en aide, aux pr\u00e9tendants\nou \u00e0 Odysseus? Dites ce que votre coeur et votre \u00e2me vous\nordonnent de dire.\n\nEt le bouvier lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- P\u00e8re Zeus! Pl\u00fbt aux dieux que mon voeu f\u00fbt accompli! Pl\u00fbt aux\ndieux que ce h\u00e9ros rev\u00eent et qu'un dieu le ramen\u00e2t, tu saurais\nalors \u00e0 qui appartiendraient ma force et mes bras!\n\nEt, de m\u00eame, Eumaios supplia tous les dieux de ramener le prudent\nOdysseus dans sa demeure. Alors, celui-ci connut quelle \u00e9tait leur\nvraie pens\u00e9e, et, leur parlant de nouveau, il leur dit:\n\n-- Je suis Odysseus. Apr\u00e8s avoir souffert des maux innombrables,\nje reviens dans la vingti\u00e8me ann\u00e9e sur la terre de la patrie. Je\nsais que, seuls parmi les serviteurs, vous avez d\u00e9sir\u00e9 mon retour;\ncar je n'ai entendu aucun des autres prier pour que je revinsse\ndans ma demeure. Je vous dirai donc ce qui sera. Si un dieu dompte\npar mes mains les pr\u00e9tendants insolents, je vous donnerai \u00e0 tous\ndeux des femmes, des richesses et des demeures b\u00e2ties aupr\u00e8s des\nmiennes, et vous serez pour T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos des compagnons et des\nfr\u00e8res. Mais je vous montrerai un signe manifeste, afin que vous\nme reconnaissiez bien et que vous soyez persuad\u00e9s dans votre \u00e2me:\ncette blessure qu'un sanglier me fit autrefois de ses blanches\ndents, quand j'allai sur le Parn\u00e8sos avec les fils d'Autolykos.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et entrouvrant ses haillons, il montra la grande\nblessure. Et, d\u00e8s qu'ils l'eurent vue, aussit\u00f4t ils la\nreconnurent. Et ils pleur\u00e8rent, entourant le prudent Odysseus de\nleurs bras, et ils bais\u00e8rent sa t\u00eate et ses \u00e9paules. Et, de m\u00eame,\nOdysseus baisa leurs t\u00eates et leurs \u00e9paules. Et la lumi\u00e8re de\nH\u00e8lios f\u00fbt tomb\u00e9e tandis qu'ils pleuraient, si Odysseus ne les e\u00fbt\narr\u00eat\u00e9s et ne leur e\u00fbt dit:\n\n-- Cessez de pleurer et de g\u00e9mir, de peur que, sortant de la\ndemeure, quelqu'un vous voie et le dise; mais rentrez l'un apr\u00e8s\nl'autre, et non ensemble. Je rentre le premier; venez ensuite.\nMaintenant, \u00e9coutez ceci: les pr\u00e9tendants insolents ne permettront\npoint, tous, tant qu'ils sont, qu'on me donne l'arc et le\ncarquois; mais toi, divin Eumaios, apporte-moi l'arc \u00e0 travers la\nsalle, remets-le dans mes mains, et dis aux servantes de fermer\nles portes solides de la demeure. Si quelqu'un entend, de la cour,\ndes g\u00e9missements et du tumulte, qu'il y reste et s'occupe\ntranquillement de son travail. Et toi, divin Philoitios, je\nt'ordonne de fermer les portes de la cour et d'en assujettir les\nbarri\u00e8res et d'en pousser les verrous.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il rentra dans la grande salle et il s'assit\nsur le si\u00e8ge qu'il avait quitt\u00e9. Puis, les deux serviteurs du\ndivin Odysseus rentr\u00e8rent. Et d\u00e9j\u00e0 Eurymakhos tenait l'arc dans\nses mains, le chauffant de tous les c\u00f4t\u00e9s \u00e0 la splendeur du feu;\nmais il ne put le tendre, et son illustre coeur soupira\nprofond\u00e9ment, et il dit, parlant ainsi:\n\n-- \u00d4 dieux! certes, je ressens une grande douleur pour moi et pour\ntous. Je ne g\u00e9mis pas seulement \u00e0 cause de mes noces, bien que\nj'en sois attrist\u00e9, car il y a beaucoup d'autres Akhaiennes dans\nIthak\u00e8 entour\u00e9e des flots et dans les autres villes; mais je g\u00e9mis\nque nous soyons tellement inf\u00e9rieurs en force au divin Odysseus\nque nous ne puissions tendre son arc. Ce sera notre honte dans\nl'avenir.\n\nEt Antinoos, fils d'Eupeith\u00e8s, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Eurymakhos, ceci ne sera point. Songes-y toi-m\u00eame. C'est\naujourd'hui parmi le peuple la f\u00eate sacr\u00e9e d'un dieu; qui pourrait\ntendre un arc? Laissons-le en repos, et que les anneaux des haches\nrestent dress\u00e9s. Je ne pense pas que quelqu'un les enl\u00e8ve dans la\ndemeure du Laertiade Odysseus. Allons! que celui qui verse le vin\nemplisse les coupes, afin que nous fassions des libations, apr\u00e8s\navoir d\u00e9pos\u00e9 cet arc. Ordonnez au chevrier M\u00e9lanthios d'amener\ndemain les meilleures ch\u00e8vres de tous ses troupeaux, afin qu'ayant\nbr\u00fbl\u00e9 leurs cuisses pour Apoll\u00f4n illustre par son arc, nous\ntentions de nouveau et nous terminions l'\u00e9preuve.\n\nAinsi parla Antinoos, et ce qu'il avait dit leur plut. Et les\nh\u00e9rauts leur vers\u00e8rent de l'eau sur les mains, et les jeunes\nhommes couronn\u00e8rent de vin les krat\u00e8res et le distribu\u00e8rent entre\ntous \u00e0 coupes pleines. Et, apr\u00e8s qu'ils eurent fait des libations\net bu autant que leur \u00e2me le d\u00e9sirait, le prudent Odysseus,\nm\u00e9ditant des ruses, leur dit:\n\n-- \u00c9coutez-moi, pr\u00e9tendants de l'illustre reine, afin que je dise\nce que mon coeur m'ordonne dans ma poitrine. Je prie surtout\nEurymakhos et le roi Antinoos, car ce dernier a parl\u00e9 comme il\nconvenait. Laissez maintenant cet arc, et remettez le reste aux\ndieux. Demain un dieu donnera la victoire \u00e0 qui il voudra: mais\ndonnez-moi cet arc poli, afin que je fasse devant vous l'\u00e9preuve\nde mes mains et de ma force, et que je voie si j'ai encore la\nforce d'autrefois dans mes membres courb\u00e9s, ou si mes courses\nerrantes et la mis\u00e8re me l'ont enlev\u00e9e.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous furent tr\u00e8s irrit\u00e9s, craignant qu'il\ntend\u00eet l'arc poli. Et Antinoos le r\u00e9primanda ainsi et lui dit:\n\n-- Ah! mis\u00e9rable \u00e9tranger, ne te reste-t-il plus le moindre sens?\nNe te pla\u00eet-il plus de prendre tranquillement ton repas \u00e0 nos\ntables? Es-tu priv\u00e9 de nourriture? N'entends-tu pas nos paroles?\nJamais aucun autre \u00e9tranger ou mendiant ne nous a \u00e9cout\u00e9s ainsi.\nLe doux vin te trouble, comme il trouble celui qui en boit avec\nabondance et non convenablement. Certes, ce fut le vin qui troubla\nl'illustre centaure Eurythi\u00f4n, chez les Lapithes, dans la demeure\ndu magnanime Peirithoos. Il troubla son esprit avec le vin, et,\ndevenu furieux, il commit des actions mauvaises dans la demeure de\nPeirithoos. Et la douleur saisit alors les h\u00e9ros, et ils le\ntra\u00een\u00e8rent hors du portique, et ils lui coup\u00e8rent les oreilles\navec l'airain cruel, et les narines. Et, l'esprit \u00e9gar\u00e9, il s'en\nalla, emportant son supplice et son coeur furieux. Et c'est de l\u00e0\nque s'\u00e9leva la guerre entre les centaures et les hommes; mais ce\nfut d'abord Eurythi\u00f4n qui, \u00e9tant ivre, trouva son malheur. Je te\npr\u00e9dis un ch\u00e2timent aussi grand si tu tends cet arc. Tu ne\nsupplieras plus personne dans cette demeure, car nous t'enverrons\naussit\u00f4t sur une nef noire au roi \u00c9kh\u00e9tos, le plus f\u00e9roce de tous\nles hommes. Et l\u00e0 tu ne te sauveras pas. Bois donc en repos et ne\nlutte point contre des hommes plus jeunes que toi.\n\nEt la prudente P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia parla ainsi:\n\n-- Antinoos, il n'est ni bon ni juste d'outrager les h\u00f4tes de\nT\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, quel que soit celui qui entre dans ses demeures.\nCrois-tu que si cet \u00e9tranger, confiant dans ses forces, tendait le\ngrand arc d'Odysseus, il me conduirait dans sa demeure et ferait\nde moi sa femme? Lui-m\u00eame ne l'esp\u00e8re point dans son esprit.\nQu'aucun de vous, prenant ici son repas, ne s'inqui\u00e8te de ceci,\ncar cette pens\u00e9e n'est point convenable.\n\nEt Eurymakhos, fils de Polybos, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Fille d'Ikarios, prudente P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia, nous ne croyons point que\ncet homme t'\u00e9pouse, car cette pens\u00e9e ne serait point convenable;\nmais nous craignons la rumeur des hommes et des femmes. Le dernier\ndes Akhaiens dirait: -- \u0091Certes, ce sont les pires des hommes qui\nrecherchent la femme d'un homme irr\u00e9prochable, car ils n'ont pu\ntendre son arc poli, tandis qu'un mendiant vagabond a tendu\nais\u00e9ment l'arc et lanc\u00e9 une fl\u00e8che \u00e0 travers le fer.\u0092 -- En\nparlant ainsi, il nous couvrirait d'opprobre.\n\nEt la prudente P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Eurymakhos, ils ne peuvent s'illustrer parmi le peuple ceux qui\nm\u00e9prisent et ruinent la maison d'un homme brave. Pourquoi vous\n\u00eates-vous couverts d'opprobre vous-m\u00eames? Cet \u00e9tranger est grand\net fort, et il se glorifie d'\u00eatre d'une bonne race. Donnez-lui\ndonc l'arc d'Odysseus, afin que nous voyions ce qu'il en fera. Et\nje le dis, et ma parole s'accomplira: s'il tend l'arc et si\nApoll\u00f4n lui accorde cette gloire, je le couvrirai de beaux\nv\u00eatements, d'un manteau et d'une tunique, et je lui donnerai une\nlance aigu\u00eb pour qu'il se d\u00e9fende des chiens et des hommes, et une\n\u00e9p\u00e9e \u00e0 deux tranchants. Et je lui donnerai aussi des sandales, et\nje le renverrai l\u00e0 o\u00f9 son coeur et son \u00e2me lui ordonnent d'aller.\n\nEt, alors, le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ma m\u00e8re, aucun des Akhaiens ne peut m'emp\u00eacher de donner ou de\nrefuser cet arc \u00e0 qui je voudrai, ni aucun de ceux qui dominent\ndans l'\u00e2pre Ithak\u00e8 ou qui habitent \u00c9lis o\u00f9 paissent les chevaux.\nAucun d'entre eux ne m'arr\u00eatera si je veux donner cet arc \u00e0 mon\nh\u00f4te. Mais rentre dans ta chambre haute et prends souci de tes\ntravaux, de la toile et du fuseau. Ordonne aux servantes de\nreprendre leur t\u00e2che. Tout le reste regarde les hommes, et surtout\nmoi qui commande dans cette demeure.\n\nEt P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia, surprise, rentra dans la maison, songeant en son\n\u00e2me aux paroles prudentes de son fils. Puis, \u00e9tant mont\u00e9e dans la\nchambre haute, avec ses servantes, elle pleura son cher mari\nOdysseus jusqu'\u00e0 ce que Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs e\u00fbt r\u00e9pandu le doux\nsommeil sur ses paupi\u00e8res.\n\nAlors le divin porcher prit l'arc recourb\u00e9 et l'emporta. Et les\npr\u00e9tendants firent un grand tumulte dans la salle, et l'un de ces\njeunes hommes insolents dit:\n\n-- O\u00f9 portes-tu cet arc, immonde porcher? vagabond! Bient\u00f4t les\nchiens rapides que tu nourris te mangeront au milieu de tes porcs,\nloin des hommes, si Apoll\u00f4n et les autres dieux immortels nous\nsont propices.\n\nIls parl\u00e8rent ainsi, et Eumaios d\u00e9posa l'arc l\u00e0 o\u00f9 il \u00e9tait, plein\nde crainte, parce qu'ils le mena\u00e7aient en foule dans la demeure.\nMais, d'un autre c\u00f4t\u00e9, T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos cria en le mena\u00e7ant:\n\n-- P\u00e8re! porte promptement l'arc plus loin, et n'ob\u00e9is pas \u00e0 tout\nle monde, de peur que, bien que plus jeune que toi, je te chasse \u00e0\ncoups de pierres vers tes champs, car je suis le plus fort. Pl\u00fbt\naux dieux que je fusse aussi sup\u00e9rieur par la force de mes bras\naux pr\u00e9tendants qui sont ici! car je les chasserais aussit\u00f4t\nhonteusement de ma demeure o\u00f9 ils commettent des actions\nmauvaises.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous les pr\u00e9tendants se mirent \u00e0 rire de lui et\ncess\u00e8rent d'\u00eatre irrit\u00e9s. Et le porcher, traversant la salle,\nemporta l'arc et le remit aux mains du subtil Odysseus. Et\naussit\u00f4t il appela la nourrice Eurykl\u00e9ia:\n\n-- T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos t'ordonne, \u00f4 prudente Eurykl\u00e9ia, de fermer les\nportes solides de la maison. Si quelqu'un des n\u00f4tres entend, de la\ncour, des g\u00e9missements ou du tumulte, qu'il y reste et s'occupe\ntranquillement de son travail.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et sa parole ne fut point vaine, et Eurykl\u00e9ia\nferma les portes de la belle demeure. Et Philoitios, sautant\ndehors, ferma aussi les portes de la cour. Et il y avait, sous le\nportique, un c\u00e2ble d'\u00e9corce de nef \u00e0 bancs de rameurs, et il en\nlia les portes. Puis, rentrant dans la salle, il s'assit sur le\nsi\u00e8ge qu'il avait quitt\u00e9, et il regarda Odysseus. Mais celui-ci,\ntournant l'arc de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s, examinait \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0 si les vers\nn'avaient point rong\u00e9 la corne en l'absence du ma\u00eetre. Et les\npr\u00e9tendants se disaient les uns aux autres en le regardant:\n\n-- Certes, celui-ci est un admirateur ou un voleur d'arcs. Peut-\n\u00eatre en a-t-il de semblables dans sa demeure, ou veut-il en faire?\nComme ce vagabond plein de mauvais desseins le retourne entre ses\nmains.\n\nEt l'un de ces jeunes hommes insolents dit aussi:\n\n-- Pl\u00fbt aux dieux que cet arc lui port\u00e2t malheur, aussi s\u00fbrement\nqu'il ne pourra le tendre!\n\nAinsi parlaient les pr\u00e9tendants; mais le subtil Odysseus, ayant\nexamin\u00e9 le grand arc, le tendit aussi ais\u00e9ment qu'un homme, habile\n\u00e0 jouer de la kithare et \u00e0 chanter, tend, \u00e0 l'aide d'une cheville,\nune nouvelle corde faite de l'intestin tordu d'une brebis. Ce fut\nainsi qu'Odysseus, tenant le grand arc, tendit ais\u00e9ment de la main\ndroite le nerf, qui r\u00e9sonna comme le cri de l'hirondelle. Et une\nam\u00e8re douleur saisit les pr\u00e9tendants, et ils chang\u00e8rent tous de\ncouleur, et Zeus, manifestant un signe, tonna fortement, et le\npatient et divin Odysseus se r\u00e9jouit de ce que le fils du subtil\nKronos lui e\u00fbt envoy\u00e9 ce signe. Et il saisit une fl\u00e8che rapide\nqui, retir\u00e9e du carquois, \u00e9tait pos\u00e9e sur la table, tandis que\ntoutes les autres \u00e9taient rest\u00e9es dans le carquois creux jusqu'\u00e0\nce que les Akhaiens les eussent essay\u00e9es. Puis, saisissant la\npoign\u00e9e de l'arc, il tira le nerf sans quitter son si\u00e8ge; et\nvisant le but, il lan\u00e7a la fl\u00e8che, lourde d'airain, qui ne\ns'\u00e9carta point et traversa tous les anneaux des haches. Alors, il\ndit \u00e0 T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos:\n\n-- T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, l'\u00e9tranger assis dans tes demeures ne te fait pas\nhonte. Je ne me suis point \u00e9cart\u00e9 du but, et je ne me suis point\nlongtemps fatigu\u00e9 \u00e0 tendre cet arc. Ma vigueur est encore enti\u00e8re,\net les pr\u00e9tendants ne me m\u00e9priseront plus. Mais voici l'heure pour\nles Akhaiens de pr\u00e9parer le repas pendant qu'il fait encore jour;\npuis ils se charmeront des sons de la kithare et du chant, qui\nsont les ornements des repas.\n\nIl parla ainsi et fit un signe avec ses sourcils, et T\u00e9l\u00e9makhos,\nle cher fils du divin Odysseus, ceignit une \u00e9p\u00e9e aigu\u00eb, saisit une\nlance, et, arm\u00e9 de l'airain splendide, se pla\u00e7a aupr\u00e8s du si\u00e8ge\nd'Odysseus.\n\n\n22.\n\nAlors, le subtil Odysseus, se d\u00e9pouillant de ses haillons, et\ntenant dans ses mains l'arc et le carquois plein de fl\u00e8ches, sauta\ndu large seuil, r\u00e9pandit les fl\u00e8ches rapides \u00e0 ses pieds et dit\naux pr\u00e9tendants:\n\n-- Voici que cette \u00e9preuve tout enti\u00e8re est accomplie. Maintenant,\nje viserai un autre but qu'aucun homme n'a jamais touch\u00e9.\nQu'Apoll\u00f4n me donne la gloire de l'atteindre!\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il dirigea la fl\u00e8che am\u00e8re contre Antinoos. Et\ncelui-ci allait soulever \u00e0 deux mains une belle coupe d'or \u00e0 deux\nanses afin de boire du vin, et la mort n'\u00e9tait point pr\u00e9sente \u00e0\nson esprit. Et, en effet, qui e\u00fbt pens\u00e9 qu'un homme, seul au\nmilieu de convives nombreux, e\u00fbt os\u00e9, quelle que f\u00fbt sa force, lui\nenvoyer la mort et la k\u00e8r noire? Mais Odysseus le frappa de sa\nfl\u00e8che \u00e0 la gorge, et la pointe traversa le cou d\u00e9licat. Il tomba\n\u00e0 la renverse, et la coupe s'\u00e9chappa de sa main inerte, et un jet\nde sang sortit de sa narine, et il repoussa des pieds la table, et\nles mets roul\u00e8rent \u00e9pars sur la terre, et le pain et la chair\nr\u00f4tie furent souill\u00e9s. Les pr\u00e9tendants fr\u00e9mirent dans la demeure\nquand ils virent l'homme tomber. Et, se levant en tumulte de leurs\nsi\u00e9ges, ils regardaient de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s sur les murs sculpt\u00e9s,\ncherchant \u00e0 saisir des boucliers et des lances, et ils cri\u00e8rent \u00e0\nOdysseus en paroles furieuses:\n\n-- \u00c9tranger, tu envoies tra\u00eetreusement tes fl\u00e8ches contre les\nhommes! Tu ne tenteras pas d'autres \u00e9preuves, car voici que ta\ndestin\u00e9e terrible va s'accomplir. Tu viens de tuer le plus\nillustre des jeunes hommes d'Ithak\u00e8, et les vautours te mangeront\nici!\n\nIls parlaient ainsi, croyant qu'il avait tu\u00e9 involontairement, et\nles insens\u00e9s ne devinaient pas que les k\u00e8res de la mort \u00e9taient\nsur leurs t\u00eates. Et, les regardant d'un oeil sombre, le subtil\nOdysseus leur dit:\n\n-- Chiens! vous ne pensiez pas que je reviendrais jamais du pays\ndes Troiens dans ma demeure. Et vous d\u00e9voriez ma maison, et vous\ncouchiez de force avec mes servantes, et, moi vivant, vous\nrecherchiez ma femme, ne redoutant ni les dieux qui habitent le\nlarge Ouranos, ni le bl\u00e2me des hommes qui viendront! Maintenant,\nles k\u00e8res de la mort vont vous saisir tous!\n\nIl parla ainsi, et la terreur les prit, et chacun regardait de\ntous c\u00f4t\u00e9s, cherchant par o\u00f9 il fuirait la noire destin\u00e9e. Et,\nseul, Eurymakhos, lui r\u00e9pondant, dit:\n\n-- S'il est vrai que tu sois Odysseus l'Ithak\u00e8sien revenu ici, tu\nas bien parl\u00e9 en disant que les Akhaiens ont commis des actions\niniques dans tes demeures et dans tes champs. Mais le voici gisant\ncelui qui a \u00e9t\u00e9 cause de tout. C'est Antinoos qui a \u00e9t\u00e9 cause de\ntout, non parce qu'il d\u00e9sirait ses noces, mais ayant d'autres\ndesseins que le Kroni\u00f4n ne lui a point permis d'accomplir. Il\nvoulait r\u00e9gner sur le peuple d'Ithak\u00e8 bien b\u00e2tie et tendait des\nemb\u00fbches \u00e0 ton fils pour le tuer. Maintenant qu'il a \u00e9t\u00e9 tu\u00e9\njustement, aie piti\u00e9 de tes concitoyens. Bient\u00f4t nous t'apaiserons\ndevant le peuple. Nous te payerons tout ce que nous avons bu et\nmang\u00e9 dans tes demeures. Chacun de nous t'am\u00e8nera vingt boeufs, de\nl'airain et de l'or, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que ton \u00e2me soit satisfaite. Mais\navant que cela soit fait, ta col\u00e8re est juste.\n\nEt, le regardant d'un oeil sombre, le prudent Odysseus lui dit:\n\n-- Eurymakhos, m\u00eame si vous m'apportiez tous vos biens paternels\net tout ce que vous poss\u00e9dez maintenant, mes mains ne\ns'abstiendraient pas du carnage avant d'avoir ch\u00e2ti\u00e9 l'insolence\nde tous les pr\u00e9tendants. Choisissez, ou de me combattre, ou de\nfuir, si vous le pouvez, la k\u00e8r et la mort. Mais je ne pense pas\nqu'aucun de vous \u00e9chappe \u00e0 la noire destin\u00e9e.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et leurs genoux \u00e0 tous furent rompus. Et\nEurymakhos, parlant une seconde fois, leur dit:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis, cet homme ne retiendra pas ses mains in\u00e9vitables, ayant\nsaisi l'arc poli et le carquois, et tirant ses fl\u00e8ches du seuil de\nla salle, jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'il nous ait tu\u00e9s tous. Souvenons-nous donc\nde combattre; tirez vos \u00e9p\u00e9es, opposez les tables aux fl\u00e8ches\nrapides, jetons-nous tous sur lui, et nous le chasserons du seuil\net des portes, et nous irons par la ville, soulevant un grand\ntumulte, et, bient\u00f4t, cet homme aura tir\u00e9 sa derni\u00e8re fl\u00e8che.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il tira son \u00e9p\u00e9e aigu\u00eb \u00e0 deux tranchants, et se\nrua sur Odysseus en criant horriblement; mais le divin Odysseus le\npr\u00e9venant, lan\u00e7a une fl\u00e8che et le per\u00e7a dans la poitrine aupr\u00e8s de\nla mamelle, et le trait rapide s'enfon\u00e7a dans le foie. Et l'\u00e9p\u00e9e\ntomba de sa main contre terre, et il tournoya pr\u00e8s d'une table,\ndispersant les mets et les coupes pleines: et lui-m\u00eame se renversa\nen se tordant et en g\u00e9missant, et il frappa du front la terre,\nrepoussant un thr\u00f4ne de ses deux pieds, et l'obscurit\u00e9 se r\u00e9pandit\nsur ses yeux.\n\nAlors Amphinomos se rua sur le magnanime Odysseus, apr\u00e8s avoir\ntir\u00e9 son \u00e9p\u00e9e aigu\u00eb, afin de l'\u00e9carter des portes; mais T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos\nle pr\u00e9vint en le frappant dans le dos, entre les \u00e9paules, et la\nlance d'airain traversa la poitrine; et le pr\u00e9tendant tomba avec\nbruit et frappa la terre du front. Et T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos revint \u00e0 la h\u00e2te,\nayant laiss\u00e9 sa longue lance dans le corps d'Amphinomos, car il\ncraignait qu'un des Akhaiens l'atteign\u00eet, tandis qu'il\nl'approcherait, et le frapp\u00e2t de l'\u00e9p\u00e9e sur sa t\u00eate pench\u00e9e. Et,\nen courant, il revint promptement aupr\u00e8s de son cher p\u00e8re, et il\nlui dit ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- \u00d4 p\u00e8re, je vais t'apporter un bouclier et deux lances et un\ncasque d'airain adapt\u00e9 \u00e0 tes tempes. Moi-m\u00eame je m'armerai, ainsi\nque le porcher et le bouvier, car il vaut mieux nous armer.\n\nEt le prudent Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Apporte-les en courant; tant que j'aurai des fl\u00e8ches pour\ncombattre, ils ne m'\u00e9loigneront pas des portes, bien que je sois\nseul.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos ob\u00e9it \u00e0 son cher p\u00e8re, et il se h\u00e2ta\nde monter dans la chambre haute o\u00f9 \u00e9taient les armes illustres, et\nil saisit quatre boucliers, huit lances et quatre casques \u00e9pais\nd'airain, et il revint en les portant, et il rejoignit promptement\nson cher p\u00e8re. Lui-m\u00eame, le premier, il se couvrit d'airain, et,\nles deux serviteurs s'\u00e9tant aussi couverts de belles armes, ils\nentour\u00e8rent le sage et subtil Odysseus. Et, tant que celui-ci eut\ndes fl\u00e8ches, il en per\u00e7a sans rel\u00e2che les pr\u00e9tendants, qui\ntombaient amoncel\u00e9s dans la salle. Mais apr\u00e8s que toutes les\nfl\u00e8ches eurent quitt\u00e9 le roi qui les lan\u00e7ait, il appuya son arc\ndebout contre les murs splendides de la salle solide, jeta sur ses\n\u00e9paules un bouclier \u00e0 quatre lames, posa sur sa t\u00eate un casque\n\u00e9pais \u00e0 crini\u00e8re de cheval, et sur lequel s'agitait une aigrette,\net il saisit deux fortes lances arm\u00e9es d'airain.\n\nIl y avait dans le mur bien construit de la salle, aupr\u00e8s du seuil\nsup\u00e9rieur, une porte qui donnait issue au dehors et que fermaient\ndeux ais solides. Et Odysseus ordonna au divin porcher de se tenir\naupr\u00e8s de cette porte pour la garder, car il n'y avait que cette\nissue. Et alors Ag\u00e9laos dit aux pr\u00e9tendants:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis, quelqu'un ne pourrait-il pas monter \u00e0 cette porte, afin\nde parler au peuple et d'exciter un grand tumulte? Cet homme\naurait bient\u00f4t lanc\u00e9 son dernier trait.\n\nEt le chevrier M\u00e9lanthios lui dit:\n\n-- Cela ne se peut, divin Ag\u00e9laos. L'entr\u00e9e de la belle porte de\nla cour est \u00e9troite et difficile \u00e0 passer, et un seul homme\nvigoureux nous arr\u00eaterait tous. Mais je vais vous apporter des\narmes de la chambre haute; c'est l\u00e0, je pense, et non ailleurs,\nqu'Odysseus et son illustre fils les ont d\u00e9pos\u00e9es.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, le chevrier M\u00e9lanthios monta dans la chambre\nhaute d'Odysseus par les \u00e9chelles de la salle. L\u00e0, il prit douze\nboucliers, douze lances et autant de casques d'airain \u00e0 crini\u00e8res\n\u00e9paisses, et, se h\u00e2tant de les apporter, il les donna aux\npr\u00e9tendants. Et quand Odysseus les vit s'armer et brandir de\nlongues lances dans leurs mains, ses genoux et son cher coeur\nfurent rompus, et il sentit la difficult\u00e9 de son oeuvre, et il dit\n\u00e0 T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, voici qu'une des femmes de la maison, ou\nM\u00e9lanthios, nous expose \u00e0 un danger terrible.\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 p\u00e8re, c'est moi qui ai failli, et aucun autre n'est cause de\nceci, car j'ai laiss\u00e9 ouverte la porte solide de la chambre haute,\net la sentinelle des pr\u00e9tendants a \u00e9t\u00e9 plus vigilante que moi. Va,\ndivin Eumaios, ferme la porte de la chambre haute, et vois si\nc'est une des femmes qui a fait cela, ou M\u00e9lanthios, fils de\nDolios, comme je le pense.\n\nEt, tandis qu'ils se parlaient ainsi, le chevrier M\u00e9lanthios\nretourna de nouveau \u00e0 la chambre haute pour y chercher des armes,\net le divin porcher le vit, et, aussit\u00f4t, s'approchant d'Odysseus,\nil lui dit:\n\n-- Divin Laertiade, subtil Odysseus, ce m\u00e9chant homme que nous\nsoup\u00e7onnions retourne dans la chambre haute. Dis-moi la v\u00e9rit\u00e9; le\ntuerai-je, si je suis le plus fort, ou te l'am\u00e8nerai-je pour qu'il\nexpie toutes les actions ex\u00e9crables qu'il a commises dans ta\ndemeure?\n\nEt le subtil Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Certes, T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos et moi nous contiendrons les pr\u00e9tendants\ninsolents, malgr\u00e9 leur fureur. Vous, liez-lui les pieds et les\nmains, jetez-le dans la chambre, et, avant de fermer les portes\nderri\u00e8re vous, encha\u00eenez-le et suspendez-le \u00e0 une haute colonne,\nafin que, vivant longtemps, il subisse de cruelles douleurs.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et ils entendirent et ob\u00e9irent. Et ils all\u00e8rent\npromptement \u00e0 la chambre haute, se cachant de M\u00e9lanthios qui y\n\u00e9tait entr\u00e9 et qui cherchait des armes dans le fond. Ils\ns'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent des deux c\u00f4t\u00e9s du seuil, et, quand le chevrier\nM\u00e9lanthios revint, tenant d'une main un beau casque, et, de\nl'autre, un large bouclier antique que le h\u00e9ros Laert\u00e8s portait\ndans sa jeunesse, et qui gisait l\u00e0 depuis longtemps et dont les\ncourroies \u00e9taient rong\u00e9es; alors ils se jet\u00e8rent sur lui et le\ntra\u00een\u00e8rent dans la chambre par les cheveux, l'ayant renvers\u00e9\ng\u00e9missant contre terre. Et ils lui li\u00e8rent les pieds et les mains\navec une corde bien tress\u00e9e ainsi que l'avait ordonn\u00e9 le patient\net divin Odysseus, fils de Laert\u00e8s; puis, l'ayant encha\u00een\u00e9, ils le\nsuspendirent \u00e0 une haute colonne, pr\u00e8s des poutres. Et le porcher\nEumaios lui dit en le raillant:\n\n-- Maintenant, M\u00e9lanthios, tu vas faire sentinelle toute la nuit,\ncouch\u00e9 dans ce lit moelleux, comme il est juste. \u00c9\u00f4s au thr\u00f4ne\nd'or ne t'\u00e9chappera pas quand elle sortira des flots d'Ok\u00e9anos, \u00e0\nl'heure o\u00f9 tu am\u00e8nes tes ch\u00e8vres aux pr\u00e9tendants pour pr\u00e9parer\nleur repas.\n\nEt ils le laiss\u00e8rent l\u00e0, cruellement attach\u00e9. Puis, s'\u00e9tant arm\u00e9s,\nils ferm\u00e8rent les portes brillantes, et, pleins de courage, ils\nretourn\u00e8rent aupr\u00e8s du sage et subtil Odysseus. Et ils \u00e9taient\nquatre sur le seuil, et dans la salle il y avait de nombreux et\nbraves guerriers. Et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, la fille de Zeus, approcha, ayant la\nfigure et la voix de Ment\u00f4r. Et Odysseus, joyeux de la voir, lui\ndit:\n\n-- Ment\u00f4r, \u00e9loigne de nous le danger et souviens-toi de ton cher\ncompagnon qui t'a combl\u00e9 de biens, car tu es de mon \u00e2ge.\n\nIl parla ainsi, pensant bien que c'\u00e9tait la protectrice Ath\u00e8n\u00e8. Et\nles pr\u00e9tendants, de leur c\u00f4t\u00e9, poussaient des cris mena\u00e7ants dans\nla salle, et, le premier, le Damastoride Ag\u00e9laos r\u00e9primanda\nAth\u00e8n\u00e8:\n\n-- Ment\u00f4r, qu'Odysseus ne te persuade pas de combattre les\npr\u00e9tendants, et de lui venir en aide. Je pense que notre volont\u00e9\ns'accomplira quand nous aurons tu\u00e9 le p\u00e8re et le fils. Tu seras\ntu\u00e9 avec eux, si tu songes \u00e0 les aider, et tu le payeras de ta\nt\u00eate. Quand nous aurons dompt\u00e9 vos fureurs avec l'airain, nous\nconfondrons tes richesses avec celles d'Odysseus, et nous ne\nlaisserons vivre dans tes demeures ni tes fils, ni tes filles, ni\nta femme v\u00e9n\u00e9rable!\n\nIl parla ainsi et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 s'en irrita davantage, et elle r\u00e9primanda\nOdysseus en paroles irrit\u00e9es:\n\n-- Odysseus, tu n'as plus ni la vigueur, ni le courage que tu\navais quand tu combattis neuf ans, chez les Troiens, pour H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8\naux bras blancs n\u00e9e d'un p\u00e8re divin. Tu as tu\u00e9, dans la rude\nm\u00eal\u00e9e, de nombreux guerriers, et c'est par tes conseils que la\nville aux larges rues de Priamos a \u00e9t\u00e9 prise. Pourquoi, maintenant\nque tu es revenu dans tes demeures, au milieu de tes richesses,\ncesses-tu d'\u00eatre brave en face des pr\u00e9tendants? Allons, cher!\ntiens-toi pr\u00e8s de moi; regarde-moi combattre, et vois si, contre\ntes ennemis, Ment\u00f4r Alkimide reconna\u00eet le bien que tu lui as fait!\n\nElle parla ainsi, mais elle ne lui donna pas encore la victoire,\nvoulant \u00e9prouver la force et le courage d'Odysseus et de son\nillustre fils; et ayant pris la forme d'une hirondelle, elle alla\nse poser en volant sur une poutre de la salle splendide.\n\nMais le Damastoride Ag\u00e9laos, Eurynomos, Amphim\u00e9d\u00f4n, D\u00e8moptol\u00e9mos,\nPeisandros Polyktoride et le brave Polybos excitaient les\npr\u00e9tendants. C'\u00e9taient les plus courageux de ceux qui vivaient\nencore et qui combattaient pour leur vie, car l'arc et les fl\u00e8ches\navaient dompt\u00e9 les autres. Et Ag\u00e9laos leur dit:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis, cet homme va retenir ses mains in\u00e9vitables. D\u00e9j\u00e0 Ment\u00f4r\nqui \u00e9tait venu prof\u00e9rant de vaines bravades les a laiss\u00e9s seuls\nsur le seuil de la porte. C'est pourquoi lancez tous ensemble vos\nlongues piques. Allons! lan\u00e7ons-en six d'abord. Si Zeus nous\naccorde de frapper Odysseus et nous donne cette gloire, nous\naurons peu de souci des autres, si celui-l\u00e0 tombe.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous lanc\u00e8rent leurs piques avec ardeur, comme\nil l'avait ordonn\u00e9; mais Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 les rendit inutiles; l'une frappa\nle seuil de la salle, l'autre la porte solide, et l'autre le mur.\nEt, apr\u00e8s qu'ils eurent \u00e9vit\u00e9 les piques des pr\u00e9tendants, le\npatient et divin Odysseus dit \u00e0 ses compagnons:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis, c'est \u00e0 moi maintenant et \u00e0 vous. Lan\u00e7ons nos piques\ndans la foule des pr\u00e9tendants, qui, en nous tuant, veulent mettre\nle comble aux maux qu'ils ont d\u00e9j\u00e0 caus\u00e9s.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous lanc\u00e8rent leurs piques aigu\u00ebs, Odysseus\ncontre D\u00e8moptol\u00e9mos, T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos contre Euryad\u00e8s, le porcher contre\n\u00c9latos et le bouvier contre Peisandros, et tous les quatre\nmordirent la terre, et les pr\u00e9tendants se r\u00e9fugi\u00e8rent dans le fond\nde la salle, et les vainqueurs se ru\u00e8rent en avant et arrach\u00e8rent\nleurs piques des cadavres.\n\nAlors les pr\u00e9tendants lanc\u00e8rent de nouveau leurs longues piques\navec une grande force; mais Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 les rendit inutiles; l'une\nfrappa le seuil, l'autre la porte solide, et l'autre le mur.\nAmphim\u00e9d\u00f4n effleura la main de T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, et la pointe d'airain\nenleva l'\u00e9piderme. Kt\u00e8sippos atteignit l'\u00e9paule d'Eumaios par-\ndessus le bouclier, mais la longue pique passa par-dessus et tomba\nsur la terre. Alors, autour du sage et subtil Odysseus, ils\nlanc\u00e8rent de nouveau leurs piques aigu\u00ebs dans la foule des\npr\u00e9tendants, et le destructeur de citadelles Odysseus per\u00e7a\nEurydamas; T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, Amphim\u00e9d\u00f4n; le porcher, Polybos; et le\nbouvier per\u00e7a Kt\u00e8sippos dans la poitrine et il lui dit en se\nglorifiant:\n\n-- \u00d4 Polytherside, ami des injures, il faut cesser de parler avec\narrogance et laisser faire les dieux, car ils sont les plus\npuissants. Voici le salaire du coup que tu as donn\u00e9 au divin\nOdysseus tandis qu'il mendiait dans sa demeure.\n\nLe gardien des boeufs aux pieds flexibles parla ainsi, et de sa\nlongue pique Odysseus per\u00e7a le Damastoride, et T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos frappa\nd'un coup de lance dans le ventre l'\u00c9ven\u00f4ride Lei\u00f4kritos. L'airain\nle traversa, et, tombant sur la face, il frappa la terre du front.\n\nAlors, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 tueuse d'hommes agita l'Aigide au fa\u00eete de la salle,\net les pr\u00e9tendants furent \u00e9pouvant\u00e9s, et ils se dispers\u00e8rent dans\nla salle comme un troupeau de boeufs que tourmente, au printemps,\nquand les jours sont longs, un taon aux couleurs vari\u00e9es. De m\u00eame\nque des vautours aux ongles et aux becs recourb\u00e9s, descendus des\nmontagnes, poursuivent les oiseaux effray\u00e9s qui se dispersent, de\nla plaine dans les nu\u00e9es, et les tuent sans qu'ils puissent se\nsauver par la fuite, tandis que les laboureurs s'en r\u00e9jouissent;\nde m\u00eame, Odysseus et ses compagnons se ruaient par la demeure sur\nles pr\u00e9tendants et les frappaient de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s; et un horrible\nbruit de g\u00e9missements et de coups s'\u00e9levait, et la terre\nruisselait de sang.\n\nEt L\u00e9i\u00f4d\u00e8s s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a, et, saisissant les genoux d'Odysseus, il le\nsupplia en paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Je te supplie, Odysseus! \u00c9coute, prends piti\u00e9 de moi! je te le\njure, jamais je n'ai, dans tes demeures, dit une parole\noutrageante aux femmes, ni commis une action inique, et j'arr\u00eatais\nles autres pr\u00e9tendants quand ils en voulaient commettre; mais ils\nne m'ob\u00e9issaient point et ne s'abstenaient point de violences, et\nc'est pourquoi ils ont subi une honteuse destin\u00e9e en expiation de\nleur folie. Mais moi, leur sacrificateur, qui n'ai rien fait,\nmourrai-je comme eux? Ainsi, \u00e0 l'avenir, les bonnes actions\nn'auront plus de r\u00e9compense!\n\nEt, le regardant d'un oeil sombre, le prudent Odysseus lui\nr\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Si, comme tu le dis, tu as \u00e9t\u00e9 leur sacrificateur, n'as-tu pas\nsouvent souhait\u00e9 que mon retour dans la patrie n'arriv\u00e2t jamais?\nN'as-tu pas souhait\u00e9 ma femme bien-aim\u00e9e et d\u00e9sir\u00e9 qu'elle\nenfant\u00e2t des fils de toi? C'est pourquoi tu n'\u00e9viteras pas la\nlugubre mort!\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il saisit \u00e0 terre, de sa main vigoureuse,\nl'\u00e9p\u00e9e qu'Ag\u00e9laos tu\u00e9 avait laiss\u00e9e tomber, et il frappa L\u00e9i\u00f4d\u00e8s\nau milieu du cou, et, comme celui-ci parlait encore, sa t\u00eate roula\ndans la poussi\u00e8re.\n\nEt l'aoide Terpiade Ph\u00e8mios \u00e9vita la noire k\u00e8r, car il chantait de\nforce au milieu des pr\u00e9tendants. Et il se tenait debout pr\u00e8s de la\nporte, tenant en main sa kithare sonore; et il h\u00e9sitait dans son\nesprit s'il sortirait de la demeure pour s'asseoir dans la cour\naupr\u00e8s de l'autel du grand Zeus, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 Laert\u00e8s et Odysseus avaient\nbr\u00fbl\u00e9 de nombreuses cuisses de boeufs, ou s'il supplierait\nOdysseus en se jetant \u00e0 ses genoux. Et il lui sembla meilleur\nd'embrasser les genoux du Laertiade Odysseus. C'est pourquoi il\nd\u00e9posa \u00e0 terre sa kithare creuse, entre le krat\u00e8re et le thr\u00f4ne\naux clous d'argent, et, s'\u00e9lan\u00e7ant vers Odysseus, il saisit ses\ngenoux et il le supplia en paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Je te supplie, Odysseus! \u00c9coute, et prends piti\u00e9 de moi! Une\ngrande douleur te saisirait plus tard, si tu tuais un aoide qui\nchante les dieux et les hommes. Je me suis instruit moi-m\u00eame, et\nun dieu a mis tous les chants dans mon esprit. Je veux te chanter\ntoi-m\u00eame comme un dieu, c'est pourquoi, ne m'\u00e9gorge donc pas.\nT\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, ton cher fils, te dira que ce n'a \u00e9t\u00e9 ni\nvolontairement, ni par besoin, que je suis venu dans ta demeure\npour y chanter apr\u00e8s le repas des pr\u00e9tendants. \u00c9tant nombreux et\nplus puissants, ils m'y ont amen\u00e9 de force.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et la force sacr\u00e9e de T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos l'entendit, et,\naussit\u00f4t, s'approchant de son p\u00e8re, il lui dit:\n\n-- Arr\u00eate; ne frappe point de l'airain un innocent. Nous sauverons\naussi le h\u00e9raut M\u00e9d\u00f4n, qui, depuis que j'\u00e9tais enfant, a toujours\npris soin de moi dans notre demeure, si toutefois Philoitios ne\nl'a point tu\u00e9, ou le porcher, ou s'il ne t'a point rencontr\u00e9\ntandis que tu te ruais dans la salle.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le prudent M\u00e9d\u00f4n l'entendit. \u00c9pouvant\u00e9, et\nfuyant la k\u00e8r noire, il s'\u00e9tait cach\u00e9 sous son thr\u00f4ne et s'\u00e9tait\nenvelopp\u00e9 de la peau r\u00e9cemment enlev\u00e9e d'un boeuf. Aussit\u00f4t, il se\nreleva; et, rejetant la peau du boeuf, et s'\u00e9lan\u00e7ant vers\nT\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, il saisit ses genoux et le supplia en paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- \u00d4 ami, je suis encore ici. Arr\u00eate! Dis \u00e0 ton p\u00e8re qu'il\nn'accable point ma faiblesse de sa force et de l'airain aigu,\n\u00e9tant encore irrit\u00e9 contre les pr\u00e9tendants qui ont d\u00e9vor\u00e9 ses\nrichesses dans ses demeures et qui t'ont m\u00e9pris\u00e9 comme des\ninsens\u00e9s.\n\nEt le sage Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit en souriant:\n\n-- Prends courage, puisque d\u00e9j\u00e0 T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos t'a sauv\u00e9, afin que tu\nsaches dans ton \u00e2me et que tu dises aux autres qu'il vaut mieux\nfaire le bien que le mal. Mais sortez tous deux de la maison et\nasseyez-vous dans la cour, loin du carnage, toi et l'illustre\naoide, tandis que j'ach\u00e8verai de faire ici ce qu'il faut.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous deux sortirent de la maison, et ils\ns'assirent aupr\u00e8s de l'autel du grand Zeus, regardant de tous\nc\u00f4t\u00e9s et attendant un nouveau carnage.\n\nAlors, Odysseus examina toute la salle, afin de voir si quelqu'un\ndes pr\u00e9tendants vivait encore et avait \u00e9vit\u00e9 la noire k\u00e8r. Mais il\nles vit tous \u00e9tendus dans le sang et dans la poussi\u00e8re, comme des\npoissons que des p\u00eacheurs ont retir\u00e9s dans un filet de la c\u00f4te\n\u00e9cumeuse de la mer profonde. Tous sont r\u00e9pandus sur le sable,\nregrettant les eaux de la mer, et H\u00e8lios Pha\u00e9th\u00f4n leur arrache\nl'\u00e2me. Ainsi les pr\u00e9tendants \u00e9taient r\u00e9pandus, les uns sur les\nautres.\n\nEt le prudent Odysseus dit \u00e0 T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos:\n\n-- T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, h\u00e2te-toi, appelle la nourrice Eurykl\u00e9ia, afin que\nje lui dise ce que j'ai dans l'\u00e2me.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos ob\u00e9it \u00e0 son cher p\u00e8re, et, ayant\nouvert la porte, il appela la nourrice Eurykl\u00e9ia:\n\n-- Viens, \u00f4 vieille femme n\u00e9e autrefois, toi qui surveilles les\nservantes dans nos demeures, viens en h\u00e2te. Mon p\u00e8re t'appelle\npour te dire quelque chose.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et ses paroles ne furent point vaines. Eurykl\u00e9ia\nouvrit les portes de la grande demeure, et se h\u00e2ta de suivre\nT\u00e8l\u00e9makhos qui la pr\u00e9c\u00e9dait. Et elle trouva Odysseus au milieu des\ncadavres, souill\u00e9 de sang et de poussi\u00e8re, comme un lion sorti, la\nnuit, de l'enclos, apr\u00e8s avoir mang\u00e9 un boeuf, et dont la poitrine\net les m\u00e2choires sont ensanglant\u00e9es, et dont l'aspect est\nterrible. Ainsi Odysseus avait les pieds et les mains souill\u00e9s. Et\nd\u00e8s qu'Eurykl\u00e9ia eut vu ces cadavres et ces flots de sang, elle\ncommen\u00e7a \u00e0 hurler de joie, parce qu'elle vit qu'une grande oeuvre\n\u00e9tait accomplie. Mais Odysseus la contint et lui dit ces paroles\nail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Vieille femme, r\u00e9jouis-toi dans ton \u00e2me et ne hurle pas. Il\nn'est point permis d'insulter des hommes morts. La moire des dieux\net leurs actions impies ont dompt\u00e9 ceux-ci. Ils n'honoraient aucun\nde ceux qui venaient \u00e0 eux, parmi les hommes terrestres, ni le\nbon, ni le mauvais. C'est pourquoi ils ont subi une mort honteuse,\n\u00e0 cause de leurs violences. Mais, allons! indique-moi les femmes\nqui sont dans cette demeure, celles qui m'ont outrag\u00e9 et celles\nqui n'ont point failli.\n\nEt la ch\u00e8re nourrice Eurykl\u00e9ia lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Mon enfant, je te dirai la v\u00e9rit\u00e9. Tu as dans tes demeures\ncinquante femmes que nous avons instruites aux travaux, \u00e0 tendre\nles laines et \u00e0 supporter la servitude. Douze d'entre elles se\nsont livr\u00e9es \u00e0 l'impudicit\u00e9. Elles ne m'honorent point, ni\nP\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia elle-m\u00eame. Quant \u00e0 T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, qui, il y a peu de\ntemps, \u00e9tait encore enfant, sa m\u00e8re ne lui a point permis de\ncommander aux femmes. Mais je vais monter dans la haute chambre\nsplendide et tout dire \u00e0 P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia, \u00e0 qui un dieu a envoy\u00e9 le\nsommeil.\n\nEt le prudent Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ne l'\u00e9veille pas encore. Ordonne aux femmes de venir ici, et\nd'abord celles qui ont commis de mauvaises actions.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et la vieille femme sortit de la salle pour\navertir les femmes et les presser de venir. Et Odysseus, ayant\nappel\u00e9 \u00e0 lui T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, le bouvier et le porcher, leur dit ces\nparoles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Commencez \u00e0 emporter les cadavres et donnez des ordres aux\nfemmes. Puis, avec de l'eau et des \u00e9ponges poreuses purifiez les\nbeaux thr\u00f4nes et les tables. Apr\u00e8s que vous aurez tout rang\u00e9 dans\nla salle, conduisez les femmes, hors de la demeure, entre le d\u00f4me\net le mur de la cour, et frappez-les de vos longues \u00e9p\u00e9es aigu\u00ebs,\njusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'elles aient toutes rendu l'\u00e2me et oubli\u00e9 Aphrodit\u00e8\nqu'elles go\u00fbtaient en secret, en se livrant en secret aux\npr\u00e9tendants.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et toutes les femmes arriv\u00e8rent en g\u00e9missant\nlamentablement et en versant des larmes. D'abord, s'aidant les\nunes les autres, elles emport\u00e8rent les cadavres, qu'elles\nd\u00e9pos\u00e8rent sous le portique de la cour. Et Odysseus leur\ncommandait, et les pressait, et les for\u00e7ait d'ob\u00e9ir. Puis, elles\npurifi\u00e8rent les beaux thr\u00f4nes et les tables avec de l'eau et des\n\u00e9ponges poreuses. Et T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, le bouvier et le porcher\nnettoyaient avec des balais le pav\u00e9 de la salle, et les servantes\nemportaient les souillures et les d\u00e9posaient hors des portes.\nPuis, ayant tout rang\u00e9 dans la salle, ils conduisirent les\nservantes, hors de la demeure, entre le d\u00f4me et le mur de la cour,\nles renfermant dans ce lieu \u00e9troit d'o\u00f9 on ne pouvait s'enfuir.\nEt, alors, le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos parla ainsi le premier:\n\n-- Je n'arracherai point, par une mort non honteuse, l'\u00e2me de ces\nfemmes qui r\u00e9pandaient l'opprobre sur ma t\u00eate et sur celle de ma\nm\u00e8re et qui couchaient avec les pr\u00e9tendants.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il suspendit le c\u00e2ble d'une nef noire au sommet\nd'une colonne, et il le tendit autour du d\u00f4me, de fa\u00e7on \u00e0 ce\nqu'aucune d'entre elles ne touch\u00e2t des pieds la terre. De m\u00eame que\nles grives aux ailes ploy\u00e9es et les colombes se prennent dans un\nfilet, au milieu des buissons de l'enclos o\u00f9 elles sont entr\u00e9es,\net y trouvent un lit funeste; de m\u00eame ces femmes avaient le cou\nserr\u00e9 dans des lacets, afin de mourir mis\u00e9rablement, et leurs\npieds ne s'agit\u00e8rent point longtemps.\n\nPuis, ils emmen\u00e8rent M\u00e9lanthios, par le portique, dans la cour.\nEt, l\u00e0, ils lui coup\u00e8rent, avec l'airain, les narines et les\noreilles, et ils lui arrach\u00e8rent les parties viriles, qu'ils\njet\u00e8rent \u00e0 manger toutes sanglantes aux chiens; et, avec la m\u00eame\nfureur, ils lui coup\u00e8rent les pieds et les mains, et, leur t\u00e2che\n\u00e9tant accomplie, ils rentr\u00e8rent dans la demeure d'Odysseus. Et,\nalors, celui-ci dit \u00e0 la ch\u00e8re nourrice Eurykl\u00e9ia:\n\n-- Vieille femme, apporte-moi du soufre qui gu\u00e9rit les maux, et\napporte aussi du feu, afin que je purifie la maison. Ordonne \u00e0\nP\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia de venir ici avec ses servantes. Que toutes les\nservantes viennent ici.\n\nEt la ch\u00e8re nourrice Eurykl\u00e9ia lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Certes, mon enfant, tu as bien parl\u00e9; mais je vais t'apporter\ndes v\u00eatements, un manteau et une tunique. Ne reste pas dans tes\ndemeures, tes larges \u00e9paules ainsi couvertes de haillons, car ce\nserait honteux.\n\nEt le prudent Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Apporte d'abord du feu dans cette salle.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et la ch\u00e8re nourrice Eurykl\u00e9ia lui ob\u00e9it. Elle\napporta du feu et du soufre, et Odysseus purifia la maison, la\nsalle et la cour. Puis, la vieille femme remonta dans les belles\ndemeures d'Odysseus pour appeler les femmes et les presser de\nvenir. Et elles entr\u00e8rent dans la salle ayant des torches en\nmains. Et elles entouraient et saluaient Odysseus, prenant ses\nmains et baisant sa t\u00eate et ses \u00e9paules. Et il fut saisi du d\u00e9sir\nde pleurer, car, dans son \u00e2me, il les reconnut toutes.\n\n\n23.\n\nEt la vieille femme, montant dans la chambre haute, pour dire \u00e0 sa\nma\u00eetresse que son cher mari \u00e9tait revenu, \u00e9tait pleine de joie, et\nses genoux \u00e9taient fermes, et ses pieds se mouvaient rapidement.\nEt elle se pencha sur la t\u00eate de sa ma\u00eetresse, et elle lui dit:\n\n-- L\u00e8ve-toi, P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia, ch\u00e8re enfant, afin de voir de tes yeux ce\nque tu d\u00e9sires tous les jours. Odysseus est revenu; il est rentr\u00e9\ndans sa demeure, bien que tardivement, et il a tu\u00e9 les pr\u00e9tendants\ninsolents qui ruinaient sa maison, mangeaient ses richesses et\nviolentaient son fils.\n\nEt la prudente P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ch\u00e8re nourrice, les dieux t'ont rendue insens\u00e9e, eux qui\npeuvent troubler l'esprit du plus sage et rendre sage le plus\ninsens\u00e9. Ils ont troubl\u00e9 ton esprit qui, auparavant, \u00e9tait plein\nde prudence. Pourquoi railles-tu mon coeur d\u00e9j\u00e0 si afflig\u00e9, en\ndisant de telles choses? Pourquoi m'arraches-tu au doux sommeil\nqui m'enveloppait, fermant mes yeux sous mes ch\u00e8res paupi\u00e8res? Je\nn'avais jamais tant dormi depuis le jour o\u00f9 Odysseus est parti\npour cette Ilios fatale qu'on ne devrait plus nommer. Va!\nredescends. Si quelque autre de mes femmes \u00e9tait venue m'annoncer\ncette nouvelle et m'arracher au sommeil, je l'aurais aussit\u00f4t\nhonteusement chass\u00e9e dans les demeures; mais ta vieillesse te\ngarantit de cela.\n\nEt la ch\u00e8re nourrice Eurykl\u00e9ia lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Je ne me raille point de toi, ch\u00e8re enfant; il est vrai\nqu'Odysseus est revenu et qu'il est rentr\u00e9 dans sa maison, comme\nje te l'ai dit. C'est l'\u00e9tranger que tous outrageaient dans cette\ndemeure. T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos le savait d\u00e9j\u00e0, mais il cachait par prudence\nles desseins de son p\u00e8re, afin qu'il ch\u00e2ti\u00e2t les violences de ces\nhommes insolents.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia, joyeuse, sauta de son lit,\nembrassa la vieille femme, et, versant des larmes sous ses\npaupi\u00e8res, lui dit ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Ah! si tu m'as dit la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, ch\u00e8re nourrice, et si Odysseus\nest rentr\u00e9 dans sa demeure, comment, \u00e9tant seul, a-t-il pu mettre\nla main sur les pr\u00e9tendants insolents qui se r\u00e9unissaient toujours\nici?\n\nEt la ch\u00e8re nourrice Eurykl\u00e9ia lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Je n'ai rien vu, je n'ai rien entendu, si ce n'est les\ng\u00e9missements des hommes \u00e9gorg\u00e9s. Nous \u00e9tions assises au fond des\nchambres, et les portes solides nous retenaient, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que\nton fils T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos m'appel\u00e2t, car son p\u00e8re l'avait envoy\u00e9\nm'appeler. Je trouvai ensuite Odysseus debout au milieu des\ncadavres qui gisaient amoncel\u00e9s sur le pav\u00e9; et tu te serais\nr\u00e9jouie dans ton \u00e2me de le voir souill\u00e9 de sang et de poussi\u00e8re,\ncomme un lion. Maintenant, ils sont tous entass\u00e9s sous les\nportiques, et Odysseus purifie la belle salle, \u00e0 l'aide d'un grand\nfeu allum\u00e9; et il m'a envoy\u00e9e t'appeler. Suis-moi, afin que vous\ncharmiez tous deux vos chers coeurs par la joie, car vous avez\nsubi beaucoup de maux. Maintenant, vos longs d\u00e9sirs sont\naccomplis. Odysseus est revenu dans sa demeure, il vous a\nretrouv\u00e9s, toi et ton fils; et les pr\u00e9tendants qui l'avaient\noutrag\u00e9, il les a tous punis dans ses demeures.\n\nEt la prudente P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ch\u00e8re nourrice, ne te glorifie pas en te raillant? Tu sais\ncombien il nous comblerait tous de joie en reparaissant ici, moi\nsurtout et le fils que nous avons engendr\u00e9; mais les paroles que\ntu as dites ne sont point vraies. L'un d'entre les immortels a tu\u00e9\nles pr\u00e9tendants insolents, irrit\u00e9 de leur violente insolence et de\nleurs actions iniques; car ils n'honoraient aucun des hommes\nterrestres, ni le bon, ni le m\u00e9chant, de tous ceux qui venaient\nvers eux. C'est pourquoi ils ont subi leur destin\u00e9e fatale, \u00e0\ncause de leurs iniquit\u00e9s; mais, loin de l'Akhai\u00e8, Odysseus a perdu\nl'espoir de retour, et il est mort.\n\nEt la ch\u00e8re nourrice Eurykl\u00e9ia lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Mon enfant, quelle parole s'est \u00e9chapp\u00e9e d'entre tes dents?\nQuand ton mari, que tu pensais ne jamais revoir \u00e0 son foyer, est\nrevenu dans sa demeure, ton esprit est toujours incr\u00e9dule? Mais,\n\u00e9coute; je te r\u00e9v\u00e9lerai un signe tr\u00e8s manifeste: j'ai reconnu,\ntandis que je le lavais; la cicatrice de cette blessure qu'un\nsanglier lui fit autrefois de ses blanches dents. Je voulais te le\ndire, mais il m'a ferm\u00e9 la bouche avec les mains, et il ne m'a\npoint permis de parler, dans un esprit prudent. Suis-moi, je me\nlivrerai \u00e0 toi, si je t'ai tromp\u00e9e, et tu me tueras d'une mort\nhonteuse.\n\nEt la prudente P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Ch\u00e8re nourrice, bien que tu saches beaucoup de choses, il t'est\ndifficile de comprendre les desseins des dieux non engendr\u00e9s. Mais\nallons vers mon fils, afin que je voie les pr\u00e9tendants morts et\ncelui qui les a tu\u00e9s.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, elle descendit de la chambre haute, h\u00e9sitant\ndans son coeur si elle interrogerait de loin son cher mari, ou si\nelle baiserait aussit\u00f4t sa t\u00eate et ses mains. Apr\u00e8s \u00eatre entr\u00e9e et\navoir pass\u00e9 le seuil de pierre, elle s'assit en face d'Odysseus,\npr\u00e8s de l'autre mur, dans la clart\u00e9 du feu. Et Odysseus \u00e9tait\nassis pr\u00e8s d'une haute colonne, et il regardait ailleurs,\nattendant que son illustre femme, l'ayant vu, lui parl\u00e2t. Mais\nelle resta longtemps muette, et la stupeur saisit son coeur. Et\nplus elle le regardait attentivement, moins elle le reconnaissait\nsous ses v\u00eatements en haillons.\n\nAlors T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos la r\u00e9primanda et lui dit:\n\n-- Ma m\u00e8re, malheureuse m\u00e8re au coeur cruel! Pourquoi restes-tu\nainsi loin de mon p\u00e8re? Pourquoi ne t'assieds-tu point aupr\u00e8s de\nlui afin de lui parler et de l'interroger? Il n'est aucune autre\nfemme qui puisse, avec un coeur in\u00e9branlable, rester ainsi loin\nd'un mari qui, apr\u00e8s avoir subi tant de maux, revient dans la\nvingti\u00e8me ann\u00e9e sur la terre de la patrie. Ton coeur est plus dur\nque la pierre.\n\nEt la prudente P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Mon enfant, mon \u00e2me est stup\u00e9faite dans ma poitrine, et je ne\npuis ni parler, ni interroger, ni regarder son visage. Mais s'il\nest vraiment Odysseus, revenu dans sa demeure, certes, nous nous\nreconna\u00eetrons mieux entre nous. Nous avons des signes que tous\nignorent et que nous connaissons seuls.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et le patient et divin Odysseus sourit, et il\ndit aussit\u00f4t \u00e0 T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, laisse ta m\u00e8re m'\u00e9prouver dans nos demeures, peut-\n\u00eatre alors me reconna\u00eetra-t-elle mieux. Maintenant, parce que je\nsuis souill\u00e9 et couvert de haillons, elle me m\u00e9prise et me\nm\u00e9conna\u00eet. Mais d\u00e9lib\u00e9rons, afin d'agir pour le mieux. Si\nquelqu'un, parmi le peuple, a tu\u00e9 m\u00eame un homme qui n'a point de\nnombreux vengeurs, il fuit, abandonnant ses parents et sa patrie.\nOr, nous avons tu\u00e9 l'\u00e9lite de la ville, les plus illustres des\njeunes hommes d'Ithak\u00e8. C'est pourquoi je t'ordonne de r\u00e9fl\u00e9chir\nsur cela.\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- D\u00e9cide toi-m\u00eame, cher p\u00e8re. On dit que tu es le plus sage des\nhommes et qu'aucun des hommes mortels ne peut lutter en sagesse\ncontre toi. Nous t'ob\u00e9irons avec joie, et je ne pense pas manquer\nde courage, tant que je conserverai mes forces.\n\nEt le patient Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Je te dirai donc ce qui me semble pour le mieux. Lavez-vous\nd'abord et prenez des v\u00eatements propres, et ordonnez aux servantes\nde prendre d'autres v\u00eatements dans les demeures. Puis le divin\naoide, tenant sa kithare sonore, nous entra\u00eenera \u00e0 la danse\njoyeuse, afin que chacun, \u00e9coutant du dehors ou passant par le\nchemin, pense qu'on c\u00e9l\u00e8bre ici des noces. Il ne faut pas que le\nbruit du meurtre des pr\u00e9tendants se r\u00e9pande par la ville, avant\nque nous ayons gagn\u00e9 nos champs plant\u00e9s d'arbres. L\u00e0, nous\nd\u00e9lib\u00e9rerons ensuite sur ce que l'olympien nous inspirera d'utile.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous, l'ayant entendu, ob\u00e9irent. Ils se\nlav\u00e8rent d'abord et prirent des v\u00eatements propres; et les femmes\nse par\u00e8rent, et le divin aoide fit vibrer sa kithare sonore et\nleur inspira le d\u00e9sir du doux chant et de la danse joyeuse, et la\ngrande demeure r\u00e9sonna sous les pieds des hommes qui dansaient et\ndes femmes aux belles ceintures. Et chacun disait, les entendant,\nhors des demeures:\n\n-- Certes, quelqu'un \u00e9pouse la reine recherch\u00e9e par tant de\npr\u00e9tendants. La malheureuse! Elle n'a pu rester dans la grande\ndemeure de son premier mari jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'il revint.\n\nChacun parlait ainsi, ne sachant pas ce qui avait \u00e9t\u00e9 fait. Et\nl'intendante Eurynom\u00e8 lava le magnanime Odysseus dans sa demeure\net le parfuma d'huile; puis elle le couvrit d'un manteau et d'une\ntunique. Et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 r\u00e9pandit la beaut\u00e9 sur sa t\u00eate, afin qu'il\npar\u00fbt plus grand et plus majestueux, et elle fit tomber de sa t\u00eate\ndes cheveux semblables aux fleurs d'hyacinthe. Et, de m\u00eame qu'un\nhabile ouvrier, que H\u00e8phaistos et Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 ont instruit, m\u00eale\nl'or \u00e0 l'argent et accomplit avec art des travaux charmants, de\nm\u00eame Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 r\u00e9pandit la gr\u00e2ce sur la t\u00eate et sur les \u00e9paules\nd'Odysseus, et il sortit du bain, semblable par la beaut\u00e9 aux\nimmortels, et il s'assit de nouveau sur le thr\u00f4ne qu'il avait\nquitt\u00e9, et, se tournant vers sa femme, il lui dit:\n\n-- Malheureuse! Parmi toutes les autres femmes, les dieux qui ont\ndes demeures Olympiennes t'ont donn\u00e9 un coeur dur. Aucune autre\nfemme ne resterait aussi longtemps loin d'un mari qui, apr\u00e8s avoir\ntant souffert, revient, dans la vingti\u00e8me ann\u00e9e, sur la terre de\nla patrie. Allons, nourrice, \u00e9tends mon lit, afin que je dorme,\ncar, assur\u00e9ment, cette femme a un coeur de fer dans sa poitrine!\n\nEt la prudente P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Malheureux! je ne te glorifie, ni ne te m\u00e9prise mais je ne te\nreconnais point encore, me souvenant trop de ce que tu \u00e9tais quand\ntu partis d'Ithak\u00e8 sur ta nef aux longs avirons. Va, Eurykl\u00e9ia,\n\u00e9tends, hors de la chambre nuptiale, le lit compact qu'Odysseus a\nconstruit lui-m\u00eame, et jette sur le lit dress\u00e9 des tapis, des\npeaux et des couvertures splendides.\n\nElle parla ainsi, \u00e9prouvant son mari; mais Odysseus, irrit\u00e9, dit \u00e0\nsa femme dou\u00e9e de prudence:\n\n-- \u00d4 femme! quelle triste parole as-tu dite? Qui donc a transport\u00e9\nmon lit? Aucun homme vivant, m\u00eame plein de jeunesse, n'a pu, \u00e0\nmoins qu'un dieu lui soit venu en aide, le transporter, et m\u00eame le\nmouvoir ais\u00e9ment. Et le travail de ce lit est un signe certain,\ncar je l'ai fait moi-m\u00eame, sans aucun autre. Il y avait, dans\nl'enclos de la cour, un olivier au large feuillage, verdoyant et\nplus \u00e9pais qu'une colonne. Tout autour, je b\u00e2tis ma chambre\nnuptiale avec de lourdes pierres; je mis un toit par-dessus, et je\nla fermai de portes solides et compactes. Puis, je coupai les\nrameaux feuillus et pendants de l'olivier, et je tranchai au-\ndessus des racines le tronc de l'olivier, et je le polis\nsoigneusement avec l'airain, et m'aidant du cordeau. Et, l'ayant\ntrou\u00e9 avec une tari\u00e8re, j'en fis la base du lit que je construisis\nau-dessus et que j'ornai d'or, d'argent et d'ivoire, et je tendis\nau fond la peau pourpr\u00e9e et splendide d'un boeuf. Je te donne ce\nsigne certain; mais je ne sais, \u00f4 femme, si mon lit est toujours\nau m\u00eame endroit, ou si quelqu'un l'a transport\u00e9, apr\u00e8s avoir\ntranch\u00e9 le tronc de l'olivier, au-dessus des racines.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et le cher coeur et les genoux de P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia\nd\u00e9faillirent tandis qu'elle reconnaissait les signes certains que\nlui r\u00e9v\u00e9lait Odysseus. Et elle pleura quand il eut d\u00e9crit les\nchoses comme elles \u00e9taient; et jetant ses bras au cou d'Odysseus,\nelle baisa sa t\u00eate et lui dit:\n\n-- Ne t'irrite point contre moi, Odysseus, toi, le plus prudent\ndes hommes! Les dieux nous ont accabl\u00e9s de maux; ils nous ont\nenvi\u00e9 la joie de jouir ensemble de notre jeunesse et de parvenir\nensemble au seuil de la vieillesse. Mais ne t'irrite point contre\nmoi et ne me bl\u00e2me point de ce que, d\u00e8s que je t'ai vu, je ne t'ai\npoint embrass\u00e9. Mon \u00e2me, dans ma ch\u00e8re poitrine, tremblait qu'un\nhomme, venu ici, me tromp\u00e2t par ses paroles; car beaucoup m\u00e9ditent\ndes ruses mauvaises. L'Argienne H\u00e9l\u00e9n\u00e8, fille de Zeus, ne se f\u00fbt\npoint unie d'amour \u00e0 un \u00e9tranger, si elle e\u00fbt su que les braves\nfils des Akhaiens dussent un jour la ramener en sa demeure, dans\nla ch\u00e8re terre de la patrie. Mais un dieu la poussa \u00e0 cette action\nhonteuse, et elle ne chassa point de son coeur cette pens\u00e9e\nfuneste et terrible qui a \u00e9t\u00e9 la premi\u00e8re cause de son malheur et\ndu n\u00f4tre. Maintenant tu m\u0092as r\u00e9v\u00e9l\u00e9 les signes certains de notre\nlit, qu'aucun homme n'a jamais vu. Nous seuls l'avons vu, toi, moi\net ma servante Aktoris que me donna mon p\u00e8re quand je vins ici et\nqui gardait les portes de notre chambre nuptiale. Enfin, tu as\npersuad\u00e9 mon coeur, bien qu'il f\u00fbt plein de m\u00e9fiance.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et le d\u00e9sir de pleurer saisit Odysseus, et il\npleurait en serrant dans ses bras sa ch\u00e8re femme si prudente.\n\nDe m\u00eame que la terre appara\u00eet heureusement aux nageurs dont\nPoseida\u00f4n a perdu dans la mer la nef bien construite, tandis\nqu'elle \u00e9tait battue par le vent et par l'eau noire; et peu ont\n\u00e9chapp\u00e9 \u00e0 la mer \u00e9cumeuse, et, le corps souill\u00e9 d'\u00e9cume, ils\nmontent joyeux sur la c\u00f4te, ayant \u00e9vit\u00e9 la mort; de m\u00eame la vue de\nson mari \u00e9tait douce \u00e0 P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia qui ne pouvait d\u00e9tacher ses bras\nblancs du cou d'Odysseus. Et \u00c9\u00f4s aux doigts ros\u00e9s e\u00fbt reparu,\ntandis qu'ils pleuraient, si la d\u00e9esse Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs\nn'avait eu une autre pens\u00e9e.\n\nElle retint la longue nuit sur l'horizon et elle garda dans\nl'Ok\u00e9anos \u00c9\u00f4s au thr\u00f4ne d'or, et elle ne lui permit pas de mettre\nsous le joug ses chevaux rapides qui portent la lumi\u00e8re aux\nhommes, Lampos et Pha\u00e9th\u00f4n qui am\u00e8nent \u00c9\u00f4s. Alors, le prudent\nOdysseus dit \u00e0 sa femme:\n\n-- \u00d4 femme, nous n'en avons pas fini avec toutes nos \u00e9preuves,\nmais un grand et difficile travail me reste qu'il me faut\naccomplir, ainsi que me l'a appris l'\u00e2me de Teir\u00e9sias le jour o\u00f9\nje descendis dans la demeure d'Aid\u00e8s pour l'interroger sur mon\nretour et sur celui de mes compagnons. Mais viens, allons vers\nnotre lit, \u00f4 femme, et go\u00fbtons ensemble le doux sommeil.\n\nEt la prudente P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Nous irons bient\u00f4t vers notre lit, puisque tu le d\u00e9sires dans\nton \u00e2me, et puisque les dieux t'ont laiss\u00e9 revenir vers ta demeure\nbien b\u00e2tie et dans la terre de ta patrie. Mais puisque tu le sais\net qu'un dieu te l'a appris, dis-moi quelle sera cette derni\u00e8re\n\u00e9preuve. Je la conna\u00eetrais toujours plus tard, et rien n'emp\u00eache\nque je la sache maintenant.\n\nEt le prudent Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Malheureuse! pourquoi, en me priant ardemment, me forces-tu de\nparler? Mais je te dirai tout et ne te cacherai rien. Ton \u00e2me ne\nse r\u00e9jouira pas, et moi-m\u00eame je ne me r\u00e9jouirai pas, car il m'a\nordonn\u00e9 de parcourir encore de nombreuses villes des hommes,\nportant un aviron l\u00e9ger, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que je rencontre des hommes\nqui ne connaissent point la mer, et qui ne salent point ce qu'ils\nmangent, et qui ignorent les nefs aux proues rouges et les avirons\nqui sont les ailes des nefs. Et il m'a r\u00e9v\u00e9l\u00e9 un signe certain que\nje ne te cacherai point. Quand j'aurai rencontr\u00e9 un autre voyageur\nqui croira voir un fl\u00e9au sur ma brillante \u00e9paule, alors je devrai\nplanter l'aviron en terre et faire de saintes offrandes au roi\nPoseida\u00f4n, un b\u00e9lier, un taureau et un verrat. Et il m'a ordonn\u00e9,\nrevenu dans ma demeure, de faire de saintes offrandes aux dieux\nimmortels qui habitent le large Ouranos. Et une douce mort me\nviendra de la mer et me tuera dans une heureuse vieillesse, tandis\nqu'autour de moi les peuples seront heureux. Et il m'a dit ces\nchoses qui seront accomplies.\n\nEt la prudente P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Si les dieux te r\u00e9servent une vieillesse heureuse, tu as\nl'espoir d'\u00e9chapper \u00e0 ces maux.\n\nEt tandis qu'ils se parlaient ainsi, Eurynom\u00e8 et la nourrice\npr\u00e9paraient, \u00e0 la splendeur des torches, le lit fait de v\u00eatements\nmoelleux. Et, apr\u00e8s qu'elles eurent dress\u00e9 \u00e0 la h\u00e2te le lit \u00e9pais,\nla vieille femme rentra pour dormir, et Eurynom\u00e8, tenant une\ntorche \u00e0 la main, les pr\u00e9c\u00e9dait, tandis qu'ils allaient vers le\nlit. Et les ayant conduits dans la chambre nuptiale, elle se\nretira, et joyeux, ils se couch\u00e8rent dans leur ancien lit. Et\nalors, T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, le bouvier, le porcher et les femmes cess\u00e8rent\nde danser, et tous all\u00e8rent dormir dans les demeures sombres.\n\nEt apr\u00e8s qu'Odysseus et P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia se furent charm\u00e9s par l'amour,\nils se charm\u00e8rent encore par leurs paroles. Et la noble femme dit\nce qu'elle avait souffert dans ses demeures au milieu de la\nmultitude funeste des pr\u00e9tendants qui, \u00e0 cause d'elle, \u00e9gorgeaient\nses boeufs et ses grasses brebis, et buvaient tout le vin des\ntonneaux.\n\nEt le divin Odysseus dit les maux qu'il avait faits aux hommes et\nceux qu'il avait subis lui-m\u00eame. Et il dit tout, et elle se\nr\u00e9jouissait de l'entendre, et le sommeil n'approcha point de ses\npaupi\u00e8res avant qu'il e\u00fbt achev\u00e9.\n\nIl dit d'abord comment il avait dompt\u00e9 les Kik\u00f4nes, puis comment\nil \u00e9tait arriv\u00e9 dans la terre fertile des hommes l\u00f4tophages. Et il\ndit ce qu'avait fait le kykl\u00f4ps, et comment il l'avait ch\u00e2ti\u00e9\nd'avoir mang\u00e9 sans piti\u00e9 ses braves compagnons; et comment il\n\u00e9tait venu chez Aiolos qui l'avait accueilli et renvoy\u00e9 avec\nbienveillance, et comment la destin\u00e9e ne lui permit pas de revoir\nencore la ch\u00e8re terre de la patrie, et la temp\u00eate qui, de nouveau,\nl'avait emport\u00e9, g\u00e9missant, sur la mer poissonneuse.\n\nEt il dit comment il avait abord\u00e9 la Laistrygoni\u00e8 T\u00e8l\u00e8pyle o\u00f9\navaient p\u00e9ri ses nefs et tous ses compagnons, et d'o\u00f9 lui seul\ns'\u00e9tait sauv\u00e9 sur sa nef noire. Puis, il raconta les ruses de\nKirk\u00e8, et comment il \u00e9tait all\u00e9 dans la vaste demeure d'Aid\u00e8s,\nafin d'interroger l'\u00e2me du Th\u00e9bain Teir\u00e9sias, et o\u00f9 il avait vu\ntous ses compagnons et la m\u00e8re qui l'avait con\u00e7u et nourri tout\nenfant.\n\nEt il dit comment il avait entendu la voix des Seir\u00e8nes\nharmonieuses, et comment il avait abord\u00e9 les roches errantes,\nl'horrible Kharybdis et Skill\u00e8, que les hommes ne peuvent fuir\nsains et saufs; et comment ses compagnons avaient tu\u00e9 les boeufs\nde H\u00e8lios, et comment Zeus qui tonne dans les hauteurs avait\nfrapp\u00e9 sa nef rapide de la blanche foudre et ab\u00eem\u00e9 tous ses braves\ncompagnons, tandis que lui seul \u00e9vitait les k\u00e8res mauvaises.\n\nEt il raconta comment il avait abord\u00e9 l'\u00eele Ogygi\u00e8, o\u00f9 la Nymphe\nKalyps\u00f4 l'avait retenu dans ses grottes creuses, le d\u00e9sirant pour\nmari, et l'avait aim\u00e9, lui promettant qu'elle le rendrait immortel\net le mettrait \u00e0 l'abri de la vieillesse; et comment elle n'avait\npu fl\u00e9chir son \u00e2me dans sa poitrine.\n\nEt il dit comment il avait abord\u00e9 chez les Phaiakiens, apr\u00e8s avoir\nbeaucoup souffert; et comment, l'ayant honor\u00e9 comme un dieu, ils\nl'avaient reconduit sur une nef dans la ch\u00e8re terre de la patrie,\napr\u00e8s lui avoir donn\u00e9 de l'or, de l'airain et de nombreux\nv\u00eatements. Et quand il eut tout dit, le doux sommeil enveloppa ses\nmembres et apaisa les inqui\u00e9tudes de son \u00e2me.\n\nAlors, la d\u00e9esse aux yeux clairs, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, eut d'autres pens\u00e9es;\net, quand elle pensa qu'Odysseus s'\u00e9tait assez charm\u00e9 par l'amour\net par le sommeil, elle fit sortir de l'Ok\u00e9anos la fille au thr\u00f4ne\nd'or du matin, afin qu'elle apport\u00e2t la lumi\u00e8re aux hommes. Et\nOdysseus se leva de son lit moelleux, et il dit \u00e0 sa femme:\n\n-- \u00d4 femme, nous sommes tous deux rassasi\u00e9s d'\u00e9preuves, toi en\npleurant ici sur mon retour difficile, et moi en subissant les\nmaux que m'ont faits Zeus et les autres dieux qui m'ont si\nlongtemps retenu loin de la terre de la patrie. Maintenant,\npuisque, tous deux, nous avons retrouv\u00e9 ce lit d\u00e9sir\u00e9, il faut que\nje prenne soin de nos richesses dans notre demeure. Pour remplacer\nles troupeaux que les pr\u00e9tendants insolents ont d\u00e9vor\u00e9s, j'irai\nmoi-m\u00eame en enlever de nombreux, et les Akhaiens nous en donneront\nd'autres, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que les \u00e9tables soient pleines. Mais je pars\npour mes champs plant\u00e9s d'arbres, afin de voir mon p\u00e8re illustre\nqui g\u00e9mit sans cesse sur moi. Femme, malgr\u00e9 ta prudence, je\nt'ordonne ceci: en m\u00eame temps que H\u00e8lios montera, le bruit se\nr\u00e9pandra de la mort des pr\u00e9tendants que j'ai tu\u00e9s dans nos\ndemeures. Monte donc dans la chambre haute avec tes servantes, et\nque nul ne te voie, ni ne t'interroge.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il couvrit ses \u00e9paules de ses belles armes, et\nil \u00e9veilla T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, le bouvier et le porcher, et il leur\nordonna de saisir les armes guerri\u00e8res; et ils lui ob\u00e9irent en\nh\u00e2te et se couvrirent d'airain. Puis, ils ouvrirent les portes et\nsortirent, et Odysseus les pr\u00e9c\u00e9dait. Et d\u00e9j\u00e0 la lumi\u00e8re \u00e9tait\nr\u00e9pandue sur la terre, mais Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, les ayant envelopp\u00e9s d'un\nbrouillard, les conduisit promptement hors de la ville.\n\n\n24.\n\nLe Kyll\u00e9nien Herm\u00e8s \u00e9voqua les \u00e2mes des pr\u00e9tendants. Et il tenait\ndans ses mains la belle baguette d'or avec laquelle il charme,\nselon sa volont\u00e9, les yeux des hommes, ou il \u00e9veille ceux qui\ndorment. Et, avec cette baguette, il entra\u00eenait les \u00e2mes qui le\nsuivaient, fr\u00e9missantes.\n\nDe m\u00eame que les chauves-souris, au fond d'un antre divin, volent\nen criant quand l'une d'elles tombe du rocher o\u00f9 leur multitude\nest attach\u00e9e et amass\u00e9e, de m\u00eame les \u00e2mes allaient, fr\u00e9missantes,\net le bienveillant Herm\u00e9ias marchait devant elles vers les larges\nchemins. Et elles arriv\u00e8rent au cours d'Ok\u00e9anos et \u00e0 la Roche\nBlanche, et elles pass\u00e8rent la porte de H\u00e8lios et le peuple des\nsonges, et elles parvinrent promptement \u00e0 la prairie d'Asphod\u00e8le\no\u00f9 habitent les \u00e2mes, images des morts. Et elles y trouv\u00e8rent\nl'\u00e2me du P\u00e8l\u00e8iade Akhilleus et celle de Patroklos, et celle de\nl'irr\u00e9prochable Antilokhos, et celle d'Aias, qui \u00e9tait le plus\ngrand et le plus beau de tous les Danaens apr\u00e8s l'irr\u00e9prochable\nP\u00e8l\u00e9i\u00f4n. Et tous s'empressaient autour de celui-ci, quand vint\nl'\u00e2me dolente de l'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n, suivie des \u00e2mes de tous ceux\nqui, ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 tu\u00e9es dans la demeure d'Aigisthos, avaient subi\nleur destin\u00e9e. Et l'\u00e2me du P\u00e8l\u00e9i\u00f4n dit la premi\u00e8re:\n\n-- Atr\u00e9ide, nous pensions que tu \u00e9tais, parmi tous les h\u00e9ros, le\nplus cher \u00e0 Zeus qui se r\u00e9jouit de la foudre, car tu commandais \u00e0\ndes hommes nombreux et braves, sur la terre des Troiens, o\u00f9 les\nAkhaiens ont subi tant de maux. Mais la moire fatale devait te\nsaisir le premier, elle qu'aucun homme ne peut fuir, d\u00e8s qu'il est\nn\u00e9. Pl\u00fbt aux dieux que, combl\u00e9 de tant d'honneurs, tu eusses subi\nla destin\u00e9e et la mort sur la terre des Troiens! Tous les Akhaiens\neussent \u00e9lev\u00e9 ta tombe, et tu eusses laiss\u00e9 \u00e0 ton fils une grande\ngloire dans l'avenir; mais voici qu'une mort mis\u00e9rable t'\u00e9tait\nr\u00e9serv\u00e9e.\n\nEt l'\u00e2me de l'Atr\u00e9ide lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Heureux fils de P\u00e8leus, Akhilleus semblable aux dieux, tu es\nmort devant Troi\u00e8, loin d'Argos, et les plus braves d'entre les\nfils des Troiens et des Akhaiens se sont entre-tu\u00e9s en combattant\npour toi. Et tu \u00e9tais couch\u00e9, en un tourbillon de poussi\u00e8re,\ngrand, sur un grand espace, oublieux des chevaux. Et nous\ncombatt\u00eemes tout le jour, et nous n'eussions point cess\u00e9 de\ncombattre si Zeus ne nous e\u00fbt apais\u00e9s par une temp\u00eate. Apr\u00e8s\nt'avoir emport\u00e9 de la m\u00eal\u00e9e vers les nefs, nous te d\u00e9pos\u00e2mes sur\nun lit, ayant lav\u00e9 ton beau corps avec de l'eau chaude et l'ayant\nparfum\u00e9 d'huile. Et, autour de toi, les Danaens r\u00e9pandaient des\nlarmes am\u00e8res et coupaient leurs cheveux. Alors, ta m\u00e8re sortit\ndes eaux avec les immortelles marines, pour apprendre la nouvelle,\ncar notre voix \u00e9tait all\u00e9e jusqu'au fond de la mer. Et une grande\nterreur saisit tous les Akhaiens, et ils se fussent tous ru\u00e9s dans\nles nefs creuses, si un homme plein d'une sagesse ancienne,\nNest\u00f4r, ne les e\u00fbt retenus. Et il vit ce qu'il y avait de mieux \u00e0\nfaire, et, dans sa sagesse, il les harangua et leur dit:\n\n-- Arr\u00eatez, Argiens! Ne fuyez pas, fils des Akhaiens! Une m\u00e8re\nsort des eaux avec les immortelles marines, afin de voir son fils\nqui est mort.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et les magnanimes Akhaiens cess\u00e8rent de craindre.\nEt les filles du vieillard de la mer pleuraient autour de toi en\ng\u00e9missant lamentablement, et elles te couvrirent de v\u00eatements\nimmortels. Les neuf muses, alternant leurs belles voix, se\nlamentaient; et aucun des Argiens ne resta sans pleurer, tant la\nmuse harmonieuse remuait leur \u00e2me. Et nous avons pleur\u00e9 dix-sept\njours et dix-sept nuits, dieux immortels et hommes mortels; et, le\ndix-huiti\u00e8me jour, nous t'avons livr\u00e9 au feu, et nous avons \u00e9gorg\u00e9\nautour de toi un grand nombre de brebis grasses et de boeufs\nnoirs. Et tu as \u00e9t\u00e9 br\u00fbl\u00e9 dans des v\u00eatements divins, ayant \u00e9t\u00e9\nparfum\u00e9 d'huile \u00e9paisse et de miel doux; et les h\u00e9ros Akhaiens se\nsont ru\u00e9s en foule autour de ton b\u00fbcher, pi\u00e9tons et cavaliers,\navec un grand tumulte. Et, apr\u00e8s que la flamme de H\u00e8phaistos t'eut\nconsum\u00e9, nous rassembl\u00e2mes tes os blancs, \u00f4 Akhilleus, les lavant\ndans le vin pur et l'huile; et ta m\u00e8re donna une urne d'or qu'elle\ndit \u00eatre un pr\u00e9sent de Dionysos et l'oeuvre de l'illustre\nH\u00e8phaistos. C'est dans cette urne que gisent tes os blancs, \u00f4\nAkhilleus, m\u00eal\u00e9s \u00e0 ceux du M\u00e8noitiade Patroklos, et aupr\u00e8s\nd'Antilokhos que tu honorais le plus entre tous tes compagnons\ndepuis la mort de Patroklos. Et, au-dessus de ces restes, l'arm\u00e9e\nsacr\u00e9e des Argiens t'\u00e9leva un grand et irr\u00e9prochable tombeau sur\nun haut promontoire du large Hellespontos, afin qu'il f\u00fbt aper\u00e7u\nde loin, sur la mer, par les hommes qui vivent maintenant et par\nles hommes futurs. Et ta m\u00e8re, les ayant obtenus des dieux, d\u00e9posa\nde magnifiques prix des jeux au milieu des illustres Argiens. D\u00e9j\u00e0\nje m'\u00e9tais trouv\u00e9 aux fun\u00e9railles d'un grand nombre de h\u00e9ros,\nquand, sur le tombeau d'un roi, les jeunes hommes se ceignent et\nse pr\u00e9parent aux jeux; mais tu aurais admir\u00e9 par-dessus tout, dans\nton \u00e2me, les prix que la d\u00e9esse Th\u00e9tis aux pieds d'argent d\u00e9posa\nsur la terre pour les jeux; car tu \u00e9tais cher aux dieux. Ainsi,\nAkhilleus, bien que tu sois mort, ton nom n'est point oubli\u00e9, et,\nentre tous les hommes, ta gloire sera toujours grande. Mais moi,\nqu'ai-je gagn\u00e9 \u00e0 \u00e9chapper \u00e0 la guerre? \u00c0 mon retour, Zeus me\ngardait une mort lamentable par les mains d'Aigisthos et de ma\nfemme perfide.\n\nEt tandis qu'ils se parlaient ainsi, le messager tueur d'Argos\ns'approcha d'eux, conduisant les \u00e2mes des pr\u00e9tendants dompt\u00e9s par\nOdysseus. Et tous, d\u00e8s qu'ils les virent, all\u00e8rent, \u00e9tonn\u00e9s, au-\ndevant d'eux. Et l'\u00e2me de l'Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n reconnut l'illustre\nAmphim\u00e9d\u00f4n, fils de M\u00e9lantheus, car il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 son h\u00f4te dans\nIthak\u00e8. Et l'\u00e2me de l'Atr\u00e9ide lui dit la premi\u00e8re:\n\n-- Amphim\u00e9d\u00f4n, quel malheur avez-vous subi pour venir dans la\nterre noire, tous illustres et du m\u00eame \u00e2ge? On ne choisirait pas\nautrement les premiers d'une ville. Poseida\u00f4n vous a-t-il dompt\u00e9s\nsur vos nefs, en soulevant les vents furieux et les grands flots,\nou des ennemis vous ont-ils tu\u00e9s sur la terre tandis que vous\nenleviez leurs boeufs et leurs beaux troupeaux de brebis? ou \u00eates-\nvous morts en combattant pour votre ville et pour vos femmes?\nR\u00e9ponds-moi, car j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 ton h\u00f4te. Ne te souviens-tu pas que je\nvins dans tes demeures, avec le divin M\u00e9n\u00e9laos, afin d'exciter\nOdysseus \u00e0 nous suivre \u00e0 Ilios sur les nefs aux solides bancs de\nrameurs? Tout un mois nous travers\u00e2mes la vaste mer, et nous p\u00fbmes\n\u00e0 peine persuader le d\u00e9vastateur de villes Odysseus.\n\nEt l'\u00e2me d'Amphim\u00e9d\u00f4n lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Illustre roi des hommes, Atr\u00e9ide Agamemn\u00f4n, je me souviens de\ntoutes ces choses, et je te dirai avec v\u00e9rit\u00e9 la fin malheureuse\nde notre vie. Nous \u00e9tions les pr\u00e9tendants de la femme d'Odysseus\nabsent depuis longtemps. Elle ne repoussait ni n'accomplissait des\nnoces odieuses, mais elle nous pr\u00e9parait la mort et la k\u00e8r noire.\nEt elle m\u00e9dita une autre ruse dans son esprit, et elle se mit \u00e0\ntisser dans sa demeure une grande toile, large et fine, et elle\nnous dit aussit\u00f4t:\n\n-- Jeunes hommes, mes pr\u00e9tendants, puisque le divin Odysseus est\nmort, cessez de h\u00e2ter mes noces jusqu'\u00e0 ce que j'aie achev\u00e9, pour\nque mes fils ne restent pas inutiles, ce linceul du h\u00e9ros Laert\u00e8s,\nquand la moire mauvaise, de la mort inexorable l'aura saisi; afin\nqu'aucune des femmes Akhaiennes ne puisse me reprocher, devant\ntout le peuple, qu'un homme qui a poss\u00e9d\u00e9 tant de biens ait \u00e9t\u00e9\nenseveli sans linceul.\n\nElle parla ainsi, et notre coeur g\u00e9n\u00e9reux fut persuad\u00e9 aussit\u00f4t.\nEt, alors, pendant le jour, elle tissait la grande toile, et,\npendant la nuit, ayant allum\u00e9 les torches, elle la d\u00e9faisait.\nAinsi, trois ans, elle cacha sa ruse et trompa les Akhaiens; mais,\nquand vint la quatri\u00e8me ann\u00e9e, et quand les mois et les jours\nfurent \u00e9coul\u00e9s, une de ses femmes, sachant bien sa ruse, nous la\ndit. Et nous la trouv\u00e2mes, d\u00e9faisant sa belle toile; mais, contre\nsa volont\u00e9, elle fut contrainte de l'achever. Et elle acheva donc\ncette grande toile semblable en \u00e9clat \u00e0 H\u00e8lios et \u00e0 S\u00e9l\u00e8n\u00e8. Mais\nvoici qu'un daim\u00f4n ennemi ramena de quelque part Odysseus, \u00e0\nl'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 de ses champs, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 habitait son porcher. L\u00e0 aussi\nvint le cher fils du divin Odysseus, de retour sur sa nef noire de\nla sablonneuse Pylos. Et ils m\u00e9dit\u00e8rent la mort des pr\u00e9tendants,\net ils vinrent \u00e0 l'illustre ville, et Odysseus vint le dernier,\ncar T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos le pr\u00e9c\u00e9dait. Le porcher conduisait Odysseus\ncouvert de haillons, semblable \u00e0 un vieux mendiant et courb\u00e9 sur\nun b\u00e2ton. Il arriva soudainement, et aucun de nous, et m\u00eame des\nplus \u00e2g\u00e9s, ne le reconnut. Et nous l'outragions de paroles\ninjurieuses et de coups; mais il supporta longtemps, dans ses\ndemeures, et avec patience, les injures et les coups. Et, quand\nl'esprit de Zeus temp\u00e9tueux l'eut excit\u00e9, il enleva les belles\narmes, \u00e0 l'aide de T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, et il les d\u00e9posa dans la haute\nchambre, dont il ferma les verrous. Puis il ordonna \u00e0 sa femme\npleine de ruses d'apporter aux pr\u00e9tendants l'arc et le fer\nbrillant pour l'\u00e9preuve qui devait nous faire p\u00e9rir mis\u00e9rablement\net qui devait \u00eatre l'origine du meurtre. Et aucun de nous ne put\ntendre le nerf de l'arc solide, car nous \u00e9tions beaucoup trop\nfaibles. Mais quand le grand arc arriva aux mains d'Odysseus,\nalors nous f\u00eemes entendre des menaces pour qu'on ne le lui donn\u00e2t\npas, bien qu'il le demand\u00e2t vivement. Le seul T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos le voulut\nen l'excitant, et le patient et divin Odysseus, ayant saisi l'arc,\nle tendit facilement et envoya une fl\u00e8che \u00e0 travers le fer. Puis,\ndebout sur le seuil, il r\u00e9pandit \u00e0 ses pieds les fl\u00e8ches rapides\net il per\u00e7a le roi Antinoos. Alors, regardant de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s, il\nlan\u00e7a ses traits mortels aux autres pr\u00e9tendants qui tombaient tous\namoncel\u00e9s et nous reconn\u00fbmes qu'un d'entre les dieux l'aidait. Et\naussit\u00f4t son fils et ses deux serviteurs, s'appuyant sur sa force,\ntuaient \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0, et d'affreux g\u00e9missements s'\u00e9levaient, et la\nterre ruisselait de sang. C'est ainsi que nous avons p\u00e9ri, \u00f4\nAgamemn\u00f4n! Nos cadavres n\u00e9glig\u00e9s gisent encore dans les demeures\nd'Odysseus, et nos amis ne le savent point dans nos maisons, eux\nqui, ayant lav\u00e9 le sang noir de nos blessures, nous enseveliraient\nen g\u00e9missant, car tel est l'honneur des morts.\n\nEt l'\u00e2me de l'Atr\u00e9ide lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Heureux fils de Laert\u00e8s, prudent Odysseus, certes, tu poss\u00e8des\nune femme d'une grande vertu, et l'esprit est sage de\nl'irr\u00e9prochable P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia, fille d'Ikarios, qui n'a point oubli\u00e9\nle h\u00e9ros Odysseus qui l'avait \u00e9pous\u00e9e vierge. C'est pourquoi la\ngloire de sa vertu ne p\u00e9rira pas, et les immortels inspireront aux\nhommes terrestres des chants gracieux en l'honneur de la sage\nP\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia. Mais la fille de Tyndaros n'a point agi ainsi, ayant\ntu\u00e9 le mari qui l'avait \u00e9pous\u00e9e vierge. Aussi un chant odieux la\nrappellera parmi les hommes et elle r\u00e9pandra sa renomm\u00e9e honteuse\nsur toutes les femmes, m\u00eame sur celles qui seront vertueuses!\n\nTandis qu'ils se parlaient ainsi, debout dans les demeures\nd'Aid\u00e8s, sous les t\u00e9n\u00e8bres de la terre, Odysseus et ses\ncompagnons, \u00e9tant sortis de la ville, parvinrent promptement au\nbeau verger de Laert\u00e8s, et que lui-m\u00eame avait achet\u00e9 autrefois,\napr\u00e8s avoir beaucoup souffert. L\u00e0 \u00e9tait, sa demeure entour\u00e9e de\nsi\u00e8ges sur lesquels s'asseyaient, mangeaient et dormaient les\nserviteurs qui travaillaient pour lui. L\u00e0 \u00e9tait aussi une vieille\nfemme Sik\u00e8le qui, dans les champs, loin de la ville, prenait soin\ndu vieillard. Alors Odysseus dit aux deux pasteurs et \u00e0 son fils:\n\n-- Entrez maintenant dans la maison bien b\u00e2tie et tuez, pour le\nrepas, un porc, le meilleur de tous. Moi, j'\u00e9prouverai mon p\u00e8re,\nafin de voir s'il me reconna\u00eetra d\u00e8s qu'il m'aura vu, ou s'il me\nm\u00e9conna\u00eetra quand j'aurai march\u00e9 longtemps pr\u00e8s de lui.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il remit ses armes guerri\u00e8res aux serviteurs,\nqui entr\u00e8rent promptement dans la maison. Et, descendant le grand\nverger, il ne trouva ni Dolios, ni aucun de ses fils, ni aucun des\nserviteurs. Et ceux-ci \u00e9taient all\u00e9s rassembler des \u00e9pines pour\nenclore le verger, et le vieillard les avait pr\u00e9c\u00e9d\u00e9s.\n\nEt Odysseus trouva son p\u00e8re seul dans le verger, arrachant les\nherbes et v\u00eatu d'une sordide tunique, d\u00e9chir\u00e9e et trou\u00e9e. Et il\navait li\u00e9 autour de ses jambes, pour \u00e9viter les \u00e9corchures, des\nkn\u00e8mides de cuir d\u00e9chir\u00e9es; et il avait des gants aux mains pour\nse garantir des buissons, et, sur la t\u00eate, un casque de peau de\nch\u00e8vre qui rendait son air plus mis\u00e9rable.\n\nEt le patient et divin Odysseus, ayant vu son p\u00e8re accabl\u00e9 de\nvieillesse et plein d'une grande douleur, versa des larmes, debout\nsous un haut poirier. Et il h\u00e9sita dans son esprit et dans son\ncoeur s'il embrasserait son p\u00e8re en lui disant comment il \u00e9tait\nrevenu dans la terre de la patrie, ou s'il l'interrogerait d'abord\npour l'\u00e9prouver. Et il pensa qu'il \u00e9tait pr\u00e9f\u00e9rable de l'\u00e9prouver\npar des paroles mordantes. Pensant ainsi, le divin Odysseus alla\nvers lui comme il creusait, la t\u00eate baiss\u00e9e, un foss\u00e9 autour d'un\narbre. Alors, le divin Odysseus, s'approchant, lui parla ainsi:\n\n-- \u00d4 vieillard, tu n'es point inhabile \u00e0 cultiver un verger. Tout\nest ici bien soign\u00e9, l'olivier, la vigne, le figuier, le poirier.\nAucune portion de terre n'est n\u00e9glig\u00e9e dans ce verger. Mais je te\nle dirai, et n'en sois point irrit\u00e9 dans ton \u00e2me: tu ne prends\npoint les m\u00eames soins de toi. Tu subis \u00e0 la fois la triste\nvieillesse et les v\u00eatements sales et honteux qui te couvrent. Ton\nma\u00eetre ne te n\u00e9glige point ainsi sans doute \u00e0 cause de ta paresse,\ncar ton aspect n'est point servile, et par ta beaut\u00e9 et ta majest\u00e9\ntu es semblable \u00e0 un roi. Tu es tel que ceux qui, apr\u00e8s le bain et\nle repas, dorment sur un lit moelleux, selon la coutume des\nvieillards. Mais dis-moi la v\u00e9rit\u00e9. De qui es-tu le serviteur? De\nqui cultives-tu le verger? Dis-moi la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, afin que je la\nsache: suis-je parvenu \u00e0 Ithak\u00e8, ainsi que me l'a dit un homme que\nje viens de rencontrer et qui est insens\u00e9, car il n'a su ni\nm'\u00e9couter, ni me r\u00e9pondre, quand je lui ai demand\u00e9 si mon h\u00f4te est\nencore vivant ou s'il est mort et descendu dans les demeures\nd'Aid\u00e8s. Mais je te le dis; \u00e9coute et comprends-moi. Je donnai\nautrefois l'hospitalit\u00e9, sur la ch\u00e8re terre de la patrie, \u00e0 un\nhomme qui \u00e9tait venu dans ma demeure, le premier, entre tous les\n\u00e9trangers errants. Il disait qu'il \u00e9tait n\u00e9 \u00e0 Ithak\u00e8 et que son\np\u00e8re \u00e9tait Laert\u00e8s Arkeisiade. L'ayant conduit dans ma demeure, je\nle re\u00e7us avec tendresse. Et il y avait beaucoup de richesses dans\nma demeure, et je lui fis de riches pr\u00e9sents hospitaliers, car je\nlui donnai sept talents d'or bien travaill\u00e9, un krat\u00e8re fleuri en\nargent massif, douze manteaux simples, autant de tapis, douze\nautres beaux manteaux et autant de tuniques, et, par surcro\u00eet,\nquatre femmes qu'il choisit lui-m\u00eame, belles et tr\u00e8s habiles \u00e0\ntous les ouvrages.\n\nEt son p\u00e8re lui r\u00e9pondit en pleurant:\n\n-- \u00c9tranger, certes, tu es dans la contr\u00e9e sur laquelle tu\nm'interroges; mais des hommes iniques et injurieux l'oppriment, et\nles nombreux pr\u00e9sents que tu viens de dire sont perdus. Si tu\neusses rencontr\u00e9 ton h\u00f4te dans Ithak\u00e8, il t'e\u00fbt cong\u00e9di\u00e9 apr\u00e8s\nt'avoir donn\u00e9 l'hospitalit\u00e9 et t'avoir combl\u00e9 d'autant de pr\u00e9sents\nqu'il en a re\u00e7u de toi, comme c'est la coutume. Mais dis-moi la\nv\u00e9rit\u00e9: combien y a-t-il d'ann\u00e9es que tu as re\u00e7u ton h\u00f4te\nmalheureux? C'\u00e9tait mon fils, si jamais quelque chose a \u00e9t\u00e9! Le\nmalheureux! Loin de ses amis et de sa terre natale, ou les\npoissons l'ont mang\u00e9 dans la mer, ou, sur la terre, il a \u00e9t\u00e9\nd\u00e9chir\u00e9 par les b\u00eates f\u00e9roces et par les oiseaux, et ni sa m\u00e8re,\nni son p\u00e8re, nous qui l'avons engendr\u00e9, ne l'avons pleur\u00e9 et\nenseveli. Et sa femme si richement dot\u00e9e, la sage P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia n'a\npoint pleur\u00e9, sur le lit fun\u00e8bre, son mari bien-aim\u00e9, et elle ne\nlui a point ferm\u00e9 les yeux, car tel est l'honneur des morts! Mais\ndis-moi la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, afin que je la sache. Qui es-tu parmi les\nhommes? O\u00f9 sont ta ville et tes parents? O\u00f9 s'est arr\u00eat\u00e9e la nef\nrapide qui t'a conduit ici ainsi que tes divins compagnons? Es-tu\nvenu, comme un marchand, sur une nef \u00e9trang\u00e8re, et, t'ayant\nd\u00e9barqu\u00e9, ont-ils continu\u00e9 leur route?\n\nEt le prudent Odysseus, lui r\u00e9pondant, parla ainsi:\n\n-- Certes, je te dirai toute la v\u00e9rit\u00e9. Je suis d'Alybas, o\u00f9 j'ai\nmes demeures illustres; je suis le fils du roi Apheidas\nPolyp\u00e8monide, et mon nom est \u00c9p\u00e8ritos. Un daim\u00f4n m'a pouss\u00e9 ici,\nmalgr\u00e9 moi, des c\u00f4tes de Sikani\u00e8, et ma nef s'est arr\u00eat\u00e9e, loin de\nla ville, sur le rivage. Voici la cinqui\u00e8me ann\u00e9e qu'Odysseus a\nquitt\u00e9 ma patrie. Certes, comme il partait, des oiseaux apparurent\n\u00e0 sa droite, et je le renvoyai, m'en r\u00e9jouissant, et lui-m\u00eame en\n\u00e9tait joyeux quand il partit. Et nous esp\u00e9rions, dans notre \u00e2me,\nnous revoir et nous faire de splendides pr\u00e9sents.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et la sombre nu\u00e9e de la douleur enveloppa Laert\u00e8s,\net, avec de profonds g\u00e9missements, il couvrit \u00e0 deux mains sa t\u00eate\nblanche de poussi\u00e8re. Et l'\u00e2me d'Odysseus fut \u00e9mue, et un trouble\nviolent monta jusqu'\u00e0 ses narines en voyant ainsi son cher p\u00e8re;\net il le prit dans ses bras en s'\u00e9lan\u00e7ant, et il le baisa et lui\ndit:\n\n-- P\u00e8re! Je suis celui que tu attends, et je reviens apr\u00e8s vingt\nans dans la terre de la patrie. Mais cesse de pleurer et de g\u00e9mir,\ncar, je te le dis, il faut que nous nous h\u00e2tions. J'ai tu\u00e9 les\npr\u00e9tendants dans nos demeures, ch\u00e2tiant leurs indignes outrages et\nleurs mauvaises actions.\n\nEt Laert\u00e8s lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Si tu es Odysseus mon fils de retour ici, donne moi un signe\nmanifeste qui me persuade.\n\nEt le prudent Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Vois d'abord de tes yeux cette blessure qu'un sanglier me fit\nde ses blanches dents, sur le Parn\u00e8sos, quand vous m'aviez envoy\u00e9,\ntoi et ma m\u00e8re v\u00e9n\u00e9rable, aupr\u00e8s d'Autolykos le cher p\u00e8re de ma\nm\u00e8re, afin de prendre les pr\u00e9sents qu'il m'avait promis quand il\nvint ici. Mais \u00e9coute, et je te dirai encore les arbres de ton\nverger bien cultiv\u00e9, ceux que tu m'as donn\u00e9s autrefois, comme je\nte les demandais, \u00e9tant enfant et te suivant \u00e0 travers le verger.\nEt nous allions parmi les arbres et tu me nommais chacun d'entre\neux, et tu me donnas treize poiriers, dix pommiers et quarante\nfiguiers; et tu me dis que tu me donnerais cinquante sillons de\nvignes portant des fruits et dont les grappes m\u00fbrissent quand les\nsaisons de Zeus p\u00e8sent sur elles.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et les genoux et le cher coeur de Laert\u00e8s\nd\u00e9faillirent tandis qu'il reconnaissait les signes manifestes que\nlui donnait Odysseus. Et il jeta ses bras autour de son cher fils,\net le patient et divin Odysseus le re\u00e7ut inanim\u00e9. Enfin, il\nrespira, et, rassemblant ses esprits, il lui parla ainsi:\n\n-- P\u00e8re Zeus, et vous, dieux! certes, vous \u00eates encore dans le\ngrand Olympos, si vraiment les pr\u00e9tendants ont pay\u00e9 leurs\noutrages! Mais, maintenant, je crains dans mon \u00e2me que tous les\nIthak\u00e8siens se ruent promptement ici et qu'ils envoient des\nmessagers \u00e0 toutes les villes des K\u00e9phall\u00e8niens.\n\nEt le prudent Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Prends courage, et ne t'inqui\u00e8te point de ceci dans ton \u00e2me.\nMais allons vers la demeure qui est aupr\u00e8s du verger. C'est l\u00e0 que\nj'ai envoy\u00e9 T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, le bouvier et le porcher, afin de pr\u00e9parer\npromptement le repas.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, ils all\u00e8rent vers les belles demeures, o\u00f9 ils\ntrouv\u00e8rent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, le bouvier et le porcher, coupant les\nchairs abondantes et m\u00ealant le vin rouge. Cependant la servante\nSik\u00e8le lava et parfuma d'huile le magnanime Laert\u00e8s dans sa\ndemeure, et elle jeta un beau manteau autour de lui, et Ath\u00e8n\u00e8,\ns'approchant, fortifia les membres du prince des peuples et elle\nle fit para\u00eetre plus grand et plus majestueux qu'auparavant. Et il\nsortit du bain, et son cher fils l'admira, le voyant semblable aux\ndieux immortels, et il lui dit ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- \u00d4 p\u00e8re, certes, un des dieux \u00e9ternels te fait ainsi para\u00eetre\nplus irr\u00e9prochable par la beaut\u00e9 et la majest\u00e9.\n\nEt le prudent Laert\u00e8s lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Que n'a-t-il plu au p\u00e8re Zeus, \u00e0 Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, \u00e0 Apoll\u00f4n, que je\nfusse hier, dans nos demeures, tel que j'\u00e9tais quand je pris, sur\nla terre ferme, commandant aux K\u00e9phall\u00e8niens, la ville bien b\u00e2tie\nde N\u00e9rikos! Les \u00e9paules couvertes de mes armes, j'eusse chass\u00e9 les\npr\u00e9tendants et rompu les genoux d'un grand nombre d'entre eux dans\nnos demeures, et tu t'en fusses r\u00e9joui dans ton \u00e2me.\n\nEt ils se parlaient ainsi, et, cessant leur travail, ils\npr\u00e9par\u00e8rent le repas, et ils s'assirent en ordre sur les si\u00e8ges et\nsur les thr\u00f4nes, et ils allaient prendre leur repas, quand le\nvieux Dolios arriva avec ses fils fatigu\u00e9s de leurs travaux; car\nla vieille m\u00e8re Sik\u00e8le, qui les avait nourris et qui prenait soin\ndu vieillard depuis que l'\u00e2ge l'accablait, \u00e9tait all\u00e9e les\nappeler. Ils aper\u00e7urent Odysseus et ils le reconnurent dans leur\n\u00e2me, et ils s'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent, stup\u00e9faits, dans la demeure. Mais\nOdysseus, les rassurant, leur dit ces douces paroles:\n\n-- \u00d4 vieillard, assieds-toi au repas et ne sois plus stup\u00e9fait.\nNous vous avons longtemps attendus dans les demeures, pr\u00eats \u00e0\nmettre la main sur les mets.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Dolios, les deux bras \u00e9tendus, s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a; et\nsaisissant les mains d'Odysseus, il les baisa, et il lui dit ces\nparoles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- \u00d4 ami, puisque tu es revenu vers nous qui te d\u00e9sirions et qui\npensions ne plus te revoir, c'est que les dieux t'ont conduit.\nSalut! R\u00e9jouis-toi, et que les dieux te rendent heureux! Mais dis-\nmoi la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, afin que je la sache. La prudente P\u00e8n\u00e9lop\u00e9ia sait-\nelle que tu es revenu, ou lui enverrons-nous un message?\n\nEt le prudent Odysseus lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- \u00d4 vieillard, elle le sait! Pourquoi t'inqui\u00e9ter de ces choses?\n\nIl parla ainsi, et il s'assit de nouveau sur son si\u00e8ge poli. Et,\nautour de l'illustre Odysseus, les fils de Dolios, de la m\u00eame\nfa\u00e7on, salu\u00e8rent leur ma\u00eetre par leurs paroles et bais\u00e8rent ses\nmains. Ensuite ils s'assirent aupr\u00e8s de Dolios leur p\u00e8re.\n\nTandis qu'ils mangeaient ainsi dans la demeure, Ossa se r\u00e9pandit\npar la ville, annon\u00e7ant la k\u00e8r et la mort lamentable des\npr\u00e9tendants. Et, \u00e0 cette nouvelle, tous accoururent de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s,\navec tumulte et en g\u00e9missant, devant la demeure d'Odysseus. Et ils\nemport\u00e8rent les morts, chacun dans sa demeure, et ils les\nensevelirent; et ceux des autres villes, ils les firent\nreconduire, les ayant d\u00e9pos\u00e9s sur des nefs rapides. Puis, afflig\u00e9s\ndans leur coeur, ils se r\u00e9unirent \u00e0 l'agora. Et quand ils furent\nr\u00e9unis en foule, Eupeith\u00e8s se leva et parla au milieu d'eux. Et\nune douleur intol\u00e9rable \u00e9tait dans son coeur \u00e0 cause de son fils\nAntinoos que le divin Odysseus avait tu\u00e9 le premier. Et il parla\nainsi, versant des larmes \u00e0 cause de son fils:\n\n-- \u00d4 amis, certes, cet homme a fait un grand mal aux Akhaiens.\nTous ceux, nombreux et braves, qu'il a emmen\u00e9s sur ses nefs, il\nles a perdus; et il a perdu aussi les nefs creuses, et il a perdu\nses peuples, et voici qu'\u00e0 son retour il a tu\u00e9 les plus braves des\nK\u00e9phall\u00e8niens. Allons! Avant qu'il fuie rapidement \u00e0 Pylos ou dans\nla divine \u00c9lis o\u00f9 dominent les \u00c9p\u00e9iens, allons! car nous serions \u00e0\njamais m\u00e9pris\u00e9s, et les hommes futurs se souviendraient de notre\nhonte, si nous ne vengions le meurtre de nos fils et de nos\nfr\u00e8res. Il ne me serait plus doux de vivre, et j'aimerais mieux\ndescendre aussit\u00f4t chez les morts. Allons! de peur que, nous\npr\u00e9venant, ils s'enfuient.\n\nIl parla ainsi en pleurant, et la douleur saisit tous les\nAkhaiens. Mais, alors, M\u00e9d\u00f4n et le divin aoide s'approch\u00e8rent\nd'eux, \u00e9tant sortis de la demeure d'Odysseus, d\u00e8s que le sommeil\nles eut quitt\u00e9s. Et ils s'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent au milieu de l'agora. Et tous\nfurent saisis de stupeur, et le prudent M\u00e9d\u00f4n leur dit:\n\n-- \u00c9coutez-moi, Ithak\u00e8siens. Odysseus n'a point accompli ces\nchoses sans les dieux immortels. Moi-m\u00eame j'ai vu un dieu immortel\nqui se tenait aupr\u00e8s d'Odysseus, sous la figure de Ment\u00f4r. Certes,\nun dieu immortel apparaissait, tant\u00f4t devant Odysseus, excitant\nson audace, et tant\u00f4t s'\u00e9lan\u00e7ant dans la salle, troublant les\npr\u00e9tendants, et ceux-ci tombaient amoncel\u00e9s.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et la terreur bl\u00eame les saisit tous. Et le vieux\nh\u00e9ros Halithers\u00e8s Mastoride, qui savait les choses pass\u00e9es et\nfutures, plein de prudence, leur parla ainsi:\n\n-- \u00c9coutez-moi, Ithak\u00e8siens, quoi que je dise. C'est par votre\niniquit\u00e9, amis, que ceci est arriv\u00e9. En effet, vous ne m'avez\npoint ob\u00e9i, ni \u00e0 Ment\u00f4r prince des peuples, en r\u00e9primant les\nviolences de vos fils qui ont commis avec fureur des actions\nmauvaises, consumant les richesses et insultant la femme d'un\nvaillant homme qu'ils disaient ne devoir plus revenir. Et,\nmaintenant que cela est arriv\u00e9, faites ce que je vous dis: ne\npartez pas, de peur qu'il vous arrive malheur.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et les uns se ru\u00e8rent avec un grand tumulte, et\nles autres rest\u00e8rent en grand nombre, car les paroles de\nHalithers\u00e8s ne leur plurent point et ils ob\u00e9irent \u00e0 Eupeith\u00e8s. Et\naussit\u00f4t ils se jet\u00e8rent sur leurs armes, et, s'\u00e9tant couverts de\nl'airain splendide, r\u00e9unis, ils travers\u00e8rent la grande ville. Et\nEupeith\u00e8s \u00e9tait le chef de ces insens\u00e9s, et il esp\u00e9rait venger le\nmeurtre de son fils; mais sa destin\u00e9e n'\u00e9tait point de revenir,\nmais de subir la k\u00e8r.\n\nAlors Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 dit \u00e0 Zeus Kroni\u00f4n:\n\n-- Notre p\u00e8re, Kronide, le plus puissant des rois, r\u00e9ponds-moi:\nque cache ton esprit? Exciteras-tu la guerre lamentable et la rude\nm\u00eal\u00e9e, ou r\u00e9tabliras-tu la concorde entre les deux partis?\n\nEt Zeus qui amasse les nu\u00e9es lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Mon enfant, pourquoi m'interroges-tu sur ces choses? N'en as-tu\npoint d\u00e9cid\u00e9 toi-m\u00eame dans ton esprit, de fa\u00e7on qu'Odysseus, \u00e0 son\nretour, se venge de ses ennemis? Fais selon ta volont\u00e9; mais je te\ndirai ce qui est convenable. Maintenant que le divin Odysseus a\npuni les pr\u00e9tendants, qu'ayant scell\u00e9 une alliance sinc\u00e8re, il\nr\u00e8gne toujours. Nous enverrons \u00e0 ceux-ci l'oubli du meurtre de\nleurs fils et de leurs fr\u00e8res, et ils s'aimeront les uns les\nautres comme auparavant, dans la paix et dans l'abondance.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, il excita Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 d\u00e9j\u00e0 pleine d'ardeur et qui se\nrua du fa\u00eete de l'Olympos.\nEt quand ceux qui prenaient leur repas eurent chass\u00e9 la faim, le\npatient et divin Odysseus leur dit, le premier:\n\n-- Qu'un de vous sorte et voie si ceux qui doivent venir\napprochent.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et un des fils de Dolios sortit, comme il\nl'ordonnait; et, debout sur le seuil, il vit la foule qui\napprochait. Et aussit\u00f4t il dit \u00e0 Odysseus ces paroles ail\u00e9es:\n\n-- Les voici, armons-nous promptement.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et tous se jet\u00e8rent sur leurs armes, Odysseus et\nses trois compagnons et les six fils de Dolios. Et avec eux,\nLaert\u00e8s et Dolios s'arm\u00e8rent, quoique ayant les cheveux blancs,\nmais contraints de combattre.\n\nEt, s'\u00e9tant couverts de l'airain splendide, ils ouvrirent les\nportes et sortirent, et Odysseus les conduisait. Et la fille de\nZeus, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, vint \u00e0 eux, semblable \u00e0 Ment\u00f4r par la figure et la\nvoix. Et le patient et divin Odysseus, l'ayant vue, se r\u00e9jouit, et\nil dit aussit\u00f4t \u00e0 son cher fils T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos:\n\n-- T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos, voici qu'il faut te montrer, en combattant toi-m\u00eame\nles guerriers. C'est l\u00e0 que les plus braves se reconnaissent. Ne\nd\u00e9shonorons pas la race de nos a\u00efeux, qui, sur toute la terre, l'a\nemport\u00e9 par sa force et son courage.\n\nEt le prudent T\u00e8l\u00e9makhos lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n-- Tu verras, si tu le veux, cher p\u00e8re, que je ne d\u00e9shonorerai\npoint ta race.\n\nIl parla ainsi, et Laert\u00e8s s'en r\u00e9jouit et dit:\n\n-- Quel jour pour moi, dieux amis! Certes, je suis plein de joie;\nmon fils et mon petit-fils luttent de vertu.\n\nEt Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs, s'approchant, lui dit:\n\n-- Arkeisiade, le plus cher de mes compagnons, supplie le p\u00e8re\nZeus et sa fille aux yeux clairs, et, aussit\u00f4t, envoie ta longue\nlance, l'ayant brandie avec force.\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 lui inspira une grande force, et\nil pria la fille du grand Zeus, et il envoya sa longue lance\nbrandie avec force. Et il frappa le casque d'airain d'Eupeith\u00e8s,\nqui ne r\u00e9sista point, et l'airain le traversa. Et Eupeith\u00e8s tomba\navec bruit, et ses armes r\u00e9sonn\u00e8rent sur lui. Et Odysseus et son\nillustre fils se ru\u00e8rent sur les premiers combattants, les\nfrappant de leurs \u00e9p\u00e9es et de lances \u00e0 deux pointes. Et ils les\neussent tous tu\u00e9s et priv\u00e9s du retour, si Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, la fille de Zeus\ntemp\u00e9tueux, n'e\u00fbt arr\u00eat\u00e9 tout le peuple en criant:\n\n-- Cessez la guerre lamentable, Ithak\u00e8siens, et s\u00e9parez-vous\npromptement sans carnage.\n\nAinsi parla Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, et la terreur bl\u00eame les saisit, et leurs\narmes, \u00e9chapp\u00e9es de leurs mains, tomb\u00e8rent \u00e0 terre, au cri de la\nd\u00e9esse; et tous, pour sauver leur vie, s'enfuirent vers la ville.\nEt le patient et divin Odysseus, avec des clameurs terribles, se\nrua comme l'aigle qui vole dans les hauteurs. Alors le Kronide\nlan\u00e7a la foudre enflamm\u00e9e qui tomba devant la fille aux yeux\nclairs d'un p\u00e8re redoutable. Et, alors, Ath\u00e8n\u00e8 aux yeux clairs dit\n\u00e0 Odysseus:\n\n-- Divin Laertiade, subtil Odysseus, arr\u00eate, cesse la discorde de\nla guerre intestine, de peur que le Kronide Zeus qui tonne au loin\ns'irrite contre toi.\n\nAinsi parla Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, et il lui ob\u00e9it, plein de joie dans son coeur.\nEt Pallas Ath\u00e8n\u00e8, fille de Zeus temp\u00e9tueux, et semblable par la\nfigure et par la voix \u00e0 Ment\u00f4r, scella pour toujours l'alliance\nentre les deux partis.\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"16452":"\n\n\n\nThere are several editions of this ebook in the Project Gutenberg\ncollection. Various characteristics of each ebook are listed to aid in\nselecting the preferred file. Click on any of the filenumbers below to\nquickly view each ebook.\n\n22382    (With 800 linked footnotes, No illustrations)\n16452    (In blank verse, Many footnotes.)\n2199     (No footnotes or illustrations)\n6130     (Many line drawings, and 300 footnotes)\n3059\n6150\n\n\n\n\nTHE\nILIAD OF HOMER,\n\nTRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH BLANK VERSE\nBY WILLIAM COWPER.\n\nZeus (Jupiter), seated upon an eagle\n\nEDITED BY ROBERT SOUTHEY. LL.D.\n\n\nWITH NOTES,\nBY M.A. DWIGHT,\nAUTHOR OF \u201cGRECIAN AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY.\u201d\n\n\nNEW-YORK:\nD. APPLETON & CO., 346 & 348 BROADWAY.\nM.DCCC.LX.\n\n\nEntered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849,\n\nBy M.A. DWIGHT,\n\nin the Clerk\u2019s Office of the District Court for the Southern District\nof New York.\n\n\nTO THE\nRIGHT HONORABLE\nEARL COWPER,\nTHIS\nTRANSLATION OF THE ILIAD,\nTHE INSCRIPTION OF WHICH TO HIMSELF,\nTHE LATE LAMENTED EARL,\nBENEVOLENT TO ALL,\nAND ESPECIALLY KIND TO THE AUTHOR,\nHAD NOT DISDAINED TO ACCEPT\nIS HUMBLY OFFERED,\nAS A SMALL BUT GRATEFUL TRIBUTE,\nTO THE MEMORY OF HIS FATHER,\nBY HIS LORDSHIP\u2019S\nAFFECTIONATE KINSMAN AND SERVANT\n\nWILLIAM COWPER.\n_June 4, 1791._\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\nWhether a translation of Homer may be best executed in blank verse or\nin rhyme, is a question in the decision of which no man can find\ndifficulty, who has ever duly considered what translation ought to be,\nor who is in any degree practically acquainted with those very\ndifferent kinds of versification. I will venture to assert that a just\ntranslation of any ancient poet in rhyme, is impossible. No human\ningenuity can be equal to the task of closing every couplet with sounds\nhomotonous, expressing at the same time the full sense, and only the\nfull sense of his original. The translator\u2019s ingenuity, indeed, in this\ncase becomes itself a snare, and the readier he is at invention and\nexpedient, the more likely he is to be betrayed into the widest\ndepartures from the guide whom he professes to follow. Hence it has\nhappened, that although the public have long been in possession of an\nEnglish Homer by a poet whose writings have done immortal honor to his\ncountry, the demand of a new one, and especially in blank verse, has\nbeen repeatedly and loudly made by some of the best judges and ablest\nwriters of the present day.\n\nI have no contest with my predecessor. None is supposable between\nperformers on different instruments. Mr. Pope has surmounted all\ndifficulties in his version of Homer that it was possible to surmount\nin rhyme. But he was fettered, and his fetters were his choice.\nAccustomed always to rhyme, he had formed to himself an ear which\nprobably could not be much gratified by verse that wanted it, and\ndetermined to encounter even impossibilities, rather than abandon a\nmode of writing in which he had excelled every body, for the sake of\nanother to which, unexercised in it as he was, he must have felt strong\nobjections.\n\nI number myself among the warmest admirers of Mr. Pope as an original\nwriter, and I allow him all the merit he can justly claim as the\ntranslator of this chief of poets. He has given us the _Tale of Troy\ndivine_ in smooth verse, generally in correct and elegant language, and\nin diction often highly poetical. But his deviations are so many,\noccasioned chiefly by the cause already mentioned, that, much as he has\ndone, and valuable as his work is on some accounts, it was yet in the\nhumble province of a translator that I thought it possible even for me\nto fellow him with some advantage.\n\nThat he has sometimes altogether suppressed the sense of his author,\nand has not seldom intermingled his own ideas with it, is a remark\nwhich, on this occasion, nothing but necessity should have extorted\nfrom me. But we differ sometimes so widely in our matter, that unless\nthis remark, invidious as it seems, be premised, I know not how to\nobviate a suspicion, on the one hand, of careless oversight, or of\nfactitious embellishment on the other. On this head, therefore, the\nEnglish reader is to be admonished, that the matter found in me,\nwhether he like it or not, is found also in Homer, and that the matter\nnot found in me, how much soever he may admire it, is found only in Mr.\nPope. I have omitted nothing; I have invented nothing.\n\nThere is indisputably a wide difference between the case of an original\nwriter in rhyme and a translator. In an original work the author is\nfree; if the rhyme be of difficult attainment, and he cannot find it in\none direction, he is at liberty to seek it in another; the matter that\nwill not accommodate itself to his occasions he may discard, adopting\nsuch as will. But in a translation no such option is allowable; the\nsense of the author is required, and we do not surrender it willingly\neven to the plea of necessity. Fidelity is indeed of the very essence\nof translation, and the term itself implies it. For which reason, if we\nsuppress the sense of our original, and force into its place our own,\nwe may call our work an _imitation_, if we please, or perhaps a\n_paraphrase_, but it is no longer the same author only in a different\ndress, and therefore it is not translation. Should a painter,\nprofessing to draw the likeness of a beautiful woman, give her more or\nfewer features than belong to her, and a general cast of countenance of\nhis own invention, he might be said to have produced a _jeu d\u2019esprit_,\na curiosity perhaps in its way, but by no means the lady in question.\n\nIt will however be necessary to speak a little more largely to this\nsubject, on which discordant opinions prevail even among good judges.\n\nThe free and the close translation have, each, their advocates. But\ninconveniences belong to both. The former can hardly be true to the\noriginal author\u2019s style and manner, and the latter is apt to be\nservile. The one loses his peculiarities, and the other his spirit.\nWere it possible, therefore, to find an exact medium, a manner so close\nthat it should let slip nothing of the text, nor mingle any thing\nextraneous with it, and at the same time so free as to have an air of\noriginality, this seems precisely the mode in which an author might be\nbest rendered. I can assure my readers from my own experience, that to\ndiscover this very delicate line is difficult, and to proceed by it\nwhen found, through the whole length of a poet voluminous as Homer,\nnearly impossible. I can only pretend to have endeavored it.\n\nIt is an opinion commonly received, but, like many others, indebted for\nits prevalence to mere want of examination, that a translator should\nimagine to himself the style which his author would probably have used,\nhad the language into which he is rendered been his own. A direction\nwhich wants nothing but practicability to recommend it. For suppose six\npersons, equally qualified for the task, employed to translate the same\nAncient into their own language, with this rule to guide them. In the\nevent it would be found, that each had fallen on a manner different\nfrom that of all the rest, and by probable inference it would follow\nthat none had fallen on the right. On the whole, therefore, as has been\nsaid, the translation which partakes equally of fidelity and\nliberality, that is close, but not so close as to be servile, free, but\nnot so free as to be licentious, promises fairest; and my ambition will\nbe sufficiently gratified, if such of my readers as are able, and will\ntake the pains to compare me in this respect with Homer, shall judge\nthat I have in any measure attained a point so difficult.\n\nAs to energy and harmony, two grand requisites in a translation of this\nmost energetic and most harmonious of all poets, it is neither my\npurpose nor my wish, should I be found deficient in either, or in both,\nto shelter myself under an unfilial imputation of blame to my\nmother-tongue. Our language is indeed less musical than the Greek, and\nthere is no language with which I am at all acquainted that is not. But\nit is musical enough for the purposes of melodious verse, and if it\nseem to fail, on whatsoever occasion, in energy, the blame is due, not\nto itself, but to the unskilful manager of it. For so long as Milton\u2019s\nworks, whether his prose or his verse, shall exist, so long there will\nbe abundant proof that no subject, however important, however sublime,\ncan demand greater force of expression than is within the compass of\nthe English language.\n\nI have no fear of judges familiar with original Homer. They need not be\ntold that a translation of him is an arduous enterprise, and as such,\nentitled to some favor. From these, therefore, I shall expect, and\nshall not be disappointed, considerable candor and allowance.\nEspecially _they_ will be candid, and I believe that there are many\nsuch, who have occasionally tried their own strength in this _bow of\nUlysses_. They have not found it supple and pliable, and with me are\nperhaps ready to acknowledge that they could not always even approach\nwith it the mark of their ambition. But I would willingly, were it\npossible, obviate uncandid criticism, because to answer it is lost\nlabor, and to receive it in silence has the appearance of stately\nreserve, and self-importance.\n\nTo those, therefore, who shall be inclined to tell me hereafter that my\ndiction is often plain and unelevated, I reply beforehand that I know\nit,\u2014that it would be absurd were it otherwise, and that Homer himself\nstands in the same predicament. In fact, it is one of his numberless\nexcellences, and a point in which his judgment never fails him, that he\nis grand and lofty always in the right place, and knows infallibly how\nto rise and fall with his subject. _Big words on small matters_ may\nserve as a pretty exact definition of the burlesque; an instance of\nwhich they will find in the Battle of the Frogs and Mice, but none in\nthe Iliad.\n\nBy others I expect to be told that my numbers, though here and there\ntolerably smooth, are not always such, but have, now and then, an ugly\nhitch in their gait, ungraceful in itself, and inconvenient to the\nreader. To this charge also I plead guilty, but beg leave in\nalleviation of judgment to add, that my limping lines are not numerous,\ncompared with those that limp not. The truth is, that not one of them\nall escaped me, but, such as they are, they were all made such with a\nwilful intention. In poems of great length there is no blemish more to\nbe feared than sameness of numbers, and every art is useful by which it\nmay be avoided. A line, rough in itself, has yet its recommendations;\nit saves the ear the pain of an irksome monotony, and seems even to add\ngreater smoothness to others. Milton, whose ear and taste were\nexquisite, has exemplified in his Paradise Lost the effect of this\npractice frequently.\n\nHaving mentioned Milton, I cannot but add an observation on the\nsimilitude of his manner to that of Homer. It is such, that no person\nfamiliar with both, can read either without being reminded of the\nother; and it is in those breaks and pauses, to which the numbers of\nthe English poet are so much indebted both for their dignity and\nvariety, that he chiefly copies the Grecian. But these are graces to\nwhich rhyme is not competent; so broken, it loses all its music; of\nwhich any person may convince himself by reading a page only of any of\nour poets anterior to Denham, Waller, and Dryden. A translator of\nHomer, therefore, seems directed by Homer himself to the use of blank\nverse, as to that alone in which he can be rendered with any tolerable\nrepresentation of his manner in this particular. A remark which I am\nnaturally led to make by a desire to conciliate, if possible, some,\nwho, rather unreasonably partial to rhyme, demand it on all occasions,\nand seem persuaded that poetry in our language is a vain attempt\nwithout it. Verse, that claims to be verse in right of its metre only,\nthey judge to be such rather by courtesy than by kind, on an\napprehension that it costs the writer little trouble, that he has only\nto give his lines their prescribed number of syllables, and so far as\nthe mechanical part is concerned, all is well. Were this true, they\nwould have reason on their side; for the author is certainly best\nentitled to applause who succeeds against the greatest difficulty, and\nin verse that calls for the most artificial management in its\nconstruction. But the case is not as they suppose. To rhyme, in our\nlanguage, demands no great exertion of ingenuity, but is always easy to\na person exercised in the practice. Witness the multitudes who rhyme,\nbut have no other poetical pretensions. Let it be considered too, how\nmerciful we are apt to be to unclassical and indifferent language for\nthe sake of rhyme, and we shall soon see that the labor lies\nprincipally on the other side. Many ornaments of no easy purchase are\nrequired to atone for the absence of this single recommendation. It is\nnot sufficient that the lines of blank verse be smooth in themselves,\nthey must also be harmonious in the combination. Whereas the chief\nconcern of the rhymist is to beware that his couplets and his sense be\ncommensurate, lest the regularity of his numbers should be (too\nfrequently at least) interrupted. A trivial difficulty this, compared\nwith those which attend the poet unaccompanied by his bells. He, in\norder that he may be musical, must exhibit all the variations, as he\nproceeds, of which ten syllables are susceptible; between the first\nsyllable and the last there is no place at which he must not\noccasionally pause, and the place of the pause must be perpetually\nshifted. To effect this variety, his attention must be given, at one\nand the same time, to the pauses he has already made in the period\nbefore him, as well as to that which he is about to make, and to those\nwhich shall succeed it. On no lighter terms than these is it possible\nthat blank verse can be written which will not, in the course of a long\nwork, fatigue the ear past all endurance. If it be easier, therefore,\nto throw five balls into the air and to catch them in succession, than\nto sport in that manner with one only, then may blank verse be more\neasily fabricated than rhyme. And if to these labors we add others\nequally requisite, a style in general more elaborate than rhyme\nrequires, farther removed from the vernacular idiom both in the\nlanguage itself and in the arrangement of it, we shall not long doubt\nwhich of these two very different species of verse threatens the\ncomposer with most expense of study and contrivance. I feel it\nunpleasant to appeal to my own experience, but, having no other voucher\nat hand, am constrained to it. As I affirm, so I have found. I have\ndealt pretty largely in both kinds, and have frequently written more\nverses in a day, with tags, than I could ever write without them. To\nwhat has been here said (which whether it have been said by others or\nnot, I cannot tell, having never read any modern book on the subject) I\nshall only add, that to be poetical without rhyme, is an argument of a\nsound and classical constitution in any language.\n\nA word or two on the subject of the following translation, and I have\ndone.\n\nMy chief boast is that I have adhered closely to my original, convinced\nthat every departure from him would be punished with the forfeiture of\nsome grace or beauty for which I could substitute no equivalent. The\nepithets that would consent to an English form I have preserved as\nepithets; others that would not, I have melted into the context. There\nare none, I believe, which I have not translated in one way or other,\nthough the reader will not find them repeated so often as most of them\nare in Homer, for a reason that need not be mentioned.\n\nFew persons of any consideration are introduced either in the Iliad or\nOdyssey by their own name only, but their patronymic is given also. To\nthis ceremonial I have generally attended, because it is a circumstance\nof my author\u2019s manner.\n\nHomer never allots less than a whole line to the introduction of a\nspeaker. No, not even when the speech itself is no longer than the line\nthat leads it. A practice to which, since he never departs from it, he\nmust have been determined by some cogent reason. He probably deemed it\na formality necessary to the majesty of his narration. In this article,\ntherefore, I have scrupulously adhered to my pattern, considering these\nintroductory lines as heralds in a procession; important persons,\nbecause employed to usher in persons more important than themselves.\n\nIt has been my point every where to be as little verbose as possible,\nthough; at the same time, my constant determination not to sacrifice my\nauthor\u2019s full meaning to an affected brevity.\n\nIn the affair of style, I have endeavored neither to creep nor to\nbluster, for no author is so likely to betray his translator into both\nthese faults, as Homer, though himself never guilty of either. I have\ncautiously avoided all terms of new invention, with an abundance of\nwhich, persons of more ingenuity than judgment have not enriched our\nlanguage, but incumbered it. I have also every where used an\nunabbreviated fullness of phrase as most suited to the nature of the\nwork, and, above all, have studied perspicuity, not only because verse\nis good for little that wants it, but because Homer is the most\nperspicuous of all poets.\n\nIn all difficult places I have consulted the best commentators, and\nwhere they have differed, or have given, as is often the case, a\nvariety of solutions, I have ever exercised my best judgment, and\nselected that which appears, at least to myself, the most probable\ninterpretation. On this ground, and on account of the fidelity which I\nhave already boasted, I may venture, I believe, to recommend my work as\npromising some usefulness to young students of the original.\n\nThe passages which will be least noticed, and possibly not at all,\nexcept by those who shall wish to find me at a fault, are those which\nhave cost me abundantly the most labor. It is difficult to kill a sheep\nwith dignity in a modern language, to flay and to prepare it for the\ntable, detailing every circumstance of the process. Difficult also,\nwithout sinking below the level of poetry, to harness mules to a wagon,\nparticularizing every article of their furniture, straps, rings,\nstaples, and even the tying of the knots that kept all together. Homer,\nwho writes always to the eye, with all his sublimity and grandeur, has\nthe minuteness of a Flemish painter.\n\nBut in what degree I have succeeded in my version either of these\npassages, and such as these, or of others more buoyant and\nabove-ground, and especially of the most sublime, is now submitted to\nthe decision of the reader, to whom I am ready enough to confess that I\nhave not at all consulted their approbation, who account nothing grand\nthat is not turgid, or elegant that is not bedizened with metaphor.\n\nI purposely decline all declamation on the merits of Homer, because a\ntranslator\u2019s praises of his author are liable to a suspicion of dotage,\nand because it were impossible to improve on those which this author\nhas received already. He has been the wonder of all countries that his\nworks have ever reached, even deified by the greatest names of\nantiquity, and in some places actually worshipped. And to say truth,\nwere it possible that mere man could entitle himself by pre-eminence of\nany kind to divine honors, Homer\u2019s astonishing powers seem to have\ngiven him the best pretensions.\n\nI cannot conclude without due acknowledgments to the best critic in\nHomer I have ever met with, the learned and ingenious Mr. Fuseli.\nUnknown as he was to me when I entered on this arduous undertaking\n(indeed to this moment I have never seen him) he yet voluntarily and\ngenerously offered himself as my revisor. To his classical taste and\njust discernment I have been indebted for the discovery of many\nblemishes in my own work, and of beauties, which would otherwise have\nescaped me, in the original. But his necessary avocations would not\nsuffer him to accompany me farther than to the latter books of the\nIliad, a circumstance which I fear my readers, as well as myself, will\nregret with too much reason.[1]\n\nI have obligations likewise to many friends, whose names, were it\nproper to mention them here, would do me great honor. They have\nencouraged me by their approbation, have assisted me with valuable\nbooks, and have eased me of almost the whole labor of transcribing.\n\nAnd now I have only to regret that my pleasant work is ended. To the\nillustrious Greek I owe the smooth and easy flight of many thousand\nhours. He has been my companion at home and abroad, in the study, in\nthe garden, and in the field; and no measure of success, let my labors\nsucceed as they may, will ever compensate to me the loss of the\ninnocent luxury that I have enjoyed, as a translator of Homer.\n\nFootnote:\n\nSome of the few notes subjoined to my translation of the Odyssey are by\nMr. Fuseli, who had a short opportunity to peruse the MSS. while the\nIliad was printing. They are marked with his initial.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nPREPARED BY MR. COWPER,\nFOR A\nSECOND EDITION.\n\nSoon after my publication of this work, I began to prepare it for a\nsecond edition, by an accurate revisal of the first. It seemed to me,\nthat here and there, perhaps a slight alteration might satisfy the\ndemands of some, whom I was desirous to please; and I comforted myself\nwith the reflection, that if I still failed to conciliate all, I should\nyet have no cause to account myself in a singular degree unfortunate.\nTo please an unqualified judge, an author must sacrifice too much; and\nthe attempt to please an uncandid one were altogether hopeless. In one\nor other of these classes may be ranged all such objectors, as would\ndeprive blank verse of one of its principal advantages, the variety of\nits pauses; together with all such as deny the good effect, on the\nwhole, of a line, now and then, less harmonious than its fellows.\n\nWith respect to the pauses, it has been affirmed with an unaccountable\nrashness, that Homer himself has given me an example of verse without\nthem. Had this been true, it would by no means have concluded against\nthe use of them in an English version of Homer; because, in one\nlanguage, and in one species of metre, that may be musical, which in\nanother would be found disgusting. But the assertion is totally\nunfounded. The pauses in Homer\u2019s verse are so frequent and various,\nthat to name another poet, if pauses are a fault, more faulty than he,\nwere, perhaps, impossible. It may even be questioned, if a single\npassage of ten lines flowing with uninterrupted smoothness could be\nsingled out from all the thousands that he has left us. He frequently\npauses at the first word of the line, when it consists of three or more\nsyllables; not seldom when of two; and sometimes even when of one only.\nIn this practice he was followed, as was observed in my Preface to the\nfirst edition, by the Author of the Paradise Lost. An example\ninimitable indeed, but which no writer of English heroic verse without\nrhyme can neglect with impunity.\n\nSimilar to this is the objection which proscribes absolutely the\noccasional use of a line irregularly constructed. When Horace censured\nLucilius for his lines _incomposite pede currentes_, he did not mean to\nsay, that he was chargeable with such in some instances, or even in\nmany, for then the censure would have been equally applicable to\nhimself; but he designed by that expression to characterize all his\nwritings. The censure therefore was just; Lucilius wrote at a time when\nthe Roman verse had not yet received its polish, and instead of\nintroducing artfully his rugged lines, and to serve a particular\npurpose, had probably seldom, and never but by accident, composed a\nsmooth one. Such has been the versification of the earliest poets in\nevery country. Children lisp, at first, and stammer; but, in time,\ntheir speech becomes fluent, and, if they are well taught, harmonious.\n\nHomer himself is not invariably regular in the construction of his\nverse. Had he been so, Eustathius, an excellent critic and warm admirer\nof Homer, had never affirmed, that some of his lines want a head, some\na tail, and others a middle. Some begin with a word that is neither\ndactyl nor spondee, some conclude with a dactyl, and in the\nintermediate part he sometimes deviates equally from the established\ncustom. I confess that instances of this sort are rare; but they are\nsurely, though few, sufficient to warrant a sparing use of similar\nlicense in the present day.\n\nUnwilling, however, to seem obstinate in both these particulars, I\nconformed myself in some measure to these objections, though\nunconvinced myself of their propriety. Several of the rudest and most\nunshapely lines I composed anew; and several of the pauses least in use\nI displaced for the sake of an easier enunciation.\u2014And this was the\nstate of the work after the revisal given it about seven years since.\n\nBetween that revisal and the present a considerable time intervened,\nand the effect of long discontinuance was, that I became more\ndissatisfied with it myself, than the most difficult to be pleased of\nall my judges. Not for the sake of a few uneven lines or unwonted\npauses, but for reasons far more substantial. The diction seemed to me\nin many passages either not sufficiently elevated, or deficient in the\ngrace of ease, and in others I found the sense of the original either\nnot adequately expressed or misapprehended. Many elisions still\nremained unsoftened; the compound epithets I found not always happily\ncombined, and the same sometimes too frequently repeated.\n\nThere is no end of passages in Homer, which must creep unless they are\nlifted; yet in such, all embellishment is out of the question. The hero\nputs on his clothes, or refreshes himself with food and wine, or he\nyokes his steed, takes a journey, and in the evening preparation is\nmade for his repose. To give relief to subjects prosaic as these\nwithout seeming unreasonably tumid is extremely difficult. Mr. Pope\nmuch abridges some of them, and others he omits; but neither of these\nliberties was compatible with the nature of my undertaking. These,\ntherefore, and many similar to these, have been new-modeled; somewhat\nto their advantage I hope, but not even now entirely to my\nsatisfaction. The lines have a more natural movement, the pauses are\nfewer and less stately, the expression as easy as I could make it\nwithout meanness, and these were all the improvements that I could give\nthem.\n\nThe elisions, I believe, are all cured, with only one exception. An\nalternative proposes itself to a modern versifier, from which there is\nno escape, which occurs perpetually, and which, choose as he may,\npresents him always with an evil. I mean in the instance of the\nparticle (_the_). When this particle precedes a vowel, shall he melt it\ninto the substantive, or leave the _hiatus_ open? Both practices are\noffensive to a delicate ear. The particle absorbed occasions harshness,\nand the open vowel a vacuity equally inconvenient. Sometimes,\ntherefore, to leave it open, and sometimes to ingraft it into its\nadjunct seems most advisable; this course Mr. Pope has taken, whose\nauthority recommended it to me; though of the two evils I have most\nfrequently chosen the elision as the least.\n\nCompound epithets have obtained so long in the poetical language of our\ncountry, that I employed them without fear or scruple. To have\nabstained from them in a blank verse translation of Homer, who abounds\nwith them, and from whom our poets probably first adopted them, would\nhave been strange indeed. But though the genius of our language favors\nthe formation of such words almost as much as that of the Greek, it\nhappens sometimes, that a Grecian compound either cannot be rendered in\nEnglish at all, or, at best, but awkwardly. For this reason, and\nbecause I found that some readers much disliked them, I have expunged\nmany; retaining, according to my best judgment, the most eligible only,\nand making less frequent the repetitions even of these.\n\nI know not that I can add any thing material on the subject of this\nlast revisal, unless it be proper to give the reason why the Iliad,\nthough greatly altered, has undergone much fewer alterations than the\nOdyssey. The true reason I believe is this. The Iliad demanded my\nutmost possible exertions; it seemed to meet me like an ascent almost\nperpendicular, which could not be surmounted at less cost than of all\nthe labor that I could bestow on it. The Odyssey on the contrary seemed\nto resemble an open and level country, through which I might travel at\nmy ease. The latter, therefore, betrayed me into some negligence,\nwhich, though little conscious of it at the time, on an accurate\nsearch, I found had left many disagreeable effects behind it.\n\nI now leave the work to its fate. Another may labor hereafter in an\nattempt of the same kind with more success; but more industriously, I\nbelieve, none ever will.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nBY\nJ. JOHNSON, LL.B.\nCHAPLAIN TO THE BISHOP OF PETERBOROUGH.\n\nI have no other pretensions to the honorable name of Editor on this\noccasion, than as a faithful transcriber of the Manuscript, and a\ndiligent corrector of the Press, which are, doubtless, two of the very\nhumblest employments in that most extensive province. I have wanted the\nability to attempt any thing higher; and, fortunately for the reader, I\nhave also wanted the presumption. What, however, I can do, I will.\nInstead of critical remark, I will furnish him with anecdote. He shall\ntrace from beginning to end the progress of the following work; and in\nproportion as I have the happiness to engage his attention, I shall\nmerit the name of a fortunate editor.\n\nIt was in the darkest season of a most calamitous depression of his\nspirits, that I was summoned to the house of my inestimable friend the\nTranslator, in the month of January, 1794. He had happily completed a\nrevisal of his Homer, and was thinking of the preface to his new\nedition, when all his satisfaction in the one, and whatever he had\nprojected for the other, in a moment vanished from his mind. He had\nfallen into a deplorable illness; and though the foremost wish of my\nheart was to lessen the intenseness of his misery, I was utterly unable\nto afford him any aid.\n\nI had, however, a pleasing though a melancholy opportunity of tracing\nhis recent footsteps in the Field of Troy, and in the Palace of Ithaca.\nHe had materially altered both the Iliad and Odyssey; and, so far as my\nability allowed me to judge, they were each of them greatly improved.\nHe had also, at the request of his bookseller, interspersed the two\npoems with copious notes; for the most part translations of the ancient\nScholia, and gleaned, at the cost of many valuable hours, from the\npages of Barnes, Clarke, and Villoisson. It has been a constant subject\nof regret to the admirers of \u201cThe Task,\u201d that the exercise of such\nmarvelous original powers, should have been so long suspended by the\ndrudgery of translation; and in this view, their quarrel with the\nillustrious Greek will be, doubtless, extended to his commentators.[1]\n\nDuring two long years from this most anxious period, the translation\ncontinued as it was; and though, in the hope of its being able to\ndivert his melancholy, I had attempted more than once to introduce it\nto its Author, I was every time painfully obliged to desist. But in the\nsummer of ninety-six, when he had resided with me in Norfolk twelve\nmiserable months, the introduction long wished for took place. To my\ninexpressible astonishment and joy, I surprised him, one morning, with\nthe Iliad in his hand; and with an excess of delight, which I am still\nmore unable to describe, I the next day discovered that he had been\nwriting.\u2014Were I to mention one of the happiest moments of my life, it\nmight be that which introduced me to the following lines:\u2014\n\nMistaken meanings corrected,\nadmonente G. Wakefield. B. XXIII. L. 429.\tthat the nave\nOf thy neat wheel seem e\u2019en to grind upon it. L. 865.\tAs when (the\nnorth wind freshening) near the bank\nUp springs a fish in air, then falls again\nAnd disappears beneath the sable flood,\nSo at the stroke, he bounded. L. 1018.\tThenceforth Tydides o\u2019er his\nample shield\nAim\u2019d and still aim\u2019d to pierce him in the neck. Or better thus\u2014\nTydides, in return, with spear high-poised\nO\u2019er the broad shield, aim\u2019d ever at his neck, Or best of all\u2014 Then\nTydeus\u2019 son, with spear high-poised above\nThe ample shield, stood aiming at his neck.\n\nHe had written these lines with a pencil, on a leaf at the end of his\nIliad; and when I reflected on the cause which had given them birth, I\ncould not but admire its disproportion to the effect. What the voice of\npersuasion had failed in for a year, accident had silently accomplished\nin a single day. The circumstance I allude to was this: I received a\ncopy of the Iliad and Odyssey of Pope, then recently published by the\nEditor above mentioned, with illustrative and critical notes of his\nown. As it commended Mr. Cowper\u2019s Translation in the Preface, and\noccasionally pointed out its merits in the Notes, I was careful to\nplace it in his way; though it was more from a habit of experiment\nwhich I had contracted, than from well-grounded hopes of success. But\nwhat a fortunate circumstance was the arrival of this Work! and by what\nname worthy of its influence shall I call it? In the mouth of an\nindifferent person it might be Chance; but in mine; whom it rendered so\npeculiarly happy, common gratitude requires that it should be\nProvidence.\n\nAs I watched him with an indescribable interest in his progress, I had\nthe satisfaction to find, that, after a few mornings given to\npromiscuous correction, and to frequent perusal of the above-mentioned\nNotes, he was evidently settling on the sixteenth Book. This he went\nregularly through, and the fruits of an application so happily resumed\nwere, one day with another, about sixty new lines. But with the end of\nthe sixteenth Book he had closed the corrections of the year. An\nexcursion to the coast, which immediately followed, though it promised\nan accession of strength to the body, could not fail to interfere with\nthe pursuits of the mind. It was therefore with much less surprise than\nregret, that I saw him relinquish the \u201c_Tale of Troy Divine_.\u201d\n\nSuch was the prelude to the last revisal, which, in the month of\nJanuary, ninety-seven, Mr. Cowper was persuaded to undertake; and to a\nfaithful copy, as I trust, of which, I have at this time the honor to\nconduct the reader. But it may not be amiss to observe, that with\nregard to the earlier books of the Iliad, it was less a revisal of the\naltered text, than of the text as it stands in the first edition. For\nthough the interleaved copy was always at hand, and in the multitude of\nits altered places could hardly fail to offer some things worthy to be\npreserved, but which the ravages of illness and the lapse of time might\nhave utterly effaced from his mind, I could not often persuade the\nTranslator to consult it. I was therefore induced, in the course of\ntranscribing, to compare the two revisals as I went along, and to plead\nfor the continuance of the first correction, when it forcibly struck me\nas better than the last. This, however, but seldom occurred; and the\npractice, at length, was completely left off, by his consenting to\nreceive into the number of the books which were daily laid open before\nhim, the interleaved copy to which I allude.\n\nAt the end of the first six books of the Iliad, the arrival of spring\nbrought the usual interruptions of exercise and air, which increased as\nthe summer advanced to a degree so unfavorable to the progress of\nHomer, that in the requisite attention to their salutary claims, the\nrevisal was, at one time, altogether at a stand. Only four books were\nadded in the course of nine months; but opportunity returning as the\nwinter set in, there were added, in less than seven weeks, four more:\nand thus ended the year ninety-seven.\n\nAs the spring that succeeded was a happier spring, so it led to a\nhappier summer. We had no longer air and exercise alone, but exercise\nand Homer hand in hand. He even followed us thrice to the sea: and\nwhether our walks were\n\n\u201con the margin of the land,\nO\u2019er the green summit of the\u201d cliffs, \u201cwhose base\nBeats back the roaring surge,\u201d\n\u201cor on the shore\nOf the untillable and barren deep,\u201d\n\nthey were always within hearing of his magic song. About the middle of\nthis busy summer, the revisal of the Iliad was brought to a close; and\non the very next day, the 24th of July, the correction of the Odyssey\ncommenced,\u2014a morning rendered memorable by a kind and unexpected visit\nfrom the patroness of that work, the Dowager Lady Spencer!\n\nIt is not my intention to detain the reader with a progressive account\nof the Odyssey revised, as circumstantial as that of the Iliad, because\nit went on smoothly from beginning to end, and was finished in less\nthan eight months.\n\nI cannot deliver these volumes to the public without feeling emotions\nof gratitude toward Heaven, in recollecting how often this corrected\nWork has appeared to me an instrument of Divine mercy, to mitigate the\nsufferings of my excellent relation. Its progress in our private hours\nwas singularly medicinal to his mind: may its presentment to the Public\nprove not less conducive to the honor of the departed Author, who has\nevery claim to my veneration! As a copious life of the Poet is already\nin the press, from the pen of his intimate friend Mr. Hayley, it is\nunnecessary for me to enter on such extensive commendation of his\ncharacter, as my own intimacy with him might suggest; but I hope the\nreader will kindly allow me the privilege of indulging, in some degree,\nthe feelings of my heart, by applying to him, in the close of this\nPreface, an expressive verse (borrowed from Homer) which he inscribed\nhimself, with some little variation, on a bust of his Grecian Favorite.\n\n\n\u03a9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b5 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03b7\u03c1 \u03c9 \u03c0\u03b1\u03b9\u03b4\u03b9, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf\u03c5\u03c0\u03bf\u03c4\u03b5 \u03bb\u03b7\u03c3\u03bf\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03b5.\n\nLoved as his Son, in him I early found\nA Father, such as I will ne\u2019er forget.\n\n\nFootnote:\n\nVery few signatures had at this time been affixed to the notes; but I\nafterward compared them with the Greek, note by note, and endeavored to\nsupply the defect; more especially in the last three Volumes, where the\nreader will be pleased to observe that all the notes without signatures\nare Mr. Cowper\u2019s, and that those marked B.C.V. are respectively found\nin the editions of Homer by Barnes, Clarke, and Villoisson. But the\nemployment was so little to the taste and inclination of the poet, that\nhe never afterward revised them, or added to their number more than\nthese which follow;\u2014In the Odyssey, Vol. I. Book xi., the note 32.\u2014Vol.\nII. Book xv., the note 13.\u2014The note10 Book xvi., of that volume, and\nthe note 14, Book xix., of the same.\n\n\n\n\nADVERTISEMENT TO SOUTHEY\u2019S EDITION\n\n\nIt is incumbent upon the present Editor to state the reasons which have\ninduced him, between two editions of Cowper\u2019s Homer, differing so\nmaterially from each other that they might almost be deemed different\nversions, to prefer the first.\n\nWhoever has perused the Translator\u2019s letters, must have perceived that\nhe had considered with no ordinary care the scheme of his\nversification, and that when he resolved upon altering it in a second\nedition, it was in deference to the opinion of others.\n\nIt seems to the Editor that Cowper\u2019s own judgment is entitled to more\nrespect, than that of any, or all his critics; and that the version\nwhich he composed when his faculties were most active and his spirits\nleast subject to depression,\u2014indeed in the happiest part of his\nlife,\u2014ought not to be superseded by a revisal, or rather\nreconstruction, which was undertaken three years before his death,\u2014not\nlike the first translation as \u201ca pleasant work, an innocent luxury,\u201d\nthe cheerful and delightful occupation of hope and ardor and\nambition,\u2014but as a \u201chopeless employment,\u201d a task to which he gave \u201call\nhis miserable days, and often many hours of the night,\u201d seeking to\nbeguile the sense of utter wretchedness, by altering as if for the sake\nof alteration.\n\nThe Editor has been confirmed in this opinion by the concurrence of\nevery person with whom he has communicated on the subject. Among others\nhe takes the liberty of mentioning Mr. Cary, whose authority upon such\na question is of especial weight, the Translator of Dante being the\nonly one of our countrymen who has ever executed a translation of equal\nmagnitude and not less difficulty, with the same perfect fidelity and\nadmirable skill.\n\nIn support of this determination, the case of Tasso may be cited as\ncuriously in point. The great Italian poet altered his Jerusalem like\nCowper, against his own judgment, in submission to his critics: he made\nthe alteration in the latter years of his life, and in a diseased state\nof mind; and he proceeded upon the same prescribed rule of smoothing\ndown his versification, and removing all the elisions. The consequence\nhas been that the reconstructed poem is utterly neglected, and has\nrarely, if ever, been reprinted, except in the two great editions of\nhis collected works; while the original poem has been and continues to\nbe in such demand, that the most diligent bibliographer might vainly\nattempt to enumerate all the editions through which it has passed.\n\n\n\n\nEDITOR\u2019S NOTE.\n\n\nIt will be seen by the Advertisement to Southey\u2019s edition of Cowper\u2019s\nTranslation of the Iliad, that he has the highest opinion of its\nmerits, and that he also gives the preference to Cowper\u2019s unrevised\nedition. The Editor of the present edition is happy to offer it to the\npublic under the sanction of such high authority.\n\nIn the addition of notes I have availed myself of the learning of\nvarious commentators (Pope, Coleridge, M\u00fcller, etc.) and covet no\nhigher praise than the approval of my judgment in the selection.\n\nThose bearing the signature E.P.P., were furnished by my friend Miss\nPeabody, of Boston. I would also acknowledge my obligations to C.C.\nFelton, Eliot Professor of Greek in Harvard University. It should be\nobserved, that the remarks upon the language of the poem refer to it in\nthe original.\n\nFor a definite treatment of the character of each deity introduced in\nthe Iliad, and for the fable of the Judgment of Paris, which was the\nprimary cause of the Trojan war, the reader is referred to \u201cGrecian and\nRoman Mythology.\u201d\n\nIt is intended that this edition of the Iliad shall be followed by a\nsimilar one of the Odyssey, provided sufficient encouragement is given\nby the demand for the present volume.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n BOOK I.\n BOOK II.\n BOOK III.\n BOOK IV.\n BOOK V.\n BOOK VI.\n BOOK VII.\n BOOK VIII.\n BOOK IX.\n BOOK X.\n BOOK XI.\n BOOK XII.\n BOOK XIII.\n BOOK XIV.\n BOOK XV.\n BOOK XVI.\n BOOK XVII.\n BOOK XVIII.\n BOOK XIX.\n BOOK XX.\n BOOK XXI.\n BOOK XXII.\n BOOK XXIII.\n BOOK XXIV.\n\n\n\n\nTHE\nILIAD OF HOMER,\nTRANSLATED INTO\nENGLISH BLANK VERSE.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK I.\n\n\nARGUMENT OF THE FIRST BOOK.\n\nThe book opens with an account of a pestilence that prevailed in the\nGrecian camp, and the cause of it is assigned. A council is called, in\nwhich fierce altercation takes place between Agamemnon and Achilles.\nThe latter solemnly renounces the field. Agamemnon, by his heralds,\ndemands Bris\u00ebis, and Achilles resigns her. He makes his complaint to\nThetis, who undertakes to plead his cause with Jupiter. She pleads it,\nand prevails. The book concludes with an account of what passed in\nHeaven on that occasion.\n\n\n[The reader will please observe, that by Achaians, Argives, Dana\u00ef, are\nsignified Grecians. Homer himself having found these various\nappellatives both graceful and convenient, it seemed unreasonable that\na Translator of him should be denied the same advantage.\u2014Tr.]\n\n\nBOOK I.\n\n\nAchilles sing, O Goddess! Peleus\u2019 son;\nHis wrath pernicious, who ten thousand woes\nCaused to Achaia\u2019s host, sent many a soul\nIllustrious into Ades premature,\nAnd Heroes gave (so stood the will of Jove)5\nTo dogs and to all ravening fowls a prey,\nWhen fierce dispute had separated once\nThe noble Chief Achilles from the son\nOf Atreus, Agamemnon, King of men.\nWho them to strife impell\u2019d? What power divine?10\nLatona\u2019s son and Jove\u2019s.[1] For he, incensed\nAgainst the King, a foul contagion raised\nIn all the host, and multitudes destroy\u2019d,\nFor that the son of Atreus had his priest\nDishonored, Chryses. To the fleet he came15\nBearing rich ransom glorious to redeem\nHis daughter, and his hands charged with the wreath\nAnd golden sceptre[2] of the God shaft-arm\u2019d.\nHis supplication was at large to all\nThe host of Greece, but most of all to two,20\nThe sons of Atreus, highest in command.\nYe gallant Chiefs, and ye their gallant host,\n(So may the Gods who in Olympus dwell\nGive Priam\u2019s treasures to you for a spoil\nAnd ye return in safety,) take my gifts25\nAnd loose my child, in honor of the son\nOf Jove, Apollo, archer of the skies.[3]\nAt once the voice of all was to respect\nThe priest, and to accept the bounteous price;\nBut so it pleased not Atreus\u2019 mighty son,30\nWho with rude threatenings stern him thence dismiss\u2019d.\nBeware, old man! that at these hollow barks\nI find thee not now lingering, or henceforth\nReturning, lest the garland of thy God\nAnd his bright sceptre should avail thee nought.35\nI will not loose thy daughter, till old age\nSteal on her. From her native country far,\nIn Argos, in my palace, she shall ply\nThe loom, and shall be partner of my bed.\nMove me no more. Begone; hence while thou may\u2019st.40\nHe spake, the old priest trembled and obey\u2019d.\nForlorn he roamed the ocean\u2019s sounding shore,\nAnd, solitary, with much prayer his King\nBright-hair\u2019d Latona\u2019s son, Ph\u0153bus, implored.[4]\nGod of the silver bow, who with thy power45\nEncirclest Chrysa, and who reign\u2019st supreme\nIn Tenedos and Cilla the divine,\nSminthian[5] Apollo![6] If I e\u2019er adorned\nThy beauteous fane, or on the altar burn\u2019d\nThe fat acceptable of bulls or goats,50\nGrant my petition. With thy shafts avenge\nOn the Achaian host thy servant\u2019s tears.\nSuch prayer he made, and it was heard.[7] The God,\nDown from Olympus with his radiant bow\nAnd his full quiver o\u2019er his shoulder slung,55\nMarched in his anger; shaken as he moved\nHis rattling arrows told of his approach.\nGloomy he came as night; sat from the ships\nApart, and sent an arrow. Clang\u2019d the cord\n[8]Dread-sounding, bounding on the silver bow.[9]60\nMules first and dogs he struck,[10] but at themselves\nDispatching soon his bitter arrows keen,\nSmote them. Death-piles on all sides always blazed.\nNine days throughout the camp his arrows flew;\nThe tenth, Achilles from all parts convened65\nThe host in council. Juno the white-armed\nMoved at the sight of Grecians all around\nDying, imparted to his mind the thought.[11]\nThe full assembly, therefore, now convened,\nUprose Achilles ardent, and began.70\n\nAtrides! Now, it seems, no course remains\nFor us, but that the seas roaming again,\nWe hence return; at least if we survive;\nBut haste, consult we quick some prophet here\nOr priest, or even interpreter of dreams,75\n(For dreams are also of Jove,) that we may learn\nBy what crime we have thus incensed Apollo,\nWhat broken vow, what hecatomb unpaid\nHe charges on us, and if soothed with steam\nOf lambs or goats unblemish\u2019d, he may yet80\nBe won to spare us, and avert the plague.\nHe spake and sat, when Thestor\u2019s son arose\nCalchas, an augur foremost in his art,\nWho all things, present, past, and future knew,\nAnd whom his skill in prophecy, a gift85\nConferred by Ph\u0153bus on him, had advanced\nTo be conductor of the fleet to Troy;\nHe, prudent, them admonishing, replied.[12]\nJove-loved Achilles! Wouldst thou learn from me\nWhat cause hath moved Apollo to this wrath,90\nThe shaft-arm\u2019d King? I shall divulge the cause.\nBut thou, swear first and covenant on thy part\nThat speaking, acting, thou wilt stand prepared\nTo give me succor; for I judge amiss,\nOr he who rules the Argives, the supreme95\nO\u2019er all Achaia\u2019s host, will be incensed.\nWo to the man who shall provoke the King\nFor if, to-day, he smother close his wrath,\nHe harbors still the vengeance, and in time\nPerforms it. Answer, therefore, wilt thou save me?100\nTo whom Achilles, swiftest of the swift.\nWhat thou hast learn\u2019d in secret from the God\nThat speak, and boldly. By the son of Jove,\nApollo, whom thou, Calchas, seek\u2019st in prayer\nMade for the Dana\u00ef, and who thy soul105\nFills with futurity, in all the host\nThe Grecian lives not, who while I shall breathe,\nAnd see the light of day, shall in this camp\nOppress thee; no, not even if thou name\nHim, Agamemnon, sovereign o\u2019er us all.110\nThen was the seer embolden\u2019d, and he spake.\nNor vow nor hecatomb unpaid on us\nHe charges, but the wrong done to his priest\nWhom Agamemnon slighted when he sought\nHis daughter\u2019s freedom, and his gifts refused.115\nHe is the cause. Apollo for his sake\nAfflicts and will afflict us, neither end\nNor intermission of his heavy scourge\nGranting, till unredeem\u2019d, no price required,\nThe black-eyed maid be to her father sent,120\nAnd a whole hecatomb in Chrysa bleed.\nThen, not before, the God may be appeased.\nHe spake and sat; when Atreus\u2019 son arose,\nThe Hero Agamemnon, throned supreme.\nTempests of black resentment overcharged125\nHis heart, and indignation fired his eyes.\nOn Calchas lowering, him he first address\u2019d.\nProphet of mischief! from whose tongue no note\nOf grateful sound to me, was ever heard;\nIll tidings are thy joy, and tidings glad130\nThou tell\u2019st not, or thy words come not to pass.\nAnd now among the Dana\u00ef thy dreams\nDivulging, thou pretend\u2019st the Archer-God\nFor his priest\u2019s sake, our enemy, because\nI scorn\u2019d his offer\u2019d ransom of the maid135\nChrys\u00ebis, more desirous far to bear\nHer to my home, for that she charms me more\nThan Clytemnestra, my own first espoused,\nWith whom, in disposition, feature, form,\nAccomplishments, she may be well compared.140\nYet, being such, I will return her hence\nIf that she go be best. Perish myself\u2014\nBut let the people of my charge be saved\nPrepare ye, therefore, a reward for me,\nAnd seek it instant. It were much unmeet145\nThat I alone of all the Argive host\nShould want due recompense, whose former prize\nIs elsewhere destined, as ye all perceive.\nTo whom Achilles, matchless in the race.\nAtrides, glorious above all in rank,150\nAnd as intent on gain as thou art great,\nWhence shall the Grecians give a prize to thee?\nThe general stock is poor; the spoil of towns\nWhich we have taken, hath already passed\nIn distribution, and it were unjust155\nTo gather it from all the Greeks again.\nBut send thou back this Virgin to her God,\nAnd when Jove\u2019s favor shall have given us Troy,\nA threefold, fourfold share shall then be thine.\nTo whom the Sovereign of the host replied.160\nGodlike Achilles, valiant as thou art,\nWouldst thou be subtle too? But me no fraud\nShall overreach, or art persuade, of thine.\nWouldst thou, that thou be recompensed, and I\nSit meekly down, defrauded of my due?165\nAnd didst thou bid me yield her? Let the bold\nAchaians give me competent amends,\nSuch as may please me, and it shall be well.\nElse, if they give me none, I will command\nThy prize, the prize of Ajax, or the prize170\nIt may be of Ulysses to my tent,\nAnd let the loser chafe. But this concern\nShall be adjusted at convenient time.\nCome\u2014launch we now into the sacred deep\nA bark with lusty rowers well supplied;175\nThen put on board Chrys\u00ebis, and with her\nThe sacrifice required. Go also one\nHigh in authority, some counsellor,\nIdomeneus, or Ajax, or thyself,\nThou most untractable of all mankind;180\nAnd seek by rites of sacrifice and prayer\nTo appease Apollo on our host\u2019s behalf.\nAchilles eyed him with a frown, and spake.\nAh! clothed with impudence as with a cloak,\nAnd full of subtlety, who, thinkest thou\u2014185\nWhat Grecian here will serve thee, or for thee\nWage covert war, or open? Me thou know\u2019st,\nTroy never wronged; I came not to avenge\nHarm done to me; no Trojan ever drove\nMy pastures, steeds or oxen took of mine,190\nOr plunder\u2019d of their fruits the golden fields\nOf Phthia[13] the deep-soil\u2019d. She lies remote,\nAnd obstacles are numerous interposed,\nVale-darkening mountains, and the dashing sea.\nNo, [14]Shameless Wolf! For thy good pleasure\u2019s sake195\nWe came, and, [15]Face of flint! to avenge the wrongs\nBy Menelaus and thyself sustain\u2019d,\nOn the offending Trojan\u2014service kind,\nBut lost on thee, regardless of it all.\nAnd now\u2014What now? Thy threatening is to seize200\nThyself, the just requital of my toils,\nMy prize hard-earn\u2019d, by common suffrage mine.\nI never gain, what Trojan town soe\u2019er\nWe ransack, half thy booty. The swift march\nAnd furious onset\u2014these I largely reap,205\nBut, distribution made, thy lot exceeds\nMine far; while I, with any pittance pleased,\nBear to my ships the little that I win\nAfter long battle, and account it much.\nBut I am gone, I and my sable barks210\n(My wiser course) to Phthia, and I judge,\nScorn\u2019d as I am, that thou shalt hardly glean\nWithout me, more than thou shalt soon consume.[16]\nHe ceased, and Agamemnon thus replied\nFly, and fly now; if in thy soul thou feel215\nSuch ardor of desire to go\u2014begone!\nI woo thee not to stay; stay not an hour\nOn my behalf, for I have others here\nWho will respect me more, and above all\nAll-judging Jove. There is not in the host220\nKing or commander whom I hate as thee,\nFor all thy pleasure is in strife and blood,\nAnd at all times; yet valor is no ground\nWhereon to boast, it is the gift of Heaven\nGo, get ye back to Phthia, thou and thine!225\nThere rule thy Myrmidons.[17] I need not thee,\nNor heed thy wrath a jot. But this I say,\nSure as Apollo takes my lovely prize\nChrys\u00ebis, and I shall return her home\nIn mine own bark, and with my proper crew,230\nSo sure the fair Bris\u00ebis shall be mine.\nI shall demand her even at thy tent.\nSo shalt thou well be taught, how high in power\nI soar above thy pitch, and none shall dare\nAttempt, thenceforth, comparison with me.235\nHe ended, and the big, disdainful heart\nThrobbed of Achilles; racking doubt ensued\nAnd sore perplex\u2019d him, whether forcing wide\nA passage through them, with his blade unsheathed\nTo lay Atrides breathless at his foot,240\nOr to command his stormy spirit down.\nSo doubted he, and undecided yet\nStood drawing forth his falchion huge; when lo!\nDown sent by Juno, to whom both alike\nWere dear, and who alike watched over both,245\nPallas descended. At his back she stood\nTo none apparent, save himself alone,\nAnd seized his golden locks. Startled, he turned,\nAnd instant knew Minerva. Flashed her eyes\nTerrific;[18] whom with accents on the wing250\nOf haste, incontinent he questioned thus.\nDaughter of Jove, why comest thou? that thyself\nMay\u2019st witness these affronts which I endure\nFrom Agamemnon? Surely as I speak,\nThis moment, for his arrogance, he dies.255\nTo whom the blue-eyed Deity. From heaven\nMine errand is, to sooth, if thou wilt hear,\nThine anger. Juno the white-arm\u2019d alike\nTo him and thee propitious, bade me down:\nRestrain thy wrath. Draw not thy falchion forth.260\nRetort, and sharply, and let that suffice.\nFor I foretell thee true. Thou shalt receive,\nSome future day, thrice told, thy present loss\nFor this day\u2019s wrong. Cease, therefore, and be still.\nTo whom Achilles. Goddess, although much265\nExasperate, I dare not disregard\nThy word, which to obey is always best.[19]\nWho hears the Gods, the Gods hear also him.\nHe said; and on his silver hilt the force\nOf his broad hand impressing, sent the blade270\nHome to its rest, nor would the counsel scorn\nOf Pallas. She to heaven well-pleased return\u2019d,\nAnd in the mansion of Jove \u00c6gis[20]-armed\nArriving, mingled with her kindred Gods.\nBut though from violence, yet not from words275\nAbstained Achilles, but with bitter taunt\nOpprobrious, his antagonist reproached.\nOh charged with wine, in steadfastness of face\nDog unabashed, and yet at heart a deer!\nThou never, when the troops have taken arms,280\nHast dared to take thine also; never thou\nAssociate with Achaia\u2019s Chiefs, to form\nThe secret ambush.[21] No. The sound of war\nIs as the voice of destiny to thee.\nDoubtless the course is safer far, to range285\nOur numerous host, and if a man have dared\nDispute thy will, to rob him of his prize.\nKing! over whom? Women and spiritless\u2014\nWhom therefore thou devourest; else themselves\nWould stop that mouth that it should scoff no more.290\nBut hearken. I shall swear a solemn oath.\nBy this same sceptre,[22] which shall never bud,\nNor boughs bring forth as once, which having left\nIts stock on the high mountains, at what time\nThe woodman\u2019s axe lopped off its foliage green,295\nAnd stript its bark, shall never grow again;\nWhich now the judges of Achaia bear,\nWho under Jove, stand guardians of the laws,\nBy this I swear (mark thou the sacred oath)\nTime shall be, when Achilles shall be missed;300\nWhen all shall want him, and thyself the power\nTo help the Achaians, whatsoe\u2019er thy will;\nWhen Hector at your heels shall mow you down:\nThe Hero-slaughtering Hector! Then thy soul,\nVexation-stung, shall tear thee with remorse,305\nThat thou hast scorn\u2019d, as he were nothing worth,\nA Chief, the soul and bulwark of your cause.\nSo saying, he cast his sceptre on the ground\nStudded with gold, and sat. On the other side\nThe son of Atreus all impassion\u2019d stood,310\nWhen the harmonious orator arose\nNestor, the Pylian oracle, whose lips\nDropped eloquence\u2014the honey not so sweet.\nTwo generations past of mortals born\nIn Pylus, co\u00ebtaneous with himself,315\nHe govern\u2019d now the third\u2014amid them all\nHe stood, and thus, benevolent, began.\nAh! what calamity hath fall\u2019n on Greece!\nNow Priam and his sons may well exult,\nNow all in Ilium shall have joy of heart320\nAbundant, hearing of this broil, the prime\nOf Greece between, in council and in arms.\nBut be persuaded; ye are younger both\nThan I, and I was conversant of old\nWith Princes your superiors, yet from them325\nNo disrespect at any time received.\nTheir equals saw I never; never shall;\nExadius, C\u0153neus, and the Godlike son\nOf \u00c6geus, mighty Theseus; men renown\u2019d\nFor force superior to the race of man,330\nBrave Chiefs they were, and with brave foes they fought,\nWith the rude dwellers on the mountain-heights\nThe Centaurs,[23] whom with havoc such as fame\nShall never cease to celebrate, they slew.\nWith these men I consorted erst, what time335\nFrom Pylus, though a land from theirs remote,\nThey called me forth, and such as was my strength,\nWith all that strength I served them. Who is he?\nWhat Prince or Chief of the degenerate race\nNow seen on earth who might with these compare?340\nYet even these would listen and conform\nTo my advice in consultation given,\nWhich hear ye also; for compliance proves\nOft times the safer and the manlier course.\nThou, Agamemnon! valiant as thou art,345\nSeize not the maid, his portion from the Greeks,\nBut leave her his; nor thou, Achilles, strive\nWith our imperial Chief; for never King\nHad equal honor at the hands of Jove\nWith Agamemnon, or was throned so high.350\nSay thou art stronger, and art Goddess-born,\nHow then? His territory passes thine,\nAnd he is Lord of thousands more than thou.\nCease, therefore, Agamemnon; calm thy wrath;\nAnd it shall be mine office to entreat355\nAchilles also to a calm, whose might\nThe chief munition is of all our host.\nTo whom the sovereign of the Greeks replied,\nThe son of Atreus. Thou hast spoken well,\nOld Chief, and wisely. But this wrangler here\u2014360\nNought will suffice him but the highest place:\nHe must control us all, reign over all,\nDictate to all; but he shall find at least\nOne here, disposed to question his commands.\nIf the eternal Gods have made him brave,365\nDerives he thence a privilege to rail?\nWhom thus Achilles interrupted fierce.\nCould I be found so abject as to take\nThe measure of my doings at thy lips,\nWell might they call me coward through the camp,370\nA vassal, and a fellow of no worth.\nGive law to others. Think not to control\nMe, subject to thy proud commands no more.\nHear yet again! And weigh what thou shalt hear.\nI will not strive with thee in such a cause,375\nNor yet with any man; I scorn to fight\nFor her, whom having given, ye take away.\nBut I have other precious things on board;\nOf those take none away without my leave.\nOr if it please thee, put me to the proof380\nBefore this whole assembly, and my spear\nShall stream that moment, purpled with thy blood.\nThus they long time in opposition fierce\nMaintained the war of words; and now, at length,\n(The grand consult dissolved,) Achilles walked385\n(Patroclus and the Myrmidons his steps\nAttending) to his camp and to his fleet.\nBut Agamemnon order\u2019d forth a bark,\nA swift one, manned with twice ten lusty rowers;\nHe sent on board the Hecatomb:[24] he placed390\nChrys\u00ebis with the blooming cheeks, himself,\nAnd to Ulysses gave the freight in charge.\nSo all embarked, and plow\u2019d their watery way.\nAtrides, next, bade purify the host;\nThe host was purified, as he enjoin\u2019d,395\nAnd the ablution cast into the sea.\nThen to Apollo, on the shore they slew,\nOf the untillable and barren deep,\nWhole Hecatombs of bulls and goats, whose steam\nSlowly in smoky volumes climbed the skies.400\nThus was the camp employed; nor ceased the while\nThe son of Atreus from his threats denounced\nAt first against Achilles, but command\nGave to Talthybius and Eurybates\nHis heralds, ever faithful to his will.405\nHaste\u2014Seek ye both the tent of Peleus\u2019 son\nAchilles. Thence lead hither by the hand\nBlooming Bris\u00ebis, whom if he withhold,\nNot her alone, but other spoil myself\nWill take in person\u2014He shall rue the hour.410\nWith such harsh message charged he them dismissed\nThey, sad and slow, beside the barren waste\nOf Ocean, to the galleys and the tents\nMoved of the Myrmidons. Him there they found\nBeneath the shadow of his bark reclined,415\nNor glad at their approach. Trembling they stood,\nIn presence of the royal Chief, awe-struck,\nNor questioned him or spake. He not the less\nKnew well their embassy, and thus began.\nYe heralds, messengers of Gods and men,420\nHail, and draw near! I bid you welcome both.\nI blame not you; the fault is his alone\nWho sends you to conduct the damsel hence\nBris\u00ebis. Go, Patroclus, generous friend!\nLead forth, and to their guidance give the maid.425\nBut be themselves my witnesses before\nThe blessed Gods, before mankind, before\nThe ruthless king, should want of me be felt\nTo save the host from havoc[25]\u2014Oh, his thoughts\nAre madness all; intelligence or skill,430\nForecast or retrospect, how best the camp\nMay be secured from inroad, none hath he.\nHe ended, nor Patroclus disobey\u2019d,\nBut leading beautiful Bris\u00ebis forth\nInto their guidance gave her; loth she went435\nFrom whom she loved, and looking oft behind.\nThen wept Achilles, and apart from all,\nWith eyes directed to the gloomy Deep\nAnd arms outstretch\u2019d, his mother suppliant sought.\nSince, mother, though ordain\u2019d so soon to die,440\nI am thy son, I might with cause expect\nSome honor at the Thunderer\u2019s hands, but none\nTo me he shows, whom Agamemnon, Chief\nOf the Achaians, hath himself disgraced,\nSeizing by violence my just reward.445\nSo prayed he weeping, whom his mother heard\nWithin the gulfs of Ocean where she sat\nBeside her ancient sire. From the gray flood\nAscending sudden, like a mist she came,\nSat down before him, stroked his face, and said.450\nWhy weeps my son? and what is thy distress?\nHide not a sorrow that I wish to share.\nTo whom Achilles, sighing deep, replied.\nWhy tell thee woes to thee already known?\nAt Thebes, E\u00ebtion\u2019s city we arrived,455\nSmote, sack\u2019d it, and brought all the spoil away.\nJust distribution made among the Greeks,\nThe son of Atreus for his lot received\nBlooming Chrys\u00ebis. Her, Apollo\u2019s priest\nOld Chryses followed to Achaia\u2019s camp,460\nThat he might loose his daughter. Ransom rich\nHe brought, and in his hands the hallow\u2019d wreath\nAnd golden sceptre of the Archer God\nApollo, bore; to the whole Grecian host,\nBut chiefly to the foremost in command465\nHe sued, the sons of Atreus; then, the rest\nAll recommended reverence of the Seer,\nAnd prompt acceptance of his costly gifts.\nBut Agamemnon might not so be pleased,\nWho gave him rude dismission; he in wrath470\nReturning, prayed, whose prayer Apollo heard,\nFor much he loved him. A pestiferous shaft\nHe instant shot into the Grecian host,\nAnd heap\u2019d the people died. His arrows swept\nThe whole wide camp of Greece, till at the last475\nA Seer, by Ph\u0153bus taught, explain\u2019d the cause.\nI first advised propitiation. Rage\nFired Agamemnon. Rising, he denounced\nVengeance, and hath fulfilled it. She, in truth,\nIs gone to Chrysa, and with her we send480\nPropitiation also to the King\nShaft-arm\u2019d Apollo. But my beauteous prize\nBris\u00ebis, mine by the award of all,\nHis heralds, at this moment, lead away.\nBut thou, wherein thou canst, aid thy own son!485\nHaste hence to Heaven, and if thy word or deed\nHath ever gratified the heart of Jove,\nWith earnest suit press him on my behalf.\nFor I, not seldom, in my father\u2019s hall\nHave heard thee boasting, how when once the Gods,490\nWith Juno, Neptune, Pallas at their head,\nConspired to bind the Thunderer, thou didst loose\nHis bands, O Goddess! calling to his aid\nThe Hundred-handed warrior, by the Gods\nBriareus, but by men, \u00c6geon named.[26]495\nFor he in prowess and in might surpassed\nHis father Neptune, who, enthroned sublime,\nSits second only to Saturnian Jove,\nElate with glory and joy. Him all the Gods\nFearing from that bold enterprise abstained.500\nNow, therefore, of these things reminding Jove,\nEmbrace his knees; entreat him that he give\nThe host of Troy his succor, and shut fast\nThe routed Grecians, prisoners in the fleet,\nThat all may find much solace[27] in their King,505\nAnd that the mighty sovereign o\u2019er them all,\nTheir Agamemnon, may himself be taught\nHis rashness, who hath thus dishonor\u2019d foul\nThe life itself, and bulwark of his cause.\nTo him, with streaming eyes, Thetis replied.510\nBorn as thou wast to sorrow, ah, my son!\nWhy have I rear\u2019d thee! Would that without tears,\nOr cause for tears (transient as is thy life,\nA little span) thy days might pass at Troy!\nBut short and sorrowful the fates ordain515\nThy life, peculiar trouble must be thine,\nWhom, therefore, oh that I had never borne!\nBut seeking the Olympian hill snow-crown\u2019d,\nI will myself plead for thee in the ear\nOf Jove, the Thunderer. Meantime at thy fleet520\nAbiding, let thy wrath against the Greeks\nStill burn, and altogether cease from war.\nFor to the banks of the Oceanus,[28]\nWhere \u00c6thiopia holds a feast to Jove,[29]\nHe journey\u2019d yesterday, with whom the Gods525\nWent also, and the twelfth day brings them home.\nThen will I to his brazen-floor\u2019d abode,\nThat I may clasp his knees, and much misdeem\nOf my endeavor, or my prayer shall speed.\nSo saying, she went; but him she left enraged530\nFor fair Bris\u00ebis\u2019 sake, forced from his arms\nBy stress of power. Meantime Ulysses came\nTo Chrysa with the Hecatomb in charge.\nArrived within the haven[30] deep, their sails\nFurling, they stowed them in the bark below.535\nThen by its tackle lowering swift the mast\nInto its crutch, they briskly push\u2019d to land,\nHeaved anchors out, and moor\u2019d the vessel fast.\nForth came the mariners, and trod the beach;\nForth came the victims of Apollo next,540\nAnd, last, Chrys\u00ebis. Her Ulysses led\nToward the altar, gave her to the arms\nOf her own father, and him thus address\u2019d.\nO Chryses! Agamemnon, King of men,\nHath sent thy daughter home, with whom we bring545\nA Hecatomb on all our host\u2019s behalf\nTo Ph\u0153bus, hoping to appease the God\nBy whose dread shafts the Argives now expire.\nSo saying, he gave her to him, who with joy\nReceived his daughter. Then, before the shrine550\nMagnificent in order due they ranged\nThe noble Hecatomb.[31] Each laved his hands\nAnd took the salted meal, and Chryses made\nHis fervent prayer with hands upraised on high.\nGod of the silver bow, who with thy power555\nEncirclest Chrysa, and who reign\u2019st supreme\nIn Tenedos, and Cilla the divine!\nThou prov\u2019dst propitious to my first request,\nHast honor\u2019d me, and punish\u2019d sore the Greeks;\nHear yet thy servant\u2019s prayer; take from their host560\nAt once the loathsome pestilence away!\nSo Chryses prayed, whom Ph\u0153bus heard well-pleased;\nThen prayed the Grecians also, and with meal\nSprinkling the victims, their retracted necks\nFirst pierced, then flay\u2019d them; the disjointed thighs565\nThey, next, invested with the double caul,\nWhich with crude slices thin they overspread.\nThe priest burned incense, and libation poured\nLarge on the hissing brands, while, him beside,\nBusy with spit and prong, stood many a youth570\nTrained to the task. The thighs with fire consumed,\nThey gave to each his portion of the maw,\nThen slashed the remnant, pierced it with the spits,\nAnd managing with culinary skill\nThe roast, withdrew it from the spits again.575\nTheir whole task thus accomplish\u2019d, and the board\nSet forth, they feasted, and were all sufficed.\nWhen neither hunger more nor thirst remained\nUnsatisfied, boys crown\u2019d the beakers high\nWith wine delicious, and from right to left580\nDistributing the cups, served every guest.\nThenceforth the youths of the Achaian race\nTo song propitiatory gave the day,\nP\u00e6ans[32] to Ph\u0153bus, Archer of the skies,\nChaunting melodious. Pleased, Apollo heard.585\nBut, when, the sun descending, darkness fell,\nThey on the beach beside their hawsers slept;\nAnd, when the day-spring\u2019s daughter rosy-palm\u2019d\nAurora look\u2019d abroad, then back they steer\u2019d\nTo the vast camp. Fair wind, and blowing fresh,590\nApollo sent them; quick they rear\u2019d the mast,\nThen spread the unsullied canvas to the gale,\nAnd the wind filled it. Roared the sable flood\nAround the bark, that ever as she went\nDash\u2019d wide the brine, and scudded swift away.595\nThus reaching soon the spacious camp of Greece,\nTheir galley they updrew sheer o\u2019er the sands\nFrom the rude surge remote, then propp\u2019d her sides\nWith scantlings long,[33] and sought their several tents.\nBut Peleus\u2019 noble son, the speed-renown\u2019d600\nAchilles, he, his well-built bark beside,\nConsumed his hours, nor would in council more,\nWhere wise men win distinction, or in fight\nAppear, to sorrow and heart-withering wo\nAbandon\u2019d; though for battle, ardent, still605\nHe panted, and the shout-resounding field.\nBut when the twelfth fair morrow streak\u2019d the East,\nThen all the everlasting Gods to Heaven\nResorted, with the Thunderer at their head,\nAnd Thetis, not unmindful of her son,610\nProm the salt flood emerged, seeking betimes\nOlympus and the boundless fields of heaven.\nHigh, on the topmost eminence sublime\nOf the deep-fork\u2019d Olympian she perceived\nThe Thunderer seated, from the Gods apart.615\nShe sat before him, clasp\u2019d with her left hand\nHis knees, her right beneath his chin she placed,\nAnd thus the King, Saturnian Jove, implored.\nFather of all, by all that I have done\nOr said that ever pleased thee, grant my suit.620\nExalt my son, by destiny short-lived\nBeyond the lot of others. Him with shame\nThe King of men hath overwhelm\u2019d, by force\nUsurping his just meed; thou, therefore, Jove,\nSupreme in wisdom, honor him, and give625\nSuccess to Troy, till all Achaia\u2019s sons\nShall yield him honor more than he hath lost!\nShe spake, to whom the Thunderer nought replied,\nBut silent sat long time. She, as her hand\nHad grown there, still importunate, his knees630\nClasp\u2019d as at first, and thus her suit renew\u2019d.[34]\nOr grant my prayer, and ratify the grant,\nOr send me hence (for thou hast none to fear)\nPlainly refused; that I may know and feel\nBy how much I am least of all in heaven.635\nTo whom the cloud-assembler at the last\nSpake, deep-distress\u2019d. Hard task and full of strife\nThou hast enjoined me; Juno will not spare\nFor gibe and taunt injurious, whose complaint\nSounds daily in the ears of all the Gods,640\nThat I assist the Trojans; but depart,\nLest she observe thee; my concern shall be\nHow best I may perform thy full desire.\nAnd to assure thee more, I give the sign\nIndubitable, which all fear expels645\nAt once from heavenly minds. Nought, so confirmed,\nMay, after, be reversed or render\u2019d vain.\nHe ceased, and under his dark brows the nod\nVouchsafed of confirmation. All around\nThe Sovereign\u2019s everlasting head his curls650\nAmbrosial shook,[35] and the huge mountain reeled.\nTheir conference closed, they parted. She, at once,\nFrom bright Olympus plunged into the flood\nProfound, and Jove to his own courts withdrew.\nTogether all the Gods, at his approach,655\nUprose; none sat expectant till he came,\nBut all advanced to meet the Eternal Sire.\nSo on his throne he sat. Nor Juno him\nNot understood; she, watchful, had observed,\nIn consultation close with Jove engaged660\nThetis, bright-footed daughter of the deep,\nAnd keen the son of Saturn thus reproved.\nShrewd as thou art, who now hath had thine ear?\nThy joy is ever such, from me apart\nTo plan and plot clandestine, and thy thoughts,665\nThink what thou may\u2019st, are always barred to me.\nTo whom the father, thus, of heaven and earth.\nExpect not, Juno, that thou shalt partake\nMy counsels at all times, which oft in height\nAnd depth, thy comprehension far exceed,670\nJove\u2019s consort as thou art. When aught occurs\nMeet for thine ear, to none will I impart\nOf Gods or men more free than to thyself.\nBut for my secret thoughts, which I withhold\nFrom all in heaven beside, them search not thou675\nWith irksome curiosity and vain.\n\nHim answer\u2019d then the Goddess ample-eyed.[36]\nWhat word hath passed thy lips, Saturnian Jove,\nThou most severe! I never search thy thoughts,\nNor the serenity of thy profound680\nIntentions trouble; they are safe from me:\nBut now there seems a cause. Deeply I dread\nLest Thetis, silver-footed daughter fair\nOf Ocean\u2019s hoary Sovereign, here arrived\nAt early dawn to practise on thee, Jove!685\nI noticed her a suitress at thy knees,\nAnd much misdeem or promise-bound thou stand\u2019st\nTo Thetis past recall, to exalt her son,\nAnd Greeks to slaughter thousands at the ships.\nTo whom the cloud-assembler God, incensed.690\nAh subtle! ever teeming with surmise,\nAnd fathomer of my concealed designs,\nThy toil is vain, or (which is worse for thee,)\nShall but estrange thee from mine heart the more.\nAnd be it as thou sayest,\u2014I am well pleased695\nThat so it should be. Be advised, desist,\nHold thou thy peace. Else, if my glorious hands\nOnce reach thee, the Olympian Powers combined\nTo rescue thee, shall interfere in vain.\nHe said,\u2014whom Juno, awful Goddess, heard700\nAppall\u2019d, and mute submitted to his will.\nBut through the courts of Jove the heavenly Powers\nAll felt displeasure; when to them arose\nVulcan, illustrious artist, who with speech\nConciliatory interposed to sooth705\nHis white-armed mother Juno, Goddess dread.\nHard doom is ours, and not to be endured,\nIf feast and merriment must pause in heaven\nWhile ye such clamor raise tumultuous here\nFor man\u2019s unworthy sake: yet thus we speed710\nEver, when evil overpoises good.\nBut I exhort my mother, though herself\nAlready warn\u2019d, that meekly she submit\nTo Jove our father, lest our father chide\nMore roughly, and confusion mar the feast.715\nFor the Olympian Thunderer could with ease\nUs from our thrones precipitate, so far\nHe reigns to all superior. Seek to assuage\nHis anger therefore; so shall he with smiles\nCheer thee, nor thee alone, but all in heaven.720\nSo Vulcan, and, upstarting, placed a cup\nFull-charged between his mother\u2019s hands, and said,\nMy mother, be advised, and, though aggrieved,\nYet patient; lest I see thee whom I love\nSo dear, with stripes chastised before my face,725\nWilling, but impotent to give thee aid.[37]\nWho can resist the Thunderer? Me, when once\nI flew to save thee, by the foot he seized\nAnd hurl\u2019d me through the portal of the skies.\n\u201cFrom morn to eve I fell, a summer\u2019s day,\u201d730\nAnd dropped, at last, in Lemnos. There half-dead\nThe Sintians found me, and with succor prompt\nAnd hospitable, entertained me fallen.\nSo He; then Juno smiled, Goddess white-arm\u2019d,\nAnd smiling still, from his unwonted hand[38]735\nReceived the goblet. He from right to left\nRich nectar from the beaker drawn, alert\nDistributed to all the powers divine.\nHeaven rang with laughter inextinguishable\nPeal after peal, such pleasure all conceived740\nAt sight of Vulcan in his new employ.\nSo spent they in festivity the day,\nAnd all were cheered; nor was Apollo\u2019s harp\nSilent, nor did the Muses spare to add\nResponsive melody of vocal sweets.745\nBut when the sun\u2019s bright orb had now declined,\nEach to his mansion, wheresoever built\nBy the lame matchless Architect, withdrew.[39]\nJove also, kindler of the fires of heaven,\nHis couch ascending as at other times750\nWhen gentle sleep approach\u2019d him, slept serene,\nWith golden-sceptred Juno at his side.\n\n\nThe first book contains the preliminaries to the commencement of\nserious action. First, the visit of the priest of Apollo to ransom his\ncaptive daughter, the refusal of Agamemnon to yield her up, and the\npestilence sent by the god upon the Grecian army in consequence.\nSecondly, the restoration, the propitiation of Apollo, the quarrel of\nAgamemnon and Achilles, and the withdrawing of the latter from the\nGrecian army. Thirdly, the intercession of Thetis with Jupiter; his\npromise, unwillingly given, to avenge Achilles; and the assembly of the\ngods, in which the promise is angrily alluded to by Juno, and the\ndiscussion peremptorily checked by Jupiter. The poet, throughout this\nbook, maintains a simple, unadorned style, but highly descriptive, and\nhappily adapted to the nature of the subject.\u2014Felton.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK II.\n\n\nARGUMENT OF THE SECOND BOOK.\n\nJupiter, in pursuance of his purpose to distress the Grecians in answer\nto the prayer of Thetis, deceives Agamemnon by a dream. He, in\nconsequence of it, calls a council, the result of which is that the\narmy shall go forth to battle. Thersites is mutinous, and is chastised\nby Ulysses. Ulysses, Nestor, and Agamemnon, harangue the people; and\npreparation is made for battle. An exact account follows of the forces\non both sides.\n\n\nBOOK II.\n\n\n[1]All night both Gods and Chiefs equestrian slept,\nBut not the Sire of all. He, waking soon,\nMused how to exalt Achilles, and destroy\nNo few in battle at the Grecian fleet.\nThis counsel, at the last, as best he chose5\nAnd likeliest; to dispatch an evil Dream\nTo Agamemnon\u2019s tent, and to his side\nThe phantom summoning, him thus addressed.\nHaste, evil Dream! Fly to the Grecian fleet,\nAnd, entering royal Agamemnon\u2019s tent,10\nHis ear possess thou thus, omitting nought\nOf all that I enjoin thee. Bid him arm\nHis universal host, for that the time\nWhen the Achaians shall at length possess\nWide Ilium, hath arrived. The Gods above15\nNo longer dwell at variance. The request\nOf Juno hath prevail\u2019d; now, wo to Troy!\nSo charged, the Dream departed. At the ships\nWell-built arriving of Achaia\u2019s host,\nHe Agamemnon, son of Atreus, sought.20\nHim sleeping in his tent he found, immersed\nIn soft repose ambrosial. At his head\nThe shadow stood, similitude exact\nOf Nestor, son of Neleus; sage, with whom\nIn Agamemnon\u2019s thought might none compare.25\nHis form assumed, the sacred Dream began.\nOh son of Atreus the renown\u2019d in arms\nAnd in the race! Sleep\u2019st thou? It ill behoves\nTo sleep all night the man of high employ,\nAnd charged, as thou art, with a people\u2019s care.30\nNow, therefore, mark me well, who, sent from Jove,\nInform thee, that although so far remote,\nHe yet compassionates and thinks on thee\nWith kind solicitude. He bids thee arm\nThy universal host, for that the time35\nWhen the Achaians shall at length possess\nWide Ilium, hath arrived. The Gods above\nNo longer dwell at variance. The requests\nOf Juno have prevail\u2019d. Now, wo to Troy\nFrom Jove himself! Her fate is on the wing.40\nAwaking from thy dewy slumbers, hold\nIn firm remembrance all that thou hast heard.\nSo spake the Dream, and vanishing, him left\nIn false hopes occupied and musings vain.\nFull sure he thought, ignorant of the plan45\nBy Jove design\u2019d, that day the last of Troy.\nFond thought! For toils and agonies to Greeks\nAnd Trojans both, in many a bloody field\nTo be endured, the Thunderer yet ordain\u2019d.\nStarting he woke, and seeming still to hear50\nThe warning voice divine, with hasty leap\nSprang from his bed, and sat.[2] His fleecy vest\nNew-woven he put on, and mantle wide;\nHis sandals fair to his unsullied feet\nHe braced, and slung his argent-studded sword.55\nThen, incorruptible for evermore\nThe sceptre of his sires he took, with which\nHe issued forth into the camp of Greece.\nAurora now on the Olympian heights\nProclaiming stood new day to all in heaven,60\nWhen he his clear-voiced heralds bade convene\nThe Greeks in council. Went the summons forth\nInto all quarters, and the throng began.\nFirst, at the ship of Nestor, Pylian King,[3]\nThe senior Chiefs for high exploits renown\u2019d65\nHe gather\u2019d, whom he prudent thus address\u2019d.\nMy fellow warriors, hear! A dream from heaven,\nAmid the stillness of the vacant night\nApproach\u2019d me, semblance close in stature, bulk,\nAnd air, of noble Nestor. At mine head70\nThe shadow took his stand, and thus he spake.\nOh son of Atreus the renown\u2019d in arms\nAnd in the race, sleep\u2019st thou? It ill behoves\nTo sleep all night the man of high employ,\nAnd charged as thou art with a people\u2019s care.75\nNow, therefore, mark me well, who, sent from Jove,\nInform thee, that although so far remote,\nHe yet compassionates and thinks on thee\nWith kind solicitude. He bids thee arm\nThy universal host; for that the time80\nWhen the Achaians shall at length possess\nWide Ilium, hath arrived. The Gods above\nNo longer dwell at variance. The requests\nOf Juno have prevail\u2019d. Now, wo to Troy\nFrom Jove himself! Her fate is on the wing.85\nCharge this on thy remembrance. Thus he spake,\nThen vanished suddenly, and I awoke.\nHaste therefore, let us arm, if arm we may,[4]\nThe warlike sons of Greece; but first, myself\nWill prove them, recommending instant flight90\nWith all our ships, and ye throughout the host\nDispersed, shall, next, encourage all to stay.\nHe ceased, and sat; when in the midst arose\nOf highest fame for wisdom, Nestor, King\nOf sandy Pylus, who them thus bespake.95\nFriends, Counsellors, and Leaders of the Greeks!\nHad any meaner Argive told his dream,\nWe had pronounced it false, and should the more\nHave shrunk from battle; but the dream is his\nWho boasts himself our highest in command.100\nHaste, arm we, if we may, the sons of Greece.\nSo saying, he left the council; him, at once\nThe sceptred Chiefs, obedient to his voice,\nArising, follow\u2019d; and the throng began.\nAs from the hollow rock bees stream abroad,105\nAnd in succession endless seek the fields,\nNow clustering, and now scattered far and near,\nIn spring-time, among all the new-blown flowers,\nSo they to council swarm\u2019d, troop after troop,\nGrecians of every tribe, from camp and fleet110\nAssembling orderly o\u2019er all the plain\nBeside the shore of Ocean. In the midst\nA kindling rumor, messenger of Jove,\nImpell\u2019d them, and they went. Loud was the din\nOf the assembling thousands; groan\u2019d the earth115\nWhen down they sat, and murmurs ran around.\nNine heralds cried aloud\u2014Will ye restrain\nYour clamors, that your heaven-taught Kings may speak?\nScarce were they settled, and the clang had ceased,\nWhen Agamemnon, sovereign o\u2019er them all,120\nSceptre in hand, arose. (That sceptre erst\nVulcan with labor forged, and to the hand\nConsign\u2019d it of the King, Saturnian Jove;\nJove to the vanquisher[5] of Ino\u2019s[6] guard,\nAnd he to Pelops; Pelops in his turn,125\nTo royal Atreus; Atreus at his death\nBequeath\u2019d it to Thyestes rich in flocks,\nAnd rich Thyestes left it to be borne\nBy Agamemnon, symbol of his right\nTo empire over Argos and her isles)130\nOn that he lean\u2019d, and rapid, thus began.[7]\nFriends, Grecian Heroes, ministers of Mars!\nYe see me here entangled in the snares\nOf unpropitious Jove. He promised once,\nAnd with a nod confirm\u2019d it, that with spoils135\nOf Ilium laden, we should hence return;\nBut now, devising ill, he sends me shamed,\nAnd with diminished numbers, home to Greece.\nSo stands his sovereign pleasure, who hath laid\nThe bulwarks of full many a city low,140\nAnd more shall level, matchless in his might.\nThat such a numerous host of Greeks as we,\nWarring with fewer than ourselves, should find\nNo fruit of all our toil, (and none appears)\nWill make us vile with ages yet to come.145\nFor should we now strike truce, till Greece and Troy\nMight number each her own, and were the Greeks\nDistributed in bands, ten Greeks in each,\nOur banded decads should exceed so far\nTheir units, that all Troy could not supply150\nFor every ten, a man, to fill us wine;\nSo far the Achaians, in my thought, surpass\nThe native Trojans. But in Troy are those\nWho baffle much my purpose; aids derived\nFrom other states, spear-arm\u2019d auxiliars, firm155\nIn the defence of Ilium\u2019s lofty towers.\nNine years have passed us over, nine long years;\nOur ships are rotted, and our tackle marr\u2019d,\nAnd all our wives and little-ones at home\nSit watching our return, while this attempt160\nHangs still in doubt, for which that home we left.\nAccept ye then my counsel. Fly we swift\nWith all our fleet back to our native land,\nHopeless of Troy, not yet to be subdued.\nSo spake the King, whom all the concourse heard165\nWith minds in tumult toss\u2019d; all, save the few,\nPartners of his intent. Commotion shook\nThe whole assembly, such as heaves the flood\nOf the Icarian Deep, when South and East\nBurst forth together from the clouds of Jove.170\nAnd as when vehement the West-wind falls\nOn standing corn mature, the loaded ears\nInnumerable bow before the gale,\nSo was the council shaken. With a shout\nAll flew toward the ships; uprais\u2019d, the dust175\nStood o\u2019er them; universal was the cry,\n\u201cNow clear the passages, strike down the props,\nSet every vessel free, launch, and away!\u201d\nHeaven rang with exclamation of the host\nAll homeward bent, and launching glad the fleet.180\nThen baffled Fate had the Achaians seen\nReturning premature, but Juno thus,\nWith admonition quick to Pallas spake.\nUnconquer\u2019d daughter of Jove \u00c6gis-arm\u2019d!\nAh foul dishonor! Is it thus at last185\nThat the Achaians on the billows borne,\nShall seek again their country, leaving here,\nTo be the vaunt of Ilium and her King,\nHelen of Argos, in whose cause the Greeks\nHave numerous perish\u2019d from their home remote?190\nHaste! Seek the mail-arm\u2019d multitude, by force\nDetain them of thy soothing speech, ere yet\nAll launch their oary barks into the flood.\nShe spake, nor did Minerva not comply,\nBut darting swift from the Olympian heights,195\nReach\u2019d soon Achaia\u2019s fleet. There, she perceived\nPrudent as Jove himself, Ulysses; firm\nHe stood; he touch\u2019d not even with his hand\nHis sable bark, for sorrow whelm\u2019d his soul.\nThe Athen\u00e6an Goddess azure-eyed200\nBeside him stood, and thus the Chief bespake.\nLaertes\u2019 noble son, for wiles renown\u2019d!\nWhy seek ye, thus precipitate, your ships?\nIntend ye flight? And is it thus at last,\nThat the Achaians on the billows borne,205\nShall seek again their country, leaving here,\nTo be the vaunt of Ilium and her King,\nHelen of Argos, in whose cause the Greeks\nHave numerous perish\u2019d from their home remote?\nDelay not. Rush into the throng; by force210\nDetain them of thy soothing speech, ere yet\nAll launch their oary barks into the flood.\nShe ceased, whom by her voice Ulysses knew,\nCasting his mantle from him, which his friend\nEurybates the Ithacensian caught,215\nHe ran; and in his course meeting the son\nOf Atreus, Agamemnon, from his hand\nThe everlasting sceptre quick received,\nWhich bearing, through Achaia\u2019s fleet he pass\u2019d.\nWhat King soever, or distinguish\u2019d Greek220\nHe found, approaching to his side, in terms\nOf gentle sort he stay\u2019d him. Sir, he cried,\nIt is unseemly that a man renown\u2019d\nAs thou, should tremble. Go\u2014Resume the seat\nWhich thou hast left, and bid the people sit.225\nThou know\u2019st not clearly yet the monarch\u2019s mind.\nHe proves us now, but soon he will chastize.\nAll were not present; few of us have heard\nHis speech this day in council. Oh, beware,\nLest in resentment of this hasty course230\nIrregular, he let his anger loose.\nDread is the anger of a King; he reigns\nBy Jove\u2019s own ordinance, and is dear to Jove,\nBut what plebeian base soe\u2019er he heard\nStretching his throat to swell the general cry,235\nHe laid the sceptre smartly on his back,\nWith reprimand severe. Fellow, he said,\nSit still; hear others; thy superiors hear.\nFor who art thou? A dastard and a drone,\nOf none account in council, or in arms.240\nBy no means may we all alike bear sway\nAt Ilium; such plurality of Kings\nWere evil. One suffices. One, to whom\nThe son of politic Saturn hath assign\u2019d\nThe sceptre, and inforcement of the laws,245\nThat he may rule us as a monarch ought.[8]\nWith such authority the troubled host\nHe sway\u2019d; they, quitting camp and fleet again\nRush\u2019d back to council; deafening was the sound\nAs when a billow of the boisterous deep250\nSome broad beach dashes, and the Ocean roars.\nThe host all seated, and the benches fill\u2019d,\nThersites only of loquacious tongue\nUngovern\u2019d, clamor\u2019d mutinous; a wretch\nOf utterance prompt, but in coarse phrase obscene255\nDeep learn\u2019d alone, with which to slander Kings.\nMight he but set the rabble in a roar,\nHe cared not with what jest; of all from Greece\nTo Ilium sent, his country\u2019s chief reproach.\nCross-eyed he was, and halting moved on legs260\nIll-pair\u2019d; his gibbous shoulders o\u2019er his breast\nContracted, pinch\u2019d it; to a peak his head\nWas moulded sharp, and sprinkled thin with hair\nOf starveling length, flimsy and soft as down.\nAchilles and Ulysses had incurr\u2019d265\nMost his aversion; them he never spared;\nBut now, imperial Agamemnon self\nIn piercing accents stridulous he charged\nWith foul reproach. The Grecians with contempt\nListen\u2019d, and indignation, while with voice270\nAt highest pitch, he thus the monarch mock\u2019d.\nWhat wouldst thou now? Whereof is thy complaint\nNow, Agamemnon? Thou hast fill\u2019d thy tents\nWith treasure, and the Grecians, when they take\nA city, choose the loveliest girls for thee.275\nIs gold thy wish? More gold? A ransom brought\nBy some chief Trojan for his son\u2019s release\nWhom I, or other valiant Greek may bind?\nOr wouldst thou yet a virgin, one, by right\nAnother\u2019s claim, but made by force thine own?280\nIt was not well, great Sir, that thou shouldst bring\nA plague on the Achaians, as of late.\nBut come, my Grecian sisters, soldiers named\nUnfitly, of a sex too soft for war,\nCome, let us homeward: let him here digest285\nWhat he shall gorge, alone; that he may learn\nIf our assistance profit him or not.\nFor when he shamed Achilles, he disgraced\nA Chief far worthier than himself, whose prize\nHe now withholds. But tush,\u2014Achilles lacks290\nHimself the spirit of a man; no gall\nHath he within him, or his hand long since\nHad stopp\u2019d that mouth,[9] that it should scoff no more.\nThus, mocking royal Agamemnon, spake\nThersites. Instant starting to his side, 295\nNoble Ulysses with indignant brows\nSurvey\u2019d him, and him thus reproved severe.\n\nThersites! Railer!\u2014peace. Think not thyself,\nAlthough thus eloquent, alone exempt\nFrom obligation not to slander Kings.300\nI deem thee most contemptible, the worst\nOf Agamemnon\u2019s followers to the war;\nPresume not then to take the names revered\nOf Sovereigns on thy sordid lips, to asperse\nTheir sacred character, and to appoint305\nThe Greeks a time when they shall voyage home.\nHow soon, how late, with what success at last\nWe shall return, we know not: but because\nAchaia\u2019s heroes numerous spoils allot\nTo Agamemnon, Leader of the host,310\nThou therefore from thy seat revilest the King.\nBut mark me. If I find thee, as even now,\nRaving and foaming at the lips again,\nMay never man behold Ulysses\u2019 head\nOn these my shoulders more, and may my son315\nProve the begotten of another Sire,\nIf I not strip thee to that hide of thine\nAs bare as thou wast born, and whip thee hence\nHome to thy galley, sniveling like a boy.\nHe ceased, and with his sceptre on the back320\nAnd shoulders smote him. Writhing to and fro,\nHe wept profuse, while many a bloody whelk\nProtuberant beneath the sceptre sprang.\nAwe-quell\u2019d he sat, and from his visage mean,\nDeep-sighing, wiped the rheums. It was no time325\nFor mirth, yet mirth illumined every face,\nAnd laughing, thus they spake. A thousand acts\nIllustrious, both by well-concerted plans\nAnd prudent disposition of the host\nUlysses hath achieved, but this by far330\nTranscends his former praise, that he hath quell\u2019d\nSuch contumelious rhetoric profuse.\nThe valiant talker shall not soon, we judge,\nTake liberties with royal names again.[10]\nSo spake the multitude. Then, stretching forth335\nThe sceptre, city-spoiler Chief, arose\nUlysses. Him beside, herald in form,\nAppeared Minerva. Silence she enjoined\nTo all, that all Achaia\u2019s sons might hear,\nForemost and rearmost, and might weigh his words.340\nHe then his counsel, prudent, thus proposed.\nAtrides! Monarch! The Achaians seek\nTo make thee ignominious above all\nIn sight of all mankind. None recollects\nHis promise more in steed-famed Argos pledged,345\nHere to abide till Ilium wall\u2019d to heaven\nShould vanquish\u2019d sink, and all her wealth be ours.\nNo\u2014now, like widow\u2019d women, or weak boys,\nThey whimper to each other, wishing home.\nAnd home, I grant, to the afflicted soul350\nSeems pleasant.[11] The poor seaman from his wife\nOne month detain\u2019d, cheerless his ship and sad\nPossesses, by the force of wintry blasts,\nAnd by the billows of the troubled deep\nFast lock\u2019d in port. But us the ninth long year355\nRevolving, finds camp\u2019d under Ilium still.\nI therefore blame not, if they mourn beside\nTheir sable barks, the Grecians. Yet the shame\nThat must attend us after absence long\nReturning unsuccessful, who can bear?360\nBe patient, friends! wait only till we learn\nIf Calchas truly prophesied, or not;\nFor well we know, and I to all appeal,\nWhom Fate hath not already snatch\u2019d away,\n(It seems but yesterday, or at the most365\nA day or two before) that when the ships\nWo-fraught for Priam, and the race of Troy,\nAt Aulis met, and we beside the fount\nWith perfect hecatombs the Gods adored\nBeneath the plane-tree, from whose root a stream370\nRan crystal-clear, there we beheld a sign\nWonderful in all eyes. A serpent huge,\nTremendous spectacle! with crimson spots\nHis back all dappled, by Olympian Jove\nHimself protruded, from the altar\u2019s foot375\nSlipp\u2019d into light, and glided to the tree.\nThere on the topmost bough, close-cover\u2019d sat\nWith foliage broad, eight sparrows, younglings all,\nThen newly feather\u2019d, with their dam, the ninth.\nThe little ones lamenting shrill he gorged,380\nWhile, wheeling o\u2019er his head, with screams the dam\nBewail\u2019d her darling brood. Her also next,\nHovering and clamoring, he by the wing\nWithin his spiry folds drew, and devoured.\nAll eaten thus, the nestlings and the dam,385\nThe God who sent him, signalized him too,\nFor him Saturnian Jove transform\u2019d to stone.\nWe wondering stood, to see that strange portent\nIntrude itself into our holy rites,\nWhen Calchas, instant, thus the sign explain\u2019d.390\nWhy stand ye, Greeks, astonish\u2019d? Ye behold\nA prodigy by Jove himself produced,\nAn omen, whose accomplishment indeed\nIs distant, but whose fame shall never die.[12]\nE\u2019en as this serpent in your sight devour\u2019d395\nEight youngling sparrows, with their dam, the ninth,\nSo we nine years must war on yonder plain,\nAnd in the tenth, wide-bulwark\u2019d Troy is ours.\nSo spake the seer, and as he spake, is done.\nWait, therefore, brave Achaians! go not hence400\nTill Priam\u2019s spacious city be your prize.\nHe ceased, and such a shout ensued, that all\nThe hollow ships the deafening roar return\u2019d\nOf acclamation, every voice the speech\nExtolling of Ulysses, glorious Chief.405\nThen Nestor the Gerenian,[13] warrior old,\nArising, spake; and, by the Gods, he said,\nYe more resemble children inexpert\nIn war, than disciplined and prudent men.\nWhere now are all your promises and vows,410\nCouncils, libations, right-hand covenants?[14]\nBurn them, since all our occupation here\nIs to debate and wrangle, whereof end\nOr fruit though long we wait, shall none be found.\nBut, Sovereign, be not thou appall\u2019d. Be firm.415\nRelax not aught of thine accustomed sway,\nBut set the battle forth as thou art wont.\nAnd if there be a Grecian, here and there,\nOne,[15] adverse to the general voice, let such\nWither alone. He shall not see his wish420\nGratified, neither will we hence return\nTo Argos, ere events shall yet have proved\nJove\u2019s promise false or true. For when we climb\u2019d\nOur gallant barks full-charged with Ilium\u2019s fate,\nSaturnian Jove omnipotent, that day,425\n(Omen propitious!) thunder\u2019d on the right.\nLet no man therefore pant for home, till each\nPossess a Trojan spouse, and from her lips\nTake sweet revenge for Helen\u2019s pangs of heart.\nWho then? What soldier languishes and sighs430\nTo leave us? Let him dare to lay his hand\nOn his own vessel, and he dies the first.\nBut hear, O King! I shall suggest a course\nNot trivial. Agamemnon! sort the Greeks\nBy districts and by tribes, that tribe may tribe435\nSupport, and each his fellow. This performed,\nAnd with consent of all, thou shalt discern\nWith ease what Chief, what private man deserts,\nAnd who performs his part. The base, the brave,\nSuch disposition made, shall both appear;440\nAnd thou shalt also know, if heaven or we,\nThe Gods, or our supineness, succor Troy.\nTo whom Atrides, King of men, replied.\nOld Chief! Thou passest all Achaia\u2019s sons\nIn consultation; would to Jove our Sire,445\nTo Athen\u00e6an Pallas, and Apollo!\nThat I had ten such coadjutors, wise\nAs thou art, and the royal city soon\nOf Priam, with her wealth, should all be ours.[16]\nBut me the son of Saturn, Jove supreme450\nHimself afflicts, who in contentious broils\nInvolves me, and in altercation vain.\nThence all that wordy tempest for a girl\nAchilles and myself between, and I\nThe fierce aggressor. Be that breach but heal\u2019d!455\nAnd Troy\u2019s reprieve thenceforth is at an end.\nGo\u2014take refreshment now that we may march\nForth to our enemies. Let each whet well\nHis spear, brace well his shield, well feed his brisk\nHigh-mettled horses, well survey and search460\nHis chariot on all sides, that no defect\nDisgrace his bright habiliments of war.\nSo will we give the day from morn to eve\nTo dreadful battle. Pause there shall be none\nTill night divide us. Every buckler\u2019s thong465\nShall sweat on the toil\u2019d bosom, every hand\nThat shakes the spear shall ache, and every steed\nShall smoke that whirls the chariot o\u2019er the plain.\nWo then to whom I shall discover here\nLoitering among the tents; let him escape470\nMy vengeance if he can. The vulture\u2019s maw\nShall have his carcase, and the dogs his bones.\nHe spake; whom all applauded with a shout\nLoud as against some headland cliff the waves\nRoll\u2019d by the stormy South o\u2019er rocks that shoot475\nAfar into the deep, which in all winds\nThe flood still overspreads, blow whence they may.\nArising, forth they rush\u2019d, among the ships\nAll scatter\u2019d; smoke from every tent arose,\nThe host their food preparing; next, his God480\nEach man invoked (of the Immortals him\nWhom he preferr\u2019d) with sacrifice and prayer\nFor safe escape from danger and from death.\nBut Agamemnon to Saturnian Jove\nOmnipotent, an ox of the fifth year485\nFull-flesh\u2019d devoted, and the Princes call\u2019d\nNoblest of all the Grecians to his feast.\nFirst, Nestor with Idomeneus the King,\nThen either Ajax, and the son he call\u2019d\nOf Tydeus, with Ulysses sixth and last,490\nJove\u2019s peer in wisdom. Menelaus went,\nHeroic Chief! unbidden, for he knew\nHis brother\u2019s mind with weight of care oppress\u2019d.\nThe ox encircling, and their hands with meal\nOf consecration fill\u2019d, the assembly stood,495\nWhen Agamemnon thus his prayer preferred.\nAlmighty Father! Glorious above all!\nCloud-girt, who dwell\u2019st in heaven thy throne sublime,\nLet not the sun go down, till Priam\u2019s roof\nFall flat into the flames; till I shall burn500\nHis gates with fire; till I shall hew away\nHis hack\u2019d and riven corslet from the breast\nOf Hector, and till numerous Chiefs, his friends,\nAround him, prone in dust, shall bite the ground.\nSo prayed he, but with none effect, The God505\nReceived his offering, but to double toil\nDoom\u2019d them, and sorrow more than all the past.\nThey then, the triturated barley grain\nFirst duly sprinkling, the sharp steel infix\u2019d\nDeep in the victim\u2019s neck reversed, then stripp\u2019d510\nThe carcase, and divided at their joint\nThe thighs, which in the double caul involved\nThey spread with slices crude, and burn\u2019d with fire\nAscending fierce from billets sere and dry.\nThe spitted entrails next they o\u2019er the coals515\nSuspended held. The thighs with fire consumed,\nThey gave to each his portion of the maw,\nThen slash\u2019d the remnant, pierced it with the spits,\nAnd managing with culinary skill\nThe roast, withdrew it from the spits again.520\nThus, all their task accomplished, and the board\nSet forth, they feasted, and were all sufficed.\nWhen neither hunger more nor thirst remain\u2019d\nUnsatisfied, Gerenian Nestor spake.\nAtrides! Agamemnon! King of men!525\nNo longer waste we time in useless words,\nNor to a distant hour postpone the work\nTo which heaven calls thee. Send thine heralds forth.\nWho shall convene the Achaians at the fleet,\nThat we, the Chiefs assembled here, may range,530\nTogether, the imbattled multitude,\nAnd edge their spirits for immediate fight.\nHe spake, nor Agamemnon not complied.\nAt once he bade his clear-voiced heralds call\nThe Greeks to battle. They the summons loud535\nGave forth, and at the sound the people throng\u2019d.\nThen Agamemnon and the Kings of Greece\nDispatchful drew them into order just,\nWith whom Minerva azure-eyed advanced,\nThe inestimable \u00c6gis on her arm,540\nImmortal, unobnoxious to decay\nA hundred braids, close twisted, all of gold,\nEach valued at a hundred beeves,[17] around\nDependent fringed it. She from side to side\nHer eyes cerulean rolled, infusing thirst545\nOf battle endless into every breast.\nWar won them now, war sweeter now to each\nThan gales to waft them over ocean home.[18]\nAs when devouring flames some forest seize\nOn the high mountains, splendid from afar550\nThe blaze appears, so, moving on the plain,\nThe steel-clad host innumerous flash\u2019d to heaven.\nAnd as a multitude of fowls in flocks\nAssembled various, geese, or cranes, or swans\nLithe-neck\u2019d, long hovering o\u2019er Ca\u00ffster\u2019s banks555\nOn wanton plumes, successive on the mead\nAlight at last, and with a clang so loud\nThat all the hollow vale of Asius rings;\nIn number such from ships and tents effused,\nThey cover\u2019d the Scamandrian plain; the earth560\nRebellow\u2019d to the feet of steeds and men.\nThey overspread Scamander\u2019s grassy vale,\nMyriads, as leaves, or as the flowers of spring.\nAs in the hovel where the peasant milks\nHis kine in spring-time, when his pails are fill\u2019d,565\nThick clouds of humming insects on the wing\nSwarm all around him, so the Grecians swarm\u2019d\nAn unsumm\u2019d multitude o\u2019er all the plain,\nBright arm\u2019d, high crested, and athirst for war.\nAs goat-herds separate their numerous flocks570\nWith ease, though fed promiscuous, with like ease\nTheir leaders them on every side reduced\nTo martial order glorious;[19] among whom\nStood Agamemnon \u201cwith an eye like Jove\u2019s,\nTo threaten or command,\u201d like Mars in girth,575\nAnd with the port of Neptune. As the bull\nConspicuous among all the herd appears,\nFor he surpasses all, such Jove ordain\u2019d\nThat day the son of Atreus, in the midst\nOf Heroes, eminent above them all.580\nTell me, (for ye are are heavenly, and beheld[20]\nA scene, whereof the faint report alone\nHath reached our ears, remote and ill-informed,)\nTell me, ye Muses, under whom, beneath\nWhat Chiefs of royal or of humbler note585\nStood forth the embattled Greeks? The host at large;\n_They_ were a multitude in number more\nThan with ten tongues, and with ten mouths, each mouth\nMade vocal with a trumpet\u2019s throat of brass\nI might declare, unless the Olympian nine,590\nJove\u2019s daughters, would the chronicle themselves\nIndite, of all assembled, under Troy.\nI will rehearse the Captains and their fleets.\n[21]B\u0153otia\u2019s sturdy sons Peneleus led,\nAnd Le\u00eftus, whose partners in command595\nArcesilaus and Prothoenor came,\nAnd Clonius. Them the dwellers on the rocks\nOf Aulis followed, with the hardy clans\nOf Hyrie, Schoenos, Scholos, and the hills\nOf Eteon; Thespia, Gr\u00e6a, and the plains600\nOf Mycalessus them, and Harma served,\nEleon, Erythr\u00e6, Peteon; Hyle them,\nHesius and Ocalea, and the strength\nOf Medeon; Cop\u00e6 also in their train\nMarched, with Eutresis and the mighty men605\nOf Thisbe famed for doves; nor pass unnamed\nWhom Coron\u00e6a, and the grassy land\nOf Haliartus added to the war,\nNor whom Plat\u00e6a, nor whom Glissa bred,\nAnd Hypotheb\u00e6,[22] and thy sacred groves610\nTo Neptune, dark Onchestus. Arne claims\nA record next for her illustrious sons,\nVine-bearing Arne. Thou wast also there\nMideia, and thou Nissa; nor be thine\nThough last, Anthedon, a forgotten name.615\nThese in B\u0153otia\u2019s fair and gallant fleet\nOf fifty ships, each bearing o\u2019er the waves\nThrice forty warriors, had arrived at Troy.\nIn thirty ships deep-laden with the brave,\nAspledon and Orchomenos had sent620\nTheir chosen youth; them ruled a noble pair,\nSons of Astyoche; she, lovely nymph,\nReceived by stealth, on Actor\u2019s stately roof,\nThe embraces of a God, and bore to Mars\nTwins like himself, Ascalaphus the bold,625\nAnd bold I\u00e4lmenus, expert in arms.\nBeneath Epistrophus and Schedius, took\nTheir destined station on B\u0153otia\u2019s left,\nThe brave Phocensians; they in forty ships\nFrom Cyparissus came, and from the rocks630\nOf Python, and from Crissa the divine;\nFrom Anemoria, Daulis, Panopeus,\nAnd from Hyampolis, and from the banks\nOf the Cephissus, sacred stream, and from\nLil\u00e6a, seated at its fountain-head.635\nNext from beyond Eub\u0153a\u2019s happy isle\nIn forty ships conveyed, stood forth well armed\nThe Locrians; dwellers in Augeia some\nThe pleasant, some of Opo\u00ebis possessed,\nSome of Calliarus; these Scarpha sent,640\nAnd Cynus those; from Bessa came the rest,\nFrom Tarpha, Thronius, and from the brink\nOf loud Boagrius; Ajax them, the swift,\nSon of O\u00efleus led, not such as he\nFrom Telamon, big-boned and lofty built,645\nBut small of limb, and of an humbler crest;\nYet he, competitor had none throughout\nThe Grecians of what land soe\u2019er, for skill\nIn ushering to its mark the rapid lance.\nElphenor brought (Calchodon\u2019s mighty son)650\nThe Eub\u0153ans to the field. In forty ships\nFrom Histr\u00ef\u00e6a for her vintage famed,\nFrom Chalcis, from Iretria, from the gates\nOf maritime Cerinthus, from the heights\nOf Dios rock-built citadel sublime,655\nAnd from Caristus and from Styra came\nHis warlike multitudes, all named alike\nAbantes, on whose shoulders fell behind\nTheir locks profuse,[23] and they were eager all\nTo split the hauberk with the pointed spear.660\nNor Athens had withheld her generous sons,\nThe people of Erectheus. Him of old\nThe teeming glebe produced, a wondrous birth!\nAnd Pallas rear\u2019d him: her own unctuous fane\nShe made his habitation, where with bulls665\nThe youth of Athens, and with slaughter\u2019d lambs\nHer annual worship celebrate. Then led\nMenestheus, whom, (sage Nestor\u2019s self except,\nThrice school\u2019d in all events of human life,)\nNone rivall\u2019d ever in the just array670\nOf horse and man to battle. Fifty ships\nBlack-prowed, had borne them to the distant war.\nAjax from Salamis twelve vessels brought,\nAnd where the Athenian band in phalanx stood\nMarshall\u2019d compact, there station\u2019d he his powers.675\nThe men of Argos and Tyrintha next,\nAnd of Hermione, that stands retired\nWith Asine, within her spacious bay;\nOf Epidaurus, crown\u2019d with purple vines,\nAnd of Tr\u0153zena, with the Achaian youth680\nOf sea-begirt \u00c6gina, and with thine,\nMaseta, and the dwellers on thy coast,\nWave-worn E\u00efon\u00e6; these all obeyed\nThe dauntless Hero Diomede, whom served\nSthenelus, son of Capaneus, a Chief685\nOf deathless fame, his second in command,\nAnd godlike man, Euryalus, the son\nOf King Mecisteus, Tala\u00fcs\u2019 son, his third.\nBut Diomede controll\u2019d them all, and him\nTwice forty sable ships their leader own\u2019d.690\nCame Agamemnon with a hundred ships,\nExulting in his powers; more numerous they,\nAnd more illustrious far than other Chief\nCould boast, whoever. Clad in burnish\u2019d brass,\nAnd conscious of pre-eminence, he stood.695\nHe drew his host from cities far renown\u2019d,\nMycen\u00e6, and Corinthus, seat of wealth,\nOrneia, and Cleon\u00e6 bulwark\u2019d strong,\nAnd lovely Ar\u00e6thyria; Sicyon, where\nHis seat of royal power held at the first700\nAdrastus: Hyperesia, and the heights\nOf Gono\u00ebssa; \u00c6gium, with the towns\nThat sprinkle all that far-extended coast,\nPellene also and wide Helice\nWith all their shores, were number\u2019d in his train.705\nFrom hollow Laced\u00e6mon\u2019s glen profound,\nFrom Phare, Sparta, and from Messa, still\nResounding with the ring-dove\u2019s amorous moan,\nFrom Brysia, from Augeia, from the rocks\nOf Laas, from Amycla, Otilus,710\nAnd from the towers of Helos, at whose foot\nThe surf of Ocean falls, came sixty barks\nWith Menelaus. From the monarch\u2019s host\nThe royal brother ranged his own apart,\nand panted for revenge of Helen\u2019s wrongs,715\nAnd of her sighs and tears.[24] From rank to rank,\nConscious of dauntless might he pass\u2019d, and sent\nInto all hearts the fervor of his own.\nGerenian Nestor in thrice thirty ships\nHad brought his warriors; they from Pylus came,720\nFrom blithe Arene, and from Thryos, built\nFast by the fords of Alpheus, and from steep\nAnd stately \u00c6py. Their confederate powers\nSent Amphigenia, Cyparissa veiled\nWith broad redundance of funereal shades,725\nPteleos and Helos, and of deathless fame\nDorion. In Dorion erst the Muses met\nThre\u00efcian Thamyris, on his return\nFrom Eurytus, Oechalian Chief, and hush\u2019d\nHis song for ever; for he dared to vaunt730\nThat he would pass in song even themselves\nThe Muses, daughters of Jove \u00c6gis-arm\u2019d.\nThey therefore, by his boast incensed, the bard\nStruck blind, and from his memory dash\u2019d severe\nAll traces of his once celestial strains.735\nArcadia\u2019s sons, the dwellers at the foot\nOf mount Cyllene, where \u00c6pytus sleeps\nIntomb\u2019d; a generation bold in fight,\nAnd warriors hand to hand; the valiant men\nOf Pheneus, of Orchomenos by flocks740\nGrazed numberless, of Ripe, Stratia, bleak\nEnispe; Mantinea city fair,\nStymphelus and Parrhasia, and the youth\nOf Tegea; royal Agapenor these,\nAnc\u00e6us\u2019 offspring, had in sixty ships745\nTo Troy conducted; numerous was the crew,\nAnd skilled in arms, which every vessel brought,\nAnd Agamemnon had with barks himself\nSupplied them, for, of inland realms possessed,\nThey little heeded maritime employs.[25]750\nThe dwellers in Buprasium, on the shores\nOf pleasant Elis, and in all the land\nMyrsinus and the Hyrminian plain between,\nThe rock Olenian, and the Alysian fount;\nThese all obey\u2019d four Chiefs, and galleys ten755\nEach Chief commanded, with Epeans filled.\nAmphimachus and Thalpius govern\u2019d these,\nThis, son of Cteatus, the other, sprung\nFrom Eurytus, and both of Actor\u2019s house.\nDiores, son of Amarynceus, those760\nLed on, and, for his godlike form renown\u2019d,\nPolyxenus was Chieftain o\u2019er the rest,\nSon of Agasthenes, Augeias\u2019 son.\nDulichium, and her sister sacred isles\nThe Echinades, whose opposite aspect765\nLooks toward Elis o\u2019er the curling waves,\nSent forth their powers with Meges at their head,\nBrave son of Phyleus, warrior dear to Jove.\nPhyleus in wrath, his father\u2019s house renounced,\nAnd to Dulichium wandering, there abode.770\nTwice twenty ships had follow\u2019d Meges forth.\nUlysses led the Cephallenians bold.\nFrom Ithaca, and from the lofty woods\nOf Neritus they came, and from the rocks\nOf rude \u00c6gilipa. Crocylia these,775\nAnd these Zacynthus own\u2019d; nor yet a few\nFrom Samos, from Epirus join\u2019d their aid,\nAnd from the opposite Ionian shore.\nThem, wise as Jove himself, Ulysses led\nIn twelve fair ships, with crimson prows adorn\u2019d.780\nFrom forty ships, Thoas, Andr\u00e6mon\u2019s son,\nHad landed his \u00c6tolians; for extinct\nWas Meleager, and extinct the house\nOf Oeneus all, nor Oeneus self survived;\nTo Thoas therefore had \u00c6tolia fallen;785\nHim Olenos, Pylene, Chalcis served,\nWith Pleuro, and the rock-bound Calydon.\nIdomeneus, spear-practised warrior, led\nThe numerous Cretans. In twice forty ships\nHe brought his powers to Troy. The warlike bands790\nOf Cnossus, of Gortyna wall\u2019d around,\nOf Lyctus, of Lycastus chalky-white,\nOf Ph\u00e6stus, of Miletus, with the youth\nOf Rhytius him obey\u2019d; nor these were all,\nBut others from her hundred cities Crete795\nSent forth, all whom Idomeneus the brave\nCommanded, with Meriones in arms\nDread as the God of battles blood-imbrued.\nNine ships Tlepolemus, Herculean-born,\nFor courage famed and for superior size,800\nFill\u2019d with his haughty Rhodians. They, in tribes\nDivided, dwelt distinct. Jelyssus these,\nThose Lindus, and the rest the shining soil\nOf white Camirus occupied. Him bore\nTo Hercules, (what time he led the nymph805\nFrom Ephyre, and from Sellea\u2019s banks,\nAfter full many a city laid in dust.)\nAstyocheia. In his father\u2019s house\nMagnificent, Tlepolemus spear-famed\nHad scarce up-grown to manhood\u2019s lusty prime810\nWhen he his father\u2019s hoary uncle slew\nLycimnius, branch of Mars. Then built he ships,\nAnd, pushing forth to sea, fled from the threats\nOf the whole house of Hercules. Huge toil\nAnd many woes he suffer\u2019d, till at length815\nAt Rhodes arriving, in three separate bands\nHe spread himself abroad, Much was he loved\nOf all-commanding Jove, who bless\u2019d him there,\nAnd shower\u2019d abundant riches on them all.\nNireus of Syma, with three vessels came;820\nNireus, Agl\u00e6a\u2019s offspring, whom she bore\nTo Charopus the King; Nireus in form,\n(The faultless son of Peleus sole except,)\nLoveliest of all the Grecians call\u2019d to Troy.\nBut he was heartless and his men were few.[26]825\nNisyrus, Casus, Crapathus, and Cos\nWhere reign\u2019d Eurypylus, with all the isles\nCalydn\u00e6 named, under two valiant Chiefs\nTheir troops disposed; Phidippus one, and one,\nHis brother Antiphus, begotten both830\nBy Thessalus, whom Hercules begat.\nIn thirty ships they sought the shores of Troy.\nThe warriors of Pelasgian Argos next,\nOf Alus, and Alope, and who held\nTrechina, Phthia, and for women fair835\nDistinguish\u2019d, Hellas; known by various names\nHellenes, Myrmidons, Ach\u00e6ans, them\nIn fifty ships embark\u2019d, Achilles ruled.\nBut these were deaf to the hoarse-throated war,\nFor there was none to draw their battle forth,840\nAnd give them just array. Close in his ships\nAchilles, after loss of the bright-hair\u2019d\nBris\u00ebis, lay, resentful; her obtained\nNot without labor hard, and after sack\nOf Thebes and of Lyrnessus, where he slew845\nTwo mighty Chiefs, sons of Evenus both,\nEpistrophus and Mynes, her he mourn\u2019d,\nAnd for her sake self-prison\u2019d in his fleet\nAnd idle lay, though soon to rise again.\nFrom Phylace, and from the flowery fields850\nOf Pyrrhasus, a land to Ceres given\nBy consecration, and from Iton green,\nMother of flocks; from Antron by the sea,\nAnd from the grassy meads of Pteleus, came\nA people, whom while yet he lived, the brave855\nProtesila\u00fcs led; but him the earth\nNow cover\u2019d dark and drear. A wife he left,\nTo rend in Phylace her bleeding cheeks,\nAnd an unfinish\u2019d mansion. First he died\nOf all the Greeks; for as he leap\u2019d to land860\nForemost by far, a Dardan struck him dead.\nNor had his troops, though filled with deep regret,\nNo leader; them Podarces led, a Chief\nLike Mars in battle, brother of the slain,\nBut younger born, and from Iphiclus sprung865\nWho sprang from Phylacus the rich in flocks.\nBut him Protesila\u00fcs, as in years,\nSo also in desert of arms excell\u2019d\nHeroic, whom his host, although they saw\nPodarces at their head, still justly mourn\u2019d;870\nFor he was fierce in battle, and at Troy\nWith forty sable-sided ships arrived.\nEleven galleys, Pher\u00e6 on the lake,\nAnd Boebe, and I\u00f6lchus, and the vale\nOf Glaphyr\u00e6 supplied with crews robust875\nUnder Eumelus; him Alcestis, praised\nFor beauty above all her sisters fair,\nIn Thessaly to King Admetus bore.\nMethone, and Olizon\u2019s craggy coast,\nWith Melib\u0153a and Thaumasia sent880\nSeven ships; their rowers were good archers all,\nAnd every vessel dipped into the wave\nHer fifty oars. Them Philoctetes, skill\u2019d\nTo draw with sinewy arm the stubborn bow,\nCommanded; but he suffering anguish keen885\nInflicted by a serpent\u2019s venom\u2019d tooth,\nLay sick in Lemnos; him the Grecians there\nHad left sore-wounded, but were destined soon\nTo call to dear remembrance whom they left.\nMeantime, though sorrowing for his sake, his troops890\nYet wanted not a chief; them Medon ruled,\nWhom Rhena to the far-famed conqueror bore\nO\u00efleus, fruit of their unsanction\u2019d loves.\nFrom Tricca, from Ithome rough and rude\nWith rocks and glens, and from Oechalia, town895\nOf Eurytus Oechalian-born, came forth\nTheir warlike youth by Podalirius led\nAnd by Machaon, healers both expert\nOf all disease, and thirty ships were theirs.\nThe men of Ormenus, and from beside900\nThe fountain Hypereia, from the tops\nOf chalky Titan, and Asteria\u2019s band;\nThem ruled Eurypylus, Ev\u00e6mon\u2019s son\nIllustrious, whom twice twenty ships obeyed.\nOrthe, Gyrtone, Olo\u00f6sson white,905\nArgissa and Helone; they their youth\nGave to control of Polyp\u0153tes, son\nUndaunted of Piritho\u00fcs, son of Jove.\nHim, to Piritho\u00fcs, (on the self-same day\nWhen he the Centaurs punish\u2019d and pursued910\nSheer to \u00c6thic\u00e6 driven from Pelion\u2019s heights\nThe shaggy race) Hippodamia bore.\nNor he alone them led. With him was join\u2019d\nLeonteus dauntless warrior, from the bold\nCoronus sprung, who C\u00e6neus call\u2019d his sire.915\nTwice twenty ships awaited their command.\nGuneus from Cyphus twenty and two ships\nLed forth; the Enienes him obey\u2019d,\nAnd the robust Per\u0153bi, warriors bold,\nAnd dwellers on Dodona\u2019s wintry brow.920\nTo these were join\u2019d who till the pleasant fields\nWhere Titaresius winds; the gentle flood\nPours into Peneus all his limpid stores,\nBut with the silver-eddied Peneus flows\nUnmixt as oil;[27] for Stygian is his stream,925\nAnd Styx is the inviolable oath.\nLast with his forty ships, Tenthredon\u2019s son,\nThe active Protho\u00fcs came. From the green banks\nOf Peneus his Magnesians far and near\nHe gather\u2019d, and from Pelion forest-crown\u2019d.930\nThese were the princes and the Chiefs of Greece.\nSay, Muse, who most in personal desert\nExcell\u2019d, and whose were the most warlike steeds\nAnd of the noblest strain. Their hue, their age,\nTheir height the same, swift as the winds of heaven935\nAnd passing far all others, were the mares\nWhich drew Eumelus; on Pierian hills\nThe heavenly Archer of the silver bow,\nApollo, bred them. But of men, the chief\nWas Telamonian Ajax, while wrath-bound940\nAchilles lay; for he was worthier far,\nAnd more illustrious were the steeds which bore\nThe noble son of Peleus; but revenge\nOn Agamemnon leader of the host\nWas all his thought, while in his gallant ships945\nSharp-keel\u2019d to cut the foaming flood, he lay.\nMeantime, along the margin of the deep\nHis soldiers hurled the disk, or bent the bow.\nOr to its mark dispatch\u2019d the quivering lance.\nBeside the chariots stood the unharness\u2019d steeds950\nCropping the lotus, or at leisure browsed\nOn celery wild, from watery freshes gleaned.\nBeneath the shadow of the sheltering tent\nThe chariot stood, while they, the charioteers\nRoam\u2019d here and there the camp, their warlike lord955\nRegretting sad, and idle for his sake.\nAs if a fire had burnt along the ground,\nSuch seem\u2019d their march; earth groan\u2019d their steps beneath;\nAs when in Arimi, where fame reports\nTypho\u00ebus stretch\u2019d, the fires of angry Jove960\nDown darted, lash the ground, so groan\u2019d the earth\nBeneath them, for they traversed swift the plain.\nAnd now from Jove, with heavy tidings charged,\nWind-footed Iris to the Trojans came.\nIt was the time of council, when the throng965\nAt Priam\u2019s gate assembled, young and old:\nThem, standing nigh, the messenger of heaven\nAccosted with the voice of Priam\u2019s son,\nPolites. He, confiding in his speed\nFor sure deliverance, posted was abroad970\nOn \u00c6syeta\u2019s tomb,[28] intent to watch\nWhen the Achaian host should leave the fleet.\nThe Goddess in his form thus them address\u2019d.\nOh, ancient Monarch! Ever, evermore\nSpeaking, debating, as if all were peace;975\nI have seen many a bright-embattled field,\nBut never one so throng\u2019d as this to-day.\nFor like the leaves, or like the sands they come\nSwept by the winds, to gird the city round.\nBut Hector! chiefly thee I shall exhort.980\nIn Priam\u2019s spacious city are allies\nCollected numerous, and of nations wide\nDisseminated various are the tongues.\nLet every Chief his proper troop command,\nAnd marshal his own citizens to war.985\nShe ceased; her Hector heard intelligent,\nAnd quick dissolved the council. All took arms.\nWide flew the gates; forth rush\u2019d the multitude,\nHorsemen and foot, and boisterous stir arose.\nIn front of Ilium, distant on the plain,990\nClear all around from all obstruction, stands\nAn eminence high-raised, by mortal men\nCall\u2019d Bateia, but the Gods the tomb\nHave named it of Myrinna swift in fight.\nTroy and her aids there set the battle forth.995\nHuge Priameian Hector, fierce in arms,\nLed on the Trojans; with whom march\u2019d the most\nAnd the most valiant, dexterous at the spear.\n\u00c6neas, (on the hills of Ida him\nThe lovely Venus to Anchises bore,1000\nA Goddess by a mortal man embraced)\nLed the Dardanians; but not he alone;\nArchilochus with him and Acamas\nStood forth, the offspring of Antenor, each,\nAnd well instructed in all forms of war.1005\nFast by the foot of Ida, where they drank\nThe limpid waters of \u00c6sepus, dwelt\nThe Trojans of Zeleia. Rich were they\nAnd led by Pandarus, Lycaon\u2019s son,\nWhom Ph\u0153bus self graced with the bow he bore.1010\nAp\u00e6sus, Adrastea, Terie steep,\nAnd Pitueia\u2014them, Amphius clad\nIn mail thick-woven, and Adrastus, ruled.\nThey were the sons of the Percosian seer\nMerops, expert in the soothsayers\u2019 art1015\nAbove all other; he his sons forbad\nThe bloody fight, but disobedient they\nStill sought it, for their destiny prevailed.\nThe warriors of Percote, and who dwelt\nIn Practius, in Arisba, city fair,1020\nIn Sestus, in Abydus, march\u2019d behind\nPrincely Hyrtacides; his tawny steeds,\nStrong-built and tall, from Sellcentes\u2019 bank\nAnd from Arisba, had him borne to Troy.\nHippothous and Pilmus, branch of Mars,1025\nBoth sons of Lethus the Pelasgian, they,\nForth from Larissa for her fertile soil\nFar-famed, the spear-expert Pelasgians brought.\nThe Thracians (all whom Hellespont includes\nWithin the banks of his swift-racing tide)1030\nHeroic Acamas and Pirous led.\nEuphemus, offspring of Tr\u0153zenus, son\nOf Jove-protected Ceas, was the Chief\nWhom the spear-arm\u2019d Ciconian band obey\u2019d.\nP\u00e6onia\u2019s archers follow\u2019d to the field1035\nPyr\u00e6chmes; they from Amydon remote\nWere drawn, where Axius winds; broad Axius, stream\nDiffused delightful over all the vale.\nPyl\u00e6menes, a Chief of giant might\nFrom the Eneti for forest-mules renowned1040\nMarch\u2019d with his Paphlagonians; dwellers they\nIn Sesamus and in Cytorus were,\nAnd by the stream Parthenius; Cromna these\nSent forth, and those \u00c6gialus on the lip\nAnd margin of the land, and some, the heights1045\nOf Erythini, rugged and abrupt.\nEpistrophus and Odius from the land\nOf Alybe, a region far remote,\nWhere veins of silver wind, led to the field\nThe Halizonians. With the Mysians came1050\nChromis their Chief, and Ennomus; him skill\u2019d\nIn augury, but skill\u2019d in vain, his art\nSaved not, but by \u00c6acides[29] the swift,\nWith others in the Xanthus[30] slain, he died.\nAscanius, lovely youth, and Phorcis, led1055\nThe Phrygians from Ascania far remote,\nArdent for battle. The M\u0153onian race,\n(All those who at the foot of Tmolus dwelt,)\nMesthles and Antiphus, fraternal pair,\nSons of Pyl\u00e6menes commanded, both1060\nOf the Gyg\u00e6an lake in Lydia born.\nAmphimachus and Nastes led to fight\nThe Carians, people of a barbarous speech,[31]\nWith the Milesians, and the mountain-race\nOf wood-crown\u2019d Phthira, and who dwelt beside1065\nM\u00e6ander, or on Mycale sublime.\nThem led Amphimachus and Nastes, sons\nRenown\u2019d of Nomion. Like a simple girl\nCame forth Amphimachus with gold bedight,\nBut him his trappings from a woful death1070\nSaved not, when whirled beneath the bloody tide\nTo Peleus\u2019 stormy son his spoils he left.\nSarpedon with the noble Glaucus led\nTheir warriors forth from farthest Lycia, where\nXanthus deep-dimpled rolls his oozy tide.1075\n\n\n\n\nBOOK III.\n\n\nARGUMENT OF THE THIRD BOOK.\n\nThe armies meet. Paris throws out a challenge to the Grecian Princes.\nMenelaus accepts it. The terms of the combat are adjusted solemnly by\nAgamemnon on the part of Greece, and by Priam on the part of Troy. The\ncombat ensues, in which Paris is vanquished, whom yet Venus rescues.\nAgamemnon demands from the Trojans a performance of the covenant.\n\n\nBOOK III.\n\n\n[1]Now marshall\u2019d all beneath their several chiefs,\nWith deafening shouts, and with the clang of arms,\nThe host of Troy advanced. Such clang is heard\nAlong the skies, when from incessant showers\nEscaping, and from winter\u2019s cold, the cranes5\nTake wing, and over Ocean speed away;[2]\nWo to the land of dwarfs! prepared they fly\nFor slaughter of the small Pygm\u00e6an race.\nNot so the Greeks; they breathing valor came,\nBut silent all, and all with faithful hearts10\nOn succor mutual to the last, resolved.\nAs when the south wind wraps the mountain top\nIn mist the shepherd\u2019s dread, but to the thief\nThan night itself more welcome, and the eye\nIs bounded in its ken to a stone\u2019s cast,15\nSuch from beneath their footsteps dun and dense\nUprose the dust, for swift they cross the plain.\n\nWhen, host to host opposed, full nigh they stood,\nThen Alexander[3] in the Trojan van\nAdvanced was seen, all beauteous as a God;20\nHis leopard\u2019s skin, his falchion and his bow\nHung from his shoulder; bright with heads of brass\nHe shook two spears, and challenged to the fight\nThe bravest Argives there, defying all.\nHim, striding haughtily his host before25\nWhen Menelaus saw, such joy he felt\nAs hunger-pinch\u2019d the lion feels, by chance\nConducted to some carcase huge, wild goat,\nOr antler\u2019d stag; huntsmen and baying hounds\nDisturb not _him_, he gorges in their sight.30\nSo Menelaus at the view rejoiced\nOf lovely Alexander, for he hoped\nHis punishment at hand. At once, all armed,\nDown from his chariot to the ground he leap\u2019d\nWhen godlike Paris him in front beheld35\nConspicuous, his heart smote him, and his fate\nAvoiding, far within the lines he shrank.[4]\nAs one, who in some woodland height descrying\nA serpent huge, with sudden start recoils,\nHis limbs shake under him; with cautious step40\nHe slow retires; fear blanches cold his cheeks;\nSo beauteous Alexander at the sight\nOf Atreus\u2019 son dishearten\u2019d sore, the ranks\nOf haughty Trojans enter\u2019d deep again:\nHim Hector eyed, and thus rebuked severe.45\nCurst Paris! Fair deceiver! Woman-mad!\nI would to all in heaven that thou hadst died\nUnborn, at least unmated! happier far\nThan here to have incurr\u2019d this public shame!\nWell may the Grecians taunt, and laughing loud,50\nApplaud the champion, slow indeed to fight\nAnd pusillanimous, but wondrous fair.\nWast thou as timid, tell me, when with those\nThy loved companions in that famed exploit,\nThou didst consort with strangers, and convey55\nFrom distant lands a warrior\u2019s beauteous bride\nTo be thy father\u2019s and his people\u2019s curse,\nJoy to our foes, but to thyself reproach?\nBehold her husband! Darest thou not to face\nThe warlike prince? Now learn how brave a Chief60\nThou hast defrauded of his blooming spouse.\nThy lyre, thy locks, thy person, specious gifts\nOf partial Venus, will avail thee nought,\nOnce mixt by Menelaus with the dust.\nBut we are base ourselves, or long ago,65\nFor all thy numerous mischiefs, thou hadst slept\nSecure beneath a coverlet[5] of stone.[6]\nThen godlike Alexander thus replied.\nOh Hector, true in temper as the axe\nWhich in the shipwright\u2019s hand the naval plank70\nDivides resistless, doubling all his force,\nSuch is thy dauntless spirit whose reproach\nPerforce I own, nor causeless nor unjust.\nYet let the gracious gifts uncensured pass\nOf golden Venus; man may not reject75\nThe glorious bounty by the Gods bestow\u2019d,\nNor follows their beneficence our choice.\nBut if thy pleasure be that I engage\nWith Menelaus in decision fierce\nOf desperate combat bid the host of Troy80\nAnd bid the Grecians sit; then face to face\nCommit us, in the vacant field between,\nTo fight for Helen and for all her wealth.\nWho strongest proves, and conquers, he, of her\nAnd hers possess\u2019d shall bear them safe away;85\nWhile ye (peace sworn and firm accord) shall dwell\nAt Troy, and these to Argos shall return\nAnd to Achaia praised for women fair.\nHe ceased, whom Hector heard with joy; he moved\nInto the middle space, and with his spear90\nAdvanced athwart push\u2019d back the Trojan van,\nAnd all stood fast. Meantime at him the Greeks\nDischarged full volley, showering thick around\nFrom bow and sling;[7] when with a mighty voice\nThus Agamemnon, leader of the host.95\nArgives! Be still\u2014shoot not, ye sons of Greece!\nHector bespeaks attention. Hear the Chief!\nHe said, at once the Grecians ceased to shoot,\nAnd all sat silent. Hector then began.\nHear me, ye Trojans, and ye Greeks mail-arm\u2019d,100\nWhile I shall publish in your ears the words\nOf Alexander, author of our strife.\nTrojans, he bids, and Grecians on the field\nTheir arms dispose; while he, the hosts between,\nWith warlike Menelaus shall in fight105\nContend for Helen, and for all her wealth.\nWho strongest proves, and conquers, he, of her\nAnd hers possess\u2019d, shall bear them safe away,\nAnd oaths of amity shall bind the rest.\nHe ceased, and all deep silence held, amazed;110\nWhen valiant Menelaus thus began.\nHear now me also, on whose aching heart\nThese woes have heaviest fallen. At last I hope\nDecision near, Trojans and Greeks between,\nFor ye have suffer\u2019d in my quarrel much,115\nAnd much by Paris, author of the war.\nDie he who must, and peace be to the rest.\nBut ye shall hither bring two lambs, one white,\nThe other black;[8] this to the Earth devote,\nThat to the Sun. We shall ourselves supply120\nA third for Jove. Then bring ye Priam forth,\nHimself to swear the covenant, (for his sons\nAre faithless) lest the oath of Jove be scorn\u2019d.\nYoung men are ever of unstable mind;\nBut when an elder interferes, he views125\nFuture and past together, and insures\nThe compact, to both parties, uninfringed.\nSo Menelaus spake; and in all hearts\nAwaken\u2019d joyful hope that there should end\nWar\u2019s long calamities. Alighted each,130\nAnd drew his steeds into the lines. The field\nGlitter\u2019d with arms put off, and side by side,\nRanged orderly, while the interrupted war\nStood front to front, small interval between.\nThen Hector to the city sent in haste135\nTwo heralds for the lambs, and to invite\nPriam; while Agamemnon, royal Chief,\nTalthybius to the Grecian fleet dismiss\u2019d\nFor a third lamb to Jove; nor he the voice\nOf noble Agamemnon disobey\u2019d.140\nIris, ambassadress of heaven, the while,\nTo Helen came. La\u00f6dice she seem\u2019d,\nLoveliest of all the daughters of the house\nOf Priam, wedded to Antenor\u2019s son,\nKing Helic\u00e4on. Her she found within,145\nAn ample web magnificent she wove,[9]\nInwrought with numerous conflicts for her sake\nBeneath the hands of Mars endured by Greeks\nMail-arm\u2019d, and Trojans of equestrian fame.\nSwift Iris, at her side, her thus address\u2019d.150\nHaste, dearest nymph! a wondrous sight behold!\nGreeks brazen-mail\u2019d, and Trojans steed-renown\u2019d.\nSo lately on the cruel work of Mars\nIntent and hot for mutual havoc, sit\nSilent; the war hath paused, and on his shield155\nEach leans, his long spear planted at his side.\nParis and Menelaus, warrior bold,\nWith quivering lances shall contend for thee,\nAnd thou art his who conquers; his for ever.\nSo saying, the Goddess into Helen\u2019s soul160\nSweetest desire infused to see again\nHer former Lord, her parents, and her home.\nAt once o\u2019ermantled with her snowy veil\nShe started forth, and as she went let fall\nA tender tear; not unaccompanied165\nShe went, but by two maidens of her train\nAttended, \u00c6thra, Pittheus\u2019 daughter fair,\nAnd soft-eyed Clymene. Their hasty steps\nConvey\u2019d them quickly to the Sc\u00e6an gate.\nThere Priam, Panthous, Clytius, Lampus sat,170\nThymoetes, Hicetaon, branch of Mars,\nAntenor and Ucalegon the wise,\nAll, elders of the people; warriors erst,\nBut idle now through age, yet of a voice\nStill indefatigable as the fly\u2019s[10]175\nWhich perch\u2019d among the boughs sends forth at noon\nThrough all the grove his slender ditty sweet.\nSuch sat those Trojan leaders on the tower,\nWho, soon as Helen on the steps they saw,\nIn accents quick, but whisper\u2019d, thus remark\u2019d.180\nTrojans and Grecians wage, with fair excuse,\nLong war for so much beauty.[11] Oh, how like\nIn feature to the Goddesses above!\nPernicious loveliness! Ah, hence away,\nResistless as thou art and all divine,185\nNor leave a curse to us, and to our sons.\nSo they among themselves; but Priam call\u2019d\nFair Helen to his side.[12] My daughter dear!\nCome, sit beside me. Thou shalt hence discern\nThy former Lord, thy kindred and thy friends.190\nI charge no blame on thee. The Gods have caused,\nNot thou, this lamentable war to Troy.[13]\nName to me yon Achaian Chief for bulk\nConspicuous, and for port. Taller indeed\nI may perceive than he; but with these eyes195\nSaw never yet such dignity, and grace.\nDeclare his name. Some royal Chief he seems.\nTo whom thus Helen, loveliest of her sex,\nMy other Sire! by me for ever held\nIn reverence, and with filial fear beloved!200\nOh that some cruel death had been my choice,\nRather than to abandon, as I did,\nAll joys domestic, matrimonial bliss,\nBrethren, dear daughter, and companions dear,\nA wanderer with thy son. Yet I alas!205\nDied not, and therefore now, live but to weep.\nBut I resolve thee. Thou behold\u2019st the son\nOf Atreus, Agamemnon, mighty king,\nIn arms heroic, gracious in the throne,\nAnd, (though it shame me now to call him such,)210\nBy nuptial ties a brother once to me.\nThen him the ancient King-admiring, said.\nOh blest Atrides, happy was thy birth,\nAnd thy lot glorious, whom this gallant host\nSo numerous, of the sons of Greece obey!215\nTo vine-famed Phrygia, in my days of youth,\nI journey\u2019d; many Phrygians there I saw,\nBrave horsemen, and expert; they were the powers\nOf Otreus and of Mygdon, godlike Chief,\nAnd on the banks of Sangar\u2019s stream encamp\u2019d.220\nI march\u2019d among them, chosen in that war\nAlly of Phrygia, and it was her day\nOf conflict with the man-defying race,\nThe Amazons; yet multitudes like these\nThy bright-eyed Greeks, I saw not even there.225\nThe venerable King observing next\nUlysses, thus inquired. My child, declare\nHim also. Shorter by the head he seems\nThan Agamemnon, Atreus\u2019 mighty son,\nBut shoulder\u2019d broader, and of ampler chest;230\nHe hath disposed his armor on the plain,\nBut like a ram, himself the warrior ranks\nRanges majestic; like a ram full-fleeced\nBy numerous sheep encompass\u2019d snowy-white.\nTo whom Jove\u2019s daughter Helen thus replied.235\nIn him the son of old La\u00ebrtes know,\nUlysses; born in Ithaca the rude,\nBut of a piercing wit, and deeply wise.\nThen answer thus, Antenor sage return\u2019d.\nPrincess thou hast described him: hither once240\nThe noble Ithacan, on thy behalf\nAmbassador with Menelaus, came:\nBeneath my roof, with hospitable fare\nFriendly I entertained them. Seeing then\nOccasion opportune, I closely mark\u2019d245\nThe genius and the talents of the Chiefs,\nAnd this I noted well; that when they stood\nAmid the assembled counsellors of Troy,\nThen Menelaus his advantage show\u2019d,\nWho by the shoulders overtopp\u2019d his friend.250\nBut when both sat, Ulysses in his air\nHad more of state and dignity than he.\nIn the delivery of a speech address\u2019d\nTo the full senate, Menelaus used\nFew words, but to the matter, fitly ranged,255\nAnd with much sweetness utter\u2019d; for in loose\nAnd idle play of ostentatious terms\nHe dealt not, thhugh he were the younger man.\nBut when the wise Ulysses from his seat\nHad once arisen, he would his downcast eyes260\nSo rivet on the earth, and with a hand\nThat seem\u2019d untutor\u2019d in its use, so hold\nHis sceptre, swaying it to neither side,\nThat hadst thou seen him, thou hadst thought him, sure,\nSome chafed and angry idiot, passion-fixt.265\nYet, when at length, the clear and mellow base\nOf his deep voice brake forth, and he let fall\nHis chosen words like flakes of feather\u2019d snow,\nNone then might match Ulysses; leisure, then,\nFound none to wonder at his noble form.270\nThe third of whom the venerable king\nInquired, was Ajax.\u2014Yon Achaian tall,\nWhose head and shoulders tower above the rest,\nAnd of such bulk prodigious\u2014who is he?\nHim answer\u2019d Helen, loveliest of her sex.275\nA bulwark of the Greeks. In him thou seest\nGigantic Ajax. Opposite appear\nThe Cretans, and among the Chiefs of Crete\nstands, like a God, Idomeneus. Him oft\nFrom Crete arrived, was Menela\u00fcs wont280\nTo entertain; and others now I see,\nAchaians, whom I could recall to mind,\nAnd give to each his name; but two brave youths\nI yet discern not; for equestrian skill\nOne famed, and one a boxer never foiled;285\nMy brothers; born of Leda; sons of Jove;\nCastor and Pollux. Either they abide\nIn lovely Sparta still, or if they came,\nDecline the fight, by my disgrace abash\u2019d\nAnd the reproaches which have fallen on me.[14]290\nShe said; but they already slept inhumed\nIn Lacedemon, in their native soil.\nAnd now the heralds, through the streets of Troy\nCharged with the lambs, and with a goat-skin filled\nWith heart-exhilarating wine prepared295\nFor that divine solemnity, return\u2019d.\nId\u00e6us in his hand a beaker bore\nResplendent, with its fellow cups of gold,\nAnd thus he summon\u2019d ancient Priam forth.\nSon of La\u00f6medon, arise. The Chiefs300\nCall thee, the Chiefs of Ilium and of Greece.\nDescend into the plain. We strike a truce,\nAnd need thine oath to bind it. Paris fights\nWith warlike Menela\u00fcs for his spouse;\nTheir spears decide the strife. The conqueror wins305\nHelen and all her treasures. We, thenceforth,\n(Peace sworn and amity) shall dwell secure\nIn Troy, while they to Argos shall return\nAnd to Achaia praised for women fair.\nHe spake, and Priam, shuddering, bade his train310\nPrepare his steeds; they sedulous obey\u2019d.\nFirst, Priam mounting, backward stretch\u2019d the reins;\nAntenor, next, beside him sat, and through\nThe Sc\u00e6an gate they drove into the plain.\nArriving at the hosts of Greece and Troy315\nThey left the chariot, and proceeded both\nInto the interval between the hosts.\nThen uprose Agamemnon, and uprose\nAll-wise Ulysses. Next, the heralds came\nConspicuous forward, expediting each320\nThe ceremonial; they the beaker fill\u2019d\nWith wine, and to the hands of all the kings\nMinister\u2019d water. Agamemnon then\nDrawing his dagger which he ever bore\nAppendant to his heavy falchion\u2019s sheath,325\nCut off the forelocks of the lambs,[15] of which\nThe heralds gave to every Grecian Chief\nA portion, and to all the Chiefs of Troy.\nThen Agamemnon raised his hands, and pray\u2019d.\nJove, Father, who from Ida stretchest forth330\nThine arm omnipotent, o\u2019erruling all,\nAnd thou, all-seeing and all-hearing Sun,\nYe Rivers, and thou conscious Earth, and ye\nWho under earth on human kind avenge\nSevere, the guilt of violated oaths,335\nHear ye, and ratify what now we swear!\nShould Paris slay the hero amber-hair\u2019d,\nMy brother Menela\u00fcs, Helen\u2019s wealth\nAnd Helen\u2019s self are his, and all our host\nShall home return to Greece; but should it chance340\nThat Paris fall by Menela\u00fcs\u2019 hand,\nThen Troy shall render back what she detains,\nWith such amercement as is meet, a sum\nTo be remember\u2019d in all future times.\nWhich penalty should Priam and his sons345\nNot pay, though Paris fall, then here in arms\nI will contend for payment of the mulct\nMy due, till, satisfied, I close the war.\nHe said, and with his ruthless steel the lambs\nStretch\u2019d panting all, but soon they ceased to pant,350\nFor mortal was the stroke.[16] Then drawing forth\nWine from the beaker, they with brimming cups\nHail\u2019d the immortal Gods, and pray\u2019d again,\nAnd many a Grecian thus and Trojan spake.\nAll-glorious Jove, and ye the powers of heaven,355\nWhoso shall violate this contract first,\nSo be the brains of them and of their sons\nPour\u2019d out, as we this wine pour on the earth,\nAnd may their wives bring forth to other men!\nSo they: but them Jove heard not. Then arose360\nPriam, the son of Dardanus, and said,\nHear me, ye Trojans and ye Greeks well-arm\u2019d.\nHence back to wind-swept Ilium I return,\nUnable to sustain the sight, my son\nWith warlike Menela\u00fcs match\u2019d in arms.365\nJove knows, and the immortal Gods, to whom\nOf both, this day is preordain\u2019d the last.\nSo spake the godlike monarch, and disposed\nWithin the royal chariot all the lambs;\nThen, mounting, check\u2019d the reins; Antenor next370\nAscended, and to Ilium both return\u2019d.\nFirst, Hector and Ulysses, noble Chief,\nMeasured the ground; then taking lots for proof\nWho of the combatants should foremost hurl\nHis spear, they shook them in a brazen casque;375\nMeantime the people raised their hands on high,\nAnd many a Grecian thus and Trojan prayed.\nJove, Father, who on Ida seated, seest\nAnd rulest all below, glorious in power!\nOf these two champions, to the drear abodes380\nOf Ades him appoint who furnish\u2019d first\nThe cause of strife between them, and let peace\nOath-bound, and amity unite the rest!\nSo spake the hosts; then Hector shook the lots,\nMajestic Chief, turning his face aside.385\nForth sprang the lot of Paris. They in ranks\nSat all, where stood the fiery steeds of each,\nAnd where his radiant arms lay on the field.\nIllustrious Alexander his bright arms\nPut on, fair Helen\u2019s paramour. [17]He clasp\u2019d390\nHis polish\u2019d greaves with silver studs secured;\nHis brother\u2019s corselet to his breast he bound,\nLycaon\u2019s, apt to his own shape and size,\nAnd slung athwart his shoulders, bright emboss\u2019d,\nHis brazen sword; his massy buckler broad395\nHe took, and to his graceful head his casque\nAdjusted elegant, which, as he moved,\nIts bushy crest waved dreadful; last he seized,\nWell fitted to his gripe, his ponderous spear.\nMeantime the hero Menela\u00fcs made400\nLike preparation, and his arms put on.\nWhen thus, from all the multitude apart,\nBoth combatants had arm\u2019d, with eyes that flash\u2019d\nDefiance, to the middle space they strode,\nTrojans and Greeks between. Astonishment405\nSeized all beholders. On the measured ground\nFull near they stood, each brandishing on high\nHis massy spear, and each was fiery wroth.\nFirst, Alexander his long-shadow\u2019d spear\nSent forth, and on his smooth shield\u2019s surface struck410\nThe son of Atreus, but the brazen guard\nPierced not, for at the disk, with blunted point\nReflex, his ineffectual weapon stay\u2019d.\nThen Menela\u00fcs to the fight advanced\nImpetuous, after prayer offer\u2019d to Jove.[18]415\nKing over all! now grant me to avenge\nMy wrongs on Alexander; now subdue\nThe aggressor under me; that men unborn\nMay shudder at the thought of faith abused,\nAnd hospitality with rape repaid.420\nHe said, and brandishing his massy spear,\nDismiss\u2019d it. Through the burnish\u2019d buckler broad\nOf Priam\u2019s son the stormy weapon flew,\nTranspierced his costly hauberk, and the vest\nRipp\u2019d on his flank; but with a sideward bend425\nHe baffled it, and baulk\u2019d the dreadful death.\nThen Menela\u00fcs drawing his bright blade,\nSwung it aloft, and on the hairy crest\nSmote him; but shiver\u2019d into fragments small\nThe falchion at the stroke fell from his hand.430\nVexation fill\u2019d him; to the spacious heavens\nHe look\u2019d, and with a voice of wo exclaim\u2019d\u2014\nJupiter! of all powers by man adored\nTo me most adverse! Confident I hoped\nRevenge for Paris\u2019 treason, but my sword435\nIs shivered, and I sped my spear in vain.\nSo saying, he sprang on him, and his long crest\nSeized fast; then, turning, drew him by that hold\nToward the Grecian host. The broider\u2019d band\nThat underbraced his helmet at the chin,440\nStrain\u2019d to his smooth neck with a ceaseless force,\nChok\u2019d him; and now had Menelaus won\nDeathless renown, dragging him off the field,\nBut Venus, foam-sprung Goddess, feeling quick\nHis peril imminent, snapp\u2019d short the brace445\nThough stubborn, by a slaughter\u2019d[19] ox supplied,\nAnd the void helmet follow\u2019d as he pull\u2019d.\nThat prize the Hero, whirling it aloft,\nThrew to his Greeks, who caught it and secured,\nThen with vindictive strides he rush\u2019d again450\nOn Paris, spear in hand; but him involved\nIn mist opaque Venus with ease divine\nSnatch\u2019d thence, and in his chamber placed him, fill\u2019d\nWith scents odorous, spirit-soothing sweets.\nNor stay\u2019d the Goddess, but at once in quest455\nOf Helen went; her on a lofty tower\nShe found, where many a damsel stood of Troy,\nAnd twitch\u2019d her fragrant robe. In form she seem\u2019d\nAn ancient matron, who, while Helen dwelt\nIn Laced\u00e6mon, her unsullied wool460\nDress\u2019d for her, faithfullest of all her train.\nLike her disguised the Goddess thus began.\nHaste\u2014Paris calls thee\u2014on his sculptured couch,\n(Sparkling alike his looks and his attire)\nHe waits thy wish\u2019d return. Thou wouldst not dream465\nThat he had fought; he rather seems prepared\nFor dance, or after dance, for soft repose.\nSo saying, she tumult raised in Helen\u2019s mind.\nYet soon as by her symmetry of neck,\nBy her love-kindling breasts and luminous eyes470\nShe knew the Goddess, her she thus bespake.\nAh whence, deceitful deity! thy wish\nNow to ensnare me? Wouldst thou lure me, say,\nTo some fair city of M\u00e6onian name\nOr Phrygian, more remote from Sparta still?475\nHast thou some human favorite also there?\nIs it because Atrides hath prevailed\nTo vanquish Paris, and would bear me home\nUnworthy as I am, that thou attempt\u2019st\nAgain to cheat me? Go thyself\u2014sit thou480\nBeside him\u2014for his sake renounce the skies;\nWatch him, weep for him; till at length his wife\nHe deign to make thee, or perchance his slave.\nI go not (now to go were shame indeed)\nTo dress his couch; nor will I be the jest485\nOf all my sex in Ilium. Oh! my griefs\nAre infinite, and more than I can bear.\nTo whom, the foam-sprung Goddess, thus incensed.\nAh wretch! provoke not me; lest in my wrath\nAbandoning thee, I not hate thee less490\nThan now I fondly love thee, and beget\nSuch detestation of thee in all hearts,\nGrecian and Trojan, that thou die abhorr\u2019d.\nThe Goddess ceased. Jove\u2019s daughter, Helen, fear\u2019d,\nAnd, in her lucid veil close wrapt around,495\nSilent retired, of all those Trojan dames\nUnseen, and Venus led, herself, the way.\nSoon then as Alexander\u2019s fair abode\nThey reach\u2019d, her maidens quick their tasks resumed,\nAnd she to her own chamber lofty-roof\u2019d500\nAscended, loveliest of her sex. A seat\nFor Helen, daughter of Jove \u00c6gis-arm\u2019d,\nTo Paris opposite, the Queen of smiles\nHerself disposed; but with averted eyes\nShe sat before him, and him keen reproach\u2019d.505\nThou hast escaped.\u2014Ah would that thou hadst died\nBy that heroic arm, mine husband\u2019s erst!\nThou once didst vaunt thee in address and strength\nSuperior. Go then\u2014challenge yet again\nThe warlike Menela\u00fcs forth in fight.510\nBut hold. The hero of the amber locks\nProvoke no more so rashly, lest the point\nOf his victorious spear soon stretch thee dead.\nShe ended, to whom Paris thus replied.\nAh Helen, wound me not with taunt severe!515\nMe, Menela\u00fcs, by Minerva\u2019s aid,\nHath vanquish\u2019d now, who may hereafter, him.\nWe also have our Gods. But let us love.\nFor never since the day when thee I bore\nFrom pleasant Laced\u00e6mon o\u2019er the waves520\nTo Cran\u00e4e\u2019s fair isle, and first enjoy\u2019d\nThy beauty, loved I as I love thee now,\nOr felt such sweetness of intense desire.\n\nHe spake, and sought his bed, whom follow\u2019d soon\nJove\u2019s daughter, reconciled to his embrace.525\nBut Menela\u00fcs like a lion ranged\nThe multitude, inquiring far and near\nFor Paris lost. Yet neither Trojan him\nNor friend of Troy could show, whom, else, through love\nNone had conceal\u2019d, for him as death itself530\nAll hated, but his going none had seen.\nAmidst them all then spake the King of men.\nTrojans, and Dardans, and allies of Troy!\nThe warlike Menela\u00fcs hath prevailed,\nAs is most plain. Now therefore bring ye forth535\nHelen with all her treasures, also bring\nSuch large amercement as is meet, a sum\nTo be remember\u2019d in all future times.\nSo spake Atrides, and Achaia\u2019s host\nWith loud applause confirm\u2019d the monarch\u2019s claim.540\n\n\n\n\nBOOK IV.\n\n\nARGUMENT OF THE FOURTH BOOK.\n\nIn a Council of the Gods, a dispute arises between Jupiter and Juno,\nwhich is at last compromised, Jove consenting to dispatch Minerva with\na charge to incite some Trojan to a violation of the truce. Minerva\ndescends for that purpose, and in the form of Laodocus, a son of Priam,\nexhorts Pandarus to shoot at Menelaus, and succeeds. Menelaus is\nwounded, and Agamemnon having consigned him to the care of Machaon,\ngoes forth to perform the duties of commander-in-chief, in the\nencouragement of his host to battle. The battle begins.\n\n\nBOOK IV.\n\n\nNow, on the golden floor of Jove\u2019s abode\nThe Gods all sat consulting; Hebe them,\nGraceful, with nectar served;[1] they pledging each\nHis next, alternate quaff\u2019d from cups of gold,\nAnd at their ease reclined, look\u2019d down on Troy,5\nWhen, sudden, Jove essay\u2019d by piercing speech\nInvidious, to enkindle Juno\u2019s ire.\nTwo Goddesses on Menelaus\u2019 part\nConfederate stand, Juno in Argos known,\nPallas in Alalcomene;[2] yet they10\nSequester\u2019d sit, look on, and are amused.\nNot so smile-loving Venus; she, beside\nHer champion station\u2019d, saves him from his fate,\nAnd at this moment, by her aid, he lives.\nBut now, since victory hath proved the lot15\nOf warlike Menelaus, weigh ye well\nThe matter; shall we yet the ruinous strife\nProlong between the nations, or consent\nTo give them peace? should peace your preference win,\nAnd prove alike acceptable to all,20\nStand Ilium, and let Menelaus bear\nHelen of Argos back to Greece again.\n\nHe ended; Juno and Minerva heard,\nLow-murmuring deep disgust; for side by side\nThey forging sat calamity to Troy.25\nMinerva through displeasure against Jove\nNought utter\u2019d, for with rage her bosom boil\u2019d;\nBut Juno check\u2019d not hers, who thus replied.\nWhat word hath pass\u2019d thy lips, Jove most severe!\nHow? wouldst thou render fruitless all my pains?30\nThe sweat that I have pour\u2019d? my steeds themselves\nHave fainted while I gather\u2019d Greece in arms\nFor punishment of Priam and his sons.\nDo it. But small thy praise shall be in heaven.\nThen her the Thunderer answer\u2019d sore displeased.35\nAh shameless! how have Priam and his sons\nSo much transgress\u2019d against thee, that thou burn\u2019st\nWith ceaseless rage to ruin populous Troy?\nGo, make thine entrance at her lofty gates,\nPriam and all his house, and all his host40\nAlive devour; then, haply, thou wilt rest;\nDo even as thou wilt, that this dispute\nLive not between us a consuming fire\nFor ever. But attend; mark well the word.\nWhen I shall also doom in future time45\nSome city to destruction, dear to thee,\nOppose me not, but give my fury way\nAs I give way to thine, not pleased myself,\nYet not unsatisfied, so thou be pleased.\nFor of all cities of the sons of men,50\nAnd which the sun and stars from heaven behold,\nMe sacred Troy most pleases, Priam me\nMost, and the people of the warrior King.\nNor without cause. They feed mine altar well;\nLibation there, and steam of savory scent55\nFail not, the tribute which by lot is ours.\nHim answer\u2019d, then, the Goddess ample-eyed,[3]\nMajestic Juno: Three fair cities me,\nOf all the earth, most interest and engage,\nMycen\u00e6 for magnificence renown\u2019d,60\nArgos, and Sparta. Them, when next thy wrath\nShall be inflamed against them, lay thou waste;\nI will not interpose on their behalf;\nThou shalt not hear me murmur; what avail\nComplaint or force against thy matchless arm?65\nYet were it most unmeet that even I\nShould toil in vain; I also boast a birth\nCelestial; Saturn deeply wise, thy Sire,\nIs also mine; our origin is one.\nThee I acknowledge Sovereign, yet account70\nMyself entitled by a twofold claim\nTo veneration both from Gods and men,\nThe daughter of Jove\u2019s sire, and spouse of Jove.\nConcession mutual therefore both thyself\nBefits and me, whom when the Gods perceive75\nDisposed to peace, they also shall accord.\nCome then.\u2014To yon dread field dispatch in haste\nMinerva, with command that she incite\nThe Trojans first to violate their oath\nBy some fresh insult on the exulting Greeks.80\nSo Juno; nor the sire of all refused,\nBut in wing\u2019d accents thus to Pallas spake.\nBegone; swift fly to yonder field; incite\nThe Trojans first to violate their oath\nBy some fresh insult on the exulting Greeks.85\nThe Goddess heard, and what she wish\u2019d, enjoin\u2019d,\nDown-darted swift from the Olympian heights,\nIn form a meteor, such as from his hand\nNot seldom Jove dismisses, beaming bright\nAnd breaking into stars, an omen sent90\nTo mariners, or to some numerous host.\nSuch Pallas seem\u2019d, and swift descending, dropp\u2019d\nFull in the midst between them. They with awe\nThat sign portentous and with wonder view\u2019d,\nAchaians both and Trojans, and his next95\nThe soldier thus bespake. Now either war\nAnd dire hostility again shall flame,\nOr Jove now gives us peace. Both are from Jove.\nSo spake the soldiery; but she the form\nTaking of brave Laodocus, the son100\nOf old Antenor, throughout all the ranks\nSought godlike Pandarus.[4] Ere long she found\nThe valiant son illustrious of Lycaon,\nStanding encompass\u2019d by his dauntless troops,\nBroad-shielded warriors, from \u00c6sepus\u2019 stream105\nHis followers; to his side the Goddess came,\nAnd in wing\u2019d accents ardent him bespake.\nBrave offspring of Lycaon, is there hope\nThat thou wilt hear my counsel? darest thou slip\nA shaft at Menelaus? much renown110\nThou shalt and thanks from all the Trojans win,\nBut most of all, from Paris, prince of Troy.\nFrom him illustrious gifts thou shalt receive\nDoubtless, when Menelaus he shall see\nThe martial son of Atreus by a shaft115\nSubdued of thine, placed on his funeral pile.\nCome. Shoot at Menelaus, glorious Chief!\nBut vow to Lycian Ph\u0153bus bow-renown\u2019d\nA hecatomb, all firstlings of the flock,\nTo fair Zeleia\u2019s[5] walls once safe restored.120\nSo Pallas spake, to whom infatuate he\nListening, uncased at once his polished bow.[6]\nThat bow, the laden brows of a wild goat\nSalacious had supplied; him on a day\nForth-issuing from his cave, in ambush placed125\nHe wounded with an arrow to his breast\nDispatch\u2019d, and on the rock supine he fell.\nEach horn had from his head tall growth attain\u2019d,\nFull sixteen palms; them shaven smooth the smith\nHad aptly join\u2019d, and tipt their points with gold.130\nThat bow he strung, then, stooping, planted firm\nThe nether horn, his comrades bold the while\nScreening him close with shields, lest ere the prince\nWere stricken, Menelaus brave in arms,\nThe Greeks with fierce assault should interpose.135\nHe raised his quiver\u2019s lid; he chose a dart\nUnflown, full-fledged, and barb\u2019d with pangs of death.\nHe lodged in haste the arrow on the string,\nAnd vow\u2019d to Lycian Ph\u0153bus bow-renown\u2019d\nA hecatomb, all firstlings of the flock,140\nTo fair Zeleia\u2019s walls once safe restored.\nCompressing next nerve and notch\u2019d arrow-head\nHe drew back both together, to his pap\nDrew home the nerve, the barb home to his bow,\nAnd when the horn was curved to a wide arch,145\nHe twang\u2019d it. Whizz\u2019d the bowstring, and the reed\nLeap\u2019d off, impatient for the distant throng.\nThee, Menelaus, then the blessed Gods\nForgat not; Pallas huntress of the spoil,\nThy guardian then, baffled the cruel dart.150\nFar as a mother wafts the fly aside[7]\nThat haunts her slumbering babe, so far she drove\nIts course aslant, directing it herself\nAgainst the golden clasps that join\u2019d his belt;\nFor there the doubled hauberk interposed.155\nThe bitter arrow plunged into his belt.\nIt pierced his broider\u2019d belt, stood fixt within\nHis twisted hauberk, nor the interior quilt,\nThough penetrable least to arrow-points\nAnd his best guard, withheld it, but it pass\u2019d160\nThat also, and the Hero\u2019s skin inscribed.\nQuick flowed a sable current from the wound.\nAs when a Carian or M\u00e6onian maid\nImpurples ivory ordain\u2019d to grace\nThe cheek of martial steed; safe stored it lies,165\nBy many a Chief desired, but proves at last\nThe stately trapping of some prince,[8] the pride\nOf his high pamper\u2019d steed, nor less his own;\nSuch, Menelaus, seem\u2019d thy shapely thighs,\nThy legs, thy feet, stained with thy trickling blood.170\nShudder\u2019d King Agamemnon when he saw\nThe blood fast trickling from the wound, nor less\nShudder\u2019d himself the bleeding warrior bold.\nBut neck and barb observing from the flesh\nExtant, he gather\u2019d heart, and lived again.175\nThe royal Agamemnon, sighing, grasp\u2019d\nThe hand of Menelaus, and while all\nTheir followers sigh\u2019d around them, thus began.[9]\n\nI swore thy death, my brother, when I swore\nThis truce, and set thee forth in sight of Greeks180\nAnd Trojans, our sole champion; for the foe\nHath trodden underfoot his sacred oath,\nAnd stained it with thy blood. But not in vain,\nThe truce was ratified, the blood of lambs\nPoured forth, libation made, and right hands join\u2019d185\nIn holy confidence. The wrath of Jove\nMay sleep, but will not always; they shall pay\nDear penalty; their own obnoxious heads\nShall be the mulct, their children and their wives.\nFor this I know, know surely; that a day190\nShall come, when Ilium, when the warlike King\nOf Ilium and his host shall perish all.\nSaturnian Jove high-throned, dwelling in heaven,\nResentful of this outrage, then shall shake\nHis storm-clad \u00c6gis over them. He will;195\nI speak no fable. Time shall prove me true.\nBut, oh my Menelaus, dire distress\nAwaits me, if thy close of life be come,\nAnd thou must die. Then ignominy foul\nShall hunt me back to Argos long-desired;200\nFor then all here will recollect their home,\nAnd, hope abandoning, will Helen yield\nTo be the boast of Priam, and of Troy.\nSo shall our toils be vain, and while thy bones\nShall waste these clods beneath, Troy\u2019s haughty sons205\nThe tomb of Menelaus glory-crown\u2019d\nInsulting barbarous, shall scoff at me.\nSo may Atrides, shall they say, perform\nHis anger still as he performed it here,\nWhither he led an unsuccessful host,210\nWhence he hath sail\u2019d again without the spoils,\nAnd where he left his brother\u2019s bones to rot.\nSo shall the Trojan speak; then open earth\nHer mouth, and hide me in her deepest gulfs!\nBut him, the hero of the golden locks215\nThus cheer\u2019d. My brother, fear not, nor infect\nWith fear the Grecians; the sharp-pointed reed\nHath touch\u2019d no vital part. The broider\u2019d zone,\nThe hauberk, and the tough interior quilt,\nWork of the armorer, its force repress\u2019d.220\nHim answer\u2019d Agamemnon, King of men.\nSo be it brother! but the hand of one\nSkilful to heal shall visit and shall dress\nThe wound with drugs of pain-assuaging power.\nHe ended, and his noble herald, next,225\nBespake, Talthybius. Haste, call hither quick\nThe son of \u00c6sculapius, leech renown\u2019d,\nThe prince Machaon. Bid him fly to attend\nThe warlike Chieftain Menelaus; him\nSome archer, either Lycian or of Troy,230\nA dexterous one, hath stricken with a shaft\nTo his own glory, and to our distress.\nHe spake, nor him the herald disobey\u2019d,\nBut through the Greeks bright-arm\u2019d his course began\nThe Hero seeking earnest on all sides235\nMachaon. Him, ere long, he station\u2019d saw\nAmid the shielded-ranks of his brave band\nFrom steed-famed Tricca drawn, and at his side\nWith accents ardor-wing\u2019d, him thus address\u2019d.\nHaste, Asclepiades! The King of men240\nCalls thee. Delay not. Thou must visit quick\nBrave Menelaus, Atreus\u2019 son, for him\nSome archer, either Lycian or of Troy,\nA dexterous one, hath stricken with a shaft\nTo his own glory, and to our distress.245\nSo saying, he roused Machaon, who his course\nThrough the wide host began. Arriving soon\nWhere wounded Menelaus stood, while all\nThe bravest of Achaia\u2019s host around\nThe godlike hero press\u2019d, he strove at once250\nTo draw the arrow from his cincture forth.\nBut, drawing, bent the barbs. He therefore loosed\nHis broider\u2019d belt, his hauberk and his quilt,\nWork of the armorer, and laying bare\nHis body where the bitter shaft had plow\u2019d255\nHis flesh, he suck\u2019d the wound, then spread it o\u2019er\nWith drugs of balmy power, given on a time\nFor friendship\u2019s sake by Chiron to his sire.\nWhile Menelaus thus the cares engross\u2019d\nOf all those Chiefs, the shielded powers of Troy260\n\u2019Gan move toward them, and the Greeks again\nPut on their armor, mindful of the fight.\nThen hadst thou[10] not great Agamemnon seen\nSlumbering, or trembling, or averse from war,\nBut ardent to begin his glorious task.265\nHis steeds, and his bright chariot brass-inlaid\nHe left; the snorting steeds Eurymedon,\nOffspring of Ptolemy Pira\u00efdes\nDetain\u2019d apart; for him he strict enjoin\u2019d\nAttendance near, lest weariness of limbs270\nShould seize him marshalling his numerous host.\nSo forth he went, and through the files on foot\nProceeding, where the warrior Greeks he saw\nAlert, he roused them by his words the more.[11]\nArgives! abate no spark of all your fire.275\nJove will not prosper traitors. Them who first\nTransgress\u2019d the truce the vultures shall devour,\nBut we (their city taken) shall their wives\nLead captive, and their children home to Greece.\nSo cheer\u2019d he them. But whom he saw supine,280\nOr in the rugged work of war remiss,\nIn terms of anger them he stern rebuked.\nOh Greeks! The shame of Argos! Arrow-doom\u2019d!\nBlush ye not? Wherefore stand ye thus aghast,\nLike fawns which wearied after scouring wide285\nThe champain, gaze and pant, and can no more?\nSenseless like them ye stand, nor seek the fight.\nIs it your purpose patient here to wait\nTill Troy invade your vessels on the shore\nOf the grey deep, that ye may trial make290\nOf Jove, if he will prove, himself, your shield?\nThus, in discharge of his high office, pass\u2019d\nAtrides through the ranks, and now arrived\nWhere, hardy Chief! Idomeneus in front\nOf his bold Cretans stood, stout as a boar295\nThe van he occupied, while in the rear\nMeriones harangued the most remote.\nThem so prepared the King of men beheld\nWith joyful heart, and thus in courteous terms\nInstant the brave Idomeneus address\u2019d.300\nThee fighting, feasting, howsoe\u2019er employed,\nI most respect, Idomeneus, of all\nThe well-horsed Dan\u00e4i; for when the Chiefs\nOf Argos, banqueting, their beakers charge\nWith rosy wine the honorable meed305\nOf valor, thou alone of all the Greeks\nDrink\u2019st not by measure.[12] No\u2014thy goblet stands\nReplenish\u2019d still, and like myself thou know\u2019st\nNo rule or bound, save what thy choice prescribes.\nMarch. Seek the foe. Fight now as heretofore,310\nTo whom Idomeneus of Crete replied,\nAtrides! all the friendship and the love\nWhich I have promised will I well perform.\nGo; animate the rest, Chief after Chief\nOf the Achaians, that the fight begin.315\nFor Troy has scatter\u2019d to the winds all faith,\nAll conscience; and for such her treachery foul\nShall have large recompence of death and wo.\nHe said, whom Agamemnon at his heart\nExulting, pass\u2019d, and in his progress came320\nWhere stood each Ajax; them he found prepared\nWith all their cloud of infantry behind.\nAs when the goat-herd on some rocky point\nAdvanced, a cloud sees wafted o\u2019er the deep\nBy western gales, and rolling slow along,325\nTo him, who stands remote, pitch-black it seems,\nAnd comes with tempest charged; he at the sight\nShuddering, his flock compels into a cave;\nSo moved the gloomy phalanx, rough with spears,\nAnd dense with shields of youthful warriors bold,330\nClose-following either Ajax to the fight.\nThem also, pleased, the King of men beheld,\nAnd in wing\u2019d accents hail\u2019d them as he pass\u2019d.\nBrave leaders of the mail-clad host of Greece!\nI move not you to duty; ye yourselves335\nMove others, and no lesson need from me.\nJove, Pallas, and Apollo! were but all\nCourageous as yourselves, soon Priam\u2019s towers\nShould totter, and his Ilium storm\u2019d and sack\u2019d\nBy our victorious bands, stoop to the dust.340\nHe ceased, and still proceeding, next arrived\nWhere stood the Pylian orator, his band\nMarshalling under all their leaders bold\nAlastor, Chromius, Pelagon the vast,\nH\u00e6mon the prince, and Bias, martial Chief.345\nChariot and horse he station\u2019d in the front;\nHis numerous infantry, a strong reserve\nRight valiant, in the rear; the worst, and those\nIn whom he trusted least, he drove between,\nThat such through mere necessity might act.350\nFirst to his charioteers he gave in charge\nTheir duty; bade them rein their horses hard,\nShunning confusion. Let no warrior, vain\nAnd overweening of his strength or skill,\nStart from his rank to dare the fight alone,355\nOr fall behind it, weakening whom he leaves.\n[13]And if, dismounted from his own, he climb\nAnother\u2019s chariot, let him not affect\nPerverse the reins, but let him stand, his spear\nAdvancing firm, far better so employ\u2019d.360\nSuch was the discipline, in ancient times,\nOf our forefathers; by these rules they fought\nSuccessful, and laid many a city low.\nSo counsell\u2019d them the venerable Chief\nLong time expert in arms; him also saw365\nKing Agamemnon with delight, and said,\nOld Chief! ah how I wish, that thy firm heart\nWere but supported by as firm a knee!\nBut time unhinges all. Oh that some youth\nHad thine old age, and thou wast young again!370\nTo whom the valiant Nestor thus replied.\nAtrides, I could also ardent wish\nThat I were now robust as when I struck\nBrave Ereuthalion[14] breathless to the ground!\nBut never all their gifts the Gods confer375\nOn man at once; if then I had the force\nOf youth, I suffer now the effects of age.\nYet ancient as I am, I will be seen\nStill mingling with the charioteers, still prompt\nTo give them counsel; for to counsel youth380\nIs the old warrior\u2019s province. Let the green\nIn years, my juniors, unimpaired by time,\nPush with the lance, for they have strength to boast.\nSo he, whom Agamemnon joyful heard,\nAnd passing thence, the son of Peteos found385\nMenestheus, foremost in equestrian fame,\nAmong the brave Athenians; near to him\nUlysses held his station, and at hand\nThe Cephallenians stood, hardy and bold;\nFor rumor none of the approaching fight390\nThem yet had reach\u2019d, so recent had the stir\nArisen in either host; they, therefore, watch\u2019d\nTill the example of some other band\nMarching, should prompt them to begin the fight,\nBut Agamemnon, thus, the King of men395\nThem seeing, sudden and severe reproved.\nMenestheus, son of Peteos prince renown\u2019d,\nAnd thou, deviser of all evil wiles!\nAdept in artifice! why stand ye here\nAppall\u2019d? why wait ye on this distant spot400\nTill others move? I might expect from you\nMore readiness to meet the burning war,\nWhom foremost I invite of all to share\nThe banquet, when the Princes feast with me.\nThere ye are prompt; ye find it pleasant there405\nTo eat your savory food, and quaff your wine\nDelicious till satiety ensue;\nBut here you could be well content to stand\nSpectators only, while ten Grecian troops\nShould wage before you the wide-wasting war.410\nTo whom Ulysses, with resentful tone\nDark-frowning, thus replied. What words are these\nWhich have escaped thy lips; and for what cause,\nAtrides, hast thou call\u2019d me slow to fight?\nWhen we of Greece shall in sharp contest clash415\nWith you steed-tamer Trojans, mark me then;\nThen thou shalt see (if the concerns of war\nSo nearly touch thee, and thou so incline)\nThe father of Telemachus, engaged\nAmong the foremost Trojans. But thy speech420\nWas light as is the wind, and rashly made.\nWhen him thus moved he saw, the monarch smiled\nComplacent, and in gentler terms replied.\nLa\u00ebrtes\u2019 noble son, for wiles renown\u2019d!\nShort reprimand and exhortation short425\nSuffice for thee, nor did I purpose more.\nFor I have known thee long, that thou art one\nOf kindest nature, and so much my friend\nThat we have both one heart. Go therefore thou,\nLead on, and if a word have fallen amiss,430\nWe will hereafter mend it, and may heaven\nObliterate in thine heart its whole effect!\nHe ceased, and ranging still along the line,\nThe son of Tydeus, Diomede, perceived,\nHeroic Chief, by chariots all around435\nEnviron\u2019d, and by steeds, at side of whom\nStood Sthenelus, the son of Capaneus.\nHim also, Agamemnon, King of men,\nIn accents of asperity reproved.\nAh, son of Tydeus, Chief of dauntless heart440\nAnd of equestrian fame! why standest thou\nAppall\u2019d, and peering through the walks of war?\nSo did not Tydeus. In the foremost fight\nHis favorite station was, as they affirm\nWho witness\u2019d his exploits; I never saw445\nOr met him, but by popular report\nHe was the bravest warrior of his day.\nYet came he once, but not in hostile sort,\nTo fair Mycen\u00e6, by the godlike prince\nAttended, Polynices, at what time450\nThe host was called together, and the siege\nWas purposed of the sacred city Thebes.\nEarnest they sued for an auxiliar band,\nWhich we had gladly granted, but that Jove\nBy unpropitious tokens interfered.455\nSo forth they went, and on the reedy banks\nArriving of Asopus, there thy sire\nBy designation of the Greeks was sent\nAmbassador, and enter\u2019d Thebes. He found\nIn Eteocles\u2019 palace numerous guests,460\nThe sons of Cadmus feasting, among whom,\nAlthough a solitary stranger, stood\nThy father without fear, and challenged forth\nTheir best to cope with him in manly games.\nThem Tydeus vanquish\u2019d easily, such aid465\nPallas vouchsafed him. Then the spur-arm\u2019d race\nOf Cadmus was incensed, and fifty youths\nIn ambush close expected his return.\nThem, Lycophontes obstinate in fight,\nSon of Autophonus, and M\u00e6on, son470\nOf H\u00e6mon, Chief of godlike stature, led.\nThose also Tydeus slew; M\u00e6on except,\n(Whom, warned from heaven, he spared, and sent him home\nWith tidings of the rest) he slew them all.\nSuch was \u00c6tolian Tydeus; who begat475\nA son in speech his better, not in arms.\nHe ended, and his sovereign\u2019s awful voice\nTydides reverencing, nought replied;\nBut thus the son of glorious Capaneus.\nAtrides, conscious of the truth, speak truth.480\nWe with our sires compared, superior praise\nClaim justly.[15] We, confiding in the aid\nOf Jove, and in propitious signs from heaven,\nLed to the city consecrate to Mars\nOur little host, inferior far to theirs,485\nAnd took seven-gated Thebes, under whose walls\nOur fathers by their own imprudence fell.\nTheir glory, then, match never more with ours.\nHe spake, whom with a frowning brow the brave\nTydides answer\u2019d. Sthenelus, my friend!490\nI give thee counsel. Mark it. Hold thy peace.\nIf Agamemnon, who hath charge of all,\nExcite his well-appointed host to war,\nHe hath no blame from me. For should the Greeks\n(Her people vanquished) win imperial Troy,495\nThe glory shall be his; or, if his host\nO\u2019erpower\u2019d in battle perish, his the shame.\nCome, therefore; be it ours to rouse at once\nTo action all the fury of our might.\nHe said, and from his chariot to the plain500\nLeap\u2019d ardent; rang the armor on the breast\nOf the advancing Chief; the boldest heart\nHad felt emotion, startled at the sound.\nAs when the waves by Zephyrus up-heaved\nCrowd fast toward some sounding shore, at first,505\nOn the broad bosom of the deep their heads\nThey curl on high, then breaking on the land\nThunder, and o\u2019er the rocks that breast the flood\nBorne turgid, scatter far the showery spray;\nSo moved the Greeks successive, rank by rank,510\nAnd phalanx after phalanx, every Chief\nHis loud command proclaiming, while the rest,\nAs voice in all those thousands none had been\nHeard mute; and, in resplendent armor clad,\nWith martial order terrible advanced.515\nNot so the Trojans came. As sheep, the flock\nOf some rich man, by thousands in his court\nPenn\u2019d close at milking time, incessant bleat,\nLoud answering all their bleating lambs without,\nSuch din from Ilium\u2019s wide-spread host arose.520\nNor was their shout, nor was their accent one,\nBut mingled languages were heard of men\nFrom various climes. These Mars to battle roused,\nThose Pallas azure-eyed; nor Terror thence\nNor Flight was absent, nor insatiate Strife,525\nSister and mate of homicidal Mars,\nWho small at first, but swift to grow, from earth\nHer towering crest lifts gradual to the skies.\nShe, foe alike to both, the brands dispersed\nOf burning hate between them, and the woes530\nEnhanced of battle wheresoe\u2019er she pass\u2019d.\nAnd now the battle join\u2019d. Shield clash\u2019d with shield[16]\nAnd spear with spear, conflicting corselets rang,\nBoss\u2019d bucklers met, and tumult wild arose.\nThen, many a yell was heard, and many a shout535\nLoud intermix\u2019d, the slayer o\u2019er the maim\u2019d\nExulting, and the field was drench\u2019d with blood.\nAs when two winter torrents rolling down\nThe mountains, shoot their floods through gulleys huge\nInto one gulf below, station\u2019d remote540\nThe shepherd in the uplands hears the roar;\nSuch was the thunder of the mingling hosts.\nAnd first, Antilochus a Trojan Chief\nSlew Echepolus, from Thalysias sprung,\nContending valiant in the van of Troy.545\nHim smiting on his crested casque, he drove\nThe brazen lance into his front, and pierced\nThe bones within; night overspread his eyes,\nAnd in fierce battle, like a tower, he fell.\nHim fallen by both feet Calchodon\u2019s son550\nSeized, royal Elephenor, leader brave\nOf the Abantes, and in haste to strip\nHis armor, drew him from the fight aside.\nBut short was that attempt. Him so employ\u2019d\nDauntless Agenor mark\u2019d, and as he stoop\u2019d,555\nIn his unshielded flank a pointed spear\nImplanted deep; he languid sunk and died.\nSo Elephenor fell, for whom arose\nSharp conflict; Greeks and Trojans mutual flew\nLike wolves to battle, and man grappled man.560\nThen Telamonian Ajax, in his prime\nOf youthful vigor Sim\u00f6isius slew,[17]\nSon of Anthemion. Him on Simo\u00efs\u2019 banks\nHis mother bore, when with her parents once\nShe came from Ida down to view the flocks,565\nAnd thence they named him; but his parents\u2019\nHe lived not to requite, in early youth\nSlain by the spear of Ajax famed in arms.\nFor him advancing Ajax at the pap\nWounded; right through his shoulder driven the point570\nStood forth behind; he fell, and press\u2019d the dust.\nSo in some spacious marsh the poplar falls\nSmooth-skinn\u2019d, with boughs unladen save aloft;\nSome chariot-builder with his axe the trunk\nSevers, that he may warp it to a wheel575\nOf shapely form; meantime exposed it lies\nTo parching airs beside the running stream;\nSuch Sim\u00f6isius seemed, Anthemion\u2019s son,\nWhom noble Ajax slew. But soon at him\nAntiphus, son of Priam, bright in arms,580\nHurl\u2019d through the multitude his pointed spear.\nHe erred from Ajax, but he pierced the groin\nOf Leucus, valiant warrior of the band\nLed by Ulysses. He the body dragg\u2019d\nApart, but fell beside it, and let fall,585\nBreathless himself, the burthen from his hand.\nThen burn\u2019d Ulysses\u2019 wrath for Leucus slain,\nAnd through the foremost combatants, array\u2019d\nIn dazzling arms, he rush\u2019d. Full near he stood,\nAnd, looking keen around him, hurl\u2019d a lance.590\nBack fell the Trojans from before the face\nDispersed of great Ulysses. Not in vain\nHis weapon flew, but on the field outstretch\u2019d\nA spurious son of Priam, from the shores\nCall\u2019d of Abydus famed for fleetest mares,595\nDemocoon; him, for Leucus\u2019 sake enraged,\nUlysses through both temples with his spear\nTranspierced. The night of death hung on his eyes,\nAnd sounding on his batter\u2019d arms he fell.\nThen Hector and the van of Troy retired;600\nLoud shout the Grecians; these draw off the dead,\nThose onward march amain, and from the heights\nOf Pergamus Apollo looking down\nIn anger, to the Trojans called aloud.\nTurn, turn, ye Trojans! face your Grecian foes.605\nThey, like yourselves, are vulnerable flesh,\nNot adamant or steel. Your direst dread\nAchilles, son of Thetis radiant-hair\u2019d,\nFights not, but sullen in his fleet abides.[18]\nSuch from the citadel was heard the voice610\nOf dread Apollo. But Minerva ranged\nMeantime, Tritonian progeny of Jove,\nThe Grecians, rousing whom she saw remiss.\nThen Amarynceus\u2019 son, Diores, felt\nThe force of fate, bruised by a rugged rock615\nAt his right heel, which Pirus, Thracian Chief,\nThe son of Imbrasus of \u00c6nos, threw.\nBones and both tendons in its fall the mass\nEnormous crush\u2019d. He, stretch\u2019d in dust supine,\nWith palms outspread toward his warrior friends620\nLay gasping life away. But he who gave\nThe fatal blow, Pirus, advancing, urged\nInto his navel a keen lance, and shed\nHis bowels forth; then, darkness veil\u2019d his eyes.\nNor Pirus long survived; him through the breast625\nAbove the pap, \u00c6tolian Thoas pierced,\nAnd in his lungs set fast the quivering spear.\nThen Thoas swift approach\u2019d, pluck\u2019d from the wound\nHis stormy spear, and with his falchion bright\nGashing his middle belly, stretch\u2019d him dead.630\nYet stripp\u2019d he not the slain, whom with long spears\nHis Thracians hairy-scalp\u2019d[19] so round about\nEncompassed, that though bold and large of limb\nWere Thoas, from before them him they thrust\nStaggering and reeling in his forced retreat.635\nThey therefore in the dust, the Epean Chief\nDiores, and the Thracian, Pirus lay\nStretch\u2019d side by side, with numerous slain around.\nThen had Minerva led through all that field\nSome warrior yet unhurt, him sheltering safe640\nFrom all annoyance dread of dart or spear,\nNo cause of blame in either had he found\nThat day, so many Greeks and Trojans press\u2019d,\nExtended side by side, the dusty plain.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK V.\n\n\nARGUMENT OF THE FIFTH BOOK.\n\nDiomede is extraordinarily distinguished. He kills Pandarus, who had\nviolated the truce, and wounds first Venus and then Mars.\n\n\nBOOK V.\n\n\nThen Athen\u00e6an Pallas on the son\nOf Tydeus,[1] Diomede, new force conferr\u2019d\nAnd daring courage, that the Argives all\nHe might surpass, and deathless fame achieve.\nFires on his helmet and his shield around5\nShe kindled, bright and steady as the star\nAutumnal,[2] which in Ocean newly bathed\nAssumes fresh beauty; with such glorious beams\nHis head encircling and his shoulders broad,\nShe urged him forth into the thickest fight.10\nThere lived a man in Troy, Dares his name,\nThe priest of Vulcan; rich he was and good,\nThe father of two sons, Id\u00e6us this,\nThat, Phegeus call\u2019d; accomplish\u2019d warriors both.\nThese, issuing from their phalanx, push\u2019d direct15\nTheir steeds at Diomede, who fought on foot.\nWhen now small interval was left between,\nFirst Phegeus his long-shadow\u2019d spear dismiss\u2019d;\nBut over Diomede\u2019s left shoulder pass\u2019d\nThe point, innocuous. Then his splendid lance20\nTydides hurl\u2019d; nor ineffectual flew\nThe weapon from his hand, but Phegeus pierced\nHis paps between, and forced him to the ground.\nAt once, his sumptuous chariot left, down leap\u2019d\nId\u00e6sus, wanting courage to defend25\nHis brother slain; nor had he scaped himself\nHis louring fate, but Vulcan, to preserve\nHis ancient priest from unmixt sorrow, snatch\u2019d\nThe fugitive in darkness wrapt, away.\nThen brave Tydides, driving off the steeds,30\nConsign\u2019d them to his fellow-warriors\u2019 care,\nThat they might lead them down into the fleet.\nThe valiant Trojans, when they saw the sons\nOf Dares, one beside his chariot slain,\nAnd one by flight preserved, through all their host35\nFelt consternation. Then Minerva seized\nThe hand of fiery Mars, and thus she spake.\nGore-tainted homicide, town-battering Mars!\nLeave we the Trojans and the Greeks to wage\nFierce fight alone, Jove prospering whom he will,40\nSo shall we not provoke our father\u2019s ire.\nShe said, and from the fight conducted forth\nThe impetuous Deity, whom on the side\nShe seated of Scamander deep-embank\u2019d.[3]\nAnd now the host of Troy to flight inclined45\nBefore the Grecians, and the Chiefs of Greece\nEach slew a warrior. Agamemnon first\nGigantic Odius from his chariot hurl\u2019d.\nChief of the Halizonians. He to flight\nTurn\u2019d foremost, when the monarch in his spine50\nBetween the shoulder-bones his spear infixt,\nAnd urged it through his breast. Sounding he fell,\nAnd loud his batter\u2019d armor rang around.\nBy brave Idomeneus a Lydian died,\nPh\u00e6stus, from fruitful Tarne sent to Troy,55\nSon of M\u00e6onian Borus; him his steeds\nMounting, Idomeneus the spear-renown\u2019d\nThrough his right shoulder pierced; unwelcome night\nInvolved him; from his chariot down he fell,[4]\nAnd the attendant Cretans stripp\u2019d his arms.60\nBut Menelaus, son of Atreus slew\nWith his bright spear Scamandrius, Stropius\u2019 son,\nA skilful hunter; for Diana him,\nHerself, the slaughter of all savage kinds\nHad taught, on mountain or in forest bred.65\nBut she, shaft-aiming Goddess, in that hour\nAvail\u2019d him not, nor his own matchless skill;\nFor Menelaus, Atreus son spear-famed,\nHim flying wounded in the spine between\nHis shoulders, and the spear urged through his breast.70\nProne on his loud-resounding arms he fell.\nNext, by Meriones, Phereclus died,\nSon of Harmonides. All arts that ask\nA well-instructed hand his sire had learn\u2019d,\nFor Pallas dearly loved him. He the fleet,75\nPrime source of harm to Troy and to himself,\nFor Paris built, unskill\u2019d to spell aright\nThe oracles predictive of the wo.\nPhereclus fled; Meriones his flight\nOutstripping, deep in his posterior flesh80\nA spear infix\u2019d; sliding beneath the bone\nIt grazed his bladder as it pass\u2019d, and stood\nProtruded far before. Low on his knees\nPhereclus sank, and with a shriek expired.\nPed\u00e6us, whom, although his spurious son,85\nAntenor\u2019s wife, to gratify her lord,\nHad cherish\u2019d as her own\u2014him Meges slew.\nWarlike Phylides[5] following close his flight,\nHis keen lance drove into his poll, cut sheer\nHis tongue within, and through his mouth enforced90\nThe glittering point. He, prostrate in the dust,\nThe cold steel press\u2019d between his teeth and died.\nEurypylus, Evemon\u2019s son, the brave\nHypsenor slew; Dolopion was his sire,\nPriest of Scamander, reverenced as a God.95\nIn vain before Eurypylus he fled;\nHe, running, with his falchion lopp\u2019d his arm\nFast by the shoulder; on the field his hand\nFell blood-distained, and destiny severe\nWith shades of death for ever veil\u2019d his eyes.100\nThus strenuous they the toilsome battle waged.\nBut where Tydides fought, whether in aid\nOf Ilium\u2019s host, or on the part of Greece,\nMight none discern. For as a winter-flood\nImpetuous, mounds and bridges sweeps away;[6]105\nThe buttress\u2019d bridge checks not its sudden force,\nThe firm inclosure of vine-planted fields\nLuxuriant, falls before it; finish\u2019d works\nOf youthful hinds, once pleasant to the eye,\nNow levell\u2019d, after ceaseless rain from Jove;110\nSo drove Tydides into sudden flight\nThe Trojans; phalanx after phalanx fled\nBefore the terror of his single arm.\nWhen him Lycaon\u2019s son illustrious saw\nScouring the field, and from before his face115\nThe ranks dispersing wide, at once he bent\nAgainst Tydides his elastic bow.\nThe arrow met him in his swift career\nSure-aim\u2019d; it struck direct the hollow mail\nOf his right shoulder, with resistless force120\nTransfix\u2019d it, and his hauberk stain\u2019d with blood.\nLoud shouted then Lycaon\u2019s son renown\u2019d.\nRush on, ye Trojans, spur your coursers hard.\nOur fiercest foe is wounded, and I deem\nHis death not distant far, if me the King[7]125\nJove\u2019s son, indeed, from Lycia sent to Troy.\nSo boasted Pandarus. Yet him the dart\nQuell\u2019d not. Retreating, at his coursers\u2019 heads\nHe stood, and to the son of Capaneus\nHis charioteer and faithful friend he said.130\nArise, sweet son of Capaneus, dismount,\nAnd from my shoulder draw this bitter shaft.\nHe spake; at once the son of Capaneus\nDescending, by its barb the bitter shaft\nDrew forth; blood spouted through his twisted mail135\nIncontinent, and thus the Hero pray\u2019d.\nUnconquer\u2019d daughter of Jove \u00c6gis-arm\u2019d!\nIf ever me, propitious, or my sire\nThou hast in furious fight help\u2019d heretofore,\nNow aid me also. Bring within the reach140\nOf my swift spear, Oh grant me to strike through\nThe warrior who hath check\u2019d my course, and boasts\nThe sun\u2019s bright beams for ever quench\u2019d to me![8]\nHe prayed, and Pallas heard; she braced his limbs,\nShe wing\u2019d him with alacrity divine,145\nAnd, standing at his side, him thus bespake.\nNow Diomede, be bold! Fight now with Troy.\nTo thee, thy father\u2019s spirit I impart\nFearless; shield-shaking Tydeus felt the same.\nI also from thine eye the darkness purge150\nWhich dimm\u2019d thy sight[9] before, that thou may\u2019st know\nBoth Gods and men; should, therefore, other God\nApproach to try thee, fight not with the powers\nImmortal; but if foam-born Venus come,\nHer spare not. Wound her with thy glittering spear.155\nSo spake the blue-eyed Deity, and went,\nThen with the champions in the van again\nTydides mingled; hot before, he fights\nWith threefold fury now, nor less enraged\nThan some gaunt lion whom o\u2019erleaping light160\nThe fold, a shepherd hath but gall\u2019d, not kill\u2019d,\nHim irritating more; thenceforth the swain\nLurks unresisting; flies the abandon\u2019d flock;\nHeaps slain on heaps he leaves, and with a bound\nSurmounting all impediment, escapes;165\nSuch seem\u2019d the valiant Diomede incensed\nTo fury, mingling with the host of Troy.\nAstyno\u00fcs and Hypenor first he slew;\nOne with his brazen lance above the pap\nHe pierced, and one with his huge falchion smote170\nFast by the key-bone,[10] from the neck and spine\nHis parted shoulder driving at a blow.\nThem leaving, Polyides next he sought\nAnd Abas, sons of a dream-dealing seer,\nEurydamas; their hoary father\u2019s dreams175\nOr not interpreted, or kept concealed,\nThem saved not, for by Diomede they died.\nXanthus and Th\u00f6on he encounter\u2019d next,\nBoth sons of Ph\u00e6nops, sons of his old age,\nWho other heir had none of all his wealth,180\nNor hoped another, worn with many years.\nTydides slew them both; nor aught remain\u2019d\nTo the old man but sorrow for his sons\nFor ever lost, and strangers were his heirs.\nTwo sons of Priam in one chariot borne185\nEchemon next, and Chromius felt his hand\nResistless. As a lion on the herd\nLeaping, while they the shrubs and bushes browse,\nBreaks short the neck of heifer or of steer,\nSo them, though clinging fast and loth to fall,190\nTydides hurl\u2019d together to the ground,\nThen stripp\u2019d their splendid armor, and the steeds\nConsigned and chariot to his soldiers\u2019 care.\n\u00c6neas him discern\u2019d scattering the ranks,\nAnd through the battle and the clash of spears195\nWent seeking godlike Pandarus; ere long\nFinding Lycaon\u2019s martial son renown\u2019d,\nHe stood before him, and him thus address\u2019d.\nThy bow, thy feather\u2019d shafts, and glorious name\nWhere are they, Pandarus? whom none of Troy200\nCould equal, whom of Lycia, none excel.\nCome. Lift thine hands to Jove, and at yon Chief\nDispatch an arrow, who afflicts the host\nOf Ilium thus, conquering where\u2019er he flies,\nAnd who hath slaughter\u2019d numerous brave in arms,205\nBut him some Deity I rather deem\nAvenging on us his neglected rites,\nAnd who can stand before an angry God?\nHim answer\u2019d then Lycaon\u2019s son renown\u2019d.\nBrave leader of the Trojans brazen-mail\u2019d,210\n\u00c6neas! By his buckler which I know,\nAnd by his helmet\u2019s height, considering, too\nHis steeds, I deem him Diomede the bold;\nYet such pronounce him not, who seems a God.\nBut if bold Diomede indeed he be215\nOf whom I speak, not without aid from heaven\nHis fury thus prevails, but at his side\nSome God, in clouds enveloped, turns away\nFrom him the arrow to a devious course.\nAlready, at his shoulder\u2019s hollow mail220\nMy shaft hath pierced him through, and him I deem\u2019d\nDismiss\u2019d full sure to Pluto ere his time\nBut he survives; whom therefore I at last\nPerforce conclude some angry Deity.\nSteeds have I none or chariot to ascend,225\nWho have eleven chariots in the stands\nLeft of Lycaon, with fair hangings all\nO\u2019ermantled, strong, new finish\u2019d, with their steeds\nIn pairs beside them, eating winnow\u2019d grain.\nMe much Lycaon my old valiant sire230\nAt my departure from his palace gates\nPersuaded, that my chariot and my steeds\nAscending, I should so conduct my bands\nTo battle; counsel wise, and ill-refused!\nBut anxious, lest (the host in Troy so long235\nImmew\u2019d) my steeds, fed plenteously at home,\nShould here want food, I left them, and on foot\nTo Ilium came, confiding in my bow\nOrdain\u2019d at last to yield me little good.\nTwice have I shot, and twice I struck the mark,240\nFirst Menelaus, and Tydides next;\nFrom each I drew the blood, true, genuine blood,\nYet have but more incensed them. In an hour\nUnfortunate, I therefore took my bow\nDown from the wall that day, when for the sake245\nOf noble Hector, to these pleasant plains\nI came, a leader on the part of Troy.\nBut should I once return, and with these eyes\nAgain behold my native land, my sire,\nMy wife, my stately mansion, may the hand,250\nThat moment, of some adversary there\nShorten me by the head, if I not snap\nThis bow with which I charged myself in vain,\nAnd burn the unprofitable tool to dust.\nTo whom \u00c6neas, Trojan Chief, replied.255\nNay, speak not so. For ere that hour arrive\nWe will, with chariot and with horse, in arms\nEncounter him, and put his strength to proof.\nDelay not, mount my chariot. Thou shalt see\nWith what rapidity the steeds of Troy260\nPursuing or retreating, scour the field.\nIf after all, Jove purpose still to exalt\nThe son of Tydeus, these shall bear us safe\nBack to the city. Come then. Let us on.\nThe lash take thou, and the resplendent reins,265\nWhile I alight for battle, or thyself\nReceive them, and the steeds shall be my care.\nHim answer\u2019d then Lycaon\u2019s son renown\u2019d.\n\u00c6neas! manage thou the reins, and guide\nThy proper steeds. If fly at last we must270\nThe son of Tydeus, they will readier draw\nDirected by their wonted charioteer.\nElse, terrified, and missing thy control,\nThey may refuse to bear us from the fight,\nAnd Tydeus\u2019 son assailing us, with ease275\nShall slay us both, and drive thy steeds away.\nRule therefore thou the chariot, and myself\nWith my sharp spear will his assault receive.\nSo saying, they mounted both, and furious drove\nAgainst Tydides. Them the noble son280\nOf Capaneus observed, and turning quick\nHis speech to Diomede, him thus address\u2019d.\nTydides, Diomede, my heart\u2019s delight!\nTwo warriors of immeasurable force\nIn battle, ardent to contend with thee,285\nCome rattling on. Lycaon\u2019s offspring one,\nBow-practised Pandarus; with whom appears\n\u00c6neas; he who calls the mighty Chief\nAnchises father, and whom Venus bore.\nMount\u2014drive we swift away\u2014lest borne so far290\nBeyond the foremost battle, thou be slain.\nTo whom, dark-frowning, Diomede replied\nSpeak not of flight to me, who am disposed\nTo no such course. I am ashamed to fly\nOr tremble, and my strength is still entire;295\nI cannot mount. No. Rather thus, on foot,\nI will advance against them. Fear and dread\nAre not for me; Pallas forbids the thought.\nOne falls, be sure; swift as they are, the steeds\nThat whirl them on, shall never rescue both.300\nBut hear my bidding, and hold fast the word.\nShould all-wise Pallas grant me my desire\nTo slay them both, drive not my coursers hence,\nBut hook the reins, and seizing quick the pair\nThat draw \u00c6neas, urge them from the powers305\nOf Troy away into the host of Greece.\nFor they are sprung from those which Jove to Tros\nIn compensation gave for Ganymede;\nThe Sun himself sees not their like below.\nAnchises, King of men, clandestine them310\nObtain\u2019d, his mares submitting to the steeds\nOf King Laomedon. Six brought him foals;\nFour to himself reserving, in his stalls\nHe fed them sleek, and two he gave his son:\nThese, might we win them, were a noble prize.315\nThus mutual they conferr\u2019d; those Chiefs, the while,\nWith swiftest pace approach\u2019d, and first his speech\nTo Diomede Lycaon\u2019s son address\u2019d.\nHeroic offspring of a noble sire,\nBrave son of Tydeus! false to my intent320\nMy shaft hath harm\u2019d thee little. I will now\nMake trial with my spear, if that may speed.\nHe said, and shaking his long-shadow\u2019d spear,\nDismiss\u2019d it. Forceful on the shield it struck\nOf Diomede, transpierced it, and approach\u2019d325\nWith threatening point the hauberk on his breast.\nLoud shouted Pandarus\u2014Ah nobly thrown!\nHome to thy bowels. Die, for die thou must,\nAnd all the glory of thy death is mine.\nThen answer thus brave Diomede return\u2019d330\nUndaunted. I am whole. Thy cast was short.\nBut ye desist not, as I plain perceive,\nTill one at least extended on the plain\nShall sate the God of battles with his blood.\nHe said and threw. Pallas the spear herself335\nDirected; at his eye fast by the nose\nDeep-entering, through his ivory teeth it pass\u2019d,\nAt its extremity divided sheer\nHis tongue, and started through his chin below.\nHe headlong fell, and with his dazzling arms340\nSmote full the plain. Back flew the fiery steeds\nWith swift recoil, and where he fell he died.\nThen sprang \u00c6neas forth with spear and shield,\nThat none might drag the body;[11] lion-like\nHe stalk\u2019d around it, oval shield and spear345\nAdvancing firm, and with incessant cries\nTerrific, death denouncing on his foes.\nBut Diomede with hollow grasp a stone\nEnormous seized, a weight to overtask\nTwo strongest men of such as now are strong,350\nYet he, alone, wielded the rock with ease.\nFull on the hip he smote him, where the thigh\nRolls in its cavity, the socket named.\nHe crushed the socket, lacerated wide\nBoth tendons, and with that rough-angled mass355\nFlay\u2019d all his flesh, The Hero on his knees\nSank, on his ample palm his weight upbore\nLaboring, and darkness overspread his eyes.\nThere had \u00c6neas perish\u2019d, King of men,\nHad not Jove\u2019s daughter Venus quick perceived360\nHis peril imminent, whom she had borne\nHerself to Anchises pasturing his herds.\nHer snowy arras her darling son around\nShe threw maternal, and behind a fold\nOf her bright mantle screening close his breast365\nFrom mortal harm by some brave Grecian\u2019s spear,\nStole him with eager swiftness from the fight.\nNor then forgat brave Sthenelus his charge\nReceived from Diomede, but his own steeds\nDetaining distant from the boisterous war,370\nStretch\u2019d tight the reins, and hook\u2019d them fast behind.\nThe coursers of \u00c6neas next he seized\nArdent, and them into the host of Greece\nDriving remote, consign\u2019d them to his care,\nWhom far above all others his compeers375\nHe loved, Deipylus, his bosom friend\nCongenial. Him he charged to drive them thence\nInto the fleet, then, mounting swift his own,\nLash\u2019d after Diomede; he, fierce in arms,\nPursued the Cyprian Goddess, conscious whom,380\nNot Pallas, not Enyo, waster dread\nOf cities close-beleaguer\u2019d, none of all\nWho o\u2019er the battle\u2019s bloody course preside,\nBut one of softer kind and prone to fear.\nWhen, therefore, her at length, after long chase385\nThrough all the warring multitude he reach\u2019d,\nWith his protruded spear her gentle hand\nHe wounded, piercing through her thin attire\nAmbrosial, by themselves the graces wrought,\nHer inside wrist, fast by the rosy palm.390\nBlood follow\u2019d, but immortal; ichor pure,\nSuch as the blest inhabitants of heaven\nMay bleed, nectareous; for the Gods eat not\nMan\u2019s food, nor slake as he with sable wine\nTheir thirst, thence bloodless and from death exempt.395\nShe, shrieking, from her arms cast down her son,\nAnd Ph\u0153bus, in impenetrable clouds\nHim hiding, lest the spear of some brave Greek\nShould pierce his bosom, caught him swift away.\nThen shouted brave Tydides after her\u2014400\nDepart, Jove\u2019s daughter! fly the bloody field.\nIs\u2019t not enough that thou beguilest the hearts\nOf feeble women? If thou dare intrude\nAgain into the war, war\u2019s very name\nShall make thee shudder, wheresoever heard.405\nHe said, and Venus with excess of pain\nBewilder\u2019d went; but Iris tempest-wing\u2019d\nForth led her through the multitude, oppress\u2019d\nWith anguish, her white wrist to livid changed.\nThey came where Mars far on the left retired410\nOf battle sat, his horses and his spear\nIn darkness veil\u2019d. Before her brother\u2019s knees\nShe fell, and with entreaties urgent sought\nThe succor of his coursers golden-rein\u2019d.\nSave me, my brother! Pity me! Thy steeds415\nGive me, that they may bear me to the heights\nOlympian, seat of the immortal Gods!\nOh! I am wounded deep; a mortal man\nHath done it, Diomede; nor would he fear\nThis day in fight the Sire himself of all.420\nThen Mars his coursers gold-caparison\u2019d\nResign\u2019d to Venus; she, with countenance sad,\nThe chariot climb\u2019d, and Iris at her side\nThe bright reins seizing lash\u2019d the ready steeds.\nSoon as the Olympian heights, seat of the Gods,425\nThey reach\u2019d, wing-footed Iris loosing quick\nThe coursers, gave them large whereon to browse\nAmbrosial food; but Venus on the knees\nSank of Dione, who with folded arms\nMaternal, to her bosom straining close430\nHer daughter, stroked her cheek, and thus inquired.\nMy darling child! who? which of all the Gods\nHath rashly done such violence to thee\nAs if convicted of some open wrong?\nHer then the Goddess of love-kindling smiles435\nVenus thus answer\u2019d; Diomede the proud,\nAudacious Diomede; he gave the wound,\nFor that I stole \u00c6neas from the fight\nMy son of all mankind my most beloved;\nNor is it now the war of Greece with Troy,440\nBut of the Grecians with the Gods themselves.\nThen thus Dione, Goddess all divine.\nMy child! how hard soe\u2019er thy sufferings seem\nEndure them patiently. Full many a wrong\nFrom human hands profane the Gods endure,445\nAnd many a painful stroke, mankind from ours.\nMars once endured much wrong, when on a time\nHim Otus bound and Ephialtes fast,\nSons of Al\u00f6eus, and full thirteen moons\nIn brazen thraldom held him. There, at length,450\nThe fierce blood-nourished Mars had pined away,\nBut that E\u00ebrib\u0153a, loveliest nymph,\nHis step-mother, in happy hour disclosed\nTo Mercury the story of his wrongs;\nHe stole the prisoner forth, but with his woes455\nAlready worn, languid and fetter-gall\u2019d.\nNor Juno less endured, when erst the bold\nSon of Amphytrion with tridental shaft\nHer bosom pierced; she then the misery felt\nOf irremediable pain severe.460\nNor suffer\u2019d Pluto less, of all the Gods\nGigantic most, by the same son of Jove\nAlcides, at the portals of the dead\nTransfix\u2019d and fill\u2019d with anguish; he the house\nOf Jove and the Olympian summit sought465\nDejected, torture-stung, for sore the shaft\nOppress\u2019d him, into his huge shoulder driven.\nBut P\u00e6on[12] him not liable to death\nWith unction smooth of salutiferous balms\nHeal\u2019d soon. Presumptuous, sacrilegious man!470\nCareless what dire enormities he wrought,\nWho bent his bow against the powers of heaven!\nBut blue-eyed Pallas instigated him\nBy whom thou bleed\u2019st. Infatuate! he forgets\nThat whoso turns against the Gods his arm475\nLives never long; he never, safe escaped\nFrom furious fight, the lisp\u2019d caresses hears\nOf his own infants prattling at his knees.\nLet therefore Diomede beware, lest strong\nAnd valiant as he is, he chance to meet490\nSome mightier foe than thou, and lest his wife,\nDaughter of King Adrastus, the discrete\n\u00c6gialea, from portentous dreams\nUpstarting, call her family to wail\nHer first-espoused, Achaia\u2019s proudest boast,485\nDiomede, whom she must behold no more.\nShe said, and from her wrist with both hands wiped\nThe trickling ichor; the effectual touch\nDivine chased all her pains, and she was heal\u2019d.\nThem Juno mark\u2019d and Pallas, and with speech490\nSarcastic pointed at Saturnian Jove\nTo vex him, blue-eyed Pallas thus began.\nEternal father! may I speak my thought,\nAnd not incense thee, Jove? I can but judge\nThat Venus, while she coax\u2019d some Grecian fair495\nTo accompany the Trojans whom she loves\nWith such extravagance, hath heedless stroked\nHer golden clasps, and scratch\u2019d her lily hand.\nSo she; then smiled the sire of Gods and men,\nAnd calling golden Venus, her bespake.500\nWar and the tented field, my beauteous child,\nAre not for thee. Thou rather shouldst be found\nIn scenes of matrimonial bliss. The toils\nOf war to Pallas and to Mars belong.\nThus they in heaven. But Diomede the while505\nSprang on \u00c6neas, conscious of the God\nWhose hand o\u2019ershadow\u2019d him, yet even him\nRegarding lightly; for he burn\u2019d to slay\n\u00c6neas, and to seize his glorious arms.\nThrice then he sprang impetuous to the deed,510\nAnd thrice Apollo with his radiant shield\nRepulsed him. But when ardent as a God\nThe fourth time he advanced, with thundering-voice\nHim thus the Archer of the skies rebuked.\nThink, and retire, Tydides! nor affect515\nEquality with Gods; for not the same\nOur nature is and theirs who tread the ground.\nHe spake, and Diomede a step retired,\nNot more; the anger of the Archer-God\nDeclining slow, and with a sullen awe.520\nThen Ph\u0153bus, far from all the warrior throng\nTo his own shrine the sacred dome beneath\nOf Pergamus, \u00c6neas bore; there him\nLatona and shaft-arm\u2019d Diana heal\u2019d\nAnd glorified within their spacious fane.525\nMeantime the Archer of the silver bow\nA visionary form prepared; it seem\u2019d\nHimself \u00c6neas, and was arm\u2019d as he.\nAt once, in contest for that airy form,\nGrecians and Trojans on each other\u2019s breasts530\nThe bull-hide buckler batter\u2019d and light targe.\nThen thus Apollo to the warrior God.\nGore-tainted homicide, town-batterer Mars!\nWilt thou not meet and from the fight withdraw\nThis man Tydides, now so fiery grown535\nThat he would even cope with Jove himself?\nFirst Venus\u2019 hand he wounded, and assail\u2019d\nImpetuous as a God, next, even me.\nHe ceased, and on the topmost turret sat\nOf Pergamus. Then all-destroyer Mars540\nRanging the Trojan host, rank after rank\nExhorted loud, and in the form assumed\nOf Acamas the Thracian leader bold,\nThe godlike sons of Priam thus harangued.\nYe sons of Priam, monarch Jove-beloved!545\nHow long permit ye your Achaian foes\nTo slay the people?\u2014till the battle rage\n(Push\u2019d home to Ilium) at her solid gates?\nBehold\u2014a Chief disabled lies, than whom\nWe reverence not even Hector more,550\n\u00c6neas; fly, save from the roaring storm\nThe noble Anchisiades your friend.\nHe said; then every heart for battle glow\u2019d;\nAnd thus Sarpedon with rebuke severe\nUpbraiding generous Hector, stern began.555\nWhere is thy courage, Hector? for thou once\nHadst courage. Is it fled? In other days\nThy boast hath been that without native troops\nOr foreign aids, thy kindred and thyself\nAlone, were guard sufficient for the town.560\nBut none of all thy kindred now appears;\nI can discover none; they stand aloof\nQuaking, as dogs that hear the lion\u2019s roar.\nWe bear the stress, who are but Troy\u2019s allies;\nMyself am such, and from afar I came;565\nFor Lycia lies far distant on the banks\nOf the deep-eddied Xanthus. There a wife\nI left and infant son, both dear to me,\nWith plenteous wealth, the wish of all who want.\nYet urge I still my Lycians, and am prompt570\nMyself to fight, although possessing here\nNought that the Greeks can carry or drive hence.\nBut there stand\u2019st thou, neither employed thyself,\nNor moving others to an active part\nFor all their dearest pledges. Oh beware!575\nLest, as with meshes of an ample net,\nAt one huge draught the Grecians sweep you all,\nAnd desolate at once your populous Troy!\nBy day, by night, thoughts such as these should still\nThy conduct influence, and from Chief to Chief580\nOf the allies should send thee, praying each\nTo make firm stand, all bickerings put away.\nSo spake Sarpedon, and his reprimand\nStung Hector; instant to the ground he leap\u2019d\nAll arm\u2019d, and shaking his bright spears his host585\nRanged in all quarters animating loud\nHis legions, and rekindling horrid war.\nThen, rolling back, the powers of Troy opposed\nOnce more the Grecians, whom the Grecians dense\nExpected, unretreating, void of fear.590\nAs flies the chaff wide scatter\u2019d by the wind\nO\u2019er all the consecrated floor, what time\nRipe Ceres[13] with brisk airs her golden grain\nVentilates, whitening with its husk the ground;\nSo grew the Achaians white, a dusty cloud595\nDescending on their arms, which steeds with steeds\nAgain to battle mingling, with their hoofs\nUp-stamp\u2019d into the brazen vault of heaven;\nFor now the charioteers turn\u2019d all to fight.\nHost toward host with full collected force600\nThey moved direct. Then Mars through all the field\nTook wide his range, and overhung the war\nWith night, in aid of Troy, at the command\nOf Ph\u0153bus of the golden sword; for he\nPerceiving Pallas from the field withdrawn,605\nPatroness of the Greeks, had Mars enjoin\u2019d\nTo rouse the spirit of the Trojan host.\nMeantime Apollo from his unctuous shrine\nSent forth restored and with new force inspired\n\u00c6neas. He amidst his warriors stood,610\nWho him with joy beheld still living, heal\u2019d,\nAnd all his strength possessing unimpair\u2019d.\nYet no man ask\u2019d him aught. No leisure now\nFor question was; far other thoughts had they;\nSuch toils the archer of the silver bow,615\nWide-slaughtering Mars, and Discord as at first\nRaging implacable, for them prepared.\nUlysses, either Ajax, Diomede\u2014\nThese roused the Greeks to battle, who themselves\nThe force fear\u2019d nothing, or the shouts of Troy,620\nBut steadfast stood, like clouds by Jove amass\u2019d\nOn lofty mountains, while the fury sleeps\nOf Boreas, and of all the stormy winds\nShrill-voiced, that chase the vapors when they blow,\nSo stood the Greeks, expecting firm the approach625\nOf Ilium\u2019s powers, and neither fled nor fear\u2019d.\nThen Agamemnon the embattled host\nOn all sides ranging, cheer\u2019d them. Now, he cried,\nBe steadfast, fellow warriors, now be men!\nHold fast a sense of honor. More escape630\nOf men who fear disgrace, than fall in fight,\nWhile dastards forfeit life and glory both.\nHe said, and hurl\u2019d his spear. He pierced a friend\nOf brave \u00c6neas, warring in the van,\nDeic\u00f6on son of Pergasus, in Troy635\nNot less esteem\u2019d than Priam\u2019s sons themselves,\nSuch was his fame in foremost fight acquired.\nHim Agamemnon on his buckler smote,\nNor stayed the weapon there, but through his belt\nHis bowels enter\u2019d, and with hideous clang640\nAnd outcry[14] of his batter\u2019d arms he fell.\n\u00c6neas next two mightiest warriors slew,\nSons of Diocles, of a wealthy sire,\nWhose house magnificent in Ph\u00e6r\u00e6 stood,\nOrsilochus and Crethon. Their descent645\nFrom broad-stream\u2019d Alpheus, Pylian flood, they drew.\nAlpheus begat Orsilochus, a prince\nOf numerous powers. Orsilochus begat\nWarlike Diodes. From Diodes sprang\nTwins, Crethon and Orsilochus, alike650\nValiant, and skilful in all forms of war.\nTheir boyish prime scarce past, they, with the Greeks\nEmbarking, in their sable ships had sail\u2019d\nTo steed-fam\u2019d Ilium; just revenge they sought\nFor Atreus\u2019 sons, but perished first themselves.655\nAs two young lions, in the deep recess\nOf some dark forest on the mountain\u2019s brow\nLate nourished by their dam, forth-issuing, seize\nThe fatted flocks and kine, both folds and stalls\nWasting rapacious, till, at length, themselves660\nDeep-wounded perish by the hand of man,\nSo they, both vanquish\u2019d by \u00c6neas, fell,\nAnd like two lofty pines uprooted, lay.\nThem fallen in battle Menelaus saw\nWith pity moved; radiant in arms he shook665\nHis brazen spear, and strode into the van.\nMars urged him furious on, conceiving hope\nOf his death also by \u00c6neas\u2019 hand.\nBut him the son of generous Nestor mark\u2019d\nAntilochus, and to the foremost fight670\nFlew also, fearing lest some dire mischance\nThe Prince befalling, at one fatal stroke\nShould frustrate all the labors of the Greeks.\nThey, hand to hand, and spear to spear opposed,\nStood threatening dreadful onset, when beside675\nThe Spartan chief Antilochus appear\u2019d.\n\u00c6neas, at the sight of two combined,\nStood not, although intrepid. They the dead\nThence drawing far into the Grecian host\nTo their associates gave the hapless pair,680\nThen, both returning, fought in front again.\nNext, fierce as Mars, Pyl\u00e6menes they slew,\nPrince of the shielded band magnanimous\nOf Paphlagonia. Him Atrides kill\u2019d\nSpear-practised Menelaus, with a lance685\nHis throat transpiercing while erect he rode.\nThen, while his charioteer, Mydon the brave,\nSon of Atymnias, turn\u2019d his steeds to flight,\nFull on his elbow-point Antilochus,\nThe son of Nestor, dash\u2019d him with a stone.690\nThe slack reins, white as ivory,[15] forsook\nHis torpid hand and trail\u2019d the dust. At once\nForth sprang Antilochus, and with his sword\nHew\u2019d deep his temples. On his head he pitch\u2019d\nPanting, and on his shoulders in the sand695\n(For in deep sand he fell) stood long erect,\nTill his own coursers spread him in the dust;\nThe son of Nestor seized, and with his scourge\nDrove them afar into the host of Greece.\nThem Hector through the ranks espying, flew700\nWith clamor loud to meet them; after whom\nAdvanced in phalanx firm the powers of Troy,\nMars led them, with Enyo terror-clad;\nShe by the maddening tumult of the fight\nAttended, he, with his enormous spear705\nin both hands brandish\u2019d, stalking now in front\nOf Hector, and now following his steps.\nHim Diomede the bold discerning, felt\nHimself no small dismay; and as a man\nWandering he knows not whither, far from home,710\nIf chance a rapid torrent to the sea\nBorne headlong thwart his course, the foaming flood\nObstreperous views awhile, then quick retires,\nSo he, and his attendants thus bespake.\nHow oft, my countrymen! have we admired715\nThe noble Hector, skillful at the spear\nAnd unappall\u2019d in fight? but still hath he\nSome God his guard, and even now I view\nIn human form Mars moving at his side.\nYe, then, with faces to the Trojans turn\u2019d,720\nCeaseless retire, and war not with the Gods.\nHe ended; and the Trojans now approach\u2019d.\nThen two bold warriors in one chariot borne,\nBy valiant Hector died, Menesthes one,\nAnd one, Anchialus. Them fallen in fight725\nAjax the vast, touch\u2019d with compassion saw;\nWithin small space he stood, his glittering spear\nDismiss\u2019d, and pierced Amphius. Son was he\nOf Selagus, and P\u00e6sus was his home,\nWhere opulent he dwelt, but by his fate730\nWas led to fight for Priam and his sons.\nHim Telamonian Ajax through his belt\nWounded, and in his nether bowels deep\nFix\u2019d his long-shadow\u2019d spear. Sounding he fell.\nIllustrious Ajax running to the slain735\nPrepared to strip his arms, but him a shower\nOf glittering-weapons keen from Trojan hands\nAssail\u2019d, and numerous his broad shield received.\nHe, on the body planting firm his heel,\nForth drew the polish\u2019d spear, but his bright arms740\nTook not, by darts thick-flying sore annoy\u2019d,\nNor fear\u2019d he little lest his haughty foes,\nSpear-arm\u2019d and bold, should compass him around;\nHim, therefore, valiant though he were and huge,\nThey push\u2019d before them. Staggering he retired.745\nThus toil\u2019d both hosts in that laborious field.\nAnd now his ruthless destiny impell\u2019d\nTlepolemus, Alcides\u2019 son, a Chief\nDauntless and huge, against a godlike foe\nSarpedon. They approaching face to face750\nStood, son and grandson of high-thundering Jove,\nAnd, haughty, thus Tlepolemus began.\nSarpedon, leader of the Lycian host,\nThou trembler! thee what cause could hither urge\nA man unskill\u2019d in arms? They falsely speak755\nWho call thee son of \u00c6gis-bearing Jove,\nSo far below their might thou fall\u2019st who sprang\nFrom Jove in days of old. What says report\nOf Hercules (for him I boast my sire)\nAll-daring hero with a lion\u2019s heart?760\nWith six ships only, and with followers few,\nHe for the horses of Laomedon\nLay\u2019d Troy in dust, and widow\u2019d all her streets.\nBut thou art base, and thy diminish\u2019d powers\nPerish around thee; think not that thou earnest765\nFor Ilium\u2019s good, but rather, whatsoe\u2019er\nThy force in fight, to find, subdued by me,\nA sure dismission to the gates of hell.\nTo whom the leader of the Lycian band.\nTlepolemus! he ransack\u2019d sacred Troy,770\nAs thou hast said, but for her monarch\u2019s fault\nLaomedon, who him with language harsh\nRequited ill for benefits received,\nNor would the steeds surrender, seeking which\nHe voyaged from afar. But thou shalt take775\nThy bloody doom from this victorious arm,\nAnd, vanquish\u2019d by my spear, shalt yield thy fame\nTo me, thy soul to Pluto steed-renown\u2019d.\nSo spake Sarpedon, and his ashen beam\nTlepolemus upraised. Both hurl\u2019d at once780\nTheir quivering spears. Sarpedon\u2019s through the neck\nPass\u2019d of Tlepolemus, and show\u2019d beyond\nIts ruthless point; thick darkness veil\u2019d his eyes.\nTlepolemus with his long lance the thigh\nPierced of Sarpedon; sheer into his bone785\nHe pierced him, but Sarpedon\u2019s father, Jove,\nHim rescued even on the verge of fate.\nHis noble friends conducted from the field\nThe godlike Lycian, trailing as he went\nThe pendent spear, none thinking to extract790\nFor his relief the weapon from his thigh,\nThrough eagerness of haste to bear him thence.\nOn the other side, the Grecians brazen-mail\u2019d\nBore off Tlepolemus. Ulysses fill\u2019d\nWith earnest thoughts tumultuous them observed,795\nDanger-defying Chief! Doubtful he stood\nOr to pursue at once the Thunderer\u2019s son\nSarpedon, or to take more Lycian lives.\nBut not for brave Ulysses had his fate\nThat praise reserved, that he should slay the son800\nRenown\u2019d of Jove; therefore his wavering mind\nMinerva bent against the Lycian band.\nThen C\u0153ranus, Alastor, Chromius fell,\nAlcander, Halius, Prytanis, and brave\nNo\u00ebmon; nor had these sufficed the Chief805\nOf Ithaca, but Lycians more had fallen,\nHad not crest-tossing Hector huge perceived\nThe havoc; radiant to the van he flew,\nFilling with dread the Grecians; his approach\nSarpedon, son of Jove, joyful beheld,810\nAnd piteous thus address\u2019d him as he came.\nAh, leave not me, Priamides! a prey\nTo Grecian hands, but in your city, at least,\nGrant me to die: since hither, doom\u2019d, I came\nNever to gratify with my return815\nTo Lycia, my loved spouse, or infant child.\nHe spake; but Hector unreplying pass\u2019d\nImpetuous, ardent to repulse the Greeks\nThat moment, and to drench his sword in blood.\nThen, under shelter of a spreading beech820\nSacred to Jove, his noble followers placed\nThe godlike Chief Sarpedon, where his friend\nIllustrious Pelagon, the ashen spear\nExtracted. Sightless, of all thought bereft,\nHe sank, but soon revived, by breathing airs825\nRefresh\u2019d, that fann\u2019d him gently from the North.\nMeantime the Argives, although press\u2019d alike\nBy Mars himself and Hector brazen-arm\u2019d,\nNeither to flight inclined, nor yet advanced\nTo battle, but inform\u2019d that Mars the fight830\nWaged on the side of Ilium, slow retired.[16]\nWhom first, whom last slew then the mighty son\nOf Priam, Hector, and the brazen Mars!\nFirst godlike Teuthras, an equestrian Chief,\nOrestes, Trechus of \u00c6tolian race,835\n\u0152noma\u00fcs, Helenus from \u0152nops\u2019 sprung,\nAnd brisk[17] in fight Oresbius; rich was he,\nAnd covetous of more; in Hyla dwelt\nFast by the lake Cephissus, where abode\nB\u0153otian Princes numerous, rich themselves840\nAnd rulers of a people wealth-renown\u2019d.\nBut Juno, such dread slaughter of the Greeks\nNoting, thus, ardent, to Minerva spake.\nDaughter of Jove invincible! Our word\nThat Troy shall perish, hath been given in vain845\nTo Menelaus, if we suffer Mars\nTo ravage longer uncontrol\u2019d. The time\nUrges, and need appears that we ourselves\nNow call to mind the fury of our might.\nShe spake; nor blue-eyed Pallas not complied.850\nThen Juno, Goddess dread, from Saturn sprung,\nHer coursers gold-caparison\u2019d prepared\nImpatient. Hebe to the chariot roll\u2019d\nThe brazen wheels,[18] and joined them to the smooth\nSteel axle; twice four spokes divided each855\nShot from the centre to the verge. The verge\nWas gold by fellies of eternal brass\nGuarded, a dazzling show! The shining naves\nWere silver; silver cords and cords of gold\nThe seat upbore; two crescents[19] blazed in front.860\nThe pole was argent all, to which she bound\nThe golden yoke, and in their place disposed\nThe breast-bands incorruptible of gold;\nBut Juno to the yoke, herself, the steeds\nLed forth, on fire to reach the dreadful field.865\nMeantime, Minerva, progeny of Jove,\nOn the adamantine floor of his abode\nLet fall profuse her variegated robe,\nLabor of her own hands. She first put on\nThe corselet of the cloud-assembler God,870\nThen arm\u2019d her for the field of wo complete.\nShe charged her shoulder with the dreadful shield\nThe shaggy \u00c6gis,[20] border\u2019d thick around\nWith terror; there was Discord, Prowess there,\nThere hot Pursuit, and there the feature grim875\nOf Gorgon, dire Deformity, a sign\nOft borne portentous on the arm of Jove.\nHer golden helm, whose concave had sufficed\nThe legions of an hundred cities, rough\nWith warlike ornament superb, she fix\u2019d880\nOn her immortal head. Thus arm\u2019d, she rose\nInto the flaming chariot, and her spear\nSeized ponderous, huge, with which the Goddess sprung\nFrom an Almighty father, levels ranks\nOf heroes, against whom her anger burns.885\nJuno with lifted lash urged quick the steeds;\nAt her approach, spontaneous roar\u2019d the wide-\nUnfolding gates of heaven;[21] the heavenly gates\nKept by the watchful Hours, to whom the charge\nOf the Olympian summit appertains,890\nAnd of the boundless ether, back to roll,\nAnd to replace the cloudy barrier dense.\nSpurr\u2019d through the portal flew the rapid steeds;\nApart from all, and seated on the point\nSuperior of the cloven mount, they found895\nThe Thunderer. Juno the white-arm\u2019d her steeds\nThere stay\u2019d, and thus the Goddess, ere she pass\u2019d,\nQuestion\u2019d the son of Saturn, Jove supreme.\nJove, Father, seest thou, and art not incensed,\nThese ravages of Mars? Oh what a field,900\nDrench\u2019d with what Grecian blood! All rashly spilt,\nAnd in despite of me. Venus, the while,\nSits, and the Archer of the silver bow\nDelighted, and have urged, themselves, to this\nThe frantic Mars within no bounds confined905\nOf law or order. But, eternal sire!\nShall I offend thee chasing far away\nMars deeply smitten from the field of war?\nTo whom the cloud-assembler God replied.\nGo! but exhort thou rather to the task910\nSpoil-huntress Athen\u00e6an Pallas, him\nAccustom\u2019d to chastise with pain severe.\nHe spake, nor white-arm\u2019d Juno not obey\u2019d.\nShe lash\u2019d her steeds; they readily their flight\nBegan, the earth and starry vault between.915\nFar as from his high tower the watchman kens\nO\u2019er gloomy ocean, so far at one bound\nAdvance the shrill-voiced coursers of the Gods.\nBut when at Troy and at the confluent streams\nOf Simo\u00efs and Scamander they arrived,920\nThere Juno, white-arm\u2019d Goddess, from the yoke\nHer steeds releasing, them in gather\u2019d shades\nConceal\u2019d opaque, while Simo\u00efs caused to spring\nAmbrosia from his bank, whereon they browsed.\nSwift as her pinions waft the dove away925\nThey sought the Grecians, ardent to begin:\nArriving where the mightiest and the most\nCompass\u2019d equestrian Diomede around,\nIn aspect lion-like, or like wild boars\nOf matchless force, there white-arm\u2019d Juno stood,930\nAnd in the form of Stentor for his voice\nOf brass renown\u2019d, audible as the roar\nOf fifty throats, the Grecians thus harangued.\nOh shame, shame, shame! Argives in form alone,\nBeautiful but dishonorable race!935\nWhile yet divine Achilles ranged the field,\nNo Trojan stepp\u2019d from yon Dardanian gates\nAbroad; all trembled at his stormy spear;\nBut now they venture forth, now at your ships\nDefy you, from their city far remote.940\nShe ceased, and all caught courage from the sound.\nBut Athen\u00e6an Pallas eager sought\nThe son of Tydeus; at his chariot side\nShe found the Chief cooling his fiery wound\nReceived from Pandarus; for him the sweat945\nBeneath the broad band of his oval shield\nExhausted, and his arm fail\u2019d him fatigued;\nHe therefore raised the band and wiped the blood\nCoagulate; when o\u2019er his chariot yoke\nHer arm the Goddess threw, and thus began.950\nTydeus, in truth, begat a son himself\nNot much resembling. Tydeus was of size\nDiminutive, but had a warrior\u2019s heart.\nWhen him I once commanded to abstain\nFrom furious fight (what time he enter\u2019d Thebes955\nAmbassador, and the Cadmeans found\nFeasting, himself the sole Achaian there)\nAnd bade him quietly partake the feast.\nHe, fired with wonted ardor, challenged forth\nTo proof of manhood the Cadmean youth,960\nWhom easily, through my effectual aid,\nIn contests of each kind he overcame.\nBut thou, whom I encircle with my power,\nGuard vigilant, and even bid thee forth\nTo combat with the Trojans, thou, thy limbs965\nFeel\u2019st wearied with the toils of war, or worse,\nIndulgest womanish and heartless fear.\nHenceforth thou art not worthy to be deem\u2019d\nSon of Oenides, Tydeus famed in arms.\nTo whom thus valiant Diomede replied.970\nI know thee well, oh Goddess sprung from Jove!\nAnd therefore willing shall, and plain, reply.\nMe neither weariness nor heartless fear\nRestrains, but thine injunctions which impress\nMy memory, still, that I should fear to oppose975\nThe blessed Gods in fight, Venus except,\nWhom in the battle found thou badest me pierce\nWith unrelenting spear; therefore myself\nRetiring hither, I have hither call\u2019d\nThe other Argives also, for I know980\nThat Mars, himself in arms, controls the war.\nHim answer\u2019d then the Goddess azure-eyed.\nTydides! Diomede, my heart\u2019s delight!\nFear not this Mars,[22] nor fear thou other power\nImmortal, but be confident in me.985\nArise. Drive forth. Seek Mars; him only seek;\nHim hand to hand engage; this fiery Mars\nRespect not aught, base implement of wrong\nAnd mischief, shifting still from side to side.\nHe promised Juno lately and myself990\nThat he would fight for Greece, yet now forgets\nHis promise, and gives all his aid to Troy.\nSo saying, she backward by his hand withdrew\nThe son of Capaneus, who to the ground\nLeap\u2019d instant; she, impatient to his place995\nAscending, sat beside brave Diomede.\nLoud groan\u2019d the beechen axle, under weight\nUnwonted, for it bore into the fight\nAn awful Goddess, and the chief of men.\nQuick-seizing lash and reins Minerva drove1000\nDirect at Mars. That moment he had slain\nPeriphas, bravest of \u00c6tolia\u2019s sons,\nAnd huge of bulk; Ochesius was his sire.\nHim Mars the slaughterer had of life bereft\nNewly, and Pallas to elude his sight1005\nThe helmet fixed of Ades on her head.[23]\nSoon as gore-tainted Mars the approach perceived\nOf Diomede, he left the giant length\nOf Periphas extended where he died,\nAnd flew to cope with Tydeus\u2019 valiant son.1010\nFull nigh they came, when Mars on fire to slay\nThe hero, foremost with his brazen lance\nAssail\u2019d him, hurling o\u2019er his horses\u2019 heads.\nBut Athen\u00e6an Pallas in her hand\nThe flying weapon caught and turn\u2019d it wide,1015\nBaffling his aim. Then Diomede on him\nRush\u2019d furious in his turn, and Pallas plunged\nThe bright spear deep into his cinctured waist\nDire was the wound, and plucking back the spear\nShe tore him. Bellow\u2019d brazen-throated Mars1020\nLoud as nine thousand warriors, or as ten\nJoin\u2019d in close combat. Grecians, Trojans shook\nAppall\u2019d alike at the tremendous voice\nOf Mars insatiable with deeds of blood.\nSuch as the dimness is when summer winds1025\nBreathe hot, and sultry mist obscures the sky,\nSuch brazen Mars to Diomede appear\u2019d\nBy clouds accompanied in his ascent\nInto the boundless ether. Reaching soon\nThe Olympian heights, seat of the Gods, he sat1030\nBeside Saturnian Jove; wo fill\u2019d his heart;\nHe show\u2019d fast-streaming from the wound his blood\nImmortal, and impatient thus complain\u2019d.\nJove, Father! Seest thou these outrageous acts\nUnmoved with anger? Such are day by day1035\nThe dreadful mischiefs by the Gods contrived\nAgainst each other, for the sake of man.\nThou art thyself the cause. Thou hast produced\nA foolish daughter petulant, addict\nTo evil only and injurious deeds;1040\nThere is not in Olympus, save herself,\nWho feels not thy control; but she her will\nGratifies ever, and reproof from thee\nFinds none, because, pernicious as she is,\nShe is thy daughter. She hath now the mind1045\nOf haughty Diomede with madness fill\u2019d\nAgainst the immortal Gods; first Venus bled;\nHer hand he pierced impetuous, then assail\u2019d,\nAs if himself immortal, even me,\nBut me my feet stole thence, or overwhelm\u2019d1050\nBeneath yon heaps of carcases impure,\nWhat had I not sustain\u2019d? And if at last\nI lived, had halted crippled by the sword.\nTo whom with dark displeasure Jove replied.\nBase and side-shifting traitor! vex not me1055\nHere sitting querulous; of all who dwell\nOn the Olympian heights, thee most I hate\nContentious, whose delight is war alone.\nThou hast thy mother\u2019s moods, the very spleen\nOf Juno, uncontrolable as she.1060\nWhom even I, reprove her as I may,\nScarce rule by mere commands; I therefore judge\nThy sufferings a contrivance all her own.\nBut soft. Thou art my son whom I begat.\nAnd Juno bare thee. I can not endure1065\nThat thou shouldst suffer long. Hadst thou been born\nOf other parents thus detestable,\nWhat Deity soe\u2019er had brought thee forth,\nThou shouldst have found long since a humbler sphere.\nHe ceased, and to the care his son consign\u2019d1070\nOf P\u00e6on; he with drugs of lenient powers,\nSoon heal\u2019d whom immortality secured\nFrom dissolution. As the juice from figs\nExpress\u2019d what fluid was in milk before\nCoagulates, stirr\u2019d rapidly around,1075\nSo soon was Mars by P\u00e6on skill restored.\nHim Hebe bathed, and with divine attire\nGraceful adorn\u2019d; when at the side of Jove\nAgain his glorious seat sublime he took.\nMeantime to the abode of Jove supreme1080\nAscended Juno throughout Argos known\nAnd mighty Pallas; Mars the plague of man,\nBy their successful force from slaughter driven.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK VI.\n\n\nARGUMENT OF THE SIXTH BOOK.\n\nThe battle is continued. The Trojans being closely pursued, Hector by\nthe advice of Helenus enters Troy, and recommends it to Hecuba to go in\nsolemn procession to the temple of Minerva; she with the matrons goes\naccordingly. Hector takes the opportunity to find out Paris, and\nexhorts him to return to the field of battle. An interview succeeds\nbetween Hector and Andromache, and Paris, having armed himself in the\nmean time, comes up with Hector at the close of it, when they sally\nfrom the gate together.\n\n\nBOOK VI.\n\n\nThus was the field forsaken by the Gods.\nAnd now success proved various; here the Greeks\nWith their extended spears, the Trojans there\nPrevail\u2019d alternate, on the champain spread\nThe Xanthus and the Simo\u00efs between.[1]5\nFirst Telamonian Ajax,[2] bulwark firm\nOf the Achaians, broke the Trojan ranks,\nAnd kindled for the Greeks a gleam of hope,\nSlaying the bravest of the Thracian band,\nHuge Acamas, Eusorus\u2019 son; him first10\nFull on the shaggy crest he smote, and urged\nThe spear into his forehead; through his skull\nThe bright point pass\u2019d, and darkness veil\u2019d his eyes.\nBut Diomede, heroic Chief, the son\nOf Teuthras slew, Axylus.[3] Rich was he,15\nAnd in Arisba (where he dwelt beside\nThe public road, and at his open door\nMade welcome all) respected and beloved.\nBut of his numerous guests none interposed\nTo avert his woful doom; nor him alone20\nHe slew, but with him also to the shades\nCalesius sent, his friend and charioteer.\nOpheltius fell and Dresus, by the hand\nSlain of Euryalus, who, next, his arms\nOn Pedasus and on \u00c6sepus turned25\nBrethren and twins. Them Abarbarea bore,\nA Naiad, to Bucolion, son renown\u2019d\nOf King Laomedon, his eldest born,\nBut by his mother, at his birth, conceal\u2019d.\nBucolion pasturing his flocks, embraced30\nThe lovely nymph; she twins produced, both whom,\nBrave as they were and beautiful, thy son[4]\nMecisteus! slew, and from their shoulders tore\nTheir armor. Dauntless Polyp\u0153tes slew\nAstyalus. Ulysses with his spear35\nTransfixed Pydites, a Percosian Chief,\nAnd Teucer Areta\u00f6n; Nestor\u2019s pride\nAntilochus, with his bright lance, of life\nBereft Ablerus, and the royal arm\nOf Agamemnon, Elatus; he dwelt40\nAmong the hills of lofty Pedasus,\nOn Satnio\u2019s banks, smooth-sliding river pure\nPhylacus fled, whom Le\u00eftus as swift\nSoon smote. Melanthius at the feet expired\nOf the renown\u2019d Eurypylus, and, flush\u2019d45\nWith martial ardor, Menelaus seized\nAnd took alive Adrastus. As it chanced\nA thicket his affrighted steeds detain\u2019d\nTheir feet entangling; they with restive force\nAt its extremity snapp\u2019d short the pole,50\nAnd to the city, whither others fled,\nFled also. From his chariot headlong hurl\u2019d,\nAdrastus press\u2019d the plain fast by his wheel.\nFlew Menelaus, and his quivering spear\nShook over him; he, life imploring, clasp\u2019d55\nImportunate his knees, and thus exclaim\u2019d.\nOh, son of Atreus, let me live! accept\nIllustrious ransom! In my father\u2019s house\nIs wealth abundant, gold, and brass, and steel\nOf truest temper, which he will impart60\nTill he have gratified thine utmost wish,\nInform\u2019d that I am captive in your fleet.\nHe said, and Menelaus by his words\nVanquish\u2019d, him soon had to the fleet dismiss\u2019d\nGiven to his train in charge, but swift and stern65\nApproaching, Agamemnon interposed.\nNow, brother, whence this milkiness of mind,\nThese scruples about blood? Thy Trojan friends\nHave doubtless much obliged thee. Die the race!\nMay none escape us! neither he who flies,70\nNor even the infant in his mother\u2019s womb\nUnconscious. Perish universal Troy\nUnpitied, till her place be found no more![5]\nSo saying, his brother\u2019s mind the Hero turn\u2019d,\nAdvising him aright; he with his hand75\nThrust back Adrastus, and himself, the King,\nHis bowels pierced. Supine Adrastus fell,\nAnd Agamemnon, with his foot the corse\nImpressing firm, pluck\u2019d forth his ashen spear.\nThen Nestor, raising high his voice, exclaim\u2019d.80\nFriends, Heroes, Grecians, ministers of Mars!\nLet none, desirous of the spoil, his time\nDevote to plunder now; now slay your foes,\nAnd strip them when the field shall be your own.[6]\n\nHe said, and all took courage at his word.85\nThen had the Trojans enter\u2019d Troy again\nBy the heroic Grecians foul repulsed,\nSo was their spirit daunted, but the son\nOf Priam, Helenus, an augur far\nExcelling all, at Hector\u2019s side his speech90\nTo him and to \u00c6neas thus address\u2019d.\nHector, and thou, \u00c6neas, since on you\nThe Lycians chiefly and ourselves depend,\nFor that in difficult emprize ye show\nMost courage; give best counsel; stand yourselves,95\nAnd, visiting all quarters, cause to stand\nBefore the city-gates our scatter\u2019d troops,\nEre yet the fugitives within the arms\nBe slaughter\u2019d of their wives, the scorn of Greece.\nWhen thus ye shall have rallied every band100\nAnd roused their courage, weary though we be,\nYet since necessity commands, even here\nWill we give battle to the host of Greece.\nBut, Hector! to the city thou depart;\nThere charge our mother, that she go direct,105\nWith the assembled matrons, to the fane\nOf Pallas in the citadel of Troy.\nOpening her chambers\u2019 sacred doors, of all\nHer treasured mantles there, let her select\nThe widest, most magnificently wrought,110\nAnd which she values most; _that_ let her spread\nOn Athen\u00e6an Pallas\u2019 lap divine.[7]\nTwelve heifers of the year yet never touch\u2019d\nWith puncture of the goad, let her alike\nDevote to her, if she will pity Troy,115\nOur wives and little ones, and will avert\nThe son of Tydeus from these sacred towers,\nThat dreadful Chief, terror of all our host,\nBravest, in my account, of all the Greeks.\nFor never yet Achilles hath himself120\nSo taught our people fear, although esteemed\nSon of a Goddess. But this warrior\u2019s rage\nIs boundless, and his strength past all compare.\nSo Helenus; nor Hector not complied.\nDown from his chariot instant to the ground125\nAll arm\u2019d he leap\u2019d, and, shaking his sharp spears,\nThrough every phalanx pass\u2019d, rousing again\nTheir courage, and rekindling horrid war.\nThey, turning, faced the Greeks; the Greeks repulsed,\nCeased from all carnage, nor supposed they less130\nThan that some Deity, the starry skies\nForsaken, help\u2019d their foes, so firm they stood.\nBut Hector to the Trojans call\u2019d aloud.\nYe dauntless Trojans and confederate powers\nCall\u2019d from afar! now be ye men, my friends,135\nNow summon all the fury of your might!\nI go to charge our senators and wives\nThat they address the Gods with prayers and vows\nFor our success, and hecatombs devote.\nSo saying the Hero went, and as he strode140\nThe sable hide that lined his bossy shield\nSmote on his neck and on his ancle-bone.\nAnd now into the middle space between\nBoth hosts, the son of Tydeus and the son\nMoved of Hippolochus, intent alike145\nOn furious combat; face to face they stood,\nAnd thus heroic Diomede began.\nMost noble Champion! who of human kind\nArt thou,[8] whom in the man-ennobling fight\nI now encounter first? Past all thy peers150\nI must esteem thee valiant, who hast dared\nTo meet my coming, and my spear defy.\nAh! they are sons of miserable sires\nWho dare my might; but if a God from heaven\nThou come, behold! I fight not with the Gods.155\nThat war Lycurgus son of Dryas waged,\nAnd saw not many years. The nurses he\nOf brain-disturbing Bacchus down the steep\nPursued of sacred Nyssa; they their wands\nVine-wreathed cast all away, with an ox-goad160\nChastised by fell Lycurgus. Bacchus plunged\nMeantime dismay\u2019d into the deep, where him\nTrembling, and at the Hero\u2019s haughty threats\nConfounded, Thetis in her bosom hid.[9]\nThus by Lycurgus were the blessed powers165\nOf heaven offended, and Saturnian Jove\nOf sight bereaved him, who not long that loss\nSurvived, for he was curst by all above.\nI, therefore, wage no contest with the Gods;\nBut if thou be of men, and feed on bread170\nOf earthly growth, draw nigh, that with a stroke\nWell-aim\u2019d, I may at once cut short thy days.[10]\nTo whom the illustrious Lycian Chief replied.\nWhy asks brave Diomede of my descent?\nFor, as the leaves, such is the race of man.[11]175\nThe wind shakes down the leaves, the budding grove\nSoon teems with others, and in spring they grow.\nSo pass mankind. One generation meets\nIts destined period, and a new succeeds.\nBut since thou seem\u2019st desirous to be taught180\nMy pedigree, whereof no few have heard,\nKnow that in Argos, in the very lap\nOf Argos, for her steed-grazed meadows famed,\nStands Ephyra;[12] there Sisyphus abode,\nShrewdest of human kind; Sisyphus, named185\n\u00c6olides. Himself a son begat,\nGlaucus, and he Bellerophon, to whom\nThe Gods both manly force and beauty gave.\nHim Pr\u0153tus (for in Argos at that time\nPr\u0153tus was sovereign, to whose sceptre Jove190\nHad subjected the land) plotting his death,\nContrived to banish from his native home.\nFor fair Anteia, wife of Pr\u0153tus, mad\nThrough love of young Bellerophon, him oft\nIn secret to illicit joys enticed;195\nBut she prevail\u2019d not o\u2019er the virtuous mind\nDiscrete of whom she wooed; therefore a lie\nFraming, she royal Pr\u0153tus thus bespake.\nDie thou, or slay Bellerophon, who sought\nOf late to force me to his lewd embrace.200\nSo saying, the anger of the King she roused.\nSlay him himself he would not, for his heart\nForbad the deed; him therefore he dismiss\u2019d\nTo Lycia, charged with tales of dire import\nWritten in tablets,[13] which he bade him show,205\nThat he might perish, to Anteia\u2019s sire.\nTo Lycia then, conducted by the Gods,\nHe went, and on the shores of Xanthus found\nFree entertainment noble at the hands\nOf Lycia\u2019s potent King. Nine days complete210\nHe feasted him, and slew each day an ox.\nBut when the tenth day\u2019s ruddy morn appear\u2019d,\nHe asked him then his errand, and to see\nThose written tablets from his son-in-law.\nThe letters seen, he bade him, first, destroy215\nChim\u00e6ra, deem\u2019d invincible, divine\nIn nature, alien from the race of man,\nLion in front, but dragon all behind,\nAnd in the midst a she-goat breathing forth\nProfuse the violence of flaming fire.220\nHer, confident in signs from heaven, he slew.\nNext, with the men of Solym\u00e6[14] he fought,\nBrave warriors far renown\u2019d, with whom he waged,\nIn his account, the fiercest of his wars.\nAnd lastly, when in battle he had slain225\nThe man-resisting Amazons, the king\nAnother stratagem at his return\nDevised against him, placing close-conceal\u2019d\nAn ambush for him from the bravest chosen\nIn Lycia; but they saw their homes no more;230\nBellerophon the valiant slew them all.\nThe monarch hence collecting, at the last,\nHis heavenly origin, him there detain\u2019d,\nAnd gave him his own daughter, with the half\nOf all his royal dignity and power.235\nThe Lycians also, for his proper use,\nLarge lot assigned him of their richest soil,[15]\nCommodious for the vine, or for the plow.\nAnd now his consort fair three children bore\nTo bold Bellerophon; Isandrus one,240\nAnd one, Hippolochus; his youngest born\nLaodamia was for beauty such\nThat she became a concubine of Jove.\nShe bore Sarpedon of heroic note.\nBut when Bellerophon, at last, himself245\nHad anger\u2019d all the Gods, feeding on grief\nHe roam\u2019d alone the Aleian field, exiled,\nBy choice, from every cheerful haunt of man.\nMars, thirsty still for blood, his son destroy\u2019d\nIsandrus, warring with the host renown\u2019d250\nOf Solym\u00e6; and in her wrath divine\nDiana from her chariot golden-rein\u2019d\nLaodamia slew. Myself I boast\nSprung from Hippolochus; he sent me forth\nTo fight for Troy, charging me much and oft255\nThat I should outstrip always all mankind\nIn worth and valor, nor the house disgrace\nOf my forefathers, heroes without peer\nIn Ephyra, and in Lycia\u2019s wide domain.\nSuch is my lineage; such the blood I boast.260\nHe ceased. Then valiant Diomede rejoiced.\nHe pitch\u2019d his spear, and to the Lycian Prince\nIn terms of peace and amity replied.\nThou art my own hereditary friend,\nWhose noble grandsire was the guest of mine.[16]265\nFor Oeneus, on a time, full twenty days\nRegaled Bellerophon, and pledges fair\nOf hospitality they interchanged.\nOeneus a belt radiant with purple gave\nTo brave Bellerophon, who in return270\nGave him a golden goblet. Coming forth\nI left the kind memorial safe at home.\nA child was I when Tydeus went to Thebes,\nWhere the Achaians perish\u2019d, and of him\nHold no remembrance; but henceforth, my friend,275\nThine host am I in Argos, and thou mine\nIn Lycia, should I chance to sojourn there.\nWe will not clash. Trojans or aids of Troy\nNo few the Gods shall furnish to my spear,\nWhom I may slaughter; and no want of Greeks280\nOn whom to prove thy prowess, thou shalt find.\nBut it were well that an exchange ensued\nBetween us; take mine armor, give me thine,\nThat all who notice us may understand\nOur patrimonial[17] amity and love.285\nSo they, and each alighting, hand in hand\nStood lock\u2019d, faith promising and firm accord.\nThen Jove of sober judgment so bereft\nInfatuate Glaucus that with Tydeus\u2019 son\nHe barter\u2019d gold for brass, an hundred beeves290\nIn value, for the value small of nine.\nBut Hector at the Sc\u00e6an gate and beech[18]\nMeantime arrived, to whose approach the wives\nAnd daughters flock\u2019d of Troy, inquiring each\nThe fate of husband, brother, son, or friend.295\nHe bade them all with solemn prayer the Gods\nSeek fervent, for that wo was on the wing.\nBut when he enter\u2019d Priam\u2019s palace, built\nWith splendid porticoes, and which within\nHad fifty chambers lined with polish\u2019d stone,300\nContiguous all, where Priam\u2019s sons reposed\nAnd his sons\u2019 wives, and where, on the other side.\nIn twelve magnificent chambers also lined\nWith polish\u2019d marble and contiguous all,\nThe sons-in-law of Priam lay beside305\nHis spotless daughters, there the mother queen\nSeeking the chamber of Laodice,\nLoveliest of all her children, as she went\nMet Hector. On his hand she hung and said:\nWhy leavest thou, O my son! the dangerous field?310\nI fear that the Achaians (hateful name!)\nCompass the walls so closely, that thou seek\u2019st\nUrged by distress the citadel, to lift\nThine hands in prayer to Jove? But pause awhile\nTill I shall bring thee wine, that having pour\u2019d315\nLibation rich to Jove and to the powers\nImmortal, thou may\u2019st drink and be refresh\u2019d.\nFor wine is mighty to renew the strength\nOf weary man, and weary thou must be\nThyself, thus long defending us and ours.320\nTo whom her son majestic thus replied.\nMy mother, whom I reverence! cheering wine\nBring none to me, lest I forget my might.[19]\nI fear, beside, with unwash\u2019d hands to pour\nLibation forth of sable wine to Jove,325\nAnd dare on none account, thus blood-defiled,[20]\nApproach the tempest-stirring God in prayer.\nThou, therefore, gathering all our matrons, seek\nThe fane of Pallas, huntress of the spoil,\nBearing sweet incense; but from the attire330\nTreasured within thy chamber, first select\nThe amplest robe, most exquisitely wrought,\nAnd which thou prizest most\u2014then spread the gift\nOn Athen\u00e6an Pallas\u2019 lap divine.\nTwelve heifers also of the year, untouch\u2019d335\nWith puncture of the goad, promise to slay\nIn sacrifice, if she will pity Troy,\nOur wives and little ones, and will avert\nThe son of Tydeus from these sacred towers,\nThat dreadful Chief, terror of all our host.340\nGo then, my mother, seek the hallowed fane\nOf the spoil-huntress Deity. I, the while,\nSeek Paris, and if Paris yet can hear,\nShall call him forth. But oh that earth would yawn\nAnd swallow him, whom Jove hath made a curse345\nTo Troy, to Priam, and to all his house;\nMethinks, to see him plunged into the shades\nFor ever, were a cure for all my woes.\nHe ceased; the Queen, her palace entering, charged\nHer maidens; they, incontinent, throughout350\nAll Troy convened the matrons, as she bade.\nMeantime into her wardrobe incense-fumed,\nHerself descended; there her treasures lay,\nWorks of Sidonian women,[21] whom her son\nThe godlike Paris, when he cross\u2019d the seas355\nWith Jove-begotten Helen, brought to Troy.\nThe most magnificent, and varied most\nWith colors radiant, from the rest she chose\nFor Pallas; vivid as a star it shone,\nAnd lowest lay of all. Then forth she went,360\nThe Trojan matrons all following her steps.\nBut when the long procession reach\u2019d the fane\nOf Pallas in the heights of Troy, to them\nThe fair Theano ope\u2019d the portals wide,\nDaughter of Cisseus, brave Antenor\u2019s spouse,365\nAnd by appointment public, at that time,\nPriestess of Pallas. All with lifted hands[22]\nIn presence of Minerva wept aloud.\nBeauteous Theano on the Goddess\u2019 lap\nThen spread the robe, and to the daughter fair370\nOf Jove omnipotent her suit address\u2019d.\nGoddess[23] of Goddesses, our city\u2019s shield,\nAdored Minerva, hear! oh! break the lance\nOf Diomede, and give himself to fall\nProne in the dust before the Sc\u00e6an gate.375\nSo will we offer to thee at thy shrine,\nThis day twelve heifers of the year, untouch\u2019d\nBy yoke or goad, if thou wilt pity show\nTo Troy, and save our children and our wives.\nSuch prayer the priestess offer\u2019d, and such prayer380\nAll present; whom Minerva heard averse.\nBut Hector to the palace sped meantime\nOf Alexander, which himself had built,\nAided by every architect of name\nIllustrious then in Troy. Chamber it had,385\nWide hall, proud dome, and on the heights of Troy\nNear-neighboring Hector\u2019s house and Priam\u2019s stood.\nThere enter\u2019d Hector, Jove-beloved, a spear\nIts length eleven cubits in his hand,\nIts glittering head bound with a ring of gold.390\nHe found within his chamber whom he sought,\nPolishing with exactest care his arms\nResplendent, shield and hauberk fingering o\u2019er\nWith curious touch, and tampering with his bow.[24]\nHelen of Argos with her female train395\nSat occupied, the while, to each in turn\nSome splendid task assigning. Hector fix\u2019d\nHis eyes on Paris, and him stern rebuked.\nThy sullen humors, Paris, are ill-timed.\nThe people perish at our lofty walls;400\nThe flames of war have compass\u2019d Troy around\nAnd thou hast kindled them; who yet thyself\nThat slackness show\u2019st which in another seen\nThou would\u2019st resent to death. Haste, seek the field\nThis moment, lest, the next, all Ilium blaze.405\nTo whom thus Paris, graceful as a God.\nSince, Hector, thou hast charged me with a fault,\nAnd not unjustly, I will answer make,\nAnd give thou special heed. That here I sit,\nThe cause is sorrow, which I wish\u2019d to soothe410\nIn secret, not displeasure or revenge.\nI tell thee also, that even now my wife\nWas urgent with me in most soothing terms\nThat I would forth to battle; and myself,\nAware that victory oft changes sides,415\nThat course prefer. Wait, therefore, thou awhile,\nTill I shall dress me for the fight, or go\nThou first, and I will overtake thee soon.\nHe ceased, to whom brave Hector answer none\nReturn\u2019d, when Helen him with lenient speech420\nAccosted mild.[25] My brother! who in me\nHast found a sister worthy of thy hate,\nAuthoress of all calamity to Troy,\nOh that the winds, the day when I was born,\nHad swept me out of sight, whirl\u2019d me aloft425\nTo some inhospitable mountain-top,\nOr plunged me in the deep; there I had sunk\nO\u2019erwhelm\u2019d, and all these ills had never been.\nBut since the Gods would bring these ills to pass,\nI should, at least, some worthier mate have chosen,430\nOne not insensible to public shame.\nBut this, oh this, nor hath nor will acquire\nHereafter, aught which like discretion shows\nOr reason, and shall find his just reward.\nBut enter; take this seat; for who as thou435\nLabors, or who hath cause like thee to rue\nThe crime, my brother, for which Heaven hath doom\u2019d\nBoth Paris and my most detested self\nTo be the burthens of an endless song?\nTo whom the warlike Hector huge[26] replied.440\nMe bid not, Helen, to a seat, howe\u2019er\nThou wish my stay, for thou must not prevail.\nThe Trojans miss me, and myself no less\nAm anxious to return. But urge in haste\nThis loiterer forth; yea, let him urge himself445\nTo overtake me ere I quit the town.\nFor I must home in haste, that I may see\nMy loved Andromache, my infant boy,\nAnd my domestics, ignorant if e\u2019er\nI shall behold them more, or if my fate450\nOrdain me now to fall by Grecian hands.\nSo spake the dauntless hero, and withdrew.\nBut reaching soon his own well-built abode\nHe found not fair Andromache; she stood\nLamenting Hector, with the nurse who bore455\nHer infant, on a turret\u2019s top sublime.\nHe then, not finding his chaste spouse within,\nThus from the portal, of her train inquired.\nTell me, ye maidens, whither went from home\nAndromache the fair?[27] Went she to see460\nHer female kindred of my father\u2019s house,\nOr to Minerva\u2019s temple, where convened\nThe bright-hair\u2019d matrons of the city seek\nTo soothe the awful Goddess? Tell me true.\nTo whom his household\u2019s governess discreet.465\nSince, Hector, truth is thy demand, receive\nTrue answer. Neither went she forth to see\nHer female kindred of thy father\u2019s house,\nNor to Minerva\u2019s temple, where convened\nThe bright-haired matrons of the city seek470\nTo soothe the awful Goddess; but she went\nHence to the tower of Troy: for she had heard\nThat the Achaians had prevail\u2019d, and driven\nThe Trojans to the walls; she, therefore, wild\nWith grief, flew thither, and the nurse her steps475\nAttended, with thy infant in her arms.\nSo spake the prudent governess; whose words\nWhen Hector heard, issuing from his door\nHe backward trod with hasty steps the streets\nOf lofty Troy, and having traversed all480\nThe spacious city, when he now approach\u2019d\nThe Sc\u00e6an gate, whence he must seek the field,\nThere, hasting home again his noble wife\nMet him, Andromache the rich-endow\u2019d\nFair daughter of E\u00ebtion famed in arms.485\nE\u00ebtion, who in Hypoplacian Thebes\nUmbrageous dwelt, Cilicia\u2019s mighty lord\u2014\nHis daughter valiant Hector had espoused.\nThere she encounter\u2019d him, and with herself\nThe nurse came also, bearing in her arms490\nHectorides, his infant darling boy,\nBeautiful as a star. Him Hector called\nScamandrios, but Astyanax[28] all else\nIn Ilium named him, for that Hector\u2019s arm\nAlone was the defence and strength of Troy.495\nThe father, silent, eyed his babe, and smiled.\nAndromache, meantime, before him stood,\nWith streaming cheeks, hung on his hand, and said.\nThy own great courage will cut short thy days,\nMy noble Hector! neither pitiest thou500\nThy helpless infant, or my hapless self,\nWhose widowhood is near; for thou wilt fall\nEre long, assail\u2019d by the whole host of Greece.\nThen let me to the tomb, my best retreat\nWhen thou art slain. For comfort none or joy505\nCan I expect, thy day of life extinct,\nBut thenceforth, sorrow. Father I have none;\nNo mother. When Cilicia\u2019s city, Thebes\nThe populous, was by Achilles sack\u2019d.\nHe slew my father; yet his gorgeous arms510\nStripp\u2019d not through reverence of him, but consumed,\nArm\u2019d as it was, his body on the pile,\nAnd heap\u2019d his tomb, which the Oreades,\nJove\u2019s daughters, had with elms inclosed around.[29]\nMy seven brothers, glory of our house,515\nAll in one day descended to the shades;\nFor brave Achilles,[30] while they fed their herds\nAnd snowy flocks together, slew them all.\nMy mother, Queen of the well-wooded realm\nOf Hypoplacian Thebes, her hither brought520\nAmong his other spoils, he loosed again\nAt an inestimable ransom-price,\nBut by Diana pierced, she died at home.\nYet Hector\u2014oh my husband! I in thee\nFind parents, brothers, all that I have lost.525\nCome! have compassion on us. Go not hence,\nBut guard this turret, lest of me thou make\nA widow, and an orphan of thy boy.\nThe city walls are easiest of ascent\nAt yonder fig-tree; station there thy powers;530\nFor whether by a prophet warn\u2019d, or taught\nBy search and observation, in that part\nEach Ajax with Idomeneus of Crete,\nThe sons of Atreus, and the valiant son\nOf Tydeus, have now thrice assail\u2019d the town.535\nTo whom the leader of the host of Troy.\nThese cares, Andromache, which thee engage,\nAll touch me also; but I dread to incur\nThe scorn of male and female tongues in Troy,\nIf, dastard-like, I should decline the fight.540\nNor feel I such a wish. No. I have learn\u2019d\nTo be courageous ever, in the van\nAmong the flower of Ilium to assert\nMy glorious father\u2019s honor, and my own.\nFor that the day shall come when sacred Troy,545\nWhen Priam, and the people of the old\nSpear-practised King shall perish, well I know.\nBut for no Trojan sorrows yet to come\nSo much I mourn, not e\u2019en for Hecuba,\nNor yet for Priam, nor for all the brave550\nOf my own brothers who shall kiss the dust,\nAs for thyself, when some Achaian Chief\nShall have convey\u2019d thee weeping hence, thy sun\nOf peace and liberty for ever set.\nThen shalt thou toil in Argos at the loom555\nFor a task-mistress, and constrain\u2019d shalt draw\nFrom Hypere\u00efa\u2019s fount,[31] or from the fount\nMesse\u00efs, water at her proud command.\nSome Grecian then, seeing thy tears, shall say\u2014\n\u201cThis was the wife of Hector, who excell\u2019d560\nAll Troy in fight when Ilium was besieged.\u201d\nSuch he shall speak thee, and thy heart, the while,\nShall bleed afresh through want of such a friend\nTo stand between captivity and thee.\nBut may I rest beneath my hill of earth565\nOr ere that day arrive! I would not live\nTo hear thy cries, and see thee torn away.\nSo saying, illustrious Hector stretch\u2019d his arms\nForth to his son, but with a scream, the child\nFell back into the bosom of his nurse,570\nHis father\u2019s aspect dreading, whose bright arms\nHe had attentive mark\u2019d and shaggy crest\nPlaying tremendous o\u2019er his helmet\u2019s height.\nHis father and his gentle mother laugh\u2019d,[32]\nAnd noble Hector lifting from his head575\nHis dazzling helmet, placed it on the ground,\nThen kiss\u2019d his boy and dandled him, and thus\nIn earnest prayer the heavenly powers implored.\nHear all ye Gods! as ye have given to me,\nSo also on my son excelling might580\nBestow, with chief authority in Troy.\nAnd be his record this, in time to come,\nWhen he returns from battle. Lo! how far\nThe son excels the sire! May every foe\nFall under him, and he come laden home585\nWith spoils blood-stain\u2019d to his dear mother\u2019s joy.\nHe said, and gave his infant to the arms\nOf his Andromache, who him received\nInto her fragrant bosom, bitter tears\nWith sweet smiles mingling; he with pity moved590\nThat sight observed, soft touch\u2019d her cheek, and said,\nMourn not, my loved Andromache, for me\nToo much; no man shall send me to the shades\nOf Tartarus, ere mine allotted hour,\nNor lives he who can overpass the date595\nBy heaven assign\u2019d him, be he base or brave.[33]\nGo then, and occupy content at home\nThe woman\u2019s province; ply the distaff, spin\nAnd weave, and task thy maidens. War belongs\nTo man; to all men; and of all who first600\nDrew vital breath in Ilium, most to me.[34]\n\nHe ceased, and from the ground his helmet raised\nHair-crested; his Andromache, at once\nObedient, to her home repair\u2019d, but oft\nTurn\u2019d as she went, and, turning, wept afresh.605\nNo sooner at the palace she arrived\nOf havoc-spreading Hector, than among\nHer numerous maidens found within, she raised\nA general lamentation; with one voice,\nIn his own house, his whole domestic train610\nMourn\u2019d Hector, yet alive; for none the hope\nConceived of his escape from Grecian hands,\nOr to behold their living master more.\nNor Paris in his stately mansion long\nDelay\u2019d, but, arm\u2019d resplendent, traversed swift615\nThe city, all alacrity and joy.\nAs some stall\u2019d horse high-fed, his stable-cord\nSnapt short, beats under foot the sounding plain,\nAccustomed in smooth-sliding streams to lave\nExulting; high he bears his head, his mane620\nUndulates o\u2019er his shoulders, pleased he eyes\nHis glossy sides, and borne on pliant knees\nShoots to the meadow where his fellows graze;\nSo Paris, son of Priam, from the heights\nOf Pergamus into the streets of Troy,625\nAll dazzling as the sun, descended, flush\u2019d\nWith martial pride, and bounding in his course.\nAt once he came where noble Hector stood\nNow turning, after conference with his spouse,\nWhen godlike Alexander thus began.630\nMy hero brother, thou hast surely found\nMy long delay most irksome. More dispatch\nHad pleased thee more, for such was thy command.\nTo whom the warlike Hector thus replied.\nNo man, judicious, and in feat of arms635\nIntelligent, would pour contempt on thee\n(For thou art valiant) wert thou not remiss\nAnd wilful negligent; and when I hear\nThe very men who labor in thy cause\nReviling thee, I make thy shame my own.640\nBut let us on. All such complaints shall cease\nHereafter, and thy faults be touch\u2019d no more,\nLet Jove but once afford us riddance clear\nOf these Achaians, and to quaff the cup\nOf liberty, before the living Gods.645\n\n\nIt may be observed, that Hector begins to resume his hope of success,\nand his warlike spirit is roused again, as he approaches the field of\naction. The depressing effect of his sad interview is wearing away from\nhis mind, and he is already prepared for the battle with Ajax, which\nawaits him.\n\nThe student who has once read this book, will read it again and again.\nIt contains much that is addressed to the deepest feelings of our\ncommon nature, and, despite of the long interval of time which lies\nbetween our age and the Homeric\u2014despite the manifold changes of\ncustoms, habits, pursuits, and the advances that have been made in\ncivilization and art\u2014despite of all these, the universal spirit of\nhumanity will recognize in these scenes much of that true poetry which\ndelights alike all ages, all nations, all men.\u2014Felton.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK VII.\n\n\nARGUMENT OF THE SEVENTH BOOK.\n\nAjax and Hector engage in single combat. The Grecians fortify their\ncamp.\n\n\nBOOK VII.\n\n\nSo saying, illustrious Hector through the gates\nTo battle rush\u2019d, with Paris at his side,\nAnd both were bent on deeds of high renown.\nAs when the Gods vouchsafe propitious gales\nTo longing mariners, who with smooth oars5\nThreshing the waves have all their strength consumed,\nSo them the longing Trojans glad received.\nAt once each slew a Grecian. Paris slew\nMenesthius who in Arna dwelt, the son\nOf Areitho\u00fcs, club-bearing chief,10\nAnd of Philomedusa radiant-eyed.\nBut Hector wounded with his glittering spear\nE\u00efoneus; he pierced his neck beneath\nHis brazen morion\u2019s verge, and dead he fell.\nThen Glaucus, leader of the Lycian host,15\nSon of Hippolochus, in furious fight\nIphino\u00fcs son of Dexias assail\u2019d,\nMounting his rapid mares, and with his lance\nHis shoulder pierced; unhorsed he fell and died.\nSuch slaughter of the Grecians in fierce fight20\nMinerva noting, from the Olympian hills\nFlew down to sacred Ilium; whose approach\nMarking from Pergamus, Apollo flew\nTo meet her, ardent on the part of Troy.\nBeneath the beech they join\u2019d, when first the King,25\nThe son of Jove, Apollo thus began.\n\nDaughter of Jove supreme! why hast thou left\nOlympus, and with such impetuous speed?\nComest thou to give the Dana\u00ef success\nDecisive? For I know that pity none30\nThou feel\u2019st for Trojans, perish as they may\nBut if advice of mine can influence thee\nTo that which shall be best, let us compose\nThis day the furious fight which shall again\nHereafter rage, till Ilium be destroy\u2019d.35\nSince such is Juno\u2019s pleasure and thy own.\nHim answer\u2019d then Pallas c\u00e6rulean-eyed.\nCelestial archer! be it so. I came\nMyself so purposing into the field\nFrom the Olympian heights. But by what means40\nWilt thou induce the warriors to a pause?\nTo whom the King, the son of Jove, replied.\nThe courage of equestrian Hector bold\nLet us excite, that he may challenge forth\nTo single conflict terrible some chief45\nAchaian. The Achaians brazen-mail\u2019d\nIndignant, will supply a champion soon\nTo combat with the noble Chief of Troy.\nSo spake Apollo, and his counsel pleased\nMinerva; which when Helenus the seer,50\nPriam\u2019s own son, in his prophetic soul\nPerceived, approaching Hector, thus he spake.\nJove\u2019s peer in wisdom, Hector, Priam\u2019s son!\nI am thy brother. Wilt thou list to me?\nBid cease the battle. Bid both armies sit.55\nCall first, thyself, the mightiest of the Greeks\nTo single conflict. I have heard the voice\nOf the Eternal Gods, and well-assured\nForetell thee that thy death not now impends.\nHe spake, whom Hector heard with joy elate.60\nBefore his van striding into the space\nBoth hosts between, he with his spear transverse[1]\nPress\u2019d back the Trojans, and they sat. Down sat\nThe well-greaved Grecians also at command\nOf Agamemnon; and in shape assumed65\nOf vultures, Pallas and Apollo perch\u2019d\nHigh on the lofty beech sacred to Jove\nThe father \u00c6gis-arm\u2019d; delighted thence\nThey view\u2019d the peopled plain horrent around\nWith shields and helms and glittering spears erect.70\nAs when fresh-blowing Zephyrus the flood\nSweeps first, the ocean blackens at the blast,\nSuch seem\u2019d the plain whereon the Achaians sat\nAnd Trojans, whom between thus Hector spake.\nYe Trojans and Achaians brazen-greaved,75\nAttend while I shall speak! Jove high-enthroned\nHath not fulfill\u2019d the truce, but evil plans\nAgainst both hosts, till either ye shall take\nTroy\u2019s lofty towers, or shall yourselves in flight\nFall vanquish\u2019d at your billow-cleaving barks.80\nWith you is all the flower of Greece.[2] Let him\nWhose heart shall move him to encounter sole\nIllustrious Hector, from among you all\nStand forth, and Jove be witness to us both.\nIf he, with his long-pointed lance, of life85\nShall me bereave, my armor is his prize,\nWhich he shall hence into your fleet convey;\nNot so my body; that he shall resign\nFor burial to the men and wives of Troy.\nBut if Apollo make the glory mine,90\nAnd he fall vanquish\u2019d, him will I despoil,\nAnd hence conveying into sacred Troy\nHis arms, will in the temple hang them high[3]\nOf the bow-bender God, but I will send\nHis body to the fleet, that him the Greeks95\nMay grace with rights funereal. On the banks\nOf wide-spread Hellespont ye shall upraise\nHis tomb, and as they cleave with oary barks\nThe sable deep, posterity shall say\u2014\n\u201cIt is a warrior\u2019s tomb; in ancient days100\nThe Hero died; him warlike Hector slew.\u201d\nSo men shall speak hereafter, and my fame\nWho slew him, and my praise, shall never die.\nHe ceased, and all sat mute. His challenge bold\nNone dared accept, which yet they blush\u2019d to shun,105\nTill Menelaus, at the last, arose\nGroaning profound, and thus reproach\u2019d the Greeks.\nAh boasters! henceforth women\u2014men no more\u2014\nEternal shame, shame infinite is ours,\nIf none of all the Grecians dares contend110\nWith Hector. Dastards\u2014deaf to glory\u2019s call\u2014\nRot where ye sit! I will myself take arms\nAgainst him, for the gods alone dispose,\nAt their own pleasure, the events of war.\nHe ended, and put on his radiant arms.115\nThen, Menelaus, manifest appear\u2019d\nThy death approaching by the dreadful hands\nOf Hector, mightier far in arms than thou,\nBut that the Chiefs of the Achaians all\nUpstarting stay\u2019d thee, and himself the King,120\nThe son of Atreus, on thy better hand\nSeizing affectionate, thee thus address\u2019d.\nThou ravest, my royal brother! and art seized\nWith needless frenzy. But, however chafed,\nRestrain thy wrath, nor covet to contend125\nWith Priameian Hector, whom in fight\nAll dread, a warrior thy superior far.\nNot even Achilles, in the glorious field\n(Though stronger far than thou) this hero meets\nUndaunted. Go then, and thy seat resume130\nIn thy own band; the Achaians shall for him,\nDoubtless, some fitter champion furnish forth.\nBrave though he be, and with the toils of war\nInsatiable, he shall be willing yet,\nSeated on his bent knees, to breathe a while,135\nShould he escape the arduous brunt severe.\nSo saying, the hero by his counsel wise\nHis brother\u2019s purpose alter\u2019d; he complied,\nAnd his glad servants eased him of his arms.\nThen Nestor thus the Argive host bespake.140\nGreat wo, ye Gods! hath on Achaia fallen.\nNow may the warlike Pelaus, hoary Chief,\nWho both with eloquence and wisdom rules\nThe Myrmidons, our foul disgrace deplore.\nWith him discoursing, erst, of ancient times,145\nWhen all your pedigrees I traced, I made\nHis heart bound in him at the proud report.\nBut now, when he shall learn how here we sat\nCowering at the foot of Hector, he shall oft\nHis hands uplift to the immortal Gods,150\nPraying a swift release into the shades.\nJove! Pallas! Ph\u0153bus! Oh that I were young\nAs when the Pylians in fierce fight engaged\nThe Arcadians spear-expert, beside the stream\nOf rapid Celadon! Beneath the walls155\nWe fought of Pheia, where the Jardan rolls.\nThere Ereuthalion, Chief of godlike form,\nStood forth before his van, and with loud voice\nDefied the Pylians. Arm\u2019d he was in steel\nBy royal Are\u00efthous whilom worn;160\nBrave Are\u00efthous, Corynetes[4] named\nBy every tongue; for that in bow and spear\nNought trusted he, but with an iron mace\nThe close-embattled phalanx shatter\u2019d wide.\nHim by address, not by superior force,165\nLycurgus vanquish\u2019d, in a narrow pass,\nWhere him his iron whirl-bat[5] nought avail\u2019d.\nLycurgus stealing on him, with his lance\nTranspierced and fix\u2019d him to the soil supine.\nHim of his arms, bright gift of brazen Mars,170\nHe stripp\u2019d, which after, in the embattled field\nLycurgus wore himself, but, growing old,\nSurrender\u2019d them to Ereuthalion\u2019s use\nHis armor-bearer, high in his esteem,\nAnd Ereuthalion wore them on the day175\nWhen he defied our best. All hung their heads\nAnd trembled; none dared meet him; till at last\nWith inborn courage warm\u2019d, and nought dismayed,\nThough youngest of them all, I undertook\nThat contest, and, by Pallas\u2019 aid, prevail\u2019d.180\nI slew the man in height and bulk all men\nSurpassing, and much soil he cover\u2019d slain.\nOh for the vigor of those better days!\nThen should not Hector want a champion long,\nWhose call to combat, ye, although the prime185\nAnd pride of all our land, seem slow to hear.\nHe spake reproachful, when at once arose\nNine heroes. Agamemnon, King of men,\nForemost arose; then Tydeus\u2019 mighty son,\nWith either Ajax in fierce prowess clad;190\nThe Cretan next, Idomeneus, with whom\nUprose Meriones his friend approved,\nTerrible as the man-destroyer Mars.\nEv\u00e6mon\u2019s noble offspring next appear\u2019d\nEurypylus; Andr\u00e6mon\u2019s son the next195\nThoas; and last, Ulysses, glorious Chief.\nAll these stood ready to engage in arms\nWith warlike Hector, when the ancient King,\nGerenian Nestor, thus his speech resumed.\nNow cast the lot for all. Who wins the chance200\nShall yield Achaia service, and himself\nServe also, if successful he escape\nThis brunt of hostile hardiment severe.\nSo Nestor. They, inscribing each his lot,\nInto the helmet cast it of the son205\nOf Atreus, Agamemnon. Then the host\nPray\u2019d all, their hands uplifting, and with eyes\nTo the wide heavens directed, many said[6]\u2014\nEternal sire! choose Ajax, or the son\nOf Tydeus, or the King himself[7] who sways210\nThe sceptre in Mycen\u00e6 wealth-renown\u2019d!\nSuch prayer the people made; then Nestor shook\nThe helmet, and forth leaped, whose most they wished,\nThe lot of Ajax. Throughout all the host\nTo every chief and potentate of Greece,215\nFrom right to left the herald bore the lot\nBy all disown\u2019d; but when at length he reach\u2019d\nThe inscriber of the lot, who cast it in,\nIllustrious Ajax, in his open palm\nThe herald placed it, standing at his side.220\nHe, conscious, with heroic joy the lot\nCast at his foot, and thus exclaim\u2019d aloud.\nMy friends! the lot is mine,[8] and my own heart\nRejoices also; for I nothing doubt\nThat noble Hector shall be foil\u2019d by me.225\nBut while I put mine armor on, pray all\nIn silence to the King Saturnian Jove,\nLest, while ye pray, the Trojans overhear.\nOr pray aloud, for whom have we to dread?\nNo man shall my firm standing by his strength230\nUnsettle, or for ignorance of mine\nMe vanquish, who, I hope, brought forth and train\u2019d\nIn Salamis, have, now, not much to learn.\nHe ended. They with heaven-directed eyes\nThe King in prayer address\u2019d, Saturnian Jove.235\nJove! glorious father! who from Ida\u2019s height\nControlest all below, let Ajax prove\nVictorious; make the honor all his own!\nOr, if not less than Ajax, Hector share\nThy love and thy regard, divide the prize240\nOf glory, and let each achieve renown!\nThen Ajax put his radiant armor on,\nAnd, arm\u2019d complete, rush\u2019d forward. As huge Mars\nTo battle moves the sons of men between\nWhom Jove with heart-devouring thirst inspires245\nOf war, so moved huge Ajax to the fight,\nTower of the Greeks, dilating with a smile\nHis martial features terrible; on feet,\nFirm-planted, to the combat he advanced\nStride after stride, and shook his quivering spear.250\nHim viewing, Argos\u2019 universal host\nExulted, while a panic loosed the knees\nOf every Trojan; even Hector\u2019s heart\nBeat double, but escape for him remain\u2019d\nNone now, or to retreat into his ranks255\nAgain, from whom himself had challenged forth.\nAjax advancing like a tower his shield\nSevenfold, approach\u2019d. It was the labor\u2019d work\nOf Tychius, armorer of matchless skill,\nWho dwelt in Hyla; coated with the hides260\nOf seven high-pamper\u2019d bulls that shield he framed\nFor Ajax, and the disk plated with brass.\nAdvancing it before his breast, the son\nOf Telamon approach\u2019d the Trojan Chief,\nAnd face to face, him threatening, thus began.265\nNow, Hector, prove, by me alone opposed,\nWhat Chiefs the Dana\u00ef can furnish forth\nIn absence of the lion-hearted prince\nAchilles, breaker of the ranks of war.\nHe, in his billow-cleaving barks incensed270\nAgainst our leader Agamemnon, lies;\nBut warriors of my measure, who may serve\nTo cope with thee, we want not; numerous such\nAre found amongst us. But begin the fight.\nTo whom majestic Hector fierce in arms.275\nAjax! heroic leader of the Greeks!\nOffspring of Telamon! essay not me\nWith words to terrify, as I were boy.\nOr girl unskill\u2019d in war;[9] I am a man\nWell exercised in battle, who have shed280\nThe blood of many a warrior, and have learn\u2019d,\nFrom hand to hand shifting my shield, to fight\nUnwearied; I can make a sport of war,\nIn standing fight adjusting all my steps\nTo martial measures sweet, or vaulting light285\nInto my chariot, thence can urge the foe.\nYet in contention with a Chief like thee\nI will employ no stratagem, or seek\nTo smite thee privily, but with a stroke\n(If I may reach thee) visible to all.290\nSo saying, he shook, then hurl\u2019d his massy spear\nAt Ajax, and his broad shield sevenfold\nOn its eighth surface of resplendent brass\nSmote full; six hides the unblunted weapon pierced,\nBut in the seventh stood rooted. Ajax, next,295\nHeroic Chief, hurl\u2019d his long shadow\u2019d spear\nAnd struck the oval shield of Priam\u2019s son.\nThrough his bright disk the weapon tempest-driven\nGlided, and in his hauberk-rings infixt\nAt his soft flank, ripp\u2019d wide his vest within.300\nInclined oblique he \u2019scaped the dreadful doom\nThen each from other\u2019s shield his massy spear\nRecovering quick, like lions hunger-pinch\u2019d\nOr wild boars irresistible in force,\nThey fell to close encounter. Priam\u2019s son305\nThe shield of Ajax at its centre smote,\nBut fail\u2019d to pierce it, for he bent his point.\nSprang Ajax then, and meeting full the targe\nOf Hector, shock\u2019d him; through it and beyond\nHe urged the weapon with its sliding edge310\nAthwart his neck, and blood was seen to start.\nBut still, for no such cause, from battle ceased\nCrest-tossing Hector, but retiring, seized\nA huge stone angled sharp and black with age\nThat on the champain lay. The bull-hide guard315\nSevenfold of Ajax with that stone he smote\nFull on its centre; sang the circling brass.\nThen Ajax far a heavier stone upheaved;\nHe whirled it, and with might immeasurable\nDismiss\u2019d the mass, which with a mill-stone weight320\nSank through the shield of Hector, and his knees\nDisabled; with his shield supine he fell,\nBut by Apollo raised, stood soon again.\nAnd now, with swords they had each other hewn,\nHad not the messengers of Gods and men325\nThe heralds wise, Id\u00e6us on the part\nOf Ilium, and Talthybius for the Greeks,\nAdvancing interposed. His sceptre each\nBetween them held, and thus Id\u00e6us spake.[10]\nMy children, cease! prolong not still the fight.330\nYe both are dear to cloud-assembler Jove,\nBoth valiant, and all know it. But the Night\nHath fallen, and Night\u2019s command must be obeyed.\nTo him the son of Telamon replied.\nId\u00e6us! bid thy master speak as thou.335\nHe is the challenger. If such his choice,\nMine differs not; I wait but to comply.\nHim answer\u2019d then heroic Hector huge.\nSince, Ajax, the immortal powers on thee\nHave bulk pre-eminent and strength bestow\u2019d,340\nWith such address in battle, that the host\nOf Greece hath not thine equal at the spear,\nNow let the combat cease. We shall not want\nMore fair occasion; on some future day\nWe will not part till all-disposing heaven345\nShall give thee victory, or shall make her mine.\nBut Night hath fallen, and Night must be obey\u2019d,\nThat them may\u2019st gratify with thy return\nThe Achaians, and especially thy friends\nAnd thy own countrymen. I go, no less350\nTo exhilarate in Priam\u2019s royal town\nMen and robed matrons, who shall seek the Gods\nFor me, with pious ceremonial due.\nBut come. We will exchange, or ere we part,\nSome princely gift, that Greece and Troy may say355\nHereafter, with soul-wasting rage they fought,\nBut parted with the gentleness of friends.\nSo saying, he with his sheath and belt a sword\nPresented bright-emboss\u2019d, and a bright belt\nPurpureal[11] took from Ajax in return.360\nThus separated, one the Grecians sought,\nAnd one the Trojans; they when him they saw\nFrom the unconquer\u2019d hands return\u2019d alive\nOf Ajax, with delight their Chief received,\nAnd to the city led him, double joy365\nConceiving all at his unhoped escape.\nOn the other side, the Grecians brazen-mail\u2019d\nTo noble Agamemnon introduced\nExulting Ajax, and the King of men\nIn honor of the conqueror slew an ox370\nOf the fifth year to Jove omnipotent.\nHim flaying first, they carved him next and spread\nThe whole abroad, then, scoring deep the flesh,\nThey pierced it with the spits, and from the spits\n(Once roasted well) withdrew it all again.375\nTheir labor thus accomplish\u2019d, and the board\nFurnish\u2019d with plenteous cheer, they feasted all\nTill all were satisfied; nor Ajax miss\u2019d\nThe conqueror\u2019s meed, to whom the hero-king\nWide-ruling Agamemnon, gave the chine[12]380\nPerpetual,[13] his distinguish\u2019d portion due.\nThe calls of hunger and of thirst at length\nBoth well sufficed, thus, foremost of them all\nThe ancient Nestor, whose advice had oft\nProved salutary, prudent thus began.385\nChiefs of Achaia, and thou, chief of all,\nGreat Agamemnon! Many of our host\nLie slain, whose blood sprinkles, in battle shed,\nThe banks of smooth Scamander, and their souls\nHave journey\u2019d down into the realms of death.390\nTo-morrow, therefore, let the battle pause\nAs need requires, and at the peep of day\nWith mules and oxen, wheel ye from all parts\nThe dead, that we may burn them near the fleet.\nSo, home to Greece returning, will we give395\nThe fathers\u2019 ashes to the children\u2019s care.\nAccumulating next, the pile around,\nOne common tomb for all, with brisk dispatch\nWe will upbuild for more secure defence\nOf us and of our fleet, strong towers and tall400\nAdjoining to the tomb, and every tower\nShall have its ponderous gate, commodious pass\nAffording to the mounted charioteer.\nAnd last, without those towers and at their foot,\nDig we a trench, which compassing around405\nOur camp, both steeds and warriors shall exclude,\nAnd all fierce inroad of the haughty foe.\nSo counsell\u2019d he, whom every Chief approved.\nIn Troy meantime, at Priam\u2019s gate beside\nThe lofty citadel, debate began410\nThe assembled senators between, confused,\nClamorous, and with furious heat pursued,\nWhen them Antenor, prudent, thus bespake.\nYe Trojans, Dardans, and allies of Troy,\nMy counsel hear! Delay not. Instant yield415\nTo the Atrid\u00e6, hence to be convey\u2019d,\nHelen of Greece with all that is her own.\nFor charged with violated oaths we fight,\nAnd hope I none conceive that aught by us\nDesign\u2019d shall prosper, unless so be done.420\nHe spake and sat; when from his seat arose\nParis, fair Helen\u2019s noble paramour,\nWho thus with speech impassion\u2019d quick replied.\nAntenor! me thy counsel hath not pleased;\nThou could\u2019st have framed far better; but if this425\nBe thy deliberate judgment, then the Gods\nMake thy deliberate judgment nothing worth.\nBut I will speak myself. Ye Chiefs of Troy,\nI tell you plain. I will not yield my spouse.\nBut all her treasures to our house convey\u2019d430\nFrom Argos, those will I resign, and add\nStill other compensation from my own.\nThus Paris said and sat; when like the Gods\nThemselves in wisdom, from his seat uprose\nDardanian Priam, who them thus address\u2019d.435\nTrojans, Dardanians, and allies of Troy!\nI shall declare my sentence; hear ye me.\nNow let the legions, as at other times,\nTake due refreshment; let the watch be set,\nAnd keep ye vigilant guard. At early dawn440\nWe will dispatch Id\u00e6us to the fleet,\nWho shall inform the Atrid\u00e6 of this last\nResolve of Paris, author of the war.\nDiscreet Id\u00e6us also shall propose\nA respite (if the Atrid\u00e6 so incline)445\nFrom war\u2019s dread clamor, while we burn the dead.\nThen will we clash again, till heaven at length\nShall part us, and the doubtful strife decide.\nHe ceased, whose voice the assembly pleased, obey\u2019d.\nThen, troop by troop, the army took repast,450\nAnd at the dawn Id\u00e6us sought the fleet.\nHe found the Dana\u00ef, servants of Mars,\nBeside the stern of Agamemnon\u2019s ship\nConsulting; and amid the assembled Chiefs\nArrived, with utterance clear them thus address\u2019d.455\nYe sons of Atreus, and ye Chiefs, the flower\nOf all Achaia! Priam and the Chiefs\nOf Ilium, bade me to your ear impart\n(If chance such embassy might please your ear)\nThe mind of Paris, author of the war.460\nThe treasures which on board his ships he brought\nFrom Argos home (oh, had he perish\u2019d first!)\nHe yields them with addition from his own.\nNot so the consort of the glorious prince\nBrave Menelaus; her (although in Troy465\nAll counsel otherwise) he still detains.\nThus too I have in charge. Are ye inclined\nThat the dread sounding clamors of the field\nBe caused to cease till we shall burn the dead?\nThen will we clash again, till heaven at length470\nShall part us, and the doubtful strife decide.\nSo spake Id\u00e6us, and all silent sat;\nTill at the last brave Diomede replied.\nNo. We will none of Paris\u2019 treasures now,\nNor even Helen\u2019s self. A child may see475\nDestruction winging swift her course to Troy.\nHe said. The admiring Greeks with loud applause\nAll praised the speech of warlike Diomede,\nAnd answer thus the King of men return\u2019d.\nId\u00e6us! thou hast witness\u2019d the resolve480\nOf the Achaian Chiefs, whose choice is mine.\nBut for the slain, I shall not envy them\nA funeral pile; the spirit fled, delay\nSuits not. Last rites can not too soon be paid.\nBurn them. And let high-thundering Jove attest485\nHimself mine oath, that war shall cease the while.\nSo saying, he to all the Gods upraised\nHis sceptre, and Id\u00e6us homeward sped\nTo sacred Ilium. The Dardanians there\nAnd Trojans, all assembled, his return490\nExpected anxious. He amid them told\nDistinct his errand, when, at once dissolved,\nThe whole assembly rose, these to collect\nThe scatter\u2019d bodies, those to gather wood;\nWhile on the other side, the Greeks arose495\nAs sudden, and all issuing from the fleet\nSought fuel, some, and some, the scatter\u2019d dead.\nNow from the gently-swelling flood profound\nThe sun arising, with his earliest rays\nIn his ascent to heaven smote on the fields.500\nWhen Greeks and Trojans met. Scarce could the slain\nBe clear distinguish\u2019d, but they cleansed from each\nHis clotted gore with water, and warm tears\nDistilling copious, heaved them to the wains.\nBut wailing none was heard, for such command505\nHad Priam issued; therefore heaping high\nThe bodies, silent and with sorrowing hearts\nThey burn\u2019d them, and to sacred Troy return\u2019d.\nThe Grecians also, on the funeral pile\nThe bodies heaping sad, burn\u2019d them with fire510\nTogether, and return\u2019d into the fleet.\nThen, ere the peep of dawn, and while the veil\nOf night, though thinner, still o\u2019erhung the earth,\nAchaians, chosen from the rest, the pile\nEncompass\u2019d. With a tomb (one tomb for all)515\nThey crown\u2019d the spot adust, and to the tomb\n(For safety of their fleet and of themselves)\nStrong fortress added of high wall and tower,\nWith solid gates affording egress thence\nCommodious to the mounted charioteer;520\nDeep foss and broad they also dug without,\nAnd planted it with piles. So toil\u2019d the Greeks.\n\nThe Gods, that mighty labor, from beside\nThe Thunderer\u2019s throne with admiration view\u2019d,\nWhen Neptune, shaker of the shores, began.525\nEternal father! is there on the face\nOf all the boundless earth one mortal man\nWho will, in times to come, consult with heaven?\nSee\u2019st thou yon height of wall, and yon deep trench\nWith which the Grecians have their fleet inclosed,530\nAnd, careless of our blessing, hecatomb\nOr invocation have presented none?\nFar as the day-spring shoots herself abroad,\nSo far the glory of this work shall spread,\nWhile Ph\u0153bus and myself, who, toiling hard,535\nBuilt walls for king Laomedon, shall see\nForgotten all the labor of our hands.\nTo whom, indignant, thus high-thundering Jove.\nOh thou, who shakest the solid earth at will,\nWhat hast thou spoken? An inferior power,540\nA god of less sufficiency than thou,\nMight be allowed some fear from such a cause.\nFear not. Where\u2019er the morning shoots her beams,\nThy glory shall be known; and when the Greeks\nShall seek their country through the waves again,545\nThen break this bulwark down, submerge it whole,\nAnd spreading deep with sand the spacious shore\nAs at the first, leave not a trace behind.\nSuch conference held the Gods; and now the sun\nWent down, and, that great work perform\u2019d, the Greeks550\nFrom tent to tent slaughter\u2019d the fatted ox\nAnd ate their evening cheer. Meantime arrived\nLarge fleet with Lemnian wine; Euneus, son\nOf Jason and Hypsipile, that fleet\nFrom Lemnos freighted, and had stow\u2019d on board555\nA thousand measures from the rest apart\nFor the Atrid\u00e6; but the host at large\nBy traffic were supplied; some barter\u2019d brass,\nOthers bright steel; some purchased wine with hides,\nThese with their cattle, with their captives those,560\nAnd the whole host prepared a glad regale.\nAll night the Grecians feasted, and the host\nOf Ilium, and all night deep-planning Jove\nPortended dire calamities to both,\nThundering tremendous!\u2014Pale was every cheek;565\nEach pour\u2019d his goblet on the ground, nor dared\nThe hardiest drink, till he had first perform\u2019d\nLibation meet to the Saturnian King\nOmnipotent; then, all retiring, sought\nTheir couches, and partook the gift of sleep.570\n\n\n\n\nBOOK VIII.\n\n\nARGUMENT OF THE EIGHTH BOOK.\n\nJove calls a council, in which he forbids all interference of the Gods\nbetween the Greeks and Trojans. He repairs to Ida, where, having\nconsulted the scales of destiny, he directs his lightning against the\nGrecians. Nestor is endangered by the death of one of his horses.\nDiomede delivers him. In the chariot of Diomede they both hasten to\nengage Hector, whose charioteer is slain by Diomede. Jupiter again\ninterposes by his thunders, and the whole Grecian host, discomfited, is\nobliged to seek refuge within the rampart. Diomede, with others, at\nsight of a favorable omen sent from Jove in answer to Agamemnon\u2019s\nprayer, sallies. Teucer performs great exploits, but is disabled by\nHector. Juno and Pallas set forth from Olympus in aid of the Grecians,\nbut are stopped by Jupiter, who reascends from Ida, and in heaven\nforetells the distresses which await the Grecians.\n\nHector takes measures for the security of Troy during the night, and\nprepares his host for an assault to be made on the Grecian camp in the\nmorning.\n\n\nBOOK VIII.\n\n\nThe saffron-mantled morning[1] now was spread\nO\u2019er all the nations, when the Thunderer Jove\nOn the deep-fork\u2019d Olympian topmost height\nConvened the Gods in council, amid whom\nHe spake himself; they all attentive heard.5\nGods! Goddesses! Inhabitants of heaven!\nAttend; I make my secret purpose known.\nLet neither God nor Goddess interpose\nMy counsel to rescind, but with one heart\nApprove it, that it reach, at once, its end.10\nWhom I shall mark soever from the rest\nWithdrawn, that he may Greeks or Trojans aid,\nDisgrace shall find him; shamefully chastised\nHe shall return to the Olympian heights,\nOr I will hurl him deep into the gulfs15\nOf gloomy Tartarus, where Hell shuts fast\nHer iron gates, and spreads her brazen floor,\nAs far below the shades, as earth from heaven.\nThere shall he learn how far I pass in might\nAll others; which if ye incline to doubt,20\nNow prove me. Let ye down the golden chain[2]\nFrom heaven, and at its nether links pull all,\nBoth Goddesses and Gods. But me your King,\nSupreme in wisdom, ye shall never draw\nTo earth from heaven, toil adverse as ye may.25\nYet I, when once I shall be pleased to pull,\nThe earth itself, itself the sea, and you\nWill lift with ease together, and will wind\nThe chain around the spiry summit sharp\nOf the Olympian, that all things upheaved30\nShall hang in the mid heaven. So far do I,\nCompared with all who live, transcend them all.\nHe ended, and the Gods long time amazed\nSat silent, for with awful tone he spake:\nBut at the last Pallas blue-eyed began.35\nFather! Saturnian Jove! of Kings supreme!\nWe know thy force resistless; but our hearts\nFeel not the less, when we behold the Greeks\nExhausting all the sorrows of their lot.\nIf thou command, we, doubtless, will abstain40\nFrom battle, yet such counsel to the Greeks\nSuggesting still, as may in part effect\nTheir safety, lest thy wrath consume them all.\nTo whom with smiles answer\u2019d cloud-gatherer Jove.\nFear not, my child! stern as mine accent was,45\nI forced a frown\u2014no more. For in mine heart\nNought feel I but benevolence to thee.\nHe said, and to his chariot join\u2019d his steeds\nSwift, brazen-hoof\u2019d, and mailed with wavy gold;\nHe put on golden raiment, his bright scourge50\nOf gold receiving rose into his seat,\nAnd lash\u2019d his steeds; they not unwilling flew\nMidway the earth between and starry heaven.\nTo spring-fed Ida, mother of wild beasts,\nHe came, where stands in Gargarus[3] his shrine55\nBreathing fresh incense! there the Sire of all\nArriving, loosed his coursers, and around\nInvolving them in gather\u2019d clouds opaque,\nSat on the mountain\u2019s head, in his own might\nExulting, with the towers of Ilium all60\nBeneath his eye, and the whole fleet of Greece.\nIn all their tents, meantime, Achaia\u2019s sons\nTook short refreshment, and for fight prepared.\nOn the other side, though fewer, yet constrain\u2019d\nBy strong necessity, throughout all Troy,65\nIn the defence of children and wives\nArdent, the Trojans panted for the field.\nWide flew the city gates: forth rush\u2019d to war\nHorsemen and foot, and tumult wild arose.\nThey met, they clash\u2019d; loud was the din of spears70\nAnd bucklers on their bosoms brazen-mail\u2019d\nEncountering, shields in opposition from\nMet bossy shields, and tumult wild arose.[4]\nThere many a shout and many a dying groan\nWere heard, the slayer and the maim\u2019d aloud75\nClamoring, and the earth was drench\u2019d with blood.\nTill sacred morn[5] had brighten\u2019d into noon,\nThe vollied weapons on both sides their task\nPerform\u2019d effectual, and the people fell.\nBut when the sun had climb\u2019d the middle skies,80\nThe Sire of all then took his golden scales;[6]\nDoom against doom he weigh\u2019d, the eternal fates\nIn counterpoise, of Trojans and of Greeks.\nHe rais\u2019d the beam; low sank the heavier lot\nOf the Achaians; the Achaian doom85\nSubsided, and the Trojan struck the skies.\nThen roar\u2019d the thunders from the summit hurl\u2019d\nof Ida, and his vivid lightnings flew\nInto Achaia\u2019s host. They at the sight\nAstonish\u2019d stood; fear whiten\u2019d every cheek.[7]90\nIdomeneus dared not himself abide\nThat shock, nor Agamemnon stood, nor stood\nThe heroes Ajax, ministers of Mars.\nGerenian Nestor, guardian of the Greeks,\nAlone fled not, nor he by choice remain\u2019d,95\nBut by his steed retarded, which the mate\nOf beauteous Helen, Paris, with a shaft\nHad stricken where the forelock grows, a part\nOf all most mortal. Tortured by the wound\nErect he rose, the arrow in his brain,100\nAnd writhing furious, scared his fellow-steeds.\nMeantime, while, strenuous, with his falchion\u2019s edge\nThe hoary warrior stood slashing the reins,\nThrough multitudes of fierce pursuers borne\nOn rapid wheels, the dauntless charioteer105\nApproach\u2019d him, Hector. Then, past hope, had died\nThe ancient King, but Diomede discern\u2019d\nHis peril imminent, and with a voice\nLike thunder, called Ulysses to his aid.\nLaertes\u2019 noble son, for wiles renown\u2019d!110\nArt thou too fugitive, and turn\u2019st thy back\nLike the base multitude? Ah! fear a lance\nImplanted ignominious in thy spine.\nStop\u2014Nestor dies. Fell Hector is at hand.\nSo shouted Diomede, whose summons loud,115\nUlysses yet heard not, but, passing, flew\nWith headlong haste to the Achaian fleet.\nThen, Diomede, unaided as he was,\nRush\u2019d ardent to the vanward, and before\nThe steeds of the Neleian sovereign old120\nStanding, in accents wing\u2019d, him thus address\u2019d.\nOld Chief! these youthful warriors are too brisk\nFor thee, press\u2019d also by encroaching age,\nThy servant too is feeble, and thy steeds\nAre tardy. Mount my chariot. Thou shalt see125\nWith what rapidity the steeds of Troy,\nPursuing or retreating, scour the field.\nI took them from that terror of his foes,\n\u00c6neas. Thine to our attendants leave,\nWhile these against the warlike powers of Troy130\nWe push direct; that Hector\u2019s self may know\nIf my spear rage not furious as his own.\nHe said, nor the Gerenian Chief refused.\nThenceforth their servants, Sthenelus and good\nEurymedon, took charge of Nestor\u2019s steeds,135\nAnd they the chariot of Tydides both\nAscended; Nestor seized the reins, plied well\nThe scourge, and soon they met. Tydides hurl\u2019d\nAt Hector first, while rapid he advanced;\nBut missing Hector, wounded in the breast140\nEniopeus his charioteer, the son\nOf brave Theb\u00e6us, managing the steeds.\nHe fell; his fiery coursers at the sound\nStartled, recoil\u2019d, and where he fell he died.\nDeep sorrow for his charioteer o\u2019erwhelm\u2019d145\nThe mind of Hector; yet, although he mourn\u2019d\nHe left him, and another sought as brave.\nNor wanted long his steeds a charioteer,\nFor finding soon the son of Iphitus,\nBold Archeptolemus, he bade him mount150\nHis chariot, and the reins gave to his hand.\nThen deeds of bloodiest note should have ensued,\nPenn\u2019d had the Trojans been, as lambs, in Troy,\nBut for quick succor of the sire of all.\nThundering, he downward hurled his candent bolt155\nTo the horse-feet of Diomede; dire fumed\nThe flaming sulphur, and both horses drove\nUnder the axle, belly to the ground.\nForth flew the splendid reins from Nestor\u2019s hand,\nAnd thus to Diomede, appall\u2019d, he spake.160\n\nBack to the fleet, Tydides! Can\u2019st not see\nThat Jove ordains not, now, the victory thine?\nThe son of Saturn glorifies to-day\nThis Trojan, and, if such his will, can make\nThe morrow ours; but vain it is to thwart165\nThe mind of Jove, for he is Lord of all.\nTo him the valiant Diomede replied.\nThou hast well said, old warrior! but the pang\nThat wrings my soul, is this. The public ear\nIn Ilium shall from Hector\u2019s lips be told\u2014170\nI drove Tydides\u2014fearing me he fled.\nSo shall he vaunt, and may the earth her jaws\nThat moment opening swallow me alive!\nHim answer\u2019d the Gerenian warrior old.\nWhat saith the son of Tydeus, glorious Chief?175\nShould Hector so traduce thee as to call\nThee base and timid, neither Trojan him\nNor Dardan would believe, nor yet the wives\nOf numerous shielded warriors brave of Troy,\nWidow\u2019d by thy unconquerable arm.180\nSo saying, he through the fugitives his steeds\nTurn\u2019d swift to flight. Then Hector and his host\nWith clamor infinite their darts wo-wing\u2019d\nShower\u2019d after them, and Hector, mighty Chief\nMajestic, from afar, thus call\u2019d aloud.185\nTydides! thee the Dana\u00ef swift-horsed\nWere wont to grace with a superior seat,\nThe mess of honor, and the brimming cup,\nBut now will mock thee. Thou art woman now.\nGo, timorous girl! Thou never shalt behold190\nMe flying, climb our battlements, or lead\nOur women captive. I will slay thee first.\nHe ceased. Then Diomede in dread suspense\nThrice purposed, turning, to withstand the foe,\nAnd thrice in thunder from the mountain-top195\nJove gave the signal of success to Troy.\nWhen Hector thus the Trojans hail\u2019d aloud.\nTrojans and Lycians, and close-warring sons\nOf Dardanus, oh summon all your might,\nNow, now be men! I know that from his heart200\nSaturnian Jove glory and bright success\nFor me prepares, but havoc for the Greeks.\nFools! they shall find this wall which they have raised\nToo weak to check my course, a feeble guard\nContemptible; such also is the trench;205\nMy steeds shall slight it with an easy leap.\nBut when ye see me in their fleet arrived,\nRemember fire. Then bring me flaming brands\nThat I may burn their galleys and themselves\nSlaughter beside them, struggling in the smoke.[8]210\nHe spake, and thus encouraged next his steeds.\nXanthus! Podargus! and ye generous pair\n\u00c6thon and glossy Lampus! now requite\nMine, and the bounty of Andromache,\nFar-famed E\u00ebtion\u2019s daughter; she your bowl215\nWith corn fresh-flavor\u2019d and with wine full oft\nHath mingled, your refreshment seeking first\nEre mine, who have a youthful husband\u2019s claim.[9]\nNow follow! now be swift; that we may seize\nThe shield of Nestor, bruited to the skies220\nAs golden all, trappings and disk alike.\nNow from the shoulders of the equestrian Chief\nTydides tear we off his splendid mail,\nThe work of Vulcan.[10] May we take but these,\nI have good hope that, ere this night be spent,225\nThe Greeks shall climb their galleys and away.\nSo vaunted he, but Juno with disdain\nHis proud boast heard, and shuddering in her throne,\nRock\u2019d the Olympian; turning then toward\nThe Ocean\u2019s mighty sovereign, thus she spake.230\nAlas! earth-shaking sovereign of the waves,\nFeel\u2019st thou no pity of the perishing Greeks?\nYet Greece, in Helice, with gifts nor few\nNor sordid, and in \u00c6g\u00e6, honors thee,\nWhom therefore thou shouldst prosper. Would we all235\nWho favor Greece associate to repulse\nThe Trojans, and to check loud-thundering Jove,\nOn Ida seated he might lour alone.\nTo whom the Sovereign, Shaker of the Shores,\nIndignant. Juno! rash in speech! what word240\nHath \u2019scaped thy lips? never, with my consent,\nShall we, the powers subordinate, in arms\nWith Jove contend. He far excels us all.\nSo they. Meantime, the trench and wall between,[11]\nThe narrow interval with steeds was fill\u2019d245\nClose throng\u2019d and shielded warriors. There immew\u2019d\nBy Priameian Hector, fierce as Mars,\nThey stood, for Hector had the help of Jove.\nAnd now with blazing fire their gallant barks\nHe had consumed, but Juno moved the mind250\nOf Agamemnon, vigilant himself,\nTo exhortation of Achaia\u2019s host.\nThrough camp and fleet the monarch took his way,\nAnd, his wide robe imperial in his hand,\nHigh on Ulysses\u2019 huge black galley stood,255\nThe central ship conspicuous; thence his voice\nMight reach the most remote of all the line\nAt each extreme, where Ajax had his tent\nPitch\u2019d, and Achilles, fearless of surprise.\nThence, with loud voice, the Grecians thus he hail\u2019d.260\nOh shame to Greece! Warriors in show alone!\nWhere is your boasted prowess? Ye profess\u2019d\nVain-glorious erst in Lemnos, while ye fed\nPlenteously on the flesh of beeves full-grown,\nAnd crown\u2019d your beakers high, that ye would face265\nEach man a hundred Trojans in the field\u2014\nAy, twice a hundred\u2014yet are all too few\nTo face one Hector now; nor doubt I aught\nBut he shall soon fire the whole fleet of Greece.\nJove! Father! what great sovereign ever felt270\nThy frowns as I? Whom hast thou shamed as me?\nYet I neglected not, through all the course\nOf our disasterous voyage (in the hope\nThat we should vanquish Troy) thy sacred rites,\nBut where I found thine altar, piled it high275\nWith fat and flesh of bulls, on every shore.\nBut oh, vouchsafe to us, that we at least\nOurselves, deliver\u2019d, may escape the sword,\nNor let their foes thus tread the Grecians down!\nHe said. The eternal father pitying saw280\nHis tears, and for the monarch\u2019s sake preserved\nThe people. Instant, surest of all signs,\nHe sent his eagle; in his pounces strong\nA fawn he bore, fruit of the nimble hind,\nWhich fast beside the beauteous altar raised285\nTo Panomph\u00e6an[12] Jove sudden he dropp\u2019d.[13]\nThey, conscious, soon, that sent from Jove he came,\nMore ardent sprang to fight. Then none of all\nThose numerous Chiefs could boast that he outstripp\u2019d\nTydides, urging forth beyond the foss290\nHis rapid steeds, and rushing to the war.\nHe, foremost far, a Trojan slew, the son\nOf Phradmon, Agel\u00e4us; as he turn\u2019d\nHis steeds to flight, him turning with his spear\nThrough back and bosom Diomede transpierced.295\nAnd with loud clangor of his arms he fell.\nThen, royal Agamemnon pass\u2019d the trench\nAnd Menelaus; either Ajax, then,\nClad with fresh prowess both; them follow\u2019d, next,\nIdomeneus, with his heroic friend300\nIn battle dread as homicidal Mars,\nMeriones; Ev\u00e6mon\u2019s son renown\u2019d\nSucceeded, bold Eurypylus; and ninth\nTeucer, wide-straining his impatient bow.\nHe under covert fought of the broad shield305\nOf Telamonian Ajax; Ajax high\nUpraised his shield; the hero from beneath\nTook aim, and whom his arrow struck, he fell;\nThen close as to his mother\u2019s side a child\nFor safety creeps, Teucer to Ajax\u2019 side310\nRetired, and Ajax shielded him again.\nWhom then slew Teucer first, illustrious Chief?\nOrsilochus, and Ophelestes, first,\nAnd Ormenus he slew, then D\u00e6tor died,\nChromius and Lycophontes brave in fight315\nWith Amopaon Poly\u00e6mon\u2019s son,\nAnd Melanippus. These, together heap\u2019d,\nAll fell by Teucer on the plain of Troy.\nThe Trojan ranks thinn\u2019d by his mighty bow\nThe King of armies Agamemnon saw320\nWell-pleased, and him approaching, thus began.\nBrave Telamonian Teucer, oh, my friend,\nThus shoot, that light may visit once again\nThe Dana\u00ef, and Telamon rejoice!\nThee Telamon within his own abode325\nRear\u2019d although spurious; mount him, in return,\nAlthough remote, on glory\u2019s heights again.\nI tell thee, and the effect shall follow sure,\nLet but the Thunderer and Minerva grant\nThe pillage of fair Ilium to the Greeks,330\nAnd I will give to thy victorious hand,\nAfter my own, the noblest recompense,\nA tripod or a chariot with its steeds,\nOr some fair captive to partake thy bed.\nTo whom the generous Teucer thus replied.335\nAtrides! glorious monarch! wherefore me\nExhortest thou to battle? who myself\nGlow with sufficient ardor, and such strength\nAs heaven affords me spare not to employ.\nSince first we drove them back, with watchful eye340\nTheir warriors I have mark\u2019d; eight shafts my bow\nHath sent long-barb\u2019d, and every shaft, well-aim\u2019d.\nThe body of some Trojan youth robust\nHath pierced, but still you ravening wolf escapes.\nHe said, and from the nerve another shaft345\nImpatient sent at Hector; but it flew\nDevious, and brave Gorgythion struck instead.\nHim beautiful Castianira, brought\nBy Priam from \u00c6syma, nymph of form\nCelestial, to the King of Ilium bore.350\nAs in the garden, with the weight surcharged\nOf its own fruit, and drench\u2019d by vernal rains\nThe poppy falls oblique, so he his head\nHung languid, by his helmet\u2019s weight depress\u2019d.[14]\nThen Teucer yet an arrow from the nerve355\nDispatch\u2019d at Hector, with impatience fired\nTo pierce him; but again his weapon err\u2019d\nTurn\u2019d by Apollo, and the bosom struck\nOf Archeptolemus, his rapid steeds\nTo battle urging, Hector\u2019s charioteer.360\nHe fell, his fiery coursers at the sound\nRecoil\u2019d, and lifeless where he fell he lay.\nDeep sorrow for his charioteer the mind\nO\u2019erwhelm\u2019d of Hector, yet he left the slain,\nAnd seeing his own brother nigh at hand,365\nCebriones, him summon\u2019d to the reins,\nWho with alacrity that charge received.\nThen Hector, leaping with a dreadful shout\nFrom his resplendent chariot, grasp\u2019d a stone,\nAnd rush\u2019d on Teucer, vengeance in his heart.370\nTeucer had newly fitted to the nerve\nAn arrow keen selected from the rest,\nAnd warlike Hector, while he stood the cord\nRetracting, smote him with that rugged rock\nJust where the key-bone interposed divides375\nThe neck and bosom, a most mortal part.\nIt snapp\u2019d the bow-string, and with numbing force\nStruck dead his hand; low on his knees he dropp\u2019d,\nAnd from his opening grasp let fall the bow.\nThen not unmindful of a brother fallen380\nWas Ajax, but, advancing rapid, stalk\u2019d\nAround him, and his broad shield interposed,\nTill brave Alaster and Mecisteus, son\nOf Echius, friends of Teucer, from the earth\nUpraised and bore him groaning to the fleet.385\nAnd now again fresh force Olympian Jove\nGave to the Trojans; right toward the foss\nThey drove the Greeks, while Hector in the van\nAdvanced, death menacing in every look.\nAs some fleet hound close-threatening flank or haunch390\nOf boar or lion, oft as he his head\nTurns flying, marks him with a steadfast eye,\nSo Hector chased the Grecians, slaying still\nThe hindmost of the scatter\u2019d multitude.\nBut when, at length, both piles and hollow foss395\nThey had surmounted, and no few had fallen\nBy Trojan hands, within their fleet they stood\nImprison\u2019d, calling each to each, and prayer\nWith lifted hands, loud offering to the Gods.\nWith Gorgon looks, meantime, and eyes of Mars,400\nHector impetuous his mane-tossing steeds\nFrom side to side before the rampart drove,\nWhen white-arm\u2019d Juno pitying the Greeks,\nIn accents wing\u2019d her speech to Pallas turn\u2019d.\nAlas, Jove\u2019s daughter! shall not we at least405\nIn this extremity of their distress\nCare for the Grecians by the fatal force\nOf this one Chief destroy\u2019d? I can endure\nThe rage of Priame\u00efan Hector now\nNo longer; such dire mischiefs he hath wrought.410\nWhom answer\u2019d thus Pallas, c\u00e6rulean-eyed.\n\u2014And Hector had himself long since his life\nResign\u2019d and rage together, by the Greeks\nSlain under Ilium\u2019s walls, but Jove, my sire,\nMad counsels executing and perverse,415\nMe counterworks in all that I attempt,\nNor aught remembers how I saved ofttimes\nHis son enjoin\u2019d full many a task severe\nBy King Eurystheus; to the Gods he wept,\nAnd me Jove sent in haste to his relief.420\nBut had I then foreseen what now I know,\nWhen through the adamantine gates he pass\u2019d\nTo bind the dog of hell, by the deep floods\nHemm\u2019d in of Styx, he had return\u2019d no more.\nBut Thetis wins him now; her will prevails,425\nAnd mine he hates; for she hath kiss\u2019d his knees\nAnd grasp\u2019d his beard, and him in prayer implored\nThat he would honor her heroic son\nAchilles, city-waster prince renown\u2019d.\n\u2019Tis well\u2014the day shall come when Jove again430\nShall call me darling, and his blue-eyed maid\nAs heretofore;\u2014but thou thy steeds prepare,\nWhile I, my father\u2019s mansion entering, arm\nFor battle. I would learn by trial sure,\nIf Hector, Priam\u2019s offspring famed in fight435\n(Ourselves appearing in the walks of war)\nWill greet us gladly. Doubtless at the fleet\nSome Trojan also, shall to dogs resign\nHis flesh for food, and to the fowls of heaven.\n\nSo counsell\u2019d Pallas, nor the daughter dread440\nOf mighty Saturn, Juno, disapproved,\nBut busily and with dispatch prepared\nThe trappings of her coursers golden-rein\u2019d.\nMeantime, Minerva progeny of Jove,\nOn the adamantine floor of his abode445\nLet fall profuse her variegated robe,\nLabor of her own hands. She first put on\nThe corslet of the cloud-assembler God,\nThen arm\u2019d her for the field of wo, complete.\nMounting the fiery chariot, next she seized450\nHer ponderous spear, huge, irresistible,\nWith which Jove\u2019s awful daughter levels ranks\nOf heroes against whom her anger burns.\nJuno with lifted lash urged on the steeds.\nAt their approach, spontaneous roar\u2019d the wide-455\nUnfolding gates of heaven; the heavenly gates\nKept by the watchful Hours, to whom the charge\nOf the Olympian summit appertains,\nAnd of the boundless ether, back to roll,\nAnd to replace the cloudy barrier dense.460\nSpurr\u2019d through the portal flew the rapid steeds:\nWhich when the Eternal Father from the heights\nOf Ida saw, kindling with instant ire\nTo golden-pinion\u2019d Iris thus he spake.\nHaste, Iris, turn them thither whence they came;465\nMe let them not encounter; honor small\nTo them, to me, should from that strife accrue.\nTell them, and the effect shall sure ensue,\nThat I will smite their steeds, and they shall halt\nDisabled; break their chariot, dash themselves470\nHeadlong, and ten whole years shall not efface\nThe wounds by my avenging bolts impress\u2019d.\nSo shall my blue-eyed daughter learn to dread\nA father\u2019s anger; but for the offence\nOf Juno, I resent it less; for she475\nClashes[15] with all my counsels from of old.\nHe ended; Iris with a tempest\u2019s speed\nFrom the Id\u00e6an summit soar\u2019d at once\nTo the Olympian; at the open gates\nExterior of the mountain many-valed480\nShe stayed them, and her coming thus declared.\nWhither, and for what cause? What rage is this?\nYe may not aid the Grecians; Jove forbids;\nThe son of Saturn threatens, if ye force\nHis wrath by perseverance into act,485\nThat he will smite your steeds, and they shall halt\nDisabled; break your chariot, dash yourselves\nHeadlong, and ten whole years shall not efface\nThe wounds by his avenging bolts impress\u2019d.\nSo shall his blue-eyed daughter learn to dread490\nA father\u2019s anger; but for the offence\nOf Juno, he resents it less; for she\nClashes with all his counsels from of old.\nBut thou, Minerva, if thou dare indeed\nLift thy vast spear against the breast of Jove,495\nIncorrigible art and dead to shame.\nSo saying, the rapid Iris disappear\u2019d,\nAnd thus her speech to Pallas Juno turn\u2019d.\nAh Pallas, progeny of Jove! henceforth\nNo longer, in the cause of mortal men,500\nContend we against Jove. Perish or live\nGrecians or Trojans as he wills; let him\nDispose the order of his own concerns,\nAnd judge between them, as of right he may.\nSo saying, she turn\u2019d the coursers; them the Hours505\nReleased, and to ambrosial mangers bound,\nThen thrust their chariot to the luminous wall.\nThey, mingling with the Gods, on golden thrones\nDejected sat, and Jove from Ida borne\nReach\u2019d the Olympian heights, seat of the Gods.510\nHis steeds the glorious King of Ocean loosed,\nAnd thrust the chariot, with its veil o\u2019erspread.\nInto its station at the altar\u2019s side.\nThen sat the Thunderer on his throne of gold\nHimself, and the huge mountain shook. Meantime515\nJuno and Pallas, seated both apart,\nSpake not or question\u2019d him. Their mute reserve\nHe noticed, conscious of the cause, and said.\nJuno and Pallas, wherefore sit ye sad?\nNot through fatigue by glorious fight incurr\u2019d520\nAnd slaughter of the Trojans whom ye hate.\nMark now the difference. Not the Gods combined\nShould have constrain\u2019d _me_ back, till all my force,\nSuperior as it is, had fail\u2019d, and all\nMy fortitude. But ye, ere ye beheld525\nThe wonders of the field, trembling retired.\nAnd ye did well\u2014Hear what had else befallen.\nMy bolts had found you both, and ye had reach\u2019d,\nIn your own chariot borne, the Olympian height,\nSeat of the blest Immortals, never more.530\nHe ended; Juno and Minerva heard\nLow murmuring deep disgust, and side by side\nDevising sat calamity to Troy.\nMinerva, through displeasure against Jove,\nNought utter\u2019d, for her bosom boil\u2019d with rage;535\nBut Juno check\u2019d not hers, who thus replied.\nWhat word hath pass\u2019d thy lips, Jove most severe?\nWe know thy force resistless; yet our hearts\nFeel not the less when we behold the Greeks\nExhausting all the sorrows of their lot.540\nIf thou command, we doubtless will abstain\nFrom battle, yet such counsel to the Greeks\nSuggesting still, as may in part effect\nTheir safety, lest thy wrath consume them all.\nThen answer, thus, cloud-gatherer Jove return\u2019d.545\nLook forth, imperial Juno, if thou wilt,\nTo-morrow at the blush of earliest dawn,\nAnd thou shalt see Saturn\u2019s almighty son\nThe Argive host destroying far and wide.\nFor Hector\u2019s fury shall admit no pause550\nTill he have roused Achilles, in that day\nWhen at the ships, in perilous straits, the hosts\nShall wage fierce battle for Patroclus slain.\nSuch is the voice of fate. But, as for thee\u2014\nWithdraw thou to the confines of the abyss555\nWhere Saturn and I\u00e4petus retired,\nExclusion sad endure from balmy airs\nAnd from the light of morn, hell-girt around,\nI will not call thee thence. No. Should thy rage\nTransport thee thither, there thou may\u2019st abide,560\nThere sullen nurse thy disregarded spleen\nObstinate as thou art, and void of shame.\nHe ended; to whom Juno nought replied.\nAnd now the radiant Sun in Ocean sank,\nDrawing night after him o\u2019er all the earth;565\nNight, undesired by Troy, but to the Greeks\nThrice welcome for its interposing gloom.\nThen Hector on the river\u2019s brink fast by\nThe Grecian fleet, where space he found unstrew\u2019d\nWith carcases convened the Chiefs of Troy.570\nThey, there dismounting, listen\u2019d to the words\nOf Hector Jove-beloved; he grasp\u2019d a spear\nIn length eleven cubits, bright its head\nOf brass, and color\u2019d with a ring of gold.\nHe lean\u2019d on it, and ardent thus began.575\nTrojans, Dardanians, and allies of Troy!\nI hoped, this evening (every ship consumed,\nAnd all the Grecians slain) to have return\u2019d\nTo wind-swept Ilium. But the shades of night\nHave intervened, and to the night they owe,580\nIn chief, their whole fleet\u2019s safety and their own.\nNow, therefore, as the night enjoins, all take\nNeedful refreshment. Your high-mettled steeds\nRelease, lay food before them, and in haste\nDrive hither from the city fatted sheep585\nAnd oxen; bring ye from your houses bread,\nMake speedy purchase of heart-cheering wine,\nAnd gather fuel plenteous; that all night,\nE\u2019en till Aurora, daughter of the morn\nShall look abroad, we may with many fires590\nIllume the skies; lest even in the night,\nLaunching, they mount the billows and escape.\nBeware that they depart not unannoy\u2019d,\nBut, as he leaps on board, give each a wound\nWith shaft or spear, which he shall nurse at home.595\nSo shall the nations fear us, and shall vex\nWith ruthless war Troy\u2019s gallant sons no more.\nNext, let the heralds, ministers of Jove,\nLoud notice issue that the boys well-grown,\nAnd ancients silver-hair\u2019d on the high towers600\nBuilt by the Gods, keep watch; on every hearth\nIn Troy, let those of the inferior sex\nMake sprightly blaze, and place ye there a guard\nSufficient, lest in absence of the troops\nAn ambush enter, and surprise the town.605\nAct thus, ye dauntless Trojans; the advice\nIs wholesome, and shall serve the present need,\nAnd so much for the night; ye shall be told\nThe business of the morn when morn appears.\nIt is my prayer to Jove and to all heaven610\n(Not without hope) that I may hence expel\nThese dogs, whom Ilium\u2019s unpropitious fates\nHave wafted hither in their sable barks.\nBut we will also watch this night, ourselves,\nAnd, arming with the dawn, will at their ships615\nGive them brisk onset. Then shall it appear\nIf Diomede the brave shall me compel\nBack to our walls, or I, his arms blood-stain\u2019d,\nTorn from his breathless body, bear away.\nTo-morrow, if he dare but to abide620\nMy lance, he shall not want occasion meet\nFor show of valor. But much more I judge\nThat the next rising sun shall see him slain\nWith no few friends around him. Would to heaven!\nI were as sure to \u2019scape the blight of age625\nAnd share their honors with the Gods above,\nAs comes the morrow fraught with wo to Greece.\nSo Hector, whom his host with loud acclaim\nAll praised. Then each his sweating steeds released,\nAnd rein\u2019d them safely at his chariot-side.630\nAnd now from Troy provision large they brought,\nOxen, and sheep, with store of wine and bread,\nAnd fuel much was gather\u2019d. [16]Next the Gods\nWith sacrifice they sought, and from the plain\nUpwafted by the winds the smoke aspired635\nSavoury, but unacceptable to those\nAbove; such hatred in their hearts they bore\nTo Priam, to the people of the brave\nSpear-practised Priam, and to sacred Troy.\nBig with great purposes and proud, they sat,640\nNot disarray\u2019d, but in fair form disposed\nOf even ranks, and watch\u2019d their numerous fires,\nAs when around the clear bright moon, the stars\nShine in full splendor, and the winds are hush\u2019d,\nThe groves, the mountain-tops, the headland-heights645\nStand all apparent, not a vapor streaks\nThe boundless blue, but ether open\u2019d wide\nAll glitters, and the shepherd\u2019s heart is cheer\u2019d;[17]\nSo numerous seem\u2019d those fires the bank between\nOf Xanthus, blazing, and the fleet of Greece,650\nIn prospect all of Troy; a thousand fires,\nEach watch\u2019d by fifty warriors seated near.\nThe steeds beside the chariots stood, their corn\nChewing, and waiting till the golden-throned\nAurora should restore the light of day.655\n\n\n\n\nBOOK IX.\n\n\nARGUMENT OF THE NINTH BOOK.\n\nBy advice of Nestor, Agamemnon sends Ulysses, Ph\u0153nix, and Ajax to the\ntent of Achilles with proposals of reconciliation. They execute their\ncommission, but without effect. Ph\u0153nix remains with Achilles; Ulysses\nand Ajax return.\n\n\nBOOK IX.\n\n\nSo watch\u2019d the Trojan host; but thoughts of flight,\nCompanions of chill fear, from heaven infused,\nPossess\u2019d the Grecians; every leader\u2019s heart\nBled, pierced with anguish insupportable.\nAs when two adverse winds blowing from Thrace,5\nBoreas and Zephyrus, the fishy Deep\nVex sudden, all around, the sable flood\nHigh curl\u2019d, flings forth the salt weed on the shore\nSuch tempest rent the mind of every Greek.\n  Forth stalk\u2019d Atrides with heart-riving wo10\nTransfixt; he bade his heralds call by name\nEach Chief to council, but without the sound\nOf proclamation; and that task himself\nAmong the foremost sedulous perform\u2019d.\nThe sad assembly sat; when weeping fast15\nAs some deep[1] fountain pours its rapid stream\nDown from the summit of a lofty rock,\nKing Agamemnon in the midst arose,\nAnd, groaning, the Achaians thus address\u2019d.\n  Friends, counsellors and leaders of the Greeks!20\nIn dire perplexity Saturnian Jove\nInvolves me, cruel; he assured me erst,\nAnd solemnly, that I should not return\nTill I had wasted wall-encircled Troy;\nBut now (ah fraudulent and foul reverse!)25\nCommands me back inglorious to the shores\nOf distant Argos, with diminish\u2019d troops.\nSo stands the purpose of almighty Jove,\nWho many a citadel hath laid in dust,\nAnd shall hereafter, matchless in his power.30\nHaste therefore. My advice is, that we all\nFly with our fleet into our native land,\nFor wide-built Ilium shall not yet be ours.\n  He ceased, and all sat silent; long the sons\nOf Greece, o\u2019erwhelm\u2019d with sorrow, silent sat,35\nWhen thus, at last, bold Diomede began.\n  Atrides! foremost of the Chiefs I rise\nTo contravert thy purpose ill-conceived,\nAnd with such freedom as the laws, O King!\nOf consultation and debate allow.40\nHear patient. Thou hast been thyself the first\nWho e\u2019er reproach\u2019d me in the public ear\nAs one effeminate and slow to fight;\nHow truly, let both young and old decide.\nThe son of wily Saturn hath to thee45\nGiven, and refused; he placed thee high in power,\nGave thee to sway the sceptre o\u2019er us all,\nBut courage gave thee not, his noblest gift.[2]\nArt thou in truth persuaded that the Greeks\nAre pusillanimous, as thou hast said?50\nIf thy own fears impel thee to depart,\nGo thou, the way is open; numerous ships,\nThy followers from Mycen\u00e6, line the shore.\nBut we, the rest, depart not, till the spoil\nOf Troy reward us. Or if all incline55\nTo seek again their native home, fly all;\nMyself and Sthenelus will persevere\nTill Ilium fall, for with the Gods we came.\n  He ended; all the admiring sons of Greece\nWith shouts the warlike Diomede extoll\u2019d,60\nWhen thus equestrian Nestor next began.\n  Tydides, thou art eminently brave\nIn fight, and all the princes of thy years\nExcell\u2019st in council. None of all the Greeks\nShall find occasion just to blame thy speech65\nOr to gainsay; yet thou hast fallen short.\nWhat wonder? Thou art young; and were myself\nThy father, thou should\u2019st be my latest born.\nYet when thy speech is to the Kings of Greece,\nIt is well-framed and prudent. Now attend!70\nMyself will speak, who have more years to boast\nThan thou hast seen, and will so closely scan\nThe matter, that Atrides, our supreme,\nHimself shall have no cause to censure _me_.\nHe is a wretch, insensible and dead75\nTo all the charities of social life,\nWhose pleasure is in civil broils alone.[3]\nBut Night is urgent, and with Night\u2019s demands\nLet all comply. Prepare we now repast,\nAnd let the guard be stationed at the trench80\nWithout the wall; the youngest shall supply\nThat service; next, Atrides, thou begin\n(For thou art here supreme) thy proper task.\nBanquet the elders; it shall not disgrace\nThy sovereignty, but shall become thee well.85\nThy tents are fill\u2019d with wine which day by day\nShips bring from Thrace; accommodation large\nHast thou, and numerous is thy menial train.\nThy many guests assembled, thou shalt hear\nOur counsel, and shalt choose the best; great need90\nHave all Achaia\u2019s sons, now, of advice\nMost prudent; for the foe, fast by the fleet\nHath kindled numerous fires, which who can see\nUnmoved? This night shall save us or destroy.[4]\n  He spake, whom all with full consent approved.95\nForth rush\u2019d the guard well-arm\u2019d; first went the son\nOf Nestor, Thrasymedes, valiant Chief;\nThen, sons of Mars, Ascalaphus advanced,\nAnd brave I\u00e4lmenus; whom follow\u2019d next\nDeipyrus, Aphareus, Meriones,100\nAnd Lycomedes, Creon\u2019s son renown\u2019d.\nSeven were the leaders of the guard, and each\nA hundred spearmen headed, young and bold.\nBetween the wall and trench their seat they chose,\nThere kindled fires, and each his food prepared.105\n  Atrides, then, to his pavilion led\nThe thronging Chiefs of Greece, and at his board\nRegaled them; they with readiness and keen\nDispatch of hunger shared the savory feast,\nAnd when nor thirst remain\u2019d nor hunger more110\nUnsated, Nestor then, arising first,\nWhose counsels had been ever wisest deem\u2019d,\nWarm for the public interest, thus began.\n  Atrides! glorious sovereign! King of men!\nThou art my first and last, proem and close,115\nFor thou art mighty, and to thee are given\nFrom Jove the sceptre and the laws in charge,\nFor the advancement of the general good.\nHence, in peculiar, both to speak and hear\nBecome thy duty, and the best advice,120\nBy whomsoever offer\u2019d, to adopt\nAnd to perform, for thou art judge alone.\nI will promulge the counsel which to me\nSeems wisest; such, that other Grecian none\nShall give thee better; neither is it new,125\nBut I have ever held it since the day\nWhen, most illustrious! thou wast pleased to take\nBy force the maid Brise\u00efs from the tent\nOf the enraged Achilles; not, in truth,\nBy my advice, who did dissuade thee much;130\nBut thou, complying with thy princely wrath,\nHast shamed a Hero whom themselves the Gods\nDelight to honor, and his prize detain\u2019st.\nYet even now contrive we, although late,\nBy lenient gifts liberal, and by speech135\nConciliatory, to assuage his ire.\n  Then answer\u2019d Agamemnon, King of men.\nOld Chief! there is no falsehood in thy charge;\nI have offended, and confess the wrong.\nThe warrior is alone a host, whom Jove140\nLoves as he loves Achilles, for whose sake\nHe hath Achaia\u2019s thousands thus subdued.\nBut if the impulse of a wayward mind\nObeying, I have err\u2019d, behold me, now,\nPrepared to soothe him with atonement large145\nOf gifts inestimable, which by name\nI will propound in presence of you all.\nSeven tripods, never sullied yet with fire;\nOf gold ten talents; twenty cauldrons bright;\nTwelve coursers, strong, victorious in the race;150\nNo man possessing prizes such as mine\nWhich they have won for me, shall feel the want\nOf acquisitions splendid or of gold.\nSeven virtuous female captives will I give\nExpert in arts domestic, Lesbians all,155\nWhom, when himself took Lesbos, I received\nMy chosen portion, passing womankind\nIn perfect loveliness of face and form.\nThese will I give, and will with these resign\nHer whom I took, Brise\u00efs, with an oath160\nMost solemn, that unconscious as she was\nOf my embraces, such I yield her his.\nAll these I give him now; and if at length\nThe Gods vouchsafe to us to overturn\nPriam\u2019s great city, let him heap his ships165\nWith gold and brass, entering and choosing first\nWhen we shall share the spoil. Let him beside\nChoose twenty from among the maids of Troy,\nHelen except, loveliest of all their sex.\nAnd if once more, the rich milk-flowing land170\nWe reach of Argos, he shall there become\nMy son-in-law, and shall enjoy like state\nWith him whom I in all abundance rear,\nMy only son Orestes. At my home\nI have three daughters; let him thence conduct175\nTo Phthia, her whom he shall most approve.\nChrysothemis shall be his bride, or else\nLaodice; or if she please him more,\nIphianassa; and from him I ask\nNo dower;[5] myself will such a dower bestow180\nAs never father on his child before.\nSeven fair well-peopled cities I will give\nCardamyle and Enope, and rich\nIn herbage, Hira; Pher\u00e6 stately-built,\nAnd for her depth of pasturage renown\u2019d185\nAntheia; proud \u00c6peia\u2019s lofty towers,\nAnd Pedasus impurpled dark with vines.\nAll these are maritime, and on the shore\nThey stand of Pylus, by a race possess\u2019d\nMost rich in flocks and herds, who tributes large,190\nAnd gifts presenting to his sceptred hand,\nShall hold him high in honor as a God.\nThese will I give him if from wrath he cease.\nLet him be overcome. Pluto alone\nIs found implacable and deaf to prayer,195\nWhom therefore of all Gods men hate the most.\nMy power is greater, and my years than his\nMore numerous, therefore let him yield to me.\n  To him Gerenian Nestor thus replied.\nAtrides! glorious sovereign! King of men!200\nNo sordid gifts, or to be view\u2019d with scorn,\nGivest thou the Prince Achilles. But away!\nSend chosen messengers, who shall the son\nOf Peleus, instant, in his tent address.\nMyself will choose them, be it theirs to obey.205\nLet Ph\u0153nix lead, Jove loves him. Be the next\nHuge Ajax; and the wise Ulysses third.\nOf heralds, Odius and Eurybates\nShall them attend. Bring water for our hands;\nGive charge that every tongue abstain from speech210\nPortentous, and propitiate Jove by prayer.\n  He spake, and all were pleased. The heralds pour\u2019d\nPure water on their hands;[6] attendant youths\nThe beakers crown\u2019d, and wine from right to left\nDistributed to all. Libation made,215\nAll drank, and in such measure as they chose,\nThen hasted forth from Agamemnon\u2019s tent.\nGerenian Nestor at their side them oft\nInstructed, each admonishing by looks\nSignificant, and motion of his eyes,220\nBut most Ulysses, to omit no means\nBy which Achilles likeliest might be won.\nAlong the margin of the sounding deep\nThey pass\u2019d, to Neptune, compasser of earth,\nPreferring vows ardent with numerous prayers,225\nThat they might sway with ease the mighty mind\nOf fierce \u00c6acides. And now they reach\u2019d\nThe station where his Myrmidons abode.\nHim solacing they found his heart with notes\nStruck from his silver-framed harmonious lyre;230\nAmong the spoils he found it when he sack\u2019d\nE\u00ebtion\u2019s city; with that lyre his cares\nHe sooth\u2019d, and glorious heroes were his theme.[7]\nPatroclus silent sat, and he alone,\nBefore him, on \u00c6acides intent,235\nExpecting still when he should cease to sing.\nThe messengers advanced (Ulysses first)\nInto his presence; at the sight, his harp\nStill in his hand, Achilles from his seat\nStarted astonish\u2019d; nor with less amaze240\nPatroclus also, seeing them, arose.\nAchilles seized their hands, and thus he spake.[8]\n\n  Hail friends! ye all are welcome. Urgent cause\nHath doubtless brought you, whom I dearest hold\n(Though angry still) of all Achaia\u2019s host.245\n  So saying, he introduced them, and on seats\nPlaced them with purple arras overspread,\nThen thus bespake Patroclus standing nigh.\n  Son of Men\u00e6tius! bring a beaker more\nCapacious, and replenish it with wine250\nDiluted[9] less; then give to each his cup;\nFor dearer friends than these who now arrive\nMy roof beneath, or worthier, have I none.\n  He ended, and Patroclus quick obey\u2019d,\nWhom much he loved. Achilles, then, himself255\nAdvancing near the fire an ample[10] tray,\nSpread goats\u2019 flesh on it, with the flesh of sheep\nAnd of a fatted brawn; of each a chine.\nAutomedon attending held them fast,\nWhile with sharp steel Achilles from the bone260\nSliced thin the meat, then pierced it with the spits.\nMeantime the godlike Men\u00e6tiades\nKindled fierce fire, and when the flame declined,\nRaked wide the embers, laid the meat to roast,\nAnd taking sacred salt from the hearth-side265\nWhere it was treasured, shower\u2019d it o\u2019er the feast.\nWhen all was finish\u2019d, and the board set forth,\nPatroclus furnish\u2019d it around with bread\nIn baskets, and Achilles served the guests.\nBeside the tent-wall, opposite, he sat270\nTo the divine Ulysses; first he bade\nPatroclus make oblation; he consign\u2019d\nThe consecrated morsel to the fire,\nAnd each, at once, his savoury mess assail\u2019d.\nWhen neither edge of hunger now they felt275\nNor thirsted longer, Ajax with a nod\nMade sign to Ph\u0153nix, which Ulysses mark\u2019d,\nAnd charging high his cup, drank to his host.\n  Health to Achilles! hospitable cheer\nAnd well prepared, we want not at the board280\nOf royal Agamemnon, or at thine,\nFor both are nobly spread; but dainties now,\nOr plenteous boards, are little our concern.[11]\nOh godlike Chief! tremendous ills we sit\nContemplating with fear, doubtful if life285\nOr death, with the destruction of our fleet,\nAttend us, unless thou put on thy might.\nFor lo! the haughty Trojans, with their friends\nCall\u2019d from afar, at the fleet-side encamp,\nFast by the wall, where they have kindled fires290\nNumerous, and threaten that no force of ours\nShall check their purposed inroad on the ships.\nJove grants them favorable signs from heaven,\nBright lightnings; Hector glares revenge, with rage\nInfuriate, and by Jove assisted, heeds295\nNor God nor man, but prays the morn to rise\nThat he may hew away our vessel-heads,\nBurn all our fleet with fire, and at their sides\nSlay the Achaians struggling in the smoke.\nHorrible are my fears lest these his threats300\nThe Gods accomplish, and it be our doom\nTo perish here, from Argos far remote.\nUp, therefore! if thou canst, and now at last\nThe weary sons of all Achaia save\nFrom Trojan violence. Regret, but vain,305\nShall else be thine hereafter, when no cure\nOf such great ill, once suffer\u2019d, can be found.\nThou therefore, seasonably kind, devise\nMeans to preserve from such disast\u2019rous fate\nThe Grecians. Ah, my friend! when Peleus thee310\nFrom Phthia sent to Agamemnon\u2019s aid,\nOn that same day he gave thee thus in charge.\n\u201cJuno, my son, and Pallas, if they please,\nCan make thee valiant; but thy own big heart\nThyself restrain. Sweet manners win respect.315\nCease from pernicious strife, and young and old\nThroughout the host shall honor thee the more.\u201d\nSuch was thy father\u2019s charge, which thou, it seems,\nRemember\u2019st not. Yet even now thy wrath\nRenounce; be reconciled; for princely gifts320\nAtrides gives thee if thy wrath subside.\nHear, if thou wilt, and I will tell thee all,\nHow vast the gifts which Agamemnon made\nBy promise thine, this night within his tent.\nSeven tripods never sullied yet with fire;325\nOf gold ten talents; twenty cauldrons bright;\nTwelve steeds strong-limb\u2019d, victorious in the race;\nNo man possessing prizes such as those\nWhich they have won for him, shall feel the want\nOf acquisitions splendid, or of gold.330\nSeven virtuous female captives he will give,\nExpert in arts domestic, Lesbians all,\nWhom when thou conquer\u2019dst Lesbos, he received\nHis chosen portion, passing woman-kind\nIn perfect loveliness of face and form.335\nThese will he give, and will with these resign\nHer whom he took, Brise\u00efs, with an oath\nMost solemn, that unconscious as she was\nOf his embraces, such he yields her back.\nAll these he gives thee now! and if at length340\nThe Gods vouchsafe to us to overturn\nPriam\u2019s great city, thou shalt heap thy ships\nWith gold and brass, entering and choosing first,\nWhen we shall share the spoil; and shalt beside\nChoose twenty from among the maids of Troy,345\nHelen except, loveliest of all their sex.\nAnd if once more the rich milk-flowing land\nWe reach of Argos, thou shalt there become\nHis son-in-law, and shalt enjoy like state\nWith him, whom he in all abundance rears,350\nHis only son Orestes. In his house\nHe hath three daughters; thou may\u2019st home conduct\nTo Phthia, her whom thou shalt most approve.\nChrysothemis shall be thy bride; or else\nLaodice; or if she please thee more355\nIphianassa; and from thee he asks\nNo dower; himself will such a dower bestow\nAs never father on his child before.\nSeven fair well-peopled cities will he give;\nCardamyle and Enope; and rich360\nIn herbage, Hira; Pher\u00e6 stately-built,\nAnd for her depth of pasturage renown\u2019d,\nAntheia; proud \u00c6peia\u2019s lofty towers,\nAnd Pedasus impurpled dark with vines.\nAll these are maritime, and on the shore365\nThey stand of Pylus, by a race possess\u2019d\nMost rich in flocks and herds, who tribute large\nAnd gifts presenting to thy sceptred hand,\nShall hold thee high in honor as a God.\nThese will he give thee, if thy wrath subside.370\n  But should\u2019st thou rather in thine heart the more\nBoth Agamemnon and his gifts detest,\nYet oh compassionate the afflicted host\nPrepared to adore thee. Thou shalt win renown\nAmong the Grecians that shall never die.375\nNow strike at Hector. He is here;\u2014himself\nProvokes thee forth; madness is in his heart,\nAnd in his rage he glories that our ships\nHave hither brought no Grecian brave as he.\n  Then thus Achilles matchless in the race.380\nLaertes\u2019 noble son, for wiles renown\u2019d!\nI must with plainness speak my fixt resolve\nUnalterable; lest I hear from each\nThe same long murmur\u2019d melancholy tale.\nFor I abhor the man, not more the gates385\nOf hell itself, whose words belie his heart.\nSo shall not mine. My judgment undisguised\nIs this; that neither Agamemnon me\nNor all the Greeks shall move; for ceaseless toil\nWins here no thanks; one recompense awaits390\nThe sedentary and the most alert,\nThe brave and base in equal honor stand,\nAnd drones and heroes fall unwept alike.\nI after all my labors, who exposed\nMy life continual in the field, have earn\u2019d395\nNo very sumptuous prize. As the poor bird\nGives to her unfledged brood a morsel gain\u2019d\nAfter long search, though wanting it herself,\nSo I have worn out many sleepless nights,\nAnd waded deep through many a bloody day400\nIn battle for their wives.[12] I have destroy\u2019d\nTwelve cities with my fleet, and twelve, save one,\nOn foot contending in the fields of Troy.\nFrom all these cities, precious spoils I took\nAbundant, and to Agamemnon\u2019s hand405\nGave all the treasure. He within his ships\nAbode the while, and having all received,\nLittle distributed, and much retained;\nHe gave, however, to the Kings and Chiefs\nA portion, and they keep it. Me alone410\nOf all the Grecian host he hath despoil\u2019d;\nMy bride, my soul\u2019s delight is in his hands,\nAnd let him, couch\u2019d with her, enjoy his fill\nOf dalliance. What sufficient cause, what need\nHave the Achaians to contend with Troy?415\nWhy hath Atrides gather\u2019d such a host,\nAnd led them hither? Was\u2019t not for the sake\nOf beauteous Helen? And of all mankind\nCan none be found who love their proper wives\nBut the Atrid\u00e6? There is no good man420\nWho loves not, guards not, and with care provides\nFor his own wife, and, though in battle won,\nI loved the fair Brise\u00efs at my heart.\nBut having dispossess\u2019d me of my prize\nSo foully, let him not essay me now,425\nFor I am warn\u2019d, and he shall not prevail.\nWith thee and with thy peers let him advise,\nUlysses! how the fleet may likeliest \u2019scape\nYon hostile fires; full many an arduous task\nHe hath accomplished without aid of mine;430\nSo hath he now this rampart and the trench\nWhich he hath digg\u2019d around it, and with stakes\nPlanted contiguous\u2014puny barriers all\nTo hero-slaughtering Hector\u2019s force opposed.\nWhile I the battle waged, present myself435\nAmong the Achaians, Hector never fought\nFar from his walls, but to the Sc\u00e6an gate\nAdvancing and the beech-tree, there remain\u2019d.\nOnce, on that spot he met me, and my arm\nEscaped with difficulty even there.440\nBut, since I feel myself not now inclined\nTo fight with noble Hector, yielding first\nTo Jove due worship, and to all the Gods,\nTo-morrow will I launch, and give my ships\nTheir lading. Look thou forth at early dawn,445\nAnd, if such spectacle delight thee aught,\nThou shalt behold me cleaving with my prows\nThe waves of Hellespont, and all my crews\nOf lusty rowers active in their task.\nSo shall I reach (if Ocean\u2019s mighty God450\nProsper my passage) Phthia the deep-soil\u2019d\nOn the third day. I have possessions there,\nWhich hither roaming in an evil hour\nI left abundant. I shall also hence\nConvey much treasure, gold and burnish\u2019d brass,455\nAnd glittering steel, and women passing fair\nMy portion of the spoils. But he, your King,\nThe prize he gave, himself resumed,\nAnd taunted at me. Tell him my reply,\nAnd tell it him aloud, that other Greeks460\nMay indignation feel like me, if arm\u2019d\nAlways in impudence, he seek to wrong\nThem also. Let him not henceforth presume,\nCanine and hard in aspect though he be,\nTo look me in the face. I will not share465\nHis counsels, neither will I aid his works.\nLet it suffice him, that he wrong\u2019d me once,\nDeceived me once, henceforth his glozing arts\nAre lost on me. But let him rot in peace\nCrazed as he is, and by the stroke of Jove470\nInfatuate. I detest his gifts, and him\nSo honor as the thing which most I scorn.\nAnd would he give me twenty times the worth\nOf this his offer, all the treasured heaps\nWhich he possesses, or shall yet possess,475\nAll that Orchomenos within her walls,\nAnd all that opulent Egyptian Thebes\nReceives, the city with a hundred gates,\nWhence twenty thousand chariots rush to war,\nAnd would he give me riches as the sands,480\nAnd as the dust of earth, no gifts from him\nShould soothe me, till my soul were first avenged\nFor all the offensive license of his tongue.\nI will not wed the daughter of your Chief,\nOf Agamemnon. Could she vie in charms485\nWith golden Venus, had she all the skill\nOf blue-eyed Pallas, even so endow\u2019d\nShe were no bride for me. No. He may choose\nFrom the Achaians some superior Prince,\nOne more her equal. Peleus, if the Gods490\nPreserve me, and I safe arrive at home,\nHimself, ere long, shall mate me with a bride.\nIn Hellas and in Phthia may be found\nFair damsels many, daughters of the Chiefs\nWho guard our cities; I may choose of them,495\nAnd make the loveliest of them all my own.\nThere, in my country, it hath ever been\nMy dearest purpose, wedded to a wife\nOf rank convenient, to enjoy in peace\nSuch wealth as ancient Peleus hath acquired.500\nFor life, in my account, surpasses far\nIn value all the treasures which report\nAscribed to populous Ilium, ere the Greeks\nArrived, and while the city yet had peace;\nThose also which Apollo\u2019s marble shrine505\nIn rocky Pytho boasts. Fat flocks and beeves\nMay be by force obtain\u2019d, tripods and steeds\nAre bought or won, but if the breath of man\nOnce overpass its bounds, no force arrests\nOr may constrain the unbodied spirit back.510\nMe, as my silver-footed mother speaks\nThetis, a twofold consummation waits.\nIf still with battle I encompass Troy,\nI win immortal glory, but all hope\nRenounce of my return. If I return515\nTo my beloved country, I renounce\nThe illustrious meed of glory, but obtain\nSecure and long immunity from death.\nAnd truly I would recommend to all\nTo voyage homeward, for the fall as yet520\nYe shall not see of Ilium\u2019s lofty towers,\nFor that the Thunderer with uplifted arm\nProtects her, and her courage hath revived.\nBear ye mine answer back, as is the part\nOf good ambassadors, that they may frame525\nSome likelier plan, by which both fleet and host\nMay be preserved; for, my resentment still\nBurning, this project is but premature.\nLet Ph\u0153nix stay with us, and sleep this night\nWithin my tent, that, if he so incline,530\nHe may to-morrow in my fleet embark,\nAnd hence attend me; but I leave him free.\n  He ended; they astonish\u2019d at his tone\n(For vehement he spake) sat silent all,\nTill Ph\u0153nix, aged warrior, at the last535\nGush\u2019d into tears (for dread his heart o\u2019erwhelm\u2019d\nLest the whole fleet should perish) and replied.\n  If thou indeed have purposed to return,\nNoble Achilles! and such wrath retain\u2019st\nThat thou art altogether fixt to leave540\nThe fleet a prey to desolating fires,\nHow then, my son! shall I at Troy abide\nForlorn of thee? When Peleus, hoary Chief,\nSent thee to Agamemnon, yet a child,[13]\nUnpractised in destructive fight, nor less545\nOf councils ignorant, the schools in which\nGreat minds are form\u2019d, he bade me to the war\nAttend thee forth, that I might teach thee all,\nBoth elocution and address in arms.\nMe therefore shalt thou not with my consent550\nLeave here, my son! no, not would Jove himself\nPromise me, reaping smooth this silver beard,\nTo make me downy-cheek\u2019d as in my youth;\nSuch as when erst from Hellas beauty-famed\nI fled, escaping from my father\u2019s wrath555\nAmyntor, son of Ormenus, who loved\nA beauteous concubine, and for her sake\nDespised his wife and persecuted me.\nMy mother suppliant at my knees, with prayer\nPerpetual importuned me to embrace560\nThe damsel first, that she might loathe my sire.\nI did so; and my father soon possess\u2019d\nWith hot suspicion of the fact, let loose\nA storm of imprecation, in his rage\nInvoking all the Furies to forbid565\nThat ever son of mine should press his knees.\nTartarian Jove[14] and dread Persephone\nFulfill\u2019d his curses; with my pointed spear\nI would have pierced his heart, but that my wrath\nSome Deity assuaged, suggesting oft570\nWhat shame and obloquy I should incur,\nKnown as a parricide through all the land.\nAt length, so treated, I resolved to dwell\nNo longer in his house. My friends, indeed,\nAnd all my kindred compass\u2019d me around575\nWith much entreaty, wooing me to stay;\nOxen and sheep they slaughter\u2019d, many a plump\nWell-fatted brawn extended in the flames,\nAnd drank the old man\u2019s vessels to the lees.\nNine nights continual at my side they slept,580\nWhile others watch\u2019d by turns, nor were the fires\nExtinguish\u2019d ever, one, beneath the porch\nOf the barr\u2019d hall, and one that from within\nThe vestibule illumed my chamber door.\nBut when the tenth dark night at length arrived,585\nSudden the chamber doors bursting I flew\nThat moment forth, and unperceived alike\nBy guards and menial woman, leap\u2019d the wall.\nThrough spacious Hellas flying thence afar,\nI came at length to Phthia the deep-soil\u2019d,590\nMother of flocks, and to the royal house\nOf Peleus; Peleus with a willing heart\nReceiving, loved me as a father loves\nHis only son, the son of his old age,\nInheritor of all his large demesnes.595\nHe made me rich; placed under my control\nA populous realm, and on the skirts I dwelt\nOf Phthia, ruling the Dolopian race.\nThee from my soul, thou semblance of the Gods,\nI loved, and all illustrious as thou art,600\nAchilles! such I made thee. For with me,\nMe only, would\u2019st thou forth to feast abroad,\nNor would\u2019st thou taste thy food at home, till first\nI placed thee on my knees, with my own hand\nThy viands carved and fed thee, and the wine605\nHeld to thy lips; and many a time, in fits\nOf infant frowardness, the purple juice\nRejecting thou hast deluged all my vest,\nAnd fill\u2019d my bosom. Oh, I have endured\nMuch, and have also much perform\u2019d for thee,610\nThus purposing, that since the Gods vouchsaf\u2019d\nNo son to me, thyself shouldst be my son,\nGodlike Achilles! who shouldst screen perchance\nFrom a foul fate my else unshelter\u2019d age.\nAchilles! bid thy mighty spirit down.615\nThou shouldst not be thus merciless; the Gods,\nAlthough more honorable, and in power\nAnd virtue thy superiors, are themselves\nYet placable; and if a mortal man\nOffend them by transgression of their laws,620\nLibation, incense, sacrifice, and prayer,\nIn meekness offer\u2019d turn their wrath away.\nPrayers are Jove\u2019s daughters,[15] wrinkled,[16] lame, slant-eyed,\nWhich though far distant, yet with constant pace\nFollow Offence. Offence, robust of limb,625\nAnd treading firm the ground, outstrips them all,\nAnd over all the earth before them runs\nHurtful to man. They, following, heal the hurt.\nReceived respectfully when they approach,\nThey help us, and our prayers hear in return.630\nBut if we slight, and with obdurate heart\nResist them, to Saturnian Jove they cry\nAgainst us, supplicating that Offence\nMay cleave to us for vengeance of the wrong.\nThou, therefore, O Achilles! honor yield635\nTo Jove\u2019s own daughters, vanquished, as the brave\nHave ofttimes been, by honor paid to thee.\nFor came not Agamemnon as he comes\nWith gifts in hand, and promises of more\nHereafter; burn\u2019d his anger still the same,640\nI would not move thee to renounce thy own,\nAnd to assist us, howsoe\u2019er distress\u2019d.\nBut now, not only are his present gifts\nMost liberal, and his promises of more\nSuch also, but these Princes he hath sent645\nCharged with entreaties, thine especial friends,\nAnd chosen for that cause, from all the host.\nSlight not their embassy, nor put to shame\nTheir intercession. We confess that once\nThy wrath was unreprovable and just.650\nThus we have heard the heroes of old times\nApplauded oft, whose anger, though intense,\nYet left them open to the gentle sway\nOf reason and conciliatory gifts.\nI recollect an ancient history,655\nWhich, since all here are friends, I will relate.\nThe brave \u00c6tolians and Curetes met\nBeneath the walls of Calydon, and fought\nWith mutual slaughter; the \u00c6tolian powers\nIn the defence of Calydon the fair,660\nAnd the Curetes bent to lay it waste:\nThat strife Diana of the golden throne\nKindled between them, with resentment fired\nThat Oeneus had not in some fertile spot\nThe first fruits of his harvest set apart665\nTo her; with hecatombs he entertained\nAll the Divinities of heaven beside,\nAnd her alone, daughter of Jove supreme,\nOr through forgetfulness, or some neglect,\nServed not; omission careless and profane!670\nShe, progeny of Jove, Goddess shaft-arm\u2019d,\nA savage boar bright-tusk\u2019d in anger sent,\nWhich haunting Oeneus\u2019 fields much havoc made.\nTrees numerous on the earth in heaps he cast\nUprooting them, with all their blossoms on.675\nBut Meleager, Oeneus\u2019 son, at length\nSlew him, the hunters gathering and the hounds\nOf numerous cities; for a boar so vast\nMight not be vanquish\u2019d by the power of few,\nAnd many to their funeral piles he sent.680\nThen raised Diana clamorous dispute,\nAnd contest hot between them, all alike,\nCuretes and \u00c6tolians fierce in arms\nThe boar\u2019s head claiming, and his bristly hide.\nSo long as warlike Meleager fought,685\n\u00c6tolia prosper\u2019d, nor with all their powers\nCould the Curetes stand before the walls.\nBut when resentment once had fired the heart\nOf Meleager, which hath tumult oft\nExcited in the breasts of wisest men,690\n(For his own mother had his wrath provoked\nAlth\u00e6a) thenceforth with his wedded wife\nHe dwelt, fair Cleopatra, close retired.\nShe was Marpessa\u2019s daughter, whom she bore\nTo Idas, bravest warrior in his day695\nOf all on earth. He fear\u2019d not \u2019gainst the King\nHimself Apollo, for the lovely nymph\nMarpessa\u2019s sake, his spouse, to bend his bow.\nHer, therefore, Idas and Marpessa named\nThenceforth Alcyone, because the fate700\nOf sad Alcyone Marpessa shared,\nAnd wept like her, by Ph\u0153bus forced away.\nThus Meleager, tortured with the pangs\nOf wrath indulged, with Cleopatra dwelt,\nVex\u2019d that his mother cursed him; for, with grief705\nFrantic, his mother importuned the Gods\nTo avenge her slaughter\u2019d brothers[17] on his head.\nOft would she smite the earth, while on her knees\nSeated, she fill\u2019d her bosom with her tears,\nAnd call\u2019d on Pluto and dread Proserpine710\nTo slay her son; nor vain was that request,\nBut by implacable Erynnis heard\nRoaming the shades of Erebus. Ere long\nThe tumult and the deafening din of war\nRoar\u2019d at the gates, and all the batter\u2019d towers715\nResounded. Then the elders of the town\nDispatch\u2019d the high-priests of the Gods to plead\nWith Meleager for his instant aid,\nWith strong assurances of rich reward.\nWhere Calydon afforded fattest soil720\nThey bade him choose to his own use a farm\nOf fifty measured acres, vineyard half,\nAnd half of land commodious for the plow.\nHim Oeneus also, warrior grey with age,\nAscending to his chamber, and his doors725\nSmiting importunate, with earnest prayers\nAssay\u2019d to soften, kneeling to his son.\nNor less his sisters woo\u2019d him to relent,\nNor less his mother; but in vain; he grew\nStill more obdurate. His companions last,730\nThe most esteem\u2019d and dearest of his friends,\nThe same suit urged, yet he persisted still\nRelentless, nor could even they prevail.\nBut when the battle shook his chamber-doors\nAnd the Curetes climbing the high towers735\nHad fired the spacious city, then with tears\nThe beauteous Cleopatra, and with prayers\nAssail\u2019d him; in his view she set the woes\nNumberless of a city storm\u2019d\u2014the men\nSlaughter\u2019d, the city burnt to dust, the chaste740\nMatrons with all their children dragg\u2019d away.\nThat dread recital roused him, and at length\nIssuing, he put his radiant armor on.\nThus Meleager, gratifying first\nHis own resentment from a fatal day745\nSaved the \u00c6tolians, who the promised gift\nRefused him, and his toils found no reward.\nBut thou, my son, be wiser; follow thou\nNo demon who would tempt thee to a course\nLike his; occasion more propitious far750\nSmiles on thee now, than if the fleet were fired.\nCome, while by gifts invited, and receive\nFrom all the host, the honors of a God;\nFor shouldst thou, by no gifts induced, at last\nEnter the bloody field, although thou chase755\nThe Trojans hence, yet less shall be thy praise.\n  Then thus Achilles, matchless in the race.\nPh\u0153nix, my guide, wise, noble and revered!\nI covet no such glory! the renown\nOrdain\u2019d by Jove for me, is to resist760\nAll importunity to quit my ships\nWhile I have power to move, or breath to draw.\nHear now, and mark me well. Cease thou from tears.\nConfound me not, pleading with sighs and sobs\nIn Agamemnon\u2019s cause; O love not him,765\nLest I renounce thee, who am now thy friend.\nAssist me rather, as thy duty bids,\nHim to afflict, who hath afflicted me,\nSo shalt thou share my glory and my power.\nThese shall report as they have heard, but here770\nRest thou this night, and with the rising morn\nWe will decide, to stay or to depart.\n  He ceased, and silent, by a nod enjoin\u2019d\nPatroclus to prepare an easy couch\nFor Ph\u0153nix, anxious to dismiss the rest775\nIncontinent; when Ajax, godlike son\nOf Telamon, arising, thus began.\n  Laertes\u2019 noble son, for wiles renown\u2019d:\nDepart we now; for I perceive that end\nOr fruit of all our reasonings shall be none.780\nIt is expedient also that we bear\nOur answer back (unwelcome as it is)\nWith all dispatch, for the assembled Greeks\nExpect us. Brave Achilles shuts a fire\nWithin his breast; the kindness of his friends,785\nAnd the respect peculiar by ourselves\nShown to him, on his heart work no effect.\nInexorable man! others accept\nEven for a brother slain, or for a son\nDue compensation;[18] the delinquent dwells790\nSecure at home, and the receiver, soothed\nAnd pacified, represses his revenge.\nBut thou, resentful of the loss of one,\nOne virgin (such obduracy of heart\nThe Gods have given thee) can\u2019st not be appeased795\nYet we assign thee seven in her stead,\nThe most distinguish\u2019d of their sex, and add\nLarge gifts beside. Ah then, at last relent!\nRespect thy roof; we are thy guests; we come\nChosen from the multitude of all the Greeks,800\nBeyond them all ambitious of thy love.\n  To whom Achilles, swiftest of the swift.\nMy noble friend, offspring of Telamon!\nThou seem\u2019st sincere, and I believe thee such.\nBut at the very mention of the name805\nOf Atreus\u2019 son, who shamed me in the sight\nOf all Achaia\u2019s host, bearing me down\nAs I had been some vagrant at his door,\nMy bosom boils. Return ye and report\nYour answer. I no thought will entertain810\nOf crimson war, till the illustrious son\nOf warlike Priam, Hector, blood-embrued,\nShall in their tents the Myrmidons assail\nThemselves, and fire my fleet. At my own ship,\nAnd at my own pavilion it may chance815\nThat even Hector\u2019s violence shall pause.[19]\n  He ended; they from massy goblets each\nLibation pour\u2019d, and to the fleet their course\nResumed direct, Ulysses at their head.\nPatroclus then his fellow-warriors bade,820\nAnd the attendant women spread a couch\nFor Ph\u0153nix; they the couch, obedient, spread\nWith fleeces, with rich arras, and with flax\nOf subtlest woof. There hoary Ph\u0153nix lay\nIn expectation of the sacred dawn.825\nMeantime Achilles in the interior tent,\nWith beauteous Diomeda by himself\nFrom Lesbos brought, daughter of Phorbas, lay.\nPatroclus opposite reposed, with whom\nSlept charming Iphis; her, when he had won830\nThe lofty towers of Scyros, the divine\nAchilles took, and on his friend bestow\u2019d.\n  But when those Chiefs at Agamemnon\u2019s tent\nArrived, the Greeks on every side arose\nWith golden cups welcoming their return.835\nAll question\u2019d them, but Agamemnon first.\n  Oh worthy of Achaia\u2019s highest praise,\nAnd her chief ornament, Ulysses, speak!\nWill he defend the fleet? or his big heart\nIndulging wrathful, doth he still refuse?840\n  To whom renown\u2019d Ulysses thus replied.\nAtrides, Agamemnon, King of men!\nHe his resentment quenches not, nor will,\nBut burns with wrath the more, thee and thy gifts\nRejecting both. He bids thee with the Greeks845\nConsult by what expedient thou may\u2019st save\nThe fleet and people, threatening that himself\nWill at the peep of day launch all his barks,\nAnd counselling, beside, the general host\nTo voyage homeward, for that end as yet850\nOf Ilium wall\u2019d to heaven, ye shall not find,\nSince Jove the Thunderer with uplifted arm\nProtects her, and her courage hath revived.\nThus speaks the Chief, and Ajax is prepared,\nWith the attendant heralds to report855\nAs I have said. But Ph\u0153nix in the tent\nSleeps of Achilles, who his stay desired,\nThat on the morrow, if he so incline,\nThe hoary warrior may attend him hence\nHome to his country, but he leaves him free.860\n  He ended. They astonish\u2019d at his tone\n(For vehement he spake) sat silent all.\nLong silent sat the afflicted sons of Greece,\nWhen thus the mighty Diomede began.\n  Atrides, Agamemnon, King of men!865\nThy supplications to the valiant son\nOf Peleus, and the offer of thy gifts\nInnumerous, had been better far withheld.\nHe is at all times haughty, and thy suit\nHath but increased his haughtiness of heart870\nPast bounds: but let him stay or let him go\nAs he shall choose. He will resume the fight\nWhen his own mind shall prompt him, and the Gods\nShall urge him forth. Now follow my advice.\nYe have refresh\u2019d your hearts with food and wine875\nWhich are the strength of man; take now repose.\nAnd when the rosy-finger\u2019d morning fair\nShall shine again, set forth without delay\nThe battle, horse and foot, before the fleet,\nAnd where the foremost fight, fight also thou.880\n\n  He ended; all the Kings applauded warm\nHis counsel, and the dauntless tone admired\nOf Diomede. Then, due libation made,\nEach sought his tent, and took the gift of sleep.\n\n\nThere is much in this book which is worthy of close attention. The\nconsummate genius, the varied and versatile power, the eloquence,\ntruth, and nature displayed in it, will always be admired. Perhaps\nthere is no portion of the poem more remarkable for these\nattributes.\u2014Felton.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK X.\n\n\nARGUMENT OF THE TENTH BOOK.\n\nDiomede and Ulysses enter the Trojan host by night, and slay Rhesus.\n\n\nBOOK X.\n\n\nAll night the leaders of the host of Greece\nLay sunk in soft repose, all, save the Chief,[1]\nThe son of Atreus; him from thought to thought\nRoving solicitous, no sleep relieved.\nAs when the spouse of beauteous Juno, darts5\nHis frequent fires, designing heavy rain\nImmense, or hail-storm, or field-whitening snow,\nOr else wide-throated war calamitous,\nSo frequent were the groans by Atreus\u2019 son\nHeaved from his inmost heart, trembling with dread.10\nFor cast he but his eye toward the plain\nOf Ilium, there, astonish\u2019d he beheld\nThe city fronted with bright fires, and heard\nPipes, and recorders, and the hum of war;\nBut when again the Grecian fleet he view\u2019d,15\nAnd thought on his own people, then his hair\nUprooted elevating to the Gods,\nHe from his generous bosom groan\u2019d again.\nAt length he thus resolved; of all the Greeks\nTo seek Neleian Nestor first, with whom20\nHe might, perchance, some plan for the defence\nOf the afflicted Dana\u00ef devise.\nRising, he wrapp\u2019d his tunic to his breast,\nAnd to his royal feet unsullied bound\nHis sandals; o\u2019er his shoulders, next, he threw25\nOf amplest size a lion\u2019s tawny skin\nThat swept his footsteps, dappled o\u2019er with blood,\nThen took his spear. Meantime, not less appall\u2019d\nWas Menelaus, on whose eyelids sleep\nSat not, lest the Achaians for his sake30\nO\u2019er many waters borne, and now intent\nOn glorious deeds, should perish all at Troy.\nWith a pard\u2019s spotted hide his shoulders broad\nHe mantled over; to his head he raised\nHis brazen helmet, and with vigorous hand35\nGrasping his spear, forth issued to arouse\nHis brother, mighty sovereign of the host,\nAnd by the Grecians like a God revered.\nHe found him at his galley\u2019s stern, his arms\nAssuming radiant; welcome he arrived40\nTo Agamemnon, whom he thus address\u2019d.\n  Why arm\u2019st thou, brother? Wouldst thou urge abroad\nSome trusty spy into the Trojan camp?[2]\nI fear lest none so hardy shall be found\nAs to adventure, in the dead still night,45\nSo far, alone; valiant indeed were he!\n  To whom great Agamemnon thus replied.\nHeaven-favor\u2019d Menelaus! We have need,\nThou and myself, of some device well-framed,\nWhich both the Grecians and the fleet of Greece50\nMay rescue, for the mind of Jove hath changed,\nAnd Hector\u2019s prayers alone now reach his ear.\nI never saw, nor by report have learn\u2019d\nFrom any man, that ever single chief\nSuch awful wonders in one day perform\u2019d55\nAs he with ease against the Greeks, although\nNor from a Goddess sprung nor from a God.\nDeeds he hath done, which, as I think, the Greeks\nShall deep and long lament, such numerous ills\nAchaia\u2019s host hath at his hands sustain\u2019d.60\nBut haste, begone, and at their several ships\nCall Ajax and Idomeneus; I go\nTo exhort the noble Nestor to arise,\nThat he may visit, if he so incline,\nThe chosen band who watch, and his advice65\nGive them; for him most prompt they will obey,\nWhose son, together with Meriones,\nFriend of Idomeneus, controls them all,\nEntrusted by ourselves with that command.\n  Him answer\u2019d Menelaus bold in arms.70\nExplain thy purpose. Wouldst thou that I wait\nThy coming, there, or thy commands to both\nGiven, that I incontinent return?\n  To whom the Sovereign of the host replied.\nThere stay; lest striking into different paths75\n(For many passes intersect the camp)\nWe miss each other; summon them aloud\nWhere thou shalt come; enjoin them to arise;\nCall each by his hereditary name,\nHonoring all. Beware of manners proud,80\nFor we ourselves must labor, at our birth\nBy Jove ordain\u2019d to suffering and to toil.\n  So saying, he his brother thence dismiss\u2019d\nInstructed duly, and himself, his steps\nTurned to the tent of Nestor. Him he found85\nAmid his sable galleys in his tent\nReposing soft, his armor at his side,\nShield, spears, bright helmet, and the broider\u2019d belt\nWhich, when the Senior arm\u2019d led forth his host\nTo fight, he wore; for he complied not yet90\nWith the encroachments of enfeebling age.\nHe raised his head, and on his elbow propp\u2019d,\nQuestioning Agamemnon, thus began.\n  But who art thou, who thus alone, the camp\nRoamest, amid the darkness of the night,95\nWhile other mortals sleep? Comest thou abroad\nSeeking some friend or soldier of the guard?\nSpeak\u2014come not nearer mute. What is thy wish?\n  To whom the son of Atreus, King of men.\nOh Nestor, glory of the Grecian name,100\nOffspring of Neleus! thou in me shalt know\nThe son of Atreus, Agamemnon, doom\u2019d\nBy Jove to toil, while life shall yet inform\nThese limbs, or I shall draw the vital air.\nI wander thus, because that on my lids105\nSweet sleep sits not, but war and the concerns\nOf the Achaians occupy my soul.\nTerrible are the fears which I endure\nFor these my people; such as supersede\nAll thought; my bosom can no longer hold110\nMy throbbing heart, and tremors shake my limbs.\nBut if thy mind, more capable, project\nAught that may profit us (for thee it seems\nSleep also shuns) arise, and let us both\nVisit the watch, lest, haply, overtoil\u2019d115\nThey yield to sleep, forgetful of their charge.\nThe foe is posted near, and may intend\n(None knows his purpose) an assault by night.\n  To him Gerenian Nestor thus replied.\nIllustrious Agamemnon, King of men!120\nDeep-planning Jove the imaginations proud\nOf Hector will not ratify, nor all\nHis sanguine hopes effectuate; in his turn\nHe also (fierce Achilles once appeased)\nShall trouble feel, and haply, more than we.125\nBut with all readiness I will arise\nAnd follow thee, that we may also rouse\nYet others; Diomede the spear-renown\u2019d,\nUlysses, the swift Ajax, and the son\nOf Phyleus, valiant Meges. It were well130\nWere others also visited and call\u2019d,\nThe godlike Ajax, and Idomeneus,\nWhose ships are at the camp\u2019s extremest bounds.\nBut though I love thy brother and revere,\nAnd though I grieve e\u2019en thee, yet speak I must,135\nAnd plainly censure him, that thus he sleeps\nAnd leaves to thee the labor, who himself\nShould range the host, soliciting the Chiefs\nOf every band, as utmost need requires.\n  Him answer\u2019d Agamemnon, King of men.140\nOld warrior, times there are, when I could wish\nMyself thy censure of him, for in act\nHe is not seldom tardy and remiss.\nYet is not sluggish indolence the cause,\nNo, nor stupidity, but he observes145\nMe much, expecting till I lead the way.\nBut he was foremost now, far more alert\nThis night than I, and I have sent him forth\nAlready, those to call whom thou hast named.\nBut let us hence, for at the guard I trust150\nTo find them, since I gave them so in charge.[3]\n  To whom the brave Gerenian Chief replied.\nHim none will censure, or his will dispute,\nWhom he shall waken and exhort to rise.\n  So saying, he bound his corselet to his breast,155\nHis sandals fair to his unsullied feet,\nAnd fastening by its clasps his purple cloak\nAround him, double and of shaggy pile,\nSeized, next, his sturdy spear headed with brass,\nAnd issued first into the Grecian fleet.160\nThere, Nestor, brave Gerenian, with a voice\nSonorous roused the godlike counsellor\nFrom sleep, Ulysses; the alarm came o\u2019er\nHis startled ear, forth from his tent he sprang\nSudden, and of their coming, quick, inquired.165\n  Why roam ye thus the camp and fleet alone\nIn darkness? by what urgent need constrain\u2019d?\n  To whom the hoary Pylian thus replied.\nLaertes\u2019 noble son, for wiles renown\u2019d!\nResent it not, for dread is our distress.170\nCome, therefore, and assist us to convene\nYet others, qualified to judge if war\nBe most expedient, or immediate flight.\n  He ended, and regaining, quick, his tent,\nUlysses slung his shield, then coming forth175\nJoin\u2019d them. The son of Tydeus first they sought.\nHim sleeping arm\u2019d before his tent they found,\nEncompass\u2019d by his friends also asleep;\nHis head each rested on his shield, and each\nHad planted on its nether point[4] erect180\nHis spear beside him; bright their polish\u2019d heads,\nAs Jove\u2019s own lightning glittered from afar.\nHimself, the Hero, slept. A wild bull\u2019s hide\nWas spread beneath him, and on arras tinged\nWith splendid purple lay his head reclined.185\nNestor, beside him standing, with his heel\nShook him, and, urgent, thus the Chief reproved.\n  Awake, Tydides! wherefore givest the night\nEntire to balmy slumber? Hast not heard\nHow on the rising ground beside the fleet190\nThe Trojans sit, small interval between?\n  He ceased; then up sprang Diomede alarm\u2019d\nInstant, and in wing\u2019d accents thus replied.\n  Old wakeful Chief! thy toils are never done.\nAre there not younger of the sons of Greece,195\nWho ranging in all parts the camp, might call\nThe Kings to council? But no curb controls\nOr can abate activity like thine.\n  To whom Gerenian Nestor in return.\nMy friend! thou hast well spoken. I have sons,200\nAnd they are well deserving; I have here\nA numerous people also, one of whom\nMight have sufficed to call the Kings of Greece.\nBut such occasion presses now the host\nAs hath not oft occurr\u2019d; the overthrow205\nComplete, or full deliverance of us all,\nIn balance hangs, poised on a razor\u2019s edge.\nBut haste, and if thy pity of my toils\nBe such, since thou art younger, call, thyself,\nAjax the swift, and Meges to the guard.210\n  Then Diomede a lion\u2019s tawny skin\nAround him wrapp\u2019d, dependent to his heels,\nAnd, spear in hand, set forth. The Hero call\u2019d\nThose two, and led them whither Nestor bade.\n  They, at the guard arrived, not sleeping found215\nThe captains of the guard, but sitting all\nIn vigilant posture with their arms prepared.\nAs dogs that, careful, watch the fold by night,\nHearing some wild beast in the woods,[5] which hounds\nAnd hunters with tumultuous clamor drive220\nDown from the mountain-top, all sleep forego;\nSo, sat not on their eyelids gentle sleep\nThat dreadful night, but constant to the plain\nAt every sound of Trojan feet they turn\u2019d.\nThe old Chief joyful at the sight, in terms225\nOf kind encouragement them thus address\u2019d.\n  So watch, my children! and beware that sleep\nInvade none here, lest all become a prey.\n  So saying, he traversed with quick pace the trench\nBy every Chief whom they had thither call\u2019d230\nAttended, with whom Nestor\u2019s noble son\nWent, and Meriones, invited both\nTo join their consultation. From the foss\nEmerging, in a vacant space they sat,\nUnstrew\u2019d with bodies of the slain, the spot,235\nWhence furious Hector, after slaughter made\nOf numerous Greeks, night falling, had return\u2019d.\nThere seated, mutual converse close they held,\nAnd Nestor, brave Gerenian, thus began.\n\n  Oh friends! hath no Achaian here such trust240\nIn his own prowess, as to venture forth\nAmong yon haughty Trojans? He, perchance,\nMight on the borders of their host surprise\nSome wandering adversary, or might learn\nTheir consultations, whether they propose245\nHere to abide in prospect of the fleet,\nOr, satiate with success against the Greeks\nSo signal, meditate retreat to Troy.\nThese tidings gain\u2019d, should he at last return\nSecure, his recompense will be renown250\nExtensive as the heavens, and fair reward.\nFrom every leader of the fleet, his gift\nShall be a sable[6] ewe, and sucking lamb,\nRare acquisition! and at every board\nAnd sumptuous banquet, he shall be a guest.255\n  He ceased, and all sat silent, when at length\nThe mighty son of Tydeus thus replied.\n  Me, Nestor, my courageous heart incites\nTo penetrate into the neighbor host\nOf enemies; but went some other Chief260\nWith me, far greater would my comfort prove,\nAnd I should dare the more. Two going forth,\nOne quicker sees than other, and suggests\nPrudent advice; but he who single goes,\nMark whatsoe\u2019er he may, the occasion less265\nImproves, and his expedients soon exhausts.\n  He ended, and no few willing arose\nTo go with Diomede. Servants of Mars\nEach Ajax willing stood; willing as they\nMeriones; most willing Nestor\u2019s son;270\nWilling the brother of the Chief of all,\nNor willing less Ulysses to explore\nThe host of Troy, for he possess\u2019d a heart\nDelighted ever with some bold exploit.\n  Then Agamemnon, King of men, began.275\nNow Diomede, in whom my soul delights!\nChoose whom thou wilt for thy companion; choose\nThe fittest here; for numerous wish to go.\nLeave not through deference to another\u2019s rank,\nThe more deserving, nor prefer a worse,280\nRespecting either pedigree or power.\n  Such speech he interposed, fearing his choice\nOf Menelaus; then, renown\u2019d in arms\nThe son of Tydeus, rising, spake again.\n  Since, then, ye bid me my own partner choose285\nFree from constraint, how can I overlook\nDivine Ulysses, whose courageous heart\nWith such peculiar cheerfulness endures\nWhatever toils, and whom Minerva loves?\nLet _him_ attend me, and through fire itself290\nWe shall return; for none is wise as he.[7]\n  To him Ulysses, hardy Chief, replied.\nTydides! neither praise me much, nor blame,\nFor these are Grecians in whose ears thou speak\u2019st,\nAnd know me well. But let us hence! the night295\nDraws to a close; day comes apace; the stars\nAre far advanced; two portions have elapsed\nOf darkness, but the third is yet entire.\n  So they; then each his dreadful arms put on.\nTo Diomede, who at the fleet had left300\nHis own, the dauntless Thrasymedes gave\nHis shield and sword two-edged, and on his head\nPlaced, crestless, unadorn\u2019d, his bull-skin casque.\nIt was a stripling\u2019s helmet, such as youths\nScarce yet confirm\u2019d in lusty manhood, wear.305\nMeriones with quiver, bow and sword\nFurnish\u2019d Ulysses, and his brows enclosed\nIn his own casque of hide with many a thong\nWell braced within;[8] guarded it was without\nWith boar\u2019s teeth ivory-white inherent firm310\nOn all sides, and with woolen head-piece lined.\nThat helmet erst Autolycus[9] had brought\nFrom Eleon, city of Amyntor son\nOf Hormenus, where he the solid walls\nBored through, clandestine, of Amyntor\u2019s house.315\nHe on Amphidamas the prize bestow\u2019d\nIn Scandia;[10] from Amphidamas it pass\u2019d\nTo Molus as a hospitable pledge;\nHe gave it to Meriones his son,\nAnd now it guarded shrewd Ulysses\u2019 brows.320\nBoth clad in arms terrific, forth they sped,\nLeaving their fellow Chiefs, and as they went\nA heron, by command of Pallas, flew\nClose on the right beside them; darkling they\nDiscern\u2019d him not, but heard his clanging plumes.[11]325\nUlysses in the favorable sign\nExulted, and Minerva thus invoked.[12]\n\n  Oh hear me, daughter of Jove \u00c6gis-arm\u2019d!\nMy present helper in all straits, whose eye\nMarks all my ways, oh with peculiar care330\nNow guard me, Pallas! grant that after toil\nSuccessful, glorious, such as long shall fill\nWith grief the Trojans, we may safe return\nAnd with immortal honors to the fleet.\n  Valiant Tydides, next, his prayer preferr\u2019d.335\nHear also me, Jove\u2019s offspring by the toils\nOf war invincible! me follow now\nAs my heroic father erst to Thebes\nThou followedst, Tydeus; by the Greeks dispatch\u2019d\nAmbassador, he left the mail-clad host340\nBeside Asopus, and with terms of peace\nEntrusted, enter\u2019d Thebes; but by thine aid\nBenevolent, and in thy strength, perform\u2019d\nReturning, deeds of terrible renown.\nThus, now, protect me also! In return345\nI vow an offering at thy shrine, a young\nBroad-fronted heifer, to the yoke as yet\nUntamed, whose horns I will incase with gold.\n  Such prayer they made, and Pallas heard well pleased.\nTheir orisons ended to the daughter dread350\nOf mighty Jove, lion-like they advanced\nThrough shades of night, through carnage, arms and blood.\n  Nor Hector to his gallant host indulged\nSleep, but convened the leaders; leader none\nOr senator of all his host he left355\nUnsummon\u2019d, and his purpose thus promulged.\n  Where is the warrior who for rich reward,\nSuch as shall well suffice him, will the task\nAdventurous, which I propose, perform?\nA chariot with two steeds of proudest height,360\nSurpassing all in the whole fleet of Greece\nShall be his portion, with immortal praise,\nWho shall the well-appointed ships approach\nCourageous, there to learn if yet a guard\nAs heretofore, keep them, or if subdued365\nBeneath us, the Achaians flight intend,\nAnd worn with labor have no will to watch.\n  So Hector spake, but answer none return\u2019d.\nThere was a certain Trojan, Dolon named,[13]\nSon of Eumedes herald of the Gods,370\nRich both in gold and brass, but in his form\nUnsightly; yet the man was swift of foot,\nSole brother of five sisters; he his speech\nTo Hector and the Trojans thus address\u2019d.\n  My spirit, Hector, prompts me, and my mind375\nEndued with manly vigor, to approach\nYon gallant ships, that I may tidings hear.\nBut come. For my assurance, lifting high\nThy sceptre, swear to me, for my reward,\nThe horses and the brazen chariot bright380\nWhich bear renown\u2019d Achilles o\u2019er the field.\nI will not prove a useless spy, nor fall\nBelow thy best opinion; pass I will\nTheir army through, till I shall reach the ship\nOf Agamemnon, where the Chiefs, perchance,385\nNow sit consulting, or to fight, or fly.[14]\n\n  Then raising high his sceptre, Hector sware\nKnow, Jove himself, Juno\u2019s high-thundering spouse!\nThat Trojan none shall in that chariot ride\nBy those steeds drawn, save Dolon; on my oath390\nI make them thine; enjoy them evermore.\n  He said, and falsely sware, yet him assured.\nThen Dolon, instant, o\u2019er his shoulder slung\nHis bow elastic, wrapp\u2019d himself around\nWith a grey wolf-skin, to his head a casque395\nAdjusted, coated o\u2019er with ferret\u2019s felt,\nAnd seizing his sharp javelin, from the host\nTurn\u2019d right toward the fleet, but was ordain\u2019d\nTo disappoint his sender, and to bring\nNo tidings thence. The throng of Trojan steeds400\nAnd warriors left, with brisker pace he moved,\nWhen brave Ulysses his approach perceived,\nAnd thus to Diomede his speech address\u2019d.\n  Tydides! yonder man is from the host;\nEither a spy he comes, or with intent405\nTo spoil the dead. First, freely let him pass\nFew paces, then pursuing him with speed,\nSeize on him suddenly; but should he prove\nThe nimbler of the three, with threatening spear\nEnforce him from his camp toward the fleet,410\nLest he elude us, and escape to Troy.\n  So they; then, turning from the road oblique,\nAmong the carcases each laid him down.\nDolon, suspecting nought, ran swiftly by.\n[15]But when such space was interposed as mules415\nPlow in a day (for mules the ox surpass\nThrough fallows deep drawing the ponderous plow)\nBoth ran toward him. Dolon at the sound\nStood; for he hoped some Trojan friends at hand\nFrom Hector sent to bid him back again.420\nBut when within spear\u2019s cast, or less they came,\nKnowing them enemies he turn\u2019d to flight\nIncontinent, whom they as swift pursued.\nAs two fleet hounds sharp fang\u2019d, train\u2019d to the chase,\nHang on the rear of flying hind or hare,425\nAnd drive her, never swerving from the track,\nThrough copses close; she screaming scuds before;\nSo Diomede and dread Ulysses him\nChased constant, intercepting his return.\nAnd now, fast-fleeting to the ships, he soon430\nHad reach\u2019d the guard, but Pallas with new force\nInspired Tydides, lest a meaner Greek\nShould boast that he had smitten Dolon first,\nAnd Diomede win only second praise.\nHe poised his lifted spear, and thus exclaim\u2019d.435\n  Stand! or my spear shall stop thee. Death impends\nAt every step; thou canst not \u2019scape me long.\n  He said, and threw his spear, but by design,\nErr\u2019d from the man. The polish\u2019d weapon swift\nO\u2019er-glancing his right shoulder, in the soil440\nStood fixt, beyond him. Terrified he stood,\nStammering, and sounding through his lips the clash\nOf chattering teeth, with visage deadly wan.\nThey panting rush\u2019d on him, and both his hands\nSeized fast; he wept, and suppliant them bespake.445\n  Take me alive, and I will pay the price\nOf my redemption. I have gold at home,\nBrass also, and bright steel, and when report\nOf my captivity within your fleet\nShall reach my father, treasures he will give450\nNot to be told, for ransom of his son.\n  To whom Ulysses politic replied.\nTake courage; entertain no thought of death.[16]\nBut haste! this tell me, and disclose the truth.\nWhy thus toward the ships comest thou alone455\nFrom yonder host, by night, while others sleep?\nTo spoil some carcase? or from Hector sent\nA spy of all that passes in the fleet?\nOr by thy curiosity impell\u2019d?\n  Then Dolon, his limbs trembling, thus replied.460\nTo my great detriment, and far beyond\nMy own design, Hector trepann\u2019d me forth,\nWho promised me the steeds of Peleus\u2019 son\nIllustrious, and his brazen chariot bright.\nHe bade me, under night\u2019s fast-flitting shades465\nApproach our enemies, a spy, to learn\nIf still as heretofore, ye station guards\nFor safety of your fleet, or if subdued\nCompletely, ye intend immediate flight,\nAnd worn with labor, have no will to watch.470\n  To whom Ulysses, smiling, thus replied.\nThou hadst, in truth, an appetite to gifts\nOf no mean value, coveting the steeds\nOf brave \u00c6acides; but steeds are they\nOf fiery sort, difficult to be ruled475\nBy force of mortal man, Achilles\u2019 self\nExcept, whom an immortal mother bore.\nBut tell me yet again; use no disguise;\nWhere left\u2019st thou, at thy coming forth, your Chief,\nThe valiant Hector? where hath he disposed480\nHis armor battle-worn, and where his steeds?\nWhat other quar4ers of your host are watch\u2019d?\nWhere lodge the guard, and what intend ye next?\nStill to abide in prospect of the fleet?\nOr well-content that ye have thus reduced485\nAchaia\u2019s host, will ye retire to Troy?\n  To whom this answer Dolon straight returned\nSon of Eumedes. With unfeigning truth\nSimply and plainly will I utter all.\nHector, with all the Senatorial Chiefs,490\nBeside the tomb of sacred Ilius sits\nConsulting, from the noisy camp remote.\nBut for the guards, Hero! concerning whom\nThou hast inquired, there is no certain watch\nAnd regular appointed o\u2019er the camp;495\nThe native[17] Trojans (for _they_ can no less)\nSit sleepless all, and each his next exhorts\nTo vigilance; but all our foreign aids,\nWho neither wives nor children hazard here,\nTrusting the Trojans for that service, sleep.500\n  To whom Ulysses, ever wise, replied.\nHow sleep the strangers and allies?\u2014apart?\nOr with the Trojans mingled?\u2014I would learn.\n  So spake Ulysses; to whom Dolon thus,\nSon of Eumedes. I will all unfold,505\nAnd all most truly. By the sea are lodged\nThe Carians, the P\u00e6onians arm\u2019d with bows,\nThe Leleges, with the Pelasgian band,\nAnd the Caucones. On the skirts encamp\nOf Thymbra, the M\u00e6onians crested high,510\nThe Phrygian horsemen, with the Lycian host,\nAnd the bold troop of Mysia\u2019s haughty sons.\nBut wherefore these inquiries thus minu4e?\nFor if ye wish to penetrate the host,\nThese who possess the borders of the camp515\nFarthest removed of all, are Thracian powers\nNewly arrived; among them Rhesus sleeps,\nSon of E\u00efoneus, their Chief and King.\nHis steeds I saw, the fairest by these eyes\nEver beheld, and loftiest; snow itself520\nThey pass in whiteness, and in speed the winds,\nWith gold and silver all his chariot burns,\nAnd he arrived in golden armor clad\nStupendous! little suited to the state\nOf mortal man\u2014fit for a God to wear!525\nNow, either lead me to your gallant fleet,\nOr where ye find me leave me straitly bound\nTill ye return, and after trial made,\nShall know if I have spoken false or true.\n\n  But him brave Diomede with aspect stern530\nAnswer\u2019d. Since, Dolon! thou art caught, although\nThy tidings have been good, hope not to live;\nFor should we now release thee and dismiss,\nThou wilt revisit yet again the fleet\nA spy or open foe; but smitten once535\nBy this death-dealing arm, thou shall return\nTo render mischief to the Greeks no more.\n  He ceased, and Dolon would have stretch\u2019d his hand\nToward his beard, and pleaded hard for life,\nBut with his falchion, rising to the blow,540\nOn the mid-neck he smote him, cutting sheer\nBoth tendons with a stroke so swift, that ere\nHis tongue had ceased, his head was in the dust.[18]\nThey took his helmet clothed with ferret\u2019s felt,\nStripp\u2019d off his wolf-skin, seized his bow and spear,545\nAnd brave Ulysses lifting in his hand\nThe trophy to Minerva, pray\u2019d and said:\n  Hail Goddess; these are thine! for thee of all\nWho in Olympus dwell, we will invoke\nFirst to our aid. Now also guide our steps,550\nPropitious, to the Thracian tents and steeds.\n  He ceased, and at arm\u2019s-length the lifted spoils\nHung on a tamarisk; but mark\u2019d the spot,\nPlucking away with handful grasp the reeds\nAnd spreading boughs, lest they should seek the prize555\nThemselves in vain, returning ere the night,\nSwift traveller, should have fled before the dawn.\nThence, o\u2019er the bloody champain strew\u2019d with arms\nProceeding, to the Thracian lines they came.\nThey, wearied, slept profound; beside them lay,560\nIn triple order regular arranged,\nTheir radiant armor, and their steeds in pairs.\nAmid them Rhesus slept, and at his side\nHis coursers, to the outer chariot-ring\nFasten\u2019d secure. Ulysses saw him first,565\nAnd, seeing, mark\u2019d him out to Diomede.\n  Behold the man, Tydides! Lo! the steeds\nBy Dolon specified whom we have slain.\nBe quick. Exert thy force. Arm\u2019d as thou art,\nSleep not. Loose thou the steeds, or slaughter thou570\nThe Thracians, and the steeds shall be my care.\n  He ceased; then blue-eyed Pallas with fresh force\nInvigor\u2019d Diomede. From side to side\nHe slew; dread groans arose of dying men\nHewn with the sword, and the earth swam with blood.575\nAs if he find a flock unguarded, sheep\nOr goats, the lion rushes on his prey,\nWith such unsparing force Tydides smote\nThe men of Thrace, till he had slaughter\u2019d twelve;\nAnd whom Tydides with his falchion struck580\nLaertes\u2019 son dragg\u2019d by his feet abroad,\nForecasting that the steeds might pass with ease,\nNor start, as yet uncustom\u2019d to the dead.\nBut when the son of Tydeus found the King,\nHim also panting forth his last, last, breath,585\nHe added to the twelve; for at his head\nAn evil dream that night had stood, the form\nOf Diomede, by Pallas\u2019 art devised.\nMeantime, the bold Ulysses loosed the steeds,\nWhich, to each other rein\u2019d, he drove abroad,590\nSmiting them with his bow (for of the scourge\nHe thought not in the chariot-seat secured)\nAnd as he went, hiss\u2019d, warning Diomede.\nBut he, projecting still some hardier deed,\nStood doubtful, whether by the pole to draw595\nThe chariot thence, laden with gorgeous arms,\nOr whether heaving it on high, to bear\nThe burthen off, or whether yet to take\nMore Thracian lives; when him with various thoughts\nPerplex\u2019d, Minerva, drawing near, bespake.600\n  Son of bold Tydeus! think on thy return\nTo yonder fleet, lest thou depart constrain\u2019d.\nSome other God may rouse the powers of Troy.\n  She ended, and he knew the voice divine.\nAt once he mounted. With his bow the steeds605\nUlysses plyed, and to the ships they flew.\n  Nor look\u2019d the bender of the silver bow,\nApollo, forth in vain, but at the sight\nOf Pallas following Diomede incensed,\nDescended to the field where numerous most610\nHe saw the Trojans, and the Thracian Chief\nAnd counsellor, Hippoco\u00f6n aroused,[19]\nKinsman of Rhesus, and renown\u2019d in arms.\nHe, starting from his sleep, soon as he saw\nThe spot deserted where so lately lay615\nThose fiery coursers, and his warrior friends\nGasping around him, sounded loud the name\nOf his loved Rhesus. Instant, at the voice,\nWild stir arose and clamorous uproar\nOf fast-assembling Trojans. Deeds they saw\u2014620\nTerrible deeds, and marvellous perform\u2019d,\nBut not their authors\u2014they had sought the ships.\n  Meantime arrived where they had slain the spy\nOf Hector, there Ulysses, dear to Jove,\nThe coursers stay\u2019d, and, leaping to the ground,625\nThe son of Tydeus in Ulysses\u2019 hands\nThe arms of Dolon placed foul with his blood,\nThen vaulted light into his seat again.\nHe lash\u2019d the steeds, they, not unwilling, flew\nTo the deep-bellied barks, as to their home.630\nFirst Nestor heard the sound, and thus he said.\n  Friends! Counsellors! and leaders of the Greeks!\nFalse shall I speak, or true?\u2014but speak I must.\nThe echoing sound of hoofs alarms my ear.\nOh, that Ulysses, and brave Diomede635\nThis moment might arrive drawn into camp\nBy Trojan steeds! But, ah, the dread I feel!\nLest some disaster have for ever quell\u2019d\nIn yon rude host those noblest of the Greeks.\n  He hath not ended, when themselves arrived,640\nBoth quick dismounted; joy at their return\nFill\u2019d every bosom; each with kind salute\nCordial, and right-hand welcome greeted them,\nAnd first Gerenian Nestor thus inquired.\n  Oh Chief by all extoll\u2019d, glory of Greece,645\nUlysses! how have ye these steeds acquired?\nIn yonder host? or met ye as ye went\nSome God who gave them to you? for they show\nA lustre dazzling as the beams of day.\nOld as I am, I mingle yet in fight650\nWith Ilium\u2019s sons\u2014lurk never in the fleet\u2014\nYet saw I at no time, or have remark\u2019d\nSteeds such as these; which therefore I believe\nPerforce, that ye have gained by gift divine;\nFor cloud-assembler Jove, and azure-eyed655\nMinerva, Jove\u2019s own daughter, love you both.\n  To whom Ulysses, thus, discreet, replied.\nNeleian Nestor, glory of the Greeks!\nA God, so willing, could have given us steeds\nSuperior, for their bounty knows no bounds.660\nBut, venerable Chief! these which thou seest\nAre Thracians new-arrived. Their master lies\nSlain by the valiant Diomede, with twelve\nThe noblest of his warriors at his side,\nA thirteenth[20] also, at small distance hence665\nWe slew, by Hector and the Chiefs of Troy\nSent to inspect the posture of our host.\n  He said; then, high in exultation, drove\nThe coursers o\u2019er the trench, and with him pass\u2019d\nThe glad Achaians; at the spacious tent670\nOf Diomede arrived, with even thongs\nThey tied them at the cribs where stood the steeds\nOf Tydeus\u2019 son, with winnow\u2019d wheat supplied.\nUlysses in his bark the gory spoils\nOf Dolon placed, designing them a gift675\nTo Pallas. Then, descending to the sea,\nNeck, thighs, and legs from sweat profuse they cleansed,\nAnd, so refresh\u2019d and purified, their last\nAblution in bright tepid baths perform\u2019d.\nEach thus completely laved, and with smooth oil680\nAnointed, at the well-spread board they sat,\nAnd quaff\u2019d, in honor of Minerva, wine\nDelicious, from the brimming beaker drawn.\n\n\nThe vividness of the scenes presented to us in this Book constitute its\nchief beauty. The reader sees the most natural night-scene in the\nworld. He is led step by step with the adventurers, and made the\ncompanion of all their expectations and uncertainties. We see the very\ncolor of the sky; know the time to a minute; are impatient while the\nheroes are arming; our imagination follows them, knows all their\ndoubts, and even the secret wishes of their hearts sent up to Minerva.\nWe are alarmed at the approach of Dolon, hear his very footsteps,\nassist the two chiefs in pursuing him, and stop just with the spear\nthat arrests him. We are perfectly acquainted with the situation of all\nthe forces, with the figure in which they lie, with the disposition of\nRhesus and the Thracians, with the posture of his chariot and horses.\nThe marshy spot of ground where Dolon is killed, the tamarisk, or\naquatic plant upon which they hung his spoils, and the reeds that are\nheaped together to mark the place, are circumstances the most\npicturesque imaginable.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK XI.\n\n\nARGUMENT OF THE ELEVENTH BOOK.\n\nAgamemnon distinguishes himself. He is wounded, and retires. Diomede is\nwounded by Paris; Ulysses by Socus. Ajax with Menelaus flies to the\nrelief of Ulysses, and Eurypylus, soon after, to the relief of Ajax.\nWhile he is employed in assisting Ajax, he is shot in the thigh by\nParis, who also wounds Machaon. Nestor conveys Machaon from the field.\nAchilles dispatches Patroclus to the tent of Nestor, and Nestor takes\nthat occasion to exhort Patroclus to engage in battle, clothed in the\narmor of Achilles.\n\n\nBOOK XI.\n\n\nAurora from Tithonus\u2019 side arose\nWith light for heaven and earth, when Jove dispatch\u2019d\nDiscord, the fiery signal in her hand\nOf battle bearing, to the Grecian fleet.\nHigh on Ulysses\u2019 huge black ship she stood5\nThe centre of the fleet, whence all might hear,\nThe tent of Telamon\u2019s huge son between,\nAnd of Achilles; for confiding they\nIn their heroic fortitude, their barks\nWell-poised had station\u2019d utmost of the line.10\nThere standing, shrill she sent a cry abroad\nAmong the Achaians, such as thirst infused\nOf battle ceaseless into every breast.\nAll deem\u2019d, at once, war sweeter, than to seek\nTheir native country through the waves again.15\nThen with loud voice Atrides bade the Greeks\nGird on their armor, and himself his arms\nTook radiant. First around his legs he clasp\u2019d\nHis shining greaves with silver studs secured,\nThen bound his corselet to his bosom, gift20\nOf Cynyras long since;[1] for rumor loud\nHad Cyprus reached of an Achaian host\nAssembling, destined to the shores of Troy:\nWherefore, to gratify the King of men,\nHe made the splendid ornament his own.25\nTen rods of steel c\u0153rulean all around\nEmbraced it, twelve of gold, twenty of tin;\nSix[2] spiry serpents their uplifted heads\nC\u0153rulean darted at the wearer\u2019s throat,\nSplendor diffusing as the various bow30\nFix\u2019d by Saturnian Jove in showery clouds,\nA sign to mortal men.[3] He slung his sword\nAthwart his shoulders; dazzling bright it shone\nWith gold emboss\u2019d, and silver was the sheath\nSuspended graceful in a belt of gold.35\nHis massy shield o\u2019ershadowing him whole,\nHigh-wrought and beautiful, he next assumed.\nTen circles bright of brass around its field\nExtensive, circle within circle, ran;\nThe central boss was black, but hemm\u2019d about40\nWith twice ten bosses of resplendent tin.\nThere, dreadful ornament! the visage dark\nOf Gorgon scowl\u2019d, border\u2019d by Flight and Fear.\nThe loop was silver, and a serpent form\nC\u0153rulean over all its surface twined,45\nThree heads erecting on one neck, the heads\nTogether wreath\u2019d into a stately crown.\nHis helmet qu\u00e2tre-crested,[4] and with studs\nFast riveted around he to his brows\nAdjusted, whence tremendous waved his crest50\nOf mounted hair on high. Two spears he seized\nPonderous, brass-pointed, and that flash\u2019d to heaven.\nSounds[5] like clear thunder, by the spouse of Jove\nAnd by Minerva raised to extol the King\nOf opulent Mycen\u00e6, roll\u2019d around.55\nAt once each bade his charioteer his steeds\nHold fast beside the margin of the trench\nIn orderly array; the foot all arm\u2019d\nRush\u2019d forward, and the clamor of the host\nRose infinite into the dawning skies.60\nFirst, at the trench, the embattled infantry[6]\nStood ranged; the chariots follow\u2019d close behind;\nDire was the tumult by Saturnian Jove\nExcited, and from ether down he shed\nBlood-tinctured dews among them, for he meant65\nThat day to send full many a warrior bold\nTo Pluto\u2019s dreary realm, slain premature.\n  Opposite, on the rising-ground, appear\u2019d\nThe Trojans; them majestic Hector led,\nNoble Polydamas, \u00c6neas raised70\nTo godlike honors in all Trojan hearts,\nAnd Polybus, with whom Antenor\u2019s sons\nAgenor, and young Acamas advanced.\nHector the splendid orb of his broad shield\nBore in the van, and as a comet now75\nGlares through the clouds portentous, and again,\nObscured by gloomy vapors, disappears,\nSo Hector, marshalling his host, in front\nNow shone, now vanish\u2019d in the distant rear.\nAll-cased he flamed in brass, and on the sight80\nFlash\u2019d as the lightnings of Jove \u00c6gis-arm\u2019d.\nAs reapers, toiling opposite,[7] lay bare\nSome rich man\u2019s furrows, while the sever\u2019d grain,\nBarley or wheat, sinks as the sickle moves,\nSo Greeks and Trojans springing into fight85\nSlew mutual; foul retreat alike they scorn\u2019d,\nAlike in fierce hostility their heads\nBoth bore aloft, and rush\u2019d like wolves to war.\nDiscord, spectatress terrible, that sight\nBeheld exulting; she, of all the Gods,90\nAlone was present; not a Power beside\nThere interfered, but each his bright abode\nQuiescent occupied wherever built\nAmong the windings of the Olympian heights;\nYet blamed they all the storm-assembler King95\nSaturnian, for his purposed aid to Troy.\nThe eternal father reck\u2019d not; he, apart,\nSeated in solitary pomp, enjoy\u2019d\nHis glory, and from on high the towers survey\u2019d\nOf Ilium and the fleet of Greece, the flash100\nOf gleaming arms, the slayer and the slain.\n  While morning lasted, and the light of day\nIncreased, so long the weapons on both sides\nFlew in thick vollies, and the people fell.\nBut, what time his repast the woodman spreads105\nIn some umbrageous vale, his sinewy arms\nWearied with hewing many a lofty tree,\nAnd his wants satisfied, he feels at length\nThe pinch of appetite to pleasant food,[8]\nThen was it, that encouraging aloud110\nEach other, in their native virtue strong,\nThe Grecians through the phalanx burst of Troy.\nForth sprang the monarch first; he slew the Chief\nBianor, nor himself alone, but slew\nO\u00efleus also driver of his steeds.115\nO\u00efleus, with a leap alighting, rush\u2019d\nOn Agamemnon; he his fierce assault\nEncountering, with a spear met full his front.\nNor could his helmet\u2019s ponderous brass sustain\nThat force, but both his helmet and his skull120\nIt shatter\u2019d, and his martial rage repress\u2019d.\nThe King of men, stripping their corselets, bared\nTheir shining breasts, and left them. Isus, next,\nAnd Antiphus he flew to slay, the sons\nOf Priam both, and in one chariot borne,125\nThis spurious, genuine that. The bastard drove,\nAnd Antiphus, a warrior high-renown\u2019d,\nFought from the chariot; them Achilles erst\nFeeding their flocks on Ida had surprised\nAnd bound with osiers, but for ransom loosed.130\nOf these, imperial Agamemnon, first,\nAbove the pap pierced Isus; next, he smote\nAntiphus with his sword beside the ear,\nAnd from his chariot cast him to the ground.\nConscious of both, their glittering arms he stripp\u2019d,135\nFor he had seen them when from Ida\u2019s heights\nAchilles led them to the Grecian fleet.\nAs with resistless fangs the lion breaks\nThe young in pieces of the nimble hind,\nEntering her lair, and takes their feeble lives;140\nShe, though at hand, can yield them no defence,\nBut through the thick wood, wing\u2019d with terror, starts\nHerself away, trembling at such a foe;\nSo them the Trojans had no power to save,\nThemselves all driven before the host of Greece.145\nNext, on Pisandrus, and of dauntless heart\nHippolochus he rush\u2019d; they were the sons\nOf brave Antimachus, who with rich gifts\nBy Paris bought, inflexible withheld\nFrom Menelaus still his lovely bride.150\nHis sons, the monarch, in one chariot borne\nEncounter\u2019d; they (for they had lost the reins)\nWith trepidation and united force\nEssay\u2019d to check the steeds; astonishment\nSeized both; Atrides with a lion\u2019s rage155\nCame on, and from the chariot thus they sued.\n  Oh spare us! son of Atreus, and accept\nRansom immense. Antimachus our sire\nIs rich in various treasure, gold and brass,\nAnd temper\u2019d steel, and, hearing the report160\nThat in Achaia\u2019s fleet his sons survive,\nHe will requite thee with a glorious price.\n  So they, with tears and gentle terms the King\nAccosted, but no gentle answer heard.\n  Are ye indeed the offspring of the Chief165\nAntimachus, who when my brother once\nWith godlike Laertiades your town\nEnter\u2019d ambassador, his death advised\nIn council, and to let him forth no more?\nNow rue ye both the baseness of your sire.170\n  He said, and from his chariot to the plain\nThrust down Pisandrus, piercing with keen lance\nHis bosom, and supine he smote the field.\nDown leap\u2019d Hippolochus, whom on the ground\nHe slew, cut sheer his hands, and lopp\u2019d his head,175\nAnd roll\u2019d it like a mortar[9] through the ranks.\nHe left the slain, and where he saw the field\nWith thickest battle cover\u2019d, thither flew\nBy all the Grecians follow\u2019d bright in arms.\nThe scatter\u2019d infantry constrained to fly,180\nFell by the infantry; the charioteers,\nWhile with loud hoofs their steeds the dusty soil\nExcited, o\u2019er the charioteers their wheels\nDrove brazen-fellied, and the King of men\nIncessant slaughtering, called his Argives[10] on.185\nAs when fierce flames some ancient forest seize,\nFrom side to side in flakes the various wind\nRolls them, and to the roots devour\u2019d, the trunks\nFall prostrate under fury of the fire,\nSo under Agamemnon fell the heads190\nOf flying Trojans. Many a courser proud\nThe empty chariots through the paths of war\nWhirl\u2019d rattling, of their charioteers deprived;\nThey breathless press\u2019d the plain, now fitter far\nTo feed the vultures than to cheer their wives.195\n  Conceal\u2019d, meantime, by Jove, Hector escaped\nThe dust, darts, deaths, and tumult of the field;\nAnd Agamemnon to the swift pursuit\nCall\u2019d loud the Grecians. Through the middle plain\nBeside the sepulchre of Ilus, son200\nOf Dardanus, and where the fig-tree stood,\nThe Trojans flew, panting to gain the town,\nWhile Agamemnon pressing close the rear,\nShout after shout terrific sent abroad,\nAnd his victorious hands reek\u2019d, red with gore.205\nBut at the beech-tree and the Sc\u00e6an gate\nArrived, the Trojans halted, waiting there\nThe rearmost fugitives; they o\u2019er the field\nCame like a herd, which in the dead of night\nA lion drives; all fly, but one is doom\u2019d210\nTo death inevitable; her with jaws\nTrue to their hold he seizes, and her neck\nBreaking, embowels her, and laps the blood;\nSo, Atreus\u2019 royal son, the hindmost still\nSlaying, and still pursuing, urged them on.215\nMany supine, and many prone, the field\nPress\u2019d, by the son of Atreus in their flight\nDismounted; for no weapon raged as his.\nBut now, at last, when he should soon have reach\u2019d\nThe lofty walls of Ilium, came the Sire220\nOf Gods and men descending from the skies,\nAnd on the heights of Ida fountain-fed,\nSat arm\u2019d with thunders. Calling to his foot\nSwift Iris golden-pinion\u2019d, thus he spake.\n  Iris! away. Thus speak in Hector\u2019s ears.225\nWhile yet he shall the son of Atreus see\nFierce warring in the van, and mowing down\nThe Trojan ranks, so long let him abstain\nFrom battle, leaving to his host the task\nOf bloody contest furious with the Greeks.230\nBut soon as Atreus\u2019 son by spear or shaft\nWounded shall climb his chariot, with such force\nI will endue Hector, that he shall slay\nTill he have reach\u2019d the ships, and till, the sun\nDescending, sacred darkness cover all.235\n  He spake, nor rapid Iris disobey\u2019d\nStorm-wing\u2019d ambassadress, but from the heights\nOf Ida stoop\u2019d to Ilium. There she found\nThe son of royal Priam by the throng\nOf chariots and of steeds compass\u2019d about240\nShe, standing at his side, him thus bespake.\n  Oh, son of Priam! as the Gods discreet!\nI bring thee counsel from the Sire of all.\nWhile yet thou shalt the son of Atreus see\nFierce warring in the van, and mowing down245\nThe warrior ranks, so long he bids thee pause\nFrom battle, leaving to thy host the task\nOf bloody contest furious with the Greeks.\nBut soon as Atreus\u2019 son, by spear or shaft\nWounded, shall climb his chariot, Jove will then250\nEndue thee with such force, that thou shalt slay\nTill thou have reach\u2019d the ships, and till, the sun\nDescending, sacred darkness cover all.\n  So saying, swift-pinion\u2019d Iris disappear\u2019d.\nThen Hector from his chariot at a leap255\nCame down all arm\u2019d, and, shaking his bright spears,\nRanged every quarter, animating loud\nThe legions, and rekindling horrid war.\nBack roll\u2019d the Trojan ranks, and faced the Greeks;\nThe Greeks their host to closer phalanx drew;260\nThe battle was restored, van fronting van\nThey stood, and Agamemnon into fight\nSprang foremost, panting for superior fame.\n  Say now, ye Nine, who on Olympus dwell!\nWhat Trojan first, or what ally of Troy265\nOpposed the force of Agamemnon\u2019s arm?\nIphidamas, Antenor\u2019s valiant son,\nOf loftiest stature, who in fertile Thrace\nMother of flocks was nourish\u2019d, Cisseus him\nHis grandsire, father of Theano praised270\nFor loveliest features, in his own abode\nRear\u2019d yet a child, and when at length he reach\u2019d\nThe measure of his glorious manhood firm\nDismiss\u2019d him not, but, to engage him more,\nGave him his daughter. Wedded, he his bride275\nAs soon deserted, and with galleys twelve\nFollowing the rumor\u2019d voyage of the Greeks,\nThe same course steer\u2019d; but at Percope moor\u2019d,\nAnd marching thence, arrived on foot at Troy.\nHe first opposed Atrides. They approach\u2019d.280\nThe spear of Agamemnon wander\u2019d wide;\nBut him Iphidamas on his broad belt\nBeneath the corselet struck, and, bearing still\nOn his spear-beam, enforced it; but ere yet\nHe pierced the broider\u2019d zone, his point, impress\u2019d285\nAgainst the silver, turn\u2019d, obtuse as lead.\nThen royal Agamemnon in his hand\nThe weapon grasping, with a lion\u2019s rage\nHome drew it to himself, and from his gripe\nWresting it, with his falchion keen his neck290\nSmote full, and stretch\u2019d him lifeless at his foot.\nSo slept Iphidamas among the slain;\nUnhappy! from his virgin bride remote,\nAssociate with the men of Troy in arms\nHe fell, and left her beauties unenjoy\u2019d.295\nHe gave her much, gave her a hundred beeves,\nAnd sheep and goats a thousand from his flocks\nPromised, for numberless his meadows ranged;\nBut Agamemnon, son of Atreus, him\nSlew and despoil\u2019d, and through the Grecian host300\nProceeded, laden with his gorgeous arms.\nCo\u00f6n that sight beheld, illustrious Chief,\nAntenor\u2019s eldest born, but with dim eyes\nThrough anguish for his brother\u2019s fall. Unseen\nOf noble Agamemnon, at his side305\nHe cautious stood, and with a spear his arm,\nWhere thickest flesh\u2019d, below his elbow, pierced,\nTill opposite the glittering point appear\u2019d.\nA thrilling horror seized the King of men\nSo wounded; yet though wounded so, from fight310\nHe ceased not, but on Co\u00f6n rush\u2019d, his spear\nGrasping, well-thriven growth[11] of many a wind.\nHe by the foot drew off Iphidamas,\nHis brother, son of his own sire, aloud\nCalling the Trojan leaders to his aid;315\nWhen him so occupied with his keen point\nAtrides pierced his bossy shield beneath.\nExpiring on Iphidamas he fell\nProstrate, and Agamemnon lopp\u2019d his head.\nThus, under royal Agamemnon\u2019s hand,320\nAntenor\u2019s sons their destiny fulfill\u2019d,\nAnd to the house of Ades journey\u2019d both.\nThrough other ranks of warriors then he pass\u2019d,\nNow with his spear, now with his falchion arm\u2019d,\nAnd now with missile force of massy stones,325\nWhile yet his warm blood sallied from the wound.\nBut when the wound grew dry, and the blood ceased,\nAnguish intolerable undermined\nThen all the might of Atreus\u2019 royal son.\nAs when a laboring woman\u2019s arrowy throes330\nSeize her intense, by Juno\u2019s daughters dread\nThe birth-presiding Ilithy\u00e6 deep\nInfixt, dispensers of those pangs severe;\nSo, anguish insupportable subdued\nThen all the might of Atreus\u2019 royal son.335\nUp-springing to his seat, instant he bade\nHis charioteer drive to the hollow barks,\nHeart-sick himself with pain; yet, ere he went,\nWith voice loud-echoing hail\u2019d the Dana\u00ef.\n  Friends! counsellors and leaders of the Greeks!340\nNow drive, yourselves, the battle from your ships.\nFor me the Gods permit not to employ\nIn fight with Ilium\u2019s host the day entire.\n  He ended, and the charioteer his steeds\nLash\u2019d to the ships; they not unwilling flew,345\nBearing from battle the afflicted King\nWith foaming chests and bellies grey with dust.\nSoon Hector, noting his retreat, aloud\nCall\u2019d on the Trojans and allies of Troy.\n  Trojans and Lycians, and close-fighting sons350\nOf Dardanus! oh summon all your might;\nNow, now be men! Their bravest is withdrawn!\nGlory and honor from Saturnian Jove\nOn me attend; now full against the Greeks\nDrive all your steeds, and win a deathless name.355\n  He spake\u2014and all drew courage from his word.\nAs when his hounds bright-tooth\u2019d some hunter cheers\nAgainst the lion or the forest-boar,\nSo Priame\u00efan Hector cheer\u2019d his host\nMagnanimous against the sons of Greece,360\nTerrible as gore-tainted Mars. Among\nThe foremost warriors, with success elate\nHe strode, and flung himself into the fight\nBlack as a storm which sudden from on high\nDescending, furrows deep the gloomy flood.365\n  Then whom slew Priame\u00efan Hector first,\nWhom last, by Jove, that day, with glory crown\u2019d?\nAss\u00e6us, Dolops, Orus, Agela\u00fcs,\nAutono\u00fcs, Hippono\u00fcs, \u00c6symnus,\nOpheltius and Opites first he slew,370\nAll leaders of the Greeks, and, after these,\nThe people. As when whirlwinds of the West\nA storm encounter from the gloomy South,\nThe waves roll multitudinous, and the foam\nUpswept by wandering gusts fills all the air,375\nSo Hector swept the Grecians. Then defeat\nPast remedy and havoc had ensued,\nThen had the routed Grecians, flying, sought\nTheir ships again, but that Ulysses[12] thus\nSummon\u2019d the brave Tydides to his aid.380\n  Whence comes it, Diomede, that we forget\nOur wonted courage? Hither, O my friend!\nAnd, fighting at my side, ward off the shame\nThat must be ours, should Hector seize the fleet.\n  To whom the valiant Diomede replied.385\nI will be firm; trust me thou shalt not find\nMe shrinking; yet small fruit of our attempts\nShall follow, for the Thunderer, not to us,\nBut to the Trojan, gives the glorious day.\n  The Hero spake, and from his chariot cast390\nThymbr\u00e6us to the ground pierced through the pap,\nWhile by Ulysses\u2019 hand his charioteer\nGodlike Molion, fell. The warfare thus\nOf both for ever closed, them there they left,\nAnd plunging deep into the warrior-throng395\nTroubled the multitude. As when two boars\nTurn desperate on the close-pursuing hounds,\nSo they, returning on the host of Troy,\nSlew on all sides, and overtoil\u2019d with flight\nFrom Hector\u2019s arm, the Greeks meantime respired.400\nTwo warriors, next, their chariot and themselves\nThey took, plebeians brave, sons of the seer\nPercosian Merops in prophetic skill\nSurpassing all; he both his sons forbad\nThe mortal field, but disobedient they405\nStill sought it, for their destiny prevail\u2019d.\nSpear-practised Diomede of life deprived\nBoth these, and stripp\u2019d them of their glorious arms,\nWhile by Ulysses\u2019 hand Hippodamus\nDied and Hypeirochus. And now the son410\nOf Saturn, looking down from Ida, poised\nThe doubtful war, and mutual deaths they dealt.\nTydides plunged his spear into the groin\nOf the illustrious son of P\u00e6on, bold\nAgastrophus. No steeds at his command415\nHad he, infatuate! but his charioteer\nHis steeds detain\u2019d remote, while through the van\nHimself on foot rush\u2019d madly till he fell.\nBut Hector through the ranks darting his eye\nPerceived, and with ear-piercing cries advanced420\nAgainst them, follow\u2019d by the host of Troy.\nThe son of Tydeus, shuddering, his approach\nDiscern\u2019d, and instant to Ulysses spake.[13]\n  Now comes the storm! This way the mischief rolls!\nStand and repulse the Trojan. Now be firm.425\n  He said, and hurling his long-shadow\u2019d beam\nSmote Hector. At his helmet\u2019s crown he aim\u2019d,\nNor err\u2019d, but brass encountering brass, the point\nGlanced wide, for he had cased his youthful brows\nIn triple brass, Apollo\u2019s glorious gift.430\nYet with rapidity at such a shock\nHector recoil\u2019d into the multitude\nAfar, where sinking to his knees, he lean\u2019d\nOn his broad palm, and darkness veil\u2019d his eyes.\nBut while Tydides follow\u2019d through the van435\nHis stormy spear, which in the distant soil\nImplanted stood, Hector his scatter\u2019d sense\nRecovering, to his chariot sprang again,\nAnd, diving deep into his host, escaped.\nThe noble son of Tydeus, spear in hand,440\nRush\u2019d after him, and as he went, exclaim\u2019d.\n  Dog! thou hast now escaped; but, sure the stroke\nApproach\u2019d thee nigh, well-aim\u2019d. Once more thy prayers\nWhich ever to Apollo thou prefer\u2019st\nEntering the clash of battle, have prevail\u2019d,445\nAnd he hath rescued thee. But well beware\nOur next encounter, for if also me\nSome God befriend, thou diest. Now will I seek\nAnother mark, and smite whom next I may.\n  He spake, and of his armor stripp\u2019d the son450\nSpear-famed of P\u00e6on. Meantime Paris, mate\nOf beauteous Helen, drew his bow against\nTydides; by a pillar of the tomb\nOf Ilus, ancient senator revered,\nConceal\u2019d he stood, and while the Hero loosed455\nHis corselet from the breast of P\u00e6on\u2019s son\nRenown\u2019d, and of his helmet and his targe\nDespoil\u2019d him; Paris, arching quick his bow,\nNo devious shaft dismiss\u2019d, but his right foot\nPierced through the sole, and fix\u2019d it to the ground.460\nTransported from his ambush forth he leap\u2019d\nWith a loud laugh, and, vaunting, thus exclaim\u2019d:\n  Oh shaft well shot! it galls thee. Would to heaven\nThat it had pierced thy heart, and thou hadst died!\nSo had the Trojans respite from their toils465\nEnjoy\u2019d, who, now, shudder at sight of thee\nLike she-goats when the lion is at hand.\n  To whom, undaunted, Diomede replied.\nArcher shrew-tongued! spie-maiden! man of curls![14]\nShouldst thou in arms attempt me face to face,470\nThy bow and arrows should avail thee nought.\nVain boaster! thou hast scratch\u2019d my foot\u2014no more\u2014\nAnd I regard it as I might the stroke\nOf a weak woman or a simple child.\nThe weapons of a dastard and a slave475\nAre ever such. More terrible are mine,\nAnd whom they pierce, though slightly pierced, he dies.\nHis wife her cheeks rends inconsolable,\nHis babes are fatherless, his blood the glebe\nIncarnadines, and where he bleeds and rots480\nMore birds of prey than women haunt the place.\n  He ended, and Ulysses, drawing nigh,\nShelter\u2019d Tydides; he behind the Chief\nOf Ithaca sat drawing forth the shaft,\nBut pierced with agonizing pangs the while.485\nThen, climbing to his chariot-seat, he bade\nSthenelus hasten to the hollow ships,\nHeart-sick with pain. And now alone was seen\nSpear-famed Ulysses; not an Argive more\nRemain\u2019d, so universal was the rout,490\nAnd groaning, to his own great heart he said.\n  Alas! what now awaits me? If, appall\u2019d\nBy multitudes, I fly, much detriment;\nAnd if alone they intercept me here,\nStill more; for Jove hath scatter\u2019d all the host,495\nYet why these doubts! for know I not of old\nThat only dastards fly, and that the voice\nOf honor bids the famed in battle stand,\nBleed they themselves, or cause their foes to bleed?\n  While busied in such thought he stood, the ranks500\nOf Trojans fronted with broad shields, enclosed\nThe hero with a ring, hemming around\nTheir own destruction. As when dogs, and swains\nIn prime of manhood, from all quarters rush\nAround a boar, he from his thicket bolts,505\nThe bright tusk whetting in his crooked jaws:\nThey press him on all sides, and from beneath\nLoud gnashings hear, yet firm, his threats defy;\nLike them the Trojans on all sides assail\u2019d\nUlysses dear to Jove. First with his spear510\nHe sprang impetuous on a valiant chief,\nWhose shoulder with a downright point he pierced,\nDe\u00efopites; Tho\u00f6n next he slew,\nAnd Ennomus, and from his coursers\u2019 backs\nAlighting quick, Chersidamas; beneath515\nHis bossy shield the gliding weapon pass\u2019d\nRight through his navel; on the plain he fell\nExpiring, and with both hands clench\u2019d the dust.\nThem slain he left, and Charops wounded next,\nBrother of Socus, generous Chief, and son520\nOf Hippasus; brave Socus to the aid\nOf Charops flew, and, godlike, thus began.\n  Illustrious chief, Ulysses! strong to toil\nAnd rich in artifice! Or boast to-day\nTwo sons of Hippasus, brave warriors both,525\nOf armor and of life bereft by thee,\nOr to my vengeful spear resign thy own!\n  So saying, Ulysses\u2019 oval disk he smote.\nThrough his bright disk the stormy weapon flew,\nTranspierced his twisted mail, and from his side530\nDrove all the skin, but to his nobler parts\nFound entrance none, by Pallas turn\u2019d aslant.[15]\nUlysses, conscious of his life untouch\u2019d,\nRetired a step from Socus, and replied.\n  Ah hapless youth; thy fate is on the wing;535\nMe thou hast forced indeed to cease a while\nFrom battle with the Trojans, but I speak\nThy death at hand; for vanquish\u2019d by my spear,\nThis self-same day thou shalt to me resign\nThy fame, thy soul to Pluto steed-renown\u2019d.540\n  He ceased; then Socus turn\u2019d his back to fly,\nBut, as he turn\u2019d, his shoulder-blades between\nHe pierced him, and the spear urged through his breast.\nOn his resounding arms he fell, and thus\nGodlike Ulysses gloried in his fall.545\n  Ah, Socus, son of Hippasus, a chief\nOf fame equestrian! swifter far than thou\nDeath follow\u2019d thee, and thou hast not escaped.\nIll-fated youth! thy parents\u2019 hands thine eyes\nShall never close, but birds of ravenous maw550\nShall tear thee, flapping thee with frequent wing,\nWhile me the noble Grecians shall entomb!\n  So saying, the valiant Socus\u2019 spear he drew\nFrom his own flesh, and through his bossy shield.\nThe weapon drawn, forth sprang the blood, and left555\nHis spirit faint. Then Ilium\u2019s dauntless sons,\nSeeing Ulysses\u2019 blood, exhorted glad\nEach other, and, with force united, all\nPress\u2019d on him. He, retiring, summon\u2019d loud\nHis followers. Thrice, loud as mortal may,560\nHe call\u2019d, and valiant Menelaus thrice\nHearing the voice, to Ajax thus remark\u2019d.\n  Illustrious son of Telamon! The voice\nOf Laertiades comes o\u2019er my ear\nWith such a sound, as if the hardy chief,565\nAbandon\u2019d of his friends, were overpower\u2019d\nBy numbers intercepting his retreat.\nHaste! force we quick a passage through the ranks.\nHis worth demands our succor, for I fear\nLest sole conflicting with the host of Troy,570\nBrave as he is, he perish, to the loss\nUnspeakable and long regret of Greece.\n  So saying, he went, and Ajax, godlike Chief,\nFollow\u2019d him. At the voice arrived, they found\nUlysses Jove-beloved compass\u2019d about575\nBy Trojans, as the lynxes in the hills,\nAdust for blood, compass an antler\u2019d stag\nPierced by an archer; while his blood is warm\nAnd his limbs pliable, from him he \u2019scapes;\nBut when the feather\u2019d barb hath quell\u2019d his force,580\nIn some dark hollow of the mountain\u2019s side,\nThe hungry troop devour him; chance, the while,\nConducts a lion thither, before whom\nAll vanish, and the lion feeds alone;\nSo swarm\u2019d the Trojan powers, numerous and bold,585\nAround Ulysses, who with wary skill\nHeroic combated his evil day.\nBut Ajax came, cover\u2019d with his broad shield\nThat seem\u2019d a tower, and at Ulysses\u2019 side\nStood fast; then fled the Trojans wide-dispersed,590\nAnd Menelaus led him by the hand\nTill his own chariot to his aid approach\u2019d.\nBut Ajax, springing on the Trojans, slew\nDoryclus, from the loins of Priam sprung,\nBut spurious. Pandocus he wounded next,595\nThen wounded Pyrasus, and after him\nPylartes and Lysander. As a flood\nRuns headlong from the mountains to the plain\nAfter long showers from Jove; many a dry oak\nAnd many a pine the torrent sweeps along,600\nAnd, turbid, shoots much soil into the sea,\nSo, glorious Ajax troubled wide the field,\nHorse and man slaughtering, whereof Hector yet\nHeard not; for on the left of all the war\nHe fought beside Scamander, where around605\nHuge Nestor, and Idomeneus the brave,\nMost deaths were dealt, and loudest roar\u2019d the fight.\nThere Hector toil\u2019d, feats wonderful of spear\nAnd horsemanship achieving, and the lines\nOf many a phalanx desolating wide.610\nNor even then had the bold Greeks retired,\nBut that an arrow triple-barb\u2019d, dispatch\u2019d\nBy Paris, Helen\u2019s mate, against the Chief\nMachaon warring with distinguish\u2019d force,\nPierced his right shoulder. For his sake alarm\u2019d,615\nThe valor-breathing Grecians fear\u2019d, lest he\nIn that disast\u2019rous field should also fall.[16]\nAt once, Idomeneus of Crete approach\u2019d\nThe noble Nestor, and him thus bespake.\n  Arise, Neleian Nestor! Pride of Greece!620\nAscend thy chariot, and Machaon placed\nBeside thee, bear him, instant to the fleet.\nFor one, so skill\u2019d in medicine, and to free\nThe inherent barb, is worth a multitude.\n  He said, nor the Gerenian hero old625\nAught hesitated, but into his seat\nAscended, and Machaon, son renown\u2019d\nOf \u00c6sculapius, mounted at his side.\nHe lash\u2019d the steeds, they not unwilling sought\nThe hollow ships, long their familiar home.630\n  Cebriones, meantime, the charioteer\nOf Hector, from his seat the Trojan ranks\nObserving sore discomfited, began.\n  Here are we busied, Hector! on the skirts\nOf roaring battle, and meantime I see635\nOur host confused, their horses and themselves\nAll mingled. Telamonian Ajax there\nRouts them; I know the hero by his shield.\nHaste, drive we thither, for the carnage most\nOf horse and foot conflicting furious, there640\nRages, and infinite the shouts arise.\n  He said, and with shrill-sounding scourge the steeds\nSmote ample-maned; they, at the sudden stroke\nThrough both hosts whirl\u2019d the chariot, shields and men\nTrampling; with blood the axle underneath645\nAll redden\u2019d, and the chariot-rings with drops\nFrom the horse-hoofs, and from the fellied wheels.\nFull on the multitude he drove, on fire\nTo burst the phalanx, and confusion sent\nAmong the Greeks, for nought[17] he shunn\u2019d the spear.650\nAll quarters else with falchion or with lance,\nOr with huge stones he ranged, but cautious shunn\u2019d\nThe encounter of the Telamonian Chief.\n  But the eternal father throned on high\nWith fear fill\u2019d Ajax; panic-fixt he stood,655\nHis seven-fold shield behind his shoulder cast,\nAnd hemm\u2019d by numbers, with an eye askant,\nWatchful retreated. As a beast of prey\nRetiring, turns and looks, so he his face\nTurn\u2019d oft, retiring slow, and step by step.660\nAs when the watch-dogs and assembled swains\nHave driven a tawny lion from the stalls,\nThen, interdicting him his wish\u2019d repast,\nWatch all the night, he, famish\u2019d, yet again\nComes furious on, but speeds not, kept aloof665\nBy frequent spears from daring hands, but more\nBy flash of torches, which, though fierce, he dreads,\nTill, at the dawn, sullen he stalks away;\nSo from before the Trojans Ajax stalk\u2019d\nSullen, and with reluctance slow retired.670\nHis brave heart trembling for the fleet of Greece.\nAs when (the boys o\u2019erpower\u2019d) a sluggish ass,\nOn whose tough sides they have spent many a staff,\nEnters the harvest, and the spiry ears\nCrops persevering; with their rods the boys675\nStill ply him hard, but all their puny might\nScarce drives him forth when he hath browsed his fill,\nSo, there, the Trojans and their foreign aids\nWith glittering lances keen huge Ajax urged,\nHis broad shield\u2019s centre smiting.[18] He, by turns,680\nWith desperate force the Trojan phalanx dense\nFacing, repulsed them, and by turns he fled,\nBut still forbad all inroad on the fleet.\nTrojans and Greeks between, alone, he stood\nA bulwark. Spears from daring hands dismiss\u2019d685\nSome, piercing his broad shield, there planted stood,\nWhile others, in the midway falling, spent\nTheir disappointed rage deep in the ground.\n\n  Eurypylus, Ev\u00e6mon\u2019s noble son,\nHim seeing, thus, with weapons overwhelmed690\nFlew to his side, his glittering lance dismiss\u2019d,\nAnd Apisaon, son of Phausias, struck\nUnder the midriff; through his liver pass\u2019d\nThe ruthless point, and, falling, he expired.\nForth sprang Eurypylus to seize the spoil;695\nWhom soon as godlike Alexander saw\nDespoiling Apisaon of his arms,\nDrawing incontinent his bow, he sent\nA shaft to his right thigh; the brittle reed\nSnapp\u2019d, and the rankling barb stuck fast within.700\nTerrified at the stroke, the wounded Chief\nTo his own band retired, but, as he went,\nWith echoing voice call\u2019d on the Dana\u00ef\u2014\n  Friends! Counsellors, and leaders of the Greeks!\nTurn ye and stand, and from his dreadful lot705\nSave Ajax whelm\u2019d with weapons; \u2019scape, I judge,\nHe cannot from the roaring fight, yet oh\nStand fast around him; if save ye may,\nYour champion huge, the Telamonian Chief!\n  So spake the wounded warrior. They at once710\nWith sloping bucklers, and with spears erect,\nTo his relief approach\u2019d. Ajax with joy\nThe friendly phalanx join\u2019d, then turn\u2019d and stood.\n  Thus burn\u2019d the embattled field as with the flames\nOf a devouring fire. Meantime afar715\nFrom all that tumult the Neleian mares\nBore Nestor, foaming as they ran, with whom\nMachaon also rode, leader revered.\nAchilles mark\u2019d him passing; for he stood\nExalted on his huge ship\u2019s lofty stern,720\nSpectator of the toil severe, and flight\nDeplorable of the defeated Greeks.\nHe call\u2019d his friend Patroclus. He below\nWithin his tent the sudden summons heard\nAnd sprang like Mars abroad, all unaware725\nThat in that sound he heard the voice of fate.\nHim first Men\u0153tius\u2019 gallant son address\u2019d.\n  What would Achilles? Wherefore hath he call\u2019d?\nTo whom Achilles swiftest of the swift:\n  Brave Men\u0153tiades! my soul\u2019s delight!730\nSoon will the Grecians now my knees surround\nSuppliant, by dread extremity constrain\u2019d.\nBut fly Patroclus, haste, oh dear to Jove!\nInquire of Nestor, whom he hath convey\u2019d\nFrom battle, wounded? Viewing him behind,735\nI most believed him \u00c6sculapius\u2019 son\nMachaon, but the steeds so swiftly pass\u2019d\nMy galley, that his face escaped my note.[19]\n  He said, and prompt to gratify his friend,\nForth ran Patroclus through the camp of Greece.740\n  Now when Neleian Nestor to his tent\nHad brought Machaon, they alighted both,\nAnd the old hero\u2019s friend Eurymedon\nReleased the coursers. On the beach awhile\nTheir tunics sweat-imbued in the cool air745\nThey ventilated, facing full the breeze,\nThen on soft couches in the tent reposed.\nMeantime, their beverage Hecamede mix\u2019d,\nThe old King\u2019s bright-hair\u2019d captive, whom he brought\nFrom Tenedos, what time Achilles sack\u2019d750\nThe city, daughter of the noble Chief\nArsino\u00fcs, and selected from the rest\nFor Nestor, as the honorable meed\nOf counsels always eminently wise.\nShe, first, before them placed a table bright,755\nWith feet c\u0153rulean; thirst-provoking sauce\nShe brought them also in a brazen tray,\nGarlic[20] and honey new, and sacred meal.\nBeside them, next, she placed a noble cup\nOf labor exquisite, which from his home760\nThe ancient King had brought with golden studs\nEmbellish\u2019d; it presented to the grasp\nFour ears; two golden turtles, perch\u2019d on each,\nSeem\u2019d feeding, and two turtles[21] form\u2019d the base.\nThat cup once fill\u2019d, all others must have toil\u2019d765\nTo move it from the board, but it was light\nIn Nestor\u2019s hand; he lifted it with ease.[22]\nThe graceful virgin in that cup a draught\nMix\u2019d for them, Pramnian wine and savory cheese\nOf goat\u2019s milk, grated with a brazen rasp,770\nThen sprinkled all with meal. The draught prepared,\nShe gave it to their hand; they, drinking, slaked\nTheir fiery thirst, and with each other sat\nConversing friendly, when the godlike youth\nBy brave Achilles sent, stood at the door.775\n  Him seeing, Nestor from his splendid couch\nArose, and by the hand leading him in,\nEntreated him to sit, but that request\nPatroclus, on his part refusing, said,\n  Oh venerable King! no seat is here780\nFor me, nor may thy courtesy prevail.\nHe is irascible, and to be fear\u2019d\nWho bade me ask what Chieftain thou hast brought\nFrom battle, wounded; but untold I learn;\nI see Machaon, and shall now report785\nAs I have seen; oh ancient King revered!\nThou know\u2019st Achilles fiery, and propense\nBlame to impute even where blame is none.\n\n  To whom the brave Gerenian thus replied.\nWhy feels Achilles for the wounded Greeks790\nSuch deep concern? He little knows the height\nTo which our sorrows swell. Our noblest lie\nBy spear or arrow wounded in the fleet.\nDiomede, warlike son of Tydeus, bleeds,\nGall\u2019d by a shaft; Ulysses, glorious Chief,795\nAnd Agamemnon[23] suffer by the spear;\nEurypylus is shot into the thigh,\nAnd here lies still another newly brought\nBy me from fight, pierced also by a shaft.\nWhat then? How strong soe\u2019er to give them aid,800\nAchilles feels no pity of the Greeks.\nWaits he till every vessel on the shore\nFired, in despite of the whole Argive host,\nBe sunk in its own ashes, and ourselves\nAll perish, heaps on heaps? For in my limbs805\nNo longer lives the agility of my youth.\nOh, for the vigor of those days again,\nWhen Elis, for her cattle which we took,\nStrove with us and Itymoneus I slew,\nBrave offspring of Hypirochus; he dwelt810\nIn Elis, and while I the pledges drove,\nStood for his herd, but fell among the first\nBy a spear hurl\u2019d from my victorious arm.\nThen fled the rustic multitude, and we\nDrove off abundant booty from the plain,815\nHerds fifty of fat beeves, large flocks of goats\nAs many, with as many sheep and swine,\nAnd full thrice fifty mares of brightest hue,\nAll breeders, many with their foals beneath.\nAll these, by night returning safe, we drove820\nInto Neleian Pylus, and the heart\nRejoiced of Neleus, in a son so young\nA warrior, yet enrich\u2019d with such a prize.\nAt early dawn the heralds summon\u2019d loud\nThe citizens, to prove their just demands825\nOn fruitful Elis, and the assembled Chiefs\nDivision made (for numerous were the debts\nWhich the Epeans, in the weak estate\nOf the unpeopled Pylus, had incurr\u2019d;\nFor Hercules, few years before, had sack\u2019d[24]830\nOur city, and our mightiest slain. Ourselves\nThe gallant sons of Neleus, were in all\nTwelve youths, of whom myself alone survived;\nThe rest all perish\u2019d; whence, presumptuous grown,\nThe brazen-mail\u2019d Epeans wrong\u2019d us oft).835\nA herd of beeves my father for himself\nSelected, and a numerous flock beside,\nThree hundred sheep, with shepherds for them all.\nFor he a claimant was of large arrears\nFrom sacred Elis. Four unrivall\u2019d steeds840\nWith his own chariot to the games he sent,\nThat should contend for the appointed prize\nA tripod; but Augeias, King of men,\nDetain\u2019d the steeds, and sent the charioteer\nDefrauded home. My father, therefore, fired845\nAt such foul outrage both of deeds and words,\nTook much, and to the Pylians gave the rest\nFor satisfaction of the claims of all.\nWhile thus we busied were in these concerns,\nAnd in performance of religious rites850\nThroughout the city, came the Epeans arm\u2019d,\nTheir whole vast multitude both horse and foot\nOn the third day; came also clad in brass\nThe two Molions, inexpert as yet\nIn feats of arms, and of a boyish age.855\nThere is a city on a mountain\u2019s head,\nFast by the banks of Alpheus, far remote,\nThe utmost town which sandy Pylus owns,\nNamed Thryo\u00ebssa, and, with ardor fired\nTo lay it waste, that city they besieged.860\nNow when their host had traversed all the plain,\nMinerva from Olympus flew by night\nAnd bade us arm; nor were the Pylians slow\nTo assemble, but impatient for the fight.\nMe, then, my father suffer\u2019d not to arm,865\nBut hid my steeds, for he supposed me raw\nAs yet, and ignorant how war is waged.\nYet, even thus, unvantaged and on foot,\nSuperior honors I that day acquired\nTo theirs who rode, for Pallas led me on870\nHerself to victory. There is a stream\nWhich at Arena falls into the sea,\nNamed Minu\u00ebius; on that river\u2019s bank\nThe Pylian horsemen waited day\u2019s approach,\nAnd thither all our foot came pouring down.875\nThe flood divine of Alpheus thence we reach\u2019d\nAt noon, all arm\u2019d complete; there, hallow\u2019d rites\nWe held to Jove omnipotent, and slew\nA bull to sacred Alpheus, with a bull\nTo Neptune, and a heifer of the herd880\nTo Pallas; then, all marshall\u2019d as they were,\nFrom van to rear our legions took repast,\nAnd at the river\u2019s side slept on their arms.\nAlready the Epean host had round\nBegirt the city, bent to lay it waste,885\nA task which cost them, first, both blood and toil,\nFor when the radiant sun on the green earth\nHad risen, with prayer to Pallas and to Jove,\nWe gave them battle. When the Pylian host\nAnd the Epeans thus were close engaged,890\nI first a warrior slew, Mulius the brave,\nAnd seized his coursers. He the eldest-born\nOf King Augeias\u2019 daughters had espoused\nThe golden Agamede; not an herb\nThe spacious earth yields but she knew its powers,895\nHim, rushing on me, with my brazen lance\nI smote, and in the dust he fell; I leap\u2019d\nInto his seat, and drove into the van.\nA panic seized the Epeans when they saw\nThe leader of their horse o\u2019erthrown, a Chief900\nSurpassing all in fight. Black as a cloud\nWith whirlwind fraught, I drove impetuous on,\nTook fifty chariots, and at side of each\nLay two slain warriors, with their teeth the soil\nGrinding, all vanquish\u2019d by my single arm.905\nI had slain also the Molions, sons\nOf Actor, but the Sovereign of the deep\nTheir own authentic Sire, in darkness dense\nInvolving both, convey\u2019d them safe away.\nThen Jove a victory of prime renown910\nGave to the Pylians; for we chased and slew\nAnd gather\u2019d spoil o\u2019er all the champain spread\nWith scatter\u2019d shields, till we our steeds had driven\nTo the Buprasian fields laden with corn,\nTo the Olenian rock, and to a town915\nIn fair Colona situate, and named\nAlesia. There it was that Pallas turn\u2019d\nOur people homeward; there I left the last\nOf all the slain, and he was slain by me.\nThen drove the Achaians from Buprasium home920\nTheir coursers fleet, and Jove, of Gods above,\nReceived most praise, Nestor of men below.\n  Such once was I. But brave Achilles shuts\nHis virtues close, an unimparted store;\nYet even he shall weep, when all the host,925\nHis fellow-warriors once, shall be destroy\u2019d.\nBut recollect, young friend! the sage advice\nWhich when thou earnest from Phthia to the aid\nOf Agamemnon, on that selfsame day\nMen\u0153tius gave thee. We were present there,930\nUlysses and myself, both in the house,\nAnd heard it all; for to the house we came\nOf Peleus in our journey through the land\nOf fertile Greece, gathering her states to war.\nWe found thy noble sire Men\u0153tius there,935\nThee and Achilles; ancient Peleus stood\nTo Jove the Thunderer offering in his court\nThighs of an ox, and on the blazing rites\nLibation pouring from a cup of gold.\nWhile ye on preparation of the feast940\nAttended both, Ulysses and myself\nStood in the vestibule; Achilles flew\nToward us, introduced us by the hand,\nAnd, seating us, such liberal portion gave\nTo each, as hospitality requires.945\nOur thirst, at length, and hunger both sufficed,\nI, foremost speaking, ask\u2019d you to the wars,\nAnd ye were eager both, but from your sires\nMuch admonition, ere ye went, received.\nOld Peleus charged Achilles to aspire950\nTo highest praise, and always to excel.\nBut thee, thy sire Men\u0153tius thus advised.\n\u201cMy son! Achilles boasts the nobler birth,\nBut thou art elder; he in strength excels\nThee far; thou, therefore, with discretion rule955\nHis inexperience; thy advice impart\nWith gentleness; instruction wise suggest\nWisely, and thou shalt find him apt to learn.\u201d\nSo thee thy father taught, but, as it seems,\nIn vain. Yet even now essay to move960\nWarlike Achilles; if the Gods so please,\nWho knows but that thy reasons may prevail\nTo rouse his valiant heart? men rarely scorn\nThe earnest intercession of a friend.\nBut if some prophecy alarm his fears,965\nAnd from his Goddess mother he have aught\nReceived, who may have learnt the same from Jove,\nThee let him send at least, and order forth\nWith thee the Myrmidons; a dawn of hope\nShall thence, it may be, on our host arise.970\nAnd let him send thee to the battle clad\nIn his own radiant armor; Troy, deceived\nBy such resemblance, shall abstain perchance\nFrom conflict, and the weary Greeks enjoy\nShort respite; it is all that war allows.975\nFresh as ye are, ye, by your shouts alone,\nMay easily repulse an army spent\nWith labor from the camp and from the fleet.\n  Thus Nestor, and his mind bent to his words.\nBack to \u00c6acides through all the camp980\nHe ran; and when, still running, he arrived\nAmong Ulysses\u2019 barks, where they had fix\u2019d\nThe forum, where they minister\u2019d the laws,\nAnd had erected altars to the Gods,\nThere him Eurypylus, Ev\u00e6mon\u2019s son,985\nIllustrious met, deep-wounded in his thigh,\nAnd halting-back from battle. From his head\nThe sweat, and from his shoulders ran profuse,\nAnd from his perilous wound the sable blood\nContinual stream\u2019d; yet was his mind composed.990\nHim seeing, Men\u0153tiades the brave\nCompassion felt, and mournful, thus began.\n  Ah hapless senators and Chiefs of Greece!\nLeft ye your native country that the dogs\nMight fatten on your flesh at distant Troy?995\nBut tell me, Hero! say, Eurypylus!\nHave the Achaians power still to withstand\nThe enormous force of Hector, or is this\nThe moment when his spear must pierce us all?\n  To whom Eurypylus, discreet, replied.1000\nPatroclus, dear to Jove! there is no help,\nNo remedy. We perish at our ships.\nThe warriors, once most strenuous of the Greeks,\nLie wounded in the fleet by foes whose might\nIncreases ever. But thyself afford1005\nTo me some succor; lead me to my ship;\nCut forth the arrow from my thigh; the gore\nWith warm ablution cleanse, and on the wound\nSmooth unguents spread, the same as by report\nAchilles taught thee; taught, himself, their use1010\nBy Chiron, Centaur, justest of his kind\nFor Podalirius and Machaon both\nAre occupied. Machaon, as I judge,\nLies wounded in his tent, needing like aid\nHimself, and Podalirius in the field1015\nMaintains sharp conflict with the sons of Troy.\n  To whom Men\u0153tius\u2019 gallant son replied.\nHero! Eurypylus! how shall we act\nIn this perplexity? what course pursue?\nI seek the brave Achilles, to whose ear1020\nI bear a message from the ancient chief\nGerenian Nestor, guardian of the Greeks.\nYet will I not, even for such a cause,\nMy friend! abandon thee in thy distress.\n  He ended, and his arms folding around1025\nThe warrior bore him thence into his tent.\nHis servant, on his entrance, spread the floor\nWith hides, on which Patroclus at his length\nExtended him, and with his knife cut forth\nThe rankling point; with tepid lotion, next,1030\nHe cleansed the gore, and with a bitter root\nBruised small between his palms, sprinkled the wound.\nAt once, the anodyne his pain assuaged,\nThe wound was dried within, and the blood ceased.\n\n\nIt will be well here to observe the position of the Greeks. All human\naid is cut off by the wounds of their heroes, and all assistance from\nthe Gods forbidden by Jupiter. On the contrary, the Trojans see their\ngeneral at their head, and Jupiter himself fights on their side. Upon\nthis hinge turns the whole poem. The distress of the Greeks occasions\nfirst the assistance of Patroclus, and then the death of that hero\nbrings back Achilles.\n\nThe poet shows great skill in conducting these incidents. He gives\nAchilles the pleasure of seeing that the Greeks could not carry on the\nwar without his assistance, and upon this depends the great catastrophe\nof the poem.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK XII.\n\n\nARGUMENT OF THE TWELFTH BOOK.\n\nThe Trojans assail the ramparts, and Hector forces the gates.\n\n\nBOOK XII.\n\n\nSo was Men\u0153tius\u2019 gallant son employ\u2019d\nHealing Eurypylus. The Greeks, meantime,\nAnd Trojans with tumultuous fury fought.\nNor was the foss ordain\u2019d long time to exclude\nThe host of Troy, nor yet the rampart built5\nBeside it for protection of the fleet;\nFor hecatomb the Greeks had offer\u2019d none,\nNor prayer to heaven, that it might keep secure\nTheir ships with all their spoils. The mighty work\nAs in defiance of the Immortal Powers10\nHad risen, and could not therefore long endure.\nWhile Hector lived, and while Achilles held\nHis wrathful purpose; while the city yet\nOf royal Priam was unsack\u2019d, so long\nThe massy structure stood; but when the best15\nAnd bravest of the Trojan host were slain,\nAnd of the Grecian heroes, some had fallen\nAnd some survived, when Priam\u2019s towers had blazed\nIn the tenth year, and to their native shores\nThe Grecians with their ships, at length, return\u2019d,20\nThen Neptune, with Apollo leagued, devised\nIts ruin; every river that descends\nFrom the Id\u00e6an heights into the sea\nThey brought against it, gathering all their force.\nRhesus, Caresus, Rhodius, the wide-branch\u2019d25\nHeptaporus, \u00c6sepus, Granicus,\nScamander\u2019s sacred current, and thy stream\nSim\u00f6is, whose banks with helmets and with shields\nWere strew\u2019d, and Chiefs of origin divine;\nAll these with refluent course Apollo drove30\nNine days against the rampart, and Jove rain\u2019d\nIncessant, that the Grecian wall wave-whelm\u2019d\nThrough all its length might sudden disappear.\nNeptune with his tridental mace, himself,\nLed them, and beam and buttress to the flood35\nConsigning, laid by the laborious Greeks,\nSwept the foundation, and the level bank\nOf the swift-rolling Hellespont restored.\nThe structure thus effaced, the spacious beach\nHe spread with sand as at the first; then bade40\nSubside the streams, and in their channels wind\nWith limpid course, and pleasant as before,\n  Apollo thus and Neptune, from the first,\nDesign\u2019d its fall; but now the battle raved\nAnd clamors of the warriors all around45\nThe strong-built turrets, whose assaulted planks\nRang, while the Grecians, by the scourge of Jove\nSubdued, stood close within their fleet immured,\nAt Hector\u2019s phalanx-scattering force appall\u2019d.\nHe, as before, with whirlwind fury fought.50\nAs when the boar or lion fiery-eyed\nTurns short, the hunters and the hounds among,\nThe close-embattled troop him firm oppose,\nAnd ply him fast with spears; he no dismay\nConceives or terror in his noble heart,55\nBut by his courage falls; frequent he turns\nAttempting bold the ranks, and where he points\nDirect his onset, there the ranks retire;\nSo, through the concourse on his rolling wheels\nBorne rapid, Hector animated loud60\nHis fellow-warriors to surpass the trench.\nBut not his own swift-footed steeds would dare\nThat hazard; standing on the dangerous brink\nThey neigh\u2019d aloud, for by its breadth the foss\nDeterr\u2019d them; neither was the effort slight65\nTo leap that gulf, nor easy the attempt\nTo pass it through; steep were the banks profound\nOn both sides, and with massy piles acute\nThick-planted, interdicting all assault.\nNo courser to the rapid chariot braced70\nHad enter\u2019d there with ease; yet strong desires\nPossess\u2019d the infantry of that emprize,\nAnd thus Polydamas the ear address\u2019d\nOf dauntless Hector, standing at his side.\n  Hector, and ye the leaders of our host,75\nBoth Trojans and allies! rash the attempt\nI deem, and vain, to push our horses through,\nSo dangerous is the pass; rough is the trench\nWith pointed stakes, and the Achaian wall\nMeets us beyond. No chariot may descend80\nOr charioteer fight there; strait are the bounds,\nAnd incommodious, and his death were sure.\nIf Jove, high-thundering Ruler of the skies,\nWill succor Ilium, and nought less intend\nThan utter devastation of the Greeks,85\nI am content; now perish all their host\nInglorious, from their country far remote.\nBut should they turn, and should ourselves be driven\nBack from the fleet impeded and perplex\u2019d\nIn this deep foss, I judge that not a man,90\n\u2019Scaping the rallied Grecians, should survive\nTo bear the tidings of our fate to Troy.\nNow, therefore, act we all as I advise.\nLet every charioteer his coursers hold\nFast-rein\u2019d beside the foss, while we on foot,95\nWith order undisturb\u2019d and arms in hand,\nShall follow Hector. If destruction borne\nOn wings of destiny this day approach\nThe Grecians, they will fly our first assault.\n  So spake Polydamas, whose safe advice100\nPleased Hector; from his chariot to the ground\nAll arm\u2019d he leap\u2019d, nor would a Trojan there\n(When once they saw the Hero on his feet)\nRide into battle, but unanimous\nDescending with a leap, all trod the plain.105\nEach gave command that at the trench his steeds\nShould stand detain\u2019d in orderly array;\nThen, suddenly, the parted host became\nFive bands, each following its appointed chief.\nThe bravest and most numerous, and whose hearts110\nWish\u2019d most to burst the barrier and to wage\nThe battle at the ships, with Hector march\u2019d\nAnd with Polydamas, whom follow\u2019d, third,\nCebriones; for Hector had his steeds\nConsign\u2019d and chariot to inferior care.115\nParis, Alcatho\u00fcs, and Agenor led\nThe second band, and, sons of Priam both,\nDe\u00efphobus and Helenus, the third;\nWith them was seen partner of their command;\nThe Hero Asius; from Arisba came120\nAsius Hyrtacides, to battle drawn\nFrom the Selle\u00efs banks by martial steeds\nHair\u2019d fiery-red and of the noblest size.\nThe fourth, Anchises\u2019 mighty son controll\u2019d,\n\u00c6neas; under him Antenor\u2019s sons,125\nArchilochus and Acamas, advanced,\nAdept in all the practice of the field.\nLast came the glorious powers in league with Troy\nLed by Sarpedon; he with Glaucus shared\nHis high control, and with the warlike Chief130\nAsterop\u00e6us; for of all his host\nThem bravest he esteem\u2019d, himself except\nSuperior in heroic might to all.\nAnd now (their shields adjusted each to each)\nWith dauntless courage fired, right on they moved135\nAgainst the Grecians; nor expected less\nThan that beside their sable ships, the host\nShould self-abandon\u2019d fall an easy prey.\n  The Trojans, thus with their confederate powers,\nThe counsel of the accomplish\u2019d Prince pursued,140\nPolydamas, one Chief alone except,\nAsius Hyrtacides. He scorn\u2019d to leave\nHis charioteer and coursers at the trench,\nAnd drove toward the fleet. Ah, madly brave!\nHis evil hour was come; he was ordain\u2019d145\nWith horse and chariot and triumphant shout\nTo enter wind-swept Ilium never more.\nDeucalion\u2019s offspring, first, into the shades\nDismiss\u2019d him; by Idomeneus he died.\nLeftward he drove furious, along the road150\nBy which the steeds and chariots of the Greeks\nReturn\u2019d from battle; in that track he flew,\nNor found the portals by the massy bar\nSecured, but open for reception safe\nOf fugitives, and to a guard consign\u2019d.155\nThither he drove direct, and in his rear\nHis band shrill-shouting follow\u2019d, for they judged\nThe Greeks no longer able to withstand\nTheir foes, but sure to perish in the camp.\nVain hope! for in the gate two Chiefs they found160\nLapith\u00e6-born, courageous offspring each\nOf dauntless father; Polyp\u0153tes, this,\nSprung from Pirith\u00f6us; that, the warrior bold\nLeonteus, terrible as gore-tainted Mars.\nThese two, defenders of the lofty gates,165\nStood firm before them. As when two tall oaks\nOn the high mountains day by day endure\nRough wind and rain, by deep-descending roots\nOf hugest growth fast-founded in the soil;\nSo they, sustain\u2019d by conscious valor, saw,170\nUnmoved, high towering Asius on his way,\nNor fear\u2019d him aught, nor shrank from his approach\nRight on toward the barrier, lifting high\nTheir season\u2019d bucklers and with clamor loud\nThe band advanced, King Asius at their head,175\nWith whom I\u00e4menus, expert in arms,\nOrestes, Th\u00f6on, Acamas the son\nOf Asius, and Oenom\u00e4us, led them on.\nTill now, the warlike pair, exhorting loud\nThe Grecians to defend the fleet, had stood180\nWithin the gates; but soon as they perceived\nThe Trojans swift advancing to the wall,\nAnd heard a cry from all the flying Greeks,\nBoth sallying, before the gates they fought\nLike forest-boars, which hearing in the hills185\nThe crash of hounds and huntsmen nigh at hand,\nWith start oblique lay many a sapling flat\nShort-broken by the root, nor cease to grind\nTheir sounding tusks, till by the spear they die;\nSo sounded on the breasts of those brave two190\nThe smitten brass; for resolute they fought,\nEmbolden\u2019d by their might who kept the wall,\nAnd trusting in their own; they, in defence\nOf camp and fleet and life, thick battery hurl\u2019d\nOf stones precipitated from the towers;195\nFrequent as snows they fell, which stormy winds,\nDriving the gloomy clouds, shake to the ground,\nTill all the fertile earth lies cover\u2019d deep.\nSuch volley pour\u2019d the Greeks, and such return\u2019d\nThe Trojans; casques of hide, arid and tough,200\nAnd bossy shields rattled, by such a storm\nAssail\u2019d of millstone masses from above.\nThen Asius, son of Hyrtacus, a groan\nIndignant utter\u2019d; on both thighs he smote\nWith disappointment furious, and exclaim\u2019d,205\n  Jupiter! even thou art false become,\nAnd altogether such. Full sure I deem\u2019d\nThat not a Grecian hero should abide\nOne moment force invincible as ours,\nAnd lo! as wasps ring-streaked,[1] or bees that build210\nTheir dwellings in the highway\u2019s craggy side\nLeave not their hollow home, but fearless wait\nThe hunter\u2019s coming, in their brood\u2019s defence,\nSo these, although two only, from the gates\nMove not, nor will, till either seized or slain.215\n  So Asius spake, but speaking so, changed not\nThe mind of Jove on Hector\u2019s glory bent.\nOthers, as obstinate, at other gates\nSuch deeds perform\u2019d, that to enumerate all\nWere difficult, unless to power divine.220\nFor fierce the hail of stones from end to end\nSmote on the barrier; anguish fill\u2019d the Greeks.\nYet, by necessity constrain\u2019d, their ships\nThey guarded still; nor less the Gods themselves,\nPatrons of Greece, all sorrow\u2019d at the sight.225\n  At once the valiant Lapith\u00e6 began\nTerrible conflict, and Pirithous\u2019 son\nBrave Polyp\u0153tes through his helmet pierced\nDamasus; his resplendent point the brass\nSufficed not to withstand; entering, it crush\u2019d230\nThe bone within, and mingling all his brain\nWith his own blood, his onset fierce repress\u2019d.\nPylon and Ormenus he next subdued.\nMeantime Leonteus, branch of Mars, his spear\nHurl\u2019d at Hippomachus, whom through his belt235\nHe pierced; then drawing forth his falchion keen,\nThrough all the multitude he flew to smite\nAntiphates, and with a downright stroke\nFell\u2019d him. I\u00e4menus and Menon next\nHe slew, with brave Orestes, whom he heap\u2019d,240\nAll three together, on the fertile glebe.\n  While them the Lapith\u00e6 of their bright arms\nDespoil\u2019d, Polydamas and Hector stood\n(With all the bravest youths and most resolved\nTo burst the barrier and to fire the fleet)245\nBeside the foss, pondering the event.\nFor, while they press\u2019d to pass, they spied a bird\nSublime in air, an eagle. Right between\nBoth hosts he soar\u2019d (the Trojan on his left)\nA serpent bearing in his pounces clutch\u2019d250\nEnormous, dripping blood, but lively still\nAnd mindful of revenge; for from beneath\nThe eagle\u2019s breast, updarting fierce his head,\nFast by the throat he struck him; anguish-sick\nThe eagle cast him down into the space255\nBetween the hosts, and, clanging loud his plumes\nAs the wind bore him, floated far away.\nShudder\u2019d the Trojans viewing at their feet\nThe spotted serpent ominous, and thus\nPolydamas to dauntless Hector spake.260\n  Ofttimes in council, Hector, thou art wont\nTo censure me, although advising well;\nNor ought the private citizen, I confess,\nEither in council or in war to indulge\nLoquacity, but ever to employ265\nAll his exertions in support of thine.\nYet hear my best opinion once again.\nProceed we not in our attempt against\nThe Grecian fleet. For if in truth the sign\nRespect the host of Troy ardent to pass,270\nThen, as the eagle soar\u2019d both hosts between,\nWith Ilium\u2019s on his left, and clutch\u2019d a snake\nEnormous, dripping blood, but still alive,\nWhich yet he dropp\u2019d suddenly, ere he reach\u2019d\nHis eyry, or could give it to his young,275\nSo we, although with mighty force we burst\nBoth gates and barrier, and although the Greeks\nShould all retire, shall never yet the way\nTread honorably back by which we came.\nNo. Many a Trojan shall we leave behind280\nSlain by the Grecians in their fleet\u2019s defence.\nAn augur skill\u2019d in omens would expound\nThis omen thus, and faith would win from all.\n  To whom, dark-louring, Hector thus replied.\nPolydamas! I like not thy advice;285\nThou couldst have framed far better; but if this\nBe thy deliberate judgment, then the Gods\nMake thy deliberate judgment nothing worth,\nWho bidd\u2019st me disregard the Thunderer\u2019s[2] firm\nAssurance to myself announced, and make290\nThe wild inhabitants of air my guides,\nWhich I alike despise, speed they their course\nWith right-hand flight toward the ruddy East,\nOr leftward down into the shades of eve.\nConsider _we_ the will of Jove alone,295\nSovereign of heaven and earth. Omens abound,\nBut the best omen is our country\u2019s cause.[3]\nWherefore should fiery war _thy_ soul alarm?\nFor were we slaughter\u2019d, one and all, around\nThe fleet of Greece, _thou_ need\u2019st not fear to die,300\nWhose courage never will thy flight retard.\nBut if thou shrink thyself, or by smooth speech\nSeduce one other from a soldier\u2019s part,\nPierced by this spear incontinent thou diest.\n  So saying he led them, who with deafening roar305\nFollow\u2019d him. Then, from the Id\u00e6an hills\nJove hurl\u2019d a storm which wafted right the dust\nInto the fleet; the spirits too he quell\u2019d\nOf the Achaians, and the glory gave\nTo Hector and his host; they, trusting firm310\nIn signs from Jove, and in their proper force,\nAssay\u2019d the barrier; from the towers they tore\nThe galleries, cast the battlements to ground,\nAnd the projecting buttresses adjoin\u2019d\nTo strengthen the vast work, with bars upheaved.315\nAll these, with expectation fierce to break\nThe rampart, down they drew; nor yet the Greeks\nGave back, but fencing close with shields the wall,\nSmote from behind them many a foe beneath.\nMeantime from tower to tower the Ajaces moved320\nExhorting all; with mildness some, and some\nWith harsh rebuke, whom they observed through fear\nDeclining base the labors of the fight,\n  Friends! Argives! warriors of whatever rank!\nYe who excel, and ye of humbler note!325\nAnd ye the last and least! (for such there are,\nAll have not magnanimity alike)\nNow have we work for all, as all perceive.\nTurn not, retreat not to your ships, appall\u2019d\nBy sounding menaces, but press the foe;330\nExhort each other, and e\u2019en now perchance\nOlympian Jove, by whom the lightnings burn,\nShall grant us to repulse them, and to chase\nThe routed Trojans to their gates again.\n  So they vociferating to the Greeks,335\nStirr\u2019d them to battle. As the feathery snows\nFall frequent, on some wintry day, when Jove\nHath risen to shed them on the race of man,\nAnd show his arrowy stores; he lulls the winds,\nThen shakes them down continual, covering thick340\nMountain tops, promontories, flowery meads,\nAnd cultured valleys rich; the ports and shores\nReceive it also of the hoary deep,\nBut there the waves bound it, while all beside\nLies whelm\u2019d beneath Jove\u2019s fast-descending shower,345\nSo thick, from side to side, by Trojans hurl\u2019d\nAgainst the Greeks, and by the Greeks return\u2019d\nThe stony vollies flew; resounding loud\nThrough all its length the battered rampart roar\u2019d.\nNor yet had Hector and his host prevail\u2019d350\nTo burst the gates, and break the massy bar,\nHad not all-seeing Jove Sarpedon moved\nHis son, against the Greeks, furious as falls\nThe lion on some horned herd of beeves.\nAt once his polish\u2019d buckler he advanced355\nWith leafy brass o\u2019erlaid; for with smooth brass\nThe forger of that shield its oval disk\nHad plated, and with thickest hides throughout\nHad lined it, stitch\u2019d with circling wires of gold.\nThat shield he bore before him; firmly grasp\u2019d360\nHe shook two spears, and with determined strides\nMarch\u2019d forward. As the lion mountain-bred,\nAfter long fast, by impulse of his heart\nUndaunted urged, seeks resolute the flock\nEven in the shelter of their guarded home;365\nHe finds, perchance, the shepherds arm\u2019d with spears,\nAnd all their dogs awake, yet can not leave\nUntried the fence, but either leaps it light,\nAnd entering tears the prey, or in the attempt\nPierced by some dexterous peasant, bleeds himself;370\nSo high his courage to the assault impell\u2019d\nGodlike Sarpedon, and him fired with hope\nTo break the barrier; when to Glaucus thus,\nSon of Hippolochus, his speech he turn\u2019d.\n  Why, Glaucus, is the seat of honor ours,375\nWhy drink we brimming cups, and feast in state?\nWhy gaze they all on us as we were Gods\nIn Lycia, and why share we pleasant fields\nAnd spacious vineyards, where the Xanthus winds?\nDistinguished thus in Lycia, we are call\u2019d380\nTo firmness here, and to encounter bold\nThe burning battle, that our fair report\nAmong the Lycians may be blazon\u2019d thus\u2014\nNo dastards are the potentates who rule\nThe bright-arm\u2019d Lycians; on the fatted flock385\nThey banquet, and they drink the richest wines;\nBut they are also valiant, and the fight\nWage dauntless in the vanward of us all.\nOh Glaucus, if escaping safe the death\nThat threats us here, we also could escape390\nOld age, and to ourselves secure a life\nImmortal, I would neither in the van\nMyself expose, nor would encourage thee\nTo tempt the perils of the glorious field.\nBut since a thousand messengers of fate395\nPursue us close, and man is born to die\u2014\nE\u2019en let us on; the prize of glory yield,\nIf yield we must, or wrest it from the foe.\n  He said, nor cold refusal in return\nReceived from Glaucus, but toward the wall400\nTheir numerous Lycian host both led direct.\nMenestheus, son of Peteos, saw appall\u2019d\nTheir dread approach, for to his tower they bent;\nTheir threatening march. An eager look he cast,\nOn the embodied Greeks, seeking some Chief405\nWhose aid might turn the battle from his van:\nHe saw, where never sated with exploits\nOf war, each Ajax fought, near whom his eye\nKenn\u2019d Teucer also, newly from his tent;\nBut vain his efforts were with loudest call410\nTo reach their ears, such was the deafening din\nUpsent to heaven, of shields and crested helms,\nAnd of the batter\u2019d gates; for at each gate\nThey thundering stood, and urged alike at each\nTheir fierce attempt by force to burst the bars.415\nTo Ajax therefore he at once dispatch\u2019d\nA herald, and Th\u00f6otes thus enjoin\u2019d.\n  My noble friend, Th\u00f6otes! with all speed\nCall either Ajax; bid them hither both;\nFar better so; for havoc is at hand.420\nThe Lycian leaders, ever in assault\nTempestuous, bend their force against this tower\nMy station. But if also there they find\nLaborious conflict pressing them severe,\nAt least let Telamonian Ajax come,425\nAnd Teucer with his death-dispensing bow.\n  He spake, nor was Th\u00f6otes slow to hear;\nBeside the rampart of the mail-clad Greeks\nRapid he flew, and, at their side arrived,\nTo either Ajax, eager, thus began.430\n  Ye leaders of the well-appointed Greeks,\nThe son of noble Peteos calls; he begs\nWith instant suit, that ye would share his toils,\nHowever short your stay; the aid of both\nWill serve him best, for havoc threatens there435\nThe Lycian leaders, ever in assault\nTempestuous, bend their force toward the tower\nHis station. But if also here ye find\nLaborious conflict pressing you severe,\nAt least let Telamonian Ajax come,440\nAnd Teucer with his death-dispensing bow.\n  He spake, nor his request the towering son\nOf Telamon denied, but quick his speech\nTo Ajax O\u00efliades address\u2019d.\n  Ajax! abiding here, exhort ye both445\n(Heroic Lycomedes and thyself)\nThe Greeks to battle. Thither I depart\nTo aid our friends, which service once perform\u2019d\nDuly, I will incontinent return.\n  So saying, the Telamonian Chief withdrew450\nWith whom went Teucer, son of the same sire,\nPandion also, bearing Teucer\u2019s bow.\nArriving at the turret given in charge\nTo the bold Chief Menestheus, and the wall\nEntering, they found their friends all sharply tried.455\nBlack as a storm the senators renown\u2019d\nAnd leaders of the Lycian host assail\u2019d\nButtress and tower, while opposite the Greeks\nWithstood them, and the battle-shout began.\nFirst, Ajax, son of Telamon, a friend460\nAnd fellow-warrior of Sarpedon slew,\nEpicles. With a marble fragment huge\nThat crown\u2019d the battlement\u2019s interior side,\nHe smote him. No man of our puny race,\nAlthough in prime of youth, had with both hands465\nThat weight sustain\u2019d; but he the cumberous mass\nUplifted high, and hurl\u2019d it on his head.\nIt burst his helmet, and his batter\u2019d skull\nDash\u2019d from all form. He from the lofty tower\nDropp\u2019d downright, with a diver\u2019s plunge, and died.470\nBut Teucer wounded Glaucus with a shaft\nSon of Hippolochus; he, climbing, bared\nHis arm, which Teucer, marking, from the wall\nTransfix\u2019d it, and his onset fierce repress\u2019d;\nFor with a backward leap Glaucus withdrew475\nSudden and silent, cautious lest the Greeks\nSeeing him wounded should insult his pain.\nGrief seized, at sight of his retiring friend,\nSarpedon, who forgat not yet the fight,\nBut piercing with his lance Alcmaon, son480\nOf Thestor, suddenly reversed the beam,\nWhich following, Alcmaon to the earth\nFell prone, with clangor of his brazen arms.\nSarpedon, then, strenuous with both hands\nTugg\u2019d, and down fell the battlement entire;485\nThe wall, dismantled at the summit, stood\nA ruin, and wide chasm was open\u2019d through.\nThen Ajax him and Teucer at one time\nStruck both; an arrow struck from Teucer\u2019s bow\nThe belt that cross\u2019d his bosom, by which hung490\nHis ample shield; yet lest his son should fall\nAmong the ships, Jove turn\u2019d the death aside.\nBut Ajax, springing to his thrust, a spear\nDrove through his shield. Sarpedon at the shock\nWith backward step short interval recoil\u2019d,495\nBut not retired, for in his bosom lived\nThe hope of glory still, and, looking back\nOn all his godlike Lycians, he exclaim\u2019d,\n  Oh Lycians! where is your heroic might?\nBrave as I boast myself, I feel the task500\nArduous, through the breach made by myself\nTo win a passage to the ships, alone.\nFollow me all\u2014Most laborers, most dispatch.[4]\n  So he; at whose sharp reprimand abash\u2019d\nThe embattled host to closer conflict moved,505\nObedient to their counsellor and King.\nOn the other side the Greeks within the wall\nMade firm the phalanx, seeing urgent need;\nNor could the valiant Lycians through the breach\nAdmittance to the Grecian fleet obtain,510\nNor since they first approach\u2019d it, had the Greeks\nWith all their efforts, thrust the Lycians back.\nBut as two claimants of one common field,\nEach with his rod of measurement in hand,\nDispute the boundaries, litigating warm515\nTheir right in some small portion of the soil,\nSo they, divided by the barrier, struck\nWith hostile rage the bull-hide bucklers round,\nAnd the light targets on each other\u2019s breast.\nThen many a wound the ruthless weapons made.520\nPierced through the unarm\u2019d back, if any turn\u2019d,\nHe died, and numerous even through the shield.\nThe battlements from end to end with blood\nOf Grecians and of Trojans on both sides\nWere sprinkled; yet no violence could move525\nThe stubborn Greeks, or turn their powers to flight.\nSo hung the war in balance, as the scales\nHeld by some woman scrupulously just,\nA spinner; wool and weight she poises nice,\nHard-earning slender pittance for her babes,[5]530\nSuch was the poise in which the battle hung\nTill Jove himself superior fame, at length,\nTo Priam\u00ebian Hector gave, who sprang\nFirst through the wall. In lofty sounds that reach\u2019d\nTheir utmost ranks, he call\u2019d on all his host.535\n  Now press them, now ye Trojans steed-renown\u2019d\nRush on! break through the Grecian rampart, hurl\nAt once devouring flames into the fleet.\nSuch was his exhortation; they his voice\nAll hearing, with close-order\u2019d ranks direct540\nBore on the barrier, and up-swarming show\u2019d\nOn the high battlement their glittering spears.\nBut Hector seized a stone; of ample base\nBut tapering to a point, before the gate\nIt stood. No two men, mightiest of a land545\n(Such men as now are mighty) could with ease\nHave heaved it from the earth up to a wain;\nHe swung it easily alone; so light\nThe son of Saturn made it in his hand.\nAs in one hand with ease the shepherd bears550\nA ram\u2019s fleece home, nor toils beneath the weight,\nSo Hector, right toward the planks of those\nMajestic folding-gates, close-jointed, firm\nAnd solid, bore the stone. Two bars within\nTheir corresponding force combined transvere555\nTo guard them, and one bolt secured the bars.\nHe stood fast by them, parting wide his feet\nFor \u2019vantage sake, and smote them in the midst.\nHe burst both hinges; inward fell the rock\nPonderous, and the portals roar\u2019d; the bars560\nEndured not, and the planks, riven by the force\nOf that huge mass, flew scatter\u2019d on all sides.\nIn leap\u2019d the godlike Hero at the breach,\nGloomy as night in aspect, but in arms\nAll-dazzling, and he grasp\u2019d two quivering spears.565\nHim entering with a leap the gates, no force\nWhate\u2019er of opposition had repress\u2019d,\nSave of the Gods alone. Fire fill\u2019d his eyes;\nTurning, he bade the multitude without\nAscend the rampart; they his voice obey\u2019d;570\nPart climb\u2019d the wall, part pour\u2019d into the gate;\nThe Grecians to their hollow galleys flew\nScatter\u2019d, and tumult infinite arose.[6]\n\n\n\n\nBOOK XIII.\n\n\nARGUMENT OF THE THIRTEENTH BOOK.\n\nNeptune engages on the part of the Grecians. The battle proceeds.\nDeiphobus advances to combat, but is repulsed by Meriones, who losing\nhis spear, repairs to his tent for another. Teucer slays Imbrius, and\nHector Amphimachus. Neptune, under the similitude of Thoas, exhorts\nIdomeneus. Idomeneus having armed himself in his tent, and going forth\nto battle, meets Meriones. After discourse held with each other,\nIdomeneus accommodates Meriones with a spear, and they proceed to\nbattle. Idomeneus slays Othryoneus, and Asius. Deiphobus assails\nIdomeneus, but, his spear glancing over him, kills Hypsenor. Idomeneus\nslays Alcatho\u00fcs, son-in-law of Anchises. Deiphobus and Idomeneus\nrespectively summon their friends to their assistance, and a contest\nensues for the body of Alcatho\u00fcs.\n\n\nBOOK XIII.\n\n\n[1]When Jove to Hector and his host had given\nSuch entrance to the fleet, to all the woes\nAnd toils of unremitting battle there\nHe them abandon\u2019d, and his glorious eyes\nAverting, on the land look\u2019d down remote5\nOf the horse-breeding Thracians, of the bold\nClose-fighting Mysian race, and where abide\nOn milk sustain\u2019d, and blest with length of days,\nThe Hippemolgi,[2] justest of mankind.\nNo longer now on Troy his eyes he turn\u2019d,10\nFor expectation none within his breast\nSurvived, that God or Goddess would the Greeks\nApproach with succor, or the Trojans more.\n  Nor Neptune, sovereign of the boundless Deep,\nLook\u2019d forth in vain; he on the summit sat15\nOf Samothracia forest-crown\u2019d, the stir\nAdmiring thence and tempest of the field;\nFor thence appear\u2019d all Ida, thence the towers\nOf lofty Ilium, and the fleet of Greece.\nThere sitting from the deeps uprisen, he mourn\u2019d20\nThe vanquished Grecians, and resentment fierce\nConceived and wrath against all-ruling Jove.\nArising sudden, down the rugged steep\nWith rapid strides he came; the mountains huge\nAnd forests under the immortal feet25\nTrembled of Ocean\u2019s Sovereign as he strode.\nThree strides he made, the fourth convey\u2019d him home\nTo \u00c6g\u00e6. At the bottom of the abyss,\nThere stands magnificent his golden fane,\nA dazzling, incorruptible abode.30\nArrived, he to his chariot join\u2019d his steeds\nSwift, brazen-hoof\u2019d, and maned with wavy gold;\nHimself attiring next in gold, he seized\nHis golden scourge, and to his seat sublime\nAscending, o\u2019er the billows drove; the whales35\nLeaving their caverns, gambol\u2019d on all sides\nAround him, not unconscious of their King;\nHe swept the surge that tinged not as he pass\u2019d\nHis axle, and the sea parted for joy.\nHis bounding coursers to the Grecian fleet40\nConvey\u2019d him swift. There is a spacious cave\nDeep in the bottom of the flood, the rocks\nOf Imbrus rude and Tenedos between;\nThere Neptune, Shaker of the Shores, his steeds\nStation\u2019d secure; he loosed them from the yoke,45\nGave them ambrosial food, and bound their feet\nWith golden tethers not to be untied\nOr broken, that unwandering they might wait\nTheir Lord\u2019s return, then sought the Grecian host.\nThe Trojans, tempest-like or like a flame,50\nNow, following Priame\u00efan Hector, all\nCame furious on and shouting to the skies.\nTheir hope was to possess the fleet, and leave\nNot an Achaian of the host unslain.\nBut earth-encircler Neptune from the gulf55\nEmerging, in the form and with the voice\nLoud-toned of Calchas, roused the Argive ranks\nTo battle\u2014and his exhortation first\nTo either Ajax turn\u2019d, themselves prepared.\n  Ye heroes Ajax! your accustomed force60\nExert, oh! think not of disastrous flight,\nAnd ye shall save the people. Nought I fear\nFatal elsewhere, although Troy\u2019s haughty sons\nHave pass\u2019d the barrier with so fierce a throng\nTumultuous; for the Grecians brazen-greaved65\nWill check them there. Here only I expect\nAnd with much dread some dire event forebode,\nWhere Hector, terrible as fire, and loud\nVaunting his glorious origin from Jove,\nLeads on the Trojans. Oh that from on high70\nSome God would form the purpose in your hearts\nTo stand yourselves firmly, and to exhort\nThe rest to stand! so should ye chase him hence\nAll ardent as he is, and even although\nOlympian Jove himself his rage inspire.75\n  So Neptune spake, compasser of the earth,\nAnd, with his sceptre smiting both, their hearts\nFill\u2019d with fresh fortitude; their limbs the touch\nMade agile, wing\u2019d their feet and nerved their arms.\nThen, swift as stoops a falcon from the point80\nOf some rude rock sublime, when he would chase\nA fowl of other wing along the meads,\nSo started Neptune thence, and disappear\u2019d.\nHim, as he went, swift O\u00efliades\nFirst recognized, and, instant, thus his speech85\nTo Ajax, son of Telamon, address\u2019d.\n  Since, Ajax, some inhabitant of heaven\nExhorts us, in the prophet\u2019s form to fight\n(For prophet none or augur we have seen;\nThis was not Calchas; as he went I mark\u2019d90\nHis steps and knew him; Gods are known with ease)\nI feel my spirit in my bosom fired\nAfresh for battle; lightness in my limbs,\nIn hands and feet a glow unfelt before.\n  To whom the son of Telamon replied.95\nI also with invigorated hands\nMore firmly grasp my spear; my courage mounts,\nA buoyant animation in my feet\nBears me along, and I am all on fire\nTo cope with Priam\u2019s furious son, alone.100\n  Thus they, with martial transport to their souls\nImparted by the God, conferr\u2019d elate.\nMeantime the King of Ocean roused the Greeks,\nWho in the rear, beside their gallant barks\nSome respite sought. They, spent with arduous toil,105\nFelt not alone their weary limbs unapt\nTo battle, but their hearts with grief oppress\u2019d,\nSeeing the numerous multitude of Troy\nWithin the mighty barrier; sad they view\u2019d\nThat sight, and bathed their cheeks with many a tear,110\nDespairing of escape. But Ocean\u2019s Lord\nEntering among them, soon the spirit stirr\u2019d\nOf every valiant phalanx to the fight.\nTeucer and Le\u00eftus, and famed in arms\nPeneleus, Thoas and Deipyrus,115\nMeriones, and his compeer renown\u2019d,\nAntilochus; all these in accents wing\u2019d\nWith fierce alacrity the God address\u2019d.\n  Oh shame, ye Grecians! vigorous as ye are\nAnd in life\u2019s prime, to your exertions most120\nI trusted for the safety of our ships.\nIf _ye_ renounce the labors of the field,\nThen hath the day arisen of our defeat\nAnd final ruin by the powers of Troy.\nOh! I behold a prodigy, a sight125\nTremendous, deem\u2019d impossible by me,\nThe Trojans at our ships! the dastard race\nFled once like fleetest hinds the destined prey\nOf lynxes, leopards, wolves; feeble and slight\nAnd of a nature indisposed to war130\nThey rove uncertain; so the Trojans erst\nStood not, nor to Achaian prowess dared\nThe hindrance of a moment\u2019s strife oppose.\nBut now, Troy left afar, even at our ships\nThey give us battle, through our leader\u2019s fault135\nAnd through the people\u2019s negligence, who fill\u2019d\nWith fierce displeasure against _him_, prefer\nDeath at their ships, to war in their defence.\nBut if the son of Atreus, our supreme,\nIf Agamemnon, have indeed transgress\u2019d140\nPast all excuse, dishonoring the swift\nAchilles, ye at least the fight decline\nBlame-worthy, and with no sufficient plea.\nBut heal we speedily the breach; brave minds\nEasily coalesce. It is not well145\nThat thus your fury slumbers, for the host\nHath none illustrious as yourselves in arms.\nI can excuse the timid if he shrink,\nBut am incensed at _you_. My friends, beware!\nYour tardiness will prove ere long the cause150\nOf some worse evil. Let the dread of shame\nAffect your hearts; oh tremble at the thought\nOf infamy! Fierce conflict hath arisen;\nLoud shouting Hector combats at the ships\nNobly, hath forced the gates and burst the bar.155\n  With such encouragement those Grecian chiefs\nThe King of Ocean roused. Then, circled soon\nBy many a phalanx either Ajax stood,\nWhose order Mars himself arriving there\nHad praised, or Pallas, patroness of arms.160\nFor there the flower of all expected firm\nBold Hector and his host; spear crowded spear,\nShield, helmet, man, press\u2019d helmet, man and shield;[3]\nThe hairy crests of their resplendent casques\nKiss\u2019d close at every nod, so wedged they stood;165\nNo spear was seen but in the manly grasp\nIt quiver\u2019d, and their every wish was war.\nThe powers of Ilium gave the first assault\nEmbattled close; them Hector led himself[4]\nRight on, impetuous as a rolling rock170\nDestructive; torn by torrent waters off\nFrom its old lodgment on the mountain\u2019s brow,\nIt bounds, it shoots away; the crashing wood\nFalls under it; impediment or check\nNone stays its fury, till the level found,175\nThere, settling by degrees, it rolls no more;\nSo after many a threat that he would pass\nEasily through the Grecian camp and fleet\nAnd slay to the sea-brink, when Hector once\nHad fallen on those firm ranks, standing, he bore180\nVehement on them; but by many a spear\nUrged and bright falchion, soon, reeling, retired,\nAnd call\u2019d vociferous on the host of Troy.\n  Trojans, and Lycians, and close-fighting sons\nOf Dardanus, oh stand! not long the Greeks185\nWill me confront, although embodied close\nIn solid phalanx; doubt it not; my spear\nShall chase and scatter them, if Jove, in truth,\nHigh-thundering mate of Juno, bid me on.\n  So saying he roused the courage of them all190\nForemost of whom advanced, of Priam\u2019s race\nDeiphobus, ambitious of renown.\nTripping he came with shorten\u2019d steps,[5] his feet\nSheltering behind his buckler; but at him\nAiming, Meriones his splendid lance195\nDismiss\u2019d, nor err\u2019d; his bull-hide targe he struck\nBut ineffectual; where the hollow wood\nReceives the inserted brass, the quivering beam\nSnapp\u2019d; then, Deiphobus his shield afar\nAdvanced before him, trembling at a spear200\nHurl\u2019d by Meriones. He, moved alike\nWith indignation for the victory lost\nAnd for his broken spear, into his band\nAt first retired, but soon set forth again\nIn prowess through the Achaian camp, to fetch205\nIts fellow-spear within his tent reserved.\n  The rest all fought, and dread the shouts arose\nOn all sides. Telamonian Teucer, first,\nSlew valiant Imbrius, son of Mentor, rich\nIn herds of sprightly steeds. He ere the Greeks210\nArrived at Ilium, in Ped\u00e6us dwelt,\nAnd Priam\u2019s spurious daughter had espoused\nMedesicasta. But the barks well-oar\u2019d\nOf Greece arriving, he return\u2019d to Troy,\nWhere he excell\u2019d the noblest, and abode215\nWith Priam, loved and honor\u2019d as his own.\nHim Teucer pierced beneath his ear, and pluck\u2019d\nHis weapon home; he fell as falls an ash\nWhich on some mountain visible afar,\nHewn from its bottom by the woodman\u2019s axe,220\nWith all its tender foliage meets the ground\nSo Imbrius fell; loud rang his armor bright\nWith ornamental brass, and Teucer flew\nTo seize his arms, whom hasting to the spoil\nHector with his resplendent spear assail\u2019d;225\nHe, marking opposite its rapid flight,\nDeclined it narrowly and it pierced the breast,\nAs he advanced to battle, of the son\nOf Cteatus of the Actorian race,\nAmphimachus; he, sounding, smote the plain,230\nAnd all his batter\u2019d armor rang aloud.\nThen Hector swift approaching, would have torn\nThe well-forged helmet from the brows away\nOf brave Amphimachus; but Ajax hurl\u2019d\nRight forth at Hector hasting to the spoil235\nHis radiant spear; no wound the spear impress\u2019d,\nFor he was arm\u2019d complete in burnish\u2019d brass\nTerrific; but the solid boss it pierced\nOf Hector\u2019s shield, and with enormous force\nSo shock\u2019d him, that retiring he resign\u2019d240\nBoth bodies,[6] which the Grecians dragg\u2019d away.\nStichius and Menestheus, leaders both\nOf the Athenians, to the host of Greece\nBore off Amphimachus, and, fierce in arms\nThe Ajaces, Imbrius. As two lions bear245\nThrough thick entanglement of boughs and brakes\nA goat snatch\u2019d newly from the peasants\u2019 cogs,\nUpholding high their prey above the ground,\nSo either Ajax terrible in fight,\nUpholding Imbrius high, his brazen arms250\nTore off, and O\u00efliades his head\nFrom his smooth neck dissevering in revenge\nFor slain Amphimachus, through all the host\nSent it with swift rotation like a globe,\nTill in the dust at Hector\u2019s feet it fell.255\n  Then anger fill\u2019d the heart of Ocean\u2019s King,\nHis grandson[7] slain in battle; forth he pass\u2019d\nThrough the Achaian camp and fleet, the Greeks\nRousing, and meditating wo to Troy.\nIt chanced that brave Idomeneus return\u2019d260\nThat moment from a Cretan at the knee\nWounded, and newly borne into his tent;\nHis friends had borne him off, and when the Chief\nHad given him into skilful hands, he sought\nThe field again, still coveting renown.265\nHim therefore, meeting him on his return,\nNeptune bespake, but with the borrow\u2019d voice\nOf Thoas, offspring of Andr\u00e6mon, King\nIn Pleuro and in lofty Calydon,\nAnd honor\u2019d by the \u00c6tolians as a God.270\n  Oh counsellor of Crete! our threats denounced\nAgainst the towers of Troy, where are they now?\n  To whom the leader of the Cretans, thus,\nIdomeneus. For aught that I perceive\nThoas! no Grecian is this day in fault!275\nFor we are all intelligent in arms,\nNone yields by fear oppress\u2019d, none lull\u2019d by sloth\nFrom battle shrinks; but such the pleasure seems\nOf Jove himself, that we should perish here\nInglorious, from our country far remote280\nBut, Thoas! (for thine heart was ever firm\nIn battle, and thyself art wont to rouse\nWhom thou observ\u2019st remiss) now also fight\nAs erst, and urge each leader of the host.\n  Him answered, then, the Sovereign of the Deep.285\nReturn that Grecian never from the shores\nOf Troy, Idomeneus! but may the dogs\nFeast on him, who shall this day intermit\nThrough wilful negligence his force in fight!\nBut haste, take arms and come; we must exert290\nAll diligence, that, being only two,\nWe yet may yield some service. Union much\nEmboldens even the weakest, and our might\nHath oft been proved on warriors of renown.\n  So Neptune spake, and, turning, sought again295\nThe toilsome field. Ere long, Idomeneus\nArriving in his spacious tent, put on\nHis radiant armor, and, two spears in hand,\nSet forth like lightning which Saturnian Jove\nFrom bright Olympus shakes into the air,300\nA sign to mortal men, dazzling all eyes;\nSo beam\u2019d the Hero\u2019s armor as he ran.\nBut him not yet far distant from his tent\nMeriones, his fellow-warrior met,\nFor he had left the fight, seeking a spear,305\nWhen thus the brave Idomeneus began.\n  Swift son of Molus! chosen companion dear!\nWherefore, Meriones, hast thou the field\nAbandon\u2019d? Art thou wounded? Bring\u2019st thou home\nSome pointed mischief in thy flesh infixt?310\nOr comest thou sent to me, who of myself\nThe still tent covet not, but feats of arms?\n  To whom Meriones discreet replied,\nChief leader of the Cretans, brazen-mail\u2019d\nIdomeneus! if yet there be a spear315\nLeft in thy tent, I seek one; for I broke\nThe spear, even now, with which erewhile I fought,\nSmiting the shield of fierce Deiphobus.\n  Then answer thus the Cretan Chief return\u2019d,\nValiant Idomeneus. If spears thou need,320\nWithin my tent, leaning against the wall,\nStand twenty spears and one, forged all in Troy,\nWhich from the slain I took; for distant fight\nMe suits not; therefore in my tent have I\nBoth spears and bossy shields, with brazen casques325\nAnd corselets bright that smile against the sun.\n  Him answer\u2019d, then, Meriones discreet.\nI also, at my tent and in my ship\nHave many Trojan spoils, but they are hence\nFar distant. I not less myself than thou330\nAm ever mindful of a warrior\u2019s part,\nAnd when the din of glorious arms is heard,\nFight in the van. If other Greeks my deeds\nKnow not, at least I judge them known to thee.\n  To whom the leader of the host of Crete335\nIdomeneus. I know thy valor well,\nWhy speakest thus to me? Choose we this day\nAn ambush forth of all the bravest Greeks,\n(For in the ambush is distinguish\u2019d best\nThe courage; there the timorous and the bold340\nPlainly appear; the dastard changes hue\nAnd shifts from place to place, nor can he calm\nThe fears that shake his trembling limbs, but sits\nLow-crouching on his hams, while in his breast\nQuick palpitates his death-foreboding heart,345\nAnd his teeth chatter; but the valiant man\nHis posture shifts not; no excessive fears\nFeels he, but seated once in ambush, deems\nTime tedious till the bloody fight begin;)\nEven there, thy courage should no blame incur.[8]350\nFor should\u2019st thou, toiling in the fight, by spear\nOr falchion bleed, not on thy neck behind\nWould fall the weapon, or thy back annoy,\nBut it would meet thy bowels or thy chest\nWhile thou didst rush into the clamorous van.355\nBut haste\u2014we may not longer loiter here\nAs children prating, lest some sharp rebuke\nReward us. Enter quick, and from within\nMy tent provide thee with a noble spear.\n  Then, swift as Mars, Meriones produced360\nA brazen spear of those within the tent\nReserved, and kindling with heroic fire\nFollow\u2019d Idomeneus. As gory Mars\nBy Terror follow\u2019d, his own dauntless son\nWho quells the boldest heart, to battle moves;365\nFrom Thrace against the Ephyri they arm,\nOr hardy Phlegyans, and by both invoked,\nHear and grant victory to which they please;\nSuch, bright in arms Meriones, and such\nIdomeneus advanced, when foremost thus370\nMeriones his fellow-chief bespake.\n  Son of Deucalion! where inclinest thou most\nTo enter into battle? On the right\nOf all the host? or through the central ranks?\nOr on the left? for nowhere I account375\nThe Greeks so destitute of force as there.\n  Then answer thus Idomeneus return\u2019d\nChief of the Cretans. Others stand to guard\nThe middle fleet; there either Ajax wars,\nAnd Teucer, noblest archer of the Greeks,380\nNor less in stationary fight approved.\nBent as he is on battle, they will task\nAnd urge to proof sufficiently the force\nOf Priame\u00efan Hector; burn his rage\nHow fierce soever, he shall find it hard,385\nWith all his thirst of victory, to quell\nTheir firm resistance, and to fire the fleet,\nLet not Saturnian Jove cast down from heaven\nHimself a flaming brand into the ships.\nHigh towering Telamonian Ajax yields390\nTo no mere mortal by the common gift\nSustain\u2019d of Ceres, and whose flesh the spear\nCan penetrate, or rocky fragment bruise;\nIn standing fight Ajax would not retire\nEven before that breaker of the ranks395\nAchilles, although far less swift than he.\nBut turn we to the left, that we may learn\nAt once, if glorious death, or life be ours.\n  Then, rapid as the God of war, his course\nMeriones toward the left began,400\nAs he enjoin\u2019d. Soon as the Trojans saw\nIdomeneus advancing like a flame,\nAnd his compeer Meriones in arms\nAll-radiant clad, encouraging aloud\nFrom rank to rank each other, on they came405\nTo the assault combined. Then soon arose\nSharp contest on the left of all the fleet.\nAs when shrill winds blow vehement, what time\nDust deepest spreads the ways, by warring blasts\nUpborne a sable cloud stands in the air,410\nSuch was the sudden conflict; equal rage\nTo stain with gore the lance ruled every breast.\nHorrent with quivering spears the fatal field\nFrown\u2019d on all sides; the brazen flashes dread\nOf numerous helmets, corselets furbish\u2019d bright,415\nAnd shields refulgent meeting, dull\u2019d the eye,\nAnd turn\u2019d it dark away. Stranger indeed\nWere he to fear, who could that strife have view\u2019d\nWith heart elate, or spirit unperturb\u2019d.\n  Two mighty sons of Saturn adverse parts420\nTook in that contest, purposing alike\nTo many a valiant Chief sorrow and pain.\nJove, for the honor of Achilles, gave\nSuccess to Hector and the host of Troy,\nNot for complete destruction of the Greeks425\nAt Ilium, but that glory might redound\nTo Thetis thence, and to her dauntless son.\nOn the other side, the King of Ocean risen\nSecretly from the hoary Deep, the host\nOf Greece encouraged, whom he grieved to see430\nVanquish\u2019d by Trojans, and with anger fierce\nAgainst the Thunderer burn\u2019d on their behalf.\nAlike from one great origin divine\nSprang they, but Jove was elder, and surpass\u2019d\nIn various knowledge; therefore when he roused435\nTheir courage, Neptune traversed still the ranks\nClandestine, and in human form disguised.\nThus, these Immortal Two, straining the cord\nIndissoluble of all-wasting war,\nAlternate measured with it either host,440\nAnd loosed the joints of many a warrior bold.\nThen, loud exhorting (though himself with age\nHalf grey) the Achaians, into battle sprang\nIdomeneus, and scatter\u2019d, first, the foe,\nSlaying Othryoneus, who, by the lure445\nOf martial glory drawn, had left of late\nCabesus. He Priam\u2019s fair daughter woo\u2019d\nCassandra, but no nuptial gift vouchsafed\nTo offer, save a sounding promise proud\nTo chase, himself, however resolute450\nThe Grecian host, and to deliver Troy.\nTo him assenting, Priam, ancient King,\nAssured to him his wish, and in the faith\nOf that assurance confident, he fought.\nBut brave Idomeneus his splendid lance455\nWell-aim\u2019d dismissing, struck the haughty Chief.\nPacing elate the field; his brazen mail\nEndured not; through his bowels pierced, with clang\nOf all his arms he fell, and thus with joy\nImmense exulting, spake Idomeneus.460\n  I give thee praise, Othryoneus! beyond\nAll mortal men, if truly thou perform\nThy whole big promise to the Dardan king,\nWho promised thee his daughter. Now, behold,\nWe also promise: doubt not the effect.465\nWe give into thy arms the most admired\nOf Agamemnon\u2019s daughters, whom ourselves\nWill hither bring from Argos, if thy force\nWith ours uniting, thou wilt rase the walls\nOf populous Troy. Come\u2014follow me; that here470\nAmong the ships we may adjust the terms\nOf marriage, for we take not scanty dower.\n  So saying, the Hero dragg\u2019d him by his heel\nThrough all the furious fight. His death to avenge\nAsius on foot before his steeds advanced,475\nFor them, where\u2019er he moved, his charioteer\nKept breathing ever on his neck behind.\nWith fierce desire the heart of Asius burn\u2019d\nTo smite Idomeneus, who with his lance\nHim reaching first, pierced him beneath the chin480\nInto his throat, and urged the weapon through.\nHe fell, as some green poplar falls, or oak,\nOr lofty pine, by naval artists hewn\nWith new-edged axes on the mountain\u2019s side.\nSo, his teeth grinding, and the bloody dust485\nClenching, before his chariot and his steeds\nExtended, Asius lay. His charioteer\n(All recollection lost) sat panic-stunn\u2019d,\nNor dared for safety turn his steeds to flight.\nHim bold Antilochus right through the waist490\nTranspierced; his mail sufficed not, but the spear\nImplanted in his midmost bowels stood.\nDown from his seat magnificent he fell\nPanting, and young Antilochus the steeds\nDrove captive thence into the host of Greece.495\nThen came Deiphobus by sorrow urged\nFor Asius, and, small interval between,\nHurl\u2019d at Idomeneus his glittering lance;\nBut he, foreseeing its approach, the point\nEluded, cover\u2019d whole by his round shield500\nOf hides and brass by double belt sustain\u2019d,\nAnd it flew over him, but on his targe\nGlancing, elicited a tinkling sound.\nYet left it not in vain his vigorous grasp,\nBut pierced the liver of Hypsenor, son505\nOf Hippasus; he fell incontinent,\nAnd measureless exulting in his fall\nDeiphobus with mighty voice exclaim\u2019d.\n  Not unavenged lies Asius; though he seek\nHell\u2019s iron portals, yet shall he rejoice,510\nFor I have given him a conductor home.\n  So he, whose vaunt the Greeks indignant heard!\nBut of them all to anger most he roused\nAntilochus, who yet his breathless friend[9]\nLeft not, but hasting, fenced him with his shield,515\nAnd brave Alastor with Mecisteus son\nOf Echius, bore him to the hollow ships\nDeep-groaning both, for of their band was he.\nNor yet Idomeneus his warlike rage\nRemitted aught, but persevering strove520\nEither to plunge some Trojan in the shades,\nOr fall himself, guarding the fleet of Greece.\nThen slew he brave Alcatho\u00fcs the son\nOf \u00c6syeta, and the son-in-law\nOf old Anchises, who to him had given525\nThe eldest-born of all his daughters fair,\nHippodamia; dearly loved was she\nBy both her parents in her virgin state,[10]\nFor that in beauty she surpass\u2019d, in works\nIngenious, and in faculties of mind530\nAll her co\u00ebvals; wherefore she was deem\u2019d\nWell worthy of the noblest prince of Troy.\nHim in that moment, Neptune by the arm\nQuell\u2019d of Idomeneus, his radiant eyes\nDimming, and fettering his proportion\u2019d limbs.535\nAll power of flight or to elude the stroke\nForsook him, and while motionless he stood\nAs stands a pillar tall or towering oak,\nThe hero of the Cretans with a spear\nTransfix\u2019d his middle chest. He split the mail540\nErewhile his bosom\u2019s faithful guard; shrill rang\nThe shiver\u2019d brass; sounding he fell; the beam\nImplanted in his palpitating heart\nShook to its topmost point, but, its force spent,\nAt last, quiescent, stood. Then loud exclaim\u2019d545\nIdomeneus, exulting in his fall.\n  What thinks Deiphobus? seems it to thee\nVain boaster, that, three warriors slain for one,\nWe yield thee just amends? else, stand thyself\nAgainst me; learn the valor of a Chief550\nThe progeny of Jove; Jove first begat\nCrete\u2019s guardian, Minos, from which Minos sprang\nDeucalion, and from famed Deucalion, I;\nI, sovereign of the numerous race of Crete\u2019s\nExtensive isle, and whom my galleys brought555\nTo these your shores at last, that I might prove\nThy curse, thy father\u2019s, and a curse to Troy.\n  He spake; Deiphobus uncertain stood\nWhether, retreating, to engage the help\nOf some heroic Trojan, or himself560\nTo make the dread experiment alone.\nAt length, as his discreeter course, he chose\nTo seek \u00c6neas; him he found afar\nStation\u2019d, remotest of the host of Troy,\nFor he resented evermore his worth565\nBy Priam[11] recompensed with cold neglect.\nApproaching him, in accents wing\u2019d he said.\n  \u00c6neas! Trojan Chief! If e\u2019er thou lov\u2019dst\nThy sister\u2019s husband, duty calls thee now\nTo prove it. Haste\u2014defend with me the dead570\nAlcatho\u00fcs, guardian of thy tender years,\nSlain by Idomeneus the spear-renown\u2019d.\n  So saying, he roused his spirit, and on fire\nTo combat with the Cretan, forth he sprang.\nBut fear seized not Idomeneus as fear575\nMay seize a nursling boy; resolved he stood\nAs in the mountains, conscious of his force,\nThe wild boar waits a coming multitude\nOf boisterous hunters to his lone retreat;\nArching his bristly spine he stands, his eyes580\nBeam fire, and whetting his bright tusks, he burns\nTo drive, not dogs alone, but men to flight;\nSo stood the royal Cretan, and fled not,\nExpecting brave \u00c6neas; yet his friends\nHe summon\u2019d, on Ascalaphus his eyes585\nFastening, on Aphareus, Deipyrus,\nMeriones, and Antilochus, all bold\nIn battle, and in accents wing\u2019d exclaim\u2019d.\n  Haste ye, my friends! to aid me, for I stand\nAlone, nor undismay\u2019d the coming wait590\nOf swift \u00c6neas, nor less brave than swift,\nAnd who possesses fresh his flower of youth,\nMan\u2019s prime advantage; were we match\u2019d in years\nAs in our spirits, either he should earn\nAt once the meed of deathless fame, or I.595\n  He said; they all unanimous approach\u2019d,\nSloping their shields, and stood. On the other side\nHis aids \u00c6neas call\u2019d, with eyes toward\nParis, Deiphobus, Agenor, turn\u2019d,\nHis fellow-warriors bold; them follow\u2019d all600\nTheir people as the pastured flock the ram\nTo water, by the shepherd seen with joy;\nSuch joy \u00c6neas felt, seeing, so soon,\nThat numerous host attendant at his call.\nThen, for Alcatho\u00fcs, into contest close605\nArm\u2019d with long spears they rush\u2019d; on every breast\nDread rang the brazen corselet, each his foe\nAssailing opposite; but two, the rest\nSurpassing far, terrible both as Mars,\n\u00c6neas and Idomeneus, alike610\nPanted to pierce each other with the spear.\n\u00c6neas, first, cast at Idomeneus,\nBut, warn\u2019d, he shunn\u2019d the weapon, and it pass\u2019d.\nQuivering in the soil \u00c6neas\u2019 lance\nStood, hurl\u2019d in vain, though by a forceful arm.615\nNot so the Cretan; at his waist he pierced\nOenoma\u00fcs, his hollow corselet clave,\nAnd in his midmost bowels drench\u2019d the spear;\nDown fell the Chief, and dying, clench\u2019d the dust.\nInstant, his massy spear the King of Crete620\nPluck\u2019d from the dead, but of his radiant arms\nDespoil\u2019d him not, by numerous weapons urged;\nFor now, time-worn, he could no longer make\nBrisk sally, spring to follow his own spear,\nOr shun another, or by swift retreat625\nVanish from battle, but the evil day\nWarded in stationary fight alone.\nAt him retiring, therefore, step by step\nDeiphobus, who had with bitterest hate\nLong time pursued him, hurl\u2019d his splendid lance,630\nBut yet again erroneous, for he pierced\nAscalaphus instead, offspring of Mars;\nRight through his shoulder flew the spear; he fell\nIncontinent, and dying, clench\u2019d the dust.\nBut tidings none the brazen-throated Mars635\nTempestuous yet received, that his own son\nIn bloody fight had fallen, for on the heights\nOlympian over-arch\u2019d with clouds of gold\nHe sat, where sat the other Powers divine,\nPrisoners together of the will of Jove.640\nMeantime, for slain Ascalaphus arose\nConflict severe; Deiphobus his casque\nResplendent seized, but swift as fiery Mars\nAssailing him, Meriones his arm\nPierced with a spear, and from his idle hand645\nFallen, the casque sonorous struck the ground.\nAgain, as darts the vulture on his prey,\nMeriones assailing him, the lance\nPluck\u2019d from his arm, and to his band retired.\nThen, casting his fraternal arms around650\nDeiphobus, him young Polites led\nFrom the hoarse battle to his rapid steeds\nAnd his bright chariot in the distant rear,\nWhich bore him back to Troy, languid and loud-\nGroaning, and bleeding from his recent wound.655\nStill raged the war, and infinite arose\nThe clamor. Aphareus, Caletor\u2019s son,\nTurning to face \u00c6neas, in his throat\nInstant the hero\u2019s pointed lance received.\nWith head reclined, and bearing to the ground660\nBuckler and helmet with him, in dark shades\nOf soul-divorcing death involved, he fell.\nAntilochus, observing Tho\u00f6n turn\u2019d\nTo flight, that moment pierced him; from his back\nHe ripp\u2019d the vein which through the trunk its course665\nWinds upward to the neck; that vein he ripp\u2019d\nAll forth; supine he fell, and with both hands\nExtended to his fellow-warriors, died.\nForth sprang Antilochus to strip his arms,\nBut watch\u2019d, meantime, the Trojans, who in crowds670\nEncircling him, his splendid buckler broad\nSmote oft, but none with ruthless point prevail\u2019d\nEven to inscribe the skin of Nestor\u2019s son,\nWhom Neptune, shaker of the shores, amid\nInnumerable darts kept still secure.675\nYet never from his foes he shrank, but faced\nFrom side to side, nor idle slept his spear,\nBut with rotation ceaseless turn\u2019d and turn\u2019d\nTo every part, now levell\u2019d at a foe\nFar-distant, at a foe, now, near at hand.680\nNor he, thus occupied, unseen escaped\nBy Asius\u2019 offspring Adamas, who close\nAdvancing, struck the centre of his shield.\nBut Neptune azure-hair\u2019d so dear a life\nDenied to Adamas, and render\u2019d vain685\nThe weapon; part within his disk remain\u2019d\nLike a seer\u2019d stake, and part fell at his feet.\nThen Adamas, for his own life alarm\u2019d,\nRetired, but as he went, Meriones\nHim reaching with his lance, the shame between690\nAnd navel pierced him, where the stroke of Mars\nProves painful most to miserable man.\nThere enter\u2019d deep the weapon; down he fell,\nAnd in the dust lay panting as an ox\nAmong the mountains pants by peasants held695\nIn twisted bands, and dragg\u2019d perforce along;\nSo panted dying Adamas, but soon\nCeased, for Meriones, approaching, pluck\u2019d\nThe weapon forth, and darkness veil\u2019d his eyes.\nHelenus, with his heavy Thracian blade700\nSmiting the temples of Deipyrus,\nDash\u2019d off his helmet; from his brows remote\nIt fell, and wandering roll\u2019d, till at his feet\nSome warrior found it, and secured; meantime\nThe sightless shades of death him wrapp\u2019d around.705\nGrief at that spectacle the bosom fill\u2019d\nOf valiant Menelaus; high he shook\nHis radiant spear, and threatening him, advanced\nOn royal Helenus, who ready stood\nWith his bow bent. They met; impatient, one,710\nTo give his pointed lance its rapid course,\nAnd one, to start his arrow from the nerve.\nThe arrow of the son of Priam struck\nAtrides\u2019 hollow corselet, but the reed\nGlanced wide. As vetches or as swarthy beans715\nLeap from the van and fly athwart the floor,\nBy sharp winds driven, and by the winnower\u2019s force,\nSo from the corselet of the glorious Greek\nWide-wandering flew the bitter shaft away.\nBut Menelaus the left-hand transpierced720\nOf Helenus, and with the lance\u2019s point\nFasten\u2019d it to his bow; shunning a stroke\nMore fatal, Helenus into his band\nRetired, his arm dependent at his side,\nAnd trailing, as he went, the ashen beam;725\nThere, bold Agenor from his hand the lance\nDrew forth, then folded it with softest wool\nAround, sling-wool, and borrow\u2019d from the sling\nWhich his attendant into battle bore.\nThen sprang Pisander on the glorious Chief730\nThe son of Atreus, but his evil fate\nBeckon\u2019d him to his death in conflict fierce,\nOh Menelaus, mighty Chief! with thee.\nAnd now they met, small interval between.\nAtrides hurl\u2019d his weapon, and it err\u2019d.735\nPisander with his spear struck full the shield\nOf glorious Menelaus, but his force\nResisted by the stubborn buckler broad\nFail\u2019d to transpierce it, and the weapon fell\nSnapp\u2019d at the neck. Yet, when he struck, the heart740\nRebounded of Pisander, full of hope.\nBut Menelaus, drawing his bright blade,\nSprang on him, while Pisander from behind\nHis buckler drew a brazen battle-axe\nBy its long haft of polish\u2019d olive-wood,745\nAnd both Chiefs struck together. He the crest\nThat crown\u2019d the shaggy casque of Atreus\u2019 son\nHew\u2019d from its base, but Menelaus him\nIn his swift onset smote full on the front\nAbove his nose; sounded the shatter\u2019d bone,750\nAnd his eyes both fell bloody at his feet.\nConvolved with pain he lay; then, on his breast\nAtrides setting fast his heel, tore off\nHis armor, and exulting thus began.\n  So shall ye leave at length the Grecian fleet,755\nTraitors, and never satisfied with war!\nNor want ye other guilt, dogs and profane!\nBut me have injured also, and defied\nThe hot displeasure of high-thundering Jove\nThe hospitable, who shall waste in time,760\nAnd level with the dust your lofty Troy.\nI wrong\u2019d not you, yet bore ye far away\nMy youthful bride who welcomed you, and stole\nMy treasures also, and ye now are bent\nTo burn Achaia\u2019s gallant fleet with fire765\nAnd slay her heroes; but your furious thirst\nOf battle shall hereafter meet a check.\nOh, Father Jove! Thee wisest we account\nIn heaven or earth, yet from thyself proceed\nAll these calamities, who favor show\u2019st770\nTo this flagitious race the Trojans, strong\nIn wickedness alone, and whose delight\nIn war and bloodshed never can be cloy\u2019d.\nAll pleasures breed satiety, sweet sleep,\nSoft dalliance, music, and the graceful dance,775\nThough sought with keener appetite by most\nThan bloody war; but Troy still covets blood.\n  So spake the royal Chief, and to his friends\nPisander\u2019s gory spoils consigning, flew\nTo mingle in the foremost fight again.780\nHim, next, Harpalion, offspring of the King\nPyl\u00e6menes assail\u2019d; to Troy he came\nFollowing his sire, but never thence return\u2019d.\nHe, from small distance, smote the central boss\nOf Menelaus\u2019 buckler with his lance,785\nBut wanting power to pierce it, with an eye\nOf cautious circumspection, lest perchance\nSome spear should reach him, to his band retired.\nBut him retiring with a brazen shaft\nMeriones pursued; swift flew the dart790\nTo his right buttock, slipp\u2019d beneath the bone,\nHis bladder grazed, and started through before.\nThere ended his retreat; sudden he sank\nAnd like a worm lay on the ground, his life\nExhaling in his fellow-warrior\u2019s arms,795\nAnd with his sable blood soaking the plain.\nAround him flock\u2019d his Paphlagonians bold,\nAnd in his chariot placed drove him to Troy,\nWith whom his father went, mourning with tears\nA son, whose death he never saw avenged.800\n  Him slain with indignation Paris view\u2019d,\nFor he, with numerous Paphlagonians more\nHis guest had been; he, therefore, in the thirst\nOf vengeance, sent a brazen arrow forth.\nThere was a certain Greek, Euchenor, son805\nOf Polyides the soothsayer, rich\nAnd brave in fight, and who in Corinth dwelt\nHe, knowing well his fate, yet sail\u2019d to Troy\nFor Polyides oft, his reverend sire,\nHad prophecied that he should either die810\nBy some dire malady at home, or, slain\nBy Trojan hands, amid the fleet of Greece.\nHe, therefore, shunning the reproach alike\nOf the Achaians, and that dire disease,\nHad join\u2019d the Grecian host; him Paris pierced815\nThe ear and jaw beneath; life at the stroke\nLeft him, and darkness overspread his eyes.\n  So raged the battle like devouring fire.\nBut Hector dear to Jove not yet had learn\u2019d,\nNor aught surmised the havoc of his host820\nMade on the left, where victory crown\u2019d well-nigh\nThe Grecians animated to the fight\nBy Neptune seconding himself their arms.\nHe, where he first had started through the gate\nAfter dispersion of the shielded Greeks825\nCompact, still persevered. The galleys there\nOf Ajax and Protesila\u00fcs stood\nUpdrawn above the hoary Deep; the wall\nWas there of humblest structure, and the steeds\nAnd warriors there conflicted furious most.830\nThe Epeans there and I\u00e4onians[12] robed-\nProlix, the Phthians,[13] Locrians, and the bold\nB\u0153tians check\u2019d the terrible assault\nOf Hector, noble Chief, ardent as flame,\nYet not repulsed him. Chosen Athenians form\u2019d835\nThe van, by Peteos\u2019 son, Menestheus, led,\nWhose high command undaunted Bias shared,\nPhidas and Stichius. The Epean host\nUnder Amphion, Dracius, Meges, fought.\nPodarces brave in arms the Phthians ruled,840\nAnd Medon (Medon was by spurious birth\nBrother of Ajax O\u00efliades,\nAnd for his uncle\u2019s death, whom he had slain,\nThe brother of O\u00efleus\u2019 wife, abode\nIn Phylace; but from Iphiclus sprang845\nPodarces;) these, all station\u2019d in the front\nOf Phthias\u2019 hardy sons, together strove\nWith the B\u0153otians for the fleet\u2019s defence.\nAjax the swift swerved never from the side\nOf Ajax son of Telamon a step,850\nBut as in some deep fallow two black steers\nLabor combined, dragging the ponderous plow,\nThe briny sweat around their rooted horns\nOozes profuse; they, parted as they toil\nAlong the furrow, by the yoke alone,855\nCleave to its bottom sheer the stubborn glebe,\nSo, side by side, they, persevering fought.[14]\nThe son of Telamon a people led\nNumerous and bold, who, when his bulky limbs\nFail\u2019d overlabor\u2019d, eased him of his shield.860\nNot so attended by his Locrians fought\nO\u00efleus\u2019 valiant son; pitch\u2019d battle them\nSuited not, unprovided with bright casques\nOf hairy crest, with ashen spears, and shields\nOf ample orb; for, trusting in the bow865\nAnd twisted sling alone, they came to Troy,\nAnd broke with shafts and volley\u2019d stones the ranks.\nThus occupying, clad in burnish\u2019d arms,\nThe van, these two with Hector and his host\nConflicted, while the Locrians from behind870\nVex\u2019d them with shafts, secure; nor could the men\nOf Ilium stand, by such a shower confused.\nThen, driven with dreadful havoc thence, the foe\nTo wind-swept Ilium had again retired.\nHad not Polydamas, at Hector\u2019s side875\nStanding, the dauntless hero thus address\u2019d.\n  Hector! Thou ne\u2019er canst listen to advice;\nBut think\u2019st thou, that if heaven in feats of arms\nGive thee pre-eminence, thou must excel\nTherefore in council also all mankind?880\nNo. All-sufficiency is not for thee.\nTo one, superior force in arms is given,\nSkill to another in the graceful dance,\nSweet song and powers of music to a third,\nAnd to a fourth loud-thundering Jove imparts885\nWisdom, which profits many, and which saves\nWhole cities oft, though reverenced but by few.\nYet hear; I speak as wisest seems to me.\nWar, like a fiery circle, all around\nEnvirons thee; the Trojans, since they pass\u2019d890\nThe bulwark, either hold themselves aloof,\nOr, wide-dispersed among the galleys, cope\nWith numbers far superior to their own.\nRetiring, therefore, summon all our Chiefs\nTo consultation on the sum of all,895\nWhether (should heaven so prosper us) to rush\nImpetuous on the gallant barks of Greece,\nOr to retreat secure; for much I dread\nLest the Achaians punctually refund\nAll yesterday\u2019s arrear, since yonder Chief[15]900\nInsatiable with battle still abides\nWithin the fleet, nor longer, as I judge,\nWill rest a mere spectator of the field.\n  So spake Polydamas, whose safe advice\nPleased Hector; from his chariot down he leap\u2019d905\nAll arm\u2019d, and in wing\u2019d accents thus replied.\n  Polydamas! here gather all the Chiefs;\nI haste into the fight, and my commands\nOnce issued there, incontinent return.\n  He ended, and conspicuous as the height910\nOf some snow-crested mountain, shouting ranged\nThe Trojans and confederates of Troy.\nThey swift around Polydamas, brave son\nOf Panthus, at the voice of Hector, ran.\nHimself with hasty strides the front, meantime,915\nOf battle roam\u2019d, seeking from rank to rank\nAsius Hyrtacides, with Asius\u2019 son\nAdamas, and Deiphobus, and the might\nOf Helenus, his royal brother bold.\nThem neither altogether free from hurt920\nHe found, nor living all. Beneath the sterns\nOf the Achaian ships some slaughter\u2019d lay\nBy Grecian hands; some stricken by the spear\nWithin the rampart sat, some by the sword.\nBut leftward of the woful field he found,925\nEre long, bright Helen\u2019s paramour his band\nExhorting to the fight. Hector approach\u2019d,\nAnd him, in fierce displeasure, thus bespake.\n  Curst Paris, specious, fraudulent and lewd!\nWhere is Deiphobus, and where the might930\nOf royal Helenus? Where Adamas\nOffspring of Asius, and where Asius, son\nOf Hyrtacus, and where Othryoneus?\nNow lofty Ilium from her topmost height\nFalls headlong, now is thy own ruin sure!935\n  To whom the godlike Paris thus replied.\nSince Hector! thou art pleased with no just cause\nTo censure me, I may decline, perchance,\nMuch more the battle on some future day,\nFor I profess some courage, even I.940\nWitness our constant conflict with the Greeks\nHere, on this spot, since first led on by thee\nThe host of Troy waged battle at the ships.\nBut those our friends of whom thou hast inquired\nAre slain, Deiphobus alone except945\nAnd royal Helenus, who in the hand\nBear each a wound inflicted by the spear,\nAnd have retired; but Jove their life preserved.\nCome now\u2014conduct us whither most thine heart\nPrompts thee, and thou shalt find us ardent all950\nTo face like danger; what we can, we will,\nThe best and most determined can no more.\n  So saying, the hero soothed his brother\u2019s mind.\nThen moved they both toward the hottest war\nTogether, where Polydamas the brave,955\nPhalces, Cebriones, Orth\u00e6us fought,\nPalmys and Polyph\u0153tes, godlike Chief,\nAnd Morys and Ascanius, gallant sons\nBoth of Hippotion. They at Troy arrived\nFrom fair Ascania the preceding morn,960\nIn recompense for aid[16] by Priam lent\nErewhile to Phrygia, and, by Jove impell\u2019d,\nNow waged the furious battle side by side.\nThe march of these at once, was as the sound\nOf mighty winds from deep-hung thunder-clouds965\nDescending; clamorous the blast and wild\nWith ocean mingles; many a billow, then,\nUpridged rides turbulent the sounding flood,\nFoam-crested billow after billow driven,\nSo moved the host of Troy, rank after rank970\nBehind their Chiefs, all dazzling bright in arms.\nBefore them Priameian Hector strode\nFierce as gore-tainted Mars, and his broad shield\nAdvancing came, heavy with hides, and thick-\nPlated with brass; his helmet on his brows975\nRefulgent shook, and in its turn he tried\nThe force of every phalanx, if perchance\nBehind his broad shield pacing he might shake\nTheir steadfast order; but he bore not down\nThe spirit of the firm Achaian host.980\nThen Ajax striding forth, him, first, defied.\n  Approach. Why temptest thou the Greeks to fear?\nNo babes are we in aught that appertains\nTo arms, though humbled by the scourge of Jove.\nThou cherishest the foolish hope to burn985\nOur fleet with fire; but even we have hearts\nPrepared to guard it, and your populous Troy,\nBy us dismantled and to pillage given,\nShall perish sooner far. Know this thyself\nAlso; the hour is nigh when thou shalt ask990\nIn prayer to Jove and all the Gods of heaven,\nThat speed more rapid than the falcon\u2019s flight\nMay wing thy coursers, while, exciting dense\nThe dusty plain, they whirl thee back to Troy.\n  While thus he spake, sublime on the right-hand995\nAn eagle soar\u2019d; confident in the sign\nThe whole Achaian host with loud acclaim\nHail\u2019d it. Then glorious Hector thus replied.\n  Brainless and big, what means this boast of thine,\nEarth-cumberer Ajax? Would I were the son1000\nAs sure, for ever, of almighty Jove\nAnd Juno, and such honor might receive\nHenceforth as Pallas and Apollo share,\nAs comes this day with universal wo\nFraught for the Grecians, among whom thyself1005\nShalt also perish if thou dare abide\nMy massy spear, which shall thy pamper\u2019d flesh\nDisfigure, and amid the barks of Greece\nFalling, thou shalt the vultures with thy bulk\nEnormous satiate, and the dogs of Troy.1010\n  He spake, and led his host; with clamor loud\nThey follow\u2019d him, and all the distant rear\nCame shouting on. On the other side the Greeks\nRe-echoed shout for shout, all undismay\u2019d,\nAnd waiting firm the bravest of their foes.1015\nUpwent the double roar into the heights\nEthereal, and among the beams of Jove.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK XIV.\n\n\nARGUMENT OF THE FOURTEENTH BOOK.\n\nAgamemnon and the other wounded Chiefs taking Nestor with them, visit\nthe battle. Juno having borrowed the Cestus of Venus, first engages the\nassistance of Sleep, then hastens to Ida to inveigle Jove. She\nprevails. Jove sleeps; and Neptune takes that opportunity to succor the\nGrecians.\n\n\nBOOK XIV.\n\n\nNor was that cry by Nestor unperceived\nThough drinking, who in words wing\u2019d with surprise\nThe son of \u00c6sculapius thus address\u2019d.\n  Divine Machaon! think what this may bode.\nThe cry of our young warriors at the ships5\nGrows louder; sitting here, the sable wine\nQuaff thou, while bright-hair\u2019d Hecamede warms\nA bath, to cleanse thy crimson stains away.\nI from yon eminence will learn the cause.\n  So saying, he took a shield radiant with brass10\nThere lying in the tent, the shield well-forged\nOf valiant Thrasymedes, his own son\n(For he had borne to fight his father\u2019s shield)\nAnd arming next his hand with a keen lance\nStood forth before the tent. Thence soon he saw15\nFoul deeds and strange, the Grecian host confused,\nTheir broken ranks flying before the host\nOf Ilium, and the rampart overthrown.\nAs when the wide sea, darken\u2019d over all\nIts silent flood, forebodes shrill winds to blow,20\nThe doubtful waves roll yet to neither side,\nTill swept at length by a decisive gale;[1]\nSo stood the senior, with distressful doubts\nConflicting anxious, whether first to seek\nThe Grecian host, or Agamemnon\u2019s self25\nThe sovereign, and at length that course preferr\u2019d.\nMeantime with mutual carnage they the field\nSpread far and wide, and by spears double-edged\nSmitten, and by the sword their corselets rang.\n  The royal Chiefs ascending from the fleet,30\nUlysses, Diomede, and Atreus\u2019 son\nImperial Agamemnon, who had each\nBled in the battle, met him on his way.\nFor from the war remote they had updrawn\nTheir galleys on the shore of the gray Deep,35\nThe foremost to the plain, and at the sterns\nOf that exterior line had built the wall.\nFor, spacious though it were, the shore alone\nThat fleet sufficed not, incommoding much\nThe people; wherefore they had ranged the ships40\nLine above line gradual, and the bay\nBetween both promontories, all was fill\u2019d.\nThey, therefore, curious to survey the fight,\nCame forth together, leaning on the spear,\nWhen Nestor met them; heavy were their hearts,45\nAnd at the sight of him still more alarm\u2019d,\nWhom royal Agamemnon thus bespake.\n  Neleian Nestor, glory of the Greeks!\nWhat moved thee to forsake yon bloody field,\nAnd urged thee hither? Cause I see of fear,50\nLest furious Hector even now his threat\nAmong the Trojans publish\u2019d, verify,\nThat he would never enter Ilium more\nTill he had burn\u2019d our fleet, and slain ourselves.\nSo threaten\u2019d Hector, and shall now perform.55\nAlas! alas! the Achaians brazen-greaved\nAll, like Achilles, have deserted me\nResentful, and decline their fleet\u2019s defence.\n  To whom Gerenian Nestor thus replied.\nThose threats are verified; nor Jove himself60\nThe Thunderer can disappoint them now;\nFor our chief strength in which we trusted most\nThat it should guard impregnably secure\nOur navy and ourselves, the wall hath fallen.\nHence all this conflict by our host sustain\u2019d65\nAmong the ships; nor could thy keenest sight\nInform thee where in the Achaian camp\nConfusion most prevails, such deaths are dealt\nPromiscuous, and the cry ascends to heaven.\nBut come\u2014consult we on the sum of all,70\nIf counsel yet may profit. As for you,\nYe shall have exhortation none from me\nTo seek the fight; the wounded have excuse.\n  Whom Agamemnon answer\u2019d, King of men.\nAh Nestor! if beneath our very sterns75\nThe battle rage, if neither trench nor wall\nConstructed with such labor, and supposed\nOf strength to guard impregnably secure\nOur navy and ourselves, avail us aught,\nIt is because almighty Jove hath will\u2019d80\nThat the Achaian host should perish here\nInglorious, from their country far remote.\nWhen he vouchsafed assistance to the Greeks,\nI knew it well; and now, not less I know\nThat high as the immortal Gods he lifts85\nOur foes to glory, and depresses us.\nHaste therefore all, and act as I advise.\nOur ships\u2014all those that nearest skirt the Deep,\nLaunch we into the sacred flood, and moor\nWith anchors safely, till o\u2019ershadowing night90\n(If night itself may save us) shall arrive.\nThen may we launch the rest; for I no shame\nAccount it, even by \u2019vantage of the night\nTo fly destruction. Wiser him I deem\nWho \u2019scapes his foe, than whom his foe enthralls.95\n  But him Ulysses, frowning stern, reproved.\nWhat word, Atrides, now hath pass\u2019d thy lips?\nCounsellor of despair! thou should\u2019st command\n(And would to heaven thou didst) a different host,\nSome dastard race, not ours; whom Jove ordains100\nFrom youth to hoary age to weave the web\nOf toilsome warfare, till we perish all.\nWilt thou the spacious city thus renounce\nFor which such numerous woes we have endured?\nHush! lest some other hear; it is a word105\nWhich no man qualified by years mature\nTo speak discreetly, no man bearing rule\nO\u2019er such a people as confess thy sway,\nShould suffer to contaminate his lips.\nI from my soul condemn thee, and condemn110\nThy counsel, who persuad\u2019st us in the heat\nOf battle terrible as this, to launch\nOur fleet into the waves, that we may give\nOur too successful foes their full desire,\nAnd that our own prepondering scale115\nMay plunge us past all hope; for while they draw\nTheir galleys down, the Grecians shall but ill\nSustain the fight, seaward will cast their eyes\nAnd shun the battle, bent on flight alone.\nThen, shall they rue thy counsel, King of men!120\n  To whom the imperial leader of the Greeks.\nThy sharp reproof, Ulysses, hath my soul\nPierced deeply. Yet I gave no such command\nThat the Achaians should their galleys launch,\nWould they, or would they not. No. I desire125\nThat young or old, some other may advice\nMore prudent give, and he shall please me well.\n  Then thus the gallant Diomede replied.\nThat man is near, and may ye but be found\nTractable, our inquiry shall be short.130\nBe patient each, nor chide me nor reproach\nBecause I am of greener years than ye,\nFor I am sprung from an illustrious Sire,\nFrom Tydeus, who beneath his hill of earth\nLies now entomb\u2019d at Thebes. Three noble sons135\nWere born to Portheus, who in Pleuro dwelt,\nAnd on the heights of Calydon; the first\nAgrius; the second Melas; and the third\nBrave Oeneus, father of my father, famed\nFor virtuous qualities above the rest.140\nOeneus still dwelt at home; but wandering thence\nMy father dwelt in Argos; so the will\nOf Jove appointed, and of all the Gods.\nThere he espoused the daughter of the King\nAdrastus, occupied a mansion rich145\nIn all abundance; many a field possess\u2019d\nOf wheat, well-planted gardens, numerous flocks,\nAnd was expert in spearmanship esteem\u2019d\nPast all the Grecians. I esteem\u2019d it right\nThat ye should hear these things, for they are true.150\nYe will not, therefore, as I were obscure\nAnd of ignoble origin, reject\nWhat I shall well advise. Expedience bids\nThat, wounded as we are, we join the host.\nWe will preserve due distance from the range155\nOf spears and arrows, lest already gall\u2019d,\nWe suffer worse; but we will others urge\nTo combat, who have stood too long aloof,\nAttentive only to their own repose.\n  He spake, whom all approved, and forth they went,160\nImperial Agamemnon at their head.\n  Nor watch\u2019d the glorious Shaker of the shores\nIn vain, but like a man time-worn approach\u2019d,\nAnd, seizing Agamemnon\u2019s better hand,\nIn accents wing\u2019d the monarch thus address\u2019d.165\n  Atrides! now exults the vengeful heart\nOf fierce Achilles, viewing at his ease\nThe flight and slaughter of Achaia\u2019s host;\nFor he is mad, and let him perish such,\nAnd may his portion from the Gods be shame!170\nBut as for thee, not yet the powers of heaven\nThee hate implacable; the Chiefs of Troy\nShall cover yet with cloudy dust the breadth\nOf all the plain, and backward from the camp\nTo Ilium\u2019s gates thyself shalt see them driven.175\n  He ceased, and shouting traversed swift the field.\nLoud as nine thousand or ten thousand shout\nIn furious battle mingled, Neptune sent\nHis voice abroad, force irresistible\nInfusing into every Grecian heart,180\nAnd thirst of battle not to be assuaged.\n  But Juno of the golden throne stood forth\nOn the Olympian summit, viewing thence\nThe field, where clear distinguishing the God\nOf ocean, her own brother, sole engaged185\nAmid the glorious battle, glad was she.\nSeeing Jove also on the topmost point\nOf spring-fed Ida seated, she conceived\nHatred against him, and thenceforth began\nDeliberate how best she might deceive190\nThe Thunderer, and thus at last resolved;\nAttired with skill celestial to descend\nOn Ida, with a hope to allure him first\nWon by her beauty to a fond embrace,\nThen closing fast in balmy sleep profound195\nHis eyes, to elude his vigilance, secure.\nShe sought her chamber; Vulcan her own son\nThat chamber built. He framed the solid doors,\nAnd to the posts fast closed them with a key\nMysterious, which, herself except, in heaven200\nNone understood. Entering she secured\nThe splendid portal. First, she laved all o\u2019er\nHer beauteous body with ambrosial lymph,\nThen polish\u2019d it with richest oil divine\nOf boundless fragrance;[2] oil that in the courts205\nEternal only shaken, through the skies\nBreathed odors, and through all the distant earth.\nHer whole fair body with those sweets bedew\u2019d,\nShe passed the comb through her ambrosial hair,\nAnd braided her bright locks streaming profuse210\nFrom her immortal brows; with golden studs\nShe made her gorgeous mantle fast before,\nEthereal texture, labor of the hands\nOf Pallas beautified with various art,\nAnd braced it with a zone fringed all around215\nA hundred fold; her pendants triple-gemm\u2019d\nLuminous, graceful, in her ears she hung,\nAnd covering all her glories with a veil\nSun-bright, new-woven, bound to her fair feet\nHer sandals elegant. Thus full attired,220\nIn all her ornaments, she issued forth,\nAnd beckoning Venus from the other powers\nOf heaven apart, the Goddess thus bespake.\n  Daughter beloved! shall I obtain my suit,\nOr wilt thou thwart me, angry that I aid225\nThe Grecians, while thine aid is given to Troy?\n  To whom Jove\u2019s daughter Venus thus replied.\nWhat would majestic Juno, daughter dread\nOf Saturn, sire of Jove? I feel a mind\nDisposed to gratify thee, if thou ask230\nThings possible, and possible to me.\n  Then thus with wiles veiling her deep design\nImperial Juno. Give me those desires,\nThat love-enkindling power by which thou sway\u2019st\nImmortal hearts and mortal, all alike;235\nFor to the green earth\u2019s utmost bounds I go,\nTo visit there the parent of the Gods,\nOceanus, and Tethys his espoused,\nMother of all. They kindly from the hands\nOf Rhea took, and with parental care240\nSustain\u2019d and cherish\u2019d me, what time from heaven\nThe Thunderer hurled down Saturn, and beneath\nThe earth fast bound him and the barren Deep.\nThem go I now to visit, and their feuds\nInnumerable to compose; for long245\nThey have from conjugal embrace abstain\u2019d\nThrough mutual wrath, whom by persuasive speech\nMight I restore into each other\u2019s arms,\nThey would for ever love me and revere.\n  Her, foam-born Venus then, Goddess of smiles,250\nThus answer\u2019d. Thy request, who in the arms\nOf Jove reposest the omnipotent,\nNor just it were nor seemly to refuse.\n  So saying, the cincture from her breast she loosed\nEmbroider\u2019d, various, her all-charming zone.255\nIt was an ambush of sweet snares, replete\nWith love, desire, soft intercourse of hearts,\nAnd music of resistless whisper\u2019d sounds\nThat from the wisest steal their best resolves;\nShe placed it in her hands and thus she said.260\n  Take this\u2014this girdle fraught with every charm.\nHide this within thy bosom, and return,\nWhate\u2019er thy purpose, mistress of it all.\n  She spake; imperial Juno smiled, and still\nSmiling complacent, bosom\u2019d safe the zone.265\nThen Venus to her father\u2019s court return\u2019d,\nAnd Juno, starting from the Olympian height,\nO\u2019erflew Pieria and the lovely plains\nOf broad Emathia; soaring thence she swept\nThe snow-clad summits of the Thracian hills270\nSteed-famed, nor printed, as she passed, the soil.\nFrom Athos o\u2019er the foaming billows borne\nShe came to Lemnos, city and abode\nOf noble Thoas, and there meeting Sleep,\nBrother of Death, she press\u2019d his hand, and said,275\n  Sleep, over all, both Gods and men, supreme!\nIf ever thou hast heard, hear also now\nMy suit; I will be grateful evermore.\nSeal for me fast the radiant eyes of Jove\nIn the instant of his gratified desire.280\nThy recompense shall be a throne of gold,\nBright, incorruptible; my limping son,\nVulcan, shall fashion it himself with art\nLaborious, and, beneath, shall place a stool[3]\nFor thy fair feet, at the convivial board.285\n  Then answer thus the tranquil Sleep returned\nGreat Saturn\u2019s daughter, awe-inspiring Queen!\nAll other of the everlasting Gods\nI could with ease make slumber, even the streams\nOf Ocean, Sire of all.[4] Not so the King290\nThe son of Saturn: him, unless himself\nGive me command, I dare not lull to rest,\nOr even approach him, taught as I have been\nAlready in the school of thy commands\nThat wisdom. I forget not yet the day295\nWhen, Troy laid waste, that valiant son[5] of his\nSail\u2019d homeward: then my influence I diffused\nSoft o\u2019er the sovereign intellect of Jove;\nWhile thou, against the Hero plotting harm,\nDidst rouse the billows with tempestuous blasts,300\nAnd separating him from all his friend,\nBrought\u2019st him to populous Cos. Then Jove awoke,\nAnd, hurling in his wrath the Gods about,\nSought chiefly me, whom far below all ken\nHe had from heaven cast down into the Deep,305\nBut Night, resistless vanquisher of all,\nBoth Gods and men, preserved me; for to her\nI fled for refuge. So the Thunderer cool\u2019d,\nThough sore displeased, and spared me through a fear\nTo violate the peaceful sway of Night.[6]310\nAnd thou wouldst now embroil me yet again!\n  To whom majestic Juno thus replied.\nAh, wherefore, Sleep! shouldst thou indulge a fear\nSo groundless?  Chase it from thy mind afar.\nThink\u2019st thou the Thunderer as intent to serve315\nThe Trojans, and as jealous in their cause\nAs erst for Hercules, his genuine son?\nCome then, and I will bless thee with a bride;\nOne of the younger Graces shall be thine,\nPasithea, day by day still thy desire.320\n  She spake; Sleep heard delighted, and replied.\nBy the inviolable Stygian flood\nSwear to me; lay thy right hand on the glebe\nAll-teeming, lay thy other on the face\nOf the flat sea, that all the Immortal Powers325\nWho compass Saturn in the nether realms\nMay witness, that thou givest me for a bride\nThe younger Grace whom thou hast named, divine\nPasithea, day by day still my desire.\n  He said, nor beauteous Juno not complied,330\nBut sware, by name invoking all the powers\nTitanian call\u2019d who in the lowest gulf\nDwell under Tartarus, omitting none.\nHer oath with solemn ceremonial sworn,\nTogether forth they went; Lemnos they left335\nAnd Imbrus, city of Thrace, and in dark clouds\nMantled, with gliding ease swam through the air\nTo Ida\u2019s mount with rilling waters vein\u2019d,\nParent of savage beasts; at Lectos[7] first\nThey quitted Ocean, overpassing high340\nThe dry land, while beneath their feet the woods\nTheir spiry summits waved. There, unperceived\nBy Jove, Sleep mounted Ida\u2019s loftiest pine\nOf growth that pierced the sky, and hidden sat\nSecure by its expanded boughs, the bird345\nShrill-voiced resembling in the mountains seen,[8]\nChalcis in heaven, on earth Cymindis named.\n  But Juno swift to Gargarus the top\nOf Ida, soar\u2019d, and there Jove saw his spouse.\n\u2014Saw her\u2014and in his breast the same love felt350\nRekindled vehement, which had of old\nJoin\u2019d them, when, by their parents unperceived,\nThey stole aside, and snatch\u2019d their first embrace.\nSoon he accosted her, and thus inquired.\n\n  Juno! what region seeking hast thou left355\nThe Olympian summit, and hast here arrived\nWith neither steed nor chariot in thy train?\n  To whom majestic Juno thus replied\nDissembling. To the green earth\u2019s end I go,\nTo visit there the parent of the Gods360\nOceanus, and Tethys his espoused,\nMother of all. They kindly from the hands\nOf Rhea took, and with parental care\nSustain\u2019d and cherish\u2019d me;[9] to them I haste\nTheir feuds innumerable to compose,365\nWho disunited by intestine strife\nLong time, from conjugal embrace abstain.\nMy steeds, that lightly over dank and dry\nShall bear me, at the rooted base I left\nOf Ida river-vein\u2019d. But for thy sake370\nFrom the Olympian summit I arrive,\nLest journeying remote to the abode\nOf Ocean, and with no consent of thine\nEntreated first, I should, perchance, offend.\n  To whom the cloud-assembler God replied.375\nJuno! thy journey thither may be made\nHereafter. Let us turn to dalliance now.\nFor never Goddess pour\u2019d, nor woman yet\nSo full a tide of love into my breast;\nI never loved Ixion\u2019s consort thus380\nWho bore Piritho\u00fcs, wise as we in heaven;\nNor sweet Acrisian Dan\u00e4e, from whom\nSprang Perseus, noblest of the race of man;\nNor Ph\u0153nix\u2019 daughter fair,[10] of whom were born\nMinos unmatch\u2019d but by the powers above,385\nAnd Rhadamanthus; nor yet Semele,\nNor yet Alcmena, who in Thebes produced\nThe valiant Hercules; and though my son\nBy Semele were Bacchus, joy of man;\nNor Ceres golden-hair\u2019d, nor high-enthroned390\nLatona in the skies, no\u2014nor thyself\nAs now I love thee, and my soul perceive\nO\u2019erwhelm\u2019d with sweetness of intense desire.\n  Then thus majestic Juno her reply\nFramed artful. Oh unreasonable haste!395\nWhat speaks the Thunderer? If on Ida\u2019s heights.\nWhere all is open and to view exposed\nThou wilt that we embrace, what must betide,\nShould any of the everlasting Gods\nObserve us, and declare it to the rest?400\nNever could I, arising, seek again,\nThy mansion, so unseemly were the deed.\nBut if thy inclinations that way tend,\nThou hast a chamber; it is Vulcan\u2019s work,\nOur son\u2019s; he framed and fitted to its posts405\nThe solid portal; thither let us his,\nAnd there repose, since such thy pleasure seems.\n  To whom the cloud-assembler Deity.\nFear thou not, Juno, lest the eye of man\nOr of a God discern us; at my word410\nA golden cloud shall fold us so around,\nThat not the Sun himself shall through that veil\nDiscover aught, though keenest-eyed of all.\n  So spake the son of Saturn, and his spouse\nFast lock\u2019d within his arms. Beneath them earth415\nWith sudden herbage teem\u2019d; at once upsprang\nThe crocus soft, the lotus bathed in dew,\nAnd the crisp hyacinth with clustering bells;\nThick was their growth, and high above the ground\nUpbore them. On that flowery couch they lay,420\nInvested with a golden cloud that shed\nBright dew-drops all around.[11] His heart at ease,\nThere lay the Sire of all, by Sleep and Love\nVanquish\u2019d on lofty Gargarus, his spouse\nConstraining still with amorous embrace.425\nThen, gentle Sleep to the Achaian camp\nSped swift away, with tidings for the ear\nOf earth-encircler Neptune charged; him soon\nHe found, and in wing\u2019d accents thus began.\n  Now Neptune, yield the Greeks effectual aid,430\nAnd, while the moment lasts of Jove\u2019s repose,\nMake victory theirs; for him in slumbers soft\nI have involved, while Juno by deceit\nPrevailing, lured him with the bait of love.\n  He said, and swift departed to his task435\nAmong the nations; but his tidings urged\nNeptune with still more ardor to assist\nThe Dana\u00ef; he leap\u2019d into the van\nAfar, and thus exhorted them aloud.\n  Oh Argives! yield we yet again the day440\nTo Priameian Hector? Shall he seize\nOur ships, and make the glory all his own?\nSuch is his expectation, so he vaunts,\nFor that Achilles leaves not yet his camp,\nResentful; but of him small need, I judge,445\nShould here be felt, could once the rest be roused\nTo mutual aid. Act, then, as I advise.\nThe best and broadest bucklers of the host,\nAnd brightest helmets put we on, and arm\u2019d\nWith longest spears, advance; myself will lead;450\nAnd trust me, furious though he be, the son\nOf Priam flies. Ye then who feel your hearts\nUndaunted, but are arm\u2019d with smaller shields,\nThem give to those who fear, and in exchange\nTheir stronger shields and broader take yourselves.455\n  So he, whom, unreluctant, all obey\u2019d.\nThen, wounded as they were, themselves the Kings,\nTydides, Agamemnon and Ulysses\nMarshall\u2019d the warriors, and from rank to rank\nMade just exchange of arms, giving the best460\nTo the best warriors, to the worse, the worst.\nAnd now in brazen armor all array\u2019d\nRefulgent on they moved, by Neptune led\nWith firm hand grasping his long-bladed sword\nKeen as Jove\u2019s bolt; with him may none contend465\nIn dreadful fight; but fear chains every arm.\n  Opposite, Priameian Hector ranged\nHis Trojans; then they stretch\u2019d the bloody cord\nOf conflict tight, Neptune c\u0153rulean-hair\u2019d,\nAnd Hector, pride of Ilium; one, the Greeks470\nSupporting firm, and one, the powers of Troy;\nA sea-flood dash\u2019d the galleys, and the hosts\nJoin\u2019d clamorous. Not so the billows roar\nThe shores among, when Boreas\u2019 roughest blast\nSweeps landward from the main the towering surge;475\nNot so, devouring fire among the trees\nThat clothe the mountain, when the sheeted flames\nAscending wrap the forest in a blaze;\nNor howl the winds through leafy boughs of oaks\nUpgrown aloft (though loudest there they rave)480\nWith sounds so awful as were heard of Greeks\nAnd Trojans shouting when the clash began.\n  At Ajax, first (for face to face they stood)\nIllustrious Hector threw a spear well-aim\u2019d,\nBut smote him where the belts that bore his shield485\nAnd falchion cross\u2019d each other on his breast.\nThe double guard preserved him unannoy\u2019d.\nIndignant that his spear had bootless flown,\nYet fearing death at hand, the Trojan Chief\nToward the phalanx of his friends retired.490\nBut, as he went, huge Ajax with a stone\nOf those which propp\u2019d the ships (for numerous such\nLay rolling at the feet of those who fought)\nAssail\u2019d him. Twirling like a top it pass\u2019d\nThe shield of Hector, near the neck his breast495\nStruck full, then plough\u2019d circuitous the dust.\nAs when Jove\u2019s arm omnipotent an oak\nProstrates uprooted on the plain, a fume\nRises sulphureous from the riven trunk,\nAnd if, perchance, some traveller nigh at hand500\nSee it, he trembles at the bolt of Jove,\nSo fell the might of Hector, to the earth\nSmitten at once. Down dropp\u2019d his idle spear,\nAnd with his helmet and his shield himself\nAlso; loud thunder\u2019d all his gorgeous arms.505\nSwift flew the Grecians shouting to the skies,\nAnd showering darts, to drag his body thence,\nBut neither spear of theirs nor shaft could harm\nThe fallen leader, with such instant aid\nHis princely friends encircled him around,510\nSarpedon, Lycian Chief, Glaucus the brave,\nPolydamas, \u00c6neas, and renown\u2019d\nAgenor; neither tardy were the rest,\nBut with round shields all shelter\u2019d Hector fallen.\nHim soon uplifted from the plain his friends515\nBore thence, till where his fiery coursers stood,\nAnd splendid chariot in the rear, they came,\nThen Troy-ward drove him groaning as he went.\nEre long arriving at the pleasant stream\nOf eddied Xanthus, progeny of Jove,520\nThey laid him on the bank, and on his face\nPour\u2019d water; he, reviving, upward gazed,\nAnd seated on his hams black blood disgorged\nCoagulate, but soon relapsing, fell\nSupine, his eyes with pitchy darkness veil\u2019d,525\nAnd all his powers still torpid by the blow.\n  Then, seeing Hector borne away, the Greeks\nRush\u2019d fiercer on, all mindful of the fight,\nAnd far before the rest, Ajax the swift,\nThe O\u00eflean Chief, with pointed spear530\nOn Satnius springing, pierced him. Him a nymph\nA Naiad, bore to Enops, while his herd\nFeeding, on Satnio\u2019s grassy verge he stray\u2019d.\nBut O\u00efliades the spear-renown\u2019d\nApproaching, pierced his flank; supine he fell,535\nAnd fiery contest for the dead arose.\nIn vengeance of his fall, spear-shaking Chief\nThe son of Panthus into fight advanced\nPolydamas, who Proth\u00f6enor pierced\nOffspring of Are\u00eflocus, and urged540\nThrough his right shoulder sheer the stormy lance.\nHe, prostrate, clench\u2019d the dust, and with loud voice\nPolydamas exulted at his fall.\n  Yon spear, methinks, hurl\u2019d from the warlike hand\nOf Panthus\u2019 noble son, flew not in vain,545\nBut some Greek hath it, purposing, I judge,\nTo lean on it in his descent to hell.\n  So he, whose vaunt the Greeks indignant heard.\nBut most indignant, Ajax, offspring bold\nOf Telamon, to whom he nearest fell.550\nHe, quick, at the retiring conqueror cast\nHis radiant spear; Polydamas the stroke\nShunn\u2019d, starting sideward; but Antenor\u2019s son\nArchilochus the mortal dint received,\nDeath-destined by the Gods; where neck and spine555\nUnite, both tendons he dissever\u2019d wide,\nAnd, ere his knees, his nostrils met the ground.\n  Then Ajax in his turn vaunting aloud\nAgainst renown\u2019d Polydamas, exclaim\u2019d.\nSpeak now the truth, Polydamas, and weigh560\nMy question well. His life whom I have slain\nMakes it not compensation for the loss\nOf Proth\u00f6enor\u2019s life! To me he seems\nNor base himself; nor yet of base descent,\nBut brother of Atenor steed-renown\u2019d,565\nOr else perchance his son; for in my eyes\nAntenor\u2019s lineage he resembles most.\n  So he, well knowing him, and sorrow seized\nEach Trojan heart. Then Acamas around\nHis brother stalking, wounded with his spear570\nB\u0153otian Promachus, who by the feet\nDragg\u2019d off the slain. Acamas in his fall\nAloud exulted with a boundless joy.\n  Vain-glorious Argives, archers inexpert!\nWar\u2019s toil and trouble are not ours alone,575\nBut ye shall perish also; mark the man\u2014\nHow sound he sleeps tamed by my conquering arm,\nYour fellow-warrior Promachus! the debt\nOf vengeance on my brother\u2019s dear behalf\nDemanded quick discharge; well may the wish580\nOf every dying warrior be to leave\nA brother living to avenge his fall.\n  He ended, whom the Greeks indignant heard,\nBut chiefly brave Peneleus; swift he rush\u2019d\nOn Acamas; but from before the force585\nOf King Peneleus Acamas retired,\nAnd, in his stead, Ilioneus he pierced,\nOffspring of Phorbas, rich in flocks; and blest\nBy Mercury with such abundant wealth\nAs other Trojan none, nor child to him590\nHis spouse had borne, Ilioneus except.\nHim close beneath the brow to his eye-roots\nPiercing, he push\u2019d the pupil from its seat,\nAnd through his eye and through his poll the spear\nUrged furious. He down-sitting on the earth595\nBoth hands extended; but, his glittering blade\nForth-drawn, Peneleus through his middle neck\nEnforced it; head and helmet to the ground\nHe lopp\u2019d together, with the lance infixt\nStill in his eye; then like a poppy\u2019s head600\nThe crimson trophy lifting, in the ears\nHe vaunted loud of Ilium\u2019s host, and cried.\n  Go, Trojans! be my messengers! Inform\nThe parents of Ilioneus the brave\nThat they may mourn their son through all their house,605\nFor so the wife of Alegenor\u2019s son\nB\u0153otian Promachus must him bewail,\nNor shall she welcome his return with smiles\nOf joy affectionate, when from the shores\nOf Troy the fleet shall bear us Grecians home.610\n  He said; fear whiten\u2019d every Trojan cheek,\nAnd every Trojan eye with earnest look\nInquired a refuge from impending fate.\n  Say now, ye Muses, blest inhabitants\nOf the Olympian realms! what Grecian first615\nFill\u2019d his victorious hand with armor stript\nFrom slaughter\u2019d Trojans, after Ocean\u2019s God\nHad, interposing, changed the battle\u2019s course?\n  First, Telamonian Ajax Hyrtius slew,\nUndaunted leader of the Mysian band.620\nPhalces and Mermerus their arms resign\u2019d\nTo young Antilochus; Hyppotion fell\nAnd Morys by Meriones; the shafts\nRight-aim\u2019d of Teucer to the shades dismiss\u2019d\nProth\u00f6us and Periphetes, and the prince625\nOf Sparta, Menelaus, in his flank\nPierced Hyperenor; on his entrails prey\u2019d\nThe hungry steel, and, through the gaping wound\nExpell\u2019d, his spirit flew; night veil\u2019d his eyes.\nBut Ajax O\u00efliades the swift630\nSlew most; him none could equal in pursuit\nOf tremblers scatter\u2019d by the frown of Jove.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK XV.\n\n\nARGUMENT OF THE FIFTEENTH BOOK.\n\nJove, awaking and seeing the Trojans routed, threatens Juno. He sends\nIris to admonish Neptune to relinquish the battle, and Apollo to\nrestore health to Hector. Apollo armed with the \u00c6gis, puts to flight\nthe Grecians; they are pursued home to their fleet, and Telamonian Ajax\nslays twelve Trojans bringing fire to burn it.\n\n\nBOOK XV.\n\n\nBut when the flying Trojans had o\u2019erpass\u2019d\nBoth stakes and trench, and numerous slaughtered lay\nBy Grecian hands, the remnant halted all\nBeside their chariots, pale, discomfited.\nThen was it that on Ida\u2019s summit Jove5\nAt Juno\u2019s side awoke; starting, he stood\nAt once erect; Trojans and Greeks he saw,\nThese broken, those pursuing and led on\nBy Neptune; he beheld also remote\nEncircled by his friends, and on the plain10\nExtended, Hector; there he panting lay,\nSenseless, ejecting blood, bruised by a blow\nFrom not the feeblest of the sons of Greece.\nTouch\u2019d with compassion at that sight, the Sire\nOf Gods and men, frowning terrific, fix\u2019d15\nHis eyes on Juno, and her thus bespake.\n  No place for doubt remains. Oh, versed in wiles,\nJuno! thy mischief-teeming mind perverse\nHath plotted this; thou hast contrived the hurt\nOf Hector, and hast driven his host to flight.20\nI know not but thyself mayst chance to reap\nThe first-fruits of thy cunning, scourged[1] by me.\nHast thou forgotten how I once aloft\nSuspended thee, with anvils at thy feet,\nAnd both thy wrists bound with a golden cord25\nIndissoluble? In the clouds of heaven\nI hung thee, while from the Olympian heights\nThe Gods look\u2019d mournful on, but of them all\nNone could deliver thee, for whom I seized,\nHurl\u2019d through the gates of heaven on earth he fell,30\nHalf-breathless. Neither so did I resign\nMy hot resentment of the hero\u2019s wrongs\nImmortal Hercules, whom thou by storms\nCall\u2019d from the North, with mischievous intent\nHadst driven far distant o\u2019er the barren Deep35\nTo populous Cos. Thence I deliver\u2019d him,\nAnd after numerous woes severe, he reach\u2019d\nThe shores of fruitful Argos, saved by me.\nI thus remind thee now, that thou mayst cease\nHenceforth from artifice, and mayst be taught40\nHow little all the dalliance and the love\nWhich, stealing down from heaven, thou hast by fraud\nObtain\u2019d from me, shall profit thee at last.\n  He ended, whom imperial Juno heard\nShuddering, and in wing\u2019d accents thus replied.45\n  Be witness Earth, the boundless Heaven above,\nAnd Styx beneath, whose stream the blessed Gods\nEven tremble to adjure;[2] be witness too\nThy sacred life, and our connubial bed,\nWhich by a false oath I will never wrong,50\nThat by no art induced or plot of mine\nNeptune, the Shaker of the shores, inflicts\nThese harms on Hector and the Trojan host\nAiding the Grecians, but impell\u2019d alone\nBy his own heart with pity moved at sight55\nOf the Achaians at the ships subdued.\nBut even him, oh Sovereign of the storms!\nI am prepared to admonish that he quit\nThe battle, and retire where thou command\u2019st.\n  So she; then smiled the Sire of Gods and men,60\nAnd in wing\u2019d accents answer thus return\u2019d.[3]\n  Juno! wouldst thou on thy celestial throne\nAssist my counsels, howso\u2019er in heart\nHe differ now, Neptune should soon his will\nSubmissive bend to thy desires and mine.65\nBut if sincerity be in thy words\nAnd truth, repairing to the blest abodes\nSend Iris hither, with the archer God\nApollo; that she, visiting the host\nOf Greece, may bid the Sovereign of the Deep70\nRenounce the fight, and seek his proper home.\nApollo\u2019s part shall be to rouse again\nHector to battle, to inspire his soul\nAfresh with courage, and all memory thence\nTo banish of the pangs which now he feels.75\nApollo also shall again repulse\nAchaia\u2019s host, which with base panic fill\u2019d,\nShall even to Achilles\u2019 ships be driven.\nAchilles shall his valiant friend exhort\nPatroclus forth; him under Ilium\u2019s walls80\nShall glorious Hector slay; but many a youth\nShall perish by Patroclus first, with whom,\nMy noble son Sarpedon. Peleus\u2019 son,\nResentful of Patroclus\u2019 death, shall slay\nHector, and I will urge ceaseless, myself,85\nThenceforth the routed Trojans back again,\nTill by Minerva\u2019s aid the Greeks shall take\nIlium\u2019s proud city; till that day arrive\nMy wrath shall burn, nor will I one permit\nOf all the Immortals to assist the Greeks,90\nBut will perform Achilles\u2019 whole desire.\nSuch was my promise to him at the first,\nRatified by a nod that self-same day\nWhen Thetis clasp\u2019d my knees, begging revenge\nAnd glory for her city-spoiler son.95\n  He ended; nor his spouse white-arm\u2019d refused\nObedience, but from the Id\u00e6an heights\nDeparting, to the Olympian summit soar\u2019d.\nSwift as the traveller\u2019s thought,[4] who, many a land\nTraversed, deliberates on his future course100\nUncertain, and his mind sends every way,\nSo swift updarted Juno to the skies.\nArrived on the Olympian heights, she found\nThe Gods assembled; they, at once, their seats\nAt her approach forsaking, with full cups105\nHer coming hail\u2019d; heedless of all beside,\nShe took the cup from blooming Themis\u2019 hand,\nFor she first flew to welcome her, and thus\nIn accents wing\u2019d of her return inquired.\n  Say, Juno, why this sudden re-ascent?110\nThou seem\u2019st dismay\u2019d; hath Saturn\u2019s son, thy spouse,\nDriven thee affrighted to the skies again?\n  To whom the white-arm\u2019d Goddess thus replied.\nThemis divine, ask not. Full well thou know\u2019st\nHow harshly temper\u2019d is the mind of Jove,115\nAnd how untractable. Resume thy seat;\nThe banquet calls thee; at our board preside,\nThou shalt be told, and all in heaven shall hear\nWhat ills he threatens; such as shall not leave\nAll minds at ease, I judge, here or on earth,120\nHowever tranquil some and joyous now.\n  So spake the awful spouse of Jove, and sat.\nThen, all alike, the Gods displeasure felt\nThroughout the courts of Jove, but she, her lips\nGracing with smiles from which her sable brows125\nDissented,[5] thus indignant them address\u2019d.\n  Alas! how vain against the Thunderer\u2019s will\nOur anger, and the hope to supersede\nHis purpose, by persuasion or by force!\nHe solitary sits, all unconcern\u2019d130\nAt our resentment, and himself proclaims\nMightiest and most to be revered in heaven.\nBe patient, therefore, and let each endure\nSuch ills as Jove may send him. Mars, I ween,\nAlready hath his share; the warrior God135\nHath lost Ascalaphus, of all mankind\nHis most beloved, and whom he calls his own.\n  She spake, and with expanded palms his thighs\nSmiling, thus, sorrowful, the God exclaim\u2019d.\n  Inhabitants of the Olympian heights!140\nOh bear with me, if to avenge my son\nI seek Achaia\u2019s fleet, although my doom\nBe thunder-bolts from Jove, and with the dead\nOutstretch\u2019d to lie in carnage and in dust.\n  He spake, and bidding Horror and Dismay145\nLead to the yoke his rapid steeds, put on\nHis all-refulgent armor. Then had wrath\nMore dreadful, some strange vengeance on the Gods\nFrom Jove befallen, had not Minerva, touch\u2019d\nWith timely fears for all, upstarting sprung150\nFrom where she sat, right through the vestibule.\nShe snatch\u2019d the helmet from his brows, the shield\nFrom his broad shoulder, and the brazen spear\nForced from his grasp into its place restored.\nThen reprimanding Mars, she thus began.155\n  Frantic, delirious! thou art lost for ever!\nIs it in vain that thou hast ears to hear,\nAnd hast thou neither shame nor reason left?\nHow? hear\u2019st thou not the Goddess? the report\nOf white-arm\u2019d Juno from Olympian Jove160\nReturn\u2019d this moment? or perfer\u2019st thou rather,\nPlagued with a thousand woes, and under force\nOf sad necessity to seek again\nOlympus, and at thy return to prove\nAuthor of countless miseries to us all?165\nFor He at once Grecians and Trojans both\nAbandoning, will hither haste prepared\nTo tempest[6] us in heaven, whom he will seize,\nThe guilty and the guiltless, all alike.\nI bid thee, therefore, patient bear the death170\nOf thy Ascalaphus; braver than he\nAnd abler have, ere now, in battle fallen,\nAnd shall hereafter; arduous were the task\nTo rescue from the stroke of fate the race\nOf mortal men, with all their progeny.175\n  So saying, Minerva on his throne replaced\nThe fiery Mars. Then, summoning abroad\nApollo from within the hall of Jove,\nWith Iris, swift ambassadress of heaven,\nThem in wing\u2019d accents Juno thus bespake.180\n  Jove bids you hence with undelaying speed\nTo Ida; in his presence once arrived,\nSee that ye execute his whole command.\n  So saying, the awful Goddess to her throne\nReturn\u2019d and sat. They, cleaving swift the air,185\nAlighted soon on Ida fountain-fed,\nParent of savage kinds. High on the point\nSeated of Gargarus, and wrapt around\nWith fragrant clouds, they found Saturnian Jove\nThe Thunderer, and in his presence stood.190\nHe, nought displeased that they his high command\nHad with such readiness obey\u2019d, his speech\nTo Iris, first, in accents wing\u2019d address\u2019d\n  Swift Iris, haste\u2014to royal Neptune bear\nMy charge entire; falsify not the word.195\nBid him, relinquishing the fight, withdraw\nEither to heaven, or to the boundless Deep.\nBut should he disobedient prove, and scorn\nMy message, let him, next, consider well\nHow he will bear, powerful as he is,200\nMy coming. Me I boast superior far\nIn force, and elder-born; yet deems he slight\nThe danger of comparison with me,\nWho am the terror of all heaven beside.\n  He spake, nor storm-wing\u2019d Iris disobey\u2019d,205\nBut down from the Id\u00e6an summit stoop\u2019d\nTo sacred Ilium. As when snow or hail\nFlies drifted by the cloud-dispelling North,\nSo swiftly, wing\u2019d with readiness of will,\nShe shot the gulf between, and standing soon210\nAt glorious Neptune\u2019s side, him thus address\u2019d.\n  To thee, O Neptune azure-hair\u2019d! I come\nWith tidings charged from \u00c6gis-bearing Jove.\nHe bids thee cease from battle, and retire\nEither to heaven, or to the boundless Deep.215\nBut shouldst thou, disobedient, set at nought\nHis words, he threatens that himself will haste\nTo fight against thee; but he bids thee shun\nThat strife with one superior far to thee,\nAnd elder-born; yet deem\u2019st thou slight, he saith,220\nThe danger of comparison with Him,\nAlthough the terror of all heaven beside.\n  Her then the mighty Shaker of the shores\nAnswer\u2019d indignant. Great as is his power,\nYet he hath spoken proudly, threatening me225\nWith force, high-born and glorious as himself.\nWe are three brothers; Saturn is our sire,\nAnd Rhea brought us forth; first, Jove she bore;\nMe next; then, Pluto, Sovereign of the shades.\nBy distribution tripart we received230\nEach his peculiar honors; me the lots\nMade Ruler of the hoary floods, and there\nI dwell for ever. Pluto, for his part,\nThe regions took of darkness; and the heavens,\nThe clouds, and boundless \u00e6ther, fell to Jove.235\nThe Earth and the Olympian heights alike\nAre common to the three. My life and being\nI hold not, therefore, at his will, whose best\nAnd safest course, with all his boasted power,\nWere to possess in peace his proper third.240\nLet him not seek to terrify with force\nMe like a dastard; let him rather chide\nHis own-begotten; with big-sounding words\nHis sons and daughters govern, who perforce\nObey his voice, and shrink at his commands.245\n  To whom thus Iris tempest-wing\u2019d replied,\nC\u0153rulean-tress\u2019d Sovereign of the Deep!\nShall I report to Jove, harsh as it is,\nThy speech, or wilt thou soften it? The wise\nAre flexible, and on the elder-born250\nErynnis, with her vengeful sisters, waits.[7]\n  Her answer\u2019d then the Shaker of the shores.\nPrudent is thy advice, Iris divine!\nDiscretion in a messenger is good\nAt all times. But the cause that fires me thus,255\nAnd with resentment my whole heart and mind\nPossesses, is the license that he claims\nTo vex with provocation rude of speech\nMe his compeer, and by decree of Fate\nIllustrious as himself; yet, though incensed,260\nAnd with just cause, I will not now persist.\nBut hear\u2014for it is treasured in my heart\nThe threat that my lips utter. If he still\nResolve to spare proud Ilium in despite\nOf me, of Pallas, Goddess of the spoils,265\nOf Juno, Mercury, and the King of fire,\nAnd will not overturn her lofty towers,\nNor grant immortal glory to the Greeks,\nThen tell him thus\u2014hostility shall burn,\nAnd wrath between us never to be quench\u2019d.270\n  So saying, the Shaker of the shores forsook\nThe Grecian host, and plunged into the deep,\nMiss\u2019d by Achaia\u2019s heroes. Then, the cloud-Assembler\nGod thus to Apollo spake.\n  Hence, my Apollo! to the Trojan Chief275\nHector; for earth-encircler Neptune, awed\nBy fear of my displeasure imminent,\nHath sought the sacred Deep. Else, all the Gods\nWho compass Saturn in the nether realms,\nHad even there our contest heard, I ween,280\nAnd heard it loudly. But that he retreats\nAlthough at first incensed, shunning my wrath,\nIs salutary both for him and me,\nWhose difference else had not been healed with ease.\nTake thou my shaggy \u00c6gis, and with force285\nSmiting it, terrify the Chiefs of Greece.\nAs for illustrious Hector, him I give\nTo thy peculiar care; fail not to rouse\nHis fiercest courage, till he push the Greeks\nTo Hellespont, and to their ships again;290\nThenceforth to yield to their afflicted host\nSome pause from toil, shall be my own concern.\n  He ended, nor Apollo disobey\u2019d\nHis father\u2019s voice; from the Id\u00e6an heights,\nSwift as the swiftest of the fowls of air,295\nThe dove-destroyer falcon, down he flew.\nThe noble Hector, valiant Priam\u2019s son\nHe found, not now extended on the plain,\nBut seated; newly, as from death, awaked,\nAnd conscious of his friends; freely he breathed300\nNor sweated more, by Jove himself revived.\nApollo stood beside him, and began.\n  Say, Hector, Priam\u2019s son! why sittest here\nFeeble and spiritless, and from thy host\nApart? what new disaster hath befall\u2019n?305\n  To whom with difficulty thus replied\nThe warlike Chief.\u2014But tell me who art Thou,\nDivine inquirer! best of powers above!\nKnow\u2019st not that dauntless Ajax me his friends\nSlaughtering at yonder ships, hath with a stone310\nSurceased from fight, smiting me on the breast?\nI thought to have beheld, this day, the dead\nIn Ades, every breath so seem\u2019d my last.\n  Then answer thus the Archer-God return\u2019d.\nCourage this moment! such a helper Jove315\nFrom Ida sends thee at thy side to war\nContinual, Ph\u0153bus of the golden sword,\nWhose guardian aid both thee and lofty Troy\nHath succor\u2019d many a time. Therefore arise!\nInstant bid drive thy numerous charioteers320\nTheir rapid steeds full on the Grecian fleet;\nI, marching at their head, will smooth, myself,\nThe way before them, and will turn again\nTo flight the heroes of the host of Greece.\n  He said and with new strength the Chief inspired.325\nAs some stall\u2019d horse high pamper\u2019d, snapping short\nHis cord, beats under foot the sounding soil,\nAccustom\u2019d in smooth-sliding streams to lave\nExulting; high he bears his head, his mane\nWantons around his shoulders; pleased, he eyes330\nHis glossy sides, and borne on pliant knees\nSoon finds the haunts where all his fellows graze;\nSo bounded Hector, and his agile joints\nPlied lightly, quicken\u2019d by the voice divine,\nAnd gather\u2019d fast his charioteers to battle.335\nBut as when hounds and hunters through the woods\nRush in pursuit of stag or of wild goat,\nHe, in some cave with tangled boughs o\u2019erhung,\nLies safe conceal\u2019d, no destined prey of theirs,\nTill by their clamors roused, a lion grim340\nStarts forth to meet them; then, the boldest fly;\nSuch hot pursuit the Dana\u00ef, with swords\nAnd spears of double edge long time maintain\u2019d.\nBut seeing Hector in his ranks again\nOccupied, felt at once their courage fall\u2019n.345\n  Then, Thoas them, Andr\u00e6mon\u2019s son, address\u2019d,\nForemost of the \u00c6tolians, at the spear\nSkilful, in stationary combat bold,\nAnd when the sons of Greece held in dispute\nThe prize of eloquence, excell\u2019d by few.350\nPrudent advising them, he thus began.\n  Ye Gods! what prodigy do I behold?\nHath Hector, \u2019scaping death, risen again?\nFor him, with confident persuasion all\nBelieved by Telamonian Ajax slain.355\nBut some Divinity hath interposed\nTo rescue and save Hector, who the joints\nHath stiffen\u2019d of full many a valiant Greek,\nAs surely now he shall; for, not without\nThe Thunderer\u2019s aid, he flames in front again.360\nBut take ye all my counsel. Send we back\nThe multitude into the fleet, and first\nLet us, who boast ourselves bravest in fight,\nStand, that encountering him with lifted spears,\nWe may attempt to give his rage a check.365\nTo thrust himself into a band like ours\nWill, doubtless, even in Hector move a fear.\n  He ceased, with whose advice all, glad, complied.\nThen Ajax with Idomeneus of Crete,\nTeucer, Meriones, and Meges fierce370\nAs Mars in battle, summoning aloud\nThe noblest Greeks, in opposition firm\nTo Hector and his host their bands prepared,\nWhile others all into the fleet retired.\nTroy\u2019s crowded host[8] struck first. With awful strides375\nCame Hector foremost; him Apollo led,\nHis shoulders wrapt in clouds, and, on his arm,\nThe \u00c6gis shagg\u2019d terrific all around,\nTempestuous, dazzling-bright; it was a gift\nTo Jove from Vulcan, and design\u2019d to appall,380\nAnd drive to flight the armies of the earth.\nArm\u2019d with that shield Apollo led them on.\nFirm stood the embodied Greeks; from either host\nShrill cries arose; the arrows from the nerve\nLeap\u2019d, and, by vigorous arms dismiss\u2019d, the spears385\nFlew frequent; in the flesh some stood infixt\nOf warlike youths, but many, ere they reach\u2019d\nThe mark they coveted, unsated fell\nBetween the hosts, and rested in the soil.\nLong as the God unagitated held390\nThe dreadful disk, so long the vollied darts\nMade mutual slaughter, and the people fell;\nBut when he look\u2019d the Grecian charioteers\nFull in the face and shook it, raising high\nHimself the shout of battle, then he quell\u2019d395\nTheir spirits, then he struck from every mind\nAt once all memory of their might in arms.\nAs when two lions in the still, dark night\nA herd of beeves scatter or numerous flock\nSuddenly, in the absence of the guard,400\nSo fled the heartless Greeks, for Ph\u0153bus sent\nTerrors among them, but renown conferr\u2019d\nAnd triumph proud on Hector and his host.\nThen, in that foul disorder of the field,\nMan singled man. Arcesila\u00fcs died405\nBy Hector\u2019s arm, and Stichius; one, a Chief[9]\nOf the B\u0153otians brazen-mail\u2019d, and one,\nMenestheus\u2019 faithful follower to the fight.\n\u00c6neas Medon and I\u00e4sus slew.\nMedon was spurious offspring of divine410\nO\u00efleus Ajax\u2019 father, and abode\nIn Phylace; for he had slain a Chief\nBrother of Eriopis the espoused\nOf brave O\u00efleus; but I\u00e4sus led\nA phalanx of Athenians, and the son415\nOf Sphelus, son of Bucolus was deem\u2019d.\nPierced by Polydamas Mecisteus fell,\nPolites, in the van of battle, slew\nEchion, and Agenor Clonius;\nBut Paris, while De\u00efochus to flight420\nTurn\u2019d with the routed van, pierced him beneath\nHis shoulder-blade, and urged the weapon through.\n  While them the Trojans spoil\u2019d, meantime the Greeks,\nEntangled in the piles of the deep foss,\nFled every way, and through necessity425\nRepass\u2019d the wall. Then Hector with a voice\nOf loud command bade every Trojan cease\nFrom spoil, and rush impetuous on the fleet.\n[10]And whom I find far lingering from the ships\nWherever, there he dies; no funeral fires430\nBrother on him, or sister, shall bestow,\nBut dogs shall rend him in the sight of Troy.\n  So saying, he lash\u2019d the shoulders of his steeds,\nAnd through the ranks vociferating, call\u2019d\nHis Trojans on; they, clamorous as he,435\nAll lash\u2019d their steeds, and menacing, advanced.\nBefore them with his feet Apollo push\u2019d\nThe banks into the foss, bridging the gulf\nWith pass commodious, both in length and breadth\nA lance\u2019s flight, for proof of vigor hurl\u2019d.440\nThere, phalanx after phalanx, they their host\nPour\u2019d dense along, while Ph\u0153bus in the van\nDisplay\u2019d the awful \u00e6gis, and the wall\nLevell\u2019d with ease divine. As, on the shore\nSome wanton boy with sand builds plaything walls,445\nThen, sportive spreads them with his feet abroad,\nSo thou, shaft-arm\u2019d Apollo! that huge work\nLaborious of the Greeks didst turn with ease\nTo ruin, and themselves drovest all to flight.\nThey, thus enforced into the fleet, again450\nStood fast, with mutual exhortation each\nHis friend encouraging, and all the Gods\nWith lifted hands soliciting aloud.\nBut, more than all, Gerenian Nestor pray\u2019d\nFervent, Achaia\u2019s guardian, and with arms455\nOutstretch\u2019d toward the starry skies, exclaim\u2019d.\n  Jove, Father! if in corn-clad Argos, one,\nOne Greek hath ever, burning at thy shrine\nFat thighs of sheep or oxen, ask\u2019d from thee\nA safe return, whom thou hast gracious heard,460\nOlympian King! and promised what he sought,\nNow, in remembrance of it, give us help\nIn this disastrous day, nor thus permit\nTheir Trojan foes to tread the Grecians down!\n  So Nestor pray\u2019d, and Jove thunder\u2019d aloud465\nResponsive to the old Nele\u00efan\u2019s prayer.\nBut when that voice of \u00c6gis-bearing Jove\nThe Trojans heard, more furious on the Greeks\nThey sprang, all mindful of the fight. As when\nA turgid billow of some spacious sea,470\nWhile the wind blow that heaves its highest, borne\nSheer o\u2019er the vessel\u2019s side, rolls into her,\nWith such loud roar the Trojans pass\u2019d the wall;\nIn rush\u2019d the steeds, and at the ships they waged\nFierce battle hand to hand, from chariots, these,475\nWith spears of double edge, those, from the decks\nOf many a sable bark, with naval poles\nLong, ponderous, shod with steel; for every ship\nHad such, for conflict maritime prepared.\n  While yet the battle raged only without480\nThe wall, and from the ships apart, so long\nPatroclus quiet in the tent and calm\nSat of Eurypylus, his generous friend\nConsoling with sweet converse, and his wound\nSprinkling with drugs assuasive of his pains.485\nBut soon as through the broken rampart borne\nHe saw the Trojans, and the clamor heard\nAnd tumult of the flying Greeks, a voice\nOf loud lament uttering, with open palms\nHis thighs he smote, and, sorrowful, exclaim\u2019d.490\n  Eurypylus! although thy need be great,\nNo longer may I now sit at thy side,\nSuch contest hath arisen; thy servant\u2019s voice\nMust soothe thee now, for I will to the tent\nHaste of Achilles, and exhort him forth;495\nWho knows? if such the pleasure of the Gods,\nI may prevail; friends rarely plead in vain.\n  So saying, he went. Meantime the Greeks endured\nThe Trojan onset, firm, yet from the ships\nRepulsed them not, though fewer than themselves,500\nNor could the host of Troy, breaking the ranks\nOf Greece, mix either with the camp or fleet;\nBut as the line divides the plank aright,\nStretch\u2019d by some naval architect, whose hand\nMinerva hath accomplish\u2019d in his art,505\nSo stretch\u2019d on them the cord of battle lay.\nOthers at other ships the conflict waged,\nBut Hector to the ship advanced direct\nOf glorious Ajax; for one ship they strove;\nNor Hector, him dislodging thence, could fire510\nThe fleet, nor Ajax from the fleet repulse\nHector, conducted thither by the Gods.\nThen, noble Ajax with a spear the breast\nPierced of Caletor, son of Clytius, arm\u2019d\nWith fire to burn his bark; sounding he fell,515\nAnd from his loosen\u2019d grasp down dropp\u2019d the brand.\nBut Hector seeing his own kinsman fallen\nBeneath the sable bark, with mighty voice\nCall\u2019d on the hosts of Lycia and of Troy.\n  Trojans and Lycians, and close-fighting sons520\nOf Dardanus, within this narrow pass\nStand firm, retreat not, but redeem the son\nOf Clytius, lest the Grecians of his arms\nDespoil him slain in battle at the ships.\n\n  So saying, at Ajax his bright spear he cast525\nHim pierced he not, but Lycophron the son\nOf Mastor, a Cytherian, who had left\nCytheras, fugitive for blood, and dwelt\nWith Ajax. Him standing at Ajax\u2019 side,\nHe pierced above his ear; down from the stern530\nSupine he fell, and in the dust expired.\nThen, shuddering, Ajax to his brother spake.\n  Alas, my Teucer! we have lost our friend;\nMastorides is slain, whom we received\nAn inmate from Cyther\u00e6, and with love535\nAnd reverence even filia,, entertain\u2019d;\nB9 Hector pierced, he dies. Where are thy shafts\nDeath-wing\u2019d, and bow, by gift from Ph\u0153bus thine?\n  He said, whom Teucer hearing, instant ran\nWith bow and well-stored quiver to his side,540\nWhence soon his arrows sought the Trojan host.\nHe struck Pisenor\u2019s son Clytus, the friend\nAnd charioteer of brave Polydamas,\nOffspring of Panthus, toiling with both hands\nTo rule his fiery steeds; for more to please545\nThe Trojans and their Chief, where stormy most\nHe saw the battle, thither he had driven.\nBut sudden mischief, valiant as he was,\nFound him, and such as none could waft aside,\nFor right into his neck the arrow plunged,550\nAnd down he fell; his startled coursers shook\nTheir trappings, and the empty chariot rang.\nThat sound alarm\u2019d Polydamas; he turn\u2019d,\nAnd flying to their heads, consign\u2019d them o\u2019er\nTo Protia\u00f6n\u2019s son, Astyno\u00fcs,555\nWhom he enjoin\u2019d to keep them in his view;\nThen, turning, mingled with the van again.\nBut Teucer still another shaft produced\nDesign\u2019d for valiant Hector, whose exploits\n(Had that shaft reach\u2019d him) at the ships of Greece560\nHad ceased for ever. But the eye of Jove,\nGuardian of Hector\u2019s life, slept not; he took\nFrom Telamonian Te5cer that renown,\nAnd while he stood straining the twisted nerve\nAgainst the Trojan, snapp\u2019d it. Devious flew565\nThe steel-charged[11] arrow, and he dropp\u2019d his bow.\nThen shuddering, to his brother thus he spake.\n  Ah! it is evident. Some Power divine\nMakes fruitless all our efforts, who hath struck\nMy bow out of my hand, and snapt the cord570\nWith which I strung it new at dawn of day,\nThat it might bear the bound of many a shaft.\n  To whom the towering son of Telamon.\nLeave then thy bow, and let thine arrows rest,\nWhich, envious of the Greeks, some God confounds,575\nThat thou may\u2019st fight with spear and buckler arm\u2019d,\nAnd animate the rest. Such be our deeds\nThat, should they conquer us, our foes may find\nOur ships, at least a prize not lightly won.\n  So Ajax spake; then Teucer, in his tent580\nThe bow replacing, slung his fourfold shield,\nSettled on his illustrious brows his casque\nWith hair high-crested, waving, as he moved,\nTerrible from above, took forth a spear\nTough-grain\u2019d, acuminated sharp with brass,585\nAnd stood, incontinent, at Ajax\u2019 side.\nHector perceived the change, and of the cause\nConscious, with echoing voice call\u2019d to his host.\n  Trojans and Lycians and close-fighting sons\nOf Dardanus, oh now, my friends, be men;590\nNow, wheresoever through the fleet dispersed,\nCall into mind the fury of your might!\nFor I have seen, myself, Jove rendering vain\nThe arrows of their mightiest. Man may know\nWith ease the hand of interposing Jove,595\nBoth whom to glory he ordains, and whom\nHe weakens and aids not; so now he leaves\nThe Grecians, but propitious smiles on us.\nTherefore stand fast, and whosoever gall\u2019d\nBy arrow or by spear, dies\u2014let him die;600\nIt shall not shame him that he died to serve\nHis country,[12] but his children, wife and home,\nWith all his heritage, shall be secure,\nDrive but the Grecians from the shores of Troy.\n  So saying, he animated each. Meantime,605\nAjax his fellow-warriors thus address\u2019d.\n  Shame on you all! Now, Grecians, either die,\nOr save at once your galley and yourselves.\nHope ye, that should your ships become the prize\nOf warlike Hector, ye shall yet return610\nOn foot? Or hear ye not the Chief aloud\nSummoning all his host, and publishing\nHis own heart\u2019s wish to burn your fleet with fire?\nNot to a dance, believe me, but to fight\nHe calls them; therefore wiser course for us615\nIs none, than that we mingle hands with hands\nIn contest obstinate, and force with force.\nBetter at once to perish, or at once\nTo rescue life, than to consume the time\nHour after hour in lingering conflict vain620\nHere at the ships, with an inferior foe.\n  He said, and by his words into all hearts\nFresh confidence infused. Then Hector smote\nSchedius, a Chief of the Phocensian powers\nAnd son of Perimedes; Ajax slew,625\nMeantime, a Chief of Trojan infantry,\nLaodamas, Antenor\u2019s noble son\nWhile by Polydamas, a leader bold\nOf the Epeans, and Phylides\u2019[13] friend,\nCyllenian Otus died. Meges that sight630\nViewing indignant on the conqueror sprang,\nBut, starting wide, Polydamas escaped,\nSaved by Apollo, and his spear transpierced\nThe breast of Cr\u00e6smus; on his sounding shield\nProstrate he fell, and Meges stripp\u2019d his arms.635\nHim so employ\u2019d Dolops assail\u2019d, brave son\nOf Lampus, best of men and bold in fight,\nOffspring of King Laomedon; he stood\nFull near, and through his middle buckler struck\nThe son of Phyleus, but his corselet thick640\nWith plates of scaly brass his life secured.\nThat corselet Phyleus on a time brought home\nFrom Ephyre, where the Selle\u00efs winds,\nAnd it was given him for his life\u2019s defence\nIn furious battle by the King of men,645\nEuphetes. Many a time had it preserved\nUnharm\u2019d the sire, and now it saved the son.\nThen Meges, rising, with his pointed lance\nThe bushy crest of Dolops\u2019 helmet drove\nSheer from its base; new-tinged with purple bright650\nEntire it fell and mingled with the dust.\nWhile thus they strove, each hoping victory,\nCame martial Menelaus to the aid\nOf Meges; spear in hand apart he stood\nBy Dolops unperceived, through his back drove655\nAnd through his breast the spear, and far beyond.\nAnd down fell Dolops, forehead to the ground.\nAt once both flew to strip his radiant arms,\nThen, Hector summoning his kindred, call\u2019d\nEach to his aid, and Melanippus first,660\nIllustrious Hicetaon\u2019s son, reproved.\nEre yet the enemies of Troy arrived\nHe in Percote fed his wandering beeves;\nBut when the Dana\u00ef with all their fleet\nCame thither, then returning, he outshone665\nThe noblest Trojans, and at Priam\u2019s side\nDwelling, was honor\u2019d by him as a son.\nHim Hector reprimanding, stern began.\n  Are we thus slack? Can Melanippus view\nUnmoved a kinsman slain? Seest not the Greeks670\nHow busy there with Dolops and his arms?\nCome on. It is no time for distant war,\nBut either our Achaian foes must bleed,\nOr Ilium taken, from her topmost height\nMust stoop, and all her citizens be slain.675\n  So saying he went, whose steps the godlike Chief\nAttended; and the Telamonian, next,\nHuge Ajax, animated thus the Greeks.\n  Oh friends, be men! Deep treasure in your hearts\nAn honest shame, and, fighting bravely, fear680\nEach to incur the censure of the rest.\nOf men so minded more survive than die,\nWhile dastards forfeit life and glory both.\n  So moved he them, themselves already bent\nTo chase the Trojans; yet his word they bore685\nFaithful in mind, and with a wall of brass\nFenced firm the fleet, while Jove impell\u2019d the foe.\nThen Menelaus, brave in fight, approach\u2019d\nAntilochus, and thus his courage roused.\n  Antilochus! in all the host is none690\nYounger, or swifter, or of stronger limb\nThan thou. Make trial, therefore, of thy might,\nSpring forth and prove it on some Chief of Troy.\n  He ended and retired, but him his praise\nEffectual animated; from the van695\nStarting, he cast a wistful eye around\nAnd hurl\u2019d his glittering spear; back fell the ranks\nOf Troy appall\u2019d; nor vain his weapon flew,\nBut Melanippus pierced heroic son\nOf Hicetaon, coming forth to fight,700\nFull in the bosom, and with dreadful sound\nOf all his batter\u2019d armor down he fell.\nSwift flew Antilochus as flies the hound\nSome fawn to seize, which issuing from her lair\nThe hunter with his lance hath stricken dead,705\nSo thee, O Melanippus! to despoil\nOf thy bright arms valiant Antilochus\nSprang forth, but not unnoticed by the eye\nOf noble Hector, who through all the war\nRan to encounter him; his dread approach710\nAntilochus, although expert in arms,\nStood not, but as some prowler of the wilds,\nConscious of injury that he hath done,\nSlaying the watchful herdsman or his dog,\nEscapes, ere yet the peasantry arise,715\nSo fled the son of Nestor, after whom\nThe Trojans clamoring and Hector pour\u2019d\nDarts numberless; but at the front arrived\nOf his own phalanx, there he turn\u2019d and stood.\nThen, eager as voracious lions, rush\u2019d720\nThe Trojans on the fleet of Greece, the mind\nOf Jove accomplishing who them impell\u2019d\nContinual, calling all their courage forth,\nWhile, every Grecian heart he tamed, and took\nTheir glory from them, strengthening Ilium\u2019s host.725\nFor Jove\u2019s unalter\u2019d purpose was to give\nSuccess to Priameian Hector\u2019s arms,[14]\nThat he might cast into the fleet of Greece\nDevouring flames, and that no part might fail\nOf Thetis\u2019 ruthless prayer; that sight alone730\nHe watch\u2019d to see, one galley in a blaze,\nOrdaining foul repulse, thenceforth, and flight\nTo Ilium\u2019s host, but glory to the Greeks.\nSuch was the cause for which, at first, he moved\nTo that assault Hector, himself prepared735\nAnd ardent for the task; nor less he raged\nThan Mars while fighting, or than flames that seize\nSome forest on the mountain-tops; the foam\nHung at his lips, beneath his awful front\nHis keen eyes glisten\u2019d, and his helmet mark\u2019d740\nThe agitation wild with which he fought.\nFor Jove omnipotent, himself, from heaven\nAssisted Hector, and, although alone\nWith multitudes he strove, gave him to reach\nThe heights of glory, for that now his life745\nWaned fast, and, urged by Pallas on,[15] his hour\nTo die by Peleus\u2019 mighty son approach\u2019d.\nHe then, wherever richest arms he saw\nAnd thickest throng, the warrior-ranks essay\u2019d\nTo break, but broke them not, though fierce resolved,750\nIn even square compact so firm they stood.\nAs some vast rock beside the hoary Deep\nThe stress endures of many a hollow wind,\nAnd the huge billows tumbling at his base,\nSo stood the Dana\u00ef, nor fled nor fear\u2019d.755\nBut he, all-fiery bright in arms, the host\nAssail\u2019d on every side, and on the van\nFell, as a wave by wintry blasts upheaved\nFalls ponderous on the ship; white clings the foam\nAround her, in her sail shrill howls the storm,760\nAnd every seaman trembles at the view\nOf thousand deaths from which he scarce escapes,\nSuch anguish rent the bosom of the Greeks.\nBut he, as leaps a famish\u2019d lion fell\nOn beeves that graze some marshy meadow\u2019s breadth,765\nA countless herd, tended by one unskill\u2019d\nTo cope with savage beasts in their defence,\nBeside the foremost kine or with the last\nHe paces heedless, but the lion, borne\nImpetuous on the midmost, one devours770\nAnd scatters all the rest,[16] so fled the Greeks,\nTerrified from above, before the arm\nOf Hector, and before the frown of Jove.\nAll fled, but of them all alone he slew\nThe Mycen\u00e6an Periphetes, son775\nOf Copreus custom\u2019d messenger of King\nEurystheus to the might of Hercules.\nFrom such a sire inglorious had arisen\nA son far worthier, with all virtue graced,\nSwift-footed, valiant, and by none excell\u2019d780\nIn wisdom of the Mycen\u00e6an name;\nYet all but served to ennoble Hector more.\nFor Periphetes, with a backward step\nRetiring, on his buckler\u2019s border trod,\nWhich swept his heels; so check\u2019d, he fell supine,785\nAnd dreadful rang the helmet on his brows.\nHim Hector quick noticing, to his side\nHasted, and, planting in his breast a spear,\nSlew him before the phalanx of his friends.\nBut they, although their fellow-warrior\u2019s fate790\nThey mourn\u2019d, no succor interposed, or could,\nThemselves by noble Hector sore appall\u2019d.\n  And now behind the ships (all that updrawn\nAbove the shore, stood foremost of the fleet)\nThe Greeks retired; in rush\u2019d a flood of foes;795\nThen, through necessity, the ships in front\nAbandoning, amid the tents they stood\nCompact, not disarray\u2019d, for shame and fear\nFast held them, and vociferating each\nAloud, call\u2019d ceaseless on the rest to stand.800\nBut earnest more than all, guardian of all,\nGerenian Nestor in their parents\u2019 name\nImplored them, falling at the knees of each.\n  Oh friends! be men. Now dearly prize your place\nEach in the estimation of the rest.805\nNow call to memory your children, wives,\nPossessions, parents; ye whose parents live,\nAnd ye whose parents are not, all alike!\nBy them as if here present, I entreat\nThat ye stand fast\u2014oh be not turn\u2019d to flight!810\n  So saying he roused the courage of the Greeks;\nThen, Pallas chased the cloud fall\u2019n from above\nOn every eye; great light the plain illumed\nOn all sides, both toward the fleet, and where\nThe undiscriminating battle raged.815\nThen might be seen Hector and Hector\u2019s host\nDistinct, as well the rearmost who the fight\nShared not, as those who waged it at the ships.\n  To stand aloof where other Grecians stood\nNo longer now would satisfy the mind820\nOf Ajax, but from deck to deck with strides\nEnormous marching, to and fro he swung\nWith iron studs emboss\u2019d a battle-pole\nUnwieldy, twenty and two cubits long.\nAs one expert to spring from horse to horse,825\nFrom many steeds selecting four, toward\nSome noble city drives them from the plain\nAlong the populous road; him many a youth\nAnd many a maiden eyes, while still secure\nFrom steed to steed he vaults; they rapid fly;830\nSo Ajax o\u2019er the decks of numerous ships\nStalk\u2019d striding large, and sent his voice to heaven.\nThus, ever clamoring, he bade the Greeks\nStand both for camp and fleet. Nor could himself\nHector, contented, now, the battle wage835\nLost in the multitude of Trojans more,\nBut as the tawny eagle on full wing\nAssails the feather\u2019d nations, geese or cranes\nOr swans lithe-neck\u2019d grazing the river\u2019s verge,\nSo Hector at a galley sable-prow\u2019d840\nDarted; for, from behind, Jove urged him on\nWith mighty hand, and his host after him.\nAnd now again the battle at the ships\nGrew furious; thou hadst deem\u2019d them of a kind\nBy toil untameable, so fierce they strove,845\nAnd, striving, thus they fought. The Grecians judged\nHope vain, and the whole host\u2019s destruction sure;\nBut nought expected every Trojan less\nThan to consume the fleet with fire, and leave\nAchaia\u2019s heroes lifeless on the field.850\nWith such persuasions occupied, they fought.\n  Then Hector seized the stern of a brave bark\nWell-built, sharp-keel\u2019d, and of the swiftest sail,\nWhich had to Troy Protesil\u00e4us brought,\nBut bore him never thence. For that same ship855\nContending, Greeks and Trojans hand to hand\nDealt slaughter mutual. Javelins now no more\nMight serve them, or the arrow-starting bow,\nBut close conflicting and of one mind all\nWith bill and battle-axe, with ponderous swords,860\nAnd with long lances double-edged they fought.\nMany a black-hilted falchion huge of haft\nFell to the ground, some from the grasp, and some\nFrom shoulders of embattled warriors hewn,\nAnd pools of blood soak\u2019d all the sable glebe.865\nHector that ship once grappled by the stern\nLeft not, but griping fast her upper edge\nWith both hands, to his Trojans call\u2019d aloud.\n  Fire! Bring me fire! Stand fast and shout to heaven!\nJove gives us now a day worth all the past;870\nThe ships are ours which, in the Gods\u2019 despite\nSteer\u2019d hither, such calamities to us\nHave caused, for which our seniors most I blame\nWho me withheld from battle at the fleet\nAnd check\u2019d the people; but if then the hand875\nOf Thunderer Jove our better judgment marr\u2019d,\nHimself now urges and commands us on.\n  He ceased; they still more violent assail\u2019d\nThe Grecians. Even Ajax could endure,\nWhelm\u2019d under weapons numberless, that storm880\nNo longer, but expecting death retired\nDown from the decks to an inferior stand,\nWhere still he watch\u2019d, and if a Trojan bore\nFire thither, he repulsed him with his spear,\nRoaring continual to the host of Greece.885\n  Friends! Grecian heroes! ministers of Mars!\nBe men, my friends! now summon all your might!\nThink we that we have thousands at our backs\nTo succor us, or yet some stronger wall\nTo guard our warriors from the battle\u2019s force?890\nNot so. No tower\u2019d city is at hand,\nNone that presents us with a safe retreat\nWhile others occupy our station here,\nBut from the shores of Argos far remote\nOur camp is, where the Trojans arm\u2019d complete895\nSwarm on the plain, and Ocean shuts us in.\nOur hands must therefore save us, not our heels\n  He said, and furious with his spear again\nPress\u2019d them, and whatsoever Trojan came,\nObsequious to the will of Hector, arm\u2019d900\nWith fire to burn the fleet, on his spear\u2019s point\nAjax receiving pierced him, till at length\nTwelve in close fight fell by his single arm.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK XVI.\n\n\nARGUMENT OF THE SIXTEENTH BOOK.\n\nAchilles, at the suit of Patroclus, grants him his own armor, and\npermission to lead the Myrmidons to battle. They, sallying, repulse the\nTrojans. Patroclus slays Sarpedon, and Hector, when Apollo had first\nstripped off his armor and Euphorbus wounded him, slays Patroclus.\n\n\nBOOK XVI.\n\n\nSuch contest for that gallant bark they waged.\nMeantime Patroclus, standing at the side\nOf the illustrious Chief Achilles, wept\nFast as a crystal fountain from the height\nOf some rude rock pours down its rapid[1] stream.5\nDivine Achilles with compassion moved\nMark\u2019d him, and in wing\u2019d accents thus began.[2]\n  Who weeps Patroclus like an infant girl\nWho, running at her mother\u2019s side, entreats\nTo be uplifted in her arms? She grasps10\nHer mantle, checks her haste, and looking up\nWith tearful eyes, pleads earnest to be borne;\nSo fall, Patroclus! thy unceasing tears.\nBring\u2019st thou to me or to my people aught\nAfflictive? Hast thou mournful tidings learn\u2019d15\nProm Phthia, trusted to thy ear alone?\nMen\u0153tius, son of Actor, as they say,\nStill lives; still lives his Myrmidons among\nPeleus \u00c6acides; whom, were they dead,\nWith cause sufficient we should both deplore.20\nOr weep\u2019st thou the Achaians at the ships\nPerishing, for their outrage done to me?\nSpeak. Name thy trouble. I would learn the cause\n  To whom, deep-sorrowing, thou didst reply,\nPatroclus! Oh Achilles, Peleus\u2019 son!25\nNoblest of all our host! bear with my grief,\nSince such distress hath on the Grecians fallen.\nThe bravest of their ships disabled lie,\nSome wounded from afar, some hand to hand.\nDiomede, warlike son of Tydeus, bleeds,30\nGall\u2019d by a shaft; Ulysses, glorious Chief,\nAnd Agamemnon suffer by the spear,\nAnd brave Eurypylus an arrow-point\nBears in his thigh. These all, are now the care\nOf healing hands. Oh thou art pity-proof,35\nAchilles! be my bosom ever free\nFrom anger such as harbor finds in thine,\nScorning all limits! whom, of men unborn,\nHereafter wilt thou save, from whom avert\nDisgrace, if not from the Achaians now?40\nAh ruthless! neither Peleus thee begat,\nNor Thetis bore, but rugged rocks sublime,\nAnd roaring billows blue gave birth to thee,\nWho bear\u2019st a mind that knows not to relent,\nBut, if some prophecy alarm thy fears,45\nIf from thy Goddess-mother thou have aught\nReceived, and with authority of Jove,\nMe send at least, me quickly, and with me\nThe Myrmidons. A dawn of cheerful hope\nShall thence, it may be, on the Greeks arise.50\nGrant me thine armor also, that the foe\nThyself supposing present, may abstain\nFrom battle, and the weary Greeks enjoy\nShort respite; it is all that war allows.\nWe, fresh and vigorous, by our shouts alone55\nMay easily repulse an army spent\nWith labor from the camp, and from the fleet,\n  Such suit he made, alas! all unforewarn\u2019d\nThat his own death should be the bitter fruit,\nAnd thus Achilles, sorrowful, replied.60\n  Patroclus, noble friend! what hast thou spoken?\nMe neither prophesy that I have heard\nHolds in suspense, nor aught that I have learn\u2019d\nFrom Thetis with authority of Jove!\nHence springs, and hence alone, my grief of heart;65\nIf one, in nought superior to myself\nSave in his office only, should by force\nAmerce me of my well-earn\u2019d recompense\u2014\nHow then? There lies the grief that stings my soul.\nThe virgin chosen for me by the sons70\nOf Greece, my just reward, by my own spear\nObtain\u2019d when I E\u00ebtion\u2019s city took,\nHer, Agamemnon, leader of the host\nFrom my possession wrung, as I had been\nSome alien wretch, unhonor\u2019d and unknown.75\nBut let it pass; anger is not a flame\nTo feed for ever; I affirm\u2019d, indeed,\nMine inextinguishable till the shout\nOf battle should invade my proper barks;\nBut thou put on my glorious arms, lead forth80\nMy valiant Myrmidons, since such a cloud,\nSo dark, of dire hostility surrounds\nThe fleet, and the Achaians, by the waves\nHemm\u2019d in, are prison\u2019d now in narrow space.\nBecause the Trojans meet not in the field85\nMy dazzling helmet, therefore bolder grown\nAll Ilium comes abroad; but had I found\nKindness at royal Agamemnon\u2019s hands,\nSoon had they fled, and with their bodies chok\u2019d\nThe streams, from whom ourselves now suffer siege90\nFor in the hands of Diomede his spear\nNo longer rages rescuing from death\nThe afflicted Dana\u00ef, nor hear I more\nThe voice of Agamemnon issuing harsh\nFrom his detested throat, but all around95\nThe burst[3] of homicidal Hector\u2019s cries,\nCalling his Trojans on; they loud insult\nThe vanquish\u2019d Greeks, and claim the field their own.\nGo therefore, my Patroclus; furious fall\nOn these assailants, even now preserve100\nFrom fire the only hope of our return.\nBut hear the sum of all; mark well my word;\nSo shalt thou glorify me in the eyes\nOf all the Dana\u00ef, and they shall yield\nBris\u00ebis mine, with many a gift beside.105\nThe Trojans from the fleet expell\u2019d, return.\nShould Juno\u2019s awful spouse give thee to win\nVictory, be content; seek not to press\nThe Trojans without me, for thou shalt add\nStill more to the disgrace already mine.[4]110\nMuch less, by martial ardor urged, conduct\nThy slaughtering legions to the walls of Troy,\nLest some immortal power on her behalf\nDescend, for much the Archer of the skies\nLoves Ilium. No\u2014the fleet once saved, lead back115\nThy band, and leave the battle to themselves.\nFor oh, by all the powers of heaven I would\nThat not one Trojan might escape of all,\nNor yet a Grecian, but that we, from death\nOurselves escaping, might survive to spread120\nTroy\u2019s sacred bulwarks on the ground, alone.\n  Thus they conferr\u2019d. [5]But Ajax overwhelm\u2019d\nMeantime with darts, no longer could endure,\nQuell\u2019d both by Jupiter and by the spears\nOf many a noble Trojan; hideous rang125\nHis batter\u2019d helmet bright, stroke after stroke\nSustaining on all sides, and his left arm\nThat had so long shifted from side to side\nHis restless shield, now fail\u2019d; yet could not all\nDisplace him with united force, or move.130\nQuick pantings heaved his chest, copious the sweat\nTrickled from all his limbs, nor found he time,\nHowever short, to breathe again, so close\nEvil on evil heap\u2019d hemm\u2019d him around.\n  Olympian Muses! now declare, how first135\nThe fire was kindled in Achaia\u2019s fleet?\n  Hector the ashen lance of Ajax smote\nWith his broad falchion, at the nether end,\nAnd lopp\u2019d it sheer. The Telamonian Chief\nHis mutilated beam brandish\u2019d in vain,140\nAnd the bright point shrill-sounding-fell remote.\nThen Ajax in his noble mind perceived,\nShuddering with awe, the interposing power\nOf heaven, and that, propitious to the arms\nOf Troy, the Thunderer had ordain\u2019d to mar145\nAnd frustrate all the counsels of the Greeks.\nHe left his stand; they fired the gallant bark;\nThrough all her length the conflagration ran\nIncontinent, and wrapp\u2019d her stern in flames.\nAchilles saw them, smote his thighs, and said,150\n  Patroclus, noble charioteer, arise!\nI see the rapid run of hostile fires\nAlready in the fleet\u2014lest all be lost,\nAnd our return impossible, arm, arm\nThis moment; I will call, myself, the band.155\n  Then put Patroclus on his radiant arms.\nAround his legs his polish\u2019d greaves he clasp\u2019d,\nWith argent studs secured; the hauberk rich\nStar-spangled to his breast he bound of swift\n\u00c6acides; he slung his brazen sword160\nWith silver bright emboss\u2019d, and his broad shield\nPonderous; on his noble head his casque\nHe settled elegant, whose lofty crest\nWaved dreadful o\u2019er his brows, and last he seized\nWell fitted to his gripe two sturdy spears.165\nOf all Achilles\u2019 arms his spear alone\nHe took not; that huge beam, of bulk and length\nEnormous, none, \u00c6acides except,\nIn all Achaia\u2019s host had power to wield.\nIt was that Pelian ash which from the top170\nOf Pelion hewn that it might prove the death\nOf heroes, Chiron had to Peleus given.\nHe bade Automedon his coursers bind\nSpeedily to the yoke, for him he loved\nNext to Achilles most, as worthiest found175\nOf trust, what time the battle loudest roar\u2019d.\nThen led Automedon the fiery steeds\nSwift as wing\u2019d tempests to the chariot-yoke,\nXanthus and Balius. Them the harpy bore\nPodarge, while in meadows green she fed180\nOn Ocean\u2019s side, to Zephyrus the wind.\nTo these he added, at their side, a third,\nThe noble Pedasus; him Peleus\u2019 son,\nE\u00ebtion\u2019s city taken, thence had brought,\nThough mortal, yet a match for steeds divine.185\nMeantime from every tent Achilles call\u2019d\nAnd arm\u2019d his Myrmidons. As wolves that gorge\nThe prey yet panting, terrible in force,\nWhen on the mountains wild they have devour\u2019d\nAn antler\u2019d stag new-slain, with bloody jaws190\nTroop all at once to some clear fountain, there\nTo lap with slender tongues the brimming wave;\nNo fears have they, but at their ease eject\nFrom full maws flatulent the clotted gore;\nSuch seem\u2019d the Myrmidon heroic Chiefs195\nAssembling fast around the valiant friend\nOf swift \u00c6acides. Amid them stood\nWarlike Achilles, the well-shielded ranks\nExhorting, and the steeds, to glorious war.\n  The galleys by Achilles dear to Jove200\nCommanded, when to Ilium\u2019s coast he steer\u2019d,\nWere fifty; fifty rowers sat in each,\nAnd five, in whom he trusted, o\u2019er the rest\nHe captains named, but ruled, himself, supreme.\nOne band Menestheus swift in battle led,205\nOffspring of Sperchius heaven-descended stream.\nHim Polydora, Peleus\u2019 daughter, bore\nTo ever-flowing Sperchius, compress\u2019d,\nAlthough a mortal woman, by a God.\nBut his reputed father was the son210\nOf Perieres, Borus, who with dower\nEnrich\u2019d, and made her openly his bride.\nWarlike Eudorus led the second band.\nHim Polymela, graceful in the dance,\nAnd daughter beautiful of Phylas, bore,215\nA mother unsuspected of a child.\nHer worshiping the golden-shafted Queen\nDiana, in full choir, with song and dance,\nThe valiant Argicide[6] beheld and loved.\nAscending with her to an upper room,220\nAll-bounteous Mercury[7] clandestine there\nEmbraced her, who a noble son produced\nEudorus, swift to run, and bold in fight.\nNo sooner Ilithya, arbitress\nOf pangs puerperal, had given him birth,225\nAnd he beheld the beaming sun, than her\nEchechleus, Actor\u2019s mighty son, enrich\u2019d\nWith countless dower, and led her to his home;\nWhile ancient Phylas, cherishing her boy\nWith fond affection, reared him as his own.230\nThe third brave troop warlike Pisander led,\nOffspring of Maimalus; he far excell\u2019d\nIn spear-fight every Myrmidon, the friend\nOf Peleus\u2019 dauntless son alone except.\nThe hoary Ph\u0153nix of equestrian fame235\nThe fourth band led to battle, and the fifth\nLa\u00ebrceus\u2019 offspring, bold Alcimedon.\nThus, all his bands beneath their proper Chiefs\nMarshall\u2019d, Achilles gave them strict command\u2014\n  Myrmidons! all that vengeance now inflict,240\nWhich in this fleet ye ceased not to denounce\nAgainst the Trojans while my wrath endured.\nMe censuring, ye have proclaim\u2019d me oft\nObdurate. Oh Achilles! ye have said,\nThee not with milk thy mother but with bile245\nSuckled, who hold\u2019st thy people here in camp\nThus long imprison\u2019d. Unrelenting Chief!\nEven let us hence in our sea-skimming barks\nTo Phthia, since thou can\u2019st not be appeased\u2014\nThus in full council have ye spoken oft.250\nNow, therefore, since a day of glorious toil\nAt last appears, such as ye have desired,\nThere lies the field\u2014go\u2014give your courage proof.\n  So them he roused, and they, their leader\u2019s voice\nHearing elate, to closest order drew.255\nAs when an architect some palace wall\nWith shapely stones upbuilds, cementing close\nA barrier against all the winds of heaven,\nSo wedged, the helmets and boss\u2019d bucklers stood;\nShield, helmet, man, press\u2019d helmet, man, and shield,260\nAnd every bright-arm\u2019d warrior\u2019s bushy crest\nIts fellow swept, so dense was their array.\nIn front of all, two Chiefs their station took,\nPatroclus and Automedon; one mind\nIn both prevail\u2019d, to combat in the van265\nOf all the Myrmidons. Achilles, then,\nRetiring to his tent, displaced the lid\nOf a capacious chest magnificent\nBy silver-footed Thetis stow\u2019d on board\nHis bark, and fill\u2019d with tunics, mantles warm,270\nAnd gorgeous arras; there he also kept\nSecure a goblet exquisitely wrought,\nWhich never lip touched save his own, and whence\nHe offer\u2019d only to the Sire of all.\nThat cup producing from the chest, he first275\nWith sulphur fumed it, then with water rinsed\nPellucid of the running stream, and, last\n(His hands clean laved) he charged it high with wine.\nAnd now, advancing to his middle court,\nHe pour\u2019d libation, and with eyes to heaven280\nUplifted pray\u2019d,[8] of Jove not unobserved.\n  Pelasgian, Dodon\u00e6an Jove supreme,\nDwelling remote, who on Dodona\u2019s heights\nSnow-clad reign\u2019st Sovereign, by thy seers around\nCompass\u2019d the Selli, prophets vow-constrain\u2019d285\nTo unwash\u2019d feet and slumbers on the ground!\nPlain I behold my former prayer perform\u2019d,\nMyself exalted, and the Greeks abased.\nNow also grant me, Jove, this my desire!\nHere, in my fleet, I shall myself abide,290\nBut lo! with all these Myrmidons I send\nMy friend to battle. Thunder-rolling Jove,\nSend glory with him, make his courage firm!\nThat even Hector may himself be taught,\nIf my companion have a valiant heart295\nWhen he goes forth alone, or only then\nThe noble frenzy feels that Mars inspires\nWhen I rush also to the glorious field.\nBut when he shall have driven the battle-shout\nOnce from the fleet, grant him with all his arms,300\nNone lost, himself unhurt, and my whole band\nOf dauntless warriors with him, safe return!\n  Such prayer Achilles offer\u2019d, and his suit\nJove hearing, part confirm\u2019d, and part refused;\nTo chase the dreadful battle from the fleet305\nHe gave him, but vouchsafed him no return.\nPrayer and libation thus perform\u2019d to Jove\nThe Sire of all, Achilles to his tent\nReturn\u2019d, replaced the goblet in his chest,\nAnd anxious still that conflict to behold310\nBetween the hosts, stood forth before his tent.\n  Then rush\u2019d the bands by brave Patroclus led,\nFull on the Trojan host. As wasps forsake\nTheir home by the way-side, provoked by boys\nDisturbing inconsiderate their abode,315\nNot without nuisance sore to all who pass,\nFor if, thenceforth, some traveller unaware\nAnnoy them, issuing one and all they swarm\nAround him, fearless in their broods\u2019 defence,\nSo issued from their fleet the Myrmidons320\nUndaunted; clamor infinite arose,\nAnd thus Patroclus loud his host address\u2019d.\n  Oh Myrmidons, attendants in the field\nOn Peleus\u2019 son, now be ye men, my friends!\nCall now to mind the fury of your might;325\nThat we, close-fighting servants of the Chief\nMost excellent in all the camp of Greece,\nMay glory gain for him, and that the wide-\nCommanding Agamemnon, Atreus\u2019 son,\nMay learn his fault, that he dishonor\u2019d foul330\nThe prince in whom Achaia glories most.\n  So saying he fired their hearts, and on the van\nOf Troy at once they fell; loud shouted all\nThe joyful Grecians, and the navy rang.\nThen, soon as Ilium\u2019s host the valiant son335\nSaw of Men\u0153tius and his charioteer\nIn dazzling armor clad, all courage lost,\nTheir closest ranks gave way, believing sure\nThat, wrath renounced, and terms of friendship chosen,\nAchilles\u2019 self was there; thus thinking, each340\nLook\u2019d every way for refuge from his fate.\n  Patroclus first, where thickest throng he saw\nGather\u2019d tumultuous around the bark\nOf brave Protesila\u00fcs, hurl\u2019d direct\nAt the whole multitude his glittering spear.345\nHe smote Pyr\u00e6chmes; he his horsemen band\nP\u0153onian led from Amydon, and from\nBroad-flowing Axius. In his shoulder stood\nThe spear, and with loud groans supine he fell.\nAt once fled all his followers, on all sides350\nWith consternation fill\u2019d, seeing their Chief\nAnd their best warrior, by Patroclus slain.\nForth from the fleet he drove them, quench\u2019d the flames,\nAnd rescued half the ship. Then scatter\u2019d fled\nWith infinite uproar the host of Troy,355\nWhile from between their ships the Dana\u00ef\nPour\u2019d after them, and hideous rout ensued.\nAs when the king of lightnings, Jove, dispels\nFrom some huge eminence a gloomy cloud,\nThe groves, the mountain-tops, the headland heights360\nShine all, illumined from the boundless heaven,\nSo when the Dana\u00ef those hostile fires\nHad from their fleet expell\u2019d, awhile they breathed,\nYet found short respite, for the battle yet\nCeased not, nor fled the Trojans in all parts365\nAlike, but still resisted, from the ships\nRetiring through necessity alone.\nThen, in that scatter\u2019d warfare, every Chief\nSlew one. While Are\u00eflochus his back\nTurn\u2019d on Patroclus, sudden with a lance370\nHis thigh he pierced, and urged the weapon through,\nShivering the bone; he headlong smote the ground.\nThe hero Menelaus, where he saw\nThe breast of Thoas by his slanting shield\nUnguarded, struck and stretch\u2019d him at his feet.375\nPhylides,[9] meeting with preventive spear\nThe furious onset of Amphiclus, gash\u2019d\nHis leg below the knee, where brawny most\nThe muscles swell in man; disparted wide\nThe tendons shrank, and darkness veil\u2019d his eyes.380\nThe two Nestorid\u00e6 slew each a Chief.\nOf these, Antilochus Atymnius pierced\nRight through his flank, and at his feet he fell.\nWith fierce resentment fired Maris beheld\nHis brother\u2019s fall, and guarding, spear in hand,385\nThe slain, impetuous on the conqueror flew;\nBut godlike Thrasymedes[10] wounded first\nMaris, ere he Antilochus; he pierced\nHis upper arm, and with the lance\u2019s point\nRent off and stript the muscles to the bone.390\nSounding he fell, and darkness veil\u2019d his eyes.\nThey thus, two brothers by two brothers slain,\nWent down to Erebus, associates both\nOf brave Sarpedon, and spear-practised sons\nOf Amisodarus; of him who fed395\nChim\u00e6ra,[11] monster, by whom many died.\nAjax the swift on Cleobulus sprang,\nWhom while he toil\u2019d entangled in the crowd,\nHe seized alive, but smote him where he stood\nWith his huge-hafted sword full on the neck;400\nThe blood warm\u2019d all his blade, and ruthless fate\nBenighted dark the dying warrior\u2019s eyes.\nPeneleus into close contention rush\u2019d\nAnd Lycon. Each had hurl\u2019d his glittering spear,\nBut each in vain, and now with swords they met.405\nHe smote Peneleus on the crested casque,\nBut snapp\u2019d his falchion; him Peneleus smote\nBeneath his ear; the whole blade entering sank\nInto his neck, and Lycon with his head\nDepending by the skin alone, expired.410\nMeriones o\u2019ertaking Acamas\nEre yet he could ascend his chariot, thrust\nA lance into his shoulder; down he fell\nIn dreary death\u2019s eternal darkness whelm\u2019d.\nIdomeneus his ruthless spear enforced415\nInto the mouth of Erymas. The point\nStay\u2019d not, but gliding close beneath the brain,\nTranspierced his spine,[12] and started forth beyond.\nIt wrench\u2019d his teeth, and fill\u2019d his eyes with blood;\nBlood also blowing through his open mouth420\nAnd nostrils, to the realms of death he pass\u2019d.\nThus slew these Grecian leaders, each, a foe.\n  Sudden as hungry wolves the kids purloin\nOr lambs, which haply some unheeding swain\nHath left to roam at large the mountains wild;425\nThey, seeing, snatch them from beside the dams,\nAnd rend incontinent the feeble prey,\nSo swift the Dana\u00ef the host assail\u2019d\nOf Ilium; they, into tumultuous flight\nTogether driven, all hope, all courage lost.430\n  Huge Ajax ceaseless sought his spear to cast\nAt Hector brazen-mail\u2019d, who, not untaught\nThe warrior\u2019s art, with bull-hide buckler stood\nSheltering his ample shoulders, while he mark\u2019d\nThe hiss of flying shafts and crash of spears.435\nFull sure he saw the shifting course of war\nNow turn\u2019d, but scorning flight, bent all his thoughts\nTo rescue yet the remnant of his friends.\n  As when the Thunderer spreads a sable storm\nO\u2019er ether, late serene, the cloud that wrapp\u2019d440\nOlympus\u2019 head escapes into the skies,\nSo fled the Trojans from the fleet of Greece\nClamoring in their flight, nor pass\u2019d the trench\nIn fair array; the coursers fleet indeed\nOf Hector, him bore safe with all his arms445\nRight through, but in the foss entangled foul\nHe left his host, and struggling to escape.\nThen many a chariot-whirling steed, the pole\nBroken at its extremity, forsook\nHis driver, while Patroclus with the shout450\nOf battle calling his Achaians on,\nDestruction purposed to the powers of Troy.\nThey, once dispersed, with clamor and with flight\nFill\u2019d all the ways, the dust beneath the clouds\nHung like a tempest, and the steeds firm-hoof\u2019d455\nWhirl\u2019d off at stretch the chariots to the town.\nHe, wheresoe\u2019er most troubled he perceived\nThe routed host, loud-threatening thither drove,\nWhile under his own axle many a Chief\nFell prone, and the o\u2019ertumbled chariots rang.460\nRight o\u2019er the hollow foss the coursers leap\u2019d\nImmortal, by the Gods to Peleus given,\nImpatient for the plain, nor less desire\nFelt he who drove to smite the Trojan Chief,\nBut him his fiery steeds caught swift away.465\n  As when a tempest from autumnal skies\nFloats all the fields, what time Jove heaviest pours\nImpetuous rain, token of wrath divine\nAgainst perverters of the laws by force,\nWho drive forth justice, reckless of the Gods;470\nThe rivers and the torrents, where they dwell,\nSweep many a green declivity away,\nAnd plunge at length, groaning, into the Deep\nFrom the hills headlong, leaving where they pass\u2019d\nNo traces of the pleasant works of man,475\nSo, in their flight, loud groan\u2019d the steeds of Troy.\nAnd now, their foremost intercepted all,\nPatroclus back again toward the fleet\nDrove them precipitate, nor the ascent\nPermitted them to Troy for which they strove,480\nBut in the midway space between the ships\nThe river and the lofty Trojan wall\nPursued them ardent, slaughtering whom he reached,\nAnd vengeance took for many a Grecian slain.\nFirst then, with glittering spear the breast he pierced485\nOf Pron\u00f6us, undefended by his shield,\nAnd stretch\u2019d him dead; loud rang his batter\u2019d arms.\nThe son of Enops, Thestor next he smote.\nHe on his chariot-seat magnificent\nLow-cowering sat, a fear-distracted form,490\nAnd from his palsied grasp the reins had fallen.\nThen came Patroclus nigh, and through his cheek\nHis teeth transpiercing, drew him by his lance\nSheer o\u2019er the chariot front. As when a man\nOn some projecting rock seated, with line495\nAnd splendid hook draws forth a sea-fish huge,\nSo him wide-gaping from his seat he drew\nAt his spear-point, then shook him to the ground\nProne on his face, where gasping he expired.\nAt Eryalus, next, advancing swift500\nHe hurl\u2019d a rock; full on the middle front\nHe smote him, and within the ponderous casque\nHis whole head open\u2019d into equal halves.\nWith deadliest night surrounded, prone he fell.\nEpaltes, Erymas, Amphoterus,505\nEchius, Tlepolemus Damastor\u2019s son,\nEvippus, Ipheus, Pyres, Polymelus,\nAll these he on the champain, corse on corse\nPromiscuous flung. Sarpedon, when he saw\nSuch havoc made of his uncinctured[13] friends510\nBy Men\u0153tiades, with sharp rebuke\nHis band of godlike Lycians loud address\u2019d.\n  Shame on you, Lycians! whither would ye fly?\nNow are ye swift indeed! I will oppose\nMyself this conqueror, that I may learn515\nWho thus afflicts the Trojan host, of life\nBereaving numerous of their warriors bold.\n  He said, and with his arms leap\u2019d to the ground.\nOn the other side, Patroclus at that sight\nSprang from his chariot. As two vultures clash520\nBow-beak\u2019d, crook-talon\u2019d, on some lofty rock\nClamoring both, so they together rush\u2019d\nWith clamors loud; whom when the son observed\nOf wily Saturn, with compassion moved\nHis sister and his spouse he thus bespake.525\n  Alas, he falls! my most beloved of men\nSarpedon, vanquished by Patroclus, falls!\nSo will the Fates. Yet, doubtful, much I muse\nWhether to place him, snatch\u2019d from furious fight\nIn Lycia\u2019s wealthy realm, or to permit530\nHis death by valiant Men\u0153tiades.\n  To whom his awful spouse, displeased, replied.\nHow speaks the terrible Saturnian Jove!\nWouldst thou again from pangs of death exempt\nA mortal man, destined long since to die?535\nDo it. But small thy praise shall be in heaven,\nMark thou my words, and in thy inmost breast\nTreasure them. If thou send Sarpedon safe\nTo his own home, how many Gods _their_ sons\nMay also send from battle? Weigh it well.540\nFor under yon great city fight no few\nSprung from Immortals whom thou shalt provoke.\nBut if thou love him, and thine heart his lot\nCommiserate, leave him by the hands to fall\nOf Men\u0153tiades in conflict dire;545\nBut give command to Death and gentle Sleep\nThat him of life bereft at once they bear\nTo Lycia\u2019s ample realm,[14] where, with due rites\nFunereal, his next kindred and his friends\nShall honor him, a pillar and a tomb550\n(The dead man\u2019s portion) rearing to his name.\n  She said, from whom the Sire of Gods and men\nDissented not, but on the earth distill\u2019d\nA sanguine shower in honor of a son\nDear to him, whom Patroclus on the field555\nOf fruitful Troy should slay, far from his home.\n  Opposite now, small interval between,\nThose heroes stood. Patroclus at his waist\nPierced Thrasymelus the illustrious friend\nOf King Sarpedon, and his charioteer.560\nSpear\u2019d through the lower bowels, dead he fell.\nThen hurl\u2019d Sarpedon in his turn a lance,\nBut miss\u2019d Patroclus and the shoulder pierced\nOf Pedasus the horse; he groaning heaved\nHis spirit forth, and fallen on the field565\nIn long loud moanings sorrowful expired.\nWide started the immortal pair; the yoke\nCreak\u2019d, and entanglement of reins ensued\nTo both, their fellow slaughter\u2019d at their side.\nThat mischief soon Automedon redress\u2019d.570\nHe rose, and from beside his sturdy thigh\nDrawing his falchion, with effectual stroke\nCut loose the side-horse; then the pair reduced\nTo order, in their traces stood composed,\nAnd the two heroes fierce engaged again.575\n  Again his radiant spear Sarpedon hurl\u2019d,\nBut miss\u2019d Patroclus; the innocuous point,\nO\u2019erflying his left shoulder, pass\u2019d beyond.\nThen with bright lance Patroclus in his turn\nAssail\u2019d Sarpedon, nor with erring course580\nThe weapon sped or vain, but pierced profound\nHis chest, enclosure of the guarded heart.\nAs falls an oak, poplar, or lofty pine\nWith new-edged axes on the mountains hewn\nRight through, for structure of some gallant bark,585\nSo fell Sarpedon stretch\u2019d his steeds before\nAnd gnash\u2019d his teeth and clutch\u2019d the bloody dust,\nAnd as a lion slays a tawny bull\nLeader magnanimous of all the herd;\nBeneath the lion\u2019s jaws groaning he dies;590\nSo, leader of the shielded Lycians groan\u2019d\nIndignant, by Patroclus slain, the bold\nSarpedon, and his friend thus, sad, bespake.\n  Glaucus, my friend, among these warring Chiefs\nThyself a Chief illustrious! thou hast need595\nOf all thy valor now; now strenuous fight,\nAnd, if thou bear within thee a brave mind,\nNow make the war\u2019s calamities thy joy.\nFirst, marching through the host of Lycia, rouse\nOur Chiefs to combat for Sarpedon slain,600\nThen haste, thyself, to battle for thy friend.\nFor shame and foul dishonor which no time\nShall e\u2019er obliterate, I must prove to thee,\nShould the Achaians of my glorious arms\nDespoil me in full prospect[15] of the fleet.605\nFight, therefore, thou, and others urge to fight.\n  He said, and cover\u2019d by the night of death,\nNor look\u2019d nor breath\u2019d again; for on his chest\nImplanting firm his heel, Patroclus drew\nThe spear enfolded with his vitals forth,610\nWeapon and life at once. Meantime his steeds\nSnorted, by Myrmidons detain\u2019d, and, loosed\nFrom their own master\u2019s chariot, foam\u2019d to fly.\nTerrible was the grief by Glaucus felt,\nHearing that charge, and troubled was his heart615\nThat all power fail\u2019d him to protect the dead.\nCompressing his own arm he stood, with pain\nExtreme tormented which the shaft had caused\nOf Teucer, who while Glaucus climb\u2019d the wall,\nHad pierced him from it, in the fleet\u2019s defence.620\nThen, thus, to Ph\u0153bus, King shaft-arm\u2019d, he pray\u2019d.\n  Hear now, O King! For whether in the land\nOf wealthy Lycia dwelling, or in Troy,\nThou hear\u2019st in every place alike the prayer\nOf the afflicted heart, and such is mine;625\nBehold my wound; it fills my useless hand\nWith anguish, neither can my blood be stay\u2019d,\nAnd all my shoulder suffers. I can grasp\nA spear, or rush to conflict with the Greeks\nNo longer now; and we have also lost630\nOur noblest Chief, Sarpedon, son of Jove,\nWho guards not his own son. But thou, O King!\nHeal me, assuage my anguish, give me strength,\nThat I may animate the Lycian host\nTo fight, and may, myself, defend the dead!635\n  Such prayer he offer\u2019d, whom Apollo heard;\nHe eased at once his pain, the sable blood\nStaunch\u2019d, and his soul with vigor new inspired.\nThen Glaucus in his heart that prayer perceived\nGranted, and joyful for the sudden aid640\nVouchsafed to him by Ph\u0153bus, first the lines\nOf Lycia ranged, summoning every Chief\nTo fight for slain Sarpedon; striding next\nWith eager haste into the ranks of Troy,\nRenown\u2019d Agenor and the son he call\u2019d645\nOf Panthus, brave Polydamas, with whom\n\u00c6neas also, and approaching last\nTo Hector brazen-mail\u2019d him thus bespake.\n  Now, Hector! now, thou hast indeed resign\u2019d\nAll care of thy allies, who, for thy sake,650\nLost both to friends and country, on these plains\nPerish, unaided and unmiss\u2019d by thee.\nSarpedon breathless lies, who led to fight\nOur shielded bands, and from whose just control\nAnd courage Lycia drew her chief defence.655\nHim brazen Mars hath by the spear subdued\nOf Men\u0153tiades. But stand ye firm!\nLet indignation fire you, O my friends!\nLest, stripping him of his resplendent arms,\nThe Myrmidons with foul dishonor shame660\nHis body, through resentment of the deaths\nOf numerous Grecians slain by spears of ours.\n  He ceased; then sorrow every Trojan heart\nSeized insupportable and that disdain\u2019d\nAll bounds, for that, although a stranger born,665\nSarpedon ever had a bulwark proved\nTo Troy, the leader of a numerous host,\nAnd of that host by none in fight excell\u2019d.\nRight on toward the Dana\u00ef they moved\nArdent for battle all, and at their head670\nEnraged for slain Sarpedon, Hector came.\nMeantime, stout-hearted[16] Chief, Patroclus roused\nThe Grecians, and exhorting first (themselves\nAlready prompt) the Ajaces, thus began.\n  Heroic pair! now make it all your joy675\nTo chase the Trojan host, and such to prove\nAs erst, or even bolder, if ye may.\nThe Chief lies breathless who ascended first\nOur wall, Sarpedon. Let us bear him hence,\nStrip and dishonor him, and in the blood680\nOf his protectors drench the ruthless spear.\n  So Men\u0153tiades his warriors urged,\nThemselves courageous. Then the Lycian host\nAnd Trojan here, and there the Myrmidons\nWith all the host of Greece, closing the ranks685\nRush\u2019d into furious contest for the dead,\nShouting tremendous; clang\u2019d their brazen arms,\nAnd Jove with Night\u2019s pernicious shades[17] o\u2019erhung\nThe bloody field, so to enhance the more\nTheir toilsome strife for his own son. First then690\nThe Trojans from their place and order shock\u2019d\nThe bright-eyed Grecians, slaying not the least\nNor worst among the Myrmidons, the brave\nEpigeus from renown\u2019d Agacles sprung.\nHe, erst, in populous Budeum ruled,695\nBut for a valiant kinsman of his own\nWhom there he slew, had thence to Peleus fled\nAnd to his silver-footed spouse divine,\nWho with Achilles, phalanx-breaker Chief,\nSent him to fight beneath the walls of Troy.700\nHim seizing fast the body, with a stone\nIllustrious Hector smote full on the front,\nAnd his whole skull within the ponderous casque\nSplit sheer; he prostrate on the body fell\nIn shades of soul-divorcing death involved.705\nPatroclus, grieving for his slaughter\u2019d friend,\nRush\u2019d through the foremost warriors. As the hawk\nSwift-wing\u2019d before him starlings drives or daws,\nSo thou, Patroclus, of equestrian fame!\nFull on the Lycian ranks and Trojan drov\u2019st,710\nResentful of thy fellow-warrior\u2019s fall.\nAt Sthenela\u00fcs a huge stone he cast,\nSon of Ith\u00e6menes, whom on the neck\nHe smote and burst the tendons; then the van\nOf Ilium\u2019s host, with Hector, all retired.715\nFar as the slender javelin cuts the air\nHurl\u2019d with collected force, or in the games,\nOr even in battle at a desperate foe,\nSo far the Greeks repulsed the host of Troy.\nThen Glaucus first, Chief of the shielded bands720\nOf Lycia, slew Bathycles, valiant son\nOf Calchon; Hellas was his home, and far\nHe pass\u2019d in riches all the Myrmidons.\nHim chasing Glaucus whom he now attain\u2019d,\nThe Lycian, turning sudden, with his lance725\nPierced through the breast, and, sounding, down he fell\nGrief fill\u2019d Achaia\u2019s sons for such a Chief\nSo slain, but joy the Trojans; thick they throng\u2019d\nThe conqueror around, nor yet the Greeks\nForgat their force, but resolute advanced.730\nThen, by Meriones a Trojan died\nOf noble rank, Laogonus, the son\nUndaunted of Onetor great in Troy,\nPriest of Id\u00e6an Jove. The ear and jaw\nBetween, he pierced him with a mortal force;735\nSwift flew the life, and darkness veil\u2019d his eyes.\n\u00c6neas, in return, his brazen spear\nHurl\u2019d at Meriones with ardent hope\nTo pierce him, while, with nimble[18] steps and short\nBehind his buckler made, he paced the field;740\nBut, warn\u2019d of its approach, Meriones\nBow\u2019d low his head, shunning it, and the spear\nBehind him pierced the soil; there quivering stood\nThe weapon, vain, though from a vigorous arm,\nTill spent by slow degrees its fury slept.745\n       *       *       *       *       *\n       *       *       *       *       *[19]\nIndignant then \u00c6neas thus exclaim\u2019d.\n\n  Meriones! I sent thee such a spear\nAs reaching thee, should have for ever marr\u2019d750\nThy step, accomplish\u2019d dancer as thou art.\n  To whom Meriones spear-famed replied.\n\u00c6neas! thou wilt find the labor hard\nHow great soe\u2019er thy might, to quell the force\nOf all opposers. Thou art also doom\u2019d755\nThyself to die; and may but spear of mine\nWell-aim\u2019d once strike thee full, what strength soe\u2019er\nOr magnanimity be thine to boast,\nThy glory in that moment thou resign\u2019st\nTo me, thy soul to Pluto steed-renown\u2019d.760\n  He said, but him Patroclus sharp reproved.\nWhy speaks Meriones, although in fight\nApproved, thus proudly? Nay, my gallant friend!\nThe Trojans will not for reproach of ours\nRenounce the body. Blood must first be spilt.765\nTongues in debate, but hands in war decide;\nDeeds therefore now, not wordy vaunts, we need.\n  So saying he led the way, whom follow\u2019d close\nGodlike Meriones. As from the depth\nOf some lone wood that clothes the mountain\u2019s side770\nThe fellers at their toil are heard remote,\nSo, from the face of Ilium\u2019s ample plain\nReverberated, was the din of brass\nAnd of tough targets heard by falchions huge\nHard-smitten, and by spears of double-edge.775\nNone then, no, not the quickest to discern,\nHad known divine Sarpedon, from his head\nTo his foot-sole with mingled blood and dust\nPolluted, and o\u2019erwhelm\u2019d with weapons. They\nAround the body swarm\u2019d. As hovel-flies780\nIn spring-time buzz around the brimming pails\nWith milk bedew\u2019d, so they around the dead.\nNor Jove averted once his glorious eyes\nFrom that dread contest, but with watchful note\nMarked all, the future death in battle deep785\nPondering of Patroclus, whether him\nHector should even now slay on divine\nSarpedon, and despoil him of his arms,\nOr he should still that arduous strife prolong.\nThis counsel gain\u2019d as eligible most790\nAt length his preference: that the valiant friend\nOf Peleus\u2019 son should yet again compel\nThe Trojan host with Hector brazen-mail\u2019d\nTo Ilium, slaughtering numerous by the way.\nFirst then, with fears unmanly he possess\u2019d795\nThe heart of Hector; mounting to his seat\nHe turn\u2019d to flight himself, and bade his host\nFly also; for he knew Jove\u2019s purpose[20] changed.\nThenceforth, no longer even Lycia\u2019s host\nEndured, but all fled scatter\u2019d, seeing pierced800\nTheir sovereign through his heart, and heap\u2019d with dead;\nFor numerous, while Saturnian Jove the fight\nHeld in suspense, had on his body fallen.\nAt once the Grecians of his dazzling arms\nDespoil\u2019d Sarpedon, which the Myrmidons805\nBy order of Men\u0153tius\u2019 valiant son\nBore thence into the fleet. Meantime his will\nThe Thunderer to Apollo thus express\u2019d.\n  Ph\u0153bus, my son, delay not; from beneath\nYon hill of weapons drawn cleanse from his blood810\nSarpedon\u2019s corse; then, bearing him remote,\nLave him in waters of the running stream,\nWith oils divine anoint, and in attire\nImmortal clothe him. Last, to Death and Sleep,\nSwift bearers both, twin-born, deliver him;815\nFor hence to Lycia\u2019s opulent abodes\nThey shall transport him quickly, where, with rites\nFunereal, his next kindred and his friends\nShall honor him, a pillar and a tomb\n(The dead man\u2019s portion) rearing to his name.820\n  He ceased; nor was Apollo slow to hear\nHis father\u2019s will, but, from the Id\u00e6an heights\nDescending swift into the dreadful field,\nGodlike Sarpedon\u2019s body from beneath\nThe hill of weapons drew, which, borne remote,825\nHe laved in waters of the running stream,\nWith oils ambrosial bathed, and clothed in robes\nImmortal. Then to Death and gentle Sleep,\nSwift-bearers both, twin-born, he gave the charge,\nWho placed it soon in Lycia\u2019s wealthy realm.830\n  Meantime Patroclus, calling to his steeds,\nAnd to Automedon, the Trojans chased\nAnd Lycians, on his own destruction bent\nInfatuate; heedless of his charge received\nFrom Peleus\u2019 son, which, well perform\u2019d, had saved835\nThe hero from his miserable doom.\nBut Jove\u2019s high purpose evermore prevails\nAgainst the thoughts of man; he turns to flight\nThe bravest, and the victory takes with ease\nE\u2019en from the Chief whom he impels himself840\nTo battle, as he now this Chief impell\u2019d.\nWho, then, Patroclus! first, who last by thee\nFell slain, what time thyself was call\u2019d to die?\nAdrastus first, then Perimus he slew,\nOffspring of Megas, then Autono\u00fcs,845\nEchechlus, Melanippus, and Epistor,\nPylartes, Mulius, Elasus. All these\nHe slew, and from the field chased all beside.\nThen, doubtless, had Achaia\u2019s sons prevail\u2019d\nTo take proud-gated Troy, such havoc made850\nHe with his spear, but that the son of Jove\nApollo, on a tower\u2019s conspicuous height\nStation\u2019d, devoted him for Ilium\u2019s sake.\nThrice on a buttress of the lofty wall\nPatroclus mounted, and him thrice the God855\nWith hands immortal his resplendent shield\nSmiting, struck down again; but when he rush\u2019d\nA fourth time, demon-like, to the assault,\nThe King of radiant shafts him, stern, rebuked.\n  Patroclus, warrior of renown, retire!860\nThe fates ordain not that imperial Troy\nStoop to thy spear, nor to the spear itself\nOf Peleus\u2019 son, though mightier far than thou.\n  He said, and Men\u0153tiades the wrath\nOf shaft-arm\u2019d Ph\u0153bus shunning, far retired.865\nBut in the Sc\u00e6an gate Hector his steeds\nDetain\u2019d, uncertain whether thence to drive\nAmid the warring multitude again,\nOr, loud commandment issuing, to collect\nHis host within the walls. Him musing long870\nApollo, clad in semblance of a Chief\nYouthful and valiant, join\u2019d. Asius he seem\u2019d\nEquestrian Hector\u2019s uncle, brother born\nOf Hecuba the queen, and Dymas\u2019 son,\nWho on the Sangar\u2019s banks in Phrygia dwelt.875\nApollo, so disguised, him thus bespake.\n  Why, Hector, hast thou left the fight? this sloth\nNot well befits thee. Oh that I as far\nThee pass\u2019d in force as thou transcendest me,\nThen, not unpunish\u2019d long, should\u2019st thou retire;880\nBut haste, and with thy coursers solid-hoof\u2019d\nSeek out Patroclus, him perchance to slay,\nShould Ph\u0153bus have decreed that glory thine.\n  So saying, Apollo join\u2019d the host again.\nThen noble Hector bade his charioteer885\nValiant Cebriones his coursers lash\nBack into battle, while the God himself\nEntering the multitude confounded sore\nThe Argives, victory conferring proud\nAnd glory on Hector and the host of Troy.890\nBut Hector, leaving all beside unslain,\nFurious impell\u2019d his coursers solid-hoof\u2019d\nAgainst Patroclus; on the other side\nPatroclus from his chariot to the ground\nLeap\u2019d ardent; in his left a spear he bore,895\nAnd in his right a marble fragment rough,\nLarge as his grasp. With full collected might\nHe hurl\u2019d it; neither was the weapon slow\nTo whom he had mark\u2019d, or sent in vain.\nHe smote the charioteer of Hector, bold900\nCebriones, King Priam\u2019s spurious son,\nFull on the forehead, while he sway\u2019d the reins.\nThe bone that force withstood not, but the rock\nWith ragged points beset dash\u2019d both his brows\nIn pieces, and his eyes fell at his feet.905\nHe diver-like, from his exalted stand\nBehind the steeds pitch\u2019d headlong, and expired;\nO\u2019er whom, Patroclus of equestrian fame!\nThou didst exult with taunting speech severe.\n  Ye Gods, with what agility he dives!910\nAh! it were well if in the fishy deep\nThis man were occupied; he might no few\nWith oysters satisfy, although the waves\nWere churlish, plunging headlong from his bark\nAs easily as from his chariot here.915\nSo then\u2014in Troy, it seems, are divers too!\n  So saying, on bold Cebriones he sprang\nWith all a lion\u2019s force, who, while the folds\nHe ravages, is wounded in the breast,\nAnd, victim of his own fierce courage, dies.920\nSo didst thou spring, Patroclus! to despoil\nCebriones, and Hector opposite\nLeap\u2019d also to the ground. Then contest such\nFor dead Cebriones those two between\nArose, as in the lofty mountain-tops925\nTwo lions wage, contending for a deer\nNew-slain, both hunger-pinch\u2019d and haughty both.\nSo for Cebriones, alike in arms\nExpert, brave Hector and Patroclus strove\nTo pierce each other with the ruthless spear.930\nFirst, Hector seized his head, nor loosed his hold,\nPatroclus, next, his feet, while all beside\nOf either host in furious battle join\u2019d.\n  As when the East wind and the South contend\nTo shake some deep wood on the mountain\u2019s side,935\nOr beech, or ash, or rugged cornel old.\nWith stormy violence the mingled boughs\nSmite and snap short each other, crashing loud;\nSo, Trojans and Achaians, mingling, slew\nMutual, while neither felt a wish to fly.940\nAround Cebriones stood many a spear,\nAnd many a shaft sent smartly from the nerve\nImplanted deep, and many a stone of grasp\nEnormous sounded on their batter\u2019d shields\nWho fought to gain him. He, in eddies lost945\nOf sable dust, with his huge trunk huge space\nO\u2019erspread, nor steeds nor chariots heeded more.\n  While yet the sun ascending climb\u2019d the heavens,\nTheir darts flew equal, and the people fell;\nBut when he westward journey\u2019d, by a change950\nSurpassing hope the Grecians then prevail\u2019d.\nThey drew Cebriones the hero forth\nFrom all those weapons, and his armor stripp\u2019d\nAt leisure, distant from the battle\u2019s roar.\nThen sprang Patroclus on the Trojan host;955\nThrice, like another Mars, he sprang with shouts\nTremendous, and nine warriors thrice he slew.\nBut when the fourth time, demon-like, he rush\u2019d\nAgainst them, then, oh then, too manifest\nThe consummation of thy days approach\u2019d960\nPatroclus! whom Apollo, terror-clad\nMet then in battle. He the coming God\nThrough all that multitude knew not, such gloom\nImpenetrable him involved around.\nBehind him close he stood, and with his palms965\nExpanded on the spine and shoulders broad\nSmote him; his eyes swam dizzy at the stroke.\nThen Ph\u0153bus from his head his helmet dash\u2019d\nTo earth; sonorous at the feet it roll\u2019d\nOf many a prancing steed, and all the crest970\nDefilement gather\u2019d gross of dust and blood,\nThen first; till then, impossible; for how\nShould dust the tresses of that helmet shame\nWith which Achilles fighting fenced his head\nIllustrious, and his graceful brows divine?975\nBut Jove now made it Hector\u2019s; he awhile\nBore it, himself to swift perdition doom\u2019d\nHis spear brass-mounted, ponderous, huge and long,\nFell shiver\u2019d from his grasp. His shield that swept\nHis ancle, with its belt dropp\u2019d from his arm,980\nAnd Ph\u0153bus loosed the corselet from his breast.\nConfusion seized his brain; his noble limbs\nQuaked under him, and panic-stunn\u2019d he stood.\nThen came a Dardan Chief, who from behind\nEnforced a pointed lance into his back985\nBetween the shoulders; Panthus\u2019 son was he,\nEuphorbus, famous for equestrian skill,\nFor spearmanship, and in the rapid race\nPast all of equal age. He twenty men\n(Although a learner yet of martial feats,990\nAnd by his steeds then first to battle borne)\nDismounted. He, Patroclus, mighty Chief!\nFirst threw a lance at thee, which yet life\nQuell\u2019d not; then snatching hasty from the wound\nHis ashen beam, he ran into the crowd,995\nNor dared confront in fight even the unarm\u2019d\nPatroclus. But Patroclus, by the lance,\nAnd by the stroke of an immortal hand\nSubdued, fell back toward his ranks again.\nThen, soon as Hector the retreat perceived1000\nOf brave Patroclus wounded, issuing forth\nFrom his own phalanx, he approach\u2019d and drove\nA spear right through his body at the waist.\nSounding he fell. Loud groan\u2019d Achaia\u2019s host.\nAs when the lion and the sturdy boar1005\nContend in battle on the mountain-tops\nFor some scant rivulet, thirst-parch\u2019d alike,\nEre long the lion quells the panting boar;\nSo Priameian Hector, spear in hand,\nSlew Men\u0153tiades the valiant slayer1010\nOf multitudes, and thus in accents wing\u2019d,\nWith fierce delight exulted in his fall.\n\n  It was thy thought, Patroclus, to have laid\nOur city waste, and to have wafted hence\nOur wives and daughters to thy native land,1015\nTheir day of liberty for ever set.\nFool! for their sakes the feet of Hector\u2019s steeds\nFly into battle, and myself excel,\nFor their sakes, all our bravest of the spear,\nThat I may turn from them that evil hour1020\nNecessitous. But thou art vulture\u2019s food,\nUnhappy youth! all valiant as he is,\nAchilles hath no succor given to thee,\nWho when he sent the forth whither himself\nWould not, thus doubtless gave thee oft in charge:1025\nAh, well beware, Patroclus, glorious Chief!\nThat thou revisit not these ships again,\nTill first on hero-slaughterer Hector\u2019s breast\nThou cleave his bloody corselet. So he spake,\nAnd with vain words thee credulous beguiled.1030\n  To whom Patroclus, mighty Chief, with breath\nDrawn faintly, and dying, thou didst thus reply.\nNow, Hector, boast! now glory! for the son\nOf Saturn and Apollo, me with ease\nVanquishing, whom they had themselves disarm\u2019d,1035\nHave made the victory thine; else, twenty such\nAs thou, had fallen by my victorious spear.\nMe Ph\u0153bus and my ruthless fate combined\nTo slay; these foremost; but of mortal men\nEuphorbus, and thy praise is only third.1040\nI tell thee also, and within thy heart\nRepose it deep\u2014thou shalt not long survive;\nBut, even now, fate, and a violent death\nAttend thee by Achilles\u2019 hands ordain\u2019d\nTo perish, by \u00c6acides the brave.[21]1045\n  So saying, the shades of death him wrapp\u2019d around.\nDown into Ades from his limbs dismiss\u2019d,\nHis spirit fled sorrowful, of youth\u2019s prime\nAnd vigorous manhood suddenly bereft\nThen, him though dead, Hector again bespake.1050\n  Patroclus! these prophetic strains of death\nAt hand, and fate, why hast thou sung to me?\nMay not the son of Thetis azure-hair\u2019d,\nAchilles, perish first by spear of mine?\n  He said; then pressing with his heel the trunk1055\nSupine, and backward thursting it, he drew\nHis glittering weapon from the wound, nor stay\u2019d,\nBut lance in hand, the godlike charioteer\nPursued of swift \u00c6acides, on fire\nTo smite Automedon; but him the steeds1060\nImmortal, rapid, by the Gods conferr\u2019d\n(A glorious gift) on Peleus, snatch\u2019d away.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK XVII.\n\n\nARGUMENT OF THE SEVENTEENTH BOOK.\n\nSharp contest ensues around the body of Patroclus. Hector puts on the\narmor of Achilles. Menelaus, having dispatched Antilochus to Achilles\nwith news of the death of Patroclus, returns to the battle, and,\ntogether with Meriones, bears Patroclus off the field, while the Ajaces\ncover their retreat.\n\n\nBOOK XVII.\n\n\nNor Menelaus, Atreus\u2019 valiant son,\nKnew not how Men\u0153tiades had fallen\nBy Trojan hands in battle; forth he rush\u2019d\nAll bright in burnish\u2019d armor through his van,\nAnd as some heifer with maternal fears5\nNow first acquainted, compasses around\nHer young one murmuring, with tender moan,\nSo moved the hero of the amber locks\nAround Patroclus, before whom his spear\nAdvancing and broad shield, he death denounced10\nOn all opposers; neither stood the son\nSpear-famed of Panthus inattentive long\nTo slain Patroclus, but approach\u2019d the dead,\nAnd warlike Menelaus thus bespake.\n  Prince! Menelaus! Atreus\u2019 mighty son!15\nYield. Leave the body and these gory spoils;\nFor of the Trojans or allies of Troy\nNone sooner made Patroclus bleed than I.\nSeek not to rob me, therefore, of my praise\nAmong the Trojans, lest my spear assail20\nThee also, and thou perish premature.[1]\n  To whom, indignant, Atreus\u2019 son replied.\nSelf-praise, the Gods do know, is little worth.\nBut neither lion may in pride compare\nNor panther, nor the savage boar whose heart\u2019s25\nHigh temper flashes in his eyes, with these\nThe spear accomplish\u2019d youths of Panthus\u2019 house.\nYet Hyperenor of equestrian fame\nLived not his lusty manhood to enjoy,\nWho scoffingly defied my force in arms,30\nAnd call\u2019d me most contemptible in fight\nOf all the Dana\u00ef. But him, I ween,\nHis feet bore never hence to cheer at home\nHis wife and parents with his glad return.\nSo also shall thy courage fierce be tamed,35\nIf thou oppose me. I command thee, go\u2014\nMix with the multitude; withstand not me,\nLest evil overtake thee! To be taught\nBy sufferings only, is the part of fools.\n  He said, but him sway\u2019d not, who thus replied.40\nNow, even now, Atrides! thou shalt rue\nMy brother\u2019s blood which thou hast shed, and mak\u2019st\nHis death thy boast. Thou hast his blooming bride\nWidow\u2019d, and thou hast fill\u2019d his parents\u2019 hearts\nWith anguish of unutterable wo;45\nBut bearing hence thy armor and thy head\nTo Troy, and casting them at Panthus\u2019 feet,\nAnd at the feet of Phrontis, his espoused,\nI shall console the miserable pair.\nNor will I leave that service unessay\u2019d50\nLonger, nor will I fail through want of force,\nOf courage, or of terrible address.\n  He ceased, and smote his shield, nor pierced the disk,\nBut bent his point against the stubborn brass.\nThen Menelaus, prayer preferring first55\nTo Jove,[2] assail\u2019d Euphorbus in his turn,\nWhom pacing backward in the throat he struck,\nAnd both hands and his full force the spear\nImpelled, urged it through his neck behind.\nSounding he fell; loud rang his batter\u2019d arms.60\nHis locks, which even the Graces might have own\u2019d,\nBlood-sullied, and his ringlets wound about\nWith twine of gold and silver, swept the dust.\nAs the luxuriant olive by a swain\nRear\u2019d in some solitude where rills abound,65\nPuts forth her buds, and fann\u2019d by genial airs\nOn all sides, hangs her boughs with whitest flowers,\nBut by a sudden whirlwind from its trench\nUptorn, it lies extended on the field;\nSuch, Panthus\u2019 warlike son Euphorbus seem\u2019d,70\nBy Menelaus, son of Atreus, slain\nSuddenly, and of all his arms despoil\u2019d.\nBut as the lion on the mountains bred,\nGlorious in strength, when he hath seized the best\nAnd fairest of the herd, with savage fangs75\nFirst breaks her neck, then laps the bloody paunch\nTorn wide; meantime, around him, but remote,\nDogs stand and swains clamoring, yet by fear\nRepress\u2019d, annoy him not nor dare approach;\nSo there all wanted courage to oppose80\nThe force of Menelaus, glorious Chief.\nThen, easily had Menelaus borne\nThe armor of the son of Panthus thence,\nBut that Apollo the illustrious prize\nDenied him, who in semblance of the Chief85\nOf the Ciconians, Mentes, prompted forth\nAgainst him Hector terrible as Mars,\nWhose spirit thus in accents wing\u2019d he roused.\n  Hector! the chase is vain; here thou pursuest\nThe horses of \u00c6acides the brave,90\nWhich thou shalt never win, for they are steeds\nOf fiery nature, such as ill endure\nTo draw or carry mortal man, himself\nExcept, whom an immortal mother bore.\nMeantime, bold Menelaus, in defence95\nOf dead Patroclus, hath a Trojan slain\nOf highest note, Euphorbus, Panthus\u2019 son,\nAnd hath his might in arms for ever quell\u2019d.\n  So spake the God and to the fight return\u2019d.\nBut grief intolerable at that word100\nSeized Hector; darting through the ranks his eye,\nHe knew at once who stripp\u2019d Euphorbus\u2019 arms,\nAnd him knew also lying on the field,\nAnd from his wide wound bleeding copious still.\nThen dazzling bright in arms, through all the van105\nHe flew, shrill-shouting, fierce as Vulcan\u2019s fire\nUnquenchable; nor were his shouts unheard\nBy Atreus\u2019 son, who with his noble mind\nConferring sad, thus to himself began.\n  Alas! if I forsake these gorgeous spoils,110\nAnd leave Patroclus for my glory slain,\nI fear lest the Achaians at that sight\nIncensed, reproach me; and if, urged by shame,\nI fight with Hector and his host, alone,\nLest, hemm\u2019d around by multitudes, I fall;115\nFor Hector, by his whole embattled force\nAttended, comes. But whither tend my thoughts?\nNo man may combat with another fenced\nBy power divine and whom the Gods exalt,\nBut he must draw down wo on his own head.120\nMe, therefore, none of all Achaia\u2019s host\nWill blame indignant, seeing my retreat\nFrom Hector, whom themselves the Gods assist.\nBut might the battle-shout of Ajax once\nReach me, with force united we would strive,125\nEven in opposition to a God,\nTo rescue for Achilles\u2019 sake, his friend.\nTask arduous! but less arduous than this.\n  While he thus meditated, swift advanced\nThe Trojan ranks, with Hector at their head.130\nHe then, retiring slow, and turning oft,\nForsook the body. As by dogs and swains\nWith clamors loud and spears driven from the stalls\nA bearded lion goes, his noble heart\nAbhors retreat, and slow he quits the prey;135\nSo Menelaus with slow steps forsook\nPatroclus, and arrived in front, at length,\nOf his own phalanx, stood, with sharpen\u2019d eyes\nSeeking vast Ajax, son of Telamon.\nHim leftward, soon, of all the field he mark\u2019d140\nEncouraging aloud his band, whose hearts\nWith terrors irresistible himself\nPh\u0153bus had fill\u2019d. He ran, and at his side\nStanding, incontinent him thus bespake.\n  My gallant Ajax, haste\u2014come quickly\u2014strive145\nWith me to rescue for Achilles\u2019 sake\nHis friend, though bare, for Hector hath his arms.\n  He said, and by his words the noble mind\nOf Ajax roused; issuing through the van\nHe went, and Menelaus at his side.150\nHector the body of Patroclus dragg\u2019d,\nStript of his arms, with falchion keen erelong\nPurposing to strike off his head, and cast\nHis trunk, drawn distant, to the dogs of Troy.\nBut Ajax, with broad shield tower-like, approach\u2019d.155\nThen Hector, to his bands retreating, sprang\nInto his chariot, and to others gave\nThe splendid arms in charge, who into Troy\nShould bear the destined trophy of his praise,\nBut Ajax with his broad shield guarding stood160\nSlain Men\u0153tiades, as for his whelps\nThe lion stands; him through some forest drear\nLeading his little ones, the hunters meet;\nFire glimmers in his looks, and down he draws\nHis whole brow into frowns, covering his eyes;165\nSo, guarding slain Patroclus, Ajax lour\u2019d.\nOn the other side, with tender grief oppress\u2019d\nUnspeakable, brave Menelaus stood.\nBut Glaucus, leader of the Lycian band,\nSon of Hippolochus, in bitter terms170\nIndignant, reprimanded Hector thus,\n  Ah, Hector, Chieftain of excelling form,\nBut all unfurnish\u2019d with a warrior\u2019s heart!\nUnwarranted I deem thy great renown\nWho art to flight addicted. Think, henceforth,175\nHow ye shall save city and citadel\nThou and thy people born in Troy, alone.\nNo Lycian shall, at least, in your defence\nFight with the Grecians, for our ceaseless toil\nIn arms, hath ever been a thankless task.180\nInglorious Chief! how wilt thou save a worse\nFrom warring crowds, who hast Sarpedon left\nThy guest, thy friend, to be a spoil, a prey\nTo yonder Argives? While he lived he much\nThee and thy city profited, whom dead185\nThou fear\u2019st to rescue even from the dogs.\nNow, therefore, may but my advice prevail,\nBack to your country, Lycians! so, at once,\nShall remediless ruin fall on Troy.\nFor had the Trojans now a daring heart190\nIntrepid, such as in the breast resides\nOf laborers in their country\u2019s dear behalf,\nWe soon should drag Patroclus into Troy;\nAnd were his body, from the battle drawn,\nIn Priam\u2019s royal city once secured,195\nAs soon, the Argives would in ransom give\nSarpedon\u2019s body with his splendid arms\nTo be conducted safe into the town.\nFor when Patroclus fell, the friend was slain\nOf such a Chief as is not in the fleet200\nFor valor, and his bands are dauntless all.\nBut thou, at the first glimpse of Ajax\u2019 eye\nConfounded, hast not dared in arms to face\nThat warrior bold, superior far to thee.\n  To whom brave Hector, frowning stern, replied,205\nWhy, Glaucus! should a Chief like thee his tongue\nPresume to employ thus haughtily? My friend!\nI thee accounted wisest, once, of all\nWho dwell in fruitful Lycia, but thy speech\nNow utter\u2019d altogether merits blame,210\nIn which thou tell\u2019st me that I fear to stand\nAgainst vast Ajax. Know that I from fight\nShrink not, nor yet from sound of prancing steeds;\nBut Jove\u2019s high purpose evermore prevails\nAgainst the thoughts of man; he turns to flight215\nThe bravest, and the victory takes with ease\nEven from those whom once he favor\u2019d most.\nBut hither, friend! stand with me; mark my deed;\nProve me, if I be found, as thou hast said,\nAn idler all the day, or if by force220\nI not compel some Grecian to renounce\nPatroclus, even the boldest of them all.\n  He ceased, and to his host exclaim\u2019d aloud.\nTrojans, and Lycians, and close-fighting sons\nOf Dardanus, oh be ye men, my friends!225\nNow summon all your fortitude, while I\nPut on the armor of Achilles, won\nFrom the renown\u2019d Patroclus slain by me.\n  So saying, illustrious Hector from the clash\nOf spears withdrew, and with his swiftest pace230\nDeparting, overtook, not far remote,\nThe bearers of Achilles\u2019 arms to Troy.\nApart from all the horrors of the field\nStanding, he changed his armor; gave his own\nTo be by them to sacred Ilium borne,235\nAnd the immortal arms of Peleus\u2019 son\nAchilles, by the ever-living Gods\nTo Pele\u00fcs given, put on. Those arms the Sire,\nNow old himself, had on his son conferr\u2019d\nBut in those arms his son grew never old.240\n  Him, therefore, soon as cloud-assembler Jove\nSaw glittering in divine Achilles\u2019 arms,\nContemplative he shook his brows, and said,\n  Ah hapless Chief! thy death, although at hand,\nNought troubles thee. Thou wear\u2019st his heavenly245\nWho all excels, terror of Ilium\u2019s host.\nHis friend, though bold yet gentle, thou hast slain\nAnd hast the brows and bosom of the dead\nUnseemly bared: yet, bright success awhile\nI give thee; so compensating thy lot,250\nFrom whom Andromache shall ne\u2019er receive\nThose glorious arms, for thou shalt ne\u2019er return.\n  So spake the Thunderer, and his sable brows\nShaking, confirm\u2019d the word. But Hector found\nThe armor apt; the God of war his soul255\nWith fury fill\u2019d, he felt his limbs afresh\nInvigorated, and with loudest shouts\nReturn\u2019d to his illustrious allies.\nTo them he seem\u2019d, clad in those radiant arms,\nHimself Achilles; rank by rank he pass\u2019d260\nThrough all the host, exhorting every Chief,\nAsterop\u00e6us, Mesthles, Phorcys, Medon,\nThersilochus, Deisenor, augur Ennomus,\nChromius, Hippotho\u00fcs; all these he roused\nTo battle, and in accents wing\u2019d began.265\n  Hear me, ye myriads, neighbors and allies!\nFor not through fond desire to fill the plain\nWith multitudes, have I convened you here\nEach from his city, but that well-inclined\nTo Ilium, ye might help to guard our wives270\nAnd little ones against the host of Greece.\nTherefore it is that forage large and gifts\nProviding for you, I exhaust the stores\nOf Troy, and drain our people for your sake.\nTurn then direct against them, and his life275\nSave each, or lose; it is the course of war.\nHim who shall drag, though dead, Patroclus home\nInto the host of Troy, and shall repulse\nAjax, I will reward with half the spoils\nAnd half shall be my own; glory and praise280\nShall also be his meed, equal to mine.\n  He ended; they compact with lifted spears\nBore on the Dana\u00ef, conceiving each\nWarm expectation in his heart to wrest\nFrom Ajax son of Telamon, the dead.285\nVain hope! he many a lifeless Trojan heap\u2019d\nOn slain Patroclus, but at length his speech\nTo warlike Menelaus thus address\u2019d.\n  Ah, Menelaus, valiant friend! I hope\nNo longer, now, that even we shall \u2019scape290\nOurselves from fight; nor fear I so the loss\nOf dead Patroclus, who shall soon the dogs\nOf Ilium, and the fowls sate with his flesh,\nAs for my life I tremble and for thine,\nThat cloud of battle, Hector, such a gloom295\nSheds all around; death manifest impends.\nHaste\u2014call our best, if even they can hear.\n  He spake, nor Menelaus not complied,\nBut call\u2019d aloud on all the Chiefs of Greece.\n  Friends, senators, and leaders of the powers300\nOf Argos! who with Agamemnon drink\nAnd Menelaus at the public feast,\nEach bearing rule o\u2019er many, by the will\nOf Jove advanced to honor and renown!\nThe task were difficult to single out305\nChief after Chief by name amid the blaze\nOf such contention; but oh, come yourselves\nIndignant forth, nor let the dogs of Troy\nPatroclus rend, and gambol with his bones!\n  He ceased, whom O\u00efliades the swift310\nHearing incontinent, of all the Chiefs\nRan foremost, after whom Idomeneus\nApproach\u2019d, and dread as homicidal Mars\nMeriones. But never mind of man\nCould even in silent recollection name315\nThe whole vast multitude who, following these\nRenew\u2019d the battle on the part of Greece.\nThe Trojans first, with Hector at their head,\nWedged in close phalanx, rush\u2019d to the assault\n  As when within some rapid river\u2019s mouth320\nThe billows and stream clash, on either shore[3]\nLoud sounds the roar[3] of waves ejected wide,\nSuch seem\u2019d the clamors of the Trojan host.\nBut the Achaians, one in heart, around\nPatroclus stood, bulwark\u2019d with shields of brass325\nAnd over all their glittering helmets Jove\nDarkness diffused, for he had loved Patroclus\nWhile yet he lived friend of \u00c6acides,\nAnd now, abhorring that the dogs of Troy\nShould eat him, urged the Greeks to his defence,330\nThe host of Troy first shook the Grecian host;\nThe body left, they fled; yet of them all,\nThe Trojan powers, determined as they were,\nSlew none, but dragg\u2019d the body. Neither stood\nThe Greeks long time aloof, soon as repulsed335\nAgain led on by Ajax, who in form\nAnd in exploits all others far excell\u2019d.\nPeerless \u00c6acides alone except.\nRight through the foremost combatants he rush\u2019d,\nIn force resembling most some savage boar340\nThat in the mountains bursting through the brakes,\nThe swains disperses and their hounds with ease;\nLike him, illustrious Ajax, mighty son\nOf Telamon, at his assault dispersed\nWith ease the close imbattled ranks who fought345\nAround Patroclus\u2019 body, strong in hope\nTo achieve it, and to make the glory theirs.\nHippotho\u00fcs, a youth of high renown,\nSon of Pelasgian Lethus, by a noose\nAround his ancle cast dragg\u2019d through the fight350\nPatroclus, so to gratify the host\nOf Ilium and their Chief; but evil him\nReached suddenly, by none of all his friends\n(Though numerous wish\u2019d to save him) turn\u2019d aside.\nFor swift advancing on him through the crowd355\nThe son of Telamon pierced, spear in hand,\nHis helmet brazen-cheek\u2019d; the crested casque,\nSo smitten, open\u2019d wide, for huge the hand\nAnd ponderous was the spear that gave the blow\nAnd all around its neck, mingled with blood360\nGush\u2019d forth the brain. There, lifeless, down he sank,\nLet fall the hero\u2019s foot, and fell himself\nProne on the dead, never to see again?\nDeep-soil\u2019d Larissa, never to require\nTheir kind solicitudes who gave him birth,365\nIn bloom of life by dauntless Ajax slain.\nThen Hector hurl\u2019d at Ajax his bright spear,\nBut he, forewarn\u2019d of its approach, escaped\nNarrowly, and it pierced Schedius instead,\nBrave son of Iphitus; he, noblest Chief370\nOf the Phocensians, over many reign\u2019d,\nDwelling in Panopeus the far-renown\u2019d.\nEntering beneath the clavicle[4] the point\nRight through his shoulder\u2019s summit pass\u2019d behind,\nAnd on his loud-resounding arms he fell.375\nBut Ajax at his waist wounded the son\nOf Ph\u0153nops, valiant Phorcys, while he stood\nGuarding Hippoth\u00f6us; through his hollow mail\nEnforced the weapon drank his inmost life,\nAnd in his palm, supine, he clench\u2019d the dust.380\nThen, Hector with the foremost Chiefs of Troy\nFell back; the Argives sent a shout to heaven,\nAnd dragging Phorcys and Hippoth\u00f6us thence\nStripp\u2019d both. In that bright moment Ilium\u2019s host\nFear-quell\u2019d before Achaia\u2019s warlike sons385\nHad Troy re-enter\u2019d, and the host of Greece\nBy matchless might and fortitude their own\nHad snatch\u2019d a victory from the grasp of fate,\nBut that, himself, the King of radiant shafts\n\u00c6neas roused; Epytis\u2019 son he seem\u2019d390\nPeriphas, ancient in the service grown\nOf old Anchises whom he dearly loved;\nHis form assumed, Apollo thus began.\n  How could ye save, \u00c6neas, were the Gods\nYour enemies, the towers of lofty Troy?395\nAs I have others seen, warriors who would,\nMen fill\u2019d with might and valor, firm themselves\nAnd Chiefs of multitudes disdaining fear.\nBut Jove to us the victory far more\nThan to the Grecians wills; therefore the fault400\nIs yours, who tremble and refuse the fight.\n  He ended, whom \u00c6neas marking, knew\nAt once the glorious Archer of the skies,\nAnd thus to distant Hector call\u2019d aloud.\n  Oh, Hector, and ye other Chiefs of Troy405\nAnd of her brave confederates! Shame it were\nShould we re-enter Ilium, driven to flight\nBy dastard fear before the host of Greece.\nA God assured me even now, that Jove,\nSupreme in battle, gives his aid to Troy.410\nRush, therefore, on the Dana\u00ef direct,\nNor let them, safe at least and unannoy\u2019d,\nBear hence Patroclus\u2019 body to the fleet.\n  He spake, and starting far into the van\nStood foremost forth; they, wheeling, faced the Greeks.415\nThen, spear in hand, \u00c6neas smote the friend\nOf Lycomedes, brave Leocritus,\nSon of Arisbas. Lycomedes saw\nCompassionate his death, and drawing nigh\nFirst stood, then hurling his resplendent lance,420\nRight through the liver Apisaon pierced\nOffspring of Hippasus, his chest beneath,\nAnd, lifeless, instant, on the field he fell.\nHe from P\u00e6onia the deep soil\u2019d to Troy\nCame forth, Asterop\u00e6us sole except,425\nBravest of all P\u00e6onia\u2019s band in arms.\nAsterop\u00e6us saw, and to the van\nSprang forth for furious combat well prepared,\nBut room for fight found none, so thick a fence\nOf shields and ported spears fronted secure430\nThe phalanx guarding Men\u0153tiades.\nFor Ajax ranging all the ranks, aloud\nAdmonish\u2019d them that no man yielding ground\nShould leave Patroclus, or advance before\nThe rest, but all alike fight and stand fast.435\nSuch order gave huge Ajax; purple gore\nDrench\u2019d all the ground; in slaughter\u2019d heaps they fell\nTrojans and Trojan aids of dauntless hearts\nAnd Grecians; for not even they the fight\nWaged bloodless, though with far less cost of blood,440\nEach mindful to avert his fellow\u2019s fate.\n  Thus burn\u2019d the battle; neither hadst thou deem\u2019d\nThe sun himself in heaven unquench\u2019d, or moon,\nBeneath a cope so dense of darkness strove\nUnceasing all the most renown\u2019d in arms445\nFor Men\u0153tiades. Meantime the war,\nWherever else, the bright-arm\u2019d Grecians waged\nAnd Trojans under skies serene. The sun\nOn them his radiance darted; not a cloud,\nFrom mountain or from vale rising, allay\u2019d450\nHis fervor; there at distance due they fought\nAnd paused by turns, and shunn\u2019d the cruel dart.\nBut in the middle field not war alone\nThey suffer\u2019d, but night also; ruthless raged\nThe iron storm, and all the mightiest bled.455\nTwo glorious Chiefs, the while, Antilochus\nAnd Thrasymedes, had no tidings heard\nOf brave Patroclus slain, but deem\u2019d him still\nLiving, and troubling still the host of Troy;\nFor watchful[5] only to prevent the flight460\nOr slaughter of their fellow-warriors, they\nMaintain\u2019d a distant station, so enjoin\u2019d\nBy Nestor when he sent them to the field.\nBut fiery conflict arduous employ\u2019d\nThe rest all day continual; knees and legs,465\nFeet, hands, and eyes of those who fought to guard\nThe valiant friend of swift \u00c6acides\nSweat gather\u2019d foul and dust. As when a man\nA huge ox-hide drunken with slippery lard\nGives to be stretch\u2019d, his servants all around470\nDisposed, just intervals between, the task\nPly strenuous, and while many straining hard\nExtend it equal on all sides, it sweats\nThe moisture out, and drinks the unction in,[6]\nSo they, in narrow space struggling, the dead475\nDragg\u2019d every way, warm hope conceiving, these\nTo drag him thence to Troy, those, to the ships.\nWild tumult raged around him; neither Mars,\nGatherer of hosts to battle, nor herself\nPallas, however angry, had beheld480\nThat conflict with disdain, Jove to such length\nProtracted on that day the bloody toil\nOf steeds and men for Men\u0153tiades.\nNor knew divine Achilles or had aught\nHeard of Patroclus slain, for from the ships485\nRemote they fought, beneath the walls of Troy.\nHe, therefore, fear\u2019d not for his death, but hope\nIndulged much rather, that, the battle push\u2019d\nTo Ilium\u2019s gates, he should return alive.\nFor that his friend, unaided by himself490\nOr ever aided, should prevail to lay\nTroy waste, he nought supposed; by Thetis warn\u2019d\nIn secret conference oft, he better knew\nJove\u2019s purpose; yet not even she had borne\nThose dreadful tidings to his ear, the loss495\nImmeasurable of his dearest friend.\n  They all around the dead fought spear in hand\nWith mutual slaughter ceaseless, and amid\nAchaia\u2019s host thus spake a Chief mail-arm\u2019d.\n  Shame were it, Grecians! should we seek by flight500\nOur galleys now; yawn earth our feet beneath\nAnd here ingulf us rather! Better far\nThan to permit the steed-famed host of Troy\nTo drag Patroclus hence into the town,\nAnd make the glory of this conflict theirs.505\n  Thus also of the dauntless Trojans spake\nA certain warrior. Oh, my friends! although\nThe Fates ordain us, one and all, to die\nAround this body, stand! quit not the field.\n  So spake the warrior prompting into act510\nThe courage of his friends, and such they strove\nOn both sides; high into the vault of heaven\nThe iron din pass\u2019d through the desart air.\nMeantime the horses of \u00c6acides\nFrom fight withdrawn, soon as they understood515\nTheir charioteer fallen in the dust beneath\nThe arm of homicidal Hector, wept.\nThem oft with hasty lash Diores\u2019 son\nAutomedon impatient smote, full oft\nHe stroked them gently, and as oft he chode;[7]520\nYet neither to the fleet ranged on the shore\nOf spacious Hellespont would they return,\nNor with the Grecians seek the fight, but stood\nAs a sepulchral pillar stands, unmoved\nBetween their traces;[8] to the earth they hung525\nTheir heads, with plenteous tears their driver mourn\u2019d,\nAnd mingled their dishevell\u2019d manes with dust.\nJove saw their grief with pity, and his brows\nShaking, within himself thus, pensive, said.\n  Ah hapless pair! Wherefore by gift divine530\nWere ye to Peleus given, a mortal king,\nYourselves immortal and from age exempt?\nWas it that ye might share in human woes?\nFor, of all things that breathe or creep the earth,\nNo creature lives so mere a wretch as man.535\nYet shall not Priameian Hector ride\nTriumphant, drawn by you. Myself forbid.\nSuffice it that he boasts vain-gloriously\nThose arms his own. Your spirit and your limbs\nI will invigorate, that ye may bear540\nSafe hence Automedon into the fleet.\nFor I ordain the Trojans still to spread\nCarnage around victorious, till they reach\nThe gallant barks, and till the sun at length\nDescending, sacred darkness cover all.545\n  He said, and with new might the steeds inspired.\nThey, shaking from their hair profuse the dust,\nBetween the van of either army whirl\u2019d\nThe rapid chariot. Fighting as he pass\u2019d,\nThough fill\u2019d with sorrow for his slaughter\u2019d friend,550\nAutomedon high-mounted swept the field\nImpetuous as a vulture scattering geese;\nNow would he vanish, and now, turn\u2019d again,\nChase through a multitude his trembling foe;\nBut whomsoe\u2019er he follow\u2019d, none he slew,555\nNor was the task possible to a Chief\nSole in the sacred chariot, both to aim\nThe spear aright and guide the fiery steeds.\nAt length Alcimedon, his friend in arms,\nSon of Laerceus son of \u00c6mon, him560\nObserving, from behind the chariot hail\u2019d\nThe flying warrior, whom he thus bespake.\n  What power, Automedon! hath ta\u2019en away\nThy better judgment, and thy breast inspired\nWith this vain purpose to assail alone565\nThe Trojan van? Thy partner in the fight\nIs slain, and Hector on his shoulders bears,\nElate, the armor of \u00c6acides.\n  Then, answer thus Automedon return\u2019d,\nSon of Diores. Who of all our host570\nWas ever skill\u2019d, Alcimedon! as thou\nTo rule the fire of these immortal steeds,\nSave only while he lived, peer of the Gods\nIn that great art, Patroclus, now no more?\nThou, therefore, the resplendent reins receive575\nAnd scourge, while I, dismounting, wage the fight.\n  He ceased; Alcimedon without delay\nThe battle-chariot mounting, seized at once\nThe lash and reins, and from his seat down leap\u2019d\nAutomedon. Them noble Hector mark\u2019d,580\nAnd to \u00c6neas at his side began.\n  Illustrious Chief of Trojans brazen-mail\u2019d\n\u00c6neas! I have noticed yonder steeds\nOf swift Achilles rushing into fight\nConspicuous, but under sway of hands585\nUnskilful; whence arises a fair hope\nThat we might seize them, wert thou so inclined;\nFor never would those two dare to oppose\nIn battle an assault dreadful as ours.\n  He ended, nor the valiant son refused590\nOf old Anchises, but with targets firm\nOf season\u2019d hide brass-plated thrown athwart\nTheir shoulders, both advanced direct, with whom\nOf godlike form Aretus also went\nAnd Chromius. Ardent hope they all conceived595\nTo slay those Chiefs, and from the field to drive\nAchilles\u2019 lofty steeds. Vain hope! for them\nNo bloodless strife awaited with the force\nOf brave Automedon; he, prayer to Jove\nFirst offering, felt his angry soul with might600\nHeroic fill\u2019d, and thus his faithful friend\nAlcimedon, incontinent, address\u2019d.\n  Alcimedon! hold not the steeds remote\nBut breathing on my back; for I expect\nThat never Priame\u00efan Hector\u2019s rage605\nShall limit know, or pause, till, slaying us,\nHe shall himself the coursers ample-maned\nMount of Achilles, and to flight compel\nThe Argive host, or perish in the van.\n  So saying, he call\u2019d aloud on Menelaus610\nWith either Ajax. Oh, illustrious Chiefs\nOf Argos, Menelaus, and ye bold\nAjaces![9] leaving all your best to cope\nWith Ilium\u2019s powers and to protect the dead,\nFrom friends still living ward the bitter day.615\nFor hither borne, two Chiefs, bravest of all\nThe Trojans, Hector and \u00c6neas rush\nRight through the battle. The events of war\nHeaven orders; therefore even I will give\nMy spear its flight, and Jove dispose the rest!620\n  He said, and brandishing his massy spear\nDismiss\u2019d it at Aretus; full he smote\nHis ample shield, nor stay\u2019d the pointed brass,\nBut penetrating sheer the disk, his belt\nPierced also, and stood planted in his waist.625\nAs when some vigorous youth with sharpen\u2019d axe\nA pastured bullock smites behind the horns\nAnd hews the muscle through; he, at the stroke\nSprings forth and falls, so sprang Aretus forth,\nThen fell supine, and in his bowels stood630\nThe keen-edged lance still quivering till he died.\nThen Hector, in return, his radiant spear\nHurl\u2019d at Automedon, who of its flight\nForewarn\u2019d his body bowing prone, the stroke\nEluded, and the spear piercing the soil635\nBehind him, shook to its superior end,\nTill, spent by slow degrees, its fury slept.\nAnd now, with hand to hilt, for closer war\nBoth stood prepared, when through the multitude\nAdvancing at their fellow-warrior\u2019s call,640\nThe Ajaces suddenly their combat fierce\nPrevented. Awed at once by their approach\nHector retired, with whom \u00c6neas went\nAlso and godlike Chromius, leaving there\nAretus with his vitals torn, whose arms,645\nFierce as the God of war Automedon\nStripp\u2019d off, and thus exulted o\u2019er the slain.\n  My soul some portion of her grief resigns\nConsoled, although by slaughter of a worse,\nFor loss of valiant Men\u0153tiades.650\n  So saying, within his chariot he disposed\nThe gory spoils, then mounted it himself\nWith hands and feet purpled, as from a bull\nHis bloody prey, some lion newly-gorged.\n  And now around Patroclus raged again655\nDread strife deplorable! for from the skies\nDescending at the Thunderer\u2019s command\nWhose purpose now was to assist the Greeks,\nPallas enhanced the fury of the fight.\nAs when from heaven, in view of mortals, Jove660\nExhibits bright his bow, a sign ordain\u2019d\nOf war, or numbing frost which all the works\nSuspends of man and saddens all the flocks;\nSo she, all mantled with a radiant cloud\nEntering Achaia\u2019s host, fired every breast.665\nBut meeting Menelaus first, brave son\nOf Atreus, in the form and with the voice\nRobust of Ph\u0153nix, him she thus bespake.\n  Shame, Menelaus, shall to thee redound\nFor ever, and reproach, should dogs devour670\nThe faithful friend of Peleus\u2019 noble son\nUnder Troy\u2019s battlements; but stand, thyself,\nUndaunted, and encourage all the host.\n  To whom the son of Atreus bold in arms.\nAh, Ph\u0153nix, friend revered, ancient and sage!675\nWould Pallas give me might and from the dint\nShield me of dart and spear, with willing mind\nI would defend Patroclus, for his death\nHath touch\u2019d me deep. But Hector with the rage\nBurns of consuming fire, nor to his spear680\nGives pause, for him Jove leads to victory.\n  He ceased, whom Pallas, Goddess azure-eyed\nHearing, rejoiced that of the heavenly powers\nHe had invoked _her_ foremost to his aid.\nHis shoulders with new might, and limbs she fill\u2019d,685\nAnd persevering boldness to his breast\nImparted, such as prompts the fly, which oft\nFrom flesh of man repulsed, her purpose yet\nTo bite holds fast, resolved on human blood.\nHis stormy bosom with such courage fill\u2019d690\nBy Pallas, to Patroclus he approach\u2019d\nAnd hurl\u2019d, incontinent, his glittering spear.\nThere was a Trojan Chief, Podes by name,\nSon of E\u00ebtion, valorous and rich;\nOf all Troy\u2019s citizens him Hector most695\nRespected, in convivial pleasures sweet\nHis chosen companion. As he sprang to flight,\nThe hero of the golden locks his belt\nStruck with full force and sent the weapon through.\nSounding he fell, and from the Trojan ranks700\nAtrides dragg\u2019d the body to his own.\nThen drew Apollo near to Hector\u2019s side,\nAnd in the form of Ph\u0153nops, Asius\u2019 son,\nOf all the foreign guests at Hector\u2019s board\nHis favorite most, the hero thus address\u2019d.705\n  What Chief of all the Grecians shall henceforth\nFear Hector, who from Menelaus shrinks\nOnce deem\u2019d effeminate, but dragging now\nThe body of thy valiant friend approved\nWhom he hath slain, Podes, E\u00ebtion\u2019s son?710\n  He spake, and at his words grief like a cloud\nInvolved the mind of Hector dark around;\nRight through the foremost combatants he rush\u2019d\nAll clad in dazzling brass. Then, lifting high\nHis tassel\u2019d \u00c6gis radiant, Jove with storms715\nEnveloped Ida; flash\u2019d his lightnings, roar\u2019d\nHis thunders, and the mountain shook throughout.\nTroy\u2019s host he prosper\u2019d, and the Greeks dispersed.\n  First fled Peneleus, the B\u0153otian Chief,\nWhom facing firm the foe Polydamas720\nStruck on his shoulder\u2019s summit with a lance\nHurl\u2019d nigh at hand, which slight inscribed the bone.\n[10]Le\u00eftus also, son of the renown\u2019d\nAlectryon, pierced by Hector in the wrist,\nDisabled left the fight; trembling he fled725\nAnd peering narrowly around, nor hoped\nTo lift a spear against the Trojans more.\nHector, pursuing Le\u00eftus, the point\nEncounter\u2019d of the brave Idomeneus\nFull on his chest; but in his mail the lance730\nSnapp\u2019d, and the Trojans shouted to the skies.\nHe, in his turn, cast at Deucalion\u2019s son\nIdomeneus, who in that moment gain\u2019d[11]\nA chariot-seat; but him the erring spear\nAttain\u2019d not, piercing C\u0153ranus instead735\nThe friend and follower of Meriones\nFrom wealthy Lyctus, and his charioteer.\nFor when he left, that day, the gallant barks\nIdomeneus had sought the field on foot,\nAnd triumph proud, full sure, to Ilium\u2019s host740\nHad yielded now, but that with rapid haste\nC\u0153ranus drove to his relief, from him\nThe fate averting which himself incurr\u2019d\nVictim of Hector\u2019s homicidal arm.\nHim Hector smiting between ear and jaw745\nPush\u2019d from their sockets with the lance\u2019s point\nHis firm-set teeth, and sever\u2019d sheer his tongue.\nDismounted down he fell, and from his hand\nLet slide the flowing reins, which, to the earth\nStooping, Meriones in haste resumed,750\nAnd briefly thus Idomeneus address\u2019d.\n  Now drive, and cease not, to the fleet of Greece!\nThyself see\u2019st victory no longer ours.\n  He said; Idomeneus whom, now, dismay\nSeized also, with his lash plying severe755\nThe coursers ample-maned, flew to the fleet.\nNor Ajax, dauntless hero, not perceived,\nNor Menelaus, by the sway of Jove\nThe victory inclining fast to Troy,\nAnd thus the Telamonian Chief began.760\n  Ah! who can be so blind as not to see\nThe eternal Father, now, with his own hand\nAwarding glory to the Trojan host,\nWhose every spear flies, instant, to the mark\nSent forth by brave or base? Jove guides them all,765\nWhile, ineffectual, ours fall to the ground.\nBut haste, devise we of ourselves the means\nHow likeliest we may bear Patroclus hence,\nAnd gladden, safe returning, all our friends,\nWho, hither looking anxious, hope have none770\nThat we shall longer check the unconquer\u2019d force\nOf hero-slaughtering Hector, but expect\n[12]To see him soon amid the fleet of Greece.\nOh for some Grecian now to carry swift\nThe tidings to Achilles\u2019 ear, untaught,775\nAs I conjecture, yet the doleful news\nOf his Patroclus slain! but no such Greek\nMay I discern, such universal gloom\nBoth men and steeds envelops all around.\nFather of heaven and earth! deliver thou780\nAchaia\u2019s host from darkness; clear the skies;\nGive day; and (since thy sovereign will is such)\nDestruction with it\u2014but oh give us day![13]\n  He spake, whose tears Jove saw with pity moved,\nAnd chased the untimely shades; bright beam\u2019d the sun785\nAnd the whole battle was display\u2019d. Then spake\nThe hero thus to Atreus\u2019 mighty son.\n  Now noble Menelaus! looking forth,\nSee if Antilochus be yet alive,\nBrave son of Nestor, whom exhort to fly790\nWith tidings to Achilles, of the friend\nWhom most he loved, of his Patroclus slain.\n  He ceased, nor Menelaus, dauntless Chief,\nThat task refused, but went; yet neither swift\nNor willing. As a lion leaves the stalls795\nWearied himself with harassing the guard,\nWho, interdicting him his purposed prey,\nWatch all the night; he famish\u2019d, yet again\nComes furious on, but speeds not, kept aloof\nBy spears from daring hands dismissed, but more800\nBy flash of torches which, though fierce, he dreads,\nTill at the dawn, sullen he stalks away;\nSo from Patroclus Menelaus went\nHeroic Chief! reluctant; for he fear\u2019d\nLest the Achaians should resign the dead,805\nThrough consternation, to the host of Troy.\nDeparting, therefore, he admonish\u2019d oft\nMeriones and the Ajaces, thus.\n  Ye two brave leaders of the Argive host,\nAnd thou, Meriones! now recollect810\nThe gentle manners of Patroclus fallen\nHapless in battle, who by carriage mild\nWell understood, while yet he lived, to engage\nAll hearts, through prisoner now of death and fate.\n  So saying, the hero amber-hair\u2019d his steps815\nTurn\u2019d thence, the field exploring with an eye\nSharp as the eagle\u2019s, of all fowls beneath\nThe azure heavens for keenest sight renown\u2019d,\nWhom, though he soar sublime, the leveret\nBy broadest leaves conceal\u2019d \u2019scapes not, but swift820\nDescending, even her he makes his prey;\nSo, noble Menelaus! were thine eyes\nTurn\u2019d into every quarter of the host\nIn search of Nestor\u2019s son, if still he lived.\nHim, soon, encouraging his band to fight,825\nHe noticed on the left of all the field,\nAnd sudden standing at his side, began.\n  Antilochus! oh hear me, noble friend!\nAnd thou shalt learn tidings of such a deed\nAs best had never been. Thou know\u2019st, I judge,830\nAnd hast already seen, how Jove exalts\nTo victory the Trojan host, and rolls\nDistress on ours; but ah! Patroclus lies,\nOur chief Achaian, slain, whose loss the Greeks\nFills with regret. Haste, therefore, to the fleet,835\nInform Achilles; bid him haste to save,\nIf save he can, the body of his friend;\nHe can no more, for Hector hath his arms.\n  He ceased. Antilochus with horror heard\nThose tidings; mute long time he stood, his eyes840\nSwam tearful, and his voice, sonorous erst,\nFound utterance none. Yet even so distress\u2019d,\nHe not the more neglected the command\nOf Menelaus. Setting forth to run,\nHe gave his armor to his noble friend845\nLaodocus, who thither turn\u2019d his steeds,\nAnd weeping as he went, on rapid feet\nSped to Achilles with that tale of wo.\n  Nor could the noble Menelaus stay\nTo give the weary Pylian band, bereft850\nOf their beloved Antilochus, his aid,\nBut leaving them to Thrasymedes\u2019 care,\nHe flew to Men\u0153tiades again,\nAnd the Ajaces, thus, instant bespake.\n  He goes. I have dispatch\u2019d him to the fleet855\nTo seek Achilles; but his coming naught\nExpect I now, although with rage he burn\nAgainst illustrious Hector; for what fight\nCan he, unarm\u2019d, against the Trojans wage?\nDeliberating, therefore, frame we means860\nHow best to save Patroclus, and to \u2019scape\nOurselves unslain from this disastrous field.\n  Whom answer\u2019d the vast son of Telamon.\nMost noble Menelaus! good is all\nWhich thou hast spoken. Lift ye from the earth865\nThou and Meriones, at once, and bear\nThe dead Patroclus from the bloody field.\nTo cope meantime with Hector and his host\nShall be our task, who, one in name, nor less\nIn spirit one, already have the brunt870\nOf much sharp conflict, side by side, sustain\u2019d.\n  He ended; they enfolding in their arms\nThe dead, upbore him high above the ground\nWith force united; after whom the host\nOf Troy, seeing the body borne away,875\nShouted, and with impetuous onset all\nFollow\u2019d them. As the hounds, urged from behind\nBy youthful hunters, on the wounded boar\nMake fierce assault; awhile at utmost speed\nThey stretch toward him hungering, for the prey,880\nBut oft as, turning sudden, the stout brawn\nFaces them, scatter\u2019d on all sides escape;\nThe Trojans so, thick thronging in the rear,\nCeaseless with falchions and spears double-edged\nAnnoy\u2019d them sore, but oft as in retreat885\nThe dauntless heroes, the Ajaces turn\u2019d\nTo face them, deadly wan grew every cheek,\nAnd not a Trojan dared with onset rude\nMolest them more in conflict for the dead.\n  Thus they, laborious, forth from battle bore890\nPatroclus to the fleet, tempestuous war\nTheir steps attending, rapid as the flames\nWhich, kindled suddenly, some city waste;\nConsumed amid the blaze house after house\nSinks, and the wind, meantime, roars through the fire;895\nSo them a deafening tumult as they went\nPursued, of horses and of men spear-arm\u2019d.\nAnd as two mules with strength for toil endued,\nDraw through rough ways down from the distant hills\nHuge timber, beam or mast; sweating they go,900\nAnd overlabor\u2019d to faint weariness;\nSo they the body bore, while, turning oft,\nThe Ajaces check\u2019d the Trojans. As a mound\nPlanted with trees and stretch\u2019d athwart the mead\nRepels an overflow; the torrents loud905\nBaffling, it sends them far away to float\nThe level land, nor can they with the force\nOf all their waters burst a passage through;\nSo the Ajaces, constant, in the rear\nRepress\u2019d the Trojans; but the Trojans them910\nAttended still, of whom \u00c6neas most\nTroubled them, and the glorious Chief of Troy.\nThey as a cloud of starlings or of daws\nFly screaming shrill, warn\u2019d timely of the kite\nOr hawk, devourers of the smaller kinds,915\nSo they shrill-clamoring toward the fleet,\nHasted before \u00c6neas and the might\nOf Hector, nor the battle heeded more.\nMuch radiant armor round about the foss\nFell of the flying Grecians, or within920\nLay scatter\u2019d, and no pause of war they found.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK XVIII.\n\n\nARGUMENT OF THE EIGHTEENTH BOOK.\n\nAchilles, by command of Juno, shows himself to the Trojans, who fly at\nhis appearance; Vulcan, at the insistence of Thetis, forges for him a\nsuit of armor.\n\n\nBOOK XVIII.\n\n\nThus burn\u2019d the battle like devouring fire.\nMeantime, Antilochus with rapid steps\nCame to Achilles. Him he found before\nHis lofty barks, occupied, as he stood,\nWith boding fears of all that had befall\u2019n.5\nHe groan\u2019d, and to his noble self he said.\n  Ah! wo is me\u2014why falls Achaia\u2019s host,\nWith such disorder foul, back on the fleet?\nI tremble lest the Gods my anxious thoughts\nAccomplish and my mother\u2019s words, who erst10\nHath warn\u2019d me, that the bravest and the best\nOf all my Myrmidons, while yet I live,\nSlain under Troy, must view the sun no more.\nBrave Men\u0153tiades is, doubtless, slain.\nUnhappy friend! I bade thee oft, our barks15\nDeliver\u2019d once from hostile fires, not seek\nTo cope in arms with Hector, but return.\n  While musing thus he stood, the son approach\u2019d\nOf noble Nestor, and with tears his cheeks\nBedewing copious, his sad message told.20\n  Oh son of warlike Peleus! thou shalt hear\nTidings of deeds which best had never been.\nPatroclus is no more. The Grecians fight\nFor his bare corse, and Hector hath his arms.[1]\n\n  Then clouds of sorrow fell on Peleus\u2019 son,25\nAnd, grasping with both hands the ashes, down\nHe pour\u2019d them on his head, his graceful brows\nDishonoring, and thick the sooty shower\nDescending settled on his fragrant vest.\nThen, stretch\u2019d in ashes, at the vast extent30\nOf his whole length he lay, disordering wild\nWith his own hands, and rending off his hair.\nThe maidens, captived by himself in war\nAnd by Patroclus, shrieking from the tent\nRan forth, and hemm\u2019d the glorious Chief around.[2]35\nAll smote their bosoms, and all, fainting, fell.\nOn the other side, Antilochus the hands\nHeld of Achilles, mourning and deep groans\nUttering from his noble heart, through fear\nLest Peleus\u2019 son should perish self-destroy\u2019d.40\nLoud groan\u2019d the hero, whose loud groans within\nThe gulfs of ocean, where she sat beside\nHer ancient sire, his Goddess-mother heard,\nAnd hearing shriek\u2019d; around her at the voice\nAssembled all the Nereids of the deep45\nCymodoce, Thalia, Glauca came,\nNis\u00e6a, Spio, Thoa, and with eyes\nProtuberant beauteous Halia; came with these\nCymoth\u00f6e, and Act\u00e6a, and the nymph\nOf marshes, Limnorea, nor delay\u2019d50\nAgave, nor Amphith\u00f6e the swift,\nI\u00e6ra, Doto, Melita, nor thence\nWas absent Proto or Dynamene,\nCallianira, Doris, Panope,\nPherusa or Amphinome, or fair55\nDexamene, or Galatea praised\nFor matchless form divine; Nemertes pure\nCame also, with Apseudes crystal-bright,\nCallianassa, M\u00e6ra, Clymene,\nJaneira and Janassa, sister pair,60\nAnd Orithya and with azure locks\nLuxuriant, Amathea; nor alone\nCame these, but every ocean-nymph beside,\nThe silver cave was fill\u2019d; each smote her breast,\nAnd Thetis, loud lamenting, thus began.65\n  Ye sister Nereids, hear! that ye may all\nFrom my own lips my boundless sorrow learn.\nAh me forlorn! ah me, parent in vain\nOf an illustrious birth! who, having borne\nA noble son magnanimous, the chief70\nOf heroes, saw him like a thriving plant\nShoot vigorous under my maternal care,\nAnd sent him early in his gallant fleet\nEmbark\u2019d, to combat with the sons of Troy.\nBut him from fight return\u2019d I shall receive75\nBeneath the roof of Peleus, never more;\nAnd while he lives, and on the sun his eyes\nOpens, he mourns, nor, going, can I aught\nAssist him; yet I go, that I may see\nMy darling son, and from his lips be taught80\nWhat grief hath now befallen him, who close\nAbiding in his tent shares not the war.\nSo saying she left the cave, whom all her nymphs\nAttended weeping, and where\u2019er they pass\u2019d\nThe breaking billows open\u2019d wide a way.85\nAt fruitful Troy arrived, in order fair\nThey climb\u2019d the beach, where by his numerous barks\nEncompass\u2019d, swift Achilles sighing lay.\nThen, drawing nigh to her afflicted son,\nThe Goddess-mother press\u2019d between her palms90\nHis temples, and in accents wing\u2019d inquired.\n  Why weeps my son? what sorrow wrings thy soul?\nSpeak, hide it not. Jove hath fulfill\u2019d the prayer\nWhich erst with lifted hands thou didst prefer,\nThat all Achaia\u2019s host, wanting thy aid,95\nMight be compell\u2019d into the fleet, and foul\nDisgrace incur, there prison\u2019d for thy sake.\n  To whom Achilles, groaning deep, replied.\nMy mother! it is true; Olympian Jove\nThat prayer fulfils; but thence, what joy to me,100\nPatroclus slain? the friend of all my friends\nWhom most I loved, dear to me as my life\u2014\nHim I have lost. Slain and despoil\u2019d he lies\nBy Hector of his glorious armor bright,\nThe wonder of all eyes, a matchless gift105\nGiven by the Gods to Peleus on that day\nWhen thee they doom\u2019d into a mortal\u2019s arms.\nOh that with these thy deathless ocean-nymphs\nDwelling content, thou hadst my father left\nTo espouse a mortal bride, so hadst thou \u2019scaped110\nPangs numberless which thou must now endure\nFor thy son\u2019s death, whom thou shalt never meet\nFrom Troy return\u2019d, in Peleus\u2019 mansion more!\nFor life I covet not, nor longer wish\nTo mix with human kind, unless my spear115\nMay find out Hector, and atonement take\nBy slaying him, for my Patroclus slain.\n  To whom, with streaming tears, Thetis replied.\nSwift comes thy destiny as thou hast said,\nFor after Hector\u2019s death thine next ensues.120\n  Then answer, thus, indignant he return\u2019d.\nDeath, seize me now! since when my friend was slain,\nMy doom was, not to succor him. He died\nFrom home remote, and wanting me to save him.\nNow, therefore, since I neither visit more125\nMy native land, nor, present here, have aught\nAvail\u2019d Patroclus or my many friends\nWhom noble Hector hath in battle slain,\nBut here I sit unprofitable grown,\nEarth\u2019s burden, though of such heroic note,130\nIf not in council foremost (for I yield\nThat prize to others) yet in feats of arms,\nSuch as none other in Achaia\u2019s host,\nMay fierce contention from among the Gods\nPerish, and from among the human race,135\nWith wrath, which sets the wisest hearts on fire;\nSweeter than dropping honey to the taste,\nBut in the bosom of mankind, a smoke![3]\nSuch was my wrath which Agamemnon roused,\nThe king of men. But since the past is fled140\nIrrevocable, howsoe\u2019er distress\u2019d,\nRenounce we now vain musings on the past,\nContent through sad necessity. I go\nIn quest of noble Hector, who hath slain\nMy loved Patroclus, and such death will take145\nAs Jove ordains me and the Powers of Heaven\nAt their own season, send it when they may.\nFor neither might the force of Hercules,\nAlthough high-favored of Saturnian Jove,\nFrom death escape, but Fate and the revenge150\nRestless of Juno vanquish\u2019d even Him.\nI also, if a destiny like his\nAwait me, shall, like him, find rest in death;\nBut glory calls me now; now will I make\nSome Trojan wife or Dardan with both hands155\nWipe her soft cheeks, and utter many a groan.\nLong time have I been absent from the field,\nAnd they shall know it. Love me as thou may\u2019st,\nYet thwart me not, for I am fixt to go.\n  Whom Thetis answer\u2019d, Goddess of the Deep.160\nThou hast well said, my son! it is no blame\nTo save from threaten\u2019d death our suffering friends.\nBut thy magnificent and dazzling arms\nAre now in Trojan hands; them Hector wears\nExulting, but ordain\u2019d not long to exult,165\nSo habited; his death is also nigh.\nBut thou with yonder warring multitudes\nMix not till thou behold me here again;\nFor with the rising sun I will return\nTo-morrow, and will bring thee glorious arms,170\nBy Vulcan forged himself, the King of fire.[4]\n  She said, and turning from her son aside,\nThe sisterhood of Ocean thus address\u2019d.\n  Plunge ye again into the briny Deep,\nAnd to the hoary Sovereign of the floods175\nReport as ye have heard. I to the heights\nOlympian haste, that I may there obtain\nFrom Vulcan, glorious artist of the skies,\nArms of excelling beauty for my son.\n  She said; they plunged into the waves again,180\nAnd silver-footed Thetis, to the heights\nOlympian soaring swiftly to obtain\nArms for renown\u2019d Achilles, disappear\u2019d.\n  Meantime, with infinite uproar the Greeks\nFrom Hector\u2019s hero-slaying arm had fled185\nHome to their galleys station\u2019d on the banks\nOf Hellespont. Nor yet Achaia\u2019s sons\nHad borne the body of Patroclus clear\nFrom flight of darts away, but still again\nThe multitude of warriors and of steeds190\nCame on, by Priameian Hector led\nRapid as fire. Thrice noble Hector seized\nHis ancles from behind, ardent to drag\nPatroclus, calling to his host the while;\nBut thrice, the two Ajaces, clothed with might,195\nShock\u2019d and repulsed him reeling. He with force\nFill\u2019d indefatigable, through his ranks\nIssuing, by turns assail\u2019d them, and by turns\nStood clamoring, yet not a step retired;\nBut as the hinds deter not from his prey200\nA tawny lion by keen hunger urged,\nSo would not both Ajaces, warriors bold,\nIntimidate and from the body drive\nHector; and he had dragg\u2019d him thence and won\nImmortal glory, but that Iris, sent205\nUnseen by Jove and by the powers of heaven,\nFrom Juno, to Achilles brought command\nThat he should show himself. Full near she drew,\nAnd in wing\u2019d accents thus the Chief address\u2019d.\n  Hero! most terrible of men, arise!210\nprotect Patroclus, for whose sake the war\nStands at the fleet of Greece. Mutual prevails\nThe slaughter, these the dead defending, those\nResolute hence to drag him to the gates\nOf wind-swept Ilium. But beyond them all215\nIllustrious Hector, obstinate is bent\nTo win him, purposing to lop his head,\nAnd to exhibit it impaled on high.\nThou then arise, nor longer on the ground\nLie stretch\u2019d inactive; let the thought with shame220\nTouch thee, of thy Patroclus made the sport\nOf Trojan dogs, whose corse, if it return\nDishonored home, brings with it thy reproach.\n  To whom Achilles matchless in the race.\nIris divine! of all the Gods, who sent thee?225\n  Then, thus, the swift ambassadress of heaven.\nBy Juno sent I come, consort of Jove.\nNor knows Saturnian Jove high-throned, himself,\nMy flight, nor any of the Immortal Powers,\nTenants of the Olympian heights snow-crown\u2019d.230\n  Her answer\u2019d then Pelides, glorious Chief.\nHow shall I seek the fight? they have my arms.\nMy mother charged me also to abstain\nFrom battle, till she bring me armor new\nWhich she hath promised me from Vulcan\u2019s hand.235\nMeantime, whose armor else might serve my need\nI know not, save perhaps alone the shield\nOf Telamonian Ajax, whom I deem\nHimself now busied in the stormy van,\nSlaying the Trojans in my friend\u2019s defence.240\n  To whom the swift-wing\u2019d messenger of heaven,\nFull well we know thine armor Hector\u2019s prize\nYet, issuing to the margin of the foss,\nShow thyself only. Panic-seized, perchance,\nThe Trojans shall from fight desist, and yield245\nTo the o\u2019ertoil\u2019d though dauntless sons of Greece\nShort respite; it is all that war allows.\n  So saying, the storm-wing\u2019d Iris disappear\u2019d.\nThen rose at once Achilles dear to Jove,\nAthwart whose shoulders broad Minerva cast250\nHer \u00c6gis fringed terrific, and his brows\nEncircled with a golden cloud that shot\nFires insupportable to sight abroad.\nAs when some island, situate afar\nOn the wide waves, invested all the day255\nBy cruel foes from their own city pour\u2019d,\nUpsends a smoke to heaven, and torches shows\nOn all her turrets at the close of eve\nWhich flash against the clouds, kindled in hope\nOf aid from neighbor maritime allies,260\nSo from Achilles\u2019 head light flash\u2019d to heaven.\nIssuing through the wall, beside the foss\nHe stood, but mix\u2019d not with Achaia\u2019s host,\nObedient to his mother\u2019s wise command.\nHe stood and shouted; Pallas also raised265\nA dreadful shout and tumult infinite\nExcited throughout all the host of Troy.\nClear as the trumpet\u2019s note when it proclaims\nA numerous host approaching to invest\nSome city close around, so clear the voice270\nRang of \u00c6acides, and tumult-toss\u2019d\nWas every soul that heard the brazen tone.\nWith swift recoil the long-maned coursers thrust\nThe chariots back, all boding wo at hand,\nAnd every charioteer astonish\u2019d saw275\nFires that fail\u2019d not, illumining the brows\nOf Peleus\u2019 son, by Pallas kindled there.\nThrice o\u2019er the trench Achilles sent his voice\nSonorous, and confusion at the sound\nThrice seized the Trojans, and their famed allies.280\nTwelve in that moment of their noblest died\nBy their own spears and chariots, and with joy\nThe Grecians from beneath a hill of darts\nDragging Patroclus, placed him on his bier.\nAround him throng\u2019d his fellow-warriors bold,285\nAll weeping, after whom Achilles went\nFast-weeping also at the doleful sight\nOf his true friend on his funereal bed\nExtended, gash\u2019d with many a mortal wound,\nWhom he had sent into the fight with steeds290\nAnd chariot, but received him thence no more.\n  And now majestic Juno sent the sun,\nUnwearied minister of light, although\nReluctant, down into the Ocean stream.[5]\nSo the sun sank, and the Achaians ceased295\nFrom the all-wasting labors of the war.\nOn the other side, the Trojans, from the fight\nRetiring, loosed their steeds, but ere they took\nThought of refreshment, in full council met.\nIt was a council at which no man sat,300\nOr dared; all stood; such terror had on all\nFallen, for that Achilles had appear\u2019d,\nAfter long pause from battle\u2019s arduous toil.\nFirst rose Polydamas the prudent son\nOf Panthus, above all the Trojans skill\u2019d305\nBoth in futurity and in the past.\nHe was the friend of Hector, and one night\nGave birth to both. In council one excell\u2019d\nAnd one still more in feats of high renown.\nThus then, admonishing them, he began.310\n  My friends! weigh well the occasion. Back to Troy\nBy my advice, nor wait the sacred morn\nHere, on the plain, from Ilium\u2019s walls remote\nSo long as yet the anger of this Chief\n\u2019Gainst noble Agamemnon burn\u2019d, so long315\nWe found the Greeks less formidable foes,\nAnd I rejoiced, myself, spending the night\nBeside their oary barks, for that I hoped\nTo seize them; but I now tremble at thought\nOf Peleus\u2019 rapid son again in arms.320\nA spirit proud as his will scorn to fight\nHere, on the plain, where Greeks and Trojans take\nTheir common share of danger and of toil,\nAnd will at once strike at your citadel,\nImpatient till he make your wives his prey.325\nHaste\u2014let us home\u2014else thus shall it befall;\nNight\u2019s balmy influence in his tent detains\nAchilles now, but rushing arm\u2019d abroad\nTo-morrow, should he find us lingering here,\nNone shall mistake him then; happy the man330\nWho soonest, then, shall \u2019scape to sacred Troy!\nThen, dogs shall make and vultures on our flesh\nPlenteous repast. Oh spare mine ears the tale!\nBut if, though troubled, ye can yet receive\nMy counsel, thus assembled we will keep335\nStrict guard to-night; meantime, her gates and towers\nWith all their mass of solid timbers, smooth\nAnd cramp\u2019d with bolts of steel, will keep the town.\nBut early on the morrow we will stand\nAll arm\u2019d on Ilium\u2019s towers. Then, if he choose,340\nHis galleys left, to compass Troy about,\nHe shall be task\u2019d enough; his lofty steeds\nShall have their fill of coursing to and fro\nBeneath, and gladly shall to camp return.\nBut waste the town he shall not, nor attempt345\nWith all the utmost valor that he boasts\nTo force a pass; dogs shall devour him first.\n  To whom brave Hector louring, and in wrath.\nPolydamas, I like not thy advice\nWho bidd\u2019st us in our city skulk, again350\nImprison\u2019d there. Are ye not yet content?\nWish ye for durance still in your own towers?\nTime was, when in all regions under heaven\nMen praised the wealth of Priam\u2019s city stored\nWith gold and brass; but all our houses now355\nStand emptied of their hidden treasures rare.\nJove in his wrath hath scatter\u2019d them; our wealth\nIs marketed, and Phrygia hath a part\nPurchased, and part M\u00e6onia\u2019s lovely land.\nBut since the son of wily Saturn old360\nHath given me glory now, and to inclose\nThe Grecians in their fleet hemm\u2019d by the sea,\nFool! taint not with such talk the public mind.\nFor not a Trojan here will thy advice\nFollow, or shall; it hath not my consent.365\nBut thus I counsel. Let us, band by band,\nThroughout the host take supper, and let each,\nGuarded against nocturnal danger, watch.\nAnd if a Trojan here be rack\u2019d in mind\nLest his possessions perish, let him cast370\nHis golden heaps into the public maw,[6]\nFar better so consumed than by the Greeks.\nThen, with the morrow\u2019s dawn, all fair array\u2019d\nIn battle, we will give them at their fleet\nSharp onset, and if Peleus\u2019 noble son375\nHave risen indeed to conflict for the ships,\nThe worse for him. I shall not for his sake\nAvoid the deep-toned battle, but will firm\nOppose his utmost. Either he shall gain\nOr I, great glory. Mars his favors deals380\nImpartial, and the slayer oft is slain.\nSo counsell\u2019d Hector, whom with shouts of praise\nThe Trojans answer\u2019d:\u2014fools, and by the power\nOf Pallas of all sober thought bereft!\nFor all applauded Hector, who had given385\nAdvice pernicious, and Polydamas,\nWhose counsel was discreet and wholesome none.\nSo then they took repast. But all night long\nThe Grecians o\u2019er Patroclus wept aloud,\nWhile, standing in the midst, Pelides led390\nThe lamentation, heaving many a groan,\nAnd on the bosom of his breathless friend\nImposing, sad, his homicidal hands.\nAs the grim lion, from whose gloomy lair\nAmong thick trees the hunter hath his whelps395\nPurloin\u2019d, too late returning mourns his loss,\nThen, up and down, the length of many a vale\nCourses, exploring fierce the robber\u2019s foot,\nIncensed as he, and with a sigh deep-drawn\nThus to his Myrmidons Achilles spake.400\n  How vain, alas! my word spoken that day\nAt random, when to soothe the hero\u2019s fears\nMen\u0153tius, then our guest, I promised him\nHis noble son at Opoeis again,\nLiving and laden with the spoils of Troy!405\nBut Jove performs not all the thoughts of man,\nFor we were both destined to tinge the soil\nOf Ilium with our blood, nor I shall see,\nMyself, my father in his mansion more\nOr Thetis, but must find my burial here.410\nYet, my Patroclus! since the earth expects\nMe next, I will not thy funereal rites\nFinish, till I shall bring both head and arms\nOf that bold Chief who slew thee, to my tent.\nI also will smite off, before thy pile,415\nThe heads of twelve illustrious sons of Troy,\nResentful of thy death. Meantime, among\nMy lofty galleys thou shalt lie, with tears\nMourn\u2019d day and night by Trojan captives fair\nAnd Dardan compassing thy bier around,420\nWhom we, at price of labor hard, ourselves\nWith massy spears toiling in battle took\nFrom many an opulent city, now no more.\n  So saying, he bade his train surround with fire\nA tripod huge, that they might quickly cleanse425\nPatroclus from all stain of clotted gore.\nThey on the blazing hearth a tripod placed\nCapacious, fill\u2019d with water its wide womb,\nAnd thrust dry wood beneath, till, fierce, the flames\nEmbraced it round, and warm\u2019d the flood within.430\nSoon as the water in the singing brass\nSimmer\u2019d, they bathed him, and with limpid oil\nAnointed; filling, next, his ruddy wounds\nWith unguent mellow\u2019d by nine circling years,\nThey stretch\u2019d him on his bed, then cover\u2019d him435\nFrom head to feet with linen texture light,\nAnd with a wide unsullied mantle, last.[7]\nAll night the Myrmidons around the swift\nAchilles stood, deploring loud his friend,\nAnd Jove his spouse and sister thus bespake.440\n  So then, Imperial Juno! not in vain\nThou hast the swift Achilles sought to rouse\nAgain to battle; the Achaians, sure,\nAre thy own children, thou hast borne them all.\n  To whom the awful Goddess ample-eyed.445\nWhat word hath pass\u2019d thy lips, Jove, most severe?\nA man, though mortal merely, and to me\nInferior in device, might have achieved\nThat labor easily. Can I who boast\nMyself the chief of Goddesses, and such450\nNot by birth only, but as thine espoused,\nWho art thyself sovereign of all the Gods,\nCan I with anger burn against the house\nOf Priam, and want means of just revenge?\n\n  Thus they in heaven their mutual conference455\nMeantime, the silver-footed Thetis reach\u2019d\nThe starr\u2019d abode eternal, brazen wall\u2019d\nOf Vulcan, by the builder lame himself\nUprear\u2019d, a wonder even in eyes divine.\nShe found him sweating, at his bellows huge460\nToiling industrious; tripods bright he form\u2019d\nTwenty at once, his palace-wall to grace\nRanged in harmonious order. Under each\nTwo golden wheels he set, on which (a sight\nMarvellous!) into council they should roll465\nSelf-moved, and to his house, self-moved, return.\nThus far the work was finish\u2019d, but not yet\nTheir ears of exquisite design affixt,\nFor them he stood fashioning, and prepared\nThe rivets. While he thus his matchless skill470\nEmploy\u2019d laborious, to his palace-gate\nThe silver-footed Thetis now advanced,\nWhom Charis, Vulcan\u2019s well-attired spouse,\nBeholding from the palace portal, flew\nTo seize the Goddess\u2019 hand, and thus inquired.475\n  Why, Thetis! worthy of all reverence\nAnd of all love, comest thou to our abode,\nUnfrequent here? But enter, and accept\nSuch welcome as to such a guest is due.\n  So saying, she introduced and to a seat480\nLed her with argent studs border\u2019d around\nAnd foot-stool\u2019d sumptuously;[8] then, calling forth\nHer spouse, the glorious artist, thus she said.\n  Haste, Vulcan! Thetis wants thee; linger not.\nTo whom the artist of the skies replied.485\n  A Goddess then, whom with much cause I love\nAnd venerate is here, who when I fell\nSaved me, what time my shameless mother sought\nTo cast me, because lame, out of all sight;\nThen had I been indeed forlorn, had not490\nEurynome the daughter of the Deep\nAnd Thetis in their laps received me fallen.\nNine years with them residing, for their use\nI form\u2019d nice trinkets, clasps, rings, pipes, and chains,\nWhile loud around our hollow cavern roar\u2019d495\nThe surge of the vast deep, nor God nor man,\nSave Thetis and Eurynome, my life\u2019s\nPreservers, knew where I was kept conceal\u2019d.\nSince, therefore, she is come, I cannot less\nThan recompense to Thetis amber-hair\u2019d500\nWith readiness the boon of life preserved.\nHaste, then, and hospitably spread the board\nFor her regale, while with my best dispatch\nI lay my bellows and my tools aside.\n  He spake, and vast in bulk and hot with toil505\nRose limping from beside his anvil-stock\nUpborne, with pain on legs tortuous and weak.\nFirst, from the forge dislodged he thrust apart\nHis bellows, and his tools collecting all\nBestow\u2019d them, careful, in a silver chest,510\nThen all around with a wet sponge he wiped\nHis visage, and his arms and brawny neck\nPurified, and his shaggy breast from smutch;\nLast, putting on his vest, he took in hand\nHis sturdy staff, and shuffled through the door.515\nBeside the King of fire two golden forms\nMajestic moved, that served him in the place\nOf handmaids; young they seem\u2019d, and seem\u2019d alive,\nNor want they intellect, or speech, or force,\nOr prompt dexterity by the Gods inspired.520\nThese his supporters were, and at his side\nAttendant diligent, while he, with gait\nUncouth, approaching Thetis where she sat\nOn a bright throne, seized fast her hand and said,\n  Why, Thetis! worthy as thou art of love525\nAnd of all reverence, hast thou arrived,\nUnfrequent here? Speak\u2014tell me thy desire,\nNor doubt my services, if thou demand\nThings possible, and possible to me.\n  Then Thetis, weeping plenteously, replied.530\nOh Vulcan! Is there on Olympius\u2019 heights\nA Goddess with such load of sorrow press\u2019d\nAs, in peculiar, Jove assigns to me?\nMe only, of all ocean-nymphs, he made\nSpouse to a man, Peleus \u00c6acides,535\nWhose bed, although reluctant and perforce,\nI yet endured to share. He now, the prey\nOf cheerless age, decrepid lies, and Jove\nStill other woes heaps on my wretched head.\nHe gave me to bring forth, gave me to rear540\nA son illustrious, valiant, and the chief\nOf heroes; he, like a luxuriant plant\nUpran[9] to manhood, while his lusty growth\nI nourish\u2019d as the husbandman his vine\nSet in a fruitful field, and being grown545\nI sent him early in his gallant fleet\nEmbark\u2019d, to combat with the sons of Troy;\nBut him from fight return\u2019d I shall receive,\nBeneath the roof of Peleus, never more,\nAnd while he lives and on the sun his eyes550\nOpens, affliction is his certain doom,\nNor aid resides or remedy in me.\nThe virgin, his own portion of the spoils,\nAllotted to him by the Grecians\u2014her\nAtrides, King of men, resumed, and grief555\nDevour\u2019d Achilles\u2019 spirit for her sake.\nMeantime, the Trojans shutting close within\nTheir camp the Grecians, have forbidden them\nAll egress, and the senators of Greece\nHave sought with splendid gifts to soothe my son.560\nHe, indisposed to rescue them himself\nFrom ruin, sent, instead, Patroclus forth,\nClad in his own resplendent armor, Chief\nOf the whole host of Myrmidons. Before\nThe Sc\u00e6an gate from morn to eve they fought,565\nAnd on that self-same day had Ilium fallen,\nBut that Apollo, to advance the fame\nOf Hector, slew Men\u0153tius\u2019 noble son\nFull-flush\u2019d with victory. Therefore at thy knees\nSuppliant I fall, imploring from thine art570\nA shield and helmet, greaves of shapely form\nWith clasps secured, and corselet for my son.\nFor those, once his, his faithful friend hath lost,\nSlain by the Trojans, and Achilles lies,\nHimself, extended mournful on the ground.575\n  Her answer\u2019d then the artist of the skies.\nCourage! Perplex not with these cares thy soul.\nI would that when his fatal hour shall come,\nI could as sure secrete him from the stroke\nOf destiny, as he shall soon have arms580\nIllustrious, such as each particular man\nOf thousands, seeing them, shall wish his own.\n  He said, and to his bellows quick repair\u2019d,\nWhich turning to the fire he bade them heave.\nFull twenty bellows working all at once595\nBreathed on the furnace, blowing easy and free\nThe managed winds, now forcible, as best\nSuited dispatch, now gentle, if the will\nOf Vulcan and his labor so required.\nImpenetrable brass, tin, silver, gold,590\nHe cast into the forge, then, settling firm\nHis ponderous anvil on the block, one hand\nWith his huge hammer fill\u2019d, one with the tongs.\n  [10]He fashion\u2019d first a shield massy and broad\nOf labor exquisite, for which he form\u2019d595\nA triple border beauteous, dazzling bright,\nAnd loop\u2019d it with a silver brace behind.\nThe shield itself with five strong folds he forged,\nAnd with devices multiform the disk\nCapacious charged, toiling with skill divine.600\n  There he described the earth, the heaven, the sea,\nThe sun that rests not, and the moon full-orb\u2019d.\nThere also, all the stars which round about\nAs with a radiant frontlet bind the skies,\nThe Pleiads and the Hyads, and the might605\nOf huge Orion, with him Ursa call\u2019d,\nKnown also by his popular name, the Wain,\nThat spins around the pole looking toward\nOrion, only star of these denied\nTo slake his beams in ocean\u2019s briny baths.610\n  Two splendid cities also there he form\u2019d\nSuch as men build. In one were to be seen\nRites matrimonial solemnized with pomp\nOf sumptuous banquets; from their chambers forth\nLeading the brides they usher\u2019d them along615\nWith torches through the streets, and sweet was heard\nThe voice around of Hymen\u00e6al song.\nHere striplings danced in circles to the sound\nOf pipe and harp, while in the portals stood\nWomen, admiring, all, the gallant show.620\nElsewhere was to be seen in council met\nThe close-throng\u2019d multitude. There strife arose.\nTwo citizens contended for a mulct\nThe price of blood. This man affirm\u2019d the fine\nAll paid,[11] haranguing vehement the crowd,625\nThat man denied that he had aught received,\nAnd to the judges each made his appeal\nEager for their award. Meantime the people,\nAs favor sway\u2019d them, clamor\u2019d loud for each.\nThe heralds quell\u2019d the tumult; reverend sat630\nOn polish\u2019d stones the elders in a ring,\nEach with a herald\u2019s sceptre in his hand,\nWhich holding they arose, and all in turn\nGave sentence. In the midst two talents lay\nOf gold, his destined recompense whose voice635\nDecisive should pronounce the best award.\nThe other city by two glittering hosts\nInvested stood, and a dispute arose\nBetween the hosts, whether to burn the town\nAnd lay all waste, or to divide the spoil.640\nMeantime, the citizens, still undismay\u2019d,\nSurrender\u2019d not the town, but taking arms\nSecretly, set the ambush in array,\nAnd on the walls their wives and children kept\nVigilant guard, with all the ancient men.645\nThey sallied; at their head Pallas and Mars\nBoth golden and in golden vests attired\nAdvanced, proportion each showing divine,\nLarge, prominent, and such as Gods beseem\u2019d.\nNot such the people, but of humbler size.650\nArriving at the spot for ambush chosen,\nA river\u2019s side, where cattle of each kind\nDrank, down they sat, all arm\u2019d in dazzling brass.\nApart from all the rest sat also down\nTwo spies, both looking for the flocks and herds.655\nSoon they appear\u2019d, and at their side were seen\nTwo shepherd swains, each playing on his pipe\nCareless, and of the danger nought apprized,\nSwift ran the spies, perceiving their approach,\nAnd intercepting suddenly the herds660\nAnd flocks of silver fleece, slew also those\nWho fed them. The besiegers, at that time\nIn council, by the sound alarm\u2019d, their steeds\nMounted, and hasted, instant, to the place;\nThen, standing on the river\u2019s brink they fought665\nAnd push\u2019d each other with the brazen lance.\nThere Discord raged, there Tumult, and the force\nOf ruthless Destiny; she now a Chief\nSeized newly wounded, and now captive held\nAnother yet unhurt, and now a third670\nDragg\u2019d breathless through the battle by his feet\nAnd all her garb was dappled thick with blood\nLike living men they traversed and they strove,\nAnd dragg\u2019d by turns the bodies of the slain.\n  He also graved on it a fallow field675\nRich, spacious, and well-till\u2019d. Plowers not few,\nThere driving to and fro their sturdy teams,\nLabor\u2019d the land; and oft as in their course\nThey came to the field\u2019s bourn, so oft a man\nMet them, who in their hands a goblet placed680\nCharged with delicious wine. They, turning, wrought\nEach his own furrow, and impatient seem\u2019d\nTo reach the border of the tilth, which black\nAppear\u2019d behind them as a glebe new-turn\u2019d,\nThough golden. Sight to be admired by all!685\n  There too he form\u2019d the likeness of a field\nCrowded with corn, in which the reapers toil\u2019d\nEach with a sharp-tooth\u2019d sickle in his hand.\nAlong the furrow here, the harvest fell\nIn frequent handfuls, there, they bound the sheaves.690\nThree binders of the sheaves their sultry task\nAll plied industrious, and behind them boys\nAttended, filling with the corn their arms\nAnd offering still their bundles to be bound.\nAmid them, staff in hand, the master stood695\nSilent exulting, while beneath an oak\nApart, his heralds busily prepared\nThe banquet, dressing a well-thriven ox\nNew slain, and the attendant maidens mix\u2019d\nLarge supper for the hinds of whitest flour.700\n  There also, laden with its fruit he form\u2019d\nA vineyard all of gold; purple he made\nThe clusters, and the vines supported stood\nBy poles of silver set in even rows.\nThe trench he color\u2019d sable, and around705\nFenced it with tin. One only path it show\u2019d\nBy which the gatherers when they stripp\u2019d the vines\nPass\u2019d and repass\u2019d. There, youths and maidens blithe\nIn frails of wicker bore the luscious fruit,\nWhile, in the midst, a boy on his shrill harp710\nHarmonious play\u2019d, still as he struck the chord\nCarolling to it with a slender voice.\nThey smote the ground together, and with song\nAnd sprightly reed came dancing on behind.[12]\n  There too a herd he fashion\u2019d of tall beeves715\nPart gold, part tin. They, lowing, from the stalls\nRush\u2019d forth to pasture by a river-side\nRapid, sonorous, fringed with whispering reeds.\nFour golden herdsmen drove the kine a-field\nBy nine swift dogs attended. Dreadful sprang720\nTwo lions forth, and of the foremost herd\nSeized fast a bull. Him bellowing they dragg\u2019d,\nWhile dogs and peasants all flew to his aid.\nThe lions tore the hide of the huge prey\nAnd lapp\u2019d his entrails and his blood. Meantime725\nThe herdsmen, troubling them in vain, their hounds\nEncouraged; but no tooth for lions\u2019 flesh\nFound they, and therefore stood aside and bark\u2019d.\n  There also, the illustrious smith divine\nAmidst a pleasant grove a pasture form\u2019d730\nSpacious, and sprinkled o\u2019er with silver sheep\nNumerous, and stalls and huts and shepherds\u2019 tents.\n  To these the glorious artist added next,\nWith various skill delineated exact,\nA labyrinth for the dance, such as of old735\nIn Crete\u2019s broad island D\u00e6dalus composed\nFor bright-hair\u2019d Ariadne.[13] There the youths\nAnd youth-alluring maidens, hand in hand,\nDanced jocund, every maiden neat-attired\nIn finest linen, and the youths in vests740\nWell-woven, glossy as the glaze of oil.\nThese all wore garlands, and bright falchions, those,\nOf burnish\u2019d gold in silver trappings hung:\u2014[14]\nThey with well-tutor\u2019d step, now nimbly ran\nThe circle, swift, as when, before his wheel745\nSeated, the potter twirls it with both hands\nFor trial of its speed,[15] now, crossing quick\nThey pass\u2019d at once into each other\u2019s place.\nOn either side spectators numerous stood\nDelighted, and two tumblers roll\u2019d themselves750\nBetween the dancers, singing as they roll\u2019d.\n  Last, with the might of ocean\u2019s boundless flood\nHe fill\u2019d the border of the wondrous shield.\n  When thus the massy shield magnificent\nHe had accomplish\u2019d, for the hero next755\nHe forged, more ardent than the blaze of fire,\nA corselet; then, a ponderous helmet bright\nWell fitted to his brows, crested with gold,\nAnd with laborious art divine adorn\u2019d.\nHe also made him greaves of molten tin.760\n  The armor finish\u2019d, bearing in his hand\nThe whole, he set it down at Thetis\u2019 feet.\nShe, like a falcon from the snowy top\nStoop\u2019d of Olympus, bearing to the earth\nThe dazzling wonder, fresh from Vulcan\u2019s hand.765\n\n\n\n\nBOOK XIX.\n\n\nARGUMENT OF THE NINETEENTH BOOK.\n\nAchilles is reconciled to Agamemnon, and clothed in new armor forged by\nVulcan, leads out the Myrmidons to battle.\n\n\nBOOK XIX.\n\n\nNow rose the morn in saffron vest attired\nFrom ocean, with new day for Gods and men,\nWhen Thetis at the fleet of Greece arrived,\nBearing that gift divine. She found her son\nAll tears, and close enfolding in his arms5\nPatroclus, while his Myrmidons around\nWept also;[1] she amid them, graceful, stood,\nAnd seizing fast his hand, him thus bespake.\n  Although our loss be great, yet, oh my son!\nLeave we Patroclus lying on the bier10\nTo which the Gods ordain\u2019d him from the first.\nReceive from Vulcan\u2019s hands these glorious arms,\nSuch as no mortal shoulders ever bore.\n  So saying, she placed the armor on the ground\nBefore him, and the whole bright treasure rang.15\nA tremor shook the Myrmidons; none dared\nLook on it, but all fled. Not so himself.\nIn him fresh vengeance kindled at the view,\nAnd, while he gazed, a splendor as of fire\nFlash\u2019d from his eyes. Delighted, in his hand20\nHe held the glorious bounty of the God,\nAnd, wondering at those strokes of art divine,\nHis eager speech thus to his mother turn\u2019d.[2]\n  The God, my mother! hath bestow\u2019d in truth\nSuch armor on me as demanded skill25\nLike his, surpassing far all power of man.\nNow, therefore, I will arm. But anxious fears\nTrouble me, lest intrusive flies, meantime,\nBreed worms within the spear-inflicted wounds\nOf Men\u0153tiades, and fill with taint30\nOf putrefaction his whole breathless form.[3]\n  But him the silver-footed Goddess fair\nThus answer\u2019d. Oh, my son! chase from thy mind\nAll such concern. I will, myself, essay\nTo drive the noisome swarms which on the slain35\nIn battle feed voracious. Should he lie\nThe year complete, his flesh shall yet be found\nUntainted, and, it may be, fragrant too.\nBut thou the heroes of Achaia\u2019s host\nConvening, in their ears thy wrath renounce40\nAgainst the King of men, then, instant, arm\nFor battle, and put on thy glorious might.\n  So saying, the Goddess raised his courage high.\nThen, through the nostrils of the dead she pour\u2019d\nAmbrosia, and the ruddy juice divine45\nOf nectar, antidotes against decay.\n  And now forth went Achilles by the side\nOf ocean, calling with a dreadful shout\nTo council all the heroes of the host.[4]\nThen, even they who in the fleet before50\nConstant abode, helmsmen and those who held\nIn stewardship the food and public stores,\nAll flock\u2019d to council, for that now at length\nAfter long abstinence from dread exploits\nOf war, Achilles had once more appear\u2019d.55\nTwo went together, halting on the spear,\n(For still they felt the anguish of their wounds)\nNoble Ulysses and brave Diomede,\nAnd took an early seat; whom follow\u2019d last\nThe King of men, by Co\u00f6n in the field60\nOf furious battle wounded with a lance.\nThe Grecians all assembled, in the midst\nUpstood the swift Achilles, and began.\n  Atrides! we had doubtless better sped\nBoth thou and I, thus doing, when at first65\nWith cruel rage we burn\u2019d, a girl the cause.\nI would that Dian\u2019s shaft had in the fleet\nSlain her that self-same day when I destroy\u2019d\nLyrnessus, and by conquest made her mine!\nThen had not many a Grecian, lifeless now,70\nClench\u2019d with his teeth the ground, victim, alas!\nOf my revenge; whence triumph hath accrued\nTo Hector and his host, while ours have cause\nFor long remembrance of our mutual strife.\nBut evils past let pass, yielding perforce75\nTo sad necessity. My wrath shall cease\nNow; I resign it; it hath burn\u2019d too long.\nThou therefore summon forth the host to fight,\nThat I may learn meeting them in the field,\nIf still the Trojans purpose at our fleet80\nTo watch us this night also. But I judge\nThat driven by my spear to rapid flight,\nThey shall escape with weary limbs[5] at least.\n  He ended, and the Grecians brazen-greaved\nRejoiced that Peleus\u2019 mighty son had cast85\nHis wrath aside. Then not into the midst\nProceeding, but at his own seat, upstood\nKing Agamemnon, and them thus bespake.\n\n  Friends! Grecian heroes! Ministers of Mars!\nArise who may to speak, he claims your ear;90\nAll interruption wrongs him, and distracts,\nHowe\u2019er expert the speaker. Who can hear\nAmid the roar of tumult, or who speak?\nThe clearest voice, best utterance, both are vain\nI shall address Achilles. Hear my speech95\nYe Argives, and with understanding mark.\nI hear not now the voice of your reproach[6]\nFirst; ye have oft condemn\u2019d me. Yet the blame\nRests not with me; Jove, Destiny, and she\nWho roams the shades, Erynnis, caused the offence.100\nShe fill\u2019d my soul with fury on that day\nIn council, when I seized Achilles\u2019 prize.\nFor what could I? All things obey the Gods.\nAte, pernicious Power, daughter of Jove,\nBy whom all suffer, challenges from all105\nReverence and fear. Delicate are her feet\nWhich scorn the ground, and over human heads\nShe glides, injurious to the race of man,\nOf two who strive, at least entangling one.\nShe injured, on a day, dread Jove himself110\nMost excellent of all in earth or heaven,\nWhen Juno, although female, him deceived,\nWhat time Alcmena should have brought to light\nIn bulwark\u2019d Thebes the force of Hercules.\nThen Jove, among the gods glorying, spake.115\n  Hear all! both Gods and Goddesses, attend!\nThat I may make my purpose known. This day\nBirth-pang-dispensing Ilithya brings\nAn hero forth to light, who, sprung from those\nThat sprang from me, his empire shall extend120\nOver all kingdoms bordering on his own.\n  To whom, designing fraud, Juno replied.\nThou wilt be found false, and this word of thine\nShall want performance. But Olympian Jove!\nSwear now the inviolable oath, that he125\nWho shall, this day, fall from between the feet\nOf woman, drawing his descent from thee,\nShall rule all kingdoms bordering on his own.\n  She said, and Jove, suspecting nought her wiles,\nThe great oath swore, to his own grief and wrong.130\nAt once from the Olympian summit flew\nJuno, and to Achaian Argos borne,\nThere sought the noble wife[7] of Sthenelus,\nOffspring of Perseus. Pregnant with a son\nSix months, she now the seventh saw at hand,135\nBut him the Goddess premature produced,\nAnd check\u2019d Alcmena\u2019s pangs already due.\nThen joyful to have so prevail\u2019d, she bore\nHerself the tidings to Saturnian Jove.\n  Lord of the candent lightnings! Sire of all!140\nI bring thee tidings. The great prince, ordain\u2019d\nTo rule the Argive race, this day is born,\nEurystheus, son of Sthenelus, the son\nOf Perseus; therefore he derives from thee,\nNor shall the throne of Argos shame his birth.145\n  She spake; then anguish stung the heart of Jove\nDeeply, and seizing by her glossy locks\nThe Goddess Ate, in his wrath he swore\nThat never to the starry skies again\nAnd the Olympian heights he would permit150\nThe universal mischief to return.\nThen, whirling her around, he cast her down\nTo earth. She, mingling with all works of men,\nCaused many a pang to Jove, who saw his son\nLaborious tasks servile, and of his birth155\nUnworthy, at Eurystheus\u2019 will enjoin\u2019d.\n  So when the hero Hector at our ships\nSlew us, I then regretted my offence\nWhich Ate first impell\u2019d me to commit.\nBut since, infatuated by the Gods160\nI err\u2019d, behold me ready to appease\nWith gifts of price immense whom I have wrong\u2019d.\nThou, then, arise to battle, and the host\nRouse also. Not a promise yesternight\nWas made thee by Ulysses in thy tent165\nOn my behalf, but shall be well perform\u2019d.\nOr if it please thee, though impatient, wait\nShort season, and my train shall bring the gifts\nEven now; that thou may\u2019st understand and know\nThat my peace-offerings are indeed sincere.170\n  To whom Achilles, swiftest of the swift.\nAtrides! Agamemnon! passing all\nIn glory! King of men! recompense just\nBy gifts to make me, or to make me none,\nThat rests with thee. But let us to the fight175\nIncontinent. It is no time to play\nThe game of rhetoric, and to waste the hours\nIn speeches. Much remains yet unperform\u2019d.\nAchilles must go forth. He must be seen\nOnce more in front of battle, wasting wide180\nWith brazen spear, the crowded ranks of Troy.\nMark him\u2014and as he fights, fight also ye.\n  To whom Ulysses ever-wise replied.\nNay\u2014urge not, valiant as thou art thyself,\nAchaia\u2019s sons up to the battlements185\nOf Ilium, by repast yet unrefresh\u2019d,\nGodlike Achilles!\u2014For when phalanx once\nShall clash with phalanx, and the Gods with rage\nBoth hosts inspire, the contest shall not then\nProve short. Bid rather the Achaians take190\nBoth food and wine, for they are strength and might.\nTo stand all day till sunset to a foe\nOpposed in battle, fasting, were a task\nMight foil the best; for though his will be prompt\nTo combat, yet the power must by degrees195\nForsake him; thirst and hunger he must feel,\nAnd his limbs failing him at every step.\nBut he who hath his vigor to the full\nFed with due nourishment, although he fight\nAll day, yet feels his courage unimpair\u2019d,200\nNor weariness perceives till all retire.\nCome then\u2014dismiss the people with command\nThat each prepare replenishment. Meantime\nLet Agamemnon, King of men, his gifts\nIn presence here of the assembled Greeks205\nProduce, that all may view them, and that thou\nMay\u2019st feel thine own heart gladden\u2019d at the sight.\nLet the King also, standing in the midst,\nSwear to thee, that he renders back the maid\nA virgin still, and strange to his embrace,210\nAnd let thy own composure prove, the while,\nThat thou art satisfied. Last, let him spread\nA princely banquet for thee in his tent,\nThat thou may\u2019st want no part of just amends.\nThou too, Atrides, shalt hereafter prove215\nMore just to others; for himself, a King,\nStoops not too low, soothing whom he hath wrong\u2019d.\n  Him Agamemnon answer\u2019d, King of men.\nThou hast arranged wisely the whole concern,\nO L\u00e4ertiades, and I have heard220\nThy speech, both words and method with delight.\nWilling I am, yea more, I wish to swear\nAs thou hast said, for by the Gods I can\nMost truly. Let Achilles, though of pause\nImpatient, suffer yet a short delay225\nWith all assembled here, till from my tent\nThe gifts arrive, and oaths of peace be sworn.\nTo thee I give it in peculiar charge\nThat choosing forth the most illustrious youths\nOf all Achaia, thou produce the gifts230\nfrom my own ship, all those which yesternight\nWe promised, nor the women leave behind.\nAnd let Talthybius throughout all the camp\nOf the Achaians, instant, seek a boar\nFor sacrifice to Jove and to the Sun.235\n  Then thus Achilles matchless in the race.\nAtrides! most illustrious! King of men!\nExpedience bids us to these cares attend\nHereafter, when some pause, perchance, of fight\nShall happen, and the martial rage which fires240\nMy bosom now, shall somewhat less be felt.\nOur friends by Priameian Hector slain,\nNow strew the field mangled, for him hath Jove\nExalted high, and given him great renown.\nBut haste, now take refreshment; though, in truth245\nMight I direct, the host should by all means\nUnfed to battle, and at set of sun\nAll sup together, this affront revenged.\nBut as for me, no drop shall pass my lips\nOr morsel, whose companion lies with feet250\nTurn\u2019d to the vestibule, pierced by the spear,\nAnd compass\u2019d by my weeping train around.\nNo want of food feel I. My wishes call\nFor carnage, blood, and agonies and groans.\n  But him, excelling in all wisdom, thus255\nUlysses answer\u2019d. Oh Achilles! son\nOf Peleus! bravest far of all our host!\nMe, in no scanty measure, thou excell\u2019st\nWielding the spear, and thee in prudence, I\nNot less. For I am elder, and have learn\u2019d260\nWhat thou hast yet to learn. Bid then thine heart\nEndure with patience to be taught by me.\nMen, satiate soon with battle, loathe the field\nOn which the most abundant harvest falls,\nReap\u2019d by the sword; and when the hand of Jove265\nDispenser of the great events of war,\nTurns once the scale, then, farewell every hope\nOf more than scanty gleanings. Shall the Greeks\nAbstain from sustenance for all who die?\nThat were indeed severe, since day by day270\nNo few expire, and respite could be none.\nThe dead, die whoso may, should be inhumed.\nThis, duty bids, but bids us also deem\nOne day sufficient for our sighs and tears.\nOurselves, all we who still survive the war,275\nHave need of sustenance, that we may bear\nThe lengthen\u2019d conflict with recruited might,\nCase in enduring brass.\u2014Ye all have heard\nYour call to battle; let none lingering stand\nIn expectation of a farther call,280\nWhich if it sound, shall thunder prove to him\nWho lurks among the ships. No. Rush we all\nTogether forth, for contest sharp prepared,\nAnd persevering with the host of Troy.\n  So saying, the sons of Nestor, glorious Chief,285\nHe chose, with Meges Phyleus\u2019 noble son,\nThoas, Meriones, and Melanippus\nAnd Lycomedes. These, together, sought\nThe tent of Agamemnon, King of men.\nThey ask\u2019d, and they received. Soon they produced290\nThe seven promised tripods from the tent,\nTwice ten bright caldrons, twelve high-mettled steeds,\nSeven lovely captives skill\u2019d alike in arts\nDomestic, of unblemish\u2019d beauty rare,\nAnd last, Bris\u00ebis with the blooming cheeks.295\nBefore them went Ulysses, bearing weigh\u2019d\nTen golden talents, whom the chosen Greeks\nAttended laden with the remnant gifts.\nFull in the midst they placed them. Then arose\nKing Agamemnon, and Talthybius300\nThe herald, clear in utterance as a God,\nBeside him stood, holding the victim boar.\nAtrides, drawing forth his dagger bright,\nAppendant ever to his sword\u2019s huge sheath,\nSever\u2019d the bristly forelock of the boar,305\nA previous offering. Next, with lifted hands\nTo Jove he pray\u2019d, while, all around, the Greeks\nSat listening silent to the Sovereign\u2019s voice.\nHe look\u2019d to the wide heaven, and thus he pray\u2019d.\n  First, Jove be witness! of all Powers above310\nBest and supreme; Earth next, and next the Sun!\nAnd last, who under Earth the guilt avenge\nOf oaths sworn falsely, let the Furies hear!\nFor no respect of amorous desire\nOr other purpose, have I laid mine hand315\nOn fair Bris\u00ebis, but within my tent\nUntouch\u2019d, immaculate she hath remain\u2019d.\nAnd if I falsely swear, then may the Gods\nThe many woes with which they mark the crime\nOf men forsworn, pour also down on me!320\n  So saying, he pierced the victim in his throat\nAnd, whirling him around, Talthybius, next,\nCast him into the ocean, fishes\u2019 food.[8]\nThen, in the centre of Achaia\u2019s sons\nUprose Achilles, and thus spake again.325\n  Jove! Father! dire calamities, effects\nOf thy appointment, fall on human-kind.\nNever had Agamemnon in my breast\nSuch anger kindled, never had he seized,\nBlinded by wrath, and torn my prize away,330\nBut that the slaughter of our numerous friends\nWhich thence ensued, thou hadst, thyself, ordained.\nNow go, ye Grecians, eat, and then to battle.\n  So saying, Achilles suddenly dissolved\nThe hasty council, and all flew dispersed335\nTo their own ships. Then took the Myrmidons\nThose splendid gifts which in the tent they lodged\nOf swift Achilles, and the damsels led\nEach to a seat, while others of his train\nDrove forth the steeds to pasture with his herd.340\nBut when Bris\u00ebis, bright as Venus, saw\nPatroclus lying mangled by the spear,\nEnfolding him around, she shriek\u2019d and tore\nHer bosom, her smooth neck and beauteous cheeks.\nThen thus, divinely fair, with tears she said.345\n  Ah, my Patroclus! dearest friend of all\nTo hapless me, departing from this tent\nI left thee living, and now, generous Chief!\nRestored to it again, here find thee dead.\nHow rapid in succession are my woes!350\nI saw, myself, the valiant prince to whom\nMy parents had betroth\u2019d me, slain before\nOur city walls; and my three brothers, sons\nOf my own mother, whom with long regret\nI mourn, fell also in that dreadful field.355\nBut when the swift Achilles slew the prince\nDesign\u2019d my spouse, and the fair city sack\u2019d\nOf noble Mynes, thou by every art\nOf tender friendship didst forbid my tears,\nPromising oft that thou would\u2019st make me bride360\nOf Peleus\u2019 godlike son, that thy own ship\nShould waft me hence to Phthia, and that thyself\nWould\u2019st furnish forth among the Myrmidons\nOur nuptial feast. Therefore thy death I mourn\nCeaseless, for thou wast ever kind to me.365\n  She spake, and all her fellow-captives heaved\nResponsive sighs, deploring each, in show,\nThe dead Patroclus, but, in truth, herself.[9]\nThen the Achaian Chiefs gather\u2019d around\nAchilles, wooing him to eat, but he370\nGroan\u2019d and still resolute, their suit refused\u2014\n  If I have here a friend on whom by prayers\nI may prevail, I pray that ye desist,\nNor longer press me, mourner as I am,\nTo eat or drink, for till the sun go down375\nI am inflexible, and _will_ abstain.\n  So saying, the other princes he dismiss\u2019d\nImpatient, but the sons of Atreus both,\nUlysses, Nestor and Idomeneus,\nWith Ph\u0153nix, hoary warrior, in his tent380\nAbiding still, with cheerful converse kind\nEssay\u2019d to soothe him, whose afflicted soul\nAll soothing scorn\u2019d till he should once again\nRush on the ravening edge of bloody war.\nThen, mindful of his friend, groaning he said385\n  Time was, unhappiest, dearest of my friends!\nWhen even thou, with diligent dispatch,\nThyself, hast spread a table in my tent,\nThe hour of battle drawing nigh between\nThe Greeks and warlike Trojans. But there lies390\nThy body now, gored by the ruthless steel,\nAnd for thy sake I neither eat nor drink,\nThough dearth be none, conscious that other wo\nSurpassing this I can have none to fear.\nNo, not if tidings of my father\u2019s death395\nShould reach me, who, this moment, weeps, perhaps,\nIn Phthia tears of tenderest regret\nFor such a son; while I, remote from home\nFight for detested Helen under Troy.\nNor even were _he_ dead, whom, if he live,400\nI rear in Scyros, my own darling son,\nMy Neoptolemus of form divine.[10]\nFor still this hope I cherish\u2019d in my breast\nTill now, that, of us two, myself alone\nShould fall at Ilium, and that thou, restored405\nTo Phthia, should\u2019st have wafted o\u2019er the waves\nMy son from Scyros to his native home,\nThat thou might\u2019st show him all his heritage,\nMy train of menials, and my fair abode.\nFor either dead already I account410\nPeleus, or doubt not that his residue\nOf miserable life shall soon be spent,\nThrough stress of age and expectation sad\nThat tidings of my death shall, next, arrive.\n  So spake Achilles weeping, around whom415\nThe Chiefs all sigh\u2019d, each with remembrance pain\u2019d\nOf some loved object left at home. Meantime\nJove, with compassion moved, their sorrow saw,\nAnd in wing\u2019d accents thus to Pallas spake.\n\n  Daughter! thou hast abandon\u2019d, as it seems,420\nYon virtuous Chief for ever; shall no care\nThy mind engage of brave Achilles more?\nBefore his gallant fleet mourning he sits\nHis friend, disconsolate; the other Greeks\nSat and are satisfied; he only fasts.425\nGo then\u2014instil nectar into his breast,\nAnd sweets ambrosial, that he hunger not.\n  So saying, he urged Minerva prompt before.\nIn form a shrill-voiced Harpy of long wing\nThrough ether down she darted, while the Greeks430\nIn all their camp for instant battle arm\u2019d.\nAmbrosial sweets and nectar she instill\u2019d\nInto his breast, lest he should suffer loss\nOf strength through abstinence, then soar\u2019d again\nTo her great Sire\u2019s unperishing abode.435\nAnd now the Grecians from their gallant fleet\nAll pour\u2019d themselves abroad. As when thick snow\nFrom Jove descends, driven by impetuous gusts\nOf the cloud-scattering North, so frequent shone\nIssuing from the fleet the dazzling casques,440\nBoss\u2019d bucklers, hauberks strong, and ashen spears.\nUpwent the flash to heaven; wide all around\nThe champain laugh\u2019d with beamy brass illumed,\nAnd tramplings of the warriors on all sides\nResounded, amidst whom Achilles arm\u2019d.445\nHe gnash\u2019d his teeth, fire glimmer\u2019d in his eyes,\nAnguish intolerable wrung his heart\nAnd fury against Troy, while he put on\nHis glorious arms, the labor of a God.\nFirst, to his legs his polish\u2019d greaves he clasp\u2019d450\nStudded with silver, then his corselet bright\nBraced to his bosom, his huge sword of brass\nAthwart his shoulder slung, and his broad shield\nUplifted last, luminous as the moon.\nSuch as to mariners a fire appears,455\nKindled by shepherds on the distant top\nOf some lone hill; they, driven by stormy winds,\nReluctant roam far off the fishy deep,\nSuch from Achilles\u2019 burning shield divine\nA lustre struck the skies; his ponderous helm460\nHe lifted to his brows; starlike it shone,\nAnd shook its curling crest of bushy gold,\nBy Vulcan taught to wave profuse around.\nSo clad, godlike Achilles trial made\nIf his arms fitted him, and gave free scope465\nTo his proportion\u2019d limbs; buoyant they proved\nAs wings, and high upbore his airy tread.\nHe drew his father\u2019s spear forth from his case,\nHeavy and huge and long. That spear, of all\nAchaia\u2019s sons, none else had power to wield;470\nAchilles only could the Pelian spear\nBrandish, by Chiron for his father hewn\nFrom Pelion\u2019s top for slaughter of the brave.\nHis coursers, then, Automedon prepared\nAnd Alcimus, adjusting diligent475\nThe fair caparisons; they thrust the bits\nInto their mouths, and to the chariot seat\nExtended and made fast the reins behind.\nThe splendid scourge commodious to the grasp\nSeizing, at once Automedon upsprang480\nInto his place; behind him, arm\u2019d complete\nAchilles mounted, as the orient sun\nAll dazzling, and with awful tone his speech\nDirected to the coursers of his Sire.\n  Xanthus, and Balius of Podarges\u2019 blood485\nIllustrious! see ye that, the battle done,\nYe bring whom now ye bear back to the host\nOf the Achaians in far other sort,\nNor leave him, as ye left Patroclus, dead.[11]\nHim then his steed unconquer\u2019d in the race,490\nXanthus answer\u2019d from beneath his yoke,\nBut, hanging low his head, and with his mane\nDishevell\u2019d all, and streaming to the ground.\nHim Juno vocal made, Goddess white-arm\u2019d.\n  And doubtless so we will. This day at least495\nWe bear thee safe from battle, stormy Chief!\nBut thee the hour of thy destruction swift\nApproaches, hasten\u2019d by no fault of ours,\nBut by the force of fate and power divine.\nFor not through sloth or tardiness on us500\nAught chargeable, have Ilium\u2019s sons thine arms\nStript from Patroclus\u2019 shoulders, but a God\nMatchless in battle, offspring of bright-hair\u2019d\nLatona, him contending in the van\nSlew, for the glory of the Chief of Troy.505\nWe, Zephyrus himself, though by report\nSwiftest of all the winds of heaven, in speed\nCould equal, but the Fates thee also doom\nBy human hands to fall, and hands divine.\n  The interposing Furies at that word510\nSuppress\u2019d his utterance,[12] and indignant, thus,\nAchilles, swiftest of the swift, replied.\n  Why, Xanthus, propheciest thou my death?\nIt ill beseems thee. I already know\nThat from my parents far remote my doom515\nAppoints me here to die; yet not the more\nCease I from feats if arms, till Ilium\u2019s host\nShall have received, at length, their fill of war.\n  He said, and with a shout drove forth to battle.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK XX.\n\n\nARGUMENT OF THE TWENTIETH BOOK.\n\nBy permission of Jupiter the Gods descend into the battle, and range\nthemselves on either side respectively. Neptune rescues \u00c6neas from\ndeath by the hand of Achilles, from whom Apollo, soon after, rescues\nHector. Achilles slays many Trojans.\n\n\nBOOK XX.\n\n\nThe Grecians, thus, before their lofty ships\nStood arm\u2019d around Achilles, glorious Chief\nInsatiable with war, and opposite\nThe Trojans on the rising-ground appear\u2019d.[1]\nMeantime, Jove order\u2019d Themis, from the head5\nOf the deep-fork\u2019d Olympian to convene\nThe Gods in council. She to every part\nProceeding, bade them to the courts of Jove.[2]\nNor of the Floods was any absent thence\nOceanus except, or of the Nymphs10\nWho haunt the pleasant groves, or dwell beside\nStream-feeding fountains, or in meadows green.\nWithin the courts of cloud-assembler Jove\nArrived, on pillar\u2019d thrones radiant they sat,\nWith ingenuity divine contrived15\nBy Vulcan for the mighty Sire of all.\nThus they within the Thunderer\u2019s palace sat\nAssembled; nor was Neptune slow to hear\nThe voice of Themis, but (the billows left)\nCame also; in the midst his seat he took,20\nAnd ask\u2019d, incontinent, the mind of Jove.[3]\n  King of the lightnings! wherefore hast thou call\u2019d\nThe Gods to council? Hast thou aught at heart\nImportant to the hosts of Greece and Troy?\nFor on the battle\u2019s fiery edge they stand.25\n  To whom replied Jove, Sovereign of the storms,\nThou know\u2019st my council, Shaker of the shores!\nAnd wherefore ye are call\u2019d. Although ordain\u2019d\nSo soon to die, they interest me still.\nMyself, here seated on Olympus\u2019 top,30\nWith contemplation will my mind indulge\nOf yon great spectacle; but ye, the rest,\nDescend into the field, Trojan or Greek\nEach to assist, as each shall most incline.\nFor should Achilles in the field no foe35\nFind save the Trojans, quickly should they fly\nBefore the rapid force of Peleus\u2019 son.\nThey trembled ever at his look, and since\nSuch fury for his friend hath fired his heart,\nI fear lest he anticipate the will40\nOf Fate, and Ilium perish premature.\n  So spake the son of Saturn kindling war\nInevitable, and the Gods to fight\n\u2019Gan move with minds discordant. Juno sought\nAnd Pallas, with the earth-encircling Power45\nNeptune, the Grecian fleet, with whom were join\u2019d\nMercury, teacher of all useful arts,\nAnd Vulcan, rolling on all sides his eyes\nTremendous, but on disproportion\u2019d legs,\nNot without labor hard, halting uncouth.50\nMars, warrior-God, on Ilium\u2019s part appear\u2019d\nWith Ph\u0153bus never-shorn, Dian shaft-arm\u2019d,\nXanthus, Latona, and the Queen of smiles,\nVenus. So long as the immortal Gods\nMixed not with either host, Achaia\u2019s sons55\nExulted, seeing, after tedious pause,\nAchilles in the field, and terror shook\nThe knees of every Trojan, at the sight\nOf swift Achilles like another Mars\nPanting for blood, and bright in arms again.60\nBut when the Olympian Powers had enter\u2019d once\nThe multitude, then Discord, at whose voice\nThe million maddens, vehement arose;\nThen, Pallas at the trench without the wall\nBy turns stood shouting, and by turns a shout65\nSent terrible along the sounding shore,\nWhile, gloomy as a tempest, opposite,\nMars from the lofty citadel of Troy\nNow yell\u2019d aloud, now running o\u2019er the hill\nCallicolone, on the Simois\u2019 side.70\n  Thus the Immortals, ever-blest, impell\u2019d\nBoth hosts to battle, and dire inroad caused\nOf strife among them. Sudden from on high\nThe Sire of Gods and men thunder\u2019d; meantime,\nNeptune the earth and the high mountains shook;75\nThrough all her base and to her topmost peak\nIda spring-fed the agitation felt\nReeling, all Ilium and the fleet of Greece.\nUpstarted from his throne, appall\u2019d, the King\nOf Erebus, and with a cry his fears80\nThrough hell proclaim\u2019d, lest Neptune, o\u2019er his head\nShattering the vaulted earth, should wide disclose\nTo mortal and immortal eyes his realm\nTerrible, squalid, to the Gods themselves\nA dreaded spectacle; with such a sound85\nThe Powers eternal into battle rush\u2019d.[4]\nOpposed to Neptune, King of the vast Deep,\nApollo stood with his wing\u2019d arrows arm\u2019d;\nPallas to Mars; Diana shaft-expert,\nSister of Ph\u0153bus, in her golden bow90\nRejoicing, with whose shouts the forests ring\nTo Juno; Mercury, for useful arts\nFamed, to Latona; and to Vulcan\u2019s force\nThe eddied River broad by mortal men\nScamander call\u2019d, but Xanthus by the Gods.95\n  So Gods encounter\u2019d Gods. But most desire\nAchilles felt, breaking the ranks, to rush\nOn Priameian Hector, with whose blood\nChiefly his fury prompted him to sate\nThe indefatigable God of war.100\nBut, the encourager of Ilium\u2019s host\nApollo, urged \u00c6neas to assail\nThe son of Peleus, with heroic might\nInspiring his bold heart. He feign\u2019d the voice\nOf Priam\u2019s son Lycaon, and his form105\nAssuming, thus the Trojan Chief address\u2019d.\n  \u00c6neas! Trojan leader! where are now\nThy vaunts, which, banqueting erewhile among\nOur princes, o\u2019er thy brimming cups thou mad\u2019st,\nThat thou would\u2019st fight, thyself, with Peleus\u2019 son?110\n  To whom \u00c6neas answer thus returned.\nOffspring of Priam! why enjoin\u2019st thou me\nNot so inclined, that arduous task, to cope\nWith the unmatch\u2019d Achilles? I have proved\nHis force already, when he chased me down115\nFrom Ida with his spear, what time he made\nSeizure of all our cattle, and destroy\u2019d\nPedasus and Lyrnessus; but I \u2019scaped\nUnslain, by Jove himself empower\u2019d to fly,\nElse had I fallen by Achilles\u2019 hand,120\nAnd by the hand of Pallas, who his steps\nConducted, and exhorted him to slay\nUs and the Leleges.[5] Vain, therefore, proves\nAll mortal force to Peleus\u2019 son opposed;\nFor one, at least, of the Immortals stands125\nEver beside him, guardian of his life,\nAnd, of himself, he hath an arm that sends\nHis rapid spear unerring to the mark.\nYet, would the Gods more equal sway the scales\nOf battle, not with ease should he subdue130\nMe, though he boast a panoply of brass.\n  Him, then, Apollo answer\u2019d, son of Jove.\nHero! prefer to the immortal Gods\nThy Prayer, for thee men rumor Venus\u2019 son\nDaughter of Jove; and Peleus\u2019 son his birth135\nDrew from a Goddess of inferior note.\nThy mother is from Jove; the offspring, his,\nLess noble of the hoary Ocean old.\nGo, therefore, and thy conquering spear uplift\nAgainst him, nor let aught his sounding words140\nAppal thee, or his threats turn thee away.\n  So saying, with martial force the Chief he fill\u2019d,\nWho through the foremost combatants advanced\nRadiant in arms. Nor pass\u2019d Anchises\u2019 son\nUnseen of Juno, through the crowded ranks145\nSeeking Achilles, but the Powers of heaven\nConvened by her command, she thus address\u2019d.\n  Neptune, and thou, Minerva! with mature\nDeliberation, ponder the event.\nYon Chief, \u00c6neas, dazzling bright in arms;150\nGoes to withstand Achilles, and he goes\nSent by Apollo; in despite of whom\nBe it our task to give him quick repulse,\nOr, of ourselves, let some propitious Power\nStrengthen Achilles with a mind exempt155\nFrom terror, and with force invincible.\nSo shall he know that of the Gods above\nThe mightiest are his friends, with whom compared\nThe favorers of Ilium in time past,\nWho stood her guardians in the bloody strife,160\nAre empty boasters all, and nothing worth.\nFor therefore came we down, that we may share\nThis fight, and that Achilles suffer nought\nFatal to-day, though suffer all he must\nHereafter, with his thread of life entwined165\nBy Destiny, the day when he was born.\nBut should Achilles unapprized remain\nOf such advantage by a voice divine,\nWhen he shall meet some Deity in the field,\nFear then will seize him, for celestial forms170\nUnveil\u2019d are terrible to mortal eyes.\n  To whom replied the Shaker of the shores.\nJuno! thy hot impatience needs control;\nIt ill befits thee. No desire I feel\nTo force into contention with ourselves175\nGods, our inferiors. No. Let us, retired\nTo yonder hill, distant from all resort,\nThere sit, while these the battle wage alone.\nBut if Apollo, or if Mars the fight\nEntering, begin, themselves, to interfere180\nAgainst Achilles, then will we at once\nTo battle also; and, I much misdeem,\nOr glad they shall be soon to mix again\nAmong the Gods on the Olympian heights,\nBy strong coercion of our arms subdued.185\n  So saying, the God of Ocean azure-hair\u2019d\nMoved foremost to the lofty mound earth-built\nOf noble Hercules, by Pallas raised\nAnd by the Trojans for his safe escape,\nWhat time the monster of the deep pursued190\nThe hero from the sea-bank o\u2019er the plain.\nThere Neptune sat, and his confederate Gods,\nTheir shoulders with impenetrable clouds\nO\u2019ermantled, while the city-spoiler Mars\nSat with Apollo opposite on the hill195\nCallicolone, with their aids divine.\nSo, Gods to Gods in opposite aspect\nSat ruminating, and alike the work\nAll fearing to begin of arduous war,\nWhile from his seat sublime Jove urged them on.200\nThe champain all was fill\u2019d, and with the blaze\nIllumined wide of men and steeds brass-arm\u2019d,\nAnd the incumber\u2019d earth jarr\u2019d under foot\nOf the encountering hosts. Then, two, the rest\nSurpassing far, into the midst advanced205\nImpatient for the fight, Anchises\u2019 son\n\u00c6neas and Achilles, glorious Chief!\n\u00c6neas first, under his ponderous casque\nNodding and menacing, advanced; before\nHis breast he held the well-conducted orb210\nOf his broad shield, and shook his brazen spear.\nOn the other side, Achilles to the fight\nFlew like a ravening lion, on whose death\nResolved, the peasants from all quarters meet;\nHe, viewing with disdain the foremost, stalks215\nRight on, but smitten by some dauntless youth\nWrithes himself, and discloses his huge fangs\nHung with white foam; then, growling for revenge,\nLashes himself to battle with his tail,\nTill with a burning eye and a bold heart220\nHe springs to slaughter, or himself is slain;\nSo, by his valor and his noble mind\nImpell\u2019d, renown\u2019d Achilles moved toward\n\u00c6neas, and, small interval between,\nThus spake the hero matchless in the race.225\n  Why stand\u2019st thou here, \u00c6neas! thy own band\nLeft at such distance? Is it that thine heart\nGlows with ambition to contend with me\nIn hope of Priam\u2019s honors, and to fill\nHis throne hereafter in Troy steed-renown\u2019d?230\nBut shouldst thou slay me, not for that exploit\nWould Priam such large recompense bestow,\nFor he hath sons, and hath, beside, a mind\nAnd disposition not so lightly changed.\nOr have the Trojans of their richest soil235\nFor vineyard apt or plow assign\u2019d thee part\nIf thou shalt slay me? Difficult, I hope,\nAt least, thou shalt experience that emprize.\nFor, as I think, I have already chased\nThee with my spear. Forgettest thou the day240\nWhen, finding thee alone, I drove thee down\nHeadlong from Ida, and, thy cattle left\nAfar, thou didst not dare in all thy flight\nTurn once, till at Lyrnessus safe arrived,\nWhich city by Jove\u2019s aid and by the aid245\nOf Pallas I destroy\u2019d, and captive led\nTheir women? Thee, indeed, the Gods preserved\nBut they shall not preserve thee, as thou dream\u2019st\nNow also. Back into thy host again;\nHence, I command thee, nor oppose in fight250\nMy force, lest evil find thee. To be taught\nBy suffering only is the part of fools.\n  To whom \u00c6neas answer thus return\u2019d.\nPelides! hope not, as I were a boy,\nWith words to scare me. I have also taunts255\nAt my command, and could be sharp as thou.\nBy such reports as from the lips of men\nWe oft have heard, each other\u2019s birth we know\nAnd parents; but my parents to behold\nWas ne\u2019er thy lot, nor have I thine beheld.260\nThee men proclaim from noble Peleus sprung\nAnd Thetis, bright hair\u2019d Goddess of the Deep;\nI boast myself of lovely Venus born\nTo brave Anchises; and his son this day\nIn battle slain thy sire shall mourn, or mine;265\nFor I expect not that we shall depart\nLike children, satisfied with words alone.\nBut if it please thee more at large to learn\nMy lineage (thousands can attest it true)\nKnow this. Jove, Sovereign of the storms, begat270\nDardanus, and ere yet the sacred walls\nOf Ilium rose, the glory of this plain,\nHe built Dardania; for at Ida\u2019s foot\nDwelt our progenitors in ancient days.\nDardanus was the father of a son,275\nKing Ericthonius, wealthiest of mankind.\nThree thousand mares of his the marish grazed,\nEach suckling with delight her tender foal.\nBoreas, enamor\u2019d of no few of these,\nThe pasture sought, and cover\u2019d them in form280\nOf a steed azure-maned. They, pregnant thence,\nTwelve foals produced, and all so light of foot,\nThat when they wanton\u2019d in the fruitful field\nThey swept, and snapp\u2019d it not, the golden ear;\nAnd when they wanton\u2019d on the boundless deep,285\nThey skimm\u2019d the green wave\u2019s frothy ridge, secure.\nFrom Ericthonius sprang Tros, King of Troy,\nAnd Tros was father of three famous sons,\nIlus, Assaracus, and Ganymede\nLoveliest of human kind, whom for his charms290\nThe Gods caught up to heaven, there to abide\nWith the immortals, cup-bearer of Jove.\nIlus begat Laomedon, and he\nFive sons, Tithonus, Priam, Clytius,\nLampus, and Hicetaon, branch of Mars.295\nAssaracus a son begat, by name\nCapys, and Capys in due time his son\nWarlike Anchises, and Anchises me.\nBut Priam is the noble Hector\u2019s sire.[6]\nSuch is my lineage, and such blood I boast;300\nBut valor is from Jove; he, as he wills,\nIncreases or reduces it in man,\nFor he is lord of all. Therefore enough\u2014\nToo long like children we have stood, the time\nConsuming here, while battle roars around.305\nReproach is cheap. Easily might we cast\nGibes at each other, till a ship that asks\nA hundred oars should sink beneath the load.\nThe tongue of man is voluble, hath words\nFor every theme, nor wants wide field and long,310\nAnd as he speaks so shall he hear again.\nBut we\u2014why should we wrangle, and with taunts\nAssail each other, as the practice is\nOf women, who with heart-devouring strife\nOn fire, start forth into the public way315\nTo mock each other, uttering, as may chance,\nMuch truth, much falsehood, as their anger bids?\nThe ardor of my courage will not slack\nFor all thy speeches; we must combat first;\nNow, therefore, without more delay, begin,320\nThat we may taste each other\u2019s force in arms.[7]\n  So spake \u00c6neas, and his brazen lance\nHurl\u2019d with full force against the dreadful shield.\nLoud roar\u2019d its ample concave at the blow.\nNot unalarm\u2019d, Pelides his broad disk325\nThrust farther from him, deeming that the force\nOf such an arm should pierce his guard with ease.\nVain fear! he recollected not that arms\nGlorious as his, gifts of the immortal Gods,\nYield not so quickly to the force of man.330\nThe stormy spear by brave \u00c6neas sent,\nNo passage found; the golden plate divine\nRepress\u2019d its vehemence; two folds it pierced,\nBut three were still behind, for with five folds\nVulcan had fortified it; two were brass;335\nThe two interior, tin; the midmost, gold;\nAnd at the golden one the weapon stood.[8]\nAchilles next, hurl\u2019d his long shadow\u2019d spear,\nAnd struck \u00c6neas on the utmost verge\nOf his broad shield, where thinnest lay the brass,340\nAnd thinnest the ox-hide. The Pelian ash\nStarted right through the buckler, and it rang.\n\u00c6neas crouch\u2019d terrified, and his shield\nThrust farther from him; but the rapid beam\nBursting both borders of the ample disk,345\nGlanced o\u2019er his back, and plunged into the soil.\nHe \u2019scaped it, and he stood; but, as he stood,\nWith horror infinite the weapon saw\nPlanted so near him. Then, Achilles drew\nHis falchion keen, and with a deafening shout350\nSprang on him; but \u00c6neas seized a stone\nHeavy and huge, a weight to overcharge\nTwo men (such men as are accounted strong\nNow) but he wielded it with ease, alone.\nThen had \u00c6neas, as Achilles came355\nImpetuous on, smitten, although in vain,\nHis helmet or his shield, and Peleus\u2019 son\nHad with his falchion him stretch\u2019d at his feet,\nBut that the God of Ocean quick perceived\nHis peril, and the Immortals thus bespake.360\n  I pity brave \u00c6neas, who shall soon,\nSlain by Achilles, see the realms below,\nBy smooth suggestions of Apollo lured\nTo danger, such as he can ne\u2019er avert.\nBut wherefore should the Chief, guiltless himself,365\nDie for the fault of others? at no time\nHis gifts have fail\u2019d, grateful to all in heaven.\nCome, therefore, and let us from death ourselves\nRescue him, lest if by Achilles\u2019 arm\nThis hero perish, Jove himself be wroth;370\nFor he is destined to survive, lest all\nThe house of Dardanus (whom Jove beyond\nAll others loved, his sons of woman born)\nFail with \u00c6neas, and be found no more.\nSaturnian Jove hath hated now long time375\nThe family of Priam, and henceforth\n\u00c6neas and his son, and his sons\u2019 sons,\nShall sway the sceptre o\u2019er the race of Troy.\n  To whom, majestic thus the spouse of Jove.\nNeptune! deliberate thyself, and choose380\nWhether to save \u00c6neas, or to leave\nThe hero victim of Achilles\u2019 ire.\nFor Pallas and myself ofttimes have sworn\nIn full assembly of the Gods, to aid\nTroy never, never to avert the day385\nOf her distress, not even when the flames\nKindled by the heroic sons of Greece,\nShall climb with fury to her topmost towers.\n  She spake; then Neptune, instant, through the throng\nOf battle flying, and the clash of spears,390\nCame where Achilles and \u00c6neas fought.\nAt once with shadows dim he blurr\u2019d the sight\nOf Peleus\u2019 son, and from the shield, himself,\nOf brave \u00c6neas the bright-pointed ash\nRetracting, placed it at Achilles\u2019 feet.395\nThen, lifting high \u00c6neas from the ground,\nHe heaved him far remote; o\u2019er many a rank\nOf heroes and of bounding steeds he flew,\nLaunch\u2019d into air from the expanded palm\nOf Neptune, and alighted in the rear400\nOf all the battle where the Caucons stood.\nNeptune approach\u2019d him there, and at his side\nStanding, in accents wing\u2019d, him thus bespake.\n  What God, \u00c6neas! tempted thee to cope\nThus inconsiderately with the son405\nOf Peleus, both more excellent in fight\nThan thou, and more the favorite of the skies?\nFrom him retire hereafter, or expect\nA premature descent into the shades.\nBut when Achilles shall have once fulfill\u2019d410\nHis destiny, in battle slain, then fight\nFearless, for thou canst fall by none beside.\n  So saying, he left the well-admonish\u2019d Chief,\nAnd from Achilles\u2019 eyes scatter\u2019d the gloom\nShed o\u2019er them by himself. The hero saw415\nClearly, and with his noble heart incensed\nBy disappointment, thus conferring, said.\n  Gods! I behold a prodigy. My spear\nLies at my foot, and he at whom I cast\nThe weapon with such deadly force, is gone!420\n\u00c6neas therefore, as it seems, himself\nInterests the immortal Gods, although\nI deem\u2019d his boast of their protection vain.\nI reck not. Let him go. So gladly \u2019scaped\nFrom slaughter now, he shall not soon again425\nFeel an ambition to contend with me.\nNow will I rouse the Dana\u00ef, and prove\nThe force in fight of many a Trojan more.\n  He said, and sprang to battle with loud voice,\nCalling the Grecians after him.\u2014Ye sons430\nOf the Achaians! stand not now aloof,\nMy noble friends! but foot to foot let each\nFall on courageous, and desire the fight.\nThe task were difficult for me alone,\nBrave as I boast myself, to chase a foe435\nSo numerous, and to combat with them all.\nNot Mars himself, immortal though he be,\nNor Pallas, could with all the ranks contend\nOf this vast multitude, and drive the whole.\nWith hands, with feet, with spirit and with might,440\nAll that I can I will; right through I go,\nAnd not a Trojan who shall chance within\nSpear\u2019s reach of me, shall, as I judge, rejoice.\n  Thus he the Greeks exhorted. Opposite,\nMeantime, illustrious Hector to his host445\nVociferated, his design to oppose\nAchilles publishing in every ear.\n  Fear not, ye valiant men of Troy! fear not\nThe son of Peleus. In a war of words\nI could, myself, cope even with the Gods;450\nBut not with spears; there they excel us all.\nNor shall Achilles full performance give\nTo all his vaunts, but, if he some fulfil,\nShall others leave mutilate in the midst.\nI will encounter him, though his hands be fire,455\nThough fire his hands, and his heart hammer\u2019d steel.\n  So spake he them exhorting. At his word\nUprose the Trojan spears, thick intermixt\nThe battle join\u2019d, and clamor loud began.\nThen thus, approaching Hector, Ph\u0153bus spake.460\n  Henceforth, advance not Hector! in the front\nSeeking Achilles, but retired within\nThe stormy multitude his coming wait,\nLest his spear reach thee, or his glittering sword.\n  He said, and Hector far into his host465\nWithdrew, admonish\u2019d by the voice divine.\nThen, shouting terrible, and clothed with might,\nAchilles sprang to battle. First, he slew\nThe valiant Chief Iphition, whom a band\nNumerous obey\u2019d. Otrynteus was his sire.470\nHim to Otrynteus, city-waster Chief,\nA Naiad under snowy Tmolus bore\nIn fruitful Hyda.[9] Right into his front\nAs he advanced, Achilles drove his spear,\nAnd rived his skull; with thundering sound he fell,475\nAnd thus the conqueror gloried in his fall.\n  Ah Otryntides! thou art slain. Here lies\nThe terrible in arms, who born beside\nThe broad Gyg\u00e6an lake, where Hyllus flows\nAnd Hermus, call\u2019d the fertile soil his own.480\n  Thus gloried he. Meantime the shades of death\nCover\u2019d Iphition, and Achaian wheels\nAnd horses ground his body in the van.\nDemoleon next, Antenor\u2019s son, a brave\nDefender of the walls of Troy, he slew.485\nInto his temples through his brazen casque\nHe thrust the Pelian ash, nor could the brass\nSuch force resist, but the huge weapon drove\nThe shatter\u2019d bone into his inmost brain,\nAnd his fierce onset at a stroke repress\u2019d.490\nHippodamas his weapon next received\nWithin his spine, while with a leap he left\nHis steeds and fled. He, panting forth his life,\nMoan\u2019d like a bull, by consecrated youths\nDragg\u2019d round the Heliconian King,[10] who views495\nThat victim with delight. So, with loud moans\nThe noble warrior sigh\u2019d his soul away.\nThen, spear in hand, against the godlike son\nOf Priam, Polydorus, he advanced.\nNot yet his father had to him indulged500\nA warrior\u2019s place, for that of all his sons\nHe was the youngest-born, his hoary sire\u2019s\nChief darling, and in speed surpass\u2019d them all.\nThen also, in the vanity of youth,\nFor show of nimbleness, he started oft505\nInto the vanward, till at last he fell.\nHim gliding swiftly by, swifter than he\nAchilles with a javelin reach\u2019d; he struck\nHis belt behind him, where the golden clasps\nMet, and the double hauberk interposed.510\nThe point transpierced his bowels, and sprang through\nHis navel; screaming, on his knees he fell,\nDeath-shadows dimm\u2019d his eyes, and with both hands,\nStooping, he press\u2019d his gather\u2019d bowels back.\nBut noble Hector, soon as he beheld515\nHis brother Polydorus to the earth\nInclined, and with his bowels in his hands,\nSightless well-nigh with anguish could endure\nNo longer to remain aloof; flame-like\nHe burst abroad,[11] and shaking his sharp spear,520\nAdvanced to meet Achilles, whose approach\nSeeing, Achilles bounded with delight,\nAnd thus, exulting, to himself he said.\n  Ah! he approaches, who hath stung my soul\nDeepest, the slayer of whom most I loved!525\nBehold, we meet! Caution is at an end,\nAnd timid skulking in the walks of war.\n  He ceased, and with a brow knit into frowns,\nCall\u2019d to illustrious Hector. Haste, approach,\nThat I may quick dispatch thee to the shades.530\n  Whom answer\u2019d warlike Hector, nought appall\u2019d.\nPelides! hope not, as I were a boy,\nWith words to scare me. I have also taunts\nAt my command, and can be sharp as thou.\nI know thee valiant, and myself I know535\nInferior far; yet, whether thou shalt slay\nMe, or, inferior as I am, be slain\nBy me, is at the pleasure of the Gods,\nFor I wield also not a pointless beam.\n  He said, and, brandishing it, hurl\u2019d his spear,540\nWhich Pallas, breathing softly, wafted back\nFrom the renown\u2019d Achilles, and it fell\nSuccessless at illustrious Hector\u2019s feet.\nThen, all on fire to slay him, with a shout\nThat rent the air Achilles rapid flew545\nToward him; but him wrapt in clouds opaque\nApollo caught with ease divine away.\nThrice, swift Achilles sprang to the assault\nImpetuous, thrice the pitchy cloud he smote,\nAnd at his fourth assault, godlike in act,550\nAnd terrible in utterance, thus exclaim\u2019d.\n  Dog! thou art safe, and hast escaped again;\nBut narrowly, and by the aid once more\nOf Ph\u0153bus, without previous suit to whom\nThou venturest never where the javelin sings.555\nBut when we next encounter, then expect,\nIf one of all in heaven aid also me,\nTo close thy proud career. Meantime I seek\nSome other, and assail e\u2019en whom I may.\n  So saying, he pierced the neck of Dryops through,560\nAnd at his feet he fell. Him there he left,\nAnd turning on a valiant warrior huge,\nPhiletor\u2019s son, Demuchus, in the knee\nPierced, and detain\u2019d him by the planted spear,\nTill with his sword he smote him, and he died.565\nLaogonus and Dardanus he next\nAssaulted, sons of Bias; to the ground\nDismounting both, one with his spear he slew,\nThe other with his falchion at a blow.\nTros too, Alastor\u2019s son\u2014he suppliant clasp\u2019d570\nAchilles\u2019 knees, and for his pity sued,\nPleading equality of years, in hope\nThat he would spare, and send him thence alive.\nAh dreamer! ignorant how much in vain\nThat suit he urged; for not of milky mind,575\nOr placable in temper was the Chief\nTo whom he sued, but fiery. With both hands\nHis knees he clasp\u2019d importunate, and he\nFast by the liver gash\u2019d him with his sword.\nHis liver falling forth, with sable blood580\nHis bosom fill\u2019d, and darkness veil\u2019d his eyes.\nThen, drawing close to Mulius, in his ear\nHe set the pointed brass, and at a thrust\nSent it, next moment, through his ear beyond.\nThen, through the forehead of Agenor\u2019s son585\nEchechlus, his huge-hafted blade he drove,\nAnd death and fate forever veil\u2019d his eyes.\nNext, where the tendons of the elbow meet,\nStriking Deucalion, through his wrist he urged\nThe brazen point; he all defenceless stood,590\nExpecting death; down came Achilles\u2019 blade\nFull on his neck; away went head and casque\nTogether; from his spine the marrow sprang,\nAnd at his length outstretch\u2019d he press\u2019d the plain.\nFrom him to Rhigmus, Pireus\u2019 noble son,595\nHe flew, a warrior from the fields of Thrace.\nHim through the loins he pierced, and with the beam\nFixt in his bowels, to the earth he fell;\nThen piercing, as he turn\u2019d to flight, the spine\nOf Areith\u00f6us his charioteer,600\nHe thrust him from his seat; wild with dismay\nBack flew the fiery coursers at his fall.\nAs a devouring fire within the glens\nOf some dry mountain ravages the trees,\nWhile, blown around, the flames roll to all sides,605\nSo, on all sides, terrible as a God,\nAchilles drove the death-devoted host\nOf Ilium, and the champain ran with blood.\nAs when the peasant his yoked steers employs\nTo tread his barley, the broad-fronted pair610\nWith ponderous hoofs trample it out with ease,\nSo, by magnanimous Achilles driven,\nHis coursers solid-hoof\u2019d stamp\u2019d as they ran\nThe shields, at once, and bodies of the slain;\nBlood spatter\u2019d all his axle, and with blood615\nFrom the horse-hoofs and from the fellied wheels\nHis chariot redden\u2019d, while himself, athirst\nFor glory, his unconquerable hands\nDefiled with mingled carnage, sweat, and dust.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK XXI.\n\n\nARGUMENT OF THE TWENTY-FIRST BOOK.\n\nAchilles having separated the Trojans, and driven one part of them to\nthe city and the other into the Scamander, takes twelve young men\nalive, his intended victims to the manes of Patroclus. The river\noverflowing his banks with purpose to overwhelm him, is opposed by\nVulcan, and gladly relinquishes the attempt. The battle of the gods\nensues. Apollo, in the form of Agenor, decoys Achilles from the town,\nwhich in the mean time the Trojans enter and shut the gates against\nhim.\n\n\nBOOK XXI.\n\n\n[1]But when they came, at length, where Xanthus winds\nHis stream vortiginous from Jove derived,\nThere, separating Ilium\u2019s host, he drove\nPart o\u2019er the plain to Troy in the same road\nBy which the Grecians had so lately fled5\nThe fury of illustrious Hector\u2019s arm.\nThat way they fled pouring themselves along\nFlood-like, and Juno, to retard them, threw\nDarkness as night before them. Other part,\nPush\u2019d down the sides of Xanthus, headlong plunged10\nWith dashing sound into his dizzy stream,\nAnd all his banks re-echoed loud the roar.\nThey, struggling, shriek\u2019d in silver eddies whirl\u2019d.\nAs when, by violence of fire expell\u2019d,\nLocusts uplifted on the wing escape15\nTo some broad river, swift the sudden blaze\nPursues them, they, astonish\u2019d, strew the flood,[2]\nSo, by Achilles driven, a mingled throng\nOf horses and of warriors overspread\nXanthus, and glutted all his sounding course20\nHe, chief of heroes, leaving on the bank\nHis spear against a tamarisk reclined,\nPlunged like a God, with falchion arm\u2019d alone\nBut fill\u2019d with thoughts of havoc. On all sides\nDown came his edge; groans follow\u2019d dread to hear25\nOf warriors smitten by the sword, and all\nThe waters as they ran redden\u2019d with blood.\nAs smaller fishes, flying the pursuit\nOf some huge dolphin, terrified, the creeks\nAnd secret hollows of a haven fill,30\nFor none of all that he can seize he spares,\nSo lurk\u2019d the trembling Trojans in the caves\nOf Xanthus\u2019 awful flood. But he (his hands\nWearied at length with slaughter) from the rest\nTwelve youths selected whom to death he doom\u2019d,35\nIn vengeance for his loved Patroclus slain.\nThem stupified with dread like fawns he drove\nForth from the river, manacling their hands\nBehind them fast with their own tunic-strings,\nAnd gave them to his warrior train in charge.40\nThen, ardent still for blood, rushing again\nToward the stream, Dardanian Priam\u2019s son\nHe met, Lycaon, as he climb\u2019d the bank.\nHim erst by night, in his own father\u2019s field\nFinding him, he had led captive away.45\nLycaon was employ\u2019d cutting green shoots\nOf the wild-fig for chariot-rings, when lo!\nTerrible, unforeseen, Achilles came.\nHe seized and sent him in a ship afar\nTo Lemnos; there the son of Jason paid50\nHis price, and, at great cost, E\u00ebtion\nThe guest of Jason, thence redeeming him,\nSent him to fair Arisba;[3] but he \u2019scaped\nThence also and regain\u2019d his father\u2019s house.\nEleven days, at his return, he gave55\nTo recreation joyous with his friends,\nAnd on the twelfth his fate cast him again\nInto Achilles\u2019 hands, who to the shades\nNow doom\u2019d him, howsoever loth to go.\nSoon as Achilles swiftest of the swift60\nHim naked saw (for neither spear had he\nNor shield nor helmet, but, when he emerged,\nWeary and faint had cast them all away)\nIndignant to his mighty self he said.\n  Gods! I behold a miracle! Ere long65\nThe valiant Trojans whom my self have slain\nShall rise from Erebus, for he is here,\nThe self-same warrior whom I lately sold\nAt Lemnos, free, and in the field again.\nThe hoary deep is prison strong enough70\nFor most, but not for him. Now shall he taste\nThe point of this my spear, that I may learn\nBy sure experience, whether hell itself\nThat holds the strongest fast, can him detain,\nOr whether he shall thence also escape.75\n  While musing thus he stood, stunn\u2019d with dismay\nThe youth approach\u2019d, eager to clasp his knees,\nFor vehement he felt the dread of death\nWorking within him; with his Pelian ash\nUplifted high noble Achilles stood80\nArdent to smite him; he with body bent\nRan under it, and to his knees adhered;\nThe weapon, missing him, implanted stood\nClose at his back, when, seizing with one hand\nAchilles\u2019 knees, he with the other grasp\u2019d85\nThe dreadful beam, resolute through despair,\nAnd in wing\u2019d accents suppliant thus began.\n  Oh spare me! pity me! Behold I clasp\nThy knees, Achilles! Ah, illustrious Chief!\nReject not with disdain a suppliant\u2019s prayer.90\nI am thy guest also, who at thy own board\nHave eaten bread, and did partake the gift\nOf Ceres with thee on the very day\nWhen thou didst send me in yon field surprised\nFor sale to sacred Lemnos, far remote,95\nAnd for my price receiv\u2019dst a hundred beeves.\nLoose me, and I will yield thee now that sum\nThrice told. Alas! this morn is but the twelfth\nSince, after numerous hardships, I arrived\nOnce more in Troy, and now my ruthless lot100\nHath given me into thy hands again.\nJove cannot less than hate me, who hath twice\nMade me thy prisoner, and my doom was death,\nDeath in my prime, the day when I was born\nSon of Laoth\u00f6e from Alta sprung,105\nFrom Alta, whom the Leleges obey\nOn Satnio\u2019s banks in lofty Pedasus.\nHis daughter to his other numerous wives\nKing Priam added, and two sons she bore\nOnly to be deprived by thee of both.110\nMy brother hath already died, in front\nOf Ilium\u2019s infantry, by thy bright spear,\nThe godlike Polydorus; and like doom\nShall now be mine, for I despair to escape\nThine hands, to which the Gods yield me again.115\nBut hear and mark me well. My birth was not\nFrom the same womb as Hector\u2019s, who hath slain\nThy valiant friend for clemency renown\u2019d.\n  Such supplication the illustrious son\nOf Priam made, but answer harsh received.120\n  Fool! speak\u2019st of ransom? Name it not to me.\nFor till my friend his miserable fate\nAccomplish\u2019d, I was somewhat given to spare,\nAnd numerous, whom I seized alive, I sold.\nBut now, of all the Trojans whom the Gods125\nDeliver to me, none shall death escape,\n\u2019Specially of the house of Priam, none.\nDie therefore, even thou, my friend! What mean\nThy tears unreasonably shed and vain?\nDied not Patroclus. braver far than thou?130\nAnd look on me\u2014see\u2019st not to what a height\nMy stature towers, and what a bulk I boast?\nA King begat me, and a Goddess bore.\nWhat then! A death by violence awaits\nMe also, and at morn, or eve, or noon,135\nI perish, whensoe\u2019er the destined spear\nShall reach me, or the arrow from the nerve.\n  He ceased, and where the suppliant kneel\u2019d, he died.\nQuitting the spear, with both hands spread abroad\nHe sat, but swift Achilles with his sword140\n\u2019Twixt neck and key-bone smote him, and his blade\nOf double edge sank all into the wound.\nHe prone extended on the champain lay\nBedewing with his sable blood the glebe,\nTill, by the foot, Achilles cast him far145\nInto the stream, and, as he floated down,\nThus in wing\u2019d accents, glorying, exclaim\u2019d.\n  Lie there, and feed the fishes, which shall lick\nThy blood secure. Thy mother ne\u2019er shall place\nThee on thy bier, nor on thy body weep,150\nBut swift Scamander on his giddy tide\nShall bear thee to the bosom of the sea.\nThere, many a fish shall through the crystal flood\nAscending to the rippled surface, find\nLycaon\u2019s pamper\u2019d flesh delicious fare.155\nDie Trojans! till we reach your city, you\nFleeing, and slaughtering, I. This pleasant stream\nOf dimpling silver which ye worship oft\nWith victim bulls, and sate with living steeds[4]\nHis rapid whirlpools, shall avail you nought,160\nBut ye shall die, die terribly, till all\nShall have requited me with just amends\nFor my Patroclus, and for other Greeks\nSlain at the ships while I declined the war.\n  He ended, at those words still more incensed165\nScamander means devised, thenceforth to check\nAchilles, and avert the doom of Troy.\nMeantime the son of Peleus, his huge spear\nGrasping, assail\u2019d Asterop\u00e6us son\nOf Pelegon, on fire to take his life.170\nFair Perib\u0153a, daughter eldest-born\nOf Acessamenus, his father bore\nTo broad-stream\u2019d Axius, who had clasp\u2019d the nymph\nIn his embrace. On him Achilles sprang.\nHe newly risen from the river, stood175\nArm\u2019d with two lances opposite, for him\nXanthus embolden\u2019d, at the deaths incensed\nOf many a youth, whom, mercy none vouchsafed,\nAchilles had in all his current slain.\nAnd now small distance interposed, they faced180\nEach other, when Achilles thus began.\n  Who art and whence, who dar\u2019st encounter me?\nHapless the sires whose sons my force defy.\n  To whom the noble son of Pelegon.\nPelides, mighty Chief? Why hast thou ask\u2019d185\nMy derivation? From the land I come\nOf mellow-soil\u2019d P\u0153onia far remote,\nChief leader of P\u0153nia\u2019s host spear-arm\u2019d;\nThis day hath also the eleventh risen\nSince I at Troy arrived. For my descent,190\nIt is from Axius river wide-diffused,\nFrom Axius, fairest stream that waters earth,\nSire of bold Pelegon whom men report\nMy sire. Let this suffice. Now fight, Achilles!\n  So spake he threatening, and Achilles raised195\nDauntless the Pelian ash. At once two spears\nThe hero bold, Asterop\u00e6us threw,\nWith both hands apt for battle. One his shield\nStruck but pierced not, impeded by the gold,\nGift of a God; the other as it flew200\nGrazed at his right elbow; sprang the sable blood;\nBut, overflying him, the spear in earth\nStood planted deep, still hungering for the prey.\nThen, full at the P\u0153onian Peleus\u2019 son\nHurl\u2019d forth his weapon with unsparing force205\nBut vain; he struck the sloping river bank,\nAnd mid-length deep stood plunged the ashen beam.\nThen, with his falchion drawn, Achilles flew\nTo smite him; he in vain, meantime, essay\u2019d\nTo pluck the rooted spear forth from the bank;210\nThrice with full force he shook the beam, and thrice,\nAlthough reluctant, left it; at his fourth\nLast effort, bending it he sought to break\nThe ashen spear-beam of \u00c6acides,\nBut perish\u2019d by his keen-edged falchion first;215\nFor on the belly at his navel\u2019s side\nHe smote him; to the ground effused fell all\nHis bowels, death\u2019s dim shadows veil\u2019d his eyes.\nAchilles ardent on his bosom fix\u2019d\nHis foot, despoil\u2019d him, and exulting cried.220\n  Lie there; though River-sprung, thou find\u2019st it hard\nTo cope with sons of Jove omnipotent.\nThou said\u2019st, a mighty River is my sire\u2014\nBut my descent from mightier Jove I boast;\nMy father, whom the Myrmidons obey,225\nIs son of \u00c6acus, and he of Jove.\nAs Jove all streams excels that seek the sea,\nSo, Jove\u2019s descendants nobler are than theirs.\nBehold a River at thy side\u2014let him\nAfford thee, if he can, some succor\u2014No\u2014230\nHe may not fight against Saturnian Jove.\nTherefore, not kingly Achelo\u00efus,\nNor yet the strength of Ocean\u2019s vast profound,\nAlthough from him all rivers and all seas,\nAll fountains and all wells proceed, may boast235\nComparison with Jove, but even he\nAstonish\u2019d trembles at his fiery bolt,\nAnd his dread thunders rattling in the sky.\nHe said, and drawing from the bank his spear[5]\nAsterop\u00e6us left stretch\u2019d on the sands,240\nWhere, while the clear wave dash\u2019d him, eels his flanks\nAnd ravening fishes numerous nibbled bare.\nThe horsed P\u0153onians next he fierce assail\u2019d,\nWho seeing their brave Chief slain by the sword\nAnd forceful arm of Peleus\u2019 son, beside245\nThe eddy-whirling stream fled all dispersed.\nThersilochus and Mydon then he slew,\nThrasius, Astypylus and Ophelestes,\n\u00c6nius and Mnesus; nor had these sufficed\nAchilles, but P\u0153onians more had fallen,250\nHad not the angry River from within\nHis circling gulfs in semblance, of a man\nCall\u2019d to him, interrupting thus his rage.\n  Oh both in courage and injurious deeds\nUnmatch\u2019d, Achilles! whom themselves the Gods255\nCease not to aid, if Saturn\u2019s son have doom\u2019d\nAll Ilium\u2019s race to perish by thine arm,\nExpel them, first, from me, ere thou achieve\nThat dread exploit; for, cumber\u2019d as I am\nWith bodies, I can pour my pleasant stream260\nNo longer down into the sacred deep;\nAll vanish where thou comest. But oh desist\nDread Chief! Amazement fills me at thy deeds.\n  To whom Achilles, matchless in the race.\nRiver divine! hereafter be it so.265\nBut not from slaughter of this faithless host\nI cease, till I shall shut them fast in Troy\nAnd trial make of Hector, if his arm\nIn single fight shall strongest prove, or mine\n  He said, and like a God, furious, again270\nAssail\u2019d the Trojans; then the circling flood\nTo Ph\u0153bus thus his loud complaint address\u2019d.\n  Ah son of Jove, God of the silver bow!\nThe mandate of the son of Saturn ill\nHast thou perform\u2019d, who, earnest, bade thee aid275\nThe Trojans, till (the sun sunk in the West)\nNight\u2019s shadow dim should veil the fruitful field.\n  He ended, and Achilles spear-renown\u2019d\nPlunged from the bank into the middle stream.\nThen, turbulent, the River all his tide280\nStirr\u2019d from the bottom, landward heaving off\nThe numerous bodies that his current chok\u2019d\nSlain by Achilles; them, as with the roar\nOf bulls, he cast aground, but deep within\nHis oozy gulfs the living safe conceal\u2019d.285\nTerrible all around Achilles stood\nThe curling wave, then, falling on his shield\nDash\u2019d him, nor found his footsteps where to rest.\nAn elm of massy trunk he seized and branch\nLuxuriant, but it fell torn from the root290\nAnd drew the whole bank after it; immersed\nIt damm\u2019d the current with its ample boughs,\nAnd join\u2019d as with a bridge the distant shores,\nUpsprang Achilles from the gulf and turn\u2019d\nHis feet, now wing\u2019d for flight, into the plain295\nAstonish\u2019d; but the God, not so appeased,\nArose against him with a darker curl,[6]\nThat he might quell him and deliver Troy.\nBack flew Achilles with a bound, the length\nOf a spear\u2019s cast, for such a spring he own\u2019d300\nAs bears the black-plumed eagle on her prey\nStrongest and swiftest of the fowls of air.\nLike her he sprang, and dreadful on his chest\nClang\u2019d his bright armor. Then, with course oblique\nHe fled his fierce pursuer, but the flood,305\nFly where he might, came thundering in his rear.\nAs when the peasant with his spade a rill\nConducts from some pure fountain through his grove\nOr garden, clearing the obstructed course,\nThe pebbles, as it runs, all ring beneath,310\nAnd, as the slope still deepens, swifter still\nIt runs, and, murmuring, outstrips the guide,\nSo him, though swift, the river always reach\u2019d\nStill swifter; who can cope with power divine?\nOft as the noble Chief, turning, essay\u2019d315\nResistance, and to learn if all the Gods\nAlike rush\u2019d after him, so oft the flood,\nJove\u2019s offspring, laved his shoulders. Upward then\nHe sprang distress\u2019d, but with a sidelong sweep\nAssailing him, and from beneath his steps320\nWasting the soil, the Stream his force subdued.\nThen looking to the skies, aloud he mourn\u2019d.\n  Eternal Sire! forsaken by the Gods\nI sink, none deigns to save me from the flood,\nFrom which once saved, I would no death decline.325\nYet blame I none of all the Powers of heaven\nAs Thetis; she with falsehood sooth\u2019d my soul,\nShe promised me a death by Ph\u0153bus\u2019 shafts\nSwift-wing\u2019d, beneath the battlements of Troy.\nI would that Hector, noblest of his race,330\nHad slain me, I had then bravely expired\nAnd a brave man had stripp\u2019d me of my arms.\nBut fate now dooms me to a death abhorr\u2019d\nWhelm\u2019d in deep waters, like a swine-herd\u2019s boy\nDrown\u2019d in wet weather while he fords a brook.335\n  So spake Achilles; then, in human form,\nMinerva stood and Neptune at his side;\nEach seized his hand confirming him, and thus\nThe mighty Shaker of the shores began.\n  Achilles! moderate thy dismay, fear nought.340\nIn us behold, in Pallas and in me,\nEffectual aids, and with consent of Jove;\nFor to be vanquish\u2019d by a River\u2019s force\nIs not thy doom. This foe shall soon be quell\u2019d;\nThine eyes shall see it. Let our counsel rule345\nThy deed, and all is well. Cease not from war\nTill fast within proud Ilium\u2019s walls her host\nAgain be prison\u2019d, all who shall escape;\nThen (Hector slain) to the Achaian fleet\nReturn; we make the glorious victory thine.350\n  So they, and both departing sought the skies.\nThen, animated by the voice divine,\nHe moved toward the plain now all o\u2019erspread\nBy the vast flood on which the bodies swam\nAnd shields of many a youth in battle slain.355\nHe leap\u2019d, he waded, and the current stemm\u2019d\nRight onward, by the flood in vain opposed,\nWith such might Pallas fill\u2019d him. Nor his rage\nScamander aught repress\u2019d, but still the more\nIncensed against Achilles, curl\u2019d aloft360\nHis waters, and on Simo\u00efs call\u2019d aloud.\n  Brother! oh let us with united force\nCheck, if we may, this warrior; he shall else\nSoon lay the lofty towers of Priam low,\nWhose host appall\u2019d, defend them now no more.365\nHaste\u2014succor me\u2014thy channel fill with streams\nFrom all thy fountains; call thy torrents down;\nLift high the waters; mingle trees and stones\nWith uproar wild, that we may quell the force\nOf this dread Chief triumphant now, and fill\u2019d370\nWith projects that might more beseem a God.\nBut vain shall be his strength, his beauty nought\nShall profit him or his resplendent arms,\nFor I will bury them in slime and ooze,\nAnd I will overwhelm himself with soil,375\nSands heaping o\u2019er him and around him sands\nInfinite, that no Greek shall find his bones\nFor ever, in my bottom deep immersed.\nThere shall his tomb be piled, nor other earth,\nAt his last rites, his friends shall need for him.380\n  He said, and lifting high his angry tide\nVortiginous, against Achilles hurl\u2019d,\nRoaring, the foam, the bodies, and the blood;\nThen all his sable waves divine again\nAccumulating, bore him swift along.385\nShriek\u2019d Juno at that sight, terrified lest\nAchilles in the whirling deluge sunk\nShould perish, and to Vulcan quick exclaim\u2019d.\n  Vulcan, my son, arise; for we account\nXanthus well able to contend with thee.390\nGive instant succor; show forth all thy fires.\nMyself will haste to call the rapid South\nAnd Zephyrus, that tempests from the sea\nBlowing, thou may\u2019st both arms and dead consume\nWith hideous conflagration. Burn along395\nThe banks of Xanthus, fire his trees and him\nSeize also. Let him by no specious guile\nOf flattery soothe thee, or by threats appall,\nNor slack thy furious fires till with a shout\nI give command, then bid them cease to blaze.400\n  She spake, and Vulcan at her word his fires\nShot dreadful forth; first, kindling on the field,\nHe burn\u2019d the bodies strew\u2019d numerous around\nSlain by Achilles; arid grew the earth\nAnd the flood ceased. As when a sprightly breeze405\nAutumnal blowing from the North, at once\nDries the new-water\u2019d garden,[7] gladdening him\nWho tills the soil, so was the champain dried;\nThe dead consumed, against the River, next,\nHe turn\u2019d the fierceness of his glittering fires.410\nWillows and tamarisks and elms he burn\u2019d,\nBurn\u2019d lotus, rushes, reeds; all plants and herbs\nThat clothed profuse the margin of his flood.\nHis eels and fishes, whether wont to dwell\nIn gulfs beneath, or tumble in the stream,415\nAll languish\u2019d while the artist of the skies\nBreath\u2019d on them; even Xanthus lost, himself,\nAll force, and, suppliant, Vulcan thus address\u2019d.\n  Oh Vulcan! none in heaven itself may cope\nWith thee. I yield to thy consuming fires.420\nCease, cease. I reck not if Achilles drive\nHer citizens, this moment, forth from Troy,\nFor what are war and war\u2019s concerns to me?\n  So spake he scorch\u2019d, and all his waters boil\u2019d.\nAs some huge caldron hisses urged by force425\nOf circling fires and fill\u2019d with melted lard,\nThe unctuous fluid overbubbling[8] streams\nOn all sides, while the dry wood flames beneath,\nSo Xanthus bubbled and his pleasant flood\nHiss\u2019d in the fire, nor could he longer flow430\nBut check\u2019d his current, with hot steams annoy\u2019d\nBy Vulcan raised. His supplication, then,\nImportunate to Juno thus he turn\u2019d.\n  Ah Juno! why assails thy son my streams,\nHostile to me alone? Of all who aid435\nThe Trojans I am surely least to blame,\nYet even I desist if thou command;\nAnd let thy son cease also; for I swear\nThat never will I from the Trojans turn\nTheir evil day, not even when the host440\nOf Greece shall set all Ilium in a blaze.\n  He said, and by his oath pacified, thus\nThe white-arm\u2019d Deity to Vulcan spake.\n  Peace, glorious son! we may not in behalf\nOf mortal man thus longer vex a God.445\n  Then Vulcan his tremendous fires repress\u2019d,\nAnd down into his gulfy channel rush\u2019d\nThe refluent flood; for when the force was once\nSubdued of Xanthus, Juno interposed,\nAlthough incensed, herself to quell the strife.450\n  But contest vehement the other Gods\nNow waged, each breathing discord; loud they rush\u2019d\nAnd fierce to battle, while the boundless earth\nQuaked under them, and, all around, the heavens\nSang them together with a trumpet\u2019s voice.455\nJove listening, on the Olympian summit sat\nWell-pleased, and, in his heart laughing for joy,\nBeheld the Powers of heaven in battle join\u2019d.\nNot long aloof they stood. Shield-piercer Mars,\nHis brazen spear grasp\u2019d, and began the fight460\nRushing on Pallas, whom he thus reproach\u2019d.\n  Wasp! front of impudence, and past all bounds\nAudacious! Why impellest thou the Gods\nTo fight? Thy own proud spirit is the cause.\nRemember\u2019st not, how, urged by thee, the son465\nOf Tydeus, Diomede, myself assail\u2019d,\nWhen thou, the radiant spear with thy own hand\nGuiding, didst rend my body? Now, I ween,\nThe hour is come in which I shall exact\nVengeance for all thy malice shown to me.470\n  So saying, her shield he smote tassell\u2019d around\nTerrific, proof against the bolts of Jove;\nThat shield gore-tainted Mars with fury smote.\nBut she, retiring, with strong grasp upheaved\nA rugged stone, black, ponderous, from the plain,475\nA land-mark fixt by men of ancient times,\nWhich hurling at the neck of stormy Mars\nShe smote him. Down he fell. Seven acres, stretch\u2019d,\nHe overspread, his ringlets in the dust\nPolluted lay, and dreadful rang his arms.480\nThe Goddess laugh\u2019d, and thus in accents wing\u2019d\nWith exultation, as he lay, exclaim\u2019d.\n  Fool! Art thou still to learn how far my force\nSurpasses thine, and darest thou cope with me?\nNow feel the furies of thy mother\u2019s ire485\nWho hates thee for thy treachery to the Greeks,\nAnd for thy succor given to faithless Troy.\n  She said, and turn\u2019d from Mars her glorious eyes.\nBut him deep-groaning and his torpid powers\nRecovering slow, Venus conducted thence490\nDaughter of Jove, whom soon as Juno mark\u2019d,\nIn accents wing\u2019d to Pallas thus she spake.\n  Daughter invincible of glorious Jove!\nHaste\u2014follow her\u2014Ah shameless! how she leads\nGore-tainted Mars through all the host of heaven.495\n\n  So she, whom Pallas with delight obey\u2019d;\nTo Venus swift she flew, and on the breast\nWith such force smote her that of sense bereft\nThe fainting Goddess fell. There Venus lay\nAnd Mars extended on the fruitful glebe,500\nAnd Pallas thus in accents wing\u2019d exclaim\u2019d.\n  I would that all who on the part of Troy\nOppose in fight Achaia\u2019s valiant sons,\nWere firm and bold as Venus in defence\nOf Mars, for whom she dared my power defy!505\nSo had dissension (Ilium overthrown\nAnd desolated) ceased long since in heaven.\n  So Pallas, and approving Juno smiled.\nThen the imperial Shaker of the shores\nThus to Apollo. Ph\u0153bus! wherefore stand510\n_We_ thus aloof? Since others have begun,\nBegin we also; shame it were to both\nShould we, no combat waged, ascend again\nOlympus and the brass-built hall of Jove.\nBegin, for thou art younger; me, whose years515\nAlike and knowledge thine surpass so far,\nIt suits not. Oh stupidity! how gross\nArt thou and senseless! Are no traces left\nIn thy remembrance of our numerous wrongs\nSustain\u2019d at Ilium, when, of all the Gods520\nOurselves alone, by Jove\u2019s commandment, served\nFor stipulated hire, a year complete,\nOur task-master the proud Laomedon?\nMyself a bulwark\u2019d town, spacious, secure\nAgainst assault, and beautiful as strong525\nBuilt for the Trojans, and thine office was\nTo feed for King Laomedon his herds\nAmong the groves of Ida many-valed.\nBut when the gladsome hours the season brought\nOf payment, then the unjust King of Troy530\nDismiss\u2019d us of our whole reward amerced\nBy violence, and added threats beside.\nThee into distant isles, bound hand and foot,\nTo sell he threatened, and to amputate\nThe ears of both; we, therefore, hasted thence535\nResenting deep our promised hire withheld.\nAid\u2019st thou for this the Trojans? Canst thou less\nThan seek, with us, to exterminate the whole\nPerfidious race, wives, children, husbands, all?\n  To whom the King of radiant shafts Apollo.540\nMe, Neptune, thou wouldst deem, thyself, unwise\nContending for the sake of mortal men\nWith thee; a wretched race, who like the leaves\nNow flourish rank, by fruits of earth sustain\u2019d,\nNow sapless fall. Here, therefore, us between545\nLet all strife cease, far better left to them.\n  He said, and turn\u2019d away, fearing to lift\nHis hand against the brother of his sire.\nBut him Diana of the woods with sharp\nRebuke, his huntress sister, thus reproved.550\n  Fly\u2019st thou, Apollo! and to Neptune yield\u2019st\nAn unearn\u2019d victory, the prize of fame\nResigning patient and with no dispute?\nFool! wherefore bearest thou the bow in vain?\nAh, let me never in my father\u2019s courts555\nHear thee among the immortals vaunting more\nThat thou wouldst Neptune\u2019s self confront in arms.\n  So she, to whom Apollo nought replied.[9]\nBut thus the consort of the Thunderer, fired\nWith wrath, reproved the Archeress of heaven.560\n  How hast thou dared, impudent, to oppose\nMy will? Bow-practised as thou art, the task\nTo match my force were difficult to thee.\nIs it, because by ordinance of Jove\nThou art a lioness to womankind,565\nKilling them at thy pleasure? Ah beware\u2014\nFar easier is it, on the mountain-heights\nTo slay wild beasts and chase the roving hind,\nThan to conflict with mightier than ourselves.\nBut, if thou wish a lesson on that theme,570\nApproach\u2014thou shalt be taught with good effect\nHow far my force in combat passes thine.\n  She said, and with her left hand seizing both\nDiana\u2019s wrists, snatch\u2019d suddenly the bow\nSuspended on her shoulder with the right,575\nAnd, smiling, smote her with it on the ears.\nShe, writhing oft and struggling, to the ground\nShook forth her rapid shafts, then, weeping, fled\nAs to her cavern in some hollow rock\nThe dove, not destined to his talons, flies580\nThe hawk\u2019s pursuit, and left her arms behind.\n  Then, messenger of heaven, the Argicide\nAddress\u2019d Latona. Combat none with thee,\nLatona, will I wage. Unsafe it were\nTo cope in battle with a spouse of Jove.585\nGo, therefore, loudly as thou wilt, proclaim\nTo all the Gods that thou hast vanquish\u2019d me.\n  Collecting, then, the bow and arrows fallen\nIn wild disorder on the dusty plain,\nLatona with the sacred charge withdrew590\nFollowing her daughter; she, in the abode\nBrass-built arriving of Olympian Jove,\nSat on his knees, weeping till all her robe\nAmbrosial shook. The mighty Father smiled,\nAnd to his bosom straining her, inquired.595\n  Daughter beloved! who, which of all the Gods\nHath raised his hand, presumptuous, against thee,\nAs if convicted of some open wrong?\n  To whom the clear-voiced Huntress crescent-crown\u2019d.\nMy Father! Juno, thy own consort fair600\nMy sorrow caused, from whom dispute and strife\nPerpetual, threaten the immortal Powers.\n  Thus they in heaven mutual conferr\u2019d. Meantime\nApollo into sacred Troy return\u2019d\nMindful to guard her bulwarks, lest the Greeks605\nToo soon for Fate should desolate the town.\nThe other Gods, some angry, some elate\nWith victory, the Olympian heights regain\u2019d,\nAnd sat beside the Thunderer. But the son\nOf Peleus\u2014He both Trojans slew and steeds.610\nAs when in volumes slow smoke climbs the skies\nFrom some great city which the Gods have fired\nVindictive, sorrow thence to many ensues\nWith mischief, and to all labor severe,\nSo caused Achilles labor on that day,615\nSevere, and mischief to the men of Troy.\n  But ancient Priam from a sacred tower\nStood looking forth, whence soon he noticed vast\nAchilles, before whom the Trojans fled\nAll courage lost. Descending from the tower620\nWith mournful cries and hasting to the wall\nHe thus enjoin\u2019d the keepers of the gates.\n  Hold wide the portals till the flying host\nRe-enter, for himself is nigh, himself\nAchilles drives them home. Now, wo to Troy!625\nBut soon as safe within the walls received\nThey breathe again, shut fast the ponderous gates\nAt once, lest that destroyer also pass.\n  He said; they, shooting back the bars, threw wide\nThe gates and saved the people, whom to aid630\nApollo also sprang into the field,\nThey, parch\u2019d with drought and whiten\u2019d all with dust,\nFlew right toward the town, while, spear in hand,\nAchilles press\u2019d them, vengeance in his heart\nAnd all on fire for glory. Then, full sure,635\nIlium, the city of lofty gates, had fallen\nWon by the Grecians, had not Ph\u0153bus roused\nAntenor\u2019s valiant son, the noble Chief\nAgenor; him with dauntless might he fill\u2019d,\nAnd shielding him against the stroke of fate640\nBeside him stood himself, by the broad beech\nCover\u2019d and wrapt in clouds. Agenor then,\nSeeing the city-waster hero nigh\nAchilles, stood, but standing, felt his mind\nTroubled with doubts; he groan\u2019d, and thus he mused.645\n  [10]Alas! if following the tumultuous flight\nOf these, I shun Achilles, swifter far\nHe soon will lop my ignominious head.\nBut if, these leaving to be thus dispersed\nBefore him, from the city-wall I fly650\nAcross the plain of Troy into the groves\nOf Ida, and in Ida\u2019s thickets lurk,\nI may, at evening, to the town return\nBathed and refresh\u2019d. But whither tend my thoughts?\nShould he my flight into the plain observe655\nAnd swift pursuing seize me, then, farewell\nAll hope to scape a miserable death,\nFor he hath strength passing the strength of man.\nHow then\u2014shall I withstand him here before\nThe city? He hath also flesh to steel660\nPervious, within it but a single life,\nAnd men report him mortal, howsoe\u2019er\nSaturnian Jove lift him to glory now.\n  So saying, he turn\u2019d and stood, his dauntless heart\nBeating for battle. As the pard springs forth665\nTo meet the hunter from her gloomy lair,\nNor, hearing loud the hounds, fears or retires,\nBut whether from afar or nigh at hand\nHe pierce her first, although transfixt, the fight\nStill tries, and combats desperate till she fall,670\nSo, brave Antenor\u2019s son fled not, or shrank,\nTill he had proved Achilles, but his breast\nO\u2019ershadowing with his buckler and his spear\nAiming well-poised against him, loud exclaim\u2019d.\n  Renown\u2019d Achilles! Thou art high in hope675\nDoubtless, that thou shalt this day overthrow\nThe city of the glorious sons of Troy.\nFool! ye must labor yet ere she be won,\nFor numerous are her citizens and bold,\nAnd we will guard her for our parents\u2019 sake680\nOur wives and little ones. But here thou diest\nTerrible Chief and dauntless as thou art.\n  He said, and with full force hurling his lance\nSmote, and err\u2019d not, his greave beneath his knee\nThe glittering tin, forged newly, at the stroke685\nTremendous rang, but quick recoil\u2019d and vain\nThe weapon, weak against that guard divine.\nThen sprang Achilles in his turn to assail\nGodlike Agenor, but Apollo took\nThat glory from him, snatching wrapt in clouds690\nAgenor thence, whom calm he sent away.\n  Then Ph\u0153bus from pursuit of Ilium\u2019s host\nBy art averted Peleus\u2019 son; the form\nAssuming of Agenor, swift he fled\nBefore him, and Achilles swift pursued.695\nWhile him Apollo thus lured to the chase\nWide o\u2019er the fruitful plain, inclining still\nToward Scamander\u2019s dizzy stream his course\nNor flying far before, but with false hope\nAlways beguiling him, the scatter\u2019d host700\nMeantime, in joyful throngs, regain\u2019d the town.\nThey fill\u2019d and shut it fast, nor dared to wait\nEach other in the field, or to inquire\nWho lived and who had fallen, but all, whom flight\nHad rescued, like a flood pour\u2019d into Troy.705\n\n\nThe Trojans being now within the city, excepting Hector, the field is\ncleared for the most important and decisive action in the poem; that\nis, the battle between Achilles and Hector, and the death of the\nlatter. This part of the story is managed with singular skill. It seems\nas if the poet, feeling the importance of the catastrophe, wished to\nwithdraw from view the personages of less consequence, and to\nconcentrate our attention upon those two alone. The poetic action and\ndescription are narrowed in extent, but deepened in interest. The fate\nof Troy is impending; the irreversible decree of Jupiter is about to be\nexecuted; the heroes, whose bravery is to be the instrument of bringing\nabout this consummation, are left together on the plain.\u2014Felton.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK XXII.\n\n\nARGUMENT OF THE TWENTY-SECOND BOOK.\n\nAchilles slays Hector.\n\n\nBOOK XXII.\n\n\nThus they, throughout all Troy, like hunted fawns\nDispersed, their trickling limbs at leisure cool\u2019d,\nAnd, drinking, slaked their fiery thirst, reclined\nAgainst the battlements. Meantime, the Greeks\nSloping their shields, approach\u2019d the walls of Troy,5\nAnd Hector, by his adverse fate ensnared,\nStill stood exposed before the Sc\u00e6an gate.\nThen spake Apollo thus to Peleus\u2019 son.\n  Wherefore, thyself mortal, pursuest thou me\nImmortal? oh Achilles! blind with rage,10\nThou know\u2019st not yet, that thou pursuest a God.\nUnmindful of thy proper task, to press\nThe flying Trojans, thou hast hither turn\u2019d\nDevious, and they are all now safe in Troy;\nYet hope me not to slay; I cannot die.15\n  To whom Achilles swiftest of the swift,\nIndignant. Oh, of all the Powers above\nTo me most adverse, Archer of the skies!\nThou hast beguiled me, leading me away\nFrom Ilium far, whence intercepted, else,20\nNo few had at this moment gnaw\u2019d the glebe.\nThou hast defrauded me of great renown,\nAnd, safe thyself, hast rescued _them_ with ease.\nAh\u2014had I power, I would requite thee well.\n  So saying, incensed he turned toward the town25\nHis rapid course, like some victorious steed\nThat whirls, at stretch, a chariot to the goal.\nSuch seem\u2019d Achilles, coursing light the field.\n  Him, first, the ancient King of Troy perceived\nScouring the plain, resplendent as the star30\nAutumnal, of all stars in dead of night\nConspicous most, and named Orion\u2019s dog;\nBrightest it shines, but ominous, and dire\nDisease portends to miserable man;[1]\nSo beam\u2019d Achilles\u2019 armor as he flew.35\nLoud wail\u2019d the hoary King; with lifted hands\nHis head he smote, and, uttering doleful cries\nOf supplication, sued to his own son.\nHe, fixt before the gate, desirous stood\nOf combat with Achilles, when his sire40\nWith arms outstretch\u2019d toward him, thus began.\n  My Hector! wait not, oh my son! the approach\nOf this dread Chief, alone, lest premature\nThou die, this moment by Achilles slain,\nFor he is strongest far. Oh that the Gods45\nHim loved as I! then, soon should vultures rend\nAnd dogs his carcase, and my grief should cease.\nHe hath unchilded me of many a son,\nAll valiant youths, whom he hath slain or sold\nTo distant isles, and even now, I miss50\nTwo sons, whom since the shutting of the gates\nI find not, Polydorus and Lycaon,\nMy children by Laoth\u00f6e the fair.\nIf they survive prisoners in yonder camp,\nI will redeem them with gold and brass55\nBy noble Eltes to his daughter given,\nLarge store, and still reserved. But should they both,\nAlready slain, have journey\u2019d to the shades,\nWe, then, from whom they sprang have cause to mourn\nAnd mourn them long, but shorter shall the grief60\nOf Ilium prove, if thou escape and live.\nCome then, my son! enter the city-gate\nThat thou may\u2019st save us all, nor in thy bloom\nOf life cut off, enhance Achilles\u2019 fame.\nCommiserate also thy unhappy sire65\nEre yet distracted, whom Saturnian Jove\nOrdains to a sad death, and ere I die\nTo woes innumerable; to behold\nSons slaughter\u2019d, daughters ravish\u2019d, torn and stripp\u2019d\nThe matrimonial chamber, infants dash\u2019d70\nAgainst the ground in dire hostility,[2]\nAnd matrons dragg\u2019d by ruthless Grecian hands.\nMe, haply, last of all, dogs shall devour\nIn my own vestibule, when once the spear\nOr falchion of some Greek hath laid me low.75\nThe very dogs fed at my table-side,\nMy portal-guards, drinking their master\u2019s blood\nTo drunkenness, shall wallow in my courts.\nFair falls the warlike youth in battle slain,\nAnd when he lies torn by the pointed steel,80\nHis death becomes him well; he is secure,\nThough dead, from shame, whatever next befalls:\nBut when the silver locks and silver beard\nOf an old man slain by the sword, from dogs\nReceive dishonor, of all ills that wait85\nOn miserable man, that sure is worst.\n  So spake the ancient King, and his grey hairs\nPluck\u2019d with both hands, but Hector firm endured.\nOn the other side all tears his mother stood,\nAnd lamentation; with one hand she bared,90\nAnd with the other hand produced her breast,\nThen in wing\u2019d accents, weeping, him bespake.\n  My Hector! reverence this, and pity me\nIf ever, drawing forth this breast, thy griefs\nOf infancy I soothed, oh now, my son!95\nAcknowledge it, and from within the walls\nRepulse this enemy; stand not abroad\nTo cope with _him_, for he is savage-fierce,\nAnd should he slay thee, neither shall myself\nWho bore thee, nor thy noble spouse weep o\u2019er100\nThy body, but, where we can never come,\nDogs shall devour it in the fleet of Greece.\n  So they with prayers importuned, and with tears\nTheir son, but him sway\u2019d not; unmoved he stood,\nExpecting vast Achilles now at hand.105\nAs some fell serpent in his cave expects\nThe traveller\u2019s approach, batten\u2019d with herbs\nOf baneful juice to fury,[3] forth he looks\nHideous, and lies coil\u2019d all around his den,\nSo Hector, fill\u2019d with confidence untamed,110\nFled not, but placing his bright shield against\nA buttress, with his noble heart conferr\u2019d.\n  [4]Alas for me! should I repass the gate,\nPolydamas would be the first to heap\nReproaches on me, for he bade me lead115\nThe Trojans back this last calamitous night\nIn which Achilles rose to arms again.\nBut I refused, although to have complied,\nHad proved more profitable far; since then\nBy rash resolves of mine I have destroy\u2019d120\nThe people, how can I escape the blame\nOf all in Troy? The meanest there will say\u2014\nBy his self-will he hath destroy\u2019d us all.\nSo shall they speak, and then shall I regret\nThat I return\u2019d ere I had slain in fight125\nAchilles, or that, by Achilles slain,\nI died not nobly in defence of Troy.\nBut shall I thus? Lay down my bossy shield,\nPut off my helmet, and my spear recline\nAgainst the city wall, then go myself130\nTo meet the brave Achilles, and at once\nPromise him Helen, for whose sake we strive\nWith all the wealth that Paris in his fleet\nBrought home, to be restored to Atreus\u2019 sons,\nAnd to distribute to the Greeks at large135\nAll hidden treasures of the town, an oath\nTaking beside from every senator,\nThat he will nought conceal, but will produce\nAnd share in just equality what stores\nSoever our fair city still includes?140\nAh airy speculations, questions vain!\nI may not sue to him: compassion none\nWill he vouchsafe me, or my suit respect.\nBut, seeing me unarm\u2019d, will sate at once\nHis rage, and womanlike I shall be slain.145\nIt is no time from oak or hollow rock\nWith him to parley, as a nymph and swain,\nA nymph and swain[5] soft parley mutual hold,\nBut rather to engage in combat fierce\nIncontinent; so shall we soonest learn150\nWhom Jove will make victorious, him or me.\n  Thus pondering he stood; meantime approach\u2019d\nAchilles, terrible as fiery Mars,\nCrest-tossing God, and brandish\u2019d as he came\nO\u2019er his right shoulder high the Pelian spear.155\nLike lightning, or like flame, or like the sun\nAscending, beam\u2019d his armor. At that sight\nTrembled the Trojan Chief, nor dared expect\nHis nearer step, but flying left the gates\nFar distant, and Achilles swift pursued.160\nAs in the mountains, fleetest fowl of air,\nThe hawk darts eager at the dove; she scuds\nAslant, he screaming, springs and springs again\nTo seize her, all impatient for the prey,\nSo flew Achilles constant to the track165\nOf Hector, who with dreadful haste beneath\nThe Trojan bulwarks plied his agile limbs.\nPassing the prospect-mount where high in air\nThe wild-fig waved,[6] they rush\u2019d along the road,\nDeclining never from the wall of Troy.170\nAnd now they reach\u2019d the running rivulets clear,\nWhere from Scamander\u2019s dizzy flood arise\nTwo fountains,[7] tepid one, from which a smoke\nIssues voluminous as from a fire,\nThe other, even in summer heats, like hail175\nFor cold, or snow, or crystal-stream frost-bound.\nBeside them may be seen the broad canals\nOf marble scoop\u2019d, in which the wives of Troy\nAnd all her daughters fair were wont to lave\nTheir costly raiment,[8] while the land had rest,180\nAnd ere the warlike sons of Greece arrived.\nBy these they ran, one fleeing, one in chase.\nValiant was he who fled, but valiant far\nBeyond him he who urged the swift pursuit;\nNor ran they for a vulgar prize, a beast185\nFor sacrifice, or for the hide of such,\nThe swift foot-racer\u2019s customary meed,\nBut for the noble Hector\u2019s life they ran.\nAs when two steeds, oft conquerors, trim the goal\nFor some illustrious prize, a tripod bright190\nOr beauteous virgin, at a funeral game,\nSo they with nimble feet the city thrice\nOf Priam compass\u2019d. All the Gods look\u2019d on,\nAnd thus the Sire of Gods and men began.\n  Ah\u2014I behold a warrior dear to me195\nAround the walls of Ilium driven, and grieve\nFor Hector, who the thighs of fatted bulls\nOn yonder heights of Ida many-valed\nBurn\u2019d oft to me, and in the heights of Troy:[9]\nBut him Achilles, glorious Chief, around200\nThe city walls of Priam now pursues.\nConsider this, ye Gods! weigh the event.\nShall we from death save Hector? or, at length,\nLeave him, although in battle high renown\u2019d,\nTo perish by the might of Peleus\u2019 son?205\n  Whom answer\u2019d thus Pallas cerulean-eyed.\nDread Sovereign of the storms! what hast thou said?\nWouldst thou deliver from the stroke of fate\nA mortal man death-destined from of old?\nDo it; but small thy praise shall be in heaven.210\n  Then answer thus, cloud-gatherer Jove return\u2019d.\nFear not, Tritonia, daughter dear! that word\nSpake not my purpose; me thou shalt perceive\nAlways to thee indulgent. What thou wilt\nThat execute, and use thou no delay.215\n  So roused he Pallas of herself prepared,\nAnd from the heights Olympian down she flew.\nWith unremitting speed Achilles still\nUrged Hector. As among the mountain-height\nThe hound pursues, roused newly from her lair220\nThe flying fawn through many a vale and grove;\nAnd though she trembling skulk the shrubs beneath,\nTracks her continual, till he find the prey,\nSo \u2019scaped not Hector Peleus\u2019 rapid son.\nOft as toward the Dardan gates he sprang225\nDirect, and to the bulwarks firm of Troy,\nHoping some aid by volleys from the wall,\nSo oft, outstripping him, Achilles thence\nEnforced him to the field, who, as he might,\nStill ever stretch\u2019d toward the walls again.230\nAs, in a dream,[10] pursuit hesitates oft,\nThis hath no power to fly, that to pursue,\nSo these\u2014one fled, and one pursued in vain.\nHow, then, had Hector his impending fate\nEluded, had not Ph\u0153bus, at his last,235\nLast effort meeting him, his strength restored,\nAnd wing\u2019d for flight his agile limbs anew?\nThe son of Peleus, as he ran, his brows\nShaking, forbad the people to dismiss\nA dart at Hector, lest a meaner hand240\nPiercing him, should usurp the foremost praise.\nBut when the fourth time to those rivulets.\nThey came, then lifting high his golden scales,\nTwo lots the everlasting Father placed\nWithin them, for Achilles one, and one245\nFor Hector, balancing the doom of both.\nGrasping it in the midst, he raised the beam.\nDown went the fatal day of Hector, down\nTo Ades, and Apollo left his side.\nThen blue-eyed Pallas hasting to the son250\nOf Peleus, in wing\u2019d accents him address\u2019d.\n  Now, dear to Jove, Achilles famed in arms!\nI hope that, fierce in combat though he be,\nWe shall, at last, slay Hector, and return\nCrown\u2019d with great glory to the fleet of Greece.255\nNo fear of his deliverance now remains,\nNot even should the King of radiant shafts,\nApollo, toil in supplication, roll\u2019d\nAnd roll\u2019d again[11] before the Thunderer\u2019s feet.\nBut stand, recover breath; myself, the while,260\nShall urge him to oppose thee face to face.\n  So Pallas spake, whom joyful he obey\u2019d,\nAnd on his spear brass-pointed lean\u2019d. But she,\n(Achilles left) to noble Hector pass\u2019d,\nAnd in the form, and with the voice loud-toned265\nApproaching of Deiphobus, his ear\nIn accents, as of pity, thus address\u2019d.\n  Ah brother! thou art overtask\u2019d, around\nThe walls of Troy by swift Achilles driven;\nBut stand, that we may chase him in his turn.[12]270\n  To whom crest-tossing Hector huge replied.\nDeiphobus! of all my father\u2019s sons\nBrought forth by Hecuba, I ever loved\nThee most, but more than ever love thee now,\nWho hast not fear\u2019d, seeing me, for my sake275\nTo quit the town, where others rest content.\n  To whom the Goddess, thus, cerulean-eyed.\nBrother! our parents with much earnest suit\nClasping my knees, and all my friends implored me\nTo stay in Troy, (such fear hath seized on all)280\nBut grief for thee prey\u2019d on my inmost soul.\nCome\u2014fight we bravely\u2014spare we now our spears\nNo longer; now for proof if Peleus\u2019 son\nSlaying us both, shall bear into the fleet\nOur arms gore-stain\u2019d, or perish slain by thee.285\n  So saying, the wily Goddess led the way.\nThey soon, approaching each the other, stood\nOpposite, and huge Hector thus began.\n  Pelides! I will fly thee now no more.\nThrice I have compass\u2019d Priam\u2019s spacious walls290\nA fugitive, and have not dared abide\nThy onset, but my heart now bids me stand\nDauntless, and I will slay, or will be slain.\nBut come. We will attest the Gods; for they\nAre fittest both to witness and to guard295\nOur covenant. If Jove to me vouchsafe\nThe hard-earn\u2019d victory, and to take thy life,\nI will not with dishonor foul insult\nThy body, but, thine armor stripp\u2019d, will give\nThee to thy friends, as thou shalt me to mine.300\n  To whom Achilles, lowering dark, replied.\nHector! my bitterest foe! speak not to me\nOf covenants! as concord can be none\nLions and men between, nor wolves and lambs\nCan be unanimous, but hate perforce305\nEach other by a law not to be changed,\nSo cannot amity subsist between\nThee and myself; nor league make I with thee\nOr compact, till thy blood in battle shed\nOr mine, shall gratify the fiery Mars.310\nRouse all thy virtue; thou hast utmost need\nOf valor now, and of address in arms.\nEscape me more thou canst not; Pallas\u2019 hand\nBy mine subdues thee; now will I avenge\nAt once the agonies of every Greek315\nIn thy unsparing fury slain by thee.\n  He said, and, brandishing the Pelian ash,\nDismiss\u2019d it; but illustrious Hector warn\u2019d,\nCrouched low, and, overflying him, it pierced\nThe soil beyond, whence Pallas plucking it320\nUnseen, restored it to Achilles\u2019 hand,\nAnd Hector to his godlike foe replied.\n  Godlike Achilles! thou hast err\u2019d, nor know\u2019st\nAt all my doom from Jove, as thou pretend\u2019st,\nBut seek\u2019st, by subtlety and wind of words,325\nAll empty sounds, to rob me of my might.\nYet stand I firm. Think not to pierce my back.\nBehold my bosom! if the Gods permit,\nMeet me advancing, and transpierce me there.\nMeantime avoid my glittering spear, but oh330\nMay\u2019st thou receive it all! since lighter far\nTo Ilium should the toils of battle prove,\nWert thou once slain, the fiercest of her foes.\n  He said, and hurling his long spear with aim\nUnerring, smote the centre of the shield335\nOf Peleus\u2019 son, but his spear glanced away.\nHe, angry to have sent it forth in vain,\n(For he had other none) with eyes downcast\nStood motionless awhile, then with loud voice\nSought from Deiphobus, white-shielded Chief,340\nA second; but Deiphobus was gone.\nThen Hector understood his doom, and said.\n  Ah, it is plain; this is mine hour to die.\nI thought Deiphobus at hand, but me\nPallas beguiled, and he is still in Troy.345\nA bitter death threatens me, it is nigh,\nAnd there is no escape; Jove, and Jove\u2019s son\nApollo, from the first, although awhile\nMy prompt deliverers, chose this lot for me,\nAnd now it finds me. But I will not fall350\nInglorious; I will act some great exploit\nThat shall be celebrated ages hence.\n  So saying, his keen falchion from his side\nHe drew, well-temper\u2019d, ponderous, and rush\u2019d\nAt once to combat. As the eagle darts355\nRight downward through a sullen cloud to seize\nWeak lamb or timorous hare, so brandishing\nHis splendid falchion, Hector rush\u2019d to fight.\nAchilles, opposite, with fellest ire\nFull-fraught came on; his shield with various art360\nCelestial form\u2019d, o\u2019erspread his ample chest,\nAnd on his radiant casque terrific waved\nThe bushy gold of his resplendent crest,\nBy Vulcan spun, and pour\u2019d profuse around.\nBright as, among the stars, the star of all365\nMost radiant, Hesperus, at midnight moves,\nSo, in the right hand of Achilles beam\u2019d\nHis brandish\u2019d spear, while, meditating wo\nTo Hector, he explored his noble form,\nSeeking where he was vulnerable most.370\nBut every part, his dazzling armor torn\nFrom brave Patroclus\u2019 body, well secured,\nSave where the circling key-bone from the neck\nDisjoins the shoulder; there his throat appear\u2019d,\nWhence injured life with swiftest flight escapes;375\nAchilles, plunging in that part his spear,\nImpell\u2019d it through the yielding flesh beyond.\nThe ashen beam his power of utterance left\nStill unimpair\u2019d, but in the dust he fell,\nAnd the exulting conqueror exclaim\u2019d.380\n  But Hector! thou hadst once far other hopes,\nAnd, stripping slain Patroclus, thought\u2019st thee safe,\nNor caredst for absent me. Fond dream and vain!\nI was not distant far; in yonder fleet\nHe left one able to avenge his death,385\nAnd he hath slain thee. Thee the dogs shall rend\nDishonorably, and the fowls of air,\nBut all Achaia\u2019s host shall him entomb.\n  To whom the Trojan Chief languid replied.\nBy thy own life, by theirs who gave thee birth,390\nAnd by thy knees,[13] oh let not Grecian dogs\nRend and devour me, but in gold accept\nAnd brass a ransom at my father\u2019s hands,\nAnd at my mother\u2019s an illustrious price;\nSend home my body, grant me burial rites395\nAmong the daughters and the sons of Troy.\n  To whom with aspect stern Achilles thus.\nDog! neither knees nor parents name to me.\nI would my fierceness of revenge were such,\nThat I could carve and eat thee, to whose arms400\nSuch griefs I owe; so true it is and sure,\nThat none shall save thy carcase from the dogs.\nNo, trust me, would thy parents bring me weigh\u2019d\nTen\u2014twenty ransoms, and engage on oath\nTo add still more; would thy Dardanian Sire405\nPriam, redeem thee with thy weight in gold,\nNot even at that price would I consent\nThat she who bare should place thee on thy bier\nWith lamentation; dogs and ravening fowls\nShall rend thy body while a scrap remains.410\n  Then, dying, warlike Hector thus replied.\nFull well I knew before, how suit of mine\nShould speed preferr\u2019d to thee. Thy heart is steel.\nBut oh, while yet thou livest, think, lest the Gods\nRequite thee on that day, when pierced thyself415\nBy Paris and Apollo, thou shalt fall,\nBrave as thou art, before the Sc\u00e6an gate.\n  He ceased, and death involved him dark around.\nHis spirit, from his limbs dismiss\u2019d, the house\nOf Ades sought, mourning in her descent420\nYouth\u2019s prime and vigor lost, disastrous doom!\nBut him though dead, Achilles thus bespake.\n  Die thou. My death shall find me at what hour\nJove gives commandment, and the Gods above.\n  He spake, and from the dead drawing away425\nHis brazen spear, placed it apart, then stripp\u2019d\nHis arms gore-stain\u2019d. Meantime the other sons\nOf the Achaians, gathering fast around,\nThe bulk admired, and the proportion just\nOf Hector; neither stood a Grecian there430\nWho pierced him not, and thus the soldier spake.\n  Ye Gods! how far more patient of the touch\nIs Hector now, than when he fired the fleet!\n  Thus would they speak, then give him each a stab.\nAnd now, the body stripp\u2019d, their noble Chief435\nThe swift Achilles standing in the midst,\nThe Grecians in wing\u2019d accents thus address\u2019d.\n  Friends, Chiefs and Senators of Argos\u2019 host!\nSince, by the will of heaven, this man is slain\nWho harm\u2019d us more than all our foes beside,440\nEssay we next the city, so to learn\nThe Trojan purpose, whether (Hector slain)\nThey will forsake the citadel, or still\nDefend it, even though of him deprived.\nBut wherefore speak I thus? still undeplored,445\nUnburied in my fleet Patroclus lies;\nHim never, while alive myself, I mix\nWith living men and move, will I forget.\nIn Ades, haply, they forget the dead,\nYet will not I Patroclus, even there.450\nNow chanting p\u00e6ans, ye Achaian youths!\nReturn we to the fleet with this our prize;\nWe have achieved great glory,[14] we have slain\nIllustrious Hector, him whom Ilium praised\nIn all her gates, and as a God revered.455\n  He said; then purposing dishonor foul\nTo noble Hector, both his feet he bored\nFrom heel to ancle, and, inserting thongs,\nThem tied behind his chariot, but his head\nLeft unsustain\u2019d to trail along the ground.460\nAscending next, the armor at his side\nHe placed, then lash\u2019d the steeds; they willing flew\nThick dust around the body dragg\u2019d arose,\nHis sable locks all swept the plain, and all\nHis head, so graceful once, now track\u2019d the dust,465\nFor Jove had given it into hostile hands\nThat they might shame it in his native soil.[15]\nThus, whelm\u2019d in dust, it went. The mother Queen\nHer son beholding, pluck\u2019d her hair away,\nCast far aside her lucid veil, and fill\u2019d470\nWith shrieks the air. His father wept aloud,\nAnd, all around, long, long complaints were heard\nAnd lamentations in the streets of Troy,\nNot fewer or less piercing, than if flames\nHad wrapt all Ilium to her topmost towers.475\nHis people scarce detain\u2019d the ancient King\nGrief-stung, and resolute to issue forth\nThrough the Dardanian gates; to all he kneel\u2019d\nIn turn, then roll\u2019d himself in dust, and each\nBy name solicited to give him way.480\n  Stand off, my fellow mourners! I would pass\nThe gates, would seek, alone, the Grecian fleet.\nI go to supplicate the bloody man,\nYon ravager; he may respect, perchance,\nMy years, may feel some pity of my age;485\nFor, such as I am, his own father is,\nPeleus, who rear\u2019d him for a curse to Troy,\nBut chiefly rear\u2019d him to myself a curse,\nSo numerous have my sons in prime of youth\nFall\u2019n by his hand, all whom I less deplore490\n(Though mourning all) than one; my agonies\nFor Hector soon shall send me to the shades.\nOh had he but within these arms expired,\nThe hapless Queen who bore him, and myself\nHad wept him, then, till sorrow could no more!495\n  So spake he weeping, and the citizens\nAll sigh\u2019d around; next, Hecuba began\nAmid the women, thus, her sad complaint.\n  Ah wherefore, oh my son! wretch that I am,\nBreathe I forlorn of thee? Thou, night and day,500\nMy glory wast in Ilium, thee her sons\nAnd daughters, both, hail\u2019d as their guardian God,\nConscious of benefits from thee received,\nWhose life prolong\u2019d should have advanced them all\nTo high renown. Vain boast! thou art no more.505\n  So mourn\u2019d the Queen. But fair Andromache\nNought yet had heard, nor knew by sure report\nHector\u2019s delay without the city gates.\nShe in a closet of her palace sat,\nA twofold web weaving magnificent,510\nWith sprinkled flowers inwrought of various hues,\nAnd to her maidens had commandment given\nThrough all her house, that compassing with fire\nAn ample tripod, they should warm a bath\nFor noble Hector from the fight return\u2019d.515\nTenderness ill-inform\u2019d! she little knew\nThat in the field, from such refreshments far,\nPallas had slain him by Achilles\u2019 hand.\nShe heard a cry of sorrow from the tower;\nHer limbs shook under her, her shuttle fell,520\nAnd to her bright-hair\u2019d train, alarm\u2019d, she cried.\n  Attend me two of you, that I may learn\nWhat hath befallen. I have heard the voice\nOf the Queen-mother; my rebounding heart\nChokes me, and I seem fetter\u2019d by a frost.525\nSome mischief sure o\u2019er Priam\u2019s sons impends.\nFar be such tidings from me! but I fear\nHorribly, lest Achilles, cutting off\nMy dauntless Hector from the gates alone,\nEnforce him to the field, and quell perhaps530\nThe might, this moment, of that dreadful arm\nHis hinderance long; for Hector ne\u2019er was wont\nTo seek his safety in the ranks, but flew\nFirst into battle, yielding place to none.\n  So saying, she rush\u2019d with palpitating heart535\nAnd frantic air abroad, by her two maids\nAttended; soon arriving at the tower,\nAnd at the throng of men, awhile she stood\nDown-looking wistful from the city-wall,\nAnd, seeing him in front of Ilium, dragg\u2019d540\nSo cruelly toward the fleet of Greece,\nO\u2019erwhelm\u2019d with sudden darkness at the view\nFell backward, with a sigh heard all around.\nFar distant flew dispersed her head-attire,\nTwist, frontlet, diadem, and even the veil545\nBy golden Venus given her on the day\nWhen Hector led her from E\u00ebtion\u2019s house\nEnrich\u2019d with nuptial presents to his home.\nAround her throng\u2019d her sisters of the house\nOf Priam, numerous, who within their arms550\nFast held her[16] loathing life; but she, her breath\nAt length and sense recovering, her complaint\nBroken with sighs amid them thus began.\n  Hector! I am undone; we both were born\nTo misery, thou in Priam\u2019s house in Troy,555\nAnd I in Hypoplacian Thebes wood-crown\u2019d\nBeneath E\u00ebtion\u2019s roof. He, doom\u2019d himself\nTo sorrow, me more sorrowfully doom\u2019d,\nSustain\u2019d in helpless infancy, whom oh\nThat he had ne\u2019er begotten! thou descend\u2019st560\nTo Pluto\u2019s subterraneous dwelling drear,\nLeaving myself destitute, and thy boy,\nFruit of our hapless loves, an infant yet,\nNever to be hereafter thy delight,\nNor love of thine to share or kindness more.565\nFor should he safe survive this cruel war,\nWith the Achaians penury and toil\nMust be his lot, since strangers will remove\nAt will his landmarks, and possess his fields.\nThee lost, he loses all, of father, both,570\nAnd equal playmate in one day deprived,\nTo sad looks doom\u2019d, and never-ceasing-tears.\nHe seeks, necessitous his father\u2019s friends,\nOne by his mantle pulls, one by his vest,\nWhose utmost pity yields to his parch\u2019d lips575\nA thirst-provoking drop, and grudges more;\nSome happier child, as yet untaught to mourn\nA parent\u2019s loss, shoves rudely from the board\nMy son, and, smiting him, reproachful cries\u2014\nAway\u2014thy father is no guest of ours\u2014580\nThen, weeping, to his widow\u2019d mother comes\nAstyanax, who on his father\u2019s lap\nAte marrow only, once, and fat of lambs,[17]\nAnd when sleep took him, and his crying fit\nHad ceased, slept ever on the softest bed,585\nWarm in his nurse\u2019s arms, fed to his fill\nWith delicacies, and his heart at rest.\nBut now, Astyanax (so named in Troy\nFor thy sake, guardian of her gates and towers)\nHis father lost, must many a pang endure.590\nAnd as for thee, cast naked forth among\nYon galleys, where no parent\u2019s eye of thine\nShall find thee, when the dogs have torn thee once\nTill they are sated, worms shall eat thee next.\nMeantime, thy graceful raiment rich, prepared595\nBy our own maidens, in thy palace lies;\nBut I will burn it, burn it all, because\nUseless to thee, who never, so adorn\u2019d,\nShalt slumber more; yet every eye in Troy\nShall see, how glorious once was thy attire.[18]600\n  So, weeping, she; to whom the multitude\nOf Trojan dames responsive sigh\u2019d around.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK XXIII.\n\n\nARGUMENT OF THE TWENTY-THIRD BOOK.\n\nThe body of Patroclus is burned, and the funeral games ensue.\n\n\nBOOK XXIII.\n\n\nSuch mourning was in Troy; meantime the Greeks\nTheir galleys and the shores of Hellespont\nRegaining, each to his own ship retired.\nBut not the Myrmidons; Achilles them\nClose rank\u2019d in martial order still detain\u2019d,5\nAnd thus his fellow-warriors brave address\u2019d.\n  Ye swift-horsed Myrmidons, associates dear!\nRelease not from your chariots yet your steeds\nFirm-hoof\u2019d, but steeds and chariots driving near,\nBewail Patroclus, as the rites demand10\nOf burial; then, satiate with grief and tears,\nWe will release our steeds, and take repast.\n  He ended, and, himself leading the way,\nHis numerous band all mourn\u2019d at once the dead.\nAround the body thrice their glossy steeds,15\nMourning they drove, while Thetis in their hearts\nThe thirst of sorrow kindled; they with tears\nThe sands bedew\u2019d, with tears their radiant arms,\nSuch deep regret of one so brave they felt.\nThen, placing on the bosom of his friend20\nHis homicidal hands, Achilles thus\nThe shade of his Patroclus, sad, bespake.\n  Hail, oh Patroclus, even in Ades hail!\nFor I will now accomplish to the full\nMy promise pledged to thee, that I would give25\nHector dragg\u2019d hither to be torn by dogs\nPiecemeal, and would before thy funeral pile\nThe necks dissever of twelve Trojan youths\nOf noblest rank, resentful of thy death.\n  He said, and meditating foul disgrace30\nTo noble Hector, stretch\u2019d him prone in dust\nBeside the bier of Men\u0153tiades.\nThen all the Myrmidons their radiant arms\nPut off, and their shrill-neighing steeds released.\nA numerous band beside the bark they sat35\nOf swift \u00c6acides, who furnish\u2019d forth\nHimself a feast funereal for them all.\nMany a white ox under the ruthless steel\nLay bleeding, many a sheep and blatant goat,\nWith many a saginated boar bright-tusk\u2019d,40\nAmid fierce flames Vulcanian stretch\u2019d to roast.\nCopious the blood ran all around the dead.\n  And now the Kings of Greece conducted thence\nTo Agamemnon\u2019s tent the royal son\nOf Peleus, loth to go, and won at last45\nWith difficulty, such his anger was\nAnd deep resentment of his slaughter\u2019d friend.\nSoon then as Agamemnon\u2019s tent they reach\u2019d,\nThe sovereign bade his heralds kindle fire\nAround an ample vase, with purpose kind50\nMoving Achilles from his limbs to cleanse\nThe stains of battle; but he firm refused\nThat suit, and bound refusal with an oath\u2014\n  No; by the highest and the best of all,\nBy Jove I will not. Never may it be55\nThat brazen bath approach this head of mine,\nTill I shall first Patroclus\u2019 body give\nTo his last fires, till I shall pile his tomb,\nAnd sheer my locks in honor of my friend;\nFor, like to this, no second wo shall e\u2019er60\nMy heart invade, while vital breath I draw.\nBut, all unwelcome as it is, repast\nNow calls us. Agamemnon, King of men!\nGive thou command that at the dawn they bring\nWood hither, such large portion as beseems65\nThe dead, descending to the shades, to share,\nThat hungry flames consuming out of sight\nHis body soon, the host may war again.\n  He spake; they, hearing, readily obey\u2019d.\nThen, each his food preparing with dispatch,70\nThey ate, nor wanted any of the guests\nDue portion, and their appetites sufficed\nTo food and wine, all to their tents repair\u2019d\nSeeking repose; but on the sands beside\nThe billowy deep Achilles groaning lay75\nAmidst his Myrmidons, where space he found\nWith blood unstain\u2019d beside the dashing wave.[1]\nThere, soon as sleep, deliverer of the mind,\nWrapp\u2019d him around (for much his noble limbs\nWith chase of Hector round the battlements80\nOf wind-swept Ilium wearied were and spent)\nThe soul came to him of his hapless friend,\nIn bulk resembling, in expressive eyes\nAnd voice Patroclus, and so clad as he.\nHim, hovering o\u2019er his head, the form address\u2019d.85\n  Sleep\u2019st thou, Achilles! of thy friend become\nHeedless? Him living thou didst not neglect\nWhom thou neglectest dead. Give me a tomb\nInstant, that I may pass the infernal gates.\nFor now, the shades and spirits of the dead90\nDrive me afar, denying me my wish\nTo mingle with them on the farthest shore,\nAnd in wide-portal\u2019d Ades sole I roam.\nGive me thine hand, I pray thee, for the earth\nI visit never more, once burnt with fire;95\nWe never shall again close council hold\nAs we were wont, for me my fate severe,\nMine even from my birth, hath deep absorb\u2019d.\nAnd oh Achilles, semblance of the Gods!\nThou too predestined art beneath the wall100\nTo perish of the high-born Trojan race.\nBut hear my last injunction! ah, my friend!\nMy bones sepulchre not from thine apart,\nBut as, together we were nourish\u2019d both\nBeneath thy roof (what time from Opo\u00ebis105\nMen\u0153tius led me to thy father\u2019s house,\nAlthough a child, yet fugitive for blood,\nWhich, in a quarrel at the dice, I spilt,\nKilling my playmate by a casual blow,\nThe offspring of Amphidamas, when, like110\nA father, Peleus with all tenderness\nReceived and cherish\u2019d me, and call\u2019d me thine)\nSo, let one vase inclose, at last, our bones,\nThe golden vase, thy Goddess mother\u2019s gift.[2]\n  To whom Achilles, matchless in the race.115\nAh, loved and honor\u2019d! wherefore hast thou come!\nWhy thus enjoin\u2019d me? I will all perform\nWith diligence that thou hast now desired.\nBut nearer stand, that we may mutual clasp\nEach other, though but with a short embrace,120\nAnd sad satiety of grief enjoy.\n  He said, and stretch\u2019d his arms toward the shade,\nBut him seized not; shrill-clamoring and light\nAs smoke, the spirit pass\u2019d into the earth.\nAmazed, upsprang Achilles, clash\u2019d aloud125\nHis palms together, and thus, sad, exclaim\u2019d.\n  Ah then, ye Gods! there doubtless are below\nThe soul and semblance both, but empty forms;\nFor all night long, mourning, disconsolate,\nThe soul of my Patroclus, hapless friend!130\nHath hover\u2019d o\u2019er me, giving me in charge\nHis last requests, just image of himself.\n  So saying, he call\u2019d anew their sorrow forth,\nAnd rosy-palm\u2019d Aurora found them all\nMourning afresh the pitiable dead.135\nThen royal Agamemnon call\u2019d abroad\nMules and mule-drivers from the tents in haste\nTo gather wood. Uprose a valiant man,\nFriend of the virtuous Chief Idomeneus,\nMeriones, who led them to the task.140\nThey, bearing each in hand his sharpen\u2019d axe\nAnd twisted cord, thence journey\u2019d forth, the mules\nDriving before them; much uneven space\nThey measured, hill and dale, right onward now,\nAnd now circuitous; but at the groves145\nArrived at length, of Ida fountain-fed,\nTheir keen-edged axes to the towering oaks\nDispatchful they applied; down fell the trees\nWith crash sonorous. Splitting, next, the trunks,\nThey bound them on the mules; they, with firm hoofs150\nThe hill-side stamping, through the thickets rush\u2019d\nDesirous of the plain. Each man his log\n(For so the armor-bearer of the King\nOf Crete, Meriones, had them enjoin\u2019d)\nBore after them, and each his burthen cast155\nDown on the beach regular, where a tomb\nOf ample size Achilles for his friend\nPatroclus had, and for himself, design\u2019d.\n  Much fuel thrown together, side by side\nThere down they sat, and his command at once160\nAchilles issued to his warriors bold,\nThat all should gird their armor, and the steeds\nJoin to their chariots; undelaying each\nComplied, and in bright arms stood soon array\u2019d.\nThen mounted combatants and charioteers.165\nFirst, moved the chariots, next, the infantry\nProceeded numerous, amid whom his friends,\nBearing the body of Patroclus, went.\nThey poll\u2019d their heads, and cover\u2019d him with hair\nShower\u2019d over all his body, while behind170\nNoble Achilles march\u2019d, the hero\u2019s head\nSustaining sorrowful, for to the realms\nOf Ades a distinguish\u2019d friend he sent.\n  And now, arriving on the ground erewhile\nMark\u2019d by Achilles, setting down the dead,175\nThey heap\u2019d the fuel quick, a lofty pile.[3]\nBut Peleus\u2019 son, on other thoughts intent,\nRetiring from the funeral pile, shore off\nHis amber ringlets,[4] whose exuberant growth\nSacred to Sperchius he had kept unshorn,180\nAnd looking o\u2019er the gloomy deep, he said.\n  Sperchius! in vain Peleus my father vow\u2019d\nThat, hence returning to my native land,\nThese ringlets shorn I should present to thee[5]\nWith a whole hecatomb, and should, beside,185\nRams offer fifty at thy fountain head\nIn thy own field, at thy own fragrant shrine.\nSo vow\u2019d the hoary Chief, whose wishes thou\nLeavest unperform\u2019d. Since, therefore, never more\nI see my native home, the hero these190\nPatroclus takes down with him to the shades.\n  He said, and filling with his hair the hand\nOf his dead friend, the sorrows of his train\nWaken\u2019d afresh. And now the lamp of day\nWestering[6] apace, had left them still in tears,195\nHad not Achilles suddenly address\u2019d\nKing Agamemnon, standing at his side.\n  Atrides! (for Achaia\u2019s sons thy word\nWill readiest execute) we may with grief\nSatiate ourselves hereafter; but, the host200\nDispersing from the pile, now give command\nThat they prepare repast; ourselves,[7] to whom\nThese labors in peculiar appertain\nWill finish them; but bid the Chiefs abide.\n  Which when imperial Agamemnon heard,205\nHe scatter\u2019d instant to their several ships\nThe people; but the burial-dressers thence\nWent not; they, still abiding, heap\u2019d the pile.\nA hundred feet of breadth from side to side\nThey gave to it, and on the summit placed210\nWith sorrowing hearts the body of the dead.\nMany a fat sheep, with many an ox full-horn\u2019d\nThey flay\u2019d before the pile, busy their task\nAdministering, and Peleus\u2019 son the fat\nTaking from every victim, overspread215\nComplete the body with it of his friend[8]\nPatroclus, and the flay\u2019d beasts heap\u2019d around.\nThen, placing flagons on the pile, replete\nWith oil and honey, he inclined their mouths\nToward the bier, and slew and added next,220\nDeep-groaning and in haste, four martial steeds.\nNine dogs the hero at his table fed,\nOf which beheading two, their carcases\nHe added also. Last, twelve gallant sons\nOf noble Trojans slaying (for his heart225\nTeem\u2019d with great vengeance) he applied the force\nOf hungry flames that should devour the whole,\nThen, mourning loud, by name his friend invoked.\n  Rejoice, Patroclus! even in the shades,\nBehold my promise to thee all fulfill\u2019d!230\nTwelve gallant sons of Trojans famed in arms,\nTogether with thyself, are all become\nFood for these fires: but fire shall never feed\nOn Hector; him I destine to the dogs.\n  So threaten\u2019d he; but him no dogs devour\u2019d;235\nThem, day and night, Jove\u2019s daughter Venus chased\nAfar, and smooth\u2019d the hero o\u2019er with oils\nOf rosy scent ambrosial, lest his corse,\nBehind Achilles\u2019 chariot dragg\u2019d along\nSo rudely, should be torn; and Ph\u0153bus hung240\nA veil of sable clouds from heaven to earth,\nO\u2019ershadowing broad the space where Hector lay,\nLest parching suns intense should stiffen him.\n  But the pile kindled not. Then, Peleus\u2019 son\nSeeking a place apart, two Winds in prayer245\nBoreas invoked and Zephyrus, to each\nVowing large sacrifice. With earnest suit\n(Libation pouring from a golden cup)\nTheir coming he implored, that so the flames\nKindling, incontinent might burn the dead.250\nIris, his supplications hearing, swift\nConvey\u2019d them to the Winds; they, in the hall\nBanqueting of the heavy-blowing West\nSat frequent. Iris, sudden at the gate\nAppear\u2019d; they, at the sight upstarting all,255\nInvited each the Goddess to himself.\nBut she refused a seat and thus she spake.[9]\n  I sit not here. Borne over Ocean\u2019s stream\nAgain, to \u00c6thiopia\u2019s land I go\nWhere hecatombs are offer\u2019d to the Gods,260\nWhich, with the rest, I also wish to share.\nBut Peleus\u2019 son, earnest, the aid implores\nOf Boreas and of Zephyrus the loud,\nVowing large sacrifice if ye will fan\nBriskly the pile on which Patroclus lies265\nBy all Achaia\u2019s warriors deep deplored.\n  She said, and went. Then suddenly arose\nThe Winds, and, roaring, swept the clouds along.\nFirst, on the sea they blew; big rose the waves\nBeneath the blast. At fruitful Troy arrived270\nVehement on the pile they fell, and dread\nOn all sides soon a crackling blaze ensued.\nAll night, together blowing shrill, they drove\nThe sheeted flames wide from the funeral pile,\nAnd all night long, a goblet in his hand275\nFrom golden beakers fill\u2019d, Achilles stood\nWith large libations soaking deep the soil,\nAnd calling on the spirit of his friend.\nAs some fond father mourns, burning the bones\nOf his own son, who, dying on the eve280\nOf his glad nuptials, hath his parents left\nO\u2019erwhelm\u2019d with inconsolable distress,\nSo mourn\u2019d Achilles, his companion\u2019s bones\nBurning, and pacing to and fro the field\nBeside the pile with many a sigh profound.285\nBut when the star, day\u2019s harbinger, arose,\nSoon after whom, in saffron vest attired\nThe morn her beams diffuses o\u2019er the sea,\nThe pile, then wasted, ceased to flame, and then\nBack flew the Winds over the Thracian deep290\nRolling the flood before them as they pass\u2019d.\nAnd now Pelides lying down apart\nFrom the funereal pile, slept, but not long,\nThough weary; waken\u2019d by the stir and din\nOf Agamemnon\u2019s train. He sat erect,295\nAnd thus the leaders of the host address\u2019d.\n  Atrides, and ye potentates who rule\nThe whole Achaian host! first quench the pile\nThroughout with generous wine, where\u2019er the fire\nHath seized it. We will then the bones collect300\nOf Men\u0153tiades, which shall with ease\nBe known, though many bones lie scatter\u2019d near,\nSince in the middle pile Patroclus lay,\nBut wide apart and on its verge we burn\u2019d\nThe steeds and Trojans, a promiscuous heap.305\nThem so collected in a golden vase\nWe will dispose, lined with a double cawl,\nTill I shall, also, to my home below.\nI wish not now a tomb of amplest bounds,\nBut such as may suffice, which yet in height310\nThe Grecians and in breadth shall much augment\nHereafter, who, survivors of my fate,\nShall still remain in the Achaian fleet.\n  So spake Pelides, and the Chiefs complied.\nWhere\u2019er the pile had blazed, with generous wine315\nThey quench\u2019d it, and the hills of ashes sank.\nThen, weeping, to a golden vase, with lard\nTwice lined, they gave their gentle comrade\u2019s bones\nFire-bleach\u2019d, and lodging safely in his tent\nThe relics, overspread them with a veil.320\nDesigning, next, the compass of the tomb,\nThey mark\u2019d its boundary with stones, then fill\u2019d\nThe wide enclosure hastily with earth,\nAnd, having heap\u2019d it to its height, return\u2019d.\nBut all the people, by Achilles still325\nDetain\u2019d, there sitting, form\u2019d a spacious ring,\nAnd he the destined prizes from his fleet\nProduced, capacious caldrons, tripods bright,\nSteeds, mules, tall oxen, women at the breast\nClose-cinctured, elegant, and unwrought[10] iron.330\nFirst, to the chariot-drivers he proposed\nA noble prize; a beauteous maiden versed\nIn arts domestic, with a tripod ear\u2019d,\nOf twenty and two measures. These he made\nThe conqueror\u2019s meed. The second should a mare335\nObtain, unbroken yet, six years her age,\nPregnant, and bearing in her womb a mule.\nA caldron of four measures, never smirch\u2019d\nBy smoke or flame, but fresh as from the forge\nThe third awaited; to the fourth he gave340\nTwo golden talents, and, unsullied yet\nBy use, a twin-ear\u2019d phial[11] to the fifth.\nHe stood erect, and to the Greeks he cried.\n\n  Atrides, and ye chiefs of all the host!\nThese prizes, in the circus placed, attend345\nThe charioteers. Held we the present games\nIn honor of some other Grecian dead,\nI would myself bear hence the foremost prize;\nFor ye are all witnesses well-inform\u2019d\nOf the superior virtue of my steeds.350\nThey are immortal; Neptune on my sire\nPeleus conferr\u2019d them, and my sire on me.\nBut neither I this contest share myself,\nNor shall my steeds; for they would miss the force\nAnd guidance of a charioteer so kind355\nAs they have lost, who many a time hath cleansed\nTheir manes with water of the crystal brook,\nAnd made them sleek, himself, with limpid oil.\nHim, therefore, mourning, motionless they stand\nWith hair dishevell\u2019d, streaming to the ground.360\nBut ye, whoever of the host profess\nSuperior skill, and glory in your steeds\nAnd well-built chariots, for the strife prepare!\n  So spake Pelides, and the charioteers,\nFor speed renown\u2019d arose. Long ere the rest365\nEumelus, King of men, Admetus\u2019 son\nArose, accomplish\u2019d in equestrian arts.\nNext, Tydeus\u2019 son, brave Diomede, arose;\nHe yoked the Trojan coursers by himself\nIn battle from \u00c6neas won, what time370\nApollo saved their master. Third, upstood\nThe son of Atreus with the golden locks,\nWho to his chariot Agamemnon\u2019s mare\nSwift \u00c6the and his own Podargus join\u2019d.\nHer Echepolus from Anchises sprung375\nTo Agamemnon gave; she was the price\nAt which he purchased leave to dwell at home\nExcused attendance on the King at Troy;\nFor, by the gift of Jove, he had acquired\nGreat riches, and in wide-spread Sicyon dwelt.380\nHer wing\u2019d with ardor, Menelaus yoked.\nAntilochus, arising fourth, his steeds\nBright-maned prepared, son of the valiant King\nOf Pylus, Nestor Nele\u00efades.\nOf Pylian breed were they, and thus his sire,385\nWith kind intent approaching to his side,\nAdvised him, of himself not uninform\u2019d.[12]\n  Antilochus! Thou art, I know, beloved\nBy Jove and Neptune both, from whom, though young\nThou hast received knowledge of every art390\nEquestrian, and hast little need to learn.\nThou know\u2019st already how to trim the goal\nWith nicest skill, yet wondrous slow of foot\nThy coursers are, whence evil may ensue.\nBut though their steeds be swifter, I account395\nThee wise, at least, as they. Now is the time\nFor counsel, furnish now thy mind with all\nPrecaution, that the prize escape thee not.\nThe feller of huge trees by skill prevails\nMore than by strength; by skill the pilot guides400\nHis flying bark rock\u2019d by tempestuous winds,\nAnd more by skill than speed the race is won.\nBut he who in his chariot and his steeds\nTrusts only, wanders here and wanders there\nUnsteady, while his coursers loosely rein\u2019d405\nRoam wide the field; not so the charioteer\nOf sound intelligence; he though he drive\nInferior steeds, looks ever to the goal\nWhich close he clips, not ignorant to check\nHis coursers at the first but with tight rein410\nRuling his own, and watching those before.\nNow mark; I will describe so plain the goal\nThat thou shalt know it surely. A dry stump\nExtant above the ground an ell in height\nStands yonder; either oak it is, or pine415\nMore likely, which the weather least impairs.\nTwo stones, both white, flank it on either hand.\nThe way is narrow there, but smooth the course\nOn both sides. It is either, as I think,\nA monument of one long since deceased,420\nOr was, perchance, in ancient days design\u2019d,\nAs now by Peleus\u2019 mighty son, a goal.\nThat mark in view, thy steeds and chariot push\nNear to it as thou may\u2019st; then, in thy seat\nInclining gently to the left, prick smart425\nThy right-hand horse challenging him aloud,\nAnd give him rein; but let thy left-hand horse\nBear on the goal so closely, that the nave\nAnd felly[13] of thy wheel may seem to meet.\nYet fear to strike the stone, lest foul disgrace430\nOf broken chariot and of crippled steeds\nEnsue, and thou become the public jest.\nMy boy beloved! use caution; for if once\nThou turn the goal at speed, no man thenceforth\nShall reach, or if he reach, shall pass thee by,435\nAlthough Arion in thy rear he drove\nAdrastus\u2019 rapid horse of race divine,\nOr those, Troy\u2019s boast, bred by Laomedon.\n  So Nestor spake, inculcating with care\nOn his son\u2019s mind these lessons in the art,440\nAnd to his place retiring, sat again.\nMeriones his coursers glossy-maned\nMade ready last. Then to his chariot-seat\nEach mounted, and the lots were thrown; himself\nAchilles shook them. First, forth leap\u2019d the lot445\nOf Nestor\u2019s son Antilochus, after whom\nThe King Eumelus took his destined place.\nThe third was Menelaus spear-renown\u2019d;\nMeriones the fourth; and last of all,\nBravest of all, heroic Diomede450\nThe son of Tydeus took his lot to drive.\nSo ranged they stood; Achilles show\u2019d the goal\nFar on the champain, nigh to which he placed\nThe godlike Ph\u0153nix servant of his sire,\nTo mark the race and make a true report.455\n  All raised the lash at once, and with the reins\nAt once all smote their steeds, urging them on\nVociferous; they, sudden, left the fleet\nFar, far behind them, scouring swift the plain.\nDark, like a stormy cloud, uprose the dust460\nTheir chests beneath, and scatter\u2019d in the wind\nTheir manes all floated; now the chariots swept\nThe low declivity unseen, and now\nEmerging started into view; erect\nThe drivers stood; emulous, every heart465\nBeat double; each encouraged loud his steeds;\nThey, flying, fill\u2019d with dust the darken\u2019d air.\nBut when returning to the hoary deep\nThey ran their last career, then each display\u2019d\nBrightest his charioteership, and the race470\nLay stretch\u2019d, at once, into its utmost speed.\nThen, soon the mares of Pheretiades[14]\nPass\u2019d all, but Diomede behind him came,\nBorne by his unemasculated steeds\nOf Trojan pedigree; they not remote,475\nBut close pursued him; and at every pace\nSeem\u2019d entering both; the chariot at their head,\nFor blowing warm into Eumelus\u2019 neck\nBehind, and on his shoulders broad, they went,\nAnd their chins rested on him as they flew.480\nThen had Tydides pass\u2019d him, or had made\nDecision dubious, but Apollo struck,\nResentful,[15] from his hand the glittering scourge.\nFast roll\u2019d the tears indignant down his cheeks,\nFor he beheld the mares with double speed,485\nFlying, and of the spur deprived, his own\nRetarded steeds continual thrown behind.\nBut not unnoticed by Minerva pass\u2019d\nThe art by Ph\u0153bus practised to impede\nThe son of Tydeus, whom with winged haste490\nFollowing, she gave to him his scourge again,\nAnd with new force his lagging steeds inspired.\nEumelus, next, the angry Goddess, swift\nPursuing, snapt his yoke; wide flew the mares\nAsunder, and the pole fell to the ground.495\nHimself, roll\u2019d from his seat, fast by the wheel\nWith lacerated elbows, nostrils, mouth,\nAnd batter\u2019d brows lay prone; sorrow his eyes\nDeluged, and disappointment chok\u2019d his voice.\nThen, far outstripping all, Tydides push\u2019d500\nHis steeds beyond, which Pallas fill\u2019d with power\nThat she might make the glorious prize his own.\nHim follow\u2019d Menelaus amber-hair\u2019d,\nThe son of Atreus, and his father\u2019s steeds\nEncouraging, thus spake Antilochus.505\n  Away\u2014now stretch ye forward to the goal.\nI bid you not to an unequal strife\nWith those of Diomede, for Pallas them\nQuickens that he may conquer, and the Chief\nSo far advanced makes competition vain.510\nBut reach the son of Atreus, fly to reach\nHis steeds, incontinent; ah, be not shamed\nFor ever, foil\u2019d by \u00c6the, by a mare!\nWhy fall ye thus behind, my noblest steeds?\nI tell you both, and ye shall prove me true,515\nNo favor shall ye find at Nestor\u2019s hands,\nMy valiant sire, but he will thrust his spear\nRight through you, should we lose, for sloth of yours,\nOr by your negligence, the nobler prize.\nHaste then\u2014pursue him\u2014reach the royal Chief\u2014520\nAnd how to pass him in yon narrow way\nShall be my care, and not my care in vain.\n  He ended; they, awhile, awed by his voice,\nWith more exertion ran, and Nestor\u2019s son\nNow saw the hollow strait mark\u2019d by his sire.525\nIt was a chasm abrupt, where winter-floods,\nWearing the soil, had gullied deep the way.\nThither Atrides, anxious to avoid\nA clash of chariots drove, and thither drove\nAlso, but somewhat devious from his track,530\nAntilochus. Then Menelaus fear\u2019d,\nAnd with loud voice the son of Nestor hail\u2019d.\n  Antilochus, at what a madman\u2019s rate\nDrivest thou! stop\u2014check thy steeds\u2014the way is here\nToo strait, but widening soon, will give thee scope535\nTo pass me by; beware, lest chariot close\nTo chariot driven, thou maim thyself and me.\n  He said; but still more rapid and the scourge\nPlying continual, as he had not heard,\nAntilochus came on. Far as the quoit540\nBy some broad-shoulder\u2019d youth for trial hurl\u2019d\nOf manhood flies, so far Antilochus\nShot forward; but the coursers fell behind\nOf Atreus\u2019 son, who now abated much\nBy choice his driving, lest the steeds of both545\nJostling, should overturn with sudden shock\nBoth chariots, and themselves in dust be roll\u2019d,\nThrough hot ambition of the foremost prize.\nHim then the hero golden-hair\u2019d reproved.\n  Antilochus! the man lives not on earth550\nLike thee for love of mischief. Go, extoll\u2019d\nFor wisdom falsely by the sons of Greece.\nYet, trust me, not without an oath, the prize\nThus foully sought shall even now be thine.\n  He said, and to his coursers call\u2019d aloud.555\nAh be not tardy; stand not sorrow-check\u2019d;\nTheir feet will fail them sooner far than yours,\nFor years have pass\u2019d since they had youth to boast.\n  So he; and springing at his voice, his steeds\nRegain\u2019d apace the vantage lost. Meantime560\nThe Grecians, in full circus seated, mark\u2019d\nThe steeds; they flying, fill\u2019d with dust the air.\nThen, ere the rest, Idomeneus discern\u2019d\nThe foremost pair; for, on a rising ground\nExalted, he without the circus sat,565\nAnd hearing, though remote, the driver\u2019s voice\nChiding his steeds, knew it, and knew beside\nThe leader horse distinguish\u2019d by his hue,\nChestnut throughout, save that his forehead bore\nA splendid blazon white, round as the moon.570\n  He stood erect, and to the Greeks he cried.\nFriends! Chiefs and senators of Argos\u2019 host!\nDiscern I sole the steeds, or also ye?\nThe horses, foremost now, to me appear\nOther than erst, and I descry at hand575\nA different charioteer; the mares of late\nVictorious, somewhere distant in the race\nAre hurt; I plainly saw them at the first\nTurning the goal, but see them now no more;\nAnd yet with eyes inquisitive I range580\nFrom side to side the whole broad plain of Troy.\nEither the charioteer hath slipp\u2019d the reins,\nOr rounded not successfully the goal\nThrough want of guidance. Thrown, as it should seem,\nForth from his seat, he hath his chariot maim\u2019d,585\nAnd his ungovern\u2019d steeds have roam\u2019d away.\nArise and look ye forth yourselves, for I\nWith doubtful ken behold him; yet the man\nSeems, in my view, \u00c6tolian by descent,\nA Chief of prime renown in Argos\u2019 host,590\nThe hero Tydeus\u2019 son, brave Diomede,\n  But Ajax O\u00efliades the swift\nHim sharp reproved. Why art thou always given\nTo prate, Idomeneus? thou seest the mares,\nRemote indeed, but posting to the goal.595\nThou art not youngest of the Argives here\nSo much, nor from beneath thy brows look forth\nQuick-sighted more than ours, thine eyes abroad.\nYet still thou pratest, although silence more\nShould suit thee, among wiser far than thou.600\nThe mares which led, lead still, and he who drives\nEumelus is, the same who drove before.\n  To whom the Cretan Chief, angry, replied.\nAjax! whom none in wrangling can excel\nOr rudeness, though in all beside thou fall605\nBelow the Argives, being boorish-rough,\nCome now\u2014a tripod let us wager each,\nOr caldron, and let Agamemnon judge\nWhose horses lead, that, losing, thou may\u2019st learn.\n  He said; then sudden from his seat upsprang610\nSwift Ajax O\u00efliades, prepared\nFor harsh retort, nor had the contest ceased\nBetween them, but had grown from ill to worse,\nHad not himself, Achilles, interposed.\n  Ajax\u2014Idomeneus\u2014abstain ye both615\nFrom bitter speech offensive, and such terms\nAs ill become you. Ye would feel, yourselves,\nResentment, should another act as ye.\nSurvey the course, peaceable, from your seats;\nThe charioteers, by competition wing\u2019d,620\nWill soon themselves arrive, then shall ye know\nDistinctly, both who follows and who leads.\n  He scarce had said, when nigh at hand appear\u2019d\nTydides, lashing, as he came, his steeds\nContinual; they with hoofs uplifted high625\nTheir yet remaining ground shorten\u2019d apace,\nSprinkling with dusty drops at every stroke\nTheir charioteer, while close upon their heels\nRadiant with tin and gold the chariot ran,\nScarce tracking light the dust, so swift they flew.630\nHe stood in the mid-circus; there the sweat\nRain\u2019d under them from neck and chest profuse,\nAnd Diomede from his resplendent seat\nLeaping, reclined his scourge against the yoke.\nNor was his friend brave Sthenelus remiss,635\nBut, seizing with alacrity the prize,\nConsign\u2019d the tripod and the virgin, first,\nTo his own band in charge; then, loosed the steeds.\nNext came, by stratagem, not speed advanced\nTo that distinction, Nestor\u2019s son, whom yet640\nThe hero Menelaus close pursued\nNear as the wheel runs to a courser\u2019s heels,\nDrawing his master at full speed; his tail\nWith its extremest hairs the felly sweeps\nThat close attends him o\u2019er the spacious plain,645\nSo near had Menelaus now approach\u2019d\nAntilochus; for though at first he fell\nA full quoit\u2019s cast behind, he soon retrieved\nThat loss, with such increasing speed the mare\nBright-maned of Agamemnon, \u00c6the, ran;650\nShe, had the course few paces more to both\nAfforded, should have clearly shot beyond\nAntilochus, nor dubious left the prize.\nBut noble Menelaus threw behind\nMeriones, companion in the field,655\nOf King Idomeneus, a lance\u2019s flight,\nFor slowest were his steeds, and he, to rule\nThe chariot in the race, least skill\u2019d of all.\nLast came Eumelus drawing to the goal,\nHimself, his splendid chariot, and his mares660\nDriving before him. Peleus\u2019 rapid son\nBeheld him with compassion, and, amid\nThe Argives, in wing\u2019d accents thus he spake.\n  Here comes the most expert, driving his steeds\nBefore him. Just it were that he received665\nThe second prize; Tydides claims the first.\n  He said, and all applauded the award.\nThen had Achilles to Eumelus given\nThe mare (for such the pleasure seem\u2019d of all)\nHad not the son of mighty Nestor risen,670\nAntilochus, who pleaded thus his right.\n  Achilles! acting as thou hast proposed,\nThou shalt offend me much, for thou shalt take\nThe prize from me, because the Gods, his steeds\nAnd chariot-yoke disabling, render\u2019d vain675\nHis efforts, and no failure of his own.\nIt was his duty to have sought the Gods\nIn prayer, then had he not, following on foot\nHis coursers, hindmost of us all arrived.\nBut if thou pity him, and deem it good,680\nThou hast much gold, much brass, and many sheep\nIn thy pavilion; thou hast maidens fair,\nAnd coursers also. Of thy proper stores\nHereafter give to him a richer prize\nThan this, or give it now, so shall the Greeks685\nApplaud thee; but this mare yield I to none;\nStand forth the Grecian who desires to win\nThat recompense, and let him fight with me.\n  He ended, and Achilles, godlike Chief,\nSmiled on him, gratulating his success,690\nWhom much he loved; then, ardent, thus replied.\n  Antilochus! if thou wouldst wish me give\nEumelus of my own, even so I will.\nI will present to him my corslet bright\nWon from Asterop\u00e6us, edged around695\nWith glittering tin; a precious gift, and rare.\n  So saying, he bade Automedon his friend\nProduce it from the tent; he at his word\nDeparting, to Achilles brought the spoil,\nWhich at his hands Eumelus glad received.700\nThen, stung with grief, and with resentment fired\nImmeasurable, Menelaus rose\nTo charge Antilochus. His herald gave\nThe sceptre to his hand, and (silence bidden\nTo all) the godlike hero thus began.705\n  Antilochus! oh heretofore discreet!\nWhat hast thou done? Thou hast dishonor\u2019d foul\nMy skill, and wrong\u2019d my coursers, throwing thine,\nAlthough inferior far, by fraud before them.\nYe Chiefs and Senators of Argos\u2019 host!710\nImpartial judge between us, lest, of these,\nSome say hereafter, Menelaus bore\nAntilochus by falsehood down, and led\nThe mare away, because, although his steeds\nWere worse, his arm was mightier, and prevail\u2019d.715\nYet hold\u2014myself will judge, and will to all\nContentment give, for I will judge aright.\nHither, Antilochus, illustrious youth!\nAnd, as the law prescribes, standing before\nThy steeds and chariot, holding too the scourge720\nWith which thou drovest, lay hand on both thy steeds,\nAnd swear by Neptune, circler of the earth,\nThat neither wilfully, nor yet by fraud\nThou didst impede my chariot in its course.\n  Then prudent, thus Antilochus replied.725\nOh royal Menelaus! patient bear\nThe fault of one thy junior far, in years\nAlike unequal and in worth to thee.\nThou know\u2019st how rash is youth, and how propense\nTo pass the bounds by decency prescribed,730\nQuick, but not wise. Lay, then, thy wrath aside;\nThe mare now given me I will myself\nDeliver to thee, and if thou require\nA larger recompense, will rather yield\nA larger much than from thy favor fall735\nDeservedly for ever, mighty Prince!\nAnd sin so heinously against the Gods.\n  So saying, the son of valiant Nestor led\nThe mare, himself, to Menelaus\u2019 hand,\nWho with heart-freshening joy the prize received.740\nAs on the ears of growing corn the dews\nFall grateful, while the spiry grain erect\nBristles the fields, so, Menelaus, felt\nThy inmost soul a soothing pleasure sweet!\nThen answer thus the hero quick return\u2019d.745\n  Antilochus! exasperate though I were,\nNow, such no longer, I relinquish glad\nAll strife with thee, for that at other times\nThou never inconsiderate wast or light,\nAlthough by youthful heat misled to-day.750\nYet safer is it not to over-reach\nSuperiors, for no other Grecian here\nHad my extreme displeasure calm\u2019d so soon;\nBut thou hast suffer\u2019d much, and much hast toil\u2019d,\nAs thy good father and thy brother have,755\nOn my behalf; I, therefore, yield, subdued\nBy thy entreaties, and the mare, though mine,\nWill also give thee, that these Grecians all\nMay know me neither proud nor hard to appease.\n  So saying, the mare he to No\u00ebmon gave,760\nFriend of Antilochus, and, well-content,\nThe polish\u2019d caldron for _his_ prize received.\nThe fourth awarded lot (for he had fourth\nArrived) Meriones asserted next,\nThe golden talents; but the phial still765\nLeft unappropriated Achilles bore\nAcross the circus in his hand, a gift\nTo ancient Nestor, whom he thus bespake.\n  Thou also, oh my father! this accept,\nWhich in remembrance of the funeral rites770\nOf my Patroclus, keep, for him thou seest\nAmong the Greeks no more. Receive a prize,\nThine by gratuity; for thou shalt wield\nThe cestus, wrestle, at the spear contend,\nOr in the foot-race (fallen as thou art775\nInto the wane of life) never again.\n  He said, and placed it in his hands. He, glad,\nReceiving it, in accents wing\u2019d replied.\n  True, oh my son! is all which thou hast spoken.\nThese limbs, these hands, young friend! (their vigor lost)780\nNo longer, darted from the shoulder, spring\nAt once to battle. Ah that I could grow\nYoung yet again, could feel again such force\nAthletic, as when in Buprasium erst\nThe Epeans with sepulchral pomp entomb\u2019d785\nKing Amarynceus, where his sons ordain\u2019d\nFunereal games in honor of their sire!\nEpean none or even Pylian there\nCould cope with me, or yet \u00c6tolian bold.\nBoxing, I vanquish\u2019d Clytomedes, son790\nOf Enops; wrestling, the Pleuronian Chief\nAnc\u00e6us; in the foot-race Iphiclus,\nThough a fleet runner; and I over-pitch\u2019d\nPhyleus and Polydorus at the spear.\nThe sons of Actor[16] in the chariot-race795\nAlone surpass\u2019d me, being two for one,\nAnd jealous both lest I should also win\nThat prize, for to the victor charioteer\nThey had assign\u2019d the noblest prize of all.\nThey were twin-brothers, and one ruled the steeds,800\nThe steeds one ruled,[17] the other lash\u2019d them on.\nSuch once was I; but now, these sports I leave\nTo younger; me submission most befits\nTo withering age, who then outshone the best.\nBut go. The funeral of thy friend with games805\nProceed to celebrate; I accept thy gift\nWith pleasure; and my heart is also glad\nThat thou art mindful evermore of one\nWho loves thee, and such honor in the sight\nYield\u2019st me of all the Greeks, as is my due.810\nMay the Gods bless thee for it more and more!\n  He spake, and Peleus\u2019 son, when he had heard\nAt large his commendation from the lips\nOf Nestor, through the assembled Greeks return\u2019d.\nHe next proposed, not lightly to be won,815\nThe boxer\u2019s prize. He tether\u2019d down a mule,\nUntamed and hard to tame, but strong to toil,\nAnd in her prime of vigor, in the midst;\nA goblet to the vanquish\u2019d he assign\u2019d,\nThen stood erect and to the Greeks exclaim\u2019d.820\n  Atrid\u00e6! and ye Argives brazen-greaved!\nI call for two bold combatants expert\nTo wage fierce strife for these, with lifted fists\nSmiting each other. He, who by the aid\nOf Ph\u0153bus shall o\u2019ertome, and whom the Greeks825\nShall all pronounce victorious, leads the mule\nHence to his tent; the vanquish\u2019d takes the cup.\n  He spake, and at his word a Greek arose\nBig, bold, and skillful in the boxer\u2019s art,\nEpe\u00fcs, son of Panopeus; his hand830\nHe on the mule imposed, and thus he said.\n  Approach the man ambitious of the cup!\nFor no Achaian here shall with his fist\nMe foiling, win the mule. I boast myself\nTo all superior. May it not suffice835\nThat I to no pre-eminence pretend\nIn battle? To attain to foremost praise\nAlike in every art is not for one.\nBut this I promise, and will well perform\u2014\nMy blows shall lay him open, split him, crush840\nHis bones to splinters, and let all his friends,\nAttendant on him, wait to bear him hence,\nVanquish\u2019d by my superior force in fight.\n  He ended, and his speech found no reply.\nOne godlike Chief alone, Euryalus,845\nSon of the King Mecisteus, who, himself,\nSprang from Talaion, opposite arose.\nHe, on the death of Oedipus, at Thebes\nContending in the games held at his tomb,\nHad overcome the whole Cadmean race.850\nHim Diomede spear-famed for fight prepared,\nGiving him all encouragement, for much\nHe wish\u2019d him victory. First then he threw[18]\nHis cincture to him; next, he gave him thongs[19]\nCut from the hide of a wild buffalo.855\nBoth girt around, into the midst they moved.\nThen, lifting high their brawny arms, and fists\nMingling with fists, to furious fight they fell;\nDire was the crash of jaws, and the sweat stream\u2019d\nFrom every limb. Epe\u00fcs fierce advanced,860\nAnd while Euryalus with cautious eye\nWatch\u2019d his advantage, pash\u2019d him on the cheek\nHe stood no longer, but, his shapely limbs,\nUnequal to his weight, sinking, he fell.\nAs by the rising north-wind driven ashore865\nA huge fish flounces on the weedy beach,\nWhich soon the sable flood covers again,\nSo, beaten down, he bounded. But Epe\u00fcs,\nHeroic chief, upraised him by his hand,\nAnd his own comrades from the circus forth870\nLed him, step dragging after step, the blood\nEjecting grumous, and at every pace\nRolling his head languid from side to side.\nThey placed him all unconscious on his seat\nIn his own band, then fetch\u2019d his prize, the cup.875\n  Still other prizes, then, Achilles placed\nIn view of all, the sturdy wrestler\u2019s meed.\nA large hearth-tripod, valued by the Greeks\nAt twice six beeves, should pay the victor\u2019s toil;\nBut for the vanquish\u2019d, in the midst he set880\nA damsel in variety expert\nOf arts domestic, valued at four beeves.\nHe rose erect, and to the Greeks he cried.\n  Arise ye, now, who shall this prize dispute.\nSo spake the son of Peleus; then arose885\nHuge Telamonian Ajax, and upstood\nUlysses also, in all wiles adept.\nBoth girt around, into the midst they moved.\nWith vigorous gripe each lock\u2019d the other fast,\nLike rafters, standing, of some mansion built890\nBy a prime artist proof against all winds.\nTheir backs, tugg\u2019d vehemently, creak\u2019d,[20] the sweat\nTrickled, and on their flanks and shoulders, red\nThe whelks arose; they bearing still in mind\nThe tripod, ceased not struggling for the prize.895\nNor could Ulysses from his station move\nAnd cast down Ajax, nor could Ajax him\nUnsettle, fixt so firm Ulysses stood.\nBut when, long time expectant, all the Greeks\nGrew weary, then, huge Ajax him bespake.900\n  Laertes\u2019 noble son, for wiles renown\u2019d!\nLift, or be lifted, and let Jove decide.\n  He said, and heaved Ulysses. Then, his wiles\nForgat not he, but on the ham behind\nChopp\u2019d him; the limbs of Ajax at the stroke905\nDisabled sank; he fell supine, and bore\nUlysses close adhering to his chest\nDown with him. Wonder riveted all eyes.\nThen brave Ulysses from the ground awhile\nHim lifted in his turn, but ere he stood,910\nInserting his own knee the knees between[21]\nOf Ajax, threw him. To the earth they fell\nBoth, and with dust defiled lay side by side.\nAnd now, arising to a third essay,\nThey should have wrestled yet again, had not915\nAchilles, interfering, them restrain\u2019d.\n  Strive not together more; cease to exhaust\nEach other\u2019s force; ye both have earn\u2019d the prize\nDepart alike requited, and give place\nTo other Grecians who shall next contend.920\n  He spake; they glad complied, and wiping off\nThe dust, put on their tunics. Then again\nAchilles other prizes yet proposed,\nThe rapid runner\u2019s meed. First, he produced\nA silver goblet of six measures; earth925\nOwn\u2019d not its like for elegance of form.\nSkilful Sidonian artists had around\nEmbellish\u2019d it,[22] and o\u2019er the sable deep\nPh\u0153nician merchants into Lemnos\u2019 port\nHad borne it, and the boon to Thoas[23] given;930\nBut Jason\u2019s son, Eune\u00fcs, in exchange\nFor Priam\u2019s son Lycaon, to the hand\nHad pass\u2019d it of Patroclus famed in arms.\nAchilles this, in honor of his friend,\nSet forth, the swiftest runner\u2019s recompense.935\nThe second should a fatted ox receive\nOf largest size, and he assign\u2019d of gold\nA just half-talent to the worst and last.\nHe stood erect, and to the Greeks he cried.\n  Now stand ye forth who shall this prize dispute.940\nHe said, and at his word instant arose\nSwift Ajax O\u00efliades; upsprang\nThe shrewd Ulysses next, and after him\nBrave Nestor\u2019s son Antilochus, with whom\nNone vied in speed of all the youths of Greece.945\nThey stood prepared. Achilles show\u2019d the goal.\nAt once all started. O\u00efliades\nLed swift the course, and closely at his heels\nUlysses ran. Near as some cinctured maid\nIndustrious holds the distaff to her breast,950\nWhile to and fro with practised finger neat\nShe tends the flax drawing it to a thread,\nSo near Ulysses follow\u2019d him, and press\u2019d\nHis footsteps, ere the dust fill\u2019d them again,\nPouring his breath into his neck behind,955\nAnd never slackening pace. His ardent thirst\nOf victory with universal shouts\nAll seconded, and, eager, bade him on.\nAnd now the contest shortening to a close,\nUlysses his request silent and brief960\nTo azure-eyed Minerva thus preferr\u2019d.\n  Oh Goddess hear, prosper me in the race!\nSuch was his prayer, with which Minerva pleased,\nFreshen\u2019d his limbs, and made him light to run.\nAnd now, when in one moment they should both965\nHave darted on the prize, then Ajax\u2019 foot\nSliding, he fell; for where the dung of beeves\nSlain by Achilles for his friend, had spread\nThe soil, there[24] Pallas tripp\u2019d him. Ordure foul\nHis mouth, and ordure foul his nostrils fill\u2019d.970\nThen brave Ulysses, first arriving, seized\nThe cup, and Ajax took his prize, the ox.\nHe grasp\u2019d his horn, and sputtering as he stood\nThe ordure forth, the Argives thus bespake.\n  Ah\u2014Pallas tripp\u2019d my footsteps; she attends975\nUlysses ever with a mother\u2019s care.\n  Loud laugh\u2019d the Grecians. Then, the remnant prize\nAntilochus receiving, smiled and said.\n  Ye need not, fellow-warriors, to be taught\nThat now, as ever, the immortal Gods980\nHonor on seniority bestow.\nAjax is elder, yet not much, than I.\nBut Laertiades was born in times\nLong past, a chief co\u00ebval with our sires,\nNot young, but vigorous; and of the Greeks,985\nAchilles may alone with him contend.\n  So saying, the merit of superior speed\nTo Peleus\u2019 son he gave, who thus replied.\n  Antilochus! thy praise of me shall prove\nNor vain nor unproductive to thyself,990\nFor the half-talent doubled shall be thine.\n  He spake, and, doubling it, the talent placed\nWhole in his hand. He glad the gift received.\nAchilles, then Sarpedon\u2019s arms produced,\nStripp\u2019d from him by Patroclus, his long spear,995\nHelmet and shield, which in the midst he placed.\nHe stood erect, and to the Greeks he cried.\n  I call for two brave warriors arm\u2019d to prove\nEach other\u2019s skill with weapons keen, this prize\nDisputing, next, in presence of us all.1000\nWho first shall through his armor reach the skin\nOf his antagonist, and shall draw his blood,\nTo him this silver-studded falchion bright\nI give; the blade is Thracian, and of late\nAsterop\u00e6us wore it, whom I slew.1005\nThese other arms shall be their common meed,\nAnd I will banquet both within my tent.\n  He said, then Telamonian Ajax huge\nArose, and opposite the son arose\nOf warlike Tydeus, Diomede the brave.1010\nApart from all the people each put on\nHis arms, then moved into the middle space,\nLowering terrific, and on fire to fight.\nThe host look\u2019d on amazed. Approaching each\nThe other, thrice they sprang to the assault,1015\nAnd thrice struck hand to hand. Ajax the shield\nPierced of his adversary, but the flesh\nAttain\u2019d not, baffled by his mail within.\nThen Tydeus\u2019 son, sheer o\u2019er the ample disk\nOf Ajax, thrust a lance home to his neck,1020\nAnd the Achaians for the life appall\u2019d\nOf Ajax, bade them, ceasing, share the prize.\nBut the huge falchion with its sheath and belt\u2014\nAchilles them on Diomede bestow\u2019d.\n  The hero, next, an iron clod produced1025\nRough from the forge, and wont to task the might\nOf King E\u00ebtion; but, when him he slew,\nPelides, glorious chief, with other spoils\nFrom Thebes convey\u2019d it in his fleet to Troy.\nHe stood erect, and to the Greeks he cried.1030\n  Come forth who also shall this prize dispute!\nHow far soe\u2019er remote the winner\u2019s fields,\nThis lump shall serve his wants five circling years;\nHis shepherd shall not, or his plower, need\nIn quest of iron seek the distant town,1035\nBut hence he shall himself their wants supply.[25]\nThen Polyp\u0153tes brave in fight arose,\nArose Leonteus also, godlike chief,\nWith Ajax son of Telamon. Each took\nHis station, and Epe\u00fcs seized the clod.1040\nHe swung, he cast it, and the Grecians laugh\u2019d.\nLeonteus, branch of Mars, quoited it next.\nHuge Telamonian Ajax with strong arm\nDismiss\u2019d it third, and overpitch\u2019d them both.\nBut when brave Polyp\u0153tes seized the mass1045\nFar as the vigorous herdsman flings his staff\nThat twirling flies his numerous beeves between,[26]\nSo far his cast outmeasured all beside,\nAnd the host shouted. Then the friends arose\nOf Polyp\u0153tes valiant chief, and bore1050\nHis ponderous acquisition to the ships.\n  The archers\u2019 prize Achilles next proposed,\nTen double and ten single axes, form\u2019d\nOf steel convertible to arrow-points.\nHe fix\u2019d, far distant on the sands, the mast1055\nOf a brave bark cerulean-prow\u2019d, to which\nWith small cord fasten\u2019d by the foot he tied\nA timorous dove, their mark at which to aim.\n[27]Who strikes the dove, he conquers, and shall bear\nThese double axes all into his tent.1060\nBut who the cord alone, missing the bird,\nSuccessful less, he wins the single blades.\n  The might of royal Teucer then arose,\nAnd, fellow-warrior of the King of Crete,\nValiant Meriones. A brazen casque1065\nReceived the lots; they shook them, and the lot\nFell first to Teucer. He, at once, a shaft\nSent smartly forth, but vow\u2019d not to the King[28]\nA hecatomb, all firstlings of the flock.\nHe therefore (for Apollo greater praise1070\nDenied him) miss\u2019d the dove, but struck the cord\nThat tied her, at small distance from the knot,\nAnd with his arrow sever\u2019d it. Upsprang\nThe bird into the air, and to the ground\nDepending fell the cord. Shouts rent the skies.1075\nThen, all in haste, Meriones the bow\nCaught from his hand holding a shaft the while\nAlready aim\u2019d, and to Apollo vow\u2019d\nA hecatomb, all firstlings of the flock.\nHe eyed the dove aloft, under a cloud,1080\nAnd, while she wheel\u2019d around, struck her beneath\nThe pinion; through her and beyond her pass\u2019d\nThe arrow, and, returning, pierced the soil\nFast by the foot of brave Meriones.\nShe, perching on the mast again, her head1085\nReclined, and hung her wide-unfolded wing,\nBut, soon expiring, dropp\u2019d and fell remote.\nAmazement seized the people. To his tent\nMeriones the ten best axes bore,\nAnd Teucer the inferior ten to his.[29]1090\n  Then, last, Achilles in the circus placed\nA ponderous spear and caldron yet unfired,\nEmboss\u2019d with flowers around, its worth an ox.\nUpstood the spear-expert; Atrides first,\nWide-ruling Agamemnon, King of men,1095\nAnd next, brave fellow-warrior of the King\nOf Crete, Meriones; when thus his speech\nAchilles to the royal chief address\u2019d.\n  Atrides! (for we know thy skill and force\nMatchless! that none can hurl the spear as thou)1100\nThis prize is thine, order it to thy ship;\nAnd if it please thee, as I would it might,\nLet brave Meriones the spear receive.\n  He said; nor Agamemnon not complied,\nBut to Meriones the brazen spear\nPresenting, to Talthybius gave in charge\nThe caldron, next, his own illustrious prize.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK XXIV.\n\n\nARGUMENT OF THE TWENTY-FOURTH BOOK.\n\nPriam, by command of Jupiter, and under conduct of Mercury, seeks\nAchilles in his tent, who admonished previously by Thetis, consents to\naccept ransom for the body of Hector. Hector is mourned, and the manner\nof his funeral, circumstantially described, concludes the poem.\n\n\nBOOK XXIV.\n\n\nThe games all closed, the people went dispersed\nEach to his ship; they, mindful of repast,\nAnd to enjoy repose; but other thoughts\nAchilles\u2019 mind employ\u2019d: he still deplored\nWith tears his loved Patroclus, nor the force5\nFelt of all-conquering sleep, but turn\u2019d and turn\u2019d\nRestless from side to side, mourning the loss\nOf such a friend, so manly, and so brave.\nTheir fellowship in toil; their hardships oft\nSustain\u2019d in fight laborious, or o\u2019ercome10\nWith difficulty on the perilous deep\u2014\nRemembrance busily retracing themes\nLike these, drew down his cheeks continual tears.\nNow on his side he lay, now lay supine,\nNow prone, then starting from his couch he roam\u2019d15\nForlorn the beach, nor did the rising morn\nOn seas and shores escape his watchful eye,\nBut joining to his chariot his swift steeds,\nHe fasten\u2019d Hector to be dragg\u2019d behind.\nAround the tomb of Men\u0153tiades20\nHim thrice he dragg\u2019d; then rested in his tent,\nLeaving him at his length stretch\u2019d in the dust.\nMeantime Apollo with compassion touch\u2019d\nEven of the lifeless Hector, from all taint\nSaved him, and with the golden \u00e6gis broad25\nCovering, preserved him, although dragg\u2019d, untorn.\n\n  While he, indulging thus his wrath, disgraced\nBrave Hector, the immortals at that sight\nWith pity moved, exhorted Mercury\nThe watchful Argicide, to steal him thence.30\nThat counsel pleased the rest, but neither pleased\nJuno, nor Neptune, nor the blue-eyed maid.\nThey still, as at the first, held fast their hate\nOf sacred Troy, detested Priam still,\nAnd still his people, mindful of the crime35\nOf Paris, who when to his rural hut\nThey came, those Goddesses affronting,[1] praise\nAnd admiration gave to her alone\nWho with vile lusts his preference repaid.\nBut when the twelfth ensuing morn arose,40\nApollo, then, the immortals thus address\u2019d.\n  Ye Gods, your dealings now injurious seem\nAnd cruel. Was not Hector wont to burn\nThighs of fat goats and bullocks at your shrines?\nWhom now, though dead, ye cannot yet endure45\nTo rescue, that Andromache once more\nMight view him, his own mother, his own son,\nHis father and the people, who would soon\nYield him his just demand, a funeral fire.\nBut, oh ye Gods! your pleasure is alone50\nTo please Achilles, that pernicious chief,\nWho neither right regards, nor owns a mind\nThat can relent, but as the lion, urged\nBy his own dauntless heart and savage force,\nInvades without remorse the rights of man,55\nThat he may banquet on his herds and flocks,\nSo Peleus\u2019 son all pity from his breast\nHath driven, and shame, man\u2019s blessing or his curse.[2]\nFor whosoever hath a loss sustain\u2019d\nStill dearer, whether of his brother born60\nFrom the same womb, or even of his son,\nWhen he hath once bewail\u2019d him, weeps no more,\nFor fate itself gives man a patient mind.\nYet Peleus\u2019 son, not so contented, slays\nIllustrious Hector first, then drags his corse65\nIn cruel triumph at his chariot-wheels\nAround Patroclus\u2019 tomb; but neither well\nHe acts, nor honorably to himself,\nWho may, perchance, brave though he be, incur\nOur anger, while to gratify revenge70\nHe pours dishonor thus on senseless clay.\n  To whom, incensed, Juno white-arm\u2019d replied.\nAnd be it so; stand fast this word of thine,\nGod of the silver bow! if ye account\nOnly such honor to Achilles due75\nAs Hector claims; but Hector was by birth\nMere man, and suckled at a woman\u2019s breast.\nNot such Achilles; him a Goddess bore,\nWhom I myself nourish\u2019d, and on my lap\nFondled, and in due time to Peleus gave80\nIn marriage, to a chief beloved in heaven\nPeculiarly; ye were yourselves, ye Gods!\nPartakers of the nuptial feast, and thou\nWast present also with thine harp in hand,\nThou comrade of the vile! thou faithless ever!85\n  Then answer thus cloud-gatherer Jove return\u2019d.\nJuno, forbear. Indulge not always wrath\nAgainst the Gods. They shall not share alike,\nAnd in the same proportion our regards.\nYet even Hector was the man in Troy90\nMost favor\u2019d by the Gods, and him no less\nI also loved, for punctual were his gifts\nTo us; mine altar never miss\u2019d from him\nLibation, or the steam of sacrifice,\nThe meed allotted to us from of old.95\nBut steal him not, since by Achilles\u2019 eye\nUnseen ye cannot, who both day and night\nWatches[3] him, as a mother tends her son.\nBut call ye Thetis hither, I would give\nThe Goddess counsel, that, at Priam\u2019s hands100\nAccepting gifts, Achilles loose the dead.\n  He ceased. Then Iris tempest-wing\u2019d arose.\nSamos between, and Imbrus rock-begirt,\nShe plunged into the gloomy flood; loud groan\u2019d\nThe briny pool, while sudden down she rush\u2019d,105\nAs sinks the bull\u2019s[4] horn with its leaden weight,\nDeath bearing to the raveners of the deep.\nWithin her vaulted cave Thetis she found\nBy every nymph of Ocean round about\nEncompass\u2019d; she, amid them all, the fate110\nWept of her noble son ordain\u2019d to death\nAt fertile Troy, from Phthia far remote.\nThen, Iris, drawing near, her thus address\u2019d.\n  Arise, O Thetis! Jove, the author dread\nOf everlasting counsels, calls for thee.115\n  To whom the Goddess of the silver feet.\nWhy calls the mighty Thunderer me? I fear,\nOppress\u2019d with countless sorrows as I am,\nTo mingle with the Gods. Yet I obey\u2014\nNo word of his can prove an empty sound.120\n  So saying, the Goddess took her sable veil\n(Eye ne\u2019er beheld a darker) and began\nHer progress, by the storm-wing\u2019d Iris led.\nOn either hand the billows open\u2019d wide\nA pass before them; they, ascending soon125\nThe shore, updarted swift into the skies.\nThey found loud-voiced Saturnian Jove around\nEnviron\u2019d by the ever-blessed Gods\nConvened in full assembly; she beside\nHer Father Jove (Pallas retiring) sat.130\nThen, Juno, with consolatory speech,\nPresented to her hand a golden cup,\nOf which she drank, then gave it back again,\nAnd thus the sire of Gods and men began.\n  Goddess of ocean, Thetis! thou hast sought135\nOlympus, bearing in thy bosom grief\nNever to be assuaged, as well I know.\nYet shalt thou learn, afflicted as thou art,\nWhy I have summon\u2019d thee. Nine days the Gods,\nConcerning Hector\u2019s body and thy own140\nBrave city-spoiler son, have held dispute,\nAnd some have urged ofttimes the Argicide\nKeen-sighted Mercury, to steal the dead.\nBut I forbade it for Achilles\u2019 sake,\nWhom I exalt, the better to insure145\nThy reverence and thy friendship evermore.\nHaste, therefore, seek thy son, and tell him thus,\nThe Gods resent it, say (but most of all\nMyself am angry) that he still detains\nAmid his fleet, through fury of revenge,150\nUnransom\u2019d Hector; so shall he, at length,\nThrough fear of me, perchance, release the slain.\nMyself to generous Priam will, the while,\nSend Iris, who shall bid him to the fleet\nOf Greece, such ransom bearing as may soothe155\nAchilles, for redemption of his son.\n  So spake the God, nor Thetis not complied.\nDescending swift from the Olympian heights\nShe reach\u2019d Achilles\u2019 tent. Him there she found\nGroaning disconsolate, while others ran160\nTo and fro, occupied around a sheep\nNew-slaughter\u2019d, large, and of exuberant fleece.\nShe, sitting close beside him, softly strok\u2019d\nHis cheek, and thus, affectionate, began.\n  How long, my son! sorrowing and mourning here,165\nWilt thou consume thy soul, nor give one thought\nEither to food or love? Yet love is good,\nAnd woman grief\u2019s best cure; for length of days\nIs not thy doom, but, even now, thy death\nAnd ruthless destiny are on the wing.170\nMark me,\u2014I come a lieger sent from Jove.\nThe Gods, he saith, resent it, but himself\nMore deeply than the rest, that thou detain\u2019st\nAmid thy fleet, through fury of revenge,\nUnransom\u2019d Hector. Be advised, accept175\nRansom, and to his friends resign the dead.\n  To whom Achilles, swiftest of the swift.\nCome then the ransomer, and take him hence;\nIf Jove himself command it,\u2014be it so.\n  So they, among the ships, conferring sat180\nOn various themes, the Goddess and her son;\nMeantime Saturnian Jove commanded down\nHis swift ambassadress to sacred Troy.\n  Hence, rapid Iris! leave the Olympian heights.\nAnd, finding noble Priam, bid him haste185\nInto Achaia\u2019s fleet, bearing such gifts\nAs may assuage Achilles, and prevail\nTo liberate the body of his son.\nAlone, he must; no Trojan of them all\nMay company the senior thither, save190\nAn ancient herald to direct his mules\nAnd his wheel\u2019d litter, and to bring the dead\nBack into Ilium, whom Achilles slew.\nLet neither fear of death nor other fear\nTrouble him aught, so safe a guard and sure195\nWe give him; Mercury shall be his guide\nInto Achilles\u2019 presence in his tent.\nNor will himself Achilles slay him there,\nOr even permit his death, but will forbid\nAll violence; for he is not unwise200\nNor heedless, no\u2014nor wilful to offend,\nBut will his suppliant with much grace receive.[5]\n\n  He ceased; then Iris tempest-wing\u2019d arose,\nJove\u2019s messenger, and, at the gates arrived\nOf Priam, wo and wailing found within.205\nAround their father, in the hall, his sons\nTheir robes with tears water\u2019d, while them amidst\nThe hoary King sat mantled, muffled close,\nAnd on his venerable head and neck\nMuch dust was spread, which, rolling on the earth,210\nHe had shower\u2019d on them with unsparing hands.\nThe palace echoed to his daughters\u2019 cries,\nAnd to the cries of matrons calling fresh\nInto remembrance many a valiant chief\nNow stretch\u2019d in dust, by Argive hands destroy\u2019d.215\nThe messenger of Jove at Priam\u2019s side\nStanding, with whisper\u2019d accents low his ear\nSaluted, but he trembled at the sound.\n  Courage, Dardanian Priam! fear thou nought;\nTo thee no prophetess of ill, I come;220\nBut with kind purpose: Jove\u2019s ambassadress\nAm I, who though remote, yet entertains\nMuch pity, and much tender care for thee.\nOlympian Jove commands thee to redeem\nThe noble Hector, with an offering large225\nOf gifts that may Achilles\u2019 wrath appease.\nAlone, thou must; no Trojan of them all\nHath leave to attend thy journey thither, save\nAn ancient herald to direct thy mules\nAnd thy wheel\u2019d litter, and to bring the dead230\nBack into Ilium, whom Achilles slew.\nLet neither fear of death nor other fear\nTrouble thee aught, so safe a guard and sure\nHe gives thee; Mercury shall be thy guide\nEven to Achilles\u2019 presence in his tent.235\nNor will himself Achilles slay thee there,\nOr even permit thy death, but will forbid\nAll violence; for he is not unwise\nNor heedless, no\u2014nor wilful to offend,\nBut will his suppliant with much grace receive.240\n\n  So spake the swift ambassadress, and went.\nThen, calling to his sons, he bade them bring\nHis litter forth, and bind the coffer on,\nWhile to his fragrant chamber he repair\u2019d\nHimself, with cedar lined and lofty-roof\u2019d,245\nA treasury of wonders into which\nThe Queen he summon\u2019d, whom he thus bespake.\n  Hecuba! the ambassadress of Jove\nHath come, who bids me to the Grecian fleet,\nBearing such presents thither as may soothe250\nAchilles, for redemption of my son.\nBut say, what seems this enterprise to thee?\nMyself am much inclined to it, I feel\nMy courage prompting me amain toward\nThe fleet, and into the Achaian camp.255\n  Then wept the Queen aloud, and thus replied.\nAh! whither is thy wisdom fled, for which\nBoth strangers once, and Trojans honor\u2019d _thee_?\nHow canst thou wish to penetrate alone\nThe Grecian fleet, and to appear before260\nHis face, by whom so many valiant sons\nOf thine have fallen? Thou hast an iron heart!\nFor should that savage man and faithless once\nSeize and discover thee, no pity expect\nOr reverence at his hands. Come\u2014let us weep265\nTogether, here sequester\u2019d; for the thread\nSpun for him by his destiny severe\nWhen he was born, ordain\u2019d our son remote\nFrom us his parents to be food for hounds\nIn that chief\u2019s tent. Oh! clinging to his side,270\nHow I could tear him with my teeth! His deeds,\nDisgraceful to my son, then should not want\nRetaliation; for he slew not him\nSkulking, but standing boldly for the wives,\nThe daughters fair, and citizens of Troy,275\nGuiltless of flight,[6] and of the wish to fly.\n\n  Whom godlike Priam answer\u2019d, ancient King.\nImpede me not who willing am to go,\nNor be, thyself, a bird of ominous note\nTo terrify me under my own roof,280\nFor thou shalt not prevail. Had mortal man\nEnjoin\u2019d me this attempt, prophet, or priest,\nOr soothsayer, I had pronounced him false\nAnd fear\u2019d it but the more. But, since I saw\nThe Goddess with these eyes, and heard, myself,285\nThe voice divine, I go; that word shall stand;\nAnd, if my doom be in the fleet of Greece\nTo perish, be it so; Achilles\u2019 arm\nShall give me speedy death, and I shall die\nFolding my son, and satisfied with tears.290\n  So saying, he open\u2019d wide the elegant lids\nOf numerous chests, whence mantles twelve he took\nOf texture beautiful; twelve single cloaks;\nAs many carpets, with as many robes,\nTo which he added vests, an equal store.295\nHe also took ten talents forth of gold,\nAll weigh\u2019d, two splendid tripods, caldrons four,\nAnd after these a cup of matchless worth\nGiven to him when ambassador in Thrace;\nA noble gift, which yet the hoary King300\nSpared not, such fervor of desire he felt\nTo loose his son. Then from his portico,\nWith angry taunts he drove the gather\u2019d crowds.\n  Away! away! ye dregs of earth, away!\nYe shame of human kind! Have ye no griefs305\nAt home, that ye come hither troubling _me_?\nDeem ye it little that Saturnian Jove\nAfflicts me thus, and of my very best,\nBest boy deprives me? Ah! ye shall be taught\nYourselves that loss, far easier to be slain310\nBy the Achaians now, since he is dead.\nBut I, ere yet the city I behold\nTaken and pillaged, with these aged eyes,\nShall find safe hiding in the shades below.\n\n  He said, and chased them with his staff; they left315\nIn haste the doors, by the old King expell\u2019d.\nThen, chiding them aloud, his sons he call\u2019d,\nHelenus, Paris, noble Agathon,\nPammon, Antiphonus, and bold in fight\nPolites, Dios of illustrious fame,320\nHippotho\u00fcs and Deiphobus\u2014all nine\nHe call\u2019d, thus issuing, angry, his commands.\n  Quick! quick! ye slothful in your father\u2019s cause,\nYe worthless brood! would that in Hector\u2019s stead\nYe all had perish\u2019d in the fleet of Greece!325\nOh altogether wretched! in all Troy\nNo man had sons to boast valiant as mine,\nAnd I have lost them all. Mestor is gone\nThe godlike, Troilus the steed-renown\u2019d,\nAnd Hector, who with other men compared330\nSeem\u2019d a Divinity, whom none had deem\u2019d\nFrom mortal man derived, but from a God.\nThese Mars hath taken, and hath left me none\nBut scandals of my house, void of all truth,\nDancers, exact step-measurers,[7] a band335\nOf public robbers, thieves of kids and lambs.\nWill ye not bring my litter to the gate\nThis moment, and with all this package quick\nCharge it, that we may hence without delay?\n  He said, and by his chiding awed, his sons340\nDrew forth the royal litter, neat, new-built,\nAnd following swift the draught, on which they bound\nThe coffer; next, they lower\u2019d from the wall\nThe sculptured boxen yoke with its two rings;[8]\nAnd with the yoke its furniture, in length345\nNine cubits; this to the extremest end\nAdjusting of the pole, they cast the ring\nOver the ring-bolt; then, thrice through the yoke\nThey drew the brace on both sides, made it fast\nWith even knots, and tuck\u2019d[9] the dangling ends.350\nProducing, next, the glorious ransom-price\nOf Hector\u2019s body, on the litter\u2019s floor\nThey heap\u2019d it all, then yoked the sturdy mules,\nA gift illustrious by the Mysians erst\nConferr\u2019d on Priam; to the chariot, last,355\nThey led forth Priam\u2019s steeds, which the old King\n(In person serving them) with freshest corn\nConstant supplied; meantime, himself within\nThe palace, and his herald, were employ\u2019d\nGirding[10] themselves, to go; wise each and good.360\nAnd now came mournful Hecuba, with wine\nDelicious charged, which in a golden cup\nShe brought, that not without libation due\nFirst made, they might depart. Before the steeds\nHer steps she stay\u2019d, and Priam thus address\u2019d.365\n  Take this, and to the Sire of all perform\nLibation, praying him a safe return\nFrom hostile hands, since thou art urged to seek\nThe Grecian camp, though not by my desire.\nPray also to Id\u00e6an Jove cloud-girt,370\nWho oversees all Ilium, that he send\nHis messenger or ere thou go, the bird\nHis favorite most, surpassing all in strength,\nAt thy right hand; him seeing, thou shalt tend\nWith better hope toward the fleet of Greece.375\nBut should loud-thundering Jove his lieger swift\nWithhold, from me far be it to advise\nThis journey, howsoe\u2019er thou wish to go.\n  To whom the godlike Priam thus replied.\nThis exhortation will I not refuse,380\nO Queen! for, lifting to the Gods his hands\nIn prayer for their compassion, none can err.\n  So saying, he bade the maiden o\u2019er the rest,\nChief in authority, pour on his hands\nPure water, for the maiden at his side385\nWith ewer charged and laver, stood prepared.\nHe laved his hands; then, taking from the Queen\nThe goblet, in his middle area stood\nPouring libation with his eyes upturn\u2019d\nHeaven-ward devout, and thus his prayer preferr\u2019d.390\n  Jove, great and glorious above all, who rulest,\nOn Ida\u2019s summit seated, all below!\nGrant me arrived within Achilles\u2019 tent\nKindness to meet and pity, and oh send\nThy messenger or ere I go, the bird395\nThy favorite most, surpassing all in strength,\nAt my right hand, which seeing, I shall tend\nWith better hope toward the fleet of Greece.\n  He ended, at whose prayer, incontinent,\nJove sent his eagle, surest of all signs,400\nThe black-plumed bird voracious, Morphnos[11] named,\nAnd Percnos.[11] Wide as the well-guarded door\nOf some rich potentate his vans he spread\nOn either side; they saw him on the right,\nSkimming the towers of Troy; glad they beheld405\nThat omen, and all felt their hearts consoled.\n  Delay\u2019d not then the hoary King, but quick\nAscending to his seat, his coursers urged\nThrough vestibule and sounding porch abroad.\nThe four-wheel\u2019d litter led, drawn by the mules410\nWhich sage Id\u00e6us managed, behind whom\nWent Priam, plying with the scourge his steeds\nContinual through the town, while all his friends,\nFollowing their sovereign with dejected hearts,\nLamented him as going to his death.415\nBut when from Ilium\u2019s gate into the plain\nThey had descended, then the sons-in-law\nOf Priam, and his sons, to Troy return\u2019d.\nNor they, now traversing the plain, the note\nEscaped of Jove the Thunderer; he beheld420\nCompassionate the venerable King,\nAnd thus his own son Mercury bespake.\n  Mercury! (for above all others thou\nDelightest to associate with mankind\nFamiliar, whom thou wilt winning with ease425\nTo converse free) go thou, and so conduct\nPriam into the Grecian camp, that none\nOf all the numerous Dana\u00ef may see\nOr mark him, till he reach Achilles\u2019 tent.\n  He spake, nor the ambassador of heaven430\nThe Argicide delay\u2019d, but bound in haste\nHis undecaying sandals to his feet,\nGolden, divine, which waft him o\u2019er the floods\nSwift as the wind, and o\u2019er the boundless earth.\nHe took his rod with which he charms to sleep435\nAll eyes, and theirs who sleep opens again.\nArm\u2019d with that rod, forth flew the Argicide.\nAt Ilium and the Hellespontic shores\nArriving sudden, a king\u2019s son he seem\u2019d,\nNow clothing first his ruddy cheek with down,440\nWhich is youth\u2019s loveliest season; so disguised,\nHis progress he began. They now (the tomb\nMagnificent of Ilus past) beside\nThe river stay\u2019d the mules and steeds to drink,\nFor twilight dimm\u2019d the fields. Id\u00e6us first445\nPerceived him near, and Priam thus bespake.\n  Think, son of Dardanus! for we have need\nOf our best thought. I see a warrior. Now,\nNow we shall die; I know it. Turn we quick\nOur steeds to flight; or let us clasp his knees450\nAnd his compassion suppliant essay.\n  Terror and consternation at that sound\nThe mind of Priam felt; erect the hair\nBristled his limbs, and with amaze he stood\nMotionless. But the God, meantime, approach\u2019d,455\nAnd, seizing ancient Priam\u2019s hand, inquired.\n  Whither, my father! in the dewy night\nDrivest thou thy mules and steeds, while others sleep?\nAnd fear\u2019st thou not the fiery host of Greece,\nThy foes implacable, so nigh at hand?460\nOf whom should any, through the shadow dun\nOf flitting night, discern thee bearing forth\nSo rich a charge, then what wouldst thou expect?\nThou art not young thyself, nor with the aid\nOf this thine ancient servant, strong enough465\nForce to repulse, should any threaten force.\nBut injury fear none or harm from me;\nI rather much from harm by other hands\nWould save thee, thou resemblest so my sire.\n  Whom answer\u2019d godlike Priam, hoar with age.470\nMy son! well spoken. Thou hast judged aright.\nYet even me some Deity protects\nThus far; to whom I owe it that I meet\nSo seasonably one like thee, in form\nSo admirable, and in mind discreet475\nAs thou art beautiful. Blest parents, thine!\n  To whom the messenger of heaven again,\nThe Argicide. Oh ancient and revered!\nThou hast well spoken all. Yet this declare,\nAnd with sincerity; bear\u2019st thou away480\nInto some foreign country, for the sake\nOf safer custody, this precious charge?\nOr, urged by fear, forsake ye all alike\nTroy\u2019s sacred towers! since he whom thou hast lost,\nThy noble son, was of excelling worth485\nIn arms, and nought inferior to the Greeks.\n  Then thus the godlike Priam, hoary King.\nBut tell me first who _Thou_ art, and from whom\nDescended, loveliest youth! who hast the fate\nSo well of my unhappy son rehearsed?490\n  To whom the herald Mercury replied.\nThy questions, venerable sire! proposed\nConcerning noble Hector, are design\u2019d\nTo prove me. Him, not seldom, with these eyes\nIn man-ennobling fight I have beheld495\nMost active; saw him when he thinn\u2019d the Greeks\nWith his sharp spear, and drove them to the ships.\nAmazed we stood to notice him; for us,\nIncensed against the ruler of our host,\nAchilles suffer\u2019d not to share the fight.500\nI serve Achilles; the same gallant bark\nBrought us, and of the Myrmidons am I,\nSon of Polyctor; wealthy is my sire,\nAnd such in years as thou; six sons he hath,\nBeside myself the seventh, and (the lots cast505\nAmong us all) mine sent me to the wars.\nThat I have left the ships, seeking the plain,\nThe cause is this; the Greeks, at break of day,\nWill compass, arm\u2019d, the city, for they loathe\nTo sit inactive, neither can the chiefs510\nRestrain the hot impatience of the host.\n  Then godlike Priam answer thus return\u2019d.\nIf of the band thou be of Peleus\u2019 son,\nAchilles, tell me undisguised the truth.\nMy son, subsists he still, or hath thy chief515\nLimb after limb given him to his dogs?\n  Him answer\u2019d then the herald of the skies.\nOh venerable sir! him neither dogs\nHave eaten yet, nor fowls, but at the ships\nHis body, and within Achilles\u2019 tent520\nNeglected lies. Twelve days he so hath lain;\nYet neither worm which diets on the brave\nIn battle fallen, hath eaten him, or taint\nInvaded. He around Patroclus\u2019 tomb\nDrags him indeed pitiless, oft as day525\nReddens the east, yet safe from blemish still\nHis corse remains. Thou wouldst, thyself, admire\nSeeing how fresh the dew-drops, as he lies,\nRest on him, and his blood is cleansed away\nThat not a stain is left. Even his wounds530\n(For many a wound they gave him) all are closed,\nSuch care the blessed Gods have of thy son,\nDead as he is, whom living much they loved.\n  So he; then, glad, the ancient King replied.\nGood is it, oh my son! to yield the Gods535\nTheir just demands. My boy, while yet he lived,\nLived not unmindful of the worship due\nTo the Olympian powers, who, therefore, him\nRemember, even in the bands of death.\nCome then\u2014this beauteous cup take at my hand\u2014540\nBe thou my guard, and, if the Gods permit,\nMy guide, till to Achilles\u2019 tent I come.\n  Whom answer\u2019d then the messenger of heaven.\nSir! thou perceivest me young, and art disposed\nTo try my virtue; but it shall not fail.545\nThou bidd\u2019st me at thine hand a gift accept,\nWhereof Achilles knows not; but I fear\nAchilles, and on no account should dare\nDefraud him, lest some evil find me next.\nBut thee I would with pleasure hence conduct550\nEven to glorious Argos, over sea\nOr over land, nor any, through contempt\nOf such a guard, should dare to do thee wrong.\n  So Mercury, and to the chariot seat\nUpspringing, seized at once the lash and reins,555\nAnd with fresh vigor mules and steeds inspired.\nArriving at the foss and towers, they found\nThe guard preparing now their evening cheer,\nAll whom the Argicide with sudden sleep\nOppress\u2019d, then oped the gates, thrust back the bars,560\nAnd introduced, with all his litter-load\nOf costly gifts, the venerable King.\nBut when they reached the tent for Peleus\u2019 son\nRaised by the Myrmidons (with trunks of pine\nThey built it, lopping smooth the boughs away,555\nThen spread with shaggy mowings of the mead\nIts lofty roof, and with a spacious court\nSurrounded it, all fenced with driven stakes;\nOne bar alone of pine secured the door,\nWhich ask\u2019d three Grecians with united force570\nTo thrust it to its place, and three again\nTo thrust it back, although Achilles oft\nWould heave it to the door himself alone;)\nThen Hermes, benefactor of mankind,\nThat bar displacing for the King of Troy,575\nGave entrance to himself and to his gifts\nFor Peleus\u2019 son design\u2019d, and from the seat\nAlighting, thus his speech to Priam turn\u2019d.\n  Oh ancient Priam! an immortal God\nAttends thee; I am Hermes, by command580\nOf Jove my father thy appointed guide.\nBut I return. I will not, entering here,\nStand in Achilles\u2019 sight; immortal Powers\nMay not so unreservedly indulge\nCreatures of mortal kind. But enter thou,585\nEmbrace his knees, and by his father both\nAnd by his Goddess mother sue to him,\nAnd by his son, that his whole heart may melt.\n  So Hermes spake, and to the skies again\nAscended. Then leap\u2019d Priam to the ground,590\nLeaving Id\u00e6us; he, the mules and steeds\nWatch\u2019d, while the ancient King into the tent\nProceeded of Achilles dear to Jove.\nHim there he found, and sitting found apart\nHis fellow-warriors, of whom two alone595\nServed at his side, Alcimus, branch of Mars\nAnd brave Automedon; he had himself\nSupp\u2019d newly, and the board stood unremoved.\nUnseen of all huge Priam enter\u2019d, stood\nNear to Achilles, clasp\u2019d his knees, and kiss\u2019d600\nThose terrible and homicidal hands\nThat had destroy\u2019d so many of his sons.\nAs when a fugitive for blood the house\nOf some chief enters in a foreign land,\nAll gaze, astonish\u2019d at the sudden guest,605\nSo gazed Achilles seeing Priam there,\nAnd so stood all astonish\u2019d, each his eyes\nIn silence fastening on his fellow\u2019s face.\nBut Priam kneel\u2019d, and suppliant thus began.\n  Think, oh Achilles, semblance of the Gods!610\nOn thy own father full of days like me,\nAnd trembling on the gloomy verge of life.[12]\nSome neighbor chief, it may be, even now\nOppresses him, and there is none at hand,\nNo friend to suocor him in his distress.615\nYet, doubtless, hearing that Achilles lives,\nHe still rejoices, hoping, day by day,\nThat one day he shall see the face again\nOf his own son from distant Troy return\u2019d.\nBut me no comfort cheers, whose bravest sons,620\nSo late the flower of Ilium, all are slain.\nWhen Greece came hither, I had fifty sons;\nNineteen were children of one bed, the rest\nBorn of my concubines. A numerous house!\nBut fiery Mars hath thinn\u2019d it. One I had,625\nOne, more than all my sons the strength of Troy,\nWhom standing for his country thou hast slain\u2014\nHector\u2014his body to redeem I come\nInto Achaia\u2019s fleet, bringing, myself,\nRansom inestimable to thy tent.630\nReverence the Gods, Achilles! recollect\nThy father; for his sake compassion show\nTo me more pitiable still, who draw\nHome to my lips (humiliation yet\nUnseen on earth) his hand who slew my son.635\n  So saying, he waken\u2019d in his soul regret\nOf his own sire; softly he placed his hand\nOn Priam\u2019s hand, and push\u2019d him gently away.\nRemembrance melted both. Rolling before\nAchilles\u2019 feet, Priam his son deplored640\nWide-slaughtering Hector, and Achilles wept\nBy turns his father, and by turns his friend\nPatroclus; sounds of sorrow fill\u2019d the tent.\nBut when, at length satiate, Achilles felt\nHis heart from grief, and all his frame relieved,645\nUpstarting from his seat, with pity moved\nOf Priam\u2019s silver locks and silver beard,\nHe raised the ancient father by his hand,\nWhom in wing\u2019d accents kind he thus bespake.\n  Wretched indeed! ah what must thou have felt!650\nHow hast thou dared to seek alone the fleet\nOf the Achaians, and his face by whom\nSo many of thy valiant sons have fallen?\nThou hast a heart of iron, terror-proof.\nCome\u2014sit beside me\u2014let us, if we may,665\nGreat mourners both, bid sorrow sleep awhile.\nThere is no profit of our sighs and tears;\nFor thus, exempt from care themselves, the Gods\nOrdain man\u2019s miserable race to mourn.\nFast by the threshold of Jove\u2019s courts are placed660\nTwo casks, one stored with evil, one with good,\nFrom which the God dispenses as he wills.\nFor whom the glorious Thunderer mingles both,\nHe leads a life checker\u2019d with good and ill\nAlternate; but to whom he gives unmixt665\nThe bitter cup, he makes that man a curse,\nHis name becomes a by-word of reproach,\nHis strength is hunger-bitten, and he walks\nThe blessed earth, unblest, go where he may.\nSo was my father Peleus at his birth670\nNobly endow\u2019d with plenty and with wealth\nDistinguish\u2019d by the Gods past all mankind,\nLord of the Myrmidons, and, though a man,\nYet match\u2019d from heaven with an immortal bride.\nBut even him the Gods afflict, a son675\nRefusing him, who might possess his throne\nHereafter; for myself, his only heir,\nPass as a dream, and while I live, instead\nOf solacing his age, here sit, before\nYour distant walls, the scourge of thee and thine.680\nThee also, ancient Priam, we have heard\nReported, once possessor of such wealth\nAs neither Lesbos, seat of Macar, owns,\nNor eastern Phrygia, nor yet all the ports\nOf Hellespont, but thou didst pass them all685\nIn riches, and in number of thy sons.\nBut since the Powers of heaven brought on thy land\nThis fatal war, battle and deeds of death\nAlways surround the city where thou reign\u2019st.\nCease, therefore, from unprofitable tears,690\nWhich, ere they raise thy son to life again\nShall, doubtless, find fresh cause for which to flow.\n  To whom the ancient King godlike replied.\nHero, forbear. No seat is here for me,\nWhile Hector lies unburied in your camp.695\nLoose him, and loose him now, that with these eyes\nI may behold my son; accept a price\nMagnificent, which may\u2019st thou long enjoy,\nAnd, since my life was precious in thy sight,\nMay\u2019st thou revisit safe thy native shore!700\n  To whom Achilles, lowering, and in wrath.[13]\nUrge me no longer, at a time like this,\nWith that harsh note; I am already inclin\u2019d\nTo loose him. Thetis, my own mother came\nHerself on that same errand, sent from Jove.705\nPriam! I understand thee well. I know\nThat, by some God conducted, thou hast reach\u2019d\nAchaia\u2019s fleet; for, without aid divine,\nNo mortal even in his prime of youth,\nHad dared the attempt; guards vigilant as ours710\nHe should not easily elude, such gates,\nSo massy, should not easily unbar.\nThou, therefore, vex me not in my distress,\nLest I abhor to see thee in my tent,\nAnd, borne beyond all limits, set at nought715\nThee, and thy prayer, and the command of Jove.\n  He said; the old King trembled, and obey\u2019d.\nThen sprang Pelides like a lion forth,\nNot sole, but with his two attendant friends\nAlcimus and Automedon the brave,720\nFor them (Patroclus slain) he honor\u2019d most\nOf all the Myrmidons. They from the yoke\nReleased both steeds and mules, then introduced\nAnd placed the herald of the hoary King.\nThey lighten\u2019d next the litter of its charge725\nInestimable, leaving yet behind\nTwo mantles and a vest, that, not unveil\u2019d,\nThe body might be borne back into Troy.\nThen, calling forth his women, them he bade\nLave and anoint the body, but apart,730\nLest haply Priam, noticing his son,\nThrough stress of grief should give resentment scope,\nAnd irritate by some affront himself\nTo slay him, in despite of Jove\u2019s commands.[14]\nThey, therefore, laving and anointing first735\nThe body, cover\u2019d it with cloak and vest;\nThen, Peleus\u2019 son disposed it on the bier,\nLifting it from the ground, and his two friends\nTogether heaved it to the royal wain.\nAchilles, last, groaning, his friend invoked.740\n\n  Patroclus! should the tidings reach thine ear,\nAlthough in Ades, that I have released\nThe noble Hector at his father\u2019s suit,\nResent it not; no sordid gifts have paid\nHis ransom-price, which thou shalt also share.745\n  So saying, Achilles to his tent return\u2019d,\nAnd on the splendid couch whence he had risen\nAgain reclined, opposite to the seat\nOf Priam, whom the hero thus bespake.\n  Priam! at thy request thy son is loosed,750\nAnd lying on his bier; at dawn of day\nThou shalt both see him and convey him hence\nThyself to Troy. But take we now repast;\nFor even bright-hair\u2019d Niobe her food\nForgat not, though of children twelve bereft,755\nOf daughters six, and of six blooming sons.\nApollo these struck from his silver bow,\nAnd those shaft-arm\u2019d Diana, both incensed\nThat oft Latona\u2019s children and her own\nNumbering, she scorn\u2019d the Goddess who had borne760\nTwo only, while herself had twelve to boast.\nVain boast! those two sufficed to slay them all.\nNine days they welter\u2019d in their blood, no man\nWas found to bury them, for Jove had changed\nTo stone the people; but themselves, at last,765\nThe Powers of heaven entomb\u2019d them on the tenth.\nYet even she, once satisfied with tears,\nRemember\u2019d food; and now the rocks among\nAnd pathless solitudes of Sipylus,\nThe rumor\u2019d cradle of the nymphs who dance770\nOn Achelo\u00fcs\u2019 banks, although to stone\nTransform\u2019d, she broods her heaven-inflicted woes.\nCome, then, my venerable guest! take we\nRefreshment also; once arrived in Troy\nWith thy dear son, thou shalt have time to weep775\nSufficient, nor without most weighty cause.\n  So spake Achilles, and, upstarting, slew\nA sheep white-fleeced, which his attendants flay\u2019d,\nAnd busily and with much skill their task\nAdminist\u2019ring, first scored the viands well,780\nThen pierced them with the spits, and when the roast\nWas finish\u2019d, drew them from the spits again.\nAnd now, Automedon dispensed around\nThe polish\u2019d board bread in neat baskets piled,\nWhich done, Achilles portion\u2019d out to each785\nHis share, and all assail\u2019d the ready feast.\nBut when nor hunger more nor thirst they felt,\nDardanian Priam, wond\u2019ring at his bulk\nAnd beauty (for he seem\u2019d some God from heaven)\nGazed on Achilles, while Achilles held790\nNot less in admiration of his looks\nBenign, and of his gentle converse wise,\nGazed on Dardanian Priam, and, at length\n(The eyes of each gratified to the full)\nThe ancient King thus to Achilles spake.795\n  Hero! dismiss us now each to our bed,\nThat there at ease reclined, we may enjoy\nSweet sleep; for never have these eyelids closed\nSince Hector fell and died, but without cease\nI mourn, and nourishing unnumber\u2019d woes,800\nHave roll\u2019d me in the ashes of my courts.\nBut I have now both tasted food, and given\nWine to my lips, untasted till with thee.\n  So he, and at his word Achilles bade\nHis train beneath his portico prepare805\nWith all dispatch two couches, purple rugs,\nAnd arras, and warm mantles over all.\nForth went the women bearing lights, and spread\nA couch for each, when feigning needful fear,[15]\nAchilles thus his speech to Priam turn\u2019d.810\n  My aged guest beloved; sleep thou without;\nLest some Achaian chief (for such are wont\nOfttimes, here sitting, to consult with me)\nHither repair; of whom should any chance\nTo spy thee through the gloom, he would at once815\nConvey the tale to Agamemnon\u2019s ear,\nWhence hindrance might arise, and the release\nHaply of Hector\u2019s body be delay\u2019d.\nBut answer me with truth. How many days\nWouldst thou assign to the funereal rites820\nOf noble Hector, for so long I mean\nMyself to rest, and keep the host at home?\n  Then thus the ancient King godlike replied.\nIf thou indeed be willing that we give\nBurial to noble Hector, by an act825\nSo generous, O Achilles! me thou shalt\nMuch gratify; for we are shut, thou know\u2019st,\nIn Ilium close, and fuel must procure\nFrom Ida\u2019s side remote; fear, too, hath seized\nOn all our people. Therefore thus I say.830\nNine days we wish to mourn him in the house;\nTo his interment we would give the tenth,\nAnd to the public banquet; the eleventh\nShall see us build his tomb; and on the twelfth\n(If war we must) we will to war again.835\n  To whom Achilles, matchless in the race.\nSo be it, ancient Priam! I will curb\nTwelve days the rage of war, at thy desire.[16]\n  He spake, and at his wrist the right hand grasp\u2019d\nOf the old sovereign, to dispel his fear.840\nThen in the vestibule the herald slept\nAnd Priam, prudent both, but Peleus\u2019 son\nIn the interior tent, and at his side\nBris\u00ebis, with transcendent beauty adorn\u2019d.\n\n  Now all, all night, by gentle sleep subdued,845\nBoth Gods and chariot-ruling warriors lay,\nBut not the benefactor of mankind,\nHermes; him sleep seized not, but deep he mused\nHow likeliest from amid the Grecian fleet\nHe might deliver by the guard unseen850\nThe King of Ilium; at his head he stood\nIn vision, and the senior thus bespake.\n  Ah heedless and secure! hast thou no dread\nOf mischief, ancient King, that thus by foes\nThou sleep\u2019st surrounded, lull\u2019d by the consent855\nAnd sufferance of Achilles? Thou hast given\nMuch for redemption of thy darling son,\nBut thrice that sum thy sons who still survive\nMust give to Agamemnon and the Greeks\nFor _thy_ redemption, should they know thee here.860\n  He ended; at the sound alarm\u2019d upsprang\nThe King, and roused his herald. Hermes yoked\nHimself both mules and steeds, and through the camp\nDrove them incontinent, by all unseen.\n  Soon as the windings of the stream they reach\u2019d,865\nDeep-eddied Xanthus, progeny of Jove,\nMercury the Olympian summit sought,\nAnd saffron-vested morn o\u2019erspread the earth.\nThey, loud lamenting, to the city drove\nTheir steeds; the mules close follow\u2019d with the dead.870\nNor warrior yet, nor cinctured matron knew\nOf all in Ilium aught of their approach,\nCassandra sole except. She, beautiful\nAs golden Venus, mounted on the height\nOf Pergamus, her father first discern\u2019d,875\nBorne on his chariot-seat erect, and knew:\nThe herald heard so oft in echoing Troy;\nHim also on his bier outstretch\u2019d she mark\u2019d,\nWhom the mules drew. Then, shrieking, through the streets\nShe ran of Troy, and loud proclaim\u2019d the sight.880\nYe sons of Ilium and ye daughters, haste,\nHaste all to look on Hector, if ye e\u2019er\nWith joy beheld him, while he yet survived,\nFrom fight returning; for all Ilium erst\nIn him, and all her citizens rejoiced.885\n  She spake. Then neither male nor female more\nIn Troy remain\u2019d, such sorrow seized on all.\nIssuing from the city-gate, they met\nPriam conducting, sad, the body home,\nAnd, foremost of them all, the mother flew890\nAnd wife of Hector to the bier, on which\nTheir torn-off tresses with unsparing hands\nThey shower\u2019d, while all the people wept around.\nAll day, and to the going down of day\nThey thus had mourn\u2019d the dead before the gates,895\nHad not their Sovereign from his chariot-seat\nThus spoken to the multitude around.\n  Fall back on either side, and let the mules\nPass on; the body in my palace once\nDeposited, ye then may weep your fill.900\n  He said; they, opening, gave the litter way.\nArrived within the royal house, they stretch\u2019d\nThe breathless Hector on a sumptuous bed,\nAnd singers placed beside him, who should chant\nThe strain funereal; they with many a groan905\nThe dirge began, and still, at every close,\nThe female train with many a groan replied.\nThen, in the midst, Andromache white-arm\u2019d\nBetween her palms the dreadful Hector\u2019s head\nPressing, her lamentation thus began.910\n  [17]My hero! thou hast fallen in prime of life,\nMe leaving here desolate, and the fruit\nOf our ill-fated loves, a helpless child,\nWhom grown to manhood I despair to see.\nFor ere that day arrive, down from her height915\nPrecipitated shall this city fall,\nSince thou hast perish\u2019d once her sure defence,\nFaithful protector of her spotless wives,\nAnd all their little ones. Those wives shall soon\nIn Grecian barks capacious hence be borne,920\nAnd I among the rest. But thee, my child!\nEither thy fate shall with thy mother send\nCaptive into a land where thou shalt serve\nIn sordid drudgery some cruel lord,\nOr haply some Achaian here, thy hand925\nSeizing, shall hurl thee from a turret-top\nTo a sad death, avenging brother, son,\nOr father by the hands of Hector slain;\nFor he made many a Grecian bite the ground.\nThy father, boy, bore never into fight930\nA milky mind, and for that self-same cause\nIs now bewail\u2019d in every house of Troy.\nSorrow unutterable thou hast caused\nThy parents, Hector! but to me hast left\nLargest bequest of misery, to whom,935\nDying, thou neither didst thy arms extend\nForth from thy bed, nor gavest me precious word\nTo be remember\u2019d day and night with tears.\n  So spake she weeping, whom her maidens all\nWith sighs accompanied, and her complaint940\nMingled with sobs Hecuba next began.\n  Ah Hector! dearest to thy mother\u2019s heart\nOf all her sons, much must the Gods have loved\nThee living, whom, though dead, they thus preserve.\nWhat son soever of our house beside945\nAchilles took, over the barren deep\nTo Samos, Imbrus, or to Lemnos girt\nWith rocks inhospitable, him he sold;\nBut thee, by his dread spear of life deprived,\nHe dragg\u2019d and dragg\u2019d around Patroclus\u2019 tomb,950\nAs if to raise again his friend to life\nWhom thou hadst vanquish\u2019d; yet he raised him not.\nBut as for thee, thou liest here with dew\nBesprinkled, fresh as a young plant,[18] and more\nResemblest some fair youth by gentle shafts955\nOf Ph\u0153bus pierced, than one in battle slain.\n  So spake the Queen, exciting in all hearts\nSorrow immeasurable, after whom\nThus Helen, third, her lamentation pour\u2019d.\n  [19]Ah dearer far than all my brothers else960\nOf Priam\u2019s house! for being Paris\u2019 spouse,\nWho brought me (would I had first died!) to Troy,\nI call thy brothers mine; since forth I came\nFrom Sparta, it is now the twentieth year,\nYet never heard I once hard speech from thee,965\nOr taunt morose, but if it ever chanced,\nThat of thy father\u2019s house female or male\nBlamed me, and even if herself the Queen\n(For in the King, whate\u2019er befell, I found\nAlways a father) thou hast interposed970\nThy gentle temper and thy gentle speech\nTo soothe them; therefore, with the same sad drops\nThy fate, oh Hector! and my own I weep;\nFor other friend within the ample bounds\nOf Ilium have I none, nor hope to hear975\nKind word again, with horror view\u2019d by all.\n  So Helen spake weeping, to whom with groans\nThe countless multitude replied, and thus\nTheir ancient sovereign next his people charged.\n  Ye Trojans, now bring fuel home, nor fear980\nClose ambush of the Greeks; Achilles\u2019 self\nGave me, at my dismission from his fleet,\nAssurance, that from hostile force secure\nWe shall remain, till the twelfth dawn arise.\n  All, then, their mules and oxen to the wains985\nJoin\u2019d speedily, and under Ilium\u2019s walls\nAssembled numerous; nine whole days they toil\u2019d,\nBringing much fuel home, and when the tenth\nBright morn, with light for human kind, arose,\nThen bearing noble Hector forth, with tears990\nShed copious, on the summit of the pile\nThey placed him, and the fuel fired beneath.\n  But when Aurora, daughter of the Dawn,\nRedden\u2019d the east, then, thronging forth, all Troy\nEncompass\u2019d noble Hector\u2019s pile around.995\nThe whole vast multitude convened, with wine\nThey quench\u2019d the pile throughout, leaving no part\nUnvisited, on which the fire had seized.\nHis brothers, next, collected, and his friends,\nHis white bones, mourning, and with tears profuse1000\nWatering their cheeks; then in a golden urn\nThey placed them, which with mantles soft they veil\u2019d\nM\u00e6onian-hued, and, delving, buried it,\nAnd overspread with stones the spot adust.\nLastly, short time allowing to the task,1005\nThey heap\u2019d his tomb, while, posted on all sides,\nSuspicious of assault, spies watch\u2019d the Greeks.\nThe tomb once heap\u2019d, assembling all again\nWithin the palace, they a banquet shared\nMagnificent, by godlike Priam given.1010\n\nSuch burial the illustrious Hector found.[20]\n\n\n[I cannot take my leave of this noble poem, without expressing how much\nI am struck with this plain conclusion of it. It is like the exit of a\ngreat man out of company whom he has entertained magnificently; neither\npompous nor familiar; not contemptuous, yet without much ceremony. I\nrecollect nothing, among the works of mere man, that exemplifies so\nstrongly the true style of great antiquity.]\u2014Tr.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes for Book I:\n\n\n\u201cLatona\u2019s son and Jove\u2019s,\u201d was Apollo, the tutelary deity of the\nDorians. The Dorians had not, however, at this early age, become the\npredominant race in Greece proper. They had spread along the eastern\nshores of the Archipelago into the islands, especially Crete, and had\nevery where signalized themselves by the Temples of Apollo, of which\nthere seems to have been many in and about Troy. These temples were\nschools of art, and prove the Dorians to have been both intellectual\nand powerful. Homer was an Ionian, and therefore not deeply acquainted\nwith the nature of the Dorian god. But to a mind like his, the god of a\npeople so cultivated, and associated with what was most grand in art,\nmust have been an imposing being, and we find him so represented.\nThroughout the Iliad, he appears and acts with splendor and effect, but\nalways against the Greeks from mere partiality to Hector. It would\nperhaps be too much to say, that in this partiality to Hector, we\ndetect the spirit of the Dorian worship, the only Paganism of antiquity\nthat tended to perfect the individual\u2014Apollo being the expression of\nthe moral harmony of the universe, and the great spirit of the Dorian\nculture being to make a perfect man, an incarnation of the\n\u03ba\u03bf\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2. This Homer could only have known intuitively.\n\nIn making Apollo author of the plague, he was confounded with Helios,\nwhich was frequent afterwards, but is not seen elsewhere in Homer. The\narrows of Apollo were \u201csilent as light,\u201d and their emblem the sun\u2019s\nrays. The analogies are multitudinous between the natural and\nintellectual sun; but Helios and Apollo were two.\u2014E.P.P.\n\nThere is something exceedingly venerable in this appearance of the\npriest. He comes with the ensigns of the gods to whom he belongs, with\nthe laurel wreath, to show that he was a suppliant, and a golden\nsceptre, which the ancients gave in particular to Apollo, as they did\none of silver to Diana.\n\nThe art of this speech is remarkable. Chryses considers the army of\nGreeks, as made up of troops, partly from the kingdoms and partly from\ndemocracies, and therefore begins with a distinction that includes all.\nThen, as priest of Apollo, he prays that they may obtain the two\nblessings they most desire\u2014the conquest of Troy and a safe return. As\nhe names his petition, he offers an extraordinary ransom, and concludes\nwith bidding them fear the god if they refuse it; like one who from his\noffice seems to foretell their misery, and exhorts them to shun it.\nThus he endeavors to work by the art of a general application, by\nreligion, by interest, and the insinuation of danger.\n\nHomer is frequently eloquent in his silence. Chryses says not a word in\nanswer to the insults of Agamemnon, but walks pensively along the\nshore. The melancholy flowing of the verse admirably expresses the\ncondition of the mournful and deserted father.\n\n[So called on account of his having saved the people of Troas from a\nplague of mice, _sminthos_ in their language meaning a mouse.\u2014Tr.]\n\nApollo had temples at Chrysa, Tenedos, and Cilla, all of which lay\nround the bay of Troas. M\u00fcller remarks, that \u201cthe temple actually stood\nin the situation referred to, and that the appellation of Smintheus was\nstill preserved in the district. Thus far actual circumstances are\nembodied in the mythus. On the other hand, the action of the deity as\nsuch, is purely ideal, and can have no other foundation than the belief\nthat Apollo sternly resents ill usage of his priests, and that too in\nthe way here represented, viz., by sending plagues. This belief is in\nperfect harmony with the idea generally entertained of the power and\nagency of Apollo; and it is manifest that the idea placed in\ncombination with certain events, gave birth to the story so far as\nrelates to the god. We have not yet the means of ascertaining whether\nit is to be regarded as a historical tradition, or an invention, and\nmust therefore leave that question for the present undecided.\u201d\n\nThe poet is careful to leave no prayer unanswered that has justice on\nits side. He who prays either kills his enemy, or has signs given him\nthat he has been heard.\n\n[For this singular line the Translator begs to apologize, by pleading\nthe strong desire he felt to produce an English line, if possible,\nsomewhat resembling in its effect the famous original one.\n\n\u0394\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd\u03b7 \u03b4\u03b5 \u03ba\u03bb\u03b1\u03b3\u03b3\u03b7 \u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03b5\u03c4 \u03b1\u03c1\u03b3\u03c5\u03c1\u03b5\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf \u03b2\u03b9\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf.\u2014Tr.]\n\nThe plague in the Grecian camp was occasioned perhaps by immoderate\nheats and gross exhalations. Homer takes occasion from it, to open the\nscene with a beautiful allegory. He supposes that such afflictions are\nsent from Heaven for the punishment of evil actions; and because the\nsun was the principal agent, he says it was sent to punish Agamemnon\nfor despising that god, and injuring his priest.\n\nHippocrates observes two things of plagues; that their cause is in the\nair, and that different animals are differently affected by them,\naccording to their nature and nourishment. This philosophy is referred\nto the plagues here mentioned. First, the cause is in the air by means\nof the darts or beams of Apollo; second, the mules and dogs are said to\ndie sooner than the men, partly from their natural quickness of smell,\nand partly from their feeding so near the earth whence the exhalations\narise.\n\nJuno, queen of Olympus, sides with the Grecians. Mr. Coleridge (in his\ndisquisition upon the Prometheus of \u00c6schylus, published in his Remains)\nshows very clearly by historical criticism, that Juno, in the Grecian\nreligion, expressed the spirit of conservatism. Without going over his\nargument we assume it here, for Homer always attributes to Juno every\nthing that may be predicated of this principle. She is persistent,\nobstinate, acts from no idea, but often uses a superficial reasoning,\nand refers to Fate, with which she upbraids Jupiter. Jupiter is the\nintellectual power or Free Will, and by their union, or rather from\ntheir antagonism, the course of things proceeds with perpetual\nvicissitude, but with a great deal of life.\u2014E.P.P.\n\nObserve this Grecian priest. He has no political power, and commands\nlittle reverence. In Agamemnon\u2019s treatment of him, as well as Chryses,\nis seen the relation of the religion to the government. It was neither\nmaster nor slave.\u2014E.P.P.\n\nA district of Thessaly forming a part of the larger district of\nPhthiotis. Phthiotis, according to Strabo, included all the southern\nportion of that country as far as Mount \u0152ta and the Maliac Gulf. To the\nwest it bordered on Dolopia, and on the east reached the confines of\nMagnesia. Homer comprised within this extent of territory the districts\nof Phthia and Hellas properly so called, and, generally speaking, the\ndominions of Achilles, together with those of Protesilaus and\nEurypylus.\n\n\u039a\u03c5\u03bd\u03c9\u03c0\u03b1.\n\n\u03bc\u03b5\u03b3\u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9\u03b4\u03b5\u03c2.\n\nAgamemnon\u2019s anger is that of a lover, and Achilles\u2019 that of a warrior.\nAgamemnon speaks of Chrys\u00ebis as a beauty whom he values too much to\nresign. Achilles treats Bris\u00ebis as a slave, whom he is anxious to\npreserve in point of honor, and as a testimony of his glory. Hence he\nmentions her only as \u201chis spoil,\u201d \u201cthe reward of war,\u201d etc.;\naccordingly he relinquishes her not in grief for a favorite whom he\nloses, but in sullenness for the injury done him.\u2014Dacier.\n\nJupiter, in the disguise of an ant, deceived Eurymedusa, the daughter\nof Cleitos. Her son was for this reason called Myrmidon (from \u03bc\u03c5\u03c1\u03bc\u03b7\u03be,\nan ant), and was regarded as the ancestor of the Myrmidons in\nThessaly.\u2014Smith.\n\nAccording to the belief of the ancients, the gods were supposed to have\na peculiar light in their eyes. That Homer was not ignorant of this\nopinion appears from his use of it in other places.\n\nMinerva is the goddess of the art of war rather than of war itself. And\nthis fable of her descent is an allegory of Achilles restraining his\nwrath through his consideration of martial law and order. This law in\nthat age, prescribed that a subordinate should not draw his sword upon\nthe commander of all, but allowed a liberty of speech which appears to\nus moderns rather out of order.\u2014E.P.P.\n\n[The shield of Jupiter, made by Vulcan, and so called from its\ncovering, which was the skin of the goat that suckled him.\u2014Tr.]\n\nHomer magnifies the ambush as the boldest enterprise of war. They went\nupon those parties with a few only, and generally the most daring of\nthe army, and on occasions of the greatest hazard, when the exposure\nwas greater than in a regular battle. Idomeneus, in the 13th book,\ntells Meriones that the greatest courage appears in this way of\nservice, each man being in a manner singled out to the proof of it.\n\nIn the earlier ages of the world, the sceptre of a king was nothing\nmore than his walking-staff, and thence had the name of sceptre. Ovid,\nin speaking of Jupiter, describes him as resting on his\nsceptre.\u2014Spence.\n\nFrom the description here given, it would appear to have been a young\ntree cut from the root and stripped of its branches. It was the custom\nof Kings to swear by their sceptres.\n\nFor an account of the contest between the Centaurs and Lapiths here\nreferred to, see Grecian and Roman Mythology.\n\nIn _antiquity_, a sacrifice of a hundred oxen, or beasts of the same\nkind; hence sometimes _indefinitely_, any sacrifice of a large number\nof victims.\n\n[The original is here abrupt, and expresses the precipitancy of the\nspeaker by a most beautiful aposiopesis.\u2014Tr.]\n\nThe Iliad, in its connection, is, we all know, a glorification of\nAchilles by Zeus; for the Trojans only prevail because Zeus wishes to\nshow that the reposing hero who sits in solitude, can alone conquer\nthem. But to leave him this glorification entirely unmixed with sorrow,\nthe Grecian sense of moderation forbids. The deepest anguish must\nmingle with his consciousness of fame, and punish his insolence. That\nglorification is the will of Zeus; and in the spirit of the ancient\nmythus, a motive for it is assigned in a divine legend. The sea-goddess\nThetis, who was, according to the Phthiotic mythus, wedded to the\nmortal Peleus, saved Zeus, by calling up the giant Briareus or \u00c6g\u00e6on to\nhis rescue. Why it was \u00c6g\u00e6on, is explained by the fact that this was a\ngreat sea-demon, who formed the subject of fables at Poseidonian\nCorinth, where even the sea-god himself was called \u00c6g\u00e6on; who,\nmoreover, was worshipped at several places in Eub\u0153a, the seat of\nPoseidon \u00c6g\u00e6us; and whom the Theogony calls the son-in-law of Poseidon,\nand most of the genealogists, especially Eumelus in the Titanomachy,\nbrought into relation with the sea. There is therefore good reason to\nbe found in ancient belief, why Thetis called up \u00c6g\u00e6on of all others to\nJove\u2019s assistance. The whole of the story, however, is not detailed\u2014it\nis not much more than indicated\u2014and therefore it would be difficult\neven now to interpret it in a perfectly satisfactory manner. It bears\nthe same relation to the Iliad, that the northern fables of the gods,\nwhich serve as a back-ground to the legend of Nibelungen, bear to our\nGerman ballad, only that here the separation is much greater\nstill\u2014Muller.\n\nHomer makes use of this fable, without reference to its meaning as an\nallegory. Briareus seems to symbolize a navy, and the fable refers to\nsome event in remote history, when the reigning power was threatened in\nhis autocracy, and strengthened by means of his association with the\npeople against some intermediate class.\u2014E.P.P.\n\n\u03b5\u03c0\u03b1\u03c5\u03c1\u03c9\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9.\n\n[A name by which we are frequently to understand the Nile in\nHomer.\u2014Tr.]\n\nAround the sources of the Nile, and thence south-west into the very\nheart of Africa, stretching away indefinitely over its mountain plains,\nlies the country which the ancients called Ethiopia, rumors of whose\nwonderful people found their way early into Greece, and are scattered\nover the pages of her poets and historians.\n\nHomer wrote at least eight hundred years before Christ, and his poems\nare well ascertained to be a most faithful mirror of the manners of his\ntimes and the knowledge of his age.  *  *  *  *  *  *\n\nHomer never wastes an epithet. He often alludes to the Ethiopians\nelsewhere, and always in terms of admiration and praise, as being the\nmost just of men, and the favorites of the gods. The same allusions\nglimmer through the Greek mythology, and appear in the verses of almost\nall the Greek poets, ere yet the countries of Italy and Sicily were\neven discovered. The Jewish Scriptures and Jewish literature abound in\nallusions to this distant and mysterious people, the annals of the\nEgyptian priests are full of them, and uniformly, the Ethiopians are\nthere lauded as among the best, the most religious, and most civilized\nof men.\u2014Christian Examiner.\n\nThe Ethiopians, says Diodorus, are said to be the inventors of pomps,\nsacrifices, solemn meetings, and other honors paid to the gods. From\nhence arose their character of piety, which is here celebrated by\nHomer. Among these there was an annual feast at Diospolis, which\nEustathius mentions, when they carried about the statues of Jupiter and\nother gods, for twelve days, according to their number; to which, if we\nadd the ancient custom of setting meat before statues, it will appear\nto be a rite from which this fable might easily have arisen.\n\n[The original word (\u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03c5\u03b2\u03b5\u03bd\u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03c2) seems to express variety of soundings,\nan idea probably not to be conveyed in an English epithet.\u2014Tr.]\n\nThe following passage gives the most exact account of the ancient\nsacrifices that we have left us. There is first, the purification by\nthe washing of hands; second, the offering up of prayers; third, the\nbarley-cakes thrown upon the victim; fourth, the manner of killing it,\nwith the head turned upwards; fifth, selecting the thighs and fat for\ntheir gods, as the best of the sacrifice, and disposing about them\npieces cut from every part for a representation of the whole (hence the\nthighs are frequently spoken of in Homer and the Greek poets as the\nwhole victim); sixth, the libation of wine; seventh, consuming the\nthighs in the fire of the altar; eighth, the sacrificers dressing and\nfeasting on the rest, with joy and hymns to the gods.\n\nThe _P\u00e6an_ (originally sung in honor of Apollo) was a hymn to\npropitiate the god, and also a song of thanksgiving, when freed from\ndanger. It was always of a joyous nature. Both tune and sound expressed\nhope and confidence. It was sung by several persons, one of whom\nprobably led the others, and the singers either marched onward, or sat\ntogether at table.\n\nIt was the custom to draw the ships entirely upon the shore, and to\nsecure them by long props.\u2014Felton\n\nSuppliants threw themselves at the feet of the person to whom the\nsupplication was addressed, and embraced his knees.\u2014Felton.\n\nAmbrosia, the food of the gods, conferred upon them eternal youth and\nimmortality, and was brought to Jupiter by pigeons. It was also used by\nthe gods for anointing the body and hair. Hence the expression,\nambrosial locks.\n\nThe original says, \u201cthe ox-eyed goddess,\u201d which furnishes Coleridge\nwith one of the hints on which he proceeds in historically identifying\nthe Argive Juno with Io and Isis, &c. There is real wit in Homer\u2019s\nmaking her say to Jupiter, \u201cI never search thy thoughts,\u201d &c. The\nprinciple of conservatism asks nothing of the intellectual power, but\nblindly contends, reposing upon the instinct of a common sense, which\nleads her always to surmise that something is intended by the\nintellectual power that she shall not like.\u2014E.P.P.\n\nThis refers to an old fable of Jupiter\u2019s hanging up Juno and whipping\nher. Homer introduces it without reference to its meaning, which was\nundoubtedly some physical truth connected with the ether and the\natmosphere.\u2014E.P.P.\n\n[The reader, in order that he may partake with the gods in the drollery\nof this scene, should observe that the crippled and distorted Vulcan\nhad thrust himself into an office at all other times administered\neither by Hebe or Ganymede.\u2014Tr.]\n\nAs Minerva or Wisdom was among the company, the poet\u2019s making Vulcan\nact the part of peace-maker, would appear to have been from choice,\nknowing that a mirthful person may often stop a quarrel, by making\nhimself the subject of merriment.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes for Book II:\n\n\nThe poem now becomes more exciting; the language more animated; the\ndescriptions more lively and figurative. Homer seems to kindle with his\nsubject, and to press all the phenomena of nature into his service for\nthe purpose of illustration and adornment. Jupiter prepares to keep his\npromise of avenging Achilles, by drawing Agamemnon into a deceitful\nexpectation of taking the city. The forces are arranged for battle,\nwhich gives occasion for the celebrated catalogue.\u2014Felton.\n\nThe whole action of the Dream is natural. It takes the figure of one\nmuch beloved by Agamemnon, as the object that is most in our thoughts\nwhen awake, is the one that oftenest appears to us in our dreams, and\njust at the instant of its vanishing, leaves so strong an impression,\nthat the voice seems still sounding in his ear.\n\nThe Dream also repeats the words of Jupiter without variation, which is\nconsidered as a great propriety in delivering a message from the father\nof gods and men.\n\nKing of Pylus, an ancient city of Elis.\n\n[Agamemnon seems to entertain some doubts lest the army should so\nresent his treatment of their favorite Achilles, as to be indisposed to\nserve him.\u2014Tr.]\n\n[Mercury.]\n\n[Argus.]\n\nHomer, in a happy and poetical manner, acquaints us with the high\ndescent of Agamemnon, and traces the origin of his power to the highest\nsource, by saying, that the sceptre had descended to him from the hand\nof Jupiter.\n\nThe power of Agamemnon as a monarch refers to his being the leader of\nan army. According to the form of royalty in the heroic age, a king had\nonly the power of a magistrate, except as he held the office of priest.\nAristotle defines a king as a Leader of war, a Judge of controversies,\nand President of the ceremonies of the gods. That he had the principal\ncare of religious rites, appears from many passages in Homer. His power\nwas nowhere absolute but in war, for we find Agamemnon insulted in the\ncouncil, but in the army threatening deserters with death. Agamemnon is\nsometimes styled king of kings, as the other princes had given him\nsupreme authority over them in the siege.\n\n[The extremest provocation is implied in this expression, which\nThersites quotes exactly as he had heard it from the lips of\nAchilles.\u2014Tr.]\n\nThe character of Thersites is admirably sketched. There is nothing\nvague and indistinct, but all the traits are so lively, that he stands\nbefore us like the image of some absurd being whom we have ourselves\nseen. It has been justly remarked by critics, that the poet displays\ngreat skill in representing the opponents of Agamemnon in the character\nof so base a personage, since nothing could more effectually reconcile\nthe Greeks to the continuance of the war, than the ridiculous\nturbulence of Thersites.\u2014Felton.\n\n[Some for \u03c0\u03bf\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 here read \u03c0\u03bf\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2; which reading I have adopted for the\nsake both of perspicuity and connection.\u2014Tr.]\n\nThe principal signs by which the gods were thought to declare their\nwill, were things connected with the offering of sacrifices, the flight\nand voice of birds, all kinds of natural phenomena, ordinary as well as\nextraordinary dreams.\n\nAn epithet supposed to have been derived from Gerenia, a Messenian\ntown, where Nestor was educated.\n\nIn the pictures which Homer draws of him, the most striking features\nare his wisdom, bravery, and knowledge of war, his eloquence, and his\nold age.\n\nFor some general remarks upon the heroes of the time, see Grecian and\nRoman Mythology.\n\nIn allusion to the custom of pouring out a libation of pure wine, in\nthe ceremony of forming a league, and joining right hands, as a pledge\nof mutual fidelity after the sacrifice.\u2014Felton.\n\n[Nestor is supposed here to glance at Achilles.\u2014Tr.]\n\nHomer here exalts wisdom over valor.\n\n[Money stamped with the figure of an ox.]\u2014Tr.\n\nThe encouragement of a divine power, seemed all that was requisite to\nchange the dispositions of the Grecians, and make them more ardent for\ncombat than they had previously been to return. This conquers their\ninclinations in a manner at once poetical and in keeping with the moral\nwhich is every where spread through Homer, that nothing is accomplished\nwithout divine assistance.\n\nHomer\u2019s rich invention gives us five beautiful similes on the march of\nthe army. This profusion and variety can never be sufficiently admired.\n\nThe superior knowledge that the poet here attributes to the Muses as\ndivine beings, and then his occasional invocations to them, gives an\nair of importance to his subject and has an imposing effect.\n\nHowever fabulous the other parts of Homer\u2019s poems may be, this account\nof the princes, people, and countries, is by far the most valuable\npiece of history and geography left us in regard to the state of Greece\nin that early period. Greece was then divided into several dynasties,\nwhich Homer has enumerated under their respective princes; and his\ndivision was considered so correct, that many disputes respecting the\nboundaries of Grecian cities were decided upon his authority.\nEustathius has collected together the following instances: The city of\nCalydon was adjudged to the \u00c6tolians, notwithstanding the pretensions\nof \u00c6olia, because it was ranked by Homer as belonging to the former.\nSestos was given to those of Abydos, upon the plea that he had said the\nAbydonians were possessors of Sestos, Abydos, and Arisbe. When the\nMilesians and people of Priene disputed their claim to Mycale, a verse\nof Homer gave it to the Milesians. The Athenians were put in possession\nof Salamis by another which was cited by Solon, or (according to some)\ninterpolated by him for that purpose; and Porphyry says, that the\ncatalogue was so highly esteemed, that the youths of some nations were\nrequired to commit it to memory.\n\nProfessor Felton remarks, \u201cThe student is advised to give particular\nattention to this important passage. He will find it the most\ninteresting fragment of geography extant; interesting for the poetical\nbeauty of the verse, the regular order which is followed, and the\nlittle characteristic touches which denote the peculiarities of the\nseveral provinces. The more he examines this catalogue with the\nsubsidiary lights of geography, history and travels, the more cause\nwill he find of wonder, that a description so ancient should combine so\nmuch accuracy, beauty, and interest. It is recommended to the student,\nto trace the provinces and cities on some good map of ancient Greece.\u201d\n\n[Some say Thebes the less, others, the suburbs of Thebes the greater.\nIt is certain that Thebes itself sent none.\u2014Tr.]\n\nIt was the custom of these people to shave the fore parts of their\nheads, that their enemies might not seize them by the hair; on the\nhinder part they allowed it to grow, as a valiant race that would never\nturn their backs. Their manner of fighting was hand to hand, without\nquitting their javelins.\n\nMenelaus is occasionally distinguished by his activity, which shows his\npersonal concern in the war.\n\nThe Arcadians, being an inland people, were unskilled in navigation,\nfor which reason Agamemnon furnished them with shipping.\n\nNireus is nowhere mentioned as a leader but in these lines. As rank and\nbeauty were his only qualifications, he is allowed to sink into\noblivion.\n\nThe mud of the Peneus is of a light color, for which reason Homer gives\nit the epithet of silvery. The Titaresius, and other small streams\nwhich are rolled from Olympus and Ossa, are so extremely clear, that\ntheir waters are distinguished from those of the Peneus for a\nconsiderable distance from the point of their confluence.\u2014Dodwell.\n\nDr. Clarke, in his travels, describes this tomb as a conical mound; and\nsays that it is the spot of all others for viewing the plain of Troy,\nas it is visible in all parts of Troas. From its top may be traced the\ncourse of the Scamander, the whole chain of Ida, stretching towards\nLectum, the snowy heights of Gargarus, and all the shores of\nHellespont, near the mouth of the river Sig\u00e6um and the other tumuli\nupon the coast.\n\nA patronymic given to Achilles as descendant of \u00c6acus, father of\nPeleus.\n\nA river of Troas in Asia Minor, the same as the Scamander.\n\nThis expression is construed by critics as denoting an unpolished\ndialect, but not a foreign.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes for Book III:\n\n\nThe scenes described in this book are exceedingly lifesome. The figures\nare animating and beautiful, and the mind of the reader is borne along\nwith breathless interest over the sonorous verse.\u2014Felton.\n\nThis is a striking simile, from its exactness in two points\u2014the noise\nand the order. It has been supposed that the embattling of an army was\nfirst learned by observing the close order of the flight of these\nbirds. The noise of the Trojans contrasts strongly with the silence of\nthe Greeks. Plutarch remarks upon this distinction as a credit to the\nmilitary discipline of the latter, and Homer would seem to have\nattached some importance to it, as he again alludes to the same thing.\nBook iv. 510.\n\n[Paris, frequently named Alexander in the original.\u2014Tr.]\n\nNot from cowardice, but from a sense of guilt towards Menelaus. At the\nhead of an army he challenges the boldest of the enemy; and Hector, at\nthe end of the Sixth Book, confesses that no man could reproach him as\na coward. Homer has a fine moral;\u2014A brave mind, however blinded with\npassion, is sensible of remorse whenever he meets the person whom he\nhas injured; and Paris is never made to appear cowardly, but when\novercome by the consciousness of his injustice.\n\n[\u039b\u03b1\u03b9\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03c3\u03c3\u03bf \u03c7\u03b9\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd\u03b1]\n\nIn allusion to the Oriental custom of stoning to death for the crime of\nadultery.\u2014Felton.\n\nThe sling was a very efficacious and important instrument in ancient\nwarfare. Stones were also thrown with the hand. The Libyans carried no\nother arms than the spear and a bag of stones.\n\nThe Trojans were required to sacrifice two lambs; one male of a white\ncolor to the Sun, as the father of light, and one female and black to\nthe Earth, the mother and nurse of men. That these were the powers to\nwhich they sacrificed appears from their being attested by name in the\noath. III. 330.\n\nHelen\u2019s weaving the events of the Trojan war in a veil is an agreeable\nfiction; and one might suppose that it was inherited by Homer, and\nexplained in his Iliad.\u2014Dacier.\n\n[Not the grasshopper, but an insect well known in hot countries, and\nwhich in Italy is called Cic\u00e1la. The grasshopper rests on the ground,\nbut the favorite abode of the Cic\u00e1la is in the trees and hedges.\u2014Tr.]\n\nThis episode is remarkable for its beauty. The effect of Helen\u2019s\nappearance upon the aged counsellors is striking and poetical. It must\nbe borne in mind, that Helen was of divine parentage and unfading\nbeauty, and this will explain the enthusiasm which her sight called\nforth from the old men. The poet\u2019s skill in taking this method of\ndescribing the Grecian chieftains is obvious, and the sketches\nthemselves are living and characteristic to a high degree. The\nreminiscences of the aged Priam, as their names are announced, and the\npenitential sorrow of the erring Helen, which the sight of her\ncountrymen, and the recollection of her home, her child, her\ncompanions, excite in her bosom, are among the most skilful touches of\nnatural feeling.\u2014Felton.\n\nThe character of a benevolent old man is well preserved in Priam\u2019s\nbehavior to Helen. Upon observing her confusion, he attributes the\nmisfortunes of the war to the gods alone. This sentiment is also\nnatural to old age. Those who have had the longest experience of life,\nare the most inclined to ascribe the disposal of all things to the will\nof Heaven.\n\nThis view of the Grecian leaders from the walls of Troy, is admired as\nan episode of great beauty, and considered a masterly manner of\nacquainting the reader with the figure and qualifications of each hero.\n\nHelen sees no where in the plain her two brothers Castor and Pollux.\nHer inquiry is a natural one, and her self-reproach naturally suggests\nher own disgrace as the cause of their not appearing among the other\ncommanders. The two lines in which the poet mentions their death are\nsimple and touching.\u2014Felton.\n\nHomer here gives the whole ceremonial of the solemn oath, as it was\nthen observed by the nations of whom he writes.\n\nIt must be borne in mind that sacrificing was the most solemn act of\nreligion, and that kings were also chief-priests.\n\nThe armor of both Greeks and Trojans consisted of six portions, and was\nalways put on in the order here given. The greaves were for the defence\nof the legs. They were made of some kind of metal, and probably lined\nwith cloth or felt. The cuirass or corselet for the body, was made of\nhorn cut in thin pieces and fastened upon linen cloth, one piece\noverlapping another. The sword hung on the left side by means of a belt\nwhich passed over the right shoulder. The large round shield, sometimes\nmade of osiers twisted together and covered with several ox-hides, and\nbound round the edge with metal. In the Homeric times it was supported\nby a belt; subsequently a band was placed across the inner side, in\nwhich the left arm was inserted, and a strong leather strap fastened\nnear the edge at certain distances, which was grasped by the hand. The\nhelmet, made of metal and lined with felt. Lastly the spear, and in\nmany cases two. The heavy-armed soldiery were distinguished from the\nlight. The covering of the latter consisted of skins, and instead of\nthe sword and lance, they fought with darts, bows and arrows, or\nslings, and were generally attached in a subordinate capacity to the\nheavy-armed soldiery.\n\nHomer puts a prayer in the mouth of Menela\u00fcs, but none in that of\nParis. Menela\u00fcs is injured and innocent, and may therefore ask for\njustice; but Paris, who is the criminal, remains silent.\n\n[Because the hide of a beast that dies in health is tougher and fitter\nfor use than of another that dies diseased.]\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes for Book IV:\n\n\nThe goddess of youth is made an attendant at the banquets of the gods,\nto show that they enjoyed a perpetual youth, and endless felicity.\n\n[A town of that name in B\u0153otia, where Pallas was particularly\nworshipped.\u2014Tr.]\n\n[\u0392\u03bf\u03c9\u03c0\u03b9\u03c2, constant description of Juno, but not susceptible of literal\ntranslation.]\n\nHomer does not make the gods use all persons indiscriminately as their\nagents, but each according to his powers. When Minerva would persuade\nthe Greeks, she seeks Ulysses; when she would break the truce, for\nPandarus; and when she would conquer, for Diomede. The goddess went not\nto the Trojans, because they hated Paris, and looks among the allies,\nwhere she finds Pandarus, who was of a nation noted for perfidiousness,\nand who, from his avarice, was capable of engaging in this treachery\nfor the hope of a reward from Paris.\n\nA city of Asia Minor.\n\nThis description, so full of circumstantial detail, is remarkably\nbeautiful. 1. The history of the bow, giving in a few words the picture\nof a hunter, lying in ambush and slaying his victim. 2. Then the\nprocess of making the bow. 3. The anxious preparation for discharging\nthe arrow with certainty, which was destined to break off the truce and\nprecipitate the battle. 4. The hurried prayer and vow to Apollo, after\nwhich the string is drawn, the cord twangs, the arrow \u201cleaps forth.\u201d\nThe whole is described with such graphic truth, that we see, and hear,\nand wait in breathless suspense to know the result.\u2014Felton.\n\nThis is one of those humble comparisons with which Homer sometimes\ndiversifies his subject, but a very exact one of its kind, and\ncorresponding in all its parts. The care of the goddess, the\nunsuspecting security of Menelaus, the ease with which she diverts the\ndanger, and the danger itself, are all included in these few words. To\nwhich may be added, that if the providence of heavenly powers to their\ncreatures is expressed by the love of a mother to her child, if men in\nregard to them are but as sleeping infants, and the dangers that seem\nso great to us, as easily warded off as the simile implies, the\nconception appears sublime, however insignificant the image may at\nfirst seem in regard to a hero.\n\nFrom this we learn that the Lydians and Carians were famous for their\nskill in dying purple, and that their women excelled in works of ivory;\nand also that there were certain ornaments that only kings and princes\nwere privileged to wear.\n\nThis speech of Agamemnon over his wounded brother, is full of noble\npower and touching eloquence. The Trojans have violated a truce\nsanctioned by a solemn sacrifice to the gods. The reflection that such\nperjury cannot pass with impunity, but that Jove will, sooner or later,\npunish it, occurs first to the mind of the warrior. In the excitement\nof the moment, he predicts that the day will surely come when sacred\nTroy shall fall. From this impetuous feeling his mind suddenly returns\nto the condition of his brother, and imagines with much pathos, the\nconsequences that will follow from his death, and ends with the wish,\nthat the earth may open before him when that time shall come.\u2014Felton.\n\nThe poet here changes the narration, and apostrophises the reader.\nCritics commend this figure, as the reader then becomes a spectator,\nand his mind is kept fixed on the action.\n\nIn the following review of the army, we see the skill of an\naccomplished general as well as the characters of the leaders whom\nAgamemnon addresses. He begins with an address to the army in general,\nand then turns to individuals. To the brave he urges their secure hopes\nof conquest, since the gods must punish perjury; to the timid, their\ninevitable destruction if the enemy should burn their ships. After this\nhe flies from rank to rank, skilfully addressing each ally, and\npresents a lively picture of a great mind in the highest emotion.\n\nThe ancients usually in their feasts divided to the guests in equal\nportions, except they took particular occasion to show distinction. It\nwas then considered the highest mark of honor to be allotted the best\nportion of meat and wine, and to be allowed an exemption from the laws\nof the feast in drinking wine unmingled and without measure. This\ncustom was much more ancient than the time of the Trojan war, and we\nfind it practised in the banquet given by Joseph to his brethren.\n\n[Diverse interpretations are given of this passage. I have adopted that\nwhich to me appeared most plausible. It seems to be a caution against\nthe mischiefs that might ensue, should the horses be put under the\nmanagement of a driver with whom they were unacquainted.\u2014The scholium\nby Villoisson much countenances this solution.\u2014Tr.]\n\n[Here Nestor only mentions the name of Ereuthalion, knowing the present\nto be an improper time for story-telling; in the seventh book he\nrelates his fight and victory at length. This passage may serve to\nconfute those who charge Nestor with indiscriminate loquacity.\u2014Tr.]\n\nThe first Theban war, previously alluded to, took place twenty-seven\nyears before the war of Troy. Sthenelus here speaks of the second,\nwhich happened ten years after the first. For an account of these wars\nsee Grecian and Roman Mythology.\n\nThis is a most animated description. The onset, the clashing of spears,\nthe shield pressed to shield, the tumult of the battle, the shouts and\ngroans of the slayer and the dying\u2014all are described in words, the very\nsound of which conveys the terrible meaning. Then come the exploits\nperformed by individual heroes. The student must bear in mind, that the\nbattles of the heroic age depended in a great measure upon the prowess\nof single chieftains. Hence the appropriateness of the following\nenumeration.\u2014Felton.\n\nSo called from the river Simo\u00efs, near which he was born. It was an\neastern custom to name children from the most remarkable accident of\ntheir birth. The Scriptures furnish many examples. In the Old Testament\nprinces were also compared to trees, and Sim\u00f6isius is here resembled to\na poplar.\n\nHomer occasionally puts his readers in mind of Achilles, and finds\noccasion to celebrate his valor with the highest praise. Apollo here\ntells the Trojans they have nothing to fear, since Achilles fights not.\n\n[\u0391\u03ba\u03c1\u03bf\u03ba\u03bf\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9. They wore only a lock of hair on the crown of the head.]\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes for Book V:\n\n\nIn each battle there is one prominent person who may be called the hero\nof the day. This arrangement preserves unity, and helps to fix the\nattention of the reader. The gods sometimes favor one hero, and\nsometimes another. In this book we have the exploits of Diomede.\nAssisted by Minerva, he is eminent both for prudence and valor.\n\nSirius. This comparison, among many others, shows how constantly the\npoet\u2019s attention was directed to the phenomena of nature.\u2014Felton.\n\n\u0397\u03b9\u03bf\u03b5\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9.\n\nThe chariots were probably very low. We frequently find in the Iliad\nthat a person standing in a chariot is killed (and sometimes by a\nstroke on the head) by a foot soldier with a sword. This may farther\nappear from the ease with which they mount or alight, to facilitate\nwhich, the chariots were made open behind. That the wheels were small,\nmay be supposed from their custom of taking them off and putting them\non. Hebe puts on the wheels of Juno\u2019s chariot, when he called for it in\nbattle. It may be in allusion to the same custom, that it is said in\nEx., ch. xiv.: \u201cThe Lord took off their chariot wheels, so that they\ndrove them heavily.\u201d That it was very small and light, is evident from\na passage in the tenth Il., where Diomede debates whether he shall draw\nthe chariot of Rhesus out of the way, or carry it on his shoulders to a\nplace of safety.\n\n[Meges, son of Phyleus.]\n\nThis whole passage is considered by critics as very beautiful. It\ndescribes the hero carried by an enthusiastic valor into the midst of\nhis enemies, and mingling in the ranks indiscriminately. The simile\nthoroughly illustrates this fury, proceeding as it did from an\nextraordinary infusion of courage from Heaven.\n\n[Apollo.]\n\nThe deities are often invoked because of the agency ascribed to them\nand not from any particular religious usage. And just as often the\nheroes are protected by the gods who are worshipped by their own tribes\nand families\u2014Muller.\n\nThis fiction of Homer, says Dacier, is founded upon an important truth\nof religion, not unknown to the Pagans: viz. that God only can open the\neyes of men, and enable them to see what they cannot otherwise\ndiscover. The Old Testament furnishes examples. God opens the eyes of\nHagar, that she may see the fountain. \u201cThe Lord opened the eyes of\nBaalam, and he saw the angel,\u201d etc. This power of sight was given to\nDiomede only for the present occasion. In the 6th Book, on meeting\nGlaucus, he is ignorant whether he is a god, a hero, or a man.\n\n[Or collar-bone.]\n\nThe belief of those times, in regard to the peace and happiness of the\nsoul after death, made the protection of the body a matter of great\nimportance. For a full account of these rites, see the articles Charon\nand Pluto, Gr. & Rom. Mythology.\n\nThe physician of the gods. Homer says nothing of his origin. He seems\nto be considered as distinct from Apollo, though perhaps originally\nidentical with him.\n\nFrom the fact that so few mystical myths are introduced in the Iliad,\nM\u00fcller infers that the mystical element of religion could not have\npredominated among the Grecian people for whom Homer sang. Otherwise,\nhis poems in which that element is but little regarded, would not have\nafforded universal pleasure and satisfaction. He therefore takes but a\npassing notice of Demeter. M\u00fcller also remarks, that in this we cannot\nbut admire the artistic skill of Homer, and the feeling for what is\nright and fitting that was innate with the Greeks.\n\n[Vide Samson to Harapha in the Agonistes. There the word is used in the\nsame sense.\u2014Tr.]\n\n[This is a construction of \u03bb\u03b5\u03c5\u03ba \u03b5\u03bb\u03b5\u03c6\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9 given by some of the best\ncommentators, and that seems the most probable.\u2014Tr.]\n\nThis slow and orderly retreat of the Greeks, with their front\nconstantly turned to the enemy, is a fine encomium on their courage and\ndiscipline. This manner of retreating was customary among the\nLaced\u00e6monians, as were many other martial customs described by Homer.\nThe practice arose from the apprehension of being killed by a wound in\nthe back, which was not only punished with infamy, but a person bearing\nthe mark was denied the rites of burial.\n\n[This, according to Porphyrius as quoted by Clarke, is the true meaning\nof \u03b1\u03b9\u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03bc\u03b9\u03c4\u03c1\u03b7\u03c2.\u2014Tr.]\n\nThe chariots of the gods were formed of various metals, and drawn\nthrough the air, or upon the surface of the sea, by horses of celestial\nbreed. These chariots were used by the deities only on occasion of a\nlong journey, or when they wished to appear with state and\nmagnificence. Ordinarily they were transported from place to place by\nthe aid of their golden sandals, with the exception of the\n\u201csilver-footed Thetis,\u201d to whom they seem to have been superfluous.\nWhen at home, the gods were barefoot, according to the custom of the\nage, as we see from various representations of antique art.\n\n[These which I have called crescents, were a kind of hook of a\nsemicircular form, to which the reins were occasionally fastened.\u2014Tr.]\n\nThe Greeks borrowed the vest and shield of Minerva from the Lybians,\nonly with this difference: the Lybian shield was fringed with thongs of\nleather, and the Grecian with serpents.\u2014Herodotus.\n\nThis expression (the gates of Heaven) is in the eastern manner, and\ncommon in the Scriptures.\n\n[\u0391\u03c1\u03b5\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd\u03b4\u03b5.]\n\nEvery thing that enters the dark empire of Hades disappears, and is\nseen no more; hence the figurative expression, to put on Pluto\u2019s\nhelmet; that is to become invisible.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes for Book VI:\n\n\nThe Simo\u00efs and Xanthus were two rivers of the Troad, which form a\njunction before they reached the Hellespont. The Simo\u00efs rose in Mt.\nIda, and the Xanthus had its origin near Troy.\u2014Felton.\n\nAjax commences his exploits immediately on the departure of the gods\nfrom the battle. It is observed of this hero, that he is never assisted\nby the deities.\n\nAxylus was distinguished for his hospitality. This trait was\ncharacteristic of the Oriental nations, and is often alluded to by\nancient writers. The rite of hospitality often united families\nbelonging to different and hostile nations, and was even transmitted\nfrom father to son. This description is a fine tribute to the\ngenerosity of Axylus.\u2014Felton\n\n[Euryalus.]\n\nAgamemnon\u2019s taking the life of the Trojan whom Menelaus had pardoned,\nwas according to the custom of the times. The historical books of the\nOld Testament abound in instances of the like cruelty to conquered\nenemies.\n\nThis important maxim of war is very naturally introduced, upon Menelaus\nbeing ready to spare an enemy for the sake of a ransom. According to\nDacier, it was for such lessons as these that Alexander so much\nesteemed Homer and studied his poem.\n\nThe custom of making donations to the gods is found among the ancients,\nfrom the earliest times of which we have any record down to the\nintroduction of Christianity; and even after that period it was\nobserved by the Christians during the middle ages. Its origin seems to\nhave been the same as that of sacrifices: viz. the belief that the gods\nwere susceptible of influence in their conduct towards men. These gifts\nwere sometimes very costly, but often nothing more than locks of hair\ncut from the head of the votary.\n\nDiomede had knowingly wounded and insulted the deities; he therefore\nmet Glaucus with a superstitious fear that he might be some deity in\nhuman shape. This feeling brought to his mind the story of Lycurgus.\n\nIt is said that Lycurgus caused most of the vines of his country to be\nrooted up, so that his subjects were obliged to mix their wine with\nwater, as it became less plentiful. Hence the fable that Thetis\nreceived Bacchus into her bosom.\n\nThis style of language was according to the manners of the times. Thus\nGoliath to David, \u201cApproach, and I will give thy flesh to the fowls of\nthe air and the beasts of the field.\u201d The Orientals still speak in the\nsame manner.\n\nThough this comparison may be justly admired for its beauty in the\nobvious application to the mortality and succession of human life, it\nseems designed by the poet, in this place, as a proper emblem of the\ntransitory state of families which, by their misfortune or folly, have\nfallen and decayed, and again appear, in a happier season, to revive\nand flourish in the fame and virtues of their posterity. In this sense\nit is a direct answer to the question of Diomede, as well as a proper\npreface to what Glaticus relates of his own family, which, having\nbecome extinct in Corinth, recovers new life in Lycia.\n\nThe same as Corinth.\n\nSome suppose that alphabetical writing was unknown in the Homeric age,\nand consequently that these signs must have been hieroglyphical marks.\nThe question is a difficult one, and the most distinguished scholars\nare divided in opinion. We can hardly imagine that a poem of the length\nand general excellence of the Iliad, could be composed without the aid\nof writing; and yet, we are told, there are well-authenticated examples\nof such works being preserved and handed down by traditional memory.\nHowever this may be, we know that the Oriental nations were in\npossession of the art of alphabetical writing it a very early period,\nand before the Trojan war. It cannot, then, seem very improbable, that\nthe authors of the Iliad should also have been acquainted with\nit.\u2014Felton.\n\nThe Solymi were an ancient nation inhabiting the mountainous parts of\nAsia Minor, between Lycia and Pisidia. Pliny mentions them as having\nbecome extinct in his time.\n\nIt was the custom in ancient times, upon the performance of any signal\nservice by kings or great men, for the public to grant them a tract of\nland as a reward. When Sarpedon, in the 12th Book, exhorts Glaucus to\nbehave valiantly, he reminds him of these possessions granted by his\ncountrymen.\n\nThe laws of hospitality were considered so sacred, that a friendship\ncontracted under their observance was preferred to the ties of\nconsanguinity and alliance, and regarded as obligatory even to the\nthird and fourth generation. Diomede and Glaucus here became friends,\non the ground of their grandfathers having been mutual guests. The\npresents made on these occasions were preserved by families, as it was\nconsidered obligatory to transmit them as memorials to their children.\n\n[\u039e\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03c9\u03b9\u03bf\u03b9.]\n\nThe Sc\u00e6an gate opened to the field of battle, and was the one through\nwhich the Trojans made their excursions. Close to this stood the beech\ntree sacred to Jupiter, and often mentioned in connection with it.\n\nThere is a mournfulness in the interview between the hero and his\nmother which is deeply interesting. Her urging him to take wine and his\nrefusal were natural and simple incidents, which heighten the effect of\nthe scene.\u2014Felton.\n\nThe custom that prohibits persons polluted with blood from performing\nany offices of divine worship before purification, is so ancient and\nuniversal, that it may be considered a precept of natural religion,\ntending to inspire a horror of bloodshed. In Euripides, Iphigenia\nargues the impossibility of human sacrifices being acceptable to the\ngods, since they do not permit any one defiled with blood, or even\npolluted with the touch of a dead body, to come near their altars.\n\nParis surprised the King of Ph\u0153necia by night, and carried off many of\nhis treasures and captives, among whom probably were these Sidonian\nwomen. Tyre and Sidon were famous for works in gold, embroidery, etc.,\nand for whatever pertained to magnificence and luxury.\n\nThis gesture is the only one described by Homer as being used by the\nancients in their invocations of the gods.\n\n[\u03b4\u03b9\u03b1 \u03b8\u03b5\u03b1\u03c9\u03bd.]\n\nThe employment in which Hector finds Paris engaged, is extremely\ncharacteristic.\u2014Felton.\n\nThis address of Helen is in fine keeping with her character.\u2014Felton.\n\n[The bulk of his heroes is a circumstance of which Homer frequently\nreminds us by the use of the word \u03bc\u03b5\u03b3\u03b1\u03c2\u2014and which ought, therefore, by\nno means to be suppressed.\u2014Tr.]\n\nLove of his country is a prominent characteristic of Hector, and is\nhere beautifully displayed in his discharging the duties that the\npublic welfare required, before seeking his wife and child. Then\nfinding that she had gone to the tower, he retraces his steps to \u201cthe\nSc\u00e6an gate, whence he must seek the field.\u201d Here his wife, on her\nreturn home, accidentally meets him.\n\n [The name signifies, the _Chief of the city_.\u2014Tr.]\n\nIt was the custom to plant about tombs only such trees as elms, alders,\netc., that bear no fruit, as being most appropriate to the dead.\n\nIn this recapitulation, Homer acquaints us with some of the great\nachievements of Achilles, which preceded the opening of the poem\u2014a\nhappy manner of exalting his hero, and exciting our expectation as to\nwhat he is yet to accomplish. His greatest enemies never upbraid him,\nbut confess his glory. When Apollo encourages the Trojans to fight, it\nis by telling them Achilles fights no more. When Juno animates the\nGreeks, she reminds them how their enemies fear Achilles; and when\nAndromache trembles for Hector, it is with the remembrance of his\nresistless force.\n\nDrawing water was considered the most servile employment.\n\n[The Scholiast in Villoisson calls it\n\u03c6\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03ba\u03bf\u03bd \u03c4\u03b9\u03bd\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd \u03b3\u03b5\u03bb\u03c9\u03c4\u03b1 a natural and moderate laughter.\u2014Tr.]\n\nAccording to the ancient belief, the fatal period of life is appointed\nto all men at the time of their birth, which no precaution can avoid\nand no danger hasten.\n\nThis scene, for true and unaffected pathos, delicate touches of nature,\nand a profound knowledge of the human heart, has rarely been equalled,\nand never surpassed, among all the efforts of genius during the three\nthousand years that have gone by since it was conceived and\ncomposed.\u2014Felton.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes for Book VII:\n\n\nHolding the spear in this manner was, in ancient warfare, understood as\na signal to discontinue the fight.\n\nThe challenge of Hector and the consternation of the Greeks, presents\nmuch the same scene as the challenge of Goliath, 1 Samuel, ch. 17: \u201cAnd\nhe stood and cried to the armies of Israel;\u2014Choose you a man for you,\nand let him come down to me. If he be able to fight with me, and to\nkill me, then will we be your servants.\u2014When Saul and all Israel heard\nthe words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid.\u201d\n\nIt was an ancient custom for warriors to dedicate trophies of this kind\nto the temples of their tutelary deities.\n\n[The club-bearer.]\n\n[It is a word used by Dryden.]\n\nHomer refers every thing, even the chance of the lots, to the\ndisposition of the gods.\n\n[Agamemnon.]\n\nThe lot was merely a piece of wood or shell, or any thing of the kind\nthat was at hand. Probably it had some private mark, and not the name,\nas it was only recognized by the owner.\n\nThis reply is supposed to allude to some gesture made by Ajax in\napproaching Hector.\n\nThe heralds were considered as sacred persons, the delegates of\nMercury, and inviolable by the laws of nations. Ancient history\nfurnishes examples of the severity exercised upon those who were guilty\nof any outrage upon them. Their office was, to assist in the sacrifices\nand councils, to proclaim war or peace, to command silence at\nceremonies or single combats, to part the combatants and declare the\nconqueror.\n\nThis word I have taken leave to coin. The Latins have both substantive\nand adjective. _Purpura\u2014Purpureus._ We make purple serve both uses; but\nit seems a poverty to which we have no need to submit, at least in\npoetry.\u2014Tr.\n\nA particular mark of honor and respect, as this part of the victim\nbelonged to the king. In the simplicity of the times, the reward\noffered a victorious warrior of the best portion of the sacrifice at\nsupper, a more capacious bowl, or an upper seat at table, was a\nrecompense for the greatest actions.\nIt is worthy of observation, that beef, mutton, or kid, was the food of\nthe heroes of Homer and the patriarchs and warriors of the Old\nTestament. Fishing and fowling were then the arts of more luxurious\nnations.\n\n[The word is here used in the Latin sense of it. Virgil, describing the\nentertainment given by Evander to the Trojans, says that he regaled\nthem\n\nPerpetui _tergo bovis et lustralibus extis._\n\u00c6n. viii.\n\nIt means, the whole.\u2014Tr.]\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes for Book VIII:\n\n\nAn epithet of Aurora, supposed to designate an early hour.\n\nMany have explained this as an allegorical expression for one of the\ngreat laws of nature\u2014gravity or the attraction of the sun. There is not\nthe slightest probability that any such meaning is intended.\u2014Felton.\n\nA part of Mt. Ida. This place was celebrated, in subsequent times, for\nthe worship of Jupiter. Several years ago, Dr. E.D. Clarke deposited,\nin the vestibule of the public library in Cambridge, England, a marble\nbust of Juno, taken from the ruins of this temple of Jupiter, at the\nbase of Mt. Ida.\u2014Felton\n\n[In the repetition of this expression, the translator follows the\noriginal.]\n\nSacred, because that part of the day was appropriate to sacrifice and\nreligious worship.\n\nThis figure is first used in the Scriptures. Job prays to be weighed in\nan even balance, that God may know his integrity. Daniel says to\nBelshazzar, \u201cthou art weighed in the balances, and found wanting,\u201d etc.\n\nJupiter\u2019s declaring against the Greeks by thunder and lightning, is\ndrawn (says Dacier) from truth itself. 1 Sam. ch. vii.: \u201cAnd as Samuel\nwas offering up the burnt-offering, the Philistines drew near to battle\nagainst Israel; but the Lord thundered on that day upon the Philistines\nand discomfited them.\u201d\n\nNothing can be more spirited than the enthusiasm of Hector, who, in the\ntransport of his joy, breaks out in the following apostrophe to his\nhorses. He has, in imagination, already forced the Grecian\nentrenchments, set the fleet in flames, and destroyed the whole army.\n\nFrom this speech, it may be gathered that women were accustomed to\nloosen the horses from the chariot, on their return from battle, and\nfeed them; and from line 214, unless it is spurious, it seems that the\nprovender was sometimes mixed with wine. It is most probable, however,\nthat the line is not genuine.\u2014Felton.\n\nHomer describes a princess so tender in her love to her husband, that\nshe meets him on his return from every battle, and, in the joy of\nseeing him again, feeds his horses with bread and wine, as an\nacknowledgment to them for bringing him back.\u2014Dacier.\n\nThese were the arms that Diomede had received from Glaucus.\n\n[None daring to keep the field, and all striving to enter the gates\ntogether, they obstructed their own passage, and were, of course,\ncompelled into the narrow interval between the foss and rampart.\n\nBut there are different opinions about the space intended. See\nVilloisson.\u2014Tr.]\n\n[To Jove, the source of all oracular information.]\n\nJupiter, in answer to the prayer of Agamemnon, sends an omen to\nencourage the Greeks. The application of it is obvious: The eagle\nsignified Hector, the fawn denoted the fear and flight of the Greeks,\nand being dropped at the altar of Jupiter, indicated that they would be\nsaved by the protection of that god.\n\nThis simile is very beautiful, and exactly represents the manner of\nGorgythion\u2019s death. There is so much truth in the comparison, that we\npity the fall of the youth and almost feel his wound.\n\n[\u0395\u03bd\u03b9\u03ba\u03bb\u03b1\u03bd.\u2014The word is here metaphorical, and expresses, in its primary\nuse, the breaking of a spear against a shield.\u2014Tr.]\n\n[The following lines, to the end of this paragraph, are a translation\nof some which Barnes has here inserted from the second Alcibiades of\nPlato.]\n\nThe simile is the most magnificent that can be conceived. The stars\ncome forth brightly, the whole heaven is cloudless and serene, the moon\nis in the sky, the heights, and promontories, and forests stand forth\ndistinctly in the light, _and the shepherd rejoices in his heart_. This\nlast simple and natural circumstance is inexpressibly beautiful, and\nheightens the effect of the visible scene, by associating it, in the\nmost direct and poetical manner, with the inward emotion that such a\nscene must produce.\u2014Felton.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes for Book IX:\n\n\n[In the original the word is\u2014\u03bc\u03b5\u03bb\u03b1\u03bd\u03c5\u03b4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2\u2014dark-watered; and it is\nrendered\u2014_deep_\u2014by the best interpreters, because deep waters have a\nblackish appearance. \u0394\u03bd\u03bf\u03c6\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd \u03c5\u03b4\u03c9\u03c1 is properly water that runs with\nrapidity; water\u2014\u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1 \u03b4\u03bf\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2 \u03c6\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd\u2014See Villoisson.]\u2014Tr.\n\nThis is the language of a brave man, boldly to affirm that courage is\nabove crowns and sceptres. In former times they were not hereditary,\nbut the recompense of valor.\n\n[The observation seems made with a view to prevent such a reply from\nAgamemnon to Diomede as might give birth to new dissensions, while it\nreminds him indirectly of the mischiefs that had already attended his\nquarrel with Achilles.]\u2014Tr.\n\nThis speech of Nestor is happily conceived. It belonged to him as the\naged counsellor to begin the debate, by laying the subject before the\nassembly, especially as it was necessary to impale the blame of the\npresent unfortunate condition of the army to Agamemnon. It would have\nbeen presumptuous in any other, and it was a matter of difficulty and\ndelicacy even for Nestor.\u2014Felton.\n\nIn the heroic age, the bridegroom, before marriage, was obliged to make\ntwo presents, one to his betrothed wife, and one to his father-in-law.\nThis was also an ancient custom of the Hebrews. Abraham\u2019s servant gave\npresents to Rebekah: Gen. xxiv. 22. Shechem promised a dowry and gift\nto Jacob for his daughter: Gen. xxiv. 12. And in after times, Saul said\nhe desired no dowry for Michal: 1 Sam. xviii. 25.\n\nOne of the religious ceremonies previous to any important enterprise.\nThen followed the order for silence and reverent attention; then the\nlibation, &c.\u2014Felton\n\n Achilles having retired from action in displeasure to Agamemnon,\n quieted himself by singing to his lyre the achievements of demi-gods\n and heroes. Nothing was better suited to the martial disposition of\n this hero, than these heroic songs. Celebrating the actions of the\n valiant prepared him for his own great exploits. Such was the music of\n the ancients, and to such purposes was it applied. When the lyre of\n Paris was offered to Alexander, he replied that he had little value\n for it, but much desired that of Achilles, on which he sung the\n actions of heroes in former times.\u2014Plutarch.\n\nThe manners of the Iliad are the manners of the patriarchal and early\nages of the East. The chief differences arise from a different religion\nand a more maritime situation. Very far removed from the savage state\non the one hand, and equally distant from the artificial state of an\nextended commerce and a manufacturing population on the other, the\nspirit and habitudes of the two modes of society are almost identical.\nThe hero and the Patriarch are substantially co\u00ebval; but the first\nwanders in twilight, the last stands in the eye of Heaven. When three\nmen appeared to Abraham in the plains of Mamre, he ran to meet them\nfrom the tent door, brought them in, directed Sarah to make bread,\nfetched from the herd himself a calf tender and good, dressed it, and\nset it before them. When Ajax, Ulysses, and Ph\u0153nix stand before\nAchilles, he rushes forth to greet them, brings them into the tent,\ndirects Patroclus to mix the wine, cuts up the meat, dresses it, and\nsets it before the ambassadors.  *  *  *  *\n\nInstances of this sort might be multiplied to any extent, but the\nstudent will find it a pleasing and useful task to discover them for\nhimself; and these will amply suffice to demonstrate the existence of\nthat correspondence of spirit and manners between the Homeric and the\nearly ages of the Bible history, to which I have adverted. It is real\nand important; it affords a standard of the feelings with which we\nought to read the Iliad, if we mean to read it as it deserves; and it\nexplains and sets in the true point of view numberless passages, which\nthe ignorance or frivolity of after-times has charged with obscurity,\nmeanness or error. The Old Testament and the Iliad reflect light\nmutually on each other; and both in respect of poetry and morals (for\nthe whole of Homer\u2019s poetry is a praise of virtue, and every thing in\nhim tends to this point, except that which is merely superfluous and\nfor ornament) it may with great truth be said, that he who has the\nlongest studied, and the most deeply imbibed, the spirit of the Hebrew\nBible, will the best understand and the most lastingly appreciate the\ntale of Troy divine.\u2014H.N. Coleridge.\n\n[I have given this sense to the word\n\u0396\u03c9\u03c1\u03bf\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u2014on the authority of the Venetian Scholium, though some\ncontend that it should be translated\u2014_quickly_. Achilles, who had\nreproached Agamemnon with intemperate drinking, was, himself, more\naddicted to music than to wine.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[It is not without authority that I have thus rendered\n\u03ba\u03c1\u03b5\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd \u03bc\u03b5\u03b3\u03b1. Homer\u2019s banquets are never stewed or boiled; it cannot\ntherefore signify a kettle. It was probably a kitchen-table, dresser,\nor tray, on which the meat was prepared for the spit. Accordingly we\nfind that this very meat was spitted afterward.\u2014See\nSchaufelbergerus.]\u2014Tr.\n\nThere are no speeches in the Iliad better placed, better timed, or that\ngive a greater idea of Homer\u2019s genius than these of the ambassadors to\nAchilles. They are not only demanded by the occasion, but skilfully\narranged, and in a manner that gives pleasure to the reader.\n\n[Dacier observes, that he pluralizes the one wife of Menelaus, through\nthe impetuosity of his spirit.]\u2014Tr.\n\nAccording to some ancient writers, Achilles was but twelve years of age\nwhen he went to the wars of Troy. And from what is here related of his\neducation under Ph\u0153nix, it may be inferred, that the fable of his\nhaving been taught by Chiron is an invention of a later age and unknown\nto Homer.\n\nThe ancients gave the name of Jupiter not only to the God of heaven,\nbut also to the God of hell, as is seen here; and to the God of the\nsea, as appears from \u00c6schylus. They meant thereby to show that one sole\ndeity governed the world. To teach this truth, statues were made of\nJupiter which had three eyes. Priam had one in the court of his palace,\nwhich, in sharing the booty of the war of Troy, fell to the lot of\nSthenelus, who carried it to Greece.\u2014Dacier.\n\nSo called because Jove protects those who implore his aid.\n\n[Wrinkled\u2014because the countenance of a man driven to prayer by a\nconsciousness of guilt is sorrowful and dejected. Lame\u2014because it is a\nremedy to which men recur late, and with reluctance. And\nslant-eyed\u2014either because, in that state of humiliation they fear to\nlift their eyes to heaven, or are employed in taking a retrospect of\ntheir past misconduct.\n\nThe whole allegory, considering _when_ and _where_ it was composed,\nforms a very striking passage.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[She had five brothers: Iphiclus, Polyphontes, Phanes, Eurypylus,\nPlexippus.]\u2014Tr.\n\nIt was the custom for the murderer to go into banishment for one year.\nBut if the relations of the murdered person were willing, the criminal,\nby paying a certain fine, might buy off the exile and remain at home.\nAjax sums up this argument with great strength: We see, says he, a\nbrother forgive the murder of his brother, a father that of his son;\nbut Achilles will not forgive the injury offered him by taking away one\ncaptive woman.\n\nThe character of Achilles is well sustained in all his speeches. To\nUlysses he returns a flat denial, and threatens to leave the Trojan\nshore in the morning. To Ph\u0153nix his answer is more gentle. After Ajax\nhas spoken, he seems determined not to depart, but yet refuses to bear\narms, except in defence of his own squadron.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes for Book X:\n\n\nWith slight alteration, Homer here repeats the verses that open the 2d\nBook, and ascribes to Agamemnon the same watchfulness over men that\nJupiter had over the gods.\n\nMenelaus starts a design, which is afterwards proposed by Nestor in\ncouncil. The poet knew that the project would come with greater weight\nfrom the age of the one than from the youth of the other, and that the\nvaliant would be ready to engage in the enterprise suggested by so\nvenerable a counsellor.\n\nAgamemnon is uniformly represented as an example of brotherly\naffection, and at all times defends Menelaus.\n\n[\u03a3\u03b1\u03c5\u03c1\u03c9\u03c4\u03b7\u03c1\u2014seems to have been a hollow iron with a point, fitted to the\nobtuse end of the spear, for the purpose of planting that end of it in\nthe ground. It might probably be taken off at pleasure.]\u2014Tr.\n\nThe dogs represent the watch, the flocks the Greeks, the fold their\ncamp, and the wild beast that invades them, Hector. The place,\nposition, and circumstances are represented with the utmost life and\nnature.\n\n[_Sable_, because the expedition was made by night, and _each with a\nlamb_, as typical of the fruit of their labors.]\u2014Tr.\n\nIt required some address in Diomede to make a choice without offending\nthe Grecian princes, each one of whom might consider it an indignity to\nbe refused such a place of honor. Diomede, therefore, chose Ulysses,\nnot for his valor, but for his wisdom. On this point, the other leaders\nall yielded to him.\n\nThe heroes are well armed for their design. Ulysses has a bow and\narrows, that he may be able to wound the enemy at a distance, and\nDiomede a two-edged sword. They both have leathern helmets, as the\nglittering of the metal might betray them to the enemy.\n\n[Autolycus was grandfather of Ulysses by the mother\u2019s side.]\u2014Tr.\n\nMaking these military presents to brave adventurers was an ancient\ncustom. \u201cJonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and\ngave it to David; and his garments, even to his sword, and his bow, and\nhis girdle.\u201d 1 Sam. xviii. v.\n\nThese lines show how careful the poet always was to be true to nature.\nThe little circumstance that they could not _see_ the heron, but only\nheard him, stamps the description with an air of verisimilitude which\nis at once recognized.\u2014Felton.\n\nThis passage sufficiently justifies Diomede for his choice of Ulysses.\nDiomede, who was most renowned for valor, might have given a wrong\ninterpretation to this omen, and have been discouraged from proceeding\nin the attempt. For though it really signified that, as the bird was\nnot seen, but only heard, so they should not be discovered by the\nTrojans, but perform actions of which all Troy should hear with sorrow;\nyet, on the other hand, it might imply that, as they discovered the\nbird by the noise of its wings, so the noise they should make would\nbetray them to the Trojans. Pallas does not send the bird sacred to\nherself, but the heron, because that is a bird of prey, and denoted\nthat they should spoil the Trojans.\n\nDolon seems to have been eminent for wealth, and Hector summons him to\nthe assembly as one of the chiefs of Troy. He was known to the Greeks,\nperhaps, from his having passed between the two armies as a herald.\nAncient writers observe, that it was the office of Dolon that led him\nto offer himself in this service. The sacredness attached to it gave\nhim hopes that they would not violate his person, should he chance to\nbe taken; and his riches he knew were sufficient to purchase his\nliberty. Besides these advantages, he probably trusted to his swiftness\nto escape pursuit.\n\nEustathius remarks upon the different manner in which the Grecians and\nTrojans conduct the same enterprise. In the council of the Greeks, a\nwise old man proposes the adventure with an air of deference; in that\nof the Trojans, a brave young man with an air of authority. The one\npromises a small gift, but honorable and certain; the other a great\none, but uncertain and less honorable, because it is given as a reward.\nDiomede and Ulysses are inspired with a love of glory; Dolon with the\nthirst of gain. They proceed with caution and bravery; he with rashness\nand vanity. They go in conjunction; he alone. They cross the fields out\nof the road, he follows the common track. In all this there is an\nadmirable contrast, and a moral that strikes every reader at first\nsight.\n\n[Commentators are extremely in the dark, and even Aristarchus seems to\nhave attempted an explanation in vain. The translator does not pretend\nto have ascertained the distance intended, but only to have given a\ndistance suited to the occasion.]\u2014Tr.\n\nUlysses makes no promise of life, but artfully bids Dolon, who is\noverpowered by fear, not to think of death. He was so cautious as not\nto believe a friend just before without an oath, but he trusts an enemy\nwithout even a promise.\n\n['\u039f\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b3\u03b1\u03c1 \u03a4\u03c1\u03c9\u03c9\u03bd \u03c0\u03c5\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b5\u03c3\u03c7\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03b9\u2014As many as are owners of hearths\u2014that\nis to say, all who are householders here, or natives of the city.]\u2014Tr\n\nIt seems barbarous in Diomede thus to have killed Dolon, but Eustathius\nobserves that it was necessary to their success, as his cries might\nhave put the Trojans on their guard.\n\nAn allegorical manner of saying that they were awakened by the morning\nlight.\n\n[Homer did not here forget himself, though some have altered\n\u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b9\u03bf \u03c4\u03b5\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u03b4\u03b5\u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd.\u2014Rhesus for distinction sake is not numbered\nwith his people\u2014See Villoisson _in loco_.]\u2014Tr.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes for Book XI:\n\n\nCynyras was king of Cyprus, and this probably alludes to some\nhistorical fact. Cyprus was famous for its minerals.\n\n[\u03a4\u03c1\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b5\u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03b8'\u2014three on a side, This is evidently the proper\npunctuation, though it differs from that of all the editions that I\nhave seen. I find it no where but in the _Venetian Scholium_.]\u2014Tr.\n\nIt is finely remarked by Trollope, that, of all the points of\nresemblance which may be discovered between the sentiments,\nassociations and expressions of Homer, and those of the sacred\nwritings, this similitude is perhaps the most striking; and there can\nbe little doubt that it exhibits a traditional vestige of the\npatriarchal record of God\u2019s covenant.\u2014Felton.\n\n[Qu\u00e2tre-crested. So I have rendered\n\u03c4\u03b5\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1\u03c6\u03b1\u03bb\u03b7\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd which literally signifies having four cones. The cone was\na tube into which the crest was inserted. The word qu\u00e2tre-crested may\nneed a precedent for its justification, and seems to have a sufficient\none in the cinque-spotted cowslip of Shakspeare.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[This seems the proper import of\n\u03b5\u03b3\u03b4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c0\u03b7\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd. Jupiter is called\n\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03b3\u03b4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[The translator follows Clarke in this interpretation of a passage to\nus not very intelligible.]\n\nThe ancient manner of mowing and reaping was, for the laborers to\ndivide in two parties, and to begin at each end of the field, which was\nequally divided, and proceed till they met in the middle of it.\n\nTime was then measured by the progression of the sun, and the parts of\nthe day were distinguished by the various employments.\n\n[\u03bf\u03bb\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2.]\n\n[The Grecians at large are indiscriminately called Dana\u00ef, Argives, and\nAchaians, in the original. The Phthians in particular\u2014Hellenes. They\nwere the troops of Achilles.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[\u0391\u03bd\u03b5\u03bc\u03bf\u03c4\u03c1\u03b5\u03c6\u03b5\u03c2\u2014literally\u2014wind-nourished.]\u2014Tr.\n\nIn making Ulysses direct Diomede, Homer intends to show that valor\nshould be under the guidance of wisdom. In the 8th Book, when Diomede\ncould hardly be restrained by the thunder of Jupiter, his valor is\nchecked by the wisdom of Nestor.\n\nDiomede does not fear Hector, but Jupiter, who, he has previously said,\nwill give the Trojans the day.\n\n[In the original\u2014\u03ba\u03b5\u03c1\u03b1 \u03b1\u03b3\u03bb\u03b1\u03b5.\u2014All that I pretend to know of this\nexpression is that it is ironical, and may relate either to the\nhead-dress of Paris, or to his archership. To translate it is\nimpossible; to paraphrase it, in a passage of so much emotion, would be\nabsurd. I have endeavored to supply its place by an appellation in\npoint of contempt equal.]\u2014Tr.\n\nNo moral is so evident throughout the Iliad, as the dependence of man\nupon divine assistance and protection. Apollo saves Hector from the\ndart, and Minerva Ulysses.\n\nHomer here pays a marked distinction. The army had seen several of\ntheir bravest heroes wounded, yet without expressing as much concern as\nat the danger of Machaon, their physician and surgeon.\n\n[This interpretation of\u2014\u03bc\u03b9\u03bd\u03c5\u03bd\u03b8\u03b1 \u03b4\u03b5 \u03c7\u03b1\u03b6\u03b5\u03c4\u03bf \u03b4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2\u2014is taken from the\nScholium by Villoisson. It differs from those of Clarke, Eustathius,\nand another Scholiast quoted by Clarke, but seems to suit the context\nmuch better than either.]\u2014Tr.\n\nThe address of Homer in bringing off Ajax is admirable. He makes Hector\nafraid to approach him, and brings down Jupiter to terrify him. Thus he\nretreats, not from a mortal, but from a God.\n\nThe whole passage is inimitably just and beautiful. We see Ajax slowly\nretreating between two armies, and even with a look repulse the one and\nprotect the other. Every line resembles Ajax. The character of a\nstubborn and undaunted warrior is perfectly maintained. He compares him\nfirst to the lion for his undaunted spirit in fighting, and then to the\nass for his stubborn slowness in retreating. In the latter comparison\nthere are many points of resemblance that enliven the image. The havoc\nhe makes in the field is represented by the tearing and trampling down\nthe harvests; and we see the bulk, strength, and obstinancy of the\nhero, when the Trojans, in respect to him, are compared to the troops\nof boys that impotently endeavor to drive him away.\n\nIt must be borne in mind that among the people of the East, an ass was\na beast upon which kings and princes might ride with dignity.\n\nThough the resentment of Achilles would not permit him to be an actor\nin the field, yet his love of war inclines him to be a spectator. As\nthe poet did not intend to draw the character of a perfect man in\nAchilles, he makes him delighted with the destruction of the Greeks,\nbecause it gratified his revenge. That resentment which is the subject\nof the poem, still presides over every other feeling, even the love of\nhis country. He begins now to pity his countrymen, yet he seems\ngratified by their distress, because it will contribute to his glory.\n\nThis onion was very different from the root which now passes under that\nname. It had a sweet flavor, and was used to impart an agreeable flavor\nto wine. It is in high repute at the present day in Egypt.\u2014Felton.\n\n[I have interpreted the very ambiguous words\n\u03bf\u03c5\u03c9 \u03b4' \u03c5\u03c0\u03bf \u03c0\u03c5\u03b8\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03b5\u03c2 \u03b7\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd according to Athen\u00e6us as quoted by Clarke, and\nhis interpretation of them is confirmed by the Scholium in the Venetian\nedition of the Iliad, lately published by Villoisson.]\u2014Tr.\n\nHomer here reminds the reader, that Nestor belonged to a former\ngeneration of men, who were stronger than the heroes of the war.\n\n[It would have suited the dignity of Agamemnon\u2019s rank to have mentioned\n_his_ wound first; but Nestor making this recital to the _friend of\nAchilles_, names him slightly, and without any addition.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[It is said that the Thebans having war with the people of Orchomenos,\nthe Pylians assisted the latter, for which cause Hercules destroyed\ntheir city.\u2014See Scholium per Villoisson.]\u2014Tr.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes for Book XII:\n\n\n[The word is of scripture use; see Gen. ch. xxx. where it describes the\ncattle of Jacob.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[Alluding to the message delivered to him from Jupiter by Iris.]\u2014Tr.\n\nThe morality of the Iliad deserves particular attention. It is not\n_perfect_, upon Christian principles. How should it be under the\ncircumstances of the composition of the poem? Yet, compared with that\nof all the rest of the classical poetry, it is of a transcendently\nnoble and generous character. The answer of Hector to Polydamas, who\nwould have dissuaded a further prosecution of the Trojan success, has\nbeen repeated by many of the most devoted patriots the world ever saw.\n_We_, who defy augury in these matters, can yet add nothing to the\nnobleness of the sentiment.\u2014H.N. Coleridge.\n\n[\u03c0\u03bb\u03b5\u03bf\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd \u03b4\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03b9 \u03b5\u03c1\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd \u03b1\u03bc\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd.\u2014This is evidently proverbial, for which\nreason I have given it that air in the translation.]\u2014Tr.\n\nThere is something touching in this simile. Our attention is fixed, not\nso much on the battle, as on the struggles of the laboring,\ntrue-hearted woman, who toils for a hard-earned pittance for her\nchildren. The description is not so much illustrated by the simile, as\nthe simile by the description.\u2014Felton.\n\nThe description of this exploit of Hector is wonderfully imposing. It\nseems to be the poet\u2019s wish to magnify his deeds during the short\nperiod that he has yet to live, both to do justice to the hero of Troy,\nand to give the greater glory to Achilles his conquerer.\u2014Felton.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes for Book XIII:\n\n\nWe are hurried through this book by the warlike ardor of the poet.\nBattle succeeds battle with animating rapidity. The speeches are in\nfine keeping with the scenes, and the similes are drawn from the most\nimposing natural phenomena. The descriptions possess a wonderful\ndistinctness and vigor, presenting the images to the mind by a few bold\nand grand lines, thus shunning the confusion of intricate and minute\ndetail.\u2014Felton.\n\nSo called from their simple diet, consisting principally of mare\u2019s\nmilk. They were a people living on the north-east coast of the Euxine\nSea. These epithets are sometimes supposed to be the _gentile_\ndenominations of the different tribes; but they are all susceptible of\ninterpretation as epithets applied to the Hippemolgi.\u2014Felton.\n\n[For this admirable line the translator is indebted to Mr. Fuseli.]\u2014Tr.\n\nThe following simile is considered by critics as one of the finest in\nHomer.\n\n[A fitter occasion to remark on this singular mode of approach in\nbattle, will present itself hereafter.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[The bodies of Imbrius and Amphimachus.]\n\n[Amphimachus.]\n\nThis is a noble passage. The difference between the conduct of the\nbrave man and that of the coward is drawn with great vigor and\nbeauty.\u2014Felton.\n\n[Hypsenor.]\n\n[This seems to be he meaning of\u03b5\u03bd \u03bc\u03b5\u03b3\u03b1\u03c1\u03c9 an expression similar to that\nof Demosthenes in a parallel case\u2014\u03b5\u03c4\u03b9 \u03b5\u03bd\u03b4\u03bf\u03bd \u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd.\u2014See\nSchaufelburgerus.]\u2014Tr\n\n[He is said to have been jealous of him on account of his great\npopularity, and to have discountenanced him, fearing a conspiracy in\nhis favor to the prejudice of his own family.\u2014See Villoisson.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[The I\u00e4onianans were a distinct people from the Ionians, and according\nto the Scholium, separated from them by a pillar bearing on opposite \nsides the name of each.\u2014See Barnes. See also Villoisson.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[The people of Achilles were properly called the Phthiot\u00e6, whereas the\nPhthians belonged to Protesil\u00e4us and Philoctetes.\u2014See Eustathius, as\nquoted by Clarke.]\u2014Tr.\n\nThis simile is derived from one of the most familiar sights among a\nsimple people. It is extremely natural, and its propriety will be\npeculiarly striking to those who have had occasion to see a yoke of\noxen plowing in a hot day.\u2014Felton.\n\n[Achilles.]\n\n[This, according to Eustathius, is the import of\n\u03b1\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03b2\u03bf\u03b9.\u2014See Iliad III., in which Priam relates an expedition of his\ninto that country.]\u2014Tr.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes for Book XIV:\n\n\nThe beauty of this simile will be lost to those who have never been at\nsea during a calm. The water is then not quite motionless, but swells\ngently in smooth waves, which fluctuate in a balancing motion, until a\nrising wind gives them a certain determination. Every circumstance of\nthe comparison is just, as well as beautiful.\n\nAnointing the body with perfumed oil was a remarkable part of ancient\ncosmetics. It was probably an eastern invention, agreeable to the\nluxury of the Asiatics.\n\nA footstool was considered a mark of honor.\n\nIn accordance with the doctrine of Thales the Milesian, that all things\nare generated from water, and nourished by the same element.\n\n[Hercules.]\n\nNight was venerated, both for her antiquity and power.\n\n[One of the heads of Ida.]\n\nA bird about the size of a hawk, and entirely black.\n\nBy Juno is understood the air, and it is allegorically said that she\nwas nourished by the vapors that rise from the ocean and the earth.\nTethys being the same as Rhea.\n\n[Europa.]\n\nAn evident allusion to the ether and the atmosphere.\u2014E.P.P.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes for Book XV:\n\n\n[The translator seizes the opportunity afforded to him by this\nremarkable passage, to assure his readers who are not readers of the\noriginal, that the discipline which Juno is here said to have suffered\nfrom the hands of Jove, is not his own invention. He found it in the\noriginal, and considering fidelity as his indispensable duty, has not\nattempted to soften or to refine away the matter. He begs that this\nobservation may be adverted to as often as any passage shall occur in\nwhich ancient practices or customs, not consonant to our own, either in\npoint of delicacy or humanity, may be either expressed or alluded to.\n\nHe makes this request the rather, because on these occasions Mr. Pope\nhas observed a different conduct, suppressing all such images as he had\nreason to suppose might be offensive.]\u2014Tr.\n\nThe earliest form of an oath seems to have been by the elements of\nnature, or rather the deities who preside over them.\u2014Trollope.\n\nIn the following speech, Jupiter discloses the future events of the\nwar.\n\nThe illustration in the following lines is one of the most beautiful in\nHomer. The rapid passage of Juno is compared to the speed of thought,\nby which a traveller revisits in imagination the scenes over which he\nhas passed. No simile could more exalt the power of the\nGoddess.\u2014Felton.\n\nThe picture is strikingly true to nature. The smile upon the lip, and\nfrown upon the brow, express admirably the state of mind in which the\nGoddess must be supposed to have been at this moment.\u2014Felton.\n\n[_To tempest_\u2014\u03ba\u03c5\u03b4\u03bf\u03b9\u03bc\u03b7\u03c3\u03c9\u03bd\u2014Milton uses _tempest_ as a verb. Speaking of\nthe fishes, he says\n\n... part, huge of bulk\nWallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait,\n_Tempest_ the ocean.\n\n]\u2014Tr.\n\nThe Furies are said to wait upon men in a double sense; either for\nevil; as upon Orestes after he had killed his mother, or else for their\ngood, as upon elders when they are injured, to protect them and avenge\ntheir wrongs. The ancients considered birth-right as a right divine.\n\n[\u03a4\u03c1\u03c9\u03b5\u03c2 \u03b4\u03b5 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5\u03c4\u03c5\u03c8\u03b1\u03bd \u03b1\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03b5\u03b5\u03c2. The translation is literal, and affords\none of many instances in which the Greek and English idiom correspond\nexactly.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[Arcesila\u00fcs.]\n\n[This abruptness of transition from the third person to the first,\nfollows the original.]\n\n[The translator hopes that his learned readers will pardon him, if\nsometimes, to avoid an irksome cacophony, he turns brass into steel. In\nfact, arrow had not a point of steel, but a brazen one.]\u2014Tr.\n\nThis sentiment is noble and patriotic. It is in strict keeping with the\ncharacter of Hector, who always appears as his country\u2019s champion, and\nready to die in her defence. Our sympathies go with him; we\ninvoluntarily wish him success, and deplore his misfortune, though we\nadmire the invincible courage of his more fortunate antagonist. His\nactions and sentiments, springing from the simplest feelings of our\nnature, will always command applause, and, under all circumstances, and\nevery form of political existence, will be imitated by the defenders of\ntheir country.\n\nThe speech of Ajax is animating and powerful. It is conceived in the\ntrue spirit of a warrior rousing his followers to make a last effort to\nrepel the enemy.\u2014Felton.\n\n[Meges.]\n\nHector is here represented as an instrument in the hand of Jupiter, to\nbring about the design the God had long ago projected. As his fatal\nhour now approaches, Jove is willing to recompense his early death with\nthis short-lived glory.\n\nIt may be asked what Pallas has to do with the Fates, or what power has\nshe over them?  Homer speaks thus, because Minerva has already resolved\nto deceive Hector and exalt Achilles. Pallas, as the wisdom and\nknowledge of Jove, may be considered as drawing all things to the\ntermination decreed by his councils.\n\n[This termination of the period, so little consonant to the beginning\nof it, follows the original, where it is esteemed by commentators a\ngreat beauty.]\u2014Tr.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes for Book XVI:\n\n\n[This translation of\n\u03b4\u03bd\u03bf\u03c6\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd is warranted by the Scholiast, who paraphrases it thus:\n\n\n\u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1 \u03b4\u03bf\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2 \u03c6\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd.\n_Iliad per Vill._]\n\nThe friendship of Achilles and Patroclus was celebrated by all\nantiquity. It is said in the life of Alexander the Great, that when\nthat prince visited the monuments of the heroes of Troy, and placed a\ncrown upon the tomb of Achilles, his friend Heph\u00e6stion placed another\non that of Patroclus; an intimation of his being to Alexander, what\nPatroclus was to Achilles. It is also said, that Alexander remarked,\n\u201cAchilles was happy indeed, in having had such a friend to love him\nwhen living, and such a poet to celebrate him when dead.\u201d\n\n[\u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1\u03b3\u03bd\u03c5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9. A word of incomparable force, and that defies\ntranslation.]\n\nThis charge is in keeping with the ambitious character of Achilles. He\nis unwilling that even his dearest friend should have the honor of\nconquering Hector.\n\nThe picture of the situation of Ajax, exhausted by his efforts, pressed\nby the arms of his assailants and the will of Jupiter, is drawn with\nmuch graphic power.\u2014Felton.\n\nArgus-slayer.\n\nThe mythi which we find in the Iliad respecting Mercury, represent him\nas the god who blessed the land with fertility, which was his attribute\nin the original worship. He is represented as loving the daughter of\nPhthiotian Phylas, the possessor of many herds, and by her had Eudorus\n(or riches) whom the aged Phylas fostered and brought up in his\nhouse\u2014quite a significant local mythus, which is here related, like\nothers in the usual tone of heroic mythology.\u2014Muller.\n\nThis passage is an exact description and perfect ritual of the\nceremonies on these occasions. Achilles, urgent as the case was, would\nnot suffer Patroclus to enter the fight, till he had in the most solemn\nmanner recommended him to the protection of Jupiter.\n\n[Meges.]\n\n[Brother of Antilochus.]\n\n[\u03b1\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9\u03bc\u03b1\u03ba\u03b5\u03c4\u03b7\u03bd\u2014is a word which I can find nowhere satisfactorily derived.\nPerhaps it is expressive of great length, and I am the more inclined to\nthat sense of it, because it is the epithet given to the mast on which\nUlysses floated to Charybdis. We must in that case derive it from\n\u03b1\u03bc\u03b1 and \u03bc\u03b7\u03ba\u03bf\u03c2 Doric\u00e8, \u03bc\u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03c2\u2014longitudo.\n\nIn this uncertainty I thought myself free to translate it as I have, by\nthe word\u2014monster.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[Apollonius says that the\n\u03bf\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03b1 \u03bb\u03b5\u03c5\u03ba\u03b1 here means the \u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd\u03b4\u03c5\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2, or vertebr\u00e6 of the neck.\u2014See\nVilloisson.]\u2014Tr.\n\n['\u0391\u03bc\u03b9\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c7\u03b9\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd\u03b1\u03c2 is a word, according to Clarke, descriptive of their\npeculiar habit. Their corselet, and the mail worn under it, were of a\npiece, and put on together. To them therefore the cincture or belt of\nthe Greeks was unnecessary.]\u2014Tr.\n\nAccording to the history or fable received in Homer\u2019s time, Sarpedon\nwas interred in Lycia. This gave the poet the liberty of making him die\nat Troy, provided that after his death he was carried into Lycia, to\npreserve the fable. In those times, as at this day, princes and persons\nof rank who died abroad, were carried to their own country to be laid\nin the tomb of their fathers. Jacob, when dying in Egypt, desired his\nchildren to carry him to the land of Canaan, where he wished to be\nburied.\n\n[Sarpedon certainly was not slain _in the fleet_, neither can the Greek\nexpression \u03bd\u03b5\u03c9\u03bd \u03b5\u03bd \u03b1\u03b3\u03c9\u03bd\u03b9 be with propriety interpreted\u2014_in certamine de\nnavibus_\u2014as Clarke and Mme. Dacier are inclined to render it. _Juvenum\nin certamine_, seems equally an improbable sense of it. Eustathius,\nindeed, and Terrasson, supposing Sarpedon to assert that he dies in the\nmiddle of the fleet (which was false in fact) are kind enough to\nvindicate Homer by pleading in his favor, that Sarpedon, being in the\narticle of death, was delirious, and knew not, in reality, where he\ndied. But Homer, however he may have been charged with now and then a\nnap (a crime of which I am persuaded he is never guilty) certainly does\nnot slumber here, nor needs to be so defended. '\u0391\u03b3\u03c9\u03bd in the 23d Iliad,\nmeans the _whole extensive area_ in which the games were exhibited, and\nmay therefore here, without any strain of the expression, be understood\nto signify the _whole range of shore_ on which the ships were\nstationed. In which case Sarpedon represents the matter as it was,\nsaying that he dies\u2014\u03bd\u03b5\u03c9\u03bd \u03b5\u03bd \u03b1\u03b3\u03c9\u03bd\u03b9\u2014that is, in the neighborhood of the\nships, and in full prospect of them.\n\nThe translator assumes not to himself the honor of this judicious\nremark. It belongs to Mr. Fuseli.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[\u03bb\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u03ba\u03b7\u03c1.]\n\nThe clouds of thick dust that rise from beneath the feet of the\ncombatants, which hinder them from knowing one another.\n\n[\u03a5\u03c0\u03b1\u03c3\u03c0\u03b9\u03b4\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03b2\u03b9\u03b2\u03c9\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2. A similar expression occurs in Book xiii., 158.\nThere we read \u03c5\u03c0\u03b1\u03c3\u03c0\u03b9\u03b4\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03b4\u03b9\u03b6\u03c9\u03bd. Which is explained by the Scholiast\nin Villoisson to signify\u2014advancing with quick, short steps, and at the\nsame time covering the feet with a shield. A practice which, unless\nthey bore the\n\u03b1\u03bc\u03c6\u03b9\u03b2\u03c1\u03bf\u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b1\u03c3\u03c0\u03b9\u03b4\u03b1, must necessarily leave the upper parts exposed.\n\nIt is not improbable, though the translation is not accommodated to\nthat conjecture, that \u00c6neas, in his following speech to Meriones, calls\nhim,\n\u03bf\u03c1\u03c7\u03b7\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03bd, with a view to the agility with which he performed this\nparticular step in battle.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[Two lines occurring here in the original which contain only the same\nmatter as the two preceding, and which are found neither in the MSS.\nuse by Barnes nor in the Harleian, the translator has omitted them in\nhis version as interpolated and superfluous.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[\u0399\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b1\u03bb\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u2014_Voluntatem Jovis cui cedendum_\u2014So it is interpreted is\nthe Scholium MSS. Lipsiensis.\u2014Vide Schaufelbergerus.]\u2014Tr.\n\nIt is an opinion of great antiquity, that when the soul is on the point\nof leaving the body, its views become stronger and clearer, and the\nmind is endowed with a spirit of true prediction.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes for Book XVII:\n\n\nIn the chase, the spoils of the prey, the hide and head of the animal,\nbelonged to the one who gave the first wound. So in war\u2014the one who\nfirst pierced an enemy slain in battle, was entitled to his armor.\n\n[The expediency and utility of prayer, Homer misses no opportunity of\nenforcing. Cold and comfortless as the religious creed of the heathens\nwas, they were piously attentive to its dictates, and to a degree that\nmay serve as a reproof to many professed believers of revelation. The\nallegorical history of prayer, given us in the 9th Book of the Iliad\nfrom the lips of Ph\u0153nix, the speech of Antilochus in the 23d, in which\nhe ascribes the ill success of Eumelus in the chariot race to his\nneglect of prayer, and that of Pisistratus in the 3d book of the\nOdyssey, where speaking of the newly-arrived Telemachus, he says;\n\nFor I deem\n Him wont to pray; since all of every land\n Need succor from the Gods;\n\nare so many proofs of the truth of this remark; to which a curious\nreader might easily add a multitude.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[There is no word in our language expressive of loud sound at all\ncomparable in effect to the Greek _Bo-o-osin_. I have therefore\nendeavored by the juxta-position of two words similar in sound, to\npalliate in some degree defect which it was not in my power to\ncure.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[Or collar-bone.]\n\n[The proper meaning of\n\u03b5\u03c0\u03b9\u03bf\u03c3\u03b1\u03bf\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03c9\u2014is not simply _looking on_, but _providing against_. And\nthus their ignorance of the death of Patroclus is accounted for. They\nwere ordered by Nestor to a post in which they should have little to do\nthemselves, except to superintend others, and were consequently too\nremote from Patroclus to see him fall, or even to hear that he had\nfallen.\u2014See Villoisson.]\u2014Tr.\n\nThis is one of the similes of Homer which illustrates the manners and\ncustoms of his age. The mode of preparing hides for use is particularly\ndescribed. They were first softened with oil, and then were stretched\nevery direction by the hands of men, so that the moisture might be\nremoved and the oil might penetrate them. Considered in the single\npoint of comparison intended, it gives a lively picture of the struggle\non all sides to get possession of the body.\u2014Felton.\n\nThis is the proper imperfect of the verb _chide_, though modern usage\nhas substituted _chid_, a word of mean and awkward sound, in the place\nof it.\n\nThis alludes to the custom of placing columns upon tombs, on which were\nfrequently represented chariots with two or four horses. The horses\nstanding still to mourn for their master, could not be more finely\nrepresented than by the dumb sorrow of images standing over a tomb.\nPerhaps the very posture in which these horses are described, their\nheads bowed down, and their manes falling in the dust, has an allusion\nto the attitude in which those statues on monuments were usually\nrepresented; there are bas-reliefs that favor this conjecture.\n\n[The Latin plural of Ajax is sometimes necessary, because the English\nplural\u2014Ajaxes\u2014would be insupportable.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[Le\u00eftus was another chief of the B\u0153otians.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[\u0394\u03b9\u03c6\u03c1\u03c9 \u03b5\u03c6\u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03bf\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2\u2014Yet we learn soon after that he fought on foot. But\nthe Scholiast explains the expression thus\u2014\u03bd\u03b5\u03c9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c4\u03c9 \u03b4\u03b9\u03c6\u03c9\u03c9 \u03b5\u03c0\u03b9\u03b2\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2.\nThe fact was that Idomeneus had left the camp on foot, and was on foot\nwhen Hector prepared to throw at him. But C\u0153ranus, charioteer of\nMeriones, observing his danger, drove instantly to his aid. Idomeneus\nhad just time to mount, and the spear designed for him, struck\nC\u0153ranus.\u2014For a right understanding of this very intricate and difficult\npassage, I am altogether indebted to the Scholiast as quoted by\nVilloisson.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[The translator here follows the interpretation preferred by the\nScholiast. The original expression is ambiguous, and may signify,\neither, that _we shall perish in the fleet ourselves_, or that Hector\nwill soon be in the midst of it. Vide Villoisson _in loco_.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[A noble instance of the heroism of Ajax, who asks not deliverance from\nthe Trojans, or that he may escape alive, but light only, without which\nbe could not possibly distinguish himself. The tears of such a warrior,\nand shed for such a reason, are singularly affecting.]\u2014Tr.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes for Book XVIII:\n\n\nThis speech of Antilochus may serve as a model for its brevity.\n\nThis form of manifesting grief is frequently alluded to in the\nclassical writers, and sometimes in the Bible. The lamentation of\nAchilles is in the spirit of the heroic times, and the poet describes\nit with much simplicity. The captives join in the lamentation, perhaps\nin the recollection of his gentleness, which has before been alluded\nto.\u2014Felton.\n\n[Here it is that the drift of the whole poem is fulfilled. The evils\nconsequent on the quarrel between him and Agamemnon, at last teach\nAchilles himself this wisdom\u2014that wrath and strife are criminal and\npernicious; and the confession is extorted from his own lips, that the\nlesson may be the more powerfully inculcated. To point the instruction\nto leaders of armies only, is to narrow its operation unnecessarily.\nThe moral is of universal application, and the poet\u2019s beneficent\nintentions are wronged by one so partial.]\u2014Tr.\n\nThe promise of Thetis to present her son with a suit of armor, was the\nmost artful method of hindering him from putting immediately in\npractice his resolution of fighting, which, with his characteristic\nviolence, he would otherwise have done.\n\n[The sun is said to set with reluctance, because his setting-time was\nnot yet come. Jupiter had promised Hector that he should prevail till\nthe sun should go down, and _sacred darkness cover all_. Juno\ntherefore, impatient to arrest the victor\u2019s progress, and having no\nother means of doing it, shortens the time allotted him.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[\u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03b4\u03b7\u03bc\u03bf\u03b2\u03bf\u03c1\u03b7\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9.]\n\nThis custom of washing the dead is continued among the Greeks to this\nday, and is performed by the dearest friend or relative. The body is\nthen anointed with a perfume, and covered with linen, exactly in the\nmanner here related.\n\nAmong the Greeks, visitors of rank are still honored in the same\nmanner, by being set apart from the rest of the company, on a high\nseat, with a footstool.\n\n['\u0391\u03bd\u03b5\u03b4\u03c1\u03b1\u03bc\u03b5.]\n\nThe description of the shield of Achilles is one of the noblest\npassages in the Iliad. It is elaborated to the highest finish of\npoetry. The verse is beautifully harmonious, and the language as nicely\nchosen and as descriptive as can be conceived. But a still stronger\ninterest belongs to this episode when considered as an exact\nrepresentation of life at a very early period of the world, as it\nundoubtedly was designed by the poet.\n\nIt is certainly a most remarkable passage for the amount of information\nit conveys relative to the state of arts, and the general condition of\nlife at that period. From many intimations in the ancient authors, it\nmay be gathered, that shields were often adorned by deities of figures\nin bas-relief, similar to those here described. In particular, see\n\u00c6schylus in the Seven against Thebes. A close examination of the whole\npassage will lead to many curious inductions and inferences relative to\nthe ancient world, and throw much light upon points which are elsewhere\nleft in great obscurity.\u2014Felton.\n\nMurder was not always punished with death or even banishment. But on\nthe payment of a fine, the criminal was allowed to remain in the city.\n\nLinus was the most ancient name in poetry, the first upon record as\ninventor of verse and measure among the Grecians. There was a solemn\ncustom among the Greeks, of bewailing annually their first poet.\nPausanias informs us, that before the yearly sacrifice to the Muses on\nMount Helicon, the obsequies of Linus were performed, who had a statue\nand altar erected to him in that place. In this passage Homer is\nsupposed to allude to that custom.\n\nSee article Theseus, Gr. and Rom. Mythology.\n\nThere were two kinds of dance\u2014the Pyrrhic, and the common dance; both\nare here introduced. The Pyrrhic, or military, is performed by Youths\nwearing swords, the other by the virgins crowned with garlands. The\nGrecian dance is still performed in this manner in the oriental\nnations. The youths and maidens dance in a ring, beginning slowly; by\ndegrees the music plays in quicker time, till at last they dance with\nthe utmost swiftness; and towards the conclusion, they sing in a\ngeneral chorus.\n\nThe point of comparison is this. When the potter first tries the wheel\nto see \u201cif it will run,\u201d he moves it much faster than when at work.\nThus it illustrates the rapidity of the dance.\u2014Felton.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes for Book XIX:\n\n\n[Brave men are great weepers\u2014was a proverbial saying in Greece.\nAccordingly there are few of Homer\u2019s heroes who do not weep plenteously\non occasion. True courage is doubtless compatible with the utmost\nsensibility. See Villoisson.]\u2014Tr.\n\nThe fear with which the divine armor filled the Myrmidons, and the\nexaltation of Achilles, the terrible gleam of his eye, and his\nincreased desire for revenge, are highly poetical.\u2014Felton.\n\nThe ancients had a great horror of putrefaction previous to interment.\n\n[Achilles in the first book also summons a council himself, and not as\nwas customary, by a herald. It seems a stroke of character, and\nintended by the poet to express the impetuosity of his spirit, too\nardent for the observance of common forms, and that could trust no one\nfor the dispatch he wanted.]\u2014Tr.\n\n['\u0391\u03c3\u03c0\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03c9\u03c2 \u03b3\u03bf\u03bd\u03c5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bc\u03c8\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd.\u2014Shall be glad to bend their knee, i.e. to sit\nand repose themselves.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[\u03a4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03bc\u03c5\u03b8\u03bf\u03bd.\u2014He seems to intend the reproaches sounded in his ear\nfrom all quarters, and which he had repeatedly heard before.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[By some call\u2019d Antibia, by others, Nicippe.]\u2014Tr.\n\nIt was unlawful to eat the flesh of victims that were sacrificed in\nconfirmation of oaths. Such were victims of malediction.\n\nNothing can be more natural than the representation of these unhappy\nyoung women; who, weary of captivity, take occasion from every mournful\noccurrence to weep afresh, though in reality little interested in the\nobjects that call forth these expressions of sorrow.\u2014Dacier.\n\nSon of Deidameia, daughter of Lycomedes, in whose house Achilles was\nconcealed at the time when he was led forth to the war.\n\n[We are not warranted in accounting any practice unnatural or absurd,\nmerely because it does not obtain among ourselves. I know not that any\nhistorian has recorded this custom of the Grecians, but that it was a\ncustom among them occasionally to harangue their horses, we may assure\nourselves on the authority of Homer, who would not have introduced such\nspeeches, if they could have appeared as strange to his countrymen as\nthey do to us.]\u2014Tr.\n\nHence it seems, that too great an insight into futurity, or the\nrevelation of more than was expedient, was prevented by the\nFuries.\u2014Trollope.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes for Book XX:\n\n\n[This rising ground was five stadia in circumference, and was between\nthe river Simois and a village named Ilicon, in which Paris is said to\nhave decided between the goddesses. It was called Callicolone, being\nthe most conspicuous ground in the neighborhood of the\ncity.\u2014Villoisson.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[Iris is the messenger of the gods on ordinary occasions, Mercury on\nthose of importance. But Themis is now employed, because the affair in\nquestion is a council, and to assemble and dissolve councils is her\npeculiar Province. The return of Achilles is made as magnificent as\npossible. A council in heaven precedes it, and a battle of the gods is\nthe consequence.\u2014Villoisson.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[The readiness of Neptune to obey the summons is particularly noticed,\non account of the resentment he so lately expressed, when commanded by\nJupiter to quit the battle.\u2014Villoisson.]\u2014Tr.\n\nThe description of the battle of the gods is strikingly grand. Jupiter\nthunders in the heavens, Neptune shakes the boundless earth and the\nhigh mountain-tops; Ida rocks on its base, and the city of the Trojans\nand the ships of the Greeks tremble; and Pluto leaps from his throne in\nterror, lest his loathsome dominions should be laid open to mortals and\nimmortals.\u2014Felton.\n\n[The Leleges were a colony of Thessalians, and the first inhabitants of\nthe shores of the Hellespont.]\u2014Tr.\n\nHector was the son of Priam, who descended from Ilus, and \u00c6neas the son\nof Anchises, whose descent was from Assaracus, the brother of Ilus.\n\nThis dialogue between Achilles and \u00c6neas, when on the point of battle,\nas well as several others of a similar description, have been censured\nas improbable and impossible. The true explanation is to be found in\nthe peculiar character of war in the heroic age. A similar passage has\nbeen the subject of remark.\u2014Felton.\n\n[Some commentators, supposing the golden plate the outermost as the\nmost ornamental, have perplexed themselves much with this passage, for\nhow, say they, could two folds be pierced and the spear be stopped by\nthe gold, if the gold lay on the surface? But to avoid the difficulty,\nwe need only suppose that the gold was inserted between the two plates\nof brass and the two of tin; Vulcan, in this particular, having\nattended less to ornament than to security.\n\nSee the Scholiast in Villoisson, who argues at large in favor of this\nopinion.]\u2014Tr.\n\nTmolus was a mountain of Lydia, and Hyda a city of the same country.\nThe Gyg\u00e6an lake was also in Lydia.\n\n[Neptune. So called, either because he was worshiped on Helicon, a\nmountain of B\u0153otia, or from Helice, an island of Achaia, where he had a\ntemple.]\u2014Tr.\nIf the bull bellowed as he was led to the altar, it was considered a\nfavorable omen. Hence the simile.\u2014Felton.\n\n[It is an amiable trait in the character of Hector, that his pity in\nthis instance supercedes his caution, and that at the sight of his\nbrother in circumstances so affecting, he becomes at once inattentive\nto himself and the command of Apollo.]\u2014Tr.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes for Book XXI:\n\n\nThe scene is now entirely changed, and the battle diversified with a\nvast variety of imagery and description. It is worthy of notice, that\nthough the whole war of the Iliad was upon the banks of these rivers,\nyet Homer has reserved the machinery of the river-gods to aggrandize\nhis hero in this battle. There is no book in the poem which exhibits\ngreater force of imagination, none in which the inexhaustible invention\nof the poet is more powerfully exerted.\n\nThe swarms of locusts that sometimes invade whole countries in the\nEast, have often been described. It seems that the ancient mode of\nexterminating them was, to kindle a fire, and thus drive them into a\nlake or river. The simile illustrates in the most striking manner the\npanic caused by Achilles.\u2014Felton.\n\nAccording to the Scholiast, Arisba was a city of Thrace, and near to\nthe Hellespont; but according to Eustathius, a city of Troas, inhabited\nby a colony from Mitylene.\n\nIt was an ancient custom to cast living horses into rivers, to honor,\nas it were, the rapidity of their streams.\n\nThis gives us an idea of the superior strength of Achilles. His spear\npierced so deep in the ground, that another hero of great strength\ncould not disengage it, but immediately after, Achilles draws it with\nthe utmost ease.\n\n['\u0391\u03ba\u03c1\u03bf\u03ba\u03b5\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03bd\u03b9\u03bf\u03c9\u03bd.\u2014The beauty and force of this word are wonderful; I\nhave in vain endeavored to do it justice.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[The reason given in the Scholium is, that the surface being hardened\nby the wind, the moisture remains unexhaled from beneath, and has time\nto saturate the roots.\u2014See Villoisson.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[\u0391\u03bc\u03b2\u03bf\u03bb\u03b1\u03b4\u03b7\u03bd.]\n\nHomer represents Aphrodite as the protector of \u00c6neas, and in the battle\nof the Trojans, Ares appears in a disadvantageous light; the weakness\nof the goddess, and the brutal confidence of the god are described with\nevident irony. In like manner Diana and the river-god Scamander\nsometimes play a very undignified part. Apollo alone uniformly\nmaintains his dignity.\u2014Muller.\n\nThis is a very beautiful soliloquy of Agenor, such as would naturally\narise in the soul of a brave man going upon a desperate enterprise.\nFrom the conclusion it is evident, that the story of Achilles being\ninvulnerable except in the heel, is an invention of a later age.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes for Book XXII:\n\n\nThis simile is very striking. It not only describes the appearance of\nAchilles, but is peculiarly appropriate because the star was supposed\nto be of evil omen, and to bring with it disease and destruction. So\nPriam beholds Achilles, splendid with the divine armor, and the\ndestined slayer of his son.\u2014Felton.\n\nThe usual cruelties practised in the sacking of towns. Isaiah foretells\nto Babylon, that her children shall be dashed in pieces by the Medes.\nDavid says to the same city, \u201cHappy shall he be that taketh and dasheth\nthy little ones against the stones.\u201d\u2014Ps. c22vii. 9.\n\nIt was supposed that venomous serpents were accustomed to eat poisonous\nroots and plants before attacking their victims.\u2014Felton.\n\nThis speech of Hector shows the fluctuation of his mind, with much\ndiscernment on the part of the poet. He breaks out, after having\napparently meditated a return to the city. But the imagined reproaches\nof Polydamas, and the anticipated scorn of the Trojans forbid it. He\nsoliloquizes upon the possibility of coming to terms with Achilles, and\noffering him large concessions; but the character of Achilles precludes\nall hope of reconciliation. It is a fearful crisis with him, and his\nmind wavers, as if presentient of his approaching doom.\u2014Felton.\n\n[The repetition follows the original, and the Scholiast is of opinion\nthat Homer uses it here that he may express more emphatically the\nlength to which such conferences are apt to proceed.\u2014\u0394\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03c5\u03bb\u03bf\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1\u03bd\n\u03c4\u03b7 \u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03bb\u03b7\u03c8\u03b5 \u03b5\u03c7\u03c1\u03b7\u03c3\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[It grew near to the tomb of Ilus.]\n\nThe Scamander ran down the eastern side of Ida, and at the distance of\nthree stadia from Troy, making a subterraneous dip, it passed under the\nwalls and rose again in the form of the two fountains here\ndescribed\u2014from which fountains these rivulets are said to have\nproceeded.\n\nIt was the custom of that age to have cisterns by the side of rivers\nand fountains, to which the women, including the wives and daughters of\nkings and princes, resorted to wash their garments.\n\nSacrifices were offered to the gods upon the hills and mountains, or,\nin the language of scripture, upon the _high places_, for the people\nbelieved that the gods inhabited such eminences.\n\n[The numbers in the original are so constructed as to express the\npainful struggle that characterizes such a dream.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03ba\u03c5\u03bb\u03b9\u03bd\u03b4\u03bf\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2.]\n\nThe whole circumference of ancient Troy is said to have measured sixty\nstadia. A stadium measured one hundred and twenty-five paces.\n\n[The knees of the conqueror were a kind of sanctuary to which the\nvanquished fled for refuge.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[The lines of which these three are a translation, are supposed by some\nto have been designed for the \u0395\u03c0\u03b9\u03bd\u03b9\u03ba\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd, or song of victory sung by the\nwhole army.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[It was a custom in Thessaly to drag the slayer around the tomb of the\nslain; which custom was first begun by Simon, whose brother being\nkilled by Eurydamas, he thus treated the body of the murderer. Achilles\ntherefore, being a Thessalian, when he thus dishonors Hector, does it\nmerely in compliance with the common practice of his country.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[It is an observation of the Scholiast, that two more affecting\nspectacles cannot be imagined, than Priam struggling to escape into the\nfield, and Andromache to cast herself from the wall; for so he\nunderstands\n\u03b1\u03c4\u03c5\u03b6\u03bf\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03b7\u03bd \u03b1\u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03b5\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9.]\u2014Tr.\n\nA figurative expression. In the style of the orientals, marrow and\nfatness are taken for whatever is best, most tender, and most\ndelicious.\n\nHomer is in nothing more excellent than in the distinction of\ncharacters, which he maintains throughout the poem. What Andromache\nhere says, cannot be said with propriety by any one but Andromache.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes for Book XXIII:\n\n\nAccording to the oriental custom. David mourns in the same manner,\nrefusing to wash or take any repast, and lies upon the earth.\n\n[Bacchus having hospitably entertained Vulcan in the island of Naxos,\none of the Cyclades, received from him a cup as a present; but being\ndriven afterward by Lycurgus into the sea, and kindly protected by\nThetis, he presented her with this work of Vulcan, which she gave to\nAchilles for a receptacle of his bones after death.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[The funeral pile was a square of a hundred feet on each side.]\u2014Tr.\n\nThe ceremony of cutting off the hair in honor of the dead, was\npractised not only among the Greeks, but among other nations. Ezekiel\ndescribing a great lamentation, says, \u201cThey shall make themselves\nutterly bald for thee.\u201d ch. xxvii. 31. If it was the general custom of\nany country to wear long hair, then the cutting it off was a token of\nsorrow; but if the custom was to wear it short, then letting it grow,\nin neglect, was a sign of mourning.\n\nIt was the custom of the ancients not only to offer their own hair to\nthe river-gods of their country, but also the hair of their children.\nIn Egypt hair was consecrated to the Nile.\n\n[Westering wheel.\u2014Milton.]\n\n[Himself and the Myrmidons.]\n\n[That the body might be the more speedily consumed. The same end was\npromoted by the flagons of oil and honey.]\u2014Tr.\n\nHomer here introduces the gods of the winds in person, and as Iris, or\nthe rainbow, is a sign of winds, they are made to come at her bidding.\n\n[Such it appears to have been in the sequel.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[\u03a6\u03b9\u03b1\u03bb\u03b7\u2014a vessel, as Athen\u00e6us describes it, made for the purpose of\nwarming water. It was formed of brass, and expanded somewhat in the\nshape of a broad leaf.]\u2014Tr.\n\nThe poet omits no opportunity of paying honor to Nestor. His age has\ndisabled him from taking an active part in the games, yet, Antilochus\nwins, not by the speed of his horses, but by the wisdom of Nestor.\n\n[This could not happen unless the felly of the wheel were nearly\nhorizontal to the eye of the spectator, in which case the chariot must\nbe infallibly overturned.\u2014There is an obscurity in the passage which\nnone of the commentators explain. The Scholiast, as quoted by Clarke,\nattempts an explanation, but, I think, not successfully.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[Eumelus.]\n\n[Resentful of the attack made on him by Diomede in the fifth Book.]\n\n[The twin monster or double man called the Molions. They were sons of\nActor and Molione, and are said to have had two heads with four hands\nand four feet, and being so formed were invincible both in battle and\nin athletic exercises. Even Hercules could only slay them by stratagem,\nwhich he did when he desolated Elis. See Villoisson.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[The repetition follows the original.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[\u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03ba\u03b1\u03b2\u03b2\u03b1\u03bb\u03b5.]\n\n [With which they bound on the cestus.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[\u03c4\u03b5\u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9\u2014It is a circumstance on which the Scholiast observes that it\ndenotes in a wrestler the greatest possible bodily strength and\nfirmness of position.\u2014See Villoisson.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[I have given what seems to me the most probable interpretation, and\nsuch a one as to any person who has ever witnessed a wrestling-match,\nwill, I presume, appear intelligible.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[The Sidonians were celebrated not only as the most ingenious artists\nbut as great adepts in science, especially in astronomy and\narithmetical calculation.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[King of Lemnos.]\n\n[That is to say, Ulysses; who, from the first intending it, had run\nclose behind him.]\u2014Tr.\n\nThe prodigious weight and size of the quoit is described with the\nsimplicity of the orientals, and in the manner of the heroic ages. The\npoet does not specify the quantity of this enormous piece of iron, but\nthe use it will be to the winner. We see from hence that the ancients\nin the prizes they proposed, had in view not only the honorable but the\nuseful; a captive for work, a bull for tillage, a quoit for the\nprovision of iron, which in those days was scarce.\n\n[The use of this staff was to separate the cattle. It had a string\nattached to the lower part of it, which the herdsman wound about his\nhand, and by the help of it whirled the staff to a prodigious\ndistance.\u2014Villoisson.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[The transition from narrative to dramatic follows the original.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[Apollo; frequently by Homer called the King without any addition.]\u2014Tr.\n\nTeucer is eminent for his archery, yet he is excelled by Meriones, who\nhad not neglected to invoke Apollo the god of archery.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes for Book XXIV:\n\n\nThis is the first allusion in the Iliad to the _Judgment of Paris_,\nwhich gave mortal offence to Minerva and Juno. On this account it has\nbeen supposed by some that these lines are spurious, on the ground that\nHomer could not have known the fable, or he would have mentioned it\nearlier in the poem.\u2014Felton.\n\n[His blessing, if he is properly influenced by it; his curse in its\nconsequences if he is deaf to its dictates.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[This is the sense preferred by the Scholiast, for it is not true that\nThetis was always present with Achilles, as is proved by the passage\nimmediately ensuing.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[The angler\u2019s custom was, in those days, to guard his line above the\nhook from the fishes\u2019 bite, by passing it through a pipe of horn.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[Jupiter justifies him against Apollo\u2019s charge, affirming him to be\nfree from those mental defects which chiefly betray men into sin,\nfolly, improvidence, and perverseness.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[But, at first, he did fly. It is therefore spoken, as the Scholiast\nobserves,\n\u03c6\u03b9\u03bb\u03bf\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1\u03b3\u03c9\u03c2, and must be understood as the language of strong maternal\naffection.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[\u03ba\u03bf\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9\u03c4\u03c5\u03c0\u03b9\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u03b1\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9.]\n\n[Through which the reins were passed.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[The yoke being flat at the bottom, and the pole round, there would of\ncourse be a small aperture between the band and the pole on both sides,\nthrough which, according to the Scholium in Villoisson, they thrust the\nends of the tackle lest they should dangle.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[The text here is extremely intricate; as it stands now, the sons are,\nfirst, said to yoke the horses, then Priam and Id\u00e6us are said to do it,\nand in the palace too. I have therefore adopted an alteration suggested\nby Clarke, who with very little violence to the copy, proposes instead\nof \u03b6\u03b5\u03c5\u03b3\u03bd\u03c5\u03c3\u03b8\u03b7\u03bd to read\u2014\u03b6\u03c9\u03bd\u03bd\u03c5\u03c3\u03b8\u03b7\u03bd.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[The words both signify\u2014sable.]\u2014Tr.\n\nPriam begins not with a display of the treasures he has brought for the\nredemption of Hector\u2019s body, but with a pathetic address to the\nfeelings of Achilles. Homer well knew that neither gold nor silver\nwould influence the heart of a young and generous warrior, but that\npersuasion would. The old king therefore, with a judicious abruptness,\navails himself of his most powerful plea at once, and seizes the\nsympathy of the hero, before he has time to recollect who it is that\naddresses him.\n\n[Mortified to see his generosity, after so much kindness shown to\nPriam, still distrusted, and that the impatience of the old king\nthreatened to deprive him of all opportunity to do gracefully what he\ncould not be expected to do willingly.]\u2014Tr.\n\n[To control anger argues a great mind\u2014and to avoid occasions that may\nbetray one into it, argues a still greater. An observation that should\nsuggest itself to us with no little force, when Achilles, not\nremarkable either for patience or meekness, exhorts Priam to beware of\nprovoking him; and when having cleansed the body of Hector and covered\nit, he places it himself in the litter, lest his father, seeing how\nindecently he had treated it, should be exasperated at the sight, and\nby some passionate reproach exasperate himself also. For that a person\nso singularly irascible and of a temper harsh as his, should not only\nbe aware of his infirmity, but even guard against it with so much\nprecaution, evidences a prudence truly wonderful.\u2014Plutarch.]\u2014Tr.\n\n['\u0395\u03c0\u03b9\u03ba\u03b5\u03c1\u03c4\u03bf\u03bc\u03b5\u03c9\u03bd. Clarke renders the word in this place, _falso met\u00fb,\nludens,_ and Eustathius says that Achilles suggested such cause of fear\nto Priam, to excuse his lodging him in an exterior part of the tent.\nThe general import of the Greek word is sarcastic, but here it\nsignifies rather\u2014to intimidate. See also Dacier.]\u2014Tr.\n\nThe poet here shows the importance of Achilles in the army. Agamemnon\nis the general, yet all the chief commanders appeal to him for advice,\nand on his own authority he promises Priam a cessation of arms. Giving\nhis hand to confirm the promise, agrees with the custom of the present\nday.\n\nThis lament of Andromache may be compared to her pathetic address to\nHector in the scene at the Sc\u00e6an gate. It forms indeed, a most\nbeautiful and eloquent pendant to that.\u2014Felton.\n\n[This, according to the Scholiast, is a probable sense of \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03c6\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2.\u2014He\nderives it \u03b1\u03c0\u03bf \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03bd\u03b5\u03c9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c0\u03b5\u03c6\u03b1\u03c3\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd \u03b5\u03ba \u03b3\u03b7\u03c2 \u03c6\u03c5\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd.\u2014See Villoisson.]\u2014Tr.\n\nHelen is throughout the Iliad a genuine lady, graceful in motion and\nspeech, noble in her associations, full of remorse for a fault for\nwhich higher powers seem responsible, yet grateful and affectionate\ntowards those with whom that fault had connected her. I have always\nthought the following speech in which Helen laments Hector and hints at\nher own invidious and unprotected situation in Troy, as almost the\nsweetest passage in the poem.\u2014H.N. Coleridge.\n\n[\u03a9\u03c2 \u03bf\u03b9 \u03b3'\u03b1\u03bc\u03c6\u03b9\u03b5\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd \u03c4\u03b1\u03c6\u03bf\u03bd \u0395\u03ba\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b9\u03c0\u03c0\u03bf\u03b4\u03b1\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf.]\n\n\n\n"}
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{"16990":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\nHead of Homer.\nHead of Homer.\nBritish Museum.\n\nECLECTIC SCHOOL READINGS\n\nTHE STORY OF TROY\nBY\nM. CLARKE\nNEW YORK\u2014CINCINNATI\u2014CHICAGO\nAMERICAN BOOK COMPANY\nCOPYRIGHT, 1897, BY\nAMERICAN BOOK COMPANY\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n\n\n\nPAGE\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\u2014\nHomer, the Father of Poetry\n7\n\n\n\nThe Gods and Goddesses\n11\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nI.    \nTroy before the Siege\n19\n\n\nII.    \nThe Judgment of Paris\n33\n\n\nIII.    \nThe League against Troy\n46\n\n\nIV.    \nBeginning of the War\n63\n\n\nV.    \nThe Wrath of Achilles\n76\n\n\nVI.    \nThe Dream of Agamemnon\n92\n\n\nVII.    \nThe Combat between Menelaus and Paris\n109\n\n\nVIII.    \nThe First Great Battle\n124\n\n\nIX.    \nThe Second Battle\u2014Exploit of Diomede and Ulysses\n149\n\n\nX.    \nThe Battle at the Ships\u2014Death of Patroclus\n166\n\n\nXI.    \nEnd of the Wrath of Achilles\u2014Death of Hector\n193\n\n\nXII.    \nDeath of Achilles\u2014Fall and Destruction of Troy\n220\n\n\nXIII.    \nThe Greek Chiefs after the War\n240\n\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION.\nI. HOMER, THE FATHER OF POETRY.\nIn this book we are to tell the story of Troy, and particularly of the famous siege which ended in the total destruction of that renowned city. It is a story of brave warriors and heroes of 3000 years ago, about whose exploits the greatest poets and historians of ancient times have written. Some of the wonderful events of the memorable siege are related in a celebrated poem called the Il\u02b9i-ad, written in the Greek language. The author of this poem was Ho\u02b9mer, who was the author of another great poem, the Od\u02b9ys-sey, which tells of the voyages and adventures of the Greek hero, U-lys\u02b9ses, after the taking of Troy.\nHomer has been called the Father of Poetry, because he was the first and greatest of poets. He lived so long ago that very little is known about him. We do not even know for a certainty when or where he was born. It is believed, however, that he lived in the ninth century before Christ, and that his native place was Smyr\u02b9na, in Asia Minor. But long after his death several other cities claimed the honor of being his birthplace.\n\nSeven Grecian cities vied for Homer dead, Through which the living Homer begged his bread.\nLeonidas.\n\nIt is perhaps not true that Homer was so poor as to be obliged to beg for his bread; but it is probable that he earned his living by traveling from city to city through many parts of Greece and Asia Minor, reciting his poems in the palaces of princes, and at public assemblies. This was one of the customs of ancient times, when the art of writing was either not known, or very little practiced. The poets, or bards, of those days committed their compositions to memory, and repeated them aloud at gatherings of the people, particularly at festivals and athletic games, of which the ancient Greeks were very fond. At those games prizes and rewards were given to the bards as well as to the athletes.\nIt is said that in the latter part of his life the great poet became blind, and that this was why he received the name of Homer, which signified a blind person. The name first given to him, we are told, was Mel-e-sig\u02b9e-nes, from the river Me\u02b9les, a small stream on the banks of which his native city of Smyrna was situated.\nSo little being known of Homer's life, there has been much difference of opinion about him among learned men. Many have believed that Homer never existed. Others have thought that the Iliad and Odyssey were composed not by one author, but by several. \"Some,\" says the English poet, Walter Savage Landor, \"tell us that there were twenty Homers, some deny that there was ever one.\" Those who believe that there were \"twenty Homers\" think that different parts of the two great poems\u2014the Iliad and Odyssey\u2014were composed by different persons, and that all the parts were afterwards put together in the form in which they now appear. The opinion of most scholars at present, however, is that Homer did really exist, that he was a wandering bard, or minstrel, who sang or recited verses or ballads composed by himself, about the great deeds of heroes and warriors, and that those ballads, collected and arranged in after years in two separate books, form the poems known as the Iliad and Odyssey.\nHomer's poetry is what is called epic poetry, that is, it tells about heroes and heroic actions. The Iliad and Odyssey are the first and greatest of epic poems. In all ages since Homer's time, scholars have agreed in declaring them to be the finest poetic productions of human genius. No nation in the world has ever produced poems so beautiful or so perfect. They have been read and admired by learned men for more than 2000 years. They have been translated into the languages of all civilized countries. In this book we make many quotations from the fine translation of the Iliad by our American poet, William Cullen Bryant. We quote also from the well-known translation by the English poet, Alexander Pope.\nThe ancients had a very great admiration for the poetry of Homer. We are told that every educated Greek could repeat from memory any passage in the Iliad or Odyssey. Alexander the Great was so fond of Homer's poems that he always had them under his pillow while he slept. He kept the Iliad in a richly ornamented casket, saying that \"the most perfect work of human genius ought to be preserved in a box the most valuable and precious in the world.\"\nSo great was the veneration the Greeks had for Homer, that they erected temples and altars to him, and worshiped him as a god. They held festivals in his honor, and made medals bearing the figure of the poet sitting on a throne and holding in his hands the Iliad and Odyssey. One of the kings of E\u02b9gypt built in that country a magnificent temple, in which was set up a statue of Homer, surrounded with a beautiful representation of the seven cities that contended for the honor of being the place of his birth.\n\nGreat bard of Greece, whose ever-during verse All ages venerate, all tongues rehearse; Could blind idolatry be justly paid To aught of mental power by man display'd, To thee, thou sire of soul-exalting song, That boundless worship might to thee belong.\nHayley.\n\nII. THE GODS AND GODDESSES.\nTo understand the Story of Troy it is necessary to know something about the gods and goddesses, who played so important a part in the events we are to relate. We shall see that in the Tro\u02b9jan War nearly everything was ordered or directed by a god or goddess. The gods, indeed, had much to do in the causing of the war, and they took sides in the great struggle, some of them helping the Greeks and some helping the Trojans.\nThe ancient Greeks believed that there were a great many gods. According to their religion all parts of the universe,\u2014the heavens and the earth, the sun and the moon, the ocean, seas, and rivers, the mountains and forests, the winds and storms,\u2014were ruled by different gods. The gods, too, it was supposed, controlled all the affairs of human life. There were a god of war and a god of peace, and gods of music, and poetry, and dancing, and hunting, and of all the other arts or occupations in which men engaged.\nThe gods, it was believed, were in some respects like human beings. In form they usually appeared as men and women. They were passionate and vindictive, and often quarreled among themselves. They married and had children, and needed food and drink and sleep. Sometimes they married human beings, and the sons of such marriages were the heroes of antiquity, men of giant strength who performed daring and wonderful feats. The food of the gods was Am-bro\u02b9sia, which conferred immortality and perpetual youth on those who partook of it; their drink was a delicious wine called Nec\u02b9tar.\nThe gods, then, were immortal beings. They never died; they never grew old, and they possessed immense power. They could change themselves, or human beings, into any form, and they could make themselves visible or invisible at pleasure. They could travel through the skies, or over earth or ocean, with the rapidity of lightning, often riding in gorgeous golden chariots drawn by horses of immortal breed. They were greatly feared by men, and when any disaster occurred,\u2014if lives were lost by earthquake, or shipwreck, or any other calamity,\u2014it was attributed to the anger of some god.\nThough immortal beings, however, the gods were subject to some of the physical infirmities of humanity. They could not die, but they might be wounded and suffer bodily pain the same as men. They often took part in the quarrels and wars of people on earth, and they had weapons and armor like human warriors.\nThe usual place of residence of the principal gods was on the top of Mount O-lym\u02b9pus in Greece. Here they dwelt in golden palaces, and they had a Council Chamber where they frequently feasted together at grand banquets, celestial music being rendered by A-pol\u02b9lo, the god of minstrelsy, and the Muses, who were the divinities of poetry and song.\nIn all the chief cities grand temples were erected for the worship of the gods. One of the most famous was the Par\u02b9the-non, at Athens. At the shrines of the gods costly gifts in gold and silver were presented, and on their altars, often built in the open air, beasts were killed and burned as sacrifices, which were thought to be very pleasing to the divine beings to whom they were offered.\nThe Parthenon.\nThe Parthenon.\nFrom model in Metropolitan Museum, New York.\nThe greatest and most powerful of the gods was Ju\u02b9pi-ter, also called Jove or Zeus. To him all the rest were subject. He was the king of the gods, the mighty Thunderer, at whose nod Olympus shook, and at whose word the heavens trembled. From his great power in the regions of the sky he was sometimes called the \"cloud-compelling Jove.\"\n\nHe, whose all-conscious eyes the world behold, The eternal Thunderer sat, enthroned in gold. High heaven the footstool of his feet he makes, And wide beneath him all Olympus shakes.\nPope, Iliad, Book VIII.\n\nThe wife of Jupiter, and the queen of heaven, was Ju\u02b9no, who, as we shall see, was the great enemy of Troy and the Trojans. One of the daughters of Jupiter, called Ve\u02b9nus, or Aph-ro-di\u02b9te, was the goddess of beauty and love. Nep\u02b9tune was the god of the sea. He usually carried in his hand a trident, or three-pronged scepter, the emblem of his authority.\n\nHis sumptuous palace-halls were built Deep down in ocean, golden, glittering, proof Against decay of time.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XIII.\n\nMars was the god of war, and Plu\u02b9to, also called Dis and Ha\u02b9des, was god of the regions of the dead. One of the most glorious and powerful of the gods was Apollo, or Ph\u0153\u02b9bus, or Smin\u02b9theus, for he had many names. He was god of the sun, and of medicine, music, and poetry. He is represented as holding in his hand a bow, and sometimes a lyre. Homer calls him the \"god of the silver bow,\" and the \"far-darting Apollo,\" for the ancients believed that with the dart of his arrow he sent down plagues upon men whenever they offended him.\nThe other principal deities mentioned by Homer are Mi-ner\u02b9va, or Pal\u02b9las, the goddess of wisdom; Vul\u02b9can, the god of fire; and Mer\u02b9cu-ry, or Her\u02b9mes, the messenger of Jupiter. Vulcan was also the patron, or god, of smiths. He had several forges; one was on Mount Olympus, and another was supposed to be under Mount \u00c6t\u02b9na in Sic\u02b9i-ly. Here, with his giant workmen, the Cy\u02b9clops, he made thunderbolts for Jupiter, and sometimes armor and weapons of war for earthly heroes.\nThe gods, it was believed, made their will known to men in various ways,\u2014sometimes by the flight of birds, frequently by dreams, and sometimes by appearing on earth under different forms, and speaking directly to kings and warriors. Very often men learned the will of the gods by consulting seers and soothsayers, or augurs,\u2014persons who were supposed to have the power of foretelling events. There were temples also where the gods gave answers through priests. Such answers were called Or\u02b9a-cles, and this name was also given to the priests. The most celebrated oracle of ancient times was in the temple of Apollo at Del\u02b9phi, in Greece. To this place people came from all parts of the world to consult the god, whose answers were given by a priestess called Pyth\u02b9i-a.\nThe ancients never engaged in war or any other important undertaking without sacrificing to the gods or consulting their oracles or soothsayers. Before going to battle they made sacrifices to the gods. If they were defeated in battle they regarded it as a sign of the anger of Jupiter, or Juno, or Minerva, or Apollo, or some of the other great beings who dwelt on Olympus. When making leagues or treaties of peace, they called the gods as witnesses, and prayed to Father Jupiter to send terrible punishments on any who should take false oaths, or break their promises. In the story of the Trojan War we shall find many examples of such appeals to the gods by the chiefs on both sides.\n\n\"O Father Jove, who rulest from the top Of Ida, mightiest one and most august! Whichever of these twain has done the wrong, Grant that he pass to Pluto's dwelling, slain, While friendship and a faithful league are ours.\n\"O Jupiter most mighty and august! Whoever first shall break these solemn oaths, So may their brains flow down upon the earth,\u2014 Theirs and their children's.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book III.\n\nOffering to Minerva.\nOffering to Minerva.\nPainting by Gaudemaris.\n\n\nTHE STORY OF TROY.\n\nI. TROY BEFORE THE SIEGE.\nDecorative\nDesign by Burne-Jones.\nThat part of Asia Minor which borders the narrow channel now known as the Dar-da-nelles\u02b9, was in ancient times called Tro\u02b9as. Its capital was the city of Troy, which stood about three miles from the shore of the \u00c6-ge\u02b9an Sea, at the foot of Mount Ida, near the junction of two rivers, the Sim\u02b9o-is, and the Sca-man\u02b9der or Xan\u02b9thus. The people of Troy and Troas were called Trojans.\nSome of the first settlers in northwestern Asia Minor, before it was called Troas, came from Thrace, a country lying to the north of Greece. The king of these Thra\u02b9cian colonists was Teu\u02b9cer. During his reign a prince named Dar\u02b9danus arrived in the new settlement. He was a son of Jupiter, and he came from Sam\u02b9o-thrace, one of the many islands of the \u00c6gean Sea. It is said that he escaped from a great flood which swept over his native island, and that he was carried on a raft of wood to the coast of the kingdom of Teucer. Soon afterwards he married Teucer's daughter. He then built a city for himself amongst the hills of Mount Ida, and called it Dar-da\u02b9ni-a; and on the death of Teucer he became king of the whole country, to which he gave the same name, Dardania.\n\nJove was the father, cloud-compelling Jove, Of Dardanus, by whom Dardania first Was peopled, ere our sacred Troy was built On the great plain,\u2014a populous town; for men Dwelt still upon the roots of Ida fresh With Qiany springs.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XX.\n\nDardanus was the ancestor of the Trojan line of kings. He had a grandson named Tros, and from him the city Troy, as well as the country Troas, took its name. The successor of King Tros was his son I\u02b9lus. By him Troy was built, and it was therefore also called Il\u02b9i-um or Il\u02b9i-on; hence the title of Homer's great poem,\u2014the Iliad. From the names Dardanus and Teucer the city of Troy has also been sometimes called Dardania and Teu\u02b9cri-a, and the Trojans are often referred to as Dardanians and Teucrians. Ilus was succeeded by his son La-om\u02b9e-don, and Laomedon's son Pri\u02b9am was king of Troy during the famous siege.\nThe story of the founding of Troy is a very interesting one. Ilus went forth from his father's city of Dardania, in search of adventures, as was the custom of young princes and heroes in those days; and he traveled on until he arrived at the court of the king of Phryg\u02b9i-a, a country lying east of Troas. Here he found the people engaged in athletic games, at which the king gave valuable prizes for competition. Ilus took part in a wrestling match, and he won fifty young men and fifty maidens,\u2014a strange sort of prize we may well think, but not at all strange or unusual in ancient times, when there were many slaves everywhere. During his stay in Phrygia the young Dardanian prince was hospitably entertained at the royal palace. When he was about to depart, the king gave him a spotted heifer, telling him to follow the animal, and to build a city for himself at the place where she should first lie down to rest.\nIlus did as he was directed. With his fifty youths and fifty maidens he set out to follow the heifer, leaving her free to go along at her pleasure. She marched on for many miles, and at last lay down at the foot of Mount Ida on a beautiful plain watered by two rivers, and here Ilus encamped for the night. Before going to sleep he prayed to Jupiter to send him a sign that that was the site meant for his city. In the morning he found standing in front of his tent a wooden statue of the goddess Minerva, also called Pallas. The figure was three cubits high. In its right hand it held a spear, and in the left, a distaff and spindle.\nThis was the Pal-la\u02b9di-um of Troy, which afterwards became very famous. The Trojans believed that it had been sent down from heaven, and that the safety of their city depended upon its preservation. Hence it was guarded with the greatest care in a temple specially built for the purpose.\nIlus, being satisfied that the statue was the sign for which he had prayed, immediately set about building his city, and thus Troy was founded. It soon became the capital of Troas and the richest and most powerful city in that part of the world. During the reign of Laomedon, son of Ilus, its mighty walls were erected, which in the next reign withstood for ten years all the assaults of the Greeks. These walls were the work of no human hands. They were built by the ocean god Neptune. This god had conspired against Jupiter and attempted to dethrone him, and, as a punishment, his kingdom of the sea was taken away from him for one year, and he was ordered to spend that time in the service of the king of Troy.\nIn building the great walls, Neptune was assisted by Apollo, who had also been driven from Olympus for an offense against Jupiter. Apollo had a son named \u00c6s-cu-la\u02b9pi-us, who was so skilled a physician that he could, and did, raise people from death to life. Jupiter was very angry at this. He feared that men might forget him and worship \u00c6sculapius. He therefore hurled a thunderbolt at the great physician and killed him. Enraged at the death of his son, Apollo threatened to destroy the Cyclops, the giant workmen of Vulcan, who had forged the terrible thunderbolt. Before he could carry out his threat, however, Jupiter expelled him from heaven. He remained on earth for several years, after which he was permitted to return to his place among the gods on the top of Mount Olympus.\nNeptune.\nNeptune.\nNational Museum, Athens.\nThough Neptune was bound to serve Laomedon for one year, there was an agreement between them that the god should get a certain reward for building the walls. But when the work was finished the Trojan king refused to keep his part of the bargain. Apollo had assisted by his powers of music. He played such tunes that he charmed even the huge blocks of stone, so that they moved themselves into their proper places, after Neptune had wrenched them from the mountain sides and had hewn them into shape. Moreover, Apollo had taken care of Laomedon's numerous flocks on Mount Ida. During the siege, Neptune, in a conversation with Apollo before the walls of Troy, spoke of their labors in the service of the Trojan king:\n\n\"Hast thou forgot, how, at the monarch's prayer, We shared the lengthen'd labors of a year? Troy walls I raised (for such were Jove's commands), And yon proud bulwarks grew beneath my hands: Thy task it was to feed the bellowing droves Along fair Ida's vales and pendant groves.\"\nPope, Iliad, Book XXI.\n\nLong before this, however, the two gods had punished Laomedon very severely for breaking his promise. Apollo, after being restored to heaven, sent a plague upon the city of Troy, and Neptune sent up from the sea an enormous serpent which killed many of the people.\n\nA great serpent from the deep, Lifting his horrible head above their homes, Devoured the children.\nLewis Morris.\n\nIn this terrible calamity the king asked an oracle in what way the anger of the two gods might be appeased. The answer of the oracle was that a Trojan maiden must each year be given to the monster to be devoured. Every year, therefore, a young girl, chosen by lot, was taken down to the seashore and chained to a rock to become the prey of the serpent. And every year the monster came and swallowed up a Trojan maiden, and then went away and troubled the city no more until the following year, when he returned for another victim. At last the lot fell on He-si\u02b9o-ne, the daughter of the king. Deep was Laomedon's grief at the thought of the awful fate to which his child was thus doomed.\nBut help came at an unexpected moment. While, amid the lamentations of her family and friends, preparations were being made to chain Hesione to the rock, the great hero, Her\u02b9cu-les, happened to visit Troy. He was on his way home to Greece, after performing in a distant eastern country one of those great exploits which made him famous in ancient story. The hero undertook to destroy the serpent, and thus save the princess, on condition that he should receive as a reward certain wonderful horses which Laomedon just then had in his possession. These horses were given to Laomedon's grandfather, Tros, on a very interesting occasion. Tros had a son named Gan\u02b9y-mede, a youth of wonderful beauty, and Jupiter admired Ganymede so much that he had him carried up to heaven to be cupbearer to the gods\u2014to serve the divine nectar at the banquets on Mount Olympus.\n\nGodlike Ganymede, most beautiful Of men; the gods beheld and caught him up To heaven, so beautiful was he, to pour The wine to Jove, and ever dwell with them.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XX.\n\nTo compensate Tros for the loss of his son, Jupiter gave him four magnificent horses of immortal breed and marvelous fleetness. These were the horses which Hercules asked as his reward for destroying the serpent. As there was no other way of saving the life of his daughter, Laomedon consented. Hercules then went down to the seashore, bearing in his hand the huge club which he usually carried, and wearing his lion-skin over his shoulders. This was the skin of a fierce lion he had strangled to death in a forest in Greece, and he always wore it when going to perform any of his heroic feats.\nWhen Hesione had been bound to the rock, the hero stood beside her and awaited the coming of the serpent. In a short time its hideous form emerged from beneath the waves, and darting forward it was about to seize the princess, when Hercules rushed upon it, and with mighty strokes of his club beat the monster to death. Thus was the king's daughter saved and all Troy delivered from a terrible scourge. But when the hero claimed the reward that had been agreed upon, and which he had so well earned, Laomedon again proved himself to be a man who was neither honest nor grateful. Disregarding his promise, and forgetful, too, of what he and his people had already suffered as a result of his breach of faith with the two gods, he refused to give Hercules the horses.\nThe hero at once went away from Troy, but not without resolving to return at a convenient time and punish Laomedon. This he did, not long afterwards, when he had completed the celebrated \"twelve labors\" at which he had been set by a Grecian king, whom Jupiter commanded him to serve for a period of years because of an offense he had committed. One of these labors was the killing of the lion. Another was the destroying of the Ler\u02b9n\u00e6-an hydra, a frightful serpent with many heads, which for a long time had been devouring man and beast in the district of Ler\u02b9na in Greece.\nHaving accomplished his twelve great labors and ended his term of service, Hercules collected an army and a fleet, and sailed to the shores of Troas. He then marched against the city, took it by surprise, and slew Laomedon and all his sons, with the exception of Po-dar\u02b9ces, afterwards called Priam. This prince had tried to persuade his father to fulfill the engagement with Hercules, for which reason his life was spared. He was made a slave, however, as was done in ancient times with prisoners taken in war. But Hesione ransomed her brother, giving her gold-embroidered veil as the price of his freedom. From this time he was called Priam, a word which in the Greek language means \"purchased.\" Hesione also prevailed upon Hercules to restore Priam to his right as heir to his father's throne, and so he became king of Troy. Hesione herself was carried off to Greece, where she was given in marriage to Tel\u02b9a-mon, king of Sal\u02b9a-mis, a friend of Hercules.\nPriam reigned over his kingdom of Troas many years in peace and prosperity. His wife and queen, the virtuous Hec\u02b9u-ba, was a daughter of a Thracian king. They had nineteen children, many of whom became famous during the great siege. Their eldest son, Hec\u02b9tor, was the bravest of the Trojan heroes. Their son Par\u02b9is it was, as we shall see, who brought upon his country the disastrous war. Another son, Hel\u02b9e-nus, and his sister Cas-san\u02b9dra, were celebrated soothsayers.\nCassandra was a maiden of remarkable beauty. The god Apollo loved her so much that he offered to grant her any request if she would accept him as her husband. Cassandra consented and asked for the power of foretelling events, but when she received it, she slighted the god and refused to perform her promise. Apollo was enraged at her conduct, yet he could not take back the gift he had bestowed. He decreed, however, that no one should believe or pay any attention to her predictions, true though they should be. And so when Cassandra foretold the evils that were to come upon Troy, even her own people would not credit her words. They spoke of her as the \"mad prophetess.\"\n\nCassandra cried, and cursed the unhappy hour; Foretold our fate; but by the god's decree, All heard, and none believed the prophecy.\nVergil.\n\nThe first sorrow in the lives of King Priam and his good queen came a short time before the birth of Paris, when Hecuba dreamed that her next child would bring ruin upon his family and native city. This caused the deepest distress to Priam and Hecuba, especially when the soothsayer \u00c6s\u02b9a-cus declared that the dream would certainly be fulfilled. Then, though they were tender and loving parents, they made up their minds to sacrifice their own feelings rather than that such a calamity should befall their country. When the child was born, the king, therefore, ordered it to be given to Ar-che-la\u02b9us, one of the shepherds of Mount Ida, with instructions to expose it in a place where it might be destroyed by wild beasts. The shepherd, though very unwilling to do so cruel a thing, was obliged to obey, but on returning to the spot a few days afterwards he found the infant boy alive and unhurt. Some say that the child had been nursed and carefully tended by a she-bear. Archelaus was so touched with pity at the sight of the innocent babe smiling in his face, that he took the boy to his cottage, and, giving him the name Paris, brought him up as one of his own family.\nWith the herdsmen on Mount Ida, Paris spent his early years, not knowing that he was King Priam's son. He was a brave youth, and of exceeding beauty.\n\n\"His sunny hair Cluster'd about his temples like a god's.\"\nTennyson, \u0152none.\n\nHe was skilled, too, in all athletic exercises, he was a bold huntsman, and so brave in defending the shepherds against the attacks of robbers that they called him Alexander, a name which means a protector of men. Thus the young prince became a favorite with the people who lived on the hills. Very happy he was amongst them, and amongst the flocks which his good friend and foster father, Archelaus, gave him to be his own. He was still more happy in the company of the charming nymph \u0152-no\u02b9ne, the daughter of a river god; and he loved her and made her his wife. But this happiness was destined not to be of long duration. The Fates[A] had decreed it otherwise. \u0152none the beautiful, whose sorrows have been the theme of many poets, was to lose the love of the young shepherd prince, and the dream of Hecuba was to have its fulfillment.\n\nThe Fate That rules the will of Jove had spun the days Of Paris and \u0152none.\nQuintus Smyrn\u00e6us.\n\n\n[A] The Fates were the three sisters, Clo\u02b9tho, Lach\u02b9e-sis, and At\u02b9ro-pos, powerful goddesses who controlled the birth and life of mankind, Clotho, the youngest, presided over the moment of birth, and held a distaff in her hand; Lachesis spun out the thread of human existence (all the events and action's of man's life); and Atropos, with a pair of shears which she always carried, cut this thread at the moment of death.\n\n\n\nII. THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS.\nIt was through a quarrel among the three goddesses, Juno, Venus, and Minerva, that \u0152none, the fair nymph of Mount Ida, met her sad fate, and that the destruction of Troy was brought about. The strife arose on the occasion of the marriage of Pe\u02b9leus and The\u02b9tis. Peleus was a king of Thes\u02b9sa-ly, in Greece, and one of the great heroes of those days. Thetis was a daughter of the sea god Ne\u02b9re-us, who had fifty daughters, all beautiful sea nymphs, called \"Ne-re\u02b9i-des,\" from the name of their father. Their duty was to attend upon the greater sea gods, and especially to obey the orders of Neptune.\nThetis was so beautiful that Jupiter himself wished to marry her, but the Fates told him she was destined to have a son who would be greater than his father. The king of heaven having no desire that a son of his should be greater than himself, gave up the idea of wedding the fair nymph of the sea, and consented that she should be the wife of Peleus, who had long loved and wooed her. But Thetis, being a goddess, was unwilling to marry a mortal man. However, she at last consented, and all the gods and goddesses, with one exception, were present at the marriage feast.\n\nFor in the elder time, when truth and worth Were still revered and cherished here on earth, The tenants of the skies would oft descend To heroes' spotless homes, as friend to friend; There meet them face to face, and freely share In all that stirred the hearts of mortals there.\nCatullus (Martin's tr.).\n\nThe one exception was E\u02b9ris, or Dis-cor\u02b9di-a, the goddess of discord. This evil-minded deity had at one time been a resident of Olympus, but she caused so much dissension and quarreling there that Jupiter banished her forever from the heavenly mansions. The presence of such a being as a guest on so happy an occasion was not very desirable, and therefore no invitation was sent to her.\nThus slighted, the goddess of discord resolved to have revenge by doing all that she could to disturb the peace and harmony of the marriage feast. With this evil purpose she suddenly appeared in the midst of the company, and threw on the table a beautiful golden apple, on which were inscribed the words, \"Let it be given to the fairest.\"\n\n\"This was cast upon the board, When all the full-faced presence of the gods Ranged in the halls of Peleus; whereupon Rose feud, with question unto whom 'twere due.\"\nTennyson, \u0152none.\n\nAt once all the goddesses began to claim the glittering prize of beauty. Each contended that she was the \"fairest,\" and therefore should have the\n\n\"fruit of pure Hesperian gold That smelt ambrosially.\"\n\nBut soon the only competitors were Juno, Venus, and Minerva, the other goddesses having withdrawn their claims. The contest then became more bitter, and at last Jupiter was called upon to act as judge in the dispute. This delicate task the king of heaven declined to undertake. He knew that whatever way he might decide, he would be sure to offend two of the three goddesses, and thereby destroy the peace of his own household. It was necessary, however, that an umpire should be chosen to put an end to the strife, and doubtless it was the decree of the Fates that the lot should fall on the handsome young shepherd of Mount Ida. His wisdom and prudence were well known to the gods, and all seemed to agree that he was a fit person to decide so great a contest.\nParis was therefore appointed umpire. By Jupiter's command the golden apple was sent to him, to be given to that one of the three goddesses whom he should judge to be the most beautiful. The goddesses themselves were directed to appear before him on Mount Ida, so that, beholding their charms, he might be able to give a just decision. The English poet, Tennyson, in his poem \"\u0152none,\" gives a fine description of the three contending deities standing in the presence of the Trojan prince, each in her turn trying, by promise of great reward, to persuade him to declare in her favor. Juno spoke first, and she offered to bestow kingly power and immense wealth upon Paris, if he would award the prize to her.\n\n\"She to Paris made Proffer of royal power, ample rule Unquestion'd.    .    .    .    .    .    .    . 'Honor,' she said, 'and homage, tax and toll, From many an inland town and haven large.'\"\n\nMinerva next addressed the judge, and she promised him great wisdom and knowledge, as well as success in war, if he would give the apple to her.\nThen Venus approached the young prince, who all the while held the golden prize in his hand. She had but few words to say, for she was confident in the power of her beauty and the tempting bribe she was about to offer.\n\n\"She with a subtle smile in her mild eyes, The herald of her triumph, drawing nigh Half-whisper'd in his ear, 'I promise thee The fairest and most loving wife in Greece.' She spoke and laugh'd.\"\n\nThe subtle smile and the whispered promise won the heart of Paris. Forgetful of \u0152none, and disregarding the promises of the other goddesses, he awarded the prize to Venus.\n\nHe consign'd To her soft hand the fruit of burnished rind; And foam-born Venus grasp'd the graceful meed, Of war, of evil war, the quickening seed.\nColuthus (Elton's tr.).\n\nSuch was the famous judgment of Paris. It was perhaps a just decision, for it may be supposed that Venus, being the goddess of beauty, was really the most beautiful of the three. But the story does not give us a very high idea of the character of Paris, who now no longer took pleasure in the company of \u0152none. All his thoughts and affections were turned away from her by the promise of Venus. He had grown weary, too, of his simple and innocent life among his flocks and herds on the mountain. He therefore wished much for some adventure that would take him away from scenes which had become distasteful to him.\n\n\nParis.\nParis.\nVatican, Rome.\nThe opportunity soon came. A member of King Priam's family having died, it was announced that the funeral would be celebrated by athletic games, as was the custom in ancient times. Paris resolved to go down to the city and take part in these games. Prizes were to be offered for competition, and one of the prizes was to be the finest bull that could be picked from the herds on Mount Ida. Now it happened that the bull selected belonged to Paris himself, but it could not be taken without his consent. He was willing, however, to give it for the games on condition that he should be permitted to enter the list of competitors.\nThe condition was agreed to, and so the shepherd prince parted from \u0152none and went to the funeral games at Troy. He intended, perhaps, to return sometime, but it was many years before he saw the fair nymph of Mount Ida again,\u2014not until he was about to die of a wound received from one of the Greeks in the Trojan War. \u0152none knew what was to happen, for Apollo had conferred upon her the gift of prophecy, and she warned Paris that if he should go away from her he would bring ruin on himself and his country, telling him also that he would seek for her help when it would be too late to save him. These predictions, as we shall see, were fulfilled. \u0152none's grief and despair in her loneliness after the departure of Paris are touchingly described in Tennyson's poem:\n\n\"O happy Heaven, how canst thou see my face? O happy earth, how canst thou bear my weight? O death, death, death, thou ever-floating cloud, There are enough unhappy on this earth, Pass by the happy souls, that love to live: I pray thee, pass before my light of life, And shadow all my soul, that I may die. Thou weighest heavy on the heart within, Weigh heavy on my eyelids: let me die.\"\n\nAt the athletic games in Troy everybody admired the noble appearance of Paris, but nobody knew who he was. In the competitions he won all the first prizes, for Venus had given him godlike strength and swiftness. He defeated even Hector, who was the greatest athlete of Troy. Hector, angry at finding himself and all the highborn young men of the city beaten by an unknown stranger, resolved to put him to death, and Paris would probably have been killed, had he not fled for safety into the temple of Jupiter. Cassandra, who happened to be in the temple at the time, noticed Paris closely, and observing that he bore a strong resemblance to her brothers, she asked him about his birth and age. From his answers she was satisfied that he was her brother, and she at once introduced him to the king. Further inquiries were then made. The old shepherd, Archelaus, to whom Paris had been delivered in his infancy to be exposed on Mount Ida, was still living, and he came and told his story. Then King Priam and Queen Hecuba joyfully embraced and welcomed their son, never thinking of the terrible dream or of the prophecy of \u00c6sacus. Hector, no longer angry or jealous, was glad to see his brother, and proud of his victories in the games. Everybody rejoiced except Cassandra. She knew the evil which was to come to Troy through Paris, but nobody would give credit to what the \"mad prophetess\" said.\nThus restored to his high position as a prince of the royal house of Troy, Paris now resided in his father's palace, apparently contented and happy. But the promise made to him on Mount Ida, which he carefully concealed from his family, was always in his mind. His thoughts were ever turned toward Greece, where dwelt the fairest woman of those times. This was Helen, wife of Men-e-la\u02b9us, king of Spar\u02b9ta, celebrated throughout the ancient world for her matchless beauty. Paris had been promised the fairest woman for his wife, and he felt sure that it could be no other than the far-famed Helen. To Greece therefore he resolved to go, as soon as there should be an excuse for undertaking what was then a long and dangerous voyage of many weeks, though in our day it is no more than a few hours' sail.\nThe occasion was found when King Priam resolved to send ambassadors to the island of Salamis to demand the restoration of his sister Hesione, whom Hercules had carried off many years before. Her husband, Telamon, was now dead, but his son A\u02b9jax still held her as a prisoner at his court. Priam had never forgotten his sister's love for himself, for she it was, as will be remembered, who redeemed him from slavery and placed him on his father's throne. He now determined that she should be brought back to her native country, and Paris earnestly begged permission to take charge of the expedition which was to be sent to Salamis for that purpose. Priam consented, and a fleet worthy to convey the son of the king of Troy and his retinue to Greece was built by Pher\u02b9e-clus, a skillful Trojan craftsman, whom the goddess Minerva (Pallas) had instructed in all kinds of workmanship.\n\nFor loved by Pallas, Pallas did impart To him the shipwright's and the builder's art. Beneath his hand the fleet of Paris rose, The fatal cause of all his country's woes.\nPope, Iliad, Book V.\n\nBefore the departure of the fleet, Cassandra raised her voice of warning, but as usual her words were not heeded, and so Paris set sail. He reached the shores of Greece in safety; but instead of proceeding to Salamis to demand Hesione from King Ajax, he steered his vessels to the coast of Sparta. This he did under the guidance and direction of Venus, who was now about to fulfill the promise by which she had won the golden prize on Mount Ida.\nLanding in Sparta, Paris hastened to the court of Menelaus, where he was hospitably received. The king gave banquets in his honor and invited him to prolong his stay in Sparta, and the beautiful Queen Helen joined in her husband's kind attentions to their guest.\nSoon after the arrival of Paris, the king of Sparta received an invitation to take part in a hunting expedition in the island of Crete. Having no suspicion of the evil design of Paris, he accepted the invitation. He departed for Crete, leaving to his queen the duty of entertaining the Trojan prince until his return. Then Paris, taking advantage of the absence of Menelaus, induced Helen to desert her husband and her home, and go with him to Troy. He told her of the promise of Venus, and assured her that she would be received with great honor in his father's palace, and protected against the anger of Menelaus.\n\nFrom her husband's stranger-sheltering home He tempted Helen o'er the ocean foam.\nColuthus (Elton's tr.).\n\nAbduction of Helen.\nAbduction of Helen.\nPainting by Deutsch.\nHelen having consented, Paris carried her off in his fleet. At the same time he carried away a vast quantity of treasure in gold and other costly things which belonged to King Menelaus. On the voyage homeward the ships were driven by a storm to the shores of the island of Cran\u02b9a-e, where Paris and Helen remained for some time. When at last they reached the Trojan capital they were cordially welcomed by King Priam and Queen Hecuba, and in a short time they were married, and the event was celebrated with great rejoicing.\nBut all the people of Troy did not take part in this rejoicing. Hector, the son of Priam, and others of his wisest counselors, strongly censured the conduct of Paris, and they advised the king to send Helen back to Sparta. But Priam would not listen to their prudent advice, and so she remained in Troy.\nThe great beauty of Helen has been celebrated by poets in ancient and modern times. Tennyson, in his \"Dream of Fair Women,\" introduces her as one of the forms of the vision he describes:\n\n\"I saw a lady within call, Stiller than chisell'd marble, standing there; A daughter of the gods, divinely tall, And most divinely fair.\"\n\n\n\nIII. THE LEAGUE AGAINST TROY.\nThe carrying off of Helen was the cause of the Trojan War. Menelaus, upon hearing what Paris had done, immediately returned to Sparta, and began to make preparations to avenge the wrong. He called upon the other kings and princes of Greece to join him with their armies and fleets in a war against Troy. They were bound to do this by an oath they had taken at the time of the marriage of Helen and Menelaus.\nHelen was the daughter of Tyn\u02b9da-rus, who was king of Sparta before Menelaus. Some say that she was the daughter of Jupiter, and that Tyndarus was her stepfather. But from her infancy she was brought up at the royal palace of Sparta as the daughter of Tyndarus and his wife, Le\u02b9da. When she became old enough to marry, the fame of her great beauty drew many of the young princes of Greece to Sparta, all competing for her favor, and each hoping to win her for his wife. This placed Tyndarus in a difficulty. He was alarmed at the sight of so many suitors for the hand of his daughter, for he knew that he could not give her to one without offending all the rest. He therefore resolved to adopt the advice of Ulysses, the prince of Ith\u02b9a-ca (an island on the west coast of Greece). Ulysses, also named O-dys\u02b9seus, was famed for great wisdom as well as valor in war.\n\nUlysses, man of many arts, Son of Laertes, reared in Ithaca, That rugged isle, and skilled in every form Of shrewd device and action wisely planned.\nBryant, Iliad, Book III.\n\nUlysses had himself been one of the suitors for Helen, but he saw that among so many competitors he had little chance of success. Besides, he had fallen in love with Pe-nel\u02b9o-pe, the niece of Tyndarus. He therefore withdrew from the contest, and he offered to suggest a plan for settling the difficulty about Helen, if Tyndarus would give him Penelope to be his wife. Tyndarus consented. Ulysses then advised that Helen should choose for herself which of the princes she would have for her husband, but that before she did so, all the suitors should pledge themselves by oath to submit to her decision, and engage that if any one should take her away from the husband of her choice, they would all join in punishing the offender.\n\nIf any dared to seize and bear her off, All would unite in arms, and lay his town Level with the ground.\nEuripides (Potter's tr.).\n\nThe Grecian princes consented to this proposal. They all, including Ulysses himself, took the required oath. Helen then made choice of Menelaus, to whom she was immediately married with great pomp and popular rejoicing. On the death of Tyndarus, Menelaus became king of Sparta, and he and his beautiful queen lived and reigned together in prosperity and happiness until the ill-fated visit of Paris.\nMenelaus was the brother of Ag-a-mem\u02b9non, king of My-ce\u02b9n\u00e6, one of the most powerful and wealthy of the kings of Hel\u02b9las, as Greece was anciently called. Their father, A\u02b9treus, was a son of the hero Pe\u02b9lops, who conquered the greater part of the peninsula named from him the Pel-oponne\u02b9sus, and who was the grandson of Jupiter. Agamemnon, or A-tri\u02b9des (son of Atreus), as he is often called, was commander in chief of all the Greek armies during the siege of Troy. From his high rank and authority Homer calls him the \"king of men\" and the \"king of kings.\" He is sometimes also called \"king of all Ar\u02b9gos,\" a powerful kingdom near Mycen\u00e6, and from this name the Greeks are sometimes called \"Ar\u02b9gives.\" The royal scepter which Agamemnon bore in his hands when addressing his soldiers was made by Vulcan for Jupiter.\n\nThe king of kings his awful figure raised; High in his hand the golden sceptre blazed; The golden sceptre, of celestial flame, By Vulcan formed, from Jove to Hermes came: To Pelops he the immortal gift resign'd; The immortal gift great Pelops left behind.\nPope, Iliad, Book II.\n\nThe kings and princes of Hellas, who met at the call of Menelaus, decided, after some discussion of the matter, that before declaring war against Troy it would be well to try to obtain satisfaction by peaceful means. They therefore sent ambassadors to Troy to demand the restoration of Helen and the treasures which Paris had carried off. Di\u02b9o-mede, king of \u00c6-to\u02b9lia, and the wise Ulysses, were chosen for this mission. Menelaus volunteered to accompany them, thinking that he might be able to persuade his wife to return to her home.\nWhen the Greek ambassadors arrived in the Trojan capital they were respectfully received by the king. During their stay in the city they were entertained at the residence of An-te\u02b9nor, one of Priam's ministers of state, who had the wisdom to disapprove of the action of Paris, and to advise that the Spartan queen should be given back to her husband. Antenor much admired the appearance and eloquence of Ulysses, which are thus described in the Iliad:\n\n\"But when Ulysses rose, in thought profound, His modest eyes he fixed upon the ground; As one unskilled or dumb, he seem'd to stand, Nor raised his head, nor stretch'd his sceptred hand; But, when he speaks, what elocution flows! Soft as the fleeces of descending snows, The copious accents fall, with easy art; Melting they fall, and sink into the heart!\"\nPope, Iliad, Book III.\n\nBut the eloquence of Ulysses was of no avail. King Priam, blinded by his love for his son, saw not the threatened danger, and he refused the demand of the ambassadors. Menelaus was not even permitted to see his wife. Ulysses and his companions then returned to Greece, and at once preparations for war with Troy were commenced.\nThese preparations occupied a very long time. Ten years were spent in getting together the vast force, which in more than a thousand ships was carried across the \u00c6gean Sea to the Trojan shores, from the port of Au\u02b9lis on the east coast-of Greece. Some of the Hel-len\u02b9ic (Greek) princes were very unwilling to join the expedition, as they knew that the struggle would be a tedious and perilous one. Even Ulysses, who, as we have seen, had first proposed the suitors' oath at Sparta, was at the last moment unwilling to go. He had now become king of Ithaca, his father, La-er\u02b9tes, having retired from the cares of government, and he would gladly have remained in his happy island home with his young wife, Penelope, and his infant son, Te-lem\u02b9a-chus, both of whom he tenderly loved.\nBut the man of many arts could not be spared from the Trojan War. He paid no heed, however, to the messages sent to him asking him to join the army at Aulis. Agamemnon resolved, therefore, to go himself to Ithaca to persuade Ulysses to take part in the expedition. He was accompanied by his brother Menelaus, and by a chief named Pal-a-me\u02b9des, a very wise and learned man as well as a brave warrior. As soon as Ulysses heard of their arrival in Ithaca, he pretended to be insane, and he tried by a very amusing stratagem to make them believe that he was really mad. Dressing himself in his best clothes, and going down to the seashore, he began to plow the beach with a horse and an ox yoked together, and to scatter salt upon the sand instead of seed.\nUlysses feigning Madness.\nUlysses feigning Madness.\nHeywood Hardy.\nPalamedes, however, was more than a match in artifice for the Ithacan king. Taking Telemachus from the arms of his nurse, he placed the infant on the sand in front of the plowing team. Ulysses quickly turned the animals aside to avoid injuring his child, thus proving that he was not mad but in full possession of his senses. The king of Ithaca was therefore obliged to join the expedition to Troy. With twelve ships well manned he sailed from his rugged island, which he did not again see for twenty years. Ten years he spent at the siege, and ten on his homeward voyage, during which he met with the wonderful adventures that Homer describes in the Odyssey.\nUlysses had his revenge upon Palamedes in a manner very unworthy of a brave man. In the camp before Troy, during the siege, he bribed one of the servants of Palamedes to conceal a sum of money in his master's tent. He then forged a letter, which he read before a council of the Greek generals, saying that Palamedes had taken it from a Trojan prisoner. This letter was written as if by King Priam to Palamedes, thanking him for the information he had given regarding the plans of the Greeks, and mentioning money as having been sent him in reward for his services. The Greek generals at once ordered a search to be made in the tent of Palamedes, and the money being found where it had been hidden by direction of Ulysses, the unfortunate Palamedes was immediately put to death as a traitor.\n\nPalamedes, not unknown to fame, Who suffered from the malice of the times, Accused and sentenced for pretended crimes.\nVergil.\n\nIt is said that Palamedes was the inventor of weights and measures, and of the games of chess and backgammon, and that it was he who first placed sentinels round a camp and gave them a watchword.\nThere was another of the Greek princes whose help in the Trojan War was obtained only by an ingenious trick. This was the famous A-chil\u02b9les. He was the son of Peleus and Thetis, at whose marriage feast Eris threw the apple of discord on the table. The prophecy that Thetis would have a son greater than his father was fulfilled in Achilles, the bravest of the Greeks at the Trojan War, and the principal hero of Homer's Iliad.\nThetis educated her son with great care. She had him instructed in all the accomplishments fitting for princes of those times. When he was an infant she dipped him in the river Styx, which, it was believed, made it impossible for any weapon wielded by mortal hands to wound him. But the water did not touch the child's heel by which his mother held him when she plunged him in the river, and it was in this part that he received the wound of which he died.\nNotwithstanding his being dipped in the Styx, Thetis was afraid to let Achilles go to the Trojan War, for Jupiter had told her that he would be killed if he took part in it. For this reason, as soon as she heard that the Grecian princes were gathering their forces, she secretly sent the youth to the court of Lyc-o-me\u02b9des, king of the island of Scy\u02b9ros. Here Achilles, dressed like a young girl, resided as a companion of the king's daughters. But Cal\u02b9chas, the soothsayer of the Grecian army, told the chiefs that without the help of Achilles Troy could not be taken.\n\nCalchas the wise, the Grecian priest and guide, That sacred seer, whose comprehensive view, The past, the present, and the future knew.\nPope, Iliad, Book I.\n\nCalchas, however, could not tell where Achilles was to be found, and when they applied to Peleus, he too was unable or unwilling to tell them. In this difficulty the wily king of Ithaca did good service. After much inquiry he discovered that Achilles was at Scyros with the king's daughters. He soon made his way to the island, but here there was a new difficulty. He had never seen the young prince, and how was he to know him? But he devised a scheme which proved entirely successful. Equipping himself as a peddler, he went to the royal palace, exhibiting jewelry and other fancy articles to attract the attention of the ladies of the family. He also had some beautiful weapons of war among his wares.\nAchilles at the Court of Lycomedes.\nAchilles at the Court of Lycomedes.\nPainting by Battoni.\nAs soon as he appeared, the maidens gathered about him and began examining the jewels. But one of the group eagerly seized a weapon, and handled it with much skill and pleasure. Satisfied that this was the young prince of whom he was in search, the pretended peddler announced his name and told why he had come. Achilles, for it was he, gladly agreed to take part with his countrymen in their great expedition, and he immediately returned to Phthi\u02b9a, the capital of his father's kingdom of Thessaly. There he lost no time in making all necessary preparations. Soon afterwards he sailed for Aulis with the brave Myr\u02b9mi-dons, as his soldiers were called, accompanied also by his devoted friend and constant companion, Pa-tro\u02b9clus.\n\nFull fifty ships beneath Achilles' care, The Achaians, Myrmidons, Hellenians bear; Thessalians all, though various in their name; The same their nation, and their chief the same.\nPope, Iliad, Book II.\n\nAgamemnon, the commander in chief of the great host, sailed with a hundred ships from his kingdom of Mycen\u00e6, and his brother Menelaus, eager for vengeance upon the Trojans, sailed with sixty ships and a strong force of brave Spartans.\n\nGreat Agamemnon rules the numerous band, A hundred vessels in long order stand, And crowded nations wait his dread command. High on the deck the king of men appears, And his refulgent arms in triumph wears; Proud of his host, unrivall'd in his reign, In silent pomp he moves along the main. His brother follows, and to vengeance warms, The hardy Spartans, exercised in arms: .        .        .        .        .       . These, o'er the bending ocean, Helen's cause, In sixty ships with Menelaus draws.\nPope, Iliad Book II.\n\nAmong the other great warriors of Hellas who joined the expedition was Nes\u02b9tor, the venerable king of Py\u02b9los, distinguished for his eloquence, wisdom, and prudence.\n\nIn ninety sail, from Pylos' sandy coast, Nestor the sage conducts his chosen host.\nPope, Iliad, Book II.\n\nThe ancients believed that Nestor outlived three generations of men, which some suppose to have been three hundred years. From this it was a custom of the ancient Greeks and Romans, when wishing a long and happy life to their friends, to wish them to live as long as Nestor.\n\nExperienced Nestor, in persuasion skill'd; Words, sweet as honey, from his lips distill'd; Two generations now had pass'd away, Wise by his rules, and happy by his sway; Two ages o'er his native realm he reign'd, And now the example of the third remain'd.\nPope, Iliad, Book I.\n\nThe two Ajaxes were also renowned warriors of the Grecian army,\u2014Ajax Telamon and Ajax O-i\u02b9leus, so called from the names of their fathers. Telamon was the king of Salamis, to whom, as has been told, Hercules gave Laomedon's daughter, Hesione. His son Ajax, a man of huge stature and giant strength, was, next to Achilles, the bravest of all the Greeks who went to the Trojan War.\n\nWith these appear the Salaminian bands, Whom the gigantic Telamon commands; In twelve black ships to Troy they steer their course, And with the great Athenians join their force.\nPope, Iliad, Book II.\n\nAjax Oileus, king of Lo\u02b9cris, was less in stature than his namesake, but few excelled him in the use of the spear or in swiftness of foot. He commanded forty ships in the great expedition.\n\nFierce Ajax led the Locrian squadrons on, Ajax the less, Oileus' valiant son; Skill'd to direct the flying dart aright; Swift in pursuit, and active in the fight.\nPope, Iliad, Book II\n\nTwo other valiant warriors, who led eighty ships each to the great muster, were Diomede, king of Argos, and I-dom\u02b9e-neus, king of Crete,\u2014the \"spear-renowned Idomeneus.\"\n\nCrete's hundred cities pour forth all her sons. These march'd, Idomeneus, beneath thy care.\nPope, Iliad, Book II.\n\nWhen at length all the kings and princes were assembled at Aulis, the vast fleet numbered 1185 ships, according to the account given by Homer. The total number of men which the ships carried is not known, but it is probable that it was not less than 100,000, as the largest of the vessels contained about 120, and the smallest 50 men each.\nSuch was the mighty host that Hellas marshaled to punish Troy for the crime committed by Paris. Before setting out on so important an expedition the Greek chiefs deemed it proper, according to the custom of the ancients, to offer sacrifices to the gods, that their undertaking might have the favor of heaven. Altars were therefore erected, and the sacred services were carried out in due order. On these occasions animals\u2014very frequently oxen\u2014were killed, and portions of their flesh consumed by fire, such sacrifices being supposed to be very pleasing to the gods.\nWhile the Grecian chiefs were engaged in their religious ceremonies, the greater part of the army having already gone aboard the ships, they were startled at beholding a serpent dart out from beneath one of the altars, and, gliding along the ground, ascend a plane tree which grew close by. At the top of the tree was a nest containing eight young birds. The serpent devoured them, and immediately afterwards seized and devoured the mother bird, which had been fluttering around the nest. Then suddenly, before the eyes of the astonished Greeks, the reptile turned into stone. Amazed at this occurrence, and believing it to have some connection with their expedition, the assembled chiefs asked the soothsayer Calchas to explain what it meant. The seer replied, telling them that it was a sign that the war upon which they were about to enter would last ten years.\n\"For us, indeed,\" said he, \"Jupiter has shown a great sign. As this serpent has devoured the young of the sparrow, eight in number, and herself, the mother of the brood, was the ninth, so must we for as many years wage war, but in the tenth year we shall take the city.\"\nThis story was eloquently told by Ulysses in the Greek camp before Troy, when in the tenth year of the siege, many of the troops, having grown weary of the war, desired to return to their homes.\nDecorative\n\n\nIV. BEGINNING OF THE WAR.\nThe Greek chiefs, nothing daunted by the words of Calchas, now set sail with their immense fleet. Though the war was to be a long one, they were encouraged by the prophecy that they were to be the conquerors.\nTheir first experience was not very fortunate. They safely crossed the \u00c6gean Sea, but instead of steering for Troy, the pilots, through either ignorance or mistake, brought the vessels to the shore on the coast of Teu-thra'ni-a, a district in the kingdom of Mys'i-a, lying southeast of Troas. Here the Greeks landed, but they were at once attacked by Tel'e-phus, the king of that country, who came down upon them with a strong force, and drove them back to their ships after a battle in which many of them were killed. They would probably have fared much worse had it not been for the friendly aid of Bac\u02b9chus, the god of wine. While Telephus was fighting at the head of his men he tripped and fell over a vine, which the god had caused to spring up suddenly from the earth at his feet. As he lay flat on the ground Achilles rushed forward and severely wounded him with a thrust of his spear.\nThe Greeks, however, were obliged to take to the sea, and soon afterward a great storm arose, which destroyed many of their vessels. Owing to this misfortune they had to return to Aulis, where they set about repairing their damaged ships and getting ready to start again. While the Greeks were thus engaged, they were surprised by the appearance of King Telephus, who came to their camp to beg Achilles to cure his wound, an oracle he had consulted having told him that he could be cured only by the person who had wounded him.\nAchilles was at first unwilling to comply with the request of Telephus, but Ulysses advised him to do so. Telephus was one of the sons of Hercules, and it had been decreed that without the help of a son of that hero Troy could not be taken. Moreover, he was a son-in-law of Priam, and his country lay close to where the war was to be carried on. For these reasons Ulysses wished to make him friendly to the Greeks, and so he persuaded Achilles to cure the Teuthranian king. Achilles did this by dropping into the wound portions of the rust from the point of his spear. Telephus was so grateful that he joined the expedition against Troy, and undertook to pilot the Grecian fleet to the Trojan coast.\nBut another difficulty now stood in the way of the Greeks. Their fleet was once more ready for departure, but the winds were unfavorable. In ancient times they could not make a sea voyage when the winds were against them. Their ships were very small, and were moved only by oars and sails. Homer gives us a good idea of the ancient system of navigation, where he tells, in the Odyssey, about young Telemachus setting out on a voyage in search of his father, Ulysses:\n\nTelemachus went up The vessel's side, but Pallas first embarked, And at the stern sat down, while next to her Telemachus was seated. Then the crew Cast loose the fastenings and went all on board, And took their places on the rowers' seats, While blue-eyed Pallas sent a favoring breeze, A fresh wind from the west, that murmuring swept The dark-blue main. Telemachus gave forth The word to wield the tackle; they obeyed, And raised the fir-tree mast, and, fitting it Into its socket, bound it fast with cords, And drew and spread with firmly twisted ropes The shining sails on high. The steady wind Swelled out the canvas in the midst; the ship Moved on, the dark sea roaring round her keel, As swiftly through the waves she cleft her way.\nBryant, Odyssey, Book II.\n\nFor many days the Greek chiefs at Aulis waited for favoring breezes, but none came.\n\n\"The troops Collected and embodied, here we sit Inactive, and from Aulis wish to sail In vain.\"\nEuripides (Potter's tr.).\n\nAt last the soothsayer Calchas told them that the easterly winds which prevented them from sailing were caused by the anger of Di-an\u02b9a. Diana was the goddess of hunting, and there was one of her sacred groves in the neighborhood of Aulis. In this grove King Agamemnon went hunting during the time the ships were being repaired after the storm, and he killed one of Diana's favorite deer. He even boasted that he was a greater hunter than Diana herself. This enraged the goddess, and Calchas said that her anger could be appeased only by the offering up of Agamemnon's daughter, Iph-i-ge-ni\u02b9a, as a sacrifice.\nDiana hunting.\nDiana hunting.\nPainting by Makart. (Fragment.)\nThe feelings of the father may be easily imagined. He heard the announcement of the soothsayer with the utmost horror, and he declared that he would withdraw from the expedition rather than permit his child to be put to death. But Ulysses and the other princes begged him to remember that the honor of their country was at stake. They said that if he should withdraw, the great cause for which they had labored for ten years would be lost, and the Trojan insult to his own family and to all Greece would remain unpunished.\nAt last Agamemnon consented, and messengers were sent to Mycen\u00e6 to bring Iphigenia to Aulis. The king was even persuaded to deceive his wife, Clyt-em-nes\u02b9tra. Knowing that she would not allow her daughter to be taken away for such a purpose, he wrote a letter to the queen, saying that Iphigenia had been chosen to be the wife of Achilles, and that he wished the marriage ceremony to be performed before the departure of the young prince for Troy.\n\n\"I wrote, I seal'd A letter to my wife, that she should send Her daughter to Achilles as a bride Affianc'd.\"\nEuripides (Potter's tr.).\n\nClytemnestra agreed to the proposal, happy at the thought of her daughter being married to so great a prince as Achilles. Iphigenia accordingly accompanied the messengers to the Greek camp at Aulis. When she learned of the terrible fate to which she had been doomed, she threw herself at her father's feet and piteously implored his protection. But her tears and entreaties were in vain. The agonized father had now no power to save her, for the whole army demanded that the will of the goddess should be obeyed. Preparations for the awful sacrifice were therefore made, and when everything was ready, the beautiful young princess was led to the altar. Tennyson, in his \"Dream of Fair Women,\" has these lines about Iphigenia at Aulis:\n\n\"I was cut off from hope in that sad place, Which men called Aulis in those iron years: My father held his hand upon his face; I, blinded with my tears,\nStill strove to speak: my voice was thick with sighs As in a dream. Dimly I could descry The stern, black-bearded kings with wolfish eyes, Waiting to see me die.\"\n\nBut Iphigenia was not sacrificed after all. Her innocence excited the pity even of Diana, and at the last moment the goddess snatched the weeping maiden away in a cloud, and left in her place a beautiful deer to be offered up as a sacrifice. She carried the princess off to Tau\u02b9ri-ca, a country bordering the Black Sea, and there Iphigenia remained for many years, serving as a priestess in Diana's temple.\nThe anger of Diana being appeased, favorable winds now began to blow, and the Greeks again set sail. This time they had a more fortunate voyage. Piloted by Telephus, the fleet crossed the \u00c6gean Sea, and safely reached the coast of Troas. But here Calchas made another discouraging prophecy. He declared that the first Greek who stepped on Trojan soil would be killed in the first fight with the enemy. This the oracle at Delphi had also foretold. There was some hesitation, therefore, about landing, for the army of King Priam was ranged along the beach prepared for battle with the invaders.\nThis was the occasion of an heroic act by Pro-tes-i-la\u02b9us, king of Phyl\u02b9a-ce in Thessaly, who boldly leaped ashore as soon as the vessels touched the land. The prediction of Calchas was soon fulfilled. Protesilaus was struck dead in the first fight by a spear launched by the hands of the Trojan leader, Hector. The bravery of the Thessalian king, and the grief of his queen, La-od-a-mi\u02b9a, when she heard of his death, have been much celebrated in song and story.\n\nProtesilaus the brave, Who now lay silent in the gloomy grave: The first who boldly touch'd the Trojan shore, And dyed a Phrygian lance with Grecian gore; There lies, far distant from his native plain; And his sad consort beats her breast in vain.\nPope, Iliad, Book II.\n\nLaodamia in her sorrow prayed to the gods that she might see her husband again on earth. Jupiter heard her prayer, and he ordered Mercury to conduct Protesilaus from Hades, the land of the dead, to Thessaly, to remain with Laodamia for the space of three hours.\nLaodamia was happy for the brief time allowed her to enjoy again the companionship of her beloved Protesilaus, and she listened with pride to the story of his brave deed on the Trojan shore.\n\n\"Thou know'st, the Delphic oracle foretold That the first Greek who touched the Trojan strand Should die; but me the threat could not withhold: A generous cause a victim did demand; And forth I leapt upon the sanely plain; A self-devoted chief\u2014by Hector slain.\"\nWordsworth, Laodamia.\n\nBut the happy moments flew swiftly by, and when the three hours had passed, Mercury returned to take the hero back to the world of shades. The parting was too much for the fond Laodamia. She died of grief as her husband disappeared from her sight.\nProtesilaus was buried on the Trojan shore, and around his grave, it is said, there grew very wonderful trees. These trees withered away as soon as their tops reached high enough to be seen from the city of Troy. Then fresh trees sprang up from their roots, and withered in like manner when they reached the same height, and so this marvelous growth and decay continued for ages.\n\nUpon the side Of Hellespont (such faith was entertained) A knot of spiry trees for ages grew From out the tomb of him for whom she died; And ever, when such stature they had gained That Ilium's walls were subject to their view, The trees' tall summits withered at the sight; A constant interchange of growth and blight!\nWordsworth, Laodamia.\n\nThe heroic act of Protesilaus was the beginning of the great war. Before he fell himself he slew many of the enemy, and hosts of his countrymen, encouraged by his example, poured from their ships and encountered the Trojans in fierce conflict. In this first battle the Greeks were victorious. Though Hector and his brave troops fought valiantly they were driven back from the shore, and compelled to take refuge within the strong walls of the city.\nThe Trojans were well prepared for the war. King Priam had not been idle while the Greek leaders were mustering their forces. From all parts of his kingdom he had gathered immense supplies of provisions, and the princes and chiefs of Troas came with large armies to defend their king and country. The most celebrated of these chiefs was the hero \u00c6-ne\u02b9as, son of An-chi\u02b9ses and the goddess Venus. He commanded the Dardanian forces, and had as his lieutenants the two brave warriors, Ac\u02b9a-mas and Ar-chil\u02b9o-chus.\n\nDivine \u00c6neas brings the Dardan race. Archilochus and Acamas divide The warrior's toils, and combat by his side.\nPope, Iliad, Book II.\n\nThe Trojans had numerous and powerful allies. Troops were sent to them from the neighboring countries of Phrygia, Mysia, Lyc\u02b9i-a and Ca\u02b9ri-a. The Lycian forces were led by Sar-pe\u02b9don, a son of Jupiter, and a renowned warrior.\n\nA chief, who led to Troy's beleaguer'd wall A host of heroes, and outshined them all.\nPope, Iliad, Book XVI.\n\nBut the greatest of the heroes who defended Troy, and, with the exception of Achilles, the greatest and bravest of all who took part in the Trojan War, was the famous Hector.\n\n\n\nThe boast of nations, the defense of Troy! To whom her safety and her fame she owed; Her chief, her hero, and almost her god!\nPope, Iliad, Book XXII.\n\nSo long as Hector lived Troy was safe. When he died, his great rival, Achilles, by whose hand he was slain, rejoiced with the Greeks as if Troy had already fallen.\n\n\"Ye sons of Greece, in triumph bring The corpse of Hector, and your p\u00e6ans sing. Be this the song, slow-moving toward the shore, 'Hector is dead, and Ilion is no more.'\"\nPope, Iliad, Book XXII.\n\nBut though led by the great Hector, the Trojans, after their first defeat, were unable to keep up the fight in the open field against the vast numbers of the Greeks. Seeing, therefore, that they must depend for safety on the strong walls which Neptune had built, they drew all their forces into the city, leaving the enemy in possession of the surrounding country.\nThen the famous siege of ten years began. The Greeks hauled their ships out of the water, and fixed them on the beach in an upright position supported by props. Close to the vessels, on the land side, they erected their tents, which extended in a long line, one wing, or end, of which was guarded by Achilles, and the other by Ajax Telamon. Between this encampment and the walls of Troy\u2014a distance of three or four miles\u2014many a fierce conflict took place, and many a brave warrior fell during the great contest. For the Trojans, headed by Hector or some other of their chiefs, often came out from the city through the principal gate, called the Sc\u00e6\u02b9an Gate, which faced the Grecian camp, and fought the enemy in the open plain, on the bank of the celebrated river Simois.\n\nAnd from the walls of strong-besieged Troy, When their brave hope, bold Hector, march'd to field, Stood many Trojan mothers, sharing joy To see their youthful son's bright weapons wield; And to their hope they such odd action yield, That through their light joy seemed to appear, Like bright things stain'd, a kind of heavy fear.\nAnd from the strond of Dardan, where they fought, To Simois' reedy banks the red blood ran, Whose waves to imitate the battle sought With swelling ridges; and their ranks began To break upon the galled shore, and then Retire again, till, meeting greater ranks, They join and shoot their foam at Simois' banks.\nShakespeare, Lucrece.\n\n\n\nV. THE WRATH OF ACHILLES.\nFor over nine years the siege was carried on without one side or the other gaining any important victory. The Trojans were protected by their walls, which the Greeks were unable to break down, for the ancients had no such powerful engines of war as those used in armies of the present day. The strongest buildings may now be easily destroyed by cannon; but in those days they had no cannon or gunpowder or dynamite. Success in war in ancient times depended almost entirely on the bravery of the soldiers or on strategy and artifice, in which, as we shall see, the king of Ithaca was much skilled.\nThe Greek and Trojan warriors fought with swords, axes, bows and arrows, and javelins, or long spears tipped with sharp iron points. Sometimes they used huge stones which the heroes hurled at the foe with the full strength of their powerful arms. They had shields of circular or oval shape, which they wore on the arm to ward off blows, and which could be moved at pleasure so as to cover almost any part of the body. Their chests were protected by corselets or breastplates made of metal, and metal greaves, or boots, incased their legs from the knees to the feet. On their heads they wore helmets, usually of brass.\nThe chiefs fought in chariots, from which they darted their spears at the enemy with such force and so true an aim as to wound or kill at a considerable distance. The chariots were two-wheeled, open at the back, and often drawn by three horses. They usually carried two warriors, both standing, and the charioteer, or driver, was generally the companion or friend, and not the servant, of the fighters who stood behind him. Sometimes the warriors came down from their chariots and fought hand to hand at close quarters with the enemy. The common soldiers always fought on foot. There were no horse soldiers.\nBut in the Trojan War success or defeat did not always depend on the bravery of the soldiers or on the skill or strategy of the generals. Very much depended on the gods. We have seen how those divine beings had to do with the events that led to the war. We shall also see them taking part in the battles, sometimes giving victory to one side and sometimes to the other. The Trojan War was in fact as much a war of the gods as of men, and in Homer's story we find Jupiter and Juno and Apollo and Neptune and Venus and Minerva mentioned almost as frequently as the Greek and Trojan heroes. In the beginning of the Iliad we find Apollo sending a plague among the Greeks because of an insult offered to his priest, Chry\u02b9ses; for the daughter of Chryses, a beautiful maiden named Chry-se\u02b9is, was carried off by Achilles after the taking of The\u02b9be, a town of Mysia.\nDuring the long siege the Grecian chiefs extended the war into the surrounding districts. While part of their forces was left at the camp to protect the ships and keep the Trojans cooped up within their walls, expeditions were sent out against many of the towns of Troas, or of the neighboring countries which were allies and supporters of Troy. When the Greeks captured a town they carried off not only the provisions and riches it contained, but also many of its inhabitants, whom they sold as slaves, according to the custom of the time, or kept as slaves in their own service. In one of these expeditions Priam's youngest son, Tro\u02b9i-lus, the hero of Shakespeare's play of \"Troilus and Cres\u02b9si-da,\" was slain by Achilles.\nIt was in the tenth year of the war that Thebe was taken, and the maiden Chryseis was captured. About the same time the town of Lyr-nes\u02b9sus was seized by an expedition, also led by Achilles, and among the prisoners was a beautiful woman named Bri-se\u02b9is. In the division of the spoils among the chiefs, Chryseis fell to the share of Agamemnon, and the maiden Briseis was given to Achilles, who took her to his tent with the intention of making her his wife. But the priest Chryses was deeply grieved at the taking away of his daughter, and he came to the Grecian camp to beg the chiefs to restore her to him. In his hand he bore a golden scepter bound with fillets, or green branches, the emblems of his priestly office, and he also carried with him valuable gifts for King Agamemnon. Being admitted to the presence of the warrior chiefs assembled in council, he begged them to release his child.\n\nHe sued to all, but chief implored for grace The brother-kings, of Atreus' royal race. \"Ye kings and warriors! may your vows be crown'd, And Troy's proud walls lie level with the ground. May Jove restore you when your toils are o'er Safe to the pleasures of your native shore. But, oh! relieve a wretched parent's pain, And give Chryseis to these arms again.\"\nPope, Iliad, Book I.\n\nHearing the prayer of the venerable priest, many of the chiefs were moved to pity, and they advised that his request should be granted, but Agamemnon angrily refused.\nApollo.\nApollo.\nBerlin Museum.\n\nHe dismissed The priest with scorn, and added threatening words:\u2014 \"Old man, let me not find thee loitering here, Beside the roomy ships, or coming back Hereafter, lest the fillet thou dost bear And scepter of thy god protect thee not. This maiden I release not till old age Shall overtake her in my Argive home, Far from her native country.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book I.\n\nChryses then departed from the Grecian camp, and as he returned home in sorrow, walking along the shores of the sea, he prayed to Apollo to punish the insult thus offered to his priest.\n\n\"O Smintheus! if I ever helped to deck Thy glorious temple, if I ever burned Upon thy altar the fat thighs of goats And bullocks, grant my prayer, and let thy shafts Avenge upon the Greeks the tears I shed.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book I.\n\nApollo heard the prayer of Chryses, and he sent a deadly plague upon the Grecian army. With his silver bow, every clang of which was heard throughout the camp, the archer god darted his terrible arrows among the Greeks, smiting them down in great numbers.\n\nHe came as comes the night, And, seated from the ships aloof, sent forth An arrow; terrible was heard the clang Of that resplendent bow. At first he smote The mules and the swift dogs, and then on man He turned the deadly arrow. All around Glared evermore the frequent funeral piles.\nBryant, Iliad, Book I.\n\nFor nine days the arrows of death were sent upon the Greek army, and the funeral piles of the victims were continually burning, for it was the custom in those times to burn the bodies of the dead. On the tenth day of the plague Achilles called a council of the chiefs to consider how the anger of the god might be appeased, and he spoke before them, saying:\n\"Let us consult some prophet or priest who will tell us why Ph\u0153bus Apollo is so much enraged with us, and whether he may, when we shall have offered sacrifices upon his altar, take away this pestilence which is destroying our people.\"\nThen Calchas, the soothsayer, arose and said:\n\"O Achilles, I can tell why the god is wroth against us, and willing I am to tell it, but perhaps I may irritate the king who rules over all the Argives, and in his anger he may do evil to me. Promise me, therefore, your protection, and I will declare why this plague has come upon the Greeks.\"\n\"Fear nothing, O Calchas,\" answered Achilles. \"While I am alive not one of all the Greeks, not even Agamemnon himself, shall harm you.\"\n\n\"Fear nothing, but speak boldly out whate'er Thou knowest, and declare the will of heaven. For by Apollo, dear to Jove, whom thou, Calchas, dost pray to, when thou givest forth The sacred oracles to men of Greece, No man, while yet I live, and see the light Of day, shall lay a violent hand on thee.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book I.\n\nThus encouraged, Calchas announced to the chiefs that Apollo was angry because his priest had been dishonored and insulted by Agamemnon. This was why the people were perishing, and the wrath of the god could be appeased only by restoring Chryseis to her father, and sending a hundred victims to be offered in sacrifice to the god. Upon hearing these words Agamemnon was filled with anger against Calchas.\n\"Prophet of evil,\" he exclaimed, \"never have you spoken anything good for me. And now you say I must give up the maiden. I shall do so, since I wish not the destruction of the people, but another I must have, for it is not fitting that I alone of all the Argives shall be without a prize.\"\nTo this Achilles answered that there was no prize just then that Agamemnon could have. \"How can we give you a prize,\" said he, \"since all the spoils have already been divided? We cannot ask the people to return what has been given to them. Be satisfied then to let the maiden go. When we have taken the strong city of Troy we will compensate you fourfold.\"\n\"Not so,\" replied Agamemnon. \"If the Greeks give me a suitable prize, I shall be content, but if not, I will seize yours or that of Ajax or Ulysses. This matter, however, we will attend to afterwards. For the present let the maid be sent back to her father, that the wrath of the Far-darter may be appeased.\"\nAt this Achilles was very angry, and he said:\n\"Impudent and greedy man, how can the Greeks fight bravely under your command? As for me, I did not come here to make war against the Trojans because of any quarrel of my own. The Trojans have done no wrong to me. It is to get satisfaction for your brother we have come here in our ships, and we do most of the fighting while to you is given most of the spoils. But now I will return home to Phthia. Perhaps you will then have little treasure to share.\"\nGreatly enraged at this speech, Agamemnon replied in wrathful words: \"Go home, by all means, with your ships and your Myrmidons. Other chiefs there are here who will honor me, and I care not for your anger.\"\n\n\"Thus, in turn, I threaten thee; since Ph\u0153bus takes away Chryseis, I will send her in my ship And with my friends, and, coming to thy tent, Will bear away the fair-cheeked maid, thy prize, Briseis, that thou learn how far I stand Above thee, and that other chiefs may fear To measure strength with me, and brave my power.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book I.\n\nFurious at this threat, Achilles put his hand to his sword with the intention of slaying Agamemnon, and he had half drawn the weapon from its scabbard, but just at that moment the goddess Minerva stood behind him and caught him by his yellow hair. She had been sent down from heaven by Juno to pacify the hero, for Juno and Minerva were friendly to the Greeks. Ever since the judgment on Mount Ida they hated Paris, and the city and country to which he belonged, and therefore they wished that there should be no strife amongst the Greek chiefs, which would prevent them from taking and destroying the hated city.\nAchilles was astonished when he beheld the goddess, who appeared to him alone, being invisible to all the rest. He instantly knew who she was, and he said to her: \"O goddess, have you come to witness the insolence of the son of Atreus? You shall also witness the punishment I shall inflict upon him for his haughtiness.\"\nBut Minerva spoke soothing words to the hero:\n\n\"I came from heaven to pacify thy wrath, If thou wilt heed my counsel. I am sent By Juno the white-armed, to whom ye both Are dear, who ever watches o'er you both. Refrain from violence; let not thy hand Unsheath the sword, but utter with thy tongue Reproaches, as occasion may arise, For I declare what time shall bring to pass; Threefold amends shall yet be offered thee, In gifts of princely cost, for this day's wrong. Now calm thy angry spirit, and obey.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book I.\n\nThus Minerva spoke, and Achilles, answering her, said: \"Willingly, O goddess, shall I observe your command, though in my soul much enraged, for so it is better, since the gods are ever favorable to those who obey them.\"\nSo speaking he put his sword back into its scabbard, while the goddess swiftly returned to Olympus. Then the hero again addressed Agamemnon in bitter words, and he took a solemn oath on the scepter he held in his hand, that he would refuse to help the Greeks when they next should seek his aid for battle with the Trojans.\n\n\"Tremendous oath! inviolate to kings; By this I swear:\u2014when bleeding Greece again Shall call Achilles, she shall call in vain.\"\nPope, Iliad, Book I.\n\nThe venerable Nestor then arose to speak, and he begged the two chiefs to cease quarreling with each other, for the Trojans, he said, would greatly rejoice to hear of strife between the bravest men of the Greeks. He advised Achilles, though of a goddess-mother born, not to contend against his superior in authority, and he entreated Agamemnon not to dishonor Achilles, the bulwark of the Greeks, by taking away the prize which had been allotted to him.\n\n\"Forbid it, gods! Achilles should be lost, The pride of Greece, and bulwark of our host.\"\nPope, Iliad, Book I.\n\nBut the wise Nestor advised and entreated in vain. Agamemnon would not yield from his purpose of taking away the prize of Achilles, and so the council of the chiefs came to an end.\n\nRising from that strife of words, the twain Dissolved the assembly at the Grecian fleet.\nBryant, Iliad, Book I.\n\nAchilles deprived of Briseis.\nAchilles deprived of Briseis.\nDrawn by Hubbell.\nImmediately afterwards, by order of the king, the maiden Chryseis was conducted to her father's home, and sacrifices were offered to Apollo. The anger of the god being thus appeased, the army was relieved from the plague. Then Agamemnon proceeded to carry out his threat against Achilles. Calling two of his officers, or heralds, Tal-thyb\u02b9i-us and Eu-ryb\u02b9a-tes, he commanded them thus:\n\n\"Go ye to where Achilles holds his tent, And take the fair Briseis by the hand, And bring her hither. If he yield her not, I shall come forth to claim her with a band Of warriors, and it shall be worse for him.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book I.\n\nAchilles received the heralds respectfully. He had no blame for them, since they were but messengers. Nor did he refuse to obey the command of the king. He delivered Briseis to the heralds, and they conducted her to the tent of Agamemnon. Thus was committed the deed which brought countless woes upon the Greeks, for Achilles, in deep grief and anger, vowed that he would no more lead his Myrmidons to battle for a king who had so dishonored and insulted him.\n\"Let these heralds,\" said he, \"be the witnesses before gods and men of the insult offered to me by this tyrant king, and when there shall be need of me again to save the Greeks from destruction, appeal to me shall be in vain.\"\nSuch was the origin of the wrath of Achilles, which is the subject of Homer's Iliad. The Iliad is not a complete story of the Trojan War, but an account of the disasters which happened to the Greeks through the anger of Achilles. The poem, indeed, relates the events of only fifty-eight days, but they were events of the highest interest and they were very numerous. It is remarked by Pope that the subject of the Iliad is the shortest and most single ever chosen by any poet. Yet Homer has supplied a vaster variety of incidents, a greater number of councils, speeches, battles, and events of all kinds, than are to be found in any other poem.\nThe Iliad begins with the wrath of Achilles, which in the first line of the first book is announced as the poet's theme:\n\nAchilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring Of woes unnumber'd, heavenly goddess, sing! That wrath which hurl'd to Pluto's gloomy reign The souls of mighty chiefs untimely slain; Whose limbs unburied on the naked shore, Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore: Since great Achilles and Atrides strove, Such was the sovereign doom, and such the will of Jove!\nPope, Iliad, Book I.\n\nThe heavenly goddess here invoked was Calli\u02b9ope, the patroness of epic song, and one of the nine Muses. These were sister deities, daughters of Jupiter, who presided over poetry, science, music, and dancing. Apollo, as god of music and the fine arts, was their leader. They held their meetings on the top of Mount Par-nas'sus in Greece. On the slope of this mount was the celebrated spring or fountain of Cas-ta\u02b9li-a, whose waters were supposed to give the true poetic spirit to all who drank of them.\nThe epic poets usually began their poems by invoking the aid of the Muse. Homer does this in the very first line of the Iliad, the word for word translation of which is: \"O goddess, sing the wrath of Achilles, the son of Peleus.\"\nSo also the English poet, Milton, begins his great epic poem, \"Paradise Lost,\" which tells about the disobedience of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden:\n\nOf man's first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste Brought death into the world, and all our woe, With loss of Eden, till one greater Man Restore us, and regain the blissful seat, Sing, heavenly Muse, that, on the secret top Of Oreb or of Sinai, didst inspire That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed In the beginning how the heavens and earth Rose out of Chaos; or, if Sion hill Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flow'd Fast by the oracle of God, I thence Invoke thy aid to my advent'rous song.\n\n\n\nVI. THE DREAM OF AGAMEMNON.\nVery soon great evils came upon the Greeks because of the strife between the chiefs. When Chryseis was restored to her father, Apollo stopped the plague; but the wrong done to Achilles provoked the anger of another deity. This was Thetis, who, having much power with Jupiter, was able to persuade him to take up the cause of her injured son.\nFor as soon as the heralds departed from his tent, leading away the fair-cheeked Briseis, Achilles withdrew from his friends, retired to the seashore, and sitting there alone he bitterly wept, and with outstretched hands prayed to his mother, Thetis. The goddess heard his voice, and ascending from the depths of the ocean, where she dwelt in the palace of her aged father, Nereus, she sat down beside the hero, and soothing him with her hand, she inquired the cause of his distress. \"Why do you weep, my son? What grief has come upon thy mind?\"\nThen Achilles related to his mother what Agamemnon had done, and he begged her to go to Mount Olympus and entreat Jupiter to punish the insult that had been offered to her son. He spoke of the service she had done for Jupiter long before, when Juno, Neptune, and Minerva had made a plot to bind him, and cast him from the throne of heaven. They might have succeeded in doing this if Thetis had not called Bri\u02b9a-reus up from Pluto's kingdom to help Jupiter. Briareus was a mighty giant who had a hundred hands, and his appearance in Olympus so terrified the conspirators that they did not attempt to carry out their wicked plot.\n\"Now,\" said Achilles to his mother, \"remind Jupiter of this, and beg him to aid the Trojans and give them victory in battle, so that Agamemnon may feel the effects of his folly in dishonoring me.\"\n\n\"Ascend to heaven and bring thy prayer to Jove, If e'er by word or act thou gav'st him aid. For I remember, in my father's halls I often heard thee, glorying, tell how thou, Alone of all the gods, didst interpose To save the cloud-compeller, Saturn's son, From shameful overthrow, when all the rest Who dwell upon Olympus had conspired To bind him,\u2014Juno, Neptune, and with them Pallas Athene. Thou didst come and loose His bonds, and call up to the Olympian heights The hundred-handed, whom the immortal gods Have named Briareus.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book I.\n\nThetis readily consented to do as her son desired.\n\"Not now, however!\" said she, \"for yesterday Jupiter went to E-thi-o\u02b9pi-a to a banquet, and all the gods went with him. But in twelve days he will return. Then I will go to Olympus and tell your words to thunder-delighting Jove, and I think I shall be able to persuade him to grant your request.\"\n\n\"Thou, meanwhile, abide By thy swift ships, incensed against the Greeks, And take no part in all their battles more.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book I.\n\nThetis did not forget her promise. On the twelfth day, at the dawn of morning, she emerged from beneath the waves, and went up to Olympus. There she threw herself at the feet of Jupiter, as he sat on the summit of the mount apart from the other gods, and earnestly prayed him to grant victory to the Trojans until the Greeks should make amends to her son for the injury that had been done him.\nNow it may seem that it was not just to ask that the whole Greek army should be punished for the act of their general. But the other chiefs and their people were hardly less to blame than Agamemnon, for they did not try to prevent him from doing the wrong. If they had opposed him very much, he would not perhaps have dared to insult their greatest warrior, the man without whose help they knew Troy could not be taken. Therefore Thetis begged Jupiter to punish all the Greeks by giving victory to the Trojans.\n\n\"O Jupiter, my father, if among The immortals I have ever given thee aid By word or act, deny not my request. Honor my son whose life is doomed to end So soon; for Agamemnon, king of men, Hath done him shameful wrong: he takes from him And keeps the prize he won in war. But thou, Olympian Jupiter, supremely wise, Honor him thou, and give the Trojan host The victory, until the humbled Greeks Heap large increase of honors on my son.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book I.\n\nJupiter hesitated for some time before consenting to grant the prayer of Thetis.\n\"This,\" said he, \"is a serious matter, for by doing as you desire I may give offense to Juno, who has already been blaming me among the gods, saying that I aid the Trojans in battle. However, since you will have it so, I shall grant your request.\"\n\n\"And that thou Mayst be assured, behold, I give the nod; For this, with me, the immortals know, portends The highest certainty; no word of mine Which once my nod confirms can be revoked, Or prove untrue, or fail to be fulfilled.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book I.\n\nThe awful nod was then given, and mighty Olympus trembled. Thetis, rejoicing at the success of her mission, departed from the heavenly regions and plunged into the depths of the sea, while Jupiter went to his golden palace where the other gods were sitting around the banqueting table. As he entered all rose up to do him honor, and met him as he advanced to his throne. But his talk with Thetis had not escaped the notice of Juno, and suspecting what it was about, she addressed her spouse in harsh words.\n\"Thou art ever,\" said she, \"plotting secret things apart from me, and now I greatly fear that the silver-footed Thetis has persuaded thee to do some evil to the Greeks.\"\n\n\"Thou hast promised her, I cannot doubt, To give Achilles honor and to cause Myriads of Greeks to perish by their fleet.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book I.\n\n\"You are always suspecting,\" answered Jupiter, \"but now it will avail you nothing. Even though I have done what you say, such is my sovereign pleasure. Be silent, and sit down in peace, and take care not to provoke my anger.\"\nJuno.\nJuno.\nNational Museum, Naples.\nAt this point Vulcan interfered, entreating his mother, Juno, to submit to the will of almighty Jove; \"for,\" said he, \"if the Thunderer wishes to hurl us from our seats in heaven he can easily do it, since his power is far greater than that of all the other gods.\"\nVulcan then reminded her how she and he had both been punished on a former occasion for an offense against Jupiter. When Hercules was returning to Greece from Troy after capturing that city, Juno, who hated the great hero, caused a storm to be raised in the \u00c6gean Sea, which drove his ships out of their course and almost destroyed them. That she might do this without Jupiter knowing it, she contrived to cast him into a deep sleep. When he awoke and found out what she had done, he was so angry that he hung her from the heavens by a golden chain, and tied two heavy iron anvils to her feet. Vulcan tried to loose the chains and set his mother free, and for this offense Jupiter hurled him from the abode of the gods. He fell on the island of Lem'nos in the \u00c6gean Sea, but some of the inhabitants, seeing him descend, caught him in their arms. Nevertheless, he broke his leg by the fall and was ever afterwards lame.\n\nHow he fell From heaven they fabled, thrown by angry Jove Sheer o'er the crystal battlements; from morn To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve, A summer's day; and with the setting sun Dropped from the zenith, like a falling star, On Lemnos, the \u00c6gean isle.\nMilton, Paradise Lost, Book I.\n\nAfter reminding Juno of these things, and restoring peace between her and the king of heaven, Vulcan took upon himself the office of cupbearer. He poured nectar into golden goblets and served it round to the gods and goddesses, all of whom laughed at the sight of the lame god bustling through the banqueting hall performing the work of Ganymede. They feasted till sunset, Apollo giving them sweet music from his lyre, while the goddesses of song accompanied him with their voices.\n\nThus the blest gods the genial day prolong, In feasts ambrosial, and celestial song. Apollo tuned the lyre; the Muses round With voice alternate aid the silver sound.\nPope, Iliad, Book I.\n\nWhen the banquet was over, the gods and goddesses retired to their palaces,\u2014golden palaces built by Vulcan,\u2014and they sought repose in sleep. But Jupiter did not sleep, for he was thinking how he might carry out his promise to Thetis. After much thought he resolved to send a message to Agamemnon by means of a dream, telling him to lead his forces at once against Troy, as it was the will of the gods that the city should now fall into the hands of the Greeks. And so this false Dream or Lying Spirit was sent on its deceitful errand. It took the form of the venerable Nestor, and, appearing to Agamemnon while he was sleeping in his tent, delivered to him the command of Jupiter:\n\n\"Monarch, awake! 'tis Jove's command I bear; Thou and thy glory claim his heavenly care. In just array draw forth the embattled train, Lead all thy Grecians to the dusty plain; E'en now, O king! 'tis given thee to destroy The lofty towers of wide-extended Troy.\"\nPope, Iliad, Book II.\n\nAs soon as Agamemnon awoke he hastily called a council of the chiefs to meet at the ships of Nestor. There he told them of the command of Jove, as sent to him in his dream. All agreed that the divine will should be obeyed, but Agamemnon, like a prudent general, thought it would be well, before going to battle, to find out whether the troops, after their toils of nine years, were still willing to support him in carrying on the war. With this object he resolved to try the plan of pretending to them that he had made up his mind to stop the siege and return at once to Greece. But he directed the chiefs to advise their followers not to consent to the proposal, and to encourage them to make one more fight for the honor of their country. Then the heralds summoned the whole army to assemble, and the vast host gathered together on the plain before the camp, to listen to the words of their commander. Homer's description of the muster of the forces on this occasion is very beautiful:\n\nThe sceptred rulers lead; the following host, Pour'd forth by thousands, darkens all the coast. As from some rocky cleft the shepherd sees Clustering in heaps on heaps the driving bees, Rolling and blackening, swarms succeeding swarms, With deeper murmurs and more hoarse alarms; Dusky they spread, a close embodied crowd, And o'er the vale descends the living cloud. So, from the tents and ships, a lengthen'd train Spreads all the beach, and wide o'ershades the plain: Along the region runs a deafening sound; Beneath their footsteps groans the trembling ground.\nPope, Iliad, Book II.\n\nThe whole Greek army being thus assembled, with the exception of the wrathful Achilles and his Myrmidons, Agamemnon then addressed them, leaning on his scepter. He told them he now believed that Troy could not be taken, and that Jupiter, who before promised victory to the Greeks, now commanded them to return to Argos.\n\"Let us therefore,\" said he, \"get ready our ships and hasten to set sail for our dear native land, where our wives with our beloved children sit within their dwellings expecting us.\" The proposal was received with a loud shout of joy, and the moment the king finished speaking, the vast multitude began at once to make preparations for launching the vessels into the sea.\n\nSo was the whole assembly swayed; they ran With tumult to the ships; beneath their feet Rose clouds of dust, and each exhorted each To seize the ships and drag them to the deep.\nBryant, Iliad, Book II.\n\nBut Juno, from her seat on high Olympus, was watching these movements, and she resolved that the war against the hated Trojans should not thus come to an end. She therefore sent Minerva down with a message to Ulysses. The azure-eyed goddess, as Minerva is often called by Homer, hastened to the Grecian camp, and approached the Ithacan king, who was standing near his ships, much grieved at seeing his countrymen preparing to depart. Minerva addressed him in earnest words, begging him to use his influence with the Greeks and persuade them not to go.\n\"It cannot be,\" said she, \"that you, brave chiefs, will leave to Priam the glory of victory, and to the Trojans possession of Helen, on whose account so many of your people have perished, far from their native land.\"\nUlysses knew the voice of the goddess, and promptly he complied with her request. He went among the ships and talked to the leaders, reminding them that it was not Agamemnon's wish that they should give up the war, and entreating them to set an example of courage to their followers.\n\n\"Warriors like you, with strength and wisdom bless'd, By brave examples should confirm the rest.\"\nPope, Iliad, Book II.\n\nHe also spoke to the soldiers, reproving them for their hasty flight, and bidding them listen to the words of their leaders, who knew better than they when and how to act. His efforts were successful. As speedily as they had fled to their ships the Greeks now rushed back, and again assembled to await the orders of their commander.\n\nBack to the assembly roll the thronging train, Desert the ships, and pour upon the plain.\nPope, Iliad, Book II.\n\nBut there was one evil-minded individual who tried to incite the others to rebellion. This was Ther-si\u02b9tes, a vulgar brawler, and the ugliest man in the whole Greek army.\n\nOf the multitude Who came to Ilium, none so base as he,\u2014 Squint-eyed, with one lame foot, and on his back A lump, and shoulders curving towards the chest; His head was sharp, and over it the hairs Were thinly scattered.\nBryant, Iliad, Book II.\n\nThis ill-conditioned grumbler, as deformed in mind as in body, took much pleasure in abusing the bravest warriors of the army, particularly Achilles and Ulysses. But on the present occasion he raised his shrill voice in words of insult against Agamemnon. \"Your tents,\" cried he to the king, \"are full of money and prizes bestowed upon you by us. Do you want still more gold, which we by our valor must win for you from the enemy? If the Greeks were not women instead of men, they would return home in their ships and leave you here to fight the Trojans. Little honor and few prizes would you then have!\"\n\n\"O ye coward race! Ye abject Greeklings, Greeks no longer, haste Homeward with all the fleet, and let us leave This man at Troy to win his trophies here.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book II.\n\nThus did Thersites revile Agamemnon, but his insolent speech brought speedy punishment upon him. Ulysses, who was close at hand, turned with angry looks upon the offender and rebuked him in stern language. Then with his scepter he smote Thersites on the back and shoulders, until he wept with pain and crouched down upon his seat in fear and trembling.\n\nTrembling he sat, and shrunk in abject fears, From his vile visage wiped the scalding tears.\nPope, Iliad, Book II.\n\nAll the Greeks laughed heartily at the cowering wretch as he wiped his face, and they loudly applauded the act of the Ithacan chief. \"Surely,\" said they, \"Ulysses has performed many good deeds, but now he has done the best thing of all in punishing this foul-mouthed reviler as he deserved.\"\nThen Ulysses, taking in his hand the famous scepter of Agamemnon, made an eloquent speech to the army, Minerva, the azure-eyed, in the appearance of a herald, having commanded the people to be silent, that they might hear the words of the wisest of their leaders. It was upon this occasion that the Ithacan king told the story of the serpent devouring the birds at Aulis, as already related. Many of the Greeks had forgotten the marvelous occurrence, and the prediction of Calchas that in the tenth year of the siege Troy would be taken. Being now reminded of it, they were filled with fresh hope and courage, for the tenth year had come, and the end of the contest was not far off, which was to be for them a great victory, as the soothsayer had declared. \"Therefore, brave Greeks,\" said Ulysses, after telling the story, \"since the prophecy is so near its fulfillment, let us all remain here until we have captured the city of Priam.\"\n\n\n\nHe spake, and loud applause thereon ensued From all the Greeks, and fearfully the ships Rang with the clamorous voices uttering The praises of Ulysses, and his words.\nBryant, Iliad, Book II.\n\nThe venerable Nestor and King Agamemnon then addressed the troops, after which they all went to their tents and ships to prepare for battle. They began by making the customary sacrifices to the gods, Agamemnon offered up a fat ox five years old. Homer fully describes how this was done. First the king and his chiefs stood around the ox, holding pounded barley cakes in their upraised hands, and praying to Jupiter to grant them victory in the approaching battle. After the prayer the ox was killed, and the carcass cut into pieces. Portions of the flesh were then burned on leafless billets, while other portions were roasted for the banquet which followed.\nAfter the banquet the loud-voiced heralds summoned all the warriors and their followers to assemble. Immediately they came from their ships and tents, and then, on the advice of Nestor, there was a review of the whole army. The azure-eyed Minerva moved amongst them, bearing in her hand the \u00e6gis, or shield of Jupiter, from which hung a hundred golden fringes, each \"worth a hundred oxen in price.\" She went through the hosts of the Greeks encouraging them to fight bravely, and so they were now more eager for battle than to return to their native land.\nIt is at this part of his story\u2014the review of the forces\u2014that Homer gives the remarkable account known as the \"Catalogue of the Ships.\" In it he tells the names of all the Greek kings and princes and chiefs, the Grecian states from which they came, and the number of ships which each brought to the war. To do this was no easy task, and so the poet, before undertaking it, again seeks the aid of the Muses:\n\nO Muses, goddesses who dwell on high, Tell me,\u2014for all things ye behold and know, While we know nothing and may only hear The random tales of rumor,\u2014tell me who Were chiefs and princes of the Greeks; for I Should fail to number and to name them all,\u2014 Had I ten tongues, ten throats, a voice unapt To weary, uttered from a heart of brass,\u2014 Unless the Muses aided me.\nBryant, Iliad, Book II.\n\nThe allies and leaders of the Trojans are also named and described in the \"Catalogue of the Ships,\" for they too were marshaling their forces within the city. From their walls they had observed the movements of the Greeks, and, moreover, Jupiter had sent down his swift-footed messenger, I\u02b9ris, to bid them get ready for battle. The goddess found Priam and Hector and others of the chiefs of Troy sitting in council, and she told them of the vast host of the Greeks that was just then marching towards the city.\n\n\"I have seen many battles, yet have ne'er Beheld such armies, and so vast as these,\u2014 In number like the sands and summer leaves. They march across the plain, prepared to give Battle beneath the city walls. To thee, O Hector, it belongs to heed my voice And counsel. Many are the allies within The walls of this great town of Priam, men Of diverse race and speech. Let every chief Of these array his countrymen for war, And give them orders for the coming fight.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book II.\n\nHector promptly obeyed the command of the goddess. Dismissing the council, he and the other chiefs at once placed themselves at the head of their troops and marched forth through the gates into the plain.\n\n\nVII. THE COMBAT BETWEEN MENELAUS AND PARIS.\nThe two great armies, now in battle array on the plain before the city walls, began to advance towards each other. The Trojans moved along with great clatter, which Homer compares to the noise of flocks of cranes:\n\nThe Trojan host moved on With shouts and clang of arms, as when the cry Of cranes is in the air, that, flying south From winter and its mighty breadth of rain, Wing their way over ocean.\nBryant, Iliad, Book III.\n\nThe Greeks, on the other hand, advanced in deep silence.\n\nBut silently the Greeks Went forward, breathing valor, mindful still To aid each other in the coming fray. As when the south wind shrouds a mountain-top In vapors that awake the shepherd's fear,\u2014 A surer covert for the thief than night,\u2014 And round him one can only see as far As one can hurl a stone,\u2014such was the cloud Of dust that from the warriors' trampling feet Rose round their rapid march and filled the air.\nBryant, Iliad, Book III.\n\nAs soon as the armies approached each other, almost front to front, Paris rushed forward from the Trojan lines, and challenged the Greeks to send their bravest warrior to fight him in simple combat. In appearance he was beautiful as a god. Over his shoulders he wore a panther's skin. His weapons were a bow, a sword, and two spears tipped with brass, which he brandished in his hands. The challenge was speedily answered by Menelaus, who bounded from his chariot the moment he beheld Paris, rejoicing that at last the time had come to have revenge on the man who had so greatly wronged him.\n\nAs a hungry lion who has made A prey of some large beast\u2014a horned stag Or mountain goat\u2014rejoices, and with speed Devours it, though swift hounds and sturdy youths Press on his flank, so Menelaus felt Great joy when Paris, of the godlike form, Appeared in sight, for now he thought to wreak His vengence on the guilty one, and straight Sprang from his car to earth with all his arms.\nBryant, Iliad, Book III.\n\nBut when Paris saw who it was that had come forth to fight him, he was seized with a great fear, and he shrank back into the ranks of his companions.\n\nAs one who meets within a mountain glade A serpent, starts aside with sudden fright, And takes the backward way with trembling limbs.\nBryant, Iliad, Book III.\n\nThough Paris was really a brave man, his feeling of his own guilt and the sight of Menelaus, whom he had injured, made him a coward for the moment, and so he fled from before the face of the enraged king of Sparta. The noble Hector was deeply vexed at seeing his brother's flight, and in angry words upbraided him for his shameful conduct.\n\"Better would it have been,\" said he, \"if you had never been born than thus to bring disgrace upon us all. Well may the Greeks laugh at finding that you, whom they supposed to be a hero, possess neither spirit nor courage. You have brought evil on your father, your city, and your people, by carrying away a beautiful woman from her husband, yet you now fear to meet that warrior in battle. The Trojans are but a weak-minded race, else they would have long since given you the death you deserve.\"\nParis admitted that his brother's rebuke was just, and he now declared that he was willing to meet Menelaus in single combat, Helen and her treasures to be the prize of the victor.\n\n\"Cause the Trojans and the Greeks To pause from battle, while, between the hosts, I and the warlike Menelaus strive In single fight for Helen and her wealth. Whoever shall prevail and prove himself The better warrior, let him take with him The treasure and the woman, and depart; While all the other Trojans, having made A faithful league of amity? shall dwell On Ilium's fertile plain, and all the Greeks Return to Argos.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book III.\n\nHector rejoiced at his brother's words, and, immediately going forward into the center of the open space between the two armies, he spoke in a loud voice to the Greeks and Trojans, telling them of the proposal which Paris had made. The brave Menelaus heard the challenge with delight, and promptly accepted it.\n\n\"Now hear me also,\u2014me whose spirit feels The wrong most keenly. I propose that now The Greeks and Trojans separate reconciled, For greatly have ye suffered for the sake Of this my quarrel, and the original fault Of Paris. Whomsoever fate ordains To perish, let him die; but let the rest Be from this moment reconciled, and part.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book III.\n\nThe Greeks and Trojans were happy at the hope thus offered of a speedy end to the war. Hector sent for King Priam, that he and Agamemnon and the other leaders on both sides might declare their approval of the proposed conditions, and pledge themselves in the presence of both armies to abide by the result of the combat between the two heroes. Just then the Trojan monarch was seated on one of the watchtowers of the walls, looking down on the plain where the great hosts were assembled. With him were several of his venerable chiefs, now too old to take part in fighting.\nWhile they sat there the beautiful Helen came out from the palace to witness the approaching conflict. She had been told of it by the messenger Iris, who, descending from heaven, and taking the form of La-od\u02b9i-ce, one of Priam's daughters, appeared to Helen in her chamber. There she was busy at her loom, making in golden tapestry a representation of some of the great events of the war. In those days, as we read in many parts of Homer, the noblest ladies, even queens and their daughters, did not think it beneath them to work at spinning and weaving and other useful occupations, and so Helen was employed when Iris came to tell her that Paris and Menelaus were about to fight for her and her treasure.\nHelen of Troy.\nHelen of Troy.\nPainting by Lord Leighton.\nFrom her spinning Helen rose up and went to the walls to view the combat. As she came near the place where Priam sat, even the venerable chiefs were compelled to admire her wondrous beauty. \"Fair as the immortal goddesses she is,\" said they; \"yet much better would it be if she would return to her own country, and not remain here to bring ruin upon us and our children.\" But Priam called to her to sit by his side, and said to her:\n\n\"No crime of thine our present sufferings draws, Not thou, but Heaven's disposing will, the cause The gods these armies and this force employ, The hostile gods conspire the fate of Troy.\"\nPope, Iliad, Book III.\n\nThen King Priam asked Helen to name for him some of the Greek leaders whom he saw before him, not far from the city walls.\n\"Who is that tall and gallant hero,\" he asked, \"who seems like unto a king? Never have I beheld a man so graceful, nor so venerable.\" \"Revered and honored father,\" answered Helen, \"would that death had taken me before I left my husband and home to come with your son hither, but the Fates did not will it so, therefore am I here. That hero whom you see is the wide-ruling Agamemnon, the son of Atreus, both a good king and a brave warrior, and once my brother-in-law.\"\n\n\"My brother once, before my days of shame, And oh! that still he bore a brother's name!\"\nPope, Iliad, Book III.\n\n\"O happy Agamemnon,\" exclaimed Priam, \"fortunate in ruling over so mighty a host! But who is this other chief, less in height than Agamemnon, though broader in the shoulders? His arms lie on the ground, while he himself moves from rank to rank like a thick-fleeced ram which wanders through a great flock of sheep.\"\n\n\"The stately ram thus measures o'er the ground, And, master of the flock, surveys them round.\"\nPope, Iliad, Book III.\n\n\"That,\" said Helen, \"is the wise Ulysses, man of many arts. Though nursed in a rugged island, yet is he skilled in all kinds of stratagem and prudent counsel.\" Ajax and Idomeneus were next noticed by King Priam,\u2014Ajax the mighty, who overtopped the Argives by his head and shoulders, and Idomeneus the valiant king of Crete. Helen knew them well, for she had seen them at her Spartan home.\n\n\"Ajax the great,\" the beauteous queen replied, \"Himself a host; the Grecian strength and pride. See! bold Idomeneus superior towers Amid yon circle of his Cretan powers, Great as a god! I saw him once before, With Menelaus on the Spartan shore. The rest I know, and could in order name; All valiant chiefs, and men of mighty fame.\"\nPope, Iliad, Book III.\n\nBut at this point the heralds sent by Hector came to tell Priam that he was wanted on the plain below to approve the terms of the challenge. Immediately the king, descending from the ramparts, mounted his chariot, accompanied by his wise counselor, Antenor. They drove through the Sc\u00e6an Gate into the space between both armies, and there, with the ceremonies usual on such occasions, a solemn league was formed between the two monarchs. First, they mixed in a bowl wine brought by both parties. This was an emblem of reconciliation. Next, water was poured on the hands of the kings, after which Agamemnon cut with his dagger hairs from the heads of three lambs. These were divided among the chiefs on both sides, so that all might be bound by the pledge about to be made. Then Agamemnon, stretching forth his hands, prayed thus aloud:\n\"O father Jupiter, most glorious, most mighty, and thou, O Sun, who beholdest all things, and ye rivers, and thou earth, and ye in the regions of the dead that punish those who swear false oaths, be ye witnesses of this league. If, on the one hand, Paris slay Menelaus, let him keep Helen and all her possessions, and let us return home in our ships. But if, on the contrary, Menelaus slay Paris, let the Trojans restore Helen and all her treasures, and pay a fine to the Argives such as may be just.\"\nThen the lambs were sacrificed, and the kings drank of the mixed wine. Some of it was also poured on the earth, while the Greeks and Trojans joined in praying that terrible punishment might be sent upon any person who should violate the league:\n\n\"Hear, mighty Jove! and hear, ye gods on high! And may their blood, who first the league confound, Shed like this wine, disdain the thirsty ground.\"\nPope, Iliad, Book III.\n\nSuch was the league formed between the kings and chiefs of the two great armies. Priam then went back to the city, for he could not bear to witness a conflict in which his son might be slain. Lots were now drawn to decide which of the warriors should cast his spear first. Paris won, and immediately the champions, putting on their armor and taking up their weapons, advanced into the middle of the ground that Hector and Ulysses had measured out for the combat.\nThen the fight began. Paris hurled his javelin, but Menelaus warded off the blow with his strong brazen shield. In his turn the Spartan king poised his long spear for a throw at his enemy. At the same time he prayed to Jupiter to give him strength and victory:\n\n\"O Sovereign Jove! vouchsafe that I avenge On guilty Paris wrongs which he was first To offer; let him fall beneath my hand, That men may dread hereafter to requite The friendship of a host with injury.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book III.\n\nThen Menelaus cast his spear. It pierced the shield and corselet of Paris, and might have made a fatal wound had he not bent himself sideways, and so escaped the full force of the weapon. Instantly Menelaus rushed forward, sword in hand, and dealt a powerful blow at his enemy's head. This time Paris was saved by the brazen helmet he wore, for when Menelaus struck it, the blade of his sword broke in pieces.\nAngry at his ill luck, the Spartan warrior seized his foe by the horsehair crest of his helmet, and began to drag him towards the Grecian lines; but at this point Venus came to the aid of her favorite. Standing unseen beside him, she broke the helmet strap under his chin, and thus released him from the grasp of the wrathful Menelaus. Then she cast a thick mist around the Trojan prince, and, carrying him off to the city, set him down in his chamber, within his own palace. The goddess also conducted Helen to the palace, from the watchtower in which, after her conversation with Priam, she had remained to witness the combat on the plain. As soon as Helen beheld Paris she spoke to him in harsh words:\n\n\"Com'st thou from battle? Rather would that thou Hadst perished by the mighty hand of him Who was my husband. It was once, I know, Thy boast that thou wert more than peer in strength And power of hand, and practice with the spear, To warlike Menelaus. Go then now, Defy him to the combat once again. And yet I counsel thee to stand aloof, Nor rashly seek a combat, hand to hand, With fair-haired Menelaus, lest perchance He smite thee with his spear and thou be slain.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book III.\n\nMeanwhile the Spartan king, furious as a lion, paced up and down the field searching for Paris, but not even the Trojans could tell where he was. If he were amongst them they would not have concealed him, for they loved him not, knowing that he was the cause of all the sufferings which the long war had brought upon them.\n\nNone of all The Trojans, or of their renowned allies, Could point him out to Menelaus, loved Of Mars; and had they known his lurking-place They would not for his sake have kept him hid, For like black death they hated him.\nBryant, Iliad, Book III.\n\nParis having disappeared from the field, the Greeks claimed the victory for their champion, and Agamemnon called upon the Trojans to give up Helen and her treasures, in accordance with the conditions of the league. But the gods did not thus will it. The Fates had decreed the destruction of Troy, and so the war could not have a peaceful ending. Besides, the Greeks were doomed to suffer as Jupiter had promised Thetis, because of the wrong that had been done to Achilles. Therefore, after the matter had been discussed in a council of the gods in their golden palace on Olympus, Minerva was sent down to urge the Trojans to attack the Greeks, so that the league might be broken, and the war renewed. According to the custom of heavenly messengers in such cases, the goddess took the form of La-od\u02b9o-cus, son of Antenor. Then, approaching Pan\u02b9da-rus, a famous archer of the Trojan allies, she persuaded him to aim an arrow at Menelaus.\n\"Great honor,\" she said, \"you will have from all the Trojans, if you slay the son of Atreus, and from Paris you may expect splendid gifts.\"\nBut Minerva, being friendly to the Greeks, did not really wish that Menelaus should be killed; therefore, when Pandarus bent his bow and with true aim let fly his arrow, she took care to turn the deadly weapon aside.\n\nPallas assists, and (weakened in its force) Diverts the weapon from its destined course: So from her babe, when slumber seals his eye, The watchful mother wafts the envenom'd fly.\nPope, Iliad, Book IV.\n\nNevertheless the arrow pierced the Spartan king's belt and made a slight wound, but the skillful surgeon, Ma-cha\u02b9on, son of the famous physician, \u00c6sculapius, stanched the blood and applied soothing balsams which his father had taught him to use.\nThe league being thus broken by the treacherous act of Pandarus, both sides at once prepared for battle. Agamemnon went on foot through his army, speaking words of praise to the chiefs, whom he found active in marshaling and encouraging their men. \"Father Jupiter,\" he said, \"will not help those Trojans who have so basely broken their solemn pledges. When we have taken their city we shall carry away rich spoils in our ships.\" Of all the leaders none arranged and directed his troops more wisely than the venerable Nestor.\n\nThe cavalry with steeds and cars he placed In front. A vast and valiant multitude Of infantry he stationed in the rear, To be the bulwark of the war. Between He made the faint of spirit take their place, That, though unwillingly, they might be forced To combat with the rest.\nBryant, Iliad, Book IV.\n\nThen he gave strict orders to the charioteers, warning them not to trust too much to their valor, or rashly advance in front of their comrades.\n\n\"Let no man, too vain of horsemanship, And trusting in his valor, dare advance Beyond the rest to attack the men of Troy, Nor let him fall behind the rest, to make Our ranks the weaker. Whoso from his car Can reach an enemy's, let him stand and strike With his long spear, for 'tis the shrewder way.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book IV.\n\nDecorative Warrior\n\n\nVIII. THE FIRST GREAT BATTLE.\nDecorative\nDesign by Burne-Jones.\nNearly three books of the Iliad are occupied in telling about the battle that now followed, though it lasted only one day. But it was a fierce and mighty conflict in which many brave warriors fought and fell.\n\nFor that day Saw many a Trojan slain, and many a Greek, Stretched side by side upon the bloody field.\nBryant, Iliad, Book IV.\n\nAll the chiefs of both armies took part in this battle, except Achilles, who still remained inactive at his ships, \"indignant for the sake of the fair-haired Briseis.\" The heroes of the day on the Trojan side were Hector and \u00c6neas. Of the Greeks (also sometimes called A-cha\u02b9ians) none performed so many feats of valor as Diomede (or Diomed), also called Ty-di\u02b9des, from the name of his father, Ty\u02b9deus. He was the particular favorite of Minerva, who caused a bright light to shine from his shield and helmet, which made him a striking figure in the field, and very terrible to the enemy.\n\nPallas to Tydides Diomed Gave strength and courage, that he might appear Among the Achaians greatly eminent, And win a glorious name. Upon his head And shield she caused a constant flame to play, Like to the autumnal star that shines in heaven Most brightly when new-bathed in ocean tides. Such light she caused to beam upon his crest And shoulders, as she sent the warrior forth Into the thick and tumult of the fight.\nBryant, Iliad, Book V.\n\nDiomede slew many brave warriors, and often, breaking through the close ranks of the Trojans, drove them back towards their walls, before he himself was smitten with an arrow sent flying at him by the archer Pandarus. The weapon pierced his shoulder right through, and the blood came streaming down his armor. Then Pandarus shouted to his comrades to advance, boasting that now the bravest of the Greeks was fatally wounded. But Diomede prayed to Minerva for aid, and his prayer was heard. Immediately the goddess appeared and stood beside him, and in an instant healed his wound. Then she encouraged him, saying: \"Henceforth fight with confidence, O Diomede. I have given you great strength. I have also removed from your eyes the mortal mists which heretofore were upon them, so that now you may know gods from men. Beware, however, of using your weapons against any god, unless Venus should come into the battle. Her I desire and command you to wound.\"\nMinerva.\nMinerva.\nVatican, Rome.\nWith fresh courage and increased fury Diomede again rushed into the conflict, striking down a Trojan with every blow of his huge sword. \u00c6neas, noticing his exploits, hastily sought out Pandarus and begged him to aim an arrow at the man who was thus destroying their ranks.\n\"That man,\" said Pandarus, \"very much resembles the warlike son of Tydeus, and if it be he, some god is surely at his side to protect him, for only a little ago I smote him in the shoulder, and I thought I had sent him to Pluto's kingdom. Of small use it seems is this bow of mine. Already I have aimed at two chiefs, Menelaus and Diomede, and wounded both, but I have only roused them the more to heroic deeds.\"\n\n\"In an evil hour I took my bow and quiver from the wall And came to lead the Trojans for the sake Of Hector. But if ever I return To see my native country and my wife And my tall spacious mansion, may some foe Strike off my head if with these hands I fail To break my bow in pieces, casting it Into the flames, a useless weapon now.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book V.\n\nBut \u00c6neas made the great archer try his skill once more. Taking Pandarus with him in his own chariot, he drove rapidly to where Diomede was dealing death amongst the Trojans with his terrible sword. Sthen\u02b9e-lus, the companion and charioteer of Diomede, saw them coming, and he advised his friend to retreat, and not risk his life in a contest with two such heroes as \u00c6neas and Pandarus, one the son of a goddess, and the other excelling all men in the use of the bow. But Diomede sternly refused to retire from the conflict. Nor would he even consent to mount his chariot as Sthenelus urged him to do.\n\"As I am,\" said he, \"I shall advance against them, for Minerva has made me fearless. And if it be my fortune to slay both, do you, Sthenelus, seize the horses of \u00c6neas and drive them into the ranks of the Greeks. Valuable prizes they will be, for they are of that heavenly breed which Jupiter gave to King Tros as the price of his son Ganymede.\"\nBut now the chariot of \u00c6neas was close at hand. This time Pandarus used his spear, which he launched with great force. It struck the shield of Diomede and, piercing it through, fixed itself in his breastplate. With a shout of joy Pandarus exclaimed, \"Now, I think, I have given you your death wound.\"\n\"Not so,\" replied the son of Tydeus, \"thou hast missed thy aim, but one of you, at least, shall die.\" As he spoke he hurled his lance. Directed by Minerva, the weapon flew right into the face of the unfortunate Pandarus, striking him lifeless to the earth.\n\nHeadlong he falls, his helmet knocks the ground; Earth groans beneath him, and his arms resound.\nPope, Iliad, Book V.\n\nInstantly \u00c6neas leaped down from his chariot, with his shield and spear, to defend the body of his heroic comrade against being despoiled by the Greeks. This was one of the customs of war in those times. When a hero was slain in battle the enemy carried off his arms and armor as trophies of victory. But \u00c6neas did his best to protect the corpse of his fallen friend from being thus dishonored.\n\nWatchful he wheels, protects it every way, As the grim lion stalks around his prey. O'er the fall'n trunk his ample shield displayed, He hides the hero with his mighty shade, And threats aloud! the Greeks with longing eyes Behold at distance, but forbear the prize.\nPope, Iliad, Book V.\n\nBut Diomede, braver than the rest, took up a great stone and hurled it at \u00c6neas.\n\nNot two strong men the enormous weight could raise, Such men as live in these degenerate days.\nPope, Iliad, Book. V.\n\nIt struck the Trojan hero on the hip, tearing the flesh and crushing the joint. He sank upon his knees, a dark mist covering his eyes. And now \u00c6neas would have perished by the sword of the furious Diomede had not his mother, Venus, come quickly to his aid. With her shining robe the goddess shielded his body, and spreading her arms about him she bore him away from the battle. Then Sthenelus, not forgetting the bidding of his friend, rushed forward, and, seizing the fleet steeds of the Dardan prince, drove them off to the Grecian camp.\nBut Diomede went in pursuit of Venus. He had seen and recognized her as she descended on the field, Minerva having given him power of sight to know gods from men. The goddess also, as we have seen, commanded him to wound Venus should she come into the field. Diomede, therefore, when he had overtaken Venus, as she was bearing away the Trojan hero, thrust at her with his lance, and pierced the skin of her tender hand. From the wound out gushed the I\u02b9chor, as the blood of the gods was called.\n\nThe ichor,\u2014such As from the blessed gods may flow; for they Eat not the wheaten loaf, nor drink dark wine; And therefore they are bloodless, and are called Immortal.\nBryant, Iliad, Book V.\n\nCrying aloud with pain, the goddess dropped her son from her arms, but Apollo enveloped him in a thick cloud, thus saving him from the wrath of the furious Greeks. Meanwhile the swift-footed Iris hastened down from heaven to the aid of Venus, whom she conducted to where Mars sat on the left of the battlefield, watching the conflict. At the entreaty of his wounded sister.\n\nMars resigned to her his steeds With trappings of bright gold. She climbed the car, Still grieving, and, beside her, Iris took Her seat, and caught the reins and plied the lash. On flew the coursers, on, with willing speed, And soon were at the mansion of the gods On high Olympus.\nBryant, Iliad, Book V.\n\nThere the goddess was affectionately received by her mother, Di-o\u02b9ne, who begged her to be patient, reminding her that in times past others of the gods had suffered by the hands of men. Mars, she said, was chained in a brazen cell for fifteen months by the giants O\u02b9tus and Eph-i-al\u02b9tes, and he would perhaps have perished there but that Mercury set him free by stealing into the cell, and slipping the chains out of the rings to which they were fastened. Juno herself, and Pluto, the god of Hades, were wounded by Hercules. \"As for this son of Tydeus,\" said Dione, \"who has dared to war upon an immortal, he shall be punished for his crime.\"\n\n\"The fool! He knew not that, the man who dares to meet The gods in combat lives not long. No child Shall prattling call him father when he comes Returning from the dreadful tasks of war.\"\nPope, Iliad, Book V.\n\nDione then wiped the ichor from the hand of Venus, and at her touch the wound healed and the pain ceased.\nMeanwhile, on the plain before Troy Diomede still eagerly pursued \u00c6neas, though knowing that the hero was under divine protection. Thrice did he rush on, and thrice did Apollo drive him back, but when he made the fourth attempt,\n\nThe archer of the skies, Apollo, thus With menacing words rebuked him: \"Diomed, Beware; desist, nor think to make thyself The equal of a god. The deathless race Of gods is not as those who walk the earth.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book V.\n\nDiomede shrank back, fearing the wrath of the Far-darter, and Apollo bore \u00c6neas away, and set him down in his own temple in sacred Per\u02b9ga-mus, the citadel of Troy. There Diana and La-to\u02b9na, the mother of Apollo, healed his wound and restored his health and strength. Then Apollo begged Mars to assist the Trojans in the battle, and particularly to drive from the field the impious son of Tydeus, who had dared to attack the immortals with his spear, and would now fight even with Jupiter himself. The god of war consented, and assuming the form of Ac\u02b9a-mas, a Thracian leader, he went through the Trojan ranks encouraging the chiefs to fight bravely.\n\n\"O sons of Priam, him who claims descent From Jupiter! how long will ye submit To see your people slaughtered by the Greeks? Is it until the battle-storm shall reach Your city's stately portals?\"\nPope, Iliad, Book V.\n\nThe hero Sarpedon also appealed to Hector, and then the Trojan commander in chief, leaping from his chariot, and brandishing his javelins, rushed among his troops exhorting them to battle.\n\nTerrible The conflict that ensued. The men of Troy Made head against the Greeks: the Greeks stood firm, Nor ever thought of flight.\nBryant, Iliad, Book V.\n\nSoon, however, the Greeks were forced to fall back. Their great chiefs, Agamemnon and Menelaus, and the two Ajaxes and Ulysses, performed wondrous deeds of courage, slaying many Trojan warriors. But Minerva had left the field, and Mars was fighting on the Trojan side. \u00c6neas, too, had returned to the battle with renewed strength and courage, and Hector and Sarpedon were in the front, dealing death among the enemy. The fierce god of war and mighty Hector fought side by side, and they slew numbers of Argive warriors.\nSuch destruction of her beloved Greeks was not pleasing to Juno, who was watching the conflict from her place on high Olympus, and she begged of Jupiter to permit her to drive Mars from the battle. Jupiter consented, but he advised her to intrust that work to Minerva, who had often before \"brought grievous troubles on the god of war.\" Juno obeyed. Then the two goddesses, who had already mounted the queen of heaven's own grand chariot, glittering with gold and silver and brass, set out for the Grecian camp.\n\nEight brazen spokes in radiant order flame; The circles gold, of uncorrupted frame, Such as the heavens produce: and round the gold Two brazen rings of work divine were roll'd. The bossy naves of solid silver shone; Braces of gold suspend the moving throne; The car, behind, an arching figure bore; The bending concave form'd an arch before. Silver the beam, the extended yoke was gold, And golden reins the immortal coursers hold.\nPope, Iliad, Book V.\n\nRiding in this magnificent chariot, driven by Juno herself, \"midway between the earth and the starry heaven,\" the goddesses descended upon the plain of Troy, near where the Simois and the Scamander united their streams. There they alighted, and cast a dense mist around the chariot and the steeds to hide them from mortal view. Then they hastened to where the bravest of the Greek chiefs were standing around the warrior Diomede, Juno likening herself to the herald Sten\u02b9tor, who had a voice louder than the shout of fifty men.\n\nStentor the strong, endued with brazen lungs, Whose throat surpass'd the force of fifty tongues.\nPope, Iliad, Book V.\n\nAppearing before the Greek chiefs in the form of the loud-voiced herald, the queen of heaven cried out in words of reproof:\n\"Shame upon you, Argives! You are heroes only in name. While the divine Achilles was with you, fighting at the front, the Trojans dared not advance beyond their gates, for they dreaded his mighty spear; but now they are almost at your ships.\"\nMinerva, too, severely censured Diomede for holding back from the battle, but the warrior answered that it was by her command that he had refrained from attacking Mars. \"You did not permit me,\" said he, \"to fight with any of the gods except Venus.\"\n\"Fear not this Mars at all,\" answered Minerva, \"nor any of the immortals. Come now and direct your steeds against the war god, and I will be with you.\" So saying, and putting on her head the helmet of Pluto, which made any person who wore it invisible, she mounted the chariot beside the brave Diomede, and, seizing the reins, drove rapidly to where the fierce Mars was slaying Greek warriors.\nAs soon as Mars beheld Diomede approaching, he rushed against him, and hurled his brazen spear; but Minerva grasped the weapon and turned it aside from the chariot. Diomede now thrust forward his lance, Minerva directing it, and adding her strength to give force to the blow. It pierced the loin of the war god, making a deep wound.\n\n\n\nMars bellows with the pain: Loud as the roar encountering armies yield, When shouting millions shake the thundering field. Both armies start, and trembling gaze around; And earth and heaven rebellow to the sound.\nPope, Iliad, Book V.\n\nThe wounded god disappeared in a dark cloud, and, quickly ascending to Olympus, made bitter complaint to Jupiter against Minerva. But the king of heaven sternly reproved him, saying that he had brought his sufferings upon himself, for discord and wars were always his delight. Nevertheless he ordered P\u00e6\u02b9on, the physician of the gods, to heal the wound, which was immediately done.\nMeanwhile Juno and Minerva returned to Olympus, Mars being removed from the battlefield. And now the fortune of war began to favor the Greeks. The Trojans, no longer aided by a god fighting on their side, were driven back to their walls, and it seemed as if they were about to be totally defeated. In this perilous situation Helenus, the prophet and soothsayer, advised his brother Hector to go quickly into the city, and request their mother, the queen, to call together the matrons of Troy, and with them to offer up sacrifices and prayers in the temple of Minerva, begging the help and protection of that goddess. The advice seemed good to Hector. Leaping from his chariot, he went through the army bidding the warriors to fight bravely during his absence. Then he hastened to the city. At the Sc\u00e6an Gate he was met by crowds of anxious wives and mothers and daughters, who eagerly inquired for their husbands, sons, and brothers.\n\nHe admonished all Duly to importune the gods in prayer, For woe, he said, was near to many a one.\nBryant, Iliad, Book VI.\n\nArriving at the royal palace Hector was met by his mother, who offered him wine to refresh himself with. But the hero would not taste the liquor. \"Do not ask me to drink wine, dear mother,\" he said, \"for it would enfeeble me, and deprive me of my strength and valor.\"\n\n\"Inflaming wine, pernicious to mankind, Unnerves the limbs, and dulls the noble mind.\"\nPope, Iliad, Book VI.\n\nThen Hector told his mother why he had come from the field of battle. She gladly consented to do as her son requested, and so Queen Hecuba and the matrons of Troy went to the temple of Minerva, and prayed and offered sacrifices. But the goddess refused to hear their prayers, for she still hated the Trojans because of the never-forgotten judgment on Mount Ida.\nMeantime the hero went to the palace of Paris, whom he found in his chamber, handling and preparing his armor, while Helen sat near him with her maids, directing their various tasks. Angry at seeing his brother thus engaged, instead of being in the front of the fight, Hector reproached him in sharp and bitter words.\n\"The people,\" said he, \"are perishing, the conflict rages round the walls, and all on your account. Arise, then, and act, lest our city soon be in flames.\" Paris answered mildly, saying that he deserved his brother's censure, and promising that he would immediately repair to the field of battle.\nHector next proceeded to his own home to visit his dear wife, An-drom\u02b9a-che, and his infant son; \"for I know not,\" said he, \"whether I shall ever return to them again.\" Arriving at the palace, he learned from Andromache's maids that their mistress had just gone towards the city walls.\n\n\"To the lofty tower of Troy she went When it was told her that the Trojan troops Lost heart, and that the valor of the Greeks Prevailed. She now is hurrying toward the walls. Like one distracted, with her son and nurse.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book VI.\n\nLeaving the palace, Hector hastened through the city, and, arriving at the Sc\u00e6an Gate, he there met Andromache and her nurse, the latter bearing in her arms the infant Sca-man'dri-us. His father had given the child this name, from the name of the river, but the people called him As-ty\u02b9a-nax, meaning \"city-king.\" The lines in which Homer describes the interview which here took place between the noble Hector and his loving wife, are among the most beautiful of the whole Iliad. Andromache was a daughter of E-\u00eb\u02b9ti-on, king of Thebe, the town from which the maiden Chryseis was carried away. E\u00ebtion and all his family had been slain, with the exception of Andromache, who therefore had now neither parents nor brothers nor sisters. Of this she spoke in touching words, while entreating Hector to remain within the city and not again risk his life in battle.\n\n\"Too brave! thy valor yet will cause thy death: Thou hast no pity on thy tender child, Nor me, unhappy one, who soon must be Thy widow. All the Greeks will rush on thee To take thy life. A happier lot were mine, If I must lose thee, to go down to earth, For I shall have no hope when thou art gone,\u2014 Nothing but sorrow. Father I have none, And no dear mother. Great Achilles slew My father when he sacked the populous town Of the Cilicians,\u2014Thebe with high gates. Hector, thou Art father and dear mother now to me, And brother and my youthful spouse besides. In pity keep within the fortress here, Nor make thy child an orphan nor thy wife A widow.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book VI.\n\nHector was deeply moved by these words, but he could not think of deserting his brave companions.\n\n\"All this I bear in mind, dear wife; but I should stand Ashamed before the men and long-robed dames Of Troy, were I to keep aloof and shun The conflict, cowardlike. Not thus my heart Prompts me, for greatly have I learned to dare And strike among the foremost sons of Troy, Upholding my great father's fame and mine; Yet well in my undoubting mind I know The day shall come in which our sacred Troy, And Priam, and the people over whom Spear-bearing Priam rules, shall perish all.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book VI.\n\nBut it was not the dark prospect of his country's ruin that grieved the loving husband so much as the thought that his wife might some day be carried off as a slave by the conquering Greeks.\n\n\"But not the sorrows of the Trojan race, Nor those of Hecuba herself, nor those Of royal Priam, nor the woes that wait My brothers many and brave,\u2014who all at last, Slain by the pitiless foe, shall lie in dust,\u2014 Grieve me so much as thine, when some mailed Greek Shall lead thee weeping hence, and take from thee Thy day of freedom.       .       .       .       . O let the earth Be heaped above my head in death before I hear thy cries as thou art borne away!\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book VI.\n\nHector parting from Andromache.\nHector parting from Andromache.\nPainting by Maignan.\nThen Hector stretched out his hands to embrace his son, but the little fellow shrank back and screamed in fright at the nodding crest on his father's helmet. Both parents gently smiled, and Hector, taking off his helmet, and placing it on the ground, kissed his boy, and fondled him in his arms, praying to the gods that he might become a brave warrior, and the defender of his country.\n\n\"O Jupiter and all ye deities, Vouchsafe that this my son may yet become Among the Trojans eminent like me, And nobly rule in Ilium. May they say, 'This man is greater than his father was.'\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book VI.\n\nThe parting between the hero and his sorrowing wife was very affecting. Andromache received the infant from his father's arms, mingling tears with her smiles as she looked into the face of her child.\n\nThe chief Beheld, and, moved with tender pity, smoothed Her forehead gently with his hand and said:\u2014 \"Sorrow not thus, beloved one, for me. No living man can send me to the shades Before my time; no man of woman born, Coward or brave, can shun his destiny. But go thou home, and tend thy labors there,\u2014 The web, the distaff,\u2014and command thy maids To speed the work. The cares of war pertain To all men born in Troy, and most to me.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book VI.\n\nThen Hector took his helmet from the ground, and Andromache departed for her home, \"oft looking back, and shedding many tears.\"\nAs the hero went out at the Sc\u00e6an Gate, after taking leave of his wife, he met Paris, arrayed in his shining armor, and eager to join the battle. Together they rushed into the plain, and slew many of the enemy. The goddess Minerva, observing that the battle was going against the Greeks, quickly descended from the top of Olympus. Apollo, seeing her from the Trojan citadel, hastened to meet her, and he proposed that they should now bring the conflict to an end for the day. With this object, Minerva having consented, they both agreed to cause Hector to challenge one of the Greek warriors to engage with him in single combat. Helenus, being a soothsayer, knew the purpose of the gods, and he told his brother. \"But,\" said he, \"you shall not fall in the fight, for it is not thy fate yet to perish. Thus have the immortal gods spoken, and I have heard their voice.\"\nHector rejoiced at his brother's words, and immediately advancing to the front of the army he commanded the Trojans to cease fighting.\n\nHe bore his spear, Holding it in the middle, and pressed back The ranks of Trojans, and they all sat down. And Agamemnon caused the well-armed Greeks To sit down also.\nBryant, Iliad, Book VII.\n\nThen the Trojan chief, standing between the two hosts, spoke in a loud voice, and challenged the bravest of the Greeks to engage with him in mortal combat. For a few moments there was silence in the ranks of the Argives. Even the boldest of them hesitated at the thought of fighting such a warrior as Hector. At length Menelaus, rising from his seat, declared that he was ready to accept the challenge, and so he put on his armor. But Agamemnon held him back, warning him against rashly venturing into a conflict with a man who was much stronger and braver than he, and whom every other chief, even Achilles himself, regarded with fear.\nNestor then arose, and in severe words upbraided his countrymen for their want of courage. \"Would that my frame were unworn with years,\" he exclaimed, \"then Hector should soon find a foe to meet him; but now among the bravest of the Achaians there is no one to meet the Trojan leader in arms.\"\nThe venerable Nestor had no sooner ceased speaking than nine warriors started to their feet, every one eager for the honor of being permitted to accept the challenge of Hector. Among them were Agamemnon, the two Ajaxes, Diomede, and Ulysses. Nestor then proposed that one should be chosen by lot. This was agreed to, and lots being cast, the honor fell to Ajax Telamon, the mightiest and most valiant of the Greeks except Achilles. The hero greatly rejoiced, believing that he would conquer Hector, and so he quickly put on his armor, and went forward to the ground marked out for the combat.\n\nHis massy javelin quivering in his hand, He stood, the bulwark of the Grecian band.\nPope, Iliad, Book VII.\n\nHector having also taken his place on the ground, the combat began. First the Trojan chief, brandishing his long spear, hurled it at his foe. Ajax received it on his shield, which was made of seven folds of oxhides and an eighth fold of solid brass. Through six of the hides the weapon of Hector pierced, but it stuck fast in the seventh.\nThen the Grecian champion sent forth his javelin. It passed right through Hector's shield and corselet, and might have proved fatal, had the hero not quickly bent aside his body. Again both champions launched spears, one after the other. This time Hector was slightly wounded in the neck. Nothing daunted, however, he seized a huge stone which lay at his feet, and hurled it at Ajax. It struck the hero's shield and the brass resounded with the blow. Quickly the Argive warrior took up a much larger stone, and flung it at his antagonist with tremendous force. The stone crashed through Hector's shield, and, striking him on the knee, stretched him flat on the ground. But Apollo instantly raised him up, renewing his strength, and then with their swords the two heroes fell upon each other, fighting hand to hand. At this point, night having come on, two heralds, one from the Trojan army, the other from the Greek, approached the champions, and ordered them to cease fighting, I-dae\u02b9us, the Trojan herald, giving the command in a loud voice:\n\n\"Cease to contend, dear sons, in deadly fray; Ye both are loved by cloud-compelling Jove, And both are great in war, as all men know. The night is come; be then the night obeyed.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book VII.\n\nAjax answered that as it was Hector who gave the challenge, it was for him first to speak of truce. Hector replied, speaking words of praise and admiration for his antagonist, and saying that they should now cease from battle for the day.\n\n\"Since, then, the night extends her gloomy shade, And heaven enjoins it, be the night obey'd. Return, brave Ajax, to thy Grecian friends, And joy the nations whom thy arm defends; But let us, on this memorable day, Exchange some gift: that Greece and Troy may say 'Not hate, but glory, made these chiefs contend; And each brave foe was in his soul a friend.'\"\nPope, Iliad, Book VII.\n\nThen Hector gave Ajax a silver-studded sword with scabbard, and Ajax presented to Hector a belt of rich purple. Thus ended the terrible conflict which had raged throughout the day, and the two heroes retired, each joyfully welcomed by his comrades and friends.\n\nThen they both departed,\u2014one To join the Grecian host, and one to meet The Trojan people, who rejoiced to see Hector alive, unwounded, and now safe From the great might and irresistible arm Of Ajax. Straightway to the town they led Him for whose life they scarce had dared to hope. And Ajax also by the well-armed Greeks, Exulting in his feats of arms, was brought To noble Agamemnon.\nBryant, Iliad, Book VII.\n\n\n\nIX. THE SECOND BATTLE\u2014EXPLOIT OF DIOMEDE AND ULYSSES.\nBefore the Greek leaders retired to rest for the night, they held a council in the tent of Agamemnon, at which they resolved to perform funeral rites, early in the morning, in honor of their comrades who had been slain in the battle. They also resolved, on the advice of Nestor, to build a strong wall and dig a deep trench in front of their camp, that their ships might be secure against the attacks of the enemy.\nThe Trojan chiefs, too, held a council. They were discouraged by their losses in the battle, and many of them thought that they could not now succeed in the war, because of the treacherous act of Pandarus in breaking the league. The wise Antenor was of this opinion, and in his speech at the council he advised that Helen and her treasures should be given up to the Greeks.\n\n\"Send we the Argive Helen back with all Her treasures; let the sons of Atreus lead The dame away; for now we wage the war After our faith is broken, and I deem We cannot prosper till we make amends.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book VII.\n\nBut Paris would not agree to this. He was willing to give up Helen's treasures, and to give treasure of his own as compensation to the Greeks, but he would not consent to restore Helen herself. King Priam weakly gave way to his son, and ordered that a herald should be sent to the Greek leaders to tell them of the offer of Paris, and to request that fighting should not be resumed until the dead should be taken from the battlefield, and funeral services performed.\nAccordingly the Trojan herald Id\u00e6us went next morning to the tent of Agamemnon. There he found the Argive chiefs assembled. Upon hearing his message, they scornfully rejected the terms proposed by Paris, but they agreed to a truce for the funeral ceremonies. Id\u00e6us returned to the city, and told the Trojan leaders of the answer he had received. Both Greeks and Trojans then began collecting their dead from the field and building great piles of wood, or pyres, to burn the bodies upon.\n\nAll wailing, silently they bore away Their slaughtered friends, and heaped them on the pyre With aching hearts, and, when they had consumed The dead with fire, returned to hallowed Troy. The nobly-armed Achaians also heaped Their slaughtered warriors on the funeral pile With aching hearts; and when they had consumed Their dead with fire they sought their hollow ships.\nBryant, Iliad, Book VII.\n\nBefore dawn next morning the Greeks set about building a wall and digging a trench on the side of their camp facing Troy, as Nestor had advised. They finished the work in one day, and a mighty work it was. The wall was strengthened with lofty towers, and the gates were so large that chariots could pass through. The trench was broad and deep, and on the outer edge it was defended by strong, sharp stakes. The gods, looking down from Olympus, admired these labors, but Neptune, much displeased, made bitter complaint to Jupiter:\n\n\"Now will the fame Of this their work go forth wherever shines The light of day, and men will quite forget The wall which once we built with toiling hands\u2014 Ph\u0153bus Apollo and myself\u2014around The city of renowned Laomedon.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book VII.\n\nBut Jupiter relieved the anxiety of the ocean god by telling him that when the war was over, and the Greeks had departed from Troy, he might overthrow the great wall with his waves, and cover the shore with sand. Thus the Grecian bulwark would vanish from the plain.\nAfter their great labors on the wall and trench the Greeks feasted in their tents, and next day, the truce being now ended, both armies prepared for battle. Meanwhile Jupiter, held a council on high Olympus, at which he gave strict command that none of the gods should take part on either side in the fight before Troy; and he declared that if any of them should disobey this order, he would hurl the offender down into the dark pit of Tar\u02b9ta-rus, in the gloomy kingdom of Pluto.\n\nDeep, deep in the great gulf below the earth, With iron gates and threshold forged of brass.\nBryant, Iliad, Book VIII.\n\nBut Minerva begged that she might be permitted to assist the Greeks by her advice. To this the king of heaven assented. Then mounting his chariot, to which were yoked his brazen-footed, swift-flying steeds, adorned with golden manes, he sped through the skies between the earth and starry heaven to the summit of Mount Ida. There in a sacred inclosure in which was an altar erected to him, the father of the gods sat looking down upon the towers of Ilium and the ships of the Greeks. The two hosts, led by their great chiefs, were now engaged in fierce battle.\nJupiter on Mount Ida.\nJupiter on Mount Ida.\nDrawn by Hubbell.\n\nThe sounding darts in iron tempests flew; Victors and vanquish'd join promiscuous cries, Triumphant shouts and dying groans arise; With streaming blood the slippery fields are dyed, And slaughtered heroes swell the dreadful tide.\nPope, Iliad, Book VIII.\n\nThus the terrible conflict went on until midday, when Jupiter, taking in his hand the golden scales of fate, weighed the fortunes of the Trojans and Greeks.\n\nBy the midst He held the balance, and, behold, the fate Of Greece in that day's fight sank down until It touched the nourishing earth, while that of Troy Rose and flew upward toward the spacious heaven.\nBryant, Iliad, Book VIII.\n\nThen the mighty god thundered from Mount Ida, and sent his lightnings burning and flashing down against the army of the Greeks. In amazement and terror the Argive chiefs fled from the field. Nestor alone remained, though not willingly, for he too was seeking safety in flight when one of the horses of his chariot was killed by an arrow from the bow of Paris. The venerable king himself might have perished at the hands of Hector, had not Diomede hastened up and taken him into his own chariot.\nBoth warriors then advanced against the Trojan chief, and Diomede hurled his javelin. The weapon missed Hector, but killed his charioteer. Still rushing on, the brave son of Tydeus was about to cast another spear, when a terrific bolt of lightning flashed from the heavens and tore up the earth in front of his steeds. Looking upon this as a sign of the anger of Jupiter, the two heroes hastily retreated towards their camp. Hector pursued them, and the Trojans, encouraged by his example, now pressed forward until the Greeks were driven in behind their trench and wall. Then Agamemnon, in deep despair, prayed to almighty Jove that he would at least permit him and his people to get away in safety with their ships.\n\n\"Now be at least one wish of mine fulfilled,\u2014 That we may yet escape and get us hence; Nor let the Trojans thus destroy the Greeks.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book VIII.\n\nJupiter heard the prayer of the king, and in pity for his distress sent a favorable omen. This was an eagle bearing in its talons a fawn, which it dropped down by the side of the altar where the Greek chiefs were just then offering sacrifice. Believing that the bird had come from Jove, the Greeks took courage, and rushing out through their gates, with Diomede and Agamemnon and Menelaus and Ajax at their head, they furiously attacked the Trojans and slew many of them. Teucer, the brother of Ajax Telamon, did great destruction with his bow and arrows, in the use of which he was as skillful even as Pandarus. After killing several of the enemy, he aimed twice at Hector, missing him, however, each time, but at the second shot he slew the Trojan leader's charioteer. Hector then jumped to the ground, and, seizing a great stone, hurled it with mighty force, striking the unfortunate Teucer on the neck, and felling him to the earth. And now the Trojans, rushing once more upon the Greeks, again drove them back to their camp.\n\nThey drave The Achaians backward to the yawning trench. Then Hector came, with fury in his eyes, Among the foremost warriors. As a hound, Sure of his own swift feet, attacks behind The lion or wild boar, and tears his flank, Yet warily observes him as he turns, So Hector followed close the long-haired Greeks, And ever slew the hindmost as they fled.\nBryant, Iliad, Book VIII.\n\nBut night now put an end to the battle. This was a most welcome relief to the Greek leaders, thoroughly disheartened as they were at the sight of the enemy almost at their ships. On the other hand the warriors of Troy \"most unwillingly beheld the sunset,\" for it prevented them from following up their victory. But Hector was confident that on the next day he would be able to destroy the Achaian host and fleet, and so end the war. He therefore addressed his troops, commanding them to remain on the field for the night, that they might be ready to fall upon the Greeks, should they attempt to go aboard their vessels, and \"escape across the mighty deep.\"\n\nSo high in hope, they sat the whole night through In warlike lines, and many watch fires blazed.\nBryant, Iliad, Book VIII.\n\nMeanwhile the Grecian leaders held a council of war, and Agamemnon advised that they should take to their ships, and set sail for Greece, as it now seemed to be the will of Jupiter that they should never capture Troy. Upon hearing this the chiefs sat for a time in gloomy silence. At length Diomede spoke out, censuring the king for his cowardly counsel.\n\"The gods,\" said he, \"have given you, O son of Atreus, high rank and great power, but not much of courage. Return home if you are so inclined, but the other Greeks will remain until they have overthrown Troy, for it was by the direction of the immortals that we came here.\"\nThese words were loudly applauded by the assembled leaders. Then guards were placed to watch the wall and trench, after which Agamemnon gave the chiefs a banquet in his tent. When all had partaken of the good things set before them, the wise Nestor advised that an effort be made to appease the anger of Achilles. This proposal even Agamemnon warmly approved, for he now admitted that he had done a great wrong in taking away Briseis, and he declared that he would restore the maiden at once to Achilles, and send him rich gifts besides.\n\n\"I erred, and I deny it not. That man indeed is equal to a host, Whom Jupiter doth love and honor thus, Humbling the Achaian people for his sake. And now, since, yielding to my wayward mood I erred, let me appease him, if I may, With gifts of priceless worth.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book IX.\n\nAgamemnon then promised that he would send to Achilles a large sum in gold, with twenty shining caldrons, and twelve steeds which had won many prizes by their fleetness. Moreover, when they should return to Greece after having conquered the Trojans, he would give him one of his daughters to be his wife, and with her, as a marriage portion, seven rich cities of Argos.\nThe Greek chiefs were very glad to hear these proposals, and they resolved to appoint ambassadors to send to Achilles to beg him to accept these gifts and make peace with Agamemnon. On the advice of Nestor they chose for this important mission the prudent Ulysses, an aged chief named Ph\u0153\u02b9nix, and the valiant warrior Ajax. Ph\u0153nix had been the instructor of Achilles in his youth, and had been sent by King Peleus with the expedition to Troy to be his son's friend and counselor. The three ambassadors, with two heralds, accordingly set out for the camp of the Myrmidonian chief. They found him sitting in his tent with his friend Patroclus.\n\nAmused at ease, the godlike man they found, Pleased with the solemn harp's harmonious sound. (The well wrought harp from conquered Theb\u00e6 came; Of polish'd silver was its costly frame). With this he soothes his angry soul, and sings The immortal deeds of heroes and of kings.\nPope, Iliad, Book IX.\n\nThe ambassadors were received with great respect. Achilles rose from his seat and welcomed them as warriors and friends. Then food and drink were placed before them, and after they had refreshed themselves, Ulysses stated the object of their visit. He described the danger of the Grecian army, threatened with destruction by the terrible Hector and his victorious hosts. He next told of the many gifts which Agamemnon had offered, and then in earnest words he begged Achilles to lay aside his anger, and come to the relief of his countrymen in their great peril.\nBut the wrath of the son of Peleus was not thus to be appeased. He replied to Ulysses in a long speech, recounting his services during the war, and bitterly complaining of the ingratitude and selfishness of Agamemnon.\n\n\"Twelve cities have I with my fleet laid waste, And with my Myrmidons have I o'erthrown Eleven upon this fertile Trojan coast. Full many a precious spoil from these I bore, And to Atrides Agamemnon gave. He, loitering in his fleet, received them all; Few he distributed, and many kept.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book IX.\n\nAs for the apologies which Agamemnon now made, the wrathful hero declared that he could have no confidence in a man who had deceived him, nor would he accept the offered gifts.\n\n\"Let him ne'er again, Though shameless, dare to look me in the face. I will not join in council nor in act With him: he has deceived and wronged me once, And now he cannot wheedle me with words. Let once suffice. I leave him to himself, To perish. All-providing Jupiter Hath made him mad. I hate his gifts; I hold In utter scorn the giver.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book IX.\n\nIn vain also were the entreaties of Ph\u0153nix and Ajax. They too tried to persuade the hero to dismiss from his mind the thought of his wrongs, and lead his brave Myrmidons once more into the field for the honor of his country. But Achilles persisted in his refusal to take further part in the war, and so there was nothing left for the ambassadors but to return to the tent of Agamemnon and report the failure of their mission.\nIn deep disappointment and distress the chiefs heard the story. Then again they held counsel together to consider what was best to do,\u2014whether to prepare for another battle, or to betake themselves at once to their ships and set sail for Greece. Nestor proposed that some brave and prudent chief should venture into the Trojan camp, and, if possible, find out what were the plans of Hector.\n\n\"Is there (said he) a chief so greatly brave, His life to hazard, and his country save? Lives there a man, who singly dares to go To yonder camp, or seize some straggling foe? Or favor'd by the night approach so near, Their speech, their counsels, and designs to hear?\"\nPope, Iliad, Book X.\n\nDiomede offered himself for this service, and being permitted to select a companion, he made choice of Ulysses. The two warriors at once put on their armor, and took up their weapons. Then they went out into the plain, each praying to Minerva to grant them success. Cautiously they moved forward towards the camp of the enemy.\n\nWith dreadful thoughts they trace the dreary way, Through the black horrors of the ensanguined plain, Through dust, through blood, o'er arms, and hills of slain.\nPope, Iliad, Book X.\n\nNow it happened that about the same time Hector had sent a young Trojan chief, Do\u02b9lon by name, on a similar errand,\u2014to make his way into the Grecian camp, and find out the designs of the Argive leaders. Dolon offered to undertake the dangerous task on condition that he should have as his reward the chariot and horses of Achilles, when the Greeks should be conquered. Hector agreed to the condition, and the Trojan spy, arming himself, set forth for the Greek camp. He had not gone far when Ulysses and Diomede saw him advancing, whereupon they lay down among the dead bodies and allowed him to go forward a considerable distance. Then they rose up and followed him.\nAt first Dolon supposed that they were Trojans sent by Hector to call him back, but, soon seeing that they were enemies, he fled with great speed in the direction of the ships. The two Greeks hastened in pursuit, and Diomede hurled a spear after the fugitive. He purposely missed him, however, for their object was to take the Trojan alive, that they might get from him the information they desired. The weapon passed over the shoulder of Dolon, and sank into the ground in front of him. Instantly he stood still, trembling with fear, and the Greek warriors, hurrying up, seized him by the hands. The frightened Trojan flung himself on his knees, and begged them to spare his life, promising that his father, who was rich, would pay a high ransom. Ulysses commanded him to tell what his errand was to the Grecian camp, and also to tell them all about the Trojan army, and of the plans of Hector.\n\n\"Tell me,\u2014and tell the truth,\u2014where hast thou left Hector, the leader of the host, and where Are laid his warlike arms; where stand his steeds; Where are the sentinels, and where the tents Of other chiefs? On what do they consult? Will they remain beside our galleys here, Or do they meditate, since, as they say, The Greeks are beaten, a return to Troy?\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book X.\n\nThe terrified Dolon, hoping to move the Greeks to mercy, told even more than he was asked to tell. There was a Thracian king, he said, who had that very day arrived with a troop of soldiers to help the Trojans. Rhe\u02b9sus was his name. He had steeds beautiful to behold, and fleet as the wind, his chariot shone with gold and silver, and the armor he wore was all of gold.\n\"Even now,\" said Dolon, \"Rhesus and his followers are in a camp by themselves separated from the others, and it will be easy to take them by surprise as they lie asleep, and carry off the rich things they possess.\"\nThis news was joyfully received by the Greek heroes. They had heard of an oracle which declared that Troy could never be captured if these same horses of Rhesus should once drink of the water of Xanthus or feed on the grass of the Trojan plain. They therefore resolved to rob Rhesus of his magnificent steeds. But first they killed the unhappy Dolon, paying no heed to his prayers for mercy. Then they hurried on to the Thracian camp, where they found the warriors sunk in deep repose, after the fatigues of the day's journey.\n\nThere slept the warriors, overpowered with toil; Their glittering arms were near them, fairly ranged In triple rows, and by each suit of arms Two coursers. Rhesus slumbered in the midst. Near him were his fleet horses, which were made Fast to the chariot's border by the reins.\nBryant, Iliad, Book X.\n\nDiomede slew Rhesus and twrelve of his companions, while Ulysses untied the king's steeds, and led them forth into the field. Then, hastening across the plain with their rich prize, they soon reached the Grecian camp, where Nestor and the other chiefs joyfully welcomed them.\n\nTheir friends, rejoicing, flocked Around them, greeting them with grasp of hands And with glad words.\nBryant, Iliad, Book X.\n\nDecorative Mural\n\n\nX. THE BATTLE AT THE SHIPS\u2014DEATH OF PATROCLUS.\nAt dawn the Achaian leaders resolved to try again the fortunes of war. They were encouraged by the exploit of Ulysses and Diomede, and Jupiter sent down Eris, the goddess of strife, to incite them to ardor for battle. The goddess stood on the ship of Ulysses, which was in the center of the fleet, and shouted so loud that she was heard all over the Greek camp.\n\nLoud was the voice, and terrible, in which She shouted from her station to the Greeks, And into every heart it carried strength, And the resolve to combat manfully, And never yield. The battle now to them Seemed more to be desired than the return To their dear country in their roomy ships.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XI.\n\nThen began the greatest battle of the siege. So numerous were the exploits of heroes in this mighty conflict that the account of it occupies nearly eight books of the Iliad.\nAgamemnon led the Grecian warriors during the earlier part of the day. He was arrayed in brilliant armor, his breastplate being of gold and bronze and tin.\n\nTen were its bars of tawny bronze, and twelve Were gold, and twenty tin; and on each side Were three bronze serpents stretching toward the neck.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XI.\n\nHis sword, glittering with golden studs, hung from his shoulder in a silver sheath, and in his hands he bore two great spears, brass-tipped and sharp. As he went forth to meet the foe, Juno and Minerva made a sound as of thunder in the sky, \"honoring the king of Mycen\u00e6, rich in gold.\" Thus did the Argive chief enter the field at the head of his warriors.\nThe Trojans were already on the ground, their great leader, Hector, clad in shining brazen armor, giving his commands, now in the front and now in the rear. Like wolves rushing to combat the two hosts sprang against each other, and soon the battle raged furiously, the heroes on both sides fighting with equal valor.\n\n\n\nThey of Troy And they of Argos smote each other down, And neither thought of ignominious flight.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XI.\n\nBut about midday the Greeks prevailed against the Trojans, and drove them back to the city gates. Agamemnon slew with his sword two of King Priam's sons, I\u02b9sus and An\u02b9ti-phus, and with his spear he struck down many of the Trojan heroes.\nIris.\nIris.\nPainting by Watts.\nHector had not yet taken part in the battle; Jupiter having sent him an order by the messenger Iris not to begin fighting until Agamemnon should retire wounded from the field. This soon happened. The king was wounded in the arm by the Trojan chief Co\u02b9on, whose brother, I-phid\u02b9a-mas, Agamemnon had slain. These two chiefs were sons of the venerable Antenor. But Agamemnon, before withdrawing, rushed upon Co\u00f6n and slew him also. Then, leaping into his chariot, he ordered his charioteer to drive him quickly to his ships, for he was suffering much from the pain of his wound.\nHector, seeing the flight of the Greek leader, called loudly to the Trojans to advance upon their foes, at the same time setting them the example.\n\nHimself, inspired With fiery valor, rushed among the foes In the mid-battle foremost, like a storm That swoops from heaven, and on the dark-blue sea Falls suddenly, and stirs it to its depths.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XI.\n\nThe fortune of battle now turned in favor of the men of Troy. Nine warrior princes of the Greeks were struck down, one after another, by the sword of Hector. The brave Diomede, wounded by an arrow from the bow of Paris, was obliged to retire to his tent. A spear hurled by the Trojan chief, So\u02b9cus, pierced the corselet of Ulysses, and wounded him in the side. But the Trojan did not long survive this exploit, for as he turned to flee, Ulysses sent a javelin through his body, felling him lifeless to the earth. A serious misfortune had almost happened to the Greeks at the hand of Paris, who shot a triple barbed arrow at the hero and physician, Machaon, wounding him in the shoulder. The life of the great son of \u00c6sculapius being worth many men, Idomeneus cried to Nestor to come and take him away in his chariot.\n\n\"Haste, mount thy chariot; let Machaon take A place beside thee; urge thy firm-paced steeds Rapidly toward the fleet; a leech like him, Who cuts the arrow from the wound and soothes The pain with balms, is worth a host to us.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book XI.\n\nMany of their leaders being now disabled, the Greeks were driven from the field and forced to take refuge behind their fortifications. At the trench a terrible conflict took place. The Trojan warriors made efforts to pass it in their chariots, while the Greeks fought with desperate fury to force the invaders back. Many heroes on both sides were wounded and many slain.\n\nThe towers and battlements were steeped in blood Of heroes,\u2014Greeks and Trojans.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XII.\n\nAt last Hector took up a large stone and hurled it with tremendous force against one of the gates. It tore off the strong hinges, and shattered the massive beams, so mighty was the blow. Then through the wide opening the Trojan leader sprang into the Grecian camp, brandishing two spears in his hands, and calling on his men to follow. Promptly they obeyed. Some rushed in by the gateway, and some over the wall, while the terrified Greeks fled in disorder and dismay to their ships.\nSo far none of the gods had taken part in the battle. But Neptune now resolved to come to the rescue of the Greeks, having observed that Jupiter, though still seated in his sacred inclosure on Mount Ida, was no longer watching the conflict.\n\nOn Troy no more He turned those glorious eyes, for now he deemed That none of all the gods would seek to aid Either the Greeks or Trojans in the strife.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XIII.\n\nThe ocean god, however, resolved to make the attempt. From the wooded height of Samothrace he had been viewing the fight, and had seen that the Achaian army and fleet were threatened with destruction. Quickly, therefore, descending to the sea, he plunged down to his golden mansion beneath the waves, and there put on his armor and mounted his chariot.\n\nHe yoked his swift and brazen-footed steeds, With manes of flowing gold, to draw his car, And put on golden mail, and took his scourge, Wrought of fine gold, and climbed the chariot-seat, And rode upon the waves. The whales came forth From their deep haunts, and frolicked round his way: They knew their king. The waves rejoicing smoothed A path, and rapidly the coursers flew; Nor was the brazen axle wet below. And thus they brought him to the Greecian fleet.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XIII.\n\nArrived at the fleet, Neptune assumed the shape and voice of the soothsayer Calchas, and, going amongst the Grecian leaders, urged them to battle. With his scepter he touched the two Ajaxes, thereby giving more than mortal strength to their limbs, and filling their breasts with valor. Thus encouraged the Greek heroes turned fiercely upon the Trojans, and again great feats of war were performed by the chiefs on both sides. Hector, Paris, Helenus, Deiph\u02b9o-bus, and \u00c6neas fought in front of the Trojan lines, while Menelaus, Idomeneus, Teucer, the two Ajaxes, and An-til\u02b9o-chus, the son of Nestor, bravely led the conflict at the head of the Greeks.\n\nAll along the line The murderous conflict bristled with long spears.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XIII.\n\nJuno rejoiced exceedingly at seeing the monarch of the ocean aiding the Greeks, but she much feared that Jupiter might notice him, and order him off the field. This he would be sure to do, if he should again turn his eyes on the battle. Juno therefore went to the island of Les\u02b9bos, where Som\u02b9nus, the god of sleep, resided, and she entreated that deity to hasten to Mount Ida, and cause her royal spouse to fall into a deep slumber. Somnus consented, and having done as Juno desired, he hurried down to the Grecian fleet with a message to Neptune.\n\n\"Now, Neptune, give the Greeks thy earnest aid, And though it be but for a little space, While Jupiter yet slumbers, let them win The glory of the day; for I have wrapt His senses in a gentle lethargy.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book XIV.\n\nHearing these words, Neptune rushed to the front of the Greek lines and again urged the leaders to stand bravely against the enemy. Then, grasping in his hand a sword \"of fearful length and flashing blade like lightning,\" he led them on to battle.\nAnd now the warriors of both sides were once more in deadly conflict. Hector cast a spear at Ajax, but the weapon struck where two belts crossed upon the hero's breast, overlapping each other, and he escaped unhurt. Then the son of Telamon struck at the Trojan leader. His weapon was a heavy stone, one of many that lay around, which were used as props for the ships. The missile, hurled with giant force and true aim, smote the Trojan on the breast and felled him like a tree struck by lightning.\n\nAs when beneath The stroke of Father Jupiter an oak Falls broken at the root,   .   .   .   .   .   . So dropped the valiant Hector to the earth Amid the dust; his hand let fall the spear; His shield and helm fell with him, and his mail Of shining brass clashed round him.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XIV.\n\nWith shouts of triumph the Greeks rushed forward, hoping to slay the fallen warrior, and despoil him of his armor. But his comrades, \u00c6neas and A-ge\u02b9nor and Sarpedon and many others, crowded around him, and protected him with their shields. He was then carried to the bank of the Xanthus and bathed in its waters, which revived him a little.\nWhen the Greeks saw Hector borne away as if dead, they fought with increased valor, and soon drove the Trojans back across the trench, slaying many of their chiefs.\nMeanwhile Jupiter, awaking from his slumber, and looking down upon the battlefield, beheld the men of Troy put to flight, and Neptune at the head of the pursuing Greeks. Turning angrily upon Juno, who was at his side, he rebuked her in severe words, for he now saw the trick that had been played upon him. He reminded her of how he had punished her on a former occasion for her ill treatment of his son Hercules.\n\n\"Dost thou forget When thou didst swing suspended, and I tied Two anvils to thy feet, and bound a chain Of gold that none could break around thy wrists? Then didst thou hang in air amid the clouds, And all the gods of high Olympus saw With pity. They stood near, but none of them Were able to release thee.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book XV.\n\nJuno pleaded that it was not at her request that Neptune had gone to the aid of the Greeks. He had done that without consulting her. She indeed, she said, would rather advise Neptune to obey the command of the king of heaven and submit to his will.\nThe anger of the father of the gods was appeased by Juno's mild words. Then he bade her hasten to Olympus and send the messenger Iris down to order Neptune to leave the battle. He bade her also to direct Apollo to restore Hector's strength and prepare him for the fight. But he explained to Juno why he wished that for the present the Trojans should be victorious. It was because he had promised Thetis that the Greeks should be punished for the wrong Agamemnon had done to her son. Yet the time would come, he said, when the great Hector would be slain by the hand of Achilles, and when by Minerva's aid the lofty towers of Troy would be overthrown. Juno was therefore glad to obey the command of her royal spouse.\n\nAs the thought of man Flies rapidly, when, having traveled far, He thinks, \"Here would I be, I would be there,\" And flits from place to place, so swiftly flew Imperial Juno to the Olympian mount.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XV.\n\nThere she informed Iris and Apollo of the will of Father Jove. Forthwith the two gods hastened to Mount Ida to receive their orders from Jupiter himself. The orders were quickly given. Then with the speed of the winds the messenger of heaven and the god of the silver bow darted down from Ida's top to the plain of Troy.\nNeptune, on hearing of the command of Jupiter, was at first unwilling to obey. Jupiter, he said, had no authority over him.\n\n\"We are three brothers, The sons of Saturn,\u2014Jupiter and I, And Pluto, regent of the realm below. Three parts were made of all existing things, And each of us received his heritage. The lots were shaken; and to me it fell To dwell forever in the hoary deep, And Pluto took the gloomy realm of night, And lastly, Jupiter the ample heaven And air and clouds. Yet doth the earth remain, With high Olympus, common to us all. Therefore I yield me not to do his will, Great as he is; and let him be content With his third part.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book XV.\n\nBut Iris advised Neptune to obey, reminding him that Jupiter had power of punishing those who offended him. At last Neptune yielded, and, quitting the Grecian army, took his way to the sea, and plunged beneath the waves to his palace in the ocean depths.\nMeanwhile Apollo hastened to the side of the Trojan prince, who was still weak from the blow of Ajax. Quickly the god restored the hero's strength and breathed fresh courage into his breast. Then he commanded Hector to hasten forward and lead his warriors against the enemy. In an instant the Trojan prince was on his feet, hurrying to the front. When the Greek chiefs saw him they were astonished as well as terrified, for they had thought him dead, and now they believed he had been rescued from death by some god. They resolved, however, to fight bravely, and so they stood firmly together. Hector meanwhile advanced, Apollo moving before him with the shield of Jupiter, the terrible aegis, which Jupiter had given him to shake before the Greeks and fill their hearts with fear.\n\n\"Hector led The van in rapid march. Before him walked Ph\u0153bus, the terrible aggis in his hands, Dazzlingly bright within its shaggy fringe, By Vulcan forged, the great artificer, And given to Jupiter, with which to rout Armies of men. With this in hand he led The assailants on.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book XV.\n\nAgainst an attack so led the bravery of the Greeks was of little avail. Numbers of their warriors were slain, and the rest fled back to their camp, pursued by Hector and his triumphant hosts. This time the Trojans were not hindered by the trench or the wall, for Apollo with his mighty feet trampled down the earth banks, and overthrew the great wall as easily as a child at play on the beach overthrows a tiny mound of sand.\nThen a fierce struggle took place, the Greeks fighting with desperate fury to defend their ships, which the Trojans, with lighted torches in their hands, tried to set on fire. At one of the galleys there was a terrific conflict. Hector, having grasped the vessel by the stern, called to his men to bring on their flaming brands, while the mighty Ajax stood on the rowers' bench, ready with his long spear to strike the assailants back.\n\nOn the blade of that long spear The hero took them as they came, and slew In close encounter twelve before the fleet.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XV.\n\nBut at last the brave son of Telamon was forced to give way, Hector having cut his spear shaft in two by a stroke of his huge sword. Then the Trojans hurled forward their blazing torches, and the ship was soon wrapped in flames. The Greeks were now in the greatest peril. No hope seemed left to them to save their fleet from destruction. But help came from an unexpected quarter. Patroclus, the friend and companion of Achilles, had been watching the terrible conflict at the ships. As soon as he saw the vessel on fire he hurried to the tent of the Myrmidonian chief, and with tears in his eyes implored him to have pity on his perishing countrymen.\n\"The Greeks,\" said he, \"are sorely pressed. Their bravest leaders are wounded, while you sit here, giving way to your wrath. If you will not yourself go to their rescue, at least permit me to lead the Myrmidons to battle, and let me wear your armor. The Trojans at the sight of it may think I am Achilles, and be so terrified that our people may have a little breathing time.\"\nTo this proposal Achilles assented, but he warned Patroclus not to pursue the Trojans too far, lest he might meet his death at the hands of one of the gods. \"Rescue our good ships,\" said he, \"but when you have driven the enemy from the fleet, return hither.\"\nWith joy and eager haste Patroclus put on the armor of Achilles. Then the great chief himself marshaled his Myrmidons in battle array, after which he addressed them, bidding them fight valiantly. The occasion, he said, had now come which they had so long desired, for they had often blamed him because he had kept them from joining their countrymen in the field. Fierce and fearless these Myrmidons were, and over two thousand strong.\n\nAchilles, dear to Jupiter, had led Fifty swift barks to Ilium, and in each Were fifty men, companions at the oar.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XVI.\n\nPatroclus now mounted the chariot of Achilles, with the brave Au-tom\u02b9e-don as charioteer, a hero next in valor to the renowned son of Peleus himself. There were three horses in the team, Xanthus and Ba\u02b9li-us, both of immortal breed, and fleet as the wind, and Ped\u02b9a-sus, which, though of mortal stock, was a match for the others in speed.\n\nLike in strength, in swiftness and in grace, A mortal courser match'd the immortal race.\nPope, Iliad, Book XVI.\n\nGreat was the terror of the Trojans when they beheld the Myrmidons march forth to battle.\n\nEvery heart grew faint With fear; the close ranks wavered; for they thought That the swift son of Peleus at the fleet Had laid aside his wrath, and was again The friend of Agamemnon. Eagerly They looked around for an escape from death.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XVI.\n\nAutomedon and the Horses of Achilles.\nAutomedon and the Horses of Achilles.\nPainting by Regnault.\nThe Greek fleet was soon out of danger, for Patroclus and his Myrmidons, having furiously attacked the Trojans, quickly drove them away from the burning vessel and put out the fire. Having thus saved the ships, the Myrmidonian warriors, aided by the other Greeks, then drove the Trojans with great slaughter from the camp into the plain, and on towards the walls of the city.\n\nIn that scattered conflict of the chiefs Each Argive slew a warrior.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XVI.\n\nEven the mighty Hector was not able to stop the flight of the panic-stricken Trojans, who seemed for the moment to have lost all their courage, so great was their fear at the name of Achilles. The hero Sarpedon at the head of his brave Lycians attempted to turn back the onset of the Myrmidons, and he sought out their leader to engage him in single combat. Both warriors sprang from their chariots at the same moment, and rushed at each other, hurling their spears. Twice Sarpedon missed his foe, but one of the weapons killed Pedasus, the horse of \"mortal stock.\" The leader of the Myrmidons cast his javelin with truer aim, for it pierced the Lycian chief right in the breast, and the hero fell like a tall pine tree falling in the forest at the last blow of the woodman's ax.\nThen a fierce conflict took place over the body, the Greeks seeking to obtain possession of the warrior's armor, which they did after many on both sides had been slain in the struggle. The body itself was sent by Apollo, at Jupiter's command, to Lycia, that the hero's kinsmen there might perform funeral rites in his honor.\n\nIn robes of heaven He clothed him, giving him to Sleep and Death, Twin brothers, and swift bearers of the dead, And they, with speed conveying it, laid down The corpse in Lycia's broad and opulent realm.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XVI.\n\nJupiter thus honored Sarpedon because the hero was his own son. He would have saved him from the spear of Patroclus, but the Fates had decreed that Sarpedon should die in the battle, and the decrees of the Fates were not to be set aside even by Jove himself.\nPatroclus, too, was doomed to fall in the conflict of the day, and the moment was now at hand. Forgetting the warning Achilles had given him, he pursued the Trojans up to the very gates of the city. Then he attempted to scale the wall, but he was driven back by Apollo, who spoke to him in threatening voice, saying that not by him should Troy be taken, nor by his chief, though mightier far than he. Hastily Patroclus withdrew from the walls, fearing the wrath of the archer god, but he continued to deal death among the Trojans as they came within reach of his weapons.\nAt last Hector, urged by Apollo, rushed forward in his chariot to encounter Patroclus. The Myrmidon leader lifted a large stone, and flung it with all his force at the Trojan chief as he approached. It missed Hector, but killed Ce-bri\u02b9o-nes, his charioteer, and while they fought over the body, each helped by brave comrades, many more on both sides were laid in the dust. Again the archer god interfered, this time coming unseen behind Patroclus, and striking him with his open palm between the shoulders. The hero staggered under the blow, his huge spear was shattered in his hands, and his shield dropped to the ground. Then Eu-phor\u02b9bus, a Dardanian chief, hurried forward, and with his lance wounded him in the back. Thus disarmed and almost overpowered, Patroclus turned to seek refuge in the ranks of his friends. As he was retreating, Hector rushed upon him, and thrusting a spear deep into his body, gave the brave warrior his death wound.\n\nThe hero fell With clashing mail, and all the Greeks beheld His fall with grief.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XVI.\n\nThen there was a long and terrific fight around the corpse of the fallen champion. The description of it occupies a whole book of the Iliad. The armor Patroclus wore was, as we have seen, the rich armor of Achilles, and the Trojans were eager to get possession of it. They wished also to get possession of the hero's body, that his friends might not have the satisfaction of performing the usual funeral rites in his honor. Menelaus was the first to stand guard over the body, and Euphorbus was the first to fall in the fight. Hector had gone in pursuit of the charioteer, Automedon, thinking to slay him, and capture the immortal horses of Achilles. But Apollo warned him against the attempt.\n\n\"Hector, thou art pursuing what thy feet Will never overtake, the steeds which draw The chariot of Achilles. Hard it were For mortal man to tame them or to guide, Save for Achilles, goddess-born. Meanwhile Hath warlike Menelaus, Atreus' son, Guarding the slain Patroclus, overthrown Euphorbus, bravest of the Trojan host.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book XVII.\n\nHearing these words Hector hastened back to where the corpse of the Greek hero was lying. When Menelaus saw him approaching, he withdrew, and hurried off to seek help, for he feared to encounter the terrible Trojan leader. Then Hector stripped Patroclus of the splendid armor of Achilles, and he was about dragging away the body, but just at that moment Ajax rushed up. Hector now retreated, leaping into his chariot and giving the glittering armor to his friends to be carried away to Troy.\nFor thus fleeing from the fight the Trojan chief was severely rebuked by Glau\u02b9cus, a Lycian warrior, who had been the comrade of the brave Sarpedon. Glaucus wished to get the body of Patroclus so that with it he might ransom Sarpedon's armor from the Greeks. Hector answered Glaucus, saying that he feared not the battle's fury, as he would presently show. Then he put on the armor of Achilles and he called to the Trojans to follow him, promising a rich reward to the warrior who should carry off the body for which they were going to fight.\n\n\"To him who from the field will drag and bring The slain Patroclus to the Trojan knights, Compelling Ajax to give way,\u2014to him I yield up half the spoil; the other half I keep, and let his glory equal mine.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book XVII.\n\nWith Hector at their head the Trojans now rushed forward. Ajax, seeing them advance, bade Menelaus summon the other Greek warriors to help in defending the body of their countryman. Quickly they were called and quickly they came. Then hand to hand and sword to sword both armies fought, and the battle raged furiously round the corpse of Patroclus.\n\nThey of Ilium strove To drag it to the city, they of Greece, To bear it to the fleet.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XVII.\n\nAt last Menelaus and a brother warrior lifted up the body and bore it away towards the trench. The Trojans followed, but the two Ajaxes turned around and, facing the pursuers, fought with heroic bravery to hold them back.\n\nThus, in hot pursuit And close array, the Trojans following strook With swords and two-edged spears; but when the twain Turned and stood firm to meet them, every cheek Grew pale, and not a single Trojan dared Draw near the Greeks to combat for the corse. Thus rapidly they bore away the dead Toward their good galleys from the battlefield. Onward with them the furious battle swept.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XVII.\n\nMeanwhile Antilochus, the son of Nestor, was sent from the field to carry to Achilles the sad news of the death of Patroclus. The chief was just then sitting near his ships thinking over the event which he feared had already happened, for the shouts of the Greeks as they fled from the plain pursued by the Trojans, had reached his ears. Upon learning the tidings brought by Antilochus, the hero burst into a fit of grief, tearing his hair, throwing himself on the earth, and uttering loud lamentations. His goddess mother, Thetis, in her father's palace beneath the waves, heard his cries. She hastened up, attended by a number of sea nymphs, and, embracing her son, inquired the cause of his grief. Achilles told her of the death of his dear friend, and then said:\n\n\"No wish Have I to live or to concern myself In men's affairs, save this: that Hector first, Pierced by my spear, shall yield his life, and pay The debt of vengeance for Patroclus slain.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book XVIII.\n\nThe weeping mother, wishing to save her son, told him of the fate which had decreed that his own death should soon follow that of Hector.\n\n\"Ah then, I see thee dying, see thee dead! When Hector falls, thou diest.\"\nPope, Iliad, Book XVIII.\n\nBut the warning of Thetis was in vain. \"Let my death come,\" said he, \"when the gods will it. I shall have revenge on Hector, by whose hand my friend has been slain.\"\nSeeing that she could not induce him to alter his purpose, his mother reminded him that his bright armor had been seized by the Trojans. She bade him therefore not go to battle until she should bring him new armor made by Vulcan, which she promised to do early next morning. Then she commanded the other nymphs to return to their ocean home, and she herself ascended to Olympus, to ask the god of smiths to forge glittering armor for her son.\nMeantime the fight over the body of Patroclus still continued. The Greeks were now driven to their ships, and in danger of being totally defeated. Three times Hector seized the body by the feet, to drag it away, and three times the mighty Ajaxes forced him back. Still again he seized it, and this time he would have borne it away, had not Juno sent Iris down to Achilles to bid him hasten to the relief of his friends.\n\"But how,\" he asked, \"can I go forth to the battle, since the enemy have my arms?\" Iris answered:\n\n\"Go thou to the trench, and show thyself To them of Troy, that, haply smit with fear, They may desist from battle.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book XVIII.\n\nThen the goddess Minerva spread a golden cloud around the head of Achilles, and she kindled in it a bright flame that streamed upward to the sky. And the hero went out beyond the wall, and stood beside the trench, and he shouted in a voice loud as a trumpet sound,\u2014a shout that carried dismay into the ranks of the Trojans.\n\nThe hearts of all who heard that brazen voice Were troubled, and their steeds with flowing manes Turned backward with the chariots,\u2014such the dread Of coming slaughter. .         .       .       .       .       .       .       . Thrice o'er the trench Achilles shouted; thrice The men of Troy and their renowned allies Fell into wild disorder. Then there died, Entangled midst the chariots, and transfixed By their own spears, twelve of their bravest chiefs. The Greeks bore off Patroclus from the field With eager haste, and placed him on a bier, And there the friends that loved him gathered round Lamenting.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XVIII\n\nSo ended the long and terrible battle of the day, for Juno now commanded the sun to set. In obedience to the queen of heaven the god of light descended into the ocean streams, though unwillingly he did so, as it was earlier than the proper time for sunset.\nThe Trojan leaders, meanwhile, assembled in council on the plain to consider what preparations should be made for the battle of the morrow, in which, they knew, the terrible Achilles would take part. Po-lyd\u02b9a-mas, a prudent chief, proposed that they should withdraw into the city. There they might defend themselves from their ramparts, for even Achilles, with all his valor, would not be able to force his way through their strong walls. But Hector rejected this wise advice. He resolved to risk the chance of war in the open field, and let the god of battles decide who should win.\n\n\"Soon as the morn the purple orient warms, Fierce on yon navy will we pour our arms. If great Achilles rise in all his might, His be the danger: I shall stand the fight. Honor, ye gods! or let me gain or give; And live he glorious, whosoe'er shall live!\"\nPope, Iliad, Book XVIII.\n\nDecorative\n\n\nXI. END OF THE WRATH OF ACHILLES\u2014DEATH OF HECTOR.\nDecorative\nDesign by Burne-Jones.\nThetis faithfully performed her promise to Achilles. Having ascended to the top of Olympus, she found the god of smiths busy in his forge, a workshop so magnificent that it was a wonder to the gods themselves.\n\nSilver-footed Thetis came Meanwhile to Vulcan's halls, eternal, gemmed With stars, a wonder to the immortals, wrought Of brass by the lame god. She found him there Sweating and toiling, and with busy hand Plying the bellows.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XVIII.\n\nVulcan willingly consented to make the armor as Thetis requested, for she had been his friend and had protected him in his infancy, when his mother Juno threw him out of heaven into the sea. Juno did this because Vulcan was not a good-looking child. He was, in fact, so ugly that his mother could not bear the sight of him, and so she cast him out of Olympus. But Thetis and her sister Eu-ryn'o-me received him in their arms as he fell, and for nine years they nursed and took care of him in their father's palace beneath the waves. Gladly, therefore, Vulcan set to work at the request of his old friend. In his workshop were immense furnaces, and he had plenty of precious material in store.\n\nUpon the fire He laid impenetrable brass, and tin, And precious gold and silver; on its block Placed the huge anvil, took the ponderous sledge, And held the pincers in the other hand.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XVIII.\n\nThetis bringing Armor to Achilles.\nThetis bringing Armor to Achilles.\nPainting by Gerard.\nAnd first he made a shield, large and massive, upon which he wrought figures of the earth and the sky, the sun, moon, and stars, with many other beautiful designs. He wrought upon it numerous scenes of human life,\u2014representations of war and peace, of battles and sieges, of reapers in the harvest fields, of shepherds tending their flocks, of vintagers gathering their grapes; and scenes of festivity with music, song, and dancing. Homer gives a long and splendid description of this wonderful shield. When Vulcan had finished it, he forged a corselet brighter than fire, and greaves of tin, and a helmet with crest of gold. Then he laid the magnificent armor at the feet of Thetis, and the goddess bore it away and carried it down to the Grecian camp in the early morning to present it to her son.\n\nLike a falcon in her flight, Down plunging from Olympus capped with snow, She bore the shining armor Vulcan gave.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XVIII.\n\nGreat was the delight of Achilles on seeing the beautiful armor and the marvelous workmanship of its various parts. And now he hastened to prepare for battle. First he went along the beach from tent to tent, calling with a mighty shout on his brother chiefs to assemble. When all were together he spoke friendly words to Agamemnon, expressing sorrow that strife had come between them, and declaring that his wrath was now ended.\n\n\"Here then my anger ends; let war succeed, And even as Greece has bled, let Ilion bleed. Now call the hosts, and try if in our sight Troy yet shall dare to camp a second night!\"\nPope, Iliad, Book XIX.\n\nAgamemnon, too, spoke words of peace and friendship, and all the chiefs rejoiced that the anger of Achilles, which had brought so many woes upon the Greeks, was at length appeased. Then the troops took their morning meal, and when they had refreshed themselves with food and drink, they marched forth to the field. Achilles, having put on his bright armor, mounted his chariot, to which were yoked the two immortal and swift-footed steeds, Xanthus and Balius.\nAnd here a wonderful thing occurred. When the hero spoke to the animals, charging them in loud and terrible voice to bring him back safely from the battle, and not leave him dead on the plain, as they had left Patroclus, Xanthus, to whom Juno had, for the moment, given the power of speech, replied to the words of his master, saying that it was not through any fault of himself and his comrade that Patroclus had been slain, but by the interference of Apollo. He also warned Achilles that the hour of his own death was near at hand.\n\n\"Not through our crime, or slowness in the course, Fell thy Patroclus, but by heavenly force; The bright far-shooting god who gilds the day (Confess'd we saw him) tore his arms away. No\u2014could our swiftness o'er the winds prevail, Or beat the pinions of the western gale, All were in vain\u2014the Fates thy death demand, Due to a mortal and immortal hand.\"\nPope, Iliad, Book XIX.\n\nBut Achilles already knew his fate, and he was prepared to meet it with courage.\n\n\"I know my fate: to die, to see no more My much-loved parents, and my native shore\u2014 Enough\u2014when heaven ordains, I sink in night: Now perish Troy!\" He said, and rush'd to fight.\nPope, Iliad, Book XIX,\n\nIn the battle which now began many of the gods took active part, Jupiter, at a council on Mount Olympus, having given them permission to do so. Down to the plain before Troy they sped with haste, Juno, Minerva, Neptune, Mercury, and Vulcan taking the side of the Greeks, and Mars, Apollo, Venus, Diana, Latona, and the river god, Xanthus, going to the assistance of the Trojans.\nMeantime Achilles, having rushed forth to the field, plunged into the thick of the fight, eagerly seeking for Hector. But first he met \u00c6neas, whom Apollo had urged to encounter him. Achilles warned the Trojan hero to withdraw from the battle.\n\"Once already,\" said he, \"I forced you to flee before my spear, running fast down Ida's slopes. I counsel you now to retire, lest evil happen to you.\"\n\u00c6neas answered that he was not to be thus frightened, as if he were a beardless boy. \"I am the son of the goddess Venus,\" said he, \"and my father, Anchises, was descended from Jove himself. We are not here, however, to talk, but to fight, and words will not turn me from my purpose.\"\nSo saying, \u00c6neas hurled his spear. It struck the shield of Achilles with a ringing sound, and passed through two of its folds.\n\nVulcan's skill Fenced with five folds the disk,\u2014the outer two Of brass, the inner two of tin; between Was one of gold, and there the brazen spear Was stayed.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XX.\n\nAchilles now cast his heavy javelin. Through the shield of \u00c6neas it crashed, but, as the hero stooped to avoid it, the spear passed over his shoulder, and plunged deep into the earth. Then with sword in hand, the Myrmidonian chief rushed furiously upon \u00c6neas. He would probably have slain him, had not Neptune interfered. But the ocean god spread a mist over the eyes of the Greek warrior, and carried \u00c6neas away in safety to the rear of the battlefield. The Trojan prince was thus preserved because the Dardan race, to which he belonged, was beloved by Jupiter. Moreover it was decreed by the Fates that the son of Anchises should, in later times, rule over a Trojan people, and that his sons' sons should rule after him.\nHaving placed \u00c6neas out of danger, Neptune removed the mist from the eyes of Achilles. The hero, on looking about him, was amazed at not seeing the foe with whom, only an instant before, he had been in fierce conflict. But he did not wait to think over this strange occurrence. Rushing into the midst of the Trojans, he smote down warrior after warrior, as they came within reach of his spear. Amongst them was Pol-y-do\u02b9rus, the youngest son of Priam. His father had forbidden him to go into the battle, because he loved him most of all his sons. But Polydorus was a brave youth, and he wished to show his swiftness, for in speed of foot he excelled all the young men of Troy.\n\n\n\nHe ranged the field, until he lost his life. Him with a javelin the swift-footed son Of Peleus smote as he was hurrying by.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XX.\n\nNow Hector had been warned by Apollo to avoid meeting Achilles, but when he saw his young brother slain, he could no longer stand aloof. He therefore sprang forward to attack the son of Thetis. As soon as Achilles saw the Trojan chief, he bounded towards him, crying out:\n\n\"Draw nearer that thou mayst the sooner die.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book XX.\n\nHector replied in words of defiance, and then brandished and hurled forth his spear. But Minerva turned it aside, and it missed its aim. Then Achilles, with a wild shout, rushed against his enemy. Apollo now came to the rescue, covering the Trojan hero in a veil of clouds, and taking him away from the conflict. The enraged Achilles struck into the dense mist with his sword again and again, and in loud voice reproached Hector for what seemed to be his cowardly flight.\n\n\"Hound as thou art, thou hast once more escaped Thy death; for it was near. Again the hand Of Ph\u0153bus rescues thee. I shall meet thee yet And end thee utterly, if any god Favor me also. I will now pursue And strike the other Trojan warriors down.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book XX.\n\nThe enraged hero then attacked the Trojans so furiously that they fled before him in dismay. Some rushed towards the gates of the city, others to the Xanthus, into which they leaped in such numbers that the river was soon filled with a crowd of steeds and men.\n\nSo, plunged in Xanthus by Achilles' force, Roars the resounding surge with men and horse.\nPope, Iliad, Book XXI.\n\nBut now the terrible Myrmidonian chief descended from his chariot, and with sword in hand pursued the Trojans into the water. There he slew so many that the stream became blocked with the bodies of the dead. The river god, roused to anger, called to Achilles in a loud voice from the depths of the Xanthus, saying that if he meant to destroy the whole Trojan race, he must do it on the plain, and not stop the waters in their course to the sea.\n\n\"For now my pleasant waters, in their flow, Are choked with heaps of dead, and I no more Can pour them into the great deep, so thick The corpses clog my bed, while thou dost slay And sparest not.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book XXI.\n\nAchilles answered that he would not cease to slay the treaty-breaking Trojans until they were punished as they deserved. At this the river god was so enraged that he sent his waters with tremendous force against the hero. The waves now surged around Achilles, beating upon his shield, and buffeting him so violently that he was in danger of being overwhelmed. He saved himself only by grasping the bough of an elm tree which grew on the river's edge, and so gaining the bank. Then the angry god, rising in greater fury, swept his mighty billows out upon the plain. The Greek hero bravely attempted to fight this new enemy, but his valor and his weapons were powerless against such an attack.\n\nAs often as the noble son Of Peleus made a stand in hope to know Whether the deathless gods of the great heaven Conspired to make him flee, so often came A mighty billow of the Jove-born stream And drenched his shoulders. Then again he sprang Away; the rapid torrent made his knees To tremble, while it swept, where'er he trod, The earth from underneath his feet.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XXI.\n\nAchilles now prayed to the gods for help, and Neptune and Minerva came and encouraged him, saying that he was not to be thus conquered. Still as Xanthus called upon his brother river, Simois, to join him in defense of King Priam's noble city, it might have fared badly with the Greeks, had not Vulcan come to their help. At the request of Juno the god of fire sent down a vast quantity of flames, which scorched and dried up the plain, and burned the trees and reeds on the banks of the rivers. Vulcan began to dry up even the rivers themselves. Then Xanthus became terrified and begged for mercy, promising that he would not again interfere in the fight on either side.\n\n\"Oh Vulcan! oh! what power resists thy might? I faint, I sink, unequal to the fight\u2014 I yield\u2014Let Ilion fall; if fate decree\u2014 Ah\u2014bend no more thy fiery arms on me!\"\nPope, Iliad, Book XXI.\n\nIt was not, however, until Juno entreated him to do so, that Vulcan withdrew his flames, and the rivers were permitted to flow on again in peace and safety. Achilles now renewed his attack on the Trojans. The gods also rushed into the conflict. Mars launched his brazen spear at Minerva, but, with the terrible \u00e6gis, the goddess warded off the blow. Then Minerva lifted up a great rough stone and hurled it at Mars, striking him on the neck, and stretching him senseless on the ground.\n\nHe fell With nerveless limbs, and covered, as he lay, Seven acres of the field.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XXI.\n\nVenus.\nVenus.\nCanova.\nVenus hastened to the relief of the wounded god, and, taking him by the hand, led him away groaning with pain. Juno, who had been a spectator of the fight, now approached Minerva, and urged her to attack Venus. She gladly consented to do as the queen of heaven desired. Following up the goddess of beauty, Minerva gave her a mighty blow on the breast, throwing her prostrate on the earth. At the same time Neptune challenged Apollo to fight. He reminded him, too, of King Laomedon's conduct toward both of them, many years before, and reproached him for being now on the side of the descendants of that faithless king. But Apollo refused to fight with the ocean god.\n\n\"Thou wouldst not deem me wise, should I contend With thee, O Neptune, for the sake of men, Who flourish like the forest leaves awhile, And feed upon the fruits of earth and then Decay and perish.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book XXI.\n\nBut though Apollo would not fight with Neptune, he continued to help the Trojans. Achilles had driven them in terror up under their walls, and King Priam had ordered the gates to be thrown open to admit the flying hosts. Multitudes of them rushed in, while the furious son of Thetis pressed on behind. It was a moment of danger for Troy, and the Greeks might soon have taken the city, if Apollo had not encouraged young Agenor, the son of Antenor, to attack Achilles. The brave youth advanced, and cast his spear, striking the hero at the knee. But it could not pierce the armor Vulcan had made. Then the Greek chief aimed at Agenor, and again Apollo came to the rescue, concealing the Trojan youth in a veil of darkness, and carrying him safely away. But in an instant the god returned, and, taking upon himself Agenor's shape and appearance, stood for a moment in front of Achilles. Then he turned and fled along the plain, followed fast by the enraged Greek. Thus Apollo gave the Trojans time to get within the city and shut their gates.\n\nAchilles chased the god Ever before him, yet still near, across The fruitful fields, to the deep-eddied stream Of Xanthus; for Apollo artfully Made it to seem that he should soon o'ertake His flying foe, and thus beguiled him on. Meanwhile the routed Trojans gladly thronged Into the city, filled the streets, and closed The portals.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XXI.\n\nHector alone of all the Trojans remained outside the walls, standing in front of the Sc\u00e6an Gate. Achilles still pursued Apollo, thinking that he was Agenor, but at last the god made himself known to his pursuer. The hero reproached him angrily for his deception, and then with the utmost speed he hastened across the plain towards the city. From the ramparts the aged King Priam beheld him coming, and in piteous words he cried out to Hector, imploring him to take refuge within the walls. Queen Hecuba, too, with tears in her eyes, begged her son to withdraw, and not be so mad as to encounter the terrible Greek chief alone. But Hector would not yield to the entreaties of his weeping parents. He had refused to take the advice of Polydamas to withdraw into the city on the previous night, and if he should pass within the walls now, after Achilles had slain so many of the Trojans, Polydamas would be the first to reproach him. Thus the hero reasoned with himself and so he resolved to stand and face his foe.\n\n\"No\u2014if I e'er return, return I must Glorious, my country's terror laid in dust: Or if I perish, let her see me fall In field at least, and fighting for her wall.\"\nPope, Iliad, Book XXII.\n\nAchilles now approached. Terrible he was in appearance. His great javelin quivered fearfully on his shoulder, and a light as of blazing fire, or of the rising sun, shone from his heavenly armor. Hector trembled with fear when he looked upon the Grecian leader. So great was his terror that he did not dare to wait, but fled away round the city wall. Achilles quickly pursued him, as a hawk pursues a dove. They ran till they came to two springs where the stream of the Xanthus rose. From one of these springs a hot vapor ascended, like smoke from fire, and from the other a current cold as ice issued even in summer. Past these the warriors swept on.\n\nOne fled, and one pursued,\u2014 A brave man fled, a braver followed close, And swiftly both. Not for a common prize, A victim from the herd, a bullock's hide, Such as reward the fleet of foot, they ran,\u2014 The race was for the knightly Hector's life.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XXII.\n\nThree times they ran round the walls, in sight of the Greeks and Trojans. The gods of heaven, too, were looking on from the top of Mount Olympus, and Jupiter, taking pity on Hector, thought that they should save him from death. But Minerva protested. His doom, she said, had been fixed by the Fates, and even Jupiter could not alter it\u2014at least not with the approval of the other gods. The cloud-compelling king was obliged to give way, and so the Trojan chief was left to his fate. Then Minerva rushed down to the field, and still Hector fled and Achilles pursued. As often as they passed around, Hector attempted to approach the gates, hoping for help from his friends. But each time Achilles got before him and turned him away towards the plain; and he made a sign to the Greeks that none of them should cast a spear, for he wished that he alone should have all the glory of slaying the greatest of the Trojan heroes.\nNow Apollo had been helping Hector, giving him strength and speed, but when, for the fourth time, the heroes reached the Xanthus springs, Jupiter raised high the golden balance of fate. There were two lots in the scales, one for the son of Peleus, the other for the Trojan chief. By the middle the king of heaven held the balance, and the lot of Hector sank down. Immediately Apollo departed from the field, for he could no longer go against the Fates. Then Minerva came close to Hector's side, and, taking the form and voice of his brother Deiphobus, she urged him to stand and fight Achilles.\n\n\"Hard pressed I find thee, brother, by the swift Achilles, who, with feet that never rest, Pursues thee round the walls of Priam's town. But let us make a stand and beat him back.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book XXII.\n\nThus encouraged, as he thought by his brother, whom he was surprised to see at his side, for he believed him to be in the city, the Trojan hero turned around, and was soon face to face with his great foe. Knowing that the hour had now come when one of them must die, Hector proposed to Achilles that they should make a covenant, or agreement, between them that the victor in the fight should give the other's body to his friends, so that funeral rites might be performed. But the wrathful Achilles refused. He would have no covenant with his enemy.\n\n\"Accursed Hector, never talk to me Of covenants. Men and lions plight no faith, Nor wolves agree with lambs, but each must plan Evil against the other. So between Thyself and me no compact can exist, Or understood intent. First, one of us Must fall and yield his life blood to the god Of battles.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book XXII.\n\nThen the fight began, Achilles first cast his spear. It was a weapon heavy, huge, and strong, that no mortal arm but his own could wield. Its shaft was made of a tree which the famous Chi\u02b9ron, instructor of heroes in the art of war, had cut on Mount Pe\u02b9li-on and given to the father of Achilles.\n\nHis strength Alone sufficed to wield it. 'Twas an ash Which Chiron felled in Pelion's top, and gave To Peleus, that it yet might be the death Of heroes.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XVI.\n\nThe Trojan chief stooped to avoid the blow, and the spear, passing over him, sunk in the earth. Minerva, unseen by Hector, plucked it out and gave it back to Achilles. Hector now launched his weapon. With true aim he hurled it, for it struck the center of his antagonist's shield, but the workmanship of Vulcan was not to be pierced, and so the javelin of the Trojan hero bounded from the brazen armor and fell to the ground. He called loudly to Deiphobus for another spear. There was no answer, and then looking around him he discovered that he had been deceived.\n\nAll comfortless he stands; then, with a sigh: \"'Tis so\u2014Heaven wills it, and my hour is nigh. I deem'd Deiphobus had heard my call, But he secure lies guarded in the wall. A god deceived me; Pallas, 'twas thy deed, Death and black fate approach! 'tis I must bleed.\"\nPope, Iliad, Book XXII.\n\nNevertheless, Hector resolved to fight bravely to the end, and so he drew his sword and rushed upon Achilles. The Greek warrior, watching his foe closely as he approached, noticed an opening in his armor, where the collar of the corselet joined the shoulder. At that spot he furiously thrust his speat, and pierced the Trojan hero through the neck. Hector fell to the ground, mortally wounded. In his dying moments he begged Achilles to send his body to his parents, telling him that they would give large ransom in gold. But his entreaties were in vain. Neither by prayers nor by promise of gold could the conqueror be moved. The last words of Hector were words warning Achilles of his own doom:\n\n\"A day will come when fate's decree And angry gods shall wreak this wrong on thee; Ph\u0153bus and Paris shall avenge my fate, And stretch thee here before the Sc\u00e6an Gate.\" He ceased. The Fates suppress'd his laboring breath, And his eyes stiffen'd at the hand of death.\nPope, Iliad, Book XXII.\n\nSo died the great champion of the Trojans. The Greeks crowded around the dead hero, admiring his stature and beautiful figure, and remarking one to another that Hector was far less dangerous to touch now than when he was setting fire to their fleet.\nBut the anger of Achilles was not appeased even by the death of his foe. Eager for still more vengeance, he bound the feet of the dead hero with leather thongs to the back of his chariot, leaving the head to trail along the ground, and thus he drove to the ships, dragging the noble Hector in the dust.\nThe Trojans, beholding this dreadful spectacle from the walls of the city, broke out into loud lamentations, and King Priam and Queen Hecuba were almost distracted with grief. Andromache had not been a witness of the combat. She was at home with her maids, making preparations for Hector's return from the battle, and was therefore unaware of the terrible events which had taken place. But the sound of the wailing on the ramparts having reached her ears, she rushed forth from the palace, fearful that some evil had happened to her husband. Hastening through the streets to the Sc\u00e6an Gate, she ascended the tower, and looking out on the plain, saw the body of her beloved Hector dragged behind the wheels of the chariot of Achilles. Overpowered with grief at the sight, the unhappy woman sank fainting into the arms of her attendants.\n\nA sudden darkness shades her swimming eyes: She faints, she falls; her breath, her color flies. Her hair's fair ornaments, the braids that bound, The net that held them, and the wreath that crown'd, The veil and diadem flew far away (The gift of Venus on her bridal day). Around a train of weeping sisters stands To raise her sinking with assistant hands.\nPope, Iliad, Book XXII.\n\nWhile the Trojans thus mourned the loss of their chief, his body was dragged into the Grecian camp and flung on the beach beside the ships. Preparations were then made for funeral services in honor of Patroclus. The ceremonies occupied three days. A vast quantity of wood was cut down on Mount Ida, and carried to the plain, where the logs were heaped together in an immense pile, a hundred feet square. Upon this they placed the corpse. They next put upon the pile the fat of several oxen, that it might the more easily burn, and they slew and laid upon it the dead man's horses. Achilles cut off a lock of his own hair and put it in the dead hero's hand, and each of the other warriors placed a lock of his hair on the body.\nTorches were now applied, and they prayed to the wind gods, Bo\u02b9re-as and Zeph\u02b9y-rus, to send strong breezes to fan the flames. All through the night the pile blazed with a mighty roar, and in the morning, when it was consumed, the embers were quenched with wine, and the bones of Patroclus were gathered up and inclosed in a golden urn. On the spot where the pyre had stood they raised a mound of earth as a monument to the hero.\nThen there were funeral games at which valuable prizes, given by Achilles, were competed for,\u2014prizes of gold and silver, and shining weapons, and vases, and steeds, and oxen. Diomede won the prize in the chariot race, for he ran with the immortal horses he had taken in battle from \u00c6neas. In the wrestling match Ulysses and Ajax Telamon were the rival champions. Both displayed such strength and skill that it could not be decided which was the victor, and so a prize of equal value was given to each. Ajax Telamon also competed with Diomede in a combat with swords, and both were declared equal and received each a prize.\nIn the contest with bow and arrows, Teu\u02b9cer and Me-ri\u02b9o-nes were the competitors, and a dove tied to the top of a mast fixed in the ground, was the object aimed at. Teucer missed the bird, but he struck and cut the cord that fastened her to the pole, and she flew up into the heavens. Then Meriones shot at her with his arrow. The weapon pierced the dove beneath the wing and she fell to the earth. This feat was greatly admired by the spectators, and Meriones received as his prize ten double-bladed battle-axes. To Teucer, whose performance was also much applauded, a prize of ten single-bladed axes was given.\nThus did Achilles honor his dead friend by funeral rites and funeral games. But his wrath against Hector still continued, even when he had dragged the hero's body at his chariot wheels three times round the tomb of Patroclus. This cruel insult he repeated at dawn for several days. But Apollo watched the body.\n\nApollo, moved With pity for the hero, kept him free From soil or stain, though dead, and o'er him held The golden \u00e6gis, lest, when roughly dragged Along the ground, the body might be torn.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XXIV.\n\nMeriones' Wonderful Shot.\nMeriones' Wonderful Shot.\nDrawn by Hubbell.\nBut at last the gods, with the exception of Juno, were moved to pity, and on the twelfth day from the death of the Trojan hero, Jupiter summoned Thetis to Olympus, and bade her command Achilles to restore Hector's body to his parents. He also sent Iris with a message to King Priam, telling him to go to the Greek fleet, bearing with him a suitable ransom for his son. Thetis promptly carried out the order of Jupiter. She told her son of the command of the king of heaven, and Achilles answered that since it was the will of Jove he was ready to obey.\n\n\"Let him who brings the ransom come and take The body, if it be the will of Jove.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book XXIV.\n\nJoyfully the aged Priam received the message of Iris, and he made haste to set out for the Grecian camp. He took with him costly things as ransom,\u2014ten talents of gold, and precious vases and goblets, and many beautiful robes of state. These were carried in a wagon drawn by four mules, which were driven by the herald Id\u00e6us. The king rode in his own chariot and he himself was the charioteer. As they crossed the plain they were met by the god Mercury, whom Jupiter had sent to conduct them safely to the tent of the Greek warrior.\n\n\"Haste, guide King Priam to the Grecian fleet, Yet so that none may see him, and no Greek Know of his coming, till he stand before Pelides.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book XXIV.\n\nMercury mounted the chariot of Priam, and taking in his hands the reins, he drove rapidly towards the ships. When they came to the trenches the god cast the guards into a deep slumber, and so the Trojan king and his companion reached the tent of the chief of the Myrmidons, unseen by any of the Greeks. Then Mercury departed, and ascended to Olympus.\nAchilles received his visitors respectfully, and the aged king, kissing the hero's hand, knelt down before him and begged him have pity on a father mourning for his son.\n\n\"For his sake I come To the Greek fleet, and to redeem his corse I bring uncounted ransom. O, revere The gods, Achilles, and be merciful, Calling to mind thy father! happier he Than I; for I have borne what no man else That dwells on earth could bear,\u2014have laid my lips Upon the hand of him who slew my son.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book XXIV.\n\nThe Greek chief, moved by this appeal, replied in kind words and accepted the ransom, after which he caused Priam and Id\u00e6us to sit down and refresh themselves with food and drink, and invited them to remain with him for the night. He also granted a truce of twelve days for funeral rites in honor of Hector.\nEarly in the morning the Trojan king and his herald arose, and Mercury again descended from Olympus to conduct them safely from the Grecian camp. Quickly they yoked their steeds, and mournfully they drove across the plain to the city. Cassandra, who stood watching on the citadel of Pergamus, saw them coming, and she cried out in a loud voice to the people, bidding them go and meet their dead hero.\n\n\"If e'er ye rush'd in crowds, with vast delight, To hail your hero glorious from the fight, Now meet him dead, and let your sorrows flow; Your common triumph, and your common woe.\"\nPope, Iliad, Book XXIV.\n\nAmid the lamentations of the people the corpse was borne through the streets to the royal palace, where it was placed on a magnificent couch. Then Andromache and Queen Hecuba approached the body and wept aloud, each in turn uttering words of grief. Helen, too, came to mourn over Hector, and she spoke of his constant kindness and tenderness to her.\n\n\"O Hector, who wert dearest to my heart Of all my husband's brothers,\u2014for the wife Am I of godlike Paris, him whose fleet Brought me to Troy,\u2014would I had sooner died! And now the twentieth year is past since first I came a stranger from my native shore, Yet have I never heard from thee a word Of anger or reproach. And when the sons Of Priam, and his daughters, and the wives Of Priam's sons, in all their fair array, Taunted me grievously, or Hecuba Herself,\u2014for Priam ever was to me A gracious father,\u2014thou didst take my part With kindly admonitions, and restrain Their tongues with soft address and gentle words. Therefore my heart is grieved, and I bewail Thee and myself at once,\u2014unhappy me! For now I have no friend in all wide Troy,\u2014 None to be kind to me: they hate me all.\"\nBryant, Iliad, Book XXIV.\n\nWith the funeral of Hector the Iliad of Homer ends. The poet's subject, as has been said, was the Wrath of Achilles, and the poem properly closes when the results of the hero's wrath have been related. The concluding lines of the twenty-fourth, and last, book of the Iliad describe the funeral ceremonies of Hector, which were the same as those performed by the Greeks in honor of Patroclus.\n\nNine days they toiled To bring the trunks of trees, and when the tenth Arose to light the abodes of men, they brought The corse of valiant Hector from the town With many tears, and laid it on the wood High up, and flung the fire to light the pile.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XXIV.\n\nThe fire burned all night, and next day they gathered the bones of Hector and placed them in a golden urn. Then they buried the urn and erected a tomb over the grave.\n\nIn haste they reared the tomb, with sentries set On every side, lest all too soon the Greeks Should come in armor to renew the war. When now the tomb was built, the multitude Returned, and in the halls where Priam dwelt, Nursling of Jove, were feasted royally. Such was the mighty Hector's burial rite.\nBryant, Iliad, Book XXIV.\n\nFeasting-cup.\nFeasting-cup.\n\n\nXII. DEATH OF ACHILLES\u2014FALL AND DESTRUCTION OF TROY.\nAfter the funeral of Hector the war was renewed. For a time the Trojans remained within the walls of their city, which were strong enough to resist all the assaults of the enemy. But some allies having come to their assistance, they were encouraged to sally forth again and fight the Greeks in the open plain. The famous and beautiful Queen Pen-the-si-le\u02b9a came with an army of her Am\u02b9a-zons, a nation of female warriors who dwelt on the shores of the Black Sea.\n\nPenthesilea there with haughty grace, Leads to the wars an Amazonian race; In their right hands a pointed dart they wield; The left for ward, sustains the lunar shield.\nVergil.\n\nBrave as she was beautiful, the queen of the Amazons scorned to remain behind the shelter of walls, and so, leading her valiant band of women out through the gates, she made a fierce attack on the Greeks. A terrific battle then began, and many warriors on both sides were laid in the dust. Penthesilea herself was slain by Achilles. The hero was unwilling to fight with a woman, and he tried to avoid meeting the queen, but she attacked him so furiously, first hurling her spear, and then rushing upon him sword in hand, that he was obliged to strike in self-defense. With a thrust of his lance he gave her a mortal wound, and the brave heroine fell, begging Achilles to permit her body to be taken away by her own people.\nCombat of the Amazons.\nCombat of the Amazons.\nPainting by Michelena.\nFilled with pity for the unfortunate queen, and with admiration for her courage and beauty, the hero granted the request. He even proposed that the Greeks should perform funeral rites and build a tomb in her honor. The foul-mouthed Thersites (mentioned in a previous chapter as having been chastised by Ulysses) scoffed at this proposal, and ridiculed Achilles, saying that he was not so soft-hearted in his treatment of Hector. Enraged at his insulting words, the chief of the Myrmidons struck him dead with a mighty blow of his fist.\nNow Diomede was a relative of the unfortunate Thersites, and he demanded that Achilles should pay to the family of the dead man the fine required by Greek law for such offenses. Achilles refused, and he was about to retire again in anger from the war, and even to return home. But Ulysses persuaded Diomede to withdraw his claim, and so made peace between the two chiefs.\nAnother ally, and a very powerful one, now came to help the Trojans. This was Mem\u02b9non, king of Ethiopia, and nephew of Priam, being the son of Priam's brother Ti-tho\u02b9nus, and Au-ro\u02b9ra, goddess of the dawn. With an army of ten thousand men he arrived at Troy, and immediately entered the field to do battle with the Greeks. Again there was great slaughter of heroes on both sides. Memnon killed Antilochus, the son of Nestor, and Nestor challenged Memnon to single combat. But on account of the great age of the venerable Greek, the Ethiopian warrior declined to fight him. Achilles then challenged Memnon, and the two heroes fought in presence of both armies. The conflict was long and furious, for Memnon, too, had a suit of armor made for him by Vulcan, at the request of his goddess mother Aurora, and in strength and courage he was almost equal to Achilles. Once more, however, fortune favored the chief of the Myrmidons. The brave Memnon was slain, and Aurora bore away his body that funeral rites might be performed.\nBut the time was now at hand when the great warrior who so far had conquered in every fight was to meet his own doom. We have seen that Hector, as he lay dying in front of the Sc\u00e6an Gate, warned Achilles that he himself should fall by the hand of Paris. This prophecy was fulfilled.\nBy the death of Memnon the Trojans were much discouraged. Their powerful allies had been defeated, and they were no longer able to hold the field against the enemy. Soon after the death of Memnon there was a great battle, in which the Greeks, headed by Achilles, drove them back to the city walls. Through the Sc\u00e6an Gate, which lay open, the Trojans rushed in terror and confusion, the Greeks pressing on close behind. Achilles reached the gate, and was about to enter, when Paris aimed at him with an arrow. Guided by Apollo, the weapon struck the hero in the heel, the only part in which he could be fatally wounded.\nThe warrior fell to the ground, whereupon the Trojan prince hastened up and slew him with his sword. A terrific struggle took place over the body of the dead chief, but by mighty efforts Ajax Telamon and Ulysses succeeded in gaining possession of it, and carrying it to the Grecian camp. Deep was the grief of the Greeks at the death of their great champion. Magnificent funeral rites and games were celebrated in his honor, his goddess mother, Thetis, presiding over the ceremonies. After the body had been burned in the customary manner, the bones were placed in a vase of gold, made by Vulcan, and a vast mound was raised on the shore as a monument to the hero.\n\nThe sacred army of the warlike Greeks Built up a tomb magnificently vast Upon a cape of the broad Hellespont, There to be seen, far off upon the deep, By those who now are born, or shall be born In future years.\nBryant, Odyssey, Book XXIV.\n\nThe armor of Achilles was offered as a reward for the warrior who had fought most bravely in rescuing the body, and who had done most harm to the Trojans. To decide the question which of the Greek chiefs deserved this honor, it was resolved to take the votes of the Trojan prisoners then in the Greek camp, who had witnessed the struggle at the Sc\u00e6an Gate. The majority of votes were in favor of Ulysses, and to him, therefore, the splendid shield and corselet and helmet and greaves, made by Vulcan for the son of Thetis, were given. Ajax was so disappointed and grieved at not having obtained the coveted prize that he became insane, and in his frenzy he slew himself with his own sword.\nThe Greeks had now lost their two most powerful warriors, and they began to think that it was impossible for them to take Troy by force, and that they must try other methods. So the wise Ulysses then set his brain to work to devise some stratagem by which the city might be taken. The first thing he did was to capture the Trojan prince and soothsayer, Helenus, who had gone out from the city to offer sacrifices in the temple of Apollo on Mount Ida. Calchas, the Greek soothsayer, had said that Helenus was the only mortal who knew by what means Troy could be conquered, and so Ulysses made him prisoner and threatened him with death if he did not tell.\nThen Helenus told the Ithacan chief that before Troy could be taken three things must be done. First, he said, the Greeks must get the arrows of Hercules; next, they must carry away the sacred Palladium, for as long as it remained within the walls the city was safe; and, lastly, they must have the help of the son of Achilles.\nNow the arrows of Hercules could be obtained only from Phil-oc-te\u02b9tes, a Greek chief who received them from Hercules himself. These arrows had been dipped in the blood of the hydra, a monster Hercules had slain. This made them poisonous, so that wounds inflicted by them were fatal. Philoctetes was with his countrymen at Aulis when they set sail for Troy, but he was bitten on the foot by a serpent, and the smell of the injured part being so offensive that his comrades could not endure it, he had been left behind, on the advice of Ulysses.\n\nFar in an island, suffering grievous pangs,\u2014 The hallowed isle of Lemnos. There the Greeks Left him, in torture from a venomed wound Made by a serpent's fangs. He lay and pined.\nBryant, Iliad, Book II.\n\nUlysses now resolved to get Philoctetes to come to Troy, if he were still alive, and so, taking Diomede with him, he set out for Lemnos. They found him at the cave where they had left him ten years before. The wound was not yet healed, and he had suffered much, having had no means of existence except game which he had to procure himself.\n\nExposed to the inclement skies, Deserted and forlorn he lies; No friend or fellow-mourner there, To soothe his sorrows and divide his care.\nSophocles (Francklin's tr.)\n\nStill enraged at their former ill-treatment of him, Philoctetes at first refused the request of the two chiefs. Their mission would have failed had not Hercules appeared to him in a dream and advised him to go to Troy, telling him that his wound would be healed by the famous Machaon. He then gladly went with Ulysses and Diomede. On his arrival at the Grecian camp the great physician cured him by casting him into a deep sleep and cutting away the diseased flesh from the injured foot. He awoke in perfect health and strength, and at once joined his countrymen in the war, resolved to make good use of his fatal arrows.\nAn opportunity soon offered, for the Trojans now began again to venture out in the open plain, thinking that the Greeks were not so dangerous since the terrible Achilles was no longer at their head. Their new general in chief was Paris, and Philoctetes, happening to encounter him in battle, aimed at him with one of his poisoned arrows and pierced him through the shoulder. Paris was immediately carried back to the city, suffering intense pain, for the poison quickly began to take effect. Then at last the thoughts of Paris turned to the fair \u0152none, whom, twenty years before, he had left in sorrow and loneliness on Mount Ida. He remembered her words, that he would one day have recourse to her for help. Hoping, therefore, that she might take pity on him, and perhaps cure him of his wound, for she had been instructed in medicine by Apollo, he ordered his attendants to carry him to where she still dwelt on the slopes of Ida. \u0152none had not forgotten his cruel desertion of her, and so she refused to use her skill in his behalf. But when she heard that he was dead, she came down to Troy, and in her grief threw herself on his funeral pyre, and perished by his side.\n\nShe rose, and slowly down, By the long torrent's ever-deepen'd roar, Paced, following, as in trance, the silent cry. .       .       .       .       .       .       . Then moving quickly forward till the heat Smote on her brow, she lifted up a voice Of shrill command, \"Who burns upon the pyre?\" Whereon their oldest and their boldest said, \"He whom thou wouldst not heal!\" and all at once The morning light of happy marriage broke Thro' all the clouded years of widowhood, And muffling up her comely head, and crying \"Husband!\" she leapt upon the funeral pile, And mixt herself with him and past in fire.\nTennyson, Death of \u0152none.\n\nMeanwhile the Ithacan king, not forgetting the other conditions mentioned by Helenus, set sail for the island of Scyros, where the son of Achilles resided. His name was Pyr\u02b9rhus, or Ne-op-tol\u02b9-mus, and, as he was a brave youth, he rejoiced at having an opportunity of fighting the Trojans, by whom his father had been killed. Ulysses gave him his father's armor, and by many heroic deeds in the war he proved that he was worthy to wear it.\nThe Palladium was now to be carried off from Troy, and this was a task by no means easy to perform. But the man of many arts succeeded in accomplishing it. Putting on the garments of a beggar, and scourging his body so as to leave marks, he went to the Sc\u00e6an Gate, and entreated the guards to admit him. He told them that he was a Greek slave, and that he wished to escape from his master who had cruelly ill-used him. The guards, believing his story, permitted him to enter the city.\n\n\n\n\"He had given himself Unseemly stripes, and o'er his shoulders flung Vile garments like a slave's, and entered thus The enemy's town, and walked its spacious streets. Another man he seemed in that disguise.\u2014 A beggar, though when at the Achaian fleet So different was the semblance that he wore. He entered Ilium thus transformed, and none Knew who it was that passed.\"\nBryant, Odyssey, Book IV.\n\nBut Helen, happening to pass by at a place near the king's palace, where the pretended beggar sat down to rest, immediately recognized him. He made a sign to her to keep silent, thinking that Paris being now dead, Helen perhaps was friendly to the Greeks, and wished them to take Troy, so that she might return to her own country. In this Ulysses was right, as very soon appeared, and as Helen declared years afterwards, when telling to his own son, Telemachus, the story of the Ithacan king's adventure within the walls of Troy.\n\n\"For I already longed For my old home, and deeply I deplored The evil fate that Venus brought on me, Who led me thither from my own dear land.\"\nBryant, Odyssey, Book IV.\n\nHelen passed on without uttering a word, but in the evening she sent one of her maids to bring Ulysses secretly to her apartment in the palace. There she expressed her joy at meeting her countryman, and after hospitably entertaining him, she listened with pleasure to his plans. She then told him of the plans of the Trojans, and where and how the Palladium was to be got. Having thus obtained the information he desired, Ulysses contrived to make his way back unobserved to the Greek camp. In a few days he returned, accompanied by Diomede. They got into the city by scaling the walls, and Diomede, climbing on the shoulders of Ulysses, entered the citadel. Here, by following the directions given by Helen, he found the famous statue, and he and his companion carried it off to their friends at the ships, who rejoiced at the success of the undertaking.\nTroy was now no longer under the protection of Pallas Minerva. Though that goddess helped the Greeks in their battles, she was obliged to save the city itself while it contained her sacred statue. But the Palladium being no longer within the walls, she was now at liberty to help the Greeks to capture and destroy the city. She therefore put into the mind of Ulysses the idea of the wooden horse, and she instructed the Greek chief E-pe\u02b9us how to make it. This horse was of vast size, large enough to contain about a hundred men, for it was hollow within.\n\nBy Minerva's aid, a fabric reared, Which like a steed of monstrous height appeared; The sides were flanked with pine.\nVergil.\n\nWhen it was finished, provisions were put into it. Then Ulysses, and Pyrrhus, and Menelaus, and Epeus, and a number of other Greek warriors, mounted into it by means of a ladder, after which the opening was fastened by strong bolts.\n\nIn the hollow side, Selected numbers of their soldiers hide; With inward arms the dire machine they load; And iron bowels stuff the dark abode.\nVergil.\n\nMeanwhile the other Greeks broke up their camp, and all going aboard their ships, they set sail, as if they had given up the siege, and were about to return to Greece. But they went no farther than the island of Ten\u02b9e-dos, about three miles from the shore.\n\nIn sight of Troy lies Tenedos, an isle (While Fortune did on Priam's empire smile) Renowned for wealth; but since, a faithless bay, Where ships exposed to wind and weather lay. There was their fleet concealed.\nVergil.\n\nAs soon as the Trojans saw from their walls that the tents of the enemy were removed, and that their fleet had departed, they were filled with surprise and delight. They believed that the Greeks had given up the war, and so, throwing open their gates, they rushed out in multitudes upon the plain, King Priam riding in his chariot at their head.\n\nThe Trojans, cooped within their walls so long, Unbar their gates, and issue in a throng Like swarming bees, and with delight survey The camp deserted, where the Grecians lay.\nVergil.\n\nBut soon their attention was attracted by the huge wooden horse, and they gathered about it, astonished at its great size, and wondering what it meant. Some thought that it meant evil to Troy, and advised that it should be burned; others proposed that it should be hauled into the city and placed within the citadel. La-oc\u02b9o-on, one of Priam's sons, who was also a priest of Apollo, cried out in a loud voice, warning the king and people against doing this. \"Are you so foolish,\" he exclaimed, \"as to suppose that the enemy are gone? Put no faith in this horse. Whatever it is, I fear the Greeks even when offering gifts.\"\n\n\"This hollow fabric either must enclose Within its blind recess, our secret foes; Or 'tis an engine raised above the town To overlook the walls, and then to batter down. Somewhat is sure designed by fraud or force: Trust not their presents, nor admit the horse.\"\nVergil.\n\nThus saying, Laocoon hurled his spear against the side of the horse, and it sent forth a hollow sound like a deep groan. But at this moment a stranger, having the appearance of a Greek, was brought before the king. Some Trojan shepherds, finding him loitering on the river bank, had made him prisoner. Being asked who he was and why he was there, he told an artful story. His name, he said, was Si'non, and he was a Greek. His countrymen, having decided to give up the war, resolved to offer one of themselves as a sacrifice to the gods, that they might get fair winds to return home, and they selected him to be the victim. To escape that terrible fate he concealed himself among the reeds by the side of the Scamander until the fleet departed. This was Sinon's account of himself. The Trojans believed it, and the prisoner was set free. But the king asked him to tell them about the wooden horse,\u2014why it had been made, and left there upon the plain.\nThen Sinon told another false story. He said that the horse was a peace offering to Minerva, who had been angry because the Palladium was taken from Troy. For that insult to her, the goddess commanded the Greeks to return to their own country, and Calchas ordered them to build the horse as an atonement for their crime. He also told them to make it so large that the Trojans might not be able to drag it within their gates; for if it were brought into the city, it would be a protection to Troy, but if any harm were done to it, ruin would come on the kingdom of Priam.\n\n\"We raised and dedicate this wondrous frame, So lofty, lest through your forbidden gates It pass, and intercept our better fates; For, once admitted there, our hopes are lost; And Troy may then a new Palladium boast For so religion and the gods ordain, That, if you violate with hands profane Minerva's gift, your town in flames shall burn; (Which omen, O ye gods, on Gr\u00e6cia turn!) But if it climb, with your assisting hands, The Trojan walls, and in the city stands; Then Troy shall Argos and Mycen\u00e6 burn, And the reverse of fate on us return.\"\nVergil.\n\nKing Priam and the Trojans believed this story too, and a terrible thing which just then happened made them believe it all the more. After Laocoon had hurled his spear at the wooden horse, he and his two sons went to offer sacrifice to the gods at an altar erected on the beach. While they were thus engaged, two enormous serpents, darting out from the sea, glided up to the altar, seized the priest and his sons, and crushed all three to death in their tremendous coils.\n\nFirst around the tender boys they wind, Then with their sharpened fangs their limbs and bodies grind. The wretched father, running to their aid With pious haste, but vain, they next invade: Twice round his waist their winding volumes rolled; And twice about his gasping throat they fold. The priest thus doubly choked\u2014their crests divide, And towering o'er his head in triumph ride.\nVergil.\n\nThe terrified Trojans regarded this awful event as a punishment sent by the gods upon Laocoon for insulting Minerva by casting his spear at her gift, which they now believed the horse to be. They therefore resolved to take the huge figure into the city in spite of the advice of Cassandra, who also warned them that it would bring ruin upon Troy. And so they made a great breach in the walls, for none of their gates were large enough to admit the vast image, and fastening strong ropes to its feet they dragged it into the citadel. Then they decorated the temples with garlands of green boughs, and spent the remainder of the day in festivity and rejoicing.\nBut in the dead of the night, when they were all sunk in deep repose, the treacherous Sinon drew the bolts from the trapdoor in the side of the wooden horse, and out came the Greek warriors, rejoicing at the success of their stratagem.\nSinon next hurried down to the beach, and there kindled a fire as a signal to his countrymen on the ships. They knew what it meant, for it was part of the plan that had been agreed on. Quickly plying their oars, they soon reached the shore, and, marching across the plain, the Greeks poured in thousands into the streets, through the breach that had been made in the walls.\nThe Trojans, startled from their sleep by the noise, understood at once what had happened. Hastily they rushed to arms, and, led and encouraged by \u00c6neas and other chiefs, they fought valiantly to drive out the enemy, but all their valor was in vain. Troy was at last taken. The victorious Greeks swept through the city, dealing death and destruction around them. King Priam was slain by Pyrrhus, at the foot of the altar in one of the temples, to which he fled for safety. His son Deiphobus, who had married Helen after the death of Paris, was slain by Menelaus. The Spartan king, believing that what his wife had done had been decreed by the Fates and the will of the gods, pardoned her and took her with him to his ships. The women of the Trojan royal family were carried off as slaves.\n\u00c6neas, with his father Anchises and his son I-u\u02b9lus, escaped from the city, and sailed from Troas with a fleet and a number of warlike followers. After many adventures by sea and land, which the Roman poet, Ver\u02b9gil, tells about in his poem called the \u00c6-ne\u02b9id, he reached Italy. There he established a settlement, and his descendants, it is said, were the founders of Rome.\nHaving completed their work of destruction and carried off to their ships all the riches of Troy, the Greeks set fire to the city, and in a few hours nothing remained but a mass of smouldering ruins. So ended the famous Trojan War. The prophecy of the soothsayer, \u00c6sacus, at the birth of Paris, was fulfilled. Paris had brought destruction upon his family and country.\nCaptive Andromache.\nCaptive Andromache.\nPainting by Lord Leighton.\n\n\nXIII. THE GREEK CHIEFS AFTER THE WAR.\nGreat was the rejoicing of the Greeks at having at last brought the long and terrible war to a successful end. They had lost heavily in men and treasure, but they had defeated and destroyed the enemy, and taken possession of all the wealth of the rich city of Troy. They now looked forward with pleasure to the prospect of a safe return to their homes and families, which they had not seen for ten years. But for some of them, as we shall see, this happy hope was never realized.\nThe most unfortunate of them all was Agamemnon. He reached his kingdom and city of Mycen\u00e6 in safety, but he was there cruelly murdered by \u00c6-gis\u02b9thus, a relative of his, whom his wife, Clytemnestra, had married during his absence.\n\n\u00c6gisthus planned a snare. He chose among the people twenty men, The bravest, whom he stationed out of sight, And gave command that others should prepare A banquet. Then with chariots and with steeds, And with a deadly purpose in his heart, He went, and, meeting Agamemnon, bade The shepherd of the people to the feast, And slew him at the board.\nBryant, Odyssey, Book IV.\n\nThe Trojan princess, Cassandra, who accompanied Agamemnon to Mycen\u00e6, had warned him of his doom, but as usual her words were disregarded, and she herself was slain at the same time as the ill-fated king. Agamemnon had a son named O-res\u02b9tes, who was then but a boy, and \u00c6gisthus intended to kill him also, but the youth's sister, E-lec\u02b9tra, contrived to have him sent secretly to the court of his uncle, Stro\u02b9phi-us, king of Pho\u02b9cis. Here he was affectionately received and tenderly cared for. His constant companion was his cousin, Pyl\u02b9a-des, the son of Strophius, and so strong was their friendship for each other that it became famous in song and story.\nWhen Orestes reached the years of manhood, he resolved to punish the murderers of his father. With this object he went to Mycen\u00e6, taking with him his friend and companion, Pylades; and having obtained admission to the royal palace, he slew \u00c6gisthus.\n\nSeven years in rich Mycen\u00e6 he bore rule, And on the eighth, to his destruction, came The nobly-born Orestes, just returned From Athens, and cut off that man of blood, The crafty wretch \u00c6gisthus, by whose hand Fell his illustrious father.\nBryant, Odyssey, Book III.\n\nAs Clytemnestra had taken part in the murder of Agamemnon, Orestes slew her also. This killing of his own mother provoked the anger of the gods, and Orestes was commanded to go to the oracle of Apollo, at Delphi, to learn there what punishment he should suffer for his crime. He obeyed, and the oracle told him that he must bring to Greece a statue of Diana which was then in the temple of that goddess in Taurica.\nThis was a dangerous enterprise, for the king of Taurica had a practice of sacrificing in that very temple any foreigners found in his country. Nevertheless Orestes undertook the task. He went to Taurica, accompanied, as usual, by his ever faithful friend Pylades. No sooner had they arrived than they were seized and carried before the king, and condemned to be sacrificed. But Orestes discovered, to his surprise and delight, that the priestess of the temple was his own sister, Iphigenia, who, as will be remembered, had been carried away many years before by Diana herself, when about to be sacrificed by the Greeks at Aulis. By the help of Iphigenia, the two friends not only escaped from Taurica, but carried off the statue, and Iphigenia returned with them to Greece. Orestes succeeded to the throne of his father, and as king of Mycen\u00e6 he lived and reigned many years in prosperity and happiness.\nMenelaus returned to his kingdom of Sparta with his wife, Helen, but he had many wanderings and adventures. He was detained by unfavorable winds for some time on an island near the coast of Egypt, and he might never have reached home but for the advice he received from Pro\u02b9teus, one of the sea gods. It was no easy matter to get advice from Proteus. It was very difficult to find him, and still more difficult to get him to answer questions, for he had a habit of changing himself rapidly into many different forms, and so escaping from those who came to consult him. But Menelaus had the good fortune of meeting a water nymph named I-do\u02b9the-a, a daughter of Proteus, and she directed him what to do. There was a certain cave near the seaside, to which the Old Man of the Sea, as Proteus was sometimes called, came every day at noon to sleep. Idothea told Menelaus he would find the old man there, and that he must seize him quickly in his arms, and hold him fast in spite of all his changes, until he took the shape in which he had first appeared. Then he would answer any question put to him.\n\n\"As soon As ye behold him stretched at length, exert Your utmost strength to hold him there, although He strive and struggle to escape your hands; For he will try all stratagems, and take The form of every reptile on the earth, And turn to water and to raging flame,\u2014 Yet hold him firmly still, and all the more Make fast the bands. When he again shall take The form in which thou sawest him asleep, Desist from force, and loose the bands that held The ancient prophet. Ask of him what god Afflicts thee thus, and by what means to cross The fishy deep and find thy home again.\"\nBryant, Odyssey, Book IV.\n\nMenelaus followed these directions, taking with him three of his bravest warriors, as Idothea also advised. They found Proteus, and rushing upon him, they seized and held him firmly in their grip, though he tried hard to escape.\n\nFirst he took the shape Of a maned lion, of a serpent next, Then of a panther, then of a huge boar, Then turned to flowing water, then became A tall tree full of leaves. With resolute hearts We held him fast, until the aged seer Was weaned out, in spite of all his wiles.\nBryant, Odyssey, Book IV,\n\nThe Old Man of the Sea then told Menelaus that he must go to Egypt, to the river there, and offer sacrifices to the gods, and that they would send him forth upon his voyage home, which would be speedy and safe. The Greek chief did as Proteus directed, and the prophecy was fulfilled. He soon reached his Spartan home, where, with his famous queen, Helen, he spent the remainder of his life in happiness.\nIdomeneus, the warrior king of Crete, reached his island kingdom in safety.\n\nIdomeneus brought also back to Crete All his companions who survived the war; The sea took none of them.\nBryant, Odyssey, Book III.\n\nBut a sad event occurred on his arrival in the island. During his voyage home there was a terrible storm, and Idomeneus much feared that his fleet might be destroyed. He then made a vow that if his ships escaped, he would sacrifice to Neptune the first living creature he met on landing. Unfortunately this happened to be his own son, who came down to the shore to receive and welcome his father. Idomeneus, though overwhelmed with grief, nevertheless fulfilled his promise to the god, but the Cre\u02b9tans were so incensed at the inhuman act that they banished him from the island.\n\nA flying rumor had been spread That fierce Idomeneus from Crete was fled, Expelled and exiled.\nVergil.\n\nThus driven from his own country Idomeneus sailed westward until he came to the southern coast of Italy, where he founded the city and colony of Sal-len\u02b9tia, and lived to an extreme old age.\nThe fate of Ajax Oileus, king of Locris, was almost as terrible as that of Agamemnon. On the night of the destruction of Troy he had cruelly ill-treated the princess Cassandra, whom he dragged from the altar of the temple of Minerva, to which she had fled for refuge. Even the Greeks themselves were shocked at the crime, and they threatened to punish him for it. He was, however, allowed to set sail for Greece. But Minerva borrowed from Jupiter his flaming thunderbolts, and, obtaining permission from Neptune, she raised a furious tempest, which destroyed the Locrian king's ship. He himself swam to a rock, and as he sat there he defiantly cried out that he was safe in spite of all the gods. This insult to the immortals brought upon him the wrath of Neptune, who, smiting the rock with his awful trident, hurled the impious Ajax into the depths of the sea.\n\nHe had said That he, in spite of all the gods, would come Safe from those mountain waves. When Neptune heard The boaster's challenge, instantly he laid His strong hand on the trident, smote the rock And cleft it to the base. Part stood erect, Part fell into the deep. There Ajax sat, And felt the shock, and with the falling mass Was carried headlong to the billowy depths Below, and drank the brine and perished there.\nBryant, Odyssey, Book IV.\n\nThe venerable Nestor reached his home without misfortune or accident He ended his days in peace in his kingdom of Pylos, though he had to mourn the loss of his brave son Antilochus, whom Memnon had slain.\nDiomede also reached his kingdom of \u00c6tolia, but he found that in his absence his home had been seized by a stranger. This was a punishment sent upon him by Venus, whom, as we have seen, he had wounded in the hand at the siege of Troy.\n\n\"Mad as I was, when I, with mortal arms, Presumed against immortal powers to move, And violate with wounds the queen of love.\"\nVergil.\n\nQuitting his kingdom and country, the warrior wandered to other lands. He finally settled in the south of Italy, where he built a city, which he called Ar-gyr\u02b9i-pa, and married the daughter of Dau\u02b9nus, the king of the country.\n\nGreat Diomede has compassed round with walls The city, which Argyripa he calls, From his own Argos named.\nVergil.\n\nNeoptolemus, or Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles, returned to Phthia, where his grandfather, Peleus, still lived and reigned. He took with him Andromache and Helenus, the only one of Priam's sons who lived after the destruction of Troy. Pyrrhus, died a few years after his return, and Andromache became the wife of Helenus. The Trojan prince soon gained the friendship of Peleus, who gave him a kingdom in E-pi\u02b9rus to rule over, and here he and Andromache spent the remainder of their lives together.\nBut no one of all the warrior chiefs of Greece who fought at Troy met with so many dangers in returning to his native land as the famous Ulysses. Ten year elapsed after the end of the great war before he reached his Ithacan home. There he was welcomed by his devoted wife, Penelope, and his affectionate son, Telemachus, who had passed all those years in loving remembrance of him and anxious hope of his coming. His wonderful adventures during his many wanderings are described in Homer's Odyssey. An account of them would fill another book like this Story of Troy.\n\n\nPERSONS AND PLACES MENTIONED.\n\nAc\u02b9 a mas\nA c\u0335ha\u02b9ians (yans)\nA c\u0335hil'l\u0113s\u031d\n\u00c6 g\u0307\u0113\u02b9an\n\u00c6 g\u0307is\u02b9thus\n\u00c6 n\u0113\u02b9as\n\u00c6 n\u0113\u02b9id\n\u00c6s\u02b9 a cus\n\u00c6s c\u0335\u016b l\u0101\u02b9 pi us\n\u00c6t\u02b9na\n\u00c6 to\u02b9 li a\nAg a mem\u02b9 non\nA g\u0307\u0113\u02b9nor\nA\u02b9jax\nAm\u02b9a zons\nAn drom\u02b9ac\u0335he\nAn t\u0113\u02b9 nor\nAn til\u02b9o c\u0335hus\nAn\u02b9ti phus\nAph ro d\u012b\u02b9 te\nA pol\u02b9 lo\nAr c\u0335he la\u02b9 us\nAr c\u0335hil\u02b9o c\u0335hus\nAr\u02b9g\u0307\u012bves\nAr\u02b9gos\nAr g\u0307yr\u02b9 i pa\nAs ty\u02b9a nax\nA\u02b9treus (tr\u016bs)\nA tr\u012b\u02b9 d\u0113s\nAt\u02b9 ro pos\nAu\u02b9 lis\nAu ro\u02b9ra\nAu tom\u02b9 e don\nBac\u0335\u02b9c\u0335hus\nBa\u02b9 li us\nBo\u02b9 re as\nBri\u02b9a reus (r\u016bs)\nBri se\u02b9 is\nC\u0335al\u02b9c\u0335has\nC\u0335al l\u012b\u02b9o pe\nC\u0335a\u02b9ri a\nC\u0335as san\u02b9dra\nC\u0335as t\u0101\u02b9 li a\nCe l\u016b\u02b9o n\u0113s\u031d\nC\u0335h\u012b\u02b9 ron\nC\u0335hry se\u02b9 is\nC\u0335hry\u02b9s\u0113s\u031d\nC\u0335lo\u02b9 tho\nC\u0335lyt em nes\u02b9 tra\nC\u0335o\u02b9on\nC\u0335ran\u02b9a \u00eb\nC\u0335res\u02b9si da\nC\u0335re\u02b9tans\nCy\u02b9cl\u01d2ps\nDar da nelles\u02b9\nDar d\u0101\u02b9 ni a\nDar\u02b9 da nus\nDau\u02b9 nus\nDe iph\u02b9 o bus\nD\u011bl\u02b9 ph\u012b\nD\u012b \u0103n\u02b9 a\nD\u012b\u02b9 o mede\nD\u012b\u02b9 o ne\nDis cor\u02b9 di a\nDo\u02b9 lon\nE \u00eb\u02b9 ti on\nE\u02b9g\u0307ypt\nE l\u011bc\u02b9 tra\nE p\u0113\u02b9 us\nEph i \u0103l\u02b9 t\u0113s\u031d\nE p\u012b\u02b9 rus\nE\u02b9 ris\nE thi o\u02b9 pi a\nE\u016b phor\u02b9 bus\nE\u016b ry\u0306l\u02b9 a t\u0113s\u031d\nE\u016b ry\u0306n\u02b9 o me\nGan\u02b9 y mede\nGlau\u02b9 c\u0335us\nH\u0101\u02b9 d\u0113s\u031d\nHec\u02b9 tor\nHec\u02b9 \u016b ba\nHel\u02b9 e nus\nHel\u02b9 las\nHe\u0303r\u02b9 c\u0335\u016b l\u0113s\u031d\nHe\u0303r\u02b9 m\u0113s\nHe s\u012b\u02b9 o ne\nH\u014d\u02b9 mer\nI d\u00e6\u02b9 us\nI do\u0306m\u02b9 e neus (n\u016bs)\nI d\u014d\u02b9 the a\nIl\u02b9 i on\nIl\u02b9 i um\nI\u02b9 lus\nI phid\u02b9 a mas\nIph i g\u0307e n\u012b\u02b9 a\nI\u02b9 ris\nI\u02b9 sus\nIth\u02b9 a c\u0335a\nI \u016b\u02b9 lus\nJu\u02b9 no\nJu\u02b9 pi ter\nLac\u0335h\u02b9 e sis\nLa e\u0303r\u02b9 t\u0113s\u031d\nLa oc\u0335\u02b9 o \u00f6n\nLa od a mi\u02b9 a\nLa od\u02b9 i \u00e7e\nLa od\u02b9 o cus\nLa om\u02b9 e don\nLa to\u02b9 na\nL\u0113\u02b9 da\nLem\u02b9 nos\nLe\u0303r\u02b9 na\nLes\u02b9 bos\nL\u014d\u02b9 cris\nLyc\u02b9 i a\nLyc\u0335 o me\u02b9 d\u0113s\u031d\nLyr nes\u02b9 sus\nMa c\u0335ha\u02b9 on\nM\u0113\u02b9 l\u0113s\u031d\nMel e sig\u0307\u02b9 e n\u0113s\u031d\nMem\u02b9 non\nMen e l\u0101\u02b9 us\nMe\u0303r\u02b9 c\u0335\u016b ry\nMe r\u012b\u02b9 o n\u0113s\u031d\nM\u012d ne\u0303r\u02b9 va\nMy \u00e7\u0113\u02b9 n\u00e6\nMyr\u02b9 mi dons\nMys\u02b9 i a\nNe op tol\u02b9 e mus\nNep\u02b9 t\u016bne\nNe re\u02b9 i d\u0113s\u031d\nNe\u02b9 re us\nNes\u02b9 tor\nO dy\u0306s\u02b9 seus (s\u016bs)\n\u0152 n\u014d\u02b9 ne\nO i\u02b9 leus (l\u016bs)\nO lym\u02b9 pus\nO res\u02b9 t\u0113s\u031d\nO\u02b9 tus\nP\u00e6\u02b9 on\nPal a m\u0113\u02b9 d\u0113s\u031d\nPal l\u0101\u02b9 di um\nPal' las\nPan\u02b9 da rus\nPar n\u0103s\u02b9 sus\nPar\u02b9 is\nPar\u02b9 the non\nPa tr\u014d\u02b9 c\u0335lus\nP\u011bd\u02b9 a sus\nP\u0113 leus (l\u016bs)\nP\u0113\u02b9 li on\nPel o pon n\u0113\u02b9 sus\nP\u0113\u02b9 lops\nPe nel\u02b9 o pe\nPen the si l\u0113\u02b9 a\nPe\u0303r\u02b9 ga mus\nPher\u02b9 e c\u0335lus\nPhil oc\u0335 t\u0113\u02b9 t\u0113s\u031d\nPh\u014d\u02b9 \u00e7is\nPh\u0153\u02b9 bus\nPh\u0153\u02b9 nix\nPhry\u0306g\u0307\u02b9 i a\nPhthi\u02b9 a\nPhyl\u02b9 a c\u0335e\nPlu\u02b9 to\nPo dar\u02b9 c\u0335\u0113s\u031d\nPo ly\u0306d\u02b9 a mas\nPol y d\u014d\u02b9 rus\nPr\u012b\u02b9 am\nPro tes i l\u0101\u02b9 us\nPr\u014d\u02b9 teus (t\u016bs)\nPyl\u02b9 a d\u0113s\u031d\nPy\u0304\u02b9 los\nPy\u0306r\u02b9 rhus\nPy\u0306th\u02b9 i a\nRh\u0113\u02b9 sus\nS\u0103l\u02b9 a mis\nSal len\u02b9 tia\nS\u0103m\u02b9 o thrac\u0335e\nSar p\u0113\u02b9 don\nSc\u0335a m\u0103n\u02b9 der\nSc\u0335a m\u0103n\u02b9 dri us\nS\u00e7y\u0304\u02b9 ros\nSi\u00e7\u02b9 i ly\nSim\u02b9 o is\nS\u012b\u02b9 non\nSmin\u02b9 theus (th\u016bs)\nSmyr\u02b9 na\nS\u014d\u02b9c\u0335us\nSom\u02b9 nus\nSpar\u02b9 ta\nSten\u02b9 tor\nSth\u0115n\u02b9 e lus\nStr\u014d\u02b9 phi us\nTal thy\u0306b\u02b9 i us\nTar\u02b9 ta rus\nTau\u02b9 ri c\u0335a\nT\u0115l\u02b9 a mon\nTe l\u0115m\u02b9 ac\u0335hus\nT\u0115l\u02b9 e phus\nT\u0115n\u02b9 e do\u0306s\nTeu\u02b9 c\u0335er\nTeu\u02b9 c\u0335ri a\nTeu thr\u0101\u02b9 ni a\nTh\u0113\u02b9 be\nThe\u0303r s\u012b\u02b9 t\u0113s\u031d\nTh\u0115s\u02b9 sa ly\u0306\nTh\u0113\u02b9 tis\nTi th\u014d\u02b9 nus\nTr\u014d\u02b9 as\nTr\u014d\u02b9 ilus\nTy\u0304\u02b9 deus (d\u016bs)\nTy d\u012b\u0304\u02b9 d\u0113s\u031d\nTy\u0306n\u02b9 da rus\nU ly\u0306s\u02b9 s\u0113s\u031d\nV\u0113\u02b9 nus\nV\u0113r\u02b9 g\u0307il\nVu\u0306l\u02b9 c\u0335an\nX\u0103n\u02b9 thus\nZ\u0115ph\u02b9 y rus\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"1727":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE ODYSSEY\n\n\n  rendered into English\n  prose for the use of\n  those who cannot\n  read the original\n\n\nBy Samuel Butler\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE TO FIRST EDITION\n\nThis translation is intended to supplement a work entitled \"The\nAuthoress of the Odyssey\", which I published in 1897. I could not give\nthe whole \"Odyssey\" in that book without making it unwieldy, I therefore\nepitomised my translation, which was already completed and which I now\npublish in full.\n\nI shall not here argue the two main points dealt with in the work just\nmentioned; I have nothing either to add to, or to withdraw from, what I\nhave there written. The points in question are:\n\n(1) that the \"Odyssey\" was written entirely at, and drawn entirely\nfrom, the place now called Trapani on the West Coast of Sicily, alike\nas regards the Phaeacian and the Ithaca scenes; while the voyages of\nUlysses, when once he is within easy reach of Sicily, solve themselves\ninto a periplus of the island, practically from Trapani back to Trapani,\nvia the Lipari islands, the Straits of Messina, and the island of\nPantellaria.\n\n(2) That the poem was entirely written by a very young woman, who lived\nat the place now called Trapani, and introduced herself into her work\nunder the name of Nausicaa.\n\nThe main arguments on which I base the first of these somewhat startling\ncontentions, have been prominently and repeatedly before the English\nand Italian public ever since they appeared (without rejoinder) in the\n\"Athenaeum\" for January 30 and February 20, 1892. Both contentions were\nurged (also without rejoinder) in the Johnian \"Eagle\" for the Lent and\nOctober terms of the same year. Nothing to which I should reply\nhas reached me from any quarter, and knowing how anxiously I have\nendeavoured to learn the existence of any flaws in my argument, I begin\nto feel some confidence that, did such flaws exist, I should have heard,\nat any rate about some of them, before now. Without, therefore, for\na moment pretending to think that scholars generally acquiesce in my\nconclusions, I shall act as thinking them little likely so to gainsay me\nas that it will be incumbent upon me to reply, and shall confine myself\nto translating the \"Odyssey\" for English readers, with such notes as\nI think will be found useful. Among these I would especially call\nattention to one on xxii. 465-473 which Lord Grimthorpe has kindly\nallowed me to make public.\n\nI have repeated several of the illustrations used in \"The Authoress of\nthe Odyssey\", and have added two which I hope may bring the outer court\nof Ulysses' house more vividly before the reader. I should like to\nexplain that the presence of a man and a dog in one illustration is\naccidental, and was not observed by me till I developed the negative. In\nan appendix I have also reprinted the paragraphs explanatory of the\nplan of Ulysses' house, together with the plan itself. The reader is\nrecommended to study this plan with some attention.\n\nIn the preface to my translation of the \"Iliad\" I have given my views as\nto the main principles by which a translator should be guided, and need\nnot repeat them here, beyond pointing out that the initial liberty of\ntranslating poetry into prose involves the continual taking of more\nor less liberty throughout the translation; for much that is right in\npoetry is wrong in prose, and the exigencies of readable prose are the\nfirst things to be considered in a prose translation. That the reader,\nhowever, may see how far I have departed from strict construe, I will\nprint here Messrs. Butcher and Lang's translation of the sixty lines or\nso of the \"Odyssey.\" Their translation runs:\n\n  Tell me, Muse, of that man, so ready at need, who wandered\n  far and wide, after he had sacked the sacred citadel of\n  Troy, and many were the men whose towns he saw and whose\n  mind he learnt, yea, and many the woes he suffered in his\n  heart on the deep, striving to win his own life and the\n  return of his company. Nay, but even so he saved not his\n  company, though he desired it sore. For through the\n  blindness of their own hearts they perished, fools, who\n  devoured the oxen of Helios Hyperion: but the god took from\n  them their day of returning. Of these things, goddess,\n  daughter of Zeus, whencesoever thou hast heard thereof,\n  declare thou even unto us.\n\n  Now all the rest, as many as fled from sheer destruction,\n  were at home, and had escaped both war and sea, but\n  Odysseus only, craving for his wife and for his homeward\n  path, the lady nymph Calypso held, that fair goddess, in her\n  hollow caves, longing to have him for her lord. But when\n  now the year had come in the courses of the seasons,\n  wherein the gods had ordained that he should return home to\n  Ithaca, not even there was he quit of labours, not even\n  among his own; but all the gods had pity on him save\n  Poseidon, who raged continually against godlike Odysseus,\n  till he came to his own country. Howbeit Poseidon had now\n  departed for the distant Ethiopians, the Ethiopians that are\n  sundered in twain, the uttermost of men, abiding some where\n  Hyperion sinks and some where he rises. There he looked to\n  receive his hecatomb of bulls and rams, there he made merry\n  sitting at the feast, but the other gods were gathered in\n  the halls of Olympian Zeus. Then among them the father of\n  men and gods began to speak, for he bethought him in his\n  heart of noble Aegisthus, whom the son of Agamemnon,\n  far-famed Orestes, slew. Thinking upon him he spake out among\n  the Immortals:\n\n  'Lo you now, how vainly mortal men do blame the gods! For of\n  us they say comes evil, whereas they even of themselves,\n  through the blindness of their own hearts, have sorrows\n  beyond that which is ordained. Even as of late Aegisthus,\n  beyond that which was ordained, took to him the wedded wife\n  of the son of Atreus, and killed her lord on his return,\n  and that with sheer doom before his eyes, since we had\n  warned him by the embassy of Hermes the keen-sighted, the\n  slayer of Argos, that he should neither kill the man, nor\n  woo his wife. For the son of Atreus shall be avenged at the\n  hand of Orestes, so soon as he shall come to man's estate\n  and long for his own country. So spake Hermes, yet he\n  prevailed not on the heart of Aegisthus, for all his good\n  will; but now hath he paid one price for all.'\n\n  And the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, answered him, saying: 'O\n  father, our father Cronides, throned in the highest; that\n  man assuredly lies in a death that is his due; so perish\n  likewise all who work such deeds! But my heart is rent for\n  wise Odysseus, the hapless one, who far from his friends\n  this long while suffereth affliction in a sea-girt isle,\n  where is the navel of the sea, a woodland isle, and\n  therein a goddess hath her habitation, the daughter of the\n  wizard Atlas, who knows the depths of every sea, and\n  himself upholds the tall pillars which keep earth and sky\n  asunder. His daughter it is that holds the hapless man in\n  sorrow: and ever with soft and guileful tales she is\n  wooing him to forgetfulness of Ithaca. But Odysseus\n  yearning to see if it were but the smoke leap upwards from\n  his own land, hath a desire to die. As for thee, thine\n  heart regardeth it not at all, Olympian! What! Did not\n  Odysseus by the ships of the Argives make thee free\n  offering of sacrifice in the wide Trojan land? Wherefore\n  wast thou then so wroth with him, O Zeus?'\n\nThe \"Odyssey\" (as every one knows) abounds in passages borrowed from the\n\"Iliad\"; I had wished to print these in a slightly different type, with\nmarginal references to the \"Iliad,\" and had marked them to this end in\nmy MS. I found, however, that the translation would be thus hopelessly\nscholasticised, and abandoned my intention. I would nevertheless urge on\nthose who have the management of our University presses, that they would\nrender a great service to students if they would publish a Greek text of\nthe \"Odyssey\" with the Iliadic passages printed in a different type, and\nwith marginal references. I have given the British Museum a copy of the\n\"Odyssey\" with the Iliadic passages underlined and referred to in MS.;\nI have also given an \"Iliad\" marked with all the Odyssean passages, and\ntheir references; but copies of both the \"Iliad\" and \"Odyssey\" so marked\nought to be within easy reach of all students.\n\nAny one who at the present day discusses the questions that have arisen\nround the \"Iliad\" since Wolf's time, without keeping it well before\nhis reader's mind that the \"Odyssey\" was demonstrably written from one\nsingle neighbourhood, and hence (even though nothing else pointed to\nthis conclusion) presumably by one person only--that it was written\ncertainly before 750, and in all probability before 1000 B.C.--that\nthe writer of this very early poem was demonstrably familiar with the\n\"Iliad\" as we now have it, borrowing as freely from those books whose\ngenuineness has been most impugned, as from those which are admitted to\nbe by Homer--any one who fails to keep these points before his readers,\nis hardly dealing equitably by them. Any one on the other hand, who will\nmark his \"Iliad\" and his \"Odyssey\" from the copies in the British Museum\nabove referred to, and who will draw the only inference that common\nsense can draw from the presence of so many identical passages in both\npoems, will, I believe, find no difficulty in assigning their proper\nvalue to a large number of books here and on the Continent that at\npresent enjoy considerable reputations. Furthermore, and this perhaps\nis an advantage better worth securing, he will find that many puzzles of\nthe \"Odyssey\" cease to puzzle him on the discovery that they arise from\nover-saturation with the \"Iliad.\"\n\nOther difficulties will also disappear as soon as the development of the\npoem in the writer's mind is understood. I have dealt with this at some\nlength in pp. 251-261 of \"The Authoress of the Odyssey\". Briefly, the\n\"Odyssey\" consists of two distinct poems: (1) The Return of Ulysses,\nwhich alone the Muse is asked to sing in the opening lines of the poem.\nThis poem includes the Phaeacian episode, and the account of Ulysses'\nadventures as told by himself in Books ix.-xii. It consists of lines\n1-79 (roughly) of Book i., of line 28 of Book v., and thence without\nintermission to the middle of line 187 of Book xiii., at which point the\noriginal scheme was abandoned.\n\n(2) The story of Penelope and the suitors, with the episode of\nTelemachus' voyage to Pylos. This poem begins with line 80 (roughly)\nof Book i., is continued to the end of Book iv., and not resumed till\nUlysses wakes in the middle of line 187, Book xiii., from whence it\ncontinues to the end of Book xxiv.\n\nIn \"The Authoress of the Odyssey\", I wrote:\n\n   the introduction of lines xi., 115-137 and of line ix.,\n   535, with the writing a new council of the gods at the\n   beginning of Book v., to take the place of the one that was\n   removed to Book i., 1-79, were the only things that were\n   done to give even a semblance of unity to the old scheme\n   and the new, and to conceal the fact that the Muse, after\n   being asked to sing of one subject, spend two-thirds of her\n   time in singing a very different one, with a climax for\n   which no-one has asked her. For roughly the Return occupies\n   eight Books, and Penelope and the Suitors sixteen.\n\nI believe this to be substantially correct.\n\nLastly, to deal with a very unimportant point, I observe that the\nLeipsic Teubner edition of 894 makes Books ii. and iii. end with a\ncomma. Stops are things of such far more recent date than the \"Odyssey,\"\nthat there does not seem much use in adhering to the text in so small a\nmatter; still, from a spirit of mere conservatism, I have preferred\nto do so. Why [Greek] at the beginnings of Books ii. and viii., and\n[Greek], at the beginning of Book vii. should have initial capitals in\nan edition far too careful to admit a supposition of inadvertence, when\n[Greek] at the beginning of Books vi. and xiii., and [Greek] at the\nbeginning of Book xvii. have no initial capitals, I cannot determine.\nNo other Books of the \"Odyssey\" have initial capitals except the three\nmentioned unless the first word of the Book is a proper name.\n\nS. BUTLER.\n\nJuly 25, 1900.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE TO SECOND EDITION\n\nButler's Translation of the \"Odyssey\" appeared originally in 1900, and\nThe Authoress of the Odyssey in 1897. In the preface to the new edition\nof \"The Authoress\", which is published simultaneously with this new\nedition of the Translation, I have given some account of the genesis of\nthe two books.\n\nThe size of the original page has been reduced so as to make both\nbooks uniform with Butler's other works; and, fortunately, it has been\npossible, by using a smaller type, to get the same number of words into\neach page, so that the references remain good, and, with the exception\nof a few minor alterations and rearrangements now to be enumerated\nso far as they affect the Translation, the new editions are faithful\nreprints of the original editions, with misprints and obvious errors\ncorrected--no attempt having been made to edit them or to bring them up\nto date.\n\n(a) The Index has been revised.\n\n(b) Owing to the reduction in the size of the page it has been necessary\nto shorten some of the headlines, and here advantage has been taken of\nvarious corrections of and additions to the headlines and shoulder-notes\nmade by Butler in his own copies of the two books.\n\n(c) For the most part each of the illustrations now occupies a page,\nwhereas in the original editions they generally appeared two on the\npage. It has been necessary to reduce the plan of the House of Ulysses.\n\nOn page 153 of \"The Authoress\" Butler says: \"No great poet would compare\nhis hero to a paunch full of blood and fat, cooking before the fire\n(xx, 24-28).\" This passage is not given in the abridged Story of the\n\"Odyssey\" at the beginning of the book, but in the Translation it occurs\nin these words:\n\n\"Thus he chided with his heart, and checked it into endurance, but he\ntossed about as one who turns a paunch full of blood and fat in front\nof a hot fire, doing it first on one side then on the other, that he\nmay get it cooked as soon as possible; even so did he turn himself about\nfrom side to side, thinking all the time how, single-handed as he\nwas, he should contrive to kill so large a body of men as the wicked\nsuitors.\"\n\nIt looks as though in the interval between the publication of \"The\nAuthoress\" (1897) and of the Translation (1900) Butler had changed his\nmind; for in the first case the comparison is between Ulysses and a\npaunch full, etc., and in the second it is between Ulysses and a man who\nturns a paunch full, etc. The second comparison is perhaps one which a\ngreat poet might make.\n\nIn seeing the works through the press I have had the invaluable\nassistance of Mr. A. T. Bartholomew of the University Library,\nCambridge, and of Mr. Donald S. Robertson, Fellow of Trinity College,\nCambridge. To both these friends I give my most cordial thanks for the\ncare and skill exercised by them. Mr. Robertson has found time for the\nlabour of checking and correcting all the quotations from and references\nto the \"Iliad\" and \"Odyssey,\" and I believe that it could not have been\nbetter performed. It was, I know, a pleasure for him; and it would have\nbeen a pleasure also for Butler if he could have known that his work was\nbeing shepherded by the son of his old friend, Mr. H. R. Robertson, who\nmore than half a century ago was a fellow-student with him at Cary's\nSchool of Art in Streatham Street, Bloomsbury.\n\nHENRY FESTING JONES.\n\n120 MAIDA VALE, W.9.\n\n4th December, 1921.\n\n\n\n\nTHE ODYSSEY\n\n\nBook I\n\nTHE GODS IN COUNCIL--MINERVA'S VISIT TO ITHACA--THE CHALLENGE FROM\nTELEMACHUS TO THE SUITORS.\n\nTell me, O Muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after\nhe had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit, and\nmany were the nations with whose manners and customs he was acquainted;\nmoreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save his own life and\nbring his men safely home; but do what he might he could not save his\nmen, for they perished through their own sheer folly in eating the\ncattle of the Sun-god Hyperion; so the god prevented them from ever\nreaching home. Tell me, too, about all these things, oh daughter of\nJove, from whatsoever source you may know them.\n\nSo now all who escaped death in battle or by shipwreck had got safely\nhome except Ulysses, and he, though he was longing to return to his wife\nand country, was detained by the goddess Calypso, who had got him into\na large cave and wanted to marry him. But as years went by, there came a\ntime when the gods settled that he should go back to Ithaca; even then,\nhowever, when he was among his own people, his troubles were not\nyet over; nevertheless all the gods had now begun to pity him except\nNeptune, who still persecuted him without ceasing and would not let him\nget home.\n\nNow Neptune had gone off to the Ethiopians, who are at the world's end,\nand lie in two halves, the one looking West and the other East. {1} He\nhad gone there to accept a hecatomb of sheep and oxen, and was enjoying\nhimself at his festival; but the other gods met in the house of Olympian\nJove, and the sire of gods and men spoke first. At that moment he was\nthinking of Aegisthus, who had been killed by Agamemnon's son Orestes;\nso he said to the other gods:\n\n\"See now, how men lay blame upon us gods for what is after all nothing\nbut their own folly. Look at Aegisthus; he must needs make love to\nAgamemnon's wife unrighteously and then kill Agamemnon, though he knew\nit would be the death of him; for I sent Mercury to warn him not to do\neither of these things, inasmuch as Orestes would be sure to take his\nrevenge when he grew up and wanted to return home. Mercury told him\nthis in all good will but he would not listen, and now he has paid for\neverything in full.\"\n\nThen Minerva said, \"Father, son of Saturn, King of kings, it served\nAegisthus right, and so it would any one else who does as he did; but\nAegisthus is neither here nor there; it is for Ulysses that my heart\nbleeds, when I think of his sufferings in that lonely sea-girt island,\nfar away, poor man, from all his friends. It is an island covered\nwith forest, in the very middle of the sea, and a goddess lives there,\ndaughter of the magician Atlas, who looks after the bottom of the ocean,\nand carries the great columns that keep heaven and earth asunder. This\ndaughter of Atlas has got hold of poor unhappy Ulysses, and keeps trying\nby every kind of blandishment to make him forget his home, so that he\nis tired of life, and thinks of nothing but how he may once more see the\nsmoke of his own chimneys. You, sir, take no heed of this, and yet when\nUlysses was before Troy did he not propitiate you with many a burnt\nsacrifice? Why then should you keep on being so angry with him?\"\n\nAnd Jove said, \"My child, what are you talking about? How can I forget\nUlysses than whom there is no more capable man on earth, nor more\nliberal in his offerings to the immortal gods that live in heaven? Bear\nin mind, however, that Neptune is still furious with Ulysses for having\nblinded an eye of Polyphemus king of the Cyclopes. Polyphemus is son to\nNeptune by the nymph Thoosa, daughter to the sea-king Phorcys; therefore\nthough he will not kill Ulysses outright, he torments him by preventing\nhim from getting home. Still, let us lay our heads together and see how\nwe can help him to return; Neptune will then be pacified, for if we are\nall of a mind he can hardly stand out against us.\"\n\nAnd Minerva said, \"Father, son of Saturn, King of kings, if, then, the\ngods now mean that Ulysses should get home, we should first send Mercury\nto the Ogygian island to tell Calypso that we have made up our minds and\nthat he is to return. In the meantime I will go to Ithaca, to put heart\ninto Ulysses' son Telemachus; I will embolden him to call the Achaeans\nin assembly, and speak out to the suitors of his mother Penelope, who\npersist in eating up any number of his sheep and oxen; I will also\nconduct him to Sparta and to Pylos, to see if he can hear anything about\nthe return of his dear father--for this will make people speak well of\nhim.\"\n\nSo saying she bound on her glittering golden sandals, imperishable,\nwith which she can fly like the wind over land or sea; she grasped the\nredoubtable bronze-shod spear, so stout and sturdy and strong, wherewith\nshe quells the ranks of heroes who have displeased her, and down she\ndarted from the topmost summits of Olympus, whereon forthwith she was\nin Ithaca, at the gateway of Ulysses' house, disguised as a visitor,\nMentes, chief of the Taphians, and she held a bronze spear in her hand.\nThere she found the lordly suitors seated on hides of the oxen which\nthey had killed and eaten, and playing draughts in front of the house.\nMen-servants and pages were bustling about to wait upon them, some\nmixing wine with water in the mixing-bowls, some cleaning down the\ntables with wet sponges and laying them out again, and some cutting up\ngreat quantities of meat.\n\nTelemachus saw her long before any one else did. He was sitting moodily\namong the suitors thinking about his brave father, and how he would send\nthem flying out of the house, if he were to come to his own again and\nbe honoured as in days gone by. Thus brooding as he sat among them, he\ncaught sight of Minerva and went straight to the gate, for he was vexed\nthat a stranger should be kept waiting for admittance. He took her right\nhand in his own, and bade her give him her spear. \"Welcome,\" said he,\n\"to our house, and when you have partaken of food you shall tell us what\nyou have come for.\"\n\nHe led the way as he spoke, and Minerva followed him. When they were\nwithin he took her spear and set it in the spear-stand against a strong\nbearing-post along with the many other spears of his unhappy father, and\nhe conducted her to a richly decorated seat under which he threw a\ncloth of damask. There was a footstool also for her feet,{2} and he set\nanother seat near her for himself, away from the suitors, that she might\nnot be annoyed while eating by their noise and insolence, and that he\nmight ask her more freely about his father.\n\nA maid servant then brought them water in a beautiful golden ewer and\npoured it into a silver basin for them to wash their hands, and she\ndrew a clean table beside them. An upper servant brought them bread, and\noffered them many good things of what there was in the house, the carver\nfetched them plates of all manner of meats and set cups of gold by their\nside, and a manservant brought them wine and poured it out for them.\n\nThen the suitors came in and took their places on the benches and seats.\n{3} Forthwith men servants poured water over their hands, maids went\nround with the bread-baskets, pages filled the mixing-bowls with wine\nand water, and they laid their hands upon the good things that were\nbefore them. As soon as they had had enough to eat and drink they wanted\nmusic and dancing, which are the crowning embellishments of a banquet,\nso a servant brought a lyre to Phemius, whom they compelled perforce\nto sing to them. As soon as he touched his lyre and began to sing\nTelemachus spoke low to Minerva, with his head close to hers that no man\nmight hear.\n\n\"I hope, sir,\" said he, \"that you will not be offended with what I am\ngoing to say. Singing comes cheap to those who do not pay for it, and\nall this is done at the cost of one whose bones lie rotting in some\nwilderness or grinding to powder in the surf. If these men were to see\nmy father come back to Ithaca they would pray for longer legs rather\nthan a longer purse, for money would not serve them; but he, alas, has\nfallen on an ill fate, and even when people do sometimes say that he is\ncoming, we no longer heed them; we shall never see him again. And now,\nsir, tell me and tell me true, who you are and where you come from. Tell\nme of your town and parents, what manner of ship you came in, how your\ncrew brought you to Ithaca, and of what nation they declared themselves\nto be--for you cannot have come by land. Tell me also truly, for I want\nto know, are you a stranger to this house, or have you been here in my\nfather's time? In the old days we had many visitors for my father went\nabout much himself.\"\n\nAnd Minerva answered, \"I will tell you truly and particularly all about\nit. I am Mentes, son of Anchialus, and I am King of the Taphians. I have\ncome here with my ship and crew, on a voyage to men of a foreign tongue\nbeing bound for Temesa {4} with a cargo of iron, and I shall bring back\ncopper. As for my ship, it lies over yonder off the open country away\nfrom the town, in the harbour Rheithron {5} under the wooded mountain\nNeritum. {6} Our fathers were friends before us, as old Laertes will\ntell you, if you will go and ask him. They say, however, that he never\ncomes to town now, and lives by himself in the country, faring hardly,\nwith an old woman to look after him and get his dinner for him, when\nhe comes in tired from pottering about his vineyard. They told me your\nfather was at home again, and that was why I came, but it seems the gods\nare still keeping him back, for he is not dead yet not on the mainland.\nIt is more likely he is on some sea-girt island in mid ocean, or a\nprisoner among savages who are detaining him against his will. I am no\nprophet, and know very little about omens, but I speak as it is borne\nin upon me from heaven, and assure you that he will not be away much\nlonger; for he is a man of such resource that even though he were in\nchains of iron he would find some means of getting home again. But tell\nme, and tell me true, can Ulysses really have such a fine looking fellow\nfor a son? You are indeed wonderfully like him about the head and eyes,\nfor we were close friends before he set sail for Troy where the flower\nof all the Argives went also. Since that time we have never either of us\nseen the other.\"\n\n\"My mother,\" answered Telemachus, \"tells me I am son to Ulysses, but it\nis a wise child that knows his own father. Would that I were son to one\nwho had grown old upon his own estates, for, since you ask me, there\nis no more ill-starred man under heaven than he who they tell me is my\nfather.\"\n\nAnd Minerva said, \"There is no fear of your race dying out yet, while\nPenelope has such a fine son as you are. But tell me, and tell me true,\nwhat is the meaning of all this feasting, and who are these people? What\nis it all about? Have you some banquet, or is there a wedding in the\nfamily--for no one seems to be bringing any provisions of his own? And\nthe guests--how atrociously they are behaving; what riot they make over\nthe whole house; it is enough to disgust any respectable person who\ncomes near them.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" said Telemachus, \"as regards your question, so long as my father\nwas here it was well with us and with the house, but the gods in their\ndispleasure have willed it otherwise, and have hidden him away more\nclosely than mortal man was ever yet hidden. I could have borne it\nbetter even though he were dead, if he had fallen with his men before\nTroy, or had died with friends around him when the days of his fighting\nwere done; for then the Achaeans would have built a mound over his\nashes, and I should myself have been heir to his renown; but now the\nstorm-winds have spirited him away we know not whither; he is gone\nwithout leaving so much as a trace behind him, and I inherit nothing\nbut dismay. Nor does the matter end simply with grief for the loss of\nmy father; heaven has laid sorrows upon me of yet another kind; for the\nchiefs from all our islands, Dulichium, Same, and the woodland island of\nZacynthus, as also all the principal men of Ithaca itself, are eating up\nmy house under the pretext of paying their court to my mother, who\nwill neither point blank say that she will not marry, {7} nor yet bring\nmatters to an end; so they are making havoc of my estate, and before\nlong will do so also with myself.\"\n\n\"Is that so?\" exclaimed Minerva, \"then you do indeed want Ulysses home\nagain. Give him his helmet, shield, and a couple of lances, and if he is\nthe man he was when I first knew him in our house, drinking and making\nmerry, he would soon lay his hands about these rascally suitors, were\nhe to stand once more upon his own threshold. He was then coming from\nEphyra, where he had been to beg poison for his arrows from Ilus, son of\nMermerus. Ilus feared the ever-living gods and would not give him any,\nbut my father let him have some, for he was very fond of him. If Ulysses\nis the man he then was these suitors will have a short shrift and a\nsorry wedding.\n\n\"But there! It rests with heaven to determine whether he is to return,\nand take his revenge in his own house or no; I would, however, urge you\nto set about trying to get rid of these suitors at once. Take my advice,\ncall the Achaean heroes in assembly to-morrow morning--lay your case\nbefore them, and call heaven to bear you witness. Bid the suitors take\nthemselves off, each to his own place, and if your mother's mind is set\non marrying again, let her go back to her father, who will find her\na husband and provide her with all the marriage gifts that so dear a\ndaughter may expect. As for yourself, let me prevail upon you to take\nthe best ship you can get, with a crew of twenty men, and go in quest\nof your father who has so long been missing. Some one may tell\nyou something, or (and people often hear things in this way) some\nheaven-sent message may direct you. First go to Pylos and ask Nestor;\nthence go on to Sparta and visit Menelaus, for he got home last of all\nthe Achaeans; if you hear that your father is alive and on his way home,\nyou can put up with the waste these suitors will make for yet another\ntwelve months. If on the other hand you hear of his death, come home at\nonce, celebrate his funeral rites with all due pomp, build a barrow\nto his memory, and make your mother marry again. Then, having done all\nthis, think it well over in your mind how, by fair means or foul, you\nmay kill these suitors in your own house. You are too old to plead\ninfancy any longer; have you not heard how people are singing Orestes'\npraises for having killed his father's murderer Aegisthus? You are a\nfine, smart looking fellow; show your mettle, then, and make yourself a\nname in story. Now, however, I must go back to my ship and to my crew,\nwho will be impatient if I keep them waiting longer; think the matter\nover for yourself, and remember what I have said to you.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" answered Telemachus, \"it has been very kind of you to talk to me\nin this way, as though I were your own son, and I will do all you tell\nme; I know you want to be getting on with your voyage, but stay a little\nlonger till you have taken a bath and refreshed yourself. I will then\ngive you a present, and you shall go on your way rejoicing; I will give\nyou one of great beauty and value--a keepsake such as only dear friends\ngive to one another.\"\n\nMinerva answered, \"Do not try to keep me, for I would be on my way at\nonce. As for any present you may be disposed to make me, keep it till\nI come again, and I will take it home with me. You shall give me a very\ngood one, and I will give you one of no less value in return.\"\n\nWith these words she flew away like a bird into the air, but she had\ngiven Telemachus courage, and had made him think more than ever about\nhis father. He felt the change, wondered at it, and knew that the\nstranger had been a god, so he went straight to where the suitors were\nsitting.\n\nPhemius was still singing, and his hearers sat rapt in silence as he\ntold the sad tale of the return from Troy, and the ills Minerva had laid\nupon the Achaeans. Penelope, daughter of Icarius, heard his song from\nher room upstairs, and came down by the great staircase, not alone, but\nattended by two of her handmaids. When she reached the suitors she stood\nby one of the bearing posts that supported the roof of the cloisters {8}\nwith a staid maiden on either side of her. She held a veil, moreover,\nbefore her face, and was weeping bitterly.\n\n\"Phemius,\" she cried, \"you know many another feat of gods and heroes,\nsuch as poets love to celebrate. Sing the suitors some one of these, and\nlet them drink their wine in silence, but cease this sad tale, for it\nbreaks my sorrowful heart, and reminds me of my lost husband whom I\nmourn ever without ceasing, and whose name was great over all Hellas and\nmiddle Argos.\" {9}\n\n\"Mother,\" answered Telemachus, \"let the bard sing what he has a mind to;\nbards do not make the ills they sing of; it is Jove, not they, who makes\nthem, and who sends weal or woe upon mankind according to his own good\npleasure. This fellow means no harm by singing the ill-fated return of\nthe Danaans, for people always applaud the latest songs most warmly.\nMake up your mind to it and bear it; Ulysses is not the only man who\nnever came back from Troy, but many another went down as well as he. Go,\nthen, within the house and busy yourself with your daily duties, your\nloom, your distaff, and the ordering of your servants; for speech is\nman's matter, and mine above all others {10}--for it is I who am master\nhere.\"\n\nShe went wondering back into the house, and laid her son's saying in\nher heart. Then, going upstairs with her handmaids into her room, she\nmourned her dear husband till Minerva shed sweet sleep over her eyes.\nBut the suitors were clamorous throughout the covered cloisters {11},\nand prayed each one that he might be her bed fellow.\n\nThen Telemachus spoke, \"Shameless,\" he cried, \"and insolent suitors, let\nus feast at our pleasure now, and let there be no brawling, for it is a\nrare thing to hear a man with such a divine voice as Phemius has; but in\nthe morning meet me in full assembly that I may give you formal notice\nto depart, and feast at one another's houses, turn and turn about, at\nyour own cost. If on the other hand you choose to persist in spunging\nupon one man, heaven help me, but Jove shall reckon with you in full,\nand when you fall in my father's house there shall be no man to avenge\nyou.\"\n\nThe suitors bit their lips as they heard him, and marvelled at the\nboldness of his speech. Then, Antinous, son of Eupeithes, said, \"The\ngods seem to have given you lessons in bluster and tall talking; may\nJove never grant you to be chief in Ithaca as your father was before\nyou.\"\n\nTelemachus answered, \"Antinous, do not chide with me, but, god willing,\nI will be chief too if I can. Is this the worst fate you can think of\nfor me? It is no bad thing to be a chief, for it brings both riches\nand honour. Still, now that Ulysses is dead there are many great men in\nIthaca both old and young, and some other may take the lead among them;\nnevertheless I will be chief in my own house, and will rule those whom\nUlysses has won for me.\"\n\nThen Eurymachus, son of Polybus, answered, \"It rests with heaven to\ndecide who shall be chief among us, but you shall be master in your\nown house and over your own possessions; no one while there is a man\nin Ithaca shall do you violence nor rob you. And now, my good fellow,\nI want to know about this stranger. What country does he come from?\nOf what family is he, and where is his estate? Has he brought you news\nabout the return of your father, or was he on business of his own? He\nseemed a well to do man, but he hurried off so suddenly that he was gone\nin a moment before we could get to know him.\"\n\n\"My father is dead and gone,\" answered Telemachus, \"and even if some\nrumour reaches me I put no more faith in it now. My mother does indeed\nsometimes send for a soothsayer and question him, but I give his\nprophecyings no heed. As for the stranger, he was Mentes, son of\nAnchialus, chief of the Taphians, an old friend of my father's.\" But in\nhis heart he knew that it had been the goddess.\n\nThe suitors then returned to their singing and dancing until the\nevening; but when night fell upon their pleasuring they went home to\nbed each in his own abode. {12} Telemachus's room was high up in a tower\n{13} that looked on to the outer court; hither, then, he hied, brooding\nand full of thought. A good old woman, Euryclea, daughter of Ops,\nthe son of Pisenor, went before him with a couple of blazing torches.\nLaertes had bought her with his own money when she was quite young; he\ngave the worth of twenty oxen for her, and shewed as much respect to her\nin his household as he did to his own wedded wife, but he did not take\nher to his bed for he feared his wife's resentment. {14} She it was who\nnow lighted Telemachus to his room, and she loved him better than any of\nthe other women in the house did, for she had nursed him when he was a\nbaby. He opened the door of his bed room and sat down upon the bed; as\nhe took off his shirt {15} he gave it to the good old woman, who folded\nit tidily up, and hung it for him over a peg by his bed side, after\nwhich she went out, pulled the door to by a silver catch, and drew the\nbolt home by means of the strap. {16} But Telemachus as he lay covered\nwith a woollen fleece kept thinking all night through of his intended\nvoyage and of the counsel that Minerva had given him.\n\n\nBook II\n\nASSEMBLY OF THE PEOPLE OF ITHACA--SPEECHES OF TELEMACHUS AND OF THE\nSUITORS--TELEMACHUS MAKES HIS PREPARATIONS AND STARTS FOR PYLOS WITH\nMINERVA DISGUISED AS MENTOR.\n\nNow when the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared Telemachus\nrose and dressed himself. He bound his sandals on to his comely feet,\ngirded his sword about his shoulder, and left his room looking like an\nimmortal god. He at once sent the criers round to call the people in\nassembly, so they called them and the people gathered thereon; then,\nwhen they were got together, he went to the place of assembly spear in\nhand--not alone, for his two hounds went with him. Minerva endowed him\nwith a presence of such divine comeliness that all marvelled at him as\nhe went by, and when he took his place in his father's seat even the\noldest councillors made way for him.\n\nAegyptius, a man bent double with age, and of infinite experience, was\nthe first to speak. His son Antiphus had gone with Ulysses to Ilius,\nland of noble steeds, but the savage Cyclops had killed him when they\nwere all shut up in the cave, and had cooked his last dinner for him.\n{17} He had three sons left, of whom two still worked on their father's\nland, while the third, Eurynomus, was one of the suitors; nevertheless\ntheir father could not get over the loss of Antiphus, and was still\nweeping for him when he began his speech.\n\n\"Men of Ithaca,\" he said, \"hear my words. From the day Ulysses left us\nthere has been no meeting of our councillors until now; who then can it\nbe, whether old or young, that finds it so necessary to convene us? Has\nhe got wind of some host approaching, and does he wish to warn us, or\nwould he speak upon some other matter of public moment? I am sure he is\nan excellent person, and I hope Jove will grant him his heart's desire.\"\n\nTelemachus took this speech as of good omen and rose at once, for he was\nbursting with what he had to say. He stood in the middle of the assembly\nand the good herald Pisenor brought him his staff. Then, turning to\nAegyptius, \"Sir,\" said he, \"it is I, as you will shortly learn, who have\nconvened you, for it is I who am the most aggrieved. I have not got wind\nof any host approaching about which I would warn you, nor is there any\nmatter of public moment on which I would speak. My grievance is purely\npersonal, and turns on two great misfortunes which have fallen upon my\nhouse. The first of these is the loss of my excellent father, who was\nchief among all you here present, and was like a father to every one\nof you; the second is much more serious, and ere long will be the utter\nruin of my estate. The sons of all the chief men among you are pestering\nmy mother to marry them against her will. They are afraid to go to\nher father Icarius, asking him to choose the one he likes best, and\nto provide marriage gifts for his daughter, but day by day they keep\nhanging about my father's house, sacrificing our oxen, sheep, and fat\ngoats for their banquets, and never giving so much as a thought to the\nquantity of wine they drink. No estate can stand such recklessness; we\nhave now no Ulysses to ward off harm from our doors, and I cannot hold\nmy own against them. I shall never all my days be as good a man as he\nwas, still I would indeed defend myself if I had power to do so, for I\ncannot stand such treatment any longer; my house is being disgraced and\nruined. Have respect, therefore, to your own consciences and to public\nopinion. Fear, too, the wrath of heaven, lest the gods should be\ndispleased and turn upon you. I pray you by Jove and Themis, who is the\nbeginning and the end of councils, [do not] hold back, my friends, and\nleave me singlehanded {18}--unless it be that my brave father Ulysses\ndid some wrong to the Achaeans which you would now avenge on me, by\naiding and abetting these suitors. Moreover, if I am to be eaten out of\nhouse and home at all, I had rather you did the eating yourselves, for\nI could then take action against you to some purpose, and serve you with\nnotices from house to house till I got paid in full, whereas now I have\nno remedy.\" {19}\n\nWith this Telemachus dashed his staff to the ground and burst into\ntears. Every one was very sorry for him, but they all sat still and no\none ventured to make him an angry answer, save only Antinous, who spoke\nthus:\n\n\"Telemachus, insolent braggart that you are, how dare you try to throw\nthe blame upon us suitors? It is your mother's fault not ours, for she\nis a very artful woman. This three years past, and close on four, she\nhad been driving us out of our minds, by encouraging each one of us, and\nsending him messages without meaning one word of what she says. And then\nthere was that other trick she played us. She set up a great tambour\nframe in her room, and began to work on an enormous piece of fine\nneedlework. 'Sweet hearts,' said she, 'Ulysses is indeed dead, still\ndo not press me to marry again immediately, wait--for I would not have\nskill in needlework perish unrecorded--till I have completed a pall for\nthe hero Laertes, to be in readiness against the time when death shall\ntake him. He is very rich, and the women of the place will talk if he is\nlaid out without a pall.'\n\n\"This was what she said, and we assented; whereon we could see her\nworking on her great web all day long, but at night she would unpick the\nstitches again by torchlight. She fooled us in this way for three years\nand we never found her out, but as time wore on and she was now in her\nfourth year, one of her maids who knew what she was doing told us, and\nwe caught her in the act of undoing her work, so she had to finish it\nwhether she would or no. The suitors, therefore, make you this answer,\nthat both you and the Achaeans may understand-'Send your mother away,\nand bid her marry the man of her own and of her father's choice'; for I\ndo not know what will happen if she goes on plaguing us much longer with\nthe airs she gives herself on the score of the accomplishments Minerva\nhas taught her, and because she is so clever. We never yet heard of such\na woman; we know all about Tyro, Alcmena, Mycene, and the famous women\nof old, but they were nothing to your mother any one of them. It was not\nfair of her to treat us in that way, and as long as she continues in\nthe mind with which heaven has now endowed her, so long shall we go on\neating up your estate; and I do not see why she should change, for she\ngets all the honour and glory, and it is you who pay for it, not she.\nUnderstand, then, that we will not go back to our lands, neither here\nnor elsewhere, till she has made her choice and married some one or\nother of us.\"\n\nTelemachus answered, \"Antinous, how can I drive the mother who bore me\nfrom my father's house? My father is abroad and we do not know whether\nhe is alive or dead. It will be hard on me if I have to pay Icarius the\nlarge sum which I must give him if I insist on sending his daughter back\nto him. Not only will he deal rigorously with me, but heaven will also\npunish me; for my mother when she leaves the house will call on the\nErinyes to avenge her; besides, it would not be a creditable thing to\ndo, and I will have nothing to say to it. If you choose to take offence\nat this, leave the house and feast elsewhere at one another's houses at\nyour own cost turn and turn about. If, on the other hand, you elect to\npersist in spunging upon one man, heaven help me, but Jove shall reckon\nwith you in full, and when you fall in my father's house there shall be\nno man to avenge you.\"\n\nAs he spoke Jove sent two eagles from the top of the mountain, and they\nflew on and on with the wind, sailing side by side in their own lordly\nflight. When they were right over the middle of the assembly they\nwheeled and circled about, beating the air with their wings and glaring\ndeath into the eyes of them that were below; then, fighting fiercely and\ntearing at one another, they flew off towards the right over the town.\nThe people wondered as they saw them, and asked each other what all this\nmight be; whereon Halitherses, who was the best prophet and reader of\nomens among them, spoke to them plainly and in all honesty, saying:\n\n\"Hear me, men of Ithaca, and I speak more particularly to the suitors,\nfor I see mischief brewing for them. Ulysses is not going to be\naway much longer; indeed he is close at hand to deal out death and\ndestruction, not on them alone, but on many another of us who live in\nIthaca. Let us then be wise in time, and put a stop to this wickedness\nbefore he comes. Let the suitors do so of their own accord; it will\nbe better for them, for I am not prophesying without due knowledge;\neverything has happened to Ulysses as I foretold when the Argives set\nout for Troy, and he with them. I said that after going through much\nhardship and losing all his men he should come home again in the\ntwentieth year and that no one would know him; and now all this is\ncoming true.\"\n\nEurymachus son of Polybus then said, \"Go home, old man, and prophesy to\nyour own children, or it may be worse for them. I can read these omens\nmyself much better than you can; birds are always flying about in the\nsunshine somewhere or other, but they seldom mean anything. Ulysses has\ndied in a far country, and it is a pity you are not dead along with\nhim, instead of prating here about omens and adding fuel to the anger of\nTelemachus which is fierce enough as it is. I suppose you think he will\ngive you something for your family, but I tell you--and it shall surely\nbe--when an old man like you, who should know better, talks a young one\nover till he becomes troublesome, in the first place his young friend\nwill only fare so much the worse--he will take nothing by it, for the\nsuitors will prevent this--and in the next, we will lay a heavier fine,\nsir, upon yourself than you will at all like paying, for it will bear\nhardly upon you. As for Telemachus, I warn him in the presence of you\nall to send his mother back to her father, who will find her a husband\nand provide her with all the marriage gifts so dear a daughter may\nexpect. Till then we shall go on harassing him with our suit; for we\nfear no man, and care neither for him, with all his fine speeches, nor\nfor any fortune-telling of yours. You may preach as much as you please,\nbut we shall only hate you the more. We shall go back and continue to\neat up Telemachus's estate without paying him, till such time as his\nmother leaves off tormenting us by keeping us day after day on the\ntiptoe of expectation, each vying with the other in his suit for a prize\nof such rare perfection. Besides we cannot go after the other women whom\nwe should marry in due course, but for the way in which she treats us.\"\n\nThen Telemachus said, \"Eurymachus, and you other suitors, I shall say no\nmore, and entreat you no further, for the gods and the people of Ithaca\nnow know my story. Give me, then, a ship and a crew of twenty men to\ntake me hither and thither, and I will go to Sparta and to Pylos in\nquest of my father who has so long been missing. Some one may tell\nme something, or (and people often hear things in this way) some\nheaven-sent message may direct me. If I can hear of him as alive and on\nhis way home I will put up with the waste you suitors will make for yet\nanother twelve months. If on the other hand I hear of his death, I will\nreturn at once, celebrate his funeral rites with all due pomp, build a\nbarrow to his memory, and make my mother marry again.\"\n\nWith these words he sat down, and Mentor {20} who had been a friend of\nUlysses, and had been left in charge of everything with full authority\nover the servants, rose to speak. He, then, plainly and in all honesty\naddressed them thus:\n\n\"Hear me, men of Ithaca, I hope that you may never have a kind and\nwell-disposed ruler any more, nor one who will govern you equitably;\nI hope that all your chiefs henceforward may be cruel and unjust, for\nthere is not one of you but has forgotten Ulysses, who ruled you as\nthough he were your father. I am not half so angry with the suitors, for\nif they choose to do violence in the naughtiness of their hearts, and\nwager their heads that Ulysses will not return, they can take the high\nhand and eat up his estate, but as for you others I am shocked at\nthe way in which you all sit still without even trying to stop such\nscandalous goings on--which you could do if you chose, for you are many\nand they are few.\"\n\nLeiocritus, son of Evenor, answered him saying, \"Mentor, what folly is\nall this, that you should set the people to stay us? It is a hard thing\nfor one man to fight with many about his victuals. Even though Ulysses\nhimself were to set upon us while we are feasting in his house, and do\nhis best to oust us, his wife, who wants him back so very badly, would\nhave small cause for rejoicing, and his blood would be upon his own head\nif he fought against such great odds. There is no sense in what you have\nbeen saying. Now, therefore, do you people go about your business, and\nlet his father's old friends, Mentor and Halitherses, speed this boy on\nhis journey, if he goes at all--which I do not think he will, for he\nis more likely to stay where he is till some one comes and tells him\nsomething.\"\n\nOn this he broke up the assembly, and every man went back to his own\nabode, while the suitors returned to the house of Ulysses.\n\nThen Telemachus went all alone by the sea side, washed his hands in the\ngrey waves, and prayed to Minerva.\n\n\"Hear me,\" he cried, \"you god who visited me yesterday, and bade me sail\nthe seas in search of my father who has so long been missing. I would\nobey you, but the Achaeans, and more particularly the wicked suitors,\nare hindering me that I cannot do so.\"\n\nAs he thus prayed, Minerva came close up to him in the likeness and with\nthe voice of Mentor. \"Telemachus,\" said she, \"if you are made of\nthe same stuff as your father you will be neither fool nor coward\nhenceforward, for Ulysses never broke his word nor left his work half\ndone. If, then, you take after him, your voyage will not be fruitless,\nbut unless you have the blood of Ulysses and of Penelope in your veins\nI see no likelihood of your succeeding. Sons are seldom as good men as\ntheir fathers; they are generally worse, not better; still, as you are\nnot going to be either fool or coward henceforward, and are not entirely\nwithout some share of your father's wise discernment, I look with hope\nupon your undertaking. But mind you never make common cause with any of\nthose foolish suitors, for they have neither sense nor virtue, and give\nno thought to death and to the doom that will shortly fall on one and\nall of them, so that they shall perish on the same day. As for your\nvoyage, it shall not be long delayed; your father was such an old friend\nof mine that I will find you a ship, and will come with you myself.\nNow, however, return home, and go about among the suitors; begin getting\nprovisions ready for your voyage; see everything well stowed, the wine\nin jars, and the barley meal, which is the staff of life, in leathern\nbags, while I go round the town and beat up volunteers at once. There\nare many ships in Ithaca both old and new; I will run my eye over them\nfor you and will choose the best; we will get her ready and will put out\nto sea without delay.\"\n\nThus spoke Minerva daughter of Jove, and Telemachus lost no time in\ndoing as the goddess told him. He went moodily home, and found the\nsuitors flaying goats and singeing pigs in the outer court. Antinous\ncame up to him at once and laughed as he took his hand in his own,\nsaying, \"Telemachus, my fine fire-eater, bear no more ill blood neither\nin word nor deed, but eat and drink with us as you used to do. The\nAchaeans will find you in everything--a ship and a picked crew to\nboot--so that you can set sail for Pylos at once and get news of your\nnoble father.\"\n\n\"Antinous,\" answered Telemachus, \"I cannot eat in peace, nor take\npleasure of any kind with such men as you are. Was it not enough that\nyou should waste so much good property of mine while I was yet a boy?\nNow that I am older and know more about it, I am also stronger, and\nwhether here among this people, or by going to Pylos, I will do you all\nthe harm I can. I shall go, and my going will not be in vain--though,\nthanks to you suitors, I have neither ship nor crew of my own, and must\nbe passenger not captain.\"\n\nAs he spoke he snatched his hand from that of Antinous. Meanwhile the\nothers went on getting dinner ready about the buildings, {21} jeering at\nhim tauntingly as they did so.\n\n\"Telemachus,\" said one youngster, \"means to be the death of us; I\nsuppose he thinks he can bring friends to help him from Pylos, or again\nfrom Sparta, where he seems bent on going. Or will he go to Ephyra as\nwell, for poison to put in our wine and kill us?\"\n\nAnother said, \"Perhaps if Telemachus goes on board ship, he will be like\nhis father and perish far from his friends. In this case we should have\nplenty to do, for we could then divide up his property amongst us: as\nfor the house we can let his mother and the man who marries her have\nthat.\"\n\nThis was how they talked. But Telemachus went down into the lofty and\nspacious store-room where his father's treasure of gold and bronze lay\nheaped up upon the floor, and where the linen and spare clothes were\nkept in open chests. Here, too, there was a store of fragrant olive oil,\nwhile casks of old, well-ripened wine, unblended and fit for a god to\ndrink, were ranged against the wall in case Ulysses should come home\nagain after all. The room was closed with well-made doors opening in the\nmiddle; moreover the faithful old house-keeper Euryclea, daughter of\nOps the son of Pisenor, was in charge of everything both night and day.\nTelemachus called her to the store-room and said:\n\n\"Nurse, draw me off some of the best wine you have, after what you\nare keeping for my father's own drinking, in case, poor man, he should\nescape death, and find his way home again after all. Let me have twelve\njars, and see that they all have lids; also fill me some well-sewn\nleathern bags with barley meal--about twenty measures in all. Get these\nthings put together at once, and say nothing about it. I will take\neverything away this evening as soon as my mother has gone upstairs\nfor the night. I am going to Sparta and to Pylos to see if I can hear\nanything about the return of my dear father.\"\n\nWhen Euryclea heard this she began to cry, and spoke fondly to him,\nsaying, \"My dear child, what ever can have put such notion as that into\nyour head? Where in the world do you want to go to--you, who are the\none hope of the house? Your poor father is dead and gone in some foreign\ncountry nobody knows where, and as soon as your back is turned these\nwicked ones here will be scheming to get you put out of the way, and\nwill share all your possessions among themselves; stay where you are\namong your own people, and do not go wandering and worrying your life\nout on the barren ocean.\"\n\n\"Fear not, nurse,\" answered Telemachus, \"my scheme is not without\nheaven's sanction; but swear that you will say nothing about all this\nto my mother, till I have been away some ten or twelve days, unless she\nhears of my having gone, and asks you; for I do not want her to spoil\nher beauty by crying.\"\n\nThe old woman swore most solemnly that she would not, and when she\nhad completed her oath, she began drawing off the wine into jars, and\ngetting the barley meal into the bags, while Telemachus went back to the\nsuitors.\n\nThen Minerva bethought her of another matter. She took his shape, and\nwent round the town to each one of the crew, telling them to meet at the\nship by sundown. She went also to Noemon son of Phronius, and asked him\nto let her have a ship--which he was very ready to do. When the sun had\nset and darkness was over all the land, she got the ship into the\nwater, put all the tackle on board her that ships generally carry, and\nstationed her at the end of the harbour. Presently the crew came up, and\nthe goddess spoke encouragingly to each of them.\n\nFurthermore she went to the house of Ulysses, and threw the suitors into\na deep slumber. She caused their drink to fuddle them, and made them\ndrop their cups from their hands, so that instead of sitting over their\nwine, they went back into the town to sleep, with their eyes heavy and\nfull of drowsiness. Then she took the form and voice of Mentor, and\ncalled Telemachus to come outside.\n\n\"Telemachus,\" said she, \"the men are on board and at their oars, waiting\nfor you to give your orders, so make haste and let us be off.\"\n\nOn this she led the way, while Telemachus followed in her steps. When\nthey got to the ship they found the crew waiting by the water side, and\nTelemachus said, \"Now my men, help me to get the stores on board;\nthey are all put together in the cloister, and my mother does not know\nanything about it, nor any of the maid servants except one.\"\n\nWith these words he led the way and the others followed after. When\nthey had brought the things as he told them, Telemachus went on board,\nMinerva going before him and taking her seat in the stern of the vessel,\nwhile Telemachus sat beside her. Then the men loosed the hawsers and\ntook their places on the benches. Minerva sent them a fair wind from\nthe West, {22} that whistled over the deep blue waves {23} whereon\nTelemachus told them to catch hold of the ropes and hoist sail, and they\ndid as he told them. They set the mast in its socket in the cross plank,\nraised it, and made it fast with the forestays; then they hoisted their\nwhite sails aloft with ropes of twisted ox hide. As the sail bellied out\nwith the wind, the ship flew through the deep blue water, and the foam\nhissed against her bows as she sped onward. Then they made all fast\nthroughout the ship, filled the mixing bowls to the brim, and made\ndrink offerings to the immortal gods that are from everlasting, but more\nparticularly to the grey-eyed daughter of Jove.\n\nThus, then, the ship sped on her way through the watches of the night\nfrom dark till dawn,\n\n\nBook III\n\nTELEMACHUS VISITS NESTOR AT PYLOS.\n\nbut as the sun was rising from the fair sea {24} into the firmament of\nheaven to shed light on mortals and immortals, they reached Pylos the\ncity of Neleus. Now the people of Pylos were gathered on the sea shore\nto offer sacrifice of black bulls to Neptune lord of the Earthquake.\nThere were nine guilds with five hundred men in each, and there were\nnine bulls to each guild. As they were eating the inward meats {25}\nand burning the thigh bones [on the embers] in the name of Neptune,\nTelemachus and his crew arrived, furled their sails, brought their ship\nto anchor, and went ashore.\n\nMinerva led the way and Telemachus followed her. Presently she said,\n\"Telemachus, you must not be in the least shy or nervous; you have taken\nthis voyage to try and find out where your father is buried and how he\ncame by his end; so go straight up to Nestor that we may see what he has\ngot to tell us. Beg of him to speak the truth, and he will tell no lies,\nfor he is an excellent person.\"\n\n\"But how, Mentor,\" replied Telemachus, \"dare I go up to Nestor, and\nhow am I to address him? I have never yet been used to holding long\nconversations with people, and am ashamed to begin questioning one who\nis so much older than myself.\"\n\n\"Some things, Telemachus,\" answered Minerva, \"will be suggested to\nyou by your own instinct, and heaven will prompt you further; for I am\nassured that the gods have been with you from the time of your birth\nuntil now.\"\n\nShe then went quickly on, and Telemachus followed in her steps till they\nreached the place where the guilds of the Pylian people were assembled.\nThere they found Nestor sitting with his sons, while his company round\nhim were busy getting dinner ready, and putting pieces of meat on to the\nspits {26} while other pieces were cooking. When they saw the strangers\nthey crowded round them, took them by the hand and bade them take their\nplaces. Nestor's son Pisistratus at once offered his hand to each of\nthem, and seated them on some soft sheepskins that were lying on the\nsands near his father and his brother Thrasymedes. Then he gave them\ntheir portions of the inward meats and poured wine for them into a\ngolden cup, handing it to Minerva first, and saluting her at the same\ntime.\n\n\"Offer a prayer, sir,\" said he, \"to King Neptune, for it is his feast\nthat you are joining; when you have duly prayed and made your drink\noffering, pass the cup to your friend that he may do so also. I doubt\nnot that he too lifts his hands in prayer, for man cannot live without\nGod in the world. Still he is younger than you are, and is much of an\nage with myself, so I will give you the precedence.\"\n\nAs he spoke he handed her the cup. Minerva thought it very right and\nproper of him to have given it to herself first; {27} she accordingly\nbegan praying heartily to Neptune. \"O thou,\" she cried, \"that encirclest\nthe earth, vouchsafe to grant the prayers of thy servants that call upon\nthee. More especially we pray thee send down thy grace on Nestor and\non his sons; thereafter also make the rest of the Pylian people some\nhandsome return for the goodly hecatomb they are offering you. Lastly,\ngrant Telemachus and myself a happy issue, in respect of the matter that\nhas brought us in our ship to Pylos.\"\n\nWhen she had thus made an end of praying, she handed the cup to\nTelemachus and he prayed likewise. By and by, when the outer meats were\nroasted and had been taken off the spits, the carvers gave every man his\nportion and they all made an excellent dinner. As soon as they had had\nenough to eat and drink, Nestor, knight of Gerene, began to speak.\n\n\"Now,\" said he, \"that our guests have done their dinner, it will be best\nto ask them who they are. Who, then, sir strangers, are you, and from\nwhat port have you sailed? Are you traders? or do you sail the seas as\nrovers with your hand against every man, and every man's hand against\nyou?\"\n\nTelemachus answered boldly, for Minerva had given him courage to ask\nabout his father and get himself a good name.\n\n\"Nestor,\" said he, \"son of Neleus, honour to the Achaean name, you ask\nwhence we come, and I will tell you. We come from Ithaca under Neritum,\n{28} and the matter about which I would speak is of private not public\nimport. I seek news of my unhappy father Ulysses, who is said to have\nsacked the town of Troy in company with yourself. We know what fate\nbefell each one of the other heroes who fought at Troy, but as regards\nUlysses heaven has hidden from us the knowledge even that he is dead\nat all, for no one can certify us in what place he perished, nor say\nwhether he fell in battle on the mainland, or was lost at sea amid the\nwaves of Amphitrite. Therefore I am suppliant at your knees, if haply\nyou may be pleased to tell me of his melancholy end, whether you saw it\nwith your own eyes, or heard it from some other traveller, for he was\na man born to trouble. Do not soften things out of any pity for me,\nbut tell me in all plainness exactly what you saw. If my brave father\nUlysses ever did you loyal service, either by word or deed, when you\nAchaeans were harassed among the Trojans, bear it in mind now as in my\nfavour and tell me truly all.\"\n\n\"My friend,\" answered Nestor, \"you recall a time of much sorrow to\nmy mind, for the brave Achaeans suffered much both at sea, while\nprivateering under Achilles, and when fighting before the great city\nof king Priam. Our best men all of them fell there--Ajax, Achilles,\nPatroclus peer of gods in counsel, and my own dear son Antilochus, a man\nsingularly fleet of foot and in fight valiant. But we suffered much more\nthan this; what mortal tongue indeed could tell the whole story? Though\nyou were to stay here and question me for five years, or even six, I\ncould not tell you all that the Achaeans suffered, and you would turn\nhomeward weary of my tale before it ended. Nine long years did we try\nevery kind of stratagem, but the hand of heaven was against us; during\nall this time there was no one who could compare with your father in\nsubtlety--if indeed you are his son--I can hardly believe my eyes--and\nyou talk just like him too--no one would say that people of such\ndifferent ages could speak so much alike. He and I never had any kind\nof difference from first to last neither in camp nor council, but in\nsingleness of heart and purpose we advised the Argives how all might be\nordered for the best.\n\n\"When, however, we had sacked the city of Priam, and were setting sail\nin our ships as heaven had dispersed us, then Jove saw fit to vex the\nArgives on their homeward voyage; for they had not all been either\nwise or understanding, and hence many came to a bad end through the\ndispleasure of Jove's daughter Minerva, who brought about a quarrel\nbetween the two sons of Atreus.\n\n\"The sons of Atreus called a meeting which was not as it should be, for\nit was sunset and the Achaeans were heavy with wine. When they explained\nwhy they had called the people together, it seemed that Menelaus was\nfor sailing homeward at once, and this displeased Agamemnon, who thought\nthat we should wait till we had offered hecatombs to appease the anger\nof Minerva. Fool that he was, he might have known that he would not\nprevail with her, for when the gods have made up their minds they do not\nchange them lightly. So the two stood bandying hard words, whereon the\nAchaeans sprang to their feet with a cry that rent the air, and were of\ntwo minds as to what they should do.\n\n\"That night we rested and nursed our anger, for Jove was hatching\nmischief against us. But in the morning some of us drew our ships into\nthe water and put our goods with our women on board, while the rest,\nabout half in number, stayed behind with Agamemnon. We--the other\nhalf--embarked and sailed; and the ships went well, for heaven had\nsmoothed the sea. When we reached Tenedos we offered sacrifices to the\ngods, for we were longing to get home; cruel Jove, however, did not yet\nmean that we should do so, and raised a second quarrel in the course of\nwhich some among us turned their ships back again, and sailed away under\nUlysses to make their peace with Agamemnon; but I, and all the ships\nthat were with me pressed forward, for I saw that mischief was brewing.\nThe son of Tydeus went on also with me, and his crews with him. Later on\nMenelaus joined us at Lesbos, and found us making up our minds about our\ncourse--for we did not know whether to go outside Chios by the island\nof Psyra, keeping this to our left, or inside Chios, over against the\nstormy headland of Mimas. So we asked heaven for a sign, and were shown\none to the effect that we should be soonest out of danger if we headed\nour ships across the open sea to Euboea. This we therefore did, and a\nfair wind sprang up which gave us a quick passage during the night to\nGeraestus, {29} where we offered many sacrifices to Neptune for\nhaving helped us so far on our way. Four days later Diomed and his men\nstationed their ships in Argos, but I held on for Pylos, and the wind\nnever fell light from the day when heaven first made it fair for me.\n\n\"Therefore, my dear young friend, I returned without hearing anything\nabout the others. I know neither who got home safely nor who were lost\nbut, as in duty bound, I will give you without reserve the reports that\nhave reached me since I have been here in my own house. They say the\nMyrmidons returned home safely under Achilles' son Neoptolemus; so also\ndid the valiant son of Poias, Philoctetes. Idomeneus, again, lost no men\nat sea, and all his followers who escaped death in the field got safe\nhome with him to Crete. No matter how far out of the world you live, you\nwill have heard of Agamemnon and the bad end he came to at the hands of\nAegisthus--and a fearful reckoning did Aegisthus presently pay. See what\na good thing it is for a man to leave a son behind him to do as Orestes\ndid, who killed false Aegisthus the murderer of his noble father. You\ntoo, then--for you are a tall smart-looking fellow--show your mettle and\nmake yourself a name in story.\"\n\n\"Nestor son of Neleus,\" answered Telemachus, \"honour to the Achaean\nname, the Achaeans applaud Orestes and his name will live through all\ntime for he has avenged his father nobly. Would that heaven might grant\nme to do like vengeance on the insolence of the wicked suitors, who\nare ill treating me and plotting my ruin; but the gods have no such\nhappiness in store for me and for my father, so we must bear it as best\nwe may.\"\n\n\"My friend,\" said Nestor, \"now that you remind me, I remember to have\nheard that your mother has many suitors, who are ill disposed towards\nyou and are making havoc of your estate. Do you submit to this tamely,\nor are public feeling and the voice of heaven against you? Who knows but\nwhat Ulysses may come back after all, and pay these scoundrels in full,\neither single-handed or with a force of Achaeans behind him? If Minerva\nwere to take as great a liking to you as she did to Ulysses when we were\nfighting before Troy (for I never yet saw the gods so openly fond of any\none as Minerva then was of your father), if she would take as good care\nof you as she did of him, these wooers would soon some of them forget\ntheir wooing.\"\n\nTelemachus answered, \"I can expect nothing of the kind; it would be far\ntoo much to hope for. I dare not let myself think of it. Even though the\ngods themselves willed it no such good fortune could befall me.\"\n\nOn this Minerva said, \"Telemachus, what are you talking about? Heaven\nhas a long arm if it is minded to save a man; and if it were me, I\nshould not care how much I suffered before getting home, provided I\ncould be safe when I was once there. I would rather this, than get home\nquickly, and then be killed in my own house as Agamemnon was by the\ntreachery of Aegisthus and his wife. Still, death is certain, and when\na man's hour is come, not even the gods can save him, no matter how fond\nthey are of him.\"\n\n\"Mentor,\" answered Telemachus, \"do not let us talk about it any more.\nThere is no chance of my father's ever coming back; the gods have long\nsince counselled his destruction. There is something else, however,\nabout which I should like to ask Nestor, for he knows much more than any\none else does. They say he has reigned for three generations so that it\nis like talking to an immortal. Tell me, therefore, Nestor, and tell\nme true; how did Agamemnon come to die in that way? What was Menelaus\ndoing? And how came false Aegisthus to kill so far better a man than\nhimself? Was Menelaus away from Achaean Argos, voyaging elsewhither\namong mankind, that Aegisthus took heart and killed Agamemnon?\"\n\n\"I will tell you truly,\" answered Nestor, \"and indeed you have yourself\ndivined how it all happened. If Menelaus when he got back from Troy\nhad found Aegisthus still alive in his house, there would have been no\nbarrow heaped up for him, not even when he was dead, but he would have\nbeen thrown outside the city to dogs and vultures, and not a woman would\nhave mourned him, for he had done a deed of great wickedness; but we\nwere over there, fighting hard at Troy, and Aegisthus, who was taking\nhis ease quietly in the heart of Argos, cajoled Agamemnon's wife\nClytemnestra with incessant flattery.\n\n\"At first she would have nothing to do with his wicked scheme, for she\nwas of a good natural disposition; {30} moreover there was a bard with\nher, to whom Agamemnon had given strict orders on setting out for Troy,\nthat he was to keep guard over his wife; but when heaven had counselled\nher destruction, Aegisthus carried this bard off to a desert island and\nleft him there for crows and seagulls to batten upon--after which she\nwent willingly enough to the house of Aegisthus. Then he offered many\nburnt sacrifices to the gods, and decorated many temples with tapestries\nand gilding, for he had succeeded far beyond his expectations.\n\n\"Meanwhile Menelaus and I were on our way home from Troy, on good terms\nwith one another. When we got to Sunium, which is the point of Athens,\nApollo with his painless shafts killed Phrontis the steersman of\nMenelaus' ship (and never man knew better how to handle a vessel in\nrough weather) so that he died then and there with the helm in his hand,\nand Menelaus, though very anxious to press forward, had to wait in order\nto bury his comrade and give him his due funeral rites. Presently, when\nhe too could put to sea again, and had sailed on as far as the Malean\nheads, Jove counselled evil against him and made it blow hard till the\nwaves ran mountains high. Here he divided his fleet and took the one\nhalf towards Crete where the Cydonians dwell round about the waters of\nthe river Iardanus. There is a high headland hereabouts stretching out\ninto the sea from a place called Gortyn, and all along this part of the\ncoast as far as Phaestus the sea runs high when there is a south wind\nblowing, but after Phaestus the coast is more protected, for a small\nheadland can make a great shelter. Here this part of the fleet was\ndriven on to the rocks and wrecked; but the crews just managed to save\nthemselves. As for the other five ships, they were taken by winds and\nseas to Egypt, where Menelaus gathered much gold and substance among\npeople of an alien speech. Meanwhile Aegisthus here at home plotted his\nevil deed. For seven years after he had killed Agamemnon he ruled in\nMycene, and the people were obedient under him, but in the eighth year\nOrestes came back from Athens to be his bane, and killed the murderer\nof his father. Then he celebrated the funeral rites of his mother and\nof false Aegisthus by a banquet to the people of Argos, and on that very\nday Menelaus came home, {31} with as much treasure as his ships could\ncarry.\n\n\"Take my advice then, and do not go travelling about for long so far\nfrom home, nor leave your property with such dangerous people in your\nhouse; they will eat up everything you have among them, and you will\nhave been on a fool's errand. Still, I should advise you by all means\nto go and visit Menelaus, who has lately come off a voyage among such\ndistant peoples as no man could ever hope to get back from, when the\nwinds had once carried him so far out of his reckoning; even birds\ncannot fly the distance in a twelve-month, so vast and terrible are the\nseas that they must cross. Go to him, therefore, by sea, and take your\nown men with you; or if you would rather travel by land you can have a\nchariot, you can have horses, and here are my sons who can escort you to\nLacedaemon where Menelaus lives. Beg of him to speak the truth, and he\nwill tell you no lies, for he is an excellent person.\"\n\nAs he spoke the sun set and it came on dark, whereon Minerva said, \"Sir,\nall that you have said is well; now, however, order the tongues of the\nvictims to be cut, and mix wine that we may make drink-offerings to\nNeptune, and the other immortals, and then go to bed, for it is bed\ntime. People should go away early and not keep late hours at a religious\nfestival.\"\n\nThus spoke the daughter of Jove, and they obeyed her saying. Men\nservants poured water over the hands of the guests, while pages filled\nthe mixing-bowls with wine and water, and handed it round after giving\nevery man his drink offering; then they threw the tongues of the victims\ninto the fire, and stood up to make their drink offerings. When they\nhad made their offerings and had drunk each as much as he was minded,\nMinerva and Telemachus were for going on board their ship, but Nestor\ncaught them up at once and stayed them.\n\n\"Heaven and the immortal gods,\" he exclaimed, \"forbid that you should\nleave my house to go on board of a ship. Do you think I am so poor and\nshort of clothes, or that I have so few cloaks and as to be unable to\nfind comfortable beds both for myself and for my guests? Let me tell you\nI have store both of rugs and cloaks, and shall not permit the son of\nmy old friend Ulysses to camp down on the deck of a ship--not while I\nlive--nor yet will my sons after me, but they will keep open house as I\nhave done.\"\n\nThen Minerva answered, \"Sir, you have spoken well, and it will be much\nbetter that Telemachus should do as you have said; he, therefore, shall\nreturn with you and sleep at your house, but I must go back to give\norders to my crew, and keep them in good heart. I am the only older\nperson among them; the rest are all young men of Telemachus' own age,\nwho have taken this voyage out of friendship; so I must return to the\nship and sleep there. Moreover to-morrow I must go to the Cauconians\nwhere I have a large sum of money long owing to me. As for Telemachus,\nnow that he is your guest, send him to Lacedaemon in a chariot, and let\none of your sons go with him. Be pleased to also provide him with your\nbest and fleetest horses.\"\n\nWhen she had thus spoken, she flew away in the form of an eagle, and all\nmarvelled as they beheld it. Nestor was astonished, and took Telemachus\nby the hand. \"My friend,\" said he, \"I see that you are going to be a\ngreat hero some day, since the gods wait upon you thus while you are\nstill so young. This can have been none other of those who dwell in\nheaven than Jove's redoubtable daughter, the Trito-born, who shewed\nsuch favour towards your brave father among the Argives. Holy queen,\" he\ncontinued, \"vouchsafe to send down thy grace upon myself, my good wife,\nand my children. In return, I will offer you in sacrifice a broad-browed\nheifer of a year old, unbroken, and never yet brought by man under the\nyoke. I will gild her horns, and will offer her up to you in sacrifice.\"\n\nThus did he pray, and Minerva heard his prayer. He then led the way to\nhis own house, followed by his sons and sons in law. When they had got\nthere and had taken their places on the benches and seats, he mixed them\na bowl of sweet wine that was eleven years old when the housekeeper took\nthe lid off the jar that held it. As he mixed the wine, he prayed much\nand made drink offerings to Minerva, daughter of Aegis-bearing Jove.\nThen, when they had made their drink offerings and had drunk each as\nmuch as he was minded, the others went home to bed each in his own\nabode; but Nestor put Telemachus to sleep in the room that was over the\ngateway along with Pisistratus, who was the only unmarried son now left\nhim. As for himself, he slept in an inner room of the house, with the\nqueen his wife by his side.\n\nNow when the child of morning rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, Nestor left\nhis couch and took his seat on the benches of white and polished marble\nthat stood in front of his house. Here aforetime sat Neleus, peer of\ngods in counsel, but he was now dead, and had gone to the house of\nHades; so Nestor sat in his seat sceptre in hand, as guardian of the\npublic weal. His sons as they left their rooms gathered round him,\nEchephron, Stratius, Perseus, Aretus, and Thrasymedes; the sixth son\nwas Pisistratus, and when Telemachus joined them they made him sit with\nthem. Nestor then addressed them.\n\n\"My sons,\" said he, \"make haste to do as I shall bid you. I wish first\nand foremost to propitiate the great goddess Minerva, who manifested\nherself visibly to me during yesterday's festivities. Go, then, one or\nother of you to the plain, tell the stockman to look me out a heifer,\nand come on here with it at once. Another must go to Telemachus' ship,\nand invite all the crew, leaving two men only in charge of the vessel.\nSome one else will run and fetch Laerceus the goldsmith to gild the\nhorns of the heifer. The rest, stay all of you where you are; tell the\nmaids in the house to prepare an excellent dinner, and to fetch seats,\nand logs of wood for a burnt offering. Tell them also to bring me some\nclear spring water.\"\n\nOn this they hurried off on their several errands. The heifer was\nbrought in from the plain, and Telemachus's crew came from the ship; the\ngoldsmith brought the anvil, hammer, and tongs, with which he worked his\ngold, and Minerva herself came to accept the sacrifice. Nestor gave out\nthe gold, and the smith gilded the horns of the heifer that the goddess\nmight have pleasure in their beauty. Then Stratius and Echephron brought\nher in by the horns; Aretus fetched water from the house in a ewer that\nhad a flower pattern on it, and in his other hand he held a basket of\nbarley meal; sturdy Thrasymedes stood by with a sharp axe, ready to\nstrike the heifer, while Perseus held a bucket. Then Nestor began with\nwashing his hands and sprinkling the barley meal, and he offered many\na prayer to Minerva as he threw a lock from the heifer's head upon the\nfire.\n\nWhen they had done praying and sprinkling the barley meal {32}\nThrasymedes dealt his blow, and brought the heifer down with a stroke\nthat cut through the tendons at the base of her neck, whereon the\ndaughters and daughters in law of Nestor, and his venerable wife\nEurydice (she was eldest daughter to Clymenus) screamed with delight.\nThen they lifted the heifer's head from off the ground, and Pisistratus\ncut her throat. When she had done bleeding and was quite dead, they cut\nher up. They cut out the thigh bones all in due course, wrapped them\nround in two layers of fat, and set some pieces of raw meat on the top\nof them; then Nestor laid them upon the wood fire and poured wine over\nthem, while the young men stood near him with five-pronged spits in\ntheir hands. When the thighs were burned and they had tasted the inward\nmeats, they cut the rest of the meat up small, put the pieces on the\nspits and toasted them over the fire.\n\nMeanwhile lovely Polycaste, Nestor's youngest daughter, washed\nTelemachus. When she had washed him and anointed him with oil, she\nbrought him a fair mantle and shirt, {33} and he looked like a god as\nhe came from the bath and took his seat by the side of Nestor. When\nthe outer meats were done they drew them off the spits and sat down to\ndinner where they were waited upon by some worthy henchmen, who kept\npouring them out their wine in cups of gold. As soon as they had had\nenough to eat and drink Nestor said, \"Sons, put Telemachus's horses to\nthe chariot that he may start at once.\"\n\nThus did he speak, and they did even as he had said, and yoked the fleet\nhorses to the chariot. The housekeeper packed them up a provision\nof bread, wine, and sweet meats fit for the sons of princes. Then\nTelemachus got into the chariot, while Pisistratus gathered up the reins\nand took his seat beside him. He lashed the horses on and they flew\nforward nothing loth into the open country, leaving the high citadel of\nPylos behind them. All that day did they travel, swaying the yoke upon\ntheir necks till the sun went down and darkness was over all the land.\nThen they reached Pherae where Diocles lived, who was son to Ortilochus\nand grandson to Alpheus. Here they passed the night and Diocles\nentertained them hospitably. When the child of morning, rosy-fingered\nDawn, appeared, they again yoked their horses and drove out through the\ngateway under the echoing gatehouse. {34} Pisistratus lashed the horses\non and they flew forward nothing loth; presently they came to the corn\nlands of the open country, and in the course of time completed their\njourney, so well did their steeds take them. {35}\n\nNow when the sun had set and darkness was over the land,\n\n\nBook IV\n\nTHE VISIT TO KING MENELAUS, WHO TELLS HIS STORY--MEANWHILE THE SUITORS\nIN ITHACA PLOT AGAINST TELEMACHUS.\n\nthey reached the low lying city of Lacedaemon, where they drove straight\nto the abode of Menelaus {36} [and found him in his own house, feasting\nwith his many clansmen in honour of the wedding of his son, and also of\nhis daughter, whom he was marrying to the son of that valiant warrior\nAchilles. He had given his consent and promised her to him while he was\nstill at Troy, and now the gods were bringing the marriage about; so he\nwas sending her with chariots and horses to the city of the Myrmidons\nover whom Achilles' son was reigning. For his only son he had found a\nbride from Sparta, {37} the daughter of Alector. This son, Megapenthes,\nwas born to him of a bondwoman, for heaven vouchsafed Helen no more\nchildren after she had borne Hermione, who was fair as golden Venus\nherself.\n\nSo the neighbours and kinsmen of Menelaus were feasting and making merry\nin his house. There was a bard also to sing to them and play his lyre,\nwhile two tumblers went about performing in the midst of them when the\nman struck up with his tune.] {38}\n\nTelemachus and the son of Nestor stayed their horses at the gate,\nwhereon Eteoneus servant to Menelaus came out, and as soon as he saw\nthem ran hurrying back into the house to tell his Master. He went close\nup to him and said, \"Menelaus, there are some strangers come here, two\nmen, who look like sons of Jove. What are we to do? Shall we take their\nhorses out, or tell them to find friends elsewhere as they best can?\"\n\nMenelaus was very angry and said, \"Eteoneus, son of Boethous, you never\nused to be a fool, but now you talk like a simpleton. Take their horses\nout, of course, and show the strangers in that they may have supper;\nyou and I have staid often enough at other people's houses before we got\nback here, where heaven grant that we may rest in peace henceforward.\"\n\nSo Eteoneus bustled back and bade the other servants come with him. They\ntook their sweating steeds from under the yoke, made them fast to the\nmangers, and gave them a feed of oats and barley mixed. Then they leaned\nthe chariot against the end wall of the courtyard, and led the way into\nthe house. Telemachus and Pisistratus were astonished when they saw it,\nfor its splendour was as that of the sun and moon; then, when they had\nadmired everything to their heart's content, they went into the bath\nroom and washed themselves.\n\nWhen the servants had washed them and anointed them with oil, they\nbrought them woollen cloaks and shirts, and the two took their seats by\nthe side of Menelaus. A maid-servant brought them water in a beautiful\ngolden ewer, and poured it into a silver basin for them to wash their\nhands; and she drew a clean table beside them. An upper servant brought\nthem bread, and offered them many good things of what there was in the\nhouse, while the carver fetched them plates of all manner of meats and\nset cups of gold by their side.\n\nMenelaus then greeted them saying, \"Fall to, and welcome; when you have\ndone supper I shall ask who you are, for the lineage of such men as\nyou cannot have been lost. You must be descended from a line of\nsceptre-bearing kings, for poor people do not have such sons as you\nare.\"\n\nOn this he handed them {39} a piece of fat roast loin, which had been\nset near him as being a prime part, and they laid their hands on the\ngood things that were before them; as soon as they had had enough to eat\nand drink, Telemachus said to the son of Nestor, with his head so close\nthat no one might hear, \"Look, Pisistratus, man after my own heart,\nsee the gleam of bronze and gold--of amber, {40} ivory, and silver.\nEverything is so splendid that it is like seeing the palace of Olympian\nJove. I am lost in admiration.\"\n\nMenelaus overheard him and said, \"No one, my sons, can hold his own\nwith Jove, for his house and everything about him is immortal; but among\nmortal men--well, there may be another who has as much wealth as I\nhave, or there may not; but at all events I have travelled much and have\nundergone much hardship, for it was nearly eight years before I could\nget home with my fleet. I went to Cyprus, Phoenicia and the Egyptians;\nI went also to the Ethiopians, the Sidonians, and the Erembians, and to\nLibya where the lambs have horns as soon as they are born, and the sheep\nlamb down three times a year. Every one in that country, whether master\nor man, has plenty of cheese, meat, and good milk, for the ewes yield\nall the year round. But while I was travelling and getting great riches\namong these people, my brother was secretly and shockingly murdered\nthrough the perfidy of his wicked wife, so that I have no pleasure in\nbeing lord of all this wealth. Whoever your parents may be they must\nhave told you about all this, and of my heavy loss in the ruin {41} of a\nstately mansion fully and magnificently furnished. Would that I had only\na third of what I now have so that I had stayed at home, and all those\nwere living who perished on the plain of Troy, far from Argos. I often\ngrieve, as I sit here in my house, for one and all of them. At times\nI cry aloud for sorrow, but presently I leave off again, for crying is\ncold comfort and one soon tires of it. Yet grieve for these as I may,\nI do so for one man more than for them all. I cannot even think of him\nwithout loathing both food and sleep, so miserable does he make me, for\nno one of all the Achaeans worked so hard or risked so much as he did.\nHe took nothing by it, and has left a legacy of sorrow to myself, for he\nhas been gone a long time, and we know not whether he is alive or\ndead. His old father, his long-suffering wife Penelope, and his son\nTelemachus, whom he left behind him an infant in arms, are plunged in\ngrief on his account.\"\n\nThus spoke Menelaus, and the heart of Telemachus yearned as he bethought\nhim of his father. Tears fell from his eyes as he heard him thus\nmentioned, so that he held his cloak before his face with both hands.\nWhen Menelaus saw this he doubted whether to let him choose his own time\nfor speaking, or to ask him at once and find what it was all about.\n\nWhile he was thus in two minds Helen came down from her high vaulted and\nperfumed room, looking as lovely as Diana herself. Adraste brought her\na seat, Alcippe a soft woollen rug while Phylo fetched her the silver\nwork-box which Alcandra wife of Polybus had given her. Polybus lived in\nEgyptian Thebes, which is the richest city in the whole world; he gave\nMenelaus two baths, both of pure silver, two tripods, and ten talents of\ngold; besides all this, his wife gave Helen some beautiful presents, to\nwit, a golden distaff, and a silver work box that ran on wheels, with a\ngold band round the top of it. Phylo now placed this by her side, full\nof fine spun yarn, and a distaff charged with violet coloured wool was\nlaid upon the top of it. Then Helen took her seat, put her feet upon the\nfootstool, and began to question her husband. {42}\n\n\"Do we know, Menelaus,\" said she, \"the names of these strangers who\nhave come to visit us? Shall I guess right or wrong?--but I cannot help\nsaying what I think. Never yet have I seen either man or woman so like\nsomebody else (indeed when I look at him I hardly know what to think)\nas this young man is like Telemachus, whom Ulysses left as a baby behind\nhim, when you Achaeans went to Troy with battle in your hearts, on\naccount of my most shameless self.\"\n\n\"My dear wife,\" replied Menelaus, \"I see the likeness just as you do.\nHis hands and feet are just like Ulysses; so is his hair, with the shape\nof his head and the expression of his eyes. Moreover, when I was talking\nabout Ulysses, and saying how much he had suffered on my account, tears\nfell from his eyes, and he hid his face in his mantle.\"\n\nThen Pisistratus said, \"Menelaus, son of Atreus, you are right in\nthinking that this young man is Telemachus, but he is very modest, and\nis ashamed to come here and begin opening up discourse with one whose\nconversation is so divinely interesting as your own. My father, Nestor,\nsent me to escort him hither, for he wanted to know whether you could\ngive him any counsel or suggestion. A son has always trouble at home\nwhen his father has gone away leaving him without supporters; and this\nis how Telemachus is now placed, for his father is absent, and there is\nno one among his own people to stand by him.\"\n\n\"Bless my heart,\" replied Menelaus, \"then I am receiving a visit from\nthe son of a very dear friend, who suffered much hardship for my sake.\nI had always hoped to entertain him with most marked distinction when\nheaven had granted us a safe return from beyond the seas. I should have\nfounded a city for him in Argos, and built him a house. I should have\nmade him leave Ithaca with his goods, his son, and all his people, and\nshould have sacked for them some one of the neighbouring cities that\nare subject to me. We should thus have seen one another continually,\nand nothing but death could have interrupted so close and happy an\nintercourse. I suppose, however, that heaven grudged us such great good\nfortune, for it has prevented the poor fellow from ever getting home at\nall.\"\n\nThus did he speak, and his words set them all a weeping. Helen wept,\nTelemachus wept, and so did Menelaus, nor could Pisistratus keep his\neyes from filling, when he remembered his dear brother Antilochus whom\nthe son of bright Dawn had killed. Thereon he said to Menelaus,\n\n\"Sir, my father Nestor, when we used to talk about you at home, told me\nyou were a person of rare and excellent understanding. If, then, it be\npossible, do as I would urge you. I am not fond of crying while I am\ngetting my supper. Morning will come in due course, and in the forenoon\nI care not how much I cry for those that are dead and gone. This is all\nwe can do for the poor things. We can only shave our heads for them and\nwring the tears from our cheeks. I had a brother who died at Troy; he\nwas by no means the worst man there; you are sure to have known him--his\nname was Antilochus; I never set eyes upon him myself, but they say that\nhe was singularly fleet of foot and in fight valiant.\"\n\n\"Your discretion, my friend,\" answered Menelaus, \"is beyond your years.\nIt is plain you take after your father. One can soon see when a man\nis son to one whom heaven has blessed both as regards wife and\noffspring--and it has blessed Nestor from first to last all his days,\ngiving him a green old age in his own house, with sons about him who are\nboth well disposed and valiant. We will put an end therefore to all this\nweeping, and attend to our supper again. Let water be poured over our\nhands. Telemachus and I can talk with one another fully in the morning.\"\n\nOn this Asphalion, one of the servants, poured water over their hands\nand they laid their hands on the good things that were before them.\n\nThen Jove's daughter Helen bethought her of another matter. She drugged\nthe wine with an herb that banishes all care, sorrow, and ill humour.\nWhoever drinks wine thus drugged cannot shed a single tear all the rest\nof the day, not even though his father and mother both of them drop down\ndead, or he sees a brother or a son hewn in pieces before his very eyes.\nThis drug, of such sovereign power and virtue, had been given to Helen\nby Polydamna wife of Thon, a woman of Egypt, where there grow all sorts\nof herbs, some good to put into the mixing bowl and others poisonous.\nMoreover, every one in the whole country is a skilled physician, for\nthey are of the race of Paeeon. When Helen had put this drug in the\nbowl, and had told the servants to serve the wine round, she said:\n\n\"Menelaus, son of Atreus, and you my good friends, sons of honourable\nmen (which is as Jove wills, for he is the giver both of good and evil,\nand can do what he chooses), feast here as you will, and listen while I\ntell you a tale in season. I cannot indeed name every single one of the\nexploits of Ulysses, but I can say what he did when he was before Troy,\nand you Achaeans were in all sorts of difficulties. He covered himself\nwith wounds and bruises, dressed himself all in rags, and entered the\nenemy's city looking like a menial or a beggar, and quite different\nfrom what he did when he was among his own people. In this disguise\nhe entered the city of Troy, and no one said anything to him. I alone\nrecognised him and began to question him, but he was too cunning for me.\nWhen, however, I had washed and anointed him and had given him clothes,\nand after I had sworn a solemn oath not to betray him to the Trojans\ntill he had got safely back to his own camp and to the ships, he told me\nall that the Achaeans meant to do. He killed many Trojans and got much\ninformation before he reached the Argive camp, for all which things the\nTrojan women made lamentation, but for my own part I was glad, for my\nheart was beginning to yearn after my home, and I was unhappy about\nthe wrong that Venus had done me in taking me over there, away from\nmy country, my girl, and my lawful wedded husband, who is indeed by no\nmeans deficient either in person or understanding.\"\n\nThen Menelaus said, \"All that you have been saying, my dear wife, is\ntrue. I have travelled much, and have had much to do with heroes, but\nI have never seen such another man as Ulysses. What endurance too,\nand what courage he displayed within the wooden horse, wherein all the\nbravest of the Argives were lying in wait to bring death and destruction\nupon the Trojans. {43} At that moment you came up to us; some god\nwho wished well to the Trojans must have set you on to it and you had\nDeiphobus with you. Three times did you go all round our hiding place\nand pat it; you called our chiefs each by his own name, and mimicked\nall our wives--Diomed, Ulysses, and I from our seats inside heard what\na noise you made. Diomed and I could not make up our minds whether to\nspring out then and there, or to answer you from inside, but Ulysses\nheld us all in check, so we sat quite still, all except Anticlus, who\nwas beginning to answer you, when Ulysses clapped his two brawny hands\nover his mouth, and kept them there. It was this that saved us all, for\nhe muzzled Anticlus till Minerva took you away again.\"\n\n\"How sad,\" exclaimed Telemachus, \"that all this was of no avail to save\nhim, nor yet his own iron courage. But now, sir, be pleased to send us\nall to bed, that we may lie down and enjoy the blessed boon of sleep.\"\n\nOn this Helen told the maid servants to set beds in the room that was in\nthe gatehouse, and to make them with good red rugs, and spread coverlets\non the top of them with woollen cloaks for the guests to wear. So\nthe maids went out, carrying a torch, and made the beds, to which\na man-servant presently conducted the strangers. Thus, then, did\nTelemachus and Pisistratus sleep there in the forecourt, while the son\nof Atreus lay in an inner room with lovely Helen by his side.\n\nWhen the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, Menelaus rose\nand dressed himself. He bound his sandals on to his comely feet,\ngirded his sword about his shoulders, and left his room looking like an\nimmortal god. Then, taking a seat near Telemachus he said:\n\n\"And what, Telemachus, has led you to take this long sea voyage to\nLacedaemon? Are you on public, or private business? Tell me all about\nit.\"\n\n\"I have come, sir,\" replied Telemachus, \"to see if you can tell me\nanything about my father. I am being eaten out of house and home; my\nfair estate is being wasted, and my house is full of miscreants who keep\nkilling great numbers of my sheep and oxen, on the pretence of paying\ntheir addresses to my mother. Therefore, I am suppliant at your knees if\nhaply you may tell me about my father's melancholy end, whether you saw\nit with your own eyes, or heard it from some other traveller; for he was\na man born to trouble. Do not soften things out of any pity for myself,\nbut tell me in all plainness exactly what you saw. If my brave father\nUlysses ever did you loyal service either by word or deed, when you\nAchaeans were harassed by the Trojans, bear it in mind now as in my\nfavour and tell me truly all.\"\n\nMenelaus on hearing this was very much shocked. \"So,\" he exclaimed,\n\"these cowards would usurp a brave man's bed? A hind might as well lay\nher new born young in the lair of a lion, and then go off to feed in the\nforest or in some grassy dell: the lion when he comes back to his lair\nwill make short work with the pair of them--and so will Ulysses with\nthese suitors. By father Jove, Minerva, and Apollo, if Ulysses is still\nthe man that he was when he wrestled with Philomeleides in Lesbos, and\nthrew him so heavily that all the Achaeans cheered him--if he is still\nsuch and were to come near these suitors, they would have a short shrift\nand a sorry wedding. As regards your questions, however, I will not\nprevaricate nor deceive you, but will tell you without concealment all\nthat the old man of the sea told me.\n\n\"I was trying to come on here, but the gods detained me in Egypt, for\nmy hecatombs had not given them full satisfaction, and the gods are very\nstrict about having their dues. Now off Egypt, about as far as a ship\ncan sail in a day with a good stiff breeze behind her, there is an\nisland called Pharos--it has a good harbour from which vessels can\nget out into open sea when they have taken in water--and here the gods\nbecalmed me twenty days without so much as a breath of fair wind to help\nme forward. We should have run clean out of provisions and my men would\nhave starved, if a goddess had not taken pity upon me and saved me in\nthe person of Idothea, daughter to Proteus, the old man of the sea, for\nshe had taken a great fancy to me.\n\n\"She came to me one day when I was by myself, as I often was, for the\nmen used to go with their barbed hooks, all over the island in the\nhope of catching a fish or two to save them from the pangs of hunger.\n'Stranger,' said she, 'it seems to me that you like starving in this\nway--at any rate it does not greatly trouble you, for you stick here day\nafter day, without even trying to get away though your men are dying by\ninches.'\n\n\"'Let me tell you,' said I, 'whichever of the goddesses you may happen\nto be, that I am not staying here of my own accord, but must have\noffended the gods that live in heaven. Tell me, therefore, for the gods\nknow everything, which of the immortals it is that is hindering me in\nthis way, and tell me also how I may sail the sea so as to reach my\nhome.'\n\n\"'Stranger,' replied she, 'I will make it all quite clear to you. There\nis an old immortal who lives under the sea hereabouts and whose name\nis Proteus. He is an Egyptian, and people say he is my father; he is\nNeptune's head man and knows every inch of ground all over the bottom of\nthe sea. If you can snare him and hold him tight, he will tell you about\nyour voyage, what courses you are to take, and how you are to sail the\nsea so as to reach your home. He will also tell you, if you so will, all\nthat has been going on at your house both good and bad, while you have\nbeen away on your long and dangerous journey.'\n\n\"'Can you show me,' said I, 'some stratagem by means of which I may\ncatch this old god without his suspecting it and finding me out? For a\ngod is not easily caught--not by a mortal man.'\n\n\"'Stranger,' said she, 'I will make it all quite clear to you. About the\ntime when the sun shall have reached mid heaven, the old man of the sea\ncomes up from under the waves, heralded by the West wind that furs the\nwater over his head. As soon as he has come up he lies down, and goes to\nsleep in a great sea cave, where the seals--Halosydne's chickens as they\ncall them--come up also from the grey sea, and go to sleep in shoals\nall round him; and a very strong and fish-like smell do they bring with\nthem. {44} Early to-morrow morning I will take you to this place and\nwill lay you in ambush. Pick out, therefore, the three best men you have\nin your fleet, and I will tell you all the tricks that the old man will\nplay you.\n\n\"'First he will look over all his seals, and count them; then, when he\nhas seen them and tallied them on his five fingers, he will go to sleep\namong them, as a shepherd among his sheep. The moment you see that he is\nasleep seize him; put forth all your strength and hold him fast, for he\nwill do his very utmost to get away from you. He will turn himself into\nevery kind of creature that goes upon the earth, and will become also\nboth fire and water; but you must hold him fast and grip him tighter\nand tighter, till he begins to talk to you and comes back to what he was\nwhen you saw him go to sleep; then you may slacken your hold and let him\ngo; and you can ask him which of the gods it is that is angry with you,\nand what you must do to reach your home over the seas.'\n\n\"Having so said she dived under the waves, whereon I turned back to\nthe place where my ships were ranged upon the shore; and my heart was\nclouded with care as I went along. When I reached my ship we got supper\nready, for night was falling, and camped down upon the beach.\n\n\"When the child of morning rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, I took the three\nmen on whose prowess of all kinds I could most rely, and went along by\nthe sea-side, praying heartily to heaven. Meanwhile the goddess fetched\nme up four seal skins from the bottom of the sea, all of them just\nskinned, for she meant playing a trick upon her father. Then she dug\nfour pits for us to lie in, and sat down to wait till we should come up.\nWhen we were close to her, she made us lie down in the pits one after\nthe other, and threw a seal skin over each of us. Our ambuscade would\nhave been intolerable, for the stench of the fishy seals was most\ndistressing {45}--who would go to bed with a sea monster if he could\nhelp it?--but here, too, the goddess helped us, and thought of something\nthat gave us great relief, for she put some ambrosia under each man's\nnostrils, which was so fragrant that it killed the smell of the seals.\n{46}\n\n\"We waited the whole morning and made the best of it, watching the seals\ncome up in hundreds to bask upon the sea shore, till at noon the old man\nof the sea came up too, and when he had found his fat seals he went over\nthem and counted them. We were among the first he counted, and he never\nsuspected any guile, but laid himself down to sleep as soon as he had\ndone counting. Then we rushed upon him with a shout and seized him; on\nwhich he began at once with his old tricks, and changed himself first\ninto a lion with a great mane; then all of a sudden he became a dragon,\na leopard, a wild boar; the next moment he was running water, and then\nagain directly he was a tree, but we stuck to him and never lost hold,\ntill at last the cunning old creature became distressed, and said,\n'Which of the gods was it, Son of Atreus, that hatched this plot with\nyou for snaring me and seizing me against my will? What do you want?'\n\n\"'You know that yourself, old man,' I answered, 'you will gain nothing\nby trying to put me off. It is because I have been kept so long in this\nisland, and see no sign of my being able to get away. I am losing\nall heart; tell me, then, for you gods know everything, which of the\nimmortals it is that is hindering me, and tell me also how I may sail\nthe sea so as to reach my home?'\n\n\"Then,' he said, 'if you would finish your voyage and get home quickly,\nyou must offer sacrifices to Jove and to the rest of the gods before\nembarking; for it is decreed that you shall not get back to your\nfriends, and to your own house, till you have returned to the heaven-fed\nstream of Egypt, and offered holy hecatombs to the immortal gods that\nreign in heaven. When you have done this they will let you finish your\nvoyage.'\n\n\"I was broken hearted when I heard that I must go back all that long and\nterrible voyage to Egypt; {47} nevertheless, I answered, 'I will do all,\nold man, that you have laid upon me; but now tell me, and tell me true,\nwhether all the Achaeans whom Nestor and I left behind us when we set\nsail from Troy have got home safely, or whether any one of them came\nto a bad end either on board his own ship or among his friends when the\ndays of his fighting were done.'\n\n\"'Son of Atreus,' he answered, 'why ask me? You had better not know what\nI can tell you, for your eyes will surely fill when you have heard my\nstory. Many of those about whom you ask are dead and gone, but many\nstill remain, and only two of the chief men among the Achaeans\nperished during their return home. As for what happened on the field of\nbattle--you were there yourself. A third Achaean leader is still at sea,\nalive, but hindered from returning. Ajax was wrecked, for Neptune drove\nhim on to the great rocks of Gyrae; nevertheless, he let him get safe\nout of the water, and in spite of all Minerva's hatred he would have\nescaped death, if he had not ruined himself by boasting. He said the\ngods could not drown him even though they had tried to do so, and when\nNeptune heard this large talk, he seized his trident in his two brawny\nhands, and split the rock of Gyrae in two pieces. The base remained\nwhere it was, but the part on which Ajax was sitting fell headlong\ninto the sea and carried Ajax with it; so he drank salt water and was\ndrowned.\n\n\"'Your brother and his ships escaped, for Juno protected him, but when\nhe was just about to reach the high promontory of Malea, he was caught\nby a heavy gale which carried him out to sea again sorely against his\nwill, and drove him to the foreland where Thyestes used to dwell, but\nwhere Aegisthus was then living. By and by, however, it seemed as though\nhe was to return safely after all, for the gods backed the wind into its\nold quarter and they reached home; whereon Agamemnon kissed his native\nsoil, and shed tears of joy at finding himself in his own country.\n\n\"'Now there was a watchman whom Aegisthus kept always on the watch, and\nto whom he had promised two talents of gold. This man had been looking\nout for a whole year to make sure that Agamemnon did not give him the\nslip and prepare war; when, therefore, this man saw Agamemnon go by,\nhe went and told Aegisthus, who at once began to lay a plot for him. He\npicked twenty of his bravest warriors and placed them in ambuscade on\none side the cloister, while on the opposite side he prepared a banquet.\nThen he sent his chariots and horsemen to Agamemnon, and invited him to\nthe feast, but he meant foul play. He got him there, all unsuspicious of\nthe doom that was awaiting him, and killed him when the banquet was\nover as though he were butchering an ox in the shambles; not one of\nAgamemnon's followers was left alive, nor yet one of Aegisthus', but\nthey were all killed there in the cloisters.'\n\n\"Thus spoke Proteus, and I was broken hearted as I heard him. I sat down\nupon the sands and wept; I felt as though I could no longer bear to live\nnor look upon the light of the sun. Presently, when I had had my fill of\nweeping and writhing upon the ground, the old man of the sea said, 'Son\nof Atreus, do not waste any more time in crying so bitterly; it can\ndo no manner of good; find your way home as fast as ever you can,\nfor Aegisthus may be still alive, and even though Orestes has been\nbeforehand with you in killing him, you may yet come in for his\nfuneral.'\n\n\"On this I took comfort in spite of all my sorrow, and said, 'I know,\nthen, about these two; tell me, therefore, about the third man of whom\nyou spoke; is he still alive, but at sea, and unable to get home? or is\nhe dead? Tell me, no matter how much it may grieve me.'\n\n\"'The third man,' he answered, 'is Ulysses who dwells in Ithaca. I\ncan see him in an island sorrowing bitterly in the house of the nymph\nCalypso, who is keeping him prisoner, and he cannot reach his home for\nhe has no ships nor sailors to take him over the sea. As for your own\nend, Menelaus, you shall not die in Argos, but the gods will take you to\nthe Elysian plain, which is at the ends of the world. There fair-haired\nRhadamanthus reigns, and men lead an easier life than any where else in\nthe world, for in Elysium there falls not rain, nor hail, nor snow, but\nOceanus breathes ever with a West wind that sings softly from the sea,\nand gives fresh life to all men. This will happen to you because you\nhave married Helen, and are Jove's son-in-law.'\n\n\"As he spoke he dived under the waves, whereon I turned back to the\nships with my companions, and my heart was clouded with care as I went\nalong. When we reached the ships we got supper ready, for night was\nfalling, and camped down upon the beach. When the child of morning,\nrosy-fingered Dawn appeared, we drew our ships into the water, and put\nour masts and sails within them; then we went on board ourselves, took\nour seats on the benches, and smote the grey sea with our oars. I\nagain stationed my ships in the heaven-fed stream of Egypt, and offered\nhecatombs that were full and sufficient. When I had thus appeased\nheaven's anger, I raised a barrow to the memory of Agamemnon that his\nname might live for ever, after which I had a quick passage home, for\nthe gods sent me a fair wind.\n\n\"And now for yourself--stay here some ten or twelve days longer, and I\nwill then speed you on your way. I will make you a noble present of a\nchariot and three horses. I will also give you a beautiful chalice\nthat so long as you live you may think of me whenever you make a\ndrink-offering to the immortal gods.\"\n\n\"Son of Atreus,\" replied Telemachus, \"do not press me to stay longer; I\nshould be contented to remain with you for another twelve months; I find\nyour conversation so delightful that I should never once wish myself at\nhome with my parents; but my crew whom I have left at Pylos are already\nimpatient, and you are detaining me from them. As for any present you\nmay be disposed to make me, I had rather that it should be a piece of\nplate. I will take no horses back with me to Ithaca, but will leave them\nto adorn your own stables, for you have much flat ground in your kingdom\nwhere lotus thrives, as also meadow-sweet and wheat and barley, and oats\nwith their white and spreading ears; whereas in Ithaca we have neither\nopen fields nor racecourses, and the country is more fit for goats than\nhorses, and I like it the better for that. {48} None of our islands have\nmuch level ground, suitable for horses, and Ithaca least of all.\"\n\nMenelaus smiled and took Telemachus's hand within his own. \"What you\nsay,\" said he, \"shows that you come of good family. I both can, and\nwill, make this exchange for you, by giving you the finest and most\nprecious piece of plate in all my house. It is a mixing bowl by Vulcan's\nown hand, of pure silver, except the rim, which is inlaid with gold.\nPhaedimus, king of the Sidonians, gave it me in the course of a visit\nwhich I paid him when I returned thither on my homeward journey. I will\nmake you a present of it.\"\n\nThus did they converse [and guests kept coming to the king's house. They\nbrought sheep and wine, while their wives had put up bread for them to\ntake with them; so they were busy cooking their dinners in the courts].\n{49}\n\nMeanwhile the suitors were throwing discs or aiming with spears at\na mark on the levelled ground in front of Ulysses' house, and were\nbehaving with all their old insolence. Antinous and Eurymachus, who were\ntheir ringleaders and much the foremost among them all, were sitting\ntogether when Noemon son of Phronius came up and said to Antinous,\n\n\"Have we any idea, Antinous, on what day Telemachus returns from Pylos?\nHe has a ship of mine, and I want it, to cross over to Elis: I have\ntwelve brood mares there with yearling mule foals by their side not yet\nbroken in, and I want to bring one of them over here and break him.\"\n\nThey were astounded when they heard this, for they had made sure that\nTelemachus had not gone to the city of Neleus. They thought he was\nonly away somewhere on the farms, and was with the sheep, or with the\nswineherd; so Antinous said, \"When did he go? Tell me truly, and\nwhat young men did he take with him? Were they freemen or his own\nbondsmen--for he might manage that too? Tell me also, did you let him\nhave the ship of your own free will because he asked you, or did he take\nit without your leave?\"\n\n\"I lent it him,\" answered Noemon, \"what else could I do when a man of\nhis position said he was in a difficulty, and asked me to oblige him? I\ncould not possibly refuse. As for those who went with him they were the\nbest young men we have, and I saw Mentor go on board as captain--or some\ngod who was exactly like him. I cannot understand it, for I saw Mentor\nhere myself yesterday morning, and yet he was then setting out for\nPylos.\"\n\nNoemon then went back to his father's house, but Antinous and Eurymachus\nwere very angry. They told the others to leave off playing, and to come\nand sit down along with themselves. When they came, Antinous son of\nEupeithes spoke in anger. His heart was black with rage, and his eyes\nflashed fire as he said:\n\n\"Good heavens, this voyage of Telemachus is a very serious matter; we\nhad made sure that it would come to nothing, but the young fellow has\ngot away in spite of us, and with a picked crew too. He will be giving\nus trouble presently; may Jove take him before he is full grown. Find me\na ship, therefore, with a crew of twenty men, and I will lie in wait for\nhim in the straits between Ithaca and Samos; he will then rue the day\nthat he set out to try and get news of his father.\"\n\nThus did he speak, and the others applauded his saying; they then all of\nthem went inside the buildings.\n\nIt was not long ere Penelope came to know what the suitors were\nplotting; for a man servant, Medon, overheard them from outside the\nouter court as they were laying their schemes within, and went to tell\nhis mistress. As he crossed the threshold of her room Penelope said:\n\"Medon, what have the suitors sent you here for? Is it to tell the maids\nto leave their master's business and cook dinner for them? I wish they\nmay neither woo nor dine henceforward, neither here nor anywhere else,\nbut let this be the very last time, for the waste you all make of my\nson's estate. Did not your fathers tell you when you were children, how\ngood Ulysses had been to them--never doing anything high-handed, nor\nspeaking harshly to anybody? Kings may say things sometimes, and they\nmay take a fancy to one man and dislike another, but Ulysses never did\nan unjust thing by anybody--which shows what bad hearts you have, and\nthat there is no such thing as gratitude left in this world.\"\n\nThen Medon said, \"I wish, Madam, that this were all; but they are\nplotting something much more dreadful now--may heaven frustrate their\ndesign. They are going to try and murder Telemachus as he is coming home\nfrom Pylos and Lacedaemon, where he has been to get news of his father.\"\n\nThen Penelope's heart sank within her, and for a long time she was\nspeechless; her eyes filled with tears, and she could find no utterance.\nAt last, however, she said, \"Why did my son leave me? What business had\nhe to go sailing off in ships that make long voyages over the ocean like\nsea-horses? Does he want to die without leaving any one behind him to\nkeep up his name?\"\n\n\"I do not know,\" answered Medon, \"whether some god set him on to it, or\nwhether he went on his own impulse to see if he could find out if his\nfather was dead, or alive and on his way home.\"\n\nThen he went downstairs again, leaving Penelope in an agony of grief.\nThere were plenty of seats in the house, but she had no heart for\nsitting on any one of them; she could only fling herself on the floor of\nher own room and cry; whereon all the maids in the house, both old\nand young, gathered round her and began to cry too, till at last in a\ntransport of sorrow she exclaimed,\n\n\"My dears, heaven has been pleased to try me with more affliction\nthan any other woman of my age and country. First I lost my brave and\nlion-hearted husband, who had every good quality under heaven, and whose\nname was great over all Hellas and middle Argos, and now my darling son\nis at the mercy of the winds and waves, without my having heard one word\nabout his leaving home. You hussies, there was not one of you would so\nmuch as think of giving me a call out of my bed, though you all of you\nvery well knew when he was starting. If I had known he meant taking this\nvoyage, he would have had to give it up, no matter how much he was bent\nupon it, or leave me a corpse behind him--one or other. Now, however,\ngo some of you and call old Dolius, who was given me by my father on my\nmarriage, and who is my gardener. Bid him go at once and tell everything\nto Laertes, who may be able to hit on some plan for enlisting public\nsympathy on our side, as against those who are trying to exterminate his\nown race and that of Ulysses.\"\n\nThen the dear old nurse Euryclea said, \"You may kill me, Madam, or let\nme live on in your house, whichever you please, but I will tell you the\nreal truth. I knew all about it, and gave him everything he wanted in\nthe way of bread and wine, but he made me take my solemn oath that I\nwould not tell you anything for some ten or twelve days, unless you\nasked or happened to hear of his having gone, for he did not want you to\nspoil your beauty by crying. And now, Madam, wash your face, change\nyour dress, and go upstairs with your maids to offer prayers to Minerva,\ndaughter of Aegis-bearing Jove, for she can save him even though he\nbe in the jaws of death. Do not trouble Laertes: he has trouble enough\nalready. Besides, I cannot think that the gods hate the race of the son\nof Arceisius so much, but there will be a son left to come up after him,\nand inherit both the house and the fair fields that lie far all round\nit.\"\n\nWith these words she made her mistress leave off crying, and dried the\ntears from her eyes. Penelope washed her face, changed her dress, and\nwent upstairs with her maids. She then put some bruised barley into a\nbasket and began praying to Minerva.\n\n\"Hear me,\" she cried, \"Daughter of Aegis-bearing Jove, unweariable. If\never Ulysses while he was here burned you fat thigh bones of sheep or\nheifer, bear it in mind now as in my favour, and save my darling son\nfrom the villainy of the suitors.\"\n\nShe cried aloud as she spoke, and the goddess heard her prayer;\nmeanwhile the suitors were clamorous throughout the covered cloister,\nand one of them said:\n\n\"The queen is preparing for her marriage with one or other of us. Little\ndoes she dream that her son has now been doomed to die.\"\n\nThis was what they said, but they did not know what was going to happen.\nThen Antinous said, \"Comrades, let there be no loud talking, lest some\nof it get carried inside. Let us be up and do that in silence, about\nwhich we are all of a mind.\"\n\nHe then chose twenty men, and they went down to their ship and to the\nsea side; they drew the vessel into the water and got her mast and sails\ninside her; they bound the oars to the thole-pins with twisted thongs\nof leather, all in due course, and spread the white sails aloft, while\ntheir fine servants brought them their armour. Then they made the ship\nfast a little way out, came on shore again, got their suppers, and\nwaited till night should fall.\n\nBut Penelope lay in her own room upstairs unable to eat or drink, and\nwondering whether her brave son would escape, or be overpowered by the\nwicked suitors. Like a lioness caught in the toils with huntsmen hemming\nher in on every side she thought and thought till she sank into a\nslumber, and lay on her bed bereft of thought and motion.\n\nThen Minerva bethought her of another matter, and made a vision in\nthe likeness of Penelope's sister Iphthime daughter of Icarius who had\nmarried Eumelus and lived in Pherae. She told the vision to go to the\nhouse of Ulysses, and to make Penelope leave off crying, so it came into\nher room by the hole through which the thong went for pulling the door\nto, and hovered over her head saying,\n\n\"You are asleep, Penelope: the gods who live at ease will not suffer you\nto weep and be so sad. Your son has done them no wrong, so he will yet\ncome back to you.\"\n\nPenelope, who was sleeping sweetly at the gates of dreamland, answered,\n\"Sister, why have you come here? You do not come very often, but I\nsuppose that is because you live such a long way off. Am I, then, to\nleave off crying and refrain from all the sad thoughts that torture me?\nI, who have lost my brave and lion-hearted husband, who had every good\nquality under heaven, and whose name was great over all Hellas and\nmiddle Argos; and now my darling son has gone off on board of a ship--a\nfoolish fellow who has never been used to roughing it, nor to going\nabout among gatherings of men. I am even more anxious about him than\nabout my husband; I am all in a tremble when I think of him, lest\nsomething should happen to him, either from the people among whom he has\ngone, or by sea, for he has many enemies who are plotting against him,\nand are bent on killing him before he can return home.\"\n\nThen the vision said, \"Take heart, and be not so much dismayed. There is\none gone with him whom many a man would be glad enough to have stand by\nhis side, I mean Minerva; it is she who has compassion upon you, and who\nhas sent me to bear you this message.\"\n\n\"Then,\" said Penelope, \"if you are a god or have been sent here by\ndivine commission, tell me also about that other unhappy one--is he\nstill alive, or is he already dead and in the house of Hades?\"\n\nAnd the vision said, \"I shall not tell you for certain whether he is\nalive or dead, and there is no use in idle conversation.\"\n\nThen it vanished through the thong-hole of the door and was dissipated\ninto thin air; but Penelope rose from her sleep refreshed and comforted,\nso vivid had been her dream.\n\nMeantime the suitors went on board and sailed their ways over the\nsea, intent on murdering Telemachus. Now there is a rocky islet called\nAsteris, of no great size, in mid channel between Ithaca and Samos, and\nthere is a harbour on either side of it where a ship can lie. Here then\nthe Achaeans placed themselves in ambush.\n\n\nBook V\n\nCALYPSO--ULYSSES REACHES SCHERIA ON A RAFT.\n\nAnd now, as Dawn rose from her couch beside Tithonus--harbinger of light\nalike to mortals and immortals--the gods met in council and with them,\nJove the lord of thunder, who is their king. Thereon Minerva began to\ntell them of the many sufferings of Ulysses, for she pitied him away\nthere in the house of the nymph Calypso.\n\n\"Father Jove,\" said she, \"and all you other gods that live in\neverlasting bliss, I hope there may never be such a thing as a kind and\nwell-disposed ruler any more, nor one who will govern equitably. I hope\nthey will be all henceforth cruel and unjust, for there is not one of\nhis subjects but has forgotten Ulysses, who ruled them as though he were\ntheir father. There he is, lying in great pain in an island where dwells\nthe nymph Calypso, who will not let him go; and he cannot get back to\nhis own country, for he can find neither ships nor sailors to take him\nover the sea. Furthermore, wicked people are now trying to murder his\nonly son Telemachus, who is coming home from Pylos and Lacedaemon, where\nhe has been to see if he can get news of his father.\"\n\n\"What, my dear, are you talking about?\" replied her father, \"did you not\nsend him there yourself, because you thought it would help Ulysses to\nget home and punish the suitors? Besides, you are perfectly able to\nprotect Telemachus, and to see him safely home again, while the suitors\nhave to come hurry-skurrying back without having killed him.\"\n\nWhen he had thus spoken, he said to his son Mercury, \"Mercury, you are\nour messenger, go therefore and tell Calypso we have decreed that poor\nUlysses is to return home. He is to be convoyed neither by gods nor men,\nbut after a perilous voyage of twenty days upon a raft he is to reach\nfertile Scheria, {50} the land of the Phaeacians, who are near of kin to\nthe gods, and will honour him as though he were one of ourselves. They\nwill send him in a ship to his own country, and will give him more\nbronze and gold and raiment than he would have brought back from Troy,\nif he had had all his prize money and had got home without disaster.\nThis is how we have settled that he shall return to his country and his\nfriends.\"\n\nThus he spoke, and Mercury, guide and guardian, slayer of Argus, did as\nhe was told. Forthwith he bound on his glittering golden sandals with\nwhich he could fly like the wind over land and sea. He took the wand\nwith which he seals men's eyes in sleep or wakes them just as he\npleases, and flew holding it in his hand over Pieria; then he swooped\ndown through the firmament till he reached the level of the sea, whose\nwaves he skimmed like a cormorant that flies fishing every hole and\ncorner of the ocean, and drenching its thick plumage in the spray. He\nflew and flew over many a weary wave, but when at last he got to the\nisland which was his journey's end, he left the sea and went on by land\ntill he came to the cave where the nymph Calypso lived.\n\nHe found her at home. There was a large fire burning on the hearth, and\none could smell from far the fragrant reek of burning cedar and sandal\nwood. As for herself, she was busy at her loom, shooting her golden\nshuttle through the warp and singing beautifully. Round her cave there\nwas a thick wood of alder, poplar, and sweet smelling cypress trees,\nwherein all kinds of great birds had built their nests--owls, hawks, and\nchattering sea-crows that occupy their business in the waters. A vine\nloaded with grapes was trained and grew luxuriantly about the mouth of\nthe cave; there were also four running rills of water in channels cut\npretty close together, and turned hither and thither so as to irrigate\nthe beds of violets and luscious herbage over which they flowed. {51}\nEven a god could not help being charmed with such a lovely spot,\nso Mercury stood still and looked at it; but when he had admired it\nsufficiently he went inside the cave.\n\nCalypso knew him at once--for the gods all know each other, no matter\nhow far they live from one another--but Ulysses was not within; he was\non the sea-shore as usual, looking out upon the barren ocean with tears\nin his eyes, groaning and breaking his heart for sorrow. Calypso\ngave Mercury a seat and said: \"Why have you come to see me,\nMercury--honoured, and ever welcome--for you do not visit me often? Say\nwhat you want; I will do it for you at once if I can, and if it can be\ndone at all; but come inside, and let me set refreshment before you.\"\n\nAs she spoke she drew a table loaded with ambrosia beside him and mixed\nhim some red nectar, so Mercury ate and drank till he had had enough,\nand then said:\n\n\"We are speaking god and goddess to one another, and you ask me why I\nhave come here, and I will tell you truly as you would have me do. Jove\nsent me; it was no doing of mine; who could possibly want to come all\nthis way over the sea where there are no cities full of people to offer\nme sacrifices or choice hecatombs? Nevertheless I had to come, for none\nof us other gods can cross Jove, nor transgress his orders. He says that\nyou have here the most ill-starred of all those who fought nine years\nbefore the city of King Priam and sailed home in the tenth year after\nhaving sacked it. On their way home they sinned against Minerva, {52}\nwho raised both wind and waves against them, so that all his brave\ncompanions perished, and he alone was carried hither by wind and tide.\nJove says that you are to let this man go at once, for it is decreed\nthat he shall not perish here, far from his own people, but shall return\nto his house and country and see his friends again.\"\n\nCalypso trembled with rage when she heard this, \"You gods,\" she\nexclaimed, \"ought to be ashamed of yourselves. You are always jealous\nand hate seeing a goddess take a fancy to a mortal man, and live with\nhim in open matrimony. So when rosy-fingered Dawn made love to Orion,\nyou precious gods were all of you furious till Diana went and killed him\nin Ortygia. So again when Ceres fell in love with Iasion, and yielded to\nhim in a thrice-ploughed fallow field, Jove came to hear of it before so\nvery long and killed Iasion with his thunderbolts. And now you are angry\nwith me too because I have a man here. I found the poor creature sitting\nall alone astride of a keel, for Jove had struck his ship with lightning\nand sunk it in mid ocean, so that all his crew were drowned, while he\nhimself was driven by wind and waves on to my island. I got fond of him\nand cherished him, and had set my heart on making him immortal, so that\nhe should never grow old all his days; still I cannot cross Jove, nor\nbring his counsels to nothing; therefore, if he insists upon it, let the\nman go beyond the seas again; but I cannot send him anywhere myself\nfor I have neither ships nor men who can take him. Nevertheless I will\nreadily give him such advice, in all good faith, as will be likely to\nbring him safely to his own country.\"\n\n\"Then send him away,\" said Mercury, \"or Jove will be angry with you and\npunish you\".\n\nOn this he took his leave, and Calypso went out to look for Ulysses, for\nshe had heard Jove's message. She found him sitting upon the beach with\nhis eyes ever filled with tears, and dying of sheer home sickness; for\nhe had got tired of Calypso, and though he was forced to sleep with her\nin the cave by night, it was she, not he, that would have it so. As for\nthe day time, he spent it on the rocks and on the sea shore, weeping,\ncrying aloud for his despair, and always looking out upon the sea.\nCalypso then went close up to him said:\n\n\"My poor fellow, you shall not stay here grieving and fretting your life\nout any longer. I am going to send you away of my own free will; so go,\ncut some beams of wood, and make yourself a large raft with an upper\ndeck that it may carry you safely over the sea. I will put bread, wine,\nand water on board to save you from starving. I will also give you\nclothes, and will send you a fair wind to take you home, if the gods in\nheaven so will it--for they know more about these things, and can settle\nthem better than I can.\"\n\nUlysses shuddered as he heard her. \"Now goddess,\" he answered, \"there is\nsomething behind all this; you cannot be really meaning to help me home\nwhen you bid me do such a dreadful thing as put to sea on a raft. Not\neven a well found ship with a fair wind could venture on such a distant\nvoyage: nothing that you can say or do shall make me go on board a raft\nunless you first solemnly swear that you mean me no mischief.\"\n\nCalypso smiled at this and caressed him with her hand: \"You know a great\ndeal,\" said she, \"but you are quite wrong here. May heaven above and\nearth below be my witnesses, with the waters of the river Styx--and this\nis the most solemn oath which a blessed god can take--that I mean you\nno sort of harm, and am only advising you to do exactly what I should do\nmyself in your place. I am dealing with you quite straightforwardly; my\nheart is not made of iron, and I am very sorry for you.\"\n\nWhen she had thus spoken she led the way rapidly before him, and Ulysses\nfollowed in her steps; so the pair, goddess and man, went on and on till\nthey came to Calypso's cave, where Ulysses took the seat that Mercury\nhad just left. Calypso set meat and drink before him of the food that\nmortals eat; but her maids brought ambrosia and nectar for herself, and\nthey laid their hands on the good things that were before them. When\nthey had satisfied themselves with meat and drink, Calypso spoke,\nsaying:\n\n\"Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, so you would start home to your own\nland at once? Good luck go with you, but if you could only know how much\nsuffering is in store for you before you get back to your own country,\nyou would stay where you are, keep house along with me, and let me\nmake you immortal, no matter how anxious you may be to see this wife\nof yours, of whom you are thinking all the time day after day; yet I\nflatter myself that I am no whit less tall or well-looking than she\nis, for it is not to be expected that a mortal woman should compare in\nbeauty with an immortal.\"\n\n\"Goddess,\" replied Ulysses, \"do not be angry with me about this. I\nam quite aware that my wife Penelope is nothing like so tall or so\nbeautiful as yourself. She is only a woman, whereas you are an immortal.\nNevertheless, I want to get home, and can think of nothing else. If some\ngod wrecks me when I am on the sea, I will bear it and make the best\nof it. I have had infinite trouble both by land and sea already, so let\nthis go with the rest.\"\n\nPresently the sun set and it became dark, whereon the pair retired into\nthe inner part of the cave and went to bed.\n\nWhen the child of morning rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, Ulysses put on\nhis shirt and cloak, while the goddess wore a dress of a light gossamer\nfabric, very fine and graceful, with a beautiful golden girdle about her\nwaist and a veil to cover her head. She at once set herself to think how\nshe could speed Ulysses on his way. So she gave him a great bronze\naxe that suited his hands; it was sharpened on both sides, and had a\nbeautiful olive-wood handle fitted firmly on to it. She also gave him a\nsharp adze, and then led the way to the far end of the island where the\nlargest trees grew--alder, poplar and pine, that reached the sky--very\ndry and well seasoned, so as to sail light for him in the water. {53}\nThen, when she had shown him where the best trees grew, Calypso went\nhome, leaving him to cut them, which he soon finished doing. He cut down\ntwenty trees in all and adzed them smooth, squaring them by rule in good\nworkmanlike fashion. Meanwhile Calypso came back with some augers, so\nhe bored holes with them and fitted the timbers together with bolts and\nrivets. He made the raft as broad as a skilled shipwright makes the beam\nof a large vessel, and he fixed a deck on top of the ribs, and ran a\ngunwale all round it. He also made a mast with a yard arm, and a rudder\nto steer with. He fenced the raft all round with wicker hurdles as a\nprotection against the waves, and then he threw on a quantity of wood.\nBy and by Calypso brought him some linen to make the sails, and he made\nthese too, excellently, making them fast with braces and sheets. Last of\nall, with the help of levers, he drew the raft down into the water.\n\nIn four days he had completed the whole work, and on the fifth Calypso\nsent him from the island after washing him and giving him some clean\nclothes. She gave him a goat skin full of black wine, and another larger\none of water; she also gave him a wallet full of provisions, and found\nhim in much good meat. Moreover, she made the wind fair and warm for\nhim, and gladly did Ulysses spread his sail before it, while he sat and\nguided the raft skilfully by means of the rudder. He never closed his\neyes, but kept them fixed on the Pleiads, on late-setting Bootes, and on\nthe Bear--which men also call the wain, and which turns round and round\nwhere it is, facing Orion, and alone never dipping into the stream of\nOceanus--for Calypso had told him to keep this to his left. Days seven\nand ten did he sail over the sea, and on the eighteenth the dim outlines\nof the mountains on the nearest part of the Phaeacian coast appeared,\nrising like a shield on the horizon.\n\nBut King Neptune, who was returning from the Ethiopians, caught sight of\nUlysses a long way off, from the mountains of the Solymi. He could see\nhim sailing upon the sea, and it made him very angry, so he wagged his\nhead and muttered to himself, saying, \"Good heavens, so the gods have\nbeen changing their minds about Ulysses while I was away in Ethiopia,\nand now he is close to the land of the Phaeacians, where it is decreed\nthat he shall escape from the calamities that have befallen him. Still,\nhe shall have plenty of hardship yet before he has done with it.\"\n\nThereon he gathered his clouds together, grasped his trident, stirred\nit round in the sea, and roused the rage of every wind that blows till\nearth, sea, and sky were hidden in cloud, and night sprang forth out of\nthe heavens. Winds from East, South, North, and West fell upon him all\nat the same time, and a tremendous sea got up, so that Ulysses' heart\nbegan to fail him. \"Alas,\" he said to himself in his dismay, \"what ever\nwill become of me? I am afraid Calypso was right when she said I should\nhave trouble by sea before I got back home. It is all coming true. How\nblack is Jove making heaven with his clouds, and what a sea the winds\nare raising from every quarter at once. I am now safe to perish. Blest\nand thrice blest were those Danaans who fell before Troy in the cause\nof the sons of Atreus. Would that I had been killed on the day when the\nTrojans were pressing me so sorely about the dead body of Achilles, for\nthen I should have had due burial and the Achaeans would have honoured\nmy name; but now it seems that I shall come to a most pitiable end.\"\n\nAs he spoke a sea broke over him with such terrific fury that the raft\nreeled again, and he was carried overboard a long way off. He let go the\nhelm, and the force of the hurricane was so great that it broke the mast\nhalf way up, and both sail and yard went over into the sea. For a long\ntime Ulysses was under water, and it was all he could do to rise to the\nsurface again, for the clothes Calypso had given him weighed him down;\nbut at last he got his head above water and spat out the bitter brine\nthat was running down his face in streams. In spite of all this,\nhowever, he did not lose sight of his raft, but swam as fast as he could\ntowards it, got hold of it, and climbed on board again so as to escape\ndrowning. The sea took the raft and tossed it about as Autumn winds\nwhirl thistledown round and round upon a road. It was as though the\nSouth, North, East, and West winds were all playing battledore and\nshuttlecock with it at once.\n\nWhen he was in this plight, Ino daughter of Cadmus, also called\nLeucothea, saw him. She had formerly been a mere mortal, but had been\nsince raised to the rank of a marine goddess. Seeing in what great\ndistress Ulysses now was, she had compassion upon him, and, rising like\na sea-gull from the waves, took her seat upon the raft.\n\n\"My poor good man,\" said she, \"why is Neptune so furiously angry with\nyou? He is giving you a great deal of trouble, but for all his bluster\nhe will not kill you. You seem to be a sensible person, do then as I bid\nyou; strip, leave your raft to drive before the wind, and swim to the\nPhaeacian coast where better luck awaits you. And here, take my veil and\nput it round your chest; it is enchanted, and you can come to no harm\nso long as you wear it. As soon as you touch land take it off, throw it\nback as far as you can into the sea, and then go away again.\" With these\nwords she took off her veil and gave it him. Then she dived down again\nlike a sea-gull and vanished beneath the dark blue waters.\n\nBut Ulysses did not know what to think. \"Alas,\" he said to himself in\nhis dismay, \"this is only some one or other of the gods who is luring me\nto ruin by advising me to quit my raft. At any rate I will not do so at\npresent, for the land where she said I should be quit of all troubles\nseemed to be still a good way off. I know what I will do--I am sure it\nwill be best--no matter what happens I will stick to the raft as long\nas her timbers hold together, but when the sea breaks her up I will swim\nfor it; I do not see how I can do any better than this.\"\n\nWhile he was thus in two minds, Neptune sent a terrible great wave that\nseemed to rear itself above his head till it broke right over the raft,\nwhich then went to pieces as though it were a heap of dry chaff tossed\nabout by a whirlwind. Ulysses got astride of one plank and rode upon\nit as if he were on horseback; he then took off the clothes Calypso\nhad given him, bound Ino's veil under his arms, and plunged into the\nsea--meaning to swim on shore. King Neptune watched him as he did so,\nand wagged his head, muttering to himself and saying, \"There now, swim\nup and down as you best can till you fall in with well-to-do people.\nI do not think you will be able to say that I have let you off too\nlightly.\" On this he lashed his horses and drove to Aegae where his\npalace is.\n\nBut Minerva resolved to help Ulysses, so she bound the ways of all the\nwinds except one, and made them lie quite still; but she roused a good\nstiff breeze from the North that should lay the waters till Ulysses\nreached the land of the Phaeacians where he would be safe.\n\nThereon he floated about for two nights and two days in the water, with\na heavy swell on the sea and death staring him in the face; but when the\nthird day broke, the wind fell and there was a dead calm without so much\nas a breath of air stirring. As he rose on the swell he looked eagerly\nahead, and could see land quite near. Then, as children rejoice when\ntheir dear father begins to get better after having for a long time\nborne sore affliction sent him by some angry spirit, but the gods\ndeliver him from evil, so was Ulysses thankful when he again saw land\nand trees, and swam on with all his strength that he might once more set\nfoot upon dry ground. When, however, he got within earshot, he began to\nhear the surf thundering up against the rocks, for the swell still broke\nagainst them with a terrific roar. Everything was enveloped in spray;\nthere were no harbours where a ship might ride, nor shelter of any kind,\nbut only headlands, low-lying rocks, and mountain tops.\n\nUlysses' heart now began to fail him, and he said despairingly to\nhimself, \"Alas, Jove has let me see land after swimming so far that I\nhad given up all hope, but I can find no landing place, for the coast is\nrocky and surf-beaten, the rocks are smooth and rise sheer from the sea,\nwith deep water close under them so that I cannot climb out for want of\nfoot hold. I am afraid some great wave will lift me off my legs and dash\nme against the rocks as I leave the water--which would give me a\nsorry landing. If, on the other hand, I swim further in search of some\nshelving beach or harbour, a hurricane may carry me out to sea again\nsorely against my will, or heaven may send some great monster of the\ndeep to attack me; for Amphitrite breeds many such, and I know that\nNeptune is very angry with me.\"\n\nWhile he was thus in two minds a wave caught him and took him with such\nforce against the rocks that he would have been smashed and torn to\npieces if Minerva had not shown him what to do. He caught hold of the\nrock with both hands and clung to it groaning with pain till the wave\nretired, so he was saved that time; but presently the wave came on again\nand carried him back with it far into the sea--tearing his hands as the\nsuckers of a polypus are torn when some one plucks it from its bed, and\nthe stones come up along with it--even so did the rocks tear the skin\nfrom his strong hands, and then the wave drew him deep down under the\nwater.\n\nHere poor Ulysses would have certainly perished even in spite of his own\ndestiny, if Minerva had not helped him to keep his wits about him. He\nswam seaward again, beyond reach of the surf that was beating against\nthe land, and at the same time he kept looking towards the shore to\nsee if he could find some haven, or a spit that should take the waves\naslant. By and by, as he swam on, he came to the mouth of a river, and\nhere he thought would be the best place, for there were no rocks, and it\nafforded shelter from the wind. He felt that there was a current, so he\nprayed inwardly and said:\n\n\"Hear me, O King, whoever you may be, and save me from the anger of the\nsea-god Neptune, for I approach you prayerfully. Any one who has lost\nhis way has at all times a claim even upon the gods, wherefore in my\ndistress I draw near to your stream, and cling to the knees of your\nriverhood. Have mercy upon me, O king, for I declare myself your\nsuppliant.\"\n\nThen the god staid his stream and stilled the waves, making all calm\nbefore him, and bringing him safely into the mouth of the river. Here\nat last Ulysses' knees and strong hands failed him, for the sea had\ncompletely broken him. His body was all swollen, and his mouth and\nnostrils ran down like a river with sea-water, so that he could neither\nbreathe nor speak, and lay swooning from sheer exhaustion; presently,\nwhen he had got his breath and came to himself again, he took off the\nscarf that Ino had given him and threw it back into the salt {54} stream\nof the river, whereon Ino received it into her hands from the wave that\nbore it towards her. Then he left the river, laid himself down among the\nrushes, and kissed the bounteous earth.\n\n\"Alas,\" he cried to himself in his dismay, \"what ever will become of me,\nand how is it all to end? If I stay here upon the river bed through the\nlong watches of the night, I am so exhausted that the bitter cold and\ndamp may make an end of me--for towards sunrise there will be a keen\nwind blowing from off the river. If, on the other hand, I climb the hill\nside, find shelter in the woods, and sleep in some thicket, I may escape\nthe cold and have a good night's rest, but some savage beast may take\nadvantage of me and devour me.\"\n\nIn the end he deemed it best to take to the woods, and he found one\nupon some high ground not far from the water. There he crept beneath\ntwo shoots of olive that grew from a single stock--the one an ungrafted\nsucker, while the other had been grafted. No wind, however squally,\ncould break through the cover they afforded, nor could the sun's rays\npierce them, nor the rain get through them, so closely did they grow\ninto one another. Ulysses crept under these and began to make himself\na bed to lie on, for there was a great litter of dead leaves lying\nabout--enough to make a covering for two or three men even in hard\nwinter weather. He was glad enough to see this, so he laid himself down\nand heaped the leaves all round him. Then, as one who lives alone in the\ncountry, far from any neighbor, hides a brand as fire-seed in the\nashes to save himself from having to get a light elsewhere, even so did\nUlysses cover himself up with leaves; and Minerva shed a sweet sleep\nupon his eyes, closed his eyelids, and made him lose all memories of his\nsorrows.\n\n\nBook VI\n\nTHE MEETING BETWEEN NAUSICAA AND ULYSSES.\n\nSo here Ulysses slept, overcome by sleep and toil; but Minerva went off\nto the country and city of the Phaeacians--a people who used to live in\nthe fair town of Hypereia, near the lawless Cyclopes. Now the Cyclopes\nwere stronger than they and plundered them, so their king Nausithous\nmoved them thence and settled them in Scheria, far from all other\npeople. He surrounded the city with a wall, built houses and temples,\nand divided the lands among his people; but he was dead and gone to\nthe house of Hades, and King Alcinous, whose counsels were inspired\nof heaven, was now reigning. To his house, then, did Minerva hie in\nfurtherance of the return of Ulysses.\n\nShe went straight to the beautifully decorated bedroom in which there\nslept a girl who was as lovely as a goddess, Nausicaa, daughter to King\nAlcinous. Two maid servants were sleeping near her, both very pretty,\none on either side of the doorway, which was closed with well made\nfolding doors. Minerva took the form of the famous sea captain Dymas's\ndaughter, who was a bosom friend of Nausicaa and just her own age; then,\ncoming up to the girl's bedside like a breath of wind, she hovered over\nher head and said:\n\n\"Nausicaa, what can your mother have been about, to have such a lazy\ndaughter? Here are your clothes all lying in disorder, yet you are going\nto be married almost immediately, and should not only be well dressed\nyourself, but should find good clothes for those who attend you. This is\nthe way to get yourself a good name, and to make your father and mother\nproud of you. Suppose, then, that we make tomorrow a washing day,\nand start at daybreak. I will come and help you so that you may have\neverything ready as soon as possible, for all the best young men among\nyour own people are courting you, and you are not going to remain a\nmaid much longer. Ask your father, therefore, to have a waggon and mules\nready for us at daybreak, to take the rugs, robes, and girdles, and you\ncan ride, too, which will be much pleasanter for you than walking, for\nthe washing-cisterns are some way from the town.\"\n\nWhen she had said this Minerva went away to Olympus, which they say\nis the everlasting home of the gods. Here no wind beats roughly, and\nneither rain nor snow can fall; but it abides in everlasting sunshine\nand in a great peacefulness of light, wherein the blessed gods are\nillumined for ever and ever. This was the place to which the goddess\nwent when she had given instructions to the girl.\n\nBy and by morning came and woke Nausicaa, who began wondering about\nher dream; she therefore went to the other end of the house to tell her\nfather and mother all about it, and found them in their own room. Her\nmother was sitting by the fireside spinning her purple yarn with her\nmaids around her, and she happened to catch her father just as he was\ngoing out to attend a meeting of the town council, which the Phaeacian\naldermen had convened. She stopped him and said:\n\n\"Papa dear, could you manage to let me have a good big waggon? I want to\ntake all our dirty clothes to the river and wash them. You are the chief\nman here, so it is only right that you should have a clean shirt when\nyou attend meetings of the council. Moreover, you have five sons at\nhome, two of them married, while the other three are good looking\nbachelors; you know they always like to have clean linen when they go to\na dance, and I have been thinking about all this.\"\n\nShe did not say a word about her own wedding, for she did not like to,\nbut her father knew and said, \"You shall have the mules, my love, and\nwhatever else you have a mind for. Be off with you, and the men shall\nget you a good strong waggon with a body to it that will hold all your\nclothes.\"\n\nOn this he gave his orders to the servants, who got the waggon out,\nharnessed the mules, and put them to, while the girl brought the clothes\ndown from the linen room and placed them on the waggon. Her mother\nprepared her a basket of provisions with all sorts of good things, and a\ngoat skin full of wine; the girl now got into the waggon, and her mother\ngave her also a golden cruse of oil, that she and her women might anoint\nthemselves. Then she took the whip and reins and lashed the mules on,\nwhereon they set off, and their hoofs clattered on the road. They pulled\nwithout flagging, and carried not only Nausicaa and her wash of clothes,\nbut the maids also who were with her.\n\nWhen they reached the water side they went to the washing cisterns,\nthrough which there ran at all times enough pure water to wash any\nquantity of linen, no matter how dirty. Here they unharnessed the mules\nand turned them out to feed on the sweet juicy herbage that grew by the\nwater side. They took the clothes out of the waggon, put them in the\nwater, and vied with one another in treading them in the pits to get the\ndirt out. After they had washed them and got them quite clean, they laid\nthem out by the sea side, where the waves had raised a high beach of\nshingle, and set about washing themselves and anointing themselves with\nolive oil. Then they got their dinner by the side of the stream, and\nwaited for the sun to finish drying the clothes. When they had done\ndinner they threw off the veils that covered their heads and began to\nplay at ball, while Nausicaa sang for them. As the huntress Diana goes\nforth upon the mountains of Taygetus or Erymanthus to hunt wild boars or\ndeer, and the wood nymphs, daughters of Aegis-bearing Jove, take their\nsport along with her (then is Leto proud at seeing her daughter stand a\nfull head taller than the others, and eclipse the loveliest amid a whole\nbevy of beauties), even so did the girl outshine her handmaids.\n\nWhen it was time for them to start home, and they were folding the\nclothes and putting them into the waggon, Minerva began to consider how\nUlysses should wake up and see the handsome girl who was to conduct him\nto the city of the Phaeacians. The girl, therefore, threw a ball at one\nof the maids, which missed her and fell into deep water. On this they\nall shouted, and the noise they made woke Ulysses, who sat up in his bed\nof leaves and began to wonder what it might all be.\n\n\"Alas,\" said he to himself, \"what kind of people have I come amongst?\nAre they cruel, savage, and uncivilised, or hospitable and humane? I\nseem to hear the voices of young women, and they sound like those of\nthe nymphs that haunt mountain tops, or springs of rivers and meadows of\ngreen grass. At any rate I am among a race of men and women. Let me try\nif I cannot manage to get a look at them.\"\n\nAs he said this he crept from under his bush, and broke off a bough\ncovered with thick leaves to hide his nakedness. He looked like some\nlion of the wilderness that stalks about exulting in his strength and\ndefying both wind and rain; his eyes glare as he prowls in quest of\noxen, sheep, or deer, for he is famished, and will dare break even\ninto a well fenced homestead, trying to get at the sheep--even such did\nUlysses seem to the young women, as he drew near to them all naked as he\nwas, for he was in great want. On seeing one so unkempt and so begrimed\nwith salt water, the others scampered off along the spits that jutted\nout into the sea, but the daughter of Alcinous stood firm, for Minerva\nput courage into her heart and took away all fear from her. She stood\nright in front of Ulysses, and he doubted whether he should go up to\nher, throw himself at her feet, and embrace her knees as a suppliant, or\nstay where he was and entreat her to give him some clothes and show him\nthe way to the town. In the end he deemed it best to entreat her from a\ndistance in case the girl should take offence at his coming near enough\nto clasp her knees, so he addressed her in honeyed and persuasive\nlanguage.\n\n\"O queen,\" he said, \"I implore your aid--but tell me, are you a goddess\nor are you a mortal woman? If you are a goddess and dwell in heaven, I\ncan only conjecture that you are Jove's daughter Diana, for your face\nand figure resemble none but hers; if on the other hand you are a mortal\nand live on earth, thrice happy are your father and mother--thrice\nhappy, too, are your brothers and sisters; how proud and delighted\nthey must feel when they see so fair a scion as yourself going out to a\ndance; most happy, however, of all will he be whose wedding gifts have\nbeen the richest, and who takes you to his own home. I never yet saw any\none so beautiful, neither man nor woman, and am lost in admiration as I\nbehold you. I can only compare you to a young palm tree which I saw when\nI was at Delos growing near the altar of Apollo--for I was there, too,\nwith much people after me, when I was on that journey which has been the\nsource of all my troubles. Never yet did such a young plant shoot out\nof the ground as that was, and I admired and wondered at it exactly as I\nnow admire and wonder at yourself. I dare not clasp your knees, but I\nam in great distress; yesterday made the twentieth day that I had been\ntossing about upon the sea. The winds and waves have taken me all the\nway from the Ogygian island, {55} and now fate has flung me upon this\ncoast that I may endure still further suffering; for I do not think that\nI have yet come to the end of it, but rather that heaven has still much\nevil in store for me.\n\n\"And now, O queen, have pity upon me, for you are the first person I\nhave met, and I know no one else in this country. Show me the way to\nyour town, and let me have anything that you may have brought hither to\nwrap your clothes in. May heaven grant you in all things your heart's\ndesire--husband, house, and a happy, peaceful home; for there is nothing\nbetter in this world than that man and wife should be of one mind in a\nhouse. It discomfits their enemies, makes the hearts of their friends\nglad, and they themselves know more about it than any one.\"\n\nTo this Nausicaa answered, \"Stranger, you appear to be a sensible,\nwell-disposed person. There is no accounting for luck; Jove gives\nprosperity to rich and poor just as he chooses, so you must take what\nhe has seen fit to send you, and make the best of it. Now, however, that\nyou have come to this our country, you shall not want for clothes nor\nfor anything else that a foreigner in distress may reasonably look for.\nI will show you the way to the town, and will tell you the name of our\npeople; we are called Phaeacians, and I am daughter to Alcinous, in whom\nthe whole power of the state is vested.\"\n\nThen she called her maids and said, \"Stay where you are, you girls. Can\nyou not see a man without running away from him? Do you take him for a\nrobber or a murderer? Neither he nor any one else can come here to do\nus Phaeacians any harm, for we are dear to the gods, and live apart on a\nland's end that juts into the sounding sea, and have nothing to do with\nany other people. This is only some poor man who has lost his way, and\nwe must be kind to him, for strangers and foreigners in distress\nare under Jove's protection, and will take what they can get and be\nthankful; so, girls, give the poor fellow something to eat and drink,\nand wash him in the stream at some place that is sheltered from the\nwind.\"\n\nOn this the maids left off running away and began calling one another\nback. They made Ulysses sit down in the shelter as Nausicaa had told\nthem, and brought him a shirt and cloak. They also brought him the\nlittle golden cruse of oil, and told him to go and wash in the stream.\nBut Ulysses said, \"Young women, please to stand a little on one side\nthat I may wash the brine from my shoulders and anoint myself with oil,\nfor it is long enough since my skin has had a drop of oil upon it. I\ncannot wash as long as you all keep standing there. I am ashamed to\nstrip {56} before a number of good looking young women.\"\n\nThen they stood on one side and went to tell the girl, while Ulysses\nwashed himself in the stream and scrubbed the brine from his back and\nfrom his broad shoulders. When he had thoroughly washed himself, and had\ngot the brine out of his hair, he anointed himself with oil, and put\non the clothes which the girl had given him; Minerva then made him look\ntaller and stronger than before, she also made the hair grow thick on\nthe top of his head, and flow down in curls like hyacinth blossoms; she\nglorified him about the head and shoulders as a skilful workman who has\nstudied art of all kinds under Vulcan and Minerva enriches a piece of\nsilver plate by gilding it--and his work is full of beauty. Then he went\nand sat down a little way off upon the beach, looking quite young and\nhandsome, and the girl gazed on him with admiration; then she said to\nher maids:\n\n\"Hush, my dears, for I want to say something. I believe the gods who\nlive in heaven have sent this man to the Phaeacians. When I first saw\nhim I thought him plain, but now his appearance is like that of the gods\nwho dwell in heaven. I should like my future husband to be just such\nanother as he is, if he would only stay here and not want to go away.\nHowever, give him something to eat and drink.\"\n\nThey did as they were told, and set food before Ulysses, who ate and\ndrank ravenously, for it was long since he had had food of any kind.\nMeanwhile, Nausicaa bethought her of another matter. She got the linen\nfolded and placed in the waggon, she then yoked the mules, and, as she\ntook her seat, she called Ulysses:\n\n\"Stranger,\" said she, \"rise and let us be going back to the town; I will\nintroduce you at the house of my excellent father, where I can tell you\nthat you will meet all the best people among the Phaeacians. But be sure\nand do as I bid you, for you seem to be a sensible person. As long as\nwe are going past the fields and farm lands, follow briskly behind the\nwaggon along with the maids and I will lead the way myself. Presently,\nhowever, we shall come to the town, where you will find a high wall\nrunning all round it, and a good harbour on either side with a narrow\nentrance into the city, and the ships will be drawn up by the road side,\nfor every one has a place where his own ship can lie. You will see the\nmarket place with a temple of Neptune in the middle of it, and paved\nwith large stones bedded in the earth. Here people deal in ship's gear\nof all kinds, such as cables and sails, and here, too, are the places\nwhere oars are made, for the Phaeacians are not a nation of archers;\nthey know nothing about bows and arrows, but are a sea-faring folk, and\npride themselves on their masts, oars, and ships, with which they travel\nfar over the sea.\n\n\"I am afraid of the gossip and scandal that may be set on foot against\nme later on; for the people here are very ill-natured, and some low\nfellow, if he met us, might say, 'Who is this fine-looking stranger that\nis going about with Nausicaa? Where did she find him? I suppose she is\ngoing to marry him. Perhaps he is a vagabond sailor whom she has taken\nfrom some foreign vessel, for we have no neighbours; or some god has at\nlast come down from heaven in answer to her prayers, and she is going to\nlive with him all the rest of her life. It would be a good thing if she\nwould take herself off and find a husband somewhere else, for she will\nnot look at one of the many excellent young Phaeacians who are in love\nwith her.' This is the kind of disparaging remark that would be made\nabout me, and I could not complain, for I should myself be scandalised\nat seeing any other girl do the like, and go about with men in spite\nof everybody, while her father and mother were still alive, and without\nhaving been married in the face of all the world.\n\n\"If, therefore, you want my father to give you an escort and to help you\nhome, do as I bid you; you will see a beautiful grove of poplars by the\nroad side dedicated to Minerva; it has a well in it and a meadow all\nround it. Here my father has a field of rich garden ground, about as far\nfrom the town as a man's voice will carry. Sit down there and wait for\na while till the rest of us can get into the town and reach my father's\nhouse. Then, when you think we must have done this, come into the town\nand ask the way to the house of my father Alcinous. You will have no\ndifficulty in finding it; any child will point it out to you, for no one\nelse in the whole town has anything like such a fine house as he has.\nWhen you have got past the gates and through the outer court, go right\nacross the inner court till you come to my mother. You will find her\nsitting by the fire and spinning her purple wool by firelight. It is a\nfine sight to see her as she leans back against one of the bearing-posts\nwith her maids all ranged behind her. Close to her seat stands that of\nmy father, on which he sits and topes like an immortal god. Never mind\nhim, but go up to my mother, and lay your hands upon her knees if you\nwould get home quickly. If you can gain her over, you may hope to see\nyour own country again, no matter how distant it may be.\"\n\nSo saying she lashed the mules with her whip and they left the river.\nThe mules drew well, and their hoofs went up and down upon the road.\nShe was careful not to go too fast for Ulysses and the maids who were\nfollowing on foot along with the waggon, so she plied her whip with\njudgement. As the sun was going down they came to the sacred grove of\nMinerva, and there Ulysses sat down and prayed to the mighty daughter of\nJove.\n\n\"Hear me,\" he cried, \"daughter of Aegis-bearing Jove, unweariable, hear\nme now, for you gave no heed to my prayers when Neptune was wrecking me.\nNow, therefore, have pity upon me and grant that I may find friends and\nbe hospitably received by the Phaeacians.\"\n\nThus did he pray, and Minerva heard his prayer, but she would not show\nherself to him openly, for she was afraid of her uncle Neptune, who was\nstill furious in his endeavors to prevent Ulysses from getting home.\n\n\nBook VII\n\nRECEPTION OF ULYSSES AT THE PALACE OF KING ALCINOUS.\n\nThus, then, did Ulysses wait and pray; but the girl drove on to the\ntown. When she reached her father's house she drew up at the gateway,\nand her brothers--comely as the gods--gathered round her, took the mules\nout of the waggon, and carried the clothes into the house, while she\nwent to her own room, where an old servant, Eurymedusa of Apeira, lit\nthe fire for her. This old woman had been brought by sea from Apeira,\nand had been chosen as a prize for Alcinous because he was king over the\nPhaeacians, and the people obeyed him as though he were a god. {57}\nShe had been nurse to Nausicaa, and had now lit the fire for her, and\nbrought her supper for her into her own room.\n\nPresently Ulysses got up to go towards the town; and Minerva shed a\nthick mist all round him to hide him in case any of the proud Phaeacians\nwho met him should be rude to him, or ask him who he was. Then, as he\nwas just entering the town, she came towards him in the likeness of a\nlittle girl carrying a pitcher. She stood right in front of him, and\nUlysses said:\n\n\"My dear, will you be so kind as to show me the house of king Alcinous?\nI am an unfortunate foreigner in distress, and do not know one in your\ntown and country.\"\n\nThen Minerva said, \"Yes, father stranger, I will show you the house you\nwant, for Alcinous lives quite close to my own father. I will go before\nyou and show the way, but say not a word as you go, and do not look\nat any man, nor ask him questions; for the people here cannot abide\nstrangers, and do not like men who come from some other place. They are\na sea-faring folk, and sail the seas by the grace of Neptune in ships\nthat glide along like thought, or as a bird in the air.\"\n\nOn this she led the way, and Ulysses followed in her steps; but not one\nof the Phaeacians could see him as he passed through the city in the\nmidst of them; for the great goddess Minerva in her good will towards\nhim had hidden him in a thick cloud of darkness. He admired their\nharbours, ships, places of assembly, and the lofty walls of the city,\nwhich, with the palisade on top of them, were very striking, and when\nthey reached the king's house Minerva said:\n\n\"This is the house, father stranger, which you would have me show you.\nYou will find a number of great people sitting at table, but do not be\nafraid; go straight in, for the bolder a man is the more likely he is to\ncarry his point, even though he is a stranger. First find the queen. Her\nname is Arete, and she comes of the same family as her husband Alcinous.\nThey both descend originally from Neptune, who was father to Nausithous\nby Periboea, a woman of great beauty. Periboea was the youngest daughter\nof Eurymedon, who at one time reigned over the giants, but he ruined his\nill-fated people and lost his own life to boot.\n\n\"Neptune, however, lay with his daughter, and she had a son by him, the\ngreat Nausithous, who reigned over the Phaeacians. Nausithous had two\nsons Rhexenor and Alcinous; {58} Apollo killed the first of them while\nhe was still a bridegroom and without male issue; but he left a daughter\nArete, whom Alcinous married, and honours as no other woman is honoured\nof all those that keep house along with their husbands.\n\n\"Thus she both was, and still is, respected beyond measure by her\nchildren, by Alcinous himself, and by the whole people, who look upon\nher as a goddess, and greet her whenever she goes about the city, for\nshe is a thoroughly good woman both in head and heart, and when any\nwomen are friends of hers, she will help their husbands also to settle\ntheir disputes. If you can gain her good will, you may have every hope\nof seeing your friends again, and getting safely back to your home and\ncountry.\"\n\nThen Minerva left Scheria and went away over the sea. She went to\nMarathon {59} and to the spacious streets of Athens, where she entered\nthe abode of Erechtheus; but Ulysses went on to the house of Alcinous,\nand he pondered much as he paused a while before reaching the threshold\nof bronze, for the splendour of the palace was like that of the sun or\nmoon. The walls on either side were of bronze from end to end, and the\ncornice was of blue enamel. The doors were gold, and hung on pillars of\nsilver that rose from a floor of bronze, while the lintel was silver and\nthe hook of the door was of gold.\n\nOn either side there stood gold and silver mastiffs which Vulcan, with\nhis consummate skill, had fashioned expressly to keep watch over the\npalace of king Alcinous; so they were immortal and could never grow old.\nSeats were ranged all along the wall, here and there from one end to the\nother, with coverings of fine woven work which the women of the house\nhad made. Here the chief persons of the Phaeacians used to sit and eat\nand drink, for there was abundance at all seasons; and there were golden\nfigures of young men with lighted torches in their hands, raised on\npedestals, to give light by night to those who were at table. There are\n{60} fifty maid servants in the house, some of whom are always grinding\nrich yellow grain at the mill, while others work at the loom, or sit and\nspin, and their shuttles go backwards and forwards like the fluttering\nof aspen leaves, while the linen is so closely woven that it will turn\noil. As the Phaeacians are the best sailors in the world, so their women\nexcel all others in weaving, for Minerva has taught them all manner of\nuseful arts, and they are very intelligent.\n\nOutside the gate of the outer court there is a large garden of\nabout four acres with a wall all round it. It is full of beautiful\ntrees--pears, pomegranates, and the most delicious apples. There are\nluscious figs also, and olives in full growth. The fruits never rot nor\nfail all the year round, neither winter nor summer, for the air is so\nsoft that a new crop ripens before the old has dropped. Pear grows on\npear, apple on apple, and fig on fig, and so also with the grapes, for\nthere is an excellent vineyard: on the level ground of a part of this,\nthe grapes are being made into raisins; in another part they are being\ngathered; some are being trodden in the wine tubs, others further on\nhave shed their blossom and are beginning to show fruit, others again\nare just changing colour. In the furthest part of the ground there are\nbeautifully arranged beds of flowers that are in bloom all the year\nround. Two streams go through it, the one turned in ducts throughout the\nwhole garden, while the other is carried under the ground of the outer\ncourt to the house itself, and the town's people draw water from it.\nSuch, then, were the splendours with which the gods had endowed the\nhouse of king Alcinous.\n\nSo here Ulysses stood for a while and looked about him, but when he\nhad looked long enough he crossed the threshold and went within the\nprecincts of the house. There he found all the chief people among the\nPhaeacians making their drink offerings to Mercury, which they always\ndid the last thing before going away for the night. {61} He went\nstraight through the court, still hidden by the cloak of darkness\nin which Minerva had enveloped him, till he reached Arete and King\nAlcinous; then he laid his hands upon the knees of the queen, and at\nthat moment the miraculous darkness fell away from him and he became\nvisible. Every one was speechless with surprise at seeing a man there,\nbut Ulysses began at once with his petition.\n\n\"Queen Arete,\" he exclaimed, \"daughter of great Rhexenor, in my distress\nI humbly pray you, as also your husband and these your guests (whom may\nheaven prosper with long life and happiness, and may they leave their\npossessions to their children, and all the honours conferred upon them\nby the state) to help me home to my own country as soon as possible; for\nI have been long in trouble and away from my friends.\"\n\nThen he sat down on the hearth among the ashes and they all held their\npeace, till presently the old hero Echeneus, who was an excellent\nspeaker and an elder among the Phaeacians, plainly and in all honesty\naddressed them thus:\n\n\"Alcinous,\" said he, \"it is not creditable to you that a stranger should\nbe seen sitting among the ashes of your hearth; every one is waiting to\nhear what you are about to say; tell him, then, to rise and take a seat\non a stool inlaid with silver, and bid your servants mix some wine and\nwater that we may make a drink offering to Jove the lord of thunder,\nwho takes all well disposed suppliants under his protection; and let\nthe housekeeper give him some supper, of whatever there may be in the\nhouse.\"\n\nWhen Alcinous heard this he took Ulysses by the hand, raised him from\nthe hearth, and bade him take the seat of Laodamas, who had been sitting\nbeside him, and was his favourite son. A maid servant then brought him\nwater in a beautiful golden ewer and poured it into a silver basin for\nhim to wash his hands, and she drew a clean table beside him; an upper\nservant brought him bread and offered him many good things of what there\nwas in the house, and Ulysses ate and drank. Then Alcinous said to one\nof the servants, \"Pontonous, mix a cup of wine and hand it round that\nwe may make drink-offerings to Jove the lord of thunder, who is the\nprotector of all well-disposed suppliants.\"\n\nPontonous then mixed wine and water, and handed it round after giving\nevery man his drink-offering. When they had made their offerings, and\nhad drunk each as much as he was minded, Alcinous said:\n\n\"Aldermen and town councillors of the Phaeacians, hear my words. You\nhave had your supper, so now go home to bed. To-morrow morning I shall\ninvite a still larger number of aldermen, and will give a sacrificial\nbanquet in honour of our guest; we can then discuss the question of his\nescort, and consider how we may at once send him back rejoicing to his\nown country without trouble or inconvenience to himself, no matter how\ndistant it may be. We must see that he comes to no harm while on his\nhomeward journey, but when he is once at home he will have to take\nthe luck he was born with for better or worse like other people. It is\npossible, however, that the stranger is one of the immortals who\nhas come down from heaven to visit us; but in this case the gods\nare departing from their usual practice, for hitherto they have made\nthemselves perfectly clear to us when we have been offering them\nhecatombs. They come and sit at our feasts just like one of our selves,\nand if any solitary wayfarer happens to stumble upon some one or other\nof them, they affect no concealment, for we are as near of kin to the\ngods as the Cyclopes and the savage giants are.\" {62}\n\nThen Ulysses said: \"Pray, Alcinous, do not take any such notion into\nyour head. I have nothing of the immortal about me, neither in body\nnor mind, and most resemble those among you who are the most afflicted.\nIndeed, were I to tell you all that heaven has seen fit to lay upon me,\nyou would say that I was still worse off than they are. Nevertheless,\nlet me sup in spite of sorrow, for an empty stomach is a very\nimportunate thing, and thrusts itself on a man's notice no matter how\ndire is his distress. I am in great trouble, yet it insists that I shall\neat and drink, bids me lay aside all memory of my sorrows and dwell only\non the due replenishing of itself. As for yourselves, do as you propose,\nand at break of day set about helping me to get home. I shall be content\nto die if I may first once more behold my property, my bondsmen, and all\nthe greatness of my house.\" {63}\n\nThus did he speak. Every one approved his saying, and agreed that he\nshould have his escort inasmuch as he had spoken reasonably. Then when\nthey had made their drink offerings, and had drunk each as much as he\nwas minded they went home to bed every man in his own abode, leaving\nUlysses in the cloister with Arete and Alcinous while the servants were\ntaking the things away after supper. Arete was the first to speak,\nfor she recognised the shirt, cloak, and good clothes that Ulysses\nwas wearing, as the work of herself and of her maids; so she said,\n\"Stranger, before we go any further, there is a question I should like\nto ask you. Who, and whence are you, and who gave you those clothes? Did\nyou not say you had come here from beyond the sea?\"\n\nAnd Ulysses answered, \"It would be a long story Madam, were I to relate\nin full the tale of my misfortunes, for the hand of heaven has been laid\nheavy upon me; but as regards your question, there is an island far away\nin the sea which is called 'the Ogygian.' Here dwells the cunning and\npowerful goddess Calypso, daughter of Atlas. She lives by herself far\nfrom all neighbours human or divine. Fortune, however, brought me to\nher hearth all desolate and alone, for Jove struck my ship with his\nthunderbolts, and broke it up in mid-ocean. My brave comrades were\ndrowned every man of them, but I stuck to the keel and was carried\nhither and thither for the space of nine days, till at last during the\ndarkness of the tenth night the gods brought me to the Ogygian island\nwhere the great goddess Calypso lives. She took me in and treated me\nwith the utmost kindness; indeed she wanted to make me immortal that I\nmight never grow old, but she could not persuade me to let her do so.\n\n\"I stayed with Calypso seven years straight on end, and watered the good\nclothes she gave me with my tears during the whole time; but at last\nwhen the eighth year came round she bade me depart of her own free will,\neither because Jove had told her she must, or because she had changed\nher mind. She sent me from her island on a raft, which she provisioned\nwith abundance of bread and wine. Moreover she gave me good stout\nclothing, and sent me a wind that blew both warm and fair. Days seven\nand ten did I sail over the sea, and on the eighteenth I caught sight of\nthe first outlines of the mountains upon your coast--and glad indeed was\nI to set eyes upon them. Nevertheless there was still much trouble in\nstore for me, for at this point Neptune would let me go no further, and\nraised a great storm against me; the sea was so terribly high that I\ncould no longer keep to my raft, which went to pieces under the fury of\nthe gale, and I had to swim for it, till wind and current brought me to\nyour shores.\n\n\"There I tried to land, but could not, for it was a bad place and the\nwaves dashed me against the rocks, so I again took to the sea and swam\non till I came to a river that seemed the most likely landing place, for\nthere were no rocks and it was sheltered from the wind. Here, then, I\ngot out of the water and gathered my senses together again. Night was\ncoming on, so I left the river, and went into a thicket, where I covered\nmyself all over with leaves, and presently heaven sent me off into a\nvery deep sleep. Sick and sorry as I was I slept among the leaves all\nnight, and through the next day till afternoon, when I woke as the sun\nwas westering, and saw your daughter's maid servants playing upon the\nbeach, and your daughter among them looking like a goddess. I besought\nher aid, and she proved to be of an excellent disposition, much more so\nthan could be expected from so young a person--for young people are apt\nto be thoughtless. She gave me plenty of bread and wine, and when she\nhad had me washed in the river she also gave me the clothes in which you\nsee me. Now, therefore, though it has pained me to do so, I have told\nyou the whole truth.\"\n\nThen Alcinous said, \"Stranger, it was very wrong of my daughter not to\nbring you on at once to my house along with the maids, seeing that she\nwas the first person whose aid you asked.\"\n\n\"Pray do not scold her,\" replied Ulysses; \"she is not to blame. She did\ntell me to follow along with the maids, but I was ashamed and afraid,\nfor I thought you might perhaps be displeased if you saw me. Every human\nbeing is sometimes a little suspicious and irritable.\"\n\n\"Stranger,\" replied Alcinous, \"I am not the kind of man to get angry\nabout nothing; it is always better to be reasonable; but by Father Jove,\nMinerva, and Apollo, now that I see what kind of person you are, and how\nmuch you think as I do, I wish you would stay here, marry my daughter,\nand become my son-in-law. If you will stay I will give you a house and\nan estate, but no one (heaven forbid) shall keep you here against your\nown wish, and that you may be sure of this I will attend tomorrow to the\nmatter of your escort. You can sleep {64} during the whole voyage if you\nlike, and the men shall sail you over smooth waters either to your own\nhome, or wherever you please, even though it be a long way further\noff than Euboea, which those of my people who saw it when they took\nyellow-haired Rhadamanthus to see Tityus the son of Gaia, tell me is the\nfurthest of any place--and yet they did the whole voyage in a single day\nwithout distressing themselves, and came back again afterwards. You\nwill thus see how much my ships excel all others, and what magnificent\noarsmen my sailors are.\"\n\nThen was Ulysses glad and prayed aloud saying, \"Father Jove, grant that\nAlcinous may do all as he has said, for so he will win an imperishable\nname among mankind, and at the same time I shall return to my country.\"\n\nThus did they converse. Then Arete told her maids to set a bed in the\nroom that was in the gatehouse, and make it with good red rugs, and to\nspread coverlets on the top of them with woollen cloaks for Ulysses to\nwear. The maids thereon went out with torches in their hands, and when\nthey had made the bed they came up to Ulysses and said, \"Rise, sir\nstranger, and come with us for your bed is ready,\" and glad indeed was\nhe to go to his rest.\n\nSo Ulysses slept in a bed placed in a room over the echoing gateway; but\nAlcinous lay in the inner part of the house, with the queen his wife by\nhis side.\n\n\nBook VIII\n\nBANQUET IN THE HOUSE OF ALCINOUS--THE GAMES.\n\nNow when the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, Alcinous\nand Ulysses both rose, and Alcinous led the way to the Phaeacian place\nof assembly, which was near the ships. When they got there they sat down\nside by side on a seat of polished stone, while Minerva took the form\nof one of Alcinous' servants, and went round the town in order to help\nUlysses to get home. She went up to the citizens, man by man, and said,\n\"Aldermen and town councillors of the Phaeacians, come to the assembly\nall of you and listen to the stranger who has just come off a long\nvoyage to the house of King Alcinous; he looks like an immortal god.\"\n\nWith these words she made them all want to come, and they flocked to the\nassembly till seats and standing room were alike crowded. Every one was\nstruck with the appearance of Ulysses, for Minerva had beautified him\nabout the head and shoulders, making him look taller and stouter than he\nreally was, that he might impress the Phaeacians favourably as being a\nvery remarkable man, and might come off well in the many trials of skill\nto which they would challenge him. Then, when they were got together,\nAlcinous spoke:\n\n\"Hear me,\" said he, \"aldermen and town councillors of the Phaeacians,\nthat I may speak even as I am minded. This stranger, whoever he may be,\nhas found his way to my house from somewhere or other either East or\nWest. He wants an escort and wishes to have the matter settled. Let\nus then get one ready for him, as we have done for others before him;\nindeed, no one who ever yet came to my house has been able to complain\nof me for not speeding on his way soon enough. Let us draw a ship into\nthe sea--one that has never yet made a voyage--and man her with two and\nfifty of our smartest young sailors. Then when you have made fast\nyour oars each by his own seat, leave the ship and come to my house to\nprepare a feast. {65} I will find you in everything. I am giving these\ninstructions to the young men who will form the crew, for as regards\nyou aldermen and town councillors, you will join me in entertaining\nour guest in the cloisters. I can take no excuses, and we will have\nDemodocus to sing to us; for there is no bard like him whatever he may\nchoose to sing about.\"\n\nAlcinous then led the way, and the others followed after, while a\nservant went to fetch Demodocus. The fifty-two picked oarsmen went to\nthe sea shore as they had been told, and when they got there they drew\nthe ship into the water, got her mast and sails inside her, bound\nthe oars to the thole-pins with twisted thongs of leather, all in due\ncourse, and spread the white sails aloft. They moored the vessel a\nlittle way out from land, and then came on shore and went to the house\nof King Alcinous. The out houses, {66} yards, and all the precincts were\nfilled with crowds of men in great multitudes both old and young; and\nAlcinous killed them a dozen sheep, eight full grown pigs, and two oxen.\nThese they skinned and dressed so as to provide a magnificent banquet.\n\nA servant presently led in the famous bard Demodocus, whom the muse had\ndearly loved, but to whom she had given both good and evil, for though\nshe had endowed him with a divine gift of song, she had robbed him of\nhis eyesight. Pontonous set a seat for him among the guests, leaning it\nup against a bearing-post. He hung the lyre for him on a peg over his\nhead, and showed him where he was to feel for it with his hands. He also\nset a fair table with a basket of victuals by his side, and a cup of\nwine from which he might drink whenever he was so disposed.\n\nThe company then laid their hands upon the good things that were before\nthem, but as soon as they had had enough to eat and drink, the muse\ninspired Demodocus to sing the feats of heroes, and more especially\na matter that was then in the mouths of all men, to wit, the quarrel\nbetween Ulysses and Achilles, and the fierce words that they heaped on\none another as they sat together at a banquet. But Agamemnon was glad\nwhen he heard his chieftains quarrelling with one another, for Apollo\nhad foretold him this at Pytho when he crossed the stone floor to\nconsult the oracle. Here was the beginning of the evil that by the will\nof Jove fell both upon Danaans and Trojans.\n\nThus sang the bard, but Ulysses drew his purple mantle over his head and\ncovered his face, for he was ashamed to let the Phaeacians see that he\nwas weeping. When the bard left off singing he wiped the tears from his\neyes, uncovered his face, and, taking his cup, made a drink-offering to\nthe gods; but when the Phaeacians pressed Demodocus to sing further, for\nthey delighted in his lays, then Ulysses again drew his mantle over his\nhead and wept bitterly. No one noticed his distress except Alcinous, who\nwas sitting near him, and heard the heavy sighs that he was heaving. So\nhe at once said, \"Aldermen and town councillors of the Phaeacians, we\nhave had enough now, both of the feast, and of the minstrelsy that is\nits due accompaniment; let us proceed therefore to the athletic sports,\nso that our guest on his return home may be able to tell his friends\nhow much we surpass all other nations as boxers, wrestlers, jumpers, and\nrunners.\"\n\nWith these words he led the way, and the others followed after. A\nservant hung Demodocus's lyre on its peg for him, led him out of the\ncloister, and set him on the same way as that along which all the chief\nmen of the Phaeacians were going to see the sports; a crowd of several\nthousands of people followed them, and there were many excellent\ncompetitors for all the prizes. Acroneos, Ocyalus, Elatreus, Nauteus,\nPrymneus, Anchialus, Eretmeus, Ponteus, Proreus, Thoon, Anabesineus, and\nAmphialus son of Polyneus son of Tecton. There was also Euryalus son of\nNaubolus, who was like Mars himself, and was the best looking man\namong the Phaeacians except Laodamas. Three sons of Alcinous, Laodamas,\nHalios, and Clytoneus, competed also.\n\nThe foot races came first. The course was set out for them from the\nstarting post, and they raised a dust upon the plain as they all flew\nforward at the same moment. Clytoneus came in first by a long way; he\nleft every one else behind him by the length of the furrow that a couple\nof mules can plough in a fallow field. {67} They then turned to the\npainful art of wrestling, and here Euryalus proved to be the best man.\nAmphialus excelled all the others in jumping, while at throwing the disc\nthere was no one who could approach Elatreus. Alcinous's son Laodamas\nwas the best boxer, and he it was who presently said, when they had all\nbeen diverted with the games, \"Let us ask the stranger whether he excels\nin any of these sports; he seems very powerfully built; his thighs,\ncalves, hands, and neck are of prodigious strength, nor is he at all\nold, but he has suffered much lately, and there is nothing like the sea\nfor making havoc with a man, no matter how strong he is.\"\n\n\"You are quite right, Laodamas,\" replied Euryalus, \"go up to your guest\nand speak to him about it yourself.\"\n\nWhen Laodamas heard this he made his way into the middle of the crowd\nand said to Ulysses, \"I hope, Sir, that you will enter yourself for some\none or other of our competitions if you are skilled in any of them--and\nyou must have gone in for many a one before now. There is nothing that\ndoes any one so much credit all his life long as the showing himself a\nproper man with his hands and feet. Have a try therefore at something,\nand banish all sorrow from your mind. Your return home will not be long\ndelayed, for the ship is already drawn into the water, and the crew is\nfound.\"\n\nUlysses answered, \"Laodamas, why do you taunt me in this way? my mind is\nset rather on cares than contests; I have been through infinite trouble,\nand am come among you now as a suppliant, praying your king and people\nto further me on my return home.\"\n\nThen Euryalus reviled him outright and said, \"I gather, then, that you\nare unskilled in any of the many sports that men generally delight in. I\nsuppose you are one of those grasping traders that go about in ships\nas captains or merchants, and who think of nothing but of their outward\nfreights and homeward cargoes. There does not seem to be much of the\nathlete about you.\"\n\n\"For shame, Sir,\" answered Ulysses, fiercely, \"you are an insolent\nfellow--so true is it that the gods do not grace all men alike in\nspeech, person, and understanding. One man may be of weak presence, but\nheaven has adorned this with such a good conversation that he charms\nevery one who sees him; his honeyed moderation carries his hearers with\nhim so that he is leader in all assemblies of his fellows, and wherever\nhe goes he is looked up to. Another may be as handsome as a god, but his\ngood looks are not crowned with discretion. This is your case. No god\ncould make a finer looking fellow than you are, but you are a fool. Your\nill-judged remarks have made me exceedingly angry, and you are quite\nmistaken, for I excel in a great many athletic exercises; indeed, so\nlong as I had youth and strength, I was among the first athletes of the\nage. Now, however, I am worn out by labour and sorrow, for I have gone\nthrough much both on the field of battle and by the waves of the weary\nsea; still, in spite of all this I will compete, for your taunts have\nstung me to the quick.\"\n\nSo he hurried up without even taking his cloak off, and seized a disc,\nlarger, more massive and much heavier than those used by the Phaeacians\nwhen disc-throwing among themselves. {68} Then, swinging it back, he\nthrew it from his brawny hand, and it made a humming sound in the air as\nhe did so. The Phaeacians quailed beneath the rushing of its flight as\nit sped gracefully from his hand, and flew beyond any mark that had been\nmade yet. Minerva, in the form of a man, came and marked the place where\nit had fallen. \"A blind man, Sir,\" said she, \"could easily tell your\nmark by groping for it--it is so far ahead of any other. You may make\nyour mind easy about this contest, for no Phaeacian can come near to\nsuch a throw as yours.\"\n\nUlysses was glad when he found he had a friend among the lookers-on,\nso he began to speak more pleasantly. \"Young men,\" said he, \"come up to\nthat throw if you can, and I will throw another disc as heavy or even\nheavier. If anyone wants to have a bout with me let him come on, for I\nam exceedingly angry; I will box, wrestle, or run, I do not care what it\nis, with any man of you all except Laodamas, but not with him because I\nam his guest, and one cannot compete with one's own personal friend.\nAt least I do not think it a prudent or a sensible thing for a guest\nto challenge his host's family at any game, especially when he is in a\nforeign country. He will cut the ground from under his own feet if he\ndoes; but I make no exception as regards any one else, for I want to\nhave the matter out and know which is the best man. I am a good hand\nat every kind of athletic sport known among mankind. I am an excellent\narcher. In battle I am always the first to bring a man down with my\narrow, no matter how many more are taking aim at him alongside of me.\nPhiloctetes was the only man who could shoot better than I could when we\nAchaeans were before Troy and in practice. I far excel every one else\nin the whole world, of those who still eat bread upon the face of the\nearth, but I should not like to shoot against the mighty dead, such as\nHercules, or Eurytus the Oechalian--men who could shoot against the gods\nthemselves. This in fact was how Eurytus came prematurely by his end,\nfor Apollo was angry with him and killed him because he challenged him\nas an archer. I can throw a dart farther than any one else can shoot an\narrow. Running is the only point in respect of which I am afraid some of\nthe Phaeacians might beat me, for I have been brought down very low at\nsea; my provisions ran short, and therefore I am still weak.\"\n\nThey all held their peace except King Alcinous, who began, \"Sir, we have\nhad much pleasure in hearing all that you have told us, from which I\nunderstand that you are willing to show your prowess, as having been\ndispleased with some insolent remarks that have been made to you by one\nof our athletes, and which could never have been uttered by any one who\nknows how to talk with propriety. I hope you will apprehend my meaning,\nand will explain to any one of your chief men who may be dining with\nyourself and your family when you get home, that we have an hereditary\naptitude for accomplishments of all kinds. We are not particularly\nremarkable for our boxing, nor yet as wrestlers, but we are singularly\nfleet of foot and are excellent sailors. We are extremely fond of good\ndinners, music, and dancing; we also like frequent changes of linen,\nwarm baths, and good beds, so now, please, some of you who are the best\ndancers set about dancing, that our guest on his return home may be able\nto tell his friends how much we surpass all other nations as sailors,\nrunners, dancers, and minstrels. Demodocus has left his lyre at my\nhouse, so run some one or other of you and fetch it for him.\"\n\nOn this a servant hurried off to bring the lyre from the king's house,\nand the nine men who had been chosen as stewards stood forward. It was\ntheir business to manage everything connected with the sports, so\nthey made the ground smooth and marked a wide space for the dancers.\nPresently the servant came back with Demodocus's lyre, and he took his\nplace in the midst of them, whereon the best young dancers in the town\nbegan to foot and trip it so nimbly that Ulysses was delighted with the\nmerry twinkling of their feet.\n\nMeanwhile the bard began to sing the loves of Mars and Venus, and how\nthey first began their intrigue in the house of Vulcan. Mars made Venus\nmany presents, and defiled King Vulcan's marriage bed, so the sun, who\nsaw what they were about, told Vulcan. Vulcan was very angry when he\nheard such dreadful news, so he went to his smithy brooding mischief,\ngot his great anvil into its place, and began to forge some chains which\nnone could either unloose or break, so that they might stay there in\nthat place. {69} When he had finished his snare he went into his bedroom\nand festooned the bed-posts all over with chains like cobwebs; he also\nlet many hang down from the great beam of the ceiling. Not even a god\ncould see them so fine and subtle were they. As soon as he had spread\nthe chains all over the bed, he made as though he were setting out for\nthe fair state of Lemnos, which of all places in the world was the one\nhe was most fond of. But Mars kept no blind look out, and as soon as he\nsaw him start, hurried off to his house, burning with love for Venus.\n\nNow Venus was just come in from a visit to her father Jove, and was\nabout sitting down when Mars came inside the house, and said as he took\nher hand in his own, \"Let us go to the couch of Vulcan: he is not at\nhome, but is gone off to Lemnos among the Sintians, whose speech is\nbarbarous.\"\n\nShe was nothing loth, so they went to the couch to take their rest,\nwhereon they were caught in the toils which cunning Vulcan had spread\nfor them, and could neither get up nor stir hand or foot, but found too\nlate that they were in a trap. Then Vulcan came up to them, for he had\nturned back before reaching Lemnos, when his scout the sun told him what\nwas going on. He was in a furious passion, and stood in the vestibule\nmaking a dreadful noise as he shouted to all the gods.\n\n\"Father Jove,\" he cried, \"and all you other blessed gods who live for\never, come here and see the ridiculous and disgraceful sight that I will\nshow you. Jove's daughter Venus is always dishonouring me because I am\nlame. She is in love with Mars, who is handsome and clean built, whereas\nI am a cripple--but my parents are to blame for that, not I; they ought\nnever to have begotten me. Come and see the pair together asleep on\nmy bed. It makes me furious to look at them. They are very fond of one\nanother, but I do not think they will lie there longer than they can\nhelp, nor do I think that they will sleep much; there, however, they\nshall stay till her father has repaid me the sum I gave him for his\nbaggage of a daughter, who is fair but not honest.\"\n\nOn this the gods gathered to the house of Vulcan. Earth-encircling\nNeptune came, and Mercury the bringer of luck, and King Apollo, but the\ngoddesses staid at home all of them for shame. Then the givers of all\ngood things stood in the doorway, and the blessed gods roared with\ninextinguishable laughter, as they saw how cunning Vulcan had been,\nwhereon one would turn towards his neighbour saying:\n\n\"Ill deeds do not prosper, and the weak confound the strong. See how\nlimping Vulcan, lame as he is, has caught Mars who is the fleetest god\nin heaven; and now Mars will be cast in heavy damages.\"\n\nThus did they converse, but King Apollo said to Mercury, \"Messenger\nMercury, giver of good things, you would not care how strong the chains\nwere, would you, if you could sleep with Venus?\"\n\n\"King Apollo,\" answered Mercury, \"I only wish I might get the chance,\nthough there were three times as many chains--and you might look on, all\nof you, gods and goddesses, but I would sleep with her if I could.\"\n\nThe immortal gods burst out laughing as they heard him, but Neptune took\nit all seriously, and kept on imploring Vulcan to set Mars free again.\n\"Let him go,\" he cried, \"and I will undertake, as you require, that\nhe shall pay you all the damages that are held reasonable among the\nimmortal gods.\"\n\n\"Do not,\" replied Vulcan, \"ask me to do this; a bad man's bond is bad\nsecurity; what remedy could I enforce against you if Mars should go away\nand leave his debts behind him along with his chains?\"\n\n\"Vulcan,\" said Neptune, \"if Mars goes away without paying his damages,\nI will pay you myself.\" So Vulcan answered, \"In this case I cannot and\nmust not refuse you.\"\n\nThereon he loosed the bonds that bound them, and as soon as they were\nfree they scampered off, Mars to Thrace and laughter-loving Venus to\nCyprus and to Paphos, where is her grove and her altar fragrant with\nburnt offerings. Here the Graces bathed her, and anointed her with oil\nof ambrosia such as the immortal gods make use of, and they clothed her\nin raiment of the most enchanting beauty.\n\nThus sang the bard, and both Ulysses and the seafaring Phaeacians were\ncharmed as they heard him.\n\nThen Alcinous told Laodamas and Halius to dance alone, for there was no\none to compete with them. So they took a red ball which Polybus had made\nfor them, and one of them bent himself backwards and threw it up towards\nthe clouds, while the other jumped from off the ground and caught it\nwith ease before it came down again. When they had done throwing the\nball straight up into the air they began to dance, and at the same time\nkept on throwing it backwards and forwards to one another, while all\nthe young men in the ring applauded and made a great stamping with their\nfeet. Then Ulysses said:\n\n\"King Alcinous, you said your people were the nimblest dancers in the\nworld, and indeed they have proved themselves to be so. I was astonished\nas I saw them.\"\n\nThe king was delighted at this, and exclaimed to the Phaeacians,\n\"Aldermen and town councillors, our guest seems to be a person of\nsingular judgement; let us give him such proof of our hospitality as\nhe may reasonably expect. There are twelve chief men among you, and\ncounting myself there are thirteen; contribute, each of you, a clean\ncloak, a shirt, and a talent of fine gold; let us give him all this in\na lump down at once, so that when he gets his supper he may do so with a\nlight heart. As for Euryalus he will have to make a formal apology and a\npresent too, for he has been rude.\"\n\nThus did he speak. The others all of them applauded his saying, and\nsent their servants to fetch the presents. Then Euryalus said, \"King\nAlcinous, I will give the stranger all the satisfaction you require. He\nshall have my sword, which is of bronze, all but the hilt, which is of\nsilver. I will also give him the scabbard of newly sawn ivory into which\nit fits. It will be worth a great deal to him.\"\n\nAs he spoke he placed the sword in the hands of Ulysses and said, \"Good\nluck to you, father stranger; if anything has been said amiss may the\nwinds blow it away with them, and may heaven grant you a safe return,\nfor I understand you have been long away from home, and have gone\nthrough much hardship.\"\n\nTo which Ulysses answered, \"Good luck to you too my friend, and may the\ngods grant you every happiness. I hope you will not miss the sword you\nhave given me along with your apology.\"\n\nWith these words he girded the sword about his shoulders and towards\nsundown the presents began to make their appearance, as the servants of\nthe donors kept bringing them to the house of King Alcinous; here his\nsons received them, and placed them under their mother's charge. Then\nAlcinous led the way to the house and bade his guests take their seats.\n\n\"Wife,\" said he, turning to Queen Arete, \"Go, fetch the best chest we\nhave, and put a clean cloak and shirt in it. Also, set a copper on the\nfire and heat some water; our guest will take a warm bath; see also to\nthe careful packing of the presents that the noble Phaeacians have made\nhim; he will thus better enjoy both his supper and the singing that\nwill follow. I shall myself give him this golden goblet--which is of\nexquisite workmanship--that he may be reminded of me for the rest of his\nlife whenever he makes a drink offering to Jove, or to any of the gods.\"\n{70}\n\nThen Arete told her maids to set a large tripod upon the fire as fast as\nthey could, whereon they set a tripod full of bath water on to a clear\nfire; they threw on sticks to make it blaze, and the water became hot\nas the flame played about the belly of the tripod. {71} Meanwhile Arete\nbrought a magnificent chest from her own room, and inside it she packed\nall the beautiful presents of gold and raiment which the Phaeacians had\nbrought. Lastly she added a cloak and a good shirt from Alcinous, and\nsaid to Ulysses:\n\n\"See to the lid yourself, and have the whole bound round at once, for\nfear any one should rob you by the way when you are asleep in your\nship.\" {72}\n\nWhen Ulysses heard this he put the lid on the chest and made it fast\nwith a bond that Circe had taught him. He had done so before an upper\nservant told him to come to the bath and wash himself. He was very glad\nof a warm bath, for he had had no one to wait upon him ever since he\nleft the house of Calypso, who as long as he remained with her had taken\nas good care of him as though he had been a god. When the servants had\ndone washing and anointing him with oil, and had given him a clean cloak\nand shirt, he left the bath room and joined the guests who were sitting\nover their wine. Lovely Nausicaa stood by one of the bearing-posts\nsupporting the roof of the cloister, and admired him as she saw him\npass. \"Farewell stranger,\" said she, \"do not forget me when you are safe\nat home again, for it is to me first that you owe a ransom for having\nsaved your life.\"\n\nAnd Ulysses said, \"Nausicaa, daughter of great Alcinous, may Jove the\nmighty husband of Juno, grant that I may reach my home; so shall I bless\nyou as my guardian angel all my days, for it was you who saved me.\"\n\nWhen he had said this, he seated himself beside Alcinous. Supper was\nthen served, and the wine was mixed for drinking. A servant led in the\nfavourite bard Demodocus, and set him in the midst of the company, near\none of the bearing-posts supporting the cloister, that he might lean\nagainst it. Then Ulysses cut off a piece of roast pork with plenty of\nfat (for there was abundance left on the joint) and said to a servant,\n\"Take this piece of pork over to Demodocus and tell him to eat it; for\nall the pain his lays may cause me I will salute him none the less;\nbards are honoured and respected throughout the world, for the muse\nteaches them their songs and loves them.\"\n\nThe servant carried the pork in his fingers over to Demodocus, who took\nit and was very much pleased. They then laid their hands on the good\nthings that were before them, and as soon as they had had to eat and\ndrink, Ulysses said to Demodocus, \"Demodocus, there is no one in the\nworld whom I admire more than I do you. You must have studied under the\nMuse, Jove's daughter, and under Apollo, so accurately do you sing the\nreturn of the Achaeans with all their sufferings and adventures. If you\nwere not there yourself, you must have heard it all from some one who\nwas. Now, however, change your song and tell us of the wooden horse\nwhich Epeus made with the assistance of Minerva, and which Ulysses got\nby stratagem into the fort of Troy after freighting it with the men who\nafterwards sacked the city. If you will sing this tale aright I will\ntell all the world how magnificently heaven has endowed you.\"\n\nThe bard inspired of heaven took up the story at the point where some of\nthe Argives set fire to their tents and sailed away while others, hidden\nwithin the horse, {73} were waiting with Ulysses in the Trojan place\nof assembly. For the Trojans themselves had drawn the horse into their\nfortress, and it stood there while they sat in council round it, and\nwere in three minds as to what they should do. Some were for breaking it\nup then and there; others would have it dragged to the top of the rock\non which the fortress stood, and then thrown down the precipice; while\nyet others were for letting it remain as an offering and propitiation\nfor the gods. And this was how they settled it in the end, for the city\nwas doomed when it took in that horse, within which were all the bravest\nof the Argives waiting to bring death and destruction on the Trojans.\nAnon he sang how the sons of the Achaeans issued from the horse, and\nsacked the town, breaking out from their ambuscade. He sang how they\noverran the city hither and thither and ravaged it, and how Ulysses went\nraging like Mars along with Menelaus to the house of Deiphobus. It was\nthere that the fight raged most furiously, nevertheless by Minerva's\nhelp he was victorious.\n\nAll this he told, but Ulysses was overcome as he heard him, and his\ncheeks were wet with tears. He wept as a woman weeps when she throws\nherself on the body of her husband who has fallen before his own city\nand people, fighting bravely in defence of his home and children. She\nscreams aloud and flings her arms about him as he lies gasping for\nbreath and dying, but her enemies beat her from behind about the back\nand shoulders, and carry her off into slavery, to a life of labour and\nsorrow, and the beauty fades from her cheeks--even so piteously did\nUlysses weep, but none of those present perceived his tears except\nAlcinous, who was sitting near him, and could hear the sobs and sighs\nthat he was heaving. The king, therefore, at once rose and said:\n\n\"Aldermen and town councillors of the Phaeacians, let Demodocus cease\nhis song, for there are those present who do not seem to like it. From\nthe moment that we had done supper and Demodocus began to sing, our\nguest has been all the time groaning and lamenting. He is evidently\nin great trouble, so let the bard leave off, that we may all enjoy\nourselves, hosts and guest alike. This will be much more as it should\nbe, for all these festivities, with the escort and the presents that we\nare making with so much good will are wholly in his honour, and any\none with even a moderate amount of right feeling knows that he ought to\ntreat a guest and a suppliant as though he were his own brother.\n\n\"Therefore, Sir, do you on your part affect no more concealment nor\nreserve in the matter about which I shall ask you; it will be more\npolite in you to give me a plain answer; tell me the name by which your\nfather and mother over yonder used to call you, and by which you were\nknown among your neighbours and fellow-citizens. There is no one,\nneither rich nor poor, who is absolutely without any name whatever, for\npeople's fathers and mothers give them names as soon as they are born.\nTell me also your country, nation, and city, that our ships may shape\ntheir purpose accordingly and take you there. For the Phaeacians have\nno pilots; their vessels have no rudders as those of other nations have,\nbut the ships themselves understand what it is that we are thinking\nabout and want; they know all the cities and countries in the whole\nworld, and can traverse the sea just as well even when it is covered\nwith mist and cloud, so that there is no danger of being wrecked or\ncoming to any harm. Still I do remember hearing my father say that\nNeptune was angry with us for being too easy-going in the matter of\ngiving people escorts. He said that one of these days he should wreck a\nship of ours as it was returning from having escorted some one, {74} and\nbury our city under a high mountain. This is what my father used to say,\nbut whether the god will carry out his threat or no is a matter which he\nwill decide for himself.\n\n\"And now, tell me and tell me true. Where have you been wandering, and\nin what countries have you travelled? Tell us of the peoples themselves,\nand of their cities--who were hostile, savage and uncivilised, and who,\non the other hand, hospitable and humane. Tell us also why you are made\nso unhappy on hearing about the return of the Argive Danaans from Troy.\nThe gods arranged all this, and sent them their misfortunes in order\nthat future generations might have something to sing about. Did you\nlose some brave kinsman of your wife's when you were before Troy? a\nson-in-law or father-in-law--which are the nearest relations a man has\noutside his own flesh and blood? or was it some brave and kindly-natured\ncomrade--for a good friend is as dear to a man as his own brother?\"\n\n\nBook IX\n\nULYSSES DECLARES HIMSELF AND BEGINS HIS STORY---THE CICONS, LOTOPHAGI,\nAND CYCLOPES.\n\n\nAnd Ulysses answered, \"King Alcinous, it is a good thing to hear a bard\nwith such a divine voice as this man has. There is nothing better or\nmore delightful than when a whole people make merry together, with the\nguests sitting orderly to listen, while the table is loaded with bread\nand meats, and the cup-bearer draws wine and fills his cup for every\nman. This is indeed as fair a sight as a man can see. Now, however,\nsince you are inclined to ask the story of my sorrows, and rekindle my\nown sad memories in respect of them, I do not know how to begin, nor yet\nhow to continue and conclude my tale, for the hand of heaven has been\nlaid heavily upon me.\n\n\"Firstly, then, I will tell you my name that you too may know it, and\none day, if I outlive this time of sorrow, may become my guests though I\nlive so far away from all of you. I am Ulysses son of Laertes, renowned\namong mankind for all manner of subtlety, so that my fame ascends to\nheaven. I live in Ithaca, where there is a high mountain called Neritum,\ncovered with forests; and not far from it there is a group of islands\nvery near to one another--Dulichium, Same, and the wooded island of\nZacynthus. It lies squat on the horizon, all highest up in the sea\ntowards the sunset, while the others lie away from it towards dawn. {75}\nIt is a rugged island, but it breeds brave men, and my eyes know none\nthat they better love to look upon. The goddess Calypso kept me with her\nin her cave, and wanted me to marry her, as did also the cunning Aeaean\ngoddess Circe; but they could neither of them persuade me, for there\nis nothing dearer to a man than his own country and his parents, and\nhowever splendid a home he may have in a foreign country, if it be far\nfrom father or mother, he does not care about it. Now, however, I will\ntell you of the many hazardous adventures which by Jove's will I met\nwith on my return from Troy.\n\n\"When I had set sail thence the wind took me first to Ismarus, which is\nthe city of the Cicons. There I sacked the town and put the people to\nthe sword. We took their wives and also much booty, which we divided\nequitably amongst us, so that none might have reason to complain. I\nthen said that we had better make off at once, but my men very foolishly\nwould not obey me, so they staid there drinking much wine and killing\ngreat numbers of sheep and oxen on the sea shore. Meanwhile the Cicons\ncried out for help to other Cicons who lived inland. These were more in\nnumber, and stronger, and they were more skilled in the art of war,\nfor they could fight, either from chariots or on foot as the occasion\nserved; in the morning, therefore, they came as thick as leaves and\nbloom in summer, and the hand of heaven was against us, so that we were\nhard pressed. They set the battle in array near the ships, and the hosts\naimed their bronze-shod spears at one another. {76} So long as the day\nwaxed and it was still morning, we held our own against them, though\nthey were more in number than we; but as the sun went down, towards the\ntime when men loose their oxen, the Cicons got the better of us, and we\nlost half a dozen men from every ship we had; so we got away with those\nthat were left.\n\n\"Thence we sailed onward with sorrow in our hearts, but glad to have\nescaped death though we had lost our comrades, nor did we leave till we\nhad thrice invoked each one of the poor fellows who had perished by the\nhands of the Cicons. Then Jove raised the North wind against us till it\nblew a hurricane, so that land and sky were hidden in thick clouds, and\nnight sprang forth out of the heavens. We let the ships run before the\ngale, but the force of the wind tore our sails to tatters, so we took\nthem down for fear of shipwreck, and rowed our hardest towards the land.\nThere we lay two days and two nights suffering much alike from toil and\ndistress of mind, but on the morning of the third day we again raised\nour masts, set sail, and took our places, letting the wind and steersmen\ndirect our ship. I should have got home at that time unharmed had not\nthe North wind and the currents been against me as I was doubling Cape\nMalea, and set me off my course hard by the island of Cythera.\n\n\"I was driven thence by foul winds for a space of nine days upon the\nsea, but on the tenth day we reached the land of the Lotus-eaters, who\nlive on a food that comes from a kind of flower. Here we landed to take\nin fresh water, and our crews got their mid-day meal on the shore near\nthe ships. When they had eaten and drunk I sent two of my company to\nsee what manner of men the people of the place might be, and they had\na third man under them. They started at once, and went about among the\nLotus-eaters, who did them no hurt, but gave them to eat of the lotus,\nwhich was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring about\nhome, and did not even want to go back and say what had happened to\nthem, but were for staying and munching lotus {77} with the Lotus-eaters\nwithout thinking further of their return; nevertheless, though they wept\nbitterly I forced them back to the ships and made them fast under the\nbenches. Then I told the rest to go on board at once, lest any of them\nshould taste of the lotus and leave off wanting to get home, so they\ntook their places and smote the grey sea with their oars.\n\n\"We sailed hence, always in much distress, till we came to the land of\nthe lawless and inhuman Cyclopes. Now the Cyclopes neither plant nor\nplough, but trust in providence, and live on such wheat, barley, and\ngrapes as grow wild without any kind of tillage, and their wild grapes\nyield them wine as the sun and the rain may grow them. They have no\nlaws nor assemblies of the people, but live in caves on the tops of\nhigh mountains; each is lord and master in his family, and they take no\naccount of their neighbours.\n\n\"Now off their harbour there lies a wooded and fertile island not quite\nclose to the land of the Cyclopes, but still not far. It is over-run\nwith wild goats, that breed there in great numbers and are never\ndisturbed by foot of man; for sportsmen--who as a rule will suffer so\nmuch hardship in forest or among mountain precipices--do not go there,\nnor yet again is it ever ploughed or fed down, but it lies a wilderness\nuntilled and unsown from year to year, and has no living thing upon it\nbut only goats. For the Cyclopes have no ships, nor yet shipwrights who\ncould make ships for them; they cannot therefore go from city to city,\nor sail over the sea to one another's country as people who have ships\ncan do; if they had had these they would have colonised the island, {78}\nfor it is a very good one, and would yield everything in due season.\nThere are meadows that in some places come right down to the sea\nshore, well watered and full of luscious grass; grapes would do there\nexcellently; there is level land for ploughing, and it would always\nyield heavily at harvest time, for the soil is deep. There is a good\nharbour where no cables are wanted, nor yet anchors, nor need a ship be\nmoored, but all one has to do is to beach one's vessel and stay there\ntill the wind becomes fair for putting out to sea again. At the head of\nthe harbour there is a spring of clear water coming out of a cave, and\nthere are poplars growing all round it.\n\n\"Here we entered, but so dark was the night that some god must have\nbrought us in, for there was nothing whatever to be seen. A thick mist\nhung all round our ships; {79} the moon was hidden behind a mass of\nclouds so that no one could have seen the island if he had looked for\nit, nor were there any breakers to tell us we were close in shore before\nwe found ourselves upon the land itself; when, however, we had beached\nthe ships, we took down the sails, went ashore and camped upon the beach\ntill daybreak.\n\n\"When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, we admired\nthe island and wandered all over it, while the nymphs Jove's daughters\nroused the wild goats that we might get some meat for our dinner. On\nthis we fetched our spears and bows and arrows from the ships, and\ndividing ourselves into three bands began to shoot the goats. Heaven\nsent us excellent sport; I had twelve ships with me, and each ship got\nnine goats, while my own ship had ten; thus through the livelong day to\nthe going down of the sun we ate and drank our fill, and we had plenty\nof wine left, for each one of us had taken many jars full when we sacked\nthe city of the Cicons, and this had not yet run out. While we were\nfeasting we kept turning our eyes towards the land of the Cyclopes,\nwhich was hard by, and saw the smoke of their stubble fires. We could\nalmost fancy we heard their voices and the bleating of their sheep and\ngoats, but when the sun went down and it came on dark, we camped down\nupon the beach, and next morning I called a council.\n\n\"'Stay here, my brave fellows,' said I, 'all the rest of you, while I go\nwith my ship and exploit these people myself: I want to see if they are\nuncivilised savages, or a hospitable and humane race.'\n\n\"I went on board, bidding my men to do so also and loose the hawsers; so\nthey took their places and smote the grey sea with their oars. When we\ngot to the land, which was not far, there, on the face of a cliff near\nthe sea, we saw a great cave overhung with laurels. It was a station for\na great many sheep and goats, and outside there was a large yard, with\na high wall round it made of stones built into the ground and of trees\nboth pine and oak. This was the abode of a huge monster who was then\naway from home shepherding his flocks. He would have nothing to do with\nother people, but led the life of an outlaw. He was a horrid creature,\nnot like a human being at all, but resembling rather some crag that\nstands out boldly against the sky on the top of a high mountain.\n\n\"I told my men to draw the ship ashore, and stay where they were, all\nbut the twelve best among them, who were to go along with myself. I also\ntook a goatskin of sweet black wine which had been given me by Maron,\nson of Euanthes, who was priest of Apollo the patron god of Ismarus, and\nlived within the wooded precincts of the temple. When we were sacking\nthe city we respected him, and spared his life, as also his wife and\nchild; so he made me some presents of great value--seven talents of fine\ngold, and a bowl of silver, with twelve jars of sweet wine, unblended,\nand of the most exquisite flavour. Not a man nor maid in the house knew\nabout it, but only himself, his wife, and one housekeeper: when he drank\nit he mixed twenty parts of water to one of wine, and yet the fragrance\nfrom the mixing-bowl was so exquisite that it was impossible to refrain\nfrom drinking. I filled a large skin with this wine, and took a wallet\nfull of provisions with me, for my mind misgave me that I might have to\ndeal with some savage who would be of great strength, and would respect\nneither right nor law.\n\n\"We soon reached his cave, but he was out shepherding, so we went inside\nand took stock of all that we could see. His cheese-racks were loaded\nwith cheeses, and he had more lambs and kids than his pens could hold.\nThey were kept in separate flocks; first there were the hoggets, then\nthe oldest of the younger lambs and lastly the very young ones {80} all\nkept apart from one another; as for his dairy, all the vessels, bowls,\nand milk pails into which he milked, were swimming with whey. When they\nsaw all this, my men begged me to let them first steal some cheeses, and\nmake off with them to the ship; they would then return, drive down the\nlambs and kids, put them on board and sail away with them. It would have\nbeen indeed better if we had done so but I would not listen to them, for\nI wanted to see the owner himself, in the hope that he might give me\na present. When, however, we saw him my poor men found him ill to deal\nwith.\n\n\"We lit a fire, offered some of the cheeses in sacrifice, ate others\nof them, and then sat waiting till the Cyclops should come in with his\nsheep. When he came, he brought in with him a huge load of dry firewood\nto light the fire for his supper, and this he flung with such a noise on\nto the floor of his cave that we hid ourselves for fear at the far end\nof the cavern. Meanwhile he drove all the ewes inside, as well as the\nshe-goats that he was going to milk, leaving the males, both rams and\nhe-goats, outside in the yards. Then he rolled a huge stone to the mouth\nof the cave--so huge that two and twenty strong four-wheeled waggons\nwould not be enough to draw it from its place against the doorway. When\nhe had so done he sat down and milked his ewes and goats, all in due\ncourse, and then let each of them have her own young. He curdled half\nthe milk and set it aside in wicker strainers, but the other half he\npoured into bowls that he might drink it for his supper. When he had got\nthrough with all his work, he lit the fire, and then caught sight of us,\nwhereon he said:\n\n\"'Strangers, who are you? Where do sail from? Are you traders, or do\nyou sail the sea as rovers, with your hands against every man, and every\nman's hand against you?'\n\n\"We were frightened out of our senses by his loud voice and monstrous\nform, but I managed to say, 'We are Achaeans on our way home from Troy,\nbut by the will of Jove, and stress of weather, we have been driven far\nout of our course. We are the people of Agamemnon, son of Atreus, who\nhas won infinite renown throughout the whole world, by sacking so great\na city and killing so many people. We therefore humbly pray you to show\nus some hospitality, and otherwise make us such presents as visitors may\nreasonably expect. May your excellency fear the wrath of heaven, for we\nare your suppliants, and Jove takes all respectable travellers under his\nprotection, for he is the avenger of all suppliants and foreigners in\ndistress.'\n\n\"To this he gave me but a pitiless answer, 'Stranger,' said he, 'you are\na fool, or else you know nothing of this country. Talk to me, indeed,\nabout fearing the gods or shunning their anger? We Cyclopes do not care\nabout Jove or any of your blessed gods, for we are ever so much stronger\nthan they. I shall not spare either yourself or your companions out of\nany regard for Jove, unless I am in the humour for doing so. And now\ntell me where you made your ship fast when you came on shore. Was it\nround the point, or is she lying straight off the land?'\n\n\"He said this to draw me out, but I was too cunning to be caught in that\nway, so I answered with a lie; 'Neptune,' said I, 'sent my ship on to\nthe rocks at the far end of your country, and wrecked it. We were driven\non to them from the open sea, but I and those who are with me escaped\nthe jaws of death.'\n\n\"The cruel wretch vouchsafed me not one word of answer, but with a\nsudden clutch he gripped up two of my men at once and dashed them down\nupon the ground as though they had been puppies. Their brains were shed\nupon the ground, and the earth was wet with their blood. Then he tore\nthem limb from limb and supped upon them. He gobbled them up like a lion\nin the wilderness, flesh, bones, marrow, and entrails, without leaving\nanything uneaten. As for us, we wept and lifted up our hands to heaven\non seeing such a horrid sight, for we did not know what else to do; but\nwhen the Cyclops had filled his huge paunch, and had washed down his\nmeal of human flesh with a drink of neat milk, he stretched himself\nfull length upon the ground among his sheep, and went to sleep. I was at\nfirst inclined to seize my sword, draw it, and drive it into his vitals,\nbut I reflected that if I did we should all certainly be lost, for we\nshould never be able to shift the stone which the monster had put in\nfront of the door. So we stayed sobbing and sighing where we were till\nmorning came.\n\n\"When the child of morning, rosy-fingered dawn, appeared, he again lit\nhis fire, milked his goats and ewes, all quite rightly, and then let\neach have her own young one; as soon as he had got through with all his\nwork, he clutched up two more of my men, and began eating them for his\nmorning's meal. Presently, with the utmost ease, he rolled the stone\naway from the door and drove out his sheep, but he at once put it back\nagain--as easily as though he were merely clapping the lid on to a\nquiver full of arrows. As soon as he had done so he shouted, and cried\n'Shoo, shoo,' after his sheep to drive them on to the mountain; so I was\nleft to scheme some way of taking my revenge and covering myself with\nglory.\n\n\"In the end I deemed it would be the best plan to do as follows: The\nCyclops had a great club which was lying near one of the sheep pens;\nit was of green olive wood, and he had cut it intending to use it for\na staff as soon as it should be dry. It was so huge that we could\nonly compare it to the mast of a twenty-oared merchant vessel of large\nburden, and able to venture out into open sea. I went up to this club\nand cut off about six feet of it; I then gave this piece to the men and\ntold them to fine it evenly off at one end, which they proceeded to do,\nand lastly I brought it to a point myself, charring the end in the fire\nto make it harder. When I had done this I hid it under dung, which was\nlying about all over the cave, and told the men to cast lots which of\nthem should venture along with myself to lift it and bore it into the\nmonster's eye while he was asleep. The lot fell upon the very four whom\nI should have chosen, and I myself made five. In the evening the wretch\ncame back from shepherding, and drove his flocks into the cave--this\ntime driving them all inside, and not leaving any in the yards; I\nsuppose some fancy must have taken him, or a god must have prompted him\nto do so. As soon as he had put the stone back to its place against the\ndoor, he sat down, milked his ewes and his goats all quite rightly, and\nthen let each have her own young one; when he had got through with all\nthis work, he gripped up two more of my men, and made his supper off\nthem. So I went up to him with an ivy-wood bowl of black wine in my\nhands:\n\n\"'Look here, Cyclops,' said I, you have been eating a great deal of\nman's flesh, so take this and drink some wine, that you may see what\nkind of liquor we had on board my ship. I was bringing it to you as a\ndrink-offering, in the hope that you would take compassion upon me and\nfurther me on my way home, whereas all you do is to go on ramping and\nraving most intolerably. You ought to be ashamed of yourself; how can\nyou expect people to come see you any more if you treat them in this\nway?'\n\n\"He then took the cup and drank. He was so delighted with the taste of\nthe wine that he begged me for another bowl full. 'Be so kind,' he said,\n'as to give me some more, and tell me your name at once. I want to make\nyou a present that you will be glad to have. We have wine even in this\ncountry, for our soil grows grapes and the sun ripens them, but this\ndrinks like Nectar and Ambrosia all in one.'\n\n\"I then gave him some more; three times did I fill the bowl for him, and\nthree times did he drain it without thought or heed; then, when I saw\nthat the wine had got into his head, I said to him as plausibly as\nI could: 'Cyclops, you ask my name and I will tell it you; give me,\ntherefore, the present you promised me; my name is Noman; this is what\nmy father and mother and my friends have always called me.'\n\n\"But the cruel wretch said, 'Then I will eat all Noman's comrades before\nNoman himself, and will keep Noman for the last. This is the present\nthat I will make him.'\n\n\"As he spoke he reeled, and fell sprawling face upwards on the ground.\nHis great neck hung heavily backwards and a deep sleep took hold upon\nhim. Presently he turned sick, and threw up both wine and the gobbets of\nhuman flesh on which he had been gorging, for he was very drunk. Then I\nthrust the beam of wood far into the embers to heat it, and encouraged\nmy men lest any of them should turn faint-hearted. When the wood, green\nthough it was, was about to blaze, I drew it out of the fire glowing\nwith heat, and my men gathered round me, for heaven had filled their\nhearts with courage. We drove the sharp end of the beam into the\nmonster's eye, and bearing upon it with all my weight I kept turning it\nround and round as though I were boring a hole in a ship's plank with an\nauger, which two men with a wheel and strap can keep on turning as long\nas they choose. Even thus did we bore the red hot beam into his eye,\ntill the boiling blood bubbled all over it as we worked it round and\nround, so that the steam from the burning eyeball scalded his eyelids\nand eyebrows, and the roots of the eye sputtered in the fire. As a\nblacksmith plunges an axe or hatchet into cold water to temper it--for\nit is this that gives strength to the iron--and it makes a great hiss as\nhe does so, even thus did the Cyclops' eye hiss round the beam of olive\nwood, and his hideous yells made the cave ring again. We ran away in a\nfright, but he plucked the beam all besmirched with gore from his eye,\nand hurled it from him in a frenzy of rage and pain, shouting as he did\nso to the other Cyclopes who lived on the bleak headlands near him;\nso they gathered from all quarters round his cave when they heard him\ncrying, and asked what was the matter with him.\n\n\"'What ails you, Polyphemus,' said they, 'that you make such a noise,\nbreaking the stillness of the night, and preventing us from being able\nto sleep? Surely no man is carrying off your sheep? Surely no man is\ntrying to kill you either by fraud or by force?'\n\n\"But Polyphemus shouted to them from inside the cave, 'Noman is killing\nme by fraud; no man is killing me by force.'\n\n\"'Then,' said they, 'if no man is attacking you, you must be ill; when\nJove makes people ill, there is no help for it, and you had better pray\nto your father Neptune.'\n\n\"Then they went away, and I laughed inwardly at the success of my clever\nstratagem, but the Cyclops, groaning and in an agony of pain, felt about\nwith his hands till he found the stone and took it from the door; then\nhe sat in the doorway and stretched his hands in front of it to catch\nanyone going out with the sheep, for he thought I might be foolish\nenough to attempt this.\n\n\"As for myself I kept on puzzling to think how I could best save my own\nlife and those of my companions; I schemed and schemed, as one who knows\nthat his life depends upon it, for the danger was very great. In the\nend I deemed that this plan would be the best; the male sheep were well\ngrown, and carried a heavy black fleece, so I bound them noiselessly in\nthrees together, with some of the withies on which the wicked monster\nused to sleep. There was to be a man under the middle sheep, and the two\non either side were to cover him, so that there were three sheep to each\nman. As for myself there was a ram finer than any of the others, so I\ncaught hold of him by the back, esconced myself in the thick wool under\nhis belly, and hung on patiently to his fleece, face upwards, keeping a\nfirm hold on it all the time.\n\n\"Thus, then, did we wait in great fear of mind till morning came, but\nwhen the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, the male sheep\nhurried out to feed, while the ewes remained bleating about the pens\nwaiting to be milked, for their udders were full to bursting; but their\nmaster in spite of all his pain felt the backs of all the sheep as they\nstood upright, without being sharp enough to find out that the men were\nunderneath their bellies. As the ram was going out, last of all, heavy\nwith its fleece and with the weight of my crafty self, Polyphemus laid\nhold of it and said:\n\n\"'My good ram, what is it that makes you the last to leave my cave this\nmorning? You are not wont to let the ewes go before you, but lead the\nmob with a run whether to flowery mead or bubbling fountain, and are the\nfirst to come home again at night; but now you lag last of all. Is it\nbecause you know your master has lost his eye, and are sorry because\nthat wicked Noman and his horrid crew has got him down in his drink and\nblinded him? But I will have his life yet. If you could understand and\ntalk, you would tell me where the wretch is hiding, and I would dash his\nbrains upon the ground till they flew all over the cave. I should thus\nhave some satisfaction for the harm this no-good Noman has done me.'\n\n\"As he spoke he drove the ram outside, but when we were a little way\nout from the cave and yards, I first got from under the ram's belly,\nand then freed my comrades; as for the sheep, which were very fat, by\nconstantly heading them in the right direction we managed to drive them\ndown to the ship. The crew rejoiced greatly at seeing those of us who\nhad escaped death, but wept for the others whom the Cyclops had killed.\nHowever, I made signs to them by nodding and frowning that they were to\nhush their crying, and told them to get all the sheep on board at once\nand put out to sea; so they went aboard, took their places, and smote\nthe grey sea with their oars. Then, when I had got as far out as my\nvoice would reach, I began to jeer at the Cyclops.\n\n\"'Cyclops,' said I, 'you should have taken better measure of your man\nbefore eating up his comrades in your cave. You wretch, eat up your\nvisitors in your own house? You might have known that your sin would\nfind you out, and now Jove and the other gods have punished you.'\n\n\"He got more and more furious as he heard me, so he tore the top from\noff a high mountain, and flung it just in front of my ship so that\nit was within a little of hitting the end of the rudder. {81} The sea\nquaked as the rock fell into it, and the wash of the wave it raised\ncarried us back towards the mainland, and forced us towards the shore.\nBut I snatched up a long pole and kept the ship off, making signs to my\nmen by nodding my head, that they must row for their lives, whereon they\nlaid out with a will. When we had got twice as far as we were before, I\nwas for jeering at the Cyclops again, but the men begged and prayed of\nme to hold my tongue.\n\n\"'Do not,' they exclaimed, 'be mad enough to provoke this savage\ncreature further; he has thrown one rock at us already which drove us\nback again to the mainland, and we made sure it had been the death\nof us; if he had then heard any further sound of voices he would have\npounded our heads and our ship's timbers into a jelly with the rugged\nrocks he would have heaved at us, for he can throw them a long way.'\n\n\"But I would not listen to them, and shouted out to him in my rage,\n'Cyclops, if any one asks you who it was that put your eye out and\nspoiled your beauty, say it was the valiant warrior Ulysses, son of\nLaertes, who lives in Ithaca.'\n\n\"On this he groaned, and cried out, 'Alas, alas, then the old prophecy\nabout me is coming true. There was a prophet here, at one time, a man\nboth brave and of great stature, Telemus son of Eurymus, who was an\nexcellent seer, and did all the prophesying for the Cyclopes till he\ngrew old; he told me that all this would happen to me some day, and said\nI should lose my sight by the hand of Ulysses. I have been all along\nexpecting some one of imposing presence and superhuman strength, whereas\nhe turns out to be a little insignificant weakling, who has managed to\nblind my eye by taking advantage of me in my drink; come here, then,\nUlysses, that I may make you presents to show my hospitality, and urge\nNeptune to help you forward on your journey--for Neptune and I are\nfather and son. He, if he so will, shall heal me, which no one else\nneither god nor man can do.'\n\n\"Then I said, 'I wish I could be as sure of killing you outright and\nsending you down to the house of Hades, as I am that it will take more\nthan Neptune to cure that eye of yours.'\n\n\"On this he lifted up his hands to the firmament of heaven and prayed,\nsaying, 'Hear me, great Neptune; if I am indeed your own true begotten\nson, grant that Ulysses may never reach his home alive; or if he must\nget back to his friends at last, let him do so late and in sore plight\nafter losing all his men [let him reach his home in another man's ship\nand find trouble in his house.'] {82}\n\n\"Thus did he pray, and Neptune heard his prayer. Then he picked up\na rock much larger than the first, swung it aloft and hurled it with\nprodigious force. It fell just short of the ship, but was within a\nlittle of hitting the end of the rudder. The sea quaked as the rock fell\ninto it, and the wash of the wave it raised drove us onwards on our way\ntowards the shore of the island.\n\n\"When at last we got to the island where we had left the rest of our\nships, we found our comrades lamenting us, and anxiously awaiting our\nreturn. We ran our vessel upon the sands and got out of her on to the\nsea shore; we also landed the Cyclops' sheep, and divided them equitably\namongst us so that none might have reason to complain. As for the ram,\nmy companions agreed that I should have it as an extra share; so I\nsacrificed it on the sea shore, and burned its thigh bones to Jove, who\nis the lord of all. But he heeded not my sacrifice, and only thought how\nhe might destroy both my ships and my comrades.\n\n\"Thus through the livelong day to the going down of the sun we feasted\nour fill on meat and drink, but when the sun went down and it came on\ndark, we camped upon the beach. When the child of morning rosy-fingered\nDawn appeared, I bade my men on board and loose the hawsers. Then they\ntook their places and smote the grey sea with their oars; so we sailed\non with sorrow in our hearts, but glad to have escaped death though we\nhad lost our comrades.\n\n\nBook X\n\nAEOLUS, THE LAESTRYGONES, CIRCE.\n\n\"Thence we went on to the Aeolian island where lives Aeolus son of\nHippotas, dear to the immortal gods. It is an island that floats (as\nit were) upon the sea, {83} iron bound with a wall that girds it. Now,\nAeolus has six daughters and six lusty sons, so he made the sons marry\nthe daughters, and they all live with their dear father and mother,\nfeasting and enjoying every conceivable kind of luxury. All day long the\natmosphere of the house is loaded with the savour of roasting meats till\nit groans again, yard and all; but by night they sleep on their well\nmade bedsteads, each with his own wife between the blankets. These were\nthe people among whom we had now come.\n\n\"Aeolus entertained me for a whole month asking me questions all the\ntime about Troy, the Argive fleet, and the return of the Achaeans. I\ntold him exactly how everything had happened, and when I said I must go,\nand asked him to further me on my way, he made no sort of difficulty,\nbut set about doing so at once. Moreover, he flayed me a prime ox-hide\nto hold the ways of the roaring winds, which he shut up in the hide as\nin a sack--for Jove had made him captain over the winds, and he could\nstir or still each one of them according to his own pleasure. He put\nthe sack in the ship and bound the mouth so tightly with a silver thread\nthat not even a breath of a side-wind could blow from any quarter. The\nWest wind which was fair for us did he alone let blow as it chose; but\nit all came to nothing, for we were lost through our own folly.\n\n\"Nine days and nine nights did we sail, and on the tenth day our native\nland showed on the horizon. We got so close in that we could see the\nstubble fires burning, and I, being then dead beat, fell into a light\nsleep, for I had never let the rudder out of my own hands, that we might\nget home the faster. On this the men fell to talking among themselves,\nand said I was bringing back gold and silver in the sack that Aeolus\nhad given me. 'Bless my heart,' would one turn to his neighbour, saying,\n'how this man gets honoured and makes friends to whatever city or\ncountry he may go. See what fine prizes he is taking home from Troy,\nwhile we, who have travelled just as far as he has, come back with hands\nas empty as we set out with--and now Aeolus has given him ever so much\nmore. Quick--let us see what it all is, and how much gold and silver\nthere is in the sack he gave him.'\n\n\"Thus they talked and evil counsels prevailed. They loosed the sack,\nwhereupon the wind flew howling forth and raised a storm that carried us\nweeping out to sea and away from our own country. Then I awoke, and knew\nnot whether to throw myself into the sea or to live on and make the best\nof it; but I bore it, covered myself up, and lay down in the ship, while\nthe men lamented bitterly as the fierce winds bore our fleet back to the\nAeolian island.\n\n\"When we reached it we went ashore to take in water, and dined hard by\nthe ships. Immediately after dinner I took a herald and one of my men\nand went straight to the house of Aeolus, where I found him feasting\nwith his wife and family; so we sat down as suppliants on the threshold.\nThey were astounded when they saw us and said, 'Ulysses, what brings you\nhere? What god has been ill-treating you? We took great pains to further\nyou on your way home to Ithaca, or wherever it was that you wanted to go\nto.'\n\n\"Thus did they speak, but I answered sorrowfully, 'My men have undone\nme; they, and cruel sleep, have ruined me. My friends, mend me this\nmischief, for you can if you will.'\n\n\"I spoke as movingly as I could, but they said nothing, till their\nfather answered, 'Vilest of mankind, get you gone at once out of the\nisland; him whom heaven hates will I in no wise help. Be off, for you\ncome here as one abhorred of heaven.' And with these words he sent me\nsorrowing from his door.\n\n\"Thence we sailed sadly on till the men were worn out with long and\nfruitless rowing, for there was no longer any wind to help them. Six\ndays, night and day did we toil, and on the seventh day we reached the\nrocky stronghold of Lamus--Telepylus, the city of the Laestrygonians,\nwhere the shepherd who is driving in his sheep and goats [to be milked]\nsalutes him who is driving out his flock [to feed] and this last answers\nthe salute. In that country a man who could do without sleep might earn\ndouble wages, one as a herdsman of cattle, and another as a shepherd,\nfor they work much the same by night as they do by day. {84}\n\n\"When we reached the harbour we found it land-locked under steep cliffs,\nwith a narrow entrance between two headlands. My captains took all their\nships inside, and made them fast close to one another, for there was\nnever so much as a breath of wind inside, but it was always dead calm. I\nkept my own ship outside, and moored it to a rock at the very end of the\npoint; then I climbed a high rock to reconnoitre, but could see no sign\nneither of man nor cattle, only some smoke rising from the ground. So I\nsent two of my company with an attendant to find out what sort of people\nthe inhabitants were.\n\n\"The men when they got on shore followed a level road by which the\npeople draw their firewood from the mountains into the town, till\npresently they met a young woman who had come outside to fetch water,\nand who was daughter to a Laestrygonian named Antiphates. She was going\nto the fountain Artacia from which the people bring in their water, and\nwhen my men had come close up to her, they asked her who the king of\nthat country might be, and over what kind of people he ruled; so she\ndirected them to her father's house, but when they got there they found\nhis wife to be a giantess as huge as a mountain, and they were horrified\nat the sight of her.\n\n\"She at once called her husband Antiphates from the place of assembly,\nand forthwith he set about killing my men. He snatched up one of them,\nand began to make his dinner off him then and there, whereon the other\ntwo ran back to the ships as fast as ever they could. But Antiphates\nraised a hue-and-cry after them, and thousands of sturdy Laestrygonians\nsprang up from every quarter--ogres, not men. They threw vast rocks at\nus from the cliffs as though they had been mere stones, and I heard\nthe horrid sound of the ships crunching up against one another, and the\ndeath cries of my men, as the Laestrygonians speared them like fishes\nand took them home to eat them. While they were thus killing my men\nwithin the harbour I drew my sword, cut the cable of my own ship, and\ntold my men to row with all their might if they too would not fare like\nthe rest; so they laid out for their lives, and we were thankful enough\nwhen we got into open water out of reach of the rocks they hurled at us.\nAs for the others there was not one of them left.\n\n\"Thence we sailed sadly on, glad to have escaped death, though we had\nlost our comrades, and came to the Aeaean island, where Circe lives--a\ngreat and cunning goddess who is own sister to the magician Aeetes--for\nthey are both children of the sun by Perse, who is daughter to Oceanus.\nWe brought our ship into a safe harbour without a word, for some god\nguided us thither, and having landed we lay there for two days and two\nnights, worn out in body and mind. When the morning of the third day\ncame I took my spear and my sword, and went away from the ship to\nreconnoitre, and see if I could discover signs of human handiwork,\nor hear the sound of voices. Climbing to the top of a high look-out I\nespied the smoke of Circe's house rising upwards amid a dense forest of\ntrees, and when I saw this I doubted whether, having seen the smoke, I\nwould not go on at once and find out more, but in the end I deemed it\nbest to go back to the ship, give the men their dinners, and send some\nof them instead of going myself.\n\n\"When I had nearly got back to the ship some god took pity upon my\nsolitude, and sent a fine antlered stag right into the middle of my\npath. He was coming down his pasture in the forest to drink of the\nriver, for the heat of the sun drove him, and as he passed I struck\nhim in the middle of the back; the bronze point of the spear went clean\nthrough him, and he lay groaning in the dust until the life went out of\nhim. Then I set my foot upon him, drew my spear from the wound, and laid\nit down; I also gathered rough grass and rushes and twisted them into a\nfathom or so of good stout rope, with which I bound the four feet of\nthe noble creature together; having so done I hung him round my neck and\nwalked back to the ship leaning upon my spear, for the stag was much too\nbig for me to be able to carry him on my shoulder, steadying him with\none hand. As I threw him down in front of the ship, I called the men\nand spoke cheeringly man by man to each of them. 'Look here my friends,'\nsaid I, 'we are not going to die so much before our time after all, and\nat any rate we will not starve so long as we have got something to eat\nand drink on board.' On this they uncovered their heads upon the sea\nshore and admired the stag, for he was indeed a splendid fellow. Then,\nwhen they had feasted their eyes upon him sufficiently, they washed\ntheir hands and began to cook him for dinner.\n\n\"Thus through the livelong day to the going down of the sun we stayed\nthere eating and drinking our fill, but when the sun went down and it\ncame on dark, we camped upon the sea shore. When the child of morning,\nrosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, I called a council and said, 'My friends,\nwe are in very great difficulties; listen therefore to me. We have no\nidea where the sun either sets or rises, {85} so that we do not even\nknow East from West. I see no way out of it; nevertheless, we must try\nand find one. We are certainly on an island, for I went as high as\nI could this morning, and saw the sea reaching all round it to the\nhorizon; it lies low, but towards the middle I saw smoke rising from out\nof a thick forest of trees.'\n\n\"Their hearts sank as they heard me, for they remembered how they had\nbeen treated by the Laestrygonian Antiphates, and by the savage ogre\nPolyphemus. They wept bitterly in their dismay, but there was nothing to\nbe got by crying, so I divided them into two companies and set a captain\nover each; I gave one company to Eurylochus, while I took command of\nthe other myself. Then we cast lots in a helmet, and the lot fell upon\nEurylochus; so he set out with his twenty-two men, and they wept, as\nalso did we who were left behind.\n\n\"When they reached Circe's house they found it built of cut stones, on\na site that could be seen from far, in the middle of the forest.\nThere were wild mountain wolves and lions prowling all round it--poor\nbewitched creatures whom she had tamed by her enchantments and drugged\ninto subjection. They did not attack my men, but wagged their great\ntails, fawned upon them, and rubbed their noses lovingly against them.\n{86} As hounds crowd round their master when they see him coming from\ndinner--for they know he will bring them something--even so did these\nwolves and lions with their great claws fawn upon my men, but the men\nwere terribly frightened at seeing such strange creatures. Presently\nthey reached the gates of the goddess's house, and as they stood there\nthey could hear Circe within, singing most beautifully as she worked at\nher loom, making a web so fine, so soft, and of such dazzling colours\nas no one but a goddess could weave. On this Polites, whom I valued and\ntrusted more than any other of my men, said, 'There is some one inside\nworking at a loom and singing most beautifully; the whole place resounds\nwith it, let us call her and see whether she is woman or goddess.'\n\n\"They called her and she came down, unfastened the door, and bade them\nenter. They, thinking no evil, followed her, all except Eurylochus, who\nsuspected mischief and staid outside. When she had got them into her\nhouse, she set them upon benches and seats and mixed them a mess with\ncheese, honey, meal, and Pramnian wine, but she drugged it with wicked\npoisons to make them forget their homes, and when they had drunk she\nturned them into pigs by a stroke of her wand, and shut them up in her\npig-styes. They were like pigs--head, hair, and all, and they grunted\njust as pigs do; but their senses were the same as before, and they\nremembered everything.\n\n\"Thus then were they shut up squealing, and Circe threw them some acorns\nand beech masts such as pigs eat, but Eurylochus hurried back to tell me\nabout the sad fate of our comrades. He was so overcome with dismay\nthat though he tried to speak he could find no words to do so; his eyes\nfilled with tears and he could only sob and sigh, till at last we forced\nhis story out of him, and he told us what had happened to the others.\n\n\"'We went,' said he, 'as you told us, through the forest, and in the\nmiddle of it there was a fine house built with cut stones in a place\nthat could be seen from far. There we found a woman, or else she was a\ngoddess, working at her loom and singing sweetly; so the men shouted to\nher and called her, whereon she at once came down, opened the door, and\ninvited us in. The others did not suspect any mischief so they followed\nher into the house, but I staid where I was, for I thought there might\nbe some treachery. From that moment I saw them no more, for not one of\nthem ever came out, though I sat a long time watching for them.'\n\n\"Then I took my sword of bronze and slung it over my shoulders; I also\ntook my bow, and told Eurylochus to come back with me and shew me the\nway. But he laid hold of me with both his hands and spoke piteously,\nsaying, 'Sir, do not force me to go with you, but let me stay here, for\nI know you will not bring one of them back with you, nor even return\nalive yourself; let us rather see if we cannot escape at any rate with\nthe few that are left us, for we may still save our lives.'\n\n\"'Stay where you are, then,' answered I, 'eating and drinking at the\nship, but I must go, for I am most urgently bound to do so.'\n\n\"With this I left the ship and went up inland. When I got through the\ncharmed grove, and was near the great house of the enchantress Circe,\nI met Mercury with his golden wand, disguised as a young man in the\nhey-day of his youth and beauty with the down just coming upon his\nface. He came up to me and took my hand within his own, saying, 'My poor\nunhappy man, whither are you going over this mountain top, alone and\nwithout knowing the way? Your men are shut up in Circe's pigstyes, like\nso many wild boars in their lairs. You surely do not fancy that you can\nset them free? I can tell you that you will never get back and will have\nto stay there with the rest of them. But never mind, I will protect\nyou and get you out of your difficulty. Take this herb, which is one\nof great virtue, and keep it about you when you go to Circe's house, it\nwill be a talisman to you against every kind of mischief.\n\n\"'And I will tell you of all the wicked witchcraft that Circe will try\nto practice upon you. She will mix a mess for you to drink, and she will\ndrug the meal with which she makes it, but she will not be able to charm\nyou, for the virtue of the herb that I shall give you will prevent her\nspells from working. I will tell you all about it. When Circe strikes\nyou with her wand, draw your sword and spring upon her as though you\nwere going to kill her. She will then be frightened, and will desire you\nto go to bed with her; on this you must not point blank refuse her, for\nyou want her to set your companions free, and to take good care also of\nyourself, but you must make her swear solemnly by all the blessed gods\nthat she will plot no further mischief against you, or else when she has\ngot you naked she will unman you and make you fit for nothing.'\n\n\"As he spoke he pulled the herb out of the ground and shewed me what it\nwas like. The root was black, while the flower was as white as milk; the\ngods call it Moly, and mortal men cannot uproot it, but the gods can do\nwhatever they like.\n\n\"Then Mercury went back to high Olympus passing over the wooded island;\nbut I fared onward to the house of Circe, and my heart was clouded with\ncare as I walked along. When I got to the gates I stood there and called\nthe goddess, and as soon as she heard me she came down, opened the door,\nand asked me to come in; so I followed her--much troubled in my mind.\nShe set me on a richly decorated seat inlaid with silver, there was a\nfootstool also under my feet, and she mixed a mess in a golden goblet\nfor me to drink; but she drugged it, for she meant me mischief. When she\nhad given it me, and I had drunk it without its charming me, she struck\nme with her wand. 'There now,' she cried, 'be off to the pigstye, and\nmake your lair with the rest of them.'\n\n\"But I rushed at her with my sword drawn as though I would kill her,\nwhereon she fell with a loud scream, clasped my knees, and spoke\npiteously, saying, 'Who and whence are you? from what place and people\nhave you come? How can it be that my drugs have no power to charm you?\nNever yet was any man able to stand so much as a taste of the herb I\ngave you; you must be spell-proof; surely you can be none other than the\nbold hero Ulysses, who Mercury always said would come here some day with\nhis ship while on his way home from Troy; so be it then; sheathe your\nsword and let us go to bed, that we may make friends and learn to trust\neach other.'\n\n\"And I answered, 'Circe, how can you expect me to be friendly with you\nwhen you have just been turning all my men into pigs? And now that you\nhave got me here myself, you mean me mischief when you ask me to go to\nbed with you, and will unman me and make me fit for nothing. I shall\ncertainly not consent to go to bed with you unless you will first take\nyour solemn oath to plot no further harm against me.'\n\n\"So she swore at once as I had told her, and when she had completed her\noath then I went to bed with her.\n\n\"Meanwhile her four servants, who are her housemaids, set about their\nwork. They are the children of the groves and fountains, and of the\nholy waters that run down into the sea. One of them spread a fair purple\ncloth over a seat, and laid a carpet underneath it. Another brought\ntables of silver up to the seats, and set them with baskets of gold. A\nthird mixed some sweet wine with water in a silver bowl and put golden\ncups upon the tables, while the fourth brought in water and set it to\nboil in a large cauldron over a good fire which she had lighted. When\nthe water in the cauldron was boiling, {87} she poured cold into it\ntill it was just as I liked it, and then she set me in a bath and began\nwashing me from the cauldron about the head and shoulders, to take the\ntire and stiffness out of my limbs. As soon as she had done washing me\nand anointing me with oil, she arrayed me in a good cloak and shirt\nand led me to a richly decorated seat inlaid with silver; there was a\nfootstool also under my feet. A maid servant then brought me water in a\nbeautiful golden ewer and poured it into a silver basin for me to wash\nmy hands, and she drew a clean table beside me; an upper servant brought\nme bread and offered me many things of what there was in the house, and\nthen Circe bade me eat, but I would not, and sat without heeding what\nwas before me, still moody and suspicious.\n\n\"When Circe saw me sitting there without eating, and in great grief, she\ncame to me and said, 'Ulysses, why do you sit like that as though you\nwere dumb, gnawing at your own heart, and refusing both meat and drink?\nIs it that you are still suspicious? You ought not to be, for I have\nalready sworn solemnly that I will not hurt you.'\n\n\"And I said, 'Circe, no man with any sense of what is right can think of\neither eating or drinking in your house until you have set his friends\nfree and let him see them. If you want me to eat and drink, you must\nfree my men and bring them to me that I may see them with my own eyes.'\n\n\"When I had said this she went straight through the court with her wand\nin her hand and opened the pigstye doors. My men came out like so many\nprime hogs and stood looking at her, but she went about among them and\nanointed each with a second drug, whereon the bristles that the bad drug\nhad given them fell off, and they became men again, younger than they\nwere before, and much taller and better looking. They knew me at once,\nseized me each of them by the hand, and wept for joy till the whole\nhouse was filled with the sound of their halloa-ballooing, and Circe\nherself was so sorry for them that she came up to me and said, 'Ulysses,\nnoble son of Laertes, go back at once to the sea where you have left\nyour ship, and first draw it on to the land. Then, hide all your ship's\ngear and property in some cave, and come back here with your men.'\n\n\"I agreed to this, so I went back to the sea shore, and found the men at\nthe ship weeping and wailing most piteously. When they saw me the silly\nblubbering fellows began frisking round me as calves break out and\ngambol round their mothers, when they see them coming home to be milked\nafter they have been feeding all day, and the homestead resounds with\ntheir lowing. They seemed as glad to see me as though they had got back\nto their own rugged Ithaca, where they had been born and bred. 'Sir,'\nsaid the affectionate creatures, 'we are as glad to see you back as\nthough we had got safe home to Ithaca; but tell us all about the fate of\nour comrades.'\n\n\"I spoke comfortingly to them and said, 'We must draw our ship on to the\nland, and hide the ship's gear with all our property in some cave; then\ncome with me all of you as fast as you can to Circe's house, where\nyou will find your comrades eating and drinking in the midst of great\nabundance.'\n\n\"On this the men would have come with me at once, but Eurylochus tried\nto hold them back and said, 'Alas, poor wretches that we are, what will\nbecome of us? Rush not on your ruin by going to the house of Circe, who\nwill turn us all into pigs or wolves or lions, and we shall have to\nkeep guard over her house. Remember how the Cyclops treated us when our\ncomrades went inside his cave, and Ulysses with them. It was all through\nhis sheer folly that those men lost their lives.'\n\n\"When I heard him I was in two minds whether or no to draw the keen\nblade that hung by my sturdy thigh and cut his head off in spite of\nhis being a near relation of my own; but the men interceded for him\nand said, 'Sir, if it may so be, let this fellow stay here and mind the\nship, but take the rest of us with you to Circe's house.'\n\n\"On this we all went inland, and Eurylochus was not left behind after\nall, but came on too, for he was frightened by the severe reprimand that\nI had given him.\n\n\"Meanwhile Circe had been seeing that the men who had been left behind\nwere washed and anointed with olive oil; she had also given them woollen\ncloaks and shirts, and when we came we found them all comfortably at\ndinner in her house. As soon as the men saw each other face to face\nand knew one another, they wept for joy and cried aloud till the whole\npalace rang again. Thereon Circe came up to me and said, 'Ulysses, noble\nson of Laertes, tell your men to leave off crying; I know how much you\nhave all of you suffered at sea, and how ill you have fared among cruel\nsavages on the mainland, but that is over now, so stay here, and eat and\ndrink till you are once more as strong and hearty as you were when you\nleft Ithaca; for at present you are weakened both in body and mind; you\nkeep all the time thinking of the hardships you have suffered during\nyour travels, so that you have no more cheerfulness left in you.'\n\n\"Thus did she speak and we assented. We stayed with Circe for a whole\ntwelvemonth feasting upon an untold quantity both of meat and wine. But\nwhen the year had passed in the waning of moons and the long days had\ncome round, my men called me apart and said, 'Sir, it is time you began\nto think about going home, if so be you are to be spared to see your\nhouse and native country at all.'\n\n\"Thus did they speak and I assented. Thereon through the livelong day to\nthe going down of the sun we feasted our fill on meat and wine, but when\nthe sun went down and it came on dark the men laid themselves down to\nsleep in the covered cloisters. I, however, after I had got into bed\nwith Circe, besought her by her knees, and the goddess listened to what\nI had got to say. 'Circe,' said I, 'please to keep the promise you made\nme about furthering me on my homeward voyage. I want to get back and so\ndo my men, they are always pestering me with their complaints as soon as\never your back is turned.'\n\n\"And the goddess answered, 'Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, you shall\nnone of you stay here any longer if you do not want to, but there\nis another journey which you have got to take before you can sail\nhomewards. You must go to the house of Hades and of dread Proserpine to\nconsult the ghost of the blind Theban prophet Teiresias, whose reason is\nstill unshaken. To him alone has Proserpine left his understanding even\nin death, but the other ghosts flit about aimlessly.'\n\n\"I was dismayed when I heard this. I sat up in bed and wept, and would\ngladly have lived no longer to see the light of the sun, but presently\nwhen I was tired of weeping and tossing myself about, I said, 'And who\nshall guide me upon this voyage--for the house of Hades is a port that\nno ship can reach.'\n\n\"'You will want no guide,' she answered; 'raise your mast, set your\nwhite sails, sit quite still, and the North Wind will blow you there\nof itself. When your ship has traversed the waters of Oceanus, you will\nreach the fertile shore of Proserpine's country with its groves of tall\npoplars and willows that shed their fruit untimely; here beach your\nship upon the shore of Oceanus, and go straight on to the dark abode of\nHades. You will find it near the place where the rivers Pyriphlegethon\nand Cocytus (which is a branch of the river Styx) flow into Acheron, and\nyou will see a rock near it, just where the two roaring rivers run into\none another.\n\n\"'When you have reached this spot, as I now tell you, dig a trench\na cubit or so in length, breadth, and depth, and pour into it as a\ndrink-offering to all the dead, first, honey mixed with milk, then wine,\nand in the third place water--sprinkling white barley meal over the\nwhole. Moreover you must offer many prayers to the poor feeble ghosts,\nand promise them that when you get back to Ithaca you will sacrifice a\nbarren heifer to them, the best you have, and will load the pyre with\ngood things. More particularly you must promise that Teiresias shall\nhave a black sheep all to himself, the finest in all your flocks.\n\n\"'When you shall have thus besought the ghosts with your prayers, offer\nthem a ram and a black ewe, bending their heads towards Erebus; but\nyourself turn away from them as though you would make towards the river.\nOn this, many dead men's ghosts will come to you, and you must tell your\nmen to skin the two sheep that you have just killed, and offer them as a\nburnt sacrifice with prayers to Hades and to Proserpine. Then draw your\nsword and sit there, so as to prevent any other poor ghost from\ncoming near the spilt blood before Teiresias shall have answered your\nquestions. The seer will presently come to you, and will tell you about\nyour voyage--what stages you are to make, and how you are to sail the\nsea so as to reach your home.'\n\n\"It was day-break by the time she had done speaking, so she dressed\nme in my shirt and cloak. As for herself she threw a beautiful light\ngossamer fabric over her shoulders, fastening it with a golden girdle\nround her waist, and she covered her head with a mantle. Then I went\nabout among the men everywhere all over the house, and spoke kindly to\neach of them man by man: 'You must not lie sleeping here any longer,'\nsaid I to them, 'we must be going, for Circe has told me all about it.'\nAnd on this they did as I bade them.\n\n\"Even so, however, I did not get them away without misadventure. We had\nwith us a certain youth named Elpenor, not very remarkable for sense or\ncourage, who had got drunk and was lying on the house-top away from the\nrest of the men, to sleep off his liquor in the cool. When he heard the\nnoise of the men bustling about, he jumped up on a sudden and forgot\nall about coming down by the main staircase, so he tumbled right off the\nroof and broke his neck, and his soul went down to the house of Hades.\n\n\"When I had got the men together I said to them, 'You think you are\nabout to start home again, but Circe has explained to me that instead of\nthis, we have got to go to the house of Hades and Proserpine to consult\nthe ghost of the Theban prophet Teiresias.'\n\n\"The men were broken-hearted as they heard me, and threw themselves\non the ground groaning and tearing their hair, but they did not mend\nmatters by crying. When we reached the sea shore, weeping and lamenting\nour fate, Circe brought the ram and the ewe, and we made them fast hard\nby the ship. She passed through the midst of us without our knowing it,\nfor who can see the comings and goings of a god, if the god does not\nwish to be seen?\n\n\nBook XI\n\nTHE VISIT TO THE DEAD. {88}\n\n\"Then, when we had got down to the sea shore we drew our ship into the\nwater and got her mast and sails into her; we also put the sheep on\nboard and took our places, weeping and in great distress of mind. Circe,\nthat great and cunning goddess, sent us a fair wind that blew dead aft\nand staid steadily with us keeping our sails all the time well filled;\nso we did whatever wanted doing to the ship's gear and let her go as the\nwind and helmsman headed her. All day long her sails were full as she\nheld her course over the sea, but when the sun went down and darkness\nwas over all the earth, we got into the deep waters of the river\nOceanus, where lie the land and city of the Cimmerians who live\nenshrouded in mist and darkness which the rays of the sun never pierce\nneither at his rising nor as he goes down again out of the heavens, but\nthe poor wretches live in one long melancholy night. When we got there\nwe beached the ship, took the sheep out of her, and went along by the\nwaters of Oceanus till we came to the place of which Circe had told us.\n\n\"Here Perimedes and Eurylochus held the victims, while I drew my sword\nand dug the trench a cubit each way. I made a drink-offering to all the\ndead, first with honey and milk, then with wine, and thirdly with water,\nand I sprinkled white barley meal over the whole, praying earnestly to\nthe poor feckless ghosts, and promising them that when I got back to\nIthaca I would sacrifice a barren heifer for them, the best I had, and\nwould load the pyre with good things. I also particularly promised\nthat Teiresias should have a black sheep to himself, the best in all my\nflocks. When I had prayed sufficiently to the dead, I cut the throats of\nthe two sheep and let the blood run into the trench, whereon the ghosts\ncame trooping up from Erebus--brides, {89} young bachelors, old men worn\nout with toil, maids who had been crossed in love, and brave men who had\nbeen killed in battle, with their armour still smirched with blood; they\ncame from every quarter and flitted round the trench with a strange kind\nof screaming sound that made me turn pale with fear. When I saw them\ncoming I told the men to be quick and flay the carcasses of the two dead\nsheep and make burnt offerings of them, and at the same time to repeat\nprayers to Hades and to Proserpine; but I sat where I was with my sword\ndrawn and would not let the poor feckless ghosts come near the blood\ntill Teiresias should have answered my questions.\n\n\"The first ghost that came was that of my comrade Elpenor, for he had\nnot yet been laid beneath the earth. We had left his body unwaked and\nunburied in Circe's house, for we had had too much else to do. I was\nvery sorry for him, and cried when I saw him: 'Elpenor,' said I, 'how\ndid you come down here into this gloom and darkness? You have got here\non foot quicker than I have with my ship.'\n\n\"'Sir,' he answered with a groan, 'it was all bad luck, and my own\nunspeakable drunkenness. I was lying asleep on the top of Circe's house,\nand never thought of coming down again by the great staircase but fell\nright off the roof and broke my neck, so my soul came down to the house\nof Hades. And now I beseech you by all those whom you have left behind\nyou, though they are not here, by your wife, by the father who brought\nyou up when you were a child, and by Telemachus who is the one hope of\nyour house, do what I shall now ask you. I know that when you leave this\nlimbo you will again hold your ship for the Aeaean island. Do not\ngo thence leaving me unwaked and unburied behind you, or I may bring\nheaven's anger upon you; but burn me with whatever armour I have, build\na barrow for me on the sea shore, that may tell people in days to come\nwhat a poor unlucky fellow I was, and plant over my grave the oar I used\nto row with when I was yet alive and with my messmates.' And I said, 'My\npoor fellow, I will do all that you have asked of me.'\n\n\"Thus, then, did we sit and hold sad talk with one another, I on the one\nside of the trench with my sword held over the blood, and the ghost\nof my comrade saying all this to me from the other side. Then came the\nghost of my dead mother Anticlea, daughter to Autolycus. I had left her\nalive when I set out for Troy and was moved to tears when I saw her, but\neven so, for all my sorrow I would not let her come near the blood till\nI had asked my questions of Teiresias.\n\n\"Then came also the ghost of Theban Teiresias, with his golden sceptre\nin his hand. He knew me and said, 'Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, why,\npoor man, have you left the light of day and come down to visit the dead\nin this sad place? Stand back from the trench and withdraw your sword\nthat I may drink of the blood and answer your questions truly.'\n\n\"So I drew back, and sheathed my sword, whereon when he had drank of the\nblood he began with his prophecy.\n\n\"'You want to know,' said he, 'about your return home, but heaven will\nmake this hard for you. I do not think that you will escape the eye\nof Neptune, who still nurses his bitter grudge against you for having\nblinded his son. Still, after much suffering you may get home if you\ncan restrain yourself and your companions when your ship reaches the\nThrinacian island, where you will find the sheep and cattle belonging to\nthe sun, who sees and gives ear to everything. If you leave these flocks\nunharmed and think of nothing but of getting home, you may yet after\nmuch hardship reach Ithaca; but if you harm them, then I forewarn you of\nthe destruction both of your ship and of your men. Even though you may\nyourself escape, you will return in bad plight after losing all your\nmen, [in another man's ship, and you will find trouble in your house,\nwhich will be overrun by high-handed people, who are devouring your\nsubstance under the pretext of paying court and making presents to your\nwife.\n\n\"'When you get home you will take your revenge on these suitors; and\nafter you have killed them by force or fraud in your own house, you must\ntake a well made oar and carry it on and on, till you come to a country\nwhere the people have never heard of the sea and do not even mix salt\nwith their food, nor do they know anything about ships, and oars that\nare as the wings of a ship. I will give you this certain token which\ncannot escape your notice. A wayfarer will meet you and will say it must\nbe a winnowing shovel that you have got upon your shoulder; on this you\nmust fix the oar in the ground and sacrifice a ram, a bull, and a boar\nto Neptune. {90} Then go home and offer hecatombs to all the gods in\nheaven one after the other. As for yourself, death shall come to you\nfrom the sea, and your life shall ebb away very gently when you are full\nof years and peace of mind, and your people shall bless you. All that I\nhave said will come true].' {91}\n\n\"'This,' I answered, 'must be as it may please heaven, but tell me and\ntell me and tell me true, I see my poor mother's ghost close by us; she\nis sitting by the blood without saying a word, and though I am her own\nson she does not remember me and speak to me; tell me, Sir, how I can\nmake her know me.'\n\n\"'That,' said he, 'I can soon do. Any ghost that you let taste of the\nblood will talk with you like a reasonable being, but if you do not let\nthem have any blood they will go away again.'\n\n\"On this the ghost of Teiresias went back to the house of Hades, for his\nprophecyings had now been spoken, but I sat still where I was until my\nmother came up and tasted the blood. Then she knew me at once and spoke\nfondly to me, saying, 'My son, how did you come down to this abode of\ndarkness while you are still alive? It is a hard thing for the living to\nsee these places, for between us and them there are great and terrible\nwaters, and there is Oceanus, which no man can cross on foot, but he\nmust have a good ship to take him. Are you all this time trying to find\nyour way home from Troy, and have you never yet got back to Ithaca nor\nseen your wife in your own house?'\n\n\"'Mother,' said I, 'I was forced to come here to consult the ghost of\nthe Theban prophet Teiresias. I have never yet been near the Achaean\nland nor set foot on my native country, and I have had nothing but one\nlong series of misfortunes from the very first day that I set out with\nAgamemnon for Ilius, the land of noble steeds, to fight the Trojans. But\ntell me, and tell me true, in what way did you die? Did you have a long\nillness, or did heaven vouchsafe you a gentle easy passage to eternity?\nTell me also about my father, and the son whom I left behind me, is my\nproperty still in their hands, or has some one else got hold of it, who\nthinks that I shall not return to claim it? Tell me again what my wife\nintends doing, and in what mind she is; does she live with my son and\nguard my estate securely, or has she made the best match she could and\nmarried again?'\n\n\"My mother answered, 'Your wife still remains in your house, but she is\nin great distress of mind and spends her whole time in tears both night\nand day. No one as yet has got possession of your fine property, and\nTelemachus still holds your lands undisturbed. He has to entertain\nlargely, as of course he must, considering his position as a magistrate,\n{92} and how every one invites him; your father remains at his old place\nin the country and never goes near the town. He has no comfortable bed\nnor bedding; in the winter he sleeps on the floor in front of the fire\nwith the men and goes about all in rags, but in summer, when the warm\nweather comes on again, he lies out in the vineyard on a bed of vine\nleaves thrown any how upon the ground. He grieves continually about your\nnever having come home, and suffers more and more as he grows older. As\nfor my own end it was in this wise: heaven did not take me swiftly and\npainlessly in my own house, nor was I attacked by any illness such as\nthose that generally wear people out and kill them, but my longing to\nknow what you were doing and the force of my affection for you--this it\nwas that was the death of me.' {93}\n\n\"Then I tried to find some way of embracing my poor mother's ghost.\nThrice I sprang towards her and tried to clasp her in my arms, but each\ntime she flitted from my embrace as it were a dream or phantom, and\nbeing touched to the quick I said to her, 'Mother, why do you not stay\nstill when I would embrace you? If we could throw our arms around one\nanother we might find sad comfort in the sharing of our sorrows even in\nthe house of Hades; does Proserpine want to lay a still further load of\ngrief upon me by mocking me with a phantom only?'\n\n\"'My son,' she answered, 'most ill-fated of all mankind, it is not\nProserpine that is beguiling you, but all people are like this when they\nare dead. The sinews no longer hold the flesh and bones together; these\nperish in the fierceness of consuming fire as soon as life has left the\nbody, and the soul flits away as though it were a dream. Now, however,\ngo back to the light of day as soon as you can, and note all these\nthings that you may tell them to your wife hereafter.'\n\n\"Thus did we converse, and anon Proserpine sent up the ghosts of the\nwives and daughters of all the most famous men. They gathered in crowds\nabout the blood, and I considered how I might question them severally.\nIn the end I deemed that it would be best to draw the keen blade that\nhung by my sturdy thigh, and keep them from all drinking the blood at\nonce. So they came up one after the other, and each one as I questioned\nher told me her race and lineage.\n\n\"The first I saw was Tyro. She was daughter of Salmoneus and wife of\nCretheus the son of Aeolus. {94} She fell in love with the river Enipeus\nwho is much the most beautiful river in the whole world. Once when she\nwas taking a walk by his side as usual, Neptune, disguised as her lover,\nlay with her at the mouth of the river, and a huge blue wave arched\nitself like a mountain over them to hide both woman and god, whereon he\nloosed her virgin girdle and laid her in a deep slumber. When the god\nhad accomplished the deed of love, he took her hand in his own and\nsaid, 'Tyro, rejoice in all good will; the embraces of the gods are not\nfruitless, and you will have fine twins about this time twelve months.\nTake great care of them. I am Neptune, so now go home, but hold your\ntongue and do not tell any one.'\n\n\"Then he dived under the sea, and she in due course bore Pelias and\nNeleus, who both of them served Jove with all their might. Pelias was\na great breeder of sheep and lived in Iolcus, but the other lived in\nPylos. The rest of her children were by Cretheus, namely, Aeson, Pheres,\nand Amythaon, who was a mighty warrior and charioteer.\n\n\"Next to her I saw Antiope, daughter to Asopus, who could boast of\nhaving slept in the arms of even Jove himself, and who bore him two sons\nAmphion and Zethus. These founded Thebes with its seven gates, and built\na wall all round it; for strong though they were they could not hold\nThebes till they had walled it.\n\n\"Then I saw Alcmena, the wife of Amphitryon, who also bore to Jove\nindomitable Hercules; and Megara who was daughter to great King Creon,\nand married the redoubtable son of Amphitryon.\n\n\"I also saw fair Epicaste mother of king Oedipodes whose awful lot it\nwas to marry her own son without suspecting it. He married her after\nhaving killed his father, but the gods proclaimed the whole story to the\nworld; whereon he remained king of Thebes, in great grief for the spite\nthe gods had borne him; but Epicaste went to the house of the mighty\njailor Hades, having hanged herself for grief, and the avenging spirits\nhaunted him as for an outraged mother--to his ruing bitterly thereafter.\n\n\"Then I saw Chloris, whom Neleus married for her beauty, having given\npriceless presents for her. She was youngest daughter to Amphion son of\nIasus and king of Minyan Orchomenus, and was Queen in Pylos. She bore\nNestor, Chromius, and Periclymenus, and she also bore that marvellously\nlovely woman Pero, who was wooed by all the country round; but Neleus\nwould only give her to him who should raid the cattle of Iphicles from\nthe grazing grounds of Phylace, and this was a hard task. The only man\nwho would undertake to raid them was a certain excellent seer, {95} but\nthe will of heaven was against him, for the rangers of the cattle caught\nhim and put him in prison; nevertheless when a full year had passed and\nthe same season came round again, Iphicles set him at liberty, after\nhe had expounded all the oracles of heaven. Thus, then, was the will of\nJove accomplished.\n\n\"And I saw Leda the wife of Tyndarus, who bore him two famous sons,\nCastor breaker of horses, and Pollux the mighty boxer. Both these heroes\nare lying under the earth, though they are still alive, for by a special\ndispensation of Jove, they die and come to life again, each one of them\nevery other day throughout all time, and they have the rank of gods.\n\n\"After her I saw Iphimedeia wife of Aloeus who boasted the embrace\nof Neptune. She bore two sons Otus and Ephialtes, but both were short\nlived. They were the finest children that were ever born in this world,\nand the best looking, Orion only excepted; for at nine years old they\nwere nine fathoms high, and measured nine cubits round the chest. They\nthreatened to make war with the gods in Olympus, and tried to set Mount\nOssa on the top of Mount Olympus, and Mount Pelion on the top of Ossa,\nthat they might scale heaven itself, and they would have done it too if\nthey had been grown up, but Apollo, son of Leto, killed both of them,\nbefore they had got so much as a sign of hair upon their cheeks or chin.\n\n\"Then I saw Phaedra, and Procris, and fair Ariadne daughter of the\nmagician Minos, whom Theseus was carrying off from Crete to Athens, but\nhe did not enjoy her, for before he could do so Diana killed her in the\nisland of Dia on account of what Bacchus had said against her.\n\n\"I also saw Maera and Clymene and hateful Eriphyle, who sold her own\nhusband for gold. But it would take me all night if I were to name every\nsingle one of the wives and daughters of heroes whom I saw, and it is\ntime for me to go to bed, either on board ship with my crew, or here. As\nfor my escort, heaven and yourselves will see to it.\"\n\nHere he ended, and the guests sat all of them enthralled and speechless\nthroughout the covered cloister. Then Arete said to them:--\n\n\"What do you think of this man, O Phaeacians? Is he not tall and good\nlooking, and is he not clever? True, he is my own guest, but all of you\nshare in the distinction. Do not be in a hurry to send him away, nor\nniggardly in the presents you make to one who is in such great need, for\nheaven has blessed all of you with great abundance.\"\n\nThen spoke the aged hero Echeneus who was one of the oldest men among\nthem, \"My friends,\" said he, \"what our august queen has just said to us\nis both reasonable and to the purpose, therefore be persuaded by it;\nbut the decision whether in word or deed rests ultimately with King\nAlcinous.\"\n\n\"The thing shall be done,\" exclaimed Alcinous, \"as surely as I still\nlive and reign over the Phaeacians. Our guest is indeed very anxious to\nget home, still we must persuade him to remain with us until to-morrow,\nby which time I shall be able to get together the whole sum that I mean\nto give him. As regards his escort it will be a matter for you all, and\nmine above all others as the chief person among you.\"\n\nAnd Ulysses answered, \"King Alcinous, if you were to bid me to stay here\nfor a whole twelve months, and then speed me on my way, loaded with your\nnoble gifts, I should obey you gladly and it would redound greatly to\nmy advantage, for I should return fuller-handed to my own people, and\nshould thus be more respected and beloved by all who see me when I get\nback to Ithaca.\"\n\n\"Ulysses,\" replied Alcinous, \"not one of us who sees you has any idea\nthat you are a charlatan or a swindler. I know there are many people\ngoing about who tell such plausible stories that it is very hard to see\nthrough them, but there is a style about your language which assures me\nof your good disposition. Moreover you have told the story of your own\nmisfortunes, and those of the Argives, as though you were a practiced\nbard; but tell me, and tell me true, whether you saw any of the mighty\nheroes who went to Troy at the same time with yourself, and perished\nthere. The evenings are still at their longest, and it is not yet bed\ntime--go on, therefore, with your divine story, for I could stay here\nlistening till tomorrow morning, so long as you will continue to tell us\nof your adventures.\"\n\n\"Alcinous,\" answered Ulysses, \"there is a time for making speeches, and\na time for going to bed; nevertheless, since you so desire, I will not\nrefrain from telling you the still sadder tale of those of my comrades\nwho did not fall fighting with the Trojans, but perished on their\nreturn, through the treachery of a wicked woman.\n\n\"When Proserpine had dismissed the female ghosts in all directions,\nthe ghost of Agamemnon son of Atreus came sadly up to me, surrounded by\nthose who had perished with him in the house of Aegisthus. As soon as he\nhad tasted the blood, he knew me, and weeping bitterly stretched out his\narms towards me to embrace me; but he had no strength nor substance any\nmore, and I too wept and pitied him as I beheld him. 'How did you come\nby your death,' said I, 'King Agamemnon? Did Neptune raise his winds and\nwaves against you when you were at sea, or did your enemies make an end\nof you on the main land when you were cattle-lifting or sheep-stealing,\nor while they were fighting in defence of their wives and city?'\n\n\"'Ulysses,' he answered, 'noble son of Laertes, I was not lost at sea\nin any storm of Neptune's raising, nor did my foes despatch me upon the\nmainland, but Aegisthus and my wicked wife were the death of me between\nthem. He asked me to his house, feasted me, and then butchered me most\nmiserably as though I were a fat beast in a slaughter house, while all\naround me my comrades were slain like sheep or pigs for the wedding\nbreakfast, or picnic, or gorgeous banquet of some great nobleman. You\nmust have seen numbers of men killed either in a general engagement, or\nin single combat, but you never saw anything so truly pitiable as the\nway in which we fell in that cloister, with the mixing bowl and the\nloaded tables lying all about, and the ground reeking with our blood. I\nheard Priam's daughter Cassandra scream as Clytemnestra killed her close\nbeside me. I lay dying upon the earth with the sword in my body, and\nraised my hands to kill the slut of a murderess, but she slipped away\nfrom me; she would not even close my lips nor my eyes when I was dying,\nfor there is nothing in this world so cruel and so shameless as a woman\nwhen she has fallen into such guilt as hers was. Fancy murdering her own\nhusband! I thought I was going to be welcomed home by my children and my\nservants, but her abominable crime has brought disgrace on herself and\nall women who shall come after--even on the good ones.'\n\n\"And I said, 'In truth Jove has hated the house of Atreus from first to\nlast in the matter of their women's counsels. See how many of us fell\nfor Helen's sake, and now it seems that Clytemnestra hatched mischief\nagainst you too during your absence.'\n\n\"'Be sure, therefore,' continued Agamemnon, 'and not be too friendly\neven with your own wife. Do not tell her all that you know perfectly\nwell yourself. Tell her a part only, and keep your own counsel about the\nrest. Not that your wife, Ulysses, is likely to murder you, for Penelope\nis a very admirable woman, and has an excellent nature. We left her a\nyoung bride with an infant at her breast when we set out for Troy. This\nchild no doubt is now grown up happily to man's estate, {96} and he and\nhis father will have a joyful meeting and embrace one another as it is\nright they should do, whereas my wicked wife did not even allow me\nthe happiness of looking upon my son, but killed me ere I could do so.\nFurthermore I say--and lay my saying to your heart--do not tell people\nwhen you are bringing your ship to Ithaca, but steal a march upon them,\nfor after all this there is no trusting women. But now tell me, and\ntell me true, can you give me any news of my son Orestes? Is he in\nOrchomenus, or at Pylos, or is he at Sparta with Menelaus--for I presume\nthat he is still living.'\n\n\"And I said, 'Agamemnon, why do you ask me? I do not know whether your\nson is alive or dead, and it is not right to talk when one does not\nknow.'\n\n\"As we two sat weeping and talking thus sadly with one another the ghost\nof Achilles came up to us with Patroclus, Antilochus, and Ajax who was\nthe finest and goodliest man of all the Danaans after the son of Peleus.\nThe fleet descendant of Aeacus knew me and spoke piteously, saying,\n'Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, what deed of daring will you undertake\nnext, that you venture down to the house of Hades among us silly dead,\nwho are but the ghosts of them that can labour no more?'\n\n\"And I said, 'Achilles, son of Peleus, foremost champion of the\nAchaeans, I came to consult Teiresias, and see if he could advise me\nabout my return home to Ithaca, for I have never yet been able to get\nnear the Achaean land, nor to set foot in my own country, but have been\nin trouble all the time. As for you, Achilles, no one was ever yet so\nfortunate as you have been, nor ever will be, for you were adored by all\nus Argives as long as you were alive, and now that you are here you are\na great prince among the dead. Do not, therefore, take it so much to\nheart even if you are dead.'\n\n\"'Say not a word,' he answered, 'in death's favour; I would rather be\na paid servant in a poor man's house and be above ground than king of\nkings among the dead. But give me news about my son; is he gone to the\nwars and will he be a great soldier, or is this not so? Tell me also if\nyou have heard anything about my father Peleus--does he still rule among\nthe Myrmidons, or do they show him no respect throughout Hellas and\nPhthia now that he is old and his limbs fail him? Could I but stand by\nhis side, in the light of day, with the same strength that I had when I\nkilled the bravest of our foes upon the plain of Troy--could I but be\nas I then was and go even for a short time to my father's house, any one\nwho tried to do him violence or supersede him would soon rue it.'\n\n\"'I have heard nothing,' I answered, 'of Peleus, but I can tell you all\nabout your son Neoptolemus, for I took him in my own ship from Scyros\nwith the Achaeans. In our councils of war before Troy he was always\nfirst to speak, and his judgement was unerring. Nestor and I were the\nonly two who could surpass him; and when it came to fighting on the\nplain of Troy, he would never remain with the body of his men, but would\ndash on far in front, foremost of them all in valour. Many a man did\nhe kill in battle--I cannot name every single one of those whom he slew\nwhile fighting on the side of the Argives, but will only say how\nhe killed that valiant hero Eurypylus son of Telephus, who was the\nhandsomest man I ever saw except Memnon; many others also of the\nCeteians fell around him by reason of a woman's bribes. Moreover, when\nall the bravest of the Argives went inside the horse that Epeus had\nmade, and it was left to me to settle when we should either open the\ndoor of our ambuscade, or close it, though all the other leaders and\nchief men among the Danaans were drying their eyes and quaking in every\nlimb, I never once saw him turn pale nor wipe a tear from his cheek;\nhe was all the time urging me to break out from the horse--grasping\nthe handle of his sword and his bronze-shod spear, and breathing fury\nagainst the foe. Yet when we had sacked the city of Priam he got his\nhandsome share of the prize money and went on board (such is the fortune\nof war) without a wound upon him, neither from a thrown spear nor in\nclose combat, for the rage of Mars is a matter of great chance.'\n\n\"When I had told him this, the ghost of Achilles strode off across a\nmeadow full of asphodel, exulting over what I had said concerning the\nprowess of his son.\n\n\"The ghosts of other dead men stood near me and told me each his own\nmelancholy tale; but that of Ajax son of Telamon alone held aloof--still\nangry with me for having won the cause in our dispute about the armour\nof Achilles. Thetis had offered it as a prize, but the Trojan prisoners\nand Minerva were the judges. Would that I had never gained the day in\nsuch a contest, for it cost the life of Ajax, who was foremost of all\nthe Danaans after the son of Peleus, alike in stature and prowess.\n\n\"When I saw him I tried to pacify him and said, 'Ajax, will you not\nforget and forgive even in death, but must the judgement about that\nhateful armour still rankle with you? It cost us Argives dear enough to\nlose such a tower of strength as you were to us. We mourned you as much\nas we mourned Achilles son of Peleus himself, nor can the blame be laid\non anything but on the spite which Jove bore against the Danaans, for it\nwas this that made him counsel your destruction--come hither, therefore,\nbring your proud spirit into subjection, and hear what I can tell you.'\n\n\"He would not answer, but turned away to Erebus and to the other ghosts;\nnevertheless, I should have made him talk to me in spite of his being\nso angry, or I should have gone on talking to him, {97} only that there\nwere still others among the dead whom I desired to see.\n\n\"Then I saw Minos son of Jove with his golden sceptre in his hand\nsitting in judgement on the dead, and the ghosts were gathered sitting\nand standing round him in the spacious house of Hades, to learn his\nsentences upon them.\n\n\"After him I saw huge Orion in a meadow full of asphodel driving the\nghosts of the wild beasts that he had killed upon the mountains, and he\nhad a great bronze club in his hand, unbreakable for ever and ever.\n\n\"And I saw Tityus son of Gaia stretched upon the plain and covering some\nnine acres of ground. Two vultures on either side of him were digging\ntheir beaks into his liver, and he kept on trying to beat them off with\nhis hands, but could not; for he had violated Jove's mistress Leto as\nshe was going through Panopeus on her way to Pytho.\n\n\"I saw also the dreadful fate of Tantalus, who stood in a lake that\nreached his chin; he was dying to quench his thirst, but could never\nreach the water, for whenever the poor creature stooped to drink, it\ndried up and vanished, so that there was nothing but dry ground--parched\nby the spite of heaven. There were tall trees, moreover, that shed their\nfruit over his head--pears, pomegranates, apples, sweet figs and juicy\nolives, but whenever the poor creature stretched out his hand to take\nsome, the wind tossed the branches back again to the clouds.\n\n\"And I saw Sisyphus at his endless task raising his prodigious stone\nwith both his hands. With hands and feet he tried to roll it up to the\ntop of the hill, but always, just before he could roll it over on to the\nother side, its weight would be too much for him, and the pitiless stone\n{98} would come thundering down again on to the plain. Then he would\nbegin trying to push it up hill again, and the sweat ran off him and the\nsteam rose after him.\n\n\"After him I saw mighty Hercules, but it was his phantom only, for he is\nfeasting ever with the immortal gods, and has lovely Hebe to wife, who\nis daughter of Jove and Juno. The ghosts were screaming round him like\nscared birds flying all whithers. He looked black as night with his bare\nbow in his hands and his arrow on the string, glaring around as though\never on the point of taking aim. About his breast there was a wondrous\ngolden belt adorned in the most marvellous fashion with bears, wild\nboars, and lions with gleaming eyes; there was also war, battle, and\ndeath. The man who made that belt, do what he might, would never be able\nto make another like it. Hercules knew me at once when he saw me, and\nspoke piteously, saying, 'My poor Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, are\nyou too leading the same sorry kind of life that I did when I was above\nground? I was son of Jove, but I went through an infinity of suffering,\nfor I became bondsman to one who was far beneath me--a low fellow\nwho set me all manner of labours. He once sent me here to fetch the\nhell-hound--for he did not think he could find anything harder for me\nthan this, but I got the hound out of Hades and brought him to him, for\nMercury and Minerva helped me.'\n\n\"On this Hercules went down again into the house of Hades, but I stayed\nwhere I was in case some other of the mighty dead should come to me.\nAnd I should have seen still other of them that are gone before, whom\nI would fain have seen--Theseus and Pirithous--glorious children of the\ngods, but so many thousands of ghosts came round me and uttered such\nappalling cries, that I was panic stricken lest Proserpine should send\nup from the house of Hades the head of that awful monster Gorgon. On\nthis I hastened back to my ship and ordered my men to go on board at\nonce and loose the hawsers; so they embarked and took their places,\nwhereon the ship went down the stream of the river Oceanus. We had to\nrow at first, but presently a fair wind sprang up.\n\n\nBook XII\n\nTHE SIRENS, SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS, THE CATTLE OF THE SUN.\n\n\"After we were clear of the river Oceanus, and had got out into the open\nsea, we went on till we reached the Aeaean island where there is dawn\nand sun-rise as in other places. We then drew our ship on to the sands\nand got out of her on to the shore, where we went to sleep and waited\ntill day should break.\n\n\"Then, when the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, I sent\nsome men to Circe's house to fetch the body of Elpenor. We cut firewood\nfrom a wood where the headland jutted out into the sea, and after we had\nwept over him and lamented him we performed his funeral rites. When his\nbody and armour had been burned to ashes, we raised a cairn, set a stone\nover it, and at the top of the cairn we fixed the oar that he had been\nused to row with.\n\n\"While we were doing all this, Circe, who knew that we had got back from\nthe house of Hades, dressed herself and came to us as fast as she could;\nand her maid servants came with her bringing us bread, meat, and wine.\nThen she stood in the midst of us and said, 'You have done a bold thing\nin going down alive to the house of Hades, and you will have died twice,\nto other people's once; now, then, stay here for the rest of the\nday, feast your fill, and go on with your voyage at daybreak tomorrow\nmorning. In the meantime I will tell Ulysses about your course, and\nwill explain everything to him so as to prevent your suffering from\nmisadventure either by land or sea.'\n\n\"We agreed to do as she had said, and feasted through the livelong day\nto the going down of the sun, but when the sun had set and it came on\ndark, the men laid themselves down to sleep by the stern cables of the\nship. Then Circe took me by the hand and bade me be seated away from\nthe others, while she reclined by my side and asked me all about our\nadventures.\n\n\"'So far so good,' said she, when I had ended my story, 'and now pay\nattention to what I am about to tell you--heaven itself, indeed, will\nrecall it to your recollection. First you will come to the Sirens who\nenchant all who come near them. If any one unwarily draws in too close\nand hears the singing of the Sirens, his wife and children will never\nwelcome him home again, for they sit in a green field and warble him to\ndeath with the sweetness of their song. There is a great heap of dead\nmen's bones lying all around, with the flesh still rotting off them.\nTherefore pass these Sirens by, and stop your men's ears with wax that\nnone of them may hear; but if you like you can listen yourself, for you\nmay get the men to bind you as you stand upright on a cross piece half\nway up the mast, {99} and they must lash the rope's ends to the mast\nitself, that you may have the pleasure of listening. If you beg and pray\nthe men to unloose you, then they must bind you faster.\n\n\"'When your crew have taken you past these Sirens, I cannot give you\ncoherent directions {100} as to which of two courses you are to take; I\nwill lay the two alternatives before you, and you must consider them for\nyourself. On the one hand there are some overhanging rocks against which\nthe deep blue waves of Amphitrite beat with terrific fury; the blessed\ngods call these rocks the Wanderers. Here not even a bird may pass, no,\nnot even the timid doves that bring ambrosia to Father Jove, but the\nsheer rock always carries off one of them, and Father Jove has to send\nanother to make up their number; no ship that ever yet came to these\nrocks has got away again, but the waves and whirlwinds of fire are\nfreighted with wreckage and with the bodies of dead men. The only vessel\nthat ever sailed and got through, was the famous Argo on her way from\nthe house of Aetes, and she too would have gone against these great\nrocks, only that Juno piloted her past them for the love she bore to\nJason.\n\n\"'Of these two rocks the one reaches heaven and its peak is lost in a\ndark cloud. This never leaves it, so that the top is never clear not\neven in summer and early autumn. No man though he had twenty hands and\ntwenty feet could get a foothold on it and climb it, for it runs sheer\nup, as smooth as though it had been polished. In the middle of it there\nis a large cavern, looking West and turned towards Erebus; you must\ntake your ship this way, but the cave is so high up that not even the\nstoutest archer could send an arrow into it. Inside it Scylla sits and\nyelps with a voice that you might take to be that of a young hound, but\nin truth she is a dreadful monster and no one--not even a god--could\nface her without being terror-struck. She has twelve mis-shapen feet,\nand six necks of the most prodigious length; and at the end of each neck\nshe has a frightful head with three rows of teeth in each, all set very\nclose together, so that they would crunch any one to death in a moment,\nand she sits deep within her shady cell thrusting out her heads and\npeering all round the rock, fishing for dolphins or dogfish or\nany larger monster that she can catch, of the thousands with which\nAmphitrite teems. No ship ever yet got past her without losing some men,\nfor she shoots out all her heads at once, and carries off a man in each\nmouth.\n\n\"'You will find the other rock lie lower, but they are so close together\nthat there is not more than a bow-shot between them. [A large fig\ntree in full leaf {101} grows upon it], and under it lies the sucking\nwhirlpool of Charybdis. Three times in the day does she vomit forth her\nwaters, and three times she sucks them down again; see that you be not\nthere when she is sucking, for if you are, Neptune himself could not\nsave you; you must hug the Scylla side and drive ship by as fast as you\ncan, for you had better lose six men than your whole crew.'\n\n\"'Is there no way,' said I, 'of escaping Charybdis, and at the same time\nkeeping Scylla off when she is trying to harm my men?'\n\n\"'You dare devil,' replied the goddess, 'you are always wanting to fight\nsomebody or something; you will not let yourself be beaten even by the\nimmortals. For Scylla is not mortal; moreover she is savage, extreme,\nrude, cruel and invincible. There is no help for it; your best chance\nwill be to get by her as fast as ever you can, for if you dawdle about\nher rock while you are putting on your armour, she may catch you with\na second cast of her six heads, and snap up another half dozen of your\nmen; so drive your ship past her at full speed, and roar out lustily to\nCrataiis who is Scylla's dam, bad luck to her; she will then stop her\nfrom making a second raid upon you.'\n\n\"'You will now come to the Thrinacian island, and here you will see\nmany herds of cattle and flocks of sheep belonging to the sun-god--seven\nherds of cattle and seven flocks of sheep, with fifty head in each\nflock. They do not breed, nor do they become fewer in number, and they\nare tended by the goddesses Phaethusa and Lampetie, who are children of\nthe sun-god Hyperion by Neaera. Their mother when she had borne them and\nhad done suckling them sent them to the Thrinacian island, which was\na long way off, to live there and look after their father's flocks and\nherds. If you leave these flocks unharmed, and think of nothing but\ngetting home, you may yet after much hardship reach Ithaca; but if you\nharm them, then I forewarn you of the destruction both of your ship\nand of your comrades; and even though you may yourself escape, you will\nreturn late, in bad plight, after losing all your men.'\n\n\"Here she ended, and dawn enthroned in gold began to show in heaven,\nwhereon she returned inland. I then went on board and told my men to\nloose the ship from her moorings; so they at once got into her, took\ntheir places, and began to smite the grey sea with their oars. Presently\nthe great and cunning goddess Circe befriended us with a fair wind\nthat blew dead aft, and staid steadily with us, keeping our sails well\nfilled, so we did whatever wanted doing to the ship's gear, and let her\ngo as wind and helmsman headed her.\n\n\"Then, being much troubled in mind, I said to my men, 'My friends, it\nis not right that one or two of us alone should know the prophecies that\nCirce has made me, I will therefore tell you about them, so that whether\nwe live or die we may do so with our eyes open. First she said we were\nto keep clear of the Sirens, who sit and sing most beautifully in a\nfield of flowers; but she said I might hear them myself so long as no\none else did. Therefore, take me and bind me to the crosspiece half\nway up the mast; bind me as I stand upright, with a bond so fast that I\ncannot possibly break away, and lash the rope's ends to the mast itself.\nIf I beg and pray you to set me free, then bind me more tightly still.'\n\n\"I had hardly finished telling everything to the men before we\nreached the island of the two Sirens, {102} for the wind had been very\nfavourable. Then all of a sudden it fell dead calm; there was not a\nbreath of wind nor a ripple upon the water, so the men furled the sails\nand stowed them; then taking to their oars they whitened the water with\nthe foam they raised in rowing. Meanwhile I look a large wheel of wax\nand cut it up small with my sword. Then I kneaded the wax in my strong\nhands till it became soft, which it soon did between the kneading and\nthe rays of the sun-god son of Hyperion. Then I stopped the ears of all\nmy men, and they bound me hands and feet to the mast as I stood upright\non the cross piece; but they went on rowing themselves. When we had got\nwithin earshot of the land, and the ship was going at a good rate, the\nSirens saw that we were getting in shore and began with their singing.\n\n\"'Come here,' they sang, 'renowned Ulysses, honour to the Achaean name,\nand listen to our two voices. No one ever sailed past us without staying\nto hear the enchanting sweetness of our song--and he who listens will\ngo on his way not only charmed, but wiser, for we know all the ills that\nthe gods laid upon the Argives and Trojans before Troy, and can tell you\neverything that is going to happen over the whole world.'\n\n\"They sang these words most musically, and as I longed to hear them\nfurther I made signs by frowning to my men that they should set me free;\nbut they quickened their stroke, and Eurylochus and Perimedes bound me\nwith still stronger bonds till we had got out of hearing of the Sirens'\nvoices. Then my men took the wax from their ears and unbound me.\n\n\"Immediately after we had got past the island I saw a great wave from\nwhich spray was rising, and I heard a loud roaring sound. The men were\nso frightened that they loosed hold of their oars, for the whole sea\nresounded with the rushing of the waters, {103} but the ship stayed\nwhere it was, for the men had left off rowing. I went round, therefore,\nand exhorted them man by man not to lose heart.\n\n\"'My friends,' said I, 'this is not the first time that we have been\nin danger, and we are in nothing like so bad a case as when the Cyclops\nshut us up in his cave; nevertheless, my courage and wise counsel\nsaved us then, and we shall live to look back on all this as well. Now,\ntherefore, let us all do as I say, trust in Jove and row on with might\nand main. As for you, coxswain, these are your orders; attend to them,\nfor the ship is in your hands; turn her head away from these steaming\nrapids and hug the rock, or she will give you the slip and be over\nyonder before you know where you are, and you will be the death of us.'\n\n\"So they did as I told them; but I said nothing about the awful monster\nScylla, for I knew the men would not go on rowing if I did, but would\nhuddle together in the hold. In one thing only did I disobey Circe's\nstrict instructions--I put on my armour. Then seizing two strong spears\nI took my stand on the ship's bows, for it was there that I expected\nfirst to see the monster of the rock, who was to do my men so much harm;\nbut I could not make her out anywhere, though I strained my eyes with\nlooking the gloomy rock all over and over.\n\n\"Then we entered the Straits in great fear of mind, for on the one hand\nwas Scylla, and on the other dread Charybdis kept sucking up the salt\nwater. As she vomited it up, it was like the water in a cauldron when it\nis boiling over upon a great fire, and the spray reached the top of the\nrocks on either side. When she began to suck again, we could see the\nwater all inside whirling round and round, and it made a deafening sound\nas it broke against the rocks. We could see the bottom of the whirlpool\nall black with sand and mud, and the men were at their wits ends for\nfear. While we were taken up with this, and were expecting each moment\nto be our last, Scylla pounced down suddenly upon us and snatched up my\nsix best men. I was looking at once after both ship and men, and in a\nmoment I saw their hands and feet ever so high above me, struggling in\nthe air as Scylla was carrying them off, and I heard them call out my\nname in one last despairing cry. As a fisherman, seated, spear in hand,\nupon some jutting rock {104} throws bait into the water to deceive the\npoor little fishes, and spears them with the ox's horn with which his\nspear is shod, throwing them gasping on to the land as he catches them\none by one--even so did Scylla land these panting creatures on her\nrock and munch them up at the mouth of her den, while they screamed and\nstretched out their hands to me in their mortal agony. This was the most\nsickening sight that I saw throughout all my voyages.\n\n\"When we had passed the [Wandering] rocks, with Scylla and terrible\nCharybdis, we reached the noble island of the sun-god, where were the\ngoodly cattle and sheep belonging to the sun Hyperion. While still at\nsea in my ship I could bear the cattle lowing as they came home to the\nyards, and the sheep bleating. Then I remembered what the blind Theban\nprophet Teiresias had told me, and how carefully Aeaean Circe had warned\nme to shun the island of the blessed sun-god. So being much troubled I\nsaid to the men, 'My men, I know you are hard pressed, but listen while\nI tell you the prophecy that Teiresias made me, and how carefully Aeaean\nCirce warned me to shun the island of the blessed sun-god, for it\nwas here, she said, that our worst danger would lie. Head the ship,\ntherefore, away from the island.'\n\n\"The men were in despair at this, and Eurylochus at once gave me an\ninsolent answer. 'Ulysses,' said he, 'you are cruel; you are very strong\nyourself and never get worn out; you seem to be made of iron, and now,\nthough your men are exhausted with toil and want of sleep, you will not\nlet them land and cook themselves a good supper upon this island, but\nbid them put out to sea and go faring fruitlessly on through the watches\nof the flying night. It is by night that the winds blow hardest and do\nso much damage; how can we escape should one of those sudden squalls\nspring up from South West or West, which so often wreck a vessel when\nour lords the gods are unpropitious? Now, therefore, let us obey the\nbehests of night and prepare our supper here hard by the ship; to-morrow\nmorning we will go on board again and put out to sea.'\n\n\"Thus spoke Eurylochus, and the men approved his words. I saw that\nheaven meant us a mischief and said, 'You force me to yield, for you are\nmany against one, but at any rate each one of you must take his solemn\noath that if he meet with a herd of cattle or a large flock of sheep,\nhe will not be so mad as to kill a single head of either, but will be\nsatisfied with the food that Circe has given us.'\n\n\"They all swore as I bade them, and when they had completed their oath\nwe made the ship fast in a harbour that was near a stream of fresh\nwater, and the men went ashore and cooked their suppers. As soon as they\nhad had enough to eat and drink, they began talking about their poor\ncomrades whom Scylla had snatched up and eaten; this set them weeping\nand they went on crying till they fell off into a sound sleep.\n\n\"In the third watch of the night when the stars had shifted their\nplaces, Jove raised a great gale of wind that flew a hurricane so that\nland and sea were covered with thick clouds, and night sprang forth out\nof the heavens. When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared,\nwe brought the ship to land and drew her into a cave wherein the\nsea-nymphs hold their courts and dances, and I called the men together\nin council.\n\n\"'My friends,' said I, 'we have meat and drink in the ship, let us mind,\ntherefore, and not touch the cattle, or we shall suffer for it; for\nthese cattle and sheep belong to the mighty sun, who sees and gives ear\nto everything.' And again they promised that they would obey.\n\n\"For a whole month the wind blew steadily from the South, and there was\nno other wind, but only South and East. {105} As long as corn and wine\nheld out the men did not touch the cattle when they were hungry; when,\nhowever, they had eaten all there was in the ship, they were forced\nto go further afield, with hook and line, catching birds, and taking\nwhatever they could lay their hands on; for they were starving. One day,\ntherefore, I went up inland that I might pray heaven to show me some\nmeans of getting away. When I had gone far enough to be clear of all\nmy men, and had found a place that was well sheltered from the wind,\nI washed my hands and prayed to all the gods in Olympus till by and by\nthey sent me off into a sweet sleep.\n\n\"Meanwhile Eurylochus had been giving evil counsel to the men, 'Listen\nto me,' said he, 'my poor comrades. All deaths are bad enough but there\nis none so bad as famine. Why should not we drive in the best of these\ncows and offer them in sacrifice to the immortal gods? If we ever get\nback to Ithaca, we can build a fine temple to the sun-god and enrich it\nwith every kind of ornament; if, however, he is determined to sink our\nship out of revenge for these homed cattle, and the other gods are of\nthe same mind, I for one would rather drink salt water once for all and\nhave done with it, than be starved to death by inches in such a desert\nisland as this is.'\n\n\"Thus spoke Eurylochus, and the men approved his words. Now the cattle,\nso fair and goodly, were feeding not far from the ship; the men,\ntherefore, drove in the best of them, and they all stood round them\nsaying their prayers, and using young oak-shoots instead of barley-meal,\nfor there was no barley left. When they had done praying they killed the\ncows and dressed their carcasses; they cut out the thigh bones, wrapped\nthem round in two layers of fat, and set some pieces of raw meat on top\nof them. They had no wine with which to make drink-offerings over the\nsacrifice while it was cooking, so they kept pouring on a little water\nfrom time to time while the inward meats were being grilled; then, when\nthe thigh bones were burned and they had tasted the inward meats, they\ncut the rest up small and put the pieces upon the spits.\n\n\"By this time my deep sleep had left me, and I turned back to the ship\nand to the sea shore. As I drew near I began to smell hot roast meat, so\nI groaned out a prayer to the immortal gods. 'Father Jove,' I exclaimed,\n'and all you other gods who live in everlasting bliss, you have done me\na cruel mischief by the sleep into which you have sent me; see what fine\nwork these men of mine have been making in my absence.'\n\n\"Meanwhile Lampetie went straight off to the sun and told him we had\nbeen killing his cows, whereon he flew into a great rage, and said\nto the immortals, 'Father Jove, and all you other gods who live in\neverlasting bliss, I must have vengeance on the crew of Ulysses' ship:\nthey have had the insolence to kill my cows, which were the one thing I\nloved to look upon, whether I was going up heaven or down again. If they\ndo not square accounts with me about my cows, I will go down to Hades\nand shine there among the dead.'\n\n\"'Sun,' said Jove, 'go on shining upon us gods and upon mankind over the\nfruitful earth. I will shiver their ship into little pieces with a bolt\nof white lightning as soon as they get out to sea.'\n\n\"I was told all this by Calypso, who said she had heard it from the\nmouth of Mercury.\n\n\"As soon as I got down to my ship and to the sea shore I rebuked each\none of the men separately, but we could see no way out of it, for the\ncows were dead already. And indeed the gods began at once to show signs\nand wonders among us, for the hides of the cattle crawled about, and\nthe joints upon the spits began to low like cows, and the meat, whether\ncooked or raw, kept on making a noise just as cows do.\n\n\"For six days my men kept driving in the best cows and feasting upon\nthem, but when Jove the son of Saturn had added a seventh day, the fury\nof the gale abated; we therefore went on board, raised our masts, spread\nsail, and put out to sea. As soon as we were well away from the island,\nand could see nothing but sky and sea, the son of Saturn raised a black\ncloud over our ship, and the sea grew dark beneath it. We did not get on\nmuch further, for in another moment we were caught by a terrific squall\nfrom the West that snapped the forestays of the mast so that it fell\naft, while all the ship's gear tumbled about at the bottom of the\nvessel. The mast fell upon the head of the helmsman in the ship's\nstern, so that the bones of his head were crushed to pieces, and he fell\noverboard as though he were diving, with no more life left in him.\n\n\"Then Jove let fly with his thunderbolts, and the ship went round and\nround, and was filled with fire and brimstone as the lightning struck\nit. The men all fell into the sea; they were carried about in the water\nround the ship, looking like so many sea-gulls, but the god presently\ndeprived them of all chance of getting home again.\n\n\"I stuck to the ship till the sea knocked her sides from her keel (which\ndrifted about by itself) and struck the mast out of her in the direction\nof the keel; but there was a backstay of stout ox-thong still hanging\nabout it, and with this I lashed the mast and keel together, and getting\nastride of them was carried wherever the winds chose to take me.\n\n\"[The gale from the West had now spent its force, and the wind got into\nthe South again, which frightened me lest I should be taken back to the\nterrible whirlpool of Charybdis. This indeed was what actually happened,\nfor I was borne along by the waves all night, and by sunrise had reached\nthe rock of Scylla, and the whirlpool. She was then sucking down the\nsalt sea water, {106} but I was carried aloft toward the fig tree, which\nI caught hold of and clung on to like a bat. I could not plant my feet\nanywhere so as to stand securely, for the roots were a long way off and\nthe boughs that overshadowed the whole pool were too high, too vast, and\ntoo far apart for me to reach them; so I hung patiently on, waiting till\nthe pool should discharge my mast and raft again--and a very long while\nit seemed. A jury-man is not more glad to get home to supper, after\nhaving been long detained in court by troublesome cases, than I was to\nsee my raft beginning to work its way out of the whirlpool again. At\nlast I let go with my hands and feet, and fell heavily into the sea,\nhard by my raft on to which I then got, and began to row with my hands.\nAs for Scylla, the father of gods and men would not let her get further\nsight of me--otherwise I should have certainly been lost.] {107}\n\n\"Hence I was carried along for nine days till on the tenth night the\ngods stranded me on the Ogygian island, where dwells the great and\npowerful goddess Calypso. She took me in and was kind to me, but I need\nsay no more about this, for I told you and your noble wife all about it\nyesterday, and I hate saying the same thing over and over again.\"\n\n\nBook XIII\n\nULYSSES LEAVES SCHERIA AND RETURNS TO ITHACA.\n\nThus did he speak, and they all held their peace throughout the covered\ncloister, enthralled by the charm of his story, till presently Alcinous\nbegan to speak.\n\n\"Ulysses,\" said he, \"now that you have reached my house I doubt not you\nwill get home without further misadventure no matter how much you have\nsuffered in the past. To you others, however, who come here night after\nnight to drink my choicest wine and listen to my bard, I would insist\nas follows. Our guest has already packed up the clothes, wrought gold,\n{108} and other valuables which you have brought for his acceptance;\nlet us now, therefore, present him further, each one of us, with a large\ntripod and a cauldron. We will recoup ourselves by the levy of a general\nrate; for private individuals cannot be expected to bear the burden of\nsuch a handsome present.\"\n\nEvery one approved of this, and then they went home to bed each in his\nown abode. When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared they\nhurried down to the ship and brought their cauldrons with them. Alcinous\nwent on board and saw everything so securely stowed under the ship's\nbenches that nothing could break adrift and injure the rowers. Then they\nwent to the house of Alcinous to get dinner, and he sacrificed a bull\nfor them in honour of Jove who is the lord of all. They set the steaks\nto grill and made an excellent dinner, after which the inspired bard,\nDemodocus, who was a favourite with every one, sang to them; but Ulysses\nkept on turning his eyes towards the sun, as though to hasten his\nsetting, for he was longing to be on his way. As one who has been all\nday ploughing a fallow field with a couple of oxen keeps thinking about\nhis supper and is glad when night comes that he may go and get it, for\nit is all his legs can do to carry him, even so did Ulysses rejoice when\nthe sun went down, and he at once said to the Phaeacians, addressing\nhimself more particularly to King Alcinous:\n\n\"Sir, and all of you, farewell. Make your drink-offerings and send me on\nmy way rejoicing, for you have fulfilled my heart's desire by giving me\nan escort, and making me presents, which heaven grant that I may turn\nto good account; may I find my admirable wife living in peace among\nfriends, {109} and may you whom I leave behind me give satisfaction\nto your wives and children; {110} may heaven vouchsafe you every good\ngrace, and may no evil thing come among your people.\"\n\nThus did he speak. His hearers all of them approved his saying and\nagreed that he should have his escort inasmuch as he had spoken\nreasonably. Alcinous therefore said to his servant, \"Pontonous, mix\nsome wine and hand it round to everybody, that we may offer a prayer to\nfather Jove, and speed our guest upon his way.\"\n\nPontonous mixed the wine and handed it to every one in turn; the others\neach from his own seat made a drink-offering to the blessed gods that\nlive in heaven, but Ulysses rose and placed the double cup in the hands\nof queen Arete.\n\n\"Farewell, queen,\" said he, \"henceforward and for ever, till age and\ndeath, the common lot of mankind, lay their hands upon you. I now take\nmy leave; be happy in this house with your children, your people, and\nwith king Alcinous.\"\n\nAs he spoke he crossed the threshold, and Alcinous sent a man to conduct\nhim to his ship and to the sea shore. Arete also sent some maidservants\nwith him--one with a clean shirt and cloak, another to carry his strong\nbox, and a third with corn and wine. When they got to the water side\nthe crew took these things and put them on board, with all the meat and\ndrink; but for Ulysses they spread a rug and a linen sheet on deck that\nhe might sleep soundly in the stern of the ship. Then he too went on\nboard and lay down without a word, but the crew took every man his place\nand loosed the hawser from the pierced stone to which it had been bound.\nThereon, when they began rowing out to sea, Ulysses fell into a deep,\nsweet, and almost deathlike slumber. {111}\n\nThe ship bounded forward on her way as a four in hand chariot flies over\nthe course when the horses feel the whip. Her prow curvetted as it were\nthe neck of a stallion, and a great wave of dark blue water seethed in\nher wake. She held steadily on her course, and even a falcon, swiftest\nof all birds, could not have kept pace with her. Thus, then, she cut her\nway through the water, carrying one who was as cunning as the gods, but\nwho was now sleeping peacefully, forgetful of all that he had suffered\nboth on the field of battle and by the waves of the weary sea.\n\nWhen the bright star that heralds the approach of dawn began to show,\nthe ship drew near to land. {112} Now there is in Ithaca a haven of the\nold merman Phorcys, which lies between two points that break the line\nof the sea and shut the harbour in. These shelter it from the storms of\nwind and sea that rage outside, so that, when once within it, a ship may\nlie without being even moored. At the head of this harbour there is a\nlarge olive tree, and at no great distance a fine overarching cavern\nsacred to the nymphs who are called Naiads. {113} There are mixing bowls\nwithin it and wine-jars of stone, and the bees hive there. Moreover,\nthere are great looms of stone on which the nymphs weave their robes of\nsea purple--very curious to see--and at all times there is water within\nit. It has two entrances, one facing North by which mortals can go\ndown into the cave, while the other comes from the South and is more\nmysterious; mortals cannot possibly get in by it, it is the way taken by\nthe gods.\n\nInto this harbour, then, they took their ship, for they knew the place.\n{114} She had so much way upon her that she ran half her own length on\nto the shore; {115} when, however, they had landed, the first thing they\ndid was to lift Ulysses with his rug and linen sheet out of the ship,\nand lay him down upon the sand still fast asleep. Then they took out the\npresents which Minerva had persuaded the Phaeacians to give him when he\nwas setting out on his voyage homewards. They put these all together by\nthe root of the olive tree, away from the road, for fear some passer by\n{116} might come and steal them before Ulysses awoke; and then they made\nthe best of their way home again.\n\nBut Neptune did not forget the threats with which he had already\nthreatened Ulysses, so he took counsel with Jove. \"Father Jove,\" said\nhe, \"I shall no longer be held in any sort of respect among you gods, if\nmortals like the Phaeacians, who are my own flesh and blood, show such\nsmall regard for me. I said I would let Ulysses get home when he had\nsuffered sufficiently. I did not say that he should never get home at\nall, for I knew you had already nodded your head about it, and promised\nthat he should do so; but now they have brought him in a ship fast\nasleep and have landed him in Ithaca after loading him with more\nmagnificent presents of bronze, gold, and raiment than he would ever\nhave brought back from Troy, if he had had his share of the spoil and\ngot home without misadventure.\"\n\nAnd Jove answered, \"What, O Lord of the Earthquake, are you talking\nabout? The gods are by no means wanting in respect for you. It would\nbe monstrous were they to insult one so old and honoured as you are. As\nregards mortals, however, if any of them is indulging in insolence and\ntreating you disrespectfully, it will always rest with yourself to deal\nwith him as you may think proper, so do just as you please.\"\n\n\"I should have done so at once,\" replied Neptune, \"if I were not anxious\nto avoid anything that might displease you; now, therefore, I should\nlike to wreck the Phaeacian ship as it is returning from its escort.\nThis will stop them from escorting people in future; and I should also\nlike to bury their city under a huge mountain.\"\n\n\"My good friend,\" answered Jove, \"I should recommend you at the very\nmoment when the people from the city are watching the ship on her way,\nto turn it into a rock near the land and looking like a ship. This\nwill astonish everybody, and you can then bury their city under the\nmountain.\"\n\nWhen earth-encircling Neptune heard this he went to Scheria where the\nPhaeacians live, and stayed there till the ship, which was making rapid\nway, had got close in. Then he went up to it, turned it into stone, and\ndrove it down with the flat of his hand so as to root it in the ground.\nAfter this he went away.\n\nThe Phaeacians then began talking among themselves, and one would turn\ntowards his neighbour, saying, \"Bless my heart, who is it that can have\nrooted the ship in the sea just as she was getting into port? We could\nsee the whole of her only a moment ago.\"\n\nThis was how they talked, but they knew nothing about it; and Alcinous\nsaid, \"I remember now the old prophecy of my father. He said that\nNeptune would be angry with us for taking every one so safely over the\nsea, and would one day wreck a Phaeacian ship as it was returning from\nan escort, and bury our city under a high mountain. This was what my old\nfather used to say, and now it is all coming true. {117} Now therefore\nlet us all do as I say; in the first place we must leave off giving\npeople escorts when they come here, and in the next let us sacrifice\ntwelve picked bulls to Neptune that he may have mercy upon us, and not\nbury our city under the high mountain.\" When the people heard this they\nwere afraid and got ready the bulls.\n\nThus did the chiefs and rulers of the Phaeacians pray to king Neptune,\nstanding round his altar; and at the same time {118} Ulysses woke up\nonce more upon his own soil. He had been so long away that he did not\nknow it again; moreover, Jove's daughter Minerva had made it a foggy\nday, so that people might not know of his having come, and that she\nmight tell him everything without either his wife or his fellow citizens\nand friends recognising him {119} until he had taken his revenge upon\nthe wicked suitors. Everything, therefore, seemed quite different to\nhim--the long straight tracks, the harbours, the precipices, and the\ngoodly trees, appeared all changed as he started up and looked upon his\nnative land. So he smote his thighs with the flat of his hands and cried\naloud despairingly.\n\n\"Alas,\" he exclaimed, \"among what manner of people am I fallen? Are they\nsavage and uncivilised or hospitable and humane? Where shall I put all\nthis treasure, and which way shall I go? I wish I had staid over there\nwith the Phaeacians; or I could have gone to some other great chief who\nwould have been good to me and given me an escort. As it is I do not\nknow where to put my treasure, and I cannot leave it here for fear\nsomebody else should get hold of it. In good truth the chiefs and rulers\nof the Phaeacians have not been dealing fairly by me, and have left me\nin the wrong country; they said they would take me back to Ithaca and\nthey have not done so: may Jove the protector of suppliants chastise\nthem, for he watches over everybody and punishes those who do wrong.\nStill, I suppose I must count my goods and see if the crew have gone off\nwith any of them.\"\n\nHe counted his goodly coppers and cauldrons, his gold and all his\nclothes, but there was nothing missing; still he kept grieving about not\nbeing in his own country, and wandered up and down by the shore of\nthe sounding sea bewailing his hard fate. Then Minerva came up to him\ndisguised as a young shepherd of delicate and princely mien, with a good\ncloak folded double about her shoulders; she had sandals on her comely\nfeet and held a javelin in her hand. Ulysses was glad when he saw her,\nand went straight up to her.\n\n\"My friend,\" said he, \"you are the first person whom I have met with in\nthis country; I salute you, therefore, and beg you to be well disposed\ntowards me. Protect these my goods, and myself too, for I embrace your\nknees and pray to you as though you were a god. Tell me, then, and tell\nme truly, what land and country is this? Who are its inhabitants? Am I\non an island, or is this the sea board of some continent?\"\n\nMinerva answered, \"Stranger, you must be very simple, or must have come\nfrom somewhere a long way off, not to know what country this is. It is\na very celebrated place, and everybody knows it East and West. It is\nrugged and not a good driving country, but it is by no means a bad\nisland for what there is of it. It grows any quantity of corn and also\nwine, for it is watered both by rain and dew; it breeds cattle also\nand goats; all kinds of timber grow here, and there are watering places\nwhere the water never runs dry; so, sir, the name of Ithaca is known\neven as far as Troy, which I understand to be a long way off from this\nAchaean country.\"\n\nUlysses was glad at finding himself, as Minerva told him, in his own\ncountry, and he began to answer, but he did not speak the truth, and\nmade up a lying story in the instinctive wiliness of his heart.\n\n\"I heard of Ithaca,\" said he, \"when I was in Crete beyond the seas, and\nnow it seems I have reached it with all these treasures. I have left\nas much more behind me for my children, but am flying because I killed\nOrsilochus son of Idomeneus, the fleetest runner in Crete. I killed him\nbecause he wanted to rob me of the spoils I had got from Troy with so\nmuch trouble and danger both on the field of battle and by the waves of\nthe weary sea; he said I had not served his father loyally at Troy as\nvassal, but had set myself up as an independent ruler, so I lay in wait\nfor him with one of my followers by the road side, and speared him as\nhe was coming into town from the country. It was a very dark night and\nnobody saw us; it was not known, therefore, that I had killed him, but\nas soon as I had done so I went to a ship and besought the owners, who\nwere Phoenicians, to take me on board and set me in Pylos or in Elis\nwhere the Epeans rule, giving them as much spoil as satisfied them. They\nmeant no guile, but the wind drove them off their course, and we sailed\non till we came hither by night. It was all we could do to get inside\nthe harbour, and none of us said a word about supper though we wanted it\nbadly, but we all went on shore and lay down just as we were. I was very\ntired and fell asleep directly, so they took my goods out of the ship,\nand placed them beside me where I was lying upon the sand. Then they\nsailed away to Sidonia, and I was left here in great distress of mind.\"\n\nSuch was his story, but Minerva smiled and caressed him with her hand.\nThen she took the form of a woman, fair, stately, and wise, \"He must be\nindeed a shifty lying fellow,\" said she, \"who could surpass you in all\nmanner of craft even though you had a god for your antagonist. Dare\ndevil that you are, full of guile, unwearying in deceit, can you not\ndrop your tricks and your instinctive falsehood, even now that you are\nin your own country again? We will say no more, however, about this, for\nwe can both of us deceive upon occasion--you are the most accomplished\ncounsellor and orator among all mankind, while I for diplomacy and\nsubtlety have no equal among the gods. Did you not know Jove's daughter\nMinerva--me, who have been ever with you, who kept watch over you in\nall your troubles, and who made the Phaeacians take so great a liking\nto you? And now, again, I am come here to talk things over with you, and\nhelp you to hide the treasure I made the Phaeacians give you; I want to\ntell you about the troubles that await you in your own house; you have\ngot to face them, but tell no one, neither man nor woman, that you have\ncome home again. Bear everything, and put up with every man's insolence,\nwithout a word.\"\n\nAnd Ulysses answered, \"A man, goddess, may know a great deal, but you\nare so constantly changing your appearance that when he meets you it\nis a hard matter for him to know whether it is you or not. This much,\nhowever, I know exceedingly well; you were very kind to me as long as we\nAchaeans were fighting before Troy, but from the day on which we went on\nboard ship after having sacked the city of Priam, and heaven dispersed\nus--from that day, Minerva, I saw no more of you, and cannot ever\nremember your coming to my ship to help me in a difficulty; I had to\nwander on sick and sorry till the gods delivered me from evil and I\nreached the city of the Phaeacians, where you encouraged me and took me\ninto the town. {120} And now, I beseech you in your father's name, tell\nme the truth, for I do not believe I am really back in Ithaca. I am in\nsome other country and you are mocking me and deceiving me in all you\nhave been saying. Tell me then truly, have I really got back to my own\ncountry?\"\n\n\"You are always taking something of that sort in your head,\" replied\nMinerva, \"and that is why I cannot desert you in your afflictions; you\nare so plausible, shrewd and shifty. Any one but yourself on returning\nfrom so long a voyage would at once have gone home to see his wife and\nchildren, but you do not seem to care about asking after them or hearing\nany news about them till you have exploited your wife, who remains at\nhome vainly grieving for you, and having no peace night or day for the\ntears she sheds on your behalf. As for my not coming near you, I was\nnever uneasy about you, for I was certain you would get back safely\nthough you would lose all your men, and I did not wish to quarrel with\nmy uncle Neptune, who never forgave you for having blinded his son.\n{121} I will now, however, point out to you the lie of the land, and\nyou will then perhaps believe me. This is the haven of the old merman\nPhorcys, and here is the olive tree that grows at the head of it; [near\nit is the cave sacred to the Naiads;] {122} here too is the overarching\ncavern in which you have offered many an acceptable hecatomb to the\nnymphs, and this is the wooded mountain Neritum.\"\n\nAs she spoke the goddess dispersed the mist and the land appeared. Then\nUlysses rejoiced at finding himself again in his own land, and kissed\nthe bounteous soil; he lifted up his hands and prayed to the nymphs,\nsaying, \"Naiad nymphs, daughters of Jove, I made sure that I was never\nagain to see you, now therefore I greet you with all loving salutations,\nand I will bring you offerings as in the old days, if Jove's redoubtable\ndaughter will grant me life, and bring my son to manhood.\"\n\n\"Take heart, and do not trouble yourself about that,\" rejoined Minerva,\n\"let us rather set about stowing your things at once in the cave, where\nthey will be quite safe. Let us see how we can best manage it all.\"\n\nTherewith she went down into the cave to look for the safest hiding\nplaces, while Ulysses brought up all the treasure of gold, bronze, and\ngood clothing which the Phaeacians had given him. They stowed everything\ncarefully away, and Minerva set a stone against the door of the cave.\nThen the two sat down by the root of the great olive, and consulted how\nto compass the destruction of the wicked suitors.\n\n\"Ulysses,\" said Minerva, \"noble son of Laertes, think how you can lay\nhands on these disreputable people who have been lording it in your\nhouse these three years, courting your wife and making wedding presents\nto her, while she does nothing but lament your absence, giving hope and\nsending encouraging messages {123} to every one of them, but meaning the\nvery opposite of all she says.\"\n\nAnd Ulysses answered, \"In good truth, goddess, it seems I should have\ncome to much the same bad end in my own house as Agamemnon did, if you\nhad not given me such timely information. Advise me how I shall best\navenge myself. Stand by my side and put your courage into my heart as on\nthe day when we loosed Troy's fair diadem from her brow. Help me now as\nyou did then, and I will fight three hundred men, if you, goddess, will\nbe with me.\"\n\n\"Trust me for that,\" said she, \"I will not lose sight of you when once\nwe set about it, and I imagine that some of those who are devouring your\nsubstance will then bespatter the pavement with their blood and brains.\nI will begin by disguising you so that no human being shall know you; I\nwill cover your body with wrinkles; you shall lose all your yellow\nhair; I will clothe you in a garment that shall fill all who see it with\nloathing; I will blear your fine eyes for you, and make you an unseemly\nobject in the sight of the suitors, of your wife, and of the son whom\nyou left behind you. Then go at once to the swineherd who is in charge\nof your pigs; he has been always well affected towards you, and is\ndevoted to Penelope and your son; you will find him feeding his pigs\nnear the rock that is called Raven {124} by the fountain Arethusa, where\nthey are fattening on beechmast and spring water after their manner.\nStay with him and find out how things are going, while I proceed to\nSparta and see your son, who is with Menelaus at Lacedaemon, where he\nhas gone to try and find out whether you are still alive.\" {125}\n\n\"But why,\" said Ulysses, \"did you not tell him, for you knew all about\nit? Did you want him too to go sailing about amid all kinds of hardship\nwhile others are eating up his estate?\"\n\nMinerva answered, \"Never mind about him, I sent him that he might be\nwell spoken of for having gone. He is in no sort of difficulty, but\nis staying quite comfortably with Menelaus, and is surrounded with\nabundance of every kind. The suitors have put out to sea and are lying\nin wait for him, for they mean to kill him before he can get home. I do\nnot much think they will succeed, but rather that some of those who are\nnow eating up your estate will first find a grave themselves.\"\n\nAs she spoke Minerva touched him with her wand and covered him with\nwrinkles, took away all his yellow hair, and withered the flesh over his\nwhole body; she bleared his eyes, which were naturally very fine ones;\nshe changed his clothes and threw an old rag of a wrap about him, and a\ntunic, tattered, filthy, and begrimed with smoke; she also gave him an\nundressed deer skin as an outer garment, and furnished him with a staff\nand a wallet all in holes, with a twisted thong for him to sling it over\nhis shoulder.\n\nWhen the pair had thus laid their plans they parted, and the goddess\nwent straight to Lacedaemon to fetch Telemachus.\n\n\nBook XIV\n\nULYSSES IN THE HUT WITH EUMAEUS.\n\nUlysses now left the haven, and took the rough track up through the\nwooded country and over the crest of the mountain till he reached the\nplace where Minerva had said that he would find the swineherd, who was\nthe most thrifty servant he had. He found him sitting in front of his\nhut, which was by the yards that he had built on a site which could be\nseen from far. He had made them spacious {126} and fair to see, with\na free run for the pigs all round them; he had built them during his\nmaster's absence, of stones which he had gathered out of the ground,\nwithout saying anything to Penelope or Laertes, and he had fenced them\non top with thorn bushes. Outside the yard he had run a strong fence of\noaken posts, split, and set pretty close together, while inside he had\nbuilt twelve styes near one another for the sows to lie in. There were\nfifty pigs wallowing in each stye, all of them breeding sows; but the\nboars slept outside and were much fewer in number, for the suitors\nkept on eating them, and the swineherd had to send them the best he\nhad continually. There were three hundred and sixty boar pigs, and the\nherdsman's four hounds, which were as fierce as wolves, slept always\nwith them. The swineherd was at that moment cutting out a pair of\nsandals {127} from a good stout ox hide. Three of his men were out\nherding the pigs in one place or another, and he had sent the fourth to\ntown with a boar that he had been forced to send the suitors that they\nmight sacrifice it and have their fill of meat.\n\nWhen the hounds saw Ulysses they set up a furious barking and flew at\nhim, but Ulysses was cunning enough to sit down and loose his hold of\nthe stick that he had in his hand: still, he would have been torn by\nthem in his own homestead had not the swineherd dropped his ox hide,\nrushed full speed through the gate of the yard and driven the dogs off\nby shouting and throwing stones at them. Then he said to Ulysses, \"Old\nman, the dogs were likely to have made short work of you, and then you\nwould have got me into trouble. The gods have given me quite enough\nworries without that, for I have lost the best of masters, and am in\ncontinual grief on his account. I have to attend swine for other people\nto eat, while he, if he yet lives to see the light of day, is starving\nin some distant land. But come inside, and when you have had your fill\nof bread and wine, tell me where you come from, and all about your\nmisfortunes.\"\n\nOn this the swineherd led the way into the hut and bade him sit down.\nHe strewed a good thick bed of rushes upon the floor, and on the top of\nthis he threw the shaggy chamois skin--a great thick one--on which he\nused to sleep by night. Ulysses was pleased at being made thus welcome,\nand said \"May Jove, sir, and the rest of the gods grant you your heart's\ndesire in return for the kind way in which you have received me.\"\n\nTo this you answered, O swineherd Eumaeus, \"Stranger, though a still\npoorer man should come here, it would not be right for me to insult him,\nfor all strangers and beggars are from Jove. You must take what you\ncan get and be thankful, for servants live in fear when they have young\nlords for their masters; and this is my misfortune now, for heaven has\nhindered the return of him who would have been always good to me and\ngiven me something of my own--a house, a piece of land, a good looking\nwife, and all else that a liberal master allows a servant who has worked\nhard for him, and whose labour the gods have prospered as they have mine\nin the situation which I hold. If my master had grown old here he would\nhave done great things by me, but he is gone, and I wish that Helen's\nwhole race were utterly destroyed, for she has been the death of many a\ngood man. It was this matter that took my master to Ilius, the land of\nnoble steeds, to fight the Trojans in the cause of king Agamemnon.\"\n\nAs he spoke he bound his girdle round him and went to the styes where\nthe young sucking pigs were penned. He picked out two which he brought\nback with him and sacrificed. He singed them, cut them up, and spitted\nthem; when the meat was cooked he brought it all in and set it before\nUlysses, hot and still on the spit, whereon Ulysses sprinkled it over\nwith white barley meal. The swineherd then mixed wine in a bowl of\nivy-wood, and taking a seat opposite Ulysses told him to begin.\n\n\"Fall to, stranger,\" said he, \"on a dish of servant's pork. The fat pigs\nhave to go to the suitors, who eat them up without shame or scruple; but\nthe blessed gods love not such shameful doings, and respect those who do\nwhat is lawful and right. Even the fierce freebooters who go raiding on\nother people's land, and Jove gives them their spoil--even they,\nwhen they have filled their ships and got home again live\nconscience-stricken, and look fearfully for judgement; but some god\nseems to have told these people that Ulysses is dead and gone; they\nwill not, therefore, go back to their own homes and make their offers of\nmarriage in the usual way, but waste his estate by force, without fear\nor stint. Not a day or night comes out of heaven, but they sacrifice not\none victim nor two only, and they take the run of his wine, for he was\nexceedingly rich. No other great man either in Ithaca or on the mainland\nis as rich as he was; he had as much as twenty men put together. I will\ntell you what he had. There are twelve herds of cattle upon the main\nland, and as many flocks of sheep, there are also twelve droves of pigs,\nwhile his own men and hired strangers feed him twelve widely spreading\nherds of goats. Here in Ithaca he runs even large flocks of goats on\nthe far end of the island, and they are in the charge of excellent goat\nherds. Each one of these sends the suitors the best goat in the flock\nevery day. As for myself, I am in charge of the pigs that you see here,\nand I have to keep picking out the best I have and sending it to them.\"\n\nThis was his story, but Ulysses went on eating and drinking ravenously\nwithout a word, brooding his revenge. When he had eaten enough and was\nsatisfied, the swineherd took the bowl from which he usually drank,\nfilled it with wine, and gave it to Ulysses, who was pleased, and said\nas he took it in his hands, \"My friend, who was this master of yours\nthat bought you and paid for you, so rich and so powerful as you tell\nme? You say he perished in the cause of King Agamemnon; tell me who he\nwas, in case I may have met with such a person. Jove and the other gods\nknow, but I may be able to give you news of him, for I have travelled\nmuch.\"\n\nEumaeus answered, \"Old man, no traveller who comes here with news will\nget Ulysses' wife and son to believe his story. Nevertheless, tramps in\nwant of a lodging keep coming with their mouths full of lies, and not a\nword of truth; every one who finds his way to Ithaca goes to my mistress\nand tells her falsehoods, whereon she takes them in, makes much of them,\nand asks them all manner of questions, crying all the time as women will\nwhen they have lost their husbands. And you too, old man, for a shirt\nand a cloak would doubtless make up a very pretty story. But the wolves\nand birds of prey have long since torn Ulysses to pieces, or the fishes\nof the sea have eaten him, and his bones are lying buried deep in sand\nupon some foreign shore; he is dead and gone, and a bad business it is\nfor all his friends--for me especially; go where I may I shall never\nfind so good a master, not even if I were to go home to my mother and\nfather where I was bred and born. I do not so much care, however, about\nmy parents now, though I should dearly like to see them again in my own\ncountry; it is the loss of Ulysses that grieves me most; I cannot speak\nof him without reverence though he is here no longer, for he was very\nfond of me, and took such care of me that wherever he may be I shall\nalways honour his memory.\"\n\n\"My friend,\" replied Ulysses, \"you are very positive, and very hard of\nbelief about your master's coming home again, nevertheless I will not\nmerely say, but will swear, that he is coming. Do not give me anything\nfor my news till he has actually come, you may then give me a shirt and\ncloak of good wear if you will. I am in great want, but I will not take\nanything at all till then, for I hate a man, even as I hate hell fire,\nwho lets his poverty tempt him into lying. I swear by king Jove, by the\nrites of hospitality, and by that hearth of Ulysses to which I have now\ncome, that all will surely happen as I have said it will. Ulysses\nwill return in this self same year; with the end of this moon and the\nbeginning of the next he will be here to do vengeance on all those who\nare ill treating his wife and son.\"\n\nTo this you answered, O swineherd Eumaeus, \"Old man, you will neither\nget paid for bringing good news, nor will Ulysses ever come home; drink\nyour wine in peace, and let us talk about something else. Do not keep on\nreminding me of all this; it always pains me when any one speaks about\nmy honoured master. As for your oath we will let it alone, but I only\nwish he may come, as do Penelope, his old father Laertes, and his son\nTelemachus. I am terribly unhappy too about this same boy of his; he was\nrunning up fast into manhood, and bade fare to be no worse man, face\nand figure, than his father, but some one, either god or man, has been\nunsettling his mind, so he has gone off to Pylos to try and get news of\nhis father, and the suitors are lying in wait for him as he is coming\nhome, in the hope of leaving the house of Arceisius without a name in\nIthaca. But let us say no more about him, and leave him to be taken, or\nelse to escape if the son of Saturn holds his hand over him to protect\nhim. And now, old man, tell me your own story; tell me also, for I want\nto know, who you are and where you come from. Tell me of your town\nand parents, what manner of ship you came in, how crew brought you to\nIthaca, and from what country they professed to come--for you cannot\nhave come by land.\"\n\nAnd Ulysses answered, \"I will tell you all about it. If there were meat\nand wine enough, and we could stay here in the hut with nothing to do\nbut to eat and drink while the others go to their work, I could easily\ntalk on for a whole twelve months without ever finishing the story of\nthe sorrows with which it has pleased heaven to visit me.\n\n\"I am by birth a Cretan; my father was a well to do man, who had many\nsons born in marriage, whereas I was the son of a slave whom he had\npurchased for a concubine; nevertheless, my father Castor son of Hylax\n(whose lineage I claim, and who was held in the highest honour among the\nCretans for his wealth, prosperity, and the valour of his sons) put me\non the same level with my brothers who had been born in wedlock. When,\nhowever, death took him to the house of Hades, his sons divided his\nestate and cast lots for their shares, but to me they gave a holding\nand little else; nevertheless, my valour enabled me to marry into a rich\nfamily, for I was not given to bragging, or shirking on the field of\nbattle. It is all over now; still, if you look at the straw you can see\nwhat the ear was, for I have had trouble enough and to spare. Mars and\nMinerva made me doughty in war; when I had picked my men to surprise the\nenemy with an ambuscade I never gave death so much as a thought, but was\nthe first to leap forward and spear all whom I could overtake. Such was\nI in battle, but I did not care about farm work, nor the frugal home\nlife of those who would bring up children. My delight was in ships,\nfighting, javelins, and arrows--things that most men shudder to think\nof; but one man likes one thing and another another, and this was what\nI was most naturally inclined to. Before the Achaeans went to Troy,\nnine times was I in command of men and ships on foreign service, and I\namassed much wealth. I had my pick of the spoil in the first instance,\nand much more was allotted to me later on.\n\n\"My house grew apace and I became a great man among the Cretans,\nbut when Jove counselled that terrible expedition, in which so many\nperished, the people required me and Idomeneus to lead their ships to\nTroy, and there was no way out of it, for they insisted on our doing\nso. There we fought for nine whole years, but in the tenth we sacked the\ncity of Priam and sailed home again as heaven dispersed us. Then it was\nthat Jove devised evil against me. I spent but one month happily with my\nchildren, wife, and property, and then I conceived the idea of making a\ndescent on Egypt, so I fitted out a fine fleet and manned it. I had nine\nships, and the people flocked to fill them. For six days I and my men\nmade feast, and I found them many victims both for sacrifice to the gods\nand for themselves, but on the seventh day we went on board and set sail\nfrom Crete with a fair North wind behind us though we were going down a\nriver. Nothing went ill with any of our ships, and we had no sickness\non board, but sat where we were and let the ships go as the wind and\nsteersmen took them. On the fifth day we reached the river Aegyptus;\nthere I stationed my ships in the river, bidding my men stay by them and\nkeep guard over them while I sent out scouts to reconnoitre from every\npoint of vantage.\n\n\"But the men disobeyed my orders, took to their own devices, and ravaged\nthe land of the Egyptians, killing the men, and taking their wives and\nchildren captive. The alarm was soon carried to the city, and when they\nheard the war cry, the people came out at daybreak till the plain was\nfilled with horsemen and foot soldiers and with the gleam of armour.\nThen Jove spread panic among my men, and they would no longer face the\nenemy, for they found themselves surrounded. The Egyptians killed many\nof us, and took the rest alive to do forced labour for them. Jove,\nhowever, put it in my mind to do thus--and I wish I had died then and\nthere in Egypt instead, for there was much sorrow in store for me--I\ntook off my helmet and shield and dropped my spear from my hand; then\nI went straight up to the king's chariot, clasped his knees and kissed\nthem, whereon he spared my life, bade me get into his chariot, and took\nme weeping to his own home. Many made at me with their ashen spears and\ntried to kill me in their fury, but the king protected me, for he feared\nthe wrath of Jove the protector of strangers, who punishes those who do\nevil.\n\n\"I stayed there for seven years and got together much money among the\nEgyptians, for they all gave me something; but when it was now going on\nfor eight years there came a certain Phoenician, a cunning rascal, who\nhad already committed all sorts of villainy, and this man talked me over\ninto going with him to Phoenicia, where his house and his possessions\nlay. I stayed there for a whole twelve months, but at the end of that\ntime when months and days had gone by till the same season had come\nround again, he set me on board a ship bound for Libya, on a pretence\nthat I was to take a cargo along with him to that place, but really that\nhe might sell me as a slave and take the money I fetched. I suspected\nhis intention, but went on board with him, for I could not help it.\n\n\"The ship ran before a fresh North wind till we had reached the sea\nthat lies between Crete and Libya; there, however, Jove counselled their\ndestruction, for as soon as we were well out from Crete and could see\nnothing but sea and sky, he raised a black cloud over our ship and the\nsea grew dark beneath it. Then Jove let fly with his thunderbolts and\nthe ship went round and round and was filled with fire and brimstone\nas the lightning struck it. The men fell all into the sea; they\nwere carried about in the water round the ship looking like so many\nsea-gulls, but the god presently deprived them of all chance of getting\nhome again. I was all dismayed. Jove, however, sent the ship's mast\nwithin my reach, which saved my life, for I clung to it, and drifted\nbefore the fury of the gale. Nine days did I drift but in the darkness\nof the tenth night a great wave bore me on to the Thesprotian coast.\nThere Pheidon king of the Thesprotians entertained me hospitably without\ncharging me anything at all--for his son found me when I was nearly dead\nwith cold and fatigue, whereon he raised me by the hand, took me to his\nfather's house and gave me clothes to wear.\n\n\"There it was that I heard news of Ulysses, for the king told me he\nhad entertained him, and shown him much hospitality while he was on his\nhomeward journey. He showed me also the treasure of gold, and wrought\niron that Ulysses had got together. There was enough to keep his family\nfor ten generations, so much had he left in the house of king Pheidon.\nBut the king said Ulysses had gone to Dodona that he might learn Jove's\nmind from the god's high oak tree, and know whether after so long an\nabsence he should return to Ithaca openly, or in secret. Moreover the\nking swore in my presence, making drink-offerings in his own house as\nhe did so, that the ship was by the water side, and the crew found,\nthat should take him to his own country. He sent me off however before\nUlysses returned, for there happened to be a Thesprotian ship sailing\nfor the wheat-growing island of Dulichium, and he told those in charge\nof her to be sure and take me safely to King Acastus.\n\n\"These men hatched a plot against me that would have reduced me to the\nvery extreme of misery, for when the ship had got some way out from land\nthey resolved on selling me as a slave. They stripped me of the shirt\nand cloak that I was wearing, and gave me instead the tattered old\nclouts in which you now see me; then, towards nightfall, they reached\nthe tilled lands of Ithaca, and there they bound me with a strong rope\nfast in the ship, while they went on shore to get supper by the sea\nside. But the gods soon undid my bonds for me, and having drawn my rags\nover my head I slid down the rudder into the sea, where I struck out and\nswam till I was well clear of them, and came ashore near a thick wood\nin which I lay concealed. They were very angry at my having escaped and\nwent searching about for me, till at last they thought it was no further\nuse and went back to their ship. The gods, having hidden me thus easily,\nthen took me to a good man's door--for it seems that I am not to die yet\nawhile.\"\n\nTo this you answered, O swineherd Eumaeus, \"Poor unhappy stranger, I\nhave found the story of your misfortunes extremely interesting, but that\npart about Ulysses is not right; and you will never get me to believe\nit. Why should a man like you go about telling lies in this way? I know\nall about the return of my master. The gods one and all of them detest\nhim, or they would have taken him before Troy, or let him die with\nfriends around him when the days of his fighting were done; for then the\nAchaeans would have built a mound over his ashes and his son would have\nbeen heir to his renown, but now the storm winds have spirited him away\nwe know not whither.\n\n\"As for me I live out of the way here with the pigs, and never go to the\ntown unless when Penelope sends for me on the arrival of some news\nabout Ulysses. Then they all sit round and ask questions, both those who\ngrieve over the king's absence, and those who rejoice at it because they\ncan eat up his property without paying for it. For my own part I have\nnever cared about asking anyone else since the time when I was taken in\nby an Aetolian, who had killed a man and come a long way till at last\nhe reached my station, and I was very kind to him. He said he had seen\nUlysses with Idomeneus among the Cretans, refitting his ships which had\nbeen damaged in a gale. He said Ulysses would return in the following\nsummer or autumn with his men, and that he would bring back much wealth.\nAnd now you, you unfortunate old man, since fate has brought you to my\ndoor, do not try to flatter me in this way with vain hopes. It is not\nfor any such reason that I shall treat you kindly, but only out of\nrespect for Jove the god of hospitality, as fearing him and pitying\nyou.\"\n\nUlysses answered, \"I see that you are of an unbelieving mind; I have\ngiven you my oath, and yet you will not credit me; let us then make a\nbargain, and call all the gods in heaven to witness it. If your master\ncomes home, give me a cloak and shirt of good wear, and send me to\nDulichium where I want to go; but if he does not come as I say he will,\nset your men on to me, and tell them to throw me from yonder precipice,\nas a warning to tramps not to go about the country telling lies.\"\n\n\"And a pretty figure I should cut then,\" replied Eumaeus, \"both now and\nhereafter, if I were to kill you after receiving you into my hut and\nshowing you hospitality. I should have to say my prayers in good earnest\nif I did; but it is just supper time and I hope my men will come in\ndirectly, that we may cook something savoury for supper.\"\n\nThus did they converse, and presently the swineherds came up with\nthe pigs, which were then shut up for the night in their styes, and a\ntremendous squealing they made as they were being driven into them. But\nEumaeus called to his men and said, \"Bring in the best pig you have,\nthat I may sacrifice him for this stranger, and we will take toll of him\nourselves. We have had trouble enough this long time feeding pigs, while\nothers reap the fruit of our labour.\"\n\nOn this he began chopping firewood, while the others brought in a fine\nfat five year old boar pig, and set it at the altar. Eumaeus did not\nforget the gods, for he was a man of good principles, so the first thing\nhe did was to cut bristles from the pig's face and throw them into the\nfire, praying to all the gods as he did so that Ulysses might return\nhome again. Then he clubbed the pig with a billet of oak which he had\nkept back when he was chopping the firewood, and stunned it, while the\nothers slaughtered and singed it. Then they cut it up, and Eumaeus began\nby putting raw pieces from each joint on to some of the fat; these he\nsprinkled with barley meal, and laid upon the embers; they cut the rest\nof the meat up small, put the pieces upon the spits and roasted them\ntill they were done; when they had taken them off the spits they\nthrew them on to the dresser in a heap. The swineherd, who was a most\nequitable man, then stood up to give every one his share. He made seven\nportions; one of these he set apart for Mercury the son of Maia and the\nnymphs, praying to them as he did so; the others he dealt out to the men\nman by man. He gave Ulysses some slices cut lengthways down the loin\nas a mark of especial honour, and Ulysses was much pleased. \"I hope,\nEumaeus,\" said he, \"that Jove will be as well disposed towards you as I\nam, for the respect you are showing to an outcast like myself.\"\n\nTo this you answered, O swineherd Eumaeus, \"Eat, my good fellow, and\nenjoy your supper, such as it is. God grants this, and withholds that,\njust as he thinks right, for he can do whatever he chooses.\"\n\nAs he spoke he cut off the first piece and offered it as a burnt\nsacrifice to the immortal gods; then he made them a drink-offering,\nput the cup in the hands of Ulysses, and sat down to his own portion.\nMesaulius brought them their bread; the swineherd had brought this man\non his own account from among the Taphians during his master's absence,\nand had paid for him with his own money without saying anything either\nto his mistress or Laertes. They then laid their hands upon the good\nthings that were before them, and when they had had enough to eat and\ndrink, Mesaulius took away what was left of the bread, and they all went\nto bed after having made a hearty supper.\n\nNow the night came on stormy and very dark, for there was no moon. It\npoured without ceasing, and the wind blew strong from the West, which is\na wet quarter, so Ulysses thought he would see whether Eumaeus, in the\nexcellent care he took of him, would take off his own cloak and give\nit him, or make one of his men give him one. \"Listen to me,\" said he,\n\"Eumaeus and the rest of you; when I have said a prayer I will tell you\nsomething. It is the wine that makes me talk in this way; wine will make\neven a wise man fall to singing; it will make him chuckle and dance\nand say many a word that he had better leave unspoken; still, as I have\nbegun, I will go on. Would that I were still young and strong as when we\ngot up an ambuscade before Troy. Menelaus and Ulysses were the leaders,\nbut I was in command also, for the other two would have it so. When we\nhad come up to the wall of the city we crouched down beneath our armour\nand lay there under cover of the reeds and thick brushwood that grew\nabout the swamp. It came on to freeze with a North wind blowing; the\nsnow fell small and fine like hoar frost, and our shields were coated\nthick with rime. The others had all got cloaks and shirts, and slept\ncomfortably enough with their shields about their shoulders, but I had\ncarelessly left my cloak behind me, not thinking that I should be too\ncold, and had gone off in nothing but my shirt and shield. When the\nnight was two-thirds through and the stars had shifted their places, I\nnudged Ulysses who was close to me with my elbow, and he at once gave me\nhis ear.\n\n\"'Ulysses,' said I, 'this cold will be the death of me, for I have no\ncloak; some god fooled me into setting off with nothing on but my shirt,\nand I do not know what to do.'\n\n\"Ulysses, who was as crafty as he was valiant, hit upon the following\nplan:\n\n\"'Keep still,' said he in a low voice, 'or the others will hear you.'\nThen he raised his head on his elbow.\n\n\"'My friends,' said he, 'I have had a dream from heaven in my sleep. We\nare a long way from the ships; I wish some one would go down and tell\nAgamemnon to send us up more men at once.'\n\n\"On this Thoas son of Andraemon threw off his cloak and set out running\nto the ships, whereon I took the cloak and lay in it comfortably enough\ntill morning. Would that I were still young and strong as I was in those\ndays, for then some one of you swineherds would give me a cloak both out\nof good will and for the respect due to a brave soldier; but now people\nlook down upon me because my clothes are shabby.\"\n\nAnd Eumaeus answered, \"Old man, you have told us an excellent story,\nand have said nothing so far but what is quite satisfactory; for the\npresent, therefore, you shall want neither clothing nor anything else\nthat a stranger in distress may reasonably expect, but to-morrow morning\nyou have to shake your own old rags about your body again, for we have\nnot many spare cloaks nor shirts up here, but every man has only one.\nWhen Ulysses' son comes home again he will give you both cloak and\nshirt, and send you wherever you may want to go.\"\n\nWith this he got up and made a bed for Ulysses by throwing some\ngoatskins and sheepskins on the ground in front of the fire. Here\nUlysses lay down, and Eumaeus covered him over with a great heavy cloak\nthat he kept for a change in case of extraordinarily bad weather.\n\nThus did Ulysses sleep, and the young men slept beside him. But the\nswineherd did not like sleeping away from his pigs, so he got ready\nto go outside, and Ulysses was glad to see that he looked after his\nproperty during his master's absence. First he slung his sword over his\nbrawny shoulders and put on a thick cloak to keep out the wind. He also\ntook the skin of a large and well fed goat, and a javelin in case of\nattack from men or dogs. Thus equipped he went to his rest where the\npigs were camping under an overhanging rock that gave them shelter from\nthe North wind.\n\n\nBook XV\n\nMINERVA SUMMONS TELEMACHUS FROM LACEDAEMON--HE MEETS WITH THEOCLYMENUS\nAT PYLOS AND BRINGS HIM TO ITHACA--ON LANDING HE GOES TO THE HUT OF\nEUMAEUS.\n\nBut Minerva went to the fair city of Lacedaemon to tell Ulysses' son\nthat he was to return at once. She found him and Pisistratus sleeping\nin the forecourt of Menelaus's house; Pisistratus was fast asleep,\nbut Telemachus could get no rest all night for thinking of his unhappy\nfather, so Minerva went close up to him and said:\n\n\"Telemachus, you should not remain so far away from home any longer, nor\nleave your property with such dangerous people in your house; they\nwill eat up everything you have among them, and you will have been on a\nfool's errand. Ask Menelaus to send you home at once if you wish to\nfind your excellent mother still there when you get back. Her father and\nbrothers are already urging her to marry Eurymachus, who has given her\nmore than any of the others, and has been greatly increasing his wedding\npresents. I hope nothing valuable may have been taken from the house in\nspite of you, but you know what women are--they always want to do the\nbest they can for the man who marries them, and never give another\nthought to the children of their first husband, nor to their father\neither when he is dead and done with. Go home, therefore, and put\neverything in charge of the most respectable woman servant that you\nhave, until it shall please heaven to send you a wife of your own. Let\nme tell you also of another matter which you had better attend to. The\nchief men among the suitors are lying in wait for you in the Strait\n{128} between Ithaca and Samos, and they mean to kill you before you\ncan reach home. I do not much think they will succeed; it is more likely\nthat some of those who are now eating up your property will find a grave\nthemselves. Sail night and day, and keep your ship well away from the\nislands; the god who watches over you and protects you will send you a\nfair wind. As soon as you get to Ithaca send your ship and men on to the\ntown, but yourself go straight to the swineherd who has charge of your\npigs; he is well disposed towards you, stay with him, therefore, for the\nnight, and then send him to Penelope to tell her that you have got back\nsafe from Pylos.\"\n\nThen she went back to Olympus; but Telemachus stirred Pisistratus with\nhis heel to rouse him, and said, \"Wake up Pisistratus, and yoke the\nhorses to the chariot, for we must set off home.\" {129}\n\nBut Pisistratus said, \"No matter what hurry we are in we cannot drive\nin the dark. It will be morning soon; wait till Menelaus has brought his\npresents and put them in the chariot for us; and let him say good bye to\nus in the usual way. So long as he lives a guest should never forget a\nhost who has shown him kindness.\"\n\nAs he spoke day began to break, and Menelaus, who had already risen,\nleaving Helen in bed, came towards them. When Telemachus saw him he\nput on his shirt as fast as he could, threw a great cloak over his\nshoulders, and went out to meet him. \"Menelaus,\" said he, \"let me go\nback now to my own country, for I want to get home.\"\n\nAnd Menelaus answered, \"Telemachus, if you insist on going I will not\ndetain you. I do not like to see a host either too fond of his guest or\ntoo rude to him. Moderation is best in all things, and not letting a\nman go when he wants to do so is as bad as telling him to go if he would\nlike to stay. One should treat a guest well as long as he is in the\nhouse and speed him when he wants to leave it. Wait, then, till I\ncan get your beautiful presents into your chariot, and till you have\nyourself seen them. I will tell the women to prepare a sufficient dinner\nfor you of what there may be in the house; it will be at once more\nproper and cheaper for you to get your dinner before setting out on\nsuch a long journey. If, moreover, you have a fancy for making a tour\nin Hellas or in the Peloponnese, I will yoke my horses, and will conduct\nyou myself through all our principal cities. No one will send us away\nempty handed; every one will give us something--a bronze tripod, a\ncouple of mules, or a gold cup.\"\n\n\"Menelaus,\" replied Telemachus, \"I want to go home at once, for when\nI came away I left my property without protection, and fear that\nwhile looking for my father I shall come to ruin myself, or find that\nsomething valuable has been stolen during my absence.\"\n\nWhen Menelaus heard this he immediately told his wife and servants to\nprepare a sufficient dinner from what there might be in the house. At\nthis moment Eteoneus joined him, for he lived close by and had just got\nup; so Menelaus told him to light the fire and cook some meat, which he\nat once did. Then Menelaus went down into his fragrant store room, {130}\nnot alone, but Helen went too, with Megapenthes. When he reached the\nplace where the treasures of his house were kept, he selected a double\ncup, and told his son Megapenthes to bring also a silver mixing bowl.\nMeanwhile Helen went to the chest where she kept the lovely dresses\nwhich she had made with her own hands, and took out one that was largest\nand most beautifully enriched with embroidery; it glittered like a star,\nand lay at the very bottom of the chest. {131} Then they all came back\nthrough the house again till they got to Telemachus, and Menelaus said,\n\"Telemachus, may Jove, the mighty husband of Juno, bring you safely home\naccording to your desire. I will now present you with the finest and\nmost precious piece of plate in all my house. It is a mixing bowl of\npure silver, except the rim, which is inlaid with gold, and it is the\nwork of Vulcan. Phaedimus king of the Sidonians made me a present of it\nin the course of a visit that I paid him while I was on my return home.\nI should like to give it to you.\"\n\nWith these words he placed the double cup in the hands of Telemachus,\nwhile Megapenthes brought the beautiful mixing bowl and set it before\nhim. Hard by stood lovely Helen with the robe ready in her hand.\n\n\"I too, my son,\" said she, \"have something for you as a keepsake from\nthe hand of Helen; it is for your bride to wear upon her wedding day.\nTill then, get your dear mother to keep it for you; thus may you go back\nrejoicing to your own country and to your home.\"\n\nSo saying she gave the robe over to him and he received it gladly. Then\nPisistratus put the presents into the chariot, and admired them all as\nhe did so. Presently Menelaus took Telemachus and Pisistratus into the\nhouse, and they both of them sat down to table. A maid servant brought\nthem water in a beautiful golden ewer, and poured it into a silver basin\nfor them to wash their hands, and she drew a clean table beside them;\nan upper servant brought them bread and offered them many good things of\nwhat there was in the house. Eteoneus carved the meat and gave them each\ntheir portions, while Megapenthes poured out the wine. Then they laid\ntheir hands upon the good things that were before them, but as soon as\nthey had had enough to eat and drink Telemachus and Pisistratus yoked\nthe horses, and took their places in the chariot. They drove out through\nthe inner gateway and under the echoing gatehouse of the outer court,\nand Menelaus came after them with a golden goblet of wine in his right\nhand that they might make a drink-offering before they set out. He stood\nin front of the horses and pledged them, saying, \"Farewell to both of\nyou; see that you tell Nestor how I have treated you, for he was as\nkind to me as any father could be while we Achaeans were fighting before\nTroy.\"\n\n\"We will be sure, sir,\" answered Telemachus, \"to tell him everything as\nsoon as we see him. I wish I were as certain of finding Ulysses returned\nwhen I get back to Ithaca, that I might tell him of the very great\nkindness you have shown me and of the many beautiful presents I am\ntaking with me.\"\n\nAs he was thus speaking a bird flew on his right hand--an eagle with a\ngreat white goose in its talons which it had carried off from the farm\nyard--and all the men and women were running after it and shouting. It\ncame quite close up to them and flew away on their right hands in front\nof the horses. When they saw it they were glad, and their hearts took\ncomfort within them, whereon Pisistratus said, \"Tell me, Menelaus, has\nheaven sent this omen for us or for you?\"\n\nMenelaus was thinking what would be the most proper answer for him to\nmake, but Helen was too quick for him and said, \"I will read this matter\nas heaven has put it in my heart, and as I doubt not that it will come\nto pass. The eagle came from the mountain where it was bred and has\nits nest, and in like manner Ulysses, after having travelled far and\nsuffered much, will return to take his revenge--if indeed he is not back\nalready and hatching mischief for the suitors.\"\n\n\"May Jove so grant it,\" replied Telemachus, \"if it should prove to be\nso, I will make vows to you as though you were a god, even when I am at\nhome.\"\n\nAs he spoke he lashed his horses and they started off at full speed\nthrough the town towards the open country. They swayed the yoke upon\ntheir necks and travelled the whole day long till the sun set and\ndarkness was over all the land. Then they reached Pherae, where Diocles\nlived who was son of Ortilochus, the son of Alpheus. There they passed\nthe night and were treated hospitably. When the child of morning,\nrosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, they again yoked their horses and their\nplaces in the chariot. They drove out through the inner gateway and\nunder the echoing gatehouse of the outer court. Then Pisistratus lashed\nhis horses on and they flew forward nothing loath; ere long they came to\nPylos, and then Telemachus said:\n\n\"Pisistratus, I hope you will promise to do what I am going to ask you.\nYou know our fathers were old friends before us; moreover, we are both\nof an age, and this journey has brought us together still more closely;\ndo not, therefore, take me past my ship, but leave me there, for if I go\nto your father's house he will try to keep me in the warmth of his good\nwill towards me, and I must go home at once.\"\n\nPisistratus thought how he should do as he was asked, and in the end he\ndeemed it best to turn his horses towards the ship, and put Menelaus's\nbeautiful presents of gold and raiment in the stern of the vessel. Then\nhe said, \"Go on board at once and tell your men to do so also before\nI can reach home to tell my father. I know how obstinate he is, and am\nsure he will not let you go; he will come down here to fetch you, and he\nwill not go back without you. But he will be very angry.\"\n\nWith this he drove his goodly steeds back to the city of the Pylians and\nsoon reached his home, but Telemachus called the men together and gave\nhis orders. \"Now, my men,\" said he, \"get everything in order on board\nthe ship, and let us set out home.\"\n\nThus did he speak, and they went on board even as he had said. But as\nTelemachus was thus busied, praying also and sacrificing to Minerva\nin the ship's stern, there came to him a man from a distant country,\na seer, who was flying from Argos because he had killed a man. He was\ndescended from Melampus, who used to live in Pylos, the land of sheep;\nhe was rich and owned a great house, but he was driven into exile by the\ngreat and powerful king Neleus. Neleus seized his goods and held them\nfor a whole year, during which he was a close prisoner in the house\nof king Phylacus, and in much distress of mind both on account of the\ndaughter of Neleus and because he was haunted by a great sorrow that\ndread Erinys had laid upon him. In the end, however, he escaped with his\nlife, drove the cattle from Phylace to Pylos, avenged the wrong that had\nbeen done him, and gave the daughter of Neleus to his brother. Then he\nleft the country and went to Argos, where it was ordained that he should\nreign over much people. There he married, established himself, and had\ntwo famous sons Antiphates and Mantius. Antiphates became father of\nOicleus, and Oicleus of Amphiaraus, who was dearly loved both by Jove\nand by Apollo, but he did not live to old age, for he was killed\nin Thebes by reason of a woman's gifts. His sons were Alcmaeon\nand Amphilochus. Mantius, the other son of Melampus, was father to\nPolypheides and Cleitus. Aurora, throned in gold, carried off Cleitus\nfor his beauty's sake, that he might dwell among the immortals, but\nApollo made Polypheides the greatest seer in the whole world now that\nAmphiaraus was dead. He quarrelled with his father and went to live in\nHyperesia, where he remained and prophesied for all men.\n\nHis son, Theoclymenus, it was who now came up to Telemachus as he was\nmaking drink-offerings and praying in his ship. \"Friend,\" said he,\n\"now that I find you sacrificing in this place, I beseech you by your\nsacrifices themselves, and by the god to whom you make them, I pray you\nalso by your own head and by those of your followers tell me the truth\nand nothing but the truth. Who and whence are you? Tell me also of your\ntown and parents.\"\n\nTelemachus said, \"I will answer you quite truly. I am from Ithaca, and\nmy father is Ulysses, as surely as that he ever lived. But he has come\nto some miserable end. Therefore I have taken this ship and got my crew\ntogether to see if I can hear any news of him, for he has been away a\nlong time.\"\n\n\"I too,\" answered Theoclymenus, \"am an exile, for I have killed a man\nof my own race. He has many brothers and kinsmen in Argos, and they\nhave great power among the Argives. I am flying to escape death at their\nhands, and am thus doomed to be a wanderer on the face of the earth. I\nam your suppliant; take me, therefore, on board your ship that they may\nnot kill me, for I know they are in pursuit.\"\n\n\"I will not refuse you,\" replied Telemachus, \"if you wish to join us.\nCome, therefore, and in Ithaca we will treat you hospitably according to\nwhat we have.\"\n\nOn this he received Theoclymenus' spear and laid it down on the deck of\nthe ship. He went on board and sat in the stern, bidding Theoclymenus\nsit beside him; then the men let go the hawsers. Telemachus told them to\ncatch hold of the ropes, and they made all haste to do so. They set the\nmast in its socket in the cross plank, raised it and made it fast with\nthe forestays, and they hoisted their white sails with sheets of twisted\nox hide. Minerva sent them a fair wind that blew fresh and strong to\ntake the ship on her course as fast as possible. Thus then they passed\nby Crouni and Chalcis.\n\nPresently the sun set and darkness was over all the land. The vessel\nmade a quick passage to Pheae and thence on to Elis, where the Epeans\nrule. Telemachus then headed her for the flying islands, {132} wondering\nwithin himself whether he should escape death or should be taken\nprisoner.\n\nMeanwhile Ulysses and the swineherd were eating their supper in the hut,\nand the men supped with them. As soon as they had had to eat and drink,\nUlysses began trying to prove the swineherd and see whether he would\ncontinue to treat him kindly, and ask him to stay on at the station or\npack him off to the city; so he said:\n\n\"Eumaeus, and all of you, to-morrow I want to go away and begin begging\nabout the town, so as to be no more trouble to you or to your men. Give\nme your advice therefore, and let me have a good guide to go with me\nand show me the way. I will go the round of the city begging as I needs\nmust, to see if any one will give me a drink and a piece of bread. I\nshould like also to go to the house of Ulysses and bring news of her\nhusband to Queen Penelope. I could then go about among the suitors and\nsee if out of all their abundance they will give me a dinner. I should\nsoon make them an excellent servant in all sorts of ways. Listen and\nbelieve when I tell you that by the blessing of Mercury who gives grace\nand good name to the works of all men, there is no one living who would\nmake a more handy servant than I should--to put fresh wood on the fire,\nchop fuel, carve, cook, pour out wine, and do all those services that\npoor men have to do for their betters.\"\n\nThe swineherd was very much disturbed when he heard this. \"Heaven help\nme,\" he exclaimed, \"what ever can have put such a notion as that into\nyour head? If you go near the suitors you will be undone to a certainty,\nfor their pride and insolence reach the very heavens. They would never\nthink of taking a man like you for a servant. Their servants are all\nyoung men, well dressed, wearing good cloaks and shirts, with well\nlooking faces and their hair always tidy, the tables are kept quite\nclean and are loaded with bread, meat, and wine. Stay where you are,\nthen; you are not in anybody's way; I do not mind your being here, no\nmore do any of the others, and when Telemachus comes home he will give\nyou a shirt and cloak and will send you wherever you want to go.\"\n\nUlysses answered, \"I hope you may be as dear to the gods as you are to\nme, for having saved me from going about and getting into trouble; there\nis nothing worse than being always on the tramp; still, when men have\nonce got low down in the world they will go through a great deal on\nbehalf of their miserable bellies. Since, however, you press me to stay\nhere and await the return of Telemachus, tell me about Ulysses' mother,\nand his father whom he left on the threshold of old age when he set\nout for Troy. Are they still living or are they already dead and in the\nhouse of Hades?\"\n\n\"I will tell you all about them,\" replied Eumaeus, \"Laertes is still\nliving and prays heaven to let him depart peacefully in his own house,\nfor he is terribly distressed about the absence of his son, and also\nabout the death of his wife, which grieved him greatly and aged him more\nthan anything else did. She came to an unhappy end {133} through sorrow\nfor her son: may no friend or neighbour who has dealt kindly by me come\nto such an end as she did. As long as she was still living, though she\nwas always grieving, I used to like seeing her and asking her how she\ndid, for she brought me up along with her daughter Ctimene, the youngest\nof her children; we were boy and girl together, and she made little\ndifference between us. When, however, we both grew up, they sent Ctimene\nto Same and received a splendid dowry for her. As for me, my mistress\ngave me a good shirt and cloak with a pair of sandals for my feet, and\nsent me off into the country, but she was just as fond of me as ever.\nThis is all over now. Still it has pleased heaven to prosper my work in\nthe situation which I now hold. I have enough to eat and drink, and can\nfind something for any respectable stranger who comes here; but there\nis no getting a kind word or deed out of my mistress, for the house has\nfallen into the hands of wicked people. Servants want sometimes to see\ntheir mistress and have a talk with her; they like to have something\nto eat and drink at the house, and something too to take back with them\ninto the country. This is what will keep servants in a good humour.\"\n\nUlysses answered, \"Then you must have been a very little fellow,\nEumaeus, when you were taken so far away from your home and parents.\nTell me, and tell me true, was the city in which your father and mother\nlived sacked and pillaged, or did some enemies carry you off when you\nwere alone tending sheep or cattle, ship you off here, and sell you for\nwhatever your master gave them?\"\n\n\"Stranger,\" replied Eumaeus, \"as regards your question: sit still, make\nyourself comfortable, drink your wine, and listen to me. The nights\nare now at their longest; there is plenty of time both for sleeping and\nsitting up talking together; you ought not to go to bed till bed time,\ntoo much sleep is as bad as too little; if any one of the others wishes\nto go to bed let him leave us and do so; he can then take my master's\npigs out when he has done breakfast in the morning. We too will sit here\neating and drinking in the hut, and telling one another stories about\nour misfortunes; for when a man has suffered much, and been buffeted\nabout in the world, he takes pleasure in recalling the memory of sorrows\nthat have long gone by. As regards your question, then, my tale is as\nfollows:\n\n\"You may have heard of an island called Syra that lies over above\nOrtygia, {134} where the land begins to turn round and look in another\ndirection. {135} It is not very thickly peopled, but the soil is good,\nwith much pasture fit for cattle and sheep, and it abounds with wine\nand wheat. Dearth never comes there, nor are the people plagued by any\nsickness, but when they grow old Apollo comes with Diana and kills them\nwith his painless shafts. It contains two communities, and the whole\ncountry is divided between these two. My father Ctesius son of Ormenus,\na man comparable to the gods, reigned over both.\n\n\"Now to this place there came some cunning traders from Phoenicia (for\nthe Phoenicians are great mariners) in a ship which they had freighted\nwith gewgaws of all kinds. There happened to be a Phoenician woman in\nmy father's house, very tall and comely, and an excellent servant; these\nscoundrels got hold of her one day when she was washing near their ship,\nseduced her, and cajoled her in ways that no woman can resist, no matter\nhow good she may be by nature. The man who had seduced her asked her who\nshe was and where she came from, and on this she told him her father's\nname. 'I come from Sidon,' said she, 'and am daughter to Arybas, a\nman rolling in wealth. One day as I was coming into the town from the\ncountry, some Taphian pirates seized me and took me here over the sea,\nwhere they sold me to the man who owns this house, and he gave them\ntheir price for me.'\n\n\"The man who had seduced her then said, 'Would you like to come along\nwith us to see the house of your parents and your parents themselves?\nThey are both alive and are said to be well off.'\n\n\"'I will do so gladly,' answered she, 'if you men will first swear me a\nsolemn oath that you will do me no harm by the way.'\n\n\"They all swore as she told them, and when they had completed their oath\nthe woman said, 'Hush; and if any of your men meets me in the street or\nat the well, do not let him speak to me, for fear some one should go and\ntell my master, in which case he would suspect something. He would put\nme in prison, and would have all of you murdered; keep your own counsel\ntherefore; buy your merchandise as fast as you can, and send me word\nwhen you have done loading. I will bring as much gold as I can lay my\nhands on, and there is something else also that I can do towards paying\nmy fare. I am nurse to the son of the good man of the house, a funny\nlittle fellow just able to run about. I will carry him off in your ship,\nand you will get a great deal of money for him if you take him and sell\nhim in foreign parts.'\n\n\"On this she went back to the house. The Phoenicians stayed a whole\nyear till they had loaded their ship with much precious merchandise,\nand then, when they had got freight enough, they sent to tell the\nwoman. Their messenger, a very cunning fellow, came to my father's house\nbringing a necklace of gold with amber beads strung among it; and\nwhile my mother and the servants had it in their hands admiring it and\nbargaining about it, he made a sign quietly to the woman and then went\nback to the ship, whereon she took me by the hand and led me out of the\nhouse. In the fore part of the house she saw the tables set with\nthe cups of guests who had been feasting with my father, as being in\nattendance on him; these were now all gone to a meeting of the public\nassembly, so she snatched up three cups and carried them off in the\nbosom of her dress, while I followed her, for I knew no better. The sun\nwas now set, and darkness was over all the land, so we hurried on as\nfast as we could till we reached the harbour, where the Phoenician ship\nwas lying. When they had got on board they sailed their ways over the\nsea, taking us with them, and Jove sent then a fair wind; six days did\nwe sail both night and day, but on the seventh day Diana struck the\nwoman and she fell heavily down into the ship's hold as though she were\na sea gull alighting on the water; so they threw her overboard to the\nseals and fishes, and I was left all sorrowful and alone. Presently the\nwinds and waves took the ship to Ithaca, where Laertes gave sundry of\nhis chattels for me, and thus it was that ever I came to set eyes upon\nthis country.\"\n\nUlysses answered, \"Eumaeus, I have heard the story of your misfortunes\nwith the most lively interest and pity, but Jove has given you good as\nwell as evil, for in spite of everything you have a good master, who\nsees that you always have enough to eat and drink; and you lead a good\nlife, whereas I am still going about begging my way from city to city.\"\n\nThus did they converse, and they had only a very little time left for\nsleep, for it was soon daybreak. In the mean time Telemachus and his\ncrew were nearing land, so they loosed the sails, took down the mast,\nand rowed the ship into the harbour. {136} They cast out their mooring\nstones and made fast the hawsers; they then got out upon the sea shore,\nmixed their wine, and got dinner ready. As soon as they had had enough\nto eat and drink Telemachus said, \"Take the ship on to the town, but\nleave me here, for I want to look after the herdsmen on one of my farms.\nIn the evening, when I have seen all I want, I will come down to the\ncity, and to-morrow morning in return for your trouble I will give you\nall a good dinner with meat and wine.\" {137}\n\nThen Theoclymenus said, \"And what, my dear young friend, is to become of\nme? To whose house, among all your chief men, am I to repair? or shall I\ngo straight to your own house and to your mother?\"\n\n\"At any other time,\" replied Telemachus, \"I should have bidden you go to\nmy own house, for you would find no want of hospitality; at the present\nmoment, however, you would not be comfortable there, for I shall be\naway, and my mother will not see you; she does not often show herself\neven to the suitors, but sits at her loom weaving in an upper chamber,\nout of their way; but I can tell you a man whose house you can go\nto--I mean Eurymachus the son of Polybus, who is held in the highest\nestimation by every one in Ithaca. He is much the best man and the most\npersistent wooer, of all those who are paying court to my mother and\ntrying to take Ulysses' place. Jove, however, in heaven alone knows\nwhether or no they will come to a bad end before the marriage takes\nplace.\"\n\nAs he was speaking a bird flew by upon his right hand--a hawk, Apollo's\nmessenger. It held a dove in its talons, and the feathers, as it tore\nthem off, {138} fell to the ground midway between Telemachus and the\nship. On this Theoclymenus called him apart and caught him by the hand.\n\"Telemachus,\" said he, \"that bird did not fly on your right hand without\nhaving been sent there by some god. As soon as I saw it I knew it was an\nomen; it means that you will remain powerful and that there will be no\nhouse in Ithaca more royal than your own.\"\n\n\"I wish it may prove so,\" answered Telemachus. \"If it does, I will show\nyou so much good will and give you so many presents that all who meet\nyou will congratulate you.\"\n\nThen he said to his friend Piraeus, \"Piraeus, son of Clytius, you have\nthroughout shown yourself the most willing to serve me of all those who\nhave accompanied me to Pylos; I wish you would take this stranger to\nyour own house and entertain him hospitably till I can come for him.\"\n\nAnd Piraeus answered, \"Telemachus, you may stay away as long as you\nplease, but I will look after him for you, and he shall find no lack of\nhospitality.\"\n\nAs he spoke he went on board, and bade the others do so also and loose\nthe hawsers, so they took their places in the ship. But Telemachus\nbound on his sandals, and took a long and doughty spear with a head\nof sharpened bronze from the deck of the ship. Then they loosed the\nhawsers, thrust the ship off from land, and made on towards the city\nas they had been told to do, while Telemachus strode on as fast as he\ncould, till he reached the homestead where his countless herds of\nswine were feeding, and where dwelt the excellent swineherd, who was so\ndevoted a servant to his master.\n\n\nBook XVI\n\nULYSSES REVEALS HIMSELF TO TELEMACHUS.\n\nMeanwhile Ulysses and the swineherd had lit a fire in the hut and were\nwere getting breakfast ready at daybreak, for they had sent the men out\nwith the pigs. When Telemachus came up, the dogs did not bark but fawned\nupon him, so Ulysses, hearing the sound of feet and noticing that the\ndogs did not bark, said to Eumaeus:\n\n\"Eumaeus, I hear footsteps; I suppose one of your men or some one of\nyour acquaintance is coming here, for the dogs are fawning upon him and\nnot barking.\"\n\nThe words were hardly out of his mouth before his son stood at the door.\nEumaeus sprang to his feet, and the bowls in which he was mixing wine\nfell from his hands, as he made towards his master. He kissed his head\nand both his beautiful eyes, and wept for joy. A father could not be\nmore delighted at the return of an only son, the child of his old age,\nafter ten years' absence in a foreign country and after having gone\nthrough much hardship. He embraced him, kissed him all over as though he\nhad come back from the dead, and spoke fondly to him saying:\n\n\"So you are come, Telemachus, light of my eyes that you are. When I\nheard you had gone to Pylos I made sure I was never going to see you any\nmore. Come in, my dear child, and sit down, that I may have a good look\nat you now you are home again; it is not very often you come into\nthe country to see us herdsmen; you stick pretty close to the town\ngenerally. I suppose you think it better to keep an eye on what the\nsuitors are doing.\"\n\n\"So be it, old friend,\" answered Telemachus, \"but I am come now because\nI want to see you, and to learn whether my mother is still at her\nold home or whether some one else has married her, so that the bed of\nUlysses is without bedding and covered with cobwebs.\"\n\n\"She is still at the house,\" replied Eumaeus, \"grieving and breaking her\nheart, and doing nothing but weep, both night and day continually.\"\n\nAs he spoke he took Telemachus' spear, whereon he crossed the stone\nthreshold and came inside. Ulysses rose from his seat to give him place\nas he entered, but Telemachus checked him; \"Sit down, stranger,\" said\nhe, \"I can easily find another seat, and there is one here who will lay\nit for me.\"\n\nUlysses went back to his own place, and Eumaeus strewed some green\nbrushwood on the floor and threw a sheepskin on top of it for Telemachus\nto sit upon. Then the swineherd brought them platters of cold meat, the\nremains from what they had eaten the day before, and he filled the bread\nbaskets with bread as fast as he could. He mixed wine also in bowls of\nivy-wood, and took his seat facing Ulysses. Then they laid their hands\non the good things that were before them, and as soon as they had had\nenough to eat and drink Telemachus said to Eumaeus, \"Old friend, where\ndoes this stranger come from? How did his crew bring him to Ithaca, and\nwho were they?--for assuredly he did not come here by land.\"\n\nTo this you answered, O swineherd Eumaeus, \"My son, I will tell you\nthe real truth. He says he is a Cretan, and that he has been a great\ntraveller. At this moment he is running away from a Thesprotian ship,\nand has taken refuge at my station, so I will put him into your hands.\nDo whatever you like with him, only remember that he is your suppliant.\"\n\n\"I am very much distressed,\" said Telemachus, \"by what you have just\ntold me. How can I take this stranger into my house? I am as yet young,\nand am not strong enough to hold my own if any man attacks me. My mother\ncannot make up her mind whether to stay where she is and look after the\nhouse out of respect for public opinion and the memory of her husband,\nor whether the time is now come for her to take the best man of those\nwho are wooing her, and the one who will make her the most advantageous\noffer; still, as the stranger has come to your station I will find him\na cloak and shirt of good wear, with a sword and sandals, and will send\nhim wherever he wants to go. Or if you like you can keep him here at the\nstation, and I will send him clothes and food that he may be no burden\non you and on your men; but I will not have him go near the suitors,\nfor they are very insolent, and are sure to ill treat him in a way that\nwould greatly grieve me; no matter how valiant a man may be he can do\nnothing against numbers, for they will be too strong for him.\"\n\nThen Ulysses said, \"Sir, it is right that I should say something myself.\nI am much shocked about what you have said about the insolent way in\nwhich the suitors are behaving in despite of such a man as you are. Tell\nme, do you submit to such treatment tamely, or has some god set your\npeople against you? May you not complain of your brothers--for it is to\nthese that a man may look for support, however great his quarrel may be?\nI wish I were as young as you are and in my present mind; if I were son\nto Ulysses, or, indeed, Ulysses himself, I would rather some one came\nand cut my head off, but I would go to the house and be the bane of\nevery one of these men. {139} If they were too many for me--I being\nsingle-handed--I would rather die fighting in my own house than see such\ndisgraceful sights day after day, strangers grossly maltreated, and men\ndragging the women servants about the house in an unseemly way, wine\ndrawn recklessly, and bread wasted all to no purpose for an end that\nshall never be accomplished.\"\n\nAnd Telemachus answered, \"I will tell you truly everything. There is no\nenmity between me and my people, nor can I complain of brothers, to whom\na man may look for support however great his quarrel may be. Jove has\nmade us a race of only sons. Laertes was the only son of Arceisius, and\nUlysses only son of Laertes. I am myself the only son of Ulysses who\nleft me behind him when he went away, so that I have never been of any\nuse to him. Hence it comes that my house is in the hands of numberless\nmarauders; for the chiefs from all the neighbouring islands, Dulichium,\nSame, Zacynthus, as also all the principal men of Ithaca itself, are\neating up my house under the pretext of paying court to my mother, who\nwill neither say point blank that she will not marry, nor yet bring\nmatters to an end, so they are making havoc of my estate, and before\nlong will do so with myself into the bargain. The issue, however,\nrests with heaven. But do you, old friend Eumaeus, go at once and tell\nPenelope that I am safe and have returned from Pylos. Tell it to herself\nalone, and then come back here without letting any one else know, for\nthere are many who are plotting mischief against me.\"\n\n\"I understand and heed you,\" replied Eumaeus; \"you need instruct me no\nfurther, only as I am going that way say whether I had not better let\npoor Laertes know that you are returned. He used to superintend the work\non his farm in spite of his bitter sorrow about Ulysses, and he would\neat and drink at will along with his servants; but they tell me that\nfrom the day on which you set out for Pylos he has neither eaten nor\ndrunk as he ought to do, nor does he look after his farm, but sits\nweeping and wasting the flesh from off his bones.\"\n\n\"More's the pity,\" answered Telemachus, \"I am sorry for him, but we must\nleave him to himself just now. If people could have everything their own\nway, the first thing I should choose would be the return of my father;\nbut go, and give your message; then make haste back again, and do not\nturn out of your way to tell Laertes. Tell my mother to send one of her\nwomen secretly with the news at once, and let him hear it from her.\"\n\nThus did he urge the swineherd; Eumaeus, therefore, took his sandals,\nbound them to his feet, and started for the town. Minerva watched\nhim well off the station, and then came up to it in the form of a\nwoman--fair, stately, and wise. She stood against the side of the entry,\nand revealed herself to Ulysses, but Telemachus could not see her, and\nknew not that she was there, for the gods do not let themselves be seen\nby everybody. Ulysses saw her, and so did the dogs, for they did not\nbark, but went scared and whining off to the other side of the yards.\nShe nodded her head and motioned to Ulysses with her eyebrows; whereon\nhe left the hut and stood before her outside the main wall of the yards.\nThen she said to him:\n\n\"Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, it is now time for you to tell your\nson: do not keep him in the dark any longer, but lay your plans for the\ndestruction of the suitors, and then make for the town. I will not be\nlong in joining you, for I too am eager for the fray.\"\n\nAs she spoke she touched him with her golden wand. First she threw\na fair clean shirt and cloak about his shoulders; then she made him\nyounger and of more imposing presence; she gave him back his colour,\nfilled out his cheeks, and let his beard become dark again. Then she\nwent away and Ulysses came back inside the hut. His son was astounded\nwhen he saw him, and turned his eyes away for fear he might be looking\nupon a god.\n\n\"Stranger,\" said he, \"how suddenly you have changed from what you were\na moment or two ago. You are dressed differently and your colour is not\nthe same. Are you some one or other of the gods that live in heaven? If\nso, be propitious to me till I can make you due sacrifice and offerings\nof wrought gold. Have mercy upon me.\"\n\nAnd Ulysses said, \"I am no god, why should you take me for one? I am\nyour father, on whose account you grieve and suffer so much at the hands\nof lawless men.\"\n\nAs he spoke he kissed his son, and a tear fell from his cheek on to the\nground, for he had restrained all tears till now. But Telemachus could\nnot yet believe that it was his father, and said:\n\n\"You are not my father, but some god is flattering me with vain hopes\nthat I may grieve the more hereafter; no mortal man could of himself\ncontrive to do as you have been doing, and make yourself old and young\nat a moment's notice, unless a god were with him. A second ago you\nwere old and all in rags, and now you are like some god come down from\nheaven.\"\n\nUlysses answered, \"Telemachus, you ought not to be so immeasurably\nastonished at my being really here. There is no other Ulysses who will\ncome hereafter. Such as I am, it is I, who after long wandering and much\nhardship have got home in the twentieth year to my own country. What you\nwonder at is the work of the redoubtable goddess Minerva, who does with\nme whatever she will, for she can do what she pleases. At one moment she\nmakes me like a beggar, and the next I am a young man with good clothes\non my back; it is an easy matter for the gods who live in heaven to make\nany man look either rich or poor.\"\n\nAs he spoke he sat down, and Telemachus threw his arms about his father\nand wept. They were both so much moved that they cried aloud like eagles\nor vultures with crooked talons that have been robbed of their half\nfledged young by peasants. Thus piteously did they weep, and the sun\nwould have gone down upon their mourning if Telemachus had not suddenly\nsaid, \"In what ship, my dear father, did your crew bring you to Ithaca?\nOf what nation did they declare themselves to be--for you cannot have\ncome by land?\"\n\n\"I will tell you the truth, my son,\" replied Ulysses. \"It was the\nPhaeacians who brought me here. They are great sailors, and are in the\nhabit of giving escorts to any one who reaches their coasts. They took\nme over the sea while I was fast asleep, and landed me in Ithaca, after\ngiving me many presents in bronze, gold, and raiment. These things by\nheaven's mercy are lying concealed in a cave, and I am now come here on\nthe suggestion of Minerva that we may consult about killing our enemies.\nFirst, therefore, give me a list of the suitors, with their number, that\nI may learn who, and how many, they are. I can then turn the matter\nover in my mind, and see whether we two can fight the whole body of them\nourselves, or whether we must find others to help us.\"\n\nTo this Telemachus answered, \"Father, I have always heard of your renown\nboth in the field and in council, but the task you talk of is a very\ngreat one: I am awed at the mere thought of it; two men cannot stand\nagainst many and brave ones. There are not ten suitors only, nor twice\nten, but ten many times over; you shall learn their number at once.\nThere are fifty-two chosen youths from Dulichium, and they have six\nservants; from Same there are twenty-four; twenty young Achaeans from\nZacynthus, and twelve from Ithaca itself, all of them well born. They\nhave with them a servant Medon, a bard, and two men who can carve at\ntable. If we face such numbers as this, you may have bitter cause to rue\nyour coming, and your revenge. See whether you cannot think of some one\nwho would be willing to come and help us.\"\n\n\"Listen to me,\" replied Ulysses, \"and think whether Minerva and her\nfather Jove may seem sufficient, or whether I am to try and find some\none else as well.\"\n\n\"Those whom you have named,\" answered Telemachus, \"are a couple of good\nallies, for though they dwell high up among the clouds they have power\nover both gods and men.\"\n\n\"These two,\" continued Ulysses, \"will not keep long out of the fray,\nwhen the suitors and we join fight in my house. Now, therefore, return\nhome early to-morrow morning, and go about among the suitors as\nbefore. Later on the swineherd will bring me to the city disguised as a\nmiserable old beggar. If you see them ill treating me, steel your heart\nagainst my sufferings; even though they drag me feet foremost out of\nthe house, or throw things at me, look on and do nothing beyond gently\ntrying to make them behave more reasonably; but they will not listen to\nyou, for the day of their reckoning is at hand. Furthermore I say, and\nlay my saying to your heart; when Minerva shall put it in my mind, I\nwill nod my head to you, and on seeing me do this you must collect all\nthe armour that is in the house and hide it in the strong store room.\nMake some excuse when the suitors ask you why you are removing it; say\nthat you have taken it to be out of the way of the smoke, inasmuch as it\nis no longer what it was when Ulysses went away, but has become soiled\nand begrimed with soot. Add to this more particularly that you are\nafraid Jove may set them on to quarrel over their wine, and that they\nmay do each other some harm which may disgrace both banquet and wooing,\nfor the sight of arms sometimes tempts people to use them. But leave\na sword and a spear apiece for yourself and me, and a couple of oxhide\nshields so that we can snatch them up at any moment; Jove and Minerva\nwill then soon quiet these people. There is also another matter; if you\nare indeed my son and my blood runs in your veins, let no one know that\nUlysses is within the house--neither Laertes, nor yet the swineherd, nor\nany of the servants, nor even Penelope herself. Let you and me exploit\nthe women alone, and let us also make trial of some other of the men\nservants, to see who is on our side and whose hand is against us.\"\n\n\"Father,\" replied Telemachus, \"you will come to know me by and by, and\nwhen you do you will find that I can keep your counsel. I do not think,\nhowever, the plan you propose will turn out well for either of us. Think\nit over. It will take us a long time to go the round of the farms and\nexploit the men, and all the time the suitors will be wasting your\nestate with impunity and without compunction. Prove the women by all\nmeans, to see who are disloyal and who guiltless, but I am not in favour\nof going round and trying the men. We can attend to that later on, if\nyou really have some sign from Jove that he will support you.\"\n\nThus did they converse, and meanwhile the ship which had brought\nTelemachus and his crew from Pylos had reached the town of Ithaca. When\nthey had come inside the harbour they drew the ship on to the land;\ntheir servants came and took their armour from them, and they left all\nthe presents at the house of Clytius. Then they sent a servant to tell\nPenelope that Telemachus had gone into the country, but had sent the\nship to the town to prevent her from being alarmed and made unhappy.\nThis servant and Eumaeus happened to meet when they were both on the\nsame errand of going to tell Penelope. When they reached the House, the\nservant stood up and said to the queen in the presence of the waiting\nwomen, \"Your son, Madam, is now returned from Pylos\"; but Eumaeus went\nclose up to Penelope, and said privately all that her son had bidden\nhim tell her. When he had given his message he left the house with its\noutbuildings and went back to his pigs again.\n\nThe suitors were surprised and angry at what had happened, so they\nwent outside the great wall that ran round the outer court, and held\na council near the main entrance. Eurymachus, son of Polybus, was the\nfirst to speak.\n\n\"My friends,\" said he, \"this voyage of Telemachus's is a very serious\nmatter; we had made sure that it would come to nothing. Now, however,\nlet us draw a ship into the water, and get a crew together to send after\nthe others and tell them to come back as fast as they can.\"\n\nHe had hardly done speaking when Amphinomus turned in his place and\nsaw the ship inside the harbour, with the crew lowering her sails, and\nputting by their oars; so he laughed, and said to the others, \"We need\nnot send them any message, for they are here. Some god must have told\nthem, or else they saw the ship go by, and could not overtake her.\"\n\nOn this they rose and went to the water side. The crew then drew the\nship on shore; their servants took their armour from them, and they went\nup in a body to the place of assembly, but they would not let any one\nold or young sit along with them, and Antinous, son of Eupeithes, spoke\nfirst.\n\n\"Good heavens,\" said he, \"see how the gods have saved this man from\ndestruction. We kept a succession of scouts upon the headlands all day\nlong, and when the sun was down we never went on shore to sleep, but\nwaited in the ship all night till morning in the hope of capturing and\nkilling him; but some god has conveyed him home in spite of us. Let\nus consider how we can make an end of him. He must not escape us; our\naffair is never likely to come off while he is alive, for he is very\nshrewd, and public feeling is by no means all on our side. We must make\nhaste before he can call the Achaeans in assembly; he will lose no time\nin doing so, for he will be furious with us, and will tell all the world\nhow we plotted to kill him, but failed to take him. The people will not\nlike this when they come to know of it; we must see that they do us no\nhurt, nor drive us from our own country into exile. Let us try and\nlay hold of him either on his farm away from the town, or on the road\nhither. Then we can divide up his property amongst us, and let his\nmother and the man who marries her have the house. If this does not\nplease you, and you wish Telemachus to live on and hold his father's\nproperty, then we must not gather here and eat up his goods in this way,\nbut must make our offers to Penelope each from his own house, and she\ncan marry the man who will give the most for her, and whose lot it is to\nwin her.\"\n\nThey all held their peace until Amphinomus rose to speak. He was the son\nof Nisus, who was son to king Aretias, and he was foremost among all the\nsuitors from the wheat-growing and well grassed island of Dulichium; his\nconversation, moreover, was more agreeable to Penelope than that of any\nof the other suitors, for he was a man of good natural disposition. \"My\nfriends,\" said he, speaking to them plainly and in all honestly, \"I am\nnot in favour of killing Telemachus. It is a heinous thing to kill one\nwho is of noble blood. Let us first take counsel of the gods, and if the\noracles of Jove advise it, I will both help to kill him myself, and will\nurge everyone else to do so; but if they dissuade us, I would have you\nhold your hands.\"\n\nThus did he speak, and his words pleased them well, so they rose\nforthwith and went to the house of Ulysses, where they took their\naccustomed seats.\n\nThen Penelope resolved that she would show herself to the suitors. She\nknew of the plot against Telemachus, for the servant Medon had overheard\ntheir counsels and had told her; she went down therefore to the court\nattended by her maidens, and when she reached the suitors she stood by\none of the bearing-posts supporting the roof of the cloister holding a\nveil before her face, and rebuked Antinous saying:\n\n\"Antinous, insolent and wicked schemer, they say you are the best\nspeaker and counsellor of any man your own age in Ithaca, but you are\nnothing of the kind. Madman, why should you try to compass the death\nof Telemachus, and take no heed of suppliants, whose witness is Jove\nhimself? It is not right for you to plot thus against one another.\nDo you not remember how your father fled to this house in fear of the\npeople, who were enraged against him for having gone with some Taphian\npirates and plundered the Thesprotians who were at peace with us? They\nwanted to tear him in pieces and eat up everything he had, but Ulysses\nstayed their hands although they were infuriated, and now you devour his\nproperty without paying for it, and break my heart by wooing his wife\nand trying to kill his son. Leave off doing so, and stop the others\nalso.\"\n\nTo this Eurymachus son of Polybus answered, \"Take heart, Queen Penelope\ndaughter of Icarius, and do not trouble yourself about these matters.\nThe man is not yet born, nor never will be, who shall lay hands upon\nyour son Telemachus, while I yet live to look upon the face of the\nearth. I say--and it shall surely be--that my spear shall be reddened\nwith his blood; for many a time has Ulysses taken me on his knees,\nheld wine up to my lips to drink, and put pieces of meat into my hands.\nTherefore Telemachus is much the dearest friend I have, and has nothing\nto fear from the hands of us suitors. Of course, if death comes to him\nfrom the gods, he cannot escape it.\" He said this to quiet her, but in\nreality he was plotting against Telemachus.\n\nThen Penelope went upstairs again and mourned her husband till Minerva\nshed sleep over her eyes. In the evening Eumaeus got back to Ulysses\nand his son, who had just sacrificed a young pig of a year old and were\nhelping one another to get supper ready; Minerva therefore came up to\nUlysses, turned him into an old man with a stroke of her wand, and\nclad him in his old clothes again, for fear that the swineherd might\nrecognise him and not keep the secret, but go and tell Penelope.\n\nTelemachus was the first to speak. \"So you have got back, Eumaeus,\" said\nhe. \"What is the news of the town? Have the suitors returned, or are\nthey still waiting over yonder, to take me on my way home?\"\n\n\"I did not think of asking about that,\" replied Eumaeus, \"when I was in\nthe town. I thought I would give my message and come back as soon as I\ncould. I met a man sent by those who had gone with you to Pylos, and he\nwas the first to tell the news to your mother, but I can say what I saw\nwith my own eyes; I had just got on to the crest of the hill of Mercury\nabove the town when I saw a ship coming into harbour with a number of\nmen in her. They had many shields and spears, and I thought it was the\nsuitors, but I cannot be sure.\"\n\nOn hearing this Telemachus smiled to his father, but so that Eumaeus\ncould not see him.\n\nThen, when they had finished their work and the meal was ready, they ate\nit, and every man had his full share so that all were satisfied. As\nsoon as they had had enough to eat and drink, they laid down to rest and\nenjoyed the boon of sleep.\n\n\nBook XVII\n\nTELEMACHUS AND HIS MOTHER MEET--ULYSSES AND EUMAEUS COME DOWN TO THE\nTOWN, AND ULYSSES IS INSULTED BY MELANTHIUS--HE IS RECOGNISED BY THE\nDOG ARGOS--HE IS INSULTED AND PRESENTLY STRUCK BY ANTINOUS WITH A\nSTOOL--PENELOPE DESIRES THAT HE SHALL BE SENT TO HER.\n\nWhen the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, Telemachus\nbound on his sandals and took a strong spear that suited his hands, for\nhe wanted to go into the city. \"Old friend,\" said he to the swineherd,\n\"I will now go to the town and show myself to my mother, for she will\nnever leave off grieving till she has seen me. As for this unfortunate\nstranger, take him to the town and let him beg there of any one who will\ngive him a drink and a piece of bread. I have trouble enough of my own,\nand cannot be burdened with other people. If this makes him angry so\nmuch the worse for him, but I like to say what I mean.\"\n\nThen Ulysses said, \"Sir, I do not want to stay here; a beggar can always\ndo better in town than country, for any one who likes can give him\nsomething. I am too old to care about remaining here at the beck and\ncall of a master. Therefore let this man do as you have just told him,\nand take me to the town as soon as I have had a warm by the fire, and\nthe day has got a little heat in it. My clothes are wretchedly thin, and\nthis frosty morning I shall be perished with cold, for you say the city\nis some way off.\"\n\nOn this Telemachus strode off through the yards, brooding his revenge\nupon the suitors. When he reached home he stood his spear against a\nbearing-post of the cloister, crossed the stone floor of the cloister\nitself, and went inside.\n\nNurse Euryclea saw him long before any one else did. She was putting the\nfleeces on to the seats, and she burst out crying as she ran up to him;\nall the other maids came up too, and covered his head and shoulders with\ntheir kisses. Penelope came out of her room looking like Diana or Venus,\nand wept as she flung her arms about her son. She kissed his forehead\nand both his beautiful eyes, \"Light of my eyes,\" she cried as she spoke\nfondly to him, \"so you are come home again; I made sure I was never\ngoing to see you any more. To think of your having gone off to Pylos\nwithout saying anything about it or obtaining my consent. But come, tell\nme what you saw.\"\n\n\"Do not scold me, mother,\" answered Telemachus, \"nor vex me, seeing what\na narrow escape I have had, but wash your face, change your dress, go\nupstairs with your maids, and promise full and sufficient hecatombs to\nall the gods if Jove will only grant us our revenge upon the suitors. I\nmust now go to the place of assembly to invite a stranger who has come\nback with me from Pylos. I sent him on with my crew, and told Piraeus to\ntake him home and look after him till I could come for him myself.\"\n\nShe heeded her son's words, washed her face, changed her dress, and\nvowed full and sufficient hecatombs to all the gods if they would only\nvouchsafe her revenge upon the suitors.\n\nTelemachus went through, and out of, the cloisters spear in hand--not\nalone, for his two fleet dogs went with him. Minerva endowed him with a\npresence of such divine comeliness that all marvelled at him as he went\nby, and the suitors gathered round him with fair words in their mouths\nand malice in their hearts; but he avoided them, and went to sit with\nMentor, Antiphus, and Halitherses, old friends of his father's house,\nand they made him tell them all that had happened to him. Then Piraeus\ncame up with Theoclymenus, whom he had escorted through the town to the\nplace of assembly, whereon Telemachus at once joined them. Piraeus was\nfirst to speak: \"Telemachus,\" said he, \"I wish you would send some of\nyour women to my house to take away the presents Menelaus gave you.\"\n\n\"We do not know, Piraeus,\" answered Telemachus, \"what may happen. If\nthe suitors kill me in my own house and divide my property among them,\nI would rather you had the presents than that any of those people should\nget hold of them. If on the other hand I managed to kill them, I shall\nbe much obliged if you will kindly bring me my presents.\"\n\nWith these words he took Theoclymenus to his own house. When they got\nthere they laid their cloaks on the benches and seats, went into the\nbaths, and washed themselves. When the maids had washed and anointed\nthem, and had given them cloaks and shirts, they took their seats at\ntable. A maid servant then brought them water in a beautiful golden\newer, and poured it into a silver basin for them to wash their hands;\nand she drew a clean table beside them. An upper servant brought them\nbread and offered them many good things of what there was in the\nhouse. Opposite them sat Penelope, reclining on a couch by one of the\nbearing-posts of the cloister, and spinning. Then they laid their hands\non the good things that were before them, and as soon as they had had\nenough to eat and drink Penelope said:\n\n\"Telemachus, I shall go upstairs and lie down on that sad couch, which I\nhave not ceased to water with my tears, from the day Ulysses set out for\nTroy with the sons of Atreus. You failed, however, to make it clear to\nme before the suitors came back to the house, whether or no you had been\nable to hear anything about the return of your father.\"\n\n\"I will tell you then truth,\" replied her son. \"We went to Pylos and saw\nNestor, who took me to his house and treated me as hospitably as though\nI were a son of his own who had just returned after a long absence; so\nalso did his sons; but he said he had not heard a word from any\nhuman being about Ulysses, whether he was alive or dead. He sent me,\ntherefore, with a chariot and horses to Menelaus. There I saw Helen, for\nwhose sake so many, both Argives and Trojans, were in heaven's wisdom\ndoomed to suffer. Menelaus asked me what it was that had brought me to\nLacedaemon, and I told him the whole truth, whereon he said, 'So, then,\nthese cowards would usurp a brave man's bed? A hind might as well lay\nher new-born young in the lair of a lion, and then go off to feed in the\nforest or in some grassy dell. The lion, when he comes back to his lair,\nwill make short work with the pair of them, and so will Ulysses with\nthese suitors. By father Jove, Minerva, and Apollo, if Ulysses is still\nthe man that he was when he wrestled with Philomeleides in Lesbos, and\nthrew him so heavily that all the Greeks cheered him--if he is still\nsuch, and were to come near these suitors, they would have a short\nshrift and a sorry wedding. As regards your question, however, I will\nnot prevaricate nor deceive you, but what the old man of the sea told\nme, so much will I tell you in full. He said he could see Ulysses on\nan island sorrowing bitterly in the house of the nymph Calypso, who was\nkeeping him prisoner, and he could not reach his home, for he had no\nships nor sailors to take him over the sea.' This was what Menelaus told\nme, and when I had heard his story I came away; the gods then gave me a\nfair wind and soon brought me safe home again.\"\n\nWith these words he moved the heart of Penelope. Then Theoclymenus said\nto her:\n\n\"Madam, wife of Ulysses, Telemachus does not understand these things;\nlisten therefore to me, for I can divine them surely, and will hide\nnothing from you. May Jove the king of heaven be my witness, and the\nrites of hospitality, with that hearth of Ulysses to which I now come,\nthat Ulysses himself is even now in Ithaca, and, either going about the\ncountry or staying in one place, is enquiring into all these evil deeds\nand preparing a day of reckoning for the suitors. I saw an omen when I\nwas on the ship which meant this, and I told Telemachus about it.\"\n\n\"May it be even so,\" answered Penelope; \"if your words come true, you\nshall have such gifts and such good will from me that all who see you\nshall congratulate you.\"\n\nThus did they converse. Meanwhile the suitors were throwing discs, or\naiming with spears at a mark on the levelled ground in front of the\nhouse, and behaving with all their old insolence. But when it was now\ntime for dinner, and the flock of sheep and goats had come into the town\nfrom all the country round, {140} with their shepherds as usual, then\nMedon, who was their favourite servant, and who waited upon them at\ntable, said, \"Now then, my young masters, you have had enough sport, so\ncome inside that we may get dinner ready. Dinner is not a bad thing, at\ndinner time.\"\n\nThey left their sports as he told them, and when they were within the\nhouse, they laid their cloaks on the benches and seats inside, and then\nsacrificed some sheep, goats, pigs, and a heifer, all of them fat and\nwell grown. {141} Thus they made ready for their meal. In the meantime\nUlysses and the swineherd were about starting for the town, and the\nswineherd said, \"Stranger, I suppose you still want to go to town\nto-day, as my master said you were to do; for my own part I should have\nliked you to stay here as a station hand, but I must do as my master\ntells me, or he will scold me later on, and a scolding from one's master\nis a very serious thing. Let us then be off, for it is now broad day; it\nwill be night again directly and then you will find it colder.\" {142}\n\n\"I know, and understand you,\" replied Ulysses; \"you need say no more.\nLet us be going, but if you have a stick ready cut, let me have it to\nwalk with, for you say the road is a very rough one.\"\n\nAs he spoke he threw his shabby old tattered wallet over his shoulders,\nby the cord from which it hung, and Eumaeus gave him a stick to his\nliking. The two then started, leaving the station in charge of the dogs\nand herdsmen who remained behind; the swineherd led the way and his\nmaster followed after, looking like some broken down old tramp as he\nleaned upon his staff, and his clothes were all in rags. When they had\ngot over the rough steep ground and were nearing the city, they reached\nthe fountain from which the citizens drew their water. This had\nbeen made by Ithacus, Neritus, and Polyctor. There was a grove of\nwater-loving poplars planted in a circle all round it, and the clear\ncold water came down to it from a rock high up, {143} while above the\nfountain there was an altar to the nymphs, at which all wayfarers used\nto sacrifice. Here Melanthius son of Dolius overtook them as he was\ndriving down some goats, the best in his flock, for the suitors' dinner,\nand there were two shepherds with him. When he saw Eumaeus and Ulysses\nhe reviled them with outrageous and unseemly language, which made\nUlysses very angry.\n\n\"There you go,\" cried he, \"and a precious pair you are. See how heaven\nbrings birds of the same feather to one another. Where, pray, master\nswineherd, are you taking this poor miserable object? It would make any\none sick to see such a creature at table. A fellow like this never won a\nprize for anything in his life, but will go about rubbing his shoulders\nagainst every man's door post, and begging, not for swords and cauldrons\n{144} like a man, but only for a few scraps not worth begging for. If\nyou would give him to me for a hand on my station, he might do to clean\nout the folds, or bring a bit of sweet feed to the kids, and he could\nfatten his thighs as much as he pleased on whey; but he has taken to bad\nways and will not go about any kind of work; he will do nothing but\nbeg victuals all the town over, to feed his insatiable belly. I say,\ntherefore--and it shall surely be--if he goes near Ulysses' house he\nwill get his head broken by the stools they will fling at him, till they\nturn him out.\"\n\nOn this, as he passed, he gave Ulysses a kick on the hip out of pure\nwantonness, but Ulysses stood firm, and did not budge from the path. For\na moment he doubted whether or no to fly at Melanthius and kill him\nwith his staff, or fling him to the ground and beat his brains out;\nhe resolved, however, to endure it and keep himself in check, but the\nswineherd looked straight at Melanthius and rebuked him, lifting up his\nhands and praying to heaven as he did so.\n\n\"Fountain nymphs,\" he cried, \"children of Jove, if ever Ulysses burned\nyou thigh bones covered with fat whether of lambs or kids, grant my\nprayer that heaven may send him home. He would soon put an end to\nthe swaggering threats with which such men as you go about insulting\npeople--gadding all over the town while your flocks are going to ruin\nthrough bad shepherding.\"\n\nThen Melanthius the goatherd answered, \"You ill conditioned cur, what\nare you talking about? Some day or other I will put you on board ship\nand take you to a foreign country, where I can sell you and pocket the\nmoney you will fetch. I wish I were as sure that Apollo would strike\nTelemachus dead this very day, or that the suitors would kill him, as I\nam that Ulysses will never come home again.\"\n\nWith this he left them to come on at their leisure, while he went\nquickly forward and soon reached the house of his master. When he\ngot there he went in and took his seat among the suitors opposite\nEurymachus, who liked him better than any of the others. The servants\nbrought him a portion of meat, and an upper woman servant set bread\nbefore him that he might eat. Presently Ulysses and the swineherd came\nup to the house and stood by it, amid a sound of music, for Phemius was\njust beginning to sing to the suitors. Then Ulysses took hold of the\nswineherd's hand, and said:\n\n\"Eumaeus, this house of Ulysses is a very fine place. No matter how far\nyou go, you will find few like it. One building keeps following on after\nanother. The outer court has a wall with battlements all round it; the\ndoors are double folding, and of good workmanship; it would be a hard\nmatter to take it by force of arms. I perceive, too, that there are many\npeople banqueting within it, for there is a smell of roast meat, and\nI hear a sound of music, which the gods have made to go along with\nfeasting.\"\n\nThen Eumaeus said, \"You have perceived aright, as indeed you generally\ndo; but let us think what will be our best course. Will you go inside\nfirst and join the suitors, leaving me here behind you, or will you wait\nhere and let me go in first? But do not wait long, or some one may see\nyou loitering about outside, and throw something at you. Consider this\nmatter I pray you.\"\n\nAnd Ulysses answered, \"I understand and heed. Go in first and leave\nme here where I am. I am quite used to being beaten and having things\nthrown at me. I have been so much buffeted about in war and by sea that\nI am case-hardened, and this too may go with the rest. But a man cannot\nhide away the cravings of a hungry belly; this is an enemy which gives\nmuch trouble to all men; it is because of this that ships are fitted out\nto sail the seas, and to make war upon other people.\"\n\nAs they were thus talking, a dog that had been lying asleep raised his\nhead and pricked up his ears. This was Argos, whom Ulysses had bred\nbefore setting out for Troy, but he had never had any work out of him.\nIn the old days he used to be taken out by the young men when they went\nhunting wild goats, or deer, or hares, but now that his master was gone\nhe was lying neglected on the heaps of mule and cow dung that lay in\nfront of the stable doors till the men should come and draw it away\nto manure the great close; and he was full of fleas. As soon as he saw\nUlysses standing there, he dropped his ears and wagged his tail, but he\ncould not get close up to his master. When Ulysses saw the dog on the\nother side of the yard, he dashed a tear from his eyes without Eumaeus\nseeing it, and said:\n\n\"Eumaeus, what a noble hound that is over yonder on the manure heap: his\nbuild is splendid; is he as fine a fellow as he looks, or is he only one\nof those dogs that come begging about a table, and are kept merely for\nshow?\"\n\n\"This hound,\" answered Eumaeus, \"belonged to him who has died in a far\ncountry. If he were what he was when Ulysses left for Troy, he would\nsoon show you what he could do. There was not a wild beast in the forest\nthat could get away from him when he was once on its tracks. But now he\nhas fallen on evil times, for his master is dead and gone, and the women\ntake no care of him. Servants never do their work when their master's\nhand is no longer over them, for Jove takes half the goodness out of a\nman when he makes a slave of him.\"\n\nAs he spoke he went inside the buildings to the cloister where the\nsuitors were, but Argos died as soon as he had recognised his master.\n\nTelemachus saw Eumaeus long before any one else did, and beckoned him\nto come and sit beside him; so he looked about and saw a seat lying\nnear where the carver sat serving out their portions to the suitors; he\npicked it up, brought it to Telemachus's table, and sat down opposite\nhim. Then the servant brought him his portion, and gave him bread from\nthe bread-basket.\n\nImmediately afterwards Ulysses came inside, looking like a poor\nmiserable old beggar, leaning on his staff and with his clothes all in\nrags. He sat down upon the threshold of ash-wood just inside the doors\nleading from the outer to the inner court, and against a bearing-post of\ncypress-wood which the carpenter had skilfully planed, and had made to\njoin truly with rule and line. Telemachus took a whole loaf from the\nbread-basket, with as much meat as he could hold in his two hands, and\nsaid to Eumaeus, \"Take this to the stranger, and tell him to go\nthe round of the suitors, and beg from them; a beggar must not be\nshamefaced.\"\n\nSo Eumaeus went up to him and said, \"Stranger, Telemachus sends you\nthis, and says you are to go the round of the suitors begging, for\nbeggars must not be shamefaced.\"\n\nUlysses answered, \"May King Jove grant all happiness to Telemachus, and\nfulfil the desire of his heart.\"\n\nThen with both hands he took what Telemachus had sent him, and laid it\non the dirty old wallet at his feet. He went on eating it while the\nbard was singing, and had just finished his dinner as he left off.\nThe suitors applauded the bard, whereon Minerva went up to Ulysses and\nprompted him to beg pieces of bread from each one of the suitors, that\nhe might see what kind of people they were, and tell the good from the\nbad; but come what might she was not going to save a single one of them.\nUlysses, therefore, went on his round, going from left to right, and\nstretched out his hands to beg as though he were a real beggar. Some of\nthem pitied him, and were curious about him, asking one another who\nhe was and where he came from; whereon the goatherd Melanthius said,\n\"Suitors of my noble mistress, I can tell you something about him, for I\nhave seen him before. The swineherd brought him here, but I know nothing\nabout the man himself, nor where he comes from.\"\n\nOn this Antinous began to abuse the swineherd. \"You precious idiot,\" he\ncried, \"what have you brought this man to town for? Have we not tramps\nand beggars enough already to pester us as we sit at meat? Do you think\nit a small thing that such people gather here to waste your master's\nproperty--and must you needs bring this man as well?\"\n\nAnd Eumaeus answered, \"Antinous, your birth is good but your words evil.\nIt was no doing of mine that he came here. Who is likely to invite a\nstranger from a foreign country, unless it be one of those who can do\npublic service as a seer, a healer of hurts, a carpenter, or a bard who\ncan charm us with his singing? Such men are welcome all the world over,\nbut no one is likely to ask a beggar who will only worry him. You are\nalways harder on Ulysses' servants than any of the other suitors\nare, and above all on me, but I do not care so long as Telemachus and\nPenelope are alive and here.\"\n\nBut Telemachus said, \"Hush, do not answer him; Antinous has the\nbitterest tongue of all the suitors, and he makes the others worse.\"\n\nThen turning to Antinous he said, \"Antinous, you take as much care of\nmy interests as though I were your son. Why should you want to see this\nstranger turned out of the house? Heaven forbid; take something and give\nit him yourself; I do not grudge it; I bid you take it. Never mind my\nmother, nor any of the other servants in the house; but I know you will\nnot do what I say, for you are more fond of eating things yourself than\nof giving them to other people.\"\n\n\"What do you mean, Telemachus,\" replied Antinous, \"by this swaggering\ntalk? If all the suitors were to give him as much as I will, he would\nnot come here again for another three months.\"\n\nAs he spoke he drew the stool on which he rested his dainty feet from\nunder the table, and made as though he would throw it at Ulysses, but\nthe other suitors all gave him something, and filled his wallet with\nbread and meat; he was about, therefore, to go back to the threshold and\neat what the suitors had given him, but he first went up to Antinous and\nsaid:\n\n\"Sir, give me something; you are not, surely, the poorest man here; you\nseem to be a chief, foremost among them all; therefore you should be the\nbetter giver, and I will tell far and wide of your bounty. I too was a\nrich man once, and had a fine house of my own; in those days I gave to\nmany a tramp such as I now am, no matter who he might be nor what he\nwanted. I had any number of servants, and all the other things which\npeople have who live well and are accounted wealthy, but it pleased Jove\nto take all away from me. He sent me with a band of roving robbers to\nEgypt; it was a long voyage and I was undone by it. I stationed my ships\nin the river Aegyptus, and bade my men stay by them and keep guard\nover them, while I sent out scouts to reconnoitre from every point of\nvantage.\n\n\"But the men disobeyed my orders, took to their own devices, and ravaged\nthe land of the Egyptians, killing the men, and taking their wives and\nchildren captives. The alarm was soon carried to the city, and when they\nheard the war-cry, the people came out at daybreak till the plain was\nfilled with soldiers horse and foot, and with the gleam of armour. Then\nJove spread panic among my men, and they would no longer face the enemy,\nfor they found themselves surrounded. The Egyptians killed many of us,\nand took the rest alive to do forced labour for them; as for myself,\nthey gave me to a friend who met them, to take to Cyprus, Dmetor by\nname, son of Iasus, who was a great man in Cyprus. Thence I am come\nhither in a state of great misery.\"\n\nThen Antinous said, \"What god can have sent such a pestilence to plague\nus during our dinner? Get out, into the open part of the court, {145}\nor I will give you Egypt and Cyprus over again for your insolence and\nimportunity; you have begged of all the others, and they have given you\nlavishly, for they have abundance round them, and it is easy to be free\nwith other people's property when there is plenty of it.\"\n\nOn this Ulysses began to move off, and said, \"Your looks, my fine sir,\nare better than your breeding; if you were in your own house you would\nnot spare a poor man so much as a pinch of salt, for though you are in\nanother man's, and surrounded with abundance, you cannot find it in you\nto give him even a piece of bread.\"\n\nThis made Antinous very angry, and he scowled at him saying, \"You shall\npay for this before you get clear of the court.\" With these words he\nthrew a footstool at him, and hit him on the right shoulder blade near\nthe top of his back. Ulysses stood firm as a rock and the blow did not\neven stagger him, but he shook his head in silence as he brooded on his\nrevenge. Then he went back to the threshold and sat down there, laying\nhis well filled wallet at his feet.\n\n\"Listen to me,\" he cried, \"you suitors of Queen Penelope, that I may\nspeak even as I am minded. A man knows neither ache nor pain if he gets\nhit while fighting for his money, or for his sheep or his cattle; and\neven so Antinous has hit me while in the service of my miserable belly,\nwhich is always getting people into trouble. Still, if the poor have\ngods and avenging deities at all, I pray them that Antinous may come to\na bad end before his marriage.\"\n\n\"Sit where you are, and eat your victuals in silence, or be off\nelsewhere,\" shouted Antinous. \"If you say more I will have you dragged\nhand and foot through the courts, and the servants shall flay you\nalive.\"\n\nThe other suitors were much displeased at this, and one of the young men\nsaid, \"Antinous, you did ill in striking that poor wretch of a tramp: it\nwill be worse for you if he should turn out to be some god--and we know\nthe gods go about disguised in all sorts of ways as people from foreign\ncountries, and travel about the world to see who do amiss and who\nrighteously.\" {146}\n\nThus said the suitors, but Antinous paid them no heed. Meanwhile\nTelemachus was furious about the blow that had been given to his father,\nand though no tear fell from him, he shook his head in silence and\nbrooded on his revenge.\n\nNow when Penelope heard that the beggar had been struck in the\nbanqueting-cloister, she said before her maids, \"Would that Apollo would\nso strike you, Antinous,\" and her waiting woman Eurynome answered, \"If\nour prayers were answered not one of the suitors would ever again see\nthe sun rise.\" Then Penelope said, \"Nurse, {147} I hate every single one\nof them, for they mean nothing but mischief, but I hate Antinous like\nthe darkness of death itself. A poor unfortunate tramp has come begging\nabout the house for sheer want. Every one else has given him\nsomething to put in his wallet, but Antinous has hit him on the right\nshoulder-blade with a footstool.\"\n\nThus did she talk with her maids as she sat in her own room, and in\nthe meantime Ulysses was getting his dinner. Then she called for the\nswineherd and said, \"Eumaeus, go and tell the stranger to come here, I\nwant to see him and ask him some questions. He seems to have travelled\nmuch, and he may have seen or heard something of my unhappy husband.\"\n\nTo this you answered, O swineherd Eumaeus, \"If these Achaeans, Madam,\nwould only keep quiet, you would be charmed with the history of his\nadventures. I had him three days and three nights with me in my hut,\nwhich was the first place he reached after running away from his ship,\nand he has not yet completed the story of his misfortunes. If he had\nbeen the most heaven-taught minstrel in the whole world, on whose lips\nall hearers hang entranced, I could not have been more charmed as I\nsat in my hut and listened to him. He says there is an old friendship\nbetween his house and that of Ulysses, and that he comes from Crete\nwhere the descendants of Minos live, after having been driven hither and\nthither by every kind of misfortune; he also declares that he has heard\nof Ulysses as being alive and near at hand among the Thesprotians, and\nthat he is bringing great wealth home with him.\"\n\n\"Call him here, then,\" said Penelope, \"that I too may hear his story.\nAs for the suitors, let them take their pleasure indoors or out as they\nwill, for they have nothing to fret about. Their corn and wine remain\nunwasted in their houses with none but servants to consume them, while\nthey keep hanging about our house day after day sacrificing our oxen,\nsheep, and fat goats for their banquets, and never giving so much as\na thought to the quantity of wine they drink. No estate can stand such\nrecklessness, for we have now no Ulysses to protect us. If he were to\ncome again, he and his son would soon have their revenge.\"\n\nAs she spoke Telemachus sneezed so loudly that the whole house resounded\nwith it. Penelope laughed when she heard this, and said to Eumaeus, \"Go\nand call the stranger; did you not hear how my son sneezed just as I\nwas speaking? This can only mean that all the suitors are going to be\nkilled, and that not one of them shall escape. Furthermore I say, and\nlay my saying to your heart: if I am satisfied that the stranger is\nspeaking the truth I shall give him a shirt and cloak of good wear.\"\n\nWhen Eumaeus heard this he went straight to Ulysses and said, \"Father\nstranger, my mistress Penelope, mother of Telemachus, has sent for you;\nshe is in great grief, but she wishes to hear anything you can tell her\nabout her husband, and if she is satisfied that you are speaking the\ntruth, she will give you a shirt and cloak, which are the very things\nthat you are most in want of. As for bread, you can get enough of that\nto fill your belly, by begging about the town, and letting those give\nthat will.\"\n\n\"I will tell Penelope,\" answered Ulysses, \"nothing but what is strictly\ntrue. I know all about her husband, and have been partner with him\nin affliction, but I am afraid of passing through this crowd of cruel\nsuitors, for their pride and insolence reach heaven. Just now, moreover,\nas I was going about the house without doing any harm, a man gave me\na blow that hurt me very much, but neither Telemachus nor any one else\ndefended me. Tell Penelope, therefore, to be patient and wait till\nsundown. Let her give me a seat close up to the fire, for my clothes are\nworn very thin--you know they are, for you have seen them ever since I\nfirst asked you to help me--she can then ask me about the return of her\nhusband.\"\n\nThe swineherd went back when he heard this, and Penelope said as she saw\nhim cross the threshold, \"Why do you not bring him here, Eumaeus? Is he\nafraid that some one will ill-treat him, or is he shy of coming inside\nthe house at all? Beggars should not be shamefaced.\"\n\nTo this you answered, O swineherd Eumaeus, \"The stranger is quite\nreasonable. He is avoiding the suitors, and is only doing what any one\nelse would do. He asks you to wait till sundown, and it will be much\nbetter, madam, that you should have him all to yourself, when you can\nhear him and talk to him as you will.\"\n\n\"The man is no fool,\" answered Penelope, \"it would very likely be as\nhe says, for there are no such abominable people in the whole world as\nthese men are.\"\n\nWhen she had done speaking Eumaeus went back to the suitors, for he had\nexplained everything. Then he went up to Telemachus and said in his ear\nso that none could overhear him, \"My dear sir, I will now go back to the\npigs, to see after your property and my own business. You will look to\nwhat is going on here, but above all be careful to keep out of danger,\nfor there are many who bear you ill will. May Jove bring them to a bad\nend before they do us a mischief.\"\n\n\"Very well,\" replied Telemachus, \"go home when you have had your dinner,\nand in the morning come here with the victims we are to sacrifice for\nthe day. Leave the rest to heaven and me.\"\n\nOn this Eumaeus took his seat again, and when he had finished his dinner\nhe left the courts and the cloister with the men at table, and went\nback to his pigs. As for the suitors, they presently began to amuse\nthemselves with singing and dancing, for it was now getting on towards\nevening.\n\n\nBook XVIII\n\nTHE FIGHT WITH IRUS--ULYSSES WARNS AMPHINOMUS--PENELOPE GETS PRESENTS\nFROM THE SUITORS--THE BRAZIERS--ULYSSES REBUKES EURYMACHUS.\n\nNow there came a certain common tramp who used to go begging all over\nthe city of Ithaca, and was notorious as an incorrigible glutton and\ndrunkard. This man had no strength nor stay in him, but he was a great\nhulking fellow to look at; his real name, the one his mother gave him,\nwas Arnaeus, but the young men of the place called him Irus, {148}\nbecause he used to run errands for any one who would send him. As soon\nas he came he began to insult Ulysses, and to try and drive him out of\nhis own house.\n\n\"Be off, old man,\" he cried, \"from the doorway, or you shall be dragged\nout neck and heels. Do you not see that they are all giving me the wink,\nand wanting me to turn you out by force, only I do not like to do so?\nGet up then, and go of yourself, or we shall come to blows.\"\n\nUlysses frowned on him and said, \"My friend, I do you no manner of harm;\npeople give you a great deal, but I am not jealous. There is room enough\nin this doorway for the pair of us, and you need not grudge me things\nthat are not yours to give. You seem to be just such another tramp as\nmyself, but perhaps the gods will give us better luck by and by. Do not,\nhowever, talk too much about fighting or you will incense me, and old\nthough I am, I shall cover your mouth and chest with blood. I shall\nhave more peace tomorrow if I do, for you will not come to the house of\nUlysses any more.\"\n\nIrus was very angry and answered, \"You filthy glutton, you run on\ntrippingly like an old fish-fag. I have a good mind to lay both hands\nabout you, and knock your teeth out of your head like so many boar's\ntusks. Get ready, therefore, and let these people here stand by and\nlook on. You will never be able to fight one who is so much younger than\nyourself.\"\n\nThus roundly did they rate one another on the smooth pavement in front\nof the doorway, {149} and when Antinous saw what was going on he laughed\nheartily and said to the others, \"This is the finest sport that you\never saw; heaven never yet sent anything like it into this house. The\nstranger and Irus have quarreled and are going to fight, let us set them\non to do so at once.\"\n\nThe suitors all came up laughing, and gathered round the two ragged\ntramps. \"Listen to me,\" said Antinous, \"there are some goats' paunches\ndown at the fire, which we have filled with blood and fat, and set aside\nfor supper; he who is victorious and proves himself to be the better\nman shall have his pick of the lot; he shall be free of our table and we\nwill not allow any other beggar about the house at all.\"\n\nThe others all agreed, but Ulysses, to throw them off the scent, said,\n\"Sirs, an old man like myself, worn out with suffering, cannot hold his\nown against a young one; but my irrepressible belly urges me on, though\nI know it can only end in my getting a drubbing. You must swear, however\nthat none of you will give me a foul blow to favour Irus and secure him\nthe victory.\"\n\nThey swore as he told them, and when they had completed their oath\nTelemachus put in a word and said, \"Stranger, if you have a mind to\nsettle with this fellow, you need not be afraid of any one here. Whoever\nstrikes you will have to fight more than one. I am host, and the other\nchiefs, Antinous and Eurymachus, both of them men of understanding, are\nof the same mind as I am.\"\n\nEvery one assented, and Ulysses girded his old rags about his loins,\nthus baring his stalwart thighs, his broad chest and shoulders, and his\nmighty arms; but Minerva came up to him and made his limbs even stronger\nstill. The suitors were beyond measure astonished, and one would turn\ntowards his neighbour saying, \"The stranger has brought such a thigh out\nof his old rags that there will soon be nothing left of Irus.\"\n\nIrus began to be very uneasy as he heard them, but the servants girded\nhim by force, and brought him [into the open part of the court] in such\na fright that his limbs were all of a tremble. Antinous scolded him and\nsaid, \"You swaggering bully, you ought never to have been born at all if\nyou are afraid of such an old broken down creature as this tramp is.\nI say, therefore--and it shall surely be--if he beats you and proves\nhimself the better man, I shall pack you off on board ship to the\nmainland and send you to king Echetus, who kills every one that comes\nnear him. He will cut off your nose and ears, and draw out your entrails\nfor the dogs to eat.\"\n\nThis frightened Irus still more, but they brought him into the middle\nof the court, and the two men raised their hands to fight. Then Ulysses\nconsidered whether he should let drive so hard at him as to make an end\nof him then and there, or whether he should give him a lighter blow that\nshould only knock him down; in the end he deemed it best to give the\nlighter blow for fear the Achaeans should begin to suspect who he was.\nThen they began to fight, and Irus hit Ulysses on the right shoulder;\nbut Ulysses gave Irus a blow on the neck under the ear that broke in the\nbones of his skull, and the blood came gushing out of his mouth; he fell\ngroaning in the dust, gnashing his teeth and kicking on the ground, but\nthe suitors threw up their hands and nearly died of laughter, as Ulysses\ncaught hold of him by the foot and dragged him into the outer court as\nfar as the gate-house. There he propped him up against the wall and put\nhis staff in his hands. \"Sit here,\" said he, \"and keep the dogs and pigs\noff; you are a pitiful creature, and if you try to make yourself king of\nthe beggars any more you shall fare still worse.\"\n\nThen he threw his dirty old wallet, all tattered and torn over his\nshoulder with the cord by which it hung, and went back to sit down upon\nthe threshold; but the suitors went within the cloisters, laughing and\nsaluting him, \"May Jove, and all the other gods,\" said they, \"grant\nyou whatever you want for having put an end to the importunity of this\ninsatiable tramp. We will take him over to the mainland presently, to\nking Echetus, who kills every one that comes near him.\"\n\nUlysses hailed this as of good omen, and Antinous set a great goat's\npaunch before him filled with blood and fat. Amphinomus took two loaves\nout of the bread-basket and brought them to him, pledging him as he\ndid so in a golden goblet of wine. \"Good luck to you,\" he said, \"father\nstranger, you are very badly off at present, but I hope you will have\nbetter times by and by.\"\n\nTo this Ulysses answered, \"Amphinomus, you seem to be a man of good\nunderstanding, as indeed you may well be, seeing whose son you are. I\nhave heard your father well spoken of; he is Nisus of Dulichium, a man\nboth brave and wealthy. They tell me you are his son, and you appear to\nbe a considerable person; listen, therefore, and take heed to what I am\nsaying. Man is the vainest of all creatures that have their being upon\nearth. As long as heaven vouchsafes him health and strength, he thinks\nthat he shall come to no harm hereafter, and even when the blessed gods\nbring sorrow upon him, he bears it as he needs must, and makes the best\nof it; for God almighty gives men their daily minds day by day. I know\nall about it, for I was a rich man once, and did much wrong in the\nstubbornness of my pride, and in the confidence that my father and my\nbrothers would support me; therefore let a man fear God in all things\nalways, and take the good that heaven may see fit to send him without\nvain glory. Consider the infamy of what these suitors are doing; see how\nthey are wasting the estate, and doing dishonour to the wife, of one who\nis certain to return some day, and that, too, not long hence. Nay, he\nwill be here soon; may heaven send you home quietly first that you may\nnot meet with him in the day of his coming, for once he is here the\nsuitors and he will not part bloodlessly.\"\n\nWith these words he made a drink-offering, and when he had drunk he put\nthe gold cup again into the hands of Amphinomus, who walked away serious\nand bowing his head, for he foreboded evil. But even so he did not\nescape destruction, for Minerva had doomed him to fall by the hand of\nTelemachus. So he took his seat again at the place from which he had\ncome.\n\nThen Minerva put it into the mind of Penelope to show herself to the\nsuitors, that she might make them still more enamoured of her, and win\nstill further honour from her son and husband. So she feigned a mocking\nlaugh and said, \"Eurynome, I have changed my mind, and have a fancy to\nshow myself to the suitors although I detest them. I should like also to\ngive my son a hint that he had better not have anything more to do with\nthem. They speak fairly enough but they mean mischief.\"\n\n\"My dear child,\" answered Eurynome, \"all that you have said is true,\ngo and tell your son about it, but first wash yourself and anoint your\nface. Do not go about with your cheeks all covered with tears; it is not\nright that you should grieve so incessantly; for Telemachus, whom you\nalways prayed that you might live to see with a beard, is already grown\nup.\"\n\n\"I know, Eurynome,\" replied Penelope, \"that you mean well, but do not\ntry and persuade me to wash and to anoint myself, for heaven robbed\nme of all my beauty on the day my husband sailed; nevertheless, tell\nAutonoe and Hippodamia that I want them. They must be with me when I\nam in the cloister; I am not going among the men alone; it would not be\nproper for me to do so.\"\n\nOn this the old woman {150} went out of the room to bid the maids go to\ntheir mistress. In the meantime Minerva bethought her of another matter,\nand sent Penelope off into a sweet slumber; so she lay down on her couch\nand her limbs became heavy with sleep. Then the goddess shed grace and\nbeauty over her that all the Achaeans might admire her. She washed\nher face with the ambrosial loveliness that Venus wears when she goes\ndancing with the Graces; she made her taller and of a more commanding\nfigure, while as for her complexion it was whiter than sawn ivory. When\nMinerva had done all this she went away, whereon the maids came in from\nthe women's room and woke Penelope with the sound of their talking.\n\n\"What an exquisitely delicious sleep I have been having,\" said she, as\nshe passed her hands over her face, \"in spite of all my misery. I wish\nDiana would let me die so sweetly now at this very moment, that I\nmight no longer waste in despair for the loss of my dear husband, who\npossessed every kind of good quality and was the most distinguished man\namong the Achaeans.\"\n\nWith these words she came down from her upper room, not alone but\nattended by two of her maidens, and when she reached the suitors she\nstood by one of the bearing-posts supporting the roof of the cloister,\nholding a veil before her face, and with a staid maid servant on either\nside of her. As they beheld her the suitors were so overpowered and\nbecame so desperately enamoured of her, that each one prayed he might\nwin her for his own bed fellow.\n\n\"Telemachus,\" said she, addressing her son, \"I fear you are no longer so\ndiscreet and well conducted as you used to be. When you were younger you\nhad a greater sense of propriety; now, however, that you are grown up,\nthough a stranger to look at you would take you for the son of a well to\ndo father as far as size and good looks go, your conduct is by no means\nwhat it should be. What is all this disturbance that has been going on,\nand how came you to allow a stranger to be so disgracefully ill-treated?\nWhat would have happened if he had suffered serious injury while a\nsuppliant in our house? Surely this would have been very discreditable\nto you.\"\n\n\"I am not surprised, my dear mother, at your displeasure,\" replied\nTelemachus, \"I understand all about it and know when things are not\nas they should be, which I could not do when I was younger; I cannot,\nhowever, behave with perfect propriety at all times. First one and then\nanother of these wicked people here keeps driving me out of my mind,\nand I have no one to stand by me. After all, however, this fight between\nIrus and the stranger did not turn out as the suitors meant it to do,\nfor the stranger got the best of it. I wish Father Jove, Minerva, and\nApollo would break the neck of every one of these wooers of yours, some\ninside the house and some out; and I wish they might all be as limp as\nIrus is over yonder in the gate of the outer court. See how he nods\nhis head like a drunken man; he has had such a thrashing that he cannot\nstand on his feet nor get back to his home, wherever that may be, for he\nhas no strength left in him.\"\n\nThus did they converse. Eurymachus then came up and said, \"Queen\nPenelope, daughter of Icarius, if all the Achaeans in Iasian Argos could\nsee you at this moment, you would have still more suitors in your house\nby tomorrow morning, for you are the most admirable woman in the whole\nworld both as regards personal beauty and strength of understanding.\"\n\nTo this Penelope replied, \"Eurymachus, heaven robbed me of all my beauty\nwhether of face or figure when the Argives set sail for Troy and my dear\nhusband with them. If he were to return and look after my affairs, I\nshould both be more respected and show a better presence to the world.\nAs it is, I am oppressed with care, and with the afflictions which\nheaven has seen fit to heap upon me. My husband foresaw it all, and when\nhe was leaving home he took my right wrist in his hand--'Wife,' he said,\n'we shall not all of us come safe home from Troy, for the Trojans fight\nwell both with bow and spear. They are excellent also at fighting from\nchariots, and nothing decides the issue of a fight sooner than this. I\nknow not, therefore, whether heaven will send me back to you, or whether\nI may not fall over there at Troy. In the meantime do you look after\nthings here. Take care of my father and mother as at present, and even\nmore so during my absence, but when you see our son growing a beard,\nthen marry whom you will, and leave this your present home.' This is\nwhat he said and now it is all coming true. A night will come when I\nshall have to yield myself to a marriage which I detest, for Jove has\ntaken from me all hope of happiness. This further grief, moreover, cuts\nme to the very heart. You suitors are not wooing me after the custom of\nmy country. When men are courting a woman who they think will be a good\nwife to them and who is of noble birth, and when they are each trying\nto win her for himself, they usually bring oxen and sheep to feast the\nfriends of the lady, and they make her magnificent presents, instead of\neating up other people's property without paying for it.\"\n\nThis was what she said, and Ulysses was glad when he heard her trying\nto get presents out of the suitors, and flattering them with fair words\nwhich he knew she did not mean.\n\nThen Antinous said, \"Queen Penelope, daughter of Icarius, take as many\npresents as you please from any one who will give them to you; it is not\nwell to refuse a present; but we will not go about our business nor stir\nfrom where we are, till you have married the best man among us whoever\nhe may be.\"\n\nThe others applauded what Antinous had said, and each one sent his\nservant to bring his present. Antinous's man returned with a large and\nlovely dress most exquisitely embroidered. It had twelve beautifully\nmade brooch pins of pure gold with which to fasten it. Eurymachus\nimmediately brought her a magnificent chain of gold and amber beads that\ngleamed like sunlight. Eurydamas's two men returned with some\nearrings fashioned into three brilliant pendants which glistened most\nbeautifully; while king Pisander son of Polyctor gave her a necklace\nof the rarest workmanship, and every one else brought her a beautiful\npresent of some kind.\n\nThen the queen went back to her room upstairs, and her maids brought the\npresents after her. Meanwhile the suitors took to singing and dancing,\nand stayed till evening came. They danced and sang till it grew dark;\nthey then brought in three braziers {151} to give light, and piled them\nup with chopped firewood very old and dry, and they lit torches from\nthem, which the maids held up turn and turn about. Then Ulysses said:\n\n\"Maids, servants of Ulysses who has so long been absent, go to the queen\ninside the house; sit with her and amuse her, or spin, and pick wool.\nI will hold the light for all these people. They may stay till morning,\nbut shall not beat me, for I can stand a great deal.\"\n\nThe maids looked at one another and laughed, while pretty Melantho began\nto gibe at him contemptuously. She was daughter to Dolius, but had been\nbrought up by Penelope, who used to give her toys to play with, and\nlooked after her when she was a child; but in spite of all this she\nshowed no consideration for the sorrows of her mistress, and used to\nmisconduct herself with Eurymachus, with whom she was in love.\n\n\"Poor wretch,\" said she, \"are you gone clean out of your mind? Go and\nsleep in some smithy, or place of public gossips, instead of chattering\nhere. Are you not ashamed of opening your mouth before your betters--so\nmany of them too? Has the wine been getting into your head, or do you\nalways babble in this way? You seem to have lost your wits because you\nbeat the tramp Irus; take care that a better man than he does not come\nand cudgel you about the head till he pack you bleeding out of the\nhouse.\"\n\n\"Vixen,\" replied Ulysses, scowling at her, \"I will go and tell\nTelemachus what you have been saying, and he will have you torn limb\nfrom limb.\"\n\nWith these words he scared the women, and they went off into the body\nof the house. They trembled all over, for they thought he would do as he\nsaid. But Ulysses took his stand near the burning braziers, holding up\ntorches and looking at the people--brooding the while on things that\nshould surely come to pass.\n\nBut Minerva would not let the suitors for one moment cease their\ninsolence, for she wanted Ulysses to become even more bitter against\nthem; she therefore set Eurymachus son of Polybus on to gibe at him,\nwhich made the others laugh. \"Listen to me,\" said he, \"you suitors of\nQueen Penelope, that I may speak even as I am minded. It is not for\nnothing that this man has come to the house of Ulysses; I believe the\nlight has not been coming from the torches, but from his own head--for\nhis hair is all gone, every bit of it.\"\n\nThen turning to Ulysses he said, \"Stranger, will you work as a servant,\nif I send you to the wolds and see that you are well paid? Can you build\na stone fence, or plant trees? I will have you fed all the year round,\nand will find you in shoes and clothing. Will you go, then? Not you; for\nyou have got into bad ways, and do not want to work; you had rather fill\nyour belly by going round the country begging.\"\n\n\"Eurymachus,\" answered Ulysses, \"if you and I were to work one against\nthe other in early summer when the days are at their longest--give me a\ngood scythe, and take another yourself, and let us see which will last\nthe longer or mow the stronger, from dawn till dark when the mowing\ngrass is about. Or if you will plough against me, let us each take a\nyoke of tawny oxen, well-mated and of great strength and endurance:\nturn me into a four acre field, and see whether you or I can drive the\nstraighter furrow. If, again, war were to break out this day, give me\na shield, a couple of spears and a helmet fitting well upon my\ntemples--you would find me foremost in the fray, and would cease your\ngibes about my belly. You are insolent and cruel, and think yourself\na great man because you live in a little world, and that a bad one. If\nUlysses comes to his own again, the doors of his house are wide, but you\nwill find them narrow when you try to fly through them.\"\n\nEurymachus was furious at all this. He scowled at him and cried, \"You\nwretch, I will soon pay you out for daring to say such things to me, and\nin public too. Has the wine been getting into your head or do you always\nbabble in this way? You seem to have lost your wits because you beat the\ntramp Irus.\" With this he caught hold of a footstool, but Ulysses sought\nprotection at the knees of Amphinomus of Dulichium, for he was afraid.\nThe stool hit the cupbearer on his right hand and knocked him down: the\nman fell with a cry flat on his back, and his wine-jug fell ringing to\nthe ground. The suitors in the covered cloister were now in an uproar,\nand one would turn towards his neighbour, saying, \"I wish the stranger\nhad gone somewhere else, bad luck to him, for all the trouble he gives\nus. We cannot permit such disturbance about a beggar; if such ill\ncounsels are to prevail we shall have no more pleasure at our banquet.\"\n\nOn this Telemachus came forward and said, \"Sirs, are you mad? Can you\nnot carry your meat and your liquor decently? Some evil spirit has\npossessed you. I do not wish to drive any of you away, but you have had\nyour suppers, and the sooner you all go home to bed the better.\"\n\nThe suitors bit their lips and marvelled at the boldness of his speech;\nbut Amphinomus the son of Nisus, who was son to Aretias, said, \"Do not\nlet us take offence; it is reasonable, so let us make no answer. Neither\nlet us do violence to the stranger nor to any of Ulysses' servants. Let\nthe cupbearer go round with the drink-offerings, that we may make them\nand go home to our rest. As for the stranger, let us leave Telemachus to\ndeal with him, for it is to his house that he has come.\"\n\nThus did he speak, and his saying pleased them well, so Mulius of\nDulichium, servant to Amphinomus, mixed them a bowl of wine and water\nand handed it round to each of them man by man, whereon they made their\ndrink-offerings to the blessed gods: Then, when they had made their\ndrink-offerings and had drunk each one as he was minded, they took their\nseveral ways each of them to his own abode.\n\n\nBook XIX\n\nTELEMACHUS AND ULYSSES REMOVE THE ARMOUR--ULYSSES INTERVIEWS\nPENELOPE--EURYCLEA WASHES HIS FEET AND RECOGNISES THE SCAR ON HIS\nLEG--PENELOPE TELLS HER DREAM TO ULYSSES.\n\nUlysses was left in the cloister, pondering on the means whereby with\nMinerva's help he might be able to kill the suitors. Presently he said\nto Telemachus, \"Telemachus, we must get the armour together and take\nit down inside. Make some excuse when the suitors ask you why you have\nremoved it. Say that you have taken it to be out of the way of the\nsmoke, inasmuch as it is no longer what it was when Ulysses went\naway, but has become soiled and begrimed with soot. Add to this more\nparticularly that you are afraid Jove may set them on to quarrel over\ntheir wine, and that they may do each other some harm which may disgrace\nboth banquet and wooing, for the sight of arms sometimes tempts people\nto use them.\"\n\nTelemachus approved of what his father had said, so he called nurse\nEuryclea and said, \"Nurse, shut the women up in their room, while I take\nthe armour that my father left behind him down into the store room. No\none looks after it now my father is gone, and it has got all smirched\nwith soot during my own boyhood. I want to take it down where the smoke\ncannot reach it.\"\n\n\"I wish, child,\" answered Euryclea, \"that you would take the management\nof the house into your own hands altogether, and look after all the\nproperty yourself. But who is to go with you and light you to the\nstore-room? The maids would have done so, but you would not let them.\"\n\n\"The stranger,\" said Telemachus, \"shall show me a light; when people eat\nmy bread they must earn it, no matter where they come from.\"\n\nEuryclea did as she was told, and bolted the women inside their room.\nThen Ulysses and his son made all haste to take the helmets, shields,\nand spears inside; and Minerva went before them with a gold lamp in her\nhand that shed a soft and brilliant radiance, whereon Telemachus said,\n\"Father, my eyes behold a great marvel: the walls, with the rafters,\ncrossbeams, and the supports on which they rest are all aglow as with\na flaming fire. Surely there is some god here who has come down from\nheaven.\"\n\n\"Hush,\" answered Ulysses, \"hold your peace and ask no questions, for\nthis is the manner of the gods. Get you to your bed, and leave me here\nto talk with your mother and the maids. Your mother in her grief will\nask me all sorts of questions.\"\n\nOn this Telemachus went by torch-light to the other side of the inner\ncourt, to the room in which he always slept. There he lay in his bed\ntill morning, while Ulysses was left in the cloister pondering on the\nmeans whereby with Minerva's help he might be able to kill the suitors.\n\nThen Penelope came down from her room looking like Venus or Diana, and\nthey set her a seat inlaid with scrolls of silver and ivory near the\nfire in her accustomed place. It had been made by Icmalius and had a\nfootstool all in one piece with the seat itself; and it was covered with\na thick fleece: on this she now sat, and the maids came from the women's\nroom to join her. They set about removing the tables at which the wicked\nsuitors had been dining, and took away the bread that was left, with\nthe cups from which they had drunk. They emptied the embers out of the\nbraziers, and heaped much wood upon them to give both light and heat;\nbut Melantho began to rail at Ulysses a second time and said, \"Stranger,\ndo you mean to plague us by hanging about the house all night and spying\nupon the women? Be off, you wretch, outside, and eat your supper there,\nor you shall be driven out with a firebrand.\"\n\nUlysses scowled at her and answered, \"My good woman, why should you be\nso angry with me? Is it because I am not clean, and my clothes are all\nin rags, and because I am obliged to go begging about after the manner\nof tramps and beggars generally? I too was a rich man once, and had a\nfine house of my own; in those days I gave to many a tramp such as I now\nam, no matter who he might be nor what he wanted. I had any number of\nservants, and all the other things which people have who live well and\nare accounted wealthy, but it pleased Jove to take all away from me;\ntherefore, woman, beware lest you too come to lose that pride and place\nin which you now wanton above your fellows; have a care lest you get\nout of favour with your mistress, and lest Ulysses should come home, for\nthere is still a chance that he may do so. Moreover, though he be dead\nas you think he is, yet by Apollo's will he has left a son behind him,\nTelemachus, who will note anything done amiss by the maids in the house,\nfor he is now no longer in his boyhood.\"\n\nPenelope heard what he was saying and scolded the maid, \"Impudent\nbaggage,\" said she, \"I see how abominably you are behaving, and you\nshall smart for it. You knew perfectly well, for I told you myself, that\nI was going to see the stranger and ask him about my husband, for whose\nsake I am in such continual sorrow.\"\n\nThen she said to her head waiting woman Eurynome, \"Bring a seat with a\nfleece upon it, for the stranger to sit upon while he tells his story,\nand listens to what I have to say. I wish to ask him some questions.\"\n\nEurynome brought the seat at once and set a fleece upon it, and as soon\nas Ulysses had sat down Penelope began by saying, \"Stranger, I shall\nfirst ask you who and whence are you? Tell me of your town and parents.\"\n\n\"Madam,\" answered Ulysses, \"who on the face of the whole earth can dare\nto chide with you? Your fame reaches the firmament of heaven itself; you\nare like some blameless king, who upholds righteousness, as the monarch\nover a great and valiant nation: the earth yields its wheat and barley,\nthe trees are loaded with fruit, the ewes bring forth lambs, and the sea\nabounds with fish by reason of his virtues, and his people do good deeds\nunder him. Nevertheless, as I sit here in your house, ask me some other\nquestion and do not seek to know my race and family, or you will recall\nmemories that will yet more increase my sorrow. I am full of heaviness,\nbut I ought not to sit weeping and wailing in another person's house,\nnor is it well to be thus grieving continually. I shall have one of the\nservants or even yourself complaining of me, and saying that my eyes\nswim with tears because I am heavy with wine.\"\n\nThen Penelope answered, \"Stranger, heaven robbed me of all beauty,\nwhether of face or figure, when the Argives set sail for Troy and my\ndear husband with them. If he were to return and look after my affairs\nI should be both more respected and should show a better presence to\nthe world. As it is, I am oppressed with care, and with the afflictions\nwhich heaven has seen fit to heap upon me. The chiefs from all our\nislands--Dulichium, Same, and Zacynthus, as also from Ithaca itself,\nare wooing me against my will and are wasting my estate. I can therefore\nshow no attention to strangers, nor suppliants, nor to people who say\nthat they are skilled artisans, but am all the time broken-hearted\nabout Ulysses. They want me to marry again at once, and I have to invent\nstratagems in order to deceive them. In the first place heaven put it in\nmy mind to set up a great tambour-frame in my room, and to begin\nworking upon an enormous piece of fine needlework. Then I said to them,\n'Sweethearts, Ulysses is indeed dead, still, do not press me to marry\nagain immediately; wait--for I would not have my skill in needlework\nperish unrecorded--till I have finished making a pall for the hero\nLaertes, to be ready against the time when death shall take him. He\nis very rich, and the women of the place will talk if he is laid out\nwithout a pall.' This was what I said, and they assented; whereon I\nused to keep working at my great web all day long, but at night I would\nunpick the stitches again by torch light. I fooled them in this way for\nthree years without their finding it out, but as time wore on and I was\nnow in my fourth year, in the waning of moons, and many days had been\naccomplished, those good for nothing hussies my maids betrayed me to the\nsuitors, who broke in upon me and caught me; they were very angry with\nme, so I was forced to finish my work whether I would or no. And now\nI do not see how I can find any further shift for getting out of this\nmarriage. My parents are putting great pressure upon me, and my son\nchafes at the ravages the suitors are making upon his estate, for he is\nnow old enough to understand all about it and is perfectly able to look\nafter his own affairs, for heaven has blessed him with an excellent\ndisposition. Still, notwithstanding all this, tell me who you are and\nwhere you come from--for you must have had father and mother of some\nsort; you cannot be the son of an oak or of a rock.\"\n\nThen Ulysses answered, \"Madam, wife of Ulysses, since you persist in\nasking me about my family, I will answer, no matter what it costs me:\npeople must expect to be pained when they have been exiles as long as\nI have, and suffered as much among as many peoples. Nevertheless, as\nregards your question I will tell you all you ask. There is a fair and\nfruitful island in mid-ocean called Crete; it is thickly peopled and\nthere are ninety cities in it: the people speak many different languages\nwhich overlap one another, for there are Achaeans, brave Eteocretans,\nDorians of three-fold race, and noble Pelasgi. There is a great\ntown there, Cnossus, where Minos reigned who every nine years had a\nconference with Jove himself. {152} Minos was father to Deucalion, whose\nson I am, for Deucalion had two sons Idomeneus and myself. Idomeneus\nsailed for Troy, and I, who am the younger, am called Aethon; my\nbrother, however, was at once the older and the more valiant of the two;\nhence it was in Crete that I saw Ulysses and showed him hospitality, for\nthe winds took him there as he was on his way to Troy, carrying him out\nof his course from cape Malea and leaving him in Amnisus off the cave of\nIlithuia, where the harbours are difficult to enter and he could hardly\nfind shelter from the winds that were then raging. As soon as he got\nthere he went into the town and asked for Idomeneus, claiming to be his\nold and valued friend, but Idomeneus had already set sail for Troy some\nten or twelve days earlier, so I took him to my own house and showed him\nevery kind of hospitality, for I had abundance of everything. Moreover,\nI fed the men who were with him with barley meal from the public store,\nand got subscriptions of wine and oxen for them to sacrifice to their\nheart's content. They stayed with me twelve days, for there was a gale\nblowing from the North so strong that one could hardly keep one's feet\non land. I suppose some unfriendly god had raised it for them, but on\nthe thirteenth day the wind dropped, and they got away.\"\n\nMany a plausible tale did Ulysses further tell her, and Penelope wept\nas she listened, for her heart was melted. As the snow wastes upon the\nmountain tops when the winds from South East and West have breathed upon\nit and thawed it till the rivers run bank full with water, even so did\nher cheeks overflow with tears for the husband who was all the time\nsitting by her side. Ulysses felt for her and was sorry for her, but he\nkept his eyes as hard as horn or iron without letting them so much\nas quiver, so cunningly did he restrain his tears. Then, when she had\nrelieved herself by weeping, she turned to him again and said: \"Now,\nstranger, I shall put you to the test and see whether or no you really\ndid entertain my husband and his men, as you say you did. Tell me, then,\nhow he was dressed, what kind of a man he was to look at, and so also\nwith his companions.\"\n\n\"Madam,\" answered Ulysses, \"it is such a long time ago that I can hardly\nsay. Twenty years are come and gone since he left my home, and went\nelsewhither; but I will tell you as well as I can recollect. Ulysses\nwore a mantle of purple wool, double lined, and it was fastened by a\ngold brooch with two catches for the pin. On the face of this there was\na device that shewed a dog holding a spotted fawn between his fore paws,\nand watching it as it lay panting upon the ground. Every one marvelled\nat the way in which these things had been done in gold, the dog\nlooking at the fawn, and strangling it, while the fawn was struggling\nconvulsively to escape. {153} As for the shirt that he wore next his\nskin, it was so soft that it fitted him like the skin of an onion, and\nglistened in the sunlight to the admiration of all the women who beheld\nit. Furthermore I say, and lay my saying to your heart, that I do not\nknow whether Ulysses wore these clothes when he left home, or whether\none of his companions had given them to him while he was on his voyage;\nor possibly some one at whose house he was staying made him a present\nof them, for he was a man of many friends and had few equals among the\nAchaeans. I myself gave him a sword of bronze and a beautiful purple\nmantle, double lined, with a shirt that went down to his feet, and I\nsent him on board his ship with every mark of honour. He had a servant\nwith him, a little older than himself, and I can tell you what he was\nlike; his shoulders were hunched, {154} he was dark, and he had thick\ncurly hair. His name was Eurybates, and Ulysses treated him with greater\nfamiliarity than he did any of the others, as being the most like-minded\nwith himself.\"\n\nPenelope was moved still more deeply as she heard the indisputable\nproofs that Ulysses laid before her; and when she had again found relief\nin tears she said to him, \"Stranger, I was already disposed to pity you,\nbut henceforth you shall be honoured and made welcome in my house. It\nwas I who gave Ulysses the clothes you speak of. I took them out of\nthe store room and folded them up myself, and I gave him also the gold\nbrooch to wear as an ornament. Alas! I shall never welcome him home\nagain. It was by an ill fate that he ever set out for that detested city\nwhose very name I cannot bring myself even to mention.\"\n\nThen Ulysses answered, \"Madam, wife of Ulysses, do not disfigure\nyourself further by grieving thus bitterly for your loss, though I can\nhardly blame you for doing so. A woman who has loved her husband and\nborne him children, would naturally be grieved at losing him, even\nthough he were a worse man than Ulysses, who they say was like a god.\nStill, cease your tears and listen to what I can tell you. I will hide\nnothing from you, and can say with perfect truth that I have lately\nheard of Ulysses as being alive and on his way home; he is among the\nThesprotians, and is bringing back much valuable treasure that he has\nbegged from one and another of them; but his ship and all his crew\nwere lost as they were leaving the Thrinacian island, for Jove and\nthe sun-god were angry with him because his men had slaughtered the\nsun-god's cattle, and they were all drowned to a man. But Ulysses\nstuck to the keel of the ship and was drifted on to the land of the\nPhaeacians, who are near of kin to the immortals, and who treated him\nas though he had been a god, giving him many presents, and wishing to\nescort him home safe and sound. In fact Ulysses would have been here\nlong ago, had he not thought better to go from land to land gathering\nwealth; for there is no man living who is so wily as he is; there is no\none can compare with him. Pheidon king of the Thesprotians told me all\nthis, and he swore to me--making drink-offerings in his house as he did\nso--that the ship was by the water side and the crew found who would\ntake Ulysses to his own country. He sent me off first, for there\nhappened to be a Thesprotian ship sailing for the wheat-growing\nisland of Dulichium, but he showed me all the treasure Ulysses had got\ntogether, and he had enough lying in the house of king Pheidon to keep\nhis family for ten generations; but the king said Ulysses had gone to\nDodona that he might learn Jove's mind from the high oak tree, and know\nwhether after so long an absence he should return to Ithaca openly or in\nsecret. So you may know he is safe and will be here shortly; he is close\nat hand and cannot remain away from home much longer; nevertheless I\nwill confirm my words with an oath, and call Jove who is the first and\nmightiest of all gods to witness, as also that hearth of Ulysses to\nwhich I have now come, that all I have spoken shall surely come to pass.\nUlysses will return in this self same year; with the end of this moon\nand the beginning of the next he will be here.\"\n\n\"May it be even so,\" answered Penelope; \"if your words come true you\nshall have such gifts and such good will from me that all who see you\nshall congratulate you; but I know very well how it will be. Ulysses\nwill not return, neither will you get your escort hence, for so surely\nas that Ulysses ever was, there are now no longer any such masters in\nthe house as he was, to receive honourable strangers or to further them\non their way home. And now, you maids, wash his feet for him, and make\nhim a bed on a couch with rugs and blankets, that he may be warm and\nquiet till morning. Then, at day break wash him and anoint him again,\nthat he may sit in the cloister and take his meals with Telemachus. It\nshall be the worse for any one of these hateful people who is uncivil to\nhim; like it or not, he shall have no more to do in this house. For how,\nsir, shall you be able to learn whether or no I am superior to others of\nmy sex both in goodness of heart and understanding, if I let you dine in\nmy cloisters squalid and ill clad? Men live but for a little season; if\nthey are hard, and deal hardly, people wish them ill so long as they are\nalive, and speak contemptuously of them when they are dead, but he that\nis righteous and deals righteously, the people tell of his praise among\nall lands, and many shall call him blessed.\"\n\nUlysses answered, \"Madam, I have foresworn rugs and blankets from the\nday that I left the snowy ranges of Crete to go on shipboard. I will\nlie as I have lain on many a sleepless night hitherto. Night after night\nhave I passed in any rough sleeping place, and waited for morning. Nor,\nagain, do I like having my feet washed; I shall not let any of the young\nhussies about your house touch my feet; but, if you have any old and\nrespectable woman who has gone through as much trouble as I have, I will\nallow her to wash them.\"\n\nTo this Penelope said, \"My dear sir, of all the guests who ever yet\ncame to my house there never was one who spoke in all things with such\nadmirable propriety as you do. There happens to be in the house a most\nrespectable old woman--the same who received my poor dear husband in\nher arms the night he was born, and nursed him in infancy. She is\nvery feeble now, but she shall wash your feet.\" \"Come here,\" said she,\n\"Euryclea, and wash your master's age-mate; I suppose Ulysses' hands and\nfeet are very much the same now as his are, for trouble ages all of us\ndreadfully fast.\"\n\nOn these words the old woman covered her face with her hands; she began\nto weep and made lamentation saying, \"My dear child, I cannot think\nwhatever I am to do with you. I am certain no one was ever more\ngod-fearing than yourself, and yet Jove hates you. No one in the whole\nworld ever burned him more thigh bones, nor gave him finer hecatombs\nwhen you prayed you might come to a green old age yourself and see your\nson grow up to take after you: yet see how he has prevented you alone\nfrom ever getting back to your own home. I have no doubt the women in\nsome foreign palace which Ulysses has got to are gibing at him as all\nthese sluts here have been gibing at you. I do not wonder at your\nnot choosing to let them wash you after the manner in which they have\ninsulted you; I will wash your feet myself gladly enough, as Penelope\nhas said that I am to do so; I will wash them both for Penelope's\nsake and for your own, for you have raised the most lively feelings of\ncompassion in my mind; and let me say this moreover, which pray attend\nto; we have had all kinds of strangers in distress come here before now,\nbut I make bold to say that no one ever yet came who was so like Ulysses\nin figure, voice, and feet as you are.\"\n\n\"Those who have seen us both,\" answered Ulysses, \"have always said we\nwere wonderfully like each other, and now you have noticed it too.\"\n\nThen the old woman took the cauldron in which she was going to wash his\nfeet, and poured plenty of cold water into it, adding hot till the bath\nwas warm enough. Ulysses sat by the fire, but ere long he turned away\nfrom the light, for it occurred to him that when the old woman had hold\nof his leg she would recognise a certain scar which it bore, whereon the\nwhole truth would come out. And indeed as soon as she began washing her\nmaster, she at once knew the scar as one that had been given him by\na wild boar when he was hunting on Mt. Parnassus with his excellent\ngrandfather Autolycus--who was the most accomplished thief and perjurer\nin the whole world--and with the sons of Autolycus. Mercury himself had\nendowed him with this gift, for he used to burn the thigh bones of goats\nand kids to him, so he took pleasure in his companionship. It happened\nonce that Autolycus had gone to Ithaca and had found the child of his\ndaughter just born. As soon as he had done supper Euryclea set the\ninfant upon his knees and said, \"Autolycus, you must find a name for\nyour grandson; you greatly wished that you might have one.\"\n\n\"Son-in-law and daughter,\" replied Autolycus, \"call the child thus: I\nam highly displeased with a large number of people in one place and\nanother, both men and women; so name the child 'Ulysses,' or the child\nof anger. When he grows up and comes to visit his mother's family on Mt.\nParnassus, where my possessions lie, I will make him a present and will\nsend him on his way rejoicing.\"\n\nUlysses, therefore, went to Parnassus to get the presents from\nAutolycus, who with his sons shook hands with him and gave him welcome.\nHis grandmother Amphithea threw her arms about him, and kissed his head,\nand both his beautiful eyes, while Autolycus desired his sons to get\ndinner ready, and they did as he told them. They brought in a five year\nold bull, flayed it, made it ready and divided it into joints; these\nthey then cut carefully up into smaller pieces and spitted them; they\nroasted them sufficiently and served the portions round. Thus through\nthe livelong day to the going down of the sun they feasted, and every\nman had his full share so that all were satisfied; but when the sun set\nand it came on dark, they went to bed and enjoyed the boon of sleep.\n\nWhen the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, the sons of\nAutolycus went out with their hounds hunting, and Ulysses went too.\nThey climbed the wooded slopes of Parnassus and soon reached its breezy\nupland valleys; but as the sun was beginning to beat upon the fields,\nfresh-risen from the slow still currents of Oceanus, they came to a\nmountain dell. The dogs were in front searching for the tracks of the\nbeast they were chasing, and after them came the sons of Autolycus,\namong whom was Ulysses, close behind the dogs, and he had a long\nspear in his hand. Here was the lair of a huge boar among some thick\nbrushwood, so dense that the wind and rain could not get through it, nor\ncould the sun's rays pierce it, and the ground underneath lay thick\nwith fallen leaves. The boar heard the noise of the men's feet, and the\nhounds baying on every side as the huntsmen came up to him, so he rushed\nfrom his lair, raised the bristles on his neck, and stood at bay with\nfire flashing from his eyes. Ulysses was the first to raise his spear\nand try to drive it into the brute, but the boar was too quick for him,\nand charged him sideways, ripping him above the knee with a gash that\ntore deep though it did not reach the bone. As for the boar, Ulysses hit\nhim on the right shoulder, and the point of the spear went right through\nhim, so that he fell groaning in the dust until the life went out of\nhim. The sons of Autolycus busied themselves with the carcass of the\nboar, and bound Ulysses' wound; then, after saying a spell to stop the\nbleeding, they went home as fast as they could. But when Autolycus and\nhis sons had thoroughly healed Ulysses, they made him some splendid\npresents, and sent him back to Ithaca with much mutual good will. When\nhe got back, his father and mother were rejoiced to see him, and asked\nhim all about it, and how he had hurt himself to get the scar; so he\ntold them how the boar had ripped him when he was out hunting with\nAutolycus and his sons on Mt. Parnassus.\n\nAs soon as Euryclea had got the scarred limb in her hands and had well\nhold of it, she recognised it and dropped the foot at once. The leg fell\ninto the bath, which rang out and was overturned, so that all the water\nwas spilt on the ground; Euryclea's eyes between her joy and her grief\nfilled with tears, and she could not speak, but she caught Ulysses\nby the beard and said, \"My dear child, I am sure you must be Ulysses\nhimself, only I did not know you till I had actually touched and handled\nyou.\"\n\nAs she spoke she looked towards Penelope, as though wanting to tell her\nthat her dear husband was in the house, but Penelope was unable to\nlook in that direction and observe what was going on, for Minerva had\ndiverted her attention; so Ulysses caught Euryclea by the throat with\nhis right hand and with his left drew her close to him, and said,\n\"Nurse, do you wish to be the ruin of me, you who nursed me at your own\nbreast, now that after twenty years of wandering I am at last come to\nmy own home again? Since it has been borne in upon you by heaven to\nrecognise me, hold your tongue, and do not say a word about it to any\none else in the house, for if you do I tell you--and it shall surely\nbe--that if heaven grants me to take the lives of these suitors, I will\nnot spare you, though you are my own nurse, when I am killing the other\nwomen.\"\n\n\"My child,\" answered Euryclea, \"what are you talking about? You know\nvery well that nothing can either bend or break me. I will hold my\ntongue like a stone or a piece of iron; furthermore let me say, and lay\nmy saying to your heart, when heaven has delivered the suitors into your\nhand, I will give you a list of the women in the house who have been\nill-behaved, and of those who are guiltless.\"\n\nAnd Ulysses answered, \"Nurse, you ought not to speak in that way; I am\nwell able to form my own opinion about one and all of them; hold your\ntongue and leave everything to heaven.\"\n\nAs he said this Euryclea left the cloister to fetch some more water, for\nthe first had been all spilt; and when she had washed him and anointed\nhim with oil, Ulysses drew his seat nearer to the fire to warm himself,\nand hid the scar under his rags. Then Penelope began talking to him and\nsaid:\n\n\"Stranger, I should like to speak with you briefly about another matter.\nIt is indeed nearly bed time--for those, at least, who can sleep in\nspite of sorrow. As for myself, heaven has given me a life of such\nunmeasurable woe, that even by day when I am attending to my duties and\nlooking after the servants, I am still weeping and lamenting during the\nwhole time; then, when night comes, and we all of us go to bed, I lie\nawake thinking, and my heart becomes a prey to the most incessant and\ncruel tortures. As the dun nightingale, daughter of Pandareus, sings in\nthe early spring from her seat in shadiest covert hid, and with many\na plaintive trill pours out the tale how by mishap she killed her own\nchild Itylus, son of king Zethus, even so does my mind toss and turn in\nits uncertainty whether I ought to stay with my son here, and safeguard\nmy substance, my bondsmen, and the greatness of my house, out of regard\nto public opinion and the memory of my late husband, or whether it is\nnot now time for me to go with the best of these suitors who are wooing\nme and making me such magnificent presents. As long as my son was still\nyoung, and unable to understand, he would not hear of my leaving my\nhusband's house, but now that he is full grown he begs and prays me to\ndo so, being incensed at the way in which the suitors are eating up his\nproperty. Listen, then, to a dream that I have had and interpret it for\nme if you can. I have twenty geese about the house that eat mash out\nof a trough, {155} and of which I am exceedingly fond. I dreamed that a\ngreat eagle came swooping down from a mountain, and dug his curved beak\ninto the neck of each of them till he had killed them all. Presently\nhe soared off into the sky, and left them lying dead about the yard;\nwhereon I wept in my dream till all my maids gathered round me, so\npiteously was I grieving because the eagle had killed my geese. Then he\ncame back again, and perching on a projecting rafter spoke to me with\nhuman voice, and told me to leave off crying. 'Be of good courage,' he\nsaid, 'daughter of Icarius; this is no dream, but a vision of good omen\nthat shall surely come to pass. The geese are the suitors, and I am no\nlonger an eagle, but your own husband, who am come back to you, and who\nwill bring these suitors to a disgraceful end.' On this I woke, and when\nI looked out I saw my geese at the trough eating their mash as usual.\"\n\n\"This dream, Madam,\" replied Ulysses, \"can admit but of one\ninterpretation, for had not Ulysses himself told you how it shall be\nfulfilled? The death of the suitors is portended, and not one single one\nof them will escape.\"\n\nAnd Penelope answered, \"Stranger, dreams are very curious and\nunaccountable things, and they do not by any means invariably come true.\nThere are two gates through which these unsubstantial fancies proceed;\nthe one is of horn, and the other ivory. Those that come through\nthe gate of ivory are fatuous, but those from the gate of horn mean\nsomething to those that see them. I do not think, however, that my own\ndream came through the gate of horn, though I and my son should be most\nthankful if it proves to have done so. Furthermore I say--and lay my\nsaying to your heart--the coming dawn will usher in the ill-omened day\nthat is to sever me from the house of Ulysses, for I am about to hold a\ntournament of axes. My husband used to set up twelve axes in the court,\none in front of the other, like the stays upon which a ship is built;\nhe would then go back from them and shoot an arrow through the whole\ntwelve. I shall make the suitors try to do the same thing, and whichever\nof them can string the bow most easily, and send his arrow through all\nthe twelve axes, him will I follow, and quit this house of my lawful\nhusband, so goodly and so abounding in wealth. But even so, I doubt not\nthat I shall remember it in my dreams.\"\n\nThen Ulysses answered, \"Madam, wife of Ulysses, you need not defer your\ntournament, for Ulysses will return ere ever they can string the bow,\nhandle it how they will, and send their arrows through the iron.\"\n\nTo this Penelope said, \"As long, sir, as you will sit here and talk\nto me, I can have no desire to go to bed. Still, people cannot do\npermanently without sleep, and heaven has appointed us dwellers on earth\na time for all things. I will therefore go upstairs and recline upon\nthat couch which I have never ceased to flood with my tears from the day\nUlysses set out for the city with a hateful name.\"\n\nShe then went upstairs to her own room, not alone, but attended by her\nmaidens, and when there, she lamented her dear husband till Minerva shed\nsweet sleep over her eyelids.\n\n\nBook XX\n\nULYSSES CANNOT SLEEP--PENELOPE'S PRAYER TO DIANA--THE TWO SIGNS FROM\nHEAVEN--EUMAEUS AND PHILOETIUS ARRIVE--THE SUITORS DINE--CTESIPPUS\nTHROWS AN OX'S FOOT AT ULYSSES--THEOCLYMENUS FORETELLS DISASTER AND\nLEAVES THE HOUSE.\n\nUlysses slept in the cloister upon an undressed bullock's hide, on the\ntop of which he threw several skins of the sheep the suitors had eaten,\nand Eurynome {156} threw a cloak over him after he had laid himself\ndown. There, then, Ulysses lay wakefully brooding upon the way in which\nhe should kill the suitors; and by and by, the women who had been in the\nhabit of misconducting themselves with them, left the house giggling and\nlaughing with one another. This made Ulysses very angry, and he doubted\nwhether to get up and kill every single one of them then and there, or\nto let them sleep one more and last time with the suitors. His heart\ngrowled within him, and as a bitch with puppies growls and shows her\nteeth when she sees a stranger, so did his heart growl with anger at\nthe evil deeds that were being done: but he beat his breast and said,\n\"Heart, be still, you had worse than this to bear on the day when the\nterrible Cyclops ate your brave companions; yet you bore it in silence\ntill your cunning got you safe out of the cave, though you made sure of\nbeing killed.\"\n\nThus he chided with his heart, and checked it into endurance, but he\ntossed about as one who turns a paunch full of blood and fat in front\nof a hot fire, doing it first on one side and then on the other, that he\nmay get it cooked as soon as possible, even so did he turn himself about\nfrom side to side, thinking all the time how, single handed as he was,\nhe should contrive to kill so large a body of men as the wicked suitors.\nBut by and by Minerva came down from heaven in the likeness of a woman,\nand hovered over his head saying, \"My poor unhappy man, why do you lie\nawake in this way? This is your house: your wife is safe inside it, and\nso is your son who is just such a young man as any father may be proud\nof.\"\n\n\"Goddess,\" answered Ulysses, \"all that you have said is true, but I am\nin some doubt as to how I shall be able to kill these wicked suitors\nsingle handed, seeing what a number of them there always are. And there\nis this further difficulty, which is still more considerable. Supposing\nthat with Jove's and your assistance I succeed in killing them, I must\nask you to consider where I am to escape to from their avengers when it\nis all over.\"\n\n\"For shame,\" replied Minerva, \"why, any one else would trust a worse\nally than myself, even though that ally were only a mortal and less wise\nthan I am. Am I not a goddess, and have I not protected you throughout\nin all your troubles? I tell you plainly that even though there were\nfifty bands of men surrounding us and eager to kill us, you should take\nall their sheep and cattle, and drive them away with you. But go to\nsleep; it is a very bad thing to lie awake all night, and you shall be\nout of your troubles before long.\"\n\nAs she spoke she shed sleep over his eyes, and then went back to\nOlympus.\n\nWhile Ulysses was thus yielding himself to a very deep slumber that\neased the burden of his sorrows, his admirable wife awoke, and sitting\nup in her bed began to cry. When she had relieved herself by weeping she\nprayed to Diana saying, \"Great Goddess Diana, daughter of Jove, drive an\narrow into my heart and slay me; or let some whirlwind snatch me up and\nbear me through paths of darkness till it drop me into the mouths\nof over-flowing Oceanus, as it did the daughters of Pandareus. The\ndaughters of Pandareus lost their father and mother, for the gods killed\nthem, so they were left orphans. But Venus took care of them, and fed\nthem on cheese, honey, and sweet wine. Juno taught them to excel all\nwomen in beauty of form and understanding; Diana gave them an imposing\npresence, and Minerva endowed them with every kind of accomplishment;\nbut one day when Venus had gone up to Olympus to see Jove about getting\nthem married (for well does he know both what shall happen and what\nnot happen to every one) the storm winds came and spirited them away to\nbecome handmaids to the dread Erinyes. Even so I wish that the gods who\nlive in heaven would hide me from mortal sight, or that fair Diana might\nstrike me, for I would fain go even beneath the sad earth if I might\ndo so still looking towards Ulysses only, and without having to yield\nmyself to a worse man than he was. Besides, no matter how much people\nmay grieve by day, they can put up with it so long as they can sleep at\nnight, for when the eyes are closed in slumber people forget good and\nill alike; whereas my misery haunts me even in my dreams. This very\nnight methought there was one lying by my side who was like Ulysses as\nhe was when he went away with his host, and I rejoiced, for I believed\nthat it was no dream, but the very truth itself.\"\n\nOn this the day broke, but Ulysses heard the sound of her weeping, and\nit puzzled him, for it seemed as though she already knew him and was by\nhis side. Then he gathered up the cloak and the fleeces on which he had\nlain, and set them on a seat in the cloister, but he took the bullock's\nhide out into the open. He lifted up his hands to heaven, and prayed,\nsaying \"Father Jove, since you have seen fit to bring me over land and\nsea to my own home after all the afflictions you have laid upon me, give\nme a sign out of the mouth of some one or other of those who are now\nwaking within the house, and let me have another sign of some kind from\noutside.\"\n\nThus did he pray. Jove heard his prayer and forthwith thundered high\nup among the clouds from the splendour of Olympus, and Ulysses was glad\nwhen he heard it. At the same time within the house, a miller-woman from\nhard by in the mill room lifted up her voice and gave him another sign.\nThere were twelve miller-women whose business it was to grind wheat and\nbarley which are the staff of life. The others had ground their task and\nhad gone to take their rest, but this one had not yet finished, for\nshe was not so strong as they were, and when she heard the thunder she\nstopped grinding and gave the sign to her master. \"Father Jove,\" said\nshe, \"you, who rule over heaven and earth, you have thundered from a\nclear sky without so much as a cloud in it, and this means something for\nsomebody; grant the prayer, then, of me your poor servant who calls\nupon you, and let this be the very last day that the suitors dine in the\nhouse of Ulysses. They have worn me out with labour of grinding meal for\nthem, and I hope they may never have another dinner anywhere at all.\"\n\nUlysses was glad when he heard the omens conveyed to him by the woman's\nspeech, and by the thunder, for he knew they meant that he should avenge\nhimself on the suitors.\n\nThen the other maids in the house rose and lit the fire on the hearth;\nTelemachus also rose and put on his clothes. He girded his sword about\nhis shoulder, bound his sandals on to his comely feet, and took a\ndoughty spear with a point of sharpened bronze; then he went to the\nthreshold of the cloister and said to Euryclea, \"Nurse, did you make the\nstranger comfortable both as regards bed and board, or did you let him\nshift for himself?--for my mother, good woman though she is, has a\nway of paying great attention to second-rate people, and of neglecting\nothers who are in reality much better men.\"\n\n\"Do not find fault child,\" said Euryclea, \"when there is no one to find\nfault with. The stranger sat and drank his wine as long as he liked:\nyour mother did ask him if he would take any more bread and he said he\nwould not. When he wanted to go to bed she told the servants to make one\nfor him, but he said he was such a wretched outcast that he would not\nsleep on a bed and under blankets; he insisted on having an undressed\nbullock's hide and some sheepskins put for him in the cloister and I\nthrew a cloak over him myself.\" {157}\n\nThen Telemachus went out of the court to the place where the Achaeans\nwere meeting in assembly; he had his spear in his hand, and he was not\nalone, for his two dogs went with him. But Euryclea called the maids and\nsaid, \"Come, wake up; set about sweeping the cloisters and sprinkling\nthem with water to lay the dust; put the covers on the seats; wipe down\nthe tables, some of you, with a wet sponge; clean out the mixing-jugs\nand the cups, and go for water from the fountain at once; the suitors\nwill be here directly; they will be here early, for it is a feast day.\"\n\nThus did she speak, and they did even as she had said: twenty of them\nwent to the fountain for water, and the others set themselves busily to\nwork about the house. The men who were in attendance on the suitors also\ncame up and began chopping firewood. By and by the women returned from\nthe fountain, and the swineherd came after them with the three best pigs\nhe could pick out. These he let feed about the premises, and then he\nsaid good-humouredly to Ulysses, \"Stranger, are the suitors treating you\nany better now, or are they as insolent as ever?\"\n\n\"May heaven,\" answered Ulysses, \"requite to them the wickedness with\nwhich they deal high-handedly in another man's house without any sense\nof shame.\"\n\nThus did they converse; meanwhile Melanthius the goatherd came up, for\nhe too was bringing in his best goats for the suitors' dinner; and he\nhad two shepherds with him. They tied the goats up under the gatehouse,\nand then Melanthius began gibing at Ulysses. \"Are you still here,\nstranger,\" said he, \"to pester people by begging about the house? Why\ncan you not go elsewhere? You and I shall not come to an understanding\nbefore we have given each other a taste of our fists. You beg without\nany sense of decency: are there not feasts elsewhere among the Achaeans,\nas well as here?\"\n\nUlysses made no answer, but bowed his head and brooded. Then a third\nman, Philoetius, joined them, who was bringing in a barren heifer and\nsome goats. These were brought over by the boatmen who are there to take\npeople over when any one comes to them. So Philoetius made his heifer\nand his goats secure under the gatehouse, and then went up to the\nswineherd. \"Who, Swineherd,\" said he, \"is this stranger that is lately\ncome here? Is he one of your men? What is his family? Where does he come\nfrom? Poor fellow, he looks as if he had been some great man, but the\ngods give sorrow to whom they will--even to kings if it so pleases\nthem.\"\n\nAs he spoke he went up to Ulysses and saluted him with his right hand;\n\"Good day to you, father stranger,\" said he, \"you seem to be very poorly\noff now, but I hope you will have better times by and by. Father Jove,\nof all gods you are the most malicious. We are your own children, yet\nyou show us no mercy in all our misery and afflictions. A sweat came\nover me when I saw this man, and my eyes filled with tears, for he\nreminds me of Ulysses, who I fear is going about in just such rags as\nthis man's are, if indeed he is still among the living. If he is already\ndead and in the house of Hades, then, alas! for my good master, who made\nme his stockman when I was quite young among the Cephallenians, and now\nhis cattle are countless; no one could have done better with them than I\nhave, for they have bred like ears of corn; nevertheless I have to keep\nbringing them in for others to eat, who take no heed to his son though\nhe is in the house, and fear not the wrath of heaven, but are already\neager to divide Ulysses' property among them because he has been away so\nlong. I have often thought--only it would not be right while his son\nis living--of going off with the cattle to some foreign country; bad as\nthis would be, it is still harder to stay here and be ill-treated about\nother people's herds. My position is intolerable, and I should long\nsince have run away and put myself under the protection of some other\nchief, only that I believe my poor master will yet return, and send all\nthese suitors flying out of the house.\"\n\n\"Stockman,\" answered Ulysses, \"you seem to be a very well-disposed\nperson, and I can see that you are a man of sense. Therefore I will tell\nyou, and will confirm my words with an oath. By Jove, the chief of all\ngods, and by that hearth of Ulysses to which I am now come, Ulysses\nshall return before you leave this place, and if you are so minded you\nshall see him killing the suitors who are now masters here.\"\n\n\"If Jove were to bring this to pass,\" replied the stockman, \"you should\nsee how I would do my very utmost to help him.\"\n\nAnd in like manner Eumaeus prayed that Ulysses might return home.\n\nThus did they converse. Meanwhile the suitors were hatching a plot to\nmurder Telemachus: but a bird flew near them on their left hand--an\neagle with a dove in its talons. On this Amphinomus said, \"My friends,\nthis plot of ours to murder Telemachus will not succeed; let us go to\ndinner instead.\"\n\nThe others assented, so they went inside and laid their cloaks on the\nbenches and seats. They sacrificed the sheep, goats, pigs, and the\nheifer, and when the inward meats were cooked they served them round.\nThey mixed the wine in the mixing-bowls, and the swineherd gave every\nman his cup, while Philoetius handed round the bread in the bread\nbaskets, and Melanthius poured them out their wine. Then they laid their\nhands upon the good things that were before them.\n\nTelemachus purposely made Ulysses sit in the part of the cloister that\nwas paved with stone; {158} he gave him a shabby looking seat at a\nlittle table to himself, and had his portion of the inward meats brought\nto him, with his wine in a gold cup. \"Sit there,\" said he, \"and drink\nyour wine among the great people. I will put a stop to the gibes and\nblows of the suitors, for this is no public house, but belongs to\nUlysses, and has passed from him to me. Therefore, suitors, keep your\nhands and your tongues to yourselves, or there will be mischief.\"\n\nThe suitors bit their lips, and marvelled at the boldness of his speech;\nthen Antinous said, \"We do not like such language but we will put up\nwith it, for Telemachus is threatening us in good earnest. If Jove had\nlet us we should have put a stop to his brave talk ere now.\"\n\nThus spoke Antinous, but Telemachus heeded him not. Meanwhile the\nheralds were bringing the holy hecatomb through the city, and the\nAchaeans gathered under the shady grove of Apollo.\n\nThen they roasted the outer meat, drew it off the spits, gave every man\nhis portion, and feasted to their heart's content; those who waited\nat table gave Ulysses exactly the same portion as the others had, for\nTelemachus had told them to do so.\n\nBut Minerva would not let the suitors for one moment drop their\ninsolence, for she wanted Ulysses to become still more bitter against\nthem. Now there happened to be among them a ribald fellow, whose name\nwas Ctesippus, and who came from Same. This man, confident in his\ngreat wealth, was paying court to the wife of Ulysses, and said to the\nsuitors, \"Hear what I have to say. The stranger has already had as\nlarge a portion as any one else; this is well, for it is not right nor\nreasonable to ill-treat any guest of Telemachus who comes here. I\nwill, however, make him a present on my own account, that he may have\nsomething to give to the bath-woman, or to some other of Ulysses'\nservants.\"\n\nAs he spoke he picked up a heifer's foot from the meat-basket in which\nit lay, and threw it at Ulysses, but Ulysses turned his head a little\naside, and avoided it, smiling grimly Sardinian fashion {159} as he did\nso, and it hit the wall, not him. On this Telemachus spoke fiercely to\nCtesippus, \"It is a good thing for you,\" said he, \"that the stranger\nturned his head so that you missed him. If you had hit him I should have\nrun you through with my spear, and your father would have had to see\nabout getting you buried rather than married in this house. So let me\nhave no more unseemly behaviour from any of you, for I am grown up\nnow to the knowledge of good and evil and understand what is going on,\ninstead of being the child that I have been heretofore. I have long seen\nyou killing my sheep and making free with my corn and wine: I have put\nup with this, for one man is no match for many, but do me no further\nviolence. Still, if you wish to kill me, kill me; I would far rather die\nthan see such disgraceful scenes day after day--guests insulted, and men\ndragging the women servants about the house in an unseemly way.\"\n\nThey all held their peace till at last Agelaus son of Damastor said, \"No\none should take offence at what has just been said, nor gainsay it, for\nit is quite reasonable. Leave off, therefore, ill-treating the stranger,\nor any one else of the servants who are about the house; I would say,\nhowever, a friendly word to Telemachus and his mother, which I trust may\ncommend itself to both. 'As long,' I would say, 'as you had ground for\nhoping that Ulysses would one day come home, no one could complain of\nyour waiting and suffering {160} the suitors to be in your house. It\nwould have been better that he should have returned, but it is now\nsufficiently clear that he will never do so; therefore talk all this\nquietly over with your mother, and tell her to marry the best man,\nand the one who makes her the most advantageous offer. Thus you will\nyourself be able to manage your own inheritance, and to eat and drink\nin peace, while your mother will look after some other man's house, not\nyours.'\"\n\nTo this Telemachus answered, \"By Jove, Agelaus, and by the sorrows of my\nunhappy father, who has either perished far from Ithaca, or is wandering\nin some distant land, I throw no obstacles in the way of my mother's\nmarriage; on the contrary I urge her to choose whomsoever she will, and\nI will give her numberless gifts into the bargain, but I dare not insist\npoint blank that she shall leave the house against her own wishes.\nHeaven forbid that I should do this.\"\n\nMinerva now made the suitors fall to laughing immoderately, and set\ntheir wits wandering; but they were laughing with a forced laughter.\nTheir meat became smeared with blood; their eyes filled with tears,\nand their hearts were heavy with forebodings. Theoclymenus saw this\nand said, \"Unhappy men, what is it that ails you? There is a shroud\nof darkness drawn over you from head to foot, your cheeks are wet with\ntears; the air is alive with wailing voices; the walls and roof-beams\ndrip blood; the gate of the cloisters and the court beyond them are full\nof ghosts trooping down into the night of hell; the sun is blotted out\nof heaven, and a blighting gloom is over all the land.\"\n\nThus did he speak, and they all of them laughed heartily. Eurymachus\nthen said, \"This stranger who has lately come here has lost his senses.\nServants, turn him out into the streets, since he finds it so dark\nhere.\"\n\nBut Theoclymenus said, \"Eurymachus, you need not send any one with me.\nI have eyes, ears, and a pair of feet of my own, to say nothing of an\nunderstanding mind. I will take these out of the house with me, for\nI see mischief overhanging you, from which not one of you men who are\ninsulting people and plotting ill deeds in the house of Ulysses will be\nable to escape.\"\n\nHe left the house as he spoke, and went back to Piraeus who gave him\nwelcome, but the suitors kept looking at one another and provoking\nTelemachus by laughing at the strangers. One insolent fellow said to\nhim, \"Telemachus, you are not happy in your guests; first you have this\nimportunate tramp, who comes begging bread and wine and has no skill\nfor work or for hard fighting, but is perfectly useless, and now here is\nanother fellow who is setting himself up as a prophet. Let me persuade\nyou, for it will be much better to put them on board ship and send them\noff to the Sicels to sell for what they will bring.\"\n\nTelemachus gave him no heed, but sate silently watching his father,\nexpecting every moment that he would begin his attack upon the suitors.\n\nMeanwhile the daughter of Icarius, wise Penelope, had had a rich seat\nplaced for her facing the court and cloisters, so that she could hear\nwhat every one was saying. The dinner indeed had been prepared amid much\nmerriment; it had been both good and abundant, for they had sacrificed\nmany victims; but the supper was yet to come, and nothing can be\nconceived more gruesome than the meal which a goddess and a brave man\nwere soon to lay before them--for they had brought their doom upon\nthemselves.\n\n\nBook XXI\n\nTHE TRIAL OF THE AXES, DURING WHICH ULYSSES REVEALS HIMSELF TO EUMAEUS\nAND PHILOETIUS\n\nMinerva now put it in Penelope's mind to make the suitors try their\nskill with the bow and with the iron axes, in contest among themselves,\nas a means of bringing about their destruction. She went upstairs and\ngot the store-room key, which was made of bronze and had a handle of\nivory; she then went with her maidens into the store-room at the end of\nthe house, where her husband's treasures of gold, bronze, and wrought\niron were kept, and where was also his bow, and the quiver full of\ndeadly arrows that had been given him by a friend whom he had met in\nLacedaemon--Iphitus the son of Eurytus. The two fell in with one another\nin Messene at the house of Ortilochus, where Ulysses was staying in\norder to recover a debt that was owing from the whole people; for the\nMessenians had carried off three hundred sheep from Ithaca, and had\nsailed away with them and with their shepherds. In quest of these\nUlysses took a long journey while still quite young, for his father and\nthe other chieftains sent him on a mission to recover them. Iphitus had\ngone there also to try and get back twelve brood mares that he had lost,\nand the mule foals that were running with them. These mares were the\ndeath of him in the end, for when he went to the house of Jove's son,\nmighty Hercules, who performed such prodigies of valour, Hercules to his\nshame killed him, though he was his guest, for he feared not heaven's\nvengeance, nor yet respected his own table which he had set before\nIphitus, but killed him in spite of everything, and kept the mares\nhimself. It was when claiming these that Iphitus met Ulysses, and gave\nhim the bow which mighty Eurytus had been used to carry, and which on\nhis death had been left by him to his son. Ulysses gave him in return\na sword and a spear, and this was the beginning of a fast friendship,\nalthough they never visited at one another's houses, for Jove's son\nHercules killed Iphitus ere they could do so. This bow, then, given him\nby Iphitus, had not been taken with him by Ulysses when he sailed for\nTroy; he had used it so long as he had been at home, but had left it\nbehind as having been a keepsake from a valued friend.\n\nPenelope presently reached the oak threshold of the store-room; the\ncarpenter had planed this duly, and had drawn a line on it so as to get\nit quite straight; he had then set the door posts into it and hung the\ndoors. She loosed the strap from the handle of the door, put in the key,\nand drove it straight home to shoot back the bolts that held the doors;\n{161} these flew open with a noise like a bull bellowing in a meadow,\nand Penelope stepped upon the raised platform, where the chests stood in\nwhich the fair linen and clothes were laid by along with fragrant herbs:\nreaching thence, she took down the bow with its bow case from the peg\non which it hung. She sat down with it on her knees, weeping bitterly as\nshe took the bow out of its case, and when her tears had relieved her,\nshe went to the cloister where the suitors were, carrying the bow and\nthe quiver, with the many deadly arrows that were inside it. Along\nwith her came her maidens, bearing a chest that contained much iron\nand bronze which her husband had won as prizes. When she reached the\nsuitors, she stood by one of the bearing-posts supporting the roof of\nthe cloister, holding a veil before her face, and with a maid on either\nside of her. Then she said:\n\n\"Listen to me you suitors, who persist in abusing the hospitality of\nthis house because its owner has been long absent, and without other\npretext than that you want to marry me; this, then, being the prize that\nyou are contending for, I will bring out the mighty bow of Ulysses, and\nwhomsoever of you shall string it most easily and send his arrow through\neach one of twelve axes, him will I follow and quit this house of my\nlawful husband, so goodly, and so abounding in wealth. But even so I\ndoubt not that I shall remember it in my dreams.\"\n\nAs she spoke, she told Eumaeus to set the bow and the pieces of iron\nbefore the suitors, and Eumaeus wept as he took them to do as she had\nbidden him. Hard by, the stockman wept also when he saw his master's\nbow, but Antinous scolded them. \"You country louts,\" said he, \"silly\nsimpletons; why should you add to the sorrows of your mistress by crying\nin this way? She has enough to grieve her in the loss of her husband;\nsit still, therefore, and eat your dinners in silence, or go outside if\nyou want to cry, and leave the bow behind you. We suitors shall have to\ncontend for it with might and main, for we shall find it no light matter\nto string such a bow as this is. There is not a man of us all who is\nsuch another as Ulysses; for I have seen him and remember him, though I\nwas then only a child.\"\n\nThis was what he said, but all the time he was expecting to be able to\nstring the bow and shoot through the iron, whereas in fact he was to\nbe the first that should taste of the arrows from the hands of Ulysses,\nwhom he was dishonouring in his own house--egging the others on to do so\nalso.\n\nThen Telemachus spoke. \"Great heavens!\" he exclaimed, \"Jove must have\nrobbed me of my senses. Here is my dear and excellent mother saying she\nwill quit this house and marry again, yet I am laughing and enjoying\nmyself as though there were nothing happening. But, suitors, as the\ncontest has been agreed upon, let it go forward. It is for a woman whose\npeer is not to be found in Pylos, Argos, or Mycene, nor yet in Ithaca\nnor on the mainland. You know this as well as I do; what need have I to\nspeak in praise of my mother? Come on, then, make no excuses for delay,\nbut let us see whether you can string the bow or no. I too will make\ntrial of it, for if I can string it and shoot through the iron, I shall\nnot suffer my mother to quit this house with a stranger, not if I can\nwin the prizes which my father won before me.\"\n\nAs he spoke he sprang from his seat, threw his crimson cloak from him,\nand took his sword from his shoulder. First he set the axes in a row, in\na long groove which he had dug for them, and had made straight by line.\n{162} Then he stamped the earth tight round them, and everyone was\nsurprised when they saw him set them up so orderly, though he had never\nseen anything of the kind before. This done, he went on to the pavement\nto make trial of the bow; thrice did he tug at it, trying with all his\nmight to draw the string, and thrice he had to leave off, though he had\nhoped to string the bow and shoot through the iron. He was trying for\nthe fourth time, and would have strung it had not Ulysses made a sign to\ncheck him in spite of all his eagerness. So he said:\n\n\"Alas! I shall either be always feeble and of no prowess, or I am too\nyoung, and have not yet reached my full strength so as to be able\nto hold my own if any one attacks me. You others, therefore, who are\nstronger than I, make trial of the bow and get this contest settled.\"\n\nOn this he put the bow down, letting it lean against the door [that led\ninto the house] with the arrow standing against the top of the bow. Then\nhe sat down on the seat from which he had risen, and Antinous said:\n\n\"Come on each of you in his turn, going towards the right from the place\nat which the cupbearer begins when he is handing round the wine.\"\n\nThe rest agreed, and Leiodes son of Oenops was the first to rise. He\nwas sacrificial priest to the suitors, and sat in the corner near the\nmixing-bowl. {163} He was the only man who hated their evil deeds and\nwas indignant with the others. He was now the first to take the bow and\narrow, so he went on to the pavement to make his trial, but he could not\nstring the bow, for his hands were weak and unused to hard work, they\ntherefore soon grew tired, and he said to the suitors, \"My friends, I\ncannot string it; let another have it, this bow shall take the life and\nsoul out of many a chief among us, for it is better to die than to live\nafter having missed the prize that we have so long striven for, and\nwhich has brought us so long together. Some one of us is even now hoping\nand praying that he may marry Penelope, but when he has seen this bow\nand tried it, let him woo and make bridal offerings to some other woman,\nand let Penelope marry whoever makes her the best offer and whose lot it\nis to win her.\"\n\nOn this he put the bow down, letting it lean against the door, {164}\nwith the arrow standing against the tip of the bow. Then he took his\nseat again on the seat from which he had risen; and Antinous rebuked him\nsaying:\n\n\"Leiodes, what are you talking about? Your words are monstrous and\nintolerable; it makes me angry to listen to you. Shall, then, this bow\ntake the life of many a chief among us, merely because you cannot bend\nit yourself? True, you were not born to be an archer, but there are\nothers who will soon string it.\"\n\nThen he said to Melanthius the goatherd, \"Look sharp, light a fire in\nthe court, and set a seat hard by with a sheep skin on it; bring us also\na large ball of lard, from what they have in the house. Let us warm the\nbow and grease it--we will then make trial of it again, and bring the\ncontest to an end.\"\n\nMelanthius lit the fire, and set a seat covered with sheep skins beside\nit. He also brought a great ball of lard from what they had in the\nhouse, and the suitors warmed the bow and again made trial of it, but\nthey were none of them nearly strong enough to string it. Nevertheless\nthere still remained Antinous and Eurymachus, who were the ringleaders\namong the suitors and much the foremost among them all.\n\nThen the swineherd and the stockman left the cloisters together, and\nUlysses followed them. When they had got outside the gates and the outer\nyard, Ulysses said to them quietly:\n\n\"Stockman, and you swineherd, I have something in my mind which I am in\ndoubt whether to say or no; but I think I will say it. What manner of\nmen would you be to stand by Ulysses, if some god should bring him back\nhere all of a sudden? Say which you are disposed to do--to side with the\nsuitors, or with Ulysses?\"\n\n\"Father Jove,\" answered the stockman, \"would indeed that you might so\nordain it. If some god were but to bring Ulysses back, you should see\nwith what might and main I would fight for him.\"\n\nIn like words Eumaeus prayed to all the gods that Ulysses might return;\nwhen, therefore, he saw for certain what mind they were of, Ulysses\nsaid, \"It is I, Ulysses, who am here. I have suffered much, but at last,\nin the twentieth year, I am come back to my own country. I find that you\ntwo alone of all my servants are glad that I should do so, for I\nhave not heard any of the others praying for my return. To you two,\ntherefore, will I unfold the truth as it shall be. If heaven shall\ndeliver the suitors into my hands, I will find wives for both of you,\nwill give you house and holding close to my own, and you shall be to me\nas though you were brothers and friends of Telemachus. I will now give\nyou convincing proofs that you may know me and be assured. See, here is\nthe scar from the boar's tooth that ripped me when I was out hunting on\nMt. Parnassus with the sons of Autolycus.\"\n\nAs he spoke he drew his rags aside from the great scar, and when they\nhad examined it thoroughly, they both of them wept about Ulysses, threw\ntheir arms round him, and kissed his head and shoulders, while Ulysses\nkissed their hands and faces in return. The sun would have gone down\nupon their mourning if Ulysses had not checked them and said:\n\n\"Cease your weeping, lest some one should come outside and see us, and\ntell those who are within. When you go in, do so separately, not both\ntogether; I will go first, and do you follow afterwards; let this\nmoreover be the token between us; the suitors will all of them try to\nprevent me from getting hold of the bow and quiver; do you, therefore,\nEumaeus, place it in my hands when you are carrying it about, and\ntell the women to close the doors of their apartment. If they hear any\ngroaning or uproar as of men fighting about the house, they must not\ncome out; they must keep quiet, and stay where they are at their work.\nAnd I charge you, Philoetius, to make fast the doors of the outer court,\nand to bind them securely at once.\"\n\nWhen he had thus spoken, he went back to the house and took the seat\nthat he had left. Presently, his two servants followed him inside.\n\nAt this moment the bow was in the hands of Eurymachus, who was warming\nit by the fire, but even so he could not string it, and he was greatly\ngrieved. He heaved a deep sigh and said, \"I grieve for myself and for us\nall; I grieve that I shall have to forgo the marriage, but I do not care\nnearly so much about this, for there are plenty of other women in Ithaca\nand elsewhere; what I feel most is the fact of our being so inferior to\nUlysses in strength that we cannot string his bow. This will disgrace us\nin the eyes of those who are yet unborn.\"\n\n\"It shall not be so, Eurymachus,\" said Antinous, \"and you know it\nyourself. Today is the feast of Apollo throughout all the land; who can\nstring a bow on such a day as this? Put it on one side--as for the axes\nthey can stay where they are, for no one is likely to come to the house\nand take them away: let the cupbearer go round with his cups, that we\nmay make our drink-offerings and drop this matter of the bow; we will\ntell Melanthius to bring us in some goats tomorrow--the best he has; we\ncan then offer thigh bones to Apollo the mighty archer, and again make\ntrial of the bow, so as to bring the contest to an end.\"\n\nThe rest approved his words, and thereon men servants poured water over\nthe hands of the guests, while pages filled the mixing-bowls with wine\nand water and handed it round after giving every man his drink-offering.\nThen, when they had made their offerings and had drunk each as much as\nhe desired, Ulysses craftily said:--\n\n\"Suitors of the illustrious queen, listen that I may speak even as I am\nminded. I appeal more especially to Eurymachus, and to Antinous who\nhas just spoken with so much reason. Cease shooting for the present and\nleave the matter to the gods, but in the morning let heaven give victory\nto whom it will. For the moment, however, give me the bow that I may\nprove the power of my hands among you all, and see whether I still have\nas much strength as I used to have, or whether travel and neglect have\nmade an end of it.\"\n\nThis made them all very angry, for they feared he might string the bow,\nAntinous therefore rebuked him fiercely saying, \"Wretched creature, you\nhave not so much as a grain of sense in your whole body; you ought\nto think yourself lucky in being allowed to dine unharmed among your\nbetters, without having any smaller portion served you than we others\nhave had, and in being allowed to hear our conversation. No other beggar\nor stranger has been allowed to hear what we say among ourselves; the\nwine must have been doing you a mischief, as it does with all those who\ndrink immoderately. It was wine that inflamed the Centaur Eurytion when\nhe was staying with Peirithous among the Lapithae. When the wine had\ngot into his head, he went mad and did ill deeds about the house of\nPeirithous; this angered the heroes who were there assembled, so they\nrushed at him and cut off his ears and nostrils; then they dragged him\nthrough the doorway out of the house, so he went away crazed, and bore\nthe burden of his crime, bereft of understanding. Henceforth, therefore,\nthere was war between mankind and the centaurs, but he brought it upon\nhimself through his own drunkenness. In like manner I can tell you that\nit will go hardly with you if you string the bow: you will find no mercy\nfrom any one here, for we shall at once ship you off to king Echetus,\nwho kills every one that comes near him: you will never get away alive,\nso drink and keep quiet without getting into a quarrel with men younger\nthan yourself.\"\n\nPenelope then spoke to him. \"Antinous,\" said she, \"it is not right that\nyou should ill-treat any guest of Telemachus who comes to this house.\nIf the stranger should prove strong enough to string the mighty bow of\nUlysses, can you suppose that he would take me home with him and make me\nhis wife? Even the man himself can have no such idea in his mind:\nnone of you need let that disturb his feasting; it would be out of all\nreason.\"\n\n\"Queen Penelope,\" answered Eurymachus, \"we do not suppose that this man\nwill take you away with him; it is impossible; but we are afraid lest\nsome of the baser sort, men or women among the Achaeans, should go\ngossiping about and say, 'These suitors are a feeble folk; they are\npaying court to the wife of a brave man whose bow not one of them was\nable to string, and yet a beggarly tramp who came to the house strung it\nat once and sent an arrow through the iron.' This is what will be said,\nand it will be a scandal against us.\"\n\n\"Eurymachus,\" Penelope answered, \"people who persist in eating up the\nestate of a great chieftain and dishonouring his house must not expect\nothers to think well of them. Why then should you mind if men talk as\nyou think they will? This stranger is strong and well-built, he says\nmoreover that he is of noble birth. Give him the bow, and let us see\nwhether he can string it or no. I say--and it shall surely be--that if\nApollo vouchsafes him the glory of stringing it, I will give him a cloak\nand shirt of good wear, with a javelin to keep off dogs and robbers,\nand a sharp sword. I will also give him sandals, and will see him sent\nsafely wherever he wants to go.\"\n\nThen Telemachus said, \"Mother, I am the only man either in Ithaca or in\nthe islands that are over against Elis who has the right to let any\none have the bow or to refuse it. No one shall force me one way or the\nother, not even though I choose to make the stranger a present of the\nbow outright, and let him take it away with him. Go, then, within the\nhouse and busy yourself with your daily duties, your loom, your distaff,\nand the ordering of your servants. This bow is a man's matter, and mine\nabove all others, for it is I who am master here.\"\n\nShe went wondering back into the house, and laid her son's saying in her\nheart. Then going upstairs with her handmaids into her room, she mourned\nher dear husband till Minerva sent sweet sleep over her eyelids.\n\nThe swineherd now took up the bow and was for taking it to Ulysses, but\nthe suitors clamoured at him from all parts of the cloisters, and one of\nthem said, \"You idiot, where are you taking the bow to? Are you out of\nyour wits? If Apollo and the other gods will grant our prayer, your own\nboarhounds shall get you into some quiet little place, and worry you to\ndeath.\"\n\nEumaeus was frightened at the outcry they all raised, so he put the bow\ndown then and there, but Telemachus shouted out at him from the other\nside of the cloisters, and threatened him saying, \"Father Eumaeus,\nbring the bow on in spite of them, or young as I am I will pelt you with\nstones back to the country, for I am the better man of the two. I wish\nI was as much stronger than all the other suitors in the house as I am\nthan you, I would soon send some of them off sick and sorry, for they\nmean mischief.\"\n\nThus did he speak, and they all of them laughed heartily, which put them\nin a better humour with Telemachus; so Eumaeus brought the bow on and\nplaced it in the hands of Ulysses. When he had done this, he called\nEuryclea apart and said to her, \"Euryclea, Telemachus says you are to\nclose the doors of the women's apartments. If they hear any groaning or\nuproar as of men fighting about the house, they are not to come out, but\nare to keep quiet and stay where they are at their work.\"\n\nEuryclea did as she was told and closed the doors of the women's\napartments.\n\nMeanwhile Philoetius slipped quietly out and made fast the gates of\nthe outer court. There was a ship's cable of byblus fibre lying in the\ngatehouse, so he made the gates fast with it and then came in again,\nresuming the seat that he had left, and keeping an eye on Ulysses, who\nhad now got the bow in his hands, and was turning it every way about,\nand proving it all over to see whether the worms had been eating into\nits two horns during his absence. Then would one turn towards his\nneighbour saying, \"This is some tricky old bow-fancier; either he has\ngot one like it at home, or he wants to make one, in such workmanlike\nstyle does the old vagabond handle it.\"\n\nAnother said, \"I hope he may be no more successful in other things than\nhe is likely to be in stringing this bow.\"\n\nBut Ulysses, when he had taken it up and examined it all over, strung it\nas easily as a skilled bard strings a new peg of his lyre and makes\nthe twisted gut fast at both ends. Then he took it in his right hand\nto prove the string, and it sang sweetly under his touch like the\ntwittering of a swallow. The suitors were dismayed, and turned colour\nas they heard it; at that moment, moreover, Jove thundered loudly as a\nsign, and the heart of Ulysses rejoiced as he heard the omen that the\nson of scheming Saturn had sent him.\n\nHe took an arrow that was lying upon the table {165}--for those\nwhich the Achaeans were so shortly about to taste were all inside the\nquiver--he laid it on the centre-piece of the bow, and drew the notch of\nthe arrow and the string toward him, still seated on his seat. When\nhe had taken aim he let fly, and his arrow pierced every one of the\nhandle-holes of the axes from the first onwards till it had gone right\nthrough them, and into the outer courtyard. Then he said to Telemachus:\n\n\"Your guest has not disgraced you, Telemachus. I did not miss what I\naimed at, and I was not long in stringing my bow. I am still strong, and\nnot as the suitors twit me with being. Now, however, it is time for\nthe Achaeans to prepare supper while there is still daylight, and\nthen otherwise to disport themselves with song and dance which are the\ncrowning ornaments of a banquet.\"\n\nAs he spoke he made a sign with his eyebrows, and Telemachus girded on\nhis sword, grasped his spear, and stood armed beside his father's seat.\n\n\nBook XXII\n\nTHE KILLING OF THE SUITORS--THE MAIDS WHO HAVE MISCONDUCTED THEMSELVES\nARE MADE TO CLEANSE THE CLOISTERS AND ARE THEN HANGED.\n\nThen Ulysses tore off his rags, and sprang on to the broad pavement\nwith his bow and his quiver full of arrows. He shed the arrows on to the\nground at his feet and said, \"The mighty contest is at an end. I will\nnow see whether Apollo will vouchsafe it to me to hit another mark which\nno man has yet hit.\"\n\nOn this he aimed a deadly arrow at Antinous, who was about to take up a\ntwo-handled gold cup to drink his wine and already had it in his hands.\nHe had no thought of death--who amongst all the revellers would think\nthat one man, however brave, would stand alone among so many and kill\nhim? The arrow struck Antinous in the throat, and the point went clean\nthrough his neck, so that he fell over and the cup dropped from his\nhand, while a thick stream of blood gushed from his nostrils. He kicked\nthe table from him and upset the things on it, so that the bread and\nroasted meats were all soiled as they fell over on to the ground. {166}\nThe suitors were in an uproar when they saw that a man had been hit;\nthey sprang in dismay one and all of them from their seats and looked\neverywhere towards the walls, but there was neither shield nor spear,\nand they rebuked Ulysses very angrily. \"Stranger,\" said they, \"you shall\npay for shooting people in this way: you shall see no other contest;\nyou are a doomed man; he whom you have slain was the foremost youth in\nIthaca, and the vultures shall devour you for having killed him.\"\n\nThus they spoke, for they thought that he had killed Antinous by\nmistake, and did not perceive that death was hanging over the head of\nevery one of them. But Ulysses glared at them and said:\n\n\"Dogs, did you think that I should not come back from Troy? You have\nwasted my substance, {167} have forced my women servants to lie with\nyou, and have wooed my wife while I was still living. You have feared\nneither God nor man, and now you shall die.\"\n\nThey turned pale with fear as he spoke, and every man looked round about\nto see whither he might fly for safety, but Eurymachus alone spoke.\n\n\"If you are Ulysses,\" said he, \"then what you have said is just. We have\ndone much wrong on your lands and in your house. But Antinous who was\nthe head and front of the offending lies low already. It was all his\ndoing. It was not that he wanted to marry Penelope; he did not so much\ncare about that; what he wanted was something quite different, and Jove\nhas not vouchsafed it to him; he wanted to kill your son and to be chief\nman in Ithaca. Now, therefore, that he has met the death which was his\ndue, spare the lives of your people. We will make everything good among\nourselves, and pay you in full for all that we have eaten and drunk.\nEach one of us shall pay you a fine worth twenty oxen, and we will keep\non giving you gold and bronze till your heart is softened. Until we have\ndone this no one can complain of your being enraged against us.\"\n\nUlysses again glared at him and said, \"Though you should give me all\nthat you have in the world both now and all that you ever shall have,\nI will not stay my hand till I have paid all of you in full. You must\nfight, or fly for your lives; and fly, not a man of you shall.\"\n\nTheir hearts sank as they heard him, but Eurymachus again spoke saying:\n\n\"My friends, this man will give us no quarter. He will stand where he\nis and shoot us down till he has killed every man among us. Let us then\nshow fight; draw your swords, and hold up the tables to shield you\nfrom his arrows. Let us have at him with a rush, to drive him from the\npavement and doorway: we can then get through into the town, and raise\nsuch an alarm as shall soon stay his shooting.\"\n\nAs he spoke he drew his keen blade of bronze, sharpened on both sides,\nand with a loud cry sprang towards Ulysses, but Ulysses instantly shot\nan arrow into his breast that caught him by the nipple and fixed itself\nin his liver. He dropped his sword and fell doubled up over his table.\nThe cup and all the meats went over on to the ground as he smote the\nearth with his forehead in the agonies of death, and he kicked the stool\nwith his feet until his eyes were closed in darkness.\n\nThen Amphinomus drew his sword and made straight at Ulysses to try and\nget him away from the door; but Telemachus was too quick for him, and\nstruck him from behind; the spear caught him between the shoulders and\nwent right through his chest, so that he fell heavily to the ground and\nstruck the earth with his forehead. Then Telemachus sprang away from\nhim, leaving his spear still in the body, for he feared that if he\nstayed to draw it out, some one of the Achaeans might come up and hack\nat him with his sword, or knock him down, so he set off at a run, and\nimmediately was at his father's side. Then he said:\n\n\"Father, let me bring you a shield, two spears, and a brass helmet for\nyour temples. I will arm myself as well, and will bring other armour for\nthe swineherd and the stockman, for we had better be armed.\"\n\n\"Run and fetch them,\" answered Ulysses, \"while my arrows hold out, or\nwhen I am alone they may get me away from the door.\"\n\nTelemachus did as his father said, and went off to the store room where\nthe armour was kept. He chose four shields, eight spears, and four brass\nhelmets with horse-hair plumes. He brought them with all speed to his\nfather, and armed himself first, while the stockman and the swineherd\nalso put on their armour, and took their places near Ulysses. Meanwhile\nUlysses, as long as his arrows lasted, had been shooting the suitors one\nby one, and they fell thick on one another: when his arrows gave out, he\nset the bow to stand against the end wall of the house by the door post,\nand hung a shield four hides thick about his shoulders; on his comely\nhead he set his helmet, well wrought with a crest of horse-hair that\nnodded menacingly above it, {168} and he grasped two redoubtable\nbronze-shod spears.\n\nNow there was a trap door {169} on the wall, while at one end of the\npavement {170} there was an exit leading to a narrow passage, and this\nexit was closed by a well-made door. Ulysses told Philoetius to stand by\nthis door and guard it, for only one person could attack it at a time.\nBut Agelaus shouted out, \"Cannot some one go up to the trap door and\ntell the people what is going on? Help would come at once, and we should\nsoon make an end of this man and his shooting.\"\n\n\"This may not be, Agelaus,\" answered Melanthius, \"the mouth of the\nnarrow passage is dangerously near the entrance to the outer court. One\nbrave man could prevent any number from getting in. But I know what I\nwill do, I will bring you arms from the store-room, for I am sure it is\nthere that Ulysses and his son have put them.\"\n\nOn this the goatherd Melanthius went by back passages to the store-room\nof Ulysses' house. There he chose twelve shields, with as many helmets\nand spears, and brought them back as fast as he could to give them to\nthe suitors. Ulysses' heart began to fail him when he saw the suitors\n{171} putting on their armour and brandishing their spears. He saw the\ngreatness of the danger, and said to Telemachus, \"Some one of the women\ninside is helping the suitors against us, or it may be Melanthius.\"\n\nTelemachus answered, \"The fault, father, is mine, and mine only; I left\nthe store room door open, and they have kept a sharper look out than\nI have. Go, Eumaeus, put the door to, and see whether it is one of the\nwomen who is doing this, or whether, as I suspect, it is Melanthius the\nson of Dolius.\"\n\nThus did they converse. Meanwhile Melanthius was again going to the\nstore room to fetch more armour, but the swineherd saw him and said to\nUlysses who was beside him, \"Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, it is that\nscoundrel Melanthius, just as we suspected, who is going to the store\nroom. Say, shall I kill him, if I can get the better of him, or shall\nI bring him here that you may take your own revenge for all the many\nwrongs that he has done in your house?\"\n\nUlysses answered, \"Telemachus and I will hold these suitors in check, no\nmatter what they do; go back both of you and bind Melanthius' hands and\nfeet behind him. Throw him into the store room and make the door fast\nbehind you; then fasten a noose about his body, and string him close up\nto the rafters from a high bearing-post, {172} that he may linger on in\nan agony.\"\n\nThus did he speak, and they did even as he had said; they went to the\nstore room, which they entered before Melanthius saw them, for he was\nbusy searching for arms in the innermost part of the room, so the\ntwo took their stand on either side of the door and waited. By and by\nMelanthius came out with a helmet in one hand, and an old dry-rotted\nshield in the other, which had been borne by Laertes when he was young,\nbut which had been long since thrown aside, and the straps had become\nunsewn; on this the two seized him, dragged him back by the hair, and\nthrew him struggling to the ground. They bent his hands and feet well\nbehind his back, and bound them tight with a painful bond as Ulysses had\ntold them; then they fastened a noose about his body and strung him up\nfrom a high pillar till he was close up to the rafters, and over him did\nyou then vaunt, O swineherd Eumaeus saying, \"Melanthius, you will pass\nthe night on a soft bed as you deserve. You will know very well when\nmorning comes from the streams of Oceanus, and it is time for you to be\ndriving in your goats for the suitors to feast on.\"\n\nThere, then, they left him in very cruel bondage, and having put on\ntheir armour they closed the door behind them and went back to take\ntheir places by the side of Ulysses; whereon the four men stood in the\ncloister, fierce and full of fury; nevertheless, those who were in the\nbody of the court were still both brave and many. Then Jove's daughter\nMinerva came up to them, having assumed the voice and form of Mentor.\nUlysses was glad when he saw her and said, \"Mentor, lend me your help,\nand forget not your old comrade, nor the many good turns he has done\nyou. Besides, you are my age-mate.\"\n\nBut all the time he felt sure it was Minerva, and the suitors from the\nother side raised an uproar when they saw her. Agelaus was the first to\nreproach her. \"Mentor,\" he cried, \"do not let Ulysses beguile you into\nsiding with him and fighting the suitors. This is what we will do: when\nwe have killed these people, father and son, we will kill you too. You\nshall pay for it with your head, and when we have killed you, we will\ntake all you have, in doors or out, and bring it into hotch-pot with\nUlysses' property; we will not let your sons live in your house, nor\nyour daughters, nor shall your widow continue to live in the city of\nIthaca.\"\n\nThis made Minerva still more furious, so she scolded Ulysses very\nangrily. {173} \"Ulysses,\" said she, \"your strength and prowess are no\nlonger what they were when you fought for nine long years among the\nTrojans about the noble lady Helen. You killed many a man in those days,\nand it was through your stratagem that Priam's city was taken. How comes\nit that you are so lamentably less valiant now that you are on your own\nground, face to face with the suitors in your own house? Come on, my\ngood fellow, stand by my side and see how Mentor, son of Alcimus shall\nfight your foes and requite your kindnesses conferred upon him.\"\n\nBut she would not give him full victory as yet, for she wished still\nfurther to prove his own prowess and that of his brave son, so she flew\nup to one of the rafters in the roof of the cloister and sat upon it in\nthe form of a swallow.\n\nMeanwhile Agelaus son of Damastor, Eurynomus, Amphimedon, Demoptolemus,\nPisander, and Polybus son of Polyctor bore the brunt of the fight upon\nthe suitors' side; of all those who were still fighting for their lives\nthey were by far the most valiant, for the others had already fallen\nunder the arrows of Ulysses. Agelaus shouted to them and said, \"My\nfriends, he will soon have to leave off, for Mentor has gone away after\nhaving done nothing for him but brag. They are standing at the doors\nunsupported. Do not aim at him all at once, but six of you throw your\nspears first, and see if you cannot cover yourselves with glory by\nkilling him. When he has fallen we need not be uneasy about the others.\"\n\nThey threw their spears as he bade them, but Minerva made them all of\nno effect. One hit the door post; another went against the door; the\npointed shaft of another struck the wall; and as soon as they had\navoided all the spears of the suitors Ulysses said to his own men, \"My\nfriends, I should say we too had better let drive into the middle of\nthem, or they will crown all the harm they have done us by killing us\noutright.\"\n\nThey therefore aimed straight in front of them and threw their spears.\nUlysses killed Demoptolemus, Telemachus Euryades, Eumaeus Elatus, while\nthe stockman killed Pisander. These all bit the dust, and as the others\ndrew back into a corner Ulysses and his men rushed forward and regained\ntheir spears by drawing them from the bodies of the dead.\n\nThe suitors now aimed a second time, but again Minerva made their\nweapons for the most part without effect. One hit a bearing-post of\nthe cloister; another went against the door; while the pointed shaft of\nanother struck the wall. Still, Amphimedon just took a piece of the\ntop skin from off Telemachus's wrist, and Ctesippus managed to graze\nEumaeus's shoulder above his shield; but the spear went on and fell\nto the ground. Then Ulysses and his men let drive into the crowd of\nsuitors. Ulysses hit Eurydamas, Telemachus Amphimedon, and Eumaeus\nPolybus. After this the stockman hit Ctesippus in the breast, and\ntaunted him saying, \"Foul-mouthed son of Polytherses, do not be so\nfoolish as to talk wickedly another time, but let heaven direct your\nspeech, for the gods are far stronger than men. I make you a present of\nthis advice to repay you for the foot which you gave Ulysses when he was\nbegging about in his own house.\"\n\nThus spoke the stockman, and Ulysses struck the son of Damastor with a\nspear in close fight, while Telemachus hit Leocritus son of Evenor in\nthe belly, and the dart went clean through him, so that he fell forward\nfull on his face upon the ground. Then Minerva from her seat on the\nrafter held up her deadly aegis, and the hearts of the suitors quailed.\nThey fled to the other end of the court like a herd of cattle maddened\nby the gadfly in early summer when the days are at their longest. As\neagle-beaked, crook-taloned vultures from the mountains swoop down on\nthe smaller birds that cower in flocks upon the ground, and kill\nthem, for they cannot either fight or fly, and lookers on enjoy the\nsport--even so did Ulysses and his men fall upon the suitors and smite\nthem on every side. They made a horrible groaning as their brains were\nbeing battered in, and the ground seethed with their blood.\n\nLeiodes then caught the knees of Ulysses and said, \"Ulysses I beseech\nyou have mercy upon me and spare me. I never wronged any of the women in\nyour house either in word or deed, and I tried to stop the others. I\nsaw them, but they would not listen, and now they are paying for their\nfolly. I was their sacrificing priest; if you kill me, I shall die\nwithout having done anything to deserve it, and shall have got no thanks\nfor all the good that I did.\"\n\nUlysses looked sternly at him and answered, \"If you were their\nsacrificing priest, you must have prayed many a time that it might be\nlong before I got home again, and that you might marry my wife and have\nchildren by her. Therefore you shall die.\"\n\nWith these words he picked up the sword that Agelaus had dropped when\nhe was being killed, and which was lying upon the ground. Then he struck\nLeiodes on the back of his neck, so that his head fell rolling in the\ndust while he was yet speaking.\n\nThe minstrel Phemius son of Terpes--he who had been forced by the\nsuitors to sing to them--now tried to save his life. He was standing\nnear towards the trap door, {174} and held his lyre in his hand. He did\nnot know whether to fly out of the cloister and sit down by the altar of\nJove that was in the outer court, and on which both Laertes and Ulysses\nhad offered up the thigh bones of many an ox, or whether to go straight\nup to Ulysses and embrace his knees, but in the end he deemed it best\nto embrace Ulysses' knees. So he laid his lyre on the ground between the\nmixing bowl {175} and the silver-studded seat; then going up to Ulysses\nhe caught hold of his knees and said, \"Ulysses, I beseech you have mercy\non me and spare me. You will be sorry for it afterwards if you kill a\nbard who can sing both for gods and men as I can. I make all my lays\nmyself, and heaven visits me with every kind of inspiration. I would\nsing to you as though you were a god, do not therefore be in such a\nhurry to cut my head off. Your own son Telemachus will tell you that I\ndid not want to frequent your house and sing to the suitors after their\nmeals, but they were too many and too strong for me, so they made me.\"\n\nTelemachus heard him, and at once went up to his father. \"Hold!\" he\ncried, \"the man is guiltless, do him no hurt; and we will spare Medon\ntoo, who was always good to me when I was a boy, unless Philoetius or\nEumaeus has already killed him, or he has fallen in your way when you\nwere raging about the court.\"\n\nMedon caught these words of Telemachus, for he was crouching under a\nseat beneath which he had hidden by covering himself up with a freshly\nflayed heifer's hide, so he threw off the hide, went up to Telemachus,\nand laid hold of his knees.\n\n\"Here I am, my dear sir,\" said he, \"stay your hand therefore, and tell\nyour father, or he will kill me in his rage against the suitors for\nhaving wasted his substance and been so foolishly disrespectful to\nyourself.\"\n\nUlysses smiled at him and answered, \"Fear not; Telemachus has saved your\nlife, that you may know in future, and tell other people, how greatly\nbetter good deeds prosper than evil ones. Go, therefore, outside\nthe cloisters into the outer court, and be out of the way of the\nslaughter--you and the bard--while I finish my work here inside.\"\n\nThe pair went into the outer court as fast as they could, and sat down\nby Jove's great altar, looking fearfully round, and still expecting that\nthey would be killed. Then Ulysses searched the whole court carefully\nover, to see if anyone had managed to hide himself and was still living,\nbut he found them all lying in the dust and weltering in their blood.\nThey were like fishes which fishermen have netted out of the sea, and\nthrown upon the beach to lie gasping for water till the heat of the sun\nmakes an end of them. Even so were the suitors lying all huddled up one\nagainst the other.\n\nThen Ulysses said to Telemachus, \"Call nurse Euryclea; I have something\nto say to her.\"\n\nTelemachus went and knocked at the door of the women's room. \"Make\nhaste,\" said he, \"you old woman who have been set over all the other\nwomen in the house. Come outside; my father wishes to speak to you.\"\n\nWhen Euryclea heard this she unfastened the door of the women's room\nand came out, following Telemachus. She found Ulysses among the\ncorpses bespattered with blood and filth like a lion that has just been\ndevouring an ox, and his breast and both his cheeks are all bloody, so\nthat he is a fearful sight; even so was Ulysses besmirched from head\nto foot with gore. When she saw all the corpses and such a quantity of\nblood, she was beginning to cry out for joy, for she saw that a great\ndeed had been done; but Ulysses checked her, \"Old woman,\" said he,\n\"rejoice in silence; restrain yourself, and do not make any noise about\nit; it is an unholy thing to vaunt over dead men. Heaven's doom and\ntheir own evil deeds have brought these men to destruction, for they\nrespected no man in the whole world, neither rich nor poor, who came\nnear them, and they have come to a bad end as a punishment for their\nwickedness and folly. Now, however, tell me which of the women in the\nhouse have misconducted themselves, and who are innocent.\" {176}\n\n\"I will tell you the truth, my son,\" answered Euryclea. \"There are fifty\nwomen in the house whom we teach to do things, such as carding wool,\nand all kinds of household work. Of these, twelve in all {177} have\nmisbehaved, and have been wanting in respect to me, and also to\nPenelope. They showed no disrespect to Telemachus, for he has only\nlately grown and his mother never permitted him to give orders to the\nfemale servants; but let me go upstairs and tell your wife all that has\nhappened, for some god has been sending her to sleep.\"\n\n\"Do not wake her yet,\" answered Ulysses, \"but tell the women who have\nmisconducted themselves to come to me.\"\n\nEuryclea left the cloister to tell the women, and make them come to\nUlysses; in the meantime he called Telemachus, the stockman, and the\nswineherd. \"Begin,\" said he, \"to remove the dead, and make the women\nhelp you. Then, get sponges and clean water to swill down the tables and\nseats. When you have thoroughly cleansed the whole cloisters, take the\nwomen into the space between the domed room and the wall of the outer\ncourt, and run them through with your swords till they are quite dead,\nand have forgotten all about love and the way in which they used to lie\nin secret with the suitors.\"\n\nOn this the women came down in a body, weeping and wailing bitterly.\nFirst they carried the dead bodies out, and propped them up against one\nanother in the gatehouse. Ulysses ordered them about and made them do\ntheir work quickly, so they had to carry the bodies out. When they had\ndone this, they cleaned all the tables and seats with sponges and water,\nwhile Telemachus and the two others shovelled up the blood and dirt from\nthe ground, and the women carried it all away and put it out of doors.\nThen when they had made the whole place quite clean and orderly, they\ntook the women out and hemmed them in the narrow space between the wall\nof the domed room and that of the yard, so that they could not get away:\nand Telemachus said to the other two, \"I shall not let these women die\na clean death, for they were insolent to me and my mother, and used to\nsleep with the suitors.\"\n\nSo saying he made a ship's cable fast to one of the bearing-posts that\nsupported the roof of the domed room, and secured it all around the\nbuilding, at a good height, lest any of the women's feet should touch\nthe ground; and as thrushes or doves beat against a net that has been\nset for them in a thicket just as they were getting to their nest, and a\nterrible fate awaits them, even so did the women have to put their heads\nin nooses one after the other and die most miserably. {178} Their feet\nmoved convulsively for a while, but not for very long.\n\nAs for Melanthius, they took him through the cloister into the inner\ncourt. There they cut off his nose and his ears; they drew out his\nvitals and gave them to the dogs raw, and then in their fury they cut\noff his hands and his feet.\n\nWhen they had done this they washed their hands and feet and went back\ninto the house, for all was now over; and Ulysses said to the dear old\nnurse Euryclea, \"Bring me sulphur, which cleanses all pollution, and\nfetch fire also that I may burn it, and purify the cloisters. Go,\nmoreover, and tell Penelope to come here with her attendants, and also\nall the maidservants that are in the house.\"\n\n\"All that you have said is true,\" answered Euryclea, \"but let me bring\nyou some clean clothes--a shirt and cloak. Do not keep these rags on\nyour back any longer. It is not right.\"\n\n\"First light me a fire,\" replied Ulysses.\n\nShe brought the fire and sulphur, as he had bidden her, and Ulysses\nthoroughly purified the cloisters and both the inner and outer courts.\nThen she went inside to call the women and tell them what had happened;\nwhereon they came from their apartment with torches in their hands, and\npressed round Ulysses to embrace him, kissing his head and shoulders and\ntaking hold of his hands. It made him feel as if he should like to weep,\nfor he remembered every one of them. {179}\n\n\nBook XXIII\n\nPENELOPE EVENTUALLY RECOGNISES HER HUSBAND--EARLY IN THE MORNING\nULYSSES, TELEMACHUS, EUMAEUS, AND PHILOETIUS LEAVE THE TOWN.\n\nEuryclea now went upstairs laughing to tell her mistress that her dear\nhusband had come home. Her aged knees became young again and her feet\nwere nimble for joy as she went up to her mistress and bent over her\nhead to speak to her. \"Wake up Penelope, my dear child,\" she exclaimed,\n\"and see with your own eyes something that you have been wanting this\nlong time past. Ulysses has at last indeed come home again, and has\nkilled the suitors who were giving so much trouble in his house, eating\nup his estate and ill treating his son.\"\n\n\"My good nurse,\" answered Penelope, \"you must be mad. The gods sometimes\nsend some very sensible people out of their minds, and make foolish\npeople become sensible. This is what they must have been doing to you;\nfor you always used to be a reasonable person. Why should you thus mock\nme when I have trouble enough already--talking such nonsense, and waking\nme up out of a sweet sleep that had taken possession of my eyes and\nclosed them? I have never slept so soundly from the day my poor husband\nwent to that city with the ill-omened name. Go back again into the\nwomen's room; if it had been any one else who had woke me up to bring me\nsuch absurd news I should have sent her away with a severe scolding. As\nit is your age shall protect you.\"\n\n\"My dear child,\" answered Euryclea, \"I am not mocking you. It is quite\ntrue as I tell you that Ulysses is come home again. He was the stranger\nwhom they all kept on treating so badly in the cloister. Telemachus knew\nall the time that he was come back, but kept his father's secret that he\nmight have his revenge on all these wicked people.\"\n\nThen Penelope sprang up from her couch, threw her arms round Euryclea,\nand wept for joy. \"But my dear nurse,\" said she, \"explain this to me;\nif he has really come home as you say, how did he manage to overcome the\nwicked suitors single handed, seeing what a number of them there always\nwere?\"\n\n\"I was not there,\" answered Euryclea, \"and do not know; I only heard\nthem groaning while they were being killed. We sat crouching and huddled\nup in a corner of the women's room with the doors closed, till your\nson came to fetch me because his father sent him. Then I found Ulysses\nstanding over the corpses that were lying on the ground all round him,\none on top of the other. You would have enjoyed it if you could have\nseen him standing there all bespattered with blood and filth, and\nlooking just like a lion. But the corpses are now all piled up in the\ngatehouse that is in the outer court, and Ulysses has lit a great fire\nto purify the house with sulphur. He has sent me to call you, so come\nwith me that you may both be happy together after all; for now at last\nthe desire of your heart has been fulfilled; your husband is come home\nto find both wife and son alive and well, and to take his revenge in his\nown house on the suitors who behaved so badly to him.\"\n\n\"My dear nurse,\" said Penelope, \"do not exult too confidently over all\nthis. You know how delighted every one would be to see Ulysses come\nhome--more particularly myself, and the son who has been born to both\nof us; but what you tell me cannot be really true. It is some god who is\nangry with the suitors for their great wickedness, and has made an end\nof them; for they respected no man in the whole world, neither rich nor\npoor, who came near them, and they have come to a bad end in consequence\nof their iniquity; Ulysses is dead far away from the Achaean land; he\nwill never return home again.\"\n\nThen nurse Euryclea said, \"My child, what are you talking about? but you\nwere all hard of belief and have made up your mind that your husband is\nnever coming, although he is in the house and by his own fire side\nat this very moment. Besides I can give you another proof; when I was\nwashing him I perceived the scar which the wild boar gave him, and I\nwanted to tell you about it, but in his wisdom he would not let me, and\nclapped his hands over my mouth; so come with me and I will make this\nbargain with you--if I am deceiving you, you may have me killed by the\nmost cruel death you can think of.\"\n\n\"My dear nurse,\" said Penelope, \"however wise you may be you can hardly\nfathom the counsels of the gods. Nevertheless, we will go in search of\nmy son, that I may see the corpses of the suitors, and the man who has\nkilled them.\"\n\nOn this she came down from her upper room, and while doing so she\nconsidered whether she should keep at a distance from her husband and\nquestion him, or whether she should at once go up to him and embrace\nhim. When, however, she had crossed the stone floor of the cloister, she\nsat down opposite Ulysses by the fire, against the wall at right angles\n{180} [to that by which she had entered], while Ulysses sat near one of\nthe bearing-posts, looking upon the ground, and waiting to see what his\nbrave wife would say to him when she saw him. For a long time she sat\nsilent and as one lost in amazement. At one moment she looked him full\nin the face, but then again directly, she was misled by his shabby\nclothes and failed to recognise him, {181} till Telemachus began to\nreproach her and said:\n\n\"Mother--but you are so hard that I cannot call you by such a name--why\ndo you keep away from my father in this way? Why do you not sit by his\nside and begin talking to him and asking him questions? No other woman\ncould bear to keep away from her husband when he had come back to her\nafter twenty years of absence, and after having gone through so much;\nbut your heart always was as hard as a stone.\"\n\nPenelope answered, \"My son, I am so lost in astonishment that I can find\nno words in which either to ask questions or to answer them. I cannot\neven look him straight in the face. Still, if he really is Ulysses\ncome back to his own home again, we shall get to understand one another\nbetter by and by, for there are tokens with which we two are alone\nacquainted, and which are hidden from all others.\"\n\nUlysses smiled at this, and said to Telemachus, \"Let your mother put me\nto any proof she likes; she will make up her mind about it presently.\nShe rejects me for the moment and believes me to be somebody else,\nbecause I am covered with dirt and have such bad clothes on; let us,\nhowever, consider what we had better do next. When one man has killed\nanother--even though he was not one who would leave many friends to take\nup his quarrel--the man who has killed him must still say good bye to\nhis friends and fly the country; whereas we have been killing the stay\nof a whole town, and all the picked youth of Ithaca. I would have you\nconsider this matter.\"\n\n\"Look to it yourself, father,\" answered Telemachus, \"for they say you\nare the wisest counsellor in the world, and that there is no other\nmortal man who can compare with you. We will follow you with right good\nwill, nor shall you find us fail you in so far as our strength holds\nout.\"\n\n\"I will say what I think will be best,\" answered Ulysses. \"First wash\nand put your shirts on; tell the maids also to go to their own room and\ndress; Phemius shall then strike up a dance tune on his lyre, so that if\npeople outside hear, or any of the neighbours, or some one going along\nthe street happens to notice it, they may think there is a wedding in\nthe house, and no rumours about the death of the suitors will get about\nin the town, before we can escape to the woods upon my own land. Once\nthere, we will settle which of the courses heaven vouchsafes us shall\nseem wisest.\"\n\nThus did he speak, and they did even as he had said. First they washed\nand put their shirts on, while the women got ready. Then Phemius took\nhis lyre and set them all longing for sweet song and stately dance. The\nhouse re-echoed with the sound of men and women dancing, and the people\noutside said, \"I suppose the queen has been getting married at last.\nShe ought to be ashamed of herself for not continuing to protect her\nhusband's property until he comes home.\" {182}\n\nThis was what they said, but they did not know what it was that had been\nhappening. The upper servant Eurynome washed and anointed Ulysses in his\nown house and gave him a shirt and cloak, while Minerva made him look\ntaller and stronger than before; she also made the hair grow thick on\nthe top of his head, and flow down in curls like hyacinth blossoms; she\nglorified him about the head and shoulders just as a skilful workman who\nhas studied art of all kinds under Vulcan or Minerva--and his work is\nfull of beauty--enriches a piece of silver plate by gilding it. He came\nfrom the bath looking like one of the immortals, and sat down opposite\nhis wife on the seat he had left. \"My dear,\" said he, \"heaven has\nendowed you with a heart more unyielding than woman ever yet had. No\nother woman could bear to keep away from her husband when he had come\nback to her after twenty years of absence, and after having gone through\nso much. But come, nurse, get a bed ready for me; I will sleep alone,\nfor this woman has a heart as hard as iron.\"\n\n\"My dear,\" answered Penelope, \"I have no wish to set myself up, nor to\ndepreciate you; but I am not struck by your appearance, for I very well\nremember what kind of a man you were when you set sail from Ithaca.\nNevertheless, Euryclea, take his bed outside the bed chamber that he\nhimself built. Bring the bed outside this room, and put bedding upon it\nwith fleeces, good coverlets, and blankets.\"\n\nShe said this to try him, but Ulysses was very angry and said, \"Wife,\nI am much displeased at what you have just been saying. Who has been\ntaking my bed from the place in which I left it? He must have found it a\nhard task, no matter how skilled a workman he was, unless some god came\nand helped him to shift it. There is no man living, however strong and\nin his prime, who could move it from its place, for it is a marvellous\ncuriosity which I made with my very own hands. There was a young olive\ngrowing within the precincts of the house, in full vigour, and about as\nthick as a bearing-post. I built my room round this with strong walls\nof stone and a roof to cover them, and I made the doors strong and\nwell-fitting. Then I cut off the top boughs of the olive tree and left\nthe stump standing. This I dressed roughly from the root upwards and\nthen worked with carpenter's tools well and skilfully, straightening\nmy work by drawing a line on the wood, and making it into a bed-prop.\nI then bored a hole down the middle, and made it the centre-post of my\nbed, at which I worked till I had finished it, inlaying it with gold and\nsilver; after this I stretched a hide of crimson leather from one side\nof it to the other. So you see I know all about it, and I desire to\nlearn whether it is still there, or whether any one has been removing it\nby cutting down the olive tree at its roots.\"\n\nWhen she heard the sure proofs Ulysses now gave her, she fairly broke\ndown. She flew weeping to his side, flung her arms about his neck, and\nkissed him. \"Do not be angry with me Ulysses,\" she cried, \"you, who are\nthe wisest of mankind. We have suffered, both of us. Heaven has denied\nus the happiness of spending our youth, and of growing old, together; do\nnot then be aggrieved or take it amiss that I did not embrace you thus\nas soon as I saw you. I have been shuddering all the time through fear\nthat someone might come here and deceive me with a lying story; for\nthere are many very wicked people going about. Jove's daughter Helen\nwould never have yielded herself to a man from a foreign country, if she\nhad known that the sons of Achaeans would come after her and bring her\nback. Heaven put it in her heart to do wrong, and she gave no thought\nto that sin, which has been the source of all our sorrows. Now, however,\nthat you have convinced me by showing that you know all about our\nbed (which no human being has ever seen but you and I and a single\nmaidservant, the daughter of Actor, who was given me by my father on my\nmarriage, and who keeps the doors of our room) hard of belief though I\nhave been I can mistrust no longer.\"\n\nThen Ulysses in his turn melted, and wept as he clasped his dear and\nfaithful wife to his bosom. As the sight of land is welcome to men who\nare swimming towards the shore, when Neptune has wrecked their ship with\nthe fury of his winds and waves; a few alone reach the land, and these,\ncovered with brine, are thankful when they find themselves on firm\nground and out of danger--even so was her husband welcome to her as she\nlooked upon him, and she could not tear her two fair arms from about\nhis neck. Indeed they would have gone on indulging their sorrow till\nrosy-fingered morn appeared, had not Minerva determined otherwise, and\nheld night back in the far west, while she would not suffer Dawn to\nleave Oceanus, nor to yoke the two steeds Lampus and Phaethon that bear\nher onward to break the day upon mankind.\n\nAt last, however, Ulysses said, \"Wife, we have not yet reached the end\nof our troubles. I have an unknown amount of toil still to undergo. It\nis long and difficult, but I must go through with it, for thus the shade\nof Teiresias prophesied concerning me, on the day when I went down into\nHades to ask about my return and that of my companions. But now let us\ngo to bed, that we may lie down and enjoy the blessed boon of sleep.\"\n\n\"You shall go to bed as soon as you please,\" replied Penelope, \"now that\nthe gods have sent you home to your own good house and to your country.\nBut as heaven has put it in your mind to speak of it, tell me about the\ntask that lies before you. I shall have to hear about it later, so it is\nbetter that I should be told at once.\"\n\n\"My dear,\" answered Ulysses, \"why should you press me to tell you?\nStill, I will not conceal it from you, though you will not like it. I do\nnot like it myself, for Teiresias bade me travel far and wide, carrying\nan oar, till I came to a country where the people have never heard of\nthe sea, and do not even mix salt with their food. They know nothing\nabout ships, nor oars that are as the wings of a ship. He gave me this\ncertain token which I will not hide from you. He said that a wayfarer\nshould meet me and ask me whether it was a winnowing shovel that I had\non my shoulder. On this, I was to fix my oar in the ground and sacrifice\na ram, a bull, and a boar to Neptune; after which I was to go home and\noffer hecatombs to all the gods in heaven, one after the other. As for\nmyself, he said that death should come to me from the sea, and that my\nlife should ebb away very gently when I was full of years and peace of\nmind, and my people should bless me. All this, he said, should surely\ncome to pass.\"\n\nAnd Penelope said, \"If the gods are going to vouchsafe you a happier\ntime in your old age, you may hope then to have some respite from\nmisfortune.\"\n\nThus did they converse. Meanwhile Eurynome and the nurse took torches\nand made the bed ready with soft coverlets; as soon as they had laid\nthem, the nurse went back into the house to go to her rest, leaving the\nbed chamber woman Eurynome {183} to show Ulysses and Penelope to bed by\ntorch light. When she had conducted them to their room she went\nback, and they then came joyfully to the rites of their own old bed.\nTelemachus, Philoetius, and the swineherd now left off dancing, and made\nthe women leave off also. They then laid themselves down to sleep in the\ncloisters.\n\nWhen Ulysses and Penelope had had their fill of love they fell talking\nwith one another. She told him how much she had had to bear in seeing\nthe house filled with a crowd of wicked suitors who had killed so many\nsheep and oxen on her account, and had drunk so many casks of wine.\nUlysses in his turn told her what he had suffered, and how much trouble\nhe had himself given to other people. He told her everything, and she\nwas so delighted to listen that she never went to sleep till he had\nended his whole story.\n\nHe began with his victory over the Cicons, and how he thence reached the\nfertile land of the Lotus-eaters. He told her all about the Cyclops\nand how he had punished him for having so ruthlessly eaten his brave\ncomrades; how he then went on to Aeolus, who received him hospitably and\nfurthered him on his way, but even so he was not to reach home, for to\nhis great grief a hurricane carried him out to sea again; how he went on\nto the Laestrygonian city Telepylos, where the people destroyed all his\nships with their crews, save himself and his own ship only. Then he told\nof cunning Circe and her craft, and how he sailed to the chill house of\nHades, to consult the ghost of the Theban prophet Teiresias, and how he\nsaw his old comrades in arms, and his mother who bore him and brought\nhim up when he was a child; how he then heard the wondrous singing of\nthe Sirens, and went on to the wandering rocks and terrible Charybdis\nand to Scylla, whom no man had ever yet passed in safety; how his men\nthen ate the cattle of the sun-god, and how Jove therefore struck the\nship with his thunderbolts, so that all his men perished together,\nhimself alone being left alive; how at last he reached the Ogygian\nisland and the nymph Calypso, who kept him there in a cave, and fed\nhim, and wanted him to marry her, in which case she intended making him\nimmortal so that he should never grow old, but she could not persuade\nhim to let her do so; and how after much suffering he had found his way\nto the Phaeacians, who had treated him as though he had been a god, and\nsent him back in a ship to his own country after having given him gold,\nbronze, and raiment in great abundance. This was the last thing about\nwhich he told her, for here a deep sleep took hold upon him and eased\nthe burden of his sorrows.\n\nThen Minerva bethought her of another matter. When she deemed that\nUlysses had had both of his wife and of repose, she bade gold-enthroned\nDawn rise out of Oceanus that she might shed light upon mankind. On\nthis, Ulysses rose from his comfortable bed and said to Penelope,\n\"Wife, we have both of us had our full share of troubles, you, here, in\nlamenting my absence, and I in being prevented from getting home though\nI was longing all the time to do so. Now, however, that we have at last\ncome together, take care of the property that is in the house. As for\nthe sheep and goats which the wicked suitors have eaten, I will take\nmany myself by force from other people, and will compel the Achaeans to\nmake good the rest till they shall have filled all my yards. I am now\ngoing to the wooded lands out in the country to see my father who has\nso long been grieved on my account, and to yourself I will give these\ninstructions, though you have little need of them. At sunrise it will\nat once get abroad that I have been killing the suitors; go upstairs,\ntherefore, {184} and stay there with your women. See nobody and ask no\nquestions.\" {185}\n\nAs he spoke he girded on his armour. Then he roused Telemachus,\nPhiloetius, and Eumaeus, and told them all to put on their armour also.\nThis they did, and armed themselves. When they had done so, they\nopened the gates and sallied forth, Ulysses leading the way. It was now\ndaylight, but Minerva nevertheless concealed them in darkness and led\nthem quickly out of the town.\n\n\nBook XXIV\n\nTHE GHOSTS OF THE SUITORS IN HADES--ULYSSES AND HIS MEN GO TO THE HOUSE\nOF LAERTES--THE PEOPLE OF ITHACA COME OUT TO ATTACK ULYSSES, BUT MINERVA\nCONCLUDES A PEACE.\n\nThen Mercury of Cyllene summoned the ghosts of the suitors, and in his\nhand he held the fair golden wand with which he seals men's eyes in\nsleep or wakes them just as he pleases; with this he roused the ghosts\nand led them, while they followed whining and gibbering behind him. As\nbats fly squealing in the hollow of some great cave, when one of them\nhas fallen out of the cluster in which they hang, even so did the ghosts\nwhine and squeal as Mercury the healer of sorrow led them down into the\ndark abode of death. When they had passed the waters of Oceanus and the\nrock Leucas, they came to the gates of the sun and the land of dreams,\nwhereon they reached the meadow of asphodel where dwell the souls and\nshadows of them that can labour no more.\n\nHere they found the ghost of Achilles son of Peleus, with those of\nPatroclus, Antilochus, and Ajax, who was the finest and handsomest man\nof all the Danaans after the son of Peleus himself.\n\nThey gathered round the ghost of the son of Peleus, and the ghost of\nAgamemnon joined them, sorrowing bitterly. Round him were gathered also\nthe ghosts of those who had perished with him in the house of Aegisthus;\nand the ghost of Achilles spoke first.\n\n\"Son of Atreus,\" it said, \"we used to say that Jove had loved you better\nfrom first to last than any other hero, for you were captain over many\nand brave men, when we were all fighting together before Troy; yet the\nhand of death, which no mortal can escape, was laid upon you all too\nearly. Better for you had you fallen at Troy in the hey-day of your\nrenown, for the Achaeans would have built a mound over your ashes, and\nyour son would have been heir to your good name, whereas it has now been\nyour lot to come to a most miserable end.\"\n\n\"Happy son of Peleus,\" answered the ghost of Agamemnon, \"for having\ndied at Troy far from Argos, while the bravest of the Trojans and the\nAchaeans fell round you fighting for your body. There you lay in the\nwhirling clouds of dust, all huge and hugely, heedless now of your\nchivalry. We fought the whole of the livelong day, nor should we ever\nhave left off if Jove had not sent a hurricane to stay us. Then, when we\nhad borne you to the ships out of the fray, we laid you on your bed and\ncleansed your fair skin with warm water and with ointments. The Danaans\ntore their hair and wept bitterly round about you. Your mother, when she\nheard, came with her immortal nymphs from out of the sea, and the sound\nof a great wailing went forth over the waters so that the Achaeans\nquaked for fear. They would have fled panic-stricken to their ships had\nnot wise old Nestor whose counsel was ever truest checked them saying,\n'Hold, Argives, fly not sons of the Achaeans, this is his mother coming\nfrom the sea with her immortal nymphs to view the body of her son.'\n\n\"Thus he spoke, and the Achaeans feared no more. The daughters of the\nold man of the sea stood round you weeping bitterly, and clothed you\nin immortal raiment. The nine muses also came and lifted up their sweet\nvoices in lament--calling and answering one another; there was not an\nArgive but wept for pity of the dirge they chaunted. Days and nights\nseven and ten we mourned you, mortals and immortals, but on the\neighteenth day we gave you to the flames, and many a fat sheep with many\nan ox did we slay in sacrifice around you. You were burnt in raiment of\nthe gods, with rich resins and with honey, while heroes, horse and foot,\nclashed their armour round the pile as you were burning, with the tramp\nas of a great multitude. But when the flames of heaven had done\ntheir work, we gathered your white bones at daybreak and laid them in\nointments and in pure wine. Your mother brought us a golden vase to hold\nthem--gift of Bacchus, and work of Vulcan himself; in this we mingled\nyour bleached bones with those of Patroclus who had gone before you, and\nseparate we enclosed also those of Antilochus, who had been closer to\nyou than any other of your comrades now that Patroclus was no more.\n\n\"Over these the host of the Argives built a noble tomb, on a point\njutting out over the open Hellespont, that it might be seen from far\nout upon the sea by those now living and by them that shall be born\nhereafter. Your mother begged prizes from the gods, and offered them\nto be contended for by the noblest of the Achaeans. You must have\nbeen present at the funeral of many a hero, when the young men gird\nthemselves and make ready to contend for prizes on the death of some\ngreat chieftain, but you never saw such prizes as silver-footed Thetis\noffered in your honour; for the gods loved you well. Thus even in death\nyour fame, Achilles, has not been lost, and your name lives evermore\namong all mankind. But as for me, what solace had I when the days of my\nfighting were done? For Jove willed my destruction on my return, by the\nhands of Aegisthus and those of my wicked wife.\"\n\nThus did they converse, and presently Mercury came up to them with the\nghosts of the suitors who had been killed by Ulysses. The ghosts of\nAgamemnon and Achilles were astonished at seeing them, and went up\nto them at once. The ghost of Agamemnon recognised Amphimedon son of\nMelaneus, who lived in Ithaca and had been his host, so it began to talk\nto him.\n\n\"Amphimedon,\" it said, \"what has happened to all you fine young men--all\nof an age too--that you are come down here under the ground? One could\npick no finer body of men from any city. Did Neptune raise his winds and\nwaves against you when you were at sea, or did your enemies make an end\nof you on the mainland when you were cattle-lifting or sheep-stealing,\nor while fighting in defence of their wives and city? Answer my\nquestion, for I have been your guest. Do you not remember how I came to\nyour house with Menelaus, to persuade Ulysses to join us with his ships\nagainst Troy? It was a whole month ere we could resume our voyage, for\nwe had hard work to persuade Ulysses to come with us.\"\n\nAnd the ghost of Amphimedon answered, \"Agamemnon, son of Atreus, king of\nmen, I remember everything that you have said, and will tell you fully\nand accurately about the way in which our end was brought about. Ulysses\nhad been long gone, and we were courting his wife, who did not say point\nblank that she would not marry, nor yet bring matters to an end, for she\nmeant to compass our destruction: this, then, was the trick she played\nus. She set up a great tambour frame in her room and began to work on an\nenormous piece of fine needlework. 'Sweethearts,' said she, 'Ulysses\nis indeed dead, still, do not press me to marry again immediately;\nwait--for I would not have my skill in needlework perish\nunrecorded--till I have completed a pall for the hero Laertes, against\nthe time when death shall take him. He is very rich, and the women of\nthe place will talk if he is laid out without a pall.' This is what she\nsaid, and we assented; whereupon we could see her working upon her great\nweb all day long, but at night she would unpick the stitches again\nby torchlight. She fooled us in this way for three years without our\nfinding it out, but as time wore on and she was now in her fourth year,\nin the waning of moons and many days had been accomplished, one of her\nmaids who knew what she was doing told us, and we caught her in the act\nof undoing her work, so she had to finish it whether she would or no;\nand when she showed us the robe she had made, after she had had it\nwashed, {186} its splendour was as that of the sun or moon.\n\n\"Then some malicious god conveyed Ulysses to the upland farm where his\nswineherd lives. Thither presently came also his son, returning from\na voyage to Pylos, and the two came to the town when they had hatched\ntheir plot for our destruction. Telemachus came first, and then after\nhim, accompanied by the swineherd, came Ulysses, clad in rags and\nleaning on a staff as though he were some miserable old beggar. He came\nso unexpectedly that none of us knew him, not even the older ones among\nus, and we reviled him and threw things at him. He endured both being\nstruck and insulted without a word, though he was in his own house; but\nwhen the will of Aegis-bearing Jove inspired him, he and Telemachus\ntook the armour and hid it in an inner chamber, bolting the doors behind\nthem. Then he cunningly made his wife offer his bow and a quantity\nof iron to be contended for by us ill-fated suitors; and this was the\nbeginning of our end, for not one of us could string the bow--nor nearly\ndo so. When it was about to reach the hands of Ulysses, we all of us\nshouted out that it should not be given him, no matter what he might\nsay, but Telemachus insisted on his having it. When he had got it in his\nhands he strung it with ease and sent his arrow through the iron. Then\nhe stood on the floor of the cloister and poured his arrows on the\nground, glaring fiercely about him. First he killed Antinous, and then,\naiming straight before him, he let fly his deadly darts and they fell\nthick on one another. It was plain that some one of the gods was\nhelping them, for they fell upon us with might and main throughout the\ncloisters, and there was a hideous sound of groaning as our brains\nwere being battered in, and the ground seethed with our blood. This,\nAgamemnon, is how we came by our end, and our bodies are lying still\nuncared for in the house of Ulysses, for our friends at home do not\nyet know what has happened, so that they cannot lay us out and wash\nthe black blood from our wounds, making moan over us according to the\noffices due to the departed.\"\n\n\"Happy Ulysses, son of Laertes,\" replied the ghost of Agamemnon, \"you\nare indeed blessed in the possession of a wife endowed with such rare\nexcellence of understanding, and so faithful to her wedded lord as\nPenelope the daughter of Icarius. The fame, therefore, of her virtue\nshall never die, and the immortals shall compose a song that shall be\nwelcome to all mankind in honour of the constancy of Penelope. How far\notherwise was the wickedness of the daughter of Tyndareus who killed her\nlawful husband; her song shall be hateful among men, for she has brought\ndisgrace on all womankind even on the good ones.\"\n\nThus did they converse in the house of Hades deep down within the bowels\nof the earth. Meanwhile Ulysses and the others passed out of the town\nand soon reached the fair and well-tilled farm of Laertes, which he\nhad reclaimed with infinite labour. Here was his house, with a lean-to\nrunning all round it, where the slaves who worked for him slept and sat\nand ate, while inside the house there was an old Sicel woman, who looked\nafter him in this his country-farm. When Ulysses got there, he said to\nhis son and to the other two:\n\n\"Go to the house, and kill the best pig that you can find for dinner.\nMeanwhile I want to see whether my father will know me, or fail to\nrecognise me after so long an absence.\"\n\nHe then took off his armour and gave it to Eumaeus and Philoetius, who\nwent straight on to the house, while he turned off into the vineyard to\nmake trial of his father. As he went down into the great orchard, he did\nnot see Dolius, nor any of his sons nor of the other bondsmen, for they\nwere all gathering thorns to make a fence for the vineyard, at the place\nwhere the old man had told them; he therefore found his father alone,\nhoeing a vine. He had on a dirty old shirt, patched and very shabby;\nhis legs were bound round with thongs of oxhide to save him from the\nbrambles, and he also wore sleeves of leather; he had a goat skin cap on\nhis head, and was looking very woe-begone. When Ulysses saw him so worn,\nso old and full of sorrow, he stood still under a tall pear tree and\nbegan to weep. He doubted whether to embrace him, kiss him, and tell him\nall about his having come home, or whether he should first question him\nand see what he would say. In the end he deemed it best to be crafty\nwith him, so in this mind he went up to his father, who was bending down\nand digging about a plant.\n\n\"I see, sir,\" said Ulysses, \"that you are an excellent gardener--what\npains you take with it, to be sure. There is not a single plant, not a\nfig tree, vine, olive, pear, nor flower bed, but bears the trace of your\nattention. I trust, however, that you will not be offended if I say\nthat you take better care of your garden than of yourself. You are old,\nunsavoury, and very meanly clad. It cannot be because you are idle that\nyour master takes such poor care of you, indeed your face and figure\nhave nothing of the slave about them, and proclaim you of noble birth.\nI should have said that you were one of those who should wash well, eat\nwell, and lie soft at night as old men have a right to do; but tell me,\nand tell me true, whose bondman are you, and in whose garden are you\nworking? Tell me also about another matter. Is this place that I have\ncome to really Ithaca? I met a man just now who said so, but he was a\ndull fellow, and had not the patience to hear my story out when I was\nasking him about an old friend of mine, whether he was still living, or\nwas already dead and in the house of Hades. Believe me when I tell you\nthat this man came to my house once when I was in my own country and\nnever yet did any stranger come to me whom I liked better. He said that\nhis family came from Ithaca and that his father was Laertes, son of\nArceisius. I received him hospitably, making him welcome to all the\nabundance of my house, and when he went away I gave him all customary\npresents. I gave him seven talents of fine gold, and a cup of solid\nsilver with flowers chased upon it. I gave him twelve light cloaks,\nand as many pieces of tapestry; I also gave him twelve cloaks of single\nfold, twelve rugs, twelve fair mantles, and an equal number of shirts.\nTo all this I added four good looking women skilled in all useful arts,\nand I let him take his choice.\"\n\nHis father shed tears and answered, \"Sir, you have indeed come to the\ncountry that you have named, but it is fallen into the hands of wicked\npeople. All this wealth of presents has been given to no purpose. If\nyou could have found your friend here alive in Ithaca, he would have\nentertained you hospitably and would have requited your presents amply\nwhen you left him--as would have been only right considering what you\nhad already given him. But tell me, and tell me true, how many years is\nit since you entertained this guest--my unhappy son, as ever was? Alas!\nHe has perished far from his own country; the fishes of the sea have\neaten him, or he has fallen a prey to the birds and wild beasts of some\ncontinent. Neither his mother, nor I his father, who were his parents,\ncould throw our arms about him and wrap him in his shroud, nor could\nhis excellent and richly dowered wife Penelope bewail her husband as was\nnatural upon his death bed, and close his eyes according to the offices\ndue to the departed. But now, tell me truly for I want to know. Who\nand whence are you--tell me of your town and parents? Where is the\nship lying that has brought you and your men to Ithaca? Or were you a\npassenger on some other man's ship, and those who brought you here have\ngone on their way and left you?\"\n\n\"I will tell you everything,\" answered Ulysses, \"quite truly. I come\nfrom Alybas, where I have a fine house. I am son of king Apheidas, who\nis the son of Polypemon. My own name is Eperitus; heaven drove me off my\ncourse as I was leaving Sicania, and I have been carried here against\nmy will. As for my ship it is lying over yonder, off the open country\noutside the town, and this is the fifth year since Ulysses left my\ncountry. Poor fellow, yet the omens were good for him when he left me.\nThe birds all flew on our right hands, and both he and I rejoiced to\nsee them as we parted, for we had every hope that we should have another\nfriendly meeting and exchange presents.\"\n\nA dark cloud of sorrow fell upon Laertes as he listened. He filled both\nhands with the dust from off the ground and poured it over his grey\nhead, groaning heavily as he did so. The heart of Ulysses was touched,\nand his nostrils quivered as he looked upon his father; then he sprang\ntowards him, flung his arms about him and kissed him, saying, \"I am he,\nfather, about whom you are asking--I have returned after having been\naway for twenty years. But cease your sighing and lamentation--we have\nno time to lose, for I should tell you that I have been killing the\nsuitors in my house, to punish them for their insolence and crimes.\"\n\n\"If you really are my son Ulysses,\" replied Laertes, \"and have come back\nagain, you must give me such manifest proof of your identity as shall\nconvince me.\"\n\n\"First observe this scar,\" answered Ulysses, \"which I got from a boar's\ntusk when I was hunting on Mt. Parnassus. You and my mother had sent me\nto Autolycus, my mother's father, to receive the presents which when he\nwas over here he had promised to give me. Furthermore I will point out\nto you the trees in the vineyard which you gave me, and I asked you all\nabout them as I followed you round the garden. We went over them all,\nand you told me their names and what they all were. You gave me thirteen\npear trees, ten apple trees, and forty fig trees; you also said you\nwould give me fifty rows of vines; there was corn planted between each\nrow, and they yield grapes of every kind when the heat of heaven has\nbeen laid heavy upon them.\"\n\nLaertes' strength failed him when he heard the convincing proofs which\nhis son had given him. He threw his arms about him, and Ulysses had to\nsupport him, or he would have gone off into a swoon; but as soon as he\ncame to, and was beginning to recover his senses, he said, \"O father\nJove, then you gods are still in Olympus after all, if the suitors have\nreally been punished for their insolence and folly. Nevertheless, I\nam much afraid that I shall have all the townspeople of Ithaca up here\ndirectly, and they will be sending messengers everywhere throughout the\ncities of the Cephallenians.\"\n\nUlysses answered, \"Take heart and do not trouble yourself about that,\nbut let us go into the house hard by your garden. I have already told\nTelemachus, Philoetius, and Eumaeus to go on there and get dinner ready\nas soon as possible.\"\n\nThus conversing the two made their way towards the house. When they got\nthere they found Telemachus with the stockman and the swineherd cutting\nup meat and mixing wine with water. Then the old Sicel woman took\nLaertes inside and washed him and anointed him with oil. She put him on\na good cloak, and Minerva came up to him and gave him a more imposing\npresence, making him taller and stouter than before. When he came back\nhis son was surprised to see him looking so like an immortal, and said\nto him, \"My dear father, some one of the gods has been making you much\ntaller and better-looking.\"\n\nLaertes answered, \"Would, by Father Jove, Minerva, and Apollo, that\nI were the man I was when I ruled among the Cephallenians, and took\nNericum, that strong fortress on the foreland. If I were still what I\nthen was and had been in our house yesterday with my armour on, I should\nhave been able to stand by you and help you against the suitors. I\nshould have killed a great many of them, and you would have rejoiced to\nsee it.\"\n\nThus did they converse; but the others, when they had finished their\nwork and the feast was ready, left off working, and took each his proper\nplace on the benches and seats. Then they began eating; by and by old\nDolius and his sons left their work and came up, for their mother, the\nSicel woman who looked after Laertes now that he was growing old, had\nbeen to fetch them. When they saw Ulysses and were certain it was he,\nthey stood there lost in astonishment; but Ulysses scolded them good\nnaturedly and said, \"Sit down to your dinner, old man, and never mind\nabout your surprise; we have been wanting to begin for some time and\nhave been waiting for you.\"\n\nThen Dolius put out both his hands and went up to Ulysses. \"Sir,\" said\nhe, seizing his master's hand and kissing it at the wrist, \"we have long\nbeen wishing you home: and now heaven has restored you to us after we\nhad given up hoping. All hail, therefore, and may the gods prosper you.\n{187} But tell me, does Penelope already know of your return, or shall\nwe send some one to tell her?\"\n\n\"Old man,\" answered Ulysses, \"she knows already, so you need not trouble\nabout that.\" On this he took his seat, and the sons of Dolius gathered\nround Ulysses to give him greeting and embrace him one after the other;\nthen they took their seats in due order near Dolius their father.\n\nWhile they were thus busy getting their dinner ready, Rumour went round\nthe town, and noised abroad the terrible fate that had befallen the\nsuitors; as soon, therefore, as the people heard of it they gathered\nfrom every quarter, groaning and hooting before the house of Ulysses.\nThey took the dead away, buried every man his own, and put the bodies\nof those who came from elsewhere on board the fishing vessels, for the\nfishermen to take each of them to his own place. They then met angrily\nin the place of assembly, and when they were got together Eupeithes\nrose to speak. He was overwhelmed with grief for the death of his son\nAntinous, who had been the first man killed by Ulysses, so he said,\nweeping bitterly, \"My friends, this man has done the Achaeans great\nwrong. He took many of our best men away with him in his fleet, and he\nhas lost both ships and men; now, moreover, on his return he has been\nkilling all the foremost men among the Cephallenians. Let us be up and\ndoing before he can get away to Pylos or to Elis where the Epeans rule,\nor we shall be ashamed of ourselves for ever afterwards. It will be an\neverlasting disgrace to us if we do not avenge the murder of our sons\nand brothers. For my own part I should have no more pleasure in life,\nbut had rather die at once. Let us be up, then, and after them, before\nthey can cross over to the main land.\"\n\nHe wept as he spoke and every one pitied him. But Medon and the bard\nPhemius had now woke up, and came to them from the house of Ulysses.\nEvery one was astonished at seeing them, but they stood in the middle of\nthe assembly, and Medon said, \"Hear me, men of Ithaca. Ulysses did not\ndo these things against the will of heaven. I myself saw an immortal god\ntake the form of Mentor and stand beside him. This god appeared, now in\nfront of him encouraging him, and now going furiously about the court\nand attacking the suitors whereon they fell thick on one another.\"\n\nOn this pale fear laid hold of them, and old Halitherses, son of Mastor,\nrose to speak, for he was the only man among them who knew both past and\nfuture; so he spoke to them plainly and in all honesty, saying,\n\n\"Men of Ithaca, it is all your own fault that things have turned out as\nthey have; you would not listen to me, nor yet to Mentor, when we\nbade you check the folly of your sons who were doing much wrong in the\nwantonness of their hearts--wasting the substance and dishonouring the\nwife of a chieftain who they thought would not return. Now, however, let\nit be as I say, and do as I tell you. Do not go out against Ulysses, or\nyou may find that you have been drawing down evil on your own heads.\"\n\nThis was what he said, and more than half raised a loud shout, and at\nonce left the assembly. But the rest stayed where they were, for the\nspeech of Halitherses displeased them, and they sided with Eupeithes;\nthey therefore hurried off for their armour, and when they had armed\nthemselves, they met together in front of the city, and Eupeithes led\nthem on in their folly. He thought he was going to avenge the murder\nof his son, whereas in truth he was never to return, but was himself to\nperish in his attempt.\n\nThen Minerva said to Jove, \"Father, son of Saturn, king of kings, answer\nme this question--What do you propose to do? Will you set them fighting\nstill further, or will you make peace between them?\"\n\nAnd Jove answered, \"My child, why should you ask me? Was it not by your\nown arrangement that Ulysses came home and took his revenge upon the\nsuitors? Do whatever you like, but I will tell you what I think will\nbe most reasonable arrangement. Now that Ulysses is revenged, let them\nswear to a solemn covenant, in virtue of which he shall continue to\nrule, while we cause the others to forgive and forget the massacre of\ntheir sons and brothers. Let them then all become friends as heretofore,\nand let peace and plenty reign.\"\n\nThis was what Minerva was already eager to bring about, so down she\ndarted from off the topmost summits of Olympus.\n\nNow when Laertes and the others had done dinner, Ulysses began by\nsaying, \"Some of you go out and see if they are not getting close up\nto us.\" So one of Dolius's sons went as he was bid. Standing on the\nthreshold he could see them all quite near, and said to Ulysses, \"Here\nthey are, let us put on our armour at once.\"\n\nThey put on their armour as fast as they could--that is to say Ulysses,\nhis three men, and the six sons of Dolius. Laertes also and Dolius did\nthe same--warriors by necessity in spite of their grey hair. When they\nhad all put on their armour, they opened the gate and sallied forth,\nUlysses leading the way.\n\nThen Jove's daughter Minerva came up to them, having assumed the form\nand voice of Mentor. Ulysses was glad when he saw her, and said to\nhis son Telemachus, \"Telemachus, now that you are about to fight in an\nengagement, which will show every man's mettle, be sure not to disgrace\nyour ancestors, who were eminent for their strength and courage all the\nworld over.\"\n\n\"You say truly, my dear father,\" answered Telemachus, \"and you shall\nsee, if you will, that I am in no mind to disgrace your family.\"\n\nLaertes was delighted when he heard this. \"Good heavens,\" he exclaimed,\n\"what a day I am enjoying: I do indeed rejoice at it. My son and\ngrandson are vying with one another in the matter of valour.\"\n\nOn this Minerva came close up to him and said, \"Son of Arceisius---best\nfriend I have in the world--pray to the blue-eyed damsel, and to Jove\nher father; then poise your spear and hurl it.\"\n\nAs she spoke she infused fresh vigour into him, and when he had prayed\nto her he poised his spear and hurled it. He hit Eupeithes' helmet, and\nthe spear went right through it, for the helmet stayed it not, and\nhis armour rang rattling round him as he fell heavily to the ground.\nMeantime Ulysses and his son fell upon the front line of the foe and\nsmote them with their swords and spears; indeed, they would have killed\nevery one of them, and prevented them from ever getting home again,\nonly Minerva raised her voice aloud, and made every one pause. \"Men of\nIthaca,\" she cried, \"cease this dreadful war, and settle the matter at\nonce without further bloodshed.\"\n\nOn this pale fear seized every one; they were so frightened that their\narms dropped from their hands and fell upon the ground at the sound of\nthe goddess' voice, and they fled back to the city for their lives. But\nUlysses gave a great cry, and gathering himself together swooped down\nlike a soaring eagle. Then the son of Saturn sent a thunderbolt of fire\nthat fell just in front of Minerva, so she said to Ulysses, \"Ulysses,\nnoble son of Laertes, stop this warful strife, or Jove will be angry\nwith you.\"\n\nThus spoke Minerva, and Ulysses obeyed her gladly. Then Minerva assumed\nthe form and voice of Mentor, and presently made a covenant of peace\nbetween the two contending parties.\n\n\n\n                        FOOTNOTES\n\n{1} Black races are evidently known to the writer as stretching all\nacross Africa, one half looking West on to the Atlantic, and the other\nEast on to the Indian Ocean.\n\n{2} The original use of the footstool was probably less to rest the feet\nthan to keep them (especially when bare) from a floor which was often\nwet and dirty.\n\n{3} The [Greek] or seat, is occasionally called \"high,\" as being higher\nthan the [Greek] or low footstool. It was probably no higher than an\nordinary chair is now, and seems to have had no back.\n\n{4} Temesa was on the West Coast of the toe of Italy, in what is now the\ngulf of Sta Eufemia. It was famous in remote times for its copper mines,\nwhich, however, were worked out when Strabo wrote.\n\n{5} i.e. \"with a current in it\"--see illustrations and map near the end\nof bks. v. and vi. respectively.\n\n{6} Reading [Greek] for [Greek], cf. \"Od.\" iii. 81 where the same\nmistake is made, and xiii. 351 where the mountain is called Neritum, the\nsame place being intended both here and in book xiii.\n\n{7} It is never plausibly explained why Penelope cannot do this, and\nfrom bk. ii. it is clear that she kept on deliberately encouraging the\nsuitors, though we are asked to believe that she was only fooling them.\n\n{8} See note on \"Od.\" i. 365.\n\n{9} Middle Argos means the Peleponnese which, however, is never so\ncalled in the \"Iliad\". I presume \"middle\" means \"middle between the two\nGreek-speaking countries of Asia Minor and Sicily, with South Italy\";\nfor that parts of Sicily and also large parts, though not the whole of\nSouth Italy, were inhabited by Greek-speaking races centuries before the\nDorian colonisations can hardly be doubted. The Sicians, and also the\nSicels, both of them probably spoke Greek.\n\n{10} cf. \"Il.\" vi. 490-495. In the \"Iliad\" it is \"war,\" not \"speech,\"\nthat is a man's matter. It argues a certain hardness, or at any rate\ndislike of the \"Iliad\" on the part of the writer of the \"Odyssey,\"\nthat she should have adopted Hector's farewell to Andromache here, as\nelsewhere in the poem, for a scene of such inferior pathos.\n\n{11} [Greek] The whole open court with the covered cloister running\nround it was called [Greek], or [Greek], but the covered part was\ndistinguished by being called \"shady\" or \"shadow-giving\". It was in this\npart that the tables for the suitors were laid. The Fountain Court at\nHampton Court may serve as an illustration (save as regards the use of\narches instead of wooden supports and rafters) and the arrangement\nis still common in Sicily. The usual translation \"shadowy\" or \"dusky\"\nhalls, gives a false idea of the scene.\n\n{12} The reader will note the extreme care which the writer takes to\nmake it clear that none of the suitors were allowed to sleep in Ulysses'\nhouse.\n\n{13} See Appendix; g, in plan of Ulysses' house.\n\n{14} I imagine this passage to be a rejoinder to \"Il.\" xxiii. 702-705 in\nwhich a tripod is valued at twelve oxen, and a good useful maid of\nall work at only four. The scrupulous regard of Laertes for his wife's\nfeelings is of a piece with the extreme jealousy for the honour of\nwoman, which is manifest throughout the \"Odyssey\".\n\n{15} [Greek] \"The [Greek], or tunica, was a shirt or shift, and served\nas the chief under garment of the Greeks and Romans, whether men\nor women.\" Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, under\n\"Tunica\".\n\n{16} Doors fastened to all intents and purposes as here described may be\nseen in the older houses at Trapani. There is a slot on the outer side\nof the door by means of which a person who has left the room can shoot\nthe bolt. My bedroom at the Albergo Centrale was fastened in this way.\n\n{17} [Greek] So we vulgarly say \"had cooked his goose,\" or \"had settled\nhis hash.\" Aegyptus cannot of course know of the fate Antiphus had met\nwith, for there had as yet been no news of or from Ulysses.\n\n{18} \"Il.\" xxii. 416. [Greek] The authoress has bungled by borrowing\nthese words verbatim from the \"Iliad\", without prefixing the necessary\n\"do not,\" which I have supplied.\n\n{19} i.e. you have money, and could pay when I got judgment, whereas the\nsuitors are men of straw.\n\n{20} cf. \"Il.\" ii. 76. [Greek]. The Odyssean passage runs [Greek]. Is\nit possible not to suspect that the name Mentor was coined upon that of\nNestor?\n\n{21} i.e. in the outer court, and in the uncovered part of the inner\nhouse.\n\n{22} This would be fair from Sicily, which was doing duty for Ithaca in\nthe mind of the writer, but a North wind would have been preferable for\na voyage from the real Ithaca to Pylos.\n\n{23} [Greek] The wind does not whistle over waves. It only whistles\nthrough rigging or some other obstacle that cuts it.\n\n{24} cf. \"Il.\" v.20. [Greek] The Odyssean line is [Greek]. There can\nbe no doubt that the Odyssean line was suggested by the Iliadic, but\nnothing can explain why Idaeus jumping from his chariot should suggest\nto the writer of the \"Odyssey\" the sun jumping from the sea. The\nprobability is that she never gave the matter a thought, but took the\nline in question as an effect of saturation with the \"Iliad,\" and of\nunconscious cerebration. The \"Odyssey\" contains many such examples.\n\n{25} The heart, liver, lights, kidneys, etc. were taken out from the\ninside and eaten first as being more readily cooked; the [Greek], or\nbone meat, was cooking while the [Greek] or inward parts were being\neaten. I imagine that the thigh bones made a kind of gridiron, while at\nthe same time the marrow inside them got cooked.\n\n{26} i.e. skewers, either single, double, or even five pronged. The meat\nwould be pierced with the skewer, and laid over the ashes to grill--the\ntwo ends of the skewer being supported in whatever way convenient. Meat\nso cooking may be seen in any eating house in Smyrna, or any Eastern\ntown. When I rode across the Troad from the Dardanelles to Hissarlik and\nMount Ida, I noticed that my dragoman and his men did all our outdoor\ncooking exactly in the Odyssean and Iliadic fashion.\n\n{27} cf. \"Il.\" xvii. 567. [Greek] The Odyssean lines are--[Greek]\n\n{28} Reading [Greek] for [Greek], cf. \"Od.\" i.186.\n\n{29} The geography of the Aegean as above described is correct, but is\nprobably taken from the lost poem, the Nosti, the existence of which is\nreferred to \"Od.\" i.326,327 and 350, etc. A glance at the map will show\nthat heaven advised its supplicants quite correctly.\n\n{30} The writer--ever jealous for the honour of women--extenuates\nClytemnestra's guilt as far as possible, and explains it as due to her\nhaving been left unprotected, and fallen into the hands of a wicked man.\n\n{31} The Greek is [Greek] cf. \"Iliad\" ii. 408 [Greek] Surely the [Greek]\nof the Odyssean passage was due to the [Greek] of the \"Iliad.\" No other\nreason suggests itself for the making Menelaus return on the very day of\nthe feast given by Orestes. The fact that in the \"Iliad\" Menelaus came\nto a banquet without waiting for an invitation, determines the writer\nof the \"Odyssey\" to make him come to a banquet, also uninvited, but\nas circumstances did not permit of his having been invited, his coming\nuninvited is shown to have been due to chance. I do not think the\nauthoress thought all this out, but attribute the strangeness of the\ncoincidence to unconscious cerebration and saturation.\n\n{32} cf. \"Il.\" i.458, ii. 421. The writer here interrupts an Iliadic\npassage (to which she returns immediately) for the double purpose of\ndwelling upon the slaughter of the heifer, and of letting Nestor's wife\nand daughter enjoy it also. A male writer, if he was borrowing from the\n\"Iliad,\" would have stuck to his borrowing.\n\n{33} cf. \"Il.\" xxiv. 587,588 where the lines refer to the washing the\ndead body of Hector.\n\n{34} See illustration on opposite page. The yard is typical of many that\nmay be seen in Sicily. The existing ground-plan is probably unmodified\nfrom Odyssean, and indeed long pre-Odyssean times, but the earlier\nbuildings would have no arches, and would, one would suppose, be mainly\ntimber. The Odyssean [Greek] were the sheds that ran round the yard\nas the arches do now. The [Greek] was the one through which the main\nentrance passed, and which was hence \"noisy,\" or reverberating. It had\nan upper story in which visitors were often lodged.\n\n{35} This journey is an impossible one. Telemachus and Pisistratus would\nhave been obliged to drive over the Taygetus range, over which there has\nnever yet been a road for wheeled vehicles. It is plain therefore that\nthe audience for whom the \"Odyssey\" was written was one that would be\nunlikely to know anything about the topography of the Peloponnese, so\nthat the writer might take what liberties she chose.\n\n{36} The lines which I have enclosed in brackets are evidently an\nafterthought--added probably by the writer herself--for they evince\nthe same instinctively greater interest in anything that may concern a\nwoman, which is so noticeable throughout the poem. There is no further\nsign of any special festivities nor of any other guests than Telemachus\nand Pisistratus, until lines 621-624 (ordinarily enclosed in brackets)\nare abruptly introduced, probably with a view of trying to carry off the\nintroduction of the lines now in question.\n\nThe addition was, I imagine, suggested by a desire to excuse and explain\nthe non-appearance of Hermione in bk. xv., as also of both Hermione and\nMegapenthes in the rest of bk. iv. Megapenthes in bk. xv. seems to be\nstill a bachelor: the presumption therefore is that bk. xv. was written\nbefore the story of his marriage here given. I take it he is only\nmarried here because his sister is being married. She having been\nproperly attended to, Megapenthes might as well be married at the same\ntime. Hermione could not now be less than thirty.\n\nI have dealt with this passage somewhat more fully in my \"Authoress of\nthe Odyssey\", p.136-138. See also p. 256 of the same book.\n\n{37} Sparta and Lacedaemon are here treated as two different places,\nthough in other parts of the poem it is clear that the writer\nunderstands them as one. The catalogue in the \"Iliad,\" which the writer\nis here presumably following, makes the same mistake (\"Il.\" ii. 581,582)\n\n{38} These last three lines are identical with \"Il.\" vxiii. 604-606.\n\n{39} From the Greek [Greek] it is plain that Menelaus took up the piece\nof meat with his fingers.\n\n{40} Amber is never mentioned in the \"Iliad.\" Sicily, where I suppose\nthe \"Odyssey\" to have been written, has always been, and still is, one\nof the principal amber producing countries. It was probably the only one\nknown in the Odyssean age. See \"The Authoress of the Odyssey\", p260.\n\n{41} This no doubt refers to the story told in the last poem of the\nCypria about Paris and Helen robbing Menelaus of the greater part of his\ntreasures, when they sailed together for Troy.\n\n{42} It is inconceivable that Helen should enter thus, in the middle of\nsupper, intending to work with her distaff, if great festivities were\ngoing on. Telemachus and Pisistratus are evidently dining en famille.\n\n{43} In the Italian insurrection of 1848, eight young men who were being\nhotly pursued by the Austrian police hid themselves inside Donatello's\ncolossal wooden horse in the Salone at Padua, and remained there for\na week being fed by their confederates. In 1898 the last survivor was\ncarried round Padua in triumph.\n\n{44} The Greek is [Greek]. Is it unfair to argue that the writer is a\nperson of somewhat delicate sensibility, to whom a strong smell of fish\nis distasteful?\n\n{45} The Greek is [Greek]. I believe this to be a hit at the writer's\nown countrymen who were of Phocaean descent, and the next following line\nto be a rejoinder to complaints made against her in bk. vi. 273-288, to\nthe effect that she gave herself airs and would marry none of her own\npeople. For that the writer of the \"Odyssey\" was the person who has\nbeen introduced into the poem under the name of Nausicaa, I cannot bring\nmyself to question. I may remind English readers that [Greek] (i.e.\nphoca) means \"seal.\" Seals almost always appear on Phocaean coins.\n\n{46} Surely here again we are in the hands of a writer of delicate\nsensibility. It is not as though the seals were stale; they had only\njust been killed. The writer, however is obviously laughing at her own\ncountrymen, and insulting them as openly as she dares.\n\n{47} We were told above (lines 357,357) that it was only one day's sail.\n\n{48} I give the usual translation, but I do not believe the Greek will\nwarrant it. The Greek reads [Greek].\n\nThis is usually held to mean that Ithaca is an island fit for breeding\ngoats, and on that account more delectable to the speaker than it would\nhave been if it were fit for breeding horses. I find little authority\nfor such a translation; the most equitable translation of the text as it\nstands is, \"Ithaca is an island fit for breeding goats, and delectable\nrather than fit for breeding horses; for not one of the islands is good\ndriving ground, nor well meadowed.\" Surely the writer does not mean that\na pleasant or delectable island would not be fit for breeding horses?\nThe most equitable translation, therefore, of the present text being\nthus halt and impotent, we may suspect corruption, and I hazard the\nfollowing emendation, though I have not adopted it in my translation, as\nfearing that it would be deemed too fanciful. I would read:--[Greek].\n\nAs far as scanning goes the [Greek] is not necessary; [Greek] iv. 72,\n[Greek] iv. 233, to go no further afield than earlier lines of the same\nbook, give sufficient authority for [Greek], but the [Greek] would not\nbe redundant; it would emphasise the surprise of the contrast, and I\nshould prefer to have it, though it is not very important either way.\nThis reading of course should be translated \"Ithaca is an island fit for\nbreeding goats, and (by your leave) itself a horseman rather than\nfit for breeding horses--for not one of the islands is good and well\nmeadowed ground.\"\n\nThis would be sure to baffle the Alexandrian editors. \"How,\" they would\nask themselves, \"could an island be a horseman?\" and they would cast\nabout for an emendation. A visit to the top of Mt. Eryx might perhaps\nmake the meaning intelligible, and suggest my proposed restoration of\nthe text to the reader as readily as it did to myself.\n\nI have elsewhere stated my conviction that the writer of the \"Odyssey\"\nwas familiar with the old Sican city at the top of Mt. Eryx, and that\nthe Aegadean islands which are so striking when seen thence did duty\nwith her for the Ionian islands--Marettimo, the highest and most\nwesterly of the group, standing for Ithaca. When seen from the top of\nMt. Eryx Marettimo shows as it should do according to \"Od.\" ix. 25,26,\n\"on the horizon, all highest up in the sea towards the West,\" while\nthe other islands lie \"some way off it to the East.\" As we descend\nto Trapani, Marettimo appears to sink on to the top of the island of\nLevanzo, behind which it disappears. My friend, the late Signor E.\nBiaggini, pointed to it once as it was just standing on the top of\nLevanzo, and said to me \"Come cavalca bene\" (\"How well it rides\"), and\nthis immediately suggested my emendation to me. Later on I found in\nthe hymn to the Pythian Apollo (which abounds with tags taken from the\n\"Odyssey\") a line ending [Greek] which strengthened my suspicion that\nthis was the original ending of the second of the two lines above under\nconsideration.\n\n{49} See note on line 3 of this book. The reader will observe that\nthe writer has been unable to keep the women out of an interpolation\nconsisting only of four lines.\n\n{50} Scheria means a piece of land jutting out into the sea. In my\n\"Authoress of the Odyssey\" I thought \"Jutland\" would be a suitable\ntranslation, but it has been pointed out to me that \"Jutland\" only means\nthe land of the Jutes.\n\n{51} Irrigation as here described is common in gardens near Trapani. The\nwater that supplies the ducts is drawn from wells by a mule who turns a\nwheel with buckets on it.\n\n{52} There is not a word here about the cattle of the sun-god.\n\n{53} The writer evidently thought that green, growing wood might also be\nwell seasoned.\n\n{54} The reader will note that the river was flowing with salt water\ni.e. that it was tidal.\n\n{55} Then the Ogygian island was not so far off, but that Nausicaa might\nbe assumed to know where it was.\n\n{56} Greek [Greek]\n\n{57} I suspect a family joke, or sly allusion to some thing of which\nwe know nothing, in this story of Eurymedusa's having been brought from\nApeira. The Greek word \"apeiros\" means \"inexperienced,\" \"ignorant.\" Is\nit possible that Eurymedusa was notoriously incompetent?\n\n{58} Polyphemus was also son to Neptune, see \"Od.\" ix. 412,529. he was\ntherefore half brother to Nausithous, half uncle to King Alcinous, and\nhalf great uncle to Nausicaa.\n\n{59} It would seem as though the writer thought that Marathon was close\nto Athens.\n\n{60} Here the writer, knowing that she is drawing (with embellishments)\nfrom things actually existing, becomes impatient of past tenses and\nslides into the present.\n\n{61} This is hidden malice, implying that the Phaeacian magnates were\nno better than they should be. The final drink-offering should have been\nmade to Jove or Neptune, not to the god of thievishness and rascality\nof all kinds. In line 164 we do indeed find Echeneus proposing that\na drink-offering should be made to Jove, but Mercury is evidently,\naccording to our authoress, the god who was most likely to be of use to\nthem.\n\n{62} The fact of Alcinous knowing anything about the Cyclopes suggests\nthat in the writer's mind Scheria and the country of the Cyclopes were\nnot very far from one another. I take the Cyclopes and the giants to be\none and the same people.\n\n{63} \"My property, etc.\" The authoress is here adopting an Iliadic line\n(xix. 333), and this must account for the absence of all reference\nto Penelope. If she had happened to remember \"Il.\" v.213, she would\ndoubtless have appropriated it by preference, for that line reads \"my\ncountry, my wife, and all the greatness of my house.\"\n\n{64} The at first inexplicable sleep of Ulysses (bk. xiii. 79, etc.)\nis here, as also in viii. 445, being obviously prepared. The writer\nevidently attached the utmost importance to it. Those who know that the\nharbour which did duty with the writer of the \"Odyssey\" for the one in\nwhich Ulysses landed in Ithaca, was only about 2 miles from the place\nin which Ulysses is now talking with Alcinous, will understand why the\nsleep was so necessary.\n\n{65} There were two classes--the lower who were found in provisions\nwhich they had to cook for themselves in the yards and outer precincts,\nwhere they would also eat--and the upper who would eat in the cloisters\nof the inner court, and have their cooking done for them.\n\n{66} Translation very dubious. I suppose the [Greek] here to be the\ncovered sheds that ran round the outer courtyard. See illustrations at\nthe end of bk. iii.\n\n{67} The writer apparently deems that the words \"as compared with what\noxen can plough in the same time\" go without saying. Not so the writer\nof the \"Iliad\" from which the Odyssean passage is probably taken. He\nexplains that mules can plough quicker than oxen (\"Il.\" x.351-353)\n\n{68} It was very fortunate that such a disc happened to be there, seeing\nthat none like it were in common use.\n\n{69} \"Il.\" xiii. 37. Here, as so often elsewhere in the \"Odyssey,\" the\nappropriation of an Iliadic line which is not quite appropriate puzzles\nthe reader. The \"they\" is not the chains, nor yet Mars and Venus. It is\nan overflow from the Iliadic passage in which Neptune hobbles his horses\nin bonds \"which none could either unloose or break so that they might\nstay there in that place.\" If the line would have scanned without the\naddition of the words \"so that they might stay there in that place,\"\nthey would have been omitted in the \"Odyssey.\"\n\n{70} The reader will note that Alcinous never goes beyond saying that\nhe is going to give the goblet; he never gives it. Elsewhere in both\n\"Iliad\" and \"Odyssey\" the offer of a present is immediately followed by\nthe statement that it was given and received gladly--Alcinous actually\ndoes give a chest and a cloak and shirt--probably also some of the corn\nand wine for the long two-mile voyage was provided by him--but it is\nquite plain that he gave no talent and no cup.\n\n{71} \"Il.\" xviii, 344-349. These lines in the \"Iliad\" tell of the\npreparation for washing the body of Patroclus, and I am not pleased that\nthe writer of the \"Odyssey\" should have adopted them here.\n\n{72} see note {64}\n\n{73} see note {43}\n\n{74} The reader will find this threat fulfilled in bk. xiii\n\n{75} If the other islands lay some distance away from Ithaca (which\nthe word [Greek] suggests), what becomes of the [Greek] or gut between\nIthaca and Samos which we hear of in Bks. iv. and xv.? I suspect that\nthe authoress in her mind makes Telemachus come back from Pylos to the\nLilybaean promontory and thence to Trapani through the strait between\nthe Isola Grande and the mainland--the island of Asteria being the one\non which Motya afterwards stood.\n\n{76} \"Il.\" xviii. 533-534. The sudden lapse into the third person here\nfor a couple of lines is due to the fact that the two Iliadic lines\ntaken are in the third person.\n\n{77} cf. \"Il.\" ii. 776. The words in both \"Iliad\" and \"Odyssey\" are\n[Greek]. In the \"Iliad\" they are used of the horses of Achilles'\nfollowers as they stood idle, \"champing lotus.\"\n\n{78} I take all this passage about the Cyclopes having no ships to\nbe sarcastic--meaning, \"You people of Drepanum have no excuse for not\ncolonising the island of Favognana, which you could easily do, for you\nhave plenty of ships, and the island is a very good one.\" For that\nthe island so fully described here is the Aegadean or \"goat\" island of\nFavognana, and that the Cyclopes are the old Sican inhabitants of Mt.\nEryx should not be doubted.\n\n{79} For the reasons why it was necessary that the night should be so\nexceptionally dark see \"The Authoress of the Odyssey\" pp. 188-189.\n\n{80} None but such lambs as would suck if they were with their mothers\nwould be left in the yard. The older lambs should have been out feeding.\nThe authoress has got it all wrong, but it does not matter. See \"The\nAuthoress of the Odyssey\" p.148.\n\n{81} This line is enclosed in brackets in the received text, and is\nomitted (with note) by Messrs. Butcher & Lang. But lines enclosed in\nbrackets are almost always genuine; all that brackets mean is that the\nbracketed passage puzzled some early editor, who nevertheless found\nit too well established in the text to venture on omitting it. In the\npresent case the line bracketed is the very last which a full-grown male\neditor would be likely to interpolate. It is safer to infer that the\nwriter, a young woman, not knowing or caring at which end of the ship\nthe rudder should be, determined to make sure by placing it at both\nends, which we shall find she presently does by repeating it (line 340)\nat the stern of the ship. As for the two rocks thrown, the first I take\nto be the Asinelli, see map facing p.80. The second I see as the two\ncontiguous islands of the Formiche, which are treated as one, see map\nfacing p.108. The Asinelli is an island shaped like a boat, and pointing\nto the island of Favognana. I think the authoress's compatriots, who\nprobably did not like her much better that she did them, jeered at the\nabsurdity of Ulysses' conduct, and saw the Asinelli or \"donkeys,\" not as\nthe rock thrown by Polyphemus, but as the boat itself containing Ulysses\nand his men.\n\n{82} This line exists in the text here but not in the corresponding\npassage xii. 141. I am inclined to think it is interpolated (probably\nby the poetess herself) from the first of lines xi. 115-137, which I can\nhardly doubt were added by the writer when the scheme of the work was\nenlarged and altered. See \"The Authoress of the Odyssey\" pp. 254-255.\n\n{83} \"Floating\" ([Greek]) is not to be taken literally. The island\nitself, as apart from its inhabitants, was quite normal. There is no\nindication of its moving during the month that Ulysses stayed with\nAeolus, and on his return from his unfortunate voyage, he seems to\nhave found it in the same place. The [Greek] in fact should no more be\npressed than [Greek] as applied to islands, \"Odyssey\" xv. 299--where\nthey are called \"flying\" because the ship would fly past them. So also\nthe \"Wanderers,\" as explained by Buttmann; see note on \"Odyssey\" xii.\n57.\n\n{84} Literally \"for the ways of the night and of the day are near.\" I\nhave seen what Mr. Andrew Lang says (\"Homer and the Epic,\" p.236, and\n\"Longman's Magazine\" for January, 1898, p.277) about the \"amber route\"\nand the \"Sacred Way\" in this connection; but until he gives his grounds\nfor holding that the Mediterranean peoples in the Odyssean age used to\ngo far North for their amber instead of getting it in Sicily, where it\nis still found in considerable quantities, I do not know what weight I\nought to attach to his opinion. I have been unable to find grounds\nfor asserting that B.C. 1000 there was any commerce between the\nMediterranean and the \"Far North,\" but I shall be very ready to learn\nif Mr. Lang will enlighten me. See \"The Authoress of the Odyssey\" pp.\n185-186.\n\n{85} One would have thought that when the sun was driving the stag down\nto the water, Ulysses might have observed its whereabouts.\n\n{86} See Hobbes of Malmesbury's translation.\n\n{87} \"Il.\" vxiii. 349. Again the writer draws from the washing the body\nof Patroclus--which offends.\n\n{88} This visit is wholly without topographical significance.\n\n{89} Brides presented themselves instinctively to the imagination of the\nwriter, as the phase of humanity which she found most interesting.\n\n{90} Ulysses was, in fact, to become a missionary and preach Neptune to\npeople who knew not his name. I was fortunate enough to meet in Sicily\na woman carrying one of these winnowing shovels; it was not much shorter\nthan an oar, and I was able at once to see what the writer of the\n\"Odyssey\" intended.\n\n{91} I suppose the lines I have enclosed in brackets to have been added\nby the author when she enlarged her original scheme by the addition of\nbooks i.-iv. and xiii. (from line 187)-xxiv. The reader will observe\nthat in the corresponding passage (xii. 137-141) the prophecy ends with\n\"after losing all your comrades,\" and that there is no allusion to the\nsuitors. For fuller explanation see \"The Authoress of the Odyssey\" pp.\n254-255.\n\n{92} The reader will remember that we are in the first year of Ulysses'\nwanderings, Telemachus therefore was only eleven years old. The same\nanachronism is made later on in this book. See \"The Authoress of the\nOdyssey\" pp. 132-133.\n\n{93} Tradition says that she had hanged herself. Cf. \"Odyssey\" xv. 355,\netc.\n\n{94} Not to be confounded with Aeolus king of the winds.\n\n{95} Melampus, vide book xv. 223, etc.\n\n{96} I have already said in a note on bk. xi. 186 that at this point of\nUlysses' voyage Telemachus could only be between eleven and twelve years\nold.\n\n{97} Is the writer a man or a woman?\n\n{98} Cf. \"Il.\" iv. 521, [Greek]. The Odyssean line reads, [Greek]. The\nfamous dactylism, therefore, of the Odyssean line was probably suggested\nby that of the Ileadic rather than by a desire to accommodate sound to\nsense. At any rate the double coincidence of a dactylic line, and an\nending [Greek], seems conclusive as to the familiarity of the writer of\nthe \"Odyssey\" with the Iliadic line.\n\n{99} Off the coast of Sicily and South Italy, in the month of May, I\nhave seen men fastened half way up a boat's mast with their feet resting\non a crosspiece, just large enough to support them. From this point\nof vantage they spear sword-fish. When I saw men thus employed I could\nhardly doubt that the writer of the \"Odyssey\" had seen others like them,\nand had them in her mind when describing the binding of Ulysses. I have\ntherefore with some diffidence ventured to depart from the received\ntranslation of [Greek] (cf. Alcaeus frag. 18, where, however, it is\nvery hard to say what [Greek] means). In Sophocles' Lexicon I find a\nreference to Chrysostom (l, 242, A. Ed. Benedictine Paris 1834-1839)\nfor the word [Greek], which is probably the same as [Greek], but I have\nlooked for the passage in vain.\n\n{100} The writer is at fault here and tries to put it off on Circe. When\nUlysses comes to take the route prescribed by Circe, he ought to pass\neither the Wanderers or some other difficulty of which we are not told,\nbut he does not do so. The Planctae, or Wanderers, merge into Scylla and\nCharybdis, and the alternative between them and something untold\nmerges into the alternative whether Ulysses had better choose Scylla or\nCharybdis. Yet from line 260, it seems we are to consider the Wanderers\nas having been passed by Ulysses; this appears even more plainly from\nxxiii. 327, in which Ulysses expressly mentions the Wandering rocks as\nhaving been between the Sirens and Scylla and Charybdis. The writer,\nhowever, is evidently unaware that she does not quite understand her own\nstory; her difficulty was perhaps due to the fact that though Trapanese\nsailors had given her a fair idea as to where all her other localities\nreally were, no one in those days more than in our own could localise\nthe Planctae, which in fact, as Buttmann has argued, were derived not\nfrom any particular spot, but from sailors' tales about the difficulties\nof navigating the group of the Aeolian islands as a whole (see note on\n\"Od.\" x. 3). Still the matter of the poor doves caught her fancy, so she\nwould not forgo them. The whirlwinds of fire and the smoke that hangs on\nScylla suggests allusion to Stromboli and perhaps even Etna. Scylla is\non the Italian side, and therefore may be said to look West. It is about\n8 miles thence to the Sicilian coast, so Ulysses may be perfectly well\ntold that after passing Scylla he will come to the Thrinacian island or\nSicily. Charybdis is transposed to a site some few miles to the north of\nits actual position.\n\n{101} I suppose this line to have been intercalated by the author when\nlines 426-446 were added.\n\n{102} For the reasons which enable us to identify the island of the two\nSirens with the Lipari island now Salinas--the ancient Didyme, or \"twin\"\nisland--see The Authoress of the Odyssey, pp. 195, 196. The two\nSirens doubtless were, as their name suggests, the whistling gusts, or\navalanches of air that at times descend without a moment's warning from\nthe two lofty mountains of Salinas--as also from all high points in the\nneighbourhood.\n\n{103} See Admiral Smyth on the currents in the Straits of Messina,\nquoted in \"The Authoress of the Odyssey,\" p. 197.\n\n{104} In the islands of Favognana and Marettimo off Trapani I have seen\nmen fish exactly as here described. They chew bread into a paste and\nthrow it into the sea to attract the fish, which they then spear. No\nline is used.\n\n{105} The writer evidently regards Ulysses as on a coast that looked\nEast at no great distance south of the Straits of Messina somewhere,\nsay, near Tauromenium, now Taormina.\n\n{106} Surely there must be a line missing here to tell us that the keel\nand mast were carried down into Charybdis. Besides, the aorist [Greek]\nin its present surrounding is perplexing. I have translated it as though\nit were an imperfect; I see Messrs. Butcher and Lang translate it as\na pluperfect, but surely Charybdis was in the act of sucking down the\nwater when Ulysses arrived.\n\n{107} I suppose the passage within brackets to have been an afterthought\nbut to have been written by the same hand as the rest of the poem. I\nsuppose xii. 103 to have been also added by the writer when she decided\non sending Ulysses back to Charybdis. The simile suggests the hand of\nthe wife or daughter of a magistrate who had often seen her father come\nin cross and tired.\n\n{108} Gr. [Greek]. This puts coined money out of the question, but\nnevertheless implies that the gold had been worked into ornaments of\nsome kind.\n\n{109} I suppose Teiresias' prophecy of bk. xi. 114-120 had made no\nimpression on Ulysses. More probably the prophecy was an afterthought,\nintercalated, as I have already said, by the authoress when she changed\nher scheme.\n\n{110} A male writer would have made Ulysses say, not \"may you give\nsatisfaction to your wives,\" but \"may your wives give satisfaction to\nyou.\"\n\n{111} See note {64}.\n\n{112} The land was in reality the shallow inlet, now the salt works of\nS. Cusumano--the neighbourhood of Trapani and Mt. Eryx being made to do\ndouble duty, both as Scheria and Ithaca. Hence the necessity for making\nUlysses set out after dark, fall instantly into a profound sleep, and\nwake up on a morning so foggy that he could not see anything till the\ninterviews between Neptune and Jove and between Ulysses and Minerva\nshould have given the audience time to accept the situation. See\nillustrations and map near the end of bks. v. and vi. respectively.\n\n{113} This cave, which is identifiable with singular completeness, is\nnow called the \"grotta del toro,\" probably a corruption of \"tesoro,\" for\nit is held to contain a treasure. See The Authoress of the Odyssey, pp.\n167-170.\n\n{114} Probably they would.\n\n{115} Then it had a shallow shelving bottom.\n\n{116} Doubtless the road would pass the harbour in Odyssean times as it\npasses the salt works now; indeed, if there is to be a road at all there\nis no other level ground which it could take. See map above referred to.\n\n{117} The rock at the end of the Northern harbour of Trapani, to which\nI suppose the writer of the \"Odyssey\" to be here referring, still bears\nthe name Malconsiglio--\"the rock of evil counsel.\" There is a legend\nthat it was a ship of Turkish pirates who were intending to attack\nTrapani, but the \"Madonna di Trapani\" crushed them under this rock just\nas they were coming into port. My friend Cavaliere Giannitrapani of\nTrapani told me that his father used to tell him when he was a boy that\nif he would drop exactly three drops of oil on to the water near the\nrock, he would see the ship still at the bottom. The legend is evidently\na Christianised version of the Odyssean story, while the name supplies\nthe additional detail that the disaster happened in consequence of an\nevil counsel.\n\n{118} It would seem then that the ship had got all the way back from\nIthaca in about a quarter of an hour.\n\n{119} And may we not add \"and also to prevent his recognising that he\nwas only in the place where he had met Nausicaa two days earlier.\"\n\n{120} All this is to excuse the entire absence of Minerva from books\nix.-xii., which I suppose had been written already, before the authoress\nhad determined on making Minerva so prominent a character.\n\n{121} We have met with this somewhat lame attempt to cover the writer's\nchange of scheme at the end of bk. vi.\n\n{122} I take the following from The Authoress of the Odyssey, p. 167.\n\"It is clear from the text that there were two [caves] not one, but some\none has enclosed in brackets the two lines in which the second cave is\nmentioned, I presume because he found himself puzzled by having a second\ncave sprung upon him when up to this point he had only been told of one.\n\n\"I venture to think that if he had known the ground he would not have\nbeen puzzled, for there are two caves, distant about 80 or 100 yards\nfrom one another.\" The cave in which Ulysses hid his treasure is, as I\nhave already said, identifiable with singular completeness. The other\ncave presents no special features, neither in the poem nor in nature.\n\n{123} There is no attempt to disguise the fact that Penelope had long\ngiven encouragement to the suitors. The only defence set up is that she\ndid not really mean to encourage them. Would it not have been wiser to\nhave tried a little discouragement?\n\n{124} See map near the end of bk. vi. Ruccazzu dei corvi of course means\n\"the rock of the ravens.\" Both name and ravens still exist.\n\n{125} See The Authoress of the Odyssey, pp. 140, 141. The real reason\nfor sending Telemachus to Pylos and Lacedaemon was that the authoress\nmight get Helen of Troy into her poem. He was sent at the only point in\nthe story at which he could be sent, so he must have gone then or not at\nall.\n\n{126} The site I assign to Eumaeus's hut, close to the Ruccazzu dei\nCorvi, is about 2,000 feet above the sea, and commands an extensive\nview.\n\n{127} Sandals such as Eumaeus was making are still worn in the Abruzzi\nand elsewhere. An oblong piece of leather forms the sole: holes are cut\nat the four corners, and through these holes leathern straps are passed,\nwhich are bound round the foot and cross-gartered up the calf.\n\n{128} See note {75}\n\n{129} Telemachus like many another good young man seems to expect every\none to fetch and carry for him.\n\n{130} \"Il.\" vi. 288. The store room was fragrant because it was made of\ncedar wood. See \"Il.\" xxiv. 192.\n\n{131} cf. \"Il.\" vi. 289 and 293-296. The dress was kept at the bottom\nof the chest as one that would only be wanted on the greatest occasions;\nbut surely the marriage of Hermione and of Megapenthes (bk, iv. ad\ninit.) might have induced Helen to wear it on the preceding evening,\nin which case it could hardly have got back. We find no hint here of\nMegapenthes' recent marriage.\n\n{132} See note {83}.\n\n{133} cf. \"Od.\" xi. 196, etc.\n\n{134} The names Syra and Ortygia, on which island a great part of the\nDoric Syracuse was originally built, suggest that even in Odyssean times\nthere was a prehistoric Syracuse, the existence of which was known to\nthe writer of the poem.\n\n{135} Literally \"where are the turnings of the sun.\" Assuming, as we may\nsafely do, that the Syra and Ortygia of the \"Odyssey\" refer to Syracuse,\nit is the fact that not far to the South of these places the land turns\nsharply round, so that mariners following the coast would find the\nsun upon the other side of their ship to that on which they'd had it\nhitherto.\n\nMr. A. S. Griffith has kindly called my attention to Herod iv. 42,\nwhere, speaking of the circumnavigation of Africa by Phoenician mariners\nunder Necos, he writes:\n\n\"On their return they declared--I for my part do not believe them, but\nperhaps others may--that in sailing round Libya [i.e. Africa] they had\nthe sun upon their right hand. In this way was the extent of Libya first\ndiscovered.\n\n\"I take it that Eumaeus was made to have come from Syracuse because\nthe writer thought she rather ought to have made something happen at\nSyracuse during her account of the voyages of Ulysses. She could\nnot, however, break his long drift from Charybdis to the island of\nPantellaria; she therefore resolved to make it up to Syracuse in another\nway.\"\n\n{135} Modern excavations establish the existence of two and only two\npre-Dorian communities at Syracuse; they were, so Dr. Orsi informed me,\nat Plemmirio and Cozzo Pantano. See The Authoress of the Odyssey, pp.\n211-213.\n\n{136} This harbour is again evidently the harbour in which Ulysses had\nlanded, i.e. the harbour that is now the salt works of S. Cusumano.\n\n{137} This never can have been anything but very niggardly pay for some\neight or nine days' service. I suppose the crew were to consider the\npleasure of having had a trip to Pylos as a set off. There is no trace\nof the dinner as having been actually given, either on the following or\nany other morning.\n\n{138} No hawk can tear its prey while it is on the wing.\n\n{139} The text is here apparently corrupt, and will not make sense as it\nstands. I follow Messrs. Butcher and Lang in omitting line 101.\n\n{140} i.e. to be milked, as in South Italian and Sicilian towns at the\npresent day.\n\n{141} The butchering and making ready the carcases took place partly in\nthe outer yard and partly in the open part of the inner court.\n\n{142} These words cannot mean that it would be afternoon soon after they\nwere spoken. Ulysses and Eumaeus reached the town which was \"some way\noff\" (xvii. 25) in time for the suitor's early meal (xvii. 170 and 176)\nsay at ten or eleven o' clock. The context of the rest of the book shows\nthis. Eumaeus and Ulysses, therefore, cannot have started later than\neight or nine, and Eumaeus's words must be taken as an exaggeration for\nthe purpose of making Ulysses bestir himself.\n\n{143} I imagine the fountain to have been somewhere about where the\nchurch of the Madonna di Trapani now stands, and to have been fed with\nwater from what is now called the Fontana Diffali on Mt. Eryx.\n\n{144} From this and other passages in the \"Odyssey\" it appears that\nwe are in an age anterior to the use of coined money--an age when\ncauldrons, tripods, swords, cattle, chattels of all kinds, measures\nof corn, wine, or oil, etc. etc., not to say pieces of gold, silver,\nbronze, or even iron, wrought more or less, but unstamped, were the\nnearest approach to a currency that had as yet been reached.\n\n{145} Gr. is [Greek]\n\n{146} I correct these proofs abroad and am not within reach of Hesiod,\nbut surely this passage suggests acquaintance with the Works and Ways,\nthough it by no means compels it.\n\n{147} It would seem as though Eurynome and Euryclea were the same\nperson. See note {156}\n\n{148} It is plain, therefore, that Iris was commonly accepted as the\nmessenger of the gods, though our authoress will never permit her to\nfetch or carry for any one.\n\n{149} i.e. the doorway leading from the inner to the outer court.\n\n{150} Surely in this scene, again, Eurynome is in reality Euryclea. See\nnote {156}\n\n{151} These, I imagine, must have been in the open part of the inner\ncourtyard, where the maids also stood, and threw the light of their\ntorches into the covered cloister that ran all round it. The smoke would\notherwise have been intolerable.\n\n{152} Translation very uncertain; vide Liddell and Scott, under [Greek]\n\n{153} See photo on opposite page.\n\n{154} cf. \"Il.\" ii. 184, and 217, 218. An additional and well-marked\nfeature being wanted to convince Penelope, the writer has taken the\nhunched shoulders of Thersites (who is mentioned immediately after\nEurybates in the \"Iliad\") and put them on to Eurybates' back.\n\n{155} This is how geese are now fed in Sicily, at any rate in summer,\nwhen the grass is all burnt up. I have never seen them grazing.\n\n{156} Lower down (line 143) Euryclea says it was herself that had thrown\nthe cloak over Ulysses--for the plural should not be taken as implying\nmore than one person. The writer is evidently still fluctuating between\nEuryclea and Eurynome as the name for the old nurse. She probably\noriginally meant to call her Euryclea, but finding it not immediately\neasy to make Euryclea scan in xvii. 495, she hastily called her\nEurynome, intending either to alter this name later or to change the\nearlier Euryclea's into Eurynome. She then drifted in to Eurynome\nas convenience further directed, still nevertheless hankering after\nEuryclea, till at last she found that the path of least resistance\nwould lie in the direction of making Eurynome and Euryclea two persons.\nTherefore in xxiii. 289-292 both Eurynome and \"the nurse\" (who can be\nnone other than Euryclea) come on together. I do not say that this is\nfeminine, but it is not unfeminine.\n\n{157} See note {156}\n\n{158} This, I take it, was immediately in front of the main entrance of\nthe inner courtyard into the body of the house.\n\n{159} This is the only allusion to Sardinia in either \"Iliad\" or\n\"Odyssey.\"\n\n{160} The normal translation of the Greek word would be \"holding back,\"\n\"curbing,\" \"restraining,\" but I cannot think that the writer meant\nthis--she must have been using the word in its other sense of \"having,\"\n\"holding,\" \"keeping,\" \"maintaining.\"\n\n{161} I have vainly tried to realise the construction of the fastening\nhere described.\n\n{162} See plan of Ulysses' house in the appendix. It is evident that the\nopen part of the court had no flooring but the natural soil.\n\n{163} See plan of Ulysses' house, and note {175}.\n\n{164} i.e. the door that led into the body of the house.\n\n{165} This was, no doubt, the little table that was set for Ulysses,\n\"Od.\" xx. 259.\n\nSurely the difficulty of this passage has been overrated. I suppose\nthe iron part of the axe to have been wedged into the handle, or bound\nsecurely to it--the handle being half buried in the ground. The axe\nwould be placed edgeways towards the archer, and he would have to shoot\nhis arrow through the hole into which the handle was fitted when the axe\nwas in use. Twelve axes were placed in a row all at the same height,\nall exactly in front of one another, all edgeways to Ulysses whose arrow\npassed through all the holes from the first onward. I cannot see how the\nGreek can bear any other interpretation, the words being, [Greek]\n\n\"He did not miss a single hole from the first onwards.\" [Greek]\naccording to Liddell and Scott being \"the hole for the handle of an\naxe, etc.,\" while [Greek] (\"Od.\" v. 236) is, according to the same\nauthorities, the handle itself. The feat is absurdly impossible, but our\nauthoress sometimes has a soul above impossibilities.\n\n{166} The reader will note how the spoiling of good food distresses the\nwriter even in such a supreme moment as this.\n\n{167} Here we have it again. Waste of substance comes first.\n\n{168} cf. \"Il.\" iii. 337 and three other places. It is strange that\nthe author of the \"Iliad\" should find a little horse-hair so alarming.\nPossibly enough she was merely borrowing a common form line from some\nearlier poet--or poetess--for this is a woman's line rather than a\nman's.\n\n{169} Or perhaps simply \"window.\" See plan in the appendix.\n\n{170} i.e. the pavement on which Ulysses was standing.\n\n{171} The interpretation of lines 126-143 is most dubious, and at best\nwe are in a region of melodrama: cf., however, i.425, etc. from which it\nappears that there was a tower in the outer court, and that Telemachus\nused to sleep in it. The [Greek] I take to be a door, or trap door,\nleading on to the roof above Telemachus's bed room, which we are told\nwas in a place that could be seen from all round--or it might be simply\na window in Telemachus's room looking out into the street. From the\ntop of the tower the outer world was to be told what was going on, but\npeople could not get in by the [Greek]: they would have to come in by\nthe main entrance, and Melanthius explains that the mouth of the narrow\npassage (which was in the lands of Ulysses and his friends) commanded\nthe only entrance by which help could come, so that there would be\nnothing gained by raising an alarm. As for the [Greek] of line 143,\nno commentator ancient or modern has been able to say what was\nintended--but whatever they were, Melanthius could never carry twelve\nshields, twelve helmets, and twelve spears. Moreover, where he could\ngo the others could go also. If a dozen suitors had followed Melanthius\ninto the house they could have attacked Ulysses in the rear, in which\ncase, unless Minerva had intervened promptly, the \"Odyssey\" would have\nhad a different ending. But throughout the scene we are in a region of\nextravagance rather than of true fiction--it cannot be taken seriously\nby any but the very serious, until we come to the episode of Phemius and\nMedon, where the writer begins to be at home again.\n\n{172} I presume it was intended that there should be a hook driven into\nthe bearing-post.\n\n{173} What for?\n\n{174} Gr: [Greek]. This is not [Greek].\n\n{175} From lines 333 and 341 of this book, and lines 145 and 146 of bk.\nxxi we can locate the approach to the [Greek] with some certainty.\n\n{176} But in xix. 500-502 Ulysses scolded Euryclea for offering\ninformation on this very point, and declared himself quite able to\nsettle it for himself.\n\n{177} There were a hundred and eight Suitors.\n\n{178} Lord Grimthorpe, whose understanding does not lend itself to easy\nimposition, has been good enough to write to me about my conviction that\nthe \"Odyssey\" was written by a woman, and to send me remarks upon the\ngross absurdity of the incident here recorded. It is plain that all\nthe authoress cared about was that the women should be hanged: as for\nattempting to realise, or to make her readers realise, how the hanging\nwas done, this was of no consequence. The reader must take her word for\nit and ask no questions. Lord Grimthorpe wrote:\n\n\"I had better send you my ideas about Nausicaa's hanging of the\nmaids (not 'maidens,' of whom Froude wrote so well in his 'Science of\nHistory') before I forget it all. Luckily for me Liddell & Scott have\nspecially translated most of the doubtful words, referring to this very\nplace.\n\n\"A ship's cable. I don't know how big a ship she meant, but it must have\nbeen a very small one indeed if its 'cable' could be used to tie tightly\nround a woman's neck, and still more round a dozen of them 'in a row,'\nbesides being strong enough to hold them and pull them all up.\n\n\"A dozen average women would need the weight and strength of more than\na dozen strong heavy men even over the best pulley hung to the roof\nover them; and the idea of pulling them up by a rope hung anyhow round a\npillar [Greek] is absurdly impossible; and how a dozen of them could be\nhung dangling round one post is a problem which a senior wrangler would\nbe puzzled to answer... She had better have let Telemachus use his sword\nas he had intended till she changed his mind for him.\"\n\n{179} Then they had all been in Ulysses' service over twenty years;\nperhaps the twelve guilty ones had been engaged more recently.\n\n{180} Translation very doubtful--cf. \"It.\" xxiv. 598.\n\n{181} But why could she not at once ask to see the scar, of which\nEuryclea had told her, or why could not Ulysses have shown it to her?\n\n{182} The people of Ithaca seem to have been as fond of carping as the\nPhaeacians were in vi. 273, etc.\n\n{183} See note {156}. Ulysses's bed room does not appear to have been\nupstairs, nor yet quite within the house. Is it possible that it was\n\"the domed room\" round the outside of which the erring maids were, for\naught we have heard to the contrary, still hanging?\n\n{184} Ulysses bedroom in the mind of the writer is here too apparently\ndown stairs.\n\n{185} Penelope having been now sufficiently whitewashed, disappears from\nthe poem.\n\n{186} So practised a washerwoman as our authoress doubtless knew that by\nthis time the web must have become such a wreck that it would have gone\nto pieces in the wash.\n\nA lady points out to me, just as these sheets are leaving my hands, that\nno really good needlewoman--no one, indeed, whose work or character was\nworth consideration--could have endured, no matter for what reason, the\nunpicking of her day's work, day after day for between three and four\nyears.\n\n{187} We must suppose Dolius not yet to know that his son Melanthius\nhad been tortured, mutilated, and left to die by Ulysses' orders on the\npreceding day, and that his daughter Melantho had been hanged. Dolius\nwas probably exceptionally simple-minded, and his name was ironical.\nSo on Mt. Eryx I was shown a man who was always called Sonza Malizia or\n\"Guileless\"--he being held exceptionally cunning.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"1728":"\n\n\n\n\nTHE ODYSSEY OF HOMER\n\nDONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE\n\nby S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.\n\nAND\n\nA. LANG, M.A.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\nThere would have been less controversy about the proper\nmethod of Homeric translation, if critics had recognised\nthat the question is a purely relative one, that of Homer\nthere can be no final translation. The taste and the\nliterary habits of each age demand different qualities in\npoetry, and therefore a different sort of rendering of\nHomer. To the men of the time of Elizabeth, Homer would\nhave appeared bald, it seems, and lacking in ingenuity, if\nhe had been presented in his antique simplicity. For the\nElizabethan age, Chapman supplied what was then necessary,\nand the mannerisms that were then deemed of the essence of\npoetry, namely, daring and luxurious conceits. Thus in\nChapman's verse Troy must 'shed her towers for tears of\noverthrow,' and when the winds toss Odysseus about, their\nsport must be called 'the horrid tennis.'\n\nIn the age of Anne, 'dignity' and 'correctness' had to be\ngiven to Homer, and Pope gave them by aid of his dazzling\nrhetoric, his antitheses, his _nettet\u00e9_, his command of every\nconventional and favourite artifice. Without Chapman's\nconceits, Homer's poems would hardly have been what the\nElizabethans took for poetry; without Pope's smoothness,\nand Pope's points, the Iliad and Odyssey would have seemed\nrude, and harsh in the age of Anne. These great\ntranslations must always live as English poems. As\ntranscripts of Homer they are like pictures drawn from a\nlost point of view. Chaque siecle depuis le xvi a ue de ce\ncote son belveder different. Again, when Europe woke to a\nsense, an almost exaggerated and certainly uncritical\nsense, of the value of her songs of the people, of all the\nballads that Herder, Scott, Lonnrot, and the rest\ncollected, it was commonly said that Homer was a\nballad-minstrel, that the translator must imitate the\nsimplicity, and even adopt the formulae of the ballad.\nHence came the renderings of Maginn, the experiments of Mr.\nGladstone, and others. There was some excuse for the error\nof critics who asked for a Homer in ballad rhyme. The Epic\npoet, the poet of gods and heroes, did indeed inherit some\nof the formulae of the earlier Volks-lied. Homer, like the\nauthor of The Song of Roland, like the singers of the\nKalevala, uses constantly recurring epithets, and repeats,\nword for word, certain emphatic passages, messages, and so\non. That custom is essential in the ballad, it is an\naccident not the essence of the epic. The epic is a poem of\ncomplete and elaborate art, but it still bears some\nbirthmarks, some signs of the early popular chant, out of\nwhich it sprung, as the garden-rose springs from the wild\nstock, When this is recognised the demand for ballad-like\nsimplicity and 'ballad-slang' ceases to exist, and then all\nHomeric translations in the ballad manner cease to\nrepresent our conception of Homer. After the belief in the\nballad manner follows the recognition of the romantic vein\nin Homer, and, as a result, came Mr. Worsley's admirable\nOdyssey. This masterly translation does all that can be\ndone for the Odyssey in the romantic style. The smoothness\nof the verse, the wonderful closeness to the original,\nreproduce all of Homer, in music and in meaning, that can\nbe rendered in English verse. There still, however, seems\nan aspect Homeric poems, and a demand in connection with\nHomer to be recognised, and to be satisfied.\n\nSainte-Beuve says, with reference probably to M. Leconte de\nLisle's prose version of the epics, that some people treat\nthe epics too much as if the were sagas. Now the Homeric\nepics are sagas, but then they are the sagas of the divine\nheroic age of Greece, and thus are told with an art which\nis not the art of the Northern poets. The epics are stories\nabout the adventures of men living in most respects like\nthe men of our own race who dwelt in Iceland, Norway,\nDenmark, and Sweden. The epics are, in a way, and as far as\nmanners and institutions are concerned, historical\ndocuments. Whoever regards them in this way, must wish to\nread them exactly as they have reached us, without modern\nornament, with nothing added or omitted. He must recognise,\nwith Mr. Matthew Arnold, that what he now wants, namely,\nthe simple truth about the matter of the poem, can only be\ngiven in prose, 'for in a verse translation no original\nwork is any longer recognisable.' It is for this reason\nthat we have attempted to tell once more, in simple prose,\nthe story of Odysseus. We have tried to transfer, not all\nthe truth about the poem, but the historical truth, into\nEnglish. In this process Homer must lose at least half his\ncharm, his bright and equable speed, the musical current of\nthat narrative, which, like the river of Egypt, flows from\nan indiscoverable source, and mirrors the temples and the\npalaces of unforgotten gods and kings. Without this music\nof verse, only a half truth about Homer can be told, but\nthen it is that half of the truth which, at this moment, it\nseems most necessary to tell. This is the half of the truth\nthat the translators who use verse cannot easily tell. They\nMUST be adding to Homer, talking with Pope about 'tracing\nthe mazy lev'ret o'er the lawn,' or with Mr. Worsley about\nthe islands that are 'stars of the blue Aegaean,' or with\nDr. Hawtrey about 'the earth's soft arms,' when Homer says\nnothing at all about the 'mazy lev'ret,' or the 'stars of\nthe blue Aegaean,' or the 'soft arms' of earth. It would be\nimpertinent indeed to blame any of these translations in\ntheir place. They give that which the romantic reader of\npoetry, or the student of the age of Anne, looks for in\nverse; and without tags of this sort, a translation of\nHomer in verse cannot well be made to hold together.\n\nThere can be then, it appears, no final English translation\nof Homer. In each there must be, in addition to what is\nGreek and eternal, the element of what is modern, personal,\nand fleeting. Thus we trust that there may be room for 'the\npale and far-off shadow of a prose translation,' of which\nthe aim is limited and humble. A prose translation cannot\ngive the movement and the fire of a successful translation\nin verse; it only gathers, as it were, the crumbs which\nfall from the richer table, only tells the story, without\nthe song. Yet to a prose translation is permitted, perhaps,\nthat close adherence to the archaisms of the epic, which in\nverse become mere oddities. The double epithets, the\nrecurring epithets of Homer, if rendered into verse, delay\nand puzzle the reader, as the Greek does not delay or\npuzzle him. In prose he may endure them, or even care to\nstudy them as the survivals of a stage of taste, which is\nto be found in its prime in the sagas. These double and\nrecurring epithets of Homer are a softer form of the quaint\nNorthern periphrases, which make the sea the 'swan's bath,'\ngold, the 'dragon's hoard,' men, the 'ring-givers,' and so\non. We do not know whether it is necessary to defend our\nchoice of a somewhat antiquated prose. Homer has no ideas\nwhich cannot be expressed in words that are 'old and\nplain,' and to words that are old and plain, and, as a\nrule, to such terms as, being used by the Translators of\nthe Bible, are still not unfamiliar, we have tried to\nrestrict ourselves. It may be objected, that the employment\nof language which does not come spontaneously to the lips,\nis an affectation out of place in a version of the Odyssey.\nTo this we may answer that the Greek Epic dialect, like the\nEnglish of our Bible, was a thing of slow growth and\ncomposite nature, that it was never a spoken language, nor,\nexcept for certain poetical purposes, a written language.\nThus the Biblical English seems as nearly analogous to the\nEpic Greek, as anything that our tongue has to offer.\n\nThe few foot-notes in this book are chiefly intended to\nmake clear some passages where there is a choice of\nreading. The notes at the end, which we would like to have\nwritten in the form of essays, and in company with more\ncomplete philological and archaeological studies, are\nchiefly meant to elucidate the life of Homer's men. We have\nreceived much help from many friends, and especially from\nMr. R. W. Raper, Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford and Mr.\nGerald Balfour, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, who\nhas aided us with many suggestions while the book was\npassing through the press.\n\nIn the interpretation of B. i.411, ii.191, v.90, and 471,\nwe have departed from the received view, and followed Mr.\nRaper, who, however, has not been able to read through the\nproof-sheets further than Book xii.\n\nWe have adopted La Roche's text (Homeri Odyssea, J. La\nRoche, Leipzig, 1867), except in a few cases where we\nmention our reading in a foot-note.\n\nThe Arguments prefixed to the Books are taken, with very\nslight alterations, from Hobbes' Translation of the\nOdyssey.\n\nIt is hoped that the Introduction added to the second\nedition may illustrate the growth of those national legends\non which Homer worked, and may elucidate the plot of the\nOdyssey.\n\n\n\nPREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.\n\nWet owe our thanks to the Rev. E. Warre, of Eton College,\nfor certain corrections on nautical points. In particular,\nhe has convinced us that the raft of Odysseus in B. v. is a\nraft strictly so called, and that it is not, under the\npoet's description, elaborated into a ship, as has been\ncommonly supposed. The translation of the passage (B.\nv.246-261) is accordingly altered.\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\nCOMPOSITION AND PLOT OF THE ODYSSEY.\n\nThe Odyssey is generally supposed to be somewhat the later\nin date of the two most ancient Greek poems which are\nconcerned with the events and consequences of the Trojan\nwar. As to the actual history of that war, it may be said\nthat nothing is known. We may conjecture that some contest\nbetween peoples of more or less kindred stocks, who\noccupied the isles and the eastern and western shores of\nthe Aegean, left a strong impression on the popular fancy.\nRound the memories of this contest would gather many older\nlegends, myths, and stories, not peculiarly Greek or even\n'Aryan,' which previously floated unattached, or were\nconnected with heroes whose fame was swallowed up by that\nof a newer generation. It would be the work of minstrels,\npriests, and poets, as the national spirit grew conscious\nof itself, to shape all these materials into a definite\nbody of tradition. This is the rule of development--first\nscattered stories, then the union of these into a NATIONAL\nlegend. The growth of later national legends, which we are\nable to trace, historically, has generally come about in\nthis fashion. To take the best known example, we are able\nto compare the real history of Charlemagne with the old\nepic poems on his life and exploits. In these poems we find\nthat facts are strangely exaggerated, and distorted; that\npurely fanciful additions are made to the true records,\nthat the more striking events of earlier history are\ncrowded into the legend of Charles, that mere fairy tales,\ncurrent among African as well as European peoples, are\ntransmuted into false history, and that the anonymous\ncharacters of fairy tales are converted into historical\npersonages. We can also watch the process by which feigned\ngenealogies were constructed, which connected the princely\nhouses of France with the imaginary heroes of the epics.\nThe conclusion is that the poetical history of Charlemagne\nhas only the faintest relations to the true history. And we\nare justified in supposing that, quite as little of the\nreal history of events can be extracted from the tale of\nTroy, as from the Chansons de Geste.\n\nBy the time the Odyssey was composed, it is certain that a\npoet had before him a well-arranged mass of legends and\ntraditions from which he might select his materials. The\nauthor of the Iliad has an extremely full and curiously\nconsistent knowledge of the local traditions of Greece, the\nmemories which were cherished by Thebans, Pylians, people\nof Mycenae, of Argos, and so on. The Iliad and the Odyssey\nassume this knowledge in the hearers of the poems, and take\nfor granted some acquaintance with other legends, as with\nthe story of the Argonautic Expedition. Now that story\nitself is a tissue of popular tales,--still current in many\ndistant lands,--but all woven by the Greek genius into the\nhistory of Iason.\n\nThe history of the return of Odysseus as told in the\nOdyssey, is in the same way, a tissue of old marchen.\nThese must have existed for an unknown length of time\nbefore they gravitated into the cycle of the tale of Troy.\n\nThe extraordinary artistic skill with which legends and\nmyths, originally unconnected with each other, are woven\ninto the plot of the Odyssey, so that the marvels of savage\nand barbaric fancy become indispensable parts of an\nartistic whole, is one of the chief proofs of the unity of\nauthorship of that poem. We now go on to sketch the plot,\nwhich is a marvel of construction.\n\nOdysseus was the King of Ithaca, a small and rugged island\non the western coast of Greece. When he was but lately\nmarried to Penelope, and while his only son Telemachus was\nstill an infant, the Trojan war began. It is scarcely\nnecessary to say that the object of this war, as conceived\nof by the poets, was to win back Helen, the wife of\nMenelaus, from Paris, the son of Priam, King of Troy. As\nMenelaus was the brother of Agamemnon, the Emperor, so to\nspeak, or recognised chief of the petty kingdoms of\n'Greece, the whole force of these kingdoms was at his\ndisposal. No prince came to the leaguer of Troy from a home\nmore remote than that of Odysseus. When Troy was taken, in\nthe tenth year of the war, his homeward voyage was the\nlongest and most perilous.\n\nThe action of the Odyssey occupies but the last six weeks\nof the ten years during which Odysseus was wandering. Two\nnights in these six weeks are taken up, however, by his own\nnarrative of his adventures (to the Phaeacians, p. xx) in\nthe previous ten years. With this explanatory narrative we\nmust begin, before coming to the regular action of the\npoem.\n\nAfter the fall of Troy, Odysseus touched at Ismarus, the\ncity of a Thracian people, whom he attacked and plundered,\nbut by whom he was at last repulsed. The north wind then\ncarried his ships to Malea, the extreme southern point of\nGreece. Had he doubled Malea safely, he would probably have\nreached Ithaca in a few days, would have found Penelope\nunvexed by wooers, and Telemachus a boy of ten years old.\nBut this was not to be.\n\nThe 'ruinous winds' drove Odysseus and his ships for ten\ndays, and on the tenth they touched the land of the Lotus-\nEaters, whose flowery food causes sweet forgetfulness.\nLotus-land was possibly in Western Libya, but it is more\nprobable that ten days' voyage from the southern point of\nGreece, brought Odysseus into an unexplored region of\nfairy-land. Egypt, of which Homer had some knowledge, was\nbut five days' sail from Crete.\n\nLotus-land, therefore, being ten days' sail from Malea, was\nwell over the limit of the discovered world. From this\ncountry Odysseus went on till he reached the land of the\nlawless Cyclopes, a pastoral people of giants. Later Greece\nfeigned that the Cyclopes dwelt near Mount Etna, in Sicily.\nHomer leaves their place of abode in the vague.  Among the\nCyclopes, Odysseus had the adventure on which his whole\nfortunes hinged. He destroyed the eye of the cannibal\ngiant, Polyphemus, a son of Poseidon, the God of the Sea.\nTo avenge this act, Poseidon drove Odysseus wandering for\nten long years, and only suffered him to land in Ithaca,\n'alone, in evil case, to find troubles in his house.' This\nis a very remarkable point in the plot. The story of the\ncrafty adventurer and the blinding of the giant, with the\npunning device by which the hero escaped, exists in the\nshape of a detached marchen or fairy-tale among races who\nnever heard of Homer. And when we find the story among\nOghuzians, Esthonians, Basques, and Celts, it seems natural\nto suppose that these people did not break a fragment out\nof the Odyssey, but that the author of the Odyssey took\npossession of a legend out of the great traditional store\nof fiction. From the wide distribution of the tale, there\nis reason to suppose that it is older than Homer, and that\nit was not originally told of Odysseus, but was attached to\nhis legend, as floating jests of unknown authorship are\nattributed to eminent wits. It has been remarked with truth\nthat in this episode Odysseus acts out of character, that\nhe is foolhardy as well as cunning. Yet the author of the\nOdyssey, so far from merely dove-tailing this story at\nrandom into his narrative, has made his whole plot turn on\nthe injury to the Cyclops. Had he not foolishly exposed\nhimself and his companions, by his visit to the Cyclops,\nOdysseus would never have been driven wandering for ten\nweary years. The prayers of the blinded Cyclops were heard\nand fulfilled by Poseidon.\n\nFrom the land of the Cyclops, Odysseus and his company\nsailed to the Isle of Aeolus, the king of the winds. This\nplace too is undefined; we only learn that, even with the\nmost favourable gale, it was ten days' sail from Ithaca. In\nthe Isle of Aeolus Odysseus abode for a month, and then\nreceived from the king a bag in which all the winds were\nbound, except that which was to waft the hero to his home.\nThis sort of bag was probably not unfamiliar to\nsuperstitious Greek sailors who had dealings with witches,\nlike the modern wise women of the Lapps. The companions of\nthe hero opened the bag when Ithaca was in sight, the winds\nrushed out, the ships were borne back to the Aeolian Isle,\nand thence the hero was roughly dismissed by Aeolus. Seven\ndays' sail brought him to Lamos, a city of the cannibal\nLaestrygonians. Their country, too, is in No-man's-land,\nand nothing can be inferred from the fact that their\nfountain was called Artacia, and that there was an Artacia\nin Cyzicus. In Lamos a very important adventure befel\nOdysseus. The cannibals destroyed all his fleet, save one\nship, with which he made his escape to the Isle of Circe.\nHere the enchantress turned part of the crew into swine,\nbut Odysseus, by aid of the god Hermes, redeemed them, and\nbecame the lover of Circe. This adventure, like the story\nof the Cyclops, is a fairy tale of great antiquity. Dr.\nGerland, in his Alt Griechische Marchen in der Odyssee, his\nshown that the story makes part of the collection of\nSomadeva, a store of Indian tales, of which 1200 A.D. is\nthe approximate date. Circe appears as a Yackshini, and is\nconquered when an adventurer seizes her flute whose magic\nmusic turns men into beasts. The Indian Circe had the habit\nof eating the animals into which she transformed men.\n\nWe must suppose that the affairs with the Cicones, the\nLotus-eaters, the Cyclops, Aeolus, and the Laestrygonians,\noccupied most of the first year after the fall of Troy. A\nyear was then spent in the Isle of Circe, after which the\nsailors were eager to make for home. Circe commanded them\nto go down to Hades, to learn the homeward way from the\nghost of the Theban prophet Teiresias. The descent into\nhell, for some similar purpose, is common in the epics of\nother races, such as the Finns, and the South-Sea\nIslanders. The narrative of Odysseus's visit to the dead\n(book xi) is one of the most moving passages in the whole\npoem.\n\nFrom Teiresias Odysseus learned that, if he would bring his\ncompanions home, he must avoid injuring the sacred cattle\nof the Sun, which pastured in the Isle of Thrinacia.  If\nthese were harmed, he would arrive in Ithaca alone, or in\nthe words of the Cyclops's prayer, I in evil plight, with\nloss of all his company, on board the ship of strangers, to\nfind sorrow in his house.' On returning to the Isle Aeaean,\nOdysseus was warned by Circe of the dangers he would\nencounter. He and his friends set forth, escaped the Sirens\n(a sort of mermaidens), evaded the Clashing Rocks, which\nclose on ships (a fable known to the Aztecs), passed Scylla\n(the pieuvre of antiquity) with loss of some of the\ncompany, and reached Thrinacia, the Isle of the Sun. Here\nthe company of Odysseus, constrained by hunger, devoured\nthe sacred kine of the Sun, for which offence they were\npunished by a shipwreck, when all were lost save Odysseus.\nHe floated ten days on a raft, and then reached the isle of\nthe goddess Calypso, who kept him as her lover for eight\nyears.\n\nThe first two years after the fall of Troy are now\naccounted for. They were occupied, as we have seen, by\nadventures with the Cicones, the Lotus-eaters, the Cyclops,\nAeolus, the Laestrygonians, by a year's residence with\nCirce, by the descent into Hades, the encounters with the\nSirens, and Scylla, and the fatal sojourn in the isle of\nThrinacia. We leave Odysseus alone, for eight years,\nconsuming his own heart, in the island paradise of Calypso.\n\nIn Ithaca, the hero's home, things seem to have passed\nsmoothly till about the sixth year after the fall of Troy.\nThen the men of the younger generation, the island chiefs,\nbegan to woo Penelope, and to vex her son Telemachus.\nLaertes, the father of Odysseus, was too old to help, and\nPenelope only gained time by her famous device of weaving\nand unweaving the web. The wooers began to put compulsion\non the Queen, quartering themselves upon her, devouring her\nsubstance, and insulting her by their relations with her\nhandmaids. Thus Penelope pined at home, amidst her wasting\npossessions. Telemachus fretted in vain, and Odysseus was\ndevoured by grief and home-sickness in the isle of Calypso.\nWhen he had lain there for nigh eight years, the action of\nthe Odyssey begins, and occupies about six weeks.\n\n  DAY 1 (Book i).\n\nThe ordained time has now arrived, when by the counsels of\nthe Gods, Odysseus is to be brought home to free his house,\nto avenge himself on the wooers, and recover his kingdom.\nThe chief agent in his restoration is Pallas Athene; the\nfirst book opens with her prayer to Zeus that Odysseus may\nbe delivered. For this purpose Hermes is to be sent to\nCalypso to bid her release Odysseus, while Pallas Athene in\nthe shape of Mentor, a friend of Odysseus, visits\nTelemachus in Ithaca. She bids him call an assembly of the\npeople, dismiss the wooers to their homes, and his mother\nto her father's house, and go in quest of his own father,\nin Pylos, the city of Nestor, and Sparta, the home of\nMenelaus. Telemachus recognises the Goddess, and the first\nday closes.\n\n  DAY 2 (Book ii).\n\nTelemachus assembles the people, but he has not the heart\nto carry out Athene's advice. He cannot send the wooers\naway, nor turn his mother out of her house. He rather\nweakly appeals to the wooers' consciences, and announces\nhis intention of going to seek his father. They answer with\nscorn, but are warned of their fate, which is even at the\ndoors, by Halitherses. His prophecy (first made when\nOdysseus set out for Troy) tallies with the prophecy of\nTeiresias, and the prayer of the Cyclops. The reader will\nobserve a series of portents, prophecies, and omens, which\ngrow more numerous and admonishing as their doom draws\nnearer to the wooers. Their hearts, however, are hardened,\nand they mock at Telemachus, who, after an interview with\nAthene, borrows a ship and secretly sets out for Pylos.\nAthene accompanies him, and his friends man his galley.\n\n  DAY 3 (Book iii).\n\nThey reach Pylos, and are kindly received by the aged\nNestor, who has no news about Odysseus. After sacrifice,\nAthene disappears.\n\n  DAY 4 (Book iii).\n\nThe fourth day is occupied with sacrifice, and the talk of\nNestor. In the evening Telemachus (leaving his ship and\nfriends at Pylos) drives his chariot into Pherae, half way\nto Sparta; Peisistratus, the soil of Nestor, accompanies\nhim.\n\n  DAY 5 (Book iv).\n\nTelemachus and Peisistratus arrive at Sparta, where\nMenelaus and Helen receive them kindly.\n\n  DAY 6 (Book iv).\n\nMenelaus tells how he himself came home in the eighth year\nafter the fall of Troy. He had heard from Proteus, the Old\nMan of the Sea, that Odysseus was alive, and a captive on\nan island of the deep. Menelaus invites Telemachus to Stay\nwith him for eleven days or twelve, which Telemachus\ndeclines to do. It will later appear that he made an even\nlonger stay at Sparta, though whether he changed his mind,\nor whether we have here an inadvertence of the poet's it is\nhard to determine. This blemish has been used as an\nargument against the unity of authorship, but writers of\nall ages have made graver mistakes.\n\nOn this same day (the sixth) the wooers in Ithaca learned\nthat Telemachus had really set out to I cruise after his\nfather.' They sent some of their number to lie in ambush\nfor him, in a certain strait which he was likely to pass on\nhis return to Ithaca. Penelope also heard of her son's\ndeparture, but was consoled by a dream.\n\n  DAY 7 (Book v).\n\nThe seventh day finds us again in Olympus. Athene again\nurges the release of Odysseus; and Hermes is sent to bid\nCalypso let the hero go. Zeus prophecies that after twenty\ndays sailing, Odysseus will reach Scheria, and the\nhospitable Phaeacians, a people akin to the Gods, who will\nconvey him to Ithaca. Hermes accomplishes the message to\nCalypso.\n\n  DAYS 8-12-32 (Book v).\n\nThese days are occupied by Odysseus in making and launching\na raft; on the twelfth day from the beginning of the action\nhe leaves Calypso's isle. He sails for eighteen days, and\non the eighteenth day of his voyage (the twenty-ninth from\nthe beginning of the action), he sees Scheria. Poseidon\nraises a storm against him, and it is not till the\nthirty-second day from that in which Athene visited\nTelemachus, that he lands in Scheria, the country of the\nPhaeacians. Here he is again in fairy land. A rough, but\nperfectly recognisable form of the Phaeacian myth, is found\nin an Indian collection of marchen (already referred to) of\nthe twelfth century A.D. Here the Phaeacians are the\nVidyidhiris, and their old enemies the Cyclopes, are the\nRakshashas, a sort of giants. The Indian Odysseus, who\nseeks the city of gold, passes by the home of an Indian\nAeolus, Satyavrata. His later adventures are confused, and\nthe Greek version retains only the more graceful fancies of\nthe marchen.\n\n  DAY 33 (Book vi).\n\nOdysseus meets Nausicaa, daughter of Alcinous, the\nPhaeacian King, and by her aid, and that of Athene, is\nfavourably received at the palace, and tells how he came\nfrom Calypso's island. His name is still unknown to his\nhosts.\n\n  DAY 34 (Books vii, viii, ix, x, xi, xii).\n\nThe Phaeacians and Odysseus display their skill in sports.\nNausicaa bids Odysseus farewell. Odysseus recounts to\nAlcinous, and Arete, the Queen, those adventures in the two\nyears between the fall of Troy and his captivity in the\nisland of Calypso, which we have already described (pp.\nxiii-xvii).\n\n  DAY 35 (Book xiii).\n\nOdysseus is conveyed to Ithaca, in the evening, on one of\nthe magical barques of the Phaeacians.\n\n  DAY 36 (Books xiii, xiv, xv).\n\nHe wakens in Ithaca, which he does not at first recognise\nHe learns from Athene, for the first time, that the wooers\nbeset his house. She disguises him as an old man, and bids\nhim go to the hut of the swineherd Eumaeus, who is loyal to\nhis absent lord. Athene then goes to Lacedaemon, to bring\nback Telemachus, who has now resided there for a month.\nOdysseus won the heart of Eumaeus, who of course did not\nrecognise him, and slept in the swineherd's hut, while\nAthene was waking Telemachus, in Lacedaemon, and bidding\nhim 'be mindful of his return.'\n\n  DAY 37 (Book xv).\n\nIs spent by Odysseus in the swineherd's hut. Telemachus\nreaches Pherae, half-way to Pylos.\n\n\n  DAY 38 (Book xv).\n\nTelemachus reaches Pylos, but does not visit Nestor. To\nsave time he goes at once on board ship, taking with him an\nunfortunate outlaw, Theoclymenus, a second-sighted man, or\nthe family of Melampus, in which the gift of prophecy was\nhereditary. The ship passed the Elian coast at night, and\nevaded the ambush of the wooers. Meanwhile Odysseus was\nsitting up almost till dawn, listening to the history of\nEumaeus, the swineherd.\n\n  DAY 39 (Books xv, xvi).\n\nTelemachus reaches the Isle of Ithaca, sends his ship to\nthe city, but himself, by advice of Athene, makes for the\nhut of Eumaeus, where he meets, but naturally does not\nrecognise, his disguised father. He sends Eumaeus to\nPenelope with news of his arrival, and then Athene reveals\nOdysseus to Telemachus. The two plot the death of the\nwooers. Odysseus bids Telemachus remove, on a favourable\nopportunity, the arms which were disposed as trophies on\nthe walls of the hall at home. (There is a slight\ndiscrepancy between the words of this advice and the manner\nin which it is afterwards executed.) During this interview,\nthe ship of Telemachus, the wooers who had been in ambush,\nand Eumaeus, all reached the town of Ithaca. In the evening\nEumaeus returned to his hut, where Athene had again\ndisguised Odysseus.\n\n  DAY 40 (Books xvii, xviii, xix, xx).\n\nThe story is now hastening to its close, and many events\nare crowded into the fortieth day. Telemachus goes from the\nswineherd's hut to the city, and calls his guest,\nTheoclymenus, to the palace. The second-sighted man\nprophesies of the near revenge of Odysseus. In the\nafternoon, Odysseus (still disguised) and Eumaeus reach the\ncity, the dog Argos recognises the hero, and dies. Odysseus\ngoes begging through his own hall, and is struck by\nAntinous, the proudest of the wooers. Late in the day\nEumaeus goes home, and Odysseus fights with the braggart\nbeggar Irus. Still later, Penelope appears among the\nwooers, and receives presents from them. When the wooers\nhave withdrawn, Odysseus and Telemachus remove the weapons\nfrom the hall to the armoury. Afterwards Odysseus has an\ninterview with Penelope (who does not recognise him), but\nhe is recognised by his old nurse Eurycleia. Penelope\nmentions her purpose to wed the man who on the following\nday, the feast of the Archer-god Apollo, shall draw the bow\nof Odysseus, and send an arrow through the holes in twelve\naxe-blades, set up in a row. Thus the poet shows that\nOdysseus has arrived in Ithaca not a day too soon. Odysseus\nis comforted by a vision of Athene, and\n\n  DAY 41 (Books xx, xxi, xxii, xxiii).\n\nby the ominous prayer uttered by a weary woman grinding at\nthe mill. The swineherd and the disloyal Melanthius arrive\nat the palace. The wooers defer the plot to kill\nTelemachus, as the day is holy to Apollo. Odysseus is led\nup from his seat near the door to a place beside Telemachus\nat the chief's table. The wooers mock Telemachus, and the\nsecond-sighted Theoclymenus sees the ominous shroud of\ndeath covering their bodies, and the walls dripping with\nblood. He leaves the doomed company. In the trial of the\nbow, none of the wooers can draw it; meanwhile Odysseus has\ndeclared himself to the neatherd and the swineherd. The\nformer bars and fastens the outer gates of the court, the\nlatter bids Eurycleia bar the doors of the womens' chambers\nwhich lead out of the hall. Odysseus now gets the bow into\nhis hands, strings it, sends the arrow through the\naxe-blades, and then leaping on the threshold of stone,\ndeals his shafts among the wooers. Telemachus, the\nneatherd, and Eumaeus, aiding him, he slaughters all the\ncrew, despite the treachery of Melanthius. The paramours of\nthe wooers are hanged, and Odysseus, after some delay, is\nrecognised by Penelope.\n\n  DAY 42 (Books xxiii, xxiv).\n\nThis day is occupied with the recognition of Odysseus by\nhis aged father Laertes, and with the futile attempt of the\nkinsfolk of the wooers to avenge them on Odysseus. Athene\nreconciles the feud, and the toils of Odysseus are\naccomplished.\n\nThe reader has now before him a chronologically arranged\nsketch of the action of the Odyssey. It is, perhaps,\napparent, even from this bare outline, that the composition\nis elaborate and artistic, that the threads of the plot are\nskilfully separated and combined. The germ of the whole\nepic is probably the popular tale, known all over the\nworld, of the warrior who, on his return from a long\nexpedition, has great difficulty in making his prudent wife\nrecognise him. The incident occurs as a detached story in\nChina, and in most European countries it is told of a\ncrusader. 'We may suppose it to be older than the legend of\nTroy, and to have gravitated into the cycle of that legend.\nThe years of the hero's absence are then filled up with\nadventures (the Cyclops, Circe, the Phaeacians, the Sirens,\nthe descent into hell) which exist as scattered tales, or\nare woven into the more elaborate epics of Gaels, Aztecs,\nHindoos, Tartars, South-Sea Islanders, Finns, Russians,\nScandinavians, and Eskimo. The whole is surrounded with the\natmosphere of the kingly age of Greece, and the result is\nthe Odyssey, with that unity of plot and variety of\ncharacter which must have been given by one masterly\nconstructive genius. The date at which the poet of the\nOdyssey lived may be approximately determined by his\nconsistent descriptions of a peculiar and definite\ncondition of society, which had ceased to exist in the\nninth century B.C., and of a stage of art in which\nPhoenician and Assyrian influences predominated. (Die Kunst\nbei Homer. Brunn.) As to the mode of composition, it would\nnot be difficult to show that at least the a priori Wolfian\narguments against the early use of writing for literary\npurposes have no longer the cogency which they were once\nthought to possess. But this is matter for a separate\ninvestigation.\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Odyssey\n\n\n\nBook I\n\n  In a Council of the Gods, Poseidon absent, Pallas procureth\n  an order for the restitution of Odysseus; and appearing to\n  his son Telemachus, in human shape, adviseth him to\n  complain of the Wooers before the Council of the people,\n  and then go to Pylos and Sparta to inquire about his\n  father.\n\nTell me, Muse, of that man, so ready at need, who wandered\nfar and wide, after he had sacked the sacred citadel of\nTroy, and many were the men whose towns he saw and whose\nmind he learnt, yea, and many the woes he suffered in his\nheart upon the deep, striving to win his own life and the\nreturn of his company.  Nay, but even so he saved not his\ncompany, though he desired it sore. For through the\nblindness of their own hearts they perished, fools, who\ndevoured the oxen of Helios Hyperion: but the god took from\nthem their day of returning. Of these things, goddess,\ndaughter of Zeus, whencesoever thou hast heard thereof,\ndeclare thou even unto us.\n\nNow all the rest, as many as fled from sheer destruction,\nwere at home, and had escaped both war and sea, but\nOdysseus only, craving for his wife and for his homeward\npath, the lady nymph Calypso held, that fair goddess, in\nher hollow caves, longing to have him for her lord. But\nwhen now the year had come in the courses of the seasons,\nwherein the gods had ordained that he should return home to\nIthaca, not even there was he quit of labours, not even\namong his own; but all the gods had pity on him save\nPoseidon, who raged continually against godlike Odysseus,\ntill he came to his own country. Howbeit Poseidon had now\ndeparted for the distant Ethiopians, the Ethiopians that\nare sundered in twain, the uttermost of men, abiding some\nwhere Hyperion sinks and some where he rises.  There he\nlooked to receive his hecatomb of bulls and rams, there he\nmade merry sitting at the feast, but the other gods were\ngathered in the halls of Olympian Zeus. Then among them the\nfather of gods and men began to speak, for he bethought him\nin his heart of noble Aegisthus, whom the son of Agamemnon,\nfar-famed Orestes, slew. Thinking upon him he spake out\namong the Immortals:\n\n'Lo you now, how vainly mortal men do blame the gods! For\nof us they say comes evil, whereas they even of themselves,\nthrough the blindness of their own hearts, have sorrows\nbeyond that which is ordained. Even as of late Aegisthus,\nbeyond that which was ordained, took to him the wedded wife\nof the son of Atreus, and killed her lord on his return,\nand that with sheer doom before his eyes, since we had\nwarned him by the embassy of Hermes the keen-sighted, the\nslayer of Argos, that he should neither kill the man, nor\nwoo his wife. For the son of Atreus shall be avenged at the\nhand of Orestes, so soon as he shall come to man's estate\nand long for his own country. So spake Hermes, yet he\nprevailed not on the heart of Aegisthus, for all his good\nwill; but now hath he paid one price for all.'\n\nAnd the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, answered him, saying: 'O\nfather, our father Cronides, throned in the highest; that\nman assuredly lies in a death that is his due; so perish\nlikewise all who work such deeds! But my heart is rent for\nwise Odysseus, that hapless one, who far from his friends\nthis long while suffereth affliction in a seagirt isle,\nwhere is the navel of the sea, a woodland isle, and therein\na goddess hath her habitation, the daughter of the wizard\nAtlas, who knows the depths of every sea, and himself\nupholds the tall pillars which keep earth and sky asunder.\nHis daughter it is that holds the hapless man in sorrow:\nand ever with soft and guileful tales she is wooing him to\nforgetfulness of Ithaca. But Odysseus yearning to see if it\nwere but the smoke leap upwards from his own land, hath a\ndesire to die. As for thee, thine heart regardeth it not at\nall, Olympian! What! did not Odysseus by the ships of the\nArgives make thee free offering of sacrifice in the wide\nTrojan land? Wherefore wast thou then so wroth with him, O\nZeus?'\n\nAnd Zeus the cloud-gatherer answered her, and said, 'My\nchild, what word hath escaped the door of thy lips? Yea,\nhow should I forget divine Odysseus, who in understanding\nis beyond mortals and beyond all men hath done sacrifice to\nthe deathless gods, who keep the wide heaven? Nay, but it\nis Poseidon, the girdler of the earth, that hath been wroth\ncontinually with quenchless anger for the Cyclops' sake\nwhom he blinded of his eye, even godlike Polyphemus whose\npower is mightiest amongst all the Cyclopes. His mother was\nthe nymph Thoosa, daughter of Phorcys, lord of the\nunharvested sea, and in the hollow caves she lay with\nPoseidon. From that day forth Poseidon the earth-shaker\ndoth not indeed slay Odysseus, but driveth him wandering\nfrom his own country. But come, let us here one and all\ntake good counsel as touching his returning, that he may be\ngot home; so shall Poseidon let go his displeasure, for he\nwill in no wise be able to strive alone against all, in\ndespite of all the deathless gods.'\n\nThen the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, answered him, and said:\n'O father, our father Cronides, throned in the highest, if\nindeed this thing is now well pleasing to the blessed gods,\nthat wise Odysseus should return to his own home, let us\nthen speed Hermes the Messenger, the slayer of Argos, to\nthe island of Ogygia. There with all speed let him declare\nto the lady of the braided tresses our unerring counsel,\neven the return of the patient Odysseus, that so he may\ncome to his home. But as for me I will go to Ithaca that I\nmay rouse his son yet the more, planting might in his\nheart, to call an assembly of the long-haired Achaeans and\nspeak out to all the wooers who slaughter continually the\nsheep of his thronging flocks, and his kine with trailing\nfeet and shambling gait. And I will guide him to Sparta and\nto sandy Pylos to seek tidings of his dear father's return,\nif peradventure he may hear thereof and that so he may be\nhad in good report among men.'\n\nShe spake and bound beneath her feet her lovely golden\nsandals that wax not old, and bare her alike over the wet\nsea and over the limitless land, swift as the breath of the\nwind. And she seized her doughty spear, shod with sharp\nbronze, weighty and huge and strong, wherewith she quells\nthe ranks of heroes with whomsoever she is wroth, the\ndaughter of the mighty sire. Then from the heights of\nOlympus she came glancing down, and she stood in the land\nof Ithaca, at the entry of the gate of Odysseus, on the\nthreshold of the courtyard, holding in her hand the spear\nof bronze, in the semblance of a stranger, Mentes the\ncaptain of the Taphians. And there she found the lordly\nwooers: now they were taking their pleasure at draughts in\nfront of the doors, sitting on hides of oxen, which\nthemselves had slain. And of the henchmen and the ready\nsquires, some were mixing for them wine and water in bowls,\nand some again were washing the tables with porous sponges\nand were setting them forth, and others were carving flesh\nin plenty.\n\nAnd godlike Telemachus was far the first to descry her, for\nhe was sitting with a heavy heart among the wooers dreaming\non his good father, if haply he might come somewhence, and\nmake a scattering of the wooers there throughout the\npalace, and himself get honour and bear rule among his own\npossessions. Thinking thereupon, as he sat among wooers, he\nsaw Athene--and he went straight to the outer porch, for he\nthought it blame in his heart that a stranger should stand\nlong at the gates: and halting nigh her he clasped her\nright hand and took from her the spear of bronze, and\nuttered his voice and spake unto her winged words:\n\n'Hail, stranger, with us thou shalt be kindly entreated,\nand thereafter, when thou hast tasted meat, thou shalt tell\nus that whereof thou hast need.'\n\nTherewith he led the way, and Pallas Athene followed. And\nwhen they were now within the lofty house, he set her spear\nthat he bore against a tall pillar, within the polished\nspear-stand, where stood many spears besides, even those of\nOdysseus of the hardy heart; and he led the goddess and\nseated her on a goodly carven chair, and spread a linen\ncloth thereunder, and beneath was a footstool for the feet.\nFor himself he placed an inlaid seat hard by, apart from\nthe company of the wooers, lest the stranger should be\ndisquieted by the noise and should have a loathing for the\nmeal, being come among overweening men, and also that he\nmight ask him about his father that was gone from his home.\n\nThen a handmaid bare water for the washing of hands in a\ngoodly golden ewer, and poured it forth over a silver basin\nto wash withal, and drew to their side a polished table.\nAnd a grave dame bare wheaten bread and set it by them, and\nlaid on the board many dainties, giving freely of such\nthings as she had by her. And a carver lifted and placed by\nthem platters of divers kinds of flesh, and nigh them he\nset golden bowls, and a henchman walked to and fro pouring\nout to them the wine.\n\nThen in came the lordly wooers; and they sat them down in\nrows on chairs, and on high seats, and henchmen poured\nwater on their hands, and maidservants piled wheaten bread\nby them in baskets, and pages crowned the bowls with drink;\nand they stretched forth their hands upon the good cheer\nspread before them. Now when the wooers had put from them\nthe desire of meat and drink, they minded them of other\nthings, even of the song and dance: for these are the crown\nof the feast. And a henchman placed a beauteous lyre in the\nhands of Phemius, who was minstrel to the wooers despite\nhis will. Yea and as he touched the lyre he lifted up his\nvoice in sweet songs.{*}\n\n{* Or, according to the ordinary interpretation of [Greek]:\nSo he touched the chords in prelude to his sweet singing.}\n\nBut Telemachus spake unto grey-eyed Athene, holding his\nhead close to her that those others might not hear: 'Dear\nstranger, wilt thou of a truth be wroth at the word that I\nshall say? Yonder men verily care for such things as these,\nthe lyre and song, lightly, as they that devour the\nlivelihood of another without atonement, of that man whose\nwhite bones, it may be, lie wasting in the rain upon the\nmainland, or the billow rolls them in the brine. Were but\nthese men to see him returned to Ithaca, they all would\npray rather for greater speed of foot than for gain of gold\nand raiment. But now he hath perished, even so, an evil\ndoom, and for us is no comfort, no, not though any of\nearthly men should say that he will come again. Gone is the\nday of his returning! But come declare me this, and tell me\nall plainly: Who art thou of the sons of men, and whence?\nWhere is thy city, where are they that begat thee? Say, on\nwhat manner of ship didst thou come, and how did sailors\nbring thee to Ithaca, and who did they avow themselves to\nbe, for in nowise do I deem that thou camest hither by\nland.  And herein tell me true, that I may know for a\nsurety whether thou art a newcomer, or whether thou art a\nguest of the house, seeing that many were the strangers\nthat came to our home, for that HE too had voyaged much\namong men.'\n\nThen the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, answered him: 'Yea now,\nI will plainly tell thee all. I avow me to be Mentes, son\nof wise Anchialus, and I bear rule among the Taphians,\nlovers of the oar. And now am I come to shore, as thou\nseest, with ship and crew, sailing over the wine-dark sea,\nunto men of strange speech, even to Temesa, {*} in quest of\ncopper, and my cargo is shining iron. And there my ship is\nlying toward the upland, away from the city, in the harbour\nof Rheithron beneath wooded Neion: and we declare ourselves\nto be friends one of the other, and of houses friendly,\nfrom of old. Nay, if thou wouldest be assured, go ask the\nold man, the hero Laertes, who they say no more comes to\nthe city, but far away toward the upland suffers\naffliction, with an ancient woman for his handmaid, who\nsets by him meat and drink, whensoever weariness takes hold\nof his limbs, as he creeps along the knoll of his vineyard\nplot.  And now am I come; for verily they said that HE, thy\nfather, was among his people; but lo, the gods withhold him\nfrom his way. For goodly Odysseus hath not yet perished on\nthe earth; but still, methinks, he lives and is kept on the\nwide deep in a seagirt isle, and hard men constrain him,\nwild folk that hold him, it may be, sore against his will.\nBut now of a truth will I utter my word of prophecy, as the\nImmortals bring it into my heart and as I deem it will be\naccomplished, though no soothsayer am I, nor skilled in the\nsigns of birds. Henceforth indeed for no long while shall\nhe be far from his own dear country, not though bonds of\niron bind him; he will advise him of a way to return, for\nhe is a man of many devices. But come, declare me this, and\ntell me all plainly, whether indeed, so tall as thou art,\nthou art sprung from the loins of Odysseus. Thy head surely\nand they beauteous eyes are wondrous like to his, since\nfull many a time have we held converse together ere he\nembarked for Troy, whither the others, aye the bravest of\nthe Argives, went in hollow ships. From that day forth\nneither have I seen Odysseus, nor he me.'\n\n{* Tamasia, in the mountainous centre of Cyprus.}\n\nThen wise Telemachus answered her, and said: 'Yea, sir, now\nwill I plainly tell thee all. My mother verily saith that I\nam his; for myself I know not, for never man yet knew of\nhimself his own descent. O that I had been the son of some\nblessed man, whom old age overtook among his own\npossessions! But now of him that is the most hapless of\nmortal men, his son they say that I am, since thou dost\nquestion me hereof.'\n\nThen the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, spake unto him, and\nsaid: 'Surely no nameless lineage have the gods ordained\nfor thee in days to come, since Penelope bore thee so\ngoodly a man. But come, declare me this, and tell it all\nplainly. What feast, nay, what rout is this? What hast thou\nto do therewith? Is it a clan drinking, or a wedding feast,\nfor here we have no banquet where each man brings his\nshare? In such wise, flown with insolence, do they seem to\nme to revel wantonly through the house: and well might any\nman be wroth to see so many deeds of shame, whatso wise man\ncame among them.'\n\nThen wise Telemachus answered her, and said: 'Sir,\nforasmuch as thou questionest me of these things and\ninquirest thereof, our house was once like to have been\nrich and honourable, while yet that man was among his\npeople. But now the gods willed it otherwise, in evil\npurpose, who have made him pass utterly out of sight as no\nman ever before.  Truly I would not even for his death make\nso great sorrow, had he fallen among his fellows in the\nland of the Trojans, or in the arms of his friends when he\nhad wound up the clew of war. Then would the whole Achaean\nhost have builded him a barrow, and even for his son would\nhe have won great glory in the after days. But now the\nspirits of the storm have swept him away inglorious. He is\ngone, lost to sight and hearsay, but for me hath he left\nanguish and lamentation; nor henceforth is it for him alone\nthat I mourn and weep, since the gods have wrought for me\nother sore distress. For all the noblest that are princes\nin the isles, in Dulichium and Same and wooded Zacynthus,\nand as many as lord it in rocky Ithaca, all these woo my\nmother and waste my house. But as for her she neither\nrefuseth the hated bridal, nor hath the heart to make an\nend: so they devour and minish my house, and ere long will\nthey make havoc likewise of myself.'\n\nThen in heavy displeasure spake unto him Pallas Athene:\n'God help thee! thou art surely sore in need of Odysseus\nthat is afar, to stretch forth his hands upon the shameless\nwooers.  If he could but come now and stand at the entering\nin of the gate, with helmet and shield and lances twain, as\nmighty a man as when first I marked him in our house\ndrinking and making merry what time he came up out of\nEphyra from Ilus son of Mermerus! For even thither had\nOdysseus gone on his swift ship to seek a deadly drug, that\nhe might have wherewithal to smear his bronze-shod arrows:\nbut Ilus would in nowise give it to him, for he had in awe\nthe everliving gods. But my father gave it him, for he bare\nhim wondrous love. O that Odysseus might in such strength\nconsort with the wooers: so should they all have swift fate\nand bitter wedlock! Howbeit these things surely lie on the\nknees of the gods, whether he shall return or not, and take\nvengeance in his halls. But I charge thee to take counsel\nhow thou mayest thrust forth the wooers from the hall. Come\nnow, mark and take heed unto my words. On the morrow call\nthe Achaean lords to the assembly, and declare thy saying\nto all, and take the gods to witness. As for the wooers bid\nthem scatter them each one to his own, and for thy mother,\nif her heart is moved to marriage, let her go back to the\nhall of that mighty man her father, and her kinsfolk will\nfurnish a wedding feast, and array the gifts of wooing\nexceeding many, all that should go back with a daughter\ndearly beloved. And to thyself I will give a word of wise\ncounsel, if perchance thou wilt hearken. Fit out a ship,\nthe best thou hast, with twenty oarsmen, and go to inquire\nconcerning thy father that is long afar, if perchance any\nman shall tell thee aught, or if thou mayest hear the voice\nfrom Zeus, which chiefly brings tidings to men. Get thee\nfirst to Pylos and inquire of goodly Nestor, and from\nthence to Sparta to Menelaus of the fair hair, for he came\nhome the last of the mail-coated Achaeans. If thou shalt\nhear news of the life and the returning of thy father, then\nverily thou mayest endure the wasting for yet a year. But\nif thou shalt hear that he is dead and gone, return then to\nthine own dear country and pile his mound, and over it pay\nburial rites, full many as is due, and give thy mother to a\nhusband. But when thou hast done this and made an end,\nthereafter take counsel in thy mind and heart, how thou\nmayest slay the wooers in thy halls, whether by guile or\nopenly; for thou shouldest not carry childish thoughts,\nbeing no longer of years thereto. Or hast thou not heard\nwhat renown the goodly Orestes gat him among all men in\nthat he slew the slayer of his father, guileful Aegisthus,\nwho killed his famous sire? And thou, too, my friend, for I\nsee that thou art very comely and tall, be valiant, that\neven men unborn may praise thee. But I will now go down to\nthe swift ship and to my men, who methinks chafe much at\ntarrying for me; and do thou thyself take heed and give ear\nunto my words.'\n\nThen wise Telemachus answered her, saying: 'Sir, verily\nthou speakest these things out of a friendly heart, as a\nfather to his son, and never will I forget them. But now I\npray thee abide here, though eager to be gone, to the end\nthat after thou hast bathed and had all thy heart's desire,\nthou mayest wend to the ship joyful in spirit, with a\ncostly gift and very goodly, to be an heirloom of my\ngiving, such as dear friends give to friends.'\n\nThen the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, answered him: 'Hold me\nnow no longer, that am eager for the way. But whatsoever\ngift thine heart shall bid thee give me, when I am on my\nway back let it be mine to carry home: bear from thy stores\na gift right goodly, and it shall bring thee the worth\nthereof in return.'\n\nSo spake she and departed, the grey-eyed Athene, and like\nan eagle of the sea she flew away, but in his spirit she\nplanted might and courage, and put him in mind of his\nfather yet more than heretofore. And he marked the thing\nand was amazed, for he deemed that it was a god; and anon\nhe went among the wooers, a godlike man.\n\nNow the renowned minstrel was singing to the wooers, and\nthey sat listening in silence; and his song was of the\npitiful return of the Achaeans, that Pallas Athene laid on\nthem as they came forth from Troy. And from her upper\nchamber the daughter of Icarius, wise Penelope, caught the\nglorious strain, and she went down the high stairs from her\nchamber, not alone, for two of her handmaids bare her\ncompany. Now when the fair lady had come unto the wooers,\nshe stood by the pillar of the well-builded roof holding up\nher glistening tire before her face; and a faithful maiden\nstood on either side her. Then she fell a weeping, and\nspake unto the divine minstrel:\n\n'Phemius, since thou knowest many other charms for mortals,\ndeeds of men and gods, which bards rehearse, some one of\nthese do thou sing as thou sittest by them, and let them\ndrink their wine in silence; but cease from this pitiful\nstrain, that ever wastes my heart within my breast, since\nto me above all women hath come a sorrow comfortless. So\ndear a head do I long for in constant memory, namely, that\nman whose fame is noised abroad from Hellas to mid Argos.'\n\nThen wise Telemachus answered her, and said: 'O my mother,\nwhy then dost thou grudge the sweet minstrel to gladden us\nas his spirit moves him? It is not minstrels who are in\nfault, but Zeus, methinks, is in fault, who gives to men,\nthat live by bread, to each one as he will. As for him it\nis no blame if he sings the ill-faring of the Danaans; for\nmen always prize that song the most, which rings newest in\ntheir ears. But let thy heart and mind endure to listen,\nfor not Odysseus only lost in Troy the day of his\nreturning, but many another likewise perished. Howbeit go\nto thy chamber and mind thine own housewiferies, the loom\nand distaff, and bid thy handmaids ply their tasks. But\nspeech shall be for men, for all, but for me in chief; for\nmine is the lordship in the house.'\n\nThen in amaze she went back to her chamber, for she laid up\nthe wise saying of her son in her heart. She ascended to\nher upper chamber with the women her handmaids, and then\nwas bewailing Odysseus, her dear lord, till grey-eyed\nAthene cast sweet sleep upon her eyelids.\n\nNow the wooers clamoured throughout the shadowy halls, and\neach one uttered a prayer to be her bedfellow. And wise\nTelemachus first spake among them:\n\n'Wooers of my mother, men despiteful out of measure, let us\nfeast now and make merry and let there be no brawling; for,\nlo, it is a good thing to list to a minstrel such as him,\nlike to the gods in voice. But in the morning let us all go\nto the assembly and sit us down, that I may declare my\nsaying outright, to wit that ye leave these halls: and busy\nyourselves with other feasts, eating your own substance,\ngoing in turn from house to house. But if ye deem this a\nlikelier and a better thing, that one man's goods should\nperish without atonement, then waste ye as ye will; and I\nwill call upon the everlasting gods, if haply Zeus may\ngrant that acts of recompense be made: so should ye\nhereafter perish within the halls without atonement.'\n\nSo spake he, and all that heard him bit their lips and\nmarvelled at Telemachus, in that he spake boldly.\n\nThen Antinous, son of Eupeithes, answered him: 'Telemachus,\nin very truth the gods themselves instruct thee to be proud\nof speech and boldly to harangue. Never may Cronion make\nthee king in seagirt Ithaca, which thing is of inheritance\nthy right!'\n\nThen wise Telemachus answered him, and said: 'Antinous,\nwilt thou indeed be wroth at the word that I shall say?\nYea, at the hand of Zeus would I be fain to take even this\nthing upon me. Sayest thou that this is the worst hap that\ncan befal a man? Nay, verily, it is no ill thing to be a\nking: the house of such an one quickly waxeth rich and\nhimself is held in greater honour. Howsoever there are many\nother kings of the Achaeans in seagirt Ithaca, kings young\nand old; someone of them shall surely have this kingship\nsince goodly Odysseus is dead. But as for me, I will be\nlord of our own house and thralls, that goodly Odysseus gat\nme with his spear.'\n\nThen Eurymachus, son of Polybus, answered him, saying:\n'Telemachus, on the knees of the gods it surely lies, what\nman is to be king over the Achaeans in seagirt Ithaca. But\nmayest thou keep thine own possessions and be lord in thine\nown house! Never may that man come, who shall wrest from\nthee thy substance violently in thine own despite while\nIthaca yet stands. But I would ask thee, friend, concerning\nthe stranger--whence he is, and of what land he avows him\nto be? Where are his kin and his native fields? Doth he\nbear some tidings of thy father on his road, or cometh he\nthus to speed some matter of his own? In such wise did he\nstart up, and lo, he was gone, nor tarried he that we\nshould know him;--and yet he seemed no mean man to look\nupon.' {*}\n\n{* The [Greek] explains the expression of surprise at the\nsudden departure of the stranger.}\n\nThen wise Telemachus answered him, and said: 'Eurymachus,\nsurely the day of my father's returning hath gone by.\nTherefore no more do I put faith in tidings, whencesoever\nthey may come, neither have I regard unto any divination,\nwhereof my mother may inquire at the lips of a diviner,\nwhen she hath bidden him to the hall. But as for that man,\nhe is a friend of my house from Taphos, and he avows him to\nbe Mentes, son of wise Anchialus, and he hath lordship\namong the Taphians, lovers of the oar.'\n\nSo spake Telemachus, but in his heart he knew the deathless\ngoddess. Now the wooers turned them to the dance and the\ndelightsome song, and made merry, and waited till evening\nshould come on. And as they made merry, dusk evening came\nupon them. Then they went each one to his own house to lie\ndown to rest.\n\nBut Telemachus, where his chamber was builded high up in\nthe fair court, in a place with wide prospect, thither\nbetook him to his bed, pondering many thoughts in his mind;\nand with him went trusty Eurycleia, and bare for him\ntorches burning. She was the daughter of Ops, son of\nPeisenor, and Laertes bought her on a time with his wealth,\nwhile as yet she was in her first youth, and gave for her\nthe worth of twenty oxen. And he honoured her even as he\nhonoured his dear wife in the halls, but he never lay with\nher, for he shunned the wrath of his lady. She went with\nTelemachus and bare for him the burning torches: and of all\nthe women of the household she loved him most, and she had\nnursed him when a little one. Then he opened the doors of\nthe well-builded chamber and sat him on the bed and took\noff his soft doublet, and put it in the wise old woman's\nhands. So she folded the doublet and smoothed it, and hung\nit on a pin by the jointed bedstead, and went forth on her\nway from the room, and pulled to the door with the silver\nhandle, and drew home the bar with the thong. There, all\nnight through, wrapped in a fleece of wool, he meditated in\nhis heart upon the journey that Athene had showed him.\n\n\n\nBook II\n\n  Telemachus complains in vain, and borrowing a ship, goes\n  secretly to Pylos by night. And how he was there received.\n\nNow so soon as early Dawn shone forth, the rosy-fingered,\nthe dear son of Odysseus gat him up from his bed, and put\non his raiment and cast his sharp sword about his shoulder,\nand beneath his smooth feet he bound his goodly sandals,\nand stept forth from his chamber in presence like a god.\nAnd straightway he bade the clear-voiced heralds to call\nthe long-haired Achaeans to the assembly. And the heralds\ncalled the gathering, and the Achaeans were assembled\nquickly. Now when they were gathered and come together, he\nwent on his way to the assembly holding in his hand a spear\nof bronze,--not alone he went, for two swift hounds bare\nhim company. Then Athene shed on him a wondrous grace, and\nall the people marvelled at him as he came. And he sat him\nin his father's seat and the elders gave place to him.\n\nThen the lord Aegyptus spake among them first; bowed was he\nwith age, and skilled in things past number. Now for this\nreason he spake that his dear son, the warrior Antiphus,\nhad gone in the hollow ships to Ilios of the goodly steeds;\nbut the savage Cyclops slew him in his hollow cave, and\nmade of him then his latest meal. Three other sons Aegyptus\nhad, and one consorted with the wooers, namely Eurynomus,\nbut two continued in their father's fields; yet even so\nforgat he not that son, still mourning and sorrowing. So\nweeping for his sake he made harangue and spake among them:\n\n'Hearken now to me, ye men of Ithaca, to the word that I\nshall say. Never hath our assembly or session been since\nthe day that goodly Odysseus departed in the hollow ships.\nAnd now who was minded thus to assemble us? On what man\nhath such sore need come, of the young men or of the elder\nborn? Hath he heard some tidings of the host now returning,\nwhich he might plainly declare to us, for that he first\nlearned thereof, or doth he show forth and tell some other\nmatter of the common weal? Methinks he is a true man--good\nluck be with him! Zeus vouchsafe him some good thing in his\nturn, even all his heart's desire!'\n\nSo spake he, and the dear son of Odysseus was glad at the\nomen of the word; nor sat he now much longer, but he burned\nto speak, and he stood in mid assembly; and the herald\nPeisenor, skilled in sage counsels, placed the staff in his\nhands. Then he spake, accosting the old man first:\n\n'Old man, he is not far off, and soon shalt thou know it\nfor thyself, he who called the folk together, even I: for\nsorrow hath come to me in chief. Neither have I heard any\ntidings of the host now returning, which I may plainly\ndeclare to you, for that I first learned thereof; neither\ndo I show forth or tell any other matter of the common\nweal, but mine own need, for that evil hath befallen my\nhouse, a double woe. First, I have lost my noble sire, who\nsometime was king among you here, and was gentle as a\nfather; and now is there an evil yet greater far, which\nsurely shall soon make grievous havoc of my whole house and\nruin all my livelihood. My mother did certain wooers beset\nsore against her will, even the sons of those men that here\nare the noblest. They are too craven to go to the house of\nher father Icarius, that he may himself set the bride-price\nfor his daughter, and bestow her on whom he will, even on\nhim who finds favour in his sight. But they resorting to\nour house day by day sacrifice oxen and sheep and fat\ngoats, and keep revel, and drink the dark wine recklessly,\nand lo, our great wealth is wasted, for there is no man now\nalive such as Odysseus was, to keep ruin from the house. As\nfor me I am nowise strong like him to ward mine own; verily\nto the end of my days {*} shall I be a weakling and all\nunskilled in prowess. Truly I would defend me if but\nstrength were mine; for deeds past sufferance have now been\nwrought, and now my house is wasted utterly beyond pretence\nof right. Resent it in your own hearts, and have regard to\nyour neighbours who dwell around, and tremble ye at the\nanger of the gods, lest haply they turn upon you in wrath\nat your evil deeds. {Or, lest they bring your evil deeds in\nwrath on your own heads.} I pray you by Olympian Zeus and\nby Themis, who looseth and gathereth the meetings of men,\nlet be, my friends, and leave me alone to waste in bitter\ngrief;-- unless it so be that my father, the good Odysseus,\nout of evil heart wrought harm to the goodly-greaved\nAchaeans, in quittance whereof ye now work me harm out of\nevil hearts, and spur on these men. Better for me that ye\nyourselves should eat up my treasures and my flocks. Were\nYE so to devour them, ere long would some recompense be\nmade, for we would urge our plea throughout the town,\nbegging back our substance, until all should be restored.\nBut now without remedy are the pains that ye lay up in my\nheart.'\n\n{* Cf. B. xxi. 131. For the use of the 1st pers. pl. like\nour ROYAL plural, cf. B. xvi.44, Il. vii. 190.}\n\nSo spake he in wrath, and dashed the staff to the ground,\nand brake forth in tears; and pity fell on all the people.\nThen all the others held their peace, and none had the\nheart to answer Telemachus with hard words, but Antinous\nalone made answer, saying:\n\n'Telemachus, proud of speech and unrestrained in fury, what\nis this thou hast said to put us to shame, and wouldest\nfasten on us reproach? Behold the fault is not in the\nAchaean wooers, but in thine own mother, for she is the\ncraftiest of women. For it is now the third year, and the\nfourth is fast going by, since she began to deceive the\nminds of the Achaeans in their breasts. She gives hope to\nall, and makes promises to every man, and sends them\nmessages, but her mind is set on other things. And she hath\ndevised in her heart this wile besides; she set up in her\nhalls a mighty web, fine of woof and very wide, whereat she\nwould weave, and anon she spake among us:\n\n'\"Ye princely youths, my wooers, now that the goodly\nOdysseus is dead, do ye abide patiently, how eager soever\nto speed on this marriage of mine, till I finish the robe.\nI would not that the threads perish to no avail, even this\nshroud for the hero Laertes, against the day when the\nruinous doom shall bring him low, of death that lays men at\ntheir length. So shall none of the Achaean women in the\nland count it blame in me, as well might be, were he to lie\nwithout a winding-sheet, a man that had gotten great\npossessions.\"\n\n'So spake she, and our high hearts consented thereto. So\nthen in the day time she would weave the mighty web, and in\nthe night unravel the same, when she had let place the\ntorches by her. Thus for the space of three years she hid\nthe thing by craft and beguiled the minds of the Achaeans;\nbut when the fourth year arrived and the seasons came\nround, then at the last one of her women who knew all\ndeclared it, and we found her unravelling the splendid web.\nThus she finished it perforce and sore against her will.\nBut as for thee, the wooers make thee answer thus, that\nthou mayest know it in thine own heart, thou and all the\nAchaeans! Send away thy mother, and bid her be married to\nwhomsoever her father commands, and whoso is well pleasing\nunto her. But if she will continue for long to vex the sons\nof the Achaeans, pondering in her heart those things that\nAthene hath given her beyond women, knowledge of all fair\nhandiwork, yea, and cunning wit, and wiles--so be it! Such\nwiles as hers we have never yet heard that any even of the\nwomen of old did know, of those that aforetime were\nfair-tressed Achaean ladies, Tyro, and Alcmene, and Mycene\nwith the bright crown. Not one of these in the imaginations\nof their hearts was like unto Penelope, yet herein at least\nher imagining was not good. For in despite of her the\nwooers will devour thy living and thy substance, so long as\nshe is steadfast in such purpose as the gods now put within\nher breast: great renown for herself she winneth, but for\nthee regret for thy much livelihood. But we will neither go\nto our own lands, nor otherwhere, till she marry that man\nwhom she will of the Achaeans.'\n\nThen wise Telemachus answered him, saying: 'Antinous, I may\nin no wise thrust forth from the house, against her will,\nthe woman that bare me, that reared me: while as for my\nfather he is abroad on the earth, whether he be alive or\ndead. Moreover it is hard for me to make heavy restitution\nto Icarius, as needs I must, if of mine own will I send my\nmother away. For I shall have evil at his hand, at the hand\nof her father, and some god will give me more besides, for\nmy mother will call down the dire Avengers as she departs\nfrom the house, and I shall have blame of men; surely then\nI will never speak this word. Nay, if your own heart, even\nyours, is indignant, quit ye my halls, and busy yourselves\nwith other feasts, eating your own substance, and going in\nturn from house to house. But if ye deem this a likelier\nand a better thing, that one man's goods should perish\nwithout atonement, then waste ye as ye will: and I will\ncall upon the everlasting gods, if haply Zeus may grant\nthat acts of recompense be made: so should ye hereafter\nperish in the halls without atonement.'\n\nSo spake Telemachus, and in answer to his prayer did Zeus,\nof the far borne voice, send forth two eagles in flight,\nfrom on high, from the mountain-crest. Awhile they flew as\nfleet as the blasts of the wind, side by side, with\nstraining of their pinions. But when they had now reached\nthe mid assembly, the place of many voices, there they\nwheeled about and flapped their strong wings, and looked\ndown upon the heads of all, and destruction was in their\ngaze. Then tore they with their talons each the other's\ncheeks and neck on every side, and so sped to the right\nacross the dwellings and the city of the people. And the\nmen marvelled at the birds when they had sight of them, and\npondered in their hearts the things that should come to\npass. Yea and the old man, the lord Halitherses son of\nMastor spake among them, for he excelled his peers in\nknowledge of birds, and in uttering words of fate. With\ngood will he made harangue and spake among them:\n\n'Hearken to me now, ye men of Ithaca, to the word that I\nshall say: and mainly to the wooers do I show forth and\ntell these things, seeing that a mighty woe is rolling upon\nthem. For Odysseus shall not long be away from his friends,\nnay, even now, it may be, he is near, and sowing the seeds\nof death and fate for these men, every one; and he will be\na bane to many another likewise of us who dwell in\nclear-seen Ithaca. But long ere that falls out let us\nadvise us how we may make an end of their mischief; yea,\nlet them of their own selves make an end, for this is the\nbetter way for them, as will soon be seen. For I prophesy\nnot as one unproved, but with sure knowledge; verily, I\nsay, that for him all things now are come to pass, even as\nI told him, what time the Argives embarked for Ilios, and\nwith them went the wise Odysseus. I said that after sore\naffliction, with the loss of all his company, unknown to\nall, in the twentieth year he should come home. And behold,\nall these things now have an end.'\n\nAnd Eurymachus, son of Polybus, answered him, saying: 'Go\nnow, old man, get thee home and prophesy to thine own\nchildren, lest haply they suffer harm hereafter: but herein\nam I a far better prophet than thou. Howbeit there be many\nbirds that fly to and fro under the sun's rays, but all are\nnot birds of fate. Now as for Odysseus, he hath perished\nfar away, as would that thou too with him hadst been cut\noff: so wouldst thou not have babbled thus much prophecy,\nnor wouldst thou hound on Telemachus that is already\nangered, expecting a gift for thy house, if perchance he\nmay vouchsafe thee aught. But now will I speak out, and my\nword shall surely be accomplished. If thou that knowest\nmuch lore from of old, shalt beguile with words a younger\nman, and rouse him to indignation, first it shall be a\ngreat grief to him:--and yet he can count on no aid from\nthese who hear him;--while upon thee, old man, we will lay\na fine, that thou mayest pay it and chafe at heart, and\nsore pain shall be thine. And I myself will give a word of\ncounsel to Telemachus in presence of you all. Let him\ncommand his mother to return to her father's house; and her\nkinsfolk will furnish a wedding feast, and array the gifts\nof wooing, exceeding many, all that should go back with a\ndaughter dearly beloved. For ere that, I trow, we sons of\nthe Achaeans will not cease from our rough wooing, since,\ncome what may, we fear not any man, no, not Telemachus,\nfull of words though he be, nor soothsaying do we heed,\nwhereof thou, old man, pratest idly, and art hated yet the\nmore. His substance too shall be woefully devoured, nor\nshall recompense ever be made, so long as she shall put off\nthe Achaeans in the matter of her marriage; while we in\nexpectation, from day to day, vie one with another for the\nprize of her perfection, nor go we after other women whom\nit were meet that we should each one wed.'\n\nThen wise Telemachus answered him saying: 'Eurymachus, and\nye others, that are lordly wooers, I entreat you no more\nconcerning this nor speak thereof, for the gods have\nknowledge of it now and all the Achaeans. But come, give me\na swift ship and twenty men, who shall accomplish for me my\nvoyage to and fro. For I will go to Sparta and to sandy\nPylos to inquire concerning the return of my father that is\nlong afar, if perchance any man shall tell me aught, or if\nI may hear the voice from Zeus, that chiefly brings tidings\nto men. If I shall hear news of the life and the returning\nof my father, then verily I may endure the wasting for yet\na year; but if I shall hear that he is dead and gone, let\nme then return to my own dear country, and pile his mound,\nand over it pay burial rites full many as is due, and I\nwill give my mother to a husband.'\n\nSo with that word he sat him down; then in the midst uprose\nMentor, the companion of noble Odysseus. He it was to whom\nOdysseus, as he departed in the fleet, had given the charge\nover all his house, that it should obey the old man, and\nthat he should keep all things safe. With good will he now\nmade harangue and spake among them:\n\n'Hearken to me now, ye men of Ithaca, to the word that I\nshall say. Henceforth let not any sceptred king be kind and\ngentle with all his heart, nor minded to do righteously,\nbut let him alway be a hard man and work unrighteousness:\nfor behold, there is none that remembereth divine Odysseus\nof the people whose lord he was, and was gentle as a\nfather. Howsoever, it is not that I grudge the lordly\nwooers their deeds of violence in the evil devices of their\nheart. For at the hazard of their own heads they violently\ndevour the household of Odysseus, and say of him that he\nwill come no more again. But I am indeed wroth with the\nrest of the people, to see how ye all sit thus speechless,\nand do not cry shame upon the wooers, and put them down, ye\nthat are so many and they so few.'\n\nAnd Leocritus, son of Euenor, answered him, saying: 'Mentor\ninfatuate, with thy wandering wits, what word hast thou\nspoken, that callest upon them to put us down? Nay, it is a\nhard thing to fight about a feast, and that with men who\nare even more in number than you. Though Odysseus of Ithaca\nhimself should come and were eager of heart to drive forth\nfrom the hall the lordly wooers that feast throughout his\nhouse, yet should his wife have no joy of his coming,\nthough she yearns for him;--but even there should he meet\nfoul doom, if he fought with those that outnumbered him; so\nthou hast not spoken aright. But as for the people, come\nnow, scatter yourselves each one to his own lands, but\nMentor and Halitherses will speed this man's voyage, for\nthey are friends of his house from of old. Yet after all,\nmethinks, that long time he will abide and seek tidings in\nIthaca, and never accomplish this voyage.'\n\nThus he spake, and in haste they broke up the assembly. So\nthey were scattered each one to his own dwelling, while the\nwooers departed to the house of divine Odysseus.\n\nThen Telemachus, going far apart to the shore of the sea,\nlaved his hands in the grey sea water, and prayed unto\nAthene, saying: 'Hear me, thou who yesterday didst come in\nthy godhead to our house, and badest me go in a ship across\nthe misty seas, to seek tidings of the return of my father\nthat is long gone: but all this my purpose do the Achaeans\ndelay, and mainly the wooers in the naughtiness of their\npride.'\n\nSo spake he in prayer, and Athene drew nigh him in the\nlikeness of Mentor, in fashion and in voice, and she spake\nand hailed him in winged words:\n\n'Telemachus, even hereafter thou shalt not be craven or\nwitless, if indeed thou hast a drop of thy father's blood\nand a portion of his spirit; such an one was he to fulfil\nboth word and work. Nor, if this be so, shall thy voyage be\nvain or unfulfilled. But if thou art not the very seed of\nhim and of Penelope, then have I no hope that thou wilt\naccomplish thy desire. For few children, truly, are like\ntheir father; lo, the more part are worse, yet a few are\nbetter than the sire. But since thou shalt not even\nhereafter be craven or witless, nor hath the wisdom of\nOdysseus failed thee quite, so is there good hope of thine\naccomplishing this work. Wherefore now take no heed of the\ncounsel or the purpose of the senseless wooers, for they\nare in no way wise or just: neither know they aught of\ndeath and of black fate, which already is close upon them,\nthat they are all to perish in one day. But the voyage on\nwhich thy heart is set shall not long be lacking to\nthee--so faithful a friend of thy father am I, who will\nfurnish thee a swift ship and myself be thy companion. But\ngo thou to the house, and consort with the wooers, and make\nready corn, and bestow all in vessels, the wine in jars and\nbarley-flour, the marrow of men, in well-sewn skins; and I\nwill lightly gather in the township a crew that offer\nthemselves willingly. There are many ships, new and old, in\nseagirt Ithaca; of these I will choose out the best for\nthee, and we will quickly rig her and launch her on the\nbroad deep.'\n\nSo spake Athene, daughter of Zeus, and Telemachus made no\nlong tarrying, when he had heard the voice of the goddess.\nHe went on his way towards the house, heavy at heart, and\nthere he found the noble wooers in the halls, flaying goats\nand singeing swine in the court. And Antinous laughed out\nand went straight to Telemachus, and clasped his hand and\nspake and hailed him:\n\n'Telemachus, proud of speech and unrestrained in fury, let\nno evil word any more be in thy heart, nor evil work, but\nlet me see thee eat and drink as of old. And the Achaeans\nwill make thee ready all things without fail, a ship and\nchosen oarsmen, that thou mayest come the quicker to fair\nPylos, to seek tidings of thy noble father.'\n\nThen wise Telemachus answered him, saying, 'Antinous, in no\nwise in your proud company can I sup in peace, and make\nmerry with a quiet mind. Is it a little thing, ye wooers,\nthat in time past ye wasted many good things of my getting,\nwhile as yet I was a child? But now that I am a man grown,\nand learn the story from the lips of others, and my spirit\nwaxeth within me, I will seek to let loose upon you evil\nfates, as I may, going either to Pylos for help, or abiding\nhere in this township. Yea, I will go, nor vain shall the\nvoyage be whereof I speak; a passenger on another's ship go\nI, for I am not to have a ship nor oarsmen of mine own; so\nin your wisdom ye have thought it for the better.'\n\nHe spake and snatched his hand from out the hand of\nAntinous, lightly, and all the while the wooers were busy\nfeasting through the house; and they mocked him and sharply\ntaunted him, and thus would some proud youth speak:\n\n'In very truth Telemachus planneth our destruction. He will\nbring a rescue either from sandy Pylos, or even it may be\nfrom Sparta, so terribly is he set on slaying us. Or else\nhe will go to Ephyra, a fruitful land, to fetch a poisonous\ndrug that he may cast it into the bowl and make an end of\nall of us.'\n\nAnd again another proud youth would say: 'Who knows but\nthat he himself if he goes hence on the hollow ship, may\nperish wandering far from his friends, even as Odysseus? So\nshould we have yet more ado, for then must we divide among\nus all his substance, and moreover give the house to his\nmother to possess it, and to him whosoever should wed her.'\n\nSo spake they; but he stepped down into the vaulted\ntreasure-chamber of his father, a spacious room, where gold\nand bronze lay piled, and raiment in coffers, and fragrant\nolive oil in plenty. And there stood casks of sweet wine\nand old, full of the unmixed drink divine, all orderly\nranged by the wall, ready if ever Odysseus should come\nhome, albeit after travail and much pain. And the\nclose-fitted doors, the folding doors, were shut, and night\nand day there abode within a dame in charge, who guarded\nall in the fulness of her wisdom, Eurycleia, daughter of\nOps son of Peisenor. Telemachus now called her into the\nchamber and spake unto her, saying:\n\n'Mother, come draw off for me sweet wine in jars, the\nchoicest next to that thou keepest mindful ever of that\nill-fated one, Odysseus, of the seed of Zeus, if perchance\nhe may come I know not whence, having avoided death and the\nfates. So fill twelve jars, and close each with his lid,\nand pour me barley-meal into well-sewn skins, and let there\nbe twenty measures of the grain of bruised barley-meal. Let\nnone know this but thyself! As for these things let them\nall be got together; for in the evening I will take them\nwith me, at the time that my mother hath gone to her upper\nchamber and turned her thoughts to sleep. Lo, to Sparta I\ngo and to sandy Pylos to seek tidings of my dear father's\nreturn, if haply I may hear thereof.'\n\nSo spake he, and the good nurse Eurycleia wailed aloud, and\nmaking lament spake to him winged words: 'Ah, wherefore,\ndear child, hath such a thought arisen in thine heart? How\nshouldst thou fare over wide lands, thou that art an only\nchild and well-beloved? As for him he hath perished,\nOdysseus of the seed of Zeus, far from his own country in\nthe land of strangers. And yonder men, so soon as thou art\ngone, will devise mischief against thee thereafter, that\nthou mayest perish by guile, and they will share among them\nall this wealth of thine. Nay, abide here, settled on thine\nown lands: thou hast no need upon the deep unharvested to\nsuffer evil and go wandering.'\n\nThen wise Telemachus answered her, saying: 'Take heart,\nnurse, for lo, this my purpose came not but of a god. But\nswear to tell no word thereof to my dear mother, till at\nleast it shall be the eleventh or twelfth day from hence,\nor till she miss me of herself, and hear of my departure,\nthat so she may not mar her fair face with her tears.'\n\nThus he spake, and the old woman sware a great oath by the\ngods not to reveal it. But when she had sworn and done that\noath, straightway she drew off the wine for him in jars,\nand poured barley-meal into well-sewn skins, and Telemachus\ndeparted to the house and consorted with the wooers.\n\nThen the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, turned to other\nthoughts. In the likeness of Telemachus she went all\nthrough the city, and stood by each one of the men and\nspake her saying, and bade them gather at even by the swift\nship. Furthermore, she craved a swift ship of Noemon,\nfamous son of Phronius, and right gladly he promised it.\n\nNow the sun sank and all the ways were darkened. Then at\nlength she let drag the swift ship to the sea and stored\nwithin it all such tackling as decked ships carry. And she\nmoored it at the far end of the harbour and the good\ncompany was gathered together, and the goddess cheered on\nall.\n\nThen the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, turned to other\nthoughts. She went on her way to the house of divine\nOdysseus; and there she shed sweet sleep upon the wooers\nand made them distraught in their drinking, and cast the\ncups from their hands. And they arose up to go to rest\nthroughout the city, nor sat they yet a long while, for\nslumber was falling on their eyelids. Now grey eyed Athene\nspake unto Telemachus, and called him from out the\nfair-lying halls, taking the likeness of Mentor, both in\nfashion and in voice:\n\n'Telemachus, thy goodly-greaved companions are sitting\nalready at their oars, it is thy despatch they are\nawaiting. Nay then, let us go, that we delay them not long\nfrom the way.'\n\nTherewith Pallas Athene led the way quickly, and he\nfollowed hard in the steps of the goddess. Now when they\nhad come down to the ship and to the sea, they found the\nlong-haired youths of the company on the shore; and the\nmighty prince Telemachus spake among them:\n\n'Come hither, friends, let us carry the corn on board, for\nall is now together in the room, and my mother knows nought\nthereof, nor any of the maidens of the house: one woman\nonly heard my saying.'\n\nThus he spake and led the way, and they went with him. So\nthey brought all and stowed it in the decked ship,\naccording to the word of the dear son of Odysseus. Then\nTelemachus climbed the ship, and Athene went before him,\nand behold, she sat her down in the stern, and near her sat\nTelemachus. And the men loosed the hawsers and climbed on\nboard themselves and sat down upon the benches. And\ngrey-eyed Athene sent them a favourable gale, a fresh West\nWind, singing over the wine-dark sea.\n\nAnd Telemachus called unto his company and bade them lay\nhands on the tackling, and they hearkened to his call. So\nthey raised the mast of pine tree and set it in the hole of\nthe cross plank, and made it fast with forestays, and\nhauled up the white sails with twisted ropes of oxhide. And\nthe wind filled the belly of the sail, and the dark wave\nseethed loudly round the stem of the running ship, and she\nfleeted over the wave, accomplishing her path. Then they\nmade all fast in the swift black ship, and set mixing bowls\nbrimmed with wine, and poured drink offering to the\ndeathless gods that are from everlasting, and in chief to\nthe grey eyed daughter of Zeus. So all night long and\nthrough the dawn the ship cleft her way.\n\n\n\nBook III\n\n  Nestor entertains Telemachus at Pylos and tells him how the\n  Greeks departed from Troy; and sends him for further\n  information to Sparta.\n\nNow the sun arose and left the lovely mere, speeding to the\nbrazen heaven, to give light to the immortals and to mortal\nmen on the earth, the graingiver, and they reached Pylos,\nthe stablished castle of Neleus. There the people were\ndoing sacrifice on the sea shore, slaying black bulls\nwithout spot to the dark-haired god, the shaker of the\nearth. Nine companies there were, and five hundred men sat\nin each, and in every company they held nine bulls ready to\nhand. Just as they had tasted the inner parts, and were\nburning the slices of the thighs on the altar to the god,\nthe others were bearing straight to land, and brailed up\nthe sails of the gallant ship, and moored her, and\nthemselves came forth. And Telemachus too stept forth from\nthe ship, and Athene led the way. And the goddess,\ngrey-eyed Athene, spake first to him, saying:\n\n'Telemachus, thou needst not now be abashed, no, not one\nwhit. For to this very end didst thou sail over the deep,\nthat thou mightest hear tidings of thy father, even where\nthe earth closed over him, and what manner of death he met.\nBut come now, go straight to Nestor, tamer of horses: let\nus learn what counsel he hath in the secret of his heart.\nAnd beseech him thyself that he may give unerring answer;\nand he will not lie to thee, for he is very wise.'\n\nThe wise Telemachus answered, saying: 'Mentor, and how\nshall I go, how shall I greet him, I, who am untried in\nwords of wisdom? Moreover a young man may well be abashed\nto question an elder.'\n\nThen the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, spake to him again:\n'Telemachus, thou shalt bethink thee of somewhat in thine\nown breast, and somewhat the god will give thee to say. For\nthou, methinks, of all men wert not born and bred without\nthe will of the gods.'\n\nSo spake Pallas Athene and led the way quickly; and he\nfollowed hard in the steps of the goddess. And they came to\nthe gathering and the session of the men of Pylos. There\nwas Nestor seated with his sons, and round him his company\nmaking ready the feast, and roasting some of the flesh and\nspitting other. Now when they saw the strangers, they went\nall together, and clasped their hands in welcome, and would\nhave them sit down. First Peisistratus, son of Nestor, drew\nnigh, and took the hands of each, and made them to sit down\nat the feast on soft fleeces upon the sea sand, beside his\nbrother Thrasymedes and his father. And he gave them messes\nof the inner meat, and poured wine into a golden cup, and\npledging her, he spake unto Pallas Athene, daughter of\nZeus, lord of the aegis:\n\n'Pray now, my guest, to the lord Poseidon, even as it is\nhis feast whereon ye have chanced in coming hither. And\nwhen thou hast made drink offering and prayed, as is due,\ngive thy friend also the cup of honeyed wine to make\noffering thereof, inasmuch as he too, methinks, prayeth to\nthe deathless gods, for all men stand in need of the gods.\nHowbeit he is younger and mine own equal in years,\ntherefore to thee first will I give the golden chalice.'\n\nTherewith he placed in her hand the cup of sweet wine. And\nAthene rejoiced in the wisdom and judgment of the man, in\nthat he had given to her first the chalice of gold. And\nstraightway she prayed, and that instantly, to the lord\nPoseidon:\n\n'Hear me, Poseidon, girdler of the earth, and grudge not\nthe fulfilment of this labour in answer to our prayer. To\nNestor first and to his sons vouchsafe renown, and\nthereafter grant to all the people of Pylos a gracious\nrecompense for this splendid hecatomb. Grant moreover that\nTelemachus and I may return, when we have accomplished that\nfor which we came hither with our swift black ship.'\n\nNow as she prayed on this wise, herself the while was\nfulfilling the prayer. And she gave Telemachus the fair\ntwo-handled cup; and in like manner prayed the dear son of\nOdysseus. Then, when the others had roasted the outer parts\nand drawn them off the spits, they divided the messes and\nshared the glorious feast. But when they had put from them\nthe desire of meat and drink, Nestor of Gerenia, lord of\nchariots, first spake among them:\n\n'Now is the better time to enquire and ask of the strangers\nwho they are, now that they have had their delight of food.\nStrangers, who are ye? Whence sail ye over the wet ways? On\nsome trading enterprise, or at adventure do ye rove, even\nas sea-robbers, over the brine, for they wander at hazard\nof their own lives bringing bale to alien men?'\n\nThen wise Telemachus answered him and spake with courage,\nfor Athene herself had put boldness in his heart, that he\nmight ask about his father who was afar, and that he might\nbe had in good report among men:\n\n'Nestor, son of Neleus, great glory of the Achaeans, thou\naskest whence we are, and I will surely tell thee all. We\nhave come forth out of Ithaca that is below Neion; and this\nour quest whereof I speak is a matter of mine own, and not\nof the common weal. I follow after the far-spread rumour of\nmy father, if haply I may hear thereof, even of the goodly\nsteadfast Odysseus, who upon a time, men say, fought by thy\nside and sacked the city of the Trojans. For of all the\nothers, as many as warred with the Trojans, we hear\ntidings, and where each one fell by a pitiful death; but\neven the death of this man Cronion hath left untold. For\nnone can surely declare the place where he hath perished,\nwhether he was smitten by foemen on the mainland, or lost\nupon the deep among the waves of Amphitrite. So now am I\ncome hither to thy knees, if perchance thou art willing to\ntell me of his pitiful death, as one that saw it with thine\nown eyes, or heard the story from some other wanderer,--\nfor his mother bare him to exceeding sorrow. And speak me\nno soft words in ruth or pity, but tell me plainly what\nsight thou didst get of him. Ah! I pray thee, if ever at\nall my father, noble Odysseus, made promise to thee of word\nor work, and fulfilled the same in the land of the Trojans,\nwhere ye Achaeans suffered affliction; these things, I pray\nthee, now remember and tell me truth.'\n\nThen Nestor of Gerenia, lord of chariots, answered him: 'My\nfriend, since thou hast brought sorrow back to mind,\nbehold, this is the story of the woe which we endured in\nthat land, we sons of the Achaeans, unrestrained in fury,\nand of all that we bore in wanderings after spoil, sailing\nwith our ships over the misty deep, wheresoever Achilles\nled; and of all our war round the mighty burg of king\nPriam. Yea and there the best of us were slain. There lies\nvaliant Aias, and there Achilles, and there Patroclus, the\npeer of the gods in counsel, and there my own dear son,\nstrong and noble, Antilochus, that excelled in speed of\nfoot and in the fight. And many other ills we suffered\nbeside these; who of mortal men could tell the tale? Nay\nnone, though thou wert to abide here for five years, ay and\nfor six, and ask of all the ills which the goodly Achaeans\nthen endured. Ere all was told thou wouldst be weary and\nturn to thine own country. For nine whole years we were\nbusy about them, devising their ruin with all manner of\ncraft; and scarce did Cronion bring it to pass. There never\na man durst match with him in wisdom, for goodly Odysseus\nvery far outdid the rest in all manner of craft, Odysseus\nthy father, if indeed thou art his son,--amazement comes\nupon me as I look at thee; for verily thy speech is like\nunto his; none would say that a younger man would speak so\nlike an elder. Now look you, all the while that myself and\ngoodly Odysseus were there, we never spake diversely either\nin the assembly or in the council, but always were of one\nmind, and advised the Argives with understanding and sound\ncounsel, how all might be for the very best. But after we\nhad sacked the steep city of Priam, and had departed in our\nships, and a god had scattered the Achaeans, even then did\nZeus devise in his heart a pitiful returning for the\nArgives, for in no wise were they all discreet or just.\nWherefore many of them met with an ill faring by reason of\nthe deadly wrath of the grey-eyed goddess, the daughter of\nthe mighty sire, who set debate between the two sons of\nAtreus. And they twain called to the gathering of the host\nall the Achaeans, recklessly and out of order, against the\ngoing down of the sun; and lo, the sons of the Achaeans\ncame heavy with wine. And the Atreidae spake out and told\nthe reason wherefore they had assembled the host. Then\nverily Menelaus charged all the Achaeans to bethink them of\nreturning over the broad back of the sea, but in no sort\ndid he please Agamemnon, whose desire was to keep back the\nhost and to offer holy hecatombs, that so he might appease\nthat dread wrath of Athene. Fool! for he knew not this,\nthat she was never to be won; for the mind of the\neverlasting gods is not lightly turned to repentance. So\nthese twain stood bandying hard words; but the\ngoodly-greaved Achaeans sprang up with a wondrous din, and\ntwofold counsels found favour among them. So that one night\nwe rested, thinking hard things against each other, for\nZeus was fashioning for us a ruinous doom. But in the\nmorning, we of the one part drew our ships to the fair salt\nsea, and put aboard our wealth, and the low-girdled Trojan\nwomen. Now one half the people abode steadfastly there with\nAgamemnon, son of Atreus, shepherd of the host; and half of\nus embarked and drave to sea and swiftly the ships sailed,\nfor a god made smooth the sea with the depths thereof. And\nwhen we came to Tenedos, we did sacrifice to the gods,\nbeing eager for the homeward way; but Zeus did not yet\npurpose our returning, nay, hard was he, that roused once\nmore an evil strife among us. Then some turned back their\ncurved ships, and went their way, even the company of\nOdysseus, the wise and manifold in counsel, once again\nshowing a favour to Agamemnon, son of Atreus. But I fled on\nwith the squadron that followed me, for I knew how now the\ngod imagined mischief. And the warlike son of Tydeus fled\nand roused his men thereto. And late in our track came\nMenelaus of the fair hair, who found us in Lesbos,\nconsidering about the long voyage, whether we should go\nsea-ward of craggy Chios, by the isle of Psyria, keeping\nthe isle upon our left, or inside Chios past windy Mimas.\nSo we asked the god to show us a sign, and a sign he\ndeclared to us, and bade us cleave a path across the middle\nsea to Euboea, that we might flee the swiftest way from\nsorrow. And a shrill wind arose and blew, and the ships ran\nmost fleetly over the teeming ways, and in the night they\ntouched at Geraestus. So there we sacrificed many thighs of\nbulls to Poseidon, for joy that we had measured out so\ngreat a stretch of sea. It was the fourth day when the\ncompany of Diomede son of Tydeus, tamer of horses, moored\ntheir gallant ships at Argos; but I held on for Pylos, and\nthe breeze was never quenched from the hour that the god\nsent it forth to blow. Even so I came, dear child, without\ntidings, nor know I aught of those others, which of the\nAchaeans were saved and which were lost. But all that I\nhear tell of as I sit in our halls, thou shalt learn as it\nis meet, and I will hide nothing from thee. Safely, they\nsay, came the Myrmidons the wild spearsmen, whom the famous\nson of high-souled Achilles led; and safely Philoctetes,\nthe glorious son of Poias. And Idomeneus brought all his\ncompany to Crete, all that escaped the war, and from him\nthe sea gat none. And of the son of Atreus even yourselves\nhave heard, far apart though ye dwell, how he came, and how\nAegisthus devised his evil end; but verily he himself paid\na terrible reckoning. So good a thing it is that a son of\nthe dead should still be left, even as that son also took\nvengeance on the slayer of his father, guileful Aegisthus,\nwho slew his famous sire. And thou too, my friend, for I\nsee thee very comely and tall, be valiant, that even men\nunborn may praise thee.'\n\nAnd wise Telemachus answered him, and said: 'Nestor, son of\nNeleus, great glory of the Achaeans, verily and indeed he\navenged himself, and the Achaeans shall noise his fame\nabroad, that even those may hear who are yet for to be. Oh\nthat the gods would clothe me with such strength as his,\nthat I might take vengeance on the wooers for their cruel\ntransgression, who wantonly devise against me infatuate\ndeeds! But the gods have woven for me the web of no such\nweal, for me or for my sire. But now I must in any wise\nendure it.'\n\nThen Nestor of Gerenia, lord of chariots, made answer:\n'Dear friend, seeing thou dost call these things to my\nremembrance and speak thereof, they tell me that many\nwooers for thy mother's hand plan mischief within the halls\nin thy despite. Say, dost thou willingly submit thee to\noppression, or do the people through the land hate thee,\nobedient to the voice of a god? Who knows but that Odysseus\nmay some day come and requite their violence, either\nhimself alone or all the host of the Achaeans with him? Ah,\nif but grey-eyed Athene were inclined to love thee, as once\nshe cared exceedingly for the renowned Odysseus in the land\nof the Trojans, where we Achaeans were sore afflicted, for\nnever yet have I seen the gods show forth such manifest\nlove, as then did Pallas Athene standing manifest by him,--\nif she would be pleased so to love thee and to care for\nthee, then might certain of them clean forget their\nmarriage.'\n\nAnd wise Telemachus answered him, saying: 'Old man, in no\nwise methinks shall this word be accomplished. This is a\nhard saying of thine, awe comes over me. Not for my hopes\nshall this thing come to pass, not even if the gods so\nwilled it.'\n\nThen the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, spake to him again:\n'Telemachus, what word hath escaped the door of thy lips?\nLightly might a god, if so he would, bring a man safe home\neven from afar. Rather myself would I have travail and much\npain ere I came home and saw the day of my returning, than\ncome back and straightway perish on my own hearth-stone,\neven as Agamemnon perished by guile at the hands of his own\nwife and of Aegisthus. But lo you, death, which is common\nto all, the very gods cannot avert even from the man they\nlove, when the ruinous doom shall bring him low of death\nthat lays men at their length.'\n\nAnd wise Telemachus answered her, saying: 'Mentor, no\nlonger let us tell of these things, sorrowful though we be.\nThere is none assurance any more of his returning, but\nalready have the deathless gods devised for him death and\nblack fate. But now I would question Nestor, and ask him of\nanother matter, as one who above all men knows judgments\nand wisdom: for thrice, men say, he hath been king through\nthe generations of men; yea, like an immortal he seems to\nme to look upon. Nestor, son of Neleus, now tell me true:\nhow died the son of Atreus, Agamemnon of the wide domain?\nWhere was Menelaus? What death did crafty Aegisthus plan\nfor him, in that he killed a man more valiant far than he?\nOr was Menelaus not in Argos of Achaia but wandering\nelsewhere among men, and that other took heart and slew\nAgamemnon?'\n\nThen Nestor of Gerenia, lord of chariots, answered him:\n'Yea now, my child, I will tell thee the whole truth.\nVerily thou guessest aright even of thyself how things\nwould have fallen out, if Menelaus of the fair hair, the\nson of Atreus, when he came back from Troy, had found\nAegisthus yet alive in the halls. Then even in his death\nwould they not have heaped the piled earth over him, but\ndogs and fowls of the air would have devoured him as he lay\non the plain far from the town. {*} Nor would any of the\nAchaean women have bewailed him; so dread was the deed he\ncontrived. Now we sat in leaguer there, achieving many\nadventures; but he the while in peace in the heart of\nArgos, the pastureland of horses, spake ofttimes, tempting\nher, to the wife of Agamemnon. Verily at the first she\nwould none of the foul deed, the fair Clytemnestra, for she\nhad a good understanding. Moreover there was with her a\nminstrel, whom the son of Atreus straitly charged as he\nwent to Troy to have a care of his wife. But when at last\nthe doom of the gods bound her to her ruin, then did\nAegisthus carry the minstrel to a lonely isle, and left him\nthere to be the prey and spoil of birds; while as for her,\nhe led her to his house, a willing lover with a willing\nlady. And he burnt many thigh slices upon the holy altars\nof the gods, and hung up many offerings, woven-work and\ngold, seeing that he had accomplished a great deed, beyond\nall hope. Now we, I say, were sailing together on our way\nfrom Troy, the son of Atreus and I, as loving friends. But\nwhen we had reached holy Sunium, the headland of Athens,\nthere Phoebus Apollo slew the pilot of Menelaus with the\nvisitation of his gentle shafts, as he held between his\nhands the rudder of the running ship, even Phrontis, son of\nOnetor, who excelled the tribes of men in piloting a ship,\nwhenso the storm-winds were hurrying by. Thus was Menelaus\nholden there, though eager for the way, till he might bury\nhis friend and pay the last rites over him. But when he in\nhis turn, faring over the wine-dark sea in hollow ships,\nreached in swift course the steep mount of Malea, then it\nwas that Zeus of the far-borne voice devised a hateful\npath, and shed upon them the breath of the shrill winds,\nand great swelling waves arose like unto mountains. There\nsundered he the fleet in twain, and part thereof he brought\nnigh to Crete, where the Cydonians dwelt about the streams\nof Iardanus. Now there is a certain cliff, smooth and sheer\ntowards the sea, on the border of Gortyn, in the misty\ndeep, where the South-West Wind drives a great wave against\nthe left headland, towards Phaestus, and a little rock\nkeeps back the mighty water. Thither came one part of the\nfleet, and the men scarce escaped destruction, but the\nships were broken by the waves against the rock; while\nthose other five dark-prowed ships the wind and the water\nbare and brought nigh to Egypt. Thus Menelaus, gathering\nmuch livelihood and gold, was wandering there with his\nships among men of strange speech, and even then Aegisthus\nplanned that pitiful work at home. And for seven years he\nruled over Mycenae, rich in gold, after he slew the son of\nAtreus, and the people were subdued unto him. But in the\neighth year came upon him goodly Orestes back from Athens\nto be his bane, and slew the slayer of his father, guileful\nAegisthus, who killed his famous sire. Now when he had\nslain him, he made a funeral feast to the Argives over his\nhateful mother, and over the craven Aegisthus. And on the\nselfsame day there came to him Menelaus of the loud\nwar-cry, bringing much treasure, even all the freight of\nhis ships. So thou, my friend, wander not long far away\nfrom home, leaving thy substance behind thee and men in thy\nhouse so wanton, lest they divide and utterly devour all\nthy wealth, and thou shalt have gone on a vain journey.\nRather I bid and command thee to go to Menelaus, for he\nhath lately come from a strange country, from the land of\nmen whence none would hope in his heart to return, whom\nonce the storms have driven wandering into so wide a sea.\nThence not even the birds can make their way in the space\nof one year, so great a sea it is and terrible. But go now\nwith thy ship and with thy company, or if thou hast a mind\nto fare by land, I have a chariot and horses at thy\nservice, yea and my sons to do thy will, who will be thy\nguides to goodly Lacedaemon, where is Menelaus of the fair\nhair. Do thou thyself entreat him, that he may give thee\nunerring answer. He will not lie to thee, for he is very\nwise.'\n\n{* Reading [Greek]. v. 1. '[Greek], which must be wrong.}\n\nThus he spake, and the sun went down and darkness came on.\nThen the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, spake among them,\nsaying: 'Yea, old man, thou hast told all this thy tale\naright. But come, cut up the tongues of the victims and mix\nthe wine, that we may pour forth before Poseidon and the\nother deathless gods, and so may bethink us of sleep, for\nit is the hour for sleep. For already has the light gone\nbeneath the west, and it is not seemly to sit long at a\nbanquet of the gods, but to be going home.'\n\nSo spake the daughter of Zeus, and they hearkened to her\nvoice. And the henchmen poured water over their hands, and\npages crowned the mixing bowls with drink, and served out\nthe wine to all, after they had first poured for libation\ninto each cup in turn; and they cast the tongues upon the\nfire, and stood up and poured the drink-offering thereon.\nBut when they had poured forth and had drunken to their\nheart's content, Athene and godlike Telemachus were both\nset on returning to the hollow ship; but Nestor would have\nstayed them, and accosted them, saying: 'Zeus forfend it,\nand all the other deathless gods, that ye should depart\nfrom my house to the swift ship, as from the dwelling of\none that is utterly without raiment or a needy man, who\nhath not rugs or blankets many in his house whereon to\nsleep softly, he or his guests. Nay not so, I have rugs and\nfair blankets by me. Never, methinks, shall the dear son of\nthis man, even of Odysseus, lay him down upon the ship's\ndeck, while as yet I am alive, and my children after me are\nleft in my hall to entertain strangers, whoso may chance to\ncome to my house.'\n\nThen the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, spake to him again:\n'Yea, herein hast thou spoken aright, dear father: and\nTelemachus may well obey thee, for before all things this\nis meet. Behold, he shall now depart with thee, that he may\nsleep in thy halls; as for me I will go to the black ship,\nthat I may cheer my company and tell them all. For I avow\nme to be the one elder among them; those others are but\nyounger men, who follow for love of him, all of them of\nlike age with the high-souled Telemachus. There will I lay\nme down by the black hollow ship this night; but in the\nmorning I will go to the Cauconians high of heart, where\nsomewhat of mine is owing to me, no small debt nor of\nyesterday. But do thou send this man upon his way with thy\nchariot and thy son, since he hath come to thy house, and\ngive him horses the lightest of foot and chief in\nstrength.'\n\nTherewith grey-eyed Athene departed in the semblance of a\nsea-eagle; and amazement fell on all that saw it, and the\nold man he marvelled when his eyes beheld it. And he took\nthe hand of Telemachus and spake and hailed him:\n\n'My friend, methinks that thou wilt in no sort be a coward\nand a weakling, if indeed in thy youth the gods thus follow\nwith thee to be thy guides. For truly this is none other of\nthose who keep the mansions of Olympus, save only the\ndaughter of Zeus, the driver of the spoil, the maiden\nTrito-born, she that honoured thy good father too among the\nArgives. Nay be gracious, queen, and vouchsafe a goodly\nfame to me, even to me and to my sons and to my wife\nrevered. And I in turn will sacrifice to thee a yearling\nheifer, broad of brow, unbroken, which man never yet hath\nled beneath the yoke. Such an one will I offer to thee, and\ngild her horns with gold.'\n\nEven so he spake in prayer, and Pallas Athene heard him.\nThen Nestor of Gerenia, lord of chariots, led them, even\nhis sons and the husbands of his daughters, to his own fair\nhouse. But when they had reached this prince's famous\nhalls, they sat down all orderly on seats and high chairs;\nand when they were come, the old man mixed well for them a\nbowl of sweet wine, which now in the eleventh year from the\nvintaging the housewife opened, and unloosed the string\nthat fastened the lid. The old man let mix a bowl thereof,\nand prayed instantly to Athene as he poured forth before\nher, even to the daughter of Zeus, lord of the aegis.\n\nBut after they had poured forth and had drunken to their\nheart's content, these went each one to his own house to\nlie down to rest. But Nestor of Gerenia, lord of chariots,\nwould needs have Telemachus, son of divine Odysseus, to\nsleep there on a jointed bedstead beneath the echoing\ngallery, and by him Peisistratus of the good ashen spear,\nleader of men, who alone of his sons was yet unwed in his\nhalls. As for him he slept within the inmost chamber of the\nlofty house, and the lady his wife arrayed for him bedstead\nand bedding.\n\nSo soon as early Dawn shone forth, the rosy-fingered,\nNestor of Gerenia, lord of chariots, gat him up from his\nbed, and he went forth and sat him down upon the smooth\nstones, which were before his lofty doors, all polished,\nwhite and glistening, whereon Neleus sat of old, in counsel\nthe peer of the gods. Howbeit, stricken by fate, he had ere\nnow gone down to the house of Hades, and to-day Nestor of\nGerenia in his turn sat thereon, warder of the Achaeans,\nwith his staff in his hands. And about him his sons were\ngathered and come together, issuing from their chambers,\nEchephron and Stratius, and Perseus and Aretus and the\ngodlike Thrasymedes. And sixth and last came the hero\nPeisistratus. And they led godlike Telemachus and set him\nby their side, and Nestor of Gerenia, lord of chariots,\nspake first among them:\n\n'Quickly, my dear children, accomplish my desire, that\nfirst of all the gods I may propitiate Athene, who came to\nme in visible presence to the rich feast of the god. Nay\nthen, let one go to the plain for a heifer, that she may\ncome as soon as may be, and that the neat-herd may drive\nher: and let another go to the black ship of high-souled\nTelemachus to bring all his company, and let him leave two\nmen only. And let one again bid Laerces the goldsmith to\ncome hither that he may gild the horns of the heifer. And\nye others, abide ye here together and speak to the\nhandmaids within that they make ready a banquet through our\nfamous halls, and fetch seats and logs to set about the\naltar, and bring clear water.'\n\nThus he spake and lo, they all hastened to the work. The\nheifer she came from the field, and from the swift gallant\nship came the company of great-hearted Telemachus; the\nsmith came holding in his hands his tools, the instruments\nof his craft, anvil and hammer and well-made pincers,\nwherewith he wrought the gold; Athene too came to receive\nher sacrifice. And the old knight Nestor gave gold, and the\nother fashioned it skilfully, and gilded therewith the\nhorns of the heifer, that the goddess might be glad at the\nsight of her fair offering. And Stratius and goodly\nEchephron led the heifer by the horns. And Aretus came\nforth from the chamber bearing water for the washing of\nhands in a basin of flowered work, and in the other hand he\nheld the barley-meal in a basket; and Thrasymedes,\nsteadfast in the battle, stood by holding in his hand a\nsharp axe, ready to smite the heifer. And Perseus held the\ndish for the blood, and the old man Nestor, driver of\nchariots, performed the first rite of the washing of hands\nand the sprinkling of the meal, and he prayed instantly to\nAthene as he began the rite, casting into the fire the lock\nfrom the head of the victim.\n\nNow when they had prayed and tossed the sprinkled grain,\nstraightway the son of Nestor, gallant Thrasymedes, stood\nby and struck the blow; and the axe severed the tendons of\nthe neck and loosened the might of the heifer; and the\nwomen raised their cry, the daughters and the sons' wives\nand the wife revered of Nestor, Eurydice, eldest of the\ndaughters of Clymenus. And now they lifted the victim's\nhead from the wide-wayed earth, and held it so, while\nPeisistratus, leader of men, cut the throat. And after the\nblack blood had gushed forth and the life had left the\nbones, quickly they broke up the body, and anon cut slices\nfrom the thighs all duly, and wrapt the same in the fat,\nfolding them double, and laid raw flesh thereon. So that\nold man burnt them on the cleft wood, and poured over them\nthe red wine, and by his side the young men held in their\nhands the five-pronged forks. Now after that the thighs\nwere quite consumed and they had tasted the inner parts,\nthey cut the rest up small and spitted and roasted it,\nholding the sharp spits in their hands.\n\nMeanwhile she bathed Telemachus, even fair Polycaste, the\nyoungest daughter of Nestor, son of Neleus. And after she\nhad bathed him and anointed him with olive oil, and cast\nabout him a goodly mantle and a doublet, he came forth from\nthe bath in fashion like the deathless gods. So he went and\nsat him down by Nestor, shepherd of the people.\n\nNow when they had roasted the outer flesh, and drawn it off\nthe spits, they sat down and fell to feasting, and\nhonourable men waited on them, pouring wine into the golden\ncups. But when they had put from them the desire of meat\nand drink, Nestor of Gerenia, lord of chariots, first spake\namong them:\n\n'Lo now, my sons, yoke for Telemachus horses with flowing\nmane and lead them beneath the car, that he may get forward\non his way.'\n\nEven so he spake, and they gave good heed and hearkened;\nand quickly they yoked the swift horses beneath the\nchariot. And the dame that kept the stores placed therein\ncorn and wine and dainties, such as princes eat, the\nfosterlings of Zeus. So Telemachus stept up into the goodly\ncar, and with him Peisistratus son of Nestor, leader of\nmen, likewise climbed the car and grasped the reins in his\nhands, and he touched the horses with the whip to start\nthem, and nothing loth the pair flew towards the plain, and\nleft the steep citadel of Pylos. So all day long they\nswayed the yoke they bore upon their necks.\n\nNow the sun sank and all the ways were darkened. And they\ncame to Pherae, to the house of Diocles, son of Orsilochus,\nthe child begotten of Alpheus. There they rested for the\nnight, and by them he set the entertainment of strangers.\n\nNow so soon as early Dawn shone forth, the rosy-fingered,\nthey yoked the horses and mounted the inlaid car. And forth\nthey drave from the gateway and the echoing gallery, and\nPeisistratus touched the horses with the whip to start\nthem, and the pair flew onward nothing loth. So they came\nto the wheat-bearing plain, and thenceforth they pressed\ntoward the end: in such wise did the swift horses speed\nforward. Now the sun sank and all the ways were darkened.\n\n\n\nBook IV\n\n  Telemachus' entertainment at Sparta, where Menelaus tells\n  him what befell many of the Greeks on their return; that\n  Odysseus was with Calypso in the isle Ogygia, as he was\n  told by Proteus.\n\nAnd they came to Lacedaemon lying low among the caverned\nhills, and drave to the dwelling of renowned Menelaus. Him\nthey found giving a feast in his house to many friends of\nhis kin, a feast for the wedding of his noble son and\ndaughter. His daughter he was sending to the son of\nAchilles, cleaver of the ranks of men, for in Troy he first\nhad promised and covenanted to give her, and now the gods\nwere bringing about their marriage. So now he was speeding\nher on her way with chariot and horses, to the famous city\nof the Myrmidons, among whom her lord bare rule. And for\nhis son he was bringing to his home the daughter of Alector\nout of Sparta, for his well-beloved son, strong\nMegapenthes, {*} born of a slave woman, for the gods no\nmore showed promise of seed to Helen, from the day that she\nbare a lovely child, Hermione, as fair as golden Aphrodite.\nSo they were feasting through the great vaulted hall, the\nneighbours and the kinsmen of renowned Menelaus, making\nmerry; and among them a divine minstrel was singing to the\nlyre, and as he began the song two tumblers in the company\nwhirled through the midst of them.\n\n{* A son of sorrow: Tristram.}\n\nMeanwhile those twain, the hero Telemachus and the splendid\nson of Nestor, made halt at the entry of the gate, they and\ntheir horses. And the lord Eteoneus came forth and saw\nthem, the ready squire of renowned Menelaus; and he went\nthrough the palace to bear the tidings to the shepherd of\nthe people, and standing near spake to him winged words:\n\n'Menelaus, fosterling of Zeus, here are two strangers,\nwhosoever they be, two men like to the lineage of great\nZeus. Say, shall we loose their swift horses from under the\nyoke, or send them onward to some other host who shall\nreceive them kindly?'\n\nThen in sore displeasure spake to him Menelaus of the fair\nhair: 'Eteoneus son of Boethous, truly thou wert not a fool\naforetime, but now for this once, like a child thou talkest\nfolly. Surely ourselves ate much hospitable cheer of other\nmen, ere we twain came hither, even if in time to come Zeus\nhaply give us rest from affliction. Nay go, unyoke the\nhorses of the strangers, and as for the men, lead them\nforward to the house to feast with us.'\n\nSo spake he, and Eteoneus hasted from the hall, and called\nthe other ready squires to follow with him. So they loosed\nthe sweating horses from beneath the yoke, and fastened\nthem at the stalls of the horses, and threw beside them\nspelt, and therewith mixed white barley, and tilted the\nchariot against the shining faces of the gateway, and led\nthe men into the hall divine. And they beheld and marvelled\nas they gazed throughout the palace of the king, the\nfosterling of Zeus; for there was a gleam as it were of sun\nor moon through the lofty palace of renowned Menelaus. But\nafter they had gazed their fill, they went to the polished\nbaths and bathed them. Now when the maidens had bathed them\nand anointed them with olive oil, and cast about them thick\ncloaks and doublets, they sat on chairs by Menelaus, son of\nAtreus. And a handmaid bare water for the hands in a goodly\ngolden ewer, and poured it forth over a silver basin to\nwash withal; and to their side she drew a polished table,\nand a grave dame bare food and set it by them, and laid\nupon the board many dainties, giving freely of such things\nas she had by her, and a carver lifted and placed by them\nplatters of divers kinds of flesh, and nigh them he set\ngolden bowls. So Menelaus of the fair hair greeted the\ntwain and spake:\n\n'Taste ye food and be glad, and thereafter when ye have\nsupped, we will ask what men ye are; for the blood of your\nparents is not lost in you, but ye are of the line of men\nthat are sceptred kings, the fosterlings of Zeus; for no\nchurls could beget sons like you.'\n\nSo spake he, and took and set before them the fat ox-chine\nroasted, which they had given him as his own mess by way of\nhonour. And they stretched forth their hands upon the good\ncheer set before them. Now when they had put from them the\ndesire of meat and drink Telemachus spake to the son of\nNestor, holding his head close to him, that those others\nmight not hear:\n\n'Son of Nestor, delight of my heart, mark the flashing of\nbronze through the echoing halls, and the flashing of gold\nand of amber and of silver and of ivory. Such like,\nmethinks, is the court of Olympian Zeus within, for the\nworld of things that are here; wonder comes over me as I\nlook thereon.'\n\nAnd as he spake Menelaus of the fair hair was ware of him,\nand uttering his voice spake to them winged words:\n\n'Children dear, of a truth no one of mortal men may contend\nwith Zeus, for his mansions and his treasures are\neverlasting: but of men there may be who will vie with me\nin treasure, or there may be none. Yea, for after many a\nwoe and wanderings manifold, I brought my wealth home in\nships, and in the eighth year came hither. I roamed over\nCyprus and Phoenicia and Egypt, and reached the Aethiopians\nand Sidonians and Erembi and Libya, where lambs are horned\nfrom the birth. For there the ewes yean thrice within the\nfull circle of a year; there neither lord nor shepherd\nlacketh aught of cheese or flesh or of sweet milk, but ever\nthe flocks yield store of milk continual. While I was yet\nroaming in those lands, gathering much livelihood, meantime\nanother slew my brother privily, at unawares, by the guile\nof his accursed wife. Thus, look you, I have no joy of my\nlordship among these my possessions: and ye are like to\nhave heard hereof from your fathers, whosoever they be, for\nI have suffered much and let a house go to ruin that was\nstablished fair, and had in it much choice substance. I\nwould that I had but a third part of those my riches, and\ndwelt in my halls, and that those men were yet safe, who\nperished of old in the wide land of Troy, far from Argos,\nthe pastureland of horses. Howbeit, though I bewail them\nall and sorrow oftentimes as I sit in our halls,--awhile\nindeed I satisfy my soul with lamentation, and then again I\ncease; for soon hath man enough of chill lamentation--yet\nfor them all I make no such dole, despite my grief, as for\none only, who causes me to loathe both sleep and meat, when\nI think upon him. For no one of the Achaeans toiled so\ngreatly as Odysseus toiled and adventured himself: but to\nhim it was to be but labour and trouble, and to me grief\never comfortless for his sake, so long he is afar, nor know\nwe aught, whether he be alive or dead. Yea methinks they\nlament him, even that old Laertes and the constant Penelope\nand Telemachus, whom he left a child new-born in his\nhouse.'\n\nSo spake he, and in the heart of Telemachus he stirred a\nyearning to lament his father; and at his father's name he\nlet a tear fall from his eyelids to the ground, and held up\nhis purple mantle with both his hands before his eyes. And\nMenelaus marked him and mused in his mind and his heart\nwhether he should leave him to speak of his father, or\nfirst question him and prove him in every word.\n\nWhile yet he pondered these things in his mind and in his\nheart, Helen came forth from her fragrant vaulted chamber,\nlike Artemis of the golden arrows; and with her came\nAdraste and set for her the well-wrought chair, and Alcippe\nbare a rug of soft wool, and Phylo bare a silver basket\nwhich Alcandre gave her, the wife of Polybus, who dwelt in\nThebes of Egypt, where is the chiefest store of wealth in\nthe houses. He gave two silver baths to Menelaus, and\ntripods twain, ad ten talents of gold. And besides all\nthis, his wife bestowed on Helen lovely gifts; a golden\ndistaff did she give, and a silver basket with wheels\nbeneath, and the rims thereof were finished with gold. This\nit was that the handmaid Phylo bare and set beside her,\nfilled with dressed yarn, and across it was laid a distaff\ncharged with wool of violet blue. So Helen sat her down in\nthe chair, and beneath was a footstool for the feet. And\nanon she spake to her lord and questioned him of each\nthing:\n\n'Menelaus, fosterling of Zeus, know we now who these men\navow themselves to be that have come under our roof? Shall\nI dissemble or shall I speak the truth? Nay, I am minded to\ntell it. None, I say, have I ever yet seen so like another,\nman or woman--wonder comes over me as I look on him--as\nthis man is like the son of great-hearted Odysseus,\nTelemachus, whom he left a new born child in his house,\nwhen for the sake of me, shameless woman that I was, ye\nAchaeans came up under Troy with bold war in your hearts.'\n\nAnd Menelaus of the fair hair answered her, saying: 'Now I\ntoo, lady, mark the likeness even as thou tracest it. For\nsuch as these were his feet, such his hands, and the\nglances of his eyes, and his head, and his hair withal.\nYea, and even now I was speaking of Odysseus, as I\nremembered him, of all his woeful travail for my sake;\nwhen, lo, he let fall a bitter tear beneath his brows, and\nheld his purple cloak up before his eyes.'\n\nAnd Peisistratus, son of Nestor, answered him, saying:\n'Menelaus, son of Atreus, fosterling of Zeus, leader of the\nhost, assuredly this is the son of that very man, even as\nthou sayest. But he is of a sober wit, and thinketh it\nshame in his heart as on this his first coming to make show\nof presumptuous words in the presence of thee, in whose\nvoice we twain delight as in the voice of a god. Now Nestor\nof Gerenia, lord of chariots, sent me forth to be his guide\non the way: for he desired to see thee that thou mightest\nput into his heart some word or work. For a son hath many\ngriefs in his halls when his father is away, if perchance\nhe hath none to stand by him. Even so it is now with\nTelemachus; his father is away, nor hath he others in the\ntownship to defend him from distress.'\n\nAnd Menelaus of the fair hair answered him, and said: 'Lo\nnow, in good truth there has come unto my house the son of\na friend indeed, who for my sake endured many adventures.\nAnd I thought to welcome him on his coming more nobly than\nall the other Argives, if but Olympian Zeus, of the\nfar-borne voice, had vouchsafed us a return over the sea in\nour swift ships,--that such a thing should be. And in Argos\nI would have given him a city to dwell in, and stablished\nfor him a house, and brought him forth from Ithaca with his\nsubstance and his son and all his people, making one city\ndesolate of those that lie around, and are in mine own\ndomain. Then ofttimes would we have held converse here, and\nnought would have parted us, the welcoming and the\nwelcomed, {*} ere the black cloud of death overshadowed us.\nHowsoever, the god himself, methinks, must have been\njealous hereof, who from that hapless man alone cut off his\nreturning.'\n\n{* Mr. Evelyn Abbott of Balliol College has suggested to us\nthat [Greek] and [Greek] are here correlatives, and denote\nrespectively the parts of host and of guest. This is\nsufficiently borne out by the usage of the words\nelsewhere.}\n\nSo spake he, and in the hearts of all he stirred the desire\nof lamentation. She wept, even Argive Helen the daughter of\nZeus, and Telemachus wept, and Menelaus the son of Atreus;\nnay, nor did the son of Nestor keep tearless eyes. For he\nbethought him in his heart of noble Antilochus, whom the\nglorious son of the bright Dawn had slain. Thinking upon\nhim he spake winged words:\n\n'Son of Atreus, the ancient Nestor in his own halls was\never wont to say that thou wert wise beyond man's wisdom,\nwhensoever we made mention of thee and asked one another\nconcerning thee. And now, if it be possible, be persuaded\nby me, who for one have no pleasure in weeping at supper\ntime--the new-born day will right soon be upon us. {*} Not\nindeed that I deem it blame at all to weep for any mortal\nwho hath died and met his fate. Lo, this is now the only\ndue we pay to miserable men, to cut the hair and let the\ntear fall from the cheek. For I too have a brother dead,\nnowise the meanest of the Argives, and thou art like to\nhave known him, for as for me I never encountered him,\nnever beheld him. But men say that Antilochus outdid all,\nbeing excellent in speed of foot and in the fight.'\n\n{* Cf. B. xv.50}\n\nAnd Menelaus of the fair hair answered him, and said: 'My\nfriend, lo, thou hast said all that a wise man might say or\ndo, yea, and an elder than thou;--for from such a sire too\nthou art sprung, wherefore thou dost even speak wisely.\nRight easily known is that man's seed, for whom Cronion\nweaves the skein of luck at bridal and at birth: even as\nnow hath he granted prosperity to Nestor for ever for all\nhis days, that he himself should grow into a smooth old age\nin his halls, and his sons moreover should be wise and the\nbest of spearsmen. But we will cease now the weeping which\nwas erewhile made, and let us once more bethink us of our\nsupper, and let them pour water over our hands. And again\nin the morning there will be tales for Telemachus and me to\ntell one to the other, even to the end.'\n\nSo spake he, and Asphalion poured water over their hands,\nthe ready squire of renowned Menelaus. And they put forth\ntheir hands upon the good cheer spread before them.\n\nThen Helen, daughter of Zeus, turned to new thoughts.\nPresently she cast a drug into the wine whereof they drank,\na drug to lull all pain and anger, and bring forgetfulness\nof every sorrow. Whoso should drink a draught thereof, when\nit is mingled in the bowl, on that day he would let no tear\nfall down his cheeks, not though his mother and his father\ndied, not though men slew his brother or dear son with the\nsword before his face, and his own eyes beheld it.\nMedicines of such virtue and so helpful had the daughter of\nZeus, which Polydamna, the wife of Thon, had given her, a\nwoman of Egypt, where earth the grain-giver yields herbs in\ngreatest plenty, many that are healing in the cup, and many\nbaneful. There each man is a leech skilled beyond all human\nkind; yea, for they are of the race of Paeeon. Now after\nshe had cast in the drug and bidden pour forth of the wine,\nshe made answer once again, and spake unto her lord:\n\n'Son of Atreus, Menelaus, fosterling of Zeus, and lo, ye\nsons of noble men, forasmuch as now to one and now to\nanother Zeus gives good and evil, for to him all things are\npossible,--now, verily, sit ye down and feast in the halls,\nand take ye joy in the telling of tales, and I will tell\nyou one that fits the time. Now all of them I could not\ntell or number, so many as were the adventures of Odysseus\nof the hardy heart; but, ah, what a deed was this he\nwrought and dared in his hardiness in the land of the\nTrojans, where ye Achaeans suffered affliction. He subdued\nhis body with unseemly stripes, and a sorry covering he\ncast about his shoulders, and in the fashion of a servant\nhe went down into the wide-wayed city of the foemen, and he\nhid himself in the guise of another, a beggar, though in no\nwise such an one was he at the ships of the Achaeans. In\nthis semblance he passed into the city of the Trojans, and\nthey wist not who he was, and I alone knew him in that\nguise, and I kept questioning him, but in his subtlety he\navoided me. But when at last I was about washing him and\nanointing him with olive oil, and had put on him raiment,\nand sworn a great oath not to reveal Odysseus amid the\nTrojans, ere he reached the swift ships and the huts, even\nthen he told me all the purpose of the Achaeans. And after\nslaying many of the Trojans with the long sword, he\nreturned to the Argives and brought back word again of all.\nThen the other Trojan women wept aloud, but my soul was\nglad, for already my heart was turned to go back again even\nto my home: and now at the last I groaned for the blindness\nthat Aphrodite gave me, when she led me thither away from\nmine own country, forsaking my child and my bridal chamber\nand my lord, that lacked not aught whether for wisdom or\nyet for beauty.'\n\nAnd Menelaus of the fair hair answered her, saying: 'Verily\nall this tale, lady, thou hast duly told. Ere now have I\nlearned the counsel and the thought of many heroes, and\ntravelled over many a land, but never yet have mine eyes\nbeheld any such man of heart as was Odysseus; such another\ndeed as he wrought and dared in his hardiness even in the\nshapen horse, wherein sat all we chiefs of the Argives,\nbearing to the Trojans death and doom. Anon thou camest\nthither, and sure some god must have bidden thee, who\nwished to bring glory to the Trojans. Yea and godlike\nDeiphobus went with thee on thy way. Thrice thou didst go\nround about the hollow ambush and handle it, calling aloud\non the chiefs of the Argives by name, and making thy voice\nlike the voices of the wives of all the Argives. Now I and\nthe son of Tydeus and goodly Odysseus sat in the midst and\nheard thy call; and verily we twain had a desire to start\nup and come forth or presently to answer from within; but\nOdysseus stayed and held us there, despite our eagerness.\nThen all the other sons of the Achaeans held their peace,\nbut Anticlus alone was still minded to answer thee. Howbeit\nOdysseus firmly closed his mouth with strong hands, and so\nsaved all the Achaeans, and held him until such time as\nPallas Athene led thee back.'\n\nThen wise Telemachus answered him, and said: 'Menelaus, son\nof Atreus, fosterling of Zeus, leader of the host, all the\nmore grievous it is! for in no way did this courage ward\nfrom him pitiful destruction, not though his heart within\nhim had been very iron. But come, bid us to bed, that\nforthwith we may take our joy of rest beneath the spell of\nsleep.'\n\nSo spake he, and Argive Helen bade her handmaids set out\nbedsteads beneath the gallery, and fling on them fair\npurple blankets and spread coverlets above, and thereon lay\nthick mantles to be a clothing over all. So they went from\nthe hall with torch in hand, and spread the beds, and the\nhenchman led forth the guests. Thus they slept there in the\nvestibule of the house, the hero Telemachus and the\nsplendid son of Nestor. But the son of Atreus slept, as his\ncustom was, in the inmost chamber of the lofty house, and\nby him lay long-robed Helen, that fair lady.\n\nSoon as early Dawn shone forth, the rosy-fingered, Menelaus\nof the loud war-shout gat him up from his bed and put on\nhis raiment, and cast his sharp sword about his shoulder,\nand beneath his smooth feet bound his goodly sandals, and\nstept forth from his chamber, in presence like a god, and\nsat by Telemachus, and spake and hailed him:\n\n'To what end hath thy need brought thee hither, hero\nTelemachus, unto fair Lacedaemon, over the broad back of\nthe sea? Is it a matter of the common weal or of thine own?\nHerein tell me the plain truth.'\n\nThen wise Telemachus answered him, and said: 'Menelaus, son\nof Atreus, fosterling of Zeus, leader of the host, I have\ncome if perchance thou mayest tell me some tidings of my\nfather. My dwelling is being devoured and my fat lands are\nruined, and of unfriendly men my house is full,--who\nslaughter continually my thronging flocks, and my kine with\ntrailing feet and shambling gait,--none other than the\nwooers of my mother, despiteful out of measure. So now am I\ncome hither to thy knees, if haply thou art willing to tell\nme of his pitiful death, as one that saw it perchance with\nthine own eyes, or heard the story from some other\nwanderer; for his mother bare him to exceeding sorrow. And\nspeak me no soft words in ruth or pity, but tell me plainly\nhow thou didst get sight of him. Ah, I pray thee, if ever\nat all my father, good Odysseus, made promise to thee of\nword or work and fulfilled the same in the land of the\nTrojans, where ye Achaeans suffered affliction, these\nthings, I pray thee, now remember and tell me truth.'\n\nThen in heavy displeasure spake to him Menelaus of the fair\nhair: 'Out upon them, for truly in the bed of a\nbrave-hearted man were they minded to lie, very cravens as\nthey are! Even as when a hind hath couched her newborn\nfawns unweaned in a strong lion's lair, and searcheth out\nthe mountain knees and grassy hollows, seeking pasture, and\nafterward the lion cometh back to his bed, and sendeth\nforth unsightly death upon that pair, even so shall\nOdysseus send forth unsightly death upon the wooers. Would\nto our father Zeus and Athene and Apollo, would that in\nsuch might as when of old in stablished Lesbos he rose up\nand wrestled a match with Philomeleides and threw him\nmightily, and all the Achaeans rejoiced; would that in such\nstrength Odysseus might consort with the wooers: then\nshould they all have swift fate, and bitter wedlock! But\nfor that whereof thou askest and entreatest me, be sure I\nwill not swerve from the truth in aught that I say, nor\ndeceive thee; but of all that the ancient one of the sea,\nwhose speech is sooth, declared to me, not a word will I\nhide or keep from thee.\n\n'In the river Aegyptus, {*} though eager I was to press\nonward home, the gods they stayed me, for that I had not\noffered them the acceptable sacrifice of hecatombs, and the\ngods ever desired that men should be mindful of their\ncommandments. Now there is an island in the wash of the\nwaves over against Aegyptus, and men call it Pharos, within\none day's voyage of a hollow ship, when shrill winds blow\nfair in her wake. And therein is a good haven, whence men\nlaunch the gallant ships into the deep when they have drawn\na store of deep black water. There the gods held me twenty\ndays, nor did the sea-winds ever show their breath, they\nthat serve to waft ships over the broad back of the sea.\nAnd now would all our corn have been spent, and likewise\nthe strength of the men, except some goddess had taken pity\non me and saved me, Eidothee, daughter of mighty Proteus,\nthe ancient one of the sea. For most of all I moved her\nheart, when she met me wandering alone apart from my\ncompany, who were ever roaming round the isle, fishing with\nbent hooks, for hunger was gnawing at their belly. So she\nstood by, and spake and uttered her voice saying:\n\n{* The only name for the Nile in Homer. Cf. Wilkinson,\nAncient Egyptians (1878), vol. i. p. 7.}\n\n'\"Art thou so very foolish, stranger, and feeble-witted, or\nart thou wilfully remiss, and hast pleasure in suffering?\nSo long time art thou holden in the isle and canst find no\nissue therefrom, while the heart of thy company faileth\nwithin them?\"\n\n'Even so she spake, and I answered her saying: \"I will\nspeak forth, what goddess soever thou art, and tell thee\nthat in no wise am I holden here by mine own will, but it\nneeds must be that I have sinned against the deathless\ngods, who keep the wide heaven. Howbeit, do thou tell\nme--for the gods know all things--which of the immortals it\nis that binds me here and hath hindered me from my way, and\ndeclare as touching my returning how I may go over the\nteeming deep.\"\n\n'So I spake, and straightway the fair goddess made answer:\n\"Yea now, sir, I will plainly tell thee all. Hither\nresorteth that ancient one of the sea, whose speech is\nsooth, the deathless Egyptian Proteus, who knows the depths\nof every sea, and is the thrall of Poseidon, and who, they\nsay, is my father that begat me. If thou couldst but lay an\nambush and catch him, he will surely declare to thee the\nway and the measure of thy path, and will tell thee of thy\nreturning, how thou mayest go over the teeming deep. Yea,\nand he will show thee, O fosterling of Zeus, if thou wilt,\nwhat good thing and what evil hath been wrought in thy\nhalls, whilst thou has been faring this long and grievous\nway.\"\n\n'So she spake, but I answered and said unto her: \"Devise\nnow thyself the ambush to take this ancient one divine,\nlest by any chance he see me first, or know of my coming,\nand avoid me. For a god is hard for mortal man to quell.\"\n\n'So spake I, and straightway the fair goddess made answer:\n\"Yea now, sir, I will plainly tell thee all. So often as\nthe sun in his course stands high in mid heaven, then forth\nfrom the brine comes the ancient one of the sea, whose\nspeech is sooth, before the breath of the West Wind he\ncomes, and the sea's dark ripple covers him. And when he is\ngot forth, he lies down to sleep in the hollow of the\ncaves. And around him the seals, the brood of the fair\ndaughter of the brine, sleep all in a flock, stolen forth\nfrom the grey sea water, and bitter is the scent they\nbreathe of the deeps of the salt sea. There will I lead\nthee at the breaking of the day, and couch you all orderly;\nso do thou choose diligently three of thy company, the best\nthou hast in thy decked ships. And I will tell thee all the\nmagic arts of that old man. First, he will number the seals\nand go over them; but when he has told their tale and\nbeheld them, he will lay him down in the midst, as a\nshepherd mid the sheep of his flock. So soon as ever ye\nshall see him couched, even then mind you of your might and\nstrength, and hold him there, despite his eagerness and\nstriving to be free. And he will make assay, and take all\nmanner of shapes of things that creep upon the earth, of\nwater likewise, and of fierce fire burning. But do ye grasp\nhim steadfastly and press him yet the more, and at length\nwhen he questions thee in his proper shape, as he was when\nfirst ye saw him laid to rest, then, hero, hold thy strong\nhands, and let the ancient one go free, and ask him which\nof the gods is hard upon thee, and as touching thy\nreturning, how thou mayest go over the teeming deep.\"\n\n'Therewith she dived beneath the heaving sea, but I betook\nme to the ships where they stood in the sand, and my heart\nwas darkly troubled as I went. But after I had come down to\nthe ship and to the sea, and we had made ready our supper\nand immortal night had come on, then did we lay us to rest\nupon the sea-beach. So soon as early Dawn shone forth, the\nrosy fingered, in that hour I walked by the shore of the\nwide-wayed sea, praying instantly to the gods; and I took\nwith me three of my company, in whom I trusted most for\nevery enterprise.\n\n'Meanwhile, so it was that she had plunged into the broad\nbosom of the sea, and had brought from the deep the skins\nof four sea-calves, and all were newly flayed, for she was\nminded to lay a snare for her father. She scooped lairs on\nthe sea-sand, and sat awaiting us, and we drew very nigh\nher, and she made us all lie down in order, and cast a skin\nover each. There would our ambush have been most terrible,\nfor the deadly stench of the sea bred seals distressed us\nsore: nay, who would lay him down by a beast of the sea?\nBut herself she wrought deliverance, and devised a great\ncomfort. She took ambrosia of a very sweet savour, and set\nit beneath each man's nostril, and did away with the stench\nof the beast. So all the morning we waited with steadfast\nheart, and the seals came forth in troops from the brine,\nand then they couched them all orderly by the sea-beach.\nAnd at high day the ancient one came forth from out of the\nbrine, and found his fatted seals, yea and he went along\ntheir line and told their tale; and first among the\nsea-beasts he reckoned us, and guessed not that there was\nguile, and afterward he too laid him down. Then we rushed\nupon him with a cry, and cast our hands about him, nor did\nthat ancient one forget his cunning. Now behold, at the\nfirst he turned into a bearded lion, and thereafter into a\nsnake, and a pard, and a huge boar; then he took the shape\nof running water, and of a tall and flowering tree. We the\nwhile held him close with steadfast heart. But when now\nthat ancient one of the magic arts was aweary, then at last\nhe questioned me and spake unto me, saying:\n\n'\"Which of the gods was it, son of Atreus, that aided thee\nwith his counsel, that thou mightest waylay and take me\nperforce? What wouldest thou thereby?\"\n\n'Even so he spake, but I answered him saying; \"Old man,\nthou knowest all, wherefore dost thou question me thereof\nwith crooked words? For lo, I am holden long time in this\nisle, neither can I find any issue therefrom, and my heart\nfaileth within me. Howbeit do thou tell me--for the gods\nknow all things--which of the immortals it is that bindeth\nme here, and hath hindered me from my way; and declare as\ntouching my returning, how I may go over the teeming deep.\"\n\n'Even so I spake, and he straightway answered me, saying:\n\"Nay, surely thou shouldest have done goodly sacrifice to\nZeus and the other gods ere thine embarking, that with most\nspeed thou mightst reach thy country, sailing over the\nwine-dark deep. For it is not thy fate to see thy friends,\nand come to thy stablished house and thine own country,\ntill thou hast passed yet again within the waters of\nAegyptus, the heaven-fed stream, and offered holy hecatombs\nto the deathless gods who keep the wide heaven. So shall\nthe gods grant thee the path which thou desirest.\"\n\n'So spake he, but my spirit within me was broken, for that\nhe bade me again to go to Aegyptus over the misty deep, a\nlong and grievous way.\n\n'Yet even so I answered him saying: \"Old man, all this will\nI do, according to thy word. But come, declare me this, and\ntell it all plainly. Did all those Achaeans return safe\nwith their ships, all whom Nestor and I left as we went\nfrom Troy, or perished any by a shameful death aboard his\nown ship, or in the arms of his friends, after he had wound\nup the clew of war?\"\n\n'So spake I, and anon he answered me, saying: \"Son of\nAtreus, why dost thou straitly question me hereof? Nay, it\nis not for thy good to know or learn my thought; for I tell\nthee thou shalt not long be tearless, when thou hast heard\nit all aright. For many of these were taken, and many were\nleft; but two only of the leaders of the mail-coated\nAchaeans perished in returning; as for the battle, thou\nthyself wast there. And one methinks is yet alive, and is\nholden on the wide deep. Aias in truth was smitten in the\nmidst of his ships of the long oars. Poseidon at first\nbrought him nigh to Gyrae, to the mighty rocks, and\ndelivered him from the sea. And so he would have fled his\ndoom, albeit hated by Athene, had he not let a proud word\nfall in the fatal darkening of his heart. He said that in\nthe gods' despite he had escaped the great gulf of the sea;\nand Poseidon heard his loud boasting, and presently caught\nup his trident into his strong hands, and smote the rock\nGyraean and cleft it in twain. And the one part abode in\nhis place, but the other fell into the sea, the broken\npiece whereon Aias sat at the first, when his heart was\ndarkened. And the rock bore him down into the vast and\nheaving deep; so there he perished when he had drunk of the\nsalt sea water. But thy brother verily escaped the fates\nand avoided them in his hollow ships, for queen Hera saved\nhim. But now when he was like soon to reach the steep mount\nof Malea, lo, the storm wind snatched him away and bore him\nover the teeming deep, making great moan, to the border of\nthe country whereof old Thyestes dwelt, but now Aegisthus\nabode there, the son of Thyestes. But when thence too there\nshowed a good prospect of safe returning, and the gods\nchanged the wind to a fair gale, and they had reached home,\nthen verily did Agamemnon set foot with joy upon his\ncountry's soil, and as he touched his own land he kissed\nit, and many were the hot tears he let fall, for he saw his\nland and was glad. And it was so that the watchman spied\nhim from his tower, the watchman whom crafty Aegisthus had\nled and posted there, promising him for a reward two\ntalents of gold. Now he kept watch for the space of a year,\nlest Agamemnon should pass by him when he looked not, and\nmind him of his wild prowess. So he went to the house to\nbear the tidings to the shepherd of the people. And\nstraightway Aegisthus contrived a cunning treason. He chose\nout twenty of the best men in the township, and set an\nambush, and on the further side of the hall he commanded to\nprepare a feast. Then with chariot and horses he went to\nbid to the feast Agamemnon, shepherd of the people; but\ncaitiff thoughts were in his heart. He brought him up to\nhis house, all unwitting of his doom, and when he had\nfeasted him slew him, as one slayeth an ox at the stall.\nAnd none of the company of Atreides that were of his\nfollowing were left, nor any of the men of Aegisthus, but\nthey were all killed in the halls.\"\n\n'So spake he, and my spirit within me was broken, and I\nwept as I sat upon the sand, nor was I minded any more to\nlive and see the light of the sun. But when I had taken my\nfill of weeping and grovelling on the ground, then spake\nthe ancient one of the sea, whose speech is sooth:\n\n'\"No more, son of Atreus, hold this long weeping without\ncease, for we shall find no help therein. Rather with all\nhaste make essay that so thou mayest come to thine own\ncountry. For either thou shalt find Aegisthus yet alive, or\nit may be Orestes was beforehand with thee and slew him; so\nmayest thou chance upon his funeral feast.\"\n\n'So he spake, and my heart and lordly soul again were\ncomforted for all my sorrow, and I uttered my voice and I\nspake to him winged words:\n\n'\"Their fate I now know; but tell me of the third; who is\nit that is yet living and holden on the wide deep, or\nperchance is dead? and fain would I hear despite my\nsorrow.\"\n\n'So spake I, and straightway he answered, and said: \"It is\nthe son of Laertes, whose dwelling is in Ithaca; and I saw\nhim in an island shedding big tears in the halls of the\nnymph Calypso, who holds him there perforce; so he may not\ncome to his own country, for he has by him no ships with\noars, and no companions to send him on his way over the\nbroad back of the sea. But thou, Menelaus, son of Zeus, art\nnot ordained to die and meet thy fate in Argos, the\npasture-land of horses, but the deathless gods will convey\nthee to the Elysian plain and the world's end, where is\nRhadamanthus of the fair hair, where life is easiest for\nmen. No snow is there, nor yet great storm, nor any rain;\nbut always ocean sendeth forth the breeze of the shrill\nWest to blow cool on men; yea, for thou hast Helen to wife,\nand thereby they deem thee to be son of Zeus.\"\n\n'So spake he, and plunged into the heaving sea; but I\nbetook me to the ships with my godlike company, and my\nheart was darkly troubled as I went. Now after I had come\ndown to the ship and to the sea, and had made ready our\nsupper, and immortal night had come on, then did we lay us\nto rest upon the sea-beach. So soon as early Dawn shone\nforth, the rosy-fingered, first of all we drew down our\nships to the fair salt sea and placed the masts and the\nsails in the gallant ships, and the crew too climbed on\nboard, and sat upon the benches and smote the grey sea\nwater with their oars. Then back I went to the waters of\nAegyptus, the heaven-fed stream, and there I moored the\nships and offered the acceptable sacrifice of hecatombs. So\nwhen I had appeased the anger of the everlasting gods, I\npiled a barrow to Agamemnon, that his fame might never be\nquenched. So having fulfilled all, I set out for home, and\nthe deathless gods gave me a fair wind, and brought me\nswiftly to mine own dear country. But lo, now tarry in my\nhalls till it shall be the eleventh day hence or the\ntwelfth. Then will I send thee with all honour on thy way,\nand give thee splendid gifts, three horses and a polished\ncar; and moreover I will give thee a goodly chalice, that\nthou mayest pour forth before the deathless gods, and be\nmindful of me all the days of thy life.'\n\nThen wise Telemachus answered him, saying: 'Son of Atreus,\nnay, hold me not long time here. Yea even for a year would\nI be content to sit by thee, and no desire for home or\nparents would come upon me; for I take wondrous pleasure in\nthy tales and talk. But already my company wearieth in fair\nPylos, and yet thou art keeping me long time here. And\nwhatsoever gift thou wouldest give me, let it be a thing to\ntreasure; but horses I will take none to Ithaca, but leave\nthem here to grace thine own house, for thou art lord of a\nwide plain wherein is lotus great plenty, and therein is\nspear-reed and wheat and rye, and white and spreading\nbarley. In Ithaca there are no wide courses, nor meadow\nland at all. It is a pasture-land of goats, and more\npleasant in my sight than one that pastureth horses; for of\nthe isles that lie and lean upon the sea, none are fit for\nthe driving of horses, or rich in meadow land, and least of\nall is Ithaca.'\n\nSo spake he, and Menelaus, of the loud war cry, smiled, and\ncaressed him with his hand, and spake and hailed him:\n\n'Thou art of gentle blood, dear child, so gentle the words\nthou speakest. Therefore I will make exchange of the\npresents, as I may. Of the gifts, such as are treasures\nstored in my house, I will give thee the goodliest and\ngreatest of price. I will give thee a mixing bowl\nbeautifully wrought; it is all of silver, and the lips\nthereof are finished with gold, the work of Hephaestus; and\nthe hero Phaedimus, the king of the Sidonians, gave it me,\nwhen his house sheltered me on my coming thither, and to\nthee now would I give it.'\n\nEven so they spake one to another, while the guests came to\nthe palace of the divine king. They drave their sheep, and\nbrought wine that maketh glad the heart of man: and their\nwives with fair tire sent them wheaten bread. Thus were\nthese men preparing the feast in the halls.\n\nBut the wooers meantime were before the palace of Odysseus,\ntaking their pleasure in casting of weights and spears, on\na levelled place, as heretofore, in their insolence. And\nAntinous and god-like Eurymachus were seated there, the\nchief men of the wooers, who were far the most excellent of\nall. And Noemon, son of Phromius, drew nigh to them and\nspake unto Antinous and questioned him, saying:\n\n'Antinous, know we at all, or know we not, when Telemachus\nwill return from sandy Pylos? He hath departed with a ship\nof mine, and I have need thereof, to cross over into\nspacious Elis, where I have twelve brood mares with hardy\nmules unbroken at the teat; I would drive off one of these\nand break him in.'\n\nSo spake he, and they were amazed, for they deemed not that\nTelemachus had gone to Neleian Pylos, but that he was at\nhome somewhere in the fields, whether among the flocks, or\nwith the swineherd.\n\nThen Antinous, son of Eupeithes, spake to him in turn:\n'Tell me the plain truth; when did he go, and what noble\nyouths went with him? Were they chosen men of Ithaca or\nhirelings and thralls of his own? He was in case to bring\neven that about. And tell me this in good sooth, that I may\nknow for a surety: did he take thy black ship from thee\nperforce against thy will? or didst thou give it him of\nfree will at his entreaty?\n\nThen Noemon, son of Phromius, answered him saying: 'I gave\nit him myself of free will. What can any man do, when such\nan one, so bestead with care, begs a favour? it were hard\nto deny the gift. The youths who next to us are noblest in\nthe land, even these have gone with him; and I marked their\nleader on board ship, Mentor, or a god who in all things\nresembled Mentor. But one matter I marvel at: I saw the\ngoodly Mentor here yesterday toward dawn, though already he\nhad embarked for Pylos.'\n\nHe spake and withal departed to his father's house. And the\nproud spirits of these twain were angered, and they made\nthe wooers sit down together and cease from their games.\nAnd among them spake Antinous, son of Eupeithes, in\ndispleasure; and his black heart was wholly filled with\nrage, and his eyes were like flaming fire:\n\n'Out on him, a proud deed hath Telemachus accomplished with\na high hand, even this journey, and we thought that he\nwould never bring it to pass! This lad hath clean gone\nwithout more ado, in spite of us all; his ship he hath let\nhaul to the sea, and chosen the noblest in the township. He\nwill begin to be our bane even more than heretofore; but\nmay Zeus destroy his might, not ours, ere he reach the\nmeasure of manhood! But come, give me a swift ship and\ntwenty men, that I may lie in watch and wait even for him\non his way home, in the strait between Ithaca and rugged\nSamos, that so he may have a woeful end of his cruising in\nquest of his father.'\n\nSo spake he, and they all assented thereto, and bade him to\nthe work. And thereupon they arose and went to the house of\nOdysseus.\n\nNow it was no long time before Penelope heard of the\ncounsel that the wooers had devised in the deep of their\nheart. For the henchman Medon told her thereof, who stood\nwithout the court and heard their purposes, while they were\nweaving their plot within. So he went on his way through\nthe halls to bring the news to Penelope; and as he stept\ndown over the threshold, Penelope spake unto him:\n\n'Henchman, wherefore have the noble wooers sent thee forth?\nWas it to tell the handmaids of divine Odysseus to cease\nfrom their work, and prepare a banquet for them? Nay, after\nthus much wooing, never again may they come together, but\nhere this day sup for their last and latest time; all ye\nwho assemble so often, and waste much livelihood, the\nwealth of wise Telemachus! Long ago when ye were children,\nye marked not your fathers' telling, what manner of man was\nOdysseus among them, one that wrought no iniquity toward\nany man, nor spake aught unrighteous in the township, as is\nthe wont of divine kings. One man a king is like to hate,\nanother he might chance to love. But never did he do aught\nat all presumptuously to any man. Nay, it is plain what\nspirit ye are of, and your unseemly deeds are manifest to\nall, nor is there any gratitude left for kindness done.'\n\nThen Medon, wise of heart, answered her: 'Would, oh queen,\nthat this were the crowning evil! But the wooers devise\nanother far greater and more grievous, which I pray the son\nof Cronos may never fulfil! They are set on slaying\nTelemachus with the edge of the sword on his homeward way;\nfor he is gone to fair Pylos and goodly Lacedaemon, to seek\ntidings of his father.'\n\nSo spake he, but her knees were loosened where she stood,\nand her heart melted within her, and long time was she\nspeechless, and lo, her eyes were filled with tears and the\nvoice of her utterance was stayed. And at the last she\nanswered him and said:\n\n'Henchman, wherefore I pray thee is my son departed? There\nis no need that he should go abroad on swift ships, that\nserve men for horses on the sea, and that cross the great\nwet waste. Is it that even his own name may no more be left\nupon earth?'\n\nThen Medon, wise of heart, answered her: 'I know not\nwhether some god set him on or whether his own spirit\nstirred him to go to Pylos to seek tidings of his father's\nreturn, or to hear what end he met.'\n\nHe spake, and departed through the house of Odysseus, and\non her fell a cloud of consuming grief; so that she might\nno more endure to seat her on a chair, whereof there were\nmany in the house, but there she crouched on the threshold\nof her well-builded chamber, wailing piteously, and her\nhandmaids round her made low moan, as many as were in the\nhouse with her, young and old. And Penelope spake among\nthem pouring forth her lamentation:\n\n'Hear me, my friends, for the Olympian sire hath given me\npain exceedingly beyond all women who were born and bred in\nmy day. For erewhile I lost my noble lord of the lion\nheart, adorned with all perfection among the Danaans, my\ngood lord, whose fame is noised abroad from Hellas to mid\nArgos. And now again the storm-winds have snatched away my\nwell-beloved son without tidings from our halls, nor heard\nI of his departure. Oh, women, hard of heart, that even ye\ndid not each one let the thought come into your minds, to\nrouse me from my couch when he went to the black hollow\nship, though ye knew full well thereof! For had I heard\nthat he was purposing this journey, verily he should have\nstayed here still, though eager to be gone, or have left me\ndead in the halls. Howbeit let some one make haste to call\nthe ancient Dolius, my thrall, whom my father gave me ere\nyet I had come hither, who keepeth my garden of trees. So\nshall he go straightway and sit by Laertes, and tell him\nall, if perchance Laertes may weave some counsel in his\nheart, and go forth and make his plaint to the people, who\nare purposed to destroy his seed, and the seed of god-like\nOdysseus.'\n\nThen the good nurse Eurycleia answered her: 'Dear lady,\naye, slay me if thou wilt with the pitiless sword or let me\nyet live on in the house,--yet will I not hide my saying\nfrom thee. I knew all this, and gave him whatsoever he\ncommanded, bread and sweet wine. And he took a great oath\nof me not to tell thee till at least the twelfth day should\ncome, or thou thyself shouldst miss him and hear of his\ndeparture, that thou mightest not mar thy fair flesh with\nthy tears. But now, wash thee in water, and take to thee\nclean raiment and ascend to thy upper chamber with the\nwomen thy handmaids, and pray to Athene, daughter of Zeus,\nlord of the aegis. For so may she save him even from death.\nAnd heap not troubles on an old man's trouble; for the seed\nof the son of Arceisius, is not, methinks, utterly hated by\nthe blessed gods, but someone will haply yet remain to\npossess these lofty halls, and the fat fields far away.'\n\nSo spake she, and lulled her queen's lamentation, and made\nher eyes to cease from weeping. So she washed her in water,\nand took to her clean raiment, and ascended to the upper\nchamber with the women her handmaids, and placed the meal\nfor sprinkling in a basket, and prayed unto Athene:\n\n'Hear me, child of Zeus, lord of the aegis, unwearied\nmaiden! If ever wise Odysseus in his halls burnt for thee\nfat slices of the thighs of heifer or of sheep, these\nthings, I pray thee, now remember, and save my dear son,\nand ward from him the wooers in the naughtiness of their\npride.'\n\nTherewith she raised a cry, and the goddess heard her\nprayer. But the wooers clamoured through the shadowy halls,\nand thus would some proud youth say:\n\n'Verily this queen of many wooers prepareth our marriage,\nnor knoweth at all how that for her son death hath been\nordained.'\n\nThus would certain of them speak, but they knew not how\nthese things were ordained. And Antinous made harangue and\nspake among them:\n\n'Good sirs, my friends, shun all disdainful words alike,\nlest someone hear and tell it even in the house. But come\nlet us arise, and in silence accomplish that whereof we\nspake, for the counsel pleased us every one.'\n\nTherewith he chose twenty men that were the best, and they\ndeparted to the swift ship and the sea-banks. So first of\nall they drew the ship down to the deep water, and placed\nthe mast and sails in the black ship, and fixed the oars in\nleathern loops all orderly, and spread forth the white\nsails. And squires, haughty of heart, bare for them their\narms. And they moored her high out in the shore water, and\nthemselves disembarked. There they supped and waited for\nevening to come on.\n\nBut the wise Penelope lay there in her upper chamber,\nfasting and tasting neither meat nor drink, musing whether\nher noble son should escape death, or even fall before the\nproud wooers. And as a lion broods all in fear among the\npress of men, when they draw the crafty ring around him, so\ndeeply was she musing when deep sleep came over her. And\nshe sank back in sleep and all her joints were loosened.\n\nNow the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, turned to other\nthoughts. She made a phantom, and fashioned it after the\nlikeness of a woman, Iphthime, daughter of great-hearted\nIcarius, whom Eumelus wedded, whose dwelling was in Pherae.\nAnd she sent it to the house of divine Odysseus to bid\nPenelope, amid her sorrow and lamenting, to cease from her\nweeping and tearful lamentation. So the phantom passed into\nthe chamber by the thong of the bolt, and stood above her\nhead and spake unto her, saying:\n\n'Sleepest thou, Penelope, stricken at heart? Nay, even the\ngods who live at ease suffer thee not to wail or be\nafflicted, seeing that thy son is yet to return; for no\nsinner is he in the eyes of the gods.'\n\nThen wise Penelope made her answer as she slumbered very\nsoftly at the gates of dreams:\n\n'Wherefore, sister, hast thou come hither, that before wert\nnot wont to come, for thou hast thine habitation very far\naway? Biddest thou me indeed to cease from the sorrows and\npains, so many that disquiet my heart and soul? Erewhile I\nlost my noble lord of the lion heart, adorned with all\nperfection among the Danaans, my true lord, whose fame is\nnoised abroad from Hellas to mid Argos. And now, again, my\nwell-beloved son is departed on his hollow ship, poor\nchild, not skilled in toils or in the gatherings of men.\nFor him I sorrow yet more than for my lord, and I tremble\nand fear for him lest aught befal him, whether, it may be,\namid that folk where he is gone, or in the deep. For many\nfoemen devise evil against him, and go about to kill him,\nor ever he come to his own country.'\n\nAnd the dim phantom answered her, and said: 'Take courage,\nand be not so sorely afraid. For lo, such a friend goes to\nguide him, as all men pray to stand by them, for that she\nhath the power, even Pallas Athene. And she pitieth thee in\nthy sorrow, and now hath sent me forth to speak these words\nto thee.'\n\nAnd wise Penelope answered her, saying: 'If thou art indeed\na god, and hast heard the word of a god, come, I pray thee,\nand tell me tidings concerning that ill-fated man, whether\nperchance he is yet alive and sees the light of the sun, or\nhath already died, and is a dweller in the house of Hades.'\n\nAnd the dim phantom answered her and said: 'Concerning him\nI will not tell thee all the tale, whether he be alive or\ndead; it is ill to speak words light as wind.'\n\nTherewith the phantom slipped away by the bolt of the door\nand passed into the breath of the wind. And the daughter of\nIcarius started up from sleep; and her heart was cheered,\nso clear was the vision that sped toward her in the dead of\nthe night.\n\nMeanwhile the wooers had taken ship and were sailing over\nthe wet ways, pondering in their hearts sheer death for\nTelemachus. Now there is a rocky isle in the mid sea,\nmidway between Ithaca and rugged Samos, Asteris, a little\nisle; and there is a harbour therein with a double\nentrance, where ships may ride. There the Achaeans abode\nlying in wait for Telemachus.\n\n\n\nBook V\n\n  The Gods in council command Calypso by Hermes to send away\n  Odysseus on a raft of trees; and Poseidon, returning from\n  Ethiopia and seeing him on the coast of Phaeacia, scattered\n  his raft; and how by the help of Ino he was thrown ashore,\n  and slept on a heap of dry leaves till the next day.\n\nNow the Dawn arose from her couch, from the side of the\nlordly Tithonus, to bear light to the immortals and to\nmortal men. And lo, the gods were gathering to session, and\namong them Zeus, that thunders on high, whose might is\nabove all. And Athene told them the tale of the many woes\nof Odysseus, recalling them to mind; for near her heart was\nhe that then abode in the dwelling of the nymph:\n\n'Father Zeus, and all ye other blessed gods that live for\never, henceforth let not any sceptred king be kind and\ngentle with all his heart, nor minded to do righteously,\nbut let him alway be a hard man and work unrighteousness,\nfor behold, there is none that remembereth divine Odysseus\nof the people whose lord he was, and was gentle as a\nfather. Howbeit, as for him he lieth in an island suffering\nstrong pains, in the halls of the nymph Calypso, who\nholdeth him perforce; so he may not reach his own country,\nfor he hath no ships by him with oars, and no companions to\nsend him on his way over the broad back of the sea. And\nnow, again, they are set on slaying his beloved son on his\nhomeward way, for he is gone to fair Pylos and to goodly\nLacedaemon, to seek tidings of his father.'\n\nAnd Zeus, gatherer of the clouds, answered and spake unto\nher: 'My child, what word hath escaped the door of thy\nlips? Nay, didst thou not thyself plan this device, that\nOdysseus may assuredly take vengeance on those men at his\ncoming? As for Telemachus, do thou guide him by thine art,\nas well as thou mayest, that so he may come to his own\ncountry all unharmed, and the wooers may return in their\nship with their labour all in vain.'\n\nTherewith he spake to Hermes, his dear son: 'Hermes,\nforasmuch as even in all else thou art our herald, tell\nunto the nymph of the braided tresses my unerring counsel,\neven the return of the patient Odysseus, how he is to come\nto his home, with no furtherance of gods or of mortal men.\nNay, he shall sail on a well-bound raft, in sore distress,\nand on the twentieth day arrive at fertile Scheria, even at\nthe land of the Phaeacians, who are near of kin to the\ngods. And they shall give him all worship heartily as to a\ngod, and send him on his way in a ship to his own dear\ncountry, with gifts of bronze and gold, and raiment in\nplenty, much store, such as never would Odysseus have won\nfor himself out of Troy, yea, though he had returned unhurt\nwith the share of the spoil that fell to him. On such wise\nis he fated to see his friends, and come to his high-roofed\nhome and his own country.'\n\nSo spake he, nor heedless was the messenger, the slayer of\nArgos. Straightway he bound beneath his feet his lovely\ngolden sandals, that wax not old, that bare him alike over\nthe wet sea and over the limitless land, swift as the\nbreath of the wind. And he took the wand wherewith he lulls\nthe eyes of whomso he will, while others again he even\nwakes from out of sleep. With this rod in his hand flew the\nstrong slayer of Argos. Above Pieria he passed and leapt\nfrom the upper air into the deep. Then he sped along the\nwave like the cormorant, that chaseth the fishes through\nthe perilous gulfs of the unharvested sea, and wetteth his\nthick plumage in the brine. Such like did Hermes ride upon\nthe press of the waves. But when he had now reached that\nfar-off isle, he went forth from the sea of violet blue to\nget him up into the land, till he came to a great cave,\nwherein dwelt the nymph of the braided tresses: and he\nfound her within. And on the hearth there was a great fire\nburning, and from afar through the isle was smelt the\nfragrance of cleft cedar blazing, and of sandal wood. And\nthe nymph within was singing with a sweet voice as she\nfared to and fro before the loom, and wove with a shuttle\nof gold. And round about the cave there was a wood\nblossoming, alder and poplar and sweet-smelling cypress.\nAnd therein roosted birds long of wing, owls and falcons\nand chattering sea-crows, which have their business in the\nwaters. And lo, there about the hollow cave trailed a\ngadding garden vine, all rich with clusters. And fountains\nfour set orderly were running with clear water, hard by one\nanother, turned each to his own course. And all around soft\nmeadows bloomed of violets and parsley, yea, even a\ndeathless god who came thither might wonder at the sight\nand be glad at heart. There the messenger, the slayer of\nArgos, stood and wondered. Now when he had gazed at all\nwith wonder, anon he went into the wide cave; nor did\nCalypso, that fair goddess, fail to know him, when she saw\nhim face to face; for the gods use not to be strange one to\nanother, the immortals, not though one have his habitation\nfar away. But he found not Odysseus, the greathearted,\nwithin the cave, who sat weeping on the shore even as\naforetime, straining his soul with tears and groans and\ngriefs, and as he wept he looked wistfully over the\nunharvested deep. And Calypso, that fair goddess,\nquestioned Hermes, when she had made him sit on a bright\nshining seat:\n\n'Wherefore, I pray thee, Hermes, of the golden wand, hast\nthou come hither, worshipful and welcome, whereas as of old\nthou wert not wont to visit me? Tell me all thy thought; my\nheart is set on fulfilling it, if fulfil it I may, and if\nit hath been fulfilled in the counsel of fate. But now\nfollow me further, that I may set before thee the\nentertainment of strangers.'\n\nTherewith the goddess spread a table with ambrosia and set\nit by him, and mixed the ruddy nectar. So the messenger,\nthe slayer of Argos, did eat and drink. Now after he had\nsupped and comforted his soul with food, at the last he\nanswered, and spake to her on this wise:\n\n'Thou makest question of me on my coming, a goddess of a\ngod, and I will tell thee this my saying truly, at thy\ncommand. 'Twas Zeus that bade me come hither, by no will of\nmine; nay, who of his free will would speed over such a\nwondrous space of brine, whereby is no city of mortals that\ndo sacrifice to the gods, and offer choice hecatombs? But\nsurely it is in no wise possible for another god to go\nbeyond or to make void the purpose of Zeus, lord of the\naegis. He saith that thou hast with thee a man most\nwretched beyond his fellows, beyond those men that round\nthe burg of Priam for nine years fought, and in the tenth\nyear sacked the city and departed homeward. Yet on the way\nthey sinned against Athene, and she raised upon them an\nevil blast and long waves of the sea. Then all the rest of\nhis good company was lost, but it came to pass that the\nwind bare and the wave brought him hither. And now Zeus\nbiddeth thee send him hence with what speed thou mayest,\nfor it is not ordained that he die away from his friends,\nbut rather it is his fate to look on them even yet, and to\ncome to his high-roofed home and his own country.'\n\nSo spake he, and Calypso, that fair goddess, shuddered and\nuttered her voice, and spake unto him winged words: 'Hard\nare ye gods and jealous exceeding, who ever grudge\ngoddesses openly to mate with men, if any make a mortal her\ndear bed-fellow. Even so when rosy-fingered Dawn took Orion\nfor her lover, ye gods that live at ease were jealous\nthereof, till chaste Artemis, of the golden throne, slew\nhim in Ortygia with the visitation of her gentle shafts. So\ntoo when fair-tressed Demeter yielded to her love, and lay\nwith Iasion in the thrice-ploughed fallow-field, Zeus was\nnot long without tidings thereof, and cast at him with his\nwhite bolt and slew him. So again ye gods now grudge that a\nmortal man should dwell with me. Him I saved as he went all\nalone bestriding the keel of a bark, for that Zeus had\ncrushed {*} and cleft his swift ship with a white bolt in\nthe midst of the wine-dark deep. There all the rest of his\ngood company was lost, but it came to pass that the wind\nbare and the wave brought him hither. And him have I loved\nand cherished, and I said that I would make him to know not\ndeath and age for ever. Yet forasmuch as it is no wise\npossible for another god to go beyond, or make void the\npurpose of Zeus, lord of the aegis, let him away over the\nunharvested seas, if the summons and the bidding be of\nZeus. But I will give him no despatch, not I, for I have no\nships by me with oars, nor company to bear him on his way\nover the broad back of the sea. Yet will I be forward to\nput this in his mind, and will hide nought, that all\nunharmed he may come to his own country.'\n\n{* It seems very doubtful whether [Greek] can bear this\nmeaning. The reading [Greek], 'smote,' preserved by the\nSchol. is highly probable.}\n\nThen the messenger, the slayer of Argos, answered her:\n'Yea, speed him now upon his path and have regard unto the\nwrath of Zeus, lest haply he be angered and bear hard on\nthee hereafter.'\n\nTherewith the great slayer of Argos departed, but the lady\nnymph went on her way to the great-hearted Odysseus, when\nshe had heard the message of Zeus. And there she found him\nsitting on the shore, and his eyes were never dry of tears,\nand his sweet life was ebbing away as he mourned for his\nreturn; for the nymph no more found favour in his sight.\nHowsoever by night he would sleep by her, as needs he must,\nin the hollow caves, unwilling lover by a willing lady. And\nin the day-time he would sit on the rocks and on the beach,\nstraining his soul with tears, and groans, and griefs, and\nthrough his tears he would look wistfully over the\nunharvested deep. So standing near him that fair goddess\nspake to him:\n\n'Hapless man, sorrow no more I pray thee in this isle, nor\nlet thy good life waste away, for even now will I send thee\nhence with all my heart. Nay, arise and cut long beams, and\nfashion a wide raft with the axe, and lay deckings high\nthereupon, that it may bear thee over the misty deep. And I\nwill place therein bread and water, and red wine to thy\nheart's desire, to keep hunger far away. And I will put\nraiment upon thee, and send a fair gale in thy wake, that\nso thou mayest come all unharmed to thine own country, if\nindeed it be the good pleasure of the gods who hold wide\nheaven, who are stronger than I am both to will and to do.'\n\nSo she spake, and the steadfast goodly Odysseus shuddered,\nand uttering his voice spake to her winged words: 'Herein,\ngoddess, thou hast plainly some other thought, and in no\nwise my furtherance, for that thou biddest me to cross in a\nraft the great gulf of the sea so dread and difficult,\nwhich not even the swift gallant ships pass over rejoicing\nin the breeze of Zeus. Nor would I go aboard a raft to\ndispleasure thee, unless thou wilt deign, O goddess, to\nswear a great oath not to plan any hidden guile to mine own\nhurt.'\n\nSo spake he, and Calypso, the fair goddess, smiled and\ncaressed him with her hand, and spake and hailed him:\n\n'Knavish thou art, and no weakling {*} in wit, thou that\nhast conceived and spoken such a word. Let earth be now\nwitness hereto, and the wide heaven above, and that falling\nwater of the Styx, the greatest oath and the most terrible\nto the blessed gods, that I will not plan any hidden guile\nto thine own hurt. Nay, but my thoughts are such, and such\nwill be my counsel, as I would devise for myself, if ever\nso sore a need came over me. For I too have a righteous\nmind, and my heart within me is not of iron, but pitiful\neven as thine.'\n\n{* [Greek], from root [Greek], 'ill-grown,' i. e. a\nweakling, in the literal sense as B. xi.249, xiv.212, or\nmetaphorical, as here and viii. 177.}\n\nTherewith the fair goddess led the way quickly, and he\nfollowed hard in the steps of the goddess. And they reached\nthe hollow cave, the goddess and the man; so he sat him\ndown upon the chair whence Hermes had arisen, and the nymph\nplaced by him all manner of food to eat and drink, such as\nis meat for men. As for her she sat over against divine\nOdysseus, and the handmaids placed by her ambrosia and\nnectar. So they put forth their hands upon the good cheer\nset before them. But after they had taken their fill of\nmeat and drink, Calypso, the fair goddess, spake first and\nsaid:\n\n'Son of Laertes, of the seed of Zeus, Odysseus of many\ndevices, so it is indeed thy wish to get thee home to thine\nown dear country even in this hour? Good fortune go with\nthee even so! Yet didst thou know in thine heart what a\nmeasure of suffering thou art ordained to fulfil, or ever\nthou reach thine own country, here, even here, thou wouldst\nabide with me and keep this house, and wouldst never taste\nof death, though thou longest to see thy wife, for whom\nthou hast ever a desire day by day. Not in sooth that I\navow me to be less noble than she in form or fashion, for\nit is in no wise meet that mortal women should match them\nwith immortals, in shape and comeliness.'\n\nAnd Odysseus of many counsels answered, and spake unto her:\n'Be not wroth with me hereat, goddess and queen. Myself I\nknow it well, how wise Penelope is meaner to look upon than\nthou, in comeliness and stature. But she is mortal and thou\nknowest not age nor death. Yet even so, I wish and long day\nby day to fare homeward and see the day of my returning.\nYea, and if some god shall wreck me in the wine-dark deep,\neven so I will endure, with a heart within me patient of\naffliction. For already have I suffered full much, and much\nhave I toiled in perils of waves and war; let this be added\nto the tale of those.'\n\nSo spake he, and the sun sank and darkness came on. Then\nthey twain went into the chamber of the hollow rock, and\nhad their delight of love, abiding each by other.\n\nSo soon as early Dawn shone forth, the rosy-fingered, anon\nOdysseus put on him a mantle and doublet, and the nymph\nclad her in a great shining robe, light of woof and\ngracious, and about her waist she cast a fair golden\ngirdle, and a veil withal upon her head. Then she\nconsidered of the sending of Odysseus, the great-hearted.\nShe gave him a great axe, fitted to his grasp, an axe of\nbronze double-edged, and with a goodly handle of olive wood\nfastened well. Next she gave him a polished adze, and she\nled the way to the border of the isle where tall trees\ngrew, alder and poplar, and pine that reacheth unto heaven,\nseasoned long since and sere, that might lightly float for\nhim. Now after she had shown him where the tall trees grew,\nCalypso, the fair goddess, departed homeward. And he set to\ncutting timber, and his work went busily. Twenty trees in\nall he felled, and then trimmed them with the axe of\nbronze, and deftly smoothed them, and over them made\nstraight the line. Meanwhile Calypso, the fair goddess,\nbrought him augers, so he bored each piece and jointed them\ntogether, and then made all fast with trenails and dowels.\nWide as is the floor of a broad ship of burden, which some\nman well skilled in carpentry may trace him out, of such\nbeam did Odysseus fashion his broad raft. And thereat he\nwrought, and set up the deckings, fitting them to the\nclose-set uprights, and finished them off with long\ngunwales, and there he set a mast, and a yard-arm fitted\nthereto, and moreover he made him a rudder to guide the\ncraft. And he fenced it with wattled osier withies from\nstem to stern, to be a bulwark against the wave, and piled\nup wood to back them. Meanwhile Calypso, the fair goddess,\nbrought him web of cloth to make him sails; and these too\nhe fashioned very skilfully. And he made fast therein\nbraces and halyards and sheets, and at last he pushed the\nraft with levers down to the fair salt sea.\n\nIt was the fourth day when he had accomplished all. And,\nlo, on the fifth, the fair Calypso sent him on his way from\nthe island, when she had bathed him and clad him in\nfragrant attire. Moreover, the goddess placed on board the\nship two skins, one of dark wine, and another, a great one,\nof water, and corn too in a wallet, and she set therein a\nstore of dainties to his heart's desire, and sent forth a\nwarm and gentle wind to blow. And goodly Odysseus rejoiced\nas he set his sails to the breeze. So he sate and cunningly\nguided the craft with the helm, nor did sleep fall upon his\neyelids, as he viewed the Pleiads and Bootes, that setteth\nlate, and the Bear, which they likewise call the Wain,\nwhich turneth ever in one place, and keepeth watch upon\nOrion, and alone hath no part in the baths of Ocean. This\nstar, Calypso, the fair goddess, bade him to keep ever on\nthe left as he traversed the deep. Ten days and seven he\nsailed traversing the deep, and on the eighteenth day\nappeared the shadowy hills of the land of the Phaeacians,\nat the point where it lay nearest to him; and it showed\nlike a shield in the misty deep.\n\nNow the lord, the shaker of the earth, on his way from the\nEthiopians espied him afar off from the mountains of the\nSolymi: even thence he saw Odysseus as he sailed over the\ndeep; and he was mightily angered in spirit, and shaking\nhis head he communed with his own heart. 'Lo now, it must\nbe that the gods at the last have changed their purpose\nconcerning Odysseus, while I was away among the Ethiopians.\nAnd now he is nigh to the Phaeacian land, where it is\nordained that he escape the great issues of the woe which\nhath come upon him. But, methinks, that even yet I will\ndrive him far enough in the path of suffering.'\n\nWith that he gathered the clouds and troubled the waters of\nthe deep, grasping his trident in his hands; and he roused\nall storms of all manner of winds, and shrouded in clouds\nthe land and sea: and down sped night from heaven. The East\nWind and the South Wind clashed, and the stormy West, and\nthe North, that is born in the bright air, rolling onward a\ngreat wave. Then were the knees of Odysseus loosened and\nhis heart melted, and heavily he spake to his own great\nspirit:\n\n'Oh, wretched man that I am! what is to befal me at the\nlast? I fear that indeed the goddess spake all things\ntruly, who said that I should fill up the measure of sorrow\non the deep, or ever I came to mine own country; and lo,\nall these things have an end. In such wise doth Zeus crown\nthe wide heaven with clouds, and hath troubled the deep,\nand the blasts rush on of all the winds; yea, now is utter\ndoom assured me. Thrice blessed those Danaans, yea, four\ntimes blessed, who perished on a time in wide Troy-land,\ndoing a pleasure to the sons of Atreus! Would to God that I\ntoo had died, and met my fate on that day when the press of\nTrojans cast their bronze-shod spears upon me, fighting for\nthe body of the son of Peleus! So should I have gotten my\ndues of burial, and the Achaeans would have spread my fame;\nbut now it is my fate to be overtaken by a pitiful death.'\n\nEven as he spake, the great wave smote down upon him,\ndriving on in terrible wise, that the raft reeled again.\nAnd far therefrom he fell, and lost the helm from his hand;\nand the fierce blast of the jostling winds came and brake\nhis mast in the midst, and sail and yard-arm fell afar into\nthe deep. Long time the water kept him under, nor could he\nspeedily rise from beneath the rush of the mighty wave:\nfor the garments hung heavy which fair Calypso gave him.\nBut late and at length he came up, and spat forth from his\nmouth the bitter salt water, which ran down in streams from\nhis head. Yet even so forgat he not his raft, for all his\nwretched plight, but made a spring after it in the waves,\nand clutched it to him, and sat in the midst thereof,\navoiding the issues of death; and the great wave swept it\nhither and thither along the stream. And as the North Wind\nin the harvest tide sweeps the thistle-down along the\nplain, and close the tufts cling each to other, even so the\nwinds bare the raft hither and thither along the main. Now\nthe South would toss it to the North to carry, and now\nagain the East would yield it to the West to chase.\n\nBut the daughter of Cadmus marked him, Ino of the fair\nankles, Leucothea, who in time past was a maiden of mortal\nspeech, but now in the depths of the salt sea she had\ngotten her share of worship from the gods. She took pity on\nOdysseus in his wandering and travail, and she rose, like a\nsea-gull on the wing, from the depth of the mere, and sat\nupon the well-bound raft and spake saying:\n\n'Hapless one, wherefore was Poseidon, shaker of the earth,\nso wondrous wroth with thee, seeing that he soweth for thee\nthe seeds of many evils? Yet shall he not make a full end\nof thee, for all his desire. But do even as I tell thee,\nand methinks thou art not witless. Cast off these garments,\nand leave the raft to drift before the winds, but do thou\nswim with thine hands and strive to win a footing on the\ncoast {*} of the Phaeacians, where it is decreed that thou\nescape. Here, take this veil imperishable and wind it about\nthy breast; so is there no fear that thou suffer aught or\nperish. But when thou hast laid hold of the mainland with\nthy hands, loose it from off thee and cast it into the\nwine-dark deep far from the land, and thyself turn away.'\n\n{* Lit. Strive after an arrival on the land, etc. [Greek]\noriginally meant going, journeying, and had no idea of\nreturn. The earlier use survives here, and in Soph.\nPhiloct. 43, Eur. Iph. Aul. 1261. Similarly, perhaps,\n[Greek] in Odyssey iv.619, xv.119, and [Greek] frequently}\n\nWith that the goddess gave the veil, and for her part dived\nback into the heaving deep, like a sea-gull: and the dark\nwave closed over her. But the steadfast goodly Odysseus\npondered, and heavily he spake to his own brave spirit:\n\n'Ah, woe is me! Can it be that some one of the immortals is\nweaving a new snare for me, that she bids me quit my raft?\nNay verily, I will not yet obey, for I had sight of the\nshore yet a long way off, where she told me that I might\nescape. I am resolved what I will do;--and methinks on this\nwise it is best. So long as the timbers abide in the\ndowels, so long will I endure steadfast in affliction, but\nso soon as the wave hath shattered my raft asunder, I will\nswim, for meanwhile no better counsel may be.'\n\nWhile yet he pondered these things in his heart and soul,\nPoseidon, shaker of the earth, stirred against him a great\nwave, terrible and grievous, and vaulted from the crest,\nand therewith smote him. And as when a great tempestuous\nwind tosseth a heap of parched husks, and scatters them\nthis way and that, even so did the wave scatter the long\nbeams of the raft. But Odysseus bestrode a single beam, as\none rideth on a courser, and stript him of the garments\nwhich fair Calypso gave him. And presently he wound the\nveil beneath his breast, and fell prone into the sea,\noutstretching his hands as one eager to swim. And the lord,\nthe shaker of the earth, saw him and shook his head, and\ncommuned with his own soul. 'Even so, after all thy\nsufferings, go wandering over the deep, till thou shalt\ncome among a people, the fosterlings of Zeus. Yet for all\nthat I deem not that thou shalt think thyself too lightly\nafflicted.' Therewith he lashed his steeds of the flowing\nmanes, and came to Aegae, where is his lordly home.\n\nBut Athene, daughter of Zeus, turned to new thoughts.\nBehold, she bound up the courses of the other winds, and\ncharged them all to cease and be still; but she roused the\nswift North and brake the waves before him, that so\nOdysseus, of the seed of Zeus, might mingle with the\nPhaeacians, lovers of the oar, avoiding death and the\nfates.\n\nSo for two nights and two days he was wandering in the\nswell of the sea, and much his heart boded of death. But\nwhen at last the fair-tressed Dawn brought the full light\nof the third day, thereafter the breeze fell, and lo, there\nwas a breathless calm, and with a quick glance ahead, (he\nbeing upborne on a great wave,) he saw the land very near.\nAnd even as when most welcome to his children is the sight\nof a father's life, who lies in sickness and strong pains\nlong wasting away, some angry god assailing him; and to\ntheir delight the gods have loosed him from his trouble; so\nwelcome to Odysseus showed land and wood; and he swam\nonward being eager to set foot on the strand. But when he\nwas within earshot of the shore, and heard now the thunder\nof the sea against the reefs--for the great wave crashed\nagainst the dry land belching in terrible wise, and all was\ncovered with foam of the sea,--for there were no harbours\nfor ships nor shelters, but jutting headlands and reefs and\ncliffs; then at last the knees of Odysseus were loosened\nand his heart melted, and in heaviness he spake to his own\nbrave spirit:\n\n'Ah me! now that beyond all hope Zeus hath given me sight\nof land, and withal I have cloven my way through this gulf\nof the sea, here there is no place to land on from out of\nthe grey water. For without are sharp crags, and round them\nthe wave roars surging, and sheer the smooth rock rises,\nand the sea is deep thereby, so that in no wise may I find\nfirm foothold and escape my bane, for as I fain would go\nashore, the great wave may haply snatch and dash me on the\njagged rock--and a wretched endeavour that would be. But if\nI swim yet further along the coast to find, if I may, spits\nthat take the waves aslant and havens of the sea, I fear\nlest the storm-winds catch me again and bear me over the\nteeming deep, making heavy moan; or else some god may even\nsend forth against me a monster from out of the shore\nwater; and many such pastureth the renowned Amphitrite. For\nI know how wroth against me hath been the great Shaker of\nthe Earth.'\n\nWhilst yet he pondered these things in his heart and mind,\na great wave bore him to the rugged shore. There would he\nhave been stript of his skin and all his bones been broken,\nbut that the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, put a thought into\nhis heart. He rushed in, and with both his hands clutched\nthe rock, whereto he clung till the great wave went by. So\nhe escaped that peril, but again with backward wash it\nleapt on him and smote him and cast him forth into the\ndeep. And as when the cuttlefish is dragged forth from his\nchamber, the many pebbles clinging to his suckers, even so\nwas the skin stript from his strong hand against the rocks,\nand the great wave closed over him. There of a truth would\nluckless Odysseus have perished beyond that which was\nordained, had not grey-eyed Athene given him sure counsel.\nHe rose from the line of the breakers that belch upon the\nshore, and swam outside, ever looking landwards, to find,\nif he might, spits that take the waves aslant, and havens\nof the sea. But when he came in his swimming over against\nthe mouth of a fair-flowing river, whereby the place seemed\nbest in his eyes, smooth of rocks, and withal there was a\ncovert from the wind, Odysseus felt the river running, and\nprayed to him in his heart:\n\n'Hear me, O king, whosoever thou art; unto thee am I come,\nas to one to whom prayer is made, while I flee the rebukes\nof Poseidon from the deep. Yea, reverend even to the\ndeathless gods is that man who comes as a wanderer, even as\nI now have come to thy stream and to thy knees after much\ntravail. Nay pity me, O king; for I avow myself thy\nsuppliant.'\n\nSo spake he, and the god straightway stayed his stream and\nwithheld his waves, and made the water smooth before him,\nand brought him safely to the mouths of the river. And his\nknees bowed and his stout hands fell, for his heart was\nbroken by the brine. And his flesh was all swollen and a\ngreat stream of sea water gushed up through his mouth and\nnostrils. So he lay without breath or speech, swooning,\nsuch terrible weariness came upon him. But when now his\nbreath returned and his spirit came to him again, he loosed\nfrom off him the veil of the goddess, and let it fall into\nthe salt flowing river. And the great wave bare it back\ndown the stream, and lightly Ino caught it in her hands.\nThen Odysseus turned from the river, and fell back in the\nreeds, and kissed earth, the grain-giver, and heavily he\nspake unto his own brave spirit:\n\n'Ah, woe is me! What is to betide me? What shall happen\nunto me at the last? If I watch the river bed all through\nthe careful night, I fear that the bitter frost and fresh\ndew may overcome me, as I breathe forth my life for\nfaintness, for the river breeze blows cold betimes in the\nmorning. But if I climb the hill-side up to the shady wood,\nand there take rest in the thickets, though perchance the\ncold and weariness leave hold of me, and sweet sleep may\ncome over me, I fear lest of wild beasts I become the spoil\nand prey.'\n\nSo as he thought thereon this seemed to him the better way.\nHe went up to the wood, and found it nigh the water in a\nplace of wide prospect. So he crept beneath twin bushes\nthat grew from one stem, both olive trees, one of them wild\nolive. Through these the force of the wet winds blew never,\nneither did the bright sun light on it with his rays, nor\ncould the rain pierce through, so close were they twined\neither to other; and thereunder crept Odysseus and anon he\nheaped together with his hands a broad couch; for of fallen\nleaves there was great plenty, enough to cover two or three\nmen in winter time, however hard the weather. And the\nsteadfast goodly Odysseus beheld it and rejoiced, and he\nlaid him in the midst thereof and flung over him the fallen\nleaves. And as when a man hath hidden away a brand in the\nblack embers at an upland farm, one that hath no neighbours\nnigh, and so saveth the seed of fire, that he may not have\nto seek a light otherwhere, even so did Odysseus cover him\nwith the leaves. And Athene shed sleep upon his eyes, that\nso it might soon release him from his weary travail,\novershadowing his eyelids.\n\n\n\nBook VI\n\n  Nausicaa, going to a river near that place to wash the\n  clothes of her father, mother, and brethren, while the\n  clothes were drying played with her maids at ball; and\n  Odysseus coming forth is fed and clothed, and led on his\n  way to the house of her father, King Alcinous.\n\nSo there he lay asleep, the steadfast goodly Odysseus,\nfordone with toil and drowsiness. Meanwhile Athene went to\nthe land and the city of the Phaeacians, who of old, upon a\ntime, dwelt in spacious Hypereia; near the Cyclopes they\ndwelt, men exceeding proud, who harried them continually,\nbeing mightier than they. Thence the godlike Nausithous\nmade them depart, and he carried them away, and planted\nthem in Scheria, far off from men that live by bread. And\nhe drew a wall around the town, and builded houses and made\ntemples for the gods and meted out the fields. Howbeit ere\nthis had he been stricken by fate, and had gone down to the\nhouse of Hades, and now Alcinous was reigning, with wisdom\ngranted by the gods. To his house went the goddess,\ngrey-eyed Athene, devising a return for the great-hearted\nOdysseus. She betook her to the rich-wrought bower, wherein\nwas sleeping a maiden like to the gods in form and\ncomeliness, Nausicaa, the daughter of Alcinous, high of\nheart. Beside her on either hand of the pillars of the door\nwere two handmaids, dowered with beauty from the Graces,\nand the shining doors were shut.\n\nBut the goddess, fleet as the breath of the wind, swept\ntowards the couch of the maiden, and stood above her head,\nand spake to her in the semblance of the daughter of a\nfamous seafarer, Dymas, a girl of like age with Nausicaa,\nwho had found grace in her sight. In her shape the\ngrey-eyed Athene spake to the princess, saying:\n\n'Nausicaa, how hath thy mother so heedless a maiden to her\ndaughter? Lo, thou hast shining raiment that lies by thee\nuncared for, and thy marriage day is near at hand, when\nthou thyself must needs go beautifully clad, and have\ngarments to give to them who shall lead thee to the house\nof the bridegroom! And, behold, these are the things whence\na good report goes abroad among men, wherein a father and\nlady mother take delight. But come, let us arise and go\na-washing with the breaking of the day, and I will follow\nwith thee to be thy mate in the toil, that without delay\nthou mayst get thee ready, since truly thou art not long to\nbe a maiden. Lo, already they are wooing thee, the noblest\nyouths of all the Phaeacians, among that people whence thou\nthyself dost draw thy lineage. So come, beseech thy noble\nfather betimes in the morning to furnish thee with mules\nand a wain to carry the men's raiment, and the robes, and\nthe shining coverlets. Yea and for thyself it is seemlier\nfar to go thus than on foot, for the places where we must\nwash are a great way off the town.'\n\nSo spake the grey-eyed Athene, and departed to Olympus,\nwhere, as they say, is the seat of the gods that standeth\nfast for ever. Not by winds is it shaken, nor ever wet with\nrain, nor doth the snow come nigh thereto, but most clear\nair is spread about it cloudless, and the white light\nfloats over it. Therein the blessed gods are glad for all\ntheir days, and thither Athene went when she had shown\nforth all to the maiden.\n\nAnon came the throned Dawn, and awakened Nausicaa of the\nfair robes, who straightway marvelled on the dream, and\nwent through the halls to tell her parents, her father dear\nand her mother. And she found them within, her mother\nsitting by the hearth with the women her handmaids,\nspinning yarn of sea-purple stain, but her father she met\nas he was going forth to the renowned kings in their\ncouncil, whither the noble Phaeacians called him. Standing\nclose by her dear father she spake, saying: 'Father, dear,\ncouldst thou not lend me a high waggon with strong wheels,\nthat I may take the goodly raiment to the river to wash, so\nmuch as I have lying soiled? Yea and it is seemly that thou\nthyself, when thou art with the princes in council,\nshouldest have fresh raiment to wear. Also, there are five\ndear sons of thine in the halls, two married, but three are\nlusty bachelors, and these are always eager for new-washen\ngarments wherein to go to the dances; for all these things\nhave I taken thought.'\n\nThis she said, because she was ashamed to speak of glad\nmarriage to her father; but he saw all and answered,\nsaying:\n\n'Neither the mules nor aught else do I grudge thee, my\nchild. Go thy ways, and the thralls shall get thee ready a\nhigh waggon with good wheels, and fitted with an upper\nframe.'\n\nTherewith he called to his men, and they gave ear, and\nwithout the palace they made ready the smooth-running\nmule-wain, and led the mules beneath the yoke, and\nharnessed them under the car, while the maiden brought\nforth from her bower the shining raiment. This she stored\nin the polished car, and her mother filled a basket with\nall manner of food to the heart's desire, dainties too she\nset therein, and she poured wine into a goat-skin bottle,\nwhile Nausicaa climbed into the wain. And her mother gave\nher soft olive oil also in a golden cruse, that she and her\nmaidens might anoint themselves after the bath. Then\nNausicaa took the whip and the shining reins, and touched\nthe mules to start them; then there was a clatter of hoofs,\nand on they strained without flagging, with their load of\nthe raiment and the maiden. Not alone did she go, for her\nattendants followed with her.\n\nNow when they were come to the beautiful stream of the\nriver, where truly were the unfailing cisterns, and bright\nwater welled up free from beneath, and flowed past, enough\nto wash the foulest garments clean, there the girls\nunharnessed the mules from under the chariot, and turning\nthem loose they drove them along the banks of the eddying\nriver to graze on the honey-sweet clover. Then they took\nthe garments from the wain, in their hands, and bore them\nto the black water, and briskly trod them down in the\ntrenches, in busy rivalry. Now when they had washed and\ncleansed all the stains, they spread all out in order along\nthe shore of the deep, even where the sea, in beating on\nthe coast, washed the pebbles clean. Then having bathed and\nanointed them well with olive oil, they took their mid-day\nmeal on the river's banks, waiting till the clothes should\ndry in the brightness of the sun. Anon, when they were\nsatisfied with food, the maidens and the princess, they\nfell to playing at ball, casting away their tires, and\namong them Nausicaa of the white arms began the song. And\neven as Artemis, the archer, moveth down the mountain,\neither along the ridges of lofty Taygetus or Erymanthus,\ntaking her pastime in the chase of boars and swift deer,\nand with her the wild wood-nymphs disport them, the\ndaughters of Zeus, lord of the aegis, and Leto is glad at\nheart, while high over all she rears her head and brows,\nand easily may she be known,--but all are fair; even so the\ngirl unwed outshone her maiden company.\n\nBut when now she was about going homewards, after yoking\nthe mules and folding up the goodly raiment, then grey-eyed\nAthene turned to other thoughts, that so Odysseus might\nawake, and see the lovely maiden, who should be his guide\nto the city of the Phaeacian men. So then the princess\nthrew the ball at one of her company; she missed the girl,\nand cast the ball into the deep eddying current, whereat\nthey all raised a piercing cry. Then the goodly Odysseus\nawoke and sat up, pondering in his heart and spirit:\n\n'Woe is me! to what men's land am I come now? say, are they\nfroward, and wild, and unjust, or are they hospitable, and\nof God-fearing mind? How shrill a cry of maidens rings\nround me, of the nymphs that hold the steep hill-tops, and\nthe river-springs, and the grassy water meadows! It must\nbe, methinks, that I am near men of human speech. Go to, I\nmyself will make trial and see.'\n\nTherewith the goodly Odysseus crept out from under the\ncoppice, having broken with his strong hand a leafy bough\nfrom the thick wood, to hold athwart his body, that it\nmight hide his nakedness withal. And forth he sallied like\na lion mountain-bred, trusting in his strength, who fares\nout blown and rained upon, with flaming eyes; amid the kine\nhe goes or amid the sheep or in the track of the wild deer;\nyea, his belly bids him go even to the good homestead to\nmake assay upon the flocks. Even so Odysseus was fain to\ndraw nigh to the fair-tressed maidens, all naked as he was,\nsuch need had come upon him. But he was terrible in their\neyes, being marred with the salt sea foam, and they fled\ncowering here and there about the jutting spits of shore.\nAnd the daughter of Alcinous alone stood firm, for Athene\ngave her courage of heart, and took all trembling from her\nlimbs. So she halted and stood over against him, and\nOdysseus considered whether he should clasp the knees of\nthe lovely maiden, and so make his prayer, or should stand\nas he was, apart, and beseech her with smooth words, if\nhaply she might show him the town, and give him raiment.\nAnd as he thought within himself, it seemed better to stand\napart, and beseech her with smooth words, lest the maiden\nshould be angered with him if he touched her knees: so\nstraightway he spake a sweet and cunning word:\n\n'I supplicate thee, O queen, whether thou art a goddess or\na mortal! If indeed thou art a goddess of them that keep\nthe wide heaven; to Artemis, then, the daughter of great\nZeus, I mainly liken thee, for beauty and stature and\nshapeliness. But if thou art one of the daughters of men\nwho dwell on earth, thrice blessed are thy father and thy\nlady mother, and thrice blessed thy brethren. Surely their\nsouls ever glow with gladness for thy sake, each time they\nsee thee entering the dance, so fair a flower of maidens.\nBut he is of heart the most blessed beyond all other who\nshall prevail with gifts of wooing, and lead thee to his\nhome. Never have mine eyes beheld such an one among\nmortals, neither man nor woman; great awe comes upon me as\nI look on thee. Yet in Delos once I saw as goodly a thing:\na young sapling of a palm tree springing by the altar of\nApollo. For thither too I went, and much people with me, on\nthat path where my sore troubles were to be. Yea, and when\nI looked thereupon, long time I marvelled in spirit,--for\nnever grew there yet so goodly a shoot from ground,--even\nin such wise as I wonder at thee, lady, and am astonied and\ndo greatly fear to touch thy knees, though grievous sorrow\nis upon me. Yesterday, on the twentieth day, I escaped from\nthe wine-dark deep, but all that time continually the wave\nbare me, and the vehement winds drave, from the isle\nOgygia. And now some god has cast me on this shore, that\nhere too, methinks, some evil may betide me; for I trow not\nthat trouble will cease; the gods ere that time will yet\nbring many a thing to pass. But, queen, have pity on me,\nfor after many trials and sore to thee first of all am I\ncome, and of the other folk, who hold this city and land, I\nknow no man. Nay show me the town, give me an old garment\nto cast about me, if thou hadst, when thou camest here, any\nwrap for the linen. And may the gods grant thee all thy\nheart's desire: a husband and a home, and a mind at one\nwith his may they give--a good gift, for there is nothing\nmightier and nobler than when man and wife are of one heart\nand mind in a house, a grief to their foes, and to their\nfriends great joy, but their own hearts know it best.'\n\nThen Nausicaa of the white arms answered him, and said:\n'Stranger, forasmuch as thou seemest no evil man nor\nfoolish--and it is Olympian Zeus himself that giveth weal\nto men, to the good and to the evil, to each one as he\nwill, and this thy lot doubtless is of him, and so thou\nmust in anywise endure it:--and now, since thou hast come\nto our city and our land, thou shalt not lack raiment, nor\naught else that is the due of a hapless suppliant, when he\nhas met them who can befriend him. And I will show thee the\ntown, and name the name of the people. The Phaeacians hold\nthis city and land, and I am the daughter of Alcinous,\ngreat of heart, on whom all the might and force of the\nPhaeacians depend.'\n\nThus she spake, and called to her maidens of the fair\ntresses: 'Halt, my maidens, whither flee ye at the sight of\na man? Ye surely do not take him for an enemy? That mortal\nbreathes not, and never will be born, who shall come with\nwar to the land of the Phaeacians, for they are very dear\nto the gods. Far apart we live in the wash of the waves,\nthe outermost of men, and no other mortals are conversant\nwith us. Nay, but this man is some helpless one come hither\nin his wanderings, whom now we must kindly entreat, for all\nstrangers and beggars are from Zeus, and a little gift is\ndear. So, my maidens, give the stranger meat and drink, and\nbathe him in the river, where withal is a shelter from the\nwinds.'\n\nSo she spake, but they had halted and called each to the\nother, and they brought Odysseus to the sheltered place,\nand made him sit down, as Nausicaa bade them, the daughter\nof Alcinous, high of heart. Beside him they laid a mantle,\nand a doublet for raiment, and gave him soft olive oil in\nthe golden cruse, and bade him wash in the streams of the\nriver. Then goodly Odysseus spake among the maidens,\nsaying: 'I pray you stand thus apart, while I myself wash\nthe brine from my shoulders, and anoint me with olive oil,\nfor truly oil is long a stranger to my skin. But in your\nsight I will not bathe, for I am ashamed to make me naked\nin the company of fair-tressed maidens.'\n\nThen they went apart and told all to their lady. But with\nthe river water the goodly Odysseus washed from his skin\nthe salt scurf that covered his back and broad shoulders,\nand from his head he wiped the crusted brine of the barren\nsea. But when he had washed his whole body, and anointed\nhim with olive oil, and had clad himself in the raiment\nthat the unwedded maiden gave him, then Athene, the\ndaughter of Zeus, made him greater and more mighty to\nbehold, and from his head caused deep curling locks to\nflow, like the hyacinth flower. And as when some skilful\nman overlays gold upon silver--one that Hephaestus and\nPallas Athene have taught all manner of craft, and full of\ngrace is his handiwork--even so did Athene shed grace about\nhis head and shoulders.\n\nThen to the shore of the sea went Odysseus apart, and sat\ndown, glowing in beauty and grace, and the princess\nmarvelled at him, and spake among her fair-tressed maidens,\nsaying:\n\n'Listen, my white-armed maidens, and I will say somewhat.\nNot without the will of all the gods who hold Olympus hath\nthis man come among the godlike Phaeacians. Erewhile he\nseemed to me uncomely, but now he is like the gods that\nkeep the wide heaven. Would that such an one might be\ncalled my husband, dwelling here, and that it might please\nhim here to abide! But come, my maidens, give the stranger\nmeat and drink.'\n\nThus she spake, and they gave ready ear and hearkened, and\nset beside Odysseus meat and drink, and the steadfast\ngoodly Odysseus did eat and drink eagerly, for it was long\nsince he had tasted food.\n\nNow Nausicaa of the white arms had another thought. She\nfolded the raiment and stored it in the goodly wain, and\nyoked the mules strong of hoof, and herself climbed into\nthe car. Then she called on Odysseus, and spake and hailed\nhim: 'Up now, stranger, and rouse thee to go to the city,\nthat I may convey thee to the house of my wise father,\nwhere, I promise thee, thou shalt get knowledge of all the\nnoblest of the Phaeacians. But do thou even as I tell thee,\nand thou seemest a discreet man enough. So long as we are\npassing along the fields and farms of men, do thou fare\nquickly with the maidens behind the mules and the chariot,\nand I will lead the way. But when we set foot within the\ncity,--whereby goes a high wall with towers, and there is a\nfair haven on either side of the town, and narrow is the\nentrance, and curved ships are drawn up on either hand of\nthe mole, for all the folk have stations for their vessels,\neach man one for himself. And there is the place of\nassembly about the goodly temple of Poseidon, furnished\nwith heavy stones, deep bedded in the earth. There men look\nto the gear of the black ships, hawsers and sails, and\nthere they fine down the oars. For the Phaeacians care not\nfor bow nor quiver, but for masts, and oars of ships, and\ngallant barques, wherein rejoicing they cross the grey sea.\nTheir ungracious speech it is that I would avoid, lest some\nman afterward rebuke me, and there are but too many\ninsolent folk among the people. And some one of the baser\nsort might meet me and say: \"Who is this that goes with\nNausicaa, this tall and goodly stranger? Where found she\nhim? Her husband he will be, her very own. Either she has\ntaken in some shipwrecked wanderer of strange men,--for no\nmen dwell near us; or some god has come in answer to her\ninstant prayer; from heaven has he descended, and will have\nher to wife for evermore. Better so, if herself she has\nranged abroad and found a lord from a strange land, for\nverily she holds in no regard the Phaeacians here in this\ncountry, the many men and noble who are her wooers.\" So\nwill they speak, and this would turn to my reproach. Yea,\nand I myself would think it blame of another maiden who did\nsuch things in despite of her friends, her father and\nmother being still alive, and was conversant with men\nbefore the day of open wedlock. But, stranger, heed well\nwhat I say, that as soon as may be thou mayest gain at my\nfather's hands an escort and a safe return. Thou shalt find\na fair grove of Athene, a poplar grove near the road, and a\nspring wells forth therein, and a meadow lies all around.\nThere is my father's demesne, and his fruitful close,\nwithin the sound of a man's shout from the city. Sit thee\ndown there and wait until such time as we may have come\ninto the city, and reached the house of my father. But when\nthou deemest that we are got to the palace, then go up to\nthe city of the Phaeacians, and ask for the house of my\nfather Alcinous, high of heart. It is easily known, and a\nyoung child could be thy guide, for nowise like it are\nbuilded the houses of the Phaeacians, so goodly is the\npalace of the hero Alcinous. But when thou art within the\nshadow of the halls and the court, pass quickly through the\ngreat chamber, till thou comest to my mother, who sits at\nthe hearth in the light of the fire, weaving yarn of\nsea-purple stain, a wonder to behold. Her chair is leaned\nagainst a pillar, and her maidens sit behind her. And there\nmy father's throne leans close to hers, wherein he sits and\ndrinks his wine, like an immortal. Pass thou by him, and\ncast thy hands about my mother's knees, that thou mayest\nsee quickly and with joy the day of thy returning, even if\nthou art from a very far country. If but her heart be\nkindly disposed toward thee, then is there hope that thou\nshalt see thy friends, and come to thy well-builded house,\nand to thine own country.'\n\nShe spake, and smote the mules with the shining whip, and\nquickly they left behind them the streams of the river. And\nwell they trotted and well they paced, and she took heed to\ndrive in such wise that the maidens and Odysseus might\nfollow on foot, and cunningly she plied the lash. Then the\nsun set, and they came to the famous grove, the sacred\nplace of Athene; so there the goodly Odysseus sat him down.\nThen straightway he prayed to the daughter of mighty Zeus:\n'Listen to me, child of Zeus, lord of the aegis, unwearied\nmaiden; hear me even now, since before thou heardest not\nwhen I was smitten on the sea, when the renowned\nEarth-shaker smote me. Grant me to come to the Phaeacians\nas one dear, and worthy of pity.'\n\nSo he spake in prayer, and Pallas Athene heard him; but she\ndid not yet appear to him face to face, for she had regard\nunto her father's brother, who furiously raged against the\ngodlike Odysseus, till he should come to his own country.\n\n\n\nBook VII\n\n  Odysseus being received at the house of the king Alcinous,\n  the queen after supper, taking notice of his garments,\n  gives him occasion to relate his passage thither on the\n  raft. Alcinous promises him a convoy for the morrow.\n\nSo he prayed there, the steadfast goodly Odysseus, while\nthe two strong mules bare the princess to the town. And\nwhen she had now come to the famous palace of her father,\nshe halted at the gateway, and round her gathered her\nbrothers, men like to the immortals, and they loosed the\nmules from under the car, and carried the raiment within.\nBut the maiden betook her to her chamber; and an aged dame\nfrom Aperaea kindled the fire for her, Eurymedusa, the\nhandmaid of the chamber, whom the curved ships upon a time\nhad brought from Aperaea; and men chose her as a prize for\nAlcinous, seeing that he bare rule over all the Phaeacians,\nand the people hearkened to him as to a god. She waited on\nthe white-armed Nausicaa in the palace halls; she was wont\nto kindle the fire and prepare the supper in the inner\nchamber.\n\nAt that same hour Odysseus roused him to go to the city,\nand Athene shed a deep mist about Odysseus for the favour\nthat she bare him, lest any of the Phaeacians, high of\nheart, should meet him and mock him in sharp speech, and\nask him who he was. But when he was now about to enter the\npleasant city, then the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, met him,\nin the fashion of a young maiden carrying a pitcher, and\nshe stood over against him, and goodly Odysseus inquired of\nher:\n\n'My child, couldst thou not lead me to the palace of the\nlord Alcinous, who bears sway among this people? Lo, I am\ncome here, a stranger travel-worn from afar, from a distant\nland; wherefore of the folk who possess this city and\ncountry I know not any man.'\n\nThen the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, answered him saying:\n'Yea now, father and stranger, I will show thee the house\nthat thou bidst me declare, for it lies near the palace of\nmy noble father; behold, be silent as thou goest, and I\nwill lead the way. And look on no man, nor question any.\nFor these men do not gladly suffer strangers, nor lovingly\nentreat whoso cometh from a strange land. They trust to the\nspeed of their swift ships, wherewith they cross the great\ngulf, for the Earth-shaker hath vouchsafed them this power.\nTheir ships are swift as the flight of a bird, or as a\nthought.'\n\nTherewith Pallas Athene led the way swiftly, and he\nfollowed hard in the footsteps of the goddess. And it came\nto pass that the Phaeacians, mariners renowned, marked him\nnot as he went down the city through their midst, for the\nfair tressed Athene suffered it not, that awful goddess,\nwho shed a wondrous mist about him, for the favour that she\nbare him in her heart. And Odysseus marvelled at the havens\nand the gallant ships, yea and the places of assembly of\nthe heroes, and the long high walls crowned with palisades,\na marvel to behold. But when they had now come to the\nfamous palace of the king, the goddess, grey-eyed Athene,\nspake first and said:\n\n'Lo, here, father and stranger, is the house that thou\nwouldst have me show thee: and thou shalt find kings at the\nfeast, the fosterlings of Zeus; enter then, and fear not in\nthine heart, for the dauntless man is the best in every\nadventure, even though he come from a strange land. Thou\nshalt find the queen first in the halls; Arete is the name\nwhereby men call her, and she came even of those that begat\nthe king Alcinous. First Nausithous was son of Poseidon,\nthe Earth-shaker, and of Periboea, the comeliest of women,\nyoungest daughter of great-hearted Eurymedon, who once was\nking among the haughty Giants. Howbeit, he destroyed his\ninfatuate people, and was himself destroyed; but Poseidon\nlay with Periboea and begat a son, proud Nausithous, who\nsometime was prince among the Phaeacians; and Nausithous\nbegat Rhexenor and Alcinous. While Rhexenor had as yet no\nson, Apollo of the silver bow smote him, a groom new wed,\nleaving in his halls one only child Arete; and Alcinous\ntook her to wife, and honoured her as no other woman in the\nworld is honoured, of all that now-a-days keep house under\nthe hand of their lords. Thus she hath, and hath ever had,\nall worship heartily from her dear children and from her\nlord Alcinous and from all the folk, who look on her as on\na goddess, and greet her with reverend speech, when she\ngoes about the town. Yea, for she too hath no lack of\nunderstanding. To whomso she shows favour, even if they be\nmen, she ends their feuds. {*} If but her heart be kindly\ndisposed to thee, then is there good hope that thou mayest\nsee thy friends, and come to thy high-roofed home and thine\nown country.'\n\n{* And for the women she favours, she ends the feuds of\ntheir lords also.}\n\nTherewith grey-eyed Athene departed over the unharvested\nseas, and left pleasant Scheria, and came to Marathon and\nwide-wayed Athens, and entered the good house of\nErechtheus. Meanwhile Odysseus went to the famous palace of\nAlcinous, and his heart was full of many thoughts as he\nstood there or ever he had reached the threshold of bronze.\nFor there was a gleam as it were of sun or moon through the\nhigh-roofed hall of great-hearted Alcinous. Brazen were the\nwalls which ran this way and that from the threshold to the\ninmost chamber, and round them was a frieze of blue, and\ngolden were the doors that closed in the good house. Silver\nwere the door-posts that were set on the brazen threshold,\nand silver the lintel thereupon, and the hook of the door\nwas of gold. And on either side stood golden hounds and\nsilver, which Hephaestus wrought by his cunning, to guard\nthe palace of great-hearted Alcinous, being free from death\nand age all their days. And within were seats arrayed\nagainst the wall this way and that, from the threshold even\nto the inmost chamber, and thereon were spread light\ncoverings finely woven, the handiwork of women. There the\nPhaeacian chieftains were wont to sit eating and drinking,\nfor they had continual store. Yea, and there were youths\nfashioned in gold, standing on firm-set bases, with flaming\ntorches in their hands, giving light through the night to\nthe feasters in the palace. And he had fifty handmaids in\nthe house, and some grind the yellow grain on the\nmillstone, and others weave webs and turn the yarn as they\nsit, restless as the leaves of the tall poplar tree: and\nthe soft olive oil drops off that linen, so closely is it\nwoven. For as the Phaeacian men are skilled beyond all\nothers in driving a swift ship upon the deep, even so are\nthe women the most cunning at the loom, for Athene hath\ngiven them notable wisdom in all fair handiwork and cunning\nwit. And without the courtyard hard by the door is a great\ngarden, off our ploughgates, and a hedge runs round on\neither side. And there grow tall trees blossoming,\npear-trees and pomegranates, and apple-trees with bright\nfruit, and sweet figs, and olives in their bloom. The fruit\nof these trees never perisheth neither faileth, winter nor\nsummer, enduring through all the year. Evermore the West\nWind blowing brings some fruits to birth and ripens others.\nPear upon pear waxes old, and apple on apple, yea and\ncluster ripens upon cluster of the grape, and fig upon fig.\nThere too hath he a fruitful vineyard planted, whereof the\none part is being dried by the heat, a sunny plot on level\nground, while other grapes men are gathering, and yet\nothers they are treading in the wine-press. In the foremost\nrow are unripe grapes that cast the blossom, and others\nthere be that are growing black to vintaging. There too,\nskirting the furthest line, are all manner of garden beds,\nplanted trimly, that are perpetually fresh, and therein are\ntwo fountains of water, whereof one scatters his streams\nall about the garden, and the other runs over against it\nbeneath the threshold of the courtyard, and issues by the\nlofty house, and thence did the townsfolk draw water. These\nwere the splendid gifts of the gods in the palace of\nAlcinous.\n\nThere the steadfast goodly Odysseus stood and gazed. But\nwhen he had gazed at all and wondered, he passed quickly\nover the threshold within the house. And he found the\ncaptains and the counsellors of the Phaeacians pouring\nforth wine to the keen-sighted god, the slayer of Argos;\nfor to him they poured the last cup when they were minded\nto take rest. Now the steadfast goodly Odysseus went\nthrough the hall, clad in a thick mist, which Athene shed\naround him, till he came to Arete and the king Alcinous.\nAnd Odysseus cast his hands about the knees of Arete, and\nthen it was that the wondrous mist melted from off him, and\na silence fell on them that were within the house at the\nsight of him, and they marvelled as they beheld him. Then\nOdysseus began his prayer:\n\n'Arete, daughter of god-like Rhexenor, after many toils am\nI come to thy husband and to thy knees and to these guests,\nand may the gods vouchsafe them a happy life, and may each\none leave to his children after him his substance in his\nhalls and whatever dues of honour the people have rendered\nunto him. But speed, I pray you, my parting, that I may\ncome the more quickly to mine own country, for already too\nlong do I suffer affliction far from my friends.'\n\nTherewith he sat him down by the hearth in the ashes at the\nfire, and behold, a dead silence fell on all. And at the\nlast the ancient lord Echeneus spake among them, an elder\nof the Phaeacians, excellent in speech and skilled in much\nwisdom of old time. With good will he made harangue and\nspake among them:\n\n'Alcinous, this truly is not the more seemly way, nor is it\nfitting that the stranger should sit upon the ground in the\nashes by the hearth, while these men refrain them, waiting\nthy word. Nay come, bid the stranger arise, and set him on\na chair inlaid with silver, and command the henchmen to mix\nthe wine, that we may pour forth likewise before Zeus,\nwhose joy is in the thunder, who attendeth upon reverend\nsuppliants. And let the housewife give supper to the\nstranger out of such stores as be within.'\n\nNow when the mighty king Alcinous heard this saying, he\ntook Odysseus, the wise and crafty, by the hand, and raised\nhim from the hearth, and set him on a shining chair, whence\nhe bade his son give place, valiant Laodamas, who sat next\nhim and was his dearest. And a handmaid bare water for the\nhands in a goodly golden ewer, and poured it forth over a\nsilver basin to wash withal, and drew to his side a\npolished table. And a grave dame bare wheaten bread and set\nit by him and laid upon the board many dainties, giving\nfreely of such things as she had by her. So the steadfast\ngoodly Odysseus did eat and drink: and then the mighty\nAlcinous spake unto the henchman:\n\n'Pontonous, mix the bowl and serve out the wine to all in\nthe hall, that we may pour forth likewise before Zeus,\nwhose joy is in the thunder, who attendeth upon reverend\nsuppliants.'\n\nSo spake he, and Pontonous mixed the honey-hearted wine,\nand served it out to all, when he had poured for libation\ninto each cup in turn. But when they had poured forth and\nhad drunken to their heart's content, Alcinous made\nharangue and spake among them:\n\n'Hear me, ye captains and counsellors of the Phaeacians,\nthat I may speak as my spirit bids me. Now that the feast\nis over, go ye home and lie down to rest; and in the\nmorning we will call yet more elders together, and\nentertain the stranger in the halls and do fair sacrifice\nto the gods, and thereafter we will likewise bethink us of\nthe convoy, that so without pain or grief yonder stranger\nmay by our convoy reach his own country speedily and with\njoy, even though he be from very far away. So shall he\nsuffer no hurt or harm in mid passage, ere he set foot on\nhis own land; but thereafter he shall endure such things as\nFate and the stern spinning women drew off the spindles for\nhim at his birth when his mother bare him. But if he is\nsome deathless god come down from heaven, then do the gods\nherein imagine some new device against us. For always\nheretofore the gods appear manifest amongst us, whensoever\nwe offer glorious hecatombs, and they feast by our side,\nsitting at the same board; yea, and even if a wayfarer\ngoing all alone has met with them, they use no disguise,\nsince we are near of kin to them, even as are the Cyclopes\nand the wild tribes of the Giants.'\n\nAnd Odysseus of many counsels answered him, saying:\n'Alcinous, that thought be far from thee! for I bear no\nlikeness either in form or fashion to the deathless gods,\nwho keep wide heaven, but to men that die. Whomsoever ye\nknow of human kind the heaviest laden with sorrow, to them\nmight I liken myself in my griefs. Yea, and I might tell of\nyet other woes, even the long tale of toil that by the\ngods' will I endured. But as for me, suffer me to sup,\nafflicted as I am; for nought is there more shameless than\na ravening belly, which biddeth a man perforce be mindful\nof him, though one be worn and sorrowful in spirit, even as\nI have sorrow of heart; yet evermore he biddeth me eat and\ndrink and maketh me utterly to forget all my sufferings,\nand commandeth me to take my fill. But do ye bestir you at\nthe breaking of the day, that so ye may set me, hapless as\nI am, upon my country's soil, albeit after much suffering.\nAh, and may life leave me when I have had sight of mine own\npossessions, my thralls, and my dwelling that is great and\nhigh!'\n\nSo spake he, and they all assented thereto, and bade send\nthe stranger on his way, for that he had spoken aright. Now\nwhen they had poured forth and had drunken to their hearts'\ncontent, they went each one to his house to lay them to\nrest. But goodly Odysseus was left behind in the hall, and\nby him sat Arete and godlike Alcinous; and the maids\ncleared away the furniture of the feast; and white-armed\nArete first spake among them. For she knew the mantle and\nthe doublet, when she saw the goodly raiment that she\nherself had wrought with the women her handmaids. So she\nuttered her voice and spake to him winged words:\n\n'Sir, I am bold to ask thee first of this. Who art thou of\nthe sons of men, and whence? Who gave thee this raiment?\nDidst thou not say indeed that thou camest hither wandering\nover the deep?'\n\nThen Odysseus of many counsels answered her, and said:\n''Tis hard, O queen, to tell my griefs from end to end, for\nthat the gods of heaven have given me griefs in plenty. But\nthis will I declare to thee, whereof thou dost question and\ninquire. There is an isle, Ogygia, that lies far off in the\nsea; there dwells the daughter of Atlas, crafty Calypso, of\nthe braided tresses, an awful goddess, nor is any either of\ngods or mortals conversant with her. Howbeit, some god\nbrought me to her hearth, wretched man that I am, all\nalone, for that Zeus with white bolt crushed my swift ship\nand cleft it in the midst of the wine-dark deep. There all\nthe rest of my good company was lost, but I clung with fast\nembrace about the keel of the curved ship, and so was I\nborne for nine whole days. And on the tenth dark night the\ngods brought me nigh the isle Ogygia, where Calypso of the\nbraided tresses dwells, an awful goddess. She took me in,\nand with all care she cherished me and gave me sustenance,\nand said that she would make me to know not death nor age\nfor all my days; but never did she win my heart within me.\nThere I abode for seven years continually, and watered with\nmy tears the imperishable raiment that Calypso gave me. But\nwhen the eighth year came round in his course, then at last\nshe urged and bade me to be gone, by reason of a message\nfrom Zeus, or it may be that her own mind was turned. So\nshe sent me forth on a well-bound raft, and gave me\nplenteous store, bread and sweet wine, and she clad me in\nimperishable raiment, and sent forth a warm and gentle wind\nto blow. For ten days and seven I sailed, traversing the\ndeep, and on the eighteenth day the shadowy hills of your\nland showed in sight, and my heart was glad,--wretched that\nI was--for surely I was still to be the mate of much\nsorrow. For Poseidon, shaker of the earth, stirred up the\nsame, who roused against me the winds and stopped my way,\nand made a wondrous sea to swell, nor did the wave suffer\nme to be borne upon my raft, as I made ceaseless moan. Thus\nthe storm winds shattered the raft, but as for me I cleft\nmy way through the gulf yonder, till the wind bare and the\nwater brought me nigh your coast. Then as I strove to land\nupon the shore, the wave had overwhelmed me, dashing me\nagainst the great rocks and a desolate place, but at length\nI gave way and swam back, till I came to the river, where\nthe place seemed best in mine eyes, smooth of rocks, and\nwithal there was a shelter from the wind. And as I came out\nI sank down, gathering to me my spirit, and immortal night\ncame on. Then I gat me forth and away from the heaven-fed\nriver, and laid me to sleep in the bushes and strewed\nleaves about me, and the god shed over me infinite sleep.\nThere among the leaves I slept, stricken at heart, all the\nnight long, even till the morning and mid-day. And the sun\nsank when sweet sleep let me free. And I was aware of the\ncompany of thy daughter disporting them upon the sand, and\nthere was she in the midst of them like unto the goddesses.\nTo her I made my supplication, and she showed no lack of a\ngood understanding, behaving so as thou couldst not hope\nfor in chancing upon one so young; for the younger folk\nlack wisdom always. She gave me bread enough and red wine,\nand let wash me in the river and bestowed on me these\ngarments. Herein, albeit in sore distress, have I told thee\nall the truth.'\n\nAnd Alcinous answered again, and spake saying: 'Sir, surely\nthis was no right thought of my daughter, in that she\nbrought thee not to our house with the women her handmaids,\nthough thou didst first entreat her grace.'\n\nAnd Odysseus of many counsels answered, and said unto him:\n'My lord, chide not, I pray thee, for this the blameless\nmaiden. For indeed she bade me follow with her company, but\nI would not for fear and very shame, lest perchance thine\nheart might be clouded at the sight; for a jealous race\nupon the earth are we, the tribes of men.'\n\nAnd Alcinous answered yet again, and spake saying: 'Sir, my\nheart within me is not of such temper as to have been wroth\nwithout a cause: due measure in all things is best. Would\nto father Zeus, and Athene, and Apollo, would that so\ngoodly a man as thou art, and like-minded with me, thou\nwouldst wed my daughter, and be called my son, here\nabiding: so would I give thee house and wealth, if thou\nwouldst stay of thine own will: but against thy will shall\nnone of the Phaeacians keep thee: never be this\nwell-pleasing in the eyes of father Zeus! And now I ordain\nan escort for thee on a certain day, that thou mayst surely\nknow, and that day the morrow. Then shalt thou lay thee\ndown overcome by sleep, and they the while shall smite the\ncalm waters, till thou come to thy country and thy house,\nand whatsoever place is dear to thee, even though it be\nmuch farther than Euboea, which certain of our men say is\nthe farthest of lands, they who saw it, when they carried\nRhadamanthus, of the fair hair, to visit Tityos, son of\nGaia. Even thither they went, and accomplished the journey\non the self-same day and won home again, and were not\nweary. And now shalt thou know for thyself how far my ships\nare the best, and how my young men excel at tossing the\nsalt water with the oar-blade.'\n\nSo spake he, and the steadfast goodly Odysseus rejoiced;\nand then he uttered a word in prayer, and called aloud to\nZeus: 'Father Zeus, oh that Alcinous may fulfil all that he\nhath said, so may his fame never be quenched upon the\nearth, the grain-giver, and I should come to mine own\nland!'\n\nThus they spake one to the other. And white-armed Arete\nbade her handmaids set out bedsteads beneath the gallery,\nand cast fair purple blankets over them, and spread\ncoverlets above, and thereon lay thick mantles to be a\nclothing over all. So they went from the hall with torch in\nhand. But when they had busied them and spread the good\nbedstead, they stood by Odysseus and called unto him,\nsaying:\n\n'Up now, stranger, and get thee to sleep, thy bed is made'\n\nSo spake they, and it seemed to him that rest was wondrous\ngood. So he slept there, the steadfast goodly Odysseus, on\nthe jointed bedstead, beneath the echoing gallery. But\nAlcinous laid him down in the innermost chamber of the high\nhouse, and by him the lady his wife arrayed bedstead and\nbedding.\n\n\n\nBook VIII\n\n  The next day's entertainment of Odysseus, where he sees\n  them contend in wrestling and other exercises, and upon\n  provocation took up a greater stone than that which they\n  were throwing, and overthrew them all. Alcinous and the\n  lords give him presents. And how the king asked his name,\n  his country, and his adventures.\n\nNow when early Dawn shone forth, the rosy-fingered, then\nthe mighty king Alcinous gat him up from his bed; and\nOdysseus, of the seed of Zeus, likewise uprose, the waster\nof cities. And the mighty king Alcinous led the way to the\nassembly place of the Phaeacians, which they had\nestablished hard by the ships. So when they had come\nthither, and sat them down on the polished stones close by\neach other, Pallas Athene went on her way through the town,\nin the semblance of the herald of wise Alcinous, devising a\nreturn for the great-hearted Odysseus. Then standing by\neach man she spake, saying:\n\n'Hither now get ye to the assembly, ye captains and\ncounsellors of the Phaeacians, that ye may learn concerning\nthe stranger, who hath lately come to the palace of wise\nAlcinous, in his wanderings over the deep, and his form is\nlike the deathless gods.'\n\nTherewith she aroused the spirit and desire of each one,\nand speedily the meeting-places and seats were filled with\nmen that came to the gathering: yea, and many an one\nmarvelled at the sight of the wise son of Laertes, for\nwondrous was the grace Athene poured upon his head and\nshoulders, and she made him greater and more mighty to\nbehold, that he might win love and worship and honour among\nall the Phaeacians, and that he might accomplish many\nfeats, wherein the Phaeacians made trial of Odysseus. Now\nwhen they were gathered and come together, Alcinous made\nharangue and spake among them:\n\n'Harken, ye captains and counsellors of the Phaeacians, and\nI will say that which my spirit within me bids me utter.\nThis stranger, I know not who he is, hath come to my house\nin his wandering, whether from the men of the dawning or\nthe westward, and he presses for a convoy, and prays that\nit be assured to him. So let us, as in time past, speed on\nthe convoy. For never, nay never, doth any man who cometh\nto my house, abide here long in sorrow for want of help\nupon his way. Nay, come let us draw down a black ship to\nthe fair salt sea, for her first voyage, and let them\nchoose fifty and two noble youths throughout the township,\nwho have been proved heretofore the best. And when ye have\nmade fast the oars upon the benches, step all a shore, and\nthereafter come to our house, and quickly fall to feasting;\nand I will make good provision for all. To the noble youths\nI give this commandment; but ye others, sceptred kings,\ncome to my fair dwelling, that we may entertain the\nstranger in the halls, and let no man make excuse.\nMoreover, bid hither the divine minstrel, Demodocus, for\nthe god hath given minstrelsy to him as to none other, to\nmake men glad in what way soever his spirit stirs him to\nsing.'\n\nHe spake and led the way, and the sceptred kings\naccompanied him, while the henchmen went for the divine\nminstrel. And chosen youths, fifty and two, departed at his\ncommand, to the shore of the unharvested sea. But after\nthey had gone down to the ship and to the sea, first of all\nthey drew the ship down to the deep water, and placed the\nmast and sails in the black ship, and fixed the oars in\nleathern loops, all orderly, and spread forth the white\nsails. And they moored her high out in the shore water, and\nthereafter went on their way to the great palace of the\nwise Alcinous. Now the galleries and the courts and the\nrooms were thronged with men that came to the gathering,\nfor there were many, young and old. Then Alcinous\nsacrificed twelve sheep among them, and eight boars with\nflashing tusks, and two oxen with trailing feet. These they\nflayed and made ready, and dressed a goodly feast.\n\nThen the henchman drew near, leading with him the beloved\nminstrel, whom the muse loved dearly, and she gave him both\ngood and evil; of his sight she reft him, but granted him\nsweet song. Then Pontonous, the henchman, set for him a\nhigh chair inlaid with silver, in the midst of the guests,\nleaning it against the tall pillar, and he hung the loud\nlyre on a pin, close above his head, and showed him how to\nlay his hands on it. And close by him he placed a basket,\nand a fair table, and a goblet of wine by his side, to\ndrink when his spirit bade him. So they stretched forth\ntheir hands upon the good cheer spread before them. But\nafter they had put from them the desire of meat and drink,\nthe Muse stirred the minstrel to sing the songs of famous\nmen, even that lay whereof the fame had then reached the\nwide heaven, namely, the quarrel between Odysseus and\nAchilles, son of Peleus; how once on a time they contended\nin fierce words at a rich festival of the gods, but\nAgamemnon, king of men, was inly glad when the noblest of\nthe Achaeans fell at variance. For so Phoebus Apollo in his\nsoothsaying had told him that it must be, in goodly Pytho,\nwhat time he crossed the threshold of stone, to seek to the\noracle. For in those days the first wave of woe was rolling\non Trojans and Danaans through the counsel of great Zeus.\n\nThis song it was that the famous minstrel sang; but\nOdysseus caught his great purple cloak with his stalwart\nhands, and drew it down over his head, and hid his comely\nface, for he was ashamed to shed tears beneath his brows in\npresence of the Phaeacians. Yea, and oft as the divine\nminstrel paused in his song, Odysseus would wipe away the\ntears, and draw the cloak from off his head, and take the\ntwo-handled goblet and pour forth before the gods. But\nwhensoever he began again, and the chiefs of the Phaeacians\nstirred him to sing, in delight at the lay, again would\nOdysseus cover up his head and make moan. Now none of all\nthe company marked him weeping, but Alcinous alone noted it\nand was ware thereof as he sat by him and heard him\ngroaning heavily. And presently he spake among the\nPhaeacians, masters of the oar:\n\n'Hearken, ye captains and counsellors of the Phaeacians,\nnow have our souls been satisfied with the good feast, and\nwith the lyre, which is the mate of the rich banquet. Let\nus go forth anon, and make trial of divers games, that the\nstranger may tell his friends, when home he returneth, how\ngreatly we excel all men in boxing, and wrestling, and\nleaping, and speed of foot.'\n\nHe spake, and led the way, and they went with him. And the\nhenchman hung the loud lyre on the pin, and took the hand\nof Demodocus, and let him forth from the hall, and guided\nhim by the same way, whereby those others, the chiefs of\nthe Phaeacians, had gone to gaze upon the games. So they\nwent on their way to the place of assembly, and with them a\ngreat company innumerable; and many a noble youth stood up\nto play. There rose Acroneus, and Ocyalus, and Elatreus,\nand Nauteus, and Prymneus, and Anchialus, and Eretmeus, and\nPonteus, and Proreus, Thoon, and Anabesineus, and\nAmphialus, son of Polyneus, son of Tekton, and likewise\nEuryalus, the peer of murderous Ares, the son of Naubolus,\nwho in face and form was goodliest of all the Phaeacians\nnext to noble Laodamas. And there stood up the three sons\nof noble Alcinous, Laodamas, and Halius, and god-like\nClytoneus. And behold, these all first tried the issue in\nthe foot race. From the very start they strained at utmost\nspeed: and all together they flew forward swiftly, raising\nthe dust along the plain. And noble Clytoneus was far the\nswiftest of them all in running, and by the length of the\nfurrow that mules cleave in a fallow field, {*} so far did\nhe shoot to the front, and came to the crowd by the lists,\nwhile those others were left behind. Then they made trial\nof strong wrestling, and here in turn Euryalus excelled all\nthe best. And in leaping Amphialus was far the foremost,\nand Elatreus in weight-throwing, and in boxing Laodamas,\nthe good son of Alcinous. Now when they had all taken their\npleasure in the games, Laodamas, son of Alcinous, spake\namong them:\n\n{* The distance here indicated seems to be that which the\nmule goes in ploughing, without pausing to take breath.}\n\n'Come, my friends, let us ask the stranger whether he is\nskilled or practised in any sport. Ill fashioned, at least,\nhe is not in his thighs and sinewy legs and hands withal,\nand his stalwart neck and mighty strength: yea and he lacks\nnot youth, but is crushed by many troubles. For I tell thee\nthere is nought else worse than the sea to confound a man,\nhow hardy soever he may be.'\n\nAnd Euryalus in turn made answer, and said: 'Laodamas,\nverily thou hast spoken this word in season. Go now thyself\nand challenge him, and declare thy saying.'\n\nNow when the good son of Alcinous heard this, he went and\nstood in the midst, and spake unto Odysseus: 'Come, do thou\ntoo, father and stranger, try thy skill in the sports, if\nhaply thou art practised in any; and thou art like to have\nknowledge of games, for there is no greater glory for a man\nwhile yet he lives, than that which he achieves by hand and\nfoot. Come, then, make essay, and cast away care from thy\nsoul: thy journey shall not now be long delayed; lo, thy\nship is even now drawn down to the sea, and the men of thy\ncompany are ready.'\n\nAnd Odysseus of many counsels answered him, saying;\n'Laodamas, wherefore do ye mock me, requiring this thing of\nme? Sorrow is far nearer my heart than sports, for much\nhave I endured and laboured sorely in time past, and now I\nsit in this your gathering, craving my return, and making\nmy prayer to the king and all the people.'\n\nAnd Euryalus answered, and rebuked him to his face: 'No\ntruly, stranger, nor do I think thee at all like one that\nis skilled in games, whereof there are many among men,\nrather art thou such an one as comes and goes in a benched\nship, a master of sailors that are merchantmen, one with a\nmemory for his freight, or that hath the charge of a cargo\nhomeward bound, and of greedily gotten gains; thou seemest\nnot a man of thy hands.'\n\nThen Odysseus of many counsels looked fiercely on him and\nsaid: 'Stranger, thou hast not spoken well; thou art like a\nman presumptuous. So true it is that the gods do not give\nevery gracious gift to all, neither shapeliness, nor\nwisdom, nor skilled speech. For one man is feebler than\nanother in presence, yet the god crowns his words with\nbeauty, and men behold him and rejoice, and his speech runs\nsurely on his way with a sweet modesty, and he shines forth\namong the gathering of his people, and as he passes through\nthe town men gaze on him as a god. Another again is like\nthe deathless gods for beauty, but his words have no crown\nof grace about them; even as thou art in comeliness\npre-eminent, nor could a god himself fashion thee for the\nbetter, but in wit thou art a weakling. Yea, thou hast\nstirred my spirit in my breast by speaking thus amiss. I am\nnot all unversed in sports, as thy words go, but methinks I\nwas among the foremost while as yet I trusted in my youth\nand my hands, but now am I holden in misery and pains: for\nI have endured much in passing through the wars of men and\nthe grievous waves of the sea. Yet even so, for all my\naffliction, I will essay the games, for thy word hath\nbitten to the quick, and thou hast roused me with thy\nsaying.'\n\nHe spake, and clad even as he was in his mantle leaped to\nhis feet, and caught up a weight larger than the rest, a\nhuge weight heavier far than those wherewith the Phaeacians\ncontended in casting. With one whirl he sent it from his\nstout hand, and the stone flew hurtling: and the\nPhaeacians, of the long oars, those mariners renowned,\ncrouched to earth beneath the rushing of the stone. Beyond\nall the marks it flew, so lightly it sped from his hand,\nand Athene in the fashion of a man marked the place, and\nspake and hailed him:\n\n'Yea, even a blind man, stranger, might discern that token\nif he groped for it, for it is in no wise lost among the\nthrong of the others, but is far the first; for this bout\nthen take heart: not one of the Phaeacians shall attain\nthereunto or overpass it.'\n\nSo spake she; and the steadfast goodly Odysseus rejoiced\nand was glad, for that he saw a true friend in the lists.\nThen with a lighter heart he spake amid the Phaeacians:\n\n'Now reach ye this throw, young men, if ye may; and soon,\nmethinks, will I cast another after it, as far or yet\nfurther. And whomsoever of the rest his heart and spirit\nstir thereto, hither let him come and try the issue with\nme, in boxing or in wrestling or even in the foot race, I\ncare not which, for ye have greatly angered me: let any of\nall the Phaeacians come save Laodamas alone, for he is mine\nhost: who would strive with one that entreated him kindly?\nWitless and worthless is the man, whoso challengeth his\nhost that receiveth him in a strange land, he doth but maim\nhis own estate. But for the rest, I refuse none and hold\nnone lightly, but I fain would know and prove them face to\nface. For I am no weakling in all sports, even in the feats\nof men. I know well how to handle the polished bow, and\never the first would I be to shoot and smite my man in the\npress of foes, even though many of my company stood by, and\nwere aiming at the enemy. Alone Philoctetes in the Trojan\nland surpassed me with the bow in our Achaean archery. But\nI avow myself far more excellent than all besides, of the\nmortals that are now upon the earth and live by bread. Yet\nwith the men of old time I would not match me, neither with\nHeracles nor with Eurytus of Oechalia, who contended even\nwith the deathless gods for the prize of archery. Wherefore\nthe great Eurytus perished all too soon, nor did old age\ncome on him in his halls, for Apollo slew him in his wrath,\nseeing that he challenged him to shoot a match. And with\nthe spear I can throw further than any other man can shoot\nan arrow. Only I doubt that in the foot race some of the\nPhaeacians may outstrip me, for I have been shamefully\nbroken in many waters, seeing that there was no continual\nsustenance on board; wherefore my knees are loosened.'\n\nSo spake he and all kept silence; and Alcinous alone\nanswered him, saying:\n\n'Stranger, forasmuch as these thy words are not ill-taken\nin our gathering, but thou wouldest fain show forth the\nvalour which keeps thee company, being angry that yonder\nman stood by thee in the lists, and taunted thee, in such\nsort as no mortal would speak lightly of thine excellence,\nwho had knowledge of sound words; nay now, mark my speech;\nso shalt thou have somewhat to tell another hero, when with\nthy wife and children thou suppest in thy halls, and\nrecallest our prowess, what deeds Zeus bestoweth even upon\nus from our fathers' days even until now. For we are no\nperfect boxers, nor wrestlers, but speedy runners, and the\nbest of seamen; and dear to us ever is the banquet, and the\nharp, and the dance, and changes of raiment, and the warm\nbath, and love, and sleep. Lo, now arise, ye dancers of the\nPhaeacians, the best in the land, and make sport, that so\nthe stranger may tell his friends, when he returneth home,\nhow far we surpass all men besides in seamanship, and speed\nof foot, and in the dance and song. And let one go quickly,\nand fetch for Demodocus the loud lyre which is lying\nsomewhere in our halls.'\n\nSo spake Alcinous the godlike, and the henchman rose to\nbear the hollow lyre from the king's palace. Then stood up\nnine chosen men in all, the judges of the people, who were\nwont to order all things in the lists aright. So they\nlevelled the place for the dance, and made a fair ring and\na wide. And the henchman drew near bearing the loud lyre to\nDemodocus, who gat him into the midst, and round him stood\nboys in their first bloom, skilled in the dance, and they\nsmote the good floor with their feet. And Odysseus gazed at\nthe twinklings of the feet, and marvelled in spirit.\n\nNow as the minstrel touched the lyre, he lifted up his\nvoice in sweet song, and he sang of the love of Ares and\nAphrodite, of the fair crown, how at the first they lay\ntogether in the house of Hephaestus privily; and Ares gave\nher many gifts, and dishonoured the marriage bed of the\nlord Hephaestus. And anon there came to him one to report\nthe thing, even Helios, that had seen them at their\npastime. Now when Hephaestus heard the bitter tidings, he\nwent his way to the forge, devising evil in the deep of his\nheart, and set the great anvil on the stithy, and wrought\nfetters that none might snap or loosen, that the lovers\nmight there unmoveably remain. Now when he had forged the\ncrafty net in his anger against Ares, he went on his way to\nthe chamber where his marriage bed was set out, and strewed\nhis snares all about the posts of the bed, and many too\nwere hung aloft from the main beam, subtle as spiders'\nwebs, so that none might see them, even of the blessed\ngods: so cunningly were they forged. Now after he had done\nwinding the snare about the bed, he made as though he would\ngo to Lemnos, that stablished castle, and this was far the\ndearest of all lands in his sight. But Ares of the golden\nrein kept no blind watch, what time he saw Hephaestus, the\nfamed craftsman, depart afar. So he went on his way to the\nhouse of renowned Hephaestus, eager for the love of crowned\nCytherea. Now she was but newly come from her sire, the\nmighty Cronion, and as it chanced had sat her down; and\nAres entered the house, and clasped her hand, and spake,\nand hailed her:\n\n'Come, my beloved, let us to bed, and take our pleasure of\nlove, for Hephaestus is no longer among his own people;\nmethinks he is already gone to Lemnos, to the Sintians, men\nof savage speech.'\n\nSo spake he, and a glad thing it seemed to her to lie with\nhim. So they twain went to the couch, and laid them to\nsleep, and around them clung the cunning bonds of skilled\nHephaestus, so that they could not move nor raise a limb.\nThen at the last they knew it, when there was no way to\nflee. Now the famous god of the strong arms drew near to\nthem, having turned him back ere he reached the land of\nLemnos. For Helios had kept watch, and told him all. So\nheavy at heart he went his way to his house, and stood at\nthe entering in of the gate, and wild rage gat hold of him,\nand he cried terribly, and shouted to all the gods:\n\n'Father Zeus, and ye other blessed gods, that live for\never, come hither, that ye may see a mirthful thing and a\ncruel, for that Aphrodite, daughter of Zeus, ever\ndishonours me by reason of my lameness, and sets her heart\non Ares the destroyer, because he is fair and straight of\nlimb, but as for me, feeble was I born. Howbeit, there is\nnone to blame but my father and mother,--would they had\nnever begotten me! But now shall ye see where these have\ngone up into my bed, and sleep together in love; and I am\ntroubled at the sight. Yet, methinks, they will not care to\nlie thus even for a little while longer, despite their\ngreat love. Soon will they have no desire to sleep\ntogether, but the snare and the bond shall hold them, till\nher sire give back to me the gifts of wooing, one and all,\nthose that I bestowed upon him for the hand of his\nshameless girl; for that his daughter is fair, but without\ndiscretion.'\n\nSo spake he; and lo, the gods gathered together to the\nhouse of the brazen floor. Poseidon came, the girdler of\nthe earth, and Hermes came, the bringer of luck, and prince\nApollo came, the archer. But the lady goddesses abode each\nwithin her house for shame. So the gods, the givers of good\nthings, stood in the porch: and laughter unquenchable arose\namong the blessed gods, as they beheld the sleight of\ncunning Hephaestus. And thus would one speak, looking to\nhis neighbour:\n\n'Ill deed, ill speed! The slow catcheth the swift! Lo, how\nHephaestus, slow as he is, hath overtaken Ares, albeit he\nis the swiftest of the gods that hold Olympus, by his craft\nhath he taken him despite his lameness; wherefore surely\nAres oweth the fine of the adulterer.' Thus they spake one\nto the other. But the lord Apollo, son of Zeus, spake to\nHermes:\n\n'Hermes, son of Zeus, messenger and giver of good things,\nwouldst thou be fain, aye, pressed by strong bonds though\nit might be, to lie on the couch by golden Aphrodite?'\n\nThen the messenger, the slayer of Argos, answered him: 'I\nwould that this might be, Apollo, my prince of archery! So\nmight thrice as many bonds innumerable encompass me about,\nand all ye gods be looking on and all the goddesses, yet\nwould I lie by golden Aphrodite.'\n\nSo spake he, and laughter rose among the deathless gods.\nHowbeit, Poseidon laughed not, but was instant with\nHephaestus, the renowned artificer, to loose the bonds of\nAres: and he uttered his voice, and spake to him winged\nwords:\n\n'Loose him, I pray thee, and I promise even as thou biddest\nme, that he shall himself pay all fair forfeit in the\npresence of the deathless gods.'\n\nThen the famous god of the strong arms answered him:\n'Require not this of me, Poseidon, girdler of the earth.\nEvil are evil folk's pledges to hold. How could I keep thee\nbound among the deathless gods, if Ares were to depart,\navoiding the debt and the bond?'\n\nThen Poseidon answered him, shaker of the earth:\n'Hephaestus, even if Ares avoid the debt and flee away, I\nmyself will pay thee all.'\n\nThen the famous god of the strong arms answered him: 'It\nmay not be that I should say thee nay, neither is it meet.'\n\nTherewith the mighty Hephaestus loosed the bonds, and the\ntwain, when they were freed from that strong bond, sprang\nup straightway, and departed, he to Thrace, but\nlaughter-loving Aphrodite went to Paphos of Cyprus, where\nis her precinct and fragrant altar. There the Graces bathed\nand anointed her with oil imperishable, such as is laid\nupon the everlasting gods. And they clad her in lovely\nraiment, a wonder to see.\n\nThis was the song the famous minstrel sang; and Odysseus\nlistened and was glad at heart, and likewise did the\nPhaeacians, of the long oars, those mariners renowned.\n\nThen Alcinous bade Halius and Laodamas dance alone, for\nnone ever contended with them. So when they had taken in\ntheir hands the goodly ball of purple hue, that cunning\nPolybus had wrought for them, the one would bend backwards,\nand throw it towards the shadowy clouds; and the other\nwould leap upward from the earth, and catch it lightly in\nhis turn, before his feet touched the ground. Now after\nthey had made trial of throwing the ball straight up, the\ntwain set to dance upon the bounteous earth, tossing the\nball from hand to hand, and the other youths stood by the\nlists and beat time, and a great din uprose.\n\nThen it was that goodly Odysseus spake unto Alcinous: 'My\nlord Alcinous, most notable among all the people, thou\ndidst boast thy dancers to be the best in the world, and\nlo, thy words are fulfilled; I wonder as I look on them.'\n\nSo spake he, and the mighty king Alcinous rejoiced and\nspake at once among the Phaeacians, masters of the oar:\n\n'Hearken ye, captains and counsellors of the Phaeacians,\nthis stranger seems to me a wise man enough. Come then, let\nus give him a stranger's gift, as is meet. Behold, there\nare twelve glorious princes who rule among this people and\nbear sway, and I myself am the thirteenth. Now each man\namong you bring a fresh robe and a doublet, and a talent of\nfine gold, and let us speedily carry all these gifts\ntogether, that the stranger may take them in his hands, and\ngo to supper with a glad heart. As for Euryalus, let him\nyield amends to the man himself, with soft speech and with\na gift, for his was no gentle saying.'\n\nSo spake he, and they all assented thereto, and would have\nit so. And each one sent forth his henchman to fetch his\ngift, and Euryalus answered the king and spake, saying:\n\n'My lord Alcinous, most notable among all the people, I\nwill make atonement to thy guest according to thy word. I\nwill give him a hanger all of bronze, with a silver hilt\nthereto, and a sheath of fresh-sawn ivory covers it about,\nand it shall be to him a thing of price.'\n\nTherewith he puts into his hands the hanger dight with\nsilver, and uttering his voice spake to him winged words:\n'Hail, stranger and father; and if aught grievous hath been\nspoken, may the storm-winds soon snatch and bear it away.\nBut may the gods grant thee to see thy wife and to come to\nthine own country, for all too long has thou endured\naffliction away from thy friends.'\n\nAnd Odysseus of many counsels answered him saying: 'Thou\ntoo, my friend, all hail; and may the gods vouchsafe thee\nhappiness, and mayst thou never miss this sword which thou\nhast given me, thou that with soft speech hast yielded me\namends.'\n\nHe spake and hung about his shoulders the silver-studded\nsword. And the sun sank, and the noble gifts were brought\nhim. Then the proud henchmen bare them to the palace of\nAlcinous, and the sons of noble Alcinous took the fair\ngifts, and set them by their reverend mother. And the\nmighty king Alcinous led the way, and they came in and sat\nthem down on the high seats. And the mighty Alcinous spake\nunto Arete:\n\n'Bring me hither, my lady, a choice coffer, the best thou\nhast, and thyself place therein a fresh robe and a doublet,\nand heat for our guest a cauldron on the fire, and warm\nwater, that after the bath the stranger may see all the\ngifts duly arrayed which the noble Phaeacians bare hither,\nand that he may have joy in the feast, and in hearing the\nsong of the minstrelsy. Also I will give him a beautiful\ngolden chalice of mine own, that he may be mindful of me\nall the days of his life when he poureth the drink-offering\nto Zeus and to the other gods.'\n\nSo spake he, and Arete bade her handmaids to set a great\ncauldron on the fire with what speed they might. And they\nset the cauldron for the filling of the bath on the blazing\nfire, and poured water therein, and took faggots and\nkindled them beneath. So the fire began to circle round the\nbelly of the cauldron, and the water waxed hot. Meanwhile\nArete brought forth for her guest the beautiful coffer from\nthe treasure chamber, and bestowed fair gifts therein,\nraiment and gold, which the Phaeacians gave him. And with\nher own hands she placed therein a robe and goodly doublet,\nand uttering her voice spake to him winged words:\n\n'Do thou now look to the lid, and quickly tie the knot,\nlest any man spoil thy goods by the way, when presently\nthou fallest on sweet sleep travelling in thy black ship.'\n\nNow when the steadfast goodly Odysseus heard this saying,\nforthwith he fixed on the lid, and quickly tied the curious\nknot, which the lady Circe on a time had taught him. Then\nstraightway the housewife bade him go to the bath and bathe\nhim; and he saw the warm water and was glad, for he was not\nwont to be so cared for, from the day that he left the\nhouse of fair-tressed Calypso, but all that while he had\ncomfort continually as a god.\n\nNow after the maids had bathed him and anointed him with\nolive oil, and had cast a fair mantle and a doublet upon\nhim, he stept forth from the bath, and went to be with the\nchiefs at their wine. And Nausicaa, dowered with beauty by\nthe gods, stood by the pillar of the well-builded roof, and\nmarvelled at Odysseus, beholding him before her eyes, and\nshe uttered her voice and spake to him winged words:\n\n'Farewell, stranger, and even in thine own country bethink\nthee of me upon a time, for that to me first thou owest the\nransom of life.'\n\nAnd Odysseus of many counsels answered her saying:\n'Nausicaa, daughter of great-hearted Alcinous, yea, may\nZeus, the thunderer, the lord of Here, grant me to reach my\nhome and see the day of my returning; so would I, even\nthere, do thee worship as to a god, all my days for\nevermore, for thou, lady, hast given me my life.'\n\nHe spake and sat him in the high seat by king Alcinous. And\nnow they were serving out the portions and mixing the wine.\nThen the henchmen drew nigh leading the sweet minstrel,\nDemodocus, that was had in honour of the people. So he set\nhim in the midst of the feasters, and made him lean against\na tall column. Then to the henchman spake Odysseus of many\ncounsels, for he had cut off a portion of the chine of a\nwhite-toothed boar, whereon yet more was left, with rich\nfat on either side:\n\n'Lo, henchman, take this mess, and hand it to Demodocus,\nthat he may eat, and I will bid him hail, despite my\nsorrow. For minstrels from all men on earth get their meed\nof honour and worship; inasmuch as the Muse teacheth them\nthe paths of song, and loveth the tribe of minstrels.'\n\nThus he spake, and the henchman bare the mess, and set it\nupon the knees of the lord Demodocus, and he took it, and\nwas glad at heart. Then they stretched forth their hands\nupon the good cheer set before them. Now after they had put\nfrom them the desire of meat and drink, then Odysseus of\nmany counsels spake to Demodocus, saying:\n\n'Demodocus, I praise thee far above all mortal men, whether\nit be the Muse, the daughter of Zeus, that taught thee, or\neven Apollo, for right duly dost thou chant the faring of\nthe Achaeans, even all that they wrought and suffered, and\nall their travail, as if, methinks, thou hadst been\npresent, or heard the tale from another. Come now, change\nthy strain, and sing of the fashioning of the horse of\nwood, which Epeius made by the aid of Athene, even the\nguileful thing, that goodly Odysseus led up into the\ncitadel, when he had laden it with the men who wasted\nIlios. If thou wilt indeed rehearse me this aright, so will\nI be thy witness among all men, how the god of his grace\nhath given thee the gift of wondrous song.'\n\nSo spake he, and the minstrel, being stirred by the god,\nbegan and showed forth his minstrelsy. He took up the tale\nwhere it tells how the Argives of the one part set fire to\ntheir huts, and went aboard their decked ships and sailed\naway, while those others, the fellowship of renowned\nOdysseus, were now seated in the assembly-place of the\nTrojans, all hidden in the horse, for the Trojans\nthemselves had dragged him to the citadel. So the horse\nstood there, while seated all around him the people spake\nmany things confusedly and three ways their counsel looked;\neither to cleave the hollow timber with the pitiless spear,\nor to drag it to the brow of the hill, and hurl it from the\nrocks, or to leave it as a mighty offering to appease the\ngods. And on this wise it was to be at the last. For the\ndoom was on them to perish when their city should have\nclosed upon the great horse of wood, wherein sat all the\nbravest of the Argives, bearing to the Trojans death and\ndestiny. And he sang how the sons of the Achaeans poured\nforth from the horse, and left the hollow lair, and sacked\nthe burg. And he sang how and where each man wasted the\ntown, and of Odysseus, how he went like Ares to the house\nof Deiphobus with godlike Menelaus. It was there, he said,\nthat Odysseus adventured the most grievous battle, and in\nthe end prevailed, by grace of great-hearted Athene.\n\nThis was the song that the famous minstrel sang. But the\nheart of Odysseus melted, and the tear wet his cheeks\nbeneath the eyelids. And as a woman throws herself wailing\nabout her dear lord, who hath fallen before his city and\nthe host, warding from his town and his children the\npitiless day; and she beholds him dying and drawing\ndifficult breath, and embracing his body wails aloud, while\nthe foemen behind smite her with spears on back and\nshoulders and lead her up into bondage, to bear labour and\ntrouble, and with the most pitiful grief her cheeks are\nwasted; even so pitifully fell the tears beneath the brows\nof Odysseus. Now none of all the company marked him\nweeping; but Alcinous alone noted it, and was ware thereof,\nas he sat nigh him and heard him groaning heavily. And\npresently he spake among the Phaeacians, masters of the\noar:\n\n'Hearken, ye captains and counsellors of the Phaeacians,\nand now let Demodocus hold his hand from the loud lyre, for\nthis song of his is nowise pleasing alike to all. From the\ntime that we began to sup, and that the divine minstrel was\nmoved to sing, ever since hath yonder stranger never ceased\nfrom woeful lamentation: sore grief, methinks, hath\nencompassed his heart. Nay, but let the minstrel cease,\nthat we may all alike make merry, hosts and guest, since it\nis far meeter so. For all these things are ready for the\nsake of the honourable stranger, even the convoy and the\nloving gifts which we give him out of our love. In a\nbrother's place stand the stranger and the suppliant, to\nhim whose wits have even a little range, wherefore do thou\ntoo hide not now with crafty purpose aught whereof I ask\nthee; it were more meet for thee to tell it out. Say, what\nis the name whereby they called thee at home, even thy\nfather and thy mother, and others thy townsmen and the\ndwellers round about? For there is none of all mankind\nnameless, neither the mean man nor yet the noble, from the\nfirst hour of his birth, but parents bestow a name on every\nman so soon as he is born. Tell me too of thy land, thy\ntownship, and thy city, that our ships may conceive of\ntheir course to bring thee thither. For the Phaeacians have\nno pilots nor any rudders after the manner of other ships,\nbut their barques themselves understand the thoughts and\nintents of men; they know the cities and fat fields of\nevery people, and most swiftly they traverse the gulf of\nthe salt sea, shrouded in mist and cloud, and never do they\ngo in fear of wreck or ruin. Howbeit I heard upon a time\nthis word thus spoken by my father Nausithous, who was wont\nto say that Poseidon was jealous of us for that we give\nsafe escort to all men. He said that the god would some day\nsmite a well-wrought ship of the Phaeacians as she came\nhome from a convoy over the misty deep, and would\novershadow our city with a great mountain. Thus that\nancient one would speak, and thus the god may bring it\nabout, or leave it undone, according to the good pleasure\nof his will. But come now, declare me this and plainly tell\nit all; whither wast thou borne wandering, and to what\nshores of men thou camest; tell me of the people and of\ntheir fair-lying cities, of those whoso are hard and wild\nand unjust, and of those likewise who are hospitable and of\na god-fearing mind. Declare, too, wherefore thou dost weep\nand mourn in spirit at the tale of the faring of the Argive\nDanaans and the lay of Ilios. All this the gods have\nfashioned, and have woven the skein of death for men, that\nthere might be a song in the ears even of the folk of\naftertime. Hadst thou even a kinsman by marriage that fell\nbefore Ilios, a true man, a daughter's husband or wife's\nfather, such as are nearest us after those of our own stock\nand blood? Or else, may be, some loving friend, a good man\nand true; for a friend with an understanding heart is no\nwhit worse than a brother.'\n\n\n\nBook IX\n\n  Odysseus relates, first, what befell him amongst the\n  Cicones at Ismarus; secondly, amongst the Lotophagi;\n  thirdly, how he was used by the Cyclops Polyphemus.\n\nAnd Odysseus of many counsels answered him saying: 'King\nAlcinous, most notable of all the people, verily it is a\ngood thing to list to a minstrel such as this one, like to\nthe gods in voice. Nay, as for me, I say that there is no\nmore gracious or perfect delight than when a whole people\nmakes merry, and the men sit orderly at feast in the halls\nand listen to the singer, and the tables by them are laden\nwith bread and flesh, and a wine-bearer drawing the wine\nserves it round and pours it into the cups. This seems to\nme well-nigh the fairest thing in the world. But now thy\nheart was inclined to ask of my grievous troubles, that I\nmay mourn for more exceeding sorrow. What then shall I tell\nof first, what last, for the gods of heaven have given me\nwoes in plenty? Now, first, will I tell my name, that ye\ntoo may know it, and that I, when I have escaped the\npitiless day, may yet be your host, though my home is in a\nfar country. I am ODYSSEUS, SON OF LAERTES, who am in men's\nminds for all manner of wiles, and my fame reaches unto\nheaven. And I dwell in clear-seen Ithaca, wherein is a\nmountain Neriton, with trembling forest leaves, standing\nmanifest to view, and many islands lie around, very near\none to the other, Dulichium and Same, and wooded Zacynthus.\nNow Ithaca lies low, furthest up the sea-line toward the\ndarkness, but those others face the dawning and the sun: a\nrugged isle, but a good nurse of noble youths; and for\nmyself I can see nought beside sweeter than a man's own\ncountry. Verily Calypso, the fair goddess, would fain have\nkept me with her in her hollow caves, longing to have me\nfor her lord; and likewise too, guileful Circe of Aia,\nwould have stayed me in her halls, longing to have me for\nher lord. But never did they prevail upon my heart within\nmy breast. So surely is there nought sweeter than a man's\nown country and his parents, even though he dwell far off\nin a rich home, in a strange land, away from them that\nbegat him. But come, let me tell thee too of the troubles\nof my journeying, which Zeus laid on me as I came from\nTroy.\n\n'The wind that bare me from Ilios brought me nigh to the\nCicones, even to Ismarus, whereupon I sacked their city and\nslew the people. And from out the city we took their wives\nand much substance, and divided them amongst us, that none\nthrough me might go lacking his proper share. Howbeit,\nthereafter I commanded that we should flee with a swift\nfoot, but my men in their great folly hearkened not. There\nwas much wine still a drinking, and still they slew many\nflocks of sheep by the seashore and kine with trailing feet\nand shambling gait. Meanwhile the Cicones went and raised a\ncry to other Cicones their neighbours, dwelling inland, who\nwere more in number than they and braver withal: skilled\nthey were to fight with men from chariots, and when need\nwas on foot. So they gathered in the early morning as thick\nas leaves and flowers that spring in their season--yea and\nin that hour an evil doom of Zeus stood by us, ill-fated\nmen, that so we might be sore afflicted. They set their\nbattle in array by the swift ships, and the hosts cast at\none another with their bronze-shod spears. So long as it\nwas morn and the sacred day waxed stronger, so long we\nabode their assault and beat them off, albeit they\noutnumbered us. But when the sun was wending to the time of\nthe loosing of cattle, then at last the Cicones drave in\nthe Achaeans and overcame them, and six of my\ngoodly-greaved company perished from each ship: but the\nremnant of us escaped death and destiny.\n\n'Thence we sailed onward stricken at heart, yet glad as men\nsaved from death, albeit we had lost our dear companions.\nNor did my curved ships move onward ere we had called\nthrice on each of those our hapless fellows, who died at\nthe hands of the Cicones on the plain. Now Zeus, gatherer\nof the clouds, aroused the North Wind against our ships\nwith a terrible tempest, and covered land and sea alike\nwith clouds, and down sped night from heaven. Thus the\nships were driven headlong, and their sails were torn to\nshreds by the might of the wind. So we lowered the sails\ninto the hold, in fear of death, but rowed the ships\nlandward apace. There for two nights and two days we lay\ncontinually, consuming our hearts with weariness and\nsorrow. But when the fair-tressed Dawn had at last brought\nthe full light of the third day, we set up the masts and\nhoisted the white sails and sat us down, while the wind and\nthe helmsman guided the ships. And now I should have come\nto mine own country all unhurt, but the wave and the stream\nof the sea and the North Wind swept me from my course as I\nwas doubling Malea, and drave me wandering past Cythera.\n\n'Thence for nine whole days was I borne by ruinous winds\nover the teeming deep; but on the tenth day we set foot on\nthe land of the lotus-eaters, who eat a flowery food. So we\nstepped ashore and drew water, and straightway my company\ntook their midday meal by the swift ships. Now when we had\ntasted meat and drink I sent forth certain of my company to\ngo and make search what manner of men they were who here\nlive upon the earth by bread, and I chose out two of my\nfellows, and sent a third with them as herald. Then\nstraightway they went and mixed with the men of the\nlotus-eaters, and so it was that the lotus-eaters devised\nnot death for our fellows, but gave them of the lotus to\ntaste. Now whosoever of them did eat the honey-sweet fruit\nof the lotus, had no more wish to bring tidings nor to come\nback, but there he chose to abide with the lotus-eating\nmen, ever feeding on the lotus, and forgetful of his\nhomeward way. Therefore I led them back to the ships\nweeping, and sore against their will, and dragged them\nbeneath the benches, and bound them in the hollow barques.\nBut I commanded the rest of my well-loved company to make\nspeed and go on board the swift ships, lest haply any\nshould eat of the lotus and be forgetful of returning.\nRight soon they embarked, and sat upon the benches, and\nsitting orderly they smote the grey sea water with their\noars.\n\n'Thence we sailed onward stricken at heart. And we came to\nthe land of the Cyclopes, a froward and a lawless folk, who\ntrusting to the deathless gods plant not aught with their\nhands, neither plough: but, behold, all these things spring\nfor them in plenty, unsown and untilled, wheat, and barley,\nand vines, which bear great clusters of the juice of the\ngrape, and the rain of Zeus gives them increase. These have\nneither gatherings for council nor oracles of law, but they\ndwell in hollow caves on the crests of the high hills, and\neach one utters the law to his children and his wives, and\nthey reck not one of another.\n\n'Now there is a waste isle stretching without the harbour\nof the land of the Cyclopes, neither nigh at hand nor yet\nafar off, a woodland isle, wherein are wild goats\nunnumbered, for no path of men scares them, nor do hunters\nresort thither who suffer hardships in the wood, as they\nrange the mountain crests. Moreover it is possessed neither\nby flocks nor by ploughed lands, but the soil lies unsown\nevermore and untilled, desolate of men, and feeds the\nbleating goats. For the Cyclopes have by them no ships with\nvermilion cheek, not yet are there shipwrights in the\nisland, who might fashion decked barques, which should\naccomplish all their desire, voyaging to the towns of men\n(as ofttimes men cross the sea to one another in ships),\nwho might likewise have made of their isle a goodly\nsettlement. Yea, it is in no wise a sorry land, but would\nbear all things in their season; for therein are soft water\nmeadows by the shores of the grey salt sea, and there the\nvines know no decay, and the land is level to plough;\nthence might they reap a crop exceeding deep in due season,\nfor verily there is fatness beneath the soil. Also there is\na fair haven, where is no need of moorings, either to cast\nanchor or to fasten hawsers, but men may run the ship on\nthe beach, and tarry until such time as the sailors are\nminded to be gone, and favourable breezes blow. Now at the\nhead of the harbour is a well of bright water issuing from\na cave, and round it are poplars growing. Thither we\nsailed, and some god guided us through the night, for it\nwas dark and there was no light to see, a mist lying deep\nabout the ships, nor did the moon show her light from\nheaven, but was shut in with clouds. No man then beheld\nthat island, neither saw we the long waves rolling to the\nbeach, till we had run our decked ships ashore. And when\nour ships were beached, we took down all their sails, and\nourselves too stept forth upon the strand of the sea, and\nthere we fell into sound sleep and waited for the bright\nDawn.\n\n'So soon as early Dawn shone forth, the rosy-fingered, in\nwonder at the island we roamed over the length thereof: and\nthe Nymphs, the daughters of Zeus, lord of the aegis,\nstarted the wild goats of the hills, that my company might\nhave wherewith to sup. Anon we took to us our curved bows\nfrom out the ships and long spears, and arrayed in three\nbands we began shooting at the goats; and the god soon gave\nus game in plenty. Now twelve ships bare me company, and to\neach ship fell nine goats for a portion, but for me alone\nthey set ten apart.\n\n'Thus we sat there the livelong day until the going down of\nthe sun, feasting on abundant flesh and on sweet wine. For\nthe red wine was not yet spent from out the ships, but\nsomewhat was yet therein, for we had each one drawn off\nlarge store thereof in jars, when we took the sacred\ncitadel of the Cicones. And we looked across to the land of\nthe Cyclopes, who dwell nigh, and to the smoke, and to the\nvoice of the men, and of the sheep and of the goats. And\nwhen the sun had sunk and darkness had come on, then we\nlaid us to rest upon the sea-beach. So soon as early Dawn\nshone forth, the rosy-fingered, then I called a gathering\nof my men, and spake among them all:\n\n'\"Abide here all the rest of you, my dear companions; but I\nwill go with mine own ship and my ship's company, and make\nproof of these men, what manner of folk they are, whether\nfroward, and wild, and unjust, or hospitable and of\ngod-fearing mind.\"\n\n'So I spake, and I climbed the ship's side, and bade my\ncompany themselves to mount, and to loose the hawsers. So\nthey soon embarked and sat upon the benches, and sitting\norderly smote the grey sea water with their oars. Now when\nwe had come to the land that lies hard by, we saw a cave on\nthe border near to the sea, lofty and roofed over with\nlaurels, and there many flocks of sheep and goats were used\nto rest. And about it a high outer court was built with\nstones, deep bedded, and with tall pines and oaks with\ntheir high crown of leaves. And a man was wont to sleep\ntherein, of monstrous size, who shepherded his flocks alone\nand afar, and was not conversant with others, but dwelt\napart in lawlessness of mind. Yea, for he was a monstrous\nthing and fashioned marvellously, nor was he like to any\nman that lives by bread, but like a wooded peak of the\ntowering hills, which stands out apart and alone from\nothers.\n\n'Then I commanded the rest of my well-loved company to\ntarry there by the ship, and to guard the ship, but I chose\nout twelve men, the best of my company, and sallied forth.\nNow I had with me a goat-skin of the dark wine and sweet\nwhich Maron, son of Euanthes, had given me, the priest of\nApollo, the god that watched over Ismarus. And he gave it,\nfor that we had protected him with his wife and child\nreverently; for he dwelt in a thick grove of Phoebus\nApollo. And he made me splendid gifts; he gave me seven\ntalents of gold well wrought, and he gave me a mixing bowl\nof pure silver, and furthermore wine which he drew off in\ntwelve jars in all, sweet wine unmingled, a draught divine;\nnor did any of his servants or of his handmaids in the\nhouse know thereof, but himself and his dear wife and one\nhousedame only. And as often as they drank that red wine\nhoney sweet, he would fill one cup and pour it into twenty\nmeasures of water, and a marvellous sweet smell went up\nfrom the mixing bowl: then truly it was no pleasure to\nrefrain.\n\n'With this wine I filled a great skin, and bare it with me,\nand corn too I put in a wallet, for my lordly spirit\nstraightway had a boding that a man would come to me, a\nstrange man, clothed in mighty strength, one that knew not\njudgment and justice. {*}\n\n{* Literally, knowing neither dooms, nor ordinances of\nlaw.}\n\n'Soon we came to the cave, but we found him not within; he\nwas shepherding his fat flocks in the pastures. So we went\ninto the cave, and gazed on all that was therein. The\nbaskets were well laden with cheeses, and the folds were\nthronged with lambs and kids; each kind was penned by\nitself, the firstlings apart, and the summer lambs apart,\napart too the younglings of the flock. Now all the vessels\nswam with whey, the milk-pails and the bowls, the\nwell-wrought vessels whereinto he milked. My company then\nspake and besought me first of all to take of the cheeses\nand to return, and afterwards to make haste and drive off\nthe kids and lambs to the swift ships from out the pens,\nand to sail over the salt sea water. Howbeit I hearkened\nnot (and far better would it have been), but waited to see\nthe giant himself, and whether he would give me gifts as a\nstranger's due. Yet was not his coming to be with joy to my\ncompany.\n\n'Then we kindled a fire, and made burnt-offering, and\nourselves likewise took of the cheeses, and did eat, and\nsat waiting for him within till he came back, shepherding\nhis flocks. And he bore a grievous weight of dry wood,\nagainst supper time. This log he cast down with a din\ninside the cave, and in fear we fled to the secret place of\nthe rock. As for him, he drave his fat flocks into the wide\ncavern, even all that he was wont to milk; but the males\nboth of the sheep and of the goats he left without in the\ndeep yard. Thereafter he lifted a huge doorstone and\nweighty, and set it in the mouth of the cave, such an one\nas two and twenty good four-wheeled wains could not raise\nfrom the ground, so mighty a sheer rock did he set against\nthe doorway. Then he sat down and milked the ewes and\nbleating goats, all orderly, and beneath each ewe he placed\nher young. And anon he curdled one half of the white milk,\nand massed it together, and stored it in wicker-baskets,\nand the other half he let stand in pails, that he might\nhave it to take and drink against supper time. Now when he\nhad done all his work busily, then he kindled the fire\nanew, and espied us, and made question:\n\n'\"Strangers, who are ye? Whence sail ye over the wet ways?\nOn some trading enterprise or at adventure do ye rove, even\nas sea-robbers over the brine, for at hazard of their own\nlives they wander, bringing bale to alien men.\"\n\n'So spake he, but as for us our heart within us was broken\nfor terror of the deep voice and his own monstrous shape;\nyet despite all I answered and spake unto him, saying:\n\n'\"Lo, we are Achaeans, driven wandering from Troy, by all\nmanner of winds over the great gulf of the sea; seeking our\nhomes we fare, but another path have we come, by other\nways: even such, methinks, was the will and the counsel of\nZeus. And we avow us to be the men of Agamemnon, son of\nAtreus, whose fame is even now the mightiest under heaven,\nso great a city did he sack, and destroyed many people; but\nas for us we have lighted here, and come to these thy\nknees, if perchance thou wilt give us a stranger's gift, or\nmake any present, as is the due of strangers. Nay, lord,\nhave regard to the gods, for we are thy suppliants; and\nZeus is the avenger of suppliants and sojourners, Zeus, the\ngod of the stranger, who fareth in the company of reverend\nstrangers.\"\n\n'So I spake, and anon he answered out of his pitiless\nheart: \"Thou art witless, my stranger, or thou hast come\nfrom afar, who biddest me either to fear or shun the gods.\nFor the Cyclopes pay no heed to Zeus, lord of the aegis,\nnor to the blessed gods, for verily we are better men than\nthey. Nor would I, to shun the enmity of Zeus, spare either\nthee or thy company, unless my spirit bade me. But tell me\nwhere thou didst stay thy well-wrought ship on thy coming?\nWas it perchance at the far end of the island, or hard by,\nthat I may know?\"\n\n'So he spake tempting me, but he cheated me not, who knew\nfull much, and I answered him again with words of guile:\n\n'\"As for my ship, Poseidon, the shaker of the earth, brake\nit to pieces, for he cast it upon the rocks at the border\nof your country, and brought it nigh the headland, and a\nwind bare it thither from the sea. But I with these my men\nescaped from utter doom.\"\n\n'So I spake, and out of his pitiless heart he answered me\nnot a word, but sprang up, and laid his hands upon my\nfellows, and clutching two together dashed them, as they\nhad been whelps, to the earth, and the brain flowed forth\nupon the ground, and the earth was wet. Then cut he them up\npiecemeal, and made ready his supper. So he ate even as a\nmountain-bred lion, and ceased not, devouring entrails and\nflesh and bones with their marrow. And we wept and raised\nour hands to Zeus, beholding the cruel deeds; and we were\nat our wits' end. And after the Cyclops had filled his huge\nmaw with human flesh and the milk he drank thereafter, he\nlay within the cave, stretched out among his sheep.\n\n'So I took counsel in my great heart, whether I should draw\nnear, and pluck my sharp sword from my thigh, and stab him\nin the breast, where the midriff holds the liver, feeling\nfor the place with my hand. But my second thought withheld\nme, for so should we too have perished even there with\nutter doom. For we should not have prevailed to roll away\nwith our hands from the lofty door the heavy stone which he\nset there. So for that time we made moan, awaiting the\nbright Dawn.\n\n'Now when early Dawn shone forth, the rosy-fingered, again\nhe kindled the fire and milked his goodly flocks all\norderly, and beneath each ewe set her lamb. Anon when he\nhad done all his work busily, again he seized yet other two\nmen and made ready his mid-day meal. And after the meal,\nlightly he moved away the great door-stone, and drave his\nfat flocks forth from the cave, and afterwards he set it in\nhis place again, as one might set the lid on a quiver. Then\nwith a loud whoop, the Cyclops turned his fat flocks\ntowards the hills; but I was left devising evil in the deep\nof my heart, if in any wise I might avenge me, and Athene\ngrant me renown.\n\n'And this was the counsel that showed best in my sight.\nThere lay by a sheep-fold a great club of the Cyclops, a\nclub of olive wood, yet green, which he had cut to carry\nwith him when it should be seasoned. Now when we saw it we\nlikened it in size to the mast of a black ship of twenty\noars, a wide merchant vessel that traverses the great sea\ngulf, so huge it was to view in bulk and length. I stood\nthereby and cut off from it a portion as it were a fathom's\nlength, and set it by my fellows, and bade them fine it\ndown, and they made it even, while I stood by and sharpened\nit to a point, and straightway I took it and hardened it in\nthe bright fire. Then I laid it well away, and hid it\nbeneath the dung, which was scattered in great heaps in the\ndepths of the cave. And I bade my company cast lots among\nthem, which of them should risk the adventure with me, and\nlift the bar and turn it about in his eye, when sweet sleep\ncame upon him. And the lot fell upon those four whom I\nmyself would have been fain to choose, and I appointed\nmyself to be the fifth among them. In the evening he came\nshepherding his flocks of goodly fleece, and presently he\ndrave his fat flocks into the cave each and all, nor left\nhe any without in the deep court-yard, whether through some\nforeboding, or perchance that the god so bade him do.\nThereafter he lifted the huge door-stone and set it in the\nmouth of the cave, and sitting down he milked the ewes and\nbleating goats, all orderly, and beneath each ewe he placed\nher young. Now when he had done all his work busily, again\nhe seized yet other two and made ready his supper. Then I\nstood by the Cyclops and spake to him, holding in my hands\nan ivy bowl of the dark wine:\n\n'\"Cyclops, take and drink wine after thy feast of man's\nmeat, that thou mayest know what manner of drink this was\nthat our ship held. And lo, I was bringing it thee as a\ndrink offering, if haply thou mayest take pity and send me\non my way home, but thy mad rage is past all sufferance. O\nhard of heart, how may another of the many men there be\ncome ever to thee again, seeing that thy deeds have been\nlawless?\"\n\n'So I spake, and he took the cup and drank it off, and\nfound great delight in drinking the sweet draught, and\nasked me for it yet a second time:\n\n'\"Give it me again of thy grace, and tell me thy name\nstraightway, that I may give thee a stranger's gift,\nwherein thou mayest be glad. Yea for the earth, the\ngrain-giver, bears for the Cyclopes the mighty clusters of\nthe juice of the grape, and the rain of Zeus gives them\nincrease, but this is a rill of very nectar and ambrosia.\"\n\n'So he spake, and again I handed him the dark wine. Thrice\nI bare and gave it him, and thrice in his folly he drank it\nto the lees. Now when the wine had got about the wits of\nthe Cyclops, then did I speak to him with soft words:\n\n'\"Cyclops, thou askest me my renowned name, and I will\ndeclare it unto thee, and do thou grant me a stranger's\ngift, as thou didst promise. Noman is my name, and Noman\nthey call me, my father and my mother and all my fellows.\"\n\n'So I spake, and straightway he answered me out of his\npitiless heart:\n\n'\"Noman will I eat last in the number of his fellows, and\nthe others before him: that shall be thy gift.\"\n\n'Therewith he sank backwards and fell with face upturned,\nand there he lay with his great neck bent round, and sleep,\nthat conquers all men, overcame him. And the wine and the\nfragments of men's flesh issued forth from his mouth, and\nhe vomited, being heavy with wine. Then I thrust in that\nstake under the deep ashes, until it should grow hot, and I\nspake to my companions comfortable words, lest any should\nhang back from me in fear. But when that bar of olive wood\nwas just about to catch fire in the flame, green though it\nwas, and began to glow terribly, even then I came nigh, and\ndrew it from the coals, and my fellows gathered about me,\nand some god breathed great courage into us. For their part\nthey seized the bar of olive wood, that was sharpened at\nthe point, and thrust it into his eye, while I from my\nplace aloft turned it about, as when a man bores a ship's\nbeam with a drill while his fellows below spin it with a\nstrap, which they hold at either end, and the auger runs\nround continually. Even so did we seize the fiery-pointed\nbrand and whirled it round in his eye, and the blood flowed\nabout the heated bar. And the breath of the flame singed\nhis eyelids and brows all about, as the ball of the eye\nburnt away, and the roots thereof crackled in the flame.\nAnd as when a smith dips an axe or adze in chill water with\na great hissing, when he would temper it--for hereby anon\ncomes the strength of iron--even so did his eye hiss round\nthe stake of olive. And he raised a great and terrible cry,\nthat the rock rang around, and we fled away in fear, while\nhe plucked forth from his eye the brand bedabbled in much\nblood. Then maddened with pain he cast it from him with his\nhands, and called with a loud voice on the Cyclopes, who\ndwelt about him in the caves along the windy heights. And\nthey heard the cry and flocked together from every side,\nand gathering round the cave asked him what ailed him:\n\n'\"What hath so distressed thee, Polyphemus, that thou\ncriest thus aloud through the immortal night, and makest us\nsleepless? Surely no mortal driveth off thy flocks against\nthy will: surely none slayeth thyself by force or craft?\"\n\n'And the strong Polyphemus spake to them again from out the\ncave: \"My friends, Noman is slaying me by guile, nor at all\nby force.\"\n\n'And they answered and spake winged words: \"If then no man\nis violently handling thee in thy solitude, it can in no\nwise be that thou shouldest escape the sickness sent by\nmighty Zeus. Nay, pray thou to thy father, the lord\nPoseidon.\"\n\n'On this wise they spake and departed; and my heart within\nme laughed to see how my name and cunning counsel had\nbeguiled them. But the Cyclops, groaning and travailing in\npain, groped with his hands, and lifted away the stone from\nthe door of the cave, and himself sat in the entry, with\narms outstretched to catch, if he might, any one that was\ngoing forth with his sheep, so witless, methinks, did he\nhope to find me. But I advised me how all might be for the\nvery best, if perchance I might find a way of escape from\ndeath for my companions and myself, and I wove all manner\nof craft and counsel, as a man will for his life, seeing\nthat great mischief was nigh. And this was the counsel that\nshowed best in my sight. The rams of the flock were well\nnurtured and thick of fleece, great and goodly, with wool\ndark as the violet. Quietly I lashed them together with\ntwisted withies, whereon the Cyclops slept, that lawless\nmonster. Three together I took: now the middle one of the\nthree would bear each a man, but the other twain went on\neither side, saving my fellows. Thus every three sheep bare\ntheir man. But as for me I laid hold of the back of a young\nram who was far the best and the goodliest of all the\nflock, and curled beneath his shaggy belly there I lay, and\nso clung face upward, grasping the wondrous fleece with a\nsteadfast heart. So for that time making moan we awaited\nthe bright Dawn.\n\n'So soon as early Dawn shone forth, the rosy-fingered, then\ndid the rams of the flock hasten forth to pasture, but the\newes bleated unmilked about the pens, for their udders were\nswollen to bursting. Then their lord, sore stricken with\npain, felt along the backs of all the sheep as they stood\nup before him, and guessed not in his folly how that my men\nwere bound beneath the breasts of his thick-fleeced flocks.\nLast of all the sheep came forth the ram, cumbered with his\nwool, and the weight of me and my cunning. And the strong\nPolyphemus laid his hands on him and spake to him saying:\n\n'\"Dear ram, wherefore, I pray thee, art thou the last of\nall the flocks to go forth from the cave, who of old wast\nnot wont to lag behind the sheep, but wert ever the\nforemost to pluck the tender blossom of the pasture, faring\nwith long strides, and wert still the first to come to the\nstreams of the rivers, and first did long to return to the\nhomestead in the evening? But now art thou the very last.\nSurely thou art sorrowing for the eye of thy lord, which an\nevil man blinded, with his accursed fellows, when he had\nsubdued my wits with wine, even Noman, whom I say hath not\nyet escaped destruction. Ah, if thou couldst feel as I, and\nbe endued with speech, to tell me where he shifts about to\nshun my wrath; then should he be smitten, and his brains be\ndashed against the floor here and there about the cave, and\nmy heart be lightened of the sorrows which Noman, nothing\nworth, hath brought me!\"\n\n'Therewith he sent the ram forth from him, and when we had\ngone but a little way from the cave and from the yard,\nfirst I loosed myself from under the ram and then I set my\nfellows free. And swiftly we drave on those stiff-shanked\nsheep, so rich in fat, and often turned to look about, till\nwe came to the ship. And a glad sight to our fellows were\nwe that had fled from death, but the others they would have\nbemoaned with tears; howbeit I suffered it not, but with\nfrowning brows forbade each man to weep. Rather I bade them\nto cast on board the many sheep with goodly fleece, and to\nsail over the salt sea water. So they embarked forthwith,\nand sate upon the benches, and sitting orderly smote the\ngrey sea water with their oars. But when I had not gone so\nfar, but that a man's shout might be heard, then I spoke\nunto the Cyclops taunting him:\n\n'\"Cyclops, so thou wert not to eat the company of a\nweakling by main might in thy hollow cave! Thine evil deeds\nwere very sure to find thee out, thou cruel man, who hadst\nno shame to eat thy guests within thy gates, wherefore Zeus\nhath requited thee, and the other gods.\"\n\n'So I spake, and he was mightily angered at heart, and he\nbrake off the peak of a great hill and threw it at us, and\nit fell in front of the dark-prowed ship. {*} And the sea\nheaved beneath the fall of the rock, and the backward flow\nof the wave bare the ship quickly to the dry land, with the\nwash from the deep sea, and drave it to the shore. Then I\ncaught up a long pole in my hands, and thrust the ship from\noff the land, and roused my company, and with a motion of\nthe head bade them dash in with their oars, that so we\nmight escape our evil plight. So they bent to their oars\nand rowed on. But when we had now made twice the distance\nover the brine, I would fain have spoken to the Cyclops,\nbut my company stayed me on every side with soft words,\nsaying:\n\n{* We have omitted line 483, as required by the sense. It\nis introduced here from line 540.}\n\n'\"Foolhardy that thou art, why wouldst thou rouse a wild\nman to wrath, who even now hath cast so mighty a throw\ntowards the deep and brought our ship back to land, yea and\nwe thought that we had perished {*} even there? If he had\nheard any of us utter sound or speech he would have crushed\nour heads and our ship timbers with a cast of a rugged\nstone, so mightily he hurls.\"\n\n{* Neither in this passage nor in B ii.171 nor in B xx.121\ndo we think that the aorist infinitive after a verb of\nsaying can bear a future sense. The aorist infinitive after\n[Greek] (ii.280, vii.76) is hardly an argument in its\nfavour; the infinitive there is in fact a noun in the\ngenitive case.}\n\n'So spake they, but they prevailed not on my lordly spirit,\nand I answered him again from out an angry heart:\n\n'\"Cyclops, if any one of mortal men shall ask thee of the\nunsightly blinding of thine eye, say that it was Odysseus\nthat blinded it, the waster of cities, son of Laertes,\nwhose dwelling is in Ithaca.\"\n\n'So I spake, and with a moan he answered me, saying:\n\n'\"Lo now, in very truth the ancient oracles have come upon\nme. There lived here a soothsayer, a noble man and a\nmighty, Telemus, son of Eurymus, who surpassed all men in\nsoothsaying, and waxed old as a seer among the Cyclopes. He\ntold me that all these things should come to pass in the\naftertime, even that I should lose my eyesight at the hand\nof Odysseus. But I ever looked for some tall and goodly man\nto come hither, clad in great might, but behold now one\nthat is a dwarf, a man of no worth and a weakling, hath\nblinded me of my eye after subduing me with wine. Nay come\nhither, Odysseus, that I may set by thee a stranger's\ncheer, and speed thy parting hence, that so the\nEarth-shaker may vouchsafe it thee, for his son am I, and\nhe avows him for my father. And he himself will heal me, if\nit be his will; and none other of the blessed gods or of\nmortal men.\"\n\n'Even so he spake, but I answered him, and said: \"Would god\nthat I were as sure to rob thee of soul and life, and send\nthee within the house of Hades, as I am that not even the\nEarth-shaker will heal thine eye!\"\n\n'So I spake, and then he prayed to the lord Poseidon\nstretching forth his hands to the starry heaven: \"Hear me,\nPoseidon, girdler of the earth, god of the dark hair, if\nindeed I be thine, and thou avowest thee my sire,--grant\nthat he may never come to his home, even Odysseus, waster\nof cities, the son of Laertes, whose dwelling is in Ithaca;\nyet if he is ordained to see his friends and come unto his\nwell-builded house, and his own country, late may he come\nin evil case, with the loss of all his company, in the ship\nof strangers, and find sorrows in his house.\"\n\n'So he spake in prayer, and the god of the dark locks heard\nhim. And once again he lifted a stone, far greater than the\nfirst, and with one swing he hurled it, and he put forth a\nmeasureless strength, and cast it but a little space behind\nthe dark-prowed ship, and all but struck the end of the\nrudder. And the sea heaved beneath the fall of the rock,\nbut the wave bare on the ship and drave it to the further\nshore.\n\n'But when he had now reached that island, where all our\nother decked ships abode together, and our company were\ngathered sorrowing, expecting us evermore, on our coming\nthither we ran our ship ashore upon the sand, and ourselves\ntoo stept forth upon the sea beach. Next we took forth the\nsheep of the Cyclops from out the hollow ship, and divided\nthem, that none through me might go lacking his proper\nshare. But the ram for me alone my goodly-greaved company\nchose out, in the dividing of the sheep, and on the shore I\noffered him up to Zeus, even to the son of Cronos, who\ndwells in the dark clouds, and is lord of all, and I burnt\nthe slices of the thighs. But he heeded not the sacrifice,\nbut was devising how my decked ships and my dear company\nmight perish utterly. Thus for that time we sat the\nlivelong day, until the going down of the sun, feasting on\nabundant flesh and sweet wine. And when the sun had sunk\nand darkness had come on, then we laid us to rest upon the\nsea beach. So soon as early Dawn shone forth, the\nrosy-fingered, I called to my company, and commanded them\nthat they should themselves climb the ship and loose the\nhawsers. So they soon embarked and sat upon the benches,\nand sitting orderly smote the grey sea water with their\noars.\n\n'Thence we sailed onward stricken at heart, yet glad as men\nsaved from death, albeit we had lost our dear companions.\n\n\n\nBook X\n\n  Odysseus, his entertainment by Aeolus, of whom he received\n  a fair wind for the present, and all the rest of the winds\n  tied up in a bag; which his men untying, flew out, and\n  carried him back to Aeolus, who refused to receive him. His\n  adventure at Laestrygonia with Antiphates, where of twelve\n  ships he lost eleven, men and all. How he went thence to\n  the Isle of Aea, where half of his men were turned by Circe\n  into swine, and how he went himself, and by the help of\n  Hermes recovered them and stayed with Circe a year.\n\n'Then we came to the isle Aeolian, where dwelt Aeolus, son\nof Hippotas, dear too the deathless gods, in a floating\nisland, and all about it is a wall of bronze unbroken, and\nthe cliff runs up sheer from the sea. His twelve children\nto abide there in his halls, six daughters and six lusty\nsons; and, behold, he gave his daughters to his sons to\nwife. And they feast evermore by their dear father and\ntheir kind mother, and dainties innumerable lie ready to\ntheir hands. And the house is full of the savour of\nfeasting, and the noise thereof rings round, yea in the\ncourtyard, by day, and in the night they sleep each one by\nhis chaste wife in coverlets and on jointed bedsteads. So\nthen we came to their city and their goodly dwelling, and\nthe king entreated me kindly for a whole month, and sought\nout each thing, Ilios and the ships of the Argives, and the\nreturn of the Achaeans. So I told him all the tale in order\nduly. But when I in turn took the word and asked of my\njourney, and bade him send me on my way, he too denied me\nnot, but furnished an escort. He gave me a wallet, made of\nthe hide of an ox of nine seasons old, which he let flay,\nand therein he bound the ways of all the noisy winds; for\nhim the son of Cronos made keeper of the winds, either to\nlull or to rouse what blasts he will. And he made it fast\nin the hold of the ship with a shining silver thong, that\nnot the faintest breath might escape. Then he sent forth\nthe blast of the West Wind to blow for me, to bear our\nships and ourselves upon our way; but this he was never to\nbring to pass, for we were undone through our own\nheedlessness.\n\n'For nine whole days we sailed by night and day\ncontinually, and now on the tenth day my native land came\nin sight, and already we were so near that we beheld the\nfolk tending the beacon fires. Then over me there came\nsweet slumber in my weariness, for all the time I was\nholding the sheet, nor gave it to any of my company, that\nso we might come quicker to our own country. Meanwhile my\ncompany held converse together, and said that I was\nbringing home for myself gold and silver, gifts from Aeolus\nthe high-hearted son of Hippotas. And thus would they speak\nlooking each man to his neighbour:\n\n'\"Lo now, how beloved he is and highly esteemed among all\nmen, to the city and land of whomsoever he may come. Many\nare the goodly treasures he taketh with him out of the\nspoil from Troy, while we who have fulfilled like\njourneying with him return homeward bringing with us but\nempty hands. And now Aeolus hath given unto him these\nthings freely in his love. Nay come, let us quickly see\nwhat they are, even what wealth of gold and silver is in\nthe wallet.\"\n\n'So they spake, and the evil counsel of my company\nprevailed. They loosed the wallet, and all the winds brake\nforth. And the violent blast seized my men, and bare them\ntowards the high seas weeping, away from their own country;\nbut as for me, I awoke and communed with my great heart,\nwhether I should cast myself from the ship and perish in\nthe deep, or endure in silence and abide yet among the\nliving. Howbeit I hardened my heart to endure, and muffling\nmy head I lay still in the ship. But the vessels were\ndriven by the evil storm-wind back to the isle Aeolian, and\nmy company made moan.\n\n'There we stepped ashore and drew water, and my company\npresently took their midday meal by the swift ships. Now\nwhen we had tasted bread and wine, I took with me a herald\nand one of my company, and went to the famous dwelling of\nAeolus: and I found him feasting with his wife and\nchildren. So we went in and sat by the pillars of the door\non the threshold, and they all marvelled and asked us:\n\n'\"How hast thou come hither, Odysseus? What evil god\nassailed thee? Surely we sent thee on thy way with all\ndiligence, that thou mightest get thee to thine own country\nand thy home, and whithersoever thou wouldest.\"\n\n'Even so they said, but I spake among them heavy at heart:\n\"My evil company hath been my bane, and sleep thereto\nremorseless. Come, my friends, do ye heal the harm, for\nyours is the power.\"\n\n'So I spake, beseeching them in soft words, but they held\ntheir peace. And the father answered, saying: \"Get thee\nforth from the island straightway, thou that art the most\nreprobate of living men. Far be it from me to help or to\nfurther that man whom the blessed gods abhor! Get thee\nforth, for lo, thy coming marks thee hated by the deathless\ngods.\"\n\n'Therewith he sent me forth from the house making heavy\nmoan. Thence we sailed onwards stricken at heart. And the\nspirit of the men was spent beneath the grievous rowing by\nreason of our vain endeavour, for there was no more any\nsign of a wafting wind. So for the space of six days we\nsailed by night and day continually, and on the seventh we\ncame to the steep stronghold of Lamos, Telepylos of the\nLaestrygons, where herdsman hails herdsman as he drives in\nhis flock, and the other who drives forth answers the call.\nThere might a sleepless man have earned a double wage, the\none as neat-herd, the other shepherding white flocks: so\nnear are the outgoings of the night and of the day.\nThither when he had come to the fair haven, whereabout on\nboth sides goes one steep cliff unbroken and jutting\nheadlands over against each other stretch forth at the\nmouth of the harbour, and strait is the entrance; thereinto\nall the others steered their curved ships. Now the vessels\nwere bound within the hollow harbour each hard by other,\nfor no wave ever swelled within it, great or small, but\nthere was a bright calm all around. But I alone moored my\ndark ship without the harbour, at the uttermost point\nthereof, and made fast the hawser to a rock. And I went up\na craggy hill, a place of out-look, and stood thereon:\nthence there was no sign of the labour of men or oxen, only\nwe saw the smoke curling upward from the land. Then I sent\nforth certain of my company to go and search out what\nmanner of men they were who here live upon the earth by\nbread, choosing out two of my company and sending a third\nwith them as herald. Now when they had gone ashore, they\nwent along a level road whereby wains were wont to draw\ndown wood from the high hills to the town. And without the\ntown they fell in with a damsel drawing water, the noble\ndaughter of Laestrygonian Antiphates. She had come down to\nthe clear-flowing spring Artacia, for thence it was custom\nto draw water to the town. So they stood by her and spake\nunto her, and asked who was king of that land, and who they\nwere he ruled over. Then at once she showed them the\nhigh-roofed hall of her father. Now when they had entered\nthe renowned house, they found his wife therein: she was\nhuge of bulk as a mountain peak and was loathly in their\nsight. Straightway she called the renowned Antiphates, her\nlord, from the assembly-place, and he contrived a pitiful\ndestruction for my men. Forthwith he clutched up one of my\ncompany and made ready his midday meal, but the other twain\nsprang up and came in flight to the ships. Then he raised\nthe war cry through the town, and the valiant Laestrygons\nat the sound thereof, flocked together from every side, a\nhost past number, not like men but like the Giants. They\ncast at us from the cliffs with great rocks, each of them a\nman's burden, and anon there arose from the fleet an evil\ndin of men dying and ships shattered withal. And like folk\nspearing fishes they bare home their hideous meal. While as\nyet they were slaying my friends within the deep harbour, I\ndrew my sharp sword from my thigh, and with it cut the\nhawsers of my dark-prowed ship. Quickly then I called to my\ncompany, and bade them dash in with the oars, that we might\nclean escape this evil plight. And all with one accord they\ntossed the sea water with the oar-blade, in dread of death,\nand to my delight my barque flew forth to the high seas\naway from the beetling rocks, but those other ships were\nlost there, one and all.\n\n'Thence we sailed onward stricken at heart, yet glad as men\nsaved from death, albeit we had lost our dear companions.\nAnd we came to the isle Aeaean, where dwelt Circe of the\nbraided tresses, an awful goddess of mortal speech, own\nsister to the wizard Aeetes. Both were begotten of Helios,\nwho gives light to all men, and their mother was Perse,\ndaughter of Oceanus. There on the shore we put in with our\nship into the sheltering haven silently, and some god was\nour guide. Then we stept ashore, and for two days and two\nnights lay there, consuming our own hearts for weariness\nand pain. But when now the fair-tressed Dawn had brought\nthe full light of the third day, then did I seize my spear\nand my sharp sword, and quickly departing from the ship I\nwent up unto a place of wide prospect, if haply I might see\nany sign of the labour of men and hear the sound of their\nspeech. So I went up a craggy hill, a place of out-look,\nand I saw the smoke rising from the broad-wayed earth in\nthe halls of Circe, through the thick coppice and the\nwoodland. Then I mused in my mind and heart whether I\nshould go and make discovery, for that I had seen the smoke\nand flame. And as I thought thereon this seemed to me the\nbetter counsel, to go first to the swift ship and to the\nsea-banks, and give my company their midday meal, and then\nsend them to make search. But as I came and drew nigh to\nthe curved ship, some god even then took pity on me in my\nloneliness, and sent a tall antlered stag across my very\npath. He was coming down from his pasture in the woodland\nto the river to drink, for verily the might of the sun was\nsore upon him. And as he came up from out of the stream, I\nsmote him on the spine in the middle of the back, and the\nbrazen shaft went clean through him, and with a moan he\nfell in the dust, and his life passed from him. Then I set\nmy foot on him and drew forth the brazen shaft from the\nwound, and laid it hard by upon the ground and let it lie.\nNext I broke withies and willow twigs, and wove me a rope a\nfathom in length, well twisted from end to end, and bound\ntogether the feet of the huge beast, and went to the black\nship bearing him across my neck, and leaning on a spear,\nfor it was in no wise possible to carry him on my shoulder\nwith the one hand, for he was a mighty quarry. And I threw\nhim down before the ship and roused my company with soft\nwords, standing by each man in turn:\n\n'\"Friends, for all our sorrows we shall not yet a while go\ndown to the house of Hades, ere the coming of the day of\ndestiny; go to then, while as yet there is meat and drink\nin the swift ship, let us take thought thereof, that we be\nnot famished for hunger.\"\n\n'Even so I spake, and they speedily hearkened to my words.\nThey unmuffled their heads, and there on the shore of the\nunharvested sea gazed at the stag, for he was a mighty\nquarry. But after they had delighted their eyes with the\nsight of him, they washed their hands and got ready the\nglorious feast. So for that time we sat the livelong day\ntill the going down of the sun, feasting on abundant flesh\nand sweet wine. But when the sun sank and darkness had come\non, then we laid us to rest upon the sea beach. So soon as\nearly Dawn shone forth, the rosy-fingered, I called a\ngathering of my men and spake in the ears of them all:\n\n'\"Hear my works, my fellows, despite your evil case. My\nfriends, lo, now we know not where is the place of darkness\nor of dawning, nor where the Sun, that gives light to men,\ngoes beneath the earth, nor where he rises; therefore let\nus advise us speedily if any counsel yet may be: as for me,\nI deem there is none. For I went up a craggy hill, a place\nof out-look, and saw the island crowned about with the\ncircle of the endless sea, the isle itself lying low; and\nin the midst thereof mine eyes beheld the smoke through the\nthick coppice and the woodland.\"\n\n'Even so I spake, but their spirit within them was broken,\nas they remembered the deeds of Antiphates the\nLaestrygonian, and all the evil violence of the haughty\nCyclops, the man-eater. So they wept aloud shedding big\ntears. Howbeit no avail came of their weeping.\n\n'Then I numbered my goodly-greaved company in two bands,\nand appointed a leader for each, and I myself took the\ncommand of the one part, and godlike Eurylochus of the\nother. And anon we shook the lots in a brazen-fitted\nhelmet, and out leapt the lot of proud Eurylochus. So he\nwent on his way, and with him two and twenty of my\nfellowship all weeping; and we were left behind making\nlament. In the forest glades they found the halls of Circe\nbuilded, of polished stone, in a place with wide prospect.\nAnd all around the palace mountain-bred wolves and lions\nwere roaming, whom she herself had bewitched with evil\ndrugs that she gave them. Yet the beasts did not set on my\nmen, but lo, they ramped about them and fawned on them,\nwagging their long tails. And as when dogs fawn about their\nlord when he comes from the feast, for he always brings\nthem the fragments that soothe their mood, even so the\nstrong-clawed wolves and the lions fawned around them; but\nthey were affrighted when they saw the strange and terrible\ncreatures. So they stood at the outer gate of the\nfair-tressed goddess, and within they heard Circe singing\nin a sweet voice, as she fared to and fro before the great\nweb imperishable, such as is the handiwork of goddesses,\nfine of woof and full of grace and splendour. Then Polites,\na leader of men, the dearest to me and the trustiest of all\nmy company, first spake to them:\n\n'\"Friends, forasmuch as there is one within that fares to\nand fro before a mighty web singing a sweet song, so that\nall the floor of the hall makes echo, a goddess she is or a\nwoman; come quickly and cry aloud to her.\"\n\n'He spake the word and they cried aloud and called to her.\nAnd straightway she came forth and opened the shining doors\nand bade them in, and all went with her in their\nheedlessness. But Eurylochus tarried behind, for he guessed\nthat there was some treason. So she led them in and set\nthem upon chairs and high seats, and made them a mess of\ncheese and barley-meal and yellow honey with Pramnian wine,\nand mixed harmful drugs with the food to make them utterly\nforget their own country. Now when she had given them the\ncup and they had drunk it off, presently she smote them\nwith a wand, and in the styes of the swine she penned them.\nSo they had the head and voice, the bristles and the shape\nof swine, but their mind abode even as of old. Thus were\nthey penned there weeping, and Circe flung them acorns and\nmast and fruit of the cornel tree to eat, whereon wallowing\nswine do always batten.\n\n'Now Eurylochus came back to the swift black ship to bring\ntidings of his fellows, and of their unseemly doom. Not a\nword could he utter, for all his desire, so deeply smitten\nwas he to the heart with grief, and his eyes were filled\nwith tears and his soul was fain of lamentation. But when\nwe all had pressed him with our questions in amazement,\neven then he told the fate of the remnant of our company.\n\n'\"We went, as thou didst command, through the coppice,\nnoble Odysseus: we found within the forest glades the fair\nhalls, builded of polished stone, in a place with wide\nprospect. And there was one that fared before a mighty web\nand sang a clear song, a goddess she was or a woman, and\nthey cried aloud and called to her. And straightway she\ncame forth, and opened the shining doors and bade them in,\nand they all went with her in their heedlessness. But I\ntarried behind, for I guessed that there was some treason.\nThen they vanished away one and all, nor did any of them\nappear again, though I sat long time watching.\"\n\n'So spake he, whereon I cast about my shoulder my\nsilver-studded sword, a great blade of bronze, and slung my\nbow about me and bade him lead me again by the way that he\ncame. But he caught me with both hands, and by my knees he\nbesought me, and bewailing him spake to me winged words:\n\n'\"Lead me not thither against my will, oh fosterling of\nZeus, but leave me here! For well I know thou shalt thyself\nreturn no more, nor bring any one of all thy fellowship;\nnay, let us flee the swifter with those that be here, for\neven yet may we escape the evil day.\"\n\n'On this wise he spake, but I answered him, saying:\n\"Eurylochus, abide for thy part here in this place, eating\nand drinking by the black hollow ship: but I will go forth,\nfor a strong constraint is laid on me.\"\n\n'With that I went up from the ship and the sea-shore. But\nlo, when in my faring through the sacred glades I was now\ndrawing near to the great hall of the enchantress Circe,\nthen did Hermes, of the golden wand, meet me as I\napproached the house, in the likeness of a young man with\nthe first down on his lip, the time when youth is most\ngracious. So he clasped my hand and spake and hailed me:\n\n'\"Ah, hapless man, whither away again, all alone through\nthe wolds, thou that knowest not this country? And thy\ncompany yonder in the hall of Circe are penned in the guise\nof swine, in their deep lairs abiding. Is it in hope to\nfree them that thou art come hither? Nay, methinks, thou\nthyself shalt never return but remain there with the\nothers. Come then, I will redeem thee from thy distress,\nand bring deliverance. Lo, take this herb of virtue, and go\nto the dwelling of Circe, that it may keep from thy head\nthe evil day. And I will tell thee all the magic sleight of\nCirce. She will mix thee a potion and cast drugs into the\nmess; but not even so shall she be able to enchant thee; so\nhelpful is this charmed herb that I shall give thee, and I\nwill tell thee all. When it shall be that Circe smites thee\nwith her long wand, even then draw thou thy sharp sword\nfrom thy thigh, and spring on her, as one eager to slay\nher. And she will shrink away and be instant with thee to\nlie with her. Thenceforth disdain not thou the bed of the\ngoddess, that she may deliver thy company and kindly\nentertain thee. But command her to swear a mighty oath by\nthe blessed gods, that she will plan nought else of\nmischief to thine own hurt, lest she make thee a dastard\nand unmanned, when she hath thee naked.\"\n\n'Therewith the slayer of Argos gave me the plant that he\nhad plucked from the ground, and he showed me the growth\nthereof. It was black at the root, but the flower was like\nto milk. Moly the gods call it, but it is hard for mortal\nmen to dig; howbeit with the gods all things are possible.\n\n'Then Hermes departed toward high Olympus, up through the\nwoodland isle, but as for me I held on my way to the house\nof Circe, and my heart was darkly troubled as I went. So I\nhalted in the portals of the fair-tressed goddess; there I\nstood and called aloud and the goddess heard my voice, who\npresently came forth and opened the shining doors and bade\nme in, and I went with her heavy at heart. So she led me in\nand set me on a chair with studs of silver, a goodly carven\nchair, and beneath was a footstool for the feet. And she\nmade me a potion in a golden cup, that I might drink, and\nshe also put a charm therein, in the evil counsel of her\nheart.\n\n'Now when she had given it and I had drunk it off and was\nnot bewitched, she smote me with her wand and spake and\nhailed me:\n\n'\"Go thy way now to the stye, couch thee there with the\nrest of thy company.\"\n\n'So spake she, but I drew my sharp sword from my thigh and\nsprang upon Circe, as one eager to slay her. But with a\ngreat cry she slipped under, and clasped my knees, and\nbewailing herself spake to me winged words:\n\n'\"Who art thou of the sons of men, and whence? Where is thy\ncity? Where are they that begat thee? I marvel to see how\nthou hast drunk of this charm, and wast nowise subdued.\nNay, for there lives no man else that is proof against this\ncharm, whoso hath drunk thereof, and once it hath passed\nhis lips. But thou hast, methinks, a mind within thee that\nmay not be enchanted. Verily thou art Odysseus, ready at\nneed, whom he of the golden wand, the slayer of Argos, full\noften told me was to come hither, on his way from Troy with\nhis swift black ship. Nay come, put thy sword into the\nsheath, and thereafter let us go up into my bed, that\nmeeting in love and sleep we may trust each the other.\"\n\n'So spake she, but I answered her, saying: \"Nay, Circe, how\ncanst thou bid me be gentle to thee, who hast turned my\ncompany into swine within thy halls, and holding me here\nwith a guileful heart requirest me to pass within thy\nchamber and go up into thy bed, that so thou mayest make me\na dastard and unmanned when thou hast me naked? Nay, never\nwill I consent to go up into thy bed, except thou wilt\ndeign, goddess, to swear a mighty oath, that thou wilt plan\nnought else of mischief to mine own hurt.\"\n\n'So I spake, and she straightway swore the oath not to harm\nme, as I bade her. But when she had sworn and had done that\noath, then at last I went up into the beautiful bed of\nCirce.\n\n'Now all this while her handmaids busied them in the halls,\nfour maidens that are her serving women in the house. They\nare born of the wells and of the woods and of the holy\nrivers, that flow forward into the salt sea. Of these one\ncast upon the chairs goodly coverlets of purple above, and\nspread a linen cloth thereunder. And lo, another drew up\nsilver tables to the chairs, and thereon set for them\ngolden baskets. And a third mixed sweet honey-hearted wine\nin a silver bowl, and set out cups of gold. And a fourth\nbare water, and kindled a great fire beneath the mighty\ncauldron. So the water waxed warm; but when it boiled in\nthe bright brazen vessel, she set me in a bath and bathed\nme with water from out a great cauldron, pouring it over\nhead and shoulders, when she had mixed it to a pleasant\nwarmth, till from my limbs she took away the consuming\nweariness. Now after she had bathed me and anointed me well\nwith olive oil, and cast about me a fair mantle and a\ndoublet, she led me into the halls and set me on a chair\nwith studs of silver, a goodly carven chair, and beneath\nwas a footstool for the feet. And a handmaid bare water for\nthe hands in a goodly golden ewer, and poured it forth over\na silver basin to wash withal; and to my side she drew a\npolished table, and a grave dame bare wheaten bread and set\nit by me, and laid on the board many dainties, giving\nfreely of such things as she had by her. And she bade me\neat, but my soul found no pleasure therein. I sat with\nother thoughts, and my heart had a boding of ill.\n\n'Now when Circe saw that I sat thus, and that I put not\nforth my hands to the meat, and that I was mightily\nafflicted, she drew near to me and spake to me winged\nwords:\n\n'\"Wherefore thus, Odysseus, dost thou sit there like a\nspeechless man, consuming thine own soul, and dost not\ntouch meat nor drink? Dost thou indeed deem there is some\nfurther guile? Nay, thou hast no cause to fear, for already\nI have sworn thee a strong oath not to harm thee.\"\n\n'So spake she, but I answered her, saying: \"Oh, Circe, what\nrighteous man would have the heart to taste meat and drink\nere he had redeemed his company, and beheld them face to\nface? But if in good faith thou biddest me eat and drink,\nthen let them go free, that mine eyes may behold my dear\ncompanions.\"\n\n'So I spake, and Circe passed out through the hall with the\nwand in her hand, and opened the doors of the stye, and\ndrave them forth in the shape of swine of nine seasons old.\nThere they stood before her, and she went through their\nmidst, and anointed each one of them with another charm.\nAnd lo, from their limbs the bristles dropped away,\nwherewith the venom had erewhile clothed them, that lady\nCirce gave them. And they became men again, younger than\nbefore they were, and goodlier far, and taller to behold.\nAnd they all knew me again and each one took my hands, and\nwistful was the lament that sank into their souls, and the\nroof around rang wondrously. And even the goddess herself\nwas moved with compassion.\n\n'Then standing nigh me the fair goddess spake unto me: \"Son\nof Laertes, of the seed of Zeus, Odysseus of many devices,\ndepart now to thy swift ship and the sea-banks. And first\nof all, draw ye up the ship ashore, and bestow the goods in\nthe caves and all the gear. And thyself return again, and\nbring with thee thy dear companions.\"\n\n'So spake she, and my lordly spirit consented thereto. So I\nwent on my way to the swift ship and the sea-banks, and\nthere I found my dear company on the swift ship lamenting\npiteously, shedding big tears. And as when calves of the\nhomestead gather round the droves of kine that have\nreturned to the yard, when they have had their fill of\npasture, and all with one accord frisk before them, and the\nfolds may no more contain them, but with a ceaseless lowing\nthey skip about their dams, so flocked they all about me\nweeping, when their eyes beheld me. Yea, and to their\nspirit it was as though they had got to their dear country,\nand the very city of rugged Ithaca, where they were born\nand reared.\n\n'Then making lament they spake to me winged words: \"O\nfosterling of Zeus, we were none otherwise glad at thy\nreturning, than if we had come to Ithaca, our own country.\nNay come, of our other companions tell us the tale of their\nruin.\"\n\n'So spake they, but I answered them with soft words:\n\"Behold, let us first of all draw up the ship ashore, and\nbestow our goods in the caves and all our gear. And do ye\nbestir you, one and all, to go with me, that ye may see\nyour fellows in the sacred dwelling of Circe, eating and\ndrinking, for they have continual store.\"\n\n'So spake I, and at once they hearkened to my words, but\nEurylochus alone would have holden all my companions, and\nuttering his voice he spake to them winged words:\n\n'\"Wretched men that we are! whither are we going? Why are\nyour hearts so set on sorrow that ye should go down to the\nhall of Circe, who will surely change us all to swine, or\nwolves, or lions, to guard her great house perforce,\naccording to the deeds that the Cyclops wrought, when\ncertain of our company went to his inmost fold, and with\nthem went Odysseus, ever hardy, for through the blindness\nof his heart did they too perish?\"\n\n'So spake he, but I mused in my heart whether to draw my\nlong hanger from my stout thigh, and therewith smite off\nhis head and bring it to the dust, albeit he was very near\nof kin to me; but the men of my company stayed me on every\nside with soothing words:\n\n'\"Prince of the seed of Zeus, as for this man, we will\nsuffer him, if thou wilt have it so, to abide here by the\nship and guard the ship; but as for us, be our guide to the\nsacred house of Circe.\"\n\n'So they spake and went up from the ship and the sea. Nay,\nnor yet was Eurylochus left by the hollow ship, but he went\nwith us, for he feared my terrible rebuke.\n\n'Meanwhile Circe bathed the rest of my company in her halls\nwith all care, and anointed them well with olive oil; and\ncast thick mantles and doublets about them. And we found\nthem all feasting nobly in the halls. And when they saw and\nknew each other face to face, they wept and mourned, and\nthe house rang around. Then she stood near me, that fair\ngoddess, and spake saying:\n\n'\"Son of Laertes, of the seed of Zeus, Odysseus of many\ndevices, no more now wake this plenteous weeping: myself I\nknow of all the pains ye endured upon the teeming deep, and\nthe great despite done you by unkindly men upon the land.\nNay come, eat ye meat and drink wine, till your spirit\nshall return to you again, as it was when first ye left\nyour own country of rugged Ithaca; but now are ye wasted\nand wanting heart, mindful evermore of your sore wandering,\nnor has your heart ever been merry, for very grievous hath\nbeen your trial.\"\n\n'So spake she, and our lordly spirit consented thereto. So\nthere we sat day by day for the full circle of a year,\nfeasting on abundant flesh and sweet wine. But when now a\nyear had gone, and the seasons returned as the months\nwaned, and the long days came in their course, then did my\ndear company call me forth, and say:\n\n'\"Good sir, now is it high time to mind thee of thy native\nland, if it is ordained that thou shalt be saved, and come\nto thy lofty house and thine own country.\"\n\n'So spake they and my lordly spirit consented thereto. So\nfor that time we sat the livelong day till the going down\nof the sun, feasting on abundant flesh and sweet wine. But\nwhen the sun sank and darkness came on, they laid them to\nrest throughout the shadowy halls.\n\n'But when I had gone up into the fair bed of Circe, I\nbesought her by her knees, and the goddess heard my speech,\nand uttering my voice I spake to her winged words: \"Circe,\nfulfil for me the promise which thou madest me to send me\non my homeward way. Now is my spirit eager to be gone, and\nthe spirit of my company, that wear away my heart as they\nmourn around me, when haply thou art gone from us.\"\n\n'So spake I, and the fair goddess answered me anon: \"Son of\nLaertes, of the seed of Zeus, Odysseus of many devices,\ntarry ye now no longer in my house against your will; but\nfirst must ye perform another journey, and reach the\ndwelling of Hades and of dread Persephone to seek to the\nspirit of Theban Teiresias, the blind soothsayer, whose\nwits abide steadfast. To him Persephone hath given\njudgment, even in death, that he alone should have\nunderstanding; but the other souls sweep shadow-like\naround.\"\n\n'Thus spake she, but as for me, my heart was broken, and I\nwept as I sat upon the bed, and my soul had no more care to\nlive and to see the sunlight. But when I had my fill of\nweeping and grovelling, then at the last I answered and\nspake unto her saying: \"And who, Circe, will guide us on\nthis way? for no man ever yet sailed to hell in a black\nship.\"\n\n'So spake I, and the fair goddess answered me anon: \"Son of\nLaertes, of the seed of Zeus, Odysseus of many devices,\nnay, trouble not thyself for want of a guide, by thy ship\nabiding, but set up the mast and spread abroad the white\nsails and sit thee down; and the breeze of the North Wind\nwill bear thy vessel on her way. But when thou hast now\nsailed in thy ship across the stream Oceanus, where is a\nwaste shore and the groves of Persephone, even tall poplar\ntrees and willows that shed their fruit before the season,\nthere beach thy ship by deep eddying Oceanus, but go\nthyself to the dank house of Hades. Thereby into Acheron\nflows Pyriphlegethon, and Cocytus, a branch of the water of\nthe Styx, and there is a rock, and the meeting of the two\nroaring waters. So, hero, draw nigh thereto, as I command\nthee, and dig a trench as it were a cubit in length and\nbreadth, and about it pour a drink-offering to all the\ndead, first with mead and thereafter with sweet wine, and\nfor the third time with water, and sprinkle white meal\nthereon; and entreat with many prayers the strengthless\nheads of the dead, and promise that on thy return to Ithaca\nthou wilt offer in thy halls a barren heifer, the best thou\nhast, and will fill the pyre with treasure, and wilt\nsacrifice apart, to Teiresias alone, a black ram without\nspot, the fairest of your flock. But when thou hast with\nprayers made supplication to the lordly races of the dead,\nthen offer up a ram and a black ewe, bending their heads\ntowards Erebus and thyself turn thy back, with thy face set\nfor the shore of the river. Then will many spirits come to\nthee of the dead that be departed. Thereafter thou shalt\ncall to thy company and command them to flay the sheep\nwhich even now lie slain by the pitiless sword, and to\nconsume them with fire, and to make prayer to the gods, to\nmighty Hades and to dread Persephone. And thyself draw the\nsharp sword from thy thigh and sit there, suffering not the\nstrengthless heads of the dead to draw nigh to the blood,\nere thou hast word of Teiresias. Then the seer will come to\nthee quickly, leader of the people; he will surely declare\nto thee the way and the measure of thy path, and as\ntouching thy returning, how thou mayst go over the teeming\ndeep.\"\n\n'So spake she, and anon came the golden throned Dawn. Then\nshe put on me a mantle and a doublet for raiment, and the\nnymph clad herself in a great shining robe, light of woof\nand gracious, and about her waist she cast a fair golden\ngirdle, and put a veil upon her head. But I passed through\nthe halls and roused my men with smooth words, standing by\neach one in turn:\n\n'\"Sleep ye now no more nor breathe sweet slumber; but let\nus go on our way, for surely she hath shown me all, the\nlady Circe.\"\n\n'So spake I, and their lordly soul consented thereto. Yet\neven thence I led not my company safe away. There was one,\nElpenor, the youngest of us all, not very valiant in war\nneither steadfast in mind. He was lying apart from the rest\nof my men on the housetop of Circe's sacred dwelling, very\nfain of the cool air, as one heavy with wine. Now when he\nheard the noise of the voices and of the feet of my fellows\nas they moved to and fro, he leaped up of a sudden and\nminded him not to descend again by the way of the tall\nladder, but fell right down from the roof, and his neck was\nbroken from the bones of the spine, and his spirit went\ndown to the house of Hades.\n\n'Then I spake among my men as they went on their way,\nsaying: \"Ye deem now, I see, that ye are going to your own\ndear country; but Circe hath showed us another way, even to\nthe dwelling of Hades and of dread Persephone, to seek to\nthe spirit of Theban Teiresias.\"\n\n'Even so I spake, but their heart within them was broken,\nand they sat them down even where they were, and made\nlament and tore their hair. Howbeit no help came of their\nweeping.\n\n'But as we were now wending sorrowful to the swift ship and\nthe sea-banks, shedding big tears, Circe meanwhile had gone\nher ways and made fast a ram and a black ewe by the dark\nship, lightly passing us by: who may behold a god against\nhis will, whether going to or fro?'\n\n\n\nBook XI\n\n  Odysseus, his descent into hell, and discourses with the\n  ghosts of the deceased heroes.\n\n'Now when we had gone down to the ship and to the sea,\nfirst of all we drew the ship unto the fair salt water and\nplaced the mast and sails in the black ship, and took those\nsheep and put them therein, and ourselves too climbed on\nboard, sorrowing, and shedding big tears. And in the wake\nof our dark-prowed ship she sent a favouring wind that\nfilled the sails, a kindly escort,--even Circe of the\nbraided tresses, a dread goddess of human speech. And we\nset in order all the gear throughout the ship and sat us\ndown; and the wind and the helmsman guided our barque. And\nall day long her sails were stretched in her seafaring; and\nthe sun sank and all the ways were darkened.\n\n'She came to the limits of the world, to the deep-flowing\nOceanus. There is the land and the city of the Cimmerians,\nshrouded in mist and cloud, and never does the shining sun\nlook down on them with his rays, neither when he climbs up\nthe starry heavens, nor when again he turns earthward from\nthe firmament, but deadly night is outspread over miserable\nmortals. Thither we came and ran the ship ashore and took\nout the sheep; but for our part we held on our way along\nthe stream of Oceanus, till we came to the place which\nCirce had declared to us.\n\n'There Perimedes and Eurylochus held the victims, but I\ndrew my sharp sword from my thigh, and dug a pit, as it\nwere a cubit in length and breadth, and about it poured a\ndrink-offering to all the dead, first with mead and\nthereafter with sweet wine, and for the third time with\nwater. And I sprinkled white meal thereon, and entreated\nwith many prayers the strengthless heads of the dead, and\npromised that on my return to Ithaca I would offer in my\nhalls a barren heifer, the best I had, and fill the pyre\nwith treasure, and apart unto Teiresias alone sacrifice a\nblack ram without spot, the fairest of my flock. But when I\nhad besought the tribes of the dead with vows and prayers,\nI took the sheep and cut their throats over the trench, and\nthe dark blood flowed forth, and lo, the spirits of the\ndead that be departed gathered them from out of Erebus.\nBrides and youths unwed, and old men of many and evil days,\nand tender maidens with grief yet fresh at heart; and many\nthere were, wounded with bronze-shod spears, men slain in\nfight with their bloody mail about them. And these many\nghosts flocked together from every side about the trench\nwith a wondrous cry, and pale fear gat hold on me. Then did\nI speak to my company and command them to flay the sheep\nthat lay slain by the pitiless sword, and to consume them\nwith fire, and to make prayer to the gods, to mighty Hades\nand to dread Persephone, and myself I drew the sharp sword\nfrom my thigh and sat there, suffering not the strengthless\nheads of the dead to draw nigh to the blood, ere I had word\nof Teiresias.\n\n'And first came the soul of Elpenor, my companion, that had\nnot yet been buried beneath the wide-wayed earth; for we\nleft the corpse behind us in the hall of Circe, unwept and\nunburied, seeing that another task was instant on us. At\nthe sight of him I wept and had compassion on him, and\nuttering my voice spake to him winged words: \"Elpenor, how\nhast thou come beneath the darkness and the shadow? Thou\nhast come fleeter on foot than I in my black ship.\"\n\n'So spake I, and with a moan he answered me, saying: \"Son\nof Laertes, of the seed of Zeus, Odysseus of many devices,\nan evil doom of some god was my bane and wine out of\nmeasure. When I laid me down on the house-top of Circe I\nminded me not to descend again by the way of the tall\nladder, but fell right down from the roof, and my neck was\nbroken off from the bones of the spine, and my spirit went\ndown to the house of Hades. And now I pray thee in the name\nof those whom we left, who are no more with us, thy wife,\nand thy sire who cherished thee when as yet thou wert a\nlittle one, and Telemachus, whom thou didst leave in thy\nhalls alone; forasmuch as I know that on thy way hence from\nout the dwelling of Hades, thou wilt stay thy well-wrought\nship at the isle Aeaean, even then, my lord, I charge thee\nto think on me. Leave me not unwept and unburied as thou\ngoest hence, nor turn thy back upon me, lest haply I bring\non thee the anger of the gods. Nay, burn me there with mine\narmour, all that is mine, and pile me a barrow on the shore\nof the grey sea, the grave of a luckless man, that even men\nunborn may hear my story. Fulfil me this and plant upon the\nbarrow mine oar, wherewith I rowed in the days of my life,\nwhile yet I was among my fellows.\"\n\n'Even so he spake, and I answered him saying: \"All this,\nluckless man, will I perform for thee and do.\"\n\n'Even so we twain were sitting holding sad discourse, I on\nthe one side, stretching forth my sword over the blood,\nwhile on the other side the ghost of my friend told all his\ntale.\n\n'Anon came up the soul of my mother dead, Anticleia, the\ndaughter of Autolycus the great-hearted, whom I left alive\nwhen I departed for sacred Ilios. At the sight of her I\nwept, and was moved with compassion, yet even so, for all\nmy sore grief, I suffered her not to draw nigh to the\nblood, ere I had word of Teiresias.\n\n'Anon came the soul of Theban Teiresias, with a golden\nsceptre in his hand, and he knew me and spake unto me: \"Son\nof Laertes, of the seed of Zeus, Odysseus of many devices,\nwhat seekest thou NOW, wretched man, wherefore hast thou\nleft the sunlight and come hither to behold the dead and a\nland desolate of joy? Nay, hold off from the ditch and draw\nback thy sharp sword, that I may drink of the blood and\ntell thee sooth.\"\n\n'So spake he and I put up my silver-studded sword into the\nsheath, and when he had drunk the dark blood, even then did\nthe noble seer speak unto me, saying: \"Thou art asking of\nthy sweet returning, great Odysseus, but that will the god\nmake hard for thee; for methinks thou shalt not pass\nunheeded by the Shaker of the Earth, who hath laid up wrath\nin his heart against thee, for rage at the blinding of his\ndear son. Yet even so, through many troubles, ye may come\nhome, if thou wilt restrain thy spirit and the spirit of\nthy men so soon as thou shalt bring thy well-wrought ship\nnigh to the isle Thrinacia, fleeing the sea of violet blue,\nwhen ye find the herds of Helios grazing and his brave\nflocks, of Helios who overseeth all and overheareth all\nthings. If thou doest these no hurt, being heedful of thy\nreturn, so may ye yet reach Ithaca, albeit in evil case.\nBut if thou hurtest them, I foreshow ruin for thy ship and\nfor thy men, and even though thou shalt thyself escape,\nlate shalt thou return in evil plight, with the loss of all\nthy company, on board the ship of strangers, and thou shalt\nfind sorrows in thy house, even proud men that devour thy\nliving, while they woo thy godlike wife and offer the gifts\nof wooing. Yet I tell thee, on thy coming thou shalt avenge\ntheir violence. But when thou hast slain the wooers in thy\nhalls, whether by guile, or openly with the edge of the\nsword, thereafter go thy way, taking with thee a shapen\noar, till thou shalt come to such men as know not the sea,\nneither eat meat savoured with salt; yea, nor have they\nknowledge of ships of purple cheek, nor shapen oars which\nserve for wings to ships. And I will give thee a most\nmanifest token, which cannot escape thee. In the day when\nanother wayfarer shall meet thee and say that thou hast a\nwinnowing fan on thy stout shoulder, even then make fast\nthy shapen oar in the earth and do goodly sacrifice to the\nlord Poseidon, even with a ram and a bull and a boar, the\nmate of swine, and depart for home and offer holy hecatombs\nto the deathless gods that keep the wide heaven, to each in\norder due. And from the sea shall thine own death come, the\ngentlest death that may be, which shall end thee foredone\nwith smooth old age, and the folk shall dwell happily\naround thee. This that I say is sooth.\"\n\n'So spake he, and I answered him, saying: \"Teiresias, all\nthese threads, methinks, the gods themselves have spun. But\ncome, declare me this and plainly tell me all. I see here\nthe spirit of my mother dead; lo, she sits in silence near\nthe blood, nor deigns to look her son in the face nor speak\nto him! Tell me, prince, how may she know me again that I\nam he?\"\n\n'So spake I, and anon he answered me, and said: \"I will\ntell thee an easy saying, and will put it in thy heart.\nWhomsoever of the dead that be departed thou shalt suffer\nto draw nigh to the blood, he shall tell thee sooth; but if\nthou shalt grudge any, that one shall go to his own place\nagain.\" Therewith the spirit of the prince Teiresias went\nback within the house of Hades, when he had told all his\noracles. But I abode there steadfastly, till my mother drew\nnigh and drank the dark blood; and at once she knew me, and\nbewailing herself spake to me winged words:\n\n'\"Dear child, how didst thou come beneath the darkness and\nthe shadow, thou that art a living man? Grievous is the\nsight of these things to the living, for between us and you\nare great rivers and dreadful streams; first, Oceanus,\nwhich can no wise be crossed on foot, but only if one have\na well wrought ship. Art thou but now come hither with thy\nship and thy company in thy long wanderings from Troy? and\nhast thou not yet reached Ithaca, nor seen thy wife in thy\nhalls?\"\n\n'Even so she spake, and I answered her, and said: \"O my\nmother, necessity was on me to come down to the house of\nHades to seek to the spirit of Theban Teiresias. For not\nyet have I drawn near to the Achaean shore, nor yet have I\nset foot on mine own country, but have been wandering\nevermore in affliction, from the day that first I went with\ngoodly Agamemnon to Ilios of the fair steeds, to do battle\nwith the Trojans. But come, declare me this and plainly\ntell it all. What doom overcame thee of death that lays men\nat their length? Was it a slow disease, or did Artemis the\narcher slay thee with the visitation of her gentle shafts?\nAnd tell me of my father and my son, that I left behind me;\ndoth my honour yet abide with them, or hath another already\ntaken it, while they say that I shall come home no more?\nAnd tell me of my wedded wife, of her counsel and her\npurpose, doth she abide with her son and keep all secure,\nor hath she already wedded the best of the Achaeans?\"\n\n'Even so I spake, and anon my lady mother answered me: \"Yea\nverily, she abideth with steadfast spirit in thy halls; and\nwearily for her the nights wane always and the days in\nshedding of tears. But the fair honour that is thine no man\nhath yet taken; but Telemachus sits at peace on his\ndemesne, and feasts at equal banquets, whereof it is meet\nthat a judge partake, for all men bid him to their house.\nAnd thy father abides there in the field, and goes not down\nto the town, nor lies he on bedding or rugs or shining\nblankets, but all the winter he sleeps, where sleep the\nthralls in the house, in the ashes by the fire, and is clad\nin sorry raiment. But when the summer comes and the rich\nharvest-tide, his beds of fallen leaves are strewn lowly\nall about the knoll of his vineyard plot. There he lies\nsorrowing and nurses his mighty grief, for long desire of\nthy return, and old age withal comes heavy upon him. Yea\nand even so did I too perish and meet my doom. It was not\nthe archer goddess of the keen sight, who slew me in my\nhalls with the visitation of her gentle shafts, nor did any\nsickness come upon me, such as chiefly with a sad wasting\ndraws the spirit from the limbs; nay, it was my sore\nlonging for thee, and for thy counsels, great Odysseus, and\nfor thy loving-kindness, that reft me of sweet life.\"\n\n'So spake she, and I mused in my heart and would fain have\nembraced the spirit of my mother dead. Thrice I sprang\ntowards her, and was minded to embrace her; thrice she\nflitted from my hands as a shadow or even as a dream, and\nsharp grief arose ever at my heart. And uttering my voice I\nspake to her winged words:\n\n'\"Mother mine, wherefore dost thou not abide me who am\neager to clasp thee, that even in Hades we twain may cast\nour arms each about the other, and have our fill of chill\nlament? Is this but a phantom that the high goddess\nPersephone hath sent me, to the end that I may groan for\nmore exceeding sorrow?\"\n\n'So spake I, and my lady mother answered me anon: \"Ah me,\nmy child, of all men most ill-fated, Persephone, the\ndaughter of Zeus, doth in no wise deceive thee, but even on\nthis wise it is with mortals when they die. For the sinews\nno more bind together the flesh and the bones, but the\ngreat force of burning fire abolishes these, so soon as the\nlife hath left the white bones, and the spirit like a dream\nflies forth and hovers near. But haste with all thine heart\ntoward the sunlight, and mark all this, that even hereafter\nthou mayest tell it to thy wife.\"\n\n'Thus we twain held discourse together; and lo, the women\ncame up, for the high goddess Persephone sent them forth,\nall they that had been the wives and daughters of mighty\nmen. And they gathered and flocked about the black blood,\nand I took counsel how I might question them each one. And\nthis was the counsel that showed best in my sight. I drew\nmy long hanger from my stalwart thigh, and suffered them\nnot all at one time to drink of the dark blood. So they\ndrew nigh one by one, and each declared her lineage, and I\nmade question of all.\n\n'Then verily did I first see Tyro, sprung of a noble sire,\nwho said that she was the child of noble Salmoneus, and\ndeclared herself the wife of Cretheus, son of Aeolus. She\nloved a river, the divine Enipeus, far the fairest of the\nfloods that run upon the earth, and she would resort to the\nfair streams of Enipeus. And it came to pass that the\ngirdler of the world, the Earth-shaker, put on the shape of\nthe god, and lay by the lady at the mouths of the whirling\nstream. Then the dark wave stood around them like a\nhill-side bowed, and hid the god and the mortal woman. And\nhe undid her maiden girdle, and shed a slumber over her.\nNow when the god had done the work of love, he clasped her\nhand and spake and hailed her:\n\n'\"Woman, be glad in our love, and when the year comes round\nthou shalt give birth to glorious children,--for not weak\nare the embraces of the gods,--and do thou keep and cherish\nthem. And now go home and hold thy peace, and tell it not:\nbut behold, I am Poseidon, shaker of the earth.\"\n\n'Therewith he plunged beneath the heaving deep. And she\nconceived and bare Pelias and Neleus, who both grew to be\nmighty men, servants of Zeus. Pelias dwelt in wide Iolcos,\nand was rich in flocks; and that other abode in sandy\nPylos. And the queen of women bare yet other sons to\nCretheus, even Aeson and Pheres and Amythaon, whose joy was\nin chariots.\n\n'And after her I saw Antiope, daughter of Asopus, and her\nboast was that she had slept even in the arms of Zeus, and\nshe bare two sons, Amphion and Zethus, who founded first\nthe place of seven-gated Thebes, and they made of it a\nfenced city, for they might not dwell in spacious Thebes\nunfenced, for all their valiancy.\n\n'Next to her I saw Alcmene, wife of Amphitryon, who lay in\nthe arms of mighty Zeus, and bare Heracles of the\nlion-heart, steadfast in the fight. And I saw Megara,\ndaughter of Creon, haughty of heart, whom the strong and\ntireless son of Amphitryon had to wife.\n\n'And I saw the mother of Oedipodes, fair Epicaste, who\nwrought a dread deed unwittingly, being wedded to her own\nson, and he that had slain his own father wedded her, and\nstraightway the gods made these things known to men. Yet he\nabode in pain in pleasant Thebes, ruling the Cadmaeans, by\nreason of the deadly counsels of the gods. But she went\ndown to the house of Hades, the mighty warder; yea, she\ntied a noose from the high beam aloft, being fast holden in\nsorrow; while for him she left pains behind full many, even\nall that the Avengers of a mother bring to pass.\n\n'And I saw lovely Chloris, whom Neleus wedded on a time for\nher beauty, and brought gifts of wooing past number. She\nwas the youngest daughter of Amphion, son of Iasus, who\nonce ruled mightily in Minyan Orchomenus. And she was queen\nof Pylos, and bare glorious children to her lord, Nestor\nand Chromius, and princely Periclymenus, and stately Pero\ntoo, the wonder of all men. All that dwelt around were her\nwooers; but Neleus would not give her, save to him who\nshould drive off from Phylace the kine of mighty Iphicles,\nwith shambling gait and broad of brow, hard cattle to\ndrive. And none but the noble seer {*} took in hand to\ndrive them; but a grievous fate from the gods fettered him,\neven hard bonds and the herdsmen of the wild. But when at\nlength the months and days were being fulfilled, as the\nyear returned upon his course, and the seasons came round,\nthen did mighty Iphicles set him free, when he had spoken\nout all the oracles; and herein was the counsel of Zeus\nbeing accomplished.\n\n{* Melampus}\n\n'And I saw Lede, the famous bed-fellow of Tyndareus, who\nbare to Tyndareus two sons, hardy of heart, Castor tamer of\nsteeds, and Polydeuces the boxer. These twain yet live, but\nthe quickening earth is over them; and even in the nether\nworld they have honour at the hand of Zeus. And they\npossess their life in turn, living one day and dying the\nnext, and they have gotten worship even as the gods.\n\n'And after her I beheld Iphimedeia, bed-fellow of Aloeus,\nwho said that she had lain with Poseidon, and she bare\nchildren twain, but short of life were they, godlike Otus\nand far-famed Ephialtes. Now these were the tallest men\nthat earth, the graingiver, ever reared, and far the\ngoodliest after the renowned Orion. At nine seasons old\nthey were of breadth nine cubits, and nine fathoms in\nheight. They it was who threatened to raise even against\nthe immortals in Olympus the din of stormy war. They strove\nto pile Ossa on Olympus, and on Ossa Pelion with the\ntrembling forest leaves, that there might be a pathway to\nthe sky. Yea, and they would have accomplished it, had they\nreached the full measure of manhood. But the son of Zeus,\nwhom Leto of the fair locks bare, destroyed the twain, ere\nthe down had bloomed beneath their temples, and darkened\ntheir chins with the blossom of youth.\n\n'And Phaedra and Procris I saw, and fair Ariadne, the\ndaughter of wizard Minos, whom Theseus on a time was\nbearing from Crete to the hill of sacred Athens, yet had he\nno joy of her; for Artemis slew her ere that in sea-girt\nDia, by reason of the witness of Dionysus.\n\n'And Maera and Clymene I saw, and hateful Eriphyle, who\ntook fine gold for the price of her dear lord's life. But I\ncannot tell or name all the wives and daughters of the\nheroes that I saw; ere that, the immortal night would wane.\nNay, it is even now time to sleep, whether I go to the\nswift ship to my company or abide here: and for my convoy\nyou and the gods will care.'\n\nSo spake he, and dead silence fell on all, and they were\nspell-bound throughout the shadowy halls. Then Arete of the\nwhite arms first spake among them: 'Phaeacians, what think\nyou of this man for comeliness and stature, and within for\nwisdom of heart? Moreover he is my guest, though every one\nof you hath his share in this honour. Wherefore haste not\nto send him hence, and stint not these your gifts for one\nthat stands in such sore need of them; for ye have much\ntreasure stored in your halls by the grace of the gods.'\n\nThen too spake among them the old man, lord Echeneus, that\nwas an elder among the Phaeacians: 'Friends, behold, the\nspeech of our wise queen is not wide of the mark, nor far\nfrom our deeming, so hearken ye thereto. But on Alcinous\nhere both word and work depend.'\n\nThen Alcinous made answer, and spake unto him: 'Yea, the\nword that she hath spoken shall hold, if indeed I am yet to\nlive and bear rule among the Phaeacians, masters of the\noar. Howbeit let the stranger, for all his craving to\nreturn, nevertheless endure to abide until the morrow, till\nI make up the full measure of the gift; and men shall care\nfor his convoy, all men, but I in chief, for mine is the\nlordship in the land.'\n\nAnd Odysseus of many counsels answered him, saying: My lord\nAlcinous, most notable of all the people, if ye bade me\ntarry here even for a year, and would speed my convoy and\ngive me splendid gifts, even that I would choose; and\nbetter would it be for me to come with a fuller hand to\nmine own dear country, so should I get more love and\nworship in the eyes of all men, whoso should see me after I\nwas returned to Ithaca.'\n\nAnd Alcinous answered him, saying: 'Odysseus, in no wise do\nwe deem thee, we that look on thee, to be a knave or a\ncheat, even as the dark earth rears many such broadcast,\nfashioning lies whence none can even see his way therein.\nBut beauty crowns thy words, and wisdom is within thee; and\nthy tale, as when a minstrel sings, thou hast told with\nskill, the weary woes of all the Argives and of thine own\nself. But come, declare me this and plainly tell it all.\nDidst thou see any of thy godlike company who went up at\nthe same time with thee to Ilios and there met their doom?\nBehold, the night is of great length, unspeakable, and the\ntime for sleep in the hall is not yet; tell me therefore of\nthose wondrous deeds. I could abide even till the bright\ndawn, so long as thou couldst endure to rehearse me these\nwoes of thine in the hall.'\n\nAnd Odysseus of many counsels answered him, saying: 'My\nlord Alcinous, most notable of all the people, there is a\ntime for many words and there is a time for sleep. But if\nthou art eager still to listen, I would not for my part\ngrudge to tell thee of other things more pitiful still,\neven the woes of my comrades, those that perished\nafterward, for they had escaped with their lives from the\ndread war-cry of the Trojans, but perished in returning by\nthe will of an evil woman.\n\n'Now when holy Persephone had scattered this way and that\nthe spirits of the women folk, thereafter came the soul of\nAgamemnon, son of Atreus, sorrowing; and round him others\nwere gathered, the ghosts of them who had died with him in\nthe house of Aegisthus and met their doom. And he knew me\nstraightway when he had drunk the dark blood, yea, and he\nwept aloud, and shed big tears as he stretched forth his\nhands in his longing to reach me. But it might not be, for\nhe had now no steadfast strength nor power at all in\nmoving, such as was aforetime in his supple limbs.\n\n'At the sight of him I wept and was moved with compassion,\nand uttering my voice, spake to him winged words: \"Most\nrenowned son of Atreus, Agamemnon, king of men, say what\ndoom overcame thee of death that lays men at their length?\nDid Poseidon smite thee in thy ships, raising the dolorous\nblast of contrary winds, or did unfriendly men do thee hurt\nupon the land, whilst thou wert cutting off their oxen and\nfair flocks of sheep, or fighting to win a city and the\nwomen thereof?\"\n\n'So spake I, and straightway he answered, and said unto me:\n\"Son of Laertes, of the seed of Zeus, Odysseus of many\ndevices, it was not Poseidon that smote me in my ships, and\nraised the dolorous blast of contrary winds, nor did\nunfriendly men do me hurt upon the land, but Aegisthus it\nwas that wrought me death and doom and slew me, with the\naid of my accursed wife, as one slays an ox at the stall,\nafter he had bidden me to his house, and entertained me at\na feast. Even so I died by a death most pitiful, and round\nme my company likewise were slain without ceasing, like\nswine with glittering tusks which are slaughtered in the\nhouse of a rich and mighty man, whether at a wedding\nbanquet or a joint-feast or a rich clan-drinking. Ere now\nhast thou been at the slaying of many a man, killed in\nsingle fight or in strong battle, yet thou wouldst have\nsorrowed the most at this sight, how we lay in the hall\nround the mixing-bowl and the laden boards, and the floor\nall ran with blood. And most pitiful of all that I heard\nwas the voice of the daughter of Priam, of Cassandra, whom\nhard by me the crafty Clytemnestra slew. Then I strove to\nraise my hands as I was dying upon the sword, but to earth\nthey fell. And that shameless one turned her back upon me,\nand had not the heart to draw down my eyelids with her\nfingers nor to close my mouth. So surely is there nought\nmore terrible and shameless than a woman who imagines such\nevil in her heart, even as she too planned a foul deed,\nfashioning death for her wedded lord. Verily I had thought\nto come home most welcome to my children and my thralls;\nbut she, out of the depth of her evil knowledge, hath shed\nshame on herself and on all womankind, which shall be for\never, even on the upright.\"\n\n'Even so he spake, but I answered him, saying: \"Lo now, in\nvery sooth, hath Zeus of the far-borne voice wreaked\nwondrous hatred on the seed of Atreus through the counsels\nof woman from of old. For Helen's sake so many of us\nperished, and now Clytemnestra hath practised treason\nagainst thee, while yet thou wast afar off.\"\n\n'Even so I spake, and anon he answered me, saying:\n\"Wherefore do thou too, never henceforth be soft even to\nthy wife, neither show her all the counsel that thou\nknowest, but a part declare and let part be hid. Yet shalt\nnot thou, Odysseus, find death at the hand of thy wife, for\nshe is very discreet and prudent in all her ways, the wise\nPenelope, daughter of Icarius. Verily we left her a bride\nnew wed when we went to the war, and a child was at her\nbreast, who now, methinks, sits in the ranks of men, happy\nin his lot, for his dear father shall behold him on his\ncoming, and he shall embrace his sire as is meet. But us\nfor my wife, she suffered me not so much as to have my fill\nof gazing on my son; ere that she slew me, even her lord.\nAnd yet another thing will I tell thee, and do thou ponder\nit in thy heart. Put thy ship to land in secret, and not\nopenly, on the shore of thy dear country; for there is no\nmore faith in woman. But come, declare me this and plainly\ntell it all, if haply ye hear of my son as yet living,\neither, it may be, in Orchomenus or in sandy Pylos, or\nperchance with Menelaus in wide Sparta, for goodly Orestes\nhath not yet perished on the earth.\"\n\n'Even so he spake, but I answered him, saying: \"Son of\nAtreus, wherefore dost thou ask me straitly of these\nthings? Nay I know not at all, whether he be alive or dead;\nit is ill to speak words light as wind.\"\n\n'Thus we twain stood sorrowing, holding sad discourse,\nwhile the big tears fell fast: and therewithal came the\nsoul of Achilles, son of Peleus, and of Patroclus and of\nnoble Antilochus and of Aias, who in face and form was\ngoodliest of all the Danaans, after the noble son of\nPeleus. And the spirit of the son of Aeacus, fleet of foot,\nknew me again, and making lament spake to me winged words:\n\n'\"Son of Laertes, of the seed of Zeus, Odysseus of many\ndevices, man overbold, what new deed and hardier than this\nwilt thou devise in thy heart? How durst thou come down to\nthe house of Hades, where dwell the senseless dead, the\nphantoms of men outworn?\"\n\n'So he spake, but I answered him: \"Achilles, son of Peleus,\nmightiest far of the Achaeans, I am come hither to seek to\nTeiresias, if he may tell me any counsel, how I may come to\nrugged Ithaca. For not yet have I come nigh the Achaean\nland, nor set foot on mine own soil, but am still in evil\ncase; while as for thee, Achilles, none other than thou\nwast heretofore the most blessed of men, nor shall any be\nhereafter. For of old, in the days of thy life, we Argives\ngave thee one honour with the gods, and now thou art a\ngreat prince here among the dead. Wherefore let not thy\ndeath be any grief to thee, Achilles.\"\n\n'Even so I spake, and he straightway answered me, and said:\n\"Nay, speak not comfortably to me of death, oh great\nOdysseus. Rather would I live on ground {*} as the hireling\nof another, with a landless man who had no great\nlivelihood, than bear sway among all the dead that be\ndeparted. But come, tell me tidings of that lordly son of\nmine--did he follow to the war to be a leader or not? And\ntell me of noble Peleus, if thou hast heard aught,--is he\nyet held in worship among the Myrmidons, or do they\ndishonour him from Hellas to Phthia, for that old age binds\nhim hand and foot? For I am no longer his champion under\nthe sun, so mighty a man as once I was, when in wide Troy I\nslew the best of the host, and succoured the Argives. Ah!\ncould I but come for an hour to my father's house as then I\nwas, so would I make my might and hands invincible, to be\nhateful to many an one of those who do him despite and keep\nhim from his honour.\"\n\n{* [Greek] seems to mean 'upon the earth,' 'above ground,'\nas opposed to the dead who are below, rather than 'bound to\nthe soil,' in which sense most commentators take it.}\n\n'Even so he spake, but I answered him saying: \"As for noble\nPeleus, verily I have heard nought of him; but concerning\nthy dear son Neoptolemus, I will tell thee all the truth,\naccording to thy word. It was I that led him up out of\nScyros in my good hollow ship, in the wake of the\ngoodly-greaved Achaeans. Now oft as we took counsel around\nTroy town, he was ever the first to speak, and no word\nmissed the mark; the godlike Nestor and I alone surpassed\nhim. But whensoever we Achaeans did battle on the plain of\nTroy, he never tarried behind in the throng or the press of\nmen, but ran out far before us all, yielding to none in\nthat might of his. And many men he slew in warfare dread;\nbut I could not tell of all or name their names, even all\nthe host he slew in succouring the Argives; but, ah, how he\nsmote with the sword that son of Telephus, the hero\nEurypylus, and many Ceteians {*} of his company were slain\naround him, by reason of a woman's bribe. He truly was the\ncomeliest man that ever I saw, next to goodly Memnon. And\nagain when we, the best of the Argives, were about to go\ndown into the horse which Epeus wrought, and the charge of\nall was laid on me, both to open the door of our good\nambush and to shut the same, then did the other princes and\ncounsellors of the Danaans wipe away the tears, and the\nlimbs of each one trembled beneath him, but never once did\nI see thy son's fair face wax pale, nor did he wipe the\ntears from his cheeks: but he besought me often to let him\ngo forth from the horse, and kept handling his sword-hilt,\nand his heavy bronze-shod spear, and he was set on mischief\nagainst the Trojans. But after we had sacked the steep city\nof Priam, he embarked unscathed with his share of the\nspoil, and with a noble prize; he was not smitten with the\nsharp spear, and got no wound in close fight: and many such\nchances there be in war, for Ares rageth confusedly.\"\n\n{* See Lenormant, Premieres Civilisations, vol. i. p.289.}\n\n'So I spake, and the spirit of the son of Aeacus, fleet of\nfoot, passed with great strides along the mead of asphodel,\nrejoicing in that I had told him of his son's renown.\n\n'But lo, other spirits of the dead that be departed stood\nsorrowing, and each one asked of those that were dear to\nthem. The soul of Aias, son of Telamon, alone stood apart\nbeing still angry for the victory wherein I prevailed\nagainst him, in the suit by the ships concerning the arms\nof Achilles, that his lady mother had set for a prize; and\nthe sons of the Trojans made award and Pallas Athene. Would\nthat I had never prevailed and won such a prize! So goodly\na head hath the earth closed over, for the sake of those\narms, even over Aias, who in beauty and in feats of war was\nof a mould above all the other Danaans, next to the noble\nson of Peleus. To him then I spake softly, saying:\n\n'\"Aias, son of noble Telamon, so art thou not even in death\nto forget thy wrath against me, by reason of those arms\naccursed, which the gods set to be the bane of the Argives?\nWhat a tower of strength fell in thy fall, and we Achaeans\ncease not to sorrow for thee, even as for the life of\nAchilles, son of Peleus! Nay, there is none other to blame,\nbut Zeus, who hath borne wondrous hate to the army of the\nDanaan spearsmen, and laid on thee thy doom. Nay, come\nhither, my lord, that thou mayest hear my word and my\nspeech; master thy wrath and thy proud spirit.\"\n\n'So I spake, but he answered me not a word and passed to\nErebus after the other spirits of the dead that be\ndeparted. Even then, despite his anger, would he have\nspoken to me or I to him, but my heart within me was minded\nto see the spirits of those others that were departed.\n\n'There then I saw Minos, glorious son of Zeus, wielding a\ngolden sceptre, giving sentence from his throne to the\ndead, while they sat and stood around the prince, asking\nhis dooms through the wide-gated house of Hades.\n\n'And after him I marked the mighty Orion driving the wild\nbeasts together over the mead of asphodel, the very beasts\nthat himself had slain on the lonely hills, with a strong\nmace all of bronze in his hands, {*} that is ever unbroken.\n\n{* [Greek] in strict grammar agrees with [Greek] in 574,\nbut this merely by attraction, for in sense it refers not\nto the living man, but to his phantom.}\n\n'And I saw Tityos, son of renowned Earth, lying on a\nlevelled ground, and he covered nine roods as he lay, and\nvultures twain beset him one on either side, and gnawed at\nhis liver, piercing even to the caul, but he drave them not\naway with his hands. For he had dealt violently with Leto,\nthe famous bedfellow of Zeus, as she went up to Pytho\nthrough the fair lawns of Panopeus.\n\n'Moreover I beheld Tantalus in grievous torment, standing\nin a mere and the water came nigh unto his chin. And he\nstood straining as one athirst, but he might not attain to\nthe water to drink of it. For often as that old man stooped\ndown in his eagerness to drink, so often the water was\nswallowed up and it vanished away, and the black earth\nstill showed at his feet, for some god parched it evermore.\nAnd tall trees flowering shed their fruit overhead, pears\nand pomegranates and apple trees with bright fruit, and\nsweet figs and olives in their bloom, whereat when that old\nman reached out his hands to clutch them, the wind would\ntoss them to the shadowy clouds.\n\n'Yea and I beheld Sisyphus in strong torment, grasping a\nmonstrous stone with both his hands. He was pressing\nthereat with hands and feet, and trying to roll the stone\nupward toward the brow of the hill. But oft as he was about\nto hurl it over the top, the weight would drive him back,\nso once again to the plain rolled the stone, the shameless\nthing. And he once more kept heaving and straining, and the\nsweat the while was pouring down his limbs, and the dust\nrose upwards from his head.\n\n'And after him I descried the mighty Heracles, his phantom,\nI say; but as for himself he hath joy at the banquet among\nthe deathless gods, and hath to wife Hebe of the fair\nankles, child of great Zeus, and of Here of the golden\nsandals. And all about him there was a clamour of the dead,\nas it were fowls flying every way in fear, and he like\nblack Night, with bow uncased, and shaft upon the string,\nfiercely glancing around, like one in the act to shoot. And\nabout his breast was an awful belt, a baldric of gold,\nwhereon wondrous things were wrought, bears and wild boars\nand lions with flashing eyes, and strife and battles and\nslaughters and murders of men. Nay, now that he hath\nfashioned this, never another may he fashion, whoso stored\nin his craft the device of that belt! And anon he knew me\nwhen his eyes beheld me, and making lament he spake unto me\nwinged words:\n\n'\"Son of Laertes, of the seed of Zeus, Odysseus of many\ndevices: ah! wretched one, dost thou too lead such a life\nof evil doom, as I endured beneath the rays of the sun? I\nwas the son of Zeus Cronion, yet had I trouble beyond\nmeasure, for I was subdued unto a man far worse than I. And\nhe enjoined on me hard adventures, yea and on a time he\nsent me hither to bring back the hound of hell; for he\ndevised no harder task for me than this. I lifted the hound\nand brought him forth from out of the house of Hades; and\nHermes sped me on my way and the grey-eyed Athene.\"\n\n'Therewith he departed again into the house of Hades, but I\nabode there still, if perchance some one of the hero folk\nbesides might come, who died in old time. Yea and I should\nhave seen the men of old, whom I was fain to look on,\nTheseus and Peirithous, renowned children of the gods. But\nere that might be the myriad tribes of the dead thronged up\ntogether with wondrous clamour: and pale fear gat hold of\nme, lest the high goddess Persephone should send me the\nhead of the Gorgon, that dread monster, from out of Hades.\n\n'Straightway then I went to the ship, and bade my men mount\nthe vessel, and loose the hawsers. So speedily they went on\nboard, and sat upon the benches. And the wave of the flood\nbore the barque down the stream of Oceanus, we rowing\nfirst, and afterwards the fair wind was our convoy.\n\n\n\nBook XII\n\n  Odysseus, his passage by the Sirens, and by Scylla and\n  Charybdis. The sacrilege committed by his men in the isle\n  Thrinacia. The destruction of his ships and men. How he\n  swam on a plank nine days together, and came to Ogygia,\n  where he stayed seven years with Calypso.\n\n'Now after the ship had left the stream of the river\nOceanus, and was come to the wave of the wide sea, and the\nisle Aeaean, where is the dwelling place of early Dawn and\nher dancing grounds, and the land of sunrising, upon our\ncoming thither we beached the ship in the sand, and\nourselves too stept ashore on the sea beach. There we fell\non sound sleep and awaited the bright Dawn.\n\n'So soon as early Dawn shone forth, the rosy-fingered, I\nsent forth my fellows to the house of Circe to fetch the\nbody of the dead Elpenor. And speedily we cut billets of\nwood and sadly we buried him, where the furthest headland\nruns out into the sea, shedding big tears. But when the\ndead man was burned and the arms of the dead, we piled a\nbarrow and dragged up thereon a pillar, and on the topmost\nmound we set the shapen oar.\n\n'Now all that task we finished, and our coming from out of\nHades was not unknown to Circe, but she arrayed herself and\nspeedily drew nigh, and her handmaids with her bare flesh\nand bread in plenty and dark red wine. And the fair goddess\nstood in the midst and spake in our ears, saying:\n\n'\"Men overbold, who have gone alive into the house of\nHades, to know death twice, while all men else die once for\nall. Nay come, eat ye meat and drink wine here all day\nlong; and with the breaking of the day ye shall set sail,\nand myself I will show you the path and declare each thing,\nthat ye may not suffer pain or hurt through any grievous\nill-contrivance by sea or on the land.\"\n\n'So spake she, and our lordly souls consented thereto. Thus\nfor that time we sat the livelong day, until the going down\nof the sun, feasting on abundant flesh and on sweet wine.\nNow when the sun sank and darkness came on, my company laid\nthem to rest by the hawsers of the ship. Then she took me\nby the hand and led me apart from my dear company, and made\nme to sit down and laid herself at my feet, and asked all\nmy tale. And I told her all in order duly. Then at the last\nthe Lady Circe spake unto me, saying:\n\n'\"Even so, now all these things have an end; do thou then\nhearken even as I tell thee, and the god himself shall\nbring it back to thy mind. To the Sirens first shalt thou\ncome, who bewitch all men, whosoever shall come to them.\nWhoso draws nigh them unwittingly and hears the sound of\nthe Sirens' voice, never doth he see wife or babes stand by\nhim on his return, nor have they joy at his coming; but the\nSirens enchant him with their clear song, sitting in the\nmeadow, and all about is a great heap of bones of men,\ncorrupt in death, and round the bones the skin is wasting.\nBut do thou drive thy ship past, and knead honey-sweet wax,\nand anoint therewith the ears of thy company, lest any of\nthe rest hear the song; but if thou myself art minded to\nhear, let them bind thee in the swift ship hand and foot,\nupright in the mast-stead, and from the mast let rope-ends\nbe tied, that with delight thou mayest hear the voice of\nthe Sirens. And if thou shalt beseech thy company and bid\nthem to loose thee, then let them bind thee with yet more\nbonds. But when thy friends have driven thy ship past\nthese, I will not tell thee fully which path shall\nthenceforth be thine, but do thou thyself consider it, and\nI will speak to thee of either way. On the one side there\nare beetling rocks, and against them the great wave roars\nof dark-eyed Amphitrite. These, ye must know, are they the\nblessed gods call the Rocks Wandering. By this way even\nwinged things may never pass, nay, not even the cowering\ndoves that bear ambrosia to Father Zeus, but the sheer rock\nevermore takes away one even of these, and the Father sends\nin another to make up the tale. Thereby no ship of men ever\nescapes that comes thither, but the planks of ships and the\nbodies of men confusedly are tossed by the waves of the sea\nand the storms of ruinous fire. One ship only of all that\nfare by sea hath passed that way, even Argo, that is in all\nmen's minds, on her voyage from Aeetes. And even her the\nwave would lightly have cast there upon the mighty rocks,\nbut Here sent her by for love of Jason.\n\n'\"On the other part are two rocks, whereof the one reaches\nwith sharp peak to the wide heaven, and a dark cloud\nencompasses it; this never streams away, and there is no\nclear air about the peak neither in summer nor in harvest\ntide. No mortal man may scale it or set foot thereon, not\nthough he had twenty hands and feet. For the rock is\nsmooth, and sheer, as it were polished. And in the midst of\nthe cliff is a dim cave turned to Erebus, towards the place\nof darkness, whereby ye shall even steer your hollow ship,\nnoble Odysseus. Not with an arrow from a bow might a man in\nhis strength reach from his hollow ship into that deep\ncave. And therein dwelleth Scylla, yelping terribly. Her\nvoice indeed is no greater than the voice of a new-born\nwhelp, but a dreadful monster is she, nor would any look on\nher gladly, not if it were a god that met her. Verily she\nhath twelve feet all dangling down; and six necks exceeding\nlong, and on each a hideous head, and therein three rows of\nteeth set thick and close, full of black death. Up to her\nmiddle is she sunk far down in the hollow cave, but forth\nshe holds her heads from the dreadful gulf, and there she\nfishes, swooping round the rock, for dolphins or sea-dogs,\nor whatso greater beast she may anywhere take, whereof the\ndeep-voiced Amphitrite feeds countless flocks. Thereby no\nsailors boast that they have fled scatheless ever with\ntheir ship, for with each head she carries off a man, whom\nshe hath snatched from out the dark-prowed ship.\n\n'\"But that other cliff, Odysseus, thou shalt note, lying\nlower, hard by the first: thou couldest send an arrow\nacross. And thereon is a great fig-tree growing, in fullest\nleaf, and beneath it mighty Charybdis sucks down black\nwater, for thrice a day she spouts it forth, and thrice a\nday she sucks it down in terrible wise. Never mayest thou\nbe there when she sucks the water, for none might save thee\nthen from thy bane, not even the Earth-Shaker! But take\nheed and swiftly drawing nigh to Scylla's rock drive the\nship past, since of a truth it is far better to mourn six\nof thy company in the ship, than all in the selfsame hour.\"\n\n'So spake she, but I answered, and said unto her: \"Come I\npray thee herein, goddess, tell me true, if there be any\nmeans whereby I might escape from the deadly Charybdis and\navenge me on that other, when she would prey upon my\ncompany.\"\n\n'So spake I, and that fair goddess answered me: \"Man\noverbold, lo, now again the deeds of war are in thy mind\nand the travail thereof. Wilt thou not yield thee even to\nthe deathless gods? As for her, she is no mortal, but an\nimmortal plague, dread, grievous, and fierce, and not to be\nfought with; and against her there is no defence; flight is\nthe bravest way. For if thou tarry to do on thine armour by\nthe cliff, I fear lest once again she sally forth and catch\nat thee with so many heads, and seize as many men as\nbefore. So drive past with all thy force, and call on\nCratais, mother of Scylla, which bore her for a bane to\nmortals. And she will then let her from darting forth\nthereafter.\n\n'\"Then thou shalt come unto the isle Thrinacia; there are\nthe many kine of Helios and his brave flocks feeding, seven\nherds of kine and as many goodly flocks of sheep, and fifty\nin each flock. They have no part in birth or in corruption,\nand there are goddesses to shepherd them, nymphs with fair\ntresses, Phaethusa and Lampetie whom bright Neaera bare to\nHelios Hyperion. Now when the lady their mother had borne\nand nursed them, she carried them to the isle Thrinacia to\ndwell afar, that they should guard their father's flocks\nand his kine with shambling gait. If thou doest these no\nhurt, being heedful of thy return, truly ye may even yet\nreach Ithaca, albeit in evil case. But if thou hurtest\nthem, I foreshow ruin for thy ship and for thy men, and\neven though thou shouldest thyself escape, late shalt thou\nreturn in evil plight with the loss of all thy company.\"\n\n'So spake she, and anon came the golden-throned Dawn. Then\nthe fair goddess took her way up the island. But I departed\nto my ship and roused my men themselves to mount the vessel\nand loose the hawsers. And speedily they went aboard and\nsat upon the benches, and sitting orderly smote the grey\nsea water with their oars. And in the wake of our\ndark-prowed ship she sent a favouring wind that filled the\nsails, a kindly escort,--even Circe of the braided tresses,\na dread goddess of human speech. And straightway we set in\norder the gear throughout the ship and sat us down, and the\nwind and the helmsman guided our barque.\n\n'Then I spake among my company with a heavy heart:\n\"Friends, forasmuch as it is not well that one or two alone\nshould know of the oracles that Circe, the fair goddess,\nspake unto me, therefore will I declare them, that with\nforeknowledge we may die, or haply shunning death and\ndestiny escape. First she bade us avoid the sound of the\nvoice of the wondrous Sirens, and their field of flowers,\nand me only she bade listen to their voices. So bind ye me\nin a hard bond, that I may abide unmoved in my place,\nupright in the mast-stead, and from the mast let rope-ends\nbe tied, and if I beseech and bid you to set me free, then\ndo ye straiten me with yet more bonds.\"\n\n'Thus I rehearsed these things one and all, and declared\nthem to my company. Meanwhile our good ship quickly came to\nthe island of the Sirens twain, for a gentle breeze sped\nher on her way. Then straightway the wind ceased, and lo,\nthere was a windless calm, and some god lulled the waves.\nThen my company rose up and drew in the ship's sails, and\nstowed them in the hold of the ship, while they sat at the\noars and whitened the water with their polished pine\nblades. But I with my sharp sword cleft in pieces a great\ncircle of wax, and with my strong hands kneaded it. And\nsoon the wax grew warm, for that my great might constrained\nit, and the beam of the lord Helios, son of Hyperion. And I\nanointed therewith the ears of all my men in their order,\nand in the ship they bound me hand and foot upright in the\nmast-stead, and from the mast they fastened rope-ends and\nthemselves sat down, and smote the grey sea water with\ntheir oars. But when the ship was within the sound of a\nman's shout from the land, we fleeing swiftly on our way,\nthe Sirens espied the swift ship speeding toward them, and\nthey raised their clear-toned song:\n\n'\"Hither, come hither, renowned Odysseus, great glory of\nthe Achaeans, here stay thy barque, that thou mayest listen\nto the voice of us twain. For none hath ever driven by this\nway in his black ship, till he hath heard from our lips the\nvoice sweet as the honeycomb, and hath had joy thereof and\ngone on his way the wiser. For lo, we know all things, all\nthe travail that in wide Troy-land the Argives and Trojans\nbare by the gods' designs, yea, and we know all that shall\nhereafter be upon the fruitful earth.\"\n\n'So spake they uttering a sweet voice, and my heart was\nfain to listen, and I bade my company unbind me, nodding at\nthem with a frown, but they bent to their oars and rowed\non. Then straight uprose Perimedes and Eurylochus and bound\nme with more cords and straitened me yet the more.  Now\nwhen we had driven past them, nor heard we any longer the\nsound of the Sirens or their song, forthwith my dear\ncompany took away the wax wherewith I had anointed their\nears and loosed me from my bonds.\n\n'But so soon as we left that isle, thereafter presently I\nsaw smoke and a great wave, and heard the sea roaring. Then\nfor very fear the oars flew from their hands, and down the\nstream they all splashed, and the ship was holden there,\nfor my company no longer plied with their hands the\ntapering oars. But I paced the ship and cheered on my men,\nas I stood by each one and spake smooth words:\n\n'\"Friends, forasmuch as in sorrow we are not all unlearned,\ntruly this is no greater woe that is upon us, {*} than when\nthe Cyclops penned us by main might in his hollow cave; yet\neven thence we made escape by my manfulness, even by my\ncounsel and my wit, and some day I think that this\nadventure too we shall remember. Come now, therefore, let\nus all give ear to do according to my word. Do ye smite the\ndeep surf of the sea with your oars, as ye sit on the\nbenches, if peradventure Zeus may grant us to escape from\nand shun this death. And as for thee, helmsman, thus I\ncharge thee, and ponder it in thine heart seeing that thou\nwieldest the helm of the hollow ship. Keep the ship well\naway from this smoke and from the wave and hug the rocks,\nlest the ship, ere thou art aware, start from her course to\nthe other side, and so thou hurl us into ruin.\"\n\n{* Reading [Greek], not [Greek] with La Roche.}\n\n'So I spake, and quickly they hearkened to my words. But of\nScylla I told them nothing more, a bane none might deal\nwith, lest haply my company should cease from rowing for\nfear, and hide them in the hold. In that same hour I\nsuffered myself to forget the hard behest of Circe, in that\nshe bade me in nowise be armed; but I did on my glorious\nharness and caught up two long lances in my hands, and went\non the decking of the prow, for thence methought that\nScylla of the rock would first be seen, who was to bring\nwoe on my company. Yet could I not spy her anywhere, and my\neyes waxed weary for gazing all about toward the darkness\nof the rock.\n\n\"Next we began to sail up the narrow strait lamenting. For\non the one hand lay Scylla, and on the other mighty\nCharybdis in terrible wise sucked down the salt sea water.\nAs often as she belched it forth, like a cauldron on a\ngreat fire she would seethe up through all her troubled\ndeeps, and overhead the spray fell on the tops of either\ncliff. But oft as she gulped down the salt sea water,\nwithin she was all plain to see through her troubled deeps,\nand the rock around roared horribly and beneath the earth\nwas manifest swart with sand, and pale fear gat hold on my\nmen. Toward her, then, we looked fearing destruction; but\nScylla meanwhile caught from out my hollow ship six of my\ncompany, the hardiest of their hands and the chief in\nmight. And looking into the swift ship to find my men, even\nthen I marked their feet and hands as they were lifted on\nhigh, and they cried aloud in their agony, and called me by\nmy name for that last time of all. Even as when as fisher\non some headland lets down with a long rod his baits for a\nsnare to the little fishes below, casting into the deep the\nhorn of an ox of the homestead, and as he catches each\nflings it writhing ashore, so writhing were they borne\nupward to the cliff. And there she devoured them shrieking\nin her gates, they stretching forth their hands to me in\nthe dread death-struggle. And the most pitiful thing was\nthis that mine eyes have seen of all my travail in\nsearching out the paths of the sea.\n\n'Now when we had escaped the Rocks and dread Charybdis and\nScylla, thereafter we soon came to the fair island of the\ngod; where were the goodly kine, broad of brow, and the\nmany brave flocks of Helios Hyperion. Then while as yet I\nwas in my black ship upon the deep, I heard the lowing of\nthe cattle being stalled and the bleating of the sheep, and\non my mind there fell the saying of the blind seer, Theban\nTeiresias, and of Circe of Aia, who charged me very\nstraitly to shun the isle of Helios, the gladdener of the\nworld. Then I spake out among my company in sorrow of\nheart:\n\n'\"Hear my words, my men, albeit in evil plight, that I may\ndeclare unto you the oracles of Teiresias and of Circe of\nAia, who very straitly charged me to shun the isle of\nHelios, the gladdener of the world. For there she said the\nmost dreadful mischief would befal us. Nay, drive ye then\nthe black ship beyond and past that isle.\"\n\n'So spake I, and their heart was broken within them. And\nEurylochus straightway answered me sadly, saying:\n\n'\"Hardy art thou, Odysseus, of might beyond measure, and\nthy limbs are never weary; verily thou art fashioned all of\niron, that sufferest not thy fellows, foredone with toil\nand drowsiness, to set foot on shore, where we might\npresently prepare us a good supper in this sea-girt island.\nBut even as we are thou biddest us fare blindly through the\nsudden night, and from the isle go wandering on the misty\ndeep. And strong winds, the bane of ships, are born of the\nnight. How could a man escape from utter doom, if there\nchanced to come a sudden blast of the South Wind, or of the\nboisterous West, which mainly wreck ships, beyond the will\nof the gods, the lords of all? Howbeit for this present let\nus yield to the black night, and we will make ready our\nsupper abiding by the swift ship, and in the morning we\nwill climb on board, and put out into the broad deep.\"\n\n'So spake Eurylochus, and the rest of my company consented\nthereto. Then at the last I knew that some god was indeed\nimagining evil, and I uttered my voice and spake unto him\nwinged words:\n\n'\"Eurylochus, verily ye put force upon me, being but one\namong you all. But come, swear me now a mighty oath, one\nand all, to the intent that if we light on a herd of kine\nor a great flock of sheep, none in the evil folly of his\nheart may slay any sheep or ox; but in quiet eat ye the\nmeat which the deathless Circe gave.\"\n\n'So I spake, and straightway they swore to refrain as I\ncommanded them. Now after they had sworn and done that\noath, we stayed our well-builded ship in the hollow harbour\nnear to a well of sweet water, and my company went forth\nfrom out the ship and deftly got ready supper. But when\nthey had put from them the desire of meat and drink,\nthereafter they fell a weeping as they thought upon their\ndear companions whom Scylla had snatched from out the\nhollow ship and so devoured. And deep sleep came upon them\namid their weeping. And when it was the third watch of the\nnight, and the stars had crossed the zenith, Zeus the\ncloud-gatherer roused against them an angry wind with\nwondrous tempest, and shrouded in clouds land and sea\nalike, and from heaven sped down the night. Now when early\nDawn shone forth, the rosy-fingered, we beached the ship,\nand dragged it up within a hollow cave, where were the fair\ndancing grounds of the nymphs and the places of their\nsession. Thereupon I ordered a gathering of my men and\nspake in their midst, saying:\n\n'\"Friends, forasmuch as there is yet meat and drink in the\nswift ship, let us keep our hands off those kine, lest some\nevil thing befal us. For these are the kine and the brave\nflocks of a dread god, even of Helios, who overseeth all\nand overheareth all things.\"\n\n'So I spake, and their lordly spirit hearkened thereto.\nThen for a whole month the South Wind blew without ceasing,\nand no other wind arose, save only the East and the South.\n\n'Now so long as my company still had corn and red wine,\nthey refrained them from the kine, for they were fain of\nlife. But when the corn was now all spent from out the\nship, and they went wandering with barbed hooks in quest of\ngame, as needs they must, fishes and fowls, whatsoever\nmight come to their hand, for hunger gnawed at their belly,\nthen at last I departed up the isle, that I might pray to\nthe gods, if perchance some one of them might show me a way\nof returning. And now when I had avoided my company on my\nway through the island, I laved my hands where was a\nshelter from the wind, and prayed to all the gods that hold\nOlympus. But they shed sweet sleep upon my eyelids. And\nEurylochus the while set forth an evil counsel to my\ncompany:\n\n'\"Hear my words, my friends, though ye be in evil case.\nTruly every shape of death is hateful to wretched mortals,\nbut to die of hunger and so meet doom is most pitiful of\nall. Nay come, we will drive off the best of the kine of\nHelios and will do sacrifice to the deathless gods who keep\nwide heaven. And if we may yet reach Ithaca, our own\ncountry, forthwith will we rear a rich shrine to Helios\nHyperion, and therein would we set many a choice offering.\nBut if he be somewhat wroth for his cattle with straight\nhorns, and is fain to wreck our ship, and the other gods\nfollow his desire, rather with one gulp at the wave would I\ncast my life away, than be slowly straitened to death in a\ndesert isle.\"\n\n'So spake Eurylochus, and the rest of the company consented\nthereto. Forthwith they drave off the best of the kine of\nHelios that were nigh at hand, for the fair kine of\nshambling gait and broad of brow were feeding no great way\nfrom the dark-prowed ship. Then they stood around the\ncattle and prayed to the gods, plucking the fresh leaves\nfrom an oak of lofty boughs, for they had no white barley\non board the decked ship. Now after they had prayed and cut\nthe throats of the kine and flayed them, they cut out\nslices of the thighs and wrapped them in the fat, making a\ndouble fold, and thereon they laid raw flesh. Yet had they\nno pure wine to pour over the flaming sacrifices, but they\nmade libation with water and roasted the entrails over the\nfire. Now after the thighs were quite consumed and they had\ntasted the inner parts, they cut the rest up small and\nspitted it on spits. In the same hour deep sleep sped from\nmy eyelids and I sallied forth to the swift ship and the\nsea-banks. But on my way as I drew near to the curved ship,\nthe sweet savour of the fat came all about me; and I\ngroaned and spake out before the deathless gods:\n\n'\"Father Zeus, and all ye other blessed gods that live for\never, verily to my undoing ye have lulled me with a\nruthless sleep, and my company abiding behind have imagined\na monstrous deed.\"\n\n'Then swiftly to Helios Hyperion came Lampetie of the long\nrobes, with the tidings that we had slain his kine. And\nstraight he spake with angry heart amid the Immortals:\n\n'\"Father Zeus, and all ye other blessed gods that live for\never, take vengeance I pray you on the company of Odysseus,\nson of Laertes, that have insolently slain my cattle,\nwherein I was wont to be glad as I went toward the starry\nheaven, and when I again turned earthward from the\nfirmament. And if they pay me not full atonement for the\ncattle, I will go down to Hades and shine among the dead.\"\n\n'And Zeus the cloud-gatherer answered him, saying: \"Helios,\ndo thou, I say, shine on amidst the deathless gods, and\namid mortal men upon the earth, the grain-giver. But as for\nme, I will soon smite their swift ship with my white bolt,\nand cleave it in pieces in the midst of the wine-dark\ndeep.\"\n\n'This I heard from Calypso of the fair hair; and she said\nthat she herself had heard it from Hermes the Messenger.\n\n'But when I had come down to the ship and to the sea, I\nwent up to my companions and rebuked them one by one; but\nwe could find no remedy, the cattle were dead and gone. And\nsoon thereafter the gods showed forth signs and wonders to\nmy company. The skins were creeping, and the flesh\nbellowing upon the spits, both the roast and raw, and there\nwas a sound as the voice of kine.\n\n'Then for six days my dear company feasted on the best of\nthe kine of Helios which they had driven off. But when\nZeus, son of Cronos, had added the seventh day thereto,\nthereafter the wind ceased to blow with a rushing storm,\nand at once we climbed the ship and launched into the broad\ndeep, when we had set up the mast and hoisted the white\nsails.\n\n'But now when we left that isle nor any other land\nappeared, but sky and sea only, even then the son of Cronos\nstayed a dark cloud above the hollow ship, and beneath it\nthe deep darkened. And the ship ran on her way for no long\nwhile, for of a sudden came the shrilling West, with the\nrushing of a great tempest, and the blast of wind snapped\nthe two forestays of the mast, and the mast fell backward\nand all the gear dropped into the bilge. And behold, on the\nhind part of the ship the mast struck the head of the pilot\nand brake all the bones of his skull together, and like a\ndiver he dropt down from the deck, and his brave spirit\nleft his bones. In that same hour Zeus thundered and cast\nhis bolt upon the ship, and she reeled all over being\nstricken by the bolt of Zeus, and was filled with sulphur,\nand lo, my company fell from out the vessel. Like sea-gulls\nthey were borne round the black ship upon the billows, and\nthe god reft them of returning.\n\n'But I kept pacing through my ship, till the surge loosened\nthe sides from the keel, and the wave swept her along\nstript of her tackling, and brake her mast clean off at the\nkeel. Now the backstay fashioned of an oxhide had been\nflung thereon; therewith I lashed together both keel and\nmast, and sitting thereon I was borne by the ruinous winds.\n\n'Then verily the West Wind ceased to blow with a rushing\nstorm, and swiftly withal the South Wind came, bringing\nsorrow to my soul, that so I might again measure back that\nspace of sea, the way to deadly Charybdis. All the night\nwas I borne, but with the rising of the sun I came to the\nrock of Scylla, and to dread Charybdis. Now she had sucked\ndown her salt sea water, when I was swung up on high to the\ntall fig-tree whereto I clung like a bat, and could find no\nsure rest for my feet nor place to stand, for the roots\nspread far below and the branches hung aloft out of reach,\nlong and large, and overshadowed Charybdis. Steadfast I\nclung till she should spew forth mast and keel again; and\nlate they came to my desire. At the hour when a man rises\nup from the assembly and goes to supper, one who judges the\nmany quarrels of the young men that seek to him for law, at\nthat same hour those timbers came forth to view from out\nCharybdis. And I let myself drop down hands and feet, and\nplunged heavily in the midst of the waters beyond the long\ntimbers, and sitting on these I rowed hard with my hands.\nBut the father of gods and of men suffered me no more to\nbehold Scylla, else I should never have escaped from utter\ndoom.\n\n'Thence for nine days was I borne, and on the tenth night\nthe gods brought me nigh to the isle of Ogygia, where\ndwells Calypso of the braided tresses, an awful goddess of\nmortal speech, who took me in and entreated me kindly. But\nwhy rehearse all this tale? For even yesterday I told it to\nthee and to thy noble wife in thy house; and it liketh me\nnot twice to tell a plain-told tale.'\n\n\n\nBook XIII\n\n  Odysseus, sleeping, is set ashore at Ithaca by the\n  Phaeacians, and waking knows it not. Pallas, in the form of\n  a shepherd, helps to hide his treasure. The ship that\n  conveyed him is turned into a rock, and Odysseus by Pallas\n  is instructed what to do, and transformed into an old\n  beggarman.\n\nSo spake he, and dead silence fell on all, and they were\nspell-bound throughout the shadowy halls. Thereupon\nAlcinous answered him, and spake, saying:\n\n'Odysseus, now that thou hast come to my high house with\nfloor of bronze, never, methinks, shalt thou be driven from\nthy way ere thou returnest, though thou hast been sore\nafflicted. And for each man among you, that in these halls\nof mine drink evermore the dark wine of the elders, and\nhearken to the minstrel, this is my word and command.\nGarments for the stranger are already laid up in a polished\ncoffer, with gold curiously wrought, and all other such\ngifts as the counsellors of the Phaeacians bare hither.\nCome now, let us each of us give him a great tripod and a\ncauldron, and we in turn will gather goods among the people\nand get us recompense; for it were hard that one man should\ngive without repayment.'\n\nSo spake Alcinous, and the saying pleased them well. Then\nthey went each one to his house to lay him down to rest;\nbut so soon as early Dawn shone forth, the rosy-fingered,\nthey hasted to the ship and bare the bronze, the joy of\nmen. And the mighty king Alcinous himself went about the\nship and diligently bestowed the gifts beneath the benches,\nthat they might not hinder any of the crew in their rowing,\nwhen they laboured at their oars. Then they betook them to\nthe house of Alcinous and fell to feasting. And the mighty\nking Alcinous sacrificed before them an ox to Zeus, the son\nof Cronos, that dwells in the dark clouds, who is lord of\nall. And when they had burnt the pieces of the thighs, they\nshared the glorious feast and made merry, and among them\nharped the divine minstrel Demodocus, whom the people\nhonoured. But Odysseus would ever turn his head toward the\nsplendour of the sun, as one fain to hasten his setting:\nfor verily he was most eager to return. And as when a man\nlongs for his supper, for whom all day long two dark oxen\ndrag through the fallow field the jointed plough, yea and\nwelcome to such an one the sunlight sinketh, that so he may\nget him to supper, for his knees wax faint by the way, even\nso welcome was the sinking of the sunlight to Odysseus.\nThen straight he spake among the Phaeacians, masters of the\noar, and to Alcinous in chief he made known his word,\nsaying:\n\n'My lord Alcinous, most notable of all the people, pour ye\nthe drink offering, and send me safe upon my way, and as\nfor you, fare ye well. For now have I all that my heart\ndesired, an escort and loving gifts. May the gods of heaven\ngive me good fortune with them, and may I find my noble\nwife in my home with my friends unharmed, while ye, for\nyour part, abide here and make glad your wedded wives and\nchildren; and may the gods vouchsafe all manner of good,\nand may no evil come nigh the people!'\n\nSo spake he, and they all consented thereto and bade send\nthe stranger on his way, in that he had spoken aright. Then\nthe mighty Alcinous spake to the henchman: 'Pontonous, mix\nthe bowl and serve out the wine to all in the hall, that we\nmay pray to Father Zeus, and send the stranger on his way\nto his own country.'\n\nSo spake he, and Pontonous mixed the honey-hearted wine,\nand served it to all in turn. And they poured forth before\nthe blessed gods that keep wide heaven, even there as they\nsat. Then goodly Odysseus uprose, and placed in Arete's\nhand the two-handled cup, and uttering his voice spake to\nher winged words:\n\n'Fare thee well, O queen, all the days of thy life, till\nold age come and death, that visit all mankind. But I go\nhomeward, and do thou in this thy house rejoice in thy\nchildren and thy people and Alcinous the king.'\n\nTherewith goodly Odysseus stept over the threshold. And\nwith him the mighty Alcinous sent forth a henchman to guide\nhim to the swift ship and the sea-banks. And Arete sent in\nthis train certain maidens of her household, one bearing a\nfresh robe and a doublet, and another she joined to them to\ncarry the strong coffer, and yet another bare bread and red\nwine. Now when they had come down to the ship and to the\nsea, straightway the good men of the escort took these\nthings and laid them by in the hollow ship, even all the\nmeat and drink. Then they strewed for Odysseus a rug and a\nsheet of linen, on the decks of the hollow ship, in the\nhinder part thereof, that he might sleep sound. Then he too\nclimbed aboard and laid him down in silence, while they sat\nupon the benches, every man in order, and unbound the\nhawser from the pierced stone. So soon as they leant\nbackwards and tossed the sea water with the oar blade, a\ndeep sleep fell upon his eyelids, a sound sleep, very\nsweet, and next akin to death. And even as on a plain a\nyoke of four stallions comes springing all together beneath\nthe lash, leaping high and speedily accomplishing the way,\nso leaped the stern of that ship, and the dark wave of the\nsounding sea rushed mightily in the wake, and she ran ever\nsurely on her way, nor could a circling hawk keep pace with\nher, of winged things the swiftest. Even thus she lightly\nsped and cleft the waves of the sea, bearing a man whose\ncounsel was as the counsel of the gods, one that erewhile\nhad suffered much sorrow of heart, in passing through the\nwars of men, and the grievous waves; but for that time he\nslept in peace, forgetful of all that he had suffered.\n\nSo when the star came up, that is brightest of all, and\ngoes ever heralding the light of early Dawn, even then did\nthe seafaring ship draw nigh the island. There is in the\nland of Ithaca a certain haven of Phorcys, the ancient one\nof the sea, and thereby are two headlands of sheer cliff,\nwhich slope to the sea on the haven's side and break the\nmighty wave that ill winds roll without, but within, the\ndecked ships ride unmoored when once they have reached the\nplace of anchorage. Now at the harbour's head is a\nlong-leaved olive tree, and hard by is a pleasant cave and\nshadowy, sacred to the nymphs, that are called the Naiads.\nAnd therein are mixing bowls and jars of stone, and there\nmoreover do bees hive. And there are great looms of stone,\nwhereon the nymphs weave raiment of purple stain, a marvel\nto behold, and therein are waters welling evermore. Two\ngates there are to the cave, the one set toward the North\nWind whereby men may go down, but the portals toward the\nSouth pertain rather to the gods, whereby men may not\nenter: it is the way of the immortals.\n\nThither they, as having knowledge of that place, let drive\ntheir ship; and now the vessel in full course ran ashore,\nhalf her keel's length high; so well was she sped by the\nhands of the oarsmen. Then they alighted from the benched\nship upon the land, and first they lifted Odysseus from out\nthe hollow ship, all as he was in the sheet of linen and\nthe bright rug, and laid him yet heavy with slumber on the\nsand. And they took forth the goods which the lordly\nPhaeacians had given him on his homeward way by grace of\nthe great-hearted Athene. These they set in a heap by the\ntrunk of the olive tree, a little aside from the road, lest\nsome wayfaring man, before Odysseus awakened, should come\nand spoil them. Then themselves departed homeward again.\nBut the shaker of the earth forgat not the threats,\nwherewith at the first he had threatened god like Odysseus,\nand he inquired into the counsel of Zeus, saying:\n\n'Father Zeus, I for one shall no longer be of worship among\nthe deathless gods, when mortal men hold me in no regard,\neven Phaeacians, who moreover are of mine own lineage. Lo,\nnow I said that after much affliction Odysseus should come\nhome, for I had no mind to rob him utterly of his return,\nwhen once thou hadst promised it and given assent; but\nbehold, in his sleep they have borne him in a swift ship\nover the sea, and set him down in Ithaca, and given him\ngifts out of measure, bronze and gold in plenty and woven\nraiment, much store, such as never would Odysseus have won\nfor himself out of Troy; yea, though he had returned unhurt\nwith the share of the spoil that fell to him.'\n\nAnd Zeus, the cloud gatherer, answered him saying: 'Lo,\nnow, shaker of the earth, of widest power, what a word hast\nthou spoken! The gods nowise dishonour thee; hard would it\nbe to assail with dishonour our eldest and our best. But if\nany man, giving place to his own hardihood and strength,\nholds thee not in worship, thou hast always thy revenge for\nthe same, even in the time to come. Do thou as thou wilt,\nand as seems thee good.'\n\nThen Poseidon, shaker of the earth, answered him:\n'Straightway would I do even as thou sayest, O god of the\ndark clouds; but thy wrath I always hold in awe and avoid.\nHowbeit, now I fain would smite a fair ship of the\nPhaeacians, as she comes home from a convoy on the misty\ndeep, that thereby they may learn to hold their hands, and\ncease from giving escort to men; and I would overshadow\ntheir city with a great mountain.'\n\nAnd Zeus the gatherer of the clouds, answered him, saying:\n'Friend, learn now what seems best in my sight. At an hour\nwhen the folk are all looking forth from the city at the\nship upon her way, smite her into a stone hard by the land;\na stone in the likeness of a swift ship, that all mankind\nmay marvel, and do thou overshadow their city with a great\nmountain.'\n\nNow when Poseidon, shaker of the earth, heard this saying,\nhe went on his way to Scheria, where the Phaeacians dwell.\nThere he abode awhile; and lo, she drew near, the seafaring\nship, lightly sped upon her way. Then nigh her came the\nshaker of the earth, and he smote her into a stone, and\nrooted her far below with the down-stroke of his hand; and\nhe departed thence again.\n\nThen one to the other they spake winged words, the\nPhaeacians of the long oars, mariners renowned. And thus\nwould they speak, looking each man to his neighbour:\n\n'Ah me! who is this that fettered our swift ship on the\ndeep as she drave homewards? Even now she stood full in\nsight.'\n\nEven so they would speak; but they knew not how these\nthings were ordained. And Alcinous made harangue and spake\namong them:\n\n'Lo now, in very truth the ancient oracles of my father\nhave come home to me. He was wont to say that Poseidon was\njealous of us, for that we give safe escort to all men. He\nsaid that the day would come when the god would smite a\nfair ship of the Phaeacians, as she came home from a convoy\non the misty deep, and overshadow our city with a great\nmountain. Thus that ancient one would speak; and lo, all\nthese things now have an end. But come, let us all give ear\nand do according to my word. Cease ye from the convoy of\nmortals, whensoever any shall come unto our town, and let\nus sacrifice to Poseidon twelve choice bulls, if perchance\nhe may take pity, neither overshadow our city with a great\nmountain.'\n\nSo spake he, and they were dismayed and got ready the\nbulls. Thus were they praying to the lord Poseidon, the\nprinces and counsellors of the land of the Phaeacians, as\nthey stood about the altar.\n\nEven then the goodly Odysseus awoke where he slept on his\nnative land; nor knew he the same again, having now been\nlong afar, for around him the goddess had shed a mist, even\nPallas Athene, daughter of Zeus, to the end that she might\nmake him undiscovered for that he was, and might expound to\nhim all things, that so his wife should not know him\nneither his townsmen and kinsfolk, ere the wooers had paid\nfor all their transgressions. Wherefore each thing showed\nstrange to the lord of the land, the long paths and the\nsheltering havens and the steep rocks and the trees in\ntheir bloom. So he started up, and stood and looked upon\nhis native land, and then he made moan withal, and smote on\nboth his thighs with the down-stroke of his hands, and\nmaking lament, he spake, saying:\n\n'Oh, woe is me, unto what mortals' land am I now come? Say,\nare they froward, and wild, and unjust, or hospitable and\nof a god-fearing mind? Whither do I bear all this treasure?\nYea, where am I wandering myself? Oh that the treasure had\nremained with the Phaeacians where it was, so had I come to\nsome other of the mighty princes, who would have entreated\nme kindly and sent me on my way. But now I know not where\nto bestow these things, nor yet will I leave them here\nbehind, lest haply other men make spoil of them. Ah then,\nthey are not wholly wise or just, the princes and\ncounsellors of the Phaeacians, who carried me to a strange\nland. Verily they promised to bring me to clear-seen\nIthaca, but they performed it not. May Zeus requite them,\nthe god of suppliants, seeing that he watches over all men\nand punishes the transgressor! But come, I will reckon up\nthese goods and look to them, lest the men be gone, and\nhave taken aught away upon their hollow ship.'\n\nTherewith he set to number the fair tripods and the\ncauldrons and the gold and the goodly woven raiment; and of\nall these he lacked not aught, but he bewailed him for his\nown country, as he walked downcast by the shore of the\nsounding sea, and made sore lament. Then Athene came nigh\nhim in the guise of a young man, the herdsman of a flock, a\nyoung man most delicate, such as are the sons of kings. And\nshe had a well-wrought mantle that fell in two folds about\nher shoulders, and beneath her smooth feet she had sandals\nbound, and a javelin in her hands. And Odysseus rejoiced as\nhe saw her, and came over against her, and uttering his\nvoice spake to her winged words:\n\n'Friend, since thou art the first that I have chanced on in\nthis land, hail to thee, and with no ill-will mayest thou\nmeet me! Nay, save this my substance and save me too, for\nto thee as to a god I make prayer, and to thy dear knees\nhave I come. And herein tell me true, that I may surely\nknow. What land, what people is this? what men dwell\ntherein? Surely, methinks, it is some clear seen isle, or a\nshore of the rich mainland that lies and leans upon the\ndeep.'\n\nThen the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, spake to him again:\n'Thou art witless, stranger, or thou art come from afar, if\nindeed thou askest of this land; nay, it is not so very\nnameless but that many men know it, both all those who\ndwell toward the dawning and the sun, and they that abide\nover against the light toward the shadowy west. Verily it\nis rough and not fit for the driving of horses, yet is it\nnot a very sorry isle, though narrow withal. For herein is\ncorn past telling, and herein too wine is found, and the\nrain is on it evermore, and the fresh dew. And it is good\nfor feeding goats and feeding kine; all manner of wood is\nhere, and watering-places unfailing are herein. Wherefore,\nstranger, the name of Ithaca hath reached even unto\nTroy-land, which men say is far from this Achaean shore.'\n\nSo spake she, and the steadfast goodly Odysseus was glad,\nand had joy in his own country, according to the word of\nPallas Athene, daughter of Zeus, lord of the aegis. And he\nuttered his voice and spake unto her winged words; yet he\ndid not speak the truth, but took back the word that was on\nhis lips, for quick and crafty was his wit within his\nbreast:\n\n'Of Ithaca have I heard tell, even in broad Crete, far over\nthe seas; and now have I come hither myself with these my\ngoods. And I left as much again to my children, when I\nturned outlaw for the slaying of the dear son of Idomeneus,\nOrsilochus, swift of foot, who in wide Crete was the\nswiftest of all men that live by bread. Now he would have\ndespoiled me of all that booty of Troy, for the which I had\nendured pain of heart, in passing through the wars of men,\nand the grievous waves of the sea, for this cause that I\nwould not do a favour to his father, and make me his squire\nin the land of the Trojans, but commanded other fellowship\nof mine own. So I smote him with a bronze-shod spear as he\ncame home from the field, lying in ambush for him by the\nwayside, with one of my companions. And dark midnight held\nthe heavens, and no man marked us, but privily I took his\nlife away. Now after I had slain him with the sharp spear,\nstraightway I went to a ship and besought the lordly\nPhoenicians, and gave them spoil to their hearts' desire. I\ncharged them to take me on board, and land me at Pylos or\nat goodly Elis where the Epeans bear rule. Howbeit of a\ntruth, the might of the wind drave them out of their\ncourse, sore against their will, nor did they wilfully play\nme false. Thence we were driven wandering, and came hither\nby night. And with much ado we rowed onward into harbour,\nnor took we any thought of supper, though we stood sore in\nneed thereof, but even as we were we stept ashore and all\nlay down. Then over me there came sweet slumber in my\nweariness, but they took forth my goods from the hollow\nship, and set them by me where I myself lay upon the sands.\nThen they went on board, and departed for the fair-lying\nland of Sidon; while as for me I was left stricken at\nheart.'\n\nSo spake he and the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, smiled, and\ncaressed him with her hand; and straightway she changed to\nthe semblance of a woman, fair and tall, and skilled in\nsplendid handiwork. And uttering her voice she spake unto\nhim winged words:\n\n'Crafty must he be, and knavish, who would outdo thee in\nall manner of guile, even if it were a god encountered\nthee. Hardy man, subtle of wit, of guile insatiate, so thou\nwast not even in thine own country to cease from thy\nsleights and knavish words, which thou lovest from the\nbottom of thine heart! But come, no more let us tell of\nthese things, being both of us practised in deceits, for\nthat thou art of all men far the first in counsel and in\ndiscourse, and I in the company of all the gods win renown\nfor my wit and wile. Yet thou knewest not me, Pallas\nAthene, daughter of Zeus, who am always by thee and guard\nthee in all adventures. Yea, and I made thee to be beloved\nof all the Phaeacians. And now am I come hither to contrive\na plot with thee and to hide away the goods, that by my\ncounsel and design the noble Phaeacians gave thee on thy\nhomeward way. And I would tell thee how great a measure of\ntrouble thou art ordained to fulfil within thy well-builded\nhouse. But do thou harden thy heart, for so it must be, and\ntell none neither man nor woman of all the folk, that thou\nhast indeed returned from wandering, but in silence endure\nmuch sorrow, submitting thee to the despite of men.'\n\nAnd Odysseus of many counsels answered her saying: 'Hard is\nit, goddess, for a mortal man that meets thee to discern\nthee, howsoever wise he be; for thou takest upon thee every\nshape. But this I know well, that of old thou wast kindly\nto me, so long as we sons of the Achaeans made war in Troy.\nBut so soon as we had sacked the steep city of Priam and\nhad gone on board our ships, and the god had scattered the\nAchaeans, thereafter I have never beheld thee, daughter of\nZeus, nor seen thee coming on board my ship, to ward off\nsorrow from me--but I wandered evermore with a stricken\nheart, till the gods delivered me from my evil case--even\ntill the day when, within the fat land of the men of\nPhaeacia, thou didst comfort me with thy words, and thyself\ndidst lead me to their city. And now I beseech thee in thy\nfather's name to tell me: for I deem not that I am come to\nclear-seen Ithaca, but I roam over some other land, and\nmethinks that thou speakest thus to mock me and beguile my\nmind. Tell me whether in very deed I am come to mine own\ndear country.'\n\nThen the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, answered him: 'Yea,\nsuch a thought as this is ever in thy breast. Wherefore I\nmay in no wise leave thee in thy grief, so courteous art\nthou, so ready of wit and so prudent. Right gladly would\nany other man on his return from wandering have hasted to\nbehold his children and his wife in his halls; but thou\nhast no will to learn or to hear aught, till thou hast\nfurthermore made trial of thy wife, who sits as ever in her\nhalls, and wearily for her the nights wane always and the\ndays, in shedding of tears. But of this I never doubted,\nbut ever knew it in my heart that thou wouldest come home\nwith the loss of all thy company. Yet, I tell thee, I had\nno mind to be at strife with Poseidon, my own father's\nbrother, who laid up wrath in his heart against thee, being\nangered at the blinding of his dear son. But come, and I\nwill show thee the place of the dwelling of Ithaca, that\nthou mayst be assured. Lo, here is the haven of Phorcys,\nthe ancient one of the sea, and here at the haven's head is\nthe olive tree with spreading leaves, and hard by it is the\npleasant cave and shadowy, sacred to the nymphs that are\ncalled the Naiads. Yonder, behold, is the roofed cavern,\nwhere thou offeredst many an acceptable sacrifice of\nhecatombs to the nymphs; and lo, this hill is Neriton, all\nclothed in forest.'\n\nTherewith the goddess scattered the mist, and the land\nappeared. Then the steadfast goodly Odysseus was glad\nrejoicing in his own land, and he kissed the earth, the\ngrain-giver. And anon he prayed to the nymphs, and lifted\nup his hands, saying:\n\n'Ye Naiad nymphs, daughters of Zeus, never did I think to\nlook on you again, but now be ye greeted in my loving\nprayers: yea, and gifts as aforetime I will give, if the\ndaughter of Zeus, driver of the spoil, suffer me of her\ngrace myself to live, and bring my dear son to manhood.'\n\nThen the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, spake to him again: 'Be\nof good courage, and let not thy heart be careful about\nthese things. But come, let us straightway set thy goods in\nthe secret place of the wondrous cave, that there they may\nabide for thee safe. And let us for ourselves advise us how\nall may be for the very best.'\n\nTherewith the goddess plunged into the shadowy cave,\nsearching out the chambers of the cavern. Meanwhile\nOdysseus brought up his treasure, the gold and the\nunyielding bronze and fair woven raiment, which the\nPhaeacians gave him. And these things he laid by with care,\nand Pallas Athene, daughter of Zeus, lord of the aegis, set\na stone against the door of the cave. Then they twain sat\ndown by the trunk of the sacred olive tree, and devised\ndeath for the froward wooers. And the goddess, grey-eyed\nAthene, spake first, saying:\n\n'Son of Laertes, of the seed of Zeus, Odysseus of many\ndevices, advise thee how thou mayest stretch forth thine\nhands upon the shameless wooers, who now these three years\nlord it through thy halls, as they woo thy godlike wife and\nproffer the gifts of wooing. And she, that is ever\nbewailing her for thy return, gives hope to all and makes\npromises to every man and sends them messages, but her mind\nis set on other things.'\n\nAnd Odysseus of many counsels answered her, saying:\n\n'Lo now, in very truth I was like to have perished in my\nhalls by the evil doom of Agamemnon, son of Atreus, hadst\nnot thou, goddess, declared me each thing aright. Come\nthen, weave some counsel whereby I may requite them; and\nthyself stand by me, and put great boldness of spirit\nwithin me, even as in the day when we loosed the shining\ncoronal of Troy. If but thou wouldest stand by me with such\neagerness, thou grey-eyed goddess, I would war even with\nthree hundred men, with thee my lady and goddess, if thou\nof thy grace didst succour me the while.'\n\nThen the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, answered him: 'Yea,\nverily I will be near thee nor will I forget thee,\nwhensoever we come to this toil: and methinks that certain\nof the wooers that devour thy livelihood shall bespatter\nthe boundless earth with blood and brains. But come, I will\nmake thee such-like that no man shall know thee. Thy fair\nskin I will wither on thy supple limbs, and make waste thy\nyellow hair from off thy head, and wrap thee in a foul\ngarment, such that one would shudder to see a man therein.\nAnd I will dim thy two eyes, erewhile so fair, in such wise\nthat thou mayest be unseemly in the sight of all the wooers\nand of thy wife and son, whom thou didst leave in thy\nhalls. And do thou thyself first of all go unto the\nswineherd, who tends thy swine, loyal and at one with thee,\nand loves thy son and constant Penelope. Him shalt thou\nfind sitting by the swine, as they are feeding near the\nrock of Corax and the spring Arethusa, and there they eat\nabundance of acorns and drink the black water, things\nwhereby swine grow fat and well-liking. There do thou abide\nand sit by the swine, and find out all, till I have gone to\nSparta, the land of fair women, to call Telemachus thy dear\nson, Odysseus, who hath betaken himself to spacious\nLacedaemon, to the house of Menelaus to seek tidings of\nthee, whether haply thou are yet alive.'\n\nAnd Odysseus of many counsels answered her saying: 'Nay,\nwherefore then didst thou not tell him, seeing thou hast\nknowledge of all? Was it, perchance, that he too may wander\nin sorrow over the unharvested seas, and that others may\nconsume his livelihood?'\n\nThen the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, answered him: 'Nay, let\nhim not be heavy on thy heart. I myself was his guide, that\nby going thither he might win a good report. Lo, he knows\nno toil, but he sits in peace in the palace of the son of\nAtreus, and has boundless store about him. Truly the young\nmen with their black ship they lie in wait, and are eager\nto slay him ere he come to his own country. But this,\nmethinks, shall never be. Yea, sooner shall the earth close\nover certain of the wooers that devour thy livelihood.'\n\nTherewith Athene touched him with her wand. His fair flesh\nshe withered on his supple limbs, and made waste his yellow\nhair from off his head, and over all his limbs she cast the\nskin of an old man, and dimmed his two eyes, erewhile so\nfair. And she changed his raiment to a vile wrap and a\ndoublet, torn garments and filthy, stained with foul smoke.\nAnd over all she clad him with the great bald hide of a\nswift stag, and she gave him a staff and a mean tattered\nscrip, and a cord therewith to hang it.\n\nAnd after they twain had taken this counsel together, they\nparted; and she now went to goodly Lacedaemon to fetch the\nson of Odysseus.\n\n\n\nBook XIV\n\n  Odysseus, in the form of a beggar, goes to Eumaeus, the\n  master of his swine, where he is well used and tells a\n  feigned story, and informs himself of the behaviour of the\n  wooers.\n\nBut Odysseus fared forth from the haven by the rough track,\nup the wooded country and through the heights, where Athene\nhad showed him that he should find the goodly swineherd,\nwho cared most for his substance of all the thralls that\ngoodly Odysseus had gotten.\n\nNow he found him sitting at the vestibule of the house,\nwhere his courtyard was builded high, in a place with wide\nprospect; a great court it was and a fair, with free range\nround it. This the swineherd had builded by himself for the\nswine of his lord who was afar, and his mistress and the\nold man Laertes knew not of it. With stones from the quarry\nhad he builded it, and coped it with a fence of white\nthorn, and he had split an oak to the dark core, and\nwithout he had driven stakes the whole length thereof on\neither side, set thick and close; and within the courtyard\nhe made twelve styes hard by one another to be beds for the\nswine, and in each stye fifty grovelling swine were penned,\nbrood swine; but the boars slept without. Now these were\nfar fewer in number, the godlike wooers minishing them at\ntheir feasts, for the swineherd ever sent in the best of\nall the fatted hogs. And their tale was three hundred and\nthree-score. And by them always slept four dogs, as fierce\nas wild beasts, which the swineherd had bred, a master of\nmen. Now he was fitting sandals to his feet, cutting a good\nbrown oxhide, while the rest of his fellows, three in all,\nwere abroad this way and that, with the droves of swine;\nwhile the fourth he had sent to the city to take a boar to\nthe proud wooers, as needs he must, that they might\nsacrifice it and satisfy their soul with flesh.\n\nAnd of a sudden the baying dogs saw Odysseus, and they ran\nat him yelping, but Odysseus in his wariness sat him down,\nand let the staff fall from his hand. There by his own\nhomestead would he have suffered foul hurt, but the\nswineherd with quick feet hasted after them, and sped\nthrough the outer door, and let the skin fall from his\nhand. And the hounds he chid and drave them this way and\nthat, with a shower of stones, and he spake unto his lord,\nsaying:\n\n'Old man, truly the dogs went nigh to be the death of thee\nall of a sudden, so shouldest thou have brought shame on\nme. Yea, and the gods have given me other pains and griefs\nenough. Here I sit, mourning and sorrowing for my godlike\nlord, and foster the fat swine for others to eat, while he\ncraving, perchance, for food, wanders over some land and\ncity of men of a strange speech, if haply he yet lives and\nbeholds the sunlight. But come with me, let us to the inner\nsteading, old man, that when thy heart is satisfied with\nbread and wine, thou too mayest tell thy tale and declare\nwhence thou art, and how many woes thou hast endured.'\n\nTherewith the goodly swineherd led him to the steading, and\ntook him in and set him down, and strewed beneath him thick\nbrushwood, and spread thereon the hide of a shaggy wild\ngoat, wide and soft, which served himself for a mattress.\nAnd Odysseus rejoiced that he had given him such welcome,\nand spake and hailed him:\n\n'May Zeus, O stranger, and all the other deathless gods\ngrant thee thy dearest wish, since thou hast received me\nheartily!'\n\nThen, O swineherd Eumaeus, didst thou answer him, saying:\n'Guest of mine, it were an impious thing for me to slight a\nstranger, even if there came a meaner man than thou; for\nfrom Zeus are all strangers and beggars; and a little gift\nfrom such as we, is dear; for this is the way with thralls,\nwho are ever in fear when young lords like ours bear rule\nover them. For surely the gods have stayed the returning of\nmy master, who would have loved me diligently, and given me\nsomewhat of my own, a house and a parcel of ground, and a\ncomely {*} wife, such as a kind lord gives to his man, who\nhath laboured much for him and the work of whose hands God\nhath likewise increased, even as he increaseth this work of\nmine whereat I abide. Therefore would my lord have rewarded\nme greatly, had he grown old at home. But he hath perished,\nas I would that all the stock of Helen had perished\nutterly, forasmuch as she hath caused the loosening of many\na man's knees. For he too departed to Ilios of the goodly\nsteeds, to get atonement for Agamemnon, that so he might\nwar with the Trojans.'\n\n{* Reading [Greek]}\n\nTherewith he quickly bound up his doublet with his girdle,\nand went his way to the styes, where the tribes of the\nswine were penned. Thence he took and brought forth two,\nand sacrificed them both, and singed them and cut them\nsmall, and spitted them. And when he had roasted all, he\nbare and set it by Odysseus, all hot as it was upon the\nspits, and he sprinkled thereupon white barley-meal. Then\nin a bowl of ivywood he mixed the honey-sweet wine, and\nhimself sat over against him and bade him fall to:\n\n'Eat now, stranger, such fare as thralls have to hand, even\nflesh of sucking pigs; but the fatted hogs the wooers\ndevour, for they know not the wrath of the gods nor any\npity. Verily the blessed gods love not froward deeds, but\nthey reverence justice and the righteous acts of men. Yet\neven foes and men unfriendly, that land on a strange coast,\nand Zeus grants them a prey, and they have laden their\nships and depart for home; yea, even on their hearts falls\nstrong fear of the wrath of the gods. But lo you, these men\nknow somewhat,--for they have heard an utterance of a god\n--, even the tidings of our lord's evil end, seeing that\nthey are not minded justly to woo, nor to go back to their\nown, but at ease they devour our wealth with insolence, and\nnow there is no sparing. For every day and every night that\ncomes from Zeus, they make sacrifice not of one victim\nonly, nor of two, and wine they draw and waste it\nriotously. For surely his livelihood was great past\ntelling, no lord in the dark mainland had so much, nor any\nin Ithaca itself; nay, not twenty men together have wealth\nso great, and I will tell thee the sum thereof. Twelve\nherds of kine upon the mainland, as many flocks of sheep,\nas many droves of swine, as many ranging herds of goats,\nthat his own shepherds and strangers pasture. And ranging\nherds of goats, eleven in all, graze here by the extremity\nof the island with trusty men to watch them. And day by day\neach man of these ever drives one of the flock to the\nwooers, whichsoever seems the best of the fatted goats. But\nas for me I guard and keep these swine and I choose out for\nthem, as well as I may, the best of the swine and send it\nhence.'\n\nSo spake he, but Odysseus ceased not to eat flesh and drink\nwine right eagerly and in silence, and the while was sowing\nthe seeds of evil for the wooers. Now when he had well\neaten and comforted his heart with food, then the herdsman\nfilled him the bowl out of which he was wont himself to\ndrink, and he gave it him brimming with wine, and he took\nit and was glad at heart, and uttering his voice spake to\nhim winged words:\n\n'My friend, who was it then that bought thee with his\nwealth, a man so exceedingly rich and mighty as thou\ndeclarest? Thou saidest that he perished to get atonement\nfor Agamemnon; tell me, if perchance I may know him, being\nsuch an one as thou sayest. For Zeus, methinks, and the\nother deathless gods know whether I may bring tidings of\nhaving seen him; for I have wandered far.'\n\nThen the swineherd, a master of men, answered him: 'Old\nman, no wanderer who may come hither and bring tidings of\nhim can win the ear of his wife and his dear son; but\nlightly do vagrants lie when they need entertainment, and\ncare not to tell truth. Whosoever comes straying to the\nland of Ithaca, goes to my mistress and speaks words of\nguile. And she receives him kindly and lovingly and\ninquires of all things, and the tears fall from her eyelids\nfor weeping, as is meet for a woman when her lord hath died\nafar. And quickly enough wouldst thou too, old man, forge a\ntale, if any would but give thee a mantle and a doublet for\nraiment. But as for him, dogs and swift fowls are like\nalready to have torn his skin from the bones, and his\nspirit hath left him. Or the fishes have eaten him in the\ndeep, and there lie his bones swathed in sand-drift on the\nshore. Yonder then hath he perished, but for his friends\nnought is ordained but care, for all, but for me in chief.\nFor never again shall I find a lord so gentle, how far\nsoever I may go, not though again I attain unto the house\nof my father and my mother, where at first I was born, and\nthey nourished me themselves and with their own hands they\nreared me. Nor henceforth it is not for these that I sorrow\nso much, though I long to behold them with mine eyes in\nmine own country, but desire comes over me for Odysseus who\nis afar. His name, stranger, even though he is not here, it\nshameth me to speak, for he loved me exceedingly, and cared\nfor me at heart; nay, I call him \"worshipful,\" albeit he is\nfar hence.'\n\nThen the steadfast goodly Odysseus spake to him again: 'My\nfriend, forasmuch as thou gainsayest utterly, and sayest\nthat henceforth he will not come again, and thine heart is\never slow to believe, therefore will I tell thee not\nlightly but with an oath, that Odysseus shall return. And\nlet me have the wages of good tidings as soon as ever he in\nhis journeying shall come hither to his home. Then clothe\nme in a mantle and a doublet, goodly raiment. But ere that,\nalbeit I am sore in need I will not take aught, for hateful\nto me even as the gates of hell, is that man, who under\nstress of poverty speaks words of guile. Now be Zeus my\nwitness before any god, and the hospitable board and the\nhearth of noble Odysseus whereunto I am come, that all\nthese things shall surely be accomplished even as I tell\nthee. In this same year Odysseus shall come hither; as the\nold moon wanes and the new is born shall he return to his\nhome, and shall take vengeance on all who here dishonour\nhis wife and noble son.'\n\nThen didst thou make answer, swineherd Eumaeus: 'Old man,\nit is not I then, that shall ever pay thee these wages of\ngood tidings, nor henceforth shall Odysseus ever come to\nhis home. Nay drink in peace, and let us turn our thoughts\nto other matters, and bring not these to my remembrance,\nfor surely my heart within me is sorrowful whenever any man\nputs me in mind of my true lord. But as for thine oath, we\nwill let it go by; yet, oh that Odysseus may come according\nto my desire, and the desire of Penelope and of that old\nman Laertes and godlike Telemachus! But now I make a\ncomfortless lament for the boy begotten of Odysseus, even\nfor Telemachus. When the gods had reared him like a young\nsapling, and I thought that he would be no worse man among\nmen than his dear father, glorious in form and face, some\ngod or some man marred his good wits within him, and he\nwent to fair Pylos after tidings of his sire. And now the\nlordly wooers lie in wait for him on his way home, that the\nrace of godlike Arceisius may perish nameless out of\nIthaca. Howbeit, no more of him now, whether he shall be\ntaken or whether he shall escape, and Cronion stretch out\nhis hand to shield him. But come, old man, do thou tell me\nof thine own troubles. And herein tell me true, that I may\nsurely know. Who art thou of the sons of men, and whence?\nWhere is thy city, where are they that begat thee? Say on\nwhat manner of ship didst thou come, and how did sailors\nbring thee to Ithaca, and who did they avow them to be? For\nin nowise do I deem that thou camest hither by land.'\n\nAnd Odysseus of many counsels answered him saying: 'Yea\nnow, I will tell thee all most plainly. Might we have food\nand sweet wine enough to last for long, while we abide\nwithin thy hut to feast thereon in quiet, and others betake\nthem to their work; then could I easily speak for a whole\nyear, nor yet make a full end of telling all the troubles\nof my spirit, all the travail I have wrought by the will of\nthe gods.\n\n'I avow that I come by lineage from wide Crete, and am the\nson of a wealthy man. And many other sons he had born and\nbred in the halls, lawful born of a wedded wife; but the\nmother that bare me was a concubine bought with a price.\nYet Castor son of Hylax, of whose blood I avow me to be,\ngave me no less honour than his lawful sons. Now he at the\ntime got worship even as a god from the Cretans in the\nland, for wealth and riches and sons renowned. Howbeit the\nfates of death bare him away to the house of Hades, and his\ngallant sons divided among them his living and cast lots\nfor it. But to me they gave a very small gift and assigned\nme a dwelling, and I took unto me a wife, the daughter of\nmen that had wide lands, by reason of my valour, for that I\nwas no weakling nor a dastard; but now all my might has\nfailed me, yet even so I deem that thou mightest guess from\nseeing the stubble what the grain has been, for of trouble\nI have plenty and to spare. But then verily did Ares and\nAthene give me boldness and courage to hurl through the\npress of men, whensoever I chose the best warriors for an\nambush, sowing the seeds of evil for my foes; no boding of\ndeath was ever in my lordly heart, but I would leap out the\nforemost and slay with the spear whoso of my foes was less\nfleet of foot than I. Such an one was I in war, but the\nlabour of the field I never loved, nor home-keeping thrift,\nthat breeds brave children, but galleys with their oars\nwere dear to me, and wars and polished shafts and darts--\nbaneful things whereat others use to shudder. But that,\nmethinks, was dear to me which the god put in my heart, for\ndivers men take delight in divers deeds. For ere ever the\nsons of the Achaeans had set foot on the land of Troy, I\nhad nine times been a leader of men and of swift-faring\nships against a strange people, and wealth fell ever to my\nhands. Of the booty I would choose out for me all that I\ncraved, and much thereafter I won by lot. So my house got\nincrease speedily, and thus I waxed dread and honourable\namong the Cretans. But when Zeus, of the far-borne voice,\ndevised at the last that hateful path which loosened the\nknees of many a man in death, then the people called on me\nand on renowned Idomeneus to lead the ships to Ilios, nor\nwas there any way whereby to refuse, for the people's voice\nbore hard upon us. There we sons of the Achaeans warred for\nnine whole years, and then in the tenth year we sacked the\ncity of Priam, and departed homeward with our ships, and a\ngod scattered the Achaeans. But Zeus, the counsellor,\ndevised mischief against me, wretched man that I was! For\none month only I abode and had joy in my children and my\nwedded wife, and all that I had; and thereafter my spirit\nbade me fit out ships in the best manner and sail to Egypt\nwith my godlike company. Nine ships I fitted out and the\nhost was gathered quickly; and then for six days my dear\ncompany feasted, and I gave them many victims that they\nmight sacrifice to the gods and prepare a feast for\nthemselves. But on the seventh day we set sail from wide\nCrete, with a North Wind fresh and fair, and lightly we ran\nas it were down stream, yea and no harm came to any ship of\nmine, but we sat safe and hale, while the wind and the\npilots guided the barques. And on the fifth day we came to\nthe fair-flowing Aegyptus, and in the river Aegyptus I\nstayed my curved ships. Then verily I bade my dear\ncompanions to abide there by the ships and to guard them,\nand I sent forth scouts to range the points of outlook. But\nmy men gave place to wantonness, being the fools of their\nown force, and soon they fell to wasting the fields of the\nEgyptians, exceeding fair, and led away their wives and\ninfant children and slew the men. And the cry came quickly\nto the city, and the people hearing the shout came forth at\nthe breaking of the day, and all the plain was filled with\nfootmen and chariots and with the glitter of bronze. And\nZeus, whose joy is in the thunder, sent an evil panic upon\nmy company, and none durst stand and face the foe, for\ndanger encompassed us on every side. There they slew many\nof us with the edge of the sword, and others they led up\nwith them alive to work for them perforce. But as for me,\nZeus himself put a thought into my heart; would to God that\nI had rather died, and met my fate there in Egypt, for\nsorrow was still mine host! Straightway I put off my\nwell-wrought helmet from my head, and the shield from off\nmy shoulders, and I cast away my spear from my hand, and I\ncame over against the chariots of the king, and clasped and\nkissed his knees, and he saved me and delivered me, and\nsetting me on his own chariot took me weeping to his home.\nTruly many an one made at me with their ashen spears, eager\nto slay me, for verily they were sore angered. But the king\nkept them off and had respect unto the wrath of Zeus, the\ngod of strangers, who chiefly hath displeasure at evil\ndeeds. So for seven whole years I abode with their king,\nand gathered much substance among the Egyptians, for they\nall gave me gifts. But when the eighth year came in due\nseason, there arrived a Phoenician practised in deceit, a\ngreedy knave, who had already done much mischief among men.\nHe wrought on me with his cunning, and took me with him\nuntil he came to Phoenicia, where was his house and where\nhis treasures lay. There I abode with him for the space of\na full year. But when now the months and days were\nfulfilled, as the year came round and the seasons returned,\nhe set me aboard a seafaring ship for Libya, under colour\nas though I was to convey a cargo thither with him, but his\npurpose was to sell me in Libya, and get a great price. So\nI went with him on board, perforce, yet boding evil. And\nthe ship ran before a North Wind fresh and fair, through\nthe mid sea over above Crete, and Zeus contrived the\ndestruction of the crew. But when we left Crete, and no\nland showed in sight but sky and sea only, even then the\nson of Cronos stayed a dark cloud over the hollow ship, and\nthe deep grew dark beneath it. And in the same moment Zeus\nthundered and smote his bolt into the ship, and she reeled\nall over being stricken by the bolt of Zeus, and was filled\nwith fire and brimstone, and all the crew fell overboard.\nAnd like sea-gulls they were borne hither and thither on\nthe waves about the black ship, and the god cut off their\nreturn. But in this hour of my affliction Zeus himself put\ninto my hands the huge mast of the dark-prowed ship, that\neven yet I might escape from harm. So I clung round the\nmast and was borne by the ruinous winds. For nine days was\nI borne, and on the tenth black night the great rolling\nwave brought me nigh to the land of the Thesprotians. There\nthe king of the Thesprotians, the lord Pheidon, took me in\nfreely, for his dear son lighted on me and raised me by the\nhand and led me to his house, foredone with toil and the\nkeen air, till he came to his father's palace. And he\nclothed me in a mantle and a doublet for raiment.\n\n'There I heard tidings of Odysseus, for the king told me\nthat he had entertained him, and kindly entreated him on\nhis way to his own country; and he showed me all the wealth\nthat Odysseus had gathered, bronze and gold and\nwell-wrought iron; yea it would suffice for his children\nafter him even to the tenth generation, so great were the\ntreasures he had stored in the chambers of the king. He had\ngone, he said, to Dodona to hear the counsel of Zeus, from\nthe high leafy oak tree of the god, how he should return to\nthe fat land of Ithaca after long absence, whether openly\nor by stealth. Moreover, he sware, in mine own presence, as\nhe poured the drink offering in his house, that the ship\nwas drawn down to the sea and his company were ready, who\nwere to convey him to his own dear country. But ere that,\nhe sent me off, for it chanced that a ship of the\nThesprotians was starting for Dulichium, a land rich in\ngrain. Thither he bade them bring me with all diligence to\nthe king Acastus. But an evil counsel concerning me found\nfavour in their sight, that even yet I might reach the\nextremity of sorrow. When the seafaring ship had sailed a\ngreat way from the land, anon they sought how they might\ncompass for me the day of slavery. They stript me of my\ngarments, my mantle and a doublet, and changed my raiment\nto a vile wrap and doublet, tattered garments, even those\nthou seest now before thee; and in the evening they reached\nthe fields of clear-seen Ithaca. There in the decked ship\nthey bound me closely with a twisted rope, and themselves\nwent ashore, and hasted to take supper by the sea-banks.\nMeanwhile the gods themselves lightly unclasped my bands,\nand muffling my head with the wrap I slid down the smooth\nlading-plank, and set my breast to the sea and rowed hard\nwith both hands as I swam, and very soon I was out of the\nwater and beyond their reach. Then I went up where there\nwas a thicket, a wood in full leaf, and lay there\ncrouching. And they went hither and thither making great\nmoan; but when now it seemed to them little avail to go\nfurther on their quest, they departed back again aboard\ntheir hollow ship. And the gods themselves hid me easily\nand brought me nigh to the homestead of a wise man; for\nstill, methinks, I am ordained to live on.'\n\nThen didst thou make answer to him, swineherd Eumaeus: 'Ah!\nwretched guest, verily thou hast stirred my heart with the\ntale of all these things, of thy sufferings and thy\nwanderings. Yet herein, methinks, thou speakest not aright,\nand never shalt thou persuade me with the tale about\nOdysseus; why should one in thy plight lie vainly? Well I\nknow of mine own self, as touching my lord's return, that\nhe was utterly hated by all the gods, in that they smote\nhim not among the Trojans nor in the arms of his friends,\nwhen he had wound up the clew of war. So should the whole\nAchaean host have builded him a barrow; yea and for his son\nwould he have won great glory in the after days; but now\nall ingloriously the spirits of the storm have snatched him\naway. But as for me I dwell apart by the swine and go not\nto the city, unless perchance wise Penelope summons me\nthither, when tidings of my master are brought I know not\nwhence. Now all the people sit round and straitly question\nthe news-bearer, both such as grieve for their lord that is\nlong gone, and such as rejoice in devouring his living\nwithout atonement. But I have no care to ask or to inquire,\nsince the day that an Aetolian cheated me with his story,\none who had slain his man and wandered over wide lands and\ncame to my steading, and I dealt lovingly with him. He said\nthat he had seen my master among the Cretans at the house\nof Idomeneus, mending his ships which the storms had\nbroken. And he said that he would come home either by the\nsummer or the harvest-tide, bringing much wealth with the\ngodlike men of his company. And thou too, old man of many\nsorrows, seeing that some god hath brought thee to me, seek\nnot my grace with lies, nor give me any such comfort; not\nfor this will I have respect to thee or hold thee dear, but\nonly for the fear of Zeus, the god of strangers, and for\npity of thyself.'\n\nAnd Odysseus of many counsels answered him saying: 'Verily\nthy heart within thee is slow to believe, seeing that even\nwith an oath I have not won thee, nor find credence with\nthee. But come now, let us make a covenant; and we will\neach one have for witnesses the gods above, who hold\nOlympus. If thy lord shall return to this house, put on me\na mantle and doublet for raiment, and send me on my way to\nDulichium, whither I had a desire to go. But if thy lord\nreturn not according to my word, set thy thralls upon me,\nand cast me down from a mighty rock, that another beggar in\nhis turn may beware of deceiving.'\n\nAnd the goodly swineherd answered him, saying: 'Yea\nstranger, even so should I get much honour and good luck\namong men both now and ever hereafter, if after bringing\nthee to my hut and giving thee a stranger's cheer, I should\nturn again and slay thee and take away thy dear life. Eager\nindeed thereafter should I be to make a prayer to Zeus the\nson of Cronos! But now it is supper-time, and would that my\nfellows may speedily be at home, that we may make ready a\ndainty supper within the hut.'\n\nThus they spake one to the other. And lo, the swine and the\nswineherds drew nigh. And the swine they shut up to sleep\nin their lairs, and a mighty din arose as the swine were\nbeing stalled. Then the goodly swineherd called to his\nfellows, saying:\n\n'Bring the best of the swine, that I may sacrifice it for a\nguest of mine from a far land: and we too will have good\ncheer therewith, for we have long suffered and toiled by\nreason of the white-tusked swine, while others devour the\nfruit of our labour without atonement.'\n\nTherewithal he cleft logs with the pitiless axe, and the\nothers brought in a well-fatted boar of five years old; and\nthey set him by the hearth nor did the swineherd forget the\ndeathless gods, for he was of an understanding heart. But\nfor a beginning of sacrifice he cast bristles from the head\nof the white-tusked boar upon the fire, and prayed to all\nthe gods that wise Odysseus might return to his own house.\nThen he stood erect, and smote the boar with a billet of\noak which he had left in the cleaving, and the boar yielded\nup his life. Then they cut the throat and singed the\ncarcass and quickly cut it up, and the swineherd took a\nfirst portion from all the limbs, and laid the raw flesh on\nthe rich fat. And some pieces he cast into the fire after\nsprinkling them with bruised barley-meal, and they cut the\nrest up small, and pierced it, and spitted and roasted it\ncarefully, and drew it all off from the spits, and put the\nwhole mess together on trenchers. Then the swineherd stood\nup to carve, for well he knew what was fair, and he cut up\nthe whole and divided it into seven portions. One, when he\nhad prayed, he set aside for the nymphs and for Hermes son\nof Maia, and the rest he distributed to each. And he gave\nOdysseus the portion of honour, the long back of the\nwhite-tusked boar, and the soul of his lord rejoiced at\nthis renown, and Odysseus of many counsels hailed him\nsaying:\n\n'Eumaeus, oh that thou mayest so surely be dear to father\nZeus, as thou art to me, seeing that thou honourest me with\na good portion, such an one as I am!'\n\nThen didst thou make answer, swineherd Eumaeus:\n\n'Eat, luckless stranger, and make merry with such fare as\nis here. And one thing the god will give and another\nwithhold, even as he will, for with him all things are\npossible.'\n\nSo he spake, and made burnt offering of the hallowed parts\nto the everlasting gods, and poured the dark wine for a\ndrink offering, and set the cup in the hands of Odysseus,\nthe waster of cities, and sat down by his own mess. And\nMesaulius bare them wheaten bread, a thrall that the\nswineherd had gotten all alone, while his lord was away,\nwithout the knowledge of his mistress and the old Laertes:\nyea he had bought him of the Taphians with his own\nsubstance. So they stretched forth their hands upon the\ngood cheer spread before them. Now after they had put from\nthem the desire of meat and drink, Mesaulius cleared away\nthe bread, and they, now that they had eaten enough of\nbread and flesh, were moved to go to rest.\n\nNow it was so that night came on foul with a blind moon,\nand Zeus rained the whole night through, and still the\ngreat West Wind, the rainy wind, was blowing. Then Odysseus\nspake among them that he might make trial of the swineherd,\nand see whether he would take off his own mantle and give\nit to him or bid one of his company strip, since he cared\nfor him so greatly:\n\n'Listen now, Eumaeus, and all of you his companions, with a\nprayer will I utter my word; so bids me witless wine, which\ndrives even the wisest to sing and to laugh softly, and\nrouses him to dance, yea and makes him to speak out a word\nwhich were better unspoken. Howbeit, now that I have broken\ninto speech, I will not hide aught. Oh that I were young,\nand my might were steadfast, as in the day when we arrayed\nour ambush and led it beneath Troy town! And Odysseus, and\nMenelaus son of Atreus, were leaders and with them I was a\nthird in command; for so they bade me. Now when we had come\nto the city and the steep wall, we lay about the citadel in\nthe thick brushwood, crouching under our arms among the\nreeds and the marsh land, and behold, the night came on\nfoul, with frost, as the North Wind went down, while the\nsnow fell from above, and crusted like rime, bitter cold,\nand the ice set thick about our shields. Now the others all\nhad mantles and doublets, and slept in peace with their\nshields buckled close about their shoulders; but I as I\nwent forth had left my mantle behind with my men, in my\nfolly, thinking that even so I should not be cold: so I\ncame with only my shield and bright leathern apron. But\nwhen it was now the third watch of the night and the stars\nhad passed the zenith, in that hour I spake unto Odysseus\nwho was nigh me, and thrust him with my elbow, and he\nlistened straightway:\n\n'\"Son of Laertes, of the seed of Zeus, Odysseus of many\ndevices, verily I shall cease from among living men, for\nthis wintry cold is slaying me, seeing that I have no\nmantle. Some god beguiled me to wear a doublet only, and\nhenceforth is no way of escape.\"\n\n'So I spake, and he apprehended a thought in his heart,\nsuch an one as he was in counsel and in fight. So he\nwhispered and spake to me, saying:\n\n'\"Be silent now, lest some other Achaeans hear thee.\"\nTherewith he raised his head upon his elbow, and spake,\nsaying: \"Listen, friends, a vision from a god came to me in\nmy sleep. Lo, we have come very far from the ships; I would\nthere were one to tell it to Agamemnon, son of Atreus,\nshepherd of the host, if perchance he may send us hither a\ngreater company from the ships.\"\n\n'So spake he, and Thoas, son of Andraemon, rose up quickly\nand cast off his purple mantle. And he started to run unto\nthe ships, but I lay gladly in his garment, and the\ngolden-throned Dawn showed her light. Oh! that I were young\nas then and my might steadfast! Then should some of the\nswineherds in the homestead give me a mantle, alike for\nlove's sake and for pity of a good warrior. But now they\nscorn me for that sorry raiment is about my body.'\n\nThen didst thou make answer, O swineherd Eumaeus: 'Old man,\nthe tale that thou hast told in his praise is very good,\nand so far thou hast not misspoken aught, nor uttered a\nword unprofitably. Wherefore for this night thou shalt lack\nneither raiment nor aught else that is the due of a hapless\nsuppliant, when he has met them that can befriend him. But\nin the morning thou shalt go shuffling in thine own rags,\nfor there are not many mantles here or changes of doublet;\nfor each man hath but one coat. But when the dear son of\nOdysseus comes, he himself will give thee a mantle and\ndoublet for raiment, and send thee whithersoever thy heart\nand spirit bid.'\n\nWith that he sprang up and set a bed for Odysseus near the\nfire, and thereon he cast skins of sheep and goats. There\nOdysseus laid him down and Eumaeus cast a great thick\nmantle over him, which he had ever by him for a change of\ncovering, when any terrible storm should arise.\n\nSo there Odysseus slept, and the young men slept beside\nhim. But the swineherd had no mind to lie there in a bed\naway from the boars. So he made him ready to go forth and\nOdysseus was glad, because he had a great care for his\nmaster's substance while he was afar. First he cast his\nsharp sword about his strong shoulders, then he clad him in\na very thick mantle, to keep the wind away; and he caught\nup the fleece of a great and well-fed goat, and seized his\nsharp javelin, to defend him against dogs and men. Then he\nwent to lay him down even where the white-tusked boars were\nsleeping, beneath the hollow of the rock, in a place of\nshelter from the North Wind.\n\n\n\nBook XV\n\n  Pallas sends home Telemachus from Lacedaemon with the\n  presents given him by Menelaus. Telemachus landed, goes\n  first to Eumaeus.\n\nNow Pallas Athene went to the wide land of Lacedaemon, to\nput the noble son of the great-hearted Odysseus in mind of\nhis return, and to make him hasten his coming. And she\nfound Telemachus, and the glorious son of Nestor, couched\nat the vestibule of the house of famous Menelaus. The son\nof Nestor truly was overcome with soft sleep, but sweet\nsleep gat not hold of Telemachus, but, through the night\ndivine, careful thoughts for his father kept him wakeful.\nAnd grey-eyed Athene stood nigh him and spake to him,\nsaying:\n\n'Telemachus, it is no longer meet that thou shouldest\nwander far from thy home, leaving thy substance behind\nthee, and men in thy house so wanton, lest they divide and\nutterly devour all thy wealth, and thou shalt have gone on\na vain journey. But come, rouse with all haste Menelaus, of\nthe loud war-cry, to send thee on thy way, that thou mayest\neven yet find thy noble mother in her home. For even now\nher father and her brethren bid her wed Eurymachus, for he\noutdoes all the wooers in his presents, and hath been\ngreatly increasing his gifts of wooing. So shall she take\nno treasure from thy house despite thy will. Thou knowest\nof what sort is the heart of a woman within her; all her\ndesire is to increase the house of the man who takes her to\nwife, but of her former children and of her own dear lord\nshe has no more memory once he is dead, and she asks\nconcerning him no more. Go then, and thyself place all thy\nsubstance in the care of the handmaid who seems to thee the\nbest, till the day when the gods shall show thee a glorious\nbride. Now another word will I tell thee, and do thou lay\nit up in thine heart. The noblest of the wooers lie in wait\nfor thee of purpose, in the strait between Ithaca and\nrugged Samos, eager to slay thee before thou come to thine\nown country. But this, methinks, will never be; yea, sooner\nshall the earth close over certain of the wooers that\ndevour thy livelihood. Nay, keep thy well-wrought ship far\nfrom those isles, and sail by night as well as day, and he\nof the immortals who hath thee in his keeping and\nprotection will send thee a fair breeze in thy wake. But\nwhen thou hast touched the nearest shore of Ithaca, send\nthy ship and all thy company forward to the city, but for\nthy part seek first the swineherd who keeps thy swine,\nloyal and at one with thee. There do thou rest the night,\nand bid him go to the city to bear tidings of thy coming to\nthe wise Penelope, how that she hath got thee safe, and\nthou art come up out of Pylos.'\n\nTherewith she departed to high Olympus. But Telemachus woke\nthe son of Nestor out of sweet sleep, touching him with his\nheel, and spake to him, saying:\n\n'Awake, Peisistratus, son of Nestor, bring up thy horses of\nsolid hoof, and yoke them beneath the car, that we may get\nforward on the road.'\n\nThen Peisistratus, son of Nestor, answered him, saying:\n'Telemachus, we may in no wise drive through the dark\nnight, how eager soever to be gone; nay, soon it will be\ndawn. Tarry then, till the hero, the son of Atreus,\nspear-famed Menelaus, brings gifts, and sets them on the\ncar, and bespeaks thee kindly, and sends thee on thy way.\nFor of him a guest is mindful all the days of his life,\neven of the host that shows him loving-kindness.'\n\nSo spake he, and anon came the golden-throned Dawn. And\nMenelaus, of the loud war cry, drew nigh to them, new risen\nfrom his bed, by fair-haired Helen. Now when the dear son\nof Odysseus marked him, he made haste and girt his shining\ndoublet about him, and the hero cast a great mantle over\nhis mighty shoulders, and went forth at the door, and\nTelemachus, dear son of divine Odysseus, came up and spake\nto Menelaus, saying:\n\n'Menelaus, son of Atreus, fosterling of Zeus, leader of the\npeople, even now do thou speed me hence, to mine own dear\ncountry; for even now my heart is fain to come home again.'\n\nThen Menelaus, of the loud war cry, answered him:\n'Telemachus, as for me, I will not hold thee a long time\nhere, that art eager to return; nay, I think it shame even\nin another host, who loves overmuch or hates overmuch.\nMeasure is best in all things. He does equal wrong who\nspeeds a guest that would fain abide, and stays one who is\nin haste to be gone. Men should lovingly entreat the\npresent guest and speed the parting. But abide till I bring\nfair gifts and set them on the car and thine own eyes\nbehold them, and I bid the women to prepare the midday meal\nin the halls, out of the good store they have within.\nHonour and glory it is for us, and gain withal for thee,\nthat ye should have eaten well ere ye go on your way, over\nvast and limitless lands. What and if thou art minded to\npass through Hellas and mid Argos? So shall I too go with\nthee, and yoke thee horses and lead thee to the towns of\nmen, and none shall send us empty away, but will give us\nsome one thing to take with us, either a tripod of goodly\nbronze or a cauldron, or two mules or a golden chalice.'\n\nThen wise Telemachus answered him saying: 'Menelaus, son of\nAtreus, fosterling of Zeus, leader of the people, rather\nwould I return even now to mine own land, for I left none\nbehind to watch over my goods when I departed. I would not\nthat I myself should perish on the quest of my godlike\nfather, nor that any good heir-loom should be lost from my\nhalls.'\n\nNow when Menelaus, of the loud war cry, heard this saying,\nstraightway he bade his wife and maids to prepare the\nmidday meal in the halls, out of the good store they had by\nthem. Then Eteoneus, son of Boethous, came nigh him, just\nrisen from his bed, for he abode not far from him. Him\nMenelaus of the loud war cry bade kindle the fire and roast\nof the flesh; and he hearkened and obeyed. Then the prince\nwent down into the fragrant treasure chamber, not alone,\nfor Helen went with him, and Megapenthes. Now, when they\ncame to the place where the treasures were stored, then\nAtrides took a two-handled cup, and bade his son\nMegapenthes to bear a mixing bowl of silver. And Helen\nstood by the coffers, wherein were her robes of curious\nneedlework which she herself had wrought. Then Helen, the\nfair lady, lifted one and brought it out, the widest and\nmost beautifully embroidered of all, and it shone like a\nstar, and lay far beneath the rest.\n\nThen they went forth through the house till they came to\nTelemachus; and Menelaus, of the fair hair, spake to him\nsaying:\n\n'Telemachus, may Zeus the thunderer, and the lord of Here,\nin very truth bring about thy return according to the\ndesire of thy heart. And of the gifts, such as are\ntreasures stored in my house, I will give thee the\ngoodliest and greatest of price. I will give thee a mixing\nbowl beautifully wrought; it is all of silver and the lips\nthereof are finished with gold, the work of Hephaestus; and\nthe hero Phaedimus the king of the Sidonians, gave it to me\nwhen his house sheltered me, on my coming thither. This cup\nI would give to thee.'\n\nTherewith the hero Atrides set the two-handled cup in his\nhands. And the strong Megapenthes bare the shining silver\nbowl and set it before him. And Helen came up, beautiful\nHelen, with the robe in her hands, and spake and hailed\nhim:\n\n'Lo! I too give thee this gift, dear child, a memorial of\nthe hands of Helen, against the day of thy desire, even of\nthy bridal, for thy bride to wear it. But meanwhile let it\nlie by thy dear mother in her chamber. And may joy go with\nthee to thy well-builded house, and thine own country.'\n\nWith that she put it into his hands, and he took it and was\nglad. And the hero Peisistratus took the gifts and laid\nthem in the chest of the car, and gazed on all and\nwondered. Then Menelaus of the fair hair led them to the\nhouse. Then they twain sat them down on chairs and high\nseats, and a handmaid bare water for the hands in a goodly\ngolden ewer, and poured it forth over a silver basin to\nwash withal, and drew to their side a polished table. And a\ngrave dame bare wheaten bread and set it by them, and laid\non the board many dainties, giving freely of such things as\nshe had by her. And the son of Boethous carved by the board\nand divided the messes, and the son of renowned Menelaus\npoured forth the wine. So they stretched forth their hands\nupon the good cheer set before them. Now when they had put\nfrom them the desire of meat and drink, then did Telemachus\nand the glorious son of Nestor yoke the horses and climb\ninto the inlaid car. And they drave forth from the gateway\nand the echoing gallery. After these Menelaus, of the fair\nhair, the son of Atreus, went forth bearing in his right\nhand a golden cup of honey-hearted wine, that they might\npour a drink-offering ere they departed. And he stood\nbefore the horses and spake his greeting:\n\n'Farewell, knightly youths, and salute in my name Nestor,\nthe shepherd of the people; for truly he was gentle to me\nas a father, while we sons of the Achaeans warred in the\nland of Troy.'\n\nAnd wise Telemachus answered him, saying: 'Yea verily, O\nfosterling of Zeus, we will tell him all on our coming even\nas thou sayest. Would God that when I return to Ithaca I\nmay find Odysseus in his home and tell him all, so surely\nas now I go on my way having met with all loving-kindness\nat thy hands, and take with me treasures many and goodly!'\n\nAnd even as he spake a bird flew forth at his right hand,\nan eagle that bare in his claws a great white goose, a tame\nfowl from the yard, and men and women followed shouting.\nBut the bird drew near them and flew off to the right,\nacross the horses, and they that saw it were glad, and\ntheir hearts were all comforted within them. And\nPeisistratus, son of Nestor, first spake among them:\n\n'Consider, Menelaus, fosterling of Zeus, leader of the\npeople, whether god hath showed forth this sign for us\ntwain, or for thee thyself.'\n\nSo spake he, and the warrior Menelaus pondered thereupon,\nhow he should take heed to answer, and interpret it aright.\n\nAnd long-robed Helen took the word and spake, saying: 'Hear\nme, and I will prophesy as the immortals put it into my\nheart, and as I deem it will be accomplished. Even as\nyonder eagle came down from the hill, the place of his\nbirth and kin, and snatched away the goose that was\nfostered in the house, even so shall Odysseus return home\nafter much trial and long wanderings and take vengeance;\nyea, or even now is he at home and sowing the seeds of evil\nfor all the wooers.'\n\nThen wise Telemachus answered her, saying: 'Now may Zeus\nordain it so, Zeus the thunderer and the lord of Here. Then\nwould I do thee worship, as to a god, even in my home\nafar.'\n\nHe spake and smote the horses with the lash, and they sped\nquickly towards the plain, in eager course through the\ncity. So all day long they swayed the yoke they bore upon\ntheir necks. And the sun sank, and all the ways were\ndarkened. And they came to Pherae, to the house of Diocles,\nson of Orsilochus, the child begotten of Alpheus. There\nthey rested for the night, and by them he set the\nentertainment of strangers.\n\nNow so soon as early Dawn shone forth, the rosy-fingered,\nthey yoked the horses and mounted the inlaid car. And forth\nthey drave from the gateway and the echoing gallery. And he\ntouched the horses with the whip to start them, and the\npair flew onward nothing loth. And soon thereafter they\nreached the steep hold of Pylos. Then Telemachus spake unto\nthe son of Nestor, saying:\n\n'Son of Nestor, in what wise mightest thou make me a\npromise and fulfil my bidding? For we claim to be friends\nby reason of our fathers' friendship from of old. Moreover\nwe are equals in age, and this journey shall turn to our\ngreater love. Take me not hence past my ship, O fosterling\nof Zeus, but leave me there, lest that old man keep me in\nhis house in my despite, out of his eager kindness, for I\nmust go right quickly home.'\n\nSo spake he, and the some of Nestor communed with his own\nheart how he might make promise, and duly fulfil the same.\nSo as he thought thereon, in this wise it seemed to him\nbest. He turned back his horses toward the swift ship and\nthe sea-banks, and took forth the fair gifts and set them\nin the hinder part of the ship, the raiment and the gold\nwhich Menelaus gave him. And he called to Telemachus and\nspake to him winged words:\n\n'Now climb the ship with all haste, and bid all thy company\ndo likewise, ere I reach home and bring the old man word.\nFor well I know in my mind and heart that, being so wilful\nof heart, he will not let thee go, but he himself will come\nhither to bid thee to his house, and methinks that he will\nnot go back without thee; for very wroth will he be despite\nthine excuse.'\n\nThus he spake, and drave the horses with the flowing manes\nback to the town of the Pylians, and came quickly to the\nhalls. And Telemachus called to his companions and\ncommanded them, saying:\n\n'Set ye the gear in order, my friends, in the black ship,\nand let us climb aboard that we may make way upon our\ncourse.'\n\nSo spake he, and they gave good heed and hearkened. Then\nstraightway they embarked and sat upon the benches.\n\nThus was he busy hereat and praying and making\nburnt-offering to Athene, by the stern of the ship, when\nthere drew nigh him one from a far country, that had slain\nhis man and was fleeing from out of Argos. He was a\nsoothsayer, and by his lineage he came of Melampus, who of\nold time abode in Pylos, mother of flocks, a rich man and\none that had an exceeding goodly house among the Pylians,\nbut afterward he had come to the land of strangers, fleeing\nfrom his country and from Neleus, the great-hearted, the\nproudest of living men, who kept all his goods for a full\nyear by force. All that time Melampus lay bound with hard\nbonds in the halls of Phylacus, suffering strong pains for\nthe sake of the daughter of Neleus, and for the dread\nblindness of soul which the goddess, the Erinnys of the\ndolorous stroke, had laid on him. Howsoever he escaped his\nfate, and drave away the lowing kine from Phylace to Pylos,\nand avenged the foul deed upon godlike Neleus, and brought\nthe maiden home to his own brother to wife. As for him, he\nwent to a country of other men, to Argos, the pastureland\nof horses; for there truly it was ordained that he should\ndwell, bearing rule over many of the Argives. There he\nwedded a wife, and builded him a lofty house, and begat\nAntiphates and Mantius, two mighty sons. Now Antiphates\nbegat Oicles the great-hearted, and Oicles Amphiaraus, the\nrouser of the host, whom Zeus, lord of the aegis, and\nApollo loved with all manner of love. Yet he reached not\nthe threshold of old age, but died in Thebes by reason of a\nwoman's gifts. And the sons born to him were Alcmaeon and\nAmphilochus. But Mantius begat Polypheides and Cleitus; but\nit came to pass that the golden-throned Dawn snatched away\nCleitus for his very beauty's sake, that he might dwell\nwith the Immortals.\n\nAnd Apollo made the high-souled Polypheides a seer, far the\nchief of human kind, Amphiaraus being now dead. He removed\nhis dwelling to Hypheresia, being angered with his father,\nand here he abode and prophesied to all men.\n\nThis man's son it was, Theoclymenus by name, that now drew\nnigh and stood by Telemachus. And he found him pouring a\ndrink-offering and praying by the swift black ship, and\nuttering his voice he spake to him winged words:\n\n'Friend, since I find thee making burnt-offering in this\nplace, I pray thee, by thine offerings and by the god, and\nthereafter by thine own head, and in the name of the men of\nthy company answer my question truly and hide it not. Who\nart thou of the sons of men and whence? Where is thy city,\nwhere are they that begat thee?'\n\nAnd wise Telemachus answered him, saying: 'Yea now,\nstranger, I will plainly tell thee all. Of Ithaca am I by\nlineage, and my father is Odysseus, if ever such an one\nthere was, but now hath he perished by an evil fate.\nWherefore I have taken my company and a black ship, and\nhave gone forth to hear word of my father that has been\nlong afar.'\n\nThen godlike Theoclymenus spake to him again: 'Even so I\ntoo have fled from my country, for the manslaying of one of\nmine own kin. And many brethren and kinsmen of the slain\nare in Argos, the pastureland of horses, and rule mightily\nover the Achaeans. Wherefore now am I an exile to shun\ndeath and black fate at their hands, for it is my doom yet\nto wander among men. Now set me on board ship, since I\nsupplicate thee in my flight, lest they slay me utterly;\nfor methinks they follow hard after me.'\n\nAnd wise Telemachus answered him, saying: 'Surely I will\nnot drive thee away from our good ship, if thou art fain to\ncome. Follow thou with us then, and in Ithaca thou shalt be\nwelcome to such things as we have.'\n\nTherewith he took from him his spear of bronze, and laid it\nalong the deck of the curved ship, and himself too climbed\nthe seafaring ship. Then he sat him down in the stern and\nmade Theoclymenus to sit beside him; and his company loosed\nthe hawsers. Then Telemachus called unto his company, and\nbade them lay hands on the tackling, and speedily they\nhearkened to his call. So they raised the mast of pine\ntree, and set it in the hole of the cross plank and made it\nfast with forestays, and hauled up the white sails with\ntwisted ropes of ox-hide. And grey-eyed Athene sent them a\nfavouring breeze, rushing violently through the clear sky\nthat the ship might speedily finish her course over the\nsalt water of the sea. So they passed by Crouni and\nChalcis, a land of fair streams.\n\nAnd the sun set and all the ways were darkened. And the\nvessel drew nigh to Pheae, being sped before the breeze of\nZeus, and then passed goodly Elis where the Epeans bear\nrule. From thence he drave on again to the Pointed Isles,\npondering whether he should escape death or be cut off.\n\nNow Odysseus and the goodly swineherd were supping in the\nhut, and the other men sat at meat with them. So when they\nhad put from them the desire of meat and drink, Odysseus\nspake among them, to prove the swineherd, whether he would\nstill entertain him diligently, and bid him abide there in\nthe steading or send him forward to the city:\n\n'Listen now, Eumaeus, and all the others of the company. In\nthe morning I would fain be gone to the town to go a\nbegging, that I be not ruinous to thyself and thy fellows.\nNow advise me well, and lend me a good guide by the way to\nlead me thither; and through the city will I wander alone\nas needs I must, if perchance one may give me a cup of\nwater and a morsel of bread. Moreover I would go to the\nhouse of divine Odysseus and bear tidings to the wise\nPenelope, and consort with the wanton wooers, if haply they\nmight grant me a meal out of the boundless store that they\nhave by them. Lightly might I do good service among them,\neven all that they would. For lo! I will tell thee and do\nthou mark and listen. By the favour of Hermes, the\nmessenger, who gives grace and glory to all men's work, no\nmortal may vie with me in the business of a serving-man, in\npiling well a fire, in cleaving dry faggots, and in carving\nand roasting flesh and in pouring of wine, those offices\nwherein meaner men serve their betters.'\n\nThen didst thou speak to him in heaviness of heart,\nswineherd Eumaeus: 'Ah! wherefore, stranger, hath such a\nthought arisen in thine heart? Surely thou art set on\nperishing utterly there, if thou wouldest indeed go into\nthe throng of the wooers, whose outrage and violence\nreacheth even to the iron heaven! Not such as thou are\ntheir servants; they that minister to them are young and\ngaily clad in mantles and in doublets, and their heads are\nanointed with oil and they are fair of face, and the\npolished boards are laden with bread and flesh and wine.\nNay, abide here, for none is vexed by thy presence, neither\nI nor any of my fellows that are with me. But when the dear\nson of Odysseus comes, he himself will give thee a mantle\nand a doublet for raiment, and will send thee whithersoever\nthy heart and spirit bid thee go.'\n\nThen the steadfast goodly Odysseus answered him: 'Oh, that\nthou mayst so surely be dear to father Zeus as thou art to\nme, in that thou didst make me to cease from wandering and\ndread woe! For there is no other thing more mischievous to\nmen than roaming; yet for their cursed belly's need men\nendure sore distress, to whom come wandering and\ntribulation and pain. But behold now, since thou stayest me\nhere, and biddest me wait his coming, tell me of the mother\nof divine Odysseus, and of the father whom at his departure\nhe left behind him on the threshold of old age; are they,\nit may be, yet alive beneath the sunlight, or already dead\nand within the house of Hades?'\n\nThen spake to him the swineherd, a master of men: 'Yea now,\nstranger, I will plainly tell thee all. Laertes yet lives,\nand prays evermore to Zeus that his life may waste from out\nhis limbs within his halls. For he has wondrous sorrow for\nhis son that is far away, and for the wedded lady his wise\nwife, whose death afflicted him in chief and brought him to\nold age before his day. Now she died of very grief for her\nson renowned, by an evil death, so may no man perish who\ndwells here and is a friend to me in word and deed! So long\nas she was on earth, though in much sorrow, I was glad to\nask and enquire concerning her, for that she herself had\nreared me along with long-robed Ctimene, her noble\ndaughter, the youngest of her children. With her I was\nreared, and she honoured me little less than her own. But\nwhen we both came to the time of our desire, to the flower\nof age, thereupon they sent her to Same, and got a great\nbride-price; but my lady clad me in a mantle and a doublet,\nraiment very fair, and gave me sandals for my feet and sent\nme forth to the field, and right dear at heart she held me.\nBut of these things now at last am I lacking; yet the\nblessed gods prosper the work of mine own hands, whereat I\nabide. Of this my substance I have eaten and drunken and\ngiven to reverend strangers. But from my lady I may hear\nnaught pleasant, neither word nor deed, for evil hath\nfallen on her house, a plague of froward men; yet thralls\nhave a great desire to speak before their mistress and find\nout all eat and drink, and moreover to carry off somewhat\nwith them to the field, such things as ever comfort the\nheart of a thrall.'\n\nAnd Odysseus of many counsels answered him saying: 'Ah,\nEumaeus, how far then didst thou wander from thine own\ncountry and thy parents while as yet thou wast but a child!\nBut come, declare me this and plainly tell it all. Was a\nwide-wayed town of men taken and sacked, wherein dwelt thy\nfather and thy lady mother, or did unfriendly men find thee\nlonely, tending sheep or cattle, and shipped thee thence,\nand sold thee into the house of thy master here, who paid\nfor thee a goodly price?'\n\nThen spake to him the swineherd, a master of men: Stranger,\nsince thou askest and questionest me hereof, give heed now\nin silence and make merry, and abide here drinking wine.\nLo, the nights now are of length untold. Time is there to\nsleep, and time to listen and be glad; thou needest not\nturn to bed before the hour; even too much sleep is\nvexation of spirit. But for the rest, let him whose heart\nand mind bid him, go forth and slumber, and at the dawning\nof the day let him break his fast, and follow our master's\nswine. But let us twain drink and feast within the\nsteading, and each in his neighbour's sorrows take delight,\nrecalling them, for even the memory of griefs is a joy to a\nman who hath been sore tried and wandered far. Wherefore I\nwill tell thee that whereof thou askest and dost question\nme.\n\n'There is a certain isle called Syria, if haply thou hast\nheard tell of it, over above Ortygia, and there are the\nturning-places of the sun. It is not very great in compass,\nthough a goodly isle, rich in herds, rich in flocks, with\nplenty of corn and wine. Dearth never enters the land, and\nno hateful sickness falls on wretched mortals. But when the\ntribes of men grow old in that city, then comes Apollo of\nthe silver bow, with Artemis, and slays them with the\nvisitation of his gentle shafts. In that isle are two\ncities, and the whole land is divided between them, and my\nfather was king over the twain, Ctesius son of Ormenus, a\nman like to the Immortals.\n\n'Thither came the Phoenicians, mariners renowned, greedy\nmerchant men, with countless gauds in a black ship. Now in\nmy father's house was a Phoenician woman, tall and fair and\nskilled in bright handiwork; this woman the Phoenicians\nwith their sleights beguiled. First as she was washing\nclothes, one of them lay with her in love by the hollow\nship, for love beguiles the minds of womankind, even of the\nupright. Then he asked her who she was and whence she came,\nand straightway she showed him the lofty home of my father,\nsaying:\n\n'\"From out of Sidon I avow that I come, land rich in\nbronze, and I am the daughter of Arybas, the deeply\nwealthy. But Taphians, who were sea-robbers, laid hands on\nme and snatched me away as I came in from the fields, and\nbrought me hither and sold me into the house of my master,\nwho paid for me a goodly price.\"\n\n'Then the man who had lain with her privily, answered:\n\"Say, wouldst thou now return home with us, that thou mayst\nlook again on the lofty house of thy father and mother and\non their faces? For truly they yet live, and have a name\nfor wealth.\"\n\n'Then the woman answered him and spake, saying: \"Even this\nmay well be, if ye sailors will pledge me an oath to bring\nme home in safety.\"\n\n'So spake she, and they all swore thereto as she bade them.\nNow when they had sworn and done that oath, again the woman\nspake among them and answered, saying:\n\n'\"Hold your peace now, and let none of your fellows speak\nto me and greet me, if they meet me in the street, or even\nat the well, lest one go and tell it to the old man at\nhome, and he suspect somewhat and bind me in hard bonds and\ndevise death for all of you. But keep ye the matter in\nmind, and speed the purchase of your homeward freight. And\nwhen your ship is freighted with stores, let a message come\nquickly to me at the house; for I will likewise bring gold,\nall that comes under my hand. Yea and there is another\nthing that I would gladly give for my fare. I am nurse to\nthe child of my lord in the halls, a most cunning little\nboy, that runs out and abroad with me. Him would I bring on\nboard ship, and he should fetch you a great price,\nwheresoever ye take him for sale among men of strange\nspeech.\"\n\n'Therewith she went her way to the fair halls. But they\nabode among us a whole year, and got together much wealth\nin their hollow ship. And when their hollow ship was now\nladen to depart, they sent a messenger to tell the tidings\nto the woman. There came a man versed in craft to my\nfather's house, with a golden chain strung here and there\nwith amber beads. Now the maidens in the hall and my lady\nmother were handling the chain and gazing on it, and\noffering him their price; but he had signed silently to the\nwoman, and therewithal gat him away to the hollow ship.\nThen she took me by the hand and led me forth from the\nhouse. And at the vestibule of the house she found the cups\nand the tables of the guests that had been feasting, who\nwere in waiting on my father. They had gone forth to the\nsession and the place of parley of the people. And she\nstraightway hid three goblets in her bosom, and bare them\naway, and I followed in my innocence. Then the sun sank and\nall the ways were darkened and we went quickly and came to\nthe good haven, where was the swift ship of the\nPhoenicians. So they climbed on board and took us up with\nthem, and sailed over the wet ways, and Zeus sent us a\nfavouring wind. For six days we sailed by day and night\ncontinually; but when Zeus, son of Cronos, added the\nseventh day thereto, then Artemis, the archer, smote the\nwoman that she fell, as a sea-swallow falls, with a plunge\ninto the hold. And they cast her forth to be the prey of\nseals and fishes, but I was left stricken at heart. And\nwind and water bare them and brought them to Ithaca, where\nLaertes bought me with his possessions. And thus it chanced\nthat mine eyes beheld this land.'\n\nThen Odysseus, of the seed of Zeus, answered him saying:\n\n'Eumaeus, verily thou hast stirred my heart within me with\nthe tale of all these things, of all the sorrow of heart\nthou hast endured. Yet surely Zeus hath given thee good as\nwell as evil, since after all these adventures thou hast\ncome to the house of a kindly man, who is careful to give\nthee meat and drink and right well thou livest. But I have\ncome hither still wandering through the many towns of men.'\n\nThus they spake one with the other. Then they laid them\ndown to sleep for no long while, but for a little space,\nfor soon came the throned Dawn. But on the shore the\ncompany of Telemachus were striking their sails, and took\ndown the mast quickly and rowed the ship on to anchorage.\nAnd they cast anchors and made fast the hawsers, and\nthemselves too stept forth upon the strand of the sea, and\nmade ready the midday meal, and mixed the dark wine. Now\nwhen they had put from them the desire of meat and drink,\nwise Telemachus first spake among them:\n\n'Do ye now drive the black ship to the city, while I will\ngo to the fields and to the herdsmen, and at even I will\nreturn to the city, when I have seen my lands. And in the\nmorning I will set by you the wages of the voyage, a good\nfeast of flesh and of sweet wine.'\n\nThen godlike Theoclymenus answered him: 'And whither shall\nI go, dear child? To what man's house shall I betake me, of\nsuch as are lords in rocky Ithaca? Shall I get me straight\nto thy mother and to thy home?'\n\nThen wise Telemachus answered him, saying: 'In other case I\nwould bid thee go even to our own house; for there is no\nlack of cheer for strangers, but now would it be worse for\nthyself, forasmuch as I shall be away nor would my mother\nsee thee. For she comes not often in sight of the wooers in\nthe house, but abides apart from them in her upper chamber,\nand weaves at her web. Yet there is one whom I will tell\nthee of, to whom thou mayst go, Eurymachus the glorious son\nof wise Polybus, whom now the men of Ithaca look upon, even\nas if he were a god. For he is far the best man of them\nall, and is most eager to wed my mother and to have the\nsovereignty of Odysseus. Howbeit, Olympian Zeus, that\ndwells in the clear sky, knows hereof, whether or no he\nwill fulfill for them the evil day before their marriage.'\n\nNow even as he spake, a bird flew out on the right, a hawk,\nthe swift messenger of Apollo. In his talons he held a dove\nand plucked her, and shed the feathers down to the earth,\nmidway between the ship and Telemachus himself. Then\nTheoclymenus called him apart from his fellows, and clasped\nhis hand and spake and hailed him:\n\n'Telemachus, surely not without the god's will hath the\nbird flown out on the right, for I knew when I saw him that\nhe was a bird of omen. There is no other house more kingly\nthan yours in the land of Ithaca; nay, ye have ever the\nmastery.'\n\nAnd wise Telemachus answered him, saying: 'Ah, stranger,\nwould that this word may be accomplished! Soon shouldest\nthou be aware of kindness and many a gift at my hands, so\nthat whoso met with thee would call thee blessed.'\n\nThen he spake to Piraeus, his trusty companion: 'Piraeus,\nson of Clytius, thou that at other seasons hearkenest to me\nabove all my company who went with me to Pylos, even now, I\npray, lead this stranger home with thee, and give heed to\ntreat him lovingly and with worship in thy house till I\ncome.'\n\nThen Piraeus, spearsman renowned, answered him saying:\n'Telemachus, why, even if thou shouldest tarry here long,\nyet will I entertain this man, and he shall have no lack of\nstranger's cheer.'\n\nTherewith he went on board, and bade his men themselves to\nmount and loose the hawsers. And quickly they embarked and\nsat upon the benches. And Telemachus bound his goodly\nsandals beneath his feet, and seized a mighty spear, shod\nwith sharp bronze, from the deck of the ship and his men\nloosed the hawsers. So they thrust off and sailed to the\ncity, as Telemachus bade them, the dear son of divine\nOdysseus. But swiftly his feet bore him on his forward way,\ntill he came to the court, where were his swine out of\nnumber; and among them the good swineherd slept, a man\nloyal to his lords.\n\n\n\nBook XVI\n\n  Telemachus sends Eumaeus to the city to tell his mother of\n  his return. And how, in the meantime, Odysseus discovers\n  himself to his son.\n\nNow these twain, Odysseus and the goodly swineherd, within\nthe hut had kindled a fire, and were making ready breakfast\nat the dawn, and had sent forth the herdsmen with the\ndroves of swine. And round Telemachus the hounds, that love\nto bark, fawned and barked not, as he drew nigh. And goodly\nOdysseus took note of the fawning of the dogs, and the\nnoise of footsteps fell upon his ears. Then straight he\nspake to Eumaeus winged words:\n\n'Eumaeus, verily some friend or some other of thy familiars\nwill soon be here, for the dogs do not bark but fawn\naround, and I catch the sound of footsteps.'\n\nWhile the word was yet on his lips, his own dear son stood\nat the entering in of the gate. Then the swineherd sprang\nup in amazement, and out of his hands fell the vessels\nwherewith he was busied in mingling the dark wine. And he\ncame over against his master and kissed his head and both\nhis beautiful eyes and both his hands, and he let a great\ntear fall. And even as a loving father welcomes his son\nthat has come in the tenth year from a far country, his\nonly son and well-beloved, for whose sake he has had great\nsorrow and travail, even so did the goodly swineherd fall\nupon the neck of godlike Telemachus, and kiss him all over\nas one escaped from death, and he wept aloud and spake to\nhim winged words:\n\n'Thou art come, Telemachus, a sweet light in the dark;\nmethought I should see thee never again, after thou hadst\ngone in thy ship to Pylos. Nay now enter, dear child, that\nmy heart may be glad at the sight of thee in mine house,\nwho hast newly come from afar. For thou dost not often\nvisit the field and the herdsmen, but abidest in the town;\nso it seems has thy good pleasure been, to look on the\nruinous throng of the wooers.'\n\nThen wise Telemachus answered him, saying: 'So be it,\nfather, as thou sayest; and for thy sake am I come hither\nto see thee with mine eyes, and to hear from thy lips\nwhether my mother yet abides in the halls or another has\nalready wedded her, and the couch of Odysseus, perchance,\nlies in lack of bedding and deep in foul spider-webs.'\n\nThen the swineherd, a master of men, answered him: 'Yea\nverily, she abides with patient spirit in thy halls, and\nwearily for her the nights wane always and the days, in\nshedding of tears.'\n\nSo he spake and took from him the spear of bronze. Then\nTelemachus passed within and crossed the threshold of\nstone. As he came near, his father Odysseus arose from his\nseat to give him place; but Telemachus, on his part, stayed\nhim and spake saying:\n\n'Be seated, stranger, and we will find a seat some other\nwhere in our steading, and there is a man here to set it\nfor us.'\n\nSo he spake, and Odysseus went back and sat him down again.\nAnd the swineherd strewed for Telemachus green brushwood\nbelow, and a fleece thereupon, and there presently the dear\nson of Odysseus sat him down. Next the swineherd set by\nthem platters of roast flesh, the fragments that were left\nfrom the meal of yesterday. And wheaten bread he briskly\nheaped up in baskets, and mixed the honey-sweet wine in a\ngoblet of ivy wood, and himself sat down over against\ndivine Odysseus. So they stretched forth their hands upon\nthe good cheer set before them. Now when they had put from\nthem the desire of meat and drink, Telemachus spake to the\ngoodly swineherd, saying:\n\n'Father, whence came this stranger to thee? How did sailors\nbring him to Ithaca? and who did they avow them to be? For\nin no wise, I deem, did he come hither by land.'\n\nThen didst thou make answer, swineherd Eumaeus: 'Yea now,\nmy son, I will tell thee all the truth. Of wide Crete he\navows him to be by lineage, and he says that round many\ncities of mortals he has wandered at adventure; even so has\nsome god spun for him the thread of fate. But now, as a\nrunaway from a ship of the Thesprotians, has he come to my\nsteading, and I will give him to thee for thy man; do with\nhim as thou wilt; he avows him for thy suppliant.'\n\nThen wise Telemachus answered him, saying: 'Eumaeus, verily\na bitter word is this that thou speakest. How indeed shall\nI receive this guest in my house? Myself I am young, and\ntrust not yet to my strength of hands to defend me against\nthe man who does violence without a cause. And my mother\nhas divisions of heart, whether to abide here with me and\nkeep the house, respecting the bed of her lord and the\nvoice of the people, or straightway to go with whomsoever\nof the Achaeans that woo her in the halls is the best man,\nand gives most bridal gifts. But behold, as for this guest\nof thine, now that he has come to thy house, I will clothe\nhim in a mantle and a doublet, goodly raiment, and I will\ngive him a two-edged sword, and shoes for his feet, and\nsend him on his way, whithersoever his heart and his spirit\nbid him go. Or, if thou wilt, hold him here in the steading\nand take care of him, and raiment I will send hither, and\nall manner of food to eat, that he be not ruinous to thee\nand to thy fellows. But thither into the company of the\nwooers would I not suffer him to go, for they are exceeding\nfull of infatuate insolence, lest they mock at him, and\nthat would be a sore grief to me. And hard it is for one\nman, how valiant soever, to achieve aught among a\nmultitude, for verily they are far the stronger.'\n\nThen the steadfast goodly Odysseus answered him: 'My\nfriend, since it is indeed my right to answer thee withal,\nof a truth my heart is rent as I hear your words, such\ninfatuate deeds ye say the wooers devise in the halls, in\ndespite of thee, a man so noble. Say, dost thou willingly\nsubmit thee to oppression, or do the people through the\ntownship hate thee, obedient to the voice of a god? Or hast\nthou cause to blame thy brethren, in whose battle a man\nputs trust, even if a great feud arise? Ah, would that I\nhad the youth, as now I have the spirit, and were either\nthe son of noble Odysseus or Odysseus' very self, {*}\nstraightway then might a stranger sever my head from off my\nneck, if I went not to the halls of Odysseus, son of\nLaertes, and made myself the bane of every man among them!\nBut if they should overcome me by numbers, being but one\nman against so many, far rather would I die slain in mine\nown halls, than witness for ever these unseemly deeds,\nstrangers shamefully entreated, and men haling the\nhandmaidens in foul wise through the fair house, and wine\ndrawn wastefully and the wooers devouring food all\nrecklessly without avail, at a work that knows no ending.'\n\n{* We omit line 101, which spoils the sense of the passage,\nand was rejected by antiquity.}\n\nThen wise Telemachus answered him, saying: 'Yea now,\nstranger I will plainly tell thee all. There is no grudge\nand hatred borne my by the whole people, neither have I\ncause to blame my brethren, in whose battle a man puts\ntrust, even if a great feud arise. For thus, as thou seest,\nCronion has made us a house of but one heir. Arceisius got\nhim one only son Laertes, and one only son Odysseus was\nbegotten of his father, and Odysseus left me the only child\nof his getting in these halls, and had no joy of me;\nwherefore now are foemen innumerable in the house. For all\nthe noblest that are princes in the islands, in Dulichium\nand Same and wooded Zacynthus, and as many as lord it in\nrocky Ithaca, all these woo my mother and waste my house.\nBut as for her she neither refuseth the hated bridal, nor\nhath the heart to make and end; so they devour and minish\nmy house; and ere long will they make havoc likewise of\nmyself. Howbeit these things surely lie on the knees of the\ngods. Nay, father, but do thou go with haste and tell the\nconstant Penelope that she hath got me safe and that I am\ncome up out of Pylos. As for me, I will tarry here, and do\nthou return hither when thou hast told the tidings to her\nalone; but of the other Achaeans let no man learn it, for\nthere be many that devise mischief against me.'\n\nThen didst thou make answer, swineherd Eumaeus: 'I mark, I\nheed, all this thou speakest to one with understanding. But\ncome, declare me this and tell it plainly; whether or no I\nshall go the same road with tidings to Laertes, that\nhapless man, who till lately, despite his great sorrow for\nOdysseus' sake, yet had oversight of the tillage, and did\neat and drink with the thralls in his house, as often as\nhis heart within him bade him. But now, from the day that\nthou wentest in thy ship to Pylos, never to this hour, they\nsay, hath he so much as eaten and drunken, nor looked to\nthe labours of the field, but with groaning and lamentation\nhe sits sorrowing, and the flesh wastes away about his\nbones.'\n\nThen wise Telemachus answered him, saying: 'All the more\ngrievous it is! yet will we let him be, though we sorrow\nthereat. For if men might in any wise have all their will,\nwe should before ought else choose the day of my father's\nreturning. But do thou when thou hast told the tidings come\nstraight back, and go not wandering through the fields\nafter Laertes. But speak to my mother that with all speed\nshe send forth the house-dame her handmaid, secretly, for\nshe might bear tidings to the old man.'\n\nWith that word he roused the swineherd, who took his\nsandals in his hands and bound them beneath his feet and\ndeparted for the city. Now Athene noted Eumaeus the\nswineherd pass from the steading, and she drew nigh in the\nsemblance of a woman fair and tall, and skilled in splendid\nhandiwork. And she stood in presence manifest to Odysseus\nover against the doorway of the hut; but it was so that\nTelemachus saw her not before him and marked her not; for\nthe gods in no wise appear visibly to all. But Odysseus was\nware of her and the dogs likewise, which barked not, but\nwith a low whine shrank cowering to the far side of the\nsteading. Then she nodded at him with bent brows, and\ngoodly Odysseus perceived it, and came forth from the room,\npast the great wall of the yard, and stood before her, and\nAthene spake to him, saying:\n\n'Son of Laertes, of the seed of Zeus, Odysseus of many\ndevices, now is the hour to reveal thy word to thy son, and\nhide it not, that ye twain having framed death and doom for\nthe wooers, may fare to the famous town. Nor will I, even\nI, be long away from you, being right eager for battle.'\n\nTherewith Athene touched him with her golden wand. First\nshe cast about his breast a fresh linen robe and a doublet,\nand she increased his bulk and bloom. Dark his colour grew\nagain, and his cheeks filled out, and the black beard\nspread thick around his chin.\n\nNow she, when she had so wrought, withdrew again, but\nOdysseus went into the hut, and his dear son marvelled at\nhim and looked away for very fear lest it should be a god,\nand he uttered his voice and spake to him winged words:\n\n'Even now, stranger, thou art other in my sight than that\nthou wert a moment since, and other garments thou hast, and\nthe colour of thy skin is no longer the same. Surely thou\nart a god of those that keep the wide heaven. Nay then, be\ngracious, that we may offer to thee well-pleasing\nsacrifices and golden gifts, beautifully wrought; and spare\nus I pray thee.'\n\nThen the steadfast goodly Odysseus answered him, saying:\n'Behold, no god am I; why likenest thou me to the\nimmortals? nay, thy father am I, for whose sake thou\nsufferest many pains and groanest sore, and submittest thee\nto the despite of men,'\n\nAt the word he kissed his son, and from his cheeks let a\ntear fall to earth: before, he had stayed the tears\ncontinually. But Telemachus (for as yet he believed not\nthat it was his father) answered in turn and spake, saying:\n\n'Thou art not Odysseus my father, but some god beguiles me,\nthat I may groan for more exceeding sorrow. For it cannot\nbe that a mortal man should contrive this by the aid of his\nown wit, unless a god were himself to visit him, and\nlightly of his own will to make him young or old. For\ntruly, but a moment gone, thou wert old and foully clad,\nbut now thou art like the gods who keep the wide heaven.'\n\nThen Odysseus of many counsels answered him saying:\n'Telemachus, it fits thee not to marvel overmuch that thy\nfather is come home, or to be amazed. Nay for thou shalt\nfind no other Odysseus come hither any more; but lo, I, all\nas I am, after sufferings and much wandering have come in\nthe twentieth year to mine own country. Behold, this is the\nwork of Athene, driver of the spoil, who makes me such\nmanner of man as she will,--for with her it is possible,--\nnow like a beggar, and now again like a young man, and one\nclad about in rich raiment. Easy it is for the gods who\nkeep the wide heaven to glorify or to abase a mortal man.'\n\nWith this word then he sat down again; but Telemachus,\nflinging himself upon his noble father's neck, mourned and\nshed tears, and in both their hearts arose the desire of\nlamentation. And they wailed aloud, more ceaselessly than\nbirds, sea-eagles or vultures of crooked claws, whose\nyounglings the country folk have taken from the nest, ere\nyet they are fledged. Even so pitifully fell the tears\nbeneath their brows. And now would the sunlight have gone\ndown upon their sorrowing, had not Telemachus spoken to his\nfather suddenly:\n\n'And in what manner of ship, father dear, did sailors at\nlength bring thee hither to Ithaca? and who did they avow\nthem to be? For in no wise, I deem, didst thou come hither\nby land.'\n\nAnd the steadfast goodly Odysseus answered him: 'Yea now,\nmy child, I will tell thee all the truth. The Phaeacians\nbrought me hither, mariners renowned, who speed other men\ntoo upon their way, whosoever comes to them. Asleep in the\nswift ship they bore me over the seas and set me down in\nIthaca, and gave me splendid gifts, bronze and gold in\nplenty and woven raiment. And these treasures are lying by\nthe gods' grace in the caves. But now I am come hither by\nthe promptings of Athene, that we may take counsel for the\nslaughter of the foemen. But come, tell me all the tale of\nthe wooers and their number, that I may know how many and\nwhat men they be, and that so I may commune with my good\nheart and advise me, whether we twain shall be able alone\nto make head against them without aid, or whether we should\neven seek succour of others.'\n\nThen wise Telemachus answered him, saying: 'Verily, father,\nI have ever heard of thy great fame, for a warrior hardy of\nthy hands, and sage in counsel. But this is a hard saying\nof thine: awe comes over me; for it may not be that two men\nshould do battle with many men and stalwart. For of the\nwooers there are not barely ten nor twice ten only, but\nmany a decad more: and straight shalt thou learn the tale\nof them ere we part. From Dulichium there be two and fifty\nchosen lords, and six serving men go with them; and out of\nSame four and twenty men; and from Zacynthus there are\ntwenty lords of the Achaeans; and from Ithaca itself full\ntwelve men of the best, and with them Medon the henchman,\nand the divine minstrel, and two squires skilled in carving\nviands. If we shall encounter all these within the halls,\nsee thou to it, lest bitter and baneful for us be the\nvengeance thou takest on their violence at thy coming. But\ndo thou, if thou canst think of some champion, advise thee\nof any that may help us with all his heart.'\n\nThen the steadfast goodly Odysseus answered him, saying:\n'Yea now, I will tell thee, and do thou mark and listen to\nme, and consider whether Athene with Father Zeus will\nsuffice for us twain, or whether I shall cast about for\nsome other champion.'\n\nThen wise Telemachus answered him, saying: 'Valiant\nhelpers, in sooth, are these two thou namest, whose seat is\naloft in the clouds, and they rule among all men and among\nthe deathless gods!'\n\nThen the steadfast goodly Odysseus answered him: 'Yet will\nthe twain not long keep aloof from the strong tumult of\nwar, when between the wooers and us in my halls is held the\ntrial of the might of Ares. But as now, do thou go homeward\nat the breaking of the day, and consort with the proud\nwooers. As for me, the swineherd will lead me to the town\nlater in the day, in the likeness of a beggar, a wretched\nman and an old. And if they shall evil entreat me in the\nhouse, let thy heart harden itself to endure while I am\nshamefully handled, yea even if they drag me by the feet\nthrough the house to the doors, or cast at me and smite me:\nstill do thou bear the sight. Howbeit thou shalt surely bid\nthem cease from their folly, exhorting them with smooth\nwords; yet no whit will they hearken, nay for the day of\ntheir doom is at hand. Yet another thing will I tell thee,\nand do thou ponder it in thy heart. When Athene, of deep\ncounsel, shall put it into my heart, I will nod to thee\nwith my head and do thou note it, and carry away all thy\nweapons of war that lie in the halls, and lay them down\nevery one in the secret place of the lofty chamber. And\nwhen the wooers miss them and ask thee concerning them,\nthou shalt beguile them with soft words, saying:\n\n'\"Out of the smoke I laid them by, since they were no\nlonger like those that Odysseus left behind him of old when\nhe went to Troy, but they are wholly marred: so mightily\nhath passed upon them the vapour of fire. Moreover Cronion\nhath put into my heart this other and greater care, that\nperchance, when ye are heated with wine, ye set a quarrel\nbetween you and wound one the other and thereby shame the\nfeast and the wooing; for iron of itself draws a man\nthereto.\" But for us twain alone leave two swords and two\nspears and two shields of oxhide to grasp, that we may rush\nupon the arms and seize them; and then shall Pallas Athene\nand Zeus the counsellor enchant the wooers to their ruin.\nYet another thing will I tell thee, and do thou ponder it\nin thy heart. If in very truth thou art my son and of our\nblood, then let no man hear that Odysseus is come home;\nneither let Laertes know it, nor the swineherd nor any of\nthe household nor Penelope herself, but let me and thee\nalone discover the intent of the women. Yea, and we would\nmoreover make trial of certain of the men among the\nthralls, and learn who {*} of them chances to honour us and\nto fear us heartily, and who regards us not at all and\nholds even thee in no esteem, so noble a man as thou art.'\n\n{* Reading [Greek]}\n\nThen his renowned son answered him, and said: 'O my father,\nof a truth thou shalt learn, methinks, even hereafter what\nspirit I am of, for no whit doth folly possess me. But I\ndeem not that this device of thine will be gainful to us\ntwain, so I bid thee to give heed. For thou shalt be long\ntime on thy road to little purpose, making trial of each\nman, while thou visitest the farm lands; but at ease in thy\nhalls the wooers devour thy goods with insolence, and now\nthere is no sparing. Howbeit I would have thee take\nknowledge of the women, who they be that dishonour thee,\nand who are guiltless. But of the men I would not that we\nshould make trial in the steadings, but that we should see\nto this task afterwards, if indeed thou knowest some sign\nfrom Zeus, lord of the aegis.'\n\nThus they spake one to the other. And now the well-builded\nship was being brought to land at Ithaca, the ship that\nbare Telemachus from Pylos with all his company. When they\nwere now come within the deep harbour, the men drew up the\nblack ship on the shore, while squires, haughty of heart,\nbare away their weapons, and straightway carried the\nglorious gifts to the house of Clytius. Anon they sent\nforward a herald to the house of Odysseus to bear the\ntidings to prudent Penelope, namely, how Telemachus was in\nthe field, and had bidden the ship sail to the city, lest\nthe noble queen should be afraid, and let the round tears\nfall. So these two met, the herald and the goodly\nswineherd, come on the same errand to tell all to the lady.\nNow when they were got to the house of the divine king, the\nherald spake out among all the handmaids saying:\n\n'Verily, O queen, thy son hath come out of Pylos.'\n\nBut the swineherd went up to Penelope, and told her all\nthat her dear son had bidden him say. So, when he had\ndeclared all that had been enjoined him, he went on his way\nto the swine and left the enclosure and the hall.\n\nNow the wooers were troubled and downcast in spirit, and\nforth they went from the hall past the great wall of the\ncourt, and there in front of the gates they held their\nsession. And Eurymachus son of Polybus first spake among\nthem saying:\n\n'Verily, friends, a proud deed hath Telemachus accomplished\nwith a high hand, even this journey, and we said that he\nshould never bring it to pass. But come, launch we a black\nship, the best there is, and let us get together oarsmen of\nthe sea, who shall straightway bear word to our friends to\nreturn home with speed.'\n\nThe word was yet on his lips, when Amphinomus turned in his\nplace and saw the ship within the deep harbour, and the men\nlowering the sails and with the oars in their hands. Then\nsweetly he laughed out and spake among his fellows:\n\n'Nay, let us now send no message any more, for lo, they are\ncome home. Either some god has told them all or they\nthemselves have seen the ship of Telemachus go by, and have\nnot been able to catch her.'\n\nThus he spake, and they arose and went to the sea-banks.\nSwiftly the men drew up the black ship on the shore, and\nsquires, haughty of heart, bare away their weapons. And the\nwooers all together went to the assembly-place, and\nsuffered none other to sit with them, either of the young\nmen or of the elders. Then Antinous spake among them, the\nson of Eupeithes:\n\n'Lo now, how the gods have delivered this man from his evil\ncase! All day long did scouts sit along the windy\nheadlands, ever in quick succession, and at the going down\nof the sun we never rested for a night upon the shore, but\nsailing with our swift ship on the high seas we awaited the\nbright Dawn, as we lay in wait for Telemachus, that we\nmight take and slay the man himself; but meanwhile some god\nhas brought him home. But even here let us devise an evil\nend for him, even for Telemachus, and let him not escape\nout of our hands, for methinks that while he lives we shall\nnever achieve this task of ours. For he himself has\nunderstanding in counsel and wisdom, and the people no\nlonger show us favour in all things. Nay come, before he\nassembles all the Achaeans to the gathering; for methinks\nthat he will in nowise be slack, but will be exceeding\nwroth, and will stand up and speak out among them all, and\ntell how we plotted against him sheer destruction but did\nnot overtake him. Then will they not approve us, when they\nhear these evil deeds. Beware then lest they do us a harm,\nand drive us forth from our country, and we come to the\nland of strangers. Nay, but let us be beforehand and take\nhim in the field far from the city, or by the way; and let\nus ourselves keep his livelihood and his possessions,\nmaking fair division among us, but the house we would give\nto his mother to keep and to whomsoever marries her. But if\nthis saying likes you not, but ye chose rather that he\nshould live and keep the heritage of his father, no longer\nthen let us gather here and eat all his store of pleasant\nsubstance, but let each one from his own hall woo her with\nhis bridal gifts and seek to win her; so should she wed the\nman that gives the most and comes as the chosen of fate.'\n\nSo he spake, and they all held their peace. Then Amphinomus\nmade harangue and spake out among them; he was the famous\nson of Nisus the prince, the son of Aretias, and he led the\nwooers that came from out Dulichium, a land rich in wheat\nand in grass, and more than all the rest his words were\npleasing to Penelope, for he was of an understanding mind.\nAnd now of his good will he made harangue, and spake among\nthem:\n\n'Friends, I for one would not choose to kill Telemachus; it\nis a fearful thing to slay one of the stock of kings! Nay,\nfirst let us seek to the counsel of the gods, and if the\noracles of great Zeus approve, myself I will slay him and\nbid all the rest to aid. But if the gods are disposed to\navert it, I bid you to refrain.'\n\nSo spake Amphinomus, and his saying pleased them well. Then\nstraightway they arose and went to the house of Odysseus,\nand entering in sat down on the polished seats.\n\nThen the wise Penelope had a new thought, namely, to show\nherself to the wooers, so despiteful in their insolence;\nfor she had heard of the death of her son that was to be in\nthe halls, seeing that Medon the henchman had told her of\nit; who heard their counsels. So she went on her way to the\nhall, with the women her handmaids. Now when that fair lady\nhad come unto the wooers, she stood by the pillar of the\nwell-builded roof, holding up her glistening tire before\nher face, and rebuked Antinous and spake and hailed him:\n\n'Antinous, full of all insolence, deviser of mischief! and\nyet they say that in the land of Ithaca thou art chiefest\namong thy peers in counsel and in speech. Nay, no such man\ndost thou show thyself. Fool! why indeed dost thou contrive\ndeath and doom for Telemachus, and hast no regard unto\nsuppliants who have Zeus to witness? Nay but it is an\nimpious thing to contrive evil one against another. What!\nknowest thou not of the day when thy father fled to this\nhouse in fear of the people, for verily they were exceeding\nwroth against him, because he had followed with Taphian sea\nrobbers and harried the Thesprotians, who were at peace\nwith us. So they wished to destroy thy father and wrest\nfrom him his dear life, and utterly to devour all his great\nand abundant livelihood; but Odysseus stayed and withheld\nthem, for all their desire. His house thou now consumest\nwithout atonement, and his wife thou wooest, and wouldst\nslay his son, and dost greatly grieve me. But I bid thee\ncease, and command the others to do likewise.'\n\nThen Eurymachus, son of Polybus, answered her saying:\n'Daughter of Icarius, wise Penelope, take courage, and let\nnot thy heart be careful for these things. The man is not,\nnor shall be, nor ever shall be born, that shall stretch\nforth his hands against Telemachus, thy son, while I live\nand am on earth and see the light. For thus will I declare\nto thee, and it shall surely come to pass. Right quickly\nshall the black blood of such an one flow about our spear;\nfor Odysseus, waster of cities, of a truth did many a time\nset me too upon his knees, and gave me roasted flesh into\nmy hand, and held the red wine to my lips. Wherefore\nTelemachus is far the dearest of all men to me, and I bid\nhim have no fear of death, not from the wooers' hands; but\nfrom the gods none may avoid it.'\n\nThus he spake comforting her, but was himself the while\nframing death for her son.\n\nNow she ascended to her shining upper chamber, and then was\nbewailing Odysseus, her dear lord, till grey-eyed Athene\ncast sweet sleep upon her eyelids.\n\nAnd in the evening the goodly swineherd came back to\nOdysseus and his son, and they made ready and served the\nsupper, when they had sacrificed a swine of a year old.\nThen Athene drew near Odysseus, son of Laertes, and smote\nhim with her wand, and made him into an old man again. In\nsorry raiment she clad him about his body, lest the\nswineherd should look on him and know him, and depart to\ntell the constant Penelope, and not keep the matter in his\nheart.\n\nThen Telemachus spake first to the swineherd, saying:\n'Thou hast come, goodly Eumaeus. What news is there in the\ntown? Are the lordly wooers now come in from their ambush,\nor do they still watch for me as before on my homeward\nway?'\n\nThen didst thou make answer, swineherd Eumaeus: 'I had no\nmind to go down the city asking and inquiring hereof; my\nheart bade me get me home again, as quick as might be, when\nonce I had told the tidings. And the swift messenger from\nthy company joined himself unto me, the henchman, who was\nthe first to tell the news to thy mother. Yet this, too, I\nknow, if thou wouldest hear; for I beheld it with mine\neyes. Already had I come in my faring above the city, where\nis the hill Hermaean, when I marked a swift ship entering\nour haven, and many men there were in her, and she was\nladen with shields and two-headed spears, and methought\nthey were the wooers, but I know not at all.'\n\nSo spake he, and the mighty prince Telemachus smiled, and\nglanced at his father, while he shunned the eye of the\nswineherd.\n\nNow when they had ceased from the work and got supper\nready, they fell to feasting, and their hearts lacked not\nought of the equal banquet. But when they had put from them\nthe desire of meat and drink, they bethought them of rest,\nand took the boon of sleep.\n\n\n\nBook XVII\n\n  Telemachus relates to his mother what he had heard at Pylos\n  and Sparta.\n\nSo soon as early Dawn shone forth, the rosy-fingered, then\nTelemachus, the dear son of divine Odysseus, bound beneath\nhis feet his goodly sandals, and took up his mighty spear\nthat fitted his grasp, to make for the city; and he spake\nto his swineherd, saying:\n\n'Verily, father, I am bound for the city, that my mother\nmay see me, for methinks that she will not cease from\ngrievous wailing and tearful lament, until she beholds my\nvery face. But this command I give thee: Lead this\nstranger, the hapless one, to the city, that there he may\nbeg his meat, and whoso chooses will give him a morsel of\nbread and a cup of water. As for myself, I can in no wise\nsuffer every guest who comes to me, so afflicted am I in\nspirit. But if the stranger be sore angered hereat, the\nmore grievous will it be for himself; howbeit I for one\nlove to speak the truth.'\n\nAnd Odysseus of many counsels answered him saying: 'I too,\nmy friend, have no great liking to be left behind here. It\nis better that a beggar should beg his meat in the town\nthan in the fields, and whoso chooses will give it me. For\nI am not now of an age to abide at the steading, and to\nobey in all things the word of the master. Nay go, and this\nman that thou biddest will lead me, so soon as I shall be\nwarmed with the fire, and the sun waxes hot. For woefully\npoor are these garments of mine, and I fear lest the hoar\nfrost of the dawn overcome me; moreover ye say the city is\nfar away.'\n\nSo he spake, and Telemachus passed out through the\nsteading, stepping forth at a quick pace, and was sowing\nthe seeds of evil for the wooers. Now when he was come to\nthe fair-lying house, he set his spear against the tall\npillar and leaned it there, and himself went in and crossed\nthe threshold of stone.\n\nAnd the nurse Eurycleia saw him far before the rest, as she\nwas strewing skin coverlets upon the carven chairs, and\nstraightway she drew near him, weeping, and all the other\nmaidens of Odysseus, of the hardy heart, were gathered\nabout him, and kissed him lovingly on the head and\nshoulders. Now wise Penelope came forth from her chamber,\nlike Artemis or golden Aphrodite, and cast her arms about\nher dear son, and fell a weeping, and kissed his face and\nboth his beautiful eyes, and wept aloud, and spake to him\nwinged words:\n\n'Thou art come, Telemachus, a sweet light in the dark;\nmethought I should see thee never again, after thou hadst\ngone in thy ship to Pylos, secretly and without my will, to\nseek tidings of thy dear father. Come now, tell me, what\nsight thou didst get of him?'\n\nAnd wise Telemachus answered her, saying: 'Mother mine,\nwake not wailing in my soul, nor stir the heart within the\nbreast of me, that have but now fled from utter death. Nay,\nbut wash thee in water, and take to thee fresh raiment, and\ngo aloft to thine upper chamber with the women thy\nhandmaids, and vow to all the gods an acceptable sacrifice\nof hecatombs, if haply Zeus may grant that deeds of\nrequital be made. But I will go to the assembly-place to\nbid a stranger to our house, one that accompanied me as I\ncame hither from Pylos. I sent him forward with my godlike\ncompany, and commanded Piraeus to lead him home, and to\ntake heed to treat him lovingly and with worship till I\nshould come.'\n\nThus he spake, and wingless her speech remained. And she\nwashed her in water, and took to her fresh raiment, and\nvowed to all the gods an acceptable sacrifice of hecatombs,\nif haply Zeus might grant that deeds of requital should be\nmade.\n\nNow Telemachus went out through the hall with the spear in\nhis hand: and two swift hounds bare him company. And Athene\nshed on him a wondrous grace, and all the people marvelled\nat him as he came. And the lordly wooers gathered about him\nwith fair words on their lips, but brooding evil in the\ndeep of their heart. Then he avoided the great press of the\nwooers, but where Mentor sat, and Antiphus, and\nHalitherses, who were friends of his house from of old,\nthere he went and sat down; and they asked him of all his\nadventures. Then Piraeus, the famed spearsman, drew nigh,\nleading the stranger to the assembly-place by the way of\nthe town; and Telemachus kept not aloof from him long, but\nwent up to him.\n\nThen Piraeus first spake to him, saying: 'Bestir the women\nstraightway to go to my house, that I may send thee the\ngifts that Menelaus gave thee.'\n\nThen wise Telemachus answered him, saying: 'Piraeus, we\nknow not how these matters will fall out. If the lordly\nwooers shall slay me by guile in the halls, and divide\namong them the heritage of my father, then I should wish\nthee to keep and enjoy the gifts thyself, rather than any\nof these. But if I shall sow the seeds of death and fate\nfor the wooers, then gladly bring me to the house the gifts\nthat I will gladly take.'\n\nTherewith he led the travel-worn stranger to the house. Now\nwhen they came to the fair-lying palace, they laid aside\ntheir mantles on the chairs and high seats, and went to the\npolished baths, and bathed them. So when the maidens had\nbathed them and anointed them with olive oil, and cast\nabout them thick mantles and doublets, they came forth from\nthe baths, and sat upon the seats. Then the handmaid bare\nwater for the hands in a goodly golden ewer, and poured it\nforth over a silver basin to wash withal, and drew to their\nside a polished table. And the grave dame bare wheaten\nbread, and set it by them, and laid on the board many\ndainties, giving freely of such things as she had by her.\nAnd the mother of Telemachus sat over against him by the\npillar of the hall, leaning against a chair, and spinning\nthe slender threads from the yarn. And they stretched forth\ntheir hands upon the good cheer set before them. Now when\nthey had put from them the desire of meat and drink, the\nwise Penelope first spake among them:\n\n'Telemachus, verily I will go up to my upper chamber, and\nlay me in my bed, the place of my groanings, that is ever\nwatered by my tears, since the day that Odysseus departed\nwith the sons of Atreus for Ilios. Yet thou hadst no care\nto tell me clearly, before the lordly wooers came to this\nhouse, concerning the returning of thy father, if haply\nthou hast heard thereof.'\n\nAnd wise Telemachus answered her, saying: 'Yea now, mother,\nI will tell thee all the truth. We went to Pylos and to\nNestor, the shepherd of the people, and he received me in\nhis lofty house, and was diligent to entreat me lovingly,\nas a father might his son that had but newly come from\nstrange lands after many years; even so diligently he cared\nfor me with his renowned sons. Yet he said that he had\nheard no word from any man on earth concerning Odysseus, of\nthe hardy heart, whether alive or dead. But he sent me\nforward on my way with horses and a chariot, well compact,\nto Menelaus, son of Atreus, spearman renowned. There I saw\nArgive Helen, for whose sake the Argives and Trojans bore\nmuch travail by the gods' designs. Then straightway\nMenelaus, of the loud war-cry, asked me on what quest I had\ncome to goodly Lacedaemon. And I told him all the truth.\nThen he made answer, and spake, saying:\n\n'\"Out upon them, for truly in the bed of a brave-hearted\nman were they minded to lie, very cravens as they are! Even\nas when a hind hath couched her newborn fawns unweaned in a\nstrong lion's lair, and searcheth out the mountain-knees\nand grassy hollows, seeking pasture; and afterward the lion\ncometh back to his bed, and sendeth forth unsightly death\nupon that pair, even so shall Odysseus send forth unsightly\ndeath upon the wooers. Would to our father Zeus, and\nAthene, and Apollo, would that in such might as when of old\nin stablished Lesbos he rose up in strife and wrestled with\nPhilomeleides, and threw him mightily, and all the Achaeans\nrejoiced; would that in such strength Odysseus might\nconsort with the wooers; then should they all have swift\nfate and bitter wedlock! But for that whereof thou askest\nand entreatest me, be sure I will not swerve from the truth\nin aught that I say, nor deceive thee; but of all that the\nancient one of the sea, whose speech is sooth, declared to\nme, not a word will I hide or keep from thee. He said that\nhe saw Odysseus in an island, suffering strong pains in the\nhalls of the nymph Calypso, who holds him there perforce;\nso that he may not come to his own country, for he has by\nhim no ships with oars, and no companions to send him on\nhis way over the broad back of the sea.\" So spake Menelaus,\nson of Atreus, spearsman renowned. Then having fulfilled\nall, I set out for home, and the deathless gods gave me a\nfair wind, and brought me swiftly to mine own dear\ncountry.'\n\nSo he spake, and stirred her heart within her breast. And\nnext the godlike Theoclymenus spake among them:\n\n'O wife revered of Odysseus, son of Laertes, verily he hath\nno clear knowledge; but my word do thou mark, for I will\nprophesy to thee most truly and hide nought. Now Zeus be\nwitness before any god, and this hospitable board and this\nhearth of noble Odysseus, whereunto I am come, that\nOdysseus is even now of a surety in his own country,\nresting or faring, learning of these evil deeds, and sowing\nthe seeds of evil for all the wooers. So clear was the omen\nof the bird that I saw as I sat on the decked ship, and I\nproclaimed it to Telemachus.'\n\nThen wise Penelope answered him, saying: 'Ah, stranger,\nwould that this thy word may be accomplished! Soon\nshouldest thou be aware of kindness and of many a gift at\nmy hands, so that whoso met with thee would call thee\nblessed.'\n\nThus they spake one to the other. But the wooers meantime\nwere before the palace of Odysseus, taking their pleasure\nin casting of weights and of spears on a levelled place, as\nheretofore, in their insolence. But when it was now the\nhour for supper, and the flocks came home from the fields\nall around, and the men led them whose custom it was, then\nMedon, who of all the henchmen was most to their mind, and\nwas ever with them at the feast, spake to them, saying:\n\n'Noble youths, now that ye have had sport to your hearts'\ncontent, get you into the house, that we may make ready a\nfeast; for truly it is no bad thing to take meat in\nseason.'\n\nEven so he spake, and they rose up and departed, and were\nobedient to his word. Now when they were come into the\nfair-lying house, they laid aside their mantles on the\nchairs and high seats, and they sacrificed great sheep and\nstout goats, yea, and the fatlings of the boars and an\nheifer of the herd, and got ready the feast.\n\nNow all this while Odysseus and the goodly swineherd were\nbestirring them to go from the field to the city; and the\nswineherd, a master of men, spake first saying:\n\n'Well, my friend, forasmuch as I see thou art eager to be\ngoing to the city to-day, even as my master gave command;--\nthough myself I would well that thou shouldest be left here\nto keep the steading, but I hold him in reverence and fear,\nlest he chide me afterwards, and grievous are the rebukes\nof masters--come then, let us go on our way, for lo, the\nday is far spent, and soon wilt thou find it colder toward\nevening.'\n\nThen Odysseus of many counsels answered him saying: 'I\nmark, I heed: all this thou speakest to one with\nunderstanding. But let us be going, and be thou my guide\nwithal to the end. And if thou hast anywhere a staff ready\ncut, give it me to lean upon, for truly ye said that\nslippery was the way.'\n\nTherewith he cast about his shoulders a mean scrip, all\ntattered, and a cord withal to hang it, and Eumaeus gave\nhim a staff to his mind. So these twain went on their way,\nand the dogs and the herdsmen stayed behind to guard the\nsteading. And the swineherd led his lord to the city in the\nguise of a beggar, a wretched man and an old, leaning on a\nstaff; and sorry was the raiment wherewith he was clothed\nupon. But as they fared along the rugged path they drew\nnear to the town, and came to the fair flowing spring, with\na basin fashioned, whence the people of the city drew\nwater. This well Ithacus and Neritus and Polyctor had\nbuilded. And around it was a thicket of alders that grow by\nthe waters, all circlewise, and down the cold stream fell\nfrom a rock on high, and above was reared an altar to the\nNymphs, whereat all wayfarers made offering. In that place\nMelanthius, son of Dolius, met them, leading his goats to\nfeast the wooers, the best goats that were in all the\nherds; and two herdsmen bare him company. Now when he saw\nthem he reviled them, and spake and hailed them, in\nterrible and evil fashion, and stirred the heart of\nOdysseus, saying:\n\n'Now in very truth the vile is leading the vile, for god\nbrings ever like to like! Say, whither art thou leading\nthis glutton,--thou wretched swineherd,--this plaguy\nbeggar, a kill-joy of the feast? He is one to stand about\nand rub his shoulders against many doorposts, begging for\nscraps of meat, not for swords or cauldrons. If thou\nwouldst give me the fellow to watch my steading and sweep\nout the stalls, and carry fresh fodder to the kids, then he\nmight drink whey and get him a stout thigh. Howbeit, since\nhe is practised only in evil, he will not care to betake\nhim to the labour of the farm, but rather chooses to go\nlouting through the land asking alms to fill his insatiate\nbelly. But now I will speak out and my word shall surely be\naccomplished. If ever he fares to the house of divine\nOdysseus, many a stool that men's hands hurl shall fly\nabout his head, and break upon his ribs, {*} as they pelt\nhim through the house.'\n\n{* Reading [Greek]}\n\nTherewith, as he went past, he kicked Odysseus on the hip,\nin his witlessness, yet he drave him not from the path, but\nhe abode steadfast. And Odysseus pondered whether he should\nrush upon him and take away his life with the staff, or\nlift him in his grasp {*} and smite his head to the earth.\nYet he hardened his heart to endure and refrained himself.\nAnd the swineherd looked at the other and rebuked him, and\nlifting up his hands prayed aloud:\n\n{* [Greek] is perhaps best taken as an adverb in [Greek]\nformed from [Greek], though some letters of the word are\nstill left obscure. Most modern commentators, however,\nderive it from [Greek] and [Greek] 'near the ground; hence,\nin this context, 'lift him by the feet.'}\n\n'Nymphs of the well-water, daughters of Zeus, if ever\nOdysseus burned on your altars pieces of the thighs of rams\nor kids, in their covering of rich fat, fulfil for me this\nwish:--oh that he, even he, may come home, and that some\ngod may bring him! Then would he scatter all thy bravery,\nwhich now thou flauntest insolently, wandering ever about\nthe city, while evil shepherds destroy the flock.'\n\nThen Melanthius, the goatherd, answered: 'Lo now, what a\nword has this evil-witted dog been saying! Some day I will\ntake him in a black decked ship far from Ithaca, that he\nmay bring me in much livelihood. Would God that Apollo, of\nthe silver bow, might smite Telemachus to-day in the halls,\nor that he might fall before the wooers, so surely as for\nOdysseus the day of returning has in a far land gone by!'\n\nSo he spake and left them there as they walked slowly on.\nBut Melanthius stepped forth, and came very speedily to the\nhouse of the prince, and straightway he went in and sat\ndown among the wooers, over against Eurymachus, who chiefly\nshowed him kindness. And they that ministered set by him a\nportion of flesh, and the grave dame brought wheaten bread\nand set it by him to eat. Now Odysseus and the goodly\nswineherd drew near and stood by, and the sound of the\nhollow lyre rang around them, for Phemius was lifting up\nhis voice amid the company in song, and Odysseus caught the\nswineherd by the hand, and spake, saying:\n\n'Eumaeus, verily this is the fair house of Odysseus, and\nright easily might it be known and marked even among many.\nThere is building beyond building, and the court of the\nhouse is cunningly wrought with a wall and battlements, and\nwell-fenced are the folding doors; no man may hold it in\ndisdain. And I see that many men keep revel within, for the\nsavour of the fat rises upward, {*} and the voice of the\nlyre is heard there, which the gods have made to be the\nmate of the feast.'\n\n{* Reading [Greek]}\n\nThen didst thou make answer, swineherd Eumaeus: 'Easily\nthou knowest it, for indeed thou never lackest\nunderstanding. But come, let us advise us, how things shall\nfall out here. Either do thou go first within the\nfair-lying halls, and join the company of the wooers, so\nwill I remain here, or if thou wilt, abide here, and I will\ngo before thy face, and tarry not long, lest one see thee\nwithout, and hurl at thee or strike thee. Look well to\nthis, I bid thee.'\n\nThen the steadfast goodly Odysseus answered him, saying: 'I\nmark, I heed, all this thou speakest to one with\nunderstanding. Do thou then go before me, and I will remain\nhere, for well I know what it is to be smitten and hurled\nat. My heart is full of hardiness, for much evil have I\nsuffered in perils of waves and war; let this be added to\nthe tale of those. But a ravening belly may none conceal, a\nthing accursed, that works much ill for men. For this cause\ntoo the benched ships are furnished, that bear mischief to\nfoemen over the unharvested seas.'\n\nThus they spake one to the other. And lo, a hound raised up\nhis head and pricked his ears, even where he lay, Argos,\nthe hound of Odysseus, of the hardy heart, which of old\nhimself had bred, but had got no joy of him, for ere that,\nhe went to sacred Ilios. Now in time past the young men\nused to lead the hound against wild goats and deer and\nhares; but as then, despised he lay (his master being afar)\nin the deep dung of mules and kine, whereof an ample bed\nwas spread before the doors, till the thralls of Odysseus\nshould carry it away to dung therewith his wide demesne.\nThere lay the dog Argos, full of vermin. Yet even now when\nhe was ware of Odysseus standing by, he wagged his tail and\ndropped both his ears, but nearer to his master he had not\nnow the strength to draw. But Odysseus looked aside and\nwiped away a tear that he easily hid from Eumaeus, and\nstraightway he asked him, saying:\n\n'Eumaeus, verily this is a great marvel, this hound lying\nhere in the dung. Truly he is goodly of growth, but I know\nnot certainly if he have speed with this beauty, or if he\nbe comely only, like as are men's trencher dogs that their\nlords keep for the pleasure of the eye.'\n\nThen didst thou make answer, swineherd Eumaeus: 'In very\ntruth this is the dog of a man that has died in a far land.\nIf he were what once he was in limb and in the feats of the\nchase, when Odysseus left him to go to Troy, soon wouldst\nthou marvel at the sight of his swiftness and his strength.\nThere was no beast that could flee from him in the deep\nplaces of the wood, when he was in pursuit; for even on a\ntrack he was the keenest hound. But now he is holden in an\nevil case, and his lord hath perished far from his own\ncountry, and the careless women take no charge of him. Nay,\nthralls are no more inclined to honest service when their\nmasters have lost the dominion, for Zeus, of the far-borne\nvoice, takes away the half of a man's virtue, when the day\nof slavery comes upon him.'\n\nTherewith he passed within the fair-lying house, and went\nstraight to the hall, to the company of the proud wooers.\nBut upon Argos came the fate of black death even in the\nhour that he beheld Odysseus again, in the twentieth year.\n\nNow godlike Telemachus was far the first to behold the\nswineherd as he came into the hall, and straightway then he\nbeckoned and called him to his side. So Eumaeus looked\nabout and took a settle that lay by him, where the carver\nwas wont to sit dividing much flesh among the wooers that\nwere feasting in the house. This seat he carried and set by\nthe table of Telemachus over against him, and there sat\ndown himself. And the henchman took a mess and served it\nhim, and wheaten bread out of the basket.\n\nAnd close behind him Odysseus entered the house in the\nguise of a beggar, a wretched man and an old, leaning on\nhis staff, and clothed on with sorry raiment. And he sat\ndown on the ashen threshold within the doorway, leaning\nagainst a pillar of cypress wood, which the carpenter on a\ntime had deftly planed, and thereon made straight the line.\nAnd Telemachus called the swineherd to him, and took a\nwhole loaf out of the fair basket, and of flesh so much as\nhis hands could hold in their grasp, saying:\n\n'Take and give this to the stranger, and bid him go about\nand beg himself of all the wooers in their turn, for shame\nis an ill mate of a needy man.'\n\nSo he spake, and the swineherd went when he heard that\nsaying, and stood by and spake to him winged words:\n\n'Stranger, Telemachus gives thee these and bids thee go\nabout and beg of all the wooers in their turn, for, he\nsays, \"shame ill becomes a beggar man.\"'\n\nThen Odysseus of many counsels answered him and said: 'King\nZeus, grant me that Telemachus may be happy among men, and\nmay he have all his heart's desire!'\n\nTherewith he took the gift in both hands, and set it there\nbefore his feet on his unsightly scrip. Then he ate meat so\nlong as the minstrel was singing in the halls. When he had\ndone supper, and the divine minstrel was ending his song,\nthen the wooers raised a clamour through the halls; but\nAthene stood by Odysseus, son of Laertes, and moved him to\ngo gathering morsels of bread among the wooers, and learn\nwhich were righteous and which unjust. Yet not even so was\nshe fated to redeem one man of them from an evil doom. So\nhe set out, beginning on the right, to ask of each man,\nstretching out his hand on every side, as though he were a\nbeggar from of old. And they in pity gave him somewhat, and\nwere amazed at the man, asking one another who he was and\nwhence he came?\n\nThen Melanthius, the goatherd, spake among them:\n\n'Listen, ye wooers of the renowned queen, concerning this\nstranger, for verily I have seen him before. The swineherd\ntruly was his guide hither, but of him I have no certain\nknowledge, whence he avows him to be born.'\n\nSo spake he, but Antinous rebuked the swineherd, saying:\n'Oh notorious swineherd, wherefore, I pray thee, didst thou\nbring this man to the city? Have we not vagrants enough\nbesides, plaguy beggars, kill-joys of the feast? Dost thou\ncount it a light thing that they assemble here and devour\nthe living of thy master, but thou must needs {*} call in\nthis man too?'\n\n{* [Greek] can hardly have a local meaning here. If\nretained, it must be nearly equivalent to [Greek], 'it\nseems,' with a touch of irony. Cf. i.348. The v. 1. [Greek]\nis a simpler reading, but by no means certain.}\n\nThen didst thou make answer, swineherd Eumaeus: 'Antinous,\nno fair words are these of thine, noble though thou art.\nFor who ever himself seeks out and bids to the feast a\nstranger from afar, save only one of those that are\ncraftsmen of the people, a prophet or a healer of ills, or\na shipwright or even a godlike minstrel, who can delight\nall with his song? Nay, these are the men that are welcome\nover all the wide earth. But none would call a beggar to\nthe banquet, to waste his substance. But thou art ever hard\nabove all the other wooers to the servants of Odysseus,\nand, beyond all, to me; but behold, I care not, so long as\nmy mistress, the constant Penelope, lives in the halls and\ngodlike Telemachus.'\n\nThen wise Telemachus answered him, saying: 'Be silent,\nanswer him not, I pray thee, with many words, for Antinous\nis wont ever to chide us shamefully with bitter speech,\nyea, and urges the others thereto.'\n\nTherewithal he spake winged words to Antinous: 'Antinous,\nverily thou hast a good care for me, as it were a father\nfor his son, thou that biddest me drive our guest from the\nhall with a harsh command. God forbid that such a thing\nshould be! Take somewhat and give it him: lo, I grudge it\nnot; nay, I charge thee to do it. And herein regard not my\nmother, nor any of the thralls that are in the house of\ndivine Odysseus. Nay, but thou hast no such thought in thy\nheart, for thou art far more fain to eat thyself than to\ngive to another.'\n\nThen Antinous answered him and spake, saying: 'Telemachus,\nproud of speech, and unrestrained in fury, what word hast\nthou spoken? If all the wooers should vouchsafe him as much\nas I, this house would keep him far enough aloof even for\nthree months' space.'\n\nSo he spake, and seized the footstool whereon he rested his\nsleek feet as he sat at the feast, and showed it from\nbeneath the table where it lay. But all the others gave\nsomewhat and filled the wallet with bread and flesh; yea,\nand even now, Odysseus as he returned to the threshold, was\nlike to escape scot free, making trial of the Achaeans, but\nhe halted by Antinous, and spake to him, saying:\n\n'Friend, give me somewhat; for methinks thou art not the\nbasest of the Achaeans, but the best man of them all, for\nthou art like a king. Wherefore thou shouldest give me a\nportion of bread, and that a better than the others; so\nwould I make thee renowned over all the wide earth. For I\ntoo, once had a house of mine own among men, a rich man\nwith a wealthy house, and many a time would I give to a\nwanderer, what manner of man soever he might be, and in\nwhatsoever need he came. And I had thralls out of number,\nand all else in plenty, wherewith folk live well and have a\nname for riches. But Zeus, the son of Cronos, made me\ndesolate of all,--for surely it was his will,--who sent me\nwith wandering sea-robbers to go to Egypt, a far road, to\nmy ruin. And in the river Aegyptus I stayed my curved\nships. Then verily I bade my loved companions to abide\nthere by the ships, and to guard the ship, and I sent forth\nscouts to range the points of outlook. Now they gave place\nto wantonness, being the fools of their own force, and soon\nthey fell to wasting the fields of the Egyptians, exceeding\nfair, and carried away their wives and infant children, and\nslew the men. And the cry came quickly to the city, and the\npeople heard the shout and came forth at the breaking of\nthe day; and all the plain was filled with footmen and\nhorsemen and with the glitter of bronze. And Zeus, whose\njoy is in the thunder, sent an evil panic upon my company,\nand none durst stand and face the foe: for danger\nencompassed us on every side. There they slew many of us\nwith the edge of the sword, and others they led up with\nthem alive to work for them perforce. But they gave me to a\nfriend who met them, to take to Cyprus, even to Dmetor son\nof Iasus, who ruled mightily over Cyprus; and thence,\nbehold, am I now come hither in sore distress.'\n\nThen Antinous answered, and spake, saying: 'What god hath\nbrought this plague hither to trouble the feast? Stand\nforth thus in the midst, away from my table, lest thou come\nsoon to a bitter Egypt and a sad Cyprus; for a bold beggar\nart thou and a shameless. Thou standest by all in turn and\nrecklessly they give to thee, for they hold not their hand\nnor feel any ruth in giving freely of others' goods, for\nthat each man has plenty by him.'\n\nThen Odysseus of many counsels drew back and answered him:\n'Lo now, I see thou hast not wisdom with thy beauty! From\nout of thine own house thou wouldest not give even so much\nas a grain of salt to thy suppliant, thou who now even at\nanother's board dost sit, and canst not find it in thy\nheart to take of the bread and give it me, where there is\nplenty to thy hand.'\n\nHe spake, and Antinous was mightily angered at heart, and\nlooked fiercely on him and spake winged words:\n\n'Henceforth, methinks, thou shalt not get thee out with\nhonour from the hall, seeing thou dost even rail upon me.'\n\nTherewith he caught up the foot-stool and smote Odysseus at\nthe base of the right shoulder by the back. But he stood\nfirm as a rock, nor reeled he beneath the blow of Antinous,\nbut shook his head in silence, brooding evil in the deep of\nhis heart. Then he went back to the threshold, and sat him\nthere, and laid down his well-filled scrip, and spake among\nthe wooers:\n\n'Hear me, ye wooers of the renowned queen, and I will say\nwhat my spirit within me bids me. Verily there is neither\npain nor grief of heart, when a man is smitten in battle\nfighting for his own possessions, whether cattle or white\nsheep. But now Antinous hath stricken me for my wretched\nbelly's sake, a thing accursed, that works much ill for\nmen. Ah, if indeed there be gods and Avengers of beggars,\nmay the issues of death come upon Antinous before his\nwedding!'\n\nThen Antinous, son of Eupeithes, answered him: 'Sit and eat\nthy meat in quiet, stranger, or get thee elsewhere, lest\nthe young men drag thee by hand or foot through the house\nfor thy evil words, and strip all thy flesh from off thee.'\n\nEven so he spake, and they were all exceeding wroth at his\nword. And on this wise would one of the lordly young men\nspeak:\n\n'Antinous, thou didst ill to strike the hapless wanderer,\ndoomed man that thou art,--if indeed there be a god in\nheaven. Yea and the gods, in the likeness of strangers from\nfar countries, put on all manner of shapes, and wander\nthrough the cities, beholding the violence and the\nrighteousness of men.'\n\nSo the wooers spake, but he heeded not their words. Now\nTelemachus nursed in his heart a mighty grief at the\nsmiting of Odysseus, yet he let no tear fall from his\neyelids to the ground, but shook his head in silence,\nbrooding evil in the deep of his heart.\n\nNow when wise Penelope heard of the stranger being smitten\nin the halls, she spake among her maidens, saying:\n\n'Oh that Apollo, the famed archer, may so smite thee\nthyself, Antinous!'\n\nAnd the house-dame, Eurynome, answered her, saying: 'Oh\nthat we might win fulfilment of our prayers! So should not\none of these men come to the fair-throned Dawn.'\n\nAnd wise Penelope answered her: 'Nurse, they are all\nenemies, for they all devise evil continually, but of them\nall Antinous is the most like to black fate. Some hapless\nstranger is roaming about the house, begging alms of the\nmen, as his need bids him; and all the others filled his\nwallet and gave him somewhat, but Antinous smote him at the\nbase of the right shoulder with a stool.'\n\nSo she spake among her maidens, sitting in her chamber,\nwhile goodly Odysseus was at meat. Then she called to her\nthe goodly swineherd and spake, saying:\n\n'Go thy way, goodly Eumaeus, and bid the stranger come\nhither, that I may speak him a word of greeting, and ask\nhim if haply he has heard tidings of Odysseus of the hardy\nheart, or seen him with his eyes; for he seems like one\nthat has wandered far.'\n\nThen didst thou make answer, swineherd Eumaeus: 'Queen, oh\nthat the Achaeans would hold their peace! so would he charm\nthy very heart, such things doth he say. For I kept him\nthree nights and three days I held him in the steading, for\nto me he came first when he fled from the ship, yet he had\nnot made an end of the tale of his affliction. Even as when\na man gazes on a singer, whom the gods have taught to sing\nwords of yearning joy to mortals, and they have a ceaseless\ndesire to hear him, so long as he will sing; even so he\ncharmed me, sitting by me in the halls. He says that he is\na friend of Odysseus and of his house, one that dwells in\nCrete, where is the race of Minos. Thence he has come\nhither even now, with sorrow by the way, onward and yet\nonward wandering; and he stands to it that he has heard\ntidings of Odysseus nigh at hand and yet alive in the fat\nland of the men of Thesprotia; and he is bringing many\ntreasures to his home.'\n\nThen wise Penelope answered him, saying: 'Go, call him\nhither, that he may speak to me face to face. But let these\nmen sit in the doorway and take their pleasure, or even\nhere in the house, since their heart is glad. For their own\nwealth lies unspoiled at home, bread and sweet wine, and\nthereon do their servants feed. But they resorting to our\nhouse day by day sacrifice oxen and sheep and fat goats,\nand keep revel and drink the dark wine recklessly; and, lo,\nour great wealth is wasted, for there is no man now alive,\nsuch as Odysseus was, to keep ruin from the house. Oh, if\nOdysseus might come again to his own country; soon would he\nand his son avenge the violence of these men!'\n\nEven so she spake, and Telemachus sneezed loudly, and\naround the roof rang wondrously. And Penelope laughed, and\nstraightway spake to Eumaeus winged words:\n\n'Go, call me the stranger, even so, into my presence. Dost\nthou not mark how my son has sneezed a blessing on all my\nwords? Wherefore no half-wrought doom shall befal the\nwooers every one, nor shall any avoid death and the fates.\nYet another thing will I say, and do thou ponder it in thy\nheart. If I shall find that he himself speaks nought but\ntruth, I will clothe him with a mantle and a doublet,\ngoodly raiment.'\n\nSo she spake, and the swineherd departed when he heard that\nsaying, and stood by the stranger and spake winged words:\n\n'Father and stranger, wise Penelope, the mother of\nTelemachus, is calling for thee, and her mind bids her\ninquire as touching her lord, albeit she has sorrowed much\nalready. And if she shall find that thou dost speak nought\nbut truth, she will clothe thee in a mantle and a doublet,\nwhereof thou standest most in need. Moreover thou shalt beg\nthy bread through the land and shalt fill thy belly, and\nwhosoever will, shall give to thee.'\n\nThen the steadfast goodly Odysseus answered him, saying:\n'Eumaeus, soon would I tell all the truth to the daughter\nof Icarius, wise Penelope, for well I know his story, and\nwe have borne our travail together. But I tremble before\nthe throng of the froward wooers, whose outrage and\nviolence reach even to the iron heaven. For even now, as I\nwas going through the house, when this man struck and\npained me sore, and that for no ill deed, neither\nTelemachus nor any other kept off the blow. Wherefore now,\nbid Penelope tarry in the chambers, for all her eagerness,\ntill the going down of the sun, and then let her ask me\nconcerning her lord, as touching the day of his returning,\nand let her give me a seat yet nearer to the fire, for\nbehold, I have sorry raiment, and thou knowest it thyself,\nsince I made my supplication first to thee.'\n\nEven so he spake, and the swineherd departed when he heard\nthat saying. And as he crossed the threshold Penelope spake\nto him:\n\n'Thou bringest him not, Eumaeus: what means the wanderer\nhereby? Can it be that he fears some one out of measure, or\nis he even ashamed of tarrying in the house? A shamefaced\nman makes a bad beggar.'\n\nThen didst thou make answer, swineherd Eumaeus: 'He speaks\naright, and but as another would deem, in that he shuns the\noutrage of overweening men. Rather would he have thee wait\ntill the going down of the sun. Yea, and it is far meeter\nfor thyself, O queen, to utter thy word to the stranger\nalone, and to listen to his speech.'\n\nThen the wise Penelope answered: 'Not witless is the\nstranger; even as he deems, so it well may be. {*} For\nthere are no mortal men, methinks, so wanton as these, and\nnone that devise such infatuate deeds.'\n\n{* Placing at colon at [Greek], and reading [Greek] (cf.\nxix.312).}\n\nSo she spake, and the goodly swineherd departed into the\nthrong of the wooers, when he had showed her all his\nmessage. And straightway he spake to Telemachus winged\nwords, holding his head close to him, that the others might\nnot hear:\n\n'Friend, I am going hence to look after thy swine and the\nthings of the farm, thy livelihood and mine; but do thou\ntake charge of all that is here. Yet first look to thyself\nand take heed that no evil comes nigh thee, for many of the\nAchaeans have ill will against us, whom may Zeus confound\nbefore their mischief falls on us!'\n\nAnd wise Telemachus answered him, and said: 'Even so shall\nit be, father; and do thou get thee on thy way, when thou\nhast supped. And in the morning come again, and bring fair\nvictims for sacrifice. And all these matters will be a care\nto me and to the deathless gods.'\n\nThus he spake, and the other sat down again on the polished\nsettle; and when he had satisfied his heart with meat and\ndrink, he went on his way to the swine, leaving the courts\nand the hall full of feasters; and they were making merry\nwith dance and song, for already it was close on eventide.\n\n\n\nBook XVIII\n\n  The fighting at fists of Odysseus with Irus. His\n  admonitions to Amphinomus. Penelope appears before the\n  wooers, and draws presents from them.\n\nThen up came a common beggar, who was wont to beg through\nthe town of Ithaca, one that was known among all men for\nravening greed, for his endless eating and drinking, yet he\nhad no force or might, though he was bulky enough to look\non. Arnaeus was his name, for so had his good mother given\nit him at his birth, but all the young men called him Irus,\nbecause he ran on errands, whensoever any might bid him. So\nnow he came, and would have driven Odysseus from his own\nhouse, and began reviling him, and spake winged words:\n\n'Get thee hence, old man, from the doorway, lest thou be\neven haled out soon by the foot. Seest thou not that all\nare now giving me the wink, and bidding me drag thee forth?\nNevertheless, I feel shame of the task. Nay get thee up,\nlest our quarrel soon pass even to blows.'\n\nThen Odysseus of many counsels looked fiercely on him, and\nspake saying: 'Sir, neither in deed nor word do I harm\nthee, nor do I grudge that any should give to thee, yea\nthough it were a good handful. But this threshold will hold\nus both, and thou hast no need to be jealous for the sake\nof other men's goods. Thou seemest to me to be a wanderer,\neven as I am, and the gods it is that are like to give us\ngain. Only provoke me not overmuch to buffeting, lest thou\nanger me, and old though I be I defile thy breast and lips\nwith blood. Thereby should I have the greater quiet\nto-morrow, for methinks that thou shalt never again come to\nthe hall of Odysseus, son of Laertes'.\n\nThen the beggar Irus spake unto him in anger: 'Lo now, how\ntrippingly and like an old cinder-wife this glutton speaks,\non whom I will work my evil will, and smite him right and\nleft, and drive all the teeth from his jaws to the ground,\nlike the tusks of a swine that spoils the corn. Gird\nthyself now, that even these men all may know our mettle in\nfight. Nay, how shouldst thou do battle with a younger man\nthan thou?'\n\nThus did they whet each the other's rage right manfully\nbefore the lofty doors upon the polished threshold. And the\nmighty prince Antinous heard the twain, and sweetly he\nlaughed out, and spake among the wooers:\n\n'Friends, never before has there been such a thing; such\ngoodly game has a god brought to this house. The stranger\nyonder and Irus are bidding each other to buffets. Quick,\nlet us match them one against the other.'\n\nThen all at the word leaped up laughing, and gathered round\nthe ragged beggars, and Antinous, son of Eupeithes, spake\namong them saying: 'Hear me, ye lordly wooers, and I will\nsay somewhat. Here are goats' bellies lying at the fire,\nthat we laid by at supper-time and filled with fat and\nblood. Now whichsoever of the twain wins, and shows himself\nthe better man, let him stand up and take his choice of\nthese puddings. And further, he shall always eat at our\nfeasts, nor will we suffer any other beggar to come among\nus and ask for alms.'\n\nSo spake Antinous, and the saying pleased them well. Then\nOdysseus of many counsels spake among them craftily:\n\n'Friends, an old man and foredone with travail may in no\nwise fight with a younger. But my belly's call is urgent on\nme, that evil-worker, to the end that I may be subdued with\nstripes. But come now, swear me all of you a strong oath,\nso that none, for the sake of shewing a favour to Irus, may\nstrike me a foul blow with heavy hand and subdue me by\nviolence to my foe.'\n\nSo he spake, and they all swore not to strike him, as he\nbade them. Now when they had sworn and done that oath, the\nmighty prince Telemachus once more spake among them:\n\n'Stranger, if thy heart and lordly spirit urge thee to rid\nthee of this fellow, then fear not any other of the\nAchaeans, for whoso strikes thee shall have to fight with\nmany. Thy host am I, and the princes consent with me,\nAntinous and Eurymachus, men of wisdom both.'\n\nSo spake he and they all consented thereto. Then Odysseus\ngirt his rags about his loins, and let his thighs be seen,\ngoodly and great, and his broad shoulders and breast and\nmighty arms were manifest. And Athene came nigh and made\ngreater the limbs of the shepherd of the people. Then the\nwooers were exceedingly amazed, and thus would one speak\nlooking to his neighbour:\n\n'Right soon will Irus, un-Irused, have a bane of his own\nbringing, such a thigh as that old man shows from out his\nrags!'\n\nSo they spake, and the mind of Irus was pitifully stirred;\nbut even so the servants girded him and led him out\nperforce in great fear, his flesh trembling on his limbs.\nThen Antinous chid him, and spake and hailed him:\n\n'Thou lubber, better for thee that thou wert not now, nor\never hadst been born, if indeed thou tremblest before this\nman, and art so terribly afraid; an old man too he is, and\nforedone with the travail that is come upon him. But I will\ntell thee plainly, and it shall surely be accomplished. If\nthis man prevail against thee and prove thy master, I will\ncast thee into a black ship, and send thee to the mainland\nto Echetus the king, the maimer of all mankind, who will\ncut off thy nose and ears with the pitiless steel, and draw\nout thy vitals and give them raw to dogs to rend.'\n\nSo he spake, and yet greater trembling gat hold of the\nlimbs of Irus, and they led him into the ring, and the\ntwain put up their hands. Then the steadfast goodly\nOdysseus mused in himself whether he should smite him in\nsuch wise that his life should leave his body, even there\nwhere he fell, or whether he should strike him lightly, and\nstretch him on the earth. And as he thought thereon, this\nseemed to him the better way, to strike lightly, that the\nAchaeans might not take note of him, who he was. Then the\ntwain put up their hands, and Irus struck at the right\nshoulder, but the other smote him on his neck beneath the\near, and crushed in the bones, and straightway the red\nblood gushed up through his mouth, and with a moan he fell\nin the dust, and drave together his teeth as he kicked the\nground. But the proud wooers threw up their hands, and died\noutright for laughter. Then Odysseus seized him by the\nfoot, and dragged him forth through the doorway, till he\ncame to the courtyard and the gates of the gallery, and he\nset him down and rested him against the courtyard wall, and\nput his staff in his hands, and uttering his voice spake to\nhim winged words:\n\n'Sit thou there now, and scare off swine and dogs, and let\nnot such an one as thou be lord over strangers and beggars,\npitiful as thou art, lest haply some worse thing befal\nthee.'\n\nThus he spake, and cast about his shoulders his mean scrip\nall tattered, and the cord therewith to hang it, and he gat\nhim back to the threshold, and sat him down there again.\nNow the wooers went within laughing sweetly, and greeted\nhim, saying:\n\n'May Zeus, stranger, and all the other deathless gods give\nthee thy dearest wish, even all thy heart's desire, seeing\nthat thou hast made that insatiate one to cease from his\nbegging in the land! Soon will we take him over to the\nmainland, to Echetus the king, the maimer of all mankind.'\n\nSo they spake, and goodly Odysseus rejoiced in the omen of\nthe words. And Antinous set by him the great pudding,\nstuffed with fat and blood, and Amphinomus took up two\nloaves from the basket, and set them by him and pledged him\nin a golden cup, and spake saying:\n\n'Father and stranger, hail! may happiness be thine in the\ntime to come; but as now, thou art fast holden in many\nsorrows.'\n\nAnd Odysseus of many counsels answered him saying:\n'Amphinomus, verily thou seemest to me a prudent man\nenough; for such too was the father of whom thou art\nsprung, for I have heard the fair fame of him, how that\nNisus of Dulichium was a good man and a rich, and his son\nthey say thou art, and thou seemest a man of understanding.\nWherefore I will tell thee, and do thou mark and listen to\nme. Nought feebler doth the earth nurture than man, of all\nthe creatures that breathe and move upon the face of the\nearth. Lo, he thinks that he shall never suffer evil in\ntime to come, while the gods give him happiness, and his\nlimbs move lightly. But when again the blessed gods have\nwrought for him sorrow, even so he bears it, as he must,\nwith a steadfast heart. For the spirit of men upon the\nearth is even as their day, that comes upon them from the\nfather of gods and men. Yea, and I too once was like to\nhave been prosperous among men, but many an infatuate deed\nI did, giving place to mine own hardihood and strength, and\ntrusting to my father and my brethren. Wherefore let no man\nfor ever be lawless any more, but keep quietly the gifts of\nthe gods, whatsoever they may give. Such infatuate deeds do\nI see the wooers devising, as they waste the wealth, and\nhold in no regard the wife of a man, who, methinks, will\nnot much longer be far from his friends and his own land;\nnay he is very near. But for thee, may some god withdraw\nthee hence to thy home, and mayst thou not meet him in the\nday when he returns to his own dear country! For not\nwithout blood, as I deem, will they be sundered, the wooers\nand Odysseus, when once he shall have come beneath his own\nroof.'\n\nThus he spake, and poured an offering and then drank of the\nhoney-sweet wine, and again set the cup in the hands of the\narrayer of the people. But the other went back through the\nhall, sad at heart and bowing his head; for verily his soul\nboded evil. Yet even so he avoided not his fate, for Athene\nhad bound him likewise to be slain outright at the hands\nand by the spear of Telemachus. So he sat down again on the\nhigh seat whence he had arisen.\n\nNow the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, put it into the heart of\nthe daughter of Icarius, wise Penelope, to show herself to\nthe wooers, that she might make their heart all flutter\nwith hope, and that she might win yet more worship from her\nlord and her son than heretofore. To she laughed an idle\nlaugh, and spake to the nurse, and hailed her, saying:\n\n'Eurynome, my heart yearns, though before I had no such\ndesire, to show myself to the wooers, hateful as they are.\nI would also say a word to my son, that will be for his\nweal, namely, that he should not for ever consort with the\nproud wooers, who speak friendly with their lips, but\nimagine evil in the latter end.'\n\nThen the housewife, Eurynome, spake to her saying: 'Yea my\nchild, all this thou hast spoken as is meet. Go then, and\ndeclare thy word to thy son and hide it not, but first wash\nthee and anoint thy face, and go not as thou art with thy\ncheeks all stained with tears. Go, for it is little good to\nsorrow always, and never cease. And lo, thy son is now of\nan age to hear thee, he whom thou hast above all things\nprayed the gods that thou mightest see with a beard upon\nhis chin.'\n\nThen wise Penelope answered her, saying: 'Eurynome, speak\nnot thus comfortably to me, for all thy love, bidding me to\nwash and be anointed with ointment. For the gods that keep\nOlympus destroyed my bloom, since the day that he departed\nin the hollow ships. But bid Autonoe and Hippodameia come\nto me, to stand by my side in the halls. Alone I will not\ngo among men, for I am ashamed.'\n\nSo she spake, and the old woman passed through the chamber\nto tell the maidens, and hasten their coming.\n\nThereon the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, had another thought.\nShe shed a sweet slumber over the daughter of Icarius, who\nsank back in sleep, and all her joints were loosened as she\nlay in the chair, and the fair goddess the while was giving\nher gifts immortal, that all the Achaeans might marvel at\nher. Her fair face first she steeped with beauty\nimperishable, such as that wherewith the crowned Cytherea\nis anointed, when she goes to the lovely dances of the\nGraces. And she made her taller and greater to behold, and\nmade her whiter than new-sawn ivory. Now when she had\nwrought thus, that fair goddess departed, and the\nwhite-armed handmaidens came forth from the chamber and\ndrew nigh with a sound of voices. Then sweet sleep left\nhold of Penelope, and she rubbed her cheeks with her hands,\nand said:\n\n'Surely soft slumber wrapped me round, most wretched though\nI be. Oh! that pure Artemis would give me so soft a death\neven now, that I might no more waste my life in sorrow of\nheart, and longing for the manifold excellence of my dear\nlord, for that he was foremost of the Achaeans.'\n\nWith this word she went down from the shining upper\nchamber, not alone, for two handmaidens likewise bare her\ncompany. But when the fair lady had now come to the wooers,\nshe stood by the pillar of the well-builded roof, holding\nher glistening tire before her face, and on either side of\nher stood a faithful handmaid. And straightway the knees of\nthe wooers were loosened, and their hearts were enchanted\nwith love, and each one uttered a prayer that he might be\nher bed-fellow. But she spake to Telemachus, her dear son:\n\n'Telemachus, thy mind and thy thoughts are no longer stable\nas they were. While thou wast still a child, thou hadst a\nyet quicker and more crafty wit, but now that thou art\ngreat of growth, and art come to the measure of manhood,\nand a stranger looking to thy stature and thy beauty might\nsay that thou must be some rich man's son, thy mind and thy\nthoughts are no longer right as of old. For lo, what manner\nof deed has been done in these halls, in that thou hast\nsuffered thy guest to be thus shamefully dealt with. How\nwould it be now, if the stranger sitting thus in our house,\nwere to come to some harm all through this evil handling?\nShame and disgrace would be thine henceforth among men.'\n\nThen wise Telemachus answered her: 'Mother mine, as to this\nmatter I count it no blame that thou art angered. Yet have\nI knowledge and understanding of each thing, of the good\nand of the evil; but heretofore I was a child. Howbeit I\ncannot devise all things according to wisdom, for these men\nin their evil counsel drive me from my wits, on this side\nand on that, and there is none to aid me. Howsoever this\nbattle between Irus and the stranger did not fall out as\nthe wooers would have had it, but the stranger proved the\nbetter man. Would to Father Zeus and Athene and Apollo,\nthat the wooers in our halls were even now thus vanquished,\nand wagging their heads, some in the court, and some within\nthe house, and that the limbs of each man were loosened in\nsuch fashion as Irus yonder sits now, by the courtyard\ngates wagging his head, like a drunken man, and cannot\nstand upright on his feet, nor yet get him home to his own\nplace, seeing that his limbs are loosened!'\n\nThus they spake one to another. But Eurymachus spake to\nPenelope, saying:\n\n'Daughter of Icarius, wise Penelope, if all the Achaeans in\nIasian Argos could behold thee, even a greater press of\nwooers would feast in your halls from to-morrow's dawn,\nsince thou dost surpass all women in beauty and stature,\nand within in wisdom of mind.'\n\nThen wise Penelope answered him: 'Eurymachus, surely my\nexcellence, both of face and form, the gods destroyed in\nthe day when the Argives embarked for Ilios, and with them\nwent my lord Odysseus. If but he might come and watch over\nthis my life, greater thus would be my fame and fairer! But\nnow am I in sorrow; such a host of ills some god has sent\nagainst me. Ah, well do I remember, when he set forth and\nleft his own country, how he took me by the right hand at\nthe wrist and spake, saying:\n\n'\"Lady, methinks that all the goodly-greaved Achaeans will\nnot win a safe return from Troy; for the Trojans too, they\nsay, are good men at arms, as spearsmen, and bowmen, and\ndrivers of fleet horses, such as ever most swiftly\ndetermine the great strife of equal battle. Wherefore I\nknow not if the gods will suffer me to return, or whether I\nshall be cut off there in Troy; so do thou have a care for\nall these things. Be mindful of my father and my mother in\nthe halls, even as now thou art, or yet more than now,\nwhile I am far away. But when thou seest thy son a bearded\nman, marry whom thou wilt and leave thine own house.\"\n\n'Even so did he speak, and now all these things have an\nend. The night shall come when a hateful marriage shall\nfind me out, me most luckless, whose good hap Zeus has\ntaken away. But furthermore this sore trouble has come on\nmy heart and soul; for this was not the manner of wooers in\ntime past. Whoso wish to woo a good lady and the daughter\nof a rich man, and vie one with another, themselves bring\nwith them oxen of their own and goodly flocks, a banquet\nfor the friends of the bride, and they give the lady\nsplendid gifts, but do not devour another's livelihood\nwithout atonement.'\n\nThus she spake, and the steadfast goodly Odysseus rejoiced\nbecause she drew from them gifts, and beguiled their souls\nwith soothing words, while her heart was set on other\nthings.\n\nThen Antinous, son of Eupeithes, answered her again:\n'Daughter of Icarius, wise Penelope, the gifts which any of\nthe Achaeans may choose to bring hither, do thou take; for\nit were ill to withhold a gift. But we for our part will\nneither go to our lands nor otherwhere, before thou art\nwedded to the best man of the Achaeans.'\n\nSo spake Antinous, and the saying pleased them well, and\neach man sent a henchman to bring his gifts. For Antinous\nhis henchman bare a broidered robe, great and very fair,\nwherein were golden brooches, twelve in all, fitted with\nwell bent clasps. And the henchman straightway bare\nEurymachus a golden chain of curious work, strung with\namber beads, shining like the sun. And his squires bare for\nEurydamas a pair of ear-rings, with three drops well\nwrought, and much grace shone from them. And out of the\nhouse of Peisander the prince, the son of Polyctor, the\nsquire brought a necklet, a very lovely jewel. And likewise\nthe Achaeans brought each one some other beautiful gift.\n\nThen the fair lady went aloft to her upper chamber, and her\nattendant maidens bare for her the lovely gifts, while the\nwooers turned to dancing and the delight of song, and\ntherein took their pleasure, and awaited the coming of\neventide. And dark evening came on them at their pastime.\nAnon they set up three braziers in the halls, to give them\nlight, and on these they laid firewood all around, faggots\nseasoned long since and sere, and new split with the axe.\nAnd midway by the braziers they placed torches, and the\nmaids of Odysseus, of the hardy heart, held up the lights\nin turn. Then the prince Odysseus of many counsels himself\nspake among them saying:\n\n'Ye maidens of Odysseus, the lord so long afar, get ye into\nthe chambers where the honoured queen abides, and twist the\nyarn at her side, and gladden her heart as ye sit in the\nchamber, or card the wools with your hands; but I will\nminister light to all these that are here. For even if they\nare minded to wait the throned Dawn, they shall not outstay\nme, so long enduring am I.'\n\nSo he spake, but they laughed and looked one at the other.\nAnd the fair Melantho chid him shamefully, Melantho that\nDolius begat, but Penelope reared, and entreated her\ntenderly as she had been her own child, and gave her\nplaythings to her heart's desire. Yet, for all that, sorrow\nfor Penelope touched not her heart, but she loved\nEurymachus and was his paramour. Now she chid Odysseus with\nrailing words:\n\n'Wretched guest, surely thou art some brain-struck man,\nseeing that thou dost not choose to go and sleep at a\nsmithy, or at some place of common resort, but here thou\npratest much and boldly among many lords and hast no fear\nat heart. Verily wine has got about thy wits, or perchance\nthou art always of this mind, and so thou dost babble idly.\nArt thou beside thyself for joy, because thou hast beaten\nthe beggar Irus? Take heed lest a better man than Irus rise\nup presently against thee, to lay his mighty hands about\nthy head and bedabble thee with blood, and send thee hence\nfrom the house.'\n\nThen Odysseus of many counsels looked fiercely on her, and\nsaid: 'Yea, straight will I go yonder and tell Telemachus\nhereof, thou shameless thing, for this thy speech, that\nforthwith he may cut thee limb from limb.'\n\nSo he spake, and with his saying scared away the women, who\nfled through the hall, and the knees of each were loosened\nfor fear, for they deemed that his words were true. But\nOdysseus took his stand by the burning braziers, tending\nthe lights, and gazed on all the men: but far other matters\nhe pondered in his heart, things not to be unfulfilled.\n\nNow Athene would in no wise suffer the lordly wooers to\nabstain from biting scorn, that the pain might sink yet the\ndeeper into the heart of Odysseus, son of Laertes. So\nEurymachus, son of Polybus, began to speak among them,\ngirding at Odysseus, and so made mirth for his friends:\n\n'Hear me ye wooers of the queen renowned, that I may say\nthat which my spirit within me bids me. Not without the\ngods' will has this man come to the house of Odysseus;\nmethinks at least that the torchlight flares forth from {*}\nthat head of his, for there are no hairs on it, nay never\nso thin.'\n\n{* Accepting the conjecture [Greek] = [Greek] for the MSS.\n[Greek]}\n\nHe spake and withal addressed Odysseus, waster of cities:\n'Stranger, wouldest thou indeed be my hireling, if I would\ntake thee for my man, at an upland farm, and thy wages\nshall be assured thee, and there shalt thou gather stones\nfor walls and plant tall trees? There would I provide thee\nbread continual, and clothe thee with raiment, and give\nthee shoes for thy feet. Howbeit, since thou art practised\nonly in evil, thou wilt not care to go to the labours of\nthe field, but wilt choose rather to go louting through the\nland, that thou mayst have wherewithal to feed thine\ninsatiate belly.'\n\nThen Odysseus of many counsels answered him and said:\n'Eurymachus, would that there might be a trial of labour\nbetween us twain, in the season of spring, when the long\ndays begin! In the deep grass might it be, and I should\nhave a crooked scythe, and thou another like it, that we\nmight try each the other in the matter of labour, fasting\ntill late eventide, and grass there should be in plenty. Or\nwould again, that there were oxen to drive, the best there\nmay be, large and tawny, both well filled with fodder, of\nequal age and force to bear the yoke and of strength\nuntiring! And it should be a field of four ploughgates, and\nthe clod should yield before the ploughshare. Then\nshouldest thou see me, whether or no I would cut a clean\nfurrow unbroken before me. Or would that this very day\nCronion might waken war whence he would, and that I had a\nshield and two spears, and a helmet all of bronze, close\nfitting on my temples! Then shouldest thou see me mingling\nin the forefront of the battle, nor speak and taunt me with\nthis my belly. Nay, thou art exceeding wanton and thy heart\nis hard, and thou thinkest thyself some great one and\nmighty, because thou consortest with few men and feeble.\nAh, if Odysseus might but return and come to his own\ncountry, right soon would yonder doors full wide as they\nare, prove all too strait for thee in thy flight through\nthe doorway!'\n\nThus he spake, and Eurymachus waxed yet the more wroth at\nheart, and looking fiercely on him spake to him winged\nwords:\n\n'Ah, wretch that thou art, right soon will I work thee\nmischief, so boldly thou pratest among many lords, and hast\nno fear at heart. Verily wine has got about thy wits, or\nperchance thou art always of this mind, and so thou dost\nbabble idly. Art thou beside thyself for joy, because thou\nhast beaten the beggar Irus?'\n\nTherewith he caught up a footstool, but Odysseus sat him\ndown at the knees of Amphinomus of Dulichium, in dread of\nEurymachus. And Eurymachus cast and smote the cup-bearer on\nthe right hand, and the ladle cup dropped to the ground\nwith a clang, while the young man groaned and fell\nbackwards in the dust. Then the wooers clamoured through\nthe shadowy halls, and thus one would say looking to his\nneighbour:\n\n'Would that our wandering guest had perished otherwhere, or\never he came hither; so should he never have made all this\ntumult in our midst! But now we are all at strife about\nbeggars, and there will be no more joy of the good feast,\nfor worse things have their way.'\n\nThen the mighty prince Telemachus spake among them:\n\n'Sirs, ye are mad; now doth your mood betray that ye have\neaten and drunken; some one of the gods is surely moving\nyou. Nay, now that ye have feasted well, go home and lay\nyou to rest, since your spirit so bids; for as for me, I\ndrive no man hence.'\n\nThus he spake, and they all bit their lips and marvelled at\nTelemachus, in that he spake boldly. Then Amphinomus made\nharangue, and spake among them, Amphinomus, the famous son\nof Nisus the prince, the son of Aretias:\n\n'Friends, when a righteous word has been spoken, none\nsurely would rebuke another with hard speech and be angry.\nMisuse ye not this stranger, neither any of the thralls\nthat are in the house of godlike Odysseus. But come, let\nthe wine-bearer pour for libation into each cup in turn,\nthat after the drink-offering we may get us home to bed.\nBut the stranger let us leave in the halls of Odysseus for\na charge to Telemachus: for to his home has he come.'\n\nThus he spake, and his word was well-pleasing to them all.\nThen the lord Mulius mixed for them the bowl, the henchman\nout of Dulichium, who was squire of Amphinomus. And he\nstood by all and served it to them in their turn; and they\npoured forth before the blessed gods, and drank the\nhoney-sweet wine. Now when they had poured forth and had\ndrunken to their hearts' content, they departed to lie\ndown, each one to his own house.\n\n\n\nBook XIX\n\n  Telemachus removes the arms out of the hall. Odysseus\n  disburseth with Penelope. And is known by his nurse, but\n  concealed. And the hunting of the boar upon that occasion\n  related.\n\nNow the goodly Odysseus was left behind in the hall,\ndevising with Athene's aid the slaying of the wooers, and\nstraightway he spake winged words to Telemachus:\n\n'Telemachus, we must needs lay by the weapons of war\nwithin, every one; and when the wooers miss them and ask\nthee concerning them, thou shalt beguile them with soft\nwords, saying:\n\n'Out of the smoke I laid them by, since they were no longer\nlike those that Odysseus left behind him of old, when he\nwent to Troy, but they are wholly marred, so mightily hath\npassed upon them the vapour of fire. Moreover some god hath\nput into my heart this other and greater care, that\nperchance when ye are heated with wine, ye set a quarrel\nbetween you and wound one the other, and thereby shame the\nfeast and the wooing; for iron of itself draws a man\nthereto.'\n\nThus he spake, and Telemachus hearkened to his dear father,\nand called forth to him the nurse Eurycleia and spake to\nher, saying:\n\n'Nurse, come now I pray thee, shut up the women in their\nchambers till I shall have laid by in the armoury the\ngoodly weapons of my father, which all uncared for the\nsmoke dims in the hall, since my father went hence, and I\nwas still but a child. Now I wish to lay them by where the\nvapour of the fire will not reach them.'\n\nThen the good nurse Eurycleia answered him, saying: 'Ah, my\nchild, if ever thou wouldest but take careful thought in\nsuch wise as to mind the house, and guard all this wealth!\nBut come, who shall fetch the light and bear it, if thou\nhast thy way, since thou wouldest not that the maidens, who\nmight have given light, should go before thee?'\n\nThen wise Telemachus made answer to her: 'This stranger\nhere, for I will keep no man in idleness who eats of my\nbread, even if he have come from afar.'\n\nThus he spake, and wingless her speech remained, and she\nclosed the doors of the fair-lying chambers. Then they\ntwain sprang up, Odysseus and his renowned son, and set to\ncarry within the helmets and the bossy shields, and the\nsharp-pointed spears; and before them Pallas Athene bare a\ngolden cresset and cast a most lovely light. Thereon\nTelemachus spake to his father suddenly:\n\n'Father, surely a great marvel is this that I behold with\nmine eyes; meseems, at least, that the walls of the hall\nand the fair main-beams of the roof and the cross-beams of\npine, and the pillars that run aloft, are bright as it were\nwith flaming fire. Verily some god is within, of those that\nhold the wide heaven.'\n\nAnd Odysseus of many counsels answered him and said: 'Hold\nthy peace and keep thy thoughts in check and ask not\nhereof. Lo, this is the wont of the gods that hold Olympus.\nBut do thou go and lay thee down, and I will abide here,\nthat I may yet further provoke the maids ant thy mother to\nanswer; and she in her sorrow will ask me concerning each\nthing, one by one.'\n\nSo he spake, and Telemachus passed out through the hall to\nhis chamber to lie down, by the light of the flaming\ntorches, even to the chamber where of old he took his rest,\nwhen sweet sleep came over him. There now too he lay down\nand awaited the bright Dawn. But goodly Odysseus was left\nbehind in the hall, devising with Athene's aid the slaying\nof the wooers.\n\nNow forth from her chamber came the wise Penelope, like\nArtemis or golden Aphrodite, and they set a chair for her\nhard by before the fire, where she was wont to sit, a chair\nwell-wrought and inlaid with ivory and silver, which on a\ntime the craftsman Icmalius had fashioned, and had joined\nthereto a footstool, that was part of the chair, whereon a\ngreat fleece was used to be laid. Here then, the wise\nPenelope sat her down, and next came white-armed handmaids\nfrom the women's chamber, and began to take away the many\nfragments of food, and the tables and the cups whence the\nproud lords had been drinking, and they raked out the fire\nfrom the braziers on to the floor, and piled many fresh\nlogs upon them, to give light and warmth.\n\nThen Melantho began to revile Odysseus yet a second time,\nsaying: 'Stranger, wilt thou still be a plague to us here,\ncircling round the house in the night, and spying the\nwomen? Nay, get thee forth, thou wretched thing, and be\nthankful for thy supper, or straightway shalt thou even be\nsmitten with a torch and so fare out of the doors.'\n\nThen Odysseus of many counsels looked fiercely on her, and\nsaid: 'Good woman, what possesses thee to assail me thus\nout of an angry heart? Is it because I go filthy and am\nclothed about in sorry raiment, and beg through the land,\nfor necessity is laid on me? This is the manner of beggars\nand of wandering men. For I too once had a house of mine\nown among men, a rich man with a wealthy house, and many a\ntime would I give to a wanderer, what manner of man soever\nhe might be, and in whatsoever need he came. And I had\ncountless thralls, and all else in plenty, whereby folk\nlive well and have a name for riches. But Zeus, the son of\nCronos, made me desolate of all, for surely it was his\nwill. Wherefore, woman, see lest some day thou too lose all\nthy fine show wherein thou now excellest among the\nhandmaids, as well may chance, if thy mistress be provoked\nto anger with thee, or if Odysseus come home, for there is\nyet a place for hope. And even if he hath perished as ye\ndeem, and is never more to return, yet by Apollo's grace he\nhath a son like him, Telemachus, and none of the women\nworks wantonness in his halls without his knowledge, for he\nis no longer of an age not to mark it,\n\nThus he spake, and the wise Penelope heard him, and rebuked\nthe handmaid, and spake and hailed her:\n\n'Thou reckless thing and unabashed, be sure thy great sin\nis not hidden from me, and thy blood shall be on thine own\nhead for the same! Four thou knewest right well, in that\nthou hadst heard it from my lips, how that I was minded to\nask the stranger in my halls for tidings of my lord; for I\nam grievously afflicted.'\n\nTherewith she spake likewise to the housedame, Eurynome,\nsaying:\n\n'Eurynome, bring hither a settle with a fleece thereon,\nthat the stranger may sit and speak with me and hear my\nwords, for I would ask him all his story.'\n\nSo she spake, and the nurse made haste and brought a\npolished settle, and cast a fleece thereon; and then the\nsteadfast goodly Odysseus sat him down there, and the wise\nPenelope spake first, saying:\n\n'Stranger, I will make bold first to ask thee this: who art\nthou of the sons of men, and whence? Where is thy city, and\nwhere are they that begat thee?'\n\nAnd Odysseus of many counsels answered her and said: 'Lady,\nno one of mortal men in the wide world could find fault\nwith thee, for lo, thy fame goes up to the wide heaven, as\ndoth the fame of a blameless king, one that fears the gods\nand reigns among many men and mighty, maintaining right,\nand the black earth bears wheat and barley, and the trees\nare laden with fruit, and the sheep bring forth and fail\nnot, and the sea gives store of fish, and all out of his\ngood guidance, and the people prosper under him. Wherefore\ndo thou ask me now in thy house all else that thou wilt,\nbut inquire not concerning my race and mine own country,\nlest as I think thereupon thou fill my heart the more with\npains, for I am a man of many sorrows. Moreover it beseems\nme not to sit weeping and wailing in another's house, for\nit is little good to mourn always without ceasing, lest\nperchance one of the maidens, or even thyself, be angry\nwith me and say that I swim in tears, as one that is heavy\nwith wine.'\n\nThen wise Penelope answered him, and said: 'Stranger,\nsurely my excellence, both of face and form, the gods\ndestroyed, in the day when the Argives embarked for Ilios,\nand with them went my lord Odysseus. If but he might come\nand watch over this my life, greater and fairer thus would\nbe my fame! But now am I in sorrow, such a host of ills\nsome god has sent against me. For all the noblest that are\nprinces in the isles, in Dulichium and Same and wooded\nZacynthus, and they that dwell around even in clear-seen\nIthaca, these are wooing me against my will, and devouring\nthe house. Wherefore I take no heed of strangers, nor\nsuppliants, nor at all of heralds, the craftsmen of the\npeople. But I waste my heart away in longing for Odysseus;\nso they speed on my marriage and I weave a web of wiles.\nFirst some god put it into my heart to set up a great web\nin the halls, and thereat to weave a robe fine of woof and\nvery wide; and anon I spake among them, saying: \"Ye\nprincely youths, my wooers, now that goodly Odysseus is\ndead, do ye abide patiently, how eager soever to speed on\nthis marriage of mine, till I finish the robe. I would not\nthat the threads perish to no avail, even this shroud for\nthe hero Laertes, against the day when the ruinous doom\nshall bring him low, of death that lays men at their\nlength. So shall none of the Achaean women in the land\ncount it blame in me, as well might be, were he to lie\nwithout a winding sheet, a man that had gotten great\npossessions.\"\n\n'So spake I, and their high hearts consented thereto. So\nthen in the daytime I would weave the mighty web, and in\nthe night unravel the same, when I had let place the\ntorches by me. Thus for the space of three years I hid the\nthing by craft and beguiled the minds of the Achaeans. But\nwhen the fourth year arrived, and the seasons came round as\nthe months waned, and many days were accomplished, then it\nwas that by help of the handmaids, shameless things and\nreckless, the wooers came and trapped me, and chid me\nloudly. Thus did I finish the web by no will of mine, for\nso I must. And now I can neither escape the marriage nor\ndevise any further counsel, and my parents are instant with\nme to marry, and my son chafes that these men devour his\nlivelihood, as he takes note of all; for by this time he\nhas come to man's estate; and is full able to care for a\nhousehold, for one to which Zeus vouchsafes honour. But\neven so tell me of thine own stock, whence thou art, for\nthou art not sprung of oak or rock, whereof old tales\ntell.'\n\nAnd Odysseus of many counsels answered her and said:\n\n'O wife revered of Odysseus, son of Laertes, wilt thou\nnever have done asking me about mine own race? Nay, but I\nwill tell thee: yet surely thou wilt give me over to\nsorrows yet more than those wherein I am holden, for so it\never is when a man has been afar from his own country, so\nlong as now I am, wandering in sore pain to many cities of\nmortals. Yet even so I will tell thee what thou askest and\ninquirest. There is a land called Crete in the midst of the\nwine-dark sea, a fair land and a rich, begirt with water,\nand therein are many men innumerable, and ninety cities.\nAnd all have not the same speech, but there is confusion of\ntongues; there dwell Achaeans and there too Cretans of\nCrete, high of heart, and Cydonians there and Dorians of\nwaving plumes and goodly Pelasgians. And among these cities\nis the mighty city Cnosus, wherein Minos when he was nine\nyears old began to rule, he who held converse with great\nZeus, and was the father of my father, even of Deucalion,\nhigh of heart. Now Deucalion begat me and Idomeneus the\nprince. Howbeit, he had gone in his beaked ships up into\nIlios, with the sons of Atreus; but my famed name is\nAethon, being the younger of the twain and he was the first\nborn and the better man. There I saw Odysseus, and gave him\nguest-gifts, for the might of the wind bare him too to\nCrete, as he was making for Troy land, and had driven him\nwandering past Malea. So he stayed his ships in Amnisus,\nwhereby is the cave of Eilithyia, in havens hard to win,\nand scarce he escaped the tempest. Anon he came up to the\ncity and asked for Idomeneus, saying that he was his friend\nand held by him in love and honour. But it was now the\ntenth or the eleventh dawn since Idomeneus had gone in his\nbeaked ships up into Ilios. Then I led him to the house,\nand gave him good entertainment with all loving-kindness\nout of the plenty in my house, and for him and for the rest\nof his company, that went with him, I gathered and gave\nbarley meal and dark wine out of the public store, and oxen\nto sacrifice to his heart's desire.  There the goodly\nAchaeans abode twelve days, for the strong North Wind\npenned them there, and suffered them not to stay upon the\ncoast, for some angry god had roused it. On the thirteenth\nday the wind fell, and then they lifted anchor.'\n\nSo he told many a false tale in the likeness of truth, and\nher tears flowed as she listened, and her flesh melted. And\neven as the snow melts in the high places of the hills, the\nsnow that the South-East wind has thawed, when the West has\nscattered it abroad, and as it wastes the river streams run\nfull, even so her fair cheeks melted beneath her tears, as\nshe wept her own lord, who even then was sitting by her.\nNow Odysseus had compassion of heart upon his wife in her\nlamenting, but his eyes kept steadfast between his eyelids\nas it were horn or iron, and craftily he hid his tears. But\nshe, when she had taken her fill of tearful lamentation,\nanswered him in turn and spake, saying:\n\n'Friend as thou art, even now I think to make trial of\nthee, and learn whether in very truth thou didst entertain\nmy lord there in thy halls with his godlike company, as\nthou sayest. Tell me what manner of raiment he was clothed\nin about his body, and what manner of man he was himself,\nand tell me of his fellows that went with him.'\n\nThen Odysseus of many counsels answered her saying: 'Lady,\nit is hard for one so long parted from him to tell thee all\nthis, for it is now the twentieth year since he went\nthither and left my country. Yet even so I will tell thee\nas I see him in spirit. Goodly Odysseus wore a thick purple\nmantle, twofold, which had a brooch fashioned in gold, with\ntwo sheathes for the pins, and on the face of it was a\ncurious device: a hound in his forepaws held a dappled fawn\nand gazed on it as it writhed. And all men marvelled at the\nworkmanship, how, wrought as they were in gold, the hound\nwas gazing on the fawn and strangling it, and the fawn was\nwrithing with his feet and striving to flee. Moreover, I\nmarked the shining doublet about his body, like the gleam\nover the skin of a dried onion, so smooth it was, and\nglistering as the sun; truly many women looked thereon and\nwondered. Yet another thing will I tell thee, and do thou\nponder it in thy heart. I know not if Odysseus was thus\nclothed upon at home, or if one of his fellows gave him the\nraiment as he went on board the swift ship, or even it may\nbe some stranger, seeing that to many men was Odysseus\ndear, for few of the Achaeans were his peers. I, too, gave\nhim a sword of bronze, and a fair purple mantle with double\nfold, and a tasseled doublet, and I sent him away with all\nhonour on his decked ship. Moreover, a henchman bare him\ncompany, somewhat older than he, and I will tell thee of\nhim too, what manner of man he was. He was\nround-shouldered, black-skinned, and curly-headed, his name\nEurybates; and Odysseus honoured him above all his company,\nbecause in all things he was like-minded with himself.'\n\nSo he spake, and in her heart he stirred yet more the\ndesire of weeping, as she knew the certain tokens that\nOdysseus showed her. So when she had taken her fill of\ntearful lament, then she answered him, and spake saying:\n\n'Now verily, stranger, thou that even before wert held in\npity, shalt be dear and honourable in my halls, for it was\nI who gave him these garments, as judging from thy words,\nand folded them myself, and brought them from the chamber,\nand added besides the shining brooch to be his jewel. But\nhim I shall never welcome back, returned home to his own\ndear country. Wherefore with an evil fate it was that\nOdysseus went hence in the hollow ship to see that evil\nIlios, never to be named.'\n\nAnd Odysseus of many counsels answered her saying: 'Wife\nrevered of Odysseus, son of Laertes, destroy not now thy\nfair flesh any more, nor waste thy heart with weeping for\nthy lord;--not that I count it any blame in thee, for many\na woman weeps that has lost her wedded lord, to whom she\nhas borne children in her love,--albeit a far other man\nthan Odysseus, who, they say, is like the gods. Nay, cease\nfrom thy lamenting, and lay up my word in thy heart; for I\nwill tell thee without fail, and will hide nought, how but\nlately I heard tell of the return of Odysseus, that he is\nnigh at hand, and yet alive in the fat land of the men of\nThesprotia, and is bringing with him many choice treasures,\nas he begs through the land. But he has lost his dear\ncompanions and his hollow ship on the wine-dark sea, on his\nway from the isle Thrinacia: for Zeus and Helios had a\ngrudge against him, because his company had slain the kine\nof Helios. They for their part all perished in the wash of\nthe sea, but the wave cast him on the keel of the ship out\nupon the coast, on the land of the Phaeacians that are near\nof kin to the gods, and they did him all honour heartily as\nunto a god, and gave him many gifts, and themselves would\nfain have sent him scathless home. Yea and Odysseus would\nhave been here long since, but he thought it more\nprofitable to gather wealth, as he journeyed over wide\nlands; so truly is Odysseus skilled in gainful arts above\nall men upon earth, nor may any mortal men contend with\nhim. So Pheidon king of the Thesprotians told me. Moreover\nhe sware, in mine own presence, as he poured the\ndrink-offering in his house, that the ship was drawn down\nto the sea and his company were ready, who were to convey\nhim to his own dear country. But me he first sent off, for\nit chanced that a ship of the Thesprotians was on her way\nto Dulichium, a land rich in grain. And he showed me all\nthe wealth that Odysseus had gathered, yea it would suffice\nfor his children after him, even to the tenth generation,\nso great were the treasures he had stored in the chambers\nof the king. As for him he had gone, he said, to Dodona to\nhear the counsel of Zeus, from the high leafy oak tree of\nthe god, how he should return to his own dear country,\nhaving now been long afar, whether openly or by stealth.\n\n'In this wise, as I tell thee, he is safe and will come\nshortly, and very near he is and will not much longer be\nfar from his friends and his own country; yet withal I will\ngive thee my oath on it. Zeus be my witness first, of gods\nthe highest and best, and the hearth of noble Odysseus\nwhereunto I am come, that all these things shall surely be\naccomplished even as I tell thee. In this same year\nOdysseus shall come hither, as the old moon wanes and the\nnew is born.'\n\nThen wise Penelope answered him: 'Ah! stranger, would that\nthis word may be accomplished. Soon shouldst thou be aware\nof kindness and many a gift at my hands, so that whoso met\nwith thee would call thee blessed. But on this wise my\nheart has a boding, and so it shall be. Neither shall\nOdysseus come home any more, nor shalt thou gain an escort\nhence, since there are not now such masters in the house as\nOdysseus was among men,--if ever such an one there was,--\nto welcome guests revered and speed them on their way. But\ndo ye, my handmaids, wash this man's feet and strew a couch\nfor him, bedding and mantles and shining blankets, that\nwell and warmly he may come to the time of golden-throned\nDawn. And very early in the morning bathe him and anoint\nhim, that within the house beside Telemachus he may eat\nmeat, sitting quietly in the hall. And it shall be the\nworse for any hurtful man of the wooers, that vexes the\nstranger, yea he shall not henceforth profit himself here,\nfor all his sore anger. For how shalt thou learn concerning\nme, stranger, whether indeed I excel all women in wit and\nthrifty device, if all unkempt and evil clad thou sittest\nat supper in my halls? Man's life is brief enough! And if\nany be a hard man and hard at heart, all men cry evil on\nhim for the time to come, while yet he lives, and all men\nmock him when he is dead. But if any be a blameless man and\nblameless of heart, his guests spread abroad his fame over\nthe whole earth and many people call him noble.'\n\nThen Odysseus of many counsels answered her and said: 'O\nwife revered of Odysseus, son of Laertes, mantles verily\nand shining blankets are hateful to me, since first I left\nbehind me the snowy hills of Crete, voyaging in the\nlong-oared galley; nay, I will lie as in time past I was\nused to rest through the sleepless nights. For full many a\nnight I have lain on an unsightly bed, and awaited the\nbright throned Dawn. And baths for the feet are no longer\nmy delight, nor shall any women of those who are serving\nmaidens in thy house touch my foot, unless there chance to\nbe some old wife, true of heart, one that has borne as much\ntrouble as myself; I would not grudge such an one to touch\nmy feet.'\n\nThen wise Penelope answered him: 'Dear stranger, for never\nyet has there come to my house, of strangers from afar, a\ndearer man or so discreet as thou, uttering so heedfully\nthe words of wisdom. I have an ancient woman of an\nunderstanding heart, that diligently nursed and tended that\nhapless man my lord, she took him in her arms in the hour\nwhen his mother bare him. She will wash thy feet, albeit\nher strength is frail. Up now, wise Eurycleia, and wash\nthis man, whose years are the same as thy master's. Yea and\nperchance such even now are the feet of Odysseus, and such\ntoo his hands, for quickly men age in misery.'\n\nSo she spake, and the old woman covered her face with her\nhands and shed hot tears, and spake a word of lamentation,\nsaying:\n\n'Ah, woe is me, child, for thy sake, all helpless that I\nam! Surely Zeus hated thee above all men, though thou hadst\na god-fearing spirit! For never yet did any mortal burn so\nmany fat pieces of the thigh and so many choice hecatombs\nto Zeus, whose joy is in the thunder, as thou didst give to\nhim, praying that so thou mightest grow to a smooth old age\nand rear thy renowned son. But now from thee alone hath\nZeus wholly cut off the day of thy returning.  Haply at him\ntoo did the women mock in a strange land afar, whensoever\nhe came to the famous palace of any lord, even as here\nthese shameless ones all mock at thee. To shun their\ninsults and many taunts it is that thou sufferest them not\nto wash thy feet, but the daughter of Icarius, wise\nPenelope, hath bidden me that am right willing to this\ntask. Wherefore I will wash thy feet, both for Penelope's\nsake and for thine own, for that my heart within me is\nmoved and troubled. But come, mark the word that I shall\nspeak. Many strangers travel-worn have ere now come hither,\nbut I say that I have never seen any so like another, as\nthou art like Odysseus, in fashion in voice and in feet.'\n\nThen Odysseus of many counsels answered her saying: 'Old\nwife, even so all men declare, that have beheld us twain,\nthat we favour each other exceedingly, even as thou dost\nmark and say.'\n\nThereupon the crone took the shining cauldron, wherefrom\n{*} she set to wash his feet, and poured in much cold water\nand next mingled therewith the warm. Now Odysseus sat aloof\nfrom the hearth, and of a sudden he turned his face to the\ndarkness, for anon he had a misgiving of heart lest when\nshe handled him she might know the scar again, and all\nshould be revealed. Now she drew near her lord to wash him,\nand straightway she knew the scar of the wound, that the\nboar had dealt him with his white tusk long ago, when\nOdysseus went to Parnassus to see Autolycus, and the sons\nof Autolycus, his mother's noble father, who outdid all men\nin thievery and skill in swearing. This skill was the gift\nof the god himself, even Hermes, for that he burned to him\nthe well-pleasing sacrifice of the thighs of lambs and\nkids; wherefore Hermes abetted him gladly. Now Autolycus\nonce had gone to the rich land of Ithaca, and found his\ndaughter's son a child new-born, and when he was making an\nend of supper, behold, Eurycleia set the babe on his knees,\nand spake and hailed him: 'Autolycus find now a name\nthyself to give thy child's own son; for lo, he is a child\nof many prayers.'\n\n{* Reading [Greek]}\n\nThen Autolycus made answer and spake: 'My daughter and my\ndaughter's lord, give ye him whatsoever name I tell you.\nForasmuch as I am come hither in wrath against many a one,\nboth man and woman, over the fruitful earth, wherefore let\nthe child's name be \"a man of wrath,\" Odysseus. But when\nthe child reaches his full growth, and comes to the great\nhouse of his mother's kin at Parnassus, whereby are my\npossessions, I will give him a gift out of these and send\nhim on his way rejoicing.'\n\nTherefore it was that Odysseus went to receive the splendid\ngifts. And Autolycus and the sons of Autolycus grasped his\nhands and greeted him with gentle words, and Amphithea, his\nmother's mother, clasped him in her arms and kissed his\nface and both his fair eyes. Then Autolycus called to his\nrenowned sons to get ready the meal, and they hearkened to\nthe call. So presently they led in a five-year-old bull,\nwhich they flayed and busily prepared, and cut up all the\nlimbs and deftly chopped them small, and pierced them with\nspits and roasted them cunningly, dividing the messes. So\nfor that livelong day they feasted till the going down of\nthe sun, and their soul lacked not ought of the equal\nbanquet. But when the sun sank and darkness came on, they\nlaid them to rest and took the boon of sleep.\n\nNow so soon as early Dawn shone forth, the rosy-fingered,\nthey all went forth to the chase, the hounds and the sons\nof Autolycus, and with them went the goodly Odysseus. So\nthey fared up the steep hill of wood-clad Parnassus, and\nquickly they came to the windy hollows. Now the sun was but\njust striking on the fields, and was come forth from the\nsoft flowing stream of deep Oceanus. Then the beaters\nreached a glade of the woodland, and before them went the\nhounds tracking a scent, but behind came the sons of\nAutolycus, and among them goodly Odysseus followed close on\nthe hounds, swaying a long spear. Thereby in a thick lair\nwas a great boar lying, and through the coppice the force\nof the wet winds blew never, neither did the bright sun\nlight on it with his rays, nor could the rain pierce\nthrough, so thick it was, and of fallen leaves there was\ngreat plenty therein. Then the tramp of the men's feet and\nof the dogs' came upon the boar, as they pressed on in the\nchase, and forth from his lair he sprang towards them with\ncrest well bristled and fire shining in his eyes, and stood\nat bay before them all. Then Odysseus was the first to rush\nin, holding his spear aloft in his strong hand, most eager\nto stab him; but the boar was too quick and drave a gash\nabove the knee, ripping deep into the flesh with his tusk\nas he charged sideways, but he reached not to the bone of\nthe man. Then Odysseus aimed well and smote him on his\nright shoulder, so that the point of the bright spear went\nclean through, and the boar fell in the dust with a cry,\nand his life passed from him. Then the dear sons of\nAutolycus began to busy them with the carcase, and as for\nthe wound of the noble godlike Odysseus, they bound it up\nskilfully, and stayed the black blood with a song of\nhealing, and straight-way returned to the house of their\ndear father. Then Autolycus and the sons of Autolycus got\nhim well healed of his hurt, and gave him splendid gifts,\nand quickly sent him with all love to Ithaca, gladly\nspeeding a glad guest. There his father and lady mother\nwere glad of his returning, and asked him of all his\nadventures, and of his wound how he came by it, and duly he\ntold them all, namely how the boar gashed him with his\nwhite tusk in the chase, when he had gone to Parnassus with\nthe sons of Autolycus.\n\nNow the old woman took the scarred limb and passed her\nhands down it, and knew it by the touch and let the foot\ndrop suddenly, so that the knee fell into the bath, and the\nbrazen vessel rang, being turned over on the other side,\nand behold, the water was spilled on the ground. Then joy\nand anguish came on her in one moment, and both her eyes\nfilled up with tears, and the voice of her utterance was\nstayed, and touching the chin of Odysseus she spake to him,\nsaying:\n\n'Yea verily, thou art Odysseus, my dear child, and I knew\nthee not before, till I had handled all the body of my\nlord.'\n\nTherewithal she looked towards Penelope, as minded to make\na sign that her husband was now home. But Penelope could\nnot meet her eyes nor take note of her, for Athene had bent\nher thoughts to other things. But Odysseus feeling for the\nold woman's throat gript it with his right hand and with\nthe other drew her closer to him and spake, saying:\n\n'Woman, why wouldest thou indeed destroy me? It was thou\nthat didst nurse me there at thine own breast, and now\nafter travail and much pain I am come in the twentieth year\nto mine own country. But since thou art ware of me, and the\ngod has put this in thy heart, be silent, lest another\nlearn the matter in the halls. For on this wise I will\ndeclare it, and it shall surely be accomplished:--if the\ngods subdue the lordly wooers unto me, I will not hold my\nhand from thee, my nurse though thou art, when I slay the\nother handmaids in my halls.'\n\nThen wise Eurycleia answered, saying: 'My child, what word\nhath escaped the door of thy lips? Thou knowest how firm is\nmy spirit and unyielding, and I will keep me fast as\nstubborn stone or iron. Yet another thing will I tell thee,\nand do thou ponder it in thine heart. If the gods subdue\nthe lordly wooers to thy hand, then will I tell thee all\nthe tale of the women in the halls, which of them dishonour\nthee and which be guiltless.'\n\nThen Odysseus of many counsels answered her saying: 'Nurse,\nwherefore I pray thee wilt thou speak of these? Thou\nneedest not, for even I myself will mark them well and take\nknowledge of each. Nay, do thou keep thy saying to thyself,\nand leave the rest to the gods.'\n\nEven so he spake, and the old woman passed forth from the\nhall to bring water for his feet, for that first water was\nall spilled. So when she had washed him and anointed him\nwell with olive-oil, Odysseus again drew up his settle\nnearer to the fire to warm himself, and covered up the scar\nwith his rags. Then the wise Penelope spake first, saying:\n\n'Stranger, there is yet a little thing I will make bold to\nask thee, for soon will it be the hour for pleasant rest,\nfor him on whomsoever sweet sleep falls, though he be heavy\nwith care. But to me has the god given sorrow, yea sorrow\nmeasureless, for all the day I have my fill of wailing and\nlamenting, as I look to mine own housewiferies and to the\ntasks of the maidens in the house. But when night comes and\nsleep takes hold of all, I lie on my couch, and shrewd\ncares, thick thronging about my inmost heart, disquiet me\nin my sorrowing. Even as when the daughter of Pandareus,\nthe nightingale of the greenwood, sings sweet in the first\nseason of the spring, from her place in the thick leafage\nof the trees, and with many a turn and trill she pours\nforth her full-voiced music bewailing her child, dear\nItylus, whom on a time she slew with the sword unwitting,\nItylus the son of Zethus the prince; even as her song, my\ntroubled soul sways to and fro. Shall I abide with my son,\nand keep all secure, all the things of my getting, my\nthralls and great high-roofed home, having respect unto the\nbed of my lord and the voice of the people, or even now\nfollow with the best of the Achaeans that woos me in the\nhalls, and gives a bride-price beyond reckoning? Now my\nson, so long as he was a child and light of heart, suffered\nme not to marry and leave the house of my husband; but now\nthat he is great of growth, and is come to the full measure\nof manhood, lo now he prays me to go back home from these\nwalls, being vexed for his possessions that the Achaeans\ndevour before his eyes. But come now, hear a dream of mine\nand tell me the interpretation thereof. Twenty geese I have\nin the house, that eat wheat, coming forth from the water,\nand I am gladdened at the sight. Now a great eagle of\ncrooked beak swooped from the mountain, and brake all their\nnecks and slew them; and they lay strewn in a heap in the\nhalls, while he was borne aloft to the bright air. Thereon\nI wept and wailed, in a dream though it was, and around me\nwere gathered the fair-tressed Achaean women as I made\npiteous lament, for that the eagle had slain my geese. But\nhe came back and sat him down on a jutting point of the\nroof-beam, and with the voice of a man he spake, and stayed\nmy weeping:\n\n'\"Take heart, O daughter of renowned Icarius; this is no\ndream but a true vision, that shall be accomplished for\nthee. The geese are the wooers, and I that before was the\neagle am now thy husband come again, who will let slip\nunsightly death upon all the wooers.\" With that word sweet\nslumber let me go, and I looked about, and beheld the geese\nin the court pecking their wheat at the trough, where they\nwere wont before.'\n\nThen Odysseus of many counsels answered her and said:\n'Lady, none may turn aside the dream to interpret it\notherwise, seeing that Odysseus himself hath showed thee\nhow he will fulfil it. For the wooers destruction is\nclearly boded, for all and every one; not a man shall avoid\ndeath and the fates.'\n\nThen wise Penelope answered him: 'Stranger, verily dreams\nare hard, and hard to be discerned; nor are all things\ntherein fulfilled for men. Twain are the gates of shadowy\ndreams, the one is fashioned of horn and one of ivory. Such\ndreams as pass through the portals of sawn ivory are\ndeceitful, and bear tidings that are unfulfilled. But the\ndreams that come forth through the gates of polished horn\nbring a true issue, whosoever of mortals beholds them. Yet\nmethinks my strange dream came not thence; of a truth that\nwould be most welcome to me and to my son. But another\nthing will I tell thee, and do thou ponder it in thy heart.\nLo, even now draws nigh the morn of evil name, that is to\nsever me from the house of Odysseus, for now I am about to\nordain for a trial those axes that he would set up in a row\nin his halls, like stays of oak in ship-building, twelve in\nall, and he would stand far apart and shoot his arrow\nthrough them all. And now I will offer this contest to the\nwooers; whoso shall most easily string the bow in his\nhands, and shoot through all twelve axes, with him will I\ngo and forsake this house, this house of my wedlock, so\nfair and filled with all livelihood, which methinks I shall\nyet remember, aye, in a dream.'\n\nThen Odysseus of many counsels answered her and said: 'Wife\nrevered of Odysseus son of Laertes, no longer delay this\ncontest in thy halls; for, lo, Odysseus of many counsels\nwill be here, before these men, for all their handling of\nthis polished bow, shall have strung it, and shot the arrow\nthrough the iron.'\n\nThen the wise Penelope answered him: 'Stranger, if only\nthou wert willing still to sit beside me in the halls and\nto delight me, not upon my eyelids would sleep be shed. But\nmen may in no wise abide sleepless ever, for the immortals\nhave made a time for all things for mortals on the\ngrain-giving earth. Howbeit I will go aloft to my upper\nchamber, and lay me on my bed, the place of my groanings,\nthat is ever watered by my tears, since the day that\nOdysseus went to see that evil Ilios, never to be named.\nThere will I lay me down, but do thou lie in this house;\neither strew thee somewhat on the floor, or let them lay\nbedding for thee.'\n\nTherewith she ascended to her shining upper chamber, not\nalone, for with her likewise went her handmaids. So she\nwent aloft to her upper chamber with the women her\nhandmaids, and there was bewailing Odysseus, her dear lord,\ntill grey-eyed Athene cast sweet sleep upon her eyelids.\n\n\n\nBook XX\n\n  Pallas and Odysseus consult of the killing of the wooers.\n\nBut the goodly Odysseus laid him down to sleep in the\nvestibule of the house. He spread an undressed bull's hide\non the ground and above it many fleeces of sheep, that the\nAchaeans were wont to slay in sacrifice, and Eurynome threw\na mantle over him where he lay. There Odysseus lay wakeful,\nwith evil thoughts against the wooers in his heart. And the\nwomen came forth from their chamber, that aforetime were\nwont to lie with the wooers, making laughter and mirth\namong themselves. Then the heart of Odysseus was stirred\nwithin his breast, and much he communed with his mind and\nsoul, whether he should leap forth upon them and deal death\nto each, or suffer them to lie with the proud wooers, now\nfor the last and latest time. And his heart growled\nsullenly within him. And even as a bitch stands over her\ntender whelps growling, when she spies a man she knows not,\nand she is eager to assail him, so growled his heart within\nhim in his wrath at their evil deeds. Then he smote upon\nhis breast and rebuked his own heart, saying:\n\n'Endure, my heart; yea, a baser thing thou once didst bear,\non that day when the Cyclops, unrestrained in fury,\ndevoured the mighty men of my company; but still thou didst\nendure till thy craft found a way for thee forth from out\nthe cave, where thou thoughtest to die.'\n\nSo spake he, chiding his own spirit within him, and his\nheart verily abode steadfast in obedience to his word. But\nOdysseus himself lay tossing this way and that. And as when\na man by a great fire burning takes a paunch full of fat\nand blood, and turns it this way and that and longs to have\nit roasted most speedily, so Odysseus tossed from side to\nside, musing how he might stretch forth his hands upon the\nshameless wooers, being but one man against so many. Then\ndown from heaven came Athene and drew nigh him, fashioned\nin the likeness of a woman. And she stood over his head and\nspake to him, saying:\n\n'Lo now again, wherefore art thou watching, most luckless\nof all men living? Is not this thy house and is not thy\nwife there within and thy child, such a son as men wish to\nhave for their own?'\n\nThen Odysseus of many counsels answered her saying: 'Yea,\ngoddess, all this thou hast spoken as is meet. But my heart\nwithin me muses in some measure upon this, how I may\nstretch forth my hands upon the shameless wooers, being but\none man, while they abide ever in their companies within.\nMoreover this other and harder matter I ponder in my heart:\neven if I were to slay them by thy will and the will of\nZeus, whither should I flee from the avengers? Look well to\nthis, I pray thee.'\n\nThen answered the goddess, grey-eyed Athene: 'O hard of\nbelief! yea, many there be that trust even in a weaker\nfriend than I am, in one that is a mortal and knows not\nsuch craft as mine; but I am a god, that preserve thee to\nthe end, in all manner of toils. And now I will tell thee\nplainly; even should fifty companies of mortal men compass\nus about eager to slay us in battle, even their kine\nshouldst thou drive off and their brave flocks. But let\nsleep in turn come over thee; to wake and to watch all\nnight, this too is vexation of spirit; and soon shalt thou\nrise from out of thy troubles.'\n\nSo she spake and poured slumber upon his eyelids, but for\nher part the fair goddess went back to Olympus.\n\nWhile sleep laid hold of him loosening the cares of his\nsoul, sleep that loosens the limbs of men, his good wife\nawoke and wept as she sat on her soft bed. But when she had\ntaken her fill of weeping, to Artemis first the fair lady\nmade her prayer:\n\n'Artemis, lady and goddess, daughter of Zeus, would that\neven now thou wouldst plant thy shaft within my breast and\ntake my life away, even in this hour! Or else, would that\nthe stormwind might snatch me up, and bear me hence down\nthe dusky ways, and cast me forth where the back-flowing\nOceanus mingles with the sea. It should be even as when the\nstormwinds bare away the daughters of Pandareus. Their\nfather and their mother the gods had slain, and the maidens\nwere left orphans in the halls, and fair Aphrodite\ncherished them with curds and sweet honey and delicious\nwine. And Here gave them beauty and wisdom beyond the lot\nof women, and holy Artemis dowered them with stature, and\nAthene taught them skill in all famous handiwork. Now while\nfair Aphrodite was wending to high Olympus, to pray that a\nglad marriage might be accomplished for the maidens,--and\nto Zeus she went whose joy is in the thunder, for he knows\nall things well, what the fates give and deny to mortal\nmen--in the meanwhile the spirits of the storm snatched\naway these maidens, and gave them to be handmaids to the\nhateful Erinyes. Would that in such wise they that hold the\nmansions of Olympus would take me from the sight of men, or\nthat fair-stressed Artemis would strike me, that so with a\nvision of Odysseus before mine eyes I might even pass\nbeneath the dreadful earth, nor ever make a baser man's\ndelight! But herein is an evil that may well be borne,\nnamely, when a man weeps all the day long in great sorrow\nof heart, but sleep takes him in the night, for sleep makes\nhim forgetful of all things, of good and evil, when once it\nhas overshadowed his eyelids. But as for me, even the\ndreams that the gods send upon me are evil. For\nfurthermore, this very night one seemed to lie by my side,\nin the likeness of my lord, as he was when he went with the\nhost, and then was my heart glad, since methought it was no\nvain dream but a clear vision at the last.'\n\nSo she spake, and anon came the golden throned Dawn. Now\ngoodly Odysseus caught the voice of her weeping, and then\nhe fell a musing, and it seemed to him that even now she\nknew him and was standing by his head. So he took up the\nmantle and the fleeces whereon he was lying, and set them\non a high seat in the hall, and bare out the bull's hide\nout of doors and laid it there, and lifting up his hands he\nprayed to Zeus:\n\n'Father Zeus, if ye gods of your good will have led me over\nwet and dry, to mine own country, after ye had plagued me\nsore, let some one I pray of the folk that are waking show\nme a word of good omen within, and without let some sign\nalso be revealed to me from Zeus.'\n\nSo he spake in prayer, and Zeus, the counsellor, heard him.\nStraightway he thundered from shining Olympus, from on high\nfrom the place of clouds; and goodly Odysseus was glad.\nMoreover a woman, a grinder at the mill, uttered a voice of\nomen from within the house hard by, where stood the mills\nof the shepherd of the people. At these handmills twelve\nwomen in all plied their task, making meal of barley and of\nwheat, the marrow of men. Now all the others were asleep,\nfor they had ground out their task of grain, but one alone\nrested not yet, being the weakest of all. She now stayed\nher quern and spake a word, a sign to her lord:\n\n'Father Zeus, who rulest over gods and men, loudly hast\nthou thundered from the starry sky, yet nowhere is there a\ncloud to be seen: this surely is a portent thou art showing\nto some mortal. Fulfil now, I pray thee, even to miserable\nme, the word that I shall speak. May the wooers, on this\nday, for the last and latest time make their sweet feasting\nin the halls of Odysseus! They that have loosened my knees\nwith cruel toil to grind their barley meal, may they now\nsup their last!'\n\nThus she spake, and goodly Odysseus was glad in the omen of\nthe voice and in the thunder of Zeus; for he thought that\nhe had gotten his vengeance on the guilty.\n\nNow the other maidens in the fair halls of Odysseus had\ngathered, and were kindling on the hearth the never-resting\nfire. And Telemachus rose from his bed, a godlike man, and\nput on his raiment, and slung a sharp sword about his\nshoulders, and beneath his shining feet he bound his goodly\nsandals. And he caught up his mighty spear shod with sharp\nbronze, and went and stood by the threshold, and spake to\nEurycleia:\n\n'Dear nurse, have ye honoured our guest in the house with\nfood and couch, or does he lie uncared for, as he may? For\nthis is my mother's way, wise as she is: blindly she\nhonours one of mortal men, even the worse, but the better\nshe sends without honour away.'\n\nThen the prudent Eurycleia answered: 'Nay, my child, thou\nshouldst not now blame her where no blame is. For the\nstranger sat and drank wine, so long as he would, and of\nfood he said he was no longer fain, for thy mother asked\nhim. Moreover, against the hour when he should bethink him\nof rest and sleep, she bade the maidens strew for him a\nbed. But he, as one utterly wretched and ill-fated, refused\nto lie on a couch and under blankets, but on an undressed\nhide and on the fleeces of sheep he slept in the vestibule,\nand we cast a mantle over him.'\n\nSo she spake, and Telemachus passed out through the hall\nwith his lance in his hand, and two fleet dogs bare him\ncompany. He went on his way to the assembly-place to join\nthe goodly-greaved Achaeans. But the good lady Eurycleia,\ndaughter of Ops son of Peisenor, called aloud to her\nmaidens:\n\n'Come hither, let some of you go busily and sweep the hall,\nand sprinkle it, and on the fair-fashioned seats throw\npurple coverlets, and others with sponges wipe all the\ntables clean, and cleanse the mixing bowls and well-wrought\ndouble beakers, and others again go for water to the well,\nand return with it right speedily. For the wooers will not\nlong be out of the hall but will return very early, for it\nis a feast day, yea for all the people.'\n\nSo she spake, and they all gave ready ear and hearkened.\nTwenty of them went to the well of dark water, and the\nothers there in the halls were busy with skilful hands.\n\nThen in came the serving-men of the Achaeans. Thereon they\ncleft the faggots well and cunningly, while, behold, the\nwomen came back from the well. Then the swineherd joined\nthem leading three fatted boars, the best in all the flock.\nThese he left to feed at large in the fair courts, but as\nfor him he spake to Odysseus gently, saying:\n\n'Tell me, stranger, do the Achaeans at all look on thee\nwith more regard, or do they dishonour thee in the halls,\nas heretofore?'\n\nThen Odysseus of many counsels answered him saying:\n\n'Oh, that the gods, Eumaeus, may avenge the scorn wherewith\nthese men deal insolently, and devise infatuate deeds in\nanother's house, and have no place for shame!'\n\nOn such wise they spake one to another. And Melanthius drew\nnear them, the goatherd, leading the goats that were most\nexcellent in all the herds to be a dinner for the wooers,\nand two shepherds bare him company. So he tethered the\ngoats beneath the echoing gallery, and himself spake to\nOdysseus and taunted him, saying:\n\n'Stranger, wilt thou still be a plague to us here in the\nhall, with thy begging of men, and wilt not get thee gone?\nIn no wise do I think we twain will be sundered, till we\ntaste each the other's fists, for thy begging is out of all\norder. Also there are elsewhere other feasts of the\nAchaeans.'\n\nSo he spake, but Odysseus of many counsels answered him not\na word, but in silence he shook his head, brooding evil in\nthe deep of his heart.\n\nMoreover a third man came up, Philoetius, a master of men,\nleading a barren heifer for the wooers and fatted goats.\nNow ferrymen had brought them over from the mainland,\nboatmen who send even other folks on their way, whosoever\ncomes to them. The cattle he tethered carefully beneath the\nechoing gallery, and himself drew close to the swineherd,\nand began to question him:\n\n'Swineherd, who is this stranger but newly come to our\nhouse? From what men does he claim his birth? Where are his\nkin and his native fields? Hapless is he, yet in fashion he\nis like a royal lord; but the gods mar the goodliness of\nwandering men, when even for kings they have woven the web\nof trouble.'\n\nSo he spake, and came close to him offering his right hand\nin welcome, and uttering his voice spake to him winged\nwords:\n\n'Father and stranger, hail! may happiness be thine in the\ntime to come; but as now, thou art fast holden in many\nsorrows! Father Zeus, none other god is more baneful than\nthou; thou hast no compassion on men, that are of thine own\nbegetting, but makest them to have fellowship with evil and\nwith bitter pains. The sweat brake out on me when I beheld\nhim, and mine eyes stand full of tears for memory of\nOdysseus, for he too, methinks, is clad in such vile\nraiment as this, and is wandering among men, if haply he\nyet lives and sees the sunlight. But if he be dead already\nand in the house of Hades, then woe is me for the noble\nOdysseus, who set me over his cattle while I was but a lad\nin the land of the Cephallenians. And now these wax\nnumberless; in no better wise could the breed of\nbroad-browed cattle of any mortal increase, even as the\nears of corn. But strangers command me to be ever driving\nthese for themselves to devour, and they care nothing for\nthe heir in the house, nor tremble at the vengeance of the\ngods, for they are eager even now to divide among\nthemselves the possessions of our lord who is long afar.\nNow my heart within my breast often revolves this thing.\nTruly it were an evil deed, while a son of the master is\nyet alive, to get me away to the land of strangers, and go\noff, with cattle and all, to alien men. But this is more\ngrievous still, to abide here in affliction watching over\nthe herds of other men. Yea, long ago I would have fled and\ngone forth to some other of the proud kings, for things are\nnow past sufferance; but still my thought is of that\nhapless one, if he might come I know not whence, and make a\nscattering of the wooers in the halls.'\n\nThen Odysseus of many counsels answered him saying:\n\n'Neatherd, seeing thou art not like to an evil man or a\nfoolish, and of myself I mark how that thou hast gotten\nunderstanding of heart, therefore I will tell thee\nsomewhat, and swear a great oath to confirm it. Be Zeus now\nmy witness before any god, and the hospitable board and the\nhearth of noble Odysseus, whereunto I am come, that while\nthou art still in this place Odysseus shall come home, and\nthou shalt see with thine eyes, if thou wilt, the slaying\nof the wooers who lord it here.'\n\nThen the neatherd made answer, saying:\n\n'Ah, would, stranger, that Cronion may accomplish this\nword! So shouldst thou know what my might is, and how my\nhands follow to obey.'\n\nIn like manner Eumaeus prayed to all the gods, that wise\nOdysseus might return to his own home.\n\nOn such wise they spake one to the other, but the wooers at\nthat time were framing death and doom for Telemachus. Even\nso there came by them a bird on their left, an eagle of\nlofty flight, with a cowering dove in his clutch. Then\nAmphinomus made harangue and spake among them:\n\n'Friends, this counsel of ours will not go well, namely,\nthe slaying of Telemachus; rather let us bethink us of the\nfeast.'\n\nSo spake Amphinomus, and his saying pleased them well. They\npassed into the halls of godlike Odysseus and laid by their\nmantles on the chairs and high seats, and sacrificed great\nsheep and stout goats and the fatlings of the boars and the\nheifer of the herd; then they roasted the entrails and\nserved them round and mixed wine in the bowl, and the\nswineherd set a cup by each man. And Philoetius, a master\nof men, handed them wheaten bread in beautiful baskets, and\nMelanthius poured out the wine. So they put forth their\nhands on the good cheer set before them.\n\nNow Telemachus, in his crafty purpose, made Odysseus to sit\ndown within the stablished hall by the threshold of stone,\nand placed for him a mean settle and a little table. He set\nby him his mess of the entrails, and poured wine into a\ngolden cup and spake to him, saying:\n\n'There, sit thee down, drinking thy wine among the lords,\nand the taunts and buffets of all the wooers I myself will\nward off from thee, for this is no house of public resort,\nbut the very house of Odysseus, and for me he won it. But,\nye wooers, refrain your minds from rebukes and your hands\nfrom buffets, that no strife and feud may arise.'\n\nSo he said, and they all bit their lips and marvelled at\nTelemachus, in that he spake boldly. Then Antinous, son of\nEupeithes, spake among them, saying:\n\n'Hard though the word be, let us accept it, Achaeans, even\nthe word of Telemachus, though mightily he threatens us in\nhis speech. For Zeus Cronion hath hindered us of our\npurpose, else would we have silenced him in our halls,\nshrill orator as he is.'\n\nSo spake Antinous, but Telemachus took no heed of his\nwords. Now the henchmen were leading through the town the\nholy hecatomb of the gods, and lo, the long-haired Achaeans\nwere gathered beneath the shady grove of Apollo, the prince\nof archery.\n\nNow when they had roasted the outer flesh and drawn it off\nthe spits, they divided the messes and shared the glorious\nfeast. And beside Odysseus they that waited set an equal\nshare, the same as that which fell to themselves, for so\nTelemachus commanded, the dear son of divine Odysseus.\n\nNow Athene would in nowise suffer the lordly wooers to\nabstain from biting scorn, that the pain might sink yet the\ndeeper into the heart of Odysseus, son of Laertes. There\nwas among the wooers a man of a lawless heart, Ctesippus\nwas his name, and in Same was his home, who trusting,\nforsooth, to his vast possessions, was wooing the wife of\nOdysseus the lord long afar. And now he spake among the\nproud wooers:\n\n'Hear me, ye lordly wooers, and I will say somewhat. The\nstranger verily has long had his due portion, as is meet,\nan equal share; for it is not fair nor just to rob the\nguests of Telemachus of their right, whosoever they may be\nthat come to this house. Go to then, I also will bestow on\nhim a stranger's gift, that he in turn may give a present\neither to the bath-woman, or to any other of the thralls\nwithin the house of godlike Odysseus.'\n\nTherewith he caught up an ox's foot from the dish, where it\nlay, and hurled it with strong hand. But Odysseus lightly\navoided it with a turn of his head, and smiled right grimly\nin his heart, and the ox's foot smote the well-builded\nwall. Then Telemachus rebuked Ctesippus, saying:\n\n'Verily, Ctesippus, it has turned out happier for thy\nheart's pleasure as it is! Thou didst not smite the\nstranger, for he himself avoided that which was cast at\nhim, else surely would I have struck thee through the midst\nwith the sharp spear, and in place of wedding banquet thy\nfather would have had to busy him about a funeral feast in\nthis place. Wherefore let no man make show of unseemly\ndeeds in this my house, for now I have understanding to\ndiscern both good and evil, but in time past I was yet a\nchild. But as needs we must, we still endure to see these\ndeeds, while sheep are slaughtered and wine drunken and\nbread devoured, for hard it is for one man to restrain\nmany. But come, no longer work me harm out of an evil\nheart; but if ye be set on slaying me, even me, with the\nsword, even that would I rather endure, and far better\nwould it be to die than to witness for ever these unseemly\ndeeds--strangers shamefully entreated, and men haling the\nhandmaidens in foul wise through the fair house.'\n\nSo he spake, and they were all hushed in silence. And late\nand at last spake among them Agelaus, son of Damastor:\n\n'Friends, when a righteous word has been spoken, none\nsurely would rebuke another with hard speech and be angry.\nMisuse ye not this stranger, nor any of the thralls that\nare in the house of godlike Odysseus. But to Telemachus\nhimself I would speak a soft word and to his mother, if\nperchance it may find favour with the mind of those twain.\nSo long as your hearts within you had hope of the wise\nOdysseus returning to his own house, so long none could be\nwroth that ye waited and held back the wooers in the halls,\nfor so had it been better, if Odysseus had returned and\ncome back to his own home. But now the event is plain, that\nhe will return no more. Go then, sit by thy mother and tell\nher all, namely, that she must wed the best man that wooes\nher, and whose gives most gifts; so shalt thou with\ngladness live on the heritage of thy father, eating and\ndrinking, while she cares for another's house.'\n\nThen wise Telemachus answered, and said: 'Nay by Zeus,\nAgelaus, and by the griefs of my father, who far away\nmethinks from Ithaca has perished or goes wandering, in\nnowise do I delay my mother's marriage; nay, I bid her be\nmarried to what man she will, and withal I offer gifts\nwithout number. But I do indeed feel shame to drive her\nforth from the hall, despite her will, by a word of\ncompulsion; God forbid that ever this should be.'\n\nSo spake Telemachus, but among the wooers Pallas Athene\nroused laughter unquenchable, and drave their wits\nwandering. And now they were laughing with alien lips, and\nblood-bedabbled was the flesh they ate, and their eyes were\nfilled with tears and their soul was fain of lamentation.\nThen the godlike Theoclymenus spake among them:\n\n'Ah, wretched men, what woe is this ye suffer? Shrouded in\nnight are your heads and your faces and your knees, and\nkindled is the voice of wailing, and all cheeks are wet\nwith tears, and the walls and the fair main-beams of the\nroof are sprinkled with blood. And the porch is full, and\nfull is the court, of ghosts that hasten hellwards beneath\nthe gloom, and the sun has perished out of heaven, and an\nevil mist has overspread the world.'\n\nSo spake he, and they all laughed sweetly at him. Then\nEurymachus, son of Polybus, began to speak to them, saying:\n\n'The guest that is newly come from a strange land is beside\nhimself. Quick, ye young men, and convey him forth out of\ndoors, that he may go to the place of the gathering, since\nhere he finds it dark as night.'\n\nThen godlike Theoclymenus answered him: 'Eurymachus, in\nnowise do I seek guides of thee to send me on my way. Eyes\nhave I, and ears, and both my feet, and a stable mind in my\nbreast of no mean fashioning. With these I will go forth,\nfor I see evil coming on you, which not one man of the\nwooers may avoid or shun, of all you who in the house of\ndivine Odysseus deal insolently with men and devise\ninfatuate deeds.'\n\nTherewith he went forth from out the fair-lying halls, and\ncame to Peiraeus who received him gladly. Then all the\nwooers, looking one at the other, provoked Telemachus to\nanger, laughing at his guests. And thus some one of the\nhaughty youths would speak:\n\n'Telemachus, no man is more luckless than thou in his\nguests, seeing thou keepest such a filthy wanderer,\nwhosoever he be, always longing for bread and wine, and\nskilled in no peaceful work nor any deed of war, but a mere\nburden of the earth. And this other fellow again must stand\nup to play the seer! Nay, but if thou wouldest listen to\nme, much better it were. Let us cast these strangers on\nboard a benched ship, and send them to the Sicilians,\nwhence they would fetch thee their price.' {*}\n\n{* Reading [Greek], which is a correction. Or keeping the\nMSS. [Greek] 'and this should bring thee in a goodly\nprice,' the subject to [Greek] being, probably, THE SALE,\nwhich is suggested by the context.}\n\nSo spake the wooers, but he heeded not their words, in\nsilence he looked towards his father, expecting evermore\nthe hour when he should stretch forth his hands upon the\nshameless wooers.\n\nNow the daughter of Icarius, wise Penelope, had set her\nfair chair over against them, and heard the words of each\none of the men in the halls. For in the midst of laughter\nthey had got ready the midday meal, a sweet meal and\nabundant, for they had sacrificed many cattle. But never\ncould there be a banquet less gracious than that supper,\nsuch an one as the goddess and the brave man were soon to\nspread for them; for that they had begun the devices of\nshame.\n\n\n\nBook XXI\n\n  Penelope bringeth forth her husband's bow, which the\n  suitors could not bend, but was bent by Odysseus.\n\nNow the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, put it into the heart of\nthe daughter of Icarius, wise Penelope, to set the bow and\nthe axes of grey iron, for the wooers in the halls of\nOdysseus, to be the weapons of the contest, and the\nbeginning of death. So she descended the tall staircase of\nher chamber, and took the well-bent key in her strong hand,\na goodly key of bronze, whereon was a handle of ivory. And\nshe betook her, with her handmaidens, to the\ntreasure-chamber in the uttermost part of the house, where\nlay the treasures of her lord, bronze and gold and\nwell-wrought iron. And there lay the back-bent bow and the\nquiver for the arrows, and many shafts were therein, winged\nfor death, gifts of a friend of Odysseus, that met with him\nin Lacedaemon, Iphitus son of Eurytus, a man like to the\ngods. These twain fell in with one another in Messene, in\nthe house of wise Ortilochus. Now Odysseus had gone thither\nto recover somewhat that was owing to him from all the\npeople, for the men of Messene had lifted three hundred\nsheep in benched ships from out of Ithaca, with the\nshepherds of the flock. In quest of these it was that\nOdysseus went on a far embassy, being yet a lad; for his\nfather and the other elders sent him forth. Moreover,\nIphitus came thither in his search for twelve brood mares,\nwhich he had lost, with sturdy mules at the teat. These\nsame it was that brought him death and destiny in the\nlatter end, when he came to the child of Zeus, hardy of\nheart, the man Heracles, that had knowledge of great\nadventures, who smote Iphitus though his guest in his\nhouse, in his frowardness, and had no regard for the\nvengeance of the gods, nor for the table which he spread\nbefore him; for after the meal he slew him, his guest\nthough he was, and kept for himself in the halls the horses\nstrong of hoof. After these was Iphitus asking, when he met\nwith Odysseus, and he gave him the bow, which of old great\nEurytus bare and had left at his death to his son in his\nlofty house. And Odysseus gave Iphitus a sharp sword and a\nmighty spear, for the beginning of a loving friendship; but\nnever had they acquaintance one of another at the board;\nere that might be, the son of Zeus slew Iphitus son of\nEurytus, a man like to the immortals, the same that gave\nOdysseus the bow. But goodly Odysseus would never take it\nwith him on the black ships, as he went to the wars, but\nthe bow was laid by at home in the halls as a memorial of a\ndear guest, and he carried it on his own land.\n\nNow when the fair lady had come even to the\ntreasure-chamber, and had stept upon the threshold of oak,\nwhich the carpenter had on a time planed cunningly, and\nover it had made straight the line,--doorposts also had he\nfitted thereby, whereon he set shining doors,--anon she\nquickly loosed the strap from the handle of the door, and\nthrust in the key, and with a straight aim shot back the\nbolts. And even as a bull roars that is grazing in a\nmeadow, so mightily roared the fair doors smitten by the\nkey; and speedily they flew open before her. Then she stept\non to the high floor, where the coffers stood, wherein the\nfragrant raiment was stored. Thence she stretched forth her\nhand, and took the bow from off the pin, all in the bright\ncase which sheathed it around. And there she sat down, and\nset the case upon her knees, and cried aloud and wept, and\ntook out the bow of her lord. Now when she had her fill of\ntearful lament, she set forth to go to the hall to the\ncompany of the proud wooers, with the back-bent bow in her\nhands, and the quiver for the arrows, and many shafts were\ntherein winged for death. And her maidens along with her\nbare a chest, wherein lay much store of iron and bronze,\nthe gear of combat of their lord. Now when the fair lady\nhad come unto the wooers, she stood by the pillar of the\nwell-builded roof, holding up her glistening tire before\nher face; and a faithful maiden stood on either side of\nher, and straightway she spake out among the wooers and\ndeclared her word, saying:\n\n'Hear me, ye lordly wooers, who have vexed this house, that\nye might eat and drink here evermore, forasmuch as the\nmaster is long gone, nor could ye find any other mark {*}\nfor your speech, but all your desire was to wed me and take\nme to wife. Nay come now, ye wooers, seeing that this is\nthe prize that is put before you. I will set forth for you\nthe great bow of divine Odysseus, and whoso shall most\neasily string the bow in his hands, and shoot through all\ntwelve axes, with him will I go and forsake this house,\nthis house of my wedlock, so fair and filled with all\nlivelihood, which methinks I shall yet remember, aye, in a\ndream.'\n\n{* The accepted interpretation of [Greek] (a word which\noccurs only here) is 'pretext'; but this does not agree\nwith any of the meanings of the verb from which the noun is\nderived. The usage of [Greek] in Od. xix. 71, xxii. 75, of\n[Greek] in Il. xvii. 465, and of [Greek] in Od. xxii. 15,\nsuggests rather for [Greek] the idea of 'aiming at a\nmark.'}\n\nSo spake she, and commanded Eumaeus, the goodly swineherd,\nto set the bow for the wooers and the axes of grey iron.\nAnd Eumaeus took them with tears, and laid them down; and\notherwhere the neatherd wept, when he beheld the bow of his\nlord. Then Antinous rebuked them, and spake and hailed\nthem:\n\n'Foolish boors, whose thoughts look not beyond the day, ah,\nwretched pair, wherefore now do ye shed tears, and stir the\nsoul of the lady within her, when her heart already lies\nlow in pain, for that she has lost her dear lord? Nay sit,\nand feast in silence, or else get ye forth and weep, and\nleave the bow here behind, to be a terrible contest for the\nwooers, for methinks that this polished bow does not\nlightly yield itself to be strung. For there is no man\namong all these present such as Odysseus was, and I myself\nsaw him, yea I remember it well, though I was still but a\nchild.'\n\nSo spake he, but his heart within him hoped that he would\nstring the bow, and shoot through the iron. Yet verily, he\nwas to be the first that should taste the arrow at the\nhands of the noble Odysseus, whom but late he was\ndishonouring as he sat in the halls, and was inciting all\nhis fellows to do likewise.\n\nThen the mighty prince Telemachus spake among them, saying:\n'Lo now, in very truth, Cronion has robbed me of my wits!\nMy dear mother, wise as she is, declares that she will go\nwith a stranger and forsake this house; yet I laugh and in\nmy silly heart I am glad. Nay come now, ye wooers, seeing\nthat this is the prize which is set before you, a lady, the\nlike of whom there is not now in the Achaean land, neither\nin sacred Pylos, nor in Argos, nor in Mycenae, nor yet in\nIthaca, nor in the dark mainland. Nay but ye know all this\nyourselves,--why need I praise my mother? Come therefore,\ndelay not the issue with excuses, nor hold much longer\naloof from the drawing of the bow, that we may see the\nthing that is to be. Yea and I myself would make trial of\nthis bow. If I shall string it, and shoot through the iron,\nthen should I not sorrow if my lady mother were to quit\nthese halls and go with a stranger, seeing that I should be\nleft behind, well able now to lift my father's goodly gear\nof combat.'\n\nTherewith he cast from off his neck his cloak of scarlet,\nand sprang to his full height, and put away the sword from\nhis shoulders. First he dug a good trench and set up the\naxes, one long trench for them all, and over it he made\nstraight the line and round about stamped in the earth. And\namazement fell on all that beheld how orderly he set the\naxes, though never before had he seen it so. Then he went\nand stood by the threshold and began to prove the bow.\nThrice he made it to tremble in his great desire to draw\nit, and thrice he rested from his effort, though still he\nhoped in his heart to string the bow, and shoot through the\niron. And now at last he might have strung it, mightily\nstraining thereat for the fourth time, but Odysseus nodded\nfrowning and stayed him, for all his eagerness. Then the\nstrong prince Telemachus spake among them again:\n\n'Lo you now, even to the end of my days I shall be a coward\nand a weakling, or it may be I am too young, and have as\nyet no trust in my hands to defend me from such an one as\ndoes violence without a cause. But come now, ye who are\nmightier men than I, essay the bow and let us make an end\nof the contest.'\n\nTherewith he put the bow from him on the ground, leaning it\nagainst the smooth and well-compacted doors, and the swift\nshaft he propped hard by against the fair bow-tip, and then\nhe sat down once more on the high seat, whence he had\nrisen.\n\nThen Antinous, son of Eupeithes, spake among them, saying:\n'Rise up in order, all my friends, beginning from the left,\neven from the place whence the wine is poured.'\n\nSo spake Antinous, and the saying pleased them well. Then\nfirst stood up Leiodes, son of Oenops, who was their\nsoothsayer and ever sat by the fair mixing bowl at the\nextremity of the hall; he alone hated their infatuate deeds\nand was indignant with all the wooers. He now first took\nthe bow and the swift shaft, and he went and stood by the\nthreshold, and began to prove the bow; but he could not\nbend it; or ever that might be, his hands grew weary with\nthe straining, his unworn, delicate hands; so he spake\namong the wooers, saying:\n\n'Friends, of a truth I cannot bend it, let some other take\nit. Ah, many of our bravest shall this bow rob of spirit\nand of life, since truly it is far better for us to die,\nthan to live on and to fail of that for which we assemble\nevermore in this place, day by day expecting the prize.\nMany there be even now that hope in their hearts and desire\nto wed Penelope, the bedfellow of Odysseus: but when such\nan one shall make trial of the bow and see the issue,\nthereafter let him woo some other fair-robed Achaean woman\nwith his bridal gifts and seek to win her. So may our lady\nwed the man that gives most gifts, and comes as the chosen\nof fate.'\n\nSo he spake, and put from him the bow leaning it against\nthe smooth and well-compacted doors, and the swift shaft he\npropped hard by against the fair bow-tip, and then he sat\ndown once more on the high seat, whence he had risen.\n\nBut Antinous rebuked him, and spake and hailed him:\n'Leiodes, what word hath escaped the door of thy lips; a\nhard word, and a grievous? Nay, it angers me to hear it,\nand to think that a bow such as this shall rob our bravest\nof spirit and of life, and all because thou canst not draw\nit. For I tell thee that thy lady mother bare thee not of\nsuch might as to draw a bow and shoot arrows: but there be\nothers of the proud wooers that shall draw it soon.'\n\nSo he spake, and commanded Melanthius, the goatherd,\nsaying: 'Up now, light a fire in the halls, Melanthius; and\nplace a great settle by the fire and a fleece thereon, and\nbring forth a great ball of lard that is within, that we\nyoung men may warm and anoint the bow therewith and prove\nit, and make an end of the contest.'\n\nSo he spake, and Melanthius soon kindled the never-resting\nfire, and drew up a settle and placed it near, and put a\nfleece thereon, and he brought forth a great ball of lard\nthat was within. Therewith the young men warmed the bow,\nand made essay, but could not string it, for they were\ngreatly lacking of such might. And Antinous still held to\nthe task and godlike Eurymachus, chief men among the\nwooers, who were far the most excellent of all.\n\nBut those other twain went forth both together from the\nhouse, the neatherd and the swineherd of godlike Odysseus;\nand Odysseus passed out after them. But when they were now\ngotten without the gates and the courtyard, he uttered his\nvoice and spake to them in gentle words:\n\n'Neatherd and thou swineherd, shall I say somewhat or keep\nit to myself? Nay, my spirit bids me declare it. What\nmanner of men would ye be to help Odysseus, if he should\ncome thus suddenly, I know not whence, and some god were to\nbring him? Would ye stand on the side of the wooers or of\nOdysseus? Tell me even as your heart and spirit bid you.'\n\nThen the neatherd answered him, saying: 'Father Zeus, if\nbut thou wouldst fulfil this wish: {*}--oh, that that man\nmight come, and some god lead him hither! So shouldest thou\nknow what my might is, and how my hands follow to obey.'\n\n{* Placing a colon at [Greek]}\n\nIn like manner Eumaeus prayed to all the gods that wise\nOdysseus might return to his own home.\n\nNow when he knew for a surety what spirit they were of,\nonce more he answered and spake to them, saying:\n\n'Behold, home am I come, even I; after much travail and\nsore am I come in the twentieth year to mine own country.\nAnd I know how that my coming is desired by you alone of\nall my thralls, for from none besides have I heard a prayer\nthat I might return once more to my home. And now I will\ntell you all the truth, even as it shall come to pass. If\nthe god shall subdue the proud wooers to my hands, I will\nbring you each one a wife, and will give you a heritage of\nyour own and a house builded near to me, and ye twain shall\nbe thereafter in mine eyes as the brethren and companions\nof Telemachus. But behold, I will likewise show you a most\nmanifest token, that ye may know me well and be certified\nin heart, even the wound that the boar dealt me with his\nwhite tusk long ago, when I went to Parnassus with the sons\nof Autolycus.'\n\nTherewith he drew aside the rags from the great scar. And\nwhen the twain had beheld it and marked it well, they cast\ntheir arms about the wise Odysseus, and fell a weeping; and\nkissed him lovingly on head and shoulders. And in like\nmanner Odysseus too kissed their heads and hands. And now\nwould the sunlight have gone down upon their sorrowing, had\nnot Odysseus himself stayed them saying:\n\n'Cease ye from weeping and lamentation, lest some one come\nforth from the hall and see us, and tell it likewise in the\nhouse. Nay, go ye within one by one and not both together,\nI first and you following, and let this be the token\nbetween us. All the rest, as many as are proud wooers, will\nnot suffer that I should be given the bow and quiver; do\nthou then, goodly Eumaeus, as thou bearest the bow through\nthe hall, set it in my hands and speak to the women that\nthey bar the well-fitting doors of their chamber. And if\nany of them hear the sound of groaning or the din of men\nwithin our walls, let them not run forth but abide where\nthey are in silence at their work. But on thee, goodly\nPhiloetius, I lay this charge, to bolt and bar the outer\ngate of the court and swiftly to tie the knot.'\n\nTherewith he passed within the fair-lying halls, and went\nand sat upon the settle whence he had risen. And likewise\nthe two thralls of divine Odysseus went within.\n\nAnd now Eurymachus was handling the bow, warming it on this\nside and on that at the light of the fire; yet even so he\ncould not string it, and in his great heart he groaned\nmightily; and in heaviness of spirit he spake and called\naloud, saying:\n\n'Lo you now, truly am I grieved for myself and for you all!\nNot for the marriage do I mourn so greatly, afflicted\nthough I be; there are many Achaean women besides, some in\nsea-begirt Ithaca itself and some in other cities. Nay, but\nI grieve, if indeed we are so far worse than godlike\nOdysseus in might, seeing that we cannot bend the bow. It\nwill be a shame even for men unborn to hear thereof.'\n\nThen Antinous, son of Eupeithes, answered him: 'Eurymachus,\nthis shall not be so, and thou thyself too knowest it. For\nto-day the feast of the archer god is held in the land, a\nholy feast. Who at such a time would be bending bows? Nay,\nset it quietly by; what and if we should let the axes all\nstand as they are? None methinks will come to the hall of\nOdysseus, son of Laertes, and carry them away. Go to now,\nlet the wine-bearer pour for libation into each cup in\nturn, that after the drink-offering we may set down the\ncurved bow. And in the morning bid Melanthius, the\ngoatherd, to lead hither the very best goats in all his\nherds, that we may lay pieces of the thighs on the altar of\nApollo the archer, and assay the bow and make an end of the\ncontest.'\n\nSo spake Antinous, and the saying pleased them well. Then\nthe henchmen poured water on their hands, and pages crowned\nthe mixing-bowls with drink, and served out the wine to\nall, when they had poured for libation into each cup in\nturn. But when they had poured forth and had drunken to\ntheir hearts' desire, Odysseus of many counsels spake among\nthem out of a crafty heart, saying:\n\n'Hear me, ye wooers of the renowned queen, that I may say\nthat which my heart within me bids. And mainly to\nEurymachus I make my prayer and to the godlike Antinous,\nforasmuch as he has spoken even this word aright, namely,\nthat for this present ye cease from your archery and leave\nthe issue to the gods; and in the morning the god will give\nthe victory to whomsoever he will. Come therefore, give me\nthe polished bow, that in your presence I may prove my\nhands and strength, whether I have yet any force such as\nonce was in my supple limbs, or whether my wanderings and\nneedy fare have even now destroyed it.'\n\nSo spake he and they all were exceeding wroth, for fear\nlest he should string the polished bow. And Antinous\nrebuked him, and spake and hailed him:\n\n'Wretched stranger, thou hast no wit, nay never so little.\nArt thou not content to feast at ease in our high company,\nand to lack not thy share of the banquet, but to listen to\nour speech and our discourse, while no guest and beggar\nbeside thee hears our speech? Wine it is that wounds thee,\nhoney sweet wine, that is the bane of others too, even of\nall who take great draughts and drink out of measure. Wine\nit was that darkened the mind even of the Centaur, renowned\nEurytion, in the hall of high-hearted Peirithous, when he\nwent to the Lapithae; and after that his heart was darkened\nwith wine, he wrought foul deeds in his frenzy, in the\nhouse of Peirithous. Then wrath fell on all the heroes, and\nthey leaped up and dragged him forth through the porch,\nwhen they had shorn off his ears and nostrils with the\npitiless sword, and then with darkened mind he bare about\nwith him the burden of his sin in foolishness of heart.\nThence was the feud begun between the Centaurs and mankind;\nbut first for himself gat he hurt, being heavy with wine.\nAnd even so I declare great mischief unto thee if thou\nshalt string the bow, for thou shalt find no courtesy at\nthe hand of anyone in our land, and anon we will send thee\nin a black ship to Echetus, the maimer of all men, and\nthence thou shalt not be saved alive. Nay then, drink at\nthine ease, and strive not still with men that are younger\nthan thou.'\n\nThen wise Penelope answered him: 'Antinous, truly it is not\nfair nor just to rob the guests of Telemachus of their due,\nwhosoever he may be that comes to this house. Dost thou\nthink if yonder stranger strings the great bow of Odysseus,\nin the pride of his might and of his strength of arm, that\nhe will lead me to his home and make me his wife? Nay he\nhimself, methinks, has no such hope in his breast; so, as\nfor that, let not any of you fret himself while feasting in\nthis place; that were indeed unmeet.'\n\nThen Eurymachus, son of Polybus, answered her, saying:\n'Daughter of Icarius, wise Penelope, it is not that we deem\nthat he will lead thee to his home,--far be such a thought\nfrom us,--but we dread the speech of men and women, lest\nsome day one of the baser sort among the Achaeans say:\n\"Truly men far too mean are wooing the wife of one that is\nnoble, nor can they string the polished bow. But a stranger\nand a beggar came in his wanderings, and lightly strung the\nbow, and shot through the iron.\" Thus will they speak, and\nthis will turn to our reproach.'\n\nThen wise Penelope answered him: 'Eurymachus, never can\nthere be fair fame in the land for those that devour and\ndishonour the house of a prince, but why make ye this thing\ninto a reproach? But, behold, our guest is great of growth\nand well-knit, and avows him to be born the son of a good\nfather. Come then, give ye him the polished bow, that we\nmay see that which is to be. For thus will I declare my\nsaying, and it shall surely come to pass. If he shall\nstring the bow and Apollo grant him renown, I will clothe\nhim in a mantle and a doublet, goodly raiment, and I will\ngive him a sharp javelin to defend him against dogs and\nmen, and a two-edged sword and sandals to bind beneath his\nfeet, and I will send him whithersoever his heart and\nspirit bid him go.'\n\nThen wise Telemachus answered her, saying: 'My mother, as\nfor the bow, no Achaean is mightier than I to give or to\ndeny it to whomso I will, neither as many as are lords in\nrocky Ithaca nor in the isles on the side of Elis, the\npastureland of horses. Not one of these shall force me in\nmine own despite, if I choose to give this bow, yea once\nand for all, to the stranger to bear away with him. But do\nthou go to thine own chamber and mind thine own\nhousewiferies, the loom and distaff, and bid thine\nhandmaids ply their tasks. But the bow shall be for men,\nfor all, but for me in chief, for mine is the lordship in\nthe house.'\n\nThen in amaze she went back to her chamber, for she laid up\nthe wise saying of her son in her heart. She ascended to\nher upper chamber with the women her handmaids, and then\nwas bewailing Odysseus, her dear lord, till grey-eyed\nAthene cast sweet sleep upon her eyelids.\n\nNow the goodly swineherd had taken the curved bow, and was\nbearing it, when the wooers all cried out upon him in the\nhalls. And thus some one of the haughty youths would speak:\n'Whither now art thou bearing the curved bow, thou wretched\nswineherd, crazed in thy wits? Lo, soon shall the swift\nhounds of thine own breeding eat thee hard by thy swine,\nalone and away from men, if Apollo will be gracious to us\nand the other deathless gods.'\n\nEven so they spake, and he took and set down the bow in\nthat very place, being affrighted because many cried out on\nhim in the halls. Then Telemachus from the other side spake\nthreateningly, and called aloud:\n\n'Father, bring hither the bow, soon shalt thou rue it that\nthou servest many masters. Take heed, lest I that am\nyounger than thou pursue thee to the field, and pelt thee\nwith stones, for in might I am the better. If only I were\nso much mightier in strength of arm than all the wooers\nthat are in the halls, soon would I send many an one forth\non a woeful way from out our house, for they imagine\nmischief against us.'\n\nSo he spake, and all the wooers laughed sweetly at him, and\nceased now from their cruel anger toward Telemachus. Then\nthe swineherd bare the bow through the hall, and went up to\nwise Odysseus, and set it in his hands. And he called forth\nthe nurse Eurycleia from the chamber and spake to her:\n\n'Wise Eurycleia, Telemachus bids thee bar the well-fitting\ndoors of thy chamber, and if any of the women hear the\nsound of groaning or the din of men within our walls, let\nthem not go forth, but abide where they are in silence at\ntheir work.'\n\nSo he spake, and wingless her speech remained, and she\nbarred the doors of the fair-lying chambers.\n\nThen Philoetius hasted forth silently from the house, and\nbarred the outer gates of the fenced court. Now there lay\nbeneath the gallery the cable of a curved ship, fashioned\nof the byblus plant, wherewith he made fast the gates, and\nthen himself passed within. Then he went and sat on the\nsettle whence he had risen, and gazed upon Odysseus. He\nalready was handling the bow, turning it every way about,\nand proving it on this side and on that, lest the worms\nmight have eaten the horns when the lord of the bow was\naway. And thus men spake looking each one to his neighbour:\n\n'Verily he has a good eye, and a shrewd turn for a bow!\nEither, methinks, he himself has such a bow lying by at\nhome or else he is set on making one, in such wise does he\nturn it hither and thither in his hands, this evil-witted\nbeggar.'\n\nAnd another again of the haughty youths would say: 'Would\nthat the fellow may have profit thereof, just so surely as\nhe shall ever prevail to bend this bow!'\n\nSo spake the wooers, but Odysseus of many counsels had\nlifted the great bow and viewed it on every side, and even\nas when a man that is skilled in the lyre and in\nminstrelsy, easily stretches a cord about a new peg, after\ntying at either end the twisted sheep-gut, even so Odysseus\nstraightway bent the great bow, all without effort, and\ntook it in his right hand and proved the bow-string, which\nrang sweetly at the touch, in tone like a swallow. Then\ngreat grief came upon the wooers, and the colour of their\ncountenance was changed, and Zeus thundered loud showing\nforth his tokens. And the steadfast goodly Odysseus was\nglad thereat, in that the son of deep-counselling Cronos\nhad sent him a sign. Then he caught up a swift arrow which\nlay by his table, bare, but the other shafts were stored\nwithin the hollow quiver, those whereof the Achaeans were\nsoon to taste. He took and laid it on the bridge of the\nbow, and held the notch and drew the string, even from the\nsettle whereon he sat, and with straight aim shot the shaft\nand missed not one of the axes, beginning from the first\naxe-handle, and the bronze-weighted shaft passed clean\nthrough and out at the last. Then he spake to Telemachus,\nsaying:\n\n'Telemachus, thy guest that sits in the halls does thee no\nshame. In nowise did I miss my mark, nor was I wearied with\nlong bending of the bow. Still is my might steadfast--not\nas the wooers say scornfully to slight me. But now is it\ntime that supper too be got ready for the Achaeans, while\nit is yet light, and thereafter must we make other sport\nwith the dance and the lyre, for these are the crown of the\nfeast.'\n\nTherewith he nodded with bent brows, and Telemachus, the\ndear son of divine Odysseus, girt his sharp sword about him\nand took the spear in his grasp, and stood by his high seat\nat his father's side, armed with the gleaming bronze.\n\n\n\nBook XXII\n\n  The killing of the wooers.\n\nThen Odysseus of many counsels stripped him of his rags and\nleaped on to the great threshold with his bow and quiver\nfull of arrows, and poured forth all the swift shafts there\nbefore his feet, and spake among the wooers:\n\n'Lo, now is this terrible trial ended at last; and now will\nI know of another mark, which never yet man has smitten, if\nperchance I may hit it and Apollo grant me renown.'\n\nWith that he pointed the bitter arrow at Antinous. Now he\nwas about raising to his lips a fair twy-eared chalice of\ngold, and behold, he was handling it to drink of the wine,\nand death was far from his thoughts. For who among men at\nfeast would deem that one man amongst so many, how hardy\nsoever he were, would bring on him foul death and black\nfate? But Odysseus aimed and smote him with the arrow in\nthe throat, and the point passed clean out through his\ndelicate neck, and he fell sidelong and the cup dropped\nfrom his hand as he was smitten, and at once through his\nnostrils there came up a thick jet of slain man's blood,\nand quickly he spurned the table from him with his foot,\nand spilt the food on the ground, and the bread and the\nroast flesh were defiled. Then the wooers raised a clamour\nthrough the halls when they saw the man fallen, and they\nleaped from their high seats, as men stirred by fear, all\nthrough the hall, peering everywhere along the well-builded\nwalls, and nowhere was there a shield or mighty spear to\nlay hold on. Then they reviled Odysseus with angry words:\n\n'Stranger, thou shootest at men to thy hurt. Never again\nshalt thou enter other lists, now is utter doom assured\nthee. Yea, for now hast thou slain the man that was far the\nbest of all the noble youths in Ithaca; wherefore vultures\nshall devour thee here.'\n\nSo each one spake, for indeed they thought that Odysseus\nhad not slain him wilfully; but they knew not in their\nfolly that on their own heads, each and all of them, the\nbands of death had been made fast. Then Odysseus of many\ncounsels looked fiercely on them, and spake:\n\n'Ye dogs, ye said in your hearts that I should never more\ncome home from the land of the Trojans, in that ye wasted\nmy house, and lay with the maidservants by force, and\ntraitorously wooed my wife while I was yet alive, and ye\nhad no fear of the gods, that hold the wide heaven, nor of\nthe indignation of men hereafter. But now the bands of\ndeath have been made fast upon you one and all.'\n\nEven so he spake, and pale fear gat hold on the limbs of\nall, and each man looked about, where he might shun utter\ndoom. And Eurymachus alone answered him, and spake: 'If\nthou art indeed Odysseus of Ithaca, come home again, with\nright thou speakest thus, of all that the Achaeans have\nwrought, many infatuate deeds in thy halls and many in the\nfield. Howbeit, he now lies dead that is to blame for all,\nAntinous; for he brought all these things upon us, not as\nlonging very greatly for the marriage nor needing it sore,\nbut with another purpose, that Cronion has not fulfilled\nfor him, namely, that he might himself be king over all the\nland of stablished Ithaca, and he was to have lain in wait\nfor thy son and killed him. But now he is slain after his\ndeserving, and do thou spare thy people, even thine own;\nand we will hereafter go about the township and yield thee\namends for all that has been eaten and drunken in thy\nhalls, each for himself bringing atonement of twenty oxen\nworth, and requiting thee in gold and bronze till thy heart\nis softened, but till then none may blame thee that thou\nart angry.'\n\nThen Odysseus of many counsels looked fiercely on him, and\nsaid: 'Eurymachus, not even if ye gave me all your\nheritage, all that ye now have, and whatsoever else ye\nmight in any wise add thereto, not even so would I\nhenceforth hold my hands from slaying, ere the wooers had\npaid for all their transgressions. And now the choice lies\nbefore you, whether to fight in fair battle or to fly, if\nany may avoid death and the fates. But there be some,\nmethinks, that shall not escape from utter doom.'\n\nHe spake, and their knees were straightway loosened and\ntheir hearts melted within them. And Eurymachus spake among\nthem yet again:\n\n'Friends, it is plain that this man will not hold his\nunconquerable hands, but now that he has caught up the\npolished bow and quiver, he will shoot from the smooth\nthreshold, till he has slain us all; wherefore let us take\nthought for the delight of battle. Draw your blades, and\nhold up the tables to ward off the arrows of swift death,\nand let us all have at him with one accord, and drive him,\nif it may be, from the threshold and the doorway and then\ngo through the city, and quickly would the cry be raised.\nThereby should this man soon have shot his latest bolt.'\n\nTherewith he drew his sharp two-edged sword of bronze, and\nleapt on Odysseus with a terrible cry, but in the same\nmoment goodly Odysseus shot the arrow forth and struck him\non the breast by the pap, and drave the swift shaft into\nhis liver. So he let the sword fall from his hand, and\ngrovelling over the table he bowed and fell, and spilt the\nfood and the two-handled cup on the floor. And in his agony\nhe smote the ground with his brow, and spurning with both\nhis feet he overthrew the high seat, and the mist of death\nwas shed upon his eyes.\n\nThen Amphinomus made at renowned Odysseus, setting straight\nat him, and drew his sharp sword, if perchance he might\nmake him give ground from the door. But Telemachus was\nbeforehand with him, and cast and smote him from behind\nwith a bronze-shod spear between the shoulders, and drave\nit out through the breast, and he fell with a crash and\nstruck the ground full with his forehead. Then Telemachus\nsprang away, leaving the long spear fixed in Amphinomus,\nfor he greatly dreaded lest one of the Achaeans might run\nupon him with his blade, and stab him as he drew forth the\nspear, or smite him with a down stroke {*} of the sword. So\nhe started and ran and came quickly to his father, and\nstood by him, and spake winged words:\n\n{* Or, reading [Greek], smite him as he stooped over the\ncorpse.}\n\n'Father, lo, now I will bring thee a shield and two spears\nand a helmet all of bronze, close fitting on the temples,\nand when I return I will arm myself, and likewise give arms\nto the swineherd and to the neatherd yonder: for it is\nbetter to be clad in full armour.'\n\nAnd Odysseus of many counsels answered him saying: 'Run and\nbring them while I have arrows to defend me, lest they\nthrust me from the doorway, one man against them all.'\n\nSo he spake, and Telemachus obeyed his dear father, and\nwent forth to the chamber, where his famous weapons were\nlying. Thence he took out four shields and eight spears,\nand four helmets of bronze, with thick plumes of horse\nhair, and he started to bring them and came quickly to his\nfather. Now he girded the gear of bronze about his own body\nfirst, and in like manner the two thralls did on the goodly\narmour, and stood beside the wise and crafty Odysseus. Now\nhe, so long as he had arrows to defend him, kept aiming and\nsmote the wooers one by one in his house, and they fell\nthick one upon another. But when the arrows failed the\nprince in his archery, he leaned his bow against the\ndoorpost of the stablished hall, against the shining faces\nof the entrance. As for him he girt his fourfold shield\nabout his shoulders and bound on his mighty head a well\nwrought helmet, with horse hair crest, and terribly the\nplume waved aloft. And he grasped two mighty spears tipped\nwith bronze.\n\nNow there was in the well-builded wall a certain postern\nraised above the floor, and there by the topmost level of\nthe threshold of the stablished hall, was a way into an\nopen passage, closed by well-fitted folding doors. So\nOdysseus bade the goodly swineherd stand near thereto and\nwatch the way, for thither there was but one approach. Then\nAgelaus spake among them, and declared his word to all:\n\n'Friends, will not some man climb up to the postern, and\ngive word to the people, and a cry would be raised\nstraightway; so should this man soon have shot his latest\nbolt?'\n\nThen Melanthius, the goatherd, answered him, saying: 'It\nmay in no wise be, prince Agelaus; for the fair gate of the\ncourtyard is terribly nigh, and perilous is the entrance to\nthe passage, and one man, if he were valiant, might keep\nback a host. But come, let me bring you armour from the\ninner chamber, that ye may be clad in hauberks, for,\nmethinks, within that room and not elsewhere did Odysseus\nand his renowned son lay by the arms.'\n\nTherewith Melanthius, the goatherd, climbed up by the\nclerestory of the hall to the inner chambers of Odysseus,\nwhence he took twelve shields and as many spears, and as\nmany helmets of bronze with thick plumes of horse hair, and\nhe came forth and brought them speedily, and gave them to\nthe wooers. Then the knees of Odysseus were loosened and\nhis heart melted within him, when he saw them girding on\nthe armour and brandishing the long spears in their hands,\nand great, he saw, was the adventure. Quickly he spake to\nTelemachus winged words:\n\n'Telemachus, sure I am that one of the women in the halls\nis stirring up an evil battle against us, or perchance it\nis Melanthius.'\n\nThen wise Telemachus answered him: 'My father, it is I that\nhave erred herein and none other is to blame, for I left\nthe well-fitted door of the chamber open, and there has\nbeen one of them but too quick to spy it. Go now, goodly\nEumaeus, and close the door of the chamber, and mark if it\nbe indeed one of the women that does this mischief, or\nMelanthius, son of Dolius, as methinks it is.'\n\nEven so they spake one to the other. And Melanthius, the\ngoatherd, went yet again to the chamber to bring the fair\narmour. But the goodly swineherd was ware thereof, and\nquickly he spake to Odysseus who stood nigh him:\n\n'Son of Laertes, of the seed of Zeus, Odysseus, of many\ndevices, lo, there again is that baleful man, whom we\nourselves suspect, going to the chamber; do thou tell me\ntruly, shall I slay him if I prove the better man, or bring\nhim hither to thee, that he may pay for the many\ntransgressions that he has devised in thy house?'\n\nThen Odysseus of many counsels answered saying: 'Verily, I\nand Telemachus will keep the proud wooers within the halls,\nfor all their fury, but do ye twain tie his feet and arms\nbehind his back and cast him into the chamber, and close\nthe doors after you,{*} and make fast to his body a twisted\nrope, and drag him up the lofty pillar till he be near the\nroof beams, that he may hang there and live for long, and\nsuffer grievous torment.'\n\n{* Or, as Mr. Merry suggests in his note, 'tie boards\nbehind him' as a method of torture. He compares Aristoph.\nThesm. 931,940.}\n\nSo he spake, and they gave good heed and hearkened. So they\nwent forth to the chamber, but the goatherd who was within\nknew not of their coming. Now he was seeking for the armour\nin the secret place of the chamber, but they twain stood in\nwaiting on either side the doorposts. And when Melanthius,\nthe goatherd, was crossing the threshold with a goodly helm\nin one hand, and in the other a wide shield and an old,\nstained with rust, the shield of the hero Laertes that he\nbare when he was young--but at that time it was laid by,\nand the seams of the straps were loosened,--then the twain\nrushed on him and caught him, and dragged him in by the\nhair, and cast him on the floor in sorrowful plight, and\nbound him hand and foot in a bitter bond, tightly winding\neach limb behind his back, even as the son of Laertes bade\nthem, the steadfast goodly Odysseus. And they made fast to\nhis body a twisted rope, and dragged him up the lofty\npillar till he came near the roof beams. Then didst thou\nspeak to him and gird at him, swineherd Eumaeus:\n\n'Now in good truth, Melanthius, shalt thou watch all night,\nlying in a soft bed as beseems thee, nor shall the\nearly-born Dawn escape thy ken, when she comes forth from\nthe streams of Oceanus, on her golden throne, in the hour\nwhen thou art wont to drive the goats to make a meal for\nthe wooers in the halls.'\n\nSo he was left there, stretched tight in the deadly bond.\nBut they twain got into their harness, and closed the\nshining door, and went to Odysseus, wise and crafty chief.\nThere they stood breathing fury, four men by the threshold,\nwhile those others within the halls were many and good\nwarriors. Then Athene, daughter of Zeus, drew nigh them,\nlike Mentor in fashion and in voice, and Odysseus was glad\nwhen he saw her and spake, saying:\n\n'Mentor, ward from us hurt, and remember me thy dear\ncompanion, that befriended thee often, and thou art of like\nage with me.'\n\nSo he spake, deeming the while that it was Athene, summoner\nof the host. But the wooers on the other side shouted in\nthe halls, and first Agelaus son of Damastor rebuked\nAthene, saying:\n\n'Mentor, let not the speech of Odysseus beguile thee to\nfight against the wooers, and to succour him. For methinks\nthat on this wise we shall work our will. When we shall\nhave slain these men, father and son, thereafter shalt thou\nperish with them, such deeds thou art set on doing in these\nhalls; nay, with thine own head shalt thou pay the price.\nBut when with the sword we shall have overcome your\nviolence, we will mingle all thy possessions, all that thou\nhast at home or in the field, with the wealth of Odysseus,\nand we will not suffer thy sons nor thy daughters to dwell\nin the halls, nor thy good wife to gad about in the town of\nIthaca.'\n\nSo spake he, and Athene was mightily angered at heart, and\nchid Odysseus in wrathful words: 'Odysseus, thou hast no\nmore steadfast might nor any prowess, as when for nine\nwhole years continually thou didst battle with the Trojans\nfor high born Helen, of the white arms, and many men thou\nslewest in terrible warfare, and by thy device the\nwide-wayed city of Priam was taken. How then, now that thou\nart come to thy house and thine own possessions, dost thou\nbewail thee and art of feeble courage to stand before the\nwooers? Nay, come hither, friend, and stand by me, and I\nwill show thee a thing, that thou mayest know what manner\nof man is Mentor, son of Alcimus, to repay good deeds in\nthe ranks of foemen.'\n\nShe spake, and gave him not yet clear victory in full, but\nstill for a while made trial of the might and prowess of\nOdysseus and his renowned son. As for her she flew up to\nthe roof timber of the murky hall, in such fashion as a\nswallow flies, and there sat down.\n\nNow Agelaus, son of Damastor, urged on the wooers, and\nlikewise Eurynomus and Amphimedon and Demoptolemus and\nPeisandrus son of Polyctor, and wise Polybus, for these\nwere in valiancy far the best men of the wooers, that still\nlived and fought for their lives; for the rest had fallen\nalready beneath the bow and the thick rain of arrows. Then\nAgelaus spake among them, and made known his word to all:\n\n'Friends, now at last will this man hold his unconquerable\nhands. Lo, now has Mentor left him and spoken but vain\nboasts, and these remain alone at the entrance of the\ndoors. Wherefore now, throw not your long spears all\ntogether, but come, do ye six cast first, if perchance Zeus\nmay grant us to smite Odysseus and win renown. Of the rest\nwill we take no heed, so soon as that man shall have\nfallen.'\n\nSo he spake and they all cast their javelins, as he bade\nthem, eagerly; but behold, Athene so wrought that they were\nall in vain. One man smote the doorpost of the stablished\nhall, and another the well-fastened door, and the ashen\nspear of yet another wooer, heavy with bronze, stuck fast\nin the wall. So when they had avoided all the spears of the\nwooers, the steadfast goodly Odysseus began first to speak\namong them:\n\n'Friends, now my word is that we too cast and hurl into the\npress of the wooers, that are mad to slay and strip us\nbeyond the measure of their former iniquities.'\n\nSo he spake, and they all took good aim and threw their\nsharp spears, and Odysseus smote Demoptolemus, and\nTelemachus Euryades, and the swineherd slew Elatus, and the\nneatherd Peisandrus. Thus they all bit the wide floor with\ntheir teeth, and the wooers fell back into the inmost part\nof the hall. But the others dashed upon them and drew forth\nthe shafts from the bodies of the dead.\n\nThen once more the wooers threw their sharp spears eagerly;\nbut behold, Athene so wrought that many of them were in\nvain. One man smote the door-post of the stablished hall,\nand another the well-fastened door, and the ashen spear of\nanother wooer, heavy with bronze, struck in the wall. Yet\nAmphimedon hit Telemachus on the hand by the wrist lightly,\nand the shaft of bronze wounded the surface of the skin.\nAnd Ctesippus grazed the shoulder of Eumaeus with a long\nspear high above the shield, and the spear flew over and\nfell to the ground. Then again Odysseus, the wise and\ncrafty, he and his men cast their swift spears into the\npress of the wooers, and now once more Odysseus, waster of\ncities, smote Eurydamas, and Telemachus Amphimedon, and the\nswineherd slew Polybus, and last, the neatherd struck\nCtesippus in the breast and boasted over him, saying:\n\n'O son of Polytherses, thou lover of jeering, never give\nplace at all to folly to speak so big, but leave thy case\nto the gods, since in truth they are far mightier than\nthou. This gift is thy recompense for the ox-foot that thou\ngavest of late to the divine Odysseus, when he went begging\nthrough the house.'\n\nSo spake the keeper of the shambling kine. Next Odysseus\nwounded the son of Damastor in close fight with his long\nspear, and Telemachus wounded Leocritus son of Euenor,\nright in the flank with his lance, and drave the bronze\npoint clean through, that he fell prone and struck the\nground full with his forehead. Then Athene held up her\ndestroying aegis on high from the roof, and their minds\nwere scared, and they fled through the hall, like a drove\nof kine that the flitting gadfly falls upon and scatters\nhither and thither in spring time, when the long days\nbegin. But the others set on like vultures of crooked claws\nand curved beak, that come forth from the mountains and\ndash upon smaller birds, and these scour low in the plain,\nstooping in terror from the clouds, while the vultures\npounce on them and slay them, and there is no help nor way\nof flight, and men are glad at the sport; even so did the\ncompany of Odysseus set upon the wooers and smite them\nright and left through the hall; and there rose a hideous\nmoaning as their heads were smitten, and the floor all ran\nwith blood.\n\nNow Leiodes took hold of the knees of Odysseus eagerly, and\nbesought him and spake winged words: 'I entreat thee by thy\nknees, Odysseus, and do thou show mercy on me and have\npity. For never yet, I say, have I wronged a maiden in thy\nhalls by froward word or deed, nay I bade the other wooers\nrefrain, whoso of them wrought thus. But they hearkened not\nunto me to keep their hands from evil. Wherefore they have\nmet a shameful death through their own infatuate deeds.\nYet I, the soothsayer among them, that have wrought no\nevil, shall fall even as they, for no grace abides for good\ndeeds done.'\n\nThen Odysseus of many counsels looked askance at him, and\nsaid: 'If indeed thou dost avow thee to be the soothsayer\nof these men, thou art like to have often prayed in the\nhalls that the issue of a glad return might be far from me,\nand that my dear wife should follow thee and bear thee\nchildren; wherefore thou shalt not escape the bitterness of\ndeath.'\n\nTherewith he caught up a sword in his strong hand, that lay\nwhere Agelaus had let it fall to the ground when he was\nslain, and drave it clean through his neck, and as he yet\nspake his head fell even to the dust.\n\nBut the son of Terpes, the minstrel, still sought how he\nmight shun black fate, Phemius, who sang among the wooers\nof necessity. He stood with the loud lyre in his hand hard\nby the postern gate, and his heart was divided within him,\nwhether he should slip forth from the hall and sit down by\nthe well-wrought altar of great Zeus of the household\ncourt, whereon Laertes and Odysseus had burnt many pieces\nof the thighs of oxen, or should spring forward and beseech\nOdysseus by his knees. And as he thought thereupon this\nseemed to him the better way, to embrace the knees of\nOdysseus, son of Laertes. So he laid the hollow lyre on the\nground between the mixing-bowl and the high seat inlaid\nwith silver, and himself sprang forward and seized Odysseus\nby the knees, and besought him and spake winged words:\n\n'I entreat thee by thy knees, Odysseus, and do thou show\nmercy on me and have pity. It will be a sorrow to thyself\nin the aftertime if thou slayest me who am a minstrel, and\nsing before gods and men. Yea none has taught me but\nmyself, and the god has put into my heart all manner of\nlays, and methinks I sing to thee as to a god, wherefore be\nnot eager to cut off my head. And Telemachus will testify\nof this, thine own dear son, that not by mine own will or\ndesire did I resort to thy house to sing to the wooers at\ntheir feasts; but being so many and stronger than I they\nled me by constraint.'\n\nSo he spake, and the mighty prince Telemachus heard him and\nquickly spake to his father at his side: 'Hold thy hand,\nand wound not this blameless man with the sword; and let us\nsave also the henchman Medon, that ever had charge of me in\nour house when I was a child, unless perchance Philoetius\nor the swineherd have already slain him, or he hath met\nthee in thy raging through the house.'\n\nSo he spake, and Medon, wise of heart, heard him. For he\nlay crouching beneath a high seat, clad about in the\nnew-flayed hide of an ox and shunned black fate. So he rose\nup quickly from under the seat, and cast off the ox-hide,\nand sprang forth and caught Telemachus by the knees, and\nbesought him and spake winged words:\n\n'Friend, here am I; prithee stay thy hand and speak to thy\nfather, lest he harm me with the sharp sword in the\ngreatness of his strength, out of his anger for the wooers\nthat wasted his possessions in the halls, and in their\nfolly held thee in no honour.'\n\nAnd Odysseus of many counsels smiled on him and said: 'Take\ncourage, for lo, he has saved thee and delivered thee, that\nthou mayst know in thy heart, and tell it even to another,\nhow far more excellent are good deeds than evil. But go\nforth from the halls and sit down in the court apart from\nthe slaughter, thou and the full-voiced minstrel, till I\nhave accomplished all that I must needs do in the house.'\n\nTherewith the two went forth and gat them from the hall. So\nthey sat down by the altar of great Zeus, peering about on\nevery side, still expecting death. And Odysseus peered all\nthrough the house, to see if any man was yet alive and\nhiding away to shun black fate. But he found all the sort\nof them fallen in their blood in the dust, like fishes that\nthe fishermen have drawn forth in the meshes of the net\ninto a hollow of the beach from out the grey sea, and all\nthe fish, sore longing for the salt sea waves, are heaped\nupon the sand, and the sun shines forth and takes their\nlife away; so now the wooers lay heaped upon each other.\nThen Odysseus of many counsels spake to Telemachus:\n\n'Telemachus, go, call me the nurse Eurycleia, that I may\ntell her a word that is on my mind.'\n\nSo he spake, and Telemachus obeyed his dear father, and\nsmote at the door, and spake to the nurse Eurycleia: 'Up\nnow, aged wife, that overlookest all the women servants in\nour halls, come hither, my father calls thee and has\nsomewhat to say to thee.'\n\nEven so he spake, and wingless her speech remained, and she\nopened the doors of the fair-lying halls, and came forth,\nand Telemachus led the way before her. So she found\nOdysseus among the bodies of the dead, stained with blood\nand soil of battle, like a lion that has eaten of an ox of\nthe homestead and goes on his way, and all his breast and\nhis cheeks on either side are flecked with blood, and he is\nterrible to behold; even so was Odysseus stained, both\nhands and feet. Now the nurse, when she saw the bodies of\nthe dead and the great gore of blood, made ready to cry\naloud for joy, beholding so great an adventure. But\nOdysseus checked and held her in her eagerness, and\nuttering his voice spake to her winged words:\n\n'Within thine own heart rejoice, old nurse, and be still,\nand cry not aloud; for it is an unholy thing to boast over\nslain men. Now these hath the destiny of the gods overcome,\nand their own cruel deeds, for they honoured none of\nearthly men, neither the bad nor yet the good, that came\namong them. Wherefore they have met a shameful death\nthrough their own infatuate deeds. But come, tell me the\ntale of the women in my halls, which of them dishonour me,\nand which be guiltless.'\n\nThen the good nurse Eurycleia answered him: 'Yea now, my\nchild, I will tell thee all the truth. Thou hast fifty\nwomen-servants in thy halls, that we have taught the ways\nof housewifery, how to card wool and to bear bondage. Of\nthese twelve in all have gone the way of shame, and honour\nnot me, nor their lady Penelope. And Telemachus hath but\nnewly come to his strength, and his mother suffered him not\nto take command over the women in this house. But now, let\nme go aloft to the shining upper chamber, and tell all to\nthy wife, on whom some god hath sent a sleep.'\n\nAnd Odysseus of many counsels answered her saying: 'Wake\nher not yet, but bid the women come hither, who in time\npast behaved themselves unseemly.'\n\nSo he spake, and the old wife passed through the hall, to\ntell the women and to hasten their coming. Then Odysseus\ncalled to him Telemachus, and the neatherd, and the\nswineherd, and spake to them winged words:\n\n'Begin ye now to carry out the dead, and bid the women help\nyou, and thereafter cleanse the fair high seats and the\ntables with water and porous sponges. And when ye have set\nall the house in order, lead the maidens without the\nstablished hall, between the vaulted room and the goodly\nfence of the court, and there slay them with your long\nblades, till they shall have all given up the ghost and\nforgotten the love that of old they had at the bidding of\nthe wooers, in secret dalliance.'\n\nEven so he spake, and the women came all in a crowd\ntogether, making a terrible lament and shedding big tears.\nSo first they carried forth the bodies of the slain, and\nset them beneath the gallery of the fenced court, and\npropped them one on another; and Odysseus himself hasted\nthe women and directed them, and they carried forth the\ndead perforce. Thereafter they cleansed the fair high seats\nand the tables with water and porous sponges. And\nTelemachus, and the neatherd, and the swineherd, scraped\nwith spades the floor of the well-builded house, and,\nbehold, the maidens carried all forth and laid it without\nthe doors.\n\nNow when they had made an end of setting the hall in order,\nthey led the maidens forth from the stablished hall, and\ndrove them up in a narrow space between the vaulted room\nand the goodly fence of the court, whence none might avoid;\nand wise Telemachus began to speak to his fellows, saying:\n'God forbid that I should take these women's lives by a\nclean death, these that have poured dishonour on my head\nand on my mother, and have lain with the wooers.'\n\nWith that word he tied the cable of a dark-prowed ship to a\ngreat pillar and flung it round the vaulted room, and\nfastened it aloft, that none might touch the ground with\nher feet. And even as when thrushes, long of wing, or doves\nfall into a net that is set in a thicket, as they seek to\ntheir roosting-place, and a loathly bed harbours them, even\nso the women held their heads all in a row, and about all\ntheir necks nooses were cast, that they might die by the\nmost pitiful death. And they writhed with their feet for a\nlittle space, but for no long while.\n\nThen they led out Melanthius through the doorway and the\ncourt, and cut off his nostrils and his ears with the\npitiless sword, and drew forth his vitals for the dogs to\ndevour raw, and cut off his hands and feet in their cruel\nanger.\n\nThereafter they washed their hands and feet, and went into\nthe house to Odysseus, and all the adventure was over. So\nOdysseus called to the good nurse Eurycleia: 'Bring\nsulphur, old nurse, that cleanses all pollution and bring\nme fire, that I may purify the house with sulphur, and do\nthou bid Penelope come here with her handmaidens, and tell\nall the women to hasten into the hall.'\n\nThen the good nurse Eurycleia made answer: 'Yea, my child,\nherein thou hast spoken aright. But go to, let me bring\nthee a mantle and a doublet for raiment, and stand not thus\nin the halls with thy broad shoulders wrapped in rags; it\nwere blame in thee so to do.'\n\nAnd Odysseus of many counsels answered her saying: 'First\nlet a fire now be made me in the hall.'\n\nSo he spake, and the good nurse Eurycleia was not slow to\nobey, but brought fire and brimstone; and Odysseus\nthoroughly purged the women's chamber and the great hall\nand the court.\n\nThen the old wife went through the fair halls of Odysseus\nto tell the women, and to hasten their coming. So they came\nforth from their chamber with torches in their hands, and\nfell about Odysseus, and embraced him and kissed and\nclasped his head and shoulders and his hands lovingly, and\na sweet longing came on him to weep and moan, for he\nremembered them every one.\n\n\n\nBook XXIII\n\n  Odysseus maketh himself known to Penelope, tells his\n  adventures briefly, and in the morning goes to Laertes\n  and makes himself known to him.\n\nThen the ancient woman went up into the upper chamber\nlaughing aloud, to tell her mistress how her dear lord was\nwithin, and her knees moved fast for joy, and her feet\nstumbled one over the other; and she stood above the lady's\nhead and spake to her, saying:\n\n'Awake, Penelope, dear child, that thou mayest see with\nthine own eyes that which thou desirest day by day.\nOdysseus hath come, and hath got him to his own house,\nthough late hath he come, and hath slain the proud wooers\nthat troubled his house, and devoured his substance, and\noppressed his child.'\n\nThen wise Penelope answered her: 'Dear nurse, the gods have\nmade thee distraught, the gods that can make foolish even\nthe wisdom of the wise, and that stablish the simple in\nunderstanding. They it is that have marred thy reason,\nthough heretofore thou hadst a prudent heart. Why dost thou\nmock me, who have a spirit full of sorrow, to speak these\nwild words, and rousest me out of sweet slumber, that had\nbound me and overshadowed mine eyelids? Never yet have I\nslept so sound since the day that Odysseus went forth to\nsee that evil Ilios, never to be named. Go to now, get thee\ndown and back to the women's chamber, for if any other of\nthe maids of my house had come and brought me such tidings,\nand wakened me from sleep, straightway would I have sent\nher back woefully to return within the women's chamber; but\nthis time thine old age shall stand thee in good stead.'\n\nThen the good nurse Eurycleia answered her: 'I mock thee\nnot, dear child, but in very deed Odysseus is here, and\nhath come home, even as I tell thee. He is that guest on\nwhom all men wrought such dishonour in the halls. But long\nago Telemachus was ware of him, that he was within the\nhouse, yet in his prudence he hid the counsels of his\nfather, that he might take vengeance on the violence of the\nhaughty wooers.'\n\nThus she spake, and then was Penelope glad, and leaping\nfrom her bed she fell on the old woman's neck, and let fall\nthe tears from her eyelids, and uttering her voice spake to\nher winged words: 'Come, dear nurse, I pray thee, tell me\nall truly--if indeed he hath come home as thou sayest--how\nhe hath laid his hands on the shameless wooers, he being\nbut one man, while they abode ever in their companies\nwithin the house.'\n\nThen the good nurse Eurycleia answered her: 'I saw not, I\nwist not, only I heard the groaning of men slain. And we in\nan inmost place of the well-builded chambers sat all\namazed, and the close-fitted doors shut in the room, till\nthy son called me from the chamber, for his father sent him\nout to that end. Then I found Odysseus standing among the\nslain, who around him, stretched on the hard floor, lay one\nupon the other; it would have comforted thy heart to see\nhim, all stained like a lion with blood and soil of battle.\nAnd now are all the wooers gathered in an heap by the gates\nof the court, while he is purifying his fair house with\nbrimstone, and hath kindled a great fire, and hath sent me\nforth to call thee. So come with me, that ye may both enter\ninto your heart's delight, {*} for ye have suffered much\naffliction. And even now hath this thy long desire been\nfulfilled; thy lord hath come alive to his own hearth, and\nhath found both thee and his son in the halls; and the\nwooers that wrought him evil he hath slain, every man of\nthem in his house.'\n\n{* Reading [Greek] . . . [Greek].}\n\nThen wise Penelope answered her: 'Dear nurse, boast not yet\nover them with laughter. Thou knowest how welcome the sight\nof him would be in the halls to all, and to me in chief,\nand to his son that we got between us. But this is no true\ntale, as thou declarest it, nay but it is one of the\ndeathless gods that hath slain the proud wooers, in wrath\nat their bitter insolence and evil deeds. For they honoured\nnone of earthly men, neither the good nor yet the bad, that\ncame among them. Wherefore they have suffered an evil doom\nthrough their own infatuate deeds. But Odysseus, far away\nhath lost his homeward path to the Achaean land, and\nhimself is lost.'\n\nThen the good nurse Eurycleia made answer to her: 'My\nchild, what word hath escaped the door of thy lips, in that\nthou saidest that thy lord, who is even now within, and by\nhis own hearthstone, would return no more? Nay, thy heart\nis ever hard of belief. Go to now, and I will tell thee\nbesides a most manifest token, even the scar of the wound\nthat the boar on a time dealt him with his white tusk.\nThis I spied while washing his feet, and fain I would have\ntold it even to thee, but he laid his hand on my mouth, and\nin the fulness of his wisdom suffered me not to speak. But\ncome with me and I will stake my life on it; and if I play\nthee false, do thou slay me by a death most pitiful.'\n\nThen wise Penelope made answer to her: 'Dear nurse, it is\nhard for thee, how wise soever, to observe the purposes of\nthe everlasting gods. None the less let us go to my child,\nthat I may see the wooers dead, and him that slew them.'\n\nWith that word she went down from the upper chamber, and\nmuch her heart debated, whether she should stand apart, and\nquestion her dear lord or draw nigh, and clasp and kiss his\nhead and hands. But when she had come within and had\ncrossed the threshold of stone, she sat down over against\nOdysseus, in the light of the fire, by the further wall.\nNow he was sitting by the tall pillar, looking down and\nwaiting to know if perchance his noble wife would speak to\nhim, when her eyes beheld him. But she sat long in silence,\nand amazement came upon her soul, and now she would look\nupon him steadfastly with her eyes, and now again she knew\nhim not, for that he was clad in vile raiment. And\nTelemachus rebuked her, and spake and hailed her:\n\n'Mother mine, ill mother, of an ungentle heart, why turnest\nthou thus away from my father, and dost not sit by him and\nquestion him and ask him all? No other woman in the world\nwould harden her heart to stand thus aloof from her lord,\nwho after much travail and sore had come to her in the\ntwentieth year to his own country. But thy heart is ever\nharder than stone.'\n\nThen wise Penelope answered him, saying: 'Child, my mind is\namazed within me, and I have no strength to speak, nor to\nask him aught, nay nor to look on him face to face. But if\nin truth this be Odysseus, and he hath indeed come home,\nverily we shall be ware of each other the more surely, for\nwe have tokens that we twain know, even we, secret from all\nothers.'\n\nSo she spake, and the steadfast goodly Odysseus smiled, and\nquickly he spake to Telemachus winged words: 'Telemachus,\nleave now thy mother to make trial of me within the\nchambers; so shall she soon come to a better knowledge than\nheretofore. But now I go filthy, and am clad in vile\nraiment, wherefore she has me in dishonour, and as yet will\nnot allow that I am he. Let us then advise us how all may\nbe for the very best. For whoso has slain but one man in a\nland, even that one leaves not many behind him to take up\nthe feud for him, turns outlaw and leaves his kindred and\nhis own country; but we have slain the very stay of the\ncity, the men who were far the best of all the noble youths\nin Ithaca. So this I bid thee consider.'\n\nThen wise Telemachus answered him, saying: 'Father, see\nthou to this, for they say that thy counsel is far the best\namong men, nor might any other of mortal men contend with\nthee. But right eagerly will we go with thee now, and I\nthink we shall not lack prowess, so far as might is ours.'\n\nAnd Odysseus of many counsels answered him saying: 'Yea\nnow, I will tell on what wise methinks it is best. First,\ngo ye to the bath and array you in your doublets, and bid\nthe maidens in the chambers to take to them their garments.\nThen let the divine minstrel, with his loud lyre in hand,\nlead off for us the measure of the mirthful dance. So shall\nany man that hears the sound from without, whether a\nwayfarer or one of those that dwell around, say that it is\na wedding feast. And thus the slaughter of the wooers shall\nnot be noised abroad through the town before we go forth to\nour well-wooded farm-land. Thereafter shall we consider\nwhat gainful counsel the Olympian may vouchsafe us.'\n\nSo he spake, and they gave good ear and hearkened to him.\nSo first they went to the bath, and arrayed them in\ndoublets, and the women were apparelled, and the divine\nminstrel took the hollow harp, and aroused in them the\ndesire of sweet song and of the happy dance. Then the great\nhall rang round them with the sound of the feet of dancing\nmen and of fair-girdled women. And whoso heard it from\nwithout would say:\n\n'Surely some one has wedded the queen of many wooers. Hard\nof heart was she, nor had she courage to keep the great\nhouse of her wedded lord continually till his coming.'\n\nEven so men spake, and knew not how these things were\nordained. Meanwhile, the house-dame Eurynome had bathed the\ngreat-hearted Odysseus within his house, and anointed him\nwith olive-oil, and cast about him a goodly mantle and a\ndoublet. Moreover Athene shed great beauty from his head\ndownwards, and made him greater and more mighty to behold,\nand from his head caused deep curling locks to flow, like\nthe hyacinth flower. And as when some skilful man overlays\ngold upon silver, one that Hephaestus and Pallas Athene\nhave taught all manner of craft, and full of grace is his\nhandiwork, even so did Athene shed grace about his head and\nshoulders, and forth from the bath he came, in form like to\nthe immortals. Then he sat down again on the high seat,\nwhence he had arisen, over against his wife, and spake to\nher, saying:\n\n'Strange lady, surely to thee above all womankind the\nOlympians have given a heart that cannot be softened. No\nother woman in the world would harden her heart to stand\nthus aloof from her husband, who after much travail and\nsore had come to her, in the twentieth year, to his own\ncountry. Nay come, nurse, strew a bed for me to lie all\nalone, for assuredly her spirit within her is as iron.'\n\nThen wise Penelope answered him again: 'Strange man, I have\nno proud thoughts nor do I think scorn of thee, nor am I\ntoo greatly astonied, but I know right well what manner of\nman thou wert, when thou wentest forth out of Ithaca, on\nthe long-oared galley. But come, Eurycleia, spread for him\nthe good bedstead outside the stablished bridal chamber\nthat he built himself. Thither bring ye forth the good\nbedstead and cast bedding thereon, even fleeces and rugs\nand shining blankets.'\n\nSo she spake and made trial of her lord, but Odysseus in\nsore displeasure spake to his true wife, saying: 'Verily a\nbitter word is this, lady, that thou hast spoken. Who has\nset my bed otherwhere? Hard it would be for one, how\nskilled so ever, unless a god were to come that might\neasily set it in another place, if so he would. But of men\nthere is none living, howsoever strong in his youth, that\ncould lightly upheave it, for a great token is wrought in\nthe fashioning of the bed, and it was I that made it and\nnone other. There was growing a bush of olive, long of\nleaf, and most goodly of growth, within the inner court,\nand the stem as large as a pillar. Round about this I built\nthe chamber, till I had finished it, with stones close set,\nand I roofed it over well and added thereto compacted doors\nfitting well. Next I sheared off all the light wood of the\nlong-leaved olive, and rough-hewed the trunk upwards from\nthe root, and smoothed it around with the adze, well and\nskilfully, and made straight the line thereto and so\nfashioned it into the bedpost, and I bored it all with the\nauger. Beginning from this bedpost, I wrought at the\nbedstead till I had finished it, and made it fair with\ninlaid work of gold and of silver and of ivory. Then I made\nfast therein a bright purple band of oxhide. Even so I\ndeclare to thee this token, and I know not, lady, if the\nbedstead be yet fast in his place, or if some man has cut\naway the stem of the olive tree, and set the bedstead\notherwhere.'\n\nSo he spake, and at once her knees were loosened, and her\nheart melted within her, as she knew the sure tokens that\nOdysseus showed her. Then she fell a weeping, and ran\nstraight toward him and cast her hands about his neck, and\nkissed his head and spake, saying:\n\n'Be not angry with me, Odysseus, for thou wert ever at\nother times the wisest of men. It is the gods that gave us\nsorrow, the gods who begrudged us that we should abide\ntogether and have joy of our youth, and come to the\nthreshold of old age. So now be not wroth with me hereat\nnor full of indignation, because at the first, when I saw\nthee, I did not welcome thee straightway. For always my\nheart within my breast shuddered, for fear lest some man\nshould come and deceive me with his words, for many they be\nthat devise gainful schemes and evil. Nay even Argive\nHelen, daughter of Zeus, would not have lain with a\nstranger, and taken him for a lover, had she known that the\nwarlike sons of the Achaeans would bring her home again to\nher own dear country. Howsoever, it was the god that set\nher upon this shameful deed; nor ever, ere that, did she\nlay up in her heart the thought of this folly, a bitter\nfolly, whence on us too first came sorrow. But now that\nthou hast told all the sure tokens of our bed, which never\nwas seen by mortal man, save by thee and me and one maiden\nonly, the daughter of Actor, that my father gave me ere yet\nI had come hither, she who kept the doors of our strong\nbridal chamber, even now dost thou bend my soul, all\nungentle as it is.'\n\nThus she spake, and in his heart she stirred yet a greater\nlonging to lament, and he wept as he embraced his beloved\nwife and true. And even as when the sight of land is\nwelcome to swimmers, whose well-wrought ship Poseidon hath\nsmitten on the deep, all driven with the wind and swelling\nwaves, and but a remnant hath escaped the grey sea-water\nand swum to the shore, and their bodies are all crusted\nwith the brine, and gladly have they set foot on land and\nescaped an evil end; so welcome to her was the sight of her\nlord, and her white arms she would never quite let go from\nhis neck. And now would the rosy-fingered Dawn have risen\nupon their weeping, but the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, had\nother thoughts. The night she held long in the utmost West,\nand on the other side she stayed the golden-throned Dawn by\nthe stream Oceanus, and suffered her not to harness the\nswift-footed steeds that bear light to men, Lampus and\nPhaethon, the steeds ever young, that bring the morning.\n\nThen at the last, Odysseus of many counsels spake to his\nwife, saying: 'Lady, we have not yet come to the issue of\nall our labours; but still there will be toil unmeasured,\nlong and difficult, that I must needs bring to a full end.\nEven so the spirit of Teiresias foretold to me, on that day\nwhen I went down into the house of Hades, to inquire after\na returning for myself and my company. Wherefore come,\nlady, let us to bed, that forthwith we may take our joy of\nrest beneath the spell of sweet sleep.'\n\nThen wise Penelope answered him: 'Thy bed verily shall be\nready whensoever thy soul desires it, forasmuch as the gods\nhave indeed caused thee to come back to thy stablished home\nand thine own country. But now that thou hast noted it and\nthe god has put it into thy heart, come, tell me of this\nordeal, for methinks the day will come when I must learn\nit, and timely knowledge is no hurt.'\n\nAnd Odysseus of many counsels answered her saying: 'Ah, why\nnow art thou so instant with me to declare it? Yet I will\ntell thee all and hide nought. Howbeit thy heart shall have\nno joy of it, as even I myself have no pleasure therein.\nFor Teiresias bade me fare to many cities of men, carrying\na shapen oar in my hands, till I should come to such men as\nknow not the sea, neither eat meat savoured with salt, nor\nhave they knowledge of ships of purple cheek nor of shapen\noars, which serve for wings to ships. And he told me this\nwith manifest token, which I will not hide from thee. In\nthe day when another wayfarer should meet me and say that I\nhad a winnowing fan on my stout shoulder, even then he bade\nme make fast my shapen oar in the earth, and do goodly\nsacrifice to the lord Poseidon, even with a ram and a bull\nand a boar, the mate of swine, and depart for home, and\noffer holy hecatombs to the deathless gods, that keep the\nwide heaven, to each in order due. And from the sea shall\nmine own death come, the gentlest death that may be, which\nshall end me, foredone, with smooth old age, and the folk\nshall dwell happily around. All this, he said, was to be\nfulfilled.'\n\nThen wise Penelope answered him saying: 'If indeed the gods\nwill bring about for thee a happier old age at the last,\nthen is there hope that thou mayest yet have an escape from\nevil.'\n\nThus they spake one to the other. Meanwhile, Eurynome and\nthe nurse spread the bed with soft coverlets, by the light\nof the torches burning. But when they had busied them and\nspread the good bed, the ancient nurse went back to her\nchamber to lie down, and Eurynome, the bower-maiden, guided\nthem on their way to the couch, with torches in her hands,\nand when she had led them to the bridal-chamber she\ndeparted. And so they came gladly to the rites of their\nbed, as of old. But Telemachus, and the neatherd, and the\nswineherd stayed their feet from dancing, and made the\nwomen to cease, and themselves gat them to rest through the\nshadowy halls.\n\nNow when the twain had taken their fill of sweet love, they\nhad delight in the tales, which they told one to the other.\nThe fair lady spoke of all that she had endured in the\nhalls at the sight of the ruinous throng of wooers, who for\nher sake slew many cattle, kine and goodly sheep; and many\na cask of wine was broached. And in turn, Odysseus, of the\nseed of Zeus, recounted all the griefs he had wrought on\nmen, and all his own travail and sorrow, and she was\ndelighted with the story, and sweet sleep fell not upon her\neyelids till the tale was ended.\n\nHe began by setting forth how he overcame the Cicones, and\nnext arrived at the rich land of the Lotus-eaters, and all\nthat the Cyclops wrought, and what a price he got from him\nfor the good companions that he devoured, and showed no\npity. Then how he came to Aeolus, who received him gladly\nand sent him on his way; but it was not yet ordained that\nhe should reach his own country, for the storm-wind seized\nhim again, and bare him over the teeming seas, making\ngrievous moan. Next how he came to Telepylus of the\nLaestrygonians, who brake his ships and slew all his\ngoodly-greaved companions, and Odysseus only escaped with\nhis black ship. Then he told all the wiles and many\ncontrivances of Circe, and how in a benched ship he fared\nto the dank house of Hades, to seek to the soul of Theban\nTeiresias. There he beheld all those that had been his\ncompanions, and his mother who bore him and nurtured him,\nwhile yet he was a little one. Then how he heard the song\nof the full-voiced Sirens, and came to the Rocks Wandering,\nand to terrible Charybdis, and to Scylla, that never yet\nhave men avoided scatheless. Next he told how his company\nslew the kine of Helios, and how Zeus, that thunders on\nhigh, smote the swift ship with the flaming bolt, and the\ngood crew perished all together, and he alone escaped from\nevil fates. And how he came to the isle Ogygia, and to the\nnymph Calypso, who kept him there in her hollow caves,\nlonging to have him for her lord, and nurtured him and said\nthat she would make him never to know death or age all his\ndays: yet she never won his heart within his breast. Next\nhow with great toil he came to the Phaeacians, who gave him\nall worship heartily, as to a god, and sent him with a ship\nto his own dear country, with gifts of bronze, and of gold,\nand raiment in plenty. This was the last word of the tale,\nwhen sweet sleep came speedily upon him, sleep that loosens\nthe limbs of men, unknitting the cares of his soul.\n\nThen the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, turned to new thoughts.\nWhen she deemed that Odysseus had taken his fill of love\nand sleep, straightway she aroused from out Oceanus the\ngolden-throned Dawn, to bear light to men. Then Odysseus\ngat him from his soft bed, and laid this charge on his\nwife, saying:\n\n'Lady, already have we had enough of labours, thou and I;\nthou, in weeping here, and longing for my troublous return,\nI, while Zeus and the other gods bound me fast in pain,\ndespite my yearning after home, away from mine own country.\nBut now that we both have come to the bed of our desire,\ntake thou thought for the care of my wealth within the\nhalls. But as for the sheep that the proud wooers have\nslain, I myself will lift many more as spoil, and others\nthe Achaeans will give, till they fill all my folds. But\nnow, behold, I go to the well-wooded farm-land, to see my\ngood father, who for love of me has been in sorrow\ncontinually. And this charge I lay on thee, lady, too wise\nthough thou art to need it. Quickly will the bruit go forth\nwith the rising sun, the bruit concerning the wooers, whom\nI slew in the halls. Wherefore ascend with the women thy\nhandmaids into the upper chamber, and sit there and look on\nno man, nor ask any question.'\n\nTherewith he girded on his shoulder his goodly armour, and\nroused Telemachus and the neatherd and the swineherd, and\nbade them all take weapons of war in their hands. So they\nwere not disobedient to his word, but clad themselves in\nmail, and opened the doors and went forth, and Odysseus led\nthe way. And now there was light over all the earth; but\nthem Athene hid in night, and quickly conducted out of the\ntown.\n\n\n\nBook XXIV\n\n  The Ithacans bury the wooers, and sitting in council\n  resolve on revenge. And coming near the house of Laertes,\n  are met by Odysseus, and Laertes with Telemachus and\n  servants, the whole number twelve, and are overcome,\n  and submit.\n\nNow Cyllenian Hermes called forth from the halls the souls\nof the wooers, and he held in his hand his wand that is\nfair and golden, wherewith he lulls the eyes of men, of\nwhomso he will, while others again he even wakens out of\nsleep. Herewith he roused and led the souls who followed\ngibbering. And even as bats flit gibbering in the secret\nplace of a wondrous cave, when one has fallen down from the\ncluster on the rock, where they cling each to each up\naloft, even so the souls gibbered as they fared together,\nand Hermes, the helper, led them down the dank ways. Past\nthe streams of Oceanus and the White Rock, past the gates\nof the Sun they sped and the land of dreams, and soon they\ncame to the mead of asphodel, where dwell the souls, the\nphantoms of men outworn. There they found the soul of\nAchilles son of Peleus, and the souls of Patroclus, and of\nnoble Antilochus, and of Aias, who in face and form was\ngoodliest of all the Danaans after the noble son of Peleus.\n\nSo these were flocking round Achilles, and the spirit of\nAgamemnon, son of Atreus, drew nigh sorrowful; and about\nhim were gathered all the other shades, as many as perished\nwith him in the house of Aegisthus, and met their doom.\nNow the soul of the son of Peleus spake to him first,\nsaying:\n\n'Son of Atreus, verily we deemed that thou above all other\nheroes wast evermore dear to Zeus, whose joy is in the\nthunder, seeing that thou wast lord over warriors, many and\nmighty men, in the land of the Trojans where we Achaeans\nsuffered affliction. But lo, thee too was deadly doom to\nvisit early, {*} the doom that none avoids of all men born.\nAh, would that in the fulness of thy princely honour, thou\nhadst met death and fate in the land of the Trojans! So\nwould all the Achaean host have builded thee a barrow, yea\nand for thy son thou wouldst have won great glory in the\naftertime. But now it has been decreed for thee to perish\nby a most pitiful death.'\n\n{* Reading [Greek]}\n\nThen the soul of the son of Atreus answered, and spake:\n'Happy art thou son of Peleus, godlike Achilles, that didst\ndie in Troy-land far from Argos, and about thee fell\nothers, the best of the sons of Trojans and Achaeans,\nfighting for thy body; but thou in the whirl of dust layest\nmighty and mightily fallen, forgetful of thy chivalry. And\nwe strove the livelong day, nor would we ever have ceased\nfrom the fight, if Zeus had not stayed us with a tempest.\nAnon when we had borne thee to the ships from out of the\nbattle, we laid thee on a bier and washed thy fair flesh\nclean with warm water and unguents, and around thee the\nDanaans shed many a hot tear and shore their hair. And\nforth from the sea came thy mother with the deathless\nmaidens of the waters, when they heard the tidings; and a\nwonderful wailing rose over the deep, and trembling fell on\nthe limbs of all the Achaeans. Yea, and they would have\nsprung up and departed to the hollow ships, had not one\nheld them back that knew much lore from of old, Nestor,\nwhose counsel proved heretofore the best. Out of his good\nwill he made harangue, and spake among them:\n\n'\"Hold, ye Argives, flee not, young lords of the Achaeans.\nLo, his mother from the sea is she that comes, with the\ndeathless maidens of the waters, to behold the face of her\ndead son.\"\n\n'So he spake, and the high-hearted Achaeans ceased from\ntheir flight. Then round thee stood the daughters of the\nancient one of the sea, holding a pitiful lament, and they\nclad thee about in raiment incorruptible. And all the nine\nMuses one to the other replying with sweet voices began the\ndirge; there thou wouldest not have seen an Argive but\nwept, so mightily rose up the clear chant. Thus for\nseventeen days and nights continually did we all bewail\nthee, immortal gods and mortal men. On the eighteenth day\nwe gave thy body to the flames, and many well-fatted sheep\nwe slew around thee, and kine of shambling gait. So thou\nwert burned in the garments of the gods, and in much\nunguents and in sweet honey, and many heroes of the\nAchaeans moved mail-clad around the pyre when thou wast\nburning, both footmen and horse, and great was the noise\nthat arose. But when the flame of Hephaestus had utterly\nabolished thee, lo, in the morning we gathered together thy\nwhite bones, Achilles, and bestowed them in unmixed wine\nand in unguents. Thy mother gave a twy-handled golden urn,\nand said that it was the gift of Dionysus, and the\nworkmanship of renowned Hephaestus. Therein lie thy white\nbones, great Achilles, and mingled therewith the bones of\nPatroclus son of Menoetias, that is dead, but apart is the\ndust of Antilochus, whom thou didst honour above all thy\nother companions, after Patroclus that was dead. Then over\nthem did we pile a great and goodly tomb, we the holy host\nof Argive warriors, high on a jutting headland over wide\nHellespont, that it might be far seen from off the sea by\nmen that now are, and by those that shall be hereafter.\nThen thy mother asked the gods for glorious prizes in the\ngames, and set them in the midst of the lists for the\nchampions of the Achaeans. In days past thou hast been at\nthe funeral games of many a hero, whenso, after some king's\ndeath, the young men gird themselves and make them ready\nfor the meed of victory; but couldst thou have seen these\ngifts thou wouldst most have marvelled in spirit, such\nglorious prizes did the goddess set there to honour thee,\neven Thetis, the silver-footed; for very dear wert thou to\nthe gods. Thus not even in death hast thou lost thy name,\nbut to thee shall be a fair renown for ever among all men,\nAchilles. But what joy have I now herein, that I have wound\nup the clew of war, for on my return Zeus devised for me an\nevil end at the hands of Aegisthus and my wife accursed?'\n\nSo they spake one to the other. And nigh them came the\nMessenger, the slayer of Argos, leading down the ghosts of\nthe wooers by Odysseus slain, and the two heroes were\namazed at the sight and went straight toward them. And the\nsoul of Agamemnon, son of Atreus, knew the dear son of\nMelaneus, renowned Amphimedon, who had been his host,\nhaving his dwelling in Ithaca. The soul of the son of\nAtreus spake to him first, saying:\n\n'Amphimedon, what hath befallen you, that ye have come\nbeneath the darkness of earth, all of you picked men and of\nlike age? it is even as though one should choose out and\ngather together the best warriors in a city. Did Poseidon\nsmite you in your ships and rouse up contrary winds and the\nlong waves? Or did unfriendly men, perchance, do you hurt\nupon the land as ye were cutting off their oxen and fair\nflocks of sheep, or while they fought to defend their city\nand the women thereof? Answer and tell me, for I avow me a\nfriend of thy house. Rememberest thou not the day when I\ncame to your house in Ithaca with godlike Menelaus, to urge\nOdysseus to follow with me to Ilios on the decked ships?\nAnd it was a full month ere we had sailed all across the\nwide sea, for scarce could we win to our cause Odysseus,\nwaster of cities.'\n\nThen the ghost of Amphimedon answered him, and spake: 'Most\nfamous son of Atreus, king of men, Agamemnon, I remember\nall these things, O fosterling of Zeus, as thou declarest\nthem, and I in turn will tell thee all the tale well and\ntruly, even our death and evil end, on what wise it befell.\nWe wooed the wife of Odysseus that was long afar, and she\nneither refused the hated bridal nor was minded to make an\nend, devising for us death and black fate. Also this other\nwile she contrived in her heart. She set up in her halls a\nmighty web, fine of woof and very wide, whereat she would\nweave, and anon she spake among us:\n\n'\"Ye princely youths, my wooers, now that goodly Odysseus\nis dead, do ye abide patiently, how eager soever to speed\non this marriage of mine, till I finish the robe. I would\nnot that the threads perish to no avail, even this shroud\nfor the hero Laertes, against the day when the ruinous doom\nshall bring him low, of death that lays men at their\nlength. So shall none of the Achaean women in the land\ncount it blame in me, as well might be, were he to lie\nwithout a winding-sheet, a man that had gotten great\npossessions.\"\n\n'So spake she, and our high hearts consented thereto. So\nthen in the daytime she would weave the mighty web, and in\nthe night unravel the same, when she had let place the\ntorches by her. Thus for the space of three years she hid\nthe thing by guile and won the minds of the Achaeans; but\nwhen the fourth year arrived and the seasons came round, as\nthe months waned and many days were accomplished, then it\nwas that one of her women who knew all declared it, and we\nfound her unravelling the splendid web. Thus she finished\nit perforce and sore against her will. Now when she brought\nthe robe to light, after she had woven the great web and\nwashed it, and it shone even as sun or moon, at that very\nhour some evil god led Odysseus, I know not whence, to the\nupland farm, where the swineherd abode in his dwelling.\nThither too came the dear son of divine Odysseus out of\nsandy Pylos, voyaging with his black ship. These twain\nframed an evil death for the wooers, and came to the\nrenowned town. Odysseus verily came the later, and\nTelemachus went before and led the way. Now the swineherd\nbrought Odysseus clad in vile raiment, in the likeness of a\nbeggar, a wretched man and an old, leaning on a staff, and\nbehold, he was clad about in sorry raiment. And none of us,\nnot even the elders, could know him for that he was, on\nthis his sudden appearing, but with evil words we assailed\nhim and hurled things at him. Yet for a while he hardened\nhis heart to endure both the hurlings and the evil words in\nhis own halls; but at the last, when the spirit of Zeus,\nlord of the aegis, aroused him, by the help of Telemachus\nhe took up all the goodly weapons, and laid them by in the\ninner chamber and drew the bolts. Next in his great craft\nhe bade his wife to offer his bow and store of grey iron to\nthe wooers to be the weapons of our contest, luckless that\nwe were, and the beginning of death. Now not one of us\ncould stretch the string of the strong bow; far short we\nfell of that might. But when the great bow came to the\nhands of Odysseus, then we all clamoured and forbade to\ngive him the bow, how much soever he might speak, but\nTelemachus alone was instant with him and commanded him to\ntake it. Then he took the bow into his hands, the steadfast\ngoodly Odysseus, and lightly he strung it, and sent the\narrow through the iron. Then straight he went to the\nthreshold and there took his stand, and poured forth the\nswift arrows, glancing terribly around, and smote the king\nAntinous. Thereafter on the others he let fly his bolts,\nwinged for death, with straight aim, and the wooers fell\nthick one upon another. Then was it known how that some god\nwas their helper, for pressing on as their passion drave\nthem, they slew the men right and left through the halls,\nand thence there arose a hideous moaning, as heads were\nsmitten and the floor all ran with blood. So we perished,\nAgamemnon, and even now our bodies lie uncared for in the\nhalls of Odysseus, for the friends of each one at home as\nyet know nought, even they who might wash the black-clotted\nblood out of our wounds, and lay out the bodies and wail\nthe dirge, for that is the due of the dead.'\n\nThen the ghost of the son of Atreus answered him: 'Ah,\nhappy son of Laertes, Odysseus of many devices, yea, for a\nwife most excellent hast thou gotten, so good was the\nwisdom of constant Penelope, daughter of Icarius, that was\nduly mindful of Odysseus, her wedded lord. Wherefore the\nfame of her virtue shall never perish, but the immortals\nwill make a gracious song in the ears of men on earth to\nthe fame of constant Penelope. In far other wise did the\ndaughter of Tyndareus devise ill deeds, and slay her wedded\nlord, and hateful shall the song of her be among men, and\nan evil repute hath she brought upon all womankind, even on\nthe upright.'\n\nEven so these twain spake one to the other, standing in the\nhouse of Hades, beneath the secret places of the earth.\n\nNow when those others had gone down from the city, quickly\nthey came to the rich and well-ordered farm land of\nLaertes, that he had won for himself of old, as the prize\nof great toil in war. There was his house, and all about it\nran the huts wherein the thralls were wont to eat and dwell\nand sleep, bondsmen that worked his will. And in the house\nthere was an old Sicilian woman, who diligently cared for\nthe old man, in the upland far from the city. There\nOdysseus spake to his thralls and to his son, saying:\n\n'Do ye now get you within the well-builded house, and\nquickly sacrifice the best of the swine for the midday\nmeal, but I will make trial of my father, whether he will\nknow me again and be aware of me when he sees me, or know\nme not, so long have I been away,'\n\nTherewith he gave the thralls his weapons of war. Then they\nwent speedily to the house, while Odysseus drew near to the\nfruitful vineyard to make trial of his father. Now he found\nnot Dolius there, as he went down into the great garden,\nnor any of the thralls nor of their sons. It chanced that\nthey had all gone to gather stones for a garden fence, and\nthe old man at their head. So he found his father alone in\nthe terraced vineyard, digging about a plant. He was\nclothed in a filthy doublet, patched and unseemly, with\nclouted leggings of oxhide bound about his legs, against\nthe scratches of the thorns, and long sleeves over his\nhands by reason of the brambles, and on his head he wore a\ngoatskin cap, and so he nursed his sorrow. Now when the\nsteadfast goodly Odysseus saw his father thus wasted with\nage and in great grief of heart, he stood still beneath a\ntall pear tree and let fall a tear. Then he communed with\nhis heart and soul, whether he should fall on his father's\nneck and kiss him, and tell him all, how he had returned\nand come to his own country, or whether he should first\nquestion him and prove him in every word. And as he thought\nwithin himself, this seemed to him the better way, namely,\nfirst to prove his father and speak to him sharply. So with\nthis intent the goodly Odysseus went up to him. Now he was\nholding his head down and kept digging about the plant,\nwhile his renowned son stood by him and spake, saying:\n\n'Old man, thou hast no lack of skill in tending a garden;\nlo, thou carest well for all, {*} nor is there aught\nwhatsoever, either plant or fig-tree, or vine, yea, or\nolive, or pear, or garden-bed in all the close, that is not\nwell seen to. Yet another thing will I tell thee and lay\nnot up wrath thereat in thy heart. Thyself art scarce so\nwell cared for, but a pitiful old age is on thee, and\nwithal thou art withered and unkempt, and clad unseemly. It\ncannot be to punish thy sloth that thy master cares not for\nthee; there shows nothing of the slave about thy face and\nstature, for thou art like a kingly man, even like one who\nshould lie soft, when he has washed and eaten well, as is\nthe manner of the aged. But come declare me this and\nplainly tell it all. Whose thrall art thou, and whose\ngarden dost thou tend? Tell me moreover truly, that I may\nsurely know, if it be indeed to Ithaca that I am now come,\nas one yonder told me who met with me but now on the way\nhither. He was but of little understanding, for he deigned\nnot to tell me all nor to heed my saying, when I questioned\nhim concerning my friend, whether indeed he is yet alive or\nis even now dead and within the house of Hades. For I will\ndeclare it and do thou mark and listen: once did I kindly\nentreat a man in mine own dear country, who came to our\nhome, and never yet has any mortal been dearer of all the\nstrangers that have drawn to my house from afar. He\ndeclared him to be by lineage from out of Ithaca, and said\nthat his own father was Laertes son of Arceisius. So I led\nhim to our halls and gave him good entertainment, with all\nloving-kindness, out of the plenty that was within. Such\ngifts too I gave him as are the due of guests; of well\nwrought gold I gave him seven talents, and a mixing bowl of\nflowered work, all of silver, and twelve cloaks of single\nfold, and as many coverlets, and as many goodly mantles and\ndoublets to boot, and besides all these, four women skilled\nin all fair works and most comely, the women of his\nchoice.'\n\n{* Supplying [Greek] from the preceding clause as object to\n[Greek]. Other constructions are possible.}\n\nThen his father answered him, weeping: 'Stranger, thou art\nverily come to that country whereof thou askest, but\noutrageous men and froward hold it. And these thy gifts,\nthy countless gifts, thou didst bestow in vain. For if thou\nhadst found that man yet living in the land of Ithaca he\nwould have sent thee on thy way with good return of thy\npresents, and with all hospitality, as is due to the man\nthat begins the kindness. But come, declare me this and\nplainly tell me all; how many years are passed since thou\ndidst entertain him, thy guest ill-fated and my child,--if\never such an one there was,--hapless man, whom far from his\nfriends and his country's soil, the fishes, it may be, have\ndevoured in the deep sea, or on the shore he has fallen the\nprey of birds and beasts. His mother wept not over him nor\nclad him for burial, nor his father, we that begat him. Nor\ndid his bride, whom men sought with rich gifts, the\nconstant Penelope, bewail her lord upon the bier, as was\nmeet, nor closed his eyes, as is the due of the departed.\nMoreover, tell me this truly, that I may surely know, who\nart thou and whence of the sons of men? Where is thy city\nand where are they that begat thee? Where now is thy swift\nship moored, that brought thee thither with thy godlike\ncompany? Hast thou come as a passenger on another's ship,\nwhile they set thee ashore and went away?\n\nThen Odysseus of many counsels answered him, saying: 'Yea\nnow, I will tell thee all most plainly. From out of Alybas\nI come, where I dwell in a house renowned, and am the son\nof Apheidas the son of Polypemon, the prince, and my own\nname is Eperitus. But some god drave me wandering hither\nfrom Sicania against my will, and yonder my ship is moored\ntoward the upland away from the city. But for Odysseus,\nthis is now the fifth year since he went thence and\ndeparted out of my country. Ill-fated was he, and yet he\nhad birds of good omen when he fared away, birds on the\nright; wherefore I sped him gladly on his road, and gladly\nhe departed, and the heart of us twain hoped yet to meet in\nfriendship on a day and to give splendid gifts.'\n\nSo he spake, and on the old man fell a black cloud of\nsorrow. With both his hands he clutched the dust and ashes\nand showered them on his gray head, with ceaseless\ngroaning. Then the heart of Odysseus was moved, and up\nthrough his nostrils throbbed anon the keen sting of sorrow\nat the sight of his dear father. And he sprang towards him\nand fell on his neck and kissed him, saying:\n\n'Behold, I here, even I, my father, am the man of whom thou\naskest; in the twentieth year am I come to mine own\ncountry. But stay thy weeping and tearful lamentation, for\nI will tell thee all clearly, though great need there is of\nhaste. I have slain the wooers in our halls and avenged\ntheir bitter scorn and evil deeds.'\n\nThen Laertes answered him and spake, saying: 'If thou art\nindeed Odysseus, mine own child, that art come hither, show\nme now a manifest token, that I may be assured.'\n\nThen Odysseus of many counsels answered him saying: 'Look\nfirst on this scar and consider it, that the boar dealt me\nwith his white tusk on Parnassus, whither I had gone, and\nthou didst send me forth, thou and my lady mother, to\nAutolycus my mother's father, to get the gifts which when\nhe came hither he promised and covenanted to give me. But\ncome, and I will even tell thee the trees through all the\nterraced garden, which thou gavest me once for mine own,\nand I was begging of thee this and that, being but a little\nchild, and following thee through the garden. Through these\nvery trees we were going, and thou didst tell me the names\nof each of them. Pear-trees thirteen thou gavest me and ten\napple-trees and figs two-score, and, as we went, thou didst\nname the fifty rows of vines thou wouldest give me, whereof\neach one ripened at divers times, with all manner of\nclusters on their boughs, when the seasons of Zeus wrought\nmightily on them from on high.'\n\nSo he spake, and straightway his knees were loosened, and\nhis heart melted within him, as he knew the sure tokens\nthat Odysseus showed him. About his dear son he cast his\narms, and the steadfast goodly Odysseus caught him fainting\nto his breast. Now when he had got breath and his spirit\ncame to him again, once more he answered and spake, saying:\n\n'Father Zeus, verily ye gods yet bear sway on high Olympus,\nif indeed the wooers have paid for their infatuate pride!\nBut now my heart is terribly afraid, lest straightway all\nthe men of Ithaca come up against us here, and haste to\nsend messengers everywhere to the cities of the\nCephallenians.'\n\nThen Odysseus of many counsels answered him saying: 'Take\ncourage, and let not thy heart be careful about these\nmatters. But come, let us go to the house that lies near\nthe garden, for thither I sent forward Telemachus and the\nneatherd and the swineherd to get ready the meal as\nspeedily as may be.'\n\nAfter these words the twain set out to the goodly halls.\nNow when they had come to the fair-lying house, they found\nTelemachus and the neatherd and the swineherd carving much\nflesh, and mixing the dark wine. Meanwhile the Sicilian\nhandmaid bathed high-hearted Laertes in his house, and\nanointed him with olive-oil, and cast a fair mantle about\nhim. Then Athene drew nigh, and made greater the limbs of\nthe shepherd of the people, taller she made him than before\nand mightier to behold. Then he went forth from the bath,\nand his dear son marvelled at him, beholding him like to\nthe deathless gods in presence. And uttering his voice he\nspake to him winged words:\n\n'Father, surely one of the gods that are from everlasting\nhath made thee goodlier and greater to behold.'\n\nThen wise Laertes answered him, saying: 'Ah, would to\nfather Zeus and Athene and Apollo, that such as I was when\nI took Nericus, the stablished castle on the foreland of\nthe continent, being then the prince of the Cephallenians,\nwould that in such might, and with mail about my shoulders,\nI had stood to aid thee yesterday in our house, and to beat\nback the wooers; so should I have loosened the knees of\nmany an one of them in the halls, and thou shouldest have\nbeen gladdened in thine inmost heart!'\n\nSo they spake each with the other. But when the others had\nceased from their task and made ready the feast, they sat\ndown all orderly on chairs and on high seats. Then they\nbegan to put forth their hands on the meat, and the old man\nDolius drew nigh, and the old man's sons withal came tired\nfrom their labour in the fields, for their mother, the aged\nSicilian woman, had gone forth and called them, she that\nsaw to their living and diligently cared for the old man,\nnow that old age had laid hold on him. So soon as they\nlooked on Odysseus and took knowledge of him, they stood\nstill in the halls in great amazement. But Odysseus\naddressed them in gentle words, saying:\n\n'Old man, sit down to meat and do ye forget your\nmarvelling, for long have we been eager to put forth our\nhands on the food, as we abode in the hall alway expecting\nyour coming.'\n\nSo he spake, and Dolius ran straight toward him stretching\nforth both his hands, and he grasped the hand of Odysseus\nand kissed it on the wrist, and uttering his voice spake to\nhim winged words:\n\n'Beloved, forasmuch as thou hast come back to us who sore\ndesired thee, and no longer thought to see thee, and the\ngods have led thee home again;--hail to thee and welcome\nmanifold, and may the gods give thee all good fortune!\nMoreover tell me this truly, that I may be assured, whether\nwise Penelope yet knows well that thou hast come back\nhither, or whether we shall dispatch a messenger.'\n\nThen Odysseus of many counsels answered saying: 'Old man,\nalready she knows all; what need to busy thyself herewith?'\n\nThereon the other sat him down again on his polished\nsettle. And in like wise the sons of Dolius gathered about\nthe renowned Odysseus, and greeted him well and clasped his\nhands, and then sat down all orderly by Dolius their\nfather.\n\nSo they were busy with the meal in the halls. Now Rumour\nthe messenger went swiftly all about the city, telling the\ntale of the dire death and fate of the wooers. And the\npeople heard it, and all at once gathered together from\nevery side with sighing and groaning before the house of\nOdysseus. And each brought forth his dead from the halls,\nand buried them; but those that came out of other cities\nthey placed on swift ships and sent with fisherfolk, each\nto be carried to his own home. As for them they all fared\ntogether to the assembly-place, in sorrow of heart. When\nthey were all gathered and come together, Eupeithes arose\nand spake among them, for a comfortless grief lay heavy on\nhis heart for his son Antinous, the first man that goodly\nOdysseus had slain. Weeping for him he made harangue and\nspake among them:\n\n'Friends, a great deed truly hath this man devised against\nthe Achaeans. Some with his ships he led away, many men,\nand noble, and his hollow ships hath he lost, and utterly\nlost of his company, and others again, and those far the\nbest of the Cephallenians he hath slain on his coming home.\nUp now, before ever he gets him swiftly either to Pylos or\nto fair Elis, where the Epeians bear sway, let us go forth;\nelse even hereafter shall we have shame of face for ever.\nFor a scorn this is even for the ears of men unborn to\nhear, if we avenge not ourselves on the slayers of our sons\nand of our brethren. Life would no more be sweet to me, but\nrather would I die straightway and be with the departed.\nUp, let us be going, lest these fellows be beforehand with\nus and get them over the sea.'\n\nThus he spake weeping, and pity fell on all the Achaeans.\nThen came near to them Medon and the divine minstrel, forth\nfrom the halls of Odysseus, for that sleep had let them go.\nThey stood in the midst of the gathering, and amazement\nseized every man. Then Medon, wise of heart, spake among\nthem, saying:\n\n'Hearken to me now, ye men of Ithaca, for surely Odysseus\nplanned not these deeds without the will of the gods. Nay I\nmyself beheld a god immortal, who stood hard by Odysseus,\nin the perfect semblance of Mentor; now as a deathless god\nwas he manifest in front of Odysseus, cheering him, and yet\nagain scaring the wooers he stormed through the hall, and\nthey fell thick one on another.'\n\nThus he spake, and pale fear gat hold of the limbs of all.\nThen the old man, the lord Halitherses, spake among them,\nthe son of Mastor, for he alone saw before and after. Out\nof his good will be made harangue and spake among them,\nsaying:\n\n'Hearken to me now, ye men of Ithaca, to the word that I\nwill say. Through your own cowardice, my friends, have\nthese deeds come to pass. For ye obeyed not me, nor Mentor,\nthe shepherd of the people, to make your sons cease from\ntheir foolish ways. A great villainy they wrought in their\nevil infatuation, wasting the wealth and holding in no\nregard the wife of a prince, while they deemed that he\nwould never more come home. And now let things be on this\nwise, and obey my counsel. Let us not go forth against him,\nlest haply some may find a bane of their own bringing.'\n\nSo he spake, but they leapt up with a great cry, the more\npart of them, while the rest abode there together; for his\ncounsel was not to the mind of the more part, but they gave\near to Eupeithes, and swiftly thereafter they rushed for\ntheir armour. So when they had arrayed them in shining\nmail, they assembled together in front of the spacious\ntown. And Eupeithes led them in his witlessness, for he\nthought to avenge the slaying of his son, yet himself was\nnever to return, but then and there to meet his doom.\n\nNow Athene spake to Zeus, the son of Cronos, saying: 'O\nFather, our father Cronides, throned in the highest, answer\nand tell me what is now the hidden counsel of thy heart?\nWilt thou yet further rouse up evil war and the terrible\ndin of battle, or art thou minded to set them at one again\nin friendship?'\n\nThen Zeus, the gatherer of the clouds, answered her saying:\n'My child, why dost thou thus straitly question me, and ask\nme this? Nay didst not thou thyself devise this very\nthought, namely, that Odysseus should indeed take vengeance\non these men at his coming? Do as thou wilt, but I will\ntell thee of the better way. Now that goodly Odysseus hath\nwreaked vengeance on the wooers, let them make a firm\ncovenant together with sacrifice, and let him be king all\nhis days, and let us bring about oblivion of the slaying of\ntheir children and their brethren; so may both sides love\none another as of old, and let peace and wealth abundant be\ntheir portion.'\n\nTherewith he roused Athene to yet greater eagerness, and\nfrom the peaks of Olympus she came glancing down.\n\nNow when they had put from them the desire of honey-sweet\nfood, the steadfast goodly Odysseus began to speak among\nthem, saying:\n\n'Let one go forth and see, lest the people be already\ndrawing near against us.'\n\nSo he spake, and the son of Dolius went forth at his\nbidding, and stood on the outer threshold and saw them all\nclose at hand. Then straightway he spake to Odysseus winged\nwords:\n\n'Here they be, close upon us! Quick, let us to arms!'\n\nThereon they rose up and arrayed them in their harness,\nOdysseus and his men being four, and the six sons of\nDolius, and likewise Laertes and Dolius did on their\narmour, grey-headed as they were, warriors through stress\nof need. Now when they had clad them in shining mail, they\nopened the gates and went forth and Odysseus led them.\n\nThen Athene, daughter of Zeus, drew near them in the\nlikeness of Mentor, in fashion and in voice. And the\nsteadfast goodly Odysseus beheld her and was glad, and\nstraightway he spake to Telemachus his dear son:\n\n'Telemachus, soon shalt thou learn this, when thou thyself\nart got to the place of the battle where the best men try\nthe issue,--namely, not to bring shame on thy father's\nhouse, on us who in time past have been eminent for might\nand hardihood over all the world.'\n\nThen wise Telemachus answered him, saying: 'Thou shalt see\nme, if thou wilt, dear father, in this my mood no whit\ndisgracing thy line, according to thy word.'\n\nSo spake he, and Laertes was glad and spake, saying: 'What\na day has dawned for me, kind gods; yea, a glad man am I!\nMy son and my son's son are vying with one another in\nvalour.'\n\nThen grey-eyed Athene stood beside Laertes, and spake to\nhim: 'O son of Arceisius that art far the dearest of all my\nfriends, pray first to the grey-eyed maid and to father\nZeus, then swing thy long spear aloft and hurl its\nstraightway.'\n\nTherewith Pallas Athene breathed into him great strength.\nThen he prayed to the daughter of mighty Zeus, and\nstraightway swung his long spear aloft and hurled it, and\nsmote Eupeithes through his casque with the cheek-piece of\nbronze. The armour kept not out the spear that went clean\nthrough, and he fell with a crash, and his arms rattled\nabout his body. Then Odysseus and his renowned son fell on\nthe fore-fighters, and smote them with swords and\ntwo-headed spears. And now would they have slain them all\nand cut off their return, had not Athene called aloud, the\ndaughter of Zeus lord of the aegis, and stayed all the host\nof the enemy, saying:\n\n'Hold your hands from fierce fighting, ye men of Ithaca,\nthat so ye may be parted quickly, without bloodshed.'\n\nSo spake Athene, and pale fear gat hold of them all. The\narms flew from their hands in their terror and fell all\nupon the ground, as the goddess uttered her voice. To the\ncity they turned their steps, as men fain of life, and the\nsteadfast goodly Odysseus with a terrible cry gathered\nhimself together and hurled in on them, like an eagle of\nlofty flight. Then in that hour the son of Cronos cast\nforth a flaming bolt, and it fell at the feet of the\ngrey-eyed goddess, the daughter of the mighty Sire. Then\ngrey-eyed Athene spake to Odysseus, saying:\n\n'Son of Laertes, of the seed of Zeus, Odysseus of many\ndevices, refrain thee now and stay the strife of\neven-handed war, lest perchance the son of Cronos be angry\nwith thee, even Zeus of the far-borne voice.'\n\nSo spake Athene, and he obeyed and was glad at heart. And\nthereafter Pallas Athene set a covenant between them with\nsacrifice, she, the daughter of Zeus lord of the aegis, in\nthe likeness of Mentor, both in fashion and in voice.\n\n\n Homer, thy song men liken to the sea,\n     With every note of music in his tone,\n     With tides that wash the dim dominion\n Of Hades, and light waves that laugh in glee\n Around the isles enchanted: nay, to me\n     Thy verse seems as the River of source unknown\n     That glasses Egypt's temples overthrown,\n In his sky-nurtur'd stream, eternally.\n No wiser we than men of heretofore\n     To find thy mystic fountains guarded fast;\n Enough--thy flood makes green our human shore\n     As Nilus, Egypt, rolling down his vast,\n His fertile waters, murmuring evermore\n     Of gods dethroned, and empires of the Past.\n\nA. L.\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"21671":"\n\n\nNote: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this\n      file which includes the original illustration.\n      See 21671-h.htm or 21671-h.zip:\n      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/1/6/7/21671/21671-h/21671-h.htm)\n      or\n      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/1/6/7/21671/21671-h.zip)\n\n\n\n\n\nARMY BOYS ON THE FIRING LINE\n\nOr\n\nHolding Back the German Drive\n\nby\n\nHOMER RANDALL\n\nAuthor of \"Army Boys in France,\" \"Army Boys in the French Trenches,\"\netc.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[Frontispiece: \"America!\" answered Frank, and hurled his revolver full\nin the sentry's face.]\n\n\n\nThe World Syndicate Publishing Co.\nCleveland, O. ------ New York, N. Y.\n\nCopyright, 1919, by\nGeorge Sully & Company\n\n\n\n\nARMY BOYS ON THE FIRING LINE\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\nCHAPTER\n\n     I  FIGHTING AGAINST ODDS\n    II  A PERILOUS JOURNEY\n   III  AMONG THE MISSING\n    IV  CAPTURED OR DEAD?\n     V  NICK RABIG TURNS UP\n    VI  THE COMING DRIVE\n   VII  IN THE HANDS OF THE HUNS\n  VIII  FRYING-PAN TO FIRE\n    IX  THE CONFESSION\n     X  A MIDNIGHT SWIM\n    XI  GALLANT WORK\n   XII  THE DRUGGED DETACHMENT\n  XIII  A DEEPENING MYSTERY\n   XIV  THE STORM OF WAR\n    XV  FURRY RESCUERS\n   XVI  CLOSING THE GAP\n  XVII  THE MINED BRIDGE\n XVIII  A DESPERATE VENTURE\n   XIX  THE JAWS OF DEATH\n    XX  A TRAITOR UNMASKED\n   XXI  CROSSING THE LINE\n  XXII  A JOYOUS REUNION\n XXIII  CUTTING THEIR WAY OUT\n  XXIV  WOUNDS AND TORTURE\n   XXV  DRIVEN BACK\n\n\n\n\nARMY BOYS ON THE FIRING LINE\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nFIGHTING AGAINST ODDS\n\n\"The Huns are coming!\" exclaimed Frank Sheldon, as from the American\nfront line his keen, gray eyes searched a broad belt of woodland three\nhundred yards away.\n\n\"Bad habit they have,\" drawled his special chum and comrade, Bart\nRaymond, running his finger along the edge of his bayonet.  \"We'll have\nto try to cure them of it.\"\n\n\"I think they're getting over it to some extent,\" remarked Tom\nBradford, who stood at Frank's left.  \"The last time they tried to rush\nus they went back in a bigger hurry than they came.  What we did to\nthem was a shame!\"\n\n\"They certainly left a lot of dead men hanging on our wires,\" put in\nBilly Waldon.  \"But there are plenty of them ready to take their\nplaces, and the Kaiser's willing to fight to the last man, though you\nnotice he keeps his own precious skin out of the line of fire.\"\n\n\"I think Frank's getting us on a string,\" chaffed Tom, when some\nminutes had passed in grim waiting.  \"I don't see any Heinies.  Trot\nout your Huns, Frank, and let's have a look at them.\"\n\n\"You'll see them soon enough,\" retorted Frank.  \"I saw the flash of\nbayonets in that fringe of woods and I'm sure they're massing.\"\n\n\"Do you remember that little thrilly feeling that used to go up and\ndown our spines when we were green at the war game?\" grinned Bart.  \"I\nfeel it now to some extent, but nothing to what I did at first.\"\n\n\"That's because we've tackled the boches and taken their measure,\"\ncommented Frank.  \"We know now that man for man when conditions are\nequal we can lick them.  The world had been so fed up with stories\nabout Prussian discipline that it seemed as though the Germans must be\nsupermen.  But a bullet or a bayonet can get them just like any one\nelse, and when it comes to close quarters, the American eagle can pick\nthe pin feathers out of any Prussian bird.\"\n\n\"It isn't but what they're brave enough,\" remarked Bart.  \"When they're\nfighting in heavy masses they're a tough proposition.  But they've got\nto feel somebody else's shoulder against theirs to be at their best.\nTurn a hundred of them loose in a ten-acre lot against the same number\nof Americans, where each man had to pick out his own opponent, and see\nwhat would happen to them.\"\n\n\"They wouldn't be in it,\" agreed Tom with conviction.  \"Put a Heinie in\na strange position where he has to think quickly without an officer to\nhelp him, and he's up in the air.  Take his map away from him and he's\nlost.\"\n\n\"Even when you talk of his mass fighting being so good, perhaps you're\ngiving him too much credit,\" said Billy grudgingly.  \"He goes into\nbattle with his officer's revolver trained on him, and he knows that if\nhe flinches he'll be shot.  He's got a chance if he goes ahead and no\nchance at all if he doesn't.  And you remember at the battle of the\nSomme how the gun crews were chained to their cannon so that they\ncouldn't run away.  You'll notice that we don't use chains or revolvers\nfor that purpose in the American army.\"\n\n\"I heard Captain Baker tell the colonel the other day that what he\nneeded was a brake instead of a spur in handling his bunch of\ndoughboys,\" chuckled Tom.\n\n\"Quit your chinning,\" commanded Frank suddenly.  \"Here they come!  Now\nwill you boobs tell me that my eyesight's no good?\"\n\n\"You win,\" agreed Bart, as a sharp word of command came down the line.\n\"They're coming for fair!\"\n\nFrom the thick woods beyond, a huge force of enemy troops were coming,\nmarching shoulder to shoulder as stiffly and precisely as though they\nwere on parade or were passing in review before the Kaiser himself.\n\nTheir artillery, which had been keeping up a steady fire, now redoubled\nin volume, and a protecting barrage was laid down, in the shelter of\nwhich they steadily advanced.\n\nBut now the American guns opened up with a roar that shook the ground.\nThe guns were served with the precision that has made American gunnery\nthe envy of the world, and great gaps were torn in the dense masses of\nthe enemy troops.  But the lanes filled up instantly, and with hardly a\nmoment of faltering the advance continued.\n\nAs the troops drew nearer, it could be seen that all the men were clad\nin brand-new uniforms as though for a festive occasion.\n\n\"Getting ready to celebrate in advance,\" murmured Bart.  \"They must\nfeel pretty sure of themselves.\"\n\n\"Just Prussian bluff,\" growled Tom.  \"They think it will brace up\nFritz, and that we'll think it's all over but the shouting and lighting\nout for home.\"\n\n\"They'll have to take those uniforms to the tailors when we get through\nwith them,\" muttered Billy, as he took a tighter grasp on the stock of\nhis rifle.\n\n\"They'll do well enough for shrouds,\" added Frank grimly.\n\nThe advancing troops were now not more than a hundred yards away, and\nthough their losses had been severe there were so many left that it was\nevident it would come to a hand-to-hand fight.  The enemy cannon had\ntorn big rents in the barbed wire entanglements that stretched before\nthe American position so that it would be possible to get through.\n\nNow the American machine guns began sputtering, and their shrill treble\nblended with the deep bass of the heavier field guns.  A moment more,\nand from the rifles of the American infantry a withering blast of flame\nsprang out and the enemy went down in heaps.\n\nThere were signs of confusion in the German ranks and the American\ncommander gave the signal to charge.\n\nOut from their shallow trenches leaped the Army Boys, the light of\nbattle in their eyes, and fell like an avalanche upon the advancing\nhosts.\n\nIn an instant there was a welter of fearful fighting.  The force of the\nenemy had been largely spent by their march over that field of death,\nwhile the Americans were fresh and their vigor unimpaired.\n\nFor a brief space the Germans were pressed back, but they had\nconcentrated their forces on that section of the line so that they\noutnumbered the Americans by two or three to one, and little by little,\nby sheer weight, they pressed their opponents back.  And behind those\nimmediately engaged, fresh forces could be seen emerging from the woods\nand coming to the help of their comrades.\n\nBut Americans never show to such advantage as when they are fighting\nagainst odds, and the battle line swayed back and forth, first one and\nthen the other side seeming to have a temporary advantage.\n\nFrank and his comrades were in the very thick of the fight, shooting,\nstabbing, using now the bayonet and again the butts of their rifles as\nthe occasion demanded.  There was a red mist before their eyes and\ntheir blood was pounding in their veins and drumming in their ears from\ntheir tremendous exertions.\n\nSlowly but surely, the fierce determination of the Americans began to\ntell.  The solid enemy front was broken up into groups, and the gaps\ngrew wider and wider as their men were pushed back further and further\nover the ground that lay between the lines.  In the center the\nAmericans were winning.\n\nBut suddenly a new danger threatened.  A fresh body of German troops\nhad worked its way to a position where it could attack the American\nright flank, which was but thinly held because for the time being the\nbulk of the forces were engaged in pressing the advantage gained at the\ncenter.  If the enemy could turn that flank and throw it back in\nconfusion on the main body, it might lead to serious disaster.\n\nAt the point where Frank and his comrades were fighting, there was a\nnest of machine guns that commanded the space over which the new enemy\nforces were bearing down on the threatened flank.  Several of the gun\ncrews had fallen, and the guns were temporarily unserved.\n\nThere was no time to wait for orders.  Another minute and the guns\nwould be in the enemy's hands.\n\n\"Quick, Bart!  Come along, Billy and Tom!\" shouted Frank, as he rushed\ntoward the guns.\n\nHis chums were on his heels in an instant.  Quick as a flash, the guns\nwere aimed, and streams of bullets cut the front ranks of the attacking\nforce to ribbons.  Volley after volley followed, until the guns were so\nhot that the hands of the young soldiers were blistered.\n\nBut the hardest part of their work was done, for now fresh guns had\nbeen brought into position and the flank was strengthened beyond the\npower of the enemy to break.  Frank's quick thought and instant action\nhad averted what might have been a calamity that would have decided the\nfortune of the day.\n\n\"Good work, old man!\" panted Bart, when in a momentary lull he could\ngain breath enough to speak.\n\n\"Yours as well as mine!\" gasped Frank, as he dashed the perspiration\nfrom his forehead.  \"If you fellows hadn't been right on the job, I\ncouldn't have done anything worth while.\"\n\nRegular crews had now been assigned to take their places, and resuming\ntheir positions in the ranks the young soldiers plunged once more into\nthe hand-to-hand work at which they were masters.\n\nThe issue was no longer in doubt.  The scale had turned against the\nGermans and they were retreating.  But they went back stubbornly,\ngiving ground only inch by inch, and in certain scattered groups the\nfighting was as furious as ever.\n\nAs far as might be, they kept together, but as the swirl of the battle\ntore them apart, Tom and Billy were lost sight of by Bart and Frank,\nwho were laying about them right and left among the enemy.\n\nA sharp exclamation from Bart caused Frank to turn his eyes toward him\nfor a second.\n\n\"Hurt, Bart?\" he queried anxiously.\n\n\"Bullet ridged my shoulder,\" responded Bart.  \"Doesn't amount to\nanything, though.  Look out, Frank!\" he yelled, his voice rising almost\nto a scream.  Frank turned to see two burly Germans bearing down upon\nhim with fixed bayonets.\n\nBart sought to engage one of them, but was caught up in a mass of\ncombatants and Frank was left to meet the onset alone.\n\nQuick as a cat, he sidestepped one of them, and putting out his foot\ntripped him as he plunged past.  He went down with a crash, and his\nrifle flew from his hands.\n\nThe remaining German made a savage lunge, but Frank deftly caught the\nblade upon his own, and the next instant they were engaged in a deadly\nbayonet duel.\n\nIt was fierce but also brief.  A thrust, a parry, and Frank drove his\nweapon through the shoulder of his opponent.  The latter reeled and\nfell.  Frank strove to pull out his weapon, but it stuck fast, and just\nthen a pair of sinewy hands fastened on his throat and he looked into\nthe reddened eyes of the antagonist whom he had tripped.\n\nWith a quick wrench Frank tore himself away, and the next instant he\nhad grappled with his opponent and they swayed back and forth, each\nputting forth every ounce of his strength in the effort to master the\nother.\n\nPanting, straining, gasping, neither one of them saw that the struggle\nhad brought them to the edge of a deep shell crater.  A moment more and\nthey fell with a crash to the bottom of the hole.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nA PERILOUS JOURNEY\n\nThe shock was a heavy one.  For an instant both combatants were\nstunned.  The flying arms and legs straightened out and lay quiet.\nThen Frank staggered painfully up to his hands and knees.\n\nLuckily he had fallen on top, and the breath had been knocked out of\nhis opponent's body.  But even as Frank looked down upon him, his foe\nshowed signs of reviving.  His eyes opened, and a glare of rage came in\nthem as they rested on Frank.\n\nHe put his hand to his belt, but Frank was the quicker and in an\ninstant his knife was out and pointed at the German's throat.\n\n\"Say 'Kamerad,'\" he commanded.\n\nThe German hesitated, but a tiny prick of the knife decided him.\n\n\"Kamerad,\" he growled sullenly.\n\n\"That's right,\" said Frank, \"but just to make sure that you won't stick\nyour knife into me when I'm not looking, I guess I'll take care of it.\nNo, you needn't take the trouble of handing it to me,\" he continued, as\nhe saw a vicious expression in his captive's eyes.  \"You just keep your\nhands stretched above your head and I'll find your knife myself.  And\ndon't let those hands come down until I tell you, or something awkward\nis likely to happen.\"\n\nIf the prisoner did not understand all that was said to him, there was\nenough in Frank's gestures to indicate his meaning, and the hands went\nup and stayed up, while Frank searched his prisoner and removed his\nknife, which he put in his own belt.  Then he bound the fellow's hands.\n\nThe attack had been made late in the afternoon, and dusk had fallen\nwhile the fight was still going on.  Now it was quite dark, and Frank\nrose to his feet, intending to clamber out of the shell hole, taking\nhis prisoner with him.\n\nBut what was his consternation, on lifting his head to the level rim of\nthe crater, to hear about him commands shouted in hoarse guttural\naccents.  The sounds of battle had died down and it was evident that\nthe fight for that day was over.  And that part of the field had been\nleft in German hands!\n\nReinforcements coming up in the nick of time had halted a retreat that\nwas threatening to become a rout.  The battle would probably be resumed\non the morrow, but for the present both forces were resting on their\narms.\n\nThe tables were turned with a vengeance.  A moment before he had been\nholding a prisoner and getting ready to take him into the American\nlines.  Now he was himself in the enemy lines, liable at any moment to\nbe discovered and dragged out roughly, to be questioned by German\ncaptors.\n\nAll this passed through Frank's mind in a twinkling.  But then another\nthought came to him.  He must silence his prisoner.\n\nThe thought came not a moment too soon, for as Frank dropped down\nbeside him a shout arose from the German's lips.  He too had heard and\nunderstood the sounds about him.\n\nIn an instant Frank had thrust his handkerchief into the prisoner's\nmouth.  The man squirmed and struggled, but his bound hands made him\npowerless, and Frank soon made a gag that, while allowing the man a\nchance to breathe comfortably, would keep him silent.\n\nThen he settled back and tried to think.  And his thoughts were not\npleasant ones.\n\nHe had had a brief taste of German imprisonment, and he was not anxious\nto repeat the experience.  Yet nothing seemed more probable.  Little\nshort of a miracle would prevent his capture if he stayed there much\nlonger.  In the morning, discovery would be certain.  He must escape\nthat night, if at all.  But how could he make his way through that\nswarm of enemies?\n\nAnd while he is cudgeling his brain to find an answer to the question,\nit may be well, for the sake of those who have not read the preceding\nvolumes of this series, to tell briefly who Frank and his chums were\nand what they had done up to the time this story opens.\n\nFrank Sheldon had been born and brought up in the town of Camport, a\nthriving American city of about twenty-five thousand people.  His\nfather was American but his mother was French.  Mr. Sheldon had met and\nmarried his wife in her native province of Auvergne, where her parents\nowned considerable property.  They had died since their daughter's\nmarriage, and in the natural course of things she would have inherited\nthe estate.  But legal difficulties had developed in regard to the\nwill, and Frank's parents were contemplating a trip to France to\nstraighten matters out, when the war broke out and made it impossible.\nMr. Sheldon had died shortly afterward, leaving but a slender income\nfor his widow.  Frank had become her chief support.  She was a\ncharming, lovable woman, and she and her son were very fond of each\nother.\n\nFrank had secured a good position with the firm of Moore & Thomas, a\nprosperous hardware house in Camport, and his prospects for the future\nwere bright when the war broke out.  But he was intensely patriotic,\nand wanted to volunteer as soon as it became certain that America would\nenter the conflict.  For a time he held back on account of his mother,\nbut an insult to the flag by a German, whom Frank promptly knocked down\nand compelled to apologize, decided his mother to put no obstacles in\nthe way of his enlisting.\n\nBut Frank was not the only ardent patriot in the employ of Moore &\nThomas.  Almost all of the force wanted to go, including even Reddy the\noffice boy, who although too young, was full of ardor for Uncle Sam.\nChief among the volunteers were Bart Raymond, Frank's special chum and\na fine type of young American, and Tom Bradford, loyal to the core.\nPoor Tom, however, was rejected on account of his teeth, but was\nafterward accepted in the draft, and by a stroke of luck rejoined Frank\nand Bart at Camp Boone, where they had been sent for training.  Another\nfriend of all three was Billy Waldon, who had been a member of the\nThirty-seventh regiment before the boys had joined it.  The four were\nthe closest kind of friends and stuck by each other through thick and\nthin.\n\nThere had been one notable exception to the loyalty of the office\nforce.  This was Nick Rabig, a surly, bullying sort of fellow, who had\nbeen foreman of the shipping department.  He was a special enemy of\nFrank, whom he cordially hated, and the two had been more than once at\nthe point of blows.  Rabig was of German descent, although born in this\ncountry, and before the war began he had been loud in his praise of\nGermany and in \"knocks\" at America.  His chagrin may be imagined when\nhe found himself caught in the draft net and sent to Camp Boone with\nthe rest of the Camport contingent.\n\nHow the Army Boys were trained to be soldiers both at home and later in\nFrance; their adventures with submarines on the way over; how Rabig got\nwhat he deserved at the hands of Frank; what adventures they met with\nand how they showed the stuff they were made of when they came in\nconflict with the Huns--all this and more is told in the first volume\nof this series, entitled: \"Army Boys in France; Or, From Training Camp\nto Trenches.\"\n\nFrom the time they reached the trenches the Army Boys were in hourly\nperil of their lives.  They took part in many night raids in No Man's\nLand and brought back prisoners.  Frank met a Colonel Pavet whose life\nhe saved under heavy fire and learned from the French officer\nencouraging news about his mother's property.  The four friends had a\nthrilling experience when they were chased by Uhlan cavalry, plunged\ninto a river from a broken bridge only to find when they reached the\nother side that the bank was held by German troops.  How an airplane\nrescued them from German captivity is only one of stirring incidents\nnarrated in the second volume of the series, entitled: \"Army Boys at\nthe Front; Or, Hand-to-Hand Fights with the Enemy.\"\n\nFrank had been in many tight places since he had been in France.  In\nfact, danger had been so constant that he had come to expect it.  To\nhave a feeling of perfect comfort and security would hardly have seemed\nnatural.  But now he freely owned to himself as he sat crouching low in\nthe shell hole that his liberty if not his life was scarcely worth a\nmoment's purchase.\n\nSomething of what was passing in his mind must have been evident to the\nGerman who shared the hole with him.  Frank could not see his face\nclearly but he could hear the man shaking as if with inward laughter.\n\n\"Laugh ahead, Heinie,\" remarked Frank, though he knew the man could\nprobably not understand him.  \"I'd do the same if the tables were\nturned.  It'll be a mighty good joke to tell your cronies at mess\ntomorrow how the Yankee _schweinhund_ thought he had you and then got\nnabbed himself.  But they haven't got me yet.  Those laugh best who\nlaugh last, and perhaps I've got a laugh coming to me.\"\n\nBut just then the laugh seemed a good ways off.  At any instant some\none of the many passing to and fro might stumble into the hole and the\ngame would be up.  Or a flare from a star-shell might reveal him\ncrouching beside his prisoner.  His prisoner!  What irony there was in\nthe word under those circumstances.\n\nYet not all irony, for at the moment the thought passed through his\nmind, another thought told him how he might exercise the power that the\nfortune of war had given him over the German and by so doing effect his\nescape.\n\nIt was certain that in his American uniform he could not get through\nthe Germans who surrounded him.  His only chance would be to make a\ndash, and although he was a swift runner the bullets that would be sent\nafter him would be swifter.\n\n_But in a German uniform_--\n\nAnd here was one in the hole right beside him!\n\nThe plan came to him like a flash of light and he started at once to\nput it into execution.  But just then a sober second thought made him\npause.\n\nIf he were captured wearing his own uniform it would be just as an\nordinary prisoner, entitled to be treated as such by the laws of war.\n\nBut if they took him wearing a German uniform he would be regarded as a\nspy and would be shot or hanged offhand, perhaps even without the form\nof a court-martial.\n\nHe weighed the question carefully, for he knew that life or death might\nresult from the way he answered it.\n\nTo help him decide, he raised his head with infinite caution to the rim\nof the shell hole and looked about him.  In the faint light that came\nfrom lanterns disposed at various places he could see men moving here\nand there and catch the murmur of conversation where some of them were\nsitting in groups.\n\nOccasionally a man would rise from one of these gatherings and move\naway, apparently without attracting notice or arousing question.  Why\ncould he not do the same?\n\nOf course there was the chance of a word being addressed to him and he\ncould not answer without revealing his ignorance of German.  But\nperhaps he could pretend not to hear or respond with a grunt that would\npass muster.\n\nOne thing was certain.  If it were done at all it must be done at once\nwhile there were many about.  If he waited until things were quiet his\nsolitary figure would be sure to attract attention.\n\nHis choice was made.  Between the certainty of capture and the chance\nof being shot he would take the chance.  If worse came to worst he had\nhis knife and his revolver and he would sell his life dearly.\n\nHe knelt down close by his captive and began to strip off his clothes.\nThe man was inclined to resist, but a sharp prick of Frank's knife told\nhim that his captor was in no mind to stand any nonsense and he lay\nquiet.  It was hard work because the man was heavy and the quarters\nwere cramped.  The coat had to be cut off in places because Frank did\nnot dare to untie his prisoner's hands.  But at last the clothes were\noff, and Frank slipped them on over his own.\n\nIt was with a shudder of repulsion that he saw himself clad in the\ndetested uniform that stood for all that was hateful and brutal in\nwarfare.  It made him feel soiled.  But he comforted himself with the\nthought that the clothes were only external and that good United States\nkhaki lay between that abhorred uniform and his skin.\n\nHe saw that the gag was still securely in position and that his\ncaptive's bonds had not relaxed.  Then as a last reminder he laid the\nback of his knife on the prisoner's neck and felt him shiver beneath\nthe cold steel.\n\n\"I guess he'll make no attempt to give me away,\" he said to himself.\n\"He knows that he'll be all right in the morning anyway.\"\n\nSlowly and with the infinite precaution that had been taught him in his\nscout training, Frank lifted himself out of the hole and lay flat on\nthe ground near the edge.  There he waited until he was sure that he\nhad attracted no attention.\n\nThen having carefully taken his bearings and fixed upon the direction\nof the American lines, he yawned, stretched and rising slowly to his\nfeet strolled carelessly toward the outskirts of the camp.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nAMONG THE MISSING\n\nFrank's heart was beating like a triphammer and his nerves were at a\nfearful tension.  The next five minutes would probably determine\nwhether he was to live or die.\n\nBut he kept himself well in hand and to all appearances he was only a\ntired German soldier going to his bunk.\n\nAs far as he could without attracting attention, he kept carefully away\nfrom the low fires around which some of the Germans were sitting.  But\nat one point he was forced to pass within the zone of light, and one of\na group threw a laughing remark at him, occasioned probably by the cuts\nin his coat which he had been compelled to make when he had stripped\nhis prisoner.\n\n\"_Asel!_\" Frank flung back at him and passed on, thankful that he at\nleast knew the German term for jackass.\n\nNearer and nearer he drew to the confines of the camp.  Here the great\ndanger lay, for he knew that it would be closely guarded after the\nday's fighting.\n\nIf he were challenged what should he say?  To the sentinel's \"_Wer\nda?_\" he could answer \"_Freund_.\"  But when he was told to advance and\ngive the countersign what would be his answer?\n\nHe had it ready.  But it would not suit the Germans.\n\nAt the point that he had selected for his attempt, there was an opening\nin the wire that had been hastily strung to guard against a possible\nnight attack by the American forces.\n\nUp and down in front of this a stalwart sentry was pacing.  He stopped\nand looked sharply at Frank, as the latter approached.  When he was ten\nfeet distant the sentry presented his bayonet and called:\n\n\"_Halt_!  _Wer da_?\"\n\n\"_Ein freund_,\" responded Frank.\n\n\"_Losung_,\" demanded the sentinel, asking for the countersign.\n\n\"America!\" answered Frank, and hurled his revolver full in the sentry's\nface.\n\nThe heavy butt of the weapon landed plumb in the middle of the German's\nforehead.  He had opened his mouth to shout, but no sound came forth.\nThe rifle fell from his hands and he went down like a log.\n\nWith a leap Frank got through the gap in the wire and started running\nlike a deer toward the American lines.\n\nThere were startled shouts behind him, hoarse commands, a rushing of\nfeet and a crackling volley of shots.  The bullets whizzed and zipped\nclose to him and he felt a sharp sting as one of them grazed the lower\npart of his left arm.  Once he stumbled and fell headlong, but he\nscrambled hastily to his feet and ran on.\n\nBut now a new peril was added.  Behind him a star-shell shot up,\nfollowed by another and another, together with strings of \"blazing\nonions,\" until the broken field over which he was making his way became\nalmost as bright as day.  In that greenish radiance his flying figure\nstood out sharply, and the firing which had been wild now became more\naccurate.  At the same time, a look behind him showed that a troop of\nmen had been hastily organized and was rushing after him.\n\nThis, however, gave him little concern.  A bullet might catch him, but\nthese heavy Germans, never!\n\nBut just as he was comforting himself with this thought he tripped and\nwent down with a shock that jarred every bit of breath out of his body.\n\nHe struggled to get up but could not move.  His lungs labored as though\nthey would burst.  His legs refused to obey his will.  He felt as if he\nwere in the clutches of a nightmare.\n\nAnd all the time he could hear the pounding of his pursuers' feet\ndrawing closer and closer.  Would he never be able to breathe again?\n\nLittle by little, during seconds that seemed ages, his breath came back\nto him, in short gasps at first but gradually becoming longer, until at\nlast he rose weakly to his feet.\n\nHe started out again, slowly at first, but, as his wind came back to\nhim, gathering speed at every stride.  But now his pursuers were\nperilously near.  Those precious seconds lost perhaps had been fatal.\n\nHis fingers gripped the handle of his knife.  He would not be taken.\nCapture in that uniform meant certain death.  No German should gloat\nover his execution.  If brought to bay he would die fighting then and\nthere, using his knife so savagely that his enemies would have to shoot\nhim to save themselves.\n\nCommands to halt came from behind him accompanied by bullets, but he\nonly ran the swifter.\n\nBut just then a tumult rose from another quarter.  The lines in front\nof him seemed to awake.  Lights flashed here and there, a mass of\nfigures detached themselves from the gloom, and in the light of a\nstar-shell Frank saw a detachment of American troops coming on the run!\n\nHis pursuers saw them too and the chase slackened.  There was a hurried\ngathering for consultation, a volley of shots, and then the Germans\nbeat a hasty retreat, hotly pursued by a band of the Americans while\nanother group of them rushed up and surrounded Frank.\n\n\"Why, it's a Hun!\" exclaimed one of them disgustedly, as his eyes fell\non the uniform.  \"Only a deserter, and we thought they were chasing one\nof our own men.\"\n\n\"That's one on us,\" remarked another.  \"The rest of the boys will have\nthe laugh on us for sure.\"\n\n\"Do I look like a Heinie?\" demanded Frank with a grin.  \"I can lick the\nfellow that calls me one.\"\n\nA shout of amazement rose from the crowd as they gathered close to him.\n\n\"Sheldon!  Sheldon!  Old scout!  Bully boy!\"\n\nThey mauled and pounded him until he was sore, for he was the idol of\nthe regiment.  There was a rush, and Bart and Billy had their arms\naround him and fairly hugged the breath out of him.\n\n\"Frank!  Frank!\" they exclaimed delightedly.  \"We thought you were\ngone.  The last we saw of you, you were fighting like a tiger, but then\nthe enemy reinforcements came and we were swept away from you.  We\ndidn't know whether you were dead or a prisoner.  Thank God you're\nneither one nor the other.\"\n\n\"Pretty close squeak,\" smiled Frank happily.  \"But a bit of luck, and\nthese two legs of mine carried me through, and I'm worth a dozen dead\nmen yet.  But I'm hungry as a wolf, and if you fellows don't feed me up\nyou'll have me dead on your hands.\"\n\n\"Trust us,\" laughed Bart.  \"You can have the whole shooting match.  The\nwhole mess will go hungry if necessary to fill you up.  Come along now\nand tell us the story.\"\n\nIt was a happy crowd that bore Frank back in triumph to his old\nquarters.  There the rest of the boys flocked about him in welcome and\njubilee.\n\n\"Not a word, fellows,\" protested Frank laughingly, \"until I get these\nrags off of me.  It's the first time I ever wore a German uniform and I\nhope it will be the last.  I feel as if I needed to be fumigated before\nI'm fit to talk to decent fellows again.\"\n\nIt was a long time before the hubbub quieted down, and he had to tell\nhis story again and again before the other soldiers left him alone with\nhis own particular chums.\n\n\"Where's Tom?\" asked Frank.  \"Our bunch doesn't seem complete without\nhim.  On special duty somewhere, I suppose?\"\n\nBart and Billy looked at each other with misery in their eyes.\n\n\"What's the matter?\" asked Frank in quick alarm, as he intercepted the\nglance.  \"Great Scott!\" he added, springing to his feet.  \"You don't\nmean to say that anything's happened to him?\"\n\nBart shook his head soberly.\n\n\"We don't know,\" he answered.  \"The last any of the boys saw of him he\nwas hacking right and left in a crowd of the boches.  But he didn't\ncome back with the rest of us.\"\n\n\"You don't mean to say he's dead?\" cried Frank.  \"You're not stalling\nto let me down easy?\"\n\n\"Not that,\" protested Billy quickly.  \"Honor bright, Frank.  The burial\nparties haven't come across him at last reports, and he hasn't been\npicked up as wounded.  That's all we know.  The chances are that he's\nbeen taken prisoner.\"\n\n\"Prisoner!\" repeated Frank in blank despair.  \"Tom a prisoner of the\nHuns!  Heaven help him!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nCAPTURED OR DEAD?\n\nThere was very little sleep for the three Army Boys that night, in\nspite of the exhausting labors of the day.  They rolled and tossed\nrestlessly in their bunks, tortured by conjectures as to the fate of\ntheir missing comrade.\n\nGood old Tom!  He had been so close to all of them, loyal to his\nheart's core, brave as a lion, ready to stand by them to his last\nbreath.  He had been beside them in many a tight scrape and had always\nheld up his end.  It seemed as though part of themselves had been torn\nfrom them.\n\nStill, while there was life there was hope, and they drew some comfort\nfrom the fact that he had not yet been found among the dead.  If he\nwere a prisoner he might escape.  They had all been in a German prison\ncamp before and had gotten away.  Perhaps Tom might have the same luck\nagain.\n\nThey fell asleep at last, but the thought clung to them and assumed all\nsorts of fantastic attitudes in their dreams so that they awoke tired\nand depressed.\n\nBut there was little time on that morning to indulge in private griefs.\nThe fight was on, and shortly after dawn the battle was resumed.\n\nAll the forenoon it raged with great ferocity.  But American grit and\nsteadfastness never wavered and the enemy was forced to retire with\nheavy loss.  Not only had they failed to drive the Americans from their\npositions, but they had been driven back and forced to surrender a\nlarge portion of their own, including the place where Frank had\ncrouched in the shell hole the night before.\n\nShortly after noon there came a lull while the Americans reorganized\nthe captured positions.  Infantry actions ceased, though the big guns,\nlike belligerent mastiffs, still kept up their growling at each other.\n\n\"Hot work,\" remarked Frank, as, after their work was done, the three\nfriends found themselves together in the shade of a great tree.\n\n\"A corking scrap,\" agreed Bart, as he sprawled at his ease with his\nhands under his head.\n\n\"The Heinies certainly put up a stiff fight,\" observed Billy, as he\ntied up his little finger from which blood was trickling.\n\n\"They felt so sure that they were going to make mincemeat out of us\nthat it was hard to wake out of their dream,\" chuckled Frank.  \"I\nwonder if they're still kidding themselves in Berlin that the Yankees\ncan't fight.\"\n\n\"In Berlin perhaps but not here,\" returned Bart.  \"They've had too much\nevidence to the contrary.\"\n\n\"I wonder if this is really the beginning of the big drive that the\nHuns have been boasting about?\" hazarded Billy.\n\n\"I hardly think so,\" replied Frank.  \"There's no doubt that that's\ncoming before long, but the fighting yesterday and today was probably\nto pinch us out of the salient we're holding.  That would straighten\nout their line and then they'd be all ready for the big push.  When\nthat comes there will be some doings.\"\n\n\"The longer they wait the harder the job will be,\" said Billy.  \"They\nsay that our boys are coming over so fast that they're fairly blocking\nthe roads.\"\n\n\"They can't come too many or too fast,\" replied Bart.  \"And they'll\nsure be some busy bees after they get here.\"\n\n\"Well, we're not worrying,\" observed Billy.  \"We're getting along\npretty well, thank you.  By the way, Frank,\" he went on with a grin,\n\"are you feeling any different on this ground today than you felt last\nnight?\"\n\n\"Bet your life,\" laughed Frank.  \"It's just about here that I was\ncalling a Heinie a jackass.  And at that same minute I was thinking\nthat my life wasn't worth a plugged nickel.\"\n\n\"Wonder how the fellow made out that you left in the shell hole,\"\nchuckled Billy.\n\n\"Oh, he was all right,\" replied Frank.  \"I shouldn't wonder if he was\nrather chilly during the night, but no doubt they hauled him out in the\nmorning.\"\n\n\"He got off lucky, though,\" put in Bart.  \"It's the sentry who got the\nhot end of the poker.  I wonder what he thought when he heard that\nwatchword.\"\n\n\"He didn't have much time to think,\" guessed Billy, \"and to tell the\ntruth, I don't think he's done much thinking since.  That revolver must\nhave hit him a fearful crack.\"\n\n\"It's safe to say that it gave him a headache anyway,\" remarked Bart\ndrily.\n\n\"Speaking of the revolver,\" said Frank, rising to his feet, \"I'm going\nto take a look for it.  It was just over near that tree that I plugged\nthe sentry and it's probably there yet.\"\n\nHe searched industriously among the welter of debris and after a few\nminutes arose with a shout.\n\n\"Here's it is,\" he said, as he held up his recovered treasure, which\nhad his initials scratched upon the butt.  \"Same old trusty and as good\nas ever.  It's saved my life many a time through the muzzle, but last\nnight was the first time it saved it through the butt.\"\n\nHe fondled the weapon lovingly for a moment, carefully cleaned and\nreloaded it, and thrust it in his belt.\n\nJust then a French colonel passed by, accompanied by two orderlies.\nThe French had been holding a section of the line at the right of the\nAmericans and their uniform was a familiar sight, so that the boys only\ngave the group a passing glance.  But Frank's eyes lighted with\npleasure when the colonel detached himself from the others and came\nover with extended hand.\n\nFrank wrung the hand heartily.\n\n\"Why, Colonel Pavet!\" he exclaimed.  \"This is a great pleasure!  I\ndidn't know that you were in this locality.\"\n\n\"My regiment is only two miles from here,\" replied the colonel, his\nface beaming.  \"I need not say how glad I always am to see the brave\nyoung soldier who saved my life.\"\n\n\"What I did any one else would have done,\" responded Frank lightly.\n\n\"But no one else did,\" laughed the colonel.  \"And from what I hear from\nyour commander you've been doing similar things ever since.  I just\nheard of your daring escape last night.  It was gallantly done, _mon\nami_.\"\n\n\"Luck was with me,\" replied Frank.\n\n\"It usually is in such exploits,\" was the visitor's reply.  \"You know\nthe old saying that 'fortune favors the brave.'  But I'll spare your\nblushes and come down to something that will probably interest you\nmore.  Did you get that letter from Andre, my brother, about your\nmother's property?\"\n\n\"Why, no, I didn't,\" answered Frank.  \"When was it written?\"\n\n\"That's strange,\" said the colonel, a puzzled look coming over his\nface.  \"I received a letter from Andre day before yesterday and he said\nthat he had written to you by the same mail.\"\n\n\"Well, you know the mail is rather irregular just now,\" replied Frank.\n\"No doubt it will get to me before long.  Perhaps your brother told you\nsomething of what was in the letter he wrote to me.\"\n\n\"Not in detail.  He just mentioned that he was very anxious to get hold\nof a former butler in your grandfather's family who is now in the\nranks.  They had his testimony in part before he was called into\nservice, but he had not been cross-examined.  Andre seems to feel sure\nthat he can extract information from him that will aid your mother to\ncome into possession of the estate.  Andre's judgment is good, and as\nyou know, he is one of the leading lawyers of Paris.\"\n\n\"He is too good, and you also, to take all this trouble in our behalf,\"\nsaid Frank warmly.  \"My mother and I can never thank you enough.\"\n\n\"The debt will be always on our side,\" responded the colonel with a\nwave of the hand.  \"By the way, how is your mother?  I hope she is\nwell.\"\n\n\"She was well when I last heard from her,\" replied Frank, \"and\nhappy--that is as happy as she can be while we are separated from each\nother.\"\n\n\"She is a true daughter of France,\" said the colonel, \"and she should\nbe happy to have so brave a son.  Please remember me to her when you\nwrite.  _Au revoir_,\" and with a friendly smile he passed on.\n\n\"Still hobnobbing with the swells, I see,\" remarked Billy, as Frank\nrejoined his chums.\n\n\"He was telling me of a letter that his brother had written me about my\nmother's property,\" explained Frank.  \"Queer that it hasn't reached me.\nDid any of you fellows get any mail yesterday?\"\n\n\"I got a couple of letters,\" replied Billy.  \"Tom handed them to me\njust before we went into action yesterday morning.\"\n\n\"Come to think of it, Tom was asking for you at the same time,\" said\nBart.  \"He'd brought down the mail for the bunch.  He said he had a\nletter for you.  But you weren't around at the time and he stuck it\ninto his pocket.  Then the boches came swinging at us, and in the\nexcitement I suppose he forgot all about it.  Likely enough he has it\nwith him now--that is if the Huns have let him keep it.\"\n\n\"That must be the explanation,\" said Frank.  \"Well, all I can do is\nwrite to the colonel's brother and ask him to send me a duplicate of\nthe letter.  Poor Tom!  I'd give all the letters in the world to have\nhim safe with us just now.\"\n\n\"Same here,\" said Billy and Bart in chorus.\n\n\"I guess the Huns have got him,\" said Frank gloomily.  \"He isn't among\nthe dead or wounded as far as we've been able to find.  But I'll bet\nthey thought they had hold of a wildcat when they nabbed him.\"\n\n\"Trust Tom for that,\" said Bart.  \"He was a terror when he had his\nblood up.  He must have got knocked on the head, or they wouldn't have\ntaken him alive.\"\n\n\"Perhaps he'd have been luckier if he had been killed,\" said Billy\nsadly.  \"From all I hear there are plenty of prisoners in German camps\nwho would welcome death.\"\n\n\"It makes me grit my teeth to think of the humane way we treat the men\nwe capture, and then compare it with the way the Huns treat our\nsoldiers,\" said Frank bitterly.  \"Look at the German prisoners we saw\nworking on the roads that time we went away on furlough.  Plenty of\nfood, kind treatment, good beds.  Why, lots of those fellows are living\nbetter than they ever did in their own country.  They're getting fat\nwith good living.\"\n\n\"Nothing like that in German prison camps,\" growled Bart.  \"Horrible\nfood, mouldy crusts, rotten meat, and not enough of that to keep body\nand soul together.  In a few months the men are little more than\nskeletons.  They work them sixteen or eighteen hours a day in all kinds\nof weather.  They set dogs on them and prod them with bayonets.  Did\nyou read of the forty they tortured to death by swinging them by their\nbound arms for hours at a time in freezing weather?\"\n\n\"It's no mistake to call the Germans Huns,\" snapped Billy, clenching\nhis fists.\n\n\"No,\" agreed Frank, \"but it's rough on the Huns.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nNICK RABIG TURNS UP\n\n\"Guess who's here,\" said Billy a few mornings later, as he came up to\nBart and Frank.  \"Give you three guesses.\"\n\n\"That's generous,\" remarked Frank.  \"Well, I'll bite.  Who is it?  The\nKaiser?\"\n\n\"Come off.\"\n\n\"The Crown Prince?\"\n\n\"Quit your kidding.\"\n\n\"I know,\" said Bart.  \"Hindenburg.\"\n\n\"Blathering boobs, both of you,\" pronounced Billy.  \"But with your\nlimited intellects one ought to be patient.  I'll give you one more\nchance.  Think of the fellow you like the least in all the world.\"\n\n\"Nick Rabig!\" the others exclaimed in one breath.\n\n\"Right,\" grinned Billy.  \"I knew that would get you.  Nick seems to be\nas popular with you as poison ivy at a church picnic.\"\n\n\"What cat dragged it in?\" groaned Bart.\n\n\"Our unlucky day,\" growled Frank.  \"I knew something would happen when\nI picked up the wrong shoe this morning.\"\n\n\"But how did he get back?\" asked Bart, his curiosity overcoming his\nrepugnance.\n\n\"Came in on his own feet,\" replied Billy.  \"Escaped, so he says, after\nperforming prodigies of valor.  To hear Nick talk you'd think he'd\nwiped out half the German army.\"\n\nHis comrades laughed.\n\n\"I suppose we ought to kill the fatted calf,\" said Frank sarcastically.\n\n\"Where's the calf?\" asked Bart.  \"Unless we take Billy here,\" he added\nas an afterthought.\n\nHe dodged the pass that Billy made at him, and just then Fred Anderson,\nanother young soldier, strolled up.\n\n\"Heard the news?\" he inquired.\n\n\"About Nick Rabig?  Yes,\" replied Frank.  \"Billy's just been telling us\nabout it.\"\n\n\"Bad news travels fast,\" growled Bart.\n\n\"Nick doesn't seem to cut much ice with you fellows,\" commented Fred.\n\"I never thought much of him myself, but you seem to have it in for him\nespecially.  I suppose it's because he tried to play that dirty trick\non Frank in the boxing bout.\"\n\n\"No, it isn't that,\" replied Frank.  \"I got satisfaction for that then\nand there, and I don't hold grudges.  It's something altogether outside\nof personal matters.  Have you heard any details about how Nick made\nhis escape?\"\n\n\"Only a bit here and there,\" answered Fred.  \"I suppose it will all\ncome out later on.  But it seems that he has a lot of information about\nthe German plans and he's now at headquarters being questioned by the\nofficers.\"\n\nFrank turned the conversation into other channels, because although he\nhad the gravest reasons for believing Rabig to be a traitor, he did not\nwant to do the fellow an injustice or voice his suspicions until he was\nable to confirm them by absolute proof.\n\nFred passed on after a few minutes and the boys looked at each other.\n\n\"Did you hear what Fred said about Nick's 'important information'?\"\nasked Frank.\n\n\"Important misinformation,\" growled Bart.\n\n\"Bunk,\" declared Billy.\n\n\"Of course, Nick has an advantage in understanding German,\" said Frank\ncautiously, \"and a loyal fellow in his situation might have picked up\nsomething that would be of advantage to our people, though it isn't\nlikely, for the Germans guard their secrets pretty well.\"\n\n\"What's the use of talking?\" burst out Bart.  \"We fellows are all onto\nRabig.  We know at this minute that he'd like nothing better than to\nsee the United States licked by Germany.  Don't we know that he let\nthat German prisoner escape?  Don't you know that he was talking in the\nwoods at night with that German spy that you shot?  I tell you\nstraight, Frank, that if Rabig escaped it was because the Germans let\nhim escape.  If he has information, it is because the Germans filled\nhim up with just the kind of information they wanted our officers to\nbelieve.\"\n\n\"I think Bart's right,\" remarked Billy.  \"It'll be the best day this\nregiment ever saw when Rabig's stood up before a firing squad.\"\n\n\"In my heart I believe the same,\" assented Frank.  \"But the tantalizing\nthing is that we haven't a bit of legal proof.  Rabig had that cut on\nhis hand to explain the escape of the prisoner.  He seemed to be\nsleeping in his bunk that night I got back from the woods.  So far he\nhas an alibi for everything.  We can't prove that he let himself be\ncaptured.  We can't prove that the Germans let him escape.  As for the\ninformation he claims to have, our suspicions are based only on what we\nknow of the man's character.\"\n\n\"That legal stuff doesn't make a hit with me,\" growled Bart.  \"Some day\nI'll break loose and take it out of him myself.  My fingers itch every\ntime I see him.  I'd hoped I'd never have to see him again.\"\n\n\"You're doomed to be disappointed, then,\" grinned Billy, \"for here he\ncomes now.\"\n\nThey looked in the direction he indicated and saw Rabig coming along\nthe company street.\n\nHis step was swaggering and he looked immensely satisfied with himself.\n\nBart's fist clenched.\n\n\"Nothing doing, Bart,\" Frank counseled in a low tone.  \"Hold your\nhorses.  I know just how you feel.  I had to lick him once and maybe\nyou'll have your turn.  But not now.  I want to find out whether he\nknows anything about Tom.\"\n\n\"All right,\" said Bart, \"but it comes hard.\"\n\nNick saw them standing there, and for a fraction of a second seemed to\nbe of two minds about keeping on.  He hated them all cordially and he\nhad no doubt of the feeling with which they regarded him.  But his\nhesitation was only momentary, and he came on with just a little\nadditional swagger in his gait.\n\nHe would have passed without stopping but Frank spoke to him pleasantly\nenough.\n\n\"Hello, Nick!\" he said.  \"See you've got back.\"\n\n\"That's plain enough to see,\" responded Nick surlily.\n\n\"Papa's little sunshine,\" murmured Billy under his breath.\n\n\"Huns seem to have fed you pretty well,\" remarked Frank.\n\nRabig only grunted and looked at Frank suspiciously.\n\n\"Did you see anything of Tom Bradford over there?\" asked Frank.\n\nA look of surprise came into Rabig's little eyes.\n\n\"No,\" he answered.  \"Was he captured?\"\n\n\"We're afraid so,\" answered Frank.\n\n\"I didn't see him,\" declared Rabig.  \"Perhaps he's killed,\" he added,\nalmost smacking his lips with satisfaction.\n\nThey longed to kick him, but restrained themselves, and Rabig passed on.\n\n\"Isn't he a sweet specimen?\" asked Bart in disgust, as he looked at\nRabig's receding figure.\n\n\"Did you see how his eyes lighted up when he heard that Tom was gone?\"\nput in Billy.  \"The only thing that would give him more satisfaction\nwould be to have the same thing happen to Frank.\"\n\n\"I guess he hates us all alike,\" said Frank.  \"Down in his heart he\nknows that we believe him to be a traitor.  His only comfort is that we\nhaven't been able to catch him with the goods.  But that will come in\ntime.  A little more rope and he can be depended on to hang himself.\nBut that can wait.  What I'm more interested in is that he didn't have\nany news of Tom.\"\n\n\"Perhaps he was lying,\" suggested Bart.  \"He may have seen Tom over\nthere, but wouldn't give us the satisfaction of telling us.\"\n\n\"No, I don't think it was that,\" commented Billy.  \"I was watching him\nclosely while Frank was talking to him, and I could see that he was\nreally surprised as well as pleased to learn that Tom was gone.\"\n\n\"But even if he didn't see him, that doesn't prove that Tom isn't\nthere,\" suggested Bart.  \"He may have been captured by some other\ndivision.  Besides, to tell the truth, I don't believe that Rabig was\nin a prison camp at all.  Did you notice how fat and well fed he\nlooked?  I'll bet that he's been living high on the best the Huns could\ngive him.\"\n\n\"He didn't look like most escaped prisoners for a fact,\" assented\nFrank.  \"We'll let his failure to see Tom go for what it's worth.  But\nthere's one thing that's been growing in my mind right along.  We're\nsure that Tom isn't dead, for the burial parties cleared up the field\nand didn't find him.  We know too that he isn't on the hospital list.\nI got a squint at that no later than yesterday, and Tom's name isn't\nthere.  That seems to cut out everything except capture by the Huns,\ndoesn't it?\"\n\n\"What else is there?\" asked Bart gloomily.\n\n\"Just one thing,\" replied Frank, \"and that is that Tom has got away\nfrom the Huns but hasn't yet got back to us.  I know what that boy is.\nHe isn't the kind to settle down and tell himself that he's a prisoner\nand that's all there is to it.  There isn't a bone in his head, and\nhe's been busy every minute thinking up some plan to get away.  You\nknow what the boches are doing now.  They're getting so short of men\nthat they're using prisoners right behind the lines in cutting brush\nand hauling guns and that sort of thing.  Of course it's dead against\nall the rules of war, but a little thing like that doesn't bother the\nGermans.  Now if that's going on there are lots of chances to escape\nthat the prisoners wouldn't have if they were all huddled together in a\nprison camp under the rifles of their guards.  Get me?  Picture Tom out\nin the thick woods going meekly ahead doing as he is told without\nmaking a break for freedom.  Not on your life!  Some way or other he'll\nslip off, and some fine day you'll see the old scout come walking in\nand asking us if breakfast's ready.\"\n\n\"It sounds good,\" said Bart unconvinced, \"but I'm afraid it's a dream.\"\n\n\"All guess work,\" chimed in Billy.  \"We don't know anything.\"\n\n\"No,\" admitted Frank, \"but we know Tom.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nTHE COMING DRIVE\n\n\"That big German drive seems to have slipped a cog somewhere,\" Bart\nremarked to his comrades, a few days later, as they were resting after\na hard morning's work at organizing the position that their division\nwas holding.\n\n\"I suppose the Crown Prince is making up a new time-table,\" grinned\nBilly.  \"He seems to have a passion for that.  He ought to have been a\nrailroad man.\"\n\n\"The trouble is that they always go wrong,\" laughed Frank.  \"I'll bet\nhe's cross-eyed.\"\n\n\"Yet the Heinies fall for them every time,\" said Billy.  \"I suppose\nthey figure that just by the law of chance one of them will have to be\nright some time.\"\n\n\"I thought that the drive had started the other morning, when the\nGermans came down like wolves on a fold,\" said Bart.  \"But it seems\nthat things were quiet on other parts of the line, so that this must\nhave been just a local operation.\"\n\n\"Local operation!\" snorted Billy.  \"In other days it would have been\ncounted a big battle.  Why, if Waterloo were pulled off now do you know\nhow the papers would describe it?  They'd say that there was\n'considerable activity on a section of the line over near Hougomont\nFarm yesterday, where certain units under Napoleon and Wellington came\nin contact.  The artillery fire was fairly strong, and there were\nclashes between a few infantry regiments and the French were repulsed.\nApart from this there is nothing to report.'\"\n\nThe boys laughed.\n\n\"Everything's topsy-turvy nowadays,\" said Frank.  \"It used to be armies\nthat did the fighting.  Now it's whole nations.  But look at that scrap\ngoing on overhead.  Its a dandy.\"\n\nThey looked in the direction he indicated and their pulses quickened,\nfor they themselves had once been engaged in a battle in the sky, and\nan aerial combat had a personal interest to them.\n\nFar up in the sky, which just then was as clear as crystal, a duel was\nin progress between two planes.  It was evident at a glance that both\nof the rival aviators were masters of their profession.  They circled\ndeftly about each other like giant falcons, jockeying for position,\neach trying to get the weather gauge on the other where he could rake\nhis opponent with his machine gun without exposing himself to his\nenemy's fire in return.\n\nSwooping, climbing, diving, the planes pursued their deadly purpose,\nwhile exclamations of admiration came from the lips of the fascinated\nonlookers as some specially daring manoeuvre promised to give the\nadvantage first to one and then to the other of the antagonists.\n\n\"Classy work!\" exclaimed Frank.\n\n\"They're both dandies,\" declared Billy.  \"It's a toss up as to which\nwill win.\"\n\n\"They're so far up that it's hard to tell which is which,\" said Bart,\n\"but I've got a nickel that says the Hun will be downed.\"\n\n\"Great Scott,\" cried Frank.  \"One of them was hit that time.  See it\nswerve.\"\n\n\"And look at the smoke!\" Billy shouted.  \"It's on fire!  A bullet must\nhave hit the petrol tank.\"\n\nA burst of smoke and flame shot out from the doomed plane, and it began\nto fall, fire streaming out in its wake like the tail of a meteor.\nDown it came like a plummet.\n\n\"It's coming right in our lines!\" exclaimed Bart.  \"Scatter, fellows,\nor it will be right on top of us!\"\n\nThe wrecked plane had fallen about two hundred feet, when a figure shot\nfrom the burning mass, whirling over and over as it descended.  The\naviator, knowing that his only choice lay between being burned or\ncrushed, had chosen the less painful form of death.\n\nThe body fell some distance off, but the plane itself came down within\na few rods of the boys.  It was blazing so fiercely that they could not\napproach very close to it, but they could easily detect the marking\nwhich indicated that it was a French plane.\n\nThe Army Boys looked at each other regretfully.\n\n\"Score one for the Huns,\" remarked Frank.  \"You'd have lost your\nnickel, Bart.\"\n\n\"It's too bad,\" said Billy, as he straightened up and shook, his fist\nat the victorious plane.\n\nBut to the boys' amazement, the conqueror, instead of flying off toward\nhis own lines, was coming down toward them in long sweeping spirals.\n\n\"Why, it looks as if he were going to land here!\" exclaimed Billy in\nwonder.\n\n\"If he does, we'll have the satisfaction of taking him prisoner\nanyway,\" observed Bart.\n\n\"It must be that his own plane is injured and he has to descend,\"\nsuggested Frank.\n\nBut there was no sign of injury to the descending plane and it seemed\nto be in perfect control.  Swiftly and steadily it came down, and a cry\nof astonishment broke from the boys as they saw that it bore American\nmarkings.\n\n\"How's that?\" exclaimed Frank.  \"There's been a fearful mistake\nsomewhere.  This fellow has downed a French plane thinking that it was\nGerman.\"\n\n\"He'll be court-martialed for that or I miss my guess,\" said Bart with\na frown.\n\n\"It's bad enough to have the Huns after us without trying to kill our\nown people,\" growled Billy.\n\nThere was a level place nearby that made an ideal place for a landing,\nand the American machine came down there with scarcely a jar.\n\nThe boys rushed toward it with reproaches on their lips, but their\nwrath was lost in astonishment when they recognized, in the aviator who\nstepped forth, Dick Lever, one of the most daring of the American\n\"aces\" and a warm personal friend of theirs.\n\nThe reproaches died when they saw him, for only a little while before\nhe had saved them from a German prison by swooping down with his\nmachine and carrying them off from their captors.  It was with mixed\nfeelings that they greeted him, as he came gaily forward, a smile upon\nhis handsome bronzed face.  But Dick seemed to feel a certain stiffness\nin their welcome that was unusual.\n\n\"Hello, fellows,\" he greeted.  \"What's the grouch?\"\n\n\"No grouch at all, Dick,\" answered Frank.  \"We owe you too much for\nthat.  We're only sorry that you happened to make a mistake and down a\nFrench plane thinking it was German.\"\n\nDick's eyes twinkled.\n\n\"Come out of your trance,\" he chuckled.  \"I don't make that kind of\nmistakes.\"\n\nFor answer Frank led the way to the wrecked and partly burned plane and\npointed out the markings.\n\nBut despite the evidence, Dick still seemed unabashed and his chuckle\nbroke into a laugh.\n\n\"That's one on you fellows,\" he snorted.  \"Those markings are pure\ncamouflage.  Just another cute little German trick that went wrong.\nThat fellow set out to take photographs over our lines and he didn't\nwant to be disturbed, so he painted out his own markings, and put the\nFrench in their place.  If you'll come a little closer you can see the\nHun marks under their coat of white.\"\n\nThe boys did so and, now that their attention had been called to it,\nthey could readily see the tracings that had been almost obliterated.\n\n\"That's evidence enough,\" remarked Dick, \"but to make assurance doubly\nsure we'll go over to where the aviator fell and you'll see that he was\na German all right.\"\n\nThe body had been decently covered up before the boys reached there,\nbut the clothing and the effects found proved beyond a doubt that the\naviator had been one of their foes.\n\n\"Take it all back, Dick,\" said Frank.  \"You knew what you were about.\nAnd I'm glad that you came out of the scrap safe and sound.  But it\ncertainly was some scrap while it lasted.\"\n\n\"It sure was,\" replied Dick.  \"That fellow was as skilful and plucky as\nthey make them.  He kept my hands full, and there was one time when he\ncame within an ace of raking me.  But luck was with me.  Poor fellow!\nI'm sorry for him, but I'd have been still more sorry if it had been\nmyself.\"\n\n\"What beats me is the way you tumbled to him,\" puzzled Billy.  \"You\nsurely couldn't have read the German markings under their coat of\npaint.  How did you know he was a German?\"\n\nDick smiled.\n\n\"Simple enough,\" he answered.  \"We Allied aviators have a secret system\nof signals, something like Freemasonry.  When we come near another\nplane that seems to be one of our own, we make a certain dip of our\nplane.  That's like asking for the countersign.  If the other fellow's\nall right he makes a certain signal in return.  If he doesn't do it the\nfirst time, we try again, because there's always a chance that he\nhasn't noticed our signal, or is too busy in handling his plane to give\nthe reply.  But if after two or three times we don't get the\ncountersign, we know the fellow's a Hun and we open up on him.\"\n\n\"Good stuff!\" approved Billy.\n\n\"That's what happened this morning,\" continued Dick.  \"This fellow came\nsailing along as calm and cheeky as you please, and was having a bully\ntime taking pictures of our positions.  At least I suppose that is what\nhe was doing, as he evidently wasn't out looking for fight.  I thought\nit wouldn't do any harm to take a look at him, although I saw the\nmachine had French markings.  I gave the signal, but of course he\ncouldn't give the countersign.  I repeated it three times without\ngetting an answer, and then I pitched into him.  That makes the\nthirteenth that I've brought down.\"\n\n\"Thirteen was an unlucky number for him, all right,\" remarked Billy.\n\n\"How are you fellows getting along?\" asked Dick, stretching himself out\non the ground for a brief resting spell.  \"I notice that you've been\nright up to your neck in fighting lately.\"\n\n\"Its been pretty hot along this sector,\" Frank admitted, \"though I\nsuppose it's nothing to what it will be after the big German drive gets\nstarted.  That is if it ever does start.  I sometimes think they've\ngiven up the idea.\"\n\n\"Don't kid yourself,\" replied the aviator grimly.  \"It's coming, all\nright.  If you fellows had been up in the air with me you wouldn't have\nany doubt about it.  The roads back of the German lines are just black\nwith troops.  It's like an endless swarm of ants.  The trains move\nalong in endless procession and they're packed.  Big guns, too, till\nyou can't count them.  It seems as if all Germany was on the move.\nIt's the old invasion of the Huns over again.\"\n\n\"Where do they get them all, I wonder,\" remarked Billy.\n\n\"That's easy,\" replied Frank bitterly.  \"They're coming from the\nRussian front.  The breakdown of Russia means a cool million at the\nvery least added to the German troops on the western front.\"\n\n\"That accounts for most of them,\" agreed Dick.  \"Then in addition\nGermany's combing out her empire to put every available man into\nservice.  She's enslaving the Belgians to work in her factories so that\nGerman workmen can be sent into the ranks.  She's calling up mere boys\nwho ought to be at their schoolbooks.  I tell you, boys, Germany's\ndesperate.  She's beginning to realize what a fool she was to bring\nAmerica into the war, and she's going to try to get a decision before\nwe get a big army over here.\"\n\n\"She'll have to get busy mighty soon, then,\" said Bart, \"for Uncle\nSam's boys are coming into France by the hundreds of thousands.  And\nthose hundreds of thousands will be millions before long.\"\n\n\"Right you are,\" agreed Dick.  \"The jig's up with Germany and she's the\nonly one that doesn't see it.  It's fun to see the way she tries to\nbelittle America to her own people.  Almost every week she has to\nchange the story.  At first she said that America wouldn't fight at\nall.  We were a nation of money grabbers.  Then even if we wanted to\nfight the U-boats would keep us from getting over; Then even if we got\nover, our troops would be green and run like hares as soon as they\ncaught sight of the veteran Prussian regiments.\"\n\nThe boys looked at each other with a grin.\n\n\"We've run, all right,\" chuckled Billy, \"but we've run toward them\ninstead of away from them.\"\n\n\"They thought our marines would run too,\" laughed Frank, \"but do you\nsee what they're calling them now?  _Teufelhunden_.  They're\ndevil-hounds, all right, and the dachshund yelps when he sees them\ncoming.\"\n\n\"What do you think the Germans will aim for when they do begin their\ndrive?\" queried Bart.\n\n\"The Allied commanders would give a good deal to know that,\" smiled\nDick.  \"Of course the thing the Huns want to do above everything else\nis to separate and crush the Allied armies.  Everything would be easy\nafter that.  But if they can't do that, they'll probably make a break\nfor Paris.  They figure that if they once got that in their hands the\nFrench would be ready to sue for peace.  Or they may try to take the\nChannel Ports, where they'd be in good position to take a hack at\nEngland.  The only thing that's certain is that the drive is coming and\nwhen it does come it's going to be the biggest fight in the history of\nthe world.\"\n\n\"Let Heinie do his worst,\" said Bart.\n\n\"Yes,\" agreed Frank.  \"And no matter what he does, he'll have to reckon\nwith Uncle Sam.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nIN THE HANDS OF THE HUNS\n\nThe last thing that Tom Bradford remembered in the fight that separated\nhim from his comrades was the sight of Frank in a bayonet duel with two\nGermans.  He was trying desperately to get to his friend's side and\nhelp him in the unequal combat, when a great blackness seemed to sweep\ndown upon him and he knew nothing more.\n\nWhen he came to consciousness, he felt himself dragged roughly to his\nfeet and thrust into a group of other prisoners who were being sent to\nthe rear under guard of a squad of German soldiers.  He reeled and\nwould have fallen had he not been supported by some of his other\ncompanions in misfortune.  Then the line was set in motion and he\nstumbled along dazedly, abused verbally by his guards and prodded with\nbayonets if he lagged or faltered.\n\nGradually his head stopped whirling and his brain grew clearer.  His\nface felt wet and sticky, and putting his hand to it he drew his\nfingers away covered with blood.\n\nHe felt his head and found a ragged gash running almost the length of\nthe scalp.  It must have bled freely, judging from the weakness he felt\nand the way his hair was matted and his face smeared.  But the blood\nhad congealed now and stopped flowing.  He figured from the character\nof the wound that it had been made by a glancing blow from a rifle.\n\nIt was fully dark when the gloomy procession halted at a big barn where\nthe prisoners were counted and passed in to stay for the night.\n\nA little later some food was passed in to the prisoners, but Tom had no\nappetite and even if he had been hungry it would have been hard to\nstomach the piece of dry bread and watery soup that was given him as\nhis portion.  So he gave it to others, and sat over in a corner\nimmersed in the gloomy thoughts that came trooping in upon him.\n\nHe was a prisoner.  And what he had heard of Hun methods, to say\nnothing of a former brief experience, had left him under no delusion as\nto what that meant.\n\nWhat were his comrades Frank, Bart and Billy doing now?  Had they come\nsafely through the fight?  He was glad at any rate that they were not\nwith him now.  Better dead on the field of battle, he thought bitterly,\nthan to be in the hands of the Huns.\n\nBut Tom was too young and his vitality too great to give himself up\nlong to despair.  He was a prisoner, but what of it?  He had been a\nprisoner before and escaped.  To be sure, it was too much to expect to\nescape by way of the sky as he had before.  Lightning seldom strikes\ntwice in the same place.  But there might be other ways--there should\nbe other ways.  While breath remained in his body he would never cease\nhis efforts to escape.  And sustained and inspired by this resolve, he\nat last fell asleep.\n\nWhen he awoke in the morning, his strength had in large measure\nreturned to him.  His head was still a little giddy but his appetite\nwas returning.  Still he looked askance at the meagre and unpalatable\nbreakfast brought in by the guards.\n\n\"Don't be too squeamish, kid,\" a fellow prisoner advised him, as he saw\nthe look on the young soldier's face.  \"Take what's given you, even if\nit isn't fit for Christians.  You'll get weak soon enough.  Keep strong\nas long as you can.\"\n\nThere was sound sense in this even with the woeful prophecy and Tom,\nthough with many inward protests, followed the well-meant advice.\n\nBad as it was, the food did him good, and he was feeling in fairly good\ncondition when, a little later, he was summoned before a German\nlieutenant to be examined.\n\nThat worthy was seated before a table spread with papers, and as Tom\nentered or rather was pushed into his presence he compressed his\nbeetling black brows and turned upon the prisoner with the face of a\nthundercloud.\n\nBut if he expected Tom to wilt before his frowning glance he was\ndisappointed.  There was no trace of swagger or bravado when Tom faced\nhis inquisitor.  But there was self-respect and quiet resolution that\nrefused to quail before anyone to whom fate for the moment had given\nthe upper hand.\n\nThe officer spoke English in a stiff and precise way so that an\ninterpreter was dispensed with, and the examination proceeded.\n\n\"What is your name?\" the lieutenant asked.\n\nTom told him.\n\n\"Your nationality?\"\n\n\"American.\"\n\nThe officer snorted.\n\n\"There is no such thing as American,\" he said contemptuously.  \"You are\njust a jumble of different races.\"\n\nTom said nothing.\n\n\"What is your regiment?\" the officer continued.\n\nThere was no answer.\n\n\"Did you hear me?\" repeated the lieutenant impatiently.  \"What is your\nregiment?\"\n\n\"I cannot tell,\" answered Tom.\n\n\"You mean you will not?\"\n\n\"I refuse to tell.\"\n\n\"Refuse,\" exclaimed the officer, growing red in the face.  \"That is not\na safe word to say to me.\"\n\nTom kept quiet.\n\nThe officer after a moment of inward debate shifted to another line.\n\n\"What are your commanders' plans, as far as you know?\"\n\n\"To beat the Germans,\" returned Tom promptly.\n\nThe officer's face became apoplectic.\n\n\"Yankee pig!\" he roared.  \"You know that is not what I meant.  Tell me\nif you know anything of their tactics, whether they intend to attack or\nstand on the defensive.\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" replied Tom truthfully.\n\n\"Have you plenty of ammunition?\"\n\n\"More than we can use,\" replied Tom promptly, glad to tell what could\ndo no harm and would only increase the chagrin of his enemy.\n\n\"How many troops have the Americans got in France?\"\n\n\"A good many hundreds of thousands,\" answered Tom, \"and they're coming\nover at the rate of two hundred thousand a month.\"\n\n\"Yankee lies,\" sneered the officer.  \"You are very ready to give me\nmore information than I ask for when it will suit your purpose.\"\n\nTom kept discreetly silent, but he chuckled inwardly at the discomfort\nshown by his enemy.\n\nThe officer pondered a moment, and evidently decided that there was not\nmuch to be got out of this young American who faced him so undauntedly.\nPerhaps other prisoners would prove more amenable.  But his dignity had\nbeen too much ruffled to let Tom get off without punishment.\n\n\"You think that you have baffled me,\" he said, \"but you will find that\nit is not wise to try to thwart the will of a German officer.  We have\nways to break such spirits as yours.\"\n\nHe called to the guard, who had been standing stolidly at the door.\n\n\"Take him out in the woods and put him to work where the enemy's shell\nfire is heaviest,\" he commanded.  \"It doesn't matter what happens to\nhim.  If his own people kill him so much the better.  It will only be\none less Yankee pig for us to feed.\"\n\nThe guard seized Tom and thrust him roughly out of the door.  Then he\ntook him back to the barn and a whispered conversation ensued, with\nmany black glances shot at Tom.\n\nA short time afterward he was placed with some others in the custody of\na squad of soldiers, and taken into the woods close behind the German\nlines.  Of course this was a flagrant breach of all the laws of war.\nBut there was no use in protesting.  That would only arouse the\namusement of the German guards.\n\nAs a matter of fact, when Tom came to think it over, he did not want to\nprotest.  His captors could have taken no course that would have suited\nhim better.  At first his heart had sunk, for he realized that the\nofficer's purpose was to sign his death warrant.  The chances of being\nkilled by the American shells was very great.  And then the significant\nword of the lieutenant that it didn't matter what happened to him, was\na hint to the guards that they could murder him if they liked, and\nthere would be no questions asked.\n\nBut after all, to be in the open was infinitely better than to be\neating his heart out in a squalid prison camp.  His health stood less\nchance of being undermined.  As to the shells, he had grown so used to\nthat form of danger that it hardly disturbed him at all.\n\nBut the one thing that stood out above all others was that in the woods\nhe would have a chance of escape, while in the camp he would have\npractically none at all.  His limbs would have to be free in order to\ndo the work demanded of him.  And he was willing to match his keen\nAmerican wits against the heavy and slow-thinking guards who might\nstand watch over him.\n\nHe soon reached the section where he was to work, and was set to\nfelling trees to make corduroy roads over which guns and supplies could\nbe brought up from the enemy's rear to the advanced lines.\n\nHe had never done that kind of work, and at first the tremendous\nefforts demanded of him amounted to sheer physical torture.  He was\nhounded on unceasingly under the jibes and threats of his brutal\nguards.  Not half enough food was supplied, and he was forced to work\nfor sixteen and eighteen hours on a stretch.\n\nBut he had great reserves of youth and vitality to draw on, and he kept\non doggedly, his brain alert, his eyes wide open, his heart courageous,\nlooking for his opportunity.\n\nOn the third night his opportunity came.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nFRYING-PAN TO FIRE\n\nThe third day of Tom's captivity had been more trying than the two that\npreceded it.\n\nA new piece of woodland had been ordered to be cleared and, as there\nwas a scarcity of labor, Tom had been taxed to even a greater degree\nthan usual.  By the time night came, he was feeling utterly exhausted\nand ready to drop.\n\nBut dusk brought him little relief, for he was told that he must keep\non by lantern light until ten o'clock, before he would be permitted to\nstop.\n\nHis troubles were aggravated by the fact that this afternoon a change\nof guards had brought him under the control of an especially brutal one\nwho made his life a burden by abuse.\n\nHis guard had ordered him into a thick part of the woods where the high\nunderbrush cut them off from the sight of other working parties a\nhundred yards away.  Here the German had seated himself comfortably on\na fallen tree while he watched his prisoner toil, occasionally hurling\na threat or epithet at him.\n\nThe guard's watch was out of order, and he had borrowed a small clock\nfrom the mess room in order to know when the time came to report with\nhis prisoner at quarters.  He had placed the clock in the light of the\nlantern and kept looking at it frequently and yawning.  It was plain\nthat he would welcome the hour that released him from his monotonous\nduty.\n\nThe night was warm and the guard's gun was heavy.  He stood it against\nthe tree, but within instant reach, and unbuckled his belt.\n\nIn working around the tree, Tom's foot as though by accident knocked\nagainst the clock and it fell over on its face.  The guard thundered a\ncurse against his awkwardness, and stooped down to pick it up.\n\nQuick as thought Tom picked up the heavy lantern and brought it\ncrashing down on the German's head.  The next instant his hands were on\nthe German's throat.\n\nThe struggle was brief, for the German at his best would have been no\nmatch for the young American.  Tom had soon choked him into\nunconsciousness, and when he felt the man become limp beneath him he\nrelaxed his hold.\n\nHe tied the German's hands with his belt and gagged him securely.  The\nlantern had gone out with the blow and he did not dare to relight it.\nDarkness was now his best friend.\n\nHis eyes fell on the clock.  It had done him good service, but now was\nof no further use to him.  But a second thought made him pick it up and\nput it in his blouse.\n\nHe had no compass, but the clock would do in a pinch.  His woodcraft\nhad taught him how the hands of a clock could find for him the cardinal\npoints.  More than once his watch in more peaceful times had done him a\nsimilar service.\n\nThe first thing necessary was to put as wide a distance as possible\nbetween himself and the place where he now was.  Afterwards he could\nfigure out how to regain his own lines.  By ten o'clock at latest his\nattack on the guard would be discovered.  He must be miles away before\nthen, or his life would not be worth a cent.\n\nHis impulse was to take the German's gun, but he discarded the thought\nat once.  His only salvation lay in hiding.  The gun would count for\nnothing among the innumerable foes that surrounded him.  It was heavy\nand cumbrous, and would only retard his progress through the woods.  He\nmust travel light if he would travel fast.\n\nHe gathered up some fragments of food left from the lunch that the\nguard had been munching and tucked them in his pocket.  Then like a\nshadow he slipped away through the woods.\n\nFrom what he had seen and bits of information that he had picked up\nfrom other prisoners, some of whom were Frenchmen and knew the country\nwell, Tom had a pretty good idea of the lay of the land.  He knew that\nthe country was rolling, with here and there a range of hills that rose\nalmost to the dignity of mountains.  Here there ought to be plenty of\nhiding places where he could stay while he planned a way to get across\nthe lines.\n\nOf course his route would be within the German lines for miles.  But\nthe inhabitants were in sympathy with the Allied cause, prisoners in\nalmost as great a degree as he himself had been, and he might find\namong them aid and comfort, though such assistance if discovered would\nbe sure to be visited with hard punishment by the German oppressors.\n\nThe way was full of difficulties and almost every step would be\nattended by danger.  But for the present at least he was free.  Free!\nThe word had never appealed to him so strongly before.  He drew in\ngreat draughts of the mountain air.  They seemed in a way to cleanse\nhis lungs from the prison taint.\n\nFor what seemed to him hours he never slackened his pace.  Many times\nhe stumbled in the darkness and his body was full of bruises, but in\nthe joy of his recovered freedom, he scarcely felt the pain.  On he\nwent and on until he felt certain he had placed a safe distance between\nhimself and the scene of his recent captivity.\n\nTo be sure, the German command had other things to rely on than mere\nphysical pursuit.  There were the long arms of the telegraph and\ntelephone, through which every division on the sector might be warned\nto be on the lookout for him.  But it was wholly unlikely that this\nwould be done.  On the eve of the great drive, the authorities were too\nbusy to expend their energies on the recapture of an escaped prisoner.\nEven if he should fall into the hands of another body of his enemies,\nit was unlikely that they would know anything of his recent exploit.\n\nSo with body tired after his strenuous exertions, but with his mind as\nmuch at rest as it could be under the circumstances, Tom threw himself\ndown at last to take a brief rest under the shadow of a giant beech.\n\nThe sun streaming through the branches woke him a little later.  For a\nmoment he did not know where he was and lay trying to get his thoughts\nin order.  Then it all came back to him with a rush and he sprang to\nhis feet and looked about him.\n\nThere was nothing in sight to alarm him.  The place seemed to be wild\nand unvisited.  A squirrel sat in the boughs over his head chattering\nhis surprise and perhaps his displeasure at the sight of the intruder.\nA chipmunk slipped along a grassy ridge and vanished in the\nundergrowth.  Birds sang their welcome to a new day.  Everything about\nhim spoke of peace and serenity.  It seemed as though there were no\nsuch thing as war in the world.\n\nYet even while this thought lingered with him there came a discordant\nnote in the booming of a distant gun.  But it seemed far off and though\nother guns soon swelled the menacing chorus there seemed to be no\nimmediate cause for alarm.\n\nA little way off from where he had slept, a small brook wound its way\nthrough the sedge grass.  Tom welcomed it with a grin, for he had not\nhad a bath since he had been captured.\n\nIn a moment he had undressed and plunged into the brook.  The water was\nscarcely deeper than his waist, but its coolness was like balm to Tom's\nbruised and heated body.  When he resumed his clothing he felt\ninfinitely strengthened and refreshed.\n\nThe young soldier worked his way into a dense thicket as a measure of\nprecaution, before he ate the remnants of food that he had carried away\nwith him the night before.  It was a meager breakfast and he could have\neaten four times as much if he had had it.  But even crumbs were\ngrateful to him in his famished condition.\n\nHe had just finished when an ominous sound fell on his ears.  Voices\nmingled with the tread of feet and the clank of weapons.  He looked\nthrough the bushes and saw a squad of soldiers wearing helmets coming\nover a little rise of ground beyond where he lay concealed.\n\nHe counted them as they came into view.  There were at least forty\nGermans going along in loose marching order.  They might have been a\npatrol out for scout duty or, what was more likely, a foraging party.\n\nHe had scarcely established their numbers when on the other side of the\nthicket and not more than fifty feet away another squad of Germans came\ninto view.  They apparently belonged to the same party, but had\nseparated somewhat from the others, probably for more ease in marching.\n\nThey seemed to have come from some distance for they were warm and\nperspiring.  The sight of the brook was refreshing, and after a brief\nconference between the lieutenant in command and a sergeant, the order\nwas given to break ranks, and the men threw themselves down in\nsprawling attitudes for a rest under the trees.\n\nTom's heart was in his mouth.  What kind of a trick was fate playing on\nhim?  Was this to be the end of his heartbreaking struggle, his wild\nflight through the woods?  Was he to get just a tantalizing glimpse of\nliberty to have it immediately snatched from him?  At that moment he\ntasted the bitterness of death.\n\nHow lucky it was, though, that he had sought refuge in that thicket\nbefore he commenced his breakfast.  There was still a chance.  The men\nwere tired and would not be likely to wander about.  They were only too\nglad of a chance to rest.\n\nHe burrowed deeper and deeper into the recesses of the thicket.  He lay\nas close to the ground as possible.  What would he have given for the\nfriendly shelter of a trench!\n\nThe men conversed lazily together while the officer sat some distance\napart.  At times the Germans' eyes rested carelessly on Tom's shelter,\nbut without any sign of suspicion.\n\nAt last the order came to resume the march, and Tom drew an immense\nsigh of relief.  A few minutes more and they would be gone.\n\nThe men had formed in loose marching order and the lieutenant lifted\nhis hand to give the signal.\n\nSuddenly a loud ringing came from the center of the thicket, whirring,\nrattling, clanging.\n\n_The time-piece Tom was carrying was an alarm clock!_\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nTHE CONFESSION\n\nTo poor Tom that ringing was the crack of doom.\n\nThe world seemed to end for him then and there.  The first surprise had\nparalyzed him.  Then he rolled upon the betraying clock, tried to crush\nit, strangle it, press it into the earth.  But it kept on remorselessly\nuntil the alarm ran down.\n\nThe Germans had been almost as startled at first as Tom himself.  But\nthey hesitated only for a moment.  There could be no mistaking where\nthat insistent buzzing was coming from.  There was a rush for the\nthicket, and the next moment Tom was hauled out and stood upon his feet\namong his captors.\n\nIt took only a glance to tell them that Tom was an American.  His face\nas well as his uniform betrayed that fact.  Amid a hubbub of excited\nexclamations he was taken before their leader.\n\nBut this time the officer was not able to talk English and there was no\ninterpreter at hand, so that Tom for the present was spared the ordeal\nof questioning.\n\nThe fateful clock was passed around among the men with jest and\nlaughter.  It was a good joke to them, but Tom was in no mood to see\nthe humor of the situation.  To him it meant that all his strivings had\ncome to naught.\n\nWhy had he not noticed that the clock was of the alarm variety and that\nthe alarm had been set?  He promised that he would never forgive\nhimself for that.\n\nA number of men were counted off to take Tom to the local prison camp,\nwhile the rest of the party went on with their expedition.\n\nThe journey was long, but it was not attended by the rough treatment\nthat would ordinarily have been meted out to the prisoner.  The men\nwere glad, for one thing, that they were relieved from going on the\nspecial duty for which the party had been formed.  Then, too, Tom's\nmisadventure had given them a hearty laugh, and laughs were something\nto be prized in their arduous life.\n\nAfter reaching the camp, Tom was taken before an officer for\nexamination.  But the officer was busy and preoccupied, and the\nquestioning was largely a matter of form.  Tom was vague or dense as\nthe case demanded, and the impatient officer curtly ordered him to be\nthrust in with the other prisoners and promptly proceeded to forget him.\n\nTom passed through several stages of emotion when he was left to\nhimself.  First he moped, and then he raged.  Then, as the comical side\nof the situation forced itself even upon his misery, he laughed.\n\nA proverb says that \"the man is not wholly lost who can laugh at his\nown misfortunes.\"  Tom laughed and immediately felt better.  His\nnatural buoyancy reasserted itself.  But he had imbibed a prejudice\nagainst alarm clocks that promised to last for the rest of his life.\n\nThe sector was a quiet one and Tom was not sent out to work under shell\nfire.  For a few days he was left unmolested to the tedium of prison\nlife, and he began with renewed zest to formulate plans for his escape.\n\nHe had a chance also to become more or less acquainted with his\nfellow-prisoners.  There were not many and Tom reflected with\nsatisfaction that the Americans held more German prisoners than the\nHuns had captured of his own countrymen.\n\nThere was a sprinkling of nationalities.  There were a few American and\nBritish, but the majority were French and Belgians.\n\nAbout the only French prisoner that Tom grew to know intimately was one\nwho could speak English fairly well.  This he explained was due to the\nfact that the man in whose employ he had been as a butler had a\ndaughter who had married an American, and English had been much spoken\nin the household.\n\n\"What part of France do you come from?\" asked Tom one day, when they\nwere chatting together.\n\n\"From Auvergne,\" answered the Frenchman, whose name was Martel.  \"Ah,\"\nhe continued wistfully, \"what would I not give to see the gardens and\nvineyards of Auvergne again!  But I never will.\"\n\n\"Sure you will,\" said Tom cheerily.  \"Brace up, Martel.  You won't stay\nin this old hole forever.\"\n\nMartel shook his head.\n\n\"I'm doomed,\" he said.  \"I was in the first stage of consumption when I\ncame here, and the disease is gripping me more tightly every day.\nPerhaps it's a judgment on me.\"\n\n\"What do you mean by that?\" asked Tom, but Martel did not reply except\nby a shrug of the shoulders.\n\n\"Speaking of Auvergne,\" remarked Tom after a pause, \"reminds me that I\nhave a special chum whose mother came from that province.  She married\nan American, too.\"\n\n\"_Vrai_?\" exclaimed Martel with quickened interest.  \"What was her\nname, _mon ami_?\"\n\n\"Blest if I remember,\" answered Tom.  \"I've heard it, too, but I don't\nrecall it.  But I'll tell you how I can find out,\" he went on,\nrummaging in his pockets.  \"I've got a letter somewhere that was sent\nto my chum.  I got it from the headquarters post-office the day I was\ncaptured and forgot to give it to him.  The Huns tore the envelope off\nwhen they saw me, but when they saw that it was of no importance to\nthem they tossed it back.  I've kept it carefully ever since because\nit's from some lawyer fellow in Paris telling him about his mother's\nproperty, and I hope some time to be able to hand it to him.  It's\nsimply a business letter with nothing private or personal in it.  Here\nit is,\" and Tom produced from his pocket a crumpled letter without an\nenvelope.  \"Let's see, the name of Frank's mother is Delatour--why,\nwhat's the matter, Martel?\" he added anxiously, as he saw the Frenchman\nturn white and start back at the mention of the name.\n\n\"Nothing,\" answered Martel, controlling himself with difficulty.  \"A\nlittle weakness--I'm not very strong, you know.\"\n\nThe conversation turned then in other channels, and Tom soon forgot it\nin his absorption of his one idea of escape.\n\nA week had passed when a sudden hemorrhage that attacked Martel brought\nthe prison doctor to his side.  He shook his head after an examination.\nThere was no hope.  It was a matter of days only, perhaps of hours.  He\nwas heartless and perfunctory.  What did it matter?  The sufferer was\nonly a prisoner.\n\nA little while after, Martel called Tom to him.\n\n\"I told you, _mon ami_, that it would not be long,\" he said with the\nghost of a smile.  \"And I also told you that perhaps it was a judgment\non me.  Do you remember?\"\n\n\"Why, yes,\" answered Tom reluctantly.  \"But perhaps you'd better not\nexcite yourself talking about it.  I guess we've all done things we're\nsorry for afterwards.\"\n\n\"But I committed a crime,\" said Martel.  \"I perjured myself.  And I did\nit for gain.\"\n\n\"There, there,\" soothed Tom, but Martel continued:\n\n\"No, I must speak.  _Le bon Dieu_ has sent you to me.  Listen, _mon\nbrave_, I was in the household of Monsieur Delatour.  I had seen\nMademoiselle Lucie grow up from childhood.  She was charming.  But she\nmarried and passed largely out of our life.  Monsieur Delatour grew\nold.  He had made his will leaving the property chiefly to his\ndaughter.  But there was a nephew, a spendthrift--what you call in\nEnglish the black sheep--and after Monsieur Delatour died this _mauvais\nsujet_ offered me money to swear that there was a later will.  The\nobject?  To tie up the estate, to delay the settlement, to force a\ncompromise with the daughter.  I took the money.  I perjured myself.\nThere was no later will.  The property belongs to Mademoiselle\nLucie--pardon, Madame Sheldon.\"\n\nHe fell back exhausted on his pillow.  Tom was shocked, but he was also\ngreatly excited at the prospect of the wrong that had been done to\nFrank's mother being righted.  At Martel's request the confession was\nreduced to writing with many details added, and then a number of the\nprisoners signed their names as witnesses.\n\nTom was not sure how far the confession would stand in law, but he felt\nreasonably certain that it would be regarded as good evidence and he\nwas jubilant at the chance that had made him of such great service to\nhis chum, Frank.\n\nThe confession was made none too soon, for that same night Martel died.\n\n\"Well, Frank, old scout,\" said Tom to himself the next day, as he\ncarefully read and re-read the important document, \"that alarm clock\nplayed me a lowdown trick, but it's sure been a good friend of yours,\nall provided I can get this confession to you!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nA MIDNIGHT SWIM\n\n\"A pretty tight place we're in,\" remarked Bart to Frank as the Army\nBoys stood side by side behind a barricade of logs where they had just\nrepelled a German attack that had surged up close before it fell back\nin confusion.\n\n\"Tight is right,\" grunted Bart, as he reloaded his rifle which was\ngetting hot from firing.\n\n\"We ought to be used to tight places by this time,\" put in Billy,\nstopping long enough to wipe the perspiration from his face.  \"It seems\nthat when our division has a specially tough job to do they always call\nupon the old Thirty-seventh to do it.\"\n\nThere was no exaggeration in describing the position the soldiers were\nholding as a tight place.  While the great drive had not yet begun, the\nenemy was carrying on a nibbling process in the attempt to improve his\nposition before the start of the big offensive.\n\nThere was a piece of woodland surmounting a broad plateau that had\nconsiderable strategic importance.  Its possession would enable the\nGermans to straighten their lines and permit their guns to dominate the\nvalley beyond.  They had made several attacks previously which had been\ndriven back; but on the morning in question the assaults had been\nparticularly ferocious and determined.  It was evident that the Germans\nhad received orders to carry it at all costs, and they had thrown their\nforces ahead again and again regardless of their heavy losses in men.\n\nTheir attacks on the direct front had remained without result, but they\nhad been able to gain some advantages on the side that separated the\ndetachment in the woods from their main divisions.  It was necessary\nthat American reinforcements should be sent at once, for the\ncomparatively small force that held the position was rapidly thinning\nout, owing to the terrific shell fire of the enemy's guns.\n\nSeveral couriers had been sent to notify the main command of the\nperilous position in which the defenders were placed, but these had\nevidently been killed or captured, and at last Major Blake, the officer\nin command, had to use his last resort.\n\nThere was a cage of carrier pigeons that the detachment had brought\nwith them, beautiful, soft-eyed creatures that had been thoroughly\ntrained.  It seemed a pity that things so gentle should have to serve\nthe harsh purposes of war.  But human lives were at stake, and one of\nthe birds was quickly selected, and a message tied on it securely.\nThen it was thrown up in the air.  It circled about for a moment to get\nits direction, and then straight as an arrow to its mark made for\ndivision headquarters.\n\nA cheer rose from the men as they watched the feathered messenger, but\nthis quickly changed to a groan when the bird was seen to falter and\nthen plunge downward.  An enemy shot had winged or killed it.\n\nTwo more were sent and met with the same fate.  The need was growing\nfearfully urgent, for the enemy had been reinforced and the attacks\nwere growing in intensity.  Unless help came very soon the position\nwould be overwhelmed.\n\nFrank and his comrades were fighting like tigers, their faces covered\nwith grime and sweat.  The last time the enemy came on they had reached\nthe breastworks and had been beaten back with savage bayonet fighting\nand clubbed rifles.  But they still kept coming as though their numbers\nwere endless.\n\n\"The boys had better hurry up if they want to find any of us alive,\"\nmuttered Billy.\n\n\"They'll probably find us dead,\" grunted Bart, \"but they'll find, too,\nthat we've taken a lot of the Huns with us.\"\n\n\"There goes the fourth bird,\" said Frank.  \"Perhaps he'll have better\nluck.\"\n\nThrough the tempest of shot and shell the bird winged its way unhurt,\nand with new hope the desperate defenders buckled down to their work.\nThey knew their comrades would not leave them in the lurch.\n\nTwo more attacks came on, but the gray-clad waves broke down before the\ngallant defense.  And then, above the roar of battle, came a rousing\nAmerican cheer, and into the woods came plunging rank after rank of\nfresh troops to relieve their hard-pressed comrades.\n\nThey rapidly fell into position, and the next time the Germans came for\nwhat they believed would be their crowning success they had the\nsurprise of their lives.  A withering rifle fire ploughed their ranks,\nand then the American boys leaped over the barricade and chased the\nenemy back to his own lines.  The position was saved, and the hardy\nfighters who had held it so gallantly looked at each other and wondered\nthat they were alive.\n\n\"The narrowest shave we ever had!\" gasped Billy as, utterly exhausted,\nhe threw himself at full length on the ground.\n\n\"It was nip and tuck,\" panted Bart.  \"I know now how the besieged\nBritish at Lucknow felt when they heard the bagpipes playing: 'The\nCampbells are coming.'\"\n\n\"We pulled through all right,\" said Frank, \"and don't forget, boys,\nthat we owe it to the birds.\"\n\nTwo days later the position of the divisions was shifted and the Army\nBoys found themselves on the banks of a small river that forms the\ndividing line between the hostile armies.\n\nThe squad to which Frank and his comrades were assigned under the\ncommand of Corporal Wilson, who had now fully recovered from his\nwounds, was stationed at a point where the river was about a hundred\nand fifty yards wide.  Desultory firing was carried on, but the sector\nat the time was comparatively quiet, as both armies were engrossed in\ntheir preparations for the great battle that was impending.  It was the\nlull before the storm, and the boys improved it to the utmost.  Their\nduties were light compared to what they had been, and they rapidly\nrecuperated from the great strain under which they had been for some\nweeks past.\n\n\"If only Tom were here now,\" remarked Frank for perhaps the hundredth\ntime, for their missing comrade was always in the thoughts of the other\nArmy Boys.\n\n\"Poor old scout!\" mourned Bart.  \"I wonder where he is now?\"\n\n\"Working his heart out in some German camp, I suppose,\" said Billy\nsavagely.\n\n\"You see, Frank, your hunch hasn't worked out as you thought it would,\"\nsaid Bart.  \"You felt sure that Tom would be with us again before this.\"\n\n\"I know,\" admitted Frank.  \"My time-table has gone wrong, but I haven't\ngiven up hope.  Tom is only human and he can't work miracles.  He may\nhave been so placed that it simply wasn't possible to make a break.\nBut one thing you can gamble on, and that is that he hasn't given up\ntrying.  And when a man has that spirit his chance is sure to come.\"\n\n\"I wish I had your optimism,\" said Bart gloomily.\n\n\"Look at those skunks on the other side of the river,\" interrupted\nBilly.\n\nHe pointed to a group of German soldiers who were making insulting\ngestures and holding up huge placards with coarse inscriptions on them.\n\n\"Cheap skates,\" replied Frank.  \"You notice they're not quite so gay\nwhen we get to close quarters with them.\"\n\n\"They get my goat,\" said Billy with irritation.  \"I'd like to cram\nthose placards down their throats.\"\n\n\"Pretty big mouthful,\" laughed Frank.\n\n\"We'll get them yet,\" said Billy vengefully.\n\n\"What's the use of saying 'yet,'\" suggested Frank.  \"Why not say 'now'?\"\n\nThey looked at him curiously.\n\n\"What do you mean?\" queried Bart.\n\n\"Got anything up your sleeve?\" asked Billy.\n\n\"An idea just came to me,\" replied Frank.  \"I don't know whether it's\nany good, but perhaps it's worth chewing over.\"\n\n\"Let's have it,\" demanded Billy eagerly.\n\n\"Well,\" said Frank slowly, \"I figure that there must be about twenty\nGermans in that detachment just opposite us.  What would be the matter\nwith a few of us going over there some dark night and cleaning up the\nbunch?\"\n\nA delighted shout met the suggestion.\n\n\"Bully!\" exclaimed Bart.\n\nBut though the approval was enthusiastic, practical difficulties soon\npresented themselves.\n\n\"How are we to get across?\" asked Bart dubiously.\n\n\"We haven't any boat on this side that's big enough,\" said Billy.  \"In\nfact, I don't think we have any at all.\"\n\n\"That's an easy one,\" answered Frank.  \"Do you see that big lobster of\na boat on the other side?  That looks as though it would carry almost a\ndozen anyway.  We won't need any more than that to nab the Huns,\nbecause we'll have the advantage of the surprise if our plans go\nthrough all right.\"\n\n\"But how are we going to get the boat?\" asked Bart.\n\n\"Swim over for it,\" replied Frank.  \"I'll attend to that.  Give me a\ndark night and it's all I ask.\"\n\n\"Let's see what the corporal has to say about it,\" suggested Bart.\n\nThe corporal listened with interest.  It was a plan after his own heart.\n\n\"You young roosters are always looking for fight,\" he grinned.  \"I'll\nput it up to the captain and see what he says.\"\n\nThe assent of the captain was readily obtained as he knew the value of\nsuch exploits in keeping the spirits of the men up to high fighting\npitch.\n\nThe night following there would be no moon until late, and it was fixed\non for carrying out the raid.  Frank was to swim across the river and\nget the boat.  On the American side Wilson with eight men would be in\nwaiting.  They would embark and try to reach the other side without\ndetection.  Quick thinking and Yankee grit could be depended on to do\nthe rest.\n\nThe night came, black as pitch.  Frank slid into the water as\nnoiselessly as a fish and struck out for the other side.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nGALLANT WORK\n\nThe water had a chill in it that struck to Frank's marrow, but the\nreaction soon came and he proceeded swiftly, making as little noise as\npossible, and keeping body and head low in the water.  He was a\npowerful swimmer, and the distance was as nothing to him.  But the\ngreatest caution had to be exercised lest he be discovered by a sentry\nwhose shot would alarm his comrades and put an end to the projected\nraid.\n\nBut fortune favored him and he soon reached the boat, which seemed to\nbe large enough, with some crowding, to carry the American party.  It\nswung with its stern toward the shore, to which it was held by a rope\nthat was passed about a cleat.\n\nFrank clung for a moment to the bow and listened intently.  He could\nhear no breathing nor any other sound that indicated that any one was\non board.  The Germans had evidently not dreamed of any such exploit as\nthat on which Frank was bent.\n\nBut that a watch was kept on the shore was evident, for Frank could\nhear the measured step of a sentinel some distance away.  The steps\nreceded as he listened, and he gathered that the patrol was an extended\none.  Now was his time, while the sentry was at the further limit of\nhis beat.\n\nSwiftly he climbed on board, slipped the rope from its cleat, and with\na push of an oar against the bank sent the boat some distance out into\nthe stream.  He did not dare to row for he feared that the oars grating\nin the rowlocks might betray him.  But he made a paddle of one of the\noars, dipping it in alternately on opposite sides of the bow, paddle\nfashion, and before long reached his party, by whom he was received\nwith intense though subdued jubilation.\n\nIn whispers Frank explained to Wilson what he had observed and action\nwas agreed on accordingly.  The party, ten in all, bestowed themselves\nas best as they might in their narrow quarters and the boat started on\nits perilous expedition.\n\nA paddle was employed as before, and the journey was necessarily slow,\nfor the boat sank in the water almost to the gunwales.  But they\nreached the other side at last, and Frank, slipping into the water,\nwaded to the bank, where he fastened the boat securely.\n\nWhether they would ever step into that boat again was known to none of\nthe party that slipped like shadows up the grassy bank.  They were\noutnumbered two to one, or more, and their success depended mainly on\nsurprise.  The slightest slip in their plans would bring the expedition\nto grief.\n\nThey lay flat on the bank and listened.  There was no sound except the\ntread of the sentry's feet coming nearer.  It was unlikely that the\nabsence of the boat had been discovered.  Still, it might have been,\nand the dead silence might portend an ambush by the enemy.\n\nThis was a chance, however, that they had to take.  But the first thing\nto do was to dispose of the sentry.\n\nThe path along which he seemed to be coming was bordered with a small\nand uncared-for hedge.\n\nIn a hurried whisper Wilson gave his commands.\n\n\"You, Sheldon and Raymond, creep ahead and lie on opposite sides of the\nledge.  When the sentry comes along, close on him at the same time.\nKeep him from making a noise if you can.  The one thing is to be quick.\"\n\nFrank and Bart glided along and took up positions opposite each other.\n\n\"You grab his gun, Bart, and I'll make for his throat,\" whispered Frank.\n\nThe sentry came on unsuspectingly.  Lithe as panthers the boys leaped\nupon him, Bart grasping the gun, while Frank's sinewy hands fastened on\nhis throat.\n\nThere was a muffled exclamation and a short sharp struggle.  Then the\nsentry lay on the ground unconscious, while Frank and Bart hastily\nimprovised a gag, and bound the man's hands and feet.\n\n\"Good work,\" commended the corporal, as Frank and Bart rejoined their\ncomrades.  \"That was the most ticklish part.  The rest ought to be\neasy.\"\n\nBut he was mistaken, for just then the door of a dugout in a small\ntrench opened, and two men came out with lanterns.  It was evidently\nthe corporal of the guard who had come out with a private to relieve\nthe sentry.\n\nThere was an exclamation of surprise and alarm, and as the light of the\nlanterns revealed the group of dark figures at the head of the trench,\nthe men started to leap back into the dugout.  But a rifle cracked and\none of them fell.  The other, however, got inside and slammed and\nbarred the door.\n\n\"Rush them, men!\" shouted the corporal, and charged, at their head,\ntoward the dugout.\n\nTwo or three of them launched themselves against the door, but it held.\n\n\"Splinter it with your gun butts!\" yelled the corporal, and a series of\nheavy blows thundered against the barrier.\n\nSome of the planks started to give, but before the door had completely\nyielded, it was thrown open from within and the Germans rushed out,\nfiring as they came.\n\nThey were met by a return volley, and two of them fell.  But the others\ncharged fiercely, and in an instant the two forces were engaged in a\nterrible hand-to-hand battle.\n\nIn the narrow confines of the trench there was no chance for shooting\nafter the first volley.  It was a matter of fists and knives and in\nthis the Germans proved, as they had many times before, that they were\nno match for the sinewy young Americans who with a yell went at them\nlike wild-cats.\n\nSullenly they retreated and their leader held up his hands and shouted\n\"_Kamerad!_\"\n\nHis followers did the same.  The fight was over.  None of the Americans\nhad been killed though one was slightly and another severely wounded.\nThree of the Germans would never fight again and two others stood\nsupported by their comrades.\n\nTwo of the Americans stood at the door of the dugout and searched the\nGermans for arms as they came through.  Others stood at the head of the\ntrench and herded the prisoners together for transportation to the\nother side.\n\nThe German corporal looked about him as he and his men stood guarded by\nAmericans with loaded rifles, and his chagrin was evident as he\nrealized that he had been captured by so small a force.\n\n\"Are these all the men you have?\" he asked in passable English of\nWilson.\n\n\"They were enough, weren't they?\" answered Wilson with a grin that\nreflected itself on the faces of his comrades.\n\n\"_Donnerwetter!_\" growled the German.  \"You would never have taken us\nif we had known!\"\n\n\"We don't tell all we know,\" answered Wilson with a grin.\n\nThe prisoners were ferried across in groups of half a dozen at a time,\nbut not before Billy had had the satisfaction of gathering up the\ninsulting placards that had aroused his ire and tearing them up before\nthe Germans' faces.\n\n\"Feel better now?\" laughed Frank.\n\n\"Lots,\" replied Billy.  \"I couldn't exactly make them swallow them, but\nthey must have felt almost as bad to see so much German Kultur going to\nwaste.\"\n\nThe party was greeted with exuberant delight on their return, and\nreceived the special thanks of the captain.\n\n\"It was a big risk,\" he smiled, \"but risks have a way of going through\nwhen they are carried out by the boys I'm lucky enough to command.\"\n\n\"You forget, Captain,\" smiled the lieutenant who stood nearby, \"that\nthere are no American soldiers in France.\"\n\n\"That's so,\" laughed the captain.  \"The U-boats stopped us from coming\nover, didn't they?\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nTHE DRUGGED DETACHMENT\n\nA scouting party was being made up a few days later, and the Army Boys\nwere glad that they were included in it.  In the region where they were\nstationed the woods were thick, and there was a sort of \"twilight zone\"\nthat afforded excellent opportunities for individual fighting.  The\nlines were rather loosely kept, and it was no uncommon occurrence to\nhave raiding parties slip across, have a brush with their opponents,\nand retire with what forage or prisoners they might be lucky enough to\ntake.\n\nThere had been a good deal of \"sniping\" that, while it only caused\noccasional losses, was a source of harassment and irritation, and\nFrank's squad had orders to \"get\" as many of these sharpshooters as\npossible.\n\nA little way from the camp there was a deep gorge.  Along its top were\nmany huge trees whose branches reached far out over the precipice.\nThey drew so close together that their branches in many cases were\ninterwoven.\n\nThe squad was moving along without any attempt to keep formation in\nsuch rough country, when there was the crack of a rifle and a bullet\nzipped close by Frank's ear.\n\nHe started back.\n\n\"Did it get you, Frank?\" called out Bart in alarm.\n\n\"No,\" replied Frank, \"but it came closer than I care to think about.\"\n\nAt the corporal's command they took shelter behind trees, from which\nthey scanned the locality in the direction from which the shot had come.\n\nThere was no trace of any concealed marksman, search the coverts as\nthey would.  But that he was there, and that he was an enemy to be\ndreaded, was shown a moment later when a bullet ridged the fingers of\nthe hand that Billy had incautiously exposed.\n\nWith an exclamation, Billy put his bleeding fingers to his mouth.  The\ninjury was slight and Bart bound his hand up for him, using extreme\ncare to keep behind the trees.\n\n\"We have to hand it to that fellow,\" remarked the corporal.  \"He\ncertainly knows how to shoot.\"\n\n\"I'd hand him something if I only knew where he was,\" growled Billy.\n\n\"I know where he is,\" said Frank.\n\n\"Do you?\" asked the corporal eagerly.\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"In the tallest of that clump of trees on the edge of the gorge,\"\nreplied Frank.  \"I caught a glimpse of his rifle barrel the last time\nhe fired.\"\n\n\"We'll give him a volley,\" decided the corporal, and a moment later, at\nhis command, the rifles rang out.\n\nSeveral times this was repeated in the hope that one of the bullets\nwould find its mark.  But the tree trunk was enormously thick and\nbullets imbedded themselves in it without injury to the marksman,\nsnugly sheltered on the further side.\n\nIf they could have surrounded the tree and shot from different sides\nthere would have been no trouble in bagging their quarry.  But the tree\nhad been cunningly chosen for the reason that the further side hung\nover the precipice and could only be attacked from the side where the\nparty now were.\n\nFrank's keen eyes had been sizing up the situation and he now had a\nproposal to make.\n\n\"I think I see a way to dislodge him if you'll let me try it,\nCorporal,\" he said.\n\n\"What is it?\" asked Wilson.\n\n\"You'll notice that the branches of those trees are mixed in with each\nother,\" replied Frank.  \"If you can keep him busy with your shooting,\nso that he won't be thinking of anything else, I think I can make a\ndetour and climb up one of those other trees on the side away from him.\nI could carry my rifle strapped on my back.  Then I might work my way\nalong the branches and perhaps catch sight of him.\"\n\n\"It's worth trying,\" decided the corporal.  \"Go ahead, Sheldon, but be\nmighty careful.\"\n\nFrank slipped away in the shelter of the trees, described a\nsemi-circle, reached the third tree from the one where the German was\nstationed, and commenced to climb.\n\nIt was hard work, for the tree was thick and he could not get a good\ngrip on it with his arms.  But he persisted until he reached the first\nlimb and drew himself up on it.  Then he examined his rifle carefully\nand with the utmost caution began to work his way among the branches.\n\nSome of these were so thick as to be themselves almost like tree\ntrunks, and he had no apprehension on the score of his weight.  He\npassed to the next tree, and then to the next.  There he paused,\nparting the branches carefully.\n\nHe knew that his comrades were keeping their part of the bargain, for\nthe thud of bullets against the tree that sheltered the enemy was\nalmost continuous.\n\nFor several minutes Frank looked for his enemy.  Then his search was\nrewarded, and through an open space he found himself looking squarely\ninto the eyes of the man who, a few minutes before, had tried to send a\nbullet through his brain.\n\nThe man saw him at the same instant.  Like a flash he leveled his rifle\nand fired.\n\nFor such a hurried aim the shot was good.  Frank felt the whistle of\nthe bullet as it almost grazed him.  But it was not good enough.\n\nThe next instant Frank's rifle spoke.  The man flung out his arms,\ntoppled over and fell with a crash into the gorge that the tree\noverhung.  The rifle clanged after him.  There would be no more sniping\nby that particular marksman from that particular tree.\n\nThere was a shout from the squad who had witnessed the duel, and as\nFrank slid down the tree he was greeted with acclamations.\n\n\"A nervy thing, Sheldon,\" commended Wilson.\n\n\"He almost got me, though,\" returned Frank.  \"It was a case of touch\nand go.\"\n\n\"He was a brave man,\" was the tribute of the corporal, \"though that\nparticular kind of work has always seemed to me something like murder.\nHe shot his victims without giving them a chance.  His work on land was\nthat of the U-boats on the sea--a species of assassination.\"\n\nThe squad went on with special caution and with a close watch on the\ntrees.  But noon came without further adventure and they got out their\nrations and prepared to enjoy them at the foot of a spreading maple.\n\nThey were perhaps half way through the meal, which they had seasoned\nwith jokes and laughter, when there was a rustling in the bushes near\nat hand.  Instantly they leaped to their feet and reached for their\nrifles.\n\n\"Who goes there?\" demanded the corporal.\n\nThere was no answer.\n\n\"Answer or we shoot!\" cried Wilson.\n\nThe bushes parted and a young peasant girl stepped forth.\n\nShe was a pretty girl of about eighteen.  Her face bore the marks of\ntears, her hair was dishevelled, and she was in a state of extreme\nagitation.  She began to talk feverishly and with many gestures.\n\n\"Here, Sheldon,\" said the corporal, \"you speak French.  See if you can\nunderstand what the girl is saying.\"\n\nFrank stepped forward.\n\n\"_Que voulez-vous, Mademoiselle?_\" he asked.\n\nThe relief of the girl when she heard her own language was evident.\n\n\"These are English soldiers, Monsieur?\" she asked.\n\n\"No,\" said Frank, \"they are Americans.\"\n\n\"Oh, _les braves Americains_!\" she exclaimed.  \"How glad I am!  I know\nyou will help me.\"\n\n\"Be sure of that,\" replied Frank.  \"But tell me now just what has\nhappened.\"\n\n\"The boches,\" she answered.  \"They are at our house.\"\n\n\"How many are there?\" asked Frank with quickened interest.\n\n\"About thirty,\" she replied.  Then as she saw Frank glance at the ten\nwho made up his party, she went on: \"But you can capture them, I am\nsure.  They are drugged.\"\n\n\"Drugged?\"\n\n\"Yes.  They came to our house early this morning.  They upset\neverything.  They smashed the furniture.  They tied my father and\nbrother in chairs.  They said they were going to burn the house when\nthey got ready to go away.\"\n\n\"But how were they drugged?\"\n\n\"They made me get them all the food and wine there was in the house.  I\ndid so.  I put some laudanum in the wine.  They ate and drank.  Then\nthey got sleepy.  They dropped off one by one.  Then I ran out to find\nhelp.  I find you.  Heaven is good.\"\n\nFrank consulted the corporal as the others crowded around in great\nexcitement.\n\nThe corporal meditated.\n\n\"It may be a trap,\" he said cautiously.\n\n\"I don't think so,\" replied Frank.  \"Look at the girl.  She's no\nactress.  I think she's telling the truth.\"\n\n\"But even if they were drugged, they may have recovered from the\neffects by this time,\" pondered the corporal.\n\nThen he made up his mind.\n\n\"We'll take a chance,\" he decided.  \"Ask the girl how far the house is\nfrom here.\"\n\n\"About a mile,\" the girl answered to Frank's query.  \"And there is one\nother thing,\" she added.  \"They have a prisoner with them.  He is young\nand he has a uniform like yours, only it is torn and soiled.  They\nthrew him on the floor in a room upstairs.  He was tied with ropes.\"\n\n\"What does he look like?\" asked Frank.  \"Tell me as well as you can.\"\n\nShe described the prisoner amid the growing excitement of the Army Boys.\n\n\"Tom, for a thousand dollars!\" cried Frank.\n\n\"It must be!\" echoed Bart.\n\n\"Sure as guns!\" chimed in Billy.\n\n\"Do you know him, then?\" asked the girl, who had been looking at them\nwonderingly.  \"Oh, then hurry!  For they are going to hang him.  They\nput a rope over the tree near the well and said they would hang him\nwhen they got through eating and drinking.\"\n\nHang Tom!  If there had been any hesitation before, there was none now.\nThe chums would have run every step of the way if the corporal had not\nrestrained them.  As it was they covered the mile in double-quick time.\n\nAs they came to where the farm bordered on the woods and caught sight\nof the house, their eyes turned with dread toward the well.  An\nexclamation of heartfelt relief broke from them.  The rope was there as\nthe girl had said, but no hideous burden dangled from it.\n\nNo one was in sight, and a death-like silence brooded over the place.\nThey waited in the shelter of the trees.  Perhaps the enemy had\nrecovered and was waiting for them with a force three times their own.\n\nFive minutes passed.  Then the corporal gave an order.\n\n\"Fix bayonets!  We're going to rush the house.\"\n\nThere was a sharp click.\n\n\"Charge!\"\n\nWith a cheer they rushed across the brief space that separated them\nfrom the house and up to the open door.\n\nThe corporal looked in.\n\n\"Put up your guns, boys,\" he said quietly.  \"We've got them.\"\n\nThe others crowded after him into the long low-ceiled room.  The enemy\nhad been delivered into their hands.  There, sprawled over the floor in\nall sorts of ungainly attitudes among the smashed furniture, were the\ninvaders in various stages of stupor.  Some of them opened their eyes\nat the sudden interruption and stared hard at the newcomers.  The\nlieutenant himself sat at the table on which his head had fallen\nforward.\n\nBut the Army Boys did not tarry long.  A word of permission from the\ncorporal and they bounded up the narrow stairs and burst into the room\nwhere the girl had said Tom had been left.\n\nThe room was empty!\n\nThey searched and called frantically.\n\n\"Tom!  Tom!  Where are you?  Come out!  It's friends, Frank, Billy,\nBart!\"\n\nThey looked in every cranny and corner of the house upstairs and then\ndown.  Then they rushed out to the barn.  Then with fear at their\nhearts they sounded the well.\n\nAll was to no purpose.  Tom--if it had really been Tom--might have\nvanished into thin air for any trace they found of him.\n\nWhere had he gone?  What had become of him?  Or, worst of all, what had\nthe enemy done to him?\n\nThere was no answer, and at last they rejoined their comrades in the\nhope that questioning of the German lieutenant or some of his men might\ntell them what they wanted to know.\n\nThe first precaution that the corporal had taken was to disarm and bind\nhis prisoners.  Then the farmer and his son were released.  They were\nwild with rage at the treatment they had undergone and the wanton havoc\nwrought in their home.  If the choice had been left to them they would\nhave killed every prisoner on the spot.\n\nAt the corporal's command water was brought from the well and buckets\nof it were dashed over the Germans.  There was sputtering and yelling,\nbut the soldier boys enjoyed it hugely, and they worked with a hearty\ngood will.\n\nIt was a drastic remedy for sleepiness but it worked, and before long\nthe Germans, looking like so many drowned rats, had come out of their\nstupor and began to realize their situation.  The privates were\nsheepish, but the lieutenant went almost crazy with anger when he\nrealized how he had been trapped.  His eyes looked venom at the girl,\nwho laughed at him triumphantly.  His rage was increased by his\nconsciousness of the pitiable figure he presented.  His smart uniform\nwas dripping, his hair was matted over his face and even his ferocious\nmustache had lost its Kaiser-like curl.  Even one of his own men\nventured to snicker at him, and the look the officer turned on him was\nnot good to see.\n\nThe corporal began to question him, but the lieutenant looked at him in\ndisdain.\n\n\"A German officer does not answer the questions of a corporal,\" he\nsneered.\n\n\"Just as you like,\" retorted Wilson coolly.  \"Perhaps you'd like to\nhave me leave you here with the owner of the house and his son.  I\nthink they'd like nothing better than to have five minutes alone with\nyou.  Perhaps even one minute would be enough.\"\n\nThe lieutenant took one glance at the glowering faces of the farmer and\nhis son and wilted instantly.\n\n\"I will answer your questions,\" he said, shortly.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nA DEEPENING MYSTERY\n\n\"He came off his perch mighty quick,\" remarked Bart to Frank in a\nwhisper.\n\n\"I don't wonder,\" replied Frank.  \"He'd be a pretty poor insurance risk\nif these people could get a whack at him.\"\n\nThe corporal asked a few formal questions as to the lieutenant's\nregiment and division, which were answered sullenly though promptly.\nBut these had little interest just then, and their asking was really a\nmatter for headquarters.  They were simply the prelude to other\nquestions in which the company were much more deeply concerned.\n\n\"You had a prisoner here?\" asked the corporal.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Where is he now?\"\n\n\"He was placed upstairs.\"\n\n\"He is not there now.  What have you done with him?\"\n\n\"Nothing.\"\n\n\"What were you going to do with him?\"\n\nThe officer moved uneasily.\n\n\"Take him back to my quarters,\" he finally answered.\n\n\"Why did you have that rope put over the tree by the well?\"\n\nThere was no answer, but the officer grew red in the face.\n\n\"Did you hear the question?\"\n\n\"It was to frighten him,\" the lieutenant finally blurted out.  \"Anyway\nhe was a spy and deserved to be hung.  He had come into our lines in\ndisguise.\"\n\nThe corporal motioned to Frank.\n\n\"Ask the girl again if she is sure the prisoner had on an American\nuniform,\" he directed.\n\nFrank did so.\n\n\"_Oui, oui,_\" she affirmed emphatically.\n\nTo make sure, Frank repeated the question to the farmer and his son and\nreceived the same answer.\n\nHe reported to the corporal.\n\n\"These people all say that the prisoner was not in disguise,\nLieutenant,\" said Wilson.  \"Do you still wish to insist that he was?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"That is enough,\" replied the corporal with quiet scorn.  \"Line up the\nprisoners, men,\" he commanded.\n\nThis was quickly done, and the homeward march commenced, but not until\nanother search had been made for the missing captive of the Germans.\n\nIt had the same result as the previous one and the boys were full of\nquestionings and forebodings as they marched back guarding their\nprisoners.  But there were some elements of comfort in their perplexity.\n\nIn the first place, they had saved some American soldier, whether Tom\nor another, from a horrible death.  Then, too, they had in their power\nthe brute who had planned that death.  It was not impossible, too,\nthat, under further questioning of the lieutenant and his men at\nheadquarters, more might be learned of what they wanted so badly to\nknow.\n\nAnother subject of congratulation also was that the prisoner, if he had\nescaped, was not far from the American lines.  He might find his way in\nat any time.\n\nBut there was one thing that bothered Frank considerably, and he\nmentioned it that night when he found himself alone with Bart and Billy.\n\n\"Do you remember the minute at the edge of the wood when the corporal\ngave the order to fix bayonets?\" he asked.\n\n\"Sure thing,\" replied Bart.  \"What about it?\"\n\n\"Just this,\" replied Frank.  \"At that minute I caught sight of a man\nrunning away from the farmhouse into the woods on the other side.  I\ngot the picture of him in my mind, but I didn't have time to think\nabout it just then, for we were making a rush for the house.  Then\nother things crowded it out of my mind altogether.  But it came back to\nme on the way home this afternoon.\"\n\n\"What did the man look like and how was he dressed?\" asked Billy\neagerly.\n\n\"He had on an American uniform,\" replied Frank slowly, as he tried to\nmake the picture clear in his own mind.\n\n\"Perhaps it was Tom!\" cried Bart.\n\n\"No, it wasn't,\" said Frank positively.  \"The uniform was smart and\nnewer than ours.  Tom's must be in tatters and you remember the girl\nsaid it was.  Then, too, I'd know Tom's gait among a thousand just as\nyou would.  No, it wasn't Tom, worse luck.\"\n\n\"Who was it, then?\"\n\n\"I think it was Nick Rabig,\" replied Frank.\n\n\"Nick Rabig!\" the others cried together.\n\n\"Mind, I only say I think,\" repeated Frank, looking around to see that\nno outsider was within hearing.  \"I wouldn't be willing to swear to it.\nBut the motions were Nick's--you know he runs like a cart horse--and\nyou know that Nick has been togged out in a new uniform since he came\nback from that queer captivity of his among the Huns.\"\n\n\"Nick Rabig there,\" mused Bart perplexedly, as he began to pace up and\ndown.  \"What on earth could he have been doing there?\"\n\n\"Say,\" put in Billy with agitation, \"could he have done anything to\nTom?  Suppose he went there, no matter for what purpose; suppose he\nfound that German crowd dead to the world; suppose he found Tom\nupstairs bound and helpless.  You know how Nick hated him.\"\n\n\"Keep cool, old man,\" counseled Frank, though there was a trace of\nanxiety in his own voice.  \"No, I don't think anything of that kind has\nhappened.  If it had we'd have found some traces of it.  I think we can\nleave that out of our calculations.\"\n\n\"I'm only too glad to,\" said Billy.  \"But what was Nick's reason for\nbeing around that farmhouse anyway?\"\n\n\"What have always been Nick's reasons for being where there are\nGermans, or where he expects there will be Germans?\" said Bart.\n\"Suppose--just suppose--that Nick knew--had a tip, let us say--that a\ncertain German lieutenant on a certain day would be in a certain place,\nready to receive and pay for any information about the American forces\nthat Nick had been able to gather.  Do you get me?\"\n\n\"I get you, all right,\" answered Frank, \"and from what we know of Nick\nwe've got a right to think so.  Well, he didn't sell anything today\nanyway.  He didn't find the German lieutenant in any condition to talk\nbusiness.\"\n\nThe bugle blew for \"taps\" just then, and the conversation came to an\nend.  And the two days that followed were so crowded with events that\ntheir own personal interests were thrust into the background.\n\nFor the great drive was coming, the drive for which they had been\nlooking for months, looking not with fear but with eager anticipation,\ntheir ardent young hearts aflame with the desire to fight to the death\nthe enemies of civilization.\n\nThe weather had favored the enemy in his preparations.  Usually at that\ntime of the year the ground was soft and not fit for military\noperations on a grand scale.  But the ground this year had dried out\nunusually early and was suitable for the bringing forward of men and\nguns.\n\nThere were all sorts of rumors afloat as to what the enemy had in\nstore.  There were said to be monster guns that could throw shells more\nthan seventy miles.  There were new and diabolical inventions in the\nway of gas that were to cause unspeakable agonies to their victims.\nThere was talk of gigantic mirrors that would act as burning-glasses\nand blind the opposing troops.\n\nSome of these things proved to be true.  Others were mere lies,\ndesigned to sap the morale of the Allied armies and civil populations\nbefore the fight began.\n\n\"Heinie's the biggest boob that ever happened,\" grinned Billy, when the\nboys were discussing the coming conflict.  \"He acts as if the Allies\nwere a lot of children.  He thinks that all he has to do is to dress up\na bugaboo and we'll all roll over and play dead.\"\n\n\"He'll get something into that thick head of his after a while,\"\npredicted Frank.  \"It will have to be jabbed in, but there are a lot of\nus ready to do the jabbing.\"\n\n\"Let him bring on his bag of tricks,\" scoffed Bart.  \"When all's said\nand done, it's going to be man-stuff that will decide this war.  And\nthere's where we've got him on the hip.  Man to man we're better stuff\nthan the Huns.  We know it and they know it.  They can't stand before\nour bayonets.\"\n\n\"Right you are, old scout!\" said Frank, enthusiastically, giving him a\nresounding slap on the back.  \"Let them bring on their old drive as\nsoon as they like.  They can begin the drive.  We'll end it.  And we'll\nend it in the streets of Berlin!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nTHE STORM OF WAR\n\n\"Listen to that music,\" said Frank to his comrades the next morning, as\na furious cannonade opened up that made the ground shake and filled the\nair with flying missiles of death.\n\n\"Too many bass notes in it to be real good music,\" remarked Billy with\na grim.\n\n\"Maybe it's the overture just before the rising of the curtain,\"\nsuggested Bart.\n\n\"Perhaps it is,\" agreed Frank.  \"The Hun has got to start his drive\nsome time, and this would be just the kind of morning for it.  See how\nheavy that mist lies on the ground?  We couldn't see the Germans at a\ndistance of fifty yards.\"\n\n\"It's mighty thick for a fact,\" observed Bart.  \"But I guess our\nadvanced posts are on the job.  They'll give us warning in plenty of\ntime.\"\n\n\"Not that we need much warning as far as I can see,\" said Billy.\n\"We've been ready for a long time to fight at the drop of a hat.  I'll\nbet the Hun doesn't carry a foot of our line.\"\n\n\"That's where you're wrong, Billy, old scout,\" warned Bart.  \"It stands\nto reason that he'll get away with something at first.  You take any\none man, no matter how strong he is, and if ten fellows rush him all at\nonce they're bound to drive him back at the start.  The Huns have got\nthe advantage of knowing where they're going to strike.  We don't know\nand so we have to spread our forces out so as to be ready to meet him\nat any point.  Then, too, the man who comes rushing in has the\nadvantage of the fellow who's standing still because he's got momentum.\nThat's why generals would rather fight on the offensive than on the\ndefensive.  They're able to pick the time and place and the other\nfellow has to follow his lead.\"\n\n\"I don't see why the Allies can't take the offensive,\" grumbled Billy.\n\"It gets my goat to let the Huns hit first.\"\n\n\"It does mine too,\" admitted Frank, \"and if it hadn't been for Russia\nquitting, we'd be looking now at the coattails of the Kaiser's generals\nas they scooted back to Berlin.  But that's a bit of hard luck that we\ncan't help.  Russia's back-down has taken ten million soldiers from the\nAllies' strength.  But America will make that all up in time and then\nyou'll see us doing the chasing.\"\n\n\"It can't come too soon to suit me,\" said Billy.  \"I only wish Uncle\nSam had started sooner to get ready.\"\n\n\"So do I,\" replied Frank.  \"But there's no use crying over spilt milk.\nWe're getting ahead now with leaps and bounds.  I was talking to Will\nStone the other day, and he'd just got back from a flying trip to one\nof the French seaports.  He says it simply knocked him stiff to see the\ntransports coming in loaded to the guards with American troops.  And he\nsays the roads are fairly choked with doughboys moving this way.\nThey're coming like a swarm of locusts.  And there's millions more\nwhere they came from.  Oh, Uncle Sam is awake now, all right, and don't\nyou forget it!  And when he once gets started there's nothing on earth\ncan stop him.\"\n\n\"Right you are!\" said Bart.\n\n\"We've won every war we've ever been in and it's got to be a habit,\"\ngrinned Billy.\n\nThe old Thirty-seventh was stationed on the second line, or what is\ncalled in military terms, \"the line of resistance.\"  In modern\nfighting, when a heavy attack is expected the defending army is usually\narranged in three lines.  The first is the advanced line, and this is\nhardly expected to be held very long.  Its chief aim is to hold back\nthe enemy for a while and weaken him as far as possible.  Not many\ntroops are employed on this line nor many big guns.  The chief reliance\nis on rifle fire and machine guns, which are so placed as to deliver a\nwithering cross-fire and cut up the enemy divisions.\n\nBy the time the first line is driven back the defending army knows\nwhere the enemy has chosen to strike and is ready for him on the second\nline or \"line of resistance.\"  Here the battle is on in all its fury.\nIf here again the enemy advances, there is still a third line of\n\"battle positions.\"  This is practically the last entrenched position\nthat the defenders have.  If they are driven back from this into the\nopen country beyond, it becomes a serious thing for the retreating\narmy, as many of their big guns will have been lost, and their forces\nare apt to be more or less disorganized, while the enemy is flushed\nwith the victory he has so far gained.\n\nThe cannonade kept on with increasing fury all through the early\nmorning.\n\n\"Heinie must have plenty of ammunition,\" remarked Frank.  \"He's\nspending it freely.\"\n\n\"It beats anything we've been up against since we came to the front,\"\nobserved Billy.\n\n\"It seems to be coming nearer and nearer all the time,\" said Bart.  \"I\nguess this is going to be our busy day.\"\n\nThere was intense activity all through the lines.  Orderlies galloped\nfrom place to place with orders.  Big motor cars rumbled up, loaded\nwith troops who were hastily placed in position.  The big guns of the\nAllied forces had opened up and were sending back shell for shell over\nthe enemy lines.\n\nFor over two hours the artillery kept up the Titanic duel.  The fog was\nlifting, though still heavy in some of the low-lying sections.  The\nThirty-seventh was resting easily on its arms, ready for whatever might\nhappen.\n\n\"We may not see so much fighting after all,\" remarked Billy, after a\nwhile.  \"The fellows in front seem to be holding pretty well.  Perhaps\nthey'll throw the Huns back right from the start.\"\n\n\"Don't kid yourself,\" replied Frank grimly.  \"That first line is almost\nsure to go.  It's expected to.  It's only a forlorn hope anyway.  We'll\nget our stomachs full of fighting before the day is over.\"\n\nEven while he spoke there were signs of confusion up in front.  Groups\nof men came in sight evidently retreating.  Machine gun crews, bringing\ntheir weapons with them, were hurriedly setting them up in new\npositions.  There would be a few discharges and then they would be\nforced to retreat still further.  They were fighting splendidly, and\nputting up a dogged resistance, yielding ground only foot by foot, but\nto the experienced eyes of the boys there was no mistaking the signs.\nThe enemy had broken through the first line positions.\n\n\"Well, it's nothing more than we knew would happen,\" remarked Frank, as\nhis frame tingled with the excitement of the coming fight which he knew\nwould soon be upon him.\n\n\"That's so,\" agreed Bart.  \"But what gets me is that the line was\nbroken so quickly.  I thought it would be afternoon at least before the\nHuns got as far as this.\"\n\nThe lines opened up to let the newcomers through so that they could go\nto the rear and re-form.\n\n\"How about it?\" Frank asked of a machine gunner whom he knew, as the\nman limped by him, supported by a comrade.  \"We didn't expect to see\nyou fellows so soon.\"\n\n\"It was the mist,\" was the reply.  \"The Huns got within thirty yards\nbefore we tumbled to it.  We did the best we could but they just\nswamped our position before we could get our cross-fire going.  Even at\nthat we mowed them down in heaps with our rifle fire, but they kept on\ncoming.  For every dead man there were twenty live ones to take his\nplace.  We put up a stiff fight, but there were too many of them.  It\nseemed like millions.  They're coming now like a house afire and you\nboys want to brace.\"\n\n\"We're braced already,\"  muttered Billy through his clenched teeth, as\nhe gripped his rifle until it seemed as though his fingers must leave\ntheir imprint on the stock.\n\nThere was a short period of waiting, more trying by far than any actual\nfighting.\n\nThen the storm broke!\n\nIn front of them rank after rank of gray-clad troops came in sight,\nstretching back as far as the eye could see.  The mist had wholly\nvanished now and the boys could see their enemy.  It seemed as though\nthe machine gunner had not exaggerated when he said that there were\nmillions.  They were like the waves of the sea.\n\nBut the stout hearts of the American boys never quailed.  Time and\nagain they had met these men or their fellows and driven them back at\nthe point of the bayonet.  They had outfought and outgamed them.  They\nhad sent them flying before them.  They had seen their backs.\n\nThe blood of heroes and of patriots ran in the veins of the defenders.\nTheir ancestors had fought at Bunker Hill, at Palo Alto, at Gettysburg.\nAbove them floated the Stars and Stripes, an unstained flag, a glorious\nflag, a flag that had never been smirched by defeat.\n\nTheir eyes blazed and their muscles stiffened.\n\nThen like an avalanche the enemy struck!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nFURRY RESCUERS\n\nThe satisfaction that Tom felt at having in his pocket the confession\nof Martel helped to make his imprisonment much more bearable in the\nweek that followed.  His heart warmed at the thought of the delight\nFrank would feel in clearing up the matter that had long laid heavy\nupon his mother's mind.\n\nFor the conviction never left him that some time he was going to put\nthat confession in his friend's hand.  He had escaped before from\nGerman captivity, not once but twice.  What he had done then he would\ndo again.  And every minute of his waking hours found that active brain\nof his working hard at the problem.\n\nHe confessed to himself that the solution would not be easy.  The\nguards were many and were changed frequently.  The windows of the old\nbarracks where he slept were fortified with steel bars, and the open\ncamp where the prisoners were employed in outside work was surrounded\nwith wires through which a strong electric current ran.  To touch them\nwould mean instant death, and they were so close together that it would\nbe impossible to squeeze through without touching.\n\nHe fell to studying the routine of the various conveyances that were\nconstantly arriving and departing.  Some of them brought bales of\ngoods, others barrels.  The latter were especially common.  They were\nin a part of the country that abounded in vineyards, and great\nhogsheads of wine were being constantly brought in to supply the\ndemands of the division stationed there.\n\nThey did not stay full long.  The German officers were notoriously\nheavy drinkers, and there were days when there were great drayloads of\nempty hogsheads ready to be taken away to be refilled.\n\nTom developed a great interest in these hogsheads.  The work of loading\nthem on the drays was performed by prisoners, and he managed to be in\nthe vicinity as often as possible to help.  He was stronger than most\nof the prisoners and he worked with such good will at loading the bulky\nhogsheads that little by little it became a habit with the guards to\nassign him to this work whenever it was to be done.\n\nA day came when the rain poured down in torrents.  Tom had waited and\nprayed for just such a day.  The air was full of fog and a cloud of\nsteam rose from the horses' backs.  Everything in the prison yard was\ndim and gray and spectral.  The guards were enveloped in heavy\nraincoats and the flaps of oilskin on their caps fell halfway over\ntheir faces.\n\nTom had managed to get on one of the trucks and was tugging at one of\nthe hogsheads to make room for others further back.  Other prisoners\nwere lifting on the last hogsheads.  Tom leaned over one of the\nhogsheads and suddenly let himself go into it headfirst.  It was all\nover in a flash.\n\nThere was an awful moment of suspense.  Had anyone seen him?  He\nlistened intently.  No shout was raised.  Nothing happened out of the\nusual.\n\nThe driver climbed up to his seat and the horses started.  There was a\nmomentary delay as the gates were opened to let him pass.  Then the\nhorses started on a jog trot and the truck was bumping its way over an\nuneven country road.  A thrill of exultation shot through Tom,\ncrouching at the bottom of the hogshead.  He had made the first step on\nthe road to freedom.\n\nHe was still in the most imminent danger.  At any moment he might hear\nthe clattering of horsemen in pursuit.  And he knew the kind of\ntreatment he would get if he were recaptured.\n\nHow to get out of the hogshead without detection was another problem.\nBut this worried him least of all.  He felt sure that the driver would\nstop at the first tavern he came across to refresh himself.  Then he\nwould make his break.\n\nHis faith was justified, for before long the truck came to a halt and\nthe driver got down.  The weather had driven all the tavern idlers\nindoors and the streets of the little hamlet were deserted.  Like an\neel, Tom squirmed over the edge of the hogshead, dropped into the\nroadway on the side of the truck away from the tavern, and, with\nassumed carelessness, went on down the road.\n\nA few rods brought him into the open country.  He had not the least\nidea where he was.  In the gloom he could not tell which was north or\nsouth or east or west.  But for the moment he was free.\n\nHe made his way across some fields in the direction of a dark fringe of\nwoods.  There he would find shelter for the present.  It would be a\npoor kind of shelter, but just then Tom asked nothing better.  The day\nwould bring counsel.\n\nFor some days past he had been stowing away fragments from his scanty\nmeals in his pockets.  They were only dry and mouldy crusts, but they\nwould at least sustain life.\n\nUp in the streaming woods he hollowed out a place under a fallen tree.\nHe was drenched to the skin, but he was so exhausted with the strain he\nhad undergone that no bodily discomfort could prevent his falling\nasleep.\n\nWhen he awoke the rain had ceased and the sun was striking through the\nbranches of the trees.  With the morning came new courage.  He would\nyet win through.\n\nHe studied the sun and got a general idea of the direction in which he\nmust go.  He knew that the American lines lay to the south and west.\nHe could hear the distant thunder of the guns.\n\nAll that day he traveled in the friendly shadow of the woods.  He did\nnot dare to approach a cottage or go to any of the peasants he could\nsee working in the fields.  Some of them, he felt sure, would befriend\nhim, but at any moment he might come in contact with one of the\noppressors who held the land in their grip.  He would take no chances.\n\nHis food was almost gone now although he had husbanded it with the\ngreatest care.  But he tightened his belt and kept on.\n\nOn the morning of the second day he was crossing a small brook and was\njust stepping up on the other side when a wet stone rolled beneath his\nfoot and threw him headlong.  His head struck a jagged stump and he lay\nthere stunned.\n\nWhen he regained consciousness, he found himself looking into the face\nof a German officer who was amusing himself by kicking the youth.\n\n\"Awake, are you, Yankee pig?\" the officer greeted him.  \"It's time.  I\nhad half a mind to give you a bayonet thrust and put you to sleep\nforever.  You needn't tell me how you came here.  I know.  You're the\nschweinhund that escaped two days ago.  Here,\" he called to some of his\nmen, \"tie this fellow and throw him over a horse.  We'll settle his\ncase later on.\"\n\nThe command was promptly obeyed and poor Tom found himself once more in\nthe grasp of his foes.  And from this captivity there seemed little\npromise of escape.  The deadly purpose of the brute who held him in his\npower had been plainly written on his face.\n\nAfter what seemed an endless journey, the party reached a farmhouse.\nThe detachment took possession of the place and an orgy of pillage and\ndestruction ensued.  Tom was taken to an upper room and thrown roughly\non the floor.  Here he lay bound hand and foot.  He could hear cries of\nterror and smashing of furniture going on below.\n\nHe had no companion but his own thoughts, except when some of the\ndrunken roysterers invaded his room to remind him of the rope that hung\nover the tree near the well and to drive home the information with\nkicks of their heavy boots.\n\nHis thoughts were black and bitter.  This, then, was the end.  He was\nto be hung to furnish an occasion of laughter to a horde of drunken\nbrutes.  Well, there would be no whine from him.  He would show them\nhow an American could die.\n\nHis attention was attracted by a pattering of tiny feet.  He looked in\nthe direction from which the sound came.\n\nA rat had emerged from a hole in the corner and was busy nibbling a\nlump of cheese that had been dropped by one of the soldiers who had\njust left.  The nibbling ceased as Tom turned his head and the rat\nscurried back to the corner.  There he stayed, his bright eyes looking\nlongingly at the cheese.\n\nA thought shot through Tom's mind that set him tingling from head to\nfoot.  Was it possible?  Of course it was only a forlorn hope.  But he\nwould try it.  He would be no worse off if it failed.\n\nHe rolled himself over to the cheese and rubbed the rope that tied his\nhand in the soft substance until it was thoroughly smeared with it.\nThen he lay on his side with his hands outstretched and pretended to\nsleep.\n\nThrough his nearly closed lids he watched the rat.  For some minutes it\nstayed motionless.  Tom never moved a muscle.  Then the rat crept\nstealthily forward, and, with many half retreats, at last started in to\nnibble at the rope to get the cheese.  Soon another rat came and then\nanother.\n\nTom conquered the sense of repulsion that their close proximity\ninspired in him.  His life depended on his self-control.  The least\nmovement might send them scurrying back to their holes.  And out in the\nyard there was that rope that hung from the tree near the well!\n\nSo he nerved himself and his reward came at last.  He could feel the\ntension of the rope yielding as one strand after another was torn by\nthe tiny teeth of his unknowing rescuers.\n\nFinally they ceased and sat up on their haunches washing their faces,\nand the need for inaction had passed.  With a mighty effort Tom\nstrained at the rope and it snapped.\n\nHe could have shouted with exultation.  He waved his arms in the air\nand the frightened rats vanished.  He rubbed his hands and arms until\nthe circulation came back.  It was an easy matter then to untie the\nrope that bound his feet.\n\nThe noise on the floor beneath had ceased, He stole to the window and\nlooked out.  No one was stirring in the space around the house.  He\nshuddered as he saw the dangling rope on the tree near the well.\n\nThere was the sound of a stealthy step below.  Tom drew his head from\nthe window.  Standing in the shadow of the frame he could see a young\ngirl emerge and run swiftly away.\n\nWhere were the others?  Consulting perhaps as to how they could get the\nmost enjoyment from the spectacle of his hanging.\n\nThere was only one way of exit that promised safety.  He must escape by\nthe window.\n\nHe measured with his eye the distance from the ground.  It seemed to be\nabout eighteen feet.  He himself was six feet high.  That would leave a\nclear drop of twelve feet.  He could probably make it without injury.\nAt any rate he had no choice.\n\nHe let himself down gently with his hands and dropped.  The shock\nbrought him to his knees, but he arose unhurt.\n\nThe next moment he was racing for the woods with the speed of the wind.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nCLOSING THE GAP\n\nA sheet of flames leaped from the American rifles.  A blasting torrent\nof death poured from the machine guns.  The heavy field artillery, that\nhad the range to a dot, tore gaping holes in the serried German ranks.\nGreat lanes opened up in the advancing hosts.  The target was broad and\nthere was no need to take aim, for every bullet was bound to find a\nmark.\n\nThe enemy ranks faltered before that terrific fire and fell back,\nleaving hundreds of dead and wounded on the open space in front of the\nlines, while hundreds more were strewn along the barbed wire\nentanglements.\n\nBut the German commanders were prodigal of the lives of their men, and\nafter a brief time for re-forming, the divisions came on again, only to\nbe hurled back again with still more fearful losses.  A third attempt\nmet with a similar result.  The Americans were standing like a rock.\n\n\"Guess Fritz is getting more than he bargained for,\" grinned Billy, as\nthe Germans were forming for another attack.\n\n\"Yes,\" agreed Frank, \"but he'll try again.  He'll stand a whole lot of\nbeating.\"\n\nFor several hours the fight continued with a bitterness that had not\nbeen paralleled before in the whole course of the war.  Again and again\nthe enemy attacked, only to be beaten back before the stonewall defense.\n\nBut the Americans were not satisfied with merely defending their\nposition.  About two hours after noon they organized a counterattack.\nWith splendid vim and ardor, and in a dashing charge, they smashed the\ndivision confronting them, driving them back in confusion and bringing\nhundreds of prisoners back with them to the trenches.\n\n\"I guess that will hold them for a while,\" crowed Billy, as they rested\nfor a few minutes after their return.\n\n\"We certainly slashed them good and plenty,\" exulted Frank, as he\nwashed up a scratched shoulder that had been struck by a splinter of\nshrapnel.\n\n\"If the rest of the line is holding as well as our fellows, the drive\nwill be ended almost as soon as it began,\" remarked Bart.\n\n\"And Heinie was going to walk all over us, was he?\" grinned Billy.\n\"He's got another guess coming.\"\n\nBut their amazement was great a few minutes later when the order came\nfor the regiment to fall back.\n\n\"Fall back!\" howled Billy when he heard the order.  \"What is this, a\njoke?\"\n\n\"Why should we fall back, when we've just licked the tar out of the\nHeinies?\" growled Bart.\n\n\"Orders are orders,\" said Frank briefly.  \"I suppose our commanders\nknow what they're doing.  But it certainly is tough luck.\"\n\nTheir officers no doubt felt an equal chagrin, but the need was\nimperative.  The Germans had struck along a front of fifty miles.  At\nmany points they had encountered a resistance as fierce and determined\nas that put up by the old Thirty-seventh and its companion regiments of\nthe same division.\n\nBut at others they had been more successful.  They had introduced a new\nkind of tactics that had never been used before on the western front,\nalthough it had been employed successfully in Russia.  These were the\nso-called Von Hutier tactics whereby, when a division was used up,\ninstead of falling back it simply opened up and let a fresh division\npass through and take up the burden.\n\nThe old plan had been to clear up everything as one went along.  The\nidea of the new tactics was to press swiftly ahead even if they left\nbehind them machine-gun nests and strong enemy positions.  These could\nbe cleaned up later one by one, while in front the swift advance was\nintended to demoralize the opposing army and throw it out of formation\nby the very speed of the progress.\n\nThe plan, like every other, had its weak points.  It involved a very\nheavy loss of men because of the masses in which they moved forward,\nand it also exposed its flank by penetrating too rapidly into the host\nlines before the artillery could be brought up for support.  But if\nsuccessful, it was almost sure to break the enemy's line and throw it\ninto confusion.\n\nLater on the Allies were to learn how they might most easily frustrate\nthese tactics.  But at the start of the great drive the plan met with\nconsiderable success because of its novelty.\n\nIt was this that had brought the command to retreat.  The British\nforces on the right wing of the Allied armies had been forced to give\nway.  The line had not been broken, but it had been badly bent.  The\nBritish retreated doggedly, fighting with the splendid heroism that was\nin accordance with their traditions, and at no time did the retreat\nbecome a rout.  But in order to keep the line straight the American\nforces too were ordered to fall back, even though they had been\nsuccessful on their section of the line.\n\n\"It's a shame!\" growled Billy, as the retirement began.  \"It makes me\nsore to have those Heinies think they've got us going.\"\n\n\"We'll come back,\" said Frank cheerfully.  \"It's a good general that\nknows when to retreat as well as to advance.  We're only going to get\nspace enough to crouch for a spring.\"\n\nThe division withdrew in good order, keeping up a rear-guard action\nthat kept the enemy at a respectful distance.  When night fell the\nAmericans had reached the position assigned to them, and the backward\nmovement was halted.  The troops entrenched, and with the Allied line\nstraightened out once more, faced the foe that it had decisively\ndefeated earlier in the day.\n\n\"Nothing to do till tomorrow,\" exclaimed Frank as he threw himself on\nthe ground.\n\n\"Don't fool yourself that way,\" said Corporal Wilson, who had just come\nup and heard the remark.  \"Unless I lose my guess you've got something\nto do tonight.  Didn't you tell me the other day that you understood\nhow to handle a motorcycle?\"\n\n\"Why, yes,\" said Frank.  \"I've ridden one a good deal.  I won a race on\nCamport Fair Grounds a couple of years ago.\"\n\n\"Then you're just the man the general wants to see,\" replied Wilson.\n\"He sent a message to the colonel asking for the services of a man who\nwas cool and plucky, and who could also ride a motorcycle.  I don't\nknow of any one else who can fill the bill better than you.\"\n\n\"I'll be glad to do whatever's wanted of me,\" replied Frank, and with a\nword of farewell to his comrades he accompanied the corporal to\nheadquarters.\n\nHere he was ushered into the presence of a group of officers who were\nporing over a large map spread out upon a table.\n\n\"Is this the young man you were telling me about, Colonel?\" asked the\ngeneral, a tall, powerfully built man, looking sharply at Frank from\nbeneath a pair of bushy eyebrows.\n\n\"Yes, General,\" replied the colonel.  \"Captain Baker vouches for his\ncoolness and courage and his quick thinking in an emergency.  And I'm\ntold he understands all about motorcycles.\"\n\n\"Just the man,\" commented the general.  \"I want you,\" he continued,\naddressing Frank, \"to carry a message for me to the British commander\non our right.  Our division has lost touch with him and the field\ntelephone is not working.  Probably it has been cut by the enemy.  The\nmessage is most important and I want you to make all the speed you can.\nGo and get ready now and report to your captain, who will hand you the\npapers.  He will have a machine ready for you.  That is all.\"\n\nFrank hurried back and made his preparations, which were brief.  While\nhe worked he told his eager companions of the errand with which he had\nbeen entrusted.\n\n\"Wish I were going with you,\" remarked Bart.\n\n\"Same here,\" said Billy.\n\n\"That would be dandy,\" agreed Frank.\n\nHe shook hands with them and hurried away to the captain's quarters,\nwhere he found that officer waiting for him with the papers.\n\n\"There's no answer,\" he said, as he handed them over.  \"When you've\ndelivered the papers your work is done.  Good luck.\"\n\nFrank thrust the papers in his pocket after receiving full directions\nas to his route.  The motorcycle was standing at the door.  It was a\npowerful machine of the latest make and everything about it suggested\nstrength and speed.  He noticed that there was a saddle in the rear and\na thought came to him.\n\n\"I see that this machine will carry double,\" he said.  \"Would you mind\nif I took a companion with me?  The machine will carry two as swiftly\nas it will one.  Then, too, if one of us were hurt or shot the other\none could still go on with the message.\"\n\n\"An excellent idea,\" said the captain after pondering a moment.  \"Get\nhim, but make haste.\"\n\nFrank rushed back to his chums.\n\n\"Which one of you wants to go with me?\" he asked breathlessly.\n\n\"I do,\" they yelled in chorus.\n\n\"Sorry,\" laughed Frank, \"but there's only room for one.  Toss a coin.\"\n\nThe luck favored Bart, much to Billy's disappointment.  In a jiffy\nFrank and Bart had bidden Billy good-by, jumped to their places, and\nwith a leap the powerful machine darted off.\n\nThe night was clear, and as soon as they were away from the camp Frank\nhad no trouble in finding the road that he had been ordered to take.\nIt was a good one in ordinary times, but now it had been torn by shells\nfrom the German guns in many places and care had to be taken to avoid a\nspill.  The shaded light threw its rays a considerable distance ahead,\nbut they were going at a speed that did not leave them much time to\navoid obstacles even after they were detected.\n\nThe road swung around in a wide semi-circle and led through a number of\nFrench villages.  These the Army Boys found in great confusion.  The\napproach of the Huns was a terrible threat to the towns that might fall\ninto German hands.  What the enemy had done in the occupied parts of\nFrance and Belgium had given warning of what any other places they\nmight capture would have to expect.\n\nWagons were being hastily piled with household belongings, men were\nshouting, children were crying, and the whole scene was desolate and\npitiful beyond description.\n\nThe roads were so congested at these places that rapid progress was\nimpossible.  They had to thread their way among the crowd of vehicles,\nand in some cases were compelled to resort to the fields.  But they\nmade up for this on other stretches, and were congratulating themselves\nthat on the whole they were making pretty good time when suddenly they\nwere startled by a number of rifle shots and bullets whizzed by\nuncomfortably close.\n\n\"It's the Huns!\" cried Frank.\n\n\"I didn't know they'd got as close as this!\" exclaimed Bart.  \"More\ngas, Frank!  Quick!\"\n\nThere were hoarse commands to halt, and another volley followed the\nfirst.  At the same time a number of dark figures threw themselves in\nthe road, shouting and waving their hands.\n\nFrank leaned forward, threw on all speed, and the machine responded\nwith a leap that almost unseated the riders.  The crowd in front\nscattered as the machine rushed at them, but one of them was not quick\nenough and was hurled twenty feet away.\n\nMore shots followed the daring riders, but they were now beyond range.\nFor another mile they kept up the killing pace and then Frank slowed up\na little.\n\n\"Ran right into their arms that time,\" he ejaculated.\n\n\"We were mighty lucky to come through with a whole skin,\" replied Bart.\n\n\"More than the machine has done, I'm afraid,\" remarked Frank.  \"I can\ntell by the way she runs that there's something wrong with the tires.\"\n\nHe looked behind, and seeing no signs of pursuit, he stopped the\nmotorcycle and dismounted.\n\nSomething had indeed happened to the tires.  Both the front and rear\nones had been punctured by bullets.  The air had gone out of them.\n\n\"Hard luck,\" exclaimed Bart.\n\n\"Never mind,\" returned Frank.  \"We'll ride her flat as long as we can\nand if worse comes to worse we'll ride her on the rims.  We've got to\nget that message to the general no matter what happens.\"\n\n\"We'll get it there if we have to travel on our hands and knees,\"\naffirmed Bart.\n\n\"It won't come to that, I hope,\" laughed his companion, as he bound the\nflat tires fast with straps.  Then he settled himself again in his seat\nand started the machine.\n\nIt went along more slowly now, and their troubles were increased by the\nfact that their route had carried them into a main road that was filled\nwith motor lorries--huge trucks loaded with men and supplies that\nrushed on with the speed almost of an express train.\n\nThe lorries had the right of way, and individual riders had to look out\nfor themselves.  Sometimes they came down two abreast, filling the\nwhole width of the road, and in such cases the boys had to dismount and\ndraw to the side of the road until they had passed.  If their machine\nhad been in condition, they might have kept ahead by sheer speed, but\nin its present crippled state they would have been run down.  And to be\nrun down by one of those Juggernauts would have meant instant death.\n\nOn one such occasion they were hugging the fence, with their machine\nstanding between them and the road.  A lorry came thundering by, but\njust as it was nearly opposite, it swerved and struck the machine.  It\nwas torn from Frank's hand and hurled in front of the lorry which ran\nover and completely wrecked it.\n\nThe lorry tore on, leaving the two chums looking at each other in\nconsternation.\n\n\"That's worse by long odds than the German bullets,\" exclaimed Frank.\n\"I guess we'll have to do the hands and knees stunt you were talking\nabout a little while ago.\"\n\n\"We must be pretty near to the English general's headquarters now\nanyway, aren't we?\" asked Bart.\n\nFrank consulted his route by the aid of a flashlight that he carried\nwith him.\n\n\"About two miles,\" he announced.  \"Put on some speed now, Bart.  We'll\nrun most of the way and jog-trot the rest.\"\n\nThey let no grass grow under their feet, and fifteen minutes later they\nhad reached the general's headquarters and were ushered into his\npresence.  He seemed to be greatly agitated and was talking with great\nemphasis to a group of officers who surrounded him.\n\nHe took the papers that the boys had brought and read them over\nhurriedly.\n\n\"Very good,\" he announced briefly.  \"There is no answer.  Were your\norders to go back to your regiment to-night?\"\n\n\"No, sir,\" replied Frank.\n\n\"In that case my orderly will find quarters for you,\" replied the\ngeneral, and he gave directions to an officer who took them in charge\nand saw them safely bestowed for the night.\n\n\"That was some wild ride?\" grinned Frank, as they were getting ready\nfor sleep.\n\n\"It sure was,\" laughed Bart, \"especially that part where the German\nbullets were zipping all around us.  Wait till we tell Billy about it.\nHe'll be green with envy.\"\n\n\"Well, we carried out our orders anyway,\" said Frank.  \"I'm glad that\nwe'll be able to tell the captain so tomorrow morning.\"\n\nBut they did not report to their captain the next morning, nor for\nseveral following mornings, for when they woke they found that a\ncondition had developed that was full of peril to the Allied cause.\n\nThe German plan had been to strike at the junction point of the Allied\narmies.  If they could separate them there would be a chance to turn\nupon one of them and crush it with overwhelming forces and then at\ntheir leisure destroy the other.\n\nIn this they had come very near succeeding.  A threatening gap had\ndeveloped between two of the most important armies that were holding\nthat portion of the front.  The armies had lost touch with each other\nand the gap had gradually widened until at one place the armies were\neight miles apart.\n\nThe only helpful thing about the situation was that the Germans\nthemselves did not know of the gap until it was too late to take\nadvantage of it.  The very speed with which they had pushed forward had\nthrown their forces into confusion.  Brigades and regiments had become\nbadly mixed and it took some time to straighten matters out.\n\nBut if the Germans did not know how matters stood, the Allied\ncommanders knew it only too well.  It was this that explained the\nagitation that the boys had noticed in the general the night before.\nHe had been called upon to close the gap.  Upon his shoulders rested\nfor the time the salvation of the Allied cause.\n\nIf he had had sufficient forces at his command, the problem would have\nbeen comparatively simple, provided he had been given time to solve it.\nBut he had neither time nor men.  He had only fifty cavalrymen.  He\nlacked guns and ammunition.  The hard-pressed armies at the right and\nleft were battling desperately against the on-rushing German hordes and\ncould spare him little.\n\n\"Looks as if he had to make bricks without straw,\" said Frank to Bart\nthe next morning, when the state of things had been explained by the\norderly who had taken them in charge.\n\n\"It's a case of must,\" said Bart, \"and from the squint I had at the\ngeneral last night he's the one who can do the job if it can be done at\nall.\"\n\n\"Will you stay and help?\" asked the orderly.  \"Every man will help.\nThe general's picked up three hundred American engineers working on a\nroad nearby.  Every one of them has thrown down his pick and shouldered\na rifle.\"\n\n\"Bully for the engineers!\" cried Frank.\n\n\"Will you stay?\" asked the orderly.  \"Of course you can return to your\nown command if you want to.\"\n\n\"Will we stay?\" exclaimed Frank.  \"Give me a gun.  I know my captain\nwould be willing.\"\n\n\"You can't drive us away,\" Bart almost shouted.\n\nIt was a scratch army that the general finally got together.  Some of\nhis men had never handled a gun before.  Some were drivers, some were\ntelegraph linemen, some were cooks.  But he made the most of what he\nhad.  He himself was here, there and everywhere, having trees felled to\nobstruct the roads, planting machine guns in strategic places, digging\nshallow trenches, resting neither by day or night.\n\nFrank and Bart worked like beavers.  They were placed in charge of\nmachine-gun crews, and their deadly weapons kept spitting fire until\nthey were almost too hot to handle.  Again and again they beat back\nGerman detachments.  They fought like fiends.  They never expected to\ncome out of that fight alive.  The odds seemed too tremendous.\n\n\"It's like Custer's last charge,\" panted Frank.  \"There wasn't one of\nhis troopers left alive.  But I'll bet that not one of them was sorry\nhe was there.\"\n\n\"I'm glad that motorcycle carried double,\" replied Bart.  \"I'd have\nbeen cheated out of a lot of lovely fighting if it hadn't.\"\n\nThey fought desperately, savagely, their bodies tired to the breaking\npoint, but their courage never failing.  And at last they won out.  The\narmies rejoined each other.  The gap was closed.  And Frank and Bart\nrejoiced beyond measure that they had been able to do their part in the\nclosing.\n\n\"Some fellows have all the luck,\" remarked Billy, when they had\nrejoined their regiment two days later, and were telling him all about\nit.  \"Now if that coin we flipped had only come down heads instead of\ntails----\"\n\n\"Stop your grouching,\" laughed Frank.  \"You'll have all the fighting\nthat's good for you by the time we've driven the boches over the Rhine.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\nTHE MINED BRIDGE\n\nFor several days the drive continued.  At first it had been quite as\nsuccessful for the Germans as they could have hoped.  Their initial\nsurprise had carried them a long way into French territory, and this\nhad involved the capture of a considerable number of men and guns.\n\nBut they had fallen far short of their ambitious aims.  They had not\nrolled up the Allied armies.  They had not reached Paris.  They had not\ncaptured the Channel ports.\n\nThe Allied armies had stretched like an elastic band, but had not\nbroken.  They knew now what the enemy's plans were and they were\nrapidly taking measures to check them.\n\nThe Germans had had a great advantage in being under a single command.\nThere was no clash of plans and opinions.  If they wanted to transfer a\npart of their forces from one point to another they could do so.\n\nWith the Allies it had been different.  There had been a French army, a\nBritish army, an Italian army, a Belgian army, a Russian army and\nlatest of all an American army.  They had tried to work together in\nharmony and in the main had done so.  But the British naturally wanted\nabove all to prevent the German armies from reaching the coast where\nthey could threaten England.  The French were especially anxious to\nprevent Paris being captured.  Either side was reluctant to weaken its\nown army by sending reinforcements to the other.\n\nBut the German success in the first days of the drive changed all this.\nThe Allies got together and appointed General Foch as the supreme\ncommander of all the Allied forces.  He had done brilliant work in\ndriving the Germans back from the Marne in the early days of the war,\nwhen they had approached close to Paris.\n\n\"Have you heard the news?\" asked Frank of his chums the day after the\nappointment had been made.\n\n\"No,\" said Bart.\n\n\"What is it?\" asked Billy.\n\n\"We've got just one man that's going to boss the job of driving back\nthe Huns,\" answered Frank.\n\nBart gave a whoop of delight and Billy threw his hat in the air.\n\n\"Best news I've heard yet,\" crowed Billy.\n\n\"That's as good as a battle lost for the Huns,\" exclaimed Bart.  \"The\nonly wonder is that it wasn't done before.  Who's the man they've\nchosen?\"\n\n\"General Foch,\" was the answer.\n\n\"Better and better,\" pronounced Bart.  \"That man's a born fighter.  He\nlicked the Germans at the Marne, and he can do it again.\"\n\n\"What I like about him,\" commented Billy, \"is that he's a hard hitter.\nHe isn't satisfied to stand on the defensive.  He likes to hand the\nother fellow a good one right at the start of the fight.\"\n\n\"That's what,\" agreed Frank.  \"He hits out right from the shoulder.  Of\ncourse he'll have to wait a little while yet until he sizes up his\nforces and sees what he has to fight with.  But you can bet it won't be\nlong before he has the boches on the run.\"\n\nIn the days that followed, the advantage of the appointment became\nclear.  The armies worked together as they never had before.  The khaki\nof the British mingled with the cornflower blue of the French.\nReserves were sent where they were most needed, no matter what army\nthey were drawn from.  And, fighting side by side, each nation was\nfilled with a generous rivalry and sought bravely to outdo the other in\ndeeds of valor.\n\nThe old Thirty-seventh had been in the thick of the fighting and had\ncovered itself with glory.  It had taught the Germans that there were\nAmericans in France, and that they were fighters to be dreaded.\n\nThe course of the fighting had taken Frank and his comrades in the\nvicinity of the farmhouse where they had rounded up the German\nlieutenant and his squad.  But it was a very different place now from\nwhat it had been when they had first seen it.  Shells had torn away\npart of the roof, and the attic lay open to the sky.  But the farmer\nand his family still stayed there although in daily peril of their\nlives.  They lived and slept in the cellar, which was the only place\nthat afforded them a chance of safety.\n\nOne day when only an artillery duel was going on and the infantry was\ngetting a rest that it sorely needed, the Army Boys went over to the\nhouse.  The girl saw them coming and recognized them at once.  She came\nout to meet them with a smile on her face.\n\n\"_Les braves Americains!_\" she exclaimed.  \"You have not then been\nkilled by those dreadful Germans.\"\n\n\"Don't we look pretty lively for dead men?\" asked Frank jokingly.\n\n\"And that lieutenant?\" she inquired.  \"Oh, I hope you have hanged him.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Frank, \"but he's a prisoner.\"\n\n\"It is not enough,\" she said with a shudder of repulsion.\n\n\"Have you heard anything of the young soldier that the lieutenant was\ngoing to hang?\" asked Frank eagerly.\n\n\"No,\" she answered.  \"But stay,\" she added, \"I have something here that\nyou may want to see.\"\n\nShe darted back in the house and quickly returned with a very-much\ncrumpled card in her hand.\n\n\"It is a _carte postale_,\" she explained.  \"We found it in the yard\nsome days after you had been here.  It had been trampled in the mud by\nthe horses' feet and the writing had been scraped or blotted out.\nPerhaps it belonged to the young man.  It may have fallen from his\npocket.  I do not know.\"\n\nFrank took it eagerly from her hand, while his comrades gathered around\nhim.\n\nThe card was almost illegible, but it could be seen that it was a\nUnited States postal.  There was not a single word upon it that could\nbe made out in its entirety, but up in the corner where the postmark\nhad been they could see by straining their eyes the letters C and M.\n\n\"That's Camport, I'm willing to bet!\" exclaimed Bart excitedly.\n\n\"And here's something else,\" put in Billy pointing to where the address\nwould naturally be looked for.  \"See those letters d-f-o-r----\"\n\n\"It's dollars to doughnuts that that stands for 'Bradford,'\" Frank\nshouted.  \"A card from Camport to Tom Bradford.  Boys, we didn't guess\nwrong that day.  That was Tom that that brute of a lieutenant was going\nto hang!\"\n\nThey were tingling with excitement and delight.  To be sure, they did\nnot know what had become of their friend.  But he had escaped from this\nhouse.  He was perhaps within a few miles of them.  He was, at any\nrate, not eating his heart out in a distant prison camp.\n\nThen to Frank came the thought of Rabig.  Perhaps Tom hadn't escaped.\nPerhaps Rabig had added murder to the crime of treason of which they\nwere sure he was guilty.\n\n\"Are you sure that you haven't found anything else that would help us\nin finding our friend?\" he asked of the girl, whose face was beaming at\nthe pleasure she had been able to give to her deliverers.\n\n\"No,\" she answered.  \"There is nothing else.  I am sorry.\"\n\n\"Let's take a look around the house again, fellows,\" suggested Frank.\n\"We may have overlooked something the other day.  It's only a chance,\nbut let's take it.\"\n\nThey made a careful circuit of the house, but nothing rewarded the\nsearch until Frank, with an exclamation, picked up some pieces of rope\nthat had been lying in the grass not far from the window from which the\nprisoner had dropped.\n\n\"Are these yours?\" he asked of the girl who had accompanied them and\nhad been as ardent in the search as themselves.\n\nShe examined them.\n\n\"I do not think so,\" she declared.  \"I do not remember seeing any rope\nlike that around the house.\"\n\nThey scrutinized the pieces carefully.\n\n\"Look at these frayed edges,\" said Frank, laying them together.  \"You\nsee that these two pieces were part of one rope.\"\n\n\"I'll tell you what that means,\" put in Billy.  \"The girl says that Tom\nwas bound with ropes.  That cut or broken one was the one that was used\nto tie his hands.  In some way he cut that.  He didn't have a knife or\nthe cut would be cleaner.  Perhaps he sawed the rope against a piece of\nglass that he might have managed to get near.\"\n\n\"Good guess,\" commended Bart.  \"And this long rope was the one that was\nused to tie his feet.  Tom didn't need to cut that for his hands were\nfree then and he could untie it.\"\n\n\"Good old scout!\" exclaimed Frank in tribute to his absent chum.\n\"Trust that stout heart of his to keep up the fight to the last minute.\nThink of the old boy sawing away at the rope when he didn't know what\nminute he'd be taken out and hanged.\"\n\n\"He's all wool and a yard wide,\" agreed Bart.\n\n\"The real goods,\" said Billy.  \"But what were the ropes doing out here\nin the grass?\"\n\n\"Oh, I suppose he hated them so that he chucked them as far away as he\ncould,\" suggested Bart.\n\n\"No,\" said Frank, measuring the window with his eye.  \"I'll tell you\nhow I think it was.  Tom knew, of course, that he couldn't get out of\nthe house by the downstairs way without being nabbed.  He didn't know,\nof course, that the bunch of Huns weren't in condition to nab anybody.\nSo the window was the only way left to him.  He took the ropes to the\nwindow with the idea of splicing them and climbing down by them.  But\nthat would have taken time, and when he saw that the window wasn't very\nhigh up he made up his mind to drop.  The ropes were in his hand and he\nsimply threw them out of the window as the easiest way of getting rid\nof them.\"\n\n\"That sounds reasonable,\" said Billy.  \"But, oh boy! if poor Tom had\nonly known that all he had to do was to walk downstairs and bag the\nwhole blooming bunch!\"\n\n\"I wish he had,\" said Frank mournfully.\n\n\"If he had, that lieutenant wouldn't have got off so easily as he did,\"\ndeclared Bart.  \"Do you know what would have happened?  Of course the\nfirst thing Tom would have done would have been to untie the farmer and\nhis son.  Can you picture, then, what would have happened to that\nlieutenant and probably to his men, too?  The United States wouldn't\nhave been put to any expense for feeding them.\"\n\n\"That rope by the well would probably have been put to work,\" agreed\nFrank.  \"But poor Tom didn't know and there's no use of our\nspeculating.\"\n\nEncouraged by the information they had gained, they looked still\nfurther.  But nothing more was found, and they at last said good-by to\nthe girl and made their way back to their quarters with their hearts\nlighter than they had been for days.  In a sense they had got in touch\nwith their missing comrade, had seemed near to him, and their hopes\nwere high that before long they would have him with them again.\n\n\"It's disposed of one thing that was worrying me anyway,\" remarked\nFrank.  \"We know that Rabig had nothing to do with making away with\nTom.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Bart, \"that's one thing the fellow can't be charged with.\nBut I'm still mighty curious to know what he was hanging around that\nfarmhouse for.\"\n\n\"It sure was a mighty strange coincidence that he should be there at\nthe time the Germans were,\" declared Billy.  \"But Rabig is the only one\nwho knows why and you can bet that he won't tell.\"\n\nThe comparative lull that had occurred in the fighting was only\ntemporary, and the next day the drive was resumed in all its fury.\n\nThis time the use of gas was greater than it had been at any previous\ntime in the battle.  And the Germans had made still greater strides in\nthis diabolical contrivance which they were the first to inflict upon\nan outraged world.\n\nAt first the gas had been light and volatile.  It caused terrible\nsuffering to those caught by it, but it did not hover long over any\ngiven place and a gust of wind was sufficient to drive it away.\n\nBut that was not vile enough to satisfy the infernal ingenuity of the\nfoes of humanity.  Now they were using gas that settled on the ground\nso that nothing but a gale would drive it away, and that lasted for\nhours and even for days.  And then there was mustard gas, that\npenetrated everywhere through the clothing, through the skin, and that\nburned and ate up the living tissues like so much vitriol.\n\nBut the Allies were on the alert and soon found a way to avert or\nmodify the worst consequences of the various kinds of gases.  And they\nwere forced to fight fire with fire simply in self-defence.  It was a\nquestion of kill or be killed, and they were left no alternative.  They\nasked nothing better than to fight as knightly and honorable nations\nalways have fought and always will fight when they are left free to\nchoose their weapons.\n\nBut whatever the methods used by the Germans, whether gas or guns or\nmen, they were finding increasing difficulty in keeping up the momentum\nof their drive.  Sheer force of numbers had sufficed at first to carry\nthem forward, but now the Allies with American help coming over the sea\nat the rate of two hundred thousand men a month--and the finest kind of\nmen at that--were gradually getting on even terms.\n\n\"I see the Germans had a good day yesterday,\" remarked Frank, as he and\nhis comrades were at mess.\n\n\"I didn't notice it,\" said Bart, looking at his friend in surprise.\n\"We drove them back and gained ground from them.\"\n\n\"Oh, I don't mean here,\" exclaimed Frank.  \"I mean in Paris.\"\n\nBilly almost choked in surprise and alarm.\n\n\"You don't mean to say they've got to Paris?\" he sputtered.\n\n\"Not by a jugful,\" laughed Frank.  \"But they're sending shells into it.\"\n\n\"Then they must be pretty close to it,\" said Bart in some apprehension.\n\n\"The gun they're shooting with is seventy miles away from the city,\"\nreplied Frank.\n\n\"Quit your kidding,\" commanded Billy.\n\n\"Where do you get that stuff?\" asked Bart incredulously.\n\n\"Cross my heart and hope to die,\" said Frank seriously.  \"Honestly,\nfellows, they've got a gun that shoots a shell seventy miles or more.\nThe shell weighs two hundred pounds.  It rises twenty miles in the air,\nand it takes three minutes on the trip to Paris.\"\n\n\"Is that straight goods?\" asked Billy suspiciously.\n\n\"It sure is,\" Frank assured him.  \"I was reading about it in a Paris\npaper I got hold of this morning.\"\n\n\"What was it you were saying about yesterday being a good day for the\nGermans,\" asked Bart, when he had digested the facts.\n\n\"Oh, one of the shells hit a church where they were having a service\nand killed seventy-five people, mostly women and children,\" answered\nFrank.  \"Don't you imagine the Germans call that a good day?  Can't you\nsee them grinning and rubbing their hands?  It's as good as bombing a\nhospital or an orphan asylum.  The Kaiser felt so good about that he\nsent a special message of congratulation to the manager of the Krupp\nworks, where the gun was made.  Oh, yes, it was a good day!\"\n\n\"The swine!\" exclaimed Bart furiously, while Billy's fist clinched.\n\n\"Let's get busy,\" cried Frank, springing to his feet.  \"I can't wait to\nget at those barbarians.  I hope there's lots of bayonet work today.  I\nnever felt in better trim for it.\"\n\nThey fought that day as they had never fought before, for they had\nnever felt so strongly that the world would never be a decent place to\nlive in until their barbarous enemies were humbled to the dust.\n\nThe next day the old Thirty-seventh was ordered to take up its position\nat a bridgehead that it was of the utmost importance should be strongly\nheld.  The enemy attacks were converging there, and it was evident that\nthey were planning to cross the river in force.  The country behind the\nAmerican troops was flat and difficult to defend, and if the enemy\nshould make good his crossing the consequences to the Allied cause\nmight prove serious.\n\nThe enemy advance had reached the further side of the river, which at\nthat point was about two hundred yards in width.  A fierce artillery\nduel was kept up between the hostile forces.  A wooden bridge with\nstone arches afforded the only means of crossing, and this was swept by\nsuch a fierce shell fire from the Allied guns that it did not seem as\nthough anything could live on it for a moment.\n\nAs an additional precaution the bridge had been secretly mined by the\nAllied engineers.  Electric wires ran to the concealed charges.\n\nA pressure of a button--and the bridge would be reduced to atoms.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\n\nA DESPERATE VENTURE\n\n\"The Huns will get a surprise party if they try to cross that bridge,\"\nremarked Billy with a grin, as the boys were talking over the present\nsituation.\n\n\"I don't see why we don't blow it up right away,\" said Bart.  \"Then the\nGermans would have to rely on pontoons and what we would do to them\nwould be a crime.\"\n\n\"Our officers know what they're about,\" objected Frank.  \"We might want\nthat bridge to go across on ourselves if things take the right turn.\nSo it's just as well to have it handy.  If there's any blowing up to\ndo, we can do it later just as well as now.  And it's just as well to\nhave it go skyward when it's crowded with Germans as when it's empty.\nGet me?\"\n\n\"I get you, all right,\" replied Bart.  \"But suppose something should go\nwrong when the time came to blow it up?\"\n\n\"That would be something else again,\" laughed Frank.  \"But I guess\nthere isn't much danger Of that.  Just one little pressure of a\nbutton--and--zowie!\"\n\nJust then Frank caught sight of his friend, Colonel Pavet, coming\ntoward him and went forward to meet the French officer.\n\nThe colonel's greeting was a very cordial one.\n\n\"I'm glad to see that you've come safely so far through this fierce\nfighting,\" he said.\n\n\"Fierce is the right word,\" answered Frank smilingly.\n\n\"I was at Verdun,\" went on the colonel, \"and I thought at the time that\nnothing could be more ferocious than the fighting there.  But this has\nbeen much worse.\"\n\n\"We've got a pretty stiff proposition right now in holding this\nbridge,\" observed Frank.\n\n\"Indeed you have,\" agreed the colonel, \"and it is a compliment to the\nAmerican forces that the defense of such an important position has been\nentrusted to them.  Oh, you Americans!  Where would we have been\nwithout your aid?  And your fighting qualities!  You grow men on your\nside of the ocean, Monsieur Sheldon.\"\n\n\"The superb fighting of the French has been an inspiration to us,\"\nreplied Frank warmly.\n\n\"To come to personal matters,\" went on the colonel, \"I have heard more\nin detail from my brother Andre about your mother's property.  He has\ntraced the butler--Martel is his name--in the official records, and has\nfound that he was taken prisoner in an attack several months ago.  He\nwas very anxious to cross-examine him on some testimony he had given\npreviously.  It seems that Martel had testified that he had witnessed\nthe execution of a later will than that in which the property was left\nto your mother.  You can easily see how unfortunate that might be if it\ncould be proved.  Andre has a suspicion that cross-examination might\nshow Martel's testimony to be false.\"\n\n\"It is too bad that the man is a prisoner,\" said Frank anxiously.\n\n\"There is more to be told,\" went on the colonel gravely.  \"I myself\nhave put investigations on foot through the Swiss Red Cross.  They were\nable to find out from German prison records that Martel died recently.\"\n\nFrank started back visibly perturbed.\n\n\"Died!\" he echoed.  \"Then his statement about the will stands\nuncontradicted.\"\n\n\"As far as he is concerned, yes,\" replied the colonel soberly.  \"I am\nbitterly disappointed, and I know that Andre will be, too, for he has\nmade a very strong point of disproving that special testimony.  But we\nwill not remit our efforts in the least, _mon ami_.  Be assured of\nthat.  I will let you know when I have any further news,\" and with a\nfriendly wave of the hand the colonel passed on.\n\n\"What's the matter, Frank?\" asked Billy as he went slowly back to his\nfriends.  \"You look as jolly as a crutch.\"\n\n\"I'm no hypocrite, then,\" answered Frank soberly, \"for that's exactly\nhow I feel.\"\n\nHe told his chums of what the colonel had said, and they were sincere\nin their expressions of sympathy.\n\n\"I don't care a button about it for myself,\" explained Frank, \"but I\nhate to have to tell my mother about it.  She has little enough to make\nher happy nowadays, and I know how badly she will feel about this.\"\n\nAll that day the artillery kept up a ceaseless fire and the Germans did\nnot venture on the bridge.  But great activity was observed among them,\nand Dick Lever, who was leader of the aviation detachment that was\noperating in that sector, brought the news that evening that they were\npreparing pontoons and other small boats with which they would probably\nattempt a crossing at points that were not so well guarded.\n\n\"Your officers over here want to keep their eyes peeled,\" he remarked\nto the Army Boys after he had just made his report at division\nheadquarters.  \"Those Heinies have made up their minds to get across\nthis river by hook or crook.  They figure that with the open country\nbehind you they'll have a good chance to throw you back if they can\nonly get a footing on this side.\"\n\n\"Don't you worry about our officers,\" replied Frank with a conviction\nthat had been deepened by the skilful leadership the American troops\nhad had so far in the drive.  \"It'll be as hard to find them napping as\nit is to catch a weasel asleep.\"\n\n\"I know they're good stuff,\" agreed Dick, \"but we're all human, you\nknow.\"\n\n\"All except the boches,\" grunted Billy.  \"They're inhuman.\"\n\n\"We've had plenty of proofs of that,\" laughed Dick.  \"They like to\nthink they're superhuman, but we're teaching them differently.\"\n\n\"Seen anything of Will Stone lately?\" asked Frank.\n\n\"Ran across him about a week ago,\" replied Dick.  \"He's fighting about\nten miles north of here, where the country's suitable for tank work.\nHe's doing some great fighting, too.\"\n\n\"I don't need to be told that,\" replied Frank.  \"That fellow would\nrather fight than eat.\"\n\n\"Well, so long, fellows,\" said Dick, as he rose to his feet.  \"Keep a\nsharp eye on those boches across the river.\"\n\n\"Trust us,\" replied Frank.  \"They'll never get over here.\"\n\nThe aviator's warning had been heeded by the officers, and detachments\nwere stationed at places along the river above and below the main\nbridge.\n\nSuddenly one morning, a whole fleet of boats, large and small, shot out\nat the same instant from the enemy side of the river.  They were loaded\nwith men and machine guns, and the evident plan was to get a footing on\nthe American side which could be held until reinforcements could be\nhurried over and make the footing secure.\n\nAt the same time a tremendous gunfire strove to protect the crossing\nand clear the banks at the points where the boats were planning to land.\n\nBefore the American guns could get the range on the rapidly moving\ntargets, the boats were halfway across the river, and the rowers were\npulling like mad.  One boat after another was struck and the occupants\nthrown into the river.  But the Germans had allowed for the loss of\nsome of the boats, and were perfectly resigned to lose them, provided a\ncertain percentage of all could effect a crossing.\n\n\"Let them get here,\" muttered Frank, who, with Bart and Billy, was\namong the force which had been assigned to that point where the passage\nwas being attempted.  \"They'll never get back again.\"\n\nThe surviving boats drew closer to the shore.  The men on the boats\nwere using their machine guns, and the banks were swept by a rain of\nbullets.  More of the boats went down under the return fire, but a full\ndozen of them finally struck the shore.  The crews jumped out in the\nshallow water and commenced to wade ashore.\n\nBut they were doomed men.  With a yell the American boys swept down\nupon them.  Frank and his comrades rushed into the water, and there was\na battle that must have resembled those of the old Vikings.  Back and\nforth the combatants struggled, shooting, hacking, swinging their gun\nbutts.  Some of them, locked in a death grip, went down together in the\nwater that was taking on a reddish tinge.  Others floated away on the\nstream.  Others of the enemy, seeing that the fight was going against\nthem, leaped back into the boats and strove desperately to push out\ninto the river.  But Frank leaped at the bow of one boat and held it,\nwhile Bart and Billy with their comrades did the same to others.\n\nIn a few minutes the fight was over.  It had been a hot one while it\nlasted.  Several of the Americans had been killed and quite a number\nwounded, but their loss had been largely exceeded by that of the enemy.\nNot a boat got back, and all who had not been killed remained as\nprisoners in American hands.\n\nWhile the action was in progress, another fleet of equal size had\nstarted out.  This had been designed to reinforce the first party if it\nhad succeeded in gaining a footing.  But the utter collapse of the\nfirst effort had taught the enemy that the bank was too strongly held\nand they stopped in midstream and rowed back.\n\n\"Even a Heinie can see through a milestone when there's a hole in it,\"\ncommented Billy, as he watched the enemy retreating.\n\n\"It's a pity they don't keep on,\" said Bart.  \"I'm just getting my\nblood up.\"\n\n\"First bit of marine fighting we've done yet,\" laughed Frank.  \"We can\nsay now that we belong to both branches of the service.\"\n\n\"All we need now is a fight in the air to make the thing complete,\"\nsaid Bart, \"and we came pretty near to that, too, when we were with\nDick that time in his bombing machine.\"\n\nWith their boat plan thwarted, the German commanders now centered all\ntheir attention on the bridge.  One or two surprise attacks at night\nwere detected and driven back, but the enemy did not give up.\n\nAt dusk on the day following the fight in the stream they made the\ngreat attack.  True to their tactics, they apparently took no account\nof the lives of their men.  The taking of the bridge was bound to\nresult in tremendous slaughter.  Every foot of it was swept by the\nAmerican guns.  But the enemy leaders had determined that the bridge\nmust be taken, no matter how high a price they paid for the taking.  It\nwas easier for the leaders to reach this conclusion since it was the\nmen who would pay the price rather than themselves.\n\nA tremendous artillery fire paved the way for the operation.  Then,\njust as twilight was gathering, a strong body of enemy troops, marching\nin heavy columns, attempted to storm the bridge.\n\nBeyond the first ranks could be seen other columns standing in reserve.\nThe great climax was approaching.  The German command at that point had\ndetermined to stake everything on one throw.\n\nOn they came to the death awaiting them.  The American artillery and\nmachine guns swept the bridge with a withering fire.  The front ranks\nmelted away like mist.\n\nBut their places were filled with others and still others, despite the\nfrightful slaughter.  The American machine guns got too hot to handle\nfrom their unceasing fire.\n\nAnd still the German horde kept crowding forward as though their\nreserves were inexhaustible.  It was known that they had been heavily\nreinforced of late and that they largely outnumbered the American\ntroops opposed to them.  Over the dead bodies of their comrades which\nstrewed the bridge they were creeping nearer, urged by the irresistible\npressure from behind.  Considering the disparity of forces, it was\nsound tactics to destroy the bridge before the foremost ranks could get\na footing on the side where their overwhelming numbers would begin to\ntell.\n\nThe American commander gave the order to blow up the bridge.  But when\nthe button was pressed that should have sent the electric current into\nthe powder mine there was no response.\n\nSeveral times the pressure was repeated and still no explosion\nfollowed.  A hasty consultation ensued between the leaders who were\nstanding close by the place where the Army Boys were fighting.\n\n\"The electric wires must have been cut by the enemy's fire,\" Frank\nheard one of them say.\n\nCut!  Then all the elaborate plans for blowing up the bridge had come\nto naught.  And that apparently inexhaustible gray force was getting\nnearer and nearer!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX\n\nTHE JAWS OF DEATH\n\n\"There's just one possible chance,\" said Frank's colonel.\n\n\"What is that?\" asked the general in command.\n\n\"An explosive bullet sent into the mine might explode it,\" replied the\ncolonel.  \"But it would have to be fired from a boat.  We can't do it\nfrom here.\"\n\n\"It would be certain death to whoever tried it,\" replied the general,\nlooking at the shell-swept stream.\n\n\"Not certain, perhaps, but probable,\" said the colonel.  \"It's the only\nchance, though, to explode the mine.  It can only be reached from\nunderneath.\"\n\n\"We'll try it,\" said the general with decision.  \"But I won't assign\nany one to it.  It's a matter for volunteers.\"\n\nWhen the call came for volunteers, Frank sprang forward and saluted.\nBart and Billy followed close behind him.\n\nThe officer's eye swept the three and rested on Frank.\n\n\"You volunteer?\" he asked.  \"You know the danger?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" they responded.\n\nA gleam of pride and admiration came in the general's eyes.\n\n\"Very well,\" he said.  \"I'm proud to be your commander.\"\n\nOrders were hurriedly given, explosive bullets were furnished; and a\nfew minutes later a small boat carrying the three Army Boys shot out\nfrom the shore.\n\nThe dusk had thickened now, and Bart and Billy, who were rowing, hugged\nthe bridge as closely as they could, so as to profit by its shadow.\n\nNone of this bombardment had been directed at them as yet, because\ntheir little boat had not been seen.  But when they were forced to move\na little way from the shadow of the bridge, so that Frank could get the\nproper angle from which to fire, they were detected, and a perfect\ntempest of fire opened up not only from the batteries on the further\nshore, but from the soldiers who were on the bridge.\n\nFrank knew exactly where the powder charges had been located.  His\nrifle was loaded and he had sufficient confidence in his marksmanship\nto believe that only one shot would be needed.\n\nAll he dreaded was that a bullet might strike him before he had done\nhis work.  After that it did not so much matter.  He knew that he had\ntaken his life in his hand and he had already counted it as lost.\n\nBart and Billy were rowing like fiends.  At last they reached the point\nthat Frank had indicated.  He peered through the dusk and could see the\noutlines of the mine.\n\nThe bridge now was black with Germans.  They had covered two-thirds of\nthe distance over it, and they were packed so closely, crowding on each\nother's heels, that the rails of the bridge bulged outward with the\npressure.\n\nFrank raised his rifle to his shoulder, took steady aim and fired.\n\nThere was a hideous roar, and then the shattered timbers of the bridge\nwent hurtling toward the sky.  Hundreds of bodies were mingled with the\ndebris, and the water surged up in great waves as the mass fell back\ninto the river.\n\nWhere the bridge had been there was a yawning gap of two hundred feet.\nAt either end there was a remnant of the bridge still standing, and on\nthese the survivors were rushing frenziedly toward the land before the\nremaining timbers should give way.\n\nThose Germans who were left on the American side, severed from the help\nof their comrades, were surrounded and disarmed as soon as they reached\nthe shore.  The attempt at capture had ended in a terrible disaster to\nthe German forces.\n\nThe instant Frank fired.  Billy and Bart plunged their oars in the\nwater and started rowing with all their might away from the bridge.\n\nBut despite their efforts they could not get out of the danger zone in\ntime.  A heavy piece of timber struck the side of the boat, crushing it\nin and throwing the occupants into the water.\n\nFrank and Billy came to the surface a moment later and shook the water\nfrom their eyes.  They looked about for Bart, but he was not to be seen.\n\nInstantly Frank dived, searching frantically for his chum.  His arm\ncame in contact with someone's hair.  He grasped it and drew the body\nto the surface.\n\nIt was Bart, but he was unconscious.  The timber that had smashed the\nboat had caught him a glancing blow on the head and stunned him.\n\nFrank held his comrade's face above the water and shouted to Billy, who\nalso had been searching and had just come up.  He swam to Frank's side\nand helped him in bearing up Bart.\n\nThey found a floating plank, over which they placed Bart's arms and\nthen with Frank holding on to Bart's body and Billy guiding the plank\nthey struck out for the nearer shore.\n\nThey had been nearer the American than the German side when the\nexplosion took place.  But the current was bearing strongly toward the\nGerman side and they had been carried some distance by it while they\nwere taking care of Bart.  The consequence was that, while they thought\nthat the nearer bank was that held by their own troops, it was the\nGerman side towards which they were moving with their unconscious\nburden.\n\nThey were within a few feet of the shore at some distance below where\nthe bridge had stood, when Frank's quick ear heard the sound of voices\nspeaking in German.  At first he thought it was probably some of the\nprisoners whom the American troops had captured.  But a moment later he\nrecognized a dilapidated fishing pier that he had often gazed at from\nhis own side of the river, and the truth burst upon him.\n\nThey were on the wrong side of the river!  If Bart had been in the same\ncondition as Billy and himself, their situation, though dangerous,\nwould not have been desperate.  They were all strong swimmers and\nalthough fearfully tired from their exertions would have been able to\nswim across to comrades and safety.\n\nBut it was another matter with Bart unconscious.  Frank did not know\nwhat had caused his friend's injury.  Perhaps he had been shot.  At\nthis very moment, for all Frank knew, his chum might be bleeding to\ndeath.  Above all things he wanted to find dry land, where he could\nexamine his chum and render him first aid if necessary.\n\nHe communicated with Billy in whispers.\n\n\"We've gone and done it, old scout,\" he whispered.  \"We're on the\nGerman side.\"\n\n\"That's good news--I don't think,\" returned Billy.\n\n\"Let's swim in under this old pier,\" suggested Frank, \"We'll be out of\nsight then and we may strike a bit of beach up toward the head of it.\"\n\nThey followed the suggestion and were relieved to find that there was a\nlittle stretch of dry sand beyond the water line.  They took Bart from\nthe plank and bore him out on the sand.  Here they rubbed his wrists\nand tried as far as they could in the darkness to ascertain the extent\nof his injuries.  Frank did not dare to use his flashlight for fear of\nbetraying their presence to the enemy.\n\nTo their immense relief Bart soon showed signs of returning animation.\nHe opened his eyes and was about to speak, when Frank put his hand\ngently on his lips.\n\n\"Don't speak, old man,\" he whispered.  \"You're all right.  It's Frank\nspeaking.  Billy's here.  Just whisper to me and tell where you're\nhurt.  But be careful, for the Germans are all around us.\"\n\n\"Guess I'm not hurt much,\" whispered Bart.  \"Got a clip on the head\nwhen that beam struck the boat.\"\n\n\"Sure you didn't get a bullet?\" asked Frank anxiously.\n\n\"I don't think so,\" replied Bart.  \"Head's dizzy from that crack, but I\nfeel all right everywhere else.\"\n\n\"Bully!\" said Frank.  \"Now you just lie there till you get your\nstrength back, and then we'll figure out what's to be done.\"\n\nIt was a hard problem, and it became none the easier a few minutes\nlater when a boat came along under oars and was tied up at the end of\nthe pier.  It was a big boat and similar to those in which the Germans\nhad made their unsuccessful attempt to cross the river a few days\nbefore.\n\nIt had evidently been out in the river picking up the wounded who had\nbeen thrown into the stream by the explosion.  The rickety planks\ncreaked as the soldiers carried the wounded survivors over the pier to\nthe bank beyond.  It would have been an exceedingly bad time for the\nArmy Boys to be discovered and they crowded back as far as they could\nto escape detection.\n\nThe Germans were in a terrible rage over the body blow that had been\ndealt them in the destruction of the bridge.  Apart from the heavy\nlosses in men their entire plan of campaign would have to be\nreconstructed.\n\n\"That one bullet of yours was a mighty effective one, Frank,\" whispered\nBilly.\n\n\"It was classy shooting,\" said Bart.  \"From a rocking boat with shells\nbursting all around and so much depending on it, there'd have been lots\nof excuse for missing.\"\n\n\"Maybe the old Thirty-seventh isn't feeling good over the way the thing\nwent through,\" chuckled Billy.\n\n\"And maybe we won't get the glad hand when we get over there,\" murmured\nBart.\n\n\"We've got to get there first,\" whispered Frank, \"and we've got a\nmighty slim chance of doing that as long as this boat stays here.\"\n\nEvery instant was fraught with peril.  They had no weapons and even if\nthey had they would have stood no chance against the throng of enemies\nsurrounding them.  Their only hope of safety lay in not being\ndiscovered.\n\nBut at last, to their great relief, the German rowers resumed their\nplaces at the oars and the boat pulled out into the darkness.\n\n\"Thank heaven, they're gone at last!\" breathed Billy.\n\n\"Do you feel equal to the swim over, Bart?\" asked Frank.\n\n\"Sure thing,\" replied Bart.  \"My head's dizzy yet, but with you and\nBilly to give me a hand, if necessary, I'll get through all right.\"\n\nAs silently as so many otters they slipped into the water and struck\nout for the other side.\n\nThe current was strong and the work was arduous, especially with the\ncare they had to exercise lest any splash should be heard by the enemy.\nThere was also the chance that one of the boats that were abroad might\ncome in their direction.  But aided by the pitch darkness that\nprevailed, they made the trip in safety and Bart had no need of calling\non the aid of his comrades.\n\nAs they drew near the other side a sentry hailed them.\n\n\"Halt!\" he cried.  \"Who goes there?\"\n\n\"That's Fred Anderson,\" murmured Billy, as he recognized the voice.\n\n\"Friends!\" called Frank.  \"Hello, Fred.  It's Raymond, Waldon and\nSheldon.\"\n\nThere was a shout of delight, and Fred, accompanied by several other\nsentries, came running to the water's edge.\n\n\"Glory, hallelujah!\" shouted Fred, as eager hands pulled the Army Boys\nup on the bank.  \"So you pulled through after all.  The whole regiment\nhad given you up.  Say, if they'd known you were coming every mother's\nson of them would have been down here to meet you and they'd have\nbrought the band with them.  Come along now, but I warn you in advance\nthat all the fellows will shake your hands off.\"\n\nThey still had their hands when their mates got through with them, but\nFred had not over-estimated the royal welcome that awaited them.  They\nhad always been prime favorites with the boys of the old\nThirty-seventh, and that afternoon's exploit made them more popular\nthan ever.  Their officers, too, were jubilant at their return.\n\nThey were taken to headquarters, where the general thanked them and\nshook hands with each in turn.\n\n\"I don't need any report from you,\" he smiled.  \"I heard that when the\nbridge went up.  It was a brave deed, most gallantly done.  I thank you\nin the name of the army.  Your names will be cited to-morrow in the\norders of the day and I shall personally bring the matter to the\nattention of General Pershing.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX\n\nA TRAITOR UNMASKED\n\nWhen Tom Bradford found himself racing toward the woods, the only\nthought in his mind was to put as great a distance as possible between\nhimself and his would-be executioners.\n\nAt every step he expected to hear a shout raised and see a crowd of\npursuers rush from the house like a pack of wolves after their prey.\n\nThe thought lent wings to his feet and he covered the distance in\nrecord time.  And not until he was safe in the shelter of the friendly\ntrees did he pause to draw breath and cast a glance toward the house.\n\nIf his escape had been noticed, there was absolutely no sign of it.\nThe landscape lay in serene and smiling beauty.  Not a trace of life\nwas to be seen about the house.  It seemed scarcely possible that so\nmuch tragedy and so much peace could exist side by side.\n\nBut he had no time for musing, and after a moment's glance he turned\nand burrowed deeper into the woods.  There alone for the moment lay\nsafety.  In those leafy coverts he could lie concealed, while he took\nbreath and thought out the situation.\n\nHe had no idea of where the American lines lay.  Bound hand and foot as\nhe had been during that terrible journey, and tortured by the thoughts\nthat had assailed him, he had taken little note of the way he was\ntraveling.  And even if he had, he could not have told with certainty\nwhat was the dividing line between the hostile armies.\n\nAll that he could do was to exercise the utmost caution, get as deeply\ninto the recesses of the wood as he could, and let his future course be\nguided by circumstances.  In a battle area that was so full of soldiers\nit would not be long before he would catch sight of some of them.  The\ngreat thing was to see them before they saw him.  If they wore German\nhelmets he would keep his distance.  If, on the contrary, he should see\nthe old familiar khaki uniform of his American comrades, his troubles\nwould be over.\n\nBut if the most important thing was concealment, another problem almost\nas important was the question of food.  He had had only the scantiest\nkind of nourishment since his escape from the prison yard.  The last\ncrumb had been eaten that morning.  He had no weapon of any kind with\nwhich to shoot squirrels or rabbits or birds.  And he did not dare to\napproach a cottage for fear that he might again be placed in the power\nof his enemies.\n\nBut he was not yet starving, though exceedingly hungry, and he kept on\nin the woods, intent upon putting as many miles behind him as possible\nbefore he stopped for rest.\n\nFar up in the wooded hills he came in sight of a little cabin.  It was\na dilapidated little shack that perhaps had been used by hunting\nparties in happier days.  It seemed to be entirely deserted, but he was\nwary and lay in the bushes for an hour or more, watching it closely for\nany sign of life.  Only when he felt perfectly sure that there was no\none about, did he creep up to the door and look in.\n\nHe drew a sigh of relief when he saw that it was indeed uninhabited.\nNot only that, but there was no evidence that any one had visited it of\nlate.  There was no sign of a path and the bushes had grown up close to\nthe door.  One of the hinges of the door had rusted away and the door\nsagged heavily upon the other.\n\nThere was absolutely nothing in the hut except a rough board table and\na three-legged stool.  Tom searched about eagerly in the hope that he\nmight find some food left by its last occupants.  He was not\nparticular, and even mouldy crusts would have been eagerly welcomed.\nBut even in this he was doomed to be disappointed.\n\nStill it was something to be under a roof.  Human beings once had been\nthere, and the fact seemed to bring him in contact with his kind.  And\neven this rough shelter was better than being compelled to sleep in the\nwoods.  If he had only had something to still the terrible gnawing at\nhis stomach he would have been content--at least as far as he could be\ncontented while a fugitive, with his life and liberty in constant\ndanger.\n\nAfter he had rested a while he went outside, with the double purpose of\nwatching for enemies and trying to find something to eat.  He fashioned\na club from a stout branch and made several attempts to get a squirrel\nor a bird by hurling it at them.  But the weapon was too clumsy and\nthey were too quick, and this forlorn hope came to nothing.  So that\nwhen night at last dropped down upon him he was more hungry than ever\nand had to go to sleep supperless.\n\nThe next morning he was more fortunate, for he came upon a stream that\nabounded in fish.  He improvised a hook and line and landed several\nfair-sized ones.  He had some matches in an oilskin pouch, and he made\na little fire in a deep depression, so as to hide the smoke, and\nroasted fish over it.  He had no salt, but never had a meal tasted more\ndelicious in his life.\n\nNow a burden was lifted from his mind.  At least he would not starve.\nFish, no doubt, would grow wearisome as a diet if it were varied with\nnothing else.  But at least it would sustain life and give him strength\nfor the tasks that lay before him.\n\nHe listened for the booming of the guns and tried to figure out from\nthe sound just where the contending armies were facing each other.\nSometimes they grew louder and fiercer, and at other times seemed to\nrecede, as the tide of battle ebbed and flowed.  But there was rarely\nany lull in the ominous thunder, and Tom knew that the fiercest kind of\nfighting was going on.  He thought of Frank and Bart and Billy, who he\nfelt sure were in the very thick of it, and he grew desperate at the\nthought that he was not at their side, facing the same dangers, and, as\nhe hoped, sharing in the same victories.\n\nGradually he worked his way down the mountain, taking the utmost care\nto avoid detection, until he felt sure from the increasing din that he\nwas not far from one or the other of the hostile armies.  But it was of\nthe utmost importance to him to know whether he was within the German\nor the American lines.\n\nThe question was solved for him when, some days later, he caught sight\nof a file of German soldiers passing through a ravine a little way\nbelow him.  These were followed by others.  He sought shelter instantly\nupon catching his first glimpse of them, but the bushes were thin at\nthat point, and a huge tree seemed to offer a more secure refuge.  He\nclimbed it quickly, and, peering through the leaves, tried to figure\nout the situation.  Rank after rank passed, and seemed to be taking up\na position with the view of making an attack.  Batteries were drawn up,\nand their guns pointed in a direction away from where Tom was hiding.\nThis was a valuable, but at the same time a painful, bit of\ninformation, because it showed Tom that he was behind the German lines\ninstead of in front of them.  If he had been in front, it would be\nsimply a matter of making his way in all haste to where the American\narmies lay.  Now he knew that in order to reach his own lines he would\nhave to cross through the German positions.  And without weapons this\ncould only be a forlorn hope.  Even had he been armed it would have\nbeen a desperate chance.\n\nHe was pondering this fact with a sinking of the heart, when suddenly\nhe saw approaching a man in American uniform.  What could it mean?  The\nman was not a prisoner, or he would have been under guard.  Yet what\nother explanation was there for the appearance of the uniform in the\nmidst of the Germans, who swarmed all about?\n\nThe man came nearer, until he paused beneath the tree.  He looked about\nas though expecting to see some one.  Then he glanced at the watch on\nhis wrist, and uttered an exclamation of impatience.  It was evident\nthat he had made an appointment, and that the other party to the tryst\nwas slow in coming.\n\nThe day was warm, and the upward climb through the woods had been\narduous.  The man took his hat from his head and wiped his forehead\nwith his handkerchief.  As he did so, Tom caught his first glimpse of\nthe newcomer's face, and his heart gave a leap of surprise as well as\nrepulsion when he recognized Nick Rabig.\n\nThe last news that Tom had had of Rabig was that he had been taken\nprisoner in the preceding Fall.  He had not known, of course, of Nick's\nalleged escape from German captivity, and of his return to the American\nlines, but his quick mind readily reached the correct conclusion.  He\nhad always distrusted Rabig and had felt sure that the fellow was at\nheart a traitor.  He was morally certain that the German corporal, whom\nNick had been assigned to guard, had escaped with Rabig's connivance,\nand he remembered what Frank had told him about hearing Rabig's voice\nin the woods the night the German spy was shot.  But Rabig's cunning,\nor perhaps his luck, had prevented his treachery being proved.\n\nWhatever errand had brought Rabig to this spot, Tom felt sure that it\nboded no good to the American cause, and even in the precarious\nposition in which he found himself he rejoiced at the thought that he\nmight be instrumental in unmasking a traitor.\n\nWhile these thoughts were passing through his mind, a German officer\napproached from another direction.  He saw Rabig, and hastened toward\nhim.  He greeted Nick coldly, and with an air that scarcely concealed\nthe contempt he felt for the man whose services he was using.\n\nAn animated colloquy began at once.  But unluckily for Tom it was in\nGerman.  He hated the language, but just then he would have given\nanything if he could have understood what was passing between the two\nmen.\n\nThe conversation continued for some time.  Rabig handed over some\npapers which the German officer carefully looked over, using a pencil\nto follow some lines that seemed to be the tracing of a map or plan.\nThen he folded them up and put them carefully in his pocket, and after\na few more sentences had been exchanged Tom heard the clink of money\nand saw Rabig tuck something away in his belt.  Then the officer stood\nup and with a curt nod went away toward the bottom of the hill.\n\nFor some minutes more Rabig remained sitting at the foot of the tree.\nThen he took money from his belt and counted it carefully.  Tom\ncouldn't help wondering whether it consisted of thirty pieces of silver!\n\nIn Tom's mind a plan was rapidly forming.  He looked through the trees\nin every direction.  No one was in sight.  From the slope below came\nthe hum of the camp, but no helmets were visible.\n\nIf Rabig had come through the German lines he had done so by means of a\npass.  That pass would take him back just as it had brought him\nthrough.  He must have it in his pocket now.\n\nTom measured the distance between himself and the figure sitting\nbeneath him.  Then with the litheness of a panther he dropped plump on\nRabig's shoulders.\n\nThe shock was terrific and knocked the breath from the traitor's body.\nHe rolled over and over.  Tom himself was thrown forward on his hands\nand knees, but the next moment he had risen and his hands fastened like\na vise around Rabig's throat.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI\n\nCROSSING THE LINE\n\nNick Rabig was a young man of powerful build, and under ordinary\nconditions Tom would have had his work cut out for him.  But the\nsurprise and the shock had taken all the fight out of the traitor, and\nTom's sinewy hands never relaxed until Rabig's face was purple and he\nlay limp and gasping.  Then Tom improvised a gag and thrust it into the\nrascal's mouth and rapidly bound his hands and feet.\n\nWhen he had the miscreant helpless, Tom rose panting to his feet and\nlooked about him.  There was no sign that the struggle had attracted\nattention.  Rabig himself had had no time to utter a cry for help.\n\nThe renegade had revived sufficiently now to understand what had\nhappened, and his face was a study of conflicting emotions.  Rage and\nhate and fear showed in his features.  He recognized Tom, and he knew\nthat his treachery stood discovered.  He knew that with the evidence\nagainst him he was doomed to stand before a firing squad if he should\nbe taken into the American lines.\n\nTom looked at him as one might look at a leper.\n\n\"You low-down traitor!\" he said bitterly.  \"You vile scoundrel!  I've\ncaught you at last and caught you dead to rights.  You're the most\ncontemptible thing that breathes.  You're a disgrace to your uniform.\nYou ought to be wearing a wooden overcoat and you will when Uncle Sam\nlays his hands on you.  I ought to kill you myself this minute.\"\n\nHis hand clenched the pistol which he had taken from Rabig's pocket,\nand a look of craven fear came into the traitor's eyes.\n\n\"Oh, don't be afraid,\" said Tom scornfully.  \"I'm not going to do it.\nPerhaps you'll suffer more if I let you live than if I killed you.\nYou're a marked and branded man.  You're a man without a country.  The\nvery men you've sold yourself to look upon you as a yellow dog.\n\n\"Now, Rabig, listen to me,\" Tom went on with deadly earnestness.  \"I'm\ngoing to strip you of the uniform you've disgraced.  I'll have to untie\nyour hands for a minute to get the coat over your arms, but I've got\nthe drop on you and if you make the slightest move except to do what I\ntell you to you're a dead man.\"\n\nRabig was too cowed to do anything but obey, and in a few minutes Tom\nhad stripped him of coat and trousers and put them on himself.  He\nre-bound Rabig's hands tightly.  Then he went through the pockets of\nthe coat.\n\nAs he had expected he found the pass that had admitted Rabig to the\nGerman lines.  Opposite the word \"_Losung_,\" which Tom knew meant\n\"countersign,\" was scribbled the word \"Potsdam.\"\n\n\"I guess this thing that brought you over will take me back,\" Tom\nremarked.  \"Now, Rabig, I'm going to leave you here with your German\nfriends.  They'll pick you up after a while, though I don't care\nwhether they do or not.  I'm going back to the boys of the old\nThirty-seventh and tell them just what has happened to Nick Rabig, the\ntraitor.  So long, Benedict Arnold.\"\n\nWith a parting glance of contempt Tom left the traitor and went down\nthe hill with a confidence that he was very far from feeling.\n\nHe had the pass and the countersign, but he was not sure that these\nwould be sufficient.  Perhaps an officer would be called by the sentry\nto make sure that everything was all right.  Perhaps the sentry at the\npoint where he should try to pass the line might be the same one who\nhad let Rabig through, and he might notice the difference in personal\nappearance.  Any one of a dozen things might happen to arouse suspicion.\n\nLuckily it was growing dark and Tom had pulled Rabig's hat well down\nover his face, yet not so far as to make it appear that he was trying\nto evade scrutiny.  He walked on briskly to a point where a sentry on\nduty before an opening in the wire fence was standing.\n\n\"_Halt!  Wer da?_\" hailed the sentry.\n\n\"_Ein Freund_,\" replied Tom.\n\n\"_Losung._\"\n\n\"_Potsdam._\"\n\nAt the same time Tom carelessly extended the pass which the sentry\nglanced at and returned to him with a curt gesture, in which Tom\nthought he saw contempt.  But it meant that he was free to pass, and he\ndid so with an air of indifference.\n\nHis heart was beating so fast that it seemed as if he would suffocate.\nAt every step he feared to hear a shout behind him that would tell him\nthat the ruse was discovered.  But the fortune that had frowned upon\nhim so many times of late this time was friendly.  Behind him were the\nusual camp noises and nothing more.\n\nIn a few minutes he had gotten out of sight of the lines and was in the\nwoods at a point where the trees grew thickly and only a half-beaten\ntrail led through the underbrush.  Then he quickened his pace and soon\nfound himself running.\n\nIf he were pursued, he had fully made up his mind what he would do.  He\nwould never again see the inside of a German prison.  He had the\nrevolver and he would fight to the last breath.  He might go down,\nprobably would, considering the odds that there would be against him,\nbut he would die fighting, and would take one or more of his enemies\nwith him.\n\nHe was racing along now at top speed and he only slackened his gait\nwhen he knew that he had put miles behind him.  By that time it had\ngrown wholly dark, and in the woods it was as black as pitch.  He was\nsafe for that night at least.  His enemies could not have seen him if\nthey had been within ten feet of him.\n\nAnd the darkness brought with it a word of warning.  While in one sense\nit was a protection, on the other it had in it an element of danger.\nHe could no longer know the direction in which he was traveling.  He\nknew the danger there was of traveling in a circle.  If he kept on he\nmight swing around in the direction of the German lines.  And it would\nbe a sorry ending to his flight to have it finish at the very point\nfrom which he had started.\n\nHe made up his mind that he would curl himself up in some thicket and\nsnatch a few hours of sleep.  At the first glimmer of dawn he would\nresume his journey.  Then he could see, no doubt, the American lines,\nfrom which he knew he could not be very far away.  The big guns, too,\nthat had now settled down to their nightly muttering, would be in full\ncry at dawn, and sound as well as sight would help him.\n\nHe found a heavy clump of bushes into which he crawled.  He had no fear\nof oversleeping.  He knew that his burdened mind would keep watch while\nhis body slept, and that he would surely wake at the first streak of\ndawn.\n\n\nSome distance ahead of where the old Thirty-seventh was posted on the\nfar-flung battle line, the Army Boys were on sentry duty.  It was the\nturn of Corporal Wilson's squad to perform this irksome task, and they\nwere glad that it was nearly over and that soon they would be relieved.\n\nTheir beats adjoined each other and there were times when they met and\ncould exchange a few words to break the monotony of the long grind.\n\n\"This sentry stuff doesn't make a hit with me,\" grumbled Bart.  \"I'm\ngetting blisters on my feet from walking.\"\n\n\"Where do you expect to get them, on your head?\" laughed Frank.  \"Cheer\nup, old man.  The sun will be up in a few minutes and then the relief\nwill be along.\"\n\n\"It can't come too soon,\" chimed in Billy.  \"Gee, but I'm hungry!  This\nearly morning air does sure give you an appetite.\"\n\n\"If only something would happen,\" complained Bart.  \"It's the deadly\nmonotony of the thing that gets my goat.  Now if a Hun patrol should\ncome along and stir things up, it would be worth while.\"\n\nA sharp exclamation came from Frank.\n\n\"Look out, fellows!\" he warned.  \"I saw those bushes moving over on the\nslope of that hill just now and there isn't a bit of wind.\"\n\nIn an instant they had their rifles ready.\n\nThe bushes parted and a figure stepped forth into the open.\n\n\"Why, it's one of our fellows!\" said Bart, as he saw the American\nuniform.\n\n\"Been out on scout duty, I suppose,\" remarked Billy.\n\nFrank said nothing.  His keen eyes noted the newcomer and his heart\nbegan to thump strangely.\n\nAs the soldier came nearer he took off his hat and waved it at them.\n\nA yell of delight broke from the startled group.\n\n\"It's Tom!  It's Tom!  It's Tom!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII\n\nA JOYOUS REUNION\n\nShouting like so many maniacs, they rushed toward him.  At the same\ninstant Tom, too, began to run, and in a moment they had their arms\naround him, and were hugging him, pounding him, mauling him,\nexclaiming, questioning, laughing, rejoicing, all in one breath.\n\nTom was back with them again, good old Tom, their chum, their comrade,\nTom, over whose fate they had spent so many sleepless hours, Tom, for\nwhom any one of them would have risked his life, Tom who they knew was\ncaptured, and who they feared might be dead.\n\nThere he was, the same old Tom, with face and body thin, with hair\nunkempt and matted, with traces showing everywhere of the anxiety and\nsuffering he had undergone, and yet with the same indomitable spirit\nthat neither captivity nor threatened death had broken, and the same\nsmile upon his lips and twinkle in his eyes.\n\n\"Easy, easy there, fellows,\" he protested laughing.  \"Let me come up\nfor air.  And before anything else, lead me to some grub.  I haven't\neaten for so long that there's only a vacuum where my stomach ought to\nbe.\"\n\n\"You bet we'll lead you to it,\" cried Bart.\n\n\"An anaconda will have nothing on you when we get through filling you\nup,\" promised Billy.\n\n\"What did I tell you, fellows,\" cried Frank delightedly.  \"Didn't I say\nthe old boy'd be coming in some morning and asking us if breakfast was\nready?\"\n\nTom was giving Frank the long-lost letter he had been carrying when\nCorporal Wilson came up with the relief and their greeting was almost\nas boisterous and hilarious as that of his own particular chums had\nbeen, for Tom was a universal favorite in the regiment, and they had\nall mourned his loss.\n\nThey would have overwhelmed him with questions, but Frank interposed.\n\n\"Nothing doing, fellows,\" he said.  \"This boy isn't going to say\nanother word until we've taken him to mess and filled him up till he\ncan't move.  After that there'll be plenty of time for a talk and we'll\nkeep him talking till the cows come home.\"\n\nIt was a rejoicing crowd that took Tom back to the main body of the\nregiment, where he almost had his hands wrung from him.  They piled his\nplate and filled his coffee cup again and again and watched him while\nhe ate like a famished wolf.\n\n\"Tom's running true to form,\" joked Frank, as they saw the food vanish\nbefore his onslaught.\n\n\"Whatever else the Huns took away from him, they left him his\nappetite,\" chuckled Billy.\n\n\"Left it?\" grinned Tom, as he attacked another helping.  \"They added to\nit.  I never knew what hunger was before.  Bring on anything you've\ngot, and I'll tackle it.  All except fish.  I'm ashamed now to look a\nfish in the face.\"\n\nIt was a long time before he had had enough.  Then with a look of\nseraphic contentment on his face he sat back, loosened his belt a\nnotch, and sighed with perfect happiness.\n\n\"Now fellows, fire away,\" he grinned, \"and I'll tell you the sad story\nof my life.\"\n\nThey needed no second invitation, for they had been fairly bursting\nwith eagerness and curiosity.  Questions rained on him thick and fast.\nTheir fists clenched when he told them of the cruelties to which he had\nbeen subjected.  They were loud in admiration of the way in which he\nhad met and overcome his difficulties.  They roared with laughter when\nhe told them of the alarm clock, and Tom himself, to whom it had been\nno joke at the time, laughed now as heartily as the rest.\n\n\"So that's the way you got those ropes gnawed through when you were at\nthe farmhouse,\" exclaimed Frank, when Tom told them of the aid that had\ncome to him from the rats.  \"We figured out everything else but that.\nWe thought that you must have frayed them against a piece of glass.\"\n\n\"I used to hate rats,\" said Tom, \"but I don't now.  I'll never have a\ntrap set in any house of mine as long as I live.\"\n\n\"If you'd only known how safe it would have been to walk downstairs\nthat day!\" mourned Frank.\n\n\"Wouldn't it have been bully?\" agreed Tom.  \"Think of the satisfaction\nit would have been to have had the bulge on that lieutenant who was\ngoing to hang me.  I wouldn't have done a thing to him!\"\n\n\"Well, we got him anyway and that's one comfort,\" remarked Bart.\n\n\"To think that you were legging it away from the house just as we were\ncoming toward it,\" said Billy.\n\n\"It was the toughest kind of luck,\" admitted Tom.  \"Yet perhaps it was\nall for the best, for then I might not have had the chance to get the\nbest of Rabig.\"\n\n\"Rabig?\" exclaimed Frank, for the traitor had not yet been mentioned in\nTom's narrative.\n\n\"What about him?\" questioned Billy eagerly.\n\n\"Hold your horses,\" grinned Tom.  \"I'll get to him in good time.  If it\nhadn't been for Rabig I wouldn't be here.  I owe that much to the\nskunk, anyway.\"\n\nIt was hard for them to wait, but they were fully rewarded when Tom\ndescribed the way in which he had trapped and stripped the renegade,\nand left him lying in the woods.\n\n\"Bully boy!\" exclaimed Frank.  \"That was the very best day's work you\never did.\"\n\n\"Got the goods on him at last,\" exulted Bart.\n\n\"The only man in the old Thirty-seventh that has played the yellow\ndog,\" commented Billy.  \"The regiment's well rid of him.  He'll never\ndare to show his face again.\"\n\n\"He can fight for Germany now,\" said Frank, \"and if he does, I only\nhope that some day I'll run across him in the fighting.\"\n\n\"You won't if he sees you first,\" grinned Billy.  \"He doesn't want any\nof your game.\"\n\nTom had left one thing till the last.\n\n\"By the way, Frank,\" he remarked casually, \"I ran across a fellow in\nthe German prison camp who came from Auvergne, the same province where\nyou've told me your mother lived when she was a girl.  He said he knew\nher family well.\"\n\n\"Is that so?\" asked Frank with quick interest.  \"What was his name?\"\n\n\"Martel,\" replied Tom.\n\n\"Why that's the name of the butler who used to be in my mother's\nfamily!\" cried Frank.  \"Colonel Pavet was telling me that he had been\ncaptured, and had died in prison.  I was hoping that he was mistaken in\nthat, for the colonel said he had information that might help my mother\nto get her property.\"\n\n\"The colonel is right about the man's dying,\" replied Tom, \"for I was\nwith him when he died.\"\n\n\"It's too bad,\" said Frank dejectedly.\n\n\"I shouldn't wonder if he did not know something,\" said Tom, \"for he\nseemed to have something on his mind.  He told me one time that his\nimprisonment and sickness happened as a judgment on him.\"\n\n\"If we could only have had his testimony before he died,\" mourned Frank.\n\n\"I got it,\" declared Tom triumphantly.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII\n\nCUTTING THEIR WAY OUT\n\nFrank sprang to his feet.\n\n\"What do you mean?\" he cried.\n\n\"Just this,\" replied Tom, taking the confession from his pocket.  \"He\ntold me the whole story and there it is in black and white, names of\nwitnesses and all.\"\n\nFrank read the confession with growing excitement, while his comrades\nclustered closely around him.\n\n\"Tom, old scout!\" Frank exclaimed, as the whole significance of the\nconfession dawned upon him, \"you've done me a service that I'll never\nforget.  Now we can see our way clear, and my mother will come into her\nrights.\"\n\n\"I'm mighty glad, old boy,\" replied Tom with a happy smile.  \"I've held\non to that paper through thick and thin, because I knew what it would\nmean to you and your mother.  But now,\" he went on, \"I've been\nanswering the questions of all this bunch and turn about is fair play.\nTell me how our boys are doing.  How is the big drive going on?  Have\nwe stopped the Germans yet?\"\n\n\"They're slowing up,\" said Bart.\n\n\"We're whipping them,\" declared Billy.\n\n\"I wouldn't quite say that,\" objected Frank.  \"We haven't whipped them\nyet except in spots.  Of course we're going to lick them.  The whole\nworld knows that now except the Germans themselves, and I shouldn't\nwonder if they were beginning to believe it in their hearts.  But\nthey'll stand a whole lot of beating yet, and we don't want to kid\nourselves that it's going to be an easy job.  But we're holding them\nback, and pretty soon we'll be driving them back.\"\n\n\"I'll bet the old Thirty-seventh has been doing its full share,\" said\nTom proudly.\n\n\"You bet it has,\" crowed Billy.  \"Tom, old man, you've missed some\nlovely fighting.\"\n\n\"You fellows have had all the luck,\" refilled Tom wistfully.\n\n\"Don't grouch, Tom,\" laughed Frank.  \"There's plenty of it yet to come.\nAnd I'll bet you'll fight harder than ever now, when you think of all\nyou've been through.  You've got a personal score to settle with the\nHuns now, as well as to get in licks for Uncle Sam.\"\n\n\"You're right there,\" replied Tom, as his eyes blazed.  \"I can't wait\nto get at them.  My fingers fairly itch to get hold of a rifle.\"\n\n\"But you ought to have a little rest and get your strength back before\nyou get in the ranks again,\" suggested Bart.\n\n\"None of that rest stuff for me,\" declared Tom.  \"When you boys get in\nI'm going to be right alongside of you.\"\n\nHis wish was not to be gratified that day, however, for there was a\nlull in the fighting just then while the hostile armies manoeuvred for\nposition.  But the pause was only temporary, and the next day the storm\nbroke in all its fury.\n\nOf course Tom had to make a report at headquarters.  There his story,\nespecially as it related to Nick Rabig, was listened to with much\ninterest.\n\nWhen the fighting began again it was not trench work.  That was already\nin the past.  Of course the armies took advantage of whatever shelter\nwas offered them, and there were times when shallow trenches were dug\nwith feverish haste.  But these were only to be used for minutes or for\nhours, not for weeks and months at a time.  The great battle had become\none of open warfare, and it ebbed and flowed over miles of meadow and\nwoodland, of hill and valley.\n\nIt was just the style of fighting that suited the American troops.\nThey wanted action, action every minute.  They wanted to see their\nenemies, to get at grips with them, to pit their brawn and muscle,\ntheir wit and courage against the best the enemy could bring forth.  It\nwas the way their ancestors had fought, man to man, bayonet to bayonet,\nwhere sheer pluck and power would give the victory to the men who\npossessed them in largest measure.\n\n\"We'll be in it up to our necks in a few minutes now,\" muttered Bart,\nas they waited for the order to charge.\n\n\"It's going to be hot work,\" remarked Billy.  \"They've got a pile of\nmen in that division over there, and they've been putting up a stiff\nfight so far this morning.\"\n\n\"They're in for a trimming,\" declared Frank.  \"Just wait till the old\nThirty-seventh goes at them on the double quick.\"\n\n\"Why don't the orders come?\" grumbled Tom.\n\nThey came at last and, with a rousing cheer, the regiment rushed\nforward.  The enemy's guns opened up at them, and a deadly barrage\nsought to check the wild fury of their charge.  Men went down as shot\nand shell tore through them, but the others never faltered.  The old\nThirty-seventh was out to win that morning, and a bad time was in store\nfor whoever stood in the way of its headlong rush.\n\nIn the front ranks the Army Boys fought shoulder to shoulder, and when\nthe regiment struck the enemy line, they plunged forward with the\nbayonet.  There was a furious mel\u00e9e as they ploughed their way through.\n\nSo impetuous was their dash that it carried them too fast and too far.\nThey found themselves fighting with a group of their comrades against a\nfresh body of enemy troops who had just been thrown in in a fierce\ncounterattack.  For the moment they were greatly outnumbered and as the\nenemy closed around the little band it seemed as though they were\ndoomed to be cut off from the support of their comrades.\n\nThey must cut their way through and rejoin the main body.  And not a\nmoment must be lost, for the ring surrounding them was constantly being\naugmented by fresh reinforcements.\n\nA shot tore Frank's rifle out of his hands.  He looked around and saw\nan axe that had been left there by some one of an engineer corps.\n\nHe stooped and picked it up.  He swung it high above his head.  In his\npowerful hands it was a fearful weapon, and the enemy detachment hi\nfront of him faltered and drew back.\n\nWith a shout of \"Lusitania!\" Frank leaped forward, his eyes flashing\nwith the fury of the fight, his axe hewing right and left.  Foot by\nfoot he cut his way through the crowded ranks.\n\nThen suddenly a great blackness came down upon him and he knew nothing\nmore.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV\n\nWOUNDS AND TORTURE\n\nWhen long hours afterward Frank came to himself, he lay for a time\nwondering where he was and what had happened to him.\n\nHis brain was not clear, and he had the greatest difficulty in\nconcentrating his thoughts.  Little by little he pieced events\ntogether.  He remembered the charge made by his regiment, the pocket in\nwhich he had found himself when he had gone too far in advance of his\ncomrades, the axe with which he had started to cut his way through the\nring of enemies that surrounded him.  There his memory stopped.\n\nHe must have been wounded.  He raised his head painfully and looked\nhimself over.  He did not seem to be bleeding.  He put his hand to his\nhead.  There was a cut there and a great lump that was as big as a\nrobin's egg.  The movement set his brain whirling, and he fell back\ndizzy and confused.\n\nHow thirsty he was!  His mouth felt as though it were stuffed with\ncotton.  His veins felt as if fire instead of blood was in them.  His\ntongue seemed to be double its normal size.  He would have given all he\npossessed for one sip of cool water.\n\nHe seemed to be alone.  There were bushes all about him.  He remembered\nthat he had been fighting on the edge of a wood where there was a great\ndeal of underbrush.  This no doubt accounted for his being alone.  Out\nin the meadow beyond there were lying a number of dead and wounded, as\nhe could see by peering through the bushes.  There were some dead men\nin the bushes, too, but no wounded.  It would have been a comfort at\nthat moment to have had some wounded companions to whom he might speak,\nwhom he might help, or by whom he might be helped.  He felt as though\nhe were the only living man in a world of the dead.\n\nHe tried to rise, but a horrible pain shot through his right leg as he\nbore his weight upon it, and it crumpled under him.  He wondered if it\nwere broken.  He felt of it carefully.  No bone seemed to be broken as\nfar as he could tell, but the ankle was swelled to almost double its\nnormal size.  He must have strained or twisted it.  The mere touch gave\nhim agony and he was forced to desist.\n\nHis fever increased and he was afraid that he was getting delirious.\nSome way or other he must get back to his own lines before his senses\nleft him.  He got up on his hands and feet and began to crawl in what\nhe thought was the right direction.\n\nHe had no idea of time.  Things seemed dark around him, but he was not\nsure whether this was due to the sky being overcast or to the approach\nof twilight.  Perhaps it was neither.  It might be only that his eyes\nwere dimmed by the fever that was raging in him.\n\nHis wounded leg dragged behind him as he slowly worked along and every\nmoment was torture.  Sometimes it caught in a bush, and the resulting\nwrench almost caused him to swoon.  But he kept on doggedly.\n\nHe passed many dead men, and painfully worked his way around to avoid\ntouching them.  One of them, he noticed, had a sack full of hand\ngrenades.  But the stiffening hand of the owner would never hurl\nanother of those messengers of death.\n\nOn and on Frank toiled.  His head felt so light that it seemed to be\ndetached from his shoulders.  He caught himself talking aloud, speaking\nthe names of Bart and Billy and Tom.  Where were they?  What were they\ndoing?  Why were they not there with him?\n\nAnd what had happened to the regiment?  Had it been driven back?  He\nremembered the heavy reinforcements that the enemy had thrown into the\nfight.  Perhaps the old Thirty-seventh was getting ready for another\nattack.  But the effort to think was too painful and Frank gave it up.\n\nSuddenly he heard the sound of voices a little way in front of him, and\na thrill of joy shot through him.  He was paid at that moment for all\nhis suffering.  How lucky that he had steeled himself to the task of\ncrawling back to his comrades!  Soon he would be with the boys again.\nThey would give him water.  They would bind up his leg.  His head would\nstop aching.  The hours of torture would be over.\n\nHe was about to shout to them, when through a thick clump of bushes he\nsaw the helmets of German soldiers.  They were working feverishly to\nget some machine guns in position.  It was evident that they were\nexpecting an attack.\n\nIn that moment of terrible disappointment Frank tasted the bitterness\nof death.  All that agony had been endured only to bring him into the\nhands of the Huns!\n\nBut this revulsion of feeling lasted only for an instant.  The sight of\nhis enemies had cleared his brain and awakened his indomitable fighting\ninstinct.  The Huns were working like mad at the machine-gun nest.\nThat meant that the old Thirty-seventh was coming back!  He must help\nthem.  These guns, cunningly placed, would do terrible execution if\nthey were allowed to work their will.\n\nBut what could he do unaided and alone?  He was wounded and weaponless.\n\nLike a flash the thought came to him of the dead man whose sack was\nfull of hand grenades.\n\nHis body quailed at the thought of the journey back to where the man\nlay.  But his spirit mastered the flesh.\n\nWith his dragging leg one quivering pain, he crawled back.  It seemed\nages before he got there, but at last he had secured three of the\ngrenades and started back for the machine-gun nest.\n\nHe had no more than time.  Behind him, he heard the well-known cheer of\nhis regiment.  The boys were coming!\n\nThe gun crews heard it, too, and they gathered about their weapons,\nwhose deadly muzzles pointed in the direction from which the rush was\ncoming.\n\nSupporting himself on one hand and knee, Frank hurled his grenades over\nthe top of the bush in quick succession.  They fell right in the midst\nof the startled Germans.  There was a terrific explosion and the guns\nand crews were torn to pieces.  Another instant and the old\nThirty-seventh came smashing its way to victory.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV\n\nDRIVEN BACK\n\nTwo weeks later and Frank had left the hospital and was back again with\nthe Army Boys.  The injury to his head was found to be not serious, and\nthe leg although badly wrenched and strained had no bone broken.  It\nyielded rapidly to treatment, and Frank's splendid strength and\nvitality aided greatly in his cure.\n\nThere was immense jubilation among the Army Boys when their idolized\ncomrade resumed his place in the ranks.\n\n\"You can't keep a squirrel on the ground,\" exulted Tom, as he gave his\nfriend a tremendous thump on the back.\n\n\"Or Frank Sheldon away from the firing line,\" grinned Bart, looking at\nhis friend admiringly.\n\n\"You didn't think I was going to stay in that dinky hospital when there\nwas so much doing, did you?\" laughed Frank.  \"Say, fellows, if my leg\nhad been broken instead of just sprained, I'd have died of a broken\nheart.  I've got to get busy now and get even with the boches for that\ncrack on the head they gave me.  It's a good thing it's solid ivory, or\nit would have been split for fair.\"\n\n\"You don't need to worry about paying the Germans back,\" chuckled\nBilly.  \"You paid them in advance.  You don't owe them a thing.  Say,\nwhat George Washington did to the cherry tree with his little hatchet\nwasn't a circumstance to what you did to the Huns with that axe of\nyours.  The axe is your weapon, Frank.  A rifle doesn't run one, two,\nthree, compared with it.\"\n\n\"I'll admit that the axe work was good as a curtain raiser,\" remarked\nTom.  \"But the real show was when those machine guns and their crews\nwere blown to pieces.  That made the work of the regiment easy.\"\n\n\"It was classy work,\" agreed Will Stone, who came along just then and\nheard what they were talking about.\n\n\"How are the tanks?\" asked Frank of the newcomer.  \"I suppose old Jumbo\nis just spoiling for a fight.\"\n\n\"I guess he is,\" replied Stone, with a touch of affection in his voice\nfor the monster tank that he commanded, \"and from all I hear he's going\nto get lots of it.\"\n\n\"I guess we all are,\" said Bart.\n\n\"All little pals together,\" hummed Billy.\n\n\"And it's going to be a different kind of fighting,\" went on Stone.\n\"The tide is turning at last.  The Hun has been doing the driving.  Now\nhe's going to be driven.\"\n\n\"Glory hallelujah!\" cried Billy.\n\n\"Do you think that General Foch is going to take the offensive?\" asked\nBart eagerly.\n\n\"It looks that way,\" replied Stone.  \"Of course, I'm not in the secrets\nof the High Command, and only General Foch himself knows when and where\nhe's going to strike.  But by the way they're massing tanks here I\nthink it will be soon.  They're gathering them by the hundreds in the\nwoods, so that the movement can't be seen by enemy aviators.  When the\nblow comes it will be a heavy one.  And do you notice the way the\nAmerican divisions are being brought together here?  That means that\nthey'll take a big part in the offensive.  Foch has been watching what\nour boys have been doing, and he's going to put us in the front ranks.\"\n\n\"Better and better,\" chortled Billy.  \"That boy's got good judgment.\nHe's a born fighter himself and he knows fighters when he sees them.\"\n\n\"Well, you boys keep right on your toes,\" said Stone, as he prepared to\nleave them, \"and I'll bet a dollar to a doughnut that within three days\nyou'll see the Heinies on the run.\"\n\nTwo days passed and nothing special happened.  Then at dawn on the\nthird day, Foch struck like a thunderbolt!\n\nHe had gathered his forces.  He had chosen the place.  He had bided his\ntime.\n\nThe German forces were taken utterly by surprise.  Their General Staff\nwas caught napping.  They had underestimated their enemy's daring and\nresources.  Their flank was exposed, and it crumpled up under the\nterrific and unexpected blow.\n\nThousands of prisoners and hundreds of guns were taken on the first\nday, and the success was continued for many days thereafter.  The\nAllies were elated and the Germans correspondingly depressed.  Their\nboasted drive had been held back, and now they themselves were the\npursued, with the Allies, flushed with victory, close upon their heels.\n\nThe Army Boys were in their element, and they fought with a dash and\nspirit that they had never surpassed.  Other volumes of this series\nwill tell of the thrilling exploits, with the tanks and otherwise, by\nwhich they upheld the honor and glory of the Stars and Stripes.\n\n\"Well,\" said Frank one evening, after a day crowded with splendid\nfighting, \"we've put a dent in the Kaiser's helmet.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" grinned Bart, as he wiped his glowing face.  \"Considering that\nwe're green troops that were going to run like sheep before the\nPrussian Guards, we haven't done so badly.\"\n\n\"I guess the folks at home aren't kicking,\" remarked Tom.  \"They told\nus to come over here and clean up, and so far we've been obeying\norders.\"\n\n\"We've held back the German drive,\" put in Billy, \"but that's just the\nbeginning.  Now we've got to tackle another job.  We've got to drive\nthe Hun out of France----\"\n\n\"And out of Belgium,\" added Tom.\n\n\"And back to the Rhine,\" chimed in Bart.\n\n\"Get it right, you boobs,\" laughed Frank.  \"Straight back to Berlin!\"\n\n\n"}
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{"2199":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE ILIAD OF HOMER\n\n\n  Rendered into English Prose for\n  the use of those who cannot\n  read the original\n\n\nby\n\nSamuel Butler\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK I\n\n  The quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles--Achilles withdraws\n  from the war, and sends his mother Thetis to ask Jove to help\n  the Trojans--Scene between Jove and Juno on Olympus.\n\nSing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought\ncountless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send\nhurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and\nvultures, for so were the counsels of Jove fulfilled from the day on\nwhich the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell\nout with one another.\n\nAnd which of the gods was it that set them on to quarrel? It was the\nson of Jove and Leto; for he was angry with the king and sent a\npestilence upon the host to plague the people, because the son of\nAtreus had dishonoured Chryses his priest. Now Chryses had come to the\nships of the Achaeans to free his daughter, and had brought with him a\ngreat ransom: moreover he bore in his hand the sceptre of Apollo\nwreathed with a suppliant's wreath, and he besought the Achaeans, but\nmost of all the two sons of Atreus, who were their chiefs.\n\n\"Sons of Atreus,\" he cried, \"and all other Achaeans, may the gods who\ndwell in Olympus grant you to sack the city of Priam, and to reach your\nhomes in safety; but free my daughter, and accept a ransom for her, in\nreverence to Apollo, son of Jove.\"\n\nOn this the rest of the Achaeans with one voice were for respecting the\npriest and taking the ransom that he offered; but not so Agamemnon, who\nspoke fiercely to him and sent him roughly away. \"Old man,\" said he,\n\"let me not find you tarrying about our ships, nor yet coming\nhereafter. Your sceptre of the god and your wreath shall profit you\nnothing. I will not free her. She shall grow old in my house at Argos\nfar from her own home, busying herself with her loom and visiting my\ncouch; so go, and do not provoke me or it shall be the worse for you.\"\n\nThe old man feared him and obeyed. Not a word he spoke, but went by the\nshore of the sounding sea and prayed apart to King Apollo whom lovely\nLeto had borne. \"Hear me,\" he cried, \"O god of the silver bow, that\nprotectest Chryse and holy Cilla and rulest Tenedos with thy might,\nhear me oh thou of Sminthe. If I have ever decked your temple with\ngarlands, or burned your thigh-bones in fat of bulls or goats, grant my\nprayer, and let your arrows avenge these my tears upon the Danaans.\"\n\nThus did he pray, and Apollo heard his prayer. He came down furious\nfrom the summits of Olympus, with his bow and his quiver upon his\nshoulder, and the arrows rattled on his back with the rage that\ntrembled within him. He sat himself down away from the ships with a\nface as dark as night, and his silver bow rang death as he shot his\narrow in the midst of them. First he smote their mules and their\nhounds, but presently he aimed his shafts at the people themselves, and\nall day long the pyres of the dead were burning.\n\nFor nine whole days he shot his arrows among the people, but upon the\ntenth day Achilles called them in assembly--moved thereto by Juno, who\nsaw the Achaeans in their death-throes and had compassion upon them.\nThen, when they were got together, he rose and spoke among them.\n\n\"Son of Atreus,\" said he, \"I deem that we should now turn roving home\nif we would escape destruction, for we are being cut down by war and\npestilence at once. Let us ask some priest or prophet, or some reader\nof dreams (for dreams, too, are of Jove) who can tell us why Phoebus\nApollo is so angry, and say whether it is for some vow that we have\nbroken, or hecatomb that we have not offered, and whether he will\naccept the savour of lambs and goats without blemish, so as to take\naway the plague from us.\"\n\nWith these words he sat down, and Calchas son of Thestor, wisest of\naugurs, who knew things past present and to come, rose to speak. He it\nwas who had guided the Achaeans with their fleet to Ilius, through the\nprophesyings with which Phoebus Apollo had inspired him. With all\nsincerity and goodwill he addressed them thus:--\n\n\"Achilles, loved of heaven, you bid me tell you about the anger of King\nApollo, I will therefore do so; but consider first and swear that you\nwill stand by me heartily in word and deed, for I know that I shall\noffend one who rules the Argives with might, to whom all the Achaeans\nare in subjection. A plain man cannot stand against the anger of a\nking, who if he swallow his displeasure now, will yet nurse revenge\ntill he has wreaked it. Consider, therefore, whether or no you will\nprotect me.\"\n\nAnd Achilles answered, \"Fear not, but speak as it is borne in upon you\nfrom heaven, for by Apollo, Calchas, to whom you pray, and whose\noracles you reveal to us, not a Danaan at our ships shall lay his hand\nupon you, while I yet live to look upon the face of the earth--no, not\nthough you name Agamemnon himself, who is by far the foremost of the\nAchaeans.\"\n\nThereon the seer spoke boldly. \"The god,\" he said, \"is angry neither\nabout vow nor hecatomb, but for his priest's sake, whom Agamemnon has\ndishonoured, in that he would not free his daughter nor take a ransom\nfor her; therefore has he sent these evils upon us, and will yet send\nothers. He will not deliver the Danaans from this pestilence till\nAgamemnon has restored the girl without fee or ransom to her father,\nand has sent a holy hecatomb to Chryse. Thus we may perhaps appease\nhim.\"\n\nWith these words he sat down, and Agamemnon rose in anger. His heart\nwas black with rage, and his eyes flashed fire as he scowled on Calchas\nand said, \"Seer of evil, you never yet prophesied smooth things\nconcerning me, but have ever loved to foretell that which was evil. You\nhave brought me neither comfort nor performance; and now you come\nseeing among Danaans, and saying that Apollo has plagued us because I\nwould not take a ransom for this girl, the daughter of Chryses. I have\nset my heart on keeping her in my own house, for I love her better even\nthan my own wife Clytemnestra, whose peer she is alike in form and\nfeature, in understanding and accomplishments. Still I will give her up\nif I must, for I would have the people live, not die; but you must find\nme a prize instead, or I alone among the Argives shall be without one.\nThis is not well; for you behold, all of you, that my prize is to go\nelsewhither.\"\n\nAnd Achilles answered, \"Most noble son of Atreus, covetous beyond all\nmankind, how shall the Achaeans find you another prize? We have no\ncommon store from which to take one. Those we took from the cities have\nbeen awarded; we cannot disallow the awards that have been made\nalready. Give this girl, therefore, to the god, and if ever Jove grants\nus to sack the city of Troy we will requite you three and fourfold.\"\n\nThen Agamemnon said, \"Achilles, valiant though you be, you shall not\nthus outwit me. You shall not overreach and you shall not persuade me.\nAre you to keep your own prize, while I sit tamely under my loss and\ngive up the girl at your bidding? Let the Achaeans find me a prize in\nfair exchange to my liking, or I will come and take your own, or that\nof Ajax or of Ulysses; and he to whomsoever I may come shall rue my\ncoming. But of this we will take thought hereafter; for the present,\nlet us draw a ship into the sea, and find a crew for her expressly; let\nus put a hecatomb on board, and let us send Chryseis also; further, let\nsome chief man among us be in command, either Ajax, or Idomeneus, or\nyourself, son of Peleus, mighty warrior that you are, that we may offer\nsacrifice and appease the anger of the god.\"\n\nAchilles scowled at him and answered, \"You are steeped in insolence and\nlust of gain. With what heart can any of the Achaeans do your bidding,\neither on foray or in open fighting? I came not warring here for any\nill the Trojans had done me. I have no quarrel with them. They have not\nraided my cattle nor my horses, nor cut down my harvests on the rich\nplains of Phthia; for between me and them there is a great space, both\nmountain and sounding sea. We have followed you, Sir Insolence! for\nyour pleasure, not ours--to gain satisfaction from the Trojans for your\nshameless self and for Menelaus. You forget this, and threaten to rob\nme of the prize for which I have toiled, and which the sons of the\nAchaeans have given me. Never when the Achaeans sack any rich city of\nthe Trojans do I receive so good a prize as you do, though it is my\nhands that do the better part of the fighting. When the sharing comes,\nyour share is far the largest, and I, forsooth, must go back to my\nships, take what I can get and be thankful, when my labour of fighting\nis done. Now, therefore, I shall go back to Phthia; it will be much\nbetter for me to return home with my ships, for I will not stay here\ndishonoured to gather gold and substance for you.\"\n\nAnd Agamemnon answered, \"Fly if you will, I shall make you no prayers\nto stay you. I have others here who will do me honour, and above all\nJove, the lord of counsel. There is no king here so hateful to me as\nyou are, for you are ever quarrelsome and ill-affected. What though you\nbe brave? Was it not heaven that made you so? Go home, then, with your\nships and comrades to lord it over the Myrmidons. I care neither for\nyou nor for your anger; and thus will I do: since Phoebus Apollo is\ntaking Chryseis from me, I shall send her with my ship and my\nfollowers, but I shall come to your tent and take your own prize\nBriseis, that you may learn how much stronger I am than you are, and\nthat another may fear to set himself up as equal or comparable with me.\"\n\nThe son of Peleus was furious, and his heart within his shaggy breast\nwas divided whether to draw his sword, push the others aside, and kill\nthe son of Atreus, or to restrain himself and check his anger. While he\nwas thus in two minds, and was drawing his mighty sword from its\nscabbard, Minerva came down from heaven (for Juno had sent her in the\nlove she bore to them both), and seized the son of Peleus by his yellow\nhair, visible to him alone, for of the others no man could see her.\nAchilles turned in amaze, and by the fire that flashed from her eyes at\nonce knew that she was Minerva. \"Why are you here,\" said he, \"daughter\nof aegis-bearing Jove? To see the pride of Agamemnon, son of Atreus?\nLet me tell you--and it shall surely be--he shall pay for this\ninsolence with his life.\"\n\nAnd Minerva said, \"I come from heaven, if you will hear me, to bid you\nstay your anger. Juno has sent me, who cares for both of you alike.\nCease, then, this brawling, and do not draw your sword; rail at him if\nyou will, and your railing will not be vain, for I tell you--and it\nshall surely be--that you shall hereafter receive gifts three times as\nsplendid by reason of this present insult. Hold, therefore, and obey.\"\n\n\"Goddess,\" answered Achilles, \"however angry a man may be, he must do\nas you two command him. This will be best, for the gods ever hear the\nprayers of him who has obeyed them.\"\n\nHe stayed his hand on the silver hilt of his sword, and thrust it back\ninto the scabbard as Minerva bade him. Then she went back to Olympus\namong the other gods, and to the house of aegis-bearing Jove.\n\nBut the son of Peleus again began railing at the son of Atreus, for he\nwas still in a rage. \"Wine-bibber,\" he cried, \"with the face of a dog\nand the heart of a hind, you never dare to go out with the host in\nfight, nor yet with our chosen men in ambuscade. You shun this as you\ndo death itself. You had rather go round and rob his prizes from any\nman who contradicts you. You devour your people, for you are king over\na feeble folk; otherwise, son of Atreus, henceforward you would insult\nno man. Therefore I say, and swear it with a great oath--nay, by this\nmy sceptre which shalt sprout neither leaf nor shoot, nor bud anew from\nthe day on which it left its parent stem upon the mountains--for the\naxe stripped it of leaf and bark, and now the sons of the Achaeans bear\nit as judges and guardians of the decrees of heaven--so surely and\nsolemnly do I swear that hereafter they shall look fondly for Achilles\nand shall not find him. In the day of your distress, when your men fall\ndying by the murderous hand of Hector, you shall not know how to help\nthem, and shall rend your heart with rage for the hour when you offered\ninsult to the bravest of the Achaeans.\"\n\nWith this the son of Peleus dashed his gold-bestudded sceptre on the\nground and took his seat, while the son of Atreus was beginning\nfiercely from his place upon the other side. Then uprose smooth-tongued\nNestor, the facile speaker of the Pylians, and the words fell from his\nlips sweeter than honey. Two generations of men born and bred in Pylos\nhad passed away under his rule, and he was now reigning over the third.\nWith all sincerity and goodwill, therefore, he addressed them thus:--\n\n\"Of a truth,\" he said, \"a great sorrow has befallen the Achaean land.\nSurely Priam with his sons would rejoice, and the Trojans be glad at\nheart if they could hear this quarrel between you two, who are so\nexcellent in fight and counsel. I am older than either of you;\ntherefore be guided by me. Moreover I have been the familiar friend of\nmen even greater than you are, and they did not disregard my counsels.\nNever again can I behold such men as Pirithous and Dryas shepherd of\nhis people, or as Caeneus, Exadius, godlike Polyphemus, and Theseus son\nof Aegeus, peer of the immortals. These were the mightiest men ever\nborn upon this earth: mightiest were they, and when they fought the\nfiercest tribes of mountain savages they utterly overthrew them. I came\nfrom distant Pylos, and went about among them, for they would have me\ncome, and I fought as it was in me to do. Not a man now living could\nwithstand them, but they heard my words, and were persuaded by them. So\nbe it also with yourselves, for this is the more excellent way.\nTherefore, Agamemnon, though you be strong, take not this girl away,\nfor the sons of the Achaeans have already given her to Achilles; and\nyou, Achilles, strive not further with the king, for no man who by the\ngrace of Jove wields a sceptre has like honour with Agamemnon. You are\nstrong, and have a goddess for your mother; but Agamemnon is stronger\nthan you, for he has more people under him. Son of Atreus, check your\nanger, I implore you; end this quarrel with Achilles, who in the day of\nbattle is a tower of strength to the Achaeans.\"\n\nAnd Agamemnon answered, \"Sir, all that you have said is true, but this\nfellow must needs become our lord and master: he must be lord of all,\nking of all, and captain of all, and this shall hardly be. Granted that\nthe gods have made him a great warrior, have they also given him the\nright to speak with railing?\"\n\nAchilles interrupted him. \"I should be a mean coward,\" he cried, \"were\nI to give in to you in all things. Order other people about, not me,\nfor I shall obey no longer. Furthermore I say--and lay my saying to\nyour heart--I shall fight neither you nor any man about this girl, for\nthose that take were those also that gave. But of all else that is at\nmy ship you shall carry away nothing by force. Try, that others may\nsee; if you do, my spear shall be reddened with your blood.\"\n\nWhen they had quarrelled thus angrily, they rose, and broke up the\nassembly at the ships of the Achaeans. The son of Peleus went back to\nhis tents and ships with the son of Menoetius and his company, while\nAgamemnon drew a vessel into the water and chose a crew of twenty\noarsmen. He escorted Chryseis on board and sent moreover a hecatomb for\nthe god. And Ulysses went as captain.\n\nThese, then, went on board and sailed their ways over the sea. But the\nson of Atreus bade the people purify themselves; so they purified\nthemselves and cast their filth into the sea. Then they offered\nhecatombs of bulls and goats without blemish on the sea-shore, and the\nsmoke with the savour of their sacrifice rose curling up towards heaven.\n\nThus did they busy themselves throughout the host. But Agamemnon did\nnot forget the threat that he had made Achilles, and called his trusty\nmessengers and squires Talthybius and Eurybates. \"Go,\" said he, \"to the\ntent of Achilles, son of Peleus; take Briseis by the hand and bring her\nhither; if he will not give her I shall come with others and take\nher--which will press him harder.\"\n\nHe charged them straightly further and dismissed them, whereon they\nwent their way sorrowfully by the seaside, till they came to the tents\nand ships of the Myrmidons. They found Achilles sitting by his tent and\nhis ships, and ill-pleased he was when he beheld them. They stood\nfearfully and reverently before him, and never a word did they speak,\nbut he knew them and said, \"Welcome, heralds, messengers of gods and\nmen; draw near; my quarrel is not with you but with Agamemnon who has\nsent you for the girl Briseis. Therefore, Patroclus, bring her and give\nher to them, but let them be witnesses by the blessed gods, by mortal\nmen, and by the fierceness of Agamemnon's anger, that if ever again\nthere be need of me to save the people from ruin, they shall seek and\nthey shall not find. Agamemnon is mad with rage and knows not how to\nlook before and after that the Achaeans may fight by their ships in\nsafety.\"\n\nPatroclus did as his dear comrade had bidden him. He brought Briseis\nfrom the tent and gave her over to the heralds, who took her with them\nto the ships of the Achaeans--and the woman was loth to go. Then\nAchilles went all alone by the side of the hoar sea, weeping and\nlooking out upon the boundless waste of waters. He raised his hands in\nprayer to his immortal mother, \"Mother,\" he cried, \"you bore me doomed\nto live but for a little season; surely Jove, who thunders from\nOlympus, might have made that little glorious. It is not so. Agamemnon,\nson of Atreus, has done me dishonour, and has robbed me of my prize by\nforce.\"\n\nAs he spoke he wept aloud, and his mother heard him where she was\nsitting in the depths of the sea hard by the old man her father.\nForthwith she rose as it were a grey mist out of the waves, sat down\nbefore him as he stood weeping, caressed him with her hand, and said,\n\"My son, why are you weeping? What is it that grieves you? Keep it not\nfrom me, but tell me, that we may know it together.\"\n\nAchilles drew a deep sigh and said, \"You know it; why tell you what you\nknow well already? We went to Thebe the strong city of Eetion, sacked\nit, and brought hither the spoil. The sons of the Achaeans shared it\nduly among themselves, and chose lovely Chryseis as the meed of\nAgamemnon; but Chryses, priest of Apollo, came to the ships of the\nAchaeans to free his daughter, and brought with him a great ransom:\nmoreover he bore in his hand the sceptre of Apollo, wreathed with a\nsuppliant's wreath, and he besought the Achaeans, but most of all the\ntwo sons of Atreus who were their chiefs.\n\n\"On this the rest of the Achaeans with one voice were for respecting\nthe priest and taking the ransom that he offered; but not so Agamemnon,\nwho spoke fiercely to him and sent him roughly away. So he went back in\nanger, and Apollo, who loved him dearly, heard his prayer. Then the god\nsent a deadly dart upon the Argives, and the people died thick on one\nanother, for the arrows went everywhither among the wide host of the\nAchaeans. At last a seer in the fulness of his knowledge declared to us\nthe oracles of Apollo, and I was myself first to say that we should\nappease him. Whereon the son of Atreus rose in anger, and threatened\nthat which he has since done. The Achaeans are now taking the girl in a\nship to Chryse, and sending gifts of sacrifice to the god; but the\nheralds have just taken from my tent the daughter of Briseus, whom the\nAchaeans had awarded to myself.\n\n\"Help your brave son, therefore, if you are able. Go to Olympus, and if\nyou have ever done him service in word or deed, implore the aid of\nJove. Ofttimes in my father's house have I heard you glory in that you\nalone of the immortals saved the son of Saturn from ruin, when the\nothers, with Juno, Neptune, and Pallas Minerva would have put him in\nbonds. It was you, goddess, who delivered him by calling to Olympus the\nhundred-handed monster whom gods call Briareus, but men Aegaeon, for he\nis stronger even than his father; when therefore he took his seat\nall-glorious beside the son of Saturn, the other gods were afraid, and\ndid not bind him. Go, then, to him, remind him of all this, clasp his\nknees, and bid him give succour to the Trojans. Let the Achaeans be\nhemmed in at the sterns of their ships, and perish on the sea-shore,\nthat they may reap what joy they may of their king, and that Agamemnon\nmay rue his blindness in offering insult to the foremost of the\nAchaeans.\"\n\nThetis wept and answered, \"My son, woe is me that I should have borne\nor suckled you. Would indeed that you had lived your span free from all\nsorrow at your ships, for it is all too brief; alas, that you should be\nat once short of life and long of sorrow above your peers: woe,\ntherefore, was the hour in which I bore you; nevertheless I will go to\nthe snowy heights of Olympus, and tell this tale to Jove, if he will\nhear our prayer: meanwhile stay where you are with your ships, nurse\nyour anger against the Achaeans, and hold aloof from fight. For Jove\nwent yesterday to Oceanus, to a feast among the Ethiopians, and the\nother gods went with him. He will return to Olympus twelve days hence;\nI will then go to his mansion paved with bronze and will beseech him;\nnor do I doubt that I shall be able to persuade him.\"\n\nOn this she left him, still furious at the loss of her that had been\ntaken from him. Meanwhile Ulysses reached Chryse with the hecatomb.\nWhen they had come inside the harbour they furled the sails and laid\nthem in the ship's hold; they slackened the forestays, lowered the mast\ninto its place, and rowed the ship to the place where they would have\nher lie; there they cast out their mooring-stones and made fast the\nhawsers. They then got out upon the sea-shore and landed the hecatomb\nfor Apollo; Chryseis also left the ship, and Ulysses led her to the\naltar to deliver her into the hands of her father. \"Chryses,\" said he,\n\"King Agamemnon has sent me to bring you back your child, and to offer\nsacrifice to Apollo on behalf of the Danaans, that we may propitiate\nthe god, who has now brought sorrow upon the Argives.\"\n\nSo saying he gave the girl over to her father, who received her gladly,\nand they ranged the holy hecatomb all orderly round the altar of the\ngod. They washed their hands and took up the barley-meal to sprinkle\nover the victims, while Chryses lifted up his hands and prayed aloud on\ntheir behalf. \"Hear me,\" he cried, \"O god of the silver bow, that\nprotectest Chryse and holy Cilla, and rulest Tenedos with thy might.\nEven as thou didst hear me aforetime when I prayed, and didst press\nhardly upon the Achaeans, so hear me yet again, and stay this fearful\npestilence from the Danaans.\"\n\nThus did he pray, and Apollo heard his prayer. When they had done\npraying and sprinkling the barley-meal, they drew back the heads of the\nvictims and killed and flayed them. They cut out the thigh-bones,\nwrapped them round in two layers of fat, set some pieces of raw meat on\nthe top of them, and then Chryses laid them on the wood fire and poured\nwine over them, while the young men stood near him with five-pronged\nspits in their hands. When the thigh-bones were burned and they had\ntasted the inward meats, they cut the rest up small, put the pieces\nupon the spits, roasted them till they were done, and drew them off:\nthen, when they had finished their work and the feast was ready, they\nate it, and every man had his full share, so that all were satisfied.\nAs soon as they had had enough to eat and drink, pages filled the\nmixing-bowl with wine and water and handed it round, after giving every\nman his drink-offering.\n\nThus all day long the young men worshipped the god with song, hymning\nhim and chaunting the joyous paean, and the god took pleasure in their\nvoices; but when the sun went down, and it came on dark, they laid\nthemselves down to sleep by the stern cables of the ship, and when the\nchild of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared they again set sail for\nthe host of the Achaeans. Apollo sent them a fair wind, so they raised\ntheir mast and hoisted their white sails aloft. As the sail bellied\nwith the wind the ship flew through the deep blue water, and the foam\nhissed against her bows as she sped onward. When they reached the\nwide-stretching host of the Achaeans, they drew the vessel ashore, high\nand dry upon the sands, set her strong props beneath her, and went\ntheir ways to their own tents and ships.\n\nBut Achilles abode at his ships and nursed his anger. He went not to\nthe honourable assembly, and sallied not forth to fight, but gnawed at\nhis own heart, pining for battle and the war-cry.\n\nNow after twelve days the immortal gods came back in a body to Olympus,\nand Jove led the way. Thetis was not unmindful of the charge her son\nhad laid upon her, so she rose from under the sea and went through\ngreat heaven with early morning to Olympus, where she found the mighty\nson of Saturn sitting all alone upon its topmost ridges. She sat\nherself down before him, and with her left hand seized his knees, while\nwith her right she caught him under the chin, and besought him,\nsaying:--\n\n\"Father Jove, if I ever did you service in word or deed among the\nimmortals, hear my prayer, and do honour to my son, whose life is to be\ncut short so early. King Agamemnon has dishonoured him by taking his\nprize and keeping her. Honour him then yourself, Olympian lord of\ncounsel, and grant victory to the Trojans, till the Achaeans give my\nson his due and load him with riches in requital.\"\n\nJove sat for a while silent, and without a word, but Thetis still kept\nfirm hold of his knees, and besought him a second time. \"Incline your\nhead,\" said she, \"and promise me surely, or else deny me--for you have\nnothing to fear--that I may learn how greatly you disdain me.\"\n\nAt this Jove was much troubled and answered, \"I shall have trouble if\nyou set me quarrelling with Juno, for she will provoke me with her\ntaunting speeches; even now she is always railing at me before the\nother gods and accusing me of giving aid to the Trojans. Go back now,\nlest she should find out. I will consider the matter, and will bring it\nabout as you wish. See, I incline my head that you may believe me. This\nis the most solemn promise that I can give to any god. I never recall\nmy word, or deceive, or fail to do what I say, when I have nodded my\nhead.\"\n\nAs he spoke the son of Saturn bowed his dark brows, and the ambrosial\nlocks swayed on his immortal head, till vast Olympus reeled.\n\nWhen the pair had thus laid their plans, they parted--Jove to his\nhouse, while the goddess quitted the splendour of Olympus, and plunged\ninto the depths of the sea. The gods rose from their seats, before the\ncoming of their sire. Not one of them dared to remain sitting, but all\nstood up as he came among them. There, then, he took his seat. But\nJuno, when she saw him, knew that he and the old merman's daughter,\nsilver-footed Thetis, had been hatching mischief, so she at once began\nto upbraid him. \"Trickster,\" she cried, \"which of the gods have you\nbeen taking into your counsels now? You are always settling matters in\nsecret behind my back, and have never yet told me, if you could help\nit, one word of your intentions.\"\n\n\"Juno,\" replied the sire of gods and men, \"you must not expect to be\ninformed of all my counsels. You are my wife, but you would find it\nhard to understand them. When it is proper for you to hear, there is no\none, god or man, who will be told sooner, but when I mean to keep a\nmatter to myself, you must not pry nor ask questions.\"\n\n\"Dread son of Saturn,\" answered Juno, \"what are you talking about? I?\nPry and ask questions? Never. I let you have your own way in\neverything. Still, I have a strong misgiving that the old merman's\ndaughter Thetis has been talking you over, for she was with you and had\nhold of your knees this self-same morning. I believe, therefore, that\nyou have been promising her to give glory to Achilles, and to kill much\npeople at the ships of the Achaeans.\"\n\n\"Wife,\" said Jove, \"I can do nothing but you suspect me and find it\nout. You will take nothing by it, for I shall only dislike you the\nmore, and it will go harder with you. Granted that it is as you say; I\nmean to have it so; sit down and hold your tongue as I bid you for if I\nonce begin to lay my hands about you, though all heaven were on your\nside it would profit you nothing.\"\n\nOn this Juno was frightened, so she curbed her stubborn will and sat\ndown in silence. But the heavenly beings were disquieted throughout the\nhouse of Jove, till the cunning workman Vulcan began to try and pacify\nhis mother Juno. \"It will be intolerable,\" said he, \"if you two fall to\nwrangling and setting heaven in an uproar about a pack of mortals. If\nsuch ill counsels are to prevail, we shall have no pleasure at our\nbanquet. Let me then advise my mother--and she must herself know that\nit will be better--to make friends with my dear father Jove, lest he\nagain scold her and disturb our feast. If the Olympian Thunderer wants\nto hurl us all from our seats, he can do so, for he is far the\nstrongest, so give him fair words, and he will then soon be in a good\nhumour with us.\"\n\nAs he spoke, he took a double cup of nectar, and placed it in his\nmother's hand. \"Cheer up, my dear mother,\" said he, \"and make the best\nof it. I love you dearly, and should be very sorry to see you get a\nthrashing; however grieved I might be, I could not help, for there is\nno standing against Jove. Once before when I was trying to help you, he\ncaught me by the foot and flung me from the heavenly threshold. All day\nlong from morn till eve, was I falling, till at sunset I came to ground\nin the island of Lemnos, and there I lay, with very little life left in\nme, till the Sintians came and tended me.\"\n\nJuno smiled at this, and as she smiled she took the cup from her son's\nhands. Then Vulcan drew sweet nectar from the mixing-bowl, and served\nit round among the gods, going from left to right; and the blessed gods\nlaughed out a loud applause as they saw him bustling about the heavenly\nmansion.\n\nThus through the livelong day to the going down of the sun they\nfeasted, and every one had his full share, so that all were satisfied.\nApollo struck his lyre, and the Muses lifted up their sweet voices,\ncalling and answering one another. But when the sun's glorious light\nhad faded, they went home to bed, each in his own abode, which lame\nVulcan with his consummate skill had fashioned for them. So Jove, the\nOlympian Lord of Thunder, hied him to the bed in which he always slept;\nand when he had got on to it he went to sleep, with Juno of the golden\nthrone by his side.\n\n\n\nBOOK II\n\n  Jove sends a lying dream to Agamemnon, who thereon calls the\n  chiefs in assembly, and proposes to sound the mind of his\n  army--In the end they march to fight--Catalogue of the\n  Achaean and Trojan forces.\n\nNow the other gods and the armed warriors on the plain slept soundly,\nbut Jove was wakeful, for he was thinking how to do honour to Achilles,\nand destroyed much people at the ships of the Achaeans. In the end he\ndeemed it would be best to send a lying dream to King Agamemnon; so he\ncalled one to him and said to it, \"Lying Dream, go to the ships of the\nAchaeans, into the tent of Agamemnon, and say to him word for word as I\nnow bid you. Tell him to get the Achaeans instantly under arms, for he\nshall take Troy. There are no longer divided counsels among the gods;\nJuno has brought them to her own mind, and woe betides the Trojans.\"\n\nThe dream went when it had heard its message, and soon reached the\nships of the Achaeans. It sought Agamemnon son of Atreus and found him\nin his tent, wrapped in a profound slumber. It hovered over his head in\nthe likeness of Nestor, son of Neleus, whom Agamemnon honoured above\nall his councillors, and said:--\n\n\"You are sleeping, son of Atreus; one who has the welfare of his host\nand so much other care upon his shoulders should dock his sleep. Hear\nme at once, for I come as a messenger from Jove, who, though he be not\nnear, yet takes thought for you and pities you. He bids you get the\nAchaeans instantly under arms, for you shall take Troy. There are no\nlonger divided counsels among the gods; Juno has brought them over to\nher own mind, and woe betides the Trojans at the hands of Jove.\nRemember this, and when you wake see that it does not escape you.\"\n\nThe dream then left him, and he thought of things that were, surely not\nto be accomplished. He thought that on that same day he was to take the\ncity of Priam, but he little knew what was in the mind of Jove, who had\nmany another hard-fought fight in store alike for Danaans and Trojans.\nThen presently he woke, with the divine message still ringing in his\nears; so he sat upright, and put on his soft shirt so fair and new, and\nover this his heavy cloak. He bound his sandals on to his comely feet,\nand slung his silver-studded sword about his shoulders; then he took\nthe imperishable staff of his father, and sallied forth to the ships of\nthe Achaeans.\n\nThe goddess Dawn now wended her way to vast Olympus that she might\nherald day to Jove and to the other immortals, and Agamemnon sent the\ncriers round to call the people in assembly; so they called them and\nthe people gathered thereon. But first he summoned a meeting of the\nelders at the ship of Nestor king of Pylos, and when they were\nassembled he laid a cunning counsel before them.\n\n\"My friends,\" said he, \"I have had a dream from heaven in the dead of\nnight, and its face and figure resembled none but Nestor's. It hovered\nover my head and said, 'You are sleeping, son of Atreus; one who has\nthe welfare of his host and so much other care upon his shoulders\nshould dock his sleep. Hear me at once, for I am a messenger from Jove,\nwho, though he be not near, yet takes thought for you and pities you.\nHe bids you get the Achaeans instantly under arms, for you shall take\nTroy. There are no longer divided counsels among the gods; Juno has\nbrought them over to her own mind, and woe betides the Trojans at the\nhands of Jove. Remember this.' The dream then vanished and I awoke. Let\nus now, therefore, arm the sons of the Achaeans. But it will be well\nthat I should first sound them, and to this end I will tell them to fly\nwith their ships; but do you others go about among the host and prevent\ntheir doing so.\"\n\nHe then sat down, and Nestor the prince of Pylos with all sincerity and\ngoodwill addressed them thus: \"My friends,\" said he, \"princes and\ncouncillors of the Argives, if any other man of the Achaeans had told\nus of this dream we should have declared it false, and would have had\nnothing to do with it. But he who has seen it is the foremost man among\nus; we must therefore set about getting the people under arms.\"\n\nWith this he led the way from the assembly, and the other sceptred\nkings rose with him in obedience to the word of Agamemnon; but the\npeople pressed forward to hear. They swarmed like bees that sally from\nsome hollow cave and flit in countless throng among the spring flowers,\nbunched in knots and clusters; even so did the mighty multitude pour\nfrom ships and tents to the assembly, and range themselves upon the\nwide-watered shore, while among them ran Wildfire Rumour, messenger of\nJove, urging them ever to the fore. Thus they gathered in a pell-mell\nof mad confusion, and the earth groaned under the tramp of men as the\npeople sought their places. Nine heralds went crying about among them\nto stay their tumult and bid them listen to the kings, till at last\nthey were got into their several places and ceased their clamour. Then\nKing Agamemnon rose, holding his sceptre. This was the work of Vulcan,\nwho gave it to Jove the son of Saturn. Jove gave it to Mercury, slayer\nof Argus, guide and guardian. King Mercury gave it to Pelops, the\nmighty charioteer, and Pelops to Atreus, shepherd of his people.\nAtreus, when he died, left it to Thyestes, rich in flocks, and Thyestes\nin his turn left it to be borne by Agamemnon, that he might be lord of\nall Argos and of the isles. Leaning, then, on his sceptre, he addressed\nthe Argives.\n\n\"My friends,\" he said, \"heroes, servants of Mars, the hand of heaven\nhas been laid heavily upon me. Cruel Jove gave me his solemn promise\nthat I should sack the city of Priam before returning, but he has\nplayed me false, and is now bidding me go ingloriously back to Argos\nwith the loss of much people. Such is the will of Jove, who has laid\nmany a proud city in the dust, as he will yet lay others, for his power\nis above all. It will be a sorry tale hereafter that an Achaean host,\nat once so great and valiant, battled in vain against men fewer in\nnumber than themselves; but as yet the end is not in sight. Think that\nthe Achaeans and Trojans have sworn to a solemn covenant, and that they\nhave each been numbered--the Trojans by the roll of their householders,\nand we by companies of ten; think further that each of our companies\ndesired to have a Trojan householder to pour out their wine; we are so\ngreatly more in number that full many a company would have to go\nwithout its cup-bearer. But they have in the town allies from other\nplaces, and it is these that hinder me from being able to sack the rich\ncity of Ilius. Nine of Jove's years are gone; the timbers of our ships\nhave rotted; their tackling is sound no longer. Our wives and little\nones at home look anxiously for our coming, but the work that we came\nhither to do has not been done. Now, therefore, let us all do as I say:\nlet us sail back to our own land, for we shall not take Troy.\"\n\nWith these words he moved the hearts of the multitude, so many of them\nas knew not the cunning counsel of Agamemnon. They surged to and fro\nlike the waves of the Icarian Sea, when the east and south winds break\nfrom heaven's clouds to lash them; or as when the west wind sweeps over\na field of corn and the ears bow beneath the blast, even so were they\nswayed as they flew with loud cries towards the ships, and the dust\nfrom under their feet rose heavenward. They cheered each other on to\ndraw the ships into the sea; they cleared the channels in front of\nthem; they began taking away the stays from underneath them, and the\nwelkin rang with their glad cries, so eager were they to return.\n\nThen surely the Argives would have returned after a fashion that was\nnot fated. But Juno said to Minerva, \"Alas, daughter of aegis-bearing\nJove, unweariable, shall the Argives fly home to their own land over\nthe broad sea, and leave Priam and the Trojans the glory of still\nkeeping Helen, for whose sake so many of the Achaeans have died at\nTroy, far from their homes? Go about at once among the host, and speak\nfairly to them, man by man, that they draw not their ships into the\nsea.\"\n\nMinerva was not slack to do her bidding. Down she darted from the\ntopmost summits of Olympus, and in a moment she was at the ships of the\nAchaeans. There she found Ulysses, peer of Jove in counsel, standing\nalone. He had not as yet laid a hand upon his ship, for he was grieved\nand sorry; so she went close up to him and said, \"Ulysses, noble son of\nLaertes, are you going to fling yourselves into your ships and be off\nhome to your own land in this way? Will you leave Priam and the Trojans\nthe glory of still keeping Helen, for whose sake so many of the\nAchaeans have died at Troy, far from their homes? Go about at once\namong the host, and speak fairly to them, man by man, that they draw\nnot their ships into the sea.\"\n\nUlysses knew the voice as that of the goddess: he flung his cloak from\nhim and set off to run. His servant Eurybates, a man of Ithaca, who\nwaited on him, took charge of the cloak, whereon Ulysses went straight\nup to Agamemnon and received from him his ancestral, imperishable\nstaff. With this he went about among the ships of the Achaeans.\n\nWhenever he met a king or chieftain, he stood by him and spoke him\nfairly. \"Sir,\" said he, \"this flight is cowardly and unworthy. Stand to\nyour post, and bid your people also keep their places. You do not yet\nknow the full mind of Agamemnon; he was sounding us, and ere long will\nvisit the Achaeans with his displeasure. We were not all of us at the\ncouncil to hear what he then said; see to it lest he be angry and do us\na mischief; for the pride of kings is great, and the hand of Jove is\nwith them.\"\n\nBut when he came across any common man who was making a noise, he\nstruck him with his staff and rebuked him, saying, \"Sirrah, hold your\npeace, and listen to better men than yourself. You are a coward and no\nsoldier; you are nobody either in fight or council; we cannot all be\nkings; it is not well that there should be many masters; one man must\nbe supreme--one king to whom the son of scheming Saturn has given the\nsceptre of sovereignty over you all.\"\n\nThus masterfully did he go about among the host, and the people hurried\nback to the council from their tents and ships with a sound as the\nthunder of surf when it comes crashing down upon the shore, and all the\nsea is in an uproar.\n\nThe rest now took their seats and kept to their own several places, but\nThersites still went on wagging his unbridled tongue--a man of many\nwords, and those unseemly; a monger of sedition, a railer against all\nwho were in authority, who cared not what he said, so that he might set\nthe Achaeans in a laugh. He was the ugliest man of all those that came\nbefore Troy--bandy-legged, lame of one foot, with his two shoulders\nrounded and hunched over his chest. His head ran up to a point, but\nthere was little hair on the top of it. Achilles and Ulysses hated him\nworst of all, for it was with them that he was most wont to wrangle;\nnow, however, with a shrill squeaky voice he began heaping his abuse on\nAgamemnon. The Achaeans were angry and disgusted, yet none the less he\nkept on brawling and bawling at the son of Atreus.\n\n\"Agamemnon,\" he cried, \"what ails you now, and what more do you want?\nYour tents are filled with bronze and with fair women, for whenever we\ntake a town we give you the pick of them. Would you have yet more gold,\nwhich some Trojan is to give you as a ransom for his son, when I or\nanother Achaean has taken him prisoner? or is it some young girl to\nhide and lie with? It is not well that you, the ruler of the Achaeans,\nshould bring them into such misery. Weakling cowards, women rather than\nmen, let us sail home, and leave this fellow here at Troy to stew in\nhis own meeds of honour, and discover whether we were of any service to\nhim or no. Achilles is a much better man than he is, and see how he has\ntreated him--robbing him of his prize and keeping it himself. Achilles\ntakes it meekly and shows no fight; if he did, son of Atreus, you would\nnever again insult him.\"\n\nThus railed Thersites, but Ulysses at once went up to him and rebuked\nhim sternly. \"Check your glib tongue, Thersites,\" said be, \"and babble\nnot a word further. Chide not with princes when you have none to back\nyou. There is no viler creature come before Troy with the sons of\nAtreus. Drop this chatter about kings, and neither revile them nor keep\nharping about going home. We do not yet know how things are going to\nbe, nor whether the Achaeans are to return with good success or evil.\nHow dare you gibe at Agamemnon because the Danaans have awarded him so\nmany prizes? I tell you, therefore--and it shall surely be--that if I\nagain catch you talking such nonsense, I will either forfeit my own\nhead and be no more called father of Telemachus, or I will take you,\nstrip you stark naked, and whip you out of the assembly till you go\nblubbering back to the ships.\"\n\nOn this he beat him with his staff about the back and shoulders till he\ndropped and fell a-weeping. The golden sceptre raised a bloody weal on\nhis back, so he sat down frightened and in pain, looking foolish as he\nwiped the tears from his eyes. The people were sorry for him, yet they\nlaughed heartily, and one would turn to his neighbour saying, \"Ulysses\nhas done many a good thing ere now in fight and council, but he never\ndid the Argives a better turn than when he stopped this fellow's mouth\nfrom prating further. He will give the kings no more of his insolence.\"\n\nThus said the people. Then Ulysses rose, sceptre in hand, and Minerva\nin the likeness of a herald bade the people be still, that those who\nwere far off might hear him and consider his council. He therefore with\nall sincerity and goodwill addressed them thus:--\n\n\"King Agamemnon, the Achaeans are for making you a by-word among all\nmankind. They forget the promise they made you when they set out from\nArgos, that you should not return till you had sacked the town of Troy,\nand, like children or widowed women, they murmur and would set off\nhomeward. True it is that they have had toil enough to be disheartened.\nA man chafes at having to stay away from his wife even for a single\nmonth, when he is on shipboard, at the mercy of wind and sea, but it is\nnow nine long years that we have been kept here; I cannot, therefore,\nblame the Achaeans if they turn restive; still we shall be shamed if we\ngo home empty after so long a stay--therefore, my friends, be patient\nyet a little longer that we may learn whether the prophesyings of\nCalchas were false or true.\n\n\"All who have not since perished must remember as though it were\nyesterday or the day before, how the ships of the Achaeans were\ndetained in Aulis when we were on our way hither to make war on Priam\nand the Trojans. We were ranged round about a fountain offering\nhecatombs to the gods upon their holy altars, and there was a fine\nplane-tree from beneath which there welled a stream of pure water. Then\nwe saw a prodigy; for Jove sent a fearful serpent out of the ground,\nwith blood-red stains upon its back, and it darted from under the altar\non to the plane-tree. Now there was a brood of young sparrows, quite\nsmall, upon the topmost bough, peeping out from under the leaves, eight\nin all, and their mother that hatched them made nine. The serpent ate\nthe poor cheeping things, while the old bird flew about lamenting her\nlittle ones; but the serpent threw his coils about her and caught her\nby the wing as she was screaming. Then, when he had eaten both the\nsparrow and her young, the god who had sent him made him become a sign;\nfor the son of scheming Saturn turned him into stone, and we stood\nthere wondering at that which had come to pass. Seeing, then, that such\na fearful portent had broken in upon our hecatombs, Calchas forthwith\ndeclared to us the oracles of heaven. 'Why, Achaeans,' said he, 'are\nyou thus speechless? Jove has sent us this sign, long in coming, and\nlong ere it be fulfilled, though its fame shall last for ever. As the\nserpent ate the eight fledglings and the sparrow that hatched them,\nwhich makes nine, so shall we fight nine years at Troy, but in the\ntenth shall take the town.' This was what he said, and now it is all\ncoming true. Stay here, therefore, all of you, till we take the city of\nPriam.\"\n\nOn this the Argives raised a shout, till the ships rang again with the\nuproar. Nestor, knight of Gerene, then addressed them. \"Shame on you,\"\nhe cried, \"to stay talking here like children, when you should fight\nlike men. Where are our covenants now, and where the oaths that we have\ntaken? Shall our counsels be flung into the fire, with our\ndrink-offerings and the right hands of fellowship wherein we have put\nour trust? We waste our time in words, and for all our talking here\nshall be no further forward. Stand, therefore, son of Atreus, by your\nown steadfast purpose; lead the Argives on to battle, and leave this\nhandful of men to rot, who scheme, and scheme in vain, to get back to\nArgos ere they have learned whether Jove be true or a liar. For the\nmighty son of Saturn surely promised that we should succeed, when we\nArgives set sail to bring death and destruction upon the Trojans. He\nshowed us favourable signs by flashing his lightning on our right\nhands; therefore let none make haste to go till he has first lain with\nthe wife of some Trojan, and avenged the toil and sorrow that he has\nsuffered for the sake of Helen. Nevertheless, if any man is in such\nhaste to be at home again, let him lay his hand to his ship that he may\nmeet his doom in the sight of all. But, O king, consider and give ear\nto my counsel, for the word that I say may not be neglected lightly.\nDivide your men, Agamemnon, into their several tribes and clans, that\nclans and tribes may stand by and help one another. If you do this, and\nif the Achaeans obey you, you will find out who, both chiefs and\npeoples, are brave, and who are cowards; for they will vie against the\nother. Thus you shall also learn whether it is through the counsel of\nheaven or the cowardice of man that you shall fail to take the town.\"\n\nAnd Agamemnon answered, \"Nestor, you have again outdone the sons of the\nAchaeans in counsel. Would, by Father Jove, Minerva, and Apollo, that I\nhad among them ten more such councillors, for the city of King Priam\nwould then soon fall beneath our hands, and we should sack it. But the\nson of Saturn afflicts me with bootless wranglings and strife. Achilles\nand I are quarrelling about this girl, in which matter I was the first\nto offend; if we can be of one mind again, the Trojans will not stave\noff destruction for a day. Now, therefore, get your morning meal, that\nour hosts join in fight. Whet well your spears; see well to the\nordering of your shields; give good feeds to your horses, and look your\nchariots carefully over, that we may do battle the livelong day; for we\nshall have no rest, not for a moment, till night falls to part us. The\nbands that bear your shields shall be wet with the sweat upon your\nshoulders, your hands shall weary upon your spears, your horses shall\nsteam in front of your chariots, and if I see any man shirking the\nfight, or trying to keep out of it at the ships, there shall be no help\nfor him, but he shall be a prey to dogs and vultures.\"\n\nThus he spoke, and the Achaeans roared applause. As when the waves run\nhigh before the blast of the south wind and break on some lofty\nheadland, dashing against it and buffeting it without ceasing, as the\nstorms from every quarter drive them, even so did the Achaeans rise and\nhurry in all directions to their ships. There they lighted their fires\nat their tents and got dinner, offering sacrifice every man to one or\nother of the gods, and praying each one of them that he might live to\ncome out of the fight. Agamemnon, king of men, sacrificed a fat\nfive-year-old bull to the mighty son of Saturn, and invited the princes\nand elders of his host. First he asked Nestor and King Idomeneus, then\nthe two Ajaxes and the son of Tydeus, and sixthly Ulysses, peer of gods\nin counsel; but Menelaus came of his own accord, for he knew how busy\nhis brother then was. They stood round the bull with the barley-meal in\ntheir hands, and Agamemnon prayed, saying, \"Jove, most glorious,\nsupreme, that dwellest in heaven, and ridest upon the storm-cloud,\ngrant that the sun may not go down, nor the night fall, till the palace\nof Priam is laid low, and its gates are consumed with fire. Grant that\nmy sword may pierce the shirt of Hector about his heart, and that full\nmany of his comrades may bite the dust as they fall dying round him.\"\n\nThus he prayed, but the son of Saturn would not fulfil his prayer. He\naccepted the sacrifice, yet none the less increased their toil\ncontinually. When they had done praying and sprinkling the barley-meal\nupon the victim, they drew back its head, killed it, and then flayed\nit. They cut out the thigh-bones, wrapped them round in two layers of\nfat, and set pieces of raw meat on the top of them. These they burned\nupon the split logs of firewood, but they spitted the inward meats, and\nheld them in the flames to cook. When the thigh-bones were burned, and\nthey had tasted the inward meats, they cut the rest up small, put the\npieces upon spits, roasted them till they were done, and drew them off;\nthen, when they had finished their work and the feast was ready, they\nate it, and every man had his full share, so that all were satisfied.\nAs soon as they had had enough to eat and drink, Nestor, knight of\nGerene, began to speak. \"King Agamemnon,\" said he, \"let us not stay\ntalking here, nor be slack in the work that heaven has put into our\nhands. Let the heralds summon the people to gather at their several\nships; we will then go about among the host, that we may begin fighting\nat once.\"\n\nThus did he speak, and Agamemnon heeded his words. He at once sent the\ncriers round to call the people in assembly. So they called them, and\nthe people gathered thereon. The chiefs about the son of Atreus chose\ntheir men and marshalled them, while Minerva went among them holding\nher priceless aegis that knows neither age nor death. From it there\nwaved a hundred tassels of pure gold, all deftly woven, and each one of\nthem worth a hundred oxen. With this she darted furiously everywhere\namong the hosts of the Achaeans, urging them forward, and putting\ncourage into the heart of each, so that he might fight and do battle\nwithout ceasing. Thus war became sweeter in their eyes even than\nreturning home in their ships. As when some great forest fire is raging\nupon a mountain top and its light is seen afar, even so as they marched\nthe gleam of their armour flashed up into the firmament of heaven.\n\nThey were like great flocks of geese, or cranes, or swans on the plain\nabout the waters of Cayster, that wing their way hither and thither,\nglorying in the pride of flight, and crying as they settle till the fen\nis alive with their screaming. Even thus did their tribes pour from\nships and tents on to the plain of the Scamander, and the ground rang\nas brass under the feet of men and horses. They stood as thick upon the\nflower-bespangled field as leaves that bloom in summer.\n\nAs countless swarms of flies buzz around a herdsman's homestead in the\ntime of spring when the pails are drenched with milk, even so did the\nAchaeans swarm on to the plain to charge the Trojans and destroy them.\n\nThe chiefs disposed their men this way and that before the fight began,\ndrafting them out as easily as goatherds draft their flocks when they\nhave got mixed while feeding; and among them went King Agamemnon, with\na head and face like Jove the lord of thunder, a waist like Mars, and a\nchest like that of Neptune. As some great bull that lords it over the\nherds upon the plain, even so did Jove make the son of Atreus stand\npeerless among the multitude of heroes.\n\nAnd now, O Muses, dwellers in the mansions of Olympus, tell me--for you\nare goddesses and are in all places so that you see all things, while\nwe know nothing but by report--who were the chiefs and princes of the\nDanaans? As for the common soldiers, they were so that I could not name\nevery single one of them though I had ten tongues, and though my voice\nfailed not and my heart were of bronze within me, unless you, O\nOlympian Muses, daughters of aegis-bearing Jove, were to recount them\nto me. Nevertheless, I will tell the captains of the ships and all the\nfleet together.\n\nPeneleos, Leitus, Arcesilaus, Prothoenor, and Clonius were captains of\nthe Boeotians. These were they that dwelt in Hyria and rocky Aulis, and\nwho held Schoenus, Scolus, and the highlands of Eteonus, with Thespeia,\nGraia, and the fair city of Mycalessus. They also held Harma, Eilesium,\nand Erythrae; and they had Eleon, Hyle, and Peteon; Ocalea and the\nstrong fortress of Medeon; Copae, Eutresis, and Thisbe the haunt of\ndoves; Coronea, and the pastures of Haliartus; Plataea and Glisas; the\nfortress of Thebes the less; holy Onchestus with its famous grove of\nNeptune; Arne rich in vineyards; Midea, sacred Nisa, and Anthedon upon\nthe sea. From these there came fifty ships, and in each there were a\nhundred and twenty young men of the Boeotians.\n\nAscalaphus and Ialmenus, sons of Mars, led the people that dwelt in\nAspledon and Orchomenus the realm of Minyas. Astyoche a noble maiden\nbore them in the house of Actor son of Azeus; for she had gone with\nMars secretly into an upper chamber, and he had lain with her. With\nthese there came thirty ships.\n\nThe Phoceans were led by Schedius and Epistrophus, sons of mighty\nIphitus the son of Naubolus. These were they that held Cyparissus,\nrocky Pytho, holy Crisa, Daulis, and Panopeus; they also that dwelt in\nAnemorea and Hyampolis, and about the waters of the river Cephissus,\nand Lilaea by the springs of the Cephissus; with their chieftains came\nforty ships, and they marshalled the forces of the Phoceans, which were\nstationed next to the Boeotians, on their left.\n\nAjax, the fleet son of Oileus, commanded the Locrians. He was not so\ngreat, nor nearly so great, as Ajax the son of Telamon. He was a little\nman, and his breastplate was made of linen, but in use of the spear he\nexcelled all the Hellenes and the Achaeans. These dwelt in Cynus,\nOpous, Calliarus, Bessa, Scarphe, fair Augeae, Tarphe, and Thronium\nabout the river Boagrius. With him there came forty ships of the\nLocrians who dwell beyond Euboea.\n\nThe fierce Abantes held Euboea with its cities, Chalcis, Eretria,\nHistiaea rich in vines, Cerinthus upon the sea, and the rock-perched\ntown of Dium; with them were also the men of Carystus and Styra;\nElephenor of the race of Mars was in command of these; he was son of\nChalcodon, and chief over all the Abantes. With him they came, fleet of\nfoot and wearing their hair long behind, brave warriors, who would ever\nstrive to tear open the corslets of their foes with their long ashen\nspears. Of these there came fifty ships.\n\nAnd they that held the strong city of Athens, the people of great\nErechtheus, who was born of the soil itself, but Jove's daughter,\nMinerva, fostered him, and established him at Athens in her own rich\nsanctuary. There, year by year, the Athenian youths worship him with\nsacrifices of bulls and rams. These were commanded by Menestheus, son\nof Peteos. No man living could equal him in the marshalling of chariots\nand foot soldiers. Nestor could alone rival him, for he was older. With\nhim there came fifty ships.\n\nAjax brought twelve ships from Salamis, and stationed them alongside\nthose of the Athenians.\n\nThe men of Argos, again, and those who held the walls of Tiryns, with\nHermione, and Asine upon the gulf; Troezene, Eionae, and the vineyard\nlands of Epidaurus; the Achaean youths, moreover, who came from Aegina\nand Mases; these were led by Diomed of the loud battle-cry, and\nSthenelus son of famed Capaneus. With them in command was Euryalus, son\nof king Mecisteus, son of Talaus; but Diomed was chief over them all.\nWith these there came eighty ships.\n\nThose who held the strong city of Mycenae, rich Corinth and Cleonae;\nOrneae, Araethyrea, and Licyon, where Adrastus reigned of old;\nHyperesia, high Gonoessa, and Pellene; Aegium and all the coast-land\nround about Helice; these sent a hundred ships under the command of\nKing Agamemnon, son of Atreus. His force was far both finest and most\nnumerous, and in their midst was the king himself, all glorious in his\narmour of gleaming bronze--foremost among the heroes, for he was the\ngreatest king, and had most men under him.\n\nAnd those that dwelt in Lacedaemon, lying low among the hills, Pharis,\nSparta, with Messe the haunt of doves; Bryseae, Augeae, Amyclae, and\nHelos upon the sea; Laas, moreover, and Oetylus; these were led by\nMenelaus of the loud battle-cry, brother to Agamemnon, and of them\nthere were sixty ships, drawn up apart from the others. Among them went\nMenelaus himself, strong in zeal, urging his men to fight; for he\nlonged to avenge the toil and sorrow that he had suffered for the sake\nof Helen.\n\nThe men of Pylos and Arene, and Thryum where is the ford of the river\nAlpheus; strong Aipy, Cyparisseis, and Amphigenea; Pteleum, Helos, and\nDorium, where the Muses met Thamyris, and stilled his minstrelsy for\never. He was returning from Oechalia, where Eurytus lived and reigned,\nand boasted that he would surpass even the Muses, daughters of\naegis-bearing Jove, if they should sing against him; whereon they were\nangry, and maimed him. They robbed him of his divine power of song, and\nthenceforth he could strike the lyre no more. These were commanded by\nNestor, knight of Gerene, and with him there came ninety ships.\n\nAnd those that held Arcadia, under the high mountain of Cyllene, near\nthe tomb of Aepytus, where the people fight hand to hand; the men of\nPheneus also, and Orchomenus rich in flocks; of Rhipae, Stratie, and\nbleak Enispe; of Tegea and fair Mantinea; of Stymphelus and Parrhasia;\nof these King Agapenor son of Ancaeus was commander, and they had sixty\nships. Many Arcadians, good soldiers, came in each one of them, but\nAgamemnon found them the ships in which to cross the sea, for they were\nnot a people that occupied their business upon the waters.\n\nThe men, moreover, of Buprasium and of Elis, so much of it as is\nenclosed between Hyrmine, Myrsinus upon the sea-shore, the rock Olene\nand Alesium. These had four leaders, and each of them had ten ships,\nwith many Epeans on board. Their captains were Amphimachus and\nThalpius--the one, son of Cteatus, and the other, of Eurytus--both of\nthe race of Actor. The two others were Diores, son of Amarynces, and\nPolyxenus, son of King Agasthenes, son of Augeas.\n\nAnd those of Dulichium with the sacred Echinean islands, who dwelt\nbeyond the sea off Elis; these were led by Meges, peer of Mars, and the\nson of valiant Phyleus, dear to Jove, who quarrelled with his father,\nand went to settle in Dulichium. With him there came forty ships.\n\nUlysses led the brave Cephallenians, who held Ithaca, Neritum with its\nforests, Crocylea, rugged Aegilips, Samos and Zacynthus, with the\nmainland also that was over against the islands. These were led by\nUlysses, peer of Jove in counsel, and with him there came twelve ships.\n\nThoas, son of Andraemon, commanded the Aetolians, who dwelt in Pleuron,\nOlenus, Pylene, Chalcis by the sea, and rocky Calydon, for the great\nking Oeneus had now no sons living, and was himself dead, as was also\ngolden-haired Meleager, who had been set over the Aetolians to be their\nking. And with Thoas there came forty ships.\n\nThe famous spearsman Idomeneus led the Cretans, who held Cnossus, and\nthe well-walled city of Gortys; Lyctus also, Miletus and Lycastus that\nlies upon the chalk; the populous towns of Phaestus and Rhytium, with\nthe other peoples that dwelt in the hundred cities of Crete. All these\nwere led by Idomeneus, and by Meriones, peer of murderous Mars. And\nwith these there came eighty ships.\n\nTlepolemus, son of Hercules, a man both brave and large of stature,\nbrought nine ships of lordly warriors from Rhodes. These dwelt in\nRhodes which is divided among the three cities of Lindus, Ielysus, and\nCameirus, that lies upon the chalk. These were commanded by Tlepolemus,\nson of Hercules by Astyochea, whom he had carried off from Ephyra, on\nthe river Selleis, after sacking many cities of valiant warriors. When\nTlepolemus grew up, he killed his father's uncle Licymnius, who had\nbeen a famous warrior in his time, but was then grown old. On this he\nbuilt himself a fleet, gathered a great following, and fled beyond the\nsea, for he was menaced by the other sons and grandsons of Hercules.\nAfter a voyage, during which he suffered great hardship, he came to\nRhodes, where the people divided into three communities, according to\ntheir tribes, and were dearly loved by Jove, the lord of gods and men;\nwherefore the son of Saturn showered down great riches upon them.\n\nAnd Nireus brought three ships from Syme--Nireus, who was the\nhandsomest man that came up under Ilius of all the Danaans after the\nson of Peleus--but he was a man of no substance, and had but a small\nfollowing.\n\nAnd those that held Nisyrus, Crapathus, and Casus, with Cos, the city\nof Eurypylus, and the Calydnian islands, these were commanded by\nPheidippus and Antiphus, two sons of King Thessalus the son of\nHercules. And with them there came thirty ships.\n\nThose again who held Pelasgic Argos, Alos, Alope, and Trachis; and\nthose of Phthia and Hellas the land of fair women, who were called\nMyrmidons, Hellenes, and Achaeans; these had fifty ships, over which\nAchilles was in command. But they now took no part in the war, inasmuch\nas there was no one to marshal them; for Achilles stayed by his ships,\nfurious about the loss of the girl Briseis, whom he had taken from\nLyrnessus at his own great peril, when he had sacked Lyrnessus and\nThebe, and had overthrown Mynes and Epistrophus, sons of king Evenor,\nson of Selepus. For her sake Achilles was still grieving, but ere long\nhe was again to join them.\n\nAnd those that held Phylace and the flowery meadows of Pyrasus,\nsanctuary of Ceres; Iton, the mother of sheep; Antrum upon the sea, and\nPteleum that lies upon the grass lands. Of these brave Protesilaus had\nbeen captain while he was yet alive, but he was now lying under the\nearth. He had left a wife behind him in Phylace to tear her cheeks in\nsorrow, and his house was only half finished, for he was slain by a\nDardanian warrior while leaping foremost of the Achaeans upon the soil\nof Troy. Still, though his people mourned their chieftain, they were\nnot without a leader, for Podarces, of the race of Mars, marshalled\nthem; he was son of Iphiclus, rich in sheep, who was the son of\nPhylacus, and he was own brother to Protesilaus, only younger,\nProtesilaus being at once the elder and the more valiant. So the people\nwere not without a leader, though they mourned him whom they had lost.\nWith him there came forty ships.\n\nAnd those that held Pherae by the Boebean lake, with Boebe, Glaphyrae,\nand the populous city of Iolcus, these with their eleven ships were led\nby Eumelus, son of Admetus, whom Alcestis bore to him, loveliest of the\ndaughters of Pelias.\n\nAnd those that held Methone and Thaumacia, with Meliboea and rugged\nOlizon, these were led by the skilful archer Philoctetes, and they had\nseven ships, each with fifty oarsmen all of them good archers; but\nPhiloctetes was lying in great pain in the Island of Lemnos, where the\nsons of the Achaeans left him, for he had been bitten by a poisonous\nwater snake. There he lay sick and sorry, and full soon did the Argives\ncome to miss him. But his people, though they felt his loss were not\nleaderless, for Medon, the bastard son of Oileus by Rhene, set them in\narray.\n\nThose, again, of Tricca and the stony region of Ithome, and they that\nheld Oechalia, the city of Oechalian Eurytus, these were commanded by\nthe two sons of Aesculapius, skilled in the art of healing, Podalirius\nand Machaon. And with them there came thirty ships.\n\nThe men, moreover, of Ormenius, and by the fountain of Hypereia, with\nthose that held Asterius, and the white crests of Titanus, these were\nled by Eurypylus, the son of Euaemon, and with them there came forty\nships.\n\nThose that held Argissa and Gyrtone, Orthe, Elone, and the white city\nof Oloosson, of these brave Polypoetes was leader. He was son of\nPirithous, who was son of Jove himself, for Hippodameia bore him to\nPirithous on the day when he took his revenge on the shaggy mountain\nsavages and drove them from Mt. Pelion to the Aithices. But Polypoetes\nwas not sole in command, for with him was Leonteus, of the race of\nMars, who was son of Coronus, the son of Caeneus. And with these there\ncame forty ships.\n\nGuneus brought two and twenty ships from Cyphus, and he was followed by\nthe Enienes and the valiant Peraebi, who dwelt about wintry Dodona, and\nheld the lands round the lovely river Titaresius, which sends its\nwaters into the Peneus. They do not mingle with the silver eddies of\nthe Peneus, but flow on the top of them like oil; for the Titaresius is\na branch of dread Orcus and of the river Styx.\n\nOf the Magnetes, Prothous son of Tenthredon was commander. They were\nthey that dwelt about the river Peneus and Mt. Pelion. Prothous, fleet\nof foot, was their leader, and with him there came forty ships.\n\nSuch were the chiefs and princes of the Danaans. Who, then, O Muse, was\nthe foremost, whether man or horse, among those that followed after the\nsons of Atreus?\n\nOf the horses, those of the son of Pheres were by far the finest. They\nwere driven by Eumelus, and were as fleet as birds. They were of the\nsame age and colour, and perfectly matched in height. Apollo, of the\nsilver bow, had bred them in Perea--both of them mares, and terrible as\nMars in battle. Of the men, Ajax, son of Telamon, was much the foremost\nso long as Achilles' anger lasted, for Achilles excelled him greatly\nand he had also better horses; but Achilles was now holding aloof at\nhis ships by reason of his quarrel with Agamemnon, and his people\npassed their time upon the sea shore, throwing discs or aiming with\nspears at a mark, and in archery. Their horses stood each by his own\nchariot, champing lotus and wild celery. The chariots were housed under\ncover, but their owners, for lack of leadership, wandered hither and\nthither about the host and went not forth to fight.\n\nThus marched the host like a consuming fire, and the earth groaned\nbeneath them when the lord of thunder is angry and lashes the land\nabout Typhoeus among the Arimi, where they say Typhoeus lies. Even so\ndid the earth groan beneath them as they sped over the plain.\n\nAnd now Iris, fleet as the wind, was sent by Jove to tell the bad news\namong the Trojans. They were gathered in assembly, old and young, at\nPriam's gates, and Iris came close up to Priam, speaking with the voice\nof Priam's son Polites, who, being fleet of foot, was stationed as\nwatchman for the Trojans on the tomb of old Aesyetes, to look out for\nany sally of the Achaeans. In his likeness Iris spoke, saying, \"Old\nman, you talk idly, as in time of peace, while war is at hand. I have\nbeen in many a battle, but never yet saw such a host as is now\nadvancing. They are crossing the plain to attack the city as thick as\nleaves or as the sands of the sea. Hector, I charge you above all\nothers, do as I say. There are many allies dispersed about the city of\nPriam from distant places and speaking divers tongues. Therefore, let\neach chief give orders to his own people, setting them severally in\narray and leading them forth to battle.\"\n\nThus she spoke, but Hector knew that it was the goddess, and at once\nbroke up the assembly. The men flew to arms; all the gates were opened,\nand the people thronged through them, horse and foot, with the tramp as\nof a great multitude.\n\nNow there is a high mound before the city, rising by itself upon the\nplain. Men call it Batieia, but the gods know that it is the tomb of\nlithe Myrine. Here the Trojans and their allies divided their forces.\n\nPriam's son, great Hector of the gleaming helmet, commanded the\nTrojans, and with him were arrayed by far the greater number and most\nvaliant of those who were longing for the fray.\n\nThe Dardanians were led by brave Aeneas, whom Venus bore to Anchises,\nwhen she, goddess though she was, had lain with him upon the mountain\nslopes of Ida. He was not alone, for with him were the two sons of\nAntenor, Archilochus and Acamas, both skilled in all the arts of war.\n\nThey that dwelt in Telea under the lowest spurs of Mt. Ida, men of\nsubstance, who drink the limpid waters of the Aesepus, and are of\nTrojan blood--these were led by Pandarus son of Lycaon, whom Apollo had\ntaught to use the bow.\n\nThey that held Adresteia and the land of Apaesus, with Pityeia, and the\nhigh mountain of Tereia--these were led by Adrestus and Amphius, whose\nbreastplate was of linen. These were the sons of Merops of Percote, who\nexcelled in all kinds of divination. He told them not to take part in\nthe war, but they gave him no heed, for fate lured them to destruction.\n\nThey that dwelt about Percote and Practius, with Sestos, Abydos, and\nArisbe--these were led by Asius, son of Hyrtacus, a brave\ncommander--Asius, the son of Hyrtacus, whom his powerful dark bay\nsteeds, of the breed that comes from the river Selleis, had brought\nfrom Arisbe.\n\nHippothous led the tribes of Pelasgian spearsmen, who dwelt in fertile\nLarissa--Hippothous, and Pylaeus of the race of Mars, two sons of the\nPelasgian Lethus, son of Teutamus.\n\nAcamas and the warrior Peirous commanded the Thracians and those that\ncame from beyond the mighty stream of the Hellespont.\n\nEuphemus, son of Troezenus, the son of Ceos, was captain of the\nCiconian spearsmen.\n\nPyraechmes led the Paeonian archers from distant Amydon, by the broad\nwaters of the river Axius, the fairest that flow upon the earth.\n\nThe Paphlagonians were commanded by stout-hearted Pylaemanes from\nEnetae, where the mules run wild in herds. These were they that held\nCytorus and the country round Sesamus, with the cities by the river\nParthenius, Cromna, Aegialus, and lofty Erithini.\n\nOdius and Epistrophus were captains over the Halizoni from distant\nAlybe, where there are mines of silver.\n\nChromis, and Ennomus the augur, led the Mysians, but his skill in\naugury availed not to save him from destruction, for he fell by the\nhand of the fleet descendant of Aeacus in the river, where he slew\nothers also of the Trojans.\n\nPhorcys, again, and noble Ascanius led the Phrygians from the far\ncountry of Ascania, and both were eager for the fray.\n\nMesthles and Antiphus commanded the Meonians, sons of Talaemenes, born\nto him of the Gygaean lake. These led the Meonians, who dwelt under Mt.\nTmolus.\n\nNastes led the Carians, men of a strange speech. These held Miletus and\nthe wooded mountain of Phthires, with the water of the river Maeander\nand the lofty crests of Mt. Mycale. These were commanded by Nastes and\nAmphimachus, the brave sons of Nomion. He came into the fight with gold\nabout him, like a girl; fool that he was, his gold was of no avail to\nsave him, for he fell in the river by the hand of the fleet descendant\nof Aeacus, and Achilles bore away his gold.\n\nSarpedon and Glaucus led the Lycians from their distant land, by the\neddying waters of the Xanthus.\n\n\n\nBOOK III\n\n  Alexandria, also called Paris, challenges Menelaus--Helen and\n  Priam view the Achaeans from the wall--The covenant--Paris\n  and Menelaus fight, and Paris is worsted--Venus carries him\n  off to save him--Scene between him and Helen.\n\nWhen the companies were thus arrayed, each under its own captain, the\nTrojans advanced as a flight of wild fowl or cranes that scream\noverhead when rain and winter drive them over the flowing waters of\nOceanus to bring death and destruction on the Pygmies, and they wrangle\nin the air as they fly; but the Achaeans marched silently, in high\nheart, and minded to stand by one another.\n\nAs when the south wind spreads a curtain of mist upon the mountain\ntops, bad for shepherds but better than night for thieves, and a man\ncan see no further than he can throw a stone, even so rose the dust\nfrom under their feet as they made all speed over the plain.\n\nWhen they were close up with one another, Alexandrus came forward as\nchampion on the Trojan side. On his shoulders he bore the skin of a\npanther, his bow, and his sword, and he brandished two spears shod with\nbronze as a challenge to the bravest of the Achaeans to meet him in\nsingle fight. Menelaus saw him thus stride out before the ranks, and\nwas glad as a hungry lion that lights on the carcase of some goat or\nhorned stag, and devours it there and then, though dogs and youths set\nupon him. Even thus was Menelaus glad when his eyes caught sight of\nAlexandrus, for he deemed that now he should be revenged. He sprang,\ntherefore, from his chariot, clad in his suit of armour.\n\nAlexandrus quailed as he saw Menelaus come forward, and shrank in fear\nof his life under cover of his men. As one who starts back affrighted,\ntrembling and pale, when he comes suddenly upon a serpent in some\nmountain glade, even so did Alexandrus plunge into the throng of Trojan\nwarriors, terror-stricken at the sight of the son of Atreus.\n\nThen Hector upbraided him. \"Paris,\" said he, \"evil-hearted Paris, fair\nto see, but woman-mad, and false of tongue, would that you had never\nbeen born, or that you had died unwed. Better so, than live to be\ndisgraced and looked askance at. Will not the Achaeans mock at us and\nsay that we have sent one to champion us who is fair to see but who has\nneither wit nor courage? Did you not, such as you are, get your\nfollowing together and sail beyond the seas? Did you not from your a\nfar country carry off a lovely woman wedded among a people of\nwarriors--to bring sorrow upon your father, your city, and your whole\ncountry, but joy to your enemies, and hang-dog shamefacedness to\nyourself? And now can you not dare face Menelaus and learn what manner\nof man he is whose wife you have stolen? Where indeed would be your\nlyre and your love-tricks, your comely locks and your fair favour, when\nyou were lying in the dust before him? The Trojans are a weak-kneed\npeople, or ere this you would have had a shirt of stones for the wrongs\nyou have done them.\"\n\nAnd Alexandrus answered, \"Hector, your rebuke is just. You are hard as\nthe axe which a shipwright wields at his work, and cleaves the timber\nto his liking. As the axe in his hand, so keen is the edge of your\nscorn. Still, taunt me not with the gifts that golden Venus has given\nme; they are precious; let not a man disdain them, for the gods give\nthem where they are minded, and none can have them for the asking. If\nyou would have me do battle with Menelaus, bid the Trojans and Achaeans\ntake their seats, while he and I fight in their midst for Helen and all\nher wealth. Let him who shall be victorious and prove to be the better\nman take the woman and all she has, to bear them to his home, but let\nthe rest swear to a solemn covenant of peace whereby you Trojans shall\nstay here in Troy, while the others go home to Argos and the land of\nthe Achaeans.\"\n\nWhen Hector heard this he was glad, and went about among the Trojan\nranks holding his spear by the middle to keep them back, and they all\nsat down at his bidding: but the Achaeans still aimed at him with\nstones and arrows, till Agamemnon shouted to them saying, \"Hold,\nArgives, shoot not, sons of the Achaeans; Hector desires to speak.\"\n\nThey ceased taking aim and were still, whereon Hector spoke. \"Hear from\nmy mouth,\" said he, \"Trojans and Achaeans, the saying of Alexandrus,\nthrough whom this quarrel has come about. He bids the Trojans and\nAchaeans lay their armour upon the ground, while he and Menelaus fight\nin the midst of you for Helen and all her wealth. Let him who shall be\nvictorious and prove to be the better man take the woman and all she\nhas, to bear them to his own home, but let the rest swear to a solemn\ncovenant of peace.\"\n\nThus he spoke, and they all held their peace, till Menelaus of the loud\nbattle-cry addressed them. \"And now,\" he said, \"hear me too, for it is\nI who am the most aggrieved. I deem that the parting of Achaeans and\nTrojans is at hand, as well it may be, seeing how much have suffered\nfor my quarrel with Alexandrus and the wrong he did me. Let him who\nshall die, die, and let the others fight no more. Bring, then, two\nlambs, a white ram and a black ewe, for Earth and Sun, and we will\nbring a third for Jove. Moreover, you shall bid Priam come, that he may\nswear to the covenant himself; for his sons are high-handed and ill to\ntrust, and the oaths of Jove must not be transgressed or taken in vain.\nYoung men's minds are light as air, but when an old man comes he looks\nbefore and after, deeming that which shall be fairest upon both sides.\"\n\nThe Trojans and Achaeans were glad when they heard this, for they\nthought that they should now have rest. They backed their chariots\ntoward the ranks, got out of them, and put off their armour, laying it\ndown upon the ground; and the hosts were near to one another with a\nlittle space between them. Hector sent two messengers to the city to\nbring the lambs and to bid Priam come, while Agamemnon told Talthybius\nto fetch the other lamb from the ships, and he did as Agamemnon had\nsaid.\n\nMeanwhile Iris went to Helen in the form of her sister-in-law, wife of\nthe son of Antenor, for Helicaon, son of Antenor, had married Laodice,\nthe fairest of Priam's daughters. She found her in her own room,\nworking at a great web of purple linen, on which she was embroidering\nthe battles between Trojans and Achaeans, that Mars had made them fight\nfor her sake. Iris then came close up to her and said, \"Come hither,\nchild, and see the strange doings of the Trojans and Achaeans. Till now\nthey have been warring upon the plain, mad with lust of battle, but now\nthey have left off fighting, and are leaning upon their shields,\nsitting still with their spears planted beside them. Alexandrus and\nMenelaus are going to fight about yourself, and you are to be the wife\nof him who is the victor.\"\n\nThus spoke the goddess, and Helen's heart yearned after her former\nhusband, her city, and her parents. She threw a white mantle over her\nhead, and hurried from her room, weeping as she went, not alone, but\nattended by two of her handmaids, Aethrae, daughter of Pittheus, and\nClymene. And straightway they were at the Scaean gates.\n\nThe two sages, Ucalegon and Antenor, elders of the people, were seated\nby the Scaean gates, with Priam, Panthous, Thymoetes, Lampus, Clytius,\nand Hiketaon of the race of Mars. These were too old to fight, but they\nwere fluent orators, and sat on the tower like cicales that chirrup\ndelicately from the boughs of some high tree in a wood. When they saw\nHelen coming towards the tower, they said softly to one another, \"Small\nwonder that Trojans and Achaeans should endure so much and so long, for\nthe sake of a woman so marvellously and divinely lovely. Still, fair\nthough she be, let them take her and go, or she will breed sorrow for\nus and for our children after us.\"\n\nBut Priam bade her draw nigh. \"My child,\" said he, \"take your seat in\nfront of me that you may see your former husband, your kinsmen and your\nfriends. I lay no blame upon you, it is the gods, not you who are to\nblame. It is they that have brought about this terrible war with the\nAchaeans. Tell me, then, who is yonder huge hero so great and goodly? I\nhave seen men taller by a head, but none so comely and so royal. Surely\nhe must be a king.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" answered Helen, \"father of my husband, dear and reverend in my\neyes, would that I had chosen death rather than to have come here with\nyour son, far from my bridal chamber, my friends, my darling daughter,\nand all the companions of my girlhood. But it was not to be, and my lot\nis one of tears and sorrow. As for your question, the hero of whom you\nask is Agamemnon, son of Atreus, a good king and a brave soldier,\nbrother-in-law as surely as that he lives, to my abhorred and miserable\nself.\"\n\nThe old man marvelled at him and said, \"Happy son of Atreus, child of\ngood fortune. I see that the Achaeans are subject to you in great\nmultitudes. When I was in Phrygia I saw much horsemen, the people of\nOtreus and of Mygdon, who were camping upon the banks of the river\nSangarius; I was their ally, and with them when the Amazons, peers of\nmen, came up against them, but even they were not so many as the\nAchaeans.\"\n\nThe old man next looked upon Ulysses; \"Tell me,\" he said, \"who is that\nother, shorter by a head than Agamemnon, but broader across the chest\nand shoulders? His armour is laid upon the ground, and he stalks in\nfront of the ranks as it were some great woolly ram ordering his ewes.\"\n\nAnd Helen answered, \"He is Ulysses, a man of great craft, son of\nLaertes. He was born in rugged Ithaca, and excels in all manner of\nstratagems and subtle cunning.\"\n\nOn this Antenor said, \"Madam, you have spoken truly. Ulysses once came\nhere as envoy about yourself, and Menelaus with him. I received them in\nmy own house, and therefore know both of them by sight and\nconversation. When they stood up in presence of the assembled Trojans,\nMenelaus was the broader shouldered, but when both were seated Ulysses\nhad the more royal presence. After a time they delivered their message,\nand the speech of Menelaus ran trippingly on the tongue; he did not say\nmuch, for he was a man of few words, but he spoke very clearly and to\nthe point, though he was the younger man of the two; Ulysses, on the\nother hand, when he rose to speak, was at first silent and kept his\neyes fixed upon the ground. There was no play nor graceful movement of\nhis sceptre; he kept it straight and stiff like a man unpractised in\noratory--one might have taken him for a mere churl or simpleton; but\nwhen he raised his voice, and the words came driving from his deep\nchest like winter snow before the wind, then there was none to touch\nhim, and no man thought further of what he looked like.\"\n\nPriam then caught sight of Ajax and asked, \"Who is that great and\ngoodly warrior whose head and broad shoulders tower above the rest of\nthe Argives?\"\n\n\"That,\" answered Helen, \"is huge Ajax, bulwark of the Achaeans, and on\nthe other side of him, among the Cretans, stands Idomeneus looking like\na god, and with the captains of the Cretans round him. Often did\nMenelaus receive him as a guest in our house when he came visiting us\nfrom Crete. I see, moreover, many other Achaeans whose names I could\ntell you, but there are two whom I can nowhere find, Castor, breaker of\nhorses, and Pollux the mighty boxer; they are children of my mother,\nand own brothers to myself. Either they have not left Lacedaemon, or\nelse, though they have brought their ships, they will not show\nthemselves in battle for the shame and disgrace that I have brought\nupon them.\"\n\nShe knew not that both these heroes were already lying under the earth\nin their own land of Lacedaemon.\n\nMeanwhile the heralds were bringing the holy oath-offerings through the\ncity--two lambs and a goatskin of wine, the gift of earth; and Idaeus\nbrought the mixing bowl and the cups of gold. He went up to Priam and\nsaid, \"Son of Laomedon, the princes of the Trojans and Achaeans bid you\ncome down on to the plain and swear to a solemn covenant. Alexandrus\nand Menelaus are to fight for Helen in single combat, that she and all\nher wealth may go with him who is the victor. We are to swear to a\nsolemn covenant of peace whereby we others shall dwell here in Troy,\nwhile the Achaeans return to Argos and the land of the Achaeans.\"\n\nThe old man trembled as he heard, but bade his followers yoke the\nhorses, and they made all haste to do so. He mounted the chariot,\ngathered the reins in his hand, and Antenor took his seat beside him;\nthey then drove through the Scaean gates on to the plain. When they\nreached the ranks of the Trojans and Achaeans they left the chariot,\nand with measured pace advanced into the space between the hosts.\n\nAgamemnon and Ulysses both rose to meet them. The attendants brought on\nthe oath-offerings and mixed the wine in the mixing-bowls; they poured\nwater over the hands of the chieftains, and the son of Atreus drew the\ndagger that hung by his sword, and cut wool from the lambs' heads; this\nthe men-servants gave about among the Trojan and Achaean princes, and\nthe son of Atreus lifted up his hands in prayer. \"Father Jove,\" he\ncried, \"that rulest in Ida, most glorious in power, and thou oh Sun,\nthat seest and givest ear to all things, Earth and Rivers, and ye who\nin the realms below chastise the soul of him that has broken his oath,\nwitness these rites and guard them, that they be not vain. If\nAlexandrus kills Menelaus, let him keep Helen and all her wealth, while\nwe sail home with our ships; but if Menelaus kills Alexandrus, let the\nTrojans give back Helen and all that she has; let them moreover pay\nsuch fine to the Achaeans as shall be agreed upon, in testimony among\nthose that shall be born hereafter. And if Priam and his sons refuse\nsuch fine when Alexandrus has fallen, then will I stay here and fight\non till I have got satisfaction.\"\n\nAs he spoke he drew his knife across the throats of the victims, and\nlaid them down gasping and dying upon the ground, for the knife had\nreft them of their strength. Then they poured wine from the mixing-bowl\ninto the cups, and prayed to the everlasting gods, saying, Trojans and\nAchaeans among one another, \"Jove, most great and glorious, and ye\nother everlasting gods, grant that the brains of them who shall first\nsin against their oaths--of them and their children--may be shed upon\nthe ground even as this wine, and let their wives become the slaves of\nstrangers.\"\n\nThus they prayed, but not as yet would Jove grant them their prayer.\nThen Priam, descendant of Dardanus, spoke, saying, \"Hear me, Trojans\nand Achaeans, I will now go back to the wind-beaten city of Ilius: I\ndare not with my own eyes witness this fight between my son and\nMenelaus, for Jove and the other immortals alone know which shall fall.\"\n\nOn this he laid the two lambs on his chariot and took his seat. He\ngathered the reins in his hand, and Antenor sat beside him; the two\nthen went back to Ilius. Hector and Ulysses measured the ground, and\ncast lots from a helmet of bronze to see which should take aim first.\nMeanwhile the two hosts lifted up their hands and prayed saying,\n\"Father Jove, that rulest from Ida, most glorious in power, grant that\nhe who first brought about this war between us may die, and enter the\nhouse of Hades, while we others remain at peace and abide by our oaths.\"\n\nGreat Hector now turned his head aside while he shook the helmet, and\nthe lot of Paris flew out first. The others took their several\nstations, each by his horses and the place where his arms were lying,\nwhile Alexandrus, husband of lovely Helen, put on his goodly armour.\nFirst he greaved his legs with greaves of good make and fitted with\nancle-clasps of silver; after this he donned the cuirass of his brother\nLycaon, and fitted it to his own body; he hung his silver-studded sword\nof bronze about his shoulders, and then his mighty shield. On his\ncomely head he set his helmet, well-wrought, with a crest of horse-hair\nthat nodded menacingly above it, and he grasped a redoubtable spear\nthat suited his hands. In like fashion Menelaus also put on his armour.\n\nWhen they had thus armed, each amid his own people, they strode fierce\nof aspect into the open space, and both Trojans and Achaeans were\nstruck with awe as they beheld them. They stood near one another on the\nmeasured ground, brandishing their spears, and each furious against the\nother. Alexandrus aimed first, and struck the round shield of the son\nof Atreus, but the spear did not pierce it, for the shield turned its\npoint. Menelaus next took aim, praying to Father Jove as he did so.\n\"King Jove,\" he said, \"grant me revenge on Alexandrus who has wronged\nme; subdue him under my hand that in ages yet to come a man may shrink\nfrom doing ill deeds in the house of his host.\"\n\nHe poised his spear as he spoke, and hurled it at the shield of\nAlexandrus. Through shield and cuirass it went, and tore the shirt by\nhis flank, but Alexandrus swerved aside, and thus saved his life. Then\nthe son of Atreus drew his sword, and drove at the projecting part of\nhis helmet, but the sword fell shivered in three or four pieces from\nhis hand, and he cried, looking towards Heaven, \"Father Jove, of all\ngods thou art the most despiteful; I made sure of my revenge, but the\nsword has broken in my hand, my spear has been hurled in vain, and I\nhave not killed him.\"\n\nWith this he flew at Alexandrus, caught him by the horsehair plume of\nhis helmet, and began dragging him towards the Achaeans. The strap of\nthe helmet that went under his chin was choking him, and Menelaus would\nhave dragged him off to his own great glory had not Jove's daughter\nVenus been quick to mark and to break the strap of oxhide, so that the\nempty helmet came away in his hand. This he flung to his comrades among\nthe Achaeans, and was again springing upon Alexandrus to run him\nthrough with a spear, but Venus snatched him up in a moment (as a god\ncan do), hid him under a cloud of darkness, and conveyed him to his own\nbedchamber.\n\nThen she went to call Helen, and found her on a high tower with the\nTrojan women crowding round her. She took the form of an old woman who\nused to dress wool for her when she was still in Lacedaemon, and of\nwhom she was very fond. Thus disguised she plucked her by perfumed robe\nand said, \"Come hither; Alexandrus says you are to go to the house; he\nis on his bed in his own room, radiant with beauty and dressed in\ngorgeous apparel. No one would think he had just come from fighting,\nbut rather that he was going to a dance, or had done dancing and was\nsitting down.\"\n\nWith these words she moved the heart of Helen to anger. When she marked\nthe beautiful neck of the goddess, her lovely bosom, and sparkling\neyes, she marvelled at her and said, \"Goddess, why do you thus beguile\nme? Are you going to send me afield still further to some man whom you\nhave taken up in Phrygia or fair Meonia? Menelaus has just vanquished\nAlexandrus, and is to take my hateful self back with him. You are come\nhere to betray me. Go sit with Alexandrus yourself; henceforth be\ngoddess no longer; never let your feet carry you back to Olympus; worry\nabout him and look after him till he make you his wife, or, for the\nmatter of that, his slave--but me? I shall not go; I can garnish his\nbed no longer; I should be a by-word among all the women of Troy.\nBesides, I have trouble on my mind.\"\n\nVenus was very angry, and said, \"Bold hussy, do not provoke me; if you\ndo, I shall leave you to your fate and hate you as much as I have loved\nyou. I will stir up fierce hatred between Trojans and Achaeans, and you\nshall come to a bad end.\"\n\nAt this Helen was frightened. She wrapped her mantle about her and went\nin silence, following the goddess and unnoticed by the Trojan women.\n\nWhen they came to the house of Alexandrus the maid-servants set about\ntheir work, but Helen went into her own room, and the laughter-loving\ngoddess took a seat and set it for her facing Alexandrus. On this\nHelen, daughter of aegis-bearing Jove, sat down, and with eyes askance\nbegan to upbraid her husband.\n\n\"So you are come from the fight,\" said she; \"would that you had fallen\nrather by the hand of that brave man who was my husband. You used to\nbrag that you were a better man with hands and spear than Menelaus. Go,\nthen, and challenge him again--but I should advise you not to do so,\nfor if you are foolish enough to meet him in single combat, you will\nsoon fall by his spear.\"\n\nAnd Paris answered, \"Wife, do not vex me with your reproaches. This\ntime, with the help of Minerva, Menelaus has vanquished me; another\ntime I may myself be victor, for I too have gods that will stand by me.\nCome, let us lie down together and make friends. Never yet was I so\npassionately enamoured of you as at this moment--not even when I first\ncarried you off from Lacedaemon and sailed away with you--not even when\nI had converse with you upon the couch of love in the island of Cranae\nwas I so enthralled by desire of you as now.\" On this he led her\ntowards the bed, and his wife went with him.\n\nThus they laid themselves on the bed together; but the son of Atreus\nstrode among the throng, looking everywhere for Alexandrus, and no man,\nneither of the Trojans nor of the allies, could find him. If they had\nseen him they were in no mind to hide him, for they all of them hated\nhim as they did death itself. Then Agamemnon, king of men, spoke,\nsaying, \"Hear me, Trojans, Dardanians, and allies. The victory has been\nwith Menelaus; therefore give back Helen with all her wealth, and pay\nsuch fine as shall be agreed upon, in testimony among them that shall\nbe born hereafter.\"\n\nThus spoke the son of Atreus, and the Achaeans shouted in applause.\n\n\n\nBOOK IV\n\n  A quarrel in Olympus--Minerva goes down and persuades Fandarus\n  to violate the oaths by wounding Menelaus with an arrow--Agamemnon\n  makes a speech and sends for Machaon--He then\n  goes about among his captains and upbraids Ulysses and\n  Sthenelus, who each of them retort fiercely--Diomed checks\n  Sthenelus, and the two hosts then engage, with great slaughter\n  on either side.\n\nNow the gods were sitting with Jove in council upon the golden floor\nwhile Hebe went round pouring out nectar for them to drink, and as they\npledged one another in their cups of gold they looked down upon the\ntown of Troy. The son of Saturn then began to tease Juno, talking at\nher so as to provoke her. \"Menelaus,\" said he, \"has two good friends\namong the goddesses, Juno of Argos, and Minerva of Alalcomene, but they\nonly sit still and look on, while Venus keeps ever by Alexandrus' side\nto defend him in any danger; indeed she has just rescued him when he\nmade sure that it was all over with him--for the victory really did lie\nwith Menelaus. We must consider what we shall do about all this; shall\nwe set them fighting anew or make peace between them? If you will agree\nto this last Menelaus can take back Helen and the city of Priam may\nremain still inhabited.\"\n\nMinerva and Juno muttered their discontent as they sat side by side\nhatching mischief for the Trojans. Minerva scowled at her father, for\nshe was in a furious passion with him, and said nothing, but Juno could\nnot contain herself. \"Dread son of Saturn,\" said she, \"what, pray, is\nthe meaning of all this? Is my trouble, then, to go for nothing, and\nthe sweat that I have sweated, to say nothing of my horses, while\ngetting the people together against Priam and his children? Do as you\nwill, but we other gods shall not all of us approve your counsel.\"\n\nJove was angry and answered, \"My dear, what harm have Priam and his\nsons done you that you are so hotly bent on sacking the city of Ilius?\nWill nothing do for you but you must within their walls and eat Priam\nraw, with his sons and all the other Trojans to boot? Have it your own\nway then; for I would not have this matter become a bone of contention\nbetween us. I say further, and lay my saying to your heart, if ever I\nwant to sack a city belonging to friends of yours, you must not try to\nstop me; you will have to let me do it, for I am giving in to you\nsorely against my will. Of all inhabited cities under the sun and stars\nof heaven, there was none that I so much respected as Ilius with Priam\nand his whole people. Equitable feasts were never wanting about my\naltar, nor the savour of burning fat, which is honour due to ourselves.\"\n\n\"My own three favourite cities,\" answered Juno, \"are Argos, Sparta, and\nMycenae. Sack them whenever you may be displeased with them. I shall\nnot defend them and I shall not care. Even if I did, and tried to stay\nyou, I should take nothing by it, for you are much stronger than I am,\nbut I will not have my own work wasted. I too am a god and of the same\nrace with yourself. I am Saturn's eldest daughter, and am honourable\nnot on this ground only, but also because I am your wife, and you are\nking over the gods. Let it be a case, then, of give-and-take between\nus, and the rest of the gods will follow our lead. Tell Minerva to go\nand take part in the fight at once, and let her contrive that the\nTrojans shall be the first to break their oaths and set upon the\nAchaeans.\"\n\nThe sire of gods and men heeded her words, and said to Minerva, \"Go at\nonce into the Trojan and Achaean hosts, and contrive that the Trojans\nshall be the first to break their oaths and set upon the Achaeans.\"\n\nThis was what Minerva was already eager to do, so down she darted from\nthe topmost summits of Olympus. She shot through the sky as some\nbrilliant meteor which the son of scheming Saturn has sent as a sign to\nmariners or to some great army, and a fiery train of light follows in\nits wake. The Trojans and Achaeans were struck with awe as they beheld,\nand one would turn to his neighbour, saying, \"Either we shall again\nhave war and din of combat, or Jove the lord of battle will now make\npeace between us.\"\n\nThus did they converse. Then Minerva took the form of Laodocus, son of\nAntenor, and went through the ranks of the Trojans to find Pandarus,\nthe redoubtable son of Lycaon. She found him standing among the\nstalwart heroes who had followed him from the banks of the Aesopus, so\nshe went close up to him and said, \"Brave son of Lycaon, will you do as\nI tell you? If you dare send an arrow at Menelaus you will win honour\nand thanks from all the Trojans, and especially from prince\nAlexandrus--he would be the first to requite you very handsomely if he\ncould see Menelaus mount his funeral pyre, slain by an arrow from your\nhand. Take your home aim then, and pray to Lycian Apollo, the famous\narcher; vow that when you get home to your strong city of Zelea you\nwill offer a hecatomb of firstling lambs in his honour.\"\n\nHis fool's heart was persuaded, and he took his bow from its case. This\nbow was made from the horns of a wild ibex which he had killed as it\nwas bounding from a rock; he had stalked it, and it had fallen as the\narrow struck it to the heart. Its horns were sixteen palms long, and a\nworker in horn had made them into a bow, smoothing them well down, and\ngiving them tips of gold. When Pandarus had strung his bow he laid it\ncarefully on the ground, and his brave followers held their shields\nbefore him lest the Achaeans should set upon him before he had shot\nMenelaus. Then he opened the lid of his quiver and took out a winged\narrow that had not yet been shot, fraught with the pangs of death. He\nlaid the arrow on the string and prayed to Lycian Apollo, the famous\narcher, vowing that when he got home to his strong city of Zelea he\nwould offer a hecatomb of firstling lambs in his honour. He laid the\nnotch of the arrow on the oxhide bowstring, and drew both notch and\nstring to his breast till the arrow-head was near the bow; then when\nthe bow was arched into a half-circle he let fly, and the bow twanged,\nand the string sang as the arrow flew gladly on over the heads of the\nthrong.\n\nBut the blessed gods did not forget thee, O Menelaus, and Jove's\ndaughter, driver of the spoil, was the first to stand before thee and\nward off the piercing arrow. She turned it from his skin as a mother\nwhisks a fly from off her child when it is sleeping sweetly; she guided\nit to the part where the golden buckles of the belt that passed over\nhis double cuirass were fastened, so the arrow struck the belt that\nwent tightly round him. It went right through this and through the\ncuirass of cunning workmanship; it also pierced the belt beneath it,\nwhich he wore next his skin to keep out darts or arrows; it was this\nthat served him in the best stead, nevertheless the arrow went through\nit and grazed the top of the skin, so that blood began flowing from the\nwound.\n\nAs when some woman of Meonia or Caria strains purple dye on to a piece\nof ivory that is to be the cheek-piece of a horse, and is to be laid up\nin a treasure house--many a knight is fain to bear it, but the king\nkeeps it as an ornament of which both horse and driver may be\nproud--even so, O Menelaus, were your shapely thighs and your legs down\nto your fair ancles stained with blood.\n\nWhen King Agamemnon saw the blood flowing from the wound he was afraid,\nand so was brave Menelaus himself till he saw that the barbs of the\narrow and the thread that bound the arrow-head to the shaft were still\noutside the wound. Then he took heart, but Agamemnon heaved a deep sigh\nas he held Menelaus's hand in his own, and his comrades made moan in\nconcert. \"Dear brother,\" he cried, \"I have been the death of you in\npledging this covenant and letting you come forward as our champion.\nThe Trojans have trampled on their oaths and have wounded you;\nnevertheless the oath, the blood of lambs, the drink-offerings and the\nright hands of fellowship in which we have put our trust shall not be\nvain. If he that rules Olympus fulfil it not here and now, he will yet\nfulfil it hereafter, and they shall pay dearly with their lives and\nwith their wives and children. The day will surely come when mighty\nIlius shall be laid low, with Priam and Priam's people, when the son of\nSaturn from his high throne shall overshadow them with his awful aegis\nin punishment of their present treachery. This shall surely be; but\nhow, Menelaus, shall I mourn you, if it be your lot now to die? I\nshould return to Argos as a by-word, for the Achaeans will at once go\nhome. We shall leave Priam and the Trojans the glory of still keeping\nHelen, and the earth will rot your bones as you lie here at Troy with\nyour purpose not fulfilled. Then shall some braggart Trojan leap upon\nyour tomb and say, 'Ever thus may Agamemnon wreak his vengeance; he\nbrought his army in vain; he is gone home to his own land with empty\nships, and has left Menelaus behind him.' Thus will one of them say,\nand may the earth then swallow me.\"\n\nBut Menelaus reassured him and said, \"Take heart, and do not alarm the\npeople; the arrow has not struck me in a mortal part, for my outer belt\nof burnished metal first stayed it, and under this my cuirass and the\nbelt of mail which the bronze-smiths made me.\"\n\nAnd Agamemnon answered, \"I trust, dear Menelaus, that it may be even\nso, but the surgeon shall examine your wound and lay herbs upon it to\nrelieve your pain.\"\n\nHe then said to Talthybius, \"Talthybius, tell Machaon, son to the great\nphysician, Aesculapius, to come and see Menelaus immediately. Some\nTrojan or Lycian archer has wounded him with an arrow to our dismay,\nand to his own great glory.\"\n\nTalthybius did as he was told, and went about the host trying to find\nMachaon. Presently he found standing amid the brave warriors who had\nfollowed him from Tricca; thereon he went up to him and said, \"Son of\nAesculapius, King Agamemnon says you are to come and see Menelaus\nimmediately. Some Trojan or Lycian archer has wounded him with an arrow\nto our dismay and to his own great glory.\"\n\nThus did he speak, and Machaon was moved to go. They passed through the\nspreading host of the Achaeans and went on till they came to the place\nwhere Menelaus had been wounded and was lying with the chieftains\ngathered in a circle round him. Machaon passed into the middle of the\nring and at once drew the arrow from the belt, bending its barbs back\nthrough the force with which he pulled it out. He undid the burnished\nbelt, and beneath this the cuirass and the belt of mail which the\nbronze-smiths had made; then, when he had seen the wound, he wiped away\nthe blood and applied some soothing drugs which Chiron had given to\nAesculapius out of the good will he bore him.\n\nWhile they were thus busy about Menelaus, the Trojans came forward\nagainst them, for they had put on their armour, and now renewed the\nfight.\n\nYou would not have then found Agamemnon asleep nor cowardly and\nunwilling to fight, but eager rather for the fray. He left his chariot\nrich with bronze and his panting steeds in charge of Eurymedon, son of\nPtolemaeus the son of Peiraeus, and bade him hold them in readiness\nagainst the time his limbs should weary of going about and giving\norders to so many, for he went among the ranks on foot. When he saw men\nhasting to the front he stood by them and cheered them on. \"Argives,\"\nsaid he, \"slacken not one whit in your onset; father Jove will be no\nhelper of liars; the Trojans have been the first to break their oaths\nand to attack us; therefore they shall be devoured of vultures; we\nshall take their city and carry off their wives and children in our\nships.\"\n\nBut he angrily rebuked those whom he saw shirking and disinclined to\nfight. \"Argives,\" he cried, \"cowardly miserable creatures, have you no\nshame to stand here like frightened fawns who, when they can no longer\nscud over the plain, huddle together, but show no fight? You are as\ndazed and spiritless as deer. Would you wait till the Trojans reach the\nsterns of our ships as they lie on the shore, to see whether the son of\nSaturn will hold his hand over you to protect you?\"\n\nThus did he go about giving his orders among the ranks. Passing through\nthe crowd, he came presently on the Cretans, arming round Idomeneus,\nwho was at their head, fierce as a wild boar, while Meriones was\nbringing up the battalions that were in the rear. Agamemnon was glad\nwhen he saw him, and spoke him fairly. \"Idomeneus,\" said he, \"I treat\nyou with greater distinction than I do any others of the Achaeans,\nwhether in war or in other things, or at table. When the princes are\nmixing my choicest wines in the mixing-bowls, they have each of them a\nfixed allowance, but your cup is kept always full like my own, that you\nmay drink whenever you are minded. Go, therefore, into battle, and show\nyourself the man you have been always proud to be.\"\n\nIdomeneus answered, \"I will be a trusty comrade, as I promised you from\nthe first I would be. Urge on the other Achaeans, that we may join\nbattle at once, for the Trojans have trampled upon their covenants.\nDeath and destruction shall be theirs, seeing they have been the first\nto break their oaths and to attack us.\"\n\nThe son of Atreus went on, glad at heart, till he came upon the two\nAjaxes arming themselves amid a host of foot-soldiers. As when a\ngoat-herd from some high post watches a storm drive over the deep\nbefore the west wind--black as pitch is the offing and a mighty\nwhirlwind draws towards him, so that he is afraid and drives his flock\ninto a cave--even thus did the ranks of stalwart youths move in a dark\nmass to battle under the Ajaxes, horrid with shield and spear. Glad was\nKing Agamemnon when he saw them. \"No need,\" he cried, \"to give orders\nto such leaders of the Argives as you are, for of your own selves you\nspur your men on to fight with might and main. Would, by father Jove,\nMinerva, and Apollo that all were so minded as you are, for the city of\nPriam would then soon fall beneath our hands, and we should sack it.\"\n\nWith this he left them and went onward to Nestor, the facile speaker of\nthe Pylians, who was marshalling his men and urging them on, in company\nwith Pelagon, Alastor, Chromius, Haemon, and Bias shepherd of his\npeople. He placed his knights with their chariots and horses in the\nfront rank, while the foot-soldiers, brave men and many, whom he could\ntrust, were in the rear. The cowards he drove into the middle, that\nthey might fight whether they would or no. He gave his orders to the\nknights first, bidding them hold their horses well in hand, so as to\navoid confusion. \"Let no man,\" he said, \"relying on his strength or\nhorsemanship, get before the others and engage singly with the Trojans,\nnor yet let him lag behind or you will weaken your attack; but let each\nwhen he meets an enemy's chariot throw his spear from his own; this be\nmuch the best; this is how the men of old took towns and strongholds;\nin this wise were they minded.\"\n\nThus did the old man charge them, for he had been in many a fight, and\nKing Agamemnon was glad. \"I wish,\" he said to him, \"that your limbs\nwere as supple and your strength as sure as your judgment is; but age,\nthe common enemy of mankind, has laid his hand upon you; would that it\nhad fallen upon some other, and that you were still young.\"\n\nAnd Nestor, knight of Gerene, answered, \"Son of Atreus, I too would\ngladly be the man I was when I slew mighty Ereuthalion; but the gods\nwill not give us everything at one and the same time. I was then young,\nand now I am old; still I can go with my knights and give them that\ncounsel which old men have a right to give. The wielding of the spear I\nleave to those who are younger and stronger than myself.\"\n\nAgamemnon went his way rejoicing, and presently found Menestheus, son\nof Peteos, tarrying in his place, and with him were the Athenians loud\nof tongue in battle. Near him also tarried cunning Ulysses, with his\nsturdy Cephallenians round him; they had not yet heard the battle-cry,\nfor the ranks of Trojans and Achaeans had only just begun to move, so\nthey were standing still, waiting for some other columns of the\nAchaeans to attack the Trojans and begin the fighting. When he saw this\nAgamemnon rebuked them and said, \"Son of Peteos, and you other, steeped\nin cunning, heart of guile, why stand you here cowering and waiting on\nothers? You two should be of all men foremost when there is hard\nfighting to be done, for you are ever foremost to accept my invitation\nwhen we councillors of the Achaeans are holding feast. You are glad\nenough then to take your fill of roast meats and to drink wine as long\nas you please, whereas now you would not care though you saw ten\ncolumns of Achaeans engage the enemy in front of you.\"\n\nUlysses glared at him and answered, \"Son of Atreus, what are you\ntalking about? How can you say that we are slack? When the Achaeans are\nin full fight with the Trojans, you shall see, if you care to do so,\nthat the father of Telemachus will join battle with the foremost of\nthem. You are talking idly.\"\n\nWhen Agamemnon saw that Ulysses was angry, he smiled pleasantly at him\nand withdrew his words. \"Ulysses,\" said he, \"noble son of Laertes,\nexcellent in all good counsel, I have neither fault to find nor orders\nto give you, for I know your heart is right, and that you and I are of\na mind. Enough; I will make you amends for what I have said, and if any\nill has now been spoken may the gods bring it to nothing.\"\n\nHe then left them and went on to others. Presently he saw the son of\nTydeus, noble Diomed, standing by his chariot and horses, with\nSthenelus the son of Capaneus beside him; whereon he began to upbraid\nhim. \"Son of Tydeus,\" he said, \"why stand you cowering here upon the\nbrink of battle? Tydeus did not shrink thus, but was ever ahead of his\nmen when leading them on against the foe--so, at least, say they that\nsaw him in battle, for I never set eyes upon him myself. They say that\nthere was no man like him. He came once to Mycenae, not as an enemy but\nas a guest, in company with Polynices to recruit his forces, for they\nwere levying war against the strong city of Thebes, and prayed our\npeople for a body of picked men to help them. The men of Mycenae were\nwilling to let them have one, but Jove dissuaded them by showing them\nunfavourable omens. Tydeus, therefore, and Polynices went their way.\nWhen they had got as far the deep-meadowed and rush-grown banks of the\nAesopus, the Achaeans sent Tydeus as their envoy, and he found the\nCadmeans gathered in great numbers to a banquet in the house of\nEteocles. Stranger though he was, he knew no fear on finding himself\nsingle-handed among so many, but challenged them to contests of all\nkinds, and in each one of them was at once victorious, so mightily did\nMinerva help him. The Cadmeans were incensed at his success, and set a\nforce of fifty youths with two captains--the godlike hero Maeon, son of\nHaemon, and Polyphontes, son of Autophonus--at their head, to lie in\nwait for him on his return journey; but Tydeus slew every man of them,\nsave only Maeon, whom he let go in obedience to heaven's omens. Such\nwas Tydeus of Aetolia. His son can talk more glibly, but he cannot\nfight as his father did.\"\n\nDiomed made no answer, for he was shamed by the rebuke of Agamemnon;\nbut the son of Capaneus took up his words and said, \"Son of Atreus,\ntell no lies, for you can speak truth if you will. We boast ourselves\nas even better men than our fathers; we took seven-gated Thebes, though\nthe wall was stronger and our men were fewer in number, for we trusted\nin the omens of the gods and in the help of Jove, whereas they perished\nthrough their own sheer folly; hold not, then, our fathers in like\nhonour with us.\"\n\nDiomed looked sternly at him and said, \"Hold your peace, my friend, as\nI bid you. It is not amiss that Agamemnon should urge the Achaeans\nforward, for the glory will be his if we take the city, and his the\nshame if we are vanquished. Therefore let us acquit ourselves with\nvalour.\"\n\nAs he spoke he sprang from his chariot, and his armour rang so fiercely\nabout his body that even a brave man might well have been scared to\nhear it.\n\nAs when some mighty wave that thunders on the beach when the west wind\nhas lashed it into fury--it has reared its head afar and now comes\ncrashing down on the shore; it bows its arching crest high over the\njagged rocks and spews its salt foam in all directions--even so did the\nserried phalanxes of the Danaans march steadfastly to battle. The\nchiefs gave orders each to his own people, but the men said never a\nword; no man would think it, for huge as the host was, it seemed as\nthough there was not a tongue among them, so silent were they in their\nobedience; and as they marched the armour about their bodies glistened\nin the sun. But the clamour of the Trojan ranks was as that of many\nthousand ewes that stand waiting to be milked in the yards of some rich\nflockmaster, and bleat incessantly in answer to the bleating of their\nlambs; for they had not one speech nor language, but their tongues were\ndiverse, and they came from many different places. These were inspired\nof Mars, but the others by Minerva--and with them came Panic, Rout, and\nStrife whose fury never tires, sister and friend of murderous Mars,\nwho, from being at first but low in stature, grows till she uprears her\nhead to heaven, though her feet are still on earth. She it was that\nwent about among them and flung down discord to the waxing of sorrow\nwith even hand between them.\n\nWhen they were got together in one place shield clashed with shield and\nspear with spear in the rage of battle. The bossed shields beat one\nupon another, and there was a tramp as of a great multitude--death-cry\nand shout of triumph of slain and slayers, and the earth ran red with\nblood. As torrents swollen with rain course madly down their deep\nchannels till the angry floods meet in some gorge, and the shepherd on\nthe hillside hears their roaring from afar--even such was the toil and\nuproar of the hosts as they joined in battle.\n\nFirst Antilochus slew an armed warrior of the Trojans, Echepolus, son\nof Thalysius, fighting in the foremost ranks. He struck at the\nprojecting part of his helmet and drove the spear into his brow; the\npoint of bronze pierced the bone, and darkness veiled his eyes;\nheadlong as a tower he fell amid the press of the fight, and as he\ndropped King Elephenor, son of Chalcodon and captain of the proud\nAbantes began dragging him out of reach of the darts that were falling\naround him, in haste to strip him of his armour. But his purpose was\nnot for long; Agenor saw him haling the body away, and smote him in the\nside with his bronze-shod spear--for as he stooped his side was left\nunprotected by his shield--and thus he perished. Then the fight between\nTrojans and Achaeans grew furious over his body, and they flew upon\neach other like wolves, man and man crushing one upon the other.\n\nForthwith Ajax, son of Telamon, slew the fair youth Simoeisius, son of\nAnthemion, whom his mother bore by the banks of the Simois, as she was\ncoming down from Mt. Ida, where she had been with her parents to see\ntheir flocks. Therefore he was named Simoeisius, but he did not live to\npay his parents for his rearing, for he was cut off untimely by the\nspear of mighty Ajax, who struck him in the breast by the right nipple\nas he was coming on among the foremost fighters; the spear went right\nthrough his shoulder, and he fell as a poplar that has grown straight\nand tall in a meadow by some mere, and its top is thick with branches.\nThen the wheelwright lays his axe to its roots that he may fashion a\nfelloe for the wheel of some goodly chariot, and it lies seasoning by\nthe waterside. In such wise did Ajax fell to earth Simoeisius, son of\nAnthemion. Thereon Antiphus of the gleaming corslet, son of Priam,\nhurled a spear at Ajax from amid the crowd and missed him, but he hit\nLeucus, the brave comrade of Ulysses, in the groin, as he was dragging\nthe body of Simoeisius over to the other side; so he fell upon the body\nand loosed his hold upon it. Ulysses was furious when he saw Leucus\nslain, and strode in full armour through the front ranks till he was\nquite close; then he glared round about him and took aim, and the\nTrojans fell back as he did so. His dart was not sped in vain, for it\nstruck Democoon, the bastard son of Priam, who had come to him from\nAbydos, where he had charge of his father's mares. Ulysses, infuriated\nby the death of his comrade, hit him with his spear on one temple, and\nthe bronze point came through on the other side of his forehead.\nThereon darkness veiled his eyes, and his armour rang rattling round\nhim as he fell heavily to the ground. Hector, and they that were in\nfront, then gave round while the Argives raised a shout and drew off\nthe dead, pressing further forward as they did so. But Apollo looked\ndown from Pergamus and called aloud to the Trojans, for he was\ndispleased. \"Trojans,\" he cried, \"rush on the foe, and do not let\nyourselves be thus beaten by the Argives. Their skins are not stone nor\niron that when hit them you do them no harm. Moreover, Achilles, the\nson of lovely Thetis, is not fighting, but is nursing his anger at the\nships.\"\n\nThus spoke the mighty god, crying to them from the city, while Jove's\nredoubtable daughter, the Trito-born, went about among the host of the\nAchaeans, and urged them forward whenever she beheld them slackening.\n\nThen fate fell upon Diores, son of Amarynceus, for he was struck by a\njagged stone near the ancle of his right leg. He that hurled it was\nPeirous, son of Imbrasus, captain of the Thracians, who had come from\nAenus; the bones and both the tendons were crushed by the pitiless\nstone. He fell to the ground on his back, and in his death throes\nstretched out his hands towards his comrades. But Peirous, who had\nwounded him, sprang on him and thrust a spear into his belly, so that\nhis bowels came gushing out upon the ground, and darkness veiled his\neyes. As he was leaving the body, Thoas of Aetolia struck him in the\nchest near the nipple, and the point fixed itself in his lungs. Thoas\ncame close up to him, pulled the spear out of his chest, and then\ndrawing his sword, smote him in the middle of the belly so that he\ndied; but he did not strip him of his armour, for his Thracian\ncomrades, men who wear their hair in a tuft at the top of their heads,\nstood round the body and kept him off with their long spears for all\nhis great stature and valour; so he was driven back. Thus the two\ncorpses lay stretched on earth near to one another, the one captain of\nthe Thracians and the other of the Epeans; and many another fell round\nthem.\n\nAnd now no man would have made light of the fighting if he could have\ngone about among it scatheless and unwounded, with Minerva leading him\nby the hand, and protecting him from the storm of spears and arrows.\nFor many Trojans and Achaeans on that day lay stretched side by side\nface downwards upon the earth.\n\n\n\nBOOK V\n\n  The exploits of Diomed, who, though wounded by Pandarus,\n  continues fighting--He kills Pandarus and wounds AEneas--Venus\n  rescues AEneas, but being wounded by Diomed, commits him\n  to the care of Apollo and goes to Olympus, where she is tended\n  by her mother Dione--Mars encourages the Trojans, and\n  AEneas returns to the fight cured of his wound--Minerva and\n  Juno help the Achaeans, and by the advice of the former\n  Diomed wounds Mars, who returns to Olympus to get cured.\n\nThen Pallas Minerva put valour into the heart of Diomed, son of Tydeus,\nthat he might excel all the other Argives, and cover himself with\nglory. She made a stream of fire flare from his shield and helmet like\nthe star that shines most brilliantly in summer after its bath in the\nwaters of Oceanus--even such a fire did she kindle upon his head and\nshoulders as she bade him speed into the thickest hurly-burly of the\nfight.\n\nNow there was a certain rich and honourable man among the Trojans,\npriest of Vulcan, and his name was Dares. He had two sons, Phegeus and\nIdaeus, both of them skilled in all the arts of war. These two came\nforward from the main body of Trojans, and set upon Diomed, he being on\nfoot, while they fought from their chariot. When they were close up to\none another, Phegeus took aim first, but his spear went over Diomed's\nleft shoulder without hitting him. Diomed then threw, and his spear\nsped not in vain, for it hit Phegeus on the breast near the nipple, and\nhe fell from his chariot. Idaeus did not dare to bestride his brother's\nbody, but sprang from the chariot and took to flight, or he would have\nshared his brother's fate; whereon Vulcan saved him by wrapping him in\na cloud of darkness, that his old father might not be utterly\noverwhelmed with grief; but the son of Tydeus drove off with the\nhorses, and bade his followers take them to the ships. The Trojans were\nscared when they saw the two sons of Dares, one of them in fright and\nthe other lying dead by his chariot. Minerva, therefore, took Mars by\nthe hand and said, \"Mars, Mars, bane of men, bloodstained stormer of\ncities, may we not now leave the Trojans and Achaeans to fight it out,\nand see to which of the two Jove will vouchsafe the victory? Let us go\naway, and thus avoid his anger.\"\n\nSo saying, she drew Mars out of the battle, and set him down upon the\nsteep banks of the Scamander. Upon this the Danaans drove the Trojans\nback, and each one of their chieftains killed his man. First King\nAgamemnon flung mighty Odius, captain of the Halizoni, from his\nchariot. The spear of Agamemnon caught him on the broad of his back,\njust as he was turning in flight; it struck him between the shoulders\nand went right through his chest, and his armour rang rattling round\nhim as he fell heavily to the ground.\n\nThen Idomeneus killed Phaesus, son of Borus the Meonian, who had come\nfrom Varne. Mighty Idomeneus speared him on the right shoulder as he\nwas mounting his chariot, and the darkness of death enshrouded him as\nhe fell heavily from the car.\n\nThe squires of Idomeneus spoiled him of his armour, while Menelaus, son\nof Atreus, killed Scamandrius the son of Strophius, a mighty huntsman\nand keen lover of the chase. Diana herself had taught him how to kill\nevery kind of wild creature that is bred in mountain forests, but\nneither she nor his famed skill in archery could now save him, for the\nspear of Menelaus struck him in the back as he was flying; it struck\nhim between the shoulders and went right through his chest, so that he\nfell headlong and his armour rang rattling round him.\n\nMeriones then killed Phereclus the son of Tecton, who was the son of\nHermon, a man whose hand was skilled in all manner of cunning\nworkmanship, for Pallas Minerva had dearly loved him. He it was that\nmade the ships for Alexandrus, which were the beginning of all\nmischief, and brought evil alike both on the Trojans and on Alexandrus\nhimself; for he heeded not the decrees of heaven. Meriones overtook him\nas he was flying, and struck him on the right buttock. The point of the\nspear went through the bone into the bladder, and death came upon him\nas he cried aloud and fell forward on his knees.\n\nMeges, moreover, slew Pedaeus, son of Antenor, who, though he was a\nbastard, had been brought up by Theano as one of her own children, for\nthe love she bore her husband. The son of Phyleus got close up to him\nand drove a spear into the nape of his neck: it went under his tongue\nall among his teeth, so he bit the cold bronze, and fell dead in the\ndust.\n\nAnd Eurypylus, son of Euaemon, killed Hypsenor, the son of noble\nDolopion, who had been made priest of the river Scamander, and was\nhonoured among the people as though he were a god. Eurypylus gave him\nchase as he was flying before him, smote him with his sword upon the\narm, and lopped his strong hand from off it. The bloody hand fell to\nthe ground, and the shades of death, with fate that no man can\nwithstand, came over his eyes.\n\nThus furiously did the battle rage between them. As for the son of\nTydeus, you could not say whether he was more among the Achaeans or the\nTrojans. He rushed across the plain like a winter torrent that has\nburst its barrier in full flood; no dykes, no walls of fruitful\nvineyards can embank it when it is swollen with rain from heaven, but\nin a moment it comes tearing onward, and lays many a field waste that\nmany a strong man's hand has reclaimed--even so were the dense\nphalanxes of the Trojans driven in rout by the son of Tydeus, and many\nthough they were, they dared not abide his onslaught.\n\nNow when the son of Lycaon saw him scouring the plain and driving the\nTrojans pell-mell before him, he aimed an arrow and hit the front part\nof his cuirass near the shoulder: the arrow went right through the\nmetal and pierced the flesh, so that the cuirass was covered with\nblood. On this the son of Lycaon shouted in triumph, \"Knights Trojans,\ncome on; the bravest of the Achaeans is wounded, and he will not hold\nout much longer if King Apollo was indeed with me when I sped from\nLycia hither.\"\n\nThus did he vaunt; but his arrow had not killed Diomed, who withdrew\nand made for the chariot and horses of Sthenelus, the son of Capaneus.\n\"Dear son of Capaneus,\" said he, \"come down from your chariot, and draw\nthe arrow out of my shoulder.\"\n\nSthenelus sprang from his chariot, and drew the arrow from the wound,\nwhereon the blood came spouting out through the hole that had been made\nin his shirt. Then Diomed prayed, saying, \"Hear me, daughter of\naegis-bearing Jove, unweariable, if ever you loved my father well and\nstood by him in the thick of a fight, do the like now by me; grant me\nto come within a spear's throw of that man and kill him. He has been\ntoo quick for me and has wounded me; and now he is boasting that I\nshall not see the light of the sun much longer.\"\n\nThus he prayed, and Pallas Minerva heard him; she made his limbs supple\nand quickened his hands and his feet. Then she went up close to him and\nsaid, \"Fear not, Diomed, to do battle with the Trojans, for I have set\nin your heart the spirit of your knightly father Tydeus. Moreover, I\nhave withdrawn the veil from your eyes, that you know gods and men\napart. If, then, any other god comes here and offers you battle, do not\nfight him; but should Jove's daughter Venus come, strike her with your\nspear and wound her.\"\n\nWhen she had said this Minerva went away, and the son of Tydeus again\ntook his place among the foremost fighters, three times more fierce\neven than he had been before. He was like a lion that some mountain\nshepherd has wounded, but not killed, as he is springing over the wall\nof a sheep-yard to attack the sheep. The shepherd has roused the brute\nto fury but cannot defend his flock, so he takes shelter under cover of\nthe buildings, while the sheep, panic-stricken on being deserted, are\nsmothered in heaps one on top of the other, and the angry lion leaps\nout over the sheep-yard wall. Even thus did Diomed go furiously about\namong the Trojans.\n\nHe killed Astynous, and Hypeiron shepherd of his people, the one with a\nthrust of his spear, which struck him above the nipple, the other with\na sword-cut on the collar-bone, that severed his shoulder from his neck\nand back. He let both of them lie, and went in pursuit of Abas and\nPolyidus, sons of the old reader of dreams Eurydamas: they never came\nback for him to read them any more dreams, for mighty Diomed made an\nend of them. He then gave chase to Xanthus and Thoon, the two sons of\nPhaenops, both of them very dear to him, for he was now worn out with\nage, and begat no more sons to inherit his possessions. But Diomed took\nboth their lives and left their father sorrowing bitterly, for he\nnevermore saw them come home from battle alive, and his kinsmen divided\nhis wealth among themselves.\n\nThen he came upon two sons of Priam, Echemmon and Chromius, as they\nwere both in one chariot. He sprang upon them as a lion fastens on the\nneck of some cow or heifer when the herd is feeding in a coppice. For\nall their vain struggles he flung them both from their chariot and\nstripped the armour from their bodies. Then he gave their horses to his\ncomrades to take them back to the ships.\n\nWhen Aeneas saw him thus making havoc among the ranks, he went through\nthe fight amid the rain of spears to see if he could find Pandarus.\nWhen he had found the brave son of Lycaon he said, \"Pandarus, where is\nnow your bow, your winged arrows, and your renown as an archer, in\nrespect of which no man here can rival you nor is there any in Lycia\nthat can beat you? Lift then your hands to Jove and send an arrow at\nthis fellow who is going so masterfully about, and has done such deadly\nwork among the Trojans. He has killed many a brave man--unless indeed\nhe is some god who is angry with the Trojans about their sacrifices,\nand and has set his hand against them in his displeasure.\"\n\nAnd the son of Lycaon answered, \"Aeneas, I take him for none other than\nthe son of Tydeus. I know him by his shield, the visor of his helmet,\nand by his horses. It is possible that he may be a god, but if he is\nthe man I say he is, he is not making all this havoc without heaven's\nhelp, but has some god by his side who is shrouded in a cloud of\ndarkness, and who turned my arrow aside when it had hit him. I have\ntaken aim at him already and hit him on the right shoulder; my arrow\nwent through the breastpiece of his cuirass; and I made sure I should\nsend him hurrying to the world below, but it seems that I have not\nkilled him. There must be a god who is angry with me. Moreover I have\nneither horse nor chariot. In my father's stables there are eleven\nexcellent chariots, fresh from the builder, quite new, with cloths\nspread over them; and by each of them there stand a pair of horses,\nchamping barley and rye; my old father Lycaon urged me again and again\nwhen I was at home and on the point of starting, to take chariots and\nhorses with me that I might lead the Trojans in battle, but I would not\nlisten to him; it would have been much better if I had done so, but I\nwas thinking about the horses, which had been used to eat their fill,\nand I was afraid that in such a great gathering of men they might be\nill-fed, so I left them at home and came on foot to Ilius armed only\nwith my bow and arrows. These it seems, are of no use, for I have\nalready hit two chieftains, the sons of Atreus and of Tydeus, and\nthough I drew blood surely enough, I have only made them still more\nfurious. I did ill to take my bow down from its peg on the day I led my\nband of Trojans to Ilius in Hector's service, and if ever I get home\nagain to set eyes on my native place, my wife, and the greatness of my\nhouse, may some one cut my head off then and there if I do not break\nthe bow and set it on a hot fire--such pranks as it plays me.\"\n\nAeneas answered, \"Say no more. Things will not mend till we two go\nagainst this man with chariot and horses and bring him to a trial of\narms. Mount my chariot, and note how cleverly the horses of Tros can\nspeed hither and thither over the plain in pursuit or flight. If Jove\nagain vouchsafes glory to the son of Tydeus they will carry us safely\nback to the city. Take hold, then, of the whip and reins while I stand\nupon the car to fight, or else do you wait this man's onset while I\nlook after the horses.\"\n\n\"Aeneas,\" replied the son of Lycaon, \"take the reins and drive; if we\nhave to fly before the son of Tydeus the horses will go better for\ntheir own driver. If they miss the sound of your voice when they expect\nit they may be frightened, and refuse to take us out of the fight. The\nson of Tydeus will then kill both of us and take the horses. Therefore\ndrive them yourself and I will be ready for him with my spear.\"\n\nThey then mounted the chariot and drove full-speed towards the son of\nTydeus. Sthenelus, son of Capaneus, saw them coming and said to Diomed,\n\"Diomed, son of Tydeus, man after my own heart, I see two heroes\nspeeding towards you, both of them men of might the one a skilful\narcher, Pandarus son of Lycaon, the other, Aeneas, whose sire is\nAnchises, while his mother is Venus. Mount the chariot and let us\nretreat. Do not, I pray you, press so furiously forward, or you may get\nkilled.\"\n\nDiomed looked angrily at him and answered: \"Talk not of flight, for I\nshall not listen to you: I am of a race that knows neither flight nor\nfear, and my limbs are as yet unwearied. I am in no mind to mount, but\nwill go against them even as I am; Pallas Minerva bids me be afraid of\nno man, and even though one of them escape, their steeds shall not take\nboth back again. I say further, and lay my saying to your heart--if\nMinerva sees fit to vouchsafe me the glory of killing both, stay your\nhorses here and make the reins fast to the rim of the chariot; then be\nsure you spring Aeneas' horses and drive them from the Trojan to the\nAchaean ranks. They are of the stock that great Jove gave to Tros in\npayment for his son Ganymede, and are the finest that live and move\nunder the sun. King Anchises stole the blood by putting his mares to\nthem without Laomedon's knowledge, and they bore him six foals. Four\nare still in his stables, but he gave the other two to Aeneas. We shall\nwin great glory if we can take them.\"\n\nThus did they converse, but the other two had now driven close up to\nthem, and the son of Lycaon spoke first. \"Great and mighty son,\" said\nhe, \"of noble Tydeus, my arrow failed to lay you low, so I will now try\nwith my spear.\"\n\nHe poised his spear as he spoke and hurled it from him. It struck the\nshield of the son of Tydeus; the bronze point pierced it and passed on\ntill it reached the breastplate. Thereon the son of Lycaon shouted out\nand said, \"You are hit clean through the belly; you will not stand out\nfor long, and the glory of the fight is mine.\"\n\nBut Diomed all undismayed made answer, \"You have missed, not hit, and\nbefore you two see the end of this matter one or other of you shall\nglut tough-shielded Mars with his blood.\"\n\nWith this he hurled his spear, and Minerva guided it on to Pandarus's\nnose near the eye. It went crashing in among his white teeth; the\nbronze point cut through the root of his tongue, coming out under his\nchin, and his glistening armour rang rattling round him as he fell\nheavily to the ground. The horses started aside for fear, and he was\nreft of life and strength.\n\nAeneas sprang from his chariot armed with shield and spear, fearing\nlest the Achaeans should carry off the body. He bestrode it as a lion\nin the pride of strength, with shield and spear before him and a cry of\nbattle on his lips resolute to kill the first that should dare face\nhim. But the son of Tydeus caught up a mighty stone, so huge and great\nthat as men now are it would take two to lift it; nevertheless he bore\nit aloft with ease unaided, and with this he struck Aeneas on the groin\nwhere the hip turns in the joint that is called the \"cup-bone.\" The\nstone crushed this joint, and broke both the sinews, while its jagged\nedges tore away all the flesh. The hero fell on his knees, and propped\nhimself with his hand resting on the ground till the darkness of night\nfell upon his eyes. And now Aeneas, king of men, would have perished\nthen and there, had not his mother, Jove's daughter Venus, who had\nconceived him by Anchises when he was herding cattle, been quick to\nmark, and thrown her two white arms about the body of her dear son. She\nprotected him by covering him with a fold of her own fair garment, lest\nsome Danaan should drive a spear into his breast and kill him.\n\nThus, then, did she bear her dear son out of the fight. But the son of\nCapaneus was not unmindful of the orders that Diomed had given him. He\nmade his own horses fast, away from the hurly-burly, by binding the\nreins to the rim of the chariot. Then he sprang upon Aeneas's horses\nand drove them from the Trojan to the Achaean ranks. When he had so\ndone he gave them over to his chosen comrade Deipylus, whom he valued\nabove all others as the one who was most like-minded with himself, to\ntake them on to the ships. He then remounted his own chariot, seized\nthe reins, and drove with all speed in search of the son of Tydeus.\n\nNow the son of Tydeus was in pursuit of the Cyprian goddess, spear in\nhand, for he knew her to be feeble and not one of those goddesses that\ncan lord it among men in battle like Minerva or Enyo the waster of\ncities, and when at last after a long chase he caught her up, he flew\nat her and thrust his spear into the flesh of her delicate hand. The\npoint tore through the ambrosial robe which the Graces had woven for\nher, and pierced the skin between her wrist and the palm of her hand,\nso that the immortal blood, or ichor, that flows in the veins of the\nblessed gods, came pouring from the wound; for the gods do not eat\nbread nor drink wine, hence they have no blood such as ours, and are\nimmortal. Venus screamed aloud, and let her son fall, but Phoebus\nApollo caught him in his arms, and hid him in a cloud of darkness, lest\nsome Danaan should drive a spear into his breast and kill him; and\nDiomed shouted out as he left her, \"Daughter of Jove, leave war and\nbattle alone, can you not be contented with beguiling silly women? If\nyou meddle with fighting you will get what will make you shudder at the\nvery name of war.\"\n\nThe goddess went dazed and discomfited away, and Iris, fleet as the\nwind, drew her from the throng, in pain and with her fair skin all\nbesmirched. She found fierce Mars waiting on the left of the battle,\nwith his spear and his two fleet steeds resting on a cloud; whereon she\nfell on her knees before her brother and implored him to let her have\nhis horses. \"Dear brother,\" she cried, \"save me, and give me your\nhorses to take me to Olympus where the gods dwell. I am badly wounded\nby a mortal, the son of Tydeus, who would now fight even with father\nJove.\"\n\nThus she spoke, and Mars gave her his gold-bedizened steeds. She\nmounted the chariot sick and sorry at heart, while Iris sat beside her\nand took the reins in her hand. She lashed her horses on and they flew\nforward nothing loth, till in a trice they were at high Olympus, where\nthe gods have their dwelling. There she stayed them, unloosed them from\nthe chariot, and gave them their ambrosial forage; but Venus flung\nherself on to the lap of her mother Dione, who threw her arms about her\nand caressed her, saying, \"Which of the heavenly beings has been\ntreating you in this way, as though you had been doing something wrong\nin the face of day?\"\n\nAnd laughter-loving Venus answered, \"Proud Diomed, the son of Tydeus,\nwounded me because I was bearing my dear son Aeneas, whom I love best\nof all mankind, out of the fight. The war is no longer one between\nTrojans and Achaeans, for the Danaans have now taken to fighting with\nthe immortals.\"\n\n\"Bear it, my child,\" replied Dione, \"and make the best of it. We\ndwellers in Olympus have to put up with much at the hands of men, and\nwe lay much suffering on one another. Mars had to suffer when Otus and\nEphialtes, children of Aloeus, bound him in cruel bonds, so that he lay\nthirteen months imprisoned in a vessel of bronze. Mars would have then\nperished had not fair Eeriboea, stepmother to the sons of Aloeus, told\nMercury, who stole him away when he was already well-nigh worn out by\nthe severity of his bondage. Juno, again, suffered when the mighty son\nof Amphitryon wounded her on the right breast with a three-barbed\narrow, and nothing could assuage her pain. So, also, did huge Hades,\nwhen this same man, the son of aegis-bearing Jove, hit him with an\narrow even at the gates of hell, and hurt him badly. Thereon Hades went\nto the house of Jove on great Olympus, angry and full of pain; and the\narrow in his brawny shoulder caused him great anguish till Paeeon\nhealed him by spreading soothing herbs on the wound, for Hades was not\nof mortal mould. Daring, head-strong, evildoer who recked not of his\nsin in shooting the gods that dwell in Olympus. And now Minerva has\negged this son of Tydeus on against yourself, fool that he is for not\nreflecting that no man who fights with gods will live long or hear his\nchildren prattling about his knees when he returns from battle. Let,\nthen, the son of Tydeus see that he does not have to fight with one who\nis stronger than you are. Then shall his brave wife Aegialeia, daughter\nof Adrestus, rouse her whole house from sleep, wailing for the loss of\nher wedded lord, Diomed the bravest of the Achaeans.\"\n\nSo saying, she wiped the ichor from the wrist of her daughter with both\nhands, whereon the pain left her, and her hand was healed. But Minerva\nand Juno, who were looking on, began to taunt Jove with their mocking\ntalk, and Minerva was first to speak. \"Father Jove,\" said she, \"do not\nbe angry with me, but I think the Cyprian must have been persuading\nsome one of the Achaean women to go with the Trojans of whom she is so\nvery fond, and while caressing one or other of them she must have torn\nher delicate hand with the gold pin of the woman's brooch.\"\n\nThe sire of gods and men smiled, and called golden Venus to his side.\n\"My child,\" said he, \"it has not been given you to be a warrior.\nAttend, henceforth, to your own delightful matrimonial duties, and\nleave all this fighting to Mars and to Minerva.\"\n\nThus did they converse. But Diomed sprang upon Aeneas, though he knew\nhim to be in the very arms of Apollo. Not one whit did he fear the\nmighty god, so set was he on killing Aeneas and stripping him of his\narmour. Thrice did he spring forward with might and main to slay him,\nand thrice did Apollo beat back his gleaming shield. When he was coming\non for the fourth time, as though he were a god, Apollo shouted to him\nwith an awful voice and said, \"Take heed, son of Tydeus, and draw off;\nthink not to match yourself against gods, for men that walk the earth\ncannot hold their own with the immortals.\"\n\nThe son of Tydeus then gave way for a little space, to avoid the anger\nof the god, while Apollo took Aeneas out of the crowd and set him in\nsacred Pergamus, where his temple stood. There, within the mighty\nsanctuary, Latona and Diana healed him and made him glorious to behold,\nwhile Apollo of the silver bow fashioned a wraith in the likeness of\nAeneas, and armed as he was. Round this the Trojans and Achaeans hacked\nat the bucklers about one another's breasts, hewing each other's round\nshields and light hide-covered targets. Then Phoebus Apollo said to\nMars, \"Mars, Mars, bane of men, blood-stained stormer of cities, can\nyou not go to this man, the son of Tydeus, who would now fight even\nwith father Jove, and draw him out of the battle? He first went up to\nthe Cyprian and wounded her in the hand near her wrist, and afterwards\nsprang upon me too, as though he were a god.\"\n\nHe then took his seat on the top of Pergamus, while murderous Mars went\nabout among the ranks of the Trojans, cheering them on, in the likeness\nof fleet Acamas chief of the Thracians. \"Sons of Priam,\" said he, \"how\nlong will you let your people be thus slaughtered by the Achaeans?\nWould you wait till they are at the walls of Troy? Aeneas the son of\nAnchises has fallen, he whom we held in as high honour as Hector\nhimself. Help me, then, to rescue our brave comrade from the stress of\nthe fight.\"\n\nWith these words he put heart and soul into them all. Then Sarpedon\nrebuked Hector very sternly. \"Hector,\" said he, \"where is your prowess\nnow? You used to say that though you had neither people nor allies you\ncould hold the town alone with your brothers and brothers-in-law. I see\nnot one of them here; they cower as hounds before a lion; it is we,\nyour allies, who bear the brunt of the battle. I have come from afar,\neven from Lycia and the banks of the river Xanthus, where I have left\nmy wife, my infant son, and much wealth to tempt whoever is needy;\nnevertheless, I head my Lycian soldiers and stand my ground against any\nwho would fight me though I have nothing here for the Achaeans to\nplunder, while you look on, without even bidding your men stand firm in\ndefence of their wives. See that you fall not into the hands of your\nfoes as men caught in the meshes of a net, and they sack your fair city\nforthwith. Keep this before your mind night and day, and beseech the\ncaptains of your allies to hold on without flinching, and thus put away\ntheir reproaches from you.\"\n\nSo spoke Sarpedon, and Hector smarted under his words. He sprang from\nhis chariot clad in his suit of armour, and went about among the host\nbrandishing his two spears, exhorting the men to fight and raising the\nterrible cry of battle. Then they rallied and again faced the Achaeans,\nbut the Argives stood compact and firm, and were not driven back. As\nthe breezes sport with the chaff upon some goodly threshing-floor, when\nmen are winnowing--while yellow Ceres blows with the wind to sift the\nchaff from the grain, and the chaff-heaps grow whiter and whiter--even\nso did the Achaeans whiten in the dust which the horses' hoofs raised\nto the firmament of heaven, as their drivers turned them back to\nbattle, and they bore down with might upon the foe. Fierce Mars, to\nhelp the Trojans, covered them in a veil of darkness, and went about\neverywhere among them, inasmuch as Phoebus Apollo had told him that\nwhen he saw Pallas Minerva leave the fray he was to put courage into\nthe hearts of the Trojans--for it was she who was helping the Danaans.\nThen Apollo sent Aeneas forth from his rich sanctuary, and filled his\nheart with valour, whereon he took his place among his comrades, who\nwere overjoyed at seeing him alive, sound, and of a good courage; but\nthey could not ask him how it had all happened, for they were too busy\nwith the turmoil raised by Mars and by Strife, who raged insatiably in\ntheir midst.\n\nThe two Ajaxes, Ulysses and Diomed, cheered the Danaans on, fearless of\nthe fury and onset of the Trojans. They stood as still as clouds which\nthe son of Saturn has spread upon the mountain tops when there is no\nair and fierce Boreas sleeps with the other boisterous winds whose\nshrill blasts scatter the clouds in all directions--even so did the\nDanaans stand firm and unflinching against the Trojans. The son of\nAtreus went about among them and exhorted them. \"My friends,\" said he,\n\"quit yourselves like brave men, and shun dishonour in one another's\neyes amid the stress of battle. They that shun dishonour more often\nlive than get killed, but they that fly save neither life nor name.\"\n\nAs he spoke he hurled his spear and hit one of those who were in the\nfront rank, the comrade of Aeneas, Deicoon son of Pergasus, whom the\nTrojans held in no less honour than the sons of Priam, for he was ever\nquick to place himself among the foremost. The spear of King Agamemnon\nstruck his shield and went right through it, for the shield stayed it\nnot. It drove through his belt into the lower part of his belly, and\nhis armour rang rattling round him as he fell heavily to the ground.\n\nThen Aeneas killed two champions of the Danaans, Crethon and\nOrsilochus. Their father was a rich man who lived in the strong city of\nPhere and was descended from the river Alpheus, whose broad stream\nflows through the land of the Pylians. The river begat Orsilochus, who\nruled over much people and was father to Diocles, who in his turn begat\ntwin sons, Crethon and Orsilochus, well skilled in all the arts of war.\nThese, when they grew up, went to Ilius with the Argive fleet in the\ncause of Menelaus and Agamemnon sons of Atreus, and there they both of\nthem fell. As two lions whom their dam has reared in the depths of some\nmountain forest to plunder homesteads and carry off sheep and cattle\ntill they get killed by the hand of man, so were these two vanquished\nby Aeneas, and fell like high pine-trees to the ground.\n\nBrave Menelaus pitied them in their fall, and made his way to the\nfront, clad in gleaming bronze and brandishing his spear, for Mars\negged him on to do so with intent that he should be killed by Aeneas;\nbut Antilochus the son of Nestor saw him and sprang forward, fearing\nthat the king might come to harm and thus bring all their labour to\nnothing; when, therefore Aeneas and Menelaus were setting their hands\nand spears against one another eager to do battle, Antilochus placed\nhimself by the side of Menelaus. Aeneas, bold though he was, drew back\non seeing the two heroes side by side in front of him, so they drew the\nbodies of Crethon and Orsilochus to the ranks of the Achaeans and\ncommitted the two poor fellows into the hands of their comrades. They\nthen turned back and fought in the front ranks.\n\nThey killed Pylaemenes peer of Mars, leader of the Paphlagonian\nwarriors. Menelaus struck him on the collar-bone as he was standing on\nhis chariot, while Antilochus hit his charioteer and squire Mydon, the\nson of Atymnius, who was turning his horses in flight. He hit him with\na stone upon the elbow, and the reins, enriched with white ivory, fell\nfrom his hands into the dust. Antilochus rushed towards him and struck\nhim on the temples with his sword, whereon he fell head first from the\nchariot to the ground. There he stood for a while with his head and\nshoulders buried deep in the dust--for he had fallen on sandy soil till\nhis horses kicked him and laid him flat on the ground, as Antilochus\nlashed them and drove them off to the host of the Achaeans.\n\nBut Hector marked them from across the ranks, and with a loud cry\nrushed towards them, followed by the strong battalions of the Trojans.\nMars and dread Enyo led them on, she fraught with ruthless turmoil of\nbattle, while Mars wielded a monstrous spear, and went about, now in\nfront of Hector and now behind him.\n\nDiomed shook with passion as he saw them. As a man crossing a wide\nplain is dismayed to find himself on the brink of some great river\nrolling swiftly to the sea--he sees its boiling waters and starts back\nin fear--even so did the son of Tydeus give ground. Then he said to his\nmen, \"My friends, how can we wonder that Hector wields the spear so\nwell? Some god is ever by his side to protect him, and now Mars is with\nhim in the likeness of mortal man. Keep your faces therefore towards\nthe Trojans, but give ground backwards, for we dare not fight with\ngods.\"\n\nAs he spoke the Trojans drew close up, and Hector killed two men, both\nin one chariot, Menesthes and Anchialus, heroes well versed in war.\nAjax son of Telamon pitied them in their fall; he came close up and\nhurled his spear, hitting Amphius the son of Selagus, a man of great\nwealth who lived in Paesus and owned much corn-growing land, but his\nlot had led him to come to the aid of Priam and his sons. Ajax struck\nhim in the belt; the spear pierced the lower part of his belly, and he\nfell heavily to the ground. Then Ajax ran towards him to strip him of\nhis armour, but the Trojans rained spears upon him, many of which fell\nupon his shield. He planted his heel upon the body and drew out his\nspear, but the darts pressed so heavily upon him that he could not\nstrip the goodly armour from his shoulders. The Trojan chieftains,\nmoreover, many and valiant, came about him with their spears, so that\nhe dared not stay; great, brave and valiant though he was, they drove\nhim from them and he was beaten back.\n\nThus, then, did the battle rage between them. Presently the strong hand\nof fate impelled Tlepolemus, the son of Hercules, a man both brave and\nof great stature, to fight Sarpedon; so the two, son and grandson of\ngreat Jove, drew near to one another, and Tlepolemus spoke first.\n\"Sarpedon,\" said he, \"councillor of the Lycians, why should you come\nskulking here you who are a man of peace? They lie who call you son of\naegis-bearing Jove, for you are little like those who were of old his\nchildren. Far other was Hercules, my own brave and lion-hearted father,\nwho came here for the horses of Laomedon, and though he had six ships\nonly, and few men to follow him, sacked the city of Ilius and made a\nwilderness of her highways. You are a coward, and your people are\nfalling from you. For all your strength, and all your coming from\nLycia, you will be no help to the Trojans but will pass the gates of\nHades vanquished by my hand.\"\n\nAnd Sarpedon, captain of the Lycians, answered, \"Tlepolemus, your\nfather overthrew Ilius by reason of Laomedon's folly in refusing\npayment to one who had served him well. He would not give your father\nthe horses which he had come so far to fetch. As for yourself, you\nshall meet death by my spear. You shall yield glory to myself, and your\nsoul to Hades of the noble steeds.\"\n\nThus spoke Sarpedon, and Tlepolemus upraised his spear. They threw at\nthe same moment, and Sarpedon struck his foe in the middle of his\nthroat; the spear went right through, and the darkness of death fell\nupon his eyes. Tlepolemus's spear struck Sarpedon on the left thigh\nwith such force that it tore through the flesh and grazed the bone, but\nhis father as yet warded off destruction from him.\n\nHis comrades bore Sarpedon out of the fight, in great pain by the\nweight of the spear that was dragging from his wound. They were in such\nhaste and stress as they bore him that no one thought of drawing the\nspear from his thigh so as to let him walk uprightly. Meanwhile the\nAchaeans carried off the body of Tlepolemus, whereon Ulysses was moved\nto pity, and panted for the fray as he beheld them. He doubted whether\nto pursue the son of Jove, or to make slaughter of the Lycian rank and\nfile; it was not decreed, however, that he should slay the son of Jove;\nMinerva, therefore, turned him against the main body of the Lycians. He\nkilled Coeranus, Alastor, Chromius, Alcandrus, Halius, Noemon, and\nPrytanis, and would have slain yet more, had not great Hector marked\nhim, and sped to the front of the fight clad in his suit of mail,\nfilling the Danaans with terror. Sarpedon was glad when he saw him\ncoming, and besought him, saying, \"Son of Priam, let me not be here to\nfall into the hands of the Danaans. Help me, and since I may not return\nhome to gladden the hearts of my wife and of my infant son, let me die\nwithin the walls of your city.\"\n\nHector made him no answer, but rushed onward to fall at once upon the\nAchaeans and kill many among them. His comrades then bore Sarpedon away\nand laid him beneath Jove's spreading oak tree. Pelagon, his friend and\ncomrade, drew the spear out of his thigh, but Sarpedon fainted and a\nmist came over his eyes. Presently he came to himself again, for the\nbreath of the north wind as it played upon him gave him new life, and\nbrought him out of the deep swoon into which he had fallen.\n\nMeanwhile the Argives were neither driven towards their ships by Mars\nand Hector, nor yet did they attack them; when they knew that Mars was\nwith the Trojans they retreated, but kept their faces still turned\ntowards the foe. Who, then, was first and who last to be slain by Mars\nand Hector? They were valiant Teuthras, and Orestes the renowned\ncharioteer, Trechus the Aetolian warrior, Oenomaus, Helenus the son of\nOenops, and Oresbius of the gleaming girdle, who was possessed of great\nwealth, and dwelt by the Cephisian lake with the other Boeotians who\nlived near him, owners of a fertile country.\n\nNow when the goddess Juno saw the Argives thus falling, she said to\nMinerva, \"Alas, daughter of aegis-bearing Jove, unweariable, the\npromise we made Menelaus that he should not return till he had sacked\nthe city of Ilius will be of no effect if we let Mars rage thus\nfuriously. Let us go into the fray at once.\"\n\nMinerva did not gainsay her. Thereon the august goddess, daughter of\ngreat Saturn, began to harness her gold-bedizened steeds. Hebe with all\nspeed fitted on the eight-spoked wheels of bronze that were on either\nside of the iron axle-tree. The felloes of the wheels were of gold,\nimperishable, and over these there was a tire of bronze, wondrous to\nbehold. The naves of the wheels were silver, turning round the axle\nupon either side. The car itself was made with plaited bands of gold\nand silver, and it had a double top-rail running all round it. From the\nbody of the car there went a pole of silver, on to the end of which she\nbound the golden yoke, with the bands of gold that were to go under the\nnecks of the horses Then Juno put her steeds under the yoke, eager for\nbattle and the war-cry.\n\nMeanwhile Minerva flung her richly embroidered vesture, made with her\nown hands, on to her father's threshold, and donned the shirt of Jove,\narming herself for battle. She threw her tasselled aegis about her\nshoulders, wreathed round with Rout as with a fringe, and on it were\nStrife, and Strength, and Panic whose blood runs cold; moreover there\nwas the head of the dread monster Gorgon, grim and awful to behold,\nportent of aegis-bearing Jove. On her head she set her helmet of gold,\nwith four plumes, and coming to a peak both in front and behind--decked\nwith the emblems of a hundred cities; then she stepped into her flaming\nchariot and grasped the spear, so stout and sturdy and strong, with\nwhich she quells the ranks of heroes who have displeased her. Juno\nlashed the horses on, and the gates of heaven bellowed as they flew\nopen of their own accord--gates over which the Hours preside, in whose\nhands are Heaven and Olympus, either to open the dense cloud that hides\nthem, or to close it. Through these the goddesses drove their obedient\nsteeds, and found the son of Saturn sitting all alone on the topmost\nridges of Olympus. There Juno stayed her horses, and spoke to Jove the\nson of Saturn, lord of all. \"Father Jove,\" said she, \"are you not angry\nwith Mars for these high doings? how great and goodly a host of the\nAchaeans he has destroyed to my great grief, and without either right\nor reason, while the Cyprian and Apollo are enjoying it all at their\nease and setting this unrighteous madman on to do further mischief. I\nhope, Father Jove, that you will not be angry if I hit Mars hard, and\nchase him out of the battle.\"\n\nAnd Jove answered, \"Set Minerva on to him, for she punishes him more\noften than any one else does.\"\n\nJuno did as he had said. She lashed her horses, and they flew forward\nnothing loth midway betwixt earth and sky. As far as a man can see when\nhe looks out upon the sea from some high beacon, so far can the\nloud-neighing horses of the gods spring at a single bound. When they\nreached Troy and the place where its two flowing streams Simois and\nScamander meet, there Juno stayed them and took them from the chariot.\nShe hid them in a thick cloud, and Simois made ambrosia spring up for\nthem to eat; the two goddesses then went on, flying like turtledoves in\ntheir eagerness to help the Argives. When they came to the part where\nthe bravest and most in number were gathered about mighty Diomed,\nfighting like lions or wild boars of great strength and endurance,\nthere Juno stood still and raised a shout like that of brazen-voiced\nStentor, whose cry was as loud as that of fifty men together.\n\"Argives,\" she cried; \"shame on cowardly creatures, brave in semblance\nonly; as long as Achilles was fighting, if his spear was so deadly that\nthe Trojans dared not show themselves outside the Dardanian gates, but\nnow they sally far from the city and fight even at your ships.\"\n\nWith these words she put heart and soul into them all, while Minerva\nsprang to the side of the son of Tydeus, whom she found near his\nchariot and horses, cooling the wound that Pandarus had given him. For\nthe sweat caused by the hand that bore the weight of his shield\nirritated the hurt: his arm was weary with pain, and he was lifting up\nthe strap to wipe away the blood. The goddess laid her hand on the yoke\nof his horses and said, \"The son of Tydeus is not such another as his\nfather. Tydeus was a little man, but he could fight, and rushed madly\ninto the fray even when I told him not to do so. When he went all\nunattended as envoy to the city of Thebes among the Cadmeans, I bade\nhim feast in their houses and be at peace; but with that high spirit\nwhich was ever present with him, he challenged the youth of the\nCadmeans, and at once beat them in all that he attempted, so mightily\ndid I help him. I stand by you too to protect you, and I bid you be\ninstant in fighting the Trojans; but either you are tired out, or you\nare afraid and out of heart, and in that case I say that you are no\ntrue son of Tydeus the son of Oeneus.\"\n\nDiomed answered, \"I know you, goddess, daughter of aegis-bearing Jove,\nand will hide nothing from you. I am not afraid nor out of heart, nor\nis there any slackness in me. I am only following your own\ninstructions; you told me not to fight any of the blessed gods; but if\nJove's daughter Venus came into battle I was to wound her with my\nspear. Therefore I am retreating, and bidding the other Argives gather\nin this place, for I know that Mars is now lording it in the field.\"\n\n\"Diomed, son of Tydeus,\" replied Minerva, \"man after my own heart, fear\nneither Mars nor any other of the immortals, for I will befriend you.\nNay, drive straight at Mars, and smite him in close combat; fear not\nthis raging madman, villain incarnate, first on one side and then on\nthe other. But now he was holding talk with Juno and myself, saying he\nwould help the Argives and attack the Trojans; nevertheless he is with\nthe Trojans, and has forgotten the Argives.\"\n\nWith this she caught hold of Sthenelus and lifted him off the chariot\non to the ground. In a second he was on the ground, whereupon the\ngoddess mounted the car and placed herself by the side of Diomed. The\noaken axle groaned aloud under the burden of the awful goddess and the\nhero; Pallas Minerva took the whip and reins, and drove straight at\nMars. He was in the act of stripping huge Periphas, son of Ochesius and\nbravest of the Aetolians. Bloody Mars was stripping him of his armour,\nand Minerva donned the helmet of Hades, that he might not see her;\nwhen, therefore, he saw Diomed, he made straight for him and let\nPeriphas lie where he had fallen. As soon as they were at close\nquarters he let fly with his bronze spear over the reins and yoke,\nthinking to take Diomed's life, but Minerva caught the spear in her\nhand and made it fly harmlessly over the chariot. Diomed then threw,\nand Pallas Minerva drove the spear into the pit of Mars's stomach where\nhis under-girdle went round him. There Diomed wounded him, tearing his\nfair flesh and then drawing his spear out again. Mars roared as loudly\nas nine or ten thousand men in the thick of a fight, and the Achaeans\nand Trojans were struck with panic, so terrible was the cry he raised.\n\nAs a dark cloud in the sky when it comes on to blow after heat, even so\ndid Diomed son of Tydeus see Mars ascend into the broad heavens. With\nall speed he reached high Olympus, home of the gods, and in great pain\nsat down beside Jove the son of Saturn. He showed Jove the immortal\nblood that was flowing from his wound, and spoke piteously, saying,\n\"Father Jove, are you not angered by such doings? We gods are\ncontinually suffering in the most cruel manner at one another's hands\nwhile helping mortals; and we all owe you a grudge for having begotten\nthat mad termagant of a daughter, who is always committing outrage of\nsome kind. We other gods must all do as you bid us, but her you neither\nscold nor punish; you encourage her because the pestilent creature is\nyour daughter. See how she has been inciting proud Diomed to vent his\nrage on the immortal gods. First he went up to the Cyprian and wounded\nher in the hand near her wrist, and then he sprang upon me too as\nthough he were a god. Had I not run for it I must either have lain\nthere for long enough in torments among the ghastly corpses, or have\nbeen eaten alive with spears till I had no more strength left in me.\"\n\nJove looked angrily at him and said, \"Do not come whining here, Sir\nFacing-both-ways. I hate you worst of all the gods in Olympus, for you\nare ever fighting and making mischief. You have the intolerable and\nstubborn spirit of your mother Juno: it is all I can do to manage her,\nand it is her doing that you are now in this plight: still, I cannot\nlet you remain longer in such great pain; you are my own offspring, and\nit was by me that your mother conceived you; if, however, you had been\nthe son of any other god, you are so destructive that by this time you\nshould have been lying lower than the Titans.\"\n\nHe then bade Paeeon heal him, whereon Paeeon spread pain-killing herbs\nupon his wound and cured him, for he was not of mortal mould. As the\njuice of the fig-tree curdles milk, and thickens it in a moment though\nit is liquid, even so instantly did Paeeon cure fierce Mars. Then Hebe\nwashed him, and clothed him in goodly raiment, and he took his seat by\nhis father Jove all glorious to behold.\n\nBut Juno of Argos and Minerva of Alalcomene, now that they had put a\nstop to the murderous doings of Mars, went back again to the house of\nJove.\n\n\n\nBOOK VI\n\n  Glaucus and Diomed--The story of Bellerophon--Hector\n  and Andromache.\n\nTHE fight between Trojans and Achaeans was now left to rage as it\nwould, and the tide of war surged hither and thither over the plain as\nthey aimed their bronze-shod spears at one another between the streams\nof Simois and Xanthus.\n\nFirst, Ajax son of Telamon, tower of strength to the Achaeans, broke a\nphalanx of the Trojans, and came to the assistance of his comrades by\nkilling Acamas son of Eussorus, the best man among the Thracians, being\nboth brave and of great stature. The spear struck the projecting peak\nof his helmet: its bronze point then went through his forehead into the\nbrain, and darkness veiled his eyes.\n\nThen Diomed killed Axylus son of Teuthranus, a rich man who lived in\nthe strong city of Arisbe, and was beloved by all men; for he had a\nhouse by the roadside, and entertained every one who passed; howbeit\nnot one of his guests stood before him to save his life, and Diomed\nkilled both him and his squire Calesius, who was then his\ncharioteer--so the pair passed beneath the earth.\n\nEuryalus killed Dresus and Opheltius, and then went in pursuit of\nAesepus and Pedasus, whom the naiad nymph Abarbarea had borne to noble\nBucolion. Bucolion was eldest son to Laomedon, but he was a bastard.\nWhile tending his sheep he had converse with the nymph, and she\nconceived twin sons; these the son of Mecisteus now slew, and he\nstripped the armour from their shoulders. Polypoetes then killed\nAstyalus, Ulysses Pidytes of Percote, and Teucer Aretaon. Ablerus fell\nby the spear of Nestor's son Antilochus, and Agamemnon, king of men,\nkilled Elatus who dwelt in Pedasus by the banks of the river Satnioeis.\nLeitus killed Phylacus as he was flying, and Eurypylus slew Melanthus.\n\nThen Menelaus of the loud war-cry took Adrestus alive, for his horses\nran into a tamarisk bush, as they were flying wildly over the plain,\nand broke the pole from the car; they went on towards the city along\nwith the others in full flight, but Adrestus rolled out, and fell in\nthe dust flat on his face by the wheel of his chariot; Menelaus came up\nto him spear in hand, but Adrestus caught him by the knees begging for\nhis life. \"Take me alive,\" he cried, \"son of Atreus, and you shall have\na full ransom for me: my father is rich and has much treasure of gold,\nbronze, and wrought iron laid by in his house. From this store he will\ngive you a large ransom should he hear of my being alive and at the\nships of the Achaeans.\"\n\nThus did he plead, and Menelaus was for yielding and giving him to a\nsquire to take to the ships of the Achaeans, but Agamemnon came running\nup to him and rebuked him. \"My good Menelaus,\" said he, \"this is no\ntime for giving quarter. Has, then, your house fared so well at the\nhands of the Trojans? Let us not spare a single one of them--not even\nthe child unborn and in its mother's womb; let not a man of them be\nleft alive, but let all in Ilius perish, unheeded and forgotten.\"\n\nThus did he speak, and his brother was persuaded by him, for his words\nwere just. Menelaus, therefore, thrust Adrestus from him, whereon King\nAgamemnon struck him in the flank, and he fell: then the son of Atreus\nplanted his foot upon his breast to draw his spear from the body.\n\nMeanwhile Nestor shouted to the Argives, saying, \"My friends, Danaan\nwarriors, servants of Mars, let no man lag that he may spoil the dead,\nand bring back much booty to the ships. Let us kill as many as we can;\nthe bodies will lie upon the plain, and you can despoil them later at\nyour leisure.\"\n\nWith these words he put heart and soul into them all. And now the\nTrojans would have been routed and driven back into Ilius, had not\nPriam's son Helenus, wisest of augurs, said to Hector and Aeneas,\n\"Hector and Aeneas, you two are the mainstays of the Trojans and\nLycians, for you are foremost at all times, alike in fight and counsel;\nhold your ground here, and go about among the host to rally them in\nfront of the gates, or they will fling themselves into the arms of\ntheir wives, to the great joy of our foes. Then, when you have put\nheart into all our companies, we will stand firm here and fight the\nDanaans however hard they press us, for there is nothing else to be\ndone. Meanwhile do you, Hector, go to the city and tell our mother what\nis happening. Tell her to bid the matrons gather at the temple of\nMinerva in the acropolis; let her then take her key and open the doors\nof the sacred building; there, upon the knees of Minerva, let her lay\nthe largest, fairest robe she has in her house--the one she sets most\nstore by; let her, moreover, promise to sacrifice twelve yearling\nheifers that have never yet felt the goad, in the temple of the\ngoddess, if she will take pity on the town, with the wives and little\nones of the Trojans, and keep the son of Tydeus from falling on the\ngoodly city of Ilius; for he fights with fury and fills men's souls\nwith panic. I hold him mightiest of them all; we did not fear even\ntheir great champion Achilles, son of a goddess though he be, as we do\nthis man: his rage is beyond all bounds, and there is none can vie with\nhim in prowess.\"\n\nHector did as his brother bade him. He sprang from his chariot, and\nwent about everywhere among the host, brandishing his spears, urging\nthe men on to fight, and raising the dread cry of battle. Thereon they\nrallied and again faced the Achaeans, who gave ground and ceased their\nmurderous onset, for they deemed that some one of the immortals had\ncome down from starry heaven to help the Trojans, so strangely had they\nrallied. And Hector shouted to the Trojans, \"Trojans and allies, be\nmen, my friends, and fight with might and main, while I go to Ilius and\ntell the old men of our council and our wives to pray to the gods and\nvow hecatombs in their honour.\"\n\nWith this he went his way, and the black rim of hide that went round\nhis shield beat against his neck and his ancles.\n\nThen Glaucus son of Hippolochus, and the son of Tydeus went into the\nopen space between the hosts to fight in single combat. When they were\nclose up to one another Diomed of the loud war-cry was the first to\nspeak. \"Who, my good sir,\" said he, \"who are you among men? I have\nnever seen you in battle until now, but you are daring beyond all\nothers if you abide my onset. Woe to those fathers whose sons face my\nmight. If, however, you are one of the immortals and have come down\nfrom heaven, I will not fight you; for even valiant Lycurgus, son of\nDryas, did not live long when he took to fighting with the gods. He it\nwas that drove the nursing women who were in charge of frenzied Bacchus\nthrough the land of Nysa, and they flung their thyrsi on the ground as\nmurderous Lycurgus beat them with his oxgoad. Bacchus himself plunged\nterror-stricken into the sea, and Thetis took him to her bosom to\ncomfort him, for he was scared by the fury with which the man reviled\nhim. Thereon the gods who live at ease were angry with Lycurgus and the\nson of Saturn struck him blind, nor did he live much longer after he\nhad become hateful to the immortals. Therefore I will not fight with\nthe blessed gods; but if you are of them that eat the fruit of the\nground, draw near and meet your doom.\"\n\nAnd the son of Hippolochus answered, \"son of Tydeus, why ask me of my\nlineage? Men come and go as leaves year by year upon the trees. Those\nof autumn the wind sheds upon the ground, but when spring returns the\nforest buds forth with fresh vines. Even so is it with the generations\nof mankind, the new spring up as the old are passing away. If, then,\nyou would learn my descent, it is one that is well known to many. There\nis a city in the heart of Argos, pasture land of horses, called Ephyra,\nwhere Sisyphus lived, who was the craftiest of all mankind. He was the\nson of Aeolus, and had a son named Glaucus, who was father to\nBellerophon, whom heaven endowed with the most surpassing comeliness\nand beauty. But Proetus devised his ruin, and being stronger than he,\ndrove him from the land of the Argives, over which Jove had made him\nruler. For Antea, wife of Proetus, lusted after him, and would have had\nhim lie with her in secret; but Bellerophon was an honourable man and\nwould not, so she told lies about him to Proteus. 'Proetus,' said she,\n'kill Bellerophon or die, for he would have had converse with me\nagainst my will.' The king was angered, but shrank from killing\nBellerophon, so he sent him to Lycia with lying letters of\nintroduction, written on a folded tablet, and containing much ill\nagainst the bearer. He bade Bellerophon show these letters to his\nfather-in-law, to the end that he might thus perish; Bellerophon\ntherefore went to Lycia, and the gods convoyed him safely.\n\n\"When he reached the river Xanthus, which is in Lycia, the king\nreceived him with all goodwill, feasted him nine days, and killed nine\nheifers in his honour, but when rosy-fingered morning appeared upon the\ntenth day, he questioned him and desired to see the letter from his\nson-in-law Proetus. When he had received the wicked letter he first\ncommanded Bellerophon to kill that savage monster, the Chimaera, who\nwas not a human being, but a goddess, for she had the head of a lion\nand the tail of a serpent, while her body was that of a goat, and she\nbreathed forth flames of fire; but Bellerophon slew her, for he was\nguided by signs from heaven. He next fought the far-famed Solymi, and\nthis, he said, was the hardest of all his battles. Thirdly, he killed\nthe Amazons, women who were the peers of men, and as he was returning\nthence the king devised yet another plan for his destruction; he picked\nthe bravest warriors in all Lycia, and placed them in ambuscade, but\nnot a man ever came back, for Bellerophon killed every one of them.\nThen the king knew that he must be the valiant offspring of a god, so\nhe kept him in Lycia, gave him his daughter in marriage, and made him\nof equal honour in the kingdom with himself; and the Lycians gave him a\npiece of land, the best in all the country, fair with vineyards and\ntilled fields, to have and to hold.\n\n\"The king's daughter bore Bellerophon three children, Isander,\nHippolochus, and Laodameia. Jove, the lord of counsel, lay with\nLaodameia, and she bore him noble Sarpedon; but when Bellerophon came\nto be hated by all the gods, he wandered all desolate and dismayed upon\nthe Alean plain, gnawing at his own heart, and shunning the path of\nman. Mars, insatiate of battle, killed his son Isander while he was\nfighting the Solymi; his daughter was killed by Diana of the golden\nreins, for she was angered with her; but Hippolochus was father to\nmyself, and when he sent me to Troy he urged me again and again to\nfight ever among the foremost and outvie my peers, so as not to shame\nthe blood of my fathers who were the noblest in Ephyra and in all\nLycia. This, then, is the descent I claim.\"\n\nThus did he speak, and the heart of Diomed was glad. He planted his\nspear in the ground, and spoke to him with friendly words. \"Then,\" he\nsaid, \"you are an old friend of my father's house. Great Oeneus once\nentertained Bellerophon for twenty days, and the two exchanged\npresents. Oeneus gave a belt rich with purple, and Bellerophon a double\ncup, which I left at home when I set out for Troy. I do not remember\nTydeus, for he was taken from us while I was yet a child, when the army\nof the Achaeans was cut to pieces before Thebes. Henceforth, however, I\nmust be your host in middle Argos, and you mine in Lycia, if I should\never go there; let us avoid one another's spears even during a general\nengagement; there are many noble Trojans and allies whom I can kill, if\nI overtake them and heaven delivers them into my hand; so again with\nyourself, there are many Achaeans whose lives you may take if you can;\nwe two, then, will exchange armour, that all present may know of the\nold ties that subsist between us.\"\n\nWith these words they sprang from their chariots, grasped one another's\nhands, and plighted friendship. But the son of Saturn made Glaucus take\nleave of his wits, for he exchanged golden armour for bronze, the worth\nof a hundred head of cattle for the worth of nine.\n\nNow when Hector reached the Scaean gates and the oak tree, the wives\nand daughters of the Trojans came running towards him to ask after\ntheir sons, brothers, kinsmen, and husbands: he told them to set about\npraying to the gods, and many were made sorrowful as they heard him.\n\nPresently he reached the splendid palace of King Priam, adorned with\ncolonnades of hewn stone. In it there were fifty bedchambers--all of\nhewn stone--built near one another, where the sons of Priam slept, each\nwith his wedded wife. Opposite these, on the other side the courtyard,\nthere were twelve upper rooms also of hewn stone for Priam's daughters,\nbuilt near one another, where his sons-in-law slept with their wives.\nWhen Hector got there, his fond mother came up to him with Laodice the\nfairest of her daughters. She took his hand within her own and said,\n\"My son, why have you left the battle to come hither? Are the Achaeans,\nwoe betide them, pressing you hard about the city that you have thought\nfit to come and uplift your hands to Jove from the citadel? Wait till I\ncan bring you wine that you may make offering to Jove and to the other\nimmortals, and may then drink and be refreshed. Wine gives a man fresh\nstrength when he is wearied, as you now are with fighting on behalf of\nyour kinsmen.\"\n\nAnd Hector answered, \"Honoured mother, bring no wine, lest you unman me\nand I forget my strength. I dare not make a drink-offering to Jove with\nunwashed hands; one who is bespattered with blood and filth may not\npray to the son of Saturn. Get the matrons together, and go with\nofferings to the temple of Minerva driver of the spoil; there, upon the\nknees of Minerva, lay the largest and fairest robe you have in your\nhouse--the one you set most store by; promise, moreover, to sacrifice\ntwelve yearling heifers that have never yet felt the goad, in the\ntemple of the goddess if she will take pity on the town, with the wives\nand little ones of the Trojans, and keep the son of Tydeus from off the\ngoodly city of Ilius, for he fights with fury, and fills men's souls\nwith panic. Go, then, to the temple of Minerva, while I seek Paris and\nexhort him, if he will hear my words. Would that the earth might open\nher jaws and swallow him, for Jove bred him to be the bane of the\nTrojans, and of Priam and Priam's sons. Could I but see him go down\ninto the house of Hades, my heart would forget its heaviness.\"\n\nHis mother went into the house and called her waiting-women who\ngathered the matrons throughout the city. She then went down into her\nfragrant store-room, where her embroidered robes were kept, the work of\nSidonian women, whom Alexandrus had brought over from Sidon when he\nsailed the seas upon that voyage during which he carried off Helen.\nHecuba took out the largest robe, and the one that was most beautifully\nenriched with embroidery, as an offering to Minerva: it glittered like\na star, and lay at the very bottom of the chest. With this she went on\nher way and many matrons with her.\n\nWhen they reached the temple of Minerva, lovely Theano, daughter of\nCisseus and wife of Antenor, opened the doors, for the Trojans had made\nher priestess of Minerva. The women lifted up their hands to the\ngoddess with a loud cry, and Theano took the robe to lay it upon the\nknees of Minerva, praying the while to the daughter of great Jove.\n\"Holy Minerva,\" she cried, \"protectress of our city, mighty goddess,\nbreak the spear of Diomed and lay him low before the Scaean gates. Do\nthis, and we will sacrifice twelve heifers that have never yet known\nthe goad, in your temple, if you will have pity upon the town, with the\nwives and little ones of the Trojans.\" Thus she prayed, but Pallas\nMinerva granted not her prayer.\n\nWhile they were thus praying to the daughter of great Jove, Hector went\nto the fair house of Alexandrus, which he had built for him by the\nforemost builders in the land. They had built him his house,\nstorehouse, and courtyard near those of Priam and Hector on the\nacropolis. Here Hector entered, with a spear eleven cubits long in his\nhand; the bronze point gleamed in front of him, and was fastened to the\nshaft of the spear by a ring of gold. He found Alexandrus within the\nhouse, busied about his armour, his shield and cuirass, and handling\nhis curved bow; there, too, sat Argive Helen with her women, setting\nthem their several tasks; and as Hector saw him he rebuked him with\nwords of scorn. \"Sir,\" said he, \"you do ill to nurse this rancour; the\npeople perish fighting round this our town; you would yourself chide\none whom you saw shirking his part in the combat. Up then, or ere long\nthe city will be in a blaze.\"\n\nAnd Alexandrus answered, \"Hector, your rebuke is just; listen\ntherefore, and believe me when I tell you that I am not here so much\nthrough rancour or ill-will towards the Trojans, as from a desire to\nindulge my grief. My wife was even now gently urging me to battle, and\nI hold it better that I should go, for victory is ever fickle. Wait,\nthen, while I put on my armour, or go first and I will follow. I shall\nbe sure to overtake you.\"\n\nHector made no answer, but Helen tried to soothe him. \"Brother,\" said\nshe, \"to my abhorred and sinful self, would that a whirlwind had caught\nme up on the day my mother brought me forth, and had borne me to some\nmountain or to the waves of the roaring sea that should have swept me\naway ere this mischief had come about. But, since the gods have devised\nthese evils, would, at any rate, that I had been wife to a better\nman--to one who could smart under dishonour and men's evil speeches.\nThis fellow was never yet to be depended upon, nor never will be, and\nhe will surely reap what he has sown. Still, brother, come in and rest\nupon this seat, for it is you who bear the brunt of that toil that has\nbeen caused by my hateful self and by the sin of Alexandrus--both of\nwhom Jove has doomed to be a theme of song among those that shall be\nborn hereafter.\"\n\nAnd Hector answered, \"Bid me not be seated, Helen, for all the goodwill\nyou bear me. I cannot stay. I am in haste to help the Trojans, who miss\nme greatly when I am not among them; but urge your husband, and of his\nown self also let him make haste to overtake me before I am out of the\ncity. I must go home to see my household, my wife and my little son,\nfor I know not whether I shall ever again return to them, or whether\nthe gods will cause me to fill by the hands of the Achaeans.\"\n\nThen Hector left her, and forthwith was at his own house. He did not\nfind Andromache, for she was on the wall with her child and one of her\nmaids, weeping bitterly. Seeing, then, that she was not within, he\nstood on the threshold of the women's rooms and said, \"Women, tell me,\nand tell me true, where did Andromache go when she left the house? Was\nit to my sisters, or to my brothers' wives? or is she at the temple of\nMinerva where the other women are propitiating the awful goddess?\"\n\nHis good housekeeper answered, \"Hector, since you bid me tell you\ntruly, she did not go to your sisters nor to your brothers' wives, nor\nyet to the temple of Minerva, where the other women are propitiating\nthe awful goddess, but she is on the high wall of Ilius, for she had\nheard the Trojans were being hard pressed, and that the Achaeans were\nin great force: she went to the wall in frenzied haste, and the nurse\nwent with her carrying the child.\"\n\nHector hurried from the house when she had done speaking, and went down\nthe streets by the same way that he had come. When he had gone through\nthe city and had reached the Scaean gates through which he would go out\non to the plain, his wife came running towards him, Andromache,\ndaughter of great Eetion who ruled in Thebe under the wooded slopes of\nMt. Placus, and was king of the Cilicians. His daughter had married\nHector, and now came to meet him with a nurse who carried his little\nchild in her bosom--a mere babe. Hector's darling son, and lovely as a\nstar. Hector had named him Scamandrius, but the people called him\nAstyanax, for his father stood alone as chief guardian of Ilius. Hector\nsmiled as he looked upon the boy, but he did not speak, and Andromache\nstood by him weeping and taking his hand in her own. \"Dear husband,\"\nsaid she, \"your valour will bring you to destruction; think on your\ninfant son, and on my hapless self who ere long shall be your\nwidow--for the Achaeans will set upon you in a body and kill you. It\nwould be better for me, should I lose you, to lie dead and buried, for\nI shall have nothing left to comfort me when you are gone, save only\nsorrow. I have neither father nor mother now. Achilles slew my father\nwhen he sacked Thebe the goodly city of the Cilicians. He slew him, but\ndid not for very shame despoil him; when he had burned him in his\nwondrous armour, he raised a barrow over his ashes and the mountain\nnymphs, daughters of aegis-bearing Jove, planted a grove of elms about\nhis tomb. I had seven brothers in my father's house, but on the same\nday they all went within the house of Hades. Achilles killed them as\nthey were with their sheep and cattle. My mother--her who had been\nqueen of all the land under Mt. Placus--he brought hither with the\nspoil, and freed her for a great sum, but the archer-queen Diana took\nher in the house of your father. Nay--Hector--you who to me are father,\nmother, brother, and dear husband--have mercy upon me; stay here upon\nthis wall; make not your child fatherless, and your wife a widow; as\nfor the host, place them near the fig-tree, where the city can be best\nscaled, and the wall is weakest. Thrice have the bravest of them come\nthither and assailed it, under the two Ajaxes, Idomeneus, the sons of\nAtreus, and the brave son of Tydeus, either of their own bidding, or\nbecause some soothsayer had told them.\"\n\nAnd Hector answered, \"Wife, I too have thought upon all this, but with\nwhat face should I look upon the Trojans, men or women, if I shirked\nbattle like a coward? I cannot do so: I know nothing save to fight\nbravely in the forefront of the Trojan host and win renown alike for my\nfather and myself. Well do I know that the day will surely come when\nmighty Ilius shall be destroyed with Priam and Priam's people, but I\ngrieve for none of these--not even for Hecuba, nor King Priam, nor for\nmy brothers many and brave who may fall in the dust before their\nfoes--for none of these do I grieve as for yourself when the day shall\ncome on which some one of the Achaeans shall rob you for ever of your\nfreedom, and bear you weeping away. It may be that you will have to ply\nthe loom in Argos at the bidding of a mistress, or to fetch water from\nthe springs Messeis or Hypereia, treated brutally by some cruel\ntask-master; then will one say who sees you weeping, 'She was wife to\nHector, the bravest warrior among the Trojans during the war before\nIlius.' On this your tears will break forth anew for him who would have\nput away the day of captivity from you. May I lie dead under the barrow\nthat is heaped over my body ere I hear your cry as they carry you into\nbondage.\"\n\nHe stretched his arms towards his child, but the boy cried and nestled\nin his nurse's bosom, scared at the sight of his father's armour, and\nat the horse-hair plume that nodded fiercely from his helmet. His\nfather and mother laughed to see him, but Hector took the helmet from\nhis head and laid it all gleaming upon the ground. Then he took his\ndarling child, kissed him, and dandled him in his arms, praying over\nhim the while to Jove and to all the gods. \"Jove,\" he cried, \"grant\nthat this my child may be even as myself, chief among the Trojans; let\nhim be not less excellent in strength, and let him rule Ilius with his\nmight. Then may one say of him as he comes from battle, 'The son is far\nbetter than the father.' May he bring back the blood-stained spoils of\nhim whom he has laid low, and let his mother's heart be glad.\"\n\nWith this he laid the child again in the arms of his wife, who took him\nto her own soft bosom, smiling through her tears. As her husband\nwatched her his heart yearned towards her and he caressed her fondly,\nsaying, \"My own wife, do not take these things too bitterly to heart.\nNo one can hurry me down to Hades before my time, but if a man's hour\nis come, be he brave or be he coward, there is no escape for him when\nhe has once been born. Go, then, within the house, and busy yourself\nwith your daily duties, your loom, your distaff, and the ordering of\nyour servants; for war is man's matter, and mine above all others of\nthem that have been born in Ilius.\"\n\nHe took his plumed helmet from the ground, and his wife went back again\nto her house, weeping bitterly and often looking back towards him. When\nshe reached her home she found her maidens within, and bade them all\njoin in her lament; so they mourned Hector in his own house though he\nwas yet alive, for they deemed that they should never see him return\nsafe from battle, and from the furious hands of the Achaeans.\n\nParis did not remain long in his house. He donned his goodly armour\noverlaid with bronze, and hasted through the city as fast as his feet\ncould take him. As a horse, stabled and fed, breaks loose and gallops\ngloriously over the plain to the place where he is wont to bathe in the\nfair-flowing river--he holds his head high, and his mane streams upon\nhis shoulders as he exults in his strength and flies like the wind to\nthe haunts and feeding ground of the mares--even so went forth Paris\nfrom high Pergamus, gleaming like sunlight in his armour, and he\nlaughed aloud as he sped swiftly on his way. Forthwith he came upon his\nbrother Hector, who was then turning away from the place where he had\nheld converse with his wife, and he was himself the first to speak.\n\"Sir,\" said he, \"I fear that I have kept you waiting when you are in\nhaste, and have not come as quickly as you bade me.\"\n\n\"My good brother,\" answered Hector, \"you fight bravely, and no man with\nany justice can make light of your doings in battle. But you are\ncareless and wilfully remiss. It grieves me to the heart to hear the\nill that the Trojans speak about you, for they have suffered much on\nyour account. Let us be going, and we will make things right hereafter,\nshould Jove vouchsafe us to set the cup of our deliverance before\never-living gods of heaven in our own homes, when we have chased the\nAchaeans from Troy.\"\n\n\n\nBOOK VII\n\n  Hector and Ajax fight--Hector is getting worsted when night\n  comes on and parts them--They exchange presents--The\n  burial of the dead, and the building of a wall round their\n  ships by the Achaeans--The Achaeans buy their wine of\n  Agamemnon and Menelaus.\n\nWITH these words Hector passed through the gates, and his brother\nAlexandrus with him, both eager for the fray. As when heaven sends a\nbreeze to sailors who have long looked for one in vain, and have\nlaboured at their oars till they are faint with toil, even so welcome\nwas the sight of these two heroes to the Trojans.\n\nThereon Alexandrus killed Menesthius the son of Areithous; he lived in\nArne, and was son of Areithous the Mace-man, and of Phylomedusa. Hector\nthrew a spear at Eioneus and struck him dead with a wound in the neck\nunder the bronze rim of his helmet. Glaucus, moreover, son of\nHippolochus, captain of the Lycians, in hard hand-to-hand fight smote\nIphinous son of Dexius on the shoulder, as he was springing on to his\nchariot behind his fleet mares; so he fell to earth from the car, and\nthere was no life left in him.\n\nWhen, therefore, Minerva saw these men making havoc of the Argives, she\ndarted down to Ilius from the summits of Olympus, and Apollo, who was\nlooking on from Pergamus, went out to meet her; for he wanted the\nTrojans to be victorious. The pair met by the oak tree, and King Apollo\nson of Jove was first to speak. \"What would you have,\" said he,\n\"daughter of great Jove, that your proud spirit has sent you hither\nfrom Olympus? Have you no pity upon the Trojans, and would you incline\nthe scales of victory in favour of the Danaans? Let me persuade\nyou--for it will be better thus--stay the combat for to-day, but let\nthem renew the fight hereafter till they compass the doom of Ilius,\nsince you goddesses have made up your minds to destroy the city.\"\n\nAnd Minerva answered, \"So be it, Far-Darter; it was in this mind that I\ncame down from Olympus to the Trojans and Achaeans. Tell me, then, how\ndo you propose to end this present fighting?\"\n\nApollo, son of Jove, replied, \"Let us incite great Hector to challenge\nsome one of the Danaans in single combat; on this the Achaeans will be\nshamed into finding a man who will fight him.\"\n\nMinerva assented, and Helenus son of Priam divined the counsel of the\ngods; he therefore went up to Hector and said, \"Hector son of Priam,\npeer of gods in counsel, I am your brother, let me then persuade you.\nBid the other Trojans and Achaeans all of them take their seats, and\nchallenge the best man among the Achaeans to meet you in single combat.\nI have heard the voice of the ever-living gods, and the hour of your\ndoom is not yet come.\"\n\nHector was glad when he heard this saying, and went in among the\nTrojans, grasping his spear by the middle to hold them back, and they\nall sat down. Agamemnon also bade the Achaeans be seated. But Minerva\nand Apollo, in the likeness of vultures, perched on father Jove's high\noak tree, proud of their men; and the ranks sat close ranged together,\nbristling with shield and helmet and spear. As when the rising west\nwind furs the face of the sea and the waters grow dark beneath it, so\nsat the companies of Trojans and Achaeans upon the plain. And Hector\nspoke thus:--\n\n\"Hear me, Trojans and Achaeans, that I may speak even as I am minded;\nJove on his high throne has brought our oaths and covenants to nothing,\nand foreshadows ill for both of us, till you either take the towers of\nTroy, or are yourselves vanquished at your ships. The princes of the\nAchaeans are here present in the midst of you; let him, then, that will\nfight me stand forward as your champion against Hector. Thus I say, and\nmay Jove be witness between us. If your champion slay me, let him strip\nme of my armour and take it to your ships, but let him send my body\nhome that the Trojans and their wives may give me my dues of fire when\nI am dead. In like manner, if Apollo vouchsafe me glory and I slay your\nchampion, I will strip him of his armour and take it to the city of\nIlius, where I will hang it in the temple of Apollo, but I will give up\nhis body, that the Achaeans may bury him at their ships, and the build\nhim a mound by the wide waters of the Hellespont. Then will one say\nhereafter as he sails his ship over the sea, 'This is the monument of\none who died long since a champion who was slain by mighty Hector.'\nThus will one say, and my fame shall not be lost.\"\n\nThus did he speak, but they all held their peace, ashamed to decline\nthe challenge, yet fearing to accept it, till at last Menelaus rose and\nrebuked them, for he was angry. \"Alas,\" he cried, \"vain braggarts,\nwomen forsooth not men, double-dyed indeed will be the stain upon us if\nno man of the Danaans will now face Hector. May you be turned every man\nof you into earth and water as you sit spiritless and inglorious in\nyour places. I will myself go out against this man, but the upshot of\nthe fight will be from on high in the hands of the immortal gods.\"\n\nWith these words he put on his armour; and then, O Menelaus, your life\nwould have come to an end at the hands of hands of Hector, for he was\nfar better the man, had not the princes of the Achaeans sprung upon you\nand checked you. King Agamemnon caught him by the right hand and said,\n\"Menelaus, you are mad; a truce to this folly. Be patient in spite of\npassion, do not think of fighting a man so much stronger than yourself\nas Hector son of Priam, who is feared by many another as well as you.\nEven Achilles, who is far more doughty than you are, shrank from\nmeeting him in battle. Sit down your own people, and the Achaeans will\nsend some other champion to fight Hector; fearless and fond of battle\nthough he be, I ween his knees will bend gladly under him if he comes\nout alive from the hurly-burly of this fight.\"\n\nWith these words of reasonable counsel he persuaded his brother,\nwhereon his squires gladly stripped the armour from off his shoulders.\nThen Nestor rose and spoke, \"Of a truth,\" said he, \"the Achaean land is\nfallen upon evil times. The old knight Peleus, counsellor and orator\namong the Myrmidons, loved when I was in his house to question me\nconcerning the race and lineage of all the Argives. How would it not\ngrieve him could he hear of them as now quailing before Hector? Many a\ntime would he lift his hands in prayer that his soul might leave his\nbody and go down within the house of Hades. Would, by father Jove,\nMinerva, and Apollo, that I were still young and strong as when the\nPylians and Arcadians were gathered in fight by the rapid river Celadon\nunder the walls of Pheia, and round about the waters of the river\nIardanus. The godlike hero Ereuthalion stood forward as their champion,\nwith the armour of King Areithous upon his shoulders--Areithous whom\nmen and women had surnamed 'the Mace-man,' because he fought neither\nwith bow nor spear, but broke the battalions of the foe with his iron\nmace. Lycurgus killed him, not in fair fight, but by entrapping him in\na narrow way where his mace served him in no stead; for Lycurgus was\ntoo quick for him and speared him through the middle, so he fell to\nearth on his back. Lycurgus then spoiled him of the armour which Mars\nhad given him, and bore it in battle thenceforward; but when he grew\nold and stayed at home, he gave it to his faithful squire Ereuthalion,\nwho in this same armour challenged the foremost men among us. The\nothers quaked and quailed, but my high spirit bade me fight him though\nnone other would venture; I was the youngest man of them all; but when\nI fought him Minerva vouchsafed me victory. He was the biggest and\nstrongest man that ever I killed, and covered much ground as he lay\nsprawling upon the earth. Would that I were still young and strong as I\nthen was, for the son of Priam would then soon find one who would face\nhim. But you, foremost among the whole host though you be, have none of\nyou any stomach for fighting Hector.\"\n\nThus did the old man rebuke them, and forthwith nine men started to\ntheir feet. Foremost of all uprose King Agamemnon, and after him brave\nDiomed the son of Tydeus. Next were the two Ajaxes, men clothed in\nvalour as with a garment, and then Idomeneus, and Meriones his brother\nin arms. After these Eurypylus son of Euaemon, Thoas the son of\nAndraemon, and Ulysses also rose. Then Nestor knight of Gerene again\nspoke, saying: \"Cast lots among you to see who shall be chosen. If he\ncome alive out of this fight he will have done good service alike to\nhis own soul and to the Achaeans.\"\n\nThus he spoke, and when each of them had marked his lot, and had thrown\nit into the helmet of Agamemnon son of Atreus, the people lifted their\nhands in prayer, and thus would one of them say as he looked into the\nvault of heaven, \"Father Jove, grant that the lot fall on Ajax, or on\nthe son of Tydeus, or upon the king of rich Mycene himself.\"\n\nAs they were speaking, Nestor knight of Gerene shook the helmet, and\nfrom it there fell the very lot which they wanted--the lot of Ajax. The\nherald bore it about and showed it to all the chieftains of the\nAchaeans, going from left to right; but they none of them owned it.\nWhen, however, in due course he reached the man who had written upon it\nand had put it into the helmet, brave Ajax held out his hand, and the\nherald gave him the lot. When Ajax saw his mark he knew it and was\nglad; he threw it to the ground and said, \"My friends, the lot is mine,\nand I rejoice, for I shall vanquish Hector. I will put on my armour;\nmeanwhile, pray to King Jove in silence among yourselves that the\nTrojans may not hear you--or aloud if you will, for we fear no man.\nNone shall overcome me, neither by force nor cunning, for I was born\nand bred in Salamis, and can hold my own in all things.\"\n\nWith this they fell praying to King Jove the son of Saturn, and thus\nwould one of them say as he looked into the vault of heaven, \"Father\nJove that rulest from Ida, most glorious in power, vouchsafe victory to\nAjax, and let him win great glory: but if you wish well to Hector also\nand would protect him, grant to each of them equal fame and prowess.\"\n\nThus they prayed, and Ajax armed himself in his suit of gleaming\nbronze. When he was in full array he sprang forward as monstrous Mars\nwhen he takes part among men whom Jove has set fighting with one\nanother--even so did huge Ajax, bulwark of the Achaeans, spring forward\nwith a grim smile on his face as he brandished his long spear and\nstrode onward. The Argives were elated as they beheld him, but the\nTrojans trembled in every limb, and the heart even of Hector beat\nquickly, but he could not now retreat and withdraw into the ranks\nbehind him, for he had been the challenger. Ajax came up bearing his\nshield in front of him like a wall--a shield of bronze with seven folds\nof oxhide--the work of Tychius, who lived in Hyle and was by far the\nbest worker in leather. He had made it with the hides of seven full-fed\nbulls, and over these he had set an eighth layer of bronze. Holding\nthis shield before him, Ajax son of Telamon came close up to Hector,\nand menaced him saying, \"Hector, you shall now learn, man to man, what\nkind of champions the Danaans have among them even besides lion-hearted\nAchilles cleaver of the ranks of men. He now abides at the ships in\nanger with Agamemnon shepherd of his people, but there are many of us\nwho are well able to face you; therefore begin the fight.\"\n\nAnd Hector answered, \"Noble Ajax, son of Telamon, captain of the host,\ntreat me not as though I were some puny boy or woman that cannot fight.\nI have been long used to the blood and butcheries of battle. I am quick\nto turn my leathern shield either to right or left, for this I deem the\nmain thing in battle. I can charge among the chariots and horsemen, and\nin hand to hand fighting can delight the heart of Mars; howbeit I would\nnot take such a man as you are off his guard--but I will smite you\nopenly if I can.\"\n\nHe poised his spear as he spoke, and hurled it from him. It struck the\nsevenfold shield in its outermost layer--the eighth, which was of\nbronze--and went through six of the layers but in the seventh hide it\nstayed. Then Ajax threw in his turn, and struck the round shield of the\nson of Priam. The terrible spear went through his gleaming shield, and\npressed onward through his cuirass of cunning workmanship; it pierced\nthe shirt against his side, but he swerved and thus saved his life.\nThey then each of them drew out the spear from his shield, and fell on\none another like savage lions or wild boars of great strength and\nendurance: the son of Priam struck the middle of Ajax's shield, but the\nbronze did not break, and the point of his dart was turned. Ajax then\nsprang forward and pierced the shield of Hector; the spear went through\nit and staggered him as he was springing forward to attack; it gashed\nhis neck and the blood came pouring from the wound, but even so Hector\ndid not cease fighting; he gave ground, and with his brawny hand seized\na stone, rugged and huge, that was lying upon the plain; with this he\nstruck the shield of Ajax on the boss that was in its middle, so that\nthe bronze rang again. But Ajax in turn caught up a far larger stone,\nswung it aloft, and hurled it with prodigious force. This millstone of\na rock broke Hector's shield inwards and threw him down on his back\nwith the shield crushing him under it, but Apollo raised him at once.\nThereon they would have hacked at one another in close combat with\ntheir swords, had not heralds, messengers of gods and men, come\nforward, one from the Trojans and the other from the\nAchaeans--Talthybius and Idaeus both of them honourable men; these\nparted them with their staves, and the good herald Idaeus said, \"My\nsons, fight no longer, you are both of you valiant, and both are dear\nto Jove; we know this; but night is now falling, and the behests of\nnight may not be well gainsaid.\"\n\nAjax son of Telamon answered, \"Idaeus, bid Hector say so, for it was he\nthat challenged our princes. Let him speak first and I will accept his\nsaying.\"\n\nThen Hector said, \"Ajax, heaven has vouchsafed you stature and\nstrength, and judgement; and in wielding the spear you excel all others\nof the Achaeans. Let us for this day cease fighting; hereafter we will\nfight anew till heaven decide between us, and give victory to one or to\nthe other; night is now falling, and the behests of night may not be\nwell gainsaid. Gladden, then, the hearts of the Achaeans at your ships,\nand more especially those of your own followers and clansmen, while I,\nin the great city of King Priam, bring comfort to the Trojans and their\nwomen, who vie with one another in their prayers on my behalf. Let us,\nmoreover, exchange presents that it may be said among the Achaeans and\nTrojans, 'They fought with might and main, but were reconciled and\nparted in friendship.'\"\n\nOn this he gave Ajax a silver-studded sword with its sheath and\nleathern baldric, and in return Ajax gave him a girdle dyed with\npurple. Thus they parted, the one going to the host of the Achaeans,\nand the other to that of the Trojans, who rejoiced when they saw their\nhero come to them safe and unharmed from the strong hands of mighty\nAjax. They led him, therefore, to the city as one that had been saved\nbeyond their hopes. On the other side the Achaeans brought Ajax elated\nwith victory to Agamemnon.\n\nWhen they reached the quarters of the son of Atreus, Agamemnon\nsacrificed for them a five-year-old bull in honour of Jove the son of\nSaturn. They flayed the carcass, made it ready, and divided it into\njoints; these they cut carefully up into smaller pieces, putting them\non the spits, roasting them sufficiently, and then drawing them off.\nWhen they had done all this and had prepared the feast, they ate it,\nand every man had his full and equal share, so that all were satisfied,\nand King Agamemnon gave Ajax some slices cut lengthways down the loin,\nas a mark of special honour. As soon as they had had enough to eat and\ndrink, old Nestor whose counsel was ever truest began to speak; with\nall sincerity and goodwill, therefore, he addressed them thus:--\n\n\"Son of Atreus, and other chieftains, inasmuch as many of the Achaeans\nare now dead, whose blood Mars has shed by the banks of the Scamander,\nand their souls have gone down to the house of Hades, it will be well\nwhen morning comes that we should cease fighting; we will then wheel\nour dead together with oxen and mules and burn them not far from the\nships, that when we sail hence we may take the bones of our comrades\nhome to their children. Hard by the funeral pyre we will build a barrow\nthat shall be raised from the plain for all in common; near this let us\nset about building a high wall, to shelter ourselves and our ships, and\nlet it have well-made gates that there may be a way through them for\nour chariots. Close outside we will dig a deep trench all round it to\nkeep off both horse and foot, that the Trojan chieftains may not bear\nhard upon us.\"\n\nThus he spoke, and the princess shouted in applause. Meanwhile the\nTrojans held a council, angry and full of discord, on the acropolis by\nthe gates of King Priam's palace; and wise Antenor spoke. \"Hear me,\" he\nsaid, \"Trojans, Dardanians, and allies, that I may speak even as I am\nminded. Let us give up Argive Helen and her wealth to the sons of\nAtreus, for we are now fighting in violation of our solemn covenants,\nand shall not prosper till we have done as I say.\"\n\nHe then sat down and Alexandrus husband of lovely Helen rose to speak.\n\"Antenor,\" said he, \"your words are not to my liking; you can find a\nbetter saying than this if you will; if, however, you have spoken in\ngood earnest, then indeed has heaven robbed you of your reason. I will\nspeak plainly, and hereby notify to the Trojans that I will not give up\nthe woman; but the wealth that I brought home with her from Argos I\nwill restore, and will add yet further of my own.\"\n\nOn this, when Paris had spoken and taken his seat, Priam of the race of\nDardanus, peer of gods in council, rose and with all sincerity and\ngoodwill addressed them thus: \"Hear me, Trojans, Dardanians, and\nallies, that I may speak even as I am minded. Get your suppers now as\nhitherto throughout the city, but keep your watches and be wakeful. At\ndaybreak let Idaeus go to the ships, and tell Agamemnon and Menelaus\nsons of Atreus the saying of Alexandrus through whom this quarrel has\ncome about; and let him also be instant with them that they now cease\nfighting till we burn our dead; hereafter we will fight anew, till\nheaven decide between us and give victory to one or to the other.\"\n\nThus did he speak, and they did even as he had said. They took supper\nin their companies and at daybreak Idaeus went his way to the ships. He\nfound the Danaans, servants of Mars, in council at the stern of\nAgamemnon's ship, and took his place in the midst of them. \"Son of\nAtreus,\" he said, \"and princes of the Achaean host, Priam and the other\nnoble Trojans have sent me to tell you the saying of Alexandrus through\nwhom this quarrel has come about, if so be that you may find it\nacceptable. All the treasure he took with him in his ships to\nTroy--would that he had sooner perished--he will restore, and will add\nyet further of his own, but he will not give up the wedded wife of\nMenelaus, though the Trojans would have him do so. Priam bade me\ninquire further if you will cease fighting till we burn our dead;\nhereafter we will fight anew, till heaven decide between us and give\nvictory to one or to the other.\"\n\nThey all held their peace, but presently Diomed of the loud war-cry\nspoke, saying, \"Let there be no taking, neither treasure, nor yet\nHelen, for even a child may see that the doom of the Trojans is at\nhand.\"\n\nThe sons of the Achaeans shouted applause at the words that Diomed had\nspoken, and thereon King Agamemnon said to Idaeus, \"Idaeus, you have\nheard the answer the Achaeans make you-and I with them. But as\nconcerning the dead, I give you leave to burn them, for when men are\nonce dead there should be no grudging them the rites of fire. Let Jove\nthe mighty husband of Juno be witness to this covenant.\"\n\nAs he spoke he upheld his sceptre in the sight of all the gods, and\nIdaeus went back to the strong city of Ilius. The Trojans and\nDardanians were gathered in council waiting his return; when he came,\nhe stood in their midst and delivered his message. As soon as they\nheard it they set about their twofold labour, some to gather the\ncorpses, and others to bring in wood. The Argives on their part also\nhastened from their ships, some to gather the corpses, and others to\nbring in wood.\n\nThe sun was beginning to beat upon the fields, fresh risen into the\nvault of heaven from the slow still currents of deep Oceanus, when the\ntwo armies met. They could hardly recognise their dead, but they washed\nthe clotted gore from off them, shed tears over them, and lifted them\nupon their waggons. Priam had forbidden the Trojans to wail aloud, so\nthey heaped their dead sadly and silently upon the pyre, and having\nburned them went back to the city of Ilius. The Achaeans in like manner\nheaped their dead sadly and silently on the pyre, and having burned\nthem went back to their ships.\n\nNow in the twilight when it was not yet dawn, chosen bands of the\nAchaeans were gathered round the pyre and built one barrow that was\nraised in common for all, and hard by this they built a high wall to\nshelter themselves and their ships; they gave it strong gates that\nthere might be a way through them for their chariots, and close outside\nit they dug a trench deep and wide, and they planted it within with\nstakes.\n\nThus did the Achaeans toil, and the gods, seated by the side of Jove\nthe lord of lightning, marvelled at their great work; but Neptune, lord\nof the earthquake, spoke, saying, \"Father Jove, what mortal in the\nwhole world will again take the gods into his counsel? See you not how\nthe Achaeans have built a wall about their ships and driven a trench\nall round it, without offering hecatombs to the gods? The fame of this\nwall will reach as far as dawn itself, and men will no longer think\nanything of the one which Phoebus Apollo and myself built with so much\nlabour for Laomedon.\"\n\nJove was displeased and answered, \"What, O shaker of the earth, are you\ntalking about? A god less powerful than yourself might be alarmed at\nwhat they are doing, but your fame reaches as far as dawn itself.\nSurely when the Achaeans have gone home with their ships, you can\nshatter their wall and fling it into the sea; you can cover the beach\nwith sand again, and the great wall of the Achaeans will then be\nutterly effaced.\"\n\nThus did they converse, and by sunset the work of the Achaeans was\ncompleted; they then slaughtered oxen at their tents and got their\nsupper. Many ships had come with wine from Lemnos, sent by Euneus the\nson of Jason, born to him by Hypsipyle. The son of Jason freighted them\nwith ten thousand measures of wine, which he sent specially to the sons\nof Atreus, Agamemnon and Menelaus. From this supply the Achaeans bought\ntheir wine, some with bronze, some with iron, some with hides, some\nwith whole heifers, and some again with captives. They spread a goodly\nbanquet and feasted the whole night through, as also did the Trojans\nand their allies in the city. But all the time Jove boded them ill and\nroared with his portentous thunder. Pale fear got hold upon them, and\nthey spilled the wine from their cups on to the ground, nor did any\ndare drink till he had made offerings to the most mighty son of Saturn.\nThen they laid themselves down to rest and enjoyed the boon of sleep.\n\n\n\nBOOK VIII\n\n  Jove forbids the gods to interfere further--There is an even\n  fight till midday, but then Jove inclines the scales of victory\n  in favour of the Trojans, who eventually chase the Achaeans\n  within their wall--Juno and Minerva set out to help the\n  Trojans: Jove sends Iris to turn them back, but later on\n  he promises Juno that she shall have her way in the end--Hector's\n  triumph is stayed by nightfall--The Trojans bivouac on the plain.\n\nNOW when Morning, clad in her robe of saffron, had begun to suffuse\nlight over the earth, Jove called the gods in council on the topmost\ncrest of serrated Olympus. Then he spoke and all the other gods gave\near. \"Hear me,\" said he, \"gods and goddesses, that I may speak even as\nI am minded. Let none of you neither goddess nor god try to cross me,\nbut obey me every one of you that I may bring this matter to an end. If\nI see anyone acting apart and helping either Trojans or Danaans, he\nshall be beaten inordinately ere he come back again to Olympus; or I\nwill hurl him down into dark Tartarus far into the deepest pit under\nthe earth, where the gates are iron and the floor bronze, as far\nbeneath Hades as heaven is high above the earth, that you may learn how\nmuch the mightiest I am among you. Try me and find out for yourselves.\nHangs me a golden chain from heaven, and lay hold of it all of you,\ngods and goddesses together--tug as you will, you will not drag Jove\nthe supreme counsellor from heaven to earth; but were I to pull at it\nmyself I should draw you up with earth and sea into the bargain, then\nwould I bind the chain about some pinnacle of Olympus and leave you all\ndangling in the mid firmament. So far am I above all others either of\ngods or men.\"\n\nThey were frightened and all of them of held their peace, for he had\nspoken masterfully; but at last Minerva answered, \"Father, son of\nSaturn, king of kings, we all know that your might is not to be\ngainsaid, but we are also sorry for the Danaan warriors, who are\nperishing and coming to a bad end. We will, however, since you so bid\nus, refrain from actual fighting, but we will make serviceable\nsuggestions to the Argives that they may not all of them perish in your\ndispleasure.\"\n\nJove smiled at her and answered, \"Take heart, my child, Trito-born; I\nam not really in earnest, and I wish to be kind to you.\"\n\nWith this he yoked his fleet horses, with hoofs of bronze and manes of\nglittering gold. He girded himself also with gold about the body,\nseized his gold whip and took his seat in his chariot. Thereon he\nlashed his horses and they flew forward nothing loth midway twixt earth\nand starry heaven. After a while he reached many-fountained Ida, mother\nof wild beasts, and Gargarus, where are his grove and fragrant altar.\nThere the father of gods and men stayed his horses, took them from the\nchariot, and hid them in a thick cloud; then he took his seat all\nglorious upon the topmost crests, looking down upon the city of Troy\nand the ships of the Achaeans.\n\nThe Achaeans took their morning meal hastily at the ships, and\nafterwards put on their armour. The Trojans on the other hand likewise\narmed themselves throughout the city, fewer in numbers but nevertheless\neager perforce to do battle for their wives and children. All the gates\nwere flung wide open, and horse and foot sallied forth with the tramp\nas of a great multitude.\n\nWhen they were got together in one place, shield clashed with shield,\nand spear with spear, in the conflict of mail-clad men. Mighty was the\ndin as the bossed shields pressed hard on one another--death--cry and\nshout of triumph of slain and slayers, and the earth ran red with blood.\n\nNow so long as the day waxed and it was still morning their weapons\nbeat against one another, and the people fell, but when the sun had\nreached mid-heaven, the sire of all balanced his golden scales, and put\ntwo fates of death within them, one for the Trojans and the other for\nthe Achaeans. He took the balance by the middle, and when he lifted it\nup the day of the Achaeans sank; the death-fraught scale of the\nAchaeans settled down upon the ground, while that of the Trojans rose\nheavenwards. Then he thundered aloud from Ida, and sent the glare of\nhis lightning upon the Achaeans; when they saw this, pale fear fell\nupon them and they were sore afraid.\n\nIdomeneus dared not stay nor yet Agamemnon, nor did the two Ajaxes,\nservants of Mars, hold their ground. Nestor knight of Gerene alone\nstood firm, bulwark of the Achaeans, not of his own will, but one of\nhis horses was disabled. Alexandrus husband of lovely Helen had hit it\nwith an arrow just on the top of its head where the mane begins to grow\naway from the skull, a very deadly place. The horse bounded in his\nanguish as the arrow pierced his brain, and his struggles threw others\ninto confusion. The old man instantly began cutting the traces with his\nsword, but Hector's fleet horses bore down upon him through the rout\nwith their bold charioteer, even Hector himself, and the old man would\nhave perished there and then had not Diomed been quick to mark, and\nwith a loud cry called Ulysses to help him.\n\n\"Ulysses,\" he cried, \"noble son of Laertes where are you flying to,\nwith your back turned like a coward? See that you are not struck with a\nspear between the shoulders. Stay here and help me to defend Nestor\nfrom this man's furious onset.\"\n\nUlysses would not give ear, but sped onward to the ships of the\nAchaeans, and the son of Tydeus flinging himself alone into the thick\nof the fight took his stand before the horses of the son of Neleus.\n\"Sir,\" said he, \"these young warriors are pressing you hard, your force\nis spent, and age is heavy upon you, your squire is naught, and your\nhorses are slow to move. Mount my chariot and see what the horses of\nTros can do--how cleverly they can scud hither and thither over the\nplain either in flight or in pursuit. I took them from the hero Aeneas.\nLet our squires attend to your own steeds, but let us drive mine\nstraight at the Trojans, that Hector may learn how furiously I too can\nwield my spear.\"\n\nNestor knight of Gerene hearkened to his words. Thereon the doughty\nsquires, Sthenelus and kind-hearted Eurymedon, saw to Nestor's horses,\nwhile the two both mounted Diomed's chariot. Nestor took the reins in\nhis hands and lashed the horses on; they were soon close up with\nHector, and the son of Tydeus aimed a spear at him as he was charging\nfull speed towards them. He missed him, but struck his charioteer and\nsquire Eniopeus son of noble Thebaeus in the breast by the nipple while\nthe reins were in his hands, so that he died there and then, and the\nhorses swerved as he fell headlong from the chariot. Hector was greatly\ngrieved at the loss of his charioteer, but let him lie for all his\nsorrow, while he went in quest of another driver; nor did his steeds\nhave to go long without one, for he presently found brave Archeptolemus\nthe son of Iphitus, and made him get up behind the horses, giving the\nreins into his hand.\n\nAll had then been lost and no help for it, for they would have been\npenned up in Ilius like sheep, had not the sire of gods and men been\nquick to mark, and hurled a fiery flaming thunderbolt which fell just\nin front of Diomed's horses with a flare of burning brimstone. The\nhorses were frightened and tried to back beneath the car, while the\nreins dropped from Nestor's hands. Then he was afraid and said to\nDiomed, \"Son of Tydeus, turn your horses in flight; see you not that\nthe hand of Jove is against you? To-day he vouchsafes victory to\nHector; to-morrow, if it so please him, he will again grant it to\nourselves; no man, however brave, may thwart the purpose of Jove, for\nhe is far stronger than any.\"\n\nDiomed answered, \"All that you have said is true; there is a grief\nhowever which pierces me to the very heart, for Hector will talk among\nthe Trojans and say, 'The son of Tydeus fled before me to the ships.'\nThis is the vaunt he will make, and may earth then swallow me.\"\n\n\"Son of Tydeus,\" replied Nestor, \"what mean you? Though Hector say that\nyou are a coward the Trojans and Dardanians will not believe him, nor\nyet the wives of the mighty warriors whom you have laid low.\"\n\nSo saying he turned the horses back through the thick of the battle,\nand with a cry that rent the air the Trojans and Hector rained their\ndarts after them. Hector shouted to him and said, \"Son of Tydeus, the\nDanaans have done you honour hitherto as regards your place at table,\nthe meals they give you, and the filling of your cup with wine.\nHenceforth they will despise you, for you are become no better than a\nwoman. Be off, girl and coward that you are, you shall not scale our\nwalls through any flinching upon my part; neither shall you carry off\nour wives in your ships, for I shall kill you with my own hand.\"\n\nThe son of Tydeus was in two minds whether or no to turn his horses\nround again and fight him. Thrice did he doubt, and thrice did Jove\nthunder from the heights of Ida in token to the Trojans that he would\nturn the battle in their favour. Hector then shouted to them and said,\n\"Trojans, Lycians, and Dardanians, lovers of close fighting, be men, my\nfriends, and fight with might and with main; I see that Jove is minded\nto vouchsafe victory and great glory to myself, while he will deal\ndestruction upon the Danaans. Fools, for having thought of building\nthis weak and worthless wall. It shall not stay my fury; my horses will\nspring lightly over their trench, and when I am at their ships forget\nnot to bring me fire that I may burn them, while I slaughter the\nArgives who will be all dazed and bewildered by the smoke.\"\n\nThen he cried to his horses, \"Xanthus and Podargus, and you Aethon and\ngoodly Lampus, pay me for your keep now and for all the honey-sweet\ncorn with which Andromache daughter of great Eetion has fed you, and\nfor she has mixed wine and water for you to drink whenever you would,\nbefore doing so even for me who am her own husband. Haste in pursuit,\nthat we may take the shield of Nestor, the fame of which ascends to\nheaven, for it is of solid gold, arm-rods and all, and that we may\nstrip from the shoulders of Diomed the cuirass which Vulcan made him.\nCould we take these two things, the Achaeans would set sail in their\nships this self-same night.\"\n\nThus did he vaunt, but Queen Juno made high Olympus quake as she shook\nwith rage upon her throne. Then said she to the mighty god of Neptune,\n\"What now, wide ruling lord of the earthquake? Can you find no\ncompassion in your heart for the dying Danaans, who bring you many a\nwelcome offering to Helice and to Aegae? Wish them well then. If all of\nus who are with the Danaans were to drive the Trojans back and keep\nJove from helping them, he would have to sit there sulking alone on\nIda.\"\n\nKing Neptune was greatly troubled and answered, \"Juno, rash of tongue,\nwhat are you talking about? We other gods must not set ourselves\nagainst Jove, for he is far stronger than we are.\"\n\nThus did they converse; but the whole space enclosed by the ditch, from\nthe ships even to the wall, was filled with horses and warriors, who\nwere pent up there by Hector son of Priam, now that the hand of Jove\nwas with him. He would even have set fire to the ships and burned them,\nhad not Queen Juno put it into the mind of Agamemnon, to bestir himself\nand to encourage the Achaeans. To this end he went round the ships and\ntents carrying a great purple cloak, and took his stand by the huge\nblack hull of Ulysses' ship, which was middlemost of all; it was from\nthis place that his voice would carry farthest, on the one hand towards\nthe tents of Ajax son of Telamon, and on the other towards those of\nAchilles--for these two heroes, well assured of their own strength, had\nvalorously drawn up their ships at the two ends of the line. From this\nspot then, with a voice that could be heard afar, he shouted to the\nDanaans, saying, \"Argives, shame on you cowardly creatures, brave in\nsemblance only; where are now our vaunts that we should prove\nvictorious--the vaunts we made so vaingloriously in Lemnos, when we ate\nthe flesh of horned cattle and filled our mixing-bowls to the brim? You\nvowed that you would each of you stand against a hundred or two hundred\nmen, and now you prove no match even for one--for Hector, who will be\nere long setting our ships in a blaze. Father Jove, did you ever so\nruin a great king and rob him so utterly of his greatness? Yet, when to\nmy sorrow I was coming hither, I never let my ship pass your altars\nwithout offering the fat and thigh-bones of heifers upon every one of\nthem, so eager was I to sack the city of Troy. Vouchsafe me then this\nprayer--suffer us to escape at any rate with our lives, and let not the\nAchaeans be so utterly vanquished by the Trojans.\"\n\nThus did he pray, and father Jove pitying his tears vouchsafed him that\nhis people should live, not die; forthwith he sent them an eagle, most\nunfailingly portentous of all birds, with a young fawn in its talons;\nthe eagle dropped the fawn by the altar on which the Achaeans\nsacrificed to Jove the lord of omens; when, therefore, the people saw\nthat the bird had come from Jove, they sprang more fiercely upon the\nTrojans and fought more boldly.\n\nThere was no man of all the many Danaans who could then boast that he\nhad driven his horses over the trench and gone forth to fight sooner\nthan the son of Tydeus; long before any one else could do so he slew an\narmed warrior of the Trojans, Agelaus the son of Phradmon. He had\nturned his horses in flight, but the spear struck him in the back\nmidway between his shoulders and went right through his chest, and his\narmour rang rattling round him as he fell forward from his chariot.\n\nAfter him came Agamemnon and Menelaus, sons of Atreus, the two Ajaxes\nclothed in valour as with a garment, Idomeneus and his companion in\narms Meriones, peer of murderous Mars, and Eurypylus the brave son of\nEuaemon. Ninth came Teucer with his bow, and took his place under cover\nof the shield of Ajax son of Telamon. When Ajax lifted his shield\nTeucer would peer round, and when he had hit any one in the throng, the\nman would fall dead; then Teucer would hie back to Ajax as a child to\nits mother, and again duck down under his shield.\n\nWhich of the Trojans did brave Teucer first kill? Orsilochus, and then\nOrmenus and Ophelestes, Daetor, Chromius, and godlike Lycophontes,\nAmopaon son of Polyaemon, and Melanippus. All these in turn did he lay\nlow upon the earth, and King Agamemnon was glad when he saw him making\nhavoc of the Trojans with his mighty bow. He went up to him and said,\n\"Teucer, man after my own heart, son of Telamon, captain among the\nhost, shoot on, and be at once the saving of the Danaans and the glory\nof your father Telamon, who brought you up and took care of you in his\nown house when you were a child, bastard though you were. Cover him\nwith glory though he is far off; I will promise and I will assuredly\nperform; if aegis-bearing Jove and Minerva grant me to sack the city of\nIlius, you shall have the next best meed of honour after my own--a\ntripod, or two horses with their chariot, or a woman who shall go up\ninto your bed.\"\n\nAnd Teucer answered, \"Most noble son of Atreus, you need not urge me;\nfrom the moment we began to drive them back to Ilius, I have never\nceased so far as in me lies to look out for men whom I can shoot and\nkill; I have shot eight barbed shafts, and all of them have been buried\nin the flesh of warlike youths, but this mad dog I cannot hit.\"\n\nAs he spoke he aimed another arrow straight at Hector, for he was bent\non hitting him; nevertheless he missed him, and the arrow hit Priam's\nbrave son Gorgythion in the breast. His mother, fair Castianeira,\nlovely as a goddess, had been married from Aesyme, and now he bowed his\nhead as a garden poppy in full bloom when it is weighed down by showers\nin spring--even thus heavy bowed his head beneath the weight of his\nhelmet.\n\nAgain he aimed at Hector, for he was longing to hit him, and again his\narrow missed, for Apollo turned it aside; but he hit Hector's brave\ncharioteer Archeptolemus in the breast, by the nipple, as he was\ndriving furiously into the fight. The horses swerved aside as he fell\nheadlong from the chariot, and there was no life left in him. Hector\nwas greatly grieved at the loss of his charioteer, but for all his\nsorrow he let him lie where he fell, and bade his brother Cebriones,\nwho was hard by, take the reins. Cebriones did as he had said. Hector\nthereon with a loud cry sprang from his chariot to the ground, and\nseizing a great stone made straight for Teucer with intent to kill him.\nTeucer had just taken an arrow from his quiver and had laid it upon the\nbow-string, but Hector struck him with the jagged stone as he was\ntaking aim and drawing the string to his shoulder; he hit him just\nwhere the collar-bone divides the neck from the chest, a very deadly\nplace, and broke the sinew of his arm so that his wrist was less, and\nthe bow dropped from his hand as he fell forward on his knees. Ajax saw\nthat his brother had fallen, and running towards him bestrode him and\nsheltered him with his shield. Meanwhile his two trusty squires,\nMecisteus son of Echius, and Alastor, came up and bore him to the ships\ngroaning in his great pain.\n\nJove now again put heart into the Trojans, and they drove the Achaeans\nto their deep trench with Hector in all his glory at their head. As a\nhound grips a wild boar or lion in flank or buttock when he gives him\nchase, and watches warily for his wheeling, even so did Hector follow\nclose upon the Achaeans, ever killing the hindmost as they rushed\npanic-stricken onwards. When they had fled through the set stakes and\ntrench and many Achaeans had been laid low at the hands of the Trojans,\nthey halted at their ships, calling upon one another and praying every\nman instantly as they lifted up their hands to the gods; but Hector\nwheeled his horses this way and that, his eyes glaring like those of\nGorgo or murderous Mars.\n\nJuno when she saw them had pity upon them, and at once said to Minerva,\n\"Alas, child of aegis-bearing Jove, shall you and I take no more\nthought for the dying Danaans, though it be the last time we ever do\nso? See how they perish and come to a bad end before the onset of but a\nsingle man. Hector the son of Priam rages with intolerable fury, and\nhas already done great mischief.\"\n\nMinerva answered, \"Would, indeed, this fellow might die in his own\nland, and fall by the hands of the Achaeans; but my father Jove is mad\nwith spleen, ever foiling me, ever headstrong and unjust. He forgets\nhow often I saved his son when he was worn out by the labours\nEurystheus had laid on him. He would weep till his cry came up to\nheaven, and then Jove would send me down to help him; if I had had the\nsense to foresee all this, when Eurystheus sent him to the house of\nHades, to fetch the hell-hound from Erebus, he would never have come\nback alive out of the deep waters of the river Styx. And now Jove hates\nme, while he lets Thetis have her way because she kissed his knees and\ntook hold of his beard, when she was begging him to do honour to\nAchilles. I shall know what to do next time he begins calling me his\ngrey-eyed darling. Get our horses ready, while I go within the house of\naegis-bearing Jove and put on my armour; we shall then find out whether\nPriam's son Hector will be glad to meet us in the highways of battle,\nor whether the Trojans will glut hounds and vultures with the fat of\ntheir flesh as they be dead by the ships of the Achaeans.\"\n\nThus did she speak and white-armed Juno, daughter of great Saturn,\nobeyed her words; she set about harnessing her gold-bedizened steeds,\nwhile Minerva daughter of aegis-bearing Jove flung her richly vesture,\nmade with her own hands, on to the threshold of her father, and donned\nthe shirt of Jove, arming herself for battle. Then she stepped into her\nflaming chariot, and grasped the spear so stout and sturdy and strong\nwith which she quells the ranks of heroes who have displeased her. Juno\nlashed her horses, and the gates of heaven bellowed as they flew open\nof their own accord--gates over which the Hours preside, in whose hands\nare heaven and Olympus, either to open the dense cloud that hides them\nor to close it. Through these the goddesses drove their obedient steeds.\n\nBut father Jove when he saw them from Ida was very angry, and sent\nwinged Iris with a message to them. \"Go,\" said he, \"fleet Iris, turn\nthem back, and see that they do not come near me, for if we come to\nfighting there will be mischief. This is what I say, and this is what I\nmean to do. I will lame their horses for them; I will hurl them from\ntheir chariot, and will break it in pieces. It will take them all ten\nyears to heal the wounds my lightning shall inflict upon them; my\ngrey-eyed daughter will then learn what quarrelling with her father\nmeans. I am less surprised and angry with Juno, for whatever I say she\nalways contradicts me.\"\n\nWith this Iris went her way, fleet as the wind, from the heights of Ida\nto the lofty summits of Olympus. She met the goddesses at the outer\ngates of its many valleys and gave them her message. \"What,\" said she,\n\"are you about? Are you mad? The son of Saturn forbids going. This is\nwhat he says, and this is what he means to do, he will lame your horses for\nyou, he will hurl you from your chariot, and will break it in pieces.\nIt will take you all ten years to heal the wounds his lightning will\ninflict upon you, that you may learn, grey-eyed goddess, what\nquarrelling with your father means. He is less hurt and angry with\nJuno, for whatever he says she always contradicts him but you, bold\nhussy, will you really dare to raise your huge spear in defiance of\nJove?\"\n\nWith this she left them, and Juno said to Minerva, \"Of a truth, child\nof aegis-bearing Jove, I am not for fighting men's battles further in\ndefiance of Jove. Let them live or die as luck will have it, and let\nJove mete out his judgements upon the Trojans and Danaans according to\nhis own pleasure.\"\n\nShe turned her steeds; the Hours presently unyoked them, made them fast\nto their ambrosial mangers, and leaned the chariot against the end wall\nof the courtyard. The two goddesses then sat down upon their golden\nthrones, amid the company of the other gods; but they were very angry.\n\nPresently father Jove drove his chariot to Olympus, and entered the\nassembly of gods. The mighty lord of the earthquake unyoked his horses\nfor him, set the car upon its stand, and threw a cloth over it. Jove\nthen sat down upon his golden throne and Olympus reeled beneath him.\nMinerva and Juno sat alone, apart from Jove, and neither spoke nor\nasked him questions, but Jove knew what they meant, and said, \"Minerva\nand Juno, why are you so angry? Are you fatigued with killing so many\nof your dear friends the Trojans? Be this as it may, such is the might\nof my hands that all the gods in Olympus cannot turn me; you were both\nof you trembling all over ere ever you saw the fight and its terrible\ndoings. I tell you therefore-and it would have surely been--I should\nhave struck you with lightning, and your chariots would never have\nbrought you back again to Olympus.\"\n\nMinerva and Juno groaned in spirit as they sat side by side and brooded\nmischief for the Trojans. Minerva sat silent without a word, for she\nwas in a furious passion and bitterly incensed against her father; but\nJuno could not contain herself and said, \"What, dread son of Saturn,\nare you talking about? We know how great your power is, nevertheless we\nhave compassion upon the Danaan warriors who are perishing and coming\nto a bad end. We will, however, since you so bid us, refrain from\nactual fighting, but we will make serviceable suggestions to the\nArgives, that they may not all of them perish in your displeasure.\"\n\nAnd Jove answered, \"To-morrow morning, Juno, if you choose to do so,\nyou will see the son of Saturn destroying large numbers of the Argives,\nfor fierce Hector shall not cease fighting till he has roused the son\nof Peleus when they are fighting in dire straits at their ships' sterns\nabout the body of Patroclus. Like it or no, this is how it is decreed;\nfor aught I care, you may go to the lowest depths beneath earth and\nsea, where Iapetus and Saturn dwell in lone Tartarus with neither ray\nof light nor breath of wind to cheer them. You may go on and on till\nyou get there, and I shall not care one whit for your displeasure; you\nare the greatest vixen living.\"\n\nJuno made him no answer. The sun's glorious orb now sank into Oceanus\nand drew down night over the land. Sorry indeed were the Trojans when\nlight failed them, but welcome and thrice prayed for did darkness fall\nupon the Achaeans.\n\nThen Hector led the Trojans back from the ships, and held a council on\nthe open space near the river, where there was a spot clear of corpses.\nThey left their chariots and sat down on the ground to hear the speech\nhe made them. He grasped a spear eleven cubits long, the bronze point\nof which gleamed in front of it, while the ring round the spear-head\nwas of gold. Spear in hand he spoke. \"Hear me,\" said he, \"Trojans,\nDardanians, and allies. I deemed but now that I should destroy the\nships and all the Achaeans with them ere I went back to Ilius, but\ndarkness came on too soon. It was this alone that saved them and their\nships upon the seashore. Now, therefore, let us obey the behests of\nnight, and prepare our suppers. Take your horses out of their chariots\nand give them their feeds of corn; then make speed to bring sheep and\ncattle from the city; bring wine also and corn for your horses and\ngather much wood, that from dark till dawn we may burn watchfires whose\nflare may reach to heaven. For the Achaeans may try to fly beyond the\nsea by night, and they must not embark scatheless and unmolested; many\na man among them must take a dart with him to nurse at home, hit with\nspear or arrow as he is leaping on board his ship, that others may fear\nto bring war and weeping upon the Trojans. Moreover let the heralds\ntell it about the city that the growing youths and grey-bearded men are\nto camp upon its heaven-built walls. Let the women each of them light a\ngreat fire in her house, and let watch be safely kept lest the town be\nentered by surprise while the host is outside. See to it, brave\nTrojans, as I have said, and let this suffice for the moment; at\ndaybreak I will instruct you further. I pray in hope to Jove and to the\ngods that we may then drive those fate-sped hounds from our land, for\n'tis the fates that have borne them and their ships hither. This night,\ntherefore, let us keep watch, but with early morning let us put on our\narmour and rouse fierce war at the ships of the Achaeans; I shall then\nknow whether brave Diomed the son of Tydeus will drive me back from the\nships to the wall, or whether I shall myself slay him and carry off his\nbloodstained spoils. To-morrow let him show his mettle, abide my spear\nif he dare. I ween that at break of day, he shall be among the first to\nfall and many another of his comrades round him. Would that I were as\nsure of being immortal and never growing old, and of being worshipped\nlike Minerva and Apollo, as I am that this day will bring evil to the\nArgives.\"\n\nThus spoke Hector and the Trojans shouted applause. They took their\nsweating steeds from under the yoke, and made them fast each by his own\nchariot. They made haste to bring sheep and cattle from the city, they\nbrought wine also and corn from their houses and gathered much wood.\nThey then offered unblemished hecatombs to the immortals, and the wind\ncarried the sweet savour of sacrifice to heaven--but the blessed gods\npartook not thereof, for they bitterly hated Ilius with Priam and\nPriam's people. Thus high in hope they sat through the livelong night\nby the highways of war, and many a watchfire did they kindle. As when\nthe stars shine clear, and the moon is bright--there is not a breath of\nair, not a peak nor glade nor jutting headland but it stands out in the\nineffable radiance that breaks from the serene of heaven; the stars can\nall of them be told and the heart of the shepherd is glad--even thus\nshone the watchfires of the Trojans before Ilius midway between the\nships and the river Xanthus. A thousand camp-fires gleamed upon the\nplain, and in the glow of each there sat fifty men, while the horses,\nchamping oats and corn beside their chariots, waited till dawn should\ncome.\n\n\n\nBOOK IX\n\n  The Embassy to Achilles.\n\nTHUS did the Trojans watch. But Panic, comrade of blood-stained Rout,\nhad taken fast hold of the Achaeans, and their princes were all of them\nin despair. As when the two winds that blow from Thrace--the north and\nthe northwest--spring up of a sudden and rouse the fury of the main--in\na moment the dark waves uprear their heads and scatter their sea-wrack\nin all directions--even thus troubled were the hearts of the Achaeans.\n\nThe son of Atreus in dismay bade the heralds call the people to a\ncouncil man by man, but not to cry the matter aloud; he made haste also\nhimself to call them, and they sat sorry at heart in their assembly.\nAgamemnon shed tears as it were a running stream or cataract on the\nside of some sheer cliff; and thus, with many a heavy sigh he spoke to\nthe Achaeans. \"My friends,\" said he, \"princes and councillors of the\nArgives, the hand of heaven has been laid heavily upon me. Cruel Jove\ngave me his solemn promise that I should sack the city of Troy before\nreturning, but he has played me false, and is now bidding me go\ningloriously back to Argos with the loss of much people. Such is the\nwill of Jove, who has laid many a proud city in the dust as he will yet\nlay others, for his power is above all. Now, therefore, let us all do\nas I say and sail back to our own country, for we shall not take Troy.\"\n\nThus he spoke, and the sons of the Achaeans for a long while sat\nsorrowful there, but they all held their peace, till at last Diomed of\nthe loud battle-cry made answer saying, \"Son of Atreus, I will chide\nyour folly, as is my right in council. Be not then aggrieved that I\nshould do so. In the first place you attacked me before all the Danaans\nand said that I was a coward and no soldier. The Argives young and old\nknow that you did so. But the son of scheming Saturn endowed you by\nhalves only. He gave you honour as the chief ruler over us, but valour,\nwhich is the highest both right and might he did not give you. Sir,\nthink you that the sons of the Achaeans are indeed as unwarlike and\ncowardly as you say they are? If your own mind is set upon going\nhome--go--the way is open to you; the many ships that followed you from\nMycene stand ranged upon the seashore; but the rest of us stay here\ntill we have sacked Troy. Nay though these too should turn homeward\nwith their ships, Sthenelus and myself will still fight on till we\nreach the goal of Ilius, for heaven was with us when we came.\"\n\nThe sons of the Achaeans shouted applause at the words of Diomed, and\npresently Nestor rose to speak. \"Son of Tydeus,\" said he, \"in war your\nprowess is beyond question, and in council you excel all who are of\nyour own years; no one of the Achaeans can make light of what you say\nnor gainsay it, but you have not yet come to the end of the whole\nmatter. You are still young--you might be the youngest of my own\nchildren--still you have spoken wisely and have counselled the chief of\nthe Achaeans not without discretion; nevertheless I am older than you\nand I will tell you everything; therefore let no man, not even King\nAgamemnon, disregard my saying, for he that foments civil discord is a\nclanless, hearthless outlaw.\n\n\"Now, however, let us obey the behests of night and get our suppers,\nbut let the sentinels every man of them camp by the trench that is\nwithout the wall. I am giving these instructions to the young men; when\nthey have been attended to, do you, son of Atreus, give your orders,\nfor you are the most royal among us all. Prepare a feast for your\ncouncillors; it is right and reasonable that you should do so; there is\nabundance of wine in your tents, which the ships of the Achaeans bring\nfrom Thrace daily. You have everything at your disposal wherewith to\nentertain guests, and you have many subjects. When many are got\ntogether, you can be guided by him whose counsel is wisest--and sorely\ndo we need shrewd and prudent counsel, for the foe has lit his\nwatchfires hard by our ships. Who can be other than dismayed? This\nnight will either be the ruin of our host, or save it.\"\n\nThus did he speak, and they did even as he had said. The sentinels went\nout in their armour under command of Nestor's son Thrasymedes, a\ncaptain of the host, and of the bold warriors Ascalaphus and Ialmenus:\nthere were also Meriones, Aphareus and Deipyrus, and the son of Creion,\nnoble Lycomedes. There were seven captains of the sentinels, and with\neach there went a hundred youths armed with long spears: they took\ntheir places midway between the trench and the wall, and when they had\ndone so they lit their fires and got every man his supper.\n\nThe son of Atreus then bade many councillors of the Achaeans to his\nquarters and prepared a great feast in their honour. They laid their hands\non the good things that were before them, and as soon as they had\nenough to eat and drink, old Nestor, whose counsel was ever truest, was\nthe first to lay his mind before them. He, therefore, with all\nsincerity and goodwill addressed them thus.\n\n\"With yourself, most noble son of Atreus, king of men, Agamemnon, will\nI both begin my speech and end it, for you are king over much people.\nJove, moreover, has vouchsafed you to wield the sceptre and to uphold\nrighteousness, that you may take thought for your people under you;\ntherefore it behooves you above all others both to speak and to give\near, and to out the counsel of another who shall have been minded to\nspeak wisely. All turns on you and on your commands, therefore I will\nsay what I think will be best. No man will be of a truer mind than that\nwhich has been mine from the hour when you, sir, angered Achilles by\ntaking the girl Briseis from his tent against my judgment. I urged you\nnot to do so, but you yielded to your own pride, and dishonoured a hero\nwhom heaven itself had honoured--for you still hold the prize that had\nbeen awarded to him. Now, however, let us think how we may appease him,\nboth with presents and fair speeches that may conciliate him.\"\n\nAnd King Agamemnon answered, \"Sir, you have reproved my folly justly. I\nwas wrong. I own it. One whom heaven befriends is in himself a host,\nand Jove has shown that he befriends this man by destroying much people\nof the Achaeans. I was blinded with passion and yielded to my worser\nmind; therefore I will make amends, and will give him great gifts by\nway of atonement. I will tell them in the presence of you all. I will\ngive him seven tripods that have never yet been on the fire, and ten\ntalents of gold. I will give him twenty iron cauldrons and twelve\nstrong horses that have won races and carried off prizes. Rich, indeed,\nboth in land and gold is he that has as many prizes as my horses have\nwon me. I will give him seven excellent workwomen, Lesbians, whom I\nchose for myself when he took Lesbos--all of surpassing beauty. I will\ngive him these, and with them her whom I erewhile took from him, the\ndaughter of Briseus; and I swear a great oath that I never went up into\nher couch, nor have been with her after the manner of men and women.\n\n\"All these things will I give him now, and if hereafter the gods\nvouchsafe me to sack the city of Priam, let him come when we Achaeans\nare dividing the spoil, and load his ship with gold and bronze to his\nliking; furthermore let him take twenty Trojan women, the loveliest\nafter Helen herself. Then, when we reach Achaean Argos, wealthiest of\nall lands, he shall be my son-in-law and I will show him like honour\nwith my own dear son Orestes, who is being nurtured in all abundance. I\nhave three daughters, Chrysothemis, Laodice, and Iphianassa, let him\ntake the one of his choice, freely and without gifts of wooing, to the\nhouse of Peleus; I will add such dower to boot as no man ever yet gave\nhis daughter, and will give him seven well established cities,\nCardamyle, Enope, and Hire, where there is grass; holy Pherae and the\nrich meadows of Anthea; Aepea also, and the vine-clad slopes of\nPedasus, all near the sea, and on the borders of sandy Pylos. The men\nthat dwell there are rich in cattle and sheep; they will honour him\nwith gifts as though he were a god, and be obedient to his comfortable\nordinances. All this will I do if he will now forgo his anger. Let him\nthen yield; it is only Hades who is utterly ruthless and\nunyielding--and hence he is of all gods the one most hateful to\nmankind. Moreover I am older and more royal than himself. Therefore,\nlet him now obey me.\"\n\nThen Nestor answered, \"Most noble son of Atreus, king of men,\nAgamemnon. The gifts you offer are no small ones, let us then send\nchosen messengers, who may go to the tent of Achilles son of Peleus\nwithout delay. Let those go whom I shall name. Let Phoenix, dear to\nJove, lead the way; let Ajax and Ulysses follow, and let the heralds\nOdius and Eurybates go with them. Now bring water for our hands, and\nbid all keep silence while we pray to Jove the son of Saturn, if so be\nthat he may have mercy upon us.\"\n\nThus did he speak, and his saying pleased them well. Men-servants\npoured water over the hands of the guests, while pages filled the\nmixing-bowls with wine and water, and handed it round after giving\nevery man his drink-offering; then, when they had made their offerings,\nand had drunk each as much as he was minded, the envoys set out from\nthe tent of Agamemnon son of Atreus; and Nestor, looking first to one\nand then to another, but most especially at Ulysses, was instant with\nthem that they should prevail with the noble son of Peleus.\n\nThey went their way by the shore of the sounding sea, and prayed\nearnestly to earth-encircling Neptune that the high spirit of the son\nof Aeacus might incline favourably towards them. When they reached the\nships and tents of the Myrmidons, they found Achilles playing on a\nlyre, fair, of cunning workmanship, and its cross-bar was of silver. It\nwas part of the spoils which he had taken when he sacked the city of\nEetion, and he was now diverting himself with it and singing the feats\nof heroes. He was alone with Patroclus, who sat opposite to him and\nsaid nothing, waiting till he should cease singing. Ulysses and Ajax\nnow came in--Ulysses leading the way--and stood before him. Achilles\nsprang from his seat with the lyre still in his hand, and Patroclus,\nwhen he saw the strangers, rose also. Achilles then greeted them\nsaying, \"All hail and welcome--you must come upon some great matter,\nyou, who for all my anger are still dearest to me of the Achaeans.\"\n\nWith this he led them forward, and bade them sit on seats covered with\npurple rugs; then he said to Patroclus who was close by him, \"Son of\nMenoetius, set a larger bowl upon the table, mix less water with the\nwine, and give every man his cup, for these are very dear friends, who\nare now under my roof.\"\n\nPatroclus did as his comrade bade him; he set the chopping-block in\nfront of the fire, and on it he laid the loin of a sheep, the loin also\nof a goat, and the chine of a fat hog. Automedon held the meat while\nAchilles chopped it; he then sliced the pieces and put them on spits\nwhile the son of Menoetius made the fire burn high. When the flame had\ndied down, he spread the embers, laid the spits on top of them, lifting\nthem up and setting them upon the spit-racks; and he sprinkled them\nwith salt. When the meat was roasted, he set it on platters, and handed\nbread round the table in fair baskets, while Achilles dealt them their\nportions. Then Achilles took his seat facing Ulysses against the\nopposite wall, and bade his comrade Patroclus offer sacrifice to the\ngods; so he cast the offerings into the fire, and they laid their hands\nupon the good things that were before them. As soon as they had had\nenough to eat and drink, Ajax made a sign to Phoenix, and when he saw\nthis, Ulysses filled his cup with wine and pledged Achilles.\n\n\"Hail,\" said he, \"Achilles, we have had no scant of good cheer, neither\nin the tent of Agamemnon, nor yet here; there has been plenty to eat\nand drink, but our thought turns upon no such matter. Sir, we are in\nthe face of great disaster, and without your help know not whether we\nshall save our fleet or lose it. The Trojans and their allies have\ncamped hard by our ships and by the wall; they have lit watchfires\nthroughout their host and deem that nothing can now prevent them from\nfalling on our fleet. Jove, moreover, has sent his lightnings on their\nright; Hector, in all his glory, rages like a maniac; confident that\nJove is with him he fears neither god nor man, but is gone raving mad,\nand prays for the approach of day. He vows that he will hew the high\nsterns of our ships in pieces, set fire to their hulls, and make havoc\nof the Achaeans while they are dazed and smothered in smoke; I much\nfear that heaven will make good his boasting, and it will prove our lot\nto perish at Troy far from our home in Argos. Up, then, and late though\nit be, save the sons of the Achaeans who faint before the fury of the\nTrojans. You will repent bitterly hereafter if you do not, for when the\nharm is done there will be no curing it; consider ere it be too late,\nand save the Danaans from destruction.\n\n\"My good friend, when your father Peleus sent you from Phthia to\nAgamemnon, did he not charge you saying, 'Son, Minerva and Juno will\nmake you strong if they choose, but check your high temper, for the\nbetter part is in goodwill. Eschew vain quarrelling, and the Achaeans\nold and young will respect you more for doing so.' These were his\nwords, but you have forgotten them. Even now, however, be appeased, and\nput away your anger from you. Agamemnon will make you great amends if\nyou will forgive him; listen, and I will tell you what he has said in\nhis tent that he will give you. He will give you seven tripods that\nhave never yet been on the fire, and ten talents of gold; twenty iron\ncauldrons, and twelve strong horses that have won races and carried off\nprizes. Rich indeed both in land and gold is he who has as many prizes\nas these horses have won for Agamemnon. Moreover he will give you seven\nexcellent workwomen, Lesbians, whom he chose for himself, when you took\nLesbos--all of surpassing beauty. He will give you these, and with them\nher whom he erewhile took from you, the daughter of Briseus, and he\nwill swear a great oath, he has never gone up into her couch nor been\nwith her after the manner of men and women. All these things will he\ngive you now down, and if hereafter the gods vouchsafe him to sack the\ncity of Priam, you can come when we Achaeans are dividing the spoil,\nand load your ship with gold and bronze to your liking. You can take\ntwenty Trojan women, the loveliest after Helen herself. Then, when we\nreach Achaean Argos, wealthiest of all lands, you shall be his\nson-in-law, and he will show you like honour with his own dear son\nOrestes, who is being nurtured in all abundance. Agamemnon has three\ndaughters, Chrysothemis, Laodice, and Iphianassa; you may take the one\nof your choice, freely and without gifts of wooing, to the house of\nPeleus; he will add such dower to boot as no man ever yet gave his\ndaughter, and will give you seven well-established cities, Cardamyle,\nEnope, and Hire where there is grass; holy Pheras and the rich meadows\nof Anthea; Aepea also, and the vine-clad slopes of Pedasus, all near\nthe sea, and on the borders of sandy Pylos. The men that dwell there\nare rich in cattle and sheep; they will honour you with gifts as though\nwere a god, and be obedient to your comfortable ordinances. All this\nwill he do if you will now forgo your anger. Moreover, though you hate\nboth him and his gifts with all your heart, yet pity the rest of the\nAchaeans who are being harassed in all their host; they will honour you\nas a god, and you will earn great glory at their hands. You might even\nkill Hector; he will come within your reach, for he is infatuated, and\ndeclares that not a Danaan whom the ships have brought can hold his own\nagainst him.\"\n\nAchilles answered, \"Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, I should give you\nformal notice plainly and in all fixity of purpose that there be no\nmore of this cajoling, from whatsoever quarter it may come. Him do I\nhate even as the gates of hell who says one thing while he hides\nanother in his heart; therefore I will say what I mean. I will be\nappeased neither by Agamemnon son of Atreus nor by any other of the\nDanaans, for I see that I have no thanks for all my fighting. He that\nfights fares no better than he that does not; coward and hero are held\nin equal honour, and death deals like measure to him who works and him\nwho is idle. I have taken nothing by all my hardships--with my life\never in my hand; as a bird when she has found a morsel takes it to her\nnestlings, and herself fares hardly, even so many a long night have I\nbeen wakeful, and many a bloody battle have I waged by day against\nthose who were fighting for their women. With my ships I have taken\ntwelve cities, and eleven round about Troy have I stormed with my men\nby land; I took great store of wealth from every one of them, but I\ngave all up to Agamemnon son of Atreus. He stayed where he was by his\nships, yet of what came to him he gave little, and kept much himself.\n\n\"Nevertheless he did distribute some meeds of honour among the\nchieftains and kings, and these have them still; from me alone of the\nAchaeans did he take the woman in whom I delighted--let him keep her\nand sleep with her. Why, pray, must the Argives needs fight the\nTrojans? What made the son of Atreus gather the host and bring them?\nWas it not for the sake of Helen? Are the sons of Atreus the only men\nin the world who love their wives? Any man of common right feeling will\nlove and cherish her who is his own, as I this woman, with my whole\nheart, though she was but a fruitling of my spear. Agamemnon has taken\nher from me; he has played me false; I know him; let him tempt me no\nfurther, for he shall not move me. Let him look to you, Ulysses, and to\nthe other princes to save his ships from burning. He has done much\nwithout me already. He has built a wall; he has dug a trench deep and\nwide all round it, and he has planted it within with stakes; but even\nso he stays not the murderous might of Hector. So long as I fought the\nAchaeans Hector suffered not the battle range far from the city walls;\nhe would come to the Scaean gates and to the oak tree, but no further.\nOnce he stayed to meet me and hardly did he escape my onset: now,\nhowever, since I am in no mood to fight him, I will to-morrow offer\nsacrifice to Jove and to all the gods; I will draw my ships into the\nwater and then victual them duly; to-morrow morning, if you care to\nlook, you will see my ships on the Hellespont, and my men rowing out to\nsea with might and main. If great Neptune vouchsafes me a fair passage,\nin three days I shall be in Phthia. I have much there that I left\nbehind me when I came here to my sorrow, and I shall bring back still\nfurther store of gold, of red copper, of fair women, and of iron, my\nshare of the spoils that we have taken; but one prize, he who gave has\ninsolently taken away. Tell him all as I now bid you, and tell him in\npublic that the Achaeans may hate him and beware of him should he think\nthat he can yet dupe others for his effrontery never fails him.\n\n\"As for me, hound that he is, he dares not look me in the face. I will\ntake no counsel with him, and will undertake nothing in common with\nhim. He has wronged me and deceived me enough, he shall not cozen me\nfurther; let him go his own way, for Jove has robbed him of his reason.\nI loathe his presents, and for himself care not one straw. He may offer\nme ten or even twenty times what he has now done, nay--not though it be\nall that he has in the world, both now or ever shall have; he may\npromise me the wealth of Orchomenus or of Egyptian Thebes, which is the\nrichest city in the whole world, for it has a hundred gates through\neach of which two hundred men may drive at once with their chariots and\nhorses; he may offer me gifts as the sands of the sea or the dust of\nthe plain in multitude, but even so he shall not move me till I have\nbeen revenged in full for the bitter wrong he has done me. I will not\nmarry his daughter; she may be fair as Venus, and skilful as Minerva,\nbut I will have none of her: let another take her, who may be a good\nmatch for her and who rules a larger kingdom. If the gods spare me to\nreturn home, Peleus will find me a wife; there are Achaean women in\nHellas and Phthia, daughters of kings that have cities under them; of\nthese I can take whom I will and marry her. Many a time was I minded\nwhen at home in Phthia to woo and wed a woman who would make me a\nsuitable wife, and to enjoy the riches of my old father Peleus. My life\nis more to me than all the wealth of Ilius while it was yet at peace\nbefore the Achaeans went there, or than all the treasure that lies on\nthe stone floor of Apollo's temple beneath the cliffs of Pytho. Cattle\nand sheep are to be had for harrying, and a man buy both tripods and\nhorses if he wants them, but when his life has once left him it can\nneither be bought nor harried back again.\n\n\"My mother Thetis tells me that there are two ways in which I may meet\nmy end. If I stay here and fight, I shall not return alive but my name\nwill live for ever: whereas if I go home my name will die, but it will\nbe long ere death shall take me. To the rest of you, then, I say, 'Go\nhome, for you will not take Ilius.' Jove has held his hand over her to\nprotect her, and her people have taken heart. Go, therefore, as in duty\nbound, and tell the princes of the Achaeans the message that I have\nsent them; tell them to find some other plan for the saving of their\nships and people, for so long as my displeasure lasts the one that they\nhave now hit upon may not be. As for Phoenix, let him sleep here that\nhe may sail with me in the morning if he so will. But I will not take\nhim by force.\"\n\nThey all held their peace, dismayed at the sternness with which he had\ndenied them, till presently the old knight Phoenix in his great fear\nfor the ships of the Achaeans, burst into tears and said, \"Noble\nAchilles, if you are now minded to return, and in the fierceness of\nyour anger will do nothing to save the ships from burning, how, my son,\ncan I remain here without you? Your father Peleus bade me go with you\nwhen he sent you as a mere lad from Phthia to Agamemnon. You knew\nnothing neither of war nor of the arts whereby men make their mark in\ncouncil, and he sent me with you to train you in all excellence of\nspeech and action. Therefore, my son, I will not stay here without\nyou--no, not though heaven itself vouchsafe to strip my years from off\nme, and make me young as I was when I first left Hellas the land of\nfair women. I was then flying the anger of father Amyntor, son of\nOrmenus, who was furious with me in the matter of his concubine, of\nwhom he was enamoured to the wronging of his wife my mother. My mother,\ntherefore, prayed me without ceasing to lie with the woman myself, that\nso she hate my father, and in the course of time I yielded. But my\nfather soon came to know, and cursed me bitterly, calling the dread\nErinyes to witness. He prayed that no son of mine might ever sit upon\nknees--and the gods, Jove of the world below and awful Proserpine,\nfulfilled his curse. I took counsel to kill him, but some god stayed my\nrashness and bade me think on men's evil tongues and how I should be\nbranded as the murderer of my father; nevertheless I could not bear to\nstay in my father's house with him so bitter against me. My cousins\nand clansmen came about me, and pressed me sorely to remain; many a\nsheep and many an ox did they slaughter, and many a fat hog did they\nset down to roast before the fire; many a jar, too, did they broach of\nmy father's wine. Nine whole nights did they set a guard over me taking\nit in turns to watch, and they kept a fire always burning, both in the\ncloister of the outer court and in the inner court at the doors of the\nroom wherein I lay; but when the darkness of the tenth night came, I\nbroke through the closed doors of my room, and climbed the wall of the\nouter court after passing quickly and unperceived through the men on\nguard and the women servants. I then fled through Hellas till I came to\nfertile Phthia, mother of sheep, and to King Peleus, who made me\nwelcome and treated me as a father treats an only son who will be heir\nto all his wealth. He made me rich and set me over much people,\nestablishing me on the borders of Phthia where I was chief ruler over\nthe Dolopians.\n\n\"It was I, Achilles, who had the making of you; I loved you with all my\nheart: for you would eat neither at home nor when you had gone out\nelsewhere, till I had first set you upon my knees, cut up the dainty\nmorsel that you were to eat, and held the wine-cup to your lips. Many a\ntime have you slobbered your wine in baby helplessness over my shirt; I\nhad infinite trouble with you, but I knew that heaven had vouchsafed me\nno offspring of my own, and I made a son of you, Achilles, that in my\nhour of need you might protect me. Now, therefore, I say battle with\nyour pride and beat it; cherish not your anger for ever; the might and\nmajesty of heaven are more than ours, but even heaven may be appeased;\nand if a man has sinned he prays the gods, and reconciles them to\nhimself by his piteous cries and by frankincense, with drink-offerings\nand the savour of burnt sacrifice. For prayers are as daughters to\ngreat Jove; halt, wrinkled, with eyes askance, they follow in the\nfootsteps of sin, who, being fierce and fleet of foot, leaves them far\nbehind him, and ever baneful to mankind outstrips them even to the ends\nof the world; but nevertheless the prayers come hobbling and healing\nafter. If a man has pity upon these daughters of Jove when they draw\nnear him, they will bless him and hear him too when he is praying; but\nif he deny them and will not listen to them, they go to Jove the son of\nSaturn and pray that he may presently fall into sin--to his ruing\nbitterly hereafter. Therefore, Achilles, give these daughters of Jove\ndue reverence, and bow before them as all good men will bow. Were not\nthe son of Atreus offering you gifts and promising others later--if he\nwere still furious and implacable--I am not he that would bid you throw\noff your anger and help the Achaeans, no matter how great their need;\nbut he is giving much now, and more hereafter; he has sent his captains\nto urge his suit, and has chosen those who of all the Argives are most\nacceptable to you; make not then their words and their coming to be of\nnone effect. Your anger has been righteous so far. We have heard in\nsong how heroes of old time quarrelled when they were roused to fury,\nbut still they could be won by gifts, and fair words could soothe them.\n\n\"I have an old story in my mind--a very old one--but you are all\nfriends and I will tell it. The Curetes and the Aetolians were fighting\nand killing one another round Calydon--the Aetolians defending the city\nand the Curetes trying to destroy it. For Diana of the golden throne\nwas angry and did them hurt because Oeneus had not offered her his\nharvest first-fruits. The other gods had all been feasted with\nhecatombs, but to the daughter of great Jove alone he had made no\nsacrifice. He had forgotten her, or somehow or other it had escaped\nhim, and this was a grievous sin. Thereon the archer goddess in her\ndispleasure sent a prodigious creature against him--a savage wild boar\nwith great white tusks that did much harm to his orchard lands,\nuprooting apple-trees in full bloom and throwing them to the ground.\nBut Meleager son of Oeneus got huntsmen and hounds from many cities and\nkilled it--for it was so monstrous that not a few were needed, and many\na man did it stretch upon his funeral pyre. On this the goddess set the\nCuretes and the Aetolians fighting furiously about the head and skin of\nthe boar.\n\n\"So long as Meleager was in the field things went badly with the\nCuretes, and for all their numbers they could not hold their ground\nunder the city walls; but in the course of time Meleager was angered as\neven a wise man will sometimes be. He was incensed with his mother\nAlthaea, and therefore stayed at home with his wedded wife fair\nCleopatra, who was daughter of Marpessa daughter of Euenus, and of Ides\nthe man then living. He it was who took his bow and faced King Apollo\nhimself for fair Marpessa's sake; her father and mother then named her\nAlcyone, because her mother had mourned with the plaintive strains of\nthe halcyon-bird when Phoebus Apollo had carried her off. Meleager,\nthen, stayed at home with Cleopatra, nursing the anger which he felt by\nreason of his mother's curses. His mother, grieving for the death of\nher brother, prayed the gods, and beat the earth with her hands,\ncalling upon Hades and on awful Proserpine; she went down upon her\nknees and her bosom was wet with tears as she prayed that they would\nkill her son--and Erinys that walks in darkness and knows no ruth heard\nher from Erebus.\n\n\"Then was heard the din of battle about the gates of Calydon, and the\ndull thump of the battering against their walls. Thereon the elders of\nthe Aetolians besought Meleager; they sent the chiefest of their\npriests, and begged him to come out and help them, promising him a\ngreat reward. They bade him choose fifty plough-gates, the most fertile\nin the plain of Calydon, the one-half vineyard and the other open\nplough-land. The old warrior Oeneus implored him, standing at the\nthreshold of his room and beating the doors in supplication. His\nsisters and his mother herself besought him sore, but he the more\nrefused them; those of his comrades who were nearest and dearest to him\nalso prayed him, but they could not move him till the foe was battering\nat the very doors of his chamber, and the Curetes had scaled the walls\nand were setting fire to the city. Then at last his sorrowing wife\ndetailed the horrors that befall those whose city is taken; she\nreminded him how the men are slain, and the city is given over to the\nflames, while the women and children are carried into captivity; when\nhe heard all this, his heart was touched, and he donned his armour to\ngo forth. Thus of his own inward motion he saved the city of the\nAetolians; but they now gave him nothing of those rich rewards that\nthey had offered earlier, and though he saved the city he took nothing\nby it. Be not then, my son, thus minded; let not heaven lure you into\nany such course. When the ships are burning it will be a harder matter\nto save them. Take the gifts, and go, for the Achaeans will then honour\nyou as a god; whereas if you fight without taking them, you may beat\nthe battle back, but you will not be held in like honour.\"\n\nAnd Achilles answered, \"Phoenix, old friend and father, I have no need\nof such honour. I have honour from Jove himself, which will abide with\nme at my ships while I have breath in my body, and my limbs are strong.\nI say further--and lay my saying to your heart--vex me no more with\nthis weeping and lamentation, all in the cause of the son of Atreus.\nLove him so well, and you may lose the love I bear you. You ought to\nhelp me rather in troubling those that trouble me; be king as much as I\nam, and share like honour with myself; the others shall take my answer;\nstay here yourself and sleep comfortably in your bed; at daybreak we\nwill consider whether to remain or go.\"\n\nOn this he nodded quietly to Patroclus as a sign that he was to prepare\na bed for Phoenix, and that the others should take their leave. Ajax\nson of Telamon then said, \"Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, let us be\ngone, for I see that our journey is vain. We must now take our answer,\nunwelcome though it be, to the Danaans who are waiting to receive it.\nAchilles is savage and remorseless; he is cruel, and cares nothing for\nthe love his comrades lavished upon him more than on all the others. He\nis implacable--and yet if a man's brother or son has been slain he will\naccept a fine by way of amends from him that killed him, and the\nwrong-doer having paid in full remains in peace among his own people;\nbut as for you, Achilles, the gods have put a wicked unforgiving spirit\nin your heart, and this, all about one single girl, whereas we now\noffer you the seven best we have, and much else into the bargain. Be\nthen of a more gracious mind, respect the hospitality of your own roof.\nWe are with you as messengers from the host of the Danaans, and would\nfain he held nearest and dearest to yourself of all the Achaeans.\"\n\n\"Ajax,\" replied Achilles, \"noble son of Telamon, you have spoken much\nto my liking, but my blood boils when I think it all over, and remember\nhow the son of Atreus treated me with contumely as though I were some\nvile tramp, and that too in the presence of the Argives. Go, then, and\ndeliver your message; say that I will have no concern with fighting\ntill Hector, son of noble Priam, reaches the tents of the Myrmidons in\nhis murderous course, and flings fire upon their ships. For all his\nlust of battle, I take it he will be held in check when he is at my own\ntent and ship.\"\n\nOn this they took every man his double cup, made their drink-offerings,\nand went back to the ships, Ulysses leading the way. But Patroclus told\nhis men and the maid-servants to make ready a comfortable bed for\nPhoenix; they therefore did so with sheepskins, a rug, and a sheet of\nfine linen. The old man then laid himself down and waited till morning\ncame. But Achilles slept in an inner room, and beside him the daughter\nof Phorbas lovely Diomede, whom he had carried off from Lesbos.\nPatroclus lay on the other side of the room, and with him fair Iphis\nwhom Achilles had given him when he took Scyros the city of Enyeus.\n\nWhen the envoys reached the tents of the son of Atreus, the Achaeans\nrose, pledged them in cups of gold, and began to question them. King\nAgamemnon was the first to do so. \"Tell me, Ulysses,\" said he, \"will he\nsave the ships from burning, or did he refuse, and is he still furious?\"\n\nUlysses answered, \"Most noble son of Atreus, king of men, Agamemnon,\nAchilles will not be calmed, but is more fiercely angry than ever, and\nspurns both you and your gifts. He bids you take counsel with the\nAchaeans to save the ships and host as you best may; as for himself, he\nsaid that at daybreak he should draw his ships into the water. He said\nfurther that he should advise every one to sail home likewise, for that\nyou will not reach the goal of Ilius. 'Jove,' he said, 'has laid his\nhand over the city to protect it, and the people have taken heart.'\nThis is what he said, and the others who were with me can tell you the\nsame story--Ajax and the two heralds, men, both of them, who may be\ntrusted. The old man Phoenix stayed where he was to sleep, for so\nAchilles would have it, that he might go home with him in the morning\nif he so would; but he will not take him by force.\"\n\nThey all held their peace, sitting for a long time silent and dejected,\nby reason of the sternness with which Achilles had refused them, till\npresently Diomed said, \"Most noble son of Atreus, king of men,\nAgamemnon, you ought not to have sued the son of Peleus nor offered him\ngifts. He is proud enough as it is, and you have encouraged him in his\npride still further. Let him stay or go as he will. He will fight later\nwhen he is in the humour, and heaven puts it in his mind to do so. Now,\ntherefore, let us all do as I say; we have eaten and drunk our fill,\nlet us then take our rest, for in rest there is both strength and stay.\nBut when fair rosy-fingered morn appears, forthwith bring out your host\nand your horsemen in front of the ships, urging them on, and yourself\nfighting among the foremost.\"\n\nThus he spoke, and the other chieftains approved his words. They then\nmade their drink-offerings and went every man to his own tent, where\nthey laid down to rest and enjoyed the boon of sleep.\n\n\n\nBOOK X\n\n  Ulysses and Diomed go out as spies, and meet Dolon, who gives\n  them information: they then kill him, and profiting by what\n  he had told them, kill Rhesus king of the Thracians and take\n  his horses.\n\nNOW the other princes of the Achaeans slept soundly the whole night\nthrough, but Agamemnon son of Atreus was troubled, so that he could get\nno rest. As when fair Juno's lord flashes his lightning in token of\ngreat rain or hail or snow when the snow-flakes whiten the ground, or\nagain as a sign that he will open the wide jaws of hungry war, even so\ndid Agamemnon heave many a heavy sigh, for his soul trembled within\nhim. When he looked upon the plain of Troy he marvelled at the many\nwatchfires burning in front of Ilius, and at the sound of pipes and\nflutes and of the hum of men, but when presently he turned towards the\nships and hosts of the Achaeans, he tore his hair by handfuls before\nJove on high, and groaned aloud for the very disquietness of his soul.\nIn the end he deemed it best to go at once to Nestor son of Neleus, and\nsee if between them they could find any way of the Achaeans from\ndestruction. He therefore rose, put on his shirt, bound his sandals\nabout his comely feet, flung the skin of a huge tawny lion over his\nshoulders--a skin that reached his feet--and took his spear in his hand.\n\nNeither could Menelaus sleep, for he, too, boded ill for the Argives\nwho for his sake had sailed from far over the seas to fight the\nTrojans. He covered his broad back with the skin of a spotted panther,\nput a casque of bronze upon his head, and took his spear in his brawny\nhand. Then he went to rouse his brother, who was by far the most\npowerful of the Achaeans, and was honoured by the people as though he\nwere a god. He found him by the stern of his ship already putting his\ngoodly array about his shoulders, and right glad was he that his\nbrother had come.\n\nMenelaus spoke first. \"Why,\" said he, \"my dear brother, are you thus\narming? Are you going to send any of our comrades to exploit the\nTrojans? I greatly fear that no one will do you this service, and spy\nupon the enemy alone in the dead of night. It will be a deed of great\ndaring.\"\n\nAnd King Agamemnon answered, \"Menelaus, we both of us need shrewd\ncounsel to save the Argives and our ships, for Jove has changed his\nmind, and inclines towards Hector's sacrifices rather than ours. I\nnever saw nor heard tell of any man as having wrought such ruin in one\nday as Hector has now wrought against the sons of the Achaeans--and\nthat too of his own unaided self, for he is son neither to god nor\ngoddess. The Argives will rue it long and deeply. Run, therefore, with\nall speed by the line of the ships, and call Ajax and Idomeneus.\nMeanwhile I will go to Nestor, and bid him rise and go about among the\ncompanies of our sentinels to give them their instructions; they will\nlisten to him sooner than to any man, for his own son, and Meriones\nbrother in arms to Idomeneus, are captains over them. It was to them\nmore particularly that we gave this charge.\"\n\nMenelaus replied, \"How do I take your meaning? Am I to stay with them\nand wait your coming, or shall I return here as soon as I have given\nyour orders?\" \"Wait,\" answered King Agamemnon, \"for there are so many\npaths about the camp that we might miss one another. Call every man on\nyour way, and bid him be stirring; name him by his lineage and by his\nfather's name, give each all titular observance, and stand not too much\nupon your own dignity; we must take our full share of toil, for at our\nbirth Jove laid this heavy burden upon us.\"\n\nWith these instructions he sent his brother on his way, and went on to\nNestor shepherd of his people. He found him sleeping in his tent hard\nby his own ship; his goodly armour lay beside him--his shield, his two\nspears and his helmet; beside him also lay the gleaming girdle with\nwhich the old man girded himself when he armed to lead his people into\nbattle--for his age stayed him not. He raised himself on his elbow and\nlooked up at Agamemnon. \"Who is it,\" said he, \"that goes thus about the\nhost and the ships alone and in the dead of night, when men are\nsleeping? Are you looking for one of your mules or for some comrade? Do\nnot stand there and say nothing, but speak. What is your business?\"\n\nAnd Agamemnon answered, \"Nestor, son of Neleus, honour to the Achaean\nname, it is I, Agamemnon son of Atreus, on whom Jove has laid labour\nand sorrow so long as there is breath in my body and my limbs carry me.\nI am thus abroad because sleep sits not upon my eyelids, but my heart\nis big with war and with the jeopardy of the Achaeans. I am in great\nfear for the Danaans. I am at sea, and without sure counsel; my heart\nbeats as though it would leap out of my body, and my limbs fail me. If\nthen you can do anything--for you too cannot sleep--let us go the round\nof the watch, and see whether they are drowsy with toil and sleeping to\nthe neglect of their duty. The enemy is encamped hard and we know not\nbut he may attack us by night.\"\n\nNestor replied, \"Most noble son of Atreus, king of men, Agamemnon, Jove\nwill not do all for Hector that Hector thinks he will; he will have\ntroubles yet in plenty if Achilles will lay aside his anger. I will go\nwith you, and we will rouse others, either the son of Tydeus, or\nUlysses, or fleet Ajax and the valiant son of Phyleus. Some one had\nalso better go and call Ajax and King Idomeneus, for their ships are\nnot near at hand but the farthest of all. I cannot however refrain from\nblaming Menelaus, much as I love him and respect him--and I will say so\nplainly, even at the risk of offending you--for sleeping and leaving\nall this trouble to yourself. He ought to be going about imploring aid\nfrom all the princes of the Achaeans, for we are in extreme danger.\"\n\nAnd Agamemnon answered, \"Sir, you may sometimes blame him justly, for\nhe is often remiss and unwilling to exert himself--not indeed from\nsloth, nor yet heedlessness, but because he looks to me and expects me\nto take the lead. On this occasion, however, he was awake before I was,\nand came to me of his own accord. I have already sent him to call the\nvery men whom you have named. And now let us be going. We shall find\nthem with the watch outside the gates, for it was there I said that we\nwould meet them.\"\n\n\"In that case,\" answered Nestor, \"the Argives will not blame him nor\ndisobey his orders when he urges them to fight or gives them\ninstructions.\"\n\nWith this he put on his shirt, and bound his sandals about his comely\nfeet. He buckled on his purple coat, of two thicknesses, large, and of\na rough shaggy texture, grasped his redoubtable bronze-shod spear, and\nwended his way along the line of the Achaean ships. First he called\nloudly to Ulysses peer of gods in counsel and woke him, for he was soon\nroused by the sound of the battle-cry. He came outside his tent and\nsaid, \"Why do you go thus alone about the host, and along the line of\nthe ships in the stillness of the night? What is it that you find so\nurgent?\" And Nestor knight of Gerene answered, \"Ulysses, noble son of\nLaertes, take it not amiss, for the Achaeans are in great straits. Come\nwith me and let us wake some other, who may advise well with us whether\nwe shall fight or fly.\"\n\nOn this Ulysses went at once into his tent, put his shield about his\nshoulders and came out with them. First they went to Diomed son of\nTydeus, and found him outside his tent clad in his armour with his\ncomrades sleeping round him and using their shields as pillows; as for\ntheir spears, they stood upright on the spikes of their butts that were\ndriven into the ground, and the burnished bronze flashed afar like the\nlightning of father Jove. The hero was sleeping upon the skin of an ox,\nwith a piece of fine carpet under his head; Nestor went up to him and\nstirred him with his heel to rouse him, upbraiding him and urging him\nto bestir himself. \"Wake up,\" he exclaimed, \"son of Tydeus. How can you\nsleep on in this way? Can you not see that the Trojans are encamped on\nthe brow of the plain hard by our ships, with but a little space\nbetween us and them?\"\n\nOn these words Diomed leaped up instantly and said, \"Old man, your\nheart is of iron; you rest not one moment from your labours. Are there\nno younger men among the Achaeans who could go about to rouse the\nprinces? There is no tiring you.\"\n\nAnd Nestor knight of Gerene made answer, \"My son, all that you have\nsaid is true. I have good sons, and also much people who might call the\nchieftains, but the Achaeans are in the gravest danger; life and death\nare balanced as it were on the edge of a razor. Go then, for you are\nyounger than I, and of your courtesy rouse Ajax and the fleet son of\nPhyleus.\"\n\nDiomed threw the skin of a great tawny lion about his shoulders--a skin\nthat reached his feet--and grasped his spear. When he had roused the\nheroes, he brought them back with him; they then went the round of\nthose who were on guard, and found the captains not sleeping at their\nposts but wakeful and sitting with their arms about them. As sheep dogs\nthat watch their flocks when they are yarded, and hear a wild beast\ncoming through the mountain forest towards them--forthwith there is a\nhue and cry of dogs and men, and slumber is broken--even so was sleep\nchased from the eyes of the Achaeans as they kept the watches of the\nwicked night, for they turned constantly towards the plain whenever\nthey heard any stir among the Trojans. The old man was glad and bade\nthem be of good cheer. \"Watch on, my children,\" said he, \"and let not\nsleep get hold upon you, lest our enemies triumph over us.\"\n\nWith this he passed the trench, and with him the other chiefs of the\nAchaeans who had been called to the council. Meriones and the brave son\nof Nestor went also, for the princes bade them. When they were beyond\nthe trench that was dug round the wall they held their meeting on the\nopen ground where there was a space clear of corpses, for it was here\nthat when night fell Hector had turned back from his onslaught on the\nArgives. They sat down, therefore, and held debate with one another.\n\nNestor spoke first. \"My friends,\" said he, \"is there any man bold\nenough to venture among the Trojans, and cut off some straggler, or\nbring us news of what the enemy mean to do whether they will stay here\nby the ships away from the city, or whether, now that they have worsted\nthe Achaeans, they will retire within their walls. If he could learn\nall this and come back safely here, his fame would be high as heaven in\nthe mouths of all men, and he would be rewarded richly; for the chiefs\nfrom all our ships would each of them give him a black ewe with her\nlamb--which is a present of surpassing value--and he would be asked as\na guest to all feasts and clan-gatherings.\"\n\nThey all held their peace, but Diomed of the loud war-cry spoke saying,\n\"Nestor, gladly will I visit the host of the Trojans over against us,\nbut if another will go with me I shall do so in greater confidence and\ncomfort. When two men are together, one of them may see some\nopportunity which the other has not caught sight of; if a man is alone\nhe is less full of resource, and his wit is weaker.\"\n\nOn this several offered to go with Diomed. The two Ajaxes, servants of\nMars, Meriones, and the son of Nestor all wanted to go, so did Menelaus\nson of Atreus; Ulysses also wished to go among the host of the Trojans,\nfor he was ever full of daring, and thereon Agamemnon king of men spoke\nthus: \"Diomed,\" said he, \"son of Tydeus, man after my own heart, choose\nyour comrade for yourself--take the best man of those that have\noffered, for many would now go with you. Do not through delicacy reject\nthe better man, and take the worst out of respect for his lineage,\nbecause he is of more royal blood.\"\n\nHe said this because he feared for Menelaus. Diomed answered, \"If you\nbid me take the man of my own choice, how in that case can I fail to\nthink of Ulysses, than whom there is no man more eager to face all\nkinds of danger--and Pallas Minerva loves him well? If he were to go\nwith me we should pass safely through fire itself, for he is quick to\nsee and understand.\"\n\n\"Son of Tydeus,\" replied Ulysses, \"say neither good nor ill about me,\nfor you are among Argives who know me well. Let us be going, for the\nnight wanes and dawn is at hand. The stars have gone forward,\ntwo-thirds of the night are already spent, and the third is alone left\nus.\"\n\nThey then put on their armour. Brave Thrasymedes provided the son of\nTydeus with a sword and a shield (for he had left his own at his ship)\nand on his head he set a helmet of bull's hide without either peak or\ncrest; it is called a skull-cap and is a common headgear. Meriones\nfound a bow and quiver for Ulysses, and on his head he set a leathern\nhelmet that was lined with a strong plaiting of leathern thongs, while\non the outside it was thickly studded with boar's teeth, well and\nskilfully set into it; next the head there was an inner lining of felt.\nThis helmet had been stolen by Autolycus out of Eleon when he broke\ninto the house of Amyntor son of Ormenus. He gave it to Amphidamas of\nCythera to take to Scandea, and Amphidamas gave it as a guest-gift to\nMolus, who gave it to his son Meriones; and now it was set upon the\nhead of Ulysses.\n\nWhen the pair had armed, they set out, and left the other chieftains\nbehind them. Pallas Minerva sent them a heron by the wayside upon their\nright hands; they could not see it for the darkness, but they heard its\ncry. Ulysses was glad when he heard it and prayed to Minerva: \"Hear\nme,\" he cried, \"daughter of aegis-bearing Jove, you who spy out all my\nways and who are with me in all my hardships; befriend me in this mine\nhour, and grant that we may return to the ships covered with glory\nafter having achieved some mighty exploit that shall bring sorrow to\nthe Trojans.\"\n\nThen Diomed of the loud war-cry also prayed: \"Hear me too,\" said he,\n\"daughter of Jove, unweariable; be with me even as you were with my\nnoble father Tydeus when he went to Thebes as envoy sent by the\nAchaeans. He left the Achaeans by the banks of the river Aesopus, and\nwent to the city bearing a message of peace to the Cadmeians; on his\nreturn thence, with your help, goddess, he did great deeds of daring,\nfor you were his ready helper. Even so guide me and guard me now, and\nin return I will offer you in sacrifice a broad-browed heifer of a year\nold, unbroken, and never yet brought by man under the yoke. I will gild\nher horns and will offer her up to you in sacrifice.\"\n\nThus they prayed, and Pallas Minerva heard their prayer. When they had\ndone praying to the daughter of great Jove, they went their way like\ntwo lions prowling by night amid the armour and blood-stained bodies of\nthem that had fallen.\n\nNeither again did Hector let the Trojans sleep; for he too called the\nprinces and councillors of the Trojans that he might set his counsel\nbefore them. \"Is there one,\" said he, \"who for a great reward will do\nme the service of which I will tell you? He shall be well paid if he\nwill. I will give him a chariot and a couple of horses, the fleetest\nthat can be found at the ships of the Achaeans, if he will dare this\nthing; and he will win infinite honour to boot; he must go to the ships\nand find out whether they are still guarded as heretofore, or whether\nnow that we have beaten them the Achaeans design to fly, and through\nsheer exhaustion are neglecting to keep their watches.\"\n\nThey all held their peace; but there was among the Trojans a certain\nman named Dolon, son of Eumedes, the famous herald--a man rich in gold\nand bronze. He was ill-favoured, but a good runner, and was an only son\namong five sisters. He it was that now addressed the Trojans. \"I,\nHector,\" said he, \"Will to the ships and will exploit them. But first\nhold up your sceptre and swear that you will give me the chariot,\nbedight with bronze, and the horses that now carry the noble son of\nPeleus. I will make you a good scout, and will not fail you. I will go\nthrough the host from one end to the other till I come to the ship of\nAgamemnon, where I take it the princes of the Achaeans are now\nconsulting whether they shall fight or fly.\"\n\nWhen he had done speaking Hector held up his sceptre, and swore him his\noath saying, \"May Jove the thundering husband of Juno bear witness that\nno other Trojan but yourself shall mount those steeds, and that you\nshall have your will with them for ever.\"\n\nThe oath he swore was bootless, but it made Dolon more keen on going.\nHe hung his bow over his shoulder, and as an overall he wore the skin\nof a grey wolf, while on his head he set a cap of ferret skin. Then he\ntook a pointed javelin, and left the camp for the ships, but he was not\nto return with any news for Hector. When he had left the horses and the\ntroops behind him, he made all speed on his way, but Ulysses perceived\nhis coming and said to Diomed, \"Diomed, here is some one from the camp;\nI am not sure whether he is a spy, or whether it is some thief who\nwould plunder the bodies of the dead; let him get a little past us, we\ncan then spring upon him and take him. If, however, he is too quick for\nus, go after him with your spear and hem him in towards the ships away\nfrom the Trojan camp, to prevent his getting back to the town.\"\n\nWith this they turned out of their way and lay down among the corpses.\nDolon suspected nothing and soon passed them, but when he had got about\nas far as the distance by which a mule-plowed furrow exceeds one that\nhas been ploughed by oxen (for mules can plow fallow land quicker than\noxen) they ran after him, and when he heard their footsteps he stood\nstill, for he made sure they were friends from the Trojan camp come by\nHector's orders to bid him return; when, however, they were only a\nspear's cast, or less, away from him, he saw that they were enemies and ran\nas fast as his legs could take him. The others gave chase at once, and as\na couple of well-trained hounds press forward after a doe or hare that\nruns screaming in front of them, even so did the son of Tydeus and\nUlysses pursue Dolon and cut him off from his own people. But when he\nhad fled so far towards the ships that he would soon have fallen in\nwith the outposts, Minerva infused fresh strength into the son of\nTydeus for fear some other of the Achaeans might have the glory of\nbeing first to hit him, and he might himself be only second; he\ntherefore sprang forward with his spear and said, \"Stand, or I shall\nthrow my spear, and in that case I shall soon make an end of you.\"\n\nHe threw as he spoke, but missed his aim on purpose. The dart flew over\nthe man's right shoulder, and then stuck in the ground. He stood stock\nstill, trembling and in great fear; his teeth chattered, and he turned\npale with fear. The two came breathless up to him and seized his hands,\nwhereon he began to weep and said, \"Take me alive; I will ransom\nmyself; we have great store of gold, bronze, and wrought iron, and from\nthis my father will satisfy you with a very large ransom, should he\nhear of my being alive at the ships of the Achaeans.\"\n\n\"Fear not,\" replied Ulysses, \"let no thought of death be in your mind;\nbut tell me, and tell me true, why are you thus going about alone in\nthe dead of night away from your camp and towards the ships, while\nother men are sleeping? Is it to plunder the bodies of the slain, or\ndid Hector send you to spy out what was going on at the ships? Or did\nyou come here of your own mere notion?\"\n\nDolon answered, his limbs trembling beneath him: \"Hector, with his vain\nflattering promises, lured me from my better judgement. He said he\nwould give me the horses of the noble son of Peleus and his\nbronze-bedizened chariot; he bade me go through the darkness of the\nflying night, get close to the enemy, and find out whether the ships\nare still guarded as heretofore, or whether, now that we have beaten\nthem, the Achaeans design to fly, and through sheer exhaustion are\nneglecting to keep their watches.\"\n\nUlysses smiled at him and answered, \"You had indeed set your heart upon\na great reward, but the horses of the descendant of Aeacus are hardly\nto be kept in hand or driven by any other mortal man than Achilles\nhimself, whose mother was an immortal. But tell me, and tell me true,\nwhere did you leave Hector when you started? Where lies his armour and\nhis horses? How, too, are the watches and sleeping-ground of the\nTrojans ordered? What are their plans? Will they stay here by the ships\nand away from the city, or now that they have worsted the Achaeans,\nwill they retire within their walls?\"\n\nAnd Dolon answered, \"I will tell you truly all. Hector and the other\ncouncillors are now holding conference by the monument of great Ilus,\naway from the general tumult; as for the guards about which you ask me,\nthere is no chosen watch to keep guard over the host. The Trojans have\ntheir watchfires, for they are bound to have them; they, therefore, are\nawake and keep each other to their duty as sentinels; but the allies\nwho have come from other places are asleep and leave it to the Trojans\nto keep guard, for their wives and children are not here.\"\n\nUlysses then said, \"Now tell me; are they sleeping among the Trojan\ntroops, or do they lie apart? Explain this that I may understand it.\"\n\n\"I will tell you truly all,\" replied Dolon. \"To the seaward lie the\nCarians, the Paeonian bowmen, the Leleges, the Cauconians, and the\nnoble Pelasgi. The Lysians and proud Mysians, with the Phrygians and\nMeonians, have their place on the side towards Thymbra; but why ask\nabout all this? If you want to find your way into the host of the\nTrojans, there are the Thracians, who have lately come here and lie\napart from the others at the far end of the camp; and they have Rhesus\nson of Eioneus for their king. His horses are the finest and strongest\nthat I have ever seen, they are whiter than snow and fleeter than any\nwind that blows. His chariot is bedight with silver and gold, and he\nhas brought his marvellous golden armour, of the rarest\nworkmanship--too splendid for any mortal man to carry, and meet only\nfor the gods. Now, therefore, take me to the ships or bind me securely\nhere, until you come back and have proved my words whether they be\nfalse or true.\"\n\nDiomed looked sternly at him and answered, \"Think not, Dolon, for all\nthe good information you have given us, that you shall escape now you\nare in our hands, for if we ransom you or let you go, you will come\nsome second time to the ships of the Achaeans either as a spy or as an\nopen enemy, but if I kill you and an end of you, you will give no more\ntrouble.\"\n\nOn this Dolon would have caught him by the beard to beseech him\nfurther, but Diomed struck him in the middle of his neck with his sword\nand cut through both sinews so that his head fell rolling in the dust\nwhile he was yet speaking. They took the ferret-skin cap from his head,\nand also the wolf-skin, the bow, and his long spear. Ulysses hung them\nup aloft in honour of Minerva the goddess of plunder, and prayed\nsaying, \"Accept these, goddess, for we give them to you in preference\nto all the gods in Olympus: therefore speed us still further towards\nthe horses and sleeping-ground of the Thracians.\"\n\nWith these words he took the spoils and set them upon a tamarisk tree,\nand they marked the place by pulling up reeds and gathering boughs of\ntamarisk that they might not miss it as they came back through the\nflying hours of darkness. The two then went onwards amid the fallen\narmour and the blood, and came presently to the company of Thracian\nsoldiers, who were sleeping, tired out with their day's toil; their\ngoodly armour was lying on the ground beside them all orderly in three\nrows, and each man had his yoke of horses beside him. Rhesus was\nsleeping in the middle, and hard by him his horses were made fast to\nthe topmost rim of his chariot. Ulysses from some way off saw him and\nsaid, \"This, Diomed, is the man, and these are the horses about which\nDolon whom we killed told us. Do your very utmost; dally not about your\narmour, but loose the horses at once--or else kill the men yourself,\nwhile I see to the horses.\"\n\nThereon Minerva put courage into the heart of Diomed, and he smote them\nright and left. They made a hideous groaning as they were being hacked\nabout, and the earth was red with their blood. As a lion springs\nfuriously upon a flock of sheep or goats when he finds them without\ntheir shepherd, so did the son of Tydeus set upon the Thracian soldiers\ntill he had killed twelve. As he killed them Ulysses came and drew them\naside by their feet one by one, that the horses might go forward freely\nwithout being frightened as they passed over the dead bodies, for they\nwere not yet used to them. When the son of Tydeus came to the king, he\nkilled him too (which made thirteen), as he was breathing hard, for by\nthe counsel of Minerva an evil dream, the seed of Oeneus, hovered that\nnight over his head. Meanwhile Ulysses untied the horses, made them\nfast one to another and drove them off, striking them with his bow, for\nhe had forgotten to take the whip from the chariot. Then he whistled as\na sign to Diomed.\n\nBut Diomed stayed where he was, thinking what other daring deed he\nmight accomplish. He was doubting whether to take the chariot in which\nthe king's armour was lying, and draw it out by the pole, or to lift\nthe armour out and carry it off; or whether again, he should not kill\nsome more Thracians. While he was thus hesitating Minerva came up to\nhim and said, \"Get back, Diomed, to the ships or you may be driven\nthither, should some other god rouse the Trojans.\"\n\nDiomed knew that it was the goddess, and at once sprang upon the\nhorses. Ulysses beat them with his bow and they flew onward to the\nships of the Achaeans.\n\nBut Apollo kept no blind look-out when he saw Minerva with the son of\nTydeus. He was angry with her, and coming to the host of the Trojans he\nroused Hippocoon, a counsellor of the Thracians and a noble kinsman of\nRhesus. He started up out of his sleep and saw that the horses were no\nlonger in their place, and that the men were gasping in their\ndeath-agony; on this he groaned aloud, and called upon his friend by\nname. Then the whole Trojan camp was in an uproar as the people kept\nhurrying together, and they marvelled at the deeds of the heroes who\nhad now got away towards the ships.\n\nWhen they reached the place where they had killed Hector's scout,\nUlysses stayed his horses, and the son of Tydeus, leaping to the\nground, placed the blood-stained spoils in the hands of Ulysses and\nremounted: then he lashed the horses onwards, and they flew forward\nnothing loth towards the ships as though of their own free will. Nestor\nwas first to hear the tramp of their feet. \"My friends,\" said he,\n\"princes and counsellors of the Argives, shall I guess right or\nwrong?--but I must say what I think: there is a sound in my ears as of\nthe tramp of horses. I hope it may be Diomed and Ulysses driving in\nhorses from the Trojans, but I much fear that the bravest of the\nArgives may have come to some harm at their hands.\"\n\nHe had hardly done speaking when the two men came in and dismounted,\nwhereon the others shook hands right gladly with them and congratulated\nthem. Nestor knight of Gerene was first to question them. \"Tell me,\"\nsaid he, \"renowned Ulysses, how did you two come by these horses? Did\nyou steal in among the Trojan forces, or did some god meet you and give\nthem to you? They are like sunbeams. I am well conversant with the\nTrojans, for old warrior though I am I never hold back by the ships,\nbut I never yet saw or heard of such horses as these are. Surely some\ngod must have met you and given them to you, for you are both of you\ndear to Jove, and to Jove's daughter Minerva.\"\n\nAnd Ulysses answered, \"Nestor son of Neleus, honour to the Achaean\nname, heaven, if it so will, can give us even better horses than these,\nfor the gods are far mightier than we are. These horses, however, about\nwhich you ask me, are freshly come from Thrace. Diomed killed their\nking with the twelve bravest of his companions. Hard by the ships we\ntook a thirteenth man--a scout whom Hector and the other Trojans had\nsent as a spy upon our ships.\"\n\nHe laughed as he spoke and drove the horses over the ditch, while the\nother Achaeans followed him gladly. When they reached the strongly\nbuilt quarters of the son of Tydeus, they tied the horses with thongs\nof leather to the manger, where the steeds of Diomed stood eating their\nsweet corn, but Ulysses hung the blood-stained spoils of Dolon at the\nstern of his ship, that they might prepare a sacred offering to\nMinerva. As for themselves, they went into the sea and washed the sweat\nfrom their bodies, and from their necks and thighs. When the sea-water\nhad taken all the sweat from off them, and had refreshed them, they\nwent into the baths and washed themselves. After they had so done and\nhad anointed themselves with oil, they sat down to table, and drawing\nfrom a full mixing-bowl, made a drink-offering of wine to Minerva.\n\n\n\nBOOK XI\n\n  In the forenoon the fight is equal, but Agamemnon turns the\n  fortune of the day towards the Achaeans until he gets\n  wounded and leaves the field--Hector then drives everything\n  before him till he is wounded by Diomed--Paris wounds\n  Diomed--Ulysses, Nestor, and Idomeneus perform prodigies\n  of valour--Machaon is wounded--Nestor drives him off in\n  his chariot--Achilles sees the pair driving towards the camp\n  and sends Patroclus to ask who it is that is wounded--This\n  is the beginning of evil for Patroclus--Nestor makes a long\n  speech.\n\nAND now as Dawn rose from her couch beside Tithonus, harbinger of light\nalike to mortals and immortals, Jove sent fierce Discord with the\nensign of war in her hands to the ships of the Achaeans. She took her\nstand by the huge black hull of Ulysses' ship which was middlemost of\nall, so that her voice might carry farthest on either side, on the one\nhand towards the tents of Ajax son of Telamon, and on the other towards\nthose of Achilles--for these two heroes, well-assured of their own\nstrength, had valorously drawn up their ships at the two ends of the\nline. There she took her stand, and raised a cry both loud and shrill\nthat filled the Achaeans with courage, giving them heart to fight\nresolutely and with all their might, so that they had rather stay there\nand do battle than go home in their ships.\n\nThe son of Atreus shouted aloud and bade the Argives gird themselves\nfor battle while he put on his armour. First he girded his goodly\ngreaves about his legs, making them fast with ankle-clasps of silver;\nand about his chest he set the breastplate which Cinyras had once given\nhim as a guest-gift. It had been noised abroad as far as Cyprus that\nthe Achaeans were about to sail for Troy, and therefore he gave it to\nthe king. It had ten courses of dark cyanus, twelve of gold, and ten of\ntin. There were serpents of cyanus that reared themselves up towards\nthe neck, three upon either side, like the rainbows which the son of\nSaturn has set in heaven as a sign to mortal men. About his shoulders\nhe threw his sword, studded with bosses of gold; and the scabbard was\nof silver with a chain of gold wherewith to hang it. He took moreover\nthe richly-dight shield that covered his body when he was in\nbattle--fair to see, with ten circles of bronze running all round it.\nOn the body of the shield there were twenty bosses of white tin, with\nanother of dark cyanus in the middle: this last was made to show a\nGorgon's head, fierce and grim, with Rout and Panic on either side. The\nband for the arm to go through was of silver, on which there was a\nwrithing snake of cyanus with three heads that sprang from a single\nneck, and went in and out among one another. On his head Agamemnon set\na helmet, with a peak before and behind, and four plumes of horse-hair\nthat nodded menacingly above it; then he grasped two redoubtable\nbronze-shod spears, and the gleam of his armour shot from him as a\nflame into the firmament, while Juno and Minerva thundered in honour of\nthe king of rich Mycene.\n\nEvery man now left his horses in charge of his charioteer to hold them\nin readiness by the trench, while he went into battle on foot clad in\nfull armour, and a mighty uproar rose on high into the dawning. The\nchiefs were armed and at the trench before the horses got there, but\nthese came up presently. The son of Saturn sent a portent of evil sound\nabout their host, and the dew fell red with blood, for he was about to\nsend many a brave man hurrying down to Hades.\n\nThe Trojans, on the other side upon the rising slope of the plain, were\ngathered round great Hector, noble Polydamas, Aeneas who was honoured\nby the Trojans like an immortal, and the three sons of Antenor,\nPolybus, Agenor, and young Acamas beauteous as a god. Hector's round\nshield showed in the front rank, and as some baneful star that shines\nfor a moment through a rent in the clouds and is again hidden beneath\nthem; even so was Hector now seen in the front ranks and now again in\nthe hindermost, and his bronze armour gleamed like the lightning of\naegis-bearing Jove.\n\nAnd now as a band of reapers mow swathes of wheat or barley upon a rich\nman's land, and the sheaves fall thick before them, even so did the\nTrojans and Achaeans fall upon one another; they were in no mood for\nyielding but fought like wolves, and neither side got the better of the\nother. Discord was glad as she beheld them, for she was the only god\nthat went among them; the others were not there, but stayed quietly\neach in his own home among the dells and valleys of Olympus. All of\nthem blamed the son of Saturn for wanting to give victory to the\nTrojans, but father Jove heeded them not: he held aloof from all, and\nsat apart in his all-glorious majesty, looking down upon the city of\nthe Trojans, the ships of the Achaeans, the gleam of bronze, and alike\nupon the slayers and on the slain.\n\nNow so long as the day waxed and it was still morning, their darts\nrained thick on one another and the people perished, but as the hour\ndrew nigh when a woodman working in some mountain forest will get his\nmidday meal--for he has felled till his hands are weary; he is tired\nout, and must now have food--then the Danaans with a cry that rang\nthrough all their ranks, broke the battalions of the enemy. Agamemnon\nled them on, and slew first Bienor, a leader of his people, and\nafterwards his comrade and charioteer Oileus, who sprang from his\nchariot and was coming full towards him; but Agamemnon struck him on\nthe forehead with his spear; his bronze visor was of no avail against\nthe weapon, which pierced both bronze and bone, so that his brains were\nbattered in and he was killed in full fight.\n\nAgamemnon stripped their shirts from off them and left them with their\nbreasts all bare to lie where they had fallen. He then went on to kill\nIsus and Antiphus two sons of Priam, the one a bastard, the other born\nin wedlock; they were in the same chariot--the bastard driving, while\nnoble Antiphus fought beside him. Achilles had once taken both of them\nprisoners in the glades of Ida, and had bound them with fresh withes as\nthey were shepherding, but he had taken a ransom for them; now,\nhowever, Agamemnon son of Atreus smote Isus in the chest above the\nnipple with his spear, while he struck Antiphus hard by the ear and\nthrew him from his chariot. Forthwith he stripped their goodly armour\nfrom off them and recognized them, for he had already seen them at\nships when Achilles brought them in from Ida. As a lion fastens on the\nfawns of a hind and crushes them in his great jaws, robbing them of\ntheir tender life while he on his way back to his lair--the hind can do\nnothing for them even though she be close by, for she is in an agony of\nfear, and flies through the thick forest, sweating, and at her utmost\nspeed before the mighty monster--so, no man of the Trojans could help\nIsus and Antiphus, for they were themselves flying in panic before the\nArgives.\n\nThen King Agamemnon took the two sons of Antimachus, Pisander and brave\nHippolochus. It was Antimachus who had been foremost in preventing\nHelen's being restored to Menelaus, for he was largely bribed by\nAlexandrus; and now Agamemnon took his two sons, both in the same\nchariot, trying to bring their horses to a stand--for they had lost\nhold of the reins and the horses were mad with fear. The son of Atreus\nsprang upon them like a lion, and the pair besought him from their\nchariot. \"Take us alive,\" they cried, \"son of Atreus, and you shall\nreceive a great ransom for us. Our father Antimachus has great store of\ngold, bronze, and wrought iron, and from this he will satisfy you with\na very large ransom should he hear of our being alive at the ships of\nthe Achaeans.\"\n\nWith such piteous words and tears did they beseech the king, but they\nheard no pitiful answer in return. \"If,\" said Agamemnon, \"you are sons\nof Antimachus, who once at a council of Trojans proposed that Menelaus\nand Ulysses, who had come to you as envoys, should be killed and not\nsuffered to return, you shall now pay for the foul iniquity of your\nfather.\"\n\nAs he spoke he felled Pisander from his chariot to the earth, smiting\nhim on the chest with his spear, so that he lay face uppermost upon the\nground. Hippolochus fled, but him too did Agamemnon smite; he cut off\nhis hands and his head--which he sent rolling in among the crowd as\nthough it were a ball. There he let them both lie, and wherever the\nranks were thickest thither he flew, while the other Achaeans followed.\nFoot soldiers drove the foot soldiers of the foe in rout before them,\nand slew them; horsemen did the like by horsemen, and the thundering\ntramp of the horses raised a cloud of dust from off the plain. King\nAgamemnon followed after, ever slaying them and cheering on the\nAchaeans. As when some mighty forest is all ablaze--the eddying gusts\nwhirl fire in all directions till the thickets shrivel and are consumed\nbefore the blast of the flame--even so fell the heads of the flying\nTrojans before Agamemnon son of Atreus, and many a noble pair of steeds\ndrew an empty chariot along the highways of war, for lack of drivers\nwho were lying on the plain, more useful now to vultures than to their\nwives.\n\nJove drew Hector away from the darts and dust, with the carnage and din\nof battle; but the son of Atreus sped onwards, calling out lustily to\nthe Danaans. They flew on by the tomb of old Ilus, son of Dardanus, in\nthe middle of the plain, and past the place of the wild fig-tree making\nalways for the city--the son of Atreus still shouting, and with hands\nall bedrabbled in gore; but when they had reached the Scaean gates and\nthe oak tree, there they halted and waited for the others to come up.\nMeanwhile the Trojans kept on flying over the middle of the plain like\na herd of cows maddened with fright when a lion has attacked them in\nthe dead of night--he springs on one of them, seizes her neck in the\ngrip of his strong teeth and then laps up her blood and gorges himself\nupon her entrails--even so did King Agamemnon son of Atreus pursue the\nfoe, ever slaughtering the hindmost as they fled pell-mell before him.\nMany a man was flung headlong from his chariot by the hand of the son\nof Atreus, for he wielded his spear with fury.\n\nBut when he was just about to reach the high wall and the city, the\nfather of gods and men came down from heaven and took his seat,\nthunderbolt in hand, upon the crest of many-fountained Ida. He then\ntold Iris of the golden wings to carry a message for him. \"Go,\" said\nhe, \"fleet Iris, and speak thus to Hector--say that so long as he sees\nAgamemnon heading his men and making havoc of the Trojan ranks, he is\nto keep aloof and bid the others bear the brunt of the battle, but when\nAgamemnon is wounded either by spear or arrow, and takes to his\nchariot, then will I vouchsafe him strength to slay till he reach the\nships and night falls at the going down of the sun.\"\n\nIris hearkened and obeyed. Down she went to strong Ilius from the\ncrests of Ida, and found Hector son of Priam standing by his chariot\nand horses. Then she said, \"Hector son of Priam, peer of gods in\ncounsel, father Jove has sent me to bear you this message--so long as\nyou see Agamemnon heading his men and making havoc of the Trojan ranks,\nyou are to keep aloof and bid the others bear the brunt of the battle,\nbut when Agamemnon is wounded either by spear or arrow, and takes to\nhis chariot, then will Jove vouchsafe you strength to slay till you\nreach the ships, and till night falls at the going down of the sun.\"\n\nWhen she had thus spoken Iris left him, and Hector sprang full armed\nfrom his chariot to the ground, brandishing his spear as he went about\neverywhere among the host, cheering his men on to fight, and stirring\nthe dread strife of battle. The Trojans then wheeled round, and again\nmet the Achaeans, while the Argives on their part strengthened their\nbattalions. The battle was now in array and they stood face to face\nwith one another, Agamemnon ever pressing forward in his eagerness to\nbe ahead of all others.\n\nTell me now ye Muses that dwell in the mansions of Olympus, who,\nwhether of the Trojans or of their allies, was first to face Agamemnon?\nIt was Iphidamas son of Antenor, a man both brave and of great stature,\nwho was brought up in fertile Thrace, the mother of sheep. Cisses, his\nmother's father, brought him up in his own house when he was a\nchild--Cisses, father to fair Theano. When he reached manhood, Cisses\nwould have kept him there, and was for giving him his daughter in\nmarriage, but as soon as he had married he set out to fight the\nAchaeans with twelve ships that followed him: these he had left at\nPercote and had come on by land to Ilius. He it was that now met\nAgamemnon son of Atreus. When they were close up with one another, the\nson of Atreus missed his aim, and Iphidamas hit him on the girdle below\nthe cuirass and then flung himself upon him, trusting to his strength\nof arm; the girdle, however, was not pierced, nor nearly so, for the\npoint of the spear struck against the silver and was turned aside as\nthough it had been lead: King Agamemnon caught it from his hand, and\ndrew it towards him with the fury of a lion; he then drew his sword,\nand killed Iphidamas by striking him on the neck. So there the poor\nfellow lay, sleeping a sleep as it were of bronze, killed in the\ndefence of his fellow-citizens, far from his wedded wife, of whom he\nhad had no joy though he had given much for her: he had given a\nhundred-head of cattle down, and had promised later on to give a\nthousand sheep and goats mixed, from the countless flocks of which he\nwas possessed. Agamemnon son of Atreus then despoiled him, and carried\noff his armour into the host of the Achaeans.\n\nWhen noble Coon, Antenor's eldest son, saw this, sore indeed were his\neyes at the sight of his fallen brother. Unseen by Agamemnon he got\nbeside him, spear in hand, and wounded him in the middle of his arm\nbelow the elbow, the point of the spear going right through the arm.\nAgamemnon was convulsed with pain, but still not even for this did he\nleave off struggling and fighting, but grasped his spear that flew as\nfleet as the wind, and sprang upon Coon who was trying to drag off the\nbody of his brother--his father's son--by the foot, and was crying for\nhelp to all the bravest of his comrades; but Agamemnon struck him with\na bronze-shod spear and killed him as he was dragging the dead body\nthrough the press of men under cover of his shield: he then cut off his\nhead, standing over the body of Iphidamas. Thus did the sons of Antenor\nmeet their fate at the hands of the son of Atreus, and go down into the\nhouse of Hades.\n\nAs long as the blood still welled warm from his wound Agamemnon went\nabout attacking the ranks of the enemy with spear and sword and with\ngreat handfuls of stone, but when the blood had ceased to flow and the\nwound grew dry, the pain became great. As the sharp pangs which the\nEilithuiae, goddesses of childbirth, daughters of Juno and dispensers\nof cruel pain, send upon a woman when she is in labour--even so sharp\nwere the pangs of the son of Atreus. He sprang on to his chariot, and\nbade his charioteer drive to the ships, for he was in great agony. With\na loud clear voice he shouted to the Danaans, \"My friends, princes and\ncounsellors of the Argives, defend the ships yourselves, for Jove has\nnot suffered me to fight the whole day through against the Trojans.\"\n\nWith this the charioteer turned his horses towards the ships, and they\nflew forward nothing loth. Their chests were white with foam and their\nbellies with dust, as they drew the wounded king out of the battle.\n\nWhen Hector saw Agamemnon quit the field, he shouted to the Trojans and\nLycians saying, \"Trojans, Lycians, and Dardanian warriors, be men, my\nfriends, and acquit yourselves in battle bravely; their best man has\nleft them, and Jove has vouchsafed me a great triumph; charge the foe\nwith your chariots that you may win still greater glory.\"\n\nWith these words he put heart and soul into them all, and as a huntsman\nhounds his dogs on against a lion or wild boar, even so did Hector,\npeer of Mars, hound the proud Trojans on against the Achaeans. Full of\nhope he plunged in among the foremost, and fell on the fight like some\nfierce tempest that swoops down upon the sea, and lashes its deep blue\nwaters into fury.\n\nWhat, then is the full tale of those whom Hector son of Priam killed in\nthe hour of triumph which Jove then vouchsafed him? First Asaeus,\nAutonous, and Opites; Dolops son of Clytius, Opheltius and Agelaus;\nAesymnus, Orus and Hipponous steadfast in battle; these chieftains of\nthe Achaeans did Hector slay, and then he fell upon the rank and file.\nAs when the west wind hustles the clouds of the white south and beats\nthem down with the fierceness of its fury--the waves of the sea roll\nhigh, and the spray is flung aloft in the rage of the wandering\nwind--even so thick were the heads of them that fell by the hand of\nHector.\n\nAll had then been lost and no help for it, and the Achaeans would have\nfled pell-mell to their ships, had not Ulysses cried out to Diomed,\n\"Son of Tydeus, what has happened to us that we thus forget our\nprowess? Come, my good fellow, stand by my side and help me, we shall\nbe shamed for ever if Hector takes the ships.\"\n\nAnd Diomed answered, \"Come what may, I will stand firm; but we shall\nhave scant joy of it, for Jove is minded to give victory to the Trojans\nrather than to us.\"\n\nWith these words he struck Thymbraeus from his chariot to the ground,\nsmiting him in the left breast with his spear, while Ulysses killed\nMolion who was his squire. These they let lie, now that they had\nstopped their fighting; the two heroes then went on playing havoc with\nthe foe, like two wild boars that turn in fury and rend the hounds that\nhunt them. Thus did they turn upon the Trojans and slay them, and the\nAchaeans were thankful to have breathing time in their flight from\nHector.\n\nThey then took two princes with their chariot, the two sons of Merops\nof Percote, who excelled all others in the arts of divination. He had\nforbidden his sons to go to the war, but they would not obey him, for\nfate lured them to their fall. Diomed son of Tydeus slew them both and\nstripped them of their armour, while Ulysses killed Hippodamus and\nHypeirochus.\n\nAnd now the son of Saturn as he looked down from Ida ordained that\nneither side should have the advantage, and they kept on killing one\nanother. The son of Tydeus speared Agastrophus son of Paeon in the\nhip-joint with his spear. His chariot was not at hand for him to fly\nwith, so blindly confident had he been. His squire was in charge of it\nat some distance and he was fighting on foot among the foremost until\nhe lost his life. Hector soon marked the havoc Diomed and Ulysses were\nmaking, and bore down upon them with a loud cry, followed by the Trojan\nranks; brave Diomed was dismayed when he saw them, and said to Ulysses\nwho was beside him, \"Great Hector is bearing down upon us and we shall\nbe undone; let us stand firm and wait his onset.\"\n\nHe poised his spear as he spoke and hurled it, nor did he miss his\nmark. He had aimed at Hector's head near the top of his helmet, but\nbronze was turned by bronze, and Hector was untouched, for the spear\nwas stayed by the visored helm made with three plates of metal, which\nPhoebus Apollo had given him. Hector sprang back with a great bound\nunder cover of the ranks; he fell on his knees and propped himself with\nhis brawny hand leaning on the ground, for darkness had fallen on his\neyes. The son of Tydeus having thrown his spear dashed in among the\nforemost fighters, to the place where he had seen it strike the ground;\nmeanwhile Hector recovered himself and springing back into his chariot\nmingled with the crowd, by which means he saved his life. But Diomed\nmade at him with his spear and said, \"Dog, you have again got away\nthough death was close on your heels. Phoebus Apollo, to whom I ween\nyou pray ere you go into battle, has again saved you, nevertheless I\nwill meet you and make an end of you hereafter, if there is any god who\nwill stand by me too and be my helper. For the present I must pursue\nthose I can lay hands on.\"\n\nAs he spoke he began stripping the spoils from the son of Paeon, but\nAlexandrus husband of lovely Helen aimed an arrow at him, leaning\nagainst a pillar of the monument which men had raised to Ilus son of\nDardanus, a ruler in days of old. Diomed had taken the cuirass from off\nthe breast of Agastrophus, his heavy helmet also, and the shield from\noff his shoulders, when Paris drew his bow and let fly an arrow that\nsped not from his hand in vain, but pierced the flat of Diomed's right\nfoot, going right through it and fixing itself in the ground. Thereon\nParis with a hearty laugh sprang forward from his hiding-place, and\ntaunted him saying, \"You are wounded--my arrow has not been shot in\nvain; would that it had hit you in the belly and killed you, for thus\nthe Trojans, who fear you as goats fear a lion, would have had a truce\nfrom evil.\"\n\nDiomed all undaunted answered, \"Archer, you who without your bow are\nnothing, slanderer and seducer, if you were to be tried in single\ncombat fighting in full armour, your bow and your arrows would serve\nyou in little stead. Vain is your boast in that you have scratched the\nsole of my foot. I care no more than if a girl or some silly boy had\nhit me. A worthless coward can inflict but a light wound; when I wound\na man though I but graze his skin it is another matter, for my weapon\nwill lay him low. His wife will tear her cheeks for grief and his\nchildren will be fatherless: there will he rot, reddening the earth\nwith his blood, and vultures, not women, will gather round him.\"\n\nThus he spoke, but Ulysses came up and stood over him. Under this cover\nhe sat down to draw the arrow from his foot, and sharp was the pain he\nsuffered as he did so. Then he sprang on to his chariot and bade the\ncharioteer drive him to the ships, for he was sick at heart.\n\nUlysses was now alone; not one of the Argives stood by him, for they\nwere all panic-stricken. \"Alas,\" said he to himself in his dismay,\n\"what will become of me? It is ill if I turn and fly before these odds,\nbut it will be worse if I am left alone and taken prisoner, for the son\nof Saturn has struck the rest of the Danaans with panic. But why talk\nto myself in this way? Well do I know that though cowards quit the\nfield, a hero, whether he wound or be wounded, must stand firm and hold\nhis own.\"\n\nWhile he was thus in two minds, the ranks of the Trojans advanced and\nhemmed him in, and bitterly did they come to rue it. As hounds and\nlusty youths set upon a wild boar that sallies from his lair whetting\nhis white tusks--they attack him from every side and can hear the\ngnashing of his jaws, but for all his fierceness they still hold their\nground--even so furiously did the Trojans attack Ulysses. First he\nsprang spear in hand upon Deiopites and wounded him on the shoulder\nwith a downward blow; then he killed Thoon and Ennomus. After these he\nstruck Chersidamas in the loins under his shield as he had just sprung\ndown from his chariot; so he fell in the dust and clutched the earth in\nthe hollow of his hand. These he let lie, and went on to wound Charops\nson of Hippasus own brother to noble Socus. Socus, hero that he was,\nmade all speed to help him, and when he was close to Ulysses he said,\n\"Far-famed Ulysses, insatiable of craft and toil, this day you shall\neither boast of having killed both the sons of Hippasus and stripped\nthem of their armour, or you shall fall before my spear.\"\n\nWith these words he struck the shield of Ulysses. The spear went\nthrough the shield and passed on through his richly wrought cuirass,\ntearing the flesh from his side, but Pallas Minerva did not suffer it\nto pierce the entrails of the hero. Ulysses knew that his hour was not\nyet come, but he gave ground and said to Socus, \"Wretch, you shall now\nsurely die. You have stayed me from fighting further with the Trojans,\nbut you shall now fall by my spear, yielding glory to myself, and your\nsoul to Hades of the noble steeds.\"\n\nSocus had turned in flight, but as he did so, the spear struck him in\nthe back midway between the shoulders, and went right through his\nchest. He fell heavily to the ground and Ulysses vaunted over him\nsaying, \"O Socus, son of Hippasus tamer of horses, death has been too\nquick for you and you have not escaped him: poor wretch, not even in\ndeath shall your father and mother close your eyes, but the ravening\nvultures shall enshroud you with the flapping of their dark wings and\ndevour you. Whereas even though I fall the Achaeans will give me my due\nrites of burial.\"\n\nSo saying he drew Socus's heavy spear out of his flesh and from his\nshield, and the blood welled forth when the spear was withdrawn so that\nhe was much dismayed. When the Trojans saw that Ulysses was bleeding\nthey raised a great shout and came on in a body towards him; he\ntherefore gave ground, and called his comrades to come and help him.\nThrice did he cry as loudly as man can cry, and thrice did brave\nMenelaus hear him; he turned, therefore, to Ajax who was close beside\nhim and said, \"Ajax, noble son of Telamon, captain of your people, the\ncry of Ulysses rings in my ears, as though the Trojans had cut him off\nand were worsting him while he is single-handed. Let us make our way\nthrough the throng; it will be well that we defend him; I fear he may\ncome to harm for all his valour if he be left without support, and the\nDanaans would miss him sorely.\"\n\nHe led the way and mighty Ajax went with him. The Trojans had gathered\nround Ulysses like ravenous mountain jackals round the carcase of some\nhorned stag that has been hit with an arrow--the stag has fled at full\nspeed so long as his blood was warm and his strength has lasted, but\nwhen the arrow has overcome him, the savage jackals devour him in the\nshady glades of the forest. Then heaven sends a fierce lion thither,\nwhereon the jackals fly in terror and the lion robs them of their\nprey--even so did Trojans many and brave gather round crafty Ulysses,\nbut the hero stood at bay and kept them off with his spear. Ajax then\ncame up with his shield before him like a wall, and stood hard by,\nwhereon the Trojans fled in all directions. Menelaus took Ulysses by\nthe hand, and led him out of the press while his squire brought up his\nchariot, but Ajax rushed furiously on the Trojans and killed Doryclus,\na bastard son of Priam; then he wounded Pandocus, Lysandrus, Pyrasus,\nand Pylartes; as some swollen torrent comes rushing in full flood from\nthe mountains on to the plain, big with the rain of heaven--many a dry\noak and many a pine does it engulf, and much mud does it bring down and\ncast into the sea--even so did brave Ajax chase the foe furiously over\nthe plain, slaying both men and horses.\n\nHector did not yet know what Ajax was doing, for he was fighting on the\nextreme left of the battle by the banks of the river Scamander, where\nthe carnage was thickest and the war-cry loudest round Nestor and brave\nIdomeneus. Among these Hector was making great slaughter with his spear\nand furious driving, and was destroying the ranks that were opposed to\nhim; still the Achaeans would have given no ground, had not Alexandrus\nhusband of lovely Helen stayed the prowess of Machaon, shepherd of his\npeople, by wounding him in the right shoulder with a triple-barbed\narrow. The Achaeans were in great fear that as the fight had turned\nagainst them the Trojans might take him prisoner, and Idomeneus said to\nNestor, \"Nestor son of Neleus, honour to the Achaean name, mount your\nchariot at once; take Machaon with you and drive your horses to the\nships as fast as you can. A physician is worth more than several other\nmen put together, for he can cut out arrows and spread healing herbs.\"\n\nNestor knight of Gerene did as Idomeneus had counselled; he at once\nmounted his chariot, and Machaon son of the famed physician\nAesculapius, went with him. He lashed his horses and they flew onward\nnothing loth towards the ships, as though of their own free will.\n\nThen Cebriones seeing the Trojans in confusion said to Hector from his\nplace beside him, \"Hector, here are we two fighting on the extreme wing\nof the battle, while the other Trojans are in pell-mell rout, they and\ntheir horses. Ajax son of Telamon is driving them before him; I know\nhim by the breadth of his shield: let us turn our chariot and horses\nthither, where horse and foot are fighting most desperately, and where\nthe cry of battle is loudest.\"\n\nWith this he lashed his goodly steeds, and when they felt the whip they\ndrew the chariot full speed among the Achaeans and Trojans, over the\nbodies and shields of those that had fallen: the axle was bespattered\nwith blood, and the rail round the car was covered with splashes both\nfrom the horses' hoofs and from the tyres of the wheels. Hector tore\nhis way through and flung himself into the thick of the fight, and his\npresence threw the Danaans into confusion, for his spear was not long\nidle; nevertheless though he went among the ranks with sword and spear,\nand throwing great stones, he avoided Ajax son of Telamon, for Jove\nwould have been angry with him if he had fought a better man than\nhimself.\n\nThen father Jove from his high throne struck fear into the heart of\nAjax, so that he stood there dazed and threw his shield behind\nhim--looking fearfully at the throng of his foes as though he were some\nwild beast, and turning hither and thither but crouching slowly\nbackwards. As peasants with their hounds chase a lion from their\nstockyard, and watch by night to prevent his carrying off the pick of\ntheir herd--he makes his greedy spring, but in vain, for the darts from\nmany a strong hand fall thick around him, with burning brands that\nscare him for all his fury, and when morning comes he slinks foiled and\nangry away--even so did Ajax, sorely against his will, retreat angrily\nbefore the Trojans, fearing for the ships of the Achaeans. Or as some\nlazy ass that has had many a cudgel broken about his back, when he into\na field begins eating the corn--boys beat him but he is too many for\nthem, and though they lay about with their sticks they cannot hurt him;\nstill when he has had his fill they at last drive him from the\nfield--even so did the Trojans and their allies pursue great Ajax, ever\nsmiting the middle of his shield with their darts. Now and again he\nwould turn and show fight, keeping back the battalions of the Trojans,\nand then he would again retreat; but he prevented any of them from\nmaking his way to the ships. Single-handed he stood midway between the\nTrojans and Achaeans: the spears that sped from their hands stuck some\nof them in his mighty shield, while many, though thirsting for his\nblood, fell to the ground ere they could reach him to the wounding of\nhis fair flesh.\n\nNow when Eurypylus the brave son of Euaemon saw that Ajax was being\noverpowered by the rain of arrows, he went up to him and hurled his\nspear. He struck Apisaon son of Phausius in the liver below the\nmidriff, and laid him low. Eurypylus sprang upon him, and stripped the\narmour from his shoulders; but when Alexandrus saw him, he aimed an\narrow at him which struck him in the right thigh; the arrow broke, but\nthe point that was left in the wound dragged on the thigh; he drew\nback, therefore, under cover of his comrades to save his life, shouting\nas he did so to the Danaans, \"My friends, princes and counsellors of\nthe Argives, rally to the defence of Ajax who is being overpowered, and\nI doubt whether he will come out of the fight alive. Hither, then, to\nthe rescue of great Ajax son of Telamon.\"\n\nEven so did he cry when he was wounded; thereon the others came near,\nand gathered round him, holding their shields upwards from their\nshoulders so as to give him cover. Ajax then made towards them, and\nturned round to stand at bay as soon as he had reached his men.\n\nThus then did they fight as it were a flaming fire. Meanwhile the mares\nof Neleus, all in a lather with sweat, were bearing Nestor out of the\nfight, and with him Machaon shepherd of his people. Achilles saw and\ntook note, for he was standing on the stern of his ship watching the\nhard stress and struggle of the fight. He called from the ship to his\ncomrade Patroclus, who heard him in the tent and came out looking like\nMars himself--here indeed was the beginning of the ill that presently\nbefell him. \"Why,\" said he, \"Achilles, do you call me? What do you want\nwith me?\" And Achilles answered, \"Noble son of Menoetius, man after my\nown heart, I take it that I shall now have the Achaeans praying at my\nknees, for they are in great straits; go, Patroclus, and ask Nestor who\nit is that he is bearing away wounded from the field; from his back I\nshould say it was Machaon son of Aesculapius, but I could not see his\nface for the horses went by me at full speed.\"\n\nPatroclus did as his dear comrade had bidden him, and set off running\nby the ships and tents of the Achaeans.\n\nWhen Nestor and Machaon had reached the tents of the son of Neleus,\nthey dismounted, and an esquire, Eurymedon, took the horses from the\nchariot. The pair then stood in the breeze by the seaside to dry the\nsweat from their shirts, and when they had so done they came inside and\ntook their seats. Fair Hecamede, whom Nestor had had awarded to him\nfrom Tenedos when Achilles took it, mixed them a mess; she was daughter\nof wise Arsinous, and the Achaeans had given her to Nestor because he\nexcelled all of them in counsel. First she set for them a fair and\nwell-made table that had feet of cyanus; on it there was a vessel of\nbronze and an onion to give relish to the drink, with honey and cakes\nof barley-meal. There was also a cup of rare workmanship which the old\nman had brought with him from home, studded with bosses of gold; it had\nfour handles, on each of which there were two golden doves feeding, and\nit had two feet to stand on. Any one else would hardly have been able\nto lift it from the table when it was full, but Nestor could do so\nquite easily. In this the woman, as fair as a goddess, mixed them a\nmess with Pramnian wine; she grated goat's milk cheese into it with a\nbronze grater, threw in a handful of white barley-meal, and having thus\nprepared the mess she bade them drink it. When they had done so and had\nthus quenched their thirst, they fell talking with one another, and at\nthis moment Patroclus appeared at the door.\n\nWhen the old man saw him he sprang from his seat, seized his hand, led\nhim into the tent, and bade him take his place among them; but\nPatroclus stood where he was and said, \"Noble sir, I may not stay, you\ncannot persuade me to come in; he that sent me is not one to be trifled\nwith, and he bade me ask who the wounded man was whom you were bearing\naway from the field. I can now see for myself that he is Machaon,\nshepherd of his people. I must go back and tell Achilles. You, sir,\nknow what a terrible man he is, and how ready to blame even where no\nblame should lie.\"\n\nAnd Nestor answered, \"Why should Achilles care to know how many of the\nAchaeans may be wounded? He recks not of the dismay that reigns in our\nhost; our most valiant chieftains lie disabled, brave Diomed, son of\nTydeus, is wounded; so are Ulysses and Agamemnon; Eurypylus has been\nhit with an arrow in the thigh, and I have just been bringing this man\nfrom the field--he too wounded with an arrow. Nevertheless, Achilles,\nso valiant though he be, cares not and knows no ruth. Will he wait till\nthe ships, do what we may, are in a blaze, and we perish one upon the\nother? As for me, I have no strength nor stay in me any longer; would\nthat I were still young and strong as in the days when there was a\nfight between us and the men of Elis about some cattle-raiding. I then\nkilled Itymoneus, the valiant son of Hypeirochus, a dweller in Elis, as\nI was driving in the spoil; he was hit by a dart thrown by my hand\nwhile fighting in the front rank in defence of his cows, so he fell and\nthe country people around him were in great fear. We drove off a vast\nquantity of booty from the plain, fifty herds of cattle and as many\nflocks of sheep; fifty droves also of pigs, and as many wide-spreading\nflocks of goats. Of horses, moreover, we seized a hundred and fifty,\nall of them mares, and many had foals running with them. All these did\nwe drive by night to Pylus, the city of Neleus, taking them within the\ncity; and the heart of Neleus was glad in that I had taken so much,\nthough it was the first time I had ever been in the field. At daybreak\nthe heralds went round crying that all in Elis to whom there was a debt\nowing should come; and the leading Pylians assembled to divide the\nspoils. There were many to whom the Epeans owed chattels, for we men of\nPylus were few and had been oppressed with wrong; in former years\nHercules had come, and had laid his hand heavy upon us, so that all our\nbest men had perished. Neleus had had twelve sons, but I alone was\nleft; the others had all been killed. The Epeans presuming upon all\nthis had looked down upon us and had done us much evil. My father chose\na herd of cattle and a great flock of sheep--three hundred in all--and\nhe took their shepherds with him, for there was a great debt due to him\nin Elis, to wit four horses, winners of prizes. They and their chariots\nwith them had gone to the games and were to run for a tripod, but King\nAugeas took them, and sent back their driver grieving for the loss of\nhis horses. Neleus was angered by what he had both said and done, and\ntook great value in return, but he divided the rest, that no man might\nhave less than his full share.\n\n\"Thus did we order all things, and offer sacrifices to the gods\nthroughout the city; but three days afterwards the Epeans came in a\nbody, many in number, they and their chariots, in full array, and with\nthem the two Moliones in their armour, though they were still lads and\nunused to fighting. Now there is a certain town, Thryoessa, perched\nupon a rock on the river Alpheus, the border city of Pylus. This they\nwould destroy, and pitched their camp about it, but when they had\ncrossed their whole plain, Minerva darted down by night from Olympus\nand bade us set ourselves in array; and she found willing soldiers in\nPylos, for the men meant fighting. Neleus would not let me arm, and hid\nmy horses, for he said that as yet I could know nothing about war;\nnevertheless Minerva so ordered the fight that, all on foot as I was, I\nfought among our mounted forces and vied with the foremost of them.\nThere is a river Minyeius that falls into the sea near Arene, and there\nthey that were mounted (and I with them) waited till morning, when the\ncompanies of foot soldiers came up with us in force. Thence in full\npanoply and equipment we came towards noon to the sacred waters of the\nAlpheus, and there we offered victims to almighty Jove, with a bull to\nAlpheus, another to Neptune, and a herd-heifer to Minerva. After this\nwe took supper in our companies, and laid us down to rest each in his\narmour by the river.\n\n\"The Epeans were beleaguering the city and were determined to take it,\nbut ere this might be there was a desperate fight in store for them.\nWhen the sun's rays began to fall upon the earth we joined battle,\npraying to Jove and to Minerva, and when the fight had begun, I was the\nfirst to kill my man and take his horses--to wit the warrior Mulius. He\nwas son-in-law to Augeas, having married his eldest daughter,\ngolden-haired Agamede, who knew the virtues of every herb which grows\nupon the face of the earth. I speared him as he was coming towards me,\nand when he fell headlong in the dust, I sprang upon his chariot and\ntook my place in the front ranks. The Epeans fled in all directions\nwhen they saw the captain of their horsemen (the best man they had)\nlaid low, and I swept down on them like a whirlwind, taking fifty\nchariots--and in each of them two men bit the dust, slain by my spear.\nI should have even killed the two Moliones, sons of Actor, unless their\nreal father, Neptune lord of the earthquake, had hidden them in a thick\nmist and borne them out of the fight. Thereon Jove vouchsafed the\nPylians a great victory, for we chased them far over the plain, killing\nthe men and bringing in their armour, till we had brought our horses to\nBuprasium, rich in wheat, and to the Olenian rock, with the hill that\nis called Alision, at which point Minerva turned the people back. There\nI slew the last man and left him; then the Achaeans drove their horses\nback from Buprasium to Pylos and gave thanks to Jove among the gods,\nand among mortal men to Nestor.\n\n\"Such was I among my peers, as surely as ever was, but Achilles is for\nkeeping all his valour for himself; bitterly will he rue it hereafter\nwhen the host is being cut to pieces. My good friend, did not Menoetius\ncharge you thus, on the day when he sent you from Phthia to Agamemnon?\nUlysses and I were in the house, inside, and heard all that he said to\nyou; for we came to the fair house of Peleus while beating up recruits\nthroughout all Achaea, and when we got there we found Menoetius and\nyourself, and Achilles with you. The old knight Peleus was in the outer\ncourt, roasting the fat thigh-bones of a heifer to Jove the lord of\nthunder; and he held a gold chalice in his hand from which he poured\ndrink-offerings of wine over the burning sacrifice. You two were busy\ncutting up the heifer, and at that moment we stood at the gates,\nwhereon Achilles sprang to his feet, led us by the hand into the house,\nplaced us at table, and set before us such hospitable entertainment as\nguests expect. When we had satisfied ourselves with meat and drink, I\nsaid my say and urged both of you to join us. You were ready enough to\ndo so, and the two old men charged you much and straitly. Old Peleus\nbade his son Achilles fight ever among the foremost and outvie his\npeers, while Menoetius the son of Actor spoke thus to you: 'My son,'\nsaid he, 'Achilles is of nobler birth than you are, but you are older\nthan he, though he is far the better man of the two. Counsel him\nwisely, guide him in the right way, and he will follow you to his own\nprofit.' Thus did your father charge you, but you have forgotten;\nnevertheless, even now, say all this to Achilles if he will listen to\nyou. Who knows but with heaven's help you may talk him over, for it is\ngood to take a friend's advice. If, however, he is fearful about some\noracle, or if his mother has told him something from Jove, then let him\nsend you, and let the rest of the Myrmidons follow with you, if\nperchance you may bring light and saving to the Danaans. And let him\nsend you into battle clad in his own armour, that the Trojans may\nmistake you for him and leave off fighting; the sons of the Achaeans\nmay thus have time to get their breath, for they are hard pressed and\nthere is little breathing time in battle. You, who are fresh, might\neasily drive a tired enemy back to his walls and away from the tents\nand ships.\"\n\nWith these words he moved the heart of Patroclus, who set off running\nby the line of the ships to Achilles, descendant of Aeacus. When he had\ngot as far as the ships of Ulysses, where was their place of assembly\nand court of justice, with their altars dedicated to the gods,\nEurypylus son of Euaemon, met him, wounded in the thigh with an arrow,\nand limping out of the fight. Sweat rained from his head and shoulders,\nand black blood welled from his cruel wound, but his mind did not\nwander. The son of Menoetius when he saw him had compassion upon him\nand spoke piteously saying, \"O unhappy princes and counsellors of the\nDanaans, are you then doomed to feed the hounds of Troy with your fat,\nfar from your friends and your native land? Say, noble Eurypylus, will\nthe Achaeans be able to hold great Hector in check, or will they fall\nnow before his spear?\"\n\nWounded Eurypylus made answer, \"Noble Patroclus, there is no hope left\nfor the Achaeans but they will perish at their ships. All they that\nwere princes among us are lying struck down and wounded at the hands of\nthe Trojans, who are waxing stronger and stronger. But save me and take\nme to your ship; cut out the arrow from my thigh; wash the black blood\nfrom off it with warm water, and lay upon it those gracious herbs\nwhich, so they say, have been shown you by Achilles, who was himself\nshown them by Chiron, most righteous of all the centaurs. For of the\nphysicians Podalirius and Machaon, I hear that the one is lying wounded\nin his tent and is himself in need of healing, while the other is\nfighting the Trojans upon the plain.\"\n\n\"Hero Eurypylus,\" replied the brave son of Menoetius, \"how may these\nthings be? What can I do? I am on my way to bear a message to noble\nAchilles from Nestor of Gerene, bulwark of the Achaeans, but even so I\nwill not be unmindful of your distress.\"\n\nWith this he clasped him round the middle and led him into the tent,\nand a servant, when he saw him, spread bullock-skins on the ground for\nhim to lie on. He laid him at full length and cut out the sharp arrow\nfrom his thigh; he washed the black blood from the wound with warm\nwater; he then crushed a bitter herb, rubbing it between his hands, and\nspread it upon the wound; this was a virtuous herb which killed all\npain; so the wound presently dried and the blood left off flowing.\n\n\n\nBOOK XII\n\n  The Trojans and their allies break the wall, led on by Hector.\n\nSO THE son of Menoetius was attending to the hurt of Eurypylus within\nthe tent, but the Argives and Trojans still fought desperately, nor\nwere the trench and the high wall above it, to keep the Trojans in\ncheck longer. They had built it to protect their ships, and had dug the\ntrench all round it that it might safeguard both the ships and the rich\nspoils which they had taken, but they had not offered hecatombs to the\ngods. It had been built without the consent of the immortals, and\ntherefore it did not last. So long as Hector lived and Achilles nursed\nhis anger, and so long as the city of Priam remained untaken, the great\nwall of the Achaeans stood firm; but when the bravest of the Trojans\nwere no more, and many also of the Argives, though some were yet left\nalive--when, moreover, the city was sacked in the tenth year, and the\nArgives had gone back with their ships to their own country--then\nNeptune and Apollo took counsel to destroy the wall, and they turned on\nto it the streams of all the rivers from Mount Ida into the sea,\nRhesus, Heptaporus, Caresus, Rhodius, Grenicus, Aesopus, and goodly\nScamander, with Simois, where many a shield and helm had fallen, and\nmany a hero of the race of demigods had bitten the dust. Phoebus Apollo\nturned the mouths of all these rivers together and made them flow for\nnine days against the wall, while Jove rained the whole time that he\nmight wash it sooner into the sea. Neptune himself, trident in hand,\nsurveyed the work and threw into the sea all the foundations of beams\nand stones which the Achaeans had laid with so much toil; he made all\nlevel by the mighty stream of the Hellespont, and then when he had\nswept the wall away he spread a great beach of sand over the place\nwhere it had been. This done he turned the rivers back into their old\ncourses.\n\nThis was what Neptune and Apollo were to do in after time; but as yet\nbattle and turmoil were still raging round the wall till its timbers\nrang under the blows that rained upon them. The Argives, cowed by the\nscourge of Jove, were hemmed in at their ships in fear of Hector the\nmighty minister of Rout, who as heretofore fought with the force and\nfury of a whirlwind. As a lion or wild boar turns fiercely on the dogs\nand men that attack him, while these form a solid wall and shower their\njavelins as they face him--his courage is all undaunted, but his high\nspirit will be the death of him; many a time does he charge at his\npursuers to scatter them, and they fall back as often as he does\nso--even so did Hector go about among the host exhorting his men, and\ncheering them on to cross the trench.\n\nBut the horses dared not do so, and stood neighing upon its brink, for\nthe width frightened them. They could neither jump it nor cross it, for\nit had overhanging banks all round upon either side, above which there\nwere the sharp stakes that the sons of the Achaeans had planted so\nclose and strong as a defence against all who would assail it; a horse,\ntherefore, could not get into it and draw his chariot after him, but\nthose who were on foot kept trying their very utmost. Then Polydamas\nwent up to Hector and said, \"Hector, and you other captains of the\nTrojans and allies, it is madness for us to try and drive our horses\nacross the trench; it will be very hard to cross, for it is full of\nsharp stakes, and beyond these there is the wall. Our horses therefore\ncannot get down into it, and would be of no use if they did; moreover\nit is a narrow place and we should come to harm. If, indeed, great Jove\nis minded to help the Trojans, and in his anger will utterly destroy\nthe Achaeans, I would myself gladly see them perish now and here far\nfrom Argos; but if they should rally and we are driven back from the\nships pell-mell into the trench there will be not so much as a man get\nback to the city to tell the tale. Now, therefore, let us all do as I\nsay; let our squires hold our horses by the trench, but let us follow\nHector in a body on foot, clad in full armour, and if the day of their\ndoom is at hand the Achaeans will not be able to withstand us.\"\n\nThus spoke Polydamas and his saying pleased Hector, who sprang in full\narmour to the ground, and all the other Trojans, when they saw him do\nso, also left their chariots. Each man then gave his horses over to his\ncharioteer in charge to hold them ready for him at the trench. Then\nthey formed themselves into companies, made themselves ready, and in\nfive bodies followed their leaders. Those that went with Hector and\nPolydamas were the bravest and most in number, and the most determined\nto break through the wall and fight at the ships. Cebriones was also\njoined with them as third in command, for Hector had left his chariot\nin charge of a less valiant soldier. The next company was led by Paris,\nAlcathous, and Agenor; the third by Helenus and Deiphobus, two sons of\nPriam, and with them was the hero Asius--Asius, the son of Hyrtacus,\nwhose great black horses of the breed that comes from the river Selleis\nhad brought him from Arisbe. Aeneas, the valiant son of Anchises, led\nthe fourth; he and the two sons of Antenor, Archelochus and Acamas, men\nwell versed in all the arts of war. Sarpedon was captain over the\nallies, and took with him Glaucus and Asteropaeus whom he deemed most\nvaliant after himself--for he was far the best man of them all. These\nhelped to array one another in their ox-hide shields, and then charged\nstraight at the Danaans, for they felt sure that they would not hold\nout longer and that they should themselves now fall upon the ships.\n\nThe rest of the Trojans and their allies now followed the counsel of\nPolydamas but Asius, son of Hyrtacus, would not leave his horses and\nhis esquire behind him; in his foolhardiness he took them on with him\ntowards the ships, nor did he fail to come by his end in consequence.\nNevermore was he to return to wind-beaten Ilius, exulting in his\nchariot and his horses; ere he could do so, death of ill-omened name\nhad overshadowed him and he had fallen by the spear of Idomeneus the\nnoble son of Deucalion. He had driven towards the left wing of the\nships, by which way the Achaeans used to return with their chariots and\nhorses from the plain. Hither he drove and found the gates with their\ndoors opened wide, and the great bar down--for the gatemen kept them\nopen so as to let those of their comrades enter who might be flying\ntowards the ships. Hither of set purpose did he direct his horses, and\nhis men followed him with a loud cry, for they felt sure that the\nAchaeans would not hold out longer, and that they should now fall upon\nthe ships. Little did they know that at the gates they should find two\nof the bravest chieftains, proud sons of the fighting Lapithae--the\none, Polypoetes, mighty son of Pirithous, and the other Leonteus, peer\nof murderous Mars. These stood before the gates like two high oak trees\nupon the mountains, that tower from their wide-spreading roots, and\nyear after year battle with wind and rain--even so did these two men\nawait the onset of great Asius confidently and without flinching. The\nTrojans led by him and by Iamenus, Orestes, Adamas the son of Asius,\nThoon and Oenomaus, raised a loud cry of battle and made straight for\nthe wall, holding their shields of dry ox-hide above their heads; for a\nwhile the two defenders remained inside and cheered the Achaeans on to\nstand firm in the defence of their ships; when, however, they saw that\nthe Trojans were attacking the wall, while the Danaans were crying out\nfor help and being routed, they rushed outside and fought in front of\nthe gates like two wild boars upon the mountains that abide the attack\nof men and dogs, and charging on either side break down the wood all\nround them tearing it up by the roots, and one can hear the clattering\nof their tusks, till some one hits them and makes an end of them--even\nso did the gleaming bronze rattle about their breasts, as the weapons\nfell upon them; for they fought with great fury, trusting to their own\nprowess and to those who were on the wall above them. These threw great\nstones at their assailants in defence of themselves their tents and\ntheir ships. The stones fell thick as the flakes of snow which some\nfierce blast drives from the dark clouds and showers down in sheets\nupon the earth--even so fell the weapons from the hands alike of\nTrojans and Achaeans. Helmet and shield rang out as the great stones\nrained upon them, and Asius, the son of Hyrtacus, in his dismay cried\naloud and smote his two thighs. \"Father Jove,\" he cried, \"of a truth\nyou too are altogether given to lying. I made sure the Argive heroes\ncould not withstand us, whereas like slim-waisted wasps, or bees that\nhave their nests in the rocks by the wayside--they leave not the holes\nwherein they have built undefended, but fight for their little ones\nagainst all who would take them--even so these men, though they be but\ntwo, will not be driven from the gates, but stand firm either to slay\nor be slain.\"\n\nHe spoke, but moved not the mind of Jove, whose counsel it then was to\ngive glory to Hector. Meanwhile the rest of the Trojans were fighting\nabout the other gates; I, however, am no god to be able to tell about\nall these things, for the battle raged everywhere about the stone wall\nas it were a fiery furnace. The Argives, discomfited though they were,\nwere forced to defend their ships, and all the gods who were defending\nthe Achaeans were vexed in spirit; but the Lapithae kept on fighting\nwith might and main.\n\nThereon Polypoetes, mighty son of Pirithous, hit Damasus with a spear\nupon his cheek-pierced helmet. The helmet did not protect him, for the\npoint of the spear went through it, and broke the bone, so that the\nbrain inside was scattered about, and he died fighting. He then slew\nPylon and Ormenus. Leonteus, of the race of Mars, killed Hippomachus\nthe son of Antimachus by striking him with his spear upon the girdle.\nHe then drew his sword and sprang first upon Antiphates whom he killed\nin combat, and who fell face upwards on the earth. After him he killed\nMenon, Iamenus, and Orestes, and laid them low one after the other.\n\nWhile they were busy stripping the armour from these heroes, the youths\nwho were led on by Polydamas and Hector (and these were the greater\npart and the most valiant of those that were trying to break through\nthe wall and fire the ships) were still standing by the trench,\nuncertain what they should do; for they had seen a sign from heaven\nwhen they had essayed to cross it--a soaring eagle that flew skirting\nthe left wing of their host, with a monstrous blood-red snake in its\ntalons still alive and struggling to escape. The snake was still bent\non revenge, wriggling and twisting itself backwards till it struck the\nbird that held it, on the neck and breast; whereon the bird being in\npain, let it fall, dropping it into the middle of the host, and then\nflew down the wind with a sharp cry. The Trojans were struck with\nterror when they saw the snake, portent of aegis-bearing Jove, writhing\nin the midst of them, and Polydamas went up to Hector and said,\n\"Hector, at our councils of war you are ever given to rebuke me, even\nwhen I speak wisely, as though it were not well, forsooth, that one of\nthe people should cross your will either in the field or at the council\nboard; you would have them support you always: nevertheless I will say\nwhat I think will be best; let us not now go on to fight the Danaans at\ntheir ships, for I know what will happen if this soaring eagle which\nskirted the left wing of our host with a monstrous blood-red snake in\nits talons (the snake being still alive) was really sent as an omen to\nthe Trojans on their essaying to cross the trench. The eagle let go her\nhold; she did not succeed in taking it home to her little ones, and so\nwill it be--with ourselves; even though by a mighty effort we break\nthrough the gates and wall of the Achaeans, and they give way before\nus, still we shall not return in good order by the way we came, but\nshall leave many a man behind us whom the Achaeans will do to death in\ndefence of their ships. Thus would any seer who was expert in these\nmatters, and was trusted by the people, read the portent.\"\n\nHector looked fiercely at him and said, \"Polydamas, I like not of your\nreading. You can find a better saying than this if you will. If,\nhowever, you have spoken in good earnest, then indeed has heaven robbed\nyou of your reason. You would have me pay no heed to the counsels of\nJove, nor to the promises he made me--and he bowed his head in\nconfirmation; you bid me be ruled rather by the flight of wild-fowl.\nWhat care I whether they fly towards dawn or dark, and whether they be\non my right hand or on my left? Let us put our trust rather in the\ncounsel of great Jove, king of mortals and immortals. There is one\nomen, and one only--that a man should fight for his country. Why are\nyou so fearful? Though we be all of us slain at the ships of the\nArgives you are not likely to be killed yourself, for you are not\nsteadfast nor courageous. If you will not fight, or would talk others\nover from doing so, you shall fall forthwith before my spear.\"\n\nWith these words he led the way, and the others followed after with a\ncry that rent the air. Then Jove the lord of thunder sent the blast of\na mighty wind from the mountains of Ida, that bore the dust down\ntowards the ships; he thus lulled the Achaeans into security, and gave\nvictory to Hector and to the Trojans, who, trusting to their own might\nand to the signs he had shown them, essayed to break through the great\nwall of the Achaeans. They tore down the breastworks from the walls,\nand overthrew the battlements; they upheaved the buttresses, which the\nAchaeans had set in front of the wall in order to support it; when they\nhad pulled these down they made sure of breaking through the wall, but\nthe Danaans still showed no sign of giving ground; they still fenced\nthe battlements with their shields of ox-hide, and hurled their\nmissiles down upon the foe as soon as any came below the wall.\n\nThe two Ajaxes went about everywhere on the walls cheering on the\nAchaeans, giving fair words to some while they spoke sharply to any one\nwhom they saw to be remiss. \"My friends,\" they cried, \"Argives one and\nall--good bad and indifferent, for there was never fight yet, in which\nall were of equal prowess--there is now work enough, as you very well\nknow, for all of you. See that you none of you turn in flight towards\nthe ships, daunted by the shouting of the foe, but press forward and\nkeep one another in heart, if it may so be that Olympian Jove the lord\nof lightning will vouchsafe us to repel our foes, and drive them back\ntowards the city.\"\n\nThus did the two go about shouting and cheering the Achaeans on. As the\nflakes that fall thick upon a winter's day, when Jove is minded to snow\nand to display these his arrows to mankind--he lulls the wind to rest,\nand snows hour after hour till he has buried the tops of the high\nmountains, the headlands that jut into the sea, the grassy plains, and\nthe tilled fields of men; the snow lies deep upon the forelands, and\nhavens of the grey sea, but the waves as they come rolling in stay it\nthat it can come no further, though all else is wrapped as with a\nmantle, so heavy are the heavens with snow--even thus thickly did the\nstones fall on one side and on the other, some thrown at the Trojans,\nand some by the Trojans at the Achaeans; and the whole wall was in an\nuproar.\n\nStill the Trojans and brave Hector would not yet have broken down the\ngates and the great bar, had not Jove turned his son Sarpedon against\nthe Argives as a lion against a herd of horned cattle. Before him he\nheld his shield of hammered bronze, that the smith had beaten so fair\nand round, and had lined with ox hides which he had made fast with\nrivets of gold all round the shield; this he held in front of him, and\nbrandishing his two spears came on like some lion of the wilderness,\nwho has been long famished for want of meat and will dare break even\ninto a well-fenced homestead to try and get at the sheep. He may find\nthe shepherds keeping watch over their flocks with dogs and spears, but\nhe is in no mind to be driven from the fold till he has had a try for\nit; he will either spring on a sheep and carry it off, or be hit by a\nspear from some strong hand--even so was Sarpedon fain to attack the\nwall and break down its battlements. Then he said to Glaucus son of\nHippolochus, \"Glaucus, why in Lycia do we receive especial honour as\nregards our place at table? Why are the choicest portions served us and\nour cups kept brimming, and why do men look up to us as though we were\ngods? Moreover we hold a large estate by the banks of the river\nXanthus, fair with orchard lawns and wheat-growing land; it becomes us,\ntherefore, to take our stand at the head of all the Lycians and bear\nthe brunt of the fight, that one may say to another, 'Our princes in\nLycia eat the fat of the land and drink best of wine, but they are fine\nfellows; they fight well and are ever at the front in battle.' My good\nfriend, if, when we were once out of this fight, we could escape old\nage and death thenceforward and forever, I should neither press forward\nmyself nor bid you do so, but death in ten thousand shapes hangs ever\nover our heads, and no man can elude him; therefore let us go forward\nand either win glory for ourselves, or yield it to another.\"\n\nGlaucus heeded his saying, and the pair forthwith led on the host of\nLycians. Menestheus son of Peteos was dismayed when he saw them, for it\nwas against his part of the wall that they came--bringing destruction\nwith them; he looked along the wall for some chieftain to support his\ncomrades and saw the two Ajaxes, men ever eager for the fray, and\nTeucer, who had just come from his tent, standing near them; but he\ncould not make his voice heard by shouting to them, so great an uproar\nwas there from crashing shields and helmets and the battering of gates\nwith a din which reached the skies. For all the gates had been closed,\nand the Trojans were hammering at them to try and break their way\nthrough them. Menestheus, therefore, sent Thootes with a message to\nAjax. \"Run, good Thootes,\" he said, \"and call Ajax, or better still bid\nboth come, for it will be all over with us here directly; the leaders\nof the Lycians are upon us, men who have ever fought desperately\nheretofore. But if they have too much on their hands to let them come,\nat any rate let Ajax son of Telamon do so, and let Teucer, the famous\nbowman, come with him.\"\n\nThe messenger did as he was told, and set off running along the wall of\nthe Achaeans. When he reached the Ajaxes he said to them, \"Sirs,\nprinces of the Argives, the son of noble Peteos bids you come to him\nfor a while and help him. You had better both come if you can, or it\nwill be all over with him directly; the leaders of the Lycians are upon\nhim, men who have ever fought desperately heretofore; if you have too\nmuch on your hands to let both come, at any rate let Ajax, son of\nTelamon, do so, and let Teucer, the famous bowman, come with him.\"\n\nGreat Ajax son of Telamon heeded the message, and at once spoke to the\nson of Oileus. \"Ajax,\" said he, \"do you two, yourself and brave\nLycomedes, stay here and keep the Danaans in heart to fight their\nhardest. I will go over yonder, and bear my part in the fray, but I\nwill come back here at once as soon as I have given them the help they\nneed.\"\n\nWith this, Ajax son of Telamon set off, and Teucer, his brother by the\nsame father, went also, with Pandion to carry Teucer's bow. They went\nalong inside the wall, and when they came to the tower where Menestheus\nwas (and hard pressed indeed did they find him) the brave captains and\nleaders of the Lycians were storming the battlements as it were a thick\ndark cloud, fighting in close quarters, and raising the battle-cry\naloud.\n\nFirst, Ajax son of Telamon killed brave Epicles, a comrade of Sarpedon,\nhitting him with a jagged stone that lay by the battlements at the very\ntop of the wall. As men now are, even one who is in the bloom of youth\ncould hardly lift it with his two hands, but Ajax raised it high aloft\nand flung it down, smashing Epicles' four-crested helmet so that the\nbones of his head were crushed to pieces, and he fell from the high\nwall as though he were diving, with no more life left in him. Then\nTeucer wounded Glaucus the brave son of Hippolochus as he was coming on\nto attack the wall. He saw his shoulder bare and aimed an arrow at it,\nwhich made Glaucus leave off fighting. Thereon he sprang covertly down\nfor fear some of the Achaeans might see that he was wounded and taunt\nhim. Sarpedon was stung with grief when he saw Glaucus leave him, still\nhe did not leave off fighting, but aimed his spear at Alcmaon the son\nof Thestor and hit him. He drew his spear back again and Alcmaon came\ndown headlong after it with his bronzed armour rattling round him. Then\nSarpedon seized the battlement in his strong hands, and tugged at it\ntill it all gave way together, and a breach was made through which many\nmight pass.\n\nAjax and Teucer then both of them attacked him. Teucer hit him with an\narrow on the band that bore the shield which covered his body, but Jove\nsaved his son from destruction that he might not fall by the ships'\nsterns. Meanwhile Ajax sprang on him and pierced his shield, but the\nspear did not go clean through, though it hustled him back that he\ncould come on no further. He therefore retired a little space from the\nbattlement, yet without losing all his ground, for he still thought to\ncover himself with glory. Then he turned round and shouted to the brave\nLycians saying, \"Lycians, why do you thus fail me? For all my prowess I\ncannot break through the wall and open a way to the ships\nsingle-handed. Come close on behind me, for the more there are of us\nthe better.\"\n\nThe Lycians, shamed by his rebuke, pressed closer round him who was\ntheir counsellor and their king. The Argives on their part got their\nmen in fighting order within the wall, and there was a deadly struggle\nbetween them. The Lycians could not break through the wall and force\ntheir way to the ships, nor could the Danaans drive the Lycians from\nthe wall now that they had once reached it. As two men, measuring-rods\nin hand, quarrel about their boundaries in a field that they own in\ncommon, and stickle for their rights though they be but in a mere\nstrip, even so did the battlements now serve as a bone of contention,\nand they beat one another's round shields for their possession. Many a\nman's body was wounded with the pitiless bronze, as he turned round and\nbared his back to the foe, and many were struck clean through their\nshields; the wall and battlements were everywhere deluged with the\nblood alike of Trojans and of Achaeans. But even so the Trojans could\nnot rout the Achaeans, who still held on; and as some honest\nhard-working woman weighs wool in her balance and sees that the scales\nbe true, for she would gain some pitiful earnings for her little ones,\neven so was the fight balanced evenly between them till the time came\nwhen Jove gave the greater glory to Hector son of Priam, who was first\nto spring towards the wall of the Achaeans. When he had done so, he\ncried aloud to the Trojans, \"Up, Trojans, break the wall of the\nArgives, and fling fire upon their ships.\"\n\nThus did he hound them on, and in one body they rushed straight at the\nwall as he had bidden them, and scaled the battlements with sharp\nspears in their hands. Hector laid hold of a stone that lay just\noutside the gates and was thick at one end but pointed at the other;\ntwo of the best men in a town, as men now are, could hardly raise it\nfrom the ground and put it on to a waggon, but Hector lifted it quite\neasily by himself, for the son of scheming Saturn made it light for\nhim. As a shepherd picks up a ram's fleece with one hand and finds it\nno burden, so easily did Hector lift the great stone and drive it right\nat the doors that closed the gates so strong and so firmly set. These\ndoors were double and high, and were kept closed by two cross-bars to\nwhich there was but one key. When he had got close up to them, Hector\nstrode towards them that his blow might gain in force and struck them\nin the middle, leaning his whole weight against them. He broke both\nhinges, and the stone fell inside by reason of its great weight. The\nportals re-echoed with the sound, the bars held no longer, and the\ndoors flew open, one one way, and the other the other, through the\nforce of the blow. Then brave Hector leaped inside with a face as dark\nas that of flying night. The gleaming bronze flashed fiercely about his\nbody and he had two spears in his hand. None but a god could have\nwithstood him as he flung himself into the gateway, and his eyes glared\nlike fire. Then he turned round towards the Trojans and called on them\nto scale the wall, and they did as he bade them--some of them at once\nclimbing over the wall, while others passed through the gates. The\nDanaans then fled panic-stricken towards their ships, and all was\nuproar and confusion.\n\n\n\nBOOK XIII\n\n  Neptune helps the Achaeans--The feats of Idomeneus--Hector at\n  the ships.\n\nNOW when Jove had thus brought Hector and the Trojans to the ships, he\nleft them to their never-ending toil, and turned his keen eyes away,\nlooking elsewhither towards the horse-breeders of Thrace, the Mysians,\nfighters at close quarters, the noble Hippemolgi, who live on milk, and\nthe Abians, justest of mankind. He no longer turned so much as a glance\ntowards Troy, for he did not think that any of the immortals would go\nand help either Trojans or Danaans.\n\nBut King Neptune had kept no blind look-out; he had been looking\nadmiringly on the battle from his seat on the topmost crests of wooded\nSamothrace, whence he could see all Ida, with the city of Priam and the\nships of the Achaeans. He had come from under the sea and taken his\nplace here, for he pitied the Achaeans who were being overcome by the\nTrojans; and he was furiously angry with Jove.\n\nPresently he came down from his post on the mountain top, and as he\nstrode swiftly onwards the high hills and the forest quaked beneath the\ntread of his immortal feet. Three strides he took, and with the fourth\nhe reached his goal--Aegae, where is his glittering golden palace,\nimperishable, in the depths of the sea. When he got there, he yoked his\nfleet brazen-footed steeds with their manes of gold all flying in the\nwind; he clothed himself in raiment of gold, grasped his gold whip, and\ntook his stand upon his chariot. As he went his way over the waves the\nsea-monsters left their lairs, for they knew their lord, and came\ngambolling round him from every quarter of the deep, while the sea in\nher gladness opened a path before his chariot. So lightly did the\nhorses fly that the bronze axle of the car was not even wet beneath it;\nand thus his bounding steeds took him to the ships of the Achaeans.\n\nNow there is a certain huge cavern in the depths of the sea midway\nbetween Tenedos and rocky Imbrus; here Neptune lord of the earthquake\nstayed his horses, unyoked them, and set before them their ambrosial\nforage. He hobbled their feet with hobbles of gold which none could\neither unloose or break, so that they might stay there in that place\nuntil their lord should return. This done he went his way to the host\nof the Achaeans.\n\nNow the Trojans followed Hector son of Priam in close array like a\nstorm-cloud or flame of fire, fighting with might and main and raising\nthe cry battle; for they deemed that they should take the ships of the\nAchaeans and kill all their chiefest heroes then and there. Meanwhile\nearth-encircling Neptune lord of the earthquake cheered on the Argives,\nfor he had come up out of the sea and had assumed the form and voice of\nCalchas.\n\nFirst he spoke to the two Ajaxes, who were doing their best already,\nand said, \"Ajaxes, you two can be the saving of the Achaeans if you\nwill put out all your strength and not let yourselves be daunted. I am\nnot afraid that the Trojans, who have got over the wall in force, will\nbe victorious in any other part, for the Achaeans can hold all of them\nin check, but I much fear that some evil will befall us here where\nfurious Hector, who boasts himself the son of great Jove himself, is\nleading them on like a pillar of flame. May some god, then, put it into\nyour hearts to make a firm stand here, and to incite others to do the\nlike. In this case you will drive him from the ships even though he be\ninspired by Jove himself.\"\n\nAs he spoke the earth-encircling lord of the earthquake struck both of\nthem with his sceptre and filled their hearts with daring. He made\ntheir legs light and active, as also their hands and their feet. Then,\nas the soaring falcon poises on the wing high above some sheer rock,\nand presently swoops down to chase some bird over the plain, even so\ndid Neptune lord of the earthquake wing his flight into the air and\nleave them. Of the two, swift Ajax son of Oileus was the first to know\nwho it was that had been speaking with them, and said to Ajax son of\nTelamon, \"Ajax, this is one of the gods that dwell on Olympus, who in\nthe likeness of the prophet is bidding us fight hard by our ships. It\nwas not Calchas the seer and diviner of omens; I knew him at once by\nhis feet and knees as he turned away, for the gods are soon recognised.\nMoreover I feel the lust of battle burn more fiercely within me, while\nmy hands and my feet under me are more eager for the fray.\"\n\nAnd Ajax son of Telamon answered, \"I too feel my hands grasp my spear\nmore firmly; my strength is greater, and my feet more nimble; I long,\nmoreover, to meet furious Hector son of Priam, even in single combat.\"\n\nThus did they converse, exulting in the hunger after battle with which\nthe god had filled them. Meanwhile the earth-encircler roused the\nAchaeans, who were resting in the rear by the ships overcome at once by\nhard fighting and by grief at seeing that the Trojans had got over the\nwall in force. Tears began falling from their eyes as they beheld them,\nfor they made sure that they should not escape destruction; but the\nlord of the earthquake passed lightly about among them and urged their\nbattalions to the front.\n\nFirst he went up to Teucer and Leitus, the hero Peneleos, and Thoas and\nDeipyrus; Meriones also and Antilochus, valiant warriors; all did he\nexhort. \"Shame on you young Argives,\" he cried, \"it was on your prowess\nI relied for the saving of our ships; if you fight not with might and\nmain, this very day will see us overcome by the Trojans. Of a truth my\neyes behold a great and terrible portent which I had never thought to\nsee--the Trojans at our ships--they, who were heretofore like\npanic-stricken hinds, the prey of jackals and wolves in a forest, with\nno strength but in flight for they cannot defend themselves. Hitherto\nthe Trojans dared not for one moment face the attack of the Achaeans,\nbut now they have sallied far from their city and are fighting at our\nvery ships through the cowardice of our leader and the disaffection of\nthe people themselves, who in their discontent care not to fight in\ndefence of the ships but are being slaughtered near them. True, King\nAgamemnon son of Atreus is the cause of our disaster by having insulted\nthe son of Peleus, still this is no reason why we should leave off\nfighting. Let us be quick to heal, for the hearts of the brave heal\nquickly. You do ill to be thus remiss, you, who are the finest soldiers\nin our whole army. I blame no man for keeping out of battle if he is a\nweakling, but I am indignant with such men as you are. My good friends,\nmatters will soon become even worse through this slackness; think, each\none of you, of his own honour and credit, for the hazard of the fight\nis extreme. Great Hector is now fighting at our ships; he has broken\nthrough the gates and the strong bolt that held them.\"\n\nThus did the earth-encircler address the Achaeans and urge them on.\nThereon round the two Ajaxes there gathered strong bands of men, of\nwhom not even Mars nor Minerva, marshaller of hosts could make light if\nthey went among them, for they were the picked men of all those who\nwere now awaiting the onset of Hector and the Trojans. They made a\nliving fence, spear to spear, shield to shield, buckler to buckler,\nhelmet to helmet, and man to man. The horse-hair crests on their\ngleaming helmets touched one another as they nodded forward, so closely\nserried were they; the spears they brandished in their strong hands\nwere interlaced, and their hearts were set on battle.\n\nThe Trojans advanced in a dense body, with Hector at their head\npressing right on as a rock that comes thundering down the side of some\nmountain from whose brow the winter torrents have torn it; the\nfoundations of the dull thing have been loosened by floods of rain, and\nas it bounds headlong on its way it sets the whole forest in an uproar;\nit swerves neither to right nor left till it reaches level ground, but\nthen for all its fury it can go no further--even so easily did Hector\nfor a while seem as though he would career through the tents and ships\nof the Achaeans till he had reached the sea in his murderous course;\nbut the closely serried battalions stayed him when he reached them, for\nthe sons of the Achaeans thrust at him with swords and spears pointed\nat both ends, and drove him from them so that he staggered and gave\nground; thereon he shouted to the Trojans, \"Trojans, Lycians, and\nDardanians, fighters in close combat, stand firm: the Achaeans have set\nthemselves as a wall against me, but they will not check me for long;\nthey will give ground before me if the mightiest of the gods, the\nthundering spouse of Juno, has indeed inspired my onset.\"\n\nWith these words he put heart and soul into them all. Deiphobus son of\nPriam went about among them intent on deeds of daring with his round\nshield before him, under cover of which he strode quickly forward.\nMeriones took aim at him with a spear, nor did he fail to hit the broad\norb of ox-hide; but he was far from piercing it for the spear broke in\ntwo pieces long ere he could do so; moreover Deiphobus had seen it\ncoming and had held his shield well away from him. Meriones drew back\nunder cover of his comrades, angry alike at having failed to vanquish\nDeiphobus, and having broken his spear. He turned therefore towards the\nships and tents to fetch a spear which he had left behind in his tent.\n\nThe others continued fighting, and the cry of battle rose up into the\nheavens. Teucer son of Telamon was the first to kill his man, to wit,\nthe warrior Imbrius, son of Mentor, rich in horses. Until the Achaeans\ncame he had lived in Pedaeum, and had married Medesicaste, a bastard\ndaughter of Priam; but on the arrival of the Danaan fleet he had gone\nback to Ilius, and was a great man among the Trojans, dwelling near\nPriam himself, who gave him like honour with his own sons. The son of\nTelamon now struck him under the ear with a spear which he then drew\nback again, and Imbrius fell headlong as an ash-tree when it is felled\non the crest of some high mountain beacon, and its delicate green\nfoliage comes toppling down to the ground. Thus did he fall with his\nbronze-dight armour ringing harshly round him, and Teucer sprang\nforward with intent to strip him of his armour; but as he was doing so,\nHector took aim at him with a spear. Teucer saw the spear coming and\nswerved aside, whereon it hit Amphimachus, son of Cteatus son of Actor,\nin the chest as he was coming into battle, and his armour rang rattling\nround him as he fell heavily to the ground. Hector sprang forward to\ntake Amphimachus's helmet from off his temples, and in a moment Ajax\nthrew a spear at him, but did not wound him, for he was encased all\nover in his terrible armour; nevertheless the spear struck the boss of\nhis shield with such force as to drive him back from the two corpses,\nwhich the Achaeans then drew off. Stichius and Menestheus, captains of\nthe Athenians, bore away Amphimachus to the host of the Achaeans, while\nthe two brave and impetuous Ajaxes did the like by Imbrius. As two\nlions snatch a goat from the hounds that have it in their fangs, and\nbear it through thick brushwood high above the ground in their jaws,\nthus did the Ajaxes bear aloft the body of Imbrius, and strip it of its\narmour. Then the son of Oileus severed the head from the neck in\nrevenge for the death of Amphimachus, and sent it whirling over the\ncrowd as though it had been a ball, till it fell in the dust at\nHector's feet.\n\nNeptune was exceedingly angry that his grandson Amphimachus should have\nfallen; he therefore went to the tents and ships of the Achaeans to\nurge the Danaans still further, and to devise evil for the Trojans.\nIdomeneus met him, as he was taking leave of a comrade, who had just\ncome to him from the fight, wounded in the knee. His fellow-soldiers\nbore him off the field, and Idomeneus having given orders to the\nphysicians went on to his tent, for he was still thirsting for battle.\nNeptune spoke in the likeness and with the voice of Thoas son of\nAndraemon who ruled the Aetolians of all Pleuron and high Calydon, and\nwas honoured among his people as though he were a god. \"Idomeneus,\"\nsaid he, \"lawgiver to the Cretans, what has now become of the threats\nwith which the sons of the Achaeans used to threaten the Trojans?\"\n\nAnd Idomeneus chief among the Cretans answered, \"Thoas, no one, so far\nas I know, is in fault, for we can all fight. None are held back\nneither by fear nor slackness, but it seems to be the will of almighty\nJove that the Achaeans should perish ingloriously here far from Argos:\nyou, Thoas, have been always staunch, and you keep others in heart if\nyou see any fail in duty; be not then remiss now, but exhort all to do\ntheir utmost.\"\n\nTo this Neptune lord of the earthquake made answer, \"Idomeneus, may he\nnever return from Troy, but remain here for dogs to batten upon, who is\nthis day wilfully slack in fighting. Get your armour and go, we must\nmake all haste together if we may be of any use, though we are only\ntwo. Even cowards gain courage from companionship, and we two can hold\nour own with the bravest.\"\n\nTherewith the god went back into the thick of the fight, and Idomeneus\nwhen he had reached his tent donned his armour, grasped his two spears,\nand sallied forth. As the lightning which the son of Saturn brandishes\nfrom bright Olympus when he would show a sign to mortals, and its gleam\nflashes far and wide--even so did his armour gleam about him as he ran.\nMeriones his sturdy squire met him while he was still near his tent\n(for he was going to fetch his spear) and Idomeneus said:\n\n\"Meriones, fleet son of Molus, best of comrades, why have you left the\nfield? Are you wounded, and is the point of the weapon hurting you? or\nhave you been sent to fetch me? I want no fetching; I had far rather\nfight than stay in my tent.\"\n\n\"Idomeneus,\" answered Meriones, \"I come for a spear, if I can find one\nin my tent; I have broken the one I had, in throwing it at the shield\nof Deiphobus.\"\n\nAnd Idomeneus captain of the Cretans answered, \"You will find one\nspear, or twenty if you so please, standing up against the end wall of\nmy tent. I have taken them from Trojans whom I have killed, for I am\nnot one to keep my enemy at arm's length; therefore I have spears,\nbossed shields, helmets, and burnished corslets.\"\n\nThen Meriones said, \"I too in my tent and at my ship have spoils taken\nfrom the Trojans, but they are not at hand. I have been at all times\nvalorous, and wherever there has been hard fighting have held my own\namong the foremost. There may be those among the Achaeans who do not\nknow how I fight, but you know it well enough yourself.\"\n\nIdomeneus answered, \"I know you for a brave man: you need not tell me.\nIf the best men at the ships were being chosen to go on an ambush--and\nthere is nothing like this for showing what a man is made of; it comes\nout then who is cowardly and who brave; the coward will change colour\nat every touch and turn; he is full of fears, and keeps shifting his\nweight first on one knee and then on the other; his heart beats fast as\nhe thinks of death, and one can hear the chattering of his teeth;\nwhereas the brave man will not change colour nor be frightened on\nfinding himself in ambush, but is all the time longing to go into\naction--if the best men were being chosen for such a service, no one\ncould make light of your courage nor feats of arms. If you were struck\nby a dart or smitten in close combat, it would not be from behind, in\nyour neck nor back, but the weapon would hit you in the chest or belly\nas you were pressing forward to a place in the front ranks. But let us\nno longer stay here talking like children, lest we be ill spoken of;\ngo, fetch your spear from the tent at once.\"\n\nOn this Meriones, peer of Mars, went to the tent and got himself a\nspear of bronze. He then followed after Idomeneus, big with great deeds\nof valour. As when baneful Mars sallies forth to battle, and his son\nPanic so strong and dauntless goes with him, to strike terror even into\nthe heart of a hero--the pair have gone from Thrace to arm themselves\namong the Ephyri or the brave Phlegyans, but they will not listen to\nboth the contending hosts, and will give victory to one side or to the\nother--even so did Meriones and Idomeneus, captains of men, go out to\nbattle clad in their bronze armour. Meriones was first to speak. \"Son\nof Deucalion,\" said he, \"where would you have us begin fighting? On the\nright wing of the host, in the centre, or on the left wing, where I\ntake it the Achaeans will be weakest?\"\n\nIdomeneus answered, \"There are others to defend the centre--the two\nAjaxes and Teucer, who is the finest archer of all the Achaeans, and is\ngood also in a hand-to-hand fight. These will give Hector son of Priam\nenough to do; fight as he may, he will find it hard to vanquish their\nindomitable fury, and fire the ships, unless the son of Saturn fling a\nfirebrand upon them with his own hand. Great Ajax son of Telamon will\nyield to no man who is in mortal mould and eats the grain of Ceres, if\nbronze and great stones can overthrow him. He would not yield even to\nAchilles in hand-to-hand fight, and in fleetness of foot there is none\nto beat him; let us turn therefore towards the left wing, that we may\nknow forthwith whether we are to give glory to some other, or he to us.\"\n\nMeriones, peer of fleet Mars, then led the way till they came to the\npart of the host which Idomeneus had named.\n\nNow when the Trojans saw Idomeneus coming on like a flame of fire, him\nand his squire clad in their richly wrought armour, they shouted and\nmade towards him all in a body, and a furious hand-to-hand fight raged\nunder the ships' sterns. Fierce as the shrill winds that whistle upon a\nday when dust lies deep on the roads, and the gusts raise it into a\nthick cloud--even such was the fury of the combat, and might and main\ndid they hack at each other with spear and sword throughout the host.\nThe field bristled with the long and deadly spears which they bore.\nDazzling was the sheen of their gleaming helmets, their fresh-burnished\nbreastplates, and glittering shields as they joined battle with one\nanother. Iron indeed must be his courage who could take pleasure in the\nsight of such a turmoil, and look on it without being dismayed.\n\nThus did the two mighty sons of Saturn devise evil for mortal heroes.\nJove was minded to give victory to the Trojans and to Hector, so as to\ndo honour to fleet Achilles, nevertheless he did not mean to utterly\noverthrow the Achaean host before Ilius, and only wanted to glorify\nThetis and her valiant son. Neptune on the other hand went about among\nthe Argives to incite them, having come up from the grey sea in secret,\nfor he was grieved at seeing them vanquished by the Trojans, and was\nfuriously angry with Jove. Both were of the same race and country, but\nJove was elder born and knew more, therefore Neptune feared to defend\nthe Argives openly, but in the likeness of man, he kept on encouraging\nthem throughout their host. Thus, then, did these two devise a knot of\nwar and battle, that none could unloose or break, and set both sides\ntugging at it, to the failing of men's knees beneath them.\n\nAnd now Idomeneus, though his hair was already flecked with grey,\ncalled loud on the Danaans and spread panic among the Trojans as he\nleaped in among them. He slew Othryoneus from Cabesus, a sojourner, who\nhad but lately come to take part in the war. He sought Cassandra, the\nfairest of Priam's daughters, in marriage, but offered no gifts of\nwooing, for he promised a great thing, to wit, that he would drive the\nsons of the Achaeans willy nilly from Troy; old King Priam had given\nhis consent and promised her to him, whereon he fought on the strength\nof the promises thus made to him. Idomeneus aimed a spear, and hit him\nas he came striding on. His cuirass of bronze did not protect him, and\nthe spear stuck in his belly, so that he fell heavily to the ground.\nThen Idomeneus vaunted over him saying, \"Othryoneus, there is no one in\nthe world whom I shall admire more than I do you, if you indeed perform\nwhat you have promised Priam son of Dardanus in return for his\ndaughter. We too will make you an offer; we will give you the loveliest\ndaughter of the son of Atreus, and will bring her from Argos for you to\nmarry, if you will sack the goodly city of Ilius in company with\nourselves; so come along with me, that we may make a covenant at the\nships about the marriage, and we will not be hard upon you about gifts\nof wooing.\"\n\nWith this Idomeneus began dragging him by the foot through the thick of\nthe fight, but Asius came up to protect the body, on foot, in front of\nhis horses which his esquire drove so close behind him that he could\nfeel their breath upon his shoulder. He was longing to strike down\nIdomeneus, but ere he could do so Idomeneus smote him with his spear in\nthe throat under the chin, and the bronze point went clean through it.\nHe fell as an oak, or poplar, or pine which shipwrights have felled for\nship's timber upon the mountains with whetted axes--even thus did he\nlie full length in front of his chariot and horses, grinding his teeth\nand clutching at the bloodstained dust. His charioteer was struck with\npanic and did not dare turn his horses round and escape: thereupon\nAntilochus hit him in the middle of his body with a spear; his cuirass\nof bronze did not protect him, and the spear stuck in his belly. He\nfell gasping from his chariot and Antilochus, great Nestor's son, drove\nhis horses from the Trojans to the Achaeans.\n\nDeiphobus then came close up to Idomeneus to avenge Asius, and took aim\nat him with a spear, but Idomeneus was on the look-out and avoided it,\nfor he was covered by the round shield he always bore--a shield of\noxhide and bronze with two arm-rods on the inside. He crouched under\ncover of this, and the spear flew over him, but the shield rang out as\nthe spear grazed it, and the weapon sped not in vain from the strong\nhand of Deiphobus, for it struck Hypsenor son of Hippasus, shepherd of\nhis people, in the liver under the midriff, and his limbs failed\nbeneath him. Deiphobus vaunted over him and cried with a loud voice\nsaying, \"Of a truth Asius has not fallen unavenged; he will be glad\neven while passing into the house of Hades, strong warden of the gate,\nthat I have sent some one to escort him.\"\n\nThus did he vaunt, and the Argives were stung by his saying. Noble\nAntilochus was more angry than any one, but grief did not make him\nforget his friend and comrade. He ran up to him, bestrode him, and\ncovered him with his shield; then two of his staunch comrades,\nMecisteus son of Echius, and Alastor, stooped down, and bore him away\ngroaning heavily to the ships. But Idomeneus ceased not his fury. He\nkept on striving continually either to enshroud some Trojan in the\ndarkness of death, or himself to fall while warding off the evil day\nfrom the Achaeans. Then fell Alcathous son of noble Aesyetes; he was\nson-in-law to Anchises, having married his eldest daughter Hippodameia,\nwho was the darling of her father and mother, and excelled all her\ngeneration in beauty, accomplishments, and understanding, wherefore the\nbravest man in all Troy had taken her to wife--him did Neptune lay low\nby the hand of Idomeneus, blinding his bright eyes and binding his\nstrong limbs in fetters so that he could neither go back nor to one\nside, but stood stock still like pillar or lofty tree when Idomeneus\nstruck him with a spear in the middle of his chest. The coat of mail\nthat had hitherto protected his body was now broken, and rang harshly\nas the spear tore through it. He fell heavily to the ground, and the\nspear stuck in his heart, which still beat, and made the butt-end of\nthe spear quiver till dread Mars put an end to his life. Idomeneus\nvaunted over him and cried with a loud voice saying, \"Deiphobus, since\nyou are in a mood to vaunt, shall we cry quits now that we have killed\nthree men to your one? Nay, sir, stand in fight with me yourself, that\nyou may learn what manner of Jove-begotten man am I that have come\nhither. Jove first begot Minos, chief ruler in Crete, and Minos in his\nturn begot a son, noble Deucalion. Deucalion begot me to be a ruler\nover many men in Crete, and my ships have now brought me hither, to be\nthe bane of yourself, your father, and the Trojans.\"\n\nThus did he speak, and Deiphobus was in two minds, whether to go back\nand fetch some other Trojan to help him, or to take up the challenge\nsingle-handed. In the end, he deemed it best to go and fetch Aeneas,\nwhom he found standing in the rear, for he had long been aggrieved with\nPriam because in spite of his brave deeds he did not give him his due\nshare of honour. Deiphobus went up to him and said, \"Aeneas, prince\namong the Trojans, if you know any ties of kinship, help me now to\ndefend the body of your sister's husband; come with me to the rescue of\nAlcathous, who being husband to your sister brought you up when you\nwere a child in his house, and now Idomeneus has slain him.\"\n\nWith these words he moved the heart of Aeneas, and he went in pursuit\nof Idomeneus, big with great deeds of valour; but Idomeneus was not to\nbe thus daunted as though he were a mere child; he held his ground as a\nwild boar at bay upon the mountains, who abides the coming of a great\ncrowd of men in some lonely place--the bristles stand upright on his\nback, his eyes flash fire, and he whets his tusks in his eagerness to\ndefend himself against hounds and men--even so did famed Idomeneus hold\nhis ground and budge not at the coming of Aeneas. He cried aloud to his\ncomrades looking towards Ascalaphus, Aphareus, Deipyrus, Meriones, and\nAntilochus, all of them brave soldiers--\"Hither my friends,\" he cried,\n\"and leave me not single-handed--I go in great fear by fleet Aeneas,\nwho is coming against me, and is a redoubtable dispenser of death\nbattle. Moreover he is in the flower of youth when a man's strength is\ngreatest; if I was of the same age as he is and in my present mind,\neither he or I should soon bear away the prize of victory.\"\n\nOn this, all of them as one man stood near him, shield on shoulder.\nAeneas on the other side called to his comrades, looking towards\nDeiphobus, Paris, and Agenor, who were leaders of the Trojans along\nwith himself, and the people followed them as sheep follow the ram when\nthey go down to drink after they have been feeding, and the heart of\nthe shepherd is glad--even so was the heart of Aeneas gladdened when he\nsaw his people follow him.\n\nThen they fought furiously in close combat about the body of Alcathous,\nwielding their long spears; and the bronze armour about their bodies\nrang fearfully as they took aim at one another in the press of the\nfight, while the two heroes Aeneas and Idomeneus, peers of Mars,\noutvied everyone in their desire to hack at each other with sword and\nspear. Aeneas took aim first, but Idomeneus was on the lookout and\navoided the spear, so that it sped from Aeneas' strong hand in vain,\nand fell quivering in the ground. Idomeneus meanwhile smote Oenomaus in\nthe middle of his belly, and broke the plate of his corslet, whereon\nhis bowels came gushing out and he clutched the earth in the palms of\nhis hands as he fell sprawling in the dust. Idomeneus drew his spear\nout of the body, but could not strip him of the rest of his armour for\nthe rain of darts that were showered upon him: moreover his strength\nwas now beginning to fail him so that he could no longer charge, and\ncould neither spring forward to recover his own weapon nor swerve aside\nto avoid one that was aimed at him; therefore, though he still defended\nhimself in hand-to-hand fight, his heavy feet could not bear him\nswiftly out of the battle. Deiphobus aimed a spear at him as he was\nretreating slowly from the field, for his bitterness against him was as\nfierce as ever, but again he missed him, and hit Ascalaphus, the son of\nMars; the spear went through his shoulder, and he clutched the earth in\nthe palms of his hands as he fell sprawling in the dust.\n\nGrim Mars of awful voice did not yet know that his son had fallen, for\nhe was sitting on the summits of Olympus under the golden clouds, by\ncommand of Jove, where the other gods were also sitting, forbidden to\ntake part in the battle. Meanwhile men fought furiously about the body.\nDeiphobus tore the helmet from off his head, but Meriones sprang upon\nhim, and struck him on the arm with a spear so that the visored helmet\nfell from his hand and came ringing down upon the ground. Thereon\nMeriones sprang upon him like a vulture, drew the spear from his\nshoulder, and fell back under cover of his men. Then Polites, own\nbrother of Deiphobus passed his arms around his waist, and bore him\naway from the battle till he got to his horses that were standing in\nthe rear of the fight with the chariot and their driver. These took him\ntowards the city groaning and in great pain, with the blood flowing\nfrom his arm.\n\nThe others still fought on, and the battle-cry rose to heaven without\nceasing. Aeneas sprang on Aphareus son of Caletor, and struck him with\na spear in his throat which was turned towards him; his head fell on\none side, his helmet and shield came down along with him, and death,\nlife's foe, was shed around him. Antilochus spied his chance, flew\nforward towards Thoon, and wounded him as he was turning round. He laid\nopen the vein that runs all the way up the back to the neck; he cut\nthis vein clean away throughout its whole course, and Thoon fell in the\ndust face upwards, stretching out his hands imploringly towards his\ncomrades. Antilochus sprang upon him and stripped the armour from his\nshoulders, glaring round him fearfully as he did so. The Trojans came\nabout him on every side and struck his broad and gleaming shield, but\ncould not wound his body, for Neptune stood guard over the son of\nNestor, though the darts fell thickly round him. He was never clear of\nthe foe, but was always in the thick of the fight; his spear was never\nidle; he poised and aimed it in every direction, so eager was he to hit\nsomeone from a distance or to fight him hand to hand.\n\nAs he was thus aiming among the crowd, he was seen by Adamas, son of\nAsius, who rushed towards him and struck him with a spear in the middle\nof his shield, but Neptune made its point without effect, for he\ngrudged him the life of Antilochus. One half, therefore, of the spear\nstuck fast like a charred stake in Antilochus's shield, while the other\nlay on the ground. Adamas then sought shelter under cover of his men,\nbut Meriones followed after and hit him with a spear midway between the\nprivate parts and the navel, where a wound is particularly painful to\nwretched mortals. There did Meriones transfix him, and he writhed\nconvulsively about the spear as some bull whom mountain herdsmen have\nbound with ropes of withes and are taking away perforce. Even so did he\nmove convulsively for a while, but not for very long, till Meriones\ncame up and drew the spear out of his body, and his eyes were veiled in\ndarkness.\n\nHelenus then struck Deipyrus with a great Thracian sword, hitting him\non the temple in close combat and tearing the helmet from his head; the\nhelmet fell to the ground, and one of those who were fighting on the\nAchaean side took charge of it as it rolled at his feet, but the eyes\nof Deipyrus were closed in the darkness of death.\n\nOn this Menelaus was grieved, and made menacingly towards Helenus,\nbrandishing his spear; but Helenus drew his bow, and the two attacked\none another at one and the same moment, the one with his spear, and the\nother with his bow and arrow. The son of Priam hit the breastplate of\nMenelaus's corslet, but the arrow glanced from off it. As black beans\nor pulse come pattering down on to a threshing-floor from the broad\nwinnowing-shovel, blown by shrill winds and shaken by the shovel--even\nso did the arrow glance off and recoil from the shield of Menelaus, who\nin his turn wounded the hand with which Helenus carried his bow; the\nspear went right through his hand and stuck in the bow itself, so that\nto his life he retreated under cover of his men, with his hand dragging\nby his side--for the spear weighed it down till Agenor drew it out and\nbound the hand carefully up in a woollen sling which his esquire had\nwith him.\n\nPisander then made straight at Menelaus--his evil destiny luring him on\nto his doom, for he was to fall in fight with you, O Menelaus. When the\ntwo were hard by one another the spear of the son of Atreus turned\naside and he missed his aim; Pisander then struck the shield of brave\nMenelaus but could not pierce it, for the shield stayed the spear and\nbroke the shaft; nevertheless he was glad and made sure of victory;\nforthwith, however, the son of Atreus drew his sword and sprang upon\nhim. Pisander then seized the bronze battle-axe, with its long and\npolished handle of olive wood that hung by his side under his shield,\nand the two made at one another. Pisander struck the peak of Menelaus's\ncrested helmet just under the crest itself, and Menelaus hit Pisander\nas he was coming towards him, on the forehead, just at the rise of his\nnose; the bones cracked and his two gore-bedrabbled eyes fell by his\nfeet in the dust. He fell backwards to the ground, and Menelaus set his\nheel upon him, stripped him of his armour, and vaunted over him saying,\n\"Even thus shall you Trojans leave the ships of the Achaeans, proud and\ninsatiate of battle though you be, nor shall you lack any of the\ndisgrace and shame which you have heaped upon myself. Cowardly\nshe-wolves that you are, you feared not the anger of dread Jove,\navenger of violated hospitality, who will one day destroy your city;\nyou stole my wedded wife and wickedly carried off much treasure when\nyou were her guest, and now you would fling fire upon our ships, and\nkill our heroes. A day will come when, rage as you may, you shall be\nstayed. O father Jove, you, who they say art above all, both gods and\nmen, in wisdom, and from whom all things that befall us do proceed, how\ncan you thus favour the Trojans--men so proud and overweening, that\nthey are never tired of fighting? All things pall after a while--sleep,\nlove, sweet song, and stately dance--still these are things of which a\nman would surely have his fill rather than of battle, whereas it is of\nbattle that the Trojans are insatiate.\"\n\nSo saying Menelaus stripped the blood-stained armour from the body of\nPisander, and handed it over to his men; then he again ranged himself\namong those who were in the front of the fight.\n\nHarpalion son of King Pylaemenes then sprang upon him; he had come to\nfight at Troy along with his father, but he did not go home again. He\nstruck the middle of Menelaus's shield with his spear but could not\npierce it, and to save his life drew back under cover of his men,\nlooking round him on every side lest he should be wounded. But Meriones\naimed a bronze-tipped arrow at him as he was leaving the field, and hit\nhim on the right buttock; the arrow pierced the bone through and\nthrough, and penetrated the bladder, so he sat down where he was and\nbreathed his last in the arms of his comrades, stretched like a worm\nupon the ground and watering the earth with the blood that flowed from\nhis wound. The brave Paphlagonians tended him with all due care; they\nraised him into his chariot, and bore him sadly off to the city of\nTroy; his father went also with him weeping bitterly, but there was no\nransom that could bring his dead son to life again.\n\nParis was deeply grieved by the death of Harpalion, who was his host\nwhen he went among the Paphlagonians; he aimed an arrow, therefore, in\norder to avenge him. Now there was a certain man named Euchenor, son of\nPolyidus the prophet, a brave man and wealthy, whose home was in\nCorinth. This Euchenor had set sail for Troy well knowing that it would\nbe the death of him, for his good old father Polyidus had often told\nhim that he must either stay at home and die of a terrible disease, or\ngo with the Achaeans and perish at the hands of the Trojans; he chose,\ntherefore, to avoid incurring the heavy fine the Achaeans would have\nlaid upon him, and at the same time to escape the pain and suffering of\ndisease. Paris now smote him on the jaw under his ear, whereon the life\nwent out of him and he was enshrouded in the darkness of death.\n\nThus then did they fight as it were a flaming fire. But Hector had not\nyet heard, and did not know that the Argives were making havoc of his\nmen on the left wing of the battle, where the Achaeans ere long would\nhave triumphed over them, so vigorously did Neptune cheer them on and\nhelp them. He therefore held on at the point where he had first forced\nhis way through the gates and the wall, after breaking through the\nserried ranks of Danaan warriors. It was here that the ships of Ajax\nand Protesilaus were drawn up by the sea-shore; here the wall was at\nits lowest, and the fight both of man and horse raged most fiercely.\nThe Boeotians and the Ionians with their long tunics, the Locrians, the\nmen of Phthia, and the famous force of the Epeans could hardly stay\nHector as he rushed on towards the ships, nor could they drive him from\nthem, for he was as a wall of fire. The chosen men of the Athenians\nwere in the van, led by Menestheus son of Peteos, with whom were also\nPheidas, Stichius, and stalwart Bias; Meges son of Phyleus, Amphion,\nand Dracius commanded the Epeans, while Medon and staunch Podarces led\nthe men of Phthia. Of these, Medon was bastard son to Oileus and\nbrother of Ajax, but he lived in Phylace away from his own country, for\nhe had killed the brother of his stepmother Eriopis, the wife of\nOileus; the other, Podarces, was the son of Iphiclus, son of Phylacus.\nThese two stood in the van of the Phthians, and defended the ships\nalong with the Boeotians.\n\nAjax son of Oileus, never for a moment left the side of Ajax, son of\nTelamon, but as two swart oxen both strain their utmost at the plough\nwhich they are drawing in a fallow field, and the sweat steams upwards\nfrom about the roots of their horns--nothing but the yoke divides them\nas they break up the ground till they reach the end of the field--even\nso did the two Ajaxes stand shoulder to shoulder by one another. Many\nand brave comrades followed the son of Telamon, to relieve him of his\nshield when he was overcome with sweat and toil, but the Locrians did\nnot follow so close after the son of Oileus, for they could not hold\ntheir own in a hand-to-hand fight. They had no bronze helmets with\nplumes of horse-hair, neither had they shields nor ashen spears, but\nthey had come to Troy armed with bows, and with slings of twisted wool\nfrom which they showered their missiles to break the ranks of the\nTrojans. The others, therefore, with their heavy armour bore the brunt\nof the fight with the Trojans and with Hector, while the Locrians shot\nfrom behind, under their cover; and thus the Trojans began to lose\nheart, for the arrows threw them into confusion.\n\nThe Trojans would now have been driven in sorry plight from the ships\nand tents back to windy Ilius, had not Polydamas presently said to\nHector, \"Hector, there is no persuading you to take advice. Because\nheaven has so richly endowed you with the arts of war, you think that\nyou must therefore excel others in counsel; but you cannot thus claim\npreeminence in all things. Heaven has made one man an excellent\nsoldier; of another it has made a dancer or a singer and player on the\nlyre; while yet in another Jove has implanted a wise understanding of\nwhich men reap fruit to the saving of many, and he himself knows more\nabout it than any one; therefore I will say what I think will be best.\nThe fight has hemmed you in as with a circle of fire, and even now that\nthe Trojans are within the wall some of them stand aloof in full\narmour, while others are fighting scattered and outnumbered near the\nships. Draw back, therefore, and call your chieftains round you, that\nwe may advise together whether to fall now upon the ships in the hope\nthat heaven may vouchsafe us victory, or to beat a retreat while we can\nyet safely do so. I greatly fear that the Achaeans will pay us their\ndebt of yesterday in full, for there is one abiding at their ships who\nis never weary of battle, and who will not hold aloof much longer.\"\n\nThus spoke Polydamas, and his words pleased Hector well. He sprang in\nfull armour from his chariot and said, \"Polydamas, gather the\nchieftains here; I will go yonder into the fight, but will return at\nonce when I have given them their orders.\"\n\nHe then sped onward, towering like a snowy mountain, and with a loud\ncry flew through the ranks of the Trojans and their allies. When they\nheard his voice they all hastened to gather round Polydamas, the\nexcellent son of Panthous, but Hector kept on among the foremost,\nlooking everywhere to find Deiphobus and prince Helenus, Adamas son of\nAsius, and Asius son of Hyrtacus; living, indeed, and scatheless he\ncould no longer find them, for the two last were lying by the sterns of\nthe Achaean ships, slain by the Argives, while the others had been also\nstricken and wounded by them; but upon the left wing of the dread\nbattle he found Alexandrus, husband of lovely Helen, cheering his men\nand urging them on to fight. He went up to him and upbraided him.\n\"Paris,\" said he, \"evil-hearted Paris, fair to see but woman-mad and\nfalse of tongue, where are Deiphobus and King Helenus? Where are Adamas\nson of Asius, and Asius son of Hyrtacus? Where too is Othryoneus? Ilius\nis undone and will now surely fall!\"\n\nAlexandrus answered, \"Hector, why find fault when there is no one to\nfind fault with? I should hold aloof from battle on any day rather than\nthis, for my mother bore me with nothing of the coward about me. From\nthe moment when you set our men fighting about the ships we have been\nstaying here and doing battle with the Danaans. Our comrades about whom\nyou ask me are dead; Deiphobus and King Helenus alone have left the\nfield, wounded both of them in the hand, but the son of Saturn saved\nthem alive. Now, therefore, lead on where you would have us go, and we\nwill follow with right goodwill; you shall not find us fail you in so\nfar as our strength holds out, but no man can do more than in him lies,\nno matter how willing he may be.\"\n\nWith these words he satisfied his brother, and the two went towards the\npart of the battle where the fight was thickest, about Cebriones, brave\nPolydamas, Phalces, Orthaeus, godlike Polyphetes, Palmys, Ascanius, and\nMorys son of Hippotion, who had come from fertile Ascania on the\npreceding day to relieve other troops. Then Jove urged them on to\nfight. They flew forth like the blasts of some fierce wind that strike\nearth in the van of a thunderstorm--they buffet the salt sea into an\nuproar; many and mighty are the great waves that come crashing in one\nafter the other upon the shore with their arching heads all crested\nwith foam--even so did rank behind rank of Trojans arrayed in gleaming\narmour follow their leaders onward. The way was led by Hector son of\nPriam, peer of murderous Mars, with his round shield before him--his\nshield of ox-hides covered with plates of bronze--and his gleaming\nhelmet upon his temples. He kept stepping forward under cover of his\nshield in every direction, making trial of the ranks to see if they\nwould give way before him, but he could not daunt the courage of the\nAchaeans. Ajax was the first to stride out and challenge him. \"Sir,\" he\ncried, \"draw near; why do you think thus vainly to dismay the Argives?\nWe Achaeans are excellent soldiers, but the scourge of Jove has fallen\nheavily upon us. Your heart, forsooth, is set on destroying our ships,\nbut we too have hands that can keep you at bay, and your own fair town\nshall be sooner taken and sacked by ourselves. The time is near when\nyou shall pray Jove and all the gods in your flight, that your steeds\nmay be swifter than hawks as they raise the dust on the plain and bear\nyou back to your city.\"\n\nAs he was thus speaking a bird flew by upon his right hand, and the\nhost of the Achaeans shouted, for they took heart at the omen. But\nHector answered, \"Ajax, braggart and false of tongue, would that I were\nas sure of being son for evermore to aegis-bearing Jove, with Queen\nJuno for my mother, and of being held in like honour with Minerva and\nApollo, as I am that this day is big with the destruction of the\nAchaeans; and you shall fall among them if you dare abide my spear; it\nshall rend your fair body and bid you glut our hounds and birds of prey\nwith your fat and your flesh, as you fall by the ships of the Achaeans.\"\n\nWith these words he led the way and the others followed after with a\ncry that rent the air, while the host shouted behind them. The Argives\non their part raised a shout likewise, nor did they forget their\nprowess, but stood firm against the onslaught of the Trojan chieftains,\nand the cry from both the hosts rose up to heaven and to the brightness\nof Jove's presence.\n\n\n\nBOOK XIV\n\n  Agamemnon proposes that the Achaeans should sail home, and\n  is rebuked by Ulysses--Juno beguiles Jupiter--Hector is\n  wounded.\n\nNESTOR was sitting over his wine, but the cry of battle did not escape\nhim, and he said to the son of Aesculapius, \"What, noble Machaon, is\nthe meaning of all this? The shouts of men fighting by our ships grow\nstronger and stronger; stay here, therefore, and sit over your wine,\nwhile fair Hecamede heats you a bath and washes the clotted blood from\noff you. I will go at once to the look-out station and see what it is\nall about.\"\n\nAs he spoke he took up the shield of his son Thrasymedes that was lying\nin his tent, all gleaming with bronze, for Thrasymedes had taken his\nfather's shield; he grasped his redoubtable bronze-shod spear, and as\nsoon as he was outside saw the disastrous rout of the Achaeans who, now\nthat their wall was overthrown, were flying pell-mell before the\nTrojans. As when there is a heavy swell upon the sea, but the waves are\ndumb--they keep their eyes on the watch for the quarter whence the\nfierce winds may spring upon them, but they stay where they are and set\nneither this way nor that, till some particular wind sweeps down from\nheaven to determine them--even so did the old man ponder whether to\nmake for the crowd of Danaans, or go in search of Agamemnon. In the end\nhe deemed it best to go to the son of Atreus; but meanwhile the hosts\nwere fighting and killing one another, and the hard bronze rattled on\ntheir bodies, as they thrust at one another with their swords and\nspears.\n\nThe wounded kings, the son of Tydeus, Ulysses, and Agamemnon son of\nAtreus, fell in with Nestor as they were coming up from their\nships--for theirs were drawn up some way from where the fighting was\ngoing on, being on the shore itself inasmuch as they had been beached\nfirst, while the wall had been built behind the hindermost. The stretch\nof the shore, wide though it was, did not afford room for all the\nships, and the host was cramped for space, therefore they had placed\nthe ships in rows one behind the other, and had filled the whole\nopening of the bay between the two points that formed it. The kings,\nleaning on their spears, were coming out to survey the fight, being in\ngreat anxiety, and when old Nestor met them they were filled with\ndismay. Then King Agamemnon said to him, \"Nestor son of Neleus, honour\nto the Achaean name, why have you left the battle to come hither? I\nfear that what dread Hector said will come true, when he vaunted among\nthe Trojans saying that he would not return to Ilius till he had fired\nour ships and killed us; this is what he said, and now it is all coming\ntrue. Alas! others of the Achaeans, like Achilles, are in such anger with\nme that they refuse to fight by the sterns of our ships.\"\n\nThen Nestor knight of Gerene, answered, \"It is indeed as you say; it is\nall coming true at this moment, and even Jove who thunders from on high\ncannot prevent it. Fallen is the wall on which we relied as an\nimpregnable bulwark both for us and our fleet. The Trojans are fighting\nstubbornly and without ceasing at the ships; look where you may you\ncannot see from what quarter the rout of the Achaeans is coming; they\nare being killed in a confused mass and the battle-cry ascends to\nheaven; let us think, if counsel can be of any use, what we had better\ndo; but I do not advise our going into battle ourselves, for a man\ncannot fight when he is wounded.\"\n\nAnd King Agamemnon answered, \"Nestor, if the Trojans are indeed\nfighting at the rear of our ships, and neither the wall nor the trench\nhas served us--over which the Danaans toiled so hard, and which they\ndeemed would be an impregnable bulwark both for us and our fleet--I see\nit must be the will of Jove that the Achaeans should perish\ningloriously here, far from Argos. I knew when Jove was willing to\ndefend us, and I know now that he is raising the Trojans to like honour\nwith the gods, while us, on the other hand, he has bound hand and foot.\nNow, therefore, let us all do as I say; let us bring down the ships\nthat are on the beach and draw them into the water; let us make them\nfast to their mooring-stones a little way out, against the fall of\nnight--if even by night the Trojans will desist from fighting; we may\nthen draw down the rest of the fleet. There is nothing wrong in flying\nruin even by night. It is better for a man that he should fly and be\nsaved than be caught and killed.\"\n\nUlysses looked fiercely at him and said, \"Son of Atreus, what are you\ntalking about? Wretch, you should have commanded some other and baser\narmy, and not been ruler over us to whom Jove has allotted a life of\nhard fighting from youth to old age, till we every one of us perish. Is\nit thus that you would quit the city of Troy, to win which we have\nsuffered so much hardship? Hold your peace, lest some other of the\nAchaeans hear you say what no man who knows how to give good counsel,\nno king over so great a host as that of the Argives should ever have\nlet fall from his lips. I despise your judgement utterly for what you\nhave been saying. Would you, then, have us draw down our ships into the\nwater while the battle is raging, and thus play further into the hands\nof the conquering Trojans? It would be ruin; the Achaeans will not go\non fighting when they see the ships being drawn into the water, but\nwill cease attacking and keep turning their eyes towards them; your\ncounsel, therefore, sir captain, would be our destruction.\"\n\nAgamemnon answered, \"Ulysses, your rebuke has stung me to the heart. I\nam not, however, ordering the Achaeans to draw their ships into the sea\nwhether they will or no. Someone, it may be, old or young, can offer us\nbetter counsel which I shall rejoice to hear.\"\n\nThen said Diomed, \"Such an one is at hand; he is not far to seek, if\nyou will listen to me and not resent my speaking though I am younger\nthan any of you. I am by lineage son to a noble sire, Tydeus, who lies\nburied at Thebes. For Portheus had three noble sons, two of whom,\nAgrius and Melas, abode in Pleuron and rocky Calydon. The third was the\nknight Oeneus, my father's father, and he was the most valiant of them\nall. Oeneus remained in his own country, but my father (as Jove and the\nother gods ordained it) migrated to Argos. He married into the family\nof Adrastus, and his house was one of great abundance, for he had large\nestates of rich corn-growing land, with much orchard ground as well,\nand he had many sheep; moreover he excelled all the Argives in the use\nof the spear. You must yourselves have heard whether these things are\ntrue or no; therefore when I say well despise not my words as though I\nwere a coward or of ignoble birth. I say, then, let us go to the fight\nas we needs must, wounded though we be. When there, we may keep out of\nthe battle and beyond the range of the spears lest we get fresh wounds\nin addition to what we have already, but we can spur on others, who\nhave been indulging their spleen and holding aloof from battle\nhitherto.\"\n\nThus did he speak; whereon they did even as he had said and set out,\nKing Agamemnon leading the way.\n\nMeanwhile Neptune had kept no blind look-out, and came up to them in\nthe semblance of an old man. He took Agamemnon's right hand in his own\nand said, \"Son of Atreus, I take it Achilles is glad now that he sees\nthe Achaeans routed and slain, for he is utterly without remorse--may\nhe come to a bad end and heaven confound him. As for yourself, the\nblessed gods are not yet so bitterly angry with you but that the\nprinces and counsellors of the Trojans shall again raise the dust upon\nthe plain, and you shall see them flying from the ships and tents\ntowards their city.\"\n\nWith this he raised a mighty cry of battle, and sped forward to the\nplain. The voice that came from his deep chest was as that of nine or\nten thousand men when they are shouting in the thick of a fight, and it\nput fresh courage into the hearts of the Achaeans to wage war and do\nbattle without ceasing.\n\nJuno of the golden throne looked down as she stood upon a peak of\nOlympus and her heart was gladdened at the sight of him who was at once\nher brother and her brother-in-law, hurrying hither and thither amid\nthe fighting. Then she turned her eyes to Jove as he sat on the topmost\ncrests of many-fountained Ida, and loathed him. She set herself to\nthink how she might hoodwink him, and in the end she deemed that it\nwould be best for her to go to Ida and array herself in rich attire, in\nthe hope that Jove might become enamoured of her, and wish to embrace\nher. While he was thus engaged a sweet and careless sleep might be made\nto steal over his eyes and senses.\n\nShe went, therefore, to the room which her son Vulcan had made her, and\nthe doors of which he had cunningly fastened by means of a secret key\nso that no other god could open them. Here she entered and closed the\ndoors behind her. She cleansed all the dirt from her fair body with\nambrosia, then she anointed herself with olive oil, ambrosial, very\nsoft, and scented specially for herself--if it were so much as shaken\nin the bronze-floored house of Jove, the scent pervaded the universe of\nheaven and earth. With this she anointed her delicate skin, and then\nshe plaited the fair ambrosial locks that flowed in a stream of golden\ntresses from her immortal head. She put on the wondrous robe which\nMinerva had worked for her with consummate art, and had embroidered\nwith manifold devices; she fastened it about her bosom with golden\nclasps, and she girded herself with a girdle that had a hundred\ntassels: then she fastened her earrings, three brilliant pendants that\nglistened most beautifully, through the pierced lobes of her ears, and\nthrew a lovely new veil over her head. She bound her sandals on to her\nfeet, and when she had arrayed herself perfectly to her satisfaction,\nshe left her room and called Venus to come aside and speak to her. \"My\ndear child,\" said she, \"will you do what I am going to ask of you, or\nwill you refuse me because you are angry at my being on the Danaan\nside, while you are on the Trojan?\"\n\nJove's daughter Venus answered, \"Juno, august queen of goddesses,\ndaughter of mighty Saturn, say what you want, and I will do it for you\nat once, if I can, and if it can be done at all.\"\n\nThen Juno told her a lying tale and said, \"I want you to endow me with\nsome of those fascinating charms, the spells of which bring all things\nmortal and immortal to your feet. I am going to the world's end to\nvisit Oceanus (from whom all we gods proceed) and mother Tethys: they\nreceived me in their house, took care of me, and brought me up, having\ntaken me over from Rhaea when Jove imprisoned great Saturn in the\ndepths that are under earth and sea. I must go and see them that I may\nmake peace between them; they have been quarrelling, and are so angry\nthat they have not slept with one another this long while; if I can\nbring them round and restore them to one another's embraces, they will\nbe grateful to me and love me for ever afterwards.\"\n\nThereon laughter-loving Venus said, \"I cannot and must not refuse you,\nfor you sleep in the arms of Jove who is our king.\"\n\nAs she spoke she loosed from her bosom the curiously embroidered girdle\ninto which all her charms had been wrought--love, desire, and that\nsweet flattery which steals the judgement even of the most prudent. She\ngave the girdle to Juno and said, \"Take this girdle wherein all my\ncharms reside and lay it in your bosom. If you will wear it I promise\nyou that your errand, be it what it may, will not be bootless.\"\n\nWhen she heard this Juno smiled, and still smiling she laid the girdle\nin her bosom.\n\nVenus now went back into the house of Jove, while Juno darted down from\nthe summits of Olympus. She passed over Pieria and fair Emathia, and\nwent on and on till she came to the snowy ranges of the Thracian\nhorsemen, over whose topmost crests she sped without ever setting foot\nto ground. When she came to Athos she went on over the waves of the sea\ntill she reached Lemnos, the city of noble Thoas. There she met Sleep,\nown brother to Death, and caught him by the hand, saying, \"Sleep, you\nwho lord it alike over mortals and immortals, if you ever did me a\nservice in times past, do one for me now, and I shall be grateful to\nyou ever after. Close Jove's keen eyes for me in slumber while I hold\nhim clasped in my embrace, and I will give you a beautiful golden seat,\nthat can never fall to pieces; my clubfooted son Vulcan shall make it\nfor you, and he shall give it a footstool for you to rest your fair\nfeet upon when you are at table.\"\n\nThen Sleep answered, \"Juno, great queen of goddesses, daughter of\nmighty Saturn, I would lull any other of the gods to sleep without\ncompunction, not even excepting the waters of Oceanus from whom all of\nthem proceed, but I dare not go near Jove, nor send him to sleep unless\nhe bids me. I have had one lesson already through doing what you asked\nme, on the day when Jove's mighty son Hercules set sail from Ilius\nafter having sacked the city of the Trojans. At your bidding I suffused\nmy sweet self over the mind of aegis-bearing Jove, and laid him to\nrest; meanwhile you hatched a plot against Hercules, and set the blasts\nof the angry winds beating upon the sea, till you took him to the\ngoodly city of Cos, away from all his friends. Jove was furious when he\nawoke, and began hurling the gods about all over the house; he was\nlooking more particularly for myself, and would have flung me down\nthrough space into the sea where I should never have been heard of any\nmore, had not Night who cows both men and gods protected me. I fled to\nher and Jove left off looking for me in spite of his being so angry,\nfor he did not dare do anything to displease Night. And now you are\nagain asking me to do something on which I cannot venture.\"\n\nAnd Juno said, \"Sleep, why do you take such notions as those into your\nhead? Do you think Jove will be as anxious to help the Trojans, as he\nwas about his own son? Come, I will marry you to one of the youngest of\nthe Graces, and she shall be your own--Pasithea, whom you have always\nwanted to marry.\"\n\nSleep was pleased when he heard this, and answered, \"Then swear it to\nme by the dread waters of the river Styx; lay one hand on the bounteous\nearth, and the other on the sheen of the sea, so that all the gods who\ndwell down below with Saturn may be our witnesses, and see that you\nreally do give me one of the youngest of the Graces--Pasithea, whom I\nhave always wanted to marry.\"\n\nJuno did as he had said. She swore, and invoked all the gods of the\nnether world, who are called Titans, to witness. When she had completed\nher oath, the two enshrouded themselves in a thick mist and sped\nlightly forward, leaving Lemnos and Imbrus behind them. Presently they\nreached many-fountained Ida, mother of wild beasts, and Lectum where\nthey left the sea to go on by land, and the tops of the trees of the\nforest soughed under the going of their feet. Here Sleep halted, and\nere Jove caught sight of him he climbed a lofty pine-tree--the tallest\nthat reared its head towards heaven on all Ida. He hid himself behind\nthe branches and sat there in the semblance of the sweet-singing bird\nthat haunts the mountains and is called Chalcis by the gods, but men\ncall it Cymindis. Juno then went to Gargarus, the topmost peak of Ida,\nand Jove, driver of the clouds, set eyes upon her. As soon as he did so\nhe became inflamed with the same passionate desire for her that he had\nfelt when they had first enjoyed each other's embraces, and slept with\none another without their dear parents knowing anything about it. He\nwent up to her and said, \"What do you want that you have come hither\nfrom Olympus--and that too with neither chariot nor horses to convey\nyou?\"\n\nThen Juno told him a lying tale and said, \"I am going to the world's\nend, to visit Oceanus, from whom all we gods proceed, and mother\nTethys; they received me into their house, took care of me, and brought\nme up. I must go and see them that I may make peace between them: they\nhave been quarrelling, and are so angry that they have not slept with\none another this long time. The horses that will take me over land and\nsea are stationed on the lowermost spurs of many-fountained Ida, and I\nhave come here from Olympus on purpose to consult you. I was afraid you\nmight be angry with me later on, if I went to the house of Oceanus\nwithout letting you know.\"\n\nAnd Jove said, \"Juno, you can choose some other time for paying your\nvisit to Oceanus--for the present let us devote ourselves to love and\nto the enjoyment of one another. Never yet have I been so overpowered\nby passion neither for goddess nor mortal woman as I am at this moment\nfor yourself--not even when I was in love with the wife of Ixion who\nbore me Pirithous, peer of gods in counsel, nor yet with Danae the\ndaintily-ancled daughter of Acrisius, who bore me the famed hero\nPerseus. Then there was the daughter of Phoenix, who bore me Minos and\nRhadamanthus: there was Semele, and Alcmena in Thebes by whom I begot\nmy lion-hearted son Hercules, while Semele became mother to Bacchus the\ncomforter of mankind. There was queen Ceres again, and lovely Leto, and\nyourself--but with none of these was I ever so much enamoured as I now\nam with you.\"\n\nJuno again answered him with a lying tale. \"Most dread son of Saturn,\"\nshe exclaimed, \"what are you talking about? Would you have us enjoy one\nanother here on the top of Mount Ida, where everything can be seen?\nWhat if one of the ever-living gods should see us sleeping together,\nand tell the others? It would be such a scandal that when I had risen\nfrom your embraces I could never show myself inside your house again;\nbut if you are so minded, there is a room which your son Vulcan has\nmade me, and he has given it good strong doors; if you would so have\nit, let us go thither and lie down.\"\n\nAnd Jove answered, \"Juno, you need not be afraid that either god or man\nwill see you, for I will enshroud both of us in such a dense golden\ncloud, that the very sun for all his bright piercing beams shall not\nsee through it.\"\n\nWith this the son of Saturn caught his wife in his embrace; whereon the\nearth sprouted them a cushion of young grass, with dew-bespangled\nlotus, crocus, and hyacinth, so soft and thick that it raised them well\nabove the ground. Here they laid themselves down and overhead they were\ncovered by a fair cloud of gold, from which there fell glittering\ndew-drops.\n\nThus, then, did the sire of all things repose peacefully on the crest\nof Ida, overcome at once by sleep and love, and he held his spouse in\nhis arms. Meanwhile Sleep made off to the ships of the Achaeans, to\ntell earth-encircling Neptune, lord of the earthquake. When he had\nfound him he said, \"Now, Neptune, you can help the Danaans with a will,\nand give them victory though it be only for a short time while Jove is\nstill sleeping. I have sent him into a sweet slumber, and Juno has\nbeguiled him into going to bed with her.\"\n\nSleep now departed and went his ways to and fro among mankind, leaving\nNeptune more eager than ever to help the Danaans. He darted forward\namong the first ranks and shouted saying, \"Argives, shall we let Hector\nson of Priam have the triumph of taking our ships and covering himself\nwith glory? This is what he says that he shall now do, seeing that\nAchilles is still in dudgeon at his ship; we shall get on very well\nwithout him if we keep each other in heart and stand by one another.\nNow, therefore, let us all do as I say. Let us each take the best and\nlargest shield we can lay hold of, put on our helmets, and sally forth\nwith our longest spears in our hands; I will lead you on, and Hector\nson of Priam, rage as he may, will not dare to hold out against us. If\nany good staunch soldier has only a small shield, let him hand it over\nto a worse man, and take a larger one for himself.\"\n\nThus did he speak, and they did even as he had said. The son of Tydeus,\nUlysses, and Agamemnon, wounded though they were, set the others in\narray, and went about everywhere effecting the exchanges of armour; the\nmost valiant took the best armour, and gave the worse to the worse man.\nWhen they had donned their bronze armour they marched on with Neptune\nat their head. In his strong hand he grasped his terrible sword, keen\nof edge and flashing like lightning; woe to him who comes across it in\nthe day of battle; all men quake for fear and keep away from it.\n\nHector on the other side set the Trojans in array. Thereon Neptune and\nHector waged fierce war on one another--Hector on the Trojan and\nNeptune on the Argive side. Mighty was the uproar as the two forces\nmet; the sea came rolling in towards the ships and tents of the\nAchaeans, but waves do not thunder on the shore more loudly when driven\nbefore the blast of Boreas, nor do the flames of a forest fire roar\nmore fiercely when it is well alight upon the mountains, nor does the\nwind bellow with ruder music as it tears on through the tops of when it\nis blowing its hardest, than the terrible shout which the Trojans and\nAchaeans raised as they sprang upon one another.\n\nHector first aimed his spear at Ajax, who was turned full towards him,\nnor did he miss his aim. The spear struck him where two bands passed\nover his chest--the band of his shield and that of his silver-studded\nsword--and these protected his body. Hector was angry that his spear\nshould have been hurled in vain, and withdrew under cover of his men.\nAs he was thus retreating, Ajax son of Telamon, struck him with a\nstone, of which there were many lying about under the men's feet as\nthey fought--brought there to give support to the ships' sides as they\nlay on the shore. Ajax caught up one of them and struck Hector above\nthe rim of his shield close to his neck; the blow made him spin round\nlike a top and reel in all directions. As an oak falls headlong when\nuprooted by the lightning flash of father Jove, and there is a terrible\nsmell of brimstone--no man can help being dismayed if he is standing\nnear it, for a thunderbolt is a very awful thing--even so did Hector\nfall to earth and bite the dust. His spear fell from his hand, but his\nshield and helmet were made fast about his body, and his bronze armour\nrang about him.\n\nThe sons of the Achaeans came running with a loud cry towards him,\nhoping to drag him away, and they showered their darts on the Trojans,\nbut none of them could wound him before he was surrounded and covered\nby the princes Polydamas, Aeneas, Agenor, Sarpedon captain of the\nLycians, and noble Glaucus. Of the others, too, there was not one who\nwas unmindful of him, and they held their round shields over him to\ncover him. His comrades then lifted him off the ground and bore him\naway from the battle to the place where his horses stood waiting for\nhim at the rear of the fight with their driver and the chariot; these\nthen took him towards the city groaning and in great pain. When they\nreached the ford of the fair stream of Xanthus, begotten of Immortal\nJove, they took him from off his chariot and laid him down on the\nground; they poured water over him, and as they did so he breathed\nagain and opened his eyes. Then kneeling on his knees he vomited blood,\nbut soon fell back on to the ground, and his eyes were again closed in\ndarkness for he was still stunned by the blow.\n\nWhen the Argives saw Hector leaving the field, they took heart and set\nupon the Trojans yet more furiously. Ajax fleet son of Oileus began by\nspringing on Satnius son of Enops, and wounding him with his spear: a\nfair naiad nymph had borne him to Enops as he was herding cattle by the\nbanks of the river Satnioeis. The son of Oileus came up to him and\nstruck him in the flank so that he fell, and a fierce fight between\nTrojans and Danaans raged round his body. Polydamas son of Panthous\ndrew near to avenge him, and wounded Prothoenor son of Areilycus on the\nright shoulder; the terrible spear went right through his shoulder, and\nhe clutched the earth as he fell in the dust. Polydamas vaunted loudly\nover him saying, \"Again I take it that the spear has not sped in vain\nfrom the strong hand of the son of Panthous; an Argive has caught it in\nhis body, and it will serve him for a staff as he goes down into the\nhouse of Hades.\"\n\nThe Argives were maddened by this boasting. Ajax son of Telamon was\nmore angry than any, for the man had fallen close beside him; so he\naimed at Polydamas as he was retreating, but Polydamas saved himself by\nswerving aside and the spear struck Archelochus son of Antenor, for\nheaven counselled his destruction; it struck him where the head springs\nfrom the neck at the top joint of the spine, and severed both the\ntendons at the back of the head. His head, mouth, and nostrils reached\nthe ground long before his legs and knees could do so, and Ajax shouted\nto Polydamas saying, \"Think, Polydamas, and tell me truly whether this\nman is not as well worth killing as Prothoenor was: he seems rich, and\nof rich family, a brother, it may be, or son of the knight Antenor, for\nhe is very like him.\"\n\nBut he knew well who it was, and the Trojans were greatly angered.\nAcamas then bestrode his brother's body and wounded Promachus the\nBoeotian with his spear, for he was trying to drag his brother's body\naway. Acamas vaunted loudly over him saying, \"Argive archers, braggarts\nthat you are, toil and suffering shall not be for us only, but some of\nyou too shall fall here as well as ourselves. See how Promachus now\nsleeps, vanquished by my spear; payment for my brother's blood has not\nbeen long delayed; a man, therefore, may well be thankful if he leaves\na kinsman in his house behind him to avenge his fall.\"\n\nHis taunts infuriated the Argives, and Peneleos was more enraged than\nany of them. He sprang towards Acamas, but Acamas did not stand his\nground, and he killed Ilioneus son of the rich flock-master Phorbas,\nwhom Mercury had favoured and endowed with greater wealth than any\nother of the Trojans. Ilioneus was his only son, and Peneleos now\nwounded him in the eye under his eyebrows, tearing the eye-ball from\nits socket: the spear went right through the eye into the nape of the\nneck, and he fell, stretching out both hands before him. Peneleos then\ndrew his sword and smote him on the neck, so that both head and helmet\ncame tumbling down to the ground with the spear still sticking in the\neye; he then held up the head, as though it had been a poppy-head, and\nshowed it to the Trojans, vaunting over them as he did so. \"Trojans,\"\nhe cried, \"bid the father and mother of noble Ilioneus make moan for\nhim in their house, for the wife also of Promachus son of Alegenor will\nnever be gladdened by the coming of her dear husband--when we Argives\nreturn with our ships from Troy.\"\n\nAs he spoke fear fell upon them, and every man looked round about to\nsee whither he might fly for safety.\n\nTell me now, O Muses that dwell on Olympus, who was the first of the\nArgives to bear away blood-stained spoils after Neptune lord of the\nearthquake had turned the fortune of war. Ajax son of Telamon was first\nto wound Hyrtius son of Gyrtius, captain of the staunch Mysians.\nAntilochus killed Phalces and Mermerus, while Meriones slew Morys and\nHippotion, Teucer also killed Prothoon and Periphetes. The son of\nAtreus then wounded Hyperenor shepherd of his people, in the flank, and\nthe bronze point made his entrails gush out as it tore in among them;\non this his life came hurrying out of him at the place where he had\nbeen wounded, and his eyes were closed in darkness. Ajax son of Oileus\nkilled more than any other, for there was no man so fleet as he to\npursue flying foes when Jove had spread panic among them.\n\n\n\nBOOK XV\n\n  Jove awakes, tells Apollo to heal Hector, and the Trojans\n  again become victorious.\n\nBUT when their flight had taken them past the trench and the set\nstakes, and many had fallen by the hands of the Danaans, the Trojans\nmade a halt on reaching their chariots, routed and pale with fear. Jove\nnow woke on the crests of Ida, where he was lying with golden-throned\nJuno by his side, and starting to his feet he saw the Trojans and\nAchaeans, the one thrown into confusion, and the others driving them\npell-mell before them with King Neptune in their midst. He saw Hector\nlying on the ground with his comrades gathered round him, gasping for\nbreath, wandering in mind and vomiting blood, for it was not the\nfeeblest of the Achaeans who struck him.\n\nThe sire of gods and men had pity on him, and looked fiercely on Juno.\n\"I see, Juno,\" said he, \"you mischief-making trickster, that your\ncunning has stayed Hector from fighting and has caused the rout of his\nhost. I am in half a mind to thrash you, in which case you will be the\nfirst to reap the fruits of your scurvy knavery. Do you not remember\nhow once upon a time I had you hanged? I fastened two anvils on to your\nfeet, and bound your hands in a chain of gold which none might break,\nand you hung in mid-air among the clouds. All the gods in Olympus were\nin a fury, but they could not reach you to set you free; when I caught\nany one of them I gripped him and hurled him from the heavenly\nthreshold till he came fainting down to earth; yet even this did not\nrelieve my mind from the incessant anxiety which I felt about noble\nHercules whom you and Boreas had spitefully conveyed beyond the seas to\nCos, after suborning the tempests; but I rescued him, and\nnotwithstanding all his mighty labours I brought him back again to\nArgos. I would remind you of this that you may learn to leave off being\nso deceitful, and discover how much you are likely to gain by the\nembraces out of which you have come here to trick me.\"\n\nJuno trembled as he spoke, and said, \"May heaven above and earth below\nbe my witnesses, with the waters of the river Styx--and this is the\nmost solemn oath that a blessed god can take--nay, I swear also by your\nown almighty head and by our bridal bed--things over which I could\nnever possibly perjure myself--that Neptune is not punishing Hector and\nthe Trojans and helping the Achaeans through any doing of mine; it is\nall of his own mere motion because he was sorry to see the Achaeans\nhard pressed at their ships: if I were advising him, I should tell him\nto do as you bid him.\"\n\nThe sire of gods and men smiled and answered, \"If you, Juno, were\nalways to support me when we sit in council of the gods, Neptune, like\nit or no, would soon come round to your and my way of thinking. If,\nthen, you are speaking the truth and mean what you say, go among the\nrank and file of the gods, and tell Iris and Apollo lord of the bow,\nthat I want them--Iris, that she may go to the Achaean host and tell\nNeptune to leave off fighting and go home, and Apollo, that he may send\nHector again into battle and give him fresh strength; he will thus\nforget his present sufferings, and drive the Achaeans back in confusion\ntill they fall among the ships of Achilles son of Peleus. Achilles will\nthen send his comrade Patroclus into battle, and Hector will kill him\nin front of Ilius after he has slain many warriors, and among them my\nown noble son Sarpedon. Achilles will kill Hector to avenge Patroclus,\nand from that time I will bring it about that the Achaeans shall\npersistently drive the Trojans back till they fulfil the counsels of\nMinerva and take Ilius. But I will not stay my anger, nor permit any\ngod to help the Danaans till I have accomplished the desire of the son\nof Peleus, according to the promise I made by bowing my head on the day\nwhen Thetis touched my knees and besought me to give him honour.\"\n\nJuno heeded his words and went from the heights of Ida to great\nOlympus. Swift as the thought of one whose fancy carries him over vast\ncontinents, and he says to himself, \"Now I will be here, or there,\" and\nhe would have all manner of things--even so swiftly did Juno wing her\nway till she came to high Olympus and went in among the gods who were\ngathered in the house of Jove. When they saw her they all of them came\nup to her, and held out their cups to her by way of greeting. She let\nthe others be, but took the cup offered her by lovely Themis, who was\nfirst to come running up to her. \"Juno,\" said she, \"why are you here?\nAnd you seem troubled--has your husband the son of Saturn been\nfrightening you?\"\n\nAnd Juno answered, \"Themis, do not ask me about it. You know what a\nproud and cruel disposition my husband has. Lead the gods to table,\nwhere you and all the immortals can hear the wicked designs which he\nhas avowed. Many a one, mortal and immortal, will be angered by them,\nhowever peaceably he may be feasting now.\"\n\nOn this Juno sat down, and the gods were troubled throughout the house\nof Jove. Laughter sat on her lips but her brow was furrowed with care,\nand she spoke up in a rage. \"Fools that we are,\" she cried, \"to be thus\nmadly angry with Jove; we keep on wanting to go up to him and stay him\nby force or by persuasion, but he sits aloof and cares for nobody, for\nhe knows that he is much stronger than any other of the immortals. Make\nthe best, therefore, of whatever ills he may choose to send each one of\nyou; Mars, I take it, has had a taste of them already, for his son\nAscalaphus has fallen in battle--the man whom of all others he loved\nmost dearly and whose father he owns himself to be.\"\n\nWhen he heard this Mars smote his two sturdy thighs with the flat of\nhis hands, and said in anger, \"Do not blame me, you gods that dwell in\nheaven, if I go to the ships of the Achaeans and avenge the death of my\nson, even though it end in my being struck by Jove's lightning and\nlying in blood and dust among the corpses.\"\n\nAs he spoke he gave orders to yoke his horses Panic and Rout, while he\nput on his armour. On this, Jove would have been roused to still more\nfierce and implacable enmity against the other immortals, had not\nMinerva, alarmed for the safety of the gods, sprung from her seat and\nhurried outside. She tore the helmet from his head and the shield from\nhis shoulders, and she took the bronze spear from his strong hand and\nset it on one side; then she said to Mars, \"Madman, you are undone; you\nhave ears that hear not, or you have lost all judgement and\nunderstanding; have you not heard what Juno has said on coming straight\nfrom the presence of Olympian Jove? Do you wish to go through all kinds\nof suffering before you are brought back sick and sorry to Olympus,\nafter having caused infinite mischief to all us others? Jove would\ninstantly leave the Trojans and Achaeans to themselves; he would come\nto Olympus to punish us, and would grip us up one after another, guilty\nor not guilty. Therefore lay aside your anger for the death of your\nson; better men than he have either been killed already or will fall\nhereafter, and one cannot protect every one's whole family.\"\n\nWith these words she took Mars back to his seat. Meanwhile Juno called\nApollo outside, with Iris the messenger of the gods. \"Jove,\" she said\nto them, \"desires you to go to him at once on Mt. Ida; when you have\nseen him you are to do as he may then bid you.\"\n\nThereon Juno left them and resumed her seat inside, while Iris and\nApollo made all haste on their way. When they reached many-fountained\nIda, mother of wild beasts, they found Jove seated on topmost Gargarus\nwith a fragrant cloud encircling his head as with a diadem. They stood\nbefore his presence, and he was pleased with them for having been so\nquick in obeying the orders his wife had given them.\n\nHe spoke to Iris first. \"Go,\" said he, \"fleet Iris, tell King Neptune\nwhat I now bid you--and tell him true. Bid him leave off fighting, and\neither join the company of the gods, or go down into the sea. If he\ntakes no heed and disobeys me, let him consider well whether he is\nstrong enough to hold his own against me if I attack him. I am older\nand much stronger than he is; yet he is not afraid to set himself up as\non a level with myself, of whom all the other gods stand in awe.\"\n\nIris, fleet as the wind, obeyed him, and as the cold hail or snowflakes\nthat fly from out the clouds before the blast of Boreas, even so did\nshe wing her way till she came close up to the great shaker of the\nearth. Then she said, \"I have come, O dark-haired king that holds the\nworld in his embrace, to bring you a message from Jove. He bids you\nleave off fighting, and either join the company of the gods or go down\ninto the sea; if, however, you take no heed and disobey him, he says he\nwill come down here and fight you. He would have you keep out of his\nreach, for he is older and much stronger than you are, and yet you are\nnot afraid to set yourself up as on a level with himself, of whom all\nthe other gods stand in awe.\"\n\nNeptune was very angry and said, \"Great heavens! strong as Jove may be,\nhe has said more than he can do if he has threatened violence against\nme, who am of like honour with himself. We were three brothers whom\nRhea bore to Saturn--Jove, myself, and Hades who rules the world below.\nHeaven and earth were divided into three parts, and each of us was to\nhave an equal share. When we cast lots, it fell to me to have my\ndwelling in the sea for evermore; Hades took the darkness of the realms\nunder the earth, while air and sky and clouds were the portion that\nfell to Jove; but earth and great Olympus are the common property of\nall. Therefore I will not walk as Jove would have me. For all his\nstrength, let him keep to his own third share and be contented without\nthreatening to lay hands upon me as though I were nobody. Let him keep\nhis bragging talk for his own sons and daughters, who must perforce\nobey him.\"\n\nIris fleet as the wind then answered, \"Am I really, Neptune, to take\nthis daring and unyielding message to Jove, or will you reconsider your\nanswer? Sensible people are open to argument, and you know that the\nErinyes always range themselves on the side of the older person.\"\n\nNeptune answered, \"Goddess Iris, your words have been spoken in season.\nIt is well when a messenger shows so much discretion. Nevertheless it\ncuts me to the very heart that any one should rebuke so angrily another\nwho is his own peer, and of like empire with himself. Now, however, I\nwill give way in spite of my displeasure; furthermore let me tell you,\nand I mean what I say--if contrary to the desire of myself, Minerva\ndriver of the spoil, Juno, Mercury, and King Vulcan, Jove spares steep\nIlius, and will not let the Achaeans have the great triumph of sacking\nit, let him understand that he will incur our implacable resentment.\"\n\nNeptune now left the field to go down under the sea, and sorely did the\nAchaeans miss him. Then Jove said to Apollo, \"Go, dear Phoebus, to\nHector, for Neptune who holds the earth in his embrace has now gone\ndown under the sea to avoid the severity of my displeasure. Had he not\ndone so those gods who are below with Saturn would have come to hear of\nthe fight between us. It is better for both of us that he should have\ncurbed his anger and kept out of my reach, for I should have had much\ntrouble with him. Take, then, your tasselled aegis, and shake it\nfuriously, so as to set the Achaean heroes in a panic; take, moreover,\nbrave Hector, O Far-Darter, into your own care, and rouse him to deeds\nof daring, till the Achaeans are sent flying back to their ships and to\nthe Hellespont. From that point I will think it well over, how the\nAchaeans may have a respite from their troubles.\"\n\nApollo obeyed his father's saying, and left the crests of Ida, flying\nlike a falcon, bane of doves and swiftest of all birds. He found Hector\nno longer lying upon the ground, but sitting up, for he had just come\nto himself again. He knew those who were about him, and the sweat and\nhard breathing had left him from the moment when the will of\naegis-bearing Jove had revived him. Apollo stood beside him and said,\n\"Hector son of Priam, why are you so faint, and why are you here away\nfrom the others? Has any mishap befallen you?\"\n\nHector in a weak voice answered, \"And which, kind sir, of the gods are\nyou, who now ask me thus? Do you not know that Ajax struck me on the\nchest with a stone as I was killing his comrades at the ships of the\nAchaeans, and compelled me to leave off fighting? I made sure that this\nvery day I should breathe my last and go down into the house of Hades.\"\n\nThen King Apollo said to him, \"Take heart; the son of Saturn has sent\nyou a mighty helper from Ida to stand by you and defend you, even me,\nPhoebus Apollo of the golden sword, who have been guardian hitherto not\nonly of yourself but of your city. Now, therefore, order your horsemen\nto drive their chariots to the ships in great multitudes. I will go\nbefore your horses to smooth the way for them, and will turn the\nAchaeans in flight.\"\n\nAs he spoke he infused great strength into the shepherd of his people.\nAnd as a horse, stabled and full-fed, breaks loose and gallops\ngloriously over the plain to the place where he is wont to take his\nbath in the river--he tosses his head, and his mane streams over his\nshoulders as in all the pride of his strength he flies full speed to\nthe pastures where the mares are feeding--even so Hector, when he heard\nwhat the god said, urged his horsemen on, and sped forward as fast as\nhis limbs could take him. As country peasants set their hounds on to a\nhomed stag or wild goat--he has taken shelter under rock or thicket,\nand they cannot find him, but, lo, a bearded lion whom their shouts\nhave roused stands in their path, and they are in no further humour for\nthe chase--even so the Achaeans were still charging on in a body, using\ntheir swords and spears pointed at both ends, but when they saw Hector\ngoing about among his men they were afraid, and their hearts fell down\ninto their feet.\n\nThen spoke Thoas son of Andraemon, leader of the Aetolians, a man who\ncould throw a good throw, and who was staunch also in close fight,\nwhile few could surpass him in debate when opinions were divided. He\nthen with all sincerity and goodwill addressed them thus: \"What, in\nheaven's name, do I now see? Is it not Hector come to life again? Every\none made sure he had been killed by Ajax son of Telamon, but it seems\nthat one of the gods has again rescued him. He has killed many of us\nDanaans already, and I take it will yet do so, for the hand of Jove\nmust be with him or he would never dare show himself so masterful in\nthe forefront of the battle. Now, therefore, let us all do as I say;\nlet us order the main body of our forces to fall back upon the ships,\nbut let those of us who profess to be the flower of the army stand\nfirm, and see whether we cannot hold Hector back at the point of our\nspears as soon as he comes near us; I conceive that he will then think\nbetter of it before he tries to charge into the press of the Danaans.\"\n\nThus did he speak, and they did even as he had said. Those who were\nabout Ajax and King Idomeneus, the followers moreover of Teucer,\nMeriones, and Meges peer of Mars called all their best men about them\nand sustained the fight against Hector and the Trojans, but the main\nbody fell back upon the ships of the Achaeans.\n\nThe Trojans pressed forward in a dense body, with Hector striding on at\ntheir head. Before him went Phoebus Apollo shrouded in cloud about his\nshoulders. He bore aloft the terrible aegis with its shaggy fringe,\nwhich Vulcan the smith had given Jove to strike terror into the hearts\nof men. With this in his hand he led on the Trojans.\n\nThe Argives held together and stood their ground. The cry of battle\nrose high from either side, and the arrows flew from the bowstrings.\nMany a spear sped from strong hands and fastened in the bodies of many\na valiant warrior, while others fell to earth midway, before they could\ntaste of man's fair flesh and glut themselves with blood. So long as\nPhoebus Apollo held his aegis quietly and without shaking it, the\nweapons on either side took effect and the people fell, but when he\nshook it straight in the face of the Danaans and raised his mighty\nbattle-cry their hearts fainted within them and they forgot their\nformer prowess. As when two wild beasts spring in the dead of night on\na herd of cattle or a large flock of sheep when the herdsman is not\nthere--even so were the Danaans struck helpless, for Apollo filled them\nwith panic and gave victory to Hector and the Trojans.\n\nThe fight then became more scattered and they killed one another where\nthey best could. Hector killed Stichius and Arcesilaus, the one, leader\nof the Boeotians, and the other, friend and comrade of Menestheus.\nAeneas killed Medon and Iasus. The first was bastard son to Oileus, and\nbrother to Ajax, but he lived in Phylace away from his own country, for\nhe had killed a man, a kinsman of his stepmother Eriopis whom Oileus\nhad married. Iasus had become a leader of the Athenians, and was son of\nSphelus the son of Boucolos. Polydamas killed Mecisteus, and Polites\nEchius, in the front of the battle, while Agenor slew Clonius. Paris\nstruck Deiochus from behind in the lower part of the shoulder, as he\nwas flying among the foremost, and the point of the spear went clean\nthrough him.\n\nWhile they were spoiling these heroes of their armour, the Achaeans\nwere flying pell-mell to the trench and the set stakes, and were forced\nback within their wall. Hector then cried out to the Trojans, \"Forward\nto the ships, and let the spoils be. If I see any man keeping back on\nthe other side the wall away from the ships I will have him killed: his\nkinsmen and kinswomen shall not give him his dues of fire, but dogs\nshall tear him in pieces in front of our city.\"\n\nAs he spoke he laid his whip about his horses' shoulders and called to\nthe Trojans throughout their ranks; the Trojans shouted with a cry that\nrent the air, and kept their horses neck and neck with his own. Phoebus\nApollo went before, and kicked down the banks of the deep trench into\nits middle so as to make a great broad bridge, as broad as the throw of\na spear when a man is trying his strength. The Trojan battalions poured\nover the bridge, and Apollo with his redoubtable aegis led the way. He\nkicked down the wall of the Achaeans as easily as a child who playing\non the sea-shore has built a house of sand and then kicks it down again\nand destroys it--even so did you, O Apollo, shed toil and trouble upon\nthe Argives, filling them with panic and confusion.\n\nThus then were the Achaeans hemmed in at their ships, calling out to\none another and raising their hands with loud cries every man to\nheaven. Nestor of Gerene, tower of strength to the Achaeans, lifted up\nhis hands to the starry firmament of heaven, and prayed more fervently\nthan any of them. \"Father Jove,\" said he, \"if ever any one in\nwheat-growing Argos burned you fat thigh-bones of sheep or heifer and\nprayed that he might return safely home, whereon you bowed your head to\nhim in assent, bear it in mind now, and suffer not the Trojans to\ntriumph thus over the Achaeans.\"\n\nAll-counselling Jove thundered loudly in answer to the prayer of the\naged son of Neleus. When they heard Jove thunder they flung themselves\nyet more fiercely on the Achaeans. As a wave breaking over the bulwarks\nof a ship when the sea runs high before a gale--for it is the force of\nthe wind that makes the waves so great--even so did the Trojans spring\nover the wall with a shout, and drive their chariots onwards. The two\nsides fought with their double-pointed spears in hand-to-hand\nencounter-the Trojans from their chariots, and the Achaeans climbing up\ninto their ships and wielding the long pikes that were lying on the\ndecks ready for use in a sea-fight, jointed and shod with bronze.\n\nNow Patroclus, so long as the Achaeans and Trojans were fighting about\nthe wall, but were not yet within it and at the ships, remained sitting\nin the tent of good Eurypylus, entertaining him with his conversation\nand spreading herbs over his wound to ease his pain. When, however, he\nsaw the Trojans swarming through the breach in the wall, while the\nAchaeans were clamouring and struck with panic, he cried aloud, and\nsmote his two thighs with the flat of his hands. \"Eurypylus,\" said he\nin his dismay, \"I know you want me badly, but I cannot stay with you\nany longer, for there is hard fighting going on; a servant shall take\ncare of you now, for I must make all speed to Achilles, and induce him\nto fight if I can; who knows but with heaven's help I may persuade him.\nA man does well to listen to the advice of a friend.\"\n\nWhen he had thus spoken he went his way. The Achaeans stood firm and\nresisted the attack of the Trojans, yet though these were fewer in\nnumber, they could not drive them back from the ships, neither could\nthe Trojans break the Achaean ranks and make their way in among the\ntents and ships. As a carpenter's line gives a true edge to a piece of\nship's timber, in the hand of some skilled workman whom Minerva has\ninstructed in all kinds of useful arts--even so level was the issue of\nthe fight between the two sides, as they fought some round one and some\nround another.\n\nHector made straight for Ajax, and the two fought fiercely about the\nsame ship. Hector could not force Ajax back and fire the ship, nor yet\ncould Ajax drive Hector from the spot to which heaven had brought him.\n\nThen Ajax struck Caletor son of Clytius in the chest with a spear as he\nwas bringing fire towards the ship. He fell heavily to the ground and\nthe torch dropped from his hand. When Hector saw his cousin fallen in\nfront of the ship he shouted to the Trojans and Lycians saying,\n\"Trojans, Lycians, and Dardanians good in close fight, bate not a jot,\nbut rescue the son of Clytius lest the Achaeans strip him of his armour\nnow that he has fallen.\"\n\nHe then aimed a spear at Ajax, and missed him, but he hit Lycophron a\nfollower of Ajax, who came from Cythera, but was living with Ajax\ninasmuch as he had killed a man among the Cythereans. Hector's spear\nstruck him on the head below the ear, and he fell headlong from the\nship's prow on to the ground with no life left in him. Ajax shook with\nrage and said to his brother, \"Teucer, my good fellow, our trusty\ncomrade the son of Mastor has fallen, he came to live with us from\nCythera and whom we honoured as much as our own parents. Hector has\njust killed him; fetch your deadly arrows at once and the bow which\nPhoebus Apollo gave you.\"\n\nTeucer heard him and hastened towards him with his bow and quiver in\nhis hands. Forthwith he showered his arrows on the Trojans, and hit\nCleitus the son of Pisenor, comrade of Polydamas the noble son of\nPanthous, with the reins in his hands as he was attending to his\nhorses; he was in the middle of the very thickest part of the fight,\ndoing good service to Hector and the Trojans, but evil had now come\nupon him, and not one of those who were fain to do so could avert it,\nfor the arrow struck him on the back of the neck. He fell from his\nchariot and his horses shook the empty car as they swerved aside. King\nPolydamas saw what had happened, and was the first to come up to the\nhorses; he gave them in charge to Astynous son of Protiaon, and ordered\nhim to look on, and to keep the horses near at hand. He then went back\nand took his place in the front ranks.\n\nTeucer then aimed another arrow at Hector, and there would have been no\nmore fighting at the ships if he had hit him and killed him then and\nthere: Jove, however, who kept watch over Hector, had his eyes on\nTeucer, and deprived him of his triumph, by breaking his bowstring for\nhim just as he was drawing it and about to take his aim; on this the\narrow went astray and the bow fell from his hands. Teucer shook with\nanger and said to his brother, \"Alas, see how heaven thwarts us in all\nwe do; it has broken my bowstring and snatched the bow from my hand,\nthough I strung it this selfsame morning that it might serve me for\nmany an arrow.\"\n\nAjax son of Telamon answered, \"My good fellow, let your bow and your\narrows be, for Jove has made them useless in order to spite the\nDanaans. Take your spear, lay your shield upon your shoulder, and both\nfight the Trojans yourself and urge others to do so. They may be\nsuccessful for the moment but if we fight as we ought they will find it\na hard matter to take the ships.\"\n\nTeucer then took his bow and put it by in his tent. He hung a shield\nfour hides thick about his shoulders, and on his comely head he set his\nhelmet well wrought with a crest of horse-hair that nodded menacingly\nabove it; he grasped his redoubtable bronze-shod spear, and forthwith\nhe was by the side of Ajax.\n\nWhen Hector saw that Teucer's bow was of no more use to him, he shouted\nout to the Trojans and Lycians, \"Trojans, Lycians, and Dardanians good\nin close fight, be men, my friends, and show your mettle here at the\nships, for I see the weapon of one of their chieftains made useless by\nthe hand of Jove. It is easy to see when Jove is helping people and\nmeans to help them still further, or again when he is bringing them\ndown and will do nothing for them; he is now on our side, and is going\nagainst the Argives. Therefore swarm round the ships and fight. If any\nof you is struck by spear or sword and loses his life, let him die; he\ndies with honour who dies fighting for his country; and he will leave\nhis wife and children safe behind him, with his house and allotment\nunplundered if only the Achaeans can be driven back to their own land,\nthey and their ships.\"\n\nWith these words he put heart and soul into them all. Ajax on the other\nside exhorted his comrades saying, \"Shame on you Argives, we are now\nutterly undone, unless we can save ourselves by driving the enemy from\nour ships. Do you think, if Hector takes them, that you will be able to\nget home by land? Can you not hear him cheering on his whole host to\nfire our fleet, and bidding them remember that they are not at a dance\nbut in battle? Our only course is to fight them with might and main; we\nhad better chance it, life or death, once for all, than fight long and\nwithout issue hemmed in at our ships by worse men than ourselves.\"\n\nWith these words he put life and soul into them all. Hector then killed\nSchedius son of Perimedes, leader of the Phoceans, and Ajax killed\nLaodamas captain of foot soldiers and son to Antenor. Polydamas killed\nOtus of Cyllene a comrade of the son of Phyleus and chief of the proud\nEpeans. When Meges saw this he sprang upon him, but Polydamas crouched\ndown, and he missed him, for Apollo would not suffer the son of\nPanthous to fall in battle; but the spear hit Croesmus in the middle of\nhis chest, whereon he fell heavily to the ground, and Meges stripped\nhim of his armour. At that moment the valiant soldier Dolops son of\nLampus sprang upon Lampus was son of Laomedon and noted for his valour,\nwhile his son Dolops was versed in all the ways of war. He then struck\nthe middle of the son of Phyleus' shield with his spear, setting on him\nat close quarters, but his good corslet made with plates of metal saved\nhim; Phyleus had brought it from Ephyra and the river Selleis, where\nhis host, King Euphetes, had given it him to wear in battle and protect\nhim. It now served to save the life of his son. Then Meges struck the\ntopmost crest of Dolops's bronze helmet with his spear and tore away\nits plume of horse-hair, so that all newly dyed with scarlet as it was\nit tumbled down into the dust. While he was still fighting and\nconfident of victory, Menelaus came up to help Meges, and got by the\nside of Dolops unperceived; he then speared him in the shoulder, from\nbehind, and the point, driven so furiously, went through into his\nchest, whereon he fell headlong. The two then made towards him to strip\nhim of his armour, but Hector called on all his brothers for help, and\nhe especially upbraided brave Melanippus son of Hiketaon, who erewhile\nused to pasture his herds of cattle in Percote before the war broke\nout; but when the ships of the Danaans came, he went back to Ilius,\nwhere he was eminent among the Trojans, and lived near Priam who\ntreated him as one of his own sons. Hector now rebuked him and said,\n\"Why, Melanippus, are we thus remiss? do you take no note of the death\nof your kinsman, and do you not see how they are trying to take\nDolops's armour? Follow me; there must be no fighting the Argives from\na distance now, but we must do so in close combat till either we kill\nthem or they take the high wall of Ilius and slay her people.\"\n\nHe led on as he spoke, and the hero Melanippus followed after.\nMeanwhile Ajax son of Telamon was cheering on the Argives. \"My\nfriends,\" he cried, \"be men, and fear dishonour; quit yourselves in\nbattle so as to win respect from one another. Men who respect each\nother's good opinion are less likely to be killed than those who do\nnot, but in flight there is neither gain nor glory.\"\n\nThus did he exhort men who were already bent upon driving back the\nTrojans. They laid his words to heart and hedged the ships as with a\nwall of bronze, while Jove urged on the Trojans. Menelaus of the loud\nbattle-cry urged Antilochus on. \"Antilochus,\" said he, \"you are young\nand there is none of the Achaeans more fleet of foot or more valiant\nthan you are. See if you cannot spring upon some Trojan and kill him.\"\n\nHe hurried away when he had thus spurred Antilochus, who at once darted\nout from the front ranks and aimed a spear, after looking carefully\nround him. The Trojans fell back as he threw, and the dart did not\nspeed from his hand without effect, for it struck Melanippus the proud\nson of Hiketaon in the breast by the nipple as he was coming forward,\nand his armour rang rattling round him as he fell heavily to the\nground. Antilochus sprang upon him as a dog springs on a fawn which a\nhunter has hit as it was breaking away from its covert, and killed it.\nEven so, O Melanippus, did stalwart Antilochus spring upon you to strip\nyou of your armour; but noble Hector marked him, and came running up to\nhim through the thick of the battle. Antilochus, brave soldier though\nhe was, would not stay to face him, but fled like some savage creature\nwhich knows it has done wrong, and flies, when it has killed a dog or a\nman who is herding his cattle, before a body of men can be gathered to\nattack it. Even so did the son of Nestor fly, and the Trojans and\nHector with a cry that rent the air showered their weapons after him;\nnor did he turn round and stay his flight till he had reached his\ncomrades.\n\nThe Trojans, fierce as lions, were still rushing on towards the ships\nin fulfilment of the behests of Jove who kept spurring them on to new\ndeeds of daring, while he deadened the courage of the Argives and\ndefeated them by encouraging the Trojans. For he meant giving glory to\nHector son of Priam, and letting him throw fire upon the ships, till he\nhad fulfilled the unrighteous prayer that Thetis had made him; Jove,\ntherefore, bided his time till he should see the glare of a blazing\nship. From that hour he was about so to order that the Trojans should\nbe driven back from the ships and to vouchsafe glory to the Achaeans.\nWith this purpose he inspired Hector son of Priam, who was eager enough\nalready, to assail the ships. His fury was as that of Mars, or as when\na fire is raging in the glades of some dense forest upon the mountains;\nhe foamed at the mouth, his eyes glared under his terrible eye-brows,\nand his helmet quivered on his temples by reason of the fury with which\nhe fought. Jove from heaven was with him, and though he was but one\nagainst many, vouchsafed him victory and glory; for he was doomed to an\nearly death, and already Pallas Minerva was hurrying on the hour of his\ndestruction at the hands of the son of Peleus. Now, however, he kept\ntrying to break the ranks of the enemy wherever he could see them\nthickest, and in the goodliest armour; but do what he might he could\nnot break through them, for they stood as a tower foursquare, or as\nsome high cliff rising from the grey sea that braves the anger of the\ngale, and of the waves that thunder up against it. He fell upon them\nlike flames of fire from every quarter. As when a wave, raised mountain\nhigh by wind and storm, breaks over a ship and covers it deep in foam,\nthe fierce winds roar against the mast, the hearts of the sailors fail\nthem for fear, and they are saved but by a very little from\ndestruction--even so were the hearts of the Achaeans fainting within\nthem. Or as a savage lion attacking a herd of cows while they are\nfeeding by thousands in the low-lying meadows by some wide-watered\nshore--the herdsman is at his wit's end how to protect his herd and\nkeeps going about now in the van and now in the rear of his cattle,\nwhile the lion springs into the thick of them and fastens on a cow so\nthat they all tremble for fear--even so were the Achaeans utterly\npanic-stricken by Hector and father Jove. Nevertheless Hector only\nkilled Periphetes of Mycenae; he was son of Copreus who was wont to\ntake the orders of King Eurystheus to mighty Hercules, but the son was\na far better man than the father in every way; he was fleet of foot, a\nvaliant warrior, and in understanding ranked among the foremost men of\nMycenae. He it was who then afforded Hector a triumph, for as he was\nturning back he stumbled against the rim of his shield which reached\nhis feet, and served to keep the javelins off him. He tripped against\nthis and fell face upward, his helmet ringing loudly about his head as\nhe did so. Hector saw him fall and ran up to him; he then thrust a\nspear into his chest, and killed him close to his own comrades. These,\nfor all their sorrow, could not help him for they were themselves\nterribly afraid of Hector.\n\nThey had now reached the ships and the prows of those that had been\ndrawn up first were on every side of them, but the Trojans came pouring\nafter them. The Argives were driven back from the first row of ships,\nbut they made a stand by their tents without being broken up and\nscattered; shame and fear restrained them. They kept shouting\nincessantly to one another, and Nestor of Gerene, tower of strength to\nthe Achaeans, was loudest in imploring every man by his parents, and\nbeseeching him to stand firm.\n\n\"Be men, my friends,\" he cried, \"and respect one another's good\nopinion. Think, all of you, on your children, your wives, your\nproperty, and your parents whether these be alive or dead. On their\nbehalf though they are not here, I implore you to stand firm, and not\nto turn in flight.\"\n\nWith these words he put heart and soul into them all. Minerva lifted\nthe thick veil of darkness from their eyes, and much light fell upon\nthem, alike on the side of the ships and on that where the fight was\nraging. They could see Hector and all his men, both those in the rear\nwho were taking no part in the battle, and those who were fighting by\nthe ships.\n\nAjax could not bring himself to retreat along with the rest, but strode\nfrom deck to deck with a great sea-pike in his hands twelve cubits long\nand jointed with rings. As a man skilled in feats of horsemanship\ncouples four horses together and comes tearing full speed along the\npublic way from the country into some large town--many both men and\nwomen marvel as they see him for he keeps all the time changing his\nhorse, springing from one to another without ever missing his feet\nwhile the horses are at a gallop--even so did Ajax go striding from one\nship's deck to another, and his voice went up into the heavens. He kept\non shouting his orders to the Danaans and exhorting them to defend\ntheir ships and tents; neither did Hector remain within the main body\nof the Trojan warriors, but as a dun eagle swoops down upon a flock of\nwild-fowl feeding near a river--geese, it may be, or cranes, or\nlong-necked swans--even so did Hector make straight for a dark-prowed\nship, rushing right towards it; for Jove with his mighty hand impelled\nhim forward, and roused his people to follow him.\n\nAnd now the battle again raged furiously at the ships. You would have\nthought the men were coming on fresh and unwearied, so fiercely did\nthey fight; and this was the mind in which they were--the Achaeans did\nnot believe they should escape destruction but thought themselves\ndoomed, while there was not a Trojan but his heart beat high with the\nhope of firing the ships and putting the Achaean heroes to the sword.\n\nThus were the two sides minded. Then Hector seized the stern of the\ngood ship that had brought Protesilaus to Troy, but never bore him back\nto his native land. Round this ship there raged a close hand-to-hand\nfight between Danaans and Trojans. They did not fight at a distance\nwith bows and javelins, but with one mind hacked at one another in\nclose combat with their mighty swords and spears pointed at both ends;\nthey fought moreover with keen battle-axes and with hatchets. Many a\ngood stout blade hilted and scabbarded with iron, fell from hand or\nshoulder as they fought, and the earth ran red with blood. Hector, when\nhe had seized the ship, would not loose his hold but held on to its\ncurved stern and shouted to the Trojans, \"Bring fire, and raise the\nbattle-cry all of you with a single voice. Now has Jove vouchsafed us a\nday that will pay us for all the rest; this day we shall take the ships\nwhich came hither against heaven's will, and which have caused us such\ninfinite suffering through the cowardice of our councillors, who when I\nwould have done battle at the ships held me back and forbade the host\nto follow me; if Jove did then indeed warp our judgements, himself now\ncommands me and cheers me on.\"\n\nAs he spoke thus the Trojans sprang yet more fiercely on the Achaeans,\nand Ajax no longer held his ground, for he was overcome by the darts\nthat were flung at him, and made sure that he was doomed. Therefore he\nleft the raised deck at the stern, and stepped back on to the\nseven-foot bench of the oarsmen. Here he stood on the look-out, and\nwith his spear held back any Trojan whom he saw bringing fire to the\nships. All the time he kept on shouting at the top of his voice and\nexhorting the Danaans. \"My friends,\" he cried, \"Danaan heroes, servants\nof Mars, be men my friends, and fight with might and with main. Can we\nhope to find helpers hereafter, or a wall to shield us more surely than\nthe one we have? There is no strong city within reach, whence we may\ndraw fresh forces to turn the scales in our favour. We are on the plain\nof the armed Trojans with the sea behind us, and far from our own\ncountry. Our salvation, therefore, is in the might of our hands and in\nhard fighting.\"\n\nAs he spoke he wielded his spear with still greater fury, and when any\nTrojan made towards the ships with fire at Hector's bidding, he would\nbe on the look-out for him, and drive at him with his long spear.\nTwelve men did he thus kill in hand-to-hand fight before the ships.\n\n\n\nBOOK XVI\n\n  Fire being now thrown on the ship of Protesilaus, Patroclus\n  fights in the armour of Achilles--He drives the Trojans back,\n  but is in the end killed by Euphorbus and Hector.\n\nTHUS did they fight about the ship of Protesilaus. Then Patroclus drew\nnear to Achilles with tears welling from his eyes, as from some spring\nwhose crystal stream falls over the ledges of a high precipice. When\nAchilles saw him thus weeping he was sorry for him and said, \"Why,\nPatroclus, do you stand there weeping like some silly child that comes\nrunning to her mother, and begs to be taken up and carried--she catches\nhold of her mother's dress to stay her though she is in a hurry, and\nlooks tearfully up until her mother carries her--even such tears,\nPatroclus, are you now shedding. Have you anything to say to the\nMyrmidons or to myself? or have you had news from Phthia which you\nalone know? They tell me Menoetius son of Actor is still alive, as also\nPeleus son of Aeacus, among the Myrmidons--men whose loss we two should\nbitterly deplore; or are you grieving about the Argives and the way in\nwhich they are being killed at the ships, through their own high-handed\ndoings? Do not hide anything from me but tell me that both of us may\nknow about it.\"\n\nThen, O knight Patroclus, with a deep sigh you answered, \"Achilles, son\nof Peleus, foremost champion of the Achaeans, do not be angry, but I\nweep for the disaster that has now befallen the Argives. All those who\nhave been their champions so far are lying at the ships, wounded by\nsword or spear. Brave Diomed son of Tydeus has been hit with a spear,\nwhile famed Ulysses and Agamemnon have received sword-wounds; Eurypylus\nagain has been struck with an arrow in the thigh; skilled apothecaries\nare attending to these heroes, and healing them of their wounds; are\nyou still, O Achilles, so inexorable? May it never be my lot to nurse\nsuch a passion as you have done, to the baning of your own good name.\nWho in future story will speak well of you unless you now save the\nArgives from ruin? You know no pity; knight Peleus was not your father\nnor Thetis your mother, but the grey sea bore you and the sheer cliffs\nbegot you, so cruel and remorseless are you. If however you are kept\nback through knowledge of some oracle, or if your mother Thetis has\ntold you something from the mouth of Jove, at least send me and the\nMyrmidons with me, if I may bring deliverance to the Danaans. Let me\nmoreover wear your armour; the Trojans may thus mistake me for you and\nquit the field, so that the hard-pressed sons of the Achaeans may have\nbreathing time--which while they are fighting may hardly be. We who are\nfresh might soon drive tired men back from our ships and tents to their\nown city.\"\n\nHe knew not what he was asking, nor that he was suing for his own\ndestruction. Achilles was deeply moved and answered, \"What, noble\nPatroclus, are you saying? I know no prophesyings which I am heeding,\nnor has my mother told me anything from the mouth of Jove, but I am cut\nto the very heart that one of my own rank should dare to rob me because\nhe is more powerful than I am. This, after all that I have gone\nthrough, is more than I can endure. The girl whom the sons of the\nAchaeans chose for me, whom I won as the fruit of my spear on having\nsacked a city--her has King Agamemnon taken from me as though I were\nsome common vagrant. Still, let bygones be bygones: no man may keep his\nanger for ever; I said I would not relent till battle and the cry of\nwar had reached my own ships; nevertheless, now gird my armour about\nyour shoulders, and lead the Myrmidons to battle, for the dark cloud of\nTrojans has burst furiously over our fleet; the Argives are driven back\non to the beach, cooped within a narrow space, and the whole people of\nTroy has taken heart to sally out against them, because they see not\nthe visor of my helmet gleaming near them. Had they seen this, there\nwould not have been a creek nor grip that had not been filled with\ntheir dead as they fled back again. And so it would have been, if only\nKing Agamemnon had dealt fairly by me. As it is the Trojans have beset\nour host. Diomed son of Tydeus no longer wields his spear to defend the\nDanaans, neither have I heard the voice of the son of Atreus coming\nfrom his hated head, whereas that of murderous Hector rings in my cars\nas he gives orders to the Trojans, who triumph over the Achaeans and\nfill the whole plain with their cry of battle. But even so, Patroclus,\nfall upon them and save the fleet, lest the Trojans fire it and prevent\nus from being able to return. Do, however, as I now bid you, that you\nmay win me great honour from all the Danaans, and that they may restore\nthe girl to me again and give me rich gifts into the bargain. When you\nhave driven the Trojans from the ships, come back again. Though Juno's\nthundering husband should put triumph within your reach, do not fight\nthe Trojans further in my absence, or you will rob me of glory that\nshould be mine. And do not for lust of battle go on killing the Trojans\nnor lead the Achaeans on to Ilius, lest one of the ever-living gods\nfrom Olympus attack you--for Phoebus Apollo loves them well: return\nwhen you have freed the ships from peril, and let others wage war upon\nthe plain. Would, by father Jove, Minerva, and Apollo, that not a\nsingle man of all the Trojans might be left alive, nor yet of the\nArgives, but that we two might be alone left to tear aside the mantle\nthat veils the brow of Troy.\"\n\nThus did they converse. But Ajax could no longer hold his ground for\nthe shower of darts that rained upon him; the will of Jove and the\njavelins of the Trojans were too much for him; the helmet that gleamed\nabout his temples rang with the continuous clatter of the missiles that\nkept pouring on to it and on to the cheek-pieces that protected his\nface. Moreover his left shoulder was tired with having held his shield\nso long, yet for all this, let fly at him as they would, they could not\nmake him give ground. He could hardly draw his breath, the sweat rained\nfrom every pore of his body, he had not a moment's respite, and on all\nsides he was beset by danger upon danger.\n\nAnd now, tell me, O Muses that hold your mansions on Olympus, how fire\nwas thrown upon the ships of the Achaeans. Hector came close up and let\ndrive with his great sword at the ashen spear of Ajax. He cut it clean\nin two just behind where the point was fastened on to the shaft of the\nspear. Ajax, therefore, had now nothing but a headless spear, while the\nbronze point flew some way off and came ringing down on to the ground.\nAjax knew the hand of heaven in this, and was dismayed at seeing that\nJove had now left him utterly defenceless and was willing victory for\nthe Trojans. Therefore he drew back, and the Trojans flung fire upon\nthe ship which was at once wrapped in flame.\n\nThe fire was now flaring about the ship's stern, whereon Achilles smote\nhis two thighs and said to Patroclus, \"Up, noble knight, for I see the\nglare of hostile fire at our fleet; up, lest they destroy our ships,\nand there be no way by which we may retreat. Gird on your armour at\nonce while I call our people together.\"\n\nAs he spoke Patroclus put on his armour. First he greaved his legs with\ngreaves of good make, and fitted with ancle-clasps of silver; after\nthis he donned the cuirass of the son of Aeacus, richly inlaid and\nstudded. He hung his silver-studded sword of bronze about his\nshoulders, and then his mighty shield. On his comely head he set his\nhelmet, well wrought, with a crest of horse-hair that nodded menacingly\nabove it. He grasped two redoubtable spears that suited his hands, but\nhe did not take the spear of noble Achilles, so stout and strong, for\nnone other of the Achaeans could wield it, though Achilles could do so\neasily. This was the ashen spear from Mount Pelion, which Chiron had\ncut upon a mountain top and had given to Peleus, wherewith to deal out\ndeath among heroes. He bade Automedon yoke his horses with all speed,\nfor he was the man whom he held in honour next after Achilles, and on\nwhose support in battle he could rely most firmly. Automedon therefore\nyoked the fleet horses Xanthus and Balius, steeds that could fly like\nthe wind: these were they whom the harpy Podarge bore to the west wind,\nas she was grazing in a meadow by the waters of the river Oceanus. In\nthe side traces he set the noble horse Pedasus, whom Achilles had\nbrought away with him when he sacked the city of Eetion, and who,\nmortal steed though he was, could take his place along with those that\nwere immortal.\n\nMeanwhile Achilles went about everywhere among the tents, and bade his\nMyrmidons put on their armour. Even as fierce ravening wolves that are\nfeasting upon a homed stag which they have killed upon the mountains,\nand their jaws are red with blood--they go in a pack to lap water from\nthe clear spring with their long thin tongues; and they reek of blood\nand slaughter; they know not what fear is, for it is hunger drives\nthem--even so did the leaders and counsellors of the Myrmidons gather\nround the good squire of the fleet descendant of Aeacus, and among them\nstood Achilles himself cheering on both men and horses.\n\nFifty ships had noble Achilles brought to Troy, and in each there was a\ncrew of fifty oarsmen. Over these he set five captains whom he could\ntrust, while he was himself commander over them all. Menesthius of the\ngleaming corslet, son to the river Spercheius that streams from heaven,\nwas captain of the first company. Fair Polydora daughter of Peleus bore\nhim to ever-flowing Spercheius--a woman mated with a god--but he was\ncalled son of Borus son of Perieres, with whom his mother was living as\nhis wedded wife, and who gave great wealth to gain her. The second\ncompany was led by noble Eudorus, son to an unwedded woman. Polymele,\ndaughter of Phylas the graceful dancer, bore him; the mighty slayer of\nArgos was enamoured of her as he saw her among the singing women at a\ndance held in honour of Diana the rushing huntress of the golden\narrows; he therefore--Mercury, giver of all good--went with her into an\nupper chamber, and lay with her in secret, whereon she bore him a noble\nson Eudorus, singularly fleet of foot and in fight valiant. When\nIlithuia goddess of the pains of child-birth brought him to the light\nof day, and he saw the face of the sun, mighty Echecles son of Actor\ntook the mother to wife, and gave great wealth to gain her, but her\nfather Phylas brought the child up, and took care of him, doting as\nfondly upon him as though he were his own son. The third company was\nled by Pisander son of Maemalus, the finest spearman among all the\nMyrmidons next to Achilles' own comrade Patroclus. The old knight\nPhoenix was captain of the fourth company, and Alcimedon, noble son of\nLaerceus of the fifth.\n\nWhen Achilles had chosen his men and had stationed them all with their\ncaptains, he charged them straitly saying, \"Myrmidons, remember your\nthreats against the Trojans while you were at the ships in the time of\nmy anger, and you were all complaining of me. 'Cruel son of Peleus,'\nyou would say, 'your mother must have suckled you on gall, so ruthless\nare you. You keep us here at the ships against our will; if you are so\nrelentless it were better we went home over the sea.' Often have you\ngathered and thus chided with me. The hour is now come for those high\nfeats of arms that you have so long been pining for, therefore keep\nhigh hearts each one of you to do battle with the Trojans.\"\n\nWith these words he put heart and soul into them all, and they serried\ntheir companies yet more closely when they heard the words of their\nking. As the stones which a builder sets in the wall of some high house\nwhich is to give shelter from the winds--even so closely were the\nhelmets and bossed shields set against one another. Shield pressed on\nshield, helm on helm, and man on man; so close were they that the\nhorse-hair plumes on the gleaming ridges of their helmets touched each\nother as they bent their heads.\n\nIn front of them all two men put on their armour--Patroclus and\nAutomedon--two men, with but one mind to lead the Myrmidons. Then\nAchilles went inside his tent and opened the lid of the strong chest\nwhich silver-footed Thetis had given him to take on board ship, and\nwhich she had filled with shirts, cloaks to keep out the cold, and good\nthick rugs. In this chest he had a cup of rare workmanship, from which\nno man but himself might drink, nor would he make offering from it to\nany other god save only to father Jove. He took the cup from the chest\nand cleansed it with sulphur; this done he rinsed it clean water, and\nafter he had washed his hands he drew wine. Then he stood in the middle\nof the court and prayed, looking towards heaven, and making his\ndrink-offering of wine; nor was he unseen of Jove whose joy is in\nthunder. \"King Jove,\" he cried, \"lord of Dodona, god of the Pelasgi,\nwho dwellest afar, you who hold wintry Dodona in your sway, where your\nprophets the Selli dwell around you with their feet unwashed and their\ncouches made upon the ground--if you heard me when I prayed to you\naforetime, and did me honour while you sent disaster on the Achaeans,\nvouchsafe me now the fulfilment of yet this further prayer. I shall\nstay here where my ships are lying, but I shall send my comrade into\nbattle at the head of many Myrmidons. Grant, O all-seeing Jove, that\nvictory may go with him; put your courage into his heart that Hector\nmay learn whether my squire is man enough to fight alone, or whether\nhis might is only then so indomitable when I myself enter the turmoil\nof war. Afterwards when he has chased the fight and the cry of battle\nfrom the ships, grant that he may return unharmed, with his armour and\nhis comrades, fighters in close combat.\"\n\nThus did he pray, and all-counselling Jove heard his prayer. Part of it\nhe did indeed vouchsafe him--but not the whole. He granted that\nPatroclus should thrust back war and battle from the ships, but refused\nto let him come safely out of the fight.\n\nWhen he had made his drink-offering and had thus prayed, Achilles went\ninside his tent and put back the cup into his chest.\n\nThen he again came out, for he still loved to look upon the fierce\nfight that raged between the Trojans and Achaeans.\n\nMeanwhile the armed band that was about Patroclus marched on till they\nsprang high in hope upon the Trojans. They came swarming out like wasps\nwhose nests are by the roadside, and whom silly children love to tease,\nwhereon any one who happens to be passing may get stung--or again, if a\nwayfarer going along the road vexes them by accident, every wasp will\ncome flying out in a fury to defend his little ones--even with such\nrage and courage did the Myrmidons swarm from their ships, and their\ncry of battle rose heavenwards. Patroclus called out to his men at the\ntop of his voice, \"Myrmidons, followers of Achilles son of Peleus, be\nmen my friends, fight with might and with main, that we may win glory\nfor the son of Peleus, who is far the foremost man at the ships of the\nArgives--he, and his close fighting followers. The son of Atreus King\nAgamemnon will thus learn his folly in showing no respect to the\nbravest of the Achaeans.\"\n\nWith these words he put heart and soul into them all, and they fell in\na body upon the Trojans. The ships rang again with the cry which the\nAchaeans raised, and when the Trojans saw the brave son of Menoetius\nand his squire all gleaming in their armour, they were daunted and\ntheir battalions were thrown into confusion, for they thought the fleet\nson of Peleus must now have put aside his anger, and have been\nreconciled to Agamemnon; every one, therefore, looked round about to\nsee whither he might fly for safety.\n\nPatroclus first aimed a spear into the middle of the press where men\nwere packed most closely, by the stern of the ship of Protesilaus. He\nhit Pyraechmes who had led his Paeonian horsemen from the Amydon and\nthe broad waters of the river Axius; the spear struck him on the right\nshoulder, and with a groan he fell backwards in the dust; on this his\nmen were thrown into confusion, for by killing their leader, who was\nthe finest soldier among them, Patroclus struck panic into them all. He\nthus drove them from the ship and quenched the fire that was then\nblazing--leaving the half-burnt ship to lie where it was. The Trojans\nwere now driven back with a shout that rent the skies, while the\nDanaans poured after them from their ships, shouting also without\nceasing. As when Jove, gatherer of the thunder-cloud, spreads a dense\ncanopy on the top of some lofty mountain, and all the peaks, the\njutting headlands, and forest glades show out in the great light that\nflashes from the bursting heavens, even so when the Danaans had now\ndriven back the fire from their ships, they took breath for a little\nwhile; but the fury of the fight was not yet over, for the Trojans were\nnot driven back in utter rout, but still gave battle, and were ousted\nfrom their ground only by sheer fighting.\n\nThe fight then became more scattered, and the chieftains killed one\nanother when and how they could. The valiant son of Menoetius first\ndrove his spear into the thigh of Areilycus just as he was turning\nround; the point went clean through, and broke the bone so that he fell\nforward. Meanwhile Menelaus struck Thoas in the chest, where it was\nexposed near the rim of his shield, and he fell dead. The son of\nPhyleus saw Amphiclus about to attack him, and ere he could do so took\naim at the upper part of his thigh, where the muscles are thicker than\nin any other part; the spear tore through all the sinews of the leg,\nand his eyes were closed in darkness. Of the sons of Nestor one,\nAntilochus, speared Atymnius, driving the point of the spear through\nhis throat, and down he fell. Maris then sprang on Antilochus in\nhand-to-hand fight to avenge his brother, and bestrode the body spear\nin hand; but valiant Thrasymedes was too quick for him, and in a moment\nhad struck him in the shoulder ere he could deal his blow; his aim was\ntrue, and the spear severed all the muscles at the root of his arm, and\ntore them right down to the bone, so he fell heavily to the ground and\nhis eyes were closed in darkness. Thus did these two noble comrades of\nSarpedon go down to Erebus slain by the two sons of Nestor; they were\nthe warrior sons of Amisodorus, who had reared the invincible Chimaera,\nto the bane of many. Ajax son of Oileus sprang on Cleobulus and took\nhim alive as he was entangled in the crush; but he killed him then and\nthere by a sword-blow on the neck. The sword reeked with his blood,\nwhile dark death and the strong hand of fate gripped him and closed his\neyes.\n\nPeneleos and Lycon now met in close fight, for they had missed each\nother with their spears. They had both thrown without effect, so now\nthey drew their swords. Lycon struck the plumed crest of Peneleos'\nhelmet but his sword broke at the hilt, while Peneleos smote Lycon on\nthe neck under the ear. The blade sank so deep that the head was held\non by nothing but the skin, and there was no more life left in him.\nMeriones gave chase to Acamas on foot and caught him up just as he was\nabout to mount his chariot; he drove a spear through his right shoulder\nso that he fell headlong from the car, and his eyes were closed in\ndarkness. Idomeneus speared Erymas in the mouth; the bronze point of\nthe spear went clean through it beneath the brain, crashing in among\nthe white bones and smashing them up. His teeth were all of them\nknocked out and the blood came gushing in a stream from both his eyes;\nit also came gurgling up from his mouth and nostrils, and the darkness\nof death enfolded him round about.\n\nThus did these chieftains of the Danaans each of them kill his man. As\nravening wolves seize on kids or lambs, fastening on them when they are\nalone on the hillsides and have strayed from the main flock through the\ncarelessness of the shepherd--and when the wolves see this they pounce\nupon them at once because they cannot defend themselves--even so did\nthe Danaans now fall on the Trojans, who fled with ill-omened cries in\ntheir panic and had no more fight left in them.\n\nMeanwhile great Ajax kept on trying to drive a spear into Hector, but\nHector was so skilful that he held his broad shoulders well under cover\nof his ox-hide shield, ever on the look-out for the whizzing of the\narrows and the heavy thud of the spears. He well knew that the fortunes\nof the day had changed, but still stood his ground and tried to protect\nhis comrades.\n\nAs when a cloud goes up into heaven from Olympus, rising out of a clear\nsky when Jove is brewing a gale--even with such panic stricken rout did\nthe Trojans now fly, and there was no order in their going. Hector's\nfleet horses bore him and his armour out of the fight, and he left the\nTrojan host penned in by the deep trench against their will. Many a\nyoke of horses snapped the pole of their chariots in the trench and\nleft their master's car behind them. Patroclus gave chase, calling\nimpetuously on the Danaans and full of fury against the Trojans, who,\nbeing now no longer in a body, filled all the ways with their cries of\npanic and rout; the air was darkened with the clouds of dust they\nraised, and the horses strained every nerve in their flight from the\ntents and ships towards the city.\n\nPatroclus kept on heading his horses wherever he saw most men flying in\nconfusion, cheering on his men the while. Chariots were being smashed\nin all directions, and many a man came tumbling down from his own car\nto fall beneath the wheels of that of Patroclus, whose immortal steeds,\ngiven by the gods to Peleus, sprang over the trench at a bound as they\nsped onward. He was intent on trying to get near Hector, for he had set\nhis heart on spearing him, but Hector's horses were now hurrying him\naway. As the whole dark earth bows before some tempest on an autumn day\nwhen Jove rains his hardest to punish men for giving crooked judgement\nin their courts, and driving justice therefrom without heed to the\ndecrees of heaven--all the rivers run full and the torrents tear many a\nnew channel as they roar headlong from the mountains to the dark sea,\nand it fares ill with the works of men--even such was the stress and\nstrain of the Trojan horses in their flight.\n\nPatroclus now cut off the battalions that were nearest to him and drove\nthem back to the ships. They were doing their best to reach the city,\nbut he would not let them, and bore down on them between the river and\nthe ships and wall. Many a fallen comrade did he then avenge. First he\nhit Pronous with a spear on the chest where it was exposed near the rim\nof his shield, and he fell heavily to the ground. Next he sprang on\nThestor son of Enops, who was sitting all huddled up in his chariot,\nfor he had lost his head and the reins had been torn out of his hands.\nPatroclus went up to him and drove a spear into his right jaw; he thus\nhooked him by the teeth and the spear pulled him over the rim of his\ncar, as one who sits at the end of some jutting rock and draws a strong\nfish out of the sea with a hook and a line--even so with his spear did\nhe pull Thestor all gaping from his chariot; he then threw him down on\nhis face and he died while falling. On this, as Erylaus was on coming\nto attack him, he struck him full on the head with a stone, and his\nbrains were all battered inside his helmet, whereon he fell headlong to\nthe ground and the pangs of death took hold upon him. Then he laid low,\none after the other, Erymas, Amphoterus, Epaltes, Tlepolemus, Echius\nson of Damastor, Pyris, Ipheus, Euippus and Polymelus son of Argeas.\n\nNow when Sarpedon saw his comrades, men who wore ungirdled tunics,\nbeing overcome by Patroclus son of Menoetius, he rebuked the Lycians\nsaying. \"Shame on you, where are you flying to? Show your mettle; I\nwill myself meet this man in fight and learn who it is that is so\nmasterful; he has done us much hurt, and has stretched many a brave man\nupon the ground.\"\n\nHe sprang from his chariot as he spoke, and Patroclus, when he saw\nthis, leaped on to the ground also. The two then rushed at one another\nwith loud cries like eagle-beaked crook-taloned vultures that scream\nand tear at one another in some high mountain fastness.\n\nThe son of scheming Saturn looked down upon them in pity and said to\nJuno who was his wife and sister, \"Alas, that it should be the lot of\nSarpedon whom I love so dearly to perish by the hand of Patroclus. I am\nin two minds whether to catch him up out of the fight and set him down\nsafe and sound in the fertile land of Lycia, or to let him now fall by\nthe hand of the son of Menoetius.\"\n\nAnd Juno answered, \"Most dread son of Saturn, what is this that you are\nsaying? Would you snatch a mortal man, whose doom has long been fated,\nout of the jaws of death? Do as you will, but we shall not all of us be\nof your mind. I say further, and lay my saying to your heart, that if\nyou send Sarpedon safely to his own home, some other of the gods will\nbe also wanting to escort his son out of battle, for there are many\nsons of gods fighting round the city of Troy, and you will make every\none jealous. If, however, you are fond of him and pity him, let him\nindeed fall by the hand of Patroclus, but as soon as the life is gone\nout of him, send Death and sweet Sleep to bear him off the field and\ntake him to the broad lands of Lycia, where his brothers and his\nkinsmen will bury him with mound and pillar, in due honour to the dead.\"\n\nThe sire of gods and men assented, but he shed a rain of blood upon the\nearth in honour of his son whom Patroclus was about to kill on the rich\nplain of Troy far from his home.\n\nWhen they were now come close to one another Patroclus struck\nThrasydemus, the brave squire of Sarpedon, in the lower part of the\nbelly, and killed him. Sarpedon then aimed a spear at Patroclus and\nmissed him, but he struck the horse Pedasus in the right shoulder, and\nit screamed aloud as it lay, groaning in the dust until the life went\nout of it. The other two horses began to plunge; the pole of the\nchariot cracked and they got entangled in the reins through the fall of\nthe horse that was yoked along with them; but Automedon knew what to\ndo; without the loss of a moment he drew the keen blade that hung by\nhis sturdy thigh and cut the third horse adrift; whereon the other two\nrighted themselves, and pulling hard at the reins again went together\ninto battle.\n\nSarpedon now took a second aim at Patroclus, and again missed him, the\npoint of the spear passed over his left shoulder without hitting him.\nPatroclus then aimed in his turn, and the spear sped not from his hand\nin vain, for he hit Sarpedon just where the midriff surrounds the\never-beating heart. He fell like some oak or silver poplar or tall pine\nto which woodmen have laid their axes upon the mountains to make timber\nfor ship-building--even so did he lie stretched at full length in front\nof his chariot and horses, moaning and clutching at the blood-stained\ndust. As when a lion springs with a bound upon a herd of cattle and\nfastens on a great black bull which dies bellowing in its\nclutches--even so did the leader of the Lycian warriors struggle in\ndeath as he fell by the hand of Patroclus. He called on his trusty\ncomrade and said, \"Glaucus, my brother, hero among heroes, put forth\nall your strength, fight with might and main, now if ever quit yourself\nlike a valiant soldier. First go about among the Lycian captains and\nbid them fight for Sarpedon; then yourself also do battle to save my\narmour from being taken. My name will haunt you henceforth and for ever\nif the Achaeans rob me of my armour now that I have fallen at their\nships. Do your very utmost and call all my people together.\"\n\nDeath closed his eyes as he spoke. Patroclus planted his heel on his\nbreast and drew the spear from his body, whereon his senses came out\nalong with it, and he drew out both spear-point and Sarpedon's soul at\nthe same time. Hard by the Myrmidons held his snorting steeds, who were\nwild with panic at finding themselves deserted by their lords.\n\nGlaucus was overcome with grief when he heard what Sarpedon said, for\nhe could not help him. He had to support his arm with his other hand,\nbeing in great pain through the wound which Teucer's arrow had given\nhim when Teucer was defending the wall as he, Glaucus, was assailing\nit. Therefore he prayed to far-darting Apollo saying, \"Hear me O king\nfrom your seat, may be in the rich land of Lycia, or may be in Troy,\nfor in all places you can hear the prayer of one who is in distress, as\nI now am. I have a grievous wound; my hand is aching with pain, there\nis no staunching the blood, and my whole arm drags by reason of my\nhurt, so that I cannot grasp my sword nor go among my foes and fight\nthem, though our prince, Jove's son Sarpedon, is slain. Jove defended\nnot his son, do you, therefore, O king, heal me of my wound, ease my\npain and grant me strength both to cheer on the Lycians and to fight\nalong with them round the body of him who has fallen.\"\n\nThus did he pray, and Apollo heard his prayer. He eased his pain,\nstaunched the black blood from the wound, and gave him new strength.\nGlaucus perceived this, and was thankful that the mighty god had\nanswered his prayer; forthwith, therefore, he went among the Lycian\ncaptains, and bade them come to fight about the body of Sarpedon. From\nthese he strode on among the Trojans to Polydamas son of Panthous and\nAgenor; he then went in search of Aeneas and Hector, and when he had\nfound them he said, \"Hector, you have utterly forgotten your allies,\nwho languish here for your sake far from friends and home while you do\nnothing to support them. Sarpedon leader of the Lycian warriors has\nfallen--he who was at once the right and might of Lycia; Mars has laid\nhim low by the spear of Patroclus. Stand by him, my friends, and suffer\nnot the Myrmidons to strip him of his armour, nor to treat his body\nwith contumely in revenge for all the Danaans whom we have speared at\nthe ships.\"\n\nAs he spoke the Trojans were plunged in extreme and ungovernable grief;\nfor Sarpedon, alien though he was, had been one of the main stays of\ntheir city, both as having much people with him, and himself the\nforemost among them all. Led by Hector, who was infuriated by the fall\nof Sarpedon, they made instantly for the Danaans with all their might,\nwhile the undaunted spirit of Patroclus son of Menoetius cheered on the\nAchaeans. First he spoke to the two Ajaxes, men who needed no bidding.\n\"Ajaxes,\" said he, \"may it now please you to show yourselves the men\nyou have always been, or even better--Sarpedon is fallen--he who was\nfirst to overleap the wall of the Achaeans; let us take the body and\noutrage it; let us strip the armour from his shoulders, and kill his\ncomrades if they try to rescue his body.\"\n\nHe spoke to men who of themselves were full eager; both sides,\ntherefore, the Trojans and Lycians on the one hand, and the Myrmidons\nand Achaeans on the other, strengthened their battalions, and fought\ndesperately about the body of Sarpedon, shouting fiercely the while.\nMighty was the din of their armour as they came together, and Jove shed\na thick darkness over the fight, to increase the toil of the battle\nover the body of his son.\n\nAt first the Trojans made some headway against the Achaeans, for one of\nthe best men among the Myrmidons was killed, Epeigeus, son of noble\nAgacles who had erewhile been king in the good city of Budeum; but\npresently, having killed a valiant kinsman of his own, he took refuge\nwith Peleus and Thetis, who sent him to Ilius the land of noble steeds\nto fight the Trojans under Achilles. Hector now struck him on the head\nwith a stone just as he had caught hold of the body, and his brains\ninside his helmet were all battered in, so that he fell face foremost\nupon the body of Sarpedon, and there died. Patroclus was enraged by the\ndeath of his comrade, and sped through the front ranks as swiftly as a\nhawk that swoops down on a flock of daws or starlings. Even so swiftly,\nO noble knight Patroclus, did you make straight for the Lycians and\nTrojans to avenge your comrade. Forthwith he struck Sthenelaus the son\nof Ithaemenes on the neck with a stone, and broke the tendons that join\nit to the head and spine. On this Hector and the front rank of his men\ngave ground. As far as a man can throw a javelin when competing for\nsome prize, or even in battle--so far did the Trojans now retreat\nbefore the Achaeans. Glaucus, captain of the Lycians, was the first to\nrally them, by killing Bathycles son of Chalcon who lived in Hellas and\nwas the richest man among the Myrmidons. Glaucus turned round suddenly,\njust as Bathycles who was pursuing him was about to lay hold of him,\nand drove his spear right into the middle of his chest, whereon he fell\nheavily to the ground, and the fall of so good a man filled the\nAchaeans with dismay, while the Trojans were exultant, and came up in a\nbody round the corpse. Nevertheless the Achaeans, mindful of their\nprowess, bore straight down upon them.\n\nMeriones then killed a helmed warrior of the Trojans, Laogonus son of\nOnetor, who was priest of Jove of Mt. Ida, and was honoured by the\npeople as though he were a god. Meriones struck him under the jaw and\near, so that life went out of him and the darkness of death laid hold\nupon him. Aeneas then aimed a spear at Meriones, hoping to hit him\nunder the shield as he was advancing, but Meriones saw it coming and\nstooped forward to avoid it, whereon the spear flew past him and the\npoint stuck in the ground, while the butt-end went on quivering till\nMars robbed it of its force. The spear, therefore, sped from Aeneas's\nhand in vain and fell quivering to the ground. Aeneas was angry and\nsaid, \"Meriones, you are a good dancer, but if I had hit you my spear\nwould soon have made an end of you.\"\n\nAnd Meriones answered, \"Aeneas, for all your bravery, you will not be\nable to make an end of every one who comes against you. You are only a\nmortal like myself, and if I were to hit you in the middle of your\nshield with my spear, however strong and self-confident you may be, I\nshould soon vanquish you, and you would yield your life to Hades of the\nnoble steeds.\"\n\nOn this the son of Menoetius rebuked him and said, \"Meriones, hero\nthough you be, you should not speak thus; taunting speeches, my good\nfriend, will not make the Trojans draw away from the dead body; some of\nthem must go under ground first; blows for battle, and words for\ncouncil; fight, therefore, and say nothing.\"\n\nHe led the way as he spoke and the hero went forward with him. As the\nsound of woodcutters in some forest glade upon the mountains--and the\nthud of their axes is heard afar--even such a din now rose from\nearth-clash of bronze armour and of good ox-hide shields, as men smote\neach other with their swords and spears pointed at both ends. A man had\nneed of good eyesight now to know Sarpedon, so covered was he from head\nto foot with spears and blood and dust. Men swarmed about the body, as\nflies that buzz round the full milk-pails in spring when they are\nbrimming with milk--even so did they gather round Sarpedon; nor did\nJove turn his keen eyes away for one moment from the fight, but kept\nlooking at it all the time, for he was settling how best to kill\nPatroclus, and considering whether Hector should be allowed to end him\nnow in the fight round the body of Sarpedon, and strip him of his\narmour, or whether he should let him give yet further trouble to the\nTrojans. In the end, he deemed it best that the brave squire of\nAchilles son of Peleus should drive Hector and the Trojans back towards\nthe city and take the lives of many. First, therefore, he made Hector\nturn fainthearted, whereon he mounted his chariot and fled, bidding the\nother Trojans fly also, for he saw that the scales of Jove had turned\nagainst him. Neither would the brave Lycians stand firm; they were\ndismayed when they saw their king lying struck to the heart amid a heap\nof corpses--for when the son of Saturn made the fight wax hot many had\nfallen above him. The Achaeans, therefore stripped the gleaming armour\nfrom his shoulders and the brave son of Menoetius gave it to his men to\ntake to the ships. Then Jove lord of the storm-cloud said to Apollo,\n\"Dear Phoebus, go, I pray you, and take Sarpedon out of range of the\nweapons; cleanse the black blood from off him, and then bear him a long\nway off where you may wash him in the river, anoint him with ambrosia,\nand clothe him in immortal raiment; this done, commit him to the arms\nof the two fleet messengers, Death, and Sleep, who will carry him\nstraightway to the rich land of Lycia, where his brothers and kinsmen\nwill inter him, and will raise both mound and pillar to his memory, in\ndue honour to the dead.\"\n\nThus he spoke. Apollo obeyed his father's saying, and came down from\nthe heights of Ida into the thick of the fight; forthwith he took\nSarpedon out of range of the weapons, and then bore him a long way off,\nwhere he washed him in the river, anointed him with ambrosia and\nclothed him in immortal raiment; this done, he committed him to the\narms of the two fleet messengers, Death, and Sleep, who presently set\nhim down in the rich land of Lycia.\n\nMeanwhile Patroclus, with many a shout to his horses and to Automedon,\npursued the Trojans and Lycians in the pride and foolishness of his\nheart. Had he but obeyed the bidding of the son of Peleus, he would\nhave escaped death and have been scatheless; but the counsels of Jove\npass man's understanding; he will put even a brave man to flight and\nsnatch victory from his grasp, or again he will set him on to fight, as\nhe now did when he put a high spirit into the heart of Patroclus.\n\nWho then first, and who last, was slain by you, O Patroclus, when the\ngods had now called you to meet your doom? First Adrestus, Autonous,\nEcheclus, Perimus the son of Megas, Epistor and Melanippus; after these\nhe killed Elasus, Mulius, and Pylartes. These he slew, but the rest\nsaved themselves by flight.\n\nThe sons of the Achaeans would now have taken Troy by the hands of\nPatroclus, for his spear flew in all directions, had not Phoebus Apollo\ntaken his stand upon the wall to defeat his purpose and to aid the\nTrojans. Thrice did Patroclus charge at an angle of the high wall, and\nthrice did Apollo beat him back, striking his shield with his own\nimmortal hands. When Patroclus was coming on like a god for yet a\nfourth time, Apollo shouted to him with an awful voice and said, \"Draw\nback, noble Patroclus, it is not your lot to sack the city of the\nTrojan chieftains, nor yet will it be that of Achilles who is a far\nbetter man than you are.\" On hearing this, Patroclus withdrew to some\ndistance and avoided the anger of Apollo.\n\nMeanwhile Hector was waiting with his horses inside the Scaean gates,\nin doubt whether to drive out again and go on fighting, or to call the\narmy inside the gates. As he was thus doubting Phoebus Apollo drew near\nhim in the likeness of a young and lusty warrior Asius, who was\nHector's uncle, being own brother to Hecuba, and son of Dymas who lived\nin Phrygia by the waters of the river Sangarius; in his likeness Jove's\nson Apollo now spoke to Hector saying, \"Hector, why have you left off\nfighting? It is ill done of you. If I were as much better a man than\nyou, as I am worse, you should soon rue your slackness. Drive straight\ntowards Patroclus, if so be that Apollo may grant you a triumph over\nhim, and you may rule him.\"\n\nWith this the god went back into the hurly-burly, and Hector bade\nCebriones drive again into the fight. Apollo passed in among them, and\nstruck panic into the Argives, while he gave triumph to Hector and the\nTrojans. Hector let the other Danaans alone and killed no man, but\ndrove straight at Patroclus. Patroclus then sprang from his chariot to\nthe ground, with a spear in his left hand, and in his right a jagged\nstone as large as his hand could hold. He stood still and threw it, nor\ndid it go far without hitting some one; the cast was not in vain, for\nthe stone struck Cebriones, Hector's charioteer, a bastard son of\nPriam, as he held the reins in his hands. The stone hit him on the\nforehead and drove his brows into his head for the bone was smashed,\nand his eyes fell to the ground at his feet. He dropped dead from his\nchariot as though he were diving, and there was no more life left in\nhim. Over him did you then vaunt, O knight Patroclus, saying, \"Bless my\nheart, how active he is, and how well he dives. If we had been at sea\nthis fellow would have dived from the ship's side and brought up as\nmany oysters as the whole crew could stomach, even in rough water, for\nhe has dived beautifully off his chariot on to the ground. It seems,\nthen, that there are divers also among the Trojans.\"\n\nAs he spoke he flung himself on Cebriones with the spring, as it were,\nof a lion that while attacking a stockyard is himself struck in the\nchest, and his courage is his own bane--even so furiously, O Patroclus,\ndid you then spring upon Cebriones. Hector sprang also from his chariot\nto the ground. The pair then fought over the body of Cebriones. As two\nlions fight fiercely on some high mountain over the body of a stag that\nthey have killed, even so did these two mighty warriors, Patroclus son\nof Menoetius and brave Hector, hack and hew at one another over the\ncorpse of Cebriones. Hector would not let him go when he had once got\nhim by the head, while Patroclus kept fast hold of his feet, and a\nfierce fight raged between the other Danaans and Trojans. As the east\nand south wind buffet one another when they beat upon some dense forest\non the mountains--there is beech and ash and spreading cornel; the top\nof the trees roar as they beat on one another, and one can hear the\nboughs cracking and breaking--even so did the Trojans and Achaeans\nspring upon one another and lay about each other, and neither side\nwould give way. Many a pointed spear fell to ground and many a winged\narrow sped from its bow-string about the body of Cebriones; many a\ngreat stone, moreover, beat on many a shield as they fought around his\nbody, but there he lay in the whirling clouds of dust, all huge and\nhugely, heedless of his driving now.\n\nSo long as the sun was still high in mid-heaven the weapons of either\nside were alike deadly, and the people fell; but when he went down\ntowards the time when men loose their oxen, the Achaeans proved to be\nbeyond all forecast stronger, so that they drew Cebriones out of range\nof the darts and tumult of the Trojans, and stripped the armour from\nhis shoulders. Then Patroclus sprang like Mars with fierce intent and a\nterrific shout upon the Trojans, and thrice did he kill nine men; but\nas he was coming on like a god for a time, then, O Patroclus, was the\nhour of your end approaching, for Phoebus fought you in fell earnest.\nPatroclus did not see him as he moved about in the crush, for he was\nenshrouded in thick darkness, and the god struck him from behind on his\nback and his broad shoulders with the flat of his hand, so that his\neyes turned dizzy. Phoebus Apollo beat the helmet from off his head,\nand it rolled rattling off under the horses' feet, where its horse-hair\nplumes were all begrimed with dust and blood. Never indeed had that\nhelmet fared so before, for it had served to protect the head and\ncomely forehead of the godlike hero Achilles. Now, however, Zeus\ndelivered it over to be worn by Hector. Nevertheless the end of Hector\nalso was near. The bronze-shod spear, so great and so strong, was\nbroken in the hand of Patroclus, while his shield that covered him from\nhead to foot fell to the ground as did also the band that held it, and\nApollo undid the fastenings of his corslet.\n\nOn this his mind became clouded; his limbs failed him, and he stood as\none dazed; whereon Euphorbus son of Panthous a Dardanian, the best\nspearman of his time, as also the finest horseman and fleetest runner,\ncame behind him and struck him in the back with a spear, midway between\nthe shoulders. This man as soon as ever he had come up with his chariot\nhad dismounted twenty men, so proficient was he in all the arts of\nwar--he it was, O knight Patroclus, that first drove a weapon into you,\nbut he did not quite overpower you. Euphorbus then ran back into the\ncrowd, after drawing his ashen spear out of the wound; he would not\nstand firm and wait for Patroclus, unarmed though he now was, to attack\nhim; but Patroclus unnerved, alike by the blow the god had given him\nand by the spear-wound, drew back under cover of his men in fear for\nhis life. Hector on this, seeing him to be wounded and giving ground,\nforced his way through the ranks, and when close up with him struck him\nin the lower part of the belly with a spear, driving the bronze point\nright through it, so that he fell heavily to the ground to the great\ngrief of the Achaeans. As when a lion has fought some fierce wild-boar\nand worsted him--the two fight furiously upon the mountains over some\nlittle fountain at which they would both drink, and the lion has beaten\nthe boar till he can hardly breathe--even so did Hector son of Priam\ntake the life of the brave son of Menoetius who had killed so many,\nstriking him from close at hand, and vaunting over him the while.\n\"Patroclus,\" said he, \"you deemed that you should sack our city, rob\nour Trojan women of their freedom, and carry them off in your ships to\nyour own country. Fool; Hector and his fleet horses were ever straining\ntheir utmost to defend them. I am foremost of all the Trojan warriors\nto stave the day of bondage from off them; as for you, vultures shall\ndevour you here. Poor wretch, Achilles with all his bravery availed you\nnothing; and yet I ween when you left him he charged you straitly\nsaying, 'Come not back to the ships, knight Patroclus, till you have\nrent the bloodstained shirt of murderous Hector about his body.' Thus I\nween did he charge you, and your fool's heart answered him 'yea' within\nyou.\"\n\nThen, as the life ebbed out of you, you answered, O knight Patroclus:\n\"Hector, vaunt as you will, for Jove the son of Saturn and Apollo have\nvouchsafed you victory; it is they who have vanquished me so easily,\nand they who have stripped the armour from my shoulders; had twenty\nsuch men as you attacked me, all of them would have fallen before my\nspear. Fate and the son of Leto have overpowered me, and among mortal\nmen Euphorbus; you are yourself third only in the killing of me. I say\nfurther, and lay my saying to your heart, you too shall live but for a\nlittle season; death and the day of your doom are close upon you, and\nthey will lay you low by the hand of Achilles son of Aeacus.\"\n\nWhen he had thus spoken his eyes were closed in death, his soul left\nhis body and flitted down to the house of Hades, mourning its sad fate\nand bidding farewell to the youth and vigor of its manhood. Dead though\nhe was, Hector still spoke to him saying, \"Patroclus, why should you\nthus foretell my doom? Who knows but Achilles, son of lovely Thetis,\nmay be smitten by my spear and die before me?\"\n\nAs he spoke he drew the bronze spear from the wound, planting his foot\nupon the body, which he thrust off and let lie on its back. He then\nwent spear in hand after Automedon, squire of the fleet descendant of\nAeacus, for he longed to lay him low, but the immortal steeds which the\ngods had given as a rich gift to Peleus bore him swiftly from the field.\n\n\n\nBOOK XVII\n\n  The fight around the body of Patroclus.\n\nBRAVE Menelaus son of Atreus now came to know that Patroclus had\nfallen, and made his way through the front ranks clad in full armour to\nbestride him. As a cow stands lowing over her first calf, even so did\nyellow-haired Menelaus bestride Patroclus. He held his round shield and\nhis spear in front of him, resolute to kill any who should dare face\nhim. But the son of Panthous had also noted the body, and came up to\nMenelaus saying, \"Menelaus, son of Atreus, draw back, leave the body,\nand let the bloodstained spoils be. I was first of the Trojans and\ntheir brave allies to drive my spear into Patroclus, let me, therefore,\nhave my full glory among the Trojans, or I will take aim and kill you.\"\n\nTo this Menelaus answered in great anger \"By father Jove, boasting is\nan ill thing. The pard is not more bold, nor the lion nor savage\nwild-boar, which is fiercest and most dauntless of all creatures, than\nare the proud sons of Panthous. Yet Hyperenor did not see out the days\nof his youth when he made light of me and withstood me, deeming me the\nmeanest soldier among the Danaans. His own feet never bore him back to\ngladden his wife and parents. Even so shall I make an end of you too,\nif you withstand me; get you back into the crowd and do not face me, or\nit shall be worse for you. Even a fool may be wise after the event.\"\n\nEuphorbus would not listen, and said, \"Now indeed, Menelaus, shall you\npay for the death of my brother over whom you vaunted, and whose wife\nyou widowed in her bridal chamber, while you brought grief unspeakable\non his parents. I shall comfort these poor people if I bring your head\nand armour and place them in the hands of Panthous and noble Phrontis.\nThe time is come when this matter shall be fought out and settled, for\nme or against me.\"\n\nAs he spoke he struck Menelaus full on the shield, but the spear did\nnot go through, for the shield turned its point. Menelaus then took\naim, praying to father Jove as he did so; Euphorbus was drawing back,\nand Menelaus struck him about the roots of his throat, leaning his\nwhole weight on the spear, so as to drive it home. The point went clean\nthrough his neck, and his armour rang rattling round him as he fell\nheavily to the ground. His hair which was like that of the Graces, and\nhis locks so deftly bound in bands of silver and gold, were all\nbedrabbled with blood. As one who has grown a fine young olive tree in\na clear space where there is abundance of water--the plant is full of\npromise, and though the winds beat upon it from every quarter it puts\nforth its white blossoms till the blasts of some fierce hurricane sweep\ndown upon it and level it with the ground--even so did Menelaus strip\nthe fair youth Euphorbus of his armour after he had slain him. Or as\nsome fierce lion upon the mountains in the pride of his strength\nfastens on the finest heifer in a herd as it is feeding--first he\nbreaks her neck with his strong jaws, and then gorges on her blood and\nentrails; dogs and shepherds raise a hue and cry against him, but they\nstand aloof and will not come close to him, for they are pale with\nfear--even so no one had the courage to face valiant Menelaus. The son\nof Atreus would have then carried off the armour of the son of Panthous\nwith ease, had not Phoebus Apollo been angry, and in the guise of\nMentes chief of the Cicons incited Hector to attack him. \"Hector,\" said\nhe, \"you are now going after the horses of the noble son of Aeacus, but\nyou will not take them; they cannot be kept in hand and driven by\nmortal man, save only by Achilles, who is son to an immortal mother.\nMeanwhile Menelaus son of Atreus has bestridden the body of Patroclus\nand killed the noblest of the Trojans, Euphorbus son of Panthous, so\nthat he can fight no more.\"\n\nThe god then went back into the toil and turmoil, but the soul of\nHector was darkened with a cloud of grief; he looked along the ranks\nand saw Euphorbus lying on the ground with the blood still flowing from\nhis wound, and Menelaus stripping him of his armour. On this he made\nhis way to the front like a flame of fire, clad in his gleaming armour,\nand crying with a loud voice. When the son of Atreus heard him, he said\nto himself in his dismay, \"Alas! what shall I do? I may not let the\nTrojans take the armour of Patroclus who has fallen fighting on my\nbehalf, lest some Danaan who sees me should cry shame upon me. Still if\nfor my honour's sake I fight Hector and the Trojans single-handed, they\nwill prove too many for me, for Hector is bringing them up in force.\nWhy, however, should I thus hesitate? When a man fights in despite of\nheaven with one whom a god befriends, he will soon rue it. Let no\nDanaan think ill of me if I give place to Hector, for the hand of\nheaven is with him. Yet, if I could find Ajax, the two of us would\nfight Hector and heaven too, if we might only save the body of\nPatroclus for Achilles son of Peleus. This, of many evils would be the\nleast.\"\n\nWhile he was thus in two minds, the Trojans came up to him with Hector\nat their head; he therefore drew back and left the body, turning about\nlike some bearded lion who is being chased by dogs and men from a\nstockyard with spears and hue and cry, whereon he is daunted and slinks\nsulkily off--even so did Menelaus son of Atreus turn and leave the body\nof Patroclus. When among the body of his men, he looked around for\nmighty Ajax son of Telamon, and presently saw him on the extreme left\nof the fight, cheering on his men and exhorting them to keep on\nfighting, for Phoebus Apollo had spread a great panic among them. He\nran up to him and said, \"Ajax, my good friend, come with me at once to\ndead Patroclus, if so be that we may take the body to Achilles--as for\nhis armour, Hector already has it.\"\n\nThese words stirred the heart of Ajax, and he made his way among the\nfront ranks, Menelaus going with him. Hector had stripped Patroclus of\nhis armour, and was dragging him away to cut off his head and take the\nbody to fling before the dogs of Troy. But Ajax came up with his shield\nlike wall before him, on which Hector withdrew under shelter of his\nmen, and sprang on to his chariot, giving the armour over to the\nTrojans to take to the city, as a great trophy for himself; Ajax,\ntherefore, covered the body of Patroclus with his broad shield and\nbestrode him; as a lion stands over his whelps if hunters have come\nupon him in a forest when he is with his little ones--in the pride and\nfierceness of his strength he draws his knit brows down till they cover\nhis eyes--even so did Ajax bestride the body of Patroclus, and by his\nside stood Menelaus son of Atreus, nursing great sorrow in his heart.\n\nThen Glaucus son of Hippolochus looked fiercely at Hector and rebuked\nhim sternly. \"Hector,\" said he, \"you make a brave show, but in fight\nyou are sadly wanting. A runaway like yourself has no claim to so great\na reputation. Think how you may now save your town and citadel by the\nhands of your own people born in Ilius; for you will get no Lycians to\nfight for you, seeing what thanks they have had for their incessant\nhardships. Are you likely, sir, to do anything to help a man of less\nnote, after leaving Sarpedon, who was at once your guest and comrade in\narms, to be the spoil and prey of the Danaans? So long as he lived he\ndid good service both to your city and yourself; yet you had no stomach\nto save his body from the dogs. If the Lycians will listen to me, they\nwill go home and leave Troy to its fate. If the Trojans had any of that\ndaring fearless spirit which lays hold of men who are fighting for\ntheir country and harassing those who would attack it, we should soon\nbear off Patroclus into Ilius. Could we get this dead man away and\nbring him into the city of Priam, the Argives would readily give up the\narmour of Sarpedon, and we should get his body to boot. For he whose\nsquire has been now killed is the foremost man at the ships of the\nAchaeans--he and his close-fighting followers. Nevertheless you dared\nnot make a stand against Ajax, nor face him, eye to eye, with battle\nall round you, for he is a braver man than you are.\"\n\nHector scowled at him and answered, \"Glaucus, you should know better. I\nhave held you so far as a man of more understanding than any in all\nLycia, but now I despise you for saying that I am afraid of Ajax. I\nfear neither battle nor the din of chariots, but Jove's will is\nstronger than ours; Jove at one time makes even a strong man draw back\nand snatches victory from his grasp, while at another he will set him\non to fight. Come hither then, my friend, stand by me and see indeed\nwhether I shall play the coward the whole day through as you say, or\nwhether I shall not stay some even of the boldest Danaans from fighting\nround the body of Patroclus.\"\n\nAs he spoke he called loudly on the Trojans saying, \"Trojans, Lycians,\nand Dardanians, fighters in close combat, be men, my friends, and fight\nmight and main, while I put on the goodly armour of Achilles, which I\ntook when I killed Patroclus.\"\n\nWith this Hector left the fight, and ran full speed after his men who\nwere taking the armour of Achilles to Troy, but had not yet got far.\nStanding for a while apart from the woeful fight, he changed his\narmour. His own he sent to the strong city of Ilius and to the Trojans,\nwhile he put on the immortal armour of the son of Peleus, which the\ngods had given to Peleus, who in his age gave it to his son; but the\nson did not grow old in his father's armour.\n\nWhen Jove, lord of the storm-cloud, saw Hector standing aloof and\narming himself in the armour of the son of Peleus, he wagged his head\nand muttered to himself saying, \"A! poor wretch, you arm in the armour\nof a hero, before whom many another trembles, and you reck nothing of\nthe doom that is already close upon you. You have killed his comrade so\nbrave and strong, but it was not well that you should strip the armour\nfrom his head and shoulders. I do indeed endow you with great might\nnow, but as against this you shall not return from battle to lay the\narmour of the son of Peleus before Andromache.\"\n\nThe son of Saturn bowed his portentous brows, and Hector fitted the\narmour to his body, while terrible Mars entered into him, and filled\nhis whole body with might and valour. With a shout he strode in among\nthe allies, and his armour flashed about him so that he seemed to all\nof them like the great son of Peleus himself. He went about among them\nand cheered them on--Mesthles, Glaucus, Medon, Thersilochus,\nAsteropaeus, Deisenor and Hippothous, Phorcys, Chromius and Ennomus the\naugur. All these did he exhort saying, \"Hear me, allies from other\ncities who are here in your thousands, it was not in order to have a\ncrowd about me that I called you hither each from his several city, but\nthat with heart and soul you might defend the wives and little ones of\nthe Trojans from the fierce Achaeans. For this do I oppress my people\nwith your food and the presents that make you rich. Therefore turn, and\ncharge at the foe, to stand or fall as is the game of war; whoever\nshall bring Patroclus, dead though he be, into the hands of the\nTrojans, and shall make Ajax give way before him, I will give him one\nhalf of the spoils while I keep the other. He will thus share like\nhonour with myself.\"\n\nWhen he had thus spoken they charged full weight upon the Danaans with\ntheir spears held out before them, and the hopes of each ran high that\nhe should force Ajax son of Telamon to yield up the body--fools that\nthey were, for he was about to take the lives of many. Then Ajax said\nto Menelaus, \"My good friend Menelaus, you and I shall hardly come out\nof this fight alive. I am less concerned for the body of Patroclus, who\nwill shortly become meat for the dogs and vultures of Troy, than for\nthe safety of my own head and yours. Hector has wrapped us round in a\nstorm of battle from every quarter, and our destruction seems now\ncertain. Call then upon the princes of the Danaans if there is any who\ncan hear us.\"\n\nMenelaus did as he said, and shouted to the Danaans for help at the top\nof his voice. \"My friends,\" he cried, \"princes and counsellors of the\nArgives, all you who with Agamemnon and Menelaus drink at the public\ncost, and give orders each to his own people as Jove vouchsafes him\npower and glory, the fight is so thick about me that I cannot\ndistinguish you severally; come on, therefore, every man unbidden, and\nthink it shame that Patroclus should become meat and morsel for Trojan\nhounds.\"\n\nFleet Ajax son of Oileus heard him and was first to force his way\nthrough the fight and run to help him. Next came Idomeneus and Meriones\nhis esquire, peer of murderous Mars. As for the others that came into\nthe fight after these, who of his own self could name them?\n\nThe Trojans with Hector at their head charged in a body. As a great\nwave that comes thundering in at the mouth of some heaven-born river,\nand the rocks that jut into the sea ring with the roar of the breakers\nthat beat and buffet them--even with such a roar did the Trojans come\non; but the Achaeans in singleness of heart stood firm about the son of\nMenoetius, and fenced him with their bronze shields. Jove, moreover,\nhid the brightness of their helmets in a thick cloud, for he had borne\nno grudge against the son of Menoetius while he was still alive and\nsquire to the descendant of Aeacus; therefore he was loth to let him\nfall a prey to the dogs of his foes the Trojans, and urged his comrades\non to defend him.\n\nAt first the Trojans drove the Achaeans back, and they withdrew from\nthe dead man daunted. The Trojans did not succeed in killing any one,\nnevertheless they drew the body away. But the Achaeans did not lose it\nlong, for Ajax, foremost of all the Danaans after the son of Peleus\nalike in stature and prowess, quickly rallied them and made towards the\nfront like a wild boar upon the mountains when he stands at bay in the\nforest glades and routs the hounds and lusty youths that have attacked\nhim--even so did Ajax son of Telamon passing easily in among the\nphalanxes of the Trojans, disperse those who had bestridden Patroclus\nand were most bent on winning glory by dragging him off to their city.\nAt this moment Hippothous brave son of the Pelasgian Lethus, in his\nzeal for Hector and the Trojans, was dragging the body off by the foot\nthrough the press of the fight, having bound a strap round the sinews\nnear the ancle; but a mischief soon befell him from which none of those\ncould save him who would have gladly done so, for the son of Telamon\nsprang forward and smote him on his bronze-cheeked helmet. The plumed\nheadpiece broke about the point of the weapon, struck at once by the\nspear and by the strong hand of Ajax, so that the bloody brain came\noozing out through the crest-socket. His strength then failed him and\nhe let Patroclus' foot drop from his hand, as he fell full length dead\nupon the body; thus he died far from the fertile land of Larissa, and\nnever repaid his parents the cost of bringing him up, for his life was\ncut short early by the spear of mighty Ajax. Hector then took aim at\nAjax with a spear, but he saw it coming and just managed to avoid it;\nthe spear passed on and struck Schedius son of noble Iphitus, captain\nof the Phoceans, who dwelt in famed Panopeus and reigned over much\npeople; it struck him under the middle of the collar-bone the bronze\npoint went right through him, coming out at the bottom of his\nshoulder-blade, and his armour rang rattling round him as he fell\nheavily to the ground. Ajax in his turn struck noble Phorcys son of\nPhaenops in the middle of the belly as he was bestriding Hippothous,\nand broke the plate of his cuirass; whereon the spear tore out his\nentrails and he clutched the ground in his palm as he fell to earth.\nHector and those who were in the front rank then gave ground, while the\nArgives raised a loud cry of triumph, and drew off the bodies of\nPhorcys and Hippothous which they stripped presently of their armour.\n\nThe Trojans would now have been worsted by the brave Achaeans and\ndriven back to Ilius through their own cowardice, while the Argives, so\ngreat was their courage and endurance, would have achieved a triumph\neven against the will of Jove, if Apollo had not roused Aeneas, in the\nlikeness of Periphas son of Epytus, an attendant who had grown old in\nthe service of Aeneas' aged father, and was at all times devoted to\nhim. In his likeness, then, Apollo said, \"Aeneas, can you not manage,\neven though heaven be against us, to save high Ilius? I have known men,\nwhose numbers, courage, and self-reliance have saved their people in\nspite of Jove, whereas in this case he would much rather give victory\nto us than to the Danaans, if you would only fight instead of being so\nterribly afraid.\"\n\nAeneas knew Apollo when he looked straight at him, and shouted to\nHector saying, \"Hector and all other Trojans and allies, shame on us if\nwe are beaten by the Achaeans and driven back to Ilius through our own\ncowardice. A god has just come up to me and told me that Jove the\nsupreme disposer will be with us. Therefore let us make for the\nDanaans, that it may go hard with them ere they bear away dead\nPatroclus to the ships.\"\n\nAs he spoke he sprang out far in front of the others, who then rallied\nand again faced the Achaeans. Aeneas speared Leiocritus son of Arisbas,\na valiant follower of Lycomedes, and Lycomedes was moved with pity as\nhe saw him fall; he therefore went close up, and speared Apisaon son of\nHippasus shepherd of his people in the liver under the midriff, so that\nhe died; he had come from fertile Paeonia and was the best man of them\nall after Asteropaeus. Asteropaeus flew forward to avenge him and\nattack the Danaans, but this might no longer be, inasmuch as those\nabout Patroclus were well covered by their shields, and held their\nspears in front of them, for Ajax had given them strict orders that no\nman was either to give ground, or to stand out before the others, but\nall were to hold well together about the body and fight hand to hand.\nThus did huge Ajax bid them, and the earth ran red with blood as the\ncorpses fell thick on one another alike on the side of the Trojans and\nallies, and on that of the Danaans; for these last, too, fought no\nbloodless fight though many fewer of them perished, through the care\nthey took to defend and stand by one another.\n\nThus did they fight as it were a flaming fire; it seemed as though it\nhad gone hard even with the sun and moon, for they were hidden over all\nthat part where the bravest heroes were fighting about the dead son of\nMenoetius, whereas the other Danaans and Achaeans fought at their ease\nin full daylight with brilliant sunshine all round them, and there was\nnot a cloud to be seen neither on plain nor mountain. These last\nmoreover would rest for a while and leave off fighting, for they were\nsome distance apart and beyond the range of one another's weapons,\nwhereas those who were in the thick of the fray suffered both from\nbattle and darkness. All the best of them were being worn out by the\ngreat weight of their armour, but the two valiant heroes, Thrasymedes\nand Antilochus, had not yet heard of the death of Patroclus, and\nbelieved him to be still alive and leading the van against the Trojans;\nthey were keeping themselves in reserve against the death or rout of\ntheir own comrades, for so Nestor had ordered when he sent them from\nthe ships into battle.\n\nThus through the livelong day did they wage fierce war, and the sweat\nof their toil rained ever on their legs under them, and on their hands\nand eyes, as they fought over the squire of the fleet son of Peleus. It\nwas as when a man gives a great ox-hide all drenched in fat to his men,\nand bids them stretch it; whereon they stand round it in a ring and tug\ntill the moisture leaves it, and the fat soaks in for the many that\npull at it, and it is well stretched--even so did the two sides tug the\ndead body hither and thither within the compass of but a little\nspace--the Trojans steadfastly set on dragging it into Ilius, while the\nAchaeans were no less so on taking it to their ships; and fierce was\nthe fight between them. Not Mars himself the lord of hosts, nor yet\nMinerva, even in their fullest fury could make light of such a battle.\n\nSuch fearful turmoil of men and horses did Jove on that day ordain\nround the body of Patroclus. Meanwhile Achilles did not know that he\nhad fallen, for the fight was under the wall of Troy a long way off the\nships. He had no idea, therefore, that Patroclus was dead, and deemed\nthat he would return alive as soon as he had gone close up to the\ngates. He knew that he was not to sack the city neither with nor\nwithout himself, for his mother had often told him this when he had sat\nalone with her, and she had informed him of the counsels of great Jove.\nNow, however, she had not told him how great a disaster had befallen\nhim in the death of the one who was far dearest to him of all his\ncomrades.\n\nThe others still kept on charging one another round the body with their\npointed spears and killing each other. Then would one say, \"My friends,\nwe can never again show our faces at the ships--better, and greatly\nbetter, that earth should open and swallow us here in this place, than\nthat we should let the Trojans have the triumph of bearing off\nPatroclus to their city.\"\n\nThe Trojans also on their part spoke to one another saying, \"Friends,\nthough we fall to a man beside this body, let none shrink from\nfighting.\" With such words did they exhort each other. They fought and\nfought, and an iron clank rose through the void air to the brazen vault\nof heaven. The horses of the descendant of Aeacus stood out of the\nfight and wept when they heard that their driver had been laid low by\nthe hand of murderous Hector. Automedon, valiant son of Diores, lashed\nthem again and again; many a time did he speak kindly to them, and many\na time did he upbraid them, but they would neither go back to the ships\nby the waters of the broad Hellespont, nor yet into battle among the\nAchaeans; they stood with their chariot stock still, as a pillar set\nover the tomb of some dead man or woman, and bowed their heads to the\nground. Hot tears fell from their eyes as they mourned the loss of\ntheir charioteer, and their noble manes drooped all wet from under the\nyokestraps on either side the yoke.\n\nThe son of Saturn saw them and took pity upon their sorrow. He wagged\nhis head, and muttered to himself, saying, \"Poor things, why did we\ngive you to King Peleus who is a mortal, while you are yourselves\nageless and immortal? Was it that you might share the sorrows that\nbefall mankind? for of all creatures that live and move upon the earth\nthere is none so pitiable as he is--still, Hector son of Priam shall\ndrive neither you nor your chariot. I will not have it. It is enough\nthat he should have the armour over which he vaunts so vainly.\nFurthermore I will give you strength of heart and limb to bear\nAutomedon safely to the ships from battle, for I shall let the Trojans\ntriumph still further, and go on killing till they reach the ships;\nwhereon night shall fall and darkness overshadow the land.\"\n\nAs he spoke he breathed heart and strength into the horses so that they\nshook the dust from out of their manes, and bore their chariot swiftly\ninto the fight that raged between Trojans and Achaeans. Behind them\nfought Automedon full of sorrow for his comrade, as a vulture amid a\nflock of geese. In and out, and here and there, full speed he dashed\namid the throng of the Trojans, but for all the fury of his pursuit he\nkilled no man, for he could not wield his spear and keep his horses in\nhand when alone in the chariot; at last, however, a comrade, Alcimedon,\nson of Laerces son of Haemon caught sight of him and came up behind his\nchariot. \"Automedon,\" said he, \"what god has put this folly into your\nheart and robbed you of your right mind, that you fight the Trojans in\nthe front rank single-handed? He who was your comrade is slain, and\nHector plumes himself on being armed in the armour of the descendant of\nAeacus.\"\n\nAutomedon son of Diores answered, \"Alcimedon, there is no one else who\ncan control and guide the immortal steeds so well as you can, save only\nPatroclus--while he was alive--peer of gods in counsel. Take then the\nwhip and reins, while I go down from the car and fight.\"\n\nAlcimedon sprang on to the chariot, and caught up the whip and reins,\nwhile Automedon leaped from off the car. When Hector saw him he said to\nAeneas who was near him, \"Aeneas, counsellor of the mail-clad Trojans,\nI see the steeds of the fleet son of Aeacus come into battle with weak\nhands to drive them. I am sure, if you think well, that we might take\nthem; they will not dare face us if we both attack them.\"\n\nThe valiant son of Anchises was of the same mind, and the pair went\nright on, with their shoulders covered under shields of tough dry\nox-hide, overlaid with much bronze. Chromius and Aretus went also with\nthem, and their hearts beat high with hope that they might kill the men\nand capture the horses--fools that they were, for they were not to\nreturn scatheless from their meeting with Automedon, who prayed to\nfather Jove and was forthwith filled with courage and strength\nabounding. He turned to his trusty comrade Alcimedon and said,\n\"Alcimedon, keep your horses so close up that I may feel their breath\nupon my back; I doubt that we shall not stay Hector son of Priam till\nhe has killed us and mounted behind the horses; he will then either\nspread panic among the ranks of the Achaeans, or himself be killed\namong the foremost.\"\n\nOn this he cried out to the two Ajaxes and Menelaus, \"Ajaxes captains\nof the Argives, and Menelaus, give the dead body over to them that are\nbest able to defend it, and come to the rescue of us living; for Hector\nand Aeneas who are the two best men among the Trojans, are pressing us\nhard in the full tide of war. Nevertheless the issue lies on the lap of\nheaven, I will therefore hurl my spear and leave the rest to Jove.\"\n\nHe poised and hurled as he spoke, whereon the spear struck the round\nshield of Aretus, and went right through it for the shield stayed it\nnot, so that it was driven through his belt into the lower part of his\nbelly. As when some sturdy youth, axe in hand, deals his blow behind\nthe horns of an ox and severs the tendons at the back of its neck so\nthat it springs forward and then drops, even so did Aretus give one\nbound and then fall on his back the spear quivering in his body till it\nmade an end of him. Hector then aimed a spear at Automedon but he saw\nit coming and stooped forward to avoid it, so that it flew past him and\nthe point stuck in the ground, while the butt-end went on quivering\ntill Mars robbed it of its force. They would then have fought hand to\nhand with swords had not the two Ajaxes forced their way through the\ncrowd when they heard their comrade calling, and parted them for all\ntheir fury--for Hector, Aeneas, and Chromius were afraid and drew back,\nleaving Aretus to lie there struck to the heart. Automedon, peer of\nfleet Mars, then stripped him of his armour and vaunted over him\nsaying, \"I have done little to assuage my sorrow for the son of\nMenoetius, for the man I have killed is not so good as he was.\"\n\nAs he spoke he took the blood-stained spoils and laid them upon his\nchariot; then he mounted the car with his hands and feet all steeped in\ngore as a lion that has been gorging upon a bull.\n\nAnd now the fierce groanful fight again raged about Patroclus, for\nMinerva came down from heaven and roused its fury by the command of\nfar-seeing Jove, who had changed his mind and sent her to encourage the\nDanaans. As when Jove bends his bright bow in heaven in token to\nmankind either of war or of the chill storms that stay men from their\nlabour and plague the flocks--even so, wrapped in such radiant raiment,\ndid Minerva go in among the host and speak man by man to each. First\nshe took the form and voice of Phoenix and spoke to Menelaus son of\nAtreus, who was standing near her. \"Menelaus,\" said she, \"it will be\nshame and dishonour to you, if dogs tear the noble comrade of Achilles\nunder the walls of Troy. Therefore be staunch, and urge your men to be\nso also.\"\n\nMenelaus answered, \"Phoenix, my good old friend, may Minerva vouchsafe\nme strength and keep the darts from off me, for so shall I stand by\nPatroclus and defend him; his death has gone to my heart, but Hector is\nas a raging fire and deals his blows without ceasing, for Jove is now\ngranting him a time of triumph.\"\n\nMinerva was pleased at his having named herself before any of the other\ngods. Therefore she put strength into his knees and shoulders, and made\nhim as bold as a fly, which, though driven off will yet come again and\nbite if it can, so dearly does it love man's blood--even so bold as\nthis did she make him as he stood over Patroclus and threw his spear.\nNow there was among the Trojans a man named Podes, son of Eetion, who\nwas both rich and valiant. Hector held him in the highest honour for he\nwas his comrade and boon companion; the spear of Menelaus struck this\nman in the girdle just as he had turned in flight, and went right\nthrough him. Whereon he fell heavily forward, and Menelaus son of\nAtreus drew off his body from the Trojans into the ranks of his own\npeople.\n\nApollo then went up to Hector and spurred him on to fight, in the\nlikeness of Phaenops son of Asius who lived in Abydos and was the most\nfavoured of all Hector's guests. In his likeness Apollo said, \"Hector,\nwho of the Achaeans will fear you henceforward now that you have\nquailed before Menelaus who has ever been rated poorly as a soldier?\nYet he has now got a corpse away from the Trojans single-handed, and\nhas slain your own true comrade, a man brave among the foremost, Podes\nson of Eetion.\"\n\nA dark cloud of grief fell upon Hector as he heard, and he made his way\nto the front clad in full armour. Thereon the son of Saturn seized his\nbright tasselled aegis, and veiled Ida in cloud: he sent forth his\nlightnings and his thunders, and as he shook his aegis he gave victory\nto the Trojans and routed the Achaeans.\n\nThe panic was begun by Peneleos the Boeotian, for while keeping his\nface turned ever towards the foe he had been hit with a spear on the\nupper part of the shoulder; a spear thrown by Polydamas had grazed the\ntop of the bone, for Polydamas had come up to him and struck him from\nclose at hand. Then Hector in close combat struck Leitus son of noble\nAlectryon in the hand by the wrist, and disabled him from fighting\nfurther. He looked about him in dismay, knowing that never again should\nhe wield spear in battle with the Trojans. While Hector was in pursuit\nof Leitus, Idomeneus struck him on the breastplate over his chest near\nthe nipple; but the spear broke in the shaft, and the Trojans cheered\naloud. Hector then aimed at Idomeneus son of Deucalion as he was\nstanding on his chariot, and very narrowly missed him, but the spear\nhit Coiranus, a follower and charioteer of Meriones who had come with\nhim from Lyctus. Idomeneus had left the ships on foot and would have\nafforded a great triumph to the Trojans if Coiranus had not driven\nquickly up to him, he therefore brought life and rescue to Idomeneus,\nbut himself fell by the hand of murderous Hector. For Hector hit him on\nthe jaw under the ear; the end of the spear drove out his teeth and cut\nhis tongue in two pieces, so that he fell from his chariot and let the\nreins fall to the ground. Meriones gathered them up from the ground and\ntook them into his own hands, then he said to Idomeneus, \"Lay on, till\nyou get back to the ships, for you must see that the day is no longer\nours.\"\n\nOn this Idomeneus lashed the horses to the ships, for fear had taken\nhold upon him.\n\nAjax and Menelaus noted how Jove had turned the scale in favour of the\nTrojans, and Ajax was first to speak. \"Alas,\" said he, \"even a fool may\nsee that father Jove is helping the Trojans. All their weapons strike\nhome; no matter whether it be a brave man or a coward that hurls them,\nJove speeds all alike, whereas ours fall each one of them without\neffect. What, then, will be best both as regards rescuing the body, and\nour return to the joy of our friends who will be grieving as they look\nhitherwards; for they will make sure that nothing can now check the\nterrible hands of Hector, and that he will fling himself upon our\nships. I wish that some one would go and tell the son of Peleus at\nonce, for I do not think he can have yet heard the sad news that the\ndearest of his friends has fallen. But I can see not a man among the\nAchaeans to send, for they and their chariots are alike hidden in\ndarkness. O father Jove, lift this cloud from over the sons of the\nAchaeans; make heaven serene, and let us see; if you will that we\nperish, let us fall at any rate by daylight.\"\n\nFather Jove heard him and had compassion upon his tears. Forthwith he\nchased away the cloud of darkness, so that the sun shone out and all\nthe fighting was revealed. Ajax then said to Menelaus, \"Look, Menelaus,\nand if Antilochus son of Nestor be still living, send him at once to\ntell Achilles that by far the dearest to him of all his comrades has\nfallen.\"\n\nMenelaus heeded his words and went his way as a lion from a\nstockyard--the lion is tired of attacking the men and hounds, who keep\nwatch the whole night through and will not let him feast on the fat of\ntheir herd. In his lust of meat he makes straight at them but in vain,\nfor darts from strong hands assail him, and burning brands which daunt\nhim for all his hunger, so in the morning he slinks sulkily away--even\nso did Menelaus sorely against his will leave Patroclus, in great fear\nlest the Achaeans should be driven back in rout and let him fall into\nthe hands of the foe. He charged Meriones and the two Ajaxes straitly\nsaying, \"Ajaxes and Meriones, leaders of the Argives, now indeed\nremember how good Patroclus was; he was ever courteous while alive,\nbear it in mind now that he is dead.\"\n\nWith this Menelaus left them, looking round him as keenly as an eagle,\nwhose sight they say is keener than that of any other bird--however\nhigh he may be in the heavens, not a hare that runs can escape him by\ncrouching under bush or thicket, for he will swoop down upon it and\nmake an end of it--even so, O Menelaus, did your keen eyes range round\nthe mighty host of your followers to see if you could find the son of\nNestor still alive. Presently Menelaus saw him on the extreme left of\nthe battle cheering on his men and exhorting them to fight boldly.\nMenelaus went up to him and said, \"Antilochus, come here and listen to\nsad news, which I would indeed were untrue. You must see with your own\neyes that heaven is heaping calamity upon the Danaans, and giving\nvictory to the Trojans. Patroclus has fallen, who was the bravest of\nthe Achaeans, and sorely will the Danaans miss him. Run instantly to\nthe ships and tell Achilles, that he may come to rescue the body and\nbear it to the ships. As for the armour, Hector already has it.\"\n\nAntilochus was struck with horror. For a long time he was speechless;\nhis eyes filled with tears and he could find no utterance, but he did\nas Menelaus had said, and set off running as soon as he had given his\narmour to a comrade, Laodocus, who was wheeling his horses round, close\nbeside him.\n\nThus, then, did he run weeping from the field, to carry the bad news to\nAchilles son of Peleus. Nor were you, O Menelaus, minded to succour his\nharassed comrades, when Antilochus had left the Pylians--and greatly\ndid they miss him--but he sent them noble Thrasymedes, and himself went\nback to Patroclus. He came running up to the two Ajaxes and said, \"I\nhave sent Antilochus to the ships to tell Achilles, but rage against\nHector as he may, he cannot come, for he cannot fight without armour.\nWhat then will be our best plan both as regards rescuing the dead, and\nour own escape from death amid the battle-cries of the Trojans?\"\n\nAjax answered, \"Menelaus, you have said well: do you, then, and\nMeriones stoop down, raise the body, and bear it out of the fray, while\nwe two behind you keep off Hector and the Trojans, one in heart as in\nname, and long used to fighting side by side with one another.\"\n\nOn this Menelaus and Meriones took the dead man in their arms and\nlifted him high aloft with a great effort. The Trojan host raised a hue\nand cry behind them when they saw the Achaeans bearing the body away,\nand flew after them like hounds attacking a wounded boar at the loo of\na band of young huntsmen. For a while the hounds fly at him as though\nthey would tear him in pieces, but now and again he turns on them in a\nfury, scaring and scattering them in all directions--even so did the\nTrojans for a while charge in a body, striking with sword and with\nspears pointed at both the ends, but when the two Ajaxes faced them and\nstood at bay, they would turn pale and no man dared press on to fight\nfurther about the dead.\n\nIn this wise did the two heroes strain every nerve to bear the body to\nthe ships out of the fight. The battle raged round them like fierce\nflames that when once kindled spread like wildfire over a city, and the\nhouses fall in the glare of its burning--even such was the roar and\ntramp of men and horses that pursued them as they bore Patroclus from\nthe field. Or as mules that put forth all their strength to draw some\nbeam or great piece of ship's timber down a rough mountain-track, and\nthey pant and sweat as they go--even so did Menelaus and pant and sweat\nas they bore the body of Patroclus. Behind them the two Ajaxes held\nstoutly out. As some wooded mountain-spur that stretches across a plain\nwill turn water and check the flow even of a great river, nor is there\nany stream strong enough to break through it--even so did the two\nAjaxes face the Trojans and stem the tide of their fighting though they\nkept pouring on towards them and foremost among them all was Aeneas son\nof Anchises with valiant Hector. As a flock of daws or starlings fall\nto screaming and chattering when they see a falcon, foe to all small\nbirds, come soaring near them, even so did the Achaean youth raise a\nbabel of cries as they fled before Aeneas and Hector, unmindful of\ntheir former prowess. In the rout of the Danaans much goodly armour\nfell round about the trench, and of fighting there was no end.\n\n\n\nBOOK XVIII\n\n  The grief of Achilles over Patroclus--The visit of Thetis\n  to Vulcan and the armour that he made for Achilles.\n\nTHUS then did they fight as it were a flaming fire. Meanwhile the fleet\nrunner Antilochus, who had been sent as messenger, reached Achilles,\nand found him sitting by his tall ships and boding that which was\nindeed too surely true. \"Alas,\" said he to himself in the heaviness of\nhis heart, \"why are the Achaeans again scouring the plain and flocking\ntowards the ships? Heaven grant the gods be not now bringing that\nsorrow upon me of which my mother Thetis spoke, saying that while I was\nyet alive the bravest of the Myrmidons should fall before the Trojans,\nand see the light of the sun no longer. I fear the brave son of\nMenoetius has fallen through his own daring and yet I bade him return\nto the ships as soon as he had driven back those that were bringing\nfire against them, and not join battle with Hector.\"\n\nAs he was thus pondering, the son of Nestor came up to him and told his\nsad tale, weeping bitterly the while. \"Alas,\" he cried, \"son of noble\nPeleus, I bring you bad tidings, would indeed that they were untrue.\nPatroclus has fallen, and a fight is raging about his naked body--for\nHector holds his armour.\"\n\nA dark cloud of grief fell upon Achilles as he listened. He filled both\nhands with dust from off the ground, and poured it over his head,\ndisfiguring his comely face, and letting the refuse settle over his\nshirt so fair and new. He flung himself down all huge and hugely at\nfull length, and tore his hair with his hands. The bondswomen whom\nAchilles and Patroclus had taken captive screamed aloud for grief,\nbeating their breasts, and with their limbs failing them for sorrow.\nAntilochus bent over him the while, weeping and holding both his hands\nas he lay groaning for he feared that he might plunge a knife into his\nown throat. Then Achilles gave a loud cry and his mother heard him as\nshe was sitting in the depths of the sea by the old man her father,\nwhereon she screamed, and all the goddesses daughters of Nereus that\ndwelt at the bottom of the sea, came gathering round her. There were\nGlauce, Thalia and Cymodoce, Nesaia, Speo, Thoe and dark-eyed Halie,\nCymothoe, Actaea and Limnorea, Melite, Iaera, Amphithoe and Agave, Doto\nand Proto, Pherusa and Dynamene, Dexamene, Amphinome and Callianeira,\nDoris, Panope, and the famous sea-nymph Galatea, Nemertes, Apseudes and\nCallianassa. There were also Clymene, Ianeira and Ianassa, Maera,\nOreithuia and Amatheia of the lovely locks, with other Nereids who\ndwell in the depths of the sea. The crystal cave was filled with their\nmultitude and they all beat their breasts while Thetis led them in\ntheir lament.\n\n\"Listen,\" she cried, \"sisters, daughters of Nereus, that you may hear\nthe burden of my sorrows. Alas, woe is me, woe in that I have borne the\nmost glorious of offspring. I bore him fair and strong, hero among\nheroes, and he shot up as a sapling; I tended him as a plant in a\ngoodly garden, and sent him with his ships to Ilius to fight the\nTrojans, but never shall I welcome him back to the house of Peleus. So\nlong as he lives to look upon the light of the sun he is in heaviness,\nand though I go to him I cannot help him. Nevertheless I will go, that\nI may see my dear son and learn what sorrow has befallen him though he\nis still holding aloof from battle.\"\n\nShe left the cave as she spoke, while the others followed weeping\nafter, and the waves opened a path before them. When they reached the\nrich plain of Troy, they came up out of the sea in a long line on to\nthe sands, at the place where the ships of the Myrmidons were drawn up\nin close order round the tents of Achilles. His mother went up to him\nas he lay groaning; she laid her hand upon his head and spoke\npiteously, saying, \"My son, why are you thus weeping? What sorrow has\nnow befallen you? Tell me; hide it not from me. Surely Jove has granted\nyou the prayer you made him, when you lifted up your hands and besought\nhim that the Achaeans might all of them be pent up at their ships, and\nrue it bitterly in that you were no longer with them.\"\n\nAchilles groaned and answered, \"Mother, Olympian Jove has indeed\nvouchsafed me the fulfilment of my prayer, but what boots it to me,\nseeing that my dear comrade Patroclus has fallen--he whom I valued more\nthan all others, and loved as dearly as my own life? I have lost him;\naye, and Hector when he had killed him stripped the wondrous armour, so\nglorious to behold, which the gods gave to Peleus when they laid you in\nthe couch of a mortal man. Would that you were still dwelling among the\nimmortal sea-nymphs, and that Peleus had taken to himself some mortal\nbride. For now you shall have grief infinite by reason of the death of\nthat son whom you can never welcome home--nay, I will not live nor go\nabout among mankind unless Hector fall by my spear, and thus pay me for\nhaving slain Patroclus son of Menoetius.\"\n\nThetis wept and answered, \"Then, my son, is your end near at hand--for\nyour own death awaits you full soon after that of Hector.\"\n\nThen said Achilles in his great grief, \"I would die here and now, in\nthat I could not save my comrade. He has fallen far from home, and in\nhis hour of need my hand was not there to help him. What is there for\nme? Return to my own land I shall not, and I have brought no saving\nneither to Patroclus nor to my other comrades of whom so many have been\nslain by mighty Hector; I stay here by my ships a bootless burden upon\nthe earth, I, who in fight have no peer among the Achaeans, though in\ncouncil there are better than I. Therefore, perish strife both from\namong gods and men, and anger, wherein even a righteous man will harden\nhis heart--which rises up in the soul of a man like smoke, and the\ntaste thereof is sweeter than drops of honey. Even so has Agamemnon\nangered me. And yet--so be it, for it is over; I will force my soul\ninto subjection as I needs must; I will go; I will pursue Hector who\nhas slain him whom I loved so dearly, and will then abide my doom when\nit may please Jove and the other gods to send it. Even Hercules, the\nbest beloved of Jove--even he could not escape the hand of death, but\nfate and Juno's fierce anger laid him low, as I too shall lie when I am\ndead if a like doom awaits me. Till then I will win fame, and will bid\nTrojan and Dardanian women wring tears from their tender cheeks with\nboth their hands in the grievousness of their great sorrow; thus shall\nthey know that he who has held aloof so long will hold aloof no longer.\nHold me not back, therefore, in the love you bear me, for you shall not\nmove me.\"\n\nThen silver-footed Thetis answered, \"My son, what you have said is\ntrue. It is well to save your comrades from destruction, but your\narmour is in the hands of the Trojans; Hector bears it in triumph upon\nhis own shoulders. Full well I know that his vaunt shall not be\nlasting, for his end is close at hand; go not, however, into the press\nof battle till you see me return hither; to-morrow at break of day I\nshall be here, and will bring you goodly armour from King Vulcan.\"\n\nOn this she left her brave son, and as she turned away she said to the\nsea-nymphs her sisters, \"Dive into the bosom of the sea and go to the\nhouse of the old sea-god my father. Tell him everything; as for me, I\nwill go to the cunning workman Vulcan on high Olympus, and ask him to\nprovide my son with a suit of splendid armour.\"\n\nWhen she had so said, they dived forthwith beneath the waves, while\nsilver-footed Thetis went her way that she might bring the armour for\nher son.\n\nThus, then, did her feet bear the goddess to Olympus, and meanwhile the\nAchaeans were flying with loud cries before murderous Hector till they\nreached the ships and the Hellespont, and they could not draw the body\nof Mars's servant Patroclus out of reach of the weapons that were\nshowered upon him, for Hector son of Priam with his host and horsemen\nhad again caught up to him like the flame of a fiery furnace; thrice\ndid brave Hector seize him by the feet, striving with might and main to\ndraw him away and calling loudly on the Trojans, and thrice did the two\nAjaxes, clothed in valour as with a garment, beat him from off the\nbody; but all undaunted he would now charge into the thick of the\nfight, and now again he would stand still and cry aloud, but he would\ngive no ground. As upland shepherds that cannot chase some famished\nlion from a carcase, even so could not the two Ajaxes scare Hector son\nof Priam from the body of Patroclus.\n\nAnd now he would even have dragged it off and have won imperishable\nglory, had not Iris fleet as the wind, winged her way as messenger from\nOlympus to the son of Peleus and bidden him arm. She came secretly\nwithout the knowledge of Jove and of the other gods, for Juno sent her,\nand when she had got close to him she said, \"Up, son of Peleus,\nmightiest of all mankind; rescue Patroclus about whom this fearful\nfight is now raging by the ships. Men are killing one another, the\nDanaans in defence of the dead body, while the Trojans are trying to\nhale it away, and take it to windy Ilius: Hector is the most furious of\nthem all; he is for cutting the head from the body and fixing it on the\nstakes of the wall. Up, then, and bide here no longer; shrink from the\nthought that Patroclus may become meat for the dogs of Troy. Shame on\nyou, should his body suffer any kind of outrage.\"\n\nAnd Achilles said, \"Iris, which of the gods was it that sent you to me?\"\n\nIris answered, \"It was Juno the royal spouse of Jove, but the son of\nSaturn does not know of my coming, nor yet does any other of the\nimmortals who dwell on the snowy summits of Olympus.\"\n\nThen fleet Achilles answered her saying, \"How can I go up into the\nbattle? They have my armour. My mother forbade me to arm till I should\nsee her come, for she promised to bring me goodly armour from Vulcan; I\nknow no man whose arms I can put on, save only the shield of Ajax son\nof Telamon, and he surely must be fighting in the front rank and\nwielding his spear about the body of dead Patroclus.\"\n\nIris said, \"We know that your armour has been taken, but go as you are;\ngo to the deep trench and show yourself before the Trojans, that they\nmay fear you and cease fighting. Thus will the fainting sons of the\nAchaeans gain some brief breathing-time, which in battle may hardly be.\"\n\nIris left him when she had so spoken. But Achilles dear to Jove arose,\nand Minerva flung her tasselled aegis round his strong shoulders; she\ncrowned his head with a halo of golden cloud from which she kindled a\nglow of gleaming fire. As the smoke that goes up into heaven from some\ncity that is being beleaguered on an island far out at sea--all day\nlong do men sally from the city and fight their hardest, and at the\ngoing down of the sun the line of beacon-fires blazes forth, flaring\nhigh for those that dwell near them to behold, if so be that they may\ncome with their ships and succour them--even so did the light flare\nfrom the head of Achilles, as he stood by the trench, going beyond the\nwall--but he did not join the Achaeans for he heeded the charge which\nhis mother laid upon him.\n\nThere did he stand and shout aloud. Minerva also raised her voice from\nafar, and spread terror unspeakable among the Trojans. Ringing as the\nnote of a trumpet that sounds alarm then the foe is at the gates of a\ncity, even so brazen was the voice of the son of Aeacus, and when the\nTrojans heard its clarion tones they were dismayed; the horses turned\nback with their chariots for they boded mischief, and their drivers\nwere awe-struck by the steady flame which the grey-eyed goddess had\nkindled above the head of the great son of Peleus.\n\nThrice did Achilles raise his loud cry as he stood by the trench, and\nthrice were the Trojans and their brave allies thrown into confusion;\nwhereon twelve of their noblest champions fell beneath the wheels of\ntheir chariots and perished by their own spears. The Achaeans to their\ngreat joy then drew Patroclus out of reach of the weapons, and laid him\non a litter: his comrades stood mourning round him, and among them\nfleet Achilles who wept bitterly as he saw his true comrade lying dead\nupon his bier. He had sent him out with horses and chariots into\nbattle, but his return he was not to welcome.\n\nThen Juno sent the busy sun, loth though he was, into the waters of\nOceanus; so he set, and the Achaeans had rest from the tug and turmoil\nof war.\n\nNow the Trojans when they had come out of the fight, unyoked their\nhorses and gathered in assembly before preparing their supper. They\nkept their feet, nor would any dare to sit down, for fear had fallen\nupon them all because Achilles had shown himself after having held\naloof so long from battle. Polydamas son of Panthous was first to\nspeak, a man of judgement, who alone among them could look both before\nand after. He was comrade to Hector, and they had been born upon the\nsame night; with all sincerity and goodwill, therefore, he addressed\nthem thus:--\n\n\"Look to it well, my friends; I would urge you to go back now to your\ncity and not wait here by the ships till morning, for we are far from\nour walls. So long as this man was at enmity with Agamemnon the\nAchaeans were easier to deal with, and I would have gladly camped by\nthe ships in the hope of taking them; but now I go in great fear of the\nfleet son of Peleus; he is so daring that he will never bide here on\nthe plain whereon the Trojans and Achaeans fight with equal valour, but\nhe will try to storm our city and carry off our women. Do then as I\nsay, and let us retreat. For this is what will happen. The darkness of\nnight will for a time stay the son of Peleus, but if he find us here in\nthe morning when he sallies forth in full armour, we shall have\nknowledge of him in good earnest. Glad indeed will he be who can escape\nand get back to Ilius, and many a Trojan will become meat for dogs and\nvultures may I never live to hear it. If we do as I say, little though\nwe may like it, we shall have strength in counsel during the night, and\nthe great gates with the doors that close them will protect the city.\nAt dawn we can arm and take our stand on the walls; he will then rue it\nif he sallies from the ships to fight us. He will go back when he has\ngiven his horses their fill of being driven all whithers under our\nwalls, and will be in no mind to try and force his way into the city.\nNeither will he ever sack it, dogs shall devour him ere he do so.\"\n\nHector looked fiercely at him and answered, \"Polydamas, your words are\nnot to my liking in that you bid us go back and be pent within the\ncity. Have you not had enough of being cooped up behind walls? In the\nold-days the city of Priam was famous the whole world over for its\nwealth of gold and bronze, but our treasures are wasted out of our\nhouses, and much goods have been sold away to Phrygia and fair Meonia,\nfor the hand of Jove has been laid heavily upon us. Now, therefore,\nthat the son of scheming Saturn has vouchsafed me to win glory here and\nto hem the Achaeans in at their ships, prate no more in this fool's\nwise among the people. You will have no man with you; it shall not be;\ndo all of you as I now say;--take your suppers in your companies\nthroughout the host, and keep your watches and be wakeful every man of\nyou. If any Trojan is uneasy about his possessions, let him gather them\nand give them out among the people. Better let these, rather than the\nAchaeans, have them. At daybreak we will arm and fight about the ships;\ngranted that Achilles has again come forward to defend them, let it be\nas he will, but it shall go hard with him. I shall not shun him, but\nwill fight him, to fall or conquer. The god of war deals out like\nmeasure to all, and the slayer may yet be slain.\"\n\nThus spoke Hector; and the Trojans, fools that they were, shouted in\napplause, for Pallas Minerva had robbed them of their understanding.\nThey gave ear to Hector with his evil counsel, but the wise words of\nPolydamas no man would heed. They took their supper throughout the\nhost, and meanwhile through the whole night the Achaeans mourned\nPatroclus, and the son of Peleus led them in their lament. He laid his\nmurderous hands upon the breast of his comrade, groaning again and\nagain as a bearded lion when a man who was chasing deer has robbed him\nof his young in some dense forest; when the lion comes back he is\nfurious, and searches dingle and dell to track the hunter if he can\nfind him, for he is mad with rage--even so with many a sigh did\nAchilles speak among the Myrmidons saying, \"Alas! vain were the words\nwith which I cheered the hero Menoetius in his own house; I said that I\nwould bring his brave son back again to Opoeis after he had sacked\nIlius and taken his share of the spoils--but Jove does not give all men\ntheir heart's desire. The same soil shall be reddened here at Troy by\nthe blood of us both, for I too shall never be welcomed home by the old\nknight Peleus, nor by my mother Thetis, but even in this place shall\nthe earth cover me. Nevertheless, O Patroclus, now that I am left\nbehind you, I will not bury you, till I have brought hither the head\nand armour of mighty Hector who has slain you. Twelve noble sons of\nTrojans will I behead before your bier to avenge you; till I have done\nso you shall lie as you are by the ships, and fair women of Troy and\nDardanus, whom we have taken with spear and strength of arm when we\nsacked men's goodly cities, shall weep over you both night and day.\"\n\nThen Achilles told his men to set a large tripod upon the fire that\nthey might wash the clotted gore from off Patroclus. Thereon they set a\ntripod full of bath water on to a clear fire: they threw sticks on to\nit to make it blaze, and the water became hot as the flame played about\nthe belly of the tripod. When the water in the cauldron was boiling\nthey washed the body, anointed it with oil, and closed its wounds with\nointment that had been kept nine years. Then they laid it on a bier and\ncovered it with a linen cloth from head to foot, and over this they\nlaid a fair white robe. Thus all night long did the Myrmidons gather\nround Achilles to mourn Patroclus.\n\nThen Jove said to Juno his sister-wife, \"So, Queen Juno, you have\ngained your end, and have roused fleet Achilles. One would think that\nthe Achaeans were of your own flesh and blood.\"\n\nAnd Juno answered, \"Dread son of Saturn, why should you say this thing?\nMay not a man though he be only mortal and knows less than we do, do\nwhat he can for another person? And shall not I--foremost of all\ngoddesses both by descent and as wife to you who reign in\nheaven--devise evil for the Trojans if I am angry with them?\"\n\nThus did they converse. Meanwhile Thetis came to the house of Vulcan,\nimperishable, star-bespangled, fairest of the abodes in heaven, a house\nof bronze wrought by the lame god's own hands. She found him busy with\nhis bellows, sweating and hard at work, for he was making twenty\ntripods that were to stand by the wall of his house, and he set wheels\nof gold under them all that they might go of their own selves to the\nassemblies of the gods, and come back again--marvels indeed to see.\nThey were finished all but the ears of cunning workmanship which yet\nremained to be fixed to them: these he was now fixing, and he was\nhammering at the rivets. While he was thus at work silver-footed Thetis\ncame to the house. Charis, of graceful head-dress, wife to the\nfar-famed lame god, came towards her as soon as she saw her, and took\nher hand in her own, saying, \"Why have you come to our house, Thetis,\nhonoured and ever welcome--for you do not visit us often? Come inside\nand let me set refreshment before you.\"\n\nThe goddess led the way as she spoke, and bade Thetis sit on a richly\ndecorated seat inlaid with silver; there was a footstool also under her\nfeet. Then she called Vulcan and said, \"Vulcan, come here, Thetis wants\nyou\"; and the far-famed lame god answered, \"Then it is indeed an august\nand honoured goddess who has come here; she it was that took care of me\nwhen I was suffering from the heavy fall which I had through my cruel\nmother's anger--for she would have got rid of me because I was lame. It\nwould have gone hardly with me had not Eurynome, daughter of the\never-encircling waters of Oceanus, and Thetis, taken me to their bosom.\nNine years did I stay with them, and many beautiful works in bronze,\nbrooches, spiral armlets, cups, and chains, did I make for them in\ntheir cave, with the roaring waters of Oceanus foaming as they rushed\never past it; and no one knew, neither of gods nor men, save only\nThetis and Eurynome who took care of me. If, then, Thetis has come to\nmy house I must make her due requital for having saved me; entertain\nher, therefore, with all hospitality, while I put by my bellows and all\nmy tools.\"\n\nOn this the mighty monster hobbled off from his anvil, his thin legs\nplying lustily under him. He set the bellows away from the fire, and\ngathered his tools into a silver chest. Then he took a sponge and\nwashed his face and hands, his shaggy chest and brawny neck; he donned\nhis shirt, grasped his strong staff, and limped towards the door. There\nwere golden handmaids also who worked for him, and were like real young\nwomen, with sense and reason, voice also and strength, and all the\nlearning of the immortals; these busied themselves as the king bade\nthem, while he drew near to Thetis, seated her upon a goodly seat, and\ntook her hand in his own, saying, \"Why have you come to our house,\nThetis honoured and ever welcome--for you do not visit us often? Say\nwhat you want, and I will do it for you at once if I can, and if it can\nbe done at all.\"\n\nThetis wept and answered, \"Vulcan, is there another goddess in Olympus\nwhom the son of Saturn has been pleased to try with so much affliction\nas he has me? Me alone of the marine goddesses did he make subject to a\nmortal husband, Peleus son of Aeacus, and sorely against my will did I\nsubmit to the embraces of one who was but mortal, and who now stays at\nhome worn out with age. Neither is this all. Heaven vouchsafed me a\nson, hero among heroes, and he shot up as a sapling. I tended him as a\nplant in a goodly garden and sent him with his ships to Ilius to fight\nthe Trojans, but never shall I welcome him back to the house of Peleus.\nSo long as he lives to look upon the light of the sun, he is in\nheaviness, and though I go to him I cannot help him; King Agamemnon has\nmade him give up the maiden whom the sons of the Achaeans had awarded\nhim, and he wastes with sorrow for her sake. Then the Trojans hemmed\nthe Achaeans in at their ships' sterns and would not let them come\nforth; the elders, therefore, of the Argives besought Achilles and\noffered him great treasure, whereon he refused to bring deliverance to\nthem himself, but put his own armour on Patroclus and sent him into the\nfight with much people after him. All day long they fought by the\nScaean gates and would have taken the city there and then, had not\nApollo vouchsafed glory to Hector and slain the valiant son of\nMenoetius after he had done the Trojans much evil. Therefore I am\nsuppliant at your knees if haply you may be pleased to provide my son,\nwhose end is near at hand, with helmet and shield, with goodly greaves\nfitted with ancle-clasps, and with a breastplate, for he lost his own\nwhen his true comrade fell at the hands of the Trojans, and he now lies\nstretched on earth in the bitterness of his soul.\"\n\nAnd Vulcan answered, \"Take heart, and be no more disquieted about this\nmatter; would that I could hide him from death's sight when his hour is\ncome, so surely as I can find him armour that shall amaze the eyes of\nall who behold it.\"\n\nWhen he had so said he left her and went to his bellows, turning them\ntowards the fire and bidding them do their office. Twenty bellows blew\nupon the melting-pots, and they blew blasts of every kind, some fierce\nto help him when he had need of them, and others less strong as Vulcan\nwilled it in the course of his work. He threw tough copper into the\nfire, and tin, with silver and gold; he set his great anvil on its\nblock, and with one hand grasped his mighty hammer while he took the\ntongs in the other.\n\nFirst he shaped the shield so great and strong, adorning it all over\nand binding it round with a gleaming circuit in three layers; and the\nbaldric was made of silver. He made the shield in five thicknesses, and\nwith many a wonder did his cunning hand enrich it.\n\nHe wrought the earth, the heavens, and the sea; the moon also at her\nfull and the untiring sun, with all the signs that glorify the face of\nheaven--the Pleiads, the Hyads, huge Orion, and the Bear, which men\nalso call the Wain and which turns round ever in one place, facing\nOrion, and alone never dips into the stream of Oceanus.\n\nHe wrought also two cities, fair to see and busy with the hum of men.\nIn the one were weddings and wedding-feasts, and they were going about\nthe city with brides whom they were escorting by torchlight from their\nchambers. Loud rose the cry of Hymen, and the youths danced to the\nmusic of flute and lyre, while the women stood each at her house door\nto see them.\n\nMeanwhile the people were gathered in assembly, for there was a\nquarrel, and two men were wrangling about the blood-money for a man who\nhad been killed, the one saying before the people that he had paid\ndamages in full, and the other that he had not been paid. Each was\ntrying to make his own case good, and the people took sides, each man\nbacking the side that he had taken; but the heralds kept them back, and\nthe elders sate on their seats of stone in a solemn circle, holding the\nstaves which the heralds had put into their hands. Then they rose and\neach in his turn gave judgement, and there were two talents laid down,\nto be given to him whose judgement should be deemed the fairest.\n\nAbout the other city there lay encamped two hosts in gleaming armour,\nand they were divided whether to sack it, or to spare it and accept the\nhalf of what it contained. But the men of the city would not yet\nconsent, and armed themselves for a surprise; their wives and little\nchildren kept guard upon the walls, and with them were the men who were\npast fighting through age; but the others sallied forth with Mars and\nPallas Minerva at their head--both of them wrought in gold and clad in\ngolden raiment, great and fair with their armour as befitting gods,\nwhile they that followed were smaller. When they reached the place\nwhere they would lay their ambush, it was on a riverbed to which live\nstock of all kinds would come from far and near to water; here, then,\nthey lay concealed, clad in full armour. Some way off them there were\ntwo scouts who were on the look-out for the coming of sheep or cattle,\nwhich presently came, followed by two shepherds who were playing on\ntheir pipes, and had not so much as a thought of danger. When those who\nwere in ambush saw this, they cut off the flocks and herds and killed\nthe shepherds. Meanwhile the besiegers, when they heard much noise\namong the cattle as they sat in council, sprang to their horses, and\nmade with all speed towards them; when they reached them they set\nbattle in array by the banks of the river, and the hosts aimed their\nbronze-shod spears at one another. With them were Strife and Riot, and\nfell Fate who was dragging three men after her, one with a fresh wound,\nand the other unwounded, while the third was dead, and she was dragging\nhim along by his heel: and her robe was bedrabbled in men's blood. They\nwent in and out with one another and fought as though they were living\npeople haling away one another's dead.\n\nHe wrought also a fair fallow field, large and thrice ploughed already.\nMany men were working at the plough within it, turning their oxen to\nand fro, furrow after furrow. Each time that they turned on reaching\nthe headland a man would come up to them and give them a cup of wine,\nand they would go back to their furrows looking forward to the time\nwhen they should again reach the headland. The part that they had\nploughed was dark behind them, so that the field, though it was of\ngold, still looked as if it were being ploughed--very curious to behold.\n\nHe wrought also a field of harvest corn, and the reapers were reaping\nwith sharp sickles in their hands. Swathe after swathe fell to the\nground in a straight line behind them, and the binders bound them in\nbands of twisted straw. There were three binders, and behind them there\nwere boys who gathered the cut corn in armfuls and kept on bringing\nthem to be bound: among them all the owner of the land stood by in\nsilence and was glad. The servants were getting a meal ready under an\noak, for they had sacrificed a great ox, and were busy cutting him up,\nwhile the women were making a porridge of much white barley for the\nlabourers' dinner.\n\nHe wrought also a vineyard, golden and fair to see, and the vines were\nloaded with grapes. The bunches overhead were black, but the vines were\ntrained on poles of silver. He ran a ditch of dark metal all round it,\nand fenced it with a fence of tin; there was only one path to it, and\nby this the vintagers went when they would gather the vintage. Youths\nand maidens all blithe and full of glee, carried the luscious fruit in\nplaited baskets; and with them there went a boy who made sweet music\nwith his lyre, and sang the Linos-song with his clear boyish voice.\n\nHe wrought also a herd of horned cattle. He made the cows of gold and\ntin, and they lowed as they came full speed out of the yards to go and\nfeed among the waving reeds that grow by the banks of the river. Along\nwith the cattle there went four shepherds, all of them in gold, and\ntheir nine fleet dogs went with them. Two terrible lions had fastened\non a bellowing bull that was with the foremost cows, and bellow as he\nmight they haled him, while the dogs and men gave chase: the lions tore\nthrough the bull's thick hide and were gorging on his blood and bowels,\nbut the herdsmen were afraid to do anything, and only hounded on their\ndogs; the dogs dared not fasten on the lions but stood by barking and\nkeeping out of harm's way.\n\nThe god wrought also a pasture in a fair mountain dell, and a large\nflock of sheep, with a homestead and huts, and sheltered sheepfolds.\n\nFurthermore he wrought a green, like that which Daedalus once made in\nCnossus for lovely Ariadne. Hereon there danced youths and maidens whom\nall would woo, with their hands on one another's wrists. The maidens\nwore robes of light linen, and the youths well woven shirts that were\nslightly oiled. The girls were crowned with garlands, while the young\nmen had daggers of gold that hung by silver baldrics; sometimes they\nwould dance deftly in a ring with merry twinkling feet, as it were a\npotter sitting at his work and making trial of his wheel to see whether\nit will run, and sometimes they would go all in line with one another,\nand much people was gathered joyously about the green. There was a bard\nalso to sing to them and play his lyre, while two tumblers went about\nperforming in the midst of them when the man struck up with his tune.\n\nAll round the outermost rim of the shield he set the mighty stream of\nthe river Oceanus.\n\nThen when he had fashioned the shield so great and strong, he made a\nbreastplate also that shone brighter than fire. He made a helmet, close\nfitting to the brow, and richly worked, with a golden plume overhanging\nit; and he made greaves also of beaten tin.\n\nLastly, when the famed lame god had made all the armour, he took it and\nset it before the mother of Achilles; whereon she darted like a falcon\nfrom the snowy summits of Olympus and bore away the gleaming armour\nfrom the house of Vulcan.\n\n\n\nBOOK XIX\n\n  Achilles is reconciled with Agamemnon, puts on the armour\n  which Vulcan had made him, and goes out to fight.\n\nNOW when Dawn in robe of saffron was hasting from the streams of\nOceanus, to bring light to mortals and immortals, Thetis reached the\nships with the armour that the god had given her. She found her son\nfallen about the body of Patroclus and weeping bitterly. Many also of\nhis followers were weeping round him, but when the goddess came among\nthem she clasped his hand in her own, saying, \"My son, grieve as we may\nwe must let this man lie, for it is by heaven's will that he has\nfallen; now, therefore, accept from Vulcan this rich and goodly armour,\nwhich no man has ever yet borne upon his shoulders.\"\n\nAs she spoke she set the armour before Achilles, and it rang out\nbravely as she did so. The Myrmidons were struck with awe, and none\ndared look full at it, for they were afraid; but Achilles was roused to\nstill greater fury, and his eyes gleamed with a fierce light, for he\nwas glad when he handled the splendid present which the god had made\nhim. Then, as soon as he had satisfied himself with looking at it, he\nsaid to his mother, \"Mother, the god has given me armour, meet\nhandiwork for an immortal and such as no-one living could have\nfashioned; I will now arm, but I much fear that flies will settle upon\nthe son of Menoetius and breed worms about his wounds, so that his\nbody, now he is dead, will be disfigured and the flesh will rot.\"\n\nSilver-footed Thetis answered, \"My son, be not disquieted about this\nmatter. I will find means to protect him from the swarms of noisome\nflies that prey on the bodies of men who have been killed in battle. He\nmay lie for a whole year, and his flesh shall still be as sound as\never, or even sounder. Call, therefore, the Achaean heroes in assembly;\nunsay your anger against Agamemnon; arm at once, and fight with might\nand main.\"\n\nAs she spoke she put strength and courage into his heart, and she then\ndropped ambrosia and red nectar into the wounds of Patroclus, that his\nbody might suffer no change.\n\nThen Achilles went out upon the seashore, and with a loud cry called on\nthe Achaean heroes. On this even those who as yet had stayed always at\nthe ships, the pilots and helmsmen, and even the stewards who were\nabout the ships and served out rations, all came to the place of\nassembly because Achilles had shown himself after having held aloof so\nlong from fighting. Two sons of Mars, Ulysses and the son of Tydeus,\ncame limping, for their wounds still pained them; nevertheless they\ncame, and took their seats in the front row of the assembly. Last of\nall came Agamemnon, king of men, he too wounded, for Coon son of\nAntenor had struck him with a spear in battle.\n\nWhen the Achaeans were got together Achilles rose and said, \"Son of\nAtreus, surely it would have been better alike for both you and me,\nwhen we two were in such high anger about Briseis, surely it would have\nbeen better, had Diana's arrow slain her at the ships on the day when I\ntook her after having sacked Lyrnessus. For so, many an Achaean the\nless would have bitten dust before the foe in the days of my anger. It\nhas been well for Hector and the Trojans, but the Achaeans will long\nindeed remember our quarrel. Now, however, let it be, for it is over.\nIf we have been angry, necessity has schooled our anger. I put it from\nme: I dare not nurse it for ever; therefore, bid the Achaeans arm\nforthwith that I may go out against the Trojans, and learn whether they\nwill be in a mind to sleep by the ships or no. Glad, I ween, will he be\nto rest his knees who may fly my spear when I wield it.\"\n\nThus did he speak, and the Achaeans rejoiced in that he had put away\nhis anger.\n\nThen Agamemnon spoke, rising in his place, and not going into the\nmiddle of the assembly. \"Danaan heroes,\" said he, \"servants of Mars, it\nis well to listen when a man stands up to speak, and it is not seemly\nto interrupt him, or it will go hard even with a practised speaker. Who\ncan either hear or speak in an uproar? Even the finest orator will be\ndisconcerted by it. I will expound to the son of Peleus, and do you\nother Achaeans heed me and mark me well. Often have the Achaeans spoken\nto me of this matter and upbraided me, but it was not I that did it:\nJove, and Fate, and Erinys that walks in darkness struck me mad when we\nwere assembled on the day that I took from Achilles the meed that had\nbeen awarded to him. What could I do? All things are in the hand of\nheaven, and Folly, eldest of Jove's daughters, shuts men's eyes to\ntheir destruction. She walks delicately, not on the solid earth, but\nhovers over the heads of men to make them stumble or to ensnare them.\n\n\"Time was when she fooled Jove himself, who they say is greatest\nwhether of gods or men; for Juno, woman though she was, beguiled him on\nthe day when Alcmena was to bring forth mighty Hercules in the fair\ncity of Thebes. He told it out among the gods saying, 'Hear me, all\ngods and goddesses, that I may speak even as I am minded; this day\nshall an Ilithuia, helper of women who are in labour, bring a man child\ninto the world who shall be lord over all that dwell about him who are\nof my blood and lineage.' Then said Juno all crafty and full of guile,\n'You will play false, and will not hold to your word. Swear me, O\nOlympian, swear me a great oath, that he who shall this day fall\nbetween the feet of a woman, shall be lord over all that dwell about\nhim who are of your blood and lineage.'\n\n\"Thus she spoke, and Jove suspected her not, but swore the great oath,\nto his much ruing thereafter. For Juno darted down from the high summit\nof Olympus, and went in haste to Achaean Argos where she knew that the\nnoble wife of Sthenelus son of Perseus then was. She being with child\nand in her seventh month, Juno brought the child to birth though there\nwas a month still wanting, but she stayed the offspring of Alcmena, and\nkept back the Ilithuiae. Then she went to tell Jove the son of Saturn,\nand said, 'Father Jove, lord of the lightning--I have a word for your\near. There is a fine child born this day, Eurystheus, son to Sthenelus\nthe son of Perseus; he is of your lineage; it is well, therefore, that\nhe should reign over the Argives.'\n\n\"On this Jove was stung to the very quick, and in his rage he caught\nFolly by the hair, and swore a great oath that never should she again\ninvade starry heaven and Olympus, for she was the bane of all. Then he\nwhirled her round with a twist of his hand, and flung her down from\nheaven so that she fell on to the fields of mortal men; and he was ever\nangry with her when he saw his son groaning under the cruel labours\nthat Eurystheus laid upon him. Even so did I grieve when mighty Hector\nwas killing the Argives at their ships, and all the time I kept\nthinking of Folly who had so baned me. I was blind, and Jove robbed me\nof my reason; I will now make atonement, and will add much treasure by\nway of amends. Go, therefore, into battle, you and your people with\nyou. I will give you all that Ulysses offered you yesterday in your\ntents: or if it so please you, wait, though you would fain fight at\nonce, and my squires shall bring the gifts from my ship, that you may\nsee whether what I give you is enough.\"\n\nAnd Achilles answered, \"Son of Atreus, king of men Agamemnon, you can\ngive such gifts as you think proper, or you can withhold them: it is in\nyour own hands. Let us now set battle in array; it is not well to tarry\ntalking about trifles, for there is a deed which is as yet to do.\nAchilles shall again be seen fighting among the foremost, and laying\nlow the ranks of the Trojans: bear this in mind each one of you when he\nis fighting.\"\n\nThen Ulysses said, \"Achilles, godlike and brave, send not the Achaeans\nthus against Ilius to fight the Trojans fasting, for the battle will be\nno brief one, when it is once begun, and heaven has filled both sides\nwith fury; bid them first take food both bread and wine by the ships,\nfor in this there is strength and stay. No man can do battle the\nlivelong day to the going down of the sun if he is without food;\nhowever much he may want to fight his strength will fail him before he\nknows it; hunger and thirst will find him out, and his limbs will grow\nweary under him. But a man can fight all day if he is full fed with\nmeat and wine; his heart beats high, and his strength will stay till he\nhas routed all his foes; therefore, send the people away and bid them\nprepare their meal; King Agamemnon will bring out the gifts in presence\nof the assembly, that all may see them and you may be satisfied.\nMoreover let him swear an oath before the Argives that he has never\ngone up into the couch of Briseis, nor been with her after the manner\nof men and women; and do you, too, show yourself of a gracious mind;\nlet Agamemnon entertain you in his tents with a feast of\nreconciliation, that so you may have had your dues in full. As for you,\nson of Atreus, treat people more righteously in future; it is no\ndisgrace even to a king that he should make amends if he was wrong in\nthe first instance.\"\n\nAnd King Agamemnon answered, \"Son of Laertes, your words please me\nwell, for throughout you have spoken wisely. I will swear as you would\nhave me do; I do so of my own free will, neither shall I take the name\nof heaven in vain. Let, then, Achilles wait, though he would fain fight\nat once, and do you others wait also, till the gifts come from my tent\nand we ratify the oath with sacrifice. Thus, then, do I charge you:\ntake some noble young Achaeans with you, and bring from my tents the\ngifts that I promised yesterday to Achilles, and bring the women also;\nfurthermore let Talthybius find me a boar from those that are with the\nhost, and make it ready for sacrifice to Jove and to the sun.\"\n\nThen said Achilles, \"Son of Atreus, king of men Agamemnon, see to these\nmatters at some other season, when there is breathing time and when I\nam calmer. Would you have men eat while the bodies of those whom Hector\nson of Priam slew are still lying mangled upon the plain? Let the sons\nof the Achaeans, say I, fight fasting and without food, till we have\navenged them; afterwards at the going down of the sun let them eat\ntheir fill. As for me, Patroclus is lying dead in my tent, all hacked\nand hewn, with his feet to the door, and his comrades are mourning\nround him. Therefore I can take thought of nothing save only slaughter\nand blood and the rattle in the throat of the dying.\"\n\nUlysses answered, \"Achilles, son of Peleus, mightiest of all the\nAchaeans, in battle you are better than I, and that more than a little,\nbut in counsel I am much before you, for I am older and of greater\nknowledge. Therefore be patient under my words. Fighting is a thing of\nwhich men soon surfeit, and when Jove, who is war's steward, weighs the\nupshot, it may well prove that the straw which our sickles have reaped\nis far heavier than the grain. It may not be that the Achaeans should\nmourn the dead with their bellies; day by day men fall thick and\nthreefold continually; when should we have respite from our sorrow? Let\nus mourn our dead for a day and bury them out of sight and mind, but\nlet those of us who are left eat and drink that we may arm and fight\nour foes more fiercely. In that hour let no man hold back, waiting for\na second summons; such summons shall bode ill for him who is found\nlagging behind at our ships; let us rather sally as one man and loose\nthe fury of war upon the Trojans.\"\n\nWhen he had thus spoken he took with him the sons of Nestor, with Meges\nson of Phyleus, Thoas, Meriones, Lycomedes son of Creontes, and\nMelanippus, and went to the tent of Agamemnon son of Atreus. The word\nwas not sooner said than the deed was done: they brought out the seven\ntripods which Agamemnon had promised, with the twenty metal cauldrons\nand the twelve horses; they also brought the women skilled in useful\narts, seven in number, with Briseis, which made eight. Ulysses weighed\nout the ten talents of gold and then led the way back, while the young\nAchaeans brought the rest of the gifts, and laid them in the middle of\nthe assembly.\n\nAgamemnon then rose, and Talthybius whose voice was like that of a god\ncame to him with the boar. The son of Atreus drew the knife which he\nwore by the scabbard of his mighty sword, and began by cutting off some\nbristles from the boar, lifting up his hands in prayer as he did so.\nThe other Achaeans sat where they were all silent and orderly to hear\nthe king, and Agamemnon looked into the vault of heaven and prayed\nsaying, \"I call Jove the first and mightiest of all gods to witness, I\ncall also Earth and Sun and the Erinyes who dwell below and take\nvengeance on him who shall swear falsely, that I have laid no hand upon\nthe girl Briseis, neither to take her to my bed nor otherwise, but that\nshe has remained in my tents inviolate. If I swear falsely may heaven\nvisit me with all the penalties which it metes out to those who perjure\nthemselves.\"\n\nHe cut the boar's throat as he spoke, whereon Talthybius whirled it\nround his head, and flung it into the wide sea to feed the fishes. Then\nAchilles also rose and said to the Argives, \"Father Jove, of a truth\nyou blind men's eyes and bane them. The son of Atreus had not else\nstirred me to so fierce an anger, nor so stubbornly taken Briseis from\nme against my will. Surely Jove must have counselled the destruction of\nmany an Argive. Go, now, and take your food that we may begin fighting.\"\n\nOn this he broke up the assembly, and every man went back to his own\nship. The Myrmidons attended to the presents and took them away to the\nship of Achilles. They placed them in his tents, while the stable-men\ndrove the horses in among the others.\n\nBriseis, fair as Venus, when she saw the mangled body of Patroclus,\nflung herself upon it and cried aloud, tearing her breast, her neck,\nand her lovely face with both her hands. Beautiful as a goddess she\nwept and said, \"Patroclus, dearest friend, when I went hence I left you\nliving; I return, O prince, to find you dead; thus do fresh sorrows\nmultiply upon me one after the other. I saw him to whom my father and\nmother married me, cut down before our city, and my three own dear\nbrothers perished with him on the self-same day; but you, Patroclus,\neven when Achilles slew my husband and sacked the city of noble Mynes,\ntold me that I was not to weep, for you said you would make Achilles\nmarry me, and take me back with him to Phthia, we should have a wedding\nfeast among the Myrmidons. You were always kind to me and I shall never\ncease to grieve for you.\"\n\nShe wept as she spoke, and the women joined in her lament-making as\nthough their tears were for Patroclus, but in truth each was weeping\nfor her own sorrows. The elders of the Achaeans gathered round Achilles\nand prayed him to take food, but he groaned and would not do so. \"I\npray you,\" said he, \"if any comrade will hear me, bid me neither eat\nnor drink, for I am in great heaviness, and will stay fasting even to\nthe going down of the sun.\"\n\nOn this he sent the other princes away, save only the two sons of\nAtreus and Ulysses, Nestor, Idomeneus, and the knight Phoenix, who\nstayed behind and tried to comfort him in the bitterness of his sorrow:\nbut he would not be comforted till he should have flung himself into\nthe jaws of battle, and he fetched sigh on sigh, thinking ever of\nPatroclus. Then he said--\n\n\"Hapless and dearest comrade, you it was who would get a good dinner\nready for me at once and without delay when the Achaeans were hasting\nto fight the Trojans; now, therefore, though I have meat and drink in\nmy tents, yet will I fast for sorrow. Grief greater than this I could\nnot know, not even though I were to hear of the death of my father, who\nis now in Phthia weeping for the loss of me his son, who am here\nfighting the Trojans in a strange land for the accursed sake of Helen,\nnor yet though I should hear that my son is no more--he who is being\nbrought up in Scyros--if indeed Neoptolemus is still living. Till now I\nmade sure that I alone was to fall here at Troy away from Argos, while\nyou were to return to Phthia, bring back my son with you in your own\nship, and show him all my property, my bondsmen, and the greatness of\nmy house--for Peleus must surely be either dead, or what little life\nremains to him is oppressed alike with the infirmities of age and ever\npresent fear lest he should hear the sad tidings of my death.\"\n\nHe wept as he spoke, and the elders sighed in concert as each thought\non what he had left at home behind him. The son of Saturn looked down\nwith pity upon them, and said presently to Minerva, \"My child, you have\nquite deserted your hero; is he then gone so clean out of your\nrecollection? There he sits by the ships all desolate for the loss of\nhis dear comrade, and though the others are gone to their dinner he\nwill neither eat nor drink. Go then and drop nectar and ambrosia into\nhis breast, that he may know no hunger.\"\n\nWith these words he urged Minerva, who was already of the same mind.\nShe darted down from heaven into the air like some falcon sailing on\nhis broad wings and screaming. Meanwhile the Achaeans were arming\nthroughout the host, and when Minerva had dropped nectar and ambrosia\ninto Achilles so that no cruel hunger should cause his limbs to fail\nhim, she went back to the house of her mighty father. Thick as the\nchill snow-flakes shed from the hand of Jove and borne on the keen\nblasts of the north wind, even so thick did the gleaming helmets, the\nbossed shields, the strongly plated breastplates, and the ashen spears\nstream from the ships. The sheen pierced the sky, the whole land was\nradiant with their flashing armour, and the sound of the tramp of their\ntreading rose from under their feet. In the midst of them all Achilles\nput on his armour; he gnashed his teeth, his eyes gleamed like fire,\nfor his grief was greater than he could bear. Thus, then, full of fury\nagainst the Trojans, did he don the gift of the god, the armour that\nVulcan had made him.\n\nFirst he put on the goodly greaves fitted with ancle-clasps, and next\nhe did on the breastplate about his chest. He slung the silver-studded\nsword of bronze about his shoulders, and then took up the shield so\ngreat and strong that shone afar with a splendour as of the moon. As\nthe light seen by sailors from out at sea, when men have lit a fire in\ntheir homestead high up among the mountains, but the sailors are\ncarried out to sea by wind and storm far from the haven where they\nwould be--even so did the gleam of Achilles' wondrous shield strike up\ninto the heavens. He lifted the redoubtable helmet, and set it upon his\nhead, from whence it shone like a star, and the golden plumes which\nVulcan had set thick about the ridge of the helmet, waved all around\nit. Then Achilles made trial of himself in his armour to see whether it\nfitted him, so that his limbs could play freely under it, and it seemed\nto buoy him up as though it had been wings.\n\nHe also drew his father's spear out of the spear-stand, a spear so\ngreat and heavy and strong that none of the Achaeans save only Achilles\nhad strength to wield it; this was the spear of Pelian ash from the\ntopmost ridges of Mt. Pelion, which Chiron had once given to Peleus,\nfraught with the death of heroes. Automedon and Alcimus busied\nthemselves with the harnessing of his horses; they made the bands fast\nabout them, and put the bit in their mouths, drawing the reins back\ntowards the chariot. Automedon, whip in hand, sprang up behind the\nhorses, and after him Achilles mounted in full armour, resplendent as\nthe sun-god Hyperion. Then with a loud voice he chided with his\nfather's horses saying, \"Xanthus and Balius, famed offspring of\nPodarge--this time when we have done fighting be sure and bring your\ndriver safely back to the host of the Achaeans, and do not leave him\ndead on the plain as you did Patroclus.\"\n\nThen fleet Xanthus answered under the yoke--for white-armed Juno had\nendowed him with human speech--and he bowed his head till his mane\ntouched the ground as it hung down from under the yoke-band. \"Dread\nAchilles,\" said he, \"we will indeed save you now, but the day of your\ndeath is near, and the blame will not be ours, for it will be heaven\nand stern fate that will destroy you. Neither was it through any sloth\nor slackness on our part that the Trojans stripped Patroclus of his\narmour; it was the mighty god whom lovely Leto bore that slew him as he\nfought among the foremost, and vouchsafed a triumph to Hector. We two\ncan fly as swiftly as Zephyrus who they say is fleetest of all winds;\nnevertheless it is your doom to fall by the hand of a man and of a god.\"\n\nWhen he had thus said the Erinyes stayed his speech, and Achilles\nanswered him in great sadness, saying, \"Why, O Xanthus, do you thus\nforetell my death? You need not do so, for I well know that I am to\nfall here, far from my dear father and mother; none the more, however,\nshall I stay my hand till I have given the Trojans their fill of\nfighting.\"\n\nSo saying, with a loud cry he drove his horses to the front.\n\n\n\nBOOK XX\n\n  The gods hold a council and determine to watch the fight, from\n  the hill Callicolone, and the barrow of Hercules--A fight\n  between Achilles and AEneas is interrupted by Neptune, who\n  saves AEneas--Achilles kills many Trojans.\n\nTHUS, then, did the Achaeans arm by their ships round you, O son of\nPeleus, who were hungering for battle; while the Trojans over against\nthem armed upon the rise of the plain.\n\nMeanwhile Jove from the top of many-delled Olympus, bade Themis gather\nthe gods in council, whereon she went about and called them to the\nhouse of Jove. There was not a river absent except Oceanus, nor a\nsingle one of the nymphs that haunt fair groves, or springs of rivers\nand meadows of green grass. When they reached the house of\ncloud-compelling Jove, they took their seats in the arcades of polished\nmarble which Vulcan with his consummate skill had made for father Jove.\n\nIn such wise, therefore, did they gather in the house of Jove. Neptune\nalso, lord of the earthquake, obeyed the call of the goddess, and came\nup out of the sea to join them. There, sitting in the midst of them, he\nasked what Jove's purpose might be. \"Why,\" said he, \"wielder of the\nlightning, have you called the gods in council? Are you considering\nsome matter that concerns the Trojans and Achaeans--for the blaze of\nbattle is on the point of being kindled between them?\"\n\nAnd Jove answered, \"You know my purpose, shaker of earth, and wherefore\nI have called you hither. I take thought for them even in their\ndestruction. For my own part I shall stay here seated on Mt. Olympus\nand look on in peace, but do you others go about among Trojans and\nAchaeans, and help either side as you may be severally disposed. If\nAchilles fights the Trojans without hindrance they will make no stand\nagainst him; they have ever trembled at the sight of him, and now that\nhe is roused to such fury about his comrade, he will override fate\nitself and storm their city.\"\n\nThus spoke Jove and gave the word for war, whereon the gods took their\nseveral sides and went into battle. Juno, Pallas Minerva,\nearth-encircling Neptune, Mercury bringer of good luck and excellent in\nall cunning--all these joined the host that came from the ships; with\nthem also came Vulcan in all his glory, limping, but yet with his thin\nlegs plying lustily under him. Mars of gleaming helmet joined the\nTrojans, and with him Apollo of locks unshorn, and the archer goddess\nDiana, Leto, Xanthus, and laughter-loving Venus.\n\nSo long as the gods held themselves aloof from mortal warriors the\nAchaeans were triumphant, for Achilles who had long refused to fight\nwas now with them. There was not a Trojan but his limbs failed him for\nfear as he beheld the fleet son of Peleus all glorious in his armour,\nand looking like Mars himself. When, however, the Olympians came to\ntake their part among men, forthwith uprose strong Strife, rouser of\nhosts, and Minerva raised her loud voice, now standing by the deep\ntrench that ran outside the wall, and now shouting with all her might\nupon the shore of the sounding sea. Mars also bellowed out upon the\nother side, dark as some black thunder-cloud, and called on the Trojans\nat the top of his voice, now from the acropolis, and now speeding up\nthe side of the river Simois till he came to the hill Callicolone.\n\nThus did the gods spur on both hosts to fight, and rouse fierce\ncontention also among themselves. The sire of gods and men thundered\nfrom heaven above, while from beneath Neptune shook the vast earth, and\nbade the high hills tremble. The spurs and crests of many-fountained\nIda quaked, as also the city of the Trojans and the ships of the\nAchaeans. Hades, king of the realms below, was struck with fear; he\nsprang panic-stricken from his throne and cried aloud in terror lest\nNeptune, lord of the earthquake, should crack the ground over his head,\nand lay bare his mouldy mansions to the sight of mortals and\nimmortals--mansions so ghastly grim that even the gods shudder to think\nof them. Such was the uproar as the gods came together in battle.\nApollo with his arrows took his stand to face King Neptune, while\nMinerva took hers against the god of war; the archer-goddess Diana with\nher golden arrows, sister of far-darting Apollo, stood to face Juno;\nMercury the lusty bringer of good luck faced Leto, while the mighty\neddying river whom men can Scamander, but gods Xanthus, matched himself\nagainst Vulcan.\n\nThe gods, then, were thus ranged against one another. But the heart of\nAchilles was set on meeting Hector son of Priam, for it was with his\nblood that he longed above all things else to glut the stubborn lord of\nbattle. Meanwhile Apollo set Aeneas on to attack the son of Peleus, and\nput courage into his heart, speaking with the voice of Lycaon son of\nPriam. In his likeness therefore, he said to Aeneas, \"Aeneas,\ncounsellor of the Trojans, where are now the brave words with which you\nvaunted over your wine before the Trojan princes, saying that you would\nfight Achilles son of Peleus in single combat?\"\n\nAnd Aeneas answered, \"Why do you thus bid me fight the proud son of\nPeleus, when I am in no mind to do so? Were I to face him now, it would\nnot be for the first time. His spear has already put me to flight from\nIda, when he attacked our cattle and sacked Lyrnessus and Pedasus; Jove\nindeed saved me in that he vouchsafed me strength to fly, else had I\nfallen by the hands of Achilles and Minerva, who went before him to\nprotect him and urged him to fall upon the Lelegae and Trojans. No man\nmay fight Achilles, for one of the gods is always with him as his\nguardian angel, and even were it not so, his weapon flies ever\nstraight, and fails not to pierce the flesh of him who is against him;\nif heaven would let me fight him on even terms he should not soon\novercome me, though he boasts that he is made of bronze.\"\n\nThen said King Apollo, son to Jove, \"Nay, hero, pray to the ever-living\ngods, for men say that you were born of Jove's daughter Venus, whereas\nAchilles is son to a goddess of inferior rank. Venus is child to Jove,\nwhile Thetis is but daughter to the old man of the sea. Bring,\ntherefore, your spear to bear upon him, and let him not scare you with\nhis taunts and menaces.\"\n\nAs he spoke he put courage into the heart of the shepherd of his\npeople, and he strode in full armour among the ranks of the foremost\nfighters. Nor did the son of Anchises escape the notice of white-armed\nJuno, as he went forth into the throng to meet Achilles. She called the\ngods about her, and said, \"Look to it, you two, Neptune and Minerva,\nand consider how this shall be; Phoebus Apollo has been sending Aeneas\nclad in full armour to fight Achilles. Shall we turn him back at once,\nor shall one of us stand by Achilles and endow him with strength so\nthat his heart fail not, and he may learn that the chiefs of the\nimmortals are on his side, while the others who have all along been\ndefending the Trojans are but vain helpers? Let us all come down from\nOlympus and join in the fight, that this day he may take no hurt at the\nhands of the Trojans. Hereafter let him suffer whatever fate may have\nspun out for him when he was begotten and his mother bore him. If\nAchilles be not thus assured by the voice of a god, he may come to fear\npresently when one of us meets him in battle, for the gods are terrible\nif they are seen face to face.\"\n\nNeptune lord of the earthquake answered her saying, \"Juno, restrain\nyour fury; it is not well; I am not in favour of forcing the other gods\nto fight us, for the advantage is too greatly on our own side; let us\ntake our places on some hill out of the beaten track, and let mortals\nfight it out among themselves. If Mars or Phoebus Apollo begin\nfighting, or keep Achilles in check so that he cannot fight, we too,\nwill at once raise the cry of battle, and in that case they will soon\nleave the field and go back vanquished to Olympus among the other gods.\"\n\nWith these words the dark-haired god led the way to the high\nearth-barrow of Hercules, built round solid masonry, and made by the\nTrojans and Pallas Minerva for him to fly to when the sea-monster was\nchasing him from the shore on to the plain. Here Neptune and those that\nwere with him took their seats, wrapped in a thick cloud of darkness;\nbut the other gods seated themselves on the brow of Callicolone round\nyou, O Phoebus, and Mars the waster of cities.\n\nThus did the gods sit apart and form their plans, but neither side was\nwilling to begin battle with the other, and Jove from his seat on high\nwas in command over them all. Meanwhile the whole plain was alive with\nmen and horses, and blazing with the gleam of armour. The earth rang\nagain under the tramp of their feet as they rushed towards each other,\nand two champions, by far the foremost of them all, met between the\nhosts to fight--to wit, Aeneas son of Anchises, and noble Achilles.\n\nAeneas was first to stride forward in attack, his doughty helmet\ntossing defiance as he came on. He held his strong shield before his\nbreast, and brandished his bronze spear. The son of Peleus from the\nother side sprang forth to meet him, like some fierce lion that the\nwhole country-side has met to hunt and kill--at first he bodes no ill,\nbut when some daring youth has struck him with a spear, he crouches\nopenmouthed, his jaws foam, he roars with fury, he lashes his tail from\nside to side about his ribs and loins, and glares as he springs\nstraight before him, to find out whether he is to slay, or be slain\namong the foremost of his foes--even with such fury did Achilles burn\nto spring upon Aeneas.\n\nWhen they were now close up with one another Achilles was first to\nspeak. \"Aeneas,\" said he, \"why do you stand thus out before the host to\nfight me? Is it that you hope to reign over the Trojans in the seat of\nPriam? Nay, though you kill me Priam will not hand his kingdom over to\nyou. He is a man of sound judgement, and he has sons of his own. Or\nhave the Trojans been allotting you a demesne of passing richness, fair\nwith orchard lawns and corn lands, if you should slay me? This you\nshall hardly do. I have discomfited you once already. Have you\nforgotten how when you were alone I chased you from your herds\nhelter-skelter down the slopes of Ida? You did not turn round to look\nbehind you; you took refuge in Lyrnessus, but I attacked the city, and\nwith the help of Minerva and father Jove I sacked it and carried its\nwomen into captivity, though Jove and the other gods rescued you. You\nthink they will protect you now, but they will not do so; therefore I\nsay go back into the host, and do not face me, or you will rue it. Even\na fool may be wise after the event.\"\n\nThen Aeneas answered, \"Son of Peleus, think not that your words can\nscare me as though I were a child. I too, if I will, can brag and talk\nunseemly. We know one another's race and parentage as matters of common\nfame, though neither have you ever seen my parents nor I yours. Men say\nthat you are son to noble Peleus, and that your mother is Thetis,\nfair-haired daughter of the sea. I have noble Anchises for my father,\nand Venus for my mother; the parents of one or other of us shall this\nday mourn a son, for it will be more than silly talk that shall part us\nwhen the fight is over. Learn, then, my lineage if you will--and it is\nknown to many.\n\n\"In the beginning Dardanus was the son of Jove, and founded Dardania,\nfor Ilius was not yet stablished on the plain for men to dwell in, and\nher people still abode on the spurs of many-fountained Ida. Dardanus\nhad a son, king Erichthonius, who was wealthiest of all men living; he\nhad three thousand mares that fed by the water-meadows, they and their\nfoals with them. Boreas was enamoured of them as they were feeding, and\ncovered them in the semblance of a dark-maned stallion. Twelve filly\nfoals did they conceive and bear him, and these, as they sped over the\nrich plain, would go bounding on over the ripe ears of corn and not\nbreak them; or again when they would disport themselves on the broad\nback of Ocean they could gallop on the crest of a breaker. Erichthonius\nbegat Tros, king of the Trojans, and Tros had three noble sons, Ilus,\nAssaracus, and Ganymede who was comeliest of mortal men; wherefore the\ngods carried him off to be Jove's cupbearer, for his beauty's sake,\nthat he might dwell among the immortals. Ilus begat Laomedon, and\nLaomedon begat Tithonus, Priam, Lampus, Clytius, and Hiketaon of the\nstock of Mars. But Assaracus was father to Capys, and Capys to\nAnchises, who was my father, while Hector is son to Priam.\n\n\"Such do I declare my blood and lineage, but as for valour, Jove gives\nit or takes it as he will, for he is lord of all. And now let there be\nno more of this prating in mid-battle as though we were children. We\ncould fling taunts without end at one another; a hundred-oared galley\nwould not hold them. The tongue can run all whithers and talk all wise;\nit can go here and there, and as a man says, so shall he be gainsaid.\nWhat is the use of our bandying hard like women who when they fall foul\nof one another go out and wrangle in the streets, one half true and the\nother lies, as rage inspires them? No words of yours shall turn me now\nthat I am fain to fight--therefore let us make trial of one another\nwith our spears.\"\n\nAs he spoke he drove his spear at the great and terrible shield of\nAchilles, which rang out as the point struck it. The son of Peleus held\nthe shield before him with his strong hand, and he was afraid, for he\ndeemed that Aeneas's spear would go through it quite easily, not\nreflecting that the god's glorious gifts were little likely to yield\nbefore the blows of mortal men; and indeed Aeneas's spear did not\npierce the shield, for the layer of gold, gift of the god, stayed the\npoint. It went through two layers, but the god had made the shield in\nfive, two of bronze, the two innermost ones of tin, and one of gold; it\nwas in this that the spear was stayed.\n\nAchilles in his turn threw, and struck the round shield of Aeneas at\nthe very edge, where the bronze was thinnest; the spear of Pelian ash\nwent clean through, and the shield rang under the blow; Aeneas was\nafraid, and crouched backwards, holding the shield away from him; the\nspear, however, flew over his back, and stuck quivering in the ground,\nafter having gone through both circles of the sheltering shield. Aeneas\nthough he had avoided the spear, stood still, blinded with fear and\ngrief because the weapon had gone so near him; then Achilles sprang\nfuriously upon him, with a cry as of death and with his keen blade\ndrawn, and Aeneas seized a great stone, so huge that two men, as men\nnow are, would be unable to lift it, but Aeneas wielded it quite easily.\n\nAeneas would then have struck Achilles as he was springing towards him,\neither on the helmet, or on the shield that covered him, and Achilles\nwould have closed with him and despatched him with his sword, had not\nNeptune lord of the earthquake been quick to mark, and said forthwith\nto the immortals, \"Alas, I am sorry for great Aeneas, who will now go\ndown to the house of Hades, vanquished by the son of Peleus. Fool that\nhe was to give ear to the counsel of Apollo. Apollo will never save him\nfrom destruction. Why should this man suffer when he is guiltless, to\nno purpose, and in another's quarrel? Has he not at all times offered\nacceptable sacrifice to the gods that dwell in heaven? Let us then\nsnatch him from death's jaws, lest the son of Saturn be angry should\nAchilles slay him. It is fated, moreover, that he should escape, and\nthat the race of Dardanus, whom Jove loved above all the sons born to\nhim of mortal women, shall not perish utterly without seed or sign. For\nnow indeed has Jove hated the blood of Priam, while Aeneas shall reign\nover the Trojans, he and his children's children that shall be born\nhereafter.\"\n\nThen answered Juno, \"Earth-shaker, look to this matter yourself, and\nconsider concerning Aeneas, whether you will save him, or suffer him,\nbrave though he be, to fall by the hand of Achilles son of Peleus. For\nof a truth we two, I and Pallas Minerva, have sworn full many a time\nbefore all the immortals, that never would we shield Trojans from\ndestruction, not even when all Troy is burning in the flames that the\nAchaeans shall kindle.\"\n\nWhen earth-encircling Neptune heard this he went into the battle amid\nthe clash of spears, and came to the place where Achilles and Aeneas\nwere. Forthwith he shed a darkness before the eyes of the son of\nPeleus, drew the bronze-headed ashen spear from the shield of Aeneas,\nand laid it at the feet of Achilles. Then he lifted Aeneas on high from\noff the earth and hurried him away. Over the heads of many a band of\nwarriors both horse and foot did he soar as the god's hand sped him,\ntill he came to the very fringe of the battle where the Cauconians were\narming themselves for fight. Neptune, shaker of the earth, then came\nnear to him and said, \"Aeneas, what god has egged you on to this folly\nin fighting the son of Peleus, who is both a mightier man of valour and\nmore beloved of heaven than you are? Give way before him whensoever you\nmeet him, lest you go down to the house of Hades even though fate would\nhave it otherwise. When Achilles is dead you may then fight among the\nforemost undaunted, for none other of the Achaeans shall slay you.\"\n\nThe god left him when he had given him these instructions, and at once\nremoved the darkness from before the eyes of Achilles, who opened them\nwide indeed and said in great anger, \"Alas! what marvel am I now\nbeholding? Here is my spear upon the ground, but I see not him whom I\nmeant to kill when I hurled it. Of a truth Aeneas also must be under\nheaven's protection, although I had thought his boasting was idle. Let\nhim go hang; he will be in no mood to fight me further, seeing how\nnarrowly he has missed being killed. I will now give my orders to the\nDanaans and attack some other of the Trojans.\"\n\nHe sprang forward along the line and cheered his men on as he did so.\n\"Let not the Trojans,\" he cried, \"keep you at arm's length, Achaeans,\nbut go for them and fight them man for man. However valiant I may be, I\ncannot give chase to so many and fight all of them. Even Mars, who is\nan immortal, or Minerva, would shrink from flinging himself into the\njaws of such a fight and laying about him; nevertheless, so far as in\nme lies I will show no slackness of hand or foot nor want of endurance,\nnot even for a moment; I will utterly break their ranks, and woe to the\nTrojan who shall venture within reach of my spear.\"\n\nThus did he exhort them. Meanwhile Hector called upon the Trojans and\ndeclared that he would fight Achilles. \"Be not afraid, proud Trojans,\"\nsaid he, \"to face the son of Peleus; I could fight gods myself if the\nbattle were one of words only, but they would be more than a match for\nme, if we had to use our spears. Even so the deed of Achilles will fall\nsomewhat short of his word; he will do in part, and the other part he\nwill clip short. I will go up against him though his hands be as\nfire--though his hands be fire and his strength iron.\"\n\nThus urged the Trojans lifted up their spears against the Achaeans, and\nraised the cry of battle as they flung themselves into the midst of\ntheir ranks. But Phoebus Apollo came up to Hector and said, \"Hector, on\nno account must you challenge Achilles to single combat; keep a lookout\nfor him while you are under cover of the others and away from the thick\nof the fight, otherwise he will either hit you with a spear or cut you\ndown at close quarters.\"\n\nThus he spoke, and Hector drew back within the crowd, for he was afraid\nwhen he heard what the god had said to him. Achilles then sprang upon\nthe Trojans with a terrible cry, clothed in valour as with a garment.\nFirst he killed Iphition son of Otrynteus, a leader of much people whom\na naiad nymph had borne to Otrynteus waster of cities, in the land of\nHyde under the snowy heights of Mt. Tmolus. Achilles struck him full on\nthe head as he was coming on towards him, and split it clean in two;\nwhereon he fell heavily to the ground and Achilles vaunted over him\nsaying, \"You be low, son of Otrynteus, mighty hero; your death is here,\nbut your lineage is on the Gygaean lake where your father's estate\nlies, by Hyllus, rich in fish, and the eddying waters of Hermus.\"\n\nThus did he vaunt, but darkness closed the eyes of the other. The\nchariots of the Achaeans cut him up as their wheels passed over him in\nthe front of the battle, and after him Achilles killed Demoleon, a\nvaliant man of war and son to Antenor. He struck him on the temple\nthrough his bronze-cheeked helmet. The helmet did not stay the spear,\nbut it went right on, crushing the bone so that the brain inside was\nshed in all directions, and his lust of fighting was ended. Then he\nstruck Hippodamas in the midriff as he was springing down from his\nchariot in front of him, and trying to escape. He breathed his last,\nbellowing like a bull bellows when young men are dragging him to offer\nhim in sacrifice to the King of Helice, and the heart of the\nearth-shaker is glad; even so did he bellow as he lay dying. Achilles\nthen went in pursuit of Polydorus son of Priam, whom his father had\nalways forbidden to fight because he was the youngest of his sons, the\none he loved best, and the fastest runner. He, in his folly and showing\noff the fleetness of his feet, was rushing about among front ranks\nuntil he lost his life, for Achilles struck him in the middle of the\nback as he was darting past him: he struck him just at the golden\nfastenings of his belt and where the two pieces of the double\nbreastplate overlapped. The point of the spear pierced him through and\ncame out by the navel, whereon he fell groaning on to his knees and a\ncloud of darkness overshadowed him as he sank holding his entrails in\nhis hands.\n\nWhen Hector saw his brother Polydorus with his entrails in his hands\nand sinking down upon the ground, a mist came over his eyes, and he\ncould not bear to keep longer at a distance; he therefore poised his\nspear and darted towards Achilles like a flame of fire. When Achilles\nsaw him he bounded forward and vaunted saying, \"This is he that has\nwounded my heart most deeply and has slain my beloved comrade. Not for\nlong shall we two quail before one another on the highways of war.\"\n\nHe looked fiercely on Hector and said, \"Draw near, that you may meet\nyour doom the sooner.\" Hector feared him not and answered, \"Son of\nPeleus, think not that your words can scare me as though I were a\nchild; I too if I will can brag and talk unseemly; I know that you are\na mighty warrior, mightier by far than I, nevertheless the issue lies\nin the lap of heaven whether I, worse man though I be, may not slay you\nwith my spear, for this too has been found keen ere now.\"\n\nHe hurled his spear as he spoke, but Minerva breathed upon it, and\nthough she breathed but very lightly she turned it back from going\ntowards Achilles, so that it returned to Hector and lay at his feet in\nfront of him. Achilles then sprang furiously on him with a loud cry,\nbent on killing him, but Apollo caught him up easily as a god can, and\nhid him in a thick darkness. Thrice did Achilles spring towards him\nspear in hand, and thrice did he waste his blow upon the air. When he\nrushed forward for the fourth time as though he were a god, he shouted\naloud saying, \"Hound, this time too you have escaped death--but of a\ntruth it came exceedingly near you. Phoebus Apollo, to whom it seems\nyou pray before you go into battle, has again saved you; but if I too\nhave any friend among the gods I will surely make an end of you when I\ncome across you at some other time. Now, however, I will pursue and\novertake other Trojans.\"\n\nOn this he struck Dryops with his spear, about the middle of his neck,\nand he fell headlong at his feet. There he let him lie and stayed\nDemouchus son of Philetor, a man both brave and of great stature, by\nhitting him on the knee with a spear; then he smote him with his sword\nand killed him. After this he sprang on Laogonus and Dardanus, sons of\nBias, and threw them from their chariot, the one with a blow from a\nthrown spear, while the other he cut down in hand-to-hand fight. There\nwas also Tros the son of Alastor--he came up to Achilles and clasped\nhis knees in the hope that he would spare him and not kill him but let\nhim go, because they were both of the same age. Fool, he might have\nknown that he should not prevail with him, for the man was in no mood\nfor pity or forbearance but was in grim earnest. Therefore when Tros\nlaid hold of his knees and sought a hearing for his prayers, Achilles\ndrove his sword into his liver, and the liver came rolling out, while\nhis bosom was all covered with the black blood that welled from the\nwound. Thus did death close his eyes as he lay lifeless.\n\nAchilles then went up to Mulius and struck him on the ear with a spear,\nand the bronze spear-head came right out at the other ear. He also\nstruck Echeclus son of Agenor on the head with his sword, which became\nwarm with the blood, while death and stern fate closed the eyes of\nEcheclus. Next in order the bronze point of his spear wounded Deucalion\nin the fore-arm where the sinews of the elbow are united, whereon he\nwaited Achilles' onset with his arm hanging down and death staring him\nin the face. Achilles cut his head off with a blow from his sword and\nflung it helmet and all away from him, and the marrow came oozing out\nof his backbone as he lay. He then went in pursuit of Rhigmus, noble\nson of Peires, who had come from fertile Thrace, and struck him through\nthe middle with a spear which fixed itself in his belly, so that he\nfell headlong from his chariot. He also speared Areithous squire to\nRhigmus in the back as he was turning his horses in flight, and thrust\nhim from his chariot, while the horses were struck with panic.\n\nAs a fire raging in some mountain glen after long drought--and the\ndense forest is in a blaze, while the wind carries great tongues of\nfire in every direction--even so furiously did Achilles rage, wielding\nhis spear as though he were a god, and giving chase to those whom he\nwould slay, till the dark earth ran with blood. Or as one who yokes\nbroad-browed oxen that they may tread barley in a threshing-floor--and\nit is soon bruised small under the feet of the lowing cattle--even so\ndid the horses of Achilles trample on the shields and bodies of the\nslain. The axle underneath and the railing that ran round the car were\nbespattered with clots of blood thrown up by the horses' hoofs, and\nfrom the tyres of the wheels; but the son of Peleus pressed on to win\nstill further glory, and his hands were bedrabbled with gore.\n\n\n\nBOOK XXI\n\n  The fight between Achilles and the river Scamander--The gods\n  fight among themselves--Achilles drives the Trojans within\n  their gates.\n\nNOW when they came to the ford of the full-flowing river Xanthus,\nbegotten of immortal Jove, Achilles cut their forces in two: one half\nhe chased over the plain towards the city by the same way that the\nAchaeans had taken when flying panic-stricken on the preceding day with\nHector in full triumph; this way did they fly pell-mell, and Juno sent\ndown a thick mist in front of them to stay them. The other half were\nhemmed in by the deep silver-eddying stream, and fell into it with a\ngreat uproar. The waters resounded, and the banks rang again, as they\nswam hither and thither with loud cries amid the whirling eddies. As\nlocusts flying to a river before the blast of a grass fire--the flame\ncomes on and on till at last it overtakes them and they huddle into the\nwater--even so was the eddying stream of Xanthus filled with the uproar\nof men and horses, all struggling in confusion before Achilles.\n\nForthwith the hero left his spear upon the bank, leaning it against a\ntamarisk bush, and plunged into the river like a god, armed with his\nsword only. Fell was his purpose as he hewed the Trojans down on every\nside. Their dying groans rose hideous as the sword smote them, and the\nriver ran red with blood. As when fish fly scared before a huge\ndolphin, and fill every nook and corner of some fair haven--for he is\nsure to eat all he can catch--even so did the Trojans cower under the\nbanks of the mighty river, and when Achilles' arms grew weary with\nkilling them, he drew twelve youths alive out of the water, to\nsacrifice in revenge for Patroclus son of Menoetius. He drew them out\nlike dazed fawns, bound their hands behind them with the girdles of\ntheir own shirts, and gave them over to his men to take back to the\nships. Then he sprang into the river, thirsting for still further blood.\n\nThere he found Lycaon, son of Priam seed of Dardanus, as he was\nescaping out of the water; he it was whom he had once taken prisoner\nwhen he was in his father's vineyard, having set upon him by night, as\nhe was cutting young shoots from a wild fig-tree to make the wicker\nsides of a chariot. Achilles then caught him to his sorrow unawares,\nand sent him by sea to Lemnos, where the son of Jason bought him. But a\nguest-friend, Eetion of Imbros, freed him with a great sum, and sent\nhim to Arisbe, whence he had escaped and returned to his father's\nhouse. He had spent eleven days happily with his friends after he had\ncome from Lemnos, but on the twelfth heaven again delivered him into\nthe hands of Achilles, who was to send him to the house of Hades sorely\nagainst his will. He was unarmed when Achilles caught sight of him, and\nhad neither helmet nor shield; nor yet had he any spear, for he had\nthrown all his armour from him on to the bank, and was sweating with\nhis struggles to get out of the river, so that his strength was now\nfailing him.\n\nThen Achilles said to himself in his surprise, \"What marvel do I see\nhere? If this man can come back alive after having been sold over into\nLemnos, I shall have the Trojans also whom I have slain rising from the\nworld below. Could not even the waters of the grey sea imprison him, as\nthey do many another whether he will or no? This time let him taste my\nspear, that I may know for certain whether mother earth who can keep\neven a strong man down, will be able to hold him, or whether thence too\nhe will return.\"\n\nThus did he pause and ponder. But Lycaon came up to him dazed and\ntrying hard to embrace his knees, for he would fain live, not die.\nAchilles thrust at him with his spear, meaning to kill him, but Lycaon\nran crouching up to him and caught his knees, whereby the spear passed\nover his back, and stuck in the ground, hungering though it was for\nblood. With one hand he caught Achilles' knees as he besought him, and\nwith the other he clutched the spear and would not let it go. Then he\nsaid, \"Achilles, have mercy upon me and spare me, for I am your\nsuppliant. It was in your tents that I first broke bread on the day\nwhen you took me prisoner in the vineyard; after which you sold me away\nto Lemnos far from my father and my friends, and I brought you the\nprice of a hundred oxen. I have paid three times as much to gain my\nfreedom; it is but twelve days that I have come to Ilius after much\nsuffering, and now cruel fate has again thrown me into your hands.\nSurely father Jove must hate me, that he has given me over to you a\nsecond time. Short of life indeed did my mother Laothoe bear me,\ndaughter of aged Altes--of Altes who reigns over the warlike Lelegae\nand holds steep Pedasus on the river Satnioeis. Priam married his\ndaughter along with many other women and two sons were born of her,\nboth of whom you will have slain. Your spear slew noble Polydorus as he\nwas fighting in the front ranks, and now evil will here befall me, for\nI fear that I shall not escape you since heaven has delivered me over\nto you. Furthermore I say, and lay my saying to your heart, spare me,\nfor I am not of the same womb as Hector who slew your brave and noble\ncomrade.\"\n\nWith such words did the princely son of Priam beseech Achilles; but\nAchilles answered him sternly. \"Idiot,\" said he, \"talk not to me of\nransom. Until Patroclus fell I preferred to give the Trojans quarter,\nand sold beyond the sea many of those whom I had taken alive; but now\nnot a man shall live of those whom heaven delivers into my hands before\nthe city of Ilius--and of all Trojans it shall fare hardest with the\nsons of Priam. Therefore, my friend, you too shall die. Why should you\nwhine in this way? Patroclus fell, and he was a better man than you\nare. I too--see you not how I am great and goodly? I am son to a noble\nfather, and have a goddess for my mother, but the hands of doom and\ndeath overshadow me all as surely. The day will come, either at dawn or\ndark, or at the noontide, when one shall take my life also in battle,\neither with his spear, or with an arrow sped from his bow.\"\n\nThus did he speak, and Lycaon's heart sank within him. He loosed his\nhold of the spear, and held out both hands before him; but Achilles\ndrew his keen blade, and struck him by the collar-bone on his neck; he\nplunged his two-edged sword into him to the very hilt, whereon he lay\nat full length on the ground, with the dark blood welling from him till\nthe earth was soaked. Then Achilles caught him by the foot and flung\nhim into the river to go down stream, vaunting over him the while, and\nsaying, \"Lie there among the fishes, who will lick the blood from your\nwound and gloat over it; your mother shall not lay you on any bier to\nmourn you, but the eddies of Scamander shall bear you into the broad\nbosom of the sea. There shall the fishes feed on the fat of Lycaon as\nthey dart under the dark ripple of the waters--so perish all of you\ntill we reach the citadel of strong Ilius--you in flight, and I\nfollowing after to destroy you. The river with its broad silver stream\nshall serve you in no stead, for all the bulls you offered him and all\nthe horses that you flung living into his waters. None the less\nmiserably shall you perish till there is not a man of you but has paid\nin full for the death of Patroclus and the havoc you wrought among the\nAchaeans whom you have slain while I held aloof from battle.\"\n\nSo spoke Achilles, but the river grew more and more angry, and pondered\nwithin himself how he should stay the hand of Achilles and save the\nTrojans from disaster. Meanwhile the son of Peleus, spear in hand,\nsprang upon Asteropaeus son of Pelegon to kill him. He was son to the\nbroad river Axius and Periboea eldest daughter of Acessamenus; for the\nriver had lain with her. Asteropaeus stood up out of the water to face\nhim with a spear in either hand, and Xanthus filled him with courage,\nbeing angry for the death of the youths whom Achilles was slaying\nruthlessly within his waters. When they were close up with one another\nAchilles was first to speak. \"Who and whence are you,\" said he, \"who\ndare to face me? Woe to the parents whose son stands up against me.\"\nAnd the son of Pelegon answered, \"Great son of Peleus, why should you\nask my lineage. I am from the fertile land of far Paeonia, captain of\nthe Paeonians, and it is now eleven days that I am at Ilius. I am of\nthe blood of the river Axius--of Axius that is the fairest of all\nrivers that run. He begot the famed warrior Pelegon, whose son men call\nme. Let us now fight, Achilles.\"\n\nThus did he defy him, and Achilles raised his spear of Pelian ash.\nAsteropaeus failed with both his spears, for he could use both hands\nalike; with the one spear he struck Achilles' shield, but did not\npierce it, for the layer of gold, gift of the god, stayed the point;\nwith the other spear he grazed the elbow of Achilles' right arm drawing\ndark blood, but the spear itself went by him and fixed itself in the\nground, foiled of its bloody banquet. Then Achilles, fain to kill him,\nhurled his spear at Asteropaeus, but failed to hit him and struck the\nsteep bank of the river, driving the spear half its length into the\nearth. The son of Peleus then drew his sword and sprang furiously upon\nhim. Asteropaeus vainly tried to draw Achilles' spear out of the bank\nby main force; thrice did he tug at it, trying with all his might to\ndraw it out, and thrice he had to leave off trying; the fourth time he\ntried to bend and break it, but ere he could do so Achilles smote him\nwith his sword and killed him. He struck him in the belly near the\nnavel, so that all his bowels came gushing out on to the ground, and\nthe darkness of death came over him as he lay gasping. Then Achilles\nset his foot on his chest and spoiled him of his armour, vaunting over\nhim and saying, \"Lie there--begotten of a river though you be, it is\nhard for you to strive with the offspring of Saturn's son. You declare\nyourself sprung from the blood of a broad river, but I am of the seed\nof mighty Jove. My father is Peleus, son of Aeacus ruler over the many\nMyrmidons, and Aeacus was the son of Jove. Therefore as Jove is\nmightier than any river that flows into the sea, so are his children\nstronger than those of any river whatsoever. Moreover you have a great\nriver hard by if he can be of any use to you, but there is no fighting\nagainst Jove the son of Saturn, with whom not even King Achelous can\ncompare, nor the mighty stream of deep-flowing Oceanus, from whom all\nrivers and seas with all springs and deep wells proceed; even Oceanus\nfears the lightnings of great Jove, and his thunder that comes crashing\nout of heaven.\"\n\nWith this he drew his bronze spear out of the bank, and now that he had\nkilled Asteropaeus, he let him lie where he was on the sand, with the\ndark water flowing over him and the eels and fishes busy nibbling and\ngnawing the fat that was about his kidneys. Then he went in chase of\nthe Paeonians, who were flying along the bank of the river in panic\nwhen they saw their leader slain by the hands of the son of Peleus.\nTherein he slew Thersilochus, Mydon, Astypylus, Mnesus, Thrasius,\nOeneus, and Ophelestes, and he would have slain yet others, had not the\nriver in anger taken human form, and spoken to him from out the deep\nwaters saying, \"Achilles, if you excel all in strength, so do you also\nin wickedness, for the gods are ever with you to protect you: if, then,\nthe son of Saturn has vouchsafed it to you to destroy all the Trojans,\nat any rate drive them out of my stream, and do your grim work on land.\nMy fair waters are now filled with corpses, nor can I find any channel\nby which I may pour myself into the sea for I am choked with dead, and\nyet you go on mercilessly slaying. I am in despair, therefore, O\ncaptain of your host, trouble me no further.\"\n\nAchilles answered, \"So be it, Scamander, Jove-descended; but I will\nnever cease dealing out death among the Trojans, till I have pent them\nup in their city, and made trial of Hector face to face, that I may\nlearn whether he is to vanquish me, or I him.\"\n\nAs he spoke he set upon the Trojans with a fury like that of the gods.\nBut the river said to Apollo, \"Surely, son of Jove, lord of the silver\nbow, you are not obeying the commands of Jove who charged you straitly\nthat you should stand by the Trojans and defend them, till twilight\nfades, and darkness is over the earth.\"\n\nMeanwhile Achilles sprang from the bank into mid-stream, whereon the\nriver raised a high wave and attacked him. He swelled his stream into a\ntorrent, and swept away the many dead whom Achilles had slain and left\nwithin his waters. These he cast out on to the land, bellowing like a\nbull the while, but the living he saved alive, hiding them in his\nmighty eddies. The great and terrible wave gathered about Achilles,\nfalling upon him and beating on his shield, so that he could not keep\nhis feet; he caught hold of a great elm-tree, but it came up by the\nroots, and tore away the bank, damming the stream with its thick\nbranches and bridging it all across; whereby Achilles struggled out of\nthe stream, and fled full speed over the plain, for he was afraid.\n\nBut the mighty god ceased not in his pursuit, and sprang upon him with\na dark-crested wave, to stay his hands and save the Trojans from\ndestruction. The son of Peleus darted away a spear's throw from him;\nswift as the swoop of a black hunter-eagle which is the strongest and\nfleetest of all birds, even so did he spring forward, and the armour\nrang loudly about his breast. He fled on in front, but the river with a\nloud roar came tearing after. As one who would water his garden leads a\nstream from some fountain over his plants, and all his ground--spade in\nhand he clears away the dams to free the channels, and the little\nstones run rolling round and round with the water as it goes merrily\ndown the bank faster than the man can follow--even so did the river\nkeep catching up with Achilles albeit he was a fleet runner, for the\ngods are stronger than men. As often as he would strive to stand his\nground, and see whether or no all the gods in heaven were in league\nagainst him, so often would the mighty wave come beating down upon his\nshoulders, and he would have to keep flying on and on in great dismay;\nfor the angry flood was tiring him out as it flowed past him and ate\nthe ground from under his feet.\n\nThen the son of Peleus lifted up his voice to heaven saying, \"Father\nJove, is there none of the gods who will take pity upon me, and save me\nfrom the river? I do not care what may happen to me afterwards. I blame\nnone of the other dwellers on Olympus so severely as I do my dear\nmother, who has beguiled and tricked me. She told me I was to fall\nunder the walls of Troy by the flying arrows of Apollo; would that\nHector, the best man among the Trojans, might there slay me; then\nshould I fall a hero by the hand of a hero; whereas now it seems that I\nshall come to a most pitiable end, trapped in this river as though I\nwere some swineherd's boy, who gets carried down a torrent while trying\nto cross it during a storm.\"\n\nAs soon as he had spoken thus, Neptune and Minerva came up to him in\nthe likeness of two men, and took him by the hand to reassure him.\nNeptune spoke first. \"Son of Peleus,\" said he, \"be not so exceeding\nfearful; we are two gods, come with Jove's sanction to assist you, I,\nand Pallas Minerva. It is not your fate to perish in this river; he\nwill abate presently as you will see; moreover we strongly advise you,\nif you will be guided by us, not to stay your hand from fighting till\nyou have pent the Trojan host within the famed walls of Ilius--as many\nof them as may escape. Then kill Hector and go back to the ships, for\nwe will vouchsafe you a triumph over him.\"\n\nWhen they had so said they went back to the other immortals, but\nAchilles strove onward over the plain, encouraged by the charge the\ngods had laid upon him. All was now covered with the flood of waters,\nand much goodly armour of the youths that had been slain was rifting\nabout, as also many corpses, but he forced his way against the stream,\nspeeding right onwards, nor could the broad waters stay him, for\nMinerva had endowed him with great strength. Nevertheless Scamander did\nnot slacken in his pursuit, but was still more furious with the son of\nPeleus. He lifted his waters into a high crest and cried aloud to\nSimois saying, \"Dear brother, let the two of us unite to save this man,\nor he will sack the mighty city of King Priam, and the Trojans will not\nhold out against him. Help me at once; fill your streams with water\nfrom their sources, rouse all your torrents to a fury; raise your wave\non high, and let snags and stones come thundering down you that we may\nmake an end of this savage creature who is now lording it as though he\nwere a god. Nothing shall serve him longer, not strength nor\ncomeliness, nor his fine armour, which forsooth shall soon be lying low\nin the deep waters covered over with mud. I will wrap him in sand, and\npour tons of shingle round him, so that the Achaeans shall not know how\nto gather his bones for the silt in which I shall have hidden him, and\nwhen they celebrate his funeral they need build no barrow.\"\n\nOn this he upraised his tumultuous flood high against Achilles,\nseething as it was with foam and blood and the bodies of the dead. The\ndark waters of the river stood upright and would have overwhelmed the\nson of Peleus, but Juno, trembling lest Achilles should be swept away\nin the mighty torrent, lifted her voice on high and called out to\nVulcan her son. \"Crook-foot,\" she cried, \"my child, be up and doing,\nfor I deem it is with you that Xanthus is fain to fight; help us at\nonce, kindle a fierce fire; I will then bring up the west and the white\nsouth wind in a mighty hurricane from the sea, that shall bear the\nflames against the heads and armour of the Trojans and consume them,\nwhile you go along the banks of Xanthus burning his trees and wrapping\nhim round with fire. Let him not turn you back neither by fair words\nnor foul, and slacken not till I shout and tell you. Then you may stay\nyour flames.\"\n\nOn this Vulcan kindled a fierce fire, which broke out first upon the\nplain and burned the many dead whom Achilles had killed and whose\nbodies were lying about in great numbers; by this means the plain was\ndried and the flood stayed. As the north wind, blowing on an orchard\nthat has been sodden with autumn rain, soon dries it, and the heart of\nthe owner is glad--even so the whole plain was dried and the dead\nbodies were consumed. Then he turned tongues of fire on to the river.\nHe burned the elms the willows and the tamarisks, the lotus also, with\nthe rushes and marshy herbage that grew abundantly by the banks of the\nriver. The eels and fishes that go darting about everywhere in the\nwater, these, too, were sorely harassed by the flames that cunning\nVulcan had kindled, and the river himself was scalded, so that he spoke\nsaying, \"Vulcan, there is no god can hold his own against you. I cannot\nfight you when you flare out your flames in this way; strive with me no\nlonger. Let Achilles drive the Trojans out of their city immediately.\nWhat have I to do with quarrelling and helping people?\"\n\nHe was boiling as he spoke, and all his waters were seething. As a\ncauldron upon a large fire boils when it is melting the lard of some\nfatted hog, and the lard keeps bubbling up all over when the dry\nfaggots blaze under it--even so were the goodly waters of Xanthus\nheated with the fire till they were boiling. He could flow no longer\nbut stayed his stream, so afflicted was he by the blasts of fire which\ncunning Vulcan had raised. Then he prayed to Juno and besought her\nsaying, \"Juno, why should your son vex my stream with such especial\nfury? I am not so much to blame as all the others are who have been\nhelping the Trojans. I will leave off, since you so desire it, and let\nyour son leave off also. Furthermore I swear never again will I do\nanything to save the Trojans from destruction, not even when all Troy\nis burning in the flames which the Achaeans will kindle.\"\n\nAs soon as Juno heard this she said to her son Vulcan, \"Son Vulcan,\nhold now your flames; we ought not to use such violence against a god\nfor the sake of mortals.\"\n\nWhen she had thus spoken Vulcan quenched his flames, and the river went\nback once more into his own fair bed.\n\nXanthus was now beaten, so these two left off fighting, for Juno stayed\nthem though she was still angry; but a furious quarrel broke out among\nthe other gods, for they were of divided counsels. They fell on one\nanother with a mighty uproar--earth groaned, and the spacious firmament\nrang out as with a blare of trumpets. Jove heard as he was sitting on\nOlympus, and laughed for joy when he saw the gods coming to blows among\nthemselves. They were not long about beginning, and Mars piercer of\nshields opened the battle. Sword in hand he sprang at once upon Minerva\nand reviled her. \"Why, vixen,\" said he, \"have you again set the gods by\nthe ears in the pride and haughtiness of your heart? Have you forgotten\nhow you set Diomed son of Tydeus on to wound me, and yourself took\nvisible spear and drove it into me to the hurt of my fair body? You\nshall now suffer for what you then did to me.\"\n\nAs he spoke he struck her on the terrible tasselled aegis--so terrible\nthat not even can Jove's lightning pierce it. Here did murderous Mars\nstrike her with his great spear. She drew back and with her strong hand\nseized a stone that was lying on the plain--great and rugged and\nblack--which men of old had set for the boundary of a field. With this\nshe struck Mars on the neck, and brought him down. Nine roods did he\ncover in his fall, and his hair was all soiled in the dust, while his\narmour rang rattling round him. But Minerva laughed and vaunted over\nhim saying, \"Idiot, have you not learned how far stronger I am than\nyou, but you must still match yourself against me? Thus do your\nmother's curses now roost upon you, for she is angry and would do you\nmischief because you have deserted the Achaeans and are helping the\nTrojans.\"\n\nShe then turned her two piercing eyes elsewhere, whereon Jove's\ndaughter Venus took Mars by the hand and led him away groaning all the\ntime, for it was only with great difficulty that he had come to himself\nagain. When Queen Juno saw her, she said to Minerva, \"Look, daughter of\naegis-bearing Jove, unweariable, that vixen Venus is again taking Mars\nthrough the crowd out of the battle; go after her at once.\"\n\nThus she spoke. Minerva sped after Venus with a will, and made at her,\nstriking her on the bosom with her strong hand so that she fell\nfainting to the ground, and there they both lay stretched at full\nlength. Then Minerva vaunted over her saying, \"May all who help the\nTrojans against the Argives prove just as redoubtable and stalwart as\nVenus did when she came across me while she was helping Mars. Had this\nbeen so, we should long since have ended the war by sacking the strong\ncity of Ilius.\"\n\nJuno smiled as she listened. Meanwhile King Neptune turned to Apollo\nsaying, \"Phoebus, why should we keep each other at arm's length? it is\nnot well, now that the others have begun fighting; it will be\ndisgraceful to us if we return to Jove's bronze-floored mansion on\nOlympus without having fought each other; therefore come on, you are\nthe younger of the two, and I ought not to attack you, for I am older\nand have had more experience. Idiot, you have no sense, and forget how\nwe two alone of all the gods fared hardly round about Ilius when we\ncame from Jove's house and worked for Laomedon a whole year at a stated\nwage and he gave us his orders. I built the Trojans the wall about\ntheir city, so wide and fair that it might be impregnable, while you,\nPhoebus, herded cattle for him in the dales of many valleyed Ida. When,\nhowever, the glad hours brought round the time of payment, mighty\nLaomedon robbed us of all our hire and sent us off with nothing but\nabuse. He threatened to bind us hand and foot and sell us over into\nsome distant island. He tried, moreover, to cut off the ears of both of\nus, so we went away in a rage, furious about the payment he had\npromised us, and yet withheld; in spite of all this, you are now\nshowing favour to his people, and will not join us in compassing the\nutter ruin of the proud Trojans with their wives and children.\"\n\nAnd King Apollo answered, \"Lord of the earthquake, you would have no\nrespect for me if I were to fight you about a pack of miserable\nmortals, who come out like leaves in summer and eat the fruit of the\nfield, and presently fall lifeless to the ground. Let us stay this\nfighting at once and let them settle it among themselves.\"\n\nHe turned away as he spoke, for he would lay no hand on the brother of\nhis own father. But his sister the huntress Diana, patroness of wild\nbeasts, was very angry with him and said, \"So you would fly,\nFar-Darter, and hand victory over to Neptune with a cheap vaunt to\nboot. Baby, why keep your bow thus idle? Never let me again hear you\nbragging in my father's house, as you have often done in the presence\nof the immortals, that you would stand up and fight with Neptune.\"\n\nApollo made her no answer, but Jove's august queen was angry and\nupbraided her bitterly. \"Bold vixen,\" she cried, \"how dare you cross me\nthus? For all your bow you will find it hard to hold your own against\nme. Jove made you as a lion among women, and lets you kill them\nwhenever you choose. You will find it better to chase wild beasts and\ndeer upon the mountains than to fight those who are stronger than you\nare. If you would try war, do so, and find out by pitting yourself\nagainst me, how far stronger I am than you are.\"\n\nShe caught both Diana's wrists with her left hand as she spoke, and\nwith her right she took the bow from her shoulders, and laughed as she\nbeat her with it about the ears while Diana wriggled and writhed under\nher blows. Her swift arrows were shed upon the ground, and she fled\nweeping from under Juno's hand as a dove that flies before a falcon to\nthe cleft of some hollow rock, when it is her good fortune to escape.\nEven so did she fly weeping away, leaving her bow and arrows behind her.\n\nThen the slayer of Argus, guide and guardian, said to Leto, \"Leto, I\nshall not fight you; it is ill to come to blows with any of Jove's\nwives. Therefore boast as you will among the immortals that you worsted\nme in fair fight.\"\n\nLeto then gathered up Diana's bow and arrows that had fallen about amid\nthe whirling dust, and when she had got them she made all haste after\nher daughter. Diana had now reached Jove's bronze-floored mansion on\nOlympus, and sat herself down with many tears on the knees of her\nfather, while her ambrosial raiment was quivering all about her. The\nson of Saturn drew her towards him, and laughing pleasantly the while\nbegan to question her saying, \"Which of the heavenly beings, my dear\nchild, has been treating you in this cruel manner, as though you had\nbeen misconducting yourself in the face of everybody?\" and the\nfair-crowned goddess of the chase answered, \"It was your wife Juno,\nfather, who has been beating me; it is always her doing when there is\nany quarrelling among the immortals.\"\n\nThus did they converse, and meanwhile Phoebus Apollo entered the strong\ncity of Ilius, for he was uneasy lest the wall should not hold out and\nthe Danaans should take the city then and there, before its hour had\ncome; but the rest of the ever-living gods went back, some angry and\nsome triumphant to Olympus, where they took their seats beside Jove\nlord of the storm cloud, while Achilles still kept on dealing out death\nalike on the Trojans and on their horses. As when the smoke from some\nburning city ascends to heaven when the anger of the gods has kindled\nit--there is then toil for all, and sorrow for not a few--even so did\nAchilles bring toil and sorrow on the Trojans.\n\nOld King Priam stood on a high tower of the wall looking down on huge\nAchilles as the Trojans fled panic-stricken before him, and there was\nnone to help them. Presently he came down from off the tower and with\nmany a groan went along the wall to give orders to the brave warders of\nthe gate. \"Keep the gates,\" said he, \"wide open till the people come\nflying into the city, for Achilles is hard by and is driving them in\nrout before him. I see we are in great peril. As soon as our people are\ninside and in safety, close the strong gates for I fear lest that\nterrible man should come bounding inside along with the others.\"\n\nAs he spoke they drew back the bolts and opened the gates, and when\nthese were opened there was a haven of refuge for the Trojans. Apollo\nthen came full speed out of the city to meet them and protect them.\nRight for the city and the high wall, parched with thirst and grimy\nwith dust, still they fied on, with Achilles wielding his spear\nfuriously behind them. For he was as one possessed, and was thirsting\nafter glory.\n\nThen had the sons of the Achaeans taken the lofty gates of Troy if\nApollo had not spurred on Agenor, valiant and noble son to Antenor. He\nput courage into his heart, and stood by his side to guard him, leaning\nagainst a beech tree and shrouded in thick darkness. When Agenor saw\nAchilles he stood still and his heart was clouded with care. \"Alas,\"\nsaid he to himself in his dismay, \"if I fly before mighty Achilles, and\ngo where all the others are being driven in rout, he will none the less\ncatch me and kill me for a coward. How would it be were I to let\nAchilles drive the others before him, and then fly from the wall to the\nplain that is behind Ilius till I reach the spurs of Ida and can hide\nin the underwood that is thereon? I could then wash the sweat from off\nme in the river and in the evening return to Ilius. But why commune\nwith myself in this way? Like enough he would see me as I am hurrying\nfrom the city over the plain, and would speed after me till he had\ncaught me--I should stand no chance against him, for he is mightiest of\nall mankind. What, then, if I go out and meet him in front of the city?\nHis flesh too, I take it, can be pierced by pointed bronze. Life is the\nsame in one and all, and men say that he is but mortal despite the\ntriumph that Jove son of Saturn vouchsafes him.\"\n\nSo saying he stood on his guard and awaited Achilles, for he was now\nfain to fight him. As a leopardess that bounds from out a thick covert\nto attack a hunter--she knows no fear and is not dismayed by the baying\nof the hounds; even though the man be too quick for her and wound her\neither with thrust or spear, still, though the spear has pierced her\nshe will not give in till she has either caught him in her grip or been\nkilled outright--even so did noble Agenor son of Antenor refuse to fly\ntill he had made trial of Achilles, and took aim at him with his spear,\nholding his round shield before him and crying with a loud voice. \"Of a\ntruth,\" said he, \"noble Achilles, you deem that you shall this day sack\nthe city of the proud Trojans. Fool, there will be trouble enough yet\nbefore it, for there is many a brave man of us still inside who will\nstand in front of our dear parents with our wives and children, to\ndefend Ilius. Here therefore, huge and mighty warrior though you be,\nhere shall you die.\"\n\nAs he spoke his strong hand hurled his javelin from him, and the spear\nstruck Achilles on the leg beneath the knee; the greave of newly\nwrought tin rang loudly, but the spear recoiled from the body of him\nwhom it had struck, and did not pierce it, for the god's gift stayed\nit. Achilles in his turn attacked noble Agenor, but Apollo would not\nvouchsafe him glory, for he snatched Agenor away and hid him in a thick\nmist, sending him out of the battle unmolested. Then he craftily drew\nthe son of Peleus away from going after the host, for he put on the\nsemblance of Agenor and stood in front of Achilles, who ran towards him\nto give him chase and pursued him over the corn lands of the plain,\nturning him towards the deep waters of the river Scamander. Apollo ran\nbut a little way before him and beguiled Achilles by making him think\nall the time that he was on the point of overtaking him. Meanwhile the\nrabble of routed Trojans was thankful to crowd within the city till\ntheir numbers thronged it; no longer did they dare wait for one another\noutside the city walls, to learn who had escaped and who were fallen in\nfight, but all whose feet and knees could still carry them poured\npell-mell into the town.\n\n\n\nBOOK XXII\n\n  The death of Hector.\n\nTHUS the Trojans in the city, scared like fawns, wiped the sweat from\noff them and drank to quench their thirst, leaning against the goodly\nbattlements, while the Achaeans with their shields laid upon their\nshoulders drew close up to the walls. But stern fate bade Hector stay\nwhere he was before Ilius and the Scaean gates. Then Phoebus Apollo\nspoke to the son of Peleus saying, \"Why, son of Peleus, do you, who are\nbut man, give chase to me who am immortal? Have you not yet found out\nthat it is a god whom you pursue so furiously? You did not harass the\nTrojans whom you had routed, and now they are within their walls, while\nyou have been decoyed hither away from them. Me you cannot kill, for\ndeath can take no hold upon me.\"\n\nAchilles was greatly angered and said, \"You have baulked me,\nFar-Darter, most malicious of all gods, and have drawn me away from the\nwall, where many another man would have bitten the dust ere he got\nwithin Ilius; you have robbed me of great glory and have saved the\nTrojans at no risk to yourself, for you have nothing to fear, but I\nwould indeed have my revenge if it were in my power to do so.\"\n\nOn this, with fell intent he made towards the city, and as the winning\nhorse in a chariot race strains every nerve when he is flying over the\nplain, even so fast and furiously did the limbs of Achilles bear him\nonwards. King Priam was first to note him as he scoured the plain, all\nradiant as the star which men call Orion's Hound, and whose beams blaze\nforth in time of harvest more brilliantly than those of any other that\nshines by night; brightest of them all though he be, he yet bodes ill\nfor mortals, for he brings fire and fever in his train--even so did\nAchilles' armour gleam on his breast as he sped onwards. Priam raised a\ncry and beat his head with his hands as he lifted them up and shouted\nout to his dear son, imploring him to return; but Hector still stayed\nbefore the gates, for his heart was set upon doing battle with\nAchilles. The old man reached out his arms towards him and bade him for\npity's sake come within the walls. \"Hector,\" he cried, \"my son, stay\nnot to face this man alone and unsupported, or you will meet death at\nthe hands of the son of Peleus, for he is mightier than you. Monster\nthat he is; would indeed that the gods loved him no better than I do,\nfor so, dogs and vultures would soon devour him as he lay stretched on\nearth, and a load of grief would be lifted from my heart, for many a\nbrave son has he reft from me, either by killing them or selling them\naway in the islands that are beyond the sea: even now I miss two sons\nfrom among the Trojans who have thronged within the city, Lycaon and\nPolydorus, whom Laothoe peeress among women bore me. Should they be\nstill alive and in the hands of the Achaeans, we will ransom them with\ngold and bronze, of which we have store, for the old man Altes endowed\nhis daughter richly; but if they are already dead and in the house of\nHades, sorrow will it be to us two who were their parents; albeit the\ngrief of others will be more short-lived unless you too perish at the\nhands of Achilles. Come, then, my son, within the city, to be the\nguardian of Trojan men and Trojan women, or you will both lose your own\nlife and afford a mighty triumph to the son of Peleus. Have pity also\non your unhappy father while life yet remains to him--on me, whom the\nson of Saturn will destroy by a terrible doom on the threshold of old\nage, after I have seen my sons slain and my daughters haled away as\ncaptives, my bridal chambers pillaged, little children dashed to earth\namid the rage of battle, and my sons' wives dragged away by the cruel\nhands of the Achaeans; in the end fierce hounds will tear me in pieces\nat my own gates after some one has beaten the life out of my body with\nsword or spear-hounds that I myself reared and fed at my own table to\nguard my gates, but who will yet lap my blood and then lie all\ndistraught at my doors. When a young man falls by the sword in battle,\nhe may lie where he is and there is nothing unseemly; let what will be\nseen, all is honourable in death, but when an old man is slain there is\nnothing in this world more pitiable than that dogs should defile his\ngrey hair and beard and all that men hide for shame.\"\n\nThe old man tore his grey hair as he spoke, but he moved not the heart\nof Hector. His mother hard by wept and moaned aloud as she bared her\nbosom and pointed to the breast which had suckled him. \"Hector,\" she\ncried, weeping bitterly the while, \"Hector, my son, spurn not this\nbreast, but have pity upon me too: if I have ever given you comfort\nfrom my own bosom, think on it now, dear son, and come within the wall\nto protect us from this man; stand not without to meet him. Should the\nwretch kill you, neither I nor your richly dowered wife shall ever\nweep, dear offshoot of myself, over the bed on which you lie, for dogs\nwill devour you at the ships of the Achaeans.\"\n\nThus did the two with many tears implore their son, but they moved not\nthe heart of Hector, and he stood his ground awaiting huge Achilles as\nhe drew nearer towards him. As a serpent in its den upon the mountains,\nfull fed with deadly poisons, waits for the approach of man--he is\nfilled with fury and his eyes glare terribly as he goes writhing round\nhis den--even so Hector leaned his shield against a tower that jutted\nout from the wall and stood where he was, undaunted.\n\n\"Alas,\" said he to himself in the heaviness of his heart, \"if I go\nwithin the gates, Polydamas will be the first to heap reproach upon me,\nfor it was he that urged me to lead the Trojans back to the city on\nthat awful night when Achilles again came forth against us. I would not\nlisten, but it would have been indeed better if I had done so. Now that\nmy folly has destroyed the host, I dare not look Trojan men and Trojan\nwomen in the face, lest a worse man should say, 'Hector has ruined us\nby his self-confidence.' Surely it would be better for me to return\nafter having fought Achilles and slain him, or to die gloriously here\nbefore the city. What, again, if I were to lay down my shield and\nhelmet, lean my spear against the wall and go straight up to noble\nAchilles? What if I were to promise to give up Helen, who was the\nfountainhead of all this war, and all the treasure that Alexandrus\nbrought with him in his ships to Troy, aye, and to let the Achaeans\ndivide the half of everything that the city contains among themselves?\nI might make the Trojans, by the mouths of their princes, take a solemn\noath that they would hide nothing, but would divide into two shares all\nthat is within the city--but why argue with myself in this way? Were I\nto go up to him he would show me no kind of mercy; he would kill me\nthen and there as easily as though I were a woman, when I had off my\narmour. There is no parleying with him from some rock or oak tree as\nyoung men and maidens prattle with one another. Better fight him at\nonce, and learn to which of us Jove will vouchsafe victory.\"\n\nThus did he stand and ponder, but Achilles came up to him as it were\nMars himself, plumed lord of battle. From his right shoulder he\nbrandished his terrible spear of Pelian ash, and the bronze gleamed\naround him like flashing fire or the rays of the rising sun. Fear fell\nupon Hector as he beheld him, and he dared not stay longer where he was\nbut fled in dismay from before the gates, while Achilles darted after\nhim at his utmost speed. As a mountain falcon, swiftest of all birds,\nswoops down upon some cowering dove--the dove flies before him but the\nfalcon with a shrill scream follows close after, resolved to have\nher--even so did Achilles make straight for Hector with all his might,\nwhile Hector fled under the Trojan wall as fast as his limbs could take\nhim.\n\nOn they flew along the waggon-road that ran hard by under the wall,\npast the lookout station, and past the weather-beaten wild fig-tree,\ntill they came to two fair springs which feed the river Scamander. One\nof these two springs is warm, and steam rises from it as smoke from a\nburning fire, but the other even in summer is as cold as hail or snow,\nor the ice that forms on water. Here, hard by the springs, are the\ngoodly washing-troughs of stone, where in the time of peace before the\ncoming of the Achaeans the wives and fair daughters of the Trojans used\nto wash their clothes. Past these did they fly, the one in front and\nthe other giving chase behind him: good was the man that fled, but\nbetter far was he that followed after, and swiftly indeed did they run,\nfor the prize was no mere beast for sacrifice or bullock's hide, as it\nmight be for a common foot-race, but they ran for the life of Hector.\nAs horses in a chariot race speed round the turning-posts when they are\nrunning for some great prize--a tripod or woman--at the games in honour\nof some dead hero, so did these two run full speed three times round\nthe city of Priam. All the gods watched them, and the sire of gods and\nmen was the first to speak.\n\n\"Alas,\" said he, \"my eyes behold a man who is dear to me being pursued\nround the walls of Troy; my heart is full of pity for Hector, who has\nburned the thigh-bones of many a heifer in my honour, one while on the\ncrests of many-valleyed Ida, and again on the citadel of Troy; and now\nI see noble Achilles in full pursuit of him round the city of Priam.\nWhat say you? Consider among yourselves and decide whether we shall now\nsave him or let him fall, valiant though he be, before Achilles, son of\nPeleus.\"\n\nThen Minerva said, \"Father, wielder of the lightning, lord of cloud and\nstorm, what mean you? Would you pluck this mortal whose doom has long\nbeen decreed out of the jaws of death? Do as you will, but we others\nshall not be of a mind with you.\"\n\nAnd Jove answered, \"My child, Trito-born, take heart. I did not speak\nin full earnest, and I will let you have your way. Do without let or\nhindrance as you are minded.\"\n\nThus did he urge Minerva who was already eager, and down she darted\nfrom the topmost summits of Olympus.\n\nAchilles was still in full pursuit of Hector, as a hound chasing a fawn\nwhich he has started from its covert on the mountains, and hunts\nthrough glade and thicket. The fawn may try to elude him by crouching\nunder cover of a bush, but he will scent her out and follow her up\nuntil he gets her--even so there was no escape for Hector from the\nfleet son of Peleus. Whenever he made a set to get near the Dardanian\ngates and under the walls, that his people might help him by showering\ndown weapons from above, Achilles would gain on him and head him back\ntowards the plain, keeping himself always on the city side. As a man in\na dream who fails to lay hands upon another whom he is pursuing--the\none cannot escape nor the other overtake--even so neither could\nAchilles come up with Hector, nor Hector break away from Achilles;\nnevertheless he might even yet have escaped death had not the time come\nwhen Apollo, who thus far had sustained his strength and nerved his\nrunning, was now no longer to stay by him. Achilles made signs to the\nAchaean host, and shook his head to show that no man was to aim a dart\nat Hector, lest another might win the glory of having hit him and he\nmight himself come in second. Then, at last, as they were nearing the\nfountains for the fourth time, the father of all balanced his golden\nscales and placed a doom in each of them, one for Achilles and the\nother for Hector. As he held the scales by the middle, the doom of\nHector fell down deep into the house of Hades--and then Phoebus Apollo\nleft him. Thereon Minerva went close up to the son of Peleus and said,\n\"Noble Achilles, favoured of heaven, we two shall surely take back to\nthe ships a triumph for the Achaeans by slaying Hector, for all his\nlust of battle. Do what Apollo may as he lies grovelling before his\nfather, aegis-bearing Jove, Hector cannot escape us longer. Stay here\nand take breath, while I go up to him and persuade him to make a stand\nand fight you.\"\n\nThus spoke Minerva. Achilles obeyed her gladly, and stood still,\nleaning on his bronze-pointed ashen spear, while Minerva left him and\nwent after Hector in the form and with the voice of Deiphobus. She came\nclose up to him and said, \"Dear brother, I see you are hard pressed by\nAchilles who is chasing you at full speed round the city of Priam, let\nus await his onset and stand on our defence.\"\n\nAnd Hector answered, \"Deiphobus, you have always been dearest to me of\nall my brothers, children of Hecuba and Priam, but henceforth I shall\nrate you yet more highly, inasmuch as you have ventured outside the\nwall for my sake when all the others remain inside.\"\n\nThen Minerva said, \"Dear brother, my father and mother went down on\ntheir knees and implored me, as did all my comrades, to remain inside,\nso great a fear has fallen upon them all; but I was in an agony of\ngrief when I beheld you; now, therefore, let us two make a stand and\nfight, and let there be no keeping our spears in reserve, that we may\nlearn whether Achilles shall kill us and bear off our spoils to the\nships, or whether he shall fall before you.\"\n\nThus did Minerva inveigle him by her cunning, and when the two were now\nclose to one another great Hector was first to speak. \"I will no longer\nfly you, son of Peleus,\" said he, \"as I have been doing hitherto. Three\ntimes have I fled round the mighty city of Priam, without daring to\nwithstand you, but now, let me either slay or be slain, for I am in the\nmind to face you. Let us, then, give pledges to one another by our\ngods, who are the fittest witnesses and guardians of all covenants; let\nit be agreed between us that if Jove vouchsafes me the longer stay and\nI take your life, I am not to treat your dead body in any unseemly\nfashion, but when I have stripped you of your armour, I am to give up\nyour body to the Achaeans. And do you likewise.\"\n\nAchilles glared at him and answered, \"Fool, prate not to me about\ncovenants. There can be no covenants between men and lions, wolves and\nlambs can never be of one mind, but hate each other out and out all\nthrough. Therefore there can be no understanding between you and me,\nnor may there be any covenants between us, till one or other shall fall\nand glut grim Mars with his life's blood. Put forth all your strength;\nyou have need now to prove yourself indeed a bold soldier and man of\nwar. You have no more chance, and Pallas Minerva will forthwith\nvanquish you by my spear: you shall now pay me in full for the grief\nyou have caused me on account of my comrades whom you have killed in\nbattle.\"\n\nHe poised his spear as he spoke and hurled it. Hector saw it coming and\navoided it; he watched it and crouched down so that it flew over his\nhead and stuck in the ground beyond; Minerva then snatched it up and\ngave it back to Achilles without Hector's seeing her; Hector thereon\nsaid to the son of Peleus, \"You have missed your aim, Achilles, peer of\nthe gods, and Jove has not yet revealed to you the hour of my doom,\nthough you made sure that he had done so. You were a false-tongued liar\nwhen you deemed that I should forget my valour and quail before you.\nYou shall not drive your spear into the back of a runaway--drive it,\nshould heaven so grant you power, drive it into me as I make straight\ntowards you; and now for your own part avoid my spear if you can--would\nthat you might receive the whole of it into your body; if you were once\ndead the Trojans would find the war an easier matter, for it is you who\nhave harmed them most.\"\n\nHe poised his spear as he spoke and hurled it. His aim was true for he\nhit the middle of Achilles' shield, but the spear rebounded from it,\nand did not pierce it. Hector was angry when he saw that the weapon had\nsped from his hand in vain, and stood there in dismay for he had no\nsecond spear. With a loud cry he called Deiphobus and asked him for\none, but there was no man; then he saw the truth and said to himself,\n\"Alas! the gods have lured me on to my destruction. I deemed that the\nhero Deiphobus was by my side, but he is within the wall, and Minerva\nhas inveigled me; death is now indeed exceedingly near at hand and\nthere is no way out of it--for so Jove and his son Apollo the\nfar-darter have willed it, though heretofore they have been ever ready\nto protect me. My doom has come upon me; let me not then die\ningloriously and without a struggle, but let me first do some great\nthing that shall be told among men hereafter.\"\n\nAs he spoke he drew the keen blade that hung so great and strong by his\nside, and gathering himself together be sprang on Achilles like a\nsoaring eagle which swoops down from the clouds on to some lamb or\ntimid hare--even so did Hector brandish his sword and spring upon\nAchilles. Achilles mad with rage darted towards him, with his wondrous\nshield before his breast, and his gleaming helmet, made with four\nlayers of metal, nodding fiercely forward. The thick tresses of gold\nwith which Vulcan had crested the helmet floated round it, and as the\nevening star that shines brighter than all others through the stillness\nof night, even such was the gleam of the spear which Achilles poised in\nhis right hand, fraught with the death of noble Hector. He eyed his\nfair flesh over and over to see where he could best wound it, but all\nwas protected by the goodly armour of which Hector had spoiled\nPatroclus after he had slain him, save only the throat where the\ncollar-bones divide the neck from the shoulders, and this is a most\ndeadly place: here then did Achilles strike him as he was coming on\ntowards him, and the point of his spear went right through the fleshy\npart of the neck, but it did not sever his windpipe so that he could\nstill speak. Hector fell headlong, and Achilles vaunted over him\nsaying, \"Hector, you deemed that you should come off scatheless when\nyou were spoiling Patroclus, and recked not of myself who was not with\nhim. Fool that you were: for I, his comrade, mightier far than he, was\nstill left behind him at the ships, and now I have laid you low. The\nAchaeans shall give him all due funeral rites, while dogs and vultures\nshall work their will upon yourself.\"\n\nThen Hector said, as the life ebbed out of him, \"I pray you by your\nlife and knees, and by your parents, let not dogs devour me at the\nships of the Achaeans, but accept the rich treasure of gold and bronze\nwhich my father and mother will offer you, and send my body home, that\nthe Trojans and their wives may give me my dues of fire when I am dead.\"\n\nAchilles glared at him and answered, \"Dog, talk not to me neither of\nknees nor parents; would that I could be as sure of being able to cut\nyour flesh into pieces and eat it raw, for the ill you have done me, as\nI am that nothing shall save you from the dogs--it shall not be, though\nthey bring ten or twenty-fold ransom and weigh it out for me on the\nspot, with promise of yet more hereafter. Though Priam son of Dardanus\nshould bid them offer me your weight in gold, even so your mother shall\nnever lay you out and make lament over the son she bore, but dogs and\nvultures shall eat you utterly up.\"\n\nHector with his dying breath then said, \"I know you what you are, and\nwas sure that I should not move you, for your heart is hard as iron;\nlook to it that I bring not heaven's anger upon you on the day when\nParis and Phoebus Apollo, valiant though you be, shall slay you at the\nScaean gates.\"\n\nWhen he had thus said the shrouds of death enfolded him, whereon his\nsoul went out of him and flew down to the house of Hades, lamenting its\nsad fate that it should enjoy youth and strength no longer. But\nAchilles said, speaking to the dead body, \"Die; for my part I will\naccept my fate whensoever Jove and the other gods see fit to send it.\"\n\nAs he spoke he drew his spear from the body and set it on one side;\nthen he stripped the blood-stained armour from Hector's shoulders while\nthe other Achaeans came running up to view his wondrous strength and\nbeauty; and no one came near him without giving him a fresh wound. Then\nwould one turn to his neighbour and say, \"It is easier to handle Hector\nnow than when he was flinging fire on to our ships\"--and as he spoke he\nwould thrust his spear into him anew.\n\nWhen Achilles had done spoiling Hector of his armour, he stood among\nthe Argives and said, \"My friends, princes and counsellors of the\nArgives, now that heaven has vouchsafed us to overcome this man, who\nhas done us more hurt than all the others together, consider whether we\nshould not attack the city in force, and discover in what mind the\nTrojans may be. We should thus learn whether they will desert their\ncity now that Hector has fallen, or will still hold out even though he\nis no longer living. But why argue with myself in this way, while\nPatroclus is still lying at the ships unburied, and unmourned--he whom\nI can never forget so long as I am alive and my strength fails not?\nThough men forget their dead when once they are within the house of\nHades, yet not even there will I forget the comrade whom I have lost.\nNow, therefore, Achaean youths, let us raise the song of victory and go\nback to the ships taking this man along with us; for we have achieved a\nmighty triumph and have slain noble Hector to whom the Trojans prayed\nthroughout their city as though he were a god.\"\n\nOn this he treated the body of Hector with contumely: he pierced the\nsinews at the back of both his feet from heel to ancle and passed\nthongs of ox-hide through the slits he had made: thus he made the body\nfast to his chariot, letting the head trail upon the ground. Then when\nhe had put the goodly armour on the chariot and had himself mounted, he\nlashed his horses on and they flew forward nothing loth. The dust rose\nfrom Hector as he was being dragged along, his dark hair flew all\nabroad, and his head once so comely was laid low on earth, for Jove had\nnow delivered him into the hands of his foes to do him outrage in his\nown land.\n\nThus was the head of Hector being dishonoured in the dust. His mother\ntore her hair, and flung her veil from her with a loud cry as she\nlooked upon her son. His father made piteous moan, and throughout the\ncity the people fell to weeping and wailing. It was as though the whole\nof frowning Ilius was being smirched with fire. Hardly could the people\nhold Priam back in his hot haste to rush without the gates of the city.\nHe grovelled in the mire and besought them, calling each one of them by\nhis name. \"Let be, my friends,\" he cried, \"and for all your sorrow,\nsuffer me to go single-handed to the ships of the Achaeans. Let me\nbeseech this cruel and terrible man, if maybe he will respect the\nfeeling of his fellow-men, and have compassion on my old age. His own\nfather is even such another as myself--Peleus, who bred him and reared\nhim to be the bane of us Trojans, and of myself more than of all\nothers. Many a son of mine has he slain in the flower of his youth, and\nyet, grieve for these as I may, I do so for one--Hector--more than for\nthem all, and the bitterness of my sorrow will bring me down to the\nhouse of Hades. Would that he had died in my arms, for so both his\nill-starred mother who bore him, and myself, should have had the\ncomfort of weeping and mourning over him.\"\n\nThus did he speak with many tears, and all the people of the city\njoined in his lament. Hecuba then raised the cry of wailing among the\nTrojans. \"Alas, my son,\" she cried, \"what have I left to live for now\nthat you are no more? Night and day did I glory in you throughout the\ncity, for you were a tower of strength to all in Troy, and both men and\nwomen alike hailed you as a god. So long as you lived you were their\npride, but now death and destruction have fallen upon you.\"\n\nHector's wife had as yet heard nothing, for no one had come to tell her\nthat her husband had remained without the gates. She was at her loom in\nan inner part of the house, weaving a double purple web, and\nembroidering it with many flowers. She told her maids to set a large\ntripod on the fire, so as to have a warm bath ready for Hector when he\ncame out of battle; poor woman, she knew not that he was now beyond the\nreach of baths, and that Minerva had laid him low by the hands of\nAchilles. She heard the cry coming as from the wall, and trembled in\nevery limb; the shuttle fell from her hands, and again she spoke to her\nwaiting-women. \"Two of you,\" she said, \"come with me that I may learn\nwhat it is that has befallen; I heard the voice of my husband's\nhonoured mother; my own heart beats as though it would come into my\nmouth and my limbs refuse to carry me; some great misfortune for\nPriam's children must be at hand. May I never live to hear it, but I\ngreatly fear that Achilles has cut off the retreat of brave Hector and\nhas chased him on to the plain where he was singlehanded; I fear he may\nhave put an end to the reckless daring which possessed my husband, who\nwould never remain with the body of his men, but would dash on far in\nfront, foremost of them all in valour.\"\n\nHer heart beat fast, and as she spoke she flew from the house like a\nmaniac, with her waiting-women following after. When she reached the\nbattlements and the crowd of people, she stood looking out upon the\nwall, and saw Hector being borne away in front of the city--the horses\ndragging him without heed or care over the ground towards the ships of\nthe Achaeans. Her eyes were then shrouded as with the darkness of night\nand she fell fainting backwards. She tore the attiring from her head\nand flung it from her, the frontlet and net with its plaited band, and\nthe veil which golden Venus had given her on the day when Hector took\nher with him from the house of Eetion, after having given countless\ngifts of wooing for her sake. Her husband's sisters and the wives of\nhis brothers crowded round her and supported her, for she was fain to\ndie in her distraction; when she again presently breathed and came to\nherself, she sobbed and made lament among the Trojans saying, \"Woe is\nme, O Hector; woe, indeed, that to share a common lot we were born, you\nat Troy in the house of Priam, and I at Thebes under the wooded\nmountain of Placus in the house of Eetion who brought me up when I was\na child--ill-starred sire of an ill-starred daughter--would that he had\nnever begotten me. You are now going into the house of Hades under the\nsecret places of the earth, and you leave me a sorrowing widow in your\nhouse. The child, of whom you and I are the unhappy parents, is as yet\na mere infant. Now that you are gone, O Hector, you can do nothing for\nhim nor he for you. Even though he escape the horrors of this woeful\nwar with the Achaeans, yet shall his life henceforth be one of labour\nand sorrow, for others will seize his lands. The day that robs a child\nof his parents severs him from his own kind; his head is bowed, his\ncheeks are wet with tears, and he will go about destitute among the\nfriends of his father, plucking one by the cloak and another by the\nshirt. Some one or other of these may so far pity him as to hold the\ncup for a moment towards him and let him moisten his lips, but he must\nnot drink enough to wet the roof of his mouth; then one whose parents\nare alive will drive him from the table with blows and angry words.\n'Out with you,' he will say, 'you have no father here,' and the child\nwill go crying back to his widowed mother--he, Astyanax, who erewhile\nwould sit upon his father's knees, and have none but the daintiest and\nchoicest morsels set before him. When he had played till he was tired\nand went to sleep, he would lie in a bed, in the arms of his nurse, on\na soft couch, knowing neither want nor care, whereas now that he has\nlost his father his lot will be full of hardship--he, whom the Trojans\nname Astyanax, because you, O Hector, were the only defence of their\ngates and battlements. The wriggling writhing worms will now eat you at\nthe ships, far from your parents, when the dogs have glutted themselves\nupon you. You will lie naked, although in your house you have fine and\ngoodly raiment made by hands of women. This will I now burn; it is of\nno use to you, for you can never again wear it, and thus you will have\nrespect shown you by the Trojans both men and women.\"\n\nIn such wise did she cry aloud amid her tears, and the women joined in\nher lament.\n\n\n\nBOOK XXIII\n\n  The funeral of Patroclus, and the funeral games.\n\nThus did they make their moan throughout the city, while the Achaeans\nwhen they reached the Hellespont went back every man to his own ship.\nBut Achilles would not let the Myrmidons go, and spoke to his brave\ncomrades saying, \"Myrmidons, famed horsemen and my own trusted friends,\nnot yet, forsooth, let us unyoke, but with horse and chariot draw near\nto the body and mourn Patroclus, in due honour to the dead. When we\nhave had full comfort of lamentation we will unyoke our horses and take\nsupper all of us here.\"\n\nOn this they all joined in a cry of wailing and Achilles led them in\ntheir lament. Thrice did they drive their chariots all sorrowing round\nthe body, and Thetis stirred within them a still deeper yearning. The\nsands of the seashore and the men's armour were wet with their weeping,\nso great a minister of fear was he whom they had lost. Chief in all\ntheir mourning was the son of Peleus: he laid his bloodstained hand on\nthe breast of his friend. \"Fare well,\" he cried, \"Patroclus, even in\nthe house of Hades. I will now do all that I erewhile promised you; I\nwill drag Hector hither and let dogs devour him raw; twelve noble sons\nof Trojans will I also slay before your pyre to avenge you.\"\n\nAs he spoke he treated the body of noble Hector with contumely, laying\nit at full length in the dust beside the bier of Patroclus. The others\nthen put off every man his armour, took the horses from their chariots,\nand seated themselves in great multitude by the ship of the fleet\ndescendant of Aeacus, who thereon feasted them with an abundant funeral\nbanquet. Many a goodly ox, with many a sheep and bleating goat did they\nbutcher and cut up; many a tusked boar moreover, fat and well-fed, did\nthey singe and set to roast in the flames of Vulcan; and rivulets of\nblood flowed all round the place where the body was lying.\n\nThen the princes of the Achaeans took the son of Peleus to Agamemnon,\nbut hardly could they persuade him to come with them, so wroth was he\nfor the death of his comrade. As soon as they reached Agamemnon's tent\nthey told the serving-men to set a large tripod over the fire in case\nthey might persuade the son of Peleus to wash the clotted gore from\nthis body, but he denied them sternly, and swore it with a solemn oath,\nsaying, \"Nay, by King Jove, first and mightiest of all gods, it is not\nmeet that water should touch my body, till I have laid Patroclus on the\nflames, have built him a barrow, and shaved my head--for so long as I\nlive no such second sorrow shall ever draw nigh me. Now, therefore, let\nus do all that this sad festival demands, but at break of day, King\nAgamemnon, bid your men bring wood, and provide all else that the dead\nmay duly take into the realm of darkness; the fire shall thus burn him\nout of our sight the sooner, and the people shall turn again to their\nown labours.\"\n\nThus did he speak, and they did even as he had said. They made haste to\nprepare the meal, they ate, and every man had his full share so that\nall were satisfied. As soon as they had had enough to eat and drink,\nthe others went to their rest each in his own tent, but the son of\nPeleus lay grieving among his Myrmidons by the shore of the sounding\nsea, in an open place where the waves came surging in one after\nanother. Here a very deep slumber took hold upon him and eased the\nburden of his sorrows, for his limbs were weary with chasing Hector\nround windy Ilius. Presently the sad spirit of Patroclus drew near him,\nlike what he had been in stature, voice, and the light of his beaming\neyes, clad, too, as he had been clad in life. The spirit hovered over\nhis head and said--\n\n\"You sleep, Achilles, and have forgotten me; you loved me living, but\nnow that I am dead you think for me no further. Bury me with all speed\nthat I may pass the gates of Hades; the ghosts, vain shadows of men\nthat can labour no more, drive me away from them; they will not yet\nsuffer me to join those that are beyond the river, and I wander all\ndesolate by the wide gates of the house of Hades. Give me now your hand\nI pray you, for when you have once given me my dues of fire, never\nshall I again come forth out of the house of Hades. Nevermore shall we\nsit apart and take sweet counsel among the living; the cruel fate which\nwas my birth-right has yawned its wide jaws around me--nay, you too\nAchilles, peer of gods, are doomed to die beneath the wall of the noble\nTrojans.\n\n\"One prayer more will I make you, if you will grant it; let not my\nbones be laid apart from yours, Achilles, but with them; even as we\nwere brought up together in your own home, what time Menoetius brought\nme to you as a child from Opoeis because by a sad spite I had killed\nthe son of Amphidamas--not of set purpose, but in childish quarrel over\nthe dice. The knight Peleus took me into his house, entreated me\nkindly, and named me to be your squire; therefore let our bones lie in\nbut a single urn, the two-handled golden vase given to you by your\nmother.\"\n\nAnd Achilles answered, \"Why, true heart, are you come hither to lay\nthese charges upon me? I will of my own self do all as you have bidden\nme. Draw closer to me, let us once more throw our arms around one\nanother, and find sad comfort in the sharing of our sorrows.\"\n\nHe opened his arms towards him as he spoke and would have clasped him\nin them, but there was nothing, and the spirit vanished as a vapour,\ngibbering and whining into the earth. Achilles sprang to his feet,\nsmote his two hands, and made lamentation saying, \"Of a truth even in\nthe house of Hades there are ghosts and phantoms that have no life in\nthem; all night long the sad spirit of Patroclus has hovered over head\nmaking piteous moan, telling me what I am to do for him, and looking\nwondrously like himself.\"\n\nThus did he speak and his words set them all weeping and mourning about\nthe poor dumb dead, till rosy-fingered morn appeared. Then King\nAgamemnon sent men and mules from all parts of the camp, to bring wood,\nand Meriones, squire to Idomeneus, was in charge over them. They went\nout with woodmen's axes and strong ropes in their hands, and before\nthem went the mules. Up hill and down dale did they go, by straight\nways and crooked, and when they reached the heights of many-fountained\nIda, they laid their axes to the roots of many a tall branching oak\nthat came thundering down as they felled it. They split the trees and\nbound them behind the mules, which then wended their way as they best\ncould through the thick brushwood on to the plain. All who had been\ncutting wood bore logs, for so Meriones squire to Idomeneus had bidden\nthem, and they threw them down in a line upon the seashore at the place\nwhere Achilles would make a mighty monument for Patroclus and for\nhimself.\n\nWhen they had thrown down their great logs of wood over the whole\nground, they stayed all of them where they were, but Achilles ordered\nhis brave Myrmidons to gird on their armour, and to yoke each man his\nhorses; they therefore rose, girded on their armour and mounted each\nhis chariot--they and their charioteers with them. The chariots went\nbefore, and they that were on foot followed as a cloud in their tens of\nthousands after. In the midst of them his comrades bore Patroclus and\ncovered him with the locks of their hair which they cut off and threw\nupon his body. Last came Achilles with his head bowed for sorrow, so\nnoble a comrade was he taking to the house of Hades.\n\nWhen they came to the place of which Achilles had told them they laid\nthe body down and built up the wood. Achilles then bethought him of\nanother matter. He went a space away from the pyre, and cut off the\nyellow lock which he had let grow for the river Spercheius. He looked\nall sorrowfully out upon the dark sea, and said, \"Spercheius, in vain\ndid my father Peleus vow to you that when I returned home to my loved\nnative land I should cut off this lock and offer you a holy hecatomb;\nfifty she-goats was I to sacrifice to you there at your springs, where\nis your grove and your altar fragrant with burnt-offerings. Thus did my\nfather vow, but you have not fulfilled his prayer; now, therefore, that\nI shall see my home no more, I give this lock as a keepsake to the hero\nPatroclus.\"\n\nAs he spoke he placed the lock in the hands of his dear comrade, and\nall who stood by were filled with yearning and lamentation. The sun\nwould have gone down upon their mourning had not Achilles presently\nsaid to Agamemnon, \"Son of Atreus, for it is to you that the people\nwill give ear, there is a time to mourn and a time to cease from\nmourning; bid the people now leave the pyre and set about getting their\ndinners: we, to whom the dead is dearest, will see to what is wanted\nhere, and let the other princes also stay by me.\"\n\nWhen King Agamemnon heard this he dismissed the people to their ships,\nbut those who were about the dead heaped up wood and built a pyre a\nhundred feet this way and that; then they laid the dead all sorrowfully\nupon the top of it. They flayed and dressed many fat sheep and oxen\nbefore the pyre, and Achilles took fat from all of them and wrapped the\nbody therein from head to foot, heaping the flayed carcases all round\nit. Against the bier he leaned two-handled jars of honey and unguents;\nfour proud horses did he then cast upon the pyre, groaning the while he\ndid so. The dead hero had had house-dogs; two of them did Achilles slay\nand threw upon the pyre; he also put twelve brave sons of noble Trojans\nto the sword and laid them with the rest, for he was full of bitterness\nand fury. Then he committed all to the resistless and devouring might\nof the fire; he groaned aloud and called on his dead comrade by name.\n\"Fare well,\" he cried, \"Patroclus, even in the house of Hades; I am now\ndoing all that I have promised you. Twelve brave sons of noble Trojans\nshall the flames consume along with yourself, but dogs, not fire, shall\ndevour the flesh of Hector son of Priam.\"\n\nThus did he vaunt, but the dogs came not about the body of Hector, for\nJove's daughter Venus kept them off him night and day, and anointed him\nwith ambrosial oil of roses that his flesh might not be torn when\nAchilles was dragging him about. Phoebus Apollo moreover sent a dark\ncloud from heaven to earth, which gave shade to the whole place where\nHector lay, that the heat of the sun might not parch his body.\n\nNow the pyre about dead Patroclus would not kindle. Achilles therefore\nbethought him of another matter; he went apart and prayed to the two\nwinds Boreas and Zephyrus vowing them goodly offerings. He made them\nmany drink-offerings from the golden cup and besought them to come and\nhelp him that the wood might make haste to kindle and the dead bodies\nbe consumed. Fleet Iris heard him praying and started off to fetch the\nwinds. They were holding high feast in the house of boisterous Zephyrus\nwhen Iris came running up to the stone threshold of the house and stood\nthere, but as soon as they set eyes on her they all came towards her\nand each of them called her to him, but Iris would not sit down. \"I\ncannot stay,\" she said, \"I must go back to the streams of Oceanus and\nthe land of the Ethiopians who are offering hecatombs to the immortals,\nand I would have my share; but Achilles prays that Boreas and shrill\nZephyrus will come to him, and he vows them goodly offerings; he would\nhave you blow upon the pyre of Patroclus for whom all the Achaeans are\nlamenting.\"\n\nWith this she left them, and the two winds rose with a cry that rent\nthe air and swept the clouds before them. They blew on and on until\nthey came to the sea, and the waves rose high beneath them, but when\nthey reached Troy they fell upon the pyre till the mighty flames roared\nunder the blast that they blew. All night long did they blow hard and\nbeat upon the fire, and all night long did Achilles grasp his double\ncup, drawing wine from a mixing-bowl of gold, and calling upon the\nspirit of dead Patroclus as he poured it upon the ground until the\nearth was drenched. As a father mourns when he is burning the bones of\nhis bridegroom son whose death has wrung the hearts of his parents,\neven so did Achilles mourn while burning the body of his comrade,\npacing round the bier with piteous groaning and lamentation.\n\nAt length as the Morning Star was beginning to herald the light which\nsaffron-mantled Dawn was soon to suffuse over the sea, the flames fell\nand the fire began to die. The winds then went home beyond the Thracian\nsea, which roared and boiled as they swept over it. The son of Peleus\nnow turned away from the pyre and lay down, overcome with toil, till he\nfell into a sweet slumber. Presently they who were about the son of\nAtreus drew near in a body, and roused him with the noise and tramp of\ntheir coming. He sat upright and said, \"Son of Atreus, and all other\nprinces of the Achaeans, first pour red wine everywhere upon the fire\nand quench it; let us then gather the bones of Patroclus son of\nMenoetius, singling them out with care; they are easily found, for they\nlie in the middle of the pyre, while all else, both men and horses, has\nbeen thrown in a heap and burned at the outer edge. We will lay the\nbones in a golden urn, in two layers of fat, against the time when I\nshall myself go down into the house of Hades. As for the barrow, labour\nnot to raise a great one now, but such as is reasonable. Afterwards,\nlet those Achaeans who may be left at the ships when I am gone, build\nit both broad and high.\"\n\nThus he spoke and they obeyed the word of the son of Peleus. First they\npoured red wine upon the thick layer of ashes and quenched the fire.\nWith many tears they singled out the whitened bones of their loved\ncomrade and laid them within a golden urn in two layers of fat: they\nthen covered the urn with a linen cloth and took it inside the tent.\nThey marked off the circle where the barrow should be, made a\nfoundation for it about the pyre, and forthwith heaped up the earth.\nWhen they had thus raised a mound they were going away, but Achilles\nstayed the people and made them sit in assembly. He brought prizes from\nthe ships--cauldrons, tripods, horses and mules, noble oxen, women with\nfair girdles, and swart iron.\n\nThe first prize he offered was for the chariot races--a woman skilled\nin all useful arts, and a three-legged cauldron that had ears for\nhandles, and would hold twenty-two measures. This was for the man who\ncame in first. For the second there was a six-year old mare, unbroken,\nand in foal to a he-ass; the third was to have a goodly cauldron that\nhad never yet been on the fire; it was still bright as when it left the\nmaker, and would hold four measures. The fourth prize was two talents\nof gold, and the fifth a two-handled urn as yet unsoiled by smoke. Then\nhe stood up and spoke among the Argives saying--\n\n\"Son of Atreus, and all other Achaeans, these are the prizes that lie\nwaiting the winners of the chariot races. At any other time I should\ncarry off the first prize and take it to my own tent; you know how far\nmy steeds excel all others--for they are immortal; Neptune gave them to\nmy father Peleus, who in his turn gave them to myself; but I shall hold\naloof, I and my steeds that have lost their brave and kind driver, who\nmany a time has washed them in clear water and anointed their manes\nwith oil. See how they stand weeping here, with their manes trailing on\nthe ground in the extremity of their sorrow. But do you others set\nyourselves in order throughout the host, whosoever has confidence in\nhis horses and in the strength of his chariot.\"\n\nThus spoke the son of Peleus and the drivers of chariots bestirred\nthemselves. First among them all uprose Eumelus, king of men, son of\nAdmetus, a man excellent in horsemanship. Next to him rose mighty\nDiomed son of Tydeus; he yoked the Trojan horses which he had taken\nfrom Aeneas, when Apollo bore him out of the fight. Next to him,\nyellow-haired Menelaus son of Atreus rose and yoked his fleet horses,\nAgamemnon's mare Aethe, and his own horse Podargus. The mare had been\ngiven to Agamemnon by Echepolus son of Anchises, that he might not have\nto follow him to Ilius, but might stay at home and take his ease; for\nJove had endowed him with great wealth and he lived in spacious Sicyon.\nThis mare, all eager for the race, did Menelaus put under the yoke.\n\nFourth in order Antilochus, son to noble Nestor son of Neleus, made\nready his horses. These were bred in Pylos, and his father came up to\nhim to give him good advice of which, however, he stood in but little\nneed. \"Antilochus,\" said Nestor, \"you are young, but Jove and Neptune\nhave loved you well, and have made you an excellent horseman. I need\nnot therefore say much by way of instruction. You are skilful at\nwheeling your horses round the post, but the horses themselves are very\nslow, and it is this that will, I fear, mar your chances. The other\ndrivers know less than you do, but their horses are fleeter; therefore,\nmy dear son, see if you cannot hit upon some artifice whereby you may\ninsure that the prize shall not slip through your fingers. The woodman\ndoes more by skill than by brute force; by skill the pilot guides his\nstorm-tossed barque over the sea, and so by skill one driver can beat\nanother. If a man go wide in rounding this way and that, whereas a man\nwho knows what he is doing may have worse horses, but he will keep them\nwell in hand when he sees the doubling-post; he knows the precise\nmoment at which to pull the rein, and keeps his eye well on the man in\nfront of him. I will give you this certain token which cannot escape\nyour notice. There is a stump of a dead tree--oak or pine as it may\nbe--some six feet above the ground, and not yet rotted away by rain; it\nstands at the fork of the road; it has two white stones set one on each\nside, and there is a clear course all round it. It may have been a\nmonument to some one long since dead, or it may have been used as a\ndoubling-post in days gone by; now, however, it has been fixed on by\nAchilles as the mark round which the chariots shall turn; hug it as\nclose as you can, but as you stand in your chariot lean over a little\nto the left; urge on your right-hand horse with voice and lash, and\ngive him a loose rein, but let the left-hand horse keep so close in,\nthat the nave of your wheel shall almost graze the post; but mind the\nstone, or you will wound your horses and break your chariot in pieces,\nwhich would be sport for others but confusion for yourself. Therefore,\nmy dear son, mind well what you are about, for if you can be first to\nround the post there is no chance of any one giving you the go-by\nlater, not even though you had Adrestus's horse Arion behind you--a\nhorse which is of divine race--or those of Laomedon, which are the\nnoblest in this country.\"\n\nWhen Nestor had made an end of counselling his son he sat down in his\nplace, and fifth in order Meriones got ready his horses. They then all\nmounted their chariots and cast lots. Achilles shook the helmet, and\nthe lot of Antilochus son of Nestor fell out first; next came that of\nKing Eumelus, and after his, those of Menelaus son of Atreus and of\nMeriones. The last place fell to the lot of Diomed son of Tydeus, who\nwas the best man of them all. They took their places in line; Achilles\nshowed them the doubling-post round which they were to turn, some way\noff upon the plain; here he stationed his father's follower Phoenix as\numpire, to note the running, and report truly.\n\nAt the same instant they all of them lashed their horses, struck them\nwith the reins, and shouted at them with all their might. They flew\nfull speed over the plain away from the ships, the dust rose from under\nthem as it were a cloud or whirlwind, and their manes were all flying\nin the wind. At one moment the chariots seemed to touch the ground, and\nthen again they bounded into the air; the drivers stood erect, and\ntheir hearts beat fast and furious in their lust of victory. Each kept\ncalling on his horses, and the horses scoured the plain amid the clouds\nof dust that they raised.\n\nIt was when they were doing the last part of the course on their way\nback towards the sea that their pace was strained to the utmost and it\nwas seen what each could do. The horses of the descendant of Pheres now\ntook the lead, and close behind them came the Trojan stallions of\nDiomed. They seemed as if about to mount Eumelus's chariot, and he\ncould feel their warm breath on his back and on his broad shoulders,\nfor their heads were close to him as they flew over the course. Diomed\nwould have now passed him, or there would have been a dead heat, but\nPhoebus Apollo to spite him made him drop his whip. Tears of anger fell\nfrom his eyes as he saw the mares going on faster than ever, while his\nown horses lost ground through his having no whip. Minerva saw the\ntrick which Apollo had played the son of Tydeus, so she brought him his\nwhip and put spirit into his horses; moreover she went after the son of\nAdmetus in a rage and broke his yoke for him; the mares went one to one\nside of the course, and the other to the other, and the pole was broken\nagainst the ground. Eumelus was thrown from his chariot close to the\nwheel; his elbows, mouth, and nostrils were all torn, and his forehead\nwas bruised above his eyebrows; his eyes filled with tears and he could\nfind no utterance. But the son of Tydeus turned his horses aside and\nshot far ahead, for Minerva put fresh strength into them and covered\nDiomed himself with glory.\n\nMenelaus son of Atreus came next behind him, but Antilochus called to\nhis father's horses. \"On with you both,\" he cried, \"and do your very\nutmost. I do not bid you try to beat the steeds of the son of Tydeus,\nfor Minerva has put running into them, and has covered Diomed with\nglory; but you must overtake the horses of the son of Atreus and not be\nleft behind, or Aethe who is so fleet will taunt you. Why, my good\nfellows, are you lagging? I tell you, and it shall surely be--Nestor\nwill keep neither of you, but will put both of you to the sword, if we\nwin any the worse a prize through your carelessness. Fly after them at\nyour utmost speed; I will hit on a plan for passing them in a narrow\npart of the way, and it shall not fail me.\"\n\nThey feared the rebuke of their master, and for a short space went\nquicker. Presently Antilochus saw a narrow place where the road had\nsunk. The ground was broken, for the winter's rain had gathered and had\nworn the road so that the whole place was deepened. Menelaus was making\ntowards it so as to get there first, for fear of a foul, but Antilochus\nturned his horses out of the way, and followed him a little on one\nside. The son of Atreus was afraid and shouted out, \"Antilochus, you\nare driving recklessly; rein in your horses; the road is too narrow\nhere, it will be wider soon, and you can pass me then; if you foul my\nchariot you may bring both of us to a mischief.\"\n\nBut Antilochus plied his whip, and drove faster, as though he had not\nheard him. They went side by side for about as far as a young man can\nhurl a disc from his shoulder when he is trying his strength, and then\nMenelaus's mares drew behind, for he left off driving for fear the\nhorses should foul one another and upset the chariots; thus, while\npressing on in quest of victory, they might both come headlong to the\nground. Menelaus then upbraided Antilochus and said, \"There is no\ngreater trickster living than you are; go, and bad luck go with you;\nthe Achaeans say not well that you have understanding, and come what\nmay you shall not bear away the prize without sworn protest on my part.\"\n\nThen he called on his horses and said to them, \"Keep your pace, and\nslacken not; the limbs of the other horses will weary sooner than\nyours, for they are neither of them young.\"\n\nThe horses feared the rebuke of their master, and went faster, so that\nthey were soon nearly up with the others.\n\nMeanwhile the Achaeans from their seats were watching how the horses\nwent, as they scoured the plain amid clouds of their own dust.\nIdomeneus captain of the Cretans was first to make out the running, for\nhe was not in the thick of the crowd, but stood on the most commanding\npart of the ground. The driver was a long way off, but Idomeneus could\nhear him shouting, and could see the foremost horse quite plainly--a\nchestnut with a round white star, like the moon, on its forehead. He\nstood up and said among the Argives, \"My friends, princes and\ncounsellors of the Argives, can you see the running as well as I can?\nThere seems to be another pair in front now, and another driver; those\nthat led off at the start must have been disabled out on the plain. I\nsaw them at first making their way round the doubling-post, but now,\nthough I search the plain of Troy, I cannot find them. Perhaps the\nreins fell from the driver's hand so that he lost command of his horses\nat the doubling-post, and could not turn it. I suppose he must have\nbeen thrown out there, and broken his chariot, while his mares have\nleft the course and gone off wildly in a panic. Come up and see for\nyourselves, I cannot make out for certain, but the driver seems an\nAetolian by descent, ruler over the Argives, brave Diomed the son of\nTydeus.\"\n\nAjax the son of Oileus took him up rudely and said, \"Idomeneus, why\nshould you be in such a hurry to tell us all about it, when the mares\nare still so far out upon the plain? You are none of the youngest, nor\nyour eyes none of the sharpest, but you are always laying down the law.\nYou have no right to do so, for there are better men here than you are.\nEumelus's horses are in front now, as they always have been, and he is\non the chariot holding the reins.\"\n\nThe captain of the Cretans was angry, and answered, \"Ajax you are an\nexcellent railer, but you have no judgement, and are wanting in much\nelse as well, for you have a vile temper. I will wager you a tripod or\ncauldron, and Agamemnon son of Atreus shall decide whose horses are\nfirst. You will then know to your cost.\"\n\nAjax son of Oileus was for making him an angry answer, and there would\nhave been yet further brawling between them, had not Achilles risen in\nhis place and said, \"Cease your railing, Ajax and Idomeneus; it is not\nseemly; you would be scandalised if you saw any one else do the like:\nsit down and keep your eyes on the horses; they are speeding towards\nthe winning-post and will be here directly. You will then both of you\nknow whose horses are first, and whose come after.\"\n\nAs he was speaking, the son of Tydeus came driving in, plying his whip\nlustily from his shoulder, and his horses stepping high as they flew\nover the course. The sand and grit rained thick on the driver, and the\nchariot inlaid with gold and tin ran close behind his fleet horses.\nThere was little trace of wheel-marks in the fine dust, and the horses\ncame flying in at their utmost speed. Diomed stayed them in the middle\nof the crowd, and the sweat from their manes and chests fell in streams\non to the ground. Forthwith he sprang from his goodly chariot, and\nleaned his whip against his horses' yoke; brave Sthenelus now lost no\ntime, but at once brought on the prize, and gave the woman and the\near-handled cauldron to his comrades to take away. Then he unyoked the\nhorses.\n\nNext after him came in Antilochus of the race of Neleus, who had passed\nMenelaus by a trick and not by the fleetness of his horses; but even so\nMenelaus came in as close behind him as the wheel is to the horse that\ndraws both the chariot and its master. The end hairs of a horse's tail\ntouch the tyre of the wheel, and there is never much space between\nwheel and horse when the chariot is going; Menelaus was no further than\nthis behind Antilochus, though at first he had been a full disc's throw\nbehind him. He had soon caught him up again, for Agamemnon's mare Aethe\nkept pulling stronger and stronger, so that if the course had been\nlonger he would have passed him, and there would not even have been a\ndead heat. Idomeneus's brave squire Meriones was about a spear's cast\nbehind Menelaus. His horses were slowest of all, and he was the worst\ndriver. Last of them all came the son of Admetus, dragging his chariot\nand driving his horses on in front. When Achilles saw him he was sorry,\nand stood up among the Argives saying, \"The best man is coming in last.\nLet us give him a prize for it is reasonable. He shall have the second,\nbut the first must go to the son of Tydeus.\"\n\nThus did he speak and the others all of them applauded his saying, and\nwere for doing as he had said, but Nestor's son Antilochus stood up and\nclaimed his rights from the son of Peleus. \"Achilles,\" said he, \"I\nshall take it much amiss if you do this thing; you would rob me of my\nprize, because you think Eumelus's chariot and horses were thrown out,\nand himself too, good man that he is. He should have prayed duly to the\nimmortals; he would not have come in last if he had done so. If you are\nsorry for him and so choose, you have much gold in your tents, with\nbronze, sheep, cattle and horses. Take something from this store if you\nwould have the Achaeans speak well of you, and give him a better prize\neven than that which you have now offered; but I will not give up the\nmare, and he that will fight me for her, let him come on.\"\n\nAchilles smiled as he heard this, and was pleased with Antilochus, who\nwas one of his dearest comrades. So he said--\n\n\"Antilochus, if you would have me find Eumelus another prize, I will\ngive him the bronze breastplate with a rim of tin running all round it\nwhich I took from Asteropaeus. It will be worth much money to him.\"\n\nHe bade his comrade Automedon bring the breastplate from his tent, and\nhe did so. Achilles then gave it over to Eumelus, who received it\ngladly.\n\nBut Menelaus got up in a rage, furiously angry with Antilochus. An\nattendant placed his staff in his hands and bade the Argives keep\nsilence: the hero then addressed them. \"Antilochus,\" said he, \"what is\nthis from you who have been so far blameless? You have made me cut a\npoor figure and baulked my horses by flinging your own in front of\nthem, though yours are much worse than mine are; therefore, O princes\nand counsellors of the Argives, judge between us and show no favour,\nlest one of the Achaeans say, 'Menelaus has got the mare through lying\nand corruption; his horses were far inferior to Antilochus's, but he\nhas greater weight and influence.' Nay, I will determine the matter\nmyself, and no man will blame me, for I shall do what is just. Come\nhere, Antilochus, and stand, as our custom is, whip in hand before your\nchariot and horses; lay your hand on your steeds, and swear by\nearth-encircling Neptune that you did not purposely and guilefully get\nin the way of my horses.\"\n\nAnd Antilochus answered, \"Forgive me; I am much younger, King Menelaus,\nthan you are; you stand higher than I do and are the better man of the\ntwo; you know how easily young men are betrayed into indiscretion;\ntheir tempers are more hasty and they have less judgement; make due\nallowances therefore, and bear with me; I will of my own accord give up\nthe mare that I have won, and if you claim any further chattel from my\nown possessions, I would rather yield it to you, at once, than fall\nfrom your good graces henceforth, and do wrong in the sight of heaven.\"\n\nThe son of Nestor then took the mare and gave her over to Menelaus,\nwhose anger was thus appeased; as when dew falls upon a field of\nripening corn, and the lands are bristling with the harvest--even so, O\nMenelaus, was your heart made glad within you. He turned to Antilochus\nand said, \"Now, Antilochus, angry though I have been, I can give way to\nyou of my own free will; you have never been headstrong nor\nill-disposed hitherto, but this time your youth has got the better of\nyour judgement; be careful how you outwit your betters in future; no\none else could have brought me round so easily, but your good father,\nyour brother, and yourself have all of you had infinite trouble on my\nbehalf; I therefore yield to your entreaty, and will give up the mare\nto you, mine though it indeed be; the people will thus see that I am\nneither harsh nor vindictive.\"\n\nWith this he gave the mare over to Antilochus's comrade Noemon, and\nthen took the cauldron. Meriones, who had come in fourth, carried off\nthe two talents of gold, and the fifth prize, the two-handled urn,\nbeing unawarded, Achilles gave it to Nestor, going up to him among the\nassembled Argives and saying, \"Take this, my good old friend, as an\nheirloom and memorial of the funeral of Patroclus--for you shall see\nhim no more among the Argives. I give you this prize though you cannot\nwin one; you can now neither wrestle nor fight, and cannot enter for\nthe javelin-match nor foot-races, for the hand of age has been laid\nheavily upon you.\"\n\nSo saying he gave the urn over to Nestor, who received it gladly and\nanswered, \"My son, all that you have said is true; there is no strength\nnow in my legs and feet, nor can I hit out with my hands from either\nshoulder. Would that I were still young and strong as when the Epeans\nwere burying King Amarynceus in Buprasium, and his sons offered prizes\nin his honour. There was then none that could vie with me neither of\nthe Epeans nor the Pylians themselves nor the Aetolians. In boxing I\novercame Clytomedes son of Enops, and in wrestling, Ancaeus of Pleuron\nwho had come forward against me. Iphiclus was a good runner, but I beat\nhim, and threw farther with my spear than either Phyleus or Polydorus.\nIn chariot-racing alone did the two sons of Actor surpass me by\ncrowding their horses in front of me, for they were angry at the way\nvictory had gone, and at the greater part of the prizes remaining in\nthe place in which they had been offered. They were twins, and the one\nkept on holding the reins, and holding the reins, while the other plied\nthe whip. Such was I then, but now I must leave these matters to\nyounger men; I must bow before the weight of years, but in those days I\nwas eminent among heroes. And now, sir, go on with the funeral contests\nin honour of your comrade: gladly do I accept this urn, and my heart\nrejoices that you do not forget me but are ever mindful of my goodwill\ntowards you, and of the respect due to me from the Achaeans. For all\nwhich may the grace of heaven be vouchsafed you in great abundance.\"\n\nThereon the son of Peleus, when he had listened to all the thanks of\nNestor, went about among the concourse of the Achaeans, and presently\noffered prizes for skill in the painful art of boxing. He brought out a\nstrong mule, and made it fast in the middle of the crowd--a she-mule\nnever yet broken, but six years old--when it is hardest of all to break\nthem: this was for the victor, and for the vanquished he offered a\ndouble cup. Then he stood up and said among the Argives, \"Son of\nAtreus, and all other Achaeans, I invite our two champion boxers to lay\nabout them lustily and compete for these prizes. He to whom Apollo\nvouchsafes the greater endurance, and whom the Achaeans acknowledge as\nvictor, shall take the mule back with him to his own tent, while he\nthat is vanquished shall have the double cup.\"\n\nAs he spoke there stood up a champion both brave and of great stature,\na skilful boxer, Epeus, son of Panopeus. He laid his hand on the mule\nand said, \"Let the man who is to have the cup come hither, for none but\nmyself will take the mule. I am the best boxer of all here present, and\nnone can beat me. Is it not enough that I should fall short of you in\nactual fighting? Still, no man can be good at everything. I tell you\nplainly, and it shall come true; if any man will box with me I will\nbruise his body and break his bones; therefore let his friends stay\nhere in a body and be at hand to take him away when I have done with\nhim.\"\n\nThey all held their peace, and no man rose save Euryalus son of\nMecisteus, who was son of Talaus. Mecisteus went once to Thebes after\nthe fall of Oedipus, to attend his funeral, and he beat all the people\nof Cadmus. The son of Tydeus was Euryalus's second, cheering him on and\nhoping heartily that he would win. First he put a waistband round him\nand then he gave him some well-cut thongs of ox-hide; the two men being\nnow girt went into the middle of the ring, and immediately fell to;\nheavily indeed did they punish one another and lay about them with\ntheir brawny fists. One could hear the horrid crashing of their jaws,\nand they sweated from every pore of their skin. Presently Epeus came on\nand gave Euryalus a blow on the jaw as he was looking round; Euryalus\ncould not keep his legs; they gave way under him in a moment and he\nsprang up with a bound, as a fish leaps into the air near some shore\nthat is all bestrewn with sea-wrack, when Boreas furs the top of the\nwaves, and then falls back into deep water. But noble Epeus caught hold\nof him and raised him up; his comrades also came round him and led him\nfrom the ring, unsteady in his gait, his head hanging on one side, and\nspitting great clots of gore. They set him down in a swoon and then\nwent to fetch the double cup.\n\nThe son of Peleus now brought out the prizes for the third contest and\nshowed them to the Argives. These were for the painful art of\nwrestling. For the winner there was a great tripod ready for setting\nupon the fire, and the Achaeans valued it among themselves at twelve\noxen. For the loser he brought out a woman skilled in all manner of\narts, and they valued her at four oxen. He rose and said among the\nArgives, \"Stand forward, you who will essay this contest.\"\n\nForthwith uprose great Ajax the son of Telamon, and crafty Ulysses,\nfull of wiles, rose also. The two girded themselves and went into the\nmiddle of the ring. They gripped each other in their strong hands like\nthe rafters which some master-builder frames for the roof of a high\nhouse to keep the wind out. Their backbones cracked as they tugged at\none another with their mighty arms--and sweat rained from them in\ntorrents. Many a bloody weal sprang up on their sides and shoulders,\nbut they kept on striving with might and main for victory and to win\nthe tripod. Ulysses could not throw Ajax, nor Ajax him; Ulysses was too\nstrong for him; but when the Achaeans began to tire of watching them,\nAjax said to Ulysses, \"Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, you shall either\nlift me, or I you, and let Jove settle it between us.\"\n\nHe lifted him from the ground as he spoke, but Ulysses did not forget\nhis cunning. He hit Ajax in the hollow at back of his knee, so that he\ncould not keep his feet, but fell on his back with Ulysses lying upon\nhis chest, and all who saw it marvelled. Then Ulysses in turn lifted\nAjax and stirred him a little from the ground but could not lift him\nright off it, his knee sank under him, and the two fell side by side on\nthe ground and were all begrimed with dust. They now sprang towards one\nanother and were for wrestling yet a third time, but Achilles rose and\nstayed them. \"Put not each other further,\" said he, \"to such cruel\nsuffering; the victory is with both alike, take each of you an equal\nprize, and let the other Achaeans now compete.\"\n\nThus did he speak and they did even as he had said, and put on their\nshirts again after wiping the dust from off their bodies.\n\nThe son of Peleus then offered prizes for speed in running--a\nmixing-bowl beautifully wrought, of pure silver. It would hold six\nmeasures, and far exceeded all others in the whole world for beauty; it\nwas the work of cunning artificers in Sidon, and had been brought into\nport by Phoenicians from beyond the sea, who had made a present of it\nto Thoas. Eueneus son of Jason had given it to Patroclus in ransom of\nPriam's son Lycaon, and Achilles now offered it as a prize in honour of\nhis comrade to him who should be the swiftest runner. For the second\nprize he offered a large ox, well fattened, while for the last there\nwas to be half a talent of gold. He then rose and said among the\nArgives, \"Stand forward, you who will essay this contest.\"\n\nForthwith uprose fleet Ajax son of Oileus, with cunning Ulysses, and\nNestor's son Antilochus, the fastest runner among all the youth of his\ntime. They stood side by side and Achilles showed them the goal. The\ncourse was set out for them from the starting-post, and the son of\nOileus took the lead at once, with Ulysses as close behind him as the\nshuttle is to a woman's bosom when she throws the woof across the warp\nand holds it close up to her; even so close behind him was\nUlysses--treading in his footprints before the dust could settle there,\nand Ajax could feel his breath on the back of his head as he ran\nswiftly on. The Achaeans all shouted applause as they saw him straining\nhis utmost, and cheered him as he shot past them; but when they were\nnow nearing the end of the course Ulysses prayed inwardly to Minerva.\n\"Hear me,\" he cried, \"and help my feet, O goddess.\" Thus did he pray,\nand Pallas Minerva heard his prayer; she made his hands and his feet\nfeel light, and when the runners were at the point of pouncing upon the\nprize, Ajax, through Minerva's spite slipped upon some offal that was\nlying there from the cattle which Achilles had slaughtered in honour of\nPatroclus, and his mouth and nostrils were all filled with cow dung.\nUlysses therefore carried off the mixing-bowl, for he got before Ajax\nand came in first. But Ajax took the ox and stood with his hand on one\nof its horns, spitting the dung out of his mouth. Then he said to the\nArgives, \"Alas, the goddess has spoiled my running; she watches over\nUlysses and stands by him as though she were his own mother.\" Thus did\nhe speak and they all of them laughed heartily.\n\nAntilochus carried off the last prize and smiled as he said to the\nbystanders, \"You all see, my friends, that now too the gods have shown\ntheir respect for seniority. Ajax is somewhat older than I am, and as\nfor Ulysses, he belongs to an earlier generation, but he is hale in\nspite of his years, and no man of the Achaeans can run against him save\nonly Achilles.\"\n\nHe said this to pay a compliment to the son of Peleus, and Achilles\nanswered, \"Antilochus, you shall not have praised me to no purpose; I\nshall give you an additional half talent of gold.\" He then gave the\nhalf talent to Antilochus, who received it gladly.\n\nThen the son of Peleus brought out the spear, helmet and shield that\nhad been borne by Sarpedon, and were taken from him by Patroclus. He\nstood up and said among the Argives, \"We bid two champions put on their\narmour, take their keen blades, and make trial of one another in the\npresence of the multitude; whichever of them can first wound the flesh\nof the other, cut through his armour, and draw blood, to him will I\ngive this goodly Thracian sword inlaid with silver, which I took from\nAsteropaeus, but the armour let both hold in partnership, and I will\ngive each of them a hearty meal in my own tent.\"\n\nForthwith uprose great Ajax the son of Telamon, as also mighty Diomed\nson of Tydeus. When they had put on their armour each on his own side\nof the ring, they both went into the middle eager to engage, and with\nfire flashing from their eyes. The Achaeans marvelled as they beheld\nthem, and when the two were now close up with one another, thrice did\nthey spring forward and thrice try to strike each other in close\ncombat. Ajax pierced Diomed's round shield, but did not draw blood, for\nthe cuirass beneath the shield protected him; thereon the son of Tydeus\nfrom over his huge shield kept aiming continually at Ajax's neck with\nthe point of his spear, and the Achaeans alarmed for his safety bade\nthem leave off fighting and divide the prize between them. Achilles\nthen gave the great sword to the son of Tydeus, with its scabbard, and\nthe leathern belt with which to hang it.\n\nAchilles next offered the massive iron quoit which mighty Eetion had\nerewhile been used to hurl, until Achilles had slain him and carried it\noff in his ships along with other spoils. He stood up and said among\nthe Argives, \"Stand forward, you who would essay this contest. He who\nwins it will have a store of iron that will last him five years as they\ngo rolling round, and if his fair fields lie far from a town his\nshepherd or ploughman will not have to make a journey to buy iron, for\nhe will have a stock of it on his own premises.\"\n\nThen uprose the two mighty men Polypoetes and Leonteus, with Ajax son\nof Telamon and noble Epeus. They stood up one after the other and Epeus\ntook the quoit, whirled it, and flung it from him, which set all the\nAchaeans laughing. After him threw Leonteus of the race of Mars. Ajax\nson of Telamon threw third, and sent the quoit beyond any mark that had\nbeen made yet, but when mighty Polypoetes took the quoit he hurled it\nas though it had been a stockman's stick which he sends flying about\namong his cattle when he is driving them, so far did his throw\nout-distance those of the others. All who saw it roared applause, and\nhis comrades carried the prize for him and set it on board his ship.\n\nAchilles next offered a prize of iron for archery--ten double-edged\naxes and ten with single edges: he set up a ship's mast, some way off\nupon the sands, and with a fine string tied a pigeon to it by the foot;\nthis was what they were to aim at. \"Whoever,\" he said, \"can hit the\npigeon shall have all the axes and take them away with him; he who hits\nthe string without hitting the bird will have taken a worse aim and\nshall have the single-edged axes.\"\n\nThen uprose King Teucer, and Meriones the stalwart squire of Idomeneus\nrose also, They cast lots in a bronze helmet and the lot of Teucer fell\nfirst. He let fly with his arrow forthwith, but he did not promise\nhecatombs of firstling lambs to King Apollo, and missed his bird, for\nApollo foiled his aim; but he hit the string with which the bird was\ntied, near its foot; the arrow cut the string clean through so that it\nhung down towards the ground, while the bird flew up into the sky, and\nthe Achaeans shouted applause. Meriones, who had his arrow ready while\nTeucer was aiming, snatched the bow out of his hand, and at once\npromised that he would sacrifice a hecatomb of firstling lambs to\nApollo lord of the bow; then espying the pigeon high up under the\nclouds, he hit her in the middle of the wing as she was circling\nupwards; the arrow went clean through the wing and fixed itself in the\nground at Meriones' feet, but the bird perched on the ship's mast\nhanging her head and with all her feathers drooping; the life went out\nof her, and she fell heavily from the mast. Meriones, therefore, took\nall ten double-edged axes, while Teucer bore off the single-edged ones\nto his ships.\n\nThen the son of Peleus brought in a spear and a cauldron that had never\nbeen on the fire; it was worth an ox, and was chased with a pattern of\nflowers; and those that throw the javelin stood up--to wit the son of\nAtreus, king of men Agamemnon, and Meriones, stalwart squire of\nIdomeneus. But Achilles spoke saying, \"Son of Atreus, we know how far\nyou excel all others both in power and in throwing the javelin; take\nthe cauldron back with you to your ships, but if it so please you, let\nus give the spear to Meriones; this at least is what I should myself\nwish.\"\n\nKing Agamemnon assented. So he gave the bronze spear to Meriones, and\nhanded the goodly cauldron to Talthybius his esquire.\n\n\n\nBOOK XXIV\n\n  Priam ransoms the body of Hector--Hector's funeral.\n\nTHE assembly now broke up and the people went their ways each to his\nown ship. There they made ready their supper, and then bethought them\nof the blessed boon of sleep; but Achilles still wept for thinking of\nhis dear comrade, and sleep, before whom all things bow, could take no\nhold upon him. This way and that did he turn as he yearned after the\nmight and manfulness of Patroclus; he thought of all they had done\ntogether, and all they had gone through both on the field of battle and\non the waves of the weary sea. As he dwelt on these things he wept\nbitterly and lay now on his side, now on his back, and now face\ndownwards, till at last he rose and went out as one distraught to\nwander upon the seashore. Then, when he saw dawn breaking over beach\nand sea, he yoked his horses to his chariot, and bound the body of\nHector behind it that he might drag it about. Thrice did he drag it\nround the tomb of the son of Menoetius, and then went back into his\ntent, leaving the body on the ground full length and with its face\ndownwards. But Apollo would not suffer it to be disfigured, for he\npitied the man, dead though he now was; therefore he shielded him with\nhis golden aegis continually, that he might take no hurt while Achilles\nwas dragging him.\n\nThus shamefully did Achilles in his fury dishonour Hector; but the\nblessed gods looked down in pity from heaven, and urged Mercury, slayer\nof Argus, to steal the body. All were of this mind save only Juno,\nNeptune, and Jove's grey-eyed daughter, who persisted in the hate which\nthey had ever borne towards Ilius with Priam and his people; for they\nforgave not the wrong done them by Alexandrus in disdaining the\ngoddesses who came to him when he was in his sheepyards, and preferring\nher who had offered him a wanton to his ruin.\n\nWhen, therefore, the morning of the twelfth day had now come, Phoebus\nApollo spoke among the immortals saying, \"You gods ought to be ashamed\nof yourselves; you are cruel and hard-hearted. Did not Hector burn you\nthigh-bones of heifers and of unblemished goats? And now dare you not\nrescue even his dead body, for his wife to look upon, with his mother\nand child, his father Priam, and his people, who would forthwith commit\nhim to the flames, and give him his due funeral rites? So, then, you\nwould all be on the side of mad Achilles, who knows neither right nor\nruth? He is like some savage lion that in the pride of his great\nstrength and daring springs upon men's flocks and gorges on them. Even\nso has Achilles flung aside all pity, and all that conscience which at\nonce so greatly banes yet greatly boons him that will heed it. A man\nmay lose one far dearer than Achilles has lost--a son, it may be, or a\nbrother born from his own mother's womb; yet when he has mourned him\nand wept over him he will let him bide, for it takes much sorrow to\nkill a man; whereas Achilles, now that he has slain noble Hector, drags\nhim behind his chariot round the tomb of his comrade. It were better of\nhim, and for him, that he should not do so, for brave though he be we\ngods may take it ill that he should vent his fury upon dead clay.\"\n\nJuno spoke up in a rage. \"This were well,\" she cried, \"O lord of the\nsilver bow, if you would give like honour to Hector and to Achilles;\nbut Hector was mortal and suckled at a woman's breast, whereas Achilles\nis the offspring of a goddess whom I myself reared and brought up. I\nmarried her to Peleus, who is above measure dear to the immortals; you\ngods came all of you to her wedding; you feasted along with them\nyourself and brought your lyre--false, and fond of low company, that\nyou have ever been.\"\n\nThen said Jove, \"Juno, be not so bitter. Their honour shall not be\nequal, but of all that dwell in Ilius, Hector was dearest to the gods,\nas also to myself, for his offerings never failed me. Never was my\naltar stinted of its dues, nor of the drink-offerings and savour of\nsacrifice which we claim of right. I shall therefore permit the body of\nmighty Hector to be stolen; and yet this may hardly be without Achilles\ncoming to know it, for his mother keeps night and day beside him. Let\nsome one of you, therefore, send Thetis to me, and I will impart my\ncounsel to her, namely that Achilles is to accept a ransom from Priam,\nand give up the body.\"\n\nOn this Iris fleet as the wind went forth to carry his message. Down\nshe plunged into the dark sea midway between Samos and rocky Imbrus;\nthe waters hissed as they closed over her, and she sank into the bottom\nas the lead at the end of an ox-horn, that is sped to carry death to\nfishes. She found Thetis sitting in a great cave with the other\nsea-goddesses gathered round her; there she sat in the midst of them\nweeping for her noble son who was to fall far from his own land, on the\nrich plains of Troy. Iris went up to her and said, \"Rise Thetis; Jove,\nwhose counsels fail not, bids you come to him.\" And Thetis answered,\n\"Why does the mighty god so bid me? I am in great grief, and shrink\nfrom going in and out among the immortals. Still, I will go, and the\nword that he may speak shall not be spoken in vain.\"\n\nThe goddess took her dark veil, than which there can be no robe more\nsombre, and went forth with fleet Iris leading the way before her. The\nwaves of the sea opened them a path, and when they reached the shore\nthey flew up into the heavens, where they found the all-seeing son of\nSaturn with the blessed gods that live for ever assembled near him.\nMinerva gave up her seat to her, and she sat down by the side of father\nJove. Juno then placed a fair golden cup in her hand, and spoke to her\nin words of comfort, whereon Thetis drank and gave her back the cup;\nand the sire of gods and men was the first to speak.\n\n\"So, goddess,\" said he, \"for all your sorrow, and the grief that I well\nknow reigns ever in your heart, you have come hither to Olympus, and I\nwill tell you why I have sent for you. This nine days past the\nimmortals have been quarrelling about Achilles waster of cities and the\nbody of Hector. The gods would have Mercury slayer of Argus steal the\nbody, but in furtherance of our peace and amity henceforward, I will\nconcede such honour to your son as I will now tell you. Go, then, to\nthe host and lay these commands upon him; say that the gods are angry\nwith him, and that I am myself more angry than them all, in that he\nkeeps Hector at the ships and will not give him up. He may thus fear me\nand let the body go. At the same time I will send Iris to great Priam\nto bid him go to the ships of the Achaeans, and ransom his son, taking\nwith him such gifts for Achilles as may give him satisfaction.\"\n\nSilver-footed Thetis did as the god had told her, and forthwith down\nshe darted from the topmost summits of Olympus. She went to her son's\ntents where she found him grieving bitterly, while his trusty comrades\nround him were busy preparing their morning meal, for which they had\nkilled a great woolly sheep. His mother sat down beside him and\ncaressed him with her hand saying, \"My son, how long will you keep on\nthus grieving and making moan? You are gnawing at your own heart, and\nthink neither of food nor of woman's embraces; and yet these too were\nwell, for you have no long time to live, and death with the strong hand\nof fate are already close beside you. Now, therefore, heed what I say,\nfor I come as a messenger from Jove; he says that the gods are angry\nwith you, and himself more angry than them all, in that you keep Hector\nat the ships and will not give him up. Therefore let him go, and accept\na ransom for his body.\"\n\nAnd Achilles answered, \"So be it. If Olympian Jove of his own motion\nthus commands me, let him that brings the ransom bear the body away.\"\n\nThus did mother and son talk together at the ships in long discourse\nwith one another. Meanwhile the son of Saturn sent Iris to the strong\ncity of Ilius. \"Go,\" said he, \"fleet Iris, from the mansions of\nOlympus, and tell King Priam in Ilius, that he is to go to the ships of\nthe Achaeans and free the body of his dear son. He is to take such\ngifts with him as shall give satisfaction to Achilles, and he is to go\nalone, with no other Trojan, save only some honoured servant who may\ndrive his mules and waggon, and bring back the body of him whom noble\nAchilles has slain. Let him have no thought nor fear of death in his\nheart, for we will send the slayer of Argus to escort him, and bring\nhim within the tent of Achilles. Achilles will not kill him nor let\nanother do so, for he will take heed to his ways and sin not, and he\nwill entreat a suppliant with all honourable courtesy.\"\n\nOn this Iris, fleet as the wind, sped forth to deliver her message. She\nwent to Priam's house, and found weeping and lamentation therein. His\nsons were seated round their father in the outer courtyard, and their\nraiment was wet with tears: the old man sat in the midst of them with\nhis mantle wrapped close about his body, and his head and neck all\ncovered with the filth which he had clutched as he lay grovelling in\nthe mire. His daughters and his sons' wives went wailing about the\nhouse, as they thought of the many and brave men who lay dead, slain by\nthe Argives. The messenger of Jove stood by Priam and spoke softly to\nhim, but fear fell upon him as she did so. \"Take heart,\" she said,\n\"Priam offspring of Dardanus, take heart and fear not. I bring no evil\ntidings, but am minded well towards you. I come as a messenger from\nJove, who though he be not near, takes thought for you and pities you.\nThe lord of Olympus bids you go and ransom noble Hector, and take with\nyou such gifts as shall give satisfaction to Achilles. You are to go\nalone, with no Trojan, save only some honoured servant who may drive\nyour mules and waggon, and bring back to the city the body of him whom\nnoble Achilles has slain. You are to have no thought, nor fear of\ndeath, for Jove will send the slayer of Argus to escort you. When he\nhas brought you within Achilles' tent, Achilles will not kill you nor\nlet another do so, for he will take heed to his ways and sin not, and\nhe will entreat a suppliant with all honourable courtesy.\"\n\nIris went her way when she had thus spoken, and Priam told his sons to\nget a mule-waggon ready, and to make the body of the waggon fast upon\nthe top of its bed. Then he went down into his fragrant store-room,\nhigh-vaulted, and made of cedar-wood, where his many treasures were\nkept, and he called Hecuba his wife. \"Wife,\" said he, \"a messenger has\ncome to me from Olympus, and has told me to go to the ships of the\nAchaeans to ransom my dear son, taking with me such gifts as shall give\nsatisfaction to Achilles. What think you of this matter? for my own\npart I am greatly moved to pass through the camps of the Achaeans and\ngo to their ships.\"\n\nHis wife cried aloud as she heard him, and said, \"Alas, what has become\nof that judgement for which you have been ever famous both among\nstrangers and your own people? How can you venture alone to the ships\nof the Achaeans, and look into the face of him who has slain so many of\nyour brave sons? You must have iron courage, for if the cruel savage\nsees you and lays hold on you, he will know neither respect nor pity.\nLet us then weep Hector from afar here in our own house, for when I\ngave him birth the threads of overruling fate were spun for him that\ndogs should eat his flesh far from his parents, in the house of that\nterrible man on whose liver I would fain fasten and devour it. Thus\nwould I avenge my son, who showed no cowardice when Achilles slew him,\nand thought neither of flight nor of avoiding battle as he stood in\ndefence of Trojan men and Trojan women.\"\n\nThen Priam said, \"I would go, do not therefore stay me nor be as a bird\nof ill omen in my house, for you will not move me. Had it been some\nmortal man who had sent me some prophet or priest who divines from\nsacrifice--I should have deemed him false and have given him no heed;\nbut now I have heard the goddess and seen her face to face, therefore I\nwill go and her saying shall not be in vain. If it be my fate to die at\nthe ships of the Achaeans even so would I have it; let Achilles slay\nme, if I may but first have taken my son in my arms and mourned him to\nmy heart's comforting.\"\n\nSo saying he lifted the lids of his chests, and took out twelve goodly\nvestments. He took also twelve cloaks of single fold, twelve rugs,\ntwelve fair mantles, and an equal number of shirts. He weighed out ten\ntalents of gold, and brought moreover two burnished tripods, four\ncauldrons, and a very beautiful cup which the Thracians had given him\nwhen he had gone to them on an embassy; it was very precious, but he\ngrudged not even this, so eager was he to ransom the body of his son.\nThen he chased all the Trojans from the court and rebuked them with\nwords of anger. \"Out,\" he cried, \"shame and disgrace to me that you\nare. Have you no grief in your own homes that you are come to plague me\nhere? Is it a small thing, think you, that the son of Saturn has sent\nthis sorrow upon me, to lose the bravest of my sons? Nay, you shall\nprove it in person, for now he is gone the Achaeans will have easier\nwork in killing you. As for me, let me go down within the house of\nHades, ere mine eyes behold the sacking and wasting of the city.\"\n\nHe drove the men away with his staff, and they went forth as the old\nman sped them. Then he called to his sons, upbraiding Helenus, Paris,\nnoble Agathon, Pammon, Antiphonus, Polites of the loud battle-cry,\nDeiphobus, Hippothous, and Dius. These nine did the old man call near\nhim. \"Come to me at once,\" he cried, \"worthless sons who do me shame;\nwould that you had all been killed at the ships rather than Hector.\nMiserable man that I am, I have had the bravest sons in all Troy--noble\nNestor, Troilus the dauntless charioteer, and Hector who was a god\namong men, so that one would have thought he was son to an\nimmortal--yet there is not one of them left. Mars has slain them and\nthose of whom I am ashamed are alone left me. Liars, and light of foot,\nheroes of the dance, robbers of lambs and kids from your own people,\nwhy do you not get a waggon ready for me at once, and put all these\nthings upon it that I may set out on my way?\"\n\nThus did he speak, and they feared the rebuke of their father. They\nbrought out a strong mule-waggon, newly made, and set the body of the\nwaggon fast on its bed. They took the mule-yoke from the peg on which\nit hung, a yoke of boxwood with a knob on the top of it and rings for\nthe reins to go through. Then they brought a yoke-band eleven cubits\nlong, to bind the yoke to the pole; they bound it on at the far end of\nthe pole, and put the ring over the upright pin making it fast with\nthree turns of the band on either side the knob, and bending the thong\nof the yoke beneath it. This done, they brought from the store-chamber\nthe rich ransom that was to purchase the body of Hector, and they set\nit all orderly on the waggon; then they yoked the strong harness-mules\nwhich the Mysians had on a time given as a goodly present to Priam; but\nfor Priam himself they yoked horses which the old king had bred, and\nkept for his own use.\n\nThus heedfully did Priam and his servant see to the yolking of their\ncars at the palace. Then Hecuba came to them all sorrowful, with a\ngolden goblet of wine in her right hand, that they might make a\ndrink-offering before they set out. She stood in front of the horses\nand said, \"Take this, make a drink-offering to father Jove, and since\nyou are minded to go to the ships in spite of me, pray that you may\ncome safely back from the hands of your enemies. Pray to the son of\nSaturn lord of the whirlwind, who sits on Ida and looks down over all\nTroy, pray him to send his swift messenger on your right hand, the bird\nof omen which is strongest and most dear to him of all birds, that you\nmay see it with your own eyes and trust it as you go forth to the ships\nof the Danaans. If all-seeing Jove will not send you this messenger,\nhowever set upon it you may be, I would not have you go to the ships of\nthe Argives.\"\n\nAnd Priam answered, \"Wife, I will do as you desire me; it is well to\nlift hands in prayer to Jove, if so be he may have mercy upon me.\"\n\nWith this the old man bade the serving-woman pour pure water over his\nhands, and the woman came, bearing the water in a bowl. He washed his\nhands and took the cup from his wife; then he made the drink-offering\nand prayed, standing in the middle of the courtyard and turning his\neyes to heaven. \"Father Jove,\" he said, \"that rulest from Ida, most\nglorious and most great, grant that I may be received kindly and\ncompassionately in the tents of Achilles; and send your swift messenger\nupon my right hand, the bird of omen which is strongest and most dear\nto you of all birds, that I may see it with my own eyes and trust it as\nI go forth to the ships of the Danaans.\"\n\nSo did he pray, and Jove the lord of counsel heard his prayer.\nForthwith he sent an eagle, the most unerring portent of all birds that\nfly, the dusky hunter that men also call the Black Eagle. His wings\nwere spread abroad on either side as wide as the well-made and\nwell-bolted door of a rich man's chamber. He came to them flying over\nthe city upon their right hands, and when they saw him they were glad\nand their hearts took comfort within them. The old man made haste to\nmount his chariot, and drove out through the inner gateway and under\nthe echoing gatehouse of the outer court. Before him went the mules\ndrawing the four-wheeled waggon, and driven by wise Idaeus; behind\nthese were the horses, which the old man lashed with his whip and drove\nswiftly through the city, while his friends followed after, wailing and\nlamenting for him as though he were on his road to death. As soon as\nthey had come down from the city and had reached the plain, his sons\nand sons-in-law who had followed him went back to Ilius.\n\nBut Priam and Idaeus as they showed out upon the plain did not escape\nthe ken of all-seeing Jove, who looked down upon the old man and pitied\nhim; then he spoke to his son Mercury and said, \"Mercury, for it is you\nwho are the most disposed to escort men on their way, and to hear those\nwhom you will hear, go, and so conduct Priam to the ships of the\nAchaeans that no other of the Danaans shall see him nor take note of\nhim until he reach the son of Peleus.\"\n\nThus he spoke and Mercury, guide and guardian, slayer of Argus, did as\nhe was told. Forthwith he bound on his glittering golden sandals with\nwhich he could fly like the wind over land and sea; he took the wand\nwith which he seals men's eyes in sleep, or wakes them just as he\npleases, and flew holding it in his hand till he came to Troy and to\nthe Hellespont. To look at, he was like a young man of noble birth in\nthe hey-day of his youth and beauty with the down just coming upon his\nface.\n\nNow when Priam and Idaeus had driven past the great tomb of Ilius, they\nstayed their mules and horses that they might drink in the river, for\nthe shades of night were falling, when, therefore, Idaeus saw Mercury\nstanding near them he said to Priam, \"Take heed, descendant of\nDardanus; here is matter which demands consideration. I see a man who I\nthink will presently fall upon us; let us fly with our horses, or at\nleast embrace his knees and implore him to take compassion upon us?\"\n\nWhen he heard this the old man's heart failed him, and he was in great\nfear; he stayed where he was as one dazed, and the hair stood on end\nover his whole body; but the bringer of good luck came up to him and\ntook him by the hand, saying, \"Whither, father, are you thus driving\nyour mules and horses in the dead of night when other men are asleep?\nAre you not afraid of the fierce Achaeans who are hard by you, so cruel\nand relentless? Should some one of them see you bearing so much\ntreasure through the darkness of the flying night, what would not your\nstate then be? You are no longer young, and he who is with you is too\nold to protect you from those who would attack you. For myself, I will\ndo you no harm, and I will defend you from any one else, for you remind\nme of my own father.\"\n\nAnd Priam answered, \"It is indeed as you say, my dear son; nevertheless\nsome god has held his hand over me, in that he has sent such a wayfarer\nas yourself to meet me so opportunely; you are so comely in mien and\nfigure, and your judgement is so excellent that you must come of\nblessed parents.\"\n\nThen said the slayer of Argus, guide and guardian, \"Sir, all that you\nhave said is right; but tell me and tell me true, are you taking this\nrich treasure to send it to a foreign people where it may be safe, or\nare you all leaving strong Ilius in dismay now that your son has fallen\nwho was the bravest man among you and was never lacking in battle with\nthe Achaeans?\"\n\nAnd Priam said, \"Who are you, my friend, and who are your parents, that\nyou speak so truly about the fate of my unhappy son?\"\n\nThe slayer of Argus, guide and guardian, answered him, \"Sir, you would\nprove me, that you question me about noble Hector. Many a time have I\nset eyes upon him in battle when he was driving the Argives to their\nships and putting them to the sword. We stood still and marvelled, for\nAchilles in his anger with the son of Atreus suffered us not to fight.\nI am his squire, and came with him in the same ship. I am a Myrmidon,\nand my father's name is Polyctor: he is a rich man and about as old as\nyou are; he has six sons besides myself, and I am the seventh. We cast\nlots, and it fell upon me to sail hither with Achilles. I am now come\nfrom the ships on to the plain, for with daybreak the Achaeans will set\nbattle in array about the city. They chafe at doing nothing, and are so\neager that their princes cannot hold them back.\"\n\nThen answered Priam, \"If you are indeed the squire of Achilles son of\nPeleus, tell me now the whole truth. Is my son still at the ships, or\nhas Achilles hewn him limb from limb, and given him to his hounds?\"\n\n\"Sir,\" replied the slayer of Argus, guide and guardian, \"neither hounds\nnor vultures have yet devoured him; he is still just lying at the tents\nby the ship of Achilles, and though it is now twelve days that he has\nlain there, his flesh is not wasted nor have the worms eaten him\nalthough they feed on warriors. At daybreak Achilles drags him cruelly\nround the sepulchre of his dear comrade, but it does him no hurt. You\nshould come yourself and see how he lies fresh as dew, with the blood\nall washed away, and his wounds every one of them closed though many\npierced him with their spears. Such care have the blessed gods taken of\nyour brave son, for he was dear to them beyond all measure.\"\n\nThe old man was comforted as he heard him and said, \"My son, see what a\ngood thing it is to have made due offerings to the immortals; for as\nsure as that he was born my son never forgot the gods that hold\nOlympus, and now they requite it to him even in death. Accept therefore\nat my hands this goodly chalice; guard me and with heaven's help guide\nme till I come to the tent of the son of Peleus.\"\n\nThen answered the slayer of Argus, guide and guardian, \"Sir, you are\ntempting me and playing upon my youth, but you shall not move me, for\nyou are offering me presents without the knowledge of Achilles whom I\nfear and hold it great guilt to defraud, lest some evil presently\nbefall me; but as your guide I would go with you even to Argos itself,\nand would guard you so carefully whether by sea or land, that no one\nshould attack you through making light of him who was with you.\"\n\nThe bringer of good luck then sprang on to the chariot, and seizing the\nwhip and reins he breathed fresh spirit into the mules and horses. When\nthey reached the trench and the wall that was before the ships, those\nwho were on guard had just been getting their suppers, and the slayer\nof Argus threw them all into a deep sleep. Then he drew back the bolts\nto open the gates, and took Priam inside with the treasure he had upon\nhis waggon. Ere long they came to the lofty dwelling of the son of\nPeleus for which the Myrmidons had cut pine and which they had built\nfor their king; when they had built it they thatched it with coarse\ntussock-grass which they had mown out on the plain, and all round it\nthey made a large courtyard, which was fenced with stakes set close\ntogether. The gate was barred with a single bolt of pine which it took\nthree men to force into its place, and three to draw back so as to open\nthe gate, but Achilles could draw it by himself. Mercury opened the\ngate for the old man, and brought in the treasure that he was taking\nwith him for the son of Peleus. Then he sprang from the chariot on to\nthe ground and said, \"Sir, it is I, immortal Mercury, that am come with\nyou, for my father sent me to escort you. I will now leave you, and\nwill not enter into the presence of Achilles, for it might anger him\nthat a god should befriend mortal men thus openly. Go you within, and\nembrace the knees of the son of Peleus: beseech him by his father, his\nlovely mother, and his son; thus you may move him.\"\n\nWith these words Mercury went back to high Olympus. Priam sprang from\nhis chariot to the ground, leaving Idaeus where he was, in charge of\nthe mules and horses. The old man went straight into the house where\nAchilles, loved of the gods, was sitting. There he found him with his\nmen seated at a distance from him: only two, the hero Automedon, and\nAlcimus of the race of Mars, were busy in attendance about his person,\nfor he had but just done eating and drinking, and the table was still\nthere. King Priam entered without their seeing him, and going right up\nto Achilles he clasped his knees and kissed the dread murderous hands\nthat had slain so many of his sons.\n\nAs when some cruel spite has befallen a man that he should have killed\nsome one in his own country, and must fly to a great man's protection\nin a land of strangers, and all marvel who see him, even so did\nAchilles marvel as he beheld Priam. The others looked one to another\nand marvelled also, but Priam besought Achilles saying, \"Think of your\nfather, O Achilles like unto the gods, who is such even as I am, on the\nsad threshold of old age. It may be that those who dwell near him\nharass him, and there is none to keep war and ruin from him. Yet when\nhe hears of you being still alive, he is glad, and his days are full of\nhope that he shall see his dear son come home to him from Troy; but I,\nwretched man that I am, had the bravest in all Troy for my sons, and\nthere is not one of them left. I had fifty sons when the Achaeans came\nhere; nineteen of them were from a single womb, and the others were\nborne to me by the women of my household. The greater part of them has\nfierce Mars laid low, and Hector, him who was alone left, him who was\nthe guardian of the city and ourselves, him have you lately slain;\ntherefore I am now come to the ships of the Achaeans to ransom his body\nfrom you with a great ransom. Fear, O Achilles, the wrath of heaven;\nthink on your own father and have compassion upon me, who am the more\npitiable, for I have steeled myself as no man yet has ever steeled\nhimself before me, and have raised to my lips the hand of him who slew\nmy son.\"\n\nThus spoke Priam, and the heart of Achilles yearned as he bethought him\nof his father. He took the old man's hand and moved him gently away.\nThe two wept bitterly--Priam, as he lay at Achilles' feet, weeping for\nHector, and Achilles now for his father and now for Patroclus, till the\nhouse was filled with their lamentation. But when Achilles was now\nsated with grief and had unburthened the bitterness of his sorrow, he\nleft his seat and raised the old man by the hand, in pity for his white\nhair and beard; then he said, \"Unhappy man, you have indeed been\ngreatly daring; how could you venture to come alone to the ships of the\nAchaeans, and enter the presence of him who has slain so many of your\nbrave sons? You must have iron courage: sit now upon this seat, and for\nall our grief we will hide our sorrows in our hearts, for weeping will\nnot avail us. The immortals know no care, yet the lot they spin for man\nis full of sorrow; on the floor of Jove's palace there stand two urns,\nthe one filled with evil gifts, and the other with good ones. He for\nwhom Jove the lord of thunder mixes the gifts he sends, will meet now\nwith good and now with evil fortune; but he to whom Jove sends none but\nevil gifts will be pointed at by the finger of scorn, the hand of\nfamine will pursue him to the ends of the world, and he will go up and\ndown the face of the earth, respected neither by gods nor men. Even so\ndid it befall Peleus; the gods endowed him with all good things from\nhis birth upwards, for he reigned over the Myrmidons excelling all men\nin prosperity and wealth, and mortal though he was they gave him a\ngoddess for his bride. But even on him too did heaven send misfortune,\nfor there is no race of royal children born to him in his house, save\none son who is doomed to die all untimely; nor may I take care of him\nnow that he is growing old, for I must stay here at Troy to be the bane\nof you and your children. And you too, O Priam, I have heard that you\nwere aforetime happy. They say that in wealth and plenitude of\noffspring you surpassed all that is in Lesbos, the realm of Makar to\nthe northward, Phrygia that is more inland, and those that dwell upon\nthe great Hellespont; but from the day when the dwellers in heaven sent\nthis evil upon you, war and slaughter have been about your city\ncontinually. Bear up against it, and let there be some intervals in\nyour sorrow. Mourn as you may for your brave son, you will take nothing\nby it. You cannot raise him from the dead, ere you do so yet another\nsorrow shall befall you.\"\n\nAnd Priam answered, \"O king, bid me not be seated, while Hector is\nstill lying uncared for in your tents, but accept the great ransom\nwhich I have brought you, and give him to me at once that I may look\nupon him. May you prosper with the ransom and reach your own land in\nsafety, seeing that you have suffered me to live and to look upon the\nlight of the sun.\"\n\nAchilles looked at him sternly and said, \"Vex me, sir, no longer; I am\nof myself minded to give up the body of Hector. My mother, daughter of\nthe old man of the sea, came to me from Jove to bid me deliver it to\nyou. Moreover I know well, O Priam, and you cannot hide it, that some\ngod has brought you to the ships of the Achaeans, for else, no man\nhowever strong and in his prime would dare to come to our host; he\ncould neither pass our guard unseen, nor draw the bolt of my gates thus\neasily; therefore, provoke me no further, lest I sin against the word\nof Jove, and suffer you not, suppliant though you are, within my tents.\"\n\nThe old man feared him and obeyed. Then the son of Peleus sprang like a\nlion through the door of his house, not alone, but with him went his\ntwo squires Automedon and Alcimus who were closer to him than any\nothers of his comrades now that Patroclus was no more. These unyoked\nthe horses and mules, and bade Priam's herald and attendant be seated\nwithin the house. They lifted the ransom for Hector's body from the\nwaggon, but they left two mantles and a goodly shirt, that Achilles\nmight wrap the body in them when he gave it to be taken home. Then he\ncalled to his servants and ordered them to wash the body and anoint it,\nbut he first took it to a place where Priam should not see it, lest if\nhe did so, he should break out in the bitterness of his grief, and\nenrage Achilles, who might then kill him and sin against the word of\nJove. When the servants had washed the body and anointed it, and had\nwrapped it in a fair shirt and mantle, Achilles himself lifted it on to\na bier, and he and his men then laid it on the waggon. He cried aloud\nas he did so and called on the name of his dear comrade, \"Be not angry\nwith me, Patroclus,\" he said, \"if you hear even in the house of Hades\nthat I have given Hector to his father for a ransom. It has been no\nunworthy one, and I will share it equitably with you.\"\n\nAchilles then went back into the tent and took his place on the richly\ninlaid seat from which he had risen, by the wall that was at right\nangles to the one against which Priam was sitting. \"Sir,\" he said,\n\"your son is now laid upon his bier and is ransomed according to\ndesire; you shall look upon him when you take him away at daybreak; for\nthe present let us prepare our supper. Even lovely Niobe had to think\nabout eating, though her twelve children--six daughters and six lusty\nsons--had been all slain in her house. Apollo killed the sons with\narrows from his silver bow, to punish Niobe, and Diana slew the\ndaughters, because Niobe had vaunted herself against Leto; she said\nLeto had borne two children only, whereas she had herself borne\nmany--whereon the two killed the many. Nine days did they lie\nweltering, and there was none to bury them, for the son of Saturn\nturned the people into stone; but on the tenth day the gods in heaven\nthemselves buried them, and Niobe then took food, being worn out with\nweeping. They say that somewhere among the rocks on the mountain\npastures of Sipylus, where the nymphs live that haunt the river\nAchelous, there, they say, she lives in stone and still nurses the\nsorrows sent upon her by the hand of heaven. Therefore, noble sir, let\nus two now take food; you can weep for your dear son hereafter as you\nare bearing him back to Ilius--and many a tear will he cost you.\"\n\nWith this Achilles sprang from his seat and killed a sheep of silvery\nwhiteness, which his followers skinned and made ready all in due order.\nThey cut the meat carefully up into smaller pieces, spitted them, and\ndrew them off again when they were well roasted. Automedon brought\nbread in fair baskets and served it round the table, while Achilles\ndealt out the meat, and they laid their hands on the good things that\nwere before them. As soon as they had had enough to eat and drink,\nPriam, descendant of Dardanus, marvelled at the strength and beauty of\nAchilles for he was as a god to see, and Achilles marvelled at Priam as\nhe listened to him and looked upon his noble presence. When they had\ngazed their fill Priam spoke first. \"And now, O king,\" he said, \"take\nme to my couch that we may lie down and enjoy the blessed boon of\nsleep. Never once have my eyes been closed from the day your hands took\nthe life of my son; I have grovelled without ceasing in the mire of my\nstable-yard, making moan and brooding over my countless sorrows. Now,\nmoreover, I have eaten bread and drunk wine; hitherto I have tasted\nnothing.\"\n\nAs he spoke Achilles told his men and the women-servants to set beds in\nthe room that was in the gatehouse, and make them with good red rugs,\nand spread coverlets on the top of them with woollen cloaks for Priam\nand Idaeus to wear. So the maids went out carrying a torch and got the\ntwo beds ready in all haste. Then Achilles said laughingly to Priam,\n\"Dear sir, you shall lie outside, lest some counsellor of those who in\ndue course keep coming to advise with me should see you here in the\ndarkness of the flying night, and tell it to Agamemnon. This might\ncause delay in the delivery of the body. And now tell me and tell me\ntrue, for how many days would you celebrate the funeral rites of noble\nHector? Tell me, that I may hold aloof from war and restrain the host.\"\n\nAnd Priam answered, \"Since, then, you suffer me to bury my noble son\nwith all due rites, do thus, Achilles, and I shall be grateful. You\nknow how we are pent up within our city; it is far for us to fetch wood\nfrom the mountain, and the people live in fear. Nine days, therefore,\nwill we mourn Hector in my house; on the tenth day we will bury him and\nthere shall be a public feast in his honour; on the eleventh we will\nbuild a mound over his ashes, and on the twelfth, if there be need, we\nwill fight.\"\n\nAnd Achilles answered, \"All, King Priam, shall be as you have said. I\nwill stay our fighting for as long a time as you have named.\"\n\nAs he spoke he laid his hand on the old man's right wrist, in token\nthat he should have no fear; thus then did Priam and his attendant\nsleep there in the forecourt, full of thought, while Achilles lay in an\ninner room of the house, with fair Briseis by his side.\n\nAnd now both gods and mortals were fast asleep through the livelong\nnight, but upon Mercury alone, the bringer of good luck, sleep could\ntake no hold for he was thinking all the time how to get King Priam\naway from the ships without his being seen by the strong force of\nsentinels. He hovered therefore over Priam's head and said, \"Sir, now\nthat Achilles has spared your life, you seem to have no fear about\nsleeping in the thick of your foes. You have paid a great ransom, and\nhave received the body of your son; were you still alive and a prisoner\nthe sons whom you have left at home would have to give three times as\nmuch to free you; and so it would be if Agamemnon and the other\nAchaeans were to know of your being here.\"\n\nWhen he heard this the old man was afraid and roused his servant.\nMercury then yoked their horses and mules, and drove them quickly\nthrough the host so that no man perceived them. When they came to the\nford of eddying Xanthus, begotten of immortal Jove, Mercury went back\nto high Olympus, and dawn in robe of saffron began to break over all\nthe land. Priam and Idaeus then drove on toward the city lamenting and\nmaking moan, and the mules drew the body of Hector. No one neither man\nnor woman saw them, till Cassandra, fair as golden Venus standing on\nPergamus, caught sight of her dear father in his chariot, and his\nservant that was the city's herald with him. Then she saw him that was\nlying upon the bier, drawn by the mules, and with a loud cry she went\nabout the city saying, \"Come hither Trojans, men and women, and look on\nHector; if ever you rejoiced to see him coming from battle when he was\nalive, look now on him that was the glory of our city and all our\npeople.\"\n\nAt this there was not man nor woman left in the city, so great a sorrow\nhad possessed them. Hard by the gates they met Priam as he was bringing\nin the body. Hector's wife and his mother were the first to mourn him:\nthey flew towards the waggon and laid their hands upon his head, while\nthe crowd stood weeping round them. They would have stayed before the\ngates, weeping and lamenting the livelong day to the going down of the\nsun, had not Priam spoken to them from the chariot and said, \"Make way\nfor the mules to pass you. Afterwards when I have taken the body home\nyou shall have your fill of weeping.\"\n\nOn this the people stood asunder, and made a way for the waggon. When\nthey had borne the body within the house they laid it upon a bed and\nseated minstrels round it to lead the dirge, whereon the women joined\nin the sad music of their lament. Foremost among them all Andromache\nled their wailing as she clasped the head of mighty Hector in her\nembrace. \"Husband,\" she cried, \"you have died young, and leave me in\nyour house a widow; he of whom we are the ill-starred parents is still\na mere child, and I fear he may not reach manhood. Ere he can do so our\ncity will be razed and overthrown, for you who watched over it are no\nmore--you who were its saviour, the guardian of our wives and children.\nOur women will be carried away captives to the ships, and I among them;\nwhile you, my child, who will be with me will be put to some unseemly\ntasks, working for a cruel master. Or, may be, some Achaean will hurl\nyou (O miserable death) from our walls, to avenge some brother, son, or\nfather whom Hector slew; many of them have indeed bitten the dust at\nhis hands, for your father's hand in battle was no light one. Therefore\ndo the people mourn him. You have left, O Hector, sorrow unutterable to\nyour parents, and my own grief is greatest of all, for you did not\nstretch forth your arms and embrace me as you lay dying, nor say to me\nany words that might have lived with me in my tears night and day for\nevermore.\"\n\nBitterly did she weep the while, and the women joined in her lament.\nHecuba in her turn took up the strains of woe. \"Hector,\" she cried,\n\"dearest to me of all my children. So long as you were alive the gods\nloved you well, and even in death they have not been utterly unmindful\nof you; for when Achilles took any other of my sons, he would sell him\nbeyond the seas, to Samos Imbrus or rugged Lemnos; and when he had\nslain you too with his sword, many a time did he drag you round the\nsepulchre of his comrade--though this could not give him life--yet here\nyou lie all fresh as dew, and comely as one whom Apollo has slain with\nhis painless shafts.\"\n\nThus did she too speak through her tears with bitter moan, and then\nHelen for a third time took up the strain of lamentation. \"Hector,\"\nsaid she, \"dearest of all my brothers-in-law--for I am wife to\nAlexandrus who brought me hither to Troy--would that I had died ere he\ndid so--twenty years are come and gone since I left my home and came\nfrom over the sea, but I have never heard one word of insult or\nunkindness from you. When another would chide with me, as it might be\none of your brothers or sisters or of your brothers' wives, or my\nmother-in-law--for Priam was as kind to me as though he were my own\nfather--you would rebuke and check them with words of gentleness and\ngoodwill. Therefore my tears flow both for you and for my unhappy self,\nfor there is no one else in Troy who is kind to me, but all shrink and\nshudder as they go by me.\"\n\nShe wept as she spoke and the vast crowd that was gathered round her\njoined in her lament. Then King Priam spoke to them saying, \"Bring\nwood, O Trojans, to the city, and fear no cunning ambush of the\nArgives, for Achilles when he dismissed me from the ships gave me his\nword that they should not attack us until the morning of the twelfth\nday.\"\n\nForthwith they yoked their oxen and mules and gathered together before\nthe city. Nine days long did they bring in great heaps of wood, and on\nthe morning of the tenth day with many tears they took brave Hector\nforth, laid his dead body upon the summit of the pile, and set the fire\nthereto. Then when the child of morning, rosy-fingered dawn, appeared\non the eleventh day, the people again assembled, round the pyre of\nmighty Hector. When they were got together, they first quenched the\nfire with wine wherever it was burning, and then his brothers and\ncomrades with many a bitter tear gathered his white bones, wrapped them\nin soft robes of purple, and laid them in a golden urn, which they\nplaced in a grave and covered over with large stones set close\ntogether. Then they built a barrow hurriedly over it keeping guard on\nevery side lest the Achaeans should attack them before they had\nfinished. When they had heaped up the barrow they went back again into\nthe city, and being well assembled they held high feast in the house of\nPriam their king.\n\nThus, then, did they celebrate the funeral of Hector tamer of horses.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"22382":"There are several editions of this ebook in the Project Gutenberg collection. Various characteristics of each ebook are listed to aid in selecting the preferred file.\nClick on any of the filenumbers below to quickly view each ebook.\n\n\n22382\n(With 800 linked footnotes, No illustrations)\n\n\n16452\n(In blank verse, Many footnotes.)\n\n\n2199\n(No footnotes or illustrations)\n\n\n6130\n(Many line drawings, and 300 footnotes)\n\n\n3059\n\n\n\n6150\n\n\n\n\nTHE ILIAD OF HOMER,\nLiterally Translated,\n\nWITH EXPLANATORY NOTES.\nBY\nTHEODORE ALOIS BUCKLEY, B.A.\nOF CHRIST CHURCH.\nLONDON:\nBELL AND DALDY, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.\n1873.\nLONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET\nAND CHARING CROSS.\nPREFACE.\nThe present translation of the Iliad will, it is hoped, be found to convey, more accurately than any which has preceded it, the words and thoughts of the original. It is based upon a careful examination of whatever has been contributed by scholars of every age towards the elucidation of the text, including the ancient scholiasts and lexicographers, the exegetical labours of Barnes and Clarke, and the elaborate criticisms of Heyne, Wolf, and their successors.\nThe necessary brevity of the notes has prevented the full discussion of many passages where there is great room for difference of opinion, and hence several interpretations are adopted without question, which, had the editor\u2019s object been to write a critical commentary, would have undergone a more lengthened examination. The same reason has compelled him, in many instances, to substitute references for extracts, indicating rather than quoting those storehouses of information, from whose abundant contents he would gladly have drawn more copious supplies. Among the numerous works to which he has had recourse, the following deserve particular mention-Alberti\u2019s invaluable edition of Hesychius, the Commentary of Eustathius, and Buttmann\u2019s Lexilogus.\nIn the succeeding volume, the Odyssey, Hymns, and minor poems will be produced in a similar manner.\nTHEODORE ALOIS BUCKLEY,\nCh. Ch., Oxford.\n\n\n\nTHE ILIAD OF HOMER.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THE FIRST.\nARGUMENT.\nApollo, enraged at the insult offered to his priest, Chryses, sends a pestilence upon the Greeks. A council is called, and Agamemnon, being compelled to restore the daughter of Chryses, whom he had taken from him, in revenge deprives Achilles of Hippodameia. Achilles resigns her, but refuses to aid the Greeks in battle, and at his request, his mother, Thetis, petitions Jove to honour her offended son at the expense of the Greeks. Jupiter, despite the opposition of Juno, grants her request.\nSing, \u039f goddess, the destructive wrath of Achilles, son of Peleus, which brought countless woes upon the Greeks, 1 and hurled many valiant souls of heroes down to Hades, and made themselves 2 a prey to dogs and to all birds [but the will of Jove was being accomplished], from the time when Atrides, king of men, and noble Achilles, first contending, were disunited.\nFootnote 1: (return) Although, as Ernesti observes, the verb \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03af\u03b1\u03c8\u03b5\u03bd does not necessarily contain the idea of a premature death, yet the ancient interpreters are almost unanimous in understanding it so. Thus Eustathius, p. 13, ed. Bas.: \u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u1f70 \u03b2\u03bb\u03ac\u03b6\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b5\u1f77\u03c2 \u0391\u03b9\u03b4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u1f41 \u03c4\u03bf \u03b4\u03ad\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f14\u03c0\u03b5\u03bc\u03c6\u03b5\u03bd, \u1f61\u03c2 \u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03b8\u1f73\u03c3\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2 (i.e. \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf) \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u03c1\u03b9\u03ba\u03cc\u03bd \u03c4\u03b9 \u03b4\u03b7\u03bb\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2, \u1f22 \u1f01\u03c0\u03bb\u1f61\u03c2 \u1f14\u03c0\u03b5\u03bc\u03c8\u03b5\u03bd, \u03ce\u03c2 \u03c0\u03bb\u03b5\u03bf\u03bd\u03b1\u03b6\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2 \u03c4\u1f24\u03c2 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03b8\u1f73\u03c3\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2. Hesych. t. ii. p. 1029, s. \u03bd.: \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03af\u03b1\u03c8\u03b5\u03bd\u2014\u03b4\u03b7\u03bb\u03bf\u1fd6 \u03b4\u03b5 \u03b4\u03b9\u1f70 \u03c4\u1f24\u03c2 \u03bb\u03ad\u03be\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2 \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u03bc\u03b5\u03c4' \u1ecf\u03b4\u1f51\u03bd\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f00\u03c0\u03ce\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1\u03bd. Cf. Virg. \u00c6n. xii. 952: \u201cVitaque cum gemitu fugit indignata sub umbras,\u201d where Servius well observes, \u201cquia discedebat a juvene: nam volunt philosophi, invitam animam discedere a corpore, cum quo adhuc habitare legibus natur\u00e6 poterat.\u201d I have, however, followed Ernesti, with the later commentators.\nFootnote 2: (return) I.e. their bodies. Cf. \u00c6. i. 44, vi. 362, where there is a similar sense of the pronoun.\nWhich, then, of the gods, engaged these two in strife, so that they should fight? 3 The son of Latona and Jove; for he, enraged with the king, stirred up an evil pestilence through the army [and the people kept perishing] 4; because the son of Atreus had dishonoured the priest Chryses: for he came to the swift ships of the Greeks to ransom his daughter, and bringing invaluable ransoms, having in his hands the fillets of far-darting Apollo on his golden sceptre. And he supplicated all the Greeks, but chiefly the two sons of Atreus, the leaders of the people:\n\u201cYe sons of Atreus, and ye other well-greaved Greeks, to you indeed may the gods, possessing the heavenly dwellings, grant to destroy the city of Priam, and to return home safely: but for me, liberate my beloved daughter, and accept the ransoms, reverencing the son of Jove, far-darting Apollo.\u201d\nFootnote 3: (return) Rut see Anthon.\nFootnote 4: (return) Observe the full force of the imperfect tense.\nUpon this, all the other Greeks shouted assent, that the priest should be reverenced, and the splendid ransoms accepted; yet was it not pleasing in his mind to Agamemnon, son of Atreus; but he dismissed him evilly, and added a harsh mandate:\n\u201cLet me not find thee, old man, at the hollow barks, either now loitering, or hereafter returning, lest the staff and fillet of the god avail thee not. 5 For her I will not set free; sooner shall old age come upon her, at home in Argos, far away from her native land, employed in offices of the loom, and preparing 6 my bed. But away! irritate me not, that thou mayest return the safer.\u201d\nFootnote 5: (return) Of \u03c7\u03c1\u03b1\u03b9\u03c3\u03bc\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd, Buttmann, Lexil. p. 546, observes that \u201cit is never found in a positive sense, but remained in ancient usage in negative sentences only; as, \u2018it is of no use to thee,\u2019 or, \u2018it helps thee not,\u2019 and similar expressions.\u201d\nFootnote 6: (return) The old mistake of construing \u1f00\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9\u1f79\u03c9\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd \u201csharing,\u201d which still clings to the translations, is exploded by Buttm. Lex. p. 144. Eust. and Heysch. both give \u03b5\u1f7a\u03c4\u03c1\u03b5\u03c0\u03af\u03b6\u03bf\u03bd\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd as one of the interpretations; and that such is the right one is evident from the collateral phrase \u03c0\u03bf\u03c1\u03c3\u03cd\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd \u03bb\u03ad\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2 in Od. iii. 403. \u039b\u03bc\u03c6\u03b9\u03b6\u03ad\u03b6\u03b7\u03ba\u03b1\u03c2 is the perfect tense, but with the force of the present.\nThus he spoke; but the old man was afraid, and obeyed the command. And he went in silence along the shore of the loud-resounding sea; but then, going apart, the aged man prayed much to king Apollo, whom fair-haired Latona bore:\n\u201cHear me, god of the silver bow, who art wont to protect Chrysa and divine Cilla, and who mightily rulest over Tenedos: O Sminthius, 7 if ever I have roofed 8 thy graceful temple, or if, moreover, at any time I have burned to thee the fat thighs of bulls or of goats, accomplish this entreaty for me. Let the Greeks pay for my tears, by thy arrows.\u201d\nFootnote 7: (return) An epithet derived from \u03c3\u03bc\u03af\u03bd\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2, the Phrygian name for a mouse: either because Apollo had put an end to a plague of mice among that people, or because a mouse was thought emblematical of augury.\u2014Grote, Hist. of Greece, vol. i. p. 68, observes that this \u201cworship of Sminthian Apollo, in various parts of the Troad and its neighbouring territory, dates before the earliest period of \u00c6olic colonization.\u201d On the Homeric description of Apollo, see M\u00fcller, Dorians, vol. i. p. 315.\nFootnote 8: (return) Not \u201ccrowned,\u201d as Heyne says; for this was a later custom.\u2014See Anthon and Arnold.\nThus he spoke praying; but to him Phoebus Apollo hearkened. And he descended from the summits of Olympus, enraged in heart, having upon his shoulders his bow and quiver covered on all sides. But as he moved, the shafts rattled forthwith 9 upon the shoulders of him enraged; but he went along like unto the night. Then he sat down apart from the ships, and sent among them an arrow, and terrible arose the clang of the silver bow. First he attacked the mules, and the swift 10 dogs; but afterwards despatching a pointed arrow against [the Greeks] themselves, he smote them, and frequent funeral-piles of the dead were continually burning. Nine days through the army went the arrows of the god; but on the tenth, Achilles called the people to an assembly; for to his mind the white-armed goddess Juno had suggested it; for she was anxious concerning the Greeks, because she saw them perishing. But when they accordingly were assembled, and were met together, swift-footed Achilles, rising up amidst them, [thus] spoke:\n\u201cO son of Atreus! now do I think that we would consent to return, having been defeated in our purpose, if we should but escape death, since at the same time 11 war and pestilence subdue the Greeks. But come now, let us consult some prophet, or priest, or even one who is informed by dreams (for dream also is from Jove), 12 who would tell us on what account Phoebus Apollo is so much enraged with us: whether he blames us on account of a vow [unperformed], or a hecatomb [unoffered]; and whether haply he may be willing, having partaken of the savour of lambs and unblemished goats, to avert from us the pestilence.\u201d\nFootnote 9: (return) The force of \u1f04\u03c1\u03b1 is noticed by N\u00e4gelsbach.\nFootnote 10: (return) Or \u201cwhite.\u201d Hesych. \u03c4\u03b1\u03c7\u03b5\u1fd6\u03c2, \u03bb\u03b5\u03c5\u03ba\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2.\nFootnote 11: (return) Ammonius, p. 14, foolishly supposes that \u1f01\u03bc\u03bf\u1fe6 here denotes place, \u1f30\u03bd \u03a4\u03c1\u03bf\u03af\u1fb3. Valcknaer justly supports the ordinary interpretation.\nFootnote 12: (return) Cf. Plin. Ep. i. 18, and Duport, Gnom. Hom. p. 3, sq.\nHe indeed, thus having spoken, sat down; but to them there arose by far the best of augurs, Calchas, son of Thestor, who knew the present, the future, and the past, 13 and who guided the ships of the Greeks to Ilium, by his prophetic art, which Phoebus Apollo gave him, who, being well disposed, 14 addressed them, and said:\n\u201cO Achilles, dear to Jove, thou biddest me to declare the wrath of Apollo, the far-darting king. Therefore will I declare it; but do thou on thy part covenant, and swear to me, that thou wilt promptly assist me in word and hand. For methinks I shall irritate a man who widely rules over all the Argives, and whom the Greeks obey. For a king is more powerful 15 when he is enraged with an inferior man; for though he may repress his wrath 16 for that same day, yet he afterwards retains his anger in his heart, until he accomplishes it; but do thou consider whether thou wilt protect me.\u201d\nBut him swift-footed Achilles, answering, addressed: \u201cTaking full confidence, declare the divine oracle, whatsoever thou knowest. For, by Apollo, dear to Jove, to whom thou, praying, O Calchas, dost disclose predictions to the Greeks, no one of all the Greeks, while I am alive and have sight upon the earth, shall lay heavy hands upon thee at the hollow ships; not even if thou wast to name Agamemnon, who now boasts himself to be much the most powerful of the Greeks.\u201d  17\nFootnote 13: (return) A common formula in the ancient poets to express the eternity of things. Empedocles apud Pseud. Arist. de Mundo: \u03ac\u03bd\u03b8' \u1f45\u03c3\u03b1 \u03c4' \u1f74\u03bd, \u1f45\u03c3\u03b1 \u03c4' \u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u1f76, \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f44\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b5 \u1f14\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u1f40\u03c0\u03af\u03c3\u03c3\u03c9. Virg. Georg. iv. 392: \u201cNovit namque omnia vates, Qu\u00e6 sint, qu\u00e6 fuerint, qu\u00e6 mox ventura trahantur\u201d.\nFootnote 14: (return) See Abresch. on \u00c6schyl. p. 287. Ernesti.\nFootnote 15: (return) \u1f00\u03b3\u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03ba\u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c3\u03af \u03b3\u1f00\u03c1 \u03b4\u03b9\u1f70 \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u1f51\u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03c7\u03ae\u03bd. A\u2014rist. Rhet. ii. 2, quoting this verse.\nFootnote 16: (return) Lit. \u201cdigest his bile\u201d. Homer\u2019s distinction between \u03c7\u03cc\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2 and \u03ba\u03cc\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 is observed by Nemesius, de Nat. Hom. \u00a7 21.\nFootnote 17: (return) I have used \u201cGreeks\u201d wherever the whole army is evidently meant. In other instances I have retained the specific names of the different confederate nations.\nAnd upon this, the blameless prophet then took confidence, and spoke: \u201cNeither is he enraged on account of a vow [unperformed], nor of a hecatomb [unoffered], but on account of his priest, whom Agamemnon dishonoured; neither did he liberate his daughter, nor did he receive her ransom. Wherefore has the Far-darter given woes, and still will he give them; nor will he withhold his heavy hands from the pestilence, before that [Agamemnon] restore to her dear father the bright-eyed 18 maid, unpurchased, unransomed, and conduct a sacred hecatomb to Chrysa; then, perhaps, having appeased, we might persuade him.\u201d\nFootnote 18: (return) See Arnold.\nHe indeed, having thus spoken, sat down. But to them arose the hero, the son of Atreus, wide-ruling Agamemnon, 19 agitated; and his all-gloomy heart was greatly filled with wrath, and his eyes were like unto gleaming fire. Sternly regarding Calchas most of all, he addressed [him]:\n\u201cProphet of ills, not at any time hast thou spoken anything good for me; but evils are always gratifying to thy soul to prophesy, 20 and never yet hast thou offered one good word, nor accomplished [one]. And now, prophesying amongst the Greeks, thou haranguest that forsooth the Far-darter works griefs to them upon this account, because I was unwilling to accept the splendid ransom of the virgin daughter of Chryses, since I much prefer to have her at home; and my reason is, I prefer her even to Clytemnestra, my lawful wife; for she is not inferior to her, either in person, or in figure, or in mind, or by any means in accomplishments. But even thus I am willing to restore her, if it be better; for I wish the people to be safe rather than to perish. But do thou immediately prepare a prize for me, that I may not alone, of the Argives, be without a prize; since it is not fitting. For ye all see this, that my prize is going elsewhere.\u201d\nFootnote 19: (return) \u201cIn the assembly of the people, as in the courts of justice, the nobles alone speak, advise, and decide, whilst the people merely listen to their ordinances and decisions, in order to regulate their own conduct accordingly; being suffered, indeed, to follow the natural impulse of evincing, to a certain extent, their approbation or disapprobation of their superiors, but without any legal means of giving validity to their opinion.\u201d M\u00fcller, Gk. Lit. p. 30.\nFootnote 20: (return) But we must not join \u03bc\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03cd\u03b5\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9 with \u03ba\u03b9\u03ba\u03ac.\u2014N\u00e4gelsbach.\nBut him swift-footed godlike Achilles then answered: \u201cMost noble son of Atreus, most avaricious of all! for how shall the magnanimous Greeks assign thee a prize? Nor do we know of many common stores laid up anywhere. But what we plundered 21 from the cities, these have been divided, and it is not fitting that the troops should collect these brought together again. But do thou now let her go to the God, and we Greeks will compensate thee thrice, or four-fold, if haply Jove grant to us to sack the well-fortified city of Troy.\u201d\nFootnote 21: (return) More closely: \u201ctook from the cities, when we destroyed them.\u201d\nBut him answering, king Agamemnon addressed: \u201cDo not thus, excellent though thou be, godlike Achilles, practise deceit in thy mind; since thou shalt not overreach, nor yet persuade me. Dost thou wish that thou thyself mayest have a prize, whilst I sit down idly, 22 wanting one? And dost thou bid me to restore her? If, however, the magnanimous Greeks will give me a prize, having suited it to my mind, so that it shall be an equivalent, [it is well]. But if they will not give it, then I myself coming, will seize your prize, or that of Ajax, 23 or Ulysses, 24 and will bear it away; and he to whom I may come shall have cause for anger. On these things, however, we will consult afterwards. But now come, let us launch a sable ship into the boundless sea, and let us collect into it rowers in sufficient number, and place on board a hecatomb; and let us make the fair-cheeked daughter of Chryses to embark, and let some one noble man be commander, Ajax or Idomeneus, or divine Ulysses; or thyself, son of Peleus, most terrible of all men, that thou mayest appease for us the Far-darter, having offered sacrifices.\u201d\nFootnote 22: (return) Buttmann would take \u03b1\u1f54\u03c4\u03c9\u03c2 as = frustra.\nFootnote 23: (return) Tecmessa.\nFootnote 24: (return) Laodice, daughter of Cyenus.\nBut him swift-footed Achilles sternly regarding, addressed: \u201cHa! 25 thou clad in impudence, thou bent on gain, how can any of the Greeks willingly obey thy orders, either to undertake a mission, or to fight bravely with men? For I did not come hither to fight on account of the warlike Trojans, seeing that they are blameless as respects me. Since they have never driven away my oxen, nor my horses either nor ever injured my crops in fertile and populous Phthia: for very many shadowy mountains, and the resounding sea, are between us. But thee, O most shameless man, we follow, that thou mayest rejoice; seeking satisfaction from the Trojans for Menelaus, and for thy pleasure, shameless one! for which things thou hast neither respect nor care. And now thou hast threatened that thou wilt in person wrest from me my prize, for which I have toiled much, and which the sons of the Greeks have given me. Whenever the Greeks sacked a well-inhabited city of the Trojans, I never have had a prize equal to thine; although my hands perform the greater portion of the tumultuous conflict, yet when the division [of spoil] may come, a much greater prize is given to thee, while I come to my ships, when I am fatigued with fighting, having one small and agreeable. But now I will go to Phthia, for it is much better to return home with our curved ships; for I do not think that thou shalt amass wealth and treasures while I am dishonoured here.\u201d\nFootnote 25: (return) See my note on Od. i. p. 2, n. 11, ed. Bohn.\nBut him, the king of men, Agamemnon, then answered: \u201cFly, by all means, if thy mind urges thee; nor will I entreat thee to remain on my account: there are others with me who will honour me, but chiefly the all-wise Jove. For to me thou art the most odious of the Jove-nourished princes, for ever is contention agreeable to thee, and wars and battles. If thou be very bold, why doubtless a deity has given this to thee. Going home with thy ships and thy companions, rule over the Myrmidons; for I do not regard thee, nor care for thee in thy wrath; but thus will I threaten thee: Since Phoebus Apollo is depriving me of the daughter of Chryses, 26 her indeed I will send, with my own ship, and with my own friends; but I myself, going to thy tent, will lead away the fair-cheeked daughter of Brises, 27 thy prize; that thou mayest well know how much more powerful I am than thou, and that another may dread to pronounce himself equal to me, and to liken himself openly [to me].\u201d\nFootnote 26: (return) Astynome. Cf. Eustath. fol. 58.\nFootnote 27: (return) Hippodameia.\nThus he spoke, and grief arose to the son of Peleus, and the heart within, in his hairy breast, was pondering upon two courses; whether, drawing his sharp sword from his thigh, he should dismiss them, 28 and should kill the son of Atreus, or should put a stop to his wrath, and restrain his passion. While he was thus pondering in his heart and soul, and was drawing his mighty sword from the scabbard, came Minerva from heaven; for her the white-armed goddess Juno had sent forward, equally loving and regarding both from her soul. And she stood behind, and caught the son of Peleus by his yellow hair, appearing to him alone; but none of the others beheld her. But Achilles was amazed, and turned himself round, and immediately recognized Pallas Minerva; and awe-inspiring her eyes appeared to him. And addressing her, he spoke winged words:\n\u201cWhy, O offspring of \u00e6gis-bearing Jove, hast thou come hither? Is it that thou mayest witness the insolence of Agamemnon, the son of Atreus? But I tell thee, what I think will be accomplished, that he will probably soon lose his life by his haughtiness.\u201d\nFootnote 28: (return) The princes assembled.\nBut him in turn the azure-eyed goddess Minerva addressed: \u201cI came from heaven to assuage thy wrath, if thou wilt obey me; for the white-armed goddess Juno sent me forward, equally loving and regarding both from her soul. But come, cease from strife, nor draw the sword with thine hand. But reproach by words, as the occasion may suggest; for thus I declare, and it shall be accomplished, that thrice as many splendid gifts shall be presented to thee, because of this insolent act; only restrain thyself, and obey us.\u201d\nBut her answering, 29 swift-footed Achilles addressed: \u201cIt behoves me to observe the command of you both, O goddess, although much enraged in my soul; for so it is better. Whosoever obeys the gods, to him they hearken propitiously.\u201d\nFootnote 29: (return) Columna on Ennius, p. 17, ed. Hessel., compares \u201cOllei respondet Rex Alba\u00ef longa\u00ef,\u201d and \u201cOllei respondet suavis sonus Egeri\u00e4i,\u201d observing that this formula was probably as common in the heroic annals of Ennius as \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03b4' \u1f70\u03c0\u03b1\u03bc\u03b5\u03b9\u03be\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 is in Homer.\nHe spoke, and held still his heavy hand upon the silvery hilt, and thrust back the great sword into the scabbard, nor did he disobey the mandate of Minerva; but she had gone to Olympus, to the mansions of \u00e6gis-bearing Jove, amongst the other deities. But the son of Peleus again addressed Atrides with injurious 30 words, nor as yet ceased from anger:\n\u201cWine-bibber, having the countenance of a dog, but the heart of a stag, never hast thou at any time dared in soul to arm thyself with the people for war, nor to go to ambuscade with the chiefs of the Greeks; for this always appears to thee to be death. Certainly it is much better through the wide army of the Ach\u00e6ans, to take away the rewards of whoever may speak against thee. A people-devouring king [art thou], since thou rulest over fellows of no account; for assuredly, son of Atreus, thou [otherwise] wouldst have insulted now for the last time. But I will tell thee, and I will further swear a great oath: yea, by this sceptre, which will never bear leaves and branches, nor will bud again, after it has once left its trunk on the mountains; for the axe has lopped it all around of its leaves and bark; but now the sons of the Greeks, the judges, they who protect the laws [received] from Jove, bear it in their hands; and this will be a great oath to thee; surely will a longing desire for Achilles come upon all the sons of the Ach\u00e6ans at some future day, and thou, although much grieved, wilt be unable to assist them, when many dying shall fall by the hand of man-slaying Hector. Then enraged, wilt thou inwardly fret thy soul, that thou didst in no way honour the bravest of the Greeks.\u201d\nFootnote 30: (return) Epimerism. Hom. in Cramer\u2019s Anecdott. vol. i. p. 24. \u03ac\u03c4\u03b1\u03c1\u03c4\u03b7\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2, \u03b7 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ac\u03c4\u03b7\u03bd, \u03bf \u03c3\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1\u03af\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b2\u03bb\u03ac\u03be\u03b7\u03bd, \u03ac\u03c4\u03b7\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2.\u2014Hesych. \u03b2\u03bb\u03b1\u03be\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2, \u03ac\u03c4\u03b7\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2.\nThus spoke the son of Peleus; and he cast upon the earth his sceptre studded with golden nails, and sat down. But on the other hand, the son of Atreus was enraged; therefore to them arose the sweet-voiced Nestor, 31 the harmonious orator of the Pylians, from whose tongue flowed language sweeter than honey. During his life two generations of articulately-speaking men had become extinct, who, formerly, were reared and lived with him in divine Pylus, but he was now ruling over the third; who, wisely counselling, addressed them, and said:\nFootnote 31: (return) I must refer the reader to a most happy sketch of Nestor\u2019s exploits and character in Crete\u2019s Hist, of Greece, vol. i. p. 153.\n\u201c\u039f gods! surely a great sorrow comes upon the Grecian land. Verily, Priam would exult, and the sons of Priam, and the other Trojans, would greatly rejoice in their souls, if they were to hear these things of you twain contending: you who in council and in fighting surpass the Greeks. But be persuaded; for ye are both younger than I am. For already, in former times, I have associated with men braver than you, and they never disdained me. I never saw, nor shall I see, such men as Pirithous, and Dryas, shepherd of the people, and C\u00e6neus, and Exadius, and god-like Polyphemus, 32 and Theseus, the son of \u00c6geus, like unto the immortals. Bravest indeed were they trained up of earthly men; bravest they were, and they fought with the bravest Centaurs of the mountain caves, and terribly slew them. With these was I conversant, coming from Pylus, far from the Apian land; for they invited me, and I fought to the best of my power; but with them none of these who now are mortals upon the earth could fight. And even they heard my counsels, and obeyed my words. But do ye also obey, since it is better to be obedient; nor do thou, although being powerful, take away the maid from him, but leave it so, seeing that the sons of the Greeks first gave [her as] a prize on him. Nor do thou, \u039f son of Peleus, feel inclined to contend against the king; since never yet has any sceptre-bearing king, to whom Jove has given glory, been allotted an equal share of dignity. But though thou be of superior strength, and a goddess mother has given thee birth, yet he is superior in power, inasmuch as he rules more people. Do thou, son of Atreus, repress thine anger; for it is I that 33 entreat thee to forego thy resentment on behalf of Achilles, who is the great bulwark of destructive war to all the Ach\u00e6ans.\u201d\nFootnote 32: (return) A prince of the Lapith\u00e6, not the Cyclops.\nFootnote 33: (return) See Anthon, who has well remarked the force of the particles.\nBut him king Agamemnon answering addressed: \u201cOf a truth thou hast said all these things, old man, according to what is right. But this man is desirous to be above all other men; he wishes to have the mastery, and lord it over all, and to prescribe to all; with which his desires I think some one will not comply. But if the ever-existing gods have made him a warrior, do they therefore give him the right to utter insults?\u201d\nBut him noble Achilles interruptingly answered: \u201cYea, forsooth, 34 I may be called a coward and a man of no worth, if now I yield to thee in everything, whatever thou mayest say. Enjoin these things to other men; for dictate not to me, for I think that I shall no longer obey thee. But another thing will I tell thee, and do thou store it in thy mind: I will not contend with my hands, neither with thee, nor with others, on account of this maid, since ye, the donors, take her away. But of the other effects, which I have at my swift black ship, of those thou shalt not remove one, taking them away, I being unwilling. But if [thou wilt], come, make trial, that these also may know: quickly shall thy black blood flow around my lance.\u201d\nFootnote 34: (return) Properly elliptical\u2014I have done right; for, &amp;c.\u2014Crusius.\nThus these twain, striving with contrary words, arose, and they broke up the assembly at the ships of the Greeks. The son of Peleus on his part repaired to his tents and well-proportioned 35 ships, with the son of Menoetius, 36 and his companions. But the son of Atreus 37 launched his swift ship into the sea, and selected and put into it twenty rowers, and embarked a hecatomb for the god. And he led the fair daughter of Chryses and placed her on board, and the very wise Ulysses embarked as conductor. They then embarking, sailed over the watery paths. But the son of Atreus ordered the armies to purify themselves; 38 and they were purified, and cast forth the ablutions into the sea. And they sacrificed to Apollo perfect hecatombs of bulls and goats, along the shore of the barren sea; and the savour involved in 39 smoke ascended to heaven. Thus were they employed in these things through the army. Nor did Agamemnon cease from the contention which at first he threatened against Achilles. But he thus addressed Talthybius and Eurybates, who were his heralds and zealous attendants: 40\nFootnote 35: (return) Equal on both sides, so as to preserve a balance. But Blomfield, Obs. on Matth. Gr. \u00a7 124, prefers to render it \u201cships of due size,\u201d as [\u03b4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c3\u03b7], ver. 468, \u201can equalized meal.\u201d\nFootnote 36: (return) Patroclus.\nFootnote 37: (return) So Anthon, comparing ver. 142.\nFootnote 38: (return) Not a mere medicinal measure, but a symbolical putting away of the guilt, which, through Agamemnon\u2019s transgression, was brought upon the army also.\u2014Wolf.\nFootnote 39: (return) Not about the smoke, but in the smoke; for \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03af denotes also the staying within the compass of an object.\u2014N\u00e4gelsbach.\nFootnote 40: (return) \u03b8\u03b5\u03c1\u03ac\u03c0\u03c9\u03bd is a voluntary servant, as opposed to \u03b4\u03bf\u03cd\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2.\u2014See Arnold.\n\u201cGoing to the tent of Achilles, the son of Peleus, lead away fair Bris\u00ebis, having taken her by the hand; but if he will not give her, then I myself, coming with great numbers, will take her, and this will be more grievous 41 to him.\u201d\nThus speaking, he despatched them, having added 42 a harsh command. But they reluctantly went along the shore of the barren sea, and came to the tents and ships of the Myrmidons. And they found him sitting at his tent and his black ship: nor did Achilles, seeing them, rejoice. But they, confused, and reverencing the king, stood still, nor addressed him at all, nor spoke [their bidding]. But he perceived [it] in his mind, and said:\n\u201cHail, heralds, messengers of Jove, 43 and also of men, come near, for ye are not blamable to me in the least, but Agamemnon, who has sent you on account of the maid Bris\u00ebis. However, come, noble Patroclus, lead forth the maid, and give her to them to conduct; but let these be witnesses [of the insult offered me], both before the blessed gods, and before mortal men, and before the merciless king. But if ever again there shall be need of me to avert unseemly destruction from the rest, [appeal to me shall be in vain], 44 for surely he rages with an infatuated mind, nor knows at all how to view the future and the past, in order that the Greeks may fight in safety at their ships.\u201d\nThus he spoke. And Patroclus obeyed his dear companion, and led forth fair-cheeked Bris\u00ebis from the tent, and gave her to them to conduct; and they returned along by the ships of the Greeks. But the woman went with them reluctantly, whilst Achilles, weeping, 45 immediately sat down, removed apart from his companions, upon the shore of the hoary sea, gazing on the darkling main; and much he be sought his dear mother, stretching forth his hands:\nFootnote 41: (return) Hesych. \u03c1\u03af\u03b3\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd, \u03c6\u03bf\u03b2\u03b5\u03c1\u03ce\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd, \u03c7\u03b1\u03bb\u03b5\u03c0\u03ce\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd.\nFootnote 42: (return) \u201cMisit eos, minaci jusso dato.\u201d\u2014Heyne.\nFootnote 43: (return) So called from their inviolability,\u2014\u03ac\u03c3\u03bd\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd \u03b3\u03b1\u03c1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03bf\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf \u03b3\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03ba\u03b7\u03c1\u03cd\u03ba\u03c9\u03bd.\u2014Schol. \u039a\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u03b6\u03ae\u03bd \u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf\u03af\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c7\u03cc\u03c3\u03b5 \u03ac\u03b4\u03b5\u03ce\u03c2 \u03af\u03b5\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9.\u2014Pollux, viii. They were properly sacred to Mercury (id. iv. 9. Cf. Feith, Antiq. Homer, iv. 1), but are called the messengers of Jove, as being under his special protection, with a reference to the supporting of regal authority.\nFootnote 44: (return) Observe the aposiopesis.\nFootnote 45: (return) Not for the loss of Brise\u00efs, but on account of the affront.\n\u201cO mother, since thou hast borne me, to be but short-lived, at least then ought high-thundering Olympian Jove to have vouchsafed honour to me; but now he has not honoured me ever so little; for the son of Atreus, wide-ruling Agamemnon, has dishonoured me; for he, taking away my prize, possesses it, himself having wrested it [from me].\u201d\nThus he spoke, weeping. But to him his venerable mother hearkened, sitting in the depths of the ocean beside her aged sire. And immediately she rose up from the hoary deep, like a mist. And then she sat before him weeping, and soothed him with her hand, and addressed him, and spoke aloud:\n\u201cSon, why weepest thou\u2014on account of what has grief come upon thy mind? Declare it, nor hide it in thy soul, that we both may know it.\u201d\nBut her, sighing deeply, swift-footed Achilles addressed: \u201cThou knowest; why should I tell all these things to thee, already knowing [them]? We went against Thebe, 46 the sacred city of E\u00ebtion; and this we plundered, and brought hither all [the spoil]. And these things indeed the sons of the Greeks fairly divided among themselves, and selected for Agamemnon the fair-cheeked daughter of Chryses. But Chryses, priest of the far-darting Apollo, came afterwards to the fleet ships of the brazen-mailed Greeks, about to ransom his daughter, and bringing invaluable ransoms, having in his hand the fillets of far-darting Apollo, on his golden sceptre. And he supplicated all the Greeks, but chiefly the two sons of Atreus, the leaders of the people. Upon this all the other Greeks shouted assent, that the priest should be reverenced, and the splendid ransoms accepted: yet it was not pleasing to Agamemnon, son of Atreus, in his mind; but he dismissed him evilly, and added a harsh mandate. The old man therefore went back enraged; but Apollo hearkened to him praying, for he was very dear to him. And he sent a destructive arrow against the Greeks; and the forces were now dying one upon another, and the shafts of the god went on all sides through the wide army of the Greeks. But to us the skilful seer unfolded the divine will of the Far-darter. Straightway I first exhorted that we should appease the god; but then rage seized upon the son of Atreus, and instantly rising, he uttered a threatening speech, which is now accomplished; for the rolling-eyed Greeks attend her to Chrysa with a swift bark, and bring presents to the king; but the heralds have just now gone from my tent, conducting the virgin daughter of Bris\u00ebis, whom the sons of the Greeks gave to me. But do thou, if thou art able, aid thy son. Going to Olympus, supplicate Jove, if ever thou didst delight the heart of Jove as to anything, by word or deed; for I frequently heard thee boasting in the palaces of my sire, when thou saidest that thou alone, amongst the immortals, didst avert unworthy destruction from the cloud-collecting son of Saturn, when the other Olympian inhabitants, Juno, and Neptune, and Pallas Minerva, wished to bind him. But thou, O goddess, having approached, freed him from his chains, having quickly summoned to lofty Olympus, the hundred-handed, whom the gods call Briareus, and all men \u00c6geon, because he was superior to his father in strength, 47 who then sat by the son of Saturn, exulting in renown. Him then the blessed gods dreaded, nor did they bind [Jove]. Of these things now reminding him, sit beside him, and embrace his knees, if in anywise he may consent to aid the Trojans, and hem in 48 at their ships, and along the sea, the Greeks [while they get] slaughtered, that all may enjoy their king, and that the son of Atreus, wide-ruling Agamemnon, may know his baleful folly, 49 when he in no wise honoured the bravest of the Greeks.\u201d\nFootnote 46: (return) Thebe was situated on the border of Mysia, on the mountain Placus, in the district afterwards called Adramyttium. The inhabitants were Cilicians.\u2014See Heyne, and De Pinedo on Steph. Byz. s.v. p. 307, n. 58.\nFootnote 47: (return) Briareus as the son of Neptune or of Uranus and Terra.\u2014See Arnold. The fable is ridiculed by Minucius Felix, \u00a7 22.\nFootnote 48: (return) See Buttm. Lexil. pp. 257, 261, Fishlake\u2019s translation.\nFootnote 49: (return) The idea of infatuation is not, however, necessarily implied in \u1f04\u03c4\u03b7. See Buttm. Lex. p. 5, sq.\nBut him Thetis then answered, shedding down a tear: \u201cAlas! my son, wherefore have I reared thee, having brought thee forth in an evil hour. Would that thou wert seated at the ships tearless and uninjured; for thy destined life is but for a very short period, nor very long; but now art thou both swift-fated and wretched above all mortals: therefore have I brought thee forth in my palace under an evil fate. However, to tell thy words to thunder-delighting Jove, I myself will go to snow-clad Olympus, if by chance he will be persuaded. But do thou, now sitting at the swift ships, wage resentment against the Greeks, and totally abstain from war. For yesterday Jove went to Oceanus, 50 to the blameless \u00c6thiopians, to a banquet, and with him went all the gods. But on the twelfth day he will return to Olympus; and then will I go to the brazen-floored palace of Jove, and suppliantly embrace his knees, and I think that he will be persuaded.\u201d\nFootnote 50: (return) According to Homer, the earth is a circular plane, and Oceanus is an immense stream encircling it, from which the different rivers run inward.\nThus having said, she departed, and left him there wrathful in his soul for his well-girded maid, whom they had taken from him against his will. But Ulysses, meantime, came to Chrysa, bringing the sacred hecatomb. But they, when they had entered the deep haven, first furled their sails, and stowed them in the sable bark; they next brought the mast to its receptacle, lowering it quickly by its stays, and they rowed the vessel forwards with oars into its moorage; they heaved out the sleepers, and tied the hawsers. They themselves then went forth on the breakers of the sea, and disembarked the hecatomb to far-darting Apollo, and then they made the daughter of Chryses descend from the sea-traversing bark. Then wise Ulysses, leading her to the altar, placed her in the hands of her dear father, and addressed him:\n\u201cO Chryses, Agamemnon, king of men, sent me forth to conduct to thee thy daughter, and to sacrifice a sacred hecatomb to Ph\u0153bus for the Greeks, that we may appease the king, who now has sent evils fraught with groanings upon the Argives.\u201d\nThus having spoken, he placed her in his hands; but he rejoicing received his beloved daughter. Then they immediately placed in order the splendid hecatomb for the god around the well-built altar. After that they washed their hands, and held up the pounded barley. 51 But for them, Chryses, uplifting his hands, prayed with loud voice:\nFootnote 51: (return) \u201cSalted barley meal,\u201d\u2014Anthon; \u201cwhole barley,\u201d\u2014Voss; but Buttmann, Lexil. p. 454, in a highly amusing note, observes, \u201cno supposition of a regular and constant distinction between the Greeks and Romans, the one using barley whole and the other coarsely ground, possible as the thing may be in itself, is to be entertained without the express testimony of the ancients.\u201d\n\u201cHear me, O thou of the silver bow, who art wont to protect Chrysa and divine Cilla, and who mightily rulest over Tenedos! already indeed at a former time didst thou hear me praying, and didst honour me, and didst very much afflict the people of the Greeks, now also accomplish for me this further request: even now avert from the Greeks this unseemly pestilence.\u201d\nThus he spoke praying, and him Ph\u0153bus Apollo heard. But after they had prayed, and sprinkled the pounded barley, they first bent back [the neck of the victims], killed them, and flayed them, and cut out the thighs, and wrapped them round with the fat, having arranged it in double folds; then laid the raw flesh upon them. Then the old man burned them on billets, and poured sparkling wine upon them; and near him the youths held five-pronged spits in their hands. But after the thighs were roasted, and they had tasted the entrails, they then cut the rest of them into small pieces, and fixed them on spits, and roasted them skilfully, and drew all the viands [off the spits].\nBut when they had ceased from their labour, and had prepared the banquet, they feasted; nor did their soul in anywise lack a due allowance of the feast: but when they had dismissed the desire of drink and food, the youths on the one hand filled the goblets with wine to the brim, 52 and handed round the wine to all, having poured the first of the wine into the cups. 53 But the Grecian youths throughout the day were appeasing the god by song, chanting the joyous P\u00e6an, 54 hymning the Far-darter, and he was delighted in his mind as he listened. But when the sun had set, and darkness came on, then they slept near the hawsers of their ships. But when the mother of dawn, 55 rosy-fingered morning, appeared, straightway then they set sail for the spacious camp of the Ach\u00e6ans, and to them far-darting Apollo sent a favourable gale. But they erected the mast and expanded the white sails. The wind streamed 56 into the bosom of the sail; and as the vessel briskly ran, the dark wave roared loudly around the keel; but she scudded through the wave, holding on her way. But when they reached the wide armament of the Greeks, they drew up the black ship on the continent, far upon the sand, and stretched long props under it; but they dispersed themselves through their tents and ships.\nFootnote 52: (return) See Buttm. Lexil. p. 291, sqq. The custom of crowning the goblets with flowers was of later origin.\nFootnote 53: (return) See Battm. p. 168. The customary libation is meant.\nFootnote 54: (return) On the P\u00e6an, see M\u00fcller, Gk. Lit. iii. \u00a7 4. and Dorians, vol. i. p. 370.\nFootnote 55: (return) See Loewe on Odyss. ii. 1, and my translation. Kennedy renders it \u201cushering in the dawn.\u201d\nFootnote 56: (return) See Buttm. p. 484. I am partly indebted to Anthon in rendering this expression.\nBut the Jove-sprung son of Peleus, swift-footed Achilles, continued his wrath, sitting at his swift ships, nor ever did he frequent the assembly of noble heroes, nor the fight, but he pined away his dear heart, remaining there, although he longed for the din and the battle.\nNow when the twelfth morning from that time arose, 57 then indeed all the gods who are for ever went together to Olympus, but Jupiter preceded. But Thetis was not forgetful of the charges of her son, but she emerged from the wave of the sea, and at dawn ascended lofty heaven and Olympus; 58 and she found the far-seeing son of Saturn sitting apart from the others, on the highest summit of many-peaked Olympus, and then she sat down before him, and embraced his knees with her left hand, but with the right taking him by the chin, imploring, she thus addressed king Jove, the son of Saturn:\n\u201cO father Jove, if ever I have aided thee among the immortals, either in word or deed, accomplish for me this desire: honour my son, who is the most short-lived of others; for now indeed Agamemnon, the king of men, has disgraced him; for he possesses his prize, he himself having borne it away. Do thou at least, Olympian Jove all counselling, honour him: and so long grant victory to the Trojans, until the Greeks shall reverence my son, and shall advance him in honour.\u201d\nFootnote 57: (return) Cf. ver. 425.\nFootnote 58: (return) \u039f\u1f50\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd\u03cc\u03c2 is here the upper clear region of air,\u2014the ether, into which Olympus soared up.\u2014Voss.\nThus she spoke; but cloud-compelling Jove answered her nothing, but sat silent for a long time. And as Thetis seized his knees, fast clinging she held them, and thus again entreated: \u201cDo but now promise to me explicitly, and grant or refuse, (for in thee there is no dread,) that I may well know how far I am the most dishonoured goddess amongst all.\u201d\nBut her cloud-compelling Jove, deeply moved, addressed: \u201cTruly now this [will be] a grievous matter, since thou wilt cause me to give offence to Juno, when she shall irritate me with reproachful words. For, even without reason, she is perpetually chiding me amongst the immortal gods, and also says that I aid the Trojans in battle. But do thou on thy part now depart, lest Juno behold thee: but these things shall be my care, until I perform them. But if [thou wilt have it thus], so be it; I will nod to thee with my head, that thou mayest feel confidence. For this from me is the greatest pledge among the immortals: for my pledge, even whatsoever I shall sanction by nod, is not to be retracted, neither fallacious nor unfulfilled.\u201d\nThe son of Saturn spoke, and nodded thereupon with his dark eyebrows. And then the ambrosial locks of the king were shaken over him from his immortal head; and he made mighty Olympus tremble. Thus having conferred, they separated. She at once plunged from splendid Olympus into the profound sea. But Jove on the other hand [returned] to his palace. But all the gods rose up together from their seats to meet their sire; nor did any dare to await 59 him approaching, but all rose in his presence. Thus indeed he sat there on his throne; nor was Juno unconscious, having seen that silver-footed Thetis, the daughter of the marine old man, had joined in deliberation with him. Forthwith with reproaches she accosted Saturnian Jove:\n\u201cWhich of the gods again, O deceitful one, has been concerting measures with thee? Ever is it agreeable to thee, being apart from me, plotting secret things, to decide thereon; nor hast thou ever yet deigned willingly to tell me one word of what thou dost meditate.\u201d\nFootnote 59: (return) Heyne supplies \u201csedendo.\u201d\nTo her then replied the father of men and gods: \u201cO Juno, build up no hopes of knowing all my counsels; difficult would they be for thee, although thou art my consort. But whatever it may be fit for thee to hear, none then either of gods or men shall know it before thee: but whatever I wish to consider apart from the gods, do thou neither inquire into any of these things, nor investigate them.\u201d\nBut him the large-eyed, venerable Juno then answered: \u201cMost dread son of Saturn, what a word hast thou spoken? Heretofore have I ever questioned thee much, nor pryed [into thy secrets]; but thou mayest very quietly deliberate on those things which thou desirest. But at present I greatly fear in my soul, lest silver-footed Thetis, the daughter of the marine old man, may have influenced thee: for at dawn she sat by thee and embraced thy knees: to her I suspect thou didst plainly promise that thou wouldest honour Achilles, and destroy many at the ships of the Greeks.\u201d\nBut her answering, cloud-compelling Jove addressed: \u201cPerverse one! thou art always suspecting, nor do I escape thee. Nevertheless thou shalt produce no effect at all, but thou shalt be farther from my heart: and this will be more bitter to thee. But granted this be so, it appears to be my pleasure. 60 But sit down in peace, and obey my mandate, lest as many deities as are in Olympus avail thee not against me, I drawing near, 61 when I shall lay my resistless hands upon thee.\u201d\nFootnote 60: (return) I.e., say that what you suspect is correct; well then, such is my will.\nFootnote 61: (return) I prefer taking \u03af\u03bf\u03bd\u03b8' for \u03af\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1, not for \u03af\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5, as Buttmann wished.\u2014See Anthon.\nThus he spoke: but venerable, large-eyed Juno feared, and sat down silent, having bent her heart to submission. But the heavenly gods murmured throughout the palace of Jove. And the renowned artificer, Vulcan, began to harangue them, doing kind offices to his beloved mother, white-armed Juno:\n\u201cTruly now these will be grievous matters, and no longer tolerable, if ye twain contend thus on account of mortals, and excite uproar among the deities. Nor will there be any enjoyment in the delightful banquet, since the worse things prevail. 62 But to my mother I advise, she herself being intelligent, to gratify my dear father Jove, lest my sire may again reprove her, and disturb our banquet. For if the Olympian Thunderer wishes to hurl [us] from our seats 63\u2014for he is much the most powerful. But do thou soothe him with gentle words; then will the Olympian king straightway be propitious to us.\u201d\nFootnote 62: (return) Cf. Duport, Gnom. Hom. p. 9. The saying is almost proverbial.\nFootnote 63: (return) An aposiopesis; understand, \u201che can easily do so.\u201d\nThus then he spoke, and rising, he placed the double cup 64 in the hand of his dear mother, and addressed her:\n\u201cBe patient, my mother, and restrain thyself, although grieved, lest with my own eyes I behold thee beaten, being very dear to me; nor then indeed should I be able, though full of grief, to assist thee; for Olympian Jove is difficult to be opposed. For heretofore, having seized me by the foot, he cast me, desiring at one time to assist you, down from the heavenly threshold. All day was I carried down through the air, and I fell on Lemnos 65 with the setting sun: and but little life was in me by that time. There the Sintian 66 men forthwith received and tended 67 me, having fallen.\u201d\nThus he spoke: but the white-armed goddess Juno smiled; and smiling she received the cup from the hand of her son. But he, beginning from left to right, 68 kept pouring out for all the other gods, drawing nectar from the goblet. And then inextinguishable laughter arose among the immortal gods, when they saw Vulcan bustling about 69 through the mansion.\nFootnote 64: (return) See my note on Od. iii. p. 30, n. 13, ed. Bohn. It was \u201ca double cup with a common bottom in the middle.\u201d\u2014Crusius.\nFootnote 65: (return) Hercules having sacked Troy, was, on his return, driven to Cos by a storm raised by Juno, who was hostile to him, and who had contrived to cast Jupiter into a sleep, that he might not interrupt her purpose. Jupiter awaking, in resentment of the artifice practised upon him, bound her feet to iron anvils, which Vulcan attempting to loose, was cast headlong down to Lemnos by his enraged sire.\nFootnote 66: (return) A race of robbers, of Tyrrhenian origin (according to M\u00fcller), and the ancient inhabitants of Lemnos. This island was ever after sacred to Vulcan. Cf. Lactant. i. 15; Milton, P.L. i. 740, sqq.\nFootnote 67: (return) See Arnold.\nFootnote 68: (return) This meaning of \u03ad\u03bd\u03b4\u03ad\u03be\u03b9\u03b1 is due to Buttmann.\nFootnote 69: (return) See Buttmann, Lexil. p. 481.\nThus, then, they feasted 70 the entire day till the setting sun; nor did the soul want anything of the equal feast, nor of the beautiful harp, which Apollo held, nor of the Muses, who accompanied him, responding in turn, with delicious voice.\nFootnote 70: (return) \u201cThe gods formed a sort of political community of their own, which had its hierarchy, its distribution of ranks and duties, its contentions for power and occasional revolutions, its public meetings in the agora of Olympus, and its multitudinous banquets or festivals.\u201d\u2014Grote, vol. i. p. 463. Cf. M\u00fcller, Gk. Lit. ii. \u00a7 2.\nBut when the splendid light of the sun was sunk, they retired to repose, each one to his home, where renowned Vulcan, lame of both legs, with cunning skill had built a house for each. But the Olympian thunderer Jove went to his couch, where he lay before, when sweet sleep came upon him. There, having ascended, he lay down to rest, and beside him golden-throned Juno.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THE SECOND.\nARGUMENT.\nJove sends a dream to Agamemnon, in consequence of which he re-assembles the army. Thersites is punished for his insolent speech, and the troops are restrained from seeking a return homewards. The catalogue of the ships and the forces of the confederates follows.\nThe rest, then, both gods and horse-arraying men, 71 slept all the night: but Jove sweet sleep possessed not; but he was pondering in his mind how he might honour Achilles, and destroy many at the ships of the Greeks. But this device appeared best to him in his mind, to send a fatal dream 72 to Agamemnon, the son of Atreus. And addressing him, he spoke winged words:\n\u201cHaste away, pernicious dream, to the swift ships of the Greeks. Going into the tent of Agamemnon, son of Atreus, utter very accurately everything as I shall command thee. Bid him arm the long-haired Ach\u00e6ans 73 with all their array; for now perhaps he may 74 take the wide-wayed city of the Trojans; for the immortals who possess the Olympian mansions no longer think dividedly, for Juno, supplicating, hath bent all [to her will]. And woes are impending over the Trojans.\u201d\nThus he spake: and the dream 75 accordingly departed, as soon as it heard the mandate. And quickly it came to the swift ships of the Greeks, and went unto Agamemnon, the son of Atreus. But him it found sleeping in his tent, and ambrosial slumber was diffused around. And he stood over his head, like unto Nestor, the son of Neleus, him, to wit, whom Agamemnon honoured most of the old men. To him assimilating himself, the divine dream addressed him:\nFootnote 71: (return) See Anthon, who observes that \u201cfighting from on horseback was not practised in the Homeric times.\u201d\nFootnote 72: (return) Some would personify Oneirus, as god of dreams.\nFootnote 73: (return) Observe the distinction, for the Abantes, ver. 542, and the Thracians, iv. 533, wore their hair differently.\nFootnote 74: (return) \u03ba\u03b5\u03bd limits the assertion to probability, so that Jupiter does not utter a direct falsehood.\nFootnote 75: (return) In defence of this cheating conduct of Jove, at which Plato was much scandalized, Coleridge, p. 154, observes: \u201cThe \u03bf\u1f56\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f44\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 was a lying spirit, which the father of gods and men had a supreme right to commission for the purpose of working out his ultimate will.\u201d\n\u201cSleepest thou, son of the warrior, horse-taming Atreus? It becomes not a counsel-giving man, to whom the people have been intrusted, and to whom so many things are a care, to sleep all the night. But now quickly attend to me; for I am a messenger to thee from Jove, who, although far distant, greatly regards and pities thee. He orders thee to arm the long-haired Greeks with all their array, for now mayest thou take the wide-wayed city of the Trojans, since the immortals, who possess the Olympian mansions, no longer think dividedly; for Juno, supplicating, hath bent all [to her will], and woes from Jove are impending over the Trojans. But do thou preserve this in thy recollection, nor let forgetfulness possess thee, when sweet sleep shall desert thee.\u201d\nThus then having spoken, he departed, and left him there pondering these things in his mind, which were not destined to be accomplished. For he, foolish, thought that he would take the city of Priam on that day; nor knew he the deeds which Jupiter was really devising; for even he was about yet to impose additional hardships and sorrows upon both Trojans and Greeks, through mighty conflicts. But he awoke from his sleep, and the heavenly voice was diffused around him. He sat up erect, and put on his soft tunic, beautiful, new; and around him he threw his large cloak. And he bound his beautiful sandals on his shining feet, and slung from his shoulders the silver-studded sword. He also took his paternal sceptre, ever imperishable, with which he went to the ships of the brazen-mailed Greeks.\nThe goddess Aurora now 76 ascended wide Olympus, announcing the dawn to Jove and the other immortals. But he 77 on his part ordered the clear-voiced heralds to summon the long-haired Ach\u00e6ans 78 to an assembly. They therefore summoned them, and the people were very speedily assembled. First the assembly of magnanimous elders sat at the ship of Nestor, the Pylus-born king. Having called them together, he propounded a prudent counsel:\nFootnote 76: (return) \u1fe5\u03b1 appears to mark the regular transition from one event to another.\nFootnote 77: (return) Agamemnon.\nFootnote 78: (return) See on ver. 11.\n\u201cHear me, my friends: a divine dream came to me in sleep, during the ambrosial night, very like unto the noble Nestor, in form, in stature, and in mien. And it stood above my head, and addressed me: \u2018Sleepest thou, son of the warrior, horse-taming Atreus? It becomes not a counsellor, to whom the people have been intrusted, and to whom so many things are a care, to sleep all the night. But now quickly attend to me; for I am a messenger to thee from Jove, who, although far distant, greatly regards and pities thee. He orders thee to arm the long-haired Greeks with all their array, for now mayest thou take the wide-wayed city of the Trojans; for the immortals, who possess the Olympian mansions, no longer think dividedly, for Juno, supplicating, has bent all [to her will], and woes from Jove are impending over the Trojans; but do thou preserve this in thy thoughts.\u2019 Thus having spoken, flying away, it departed; but sweet sleep resigned me. But come, [let us try] if by any means we can arm the sons of the Greeks. But first with words will I sound their inclinations, as is right, and I will command them to fly with their many-benched ships; but do you restrain them with words, one in one place, another in another.\u201d\nHe indeed having thus spoken, sat down; but Nestor, who was king of sandy Pylus, rose up, who wisely counselling, harangued them, and said:\n\u201cO friends, generals and counsellors of the Argives, if any other of the Greeks had told this dream, we should have pronounced it a fabrication, and withdrawn ourselves [from the reciter]. But now he has seen it, who boasts himself [to be] by far the greatest man in the army. But come on, if by any means we can arm the sons of the Greeks.\u201d\nThus then having spoken, he began to depart from the assembly; and they, the sceptre-bearing princes, arose, and obeyed the shepherd of the tribes, and the hosts rushed forward. Even as the swarms of clustering bees, 79 issuing ever anew from the hollow rock, go forth, and fly in troops over the vernal 80 flowers, and some have flitted in bodies here, and some there; thus of these [Greeks] many nations from the ships and tents kept marching in troops in front of the steep shore to the assembly. And in the midst of them blazed Rumour, messenger of Jove, urging them to proceed; and they kept collecting together. The assembly was tumultuous, and the earth groaned beneath, as the people seated themselves, and there was a clamour; but nine heralds vociferating restrained them, if by any means they would cease from clamour, and hear the Jove-nurtured princes. With difficulty at length the people sat down, and were kept to their respective 81 seats, having desisted from their clamour, when king Agamemnon arose, holding the sceptre, which Vulcan had laboriously wrought. Vulcan in the first place gave it to king Jove, the son of Saturn, and Jove in turn gave it to his messenger, the slayer of Argus. 82 But king Mercury gave it to steed-taming Pelops, and Pelops again gave it to Atreus, shepherd of the people. But Atreus, dying, left it to Thyestes, rich in flocks; but Thyestes again left it to Agamemnon to be borne, that he might rule over many islands, 83 and all Argos. 84 Leaning upon this, he spoke words amongst the Greeks:\nFootnote 79: (return) The dative here implies direction, \u1f10\u03c0\u1f76 increasing its force, according to Stadelmann and K\u00fchner, who are followed by Anthon. I have restored the old interpretation, which is much less far-fetched, and is placed beyond doubt by Virgil\u2019s imitations.\u2014\u201cper florea rura,\u201d \u00c6n. i. 430; \u201cfloribus insidunt variis.\u201d \u00c6n. vi. 708. \u201cAmong fresh dews and flowers, Fly to and fro.\u201d\u2014Milton. P.L. i. 771.\nFootnote 80: (return) I. e. over the flowers in the spring-time, when bees first appear. See Virg. l. c. Eurip. Hipp. 77, \u03bc\u03ad\u03bb\u03b9\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1 \u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03bc\u1ff6\u03bd' \u1f90\u03c1\u03b9\u03bd\u1f78\u03bd \u1f42\u03b9\u03ad\u03c1\u03c7\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9.\u2014Nicias, Anthol. i. 31, \u1f14\u03b1\u03c1 \u03c6\u03b1\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b1 \u03bc\u03ad\u03bb\u03b9\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1.\u2014Longus, i. 4.\nFootnote 81: (return) Observe the distributive use of \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03ac. Cf. Od. iii. 7.\nFootnote 82: (return) Mercury. Cf. Ovid. Met. i. 624. sqq.\nFootnote 83: (return) On the extended power of Agamemnon, see Thucyd. i. 9.\nFootnote 84: (return) On this sceptre, the type of the wealth and influence of the house of the Atrides, see Grote. vol. i. p. 212.\n\u201cO friends, Grecian heroes, servants of Mars, Jove, the son of Saturn, has entangled me in a heavy misfortune. Cruel, who before indeed promised to me, and vouchsafed by his nod, that I should return home, having destroyed well-fortified Ilium. But now he has devised an evil deception, and commands me to return to Argos, inglorious, after I have lost many of my people. So forsooth it appears to be agreeable to all-powerful Jove, who has already overthrown the citadels of many cities, yea, and will even yet overthrow them, for transcendent is his power. For this were disgraceful even for posterity to hear, that so brave and so numerous a people of the Greeks warred an ineffectual war, and fought with fewer men; but as yet no end has appeared. For if we, Greeks and Trojans, having struck a faithful league, 85 wished that both should be numbered, and [wished] to select the Trojans, on the one hand, as many as are townsmen; and if we Greeks, on the other hand, were to be divided into decades, and to choose a single man of the Trojans to pour out wine [for each decade], many decades would be without a cupbearer. 86 So much more numerous, I say, the sons of the Greeks are than the Trojans who dwell in the city. But there are spear-wielding auxiliaries from many cities, who greatly stand in my way, and do not permit me wishing to destroy the well-inhabited city. Already have nine years of mighty Jove passed away, and now the timbers of our ships have rotted, and the ropes have become untwisted. 87 Our wives and infant children sit in our dwellings expecting us; but to us the work for which we came hither remains unaccomplished, contrary to expectation. But come, as I shall recommend, let us all obey; let us fly with the ships to our dear native land, for at no future time shall we take wide-wayed Troy.\u201d\nFootnote 85: (return) \u1f4a\u03c1\u03ba\u03b9\u03b1 is probably used as an adjective, understanding \u1f76\u03b5\u03c1\u03b5\u1fd6\u03b1, the victims that were slain in order to ratify the oath. See however Buttm. Lexil. p. 439.\nFootnote 86: (return) The Greeks doubled the Trojans in number. See Anthon.\nFootnote 87: (return) Observe the change of construction in \u03bb\u03ad\u03bb\u03c5\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 with the neuter plural. Apollon. de Syntaxi, iii. 11. \u03a4\u1f70 \u03c3\u03c0\u03ac\u03c1\u03c4\u03b1 \u03bb\u03ad\u03bb\u03c5\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03b7\u03bb\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03b4\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c3\u03ad\u03c3\u03b7\u03c0\u03b5.\nThus he spoke; and to them he aroused the heart in their breasts, to all throughout the multitude, whoever had not heard his scheme. 88 And the assembly was moved, as the great waves of the Icarian Sea, which, indeed, both the south-east wind and the south are wont to raise, 89 rushing from the clouds of father Jove. And as when the west wind 90 agitates the thick-standing corn, rushing down upon it impetuous, and it [the crop] bends with its ears; so was all the assembly agitated. Some with shouting rushed to the ships, but from beneath their feet the dust stood suspended aloft; and some exhorted one another to seize the vessels, and drag them to the great ocean; and they began to clear the channels. The shout of them, eager [to return] home, rose to the sky, and they withdrew the stays from beneath the vessels. Then truly a return had happened to the Argives, contrary to destiny, had not Juno addressed herself to Minerva:\nFootnote 88: (return) I. e. his real object. Cf. vs. 75, sqq.\nFootnote 89: (return) Spitzner and the later editors unite in reading \u03ba\u03b9\u03bd\u03ae\u03c3\u03b7 for \u03ba\u03b9\u03bd\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9 from the Venice MS. See Arnold.\nFootnote 90: (return)\n\n\n\u2014\u2014\u201cAs thick as when a field\nOf Ceres, ripe for harvest, waving bends\nHer bearded grove of ears, which way the wind\nSways them.\u201d\u2014Paradise Lost, iv. 980.\n\n\n\u201cAlas! indomitable daughter of \u00e6gis-bearing Jove, thus now shall the Argives fly home to their dear native land, over the broad back of the deep, and leave to Priam glory, and to the Trojans Argive Helen, on whose account many Greeks have perished at Troy, far from their dear native land? But go now to the people of the brazen-mailed Greeks, and restrain each man with thy own flattering words, nor suffer them to launch to the sea their evenly-plied 91 barks.\u201d Thus she spoke, nor did the azure-eyed goddess Minerva refuse compliance. But she, hastening, descended down from the summits of Olympus, and quickly reached the swift ships of the Ach\u00e6ans. Then she found Ulysses, of equal weight with Jove in counsel, standing still; nor was he touching his well-benched, sable bark, since regret affected him in heart and mind. But standing near him, azure-eyed Minerva said:\nFootnote 91: (return) I.e. rowed on both sides. But Rost and Liddell (s.v.) prefer \u201cswaying, rocking on both sides.\u201d\n\u201cJove-sprung son of Laertes, Ulysses of many wiles, thus then will ye fly home to your dear native land, embarking in your many-benched ships? And will ye then leave to Priam glory, and to the Trojans Argive Helen, on whose account many Greeks have fallen at Troy, far from their dear native land? But go now to the people of the Greeks, delay not; and restrain each man by thy own flattering words, nor suffer them to launch to the sea their evenly-plied barks.\u201d\nThus she spoke, but he knew the voice of the goddess speaking. Then he hastened to run, and cast away his cloak, but the herald Eurybates, the Ithacensian, who followed him, took it up. But he, meeting Agamemnon, son of Atreus, received from him 92 the ever-imperishable paternal sceptre, with which he went through the ships of the brazen-mailed Greeks.\nFootnote 92: (return) This is an instance of the \u03c3\u03c7\u1fc6\u03bc\u03b1 \u03a3\u03b9\u03ba\u03b5\u03bb\u03b9\u03ba\u03cc\u03bd, as in H. O. 88, \u03b3\u03af\u03bd\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b4\u03b5 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03be\u03b1\u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b4\u03bf\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03c0\u03c4\u03ce\u03c3\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2 \u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9 \u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03b9\u03ba\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u1f70 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03c8\u03b9\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u03cd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u1f01 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03b8\u03ad\u03c3\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2.\u2014Lesbonax, \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03af \u03c3\u03c7\u03b7\u03bc. \u03c1. 181, ed. Valck.\nWhatsoever king, indeed, or distinguished man he chanced to find standing beside him, he checked him with gentle words:\n\u201cStrange man! it ill becomes thee, coward-like, to be in trepidation; but both sit down thyself, and make the other people sit down, for thou hast not as yet clearly ascertained what the intention of Atrides is. He is now making trial of, and will quickly punish the sons of the Greeks. We have not all heard what he said in council. Take care lest he, being incensed, do some mischief to the sons of the Greeks. For the anger of a Jove-nurtured king is great; his honour too is from Jove, and great-counselling Jove loves him.\u201d\nBut on the other hand, whatever man of the common people he chanced to see, or find shouting out, him would he strike with the sceptre, and reprove with words:\n\u201cFellow, sit quietly, and listen to the voice of others, who are better than thou; for thou art unwarlike and weak, nor ever of any account either in war or in council. We Greeks cannot all by any means govern here, for a government of many is not a good thing; 93 let there be but one chief, one king, 94 to whom the son of wily Saturn has given a sceptre, and laws, that he may govern among them.\u201d\nFootnote 93: (return) See Aristot. Polit. iv. 4, and Cicer. de Off. i. 8. This true maxim has been often abused by tyrants, as by Dion (Corn. Nepos, Dion, \u00a7 6, 4), Caligula (Sueton. Cal. 22), and Domitian (id. 12).\nFootnote 94: (return) On the aristocratic character of Homer\u2019s poetry, see M\u00fcller, Gk Lit. iv. \u00a7 2.\nThus he, acting as chief, was arranging the army. But they again rushed with tumult from the ships and tents to an assembly, as when the waves of the much-resounding sea roar against the lofty beach, and the deep resounds.\nThe others indeed sat down, and were kept to their respective seats. But Thersites alone, immediate in words, was wrangling; who, to wit, knew in his mind expressions both unseemly and numerous, so as idly, and not according to discipline, to wrangle with the princes, but [to blurt out] whatever seemed to him to be matter of laughter to the Greeks. And he was the ugliest man who came to Ilium. He was bandy-legged, 95 and lame of one foot; his shoulders were crooked, and contracted towards his breast; and his head was peaked 96 towards the top, and thin woolly hair was scattered over it. To Achilles and Ulysses he was particularly hostile, for these two he used to revile. But on this occasion, shouting out shrilly, he uttered bitter taunts against noble Agamemnon; but the Greeks were greatly irritated against him, and were indignant in their minds. But vociferating aloud, he reviled Agamemnon with words:\nFootnote 95: (return) See Buttm. Lexil. p. 540, \u00a7 8.\nFootnote 96: (return) See Buttm. p. 537, who derives \u03c6\u03bf\u03b6\u03bf\u03c2 from \u03c6\u03ce\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd, to dry, as if \u03c6\u03c9\u03be\u03cc\u03c2, warped by heat.\n\u201cSon of Atreus, of what dost thou now complain, or what dost thou want? Thy tents are full of brass, and many chosen women are in thy tents, whom we Greeks bestow on thee the first of all, whenever we capture a city. Dost thou still require gold, which some one of the horse-taming Trojans shall bring from Troy, as a ransom for his son, whom I, or some other of the Greeks, having bound, may lead away? Or a young maid, that thou mayest be mingled in dalliance, and whom thou for thyself mayest retain apart 97 [from the rest]? Indeed it becomes not a man who is chief in command, to lead the sons of the Greeks into evil. \u039f ye soft ones, vile disgraces, Grecian dames, no longer Grecian men, 98 let us return home, home! 99 with our ships, and let us leave him here to digest his honours at Troy, that he may know whether we really aid him in anything or not. He, who but just now has dishonoured Achilles, a man much more valiant than himself; for, taking away, he retains his prize, he himself having seized it. But assuredly there is not much anger in the heart of Achilles; but he is forbearing; for truly, were it not so, \u039f son of Atreus, thou wouldest have insulted now for the last time.\u201d\nFootnote 97: (return) Not being compelled to restore her, like the daughter of Chryses.\nFootnote 98: (return) Virg. \u00c6n. ix. 617: \u201c\u039f vere Phrygi\u00e6, neque enim Phryges!\u201d\nFootnote 99: (return) This is N\u00e4gelsbach\u2019s spirited rendering of \u03bf\u03af\u03ba\u03b1\u03b4\u03b5 \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1.\nThus spoke Thersites, reviling Agamemnon, the shepherd of the people. But godlike Ulysses immediately stood beside him, and eyeing him with scowling brow, reproached him with harsh language:\n\u201cThersites, reckless babbler! noisy declaimer though thou be, refrain, nor be forward singly to strive with princes; for I affirm that there is not another mortal more base than thou, as many as came with the son of Atreus to Ilium. Wherefore do not harangue, having kings in thy mouth, nor cast reproaches against them, nor be on the watch for a return. Not as yet indeed do we certainly know how these matters will turn out, whether we sons of the Greeks shall return to our advantage or disadvantage. Wherefore, now thou sittest reviling Agamemnon, son of Atreus, the leader of the people, because the Grecian heroes give him very many gifts, whilst thou, insulting, dost harangue. But I declare to thee, which shall also be accomplished: if ever again I catch thee raving, as now thou art, no longer may the head of Ulysses rest upon his shoulders, and no longer may I be called the father of Telemachus, unless I seizing thee divest thee of thy very garments, thy coat, thy cloak, and those which cover thy loins; and send thyself weeping to the swift ships, having beaten thee out of the assembly with severe blows.\u201d\nThus he spoke, and smote him with the sceptre upon the back and the shoulders; but he writhed, and plenteous tears fell from him, and a bloody weal arose under the sceptre upon his back. But he sat down and trembled; and grieving, looking foolish, he wiped away the tears. They, although chagrined, laughed heartily at him, and thus one would say, looking towards the person next him:\n\u201cO strange! surely ten thousand good deeds has Ulysses already performed, both originating good counsels, and arousing the war. But now has he done this by far the best deed amongst the Greeks, in that he has restrained this foul-mouthed reviler from his harangues. Surely his petulant mind will not again urge him to chide the kings with scurrilous language.\u201d\nThus spake the multitude; but Ulysses, the sacker of cities, arose, holding the sceptre, and beside him azure-eyed Minerva, likened unto a herald, ordered the people to be silent, that at the same time the sons of the Greeks, both first and last, might hear his speech, and weigh his counsel. He wisely counselling, addressed them, and said:\n\u201cO son of Atreus, the Greeks wish to render thee now, O king, the meanest amongst articulately-speaking men; nor perform their promise to thee, 100 which they held forth, coming hither from steed-nourishing Argos, that thou shouldest return home, having destroyed well-fortified Ilium. For, like tender boys, or widowed women, they bewail unto one another to return home. And truly it is a hardship to return [so], having been grieved. For he is impatient who is absent even for a single month from his wife, remaining with his many-benched ship, 101 though wintry storms and the boisterous sea may be hemming in; 102 but to us it is [now] the ninth revolving year since we have been lingering here. Wherefore I am not indignant that the Greeks are growing impatient by their curved ships; but still it would be disgraceful both to remain here so long, and to return ineffectually. Endure, my friends, and remain yet awhile, that we may know whether Calchas prophesies truly or not. For this we well know, and ye are all witnesses, whom the Fates of death carried not off yesterday and the day before, when the ships of the Greeks were collected at Aulis, bearing evils to Priam and the Trojans, and we round about the fountain, at the sacred altars, offered perfect hecatombs to the immortals, beneath a beauteous plane-tree, whence flowed limpid water. 103 There a great prodigy appeared; a serpent, spotted on the back, horrible, which the Olympian himself had sent forth into the light, having glided out from beneath the altar, proceeded forthwith to the plane-tree. And there were the young of a sparrow, an infant offspring, on a topmost branch, cowering amongst the foliage, eight in number; but the mother, which had brought forth the young ones, was the ninth. Thereupon he devoured them, twittering piteously, while the mother kept fluttering about, lamenting her dear young; but then, having turned himself about, he seized her by the wing, screaming around. But after he had devoured the young of the sparrow, and herself, the god who had displayed him rendered him very portentous, for the son of wily Saturn changed him into a stone; but we, standing by, were astonished at what happened. Thus, therefore, the dreadful portents of the gods approached the hecatombs. Calchas, then, immediately addressed us, revealing from the gods: \u2018Why are ye become silent, ye waving-crested Greeks? For us, indeed, provident Jove has shown a great sign, late, of late accomplishment, the renown of which shall never perish. As this [serpent] has devoured the young of the sparrow, eight in number, and herself, the mother which brought out the brood, was the ninth, so must we for as many years 104 wage war here, but in the tenth we shall take the wide-wayed city.\u2019 He indeed thus harangued: and all these things are now in course of accomplishment. But come, ye well-greaved Greeks, remain all here, until we shall take the great city of Priam.\u201d\nFootnote 100: (return) See Grote, vol. i. p. 392, n. 2.\nFootnote 101: (return) I have followed Wolf, taking \u03c3\u1f7a\u03bd \u03c5\u03bd\u1f76 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03c5\u03b6\u03cd\u03b3\u1ff3 in connection with \u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03ce\u03bd. Others most awkwardly make \u03c3\u1f7a\u03bd=\u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac.\nFootnote 102: (return) Cf. Buttm. Lexil. s. v. \u03b5\u1f30\u03bb\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd.\nFootnote 103: (return) Pausanias, ix. 20, says that both the spring and the remains of the tree were shown in his time. The whole of this fable has been translated into verse by Cicero, de Div. ii. 30. Compare the following passage of Apuleius de Deo Socr. p. 52, ed. Elm. \u201cCalchas longe pr\u00e6stabilis ariolari, simul alites et arborem contemplatus est, actutum sua divinitate et tempestates flexit, et classem deduxit, et decennium pr\u00e6dixit.\u201d\nFootnote 104: (return) I. e. for nine. It is remarkable that so little notice has been taken of this story by the later poets. But the sacrifice of Iphigenia was a more attractive subject for tragedy or episode, and took the place of the Homeric legend.\nThus he [Ulysses] spoke, and the Greeks loudly shouted, applauding the speech of divine Ulysses; but all around the ships echoed fearfully, by reason of the Greeks shouting. Then the Gerenian 105 knight Nestor addressed them:\n\u201cO strange! assuredly now ye are talking like infant children, with whom warlike achievements are of no account. Whither then will your compacts and oaths depart? Into the fire now must the counsels and thoughts of men have sunk, and the unmixed libations, and the right hands in which we trusted; for in vain do we dispute with words, nor can we discover any resource, although we have been here for a long time. But do thou, O son of Atreus, maintaining, as before, thy purpose firm, command the Greeks in the hard-fought conflicts; and abandon those to perish, one and both, 106 who, separated from the Greeks, are meditating [but success shall not attend them] to return back to Argos, before they know whether the promise of \u00e6gis-bearing Jove be false or not. For I say that the powerful son of Saturn assented on that day, when the Argives embarked in their swift ships, bearing death and fate to the Trojans, flashing 107 his lightning on the right, and showing propitious signs. Let not any one, therefore, hasten to return home before each has slept with a Trojan wife, and has avenged the cares 108 and griefs of Helen. But if any one is extravagantly eager to return home, let him lay hands upon his well-benched black ship, that he may draw on death and fate before others. But do thou thyself deliberate well, O king, and attend to another; nor shall the advice which I am about to utter be discarded. Separate the troops, Agamemnon, according to their tribes and clans, that kindred may support kindred, and clan. If thou wilt thus act, and the Greeks obey, thou wilt then ascertain which of the generals and which of the soldiers is a dastard, and which of them may be brave, for they will fight their best, 109 and thou wilt likewise learn whether it is by the divine interposition that thou art destined not to dismantle the city, or by the cowardice of the troops, and their unskilfulness in war.\u201d\nFootnote 105: (return) Nestor took this name from a city of Messena (Gerenium, a, or ia. See Arnold, and Pinedo on Steph. Byz. s.v. \u0393\u03b5\u03c1\u03b7\u03bd\u03af\u03b1), where he was brought up, probably after Pylos had been destroyed by Hercules.\nFootnote 106: (return) Proverbially meaning a few, but probably referring to Achilles and Thersites. See the Scholiast.\nFootnote 107: (return) Observe this bold change of construction, and compare Valck. on Lesbonax, at the end of his edition of Ammonius, p. 188.\nFootnote 108: (return) Hesych. \u1f41\u03c1\u03bc\u03ae\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1, \u03bc\u03b5\u03c1\u03af\u03bc\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9. Etym. \u039c. \u1f10\u03bd\u03b8\u03c5\u03bc\u03ae\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1, \u03c6\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03af\u03b4\u03b5\u03c2. See Buttm. Lexil. p. 440, sqq. Helen certainly shows some repentance in iii. 176.\nFootnote 109: (return) \u201cPro virili parte,\u201d Wolf. Cf. i. 271.\nBut him answering, king Agamemnon addressed: \u201cOld man, now indeed, as at other times, dost thou excel the sons of the Greeks in council. For, would, O father Jove, Minerva, and Apollo, that I were possessed of ten such fellow-counsellors among the Greeks! So should the city of Priam quickly fall, captured and destroyed by our hands. But upon me hath \u00e6gis-bearing Jove, the son of Saturn, sent sorrow, who casts me into unavailing strifes and contentions. For I and Achilles have quarrelled on account of a maid with opposing words: but I began quarrelling. But if ever we shall consult in common, no longer then shall there be a respite from evil to the Trojans, no, not for ever so short a time. Now go to your repast, that we may join battle. Let each one well sharpen his spear, and well prepare 110 his shield. Let him give fodder to his swift-footed steeds, and let each one, looking well to his chariot, get ready for war; that we may contend all day in the dreadful battle. Nor shall there be a cessation, not for ever so short a while, until night coming on shall part the wrath of the heroes. The belt of the man-protecting 111 shield shall be moist with sweat around the breasts of each one, and he shall weary his hand round his spear; and each one\u2019s horse shall sweat, dragging the well-polished chariot. But whomsoever I shall perceive desirous to remain at the beaked ships, apart from the battle, it will not be possible for him afterwards to escape the dogs and the birds.\u201d\nThus he spoke, but the Argives shouted aloud, as when a wave [roars] against the steep shore, when the south wind urges it, coming against an out-jutting rock; for this the billows from all kinds of winds never forsake, when they may be here or there. And rising up, the people hastened forth, scattered from ship to ship, and raised up smoke among the tents, and took repast. And one sacrificed to some one of the immortal gods, and [another to another,] praying to escape death and the slaughter of war. But king Agamemnon offered up a fat ox, of five years old, to the powerful son of Saturn, and summoned the elder chiefs of all the Greeks, Nestor first of all, and king Idomeneus, but next the two Ajaxes, 112 and the son of Tydeus, and sixth Ulysses, of equal weight with Jove in council. But Menelaus, valiant in the din 113 of war, came of his own accord, 114 for he knew his brother in his heart, how he was oppressed. Then they stood around the ox, and raised up the pounded barley cakes: and king Agamemnon, praying amidst them, said:\nFootnote 110: (return) Schol. \u03b5\u03cd\u03c4\u03c1\u03b5\u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9.\nFootnote 111: (return) These shields were so large, that they covered nearly the whole person.\nFootnote 112: (return) One the son of Telamon, the other the son of O\u00efleus.\nFootnote 113: (return) This translation is, I think, far bolder than \u201cloud-voiced,\u201d or \u201cgood in the battle-shout.\u201d \u0392\u03bf\u1fc2 contains the whole idea of the tumultuous noise heard in the heat of battle, and thence the battle itself. Thus the Schol. \u1f41 \u1f10v \u03c4\u1ff7 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u1f10\u03bc\u03c9 \u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03bd\u03b1\u1f32\u03bf\u03c2; and Hesych. \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u1f70 \u03c4\u1fc2\u03bd \u03bc\u03ac\u03c7\u03b7\u03bd \u03b1\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b5\u1f32\u03bf\u03c2.\nFootnote 114: (return) Opposed to \u03ba\u03bb\u03b7\u03c4\u1f78\u03c2, as in Oppian, Hal. iii. 360, \u03ba\u03bb\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03af \u03c4' \u03b1\u03cd\u03c4\u03cc \u03bc\u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03af \u03c4\u03b5. See Plato Sympos. p. 315, G. L\u00e6m. Why Menelaus did so, is no matter to us, and probably was no mystery to his brother.\n\u201cO Jove, most glorious, most great dark-cloud-collector, dwelling in the air, may not the sun set, nor darkness come on, before I have laid prostrate Priam\u2019s hall, blazing, and consumed its gates with the hostile fire; and cut away Hector\u2019s coat of mail around his breast, split asunder with the brass; and around him may many comrades, prone in the dust, seize the earth with their teeth.\u201d\nThus he spoke, nor as yet did the son of Saturn assent, but he accepted the offering, and increased abundant toil. But after they had prayed, and thrown forward the bruised barley, they first drew back [the neck of the victim,] slew it, and flayed it, then cut out the thighs, and covered them in the fat, having arranged it in a double fold, and then laid the raw flesh upon them. And they roasted them upon leafless billets. Next, having pierced the entrails with spits, they held them over the fire. But then, after the thighs were roasted, and they had tasted the entrails, they cut the rest of them into small pieces, and fixed them on spits, and roasted them skilfully, and drew them all off [the spits]. But when they had ceased from labour, and had prepared the banquet, they feasted; nor did their soul in anywise lack a due allowance of the feast. But when they had dismissed the desire of drink and food, them the Gerenian knight Nestor began to address:\n\u201cMost glorious son of Atreus, Agamemnon, king of men, let us now no longer sit prating 115 here, nor let us long defer the work which the deity now delivers into our hands. But come, let the heralds of the brazen-mailed Greeks, summoning the people, assemble them at the ships, and let us thus in a body pass through the wide army of the Greeks, that we may the sooner awaken keen warfare.\u201d\nFootnote 115: (return) See Buttm. Lexil. p. 398, Anthon, and Arnold.\nThus he spoke, nor did Agamemnon, king of men, refuse compliance. Immediately he ordered the clear-voiced heralds to summon the waving-crested Greeks to battle. These then gave the summons, and they were hastily assembled, and the Jove-nurtured kings, who were with the son of Atreus, kept hurrying about arranging them. But amongst them was azure-eyed Minerva, holding the inestimable \u00e6gis, which grows not old, and is immortal: from which one hundred golden fringes were suspended, all well woven, and each worth a hundred oxen in price. With this she, looking fiercely about, 116 traversed the host of the Greeks, inciting them to advance, and kindled strength in the breast of each to fight and contend unceasingly. Thus war became instantly sweeter to them than to return in the hollow ships to their dear native land.\nAs when a destructive 117 fire consumes an immense forest upon the tops of a mountain, and the gleam is seen from afar: so, as they advanced, the radiance from the beaming brass glittering on all sides reached heaven through the air.\nFootnote 116: (return) See Liddell and Scott.\nFootnote 117: (return) Literally \u201cinvisible.\u201d Hence \u201cmaking invisible, destructive.\u201d Cf. Buttm. Lex. s. v. \u1f00\u0390\u03b4\u03b7\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2.\nAnd of these\u2014like as the numerous nations of winged fowl, of geese, or cranes, or long-necked swans, on the Asian mead, by the waters of Cayster, fly on this side and on that, disporting with their wings, alighting beside each other clamorously, and the meadow resounds\u2014so the numerous nations of these [the Greeks] from the ships and tents poured themselves forth into the plain of Scamander, countless as the flowers and leaves are produced in spring.\nAs the numerous swarms of clustering flies which congregate round the shepherd\u2019s pen in the spring season, when too the milk overflows the pails; so numerous stood the head-crested Greeks upon the plain against the Trojans, eager to break [their lines].\nAnd these, 118 as goat-herds easily separate the broad flocks of the goats, when they are mingled in the pasture, so did the generals here and there marshal them to go to battle; and among them commander Agamemnon, resembling, as to his eyes and head, the thunder-delighting Jove, as to his middle, Mars, and as to his breast, Neptune.\nFootnote 118: (return) In \u03c4\u03bf\u1f7a\u03c2 \u03b4\u1f72 there is an anacoluthon similar to the one in vs. 459\nAs a bull in the herd is greatly eminent above all, for he surpasses the collected cattle, such on that day did Jove render Agamemnon, distinguished amongst many, and conspicuous amongst heroes.\nTell me now, ye Muses, who possess the Olympian mansions (for ye are goddesses, and are [ever] present, and ken all things, whilst we hear but a rumour, nor know anything 119), who were the leaders and chiefs of the Greeks. For I could not recount nor tell the multitude, not even if ten tongues, and ten mouths were mine, [not though] a voice unwearied, 120 and a brazen heart were within me; unless the Olympic Muses, daughters of \u00e6gis-bearing Jove, reminded me of how many came to Ilium. However, I will rehearse the commanders of the ships, and all the ships.\nFootnote 119: (return) Cf. \u00c6n. vii. 644:\u2014\n\n\n\u201cEt meministis enim, Div\u00e6, et memorare potestis:\nAd nos vix tenuis fam\u00e6 perlabitur aura.\u201d\n\n\nMilton, Par. Lost, i. 27:\u2014\n\n\n\u201cSay first, for Heav\u2019n hides nothing from thy view,\nNor the deep tract of Hell\u2014\u2014\u201d\n\n\nFootnote 120: (return) Cf. \u00c6n. vi. 625 sqq.; Georg. ii. 42; Valer. Flacc, vi. 36; Silius, iv. 527; Claudian, 6 Cons. Hon. 436. This hyperbolical mode of excusing poetic powers is ridiculed by Persius, Sat. vi. 1.\nTHE CATALOGUE OF THE SHIPS.\nPeneleus, and Le\u00eftus, and Arcesilaus, and Protho\u00ebnor, and Clonius, commanded the B\u0153otians; both those who tilled Hyrie, and rocky Aulis, and Sch\u0153nos, and Scholos, and hilly Eteonus, Thespia, Gr\u00e6a, and the ample plain of Mycalessus; and those who dwelt about Harma, and Ilesius, and Erythr\u00e6; and those who possessed Elion, Hyle, Peteon, Ocalea, and the well-built city Medeon, Cop\u00e6, Eutressis, and Thisbe abounding in doves; and those who possessed Coron\u00e6a, and grassy Haliartus, and Plat\u00e6a; and those who inhabited Glissa, and those who dwelt in Hypotheb\u00e6, the well-built city, and in sacred Onchestus, the beauteous grove of Neptune; and those who inhabited grape-clustered Arne, and those [who inhabited] Midea, and divine Nissa, and remote Anthedon: fifty ships of these went to Troy, and in each embarked a hundred and twenty B\u0153otian youths.\nThose who inhabited Aspledon, and Minyean Orchomenus, these Ascalaphus and Ialmenus, the sons of Mars, led, whom Astyoche bore to powerful Mars in the house of Actor, son of Azis: a modest virgin, when she ascended the upper part of her father\u2019s house; but the god secretly embraced her. Of these thirty hollow ships went in order.\nMoreover, Schedius and Epistrophus, sons of magnanimous Iphitus, the son of Naubolus, led the Phoceans, who possessed Cyparissus, and rocky Python, and divine Crissa, and Daulis, and Panopea; and those who dwelt round Anemoria and Hyampolis, and near the sacred river Cephissus, and those who possessed Lil\u00e6a, at the sources of Cephissus: with these forty dark ships followed. They indeed, 121 going round, arranged the lines of the Phoceans; and they were drawn up in array near the B\u0153otians, and towards the left wing.\nFootnote 121: (return) Schedius and Epistrophus.\nSwift-footed Ajax, the son of Oileus, was leader of the Locrians; less in stature than, and not so tall as Ajax, the son of Telamon, but much less. He was small indeed, wearing a linen corslet, but in [the use of] the spear he surpassed all the Hellenes and Ach\u00e6ans, who inhabited Cynus, Opus, Calliarus, Bessa, Scarpha, and pleasant Augeia, and Tarpha, and Thronium, around the streams of Boagrius. But with him forty dark ships of the Locrians followed, who dwell beyond sacred Eub\u0153a.\nThe Abantes, breathing strength, who possessed Eub\u0153a, and Chalcis, and Eretria, and grape-clustered Histi\u00e6a, and maritime Cerinthus, and the towering city of Dium, and those who inhabited Carystus and Styra: the leader of these was Elephenor, of the line of Mars, the son of Chalcodon, the magnanimous prince of the Abantes. With him the swift Abantes followed, with flowing locks behind, warriors skilled with protended spears of ash, to break the corslets on the breasts of their enemies. With him forty dark ships followed.\nThose besides who possessed Athens, the well-built city, the state of magnanimous Erechtheus, whom Minerva, the daughter of Jove, formerly nursed (but him the bounteous earth brought forth), and settled at Athens in her own rich temple: there the sons of the Athenians, in revolving years, appease her with [sacrifices of] bulls and lambs 122\u2014them Menestheus, son of Peteus, commanded. \u201cNo man upon the earth was equal to him in marshalling steeds and shielded warriors in battle; Nestor alone vied with him, for he was elder. With him fifty dark ships followed.\u201d\nBut Ajax 123 led twelve ships from Salamis, and leading arranged them where the phalanxes of the Athenians were drawn up.\nFootnote 122: (return) Grote, Hist. of Greece, vol. i. p. 75, observes, \u201cAthene is locally identified with the soil and people of Athens, even in the Iliad: Erechtheus, the Athenian, is born of the earth, but Athene brings him up, nourishes him, and lodges him in her own temple, where the Athenians annually worship him with sacrifice and solemnities. It was altogether impossible to make Erechtheus son of Athene,\u2014the type of the goddess forbade it; but the Athenian myth-creators, though they found this barrier impassable, strove to approach to it as near as they could.\u201d Compare also p. 262, where he considers Erechtheus \u201cas a divine or heroic, certainly a superhuman person, and as identified with the primitive germination of Attic man.\u201d\nFootnote 123: (return) : The son of Telamon.\nThose who possessed Argos, and well-fortified Tiryns, Hermione, and which encircle the Asine deep bay, Tr\u0153zene, and Eion\u00e6, and vine-planted Epidaurus, and those who possessed \u00c6gina, and Mases, Ach\u00e6an youths. Their leader then was Diomede, brave in war, and Sthenelus, the dear son of much-renowned Capaneus; and with these went Euryalus the third, god-like man, the son of king Mecisteus, Talaus\u2019 son; and all these Diomede brave in war commanded. With these eighty dark ships followed.\nThose who possessed Mycen\u00e6, the well-built city, and wealthy Corinth, 124 and well-built Cleon\u00e6, and those who inhabited Ornia, and pleasant Ar\u00e6thyrea, and Sicyon, where Adrastus first reigned: and those who possessed Hyperesia, and lofty Gonoessa, and Pellene, and those who [inhabited] \u00c6gium, and all along the sea-coast, 125 and about spacious Helice. Of these, king Agamemnon, the son of Atreus, commanded a hundred ships: and with him by far the most and bravest troops followed; and he had clothed himself in dazzling brass, exulting in his glory, that he shone conspicuous amongst all heroes; for he was the most eminent, and led by far the most numerous troops. 126\nFootnote 124: (return) An anachronism, as Corinth, before its capture by the Dorians, was called Ephyra (as in II. vi. 152). \u201cNeque est, quod miremur ab Homero nominari Corinthum, nam ex persona poet\u00e6 et hanc urbem, et quasdam Ionum colonias iis nominibus appellat, quibus vocabantur \u00e6tate ejus, multo post Ilium captum condit\u00e6.\u201d\u2014Vell. Paterc. i. 3.\nFootnote 125: (return) I. e. the later Achaia.\u2014Arnold.\nFootnote 126: (return) On the superior power of Agamemnon, see Grote, vol. i. p. 211 and compare II. ix. 69.\nBut those who possessed great Laced\u00e6mon, full of clefts, and Pharis and Sparta, and dove-abounding Messa, and Brysi\u00e6, and pleasant Augei\u00e6; and those who possessed Amycl\u00e6, and Helos, a maritime city; and those who possessed Laas, and dwelt round \u0152tylus. Of these his brother Menelaus, brave in battle, commanded sixty ships, but they were armed apart [from Agamemnon\u2019s forces]. Amidst them he himself went, confiding in his valour, inciting them to war; but especially he desired in his soul to avenge the remorse of Helen and her groans.\nThose who inhabited Pylos and pleasant Arene, and Thryos, by the fords of Alph\u0153us, and well-built \u00c6py, and Cyparesseis and Amphigenia, and Pteleum, and Helos, and Dorium: and there it was the Muses, meeting the Thracian Thamyris, as he was coming from \u0152chalia, from \u0152chalian Eurytus, caused him to cease his song; for he averred, boasting, that he could obtain the victory, 127 even though the Muses themselves, the daughters of \u00e6gis-bearing Jove, should sing. But they, enraged, made him blind, and moreover deprived him of his power of singing, and caused him to forget the minstrel-art. These the Gerenian horseman Nestor commanded: and with him ninety hollow ships proceeded in order.\nThose who possessed Arcadia, under the breezy 128 mountain of Cyllene, near the tomb of \u00c6pytus, where are close-fighting heroes; those who inhabited Pheneus, and sheep-abounding Orchomenus, and Ripe and Stratie, and wind-swept Enispe, and who possessed Tegea and pleasant Mantinea; and those who held Stymphalus, and dwelt in Parrhasie; of these king Agapenor, the son of Anc\u00e6us, commanded sixty ships; but aboard each ship went many Arcadian heroes skilled in war. But the son of Atreus, Agamemnon himself, the king of heroes, gave them the well-benched ships, to pass over the dark sea; since they had no care of naval works.\nFootnote 127: (return) Respecting the connection of this story with the early poetic contests, see M\u00fcller, Gk. Lit. iv. 2, whose interesting remarks are, unfortunately, too long for a note.\nFootnote 128: (return) i. e. lofty.\nThose who inhabited Buprasium and noble Elis, as much as Hyrmine, and distant Myrsinus, and the Olenian rock, and Alisium, contain within; of these the leaders were four; but ten swift ships followed each hero, and many Epeans went aboard them. Amphimachus and Thalpius, sons, the one of Cteatus, the other of Eurytus, Actor\u2019s son, commanded some: brave Diores, son of Amarynceus, commanded others: and god-like Polyxenus, son of Agasthenes, the son of king Augeas, commanded the fourth division.\nThose from Dulichium, and the Echinades, sacred islands, which lie beyond the sea, facing Elis. 129 Over these presided Meges, son of Phyleus, equal to Mars, whom the knight Phyleus, beloved by Jove, begat, who, enraged against his father, once on a time removed to Dulichium. With him forty dark ships followed.\nMoreover Ulysses led the magnanimous Cephallenians, those who possessed Ithaca and leaf-quivering Neritos, and who dwelt in Crocylea and rugged \u00c6gilips, and those who possessed Zacynthus, and those who inhabited Samos, and those who possessed the continent, and dwelt in the places lying opposite; these Ulysses commanded, equal to Jove in council. With him followed twelve red-sided ships.\nThoas, son of Andr\u00e6mon, led the \u00c6tolians, those who inhabited Pleuron, and Olenus, and Pylene, and maritime Chalcis, and rocky Calydon. For the sons of magnanimous \u0152neus were no more, nor was he himself surviving; moreover, fair-haired Meleager was dead. 130 To him [Thoas,] therefore, was intrusted the chief command, to rule the \u00c6tolians, and with him forty dark ships followed.\nFootnote 129: (return) \u201cThis description of the Echinades has something equivocal in it, which is cleared up, if we suppose it addressed to the inhabitants of the Asiatic side of the Archipelago. But if, with Pope, we understand the words \u2018beyond the sea\u2019 to relate to Elis, I think we adopt an unnatural construction to come at a forced meaning; for the old Greek historians tell us, that those islands are so close upon the coast of Elis, that in their time many of them had been joined to it by means of the Achelous.\u201d\u2014Wood on Homer, p. 8, sq.\nFootnote 130: (return) Grote, Hist, of Greece, vol. i. p. 197, after referring to the Homeric legend respecting Meleager in II. xi. 525, sqq., remarks that \u201cthough his death is here indicated only indirectly, there seems little doubt that Homer must have conceived the death of the hero as brought about by the maternal curse: the unrelenting Erinnys executed to the letter the invocations of Alth\u00e6a, though she herself must have been willing to retract them.\u201d\nSpear-renowned Idomeneus commanded the Cretans, those who possessed Gnossus and well-walled Gortyna and Lyctos, and Miletus, and white Lycastus and Ph\u00e6stus, and Rhytium, well-inhabited cities; and others who inhabited the hundred-towned Crete. These spear-famed Idomeneus commanded, and Meriones, equal to man-slaying Mars: with these followed eighty dark ships.\nBut Tlepolemus, the brave and great descendant of Hercules, led from Rhodes nine ships of the haughty Rhodians, those who inhabited Rhodes, arranged in three bands, Lindus, and Ialyssus, and white Camirus. These spear-famed Tlepolemus led, he whom Astyochea brought forth to the might of Hercules, 131 whom [Astyochea] he [Hercules] carried out of Ephyre, from the river Selleis, after having laid waste many cities of nobly-descended youths. Now Tlepolemus, after he had been trained up in the well-built palaces, straightway slew the beloved uncle of his father, Licymnius, now grown old, a branch of Mars; and instantly he built a fleet; and having collected many troops, he departed, 132 flying over the ocean; for him the sons and grandsons of the might of Hercules had threatened. And he indeed came wandering to Rhodes, suffering woes. And they, divided into three parts, dwelt in tribes, and were beloved of Jove, who rules over gods and men: and on them the son of Saturn poured down immense wealth.\nFootnote 131: (return) As in the Odyssey, I prefer preserving the quaint simplicity of these antiquated periphrases.\nFootnote 132: (return) Grote, History of Greece, vol. i. p. 33, has collected the Homeric instances of exile \u201cfor private or involuntary homicide,\u201d observing, however, from the Schol. on Il. xi. 690, \u201cthat Homer never once describes any of them to have either received or required purification for the crime.\u201d\nNireus moreover led three equal ships from Syme, Nireus son of Aglaea, and king Charopus, Nireus, the fairest of men that came to Ilium, of all the other Greeks, next to the unblemished son of Peleus. But he was feeble, and few troops followed him.\nBut those who possessed Nisyrus, and Crapathus, and Casus, and Cos, the city of Eurypylus, and the Calydn\u00e6 isles, Phidippus and Antiphus, both sons of the Thessalian king, the son of Hercules, commanded. Thirty hollow ships of these went in order.\nBut now, [O muse, recount] those, as many as inhabited Pelasgian Argos, both those who dwelt in Alos and Alope, and Trechin, and those who possessed Phthia, and Hellas famous for fair dames. But they are called Myrmidons, and Hellenes, and Ach\u00e6ans: of fifty ships of these was Achilles chief. But they remembered not dire-sounding war, for there was no one who might lead them to their ranks. For swift-footed Achilles lay at the ships, enraged on account of the fair-haired maid Bris\u00ebis, whom he carried away from Lyrnessus, after having suffered many labours, and having laid waste Lyrnessus and the walls of Thebes; and he killed Mynetes and spear-skilled Epistrophus, sons of king Evenus, the son of Selepius. On her account he lay grieving, but speedily was he about to be roused.\nThose who possessed Phylace and flowery Pyrrhasus, the consecrated ground of Ceres, and Iton the mother of sheep, maritime Antron, and grassy Ptelon. These warlike Protesilaus, whilst he lived, commanded; but him the black earth then possessed. His wife, lacerated all around, had been left at Phylace, and his palace half finished. For a Trojan man slew him, as he leaped ashore from his ship much the first of the Greeks. Nor were they, however, without a leader, although they longed for their own leader; for gallant Podarces marshalled them, Podarces, son of sheep-abounding Iphiclus, the son of Phylacis, own brother of magnanimous Protesilaus, younger by birth; but the warlike hero Protesilaus was older and braver. His troops wanted not a leader, but lamented him, being brave; with him forty dark ships followed.\nThose who inhabited Ph\u00e6re by the lake B\u0153be\u00efs, B\u0153be, and Glaphyr\u00e6, and well-built Iaolcus; these Eumeles, the beloved son of Admetus, commanded in eleven ships, whom Alcestis, divine amongst women, most beautiful in form of the daughters of Pelias, brought forth by Admetus.\nThose who inhabited Methone and Thaumacia, and possessed Melib\u0153a, and rugged Olizon; these Philoctetes, well skilled in archery, commanded in seven ships. Fifty sailors, well skilled in archery, went on board each to fight valiantly. But he lay in an island enduring bitter pangs, in divine Lemnos, where the sons of the Greeks had left him suffering with the evil sting of a deadly serpent. There he lay grieving; but soon were the Argives at the ships destined to remember their king Philoctetes. Nor were they however without a leader, though they longed for their own leader; but Medon, the bastard son of O\u00efleus, whom Rhina brought forth by city-wasting O\u00efleus, marshalled them.\nThose who possessed Tricca, and hilly Ithome, and those who possessed \u0152chalia, the city of \u0152chalian Eurytus; Podalirius and Machaon, two excellent physicians, 133 both sons of \u00c6sculapius, led these. With them thirty hollow ships went in order.\nFootnote 133: (return) Grote, vol. i. p. 348, remarks that the \u201crenown of Podalirius and Machaon was further prolonged in the subsequent poem of Arctinus, the Iliu-Persis, wherein the one was represented as unrivalled in surgical operations, the other as sagacious in detecting and appreciating morbid symptoms. It was Podalirius who first noticed the glaring eyes and disturbed deportment which preceded the suicide of Ajax.\u201d\nThose who possessed Ormenium, and the fountain Hyperia, and those who possessed Asterium and the white tops of Titanus; these Eurypylus, the brave son of Ev\u00e6mon, commanded. With him forty dark ships followed.\nThose who possessed Argissa, and inhabited Gyrtone, and Orthe, and Elone, and the white city Oloosson: these the stout warrior Polyp\u0153tes, son of Pirithous, whom immortal Jove begat, commanded. Him renowned Hippodamia brought forth by Pirithous, on the day when he took vengeance on the shaggy Centaurs, and drove them from Mount Pelion, and chased them to the \u00c6thiceans. He was not the only leader; with him commanded warlike Leonteus, son of magnamimous Coronus, the son of C\u0153neus. With these forty dark ships followed.\nBut Gyneus led two-and-twenty ships from Cyphus. Him the Enienes followed, and the Per\u00e6bi, stout warriors, who placed their habitations by chilly Dodona, and those who tilled the fields about delightful Titaresius, which pours its fair-flowing stream into the Peneus; nor is it mingled with silver-eddied Peneus, but flows on the surface of it like oil. For it is a streamlet of the Stygian wave, the dreadful [pledge of] oath.\nProtho\u00fcs, son of Tenthredon, commanded the Magnetes, who dwell about the Peneus, and leaf-quivering Pelion: these swift Protho\u00fcs led; and with him forty dark ships followed.\nThese then were the leaders and chieftains of the Greeks. Do thou, then, O muse, tell me who was the most excellent of these, of the kings and their steeds, who followed the son of Atreus to Troy. The steeds of the descendant of Pheres were indeed by far the most excellent, which Eumelus drove, swift as birds, like in hair, like in age, and level in [height of] back by the plumb-line. 134 These, bearing with them the terror of Mars, both mares, silver-bowed Apollo fed in Pieria. 135 Of the heroes Telamonian Ajax was by far the best, whilst Achilles continued wrathful, for he was by far the bravest; and the steeds which bore the irreproachable son of Peleus surpassed those of Eumelus. But he on his part lay in his dark sea-traversing ships, breathing wrath against the son of Atreus, Agamemnon, the shepherd of the people. But his forces meantime amused themselves with quoits and javelins, hurling [them,] and with their bows; and their steeds stood, each near his chariot, feeding on lotus and lake-fed parsley. And the well-fastened chariots lay in the tents of their lords. But they, longing for their warlike chief, wandered hither and thither through the camp, and did not fight.\nBut they went along, as if the whole earth was being fed upon by fire, 136 and the earth groaned beneath, as in honour of thunder-rejoicing Jove when angry, 137 when he strikes the earth around Typh\u0153us in Arim\u00e6, 138 where they say is the tomb of Typh\u0153us; thus indeed beneath their feet the earth groaned mightily, as they went, and very swift they passed over the plain.\nFootnote 134: (return) I. e. exactly equal in height, as if they had been measured.\nFootnote 135: (return) This degradation of Apollo used to be commemorated in the theoria in honour of the god. See M\u00fcller Dor. vol. i. p. 233.\nFootnote 136: (return) Such was the glitter of their arms.\nFootnote 137: (return) See Arnold.\nFootnote 138: (return) A volcanic district of Mysia.\nBut swift-footed Iris came from aegis-bearing Jove, a messenger to the Trojans, with a woeful announcement. They all, collected together, both young and old, were holding councils at the gates of Priam. But swift-footed Iris standing near, accosted them: and she likened herself in voice to Polites, son of Priam, who, trusting to the swiftness of his feet, sat at watch for the Trojans on the top of the tomb 139 of old \u00c6syetus, watching when the Greeks should set forth from the ships. To him having likened herself, swift-footed Iris addressed them:\n\u201cOld man, ever are injudicious words pleasing to thee, as formerly in time of peace: but now has an inevitable war arisen. Truly I have already very often been present at the conflicts of heroes, but never have I beheld such brave and numerous forces. For very like unto the leaves or the sand proceed they through the plain, about to fight for the city. Hector, for it is to thee in particular I give advice: and do thou act thus; for many are the allies through the great city of Priam; and different are the languages 140 of the widely-spread men. Let then each hero command those of whom he is the chief: but do thou, marshalling the citizens, be leader of them.\u201d\nThus she said. But Hector was not ignorant of the voice of the goddess; and he instantly dismissed the council, and they rushed to arms. And the portals were opened, and the troops rushed out, both foot and horse; and much tumult arose.\nNow there is a certain lofty mound before the city, far in the plain, that may be run round, 141 which men indeed call Batiea, but the immortals, the tomb of nimbly-springing Myrinna. There the Trojans and their allies were then marshalled separately.\nFootnote 139: (return) On the height of the ancient tombs, see my note on Odyss. ii. p. 21, n. 35, ed. Bohn.\nFootnote 140: (return) Cf. iv. 437, where this variety of dialects is again mentioned, and M\u00fcller, Greek Lit. i. \u00a7 4.\nFootnote 141: (return) I. e. standing clear on all sides.\nThe Trojans, in the first place, great helmet-nodding Hector, son of Priam, commanded. With him far the most numerous and the bravest troops were armed, ardent with their spears.\nThe Dardanians, in the next place, \u00c6neas, the gallant son of Anchises, commanded (him to Anchises the divine goddess Venus bore, couched with him a mortal on the tops of Ida): not alone, but with him the two sons of Antenor, Archelochus and Acamas, skilled in every kind of fight.\nBut the Trojans who inhabited Zeleia, 142 beneath the lowest foot of Ida, wealthy and drinking the dark water of \u00c6sepus, these Pandarus, the valiant son of Lycaon, commanded, to whom even Apollo himself gave his bow.\nFootnote 142: (return) Cf. iv. 119. \u201cThe inhabitants of Zeleia worshipped Apollo, and Zeleia was also called Lycia; facts which show that there was a real connection between the name of Lycia and the worship of Apollo, and that it was the worship of Apollo which gave the name to this district of Troy, as it had done to the country of the Solymi.\u201d\u2014M\u00fcller, Dor. vol. i. p. 248.\nThose who possessed Adrest\u00e6, and the city of Ap\u00e6sus, and possessed Pityea, and the lofty mountain Tercia; these Adrastus and linen-mailed Amphius commanded, the two sons of Percosian Merops, who was skilled in prophecy above all others; nor was he willing to suffer his sons to go into the man-destroying fight. But they did not obey him, for the fates of sable death impelled them.\nThose who dwelt around Percote and Practius, and possessed Sestos and Abydos, and divine Arisbe; these Asius, son of Hyrtacus, prince of heroes, commanded: Asius, son of Hyrtacus, whom large and fiery steeds bore from Arisbe, from the river Selle\u00efs.\nHippotho\u00fcs led the tribes of the spear-skilled Pelasgians, of those who inhabited fertile Larissa; Hippotho\u00fcs and Pyl\u00e6us of the line of Mars, the two sons of Pelasgian Lethus, son of Teutamus, commanded these.\nBut Acamus and the hero Piro\u00fcs led the Thracians, all that the rapidly flowing Hellespont confines within.\nEuphemus, son of heaven-descended Tr\u0153zenus, son of Ceas, was commander of the warlike Cicones.\nBut Pyr\u00e6chmes led the P\u00e6onians, who use darts fastened by a thong, far from Amydon, from wide-flowing Axius, from Axius, whose stream is diffused the fairest over the earth.\nBut the sturdy heart of Pyl\u00e6menes from the Eneti, whence is the race of wild mules, led the Paphlagonians, those who possessed Cytorus, and dwelt around Sesamus, and inhabited the famous dwellings around the river Parthenius, and Cromna, \u00c6gialus, and the lofty Erythine hills.\nBut Hodius and Epistrophus, far from Alybe, whence is a rich product of silver, commanded the Halizonians. Chromis and the augur Ennomus commanded the Mysians, but he avoided not sable death through his skill in augury, for he was laid low by the hands of Achilles in the river, where he made havoc of the other Trojans also.\nPhorcys and godlike Ascanius far from Ascania, led the Phrygians, and they eagerly desired to engage in battle.\nBut Mesthles and Antiphus led the M\u00e6onians, both sons of Tal\u00e6meneus, whom the lake Gyg\u00e6a bore; these led the M\u00e6onians, born beneath Mount Tmolus.\nNastes commanded the barbarous-voiced Carians, who possessed Miletus, and the leaf-topped mountain of Pethiri, and the streams of M\u00e6ander, and the lofty tops of Mycale. These indeed Amphimachus and Nastes commanded, Nastes and Amphimachus the famous sons of Nomion, who foolish went to battle decked with gold like a young girl 143; nor did this by any means ward off bitter death; but he was laid low by the hands of the swift-footed son of \u00c6acus at the river, and warlike Achilles took away the gold.\nFootnote 143: (return) It was customary for virgins to wear golden ornaments in great profusion. See Porson on Eur. Hec. 153.\nBut Sarpedon and gallant Glaucus from Lycia afar, from the eddying Xanthus, led the Lycians.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THE THIRD\nARGUMENT.\nJust as the armies are on the point of engaging, Paris proposes a single combat, but, on Menelaus advancing, retires in affright. Being rebuked by Hector, he consents to engage Menelaus, and a treaty is arranged. Paris is vanquished, but is brought back safe to Ilium by Venus, who appeases the anger of Helen. Menelaus, as conqueror, calls upon the Trojans to fulfil the conditions of the challenge.\nBut after they had each been marshalled along with their leaders, the Trojans, on the one hand, moved along with both clamour and battle-shout, like birds; just as is the noise of cranes forth under heaven, which, after they have escaped the winter and immeasurable 144 shower, with a clamour do these wing their way towards the streams of the ocean, bearing slaughter and fate to the Pygm\u00e6an men; and they then at early dawn bring fatal strife. But the Greeks, on the other hand, breathing might, 145 advanced in silence, anxious in mind to aid one another.\nFootnote 144: (return) See Alberti on Hesych. s. v., t. i. p. 126; lit. \u201cwhat even a god would not say.\u201d\u2014Buttm. Lexil. p. 359.\nFootnote 145: (return) Par. Lost, i. 559:\n\n\n\u201c\u2014\u2014thus they,\nBreathing united force with fixed thought,\nMoved on in silence.\u201d\n\n\nAs when the south wind sheds a mist over the top of a mountain, by no means friendly to the shepherds, but more serviceable even than night to the robber, and one can see [only] so far as he hurls a stone. So under the feet of them proceeding an eddying dust kept rising: and very speedily they traversed the plain.\nBut when they now were near, approaching each other, godlike Alexander advanced in front of the Trojans, having a panther\u2019s skin on his shoulders, and his crooked bow, and a sword; but he brandishing two spears tipped with brass, challenged all the bravest of the Greeks to fight against him in grievous conflict.\nBut when Mars-beloved Menelaus perceived him advancing before the host, taking long strides, as a hungering lion exults, when happening on a carcase of large size, having found either a horned stag or a wild goat. For he greedily devours it, although swift hounds and vigorous youths pursue him. Thus Menelaus rejoiced, having beheld with his eyes godlike Alexander. For he thought he would be revenged upon the guilty wretch: forthwith, therefore, with his arms he leaped from his chariot to the earth.\nBut when, therefore, godlike Alexander perceived him appearing among the foremost warriors, he was smitten in his heart, and gave way back into the band of his companions, avoiding death. And as when any one having seen a serpent in the thickets of a mountain, has started back, and tremor has seized his limbs under him, and he has retired backwards, and paleness seizes his cheeks: thus godlike Alexander shrank back into the band of the haughty Trojans, dreading the son of Atreus.\nBut Hector having seen him, upbraided him with opprobrious words: \u201cCursed Paris, 146 most excellent in form, thou woman-raving seducer, would that thou hadst either not been born, or that thou hadst perished unmarried. This, indeed, I would wish, and indeed it would be much better, than that thou shouldst thus be a disgrace and scandal to others. In truth the long-haired Ach\u00e6ans may laugh, having suspected that thou wast a noble champion, because a fine person belongs [to thee]; but there is not strength in thy soul, nor any nerve. Didst thou, being such a one, having sailed over the ocean in sea-traversing ships, having collected congenial associates, and mingled with foreigners, take away a beauteous lady, from the Apian land, the spouse of martial men, a great detriment to thy father, to the city, and to all the people; a joy indeed to our enemies, but a disgrace to thyself? Couldst thou not have awaited warlike Menelaus? Then shouldst thou have known of how brave a man thou dost possess the blooming spouse. Nor will thy harp, and the gifts of Venus, and thy hair, and thy figure avail thee, when thou shalt be mingled with the dust. 147 But the Trojans are very pusillanimous; else wouldst thou have been arrayed in a garment of stone, on account of the evils which thou hast done.\u201d  148\nHim then godlike Alexander in turn addressed: \u201cHector, since thou hast reproached me justly, and not unjustly, [I will submit]. Ever is thy spirit unwearied, like an axe, which penetrates the wood, [driven] by the man who with art cuts out the naval plank, and it increases the force of the man: so in thy breast is there an intrepid heart. Reproach me not with the lovely gifts of golden Venus: the distinguished gifts of the gods are by no means to be rejected, whatever indeed they give; for no one can choose them at his own pleasure. Now, however, if thou desirest me to wage war and to fight, cause the other Trojans and all the Greeks to sit down, but match me and Mars-beloved Menelaus to contend in the midst for Helen and all the treasures. And whichever of us shall conquer, and shall be superior, having received all the treasures without reserve, and the woman, let him conduct them home. But let the rest of you, striking a friendship and faithful league, inhabit fertile Troy; and let them return to the steed-nourishing Argos, and fair-damed Achaia.\u201d\nFootnote 146: (return) \u0394\u1f51\u03c2 here denotes the evils which fatally resulted to Paris and his friends (so \u03b4\u03c5\u03c3\u03b5\u03bb\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u03c2, \u201cbaleful Helen,\u201d Eur. Or. 1388. Cf. \u00c6sch. Ag. 689, sqq.) in consequence of his having been preserved, despite the omens attending his birth. See Hygin. Fab. xci. Hence the Schol. on Il. x. i. 96, derive his name of Paris, \u1f45\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03bc\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03bf\u1fc6\u03bb\u03b8\u03b5\u03bd.\nFootnote 147: (return) Cf. Hor. Od. i. 15, 13:\u2014\n\n\n\u201cNequicquam, Veneris pr\u00e6sidio ferox,\nPectes c\u00e6sariem, grataque feminis\nImbelli cithara carmina divides: . . .\n. . . tamen, heu! sorus adulteros\nCrines pulvere collines.\u201d\n\n\nFootnote 148: (return) I. e. thou wouldst have been stoned to death.\nThus he spoke, but Hector on the other hand rejoiced greatly, having heard his speech; and having advanced into the centre, holding his spear by the middle, he restrained the phalanxes of the Trojans, and they all sat down. Against him the waving-haired Ach\u00e6ans were directing their bows, and taking aim, were going to hurl with shafts and with stones. But Agamemnon, he, 149 the king of men, exclaimed aloud:\nFootnote 149: (return) Mark the force of the pronoun.\n\u201cWithhold, Argives! cast not, ye sons of the Aen\u00e6ans; for helm-nodding Hector stands as if intending to propose something.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but they abstained from battle, and instantly became silent. But Hector between both [armies] spoke thus:\n\u201cHear from me, ye Trojans, and well-greaved Greeks, the proposal of Alexander, on whose account this strife has arisen. He advises that the other Trojans and all the Greeks should lay down their beauteous arms upon the bounteous earth; but that he and Mars-beloved Menelaus alone should fight in the midst for Helen and all the treasures; and whichever shall conquer, and shall be superior, having received all the treasures without reserve, and the woman, let him conduct them home: but let the rest of us strike a friendship and faithful league.\u201d\nThus he said, and all became mute in silence. But amidst them Menelaus, valiant in the din of war, thus spoke:\n\u201cNow hear me also; for anguish has invaded my soul most: but I purpose that the Greeks and Trojans should now be separated, since ye have suffered many evils on account of my quarrel and the beginning of [this strife through] Alexander. And to whichever of us death and fate has been ordained, let him die; but do the rest of you be very speedily separated. And bring lambs\u2014one white, the other black\u2014to the Earth and to the Sun; and we will bring another to Jove. Moreover ye shall bring the might of Priam, that he may strike the league himself, for his sons are overbearing and faithless; lest any one, by transgression, violate the covenant of Jove. For the minds of younger men are ever fluctuating; but for those among whom a senior is present, he looks at the same time both backward and forward, in order that the best results may accrue to both parties.\u201d\nThus he spoke. But both Greeks and Trojans rejoiced, hoping to have respite from grievous war. And they accordingly reined back their horses to the ranks [of the foot], but dismounted themselves, and put off their arms, and laid them down on the ground near each other; and around [each pile of arms] there was a little space.\nBut Hector despatched two heralds to the city with speed, to bring the lambs, and to call Priam. While, on the other hand, king Agamemnon sent Talthybius to go to the hollow ships, and ordered him to bring a lamb. And he did not disobey noble Agamemnon.\nAnd meantime came Iris a messenger to white-armed Helen, likening herself to her husband\u2019s sister, the wife of Antenor\u2019s son, most excelling in beauty of the daughters of Priam, Laodice, whom the son of Antenor, king Helicaon, possessed. But she found her in her palace, and she was weaving an ample web, a double [mantle], 150 resplendent, and on it was working many labours both of the horse-taming Trojans and the brazen-mailed Greeks, which on her account they suffered at the hands of Mars. Standing near, the swift-footed Iris accosted her thus:\n\u201cCome hither, dear lady, 151 that thou mayest view the wondrous deeds of the horse-taming Trojans, and of the brazen-mailed Greeks, who formerly against each other waged tearful war in the plain, eager for destructive battle. Now, however, they sit in silence (and the war has ceased), leaning on their shields, and near them their long spears are fixed. But Alexander and Mars-beloved Menelaus are about to fight for thy sake with their long spears, and thou shalt be called the dear wife of him who conquers.\u201d\nThus having spoken, the goddess infused a tender desire into her mind both of her former husband, and of her city, and her parents. And instantly veiling herself in white linen robes, 152 she rushed from her chamber, shedding a tender tear: not alone, for two domestics accompanied her, \u0152thra, daughter of Pittheus, and large-eyed Clymene. Then they quickly came to where the Sc\u00e6an gates were. But Priam and Panthous, and Thym\u0153tes, Lampus, Clytius, Hicetaon, an offshoot of Mars, Ucalegon, and Antenor, both prudent, elders of the people, sat at the Sc\u00e6an gates, long since desisting from war, through old age: but good orators, like unto the Cicad\u00e6, 153 which, in the woods, sitting on a tree, send forth a delicate voice; such leaders of the Trojans at that time were sitting on the tower. But when they saw Helen coming to the tower, in low tone they addressed to each other winged words:\nFootnote 150: (return) By \u03c7\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03bd\u03b1\u03bd is understood a mantle which could be worn doubled. Others suppose it means cloth of double tissue.\nFootnote 151: (return) An affectionate use of the word \u03bd\u03cd\u03bc\u03d5\u03b1, which properly means a bride or young wife.\nFootnote 152: (return) The plural is used to denote a long, flowing robe.\nFootnote 153: (return) some the cicada or \u03c4\u03b5\u03c4\u03c4\u03b9\u03be, this is to be considered to be the balm-cricket.\n\u201cIt is not a subject for indignation, that Trojans and well-greaved Greeks endure hardships for a long time on account of such a woman. In countenance she is wondrous like unto the immortal goddess, but even so, although being such, let her return in the ships, nor be left a destruction to us and to our children hereafter.\u201d\nThus they spoke. But Priam called Helen,\u2014\u201cComing hither before us, dear daughter, sit by me, that thou mayest see thy former husband, thy kindred, and thy friends\u2014(thou art not at all in fault towards me; the gods, in truth, are in fault towards me, who have sent against me the lamentable war of the Greeks)\u2014that thou mayest name for me this mighty man, who is this gallant and tall Grecian hero. Certainly there are others taller in height; but so graceful a man have I never yet beheld with my eyes, nor so venerable; for he is like unto a kingly man.\u201d\nBut him Helen, one of the divine women, answered in [these] words: \u201cRevered art thou and feared by me, dear father-in-law; would that an evil death had pleased me, when I followed thy son hither, having left my marriage-bed, my brothers, my darling 154 daughter, and the congenial company of my equals. But these things were not done: therefore I pine away with weeping. But this will I tell thee, which thou seekest of me and inquirest. This is wide-ruling Agamemnon, son of Atreus, in both characters, 155 a good king and a brave warrior. He was the brother-in-law, moreover, of shameless me, if ever indeed he was.\u201d  156\nFootnote 154: (return) See Buttm. Lexil. s. v. and Arnold.\nFootnote 155: (return) Observe the force of the neuter.\nFootnote 156: (return) \u201cSi unquam fuit, quod nunc non est ampleus. i.e. si recte dici potest fuisse, quod ita sui factum est dissimile, ut fuisse unquam vix credas.\u201d\u2014Herm. on Vig. p. 946, quoted by Anthon.\nThus she spoke. But him the old man admired, and said \u201cO blessed son of Atreus, happy-born, fortunate, truly indeed were many Ach\u00e6an youths made subject to thee. Before now I entered vine-bearing Phrygia, where I beheld many Phrygians, heroes on fleet horses, the forces of Otreus and godlike Mygdon, who encamped there near the banks of the Sangarius. For I also, being an ally, was numbered with them on that day, when the man-opposing Amazons came. But not even these were so numerous as the black-eyed Greeks.\u201d\nBut next perceiving 157 Ulysses, the old man asked her: \u201cCome, tell me of this one also, dear daughter, who he is? he is less indeed in height 158 than Agamemnon, the son of Atreus, but is broader to behold in shoulders and breast. His arms lie up on the fertile earth, but he himself, like a ram, goes round the ranks of the men. I for my part compare him to a thick-fleeced ram, which wanders through a great flock of snowy sheep.\u201d\nFootnote 157: (return) This whole passage may be compared with the similar enumeration and description of the seven Argive chieftains in Eurip. Ph\u0153n. 119, sqq.\nFootnote 158: (return) Not \u201ca head less\u201d in height; for line 169 would then mean that Agamemnon was a head less than others, and consequently Ulysses would be two heads under the ordinary size. Anthon has adopted this common mistake, although Wolf had pointed it out.\nBut him Helen, sprung from Jove, answered: \u201cNow, this one again is the son of Laertes, much-scheming Ulysses, who was bred in the country of Ithaca, rugged though it be, skilled in all kinds of stratagems and prudent counsels.\u201d\nHer then the sage Antenor addressed in reply: \u201cO lady, assuredly hast thou spoken this word very truly: for already in former times divine Ulysses came hither also, on an embassy concerning thee, with Mars-beloved Menelaus. I received them as guests, and entertained them in my palace, and became acquainted with the genius of both, and their prudent counsels; but when they were mingled with the assembled Trojans, Menelaus indeed overtopped him, as they stood by his broad shoulders; but when both were sitting, Ulysses was more majestic. 159 But when they began to weave words and counsels for all, Menelaus, on his part, would harangue very fluently; a few [words] indeed, but very sweetly, since he was not loquacious, nor a random talker, though he was younger in age. But when much-counselling Ulysses arose, he stood and looked down, fixing his eyes on the earth, but he neither moved his sceptre backwards nor forwards, but held it unmoved like an unskilful man: you would say indeed that he was a very irritable man, as well as devoid of reason. But when he did send forth the mighty voice from his breast, and words like unto wintry flakes of snow, no longer then would another mortal contend with Ulysses. And beholding, we then marvelled not so much at the aspect of Ulysses, [as at his words].\u201d\nFootnote 159: (return) Observe the Attic construction, where the genitive would have been expected. So Od. M. 73. Il. ii 317. Compared by Lesbonax, \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u03c3\u03c7\u03b7\u03bc. p. 183, sq. ed. Valck. See, also, my note on \u00c6sch. Prom, p. 8, ed. Bohn; intpp. on Theocrit. i. 48.\nThen in the third place, having beheld Ajax, the old man asked: \u201cWho is that other Ach\u00e6an hero, valiant and great, out-topping the Argives by his head and broad shoulders?\u201d\nBut him long-robed Helen answered, divine of women: \u201cThis indeed is mighty Ajax, the bulwark of the Ach\u00e6ans: on the other side, amongst the Cretans, stands Idomeneus like unto a god: but around him the leaders of the Cretans are collected. Often did Mars-beloved Menelaus entertain him in our palace, when he would come from Crete. But now I behold all the other rolling-eyed Greeks, whom I could easily recognize, and pronounce their names; but two leaders of the people I cannot see: horse-taming Castor, and Pollux skilled in boxing, twin brothers, whom the same mother brought forth with me. Either they have not followed from pleasant Laced\u00e6mon, or they indeed have followed hither in the sea-traversing ships, but now are reluctant to enter the fight of the heroes, fearing the disgrace, and the many reproaches which are mine.\u201d\nThus she spoke; but them the life-bestowing earth already possessed: there in Laced\u00e6mon, in their dear native land. 160\nFootnote 160: (return) They had fallen in combat with Lynceus and Idas, whilst besieging Sparta.\u2014Hygin. Poet. Ast. ii. 22. According, however, to other mythologists, they shared immortality in turns. See Od. xi. 302. Virg. \u00c6u. vi. 121; with Servius, and Apollodor. iii. ll. 2.\nBut heralds through the city were bearing the firm pledges of the gods, two lambs and joyous wine, the fruit of the earth, in a goat-skin flagon. But the herald Id\u00e6us also brought a splendid goblet, and golden cups; and standing by him, incited the old man in these words:\n\u201cArise, son of Laomedon; the chiefs of the horse-breaking Trojans, and of the brazen-mailed Greeks, call thee to descend into the plain, that thou mayest ratify a faithful league. For Alexander and Mars-beloved Menelaus are about to fight with long spears for the woman. But let the woman and the effects attend the conqueror; but let the rest of us, having struck a friendship and faithful league, inhabit fruitful Troy, and they shall return to horse-feeding Argos, and to Achaia, famed for fair dames.\u201d\nThus he said, but the old man shuddered, and ordered his attendants to yoke his horses; and they briskly obeyed. Priam then mounted his chariot, and drew back the reins: and beside him Antenor mounted the beautiful chariot. So they guided their fleet steeds through the Sc\u00e6an gates, towards the plain.\nBut when they had now come between the Trojans and the Greeks, descending from their steeds to the fruitful earth, they advanced into the midst of the Trojans and Greeks. Then Agamemnon, king of heroes, immediately arose, and much-counselling Ulysses arose. But the illustrious heralds collected together the faithful pledges of the gods, and mixed wine in a bowl, and poured water upon the hands of the kings. And the son of Atreus, drawing with his hands his dagger, which was always suspended at the huge sheath of his sword, cut off hairs from the heads of the lambs: and then the heralds distributed them to the chiefs of the Trojans and the Greeks. Amongst them the son of Atreus prayed earnestly, having stretched forth his hands:\n\u201cO father Jove, ruling from Ida, most glorious, most mighty,\u2014and thou, O sun, who beholdest all things, and nearest all things\u2014and ye rivers, and thou earth, and ye below who punish men deceased, whosoever swears with perjury, be ye witnesses and preserve the faithful league. If, on the one hand, Alexander should slay Menelaus, let him thenceforth retain Helen and all her possessions; but let us return in our sea-traversing ships. But if, on the contrary, yellow-haired Menelaus slay Alexander, let the Trojans then restore Helen and all her treasures, and pay a fine to the Argives such as is just, and which may be [recorded] amongst posterity. But if Priam and the sons of Priam will not pay me the fine, on Alexander falling, then will I afterwards fight on account of the fine, remaining here till I find an end of the war.\u201d\nHe spoke, and cut the throats of the lambs with the cruel steel, and he laid them on the earth panting, wanting life; for the brass had taken away their [vital] strength. Then having drawn wine from the goblet, they poured it into the cups, and prayed to the immortal gods. But thus some one of the Greeks and Trojans said:\n\u201c\u039f Jove, most glorious, most mighty, and ye other immortal gods, whoever first shall offend against the leagues, so let the brain of themselves and of their children stream upon the ground like this wine, and let their wives be mingled with other men.\u201d\nThus they said, nor yet did the son of Saturn ratify [their vows]. Then Priam, the son of Dardanus, addressed them:\n\u201cHear me, ye Trojans, and ye well-greaved Greeks: I, indeed, return again to wind-swept Ilion, since I can by no means endure to behold with these eyes my dear son fighting with Mars-beloved Menelaus. Jove, certainly, knows this, and the other immortal gods, to which of them the event of death is destined.\u201d\nHe spoke, and the godlike man placed the lambs in the chariot, and ascended himself, and drew back the reins; and beside him Antenor mounted the very beautiful chariot. They on their part returning went back towards Ilion.\nBut Hector on the other hand, the son of Priam, and divine Ulysses, first measured the ground; then taking the lots, they shook them in the brazen helmet, [to decide] which should hurl the brazen spear first. But the people meantime supplicated, and stretched forth their hands to the gods; and thus some one of the Greeks and Trojans said:\n\u201cO father Jove, ruling from Ida, most glorious, most mighty, whichever has caused these evil works to both sides, grant that he, being slain, may enter the house of Pluto, but that to us, on the other hand, there may be friendship and a faithful league.\u201d\nThus then they spoke, and now mighty helm-quivering Hector shook the lots, looking backward; and quickly the lot of Paris leaped forth. They then sat down in their ranks, where the fleet steeds of each stood, and their varied arms lay. But divine Alexander, the husband of fair-haired Helen, put on his beauteous armour around his shoulders. In the first place, around his legs he placed his beautiful greaves fitted with silver clasps; then again he put on his breast the corslet of his brother Lycaon, for it fitted him; but around his shoulders he slung his brazen, silver-studded sword and then his huge and solid shield. But on his valiant head he placed a well-wrought helmet, crested with horse-hair, and the crest nodded dreadfully from above; and he grasped his doughty spear, which fitted to his hands. In this same manner the martial Menelaus put on his arms.\nBut they, when they were armed from each side of the throne, advanced to the middle between the Trojans and Greeks, looking dreadfully; and amazement seized the beholders, both the horse-breaking Trojans and the well-greaved Greeks. They then stood near in the measured-out space, brandishing their spears, incensed against each other. Alexander ander first hurled his long-shadowed spear, and smote the shield of the son of Atreus, equal on all sides, nor did the brass break, for the point was bent upon the strong shield: but next Menelaus, son of Atreus, commenced the attack with his brazen spear, praying to father Jove:\n\u201cO king Jove, grant [me] to avenge myself [on him] who first injured me, and subdue impious Alexander under my hands, that every one, even of future men, may shudder to offer injury to a guest who may have afforded [him] an hospitable reception.\u201d\nHe spoke; and brandishing, he hurled his long-shadowed spear, and smote the shield of the son of Priam, equal on all sides; and through the glittering shield went the impetuous spear, and was stuck firmly into the deftly-wrought corslet: and the spear pierced right through his soft tunic beside the flank: but he bent sideways, and evaded black death. Next the son of Atreus having drawn his silver-studded sword, raising it, struck the cone 161 of his helmet, but it fell from his hand shivered round about into three or four pieces. And the son of Atreus groaned aloud, looking towards the wide heaven:\nFootnote 161: (return) Buttmann, Lexil. p. 521, makes \u03c6\u03b1\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2 to be the same as \u03ba\u03c9\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2, a metal ridge in which the plume was fixed.\n\u201c\u039f father Jove, none other of the gods is more baleful than thou. Certainly I hoped to be revenged upon Alexander for his wickedness: but now my sword has been broken in my hands, and my spear has been hurled from my hand in vain, nor have I smote him.\u201d\nHe spoke; and rushing on, he seized him by the horse-hair tufted helmet, and turning, began to drag him to the well-greaved Greeks: but the richly-embroidered band under his tender throat was choking him, which was drawn under his chin as the strap of his helmet. And now he had dragged him away, and obtained infinite glory, had not Venus, the daughter of Jove, quickly perceived it, who broke for him  162 the thong, [made] from the hide of an ox slaughtered by violence: and thereupon the empty helmet followed with his strong hand. It, then, the hero whirling round, cast to the well-greaved Greeks, and his dear companions took it up. And he [Menelaus] again rushed on, desiring to slay him with his brazen spear: but him [Paris] Venus very easily, as being a goddess, rescued, and covered him in a thick mist; then placed him down in his fragrant chamber, exhaling perfumes.\nFootnote 162: (return) I.e. Menelaus.\u2014to his confusion.\nBut she herself, on the other hand, went to call Helen, and she found her on the lofty tower, and many Trojan dames around her. Then with her hand catching her by the fragrant mantle, she shook her: and likening herself to an ancient dame, a spinner of wool, who used to comb fair wool for her when dwelling at Laced\u00e6mon, and she loved her much: to her having likened herself, divine Venus accosted [Helen]:\n\u201cCome hither, Alexander calls thee to return home. He himself is in his chamber and turned bed, shining both in beauty and attire; nor wouldst thou say that he had returned after having fought with a hero, but that he was going to the dance, or that just ceasing from the dance, he sat down.\u201d\nThus she said, and agitated the heart in her breast: and when she beheld the all-beauteous neck of the goddess, and her lovely bosom, and her flashing eyes, she was awe-struck, and spoke a word, and said:\n\u201cStrange one! why dost thou desire to deceive me in these things? Wilt thou lead me anywhere farther on to one of the well-inhabited cities, either of Phrygia or pleasant M\u00e6onia, if there be any of articulately-speaking men dear to thee there? Is it because Menelaus, having now conquered noble Alexander, wishes to bring hated me home, that therefore with artful purpose thou now standest near me? Going, sit with him thyself, and renounce the path of the gods. And mayest thou no more return on thy feet to Olympus: but always grieve beside him, and watch him, until he either make thee his consort, or he indeed [make thee] his handmaid. But there I will not go to adorn his couch, for it would be reprehensible: all the Trojan ladies henceforth will reproach me. But I shall have woes without measure in my soul.\u201d\nBut her, divine Venus, incensed, thus addressed: \u201cWretch, provoke me not, lest in my wrath I abandon thee, and detest thee as much as heretofore I have wonderfully loved thee, and lest I scatter destructive hate in the midst of the Trojans and Greeks, and thou perish by an evil fate.\u201d\nThus she spoke: but Helen, sprung from Jove, dreaded, and she went covered with a white transparent robe, in silence; and escaped the notice of all the Trojan dames, for the goddess led the way.\nBut when they reached the very beautiful palace of Alexander, then the maids, on their part, turned themselves speedily to their tasks; but she, divine of women, ascended into her lofty-roofed chamber: and then laughter-loving Venus, carrying, placed a seat for her opposite Alexander: there Helen, daughter of the \u00e6gis-bearing Jove, sat, averting her eyes, and reproached her husband with these words:\n\u201cThou hast come from the war: would that thou hadst perished there, slain by that brave hero, who was my former husband. Certainly, thou didst formerly boast, that thou wast superior to Mars-beloved Menelaus, in might, in hands, and at the spear. But go now, challenge Mars-beloved Menelaus to fight once more against thee! But I advise thee to refrain, nor unadvisedly wage war and fight against fair-haired Menelaus, lest perchance thou mayest be subdued beneath his spear.\u201d\nBut her Paris answering addressed in words: \u201cWoman! assail me not in soul with reproachful taunts; for now indeed has Menelaus conquered by Minerva\u2019s aid; but I in turn will vanquish him, for gods are with us also. But come, let us delight in dalliance, reclining together, for never before did love so fondly enwrap my soul, not even when formerly, having borne thee away from pleasant Laced\u00e6mon, I sailed in the sea-traversing ships, and was united with thee in love and in the couch in the island Crana\u00eb; so now am I enamoured of thee, and sweet desire possesses me.\u201d\nHe spoke, and led the way, ascending the couch; but his wife followed with him: they therefore rested upon their perforated couch.\nMeanwhile the son of Atreus was wandering through the crowd like to a savage beast, if anywhere he could perceive godlike Alexander. But none of the Trojans or their illustrious allies could then point out Alexander to Mars-beloved Menelaus; for neither through friendship would they have concealed him, if any one did see him; for he was hateful to them all, like sable death. But amongst them spoke Agamemnon, king of heroes:\n\u201cHear me, ye Trojans, Greeks, and allies: the victory indeed appears [to belong to] Mars-beloved Menelaus. Do ye therefore restore Argive Helen and her treasures with her, and pay the fine which is fitting, and which shall be remembered by future men.\u201d\nThus spoke the son of Atreus, and the other Greeks approved.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THE FOURTH\nARGUMENT.\nParis not being slain, the combat left it doubtful whether Helen should be returned or not; but Juno extorts a promise from Jove of the final destruction of Troy. Minerva then persuades Pandarus to break the truce by aiming an arrow at Menelaus. The wound is, however, cured by Machaon. The Trojans proceed to the battle, while Agamemnon exhorts the chieftains of the Greeks. The fight then commences, Mars and Apollo encouraging the Trojans, Minerva and the other deities the Greeks.\nNow they, the gods, sitting on the golden floor 163 with Jove, were engaged in consultation, and amidst them venerable Hebe poured out the nectar: but they pledged 164 one another with golden cups, looking towards the city of the Trojans. Forthwith the son of Saturn attempted to irritate Juno, speaking with a covert allusion, with reproachful words: 165\n\u201cTwo goddesses, indeed, are auxiliaries to Menelaus, Argive 166 Juno and Minerva of Alalcomen\u00e6: 167 and yet these, forsooth, sitting apart, amuse themselves with looking on; but to the other, on the contrary [Paris], laughter-loving Venus is ever present, 168 and averts fate from him. Even now has she saved him, thinking that he was about to die. But the victory, indeed, belongs to Mars-beloved Menelaus: let us therefore consult how these things shall be, whether we shall again excite the destructive war, and dreadful battle-din, or promote friendship between both parties. And if, moreover, this shall perchance 169 be grateful and pleasing to all, the city of king Priam, indeed, may be inhabited, but let Menelaus lead back again Argive Helen.\u201d\nFootnote 163: (return) \u201cOn the golden floor of Jove\u2019s abode.\u201d\u2014Cowper.\nFootnote 164: (return) Athen\u00e6us, i. ll, \u03b5\u03b4\u03b5\u03be\u03b9\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf, \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c0\u03b9\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2 \u03b5\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2, \u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b4\u03b5\u03be\u03b9\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2. Cf. xi. 14. Hesych. \u03b4\u03b5\u03b9\u03b4\u03b5\u03ba\u03c4\u03bf, \u03b5\u03b4\u03b5\u03be\u03b9\u03bf\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf, \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c6\u03b9\u03bb\u03b9\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b7\u03c3\u03c0\u03b1\u03b6\u03b5\u03c4\u03bf \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bb\u03bf\u03b3\u03c9\u03bd.\nFootnote 165: (return) I am indebted to Arnold for this version.\nFootnote 166: (return) So called from her temple at Argos. See Pausan. ii. 17; Apul. Met. vi. p. 458; Servius on \u00c6n. i. 28.\nFootnote 167: (return) She had a temple at Alalcomen\u00e6, in B\u0153otia. Cf. Pausan. ix. 33; Steph. Byz. \u03bd. \u03b1\u03bb\u03b1\u03bb\u03ba\u03bf\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd.\nFootnote 168: (return) On the affinity of \u03b2\u03bb\u03c9\u03c3\u03ba\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd and \u03bc\u03bf\u03bb\u03b5\u0390\u03bd, see Buttm. Lexil. p. 84.\nFootnote 169: (return) Read \u03b1\u03c5 \u03c0\u03c9\u03c2 for \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03c9\u03c2, with Aristarchus, Wolf, Spitzner.\nThus he spoke: but Minerva and Juno murmured with closed lips, for they were sitting near, and were devising evils for the Trojans. Minerva, indeed, was silent, nor said anything, indignant with her father Jove, for dreadful rage possessed her. But Juno could not retain her fury in her breast, but addressed him:\n\u201cMost baleful son of Saturn! what a sentence hast thou uttered! How dost thou wish to render my labour vain, and my sweat fruitless, which I have sweated through with toil? For the steeds are tired to me assembling the host, evils to Priam and to his sons. Do so: but all we the other gods do not approve.\u201d\nBut her cloud-compelling Jove, in great wrath, answered: \u201cStrange one! how now do Priam and the sons of Priam work so many wrongs against thee, that thou desirest implacably to overturn the well-built city of Ilion? But if thou, entering the gates and the lofty walls, couldst devour alive 170 Priam and the sons of Priam, and the other Trojans, then perhaps thou mightst satiate thy fury. Do as thou wilt, lest this contention be in future a great strife between thee and me. But another thing I tell thee, and do thou lay it up in thy soul: whenever haply I, anxiously desiring, shall wish to destroy some city, where men dear to thee are born, retard not my rage, but suffer me; for I have given thee this of free will, though with unwilling mind. For of those cities of earthly men, which are situated under the sun and the starry heaven, sacred Ilion was most honoured by me in my heart, and Priam and the people of Priam skilled in the ashen spear. For there my altars never lacked a due banquet and libation, and savour; for this honour were we allotted.\u201d\nFootnote 170: (return) Literally, \u201ceat raw.\u201d Cf. Xenoph. Anab. iv. 8, 14. \u03a4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03c9\u03c2 \u03b4\u03c5\u03bd\u03c9\u03bc\u03b5\u03b8\u03b1, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c9\u03bc\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b4\u03b5\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03c6\u03b1\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd.\u2014Clarke.\nHim then the venerable full-eyed Juno answered: \u201cThere are three cities, indeed, most dear to me: Argos, and Sparta, and wide-wayed Mycen\u00e6; 171 destroy these whenever they become hateful to thy soul. In behalf of these I neither stand forth, nor do I grudge them to thee: for even were I to grudge them, and not suffer thee to destroy them, by grudging I avail nothing, since thou art much more powerful. And yet it becomes [thee] to render my labour not fruitless; for I am a goddess, and thence my race, whence thine; and wily Saturn begat me, very venerable on two accounts, both by my parentage, and because I have been called thy spouse. Moreover, thou rulest amongst all the immortals. But truly let us make these concessions to each other: I, on my part, to thee, and thou to me; and the other immortal gods will follow. Do thou without delay bid Minerva go to the dreadful battle-din of the Trojans and Greeks, and contrive that the Trojans may first begin to injure the most renowned Greeks, contrary to the leagues.\u201d\nFootnote 171: (return) \u201cIt certainly seems to me, that, in a reference so distinct to the three great Peloponnesian cities which the Dorians invaded and possessed, Homer makes as broad an allusion to the conquests of the Heraclid\u00e6, not only as would be consistent with the pride of an Ionic Greek in attesting the triumphs of the national Dorian foe, but as the nature of a theme cast in a distant period, and remarkably removed, in its general conduct, from the historical detail of subsequent events, would warrant to the poet.\u201d\u2014Bulwer, Athens, i. 8. The correctness of this view, however, depends upon the true date of Homer\u2019s existence.\nThus she spoke; nor did the father of gods and men disobey. Instantly he addressed Minerva in winged words:\n\u201cGo very quickly to the army, among the Trojans and Greeks, and contrive that the Trojans may first begin to injure the most renowned Greeks, contrary to the league.\u201d\nThus having spoken, he urged on Minerva already inclined; she hastening descended the heights of Olympus; such as the star which the son of wily Saturn sends, a sign either to mariners, or to a wide host of nations, and from it many sparks are emitted. Like unto this Pallas Minerva hastened to the earth, and leaped into the midst [of the army]; and astonishment seized the horse-breaking Trojans and the well-greaved Greeks, looking on. And thus would one say, looking at some other near him:\n\u201cDoubtless evil war and dreadful battle-din will take place again, or Jove is establishing friendship between both sides, he who has been ordained the arbiter of war amongst men.\u201d  172\nFootnote 172: (return) Duport, Gnom. Hom. p. 20, compares the words of Belisarius in Procop. Vandal. i. \u039c\u03b1\u03c7\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03b5\u03bd \u03b1\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03c9\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9, \u03b2\u03c1\u03b1\u03b6\u03b5\u03c5\u03b5\u03b9 \u03b4\u03b5 \u03bf \u0398\u03b5\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bf\u03c0\u03c9\u03c2 \u03c0\u03bf\u03c4\u03b5 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03c9 \u03b4\u03bf\u03ba\u03b5\u03b9, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03b5\u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b4\u03af\u03b4\u03c9\u03c3\u03b9 \u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2.\nThus then did some one of the Greeks and Trojans say; but she like a hero entered the host of the Trojans, the brave warrior Laodocus, son of Antenor, seeking godlike Pandarus, if anywhere she might find him. She found the blameless and valiant son of Lycaon standing, and around him the brave ranks of shielded warriors, who had followed him from the streams of \u00c6sepus; and standing near, she thus to him spoke winged words:\n\u201cWouldst thou now hearken to me in anything, O warlike son of Lycaon? Thou wouldst venture then to aim a swift arrow at Menelaus. Doubtless thou wouldst bear away both thanks and glory from all the Trojans, but of all, chiefly from the prince Alexander, from whom, indeed, first of all, thou wouldst receive splendid gifts, if he should see martial Menelaus, the son of Atreus, subdued by this weapon, ascending the sad pile. But come, aim an arrow at renowned Menelaus; and vow to Lycian-born 173 Apollo, the renowned archer, that thou wilt sacrifice a splendid hecatomb of firstling lambs, having returned home to the city of sacred Zeleia.\u201d\nFootnote 173: (return) This is probably the true interpretation, and is given by the Scholiast, Hesychius, and others. But Heraclides, Alleg. \u00a7 6, says that Apollo is so called \u03b5\u03c0\u03b5\u03b9\u03b4\u03b7 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03bf\u03c1\u03b8\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd \u03c9\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd \u03bb\u03c5\u03ba\u03b1\u03c5\u03b3\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03bd \u03b1\u03b9\u03c4\u03b9\u03bf\u03b9, \u03b7 \u03bf\u03c4\u03b9 \u03bb\u03c5\u03ba\u03b1\u03b6\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1 \u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03bd\u03b1, \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c4\u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03bd\u03b9\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd. Cf. Macrob. Sat. i. 17; Serv. on \u00c6n. iv. 377.\nThus spoke Minerva, and she persuaded his mind for him, unthinking one. Straightway he uncased his well-polished bow, made from [the horn of] a wild, bounding goat, which he indeed surprising once on a time in ambush, as it was coming out of a cavern, struck, aiming at it beneath the breast; but it fell supine on the rock. Its horns had grown sixteen palms from its head; and these the horn-polishing artist, having duly prepared, fitted together, and when he had well smoothed all, added a golden tip. And having bent the bow, he aptly lowered it, having inclined it against the ground; but his excellent companions held their shields before him, lest the martial sons of the Greeks should rise against him, before warlike Menelaus, the chief of the Greeks, was wounded. Then he drew off the cover of his quiver, and took out an arrow, fresh, winged, a cause of gloomy ills. Forthwith he fitted the bitter arrow to the string, and vowed to Lycian-born Apollo, the renowned archer, that he would sacrifice a splendid hecatomb of firstling lambs, having returned home to the city of sacred Zeleia. Having seized them, he drew together the notch [of the arrow] and the ox-hide string; the string, indeed, he brought near to his breast, and the barb to the bow. But after he had bent the great bow into a circle, the bow twanged, the bowstring rang loudly, and the sharp-pointed shaft bounded forth, impatient to wing its flight through the host.\nNor did the blessed immortal gods forget thee, O Menelaus; 174 but chiefly the spoil-hunting daughter of Jove, who, standing before thee, averted the deadly weapon. She as much repelled it from thy body, as a mother repels a fly from her infant, when it shall have laid itself down in sweet sleep. But she herself guided it to that part where the golden clasps of the girdle bound it, and the double-formed corslet met. 175 The bitter arrow fell on his well-fitted belt, and through the deftly-wrought belt was it driven, and it stuck in the variegated corslet and the brazen-plated belt which he wore, the main defence of his body, a guard against weapons, which protect him most; through even this did it pass onwards, and the arrow grazed the surface of the hero\u2019s skin, and straightway black gore flowed from the wound. And as when some M\u00e6onian 176 or Carian woman tinges ivory with purple colour, to be a cheek-trapping for steeds; in her chamber it lies, and many charioteers desire to bear it, but it lies by as an ornament for the king, both as a decoration to the steed, and a glory to the rider: so, Menelaus, were thy well-proportioned thighs, and legs, and fair feet below, stained with gore.\nFootnote 174: (return) It is elegantly observed by Coleridge, p. 160, that \u201cit is principally owing to our sense of the dramatic probability of the action of the divinities in the Iliad that the heroes do not seem dwarfed by their protectors; on the contrary, the manifest favourite of the gods stands out in a dilated and more awful shape before our imagination, and seems, by the association, to be lifted up into the demigod.\u201d\nFootnote 175: (return) \u201cOccurrebat sagitt\u00e6, obvius erat ei penetranti.\u201d\u2014Heyne. But it is better to understand, \u201cwhere the plates of the cuirass meet and overlay the \u03b6\u03c9\u03bc\u03b1].\u201d\u2014Arnold.\nFootnote 176: (return) I.e. Lydian.\nThen Agamemnon, the king of men, shuddered, as he beheld the black gore flowing from the wound, and Mars-beloved Menelaus himself shuddered. But when he saw the string 177 and the barbs still outside, his courage was once more collected in his breast. But Agamemnon, deeply sighing, and holding Menelaus with his hand, spoke thus amidst them, and all his companions kept groaning with him:\nFootnote 177: (return) With which the iron head was fastened to the shaft.\n\u201c\u039f dear brother, now have I ratified a treaty which will prove thy death, exposing thee alone to fight with the Trojans for the Greeks; since the Trojans have thus wounded thee, and trampled on the faithful league. But by no means shall the league and the blood of the lambs be in vain, and the pure libations, and the right hands in which we confided. For even although Olympian Jove has not immediately brought them to pass, he will however bring them to pass at last; and at a great price have they paid the penalty, 178 to wit, with their own heads, and their wives and children. For this I know well in mind and soul. A day will be, when sacred Ilium shall perish, and Priam, and the people of ashen-speared Priam; and when Saturnian Jove, lofty-throned, dwelling in the \u00e6ther, will himself shake his gloomy \u00e6gis over all, wrathful on account of this treachery. These things, indeed, shall not be unaccomplished; but to me there will be grief on thy account, O Menelaus, if thou shalt die and fulfil the fate of life; then, indeed, branded with shame, shall I return to much longed-for Argos. For quickly the Greeks will bethink themselves of their fatherland, and we shall leave Argive Helen a boast to Priam and to the Trojans, and the earth will rot thy bones lying in Troy, near to an unfinished work. And thus will some one of the haughty Trojans exclaim, leaping upon the tomb of glorious Menelaus: \u2018Would that Agamemnon thus wreaked his vengeance against all, as even now he has led hither an army of the Greeks in vain, and has now returned home into his dear native land, with empty ships, having left behind him brave Menelaus.\u2019 Thus will some one hereafter say: then may the wide earth yawn for me.\u201d\nFootnote 178: (return) The past tense for the future: implying that the hour of retribution is so certain, that it may be considered already arrived.\nBut him fair-haired Menelaus accosted, cheering him: \u201cHave courage, nor in anywise frighten the people of the Ach\u00e6ans. The sharp arrow has not stuck in a vital part, but before [it reached a vital part], the variegated belt, and the girdle beneath, and the plate which brass-working men forged, warded it off.\u201d\nKing Agamemnon answering him replied: \u201cWould that it were so, O beloved Menelaus; but the physician shall probe the wound, and apply remedies, which may ease thee of thy acute pains.\u201d\nHe spoke; and thus accosted Talthybius, the divine herald: \u201cTalthybius, summon hither with all speed the hero Machaon, son of the blameless physician \u00c6sculapius, that he may see martial Menelaus, the chief of the Greeks, whom some skilful archer of the Trojans, or of the Lycians, has wounded with a shaft; a glory, indeed, to him, but a grief to us.\u201d\nHe spoke; nor did the herald disobey when he had heard. But he proceeded to go through the forces of the brazen-mailed Greeks, looking around for the hero Machaon: him he saw standing, and round him the brave ranks of the shield-bearing hosts, who followed him from steed-nourishing Tricca. Standing near, he spoke winged words:\n\u201cCome, O son of \u00c6sculapius, Agamemnon, king of men, calls thee, that thou mayest see martial Menelaus, the son of Atreus, whom some skilful archer of the Trojans or of the Lycians has wounded with a dart; a glory indeed to him, but a grief to us.\u201d\nThus he spoke, and incited his soul within his breast. And they proceeded to go through the host, through the wide army of the Greeks; but when they had now arrived where fair-haired Menelaus had been wounded (but around him were collected as many as were bravest, in a circle, while the godlike hero stood in the midst), instantly thereupon he extracted the arrow from the well-fitted belt. But while it was being extracted, the sharp barbs were broken. Then he loosed the variegated belt, and the girdle beneath, and the plated belt which brass-workers had forged. But when he perceived the wound, where the bitter shaft had fallen, having sucked out the blood, he skilfully sprinkled on it soothing remedies, 179 which, benevolent Chiron had formerly given to his father.\nFootnote 179: (return) Celsus, Pref. \u201cPodalirius et Machaon, bello Trajano ducem Agamemnonem secuti, non mediocrem opem commilitonibus suis attulerunt. Quos tamen Homerus non in pestilentia neque in variis generibus morborum aliquid attulisse auxilii, sed vulneribus tantummodo ferro et medicamentis mederi solitos esse proposuit. Ex quo apparet, has partes medicin\u00e6 solas ab his esse tentatas, easque esse vetustissimas.\u201d\nWhilst they were thus occupied around warlike Menelaus, meantime the ranks of the shielded Trojans advanced; and these again put on their arms, and were mindful of battle. Then would you not see divine Agamemnon slumbering, nor trembling nor refusing to fight; but hastening quickly to the glorious fight. He left his steeds, indeed, and his brass-variegated chariot; and these his servant Eurymedon, son of Ptolym\u00e6us, the son of Pir\u00e4is, held apart panting. Him he strictly enjoined to keep them near him, against the time when weariness should seize his limbs, commanding over many. But he on foot traversed the ranks of the heroes, and whichever of the swift-horsed Greeks he saw hastening, them standing beside, he encouraged with words:\n\u201cArgives! remit nought of your fierce ardour, for father Jove will not be an abettor to falsehoods, but certainly vultures will devour the tender bodies of those very persons, who first offered injury, contrary to the league; and we, after we shall have taken the city, will carry off in our ships their dear wives, and their infant children.\u201d\nBut whomsoever on the other hand he saw declining hateful battle, them he much rebuked with angry words:\n\u201cArgives, ye arrow-fighters, 180 subjects for disgrace, are ye not ashamed? Why stand ye here astounded, like fawns, which, when they are wearied, running through the extensive plain, stand, and have no strength in their hearts? Thus do ye stand amazed, nor fight. Do ye await the Trojans until they come near, where your fair-prowed galleys are moored on the shore of the hoary sea, that ye may know whether the son of Saturn will stretch forth his hand over you.\u201d\nFootnote 180: (return) If it be remembered that archery, in comparison with fighting close-handed, handed, was much despised (cf. Soph. Aj. 1120, sqq.; Eur. Herc. Fur. 160), the term \u1f30\u03cc\u03bc\u03c9\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9 (\u03bf\u1f31 \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u03c4\u03bf\u1f7a\u03c2 \u1f30\u03bf\u1f7a\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b5\u03bc\u03bf\u03c1\u03b7\u03bc\u1f73\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9, Apoll. Lex. and Hesych.) need not be forced into any of the out-of-the-way meanings which Anthon and others have assigned to it.\nThus he, acting as commander, kept going through the ranks of heroes, and he came to the Cretans, going through the throng of men. But they were armed around warlike Idomeneus. Idomeneus, on his part, [commanded] in the van, like a boar in strength; but Meriones urged on the hindmost phalanxes for him. Seeing these, Agamemnon, the king of men, rejoiced, and instantly accosted Idomeneus, in bland words:\n\u201cO Idomeneus, I honour thee, indeed, above the swift-horsed Greeks, as well in war, as in any other work, and at the banquet, when the nobles of the Argives mix in their cups the dark-red honourable 181 wine: for though the other crested Greeks drink by certain measures, thy cup always stands full, as [mine] to me, that thou mayest drink when thy mind desires it. But hasten into war, such as formerly thou didst boast to be.\u201d\nFootnote 181: (return) See my note on Od.\nBut him Idomeneus, the leader of the Cretans, in turn answered: \u201cSon of Atreus, a very congenial ally will I be to thee, as first I promised and assented. But exhort the other crested Greeks that we may fight with all haste, since the Trojans have confounded the league: death and griefs shall be theirs hereafter, since they first offered injury, contrary to the league.\u201d\nThus he spoke: and the son of Atreus passed on, joyous at heart, and he came to the Ajaces, going through the troops of the heroes. But they were armed, and with them followed a cloud of infantry. As when a goat-herd from a hill-top perceives a cloud traversing the deep, beneath the north-western blast; and to him, standing at a distance, it appears while coming over the ocean, darker than pitch, and brings with it a mighty whirlwind; 182 he both shudders on seeing it, and drives his flock into a cave. Such, with the Ajaces, moved into hostile battle the dense dark phalanxes of Jove-nurtured youths, bristling with shields and spears. And king Agamemnon seeing them, rejoiced, and accosting them, spoke winged words:\nFootnote 182: (return) The waterspout, which is often followed by hurricanes, is meant. See Arnold.\n\u201cYe Ajaces, leaders of the brazen-mailed Argives, ye two, indeed, for it becomes me not, I in no respect desire to incite; for ye yourselves mightily instigate the people to fight valiantly. Would that, O father Jove, Minerva, and Apollo, such courage were in the breasts of all; soon then would the city of king Priam bend to its fall, taken and destroyed by our hands.\u201d\nThus having said, he left them there and went to the others; there he found Nestor, the harmonious orator of the Pylians, marshalling his associates, and exhorting them to battle, mighty Pelagon, Alastor, Chromius, and prince H\u00e6mon, and Bias the shepherd of the people. In front, indeed, he placed the cavalry 183 with their horses and chariots, but the foot, both numerous and brave, in the rear, to be the stay of the battle; but the cowards he drove into the middle, that every man, even unwilling, might fight from necessity. At first, indeed, he gave orders to the horsemen; these he commanded to rein in their horses, nor to be confused with the crowd. \u201cAnd let no person, relying on his skill in horsemanship, and on his strength, desire alone, before the rest, to fight with the Trojans, nor let him retreat: for [if so], ye will be weaker. And whatever man, from his own chariot, can reach that of another, let him stretch out with his spear; 184 for so it is much better: for thus the ancients overturned cities and walls, keeping this purpose and resolution in their breasts.\u201d\nFootnote 183: (return) I. e. those who fought from chariots.\nFootnote 184x: (return) With Arnold and Anthon, I follow K\u00f6ppen\u2019s interpretation. The meaning is, whoever, without leaping from his own chariot, can reach that of another, should commence the attack. This was less dangerous than dismounting.\nThus the old man, long since well skilled in wars, exhorted them, and king Agamemnon rejoiced when he saw him; and accosting him, spoke winged words:\n\u201cO old man, would that thy knees could so follow thee, and thy strength were firm as is the courage in thy breast. But old age, common alike to all, wearies thee. Would that some other man had thy age, and that thou wert amongst the more youthful.\u201d\nHim then the Gerenian knight Nestor answered: \u201cSon of Atreus, I myself would much wish to be so, as when I killed Eruthalion. But the gods never give all things at the same time to men. If I were a young man then, now in turn old age invades me. Yet even so, I will be with the horse, and will exhort them with counsel and words: for this is the office of old men. But let the youths, who are younger than I am, and confide in their strength, brandish their spears.\u201d\nThus he spoke; and the son of Atreus passed him by, rejoicing at heart. Next he found the horseman Menestheus, son of Peteus, standing, and around him the Athenians skilled in the war-shout: but crafty Ulysses stood near; and round him stood the ranks of the Cephallenians not feeble; for not yet had the troops of these heard the shout, since lately the roused phalanxes of the horse-subduing Trojans and of the Greeks moved along; but they stood waiting till another division of the Greeks, coming on, should charge the Trojans and begin the battle. Having seen these, therefore, Agamemnon, the king of men, reproved them, and, accosting them, spoke winged words:\n\u201cO son of Peteus, Jove-nurtured king, and thou, accomplished in evil wiles, crafty-minded [Ulysses], why trembling do ye refrain from battle, and wait for others? It became you, indeed, being amongst the first, to stand and meet the ardent battle. For ye are the first invited by me to the feast when we Greeks prepare a banquet for the chiefs. Then it is pleasant to you to eat the roasted meats, and to quaff cups of sweet wine, as long as ye please. But now would ye in preference be spectators, though ten divisions of the Greeks should fight in your presence with the ruthless brass.\u201d\nBut him sternly regarding, crafty Ulysses answered thus: \u201cSon of Atreus, what a word has escaped the barrier of thy teeth! How canst thou say that we are remiss in fighting? Whenever we Greeks stir up fierce conflict against the horse-taming Trojans, thou shalt see, if thou desirest, and if these things are a care to thee, the beloved father of Telemachus mingled with the foremost of the horse-taming Trojans. But thou sayest these things rashly.\u201d\nBut him king Agamemnon, when he perceived that he was angry, smiling, addressed, and he retracted his words:\n\u201cNoble son of Laertes, much-contriving Ulysses, I neither chide thee in terms above measure, nor exhort thee. For I am aware that thy mind in thy breast kens friendly counsels: for thou thinkest the same that I do. But come, we shall settle these disputes at a future time, should anything evil have now been uttered. But may the gods render all these things vain.\u201d\nThus having spoken, he left them there, and went to others; he found magnanimous Diomede, son of Tydeus, standing by his horses and brass-mounted 185 chariot. Near him stood Sthenelus, son of Capaneus. And having seen him too, king Agamemnon reproved him, and accosting him thus, spoke winged words:\n\u201cAlas! O son of warlike horse-breaking Tydeus, why dost thou tremble? Why dost thou explore the intervals of the ranks? 186 It was not with Tydeus thus customary to tremble, but to fight with the enemy far before his dear companions. So they have said, who beheld him toiling: for I never met, nor have I beheld him: but they say that he excelled all others. For certainly with godlike Polynices he entered Mycen\u00e6 without warlike array, a guest, collecting forces: they 187 were then preparing an expedition against the sacred walls of Thebes, and supplicated much that they would give renowned auxiliaries. But they [the Mycen\u00e6ans] were willing to give them, and approved of it, as they urged; but Jove changed [their design], showing unpropitious omens. But, after they departed, and proceeded on their way, they came to rushy, grassy Asopus. Then the Ach\u00e6ans sent Tydeus upon an embassy. 188 Accordingly he went, and found many Cadmeans feasting in the palace of brave Eteocles. Then the knight Tydeus, though being a stranger, feared not, being alone amongst many Cadmeans: but challenged them to contend [in games], and easily conquered in all, so mighty a second was Minerva to him. But the Cadmeans, goaders of steeds, being enraged, leading fifty youths, laid a crafty ambuscade for him returning: but there were two leaders, M\u00e6on, son of H\u00e6mon, like unto the immortals, and Lycophontes, persevering in fight, the son of Autophonus. Tydeus, however, brought cruel death upon them. He killed them all, but sent one only to return home: for he dismissed M\u00e6on, obeying the portents of the gods. Such was \u00c6tolian Tydeus. But he begat a son, inferior to himself in battle, but superior in council.\u201d\nFootnote 185: (return) Properly, \u201cfastened, soldered.\u201d\nFootnote 186: (return) Lit. \u201cthe bridges of the war.\u201d He was looking to see where there was a chance of escape by running between the ranks.\nFootnote 187: (return) Polynices and Adrastus. The reader will do well to compare Grote vol. i. p. 371.\nFootnote 188: (return) To Thebes.\nThus he spoke; but brave Diomede answered nothing, reverencing the rebuke of the venerable king.\nBut him the son of renowned Capaneus answered: \u201cSon of Atreus, lie not, knowing how to tell truth. We, indeed, boast to be far better than our fathers. We too have taken the citadel of seven-gated Thebes, leading fewer troops under the wall sacred to Mars, confiding in the portents of the gods, and in the aid of Jove: but they perished through their own infatuation. Wherefore, never place my ancestors in the same rank with me.\u201d\nHim sternly regarding, brave Diomede accosted thus: \u201cMy friend 189 Sthenelus, sit in silence, and obey my words; for I blame not Agamemnon, the shepherd of the people, for thus exhorting the well-greaved Greeks to fight. Glory shall attend him, if, indeed, the Greeks shall conquer the Trojans, and take sacred Ilium; but great grief shall be his, on the other hand, the Greeks being cut off. But come now, and let us be mindful of impetuous valour.\u201d\nFootnote 189: (return) \u03a4\u03ad\u03c4\u03c4\u03b1 is an affectionate phrase applied to an elder, like papa. Compare Alberti on Hesych. v. \u1f00\u03c0\u03c6\u03af\u03b1, t. i. p. 505, and on \u1f05\u03c4\u03c4\u03b1, p. 606; Helladius, Chrestom. p. 9, ed. Meurs.\nHe spoke, and from his chariot leaped with his arms upon the earth, and dreadfully sounded the brass on the breast of the prince, as he moved rapidly along: then truly would fear have seized even a brave spirit.\nAs when on the loud-resounding shore a wave of the sea is impelled in continuous succession beneath the north-west wind which has set it in motion; at first indeed it raises itself aloft in the deep, but then dashed against the land, it roars mightily; and being swollen it rises high around the projecting points, and spits from it the foam of the sea: thus then the thick phalanxes of the Greeks moved incessantly on to battle. Each leader commanded his own troops. The rest went in silence (nor would you have said that so numerous an army followed, having the power of speech in their breasts), silently reverencing their leaders. And around them all their arms of various workmanship shone brightly; clad with which, they proceeded in order. But the Trojans, as the sheep of a rich man stand countless in the fold, whilst they are milked of their white milk, continually bleating, having heard the voice of their lambs\u2014thus was the clamour of the Trojans excited through the wide army. For there was not the same shout of all, nor the same voice, but their language was mixed, for the men were called from many climes. These Mars urged on, but those blue-eyed Minerva, 190 and Terror, and Rout, and Strife, insatiably raging, the sister and attendant of homicide Mars, she raises her head, small indeed at first, but afterwards she has fixed her head in heaven, and stalks along the earth. Then also she, going through the crowd, increasing the groaning of the men, cast into the midst upon them contention alike destruction to all.\nFootnote 190: (return)\n\n\n\u201cOn th\u2019 other side, Satan alarm\u2019d\nCollecting all his might dilated stood,\nLike Teneriff or Atlas unremoved:\nHis stature reach\u2019d the sky.\u201d\u2014Paradise Lost, iv. 985.\n\n\nBut they, when now meeting, they had reached the same place, at once joined their ox-hide shields, and their spears, and the might of brazen-mailed warriors; and the bossy shields met one another, and much battle-din arose. There at the same time were heard both the groans and shouts of men slaying and being slain; and the earth flowed with blood. As when wintry torrents flowing down from the mountains, mix in a basin the impetuous water from their great springs in a hollow ravine, and the shepherd in the mountains hears the distant roar\u2014so arose the shouting and panic of them, mixed together.\nAntilochus first killed a Trojan warrior, Echepolus, son of Thalysias, valiant in the van. Him he first struck on the cone of his horse-plumed helmet, and the brazen point fixed itself in his forehead, then pierced the bone, and darkness veiled his eyes; and he fell, like a tower, in fierce conflict. Him fallen, king Elephenor, the offspring of Chalcodon, chief of the magnanimous Abantes, seized by the feet, and was drawing him beyond the reach of darts in haste, that with all haste he might despoil him of his armour: but that attempt was short; for magnanimous Agenor having descried him dragging the body, wounded him with a brazen spear in the side, which, as he stooped, appeared from beneath the covert of his shield, and he relaxed his limbs [in death]. His soul therefore left him. But over him arose a fierce conflict of Trojans and of Greeks. But they like wolves rushed on each other, and man bore down man. Then Telamonian Ajax smote the blooming youth Simo\u00efsius, son of Anthemion, whom formerly his mother, descending from Ida, brought forth on the banks of Simois, when, to wit, she followed her parents to view the flocks; wherefore they called him Simo\u00efsius. Nor did he repay to his dear parents the price of his early nurture, for his life was short, he being slain with a spear by magnanimous Ajax. For him advancing first, he [Ajax] struck on the breast, near the right pap: and the brazen spear passed out through his shoulder on the opposite side. He fell on the ground in the dust, like a poplar, winch has sprung up in the moist grass-land of an extensive marsh,\u2014branches grow smooth, yet upon the very top, which the chariot-maker lops with the shining steel, that he might bend [it as] a felloe for a beauteous chariot. Drying, it lies indeed on the banks of the river. So did the high-born Ajax spoil Simo\u00efsius, the descendant of Anthemion. But at him Antiphus, of the varied corslet, the son of Priam, took aim through the crowd with a sharp spear. From whom, indeed, it erred: but he struck Leucus, the faithful companion of Ulysses, in the groin, as he was drawing the body aside; but he fell near it, and the body dropped from his hand. For him slain, Ulysses was much enraged in mind; and he rushed through the van, armed in shining brass; and advancing very near, he stood, and casting his eyes all around him, hurled with his glittering spear. But the Trojans retired in confusion, as the hero hurled; he did not, however, hurl the spear in vain, but struck Democoon, the spurious son of Priam, who came from Abydos, from [tending] the swift mares. 191 Him Ulysses, enraged for his companion, struck with his spear in the temple, and the brazen point penetrated through the other temple, and darkness veiled his eyes. Falling he made a crash, and his arms resounded upon him. Both the foremost bands and illustrious Hector fell back. The Argives shouted aloud, and dragged the bodies away: then they rushed farther forward; and Apollo was enraged, looking down from Pergamus; and, shouting out, exhorted the Trojans:\nFootnote 191: (return) Priam had a stud at Abydos, on the Asiatic coast of the Hellespont.\u2014Scholiast.\n\u201cArouse ye, ye horse-breaking Trojans, nor yield the battle to the Greeks; since their flesh is not of stone, nor of iron, that when they are struck, it should withstand the flesh-rending brass; neither does Achilles, the son of fair-haired Thetis, fight, but at the ships he nourishes his vexatious spleen.\u201d\nThus spoke the dreadful god from the city. But most glorious Tritonian Pallas, the daughter of Jove, going through the host, roused the Greeks wherever she saw them relaxing.\nThen fate ensnared Diores, son of Amarynceus; for he was struck with a jagged hand-stone, at the ankle, on the right leg; but Pirus, son of Imbrasus, who came from \u00c6nos, the leader of the Thracian warriors, struck him. The reckless stone entirely crushed both tendons and bones; supine in the dust he fell, stretching forth both hands to his dear companions, and breathing forth his soul. But Pirus, he who struck him, ran up, and pierced him in the navel with his spear; and thereupon all his entrails poured forth upon the ground, and darkness veiled his eyes.\nBut him 192 \u00c6tolian Thoas struck, rushing on with his spear, in the breast over the pap, and the brass was fastened in his lungs: Thoas came near to him, and drew the mighty spear out of his breast; then he unsheathed his sharp sword, and with it smote him in the midst of the belly, and took away his life. But he did not spoil him of his armour, for his companions stood round him, the hair-tufted Thracians, holding long spears in their hands, who drove him from them, though being mighty, and valiant, and glorious; but he, retreating, was repulsed with force. Thus these two were stretched in the dust near to each other; Pirus, indeed, the leader of the Thracians, and Diores, the leader of the brazen-mailed Epeans; and many others also were slain around.\nThen no longer could any man, having come into the field, find fault with the action, who, even as yet neither wounded from distant blows, 193 nor pierced close at hand with the sharp brass, might be busied in the midst, and whom spear-brandishing Minerva might lead, taking him by the hand, and might avert from him the violence of the darts; for many of the Trojans and of the Greeks on that day were stretched prone in the dust beside one another.\nFootnote 192: (return) Pirus.\nFootnote 193: (return) Observe the distinction between \u1f04\u03d1\u03bb\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 and \u1f00\u03ba\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2. See Anthon; Ammonius, p. 29; Valck. \u0392\u03b5\u03d1\u03bb\u1fc6\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03b5\u03bd \u1f10\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c4\u1f78 \u1f10\u03ba \u03b2\u03bf\u03bb\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b5\u03c4\u03c1\u1f7c\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03af, \u03ba\u03b1\u1f30 \u1f10\u03ba \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f10\u03bd\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03af\u03c9\u03bd \u03bf\u1f50\u03c4\u1fb6\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b4\u1f72, \u03c4\u1f78 \u1f10\u03ba \u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03c1\u1f78\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b5\u03c4\u03c1\u1ff6\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THE FIFTH.\nARGUMENT.\nThe exploits of Diomedes, who, irritated by a wound from Pandarus, fights with unremitted fury, and even wounds Venus and Mars, who were aiding the Trojans.\nThen, moreover, Pallas Minerva gave strength and daring to Diomede, the son of Tydeus, that he might become conspicuous amongst all the Argives, and might bear off for himself excellent renown. And she kindled from his helmet and his shield an unwearied fire, like unto the summer 194 star, which shines 195 very brightly, having been bathed in the ocean. Such a fire she kindled from his head and shoulders, and she urged him into the midst, where the greatest numbers were in commotion.\nFootnote 194: (return) I. e. the dog star, Sirius, whose rising marked the beginning of the \u1f40\u03c0\u03ce\u03c1\u03b1, or season extending from the middle of July to the middle of September. It is said to be most brilliant at its time of rising. Cf. Apoll. iii. 956: \u1f4d\u03c2 \u03b4\u03ae \u03c4\u03bf\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u1f78\u03c2 \u03bc\u1f72\u03bd \u1f00\u03c1\u03af\u03b6\u03b7\u03bb\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c4' \u1f10\u03c3\u03b9\u03b4\u03ad\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03af \u1f08\u03bd\u03c4\u03ad\u03bb\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9.\nFootnote 195: (return) This use of the subjunctive mood is called the \u03c3\u03c7\u1fc6\u03bc\u03b1 \u1f38\u03d1\u03cd\u03ba\u03b5\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd by Lesbonax, p. 179, ed. Valck.\nNow there was amongst the Trojans one Dares, rich, blameless, the priest of Vulcan; and he had two sons, Phegeus and Id\u00e6us, well skilled in all kinds of battle: these twain, apart [from their companions], rushed to meet [Diomede]; they on their part, from their two-horse chariot, but he, from the ground, made the attack on foot. When these, therefore, advancing against each other, were now near, Phegeus first hurled forth his long-shadowed spear, and the point of the spear went over the left shoulder of the son of Tydeus, nor did it strike him. But the son of Tydeus next rushed on with his brazen javelin; nor did the weapon fly in vain from his hand, but struck his [Phegeus\u2019s] breast between the paps, and forced him from his chariot. Then Id\u00e6us leaped down, having left the very beautiful chariot, nor ventured to protect his slain brother. [In vain,] for not even he would have escaped gloomy fate, but Vulcan snatched him away, and saved him, having enveloped him in darkness, that the old man might not be altogether sad. But the son of magnanimous Tydeus having taken the horses, gave them to his companions to lead to the hollow ships. When the magnanimous Trojans beheld the sons of Dares, the one 196 flying, the other slain at the chariot, the hearts of all were discomfited. But azure-eyed Minerva, seizing him by the hand, thus addressed impetuous Mars: \u201cMars, Mars, man-slayer, gore-stained, stormer of walls, should we not suffer the Trojans and the Greeks to fight, to which side soever father Jove may give glory; but let us retire, and avoid the wrath of Jove?\u201d\nThus having said, she led impetuous Mars from the battle, and afterwards seated him on grassy 197 Scamander. Then the Greeks turned the Trojans to flight, and each of the leaders slew his man. First Agamemnon, king of men, hurled from his chariot huge Hodius, chief of the Halizonians. For in the back of him first turned [in flight], between his shoulders he fixed the spear, and drove it through his breast; and falling, he made a crash, and his arms resounded upon him.\nBut next Idomeneus killed Ph\u00e6stus, the son of M\u00e6onian Borus, who had come from fertile Tarne. Him, just as he was mounting his chariot, 198 spear-famed Idomeneus, with his long lance, wounded in the right shoulder: he fell from his chariot, and hateful darkness seized him. Then the attendants of Idomeneus despoiled him of his arms.\nFootnote 196: (return) observe the construction by apposition, soph. ant. 21: \u03c4\u1f7c \u03ba\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03b3\u03bd\u03ae\u03c4\u03c9, \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03bc\u1f72\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c4\u03af\u03c3\u03b1\u03c2, \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03b4' \u1f00\u03c4\u03b9\u03bc\u03ac\u03c3\u03b1\u03c2 \u1f14\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9.\u2014561: \u03c4\u1f7c \u03c0\u03b1\u1fd6\u03b4\u03b5 \u03c6\u03b7\u03bc\u1f76 \u03c4\u03ce\u03b4\u03b5 \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u03bc\u1f72\u03bd \u1f00\u03c1\u03c4\u03af\u03c9\u03c2 \u1f04\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd \u03c0\u03b5\u03d5\u03ac\u03bd\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9, \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u03b4' \u1f00\u03d5' \u03bf\u1f57 \u03c4\u1f70 \u03c0\u03c1\u1ff6\u03c4' \u1f14\u03d5\u03c5.\nFootnote 197: (return) see buttm. lexil. p. 324, sqq.\nFootnote 198: (return) I shall generally adopt this translation of \u03ca\u03c0\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9, with anthon.\nMenelaus, the son of Atreus, slew with his sharp 199 spear Scamandrius, son of Strophius, clever in the chase, an excellent huntsman; for Diana herself taught him to shoot all kinds of beasts, which the wood in the mountains nurtures. But then at least arrow-rejoicing Diana availed him not, nor his skill in distant shooting, in which he had been formerly instructed. But spear-renowned Menelaus, son of Atreus, wounded him, flying before him, with a spear in the back, between the shoulders, and drove [the spear] through his breast. Prone he fell, and his arms resounded upon him.\nMeriones slew Phereclus, son of the artist Harmon, who knew how to form with his hands all ingenious things (for Pallas Minerva loved him exceedingly): who also for Alexander had built the equal ships, source of woes, which were a bane to all the Trojans and to himself, since he did not understand the oracles of the gods. 200 Meriones, indeed, when following he overtook him, struck him in the right hip; but the point went right through beneath the bone, near the bladder; and on his knees he fell lamenting, and death overshadowed him.\nFootnote 199: (return) Apoll. Lex. Hom. p. 604, ed. Villois: \u1f40\u03be\u03c5\u03cc\u03b5\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9. \u1ff8 \u03bc\u1f72\u03bd \u1f08\u03c0\u03af\u03c9\u03bd, \u03cc\u03be\u03b5\u1fd6 \u1f14\u03b3\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9, \u1f40\u03be\u03c5\u03cc\u03b5\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9 \u03b4\u1f72, \u1f40\u03be\u03c5\u0390\u03bd\u1ff3. With Anthon, I prefer Apion\u2019s interpretation. Others explain it \u201cbeechen,\u201d or \u201cthorn-wood.\u201d Cf. Alberti on Hesych. p. 766.\nFootnote 200: (return) A doubtful line, but probably referring to an oracle by which the Trojans were recommended to avoid maritime affairs. Cf. Procl. Chrestom. p. 472, ed. Gaisf.\nBut Meges next slew Ped\u00e6us, son of Antenor, who, indeed, was a spurious son, yet noble Theano brought him up with care, equally with her own dear children, gratifying her husband. Him the spear-famed son of Phyleus, on his part, coming near, smote on the back of the head with his sharp spear; the steel cut through his teeth under his tongue. In the dust he fell, and caught the cold steel in his teeth.\nBut Eurypylus, son of Ev\u00e6mon, slew noble Hypsenor, son of magnanimous Dolopion, who was priest of Scamander, and was honoured as a god by the people; him, as he was flying before him, Eurypylus, then, the illustrious son of Ev\u00e6mon, struck in the shoulder in his flight, rushing on with his sword, and cut off his heavy hand: then the gory hand fell in the field; but blood-red death and stern fate seized his eyes.\nThus they on their part laboured in the violent fight. But you would not have known the son of Tydeus, to which side he belonged, whether he was mixed with the Trojans or with the Greeks. For he rushed through the plain, like unto a river swollen by mountain-streams, which flowing rapidly throws down bridges: and this, neither the fortified dams can restrain, nor the fences of the richly-blooming fields check, as it comes suddenly, when the rain-storm of Jove bears down heavily: many hopeful works of vigorous youths are wont to fall by it. Thus by the son of Tydeus were the close phalanxes of the Trojans thrown into confusion; nor did they withstand him, although being numerous.\nWhen, therefore, Pandarus, the illustrious son of Lycaon, saw him rushing through the field, discomfiting the phalanxes before him, he drew his crooked bow, and smote him rushing on, striking him upon the right shoulder [on] the cavity of the corslet: the bitter shaft flew on and broke through to the other side; and the corslet was stained with blood. Whereupon the illustrious son of Lycaon exclaimed aloud:\n\u201cRush on, ye magnanimous Trojans, spurrers of steeds, for the bravest of the Greeks is wounded; nor do I think that he will long endure the violent arrow, if king Apollo, the son of Jove, really urged me proceeding from Lycia.\u201d\nThus he spoke, vaunting; but him [Diomede] the swift arrow did not subdue: but having retreated, he stood before his horses and chariot, and thus accosted Sthenelus, son of Capaneus:\n\u201cHaste, dear son of Capaneus, descend from thy chariot, that thou mayest draw from my shoulder the bitter shaft.\u201d\nThus he spoke, and Sthenelus leaped from his chariot to the ground, and, standing by him, drew the swift, deeply-piercing arrow forth from his shoulder, and the blood spurted out through the twisted mail. Then Diomede, brave in battle, prayed:\n\u201cHear me, O daughter of aegis-bearing Jove, unwearied, if ever favouring thou stoodest by me and my sire in the hostile fight, now in turn befriend me, O Minerva. And grant me to slay this man, and that he may approach within the aim of my spear, who being beforehand has struck me, and boasts, and says that I shall not long behold the brilliant light of the sun.\u201d\nThus he spoke, praying, and Pallas Minerva heard him, and made light his limbs, his feet, and his hands above, and standing near him, spoke winged words:\n\u201cWith confidence, now, O Diomede, fight against the Trojans; for into thy soul have I sent that intrepid ancestral might, such as the shield-brandishing knight Tydeus was wont to possess: and moreover I have taken away the darkness from thine eyes, which before was upon them, that thou mayest discern a god and also a man. Wherefore now, if any divinity come hither, making trial of thee, do thou by no means fight against any other immortal gods; but if Venus, daughter of Jove, should come into battle, wound her at all events with the sharp brass.\u201d\nThus on her part having spoken, azure-eyed Minerva departed: but the son of Tydeus, returning again, was mixed with the van; and ardent as he before was in spirit to fight against the Trojans, then, indeed, thrice as much courage possessed him. Like as a lion, whom the shepherd in the country, by his fleecy sheep, has grazed indeed, while overleaping the court-yard, but has not killed; he [the shepherd] has merely roused his ardour; but afterwards he ventures no farther aid, but on the contrary retires within the fold, while the sheep, deserted, fly in consternation. These, indeed, are huddled in masses one upon another, but he [the lion] leaps joyfully from the lofty fold. 201 So was brave Diomede joyfully mixed with the Trojans.\nThen he slew Astyno\u00fcs, and Hypenor the shepherd of the people: having smote the one above the pap with the brazen lance, but the other he smote with his huge sword on the collar-bone at the shoulder, and separated the shoulder from the neck and back. These, indeed, he left, but rushed on Abas and Poly\u00efdus, the sons of Eurydamas, the aged interpreter of dreams; to whom going to the war, the old man did not interpret their dreams; but brave Diomede spoiled them when slain. Then he went against Xanthus and Thoon, the sons of Ph\u00e6nops, both dearly cherished; 202 but he was worn by sad old age, and did not beget another son to leave over his possessions. These, then, Diomede slew, and took their life from both, but to their father left grief and mournful cares, since he did not receive them returning alive from battle; but his next of kin 203 divided the inheritance amongst them.\nFootnote 201: (return) A very doubtful line.\nFootnote 202: (return) Cf. Buttm. Lexil. p. 511.\nFootnote 203: (return) Schol.: \u03a7\u03b7\u03c1\u03c9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u1f76, \u03bf\u1f76 \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03c7\u1fc6\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd \u03bf\u1fd6\u03ba\u03bf\u03bd \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03bd\u03b5\u03bc\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9 \u03ba\u03bb\u03b7\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9. Apoll. Lex. p. 854: \u039f\u1f76 \u03bc\u03b1\u03ba\u03c1\u03cc\u03b8\u03b5\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03ae\u03ba\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u1f70 \u03b3\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2, \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c7\u1fc6\u03c1\u03b1 \u1f44\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c3\u03cd\u03bd\u03b5\u03b3\u03b3\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c4\u1f70 \u03c7\u03c1\u03ae\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1 \u03ba\u03bb\u03b7\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u03bf\u1fe6\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2.\nThen he seized Echemon and Chromius, two sons of Dardanian Priam, being in one chariot. As when a lion, leaping amidst the herd, has broken the neck of a heifer or of an ox pasturing in a thicket; so did the son of Tydeus forcibly dislodge them both from the chariot against their wills, and then spoiled them of their arms. But the steeds he gave to his companions, to drive to the ships.\nBut him \u00c6neas beheld devastating the ranks of men, and he hastened to go both through the battle and the din of spears, seeking godlike Pandarus, if anywhere he might find him. He found the blameless and valiant son of Lycaon, and stood before him, and spoke [this] word to him:\n\u201cO Pandarus, where are thy bow and thy winged shafts, and thy renown, with which no man here at least contends with thee, nor does any person in Lycia boast to be braver than thou? But come, having raised thy hands to Jove, aim an arrow against this man, (whoever he be, who is thus prevailing, and who has already wrought many ills against the Trojans, since he has relaxed the knees of many and of brave), unless he be some god, wrathful against the Trojans, angry on account of sacrifices [not offered]: and unless the severe wrath of a deity be upon us.\u201d\nHim the illustrious son of Lycaon answered in turn: \u201c\u00c6neas, counsellor of the brazen-mailed Trojans, I assimilate him in all respects to the warlike son of Tydeus, recognizing him by his shield and oblong helmet, and looking on his steeds: but I do not know certainly whether he be a god. But if this man, whom I speak of, be the warlike son of Tydeus, he does not perform these frantic deeds without divine aid, but some one of the immortals stands near, wrapped round as to his shoulders 204 in a cloud, who has turned into another course the swift shaft just about to hit him. For but just now I aimed an arrow at him, and struck him on the right shoulder, entirely through the cavity of his corslet; and I thought I should hurl him down to Pluto; yet did I not altogether subdue him; some god, of a truth, is wrathful. And steeds and chariots are not present, which I might ascend: but somewhere in the palaces of Lycaon [are] eleven chariots, beautiful, newly-built, lately made: coverings are spread around them: and beside each of them stand steeds yoked in pairs, eating white barley and wheat. Of a truth the aged warrior Lycaon gave me, on setting out, very many commands in his well-built palaces: he ordered me, having ascended my steeds and my chariot, to command the Trojans in the fierce conflicts; but I heeded him not (and truly it would have been much better), sparing my steeds, lest they, accustomed to feed largely, should want food, to my cost, 205 the men being shut up [in the city]. Thus I left them; but I have come on foot to Troy, relying on my bow and arrows, but these were not destined to profit me. For lately I aimed [a shaft] at two chiefs, at the son of Tydeus and the son of Atreus; and having struck, I drew blood manifestly from both; but I roused them the more. Therefore, with evil fate I took down my curved bow from the peg, on that day when I led the Trojans to pleasant Ilium, doing a favour to divine Hector. But if I shall return, and shall with these eyes behold my country, and my wife, and my lofty-roofed great palace, immediately may some hostile man cut off my head, if I do not put this bow into the shining fire, having broken it with my hands; for it attends on me to no purpose.\u201d\nFootnote 204: (return) Cf. Hor. Od. i. 2, 31: \u201cNube candentes humeros amictus.\u201d\nFootnote 205: (return) Observe the force of \u03bc\u03bf\u03b9.\nHim then \u00c6neas, the leader of the Trojans, addressed in turn: \u201cSpeak not so: but it will not be otherwise, before that we twain, with horses and chariot, going against this man, make trial of him with arms. But come, ascend my chariot; that thou mayest see of what kind are the steeds of Tros, skilful in the plain to pursue rapidly here and there, and to retreat; they also shall bring us safe again to the city, if Jove will a second time afford glory to Diomede, the son of Tydeus. But come, take the whip now, and the shining reins, and I will descend from the chariot, that I may fight; or do thou await this man, and the steeds shall be my care.\u201d\nHim then the illustrious son of Lycaon answered in turn: \u201c\u00c6neas, do thou thyself hold the reins and thy own steeds: the better will they bear along the curved chariot under their accustomed charioteer, if we shall fly back from the son of Tydeus; lest they, taking fright, should become restive, and be unwilling to bear us away from the war, missing thy voice, and the son of magnanimous Tydeus, rushing on us, should slay ourselves, and drive away thy solid-hoofed steeds. But do thou thyself drive the chariot and thy own steeds, but with my sharp spear will I receive him advancing.\u201d\nThus having said, ascending the variegated chariot, they directed the swift steeds impetuously against the son of Tydeus. But Sthenelus, the illustrious son of Capaneus, perceived them, and immediately to the son of Tydeus he spoke winged words:\n\u201cDiomede, son of Tydeus, most dear to my soul, I perceive two valiant men eager to fight against thee, possessing immense might; one, indeed, well-skilled in the bow, 206 Pandarus, and moreover he boasts to be the son of Lycaon, and \u00c6neas, [who] boasts to be born the son of magnanimous Anchises; but Venus is his mother. But come, let us now retire, having ascended our horses, nor thus, I pray thee, run furiously through the van, lest thou shouldst lose thy dear life.\u201d\nBut him sternly regarding, brave Diomede thus addressed: \u201cTalk not to me of retreat, 207 since I think thou wilt not persuade me. It becomes not my nature to fight in a skulking manner, nor to tremble; as yet my strength is unimpaired. I am averse to mount the chariot, but even as I am will I advance to meet them: spear-brandishing Minerva does not suffer me to tremble. Never shall the swift horses bear these twain both back again from us, supposing even one of them shall escape. But another thing I tell thee, and do thou lay it up in thy soul, if most prudent Minerva should grant me the glory to kill both, then do thou detain here these swift steeds, stretching forth the reins from the rim, and, mindful, rush upon the horses of \u00c6neas, and drive them from the Trojans to the well-greaved Greeks. For they are of that breed which far-seeing Jove gave as a price to Tros for his son Ganymede; wherefore they are the best of steeds, as many as are under the east and the sun. From this breed Anchises, king of men, stole them, having supplied mares without the knowledge of Laomedon: of the breed of these six were foaled in his courts. Reserving four himself, he nourished them at the manger, and two, skilled in rousing terror, he gave to \u00c6neas. If we can take these, we shall have borne away excellent glory.\u201d\nFootnote 206: (return) This bold change of construction, where one would have expected \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03bc\u1f72\u03bd, \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd, \u03b4\u1f72, has been noticed by Lesbonax, p. 186.\nFootnote 207: (return) But Anthon, I think, with more spirit, renders this, \u201cSpeak not at all fearward.\u201d\nThus they were speaking such things to each other; but the others soon drew near, urging onward their swift steeds. The illustrious son of Lycaon first accosted Diomede:\n\u201cStout-hearted, warlike-minded, son of illustrious Tydeus, certainly my swift shaft, my bitter arrow has not slain thee. Now again will I try with my spear, whether I can hit my mark.\u201d  208\nHe said, and brandishing [it], he sent forth his long-shadowed spear, and struck the shield of Tydides: but the brazen spear flying straight through, approached the corslet. Then the son of Lycaon shouted loudly over him:\n\u201cThou art wounded in the flank, through and through, nor do I think thou wilt endure it much longer: but to me hast thou given great glory.\u201d\nBut him the valiant son of Tydeus, undisturbed, addressed: \u201cThou hast erred, nor hast thou reached thine aim; 209 but I certainly think thou wilt not cease, till one of you at least, having fallen, shall satiate Mars, the warrior of the bull\u2019s-hide shield, with his blood.\u201d\nFootnote 208: (return) This is the best manner of expressing the full meaning of \u03c4\u03cd\u03c7\u03c9\u03bc\u03b9.\nFootnote 209: (return) I. e. given a mortal wound.\nThus having spoken, he hurled forth [his lance], and Minerva directed the weapon to his nose, near the eye; and it passed quite through his white teeth: and then unwearied, the brass cut the root of his tongue, and the point came out at the bottom of his chin. From his chariot he fell, and his variegated, shining  210 arms resounded upon him; but his swift-footed steeds started aside through fright, and there were his soul and strength dissolved. \u00c6neas then bounded down with his shield and long spear, fearing lest the Greeks by any means should take the body away from him. He walked round it, therefore, like a lion, confiding in his strength: and before him he stretched out his lance, and his shield equal on all sides, shouting dreadfully, eager to slay him, whoever might come against him. But the son of Tydeus seized in his grasp a hand-stone, a huge affair, such as no two men could carry, such at least as mortals are now; but he even alone easily wielded it. With it he struck \u00c6neas on the hip, where the thigh is turned in the hip;\u2014they call it the socket;\u2014the socket he smote violently, and broke besides both tendons, and the rugged stone tore off the skin. But the hero having fallen on his knees, remained so, and supported himself with his strong hand upon the ground, and dark night veiled his eyes.\nFootnote 210: (return) But Buttm. Lexil. p. 65 prefers \u201cagile,\u201d i. e. easily-wielded.\nAnd there, of a truth, \u00c6neas, the king of men, had perished, unless Venus, the daughter of Jove, had quickly perceived him, his mother, who brought him forth to Anchises as he fed his oxen; 211 but around her own dear son she spread her white arms, and before him she extended the folds of her shining robe, as a fence against arrows, lest any of the swift-horsed Greeks having cast the steel into his breast, should take away his life. She, indeed, stealthily bore off her beloved son from the battle. Nor was the son of Capaneus forgetful of those commands which warlike Diomede gave him: but he detained his own solid-hoofed steeds apart from the tumult, having stretched forth the reins from the rim; and rushing forward, drove from the Trojans to the well-greaved Greeks the beautiful-maned steeds of \u00c6neas, and gave them to Deipylus, his beloved companion (whom he honoured above all his coevals, because he possessed in his mind sentiments congenial with himself), to drive them to the hollow ships: but the hero himself, having ascended his chariot, took the splendid reins; and instantly drove his solid-hoofed steeds after the son of Tydeus with ardour; but Diomede pursued Venus with the cruel steel, 212 knowing that she was an unwarlike goddess, nor [one] of those goddesses who administer the war of men, neither Minerva, nor city-destroying Bellona. But when he had now overtaken her, having pursued her through a great crowd, then the son of magnanimous Tydeus, having stretched forward, wounded the feeble [goddess] in the extremity of the hand, bounding on with the sharp brass. Instantly the spear pierced through the skin, through her ambrosial robe (which the Graces themselves had wrought), at the extremity [of the hand] above the palm. Immortal blood flowed from the goddess, ichor, such, to wit, as flows from the blessed gods. For they eat not bread, nor drink dark wine; therefore are they bloodless, and are called immortal. But she screaming aloud, cast her son from her: and him Phoebus Apollo rescued in his hands in a sable cloud, lest any of the swift-horsed Greeks, casting the steel into his breast, should take away his life. But warlike Diomede shouted loudly after her:\nFootnote 211: (return) Cf. Theocrit. i. 105: \u039f\u03cd \u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u1f70\u03bd \u039a\u03cd\u03c0\u03c1\u03b9\u03bd \u1f78 \u03b2\u03bf\u03c5\u03ba\u03cc\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2, \u1f15\u03c1\u03c0\u03b5 \u03c0\u03bf\u03c4' \u1f38\u03b4\u1f70\u03bd, \u1f1c\u03c1\u03c0\u03b5 \u03c0\u03bf\u03c4' \u1f08\u03b3\u03c7\u03af\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd. See Hymn, in Vener. 54, sqq.; and Grote, Hist. of Greece, vol. i. p. 73.\nFootnote 212: (return) It is well known that these battles and woundings of the gods gave so much scandal to Plato, that he wished to cast Homer out of his republic, much to the indignation of Heraclides Ponticus, Alleg. Hom. p. 511. The fathers of the early church made no small use of Plato\u2019s opinion on this head. Cf. Euseb. P. E. ii. 10; Tertull. Apol. \u00a7 xiv.; Augustin, C. D. ii. 14; Minucius Felix, 22; who all make use of his testimony as an argument against Paganism. See Coleridge, Classic Poets, p. 64.\n\u201cWithdraw, O daughter of Jove, from war and battle. Is it not sufficient that thou dost practise deception upon feeble women? But if thou wilt go to the war, I certainly think thou wilt hereafter dread battle, even though thou but hearest of it elsewhere.\u201d\nThus he spoke: but she departed, distracted [with pain], for she was grievously exhausted. But swift-footed Iris having taken her, led her outside the crowd, oppressed with griefs; but she began to turn livid as to her beauteous skin. Then she found impetuous Mars sitting at the left of the battle; and his spear and swift horses had been enveloped in darkness. But she, falling on her knees, with many entreaties besought from her dear brother his golden-frontleted steeds:\n\u201cDear brother, render me a service, and give me thy steeds, that I may go to Olympus, where is the seat of the immortals. I am grievously oppressed with a wound which a mortal man, the son of Tydeus, inflicted on me, who now would fight even with father Jove.\u201d\nThus she spoke: but Mars gave her the golden-frontleted steeds. But she mounted the chariot, grieving in her heart; and Iris mounted beside her, and took the reins in her hands, and scourged them to go on, and they flew not unwillingly. And immediately then they reached the seat of the gods, the lofty Olympus. There nimble, swift-footed Iris stayed the steeds, having loosed them from the chariot, and set before them ambrosial fodder. But the goddess Venus fell at the knees of her mother Dione; and she embraced her daughter in her arms, and soothed her with her hand, and addressed her, and said:\n\u201cWhich of the heavenly gods, beloved daughter, has wantonly done such things to thee, as if thou hadst openly wrought some evil?\u201d\nBut her laughter-loving Venus answered: \u201cThe son of Tydeus, haughty Diomede, has wounded me, because I was withdrawing from battle my beloved son \u00c6neas, who is by far most dear to me of all. For it is no longer the destructive contest of Trojans and of Greeks; but now the Greeks fight even with the immortals.\u201d\nBut her Dione, divine one of goddesses, answered: \u201cEndure, my daughter, and bear up, although grieved; for many of us, possessing Olympian habitations, have in times past endured pains at the hand of men, 213 imposing heavy griefs on one another. Mars, in the first place, endured it, when Otus and valiant Ephialtes, the sons of Alo\u00ebus, bound him in a strong chain. He was chained in a brazen prison for thirteen months: and perhaps Mars, insatiate of war, had perished there, had not his stepmother, all-fair E\u00ebrib\u00e6a, told it to Mercury; but he stole Mars away, already exhausted, for the cruel chain subdued him. Juno also suffered, when the brave son of Amphitryon smote her in the right breast with a three-pronged shaft. Then most irremediable pain seized her. Amongst these Pluto also endured a swift shaft, when the same hero, the son of \u00e6gis-bearing Jove, afflicted him with pains at Pylos amongst the dead, having wounded him. But he went to the palace of Jove, and the lofty Olympus, grieving in his heart, and transfixed with pains; for the shaft had pierced into his huge shoulder, and tortured his soul. But P\u00e6on healed him, sprinkling pain-assuaging remedies, for he was not at all mortal. Audacious, regardless one! who felt no compunction in doing lawless deeds,\u2014who with his bow violated the gods that dwell in Olympus. But against thee azure-eyed goddess Minerva has excited this man. Infatuate! nor does the son of Tydeus know this in his mind, that he is by no means long-lived who fights with the immortals, nor ever at his knees will sons lisp a father\u2019s name, as he returns from war and dreadful battle. Therefore, let the son of Tydeus now, though he be very brave, have a care, lest a better than thou fight with him: lest at a future time \u00c6gial\u00eba, the very prudent daughter of Adrastus, the noble spouse of horse-taming Diomede, grieving, should rouse her servants from sleep, longing for the husband of her youth, the bravest of the Greeks.\u201d\nFootnote 213: (return) Speaking of these humiliations of the gods, Grote, Hist. t. i. p. 78, well observes: \u201cThe god who serves is for a time degraded; but the supreme god who commands the servitude is in the like proportion exalted, whilst the idea of some sort of order and government among these super-human beings was never lost sight of.\u201d\nShe spoke, and with her palms wiped off the ichor from her hand: the hand was healed, and the severe pains mitigated. But then Minerva and Juno looking on, provoked Saturnian Jove with heart-cutting words; but amidst them azure-eyed goddess Minerva thus began speaking:\n\u201cFather Jove, wilt thou indeed be angry with me on account of what I shall say? Surely it must be that Venus, inspiring some one of the Grecian women with a desire of accompanying the Trojans, whom now she exceedingly loves, while caressing one of those fair-robed Grecian women, has torn her delicate hand against a golden buckle.\u201d\nThus she spoke: but the father of men and gods smiled, and having called, he thus accosted golden Venus:\n\u201cNot to thee, daughter mine, are intrusted warlike works; but do thou confine thyself to the desirable offices of marriage, and all these things shall be a care to swift Mars and to Minerva.\u201d\nThus they, indeed, were speaking such things to each other. But Diomede, doughty in the din of battle, rushed upon \u00c6neas, conscious that Apollo himself held over him his hands. But he revered not the mighty god, for he always longed to slay \u00c6neas, and despoil him of his glorious armour. Thrice then, immediately, he rushed on, eager to slay him, and thrice Apollo repelled his shield with violence; but when at length the fourth time he rushed on, like a god, the far-darting Apollo menacing terribly, addressed him: \u201cConsider, O son of Tydeus, and retire, nor wish to think things equal with the gods; for the race of the immortal gods and of men walking on the earth is in nowise similar.\u201d\nThus he spoke: but the son of Tydeus retired a little, biding the wrath of far-darting Apollo. But Apollo placed \u00c6neas apart from the crowd, in sacred Pergamus, where his temple was. 214 Latona and shaft-rejoicing Diana healed him in the mighty shrine, and adorned him with glory. But silver-bowed Apollo formed a phantom like unto \u00c6neas himself and such in arms. Around the phantom the Trojans and the noble Greeks smote on each others\u2019 breasts the well-battered ox-hide shields, and the light bucklers. Then at length Ph\u0153bus Apollo addressed impetuous Mars:\nFootnote 214: (return) \u201cOn the Trojan citadel of Pergamus itself was a temple of Apollo, Diana and Latona; and hence Homer represents these three deities protecting the falling city.\u201d\u2014\u039c\u00fcller, Dorians, vol. i. p. 248.\n\u201cMars! Mars! man-slaughterer, gore-tainted, wall-batterer! wouldst not thou now, meeting this man, the son of Venus, withdraw him from the battle, who would even now cope with father Jove? First, indeed, in close combat, he wounded Venus in the hand, at the wrist; but then he assailed me, like unto a god.\u201d\nThus having spoken, he sat down on lofty Pergamus; but destructive Mars aroused the ranks of the Trojans, going through them, assimilating himself to Acamus, the swift leader of the Thracians, and thus he harangued the Jove-nourished sons of Priam:\n\u201cYe sons of Priam, Jove-nourished king, how long will ye suffer the people to be slain by the Greeks? Is it until they fight around the well-made gates? A hero lies prostate, whom we honoured equally with noble Hector, the son of magnanimous Anchises. But come, let us rescue from the assault our excellent companion.\u201d\nThus having spoken, he excited the might and courage of heart. Then Sarpedon much rebuked noble Hector:\nHector, where now has that strength gone, which thou didst formerly possess? Thou saidst, I ween, that thou, with thy kindred and thy brothers, couldst defend the city without the forces and allies. Now I can neither see nor perceive any of these; but they crouch down, like dogs but a lion: we, on the contrary, who are here mere allies, bear the brunt of the fight. Even I, being thine ally, have come from a very great distance; for far off is Lycia, at lying Xanthus, where I left my beloved wife and my infant son, and many possessions, which he who is poor covets: but I, nevertheless, exhort the Lycians, and ready myself to fight with that hero; and yet there is here to me such store as the Greeks can carry or let. But thou standest still, and dost not exhort even the forces to stand and to defend their wives. Beware perchance, as though ensnared in the meshes of an alluring net, thou become a prey and a spoil to hostile for quickly will they destroy thy well-inhabited city. As it behoves thee, both night and day, to interest thyself in these matters, beseeching the chiefs of thy far-summoned force to persevere with ardour, and forego their violent strife.\nThus spoke Sarpedon, but his speech gnawed the heart of Hector, and immediately he leaped from his chariot with his armour to the ground, and brandishing his sharp spear, went in all directions through the army, exhorting the battle; and he stirred up a grievous conflict. The Trojans rallied and stood against the Greeks; but the Greeks stood in close array, withstood them, nor fled.\nAnd as the wind scatters the chaff about the threshing-floors, when men are winnowing [it], and yellow Ceres is separating both the grain and the chaff, the winds rush along; and the chaff-heaps 215 grow white beneath; thus then the Greeks became white with the chaff from above, which indeed through them, as they again mingled in the combat, the feet of the steeds struck up [the ground] to the brazen heaven; for the charioteers turning back. But they directed the strength of theirs straight forward; and fierce Mars spread a vapour over the battle, aiding the Trojans, going about everywhere, echoing the commands of golden-sworded Ph\u0153bus Apollo and ordered him to excite the courage of the Trojans, whenever he should see Pallas Minerva departing; for she was an ally of the Greeks. But he sent forth \u00c6neas from his very rich shrine and infused strength into the breast of the shepherd of the people.\nFootnote 215: (return) But cf. Schol. \u03bf\u1f31 \u03c4\u03cc\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9 \u03b5\u1f30\u03c2 \u03bf\u1f53\u03c2 \u03c4\u1f70 \u1f04\u03c7\u03c5\u03c1\u03b1 \u1f10\u03ba\u03c0\u03af\u03c0\u03c4\u03b5\u03b9.\nThen \u00c6neas placed himself amidst his companions and they rejoiced when they saw him approaching alive, unhurt and having excellent strength. They did not ever, ask any questions; for a different labour did not pale which the silver-bowed god and man-slaughtering war and Strife insatiably raging, had excited. But then Greeks, the two Ajaces, and Ulysses and Diomede, urged on to fight. But they, even by themselves, feared neither the violent attacks 216 of the Trojans, nor their shouts: but remained firm, like unto clouds, which the son of Saturn, during a calm, has placed upon the lofty mountains, at rest, when the might of Boreas sleeps, 217 and of the other impetuous winds, which, blowing with shrill blasts, disperse the shadowy clouds. Thus the Greeks awaited the Trojans, standing firm, nor fled. But the son of Atreus kept hurrying through the host, exhorting them much:\n\u201cO friends, be men, and assume a valiant heart, and feel shame 218 towards each other through the fierce engagements: for more of those men who dread shame are safe, than are slain; but from fugitives neither does any glory arise, nor any assistance.\u201d\nHe spoke, and darted with his spear quickly, and struck D\u00ebicoon, son of Pergasis, a warrior chief, the companion of magnanimous \u00c6neas, whom the Trojans honoured equally with the sons of Priam; since he was prompt to fight amidst the van. Him then king Agamemnon struck in the shield with his spear, but it [the shield] did not repel the spear, for even through this it passed onwards, and pierced him through the belt, at the lower part of the stomach. And he made a crash as he fell, and his arms rattled over him.\nHere then \u00c6neas slew some brave heroes of the Greeks,\u2014Crethon and Orsilochus, the sons of Diocles: their father, indeed, rich in sustinence, 219 dwelt in well-built Pher\u00e6; but his origin was from the river Alpheus, which flows widely through the land of the Pylians. Alpheus begat Orsilochus, a prince over many men; but Orsilochus begat magnanimous Diocles; and of Diocles were born two sons, Crethon and Orsilochus, well skilled in all kinds of battle. These, indeed, in the bloom of youth, in their sable ships followed with the Argives to Ilium famed for noble steeds, seeking honour for the sons of Atreus, Agamemnon and Menelaus: but there the end of death overshadowed them.\nFootnote 216: (return) Such seems to be the force of the plural \u03b2\u03af\u03b1\u03c2.\nFootnote 217: (return) \u201cAscending, while the north wind sleeps.\u201d\u2014Milton, P. L. ii. 489.\nFootnote 218: (return) I. e. be ashamed to fly or give way. Compare Plato, Sympos. p. 317, F. G. ed. L\u00e6m., where he dwells upon the advantages of friends fighting together, as rendering men ashamed of any cowardly action.\nFootnote 219: (return) This construction with the genitive is very common in Latin. Virg. Georg. ii. 468: \u201cdives opum.\u201d \u00c6n. i. 18; Hor. Ep. ii. 2, 31; Od. iv. 8, 5; Silius, i. 393.\nThey two, 220 just as two lions have been reared under their dam, amid the thickets of a deep wood, on a mountain\u2019s heights; they in process of time seizing oxen and fat sheep, lay waste the stalls of men, till at length they are themselves killed by the hands of men with the sharp brass; such these two, subdued by the hands of \u00c6neas, fell like lofty firs. Then Menelaus, brave in the din of war, pitied them fallen, and went through the van, equipped in shining brass, brandishing his spear; for Mars kindled his strength, with the design that he should be subdued by the hands of \u00c6neas.\nBut him Antilochus, son of magnanimous Nestor, beheld, and proceeded through the van, for he feared much for the shepherd of the people, lest he should suffer anything, and greatly disappoint them of [the fruits of] their labour. And now they were stretching forth their hands and sharp spears against each other, eager to fight; but Antilochus stood very near the shepherd 221 of the people. But \u00c6neas, though a brisk warrior, remained not, when he beheld the two heroes standing near each other. When, therefore, they had drawn the dead bodies 222 to the people of the Greeks, they gave the miserable pair into the hands of their companions; and they themselves, returning back, fought in the van.\nFootnote 220: (return) The order is, \u03c4\u03ce\u03b3\u03b5, \u03bf\u1f34\u03c9 \u03bb\u03ad\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5 \u03b4\u03cd\u03c9. Anthon refers to K\u00fchner 1. 443, 4, p. 97, Jelf\u2019s Translation.\nFootnote 221: (return) See note on ver. 50.\nFootnote 222: (return) Of the sons of Diocles.\nThen they slew Pyl\u00e6menes, equal to Mars, general of the magnanimous shielded Paphlagonians. Him indeed the son of Atreus, spear-renowned Menelaus, wounded with a spear as he stood, having smote him on the collar-bone. But Antilochus on his part smote the charioteer Mydon, his brave attendant, the son of Atymnias (now he was in the act of turning his solid-hoofed steeds), having struck him with a hand-stone on the elbow; immediately the reins, white with ivory, fell from his hands on the ground in the dust. But Antilochus, rushing on, smote him with his sword in the temple, and panting he fell from the well-made chariot, headlong in the dust, on his head and his shoulders. Very long he stood (for he fell on deep sand), till the two horses, striking him, cast him to the ground in the dust: but Antilochus lashed them on, and drove them to the army of the Greeks.\nBut them Hector discerned through the ranks, and rushed on them, vociferating, and with him followed the brave phalanxes of the Trojans. Mars and venerable Bellona led them; she, on the one hand, bearing with her tumultuous Din, but Mars, on the other, brandished a huge spear in his hands. At one time, indeed, he paced before Hector, at another after him.\nBut him Diomede, brave in fight, seeing, trembled. As when a man, uncertain of his course, passing over a great plain, has stopped at a swift-flowing river, running into the sea, beholding it boiling with foam, and retreats back in haste: so then did the son of Tydeus retire, and he said to the host:\n\u201cO friends, how do we all admire noble Hector, that he is both a spearman and a daring warrior! But with him one at least of the gods is ever present, who wards off death; even now Mars in person stands by him like unto a mortal man. But retreat back, [with your faces] turned always to the Trojans, nor desire to fight valiantly against the gods.\u201d\nThus then he said: but the Trojans advanced very near them. There Hector slew two heroes skilled in battle, Menesthes and Anchialus, being in one chariot. But mighty Telamonian Ajax pitied them falling; and advancing he stood very near them, and launched with his shining spear, and smote Amphius, son of Selagus, who, exceedingly rich in property and crops, dwelt in P\u00e6sus. But fate had led him as an ally to Priam and his sons. Him Telamonian Ajax smote on the belt, and the long-shadowed spear was fixed in the pit of his stomach. Falling, he made a crash, and illustrious Ajax ran up to him, about to spoil [him of] his armour; but the Trojans poured upon him sharp spears, shining all around, and his shield received many. But he, pressing on him with his heel, drew from the body his brazen spear; however, he was not able to take off from his shoulders any other beautiful armour, for he was pressed upon with weapons. He also dreaded the stout defence of haughty Trojans, 223 who, both numerous and doughty, stood around, stretching forth their spears, and who drove him away from them, although being mighty, and valiant, and renowned. But he, retiring, was repelled by force.\nFootnote 223: (return) Cf. Lex. Seg. 6, p. 336. Bekk.: \u1f00\u03b3\u03ad\u03c1\u03c9\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2, \u03c3\u03b5\u03bc\u03bd\u1f78\u03c2, \u1f51\u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03cc\u03c0\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2, \u03d1\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03cd\u03c2. On the different and doubtful etymologies of this word, see Alberti on Hesych. t. i. p, 44, and Buttm. Lexil. p. 19, sq.\nThus they, on the one hand, toiled through the violent conflict. But violent fate urged on Tlepolemus, the brave and great son of Hercules, against godlike Sarpedon. But when they, the son and grandson of cloud-collecting Jove, were now rushing against one another, Tlepolemus first addressed him [Sarpedon]:\n\u201cSarpedon, chief of the Lycians, what necessity is there for thee, being a man unskilled in war, to tremble here? Falsely do they say that thou art the offspring of \u00e6gis-bearing Jove, since thou art far inferior to those heroes, who were of Jove, in the time of ancient men. But what sort do they say that Hercules was, my bold-minded, lion-hearted father? who formerly coming hither, on account of the steeds of Laomedon, with six ships only, and with a few men, laid waste the city of Ilium, and widowed its streets. But thou hast an ignoble mind, and thy forces are perishing away; nor do I think that thou wilt be an assistance to the Trojans, having come from Lycia, not even if thou be exceedingly valiant; but that, slain by me, thou wilt pass through the gates of Hades.\u201d\nBut him Sarpedon, leader of the Lycians, in return accosted: \u201cTlepolemus, he indeed overturned sacred Ilium, through the folly of the hero, famous Laomedon, who reproved with harsh language him who had deserved well, nor did he give back the steeds, on account of which he came from afar. But I tell thee that here slaughter and gloomy death will befall thee at my hands; and that, subdued by my spear, thou wilt give glory to me, and a spirit to steed-famed 224 Pluto.\u201d\nFootnote 224: (return) An epithet probably derived from the steeds (\u201cinferni raptoris equos,\u201d Claudian, de R. P. i. 1) employed in the abduction of Proserpine.\nThus spoke Sarpedon: but Tlepolemus raised his ashen spear, and from their hands, at the same moment, flew the long spears. Sarpedon, on his part, struck the centre of [his adversary\u2019s] neck, and the grievous weapon passed right through; and gloomy night overspread his eyes. But Tlepolemus in the meantime had struck Sarpedon in the left thigh with his long spear; and the spear, rushing with violence, passed through, grazing the bone: but his father as yet averted death.\nHis noble companions bore godlike Sarpedon from the battle; but the long spear, trailed along with him, pained him; but this no one of them hastening noticed, nor thought of extracting from his thigh the ashen spear, that he might ascend the chariot; for such anxiety did his attendants entertain for him. But on the other side the well-greaved Greeks carried Tlepolemus from the fight; and divine Ulysses, possessing an enduring heart, perceived them, and his soul was stirred within him. And then he anxiously pondered in his mind and soul, whether he should pursue farther the son of loud-thundering Jove, or should take away the lives of many more Lycians. But it was not fated for magnanimous Ulysses to slay the brave son of Jove with the sharp spear. Therefore Minerva turned his thoughts towards the multitude of the Lycians. Then he slew C\u0153ranus, and Alastor, and Chromius, and Alcander, and Halius, and No\u00ebmon, and Prytanis. And yet more Lycians would noble Ulysses have slain, had not mighty crest-tossing Hector quickly perceived him. He therefore went through the van, armed in shining brass, bearing terror to the Greeks: then Sarpedon, the son of Jove, rejoiced at him approaching, and spoke [this] mournful address:\n\u201cO son of Priam, I pray thee, suffer me not to lie a prey to the Greeks, but aid me. Even then 225 let life forsake me in thy city; since I was not destined to gladden my dear wife and infant son, returning home to my dear fatherland.\u201d\nFootnote 225: (return) I. e. when you have rescued my body from the foe, I will die content in Troy.\u2014Anthon.\nThus he spoke: but him plume-waving Hector answered nought, but flew past him, in order that he might repel the Greeks with all haste, and take away the lives of many. His noble companions meantime placed godlike Sarpedon under a very beautiful beech of \u00e6gis-bearing Jove. Stout Pelagon then, who was his beloved companion, forced out the ashen spear from his thigh. Thereupon animation left him, and darkness was poured over his eyes; but he again revived, for the breeze of Boreas, breathing upon him around, refreshed in spirit him panting with difficulty.\nBut the Greeks, on account of Mars and brazen-helmed Hector, neither were driven at any time back to their sable ships, nor did they advance forward to battle; but always kept giving ground, since they had heard that Mars was with the Trojans.\nThen whom first, whom last did Hector, the son of Priam, and brazen Mars slay? The godlike Teuthras, and moreover the knight Orestes, the \u00c6tolian spearman Trechus, and \u0152nomaus, and Helenus of the race of \u0152nops, and Oresbius of flexible 226 belt, who dwelt in Hyla, near the lake Cephissus, very intent on wealth: and near him dwelt other B\u0153otians, having a very rich territory.\nFootnote 226: (return) Cf. Buttm. Lexil. p. 66. I. e. \u201ca belt which he could easily move, and which, from its suppleness and flexibility, yielded to the pressure of his person.\u201d\u2014Anthon.\nWhen therefore the white-armed goddess Juno perceived these Greeks perishing in the violent engagement, straightway to Minerva she addressed winged words:\n\u201cStrange! O daughter of \u00e6gis-bearing Jove, unwearied one, certainly we have made a vain promise to Menelaus, that he should return after having destroyed well-walled Ilium, if we suffer destructive Mars thus to rage. But come, let us too bethink ourselves of some powerful aid.\u201d\nThus she spoke; nor did the azure-eyed goddess Minerva disobey her. Juno, on her part, venerable goddess, daughter of mighty Saturn, quickly moving, harnessed her gold-caparisoned steeds; but Hebe speedily applied to the chariot, to the iron axletree on both sides, the curved wheels, golden, with eight spokes. Of these, indeed, the felloe is of gold, imperishable: but above [are] brazen tires fastened on them, wonderful to be seen; but the circular naves on both sides are of silver; and the body 227 was stretched on with gold and silver thongs (there was a double circular rim); from this projected a silver pole; at its extremity she bound the golden, beauteous yoke, and to it attached the beautiful golden poitrels. But Juno, longing for conquest and battle, led the swift-footed steeds under the yoke.\nFootnote 227: (return) \u03b4\u03af\u03c6\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 is properly the seat, but is here put for the whole chariot.\nMinerva, on the other hand, the daughter of \u00e6gis-bearing Jove, let flow down on her father\u2019s floor her dainty robe of variegated hue, which she herself had wrought and worked with her own hands: then she, having put on her tunic, equipped herself for the tearful war in the armour of cloud-compelling Jove, and around her shoulders she then threw the fringed \u00e6gis, dreadful, around which on all sides Terror appears plumed. Thereon was Strife, thereon Fortitude, and thereon was chilling Pursuit; 228 on it was the Gorgonian head of the dreadful monster, dire, horrible, a portent of \u00e6gis-bearing Jove. On her head she placed her four-crested helmet, with a spreading metal ridge, 229 golden, sufficient for the heavy-armed of a hundred cities. She then stepped into her shining chariot with her feet; and took her spear, heavy, huge, and sturdy, with which she, sprung from a dread sire, subdues the ranks of heroic men, with whomsoever she is wroth. But Juno with the lash quickly urged on the steeds. The gates of heaven creaked spontaneously, the gates which the Hours guarded, to whom are intrusted the mighty heaven and Olympus, as well to open the dense cloud as to close it. In this way, indeed, through these gates, they drove their steeds, urged on with the goad: and they found the son of Saturn sitting apart from the other gods on the highest summit of many-peaked Olympus. There staying her steeds, the white-armed goddess Juno interrogated supreme Saturnian Jove, and thus addressed him:\n\u201cO father Jove, art thou not indignant at Mars for these bold deeds,\u2014how numerous and how choice a multitude of Greeks he has destroyed rashly, nor as became him: a grief indeed to me; but Venus and silver-bowed Apollo in quiet are delighted, having let slip this frantic [god], who knows no rights. Father Jove, wilt thou be angry with me if I drive Mars from the battle, having dreadfully wounded him?\u201d\nFootnote 228: (return) Compare \u03c1\u03bf\u03af\u03c9\u03be\u03b9\u03c2 and \u03b1\u03bb\u03af\u03c9\u03be\u03b9\u03c2, similarly personified, in Hesiod, Scut. Herc. 134, and Virg. \u00c6n. viii. 701:\n\n\n\u201c\u2014tristesque ex \u00e6there Dir\u00e6,\nEt sciss\u00e2 gaudens vadit Discordia pall\u00e2;\nQuam cum sanguineo sequitur Bellona flagello.\u201d\n\n\nFootnote 229: (return) See note on iii. 362.\nBut her answering, cloud-compelling Jove addressed:\n\u201cCome, incite the pillaging Minerva against him, who is very wont to cause him to approach grievous woes.\u201d\nThus he spoke: nor did the white-armed goddess Juno disobey, but she lashed on her steeds. They flew, not unwillingly, midway between the earth and the starry heaven. Now, as much haze 230 as a man sees with his eyes, sitting upon some lofty point, and looking over the darkling ocean, so far do the high-sounding steeds of the gods clear at one bound. But when they now reached Troy, and the two flowing rivers, where Simois and Scamander unite their streams, there the white-armed goddess Juno stayed her steeds, having loosed them from the chariot, and shed a dense mist around them. But to them Simois afforded ambrosial food to feed on.\nBut they went on, like unto timid doves in their pace, hastening to assist the Grecian heroes. But when they had now arrived where the most numerous 231 and the bravest stood collected in dense array round horse-breaking Diomede, like raw-devouring lions or wild boars, whose strength is not feeble, there standing, the white-armed goddess Juno shouted aloud, having likened herself to great-hearted, brazen-voiced Stentor, who was accustomed to shout as loud as fifty other men:\nFootnote 230: (return) Opposed to the pure air of \u00e6ther. See Buttm. Lexil. p. 37, sqq.\nFootnote 231: (return) Observe the elegant position of the plural verb between two singular substantives, according to the Schema Alemanicum. Compare Od. K, 513, and Il. Y, 138, which have been pointed out by Lesbonax, p. 179, ed. Valck.\n\u201cShame! ye Greeks! foul subjects of disgrace! admirable in form [alone]. As long, indeed, as divine Achilles was wont to be engaged in the war, the Trojans were not in the habit of advancing beyond the Dardan gates; for they dreaded his mighty spear; but now they fight at the hollow ships, far away from the city.\u201d\nThus saying, she aroused the strength and courage of each. The azure-eyed goddess Minerva rushed towards the son of Tydeus; but she found that prince by his steeds and chariot, cooling the wound which Pandarus had inflicted on him with a shaft. For perspiration had afflicted him beneath the broad belt of his well-orbed shield: with this was he afflicted, and he was fatigued as to his hand; and raising the belt, he wiped away the black gore. Then the goddess touched the yoke of the horses, and said:\n\u201cLittle like himself has Tydeus begotten a son. Tydeus was certainly small in body, but a warrior. And even when I suffered him not to fight, nor to rush furiously to battle, when he came far from the Greeks, an ambassador to Thebes to the numerous Cadmeans, I commanded him to feast quietly in the palaces; but he, retaining his doughty spirit, as before, challenged the youths, the Cadmeans, and easily conquered them in everything; so great an auxiliary was I to him. But thee, indeed, I stand by and preserve, and I exhort thee freely to fight against the Trojans. But either weariness, from great toil, has entered thy limbs, or at least disheartening fear in some manner possesses thee. Thou art not henceforth to be deemed at least the son of Tydeus, the gallant son of \u00c6neus.\u201d\nBut her valiant Diomede answering addressed: \u201cI know thee, O goddess, daughter of \u00e6gis-bearing Jove; therefore will I willingly tell this word to thee, nor will I conceal it. Neither does any disheartening fear possess me, nor any sloth: but as yet I am mindful of thy mandates, which thou didst enjoin. Thou didst not suffer me to fight with the other happy gods; but if Venus, the daughter of Jove, should come into the battle, to wound her at least with the sharp steel. Wherefore now I myself retire, and have ordered all the other Greeks to be collected here: for I perceive Mars dispensing the battle.\u201d\nBut him the azure-eyed goddess Minerva then answered: \u201cDiomede, son of Tydeus, most dear to my soul, neither fear this Mars at all, nor any other of the immortals; such an auxiliary am I to thee. But come, first direct thy solid-hoofed steeds against Mars, strike him in close combat, nor regard impetuous Mars, this frenzied and unnatural pest, shifter from one to another; who lately haranguing promised me and Juno, that he would fight against the Trojans, and aid the Greeks; but now he mixes with the Trojans, and has forgotten these.\u201d\nThus having said, she forced Sthenelus from his horses to the ground, dragging him back with her hand; but he promptly leaped down. Then the goddess herself, infuriate, ascended the chariot beside noble Diomede, and greatly did the beechen axle groan under the weight; for it bore a dreadful goddess and a very brave hero. Then Pallas Minerva seized the scourge and the reins. Straightway she drove the solid-hoofed steeds against Mars first. He, indeed, had just slain huge Periphas, the illustrious son of Ochesius, by far the bravest of the \u00c6tolians. Him indeed gore-stained Mars slew; but Minerva put on the helmet of Pluto that impetuous Mars might not see her.\nBut when man-slaughtering Mars saw noble Diomede, he suffered huge Periphas to lie there, where first slaying him he had taken away his life, but he went straight against horse breaking Diomede. And when these came near, advancing against each other, Mars first, over the yoke and the reins of the steeds, stretched himself forward with his brazen spear, eager to take away his life. It then the azure-eyed goddess Minerva having caught in her hand, turned from the chariot, so as to be borne away in vain. But next Diomede, valiant in the din of war, made the attack with his brazen spear; and Pallas Minerva firmly fastened it in his lowest flank, where he was girt with his belt. In that very part striking, she wounded him, and tore his beautiful skin, and drew out the spear again. Then roared brazen Mars, as loud as nine or ten thousand men roar in war, joining the strife of battle. And then fear seized the terrified Greeks and Trojans, so loud bellowed Mars, insatiate of war.\nAnd as when from the clouds, a gloomy haze appears, a heavy-blowing wind arising from heat; such did brazen Mars appear to Diomede, son of Tydeus, going amid the clouds into the broad heaven. Quickly he reached lofty Olympus, the seat of the gods, and sat near Saturnian Jove, grieving in his heart, and showed the immortal blood flowing down from the wound, and complaining, he spoke winged words:\n\u201cFather Jove, art thou not incensed beholding these violent deeds? Ever, of a truth, are we deities suffering most grievous woes from the machinations of each other, and [whilst] conferring favour upon men. We all are indignant with thee; 232 for thou hast begotten a mad, pernicious daughter, to whom evil works are ever a care. For all the other gods, as many as are in Olympus, obey thee, and unto thee each of us is subject. But her thou restrainest not by words, nor by any act, but dost indulge her, since thou thyself didst beget this destructive daughter. Who now has urged on Diomede, the overbearing son of Tydeus, to rage against the immortal gods. Venus he first wounded, in close fight, in the hand at the wrist; and, equal to a god, he afterwards rushed on myself; but my swift feet withdrew me; [otherwise] I should certainly for a long time have endured woes there amidst the dreadful heaps of slain, or living should have been exhausted by the strokes of the brass.\u201d\nFootnote 232: (return) Or, \u201cthrough thee we are all at variance,\u201d taking \u03c3\u03bf\u03af as put for \u03b4\u03b9\u03ac \u03c3\u03ad with Lesbonax, \u03c0\u03b5\u03bf\u03af \u03c3\u03c7\u03b7\u03bc. p. 186; Hesychius, t. ii. p. 1234, and the Scholiast.\nHim sternly regarding, cloud-compelling Jove addressed: \u201cComplain not to me, inconstant one, sitting by me: for thou art most hateful to me, of all the gods that possess Olympus: for to thee discord is ever grateful, and wars and battles: thou hast thy mother Juno\u2019s insufferable and unbending disposition, which I myself can scarcely repress with words. Wherefore I think thou sufferest these things by her instigation. Yet no longer can I endure thy suffering pain, for thou art my offspring, and to me thy mother brought thee forth. But hadst thou, destructive as thou art, been born of any other of the gods, even long since hadst thou been far lower than the sons of Uranus.\u201d\nThus he spoke, and ordered P\u00e6on to heal him: and P\u00e6on healed him, spreading [on his wound] pain-assuaging medicines; for he was not by any means mortal. As when fig-tree juice, 233 on being stirred about, curdles the white milk, fluid before, and it very rapidly coagulates, while one is mixing it; thus at that time did he speedily heal impetuous Mars. Hebe then washed him, and put on him beautiful garments. Then, exulting in glory, near Saturnian Jove he sat down.\nAnd now again Argive Juno and the powerful assistant Minerva returned to the palace of mighty Jove, after having stayed man-slaying Mars from his deeds of slaughter.\nFootnote 233: (return) Used as rennet.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THE SIXTH.\nARGUMENT.\nThe gods having left the field, victory now inclines to the side of the Greeks, and Helenus counsels Hector to order a public supplication to Minerva in the citadel. While Hector is gone to the city for that purpose, Diomedes and Glaucus recognize the friendship which had formerly existed between their fathers, and exchange armour in token of amity. Hecuba and the Trojan matrons present a robe to Minerva, and offer up prayers for their country. Hector reproves Paris, and brings him back to the field, having first taken an affecting farewell of his wife and child.\nAnd now the dreadful battle of the Trojans and the Greeks was abandoned. Often here and there the battle raged through the plain, [the combatants] directing against each other their brass-tipped spears, between the rivers of Simois and Xanthus.\nFirst Telamonian Ajax, the bulwark of the Greeks, broke through the phalanx of the Trojans, and gave light 234 to his companions, smiting the good and mighty hero Acamas, son of Eyssorus, who was the bravest amongst the Thracians. First he struck him on the ridge of the horse-haired helmet; and the brazen spear fixed itself in his forehead, and passed on within the bone; but darkness veiled his eyes.\nFootnote 234: (return) I. e. the light of hope. Cf. Virg. \u00c6n. ii, 281: \u201cO lux Dardani\u00e6, spes \u00f4 fidissima Teucr\u00fbm.\u201d Quintus Calab. iii. 561. \u0388\u03c0\u03b5\u1f76 \u03c3\u03cd \u03bc\u03bf\u03b9 \u1f76\u03b5\u03c1o\u03bd \u1f97\u03bc\u03b1\u03c1, \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03d5\u03ac\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f74\u03b5\u03bb\u03af\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf \u03c0\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03c2.\nBut Diomede, brave in the din of war, slew Axylus, the son of Teuthras, who dwelt in well-built Arisba, rich in wealth, and he was beloved by men, for dwelling in a house near the public way, he was wont to afford entertainment to all. But none of them [his guests] coming up before him, warded off sad death; but [Diomede] deprived both of life, himself and his attendant Calesius, who then was the charioteer of his steeds, and both these entered the earth.\nAnd Euryalus slew Dresus and Opheltius; and afterwards went against \u00c6sepus and Pedasus, whom formerly the Naiad nymph Abarbarea brought forth to blameless Bucolion. Bucolion was the son of illustrious Laomedon, eldest by birth, but him his mother brought forth secretly. While [Bucolion] was a shepherd, he was mingled in love and nuptials with her amongst the sheep; but she becoming pregnant, brought forth twin sons. And truly the son of Mecisteus 235 relaxed their strength and their illustrious limbs, and tore the armour from their shoulders. And next warlike Polyp\u0153tes slew Astyalus. Ulysses killed Percosian Pidytes with his brazen spear; and Agamemnon, king of men, slew Elatus. He dwelt at lofty Pedasus, on the banks of fair-flowing Satniois. The hero Le\u00eftus slew Phylacus flying; and Eurypylus killed and spoiled Melanthius.\nFootnote 235: (return) Euryalus.\nIn the next place Menelaus, valiant in the din of war, took Adrastus alive; for his two steeds, flying bewildered over the plain, coming in violent contact with a branch of tamarisk, and having broken the curved chariot at the extremity of the pole, themselves flew towards the city, whither others also fled terrified. But he was rolled from his chariot near the wheel, prone in the dust on his mouth: but near him stood Menelaus, the son of Atreus, holding his long-shadowed spear. Adrastus then embracing his knees supplicated him:\n\u201cTake me alive, O son of Atreus, and receive a worthy ransom; in my wealthy father\u2019s [house] 236 lie abundant stores, brass and gold, and well-wrought steel; out of which my sire will bestow on thee countless ransom-gifts, if he shall hear that I am alive at the ships of the Greeks.\u201d\nThus he spoke; and persuaded his mind in his breast, and already he was on the point of consigning him to the care of his attendant to conduct him to the ships of the Greeks: but Agamemnon running up, met him, and shouting in a chiding tone, spoke:\n\u201cO soft one, O Menelaus, why art thou thus so much concerned for these men? In sooth very kind offices were done to thee in thy family by the Trojans. 237 Of whom let none escape utter destruction, and our hands; not even him whom the mother carries, being an infant in her womb, let not even him escape; but let all the inhabitants of Ilium perish totally, without burial-rites, and obscure.\u201d\nFootnote 236: (return) Supply \u03bf\u03ca\u03ba\u1ff3 or \u03b4\u03cc\u03bc\u03c9.\nFootnote 237: (return) Ironically spoken.\nThus having said, the hero changed his brother\u2019s mind, having advised right things: but he, with his hand, thrust back the hero Adrastus from him; and him king Agamemnon smote in the belly, and he was cast supine. But the son of Atreus planting his heel upon his breast, drew out the ashen spear.\nThen Nestor exhorted the Greeks, exclaiming aloud: \u201cO friends, Grecian heroes, servants of Mars, let no one now, desirous of spoil, linger behind, that he may return bringing abundance to the ships; but let us slay the men, and afterwards at your leisure, shall ye spoil the dead bodies through the plain.\u201d\nThus having said, he aroused the might and courage of each. And then truly had the Trojans retreated into Ilium, under the influence of the Mars-beloved Greeks, conquered through their own cowardice, had not Helenus, son of Priam, by far the best of augurs, standing near, spoken these words to \u00c6neas and to Hector:\n\u201c\u00c6neas and Hector, since upon you chiefly of the Trojans and Lydians the labour devolves, because ye are the bravest for every purpose, both to fight and to take counsel, stand here, and stay the forces before the gates, running in all directions, before that, on the contrary, flying they fall into the arms of their wives, and become a triumph to the enemies. But after ye have exhorted all the phalanxes, we remaining here will fight against the Greeks, though much pressed, for necessity urges us. But Hector, do thou go to the city, and then speak to thy mother and mine; and let her, collecting together the matrons of distinction 238 into the temple of azure-eyed Minerva, on the lofty citadel, [and] having opened the doors of the sacred house with the key, let her place on the knees of fair-haired Minerva the robe which seems to her the most beautiful, and the largest in her palace, and which is much the most dear to her. And let her promise to sacrifice to that goddess in her temple twelve yearling heifers, as yet ungoaded, if she will take compassion on the city and on the wives and infant children of the Trojans: if indeed she will avert from sacred Ilium the son of Tydeus, that ferocious warrior, the dire contriver of flight: whom I declare to be the bravest of the Greeks; nor have we ever to such a degree dreaded Achilles, chiefest of men, whom they say is from a goddess: but this man rages excessively, nor can any equal him in might.\u201d\nFootnote 238: (return) Hesych. \u0393\u03b5\u03c1\u03b1\u03b9\u03ac\u03c2 \u1f10\u03bd\u03c4\u03af\u03bc\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b1\u1f76\u03ba\u03b1\u03c2, \u03c4\u1f70\u03c2 \u03b3\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b9 \u1f10\u03c7\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03b1\u03c2.\nThus he said, but Hector was by no means disobedient to his brother; and instantly from his chariot he leaped to the ground with his arms, and brandishing his sharp spears, he went in all directions through the army, inciting them to fight: and he stirred up dreadful battle. But they rallied round, and stood opposite the Greeks. But the Greeks retreated, and desisted from slaughter; for they thought that some of the immortals, from the starry heaven, had descended to aid the Trojans, in such a way did they rally. But Hector exhorted the Trojans, exclaiming aloud:\n\u201cCourageous Trojans and far-summoned 239 allies, be men, my friends, and recall to mind your daring valour, whilst I go to Ilium, and tell to the aged counsellors, and to our wives, to pray to the gods, and to vow them hecatombs.\u201d\nFootnote 239: (return) Or \u03c4\u03b7\u03bb\u03b5\u03ba\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03c4\u03bf\u03af, far-famed. See Anthon on v. 491.\nThus having spoken, crest-tossing Hector departed; but about him the black hide, the border which surrounded his bossy shield, kept striking his ankles and his neck.\nBut Glaucus, son of Hippolochus, and the son of Tydeus met in the midst of both armies, eager to fight. But when now they were near, going against each other, Diomede, brave in the din of war, first addressed him:\n\u201cWho of mortal men art thou, O most brave? For never yet have I beheld thee in the glorious fight: but now indeed thou hast far surpassed all in thy confidence, since thou hast awaited my long-shadowed spear. Certainly they are sons of the hapless who meet my strength. But, if one of the immortals, thou art come from heaven, I would not fight with the celestial gods. For valiant Lycurgus, the son of Dryas, did not live long, who contended with the heavenly gods; he who once pursued the nurses of raving Bacchus through sacred Nyssa; but they all at once cast their sacred implements 240 on the ground, smitten by man-slaying Lycurgus with an ox-goad; but Bacchus, too, terrified, sunk under the wave of the sea, and Thetis received him affrighted in her bosom; for dreadful trembling had seized him, on account of the threat of the man. With him the peaceful-living gods were afterwards enraged, and the son of Saturn rendered him blind, nor did he live much longer, for he became an object of aversion to all the immortal gods. Wherefore I should not wish to fight with the blessed gods. But if thou art any one of mortals, who eat the fruit of the earth, come hither, that thou mayest speedily reach the goal of death.\u201d\nFootnote 240: (return) Not merely the thyrsi. See Anthon.\nHim then the renowned son of Hippolochus addressed in turn: \u201cMagnanimous son of Tydeus, why dost thou inquire of my race? As is the race of leaves, even such is the race of men. 241 Some leaves the wind sheds upon the ground, but the fructifying wood produces others, and these grow up in the season of spring. Such is the generation of men; one produces, another ceases [to do so]. But if thou wouldst learn even these things, that thou mayest well know my lineage (for many know it), there is a city, Ephyra, in a nook of horse-pasturing Argos; there dwelt Sisyphus, who was the most cunning of mortals, Sisyphus, son of \u00c6olus; and he begat a son, Glaucus. But Glaucus begat blameless Bellerophon; to whom the gods gave beauty and agreeable manliness. But against him Pr\u0153tus devised evils in his soul: who accordingly banished him from the state (since he was far the best of the Greeks; for Jove had subjected them to his sceptre). With him the wife of Pr\u0153tus, noble Antea, 242 passionately longed to be united in secret love; but by no means could she persuade just-minded, wise-reflecting Bellerophon. She, therefore, telling a falsehood, thus addressed king Pr\u0153tus: \u2018Mayest thou be dead, O Pr\u0153tus! or do thou slay Bellerophon, who desired to be united in love with me against my will.\u2019 Thus she said: but rage possessed the king at what he heard. He was unwilling, indeed, to slay him, for he scrupled this in his mind; but he sent him into Lycia, and gave to him fatal characters, writing many things of deadly purport on a sealed tablet; and ordered him to show it to his father-in-law, to the end that he might perish. He therefore went into Lycia, under the blameless escort of the gods; but when now he had arrived at Lycia and at the river Xanthus, the king of wide Lycia honoured him with a willing mind. Nine days did he entertain him hospitably, and sacrificed nine oxen; but when the tenth rosy-fingered morn appeared, then indeed he interrogated him, and desired to see the token, 243 whatever it was, that he brought from his son-in-law Pr\u0153tus. But after he had received the fatal token of his son-in-law, first he commanded him to slay the invincible Chim\u00e6ra; but she was of divine race, not of men, in front a lion, behind a dragon, in the middle a goat, 244 breathing forth the dreadful might of gleaming fire. And her indeed he slew, relying on the signs of the gods. Next he fought with the illustrious Solymi: and he said that he entered on this as the fiercest fight among men. Thirdly, he slew the man-opposing Amazons. But for him returning the king wove another wily plot. Selecting the bravest men from wide Lycia, he placed an ambuscade; but they never returned home again, for blameless Bellerophon slew them all. But when [Iobates] knew that he was the offspring of a god, he detained him there, and gave him his daughter: 245 he also gave him half of all his regal honour. The Lycians also separated for him an enclosure of land, excelling all others, pleasant, vine-bearing, and arable, that he might cultivate it. But this woman brought forth three children to warlike Bellerophon, Isandrus, Hippolochus, and Laodamia. Provident Jove, indeed, had clandestine intercourse with Laodamia, and she brought forth godlike, brazen-helmed Sarpedon. But when now even he [Bellerophon] was become odious to all the gods, he, on his part, wandered alone 246 through the Ale\u00efan plain, 247 pining in his soul, and shunning the path of men. But Mars, insatiable of war, slew his son Isandrus, fighting against the illustrious Solymi. And golden-reined Diana, being enraged, slew his daughter. But Hippolochus begat me, and from him I say that I am born; me he sent to Troy, and gave me very many commands, always to fight bravely, and to be superior to others; and not to disgrace the race of my fathers, who were by far the bravest in Ephyra, and ample Lycia. From this race and blood do I boast to be.\u201d\nFootnote 241: (return) On this popular Homeric proverb, see Duport, Gnom. Hom. p. 31, sq.\nFootnote 242: (return) She is more frequently called Sthenob\u0153a, or Stheneb\u0153a, as by Apollodor. ii. 3,1; Serv. on \u00c6n. v. 118. Fulgentius, iii. pr\u00e6f., agrees with Homer, giving a ridiculously philosophical explanation of the whole story.\nFootnote 243: (return) Although Apollodorus, l. c. says, \u1f14\u03b4\u03c9\u03ba\u03b5\u03bd \u03ad\u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03bb\u1f70\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1ff7 \u03c0\u03c1\u1f78\u03c2 \u038a\u03bf\u03b6\u03ac\u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ba\u03bf\u03bc\u03af\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd, and Hygin. Fab. lvii. \u201cScripsit tabellas, et mittit eum ad Iobaten regem,\u201d there is no reason to believe that letters, properly so called, were yet invented. See Knight, Prolegg. p. lxxiv. lxxxii.; Wood, on the original genius of Homer, p. 249, sqq.; M\u00fcller, Lit. of Greece, iv. 5 (Bulwer, Athens, i. 8, boldly advocates the contrary opinion); and Anthon\u2019s note. Compare the similar story of Ph\u00e6dra and Hippolytus.\nFootnote 244: (return) For the different descriptions of the Chim\u00e6ra, the mythological student may compare Muncker on Hygin. Fab. lvii. p. 104.\nFootnote 245: (return) Philono\u00eb, the sister of Antea.\nFootnote 246: (return) This \u201cmelancholy madness\u201d of Bellerophon has been well illustrated by Duport, p. 31. Burton, Anatomy, p. 259, observes, \u201cThey delight in floods and waters, desert places, to walk alone in orchards, gardens, private walks, back lanes, averse from company, as Diogenes in his tub, or Timon Misanthropus; they abhor all companions at last, even their nearest acquaintances and most familiar friends; confining themselves therefore to their private houses or chambers, they will diet themselves, feed and live alone.\u201d Hence melancholy was called the \u201cmorbus Bellerophonteus.\u201d See Bourdelot on Heliodor. p. 25.\nFootnote 247: (return) Properly, \u201cthe Plain of Wandering.\u201d It lay between the rivers Pyramus and Pinarus, in Cilicia. Cf. Dionys. Perieg. 872. \u039a\u03b5\u1fd6\u03b8\u03b9 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c0\u03b5\u03b4\u03af\u03bf\u03bd \u03c4\u1f78 \u1f08\u03bb\u03ae\u03ca\u03bf\u03bd, \u03bf\u1f57 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u1f70 \u03bd\u1ff6\u03c4\u03b1 \u1f08\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03c9\u03bd \u1f00\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03b5\u03c5\u03b8\u03b5\u03bd \u1f00\u03bb\u03ce\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03af\u03bd\u03b4\u03b9\u03ac\u03b1\u03c3\u03ba\u03b5.\nThus he said: and Diomede, valiant in the din of war, rejoiced. His spear indeed he fixed in the all-nurturing earth, and next addressed the shepherd of the people in courteous words:\n\u201cCertainly thou art my father\u2019s ancient guest; for in his halls noble \u0152neus once entertained blameless Bellerophon, having detained him for twenty days; and they bestowed valuable gifts of hospitality on each other. \u0152neus on his part gave a belt shining with purple; and Bellerophon in turn a golden double cup; and this I left in my halls when I was coming hither. But Tydeus I remember not, for he left me whilst I was yet young, when the people of the Greeks perished at Thebes. Wherefore I am a guest friend to thee in the midst of Argos, and thou art the same to me in Lycia, whenever I shall visit their state. But let us also in the crowd avoid even each other\u2019s spears. For there are many Trojans and illustrious allies for me to slay, whomsoever the deity shall present, and I shall overtake with my feet. And there are many Greeks in turn for thee to slay, whomsoever thou canst. But let us exchange arms with each other, that even these may know that we profess to be friends by our ancestors.\u201d\nThus then having spoken, leaping down from their steeds, they took each other\u2019s hand, and plighted faith. Then Saturnian Jove took away prudence from Glaucus, who exchanged armour with Diomede, the son of Tydeus, [giving] golden [arms] for brazen; the value of a hundred beeves 248 for the value of nine.\nBut when Hector arrived at the Sc\u00e6an gates and the beech-tree, around him ran the Trojan wives and daughters inquiring for their sons, their brothers, their friends, and husbands. But he then ordered all in order to supplicate the gods, for evils were impending over many.\nBut when now he had arrived at the very beautiful dwelling of Priam, built with well-polished porticoes; but in it were fifty chambers 249 of polished marble, built near one another, where lay the sons of Priam with their lawful wives; and opposite, on the other side, within the hall, were the twelve roofed chambers of his daughters, of polished marble, built near to one another, where the sons-in-law of Priam slept with their chaste wives. There his fond mother met him, as she was going to Laodice, the most excellent in form of her daughters: and she hung upon his hand, and addressed him, and spoke:\nFootnote 248: (return) See Gellius, ii. 23. It must be remembered that in the ancient times, when there was no money, cattle formed the standard of barter.\nFootnote 249: (return) Cf. Virg. \u00c6n. ii. 503; Eur. Hec. 421.\n\u201cMy son, why hast thou come, having left the bold fight? Certainly the abominable sons of the Greeks harass thee much, fighting around thy city: thy mind hath urged thee to come hither, to uplift thy hands to Jove from the lofty citadel. But wait till I bring thee genial wine, that first thou mayest make a libation to Jove, and to the other immortal gods, and then thou shalt refresh thyself, if thou wilt drink. For to a wearied man wine greatly increases strength; since thou art wearied aiding thy kinsmen.\u201d\nBut her mighty crest-tossing Hector then answered: \u201cBring me not genial wine, venerable mother, lest thou enervate me, and I forget my might and valour. But I dread to pour out dark-red wine to Jove with unwashed hands: nor is it by any means lawful for me, denied with blood and gore, to offer vows to the cloud-compelling son of Saturn. But go thou to the temple of Minerva the pillager, with victims, having assembled the matrons of distinction. And the robe which is the most beautiful and the largest in the palace, and by far the most esteemed by thyself, that place on the knees of the fair-haired goddess, and vow that thou wilt sacrifice to her, in her temple, twelve heifers, yearlings, ungoaded, if she will take compassion on the city, and the wives and infant children of the Trojans; if she will avert from sacred Ilium the son of Tydeus, that fierce warrior, the valiant author of terror. Do thou, on thy part, go to the temple of the pillager Minerva; but I will go after Paris, that I may call him, if he is willing to hear me speaking. Would that the earth might there open for him, for him hath Olympian Jove reared as a great bane to the Trojans, to magnanimous Priam, and to his sons. Could I but behold him descending to Hades, I might say that my soul had forgotten its joyless woe.\u201d\nThus he spoke: but she, going to her palace, gave orders to her maids: and they assembled through the city the matrons of distinction. But she descended into her fragrant chamber, where were her variously-embroidered robes, the works of Sidonian females, which godlike Alexander himself had brought from Sidon, sailing over the broad ocean, in that voyage in which he carried off Helen, sprung from a noble sire. Hecuba, taking one of these which was most beauteous with various hues, and largest, brought it as a gift to Minerva; and it glittered like a star, and lay the undermost of all. But she hastened to set out, and many venerable matrons hurried along with her.\nBut when they arrived at the temple of Minerva, in the lofty citadel, fair-cheeked Theano, the daughter of Cisseus, wife of horse-breaking Antenor, opened to them the gates; for the Trojans had made her priestess of Minerva. They all, with a loud wailing, upraised their hands to Minerva. But fair-cheeked Theano having received the garment, placed it on the knees of fair-haired Minerva, and making vows, thus prayed to the daughter of mighty Jove:\n\u201cVenerable Minerva, guardian of the city, divine one of goddesses, break now the spear of Diomede, and grant that he may fall prostrate before the Sc\u00e6an gates, that we may forthwith sacrifice to thee in thy temple twelve yearling untamed heifers, if thou wilt pity the city, and the wives of the Trojans, and their infant children.\u201d\nSo she spake in prayer, but Pallas Minerva refused. Thus they, on their part, offered vows to the daughter of mighty Jove.\nBut Hector had gone to the beautiful halls of Alexander, which he himself had built with the aid of men, who then were the most skilful artificers in fruitful Troy: who made for him a chamber, a dwelling-room, and hall, in the lofty citadel, near the palaces of Priam and Hector. There Jove-beloved Hector entered, and in his hand he held a spear of eleven cubits; the brazen point of the spear shone in front, and a golden ring encircled it. But him he found in his chamber preparing his very beauteous armour, his shield and corslet, and fitting his curved bow. Argive Helen sat amongst her female servants, and assigned their tasks to her maids of renowned work. But Hector, seeing, reproached him with foul words:\n\u201cInfatuate; not befittingly hast thou conceived this rage in thy mind: the people are perishing, fighting around the city and the lofty wall: and on thy account the battle and war are blazing around the city. Truly thou wouldst thyself reprove another, if ever thou sawest any person remiss in the hateful battle. But arise, lest perchance the city should quickly blaze with hostile fire.\u201d\nBut him godlike Alexander then addressed: \u201cHector, since thou hast with reason reproved me, and not without reason, therefore will I tell thee; but do thou attend and hear me. I was sitting in my chamber, neither so much from anger nor indignation against the Trojans, but [because] I wished to give way to grief. But now my wife, advising me with soothing words, hath urged me to the battle, and to myself also it seems to be better: for victory alternates to men. But come now, wait, let me put on my martial arms; or go on, and I will follow, and I think that I shall overtake thee.\u201d\nThus he said, but crest-tossing Hector did not answer him. But Helen addressed him [Hector] with soothing words: \u201cBrother-in-law of me, shameless authoress of mischief-devising, fearful wretch, would that, on the day when first my mother brought me forth, a destructive tempest of wind had seized and borne me to a mountain, or into the waves of the much-resounding ocean, where the billow would have swept me away before these doings had occurred. But since the gods have thus decreed these evils, I ought at least to have been the wife of a braver man, who understood both the indignation and the many reproaches of men. But this man\u2019s sentiments are neither constant now, nor will they be hereafter; wherefore I think he will reap the fruits [of them]. But come now, enter, and sit on this seat, brother-in-law, since toils have greatly encompassed thy mind, on account of shameless me, and of the guilt of Alexander; on whom Jove hath imposed an unhappy lot, that, even in time to come, we should be a subject of song to future men.\u201d\nBut her mighty crest-tossing Hector then answered: \u201cDo not bid me sit, Helen, though courteous, for thou wilt not persuade me. For now is my mind urged on, that I may aid the Trojans, who have great regret for me absent. But do thou arouse him [Paris], and let him hasten, that he may overtake me being within the city. For I will go home, that I may see my domestics, my beloved wife, and my infant son. For I know not whether I shall ever again return to them, or whether the gods will now subdue me under the hands of the Greeks.\u201d\nThus having said, crest-tossing Hector departed; and immediately he then arrived at his well-situated palace, nor did he find white-armed Andromache in the halls; but she stood lamenting and weeping on the tower, with her son and her well-robed maid. But Hector, when he found not his blameless wife within, went and stood at the threshold, and said to the female servants:\n\u201cI pray you, maids, tell me truly whither went white-armed Andromache from the palace? Has she gone anywhere [to the dwellings] of her husband\u2019s sisters, or [to those] of any of her well-robed brother-in-laws\u2019 wives, or to the temple of Minerva, where the other fair-haired Trojan matrons are appeasing the dreadful goddess?\u201d\nHim then the active housewife in turn addressed: \u201cHector, since thou biddest me to tell the truth, she has not gone to any of her husband\u2019s sisters, nor to any of her well-robed brother-in-laws\u2019 wives, nor to the temple of Minerva, where the other fair-haired Trojan matrons are appeasing the dreadful goddess. But she went to the lofty tower of Ilium, when she heard that the Trojans were worn out, and that the valour of the Greeks was great. She is now on her way, hastening to the wall, like unto one frenzied, and the nurse, along with her, bears the child.\u201d\nThus spoke the housewife, but Hector hastened away from the palace, back the same way through the well-built streets. When he had arrived at the Sc\u00e6an gates, after passing through the great city (for by this way he was about to pass out into the plain), there met him his richly-dowered spouse running, Andromache, daughter of magnanimous Eetion: Eetion, who dwelt in woody Hypoplacus, in Hypoplacian Thebes, reigning over Cilician men. His daughter then was possessed by brazen-helmed Hector. She then met him; and with her came a maid, carrying in her bosom the tender child, an infant quite, the only son of Hector, like unto a beauteous star. Him Hector had named Scamandrius, but others Astyanax; for Hector alone protected Ilium. He indeed, gazing in silence upon his son, smiled. But Andromache stood near to him, weeping, and she hung upon his hand, and addressed him, and spoke:\n\u201cStrange man! this thy valour will destroy thee; nor dost thou pity thy infant child and unhappy me, who very soon will be bereft of thee, for presently the Greeks will slay thee, all attacking thee at once. For me much better it were to sink into the earth, when bereft of thee; for there will no longer be any other comfort for me when thou shalt draw on thy destruction; but sorrows only. Nor have I father or venerable mother. For divine Achilles slew my father, and laid waste the well-inhabited city of the Cilicians, lofty-gated Thebes. He slew Eetion, but spoiled him not, he scrupled in his mind [to do] that; but he burned him together with his well-wrought arms, and heaped a tomb over him, and around [him] the mountain nymphs, daughters of \u00e6gis-bearing Jove, planted elms. Moreover, the seven brothers besides, whom I had at home, all these indeed departed to Hades in one day. For divine, swift-footed Achilles slew them all, amidst their crooked hoofed oxen and their snowy sheep. And my mother, who ruled in woody Hypoplacus, after that he had led her hither with other treasures, he sent back at liberty, having received countless ransom-gifts. But her the shaft-rejoicing Diana slew in my father\u2019s hall. But, \u039f Hector, to me thou art both father and venerable mother and brother; thou art also my blooming consort. But come now, pity me, and abide here in the tower, nor make thy child an orphan and thy wife a widow. And place a company at the wild fig-tree, where the city is chiefly easy of ascent, and the wall can be scaled. For going to this very quarter, the bravest [of the Greeks] have thrice assaulted, the two Ajaces, and most renowned Idomeneus, and the sons of Atreus, and the brave son of Tydeus. Certainly some person well skilled in prophecy mentioned it to them, or their own mind impels and orders them.\u201d\nBut her then in turn the mighty crest-tossing Hector addressed: \u201cAssuredly to me also are all these things a subject of anxiety, dear wife, but I am exceedingly ashamed of the Trojans and the long-robed Trojan dames, if I, like a dastard, [keeping] aloof, should avoid the battle: nor does my mind incline me thus, for I have learned to be always brave, and to fight in the foremost among the Trojans, seeking to gain both my father\u2019s great glory and mine own. For well I know this in my mind and soul; a day will arrive when sacred Ilium shall perish, and Priam, and the people of Priam skilled in the ashen spear. But to me the grief that is to come will not be so great on account of the Trojans, neither for Hecuba herself, nor for king Priam, nor for my brothers, who, many and excellent, are destined to fall in the dust beneath hostile men, as for thee, when some one of the brazen-mailed Greeks shall lead thee away weeping, having deprived thee of the day of freedom. And, perchance, being in Argos, thou mayest weave the web at the command of some other dame, and bear water from the fountain of Messe\u00efs, or Hyperia, very unwillingly; and hard necessity will oppress thee; whilst some one, hereafter beholding thee pouring forth tears, will say, \u2018This was the wife of Hector, who was the bravest in battle of the horse-breaking Trojans, when they fought round Ilium.\u2019 Thus will some one hereafter say; but fresh anguish will be thine, from the want of such a husband, to avert the day of servitude. But may the heaped earth cover me dead, before I hear of this lamentation and abduction.\u201d\nThus having said, illustrious Hector stretched out [his arms] for his son; but the child, screaming, shrunk back to the bosom of the well-zoned nurse, affrighted at the aspect of his dear sire, fearing the brass and the horse-haired crest, seeing it nodding dreadfully from the top of the helmet: gently his loving father smiled, and his revered mother. Instantly illustrious Hector took the helmet from his head, and laid it all-glittering on the ground; and having kissed his beloved child, and fondled him in his hands, thus spoke, praying to Jove and to the other gods:\n\u201cJove, and ye other gods, grant that this my son also may become, even as I am, distinguished amongst the Trojans, so powerful in might, and bravely to rule over Ilium. And may some one hereafter say [concerning him], returning from the fight, \u2018He indeed is much braver than his sire.\u2019 And let him bear away the bloody spoils, having slain the foe, and let his mother rejoice in her soul.\u201d\nThus having said, he placed the boy in the hands of his beloved spouse; but she smiling tearfully received him in her fragrant bosom. Her husband regarding her, pitied her, and soothed her with his hand, and addressed her, and said:\n\u201cBeloved, be not at all too sad in thine heart on my account. For no man shall send me prematurely to the shades. But I think there is no one of men who has escaped fate, neither the coward nor the brave man, after he has once been born. But do thou, going home, take care of thy own works, thy web and distaff, and command thy maids to perform their task; but war shall be a care to all the men who are born in Ilium, and particularly to me.\u201d\nThus having spoken, illustrious Hector took up the horse-haired helmet, and his beloved wife departed home, looking back from time to time, and shedding copious tears. Then immediately she reached the very commodious palace of man-slaying Hector, and within she found many maids, and in all of them she excited grief. They, indeed, bewailed in his own palace Hector still alive, for they thought that he would never return back again from battle, escaping the might and the hands of the Greeks.\nNor did Paris delay in his lofty halls; but he, after he had put on his famous arms, variegated with brass, then hastened through the city, relying on his swift feet. And as 250 when a stabled courser, fed with barley at the stall, having broken his cord, runs prancing over the plain, elate with joy, being accustomed to bathe in some fair-flowing river. He bears aloft his head, and his mane is tossed about on his shoulders: but he, relying on his beauty, 251 his knees easily bear him to the accustomed pastures 252 of the mares. Thus Paris, the son of Priam, shining in arms like the sun, exulting descended down from the citadel of Pergamus, but his swift feet bore him, and immediately after he found his noble brother Hector, when he was now about to depart from the place where he was conversing with his spouse.\nFootnote 250: (return) Cf. Ennius apud Macrob. iv. 3:\n\n\n\u201cEt tunc sicut equus, qui de pr\u00e6sepibus actus,\nVincla sueis magneis animeis abrumpit, et inde\nFert sese campi per c\u00e6rula, l\u00e6taque prata,\nCelso pectore, s\u00e6pe jubam quassat simul altam;\nSpiritus ex anima calida spumas agit albas.\u201d\n\n\nFootnote 251: (return) Observe the anacoluthon.\nFootnote 252: (return) An instance of hendiadys.\nHim godlike Alexander first addressed: \u201cHonoured brother, assuredly now I am altogether detaining thee, although hastening, nor have I come in due time as thou didst order.\u201d\nHim then crest-tossing Hector answering addressed: \u201cStrange man! not any man indeed, who is just, could dispraise thy deeds of war, for thou art brave. But willingly art thou remiss, and dost not wish [to fight]; and my heart is saddened in my breast, when I hear dishonourable things of thee from the Trojans, who have much toil on thy account. But let us away, these things we shall arrange hereafter, if ever Jove shall grant us to place a free goblet in our halls to the heavenly everlasting gods, when we shall have repulsed the well-greaved Greeks from Troy.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THE SEVENTH.\nARGUMENT.\nHector challenges the bravest of the Greeks to single combat, and nine of the chiefs having cast lots, Ajax is appointed to meet him. Having protracted the contest till night, the combatants exchange gifts, and separate. A truce is then made for the purpose of burying the dead, and the Greeks fortify their camp.\nThus having said, illustrious Hector rushed forth from the gates, and with him went his brother Alexander, for both were eager in soul to wage war and to fight. As when the deity hath given a prosperous wind to expecting mariners, after they have become weary, agitating the deep with well-polished oars, and their limbs are relaxed with toil; thus then did those two appear to the expecting Trojans. Then they slew, the one, 253 indeed, Menesthius, son of king Areitho\u00fcs, who dwelt in Arne, whom the club-bearer Areitho\u00fcs and large-eyed Philomedusa brought forth; but Hector smote E\u00efoneus with his sharp spear upon the neck, under his well-wrought brazen helmet, 254 and relaxed his limbs. And Glaucus, son of Hippolochus, leader of the Lycian heroes, in fierce engagement smote Iphinous, son of Dexias, upon the shoulder with his spear, as he vaulted on his swift mares.\nFootnote 253: (return) I. e. Paris. The construction is an instance of the \u03c3\u03c7\u03ae\u03bc\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8' \u03cc\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2. See Jelf, Gk. Gr. \u00a7478, and my note on \u00c6sch. Prom. p. 8, ed. Bohn.\nFootnote 254: (return) Apollonius, Lex. p. 734. seems to regard the \u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03c6\u03ac\u03bd\u03b7 as a distinct kind of helmet, or cap. So, also, the Schol. and Hesych. t. ii. p. 186, and p. 1266. Others understand the rim of the helmet. Paschal, de Coronis, i. 2: \u201cEam gale\u00e6 partem quam Hesychius dicit habere \u03b5\u03be\u03bf\u03c7\u03ac\u03c2, id quod in galea eminentissimum est. Et vero apud Plutarchum distinguitur \u03c4\u03bf \u03ba\u03c1\u03ac\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 galea \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03c6\u03ac\u03bd\u03b7\u03c2, ab ejus parte qu\u00e6 est in ipsius summitate.\u201d\nBut he fell from his mares on the ground, and his limbs were relaxed.\nBut when the azure-eyed goddess Minerva saw them destroying the Greeks, in fierce engagement, she descended straightway, rushing down from the tops of Olympus to sacred Ilium. Then Apollo hastened to meet her, having perceived her from Pergamus, for he wished victory to the Trojans. And they met each other at the beech-tree. Her first king Apollo, the son of Jove, addressed:\n\u201cWhy again dost thou, O daughter of mighty Jove, come ardently from Olympus, and why has thy mighty soul impelled thee? It is that thou mightst give to the Greeks the doubtful victory of battle, for thou dost not pity the Trojans perishing. But if thou obeyest me in aught, which indeed would be much better, let us now make the war and conflict to cease this day, afterwards shall they fight until they find an end of Ilium; since it is pleasing to the mind of you goddesses to overthrow this city.\u201d  255\nFootnote 255: (return) On the partisan deities for and against Troy, cf. Dionys. 817.\n\n\n\u201c\u0399\u03bb\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd, \u1f23\u03bd \u1f10\u03c0\u03cc\u03bb\u03b9\u03c3\u03c3\u03b5 \u03bf\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03b4\u03ac\u03c9\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u1f30 \u0391\u03c0\u03cc\u03bb\u03bb\u03c9\u03bd,\n\u0399\u03bb\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd, \u1f23\u03bd \u1f00\u03bb\u03ac\u03c0\u03b1\u03b6\u03b1\u03bd \u1f08\u03b8\u03b7\u03bd\u03b1\u03af\u03b7 \u03c4\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f30 \u1f2b\u03c1\u03b7\u201d.\n\n\nSee Grote\u2019s Hist, of Greece, vol. i. p. 68.\nBut him in turn the azure-eyed goddess Minerva thus addressed: \u201cBe it so, Far-darter; for I myself, meditating the same things, came down from Olympus to the Trojans and the Greeks. But come, how dost thou intend to make the battle of men to cease?\u201d\nHer then in turn king Apollo, the son of Jove, addressed: \u201cLet us arouse the valiant spirit of horse-breaking Hector, if perchance he will challenge some one of the Greeks to fight against him singly opposed in grievous combat. And the well-greaved Greeks enraged will urge on some single man to fight with noble Hector.\u201d\nThus he spoke, nor did the azure-eyed goddess disobey. But Helenus, the dear son of Priam, perceived in his mind the counsel, which seemed good to the gods deliberating. He therefore went and stood near Hector, and thus accosted him:\n\u201cHector, son of Priam, equal to Jove in wisdom, wilt thou obey me in aught? for I am thy brother. Cause all the rest of the Trojans and the Greeks to sit down, but do thou thyself challenge whoever is the bravest of the Greeks to fight against thee in grievous combat. For it is not yet thy fate to die, and draw on fate; for to this effect have I heard the voice of the immortal gods.\u201d\nThus he spoke. But Hector in turn rejoiced exceedingly, having heard his advice, and accordingly advancing into the midst, grasping his spear in the middle, he restrained the phalanxes of the Trojans; and they all sat down. Agamemnon also caused the well-greaved Greeks to sit down; and Minerva also, and silver-bowed Apollo, sat like unto vulture birds, on a lofty beech-tree of their sire, the \u00e6gis-bearing Jove, delighted with the heroes; of these the ranks sat thick, horribly bristling with shields, and helmets, and spears. And as the ripple of the west wind, just risen, is poured over the ocean, and the sea begins to darken under it, such sat the ranks of the Greeks and Trojans in the plain: but Hector thus spoke in the midst of both armies:\n\u201cHear me, ye Trojans, and ye well-greaved Greeks, whilst I speak what the mind in my breast commands me. Saturnian Jove, indeed, sitting aloft, has not ratified the leagues, but devising evils against both sides, ordains them, till either ye take well-turreted Troy, or yourselves fall at your sea-traversing ships. Amongst you, indeed, there are the bravest of all the Greeks, of whom whomsoever his mind orders to fight with me, let him come hither from amongst all, to be a champion against noble Hector. This then do I propose, but let Jove be our witness; if, on the one hand, he shall slay me with his long-pointed spear, having stripped off my armour, let him bear it to the hollow ships, but send my body home, that the Trojans and the wives of the Trojans may make me, deceased, a partaker of the funeral pyre. But if, on the other hand, I shall slay him, and Apollo shall give me glory, having stripped off his armour, I will bear it to sacred Ilium, and I will hang it up on the temple of far-darting Apollo: but his body I will send back to the well-benched ships, that the long-haired Greeks may perform his exsequies, and pile up for him a tomb on the wide Hellespont. And hereafter will some one of future men say, as he sails over the sea in his many-benched ship: \u2018This, indeed, is the tomb of a hero long since deceased, whom once, bearing himself doughtily, illustrious Hector slew.\u2019 Thus hereafter will some one say; but this my glory shall never perish.\u201d\nThus he said, but all became mute in silence. Ashamed indeed they were to refuse, and yet they dreaded to accept [the challenge]. At length, however, Menelaus stood up, and spoke amongst them, rebuking them with reproaches, and he groaned greatly in spirit:\n\u201cAlas! ye boasters! Greek dames! no longer Grecian men! certainly will these things be a disgrace, most grievously grievous, if none of the Greeks will now go against Hector. But may ye all become water and earth, sitting there each of you, faint-hearted; utterly inglorious: but I myself will be armed against him. But the issues of victory are rested in the immortal gods.\u201d\nThus having spoken, he put on his beautiful arms. Then, indeed, \u039f Menelaus, would the end of life have befallen thee at the hands of Hector, since he was much the better man, had not the princes of the Greeks, starting up suddenly, restrained thee, and the son of Atreus himself, wide-ruling Agamemnon, seized thee by the right hand, and addressed thee, and spoke:\n\u201cThou art mad, O Menelaus! offspring of Jove, nor hast thou any need of such madness: restrain thyself, although grieved, nor wish for the sake of contention to fight with a braver man than thyself, Hector, the son of Priam, whom others also dread. Nay, even Achilles, who is much braver than thou, dreads to meet him 256 in the glorious fight. But now, going to the troop of thy companions, sit down. Against him the Greeks will set up some other champion. Although he be intrepid and insatiable of battle, I think that he will gladly bend his knee, 257 if he shall escape from the hostile battle and the grievous fight.\u201d\nFootnote 256: (return) Lesbonax, \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03af \u03c3\u03c7\u03b7\u03bc. p. 182, reads \u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd \u03b3\u03b5\u2014\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9\u03bf\u03bb\u03ae\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9, which Valckenaer, and with reason, thinks a more recherch\u00e9 and genuine reading than \u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u1ff3. Lesbonax compares the Attic phrase \u03ac\u03c1\u03ad\u03c3\u03ba\u03b5\u03b9 \u03bc\u03b5 for \u03bc\u03bf\u03b9 Cf. Aristoph. Ran. 103, with the Scholiast.\nFootnote 257: (return) I.e. sit down through fatigue, \u201cde iis qui longo labore seu cuisu fessi quiescunt et vires recipiunt.\u201d\u2014Heyne.\nThus speaking, the hero dissuaded his brother\u2019s mind, advising him rightly; and he obeyed. His joyful attendants then stripped the armour from his shoulders. Then Nestor arose amidst the Greeks, and said:\n\u201cO gods, surely great grief comes upon the Grecian land. Certainly the aged knight Peleus, the excellent counsellor and adviser of the Myrmidons, will greatly lament, who formerly interrogated me, greatly rejoiced in his palace, inquiring the race and offspring of all the Greeks. If he now heard of them all crouching down under Hector, often indeed would he uplift his hands to the immortals, [praying] that his soul, [separated] from his limbs, might depart into the house of Pluto. For would, \u039f father Jove, and Minerva, and Apollo, I were young, as when the assembled Pylians and the spear-skilled Arcadians fought by the rapid Celadon, at the walls of Ph\u00e6a, about the streams of Jardan. With them Ereuthalion, god-like hero, stood in the van, bearing on his shoulders the armour of king Are\u00efthous, of noble Are\u00efthous, whom men and beauteous-girt women called by surname Corynetes, since he fought not with a bow, nor with a long spear, but used to break the phalanxes with an iron club. Him Lycurgus slew by stratagem, not by strength, in a narrow defile, where his iron club did not ward off destruction from him; for Lycurgus, anticipating, pierced him right through the waist with his spear, and he was dashed to the ground on his back; and he spoiled him of the armour which brazen Mars had given him, and he indeed afterwards bore them himself in the battle of Mars. But when Lycurgus had grown old in his palaces, he gave them to his beloved attendant Ereuthalion, to be borne: and he, having his armour, challenged all the bravest: but these trembled and feared very much: nor did any one dare [to withstand him]. But my bold mind, by its confidence, urged me on to fight him: now I was the youngest of them all; and I fought with him, and Minerva gave me glory. And I slew this most mighty and valiant hero, for vast he lay stretched out on this side and on that. Would that [now] I were thus young, and my strength entire\u2014so quickly should crest-tossing Hector meet with a contest. But those of you who are the bravest of all the Greeks, not even you promptly desire to go against Hector.\u201d\nThus did the old man upbraid them; and nine heroes in all arose. Much the first arose Agamemnon, the king of men; after him arose brave Diomede, son of Tydeus, and after them the Ajaces, clad in impetuous valour: after them Idomeneus, and Meriones, the armour-bearer of Idomeneus, equal to man-slaughtering Mars. After them Eurypylus, the gallant son of Ev\u00e6mon. And there [also arose] Thoas, son of Andr\u00e6mon, and divine Ulysses. All these wished to fight with noble Hector. But these again the Gerenian knight Nestor addressed:\n\u201cDecide now, exclusively by lot, who shall obtain [the accepting of the challenge]; for he indeed will aid the well-greaved Greeks; and he will also delight his own soul, if he shall escape safe from the hostile war and the grievous fight.\u201d\nThus he spoke, and they marked each his own lot, and they cast them into the helmet of Agamemnon, the son of Atreus. The people supplicated, and raised their hands to the gods, and thus would one of them say, looking towards the wide heaven:\n\u201c\u039f father Jove, grant that Ajax obtain the lot, or the son of Tydeus, or the king himself of rich Mycen\u00e6.\u201d\nThus they spake, and the Gerenian knight Nestor shook [the lots], and the lot of Ajax, which indeed they wished for, leaped forth from the helmet. Then a herald bearing it around through the multitude, beginning at the right, showed it to all the chiefs of the Greeks. But they, not recognizing it, disclaimed it severally. But, when at last the herald, carrying it round through the multitude, came to him, illustrious Ajax, who had inscribed and cast it into the helmet, he [Ajax] stretched forth his hand, and the herald standing near, placed it in it. Having inspected it, he knew his own mark, and rejoiced in his soul. He cast it on the ground at his feet, and said:\n\u201c\u039f friends, surely the lot is mine, and I myself rejoice in my soul, since I think that I shall conquer noble Hector. But come, while I put on my warlike arms, do ye meantime pray to Jove, the Saturnian king, silently within yourselves, that the Trojans may not hear; or even openly, since we fear no one at all. For no one willingly shall, by force, overcome me against my will, nor through my inexperience; since I hope I have not been so ignorantly 258 born and bred at Salamis.\u201d\nFootnote 258: (return) I. e. ignorant of arms.\nThus he spoke: but they prayed to Jove, the Saturnian king; and thus would one of them say looking towards the wide heaven:\n\u201cO father Jove, ruling from Ida, most glorious, most mighty, grant to Ajax to bear away victory, and illustrious glory. But if thou lovest Hector also, and carest for him, grant equal might and glory to both.\u201d\nThus they spake, and Ajax was arming himself in splendid brass. But when he had put on all his armour around his body, then he rushed forward: as moves mighty Mars, who goes to war amidst men, whom the son of Saturn has engaged to fight with the strength of soul-gnawing strife, such mighty Ajax advanced, the bulwark of the Greeks, smiling with grim countenance; but he advanced, taking long strides with his feet beneath, brandishing his long-shadowed spear. The Greeks, on their part, rejoiced much on beholding him, but dire dismay seized the Trojans, each one as to his limbs, and the soul panted in the breast of Hector himself. But now he could not in anywise retract through fear, nor retire back into the crowd of the people, since he had challenged to the fight. But Ajax drew near, bearing a shield, like a tower, brazen, covered with seven ox-hides, which for him the artist Tychius labouring had wrought, dwelling at his home in Hyla, by far the most excellent of leather-cutters, who for him had made a moveable shield, of seven hides of very fat bulls, and drawn over it an eighth [layer] of brass. Carrying this before his breast, Telamonian Ajax stood very near Hector, and menacing addressed him:\n\u201c\u039f Hector, now thou, alone with me alone, shalt plainly know, what kind of chiefs are present with the Greeks, even besides Achilles, the breaker of ranks, the lion-hearted. But he, indeed, abides at his high-beaked sea-traversing ships, enraged against Agamemnon, the shepherd of the people. Yet we are such, even many of us, who can go against thee; but begin the battle and the strife.\u201d\nHim then in turn the mighty crest-tossing Hector addressed: \u201cThou Jove-sprung Ajax, son of Telamon, ruler of forces, tamper not with me as with a weak boy, or a woman, who knows not warlike deeds. But I well know both battles and man-slaughterings. I know how to shift my dry shield to the right and to the left; wherefore to me it belongs to fight unwearied. I am also skilled to rush to the battle of swift steeds. I know too, how, in hostile array, to move skilfully in honour of glowing Mars. But I do not desire to wound thee, being such, watching stealthily, but openly, if haply I may strike thee.\u201d\nHe spoke, and brandishing hurled forth his long-shadowed spear, and smote the mighty seven-hided shield of Ajax on the outside brass, which was the eighth [layer] thereon. And the unwearied brass cutting through, penetrated six folds, and was stuck fast in the seventh hide. Next, Jove-sprung Ajax in turn sent forth his very long spear, and struck the all-equal shield of Priam\u2019s son. Through the shining shield passed the impetuous spear, and was fastened in his very ingeniously-wrought corslet, and from the opposite side the spear cut his tunic near the flank. But he inclined himself, and avoided black death. Then they both, having drawn out their long spears with their hands, joined battle, like unto raw-devouring lions, or wild boars, whose strength is not feeble. Then indeed the son of Priam struck the midst of his [Ajax\u2019s] shield with his spear; it broke not through the brass, but the point of it was bent. But Ajax, bounding forward, pierced his shield: and the spear went right through, and repelled him as he rushed on: it glanced over his neck, cutting it, and black gore gushed forth. But not even thus did crest-tossing Hector cease from the battle: but retiring back, he seized in his hand, a black, rough, huge stone, lying in the plain. With it he struck the mighty seven-hided shield of Ajax, in the midst of the boss, and the brass rang around. Ajax next taking up a much larger stone, whirling, discharged it, and applied immense strength. And he broke through the shield, having struck with a rock like unto a millstone, and he wounded him in the knee; and he was stretched supine, having come into violent contact with his shield; but Apollo quickly raised him. And now in close combat hand to hand, they would have wounded each other with their swords, had not the heralds, the messengers of gods and men, arrived, one of the Trojans, the other of the brazen-mailed Greeks, Talthybius and Id\u00e6us, both prudent men. And between both armies they held their sceptres, but the herald Id\u00e6us, skilled in prudent counsels, said:\n\u201cNo longer, my dear sons, war or fight, for cloud-collecting Jove loves you both: ye both are warriors, and this we all know. Night is now approaching, and it is good to obey night.\u201d  259\nFootnote 259: (return) Cf. \u00c6n. ii. 8:\u2014\n\n\n\u2014\u2014\u201cet jam nox humida c\u0153lo\nPr\u00e6cipitat, suadentque cadentia sidera somnos.\u201d\n\n\nBut him Telamonian Ajax answering addressed: \u201cId\u00e6us, order Hector to speak these words, for he challenged all the bravest [of our side] to battle. Let him begin, and I will entirely obey, if indeed he does so.\u201d\nBut him crest-tossing Hector addressed in turn: \u201cAjax, since some god has given thee size, and might, and prudence, and thou art the most excellent of the Greeks at the spear, let us now cease from battle and contest for this day; hereafter will we fight again, till the Deity shall separate us, and give the victory to either. Now night is approaching, and it is good to obey night, that thou mayest gladden all the Greeks at the ships, and chiefly those friends and companions which are thine; but I will gladden the Trojans and the train-bearing Trojan matrons, through the great city of king Priam, the dames who, praying for me, are entering the deities\u2019 temple. 260 But come, let us both mutually give very glorious gifts, that some one of the Greeks and Trojans may say thus: \u2018They certainly fought in a soul-gnawing strife, but then again being reconciled, they parted in friendship.\u2019\u201d\nFootnote 260: (return) \u1f08\u03b3\u03ce\u03bd is defined by Apollonius, p. 26, \u03cc \u03c4\u03cc\u03c0\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b5\u03af\u03c2 \u1f43\u03bd \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03ac\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9. Hesychius, p. 79, makes it equivalent to \u1f04\u03b8\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9\u03c3\u03bc\u03b1, and also calls it the place where combatants fight. Porphyry, Qu\u00e6st. Hom. p. cvii. ed. Barnes, \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03bd\u03b1\u03cc\u03bd \u1f24\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9 \u03d1\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bf\u03bd \u03c4\u03cc\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd \u1f44\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1, \u1f22 \u03d1\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bf\u03bd \u1f04\u03b8\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9\u03c3\u03bc\u03b1 \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03ad\u03c7\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1. So, also, the Scholiast.\nThus then having spoken, he gave him a silver-studded sword, presenting it with the sheath and the well-wrought belt. But Ajax gave [to him] a belt, splendid with purple. Then they twain being separated, the one went to the people of the Greeks, and the other to the crowd of the Trojans: and they rejoiced when they saw him coming alive and safe, having escaped the strength and the invincible hands of Ajax; and led him to the city, not having had any hopes that he was safe. But the well-greaved Greeks, on the other hand, led away Ajax, rejoicing in victory, to divine Agamemnon. When now they were in the tents of the son of Atreus, then Agamemnon, king of men, sacrificed for them an ox, a male, five years old, to the most powerful son of Saturn. This they flayed, and dressed it; made divisions of the whole of it, and skilfully divided these into smaller portions, and fixed them on spits, and roasted them very cleverly, and drew off all. But when they had ceased from labour, and had prepared the banquet, they feasted, nor did their soul in anywise lack a due proportion of the feast. The valiant son of Atreus, far-ruling Agamemnon, honoured Ajax with an entire chine. 261 But when they had dismissed the desire of drink and of food, for them the aged man Nestor first of all began to frame advice, whose counsel before also had appeared the best, who, wisely counselling, harangued them, and said:\nFootnote 261: (return) The same honour is paid to \u00c6neas in Virg. \u00c6n. viii. 181. Cf. Xenoph. Rep. Lac. XV. 4.\n\u201cSon of Atreus, and ye other chiefs of all the Greeks, many of the long-haired Ach\u00e6ans have perished, whose black blood fierce Mars has now shed near fair-flowing Scamander, and their souls have descended to the shades! Therefore it behoves you to cause the battle of the Greeks to cease with the dawn, and let us, collected together, carry the bodies hither on chariots, with oxen and mules, and burn them at a little distance from the ships, that each may carry home the bones [of the deceased] to their children, when we return again to our father-land. And let us, going out, heap up in the plain one common tomb for all, round the pyre, and beside it let us speedily erect lofty towers, as a bulwark of our ships and of ourselves; and in it let us make a well-fitted gate, that through it there may be a passage for the chariots. But outside let us sink, near at hand, a deep trench, which, being circular, may serve as a defence to both steeds and men, lest at any time the war of the haughty Trojans should press sorely.\u201d\nThus he spoke, and all the princes approved of his counsel. But of the Trojans also was a panic-struck and turbulent council held in the lofty citadel of Ilium, at the gates of Priam; and to them wise Antenor thus began to harangue:\n\u201cHear me, ye Trojans and Dardanians and allies, that I may tell you what the soul in my breast commands me. Come then, let us restore Argive Helen, and her treasures with her to the sons of Atreus to lead away; for now we are fighting after having violated the faithful leagues. Wherefore I think that nothing better will be brought to pass by us, unless we act thus.\u201d\nHe, having thus said, sat down; but to them arose divine Alexander, the husband of fair-haired Helen, who answering him spoke winged words:\n\u201cO Antenor, thou no longer speakest these things grateful to me. Thou knowest how to devise another counsel better than this; but if, in truth, thou speakest this seriously, the gods themselves have now deprived thee of thy senses. But I will declare my opinion amidst the horse-subduing Trojans; I openly declare I will not give up my wife: but the treasures, whatever I have brought home from Argos, all these I am willing to give, and even to add others from my own home.\u201d\nThus having spoken, he sat down; but to them arose Priam, son of Dardanus, a counsellor equal to the gods; who thus wisely harangued them, and said:\n\u201cHear me, ye Trojans, and Dardanians, and allies, that I may tell you what the soul in my breast commands. Now take repast through the army, as heretofore, and be attentive to the watch, and let each be mindful of guard. But in the morning let Id\u00e6us proceed to the hollow ships, to announce to the sons of Atreus, Agamemnon and Menelaus, the resolution of Alexander, on whose account the contention has arisen; and let him add this prudent request also, whether they wish to desist from horrid-sounding war, until we burn the dead; afterwards will we fight again till fate separate us, and give the victory to one or other of us.\u201d\nThus he said: but they heard him very attentively, and obeyed. Then they took their repast throughout the city, by companies. In the morning Id\u00e6us went to the hollow ships. He found the Greeks, the servants of Mars, in council, at the stern of 262 Agamemnon\u2019s ship: and the clear-voiced herald, standing in the midst of them, spoke thus:\n\u201cYe sons of Atreus, and ye other chiefs of all the Greeks, Priam and the other illustrious Trojans command me to tell you, if it be agreeable and pleasing to you, the determination of Alexander, on whose account this contention has arisen.\u201d\nFootnote 262: (return) Dative for genitive, by the Schema Colophonium. See Lesbonax, p. 181, ed. Valck.\n\u201cWhatever treasures Alexander brought in the hollow ships to Troy, (would that he first had perished,) all these is he willing to give up, and even to add others from his own home: but he says that he will not restore the wedded spouse of glorious Menelaus: certainly the Trojans, at least, advise him. They also order me to make this proposal, to wit, whether ye are willing to desist from dreadful-sounding war, until we shall burn the dead: afterwards we shall fight again, till fate separate us, and give the victory to one of us.\u201d\nThus he said, but they all became mute in silence. At length Diomede, brave in the din of war, spoke thus amongst them:\n\u201cLet none now receive the treasures of Alexander, nor Helen: for it is plain, even [to him] who is a mere infant, that the issues of destruction impend over the Trojans.\u201d\nThus he said, and all the sons of the Greeks shouted, admiring the words of horse-breaking Diomede: and then Agamemnon, king of men, thus addressed Id\u00e6us:\n\u201cId\u00e6us, thou thyself hearest, indeed, the sentiments of the Greeks, how they answer thee; and such also pleases me. But concerning the dead, I grudge not that [you] should burn them; for there is no grudge towards the dead bodies, when they are dead, hastily to perform their obsequies with fire: 263 but let loud-resounding Jove, the husband of Juno, be witness of the treaties.\u201d\nFootnote 263: (return) Literally, \u201cto appease [the dead].\u201d\nThus having said, he raised his sceptre to all the gods. But Id\u00e6us returned to sacred Ilium. And the Trojans and Dardanians all sat assembled in council, expecting when Id\u00e6us might return. He came, and declared his message, standing in the midst of them. But they prepared themselves very speedily for both purposes, some to carry away the bodies, and others to gather wood. The Greeks also on the other side hastened from their well-benched ships, some to carry away the bodies, and others to collect wood.\nThen, indeed, the sun freshly struck the fields [with its rays], ascending heaven from the calmly-flowing, deep-moving ocean. But they met one another. Then was it difficult to distinguish each man [amongst the slain]; but washing off with water the bloody gore, and pouring over them warm tears, they placed them upon the chariots; nor did mighty Priam suffer them to give way to grief. In silence, therefore, they heaped the bodies on the pile, grieving at heart. But when they had burned them in the fire, they returned to sacred Ilium. In like manner also, on the other side, the well-greaved Greeks heaped the bodies on the pile, grieving in their heart; and having burned them with fire, they returned to the hollow ships. And when it was not yet morning, but still twilight, then a chosen band of Greeks arose about the pile; and going out from the plain, they made around it one common tomb, and near it they built a wall and lofty towers, a bulwark of their ships and of themselves. In them they made well-fitted gates, that through them there might be a passage for the chariots. Without they dug a deep ditch, near it, broad and large, and in it fixed palisades. Thus the long-haired Greeks on their part laboured.\nBut the gods on the contrary sitting beside the thundering Jove, were admiring the mighty work of the brazen-mailed Greeks; but to them Neptune, the earth-shaker, thus began to speak:\n\u201cO father Jove, is there any mortal on the boundless earth, who will any more disclose his mind and counsel to the immortals? Dost thou not perceive how the long-haired Greeks have built a wall before their shipping, and have drawn a ditch all round, nor have they given splendid hecatombs to the gods? The fame of this [work] will certainly be wherever light is diffused: but they will forget that [wall] which I and Ph\u0153bus Apollo, toiling, built round the city for the hero Laomedon.\u201d  264\nHim, greatly enraged, the cloud-compelling Jove addressed:\n\u201cHa! thou far-ruling earth-shaker, what hast thou said? Another of the gods, who is much weaker than thou in hands and in might might have dreaded this idea; but thy glory shall assuredly extend as far as light is diffused. Howbeit, when the crest-waving Greeks shall have departed with their ships into their dear fatherland, do thou, overthrowing this wall, sink it all in the deep, and again cover the great shore with sand. Thus may this mighty rampart of the Greeks be wholly effaced.\u201d\nFootnote 264: (return) Grote, Hist. p. 78, well observes that the \u201csubsequent animosity of Neptune against Troy was greatly determined by the sentiment of the injustice of Laomedon.\u201d On the discrepancy between this passage and XXI. 442, see M\u00fcller, Dor. vol. i. p. 249\nThus were they conversing on such matters among themselves. But the sun had set, and the work of the Greeks was finished. They slaughtered oxen through the tents, and took their repast. Many ships (which Eune\u00fcs, son of Jason, whom Hypsipyle bore to Jason, shepherd of the people, sent,) arrived from Lemnos, bringing wine. The son of Jason gave of wine a thousand measures, to be brought separately, as a gift to the sons of Atreus, Agamemnon and Menelaus. Thence the long-haired Greeks bought 265 wine, some for brass, some for shining iron, others for hides, some for the oxen themselves, and some for slaves; and they prepared an abundant feast. Through the whole night, indeed, the long-haired Greeks feasted; and the Trojans too, and their allies, through the city. And all night thundering fearfully, provident Jove was devising evils for both parties; but pale fear seized them. And they poured wine from their cups on the earth, nor did any one dare to drink before he had made a libation to the supreme son of Saturn. They then lay down, and enjoyed the boon of sleep.\nFootnote 265: (return) Theophilus Jctus. iii. tit. xxiii. \u00a7 1. \u039a\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c4\u03cc \u1f10\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c4\u1f78 \u1f10\u03bd \u03c4\u1ff7 \u03c0\u03bb\u03ae\u03b8\u03b5\u03b9 \u03b8\u03c1\u03c5\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03cd\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd \u03c4\u1fc7 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03b1\u03b3\u03bc\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u1f10\u03bd\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03b1\u03b3\u1fc7 \u03c0\u03c1\u1fb6\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f00\u03b3\u03bf\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03af\u03b1\u03bd \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9, \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c4\u03bf \u03c4\u1f78 \u03b5\u1fd6\u03b4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c0\u03c1\u03ac\u03c3\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2 \u1f00\u03c1\u03c7\u03b1\u03b9\u03cc\u03c4\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u1f36\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9. He then alleges these lines of Homer as the earliest known instance of barter.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THE EIGHTH.\nARGUMENT.\nJove assembles the gods, and forbids them to interfere between the Greeks and Trojans. He then repairs to Ida, where, having consulted the scales of destiny, he directs his lightning against the Greeks. Nestor, in the chariot of Diomede, goes against Hector, whose charioteer is slain by Diomede. Jove again interposes his thunders, and the Greeks seek refuge within the rampart. Upon a favourable omen accompanying the prayer of Agamemnon, Diomede and the rest set out, and Teucer performs great exploits, but is disabled by Hector. Juno and Minerva are prevented interfering by Jove, and Hector takes measures to insure the safety of Troy during the night.\nNow did saffron-mantled morn diffuse herself over all the earth, and thunder-rejoicing Jove made an assembly of the gods on the highest peak of many-topped Olympus. And he himself harangued them, and all the other deities hearkened (to his command): 266\n\u201cHear me, all ye gods and all ye goddesses, that I may tell you what the soul in my breast prompts me. Let no female deity, therefore, nor any male, attempt to infringe this my injunction; but do ye all at once assent, that I may very speedily bring these matters to their issue. Whomsoever of the gods I shall discover, having gone apart from [the rest], wishing to aid either the Trojans or the Greeks, disgracefully smitten shall he return to Olympus: or seizing, I will hurl him into gloomy Tartarus, very far hence, where there is a very deep gulf beneath the earth, and iron portals, and a brazen threshold, as far below Hades as heaven is from earth; 267 then shall he know by how much I am the most powerful of all the gods. But come, ye gods, and try me, that ye may all know. Having suspended a golden chain from heaven, do all ye gods and goddesses suspend yourselves therefrom; yet would ye not draw down from heaven to earth your supreme counsellor Jove, not even if ye labour ever so much: but whenever I, desiring, should wish to pull it, I could draw it up together, earth, and ocean, and all: then, indeed, would I bind the chain around the top of Olympus, and all these should hang aloft. By so much do I surpass both gods and men.\u201d  268\nFootnote 266: (return) I. e. dii obsequtii sunt, ut convocati convenirent.\u2014Heyne.\nFootnote 267: (return) See the notes of Newton on Parad. Lost, i. 74.\nFootnote 268: (return) Referring to this address of Jove, Coleridge remarks: \u201cAlthough the supremacy of Jove comes far short of the true conception of almighty power, the characteristic point which seems to be fairly established is, that he is the active and ruling power of the popular mythology, the supreme and despotic chief of an aristocracy of weaker divinities, accustomed to consult with them and liable to their opposition and even violence, yet, upon the whole, substantially aristocratic, and independent of any recognized permanent superior.\u201d\u2014Classic Poets, p. 159.\nThus he said. But they all became mute in silence, wondering at his speech; for he spoke very menacingly. But at length the azure-eyed goddess Minerva thus spoke in the midst:\n\u201cO sire of ours! son of Saturn! most supreme of kings! well do we all know that thy strength is irresistible: yet do we truly mourn for the warlike Greeks, who are now perishing, fulfilling their evil fate. But nevertheless, we will refrain from war, since thus thou commandest. Yet will we suggest counsel to the Greeks, which will avail them, that they may not all perish because thou art wrathful.\u201d\nBut her the cloud-impelling Jove smiling addressed: \u201cBe of good cheer, Tritonia, my dear daughter\u2014I speak not with a serious intent; but I am willing to be lenient towards thee.\u201d\nThus having said, under his chariot he yoked his brazen-footed, swift-flying steeds, adorned with golden manes. He himself put on gold about his person, and took his golden well-made whip, and ascended the chariot; and lashed them on to proceed, and they, not unwilling, flew midway between the earth and starry heaven. He came to spring-fed Ida, the mother of wild beasts, to Gargarus, where he had a consecrated enclosure, and a fragrant altar. There the father of gods and men stopped his steeds, having loosed them from the chariot, and poured a thick haze around. But he sat upon the summits, exulting in glory, looking upon the city of the Trojans and the ships of the Greeks.\nMeanwhile the long-haired Greeks were taking their repast in a hurried manner through the tents, and after that they put on their armour. But the Trojans, on the other side, were arming themselves through the city, fewer in number; yet even thus, they were eager to fight in battle, compelled by necessity, in defence of their children and their wives. And the gates were opened wide, and the forces rushed out, both chariot warriors and foot, and much tumult arose. But when these collecting together came into one place, they clashed together shields and spears, and the might of brazen-mailed men; but the bossy shields approached one another, and much tumult arose. There at the same time were both lamentation and boasting of men destroying and destroyed, and the earth flowed with blood. As long as the forenoon lasted, and the sacred day was in progress, so long did the weapons touch both, and the people fell. But when the sun had ascended the middle heaven, then at length did Father Jove raise the golden scales, and placed in them two destinies of long-reposing death, [the destinies] both of the horse-breaking Trojans and of the brazen-mailed Greeks, and holding them in the middle, he poised them; but the fatal day of the Greeks inclined low. The destinies of the Greeks, indeed, rested on the bounteous earth, but those of the Trojans on the contrary were elevated to the wide heaven.\nBut he himself mightily thundered from Ida, and sent his burning lightning against the army of the Greeks: they having seen it, were amazed, and pale fear seized them all. Then neither Idomeneus, nor Agamemnon, nor the two Ajaces, the servants of Mars, dared to remain. Gerenian Nestor alone, the guardian of the Greeks, remained, not willingly, but one of his horses was disabled, which noble Alexander, husband of fair-haired Helen, had pierced with an arrow in the top of the forehead, where the forelocks of horses grow out of the head, and is most fatal. 269 In torture he reared, for the arrow had entered the brain; and he disordered the [other] horses, writhing round the brazen barb. Whilst the old man hastening, was cutting away the side reins of the horse with his sword, then were the swift steeds of Hector coming through the crowd, bearing the bold charioteer Hector. And then the old man would certainly have lost his life, if Diomede, brave in the din of battle, had not quickly observed it; and he shouted, dreadfully exhorting Ulysses, [thus]:\nFootnote 269: (return) Or \u201copportune\u201d viz for inflicting a fatal wound.\u2014Kennedy.\n\u201cJove-born son of La\u00ebrtes, much-contriving Ulysses, whither dost thou fly, turning thy back in the throng, like a coward? [Beware], lest some man with a spear transpierce thee in the back, flying. But stay, that we may repel the fierce hero from the aged man.\u201d\nThus he spoke: but much-enduring, noble Ulysses heard him not, but passed by to the hollow ships of the Greeks. But the son of Tydeus, though being alone, was mixed with the van, and stood before the steeds of the aged son of Neleus, and addressing him, spoke winged words:\n\u201cO old man, certainly the youthful warriors greatly oppress thee: but thy strength is relaxed, and tiresome old age attends thee: thy servant is exhausted, and thy steeds are slow. But come, ascend my chariot, that thou mayest see what kind are the steeds of Tros, skilled to fly and to pursue very rapidly, here and there, through the plain; which lately I took from \u00c6neas, authors of flight. Let the attendants take care of those steeds [of thine], but let us direct these against the horse-breaking Trojans, that even Hector may know whether my spear also rages madly in my hands.\u201d Thus he said: but the Gerenian knight Nestor disobeyed him not. Accordingly, at once their attendants, brave Sthenelus and valorous Eurymedon, took care of Nestor\u2019s steeds: and the two chiefs ascended the chariot of Diomede. Nestor took the shining reins in his hands, and lashed the steeds, and soon they came near Hector. At him rushing impetuously forward, the son of Tydeus launched a spear; but the weapon missed him, and struck his attendant charioteer in the breast, near the pap, who was holding the reins of the steeds, Eniopeus, the son of magnanimous Theb\u00e6us: but he fell from the chariot, and the swift steeds started back, and there his soul and his strength were dissolved. But excessive grief overshadowed Hector in his mind, on account of [the loss of] his charioteer. There, though grieving for his companion, he let him lie, and sought a bold charioteer: nor did his steeds long want a guide; for soon he found courageous Archeptolemus, the son of Iphitus, whom then he made to mount the swift-footed steeds, and gave the reins into his hands.\nThen, indeed, had slaughter arisen, and dreadful deeds had been done, and [the Trojans] had been pent up in Ilium like lambs, had not the father of both men and gods quickly perceived it. Therefore, dreadfully thundering he sent forth his glowing thunderbolt, and cast it into the earth before the steeds of Diomede: but there arose a terrible flame of burning sulphur, and the two frightened steeds crouched trembling beneath the chariot. Moreover, the beautiful reins fell from the hands of Nestor, and he feared in his soul, and addressed Diomede:\n\u201cSon of Tydeus, come now, turn thy solid-hoofed steeds to flight. Dost thou not perceive that victory from Jove does not attend thee? For now, this very day, of a truth, Saturnian Jove awards him glory; afterwards again will he give it to us, if he shall be willing. By no means can a man impede the will of Jove, not even a very mighty one; since he is by far the most powerful.\u201d\nBut him Diomede, brave in the din of war, then answered: \u201cOld man, certainly thou hast said all this rightly: but this grievous sorrow invades my heart and my soul: for Hector at some time will say, haranguing amongst the Trojans, \u2018The son of Tydeus, routed by me, fled to his ships.\u2019 Thus at some time will he boast: but then may the earth yawn wide for me.\u201d\nBut him the Gerenian knight Nestor then answered: \u201cAlas! warlike son of Tydeus, what hast thou said? Even though Hector call thee coward and unwarlike, yet the Trojans and Dardanians, and the wives of the stout-hearted shield-bearing Trojans, whose vigorous husbands thou hast prostrated in the dust, will not believe him.\u201d\nThus having said, he turned the solid-hoofed steeds to flight, back into the crowd. But the Trojans and Hector, with a mighty shout, poured destructive missiles upon them. And then after him loud roared mighty crest-tossing Hector:\n\u201cSon of Tydeus, the swift-horsed Greeks honoured thee, indeed, above [others] with a seat, with meat, and full cups; but now will they dishonour thee; for thou hast become like a woman. Away! timorous girl! since thou shalt never climb our towers, I giving way, nor bear away our women in thy ships; first shall I give thee thy doom.\u201d\nThus he said; but the son of Tydeus debated whether to turn his steeds, and to fight against him. Thrice, indeed, he thought in mind and soul, but thrice, on the other hand, the provident Jove thundered from the Id\u00e6an mountains, giving a signal to the Trojans, the alternating success of battle. But Hector exhorted the Trojans, vociferating aloud:\n\u201cYe Trojans and Lycians, and close-fighting Dardanians, be men, my friends, and be mindful of impetuous might! I know the son of Saturn hath willingly accorded me victory and great renown, but to the Greeks destruction. Fools, who indeed built those weak, worthless walls, which shall not check my strength; but our steeds will easily overleap the dug trench. But when, indeed, I come to their hollow ships, then let there be some memory of burning fire, that I may consume their fleet with the flame, and slay the Argives themselves at the ships, bewildered by the smoke.\u201d\nThus having spoken, he cheered on his steeds, and said: \u201cXanthus, and thou Podargus, and \u00c6thon, and noble Lampus, now repay to me the attention, with which, in great abundance, Andromache, the daughter of magnanimous Eetion, gave to you the sweet barley, mixing wine also [for you] to drink, whenever your mind ordered it, even before me, who boast to be her vigorous husband. But follow and hasten, that we may take the shield of Nestor, the fame of which has now reached the heaven, that it is entirely golden, the handles and itself: but, from the shoulders of horse-breaking Diomede, the well-made corslet, which the artist Vulcan wrought. If we can take these, I expect that the Greeks this very night will ascend their swift ships.\u201d\nThus he said boasting; but venerable Juno was indignant, and shook herself on her throne, and made great Olympus tremble; and openly accosted the mighty deity, Neptune:\n\u201cAlas! far-ruling Earth-shaker, dost thou not in thy soul pity the perishing Greeks? But they bring thee many and grateful gifts to Helice and \u00c6g\u00e6. Do thou, therefore, will to them the victory. For if we were willing, as many of us as are assistants to the Greeks, to repulse the Trojans and restrain far-sounding Jove, then might he grieve sitting alone there on Ida.\u201d\nBut her king Neptune, greatly excited, thus addressed: \u201cJuno, petulant 270 in speech, what hast thou said? I would not wish, indeed, that we, the other gods, should fight with Saturnian Jove, since he is by far most powerful.\u201d\nFootnote 270: (return) Compare the phrase \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03ac\u03c0\u03c4\u03b5\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u03c0\u03b5\u03b5\u03c3\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd.\u2014Od. ii. 240. Suidas: \u0391\u03c0\u03c4\u03bf\u03b5\u03c0\u03ae\u03c2' \u03b1\u03c0\u03c4\u03cc\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b5\u03bd \u03c4\u1fa4 \u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd. Apollon. Lex. p. 188: \u201c\u0391\u03c0\u03c4\u03c9\u03c4\u03b5, \u03ae \u03b1\u03c0\u03c4\u03cc\u03b7\u03c4\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2, \u03ae \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03b1\u03c0\u03c4\u03bf\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03b7 \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03c9\u03bd.\u201d\nThus indeed were they holding such converse with each other. But whatever space before the ships the trench belonging to the tower enclosed, was filled with horses and shielded men crowded together. 271 But Hector, the son of Priam, equal to swift Mars, had crowded them thus, when Jupiter awarded him glory. And now would he have burned the equal ships with blazing fire, had not venerable Juno put it into the soul of Agamemnon, himself actively engaged, briskly to urge on the Greeks. He therefore hastened to go along the tents and ships of the Greeks, holding in his stout hand his great purple robe. But in the huge black ship of Ulysses he stood, which was in the midst, that he might shout audibly to either side, as well to the tent of Telamonian Ajax, as to that of Achilles, for they had drawn up their equal ships at the extremities of the line, relying on their valour and the strength of their hands. Then he shouted distinctly, calling upon the Greeks:\n\u201cShame! ye Greeks, foul subjects of disgrace! gallant in form [alone]! Where are those boastings gone, when we professed ourselves the bravest; those which, once in Lemnos, vain braggarts! ye did utter, eating much flesh of horned oxen, and drinking-goblets crowned with wine, 272 that each would in battle be equivalent to a hundred and even two hundred of the Trojans? But now, indeed, we are not equal to Hector alone, who shortly will burn our ships with flaming fire. \u039f father Jove, hast thou indeed ever yet afflicted with such destruction any one of mighty kings, and so deprived him of high renown? And yet I say that I never passed by thy fair altar in my many-benched ship, coming here with ill luck. 273 But on all I burned the fat of oxen and the thighs, desiring to sack well-walled Troy. But, \u039f Jove, accomplish for me this vow, at least permit us to escape and get away; nor suffer the Greeks to be thus subdued by the Trojans.\u201d\nFootnote 271: (return) Observe that \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd belongs to \u03af\u03c0\u03c0\u03c9\u03bd and \u03b1\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03ce\u03bd, and that \u03cc\u03c3\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03ba \u03bd\u03b7\u03ce\u03bd \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc \u03c0\u03cd\u03c1\u03b3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03ac\u03c6\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b5\u03b5\u03c1\u03b3\u03b5, means that \u201cthe space between the rampart and the sea was enclosed.\u201d \u0391\u03c0\u03cc does not govern \u03c0\u03c5\u03c1\u03b3\u03bf\u03c5, but is compounded with \u03b5\u03b5\u03c1\u03b3\u03b5.\nFootnote 272: (return) Cf. Buttm. Lexil. p. 292, sqq. who has, however, been long since anticipated by Paschal. de Coron. i. 4.\nFootnote 273: (return) Schol. \u0388\u03c1\u03c1\u03c9\u03bd, \u03b5\u03c0\u03af \u03c6\u03b8\u03bf\u03c1 \u03c0\u03b1\u03bf\u03b1\u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2. See Alberti on Hesych, s. v. t. i. p. 1445. So, also, Apollon. p. 364: \u0388\u03c0\u0390 \u03c6\u03b8\u03bf\u03c1\u1fb4 \u03c0\u03bf\u03c1\u03b5\u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2.\nThus he said: and the Sire 274 pitied him weeping, and granted to him that the army should be safe, and not perish. And forthwith he sent an eagle, the most perfect 275 of birds, holding a fawn in his talons, the offspring of a swift deer: and near the very beauteous altar of Jove he cast down the fawn, where the Greeks were sacrificing to Panomph\u00e6an 276 Jove.\nWhen, therefore, they saw that the bird had come from Jove, they rushed the more against the Trojans, and were mindful of battle. Then none of the Greeks, numerous as they were, could have boasted that he had driven his swift steeds before Diomede, and urged them beyond the ditch, and fought against [the enemy]; for far the first he slew a helmeted Trojan hero, Agelaus, son of Phradmon. He, indeed, was turning his horses for flight; but as he was turning, Diomede fixed his spear in his back, between his shoulders, and drove it through his breast. He fell from his chariot, and his arms rattled upon him. After him the sons of Atreus, Agamemnon and Menelaus; after them the Ajaces, clad in impetuous valour; after them, Idomeneus and Meriones, the armour-bearer of Idomeneus, equal to man-slaughtering Mars; and after them Eurypylus, the illustrious son of Ev\u00e6mon. Teucer came the ninth, stretching his bent 277 bow, and stood under the shield of Telamonian Ajax. Then Ajax, indeed, kept moving the shield aside, and the hero looking around, when shooting, he had hit any one in the crowd, the one 278 falling there, lost his life. But he 279 retiring like a child to his mother, sheltered himself beneath Ajax, and he covered him with his splendid shield. Then what Trojan first did blameless Teucer slay? Orsilochus first, and Ormenus, and Ophelestes, and D\u00e6tor, and Chromius, and godlike Lycophontes, and Amopaon, son of Poly\u00e6mon, and Melanippus\u2014all, one after the other, he stretched upon the bounteous earth. But Agamemnon, king of men, rejoiced at seeing him destroying the phalanxes of the Trojans with his stout bow. And advancing near him he stood, and thus addressed him:\nFootnote 274: (return) See my note on \u00c6sch. Prom. p. 3, n. 3, ed. Bohn.\nFootnote 275: (return) I. e. with reference to augury. Hesych. p. 1360, explains it by \u03b5\u03c0\u03b9\u03c4\u03b5\u03bb\u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u03ce\u03c4\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd (see Alberti). The eagle is said to have foretold Jove\u2019s own sovereignty, and hence to have been placed among the constellations. Cf. Hygin. Poet. Astr. ii. 16; Eratosthen. Catast. 30; Serv. on \u00c6n. ix. 564.\nFootnote 276: (return) So called, as being the author of all augury.\nFootnote 277: (return) I. e. prepared for action.\nFootnote 278: (return) I. e. the wounded man.\nFootnote 279: (return) Teucer.\n\u201cTeucer, beloved one, son of Telamon, ruler of forces, shoot thus, if perchance thou mayest become a light 280 to the Greeks, and to thy father Telamon, who brought thee up carefully, being a little one, and treated thee with care in his palace, though being a spurious son. Him, though far away, do thou exalt with glory. But I will declare to thee, as it shall be brought to pass, if \u00e6gis-bearing Jove and Minerva shall grant me to sack the well-built city of Ilium, next to myself I will place an honourable reward in thy hands, either a tripod, or two steeds with their chariot, or some fair one, who may ascend the same couch with thee.\u201d\nFootnote 280: (return) See on vi. 6.\nBut him blameless Teucer answering, addressed: \u201cMost glorious son of Atreus, why dost thou urge on me hastening; nor, as far as I have any strength, do I loiter: but from the time we have driven the Trojans towards Ilium, since that period have I slain men, intercepting them with my shafts. Already have I discharged eight long-bearded arrows, and they have all been fixed in the bodies of warlike youths; but I cannot strike this raging dog.\u201d\nHe said; and another arrow from the string he shot right against Hector, for his mind was eager to strike him; and him indeed he missed: but in the breast he struck blameless Gorgythion with an arrow, the brave son of Priam. Him his fair mother Castianira, like unto a goddess in person, brought forth, being wedded from \u00c6syma. And as a poppy, which in the garden is weighed down with fruit and vernal showers, droops its head to one side, so did his head incline aside, depressed by the helmet. But Teucer discharged another arrow from the string against Hector, for his mind longed to strike him. Yet even then he missed, for Apollo warded off the shaft: but he struck in the breast, near the pap, Archeptolemus, the bold charioteer of Hector, rushing to battle: and he fell from his chariot, and his swift steeds sprang back. There his soul and strength were dissolved. But sad grief darkened the mind of Hector, on account of his charioteer. Then indeed he left him, although grieved for his companion, and ordered his brother Cebriones, being near, to take the reins of the steeds; but he was not disobedient, having heard him. Then [Hector] himself leaped from his all-shining chariot to the ground, roaring dreadfully: and he seized a large stone in his hand, and went straight against Teucer, for his mind encouraged him to strike him. He on his part took out a bitter arrow from his quiver, and applied it to the string: but him, on the other hand, near the shoulder, where the collar-bone separates the neck and breast, and it is a particularly fatal spot, there, as he was drawing back [the bow], the active warrior Hector 281 with a rugged stone struck him earnestly rushing against him. He broke his bowstring, and his hand was numbed at the wrist-joint. Falling on his knees he stood, and the bow dropped from his hands. But Ajax did not neglect his fallen brother; for running up, he protected him, and stretched his shield before him. Afterwards his two dear companions, Mecistheus, son of Echius, and noble Alastor, coming up, carried him, groaning heavily, to the hollow ships.\nFootnote 281: (return) See Buttm. Lexil. p. 64.\nBut again did Olympian Jove rouse the strength of the Trojans; and they drove back the Greeks straight to the deep foss. But Hector went in the van, looking grim through ferocity; as when some dog, relying on his swift feet, seizes from the rear a wild boar or lion on the haunch and buttocks, and marks him as he turns: so Hector hung on the rear of the long-haired Greeks, always slaying the hindmost: and they fled. But when they flying had passed through the stakes and the foss, and many were subdued beneath the hands of the Trojans, they, on the one hand, remaining at the ships were restrained, and having exhorted one another, and raised their hands to all the gods, they prayed each with a loud voice. But, on the other hand, Hector, having the eyes of a Gorgon, or of man-slaughtering Mars, drove round his beauteous-maned steeds in all directions.\nBut them [the Greeks] white-armed goddess Juno having beheld, pitied them, and thus straightway to Minerva addressed winged words:\n\u201cAlas! daughter of \u00e6gis-bearing Jove, shall we no longer be anxious about the perishing Greeks, although in extremity;\u2014who now, indeed, fulfilling evil fate, are perishing by the violence of one man? for Hector, the son of Priam, rages, no longer to be endured, and already has he done many evils.\u201d\nBut her the azure-eyed goddess Minerva in turn addressed: \u201cAnd beyond doubt this warrior would have lost his vigour and his life, destroyed by the hands of the Greeks in his fatherland, were it not that this my sire rages with no sound mind; cruel, ever unjust, a counteractor of my efforts. Nor does he remember aught of my services, that I have very often preserved his son, when oppressed by the labours of Eurystheus. He truly wept to heaven; but me Jove sent down from heaven to aid him. But had I known this in my prudent 282 mind, when he sent me to [the dwelling] of the gaoler Pluto to drag from Erebus the dog of hateful Pluto, he had not escaped the profound stream of the Stygian wave. But now, indeed, he hates me, and prefers the wish of Thetis, who kissed his knees, and took his beard in her hand, beseeching him to honour city-destroying Achilles, The time will be when he will again call me his dear Minerva. But do thou now harness for us thy solid-hoofed steeds, while I, having entered the palace of \u00e6gis-bearing Jove, equip myself with arms for war, that I may see whether crest-tossing Hector, the son of Priam, will rejoice at us, as I appear in the walks 283 of war. Certainly also some one of the Trojans will satiate the dogs and birds with his fat and flesh, having fallen at the ships of the Greeks.\u201d\nFootnote 282: (return) The Scholiast, and Apollon. Lex. p. 658, interpret \u03c0\u03b5\u03c5\u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03af\u03bc\u03c3\u03b9, \u03c0\u03b9\u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u0390\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b4\u03c5\u03bd\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u1f34\u03c2. Perhaps \u201csharp devising\u201d would be the best translation.\nFootnote 283: (return) Literally, \u201cbridges,\u201d i. e. the open spaces between the different battalions.\nThus she said: nor did the white-armed goddess Juno disobey her. Juno, on her part, venerable goddess, daughter of mighty Saturn, running in haste, caparisoned the golden-bridled steeds. But Minerva, the daughter of \u00e6gis-bearing Jove, let fall upon the pavement of her father her beauteous variegated robe, which she had wrought and laboured with her own hands. But she, having put on the coat of mail of cloud-compelling Jove, was equipped in armour for the tearful war. She mounted her flaming chariot on her feet, and took her heavy, huge, sturdy spear, with which she is wont to subdue the ranks of heroic men, with whomsoever she, sprung from a powerful sire, is enraged. But Juno with the lash speedily urged on the steeds. The portals of heaven opened spontaneously, which the Hours 284 guarded, to whom are intrusted the great heaven and Olympus, either to open the dense cloud, or to close it. Then through these they guided their goaded steeds.\nFootnote 284: (return) Hence the Hours also possess the office of tending and harnessing the horses of the sun, as is shown by Dausq. on Quint. Calab. i. p. 9.\nBut father Jove, when he beheld them from Ida, was grievously enraged, and roused golden-winged Iris to bear this message:\n\u201cAway, depart, swift Iris, turn them back, nor suffer them to come against me; for we shall not advantageously engage in battle. For thus I speak, and it shall moreover be accomplished, I will lame their swift steeds under their chariot, dislodge them from the chariot, and break the chariot; nor for ten revolving years shall ye be healed of the wounds which the thunderbolt shall inflict: that Minerva may know when she may be fighting with her sire. But with Juno I am neither so indignant nor so angry; for she is ever accustomed to counteract me, in whatever I intend.\u201d\nThus he said: but Iris, swift as the storm, hastened to bear the message. Down from the Id\u00e6an mountains she went to great Olympus: meeting them in the foremost gates of many-valleyed Olympus, she restrained them, and pronounced to them the message of Jove:\n\u201cWhere do ye go? Why does your soul rage in your breasts? The sun of Saturn does not suffer you to aid the Greeks. For thus has the son of Saturn threatened, and he will assuredly perform it, to lame your swift steeds under your chariot, and dislodge yourselves from the chariot, and break the chariot; nor for ten revolving years shall ye be healed of the wounds which his thunderbolt shall inflict: that thou, \u039f Azure-eyed, mayest know when thou art fighting with thy sire. But with Juno he is neither so indignant nor so angry; for she is always accustomed to counteract him in whatever he devises. But thou, most insolent and audacious hound! if thou in reality shalt dare to raise thy mighty spear against Jove\u2014\u201d  285\nFootnote 285: (return) Observe the aposiopesis.\nThus indeed having said, swift-footed Iris departed. Then Juno addressed these words to Minerva:\n\u201cAlas! daughter of \u00e6gis-bearing Jove, I cannot any longer suffer that we ourselves shall fight against Jove, on account of mortals. Of whom let one perish, and let another live, whoever may chance. But let him, meditating his own affairs in his mind, adjudicate to the Trojans and the Greeks as is fair.\u201d\nThus then having said, she turned back the solid-hoofed steeds. The Hours unyoked for them the fair-maned steeds, and bound them to the ambrosial mangers; but they tilted the chariots against the splendid walls. But they themselves sat, mingled with the other deities, on their golden couches, sad at heart.\nThen father Jove drove his beauteous-wheeled chariot and steeds from Ida to Olympus, and came to the seats of the gods. His horses, indeed, the illustrious Earth-shaker loosed, but he laid the chariot on its support, spreading a linen coverlet [over it]. But loud-sounding Jove himself sat on his golden throne, and mighty Olympus was shaken under his feet. But Minerva and Juno by themselves sat apart from Jove, nor did they at all address him, nor question him. But he knew in his mind, and said:\n\u201cWhy are ye so sad, Minerva and Juno? Indeed, ye have not laboured long in glorious battle to destroy the Trojans, against whom ye have taken grievous hatred. Not all the gods in Olympus could altogether turn me to flight, such are my strength and my invincible hands. But trembling seized the shining limbs of both of you, before ye saw battle, and the destructive deeds of war. For so I tell you, which would also have been performed: no more should ye, stricken with my thunder, have returned in your chariots to Olympus, where are the seats of the immortals.\u201d\nThus he said: but Minerva and Juno murmured. They sat near each other, and were devising evils for the Trojans.\nMinerva, indeed, was silent, nor said anything, angry with father Jove, for wild rage possessed her. But Juno contained not her wrath in her breast, but addressed him:\n\u201cMost terrible son of Saturn, what hast thou said? Well do we know that thy might is invincible: yet do we lament the warlike Greeks, who will now perish, fulfilling their evil destiny. But nevertheless, we will desist from war, if thou desirest it. But we will suggest counsel to the Greeks, which will avail them, that they may not all perish, thou being wrathful.\u201d\nBut her cloud-compelling Jove answering, addressed: \u201cTo-morrow, if thou wilt, O venerable, large-eyed Juno, thou shalt behold the very powerful son of Saturn even with greater havoc destroying the mighty army of the warlike Greeks. For warlike Hector will not cease from battle before that he arouse the swift-footed son of Peleus at the ships. On that day, when they indeed are fighting at the ships, in a very narrow pass, for Patroclus fallen. For thus is it fated. But I do not make account of thee enraged, not if thou shouldst go to the furthest limits of land and ocean, where Iapetus and Saturn sitting, are delighted neither with the splendour of the sun that journeys on high, nor with the winds; but profound Tartarus [is] all around\u2014not even if wandering, thou shouldst go there, have I regard for thee enraged, since there is nothing more impudent than thou.\u201d\nThus he said: but white-armed Juno answered nought. And the bright light of the sun fell into the ocean, drawing dark night over the fruitful earth. 286 The light set to the Trojans indeed unwilling; but gloomy and much-desired light came on, grateful to the Greeks.\nFootnote 286: (return) Beautifully expressed by Ennius apud Macrob. Sat. vi. 4: \u201cInterea fax Occidit, Oceanumque rubra tractim obruit \u00e6thra.\u201d See Columna on \u0395nn. p. 113, ed. Hessel.\nBut illustrious Hector then formed a council of the Trojans, having led them apart from the ships, at the eddying river, in a clear space, where the place appeared free from dead bodies. But alighting to the ground from their horses, they listened to the speech which Hector, beloved of Jove, uttered. In his hand he held a spear of eleven cubits: and before him shone the golden point of the spear, and a golden ring surrounded it. Leaning on this, he spoke winged words:\n\u201cHear me, ye Trojans, and Dardanians, and allies: I lately thought that having destroyed the ships and all the Greeks, I should return back to wind-swept Ilium. But darkness has come on first, which has now been the chief means of preserving the Greeks and their ships on the shore of the sea. But, however, let us now obey dark night, and make ready our repasts; and do ye loose from your chariots your beautiful-maned steeds, and set fodder before them: and quickly bring from the city oxen and fat sheep; bring sweet wine and bread from your homes; and besides collect many fagots, that all night till Aurora, mother of dawn, we may kindle many fires, and the splendour may ascend to heaven: lest haply in the night the long-haired Greeks attempt to fly over the broad ridge of the ocean. That they may not at all events without toil and without harm ascend their ships: but [let us] take care that each of them may have to heal a wound 287 at home, being stricken either with an arrow, or with a sharp spear, bounding into his ship; that every other too may dread to wage tearful war against the horse-breaking Trojans. Let the heralds, dear to Jove, proclaim through the city, that the youths at the age of puberty, and the hoary-templed sages, keep watch around the city, in the god-built turrets; and let the females also, the feebler sex, in their halls each kindle a mighty fire: and let there be some strong guard, lest a secret band enter the city, the people being absent. Thus let it be, magnanimous Trojans, as I say: and let the speech, which is now most salutary, be thus spoken. But for that which will be [most expedient] in the morning, I will [then] speak amongst the horse-breaking Trojans. Making vows both to Jove and to the other gods, I hope to banish hence those dogs borne hither by the fates, whom the fates bear in their black ships. 288 But let us keep watch during the night, and in the morning, at dawn, equipped with arms, let us stir up sharp conflict at the hollow ships. I will see whether valiant Diomede, the son of Tydeus, will force me back from the ships to our walls, or whether I shall bear away his bloody spoils, having slain him with my brazen spear. To-morrow shall he make manifest his valour, if he shall withstand my assaulting spear. But I think that he will lie wounded amongst the first at sunrise to-morrow, and many companions around him. Would that I were so certainly immortal, and free from old age all my days, and honoured, as Minerva and Apollo are honoured, as [I am certain] that this day will bring evil upon the Greeks.\u201d\nFootnote 287: (return) Literally, \u201cdigest a weapon,\u201d i.e. have a wound to attend to. So telum and vulnus are used for each other in Latin.\nFootnote 288: (return) Surely this line is a gloss upon \u03ba\u03b7\u03c1\u03b5\u03c3\u03c3\u03b9\u03c6\u03bf\u03c1\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2.\nThus Hector harangued them; but the Trojans applauded aloud. And they loosed from the yoke their sweating steeds, and bound them with halters, each to his own chariot. Quickly they brought from the city oxen and fat sheep: and they brought sweet wine, and bread from their homes, and also collected many fagots. But the winds raised the savour from the plain to heaven.\nBut they, greatly elated, sat all night in the ranks of war, and many fires blazed for them. As when in heaven the stars appear very conspicuous 289 around the lucid moon, when the \u00e6ther is wont to be without a breeze, and all the pointed rocks and lofty summits and groves appear, but in heaven the immense \u00e6ther is disclosed, and all the stars are seen, and the shepherd rejoices in his soul. Thus did many fires of the Trojans kindling them appear before Ilium, between the ships and the streams of Xanthus. A thousand fires blazed in the plain, and by each sat fifty men, at the light of the blazing fire. But their steeds eating white barley and oats, standing by the chariots, awaited beautiful-throned Aurora.\nFootnote 289: (return) Cf. \u00c6sch. Ag. 6: \u039b\u03b1\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03b4\u03c5\u03bd\u03ac\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2, \u1f10\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03b5\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b1\u03af\u03b8\u1f73\u03c1\u03b9.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THE NINTH.\nARGUMENT.\nBy advice of Nestor, Agamemnon sends Ulysses, Ph\u0153nix, and Ajax, to the tent of Achilles to sue for a reconciliation. Notwithstanding the earnest appeal of Ph\u0153nix, their errand proves fruitless.\nThus the Trojans indeed kept guard: but a mighty 290 Flight, the companion of chill Fear, seized upon the Greeks; and all the chiefs were afflicted with intolerable grief. And as two winds, the north and south, which both blow from Thrace, 291 rouse the fishy deep, coming suddenly [upon it]; but the black billows are elevated together; and they dash much sea-weed out of the ocean; so was the mind of the Greeks distracted within their bosoms.\nFootnote 290: (return) \u201cIn Il. 1,2, the \u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03c0\u03b5\u03c3\u03af\u03b7 \u03c6\u03c5\u03b6\u03b1 of the Ach\u00e6ans is not to be explained as a supernatural flight, occasioned by the gods. It is a great and general flight, caused by Hector and the Trojans. For although this was approved of and encouraged by Jupiter, yet his was only that mediate influence of the deity without which in general nothing took place in the Homeric battles.\u201d\u2014Buttm. Lexil. p. 358. Cf. Coleridge, p. 160.\nFootnote 291: (return) Wood, p. 46, explains this from the situation of Ionia. Heyne, however, observes, \u201ccomparatio e mente poet\u00e6 instituitur, non ex Agamemnonis persona.\u201d\nBut Atrides, wounded to the heart with great sorrow, kept going round, giving orders to the clear-voiced heralds, to summon each man by name to an assembly, but not to call aloud; and he himself toiled among the first. And they sat in council, grieved, and Agamemnon arose, shedding tears, like a black-water fountain, which pours its gloomy stream from a lofty rock. Thus he, deeply sighing, spoke words to the Greeks:\n\u201cO friends, leaders and chieftains over the Greeks, Jove, the son of Saturn, has greatly entangled me in a grievous calamity: cruel, who once promised me, and assented, that I should return, having destroyed well-built Ilium. But now has he plotted an evil fraud, and orders me to return inglorious to Argos, after I have lost much people. Thus, doubtless, will it be agreeable to almighty Jove, who has already overthrown the heights of many cities, and will still overthrow them, for his power is greatest. But come, let us all obey as I advise: let us fly with the ships to our dear fatherland, for now we shall not take wide-wayed Troy.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but they were all still in silence, and the sons of the Greeks being sad, kept silent long: at length Diomede, brave in the din of battle, spoke:\n\u201cSon of Atreus, thee will I first oppose, speaking inconsiderately, as is lawful, in the assembly; but be not thou the least offended. First among the Greeks didst thou disparage my valour, saying that I was unwarlike and weak; 292 and all this, as well the young as the old of the Greeks know. One of two things hath the son of crafty Saturn given thee: he has granted that thou shouldst be honoured by the sceptre above all; but valour hath he not given thee, which is the greatest strength. Strange man, dost thou then certainly think that the sons of the Greeks are unwarlike and weak, as thou sayest? If indeed thy mind impels thee, that thou shouldst return, go: the way lies open to thee, and thy ships stand near the sea, which very many followed thee from Mycen\u00e6. But the other long-haired Greeks will remain until we overthrow Troy: but if they also [choose], let them fly with their ships to their dear fatherland. But we twain, I and Sthenelus, 293 will fight, until we find an end of Troy; for under the auspices of the deity we came.\u201d\nFootnote 292: (return) Cf. iv. 370, sqq.\nFootnote 293: (return) Heyne compares Julius C\u00e6sar, Com. B. G. i. 40. \u201cSi pr\u00e6terea nemo sequatur (contra Ariovistum), tamen se cum sola decima legione iturum dicit.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but all the sons of the Greeks applauded, admiring the speech of steed-breaking Diomede. But them the knight Nestor, rising up, addressed:\n\u201cSon of Tydeus, pre-eminently indeed art thou brave in battle, and the best in council amongst all thine equals. No one has censured thy discourse, nor contradicts it, as many as are the Greeks; but thou comest not to an end of discussion. 294 Assuredly thou art youthful, and mightst be my youngest son for age, yet thou speakest prudent words to the kings of the Greeks, for thou hast said aright. But come, I who boast to be older than thou, will speak out, and discuss everything: nor will any one, not even king Agamemnon, disregard my speech. Tribeless, lawless, homeless is he, who loves horrid civil war. But now, however, let us obey dark night, and make ready suppers. But let the respective guards lie down beside the trench, dug without the wall. To the youth, indeed, I enjoin these things; but next, Atrides, do thou begin, for thou art supreme. Give a banquet to the elders; it becomes thee, and is not unseemly. Full are thy tents of wine, which the ships of the Greeks daily bring over the wide sea from Thrace. Thou hast every accommodation, and rulest over many people. But when many are assembled, do thou obey him who shall give the best advice; for there is great need of good and prudent [advice] to all the Greeks, since the enemy are burning many fires near the ships; and who can rejoice at these things? But this night will either ruin the army or preserve it.\u201d\nFootnote 294: (return) I. e. thou hast not said all that might have been said on the subject.\nThus he spoke; and they heard him very attentively, and obeyed. But the guards rushed forth with their arms, [those around] Thrasymedes, the son of Nestor, the shepherd of the people, Ascalaphus and Ialmenus, sons of Mars, Meriones, Aphareus, and De\u00efpyrus, as well as the son of Creon, noble Lycomedes. There were seven leaders of the guards, and a hundred youths marched along with each, holding long spears in their hands. Proceeding to the space between the trench and the wall, there they sat down, and there kindled a fire, and prepared each his supper.\nBut Atrides conducted the assembled elders of the Greeks to his tent, and set before them a strength-recruiting banquet; and they laid their hands upon the viands placed before them. But when they had dismissed the desire of eating and drinking, to them first of all did aged Nestor, whose advice had previously appeared best, begin to interweave advice; who wisely counselling, addressed them, and said:\n\u201cMost glorious Atrides, king of men, Agamemnon, with thee shall I end, and with thee shall I commence. Since thou art a king of many nations, and Jove hath placed in thine hands both a sceptre and laws, that thou mayest consult for their advantage. Therefore is it necessary that thou in particular shouldst deliver and hear an opinion, and also accomplish that of another, when his mind urges any one to speak for the [public] good; but on thee will depend whatever takes the lead. Yet will I speak as appears to me to be best. For no other person will propound a better opinion than that which I meditate, both of old and also now, from that period when thou, O nobly born, didst depart, carrying off the maid Brise\u00efs from the tent of the enraged Achilles; by no means according to my judgment; for I very strenuously dissuaded thee from it: but having yielded to thy haughty temper, thou didst dishonour the bravest hero, whom even the immortals have honoured; for, taking away his reward, thou still retainest it. Yet even now let us deliberate how we may succeed in persuading him, appeasing him with agreeable gifts and soothing words.\u201d\nBut him the king of men, Agamemnon, again addressed: \u201cOld man, thou hast not falsely enumerated my errors. I have erred, nor do I myself deny it. That man indeed is equivalent to many troops, whom Jove loves in his heart, as now he hath honoured this man, and subdued the people of the Greeks. But since I erred, having yielded to my wayward disposition, I desire again to appease him, and to give him invaluable presents. Before you all will I enumerate the distinguished gifts: seven tripods untouched by fire, 295 and ten talents of gold, and twenty shining caldrons, and twelve stout steeds, victorious in the race, which have borne off prizes by their feet. No pauper would the man be, nor in want of precious gold, to whom as many prizes belong as [these] solid-hoofed steeds have brought to me. I will likewise give seven beautiful Lesbian women, skilful in faultless works; whom I selected when he himself took well-inhabited Lesbos, who excel the race of women in beauty. These will I give him, and amongst them will be her whom then I took away, the daughter of Brise\u00efs; and I will swear moreover a mighty oath, that I never ascended her bed, nor embraced her, as is the custom of human beings\u2014of men and women. All these shall immediately be ready; and if, moreover, the gods grant that we destroy the great city of Priam, let him fill his ships abundantly with gold and brass, entering in when we the Greeks divide the spoil. Let him also choose twenty Trojan women, who may be fairest next to Argive Helen. But if we reach Ach\u00e6an Argos, the udder of the land, 296 he may become my son-in-law; and I will honour him equally with Orestes, who is nurtured as my darling son, in great affluence. Now, I have three daughters in my well-built palace,\u2014Chrysothemis, Laodice, and Iphianassa. Of these let him lead the beloved one, whichsoever he may choose, without marriage-dower, to the house of Peleus; but I will give very many dowries, so many as no man ever yet gave to his daughter. I will, moreover, give him seven well-inhabited cities,\u2014Cardamyle, Enope, and grassy Ira, glorious Pher\u00e6, with deep-pastured Anthea, fair \u00c6peia, and vine-bearing Pedasus; which are all near the sea, the last towards sandy Pylus. But in them dwell men rich in flocks and herds, who will honour him like a god with gifts, and beneath his sceptre will pay rich tributes. These will I bestow upon him, ceasing from his anger. Let him be prevailed upon. Pluto indeed is implacable and inexorable, wherefore he is the most hateful of all the gods to men. Let him likewise yield to me, inasmuch as I am more kingly, and because I boast to be older [than he].\u201d\nBut him the Gerenian knight Nestor then answered: \u201cMost glorious son of Atreus, king of men, Agamemnon, thou indeed offerest gifts by no means despicable to king Achilles. But come, let us urge chosen men, who may go with all speed to the tent of Achilles, the son of Peleus. Come then, these will I select, but let them obey. First of all indeed let Ph\u0153nix, dear to Jove, be the leader; next then mighty Ajax and divine Ulysses: and of the heralds, let Hodius and Eurybates follow with them. But bring water for the hands, and command to observe well-omened words, 297 that we may supplicate Saturnian Jove, if perchance he will take pity.\u201d\nFootnote 295: (return) I. e. not yet brought into common use.\nFootnote 296: (return) A beautiful expression, denoting the fertility of the land. Cf. Albert. on Hesych. t. ii. p. 806. So \u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf \u03bc\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 in Callim. II. in Del. 48.\nFootnote 297: (return) The translation, \u201cfavour us with their voices,\u201d is nonsense, while \u201ckeep silence\u201d is by no means the meaning of \u03b5\u03cd\u03c6\u03b7\u03bc\u03ae\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9. Kennedy rightly explains it, \u201cabstain from expressions unsuitable to the solemnity of the occasion, which, by offending the god, might defeat the object of their supplications.\u201d See Servius on Virg. \u00c6n. v. 71; Lamb, on Hor. Od. iii. 1, 2; Broukhus. on Tibull. ii. 1, 1.\nThus he spoke, and delivered an opinion agreeable to them all. Immediately indeed the heralds poured water upon their hands, and the youths crowned the goblets with wine; then they distributed them to all, having poured the first of the wine into the cups. But when they had made libations, and drunk as much as their mind desired, they hastened from the tent of Agamemnon, the son of Atreus. To them the Gerenian knight Nestor gave many charges, looking wistfully upon each, particularly upon Ulysses, that they should endeavour to persuade the blameless son of Peleus.\nThey twain then went along the shore of the loud-sounding sea, praying earnestly to earth-shaking [Neptune], who encompasses the earth, that they might easily persuade the great mind of the grandson of \u00c6acus. But they came to the tents and ships of the Myrmidons, and they found him delighting his soul with his clear-toned harp, beautiful, curiously wrought, and upon it was a silver comb. This he had taken from amongst the spoils, having destroyed the city of E\u00ebtion, and with it he was delighting his soul, and singing the glorious deeds 298 of heroes. Patroclus alone sat opposite to him in silence, waiting upon the descendant of \u00c6acus when he should cease to sing. Then they advanced farther, and divine Ulysses preceded; and they stood before him; whilst Achilles, astonished, leaped up, with his lyre, quitting the seat where he had been sitting. In like manner Patroclus, when he beheld the heroes, arose, and swift-footed Achilles taking them by the hand, addressed them:\n\u201cHail, warriors, ye indeed have come as friends. Surely [there is] some great necessity [when ye come], who are to me, although enraged, dearest of the Greeks.\u201d\nFootnote 298: (return) Or the renown of heroes. So Apollon. i. 1: \u03b1\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03b5\u03c9\u03bd \u03ba\u03bb\u03b5\u03b1 \u03c6\u03ce\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u039c\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03bf\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9.\nThus having spoken, divine Achilles led them forward, and seated them upon couches and purple coverlets; then straightway he addressed Patroclus, who was near:\n\u201cPlace a larger goblet, O son of Men\u0153tius, mix purer wine, 299 and prepare a cup for each, for men most dear [to me] are beneath my roof.\u201d\nFootnote 299: (return) I. e. less diluted than usual. On this quaint picture of ancient manners, compared with the customs of the Hebrew fathers, compare Coleridge, p. 151.\nThus he spoke; and Patroclus obeyed his dear companion. But he [Achilles] placed in the flame of the fire a large dressing-block, and upon it he laid the chine of a sheep and of a fat goat, with the back of a fatted sow, abounding in fat. Automedon then held them for him, and noble Achilles cut them up; and divided them skilfully into small pieces, and transfixed them with spits; whilst the son of Men\u0153tius, a godlike hero, kindled a large fire. But when the fire had burned away, and the flame grew languid, strewing the embers, he extended the spits over them, and sprinkled them with sacred salt, raising them up from the racks. But when he had dressed them, and had thrown them upon kitchen tables, Patroclus, taking bread, served it out upon the board in beautiful baskets: but Achilles distributed the flesh. But he himself sat opposite to noble Ulysses, against the other wall, and ordered Patroclus, his companion, to sacrifice to the gods; and he accordingly cast the first morsels 300 into the fire. And they stretched forth their hands to the prepared viands which lay before them. But when they had dismissed the desire of eating and drinking, Ajax nodded to Phoenix, but noble Ulysses observed it, and having filled his goblet with wine, he pledged Achilles:\nFootnote 300: (return) Hesych. and Phrynicus (for their glosses should probably be joined), \u03b8\u03bd\u03b7\u03bb\u03ac\u03c2' \u03ac\u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03c7\u03ac\u03c2 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03c4\u03b5\u03b8\u03c5\u03bc\u1f11\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd.\n\u201cHealth, Achilles. We are not wanting of a complete feast, either in the tent of Agamemnon, son of Atreus, or even here also, for many strength-recruiting dainties are here; but the business of an agreeable feast is not our care. We, O thou Jove-nurtured one, contemplating it, rather dread a very great disaster, as it is matter of doubt whether the well-benched ships be saved or destroyed, unless thou puttest on thy might. For near the ships and the wall the high-minded Trojans and their far-summoned allies have pitched their camp, kindling many fires throughout the host; and they say that they will no longer restrain themselves, but that they will fall upon our black vessels. 301 And Saturnian Jove exhibiting to them propitious signs, darts his lightning; and Hector, looking fiercely round in valour, rages terribly, trusting in Jove, nor reverences at all either men or gods, but great madness hath come upon him. He prays that divine morn may speedily come. For he declares that he will cut off the poop-ends 302 of the ships, and burn [the ships] themselves with ravaging fire, and slaughter the Greeks beside them, discomforted by the smoke. Wherefore do I greatly fear in my mind lest the gods may fulfil his threats, and it be destined for us to perish in Troy, far from steed-nourishing Argos. Rise then, if thou hast the intention, although late, to defend the harassed sons of the Greeks from the violent onslaught of the Trojans. To thyself it will hereafter be a cause of sorrow, nor is it possible in any manner to discover a remedy for a disaster when received; wherefore reflect much beforehand, how thou mayest avert the evil day from the Greeks. O my friend, surely thy father Peleus charged thee, on that day when he sent thee from Phthia to Agamemnon, \u2018My son, Minerva and Juno will bestow valour, if they choose; but restrain thy great-hearted soul within thy breast, because humanity is better; and abstain from injurious contention, that both the youth and elders of the Greeks may honour thee the more.\u2019 Thus did the old man give charge, but thou art forgetful. Yet even now desist, and lay aside thy mind-corroding wrath. To thee Agamemnon gives worthy gifts, ceasing from indignation. But if [thou wilt] hear from me, and I will repeat to thee how many presents Agamemnon in his tents hath promised thee: seven tripods, untouched by the fire, and ten talents of gold, twenty shining caldrons, and twelve stout steeds, victorious in the race, which have borne off prizes by their feet. No pauper, nor in want of precious gold, would that man be to whom so many prizes belonged as the steeds of Agamemnon have borne off by their fleetness. He will likewise give seven beautiful women, skilful in faultless works, Lesbians, whom he selected when thou thyself didst take well-inhabited Lesbos, who then excelled the race of women in beauty. These will he give thee, and amongst them will be her whom once he took away, the daughter of Brise\u00efs; and he will moreover swear a mighty oath, that he never ascended her bed, nor embraced her, as is the custom. O king, both of men and women. All these shall immediately be in waiting; and if, moreover, the gods grant that we pillage the vast city of Priam, entering, thou mayest fill thy ships abundantly with gold and brass, when we, the Greeks, divide the spoil. Thou shalt also choose twenty Trojan women, who may be fairest next to Argive Helen. But if we reach Ach\u00e6an Argos, the udder of the land, thou mayest become his son-in-law, and he will honour thee equally with Orestes, who is nurtured as his darling son, in great affluence. But he has three daughters in his well-built palace,\u2014Chrysothemis, Laodice, and Iphianassa. Of these thou shalt conduct the most beloved whomsoever thou mayest choose, without marriage-gifts, to the house of Peleus; but he will give very many dowries, such as no man yet gave his daughter. He will moreover give thee seven well-inhabited cities,\u2014Cardamyle, Enope, and grassy Ira, glorious Pher\u00e6, with deep-pastured Anthea, fair \u00c6peia, and vine-bearing Pedasus; which are all near the sea, the last towards sandy Pylus. But in them dwell men abounding in flocks and herds, who will honour thee with gifts like a god, and under thy sceptre pay rich tributes. These will he fulfil to thee ceasing from thy wrath. But if indeed the son of Atreus himself and his gifts be more hateful to thee from thine heart, at least have pity upon all the other Greeks, harassed throughout the army, who will honour thee as a god; for surely thou wilt obtain very great honour among them. For now mayest thou slay Hector, since he hath already come very near thee, possessing destructive fury; since he declares that no one of the Greeks whom the ships have conveyed hither is his equal.\u201d\nFootnote 301: (return) But Heyne, \u201cnon locum tuituros [nos], sed in naves fugituros et discessuros.\u201d\nFootnote 302: (return) This interpretation is substantiated by Heyne, from Il. O, 717. The \u03ac\u03ba\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03c4\u03cc\u03bb\u03b9\u03b1, or figure-heads, are not meant here.\nBut him swift-footed Achilles answering, addressed: \u201cMost noble son of Laertes, much-scheming Ulysses, it behoves me indeed to speak my opinion without reserve, even as I think, and as will be accomplished, that ye may not, sitting beside me, keep whining 303 one after another. Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is he who conceals one thing in his mind and utters another. But I will speak as appears to me to be best; and I think that neither Agamemnon, the son of Atreus, nor the other Greeks will persuade me; since there is no gratitude to him who fights ever ceaselessly with hostile men. An equal portion [falls] to him who loiters, as if one continually fight; and the coward is in equal honour with the brave. The man of no deeds, and the man of many, are wont equally to die; nor does anything lie by me as a store, 304 because I have suffered sorrows in my soul, ever risking my life to fight. And as the bird brings food to her unfledged young when she hath found it, although she fares badly herself; so have I too spent many sleepless nights, and gone through bloody days in combat, fighting with heroes for their wives\u2019 sakes. Twelve cities indeed of men have I wasted with my ships, and on foot I say eleven throughout the fertile Troad. 305 From all these have I carried off many and precious spoils, and bearing them, have given all to Agamemnon, the son of Atreus; whilst he, remaining behind at the swift ships, receiving them, hath distributed but few, but retained many. To the chiefs and kings hath he given other prizes; to whom indeed they remain entire: but from me alone of the Greeks hath he taken it away, and he possesses my spouse, dear to my soul, with whom reclining, let him delight himself. But why is it necessary that the Greeks wage war with the Trojans? Or from what necessity did the son of Atreus, assembling an army, lead it hither? Was it not on account of fair-haired Helen? Do the sons of Atreus alone, of articulate-speaking men, love their wives? [Surely not], since whatever man is good and prudent loves and cherishes his spouse; thus I too loved her from my soul, though the captive of my spear. And now since he hath snatched my reward from my hands, and deceived me, let him not make trial of me, already well informed, for he will not persuade me; but let him consider with thee, O Ulysses, and the other kings, how he may repel the hostile fire from the ships. Assuredly he has already accomplished many labours without me. He has already built a rampart, and drawn a trench broad [and] large beside it; and planted in it palisades; but not even thus can he restrain the might of man-slaughtering Hector. Whilst I indeed fought amongst the Greeks, Hector chose not to arouse the battle at a distance from the wall, but he came [only] as far as the Sc\u00e6an gates, and the beech-tree. There once he awaited me alone, and with difficulty escaped my attack. But since I choose not to war with noble Hector, to-morrow, 306 having performed sacrifices to Jove and all the gods, [and] having well laden my ships, when I shall have drawn them down to the sea, thou shalt behold, if thou wilt, and if such things be a care to thee, my ships early in the morn sailing upon the fishy Hellespont, and men within them, eager for rowing; and if glorious Neptune grant but a prosperous voyage, on the third day I shall surely reach fertile Phthia. 307 Now there I have very many possessions, which I left, coming hither, to my loss. 308 And I will carry hence other gold and ruddy brass, well-girdled women, and hoary iron, which I have obtained by lot. But the reward which he gave, king Agamemnon, the son of Atreus, hath himself insultingly taken from me: to whom do thou tell all things as I charge thee, openly, that the other Greeks also may be indignant, if he, ever clad in impudence, still hope to deceive any of the Greeks; nor let him dare, dog-like as he is, to look in my face. I will neither join in counsels nor in any action with him; for he hath already deceived and offended me, nor shall he again overreach me with words. It is enough for him [to do so once]: but in quiet 309 let him perish, for provident Jove hath deprived him of reason. Hateful to me are his gifts, and himself I value not a hair. 310 Not if he were to give me ten and twenty times as many gifts as he now has, and if others were to be added from any other quarter; nor as many as arrive at Orchomenos, or Egyptian Thebes, 311 where numerous possessions are laid up in the mansions, and where are one hundred gates, 312 from each of which rush out two hundred men with horses and chariots. Nor if he were to give me as many as are the sands and dust, not even thus shall Agamemnon now persuade my mind, until he indemnify me for all his mind-grieving insult. But I will not wed the daughter of Agamemnon, the son of Atreus, not if she were fit to contend in beauty with golden Venus, or were equal in accomplishments to azure-eyed Minerva; not even thus will I wed her. Let him then select another of the Greeks who may suit him, and who is more the king; for if the gods preserve me, and I reach home, then will Peleus himself hereafter bestow upon me a lady in marriage. There are many Grecian women throughout Hellas and Phthia, daughters of chieftains who defend the cities. Whomsoever of these I may choose, I will make my beloved wife; and there my generous soul very much desires that I, wedding a betrothed spouse, a fit partner of my bed, should enjoy the possessions which aged Peleus hath acquired. For not worth my life are all the [treasures] which they say the well-inhabited city Ilium possessed, whilst formerly at peace, before the sons of the Greeks arrived; nor all which the stony threshold of the archer Ph\u0153bus Apollo contains within it, in rocky Pytho. 313 By plunder, oxen and fat sheep are to be procured, tripods are to be procured, and the yellow heads of steeds; but the life of man cannot be obtained nor seized, so as to return again, when once it has passed the enclosure of the teeth. For my goddess mother, silver-footed Thetis, declares that double destinies lead me on to the end of death. If, on the one hand, remaining here, I wage war around the city of the Trojans, return is lost to me, but my glory will be immortal; but if, on the other hand, I return home to my dear fatherland, my excellent glory is lost, but my life will be lasting, nor will the end of death speedily seize upon me. And to others also would I give advice to sail home, for ye will not find an end of lofty Ilium; for far-sounding Jove hath stretched over it his hand, and the people have taken courage. But do ye, departing, bear back this message to the chiefs of the Greeks, for such is the office of ambassadors, that they devise within their minds some other better plan, which for them may preserve their ships, and the army of the Greeks in the hollow barks; since this, which they have now devised, is not expedient for them, while I cherish my wrath. But let Ph\u0153nix, remaining here, recline beside us, that to-morrow, if he will, he may follow me in the ships to my dear fatherland, although I will by no means lead him away by compulsion.\u201d\nFootnote 303: (return) This word is etymologically connected with \u03c4\u03c1\u03bd\u03b3\u03ce\u03bd. It properly signifies the moaning of the dove.\nFootnote 304: (return) Schol. \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c3\u03cc\u03bd \u03c4\u03af \u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9. Kennedy explains it: \u201cnor have all the toils which I have undergone been productive of any superior advantage to me.\u201d\nFootnote 305: (return) See a list of these cities in Heyne\u2019s note.\nFootnote 306: (return) Observe the broken construction, well suited to the irritability of the speaker.\nFootnote 307: (return) Cf. Cicero de Div. i. 25.\nFootnote 308: (return) \u201c\u0395\u1fe4\u1fe5\u03c9\u03bd, \u1f10\u03c0\u03af \u03c6\u03b8\u03bf\u03c1\u1fb7.\u201d (ita etym. magn.) \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2. Cf. Alberti on Hesych. t. i. p. 1445.\nFootnote 309: (return) \u201c\u0395\u03ba\u03b7\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2 forcibly expresses the condition of one who is advancing imperceptibly, though surely, to final ruin.\u201d\u2014Kennedy.\nFootnote 310: (return) See Kennedy, and Duport, Gnom. p. 52, who compare the phrases \u201cpilo minus amare\u201d, \u201cpili facere.\u201d There is, however, much uncertainty respecting the origin and meaning of the proverb. Cf. Alberti on Hesych. t. i. p. 1246.\nFootnote 311: (return) \u201cThebes was the centre of Egyptian power and commerce, probably long before Memphis grew into importance, or before the Delta was made suitable to the purposes of husbandry by the cutting of canals and the raising of embankments.\u201d\u2014Egyptian Antiquities, vol. i. p. 66.\nFootnote 312: (return) Although Denon (see Egypt. Antt. p. 62) regards this as an unmeaning expression, Heyne well observes: \u201cnumerus centenarius ponitur pro magno: et portis semel memoratis, multitudo hominum declaratur per numerum exeuntium.\u201d\nFootnote 313: (return) Cf. M\u00fcller, Dorians, vol. i. pp. 26, 268.\nThus he spoke; but they all became mute in silence, marvelling at his speech, for he answered with much vehemence. At length, however, the aged knight, Ph\u0153nix, addressed him, shedding tears, for he greatly feared for the ships of the Greeks:\n\u201cIf indeed, \u039f illustrious Achilles, thou dost now meditate a return within thy mind, nor art at all willing to repel the destructive fire from the swift ships, because indignation hath fallen upon thy soul; how then can I, my dear child, be left here alone by thee? for aged Peleus, the breaker of steeds, sent me forth with thee on that day, when he despatched thee from Phthia to Agamemnon, a boy, not yet skilled either in equally-destroying war, nor in counsels where men also become illustrious. On which account he sent me forth to teach thee all these things, that thou mightest become both an orator in words and a performer in deeds. Thus then, my dear child, I wish not at length to be left by thee, not even if a god himself, having divested me of old age, should promise that he would render me a blooming youth, such as I was when first I quitted fair-damed Hellas, flying the contentions of my father Amyntor, son of Ormenus; who was enraged with me on account of a fair-haired concubine whom he himself loved, but dishonoured his wife, my mother. But she continually would embrace my knees in supplication, that I should first have connection with the concubine, that she might loathe the old man. Her I obeyed, and did so; but my father immediately perceiving it, uttered many execrations, and invoked the hateful Erinnys, that no dear son, sprung from me, should ever be placed upon his knees; and the gods ratified his execrations, both infernal Jove and dread Proserpine. Then my soul within my mind could no longer endure that I should sojourn in the palace whilst my father was enraged. My friends, indeed, and relations, being much about me, detained me there within the halls, entreating [me to stay]. Many fat sheep and stamping-footed, crooked-horned oxen they slaughtered; many swine abounding in fat were stretched out to be roasted in the flame of Vulcan, and much of the old man\u2019s wine was drunk out of earthen vessels. Nine nights did they sleep around me: whilst, taking it in turns, they kept watch; nor was the fire ever extinguished, one in the portico of the well-fenced hall, and another in the vestibule, before the chamber-doors. But when at length the tenth shady night had come upon me, then indeed I rushed forth, having burst the skilfully-joined doors of the apartment, and I easily overleaped the fence of the hall, escaping the notice of the watchmen and the female domestics. Afterwards I fled thence through spacious Hellas, and came to fertile Phthia, the mother of sheep, to king Peleus; who kindly received me, and loved me even as a father loves his only son, born in his old age 314 to ample possessions. He made me opulent, and bestowed upon me much people, and I inhabited the extreme shores of Phthia, ruling over the Dolopians. Thee too, \u039f godlike Achilles, have I rendered what thou art, 315 loving thee from my soul; since thou wouldst not go with another to the feast, nor take food in the mansion, until I, placing thee upon my knees, satisfied thee with viands, previously carving them, and supplied thee with wine. Often hast thou wetted the tunic upon my breast, ejecting the wine in infant peevishness. 316 Thus have I borne very many things from thee, and much have I laboured, thinking this, that since the gods have not granted an offspring to me from myself, I should at least make thee my son, O Achilles, like unto the gods, that thou mightst yet repel from me unworthy destiny. But O Achilles, subdue thy mighty rage; it is by no means necessary for thee to have a merciless heart. Flexible are even the gods themselves, whose virtue, honour, and might are greater [than thine]. Even these, when any one transgresses and errs, do men divert [from their wrath] by sacrifices and appeasing vows, and frankincense and savour. For Prayers also are the daughters of supreme Jove, 317 both halt, and wrinkled, and squint-eyed; which following on Ate from behind, are full of care. But Ate is robust and sound in limb, wherefore she far outstrips all, and arrives first at every land, doing injury to men; whilst these afterwards cure them. 318 Whosoever will reverence the daughters of Jove approaching, him they are wont greatly to aid, and hear when praying. But whosoever will deny and obstinately refuse them, then indeed, drawing near, they entreat Saturnian Jove, that Ate may follow along with him, that being injured [in turn], he may pay the penalty. But \u039f Achilles, do thou too yield honour to accompany the daughters of Jove, which bends the minds of other brave men; for if Atrides brought not gifts, and did not mention others in futurity, but would ever rage vehemently, I for my part would not advise that, casting away wrath, thou shouldst defend the Greeks, although greatly in need. But now he at once gives both many immediately, and promises others hereafter; moreover, he hath despatched the best men to supplicate thee, having selected throughout the Grecian army those who are dearest to thyself; whose entreaty do not thou despise, nor their mission, although formerly fault was not to be found with thee, because thou wert enraged. Thus also have we heard the renown of heroes of former days, when vehement wrath came upon any, [that] they were both appeasable by gifts, and to be reconciled by words. I remember this ancient and by no means modern deed, of what sort it was; and I will repeat it among you all, being friends. The Curetes and \u00c6tolians, obstinate in battle, fought around the city of Calydon, and slaughtered each other; the \u00c6tolians, in defence of lofty Calydon, the Curetes, eager to lay it waste in war; for between them had golden-throned Diana excited mischief, indignant because \u0152neus had not offered the first-fruits in sacrifice in the fertile spot of ground: 319 whilst the other gods feasted on hecatombs, but to the daughter of mighty Jove alone he sacrificed not. Either he forgot, 320 or did not think of it, but he did greatly err in mind. But she, the daughter of Jove, delighting in arrows, enraged, sent against [him] a sylvan wild boar, with white tusks, which did much detriment, as is the wont [of boars], to the land of \u0152neus. And many tall trees, one after another, did he prostrate on the ground, with their very roots and the blossom of their fruit. But him Meleager, son of \u0152neus, slew, assembling huntsmen and dogs from many cities; for he would not have been subdued by a few mortals: so mighty was he, and he caused many to ascend the sad funeral-pile. Still she (Diana) excited around him 321 a great tumult and war between the Curetes and magnanimous \u00c6tolians, for the head and bristly skin of the boar. 322 Whilst warlike Meleager fought, so long were the Curetes unsuccessful; nor were they able, although numerous, to remain without the wall. But when wrath, which swells the minds of others, though very prudent, within their breasts, came upon Meleager, for, enraged at heart with his dear mother Alth\u00e6a, he remained inactive beside his wedded wife, fair Cleopatra, daughter of Marpessa, the handsome-footed child of Evenus and Idas, who was then the bravest of earthly men, and even lifted a bow against king Ph\u0153bus Apollo, for the sake of his fair-ankled spouse. Her [Cleopatra] then her father and venerable mother in the palace were accustomed to call by the surname of Alcyone, because her mother, having the plaintive note of sad Alcyone, 323 lamented when far-darting Ph\u0153bus Apollo stole her away. Beside her he [Meleager] remained inactive, brooding 324 over his sad anger, enraged because of the curses of his mother, who, much grieving, prayed to the gods on account of the murder of her brethren. 325 Often with her hands did she strike the fruitful earth, calling upon Pluto and dread Proserpine, reclining upon her knees, whilst her bosom was bedewed with tears, to give death to her son: but her the Erinnys, wandering in gloom, possessing an implacable heart, heard from Erebus. Then immediately was there noise and tumult of these 326 excited round the gates, the towers being battered. Then did the elders of the \u00c6tolians entreat him, and sent chosen priests to the gods, that he would come forth and defend them, promising a great gift. Where the soil of fertile Calydon was richest, there they ordered him to choose a beautiful enclosure of fifty acres; the one half, of land fit for vines, to cut off the other half of plain land, free from wood, for tillage. Much did aged \u0152neus, breaker of steeds, beseech him, having ascended to the threshold of his lofty-roofed chamber, shaking the well-glued door-post, supplicating his son. And much also his sisters and venerable mother entreated him, but he the more refused; and much [prayed] the companions who were dearest and most friendly of all; but not even thus did they persuade the soul within his breast, until his chamber was violently assailed, and the Curetes were in the act of scaling the ramparts, and firing the great city. Then indeed at length his fair-girdled spouse, weeping, supplicated Meleager, and recounted all the disasters, as many as happen to men whose city may be taken. In the first place, they slay the men, 327 whilst fire reduces the city to ashes; and others carry off the children and deep-zoned women. Then was his soul disturbed when he heard of evil deeds, and he hasted to go and gird the all-glittering armour around his body. Thus he repelled the evil day from the \u00c6tolians, yielding to his own inclination; but they did not make good to him the many and pleasing gifts; but he nevertheless warded off evil. But revolve not such things within thy mind, O my friend, nor let the deity 328 thus turn thee, since it would be more dishonourable to assist the ships [when already] set on fire. Rather come for the gifts, for the Greeks will honour thee equally with a god. If again without gifts thou enter the man-destroying battle, thou wilt not receive equal honour, although warding off the war.\u201d\nBut him swift-footed Achilles, answering, addressed: \u201cPh\u0153nix, respected father, old man, Jove-nurtured, to me there is no need of this honour, for I conceive that I have been honoured by the behest of Jove, which will detain me at the crooked ships whilst breath remains in my bosom, and my knees have the power of motion. But I will tell thee something else, and do thou revolve it in thy mind. Disturb not my soul, weeping and lamenting, gratifying the hero Atrides; it is not at all necessary that thou love him, that thou mayest not be hated by me, who love thee. It is proper for thee with me to give annoyance to him who hath annoyed me. Rule equally with me, and receive my honour in half. 329 These will bear back my message; but do thou, remaining here, recline upon a soft bed, and with morn appearing let us consult whether we shall return to our native land or remain.\u201d\nFootnote 314: (return) See, however, Buttm. Lexil. p. 510, sqq., who considers that \u03c4\u03b7\u03bb\u1f7b\u03b3\u03b5\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 simply means \u201ctenderly beloved; only that it is a more forcible expression for this idea, as is evident from the bad sense in which the word is used at II. v. 470, where the meaning of a child spoiled by the love of its parents is evident.\u201d\nFootnote 315: (return) I.e. I reared thee to thy present age. Lit. \u201cI made thee so great.\u201d\nFootnote 316: (return) If any one should despise these natural details as trifling and beneath the dignity of poetry, I can only recommend a comparison with \u00c6sch. Choeph. 750, sqq., and Shakspeare\u2019s nurse in \u201cRomeo and Juliet.\u201d In such passages, the age of the supposed speaker is the best apology for the poet.\nFootnote 317: (return) See Duport, Gnom. Hom. p. 57.\nFootnote 318: (return) Perhaps it was from this passage that Sterne took his sublime idea of the Recording Angel blotting out the oath which the Accusing Spirit had carried up to heaven.\nFootnote 319: (return) Cf. Hesiod, Theog. 54. \u039c\u03bd\u03b7\u03bc\u03bf\u03c3\u03cd\u03bd\u03b7, \u03b3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u1f10\u03bb\u03b5\u03c5\u03b8\u1fc6\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b5\u03b4\u03ad\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b1. Like \u03bf\u1f56\u03b8\u03b1\u03c1 \u1f00\u03c1\u03bf\u03cd\u03c1\u03b7\u03c2, in ver. 141, it is an expression denoting excessive fertility.\nFootnote 320: (return) So Xenoph. de Venat. \u00a7 1. \u039f\u1f34\u03bd\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2 \u03b4' \u1f10\u03bd \u03b3\u03ae\u03c1\u1fb3 \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03bb\u03b1\u03b8\u03bf\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03d1\u03b5\u03bf\u1fe6. See an excellent sketch of the story in Grote, vol. i. p. 195, sqq. Cf. Hygin. Fab. clxxii.; Lactant. Arg. fab. Ovid. viii. 4; Antonin. Lib. Met. \u00a7 2.\nFootnote 321: (return) I. e. the boar.\nFootnote 322: (return) On the legend of this war, see Apollodor. i. 8, 2; Callimach. Ib. Dian. 216; Ovid, Met. viii. 260. A catalogue of the heroes who accompanied Meleager is given by Hyginus, Fab. clxxiii.\nFootnote 323: (return) See Antonin. Liberal. Met. \u00a7 2. who follows Homer rather closely.\nFootnote 324: (return) Literally, \u201cdigesting.\u201d\nFootnote 325: (return) See n. 2, p. 41, and on the death of Meleager, by his mother burning a fatal brand, Apollodor. i. c.; Zenobius Cent. Adag. v. 33; Anton. Lib. Met. \u00a7 2.\nFootnote 326: (return) I. e. the Calydonians.\nFootnote 327: (return) This catalogue of the horrors of war seems to have been in the minds of Sallust, Cat. \u00a7 51, and Cicero, Or. iv. in Catil.\nFootnote 328: (return) Rudolf on Ocellus Lucan. p. 266, well observes, \u201cAntiquissimis temporibus, quorum repetere memoriam possumus, \u03b4\u03b1\u03af\u03bc\u03c9\u03bd nihil aliud erat, quam deus. Horn. Od. \u03b3, 165, 160; Il. \u03b3, 420; II. \u03bb, 791. Neque in eo vocabuli discrimen est, si aut prosunt hominibus, aut iis nocent; utroque enim modo \u03b4\u03b1\u03af\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03b5\u03c2 dicuntur.\u201d Kennedy and some of the translators have erred on this point.\nFootnote 329: (return) I. e. \u03ba\u03b1\u03d1' \u1f25\u03bc\u03b9\u03c3\u03c5. See Heyne.\nHe said, and in silence nodded to Patroclus from beneath his brows, that he should strew a thick bed for Ph\u0153nix, whilst they were meditating to withdraw as quickly as possible from the tent. But them godlike Telamonian Ajax addressed:\n\u201cO Jove-born son of Laertes, crafty Ulysses, let us go, for the object of our address appears not to me to be attainable, in this way at least, and we must report the message to the Greeks with all haste, although it be not good. They now sit expecting us; but Achilles stores up within his breast a fierce and haughty soul, unyielding; nor does he regard the friendship of his companions, with which we have honoured him at the ships beyond others. Merciless one! and truly some one hath accepted compensation even for a brother\u2019s death, or his own son slain, whilst [the murderer] remains at home among his people, having paid many expiations: and the mind and noble soul of the other is appeased upon his having received compensation. But in thy breast the gods have put an unyielding and evil mind, for the sake of a maid only; whereas we now offer thee seven far excelling, and many other gifts beside them. Do thou then assume a propitious disposition; and have respect to thy house, for we are guests beneath thy roof from the multitude of the Greeks, and desire to be most dear and friendly to thee beyond all the Ach\u00e6ans, as many as they are.\u201d\nBut him swift-footed Achilles, answering, addressed: \u201cMost noble Ajax, son of Telamon, chief of the people, thou appearest to me to have said all this from thy soul, yet does my heart swell with indignation as often as I recollect those things, how the son of Atreus hath rendered me dishonoured among the Greeks, as if it were some contemptible stranger. But go ye, and carry back my message, for I shall not think of bloody war, before the son of warlike Priam, noble Hector, slaughtering the Greeks, shall reach the ships of the Myrmidons, and burn the ships with fire. But about my tent and black ship, however, I think that Hector, although eager, will desist from combat.\u201d\nThus he spake; but they, each having seized a double goblet, having made libations, went back by the side of the fleet, and Ulysses led the way. But Patroclus gave orders to his companions and female domestics to strew, with all haste, a thick couch for Ph\u0153nix; and they, obedient, spread a bed as he desired,\u2014sheep-skins, coverlets, and the fine fabric of flax: there lay the old man, and awaited heavenly Morn. But Achilles slept in the recess of his well-made tent; and beside him lay a lady, fair-cheeked Diomede, daughter of Phorbas, whom he had brought from Lesbos. And Patroclus on the other side reclined: and by him also lay fair-waisted Iphis, whom noble Achilles gave him, having taken lofty Scyros, a city of Enyeus.\nBut when they were within the tents of Atrides, the sons of the Greeks, rising one after another, received them with golden cups, and interrogated thus. And first the king of men, Agamemnon, inquired:\n\u201cCome, tell me, O Ulysses, much praised, great glory of the Greeks, whether does he wish to ward off the hostile fire from the ships, or has he refused, and does wrath still posses his haughty soul?\u201d\nBut him much-enduring, noble Ulysses then addressed: \u201cMost glorious son of Atreus, Agamemnon, king of men, he wills not to extinguish his wrath, but is the more filled with anger, and despises thee as well as thy gifts. He bids thee thyself consult with the Greeks, in what manner thou mayest preserve both the ships and the army of the Greeks, but has himself threatened, that with the rising dawn he will launch into the main his well-benched, equally-plied vessels. And he has declared that he would advise others also to sail home, since ye will not now effect the destruction of lofty Ilium; for far-resounding Jove hath greatly stretched forth his hand [over it], and the people have taken courage. Thus he spoke; and here are these who followed me, Ajax, and the two heralds, both prudent men, to tell these things. But aged Ph\u0153nix hath lain down there, for thus he ordered, that in the morning, if he chose, he might follow him in the ships to his dear father-land; but he will by no means carry him off against his will.\u201d\nThus he spake; and they all became mute in silence, marvelling at his speech, for he harangued with great vehemence. Long were the sorrowing sons of the Greeks mute, till at length Diomede, valiant in the din of battle, addressed them:\n\u201cMost glorious son of Atreus, king of men, Agamemnon, would that thou hadst not supplicated the illustrious son of Peleus, offering countless gifts, for he is haughty even otherwise: 330 now again hast thou excited him much more to insolence. Let us, however, leave him alone, whether he go or remain, for he will fight again at that time when his mind within his breast urges, and the Deity incites him. But come, let us all obey as I shall advise: go now to rest, having satisfied your hearts with food and wine, for this is force and vigour. But when fair rosy-fingered morn has shone forth, draw up the infantry and cavalry with all haste before the ships, cheering them: and do thou thyself likewise fight in the foremost ranks.\u201d\nThus he spake, but all the kings approved, admiring the speech of Diomede, the breaker of steeds. Having then offered libations, they departed each to his tent; there they lay down to to rest, and enjoyed the boon of sleep. 331\nFootnote 330: (return) I am indebted to Milton.\nFootnote 331: (return) Id.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THE TENTH.\nARGUMENT.\nDiomede and Ulysses, as spies, penetrate the camp of the Trojans by night, and first entrap and slay Dolon, who had set out on the same errand for the Trojans. Having obtained from him the desired information, they then attack the Thracians, and slay their king, Rhesus, while asleep. At the suggestion of Minerva, they then return to the camp.\nThe other chiefs, indeed, of all the Greeks were sleeping the whole night at the ships, overcome by soft slumber; but sweet sleep possessed not Agamemnon, the son of Atreus, shepherd of the people, revolving many things in his mind. As when the husband of fair-haired Juno thunders, preparing either an abundant, immense shower, or hail or snow, when the snow whitens the fields; or somewhere [preparing] the wide mouth 332 of bitter war; so frequently groaned Agamemnon in his breast from the bottom of his heart, and his mind was troubled within him. As often indeed as he looked towards the Trojan plain, he wondered at the many fires which were burning before Ilium, the sound of flutes and pipes, and the tumult of men. But when he looked towards the ships and army of the Greeks, he tore up many hairs from his head by the roots, 333 [enraged at] Jove who dwells aloft, and deeply he groaned in his noble heart. But this plan appeared best to him in his judgment; to repair first to Neleian Nestor, [and see] whether with him he might contrive some blameless counsel, which might be an averter of evil. Rising, therefore, he wrapped his coat around his breast, and beneath his smooth feet bound the beautiful sandals; next he threw around him the blood-stained skin of a huge, tawny 334 lion, stretching to his ankles, and grasped his spear. In like manner, a tremor possessed Menelaus, for neither did sleep rest upon his eyelids, [through fear] lest the Greeks should suffer aught, who on his account had come over the wide sea to Troy, waging daring war. First with a spotted leopard\u2019s skin he covered his broad back; and next, lifting his brazen helmet, placed it upon his head, and grasped a spear in his stout hand. But he went to awaken his brother, who had the chief command of all the Greeks, and was honoured by the people like a god. Him he found by the prow of his ship, putting his bright armour around his shoulders; and arriving, he was welcome to him. Him first Menelaus, valiant in the din of war, addressed: \u201cWhy arm thus, my respected brother? Or whom dost thou urge of thy companions to go as a spy amongst the Trojans? In truth I very much fear that no one will undertake this deed, going alone through the dead of night to reconnoitre the enemy. Any one [who does so] will be bold-hearted indeed.\u201d\nFootnote 332: (return) Cicero pro Arch. \u00a7 5, \u201cTotius belli ore ac faucibus.\u201d\nFootnote 333: (return) Or \u201cone after another.\u201d Schol.: \u1f10\u03c0' \u1f00\u03bb\u03bb\u03ae\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2, \u1f22 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u1fe4\u1fe5\u03af\u03b6\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2. See Merrick on Tryphiodor. 388; Alberti on Hesych. t. ii. p. 1029.\nFootnote 334: (return) Or, \u201cactive, raging.\u201d The other interpretation is, however, favoured by Virg. \u00c6n. ii. 721: \u201cFulvique insternor pelle leonis.\u201d\nBut him king Agamemnon, answering, addressed: \u201cO Jove-nurtured Menelaus, need of prudent counsel [comes upon] both thee and me, which will protect and preserve the Greeks and their ships, since the mind of Jove is altered. Surely he has rather given his attention to the Hectorean sacrifices; for never have I beheld, nor heard a person who related, that one man has devised so many arduous deeds in one day as Hector, dear to Jove, hath performed upon the sons of the Greeks in such a manner, [although] the dear child neither of a goddess nor of a god. But such deeds hath he done as I conceive will long and for many a day be a cause of care to the Greeks; so many evils hath he wrought against the Greeks. But go now, call Ajax and Idomeneus, running quickly to their ships, but I will go to noble Nestor, and exhort him to arise, if he be willing to go to the sacred company 335 of guards and give orders; for to him will they most attentively listen, because his son commands the guards, along with Meriones, the armour-bearer of Idomeneus; for to them we intrusted the chief charge.\u201d\nFootnote 335: (return) Some picked troop chosen for the especial purpose of keeping watch. Heyne compares \u03a3, 504: \u1f31\u03b5\u03c1\u1f78\u03c2 \u03ba\u03cd\u03ba\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2; \u03a9, 681: \u03bb\u03b1\u03b8\u1f7c\u03bd \u1f31\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u1f7a\u03c2 \u03c0\u03c5\u03bb\u03b1\u03c9\u03c1\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2. Compare, also, the \u1f31\u03b5\u03c1\u1f78\u03c2 \u03bb\u03cc\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2 of the Thebans, Plutarch, in Pelop. t. i. p. 285; E. Athen. xiii. p. 561.\nBut him Menelaus, valiant in the din of war, then answered: \u201cIn what manner dost thou command and exhort me in thy speech? Shall I remain there with them, waiting till thou come, or shall I run back again to thee, after I have duly given them orders?\u201d\nBut him, in turn, Agamemnon, king of men, addressed: \u201cWait there, lest, as we come, we miss 336 one another; for there are many ways through the camp. But shout aloud whithersoever thou goest, and enjoin them to be watchful, accosting each man by a name from his paternal race, 337 honourably addressing all; nor be thou haughty in thy mind. Nay, let even us ourselves labour, whatever be our station, so heavy a calamity hath Jove laid upon us at our birth.\u201d\nThus saying, he dismissed his brother, having duly charged him. But he hastened to go to Nestor, the shepherd of the people. Him he found on his soft couch beside his tent and black ship, and by him lay his variegated arms, a shield, two spears, and a glittering helmet: beside him also lay a flexible belt, with which the old man girded himself, when he was arming for man-destroying war, leading on his people; since he by no means yielded to sad old age. Being supported on his elbow, 338 and lifting up his head, he addressed the son of Atreus, and questioned him in [these] words:\nFootnote 336: (return) Buttmann, Lexil. p. 85, comes to the conclusion that \u201cwe must include \u1f00\u03b8\u03c1\u03bf\u03c4\u03ac\u03b6\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd among the forms of \u03ac\u03bc\u03b1\u03c1\u03c4\u03ac\u03bd\u03c9, whose etymological connections, as long as we are ignorant of them, we can easily do without.\u201d\nFootnote 337: (return) Instances of this complimentary style of address occur in ver. 144. \u0394\u03b9\u03bf\u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u1f72\u03c2 \u039b\u03b1\u03b5\u03c1\u03c4\u03b9\u03ac\u03b4\u03b7. 86: \u039d\u03ad\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1 \u039d\u03b7\u03bb\u03b7\u03ca\u03ac\u03b4\u03b7.\nFootnote 338: (return) Cf. Propert. 1. 3, 34. \u201cSic ait in molli fixa toro cubitum.\u201d\n\u201cWho art thou who comest thus alone by the ships, along the army, during the gloomy night, when other mortals are asleep? Whether seeking any of the guards, or any of thy companions? Speak, nor approach me in silence; of what is there need to thee?\u201d\nBut him Agamemnon, king of men, then answered: \u201cO Nestor, son of Neleus, great glory of the Greeks, thou wilt recognize Agamemnon, the son of Atreus, whom beyond all Jove hath plunged into toils continually, whilst breath remains in my breast, or my knees have the power of motion. I wander 339 thus, because sweet sleep sits not on mine eyes, but war and the calamities of the Greeks are my care. For I greatly fear for the Greeks, neither is my heart firm, but I am confounded. 340 My heart leaps without my breast, and my fair limbs tremble beneath. But if thou canst do aught (since neither doth sleep come upon thee), come, let us go down to the guards, that we may see whether, worn out by toil and [overpowered] 341 by sleep, they slumber, and are altogether forgetful of the watch. And hostile men are encamped near, nor do we at all know but that they perhaps meditate in their minds to engage even during the night.\u201d  342\nBut him Nestor, the Gerenian knight, then answered: \u201cAgamemnon, most glorious son of Atreus, king of men, assuredly provident Jove will not accomplish to Hector all those devices, which now, perhaps, he expects; but I think that he will labour under even more cares if Achilles shall but turn away his heart from heavy wrath. Yet will I willingly follow thee; and let us moreover incite others, both spear-renowned Diomede, and Ulysses, swift Ajax, and the valiant son of Phyleus. But if any one going, would call godlike Ajax, and king Idomeneus; for their ships are the farthest off, 343 and by no means near at hand. But I will chide Menelaus, dear and respected though he be, nor will I conceal, even if thou shouldst be displeased with me, since thus he sleeps, and has permitted thee alone to labour. For now ought he to labour, supplicating among all the chiefs, for a necessity, no longer tolerable, invades us.\u201d\nFootnote 339: (return) \u00c6sch. Ag. 12: \u0395\u1f50\u03c4' \u1f02\u03bd \u03b4\u1f72 \u03bd\u03c5\u03ba\u03c4\u03af\u03c0\u03bb\u03b1\u03b3\u03ba\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u1f14\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03cc\u03bd \u03c4' \u1f14\u03c7\u03c9 \u0395\u03c5\u03bd\u1f74\u03bd \u1f40\u03bd\u03b5\u03af\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2 \u03bf\u1f50\u03ba \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03ba\u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b7\u03bd \u1f19\u03bc\u1f74\u03bd, \u03d5\u03cc\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b3\u1f70\u03c1 \u1f00\u03bd\u03b8' \u1f44\u03c0\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03c4\u03b5\u1fd6.\nFootnote 340: (return) Cicero ad Attic, ix. 6: \u201cNon angor, sed ardeo dolore; \u03bf\u1f50\u03b4\u03ad \u03bc\u03bf\u03b9 \u1f26\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1 \u1f14\u03bc\u03c0\u03b5\u03b4\u03bf\u03bd, \u1f00\u03bb\u03bb' \u1f00\u03bb\u03b1\u03bb\u03cd\u03ba\u03c4\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9. Non sum, inquam, mihi crede, mentis compos.\u201d\nFootnote 341: (return) Observe the zeugma, which has been imitated by Hor. Od. III. 4, 11: \u201cLudo fatigatumque somno.\u201d Compare the learned dissertation on this subject by D\u2019Orville on Chariton, iv. 4, p. 440, sqq. ed. Lips.\nFootnote 342: (return) \u00c6sch. Sept. c. Th. 28: \u039b\u03ad\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9 \u03bc\u03b5\u03b3\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03b6\u03bf\u03bb\u1f74\u03bd \u1f08\u03c7\u03b1\u0390\u03b4\u03b1 \u039d\u03c5\u03ba\u03c4\u03b7\u03b3\u03bf\u03c1\u03b5\u1fd6\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ba\u1f00\u03c0\u03b9\u03b8\u03bf\u03c5\u03bb\u03b5\u03cd\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd \u03c0\u03cc\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9.\nFootnote 343: (return) Soph. Aj. 3: \u039a\u03b1\u1f76 \u03bd\u1fe6\u03bd \u1f10\u03c0\u1f76 s\u03ba\u03b7\u03bd\u03b1\u1fd6\u03db \u03c3\u03b5 \u03bd\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u03b1\u1fd6\u03db \u1f41\u03c1\u1ff6 \u0391\u1f34\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2, \u1f14\u03bd\u03b8\u03b1 \u03c4\u03ac\u03be\u03b9\u03bd \u1f10\u03c3\u03c7\u03ac\u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u1f14\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9.\nBut him Agamemnon, king of men, in turn addressed: \u201cOld man, at other times I would even bid thee blame him, for he is frequently remiss, and is not willing to labour, yielding neither to sloth, nor thoughtlessness of mind, but looking to me, and awaiting my commencement. But now he arose long before me, and stood beside me; him I have sent before to call those whom thou seekest. But let us go, and we shall find them before the gates among the guards; for there I bade them be assembled.\u201d\nBut him the Gerenian knight Nestor then answered: \u201cIf so, none of the Greeks will be angry, nor disobey when he may exhort or give orders to any.\u201d\nThus saying, he put on his tunic around his breast, and beneath his shining feet he placed the beautiful sandals, and fastened about him his purple cloak with a clasp, double, ample; 344 and the shaggy pile was thick upon it: and he seized a doughty spear, pointed with sharp brass. He proceeded first to the ships of the brazen-mailed Ach\u00e6ans; then the Gerenian knight Nestor, vociferating, aroused from his sleep Ulysses, equal to Jove in counsel. But the voice immediately penetrated his mind, and he came out from the tent, and addressed them:\n\u201cWhy, I pray, wander ye thus alone through the ambrosial night, near the ships, through the army; what so great necessity now comes upon you?\u201d\nFootnote 344: (return) Schol.: \u03a4\u1f74\u03bd \u03bc\u03b5\u03b3\u03ac\u03bb\u03b7\u03bd, \u03c9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b4\u03b9\u03c0\u03bb\u1fc7 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03ae \u03c7\u03c1\u03ce\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd \u1f14\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd \u1f10\u03ba\u03c4\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b7\u03bd. The epithet \u03c6\u03bf\u03b9\u03bd\u03b9\u03ba\u03cc\u03b5\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1 denotes that it was the garb of royalty.\nBut him Nestor, the Gerenian knight, then answered: \u201cJove-sprung son of Laertes, much-scheming Ulysses, be not indignant, for so great a sorrow hath oppressed the Greeks. But follow, that we may arouse even another, whomsoever it is fit, to deliberate whether to fly or fight.\u201d\nThus he spake, and much-counselling Ulysses returning into his tent, flung around his shoulders his variegated shield, and followed them. But they proceeded to Diomede, the son of Tydeus, and him they found without, before his tent, with his arms; and his companions slept around him. Beneath their heads they had their shields, and their spears were fixed erect upon the nether point; 345 and afar off glittered the brass, like the lightning of father Jove. The hero himself however slumbered, and beneath him was strewed the hide of a wild bull; but under his head was spread a splendid piece of tapestry. Standing by him, the Gerenian knight Nestor awoke him, moving him on the heel with his foot, 346 he roused him, and upbraided [him] openly:\n\u201cArise, son of Tydeus, why dost thou indulge in sleep all night? Hearest thou not how the Trojans are encamped upon an eminence in the plain near the ships, and that now but a small space keeps them off?\u201d\nFootnote 345: (return) \u03a3\u03b1\u03c5\u03c1\u03c9\u03c4\u1fc6\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9' \u03c4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2 \u03c3\u03c4\u03cd\u03c1\u03b1\u03be\u03b9\u03bd \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03bf\u03c0\u03af\u03c3\u03c9 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03b4\u03bf\u03c1\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd. Hesychius, who also, with reference to the present passage, has \u03a3\u03b1\u03c5\u03c1\u03c9\u03c4\u1fc6\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2' \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03c3\u03b9\u03b4\u03b7\u03c1\u03af\u03bf\u03c5. Pollux, x. 31, well explains it, \u03c4\u1f78 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03b4\u1f79\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f30\u03c3\u03c4\u03ac\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd It is also called \u03c3\u03c4\u03cd\u03c1\u03b1\u03be and \u03c3\u03c4\u03c5\u03c1\u03ac.\nFootnote 346: (return) Not \u201ccalce pedis movens.\u201d See Kennedy.\nThus he spoke: but he leaped up very quickly from slumber, and addressing him, spoke winged words:\n\u201cIndefatigable art thou, old man: never, indeed, dost thou cease from labour. Are there not even other younger sons of the Greeks, who, going about in every direction, might arouse each of the kings? But, O old man, thou art impossible to be wearied.\u201d\nBut him then the Gerenian knight Nestor in turn addressed: \u201cTruly, my friend, thou hast spoken all these things aright. I have to be sure blameless sons, and I have numerous troops, some of whom indeed, going round, might give the summons. But a very great necessity hath oppressed the Greeks, and now are the affairs of all balanced on a razor\u2019s edge 347, whether there be most sad destruction to the Greeks, or life. Yet go now, since thou art younger, arouse swift Ajax, and the son of Phyleus, if thou hast pity on me.\u201d\nFootnote 347: (return) Herodot. vii. 11: \u0395\u03c0\u1f76 \u03be\u03c5\u03c1\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03b3\u1f70p \u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u1f00\u03ba\u03bc\u1fc6\u03c2 \u1f14\u03c7\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u1f21\u03bc\u1fd6\u03bd \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03c1\u03ac\u03b3\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1. Soph. Antig. 996: \u03a6\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9 \u03b2\u03b5\u03b6\u1f7c\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f56 \u03bd\u1fe6\u03bd \u1f10\u03c0\u1f76 \u03be\u03c5\u03c1\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03c4\u03cd\u03bd\u03b7. Theocrit. xxii. 6: \u1f08\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03c9\u03bd \u03c3\u03c9\u03c4\u1fc6\u03c1\u03b5\u03c2 \u1f10\u03c0\u1f76 \u03be\u03c5\u03bf\u03bf\u1fe6 \u1f24\u03b4\u03b7 \u1f10\u03cc\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd.\nThus he spake; but the other threw around his shoulders the skin of a huge tawny lion, reaching to his feet, and took his spear. He hastened forth, and the hero, having aroused the rest, led them thence.\nBut when they now came to the assembled guards, they found not the leaders of the guards slumbering, but all were sitting vigilantly with their arms. As dogs with care keep watch around the sheep in a fold, hearing the furious wild beast, which comes through the wood from the mountains, but much clamour of men and dogs is against it, and sleep is utterly lost to them; so was sweet slumber lost to their eyelids, keeping guard during the sad night, for they were ever turned towards the plain, whensoever they heard the Trojans advancing. But the old man seeing them, rejoiced, and encouraged them with a speech, and addressing them, spoke winged words:\n\u201cThus now, dear children, keep watch; nor let sleep seize upon any, lest we become a mockery to the enemy.\u201d\nThus saying, he crossed the trench; and with him followed the chiefs of the Greeks, as many as had been summoned to the council. Along with these went Meriones, and the illustrious son of Nestor; for they had invited them, that they might consult with them. Having therefore passed over the dug trench, they sat down in a clear space, where a piece of ground appeared free from fallen dead bodies, whence impetuous Hector had turned back, having destroyed the Greeks, when night at length enveloped them. There sitting down, they addressed words to each other, and to them the Gerenian knight Nestor began discourse:\n\u201cO friends, would not now some man put such confidence in his own daring mind as to go against the magnanimous Trojans, if perchance he might take some of the enemy straying in the outskirts of the camp, or perhaps even learn some report among the Trojans, what they deliberate among themselves; whether they intend to remain here by the ships at a distance, or are about to return to the city, since they have subdued the Greeks? Could he but hear all this, and come back to us unscathed, great glory would be his under heaven amongst all men, and he shall have a good reward. For as many chiefs as command the vessels, of all these each will give a black sheep, a ewe, having a lamb at its udders; to which indeed no possession will be like; and he will ever be present at our banquets and feasts.\u201d\nThus he spoke; and they were all mute in silence; but to them Diomede, valiant in the din of battle, said:\n\u201cNestor, my heart and gallant spirit urge me to enter the camp of the hostile Trojans, which is near; but if some other man were to go along with me, there would be more pleasure, and it would be more encouraging. For when two go together, the one perceives before the other how the advantage may be. But if one being alone should observe anything, his perception is nevertheless more tardy, and his judgment weak.\u201d\nThus he spoke: and the greater number wished to follow Diomede. The two Ajaces wished it, servants of Mars; Meriones wished it; the son of Nestor very earnestly desired it; the spear-renowned son of Atreus, Menelaus, desired it; and hardy Ulysses was eager to penetrate the crowd of the Trojans; for ever daring was his mind within his breast. Among them, however, Agamemnon, the king of men, spoke:\n\u201cDiomede, son of Tydeus, most dear to my soul, select the companion whom thou desirest, the bravest of those who present themselves, since many are ready. Nor do thou, paying deference in thy mind, leave indeed the better, and select as follower the worse, through respect [for rank]; looking neither to family, nor whether one is more the king.\u201d\nThus he spake, for he feared for yellow-haired Menelaus; but amongst them Diomede, brave in the din of battle, again spoke:\n\u201cIf then ye now order me to select a companion myself, how can I now forget godlike Ulysses, whose heart is prudent, and spirit gallant in all labours; and whom Pallas Minerva loves. He following, we should both return even from burning fire, for he is skilled in planning beyond [all others].\u201d\nBut him much-enduring, noble Ulysses in turn addressed: \u201cSon of Tydeus, neither praise me beyond measure, nor at all blame, for thou speakest these things amongst Argives, who are acquainted with them already. But let us go, for night hastens on, and morn is at hand. The stars have already far advanced, and the greater portion of the night, by two parts, has gone by, but the third portion remains.\u201d\nThus having spoken, they clad themselves in their terrible arms. To Diomede, Thrasymedes, firm in war, gave his two-edged sword, because his own was left at the ships, and a shield. Upon his head he placed his bull\u2019s-hide helmet, coneless, crestless, which is called cataityx, 348 and protects the heads of blooming youths. And Meriones gave a bow, quiver, and sword to Ulysses, and put upon his head a casque of hide; and within, it was firmly bound with many straps; whilst without, the white teeth of an ivory-tusked boar set thick together on all sides fenced it well, and skilfully; and in the midst a woollen head-piece 349 was sewed. It Autolycus once brought from Eleon, the city of Amyntor, son of Hormenus, having broken into his large mansion. He gave it, however, to Amphidamas, the Cytherian, to bear to Scandea, and Amphidamas bestowed it upon Molus, to be a gift of hospitality, but he gave it to his son Meriones to be worn. Then at last, being placed around, it covered the head of Ulysses. But they, when they had girt themselves in dreadful arms, hastened to advance, and left all the chiefs at the same place. And to them near the way, Pallas Minerva sent a heron upon the right hand: they did not discern it with their eyes, because of the gloomy night, but heard it rustling. And Ulysses was delighted on account of the bird, and prayed to Minerva:\n\u201cHear me, thou daughter of \u00e6gis-bearing Jove, who standest by me in all labours, nor do I escape thy notice, having moved. 350 Now again do thou, O Minerva, especially befriend me, and grant that, covered with glory, we may return back to the well-benched barks, having performed a mighty deed, which will surely occasion care to the Trojans.\u201d\nFootnote 348: (return) \u201cThe \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u1fd6\u03c4\u03c5\u03be might be termed the undress helmet of the chief who wore it.\u201d\u2014Kennedy.\nFootnote 349: (return) Or, \u201cit was stuffed with felt.\u201d\u2014Oxford Transl. \u201cWool was inlaid between the straps, in order to protect the head, and make the helmet fit closer.\u201d\u2014Kennedy.\nFootnote 350: (return) Soph. Aj. 18: \u039a\u03b1\u1f76 \u03bd\u1fe6\u03bd \u1f10\u03c0\u03ad\u03b3\u03bd\u03c9\u03c2 \u03b5\u1f56 \u03bc \u1f10\u03c0' \u1f00\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u1f76 \u03b4\u03c5\u03c3\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03b5\u1fd6 \u0392\u03ac\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u03b5\u03c5\u03ba\u03bb\u03bf\u1fe6\u03bd\u03c4'.\nThen Diomede, brave in the din of battle, next prayed: \u201cNow hear me, too, O daughter of Jove, invincible. Attend me, as once thou didst attend my sire, the noble Tydeus, to Thebes, what time he went as an ambassador for the Ach\u00e6ans; he left the brazen-mailed Ach\u00e6ans at the Asopus, and he himself bore thither a mild message to the Cadm\u00e6ans: but when returning he performed many arduous deeds, with thy aid, O noble goddess, when thou propitious didst stand beside him. Thus now willingly stand by and protect me; and in return I will sacrifice to thee a heifer of a year old, with broad forehead, untamed, which no man hath yet brought under the yoke. This will I sacrifice to thee, encircling its horns with gold.\u201d\nThus they spoke, praying; and Pallas Minerva heard them. But when they had supplicated the daughter of mighty Jove, they hastened to advance, like two lions, through the dark night, through slaughter, through bodies through arms, and black blood.\nNor did Hector allow the gallant Trojans to sleep; but he summoned all the chiefs together, as many as were leaders and rulers over the Trojans. Having summoned them together, he framed prudent counsel:\n\u201cWho, undertaking it for me, will accomplish this deed for a great reward? And there shall be sufficient payment for him; for I will give a chariot and two rough-maned steeds, which excel in speed at the swift sailing ships of the Greeks, to him whosoever would dare (he will also obtain glory for himself) to approach near the swift-sailing ships, and learn whether the fleet ships are guarded as formerly, or whether, now subdued by our hands, they meditate flight among themselves, nor wish to keep watch during the night, overcome with grievous toil.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but they were all still in silence. But among the Trojans there was one Dolon, the son of Eumedes, a divine herald, rich in gold, and wealthy in brass, who in aspect indeed was deformed, but [was] swift-footed, and he was an only [son] among five sisters. Who then, standing by, addressed the Trojans and Hector:\n\u201cHector, my heart and gallant spirit urge me to approach the swift-sailing ships, and gain information. But come, raise up thy sceptre to me, and swear that thou wilt assuredly give me the horses and chariot, variegated with brass, which now bear the illustrious son of Peleus, and I will not be a vain spy to thee, nor frustrate thy expectation; for I will go so far into the camp till I reach the ship of Agamemnon, where the chiefs will perchance be consulting whether to fly or fight.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but he took the sceptre in his hand and swore to him: \u201cLet Jove himself now be my witness, the loudly-thundering spouse of Juno, that no other man of the Trojans shall be carried by these horses: but I declare that thou shalt entirely have the glory of them.\u201d\nThus he spoke, and indeed swore a vain oath; 351 nevertheless he encouraged him. Immediately he threw around his shoulders his crooked bow, and put on above the hide of a grey wolf, with a casque of weasel-skin upon his head; and seized a sharp javelin. And he set out to go from the camp towards the ships: nor was he destined to bring back intelligence to Hector, returning from the ships. But when now he had quitted the crowd of horses and men, he eagerly held on his way. But him godlike Ulysses observed advancing, and addressed Diomede:\nFootnote 351: (return) \u201cThere is no necessity for supposing that Hector meditated any deceit. The poet contemplates the event, which frustrated his hopes, and rendered his oath nugatory.\u201d\u2014Kennedy.\n\u201cHark! Diomede, a man comes from the camp; I know not whether as a spy upon our vessels, or to plunder some of the dead bodies. But let us suffer him first to pass by a little through the plain, and afterwards, hastily rushing upon him, let us take him. If, however, he surpasses us in speed, attacking him with the spear, let us continually drive him from the camp towards the ships, lest by chance he escape towards the city.\u201d\nThen having thus spoken, they lay down out of the pathway among the dead; but he, in thoughtlessness, ran hastily past. But when now he was as far off as is the space ploughed at one effort 352 by mules (for they are preferable to oxen in drawing the well-made plough through the deep fallow), they indeed ran towards him; but he stood still, hearing a noise; for he hoped within his mind that his companions had come from the Trojans to turn him back, Hector having ordered. But when now they were distant a spear\u2019s cast, or even less, he perceived that they were enemies, and moved his active knees to fly; and they immediately hastened to follow. As when two rough-toothed hounds, skilled in the chase, ever incessantly pursue through the woody ground either a fawn or hare, whilst screaming it flies before; thus did Tydides and Ulysses, sacker of cities, pursue him ever steadily, having cut him off from his own people. But when now flying towards the ships, he would speedily have mingled with the watch, then indeed Minerva infused strength into Tydides, that none of the brazen-mailed Greeks might be beforehand in boasting that he had wounded him, but he himself come second; then gallant Diomede, rushing on him with his spear, addressed him:\n\u201cEither stop, or I will overtake thee with my spear; nor do I think that thou wilt long escape certain destruction from my hand.\u201d\nFootnote 352: (return) See the Scholiast, and Kennedy\u2019s note.\nHe said, and hurled his spear, but intentionally missed the man. Over the right shoulder the point of the well-polished spear stuck in the ground. Then indeed he stood still, and trembled, stammering (and there arose a chattering of the teeth in his mouth), pale through fear. Panting they overtook him, and seized his hands; but he weeping, spoke thus:\n\u201cTake me alive, and I will ransom myself; for within [my house] I have brass, and gold, and well-wrought iron; from which my father will bestow upon you countless ransoms, if he shall hear that I am alive at the ships of the Greeks.\u201d\nBut him much-planning Ulysses answering addressed: \u201cTake courage, nor suffer death at all to enter thy mind; but come, tell me this, and state it correctly: Why comest thou thus alone from the camp towards the fleet, through the gloomy night, when other mortals sleep? Whether that thou mightst plunder any of the dead bodies, or did Hector send thee forth to reconnoitre everything at the hollow ships? Or did thy mind urge thee on?\u201d\nBut him Dolon then answered, and his limbs trembled under him: \u201cContrary to my wish, Hector hath brought me into great detriment, who promised that he would give me the solid-hoofed steeds of the illustrious son of Peleus, and his chariot adorned with brass. And he enjoined me, going through the dark and dangerous 353 night, to approach the enemy, and learn accurately whether the swift ships be guarded as before, or whether, already subdued by our hands, ye plan flight with yourselves, nor choose to keep watch during the night, overcome by severe toil.\u201d\nFootnote 353: (return) Buttm. Lexil. p. 369: \u201cI translate \u03b8\u03bf\u1f74 \u03bd\u03cd\u03be by the quick and fearful night; and if this be once admitted as the established meaning of the Homeric epithet, it will certainly be always intelligible to the hearer and full of expression. \u2018Night,\u2019 says a German proverb, \u2018is no man\u2019s friend;\u2019 the dangers which threaten the nightly wanderer are formed into a quick, irritable, hostile goddess. Even the other deities are afraid of her, who is (Il. \u0398, 259) \u03b8\u03b5\u1ff6\u03bd \u03b4\u03bc\u03ae\u03c4\u03b5\u03b9\u03c1\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f00\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u1ff6\u03bd; and Jupiter himself, in the midst of his rage, refrains from doing what might be \u03bd\u03c5\u03ba\u03c4\u1f76 \u03b8\u03bf\u1f74 \u1f00\u03c0\u03bf\u03b8\u03cd\u03bc\u03b9\u03b1. Nor is the epithet less natural when the night is not personified: for as \u1f40\u03be\u03b5\u1fd6\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u03c1\u03bf\u03af are dangerous times, so by this word \u03b8\u03bf\u03ae it may be intended to mark the swiftness and imminency of dangers which threaten men who go \u03b4\u03b9\u1f70 \u03bd\u03cd\u03ba\u03c4\u03b1 \u03bc\u03ad\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03bd\u03b1\u03bd.\u201d\nBut him crafty Ulysses smiling addressed: \u201cAssuredly thy mind aimed at mighty gifts, the horses of warlike \u00c6acides; but these are difficult to be governed by mortal men, and to be driven by any other than Achilles, whom an immortal mother bore. But come, tell me this, and state correctly; where now, when coming hither, didst thou leave Hector, the shepherd of the people? Where lie his martial arms, and where his steeds? And how [stationed are] the watches and tents of the other Trojans? What do they consult among themselves? Do they meditate to remain there at a short distance from the ships, or will they return again to the city, since, forsooth, they have subdued the Greeks?\u201d\nBut him Dolon, the son of Eumedes, again addressed: \u201cTherefore will I indeed detail these things to thee very correctly. Hector, with those, as many as are counsellors, is deliberating upon plans at the tomb of divine Ilus, apart from the tumult: but for the watches of which thou inquirest, O Hero, no chosen [band] defends or watches the camp. But as many as are the hearths of fires among the Trojans, those at them are they to whom there is compulsion; 354 and they are both wakeful, and exhort one another to keep watch. But the allies, on the contrary, summoned from afar, are sleeping; for they commit it to the Trojans to keep watch, for their children and wives lie not near them.\u201d\nFootnote 354: (return) Construe, \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u1f70 \u03c4\u03cc\u03c3\u03b1\u03c2 \u03bc\u1f72\u03bd \u03c0\u03c5\u03c1\u1f78\u03c2 \u1f10\u03c3\u03c7\u03ac\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2, \u1f45\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9 \u1f30\u03b9\u03c3\u1f76 \u03a4\u03c1\u03ce\u03c9\u03bd, \u03bf\u1f35\u03b4\u03b5 \u03bf\u1f36\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u1f00\u03bd\u03ac\u03b3\u03ba\u03b7 \u1f10\u03c3\u03c4\u1f76\u03bd, \u1f10\u03b3\u03c1\u03b7\u03b3\u03cc\u03c1\u03b8\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9, \u03ba. \u03c4. \u03bb.\nBut him much-planning Ulysses answering addressed: \u201cIn what manner now do they sleep: mingled with the horse-breaking Trojans, or apart? Tell me, that I may know.\u201d\nBut him Dolon, the son of Eumedes, answered: \u201cTherefore will I indeed detail these things also very correctly. On the one hand, towards the sea, [are] the Carians and P\u0153onians, armed with crooked bows, the Lelegans, and Cauconians, and noble Pelasgians. Towards Thymbra, on the other, the Lycians are allotted their place, and the haughty Mysians, the horse-breaking Phrygians, and the M\u00e6onian cavalry 355 warriors. But why inquire ye of me these things separately? For if ye are now eager to penetrate the host of the Trojans, those Thracians lately arrived are apart, the last of all the others. And among them is their king Rhesus, son of Eioneus. And his horses are the most beautiful and largest I have seen. They are whiter than snow, and like to the winds in speed. And his chariot is well adorned with both gold and silver; and he himself came, wearing golden armour of mighty splendour, a marvel to behold; which does not indeed suit mortal men to wear, but the immortal gods. But now remove me to the swift ships, or, having bound me with a cruel bond, leave me here until ye return, and make trial of me, whether I have indeed spoken to you truly, or not.\u201d\nFootnote 355: (return) I.e. charioteers.\nBut him then valiant Diomede sternly regarding, addressed: \u201cThink not within thy mind to escape from me, O Dolon, although thou hast reported good tidings, since thou hast once come into my hands. For if indeed we shall now release thee, or set thee at liberty, hereafter thou wouldst surely return to the swift ships of the Ach\u00e6ans, either in order to become a spy, or to fight against us. But if, subdued by my hands, thou lose thy life, thou wilt not ever afterwards be a bane to the Greeks.\u201d\nHe said; and the other was preparing to supplicate him, taking him by the chin with his strong hand; but he, rushing at him with his sword, smote the middle of his neck, and cut through both the tendons; and the head of him, still muttering, was mingled with the dust. From his head they took the weasel-skin helmet, and the wolf skin, with the bent bow and long spear; and noble Ulysses raised them on high with his hand to Minerva, the goddess of plunder, and praying, spake:\n\u201cRejoice, O goddess, in these, for thee, first of all the immortals in Olympus, do we invoke; but guide us likewise to the horses and tents of the Thracian men.\u201d\nThus he said; and raising them high above himself, he hung them on a tamarisk-branch. But beside it he placed a conspicuous mark, pulling up handfuls of reeds, 356 and the wide-spreading branches of the tamarisk, lest they should escape their notice whilst they were returning through the dark and dangerous night. Then both advanced onwards through arms and black blood; and proceeding, they came immediately to the band of the Thracian heroes. But they were sleeping, overpowered with fatigue; and their beautiful armour lay upon the ground beside them, carefully in order, in three rows: and by each of them [stood] a yoke of horses. Rhesus slept in the midst, and beside him his swift horses were fastened by the reins to the outer rim 357 of the chariot. And Ulysses first observing, pointed him out to Diomede:\n\u201cThis [is] the man, O Diomede, and these [are] the horses, which Dolon, whom we slew, pointed out to us. But come now, exert thy mighty strength; nor does it at all become thee to stand leisurely with thy armour. Loose therefore the steeds, or do thou slay the men, and the horses shall be my care.\u201d\nFootnote 356: (return) \u03a3\u03c5\u03bc\u03bc\u03ac\u03c1\u03c8\u03b1\u03c2. Ernesti says: \u201cConfregit leviter arundines, et addidit similiter confractis myric\u00e6 frondibus.\u201d\nFootnote 357: (return) Ernesti regards \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03b4\u03b9\u03d5\u03c1\u03b9\u03ac\u03b4\u03bf\u03c2 as an adjective, with \u1f04\u03bd\u03c4\u03c5\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 understood.\nThus he spoke; but into him azure-eyed Minerva breathed valour, and he slaughtered, turning himself on every side, and a dreadful groaning arose of those smitten with the sword; and the earth grew red with blood. As when a lion, coming upon unprotected flocks of goats or sheep, rushes upon them, designing evils, so fell the son of Tydeus upon the Thracian men, until he had slain twelve. But much-counselling Ulysses\u2014whomsoever Diomede standing beside struck with the sword\u2014him Ulysses dragged backwards, seizing by the foot; meditating these things in his mind, that the fair-maned steeds should pass through easily, nor should tremble in spirit, treading on the corses; for as yet they were unused to them. But when now the son of Tydeus had reached the king, him, the thirteenth, he deprived of sweet life, panting; for by the counsel of Minerva an evil dream had stood over his head during the night, [in likeness of] the son of \u0152neus: but in the meantime patient Ulysses was untying the solid-hoofed steeds. With the reins he bound them together and drove them from the crowd, lashing them with his bow, because he thought not of taking with his hands the splendid lash from the well-wrought chariot seat; and then he whistled as a signal to noble Diomede. But he remaining, was meditating what most daring deed he should do; whether seizing the car, where lay the embroidered armour, he should drag it out by the pole 358 or bear it away, raising it aloft; or take away the life of more of the Thracians. Whilst he was revolving these things within his mind, Minerva in the meantime standing near, addressed noble Diomede:\n\u201cBe mindful now of a return to the hollow ships, O son of magnanimous Tydeus, lest thou reach them, having been put to flight; or lest some other god perchance arouse the Trojans.\u201d\nFootnote 358: (return) Understand \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u1f70 \u1fe5\u03c5\u03bc\u03bf\u1fe6.\nThus she spoke; and he understood the voice of the goddess speaking, and he quickly ascended the chariot. And Ulysses lashed on [the horses] with his bow, and they fled to the swift ships of the Greeks.\nNor did silver-bowed Apollo keep a vain watch. When he beheld Minerva accompanying the son of Tydeus, enraged with her, he descended into the vast army of the Trojans, and roused Hippoco\u00f6n, a counsellor of the Thracians, the gallant cousin of Rhesus. And he, leaping up from sleep, when he beheld the place empty where the fleet horses had stood, and the men panting amidst the dreadful slaughter, immediately then wept aloud, and called upon his dear companion by name. A clamour and immeasurable tumult of the Trojans running together arose, and they looked with wonder at the marvellous deeds, which men having perpetrated, had returned to the hollow ships.\nBut when now they came where they had slain the spy of Hector, there Ulysses, dear to Jove, reined in his fleet steeds. But the son of Tydeus, leaping to the ground, placed the bloody spoils in the hands of Ulysses, and then ascended the chariot. And he lashed on the steeds, and both, not unwilling, fled towards the hollow ships, for thither it was agreeable to their minds [to go]. But Nestor first heard the sound, and said:\n\u201cO friends, leaders and rulers over the Greeks, shall I speak falsely, or say the truth? Still my mind impels me. The noise of swift-footed steeds strikes upon my ears. O that now Ulysses and gallant Diomede would immediately drive some solid-hoofed steeds from the Trojans! But greatly do I fear in mind lest these bravest of the Greeks suffer aught from the rude host of Trojans.\u201d\nNot yet was the whole speech uttered, when they themselves arrived. Then indeed they descended to the ground, and [their friends] rejoicing, saluted them with the right hand and kind expressions. But [first] the Gerenian knight Nestor asked them:\n\u201cCome, tell me, most excellent Ulysses, great glory of the Greeks, how took ye these horses? [Whether] penetrating the camp of the Trojans; or did some god, meeting, supply you with them? They are very like unto the rays of the sun. I indeed always mingle with the Trojans, nor can I say that I remain at the ships, although being an old warrior: yet have I never beheld nor remarked such horses, but I think that some god, meeting you, hath given them. For cloud-compelling Jove loves you both, and the daughter of \u00e6gis-bearing Jove, azure-eyed Minerva.\u201d\nBut him crafty Ulysses answering addressed: \u201cO Nestor, offspring of Neleus, great glory of the Greeks, a god indeed, if willing, could easily have given better horses even than these, since they (the gods) are much more powerful. But those steeds about which thou inquirest, old man, are Thracian, lately arrived, and valiant Diomede slew their lord, and beside him twelve companions, all of the bravest. The thirteenth, a spy, we killed, near the ships, whom Hector sent forth, and the other illustrious Trojans, to be a spy, forsooth, [of our army].\u201d\nThus saying, he drove the solid-hoofed steeds across the ditch, exulting, and with him went the other Greeks rejoicing. But when they came to the well-constructed tent of Diomede, they tied the steeds by the skilfully-cut reins to the horses\u2019 stall, where stood the swift-footed steeds of Diomede, eating sweet corn. In the stern of his vessel Ulysses laid the bloody spoils of Dolon, until they could present them as a sacred gift to Minerva. Then having gone into the sea, they washed off the abundant sweat from around their legs, their neck, and thighs. But when the wave of the sea had washed away the abundant sweat from their bodies, and they were refreshed in their dear heart, entering the well-polished baths, they bathed. But having bathed and anointed themselves with rich oil, they sat down to a repast; and drawing forth sweet wine from a full bowl, they poured it out in libation to Minerva.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THE ELEVENTH.\nARGUMENT.\nAgamemnon distinguishes himself, but, being wounded, retires from the field. Diomede is wounded by Paris: Ulysses by Socus. Ajax and Menelaus then go to the relief of Ajax, and Eurypylus, who had joined them, is shot in the thigh by Paris, who also wounds Machaon. Nestor conveys Machaon from the field. Achilles sends Patroclus to the tent of Nestor, who exhorts Patroclus to engage in battle, assuming the armour of Achilles.\nBut Aurora was rising from her couch, from beside glorious Tithonus, that she might bear light to immortals and to mortals, when Jove sent forth fell Discord to the swift ships of the Greeks, bearing in her hands the portent of war. And she stood upon the huge 359 black ship of Ulysses, which was in the centre, to shout to both sides, as well to the tents of Telamonian Ajax, as to those of Achilles; who had both drawn up their equal ships at the very extremities, relying on their valour and strength of hands. There standing, the goddess shouted both loudly and terribly, in Orthian strain, 360 to the Greeks, and implanted mighty strength in the heart of each, to war and fight incessantly. And immediately war became more sweet to them, than to return in the hollow ships to their dear fatherland. Then the son of Atreus shouted aloud, and ordered the Greeks to be girded; and arrayed himself, putting on his shining armour. First he put upon his legs his beautiful greaves, fitted with silver clasps; next he placed around his breast a corslet which Cinyras once gave him, to be a pledge of hospitality. For a great rumour was heard at Cyprus, that the Greeks were about to sail to Troy in ships: wherefore he gave him this, gratifying the king. Ten bars indeed [of the corslet] were of dark cyanus 361, twelve of gold, and twenty of tin; and three serpents of cyanus stretched towards the neck on each side, like unto rainbows, which the son of Saturn hath fixed in a cloud 362, a sign to articulate-speaking men. Then around his shoulders he hung his sword, on which glittered golden studs; and a silver scabbard enclosed it, fitted with golden rings. Next he took up his shield, mortal-covering 363, variously wrought, strong, beautiful, around which were ten brazen orbs. Upon it were twenty white bosses of tin, and in the midst was [one] of dark cyanus. On it a grim-visaged Gorgon was placed as an ornament, looking horribly, and around [were] Terror and Flight. The belt was of silver, but round it a snake of cyanus was twisted, and there were three heads entwined, springing from one neck. Upon his head also he placed his helmet, adorned with studs on all sides, having four bosses, crested with horse-hair, and dreadfully nodded the tuft from above. He then took two strong spears, tipped with brass, sharp; and the brass of them glittered afar, even to heaven: and Minerva and Juno thundered above, honouring the king of Mycen\u00e6, rich in gold.\nThen indeed each gave orders to his own charioteer to hold there his horses in good order by the fosse; whilst they themselves on foot 364, arrayed with their armour, rushed forth; and an inextinguishable clamour arose before morning. And they 365 were marshalled in the foreground with the cavalry at the trench; the cavalry followed at a little interval; but the son of Saturn aroused a dreadful tumult, and sent down dew-drops, moist with blood, from the air above, because he was about to hurl many brave souls on to Hades.\nOn the other side, on the contrary, the Trojans [drew up] on a hill in the plain around both mighty Hector, blameless Polydamas, and \u00c6neas, who, among the Trojans, was honoured by the people as a god; and the three sons of Antenor, Polybus, noble Agenor, and youthful Acamas, like unto the immortals. And Hector in the van carried his shield, equal on all sides. And as when a pernicious star makes its appearance from the clouds, at one time shining, and dark again hath entered the clouds; so Hector, giving orders, appeared now among the first, and now among the last; and he glittered all over with brass, like the lightning of \u00e6gis-bearing Jove.\nFootnote 359: (return) Cf. Buttm. Lexil. p. 378, sqq.\nFootnote 360: (return) I. e. shrill, at the full pitch of the voice. Cf. \u00c6sch. Pers. \u039c\u03bf\u03bb\u03c0\u03b7\u03b4\u1f78\u03bd \u03b7\u1f50\u03d5\u03ae\u03bc\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd, \u1f44\u03c1\u03b8\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd \u03b4' \u1f04\u03bc\u03b1 \u0386\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7\u03bb\u03ac\u03bb\u03b1\u03be\u03b5.\nFootnote 361: (return) I have retained this word, as we cannot ascertain what precise metal is meant.\nFootnote 362: (return) Cf. Genes. ix. 13.\nFootnote 363: (return) See Buttm. Lexil. p. 33.\nFootnote 364: (return) Cf. Hesych. t. i. p. 1065, with Alberti\u2019s note.\nFootnote 365: (return) I. e. the chiefs.\nAnd they,\u2014as when reapers opposite to each other form swathes of wheat or barley along the field of a rich man, and the frequent handfuls fall,\u2014so the Trojans and Greeks, rushing against one another, kept slaughtering: and neither thought of pernicious flight. And they held their heads equal in combat, and rushed on like wolves; whilst lamentable Discord, looking on, exulted: for she alone of the gods was present with them contending. But the other gods were not present with them, but sat quiet in their palaces, where beautiful mansions were built for each, along the summits of Olympus. All however blamed the Saturnian collector of dark clouds, because he wished to afford glory to the Trojans. But the sire did not regard them, but retiring by himself, sat down apart from the others, exulting in glory, looking both upon the city of the Trojans, and the ships of the Greeks, and the brightness of armour, and the slaying, and slain.\nWhilst it was morn, and the sacred day was increasing, so long the weapons reached both sides, and the people fell. But at the time when the wood-cutter 366 has prepared his repast in the dells of a mountain, when he has wearied his hands hewing down lofty trees, and satiety comes upon his mind, and the desire of sweet food seizes his breast; then the Greeks, by their valour, broke the phalanxes, cheering their companions along the ranks. But Agamemnon first leaped forth, and slew the hero Bianor, the shepherd of the people, and then also his companion, O\u00efleus, the goader of steeds. For he then, leaping from the chariot, stood against him; but he (Agamemnon) smote him, as he was rushing straight forward, with his sharp spear, in the forehead; nor did the visor, heavy with brass, retard the weapon, but it penetrated both it and the bone, and all the brain within was stained with gore. Him then he subdued while eagerly rushing on. And Agamemnon, king of men, left them there with their bosoms all bare, for he had stripped off their tunics. Next he went against Isus and Anthipus, two sons of Priam, [the one] illegitimate, and [the other] legitimate, being both in one chariot, in order to slay them. The spurious [son] guided the chariot, whilst illustrious Antiphus fought. Them Achilles had once bound with tender osiers on the summits of Ida, taking them while pasturing their sheep; and had liberated them for a ransom. Then however the son of Atreus, wide-ruling Agamemnon, struck one upon the breast above the pap with his spear; and again he smote Antiphus beside the ear with his sword, and hurled him from his chariot. Hastening up, he despoiled them of their beautiful armour, recognizing them; for he had formerly seen them at the swift ships, when swift-footed Achilles brought them from Ida. And as a lion, returning to his lair, easily crushes the little fawns of the fleet hind, seizing them in his strong teeth, and deprives them of their tender life, whilst she, although she happen [to be] very near, cannot aid them; for a dreadful tremor comes upon herself; but hastening, she immediately flies through the thick oak groves and the forest, sweating, through the attack of the wild beast. Thus no one of the Trojans was then able to avert destruction from these, but they themselves were put to flight by the Greeks. Next [he attacked] Pisander and Hippolochus, brave in battle, the sons of warlike Antimachus, who having accepted gold from Paris, rich gifts, would not suffer them to restore Helen to yellow-haired Menelaus. His two sons, then, Agamemnon, king of men, seized, being in one chariot, for they drove their fleet horses together; for the splendid reins had fallen from their hands, and they were confounded. But the son of Atreus rushed against them like a lion, and they, on the contrary, supplicated [him] from the chariot:\n\u201cTake us alive, O son of Atreus, and thou shalt receive worthy ransoms. For many treasures lie in the houses of Antimachus, brass, gold, and variously-wrought iron. From these would our father give infinite ransoms, if he should hear that we were alive at the ships of the Greeks.\u201d\nFootnote 366: (return) Compare the similar allusion to rustic pursuits in xvi. 779, with Buttm. Lexil. p. 89.\nThus both weeping addressed the king with soothing words; but heard an unsoothing reply: \u201cIf indeed ye be the sons of warlike Antimachus, who once in an assembly of the Trojans, ordered that they should there put to death Menelaus, coming as an ambassador along with godlike Ulysses, and not send him back to the Greeks\u2014now surely shall ye pay the penalty of the unmerited insolence of your father.\u201d\nHe said, and hurled Pisander from his horses to the ground, striking him on the breast with his spear; and he was stretched supine upon the soil. But Hippolochus leaped down, whom next he slew upon the ground, having lopped off his hands with his sword, and cut off his neck; and it (the head) like a cylinder, he hurled forward, to be rolled through the crowd. These then he left there; and where very many phalanxes were thrown into confusion, there he rushed, and at the same time other well-greaved Greeks. Infantry slew infantry, flying from necessity, and horse [slew] horse, slaughtering with the brass (whilst the dust was raised by them from the plain, which the loud-sounding feet of the horses excited); but king Agamemnon, constantly slaying, pursued, cheering on the Greeks. And as when a destructive fire falls upon a woody forest, and the wind whirling carries it on all sides, whilst the branches fall with the roots, overwhelmed by the violence of the flame; so fell the heads of the flying Trojans, at the hand of Agamemnon, son of Atreus, and many lofty-necked steeds rattled their empty chariots through the ranks 367 of the battle, longing for their faultless charioteers; but they lay upon the earth, far more agreeable to the vultures than to their wives.\nFootnote 367: (return) Literally, \u201cthe bridges,\u201d i. e. the open spaces between the lines.\nBut Jove withdrew Hector out of the reach of weapons, of dust, of slaughter, blood and tumult, whilst Atrides pursued, loudly cheering on the Danai. [The Trojans] meanwhile rushed through the middle of the plain towards the wild fig-tree, near the tomb of Ilus, the descendant of ancient Dardanus, eager to reach the city; but Atrides still followed shouting, and stained his invincible hands with dusty gore. But when now they reached the Sc\u00e6an gates and the beech-tree, there at length they halted, and awaited each other. Others, however, still fled through the middle of the plain, like oxen which a lion, coming at the depth of night, hath put tremblingly to flight\u2014all, but to some one dreadful destruction is apparent; whose neck he first completely breaks, seizing it in his strong teeth; and then laps up both the blood and all the entrails: thus did the son of Atreus, king Agamemnon, follow them, always killing the hindermost; and they kept flying. Many fell prone and supine from their chariots, by the hands of the son of Atreus; for before [all others] he raged exceedingly with the spear. But when now he was about soon to reach the city and the lofty wall, then indeed the father both of men and gods, descending from heaven, seated himself upon the tops of Ida, of many rills. And he held the lightning in his hands, and aroused golden-winged Iris to bear his message:\n\u201cCome, swift Iris, deliver this message to Hector. As long as he may behold Agamemnon, the shepherd of the people, raging in the van, [and] destroying the ranks of men, so long let 368 him retreat, and let him exhort the rest of the army to fight with the enemy during the violent contest. But when he (Agamemnon) shall have mounted his steeds, either smitten by a spear, or wounded by an arrow, then will I supply him with strength to slay, 369 until he reach the well-benched ships, and the sun set, and sacred darkness come on.\u201d\nFootnote 368: (return) Cf. ver. 204.\nFootnote 369: (return) The Greeks.\nThus he spake; nor did rapid Iris, swift as the wind on her feet, disobey. But she descended from the mountains of Ida, towards sacred Ilium. She found noble Hector, son of warlike Priam, standing in the midst of the horses and well-joined chariots: and having approached, swift-footed Iris addressed him:\n\u201cHector, son of Priam, equal in counsel to Jove, Jove hath sent me forward to deliver to thee this message: As long as thou seest Agamemnon, the shepherd of the people, raging amongst the van, [and] destroying the ranks of men, so long do thou abstain from combat, but exhort the rest of the army to fight with the enemy during the violent contest. But when he shall have mounted his steeds, either smitten with a spear, or wounded by an arrow, then will he supply thee with strength to slay, until thou reach the well-benched ships, and the sun set, and sacred darkness come on.\u201d\nThus having spoken, swift-footed Iris departed. But Hector with his armour sprang from his chariot to the ground, and brandishing sharp spears, ranged through the army on every side, inciting them to fight, and stirred up the dreadful battle. They indeed rallied, and stood opposite to the Greeks; but the Greeks, on the other hand, strengthened their phalanxes. And the battle was renewed, and they stood front to front. But Agamemnon first rushed on, for he wished to fight far before all.\nTell me now, ye muses, possessing Olympian dwellings, who first, either of the Trojans or illustrious allies, now came against Agamemnon? Iphidamas, son of Antenor, both valiant and great, who was nurtured in fertile Thrace, the mother of flocks. Cisseus, his maternal grandfather, who begat fair-cheeked Theano, reared him in his house whilst yet a little boy: but when he had attained the measure of glorious youth, he there detained him, and gave him his own daughter. And having married her, he came from the bridal chamber, on the rumour of the Greeks, with twelve curved vessels which followed him. The equal ships indeed he afterwards left at Percote, but he, proceeding on foot, had arrived at Troy; and he it was who then came against Agamemnon, the son of Atreus. When these, advancing against each other, were now near, the son of Atreus on his part missed, and his spear was turned aside. But Iphidamas smote him upon the belt, under the corslet; and he put his strength to it, relying on his strong hand. Yet he pierced not the flexible belt, but meeting with the silver long before, the point was turned like lead. Then indeed wide-ruling Agamemnon, seeing it in his hand, pulled it towards him, exasperated, like a lion, and plucked it from his hand; and he smote him on the neck with his sword, and relaxed his limbs. Thus he, unhappy, while aiding his citizens, falling there, slept a brazen sleep, away from his lawful virgin wife, whose charms he had not yet known, although he had given many presents [for her]. 370 First he gave a hundred oxen, and then he promised a thousand goats and sheep together, which were pastured for him in countless numbers. Him Agamemnon, son of Atreus, at that time stripped [of his arms], and went through the army of the Greeks, bearing his rich armour. Whom when Coon, 371 the eldest born of Antenor, conspicuous amongst men, then beheld, violent grief darkened his eyes, for his brother having fallen, and he stood aside with his spear, escaping the notice of noble Agamemnon. And he wounded him in the middle of the arm, below the elbow, and the point of the shining spear passed right through to the other side. Then indeed Agamemnon, the king of men, shuddered; but not even thus did he abstain from battle or from war, but he rushed upon Coon, holding his wind-nurtured spear. 372 He on his part was eagerly dragging by the foot Iphidamas his brother, and begotten by the same father, and was calling upon every brave man, when [Agamemnon] wounded him with his polished brazen spear below the bossy shield, whilst dragging him through the crowd, and relaxed his limbs; and, standing beside him, cut off his head over Iphidamas. There the sons of Antenor, fulfilling their destiny at the hands of the king, the son of Atreus, descended to the abode of Hades. But he was ranging about through the ranks of other men, with his spear, his sword, and huge stones, whilst the warm blood yet oozed from his wound. When, however, the wound grew dry, and the blood ceased [to flow], sharp pains possessed the strength of Atreus\u2019s son. And as when the sharp pang seizes a woman in travail, piercing, which the Ilithyi\u00e6, daughters of Juno, who preside over childbirth, send forth, keeping bitter pangs in their possession; so did sharp anguish enter the strength of the son of Atreus. And he sprang into his chariot, and ordered his charioteer to drive on to the hollow ships; for he was tortured at heart. And vociferating, he shouted aloud to the Greeks:\n\u201cO friends, leaders, and rulers over the Argives, repel ye now the severe battle from the sea-traversing barks, since provident Jove does not permit me to combat all day with the Trojans.\u201d\nFootnote 370: (return) On this custom, cf. ix. 146, xviii. 593.\nFootnote 371: (return) The name and fate of this hero unclassically remind us of the \u201cgone coon\u201d of American celebrity, immortalized in the \u201cat homes\u201d of the late Charles Matthews.\nFootnote 372: (return) \u201cThe Scholiasts and Eustathius explain this epithet by the received opinion that trees in exposed situations are usually the strongest and most vigorous from their frequent agitation by the wind.\u201d\u2014Kennedy.\nThus he spoke; and the charioteer lashed on the fair-maned steeds towards the hollow ships; and they, not unwilling, flew. They were covered with foam as to their breasts, and were sprinkled beneath with dust, as they bore the afflicted king apart from the battle. But Hector, when he observed Agamemnon going apart, exhorted both the Trojans and Lycians, shouting aloud:\n\u201cYe Trojans, Lycians, and close-fighting Dardanians, be men, my friends, and be mindful of impetuous might. The bravest hero has departed, and Saturnian Jove has given great glory to me. But straightway urge your solid-hoofed horses against the gallant Greeks, that ye may bear off higher glory.\u201d\nThus saying, he aroused the courage and spirit of each. As when perchance some huntsman should urge his white-toothed dogs against a rustic wild boar or lion; so Hector, the son of Priam, equal to man-slaughtering Mars, urged the magnanimous Trojans against the Greeks. He himself, having mighty courage, advanced among the first, and rushed into the battle, like unto a storm blowing from above, and which rushing down, stirs up the purple deep.\nThen whom first and whom last, did Hector, son of Priam, slay, when Jove gave him glory? Ass\u00e6us indeed first, and Autono\u00fcs, and Opites, and Dolops, son of Clytis, and Opheltius, and Agelaus, and \u00c6symnus, and Orus, and Hippono\u00fcs, persevering in fight. These leaders of the Greeks he then slew, and afterwards the common crowd; as when the west wind drives to and fro the clouds of the impetuous 373 south, lashing them with an impetuous blast, and many a swollen 374 billow is rolled along, whilst the foam is scattered on high by the far-straying blast of the wind; thus were many heads of the people subdued by Hector. Then indeed would there have been ruin; and inevitable deeds had been done, and the flying Greeks had fallen in flight into their ships, had not Ulysses encouraged Diomede, the son of Tydeus:\n\u201cSon of Tydeus, through what cause are we forgetful of impetuous might? But come hither, my friend, stand by me; for surely it will be a disgrace if indeed crest-tossing Hector take the ships.\u201d\nHim then valiant Diomede, answering, addressed: \u201cI indeed will remain, and be courageous; although there will be little use 375 for us, since cloud-compelling Jove chooses to give glory to the Trojans rather than to us.\u201d\nFootnote 373: (return) Or \u201cserenizing, causing a clear sky.\u201d Heyne compares \u201calbus notus,\u201d in Horace. But see Kennedy.\nFootnote 374: (return) Neuter of the Ionic adjective \u03c4\u03c1\u03cc\u03d5\u03b9\u03c2=\u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1\u03c2, \u03b5\u1f50\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1\u03d5\u03ae\u03c2.\nFootnote 375: (return) Hesychius: \u1f2e\u03b4\u03bf\u03c2\u00b7 \u1f21\u03b4\u03bf\u03bd\u03ae, \u03ba\u03b1 \u1f44\u03d5\u03b5\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2.\nHe said, and hurled Thymbr\u00e6us from his chariot to the ground, striking him with his spear upon the left pap; but Ulysses [slew] Molion, the godlike attendant of the king. These then they left, since they caused them to cease from war. Then both, advancing through the multitude, excited confusion; as when two boars, full of courage, rush upon the hounds; so they returning to the fight, cut down the Trojans; and the Greeks joyfully gained a respite, avoiding noble Hector. Next they took a chariot and two warriors, the bravest of the people, the two sons of Percosian Merops, who above all was skilled in augury, nor would permit his sons to march to the man-destroying war: yet did they not obey him, because the destinies of black death led them on. Them spear-renowned Diomede, the son of Tydeus, depriving of life and breath, despoiled of their splendid armour. And Ulysses slew Hippodamus and Hyperochus.\nThen the son of Saturn, looking down from Ida, stretched for them the contest with equal tension, and they slaughtered one another. The son of Tydeus indeed wounded on the hip, with his spear, the hero Agastrophus, son of P\u00e6on; for his horses were not at hand for him to take flight; but he had erred greatly in his mind, for his attendant kept them apart, whilst he rushed on foot through the foremost combatants, till he lost his life. But Hector quickly perceived it along the ranks, and hastened towards them, shouting; and with him followed the phalanxes of the Trojans. Diomede, brave in the din of battle, beholding him, shuddered, and immediately addressed Ulysses, who was near:\n\u201cTowards us is this great destruction, dreadful Hector, now rolled. But come, let us stand firm, and awaiting, repulse [him].\u201d\nHe said, and brandishing his long-shadowed spear, hurled it, and smote him on the summit of the helmet on his head; nor, aiming did he miss. But brass wandered from brass, nor did it reach the white skin; for the threefold oblong helmet stopped it, which Ph\u0153bus Apollo had given him. Hector hastily retired to a distance, and was mingled with the crowd. And he (Hector) falling upon his knee, remained so, and supported himself with his strong hand against the earth, whilst dark night overshadowed his eyes. But whilst the son of Tydeus was following after the impulse of the spear far through the foremost combatants, where it was fixed in the earth, Hector, in the meantime, breathed again, and springing again into his chariot, drove into the crowd, and avoided black death. And valiant Diomede, rushing upon him with his spear, addressed him:\n\u201cDog, thou hast escaped indeed death at present, although destruction approached near thee. Now again has Ph\u0153bus Apollo rescued thee, to whom thou art wont to offer prayers, advancing into the clash of spears. But I will assuredly make an end of thee, meeting thee again, if perchance any one of the gods be an ally to me. Now, however, I will go against others, whomsoever I can find.\u201d\nHe said, and slew the spear-renowned son of P\u00e6on. But Paris, the husband of fair-haired Helen, leaning against a pillar, at the tomb of the deceased hero, Dardanian Ilus, the aged leader of the people, bent his bow against the son of Tydeus, the shepherd of the people. Whilst he was removing the variegated corslet from the breast of gallant Agastrophus, the shield from his shoulders, and his heavy casque, he (Paris) in the meantime was drawing back the horn of his bow, and struck him on the broad part of the right foot, nor did the weapon escape in vain from his hand; and the arrow went entirely into the ground. And he, laughing very joyfully, sprang from his ambuscade, and boasting, spoke:\n\u201cThou art struck, nor has the weapon escaped me in vain. Would that, striking thee in the lower part of the groin, I had deprived thee of life. Thus, indeed, would the Trojans have respired from destruction, who now are thrilled with horror at thee, as bleating goats at the lion.\u201d\nBut him valiant Diomede, undismayed, addressed:\n\u201cArcher, reviler, decked out with curls, woman\u2019s man, if now in arms thou wouldst make trial of me, hand to hand, thy bow should not avail thee, and numerous arrows 376 whereas now, having grazed the broad part of my foot, thou boastest thus. I regard it not, as though a woman had wounded me, or a silly boy: for idle is the weapon of an unwarlike, good-for-nothing man. From me, indeed, it is otherwise; for if one be touched but slightly, the weapon is piercing, and forthwith renders him lifeless; and the cheeks of his wife are furrowed on both sides, and his children are orphans; but crimsoning the earth with his blood, he putrefies, and the birds around him are more numerous than the women.\u201d\nFootnote 376: (return) Cf. iii. 39, sqq.; Hor. Od. i. 15, 13.\nThus he spoke; but spear-renowned Ulysses coming near, stood before him, and he (Diomede) sitting down behind him, drew the swift shaft out of his foot, and severe agony darted through his body. Then he leaped into his chariot, and commanded his charioteer to drive to the hollow ships; for he was grieved at heart. But spear-renowned Ulysses was left alone, nor did any of the Greeks remain beside him, as fear had seized upon all. Wherefore, groaning inwardly, he addressed his own mighty soul:\n\u201cAlas! what will become of me? Great would be the disgrace if I fly, alarmed at the multitude; but worse would it be if I were taken alone: but the son of Saturn hath struck the rest of the Greeks with terror. But wherefore does my spirit discuss these things with me? for I know that cowards indeed retire from the battle; but whosoever should be brave in combat, it is altogether necessary that he stand firmly, whether he be wounded, or wound another.\u201d\nWhilst he revolved these things within his mind and soul, the ranks of the shielded Trojans in the meantime came upon him, and enclosed him in the midst, placing [their] bane in the midst of them. As when dogs and vigorous youths rush against a boar on all sides, but he comes out from a deep thicket, sharpening his white tusk within his crooked jaws; on all sides they rush upon him, and a gnashing of teeth arises: but they remain at a distance from him, terrible as he is: so the Trojans did rush round Ulysses, dear to Jove. But he wounded above the shoulder blameless De\u00efopites, springing upon him with his sharp spear; and afterwards he slew Tho\u00f6n and Ennomous. With his spear he next wounded Chersidamas, when leaping from his chariot, in the navel, below his bossed shield; but he, falling amid the dust, grasped the earth with the hollow of his hand. These indeed he left, and next wounded with his spear Charops, son of Hippasus, and brother of noble Socus. But Socus, godlike hero, hastened to give him aid; and approaching very near, he stood, and addressed him in these words:\n\u201cO illustrious Ulysses, insatiable in crafts and toil, to-day shalt thou either boast over the two sons of Hippasus, having slain such heroes, and stripped them of their arms, or else stricken by my spear, thou shalt lose thy life.\u201d\nThus saying, he smote him upon the shield equal on all sides. The rapid weapon penetrated the shining shield, and was fixed through the curiously-wrought corslet, and tore off all the skin from his sides. But Pallas Minerva suffered it not to be mingled with the entrails of the hero. And Ulysses perceived that the weapon had not come upon him mortally, and retiring, he addressed [this] speech to Socus:\n\u201cAh! wretch; very soon indeed will dreadful destruction overtake thee. Without doubt thou hast caused me to cease from fighting with the Trojans, but I declare that death and black fate shall be thine this day; and that, subdued beneath my spear, thou shalt give glory to me, and thy soul to steed-famed Pluto.\u201d  377\nFootnote 377: (return) Probably so called from the steeds (\u201cinferni raptoris equos,\u201d Claud. de Rapt. Pros. i. 1) by which he stole away Proserpine. See the Scholiast.\nHe said, and the other, turning again to flight, had begun to retreat, but whilst he was turning, he (Ulysses) fixed his spear in his back between the shoulders, and drove it through his breast. Falling, he made a crash, and noble Ulysses boasted over him:\n\u201cO Socus, son of warlike, horse-breaking Hippasus, the end of death has anticipated thee, nor hast thou escaped. Ah! wretch, neither thy father nor venerable mother shall close thine eyes for thee, dead as thou art, but ravenous birds shall tear thee, flapping about thee with dense wings: but when I die, the noble Greeks will pay me funeral honours.\u201d\nSo saying, he plucked the strong spear of warlike Socus out of his flesh and bossy shield; and his blood gushed forth as he drew it out, and tortured his mind. But the magnanimous Trojans, when they beheld the blood of Ulysses, encouraging one another through the crowd, all rushed on against him; whilst he kept retreating backwards, and called to his companions. Thrice did he then shout as much as the head of mortal could contain, and thrice warlike Menelaus heard him exclaiming, and instantly addressed Ajax, being near:\n\u201cMost noble Ajax, son of Telamon, chieftain of the people, the cry of invincible Ulysses has come upon me, like to that, as if the Trojans were greatly pressing upon him, being alone, having cut him off in the sharp fight. Wherefore let us go through the crowd, as it is better to aid him. I fear lest being left alone amidst the Trojans, he suffer aught, although being brave, and there be great want [of him] to the Greeks.\u201d\nThus speaking, he led the way, and the godlike hero followed along with him. Then they found Ulysses, dear to Jove; and around him followed the Trojans, like tawny jackals round an antlered stag when wounded in the mountains, which a man hath stricken with an arrow from the bowstring. Him indeed, flying, it escapes on its feet, as long as the blood is warm, and its knees have the power of motion. But when the swift arrow hath subdued it, the raw-devouring jackals destroy it in a shady grove among the mountains. Chance, however, brings thither the destructive lion: the jackals then fly in terror, and he devours. So at that time followed the Trojans, numerous and brave, round warlike, crafty Ulysses; but the hero, rushing on with his spear, warded off the merciless day. Then Ajax came near, bearing his shield, like a tower, and stood beside him; and the Trojans fled, terrified, different ways. In the meantime warlike Menelaus, taking him by the hand, withdrew [him] from the throng, till his attendant drove his horses near. But Ajax, springing upon the Trojans, slew Doryclus, son of Priam, an illegitimate son; and next wounded Pandocus. Lysander he wounded, and Pyrasus, and Pylartes. And as when an overflowing river comes down on the plain, a torrent from the mountains, accompanied by the shower of Jove, and bears along with it many dry oaks and many pines, and casts forth the swollen torrent into the sea; so illustrious Ajax, routing [them], pursued [them] along the plain, slaughtering both horses and men. Nor as yet had Hector heard it; for he was fighting on the left of the battle, on the banks of the river Scamander; for there chiefly fell the heads of men, and an inextinguishable clamour had arisen around mighty Nestor, and warlike Idomeneus. Among these did Hector mingle, performing arduous deeds with his spear and equestrian skill, and he was laying waste the phalanxes of youths. Nevertheless the noble Greeks would not have retired from the way, had not Paris, the husband of fair-haired Helen, disabled Machaon, the shepherd of the people, performing prodigies of valour, wounding him on the right shoulder with a triple-barbed arrow. For him then the valour-breathing Greeks trembled, lest perchance they should slay him, the battle giving way, and immediately Idomeneus addressed noble Nestor:\n\u201cO Neleian Nestor, great glory of the Greeks, come, ascend thy chariot, and let Machaon mount beside thee; and direct thy solid-hoofed horses with all speed towards the ships, for a medical man is equivalent to many others, both to cut out arrows, and to apply mild remedies.\u201d  378\nFootnote 378: (return) Scribonius Largus, Compos. Med. cc. \u201cNeque chirurgia sine di\u00e6tetica, neque h\u00e6c sine chirurgia, id est, sine ea parte qu\u00e6 medicamentorum utilium usum habeat, perfici possunt; sed ali\u00e6 ab aliis adjuvantur, et quasi consumantur.\u201d Where John Rhodius well observes: \u201cAntiquos chirurgos Homerus Chironis exemplo herbarum succis vulnera sanasse memorat. Hunc et sectiones adhibuisse notat Pindarus Pyth. Od. iii. Neque ingeniorum fons \u0399\u03bb. \u039b. \u03c4\u1f78 \u1f10\u03ba\u03c4\u03ac\u03bc\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd omisit.\u201d Cf. Celsus, Pref. with the notes of Almeloveen, and lib. vii. pr\u00e6f., where the chirurgical part of ancient medicine is amusingly discussed.\nThus he spoke, nor did the Gerenian knight Nestor disobey. Forthwith he ascended his chariot, and Machaon, the son of \u00c6sculapius, blameless physician, mounted beside him; but he lashed on the steeds, and they flew not unwillingly towards the hollow ships, for there it was agreeable to their inclination [to go].\nBut Cebriones, sitting beside Hector, perceived the Trojans in confusion, and addressed him in [these] words: \u201cHector, we two are mingling here with the Greeks in the outskirt of evil-sounding battle, whilst the other Trojans are thrown into confusion in crowds, both their horses and themselves. Telamonian Ajax is routing them, for I know him well, for around his shoulders he bears a broad shield. But let us also direct our horses and chariot thither, where cavalry and infantry, having engaged in the evil strife, are slaughtering each other, and inextinguishable tumult hath arisen.\u201d\nThus then having spoken, he lashed on the fair-maned steeds with his shrill-cracking lash. But they, sensible of the stroke, speedily bore the swift chariot through Trojans and Greeks, trampling on both corses and shields. With blood the whole axletree was stained beneath, and the rims around the chariot-seat, which the drops from the horses\u2019 hoofs, and from the wheel-tires, spattered. But he longed to enter the crowd of heroes, and to break through, springing upon them. And he sent destructive tumult upon the Greeks, and abstained very little from the spear. Among the ranks of other men indeed he ranged with his spear, his sword, and with huge stones; but he shunned the conflict of Telamonian Ajax.\nBut lofty-throned Jove excited fear within Ajax, and he stood confounded, and cast behind him his shield of seven bulls\u2019 hides. Panic-struck he retired, gazing on all sides like a wild beast, turning to and fro, slowly moving knee after knee. As when dogs and rustic men drive a ravening lion from the stall of oxen, who, keeping watch all night, do not allow him to carry off the fat of their cattle, but he, eager for their flesh, rushes on, but profits nought, for numerous javelins fly against him from daring hands, and blazing torches, at which he trembles, although furious; but in the morning he stalks away with saddened mind: so Ajax, sad at heart, then retired, much against his will, from the Trojans; for he feared for the ships of the Greeks. And as when a stubborn ass, upon whose sides 379 many sticks have already been broken, entering in, browses on the tall crop, but the boys still beat him with sticks, although their strength is but feeble, and with difficulty drive him out, when he is satiated with food, so then at length the magnanimous Trojans and far-summoned allies continually followed Ajax, the mighty son of Telamon, striking the middle of his shield with missile weapons. And Ajax, sometimes wheeling about, was mindful of impetuous might, and checked the phalanxes of the horse-breaking Trojans, but again he would turn himself to fly. But he prevented all from advancing to the swift ships, whilst standing himself between the Trojans and Greeks he raged impetuously. And spears hurled against him from daring hands, stuck, some indeed in his ample shield, and many, though eager to glut themselves with his flesh, stood fixed in the ground between, before they could reach his fair skin.\nFootnote 379: (return) Such seems to be the force of \u1f00\u03bc\u03d5\u03af\u03c2.\nWhom when Eurypylus, the illustrious son of Ev\u00e6mon, perceived pressed hard with many darts, advancing he stood beside him, and took aim with his shining spear; and smote Apisaon, son of Phausias, shepherd of the people, in the liver, under the diaphragm; and immediately relaxed his limbs. And when godlike Alexander observed him stripping off the armour of Apisaon, he instantly bent his bow against Eurypylus, and smote him with an arrow upon the right thigh; and the reed was broken, and pained his thigh. Then he fell back into the column of his companions, avoiding fate, and shouting, he cried with a loud voice to the Greeks:\n\u201cO friends, leaders, and rulers over the Greeks, rallying, stand firm, and ward off the merciless day from Ajax, who is hard pressed with darts; nor do I think that he will escape from the dread-resounding battle. But by all means stand firm round mighty Ajax, the son of Telamon.\u201d\nSo spake the wounded Eurypylus, and they stood very near him, resting their shields upon their shoulders, and lifting up their spears. But Ajax came to meet them, and turning about, stood firm, when he reached the body of his comrades. Thus they indeed combated like blazing fire.\nIn the meantime the Neleian steeds, sweating, bore Nestor from the battle, and conveyed Machaon, the shepherd of the people. And noble Achilles, swift of foot, looking forth, beheld him; for he stood upon the prow of his great ship, gazing at the severe labour and lamentable rout. Straightway he addressed Patroclus, his companion, calling [to him] from the ship; and he, hearing him within the tent, came forth, like unto Mars: but it was the beginning of misfortune to him. Him first the gallant son of Men\u0153tius addressed: \u201cWhy dost thou call me, Achilles, and what need hast thou of me?\u201d\nBut him swift-footed Achilles answering, addressed: \u201cNoble son of Men\u0153tius, most dear to my soul, soon I think that the Greeks will stand round my knees entreating, for a necessity no longer tolerable invades them. But go now, Patroclus, dear to Jove, ask Nestor what man this is whom he is carrying wounded from the battle. Behind, indeed, he wholly resembles Machaon, the son of \u00c6sculapius, but I have not beheld the countenance of the man: for the horses passed by me, hastening onward.\u201d\nThus he spoke, and Patroclus was obedient to his dear comrade, and hastened to run to the tents and ships of the Greeks.\nBut when they came to the tent of the son of Neleus, they themselves descended to the fertile earth, and Eurymedon, the attendant of the old man, unyoked the mares from the chariot; whilst they refreshed themselves from the sweat upon their tunics, 380 standing towards the breeze beside the shore of the sea, and afterwards, entering the tent, they sat down upon couches. But for them fair-curled Hecamede prepared a mixture, she whom the old man had brought from Tenedos, when Achilles laid it waste, the daughter of magnanimous Arsino\u00fcs, whom the Greeks selected for him, because he surpassed all in counsel. First she set forward for them a handsome, cyanus-footed, well-polished table; then upon it a brazen tray, and on it an onion, a relish 381 for the draught, as well as new honey, and beside it the fruit of sacred corn. Likewise a splendid cup 382 near them, which the old man had brought from home, studded with golden nails. Its handles were four, and around each were two golden pigeons feeding, and under it were two bottoms. Another indeed would have removed it with difficulty from the table, being full; but aged Nestor raised it without difficulty. In it the woman, like unto the goddesses, had mixed for them Pramnian wine, and grated over it a goat\u2019s-milk cheese with a brazen rasp, and sprinkled white flour upon it: then bade them drink, as soon as she had prepared the potion. But when drinking they had removed parching thirst, they amused themselves, addressing each other in conversation. And Patroclus stood at the doors, a godlike hero.\nFootnote 380:(return) \u201cConstrue \u1f00\u03c0\u03b5\u03c8\u00b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u1f70 \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03b9\u03b4\u03c1\u1ff6\u03c7\u03b9\u03c4. I.e. refreshed, cooled themselves, by standing in front of the breeze and drying off the perspiration with which their garments were saturated.\u201d\u2014Kennedy.\nFootnote 381:(return) Probably the onion acted as a stimulant to drinking, as anchovies and olives are now used.\nFootnote 382: (return) It was an \u1f00\u03bc\u03d5\u03b9\u03ba\u03cd\u03c0\u03b5\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd. Cf. i. 584, and Buttm. Lexil. p. 93. There were two doves round each handle, making eight in all.\nBut the old man, perceiving him, rose from his splendid seat, and taking him by the hand, led him, in, and bade him be seated. But Patroclus, on the other side, declined, and uttered [this] reply:\n\u201cNo seat [for me], O Jove-nurtured sage, nor wilt thou persuade me. Revered and irascible 383 is he who sent me forth to inquire who this man is whom thou leadest wounded; but even I myself know, for I perceive Machaon, the shepherd of the people. Now, however, in order to deliver my message, I will return again an ambassador to Achilles; for well dost thou know, O Jove-nurtured sage, what a terrible man he is; soon would he blame even the blameless.\u201d\nFootnote 383: (return) Or \u201crespected,\u201d as the Oxford translator renders it.\nBut him the Gerenian knight Nestor then answered: \u201cBut why indeed does Achilles thus compassionate the sons of the Greeks, as many as have been wounded with weapons? Nor knows he how great sorrow hath arisen throughout the army; for the bravest lie in the ships, smitten in the distant or the close fight. 384 Stricken is brave Diomede, the son of Tydeus, and wounded is spear-renowned Ulysses, as well as Agamemnon. Eurypylus also has been wounded in the thigh with an arrow; and this other have I lately brought from battle, smitten with an arrow from the bowstring: yet Achilles, being brave, regards not the Greeks, nor pities them. Does he wait until the swift ships near the sea, contrary to the will of the Greeks, be consumed with the hostile fire, and we ourselves be slain one after the other? For my strength is not as it formerly was in my active members. Would that I were thus young, and my might was firm, as when a contest took place between the Eleans and us, about the driving away some oxen, when, driving away in reprisal, I slew Itymoneus, the valiant son of Hypeirochus, who dwelt in Elis: for he, defending his cattle, was smitten among the first by a javelin from my hand, and there fell; and his rustic troops fled on every side. And we drove from the plain a very great booty, fifty droves of oxen, as many flocks of sheep, as many herds of swine, and as many broad herds of goats, one hundred and fifty yellow steeds, all mares, and beneath many there were colts. And these we drove within Neleian Pylus, at night towards the city; but Neleus was delighted in his mind, because many things had fallen to my lot, going as a young man to the war. But with the appearing morn, heralds cried aloud for those to approach to whom a debt was due in rich Elis; and the leading heroes of the Pylians assembling, divided [the spoil], (because the Epeans owed a debt to many); for we in Pylus, [being] few, were overwhelmed with evil. For the Herculean might, coming in former years, did us mischief, and as many as were bravest were slain. For we, the sons of illustrious Neleus, were twelve; of whom I alone am left, but all the rest have perished. Elated at these things, the brazen-mailed Epeans, insulting us, devised wicked deeds. But the old man chose for himself a herd of cattle and a large flock of sheep, selecting three hundred and their shepherds; for even to him a great debt was due in rich Elis: four horses, victorious in the race, with their chariots, which had gone for the prizes; for they were about to run for a tripod; but Augeas, king of men, detained them there, and dismissed the charioteer, grieved on account of his steeds. At which words and deeds the old man, being wroth, chose out for himself mighty numbers, and gave the rest to the people to divide, that no one might go away defrauded by him of his just proportion. We indeed accomplished each of these things, and were performing sacrifices to the gods through the city, when on the third day they all came at once, both the citizens themselves and their solid-hoofed steeds, in full force: and with them were armed the two Molions, being still youths, nor as yet very skilled in impetuous might. There is a certain city, a lofty hill, Thryo\u00ebssa, far away at the Alpheus, the last of sandy Pylus; this they invested, eager to overthrow it. But when they had crossed the whole plain, Minerva, hastening from Olympus, came to us by night as a messenger, that we should be armed; nor did she assemble an unwilling people at Pylus, but one very eager to fight. Still Neieus would not allow me to be armed, but concealed my horses, for he said that I was not at all acquainted with warlike deeds. Yet even thus was I conspicuous amongst our cavalry, even although being on foot; for thus did Minerva conduct me to battle. There is a certain river, Minye\u00efus, emptying itself into the sea near Arena, where we, the Pylian horsemen, awaited divine Morn, whilst the swarms of infantry poured in. Thence in full force, equipped in armour, we came at mid-day to the sacred stream of Alpheus. There having offered fair victims to almighty Jove, a bull to the Alpheus, and a bull to Neptune, but an untrained heifer to blue-eyed Minerva, we then took supper through the army by troops; and we each slept in our arms along the river\u2019s stream. In the meantime the magnanimous Epeans stood around, desirous to lay waste the city; but a mighty work of Mars first appeared to them: for as soon as the splendid sun was elevated above the earth, we were engaged in the battle, praying to Jove and to Minerva. But when now the battle of the Pylians and Eleans began, I first slew a man, the warrior Molion, and bore away his solid-hoofed steeds: he was the son-in-law of Augeas, and possessed his eldest daughter, yellow-haired Agamede, who well understood as many drugs as the wide earth nourishes. Him advancing against [me], I smote with my brazen spear. He fell in the dust, and springing into his chariot, I then stood among the foremost combatants; but the magnanimous Epeans fled terrified in different directions when they beheld the hero fallen, the leader of their cavalry, he who was the best to fight. But I rushed upon them like unto a black whirlwind; and I took fifty chariots, and in each two men bit the ground with their teeth, vanquished by my spear. And now indeed I should have slain the youthful Molions, the sons 385 of Actor, had not their sire, wide-ruling Neptune, covering them with a thick haze, preserved them from the war. Then Jove delivered into the hands of the Pylians great strength, for so long did we follow them through the long 386 plain, both slaying them, and gathering up rich armour, until he had driven our horses to Buprasium, fertile in wheat, to the rock Olenia and Alesium, where it is called Colone: whence Minerva turned back the people. Then having killed the last man, I left him; but the Greeks guided back their swift steeds from Buprasium to Pylus; and all gave glory to Jove, of the gods, and to Nestor, of men. Thus was I, as sure as ever I existed, among men: but Achilles will enjoy his valour alone: surely I think that he will hereafter greatly lament, when the people have bitterly perished. O my friend, Men\u0153tius did assuredly thus command thee on that day when he sent thee from Phthia to Agamemnon. For we being both within, I and noble Ulysses, distinctly heard all things in the halls, as he charged you: but we were come to the well-inhabited palace of Peleus, collecting an army through fertile Greece. There then we found the hero Men\u0153tius within, as well as thee, and Achilles besides; but the aged horseman, Peleus, was burning the fat thighs of an ox to thunder-rejoicing Jove, within the enclosure 387 of his palace, and held a golden cup, pouring the dark wine over the blazing sacrifice. Both of you were then employed about the flesh of the ox, whilst we stood in the vestibule; but Achilles, astonished, leaped up, and led us in, taking us by the hand, and bade us be seated: and he set in order before us the offerings of hospitality which are proper for guests. But when we were satiated with eating and drinking, I began discourse, exhorting you to follow along with us. Ye were both very willing, and they both commanded you many things. Aged Peleus in the first place directed his son Achilles ever to be the bravest, and to be conspicuous above others; but to thee again Men\u0153tius, the son of Actor, thus gave charge: \u2018My son, Achilles indeed is superior in birth; but thou art the elder. And he is much superior in strength: but still do thou frequently suggest to him proper advice, and admonish and direct him, and he will surely be obedient in what is for [his own] good.\u2019 Thus did the old man command thee; but thou art forgetful: but even now do thou mention these things to warlike Achilles, if perchance he may be obedient. Who knows if, advising him, thou mayest, with the gods\u2019 assistance, arouse his mind? For the admonition of a friend is good. But if within his mind he avoid some prophecy, and his venerable mother has told him anything from Jove, let him at least send thee forth; and with thee let the other forces of the Myrmidons follow, if indeed thou mayest be some aid to the Greeks. Let him likewise give his beautiful armour to thee, to be borne into battle, if perchance the Trojans, assimilating thee to him, may abstain from the conflict, and the warlike sons of the Greeks, already afflicted, may respire; and there be a little respite from fighting. 388 But you, [who are] fresh, will, with fighting, easily drive back men wearied, towards the city, from the ships and tents.\u201d\nFootnote 384: (return) Cf iv. 540, for the distinction between \u03b2\u03b5\u03d1\u03bb\u03b7\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9 and \u03bf\u1f50\u03c4\u03ac\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9.\nFootnote 385: (return) I. e. the reputed sons.\nFootnote 386: (return) See Schol. Etym. M. s.v., and Alberti on Hesych. t, ii. p. 1247\nFootnote 387: (return) Properly, the fence or barrier of the enclosure.\nFootnote 388: (return) There are several different interpretations for this line: 1. Schneider explains it: \u201cThey have but short time to respire; for if not at once assisted, they will be destroyed.\u201d 2. \u201cShort will be the cessation from war.\u201d 3. \u201cA cessation, or breathing-time, from war, although short, will be agreeable.\u201d 4. \u201cSupply \u2018may be\u2019, and translate, \u2018and that there may be a short breathing-time from the battle;\u2019 although this last involves some tautology with the preceding line.\u201d\u2014Ed. Dubl.\nThus he spake, and he aroused the spirit within his breast; and he hastened to run to the ships to Achilles, the grandson of \u00c6acus. But when now Patroclus, running, arrived at the ships of godlike Ulysses, where were their forum and seat of justice, and there the altars of their gods also were erected, there Eurypylus, the noble son of Ev\u00e6mon, wounded with an arrow in the thigh, limping from the battle, met him. Down his back ran the copious sweat from his shoulders and head, and from the grievous wound oozed the black blood; nevertheless his mind was firm. Seeing him, the gallant son of Men\u0153tius pitied him, and, grieving, spoke winged words:\n\u201cAlas! unhappy men, leaders and rulers over the Greeks, are ye then thus destined, far away from your friends and native land, to satiate the swift dogs at Troy with your white fat? But come, tell me this, O Jove-nurtured hero, Eurypylus, will the Greeks still at all sustain mighty Hector, or will they now be destroyed, subdued by his spear?\u201d\nBut him prudent Eurypylus in turn addressed: \u201cNo longer, Jove-nurtured Patroclus, will there be aid for the Greeks, but they will fall back upon the black ships. For already all, as many as were once bravest, lie at the ships, stricken or wounded by the hands of the Trojans, whose strength ever increases. But do thou now, indeed, save me, leading me to my black ship; and cut out the arrow from my thigh, and wash the black blood 389 from it with warm water; then sprinkle upon it mild drugs, salubrious, which they say thou wert taught by Achilles, whom Chiron instructed, the most just of the Centaurs. For the physicians, Podalirius and Machaon, the one, I think, having a wound, lies at the tents, and himself in want of a faultless physician, and the other awaits the sharp battle of the Trojans upon the plain.\u201d\nFootnote 389: (return) Cf. Virg. \u00c6n. x. 834: \u201cVulnera siccabat lymphis.\u201d The manner in which this was done is described by Celsus, v. 26: \u201cSi profusionem timemus, siccis lineamentis vulnus implendum est, supraque imponenda gpongia ex aqua frigida expressa, ac manu super comprimenda.\u201d Cf. Athen. ii. 4.\nBut him again the brave son of Men\u0153tius addressed: \u201cHow then will these things turn out? What shall we do, O hero Eurypylus? I go that I may deliver a message to warlike Achilles, with which venerable Nestor, guardian of the Greeks, has intrusted me: but even thus I cannot neglect thee, afflicted.\u201d\nHe said, and having laid hold of the shepherd of the people under his breast, bore him to the tent, and his attendant, when he saw him, spread under him bulls\u2019 hides. There [Patroclus] laying him at length, cut out with a knife the bitter, sharp arrow from his thigh, and washed the black blood from it with warm water. Then he applied a bitter, pain-assuaging root, rubbing it in his hands, which checked all his pangs: the wound, indeed, was dried up, and the bleeding ceased.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THE TWELFTH.\nARGUMENT.\nThe Trojans assail the rampart, and Hector, despite an omen, which Polydamas interprets unfavourably, attacks and forces the gate, and opens a way to the ships.\nThus then at the tents the valiant son of Men\u0153tius was healing the wounded Eurypylus: but the Greeks and Trojans kept fighting in masses; nor was the ditch of the Greeks destined to prove a barrier any longer, and the wide wall from above, which they had erected in defence of the ships; but they had drawn a foss around (nor had they given splendid hecatombs to the gods); that it enclosing within, might defend the swift ships and the great booty. But it was built against the will of the immortal gods, therefore it remained not perfect for any long period. 390 As long as Hector was alive, and Achilles indignant, and the city of king Priam unravaged, so long was the mighty wall of the Greeks firm. But when all the bravest of the Trojans were dead, and many of the Greeks were subdued, but others left surviving, when in the tenth year the city of Priam was sacked, and the Greeks went in their ships to their dear fatherland; then at length Neptune and Apollo took counsel to demolish the wall, introducing the strength of rivers, as many as flow into the sea from the Id\u00e6an mountains, both the Rhesus and the Heptaporus, the Caresus and the Rhodius, the Granicus and the \u00c6sepus, the divine Scamander and the Simo\u00efs, where many shields and helmets fell in the dust, and the race of demigod men. The mouths of all these Ph\u0153bus Apollo turned to the same spot, and for nine days he directed their streams against the wall; and Jove in the meantime rained continually, that he might the sooner render the walls overwhelmed by the sea. But the Earth-shaker [Neptune] himself, holding the trident in his hands, led them on; and then dispersed among the billows all the foundations of beams and stones which the Greeks had laid with toil. And he made [all] level along the rapid Hellespont, and again covered the vast shore with sands, having demolished the wall: but then he turned the rivers to go back into their own channels, in which they had formerly poured their sweet-flowing water. 391\nFootnote 390: (return) Cf. Pseudo-Socrat. Epist. i. \u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u1f70 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f04\u03bb\u03bb\u03c9\u03bd \u03b5\u1f34\u03c1\u03b7\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03b7\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u03b8\u03b5\u1ff6\u03bd' \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f45\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c4\u1f70 \u03bc\u1f72\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u1f70 \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03b2\u03bf\u03cd\u03bb\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03c4\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03b1 \u1f10\u03c0\u1f76 \u03c4\u1f78 \u03bb\u03ce\u03ca\u03bf\u03bd \u1f10\u03ba\u03b8\u03b1\u03af\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9, \u03c4\u1f70 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u1f70 \u03b8\u03b5\u1f78\u03bd \u1f00\u03bb\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03c4\u03b5\u03bb\u1fc6 \u1f51\u03c0\u03ac\u03c1\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2 \u03c0\u03c1\u03ac\u03be\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9, where Duport, p. 72, thinks there is a reference to the present passage.\nFootnote 391: (return) On the present state of the Troad, which appears, from physical facts, to justify the mythical description of Homer,\u2014see Heyne and Kennedy. Compare Virg. \u00c6n. ii. 610, sqq.; Tryphiodor. 566, sqq. and 680, sqq.\nThus were Neptune and Apollo about to act hereafter; but then the battle and clamour burned around the well-built wall, and the stricken joists of the towers resounded: but the Greeks, subdued by the scourge 392 of Jove, were detained, hemmed in at the hollow ships, dreading Hector, the furious cause of flight; for he fought, as formerly, equal to a whirlwind. And as when a boar or lion is occupied amongst the dogs and huntsmen, looking dreadfully with strength, and they, drawing themselves up in a square form, 393 stand against him, and hurl frequent javelins from their hands; but never is his noble heart alarmed, nor is he put to flight; but his courage proves his death. And frequently he turns round, trying the ranks of men; and wheresoever he has directed his attack, there the ranks of men give way: so Hector, going through the crowd, rolled along, inciting his companions to cross the trench. Nor did the swift-footed horses dare [it]; 394 but they loudly neighed, standing upon the precipitous brink; for the wide ditch affrighted [them], nor was it easy to leap across, [by standing] near, 395 or to pass it, for overhanging brinks stood round it on both sides, and beneath it was fortified with sharp palisades, which the sons of the Greeks had fixed, close-set and large, as a defence against hostile men. There a horse, drawing a swift-rolling chariot, could not readily enter, but the infantry eagerly desired it, if they could accomplish it. Then indeed Polydamas, standing near, addressed daring Hector:\nFootnote 392: (return) Heyne compares Il. xiii. 812; Pseud.\u2014Eur. Rhes. 37; Find. Pyth. iv. 390; Tryphiod. 596. The Scholiast on both passages, Hesychius, t. i. p. 1006, and the Schol. on Oppian. Hal. v. 282, suppose that the lightning is meant; but it is far better to understand, with Heyne, \u201cterrore divinitus immisso.\u201d\nFootnote 393: (return) See Heyne, and Alberti on Hesych. t. ii. p. 1083.\nFootnote 394: (return) Cf. Statius, Theb. x. 517:\u2014\n\n\n\u201c\u2014\u2014ut patulas saltu transmittere fossas\nHorror equis; h\u00e6rent trepidi, atque immane paventes\nAbruptum mirantur agi.\u201d\n\n\nFootnote 395: (return) Understand \u1f10\u03ba \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03c3\u03c7\u03b5\u03b4\u1f78\u03bd, \u201cadstando prope ad foss\u00e6 oram, ut saltu facilius transilias.\u201d\u2014Heyne.\n\u201cHector, and ye other leaders of the Trojans, and allies, unwisely do we drive our fleet steeds through the trench, which is very difficult to pass; since sharp palisades stand in it, and near them is the wall of the Greeks. Wherefore it is by no means possible for the cavalry to descend, or to fight, for it is a narrow place, where I think they would be wounded. For if indeed lofty-thundering Jove, designing evil, destroys the Greeks, but wishes to assist the Trojans, certainly I would wish this to take place even immediately, that the Greeks perish here inglorious, away from Argos. If, however, they rally, and a repulse from the ships take place, and we be entangled in the dug trench, I do not suppose that then even a messenger will return back to the city from the Greeks. But come, let us all be persuaded as I shall advise. Let the servants keep our horses at the trench, and let us, all on foot, clad in armour, follow Hector in a close body; but the Greeks will not withstand us, if indeed the end of destruction hang over them.\u201d\nThus spake Polydamas; but the safe counsel pleased Hector; and immediately he leaped with his armour from his chariot on the ground. Nor did the other Trojans assemble on horseback, but dismounting, they rushed on, when they beheld noble Hector. Then each commanded his own charioteer to rein his steeds in good order there at the trench, and they, separating, drawing themselves up, and being arranged in five columns, followed along with their leaders. Some then went with Hector and illustrious Polydamas, who were most numerous and brave, and who were most resolutely desirous, having broken down the wall, to fight at the hollow ships. And Cebriones followed as a third; for Hector left another, inferior to Cebriones, with his chariot. Others Paris commanded, and Alcathous, and Agenor. The third band Helenus and godlike De\u00efphobus, two sons of Priam; but the third [commander] was the hero Asius, Asius son of Hyrtacus, whom fiery, tall steeds brought from Arisba, from the river Selle\u00efs. But the fourth, \u00c6neas, the brave son of Anchises, led; along with him were the two sons of Antenor, Archilochus and Acamas, well skilled in every kind of fight. But Sarpedon commanded the illustrious allies, and chose to himself Glaucus and warlike Asterop\u00e6us; for they appeared to him, next to himself decidedly the bravest of the rest: for he, indeed, excelled among all. When they then had fitted each other together 396 with interlaced ox-hide bucklers, they advanced, full of courage, direct against the Greeks, nor expected that they would sustain them, but that they would fall in flight into their black ships.\nThen the other Trojans and far-summoned allies obeyed the counsel of blameless Polydamas; but Asius, son of Hyrtacus, leader of heroes, was unwilling to relinquish his horses and attendant charioteer, but with them advanced to the swift ships,\u2014foolish! Nor was he destined to return again, borne on his steeds and chariot from the ships to wind-swept Ilium, having avoided evil destiny. For him unlucky fate first encircled from the spear of Idomeneus, the illustrious son of Deucalion. For he rushed towards the left of the ships, by the way in which the Greeks were returning from the plain with their horses and chariots. Thither he drove his horses and his chariot, nor did he find the gates closed 397 in the portal, or the long bar up, but the men held them wide open, that they might safely receive at the ships any of their companions flying from the battle. He designedly guided his steeds right onward in that way, and [his troops], shrilly shouting, followed along with him; for they supposed that the Greeks could no longer sustain them, but would fall in flight into the black ships\u2014fools! for at the gates they found two very brave heroes, the magnanimous sons of the warlike Lapith\u00e6, the one the son of Pirithous, gallant Polyp\u0153tes, the other Leonteus, equal to man-slaughtering Mars. These two then stood before the lofty gates, as tall oaks on the mountains, which abide the wind and rain at all seasons, remaining firmly fixed by their great and wide-spreading roots; so they too, trusting to their hands and strength, awaited mighty Asius coming on, nor fled. But the troops, lifting high their well-seasoned bucklers, advanced with loud shouting directly towards the well-built wall, round their king Asius, and I\u00e4menus, and Orestes, Acamas, the son of Asius, Thoon, and \u0152nom\u00e4us. Hitherto indeed these, remaining within, were exhorting the well-armed Greeks to fight for the ships; but when they perceived the Trojans rushing against the wall, and confusion and flight of the Greeks arose, both darting out, fought before the gates, like unto wild boars, which await the approaching tumult of men and dogs in the mountains, and, advancing obliquely to the attack, break down the wood around them, cutting it to the root; and a gnashing of teeth arises from beneath, till some one, having taken aim, deprive them of life. So resounded the shining brass upon their breasts, smitten in front, for very valiantly they fought, trusting to the troops above, and to their own valour. But they hurled stones down from the well-built towers, defending themselves, their tents, and the swift-voyaging ships. And as snow-flakes fall upon the earth, which the violent wind, having disturbed the shady clouds, pours down thick upon the fertile soil; thus poured the weapons from the hands as well of the Greeks as of the Trojans; and the helmets and bossy shields, smitten with large stones, sounded drily around. Then indeed Asius, son of Hyrtacus, groaned, and smote both his thighs, and indignant exclaimed:\n\u201cFather Jove, surely now at least thou also hast become utterly deceitful; for I did not expect that the Grecian heroes would abide our strength and invincible hands. But they, as wasps flexible 398 in the middle, and bees, [which] make their dwellings in a rugged path, nor quit their hollow mansion; but awaiting the huntsmen, fight for their offspring; so are these unwilling to retire from the gates, though being only two, until they be either killed or taken.\u201d\nFootnote 396: (return) \u201cPut for \u1f04\u03c1\u03b1\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd \u03c4\u1f70\u03c2 \u1f00\u03c3\u03c0\u03af\u03b4\u03b1\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bb\u03bb\u03ae\u03bb\u03c9\u03bd, \u1f10\u03c0' \u1f00\u03bb\u03bb\u03ae\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2, clipeos consertos manibus ante se tenebant, \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b1\u03c3\u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03bc\u1ff7 facto.\u201d\u2014Heyne. Kennedy well observes that \u201cwe may trace here the rude outline of the celebrated phalanx, which formed so prominent a feature of the Macedonian tactics.\u201d\nFootnote 397: (return) From this passage, Heyne observes that the gates must have opened inwards, being secured from within by a double bolt (cf. ver. 455, sqq.). See D\u2019Orville on Chariton, i. xii. p. 274, ed. Lips. On the \u1f40\u03c7\u03b5\u1fd6\u03c2, on bars, cf. Pollux, x. 4.\nFootnote 398: (return) Or \u201cstreaked.\u201d See Porphyr. Qu\u00e6st. iii. But Buttmann, Lexil. p. 64, dwells much upon the force of \u03bc\u03ad\u03c3\u03bf\u03bd, observing, \u201cin no insect is flexibility more evident than in the wasp, where the lower part of its body is joined as it were by a point with the upper.\u201d\nThus he spake, nor did he persuade the mind of Jove, saying these things: for his soul designed to bestow glory upon Hector. In the meantime others were waging the battle at other gates; but difficult would it be for me, as if I were a god, to enumerate all these things; for around the wall in every direction a furiously-raging fire of stones was aroused, 399 and the Greeks, although grieving, fought from necessity for their ships; and all the gods were sorrowful in their minds; as many as were allies to the Greeks in battle.\nFootnote 399: (return)\n\n\n\u201cThrough the long walls the stony showers were heard,\nThe blaze of flames, the flash of arms appeared.\u201d\u2014Pope.\n\n\nBut the Lapith\u00e6 began the battle and contest. Then the son of Pirithous, brave Polyp\u0153tes, smote Damasus with his spear, through his brazen-cheeked helmet; nor did the brazen casque withstand, but the brazen blade burst quite through the bone, and all the brain within was shattered. Thus he subdued him, rushing on, and afterwards he slew Pylon and Ormenus. And Leonteus, a branch of Mars, wounded Hippomachus, the son of Antimachus, with his spear, striking him at the belt. Next, drawing his sharp sword from the sheath, he, rushing through the crowd, smote Antiphates first, hand to hand, and he was dashed on his back to the ground; then Menon and I\u00e4menus, and Orestes, all one over another he brought to the fertile earth.\nWhilst they were stripping off their glittering armour, those youths, meantime, who were most numerous and most brave, and who were most eager to break down the wall, and burn the ships with fire, followed Polydamas and Hector, and they anxiously deliberated, standing at the trench. For an augury had appeared on the left to them while eager to cross, a high-flying eagle dividing the people, 400 bearing in his talons a monstrous blood-stained serpent, alive, still panting; nor was it yet forgetful of fighting; for, while holding it, writhing backwards, it wounded him upon the breast near the neck; but he let it drop from him to the ground, afflicted with anguish, and threw it into the midst of the crowd, and, flapping his wings, he fled away with the breeze of the wind. And the Trojans shuddered as they beheld the spotted serpent lying in the midst, a prodigy of \u00e6gis-bearing Jove. Then Polydamas, standing near, addressed gallant Hector:\n\u201cHector, somehow or other thou art ever chiding me in the assemblies, although proposing good counsels; because it is by no means becoming for a man, being a citizen, to harangue contrary to thee, either in council or at any time in war; but ever to increase thy authority. Yet will I again speak as appears to me to be best. Let us not go about to fight with the Greeks for their ships; for thus do I think it will end, as sure as this augury has come to the Trojans desiring to cross, the high-flying eagle upon the left dividing the army, bearing in its talons a huge blood-stained serpent, [still] living; but presently it dropped it, before it reached its dear home, nor succeeded in carrying it to give it to its young: so we, if even we shall with great force break through the gates and wall of the Greeks, and the Greeks shall give way,\u2014not in order shall we return by the same way from the ships: for we shall leave many Trojans, whom the Greeks, fighting for the ships, will subdue with the brass. Thus indeed would the diviner, who truly kens omens in his mind, interpret, and the people would obey him.\u201d\nFootnote 400: (return) Either flying between the ranks of the Trojans, or between the two opposing armies. Compare Cicero\u2019s translation, de Divin. i. 47, and Virg. \u00c6n. xi. 751, sqq. (with Macrob. Sat. v. 13), and xii. 247, sqq. The event of the Trojan war proved that Polydamas was right in his interpretation.\nBut him sternly regarding, crest-tossing Hector thus addressed: \u201cO Polydamas, thou dost not say things agreeable to me: besides, thou knowest how to devise other counsel better than this. If, however, thou really speakest this with seriousness, then truly have the gods destroyed thy judgment from thee, who advisest me to be forgetful of the counsels of lofty-thundering Jove, which he hath himself undertaken for me, and confirmed. And thou exhortest me to obey the wing-expanding birds; which I very little regard, nor do I care for them, whether they fly to the right towards the Morn and the Sun, or to the left towards the darkening west; but let us obey the will of mighty Jove, who rules over all mortals and immortals. There is one augury, the best, to fight for our country. 401 Why dost thou dread the war and conflict? For although all the rest of us should perish round the ships of the Greeks, there is no fear that thou wilt perish, for thy heart is not persevering in the fight, nor warlike. But if thou darest to abstain from the combat, or dissuading, dost avert another from the battle, immediately stricken by my spear, shalt thou lose thy life.\u201d\nThus then having spoken, he led the way, but they followed him with an immense clamour. Then thunder-delighting Jove raised a storm of wind from the Id\u00e6an mountains, which bore the dust directly towards the ships; moreover, he weakened the courage of the Greeks, but bestowed glory upon the Trojans and Hector: so that, relying upon his prodigies, and [their own] strength, they endeavoured to break through the mighty wall of the Greeks. They tore down the niched battlements of the towers, and demolished the breast-works, 402 and with levers they upheaved the projecting buttresses, which the Greeks had planted first in the earth, as supporters of the towers. These then they tore down, and hoped to break through the wall of the Greeks.\nYet did not the Greeks retire as yet from the way; but fencing up the embrazures with their ox-hide shields, they wounded from behind them the enemy coming up under the wall. And both the Ajaces ranged in every direction upon the towers, cheering on, rousing the valour of the Greeks. One [they addressed] 403 with soothing, another they rebuked with harsh expressions, whomsoever they beheld totally neglectful of battle:\nFootnote 401: (return) Cf. Aristot. Rhet. ii. 22; Cicero Ep. ad Attic, ii. 3. See, also, Duport, Gnom. Horn. p. 73.\nFootnote 402: (return) Observe the zeugma, and compare Il. \u03a9. 8, \u0393. 327; Od. \u039e. 291; and the most elaborate and accurate note on this construction of D\u2019Orville on Charit. iv. 4, p. 440, sqq. ed. Lips., with Burm. and Schwabe on Ph\u00e6dr. iv. 17, 31; Duker on Flor. iii. 21, 26.\nFootnote 403: (return) Id.\n\u201cO friends, whoever of the Greeks is excelling, or moderate, or inferior (since all men are not alike in war), now is there work for all; and ye yourselves, I ween, know this. Let not any one be turned back towards the ships, hearing the threatener [Hector], but advance onwards, and exhort each other, if perchance Olympic Jove, the darter of lightning, may grant that, having repulsed the conflict, we may pursue the enemy to the city.\u201d\nThus they, shouting in front, cheered on the attack of the Greeks. But of them\u2014as when frequent flakes of snow fall upon a winter\u2019s day, when provident Jove has begun to snow, displaying his weapons in the sight of men, and, having lulled the winds, pours it down incessantly, till he covers the tops and highest peaks of the lofty mountains, and the lotus plains and rich husbandry of men: and likewise it is poured out upon the havens and shores of the hoary sea; but the approaching wave restrains its progress, whilst all other things are covered beneath it, when the shower of Jove comes down heavily; so flew the frequent stones from those hurling on both sides, some indeed towards the Trojans, and others from the Trojans towards the Greeks. And along the whole wall a tumult arose.\nYet never would the Trojans and illustrious Hector have burst open the gates of the wall, and the long bolt, had not provident Jove urged on his son, Sarpedon, against the Greeks, like a lion against crooked-horned oxen. But he immediately held before him his shield, equal on all sides, beautiful, brazen, plated; which the brazier indeed had plated over, and underneath had sewed together thick bulls\u2019 hides, with successive golden wires round its orb. He then, holding this before him, advanced, brandishing two spears, like a lion reared in the mountains, which hath been long in want of flesh, and whose valiant mind impels him to go even to the well-fenced fold, about to make an attempt upon the sheep. And although he there find the shepherds keeping watch about their flocks with dogs and spears, still he cannot bear to be driven away, without having made trial of the fold, but, springing in, he either carries [one] off, or is himself wounded among the first by a javelin from a quick hand. Thus then did his mind impel godlike Sarpedon to attack the wall, and to burst through the barriers; and instantly he addressed Glaucus, son of Hippolochus:\n\u201cGlaucus, 404 why are we especially honoured in Lycia, both with the [first] seat in banquet, and with full goblets, and why do all look to us as to gods? Why do we also possess a great and beautiful enclosure of the vine-bearing and corn-bearing land on the banks of Xanthus? Now, therefore, it behoves us, advancing among the foremost Lycians, to stand firm, and to bear the brunt of the raging fight; so that some one of the closely-armed Lycians may say, \u2018By no means inglorious do our kings govern Lycia, and eat the fat sheep, and [drink] 405 the choice sweet wine; but their valour likewise is excelling, because they fight among the foremost Lycians.\u2019 O dear friend, if indeed, by escaping from this war, we were destined to be ever free from old age, and immortal, neither would I combat myself in the van, nor send thee into the glorious battle. But now\u2014for of a truth ten thousand Fates of death press upon us, which it is not possible for a mortal to escape or avoid\u2014let us on: either we shall give glory to some one, or some one to us.\u201d\nThus he spake, nor did Glaucus turn aside or disobey, but both advanced straight forward, leading a numerous band of Lycians. But Menestheus, the son of Peteus, beholding them, shuddered, for they were advancing towards his company, bearing destruction. He looked round along the line of the Greeks, if he might see any of the leaders who could ward off the fight from his companions, and perceived the two Ajaces, insatiable of war, standing, and Teucer, lately come from his tent, near at hand. Yet was it not possible for him to be heard when shouting, so great was the din; and the crash of stricken shields, and of horse-hair crested helmets, and of the gates, reached to heaven. For they had assailed all, 406 and they, standing beside them, endeavoured to enter, bursting them open by force. But immediately he despatched the herald Tho\u00f6tes to Ajax:\nFootnote 404: (return) Milton, P.L. ii. 450:\u2014-\n\n\n\u201c\u2014\u2014 wherefore do I assume\nThese royalties, and not refuse to reign,\nRefusing to accept as great a share\nOf hazard as of honour, due alike\nTo him who reigns, and so much to him due\nOf hazard more, as he above the rest\nHigh honoured sits?\u201d\n\n\nFootnote 405: (return) Zeugma. See on ver. 268.\nFootnote 406: (return) Three interpretations are given for this line:\u20141. \u201cAll the gates were attacked.\u201d 2. \u201cAll the gates were bolted.\u201d\u2014Butt. 3. Change the nominative case to the accusative, and translate\u2014\u201cThey (the Lycians) had attacked all the gates.\u201d\u2014Ed. Dubl.\n\u201cGo, noble Tho\u00f6tes, running, call Ajax, rather indeed both: for this would be by far the best of all, since in a short while heavy destruction will arise here. For so vigorously do the leaders of the Lycians press on, who even before were impetuous in the sharp contest. If, however, labour and contest have arisen to them there, at least let brave Telamonian Ajax come, and with him let Teucer follow, well skilled in archery.\u201d\nThus he spoke, nor did the herald, having heard him, disobey, but he hastened to run along the wall of the brazen-mailed Greeks, and proceeding, he stood beside the Ajaces and immediately addressed them:\n\u201cYe Ajaces, leaders of the brazen-mailed Greeks, the beloved son of Jove-nourished Peteus adjures you to come thither, that ye may participate in his toil, though for a short time. Both indeed in preference, for this would be by far the best of all things, since soon will heavy destruction arise there. For so vigorously do the leaders of the Lycians press on, who even before were impetuous in the sharp contest. But if here also war and contest have arisen, at least let brave Telamonian Ajax come alone, and with him let Teucer follow, well skilled in archery.\u201d\nThus he spake, nor did mighty Telamonian Ajax disobey. Instantly he addressed to the son of O\u00efleus winged words:\n\u201cAjax, do thou and gallant Lycomedes, standing here, incite the Greeks to fight bravely, whilst I go thither and oppose the battle; but I will return again instantly, after I shall have assisted them.\u201d\nThus then having spoken, Telamonian Ajax departed, and with him went Teucer, his brother, sprung from the same father; and Pandion, along with them, carried the bent bow of Teucer. As soon as they reached the tower of magnanimous Menestheus, going within the wall (for they came to [their friends] being hard pressed: and the brave leaders and chiefs of the Lycians were mounting upon the breast-works like unto a dark whirlwind), but they engaged to fight in opposition, and a clamour arose. Telamonian Ajax first slew a man, the companion of Sarpedon, magnanimous Epicles, striking him with a rugged stone, which, mighty in size, lay highest up against a pinnacle within the wall. Not easily would a man support it with both hands, such as mortals now are, not although being very youthful; but he, raising it aloft, hurled it, and burst the four-coned helmet, and along with it crushed all the bones of the skull: but he, like unto a diver, fell from the lofty tower, and life deserted his bones. Teucer likewise with a shaft wounded Glaucus, the brave son of Hippolochus, as he was rushing on, against the lofty wall, in a part where he perceived his arm naked; and made him cease from combat. But he sprang back from the wall, concealing himself, that none of the Greeks might perceive him wounded, and insult him with words. Then grief came upon Sarpedon on account of Glaucus departing, as soon as he observed it; though he nevertheless was not neglectful of the contest: but he taking aim, wounded Alcmaon, son of Thestor, with his spear, and extracted the spear; but he. following the weapon, fell prone, and his armour, variously decked with brass, resounded upon him. Sarpedon then seizing the buttress with his sturdy hands, pulled, and it all followed entirely; but the wall was stripped away from above, and he formed a way for many. Then Ajax and Teucer aiming at him together, the one smote him with an arrow in the splendid belt of his mortal-girding shield, around his breast; but Jove averted the fate from his son, that he might not be slain at the sterns of the ships. But Ajax, springing upon him, struck his shield, and pierced him quite through with his spear, and forcibly checked him eager. And then he fell back for a little from the buttress, but did not altogether retreat, because his spirit hoped to bear off glory. And turning round, he encouraged the godlike Lycians:\n\u201cO Lycians, why are ye thus remiss in your impetuous force? It is difficult for me, although being brave, having alone burst through, to form a way to the ships. But follow along with me; for the labour of the greater number is better.\u201d\nThus he spake; and they, reverencing the exhortation of their king, pressed on with more alacrity round their counsel-giving king. And the Greeks, on the other side, strengthened their phalanxes within the wall, because a great work presented itself to them. For neither could the gallant Lycians, bursting through the wall of the Greeks, make their way to the ships, nor could the warlike Greeks repulse the Lycians from the wall, since first they approached it. But as two men, holding measures in their hands, dispute, in a common field, 407 concerning their boundaries, who in a small space contend for their equitable right; thus did the buttresses separate these [warriors], and, for them, each smote the well-rounded ox-hide shields around each other\u2019s breasts, and the light bucklers of each other. And many were wounded upon the body with the merciless brass, whether the back of any combatant, averted, was laid bare, and many right through the shield itself. Everywhere the towers and buttresses were sprinkled, on both sides, with the blood of heroes, from the Trojans and the Greeks. Yet not even thus could they cause a flight of the Greeks, but they held themselves, as a just woman, who labours with her hands, does the scales, 408 who, poising both the weight and the wool, draws them on either side to equalize them, that she may procure a scanty pittance for the support of her children. Thus equally was their battle and war extended, before the time when Jove gave superior glory to Hector, the son of Priam, who first leaped within the wall of the Greeks, and shouted with a penetrating voice, calling out to the Trojans:\n\u201cPush on, ye horse-breaking Trojans, burst through the wall of the Greeks, and hurl the fiercely-blazing fire against the ships.\u201d\nThus he spake, cheering them on; but they all heard him with their ears, and rushed against the wall in great numbers, and then mounted the battlements, carrying their pointed spears. But Hector seizing it, took up a stone, which stood before the gates, widening out at the base, 409 but sharp above; which two men, the strongest of the people, such as mortals now are, could not easily raise from the ground upon a waggon. He, however, brandished it easily and alone, because the son of wise Saturn had rendered it light to him.\nFootnote 407: (return) I.e. a field, to part of which each lays claim. \u039c\u03ad\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1 seem to be the lines used in measuring ground (\u201clinea mensuralis,\u201d Siculus Flaccus, p. 23, ed. Goes.)\nFootnote 408: (return) Milton, P.L. vi. 245:\u2014-\n\n\n\u2014\u2014\u201clong time in even scale\nThe battle hung.\u201d\n\n\nFootnote 409: (return) See Eustathius.\nAs when a shepherd without difficulty carries the fleece of a male sheep, taking it in either hand, and but a small weight oppresses him; so Hector, raising the stone, bore it right against the beams which strengthened the closely-jointed gates, double and lofty; but two cross-bars secured them within, and one key fitted them. But advancing, he stood very near, and exerting his strength, struck them in the middle, standing with his legs wide asunder, that the blow of the weapon might not be weak. And he tore away both hinges, and the stone fell within with a great weight; and the gates crashed around; nor did the bars withstand it, but the beams were rent asunder in different directions by the impulse of the stone. There illustrious Hector rushed in, in aspect like unto the dreadful night; and he glittered in terrible brass, with which he was girt around his body. And he held two spears in his hands, nor could any one, opposing, restrain him, except the gods, after he had leaped within the gates; but his eyes gleamed with fire. And turning to the crowd, he cheered on the Trojans to ascend the wall, and they obeyed him encouraging. Straightway indeed some crossed the wall, and others were poured in through the well-wrought gates, but the Greeks were routed towards the hollow barks, and an unyielding 410 tumult ensued.\nFootnote 410: (return) See Buttm. Lexil. p. 405.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THE THIRTEENTH.\nARGUMENT.\nNeptune engages on the Grecian side, and the battle proceeds. De\u00efphobus is repulsed by Meriones. Teucer kills Imbrius, and Hector Amphimachus. Neptune, assuming the likeness of Thoas, exhorts Idomeneus, who goes forth with Meriones to battle, when the former slays Othryoneus and Asius. De\u00efphobus attacks Idomeneus, but misses him, and slays Hypsenor. Idomeneus slays Alcathous, over whose body a sharp contest ensues.\nBut after Jove, then, had brought the Trojans and Hector near the ships, he left them to endure labour and toil at them incessantly; but he himself turned back his shining eyes apart, looking towards the land of the equestrian Thracians and the close-fighting Mysians, and the illustrious Hippomolgi, milk-nourished, simple in living, and most just men. 411 But to Troy he no longer now turned his bright eyes; for he did not suppose in his mind that any one of the immortals, going, would aid either the Trojans or the Greeks.\nFootnote 411: (return) Arrian, Exp. Alex. iv. p. 239, referring to this passage of Homer, observes, \u03bf\u1f30\u03ba\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c3\u03b9 \u03b4\u1f72 \u1f10\u03bd \u03c4\u1fc7 \u1f08\u03c3\u03af\u1fb3 \u03bf\u1f57\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9, \u03bf\u1f50\u03c7 \u1f25\u03ba\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1 \u03b4\u03b9\u1f70 \u03c0\u03b5\u03bd\u03af\u03b1\u03bd \u03c4\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b4\u03b9\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u03cc\u03c4\u03b7\u03c4\u03b1. Dionysius, Perieg. 309, seems, as Hill observes, to consider the name \u1f31\u03c0\u03c0\u03b7\u03bc\u03bf\u03bb\u03b3\u03bf\u03af as applicable not to one single clan, but to the whole of the Sarmatian nomads, milk being one of the principal articles of their diet, as among the Suevi (C\u00e6sar, B.G. iv. 1), and the ancient Germans (id. vi. 22). Callimachus, Hymn iii., applies the epithet to the Cimmerians. The epithet \u1f00\u03b2\u03af\u03c9\u03bd (or \u1f00\u03b2\u03b9\u1ff6\u03bd=bowless, not living by archery: cf. Alberti on Hesych. t. i. pp. 17, 794) is involved in doubt, and the ancients themselves were uncertain whether to regard it as a proper name or an epithet. (Cf. Steph. Byz. s. v., p. 7, ed. Pined.; Villois on Apoll. Lex. p. 14; Duport, Gnom. Horn. p. 74, sqq.) It seems best to understand with Strabo, vii. p. 460, nations \u1f00\u03c0' \u1f40\u03bb\u03af\u03b3\u03c9\u03bd \u03b5\u1f50\u03c4\u03b5\u03bb\u1ff6\u03c2 \u03b6\u1f67\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2. Knight wished to throw out these verses altogether, alleging that allusion is made in them to the discipline of Zamolxis, with which Homer must have been wholly unacquainted.\nNor did king Neptune keep a vain watch; for he sat aloft upon the highest summit of the woody Thracian Samos, admiring the war and the battle. For from thence all Ida was visible, and the city of Priam was visible, and the ships of the Greeks. Then coming out of the sea, he sat down, and he pitied the Greeks, subdued by the Trojans, and was very indignant with Jove. But presently he descended down, from the rugged mountain, rapidly advancing on foot, and the high hills and woods trembled beneath the immortal feet of Neptune, advancing. Thrice indeed he strode, advancing, and with the fourth step he reached \u00c6g\u00e6, his destined goal. There distinguished mansions, golden, glittering, ever incorruptible, were erected to him in the depths of the sea. Coming thither, he yoked beneath his chariot the brazen-footed steeds, swiftly flying, crested with golden manes. But he himself placed gold around his person, took his golden lash, well wrought, and ascended his chariot. He proceeded to drive over the billows, and the monsters of the deep 412 sported beneath him on all sides from their recesses, nor were ignorant of their king. For joy the sea separated; and they flew very rapidly, nor was the brazen axle moist beneath. And his well-bounding steeds bore him to the ships of the Greeks.\nNow there is an ample cave 413 in the recesses of the deep sea, between Tenedos and rugged Imbrus. There earth-shaking Neptune stopped his horses, loosing them from the chariot, and cast beside [them] ambrosial fodder to eat. And round their feet he threw golden fetters, irrefragable, indissoluble, that they might there steadily await their king returning, but he departed towards the army of the Greeks.\nFootnote 412: (return) So I have ventured to render \u03ba\u03ae\u03c4\u03b5\u03b1. Nonius Marcell. v. Cetarii\u2014\u201ccete in mari majora sunt piscium genera.\u201d Thus Quintus Calaber, v. 94, imitating this passage, has \u03b4\u03b5\u03bb\u03c6\u03b9\u03bd\u03b5\u03c2, and Hesychius defines \u03ba\u03b7\u03c4\u03ce\u03bd by \u03b8\u03cd\u03bd\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd \u03c6\u03bf\u03c1\u03ac, the word evidently meaning any huge fish. Cf. Buttm. Lexil. p. 378, sq.\nFootnote 413: (return) Compare the description of the cave of Nereus, in Apoll. Rhod. iv. 771, sqq., and of the river Peneus, in Virg. Georg. iv. 359, sqq., with my note on \u00c6sch. Prom. p. 11, ed. Bohn.\nThe Trojans, however, in crowds, like unto a flame or a whirlwind, followed Hector, the son of Priam, with insatiable ardour, shouting loudly, and exclaiming; for they hoped to capture the ships of the Greeks, and slay all the Greeks beside them. But earth-ruling, earth-shaking Neptune, coming from the deep sea, aroused the Greeks, assimilating his person and indefatigable voice to Calchas. The Ajaces he first addressed, though themselves were earnest:\n\u201cYe Ajaces, ye indeed, mindful of valour, not of direful flight, will preserve the people of the Greeks. For in any other place, indeed, I do not dread the audacious hands of the Trojans, who in great numbers have surmounted the great wall, because the well-greaved Greeks will sustain them all. But in that place I grievously fear lest we suffer any thing, where infuriated Hector, like unto a flame, leads on who boasts to be the son of almighty Jove. But may some of the gods thus put it in your minds, that ye stand firmly yourselves, and exhort others; thus may ye drive him, although impetuous, from the swift-sailing ships, even if Jove himself excites him.\u201d\nHe said, and earth-ruling Neptune, striking both with his sceptre, filled them with violent might, and made their limbs light and their feet and hands above. But he, like as a swift-winged hawk is impelled to fly, which, lifted up from a rugged, lofty rock, has hastened to pursue another bird over the plain; so darted earth-shaking Neptune from them. But fleet Ajax, the son of O\u00efleus, recognized him first of the two, and straightway addressed Ajax, the son of Telamon:\n\u201cO Ajax, since some one of the gods, who possess Olympus, likening himself to the soothsayer, exhorts us to fight beside the ships (neither is this Calchas, the prophesying augur; for I readily recognized the traces of his feet and legs when departing; for the gods are easily distinguished), even to myself, the soul within my bosom is more incited to war and to fight, and my feet beneath and hands above eagerly desire it.\u201d\nBut him Telamonian Ajax answering, addressed: \u201cSo also to me are my strong hands upon my spear eager, and my courage is aroused, and I am hurried along by both my feet under me; and I eagerly long, even alone, to combat with Hector, the son of Priam, insatiably raging.\u201d\nThus they addressed these words to each other, joyful in the desire of battle 414 which the god had infused into their minds. In the meanwhile the Earth-ruler (Neptune) aroused the Ach\u00e6ans in the rear, who were recruiting their spirit at the swift ships; whose limbs were at the same time relaxed with toilsome labour, and grief was arising in their minds, beholding the Trojans, who with a tumult had surmounted the vast wall. But beholding them, they poured forth tears from beneath their eyebrows, for they expected not to escape destruction: but the Earth-shaker intervening, easily aroused the brave phalanxes. To Teucer and Leius he first came, exhorting them, and to the hero Peneleus, and Thoas, and Deipyrus, and to Meriones and Antilochus, skilful in war. These he encouraging, spoke winged words:\nFootnote 414: (return) See Heyne, who compares the Latin gestire. Hesych.: \u03a7\u03ac\u03c1\u03bc\u03b7, \u03b7 \u03c1\u03b5\u03c4\u03ac \u03c7\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03c2 \u03bc\u03ac\u03c7\u03b7.\n\u201cO shame! Argives, young men, I trust that our ships will be preserved by your fighting; but if ye be remiss in the destructive battle, the day is now come [for us] to be subdued by the Trojans. Ye gods, surely I behold with my eyes a great marvel, terrible, which I never expected would be brought to pass, that the Trojans should approach our ships; who formerly, like unto timid stags, which through the wood are the prey of lynxes, pards, and wolves, foolishly straying about, weak, nor fit for combat: so the Trojans formerly would not stand even for a little against the might and prowess of the Greeks. But now, far away from the city, they combat at the hollow ships, through the perverseness of our general, and the indifference of the troops; who, disputing with him, are unwilling to defend the swift ships, but are slain among them. Yet although in reality the hero, the son of Atreus, wide-ruling Agamemnon, be altogether in fault, in that he hath dishonoured the swift-footed son of Peleus, still it is by no means our duty to be remiss in battle, but let us the sooner repair [the mischief]; 415 the minds of the brave are easily appeased. But they by no means honourably remit your impetuous valour, being all the bravest in the army: I indeed would not quarrel with a man who should desist from combat, being unwarlike; but with you I am indignant from my heart. O soft ones! surely will ye soon create some greater evil by this inertness: but do each of you in his mind ponder on the shame and reproach; for certainly a mighty contest hath arisen. Now indeed brave Hector, good in the din of war, combats at the ships, and hath burst through the gates and the long bar.\u201d\nFootnote 415: (return) \u03a4\u1f78 \u03b3\u03b5\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd\u1f78\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bc\u03ac\u03c1\u03c4\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1: Schol. For the metaphorical use of \u03ac\u03ba\u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03af, cf. Soph. Ant. 1026. \u1f4d\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03c2 \u1f10\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03ba\u1f78\u03bd \u03b5\u03c3\u1f7c\u03bd \u1f00\u03ba\u03b5\u1fd6\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03b7\u03b4' \u1f00\u03ba\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c0\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9 So \u03b5\u1f50\u03b9\u03b1\u03c4\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b4\u03b9\u1f70 \u03c4\u1f78 \u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03c0\u03b5\u03b9\u03c3\u03b8\u1fc6\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u1f04\u03bd, Aristot. Eth. vii. 2.\nThus then Neptune, exhorting, aroused the Greeks. But round the two Ajaces firm phalanxes stood, which not even Mars, coming amongst them, would have found fault with, nor Minerva, the confounder of armies; for the bravest selected awaited the Trojans and noble Hector; knitting spear with spear, shield with shield, 416 one upon another, 417 so that shield pressed upon shield, helmet upon helmet, and man upon man. And the horse-haired helmets of them, nodding, touched each other with their splendid ridges, 418 so closely stood they to one another; and spears in the act of being hurled, were brandishing from their daring hands, whilst they wished [to go] straight [against the enemy], and were eager to fight. But the combined Trojans first made the attack, and impetuous Hector first rushed against them: as a destructively-rolling stone from a rock, which a wintry torrent drives down the brow, having burst with a mighty shower the stays of the rugged rock, and bounding along, it rolls, and the forest resounds beneath it: but straightway it runs on uninterruptedly until it reach the plain, but then it rolls no longer, though impelled; so Hector for a while threatened that he would easily come as far as the sea, to the tents and ships of the Greeks, slaughtering. But when now he met the firm phalanxes, he stopped, being come into close contact; and the sons of the Greeks, opposing, repulsed him from them, striking him with their swords and two-edged spears; but retiring, he was compelled to withdraw; and he cried out shouting audibly to the Trojans:\n\u201cYe Trojans and Lycians, and close-fighting Dardanians, stand firm. Not long will the Greeks withstand me, although they have drawn themselves up in very dense array. 419 But, I conceive, they will retire from my spear, if in truth the most powerful of the gods, the high-thundering husband of Juno, hath urged me on.\u201d\nFootnote 416: (return) See the learned remarks of Duport, p. 76, sq. To quote parallel passages would be endless.\nFootnote 417: (return) Literally, \u201cfrom the roots.\u201d So \u03bf\u03af\u03c7\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u2014\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03b8\u03b5\u03bb\u03c5\u03bc\u03bd\u03b1, Tryphiodor. 388. Cf. Alberti on Hesych. t. ii. p. 1029; Apoll. Lex. p. 676.\nFootnote 418: (return) See Buttm. Lexil. p. 523. The \u03c6\u03ac\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2 formed a socket for the plume.\nFootnote 419: (return) Lit. \u201ctower-wise,\u201d forming a solid square.\nSo saying, he aroused the might and courage of each. But De\u00efphobus, the son of Priam, walked amongst them, high-minded, and he held his shield equal on all sides before him, proceeding with light step, and advancing under protection of his shield. Then Meriones took aim with his shining spear, and struck him (nor did he miss) upon the bull\u2019s-hide shield, equal on all sides, which he did not pierce; for the long spear, far before was broken at the socket. But De\u00efphobus held his bull\u2019s-hide shield far from him, for he dreaded in his mind the spear of warlike Meriones; but that hero fell back into the column of his companions, for he was grievously enraged on both accounts, both for [the loss] of the victory, and of the spear which he had broken. Accordingly he proceeded to pass by the tents and ships of the Greeks, to bring a long spear which had been left in his tent; whilst the others fought, and a mighty tumult arose.\nThen Telamonian Teucer first slew a hero, the warrior Imbrius, son of Mentor, rich in steeds; and he dwelt at Ped\u00e6um before the sons of the Greeks arrived, and had married Medesicaste, the illegitimate daughter of Priam. But when the equally-plied ships of the Greeks arrived, he came back to Ilium, and excelled among the Trojans; and dwelt with Priam, who honoured him equally with his sons. Him the son of Telamon smote under the ear with his long javelin, and plucked out the spear; but he indeed fell, like an ash, which, on the summit of a mountain conspicuous from afar, cut down with a brazen axe, strews its tender foliage on the earth. Thus he fell, and his armour, variegated with brass, rang about him. Then Teucer rushed on, eager to strip him of his armour; but Hector hurled his shining spear at him, hastening. He, however, seeing it from the opposite side, avoided, by a small space, the brazen spear; and [Hector] wounded with his javelin, on the breast, Amphimachus, son of Cteas, the son of Actor, advancing to the battle; and, falling, he gave a crash, and his arms rang upon him. Then Hector rushed to tear from the head of magnanimous Amphimachus the helmet fitted to his temples, but Ajax hurled with his shining spear at Hector, rushing on. Yet it never reached his body, for he was protected all over with terrible brass; but he smote him upon the boss of the shield, and repulsed him with great violence; and he retired from both bodies, and the Greeks drew them away. Then Stichius and noble Menestheus, the leaders of the Athenians, carried Amphimachus to the army of the Greeks, but the two Ajaces, eager for impetuous combat, [carried] Imbrius. As two lions bear a goat through the thick copse-wood, snatching it from the sharp-toothed dogs, holding it high above the earth in their jaws; so the two warriors, the Ajaces, holding him [Imbrius] aloft, stripped off his armour; but the son of O\u00efleus, enraged on account of Amphimachus, severed his head from his tender neck, and sent it rolling like a ball through the crowd; but it fell before the feet of Hector in the dust.\nThen indeed was Neptune grieved at heart for his grandson, slain in the grievous fight; and he proceeded to go along the tents and ships of the Greeks, exhorting the Greeks, and prepared disasters for the Trojans. But spear-renowned Idomeneus then met him, returning from a companion who had lately come to him from the battle, wounded in the ham with the sharp brass, whom his comrades had carried in, and he, having given directions to the surgeons, was returning from his tent; for he still desired to participate in the fight. Him king Neptune addressed, assimilating himself, as to his voice, to Thoas, son of Andr\u00e6mon, who governed the \u00c6tolians throughout all Pleuron and lofty Calydon, and who was honoured by the people as a god:\n\u201cIdomeneus, thou counsellor of the Cretans, where indeed are the threats gone, with which the sons of the Greeks threatened the Trojans?\u201d Whom again in return, Idomeneus, the leader of the Cretans, addressed: \u201cNo man, O Thoas, as far as I know, is at present to blame; for we are all skilled in warring. Neither does disheartening fear detain any one, nor does any one, yielding to sloth, shirk evil strife; but thus, doubtless, it will be agreeable to the all-powerful son of Saturn, that here, far away from Argos, the Greeks shall perish inglorious. But, Thoas\u2014for formerly thou wast warlike, and urged on others when thou didst behold them negligent\u2014so now desist not thyself, but exhort each man.\u201d\nBut him earth-shaking Neptune then answered: \u201cNever may that man, O Idomeneus, return from Troy, but let him here be the sport of the dogs, whosoever voluntarily this day shall relax from fighting. But come, taking up arms, advance hither; for it behoves us to hasten these things, if we may be of any service, although but two; for useful is the valour of men, even the very pusillanimous, if combined, whereas we both understand how to fight even with the brave.\u201d\nSo saying, the god departed again to the toil of heroes. But Idomeneus, when now he had reached his well-made tent, put on his rich armour around his body, and seized two spears, and hastened to go, like unto the lightning, which the son of Saturn, seizing in his hand, brandishes from glittering Olympus, showing a sign to mortals; and brilliant are its rays: so shone the brass around the breast of him running. Then Meriones, his good attendant, met him yet near the tent,\u2014for he was going to fetch a brazen spear; and the strength of Idomeneus addressed him:\n\u201cMeriones, son of Molus, swift of foot, dearest of my companions, why comest thou thus, quitting the war and the contest? Art thou at all wounded, and does the point of a spear afflict thee? Or comest thou to me on any message? For I myself am not desirous to sit within my tent, but to fight.\u201d\nBut him prudent Meriones in turn answered: \u201cIdomeneus, thou counsellor of the brazen-mailed Cretans, I come, if there be any spear left within thy tents, to take it: because I indeed have broken that which I formerly had, having struck the shield of ferocious De\u00efphobus.\u201d Whom again in turn Idomeneus, leader of the Cretans, addressed: \u201cThou wilt find, if thou desirest [to select from them], one-and-twenty spears standing in my tent against the shining walls, which I have taken from the slain Trojans; for I affirm that I do not fight with hostile men, standing at a distance from them. Hence I have both spears, and bossy shields, and helmets, and corslets, brightly polished.\u201d\nBut him again prudent Meriones addressed in turn: \u201cAt my tent also and black ship are there many spoils of the Trojans; but they are not near, so that I might take them. For neither do I conceive that I am forgetful of valour, but I stand among the foremost in glory-giving battle, whenever the contest of war has arisen. I am rather unobserved perhaps, when fighting by some other of the brazen-mailed Greeks; but I think that thou knowest me.\u201d\nWhom again Idomeneus, leader of the Cretans, addressed in turn: \u201cI know what thou art as to valour: what necessity is there for thee to enumerate these things? For if now all we the bravest at the ships should be selected for an ambuscade, where the courage of men is especially distinguished, where both the coward as well as the brave man is made apparent\u2014for the complexion of the coward on the one hand is changed from this to that, nor is his heart calm within his bosom, so that he can rest without trembling, but he shifts his position, and sits upon both his feet, whilst his heart greatly palpitates within his breast, as he is expecting death; and a chattering of his teeth arises. But neither is the complexion of the brave man changed, nor is he at all disturbed, after he first sits down in the ambush of heroes; but he burns to be mingled with all haste in direful fight\u2014[no one], in that case, would find fault with thy courage and might. For if, labouring [in the battle], thou wert wounded from a distance, or smitten in close fight, the weapon would not fall upon thy neck behind, nor upon thy back; but it would pierce through either thy breast, or thy stomach, as thou wast rushing forward amid the conflict 420 of foremost combatants. But come, no longer let us speak of these things, standing like infatuated persons, lest perhaps some one chide us inordinately; but do thou, going to the tent, take a strong spear.\u201d\nFootnote 420: (return) Hesych. \u038c\u03b1\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03c5\u03bd \u03bc\u03ac\u03c7\u03b7\u03bd. Etym. \u039c. fol. 131, \u0392. 2. '\u0391\u03bd\u03c4\u03af \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5v \u03c4\u03b7 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03c4\u03c1\u03c9\u03c4\u03b1\u03b3\u03c9\u03bd\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd o\u03bc\u03b9\u03bb\u03af\u1fb3 (which is its proper meaning, as derived from oa\u03c1) \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1o\u03c6\u03b7.\nThus be spake, and Meriones, equal to swift Mars, quickly took from the tent a brazen spear; and he went along with Idomeneus, very eager for war. But as man-destroying Mars enters the battle\u2014with whom Terror, his dear son, at the same time powerful and undismayed, follows, who strikes fear into the warrior even of resolute soul: these indeed are armed from Thrace, along with the Ephyri or with the magnanimous Phlegyans; neither do they hear both, but they give glory to one or the other\u2014so Meriones and Idomeneus, leaders of heroes, advanced to battle equipped with helmets of glittering brass; and Meriones first addressed him in these words:\n\u201cSon of Deucalion, where dost thou meditate to enter the throng? To the right of all the army, or at the centre, or upon the left? Since nowhere [else] 421 in the battle do I conceive that the long-haired Greeks so much require support.\u201d\nFootnote 421: (return) I.e. nowhere so much as on the left.\nBut him Idomeneus, the leader of the Cretans, in turn addressed: \u201cAmong the centre ships indeed there are others to aid them, both the Ajaces and Teucer, who is the most skilful of the Greeks in archery, and brave also in standing fight; who will sufficiently harass, even to satiety, Hector, the son of Priam, although most urgent of battle, and although being very gallant. Hard will it be for him, although very desirous of fighting, having overpowered their strength and invincible hands, to fire the ships, unless the son of Saturn himself cast a flaming torch upon the swift ships. Nor indeed will mighty Telamonian Ajax yield to any man who may be a mortal, and who may eat the fruit of Ceres, who is vulnerable by brass and by large stones. Not even to warlike Achilles would he give way, at least in standing fight; but in speed he is by no means able to contend with him. Guide us, therefore, to the left of the army that we may quickly know whether we shall afford glory to any one, or any one to us.\u201d\nThus he spoke. But Meriones, equal to rapid Mars, began to proceed, until he came to [that part of] the army whither he had ordered him. But they, when they beheld Idomeneus, like unto a flame in might, both him and his attendant, in variously-wrought armour, they all, exhorting one another along the crowd, advanced against him, and an equal contest arose at the sterns of their ships. And as when storms sweep along, [driven] by the shrill winds, on a day when the dust around the roads [is] very abundant, and they at the same time raise up a large cloud of dust; so came on the battle of these together, and they were eager in their minds to slaughter one another throughout the throng with the sharp brass. And the mortal-destroying combat bristles with the long spears which they held, flesh-rending; and the brazen splendour from the gleaming helmets, the newly-burnished corslets, and the shining shields, coming together, dazzled their eyes. Very brave-hearted would he be who, when beholding their toil, could have rejoiced, and would not be disturbed.\nBut the two powerful sons of Saturn, favouring different sides, planned grievous toils for the heroes. On the one hand, Jove willed victory to the Trojans and to Hector, glorifying swift-footed Achilles; yet he desired not entirely to destroy the Grecian people before Ilium, but was honouring Thetis and her magnanimous son. On the other hand, Neptune, coming amongst them, encouraged the Greeks, having secretly emerged from the hoary deep; for he grieved that they should be subdued by the Trojans, and he was greatly indignant with Jove. The same race indeed was to both, and the same lineage, but Jove was born first, 422 and knew more. For this reason [Neptune] avoided aiding them openly, but always kept privately inciting them through the army, assimilated to a man. They indeed alternately stretched over both the cord of vehement contest and equally destructive war, irrefragable and indissoluble, which relaxed the knees of many. Then, although half-hoary Idomeneus, encouraging the Greeks, rushing upon the Trojans, created night; for he slew Othryoneus, who had come from Cabesus, staying within [Priam\u2019s house]. 423 He had lately come after the rumour of the war, and demanded Cassandra, the most beautiful in form of the daughters of Priam, without a dowry; and he had promised a mighty deed, to repulse in spite of themselves the sons of the Greeks from Troy. But to him aged Priam had promised her, and pledged himself 424 to give her; therefore he fought, trusting in these promises. But Idomeneus took aim at him with his shining spear, and hurling it, struck him, strutting proudly; nor did the brazen corslet which he wore resist it, but he fixed it in the middle of his stomach. And falling, he gave a crash, and [the other] boasted and said:\n\u201cOthryoneus! above all men indeed do I praise thee, if thou wilt now in truth accomplish all which thou hast undertaken for Dardanian Priam: but he also promised thee his daughter. We likewise, promising these things, will accomplish them to thee. We will give thee the most beautiful in form of the daughters of the son of Atreus to wed, bringing her from Argos, if along with us thou wilt destroy the well-inhabited city of Ilium. But follow, that we may treat with thee respecting the marriage of the sea-traversing ships; since we are by no means bad brothers-in-law.\u201d\nFootnote 422: (return) Heyne compares xiv. 204. The Erinnys were supposed to avenge any disrespect offered to an elder brother by a younger.\nFootnote 423: (return) Literally, \u201cbeing within from Cabesus.\u201d\nFootnote 424: (return) Lit. \u201cbowed assent.\u201d\nSo saying, the hero Idomeneus dragged him by the foot through the brisk battle. But to him Asius came as an avenger, on foot, before his steeds; which his attendant charioteer always kept breathing over his shoulders; 425 and in his mind he longed to strike Idomeneus, but he (Idomeneus) anticipating him, smote him with his spear in the throat, below the chin, and drove the brass quite through. And he fell, as when some oak falls, or white poplar, 426 or towering 427 pine, which timber-workers have cut down upon the mountains with lately-whetted axes, to become ship timber. So he lay, stretched out before his horses and chariot, gnashing his teeth, grasping the bloody dust. But the charioteer was deprived of the senses which he previously had, nor dared he turn back the horses that he might escape from the hands of the enemy: but him warlike Antilochus, striking, transfixed in the middle with his spear; nor did the brazen corslet which he wore resist, but he fixed it in the centre of his stomach. Then, panting, he fell from the well-made chariot-seat, and Antilochus, the son of magnanimous Nestor, drove away the horses from the Trojans to the well-armed Greeks. But De\u00efphobus, enraged on account of Asius, drew very near to Idomeneus, and hurled with his shining spear. Idomeneus, however, having perceived it opposite, avoided the brazen spear, for he was concealed behind his shield equal on all sides, which he bore, constructed of the hides of bulls, and glittering brass, fitted with two handles. Behind this he collected himself entirely, and the brazen spear flew over him. But the shield returned a dry 428 sound, the spear grazing it obliquely. Yet he (De\u00efphobus) sent it not in vain from his heavy hand, but he struck Hypsenor, son of Hippasus. the shepherd of the people, upon the liver, below the breast, and straightway relaxed his knees under him. But De\u00efphobus vainly boasted over him, loudly exclaiming:\nFootnote 425: (return) I.e. close by Asius (\u03ba\u03b1\u03c4' \u03ce\u03bc\u03c9\u03bd), he having descended for the purpose of rescuing the body of Othryoneus.\u2014Kennedy.\nFootnote 426: (return) \u201c\u1f28 \u03bb\u03b5\u03c5\u03ba\u03b7, populus alba.\u201d\u2014Heyne.\nFootnote 427: (return) \u0392\u03bb\u03c9\u03b8\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 is connected with \u03b2\u03bb\u03ce\u03c3\u03ba\u03c9, as \u03b2\u03bb\u03b7\u03c7\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 with \u03b2\u03bb\u03af\u03c4\u03c4\u03c9. See Buttm. Lexil. p. 194. Hesych.: \u0392\u03bb\u03c9\u03b8\u03c1\u03ae' \u03b5\u03cd\u03b1\u03c5\u03b6\u03ae\u03c2, \u03ae \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03b6\u03b1\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u0390 \u03ac\u03bd\u03c9 \u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c3\u03ba\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b1. Schol. on Apoll. Rhod. i. 322: \u03af\u03c4\u03c5\u03bd \u03b2\u03bb\u03c9\u03b8\u03c1\u03ae\u03bd \u038c\u03bc\u03b7\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2, \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ac\u03c7\u03c1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b1\u03b9\u03b8\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bf\u03bb\u03af\u03c3\u03ba\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd.\nFootnote 428: (return) So v. 441: \u03b1\u03c5\u03bf\u03bd \u03ac\u03c5\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd. So \u201caridus sonus,\u201d in Lucret. vi, 113; \u201caridus fragor,\u201d Virg. Georg. I. 357, noticed by Quintil. I.O. viii. 3. A dry, grating, half-crackling sound is meant.\n\u201cSurely not unavenged lies Asius; I rather think that he will rejoice in his mind, though going into the strong-gated, massy [dwelling] of Hades, since I have given him a guide.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but grief came upon the Greeks at his boasting, and it particularly agitated the mind of warlike Antilochus. Yet, grieved as he was, he neglected not his companion, but running, he protected him, and covered him over with his shield. Him then his two dear companions, Mecisteus, son of Echius, and noble Alastor, supporting, bore to the hollow ships, deeply groaning. In the meantime Idomeneus ceased not his mighty valour; but always burned either to cover some of the Trojans with pitchy night, 429 or himself to fall with a crash, repelling destruction from the Greeks. Then the hero Alcathous, the beloved son of \u00c6syetas (and he was the son-in-law of Anchises, for he had married Hippodamia, the eldest of his daughters, whom her father and venerable mother loved from their hearts, whilst in their home, because she excelled all of her age in beauty, in accomplishments, and prudence, for which reason also the most distinguished man in wide Troy had wedded her), him Neptune subdued under Idomeneus, having dimmed his shining eyes, and fettered his fair limbs. For he was able neither to fly back nor to turn aside, but him, standing motionless, like a pillar or lofty-branching tree, the hero Idomeneus wounded with his spear in the middle of the breast, and burst the brazen coat around him, which formerly warded off destruction from his body: but then it sent forth a dry sound, severed by the spear. Falling, he gave a crash, and the spear was fixed in his heart, which, palpitating, shook even the extremity of the spear; and there at length the impetuous Mars 430 spent its force. But Idomeneus boasted prodigiously over him, loudly exclaiming:\nFootnote 429: (return) I.e. death.\nFootnote 430: (return) Here put for the weapon.\n\u201cDe\u00efphobus! do we judge rightly that it is a fair return, that three should be slain for one, since thus thou boastest? But do thou thyself also, wretch, stand against me, that thou mayest know of what nature I am, who have come hither the offspring of Jove, who first begat Minos, the guardian of Crete. Minos again begat Deucalion, his blameless son, and Deucalion begat me, king over many men in wide Crete. But now the ships have brought me hither, an evil both to thee and to thy father, and the other Trojans.\u201d\nThus he spoke, but De\u00efphobus hesitated between two opinions, whether, falling back, he should join to himself some one of the magnanimous Trojans, or make trial although alone. But to him, thus deliberating, it appeared preferable to go in search of \u00c6neas; whom he found standing at the rear of the army, for he was ever indignant with noble Priam, because he by no means honoured him, though being valiant among heroes. And, standing near, he addressed to him winged words:\n\u201c\u00c6neas, thou counsellor of the Trojans, now does it greatly behove thee to aid thy brother-in-law, if indeed any regard reaches thee. But follow, let us bring aid to Alcathous, who, being thy brother-in-law, nourished thee whilst very young, in his palace, and whom spear-famed Idomeneus hath slain.\u201d\nThus he spoke, and roused the courage in his breast, and he, greatly desirous of battle, went to meet Idomeneus. Yet fear seized not Idomeneus like a tender boy, but he stood still, like a boar in the mountains, confident in his prowess, and who abides the mighty din of men advancing against him, in a desert place, 431 and bristles up his back; his eyes, too, gleam with fire, and he whets his teeth, eager to keep at bay both dogs and men. So spear-renowned Idomeneus awaited \u00c6neas, swift in the battle-din, coming against him, nor retired; but he shouted to his companions, looking to Ascalaphus, and Aphareus, and De\u00efpyrus, and Meriones, and Antilochus, skilful in fight. Exhorting these, he addressed to them winged words:\nFootnote 431: (return) Or, \u201cin the sheep-pasture.\u201d\n\u201cHither, my friends, and aid me alone, for I greatly dread swift-footed \u00c6neas, rushing on, who is coming upon me; who is very powerful to slay men in battle, and possesses the bloom of youth, which is the greatest strength. For if we were of the same age, with the spirit that I now possess, quickly would either he bear off great glory, or I would.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but they all, having one determination in their minds, stood near him, inclining their shields upon their shoulders. \u00c6neas, on the other hand, animated his companions, looking towards De\u00efphobus, Paris, and noble Agenor, who, together with himself, were leaders of the Trojans. These also the people followed, as sheep follow from their pasture after the ram in order to drink; and the shepherd then is rejoiced in his mind. So was the soul of \u00c6neas gladdened in his breast, when he beheld a body of troops following himself. These therefore engaged in close fight round Alcathous with long spears, whilst the brass resounded horribly on the breasts of them, aiming at each other through the crowd. But two warlike men, conspicuous among the rest, \u00c6neas and Idomeneus, equal to Mars, longed to lacerate each other\u2019s flesh with the ruthless brass. But \u00c6neas first hurled his javelin at Idomeneus; but he, perceiving it opposite, avoided the brazen spear; and the spear of \u00c6neas sank quivering into the earth; for it fled in vain from his sturdy hand. Idomeneus next smote \u0152nomaus in the middle of the stomach, and the spear burst the cavity of his corslet, and penetrating, drank his entrails through; but falling amid the dust, he grasped the earth with the hollow of his hand. Then Idomeneus plucked out the long spear from his body, but was unable to tear off the other rich armour from his shoulders, for he was pressed hard by weapons. For no longer were the sinews of his feet firm as he rushed, either to hasten on after his own dart, 432 or avoid [that of another]. Wherefore also in standing fight, he warded off the fatal day, nor did his feet any longer bear him with ease in retreating from the battle. But against him, gradually retiring, De\u00efphobus took aim with his glittering spear, for he ever had a rooted hatred towards him. But then too he missed, and struck with his javelin Ascalaphus, the son of Mars, and drove the stout spear through his shoulder; and tailing amid the dust, he grasped the earth with his hand.\nFootnote 432: (return) So as to recover it.\nNot yet, however, had loudly-roaring, 433 impetuous Mars heard that his son had fallen in the violent fight; but he sat upon the summit of Olympus, beneath golden clouds, excluded [from the battle] by the will of Jove, where also the other immortal gods were restrained from the war. In the meantime they engaged in close fight round Ascalaphus. De\u00efphobus indeed tore the shining helmet from Ascalaphus; and Meriones, equal to swift Mars, springing [upon him], smote [him] with his spear in the arm, and the crested 434 casque, falling from his hand, rang upon the earth. Immediately Meriones, leaping upon him like a vulture, plucked out the tough spear from the lower part of his arm, and retired back again into the crowd of his comrades. But him Polites, his own brother, throwing his hands round his waist, carried out of the dread-sounding battle, till he reached his fleet steeds, which awaited him in the rear of the combat and the war, having both a charioteer and a variegated car; which then carried him towards the city, groaning heavily [and] afflicted; and the blood flowed from his recently-wounded hand: but the others kept fighting, and an unquenchable clamour arose. Then \u00c6neas rushing upon Aphareus, the son of Caletor, smote him with his sharp spear upon the throat, when turned towards him. And his head was bent to one side, then his shield clung to him, and his helmet; and around him life-destroying death was spread. Antilochus, however, observing Thoas turning around, attacking, wounded him; and cut away all the vein, which, running quite along the back, reaches to the neck. All this he cut off; but he fell on his back in the dust, stretching out both hands to his beloved companions. Then Antilochus sprang upon him, and stripped the armour from his shoulders, looking around; for the Trojans surrounding him, struck his wide and ornamented shield with their darts, nor were they able to graze with the dire brass the tender body of Antilochus within it; because earth-shaking Neptune protected the son of Nestor all round, even amongst many weapons. For never indeed was he apart from the enemy, but he turned himself about among them: nor did he hold his spear without motion, but continually moving, it was whirled about; and he prepared within his mind, either to hurl it at some one afar off, or to rush upon some one close at hand. But meditating these things amid the throng, he escaped not the notice of Adamas, the son of Asias, who smote him in the middle of his shield with the sharp brass, attacking him in close combat; but azure-haired Neptune weakened the spear, grudging 435 him the life [of Antilochus]. Part of it remained there, like a stake burned in the fire, 436 in the shield of Antilochus, and the other half lay upon the ground; whilst he gave backwards into the crowd of his companions, shunning death. Meriones, however, following him departing, smote him with his spear between the private parts and the navel, where a wound 437 is particularly painful to miserable mortals. There he fixed the spear in him; and he falling, struggled panting around the spear, as an ox, when cowherds in the mountains, forcibly binding him with twisted cords, lead [him] away unwilling. So he, wounded, throbbed, though but for a short time, and not very long, until the hero Meriones coming near, plucked the spear from his body; and darkness veiled his eyes. But Helenas, close at hand, struck De\u00efpyrus upon the temple with his huge Thracian sword, and cut away the three-coned helmet; which, being dashed off, fell upon the ground; and some one of the combating Greeks lifted it up, having rolled between his feet; whilst dim night enveloped his eyes. Then grief seized the son of Atreus, Menelaus, brave in the din of battle, and he advanced, threatening the hero, king Helenus; brandishing his sharp spear, whilst the other drew the horn of his bow. Together then they darted, the one eager to launch his fir-tree spear, and the other an arrow from the string. Then indeed the son of Priam smote him in the breast with an arrow, on the cavity of the corslet, but the bitter shaft rebounded. As when from the broad winnowing-fan in a large threshing-floor, the black-coated beans or vetches leap at the shrill blast, and the force of the winnower; so, strongly repulsed by the corslet of glorious Menelaus, the bitter arrow flew afar. But Menelaus, the son of Atreus, brave in the din of battle, smote him upon the hand which held his well-polished bow; and in the bow the brazen spear was fixed from the opposite side, through his hand. Then he retired back into the crowd of his companions, avoiding death, hanging down his hand at his side, but the ashen spear was trailed along with him. And then magnanimous Agenor extracted it from his hand, and bound [the hand] itself sling-ways in well-twisted sheep\u2019s wool, which his attendant carried for the shepherd of the people.\nFootnote 433: (return) \u0392\u03c1\u03b9\u03ae\u03c0\u03c5\u03bf\u03c2=\u03ad\u03c1\u03af\u03b3\u03b4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c0\u03bf\u03c2. The Schol. on Apoll. Rh. iii. 860, observes: \u0392\u03c1\u03af, \u03ad\u03c0\u03b9\u03c4\u03ac\u03c3\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2 \u03ad\u03c3\u03c4\u1f77\u03bd, \u1f61\u03c2 \u03c4\u1f41 \u0392\u03c1\u03b9\u03ae\u03c0\u03c5\u03bf\u03c2.\nFootnote 434: (return) The meaning of \u03b1\u1f50\u03bb\u1ff6\u03c0\u03b9\u03c2 is rather uncertain. According to the Schol. and Hesychius, it means a helmet that has the openings for the eyes oblong (\u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03bc\u03ae\u03ba\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u1f14\u03c7\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b1 \u03c4\u1f70\u03c2 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f40\u03c6\u03b8\u03b1\u03bb\u03bc\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f40\u03c0\u03ac\u03c2), or a helmet with a long crest (\u03ad\u03ba\u03c4\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd \u03bb\u03cc\u03c6\u03bf\u03bd).\nFootnote 435: (return) \u03a6\u03b8\u03bf\u03bd\u03ae\u03c3\u03b1\u03c2 \u0386\u03b4\u03ac\u03bc\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9, \u03bc\u1f74 \u03c4\u1f41\u03bd \u03b2\u03af\u03bf\u03bd \u0386\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9\u03bb\u03cc\u03c7\u03bf\u03c5 \u1f00\u03c6\u03ad\u03bb\u03b7\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9.\nFootnote 436: (return) The \u201cpr\u00e6ust\u00e6 sudes\u201d of C\u00e6sar, \u0392.G. \u03bd. 40. These were among the rustic weapons of antiquity, as may be seen from Virg. \u00c6n. vii. 523.\n\n\n\u201cNon jam certamine agresti\nStipitibus duris agitur, sudibusve pr\u00e6ustis;\nSed ferro ancipiti decernunt.\u201d\n\n\nFootnote 437: (return) Cf. vs. 444.\nBut Pisander went direct against glorious Menelaus, because evil Fate led him towards the end of death, to be subdued by thee, O Menelaus, in the dire battle. When therefore they were near, advancing against each other, the son of Atreus indeed missed, and his spear was turned aside from him; but Pisander smote the shield of glorious Menelaus, nor could he drive the spear quite through; because the broad shield kept it off, and the spear was broken at the extremity: still he rejoiced in his mind, and hoped for victory. The son of Atreus, however, drawing his silver-studded sword, sprang upon Pisander; but he drew from beneath his shield a handsome battle-axe of well-wrought brass, fixed upon either side of an olive handle, long, well-polished; and at once they struck each other. Then he (Pisander) cut away the cone of the helmet, thick with horse-hair, under the very crest, but (Menelaus smote) him, approaching, upon the forehead, above the root of the nose. And the bones crashed, and his blood-stained eyes fell at his feet upon the ground in the dust: and falling, he writhed. Then he (Menelaus) placing his heel upon his breast, despoiled him of his armour, and boasting, spoke [this] speech:\n\u201cThus, 438 then, shall ye abandon the ships of the Greeks, who possess swift steeds, ye treaty-breaking Trojans, insatiate of dire battle. Of other injury and disgrace ye indeed lack nothing with which ye have injured me, vile dogs, nor have ye at all dreaded in your minds the heavy wrath of high-thundering, hospitable Jove, who will yet destroy for you your lofty city; ye who unprovoked departed, carrying off my virgin spouse, and much wealth, after ye had been hospitably received by her. Now again do ye eagerly desire to hurl destructive fire upon the sea-traversing ships, and to slay the Grecian heroes. But ye shall yet be restrained, impetuous as ye be, from war. O father Jove, assuredly they say that thou excellest all others, men and gods, in prudence, yet from thee do all these things proceed. How much dost thou gratify these insolent Trojan men, whose violence is ever pernicious, and who cannot be satisfied with war, equally destructive to all! Of all things is there satiety,\u2014of sleep, of love, of sweet singing, and of faultless dancing, with which one would much more readily satisfy his desire, than with war; but the Trojans are insatiate of battle.\u201d\nFootnote 438: (return) I.e. by being slain one after another.\nSo saying, having stripped the bloody armour from the body, illustrious Menelaus gave it to his companions, whilst he, advancing, was again mixed with the foremost combatants. Then Harpalion, the son of king Pyl\u00e6menes, who had then followed his dear father to wage war at Troy, leaped upon him; nor returned he back to his native land. [He it was] who then, close at hand, struck the middle of Atrides\u2019 shield with his lance, nor was he able to drive quite through the brass; but he retired back into the crowd of his companions, avoiding death, looking around on all sides, lest any one should touch his body 439 with a spear. Meriones, however, shot a brazen-pointed arrow at him retreating, and struck him upon the right hip, and the arrow penetrated to the other side, through the bladder, below the bone. Sinking down, therefore, in the same place, breathing out his life in the arms of his beloved companions, like a worm, he lay stretched upon the ground, whilst his black blood flowed, and moistened the earth. Around him the magnanimous Paphlagonians were employed, and, lifting him upon a chariot, they bore him to sacred Ilium, grieving; and with them went his father, shedding tears: but no vengeance was taken for his dead son.\nFootnote 439: (return) As the usual construction of \u03ad\u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03c1\u03b5\u0390\u03bd is with a genitive, Heyne would supply \u03bc\u03ae \u03c4\u03b9\u03c2 \u03ad\u03c0\u03b1\u03cd\u03c1\u03b7 \u03b1\u03cd\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03ac \u03c7\u03c1\u03cc\u03b1.\nBut Paris was greatly enraged in his soul on account of his being slain, for he had been his guest among many Paphlagonians; wherefore, enraged on his account, he sent forth a brazen arrow. Now there was one Euchenor, son of the diviner Poly\u00efdus, wealthy and brave, inhabiting a dwelling at Corinth, who, well knowing his fatal destiny, had arrived in a ship. For often had Poly\u00efdus, good old man, told him, that he would perish in his halls of a grievous disease, or be subdued by the Trojans among the ships of the Greeks; wherefore he avoided at once the severe mulct 440 of the Ach\u00e6ans, and odious disease, that he might not suffer sorrows in his mind. Him he (Paris) smote below the jaw and the ear; and his spirit quickly departed from his members, and hateful darkness seized him.\nThus indeed they fought like 441 unto a burning fire. But Hector, dear to Jove, had not learned, nor knew at all, how at the left of the ships his people were being slaughtered by the Greeks, for the victory was on the point of being the Grecians\u2019; so much did earth-shaking Neptune encourage the Greeks, and moreover himself assisted with his strength; but he (Hector) pressed on where first he had sprung within the gates and wall, breaking the thick ranks of the shielded Greeks. There were the ships of Ajax and Protesilaus, drawn up upon the shore of the hoary sea; but above 442 them the wall was built very low; there themselves and their horses were most impetuous in the combat. There 443 the B\u0153otians and long-robed Iaonians, the Locrians, the Phthians, and the illustrious Epeans, restrained him from the ships, fiercely rushing on; but were unable to drive away from them noble Hector, like unto a flame. The chosen men of the Athenians stood in the van; among whom Menestheus, son of Peteus, had the command; and with him followed Phidas, Stichius, and brave Bias, Meges, the son of Phyieus, Amphion, and Dracius, led the Epeans, and over the Phthians were Medon and Podarces, steady in fight (Medon indeed was the spurious offspring of godlike O\u00efleus, and the brother of Ajax; but he dwelt at Phylace, away from his native country, 444 having slain a man, the brother of his stepmother Eriopis, whom O\u00efleus had married. But the other was the son of Iphiclus, of Phylace). These in arms before the magnanimous Phthians, fought among the B\u0153otians, defending the ships.\nFootnote 440: (return) As Corinth was under the authority of Agamemnon, he would have been compelled to pay a fine for refusing the service. Compare the \u03b1\u0313\u03c4\u03b9\u03bc\u03af\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b1\u0313\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1\u03b5\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 at Athens. See Potter, Antiq. i. 23.\nFootnote 441: (return) Cf. xi. 595, with the note.\nFootnote 442: (return) I.e. before them.\nFootnote 443: (return) I.e. where Hector broke in.\nFootnote 444: (return) See my note on ii. p. 42, n. 2.\nBut Ajax, the swift son of O\u00efleus, never separated from Telamonian Ajax, not even for a little time; but as in a fallow field two black bullocks possessing equal spirit, draw a well-joined plough,\u2014but meanwhile copious sweat breaks forth around the roots of their horns; and them the well-polished yoke alone separates on either side, advancing along the furrows, and [the plough] cuts 445 up the bottom of the soil; so they twain, joined together, stood very near to each other. And then many and brave troops followed the son of Telamon as companions, who received from him his shield, whenever fatigue and sweat came upon his limbs. But the Locrians followed not the great-souled son of O\u00efleus, for their heart remained not firm to them in the standing fight, because they had not brazen helmets crested with horse-hair, nor had they well-orbed shields and ashen spears; but they followed along with him to Ilium, trusting in the bows and the well-twisted sheep\u2019s wool, with which, frequently hurling, they broke the phalanxes of the Trojans. At that time indeed these (the Ajaces) in the van, with their variously-wrought armour, fought against the Trojans and brazen-armed Hector, whilst (the Locrians) shooting from the rear, lay concealed; nor were the Trojans any longer mindful of combat, for the arrows put them in confusion.\nThen surely would the Trojans have retreated with loss from the ships and tents to lofty Ilium, had not Polydamas, standing near, addressed bold Hector:\n\u201cHector, thou art impossible to be persuaded by advice. 446 Because indeed a god hath given thee, above others, warlike deeds, for this reason dost thou also desire to be more skilled than others in counsel? But by no means canst thou thyself obtain all things at once. 447 To one indeed hath the deity given warlike deeds; to another dancing; and to another the harp and singing. To another again far-sounding Jove implants a prudent mind in his bosom, of which many men reap the advantage, as it (prudence) even preserves cities; and he himself (who possesses it) especially knows (its value). Yet will I speak as appears to me best; because the encircling host 448 of war burns round thee on all sides, and the magnanimous Trojans, since they have crossed the walls, some indeed stand apart with their arms, and others fight, the fewer against the greater number, scattered amongst the ships. But retiring back, summon hither all the chiefs. And then we can better discuss the whole plan; whether we shall enter upon the many-benched ships, if indeed the deity will give us victory; or depart uninjured from the barks; because of a truth I fear lest the Greeks repay their debt of yesterday, since a man, insatiate in war, still remains at the ships, who I conceive will no longer abstain entirely from battle.\u201d Thus spoke Polydamas, but the faultless advice pleased Hector; and immediately he leaped with his armour from his chariot to the ground, and, addressing him, spoke winged words:\nFootnote 445: (return) \u03a4\u03ad\u03bc\u03b5\u03b9 refers to \u1f04\u03c1\u03bf\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd in v. 703, not to \u03b6\u03c5\u03b3\u03cc\u03bd.\nFootnote 446: (return) Put for \u1f00\u03bc\u03ae\u03c7\u03b1\u03bd\u03cc\u03bd \u1f10\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c0\u03b5\u03af\u03b8\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd \u03c3\u03b5.\nFootnote 447: (return) A favourite proverb. Cf. Duport, Gnom. p. 81.\nFootnote 448: (return) So \u201ccorona,\u201d in Latin.\n\u201cPolydamas, do thou retain here all the bravest, whilst I will come back again immediately after I have given proper orders to the [troops].\u201d He said, and shouting, he rushed on, like unto a snowy mountain, and flew through the Trojans and the allies. But they all crowded round valour-loving Polydamas, the son of Panthous, as soon as they heard the voice of Hector. He, however, ranged through the foremost combatants, seeking if he could anywhere find De\u00efphobus, the might of king Helenus, and Adamas, the son of Asias, and Asius, the son of Hyrtacus. Some he found no longer quite unhurt, nor yet destroyed, whilst others again lay at the sterns of the ships of the Greeks, having lost their lives by the hands of the Greeks; and others were stricken or wounded within the wall. But he quickly found noble Alexander, the husband of fair-haired Helen, on the left of the lamentable battle, cheering of his companions, and encouraging them to fight; and, standing near, he addressed him with reproachful words:\n\u201cAccursed Paris, fine only in person, woman-mad, seducer, where are De\u00efphobus and the might of king Helenus, and Adamas, the son of Asias, and Asius, the son of Hyrtacus? Where also is Othryoneus? Now lofty Ilium all perishes from its summit, 449 now is its final destruction certain.\u201d\nFootnote 449: (return) The Latin \u201ca culmine,\u201d as in Virg. \u00c6n. ii. 290, 603. So \u00c6sch.\nBut him godlike Alexander in turn addressed: \u201cHector, since it is thy intention to find fault with me when innocent, at some other time perhaps, I may be more neglectful of the fight; [but not now], since neither did my mother bear me altogether unwarlike. For from the time when thou didst stir up the battle of thy companions at the ships, from that time, remaining here, have we engaged incessantly with the Greeks; and those comrades are dead for whom thou inquirest. De\u00efphobus and the might of king Helenus alone have withdrawn, both wounded in the hand with long spears; but the son of Saturn hath warded off death [from them]. But now lead on, wheresoever thy heart and soul urge thee; and we will follow with determined minds, nor do I think that thou wilt be at all in want of valour, as much strength as is in us. It is not possible even for one, although keenly desirous, to fight beyond his strength.\u201d\nSo saying, the hero persuaded the mind of his brother, and they hastened to advance towards that place where especially was the battle and contest; round Cebriones and excellent Polydamas, Phalces and Orth\u00e6us, and godlike Polyph\u0153tes, and Palmys, and Ascanius and Morys, the sons of Hippotion, who the day before had come as a relief guard 450 from fertile Ascania: and Jove then urged them to fight. But they marched like unto the blast of boisterous winds, which rushes down to the plain, urged by the thunder of father Jove, and with a dreadful tumult 451 is mingled with the ocean; and in it [rise] many boiling billows of the much-resounding sea, swollen, whitened with foam, first indeed some and then others following.\nFootnote 450: (return) See Buttm. Lexil. p. 358. Choeph. 679: \u039a\u03b1\u03c4' \u1f04\u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2 \u03ad\u03bd\u03b8\u03ac\u03b4' \u1f61\u03c2 \u03c0\u03bf\u03c1\u03b8\u03bf\u03cd\u03bc\u03b5\u03b8\u03b1. Soph. Ant. 206: \u1f28\u03b8\u03ad\u03bb\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5 \u03bc\u1f72\u03bd \u03c0\u03c5\u03c1\u1f76 \u03c0\u03c1\u1fc6\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4' \u1f04\u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2. Eurip. Ph\u0153n. 1192: \u039a\u03b1\u03c4' \u1f04\u03ba\u03c1\u03c9\u03bd \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03b3\u03ac\u03bc\u03c9\u03bd \u1f11\u03bb\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd \u03c0\u03cc\u03bb\u03b9\u03bd.\nFootnote 451: (return) \u03bf\u03bb\u03ad\u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b4\u03b9\u03ac\u03b4\u03bf\u03c7\u03bf\u03b9, \u03c4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2 \u1f37\u03c3\u03bf\u03b9.\u2014Eustathius.\nSo the Trojans, first indeed some in battle array, and then others glittering in brass, followed along with their leaders. But Hector, the son of Priam, equal to man-slaughtering Mars, led the van, and held before him his shield, equal on all sides, thick with skins; and much brass was laid over it: and round his temples his gleaming helmet was shaken. Stepping forward, he tried the phalanxes around on every side, if perchance they would give way to him, advancing under cover of his shield. Yet he disturbed not the courage of the Greeks in their breasts: but Ajax, far-striding, first challenged him:\n\u201cO noble Sir, draw nearer: why dost thou thus frighten the Greeks? We Greeks are by no means unskilful in battle, although we are subdued by the evil scourge 452 of Jove. Thy soul, forsooth, hopes, I suppose, to plunder the ships; but we also have hands ready to repulse thee immediately. Assuredly, long before shall thy well-inhabited city be taken and destroyed by our hands. But to thee thyself, I say, the time draws near, when, flying, thou shalt pray to father Jove and the other immortals, that thy fair-maned steeds, which shall bear thee to the city, raising dust over the plain, may become swifter than hawks.\u201d\nFootnote 452: (return) See note on xii. 37.\nWhilst he was thus speaking, a bird flew over him on the right\u2014a lofty-flying eagle; upon which the people of the Greeks shouted, encouraged by the omen; but illustrious Hector replied:\n\u201cO babbling and vain-boasting Ajax, what hast thou said? Would that I were as sure of becoming for ever the child of \u00e6gis-bearing Jove, that the venerable Juno had borne me, and that I were honoured as Minerva and Apollo are honoured, as that this day now certainly brings destruction upon all the Greeks; and among others thou shalt be slain, if thou wilt dare to abide my long spear, which shall tear for thee thy dainty person, and thou shalt satiate the dogs and birds of the Trojans with thy fat and flesh, falling at the ships of the Greeks.\u201d\nThus then having spoken, he led on; and they followed along with him with a mighty shout, and the troops likewise shouted in the rear. The Greeks, on the other side, raised a shout, nor were they forgetful of their valour, but they awaited the bravest of the Trojans, assaulting. But the clamour of both reached to the \u00e6ther and the shining splendour 453 of Jove.\nFootnote 453: (return) Cf. Pind. Ol. iii. 43: \u0391\u1f50\u03b3\u03b1\u1fd6\u03c2 \u1f01\u03bb\u03af\u03bf\u03c5. So \u201cauras \u00e6therias,\u201d Virg. Georg. ii. 291. Lucret. i. 208, \u201cDias-luminis auras.\u201d\u2014Kennedy.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THE FOURTEENTH.\nARGUMENT.\nAgamemnon and the other wounded chiefs visit the battle with Nestor. Juno, having borrowed the cestus of Venus, first obtains the assistance of Sleep, and then hastens to Ida to inveigle Jove. She prevails, Jove sleeps, and Neptune seizes the opportunity to aid the Trojans.\nBut the shouting did not entirely escape the notice of Nestor, although drinking, but he addressed winged words to the son of \u00c6sculapius: \u201cConsider, noble Machaon, how these things will be; greater, certainly, [grows] the shouting of the blooming youths at the ships. But sitting here at present, drink indeed the dark wine, until fair-haired Hecamede has warmed the tepid baths, and washed away the bloody gore; whilst I, going with speed to a watchtower, will gain information.\u201d\nSo saying, he took the well-made shield of his own son, horse-breaking Thrasymedes, [which was] lying in the tent, all shining with brass (for he had the shield of his sire); and seized a strong spear, pointed with sharp brass; and stood without the tent, and soon beheld an unseemly deed,\u2014these [the Greeks] in confusion, and those, the haughty Trojans, routing them in the rear; but the wall of the Greeks had fallen. And as when the vast deep blackens with the noiseless 454 wave, foreboding with no effect, the rapid courses of the shrill blasts, nor yet is it rolled forwards or backwards, before some decisive blast comes down from Jove: so meditated the old man, distracted in his mind between two opinions: whether he should go amongst the throng of fleet-horsed Greeks, or to Agamemnon, the son of Atreus, shepherd of the people. But to him thus reflecting, it appeared better to go in quest of the son of Atreus. Meanwhile they kept slaughtering each other, contending, and the solid brass around their bodies rang, as they were stricken with the swords and two-edged spears.\nFootnote 454: (return) Literally, \u201cdeaf.\u201d So \u201csurdi fluctus,\u201d Ovid, Epist. xviii. 211; \u201cOmnia surda tacent,\u201d Propert. iv. 3, 53; \u201cSurdaque vota condidit Ionio,\u201d Pers. Sat. vi. 28.\nBut the Jove-cherished kings, coming up from the vessels, met Nestor, as many as had been wounded with the brass,\u2014Tydides, and Ulysses, and Agamemnon, the son of Atreus. Their ships indeed were drawn up upon the shore of the hoary deep, very far away from the battle; for they had drawn the first as far as the plain, and had built a wall at their sterns. For, broad as it was, the shore was by no means able to contain their vessels, and the people were crowded. Wherefore they drew them up in rows one behind the other, and filled the wide mouth of the whole shore, as much as the promontories enclosed. There then were they walking together, leaning upon the spear, in order to behold the tumult and the battle; and the heart in their bosoms was grieved. But aged Nestor met them, and terrified the souls in the breasts of the Greeks: whom first king Agamemnon addressing, said:\n\u201cO Nele\u00efan Nestor, great glory of the Greeks, why, leaving the man-destroying battle, comest thou hither? Truly I fear lest impetuous Hector make good his speech, as once he threatened, haranguing among the Trojans, that he would not return to Ilium from the ships, before that he had burned the ships with fire, and slain us also: thus indeed he harangued; and now are all things fulfilling. Ye gods, surely the other well-greaved Greeks, as well as Achilles, store up wrath against me in their minds; nor are they willing to fight at the sterns of the ships.\u201d\nBut him the Gerenian knight Nestor then answered: \u201cAssuredly these things are in active accomplishment, nor could even lofty-thundering Jove himself contrive them otherwise; for the wall, in which we trusted that it would be an impregnable defence to the ships and to ourselves, has now fallen. But they are sustaining an obstinate contest at the swift ships; nor couldst thou any longer distinguish, though examining particularly, on which side the Greeks, confounded, are routed; so promiscuously are they slain, whilst the shout reaches heaven. Let us, however, deliberate how these things will be, if counsel avail anything; although I advise not that we enter the battle; for it is by no means proper that a wounded man should fight.\u201d\nBut him then answered Agamemnon, king of men. \u201cNestor, since they are combating at the sterns of the ships, and the constructed rampart avails not, nor the ditch, at which the Greeks suffered much, and hoped in their minds that it would be an impregnable defence to the ships and to themselves, surely it will be agreeable to all-powerful Jove that the Greeks perish here, inglorious, far away from Argos. For I was conscious when he willingly gave assistance to the Greeks, and I now know that he honours those [the Trojans] equally with the happy gods, but hath fettered our courage and our hands. But come, let us all obey as I shall advise. Let us draw down the ships, as many as are drawn up first near the sea, and launch them all into the vast ocean. Let us moor them at anchor in the deep, till mortal-deceiving 455 night arrive, if even then the Trojans may abstain from battle, and then we may perhaps draw down all the vessels; for there is no disgrace in flying from evil, not even during the night. It is better for a flying man to escape from evil, than to be taken.\u201d\nFootnote 455: (return) '\u0391\u03b2\u03c1\u03cc\u03c4\u03b7 is akin to \u1f24\u03bc\u03b2\u03c1\u03bf\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd from \u03ac\u03bc\u03b1\u03c1\u03c4\u03ac\u03bd\u03c9, and therefore = \u201cmaking mortals go astray,\u201d or else = \u03ac\u03bc\u03b2\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03b9\u03b7 in ii. 57. See Buttm. Lexil. p. 82. Or it may be regarded as the \u201cnox intempesta,\u201d i.e. \u201cmuita nox, qua nihil agi tempestivum est,\u201d Censorinus de Die Nat. xxiv.\nBut him sternly regarding, wise Ulysses then addressed: \u201cSon of Atreus, what speech hath escaped thy lips? Lost man! thou shouldst command some worthless army, and not rule over us, to whom Jove hath granted, from youth even unto old age, to accomplish toilsome wars, until we, each of us, shall perish. Dost thou then desire thus to leave wide-wayed Troy, on account of which we have endured so many woes? Be silent, lest some other of the Greeks hear a speech, which a man ought not to have brought through his mouth, whoever understands in his mind how to speak prudent things, who is a sceptre-bearer, and whom so many people obey, as many as thou dost govern among the Greeks. For now do I reprobate thy judgment, in what thou hast said; who commandest us, whilst the war and battle are waged, to draw down the well-benched ships to the sea, in order that the wishes of the Trojans may be still better fulfilled, victorious though they be, and dire destruction fall upon us: for the Greeks will not maintain the fight whilst the ships are being dragged to the sea, but will look back, and retire from the combat. Then will thy counsel be injurious, O leader of the people.\u201d\nBut him Agamemnon, the king of men, then answered: \u201cMuch, O Ulysses, hast thou touched me to the soul with thy severe reproof; yet I commanded not the sons of the Greeks against their will to draw the well-benched ships down to the sea. But now would that there were one, either young or old, who would deliver an opinion better than this; it would be to my joy.\u201d  456\nBut among them Diomede, valiant in the din of battle, also spoke: \u201cThe man is near, we need not seek far, if indeed ye are willing to be persuaded; and do not find fault each through wrath, because I am by birth the youngest amongst you; for I boast that my race is from a noble sire, Tydeus, whom the heaped-up earth 457 covers at Thebes. For to Portheus were born three distinguished sons, and they dwelt in Pleuron and lofty Calydon: Agrius and Melas, but the third was the knight \u0152neus, the father of my father, who was conspicuous among them for valour. He indeed remained there, but my father, as an exile, dwelt at Argos, for so Jove willed and the other gods. But he married [one] of the daughters 458 of Adrastus, and he inhabited a mansion opulent in resources, and corn-bearing fields were his in abundance, and there were many rows 459 of plants around him. Numerous were his herds, and he surpassed the Greeks in the use of the spear; but these things ye ought to know, since it is a truth. Do not, therefore, dispute the opinion freely delivered, which I give advisedly, deeming that I am base by birth, and unwarlike. Come, then, let us go to battle, wounded as we are, from necessity. There, then, let us ourselves approach the combat, out [of the reach] of weapons, lest any one receive wound upon wound; and, encouraging others, we will urge them on, who hitherto, gratifying their souls, have stood apart, nor fought.\u201d\nFootnote 456: (return) For this use of the dative, cf. Plato Ph\u00e6don, \u00a7 24. So Tacit. Agric. \u201cQuibus bellum volentibus erat.\u201d\u2014Kennedy. Cf. \u00c6sch. Prom. s.i., \u1f00\u03c3\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u1ff3 \u03b4\u03ad \u03c3\u03bf\u03b9 \u1f29 \u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03ba\u03b9\u03bb\u03b5\u03af\u03bc\u03c9\u03bd \u03bd\u1fe6\u03b6 \u1f00\u03c0\u03bf\u03ba\u03c1\u03cd\u03c8\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c6\u03ac\u03bf\u03c2.\nFootnote 457: (return) See my note on Od. ii. p. 21, n. 35, ed. Bohn, and an admirable dissertation on these classic barrow-tombs in Stephen\u2019s notes on Saxo-Grammaticus, pp. 90-92.\nFootnote 458: (return) Deipyle. See Scholiast.\nFootnote 459: (return) Not \u201cgardens.\u201d Schol. Theocrit. i. 48. \u1f4c\u03c1\u03c7\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03c7\u03bf\u03bd \u03c6\u03c5\u03c4\u03b5\u03af\u03b1\u03bd ... \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u0391\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c6\u03ac\u03bd\u03b7\u03c2 \u03c4\u1f78 \u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03be\u1f7a \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c6\u03c5\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03cc\u03c1\u03c7\u03bc\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd \u1f10\u03ba\u03ac\u03bb\u03b5\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd \u1f10\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2 \u03b3\u03b5\u03c9\u03c1\u03b3\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2' \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f29\u03c3\u03af\u03bf\u03b4\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f44\u03c1\u03c7\u03bf\u03bd \u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03c7\u03bf\u03bd \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f00\u03bc\u03c0\u03ad\u03bb\u03c9\u03bd \u03c6\u03c5\u03c4\u03b5\u03af\u03b1\u03bd. Cf. Schol. on Lycophr. 857; Hesych. t. ii. p. 792.\nThus he spoke; and to him they all listened readily, and obeyed. Wherefore they hastened to advance, and the king of men, Agamemnon, led them.\nNor did the illustrious Earth-shaker keep a negligent look-out, but he went amongst them like unto an aged man, and he caught the right hand of Agamemnon, the son of Atreus, and addressing him, spoke winged words:\n\u201cSon of Atreus, now perchance the revengeful heart of Achilles rejoices in his breast, beholding the slaughter and rout of the Greeks; since there is no feeling in him, not even a little. May he, however, thus perish, and may a god cover him with disgrace. But with thee the blessed gods are not yet altogether enraged, but again the leaders and chiefs of the Trojans will perchance raise the dust upon the wide plain, and thou wilt behold them flying towards the city from the ships and the tents.\u201d\nSo saying, he shouted aloud, rushing over the plain. As loud as nine or ten thousand men shout, beginning the contest of Mars, so loud a cry did king Neptune send forth from his breast; and he cast great resolution into every heart among the Greeks, to war and to fight incessantly.\nBut golden-throned Juno, standing, looked down with her eyes from the summit of Olympus, and immediately recognized her own brother, [who was] also her brother-in-law, exerting himself through the glorious battle, and she rejoiced in her mind. She also beheld Jove sitting upon the highest top of many-rilled Ida, and he was hateful to her soul. Then the venerable large-eyed Juno next anxiously considered how she could beguile the mind of \u00e6gis-bearing Jove. And now this plan appeared best to her mind, to proceed to Ida, having well arrayed herself, if perchance he might desire to lie beside her form 460 in dalliance, so that she might pour upon his eyelids and vigilant mind careless and genial sleep. And she proceeded to her chamber, which Vulcan, her dear son, had made for her, and had fitted the thick doors to the lintels with a secret bolt; 461 and this no other god could remove. There entering in, she closed the shining doors. First she washed all impurities from her lovely person with rich oil, ambrosial, 462 and anointed herself with rich oil, ambrosial and agreeable, 463 which was odoriferous to her; and the perfume of which, when shaken in the brazen-floored 464 mansion of Jove, reached even to earth and to heaven. With this having anointed her body, and having also combed her hair, with her hands she arranged her shining locks, beautiful, ambrosial, [which flowed] from her immortal head. Next she threw around her an ambrosial robe, which Minerva had wrought 465 for her in needlework, and had embroidered much varied work upon it, and she fastened it upon her breast with golden clasps. Then she girded herself with a zone, adorned with a hundred fringes, and in her well-perforated ears placed her triple-gemmed, elaborate, 466earrings, and much grace shone from [her]. From above she, divine of goddesses, covered herself with a veil, beautiful, newly wrought, and it was bright as the sun; and beneath her shining feet she fastened her beautiful sandals. But when she had arranged all her ornaments around her person, she proceeded straight from her chamber; and having called Venus apart from the other gods, addressed her in speech:\nFootnote 460: (return) Construe \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03b4\u03c1\u03b1\u03b8\u03ad\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd \u1f96 \u03c7\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9\u1fc7.\nFootnote 461: (return) Respecting the different meanings of \u03ba\u03bb\u03b5\u1f76\u03c2, see Kennedy.\nFootnote 462: (return) See Buttm. Lexil. p 81, 3.\nFootnote 463: (return) Buttmann, p. 242, regards \u03ad\u03b4\u03b1\u03bd\u1f78\u03c2 as \u201cperhaps a stronger and higher meaning of \u1f10\u03cc\u03c2, or \u1f12\u03cc\u03c2, good, which may be compared with \u03bf\u1f50\u03c4\u03b9\u03b4\u03b1\u03bd\u03cc\u03c2, \u03bc\u03b7\u03ba\u03b5\u03b4\u03b1\u03bd\u03cc\u03c2.\u201d\nFootnote 464: (return) See my note on Od. ii. 2.\nFootnote 465: (return) \u201cThe proper sense of \u1f14\u03be\u03c5\u03c3\u03b5 is, scraped or rubbed over and its use here is best explained by supposing a reference to some process among the ancients whereby a shining appearance was given to their vestments, as by calendering or glazing with us.\u201d\u2014Kennedy.\nFootnote 466: (return) \u039c\u03bf\u03c1\u03cc\u03b5\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1, \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u1f03 \u1f10\u03bc\u03cc\u03c1\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd \u1f41 \u03c4\u03b5\u03c7\u03bd\u03af\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2.\u2014Schol.\n\u201cWilt thou now be at all obedient to me, dear child, in what I shall say? Or wilt thou refuse, enraged in thy mind on this account, because I aid the Greeks whilst thou [aidest] the Trojans?\u201d\nBut her Venus, the daughter of Jove, then answered: \u201cJuno, venerable goddess, daughter of mighty Saturn, declare whatsoever thou dost meditate; for my mind urges me to accomplish it, if indeed I can accomplish it, and if it be practicable.\u201d\nBut her the venerable Juno, meditating guile, addressed: \u201cGive now to me that loveliness and desire with which thou dost subdue all, immortals, and mortal men; for I go to visit the limits of the fertile earth, and Oceanus, the parent of the gods, and mother Tethys; who, receiving me from Rhea, nurtured and educated me with care in their abodes, when far-resounding Jove cast down Saturn beneath the earth and the fruitless sea. These I go to visit, and I will put an end to eternal quarrels. 467 For already have they abstained for a length of time from the couch and embrace of each other, since anger fell upon their mind. But if, by persuading their hearts by my words, I should lead them back to the bed, to be united in love, then should I always be called by them beloved and revered.\u201d\nFootnote 467: (return) These passages were regarded by the ancients as referring to the perpetual strife of the elements. Thus Plato, in The\u00e6tet. says: \u1f4d\u03bc\u03b7\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b5\u1f30\u03c0\u1f7c\u03bd, \u1f68\u03ba\u03b5\u03b1\u03bd\u03cc\u03bd \u03c4\u03b5 \u03b8\u03b5\u1ff6\u03bd \u03b3\u03ad\u03bd\u03b5\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd, \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03bc\u03b7\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1 \u03a4\u03b7\u03b8\u1f7a\u03bd, \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1 \u03b5\u1f34\u03c1\u03b7\u03ba\u03b5\u03bd \u1f14\u03ba\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd\u03b1 \u03c1\u03bf\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03ba\u03b9\u03bd\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2. See Sextus Empir. adv. Grammat. i. 13, p. 280, ed. Fabr.; Stob\u00e6us, Ecl. i. 11. Grote, vol. i. p. 16, note, observes that, \u201cOceanus and Tethys seem to be presented in the Iliad as the primitive father and mother of the gods,\u201d although he says that \u201cUranos and G\u00e6a, like Oceanus, Tethys, and Nyx, are with Homer great and venerable gods, but neither the one nor the other present the character of predecessors of Kronos and Zeus.\u201d\nBut her laughter-loving Venus in turn addressed: \u201cIt is not possible nor becoming to refuse thy request, for thou reclinest in the arms of mightiest Jove.\u201d\nShe said, and loosed from her bosom the embroidered, variegated cestus; 468 where all allurements were enclosed. In it were love, and desire, converse, seductive speech, which steals away the mind even of the very prudent. This then she placed in her hands, spoke, and addressed her:\n\u201cTake 469 this, now place in thy bosom this variegated belt, in which all things are contained; and I think that thou wilt not return with thy object unaccomplished, whatsoever thou desirest in thy mind.\u201d\nFootnote 468: (return) I have avoided translating \u201ccestus,\u201d as it is very doubtful what is meant by it. It could not have been an ordinary girdle, since it was to be hidden in the bosom (ver. 219), and since its power appears to have been secret. See Heyne\u2019s note.\nFootnote 469: (return) \u03a4\u1fc6 is an old imperative from a root \u03a4\u0391\u2014\u201cformed like \u03b6\u1fc6\u03bd, according to Doric analogy.... In all cases it stands either quite absolute, that is, with the object understood, or the accusative belongs to a verb immediately following.\u201d\u2014Buttm. Lexil. pp. 505, sq.\nThus she spake, and the large-eyed, venerable Juno smiled, and smiling, then placed it in her bosom. But Venus, the daughter of Jove, departed to the palace; and Juno, hastening, quitted the summit of Olympus, and, having passed over Pieria and fertile Emathia, she hastened over the snowy mountains of equestrian Thrace, most lofty summits, nor did she touch the ground with her feet. From Athos she descended to the foaming deep, and came to Lemnos, the city of divine Thoas, where she met Sleep, the brother of Death; to whose hand she then clung, and spoke, and addressed him:\n\u201cO Sleep, 470 king of all gods and all men, 471 if ever indeed thou didst listen to my entreaty, now too be persuaded; and I will acknowledge gratitude to thee all my days. Close immediately in sleep for me the bright eyes of Jove under his eyelids, after I couch with him in love; and I will give thee, as gifts, a handsome golden throne, for ever incorruptible. And my limping son, Vulcan, adorning it, shall make it, and below thy feet he shall place a footstool, upon which thou mayest rest thy shining feet while feasting.\u201d\nFootnote 470: (return) Cf. Hesiod, Theog. 214. The dying words of Gorgias of Leontium are very elegant: \u1f2c\u03b4\u03b5 \u03bc\u03b5 \u1f41 \u1f55\u03c0\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f04\u03c1\u03c7\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03c4\u03af\u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u1ff6 \u1f00\u03b4\u03b5\u03bb\u03c6\u1ff3.\u2014\u00c6lian, Var. Hist. ii. 35.\nFootnote 471: (return) So in the Orphic hymn: \u1f5d\u03c0\u03bd\u03b5, \u1f04\u03bd\u03b1\u03be \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03bc\u03b1\u03ba\u03ac\u03c1\u03c9\u03bd \u03b8\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c4' \u03ac\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03c9\u03bd.\nBut her sweet Sleep answering, addressed: \u201cJuno, venerable goddess, daughter of great Saturn, any other of the everlasting gods could I easily lull to sleep, and even the flowing of rapid Ocean, who is the parent of all; but I could not approach Saturnian Jove, nor lull him to sleep, unless, at least, he himself command me. For once already, at least, has he terrified me by his threats, on that day when the magnanimous son of Jove (Hercules) sailed from Ilium, having sacked the city of the Trojans. Then I lulled the mind of \u00e6gis-bearing Jove, being poured gently around him, whilst thou wast planning evils in thy mind [against the hero], rousing the blasts of bitter winds over the deep; and thou didst afterwards carry him away apart from all his friends to well-inhabited Cos. But he, when awakened, was enraged, hurling about the gods through his mansion, and me chiefly of all he sought, and would have cast me down, a lost one, from the \u00e6ther into the deep, had not Night, vanquisher of gods and men, preserved me, to whom I came flying. So he restrained himself, angry as he was; for he dreaded lest he should do things which were disagreeable to swift 472 Night. And now again dost thou urge me to perform this another dangerous deed.\u201d\nBut him the venerable large-eyed Juno in turn answered: \u201c\u039f Sleep, why thinkest thou these things within thy mind? Canst thou suppose that far-sounding Jove favours the Trojans, as he was enraged on account of Hercules, his own son? But come, [do this], and I will give thee one of the younger Graces to wed, and to be called thy spouse, Pasithea, 473 whom thou fondly desirest day after day.\u201d\nFootnote 472: (return) But see Buttm. Lexil. p. 369. Translate, \u201cquick and fearful night.\u201d\nFootnote 473: (return) The most beautiful of the Graces,\u2014\u201cblandarum prima sororum,\u201d according to Statius, Theb. ii. 286. Cf. Virg. \u00c6n. i. 267, sqq.\nThus she spoke; but Sleep was delighted, and, answering, addressed her: \u201cCome now, swear to me by the inviolable water of the Styx, and touch with one hand the fertile earth, and with the other the marble sea; so that all the gods beneath, around Saturn, may be witnesses between us, that thou wilt surely give me one of the younger Graces, Pasithea, whom I will desire all my days.\u201d\nThus he spoke, nor did the white-armed goddess Juno disobey, but she swore as he desired, and named all gods who dwell under Tartarus, which are called Titans. 474 When then she had sworn, and performed her oath, they both proceeded, leaving the city of Lemnos and Imbrus, mantled in haze, quickly making their way; and they came to Ida of many rills, the mother of wild beasts, to Lectos, where first they quitted the sea: but they both advanced over the land, and the summit of the wood was shaken beneath their feet. There Sleep on his part remained, before the eyes of Jove should perceive him; ascending a lofty fir, which then growing the highest upon Ida, sprung up through the air to the clouds. There he sat, thickly covered with the fir branches, like unto a shrill bird, which, living in the mountains, the gods call Chalcis, and men Cymindis.\nFootnote 474: (return) On this oath, see Grote, vol. i. p. 17.\nBut Juno proceeded hastily to Gargarus, the summit of lofty Ida, and cloud-compelling Jove beheld her. But the instant he beheld her, that instant 475 desire entirely shadowed around his august mind, just as when they first were united in love, retiring to the bed, without the knowledge of their dear parents. And he stood before her, and spoke, and addressed her:\n\u201cWherefore hastening from Olympus, Juno, comest thou hither, but thy horses and chariot are not near, which thou mayest ascend.\u201d\nFootnote 475: (return) Cf. Theocrit. ii. 82: \u1f69\u03c2 \u1f34\u03b4\u03bf\u03bd, \u03ce\u03c2 \u1f10\u03bc\u03ac\u03bd\u03b7\u03bd, \u03ce\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b5\u1fe6 \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u03b8\u03c5\u03bc\u1f78\u03c2 \u1f34\u03ac\u03c6\u03b8\u03b7. iii. 42: \u1f69\u03c2 \u1f34\u03b4\u03bf\u03bd, \u1f61\u03c2 \u1f10\u03bc\u03ac\u03bd\u03b7. Ovid, Epist. xii. 33: \u201cUt vidi, ut perii, nec notis ignibus arsi.\u201d\nBut him the venerable Juno, meditating guiles, addressed; \u201cI go to visit the limits of the fertile earth, and Oceanus, the parent of the gods, and mother Tethys, who nurtured and trained me with care in their palaces. Them I go to see, and will take away their bitter quarrels. For already they abstain a long while from the couch and embrace of each other; since anger has invaded their minds. But my steeds, which will bear me over dry and wet, stand near the base of Ida with many rills. Now, however, on thy account have I come hither from Olympus, lest perchance thou shouldst afterwards be angry with me, were I to depart in secret to the abode of deep-flowing Oceanus?\u201d\nBut her cloud-collecting Jove answering, addressed: \u201cJuno, thither thou canst go even by-and-by, but come [now], let us, reclining, be delighted with love; for never at any time did the love of a goddess or a woman, poured around the heart within my breast, so subdue me: neither when I loved the wife of Ixion, who bore Pirithous, a counsellor equal to the gods; nor when [I loved] fair-ankled Dana\u00eb, the daughter of Acrisius, who bore Perseus, most illustrious of all men; nor when with that of the celebrated daughter of Phoenix, 476 who bore to me Minos and godlike Rhadamanthus: 477 nor yet when [I loved] Semele, nor Alcmena in Thebes, who brought forth my valiant son Hercules: but Semele bore [me] Bacchus, a joy to mortals: nor when [I loved] Ceres, the fair-haired queen: nor when glorious Latona nor thyself; as I now love thee, and sweet desire seizes me.\u201d\nFootnote 476: (return) But Europa is generally considered to be the daughter of Agenor. See Grote, vol. i. p. 350.\nFootnote 477: (return) On the career of Rhadamanthus, who is \u201cafter death promoted to an abode of undisturbed bliss in the Elysian plain at the extremity of the earth,\u201d see Grote, vol. i. p. 300.\nBut him venerable Juno, meditating guiles, addressed: \u201cMost shameless son of Saturn, what word hast thou spoken? If now thou desire to recline in love upon the summit of Ida, where all places are exposed, how will it be, if any of the immortal gods should perceive us sleeping, and, going amongst all the gods, disclose it? I for my part could never return to thy mansion, arising from the couch; for surely it would be unbecoming. But if in truth thou desirest it, and it be agreeable to thy soul, there is a chamber of thine which Vulcan, thy beloved son, formed for thee, and fitted its secure doors to its lintels. Thither let us repair, about to recline, since an embrace is indeed thy desire.\u201d\nBut her cloud-collecting Jove, answering, addressed:\n\u201cFear not, O Juno, that any of either gods or men shall behold this. Such a golden cloud will I spread around, that not even the Sun may see us through it, although his eye is very keen to behold.\u201d  478\nThus he spake, and the son of Saturn encircled his wife in his arms. And the divine earth produced 479 fresh herbage under them, the dewy lotus, and the crocus, and the hyacinth, close and soft, which elevated them from the earth. Upon this [couch] they reclined, and clothed themselves above with a beautiful golden cloud; and lucid dew-drops fell from it.\nFootnote 478: (return) On the god H\u00ealios, and his overseeing influence, the student should compare Grote, vol. i. p. 466.\nFootnote 479: (return) So Milton, describing the couch of our first parents, P. L. iv. 700:\u2014-\n\n\n\u2014\u2014 \u201cunderfoot the violet,\nCrocus, and hyacinth with rich inlay,\nBroider\u2019d the ground.\u201d\n\n\nThus quietly slumbered the sire upon the summit of Gargarus, subdued by sleep and love, and held his spouse in his arms. But sweet Sleep hastened to run to the ships of the Greeks, that he might deliver a message to Neptune, the shaker of the earth. And, standing near, he addressed to him winged words:\n\u201cNow, Neptune, heartily give aid to the Greeks, and bestow glory upon them, at least for a little, whilst yet Jove sleeps; since I have enveloped him in a veil 480 of soft slumber, and Juno hath deceived [him], that he might sleep in love.\u201d\nFootnote 480: (return) Observe the force of \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03ba\u03ac\u03bb\u03c5\u03c8\u03b1.\nSo saying, he indeed departed to the illustrious tribes of men; but he still more impelled [Neptune] to assist the Greeks, and immediately springing forward far into the van, he exhorted them:\n\u201cO Greeks, yet again do we yield the victory to Hector, the son of Priam, that he may seize the ships and bear away glory? For so indeed he supposes and boasts, because Achilles remains at the hollow ships, enraged at heart. However, there would not be a great need of him, if the rest of us were incited to assist one another. But come? let us all obey as I shall advise. Let us, clad with shields, as many as are best and greatest in the army, who are covered as to our heads with glittering helmets, and hold the longest spears in our hands, advance, and I will lead the way; nor do I think that Hector, the son of Priam, will await us, though very eager. Whatsoever man also is obstinate in the fight, and bears but a small shield upon his shoulder, let him give it to an inferior man, and let him clothe himself in a larger shield.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but they listened to him readily, and obeyed. The kings themselves, Tydides, Ulysses, and Agamemnon, son of Atreus, marshalled [the troops], wounded as they were; and, going about among them all, exchanged their martial arms, the brave [soldier] put on the good [armour], and the worse they gave to the inferior man. But when they had girded the splendid brass around their bodies, they began to advance; and earth-shaking Neptune led them on, grasping in his firm hand a dreadful tapering sword, like unto a thunderbolt, with which [sword] it is not possible to engage in destructive battle, for the fear [of it] restrains men.\nOn the other side again illustrious Hector drew up the Trojans. Then truly azure-haired Neptune and illustrious Hector drew forth the severest struggle of war, the one indeed aiding the Trojans, and the other the Greeks. But the sea was dashed up to the tents and ships of the Greeks and they engaged with a mighty shout. Not so loudly does the billow of the ocean roar against the main land, when driven from the deep by the rough blast of Boreas; nor so great is the crackling of blazing fire in the glens of a mountain, when it is raised aloft to consume the wood; nor so loud howls the wind amidst the high-foliaged oaks (which, in particular, loudly roars in its wrath), as was the cry of the Trojans and Greeks shouting dreadfully, when they rushed one upon the other.\nAt Ajax illustrious Hector first took aim with his spear, as he was turned right against him; nor did he miss. [He struck him] where the two belts were crossed upon his breast, both that of the shield and that of the silver-studded sword; for these protected the tender skin: but Hector was enraged because his swift weapon had fled from his hand in vain, and he retired back into the crowd of his companions, shunning death. At him then, retiring, mighty Telamonian Ajax [threw] with a stone, for [stones] in great numbers were rolled about among the feet of the combatants, props for the fleet barks; lifting up one of these, he struck him upon the breast, above the orb of the shield, near the neck. And, throwing, he twirled it like a top, and it (the stone) rolled round on all sides. As when, beneath a violent stroke from father Jove, an oak falls uprooted, and a terrible smell of sulphur arises from it; but confidence no longer possesses the man, whosoever being near beholds it, because the thunderbolt of mighty Jove is terrible: so rapidly upon the ground fell the might of Hector in the dust. And he dropped his spear from his hand, his shield and helmet followed above him, and his armour, variegated with brass, rang upon him. Then the sons of the Greeks, loudly shouting, rushed in, hoping to draw him off, and they hurled numerous javelins; but no one was able either to strike from a distance, or to smite close at hand, the shepherd of the people, for the bravest [of the warriors], Polydamas, \u00c6neas, and noble Agenor, Sarpedon, leader of the Lycians, and illustrious Glaucus, first threw themselves round him. And no one of the rest neglected him, but they held their well-orbed shields before him. But his companions, up-raising him in their hands, bore him out of the conflict, till they reached his fleet horses, which stood for him in rear of the combat and the war, holding both the charioteer and the variegated car; which then carried him towards the city, groaning heavily. 481\nFootnote 481: (return) Milton, P.L. vi. 335:\u2014\n\n\n\u201cForthwith on all sides to his aid was run\nBy angels many and strong, who interposed\nDefence, while others bore him on their shields\nBack to his chariot, where it stood retired\nFrom off the files of war; there they him laid,\nGnashing for anguish, and despite, and shame.\u201d\n\n\nBut when now they came to the ford of the rapid-flowing current of eddying Xanthus, whom immortal Jove begat, there they removed him from his car to the ground, and poured water over him; but he breathed again, and looked up with his eyes; and, sitting upon his knees, disgorged black blood. Again he fell back upon the ground, and dark night overshadowed his eyes; for the blow still subdued his spirits.\nBut when the Greeks saw Hector going apart, they pressed the more on the Trojans, and were mindful of contest. Then swift O\u00eflean Ajax before others, leaping forward with his fir-tree spear, wounded Satnius, son of Enops, whom a Naiad, the fairest nymph, bore to Enops, when keeping his flocks by the banks of Satnio. Him the spear-renowned son of O\u00efleus, drawing near, wounded in the flank; but he fell supine, and round him the Trojans and Greeks engaged in a valiant battle. But to him spear-brandishing Polydamas, son of Panthous, came as an avenger, and smote Protho\u00ebnor, son of Are\u00eflochus, upon the right shoulder. The tough spear passed on through his shoulder, but falling in the dust, he grasped the earth with his hand. And Polydamas boasted mightily over him, shouting aloud:\n\u201cI do not think, indeed, that the weapon hath fled vainly from the sturdy hand of the magnanimous son of Panthous, but some one of the Greeks has received it in his body; and I think that he, leaning upon it, will descend to the mansion of Pluto.\u201d\nThus he spoke, but grief arose among the Greeks at his boasting, and particularly agitated the mind of warlike Ajax, the son of Telamon, for he had fallen very near him; and he immediately hurled with his shining spear at him departing. Polydamas himself indeed avoided black fate, springing off obliquely; but Archilochus, son of Antenor, received [the blow], for to him the gods had doomed destruction. Him then he struck upon the last vertebra, in the joining of the head and neck, and he disjoined both tendons; but the head, the mouth, and the nostrils of him falling, met the ground much sooner than his legs and knees. Then Ajax in turn cried out to blameless Polydamas:\n\u201cReflect, O Polydamas, and tell me the truth; is not this man worthy to be slain in exchange of Protho\u00ebnor? He appears not to me indeed a coward, nor [sprung] from cowards, but [to be] the brother or the son of horse-breaking Antenor, for he seems most like him as to his race.\u201d\nThus he spoke, well knowing [him], but grief possessed the minds of the Trojans. Then Acamas, stalking round his brother, wounded with his spear Promachus, the B\u0153otian; whilst he was dragging him off by the feet. But over him Acamas greatly boasted, calling out aloud:\n\u201cYe Argive archers, 482 insatiable in threats, assuredly not to us alone will toil and sorrow accrue, but thus thou also wilt at some time be slain. Consider how your Promachus sleeps, subdued by my spear, that a requital for my brother might not be long unpaid. Therefore should a man wish a brother to be left in his family, as an avenger of his death.\u201d\nFootnote 482: (return) See note on iv. 242.\nThus he spoke; but grief arose among the Greeks as he boasted, and he particularly agitated the mind of warlike Peneleus. Accordingly he rushed upon Acamas, who awaited not the charge of king Peneleus; but he wounded Ilioneus, son of Phorbas, rich in flocks, whom Mercury loved most of all the Trojans, and had presented with possessions; and to whom his mother bore Ilioneus alone. Him then he wounded below the brow, in the socket of the eye, and he forced out the pupil: but the spear went forward through the eye, and through the back of the head; and he sat down, stretching out both his hands. But Peneleus, drawing his sharp sword, smote him upon the middle of the neck, and lopped off his head with its helmet to the ground, and the strong spear still remained in his eye. But he (Peneleus), holding it up like a poppy, shouted to the Trojans, and boasting spoke thus:\n\u201cTell for me, ye Trojans, the beloved father and mother of illustrious Ilioneus, that they may lament him in their halls; for neither shall the wife of Promachus, the son of Alegenor, present herself with joy to her dear husband coming [back], when we, sons of the Greeks, return from Troy with our ships.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but pale fear seized upon them all, and each gazed about, [seeking] where he might escape utter destruction.\nTell me now, ye muses, possessing Olympian dwellings, which of the Greeks now first bore away gore-stained spoils of men, when the illustrious Earth-shaker turned the [tide of] battle.\nTelamonian Ajax then first wounded Hyrtius, son of Gyrtias, leader of the undaunted Mysians; and Antilochus spoiled Phalces and Mermerus; Meriones slew Morys and Hippotion; and Teucer slew Prothous and Periph\u0153tes. But the son of Atreus next wounded upon the flank Hyperenor, the shepherd of the people, and the spear, cutting its way, drank his entrails; and his soul, expelled, fled in haste through the inflicted wound, and darkness veiled his eyes. But Ajax, the swift son of O\u00efleus, slew the most; because there was not one equal to him on foot, to follow the flying men, when Jove had excited flight amongst them.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THE FIFTEENTH.\nARGUMENT.\nJove awaking, and finding the Trojans routed, menaces Juno. He then sends Iris to desire Neptune to relinquish the battle, and Apollo to restore Hector to health. Armed with the \u00e6gis, Apollo puts the Greeks to flight; who are pursued home to their fleet, while Telamonian Ajax slays twelve Trojans who were bringing fire to burn it.\nBut after the fugitives had crossed both the ramparts and the trench, and many were subdued by the hands of the Greeks, the rest were at length detained, waiting beside their chariots, pallid with fear, and terrified. But Jove arose on the summits of Ida, from beside golden-throned Juno; and starting up, he stood and beheld the Trojans and Greeks, those indeed in confusion, and the Greeks throwing them into confusion in the rear; and amongst them king Neptune. Hector he beheld lying upon the plain, and his companions sat round him: 483 but he was afflicted with grievous difficulty of respiration, and devoid of his senses, 484 vomiting blood, for it was not the weakest of the Greeks who had wounded him. The father of men and gods, seeing, pitied him, and sternly regarding Juno, severely addressed her:\n\u201cO Juno, of evil arts, impracticable, thy stratagem has made noble Hector cease from battle, and put his troops to flight. Indeed I know not whether again thou mayest not be the first to reap the fruits of thy pernicious machinations, and I may chastise thee with stripes. Dost thou not remember when thou didst swing from on high, and I hung two anvils from thy feet, and bound a golden chain around thy hands, that could not be broken? And thou didst hang in the air and clouds, and the gods commiserated thee throughout lofty Olympus; but standing around, they were not able to release thee; but whomsoever I caught, seizing, I hurled from the threshold [of heaven], till he reached the earth, hardly breathing. Nor even thus did my vehement anger, through grief for divine Hercules, leave me; whom thou, prevailing upon the storms, with the north wind, didst send over the unfruitful sea, designing evils, and afterwards bore him out of his course, to well-inhabited Cos. I liberated him, indeed, and brought him back thence to steed-nourishing Argos, although having accomplished many toils. These things will I again recall to thy memory, that thou mayest cease from deceits; in order that thou mayest know whether the intercourse and a couch will avail thee, in which thou wast mingled, coming apart from the gods, and having deceived me.\u201d\nFootnote 483: (return) \u0394\u1f74 here has the force of demum.\nFootnote 484: (return) \u1f18\u03be\u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03ba\u1f7c\u03c2 \u03c4\u1fc7 \u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u1fc7.\u2014Scholiast.\nThus he spoke; but venerable large-eyed Juno shuddered, and, addressing him, spoke winged words:\n\u201cBe witness now, Earth, and boundless Heaven above, and the water of Styx gliding beneath, which is the greatest and most dreaded oath amongst the blessed gods; likewise thy sacred head, and our own nuptial couch, by which I would not rashly swear at any time, that it is not by my instigation that earth-shaking Neptune harasses the Trojans and Hector, and aids the other side; but certainly his own mind incites and orders him; for, beholding the Greeks oppressed at the ships, he took compassion on them. And even him would I advise to go there, where thou, O Cloud-collector, mayest command.\u201d\nThus she spoke; but the father of men and gods smiled, and answering her, spoke winged words:\n\u201cIf indeed thou from henceforth, O venerable, large-eyed Juno, wouldst sit amongst the immortals, being of the same mind with me, then truly would Neptune, even although he very much wishes otherwise, immediately change his mind to the same point, to thy wish and mine. But if indeed thou speakest in sincerity and truly, go now to the assemblies of the gods, and call Iris to come hither, and Apollo, renowned in archery, that she may go to the people of the brazen-mailed Greeks, and tell king Neptune, ceasing from battle, to repair to his own palaces; but let Ph\u0153bus Apollo excite Hector to battle, and breathe strength into him again, and make him forgetful of the pains which now afflict him in his mind: but let him again put the Greeks to flight, exciting unwarlike panic [amongst them], and, flying, let them fall back upon the many-benched ships of Achilles, the son of Peleus. Then shall he stimulate his companion Patroclus, whom illustrious Hector shall slay with his spear before Ilium, [Patroclus] having slain many other youths, and with them my son, noble Sarpedon; but noble Achilles shall slay Hector. From this time forward will I always continually effect for thee, that there shall be a retreat [of the Trojans] from the ships, until the Greeks, by the counsels of Minerva, shall take lofty Ilium. However, I shall not abate my anger, nor will I here permit any of the immortals to assist the Greeks, before that the request of the son of Peleus be completed; as first I promised to him, and nodded assent with my head, on that day when the goddess Thetis touched my knees, beseeching me that I would honour Achilles, the destroyer of cities.\u201d\nThus he spoke, nor did the white-armed goddess Juno disobey, but went down from the Id\u00e6an mountains to lofty Olympus. And as when the mind of a man flashes swiftly [in thought], who, having traversed over many a land, thinks within his prudent heart, \u201cI was here, I was there,\u201d and deliberates much: thus quickly hastening, up sprung venerable Juno. But she reached lofty Olympus, and came in upon the immortal gods, assembled in the house of Jove but they beholding her, all rose up and welcomed her with their cups. The rest, however, she neglected, but received a goblet from fair-cheeked Themis; for she first running, came to meet her, and addressing her, spoke winged words:\n\u201cWhy, O Juno, hast thou come [hither], and art like unto one in consternation? Has then the son of Saturn, who is thy husband, greatly terrified thee?\u201d\nBut her the white-armed goddess Juno then answered: \u201cDo not, O goddess Themis, ask me these things; even thou thyself knowest how overbearing and cruel a spirit is his. But do thou preside over the equal feast, in the palaces of the gods, and thou shalt hear these things along with all the immortals, what evil deeds Jove denounces. Nor do I at all think that the mind will equally rejoice to all, neither to mortals nor to the gods, although some one even yet be feasting pleasantly.\u201d\nThus having spoken, venerable Juno sat down; but the gods were grieved throughout the palace of Jove. But she laughed with her lips [only], nor was her forehead above her dark brows exhilarated; 485 and, indignant, she spoke amongst them all:\n\u201cSenseless we, who are thus foolishly enraged with father Jove! Of a truth we still desire to restrain him, approaching near, either by persuasion or by force; whilst he, sitting apart, does not regard, nor is moved, for he says he is decidedly the most mighty in strength and power among the immortal gods. Wherefore endure whatever evil he may please to send upon each of you; for now already, I think, misfortune hath been inflicted upon Mars, since his son has perished in the fight, the dearest of mortals, Ascalaphus, whom impetuous Mars calls his own.\u201d\nFootnote 485: (return) Compare Virg. \u00c6n. i. 211: \u201cSpem vultu simulat, premit altum corde dolorem\u201d with Seneca ad Pol. 24. Nemesian. Eclog. iv. 17. \u201cQuid vultu mentem premis, ac spem fronte serenas.\u201d Liv. xxviii. 8: \u201cM\u0153rebat quidem et angebatur.... in concilio tamen dissimulans \u00e6gritudinem, elato nimo disseruit.\u201d\nThus she spake; but Mars smote his brawny thighs with his dropped hands, and sorrowing, addressed them:\n\u201cDo not now blame me, ye who possess the Olympic mansions, repairing to the ships of the Greeks, to avenge the slaughter of my son, even although it should be my fate, smitten with the thunderbolt of Jove, to lie together with the dead bodies in blood and dust.\u201d\nThus he spake, and he commanded Fear and Flight to yoke his steeds, but he himself girded on his shining armour. Then indeed some other greater and more grievous wrath and indignation had fallen upon the immortals from Jove, had not Minerva, greatly fearing for all the gods, leaped forth from the vestibule, and left the throne where she sat. From his head she snatched the helmet, and the shield from his shoulders, and taking the brazen spear out of his strong hand, she placed it upright; and rebuked impetuous Mars with [these] words:\n\u201cInfuriated one, infatuated in mind, thou art undone! are thy ears indeed useless for hearing, and have thy sense and shame perished? Dost thou not hear what the white-armed goddess Juno says, and she has just now come from Olympian Jove? Dost thou thyself wish, having fulfilled many misfortunes, to return to Olympus very much grieved, and by compulsion, and also to create a great evil to all the rest? For he will immediately leave the Trojans and magnanimous Greeks, and will come against us, about to disturb us in Olympus; and will seize us one after the other, whoever is culpable and who is not. Wherefore I exhort thee now to lay aside thy wrath on account of thy son, for already some one, even superior to him in strength and in hands, either is slain, or will be hereafter; for it would be a difficult task to liberate [from death] the race and offspring of all men.\u201d\nSo saying, she seated impetuous Mars upon his throne. But Juno called Apollo outside the house, and Iris, who is the messenger among the immortal gods, and addressing them, spoke winged words:\n\u201cJove orders you twain to repair with all haste to Ida, but when ye arrive, and look upon the countenance of Jove, do whatsoever he may urge and command.\u201d\nThen indeed, having thus spoken, venerable Juno retired, and sat down upon her throne; but they, hastening, flew and arrived at Ida of many rills, the mother of wild beasts. They found the far-seeing son of Saturn sitting upon lofty Gargarus, and an odoriferous cloud encircled him around. But coming before cloud-compelling Jove, they stood; nor was he enraged in his mind, beholding them, because they quickly obeyed the commands of his dear wife. And first to Iris he addressed winged words:\n\u201cHaste, begone, fleet Iris, tell all these things to king Neptune, nor be thou a false messenger. Order him, having ceased from the battle and the war, to repair to the assemblies of the gods, or to the vast sea. If, however, he will not obey my words, but shall despise them, let him then consider in his mind and soul, lest, however powerful he may be, he may not be able to withstand me coming against him; for I say that I am superior to him in strength, and elder in birth; but his heart fears riot to assert himself equal to me, whom even the others dread.\u201d\nThus he spoke, nor was wind-footed, swift Iris disobedient: but she descended from the Id\u00e6an mountains to sacred Ilium. And as when snow drifts from the clouds, or cold hail, by the impulse of cloud-dispelling 486 Boreas, so quickly swift Iris with eagerness flew along, and standing near illustrious Neptune, she addressed him:\n\u201cO azure-haired Earth-shaker, I have come hither, bringing a certain message to thee from \u00e6gis-bearing Jove. He has commanded thee, having ceased from the battle and the war, to repair either to the assemblies of the gods or to the vast sea. But if thou wilt not obey his words, but shalt despise them, he threatens that he will come hither himself to fight against thee; and advises thee to avoid his hands, because he asserts that he is greatly superior to thee in strength, and elder in birth: but thy heart does not fear to profess that thou art equal to him, whom even the others dread.\u201d\nBut her illustrious Neptune, greatly indignant, then addressed: \u201cGods! powerful though he be, he surely has spoken proudly, if he will by force restrain me unwilling, who am of equal honour. For we are three brothers [descended] from Saturn, whom Rhea brought forth: Jupiter and I, and Pluto, governing the infernal regions, the third; all things were divided into three parts, and each was allotted his dignity. 487 I in the first place, the lots being shaken, was allotted to inhabit for ever the hoary sea, and Pluto next obtained the pitchy darkness; but Jove in the third place had allotted to him the wide heaven in the air and in the clouds. Nevertheless the earth is still the common property of all, and lofty Olympus. Wherefore I shall not live according to the will of Jove, but although being very powerful, let him remain quiet in his third part; and let him by no means terrify me as a coward with his hands. For it would be better for him to insult with terrific language the daughters and sons whom he hath begotten, who will also through necessity attend to him, exhorting them.\u201d\nBut him the fleet wind-footed Iris then answered: \u201cO 488 azure-haired Earth-shaker, shall I really thus bear back from thee to Jove this relentless and violent reply? Or wilt thou change it at all? The minds of the prudent indeed are flexible. Thou knowest that the Furies are ever attendant on the elders.\u201d  489\nFootnote 486: (return) More literalty, \u201cproducing clear air.\u201d So Eustathius, or Eumathius, Erotic. ii. p. 14: \u0391\u1f30\u03b8\u03c1\u03b7\u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03ad\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u0392\u03bf\u1fe4\u1fe5\u03ac\u03c2. Heyne prefers \u201cin aere genitus.\u201d\nFootnote 487: (return) On this division of things, see Servius on Virg. \u00c6n. i. 143; Fulgent Myth. i. 1, 3. The Scholiasts attempt to refer it to the ancient theory of the elements.\nFootnote 488: (return) These three verses were elegantly applied by Sostrates in mitigating the intemperate language which Antigonus would fain have addressed to Ptolemy Philadelphus. See Sextus Emp. adv. Gramm. i. 13, p. 276.\nFootnote 489: (return) The Furies are said to wait on men in a double sense; either for evil, as upon Orestes after he had slain his mother; or else for good, as upon elders when they are injured, to protect them and avenge their wrongs. This is an instance that the pagans looked upon birthright as a right divine. Eustath. quoted in ed. Dubl. cf. ix. 507.\nBut her again earth-shaking Neptune in turn addressed: \u201cGoddess Iris, very rightly hast thou delivered this opinion; moreover, it is good when a messenger knows fitting things. But on this account severe indignation comes upon my heart and soul, because he wishes to chide with angry words me, equal to him by lot, and doomed to an equal destiny. Nevertheless, at present, although being indignant, I will give way. But another thing will I tell thee, and I will threaten this from my soul; if indeed, without me and prey-hunting Minerva, Juno, Mercury, and king Vulcan, he shall spare lofty Ilium, nor shall wish to destroy it, and give great glory to the Greeks; let him know this, that endless animosity shall arise between us.\u201d\nSo saying, the Earth-shaker quitted the Grecian army, and proceeding, he plunged into the deep; but the Grecian heroes longed for him. And then cloud-compelling Jove addressed Apollo:\n\u201cGo now, dear Ph\u0153bus, to brazen-helmed Hector; for already hath earth-encircling Neptune departed to the vast sea, avoiding our dreadful anger; for otherwise the rest, who are infernal gods, being around Saturn, would surely have heard our quarrel. This, however, is much better for me as well as for himself, that he hath first yielded to my hands, accounting himself worthy of blame, because the matter would not have been accomplished without sweat. But do thou take the fringed \u00e6gis in thy hands, with which, by violently shaking it, do thou greatly terrify the Grecian heroes. To thyself, however, O far-darting [Apollo], let illustrious Hector be a care. So long then arouse his great might unto him, until the Greeks in flight reach the ships and the Hellespont. Thenceforth I shall myself deliberate in deed and word, how the Greeks also may revive from labour.\u201d\nThus he spoke, nor did Apollo disobey his sire, but he descended from the Id\u00e6an mountains like unto a swift hawk the dove-destroyer, the swiftest of birds. He found the son of warlike Priam, noble Hector, sitting; for he no longer lay [on the ground], but had just collected his senses, recognizing his friends around him. But the panting and perspiration had ceased, since the will of \u00e6gis-bearing Jove had aroused him. Then far-darting Apollo, standing near, addressed him:\n\u201cHector, son of Priam, why sittest thou apart from the rest, failing in strength? Has any grief invaded thee?\u201d\nBut him then crest-tossing Hector languidly addressed: \u201cAnd who art thou, best of the gods, who inquirest face to face? Hast thou not heard that Ajax, brave in the din of battle, smote me with a stone upon the breast, and caused me to cease from impetuous valour, when slaying his companions at the sterns of the Grecian ships? And truly I thought that I should this day behold the dead, and the mansion of Pluto, since I was [on the point of] breathing out my dear life.\u201d\nBut him far-darting king Apollo addressed in turn: \u201cBe of good courage now, so great an assistant has the son of Saturn sent forth from Ida to stand up and help thee, Ph\u0153bus Apollo, of the golden sword: who am accustomed to defend at the same time thyself and the lofty city. But come, encourage now thy numerous cavalry to drive their fleet steeds towards the hollow ships; but I, going before, will level the whole way for the horses, and I will turn to flight the Grecian heroes.\u201d\nThus speaking, he inspired great strength into the shepherd of the people. As when some stalled horse, fed on barley 490 at the manger, having snapped his halter, runs over the plain, striking the earth with his feet (accustomed to bathe in the smooth-flowing river), exulting, he holds his head on high, and around his shoulders his mane is dishevelled; and, trusting to his beauty 491\u2014his knees easily bear him to the accustomed places and pasture of the mares: so Hector swiftly moved his feet and knees, encouraging the horsemen, after he had heard the voice of the god. But they\u2014as dogs and rustic men rush against either a horned stag or wild goat; which however a lofty rock and shady forest protect, nor is it destined for them to catch it; but at their clamour 492 a bushy-bearded lion appears in the way, and turns them all back, although ardently pursuing: thus the Greeks hitherto indeed ever kept following in troops, striking with their swords and double-edged spears. But when they beheld Hector entering the ranks of heroes, they were troubled, and the courage of all fell at their feet.\nFootnote 490: (return) Cf. vi. 508; and on \u03ac\u03ba\u03bf\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c3\u03b1\u03c2, Buttm. Lexil. p. 75, sq.\nFootnote 491: (return) Observe the abrupt change of construction.\nFootnote 492: (return) \u1f5d\u03c0\u1f78 \u1f30\u03b1\u03c7\u1fc6\u03c2, attracted by their shouting.\nThen Thoas, the son of Andr\u00e6mon, addressed them, by far the bravest of the \u00c6tolians, skilled in the use of the javelin, and brave in the standing fight; few also of the Greeks excelled him in the council when the youths contended in eloquence. Who wisely counselling, harangued them, and said:\n\u201cO gods, surely I behold with mine eyes this mighty miracle, since Hector has thus risen again, having escaped death. Certainly the mind of each was in great hopes that he had died by the hands of Telamonian Ajax. But some one of the gods has again liberated and preserved Hector, who hath already relaxed the knees of many Greeks; as I think is about [to occur] now also, for not without far-sounding Jove does he stand in the van, thus earnest. But come, let us all obey as I shall desire. Let us order the multitude to retreat towards the ships. But let us, as many as boast ourselves to be the best in the army, take a stand, if indeed, opposing, we may at the outset interrupt him, upraising our spears; and I think that he, although raging, will dread in mind to enter the band of the Greeks.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but all heard him attentively, and obeyed. Those around the Ajaces and king Idomeneus, Teucer, Meriones, and Meges, equal to Mars, calling the chiefs together, marshalled their lines against Hector and the Trojans; whilst the multitude in the rear retreated to the ships of the Greeks. But the Trojans in close array pressed forward; and Hector, taking long strides, led the way; but before him walked Ph\u0153bus Apollo, clad as to his shoulders with a cloud, 493 and he held the mighty, dreadful, fringed, 494 dazzling \u00e6gis, which the artist Vulcan had given to Jove, to be borne along for the routing of men. Holding this in his hands, he led on the people. But the Greeks remained in close array, and a shrill shout arose on both sides. [Many] arrows bounded from the strings, and many spears from gallant hands: some were fixed in the bodies of warlike youths, but many half way, before they had touched the fair body, stuck in the earth, longing to satiate themselves with flesh. As long as Ph\u0153bus Apollo held the \u00e6gis unmoved in his hands, so long did the weapons reach both sides, and the people fell. But when, looking full in the faces of the swift-horsed Greeks, he shook it, and he himself besides shouted very loudly, then he checked the courage in their breasts, and they became forgetful of impetuous valour. But they, as when two wild beasts, in the depth of the dark night, 495 disturb a drove of oxen or a great flock of sheep, coming suddenly upon them, the keeper not being present\u2014so the enfeebled Greeks were routed; for amongst them Apollo sent terror, and gave glory to the Trojans and to Hector. Then indeed man slew man, when the battle gave way. Hector slew Stichius and Arcesilaus; the one the leader of the brazen-mailed B\u0153otians; but the other the faithful companion of magnanimous Menestheus. But \u00c6neas slew Medon and Iasus: Medon indeed was the illegitimate son of godlike O\u00efleus, and brother of Ajax; and he dwelt in Phylace, away from his father-land, having slain a man, the brother of his stepmother Eriopis, whom O\u00efleus had betrothed. Iasus, however, was appointed leader of the Athenians, and was called the son of Sphelus, the son of Bucolus. But Polydamas slew Mecistis, and Polites Echius, in the van, and noble Agenor slew Klonius. Paris also wounded D\u00ebiochous in the extremity of the shoulder from behind, whilst he was flying amongst the foremost combatants; and drove the brass quite through.\nFootnote 493: (return) \u201cNube candentes humeros amictus, Augur Apollo.\u201d\u2014Hor. Od. 2, 31.\nFootnote 494: (return) Cf. ii. 448. Literally, \u201cshaggy, rugged, with fringes around.\u201d\nFootnote 495: (return) Cf. Buttm. Lexil. p. 89, whose translation of \u03bd\u03c5\u03ba\u03c4\u1f78\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bc\u03bf\u03bb\u03b3\u1ff7 I have followed.\nWhilst they were spoiling these of their armour, the Greeks in the meantime falling into the dug trench and stakes, fled here and there; and from necessity entered within the rampart. But Hector, shouting aloud, exhorted the Trojans to rush upon the ships, and to let go the bloody spoils: \u201cAnd whatever person I 496 shall perceive apart from the ships anywhere, there will I cause his death; nor indeed shall his male and female relatives make him when dead partaker of a funeral pile, but dogs shall tear him before our city.\u201d\nFootnote 496: (return) Observe this sudden and animated change of person, which has been noticed by Longinus, xxvii. and Dionys. Halic. de Hom. Poes. \u00a7 8. This irregularity is very common in the Greek Testament. Cf. Luke v. 14; Acts i. 4; xvii. 3; xxiii. 22; xxv. 8; with the notes of Kuinoel and Pric\u00e6us.\nSo saying, with the lash upon the shoulder he drove on his horses against the ranks, cheering on the Trojans; but they all shouting along with him, directed their car-drawing steeds with a mighty clamour. But Ph\u0153bus Apollo in front of them, easily overthrowing the banks of the deep ditch with his feet, cast [them] into the middle; and bridged a causeway long and wide, as far as the cast of a spear reaches, when a man, making trial of his strength, hurls it. In that way they poured onward by troops, and Apollo [went] before them, holding the highly-prized \u00e6gis. But he overthrew the wall of the Greeks very easily, as when any boy does the sand from the shore; who, when amusing himself in childishness he has made playthings, again destroys them with his feet and hands. Thus, O archer Ph\u0153bus, didst thou destroy the great labour and toil of the Greeks, and didst excite flight amongst themselves. In this manner indeed, remaining, they were penned up at the ships; animating each other, and raising up their hands to all the gods, they each loudly offered vows. But the guardian of the Greeks, Gerenian Nestor, most particularly prayed, stretching forth his hands to the starry heaven: \u201cO father Jove, if ever any one in fruitful Argos, to thee burning the fat thighs of either oxen or sheep, supplicated that he might return, and thou didst promise and assent; be mindful of these things, O Olympian, and avert the cruel day; nor thus permit the Greeks to be subdued by the Trojans.\u201d\nThus he spoke, praying: but provident Jove loudly thundered, hearing the prayers of the Nele\u00efan old man. But the Trojans, when they understood the will of \u00e6gis-bearing Jove, rushed the more against the Greeks, and were mindful of battle. And as a mighty wave of the wide-flowing ocean dashes over the sides of a ship, when the force of the wind impels it (for that most of all increases waves); so the Trojans with a mighty shout mounted over the wall. And having driven in their horses, they fought at the sterns, hand to hand with two-edged spears, the one party from their chariots, but the other on high from their black ships, having ascended them with long poles which lay in their vessels, for fighting by sea, well glued, and clad on the tip with brass.\nBut Patroclus, as long indeed as the Greeks and Trojans fought round the wall, without the swift ships, so long he sat in the tent of valour-loving Eurypylus, and delighted him with his discourse; and to the severe wound he applied medicines, assuagers of dark pains. But when he perceived that the Trojans had burst within the walls, and moreover that a clamour and flight of the Greeks had arisen, then indeed he groaned, and smote both his thighs with his downward-bent hands; and lamenting spoke:\n\u201cO Eurypylus, I cannot any longer remain here with thee, although needing much, for now has a mighty contest arisen. But let thy attendant entertain thee, and I will hasten to Achilles, that I may encourage him to fight. And who knows whether, with God\u2019s assistance, persuading, I may move his soul? for the admonition of a companion is effectual.\u201d But him his feet then bore away thus speaking. Meanwhile the Greeks firmly withstood the Trojans rushing on, nor were they able to repel them from the ships, although being fewer; nor could the Trojans, breaking through the phalanxes of the Greeks, be mingled with the tents or ships. But as a plumb-line in the hands of a skilful shipwright (who knows well the whole art by the precepts of Minerva) correctly adjusts the naval plank, so was the battle and war equally extended. Some indeed supported the conflict round one ship, and others round another, but Hector advanced against glorious Ajax. Thus these two undertook the task round one ship, nor were they able, the one to drive the other away and burn the ship with fire, nor the other to repulse him, since a divinity had brought him near. Then illustrious Ajax smote upon the breast with his spear Caletor, son of Clytius, bearing fire against the ship; and falling, he resounded, and the torch fell from his hand. But when Hector perceived with his eyes his cousin fallen in the dust before the black ship, he cheered on the Trojans and Lycians, loudly exclaiming:\n\u201cYe Trojans and Lycians, and close-fighting Dardanians, do not now retire from the fight in this narrow pass. But preserve the son of Clytius, lest the Greeks despoil him of his armour, having fallen in the contest at the ships.\u201d Thus having spoken, he took aim with his shining spear at Ajax, whom he missed; but [he smote] Lycophron, the son of Mastor, the servant of Ajax, a Cytherean, who dwelt with him, since he had killed a man amongst the celebrated Cythereans. He struck him on the head over the ear, with the sharp brass, whilst he was standing near Ajax: but he fell supine to the ground from the stern of the ship in the dust, and his limbs were relaxed. Then Ajax shuddered, and accosted his brother: \u201cDear Teucer, now is our faithful companion, the son of Mastor, whom being domesticated in Cythera, we honoured equally with our beloved parents in our palaces; but him magnanimous Hector has slain. Where now are thy death-bearing arrows and bow, which Ph\u0153bus Apollo gave thee?\u201d\nThus he spoke; but he understood; and running, he stood near him, holding in his hand his bent bow, and arrow-bearing quiver; and very quickly he shot his arrows amongst the Trojans. He struck Clitus, the illustrious son of Pisenor, the companion of Polydamas, the renowned son of Panthous, holding the reins in his hands. He indeed was employed in [guiding] the horses; for he directed them there, where the most numerous phalanxes were thrown in confusion, gratifying Hector and the Trojans. But soon came evil upon him, which no one averted from him, although eager; for the bitter shaft fell upon his neck from behind, and he fell from the chariot, whilst his horses started back, rattling the empty car. But king Polydamas very quickly perceived it, and first came to meet his horses. Them he intrusted to Astynous, son of Protiaon, and exhorted him much to keep the horses near him within sight; but he himself returning was mingled with the foremost combatants. Teucer, however, drew another arrow against brazen-armed Hector, and would have made him cease from battle, at the ships of the Greeks, if striking him while bravely fighting, he had taken away his life. But it did not escape the prudent mind of Jove, who protected Hector, and deprived Teucer, the son of Telamon, of glory; and who (Jove) broke the well-twisted string, in his blameless bow, as he was drawing against [Hector]; but the brass-laden arrow was turned off in another direction, and the bow fell from his hand. Then Teucer shuddered, and addressed his brother:\n\u201cYe gods! a deity, without doubt, cuts short the plans of our battle, who has shaken the bow from my hand, and has snapped asunder the newly-twisted string which I tied to it this morning, that it might sustain the shafts frequently bounding from it.\u201d\nBut him the mighty Telamonian Ajax then answered: \u201cO my friend, permit then thy bow and numerous arrows to lie aside, since a god has confounded them, envying the Greeks; but, taking a long spear in thy hands, and a shield upon thy shoulder, fight against the Trojans, and encourage the other forces. Nor let them take the well-benched ships without labour at least, although having subdued us, but let us be mindful of the fight.\u201d\nThus he spoke; and he placed his bow within the tents. Then around his shoulders he hung a four-fold shield, and upon his brave head fixed a well-made helmet, crested with horse-hair, and the plume nodded dreadfully from above. And he grasped a stout spear, tipped with sharp brass, and hastened to advance, and running very quickly, stood beside Ajax. But when Hector perceived the arrows of Teucer frustrated, he encouraged the Trojans and Lycians, calling aloud:\n\u201cYe Trojans, Lycians, and close-fighting Dardanians, be men, my friends, and be mindful of impetuous valour at the hollow ships; for I have beheld with my eyes the arrows of their chief warrior rendered vain by Jove. Easily recognizable amongst men is the power of Jove, as well among those into whose hands he has delivered superior glory, as those whom he deteriorates, and does not wish to defend. As now he diminishes the might of the Greeks, and aids us. But fight in close array at the ships, and whichever of you, wounded or stricken, shall draw on his death and fate, let him die; it is not inglorious to him to die fighting for his country; but his wife shall be safe, and his children left behind him, his house and patrimony unimpaired, if indeed the Greeks depart with their ships to their dear father-land.\u201d\nSo saying, he kindled the strength and spirit of each: and Ajax again, on the other side, animated his companions:\n\u201cShame, oh Argives! now is the moment for us either to perish, or to be preserved and to repel destruction from the ships. Do ye expect that if crest-tossing Hector capture the ships, ye will reach on foot each his native land? Do ye not hear Hector, who now rages to fire the ships, inciting all his people? Nor indeed does he invite them to come to a dance, but to battle. But for us there is no opinion or design better than this, to join in close fight our hands and strength. Better, either to perish at once, or live, rather than thus uselessly to be wasted away 497 for a length of time in dire contention at the ships, by inferior men.\u201d\nFootnote 497: (return) The verb \u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03b5\u03cd\u03b3\u03b5\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9, which may be compared with \u1f00\u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03b9\u03b2\u03ac\u03b6\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd in Od. xii. 351, is interpreted by Apollonius \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd\u03b5\u1fd6\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9. Cf. Hesych. t. i. p. 1603, t. ii. p. 1278.\nSo saying, he aroused the strength and courage of each. Then Hector indeed slew Schedius, son of Perimedes, prince of the Phoceans; and Ajax slew Laodamas, leader of the infantry, the illustrious son of Antenor. Polydamas slew Cyllenian Otus, the companion of the son of Phyleus, chief of the magnanimous Epeans. Meges rushed upon him, perceiving it, but Polydamas stooped obliquely, and he missed him; for Apollo did not suffer the son of Panthous to be subdued among the foremost warriors. But he wounded Cr\u0153smus in the middle of the breast with his spear, but falling, he resounded; and he stripped the arms from his shoulders. In the meantime Dolops, the descendant of Lampus, well skilled in the spear, leaped upon him (he whom Lampus, son of Laomedon, the best of men, begat, skilled in impetuous fight), who then attacking him in close fight, struck the middle of Meges\u2019s shield with his spear: but the thick corslet defended him, which he wore, compact in its cavities. This Phyleus formerly brought from Ephyre, from the river Selle\u00efs: for his host, Euphetes, king of men, had given it to him, to bear into the battle as a defence against the enemy; and which then warded off destruction from the body of his son. But Meges with his sharp spear smote the base of the highest cone of his brazen horse-haired helmet, and struck off his horse-haired crest; and the whole fell on the ground in the dust, lately shining with purple. Whilst the one (Meges) standing firm, fought with the other (Dolops), and still expected victory; meanwhile, warlike Menelaus came as an assistant to him (Meges), and stood at his side with his spear, escaping notice, and wounded him from behind in the shoulder; but the spear, driven with violence, passed through his breast, proceeding farther; and he fell on his face. Both then rushed on, about to tear the brazen armour from his shoulders; but Hector strenuously exhorted all his relations, and rebuked the gallant Melanippus first, the son of Hicetaon. He till then had fed his curved-footed oxen at Percote, the enemy being yet at a distance; but when the equally-plied barks of the Greeks had arrived, he came back to Troy, and was distinguished amongst the Trojans; and he dwelt near Priam, and he honoured him equally with his sons. But Hector rebuked him; and spoke and addressed him:\n\u201cShall we be thus remiss, O Melanippus? Is not thy heart moved, thy kinsman being slain? Dost thou not perceive how busy they are about the arms of Dolops? But follow; for it is no longer justifiable to fight at a distance with the Greeks, before that either we slay them, or that they tear lofty Ilium from its summit, and slay its citizens.\u201d So saying, he led on, and the godlike hero followed with him. But mighty Telamonian Ajax aroused the Greeks.\n\u201cO my friends, be men, and set honour 498 in your hearts, and have reverence for each other during the vehement conflicts. For more of those men who reverence [each other] are saved than slain; but of the fugitives, neither glory arises, nor any defence.\u201d\nFootnote 498: (return) Cf. v. 530, xiii. 121, with the notes.\nThus he spoke, but they too were eager to repel [the enemy]. And they fixed his advice in their mind, and enclosed the ships with a brazen fence; but Jove urged on the Trojans. And Menelaus, brave in the din of battle, incited Antilochus:\n\u201cO Antilochus, no other of the Greeks is younger than thou, nor swifter of foot, nor strong, as thou [art], to fight. Would 499 that, attacking some hero of the Trojans, thou couldst wound him.\u201d\nFootnote 499: (return) \u0395\u1f30 is put for \u03b5\u1f34\u03b8\u03b5.\nSo saying, he on his part withdrew again, and he aroused him. But he (Antilochus) leaped forth from amongst the foremost warriors, and took aim with his shining spear, gazing around him; but the Trojans retired, the hero hurling. But he did not cast his weapon in vain, for he struck magnanimous Melanippus, the son of Hicetaon, in the breast, near the pap, advancing to the battle. And falling, he made a crash, and his arms rang upon him. But Antilochus sprang upon him, as a dog that rushes on a wounded fawn, which the huntsman aiming at, has wounded, leaping from its lair, and relaxed its limbs under it. Thus, O Melanippus, did warlike Antilochus spring on thee, about to despoil thee of thy armour: but he did not escape noble Hector, who came against him, running through the battle. But Antilochus did not await him, though being an expert warrior, but he fled, like unto a wild beast that has done some mischief, which, having slain a dog or herdsman in charge of oxen, flies, before a crowd of men is assembled: so fled the son of Nestor; but the Trojans and Hector, with great clamour, poured forth their deadly weapons. Yet when he reached the band of his own companions, being turned round, he stood. But the Trojans, like raw-devouring lions, rushed upon the ships, and were fulfilling the commands of Jove; who ever kept exciting their great strength, and enervated the courage of the Greeks, and took away their glory; but encouraged those. For his mind wished to bestow glory on Hector, the son of Priam, that he might cast the dreadfully-burning, indefatigable fire upon the crooked barks; and accomplish all the unseasonable prayer of Thetis.\nFor this did provident Jove await, till he should behold with his eyes the flame of a burning vessel; for from that time he was about to make a retreat of the Trojans from the ships, and to afford glory to the Greeks. Designing these things, he aroused Hector, the son of Priam, against the hollow ships, although himself very eager. But he raged, as when Mars [rages], brandishing his spear, or [when] a destructive fire rages in the mountains, in the thickets of a deep wood. And foam arose about his mouth, and his eyes flashed from beneath his grim eyebrows; and the helm was shaken awfully upon the temples of Hector, fighting; for Jove himself from the \u00e6ther was an assistant to him, and honoured and glorified him alone amongst many men; because he was destined to be short-lived: for Pallas Minerva already impelled him towards the fatal day, by the might of the son of Peleus. And he wished to break the ranks of heroes, trying them, wheresoever he beheld the greatest crowd and the best arms. But not thus was he able to break through them, although very eager; for they, compact in squares, sustained his attack, as a lofty, huge cliff, being near the hoary deep, which abides the impetuous inroads of the shrill winds, and the swollen billows which are dashed against it. Thus the Greeks firmly awaited the Trojans, nor fled. But he, gleaming with fire on all sides, rushed upon the crowd; and fell upon them, as when an impetuous wave, wind-nurtured from the clouds, dashes against a swift ship, and it [the ship] is wholly enveloped with the spray, and a dreadful blast of wind roars within the sail: but the sailors tremble in mind, fearing, because they are borne but a little way from death: thus was the mind of the Greeks divided in their breasts. He, however, like a destructive lion coming upon oxen which feed in myriads in the moist ground of a spacious marsh, and amongst them a keeper not very skilful in fighting with a wild beast for the slaughter of a crooked-horned ox; 500 he indeed always accompanies the foremost or the hindmost cattle, whilst [the lion] springing into the midst, devours an ox, and all the rest fly in terror; thus then were the Greeks wondrously put to flight by Hector and father Jove, all\u2014but [Hector] slew only Mycen\u00e6an Periphetes, the dear son of Copreus, who went with a messenger of king Eurystheus to mighty Hercules. From this far inferior father sprung a son superior in all kinds of accomplishments, as well in the race as in the combat, and who in prudence was among the first of the Mycen\u00e6ans, who at that time gave into the hands of Hector superior glory. For, turning backwards, he trod upon the rim of his shield which he bore, a fence against javelins, which reached to his feet; by this incommoded, he fell upon his back, and the helmet terribly sounded round the temples of him fallen. But Hector quickly perceived, and running, stood near him, and fixed his spear in his breast, and slew him near his beloved companions, nor indeed were they able, although grieved for their comrade, to avail him, for they themselves greatly feared noble Hector. But they retreated within the line of their ships, 501 and the extreme ships enclosed them, which were first drawn up: and the others were poured in. The Argives, therefore, from necessity, retreated from the foremost vessels, and remained there at their tents in close array, and were not dispersed through the camp, for shame and fear restrained them, and they unceasingly exhorted one another with shouting. More particularly did Gerenian Nestor, the guardian of the Greeks, adjure them by their parents, earnestly supplicating each man:\n\u201cO my friends, be men, and place a sense of reverence 502 of other men in your minds. Call to memory, each of you, your children, wives, property, and parents, as well he to whom they survive as he to whom they are dead; for by those not present I here supplicate you to stand bravely, nor be ye turned to flight.\u201d So saying, he aroused the might and spirit of each. But for them Minerva removed the heaven-sent cloud of darkness from their eyes; and abundant light arose to them on both sides, both towards the ships and towards the equally destructive battle. Then they observed Hector, brave in the din of battle, and his companions, as well whatever of them stood behind and did not fight as those who fought the battle at the swift ships. Nor was it longer pleasing to the mind of great-hearted Ajax to stand there where the other sons of the Greeks stood together; but he went about upon the decks of the vessels, taking long strides, and wielding in his hands a great sea-fighting pole, studded with iron nails, twenty-two cubits long. And as when a man well skilled in vaulting upon steeds, who, after he has selected four horses out of a greater number, driving them from the plain, urges them towards a mighty city, along the public way; and him many men and women behold with admiration; but he, always leaping up firmly and safely, changes alternately from one to the other, 503 whilst they are flying along: so went Ajax along many decks of swift ships, shouting loudly, and his voice reached to the sky; and, always terribly shouting, he ordered the Greeks to defend their ships and tents. Nor, indeed, did Hector remain among the crowd of well-corsleted Trojans; but as the tawny eagle pounces upon a flock of winged birds, feeding on a river\u2019s bank, either geese or cranes, or long-necked swans, so did Hector direct his course towards an azure-prowed vessel, rushing against it; but Jove, with a very mighty hand, impelled him from behind, and animated his forces along with him. Again was a sharp contest waged at the ships. You would have said that unwearied and indefatigable they met each other in battle, so furiously they fought. And to them fighting this was the opinion: the Greeks, indeed, thought that they could not escape from destruction, but must perish. But the soul of each within his breast, to the Trojans, hoped to burn the ships, and slay the Grecian heroes. They thinking these things, opposed one another.\nFootnote 500: (return) I.e. about its carcase. The Scholiast also gives another interpretation, viz. \u201cto prevent his killing an ox;\u201d but Kennedy, with reason, prefers the former one.\nFootnote 501: (return) \u201cThey now held their ships in view, which were arranged in a two-fold line, from the outermost whereof the Greeks were driven in upon their tents, disposed in the intermediate position between the lines of the vessels.\u201d\u2014Kennedy.\nFootnote 502: (return) Cf. v. 530.\nFootnote 503: (return) As the \u201cdesultores\u201d (Liv. xxiii. 29). Hence \u201cdesultor amoris,\u201d in Ovid, Amor. i. 3, 15, to denote an inconstant lover; \u201cdesultoria scientia,\u201d Apuleius, Met. i. pr\u00e6f., speaking of his own varied fable.\nBut Hector seized the stern of a sea-traversing bark, beautiful, swift, which had carried Protesilaus 504 to Troy, but did not bear him back again to his father-land. Round his ship the Greeks and Trojans were now slaying one another in close combat; nor did they indeed at a distance await the attacks of arrows and of javelins, but standing near, having one mind, they fought with sharp battle-axes and hatchets, with large swords and two-edged spears. And many fair swords, black-hilted, with massive handles, fell to the ground, some indeed from the hands, and others from the shoulders of the contending heroes; and the dark earth streamed with gore. But Hector, after he had seized [the vessel] by the stern, did not let go, holding the furthest 505 edge with his hands, and he cheered on the Trojans:\n\u201cBring fire, and at the same time do yourselves together excite the battle. Now hath Jove vouchsafed us a day worth all, 506 to take the ships, which, coming hither against the will of the gods, brought many evils upon us through the cowardice of our elders, who kept me back when desirous myself to fight at the sterns of the ships, and restrained the people. But if, indeed, far-sounding Jove then injured 507 our minds, he now impels and orders us.\u201d Thus he spoke, but they rushed the more against the Greeks. Even Ajax no longer sustained them, for he was overwhelmed with darts; but, thinking he should fall, retired back a short space to the seven-feet bench, and deserted the deck of his equal ship. There he stood watching, and with his spear continually repulsed the Trojans from the ships, whoever might bring the indefatigable fire; and always shouting dreadfully, he animated the Greeks:\n\u201cO my friends, Grecian heroes, servants of Mars, be men, my friends, and be mindful of impetuous strength. Whether do we think that we have any assistants in the rear, or any stronger rampart which may avert destruction from the men? Indeed there is not any other city near, fortified with towers, where we may be defended, having a reinforcing army; but bordering on the sea, we sit in the plain of the well-armed Trojans, far away from our native land; therefore safety is in our exertions, not in remission of battle.\u201d\nHe said, and furious, charged with his sharp spear whoever of the Trojans was borne towards the hollow ships with burning fire, for the sake of Hector who incited them;\u2014him Ajax wounded, receiving him with his long spear; and he slew twelve in close fight before the ships.\nFootnote 504: (return) The reader will do well to read the beautiful sketch of this hero\u2019s deification after death in Philostratus\u2019s preface to the Heroica. He was the first of the Greeks who fell, being slain by Hector as he leaped from the vessel (Hygin. Fab. ciii.; Auson. Epigr. xx.). He was buried on the Chersonese, near the city Plagusa. Hygin. P.A. ii. 40.\nFootnote 505: (return) The Oxford translator renders \u1f04\u03c6\u03bb\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u201cthe tafferel.\u201d\nFootnote 506: (return) This is, I think, much more spirited than the Scholiast\u2019s \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03c0\u03cc\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd \u1f30\u03c3\u03cc\u1fe4\u1fe5\u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd, or \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u03bb\u03bc\u03b7\u03b8\u03ad\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd. Supply, therefore, \u1f75\u03bc\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd.\nFootnote 507: (return) I.e. befooled our senses, taking away our proper spirit. So Theogn\u03b9\u03c3 has \u03c5\u03bf\u03bf\u1fd6 \u03b2\u03b5\u03b2\u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f10\u03c3\u03b8\u03bb\u03bf\u1fe6.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THE SIXTEENTH.\nARGUMENT.\nPatroclus at length obtains permission from Achilles, and enters the fight, on condition that he should return after liberating the Greeks from their immediate peril. He comes opportunely to the assistance of Ajax, routs the Trojans, and kills Sarpedon, whose body, but without the armour, is rescued by Hector and Glaucus. Forgetful of his promise to Achilles, Patroclus pursues the Trojans to their very walls. He is driven back by Apollo, but slays the charioteer of Hector, Cebriones. He is suddenly afflicted with stupor by Apollo, and dies by the hand of Hector, whose death he foretells. Hector pursues Automedon with the chariot of Achilles towards the ships.\nThus, then, they were fighting for the well-benched ship. But Patroclus stood beside Achilles, the shepherd of the people, shedding warm 508 tears; as a black-water fountain, which pours its sable tide down from a lofty rock. But swift-footed noble Achilles, seeing, pitied him, and addressing him, spoke winged words:\n\u201cWhy weepest thou, O Patroclus, as an infant girl, who, running along with her mother, importunes to be taken up, catching her by the robe, and detains her hastening; and weeping, looks at her [mother] till she is taken up?\u2014like unto her, O Patroclus, dost thou shed the tender tear. Dost thou bear any tidings to the Myrmidons, or to me myself? Or hast thou alone heard any news from Phthia? They say that, indeed, Men\u0153tius, the son of Actor, still lives, and that Peleus, the son of \u00c6acus, lives amongst the Myrmidons: for deeply should we lament for either of them dying. Or dost thou mourn for the Greeks, because they thus perish at their hollow ships, on account of their injustice? Speak out, nor conceal it in thy mind, that we both may know.\u201d\nFootnote 508: (return) Longus, iv. 7: \u0394\u03ac\u03ba\u03c1\u03c5\u03b1 \u1f26\u03bd \u1f10\u03c0\u1f76 \u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b5\u03c1\u03bc\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03b1, which Mollus, referring to Homer, thus explains: \u201cLacrym\u00e6, qu\u00e6 ex magno impetu, et animi affectu quasi calido, neutiquam simulat\u00e6 prosiliebant.\u201d\nBut deeply sighing, O knight Patroclus, him thou didst address: \u201cO Achilles, son of Peleus, by far the bravest of the Greeks, be not indignant; since a grief so heavy does oppress the Greeks: for now all they, as many as were formerly most valiant, lie in the ships, wounded or stricken. Brave Diomede, indeed, the son of Tydeus, is wounded, and spear-renowned Ulysses is stricken, as also Agamemnon; and Eurypylus is also wounded in the thigh with an arrow. About these, indeed, physicians skilled in many remedies are employed healing their wounds: but thou, O Achilles, art inexorable. Never may such anger seize me at least, as thee, O cruelly brave, dost preserve. What other after-born man will be defended by thee, if thou will not avert unworthy ruin from the Greeks? merciless one! Certainly the knight Peleus was not thy father, nor Thetis thy mother; but the grey 509 Ocean produced thee, and the lofty rocks; for thy mind is cruel. But if thou wouldst avoid any oracle in thy mind, and thy venerable mother has told any to thee from Jove, at least send me quickly, and at the same time give me the rest of the army of the Myrmidons, if perchance I may become any aid to the Greeks. Grant me also to be armed on my shoulders with thy armour, if perchance the Trojans, likening me to thee, may cease from battle, and the warlike sons of the Greeks, now fatigued, breathe again; and there be a short respite from war. 510 But we [who are] fresh, can easily repulse men worn out with battle from our ships and tents towards the city.\u201d\nFootnote 509: (return) Alluding to the colour of the ocean when ruffled by a storm. With the following passage compare Theocrit. iii. 15, sqq.; Eurip. Bacch. 971, sqq.; Virg. \u00c6n. iv. 365, sqq.; E\u03c8l. viii. 43, sqq., with Macrob. Sat. v. 11.\nFootnote 510: (return) Cf. xi. 800, with the note.\nThus he spoke, supplicating, very rash; for, assuredly, he was about to supplicate for himself evil death and fate. Whom, deeply sighing, swift-footed Achilles addressed:\n\u201cAlas! most noble Patroclus, what hast thou said? I neither regard any oracle which I have heard, nor has my venerable mother told anything to me from Jove. But this bitter grief comes upon my heart and soul, when a man who excels in power, wishes to deprive his equal 511 of his portion, and to take back his reward because he excels in power.\u201d\nFootnote 511: (return) I.e. in dignity.\n\u201cThis to me is a bitter grief, since I have suffered sorrows in my mind. The maid whom the sons of the Greeks selected as a reward for me, and [whom] I won by my spear, having sacked a well-fortified city, her has king Agamemnon, son of Atreus, taken back out of my hands, as from some dishonoured alien. But we shall allow these things to be among the things that were; 512 nor is it right, indeed, to be continually enraged in one\u2019s mind. Certainly I affirmed that I would not put a stop to my wrath, before that clamour and war should reach my ships. But do thou put on thy shoulders my famous armour, and lead on the war-loving Myrmidons to battle; since now a black cloud of Trojans hath strongly surrounded the ships, and the Greeks are hemmed in by the shore of the sea, possessing now but a small portion of land. And the whole city of the Trojans has rushed on, confident, because they behold not the front of my helmet gleaming near. Certainly, quickly flying, would they have filled the trenches with their bodies, if king Agamemnon had known mildness to me: but now they are fighting around the army. For the spear does not rage in the hands of Diomede, the son of Tydeus, to avert destruction from the Greeks: nor do I at all hear the voice of Agamemnon shouting from his odious head; but [the voice] of man-slaughtering Hector, animating the Trojans, resounds: whilst they with a shout possess the whole plain, conquering the Greeks in battle. Yet even thus, Patroclus, do thou fall on them bravely, warding off destruction from the ships; nor let them consume the vessels with blazing fire, and cut off thy own return. But obey, as I shall lay the sum of my advice in thy mind, in order that thou mayest obtain for me great honour and glory from all the Greeks; and they may send back to me the beautiful maid, and afford [me] besides rich presents. Having repulsed the enemy from the ships, return back: and if, indeed, the loud-thundering husband of Juno permit thee to obtain glory, do not be desirous of fighting with the warlike Trojans apart from me; for thou wouldst render me more dishonoured; nor, exulting in the battle and havoc, lead on as far as Ilium, slaughtering the Trojans, lest some of the immortal gods come down from Olympus [against thee]; for far-darting Apollo greatly loves them. But return after thou hast given safety to the ships, and allow the others to contend through the plain. For would that, O father Jove, Minerva, and Apollo, not one of the Trojans, as many as there are, may escape death, nor any of the Greeks: whilst to us two it [may be granted] to avoid destruction, that we alone might overthrow the sacred bulwarks of Troy.\u201d\nFootnote 512: (return) I.e. \u201cLet bygones be bygones.\u201d\u2014Dublin Ed.\nThus they indeed discussed these matters with each other. But Ajax no longer remained firm, 513 for he was pressed hard with weapons; because the counsel of Jove overpowered him, and the fierce Trojans hurling. And a dreadful clang did his glittering helmet round his temples emit, being struck, and he was constantly smitten upon the well-made studs of his casque. He was fatigued in the left shoulder, by always firmly holding his moveable shield; nor could they, pressing him all around with their weapons, drive him [from his place]. Unceasingly afflicted was he with severe panting, and everywhere from his limbs poured copious perspiration, nor was he able to respire; for everywhere evil was heaped upon evil.\nFootnote 513: (return) Compare the splendid description in Ennius apud Macrob. Sat. vi. 3:\u2014\n\n\nUndique conveniunt, vel imber, tela Tribuno.\nConfigunt parmam, tinnit hastilibus umbo,\n\u00c6rat\u00e6 sonitant gale\u00e6: sed nec pote quisquam\nUndique nitendo corpus discerpere ferro.\nSemper abundanteis hastas frangitque, quatitque,\nTotum sudor habet corpus, multumque laborat:\nNec respirandi fit copia pr\u00e6pete ferro.\n\n\nCf. Virg. \u00c6n. ix. 806, sqq.; Stat. Theb. ii. 668, sqq.\nDeclare now to me, ye Muses, possessing Olympic habitations, how first the fire fell upon the ships of the Greeks!\nHector, standing near, struck the ashen spear of Ajax with his great sword, at the socket of the blade behind, and cut it quite off; Telamonian Ajax indeed vainly brandished the mutilated spear in his hand; but the brazen blade rang, falling upon the earth at a distance from him. Then Ajax knew in his blameless soul, and shuddered at the deeds of the gods; because the lofty thundering Jove cut off his plans of war, and willed the victory to the Trojans. Wherefore he retired out of the reach of the weapons, and they hurled the indefatigable fire at the swift ships, the inextinguishable flame of which was immediately diffused around. Thus indeed the flame surrounded the stern; but Achilles, smiting his thighs, addressed Patroclus:\n\u201cHaste, O most noble steed-directing Patroclus (I perceive, indeed, the fury of the hostile fire at the ships), lest they now take the vessels, and there be not an opportunity of flying; put on thy armour very quickly, and I shall assemble the forces.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but Patroclus armed himself in glittering brass. First, indeed, he put the beautiful greaves around his legs, fitted with clasps; next he placed the corslet of the swift-footed descendant of \u00c6acus upon his breast, variegated, and studded with stars; and suspended from his shoulders his silver-studded sword, brazen, and then the great and sturdy shield. But upon his gallant head he placed the well-made helmet, crested with horse-hair; and dreadfully the plume nodded from above. He took besides two strong spears, which well fitted his hands; but the spear alone of blameless \u00c6acides, ponderous, large, and strong, he did not take; which, indeed, no other of the Greeks could brandish, but Achilles alone knew how to wield it; a Pelian ash which Chiron had given to his sire, [cut] from the tops of Pelion, about to be death to heroes. He also commanded Automedon quickly to yoke the steeds, whom, next to rank-breaking Achilles, he most honoured, because he was most faithful to him in battle, to stand the charge. Wherefore Automedon yoked the fleet horses, Xanthus and Balius, which kept pace with the winds. Them the Harpy Podarg\u00e9 bore to Zephyrus, the wind, while feeding in the meadows by the stream of Oceanus. And in the outer harness he fastened illustrious Pedasus, whom Achilles led away long since, having sacked the city of E\u00ebtion; and which [steed], though being mortal, accompanied immortal steeds. But Achilles, going about, armed all the Myrmidons through the tents with their armour; but they, like carnivorous wolves, in whose hearts is immense strength, and which, having slain a great horned stag in the mountains, tearing, devour it; but the jaws of all are red with blood: and then they rush in a pack, lapping with slender tongues the surface of the dark water from a black-water fountain, vomiting forth clots of blood; but the courage in their breasts is dauntless, and their stomach is distended: so rushed the leaders and chiefs of the Myrmidons round the brave attendant of swift-footed \u00c6acides, and amongst them stood warlike Achilles, animating both the steeds and the shield-bearing warriors.\nFifty were the swift galleys which Achilles, dear to Jove, led to Troy; and in each were fifty men, companions at the benches. But he had appointed five leaders, in whom he put trust, to command them; and he himself, being very powerful, governed. One troop indeed Menesthius, with flexible corslet, commanded, the son of Sperchius, a Jove-descended river; whom the daughter of Peleus, fair Polydora, bore to indefatigable Sperchius, a woman having been embraced by a god; although, according to report, to Borus, son of Perieres, who openly espoused her, giving infinite marriage gifts. But warlike Eudorus commanded another [company], clandestinely begotten, whom Polymela, the daughter of Phylas, graceful in the dance, bore. Her the powerful slayer of Argus 514 loved, beholding her with his eyes among the dancers at a choir of golden-bowed Diana, huntress-maid; and immediately ascending to an upper chamber, pacific Mercury secretly lay with her: whence she bore to him a son, Eudorus, swift to run, and also a warrior. But after that birth-presiding Ilithyia had brought him into light, and he beheld the splendour of the sun, the mighty strength of Echecleus, son of Actor, led her to his house when he had given innumerable marriage-gifts; whilst aged Phylas carefully nurtured and educated him, tenderly loving him, as if being his own son. The third, warlike Pisander led, the son of M\u00e6malus, who, after the companion of the son of Peleus, surpassed all the Myrmidons in fighting with the spear. The fourth, the aged knight Ph\u0153nix commanded; and Alcimedon, the illustrious son of La\u00ebrceus, the fifth. But when Achilles, marshalling them well, had placed all with their leaders, he enjoined this strict command:\n\u201cYe Myrmidons, let none of you be forgetful of the threats with which, at the swift ships, ye did threaten the Trojans, during all my indignation, and blamed me, each of you [in this manner]: \u2018O cruel son of Peleus! surely thy mother nurtured thee in wrath: relentless! thou who at the ships detainest thy companions against their will. Let us at least return home again in our sea-traversing barks, since pernicious wrath has thus fallen upon thy mind.\u2019 These things ye frequently said to me, when assembled; and now the great task of war appears, of which ye were hitherto desirous. Let each one here, having a valiant heart, fight against the Trojans.\u201d\nFootnote 514: (return) Mercury.\nThus speaking, he aroused the might and spirit of each, and their ranks were condensed the more when they heard the king. As when a man constructs the wall of a lofty mansion with closely-joined stones, guarding against the violence of the winds, so closely were their helmets and bossed shields linked: then shield pressed upon shield, helmet upon helmet, and man upon man; and the horse-hair crests upon the shining cones of [their helmets] nodding, touched each other; so close stood they to each other. Before all were armed two warriors. Patroclus and Automedon, having one mind, to fight in the front of the Myrmidons. But Achilles hastened to go into his tent; and he opened the lid of a chest, beautiful, variously adorned, which silver-footed Thetis placed, to be carried in his ship, having filled it well with garments, and wind-resisting cloaks, and napped tapestry. And in it was a cup curiously wrought, nor did any other of men drink dark wine from it, nor did he pour out [from it] libations to any of the gods, except to father Jove. This then, taking from the coffer, he first purified with sulphur, and then washed in a crystal rivulet of water; but he himself washed his hands, and drew off the dark wine. Next, standing in the middle of the area, he prayed, and offered a libation of wine, looking up to heaven; nor did he escape the notice of thunder-rejoicing Jove:\n\u201cO king Jove, Dodonean, Pelasgian, dwelling afar off, presiding over wintry Dodona; but around dwell thy priests, the Selli, with unwashed feet, and sleeping upon the ground; certainly thou didst formerly hear my voice when praying: thou hast honoured me, and hast greatly injured the people of the Greeks; wherefore now also accomplish this additional request for me; for I myself will remain in the assemblage 515 of ships, but I am sending forth my companion with the numerous Myrmidons to battle; along with him, do thou send forth glory, O far-sounding Jove! embolden his heart within his breast, that even Hector may know whether my attendant, even when alone, knows how to wage war, or [only] when these invincible hands rage with him, when I likewise go forth to the slaughter of Mars. But after he has repelled the contest and the tumult from the ships, unscathed let him return to me, to the swift barks, with all his armour and his close-fighting companions.\u201d\nFootnote 515: (return) So \u03b8\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bf\u03bd \u1f00\u03b3\u1ff6\u03bd\u03b1, vi. 298. The Scholiast interprets it \u1f10\u03bd \u03bd\u03b1\u03c5\u03c3\u03c4\u03ac\u03b8\u03bc\u1ff3.\nThus he spoke, praying; and provident Jove heard him. One part indeed the Sire granted him, but refused the other. He granted that he should repel the conflict and tumult from the ships, but he refused that he should return safe from the battle. He, on his part, having made a libation and prayed to father Jove, again entered his tent, and replaced the cup in the chest. Then coming out, he stood before the tent, for he still wished in his mind to behold the grievous conflict of Trojans and Greeks.\nBut those that were armed at the same time with magnanimous Patroclus, marched orderly, till they rushed upon the Trojans, with high hopes. Immediately they were poured out, like unto wasps dwelling by the road-side, which silly boys are wont to irritate, incessantly harassing them, possessing cells by the way-side; and cause a common evil to many. And if by chance any traveller, passing by, unintentionally disturb them, then they, possessing a valiant heart, all fly forth, and fight for their young. The Myrmidons then, having the heart and courage of these, poured out from the ships, and an inextinguishable tumult arose. But Patroclus cheered on his companions, loudly shouting:\n\u201cYe Myrmidons, companions of Achilles, the son of Peleus, be men, my friends, and be mindful of impetuous valour; that we, his close-fighting servants, may honour the son of Peleus, who is by far the bravest of the Greeks at the ships; and that the son of Atreus, wide-ruling Agamemnon, may know his fault, that he nothing honoured the bravest of the Greeks.\u201d\nThus speaking, he aroused the might and spirits of each: and in dense array they fell upon the Trojans: but the ships re-echoed dreadfully around from the Greeks shouting. But the Trojans, when they beheld the brave son of Men\u0153tius, himself and his attendant glittering in arms, the mind to all of them was disturbed, and the phalanxes were deranged, deeming that the swift-footed son of Peleus at the ships had cast away his wrath, and resumed friendship: then each one gazed about where he might escape utter destruction.\nBut Patroclus first took aim with his shining spear from the opposite side right into the midst, where they were huddled together in greatest numbers at the stern of the ship of magnanimous Protesilaus, and wounded Pyr\u00e6chmes, who led the P\u00e6onian equestrian warriors from Amydon, from the wide-flowing Axius. Him he smote upon the right shoulder, and he fell on his back in the dust groaning; but the P\u00e6onians, his companions, were put to flight around him, for Patroclus caused fear to them all, having slain their leader, who was very brave to fight. And he drove them from the ships, and extinguished the blazing fire. But the ship was left there half-burnt, whilst the Trojans were routed with a prodigious tumult: and the Greeks were poured forth amongst the hollow ships; and mighty confusion was created. And as when, from the lofty summit of a great mountain, 516 lightning-driving Jove dislodges a dense cloud, and all the eminences and highest ridges and glens appear, whilst the boundless \u00e6ther is burst open 517 throughout the heaven; so the Greeks respired for a little, having repelled the hostile fire from their vessels. But of battle there was no cessation: for the Trojans were by no means yet totally routed from the black ships by the warlike Greeks, but still resisted, and retreated from the ships from necessity. Then of the generals, man slew man, the fight being scattered; and first, the brave son of Men\u0153tius forthwith with his sharp spear smote the thigh of Are\u00eflochus when turned about, and drove the brass quite through: but the spear broke the bone, and he fell prone upon the earth. But warlike Menelaus then wounded Thoas in the breast, exposed near the shield, and relaxed his limbs. But Phylides, perceiving Amphiclus rushing against him, anticipated him, taking aim at the extremity of his leg, where the calf of a man is thickest; the tendons were severed all round 518 by the point of the spear, and darkness overshadowed his eyes. Then the sons of Nestor, the one, Antilochus, struck Atymnius with his sharp spear, and drove the brazen lance through his flank; and he fell before him: but Maris, standing before the carcase, rushed upon Antilochus hand to hand with his spear, enraged on account of his brother; but godlike Thrasymedes, taking aim, anticipated him before he had wounded [Antilochus], nor did he miss him, [but wounded him] immediately near the shoulder; and the point of the spear cut off the extremity of the arm from the muscles, and completely tore away the bone. Falling, he made a crash, and darkness veiled his eyes. Thus to Erebus went these two, subdued by two brothers, the brave companions of Sarpedon, the spear-renowned sons of Amisodarus, who nourished the invincible 519 Chim\u00e6ra, a destruction to many men. But Ajax, the son of O\u00efleus, rushing upon Cleobulus, took him alive, impeded in the crowd; and there relaxed his strength, striking him upon the neck with his hilted sword. And the whole sword was warmed over with blood, and purple 520 death and stern fate possessed his eyes.\nFootnote 516: (return) Milton, P.L. ii. 488:\u2014\n\n\n\u201cAs when from mountain tops the dusky clouds\nAscending, while the north wind sleeps, o\u2019er-spread\nHeav\u2019n\u2019s cheerful face, the louring element\nScowls o\u2019er the darkened landskip snow, or shower;\nIf chance the radiant sun with farewell sweet\nExtend his evening beam, the fields revive,\nThe birds their notes renew and bleating herds\nAttest their joy, that hill and valley rings.\u201d\n\n\nFootnote 517: (return) Virg. \u00c6n. i. 591:\u2014\n\n\n\u201cVix ea fatus erat, cum circumfusa repente\nScindit se nubes, et in \u00e6thera purgat apertum.\u201d\n\n\nCf. Drakenb. on Silius, iii. 196; Kuinoel on Matth. iii. 16; Acts vii. 55.\nFootnote 518: (return) Heyne would construe \u03b1\u1f30\u03c7\u03bc\u1fc7 with \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76, referring to viii. 86; xiii. 441, 570; Pind. Nem. viii. 40.\nFootnote 519: (return) On the adjective \u1f00\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9\u03bc\u03b1\u03ba\u03ad\u03c4\u03b7\u03bd, see intpp. on Soph. \u0152d. R. 176; \u0152d. Col. 127.\nFootnote 520: (return) I.e. \u201catra mors,\u201d Tibull. i. 3, 5. Cf. vs. 370: \u0398\u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bc\u03ad\u03bb\u03b1\u03bd \u03bd\u03ad\u03c6\u03bf\u03c2.\nThen Peneleus and Lycon engaged in close combat, for they had missed each other with their spears, and both had hurled in vain; 521 therefore they ran on again with their swords; then Lycon on his part struck the cone of the horse-hair-crested helmet, and the sword was broken at the hilt.\nFootnote 521: (return) On \u03bc\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03bf\u03c2 see Kennedy. Suidas: \u1f49 \u03bc\u1f72\u03bd \u03bf\u03b9\u03b7\u03c4\u1f74\u03c2 (i.e. Homer) \u1f10\u03c0\u1f76 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03af\u03bf\u03c5 \u1f10\u03bd\u03b4\u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u1f78 \u039c\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bf\u1f31 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03c4\u03c1\u03b1\u03b3\u03b9\u03ba\u03bf\u1f76, \u1f10\u03c0\u1f76 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03bf\u1f30\u03ba\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u1fe6\u00b7 So Hesych. \u03bc\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03bf\u03c2' \u03bc\u03ac\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2.\nBut Peneleus smote him in the neck below the ear, and the whole sword entered, and the skin alone retained it: the head hung down, and his limbs were relaxed.\nMeriones also, overtaking him with rapid feet, wounded Acamas in the right shoulder, as he was about to ascend his chariot; and he fell from his chariot, and darkness was poured over his eyes.\nBut Idomeneus struck Erymas in the mouth with the pitiless brass; and the brazen weapon passed right through from the opposite side down under the brain, and then cleft the white bones. And his teeth were dashed out, and both eyes were filled with gore, which, gaping, he forced 522 out from his mouth and from his nostrils; and the black cloud of death enveloped him. Thus these leaders of the Greeks slew each a man. And as destructive wolves impetuously rush on lambs or kids, snatching them from the flocks, which are dispersed upon the mountains by the negligence of the shepherd; but they, perceiving them, immediately tear in pieces them, having an unwarlike heart: so did the Greeks rush upon the Trojans, but they were mindful of dire-sounding flight, and forgot resolute valour. But mighty Ajax ever longed to aim his javelin at brazen-armed Hector; but he, from his skill in war, covering himself as to his broad shoulders with a bull\u2019s-hide shield, watched the hissing of the arrows and the whizzing of the javelins. Already indeed he knew the victory of battle was inclining to the other side; yet even thus he remained, and saved his beloved companions.\nFootnote 522: (return) Made to rush with a bubbling noise, the verb here \u201cexpressing the violent streaming of a liquid.\u201d See Buttm. Lexil. p. 484; and compare my note on \u00c6sch. Ag. p. 137, n. 2, ed. Bohn.\nAnd as when from Olympus comes a cloud into heaven, 523 after a clear sky, when Jove stretches forth a whirlwind, thus was the clamour and rout of those [flying] from the ships. Nor did they repass [the trench] in seemly plight, but his fleet-footed steeds bore away Hector with his arms; and he deserted the Trojan people, whom against their will the deep trench detained. And many fleet car-drawing steeds left in the foss the chariots of their masters, broken at the extremity of the pole. But Patroclus pursued, vehemently cheering on 524 the Greeks, and devising destruction for the Trojans; but they, with clamour and rout, filled all the ways after they were dispersed. A storm [of dust] was tossed up beneath the clouds, and the solid-hoofed horses pressed back towards the city, from the ships and tents. But Patroclus, wherever he perceived the army in greatest confusion, thither directed [his steeds], exclaiming in a threatening manner; whilst beneath his axles men fell prone from their chariots, and the chariots were overturned. Then, from the opposite side, the fleet immortal steeds, which the gods had given as splendid presents to Peleus, eagerly pressing on, bounded quite across the trench; for his mind urged him against Hector, for he longed to strike him, but his swift horses kept bearing him away.\nFootnote 523: (return) Heaven is here distinguished from Olympus, as in i. 597, and Tibull. iv. i. 131:\u2014\n\n\n\u201cJupiter ipse levi vectus per inania curru\nAdfuit, et c\u0153lo vicinum liquit Olympum.\u201d\n\n\nFootnote 524: (return) From this sense of \u03ba\u03b5\u03bb\u03b5\u03cd\u03c9 arises its nautical meaning, also \u03ba\u03b5\u03bb\u03b5\u03c5\u03c3\u03c4\u1f74\u03c2, the man who gives the signal and cheers on the rowers. See Mollus on Long. Past. iii. 14. So Athen\u00e6us, xii. p. 535: \u03a7\u03c1\u03c5\u03c3\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bc\u1f72\u03bd \u1f24\u03c5\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c4\u1f78 \u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03b7\u03c1\u03b9\u03ba\u03cc\u03bd. \u039a\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03b9\u03c0\u03af\u03b4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b4\u1f72 \u1f41 \u03c4\u03c1\u03b1\u03b3\u1ff3\u03b4\u1f78\u03c2 \u1f10\u03ba\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03c5\u03b5.\nAnd as beneath a whirlwind the whole dark earth is oppressed on an autumnal day, when Jove pours forth his most violent stream; when, forsooth, enraged he gives vent to his wrath against men, who by violence decree perverse judgments in the assembly, and drive out justice, not regarding the vengeance of the gods; and all their rivers are flooded as they flow, and the torrents sever asunder many mountains, and flowing headlong into the dark sea, roar mightily, and the husbandry-works 525 of men are diminished; so loudly moaned the Trojan mares running along. But Patroclus, when he had cut off the first phalanxes, drove them back again towards the ships, and did not permit them, desiring it, to ascend towards the city; but, pressing on, he slew them between the ships, and the river, and the lofty wall, and he exacted revenge for many. Then indeed he smote with his shining spear Pronous first, bared as to his breast beside the shield, and relaxed his limbs: and falling, he gave a crash. But next, attacking Thestor, son of Enops (who indeed sat huddled in his well-polished chariot, for he was panic-struck in his mind, and the reins had then dropped from his hands), he standing near, smote him with his spear on the right cheek, and drove it through his teeth. Then catching the spear, he dragged him over the rim [of the chariot]; as when a man, sitting upon a jutting rock, [draws] with a line and shining brass 526 a large fish entirely out of the sea; so he dragged from his chariot with his shining spear, him gaping. Then he hurled him upon his mouth, and life left him as he fell. Then next he struck with a stone on the middle of the head, Eryalus, rushing against him, and it was totally split asunder into two parts in his strong helmet. He therefore fell prone upon the earth, and fatal death was diffused around him. Afterwards Erymas, and Amphoterus, Epaltes, and Tlepolemus, son of Damastor, Echius and Pyris, Icheus, Eu\u00efppus, and Polymelus, son of Argeus, all one over the other he heaped upon the fertile earth.\nFootnote 525: (return) For this agricultural use of \u1f14\u03c1\u03b3\u03b1 cf. Oppian, Cyn. ii. 151: \u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7 \u03b4' \u1f14\u03c1\u03b3\u03b1 \u03b2\u03bf\u1ff6\u03bd. Nicander, Ther. 473: \u1f14\u03c1\u03b3\u03b1 \u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u03ad\u03c9\u03bd. Virg. Georg. i. 325: \u201cEt pluvia ingenti sata l\u00e6ta, boumque labores diluit.\u201d\nFootnote 526: (return) I.e. the hook. So \u201c\u00e6re, the brass cutwater,\u201d Virg. \u00c6n. i. 35.\nBut when Sarpedon perceived his loose-girt 527 companions subdued by the hands of Patroclus, the son of Men\u0153tius, exhorting, he shouted to the godlike Lycians:\n\u201cOh shame! Lycians, where do ye fly? 528 Now be strenuous: for I will oppose this man, that I may know who he is who is victorious: and certainly he has done many evils to the Trojans, since he has relaxed the limbs of many and brave men.\u201d\nHe spoke, and leaped from his chariot with his armour to the ground; but Patroclus, on the other side, when he beheld him, sprang from his car. Then they, as bent-taloned, crook-beaked vultures, loudly screaming, fight upon a lofty rock, so they, shouting, rushed against each other. But the son of the wily Saturn, beholding them, felt compassion, and addressed Juno, his sister and wife: 529\n\u201cO woe is me, because it is fated that Sarpedon, most dear to me of men, shall be subdued by Patroclus, the son of Men\u0153tius. But to me, revolving it in my mind, my heart is impelled with a twofold anxiety, 530 either that having snatched him alive from the mournful battle, I may place him among the rich people of Lycia, or now subdue him beneath the hands of the son of Men\u0153tius.\u201d\nFootnote 527: (return) \u03a4\u03bf\u1f7a\u03c2 \u03bc\u1f74 \u1f51\u03c0\u03bf\u03b6\u03c9\u03bd\u03bd\u03c5\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03bc\u03af\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2 \u03c7\u03b9\u03c4\u1ff6\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd.\u2014Eustath.\nFootnote 528: (return) Tzetzes on Hesiod, Opp. 184, reads \u1f10\u03c3\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd, observing that it is \u03c4\u1f78 \u03b4\u03c5\u03ca\u03ba\u1f78\u03bd \u1f00\u03bd\u03c4\u1f76 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03c0\u03bb\u03b7\u03b8\u03c5\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u03bf\u1fe6.\nFootnote 529: (return) Virg. \u00c6n. i. 50: \u201cJovisque et soror et conjux.\u201d Hor. Od. iii. 3, 64: \u201cConjuge me Jovis et sorore.\u201d A\u03b8son. 343, 4: \u201cEt soror et conjux fratris regina dearum.\u201d\nFootnote 530: (return) Cf. Virg. \u00c6n. iv. 285:\u2014\n\n\n\u201cAtque animum nunc huc celerem, nune dividit illuc,\nIn partesque rapit varias, perque omnia versat.\u201d\n\n\nx. 680. Ter. Andr. i. 5, 25. Ovid, Met. vii. 19; x. 373. Plato, Rep. iii. p. 433, B. ed. L\u00e6m. finds great fault with Homer for thus debasing the character of Jove. His remarks are reiterated by Clemens Alexandr. Protr. p. 16, 50, and Minucius Felix, \u00a7 22.\nThen the large-eyed, venerable Juno answered: \u201cMost dread son of Saturn, what a word hast thou spoken? Whether dost thou wish to liberate from sad death a mortal man long since doomed to fate? Do so; but all we, the other gods, will not assent to it. But another thing I will tell thee, and do thou revolve it in thy mind. If indeed thou sendest this Sarpedon safe home, reflect whether some other of the gods may not also wish to send his beloved son [safe home] from the violent conflict; for many sons of immortals fight round the great city of Priam, upon whom thou wilt bring heavy wrath. If, however, he be dear to thee, and thy heart pities him, let him indeed be subdued in the violent conflict, beneath the hands of Patroclus, the son of Men\u0153tius: but when his spirit and life shall have left him, send death and sweet sleep to bear him until they reach the people of expansive Lycia. There will his brethren and friends perform his obsequies with a tomb and a pillar; for this is the honour of the dead.\u201d\nThus she spoke, nor did the father of gods and men disobey; but he poured down upon the earth bloody dew-drops, 531 honouring his beloved son, whom Patroclus was about to slay in fertile-soiled Troy, far away from his native land.\nFootnote 531: (return) There is a similar prodigy in Hesiod, Scut. Here. 384: \u039a\u03ac\u03b4\u03b4' \u1f04\u03c1' \u1f00\u03c0' \u03bf\u03c5\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd\u03cc\u03b8\u03b5\u03bd \u03c8\u03b9\u03ac\u03b4\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b2\u03ac\u03bb\u03b5\u03bd \u03b1\u1f31\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03ad\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1\u03c2, \u03a3\u1fc6\u03bc\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b9\u03b8\u03b5\u1f76\u03c2 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03ad\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf \u1f11\u1ff7 \u03bc\u03b5\u03b3\u03b1\u03b8\u03b1\u03c1\u03c3\u03ad\u03ca \u03c0\u03b1\u03b9\u03b4\u03af. Tzetzes there refers to the present passage, regarding it as ominous of the death of Sarpedon. Cf. Lomeier, De Lustrationibus, xii. p. 143.\nBut when, advancing, they were now near each other, then indeed Patroclus [struck] illustrious Thrasymelus, who was the brave companion of king Sarpedon, him he struck upon the lower part of the belly, and relaxed his limbs. Then Sarpedon, attacking second, missed him with his splendid javelin; but he wounded his horse Pedasus, with his spear, in the right shoulder; but he groaned, breathing out his life, and fell in the dust, moaning, and his spirit fled from him. But the two [other steeds] leaped asunder, and the yoke crashed, and the reins were entangled about them, when the side horse lay in the dust. But spear-renowned Automedon found an end of this. Drawing his long sword from his robust thigh, rising, he cut away the farther horse, nor did he act slothfully. And the two [remaining horses] were set aright, and were directed by the reins; and they [the men] again engage in life-devouring combat.\nThen again Sarpedon missed [him] with his shining spear, and the point of the weapon passed over the left shoulder of Patroclus, nor did it wound him. But Patroclus rushed on with his javelin, and the weapon did not escape in vain from his hand, for he struck him where the midriff encloses the compact 532 heart. And he fell, as when falls some oak, or poplar, or lofty pine, which the workmen fell in the mountains with newly-sharpened axes, to be a naval timber: so he lay stretched out before his horses and chariot, gnashing with his teeth, grasping the bloody dust. As a lion slays a bull, coming among a herd, tawny, noble-spirited, among the stamping 533 oxen, and he perishes, bellowing, beneath the jaws of the lion; so the leader of the shielded Lycians was indignant, 534 being slain by Patroclus, and addressed his dear companion by name:\nFootnote 532: (return) \u201cBy comparing the different uses of \u1f00\u03b4\u03b9\u03bd\u1f78\u03c2 together, one thing is clear, that all the meanings which can occur in them, proceed from one, which is that in the epithet of the heart, dense or compact, which physical idea the word retains, according to the Homeric usage, in Od. \u03c4. 516, as a fixed epithet of the heart, although there its physical state has nothing to do with the context.\u201d Buttm. Lexil. p. 33.\nFootnote 533: (return) See Buttm. Lexil. p. 267.\nFootnote 534: (return) \u201cIndignata anima gemebat,\u201d\u2014Heyne, comparing \u00c6n. xii. Ult. \u201cVitaque cum gemitu fugit indignata sub umbras.\u201d\n\u201cGlaucus, dear friend, warrior amongst heroes, now it greatly behoves thee to be a hero and a bold warrior; now if thou art impetuous, let destructive battle be thy desire. First indeed, going in every direction, exhort the leaders of the Lycians to fight around Sarpedon, and do thou thyself also fight for me with thy spear. For I will hereafter be a cause of shame and disgrace to thee, all thy days, throughout, if indeed the Greeks despoil me of my armour, falling in the conflict at the ships. But persevere, and animate all the army.\u201d\nWhile he was thus speaking, the end of death covered him as to his eyes and nostrils; but Patroclus, trampling with his heel upon his breast, drew out the spear from his body, and the midriff 535 followed with it; and he drew out at the same time his life and the point of the weapon. But the Myrmidons there held his panting steeds, eager to fly along, since they had quitted the chariots of their lords. Then bitter grief arose to Glaucus, hearing the voice [of his friend], and his heart was grieved because he could not aid him. But grasping his own arm in his hand, he compressed it; for grievously the wound pained him, which Teucer, with an arrow, had inflicted upon him, as he was rushing against the lofty wall, warding off the battle from his companions. Wherefore, praying, he addressed far-darting Apollo:\nFootnote 535: (return) Probably the pericardium is meant.\n\u201cHear, O king, thou who art somewhere in the rich state of Lycia, or in Troy; for thou canst everywhere hear a man afflicted, as sorrow now comes upon me. For indeed I have this grievous wound, and my hand is penetrated on every side with acute pains, nor can the blood be stanched, but my shoulder is oppressed with it. For neither can I firmly I hold my spear, nor, advancing, fight with the enemy; moreover a very brave hero has fallen, Sarpedon, the son of Jove; but he aids not even his own son. But heal for me this severe wound, O king; assuage my pains, and grant me strength, that, cheering on my companions, the Lycians, I may urge them to fight; and may myself fight for the dead body.\u201d\nThus he spoke praying; but Ph\u0153bus Apollo heard him. Immediately he allayed the pains, and dried the black gore from the grievous wound, and instilled strength into his soul. But Glaucus knew in his mind, and rejoiced because the mighty god had quickly heard him praying. First then, going about in all directions, he aroused the heroes, leaders of the Lycians, to fight for Sarpedon; and then he went to the Trojans, advancing with long strides to Polydamas, son of Panthous, and noble Agenor. He also went after \u00c6neas and brazen-armed Hector, and, standing near, addressed to him winged words:\n\u201cO Hector, now hast thou altogether neglected thine allies, who are losing their lives for thy sake, far away from their friends and father-land; but thou dost not wish to aid them. Sarpedon lies low, the leader of the shield-bearing Lycians, who protected Lycia by his justice and his valour. Him hath brazen Mars subdued with a spear at the hands of Patroclus. But stand near, my friends, and be indignant in your minds, lest the Myrmidons spoil his armour, and unworthily treat the body, enraged on account of the Greeks, as many as have perished, whom we have slain with our spears at the ships.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but intolerable, unyielding grief wholly possessed the Trojans, for he had been a pillar of their city, though being a foreigner; for many forces followed along with him, among whom he himself was the most valiant in battle. They therefore advanced eagerly straight against the Greeks, ardent with desire; but Hector led the way, enraged on account of Sarpedon. But the valiant heart of Patroclus, son of Men\u0153tius, aroused the Greeks. First he addressed the Ajaces, though they themselves were also eager:\n\u201cO Ajaces, now let it be a delightful thing to you both to repel [the foe]; be ye such as of old ye were amongst heroes, or even braver. Sarpedon lies low, the man who first broke through 536 the wall of the Greeks. But oh! that taking him, we could treat him with indignity, and spoil the armour from his shoulders, and subdue with the cruel brass some one of his companions keeping [us] off from him.\u201d\nFootnote 536: (return) We must understand him as having done so in company with Hector, otherwise this passage would be at variance with xii. 290, 437.\nThus he spoke; but they also themselves were ready to repel [the foe]. But when they had strengthened their phalanxes on both sides, the Trojans and Lycians, as well as the Myrmidons and Ach\u00e6ans, they closed to fight round the dead body, shouting dreadfully, and loudly rattled the arms of men. But Jove stretched pernicious night over the violent contest, that there might be a destructive toil of battle around his dear son. The Trojans first drove back the rolling-eyed Greeks; for a man was smitten, by no means the most inferior among the Myrmidons, noble Epigeus, son of magnanimous Agacles, who formerly ruled in well-inhabited Budium; but then having slain a noble kinsman, he came as a suppliant to Peleus and silver-footed Thetis: they sent him to follow with the rank-breaker Achilles, to steed-renowned Ilium, that he might fight with the Trojans. Him then, while seizing the body, illustrious Hector struck upon the head with a stone; and it was entirely split in two in his strong helmet; and he fell prone upon the corpse, and soul-destroying death was diffused around him. Then to Patroclus grief arose, on account of his companion slain; and he rushed right through the foremost warriors, like unto a swift hawk, which has put to flight jackdaws or starlings; so, O equestrian Patroclus, didst thou rush right against the Lycians and Trojans; for thou wert enraged in thine heart for thy companion. And he struck Sthenelaus, the beloved son of Ith\u00e6meneus, on the neck with a stone, and broke his tendons: and the foremost warriors and illustrious Hector gave back. And as far as is the cast of a long javelin, which a man may have sent forth striving either in the game, or even in war, on account of life-destroying enemies; so far did the Trojans retire, and the Greeks repelled them. But Glaucus, the leader of the shield-bearing Lycians, first turned, and slew magnanimous Bathycles, the beloved son of Chalcon, who, inhabiting dwellings in Hellas, was conspicuous among the Myrmidons for his riches and wealth. Him then Glaucus, turning suddenly round, wounded in the middle of the breast with his spear, when, pursuing, he had overtaken him. But he made a crash as he fell; and deep grief possessed the Greeks, because a brave warrior had thus fallen; but the Trojans greatly rejoiced, and, advancing in crowds, stood round him; nor were the Greeks forgetful of valour, but they directed their strength straight against them. Then again Meriones slew a hero of the Trojans, the warrior Laogonus, the gallant son of Onetor, who was the priest of Id\u00e6an Jove, and was honoured like a god by the people. He smote him under the jaw and ear, and his soul immediately departed from his limbs, and dreadful darkness overshadowed him. 537 But \u00c6neas hurled a brazen spear at Meriones, for he hoped to hit him, advancing under protection of his shield. He, however, observing it in front, avoided the brazen spear; for he stooped forward, and the long javelin was fixed in the ground behind him, and the nether point 538 of the spear was shaken; then the rapid weapon spent its force. Thus the javelin of \u00c6neas, quivering entered the earth, for it had fled in vain from his strong hand. Then \u00c6neas was enraged in his mind, and said:\n\u201cMeriones, quickly indeed, although being a dancer, 539 would my spear have made thee cease for ever, if I had struck thee.\u201d\nFootnote 537: (return) It has been well observed that Homer never describes a wound as mortal, except when it is inflicted in a part really vital.\nFootnote 538: (return) The \u03bf\u1f50\u03c1\u03af\u03b1\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2 was the same as the \u03c3\u03b1\u03c5\u03c1\u03c9\u03c4\u1f74\u03c1. See Gloss\u00e6 Herodote\u00e6, and Hesych. p. 820.\nFootnote 539: (return) A probable allusion to the Pyrrhic dance, which was in use among the Cretans, from whose country Meriones had come. See the Scholiast, and M\u00fcller, Dorians, vol. ii, p. 349.\nBut him then in turn spear-renowned Meriones answered: \u201c\u00c6neas, it were difficult for thee, although being brave, to extinguish the valour of all men, whosoever may come against thee about to repulse thee; for thou too art mortal. And if I, taking aim, should strike thee in the middle with my sharp spear, although being brave, and confiding in thy might, thou wouldst give glory to me, but thy soul to steed-famed Pluto.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but him the brave son of Men\u0153tius rebuked: \u201cMeriones, why dost thou, although being brave, harangue thus? O, my friend, the Trojans will not retire from the corse by opprobrious words: first will the earth possess some of them; for the emergency of battle is placed in the hands, but of counsel in words; wherefore it is by no means necessary to multiply words, but to fight.\u201d\nSo saying, he on his part led the way, and along with him the godlike hero followed. And as the crash of woodcutting men arises in the dells of a mountain, and the sound is heard from afar; so the noise of these, smitten with swords and two-edged spears, arose from the wide-extended plain, from brass, from leather, and from well-prepared bull\u2019s-hide shields. Nor would a man, although very discerning, have recognized noble Sarpedon, since he was totally involved, from his head to the soles of his feet, with weapons, and blood, and dust. But they still crowded round the corse, as when flies in the stall hum around the pails full of milk, during the spring season, when the milk makes moist the vessel. So they still crowded round the body: nor did Jove ever turn his bright eyes from the violent conflict; but he ever beheld them, and meditated many evil things in his mind concerning the death of Patroclus, anxiously deliberating whether now illustrious Hector should kill him with his spear in the brave battle, over godlike Sarpedon, and spoil the armour from his shoulders, or whether he should still increase the severe labour to the multitude. To him, thus reflecting, it appeared better that the brave servant of Achilles, the son of Peleus, should repulse the Trojans and brazen-armed Hector, towards the city, and take away the life of many. Into Hector, therefore, first [of all], he sent unwarlike flight, and ascending his chariot, he turned himself to flight, and advised the other Trojans to fly, for he recognized the sacred scales of Jove. 540 Then not even the brave Lycians remained, but were all turned in flight, when they beheld their king wounded to the heart, lying in the heap of dead; for many had fallen over him, whilst the son of Saturn stretched on the violent strife. But after they had taken from the shoulders of Sarpedon the brazen and glittering armour, the gallant son of Men\u0153tius gave them to his companions to carry to the hollow ships; and then cloud-compelling Jove addressed Apollo:\n\u201cCome now, dear Ph\u0153bus, going, cleanse Sarpedon, [withdrawn] from among the heap of weapons, of sable gore, and afterwards bearing him far away, lave him in the stream of the river, and anoint him with ambrosia, and put around him immortal garments, then give him in charge to the twin-brothers. Sleep and Death, swift conductors, to be borne away, who will quickly place him in the rich state of wide Lycia. There will his brethren and kindred perform his obsequies with a tomb and a pillar, 541 for this is the honour of the dead.\u201d\nFootnote 540: (return) I.e. He perceived that the fortune of the battle was changed by the will of Jove.\nFootnote 541: (return) I.e. A cippus, or column reared upon the tomb. See Pollux, viii. 14, and the Scriptores Rei Agrim. p. 88, ed. Goes.\nThus he spoke; nor was Apollo inattentive to his father, but he descended from the Id\u00e6an mountains to the grievous conflict. Immediately removing noble Sarpedon out of [the reach of] weapons, and bearing him far away, he laved him in the stream of the river, anointed him with ambrosia, and placed around him immortal garments, then gave him in charge to the twin-brothers, Sleep and Death, swift conductors, to be borne away with them; who accordingly quickly placed him in the rich state of wide Lycia.\nIn the meantime Patroclus, cheering on his steeds, and Automedon, followed upon the Trojans and Lycians, and came to great harm,\u2014infatuate one!\u2014but if he had observed the direction of the son of Peleus, he had certainly escaped the evil fate of black death. But the counsel of Jove is ever better than that of men, who puts to flight even the valiant man, and easily deprives him of victory, even when he himself has impelled him to fight; who then also excited courage in his breast. Then whom first, and whom last, didst thou slay, O Patroclus, when the gods now called thee on to death? Adrastus indeed first, Autonous and Echeclus, and Perimus, son of Megas, and Epistor and Melanippus; but then Elasus, and Mulius, and Pylartes. These he slew, but the others were, each of them, mindful of flight. Then indeed had the sons of the Greeks taken lofty-gated Troy, by the hands of Patroclus, for he raged greatly beyond [others] with his spear, had not Ph\u0153bus Apollo stood upon a well-built tower, meditating destructive things to him, and assisting the Trojans. Thrice indeed Patroclus mounted a buttress of the lofty wall, and thrice did Apollo repel him with violence, striking his glittering shield with his immortal hands. But when now, godlike, he rushed on the fourth time, far-casting Apollo, threatening fearfully, addressed him:\n\u201cRetire, thou Jove-sprung Patroclus; by no means is it destined that the city of the magnanimous Trojans should be destroyed by thy spear, nor by Achilles, who is much better than thou.\u201d\nThus he spoke, but Patroclus retired far back, avoiding the wrath of far-darting Apollo. But Hector detained his steeds at the Sc\u00e6an 542 gates; for he doubted whether, having driven again into the crowd, he should fight, or should loudly command the people to be collected within the walls. To him then, meditating these things, Ph\u0153bus Apollo stood near, having assimilated himself to a hero youthful and brave, to Asius, who was the maternal uncle of horse-breaking Hector, own brother of Hecuba, and the son of Dymas, who dwelt in Phrygia, by the streams of the Sangarius: to him Ph\u0153bus Apollo, assimilating himself, spoke:\nFootnote 542: (return) Schneider on Nicander, Ther. 264-9, p. 229, observes: \u201cIn Homerica Iliade fuerunt olim qui \u03a3\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u1f70\u03c2 \u03c0\u03cd\u03bb\u03b1\u03c2, qu\u00e6 alibi Dardani\u00e6 dicuntur, interpretabantur obliquas, teste Hesychio: \u1f22 \u03b4\u03b9\u1f70 \u03c4\u1f78 \u03c3\u03ba\u03bf\u03bb\u03b9\u1f70\u03c2 \u03b5\u1f36\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u1f70 \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u03b5\u1f30\u03c3\u03b2\u03bf\u03bb\u03ae\u03bd. Plane uti Servius ad \u00c6n. iii. 351: \u2018Sc\u00e6a porta dicta est\u2014nec ab itinere ingressis sc\u00e6vo id est sinistro, quod ingressi non recto sed sinistro eunt itinere, sed a cadavere Laomedontis, hoc est sc\u00e6omate, quod in ejus fuerit superliminio.\u2019 Ita Vitruvius, i. 5, 2; unde vides, quomodo notio sinistri et obliqui in hac voce coaluerit. Notio ipsa serius tandem invaluisse videtur: antiquiorem enim Nicandreo locum ignore.\u201d\n\u201cHector, why dost thou cease from battle? Nor does it at all become thee. Would that I were so much superior to thee as I am inferior; then indeed wouldst thou quickly have retired from the battle to thy loss. But come, direct thy solid-hoofed steeds against Patroclus, if perchance thou mayest slay him, and Apollo may give thee glory.\u201d So saying, the god on his part went again through the labour of men; but illustrious Hector on his part commanded warlike Cebriones to lash on his steeds to the battle, whilst Apollo, proceeding, entered the throng; and sent an evil tumult among the Greeks; but gave glory to the Trojans and Hector. Then indeed did Hector neglect the other Greeks, nor slew them; but directed his solid-hoofed horses against Patroclus. But Patroclus, on the other side, leaped from his chariot to the ground, in his left hand holding his spear; but in the other he seized a stone, white, rugged, which his hand embraced around. Putting his force to it, he hurled it; nor did it err far from the man, nor was the weapon hurled in vain, 543 for in the forehead with the sharp stone he smote the charioteer of Hector, Cebriones, the illegitimate son of illustrious Priam, whilst holding the reins of the horses. But the stone crushed both his eyebrows, nor did the bone sustain it, and his eyes fell amid the dust upon the ground before his feet. But he then, like unto a diver, fell from the well-formed chariot-seat, and life left his bones. But him insulting, thou didst address, O equestrian Patroclus:\nFootnote 543: (return) See Kennedy. Others make \u03b2\u03ad\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2 the accusative, and take \u1f01\u03bb\u03af\u03c9\u03c3\u03b5 transitively.\n\u201cO gods! truly he is a very active man! how nimbly he dives! if indeed he were anywhere in the fishy sea, this man, groping for oysters, might have satisfied many, plunging from his ship, although it might be stormy; so easily now in the plain does he dive from his chariot! Without doubt there are divers among the Trojans.\u201d\nSo saying, he advanced against the hero Cebriones, having the force of a lion, which, ravaging the folds, is wounded in the breast, and his own courage destroys him; thus, O Patroclus, ardent, didst thou spring upon Cebriones; whilst Hector, on the other side, leaped from his chariot to the ground. These two, as lions, fought for Cebriones, when both being hungry fight with utmost courage for a slaughtered stag in mountain tops. So, for Cebriones, these two masters of the fight, Patroclus, son of Men\u0153tius, and illustrious Hector, wished to rend each other\u2019s body with the pitiless brass. Hector indeed, after he seized him by the head, did not let him go; but Patroclus, on the other side, held [him by the] foot; and now the rest of the Trojans and Greeks engaged in the violent conflict.\nAnd as the East and South winds strive with each other, in the dells of a mountain, to shake a deep wood, beech, ash, and rugged cornel, but they strike their long-extended boughs against each other with an immense sound, and a crash of them breaking [arises]; thus the Trojans and Greeks, leaping upon each other, slaughtered, but neither were mindful of pernicious flight. And many sharp spears were fixed round Cebriones, and winged arrows bounding from the string; and many huge stones smote the shields of those fighting round him; but he, mighty over mighty space, lay in a whirlwind of dust, forgetful of his equestrian skill.\nAs long indeed as the sun was ascending the middle heaven, so long did the weapons reach both sides effectually, and the people kept falling. But when the sun had passed over towards the west, then indeed the Greeks were superior, contrary to fate. They drew the hero Cebriones from the weapons, out of the tumult of Trojans, and took the armour from his shoulders. But Patroclus, devising evils against the Trojans, rushed on. Thrice then he charged, equal to swift Mars, shouting horridly, and thrice he slew nine heroes. But when, like unto a god, he made the attack for the fourth time, then indeed, O Patroclus, was the end of thy life manifest; for Ph\u0153bus, terrible in the dire battle, met thee. He did not indeed perceive him coming through the crowd, for he advanced against him covered with much darkness; but he stood behind, and smote him with his flat hand upon the back and broad shoulders, and his eyes were seized with giddiness. 544 And from his head Ph\u0153bus Apollo struck the helmet, and the oblong helmet rattled, rolling under the horses\u2019 feet, and the crest was defiled with blood and dust; although before this it was not permitted that [this] helmet, crested with horse-hair, should be contaminated by the dust; for it protected the head of a godlike hero, even the venerable forehead of Achilles; but Jove then gave it to Hector to wear upon his head; but his destruction was near. But the long-shadowed spear, great, sturdy, pointed [with brass], was utterly shattered in his hands; whilst the shield, which reached to his heels, with its belt, fell to the ground; and king Apollo, the son of Jove, unbound his corslet. But stupor seized his brain, and his fair limbs were relaxed under him, and he stood astounded. But a Trojan, hero, Euphorbus, the son of Panthous, who excelled those of his own age in the spear, in horsemanship, and in swiftness of foot, smote him close at hand with his sharp spear, in the back between the shoulders. For even before this he had hurled twenty men from their horses, at first coming with his chariot, learning [the art] of war. He [it was] who first hurled a weapon at thee, O knight Patroclus, nor did he subdue thee; for he ran back, and was mingled with the crowd, having plucked the ashen spear out of thy body; nor did he await Patroclus, though being unarmed, in the fight. Patroclus, however, subdued by the blow of the god, and by the spear, retired into the crowd of his companions, avoiding death. But Hector, when he perceived magnanimous Patroclus retiring, wounded with a sharp spear, went through the ranks near him, and smote him with his javelin in the lowest part of the groin, and drove the brass quite through. Falling, he gave a crash, and greatly grieved the people of the Greeks. As when a lion presses on an unwearied boar in fight, and they twain, high spirited, contend upon the mountain tops for a small rill, for they both desire to drink, but the lion subdues him by force, panting much; so Hector, the son of Priam, in close fight with his spear, deprived the gallant son of Men\u0153tius of life, having slain many; and, boasting over him, spoke winged words:\nFootnote 544: (return) Swam round, probably from exhaustion. Celsus; i. 3: \u201cSi quando insuetus aliquis laboravit, aut si multo plus, quam solet, etiam is qui assuevit...... oculi caligant.\u201d The affection is well described by C\u00e6lius Aurol. Chron. i. 2: \u201cRepentina visus tenebratio, atque nebula, cum capitis vertigine.\u201d\n\u201cPatroclus, doubtless thou didst think to waste our city, and to carry off in thy ships the Trojan women to thy dear father-land, having taken away their day of freedom,\u2014infatuated one! But in defence of these, the fleet steeds of Hector hasten with their feet to war, and I myself, who avert the day of slavery 545 from them, am conspicuous amongst the war-loving Trojans in [the use of] the spear. But the vultures shall devour thee here. Unhappy man! Nor indeed did Achilles, although being brave, aid thee, who remaining behind, doubtless enjoined many things to thee, going forth: \u2018Do not return to me, O equestrian Patroclus, to the hollow barks, before thou rendest the blood-stained garment around the breast of man-slaughtering Hector.\u2019 Thus, doubtless, he addressed thee, and persuaded the mind of foolish thee.\u201d\nBut him, O knight Patroclus, breathing faintly, thou didst address: \u201cEven now, Hector, vaunt greatly, for Jove, the son of Saturn, and Apollo, have given thee the victory, who subdued me easily; for they stripped the armour from my shoulders. But if even twenty such [as thou] had opposed me, they had all perished here, subdued by my spear. But destructive fate, and the son of Latona, have slain me, and of men, Euphorbus; whilst thou, the third, dost despoil me slain. Another thing will I tell thee, and do thou ponder it in thy soul. 546 Not long, indeed, shalt thou thyself advance in life, but death and violent fate already stand near thee, subdued by the hands of Achilles, the blameless descendant of \u00c6acus.\u201d\nFootnote 545: (return) So \u1f10\u03bb\u03b5\u03cd\u03b8\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd \u1f27\u03bc\u03b1\u03c1 in ver. 830. Thus \u1f00\u03bd\u03ac\u03b3\u03ba\u03b7 \u1f00\u03bc\u03c6\u03af\u03c0\u03c4\u03bf\u03bb\u03b9\u03c2, \u201cslavery caused by the capture of a city,\u201d \u00c6sch. Choeph. 75.\nFootnote 546: (return) This prophecy of the dying Patroclus seems to have attracted the notice of Aristotle, if we may believe Sextus, Empir. adv. Phys. ix. p. 553: \u201c\u039f\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd \u03b3\u03ac\u03c1, \u03c6\u03b7\u03c3\u03af\u03bd, \u1f10\u03bd \u03c4\u1ff7 \u1f51\u03c0\u03bd\u03bf\u1fe6\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8' \u1f11\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u03b3\u03af\u03bd\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u1f21 \u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u03ae, \u03c4\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5 \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u1f34\u03b4\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd \u1f00\u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03b1\u03b2\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c3\u03b1 \u03c6\u03cd\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03bc\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03cd\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03b1\u03b3\u03bf\u03c1\u03b5\u03cd\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c4\u1f70 \u03bc\u03ad\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1' \u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03b1\u03cd\u03c4\u03b7 \u03b4\u03ad \u1f10\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f10\u03bd \u03c4\u1ff7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u1f70 \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03b8\u03ac\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c7\u03c9\u03c1\u03af\u03b6\u03b5\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c3\u03c9\u03bc\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd.\u201d He then refers to the similar example of Hector prophesying the death of Achilles, xxiii. 358, sqq.\nHim then, having thus spoken, the end of death then overshadowed. But his soul flying from his members, departed to Hades, bewailing its lot, 547 relinquishing manliness and youth. But him dead illustrious Hector addressed:\n\u201cWhy now, Patroclus, dost thou prophesy cruel destruction to me? Who knows whether Achilles, the son of fair-haired Thetis, stricken by my spear, may not be the first to lose his life?\u201d\nFootnote 547: (return) See my note on \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u1fd6\u03b1\u03c8\u03b5\u03bd, II. i. 3. and Heyne.\nThus having spoken, he extracted the brazen spear from the wound, pressing on him with his heel; and thrust him prostrate from the spear. Then immediately, with the spear, he went against Automedon, the godlike servant of swift-footed \u00c6acides, for he was anxious to strike him. But the fleet immortal steeds, which the gods bestowed on Peleus, splendid gifts, bore him away.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THE SEVENTEENTH.\nARGUMENT.\nEuphorbus, attempting to despoil Patroclus of his armour, is slain by Menelaus. It falls to the lot of Hector, but he retires on the approach of Ajax. Being rebuked by Glaucus, he returns, and a fierce contest is renewed over the body of Patroclus. The chariot of Achilles is bravely defended by Automedon, but the Greeks at last begin to give way, even Ajax being seized with consternation. Meriones and Menelaus, however, succeed in carrying off the body of Patroclus, although the Greeks are completely routed.\nNor did Patroclus, subdued in fight by the Trojans, escape the notice of the son of Atreus, Mars-beloved Menelaus; but he advanced through the foremost warriors, armed in glittering brass. And round him he walked, like a dam around its calf, having brought forth for the first time, moaning, not being before conscious of parturition: thus did yellow-haired Menelaus walk around Patroclus. But before him he extended his spear, and his shield on all sides equal, anxious to slay him, whoever indeed should come against him. Nor was the son of Panthus, of the good ashen spear, neglectful of blameless Patroclus, fallen; but he stood near him, and addressed warlike Menelaus:\n\u201cO Menelaus! son of Atreus, Jove-nurtured one, leader of the people, retire, and leave the body, and let alone the bloody spoils; for not any of the illustrious Trojans or allies smote Patroclus with the spear in the violent conflict before me. Wherefore permit me to bear away the great glory amongst the Trojans, lest I should strike thee, and take away thy sweet life.\u201d\nBut him yellow-haired Menelaus, very indignant, addressed:\n\u201cFather Jove, certainly it is not fitting to boast inordinately. Not so great is the might of a panther, nor a lion, nor of a destructive wild boar, whose most mighty courage rages in his heart, violently in its strength, as much as the sons of Panthus, of the good ashen spear, breathe forth. Nor did the might of horse-breaking Hyperenor enjoy his youth, when he reproached me, and withstood me; and said that I was the most reproachful warrior amongst the Greeks; nor did he, I think, returning upon his feet, gratify his dear wife and respected parents. Thus certainly will I dissolve thy strength, if thou wilt stand against me. But I advise thee, retiring, to go back into the crowd; nor do thou stand against me, before thou suffer any harm: for it is a fool that perceives a thing when it is done.\u201d  548\nFootnote 548: (return) Cf. Hesiod, Opp. 216: \u03b1\u03b8\u1f7c\u03bd \u03b4\u03ad \u03c4\u03b5 \u03bd\u03ae\u03c0\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f14\u03b3\u03bd\u03c9. Plato, Sympos. p. 336, A.: \u1f08\u03bb\u03bb' \u1f00\u03c0\u1f78 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f21\u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03c9\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03b8\u03b7\u03bc\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b3\u03bd\u03cc\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1, \u03b5\u1f50\u03bb\u03b1\u03b2\u03b7\u03b8\u1fc6\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9, \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03bc\u1f74, \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u1f70 \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9\u03bc\u03af\u03b1\u03bd, \u1f65\u03c3\u03c0\u03b5\u03c1 \u03bd\u03ae\u03c0\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd, \u03c0\u03b1\u03b8\u03cc\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1 \u03b3\u03bd\u1ff6\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9. \u00c6sch. Ag. 177: \u03a4\u1f78\u03bd \u03c0\u03ac\u03b8\u03b5\u03b9 \u03bc\u03ac\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b8\u03ad\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1 \u03ba\u03c5\u03c1\u03af\u03c9\u03c2 \u1f14\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd\u2014\u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1' \u1f04\u03ba\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2 \u1f24\u03bb\u03b8\u03b5 \u03c3\u03c9\u03c6\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd. See Proclus on Hesiod, Opp. 89.\nThus he spoke, but persuaded him not; but he answering, spoke:\n\u201cNow indeed, O Jove-nurtured Menelaus, shalt thou make atonement for my brother, whom thou hast slain, and [over whom] thou speakest boastingly; and thou hast widowed his wife in the recess of her new bridal chamber, and caused accursed mourning and sorrow to his parents. Certainly I should be some alleviation of woe to them wretched, if indeed, bearing back thy head and armour, I should place them in the hands of Panthus and noble Phrontis. Nor shall the labour of valour or flight be untried or invincible any longer.\u201d\nSo saying, he smote [him] upon the shield equal on all sides, nor did the brass break through, for the point was bent in the stout shield: and Menelaus, the son of Atreus, next made the attack with his brazen spear, having prayed to father Jove. He smote him upon the lowest part of the gullet as he retired, and he himself forcibly impressed [the spear], relying on his strong hand; and the point went quite through his soft neck. And falling, he made a crash, and his armour rang upon him. And his locks, like unto the Graces, were bedewed with blood, and his curls, which were bound with gold and silver. And as a man rears a widely-blooming plant of olive, fair budding, in a solitary place, where water is wont to spring 549 up in abundance, and which the breezes of every wind agitate, and it buds forth with a white flower; but a wind, suddenly coming on with a mighty blast, overturns it from the furrow, and stretches it upon the earth: so the son of Panthus, Euphorbus, skilled in [the use of] the ashen spear, Menelaus, son of Atreus, when he had slain [him], spoiled of his armour. As when any mountain-nurtured lion, relying on his strength, has carried off from the pasturing herd a heifer, which is the best; but first he breaks its neck, seizing it in his strong teeth, and then tearing it in pieces, laps up the blood and all the entrails; whilst around him dogs and herdsmen shout very frequently from a distance, nor do they wish to go against him, for pale fear violently seizes them: thus the soul of no one within his breast dared to advance against glorious Menelaus. Then indeed the son of Atreus had easily borne off the celebrated arms of the son of Panthus, had not Ph\u0153bus Apollo envied him, who immediately aroused Hector, equal to fleet Mars, against him, assimilating himself to the hero Mentes, leader of the Cicones; and addressing him, he spoke winged words:\n\u201cHector, now indeed thou art thus running, pursuing things not to be overtaken, the steeds of warlike Achilles; they indeed are difficult to be managed by mortal men, or to be driven by any other than Achilles, whom an immortal mother bore. In the meanwhile Menelaus, the warlike son of Atreus, protecting Patroclus, has slain the bravest of the Trojans, Euphorbus, the son of Panthus, and made him cease from impetuous valour.\u201d\nFootnote 549: (return) This perfect has much the same usage as \u1f10\u03c0\u03b5\u03bd\u03ae\u03bd\u03bf\u03b8\u03b5, 219.\nThus having spoken, the god on his part again departed into the labour of the men; but heavy grief oppressed Hector as to his dark soul. Then, indeed, he looked around through the ranks, and immediately observed the one bearing away the famous armour, and the other lying upon the ground; and the blood flowed through the inflicted wound. But he advanced through the foremost warriors, armed in shining brass, shrilly shouting, like unto the inextinguishable flame of Vulcan. Nor did he escape the notice of the son of Atreus, loudly exclaiming; but he, deeply sighing, thus communed with his own great-hearted soul:\n\u201cAh me! if I leave the beautiful armour and Patroclus, who lies here for the sake of my honour, [I dread] lest some one of the Greeks, whoever perceives it, will be indignant; but if, being alone, I fight with Hector and the Trojans, from shame, [I fear] lest many surround me, [being] alone. But crest-tossing Hector is leading all the Trojans hither. But wherefore has my soul been thus debating? Whenever a man desires, in opposition to a deity, to fight with a hero whom a god honours, soon is a great destruction hurled upon him; wherefore no one of the Greeks will blame me, who may perceive me retiring from Hector, since he wars under the impulse of a god. But if I could hear Ajax, brave in the din of war, both of us, again returning, would be mindful of battle even against a god, if by any means we could draw off the body for the sake of Achilles, the son of Peleus: of evils, certainly it would be the better.\u201d  550\nFootnote 550: (return) \u201cThe evil here spoken of, and of which a choice is presented to Menelaus, are loss of both the body and the armour of Patroclus, or of either separately. The first alternative he is resolved on guarding against by summoning Ajax to his aid; of the last two, he prefers the abandonment of the arms, i.e. \u03c3\u03cd\u03bb\u03b7, spoliation of the corpse, to \u1f00\u03b5\u03af\u03ba\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1, its disfigurement.\u201d\u2014Kennedy.\nWhile he was thus deliberating these things in his mind and soul, the ranks of the Trojans were meanwhile advancing; and Hector led the way. But he retired back, and quitted the corpse, turning round as a shaggy-bearded lion, which dogs and men drive from the stall with spears and clamour; out his valiant heart within his breast is shaken, and he, unwilling, departs from the fold: thus did yellow-haired Menelaus retire from Patroclus. And being turned round, he stood, when he had reached the band of his companions, looking all around for mighty Ajax, the son of Telamon; whom he very quickly perceived upon the left of the whole battle, encouraging his companions, and urging them to fight: for Ph\u0153bus Apollo had cast a heaven-sent panic amongst them. But he made haste to run, and, immediately standing near, spoke:\n\u201cAjax, hither, friend, let us hasten in defence of slain Patroclus, if we can bear his naked corse at least to Achilles; for his armour crest-tossing Hector possesses.\u201d\nThus he spoke, but he roused the courage of warlike Ajax, and he advanced through the foremost warriors, and with him yellow-haired Menelaus. Hector on his part, after he had despoiled him of his beautiful armour, was dragging Patroclus, that he might sever the head from the shoulders with the sharp brass, and, carrying off the body, might give it to the Trojan dogs, when Ajax came near, bearing his shield, like a tower. Then Hector, retiring back, retreated into the throng of his companions, and sprung up into his chariot; but he gave the handsome armour to the Trojans to carry to the city, to be a great glory to him. But Ajax, with his broad shield covering around the son of Men\u0153tius, stood like a lion over her young; against which, when leading her whelps, the huntsmen rush together in the wood; whilst he looks dreadful in his might, and draws down all his eyebrows, concealing his eyes: so strode Ajax round the hero Patroclus. On the other side stood the son of Atreus, warlike Menelaus, augmenting the great grief in his bosom.\nBut Glaucus, the son of Hippolochus, leader of the Lycian heroes, looking sternly at Hector, upbraided him with harsh language: \u201cHector, most excellent as to appearance, certainly thou art greatly deficient in fighting; doubtless good fame possesses thee without reason, since thou art a fugitive. Consider now, how alone with the people [who are] born in Ilium, thou mayest preserve the state and city, for none of the Lycians, at all events, will go to fight with the Greeks for thy city; since indeed there is no gratitude for fighting ever incessantly with hostile men. How indeed, inglorious one, hast thou preserved an inferior man in the throng, and suffered Sarpedon, at once thy guest and companion, to become a prey and booty to the Greeks; who, when alive, was a great advantage to thy city and thyself; but now thou didst not attempt to drive away the dogs from him. Wherefore if any of the Lycian warriors will now obey me, go home, 551 and utter destruction will be manifest to Troy. For if now that confident, intrepid strength, was in the Trojans, which enters heroes who in the defence of their country undertake toil, and conflict with hostile men, immediately might we draw Patroclus into Ilium. But if he, lifeless, should come to the great city of king Priam, and we had drawn him away from the battle, quickly indeed would the Greeks ransom [to us] the beautiful armour of Sarpedon, and we might bear himself also into Troy; for the attendant of that man is slain, who is by far the bravest of the Greeks at the ships, and whose servants are close-fighting warriors. But thou, forsooth, hast not dared to stand against magnanimous Ajax, beholding his eyes in the battle of the enemy, nor to fight against him; for he is more brave than thou.\u201d\nFootnote 551: (return) Take \u1f34\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd (\u1f30\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9) imperatively, or understand \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03c0\u03b5\u03af\u03c3\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u1f10\u03bc\u03bf\u1f76 \u1f64\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u1f30\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u1f30\u03c2 \u03bf\u1f37\u03ba\u03bf\u03bd, \u1f04\u03bc\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd \u1f02\u03bd \u03b5\u1f34\u03b7 \u03bf\u1f55\u03c4\u03c9\u03c2 \u1f04\u03c1\u03b1 \u1f44\u03bb\u03b5\u03b8\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2, \u03ba. \u03c4. \u03bb. See Kennedy.\nBut him sternly regarding, crest-tossing Hector addressed: \u201cO Glaucus, why hast thou, being such as thou art, spoken haughtily? I\u2019 faith, friend, I thought that thou didst excel in judgment the others, as many as inhabit fertile Lycia; but now I altogether blame thy understanding, since thou hast thus spoken, thou who sayest that I do not withstand mighty Ajax. Neither have I dreaded the battle, nor the tumult of steeds; but the counsel of \u00e6gis-bearing Jove is ever superior, who puts even the valiant man to flight, and easily takes away the victory; but at another time he himself impels him to fight. But come hither, my friend, stand by me, and behold my conduct. Truly I shall always be a coward, as thou sayest, or I will restrain even some of the Greeks, although very eager, from keeping defence over dead Patroclus.\u201d\nThus saying, he cheered on the Trojans, loudly shouting, \u201cYe Trojans and Lycians, and close-fighting Dardanians, be men, my friends, and be mindful of impetuous valour, whilst I put on the armour of illustrious Achilles, beautiful, of which I despoiled mighty Patroclus, having slain him.\u201d\nThus having spoken, crest-tossing Hector departed from the glowing battle, and, running very quickly, overtook his companions, not far off, following with swift feet those who were bearing towards the city the renowned arms of Achilles. Then standing apart from the mournful battle, he changed his armour. His own indeed he gave to the warlike Trojans to bear to sacred Ilium; but he put on the immortal arms of Achilles, the son of Peleus, which the heavenly gods had bestowed on his dear father; but he indeed, growing old, presented them to his son; but the son grew not old in the armour of his father.\nBut when cloud-compelling Jove beheld him apart, accoutred in the armour of divine Pelides, then shaking his head, he said to his own soul:\n\u201cAh! luckless one; nor is death at all in thy thoughts, which is now near thee; but thou puttest on the immortal armour of the bravest hero, at whom others also tremble; and thou hast slain his companion, both gentle and brave, and thou hast taken the armour from his head and shoulders not according to propriety. But now will I give into thy hands a great victory, a compensation for this, that Andromache shall never receive from thee, having returned from the battle, the illustrious arms of the son of Peleus.\u201d\nThe son of Saturn spoke, and moreover nodded with his sable brows. But the armour fitted the person of Hector, and Mars, the dreadful warrior, entered him. And his limbs were inwardly filled with might and strength, and he went after the illustrious allies, exclaiming aloud; and glittering in his armour, to all of them he presented the appearance of the magnanimous son of Peleus. But going among them, he animated each with his words,\u2014Mesthles, Glaucus, Medon, and Thersilochus, Asterop\u00e6us, Disenor, and Hippotho\u00fcs, Phorcys, Chromius, and Ennomus the augur. Exhorting these, he spoke winged words:\n\u201cHear, ye countless troops of allies dwelling around, for I did not assemble you here, each from his own city, seeking or wanting a crowd, but that ye might willingly defend for me the wives and infant children of the Trojans from the warlike Greeks. Thinking these things, I wear away my people by gifts and provisions [to you], and I satisfy the desire of each of you. Wherefore now let some one, being turned round straight, either perish or be saved; for these are the chances of war. 552 Nevertheless, whoever will drag Patroclus, although dead, to the horse-breaking Trojans, and to whom Ajax shall yield, [to him] will I present one-half of the spoils, but I myself will keep the other half; and glory shall be to him as much as to me.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but they, lifting up their spears, advanced with condensed might 553 direct against the Greeks; and their mind eagerly hoped to draw away the dead body from Telamonian Ajax:\u2014fools! truly over it he took away the life from many. And then Ajax addressed Menelaus, good in the din of war:\nFootnote 552: (return) See Duport, Gnom. Hom. p. 97.\nFootnote 553: (return) Schol.: \u03a3\u03c4\u03af\u03c6\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03ae\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2, \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b1\u03c3\u03c0\u03af\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2, \u03b5\u1f30\u03c2 \u03c4\u1f78 \u03b1\u03cd\u03c4\u1f78 \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2 \u1f41\u03c1\u03bc\u03ae\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2. A curious interpretation is given in the Glossaries: \u201c\u0392\u03bf\u03af\u03b6\u03c9, post cibum denuo impetum facio.\u201d See Alberti on Hesych. p. 766.\n\u201cO my friend, O Jove-nurtured Menelaus, no longer do I expect that even we ourselves will return from battle. Nor do I fear so much about the dead body of Patroclus, which will quickly satiate the dogs and birds of the Trojans, as much as I fear for my own head, lest it suffer anything, and for thine, for Hector, that cloud of war, overshadows all things; whilst to us, on the other hand, utter destruction appears. But come, call the bravest of the Greeks, if any one will hear.\u201d\nThus he spoke; nor did Menelaus, good in the din of war, disobey; but he shouted, crying with a loud voice to the Greeks:\n\u201c\u039f friends, leaders and chieftains of the Greeks, ye who with Agamemnon, the son of Atreus, and Menelaus, drink the public wine, 554 and command each his forces; but honour and glory follows from Jove. Difficult would it be for me to look to each of the leaders, for so great a strife of battle burns. But let some one advance, and let him be indignant in his mind, that Patroclus should become a sport to Trojan dogs.\u201d\nFootnote 554: (return) I.e. who are supplied from the public resources,\u2014\u03c4\u1f70 \u1f10\u03ba \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03ba\u03bf\u03b9\u03bd\u1ff6\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b4\u03b7\u03bc\u03bf\u03c3\u03af\u03c9\u03bd \u03c7\u03c1\u03b7\u03bc\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03c7\u03bf\u03c1\u03b7\u03b3\u03bf\u03cd\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2 \u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bb\u03b5\u1fe6\u03c3\u03b9.\u2014Schol.\nThus he spoke; but quickly the swift O\u00eflean Ajax heard, and first advanced opposite, running through the battle; after him Idomeneus, and Meriones, the armour-bearer of Idomeneus, equal to man-slaughtering Mars. But who in his mind could recount the names of the others as many as afterwards aroused the battle of the Greeks? But the Trojans, in close array, first made the onset, and Hector led them on.\nBut as when, at the mouths 555 of a river flowing from Jove, the great wave roars against the stream, while around the lofty shores resound, the wave being ejected [upon the beach], with so loud a clamour did the Trojans advance: but the Greeks stood round the son of Men\u0153tius, having one spirit, protected by their brazen shields; whilst over their shining helmets the son of Saturn poured a thick haze; for he did not formerly hate the son of Men\u0153tius when, being alive, he was the attendant of Achilles, therefore he was loth that he should become a prey to the Trojan dogs of the enemy; and so he excited his companions to defend him. The Trojans, however, first dislodged the dark-eyed Greeks, and they, leaving the dead body, retreated; nor did the magnanimous Trojans slay any of them with their spears, although desirous, but drew off the body. But the Greeks were about to be absent from him a very short while, for very quickly did Ajax rally them, who, next to the renowned son of Peleus, excelled the other Greeks in beauty and in deeds. And he broke through the front ranks, resembling a wild boar in strength, which amongst the mountains easily disperses the dogs and blooming youths through the woods, turning to bay; so the son of illustrious Telamon, noble Ajax, having made the attack, easily routed the phalanxes of the Trojans who had surrounded Patroclus, and mostly expected to drag him to their city, and bear away glory. Meanwhile Hippothous, the illustrious son of Pelasgian Lethus, was dragging him by the foot through the violent conflict, having bound him with a strap at the ancle round the tendons, gratifying Hector and the Trojans. But soon came evil upon him, which no one, even of those desiring it, averted from him. Him the son of Telamon, rushing through the crowd, smote in close fight through the brazen-cheeked helmet. The horse-haired helmet was cleft by the point of the weapon, stricken by the great spear and strong hand; and the brain, bloody, gushed out of the wound at the cone of the helmet; 556 and his strength was there relaxed. Then he let fall from his hands the foot of magnanimous Patroclus, to lie upon the earth, and near him he himself fell, prone upon the dead body, far away from fertile Larissa: nor did he repay the debt of nourishment to his beloved parents, for his life was short, subdued by the spear of magnanimous Ajax. But Hector again aimed at Ajax with his shining spear; he, however, seeing it opposite, avoided the brazen spear by a little; but he struck Schedius, the magnanimous son of Iphitus, by far the bravest of the Phoceans, who inhabited dwellings in renowned Panop\u00ebus, ruling over many men. Him he smote under the middle of the clavicle, and the brazen point of the weapon went quite through, near the extremity of the shoulder. Falling, he made a crash, and his arms rang upon him. Then Ajax again smote warlike Phorcys, the son of Ph\u00e6nops, in the middle of the belly, while defending Hippothous. And he broke the cavity of the corslet, and the brazen weapon drank his entrails through; and falling in the dust, he seized the earth with the palm of his hand. The foremost warriors and illustrious Hector retreated; but the Greeks shouted loudly, and drew off the bodies, both Phorcys and Hippothous, and they loosed the armour from their shoulders.\nFootnote 555: (return) Schol. Apoll. Rhod. i. 11: \u03a4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c0\u03bf\u03c4\u03b1\u03bc\u1ff6\u03bd \u03bf\u1f31 \u03c3\u03c5\u03bc\u03b2\u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2 \u03c4\u03cc\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9 \u03c4\u1fc7 \u03b8\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac\u03c3\u03c3\u1fc3, \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c7\u03bf\u03b1\u1f76 \u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9, where he quotes this instance from Homer.\nFootnote 556: (return) See iii. 372, \u201cthe part of the helmet in which the crest was inserted\u2014unless \u03b1\u1f30\u03bb\u1f78\u03bd be taken metaphorically, and by \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1' \u03b1\u1f50\u03bb\u1f78\u03bd be meant the stream of blood, as from a pipe.\u201d\u2014Oxford Transl.\nThen again would the Trojans, [routed] by the warlike Greeks, have gone up to Ilium, subdued through cowardice; but the Argives on their part, by their valour and might, would have obtained glory, even contrary to the destined will of Jove, had not Apollo himself excited \u00c6neas, in body like unto Periphas the herald, son of Epytis, who knowing prudent counsels in his mind, had grown old, as a herald, with his aged sire. Assimilating himself to him, Apollo, the son of Jove, addressed him:\n\u201cO \u00c6neas, how could ye preserve lofty Ilium against the deity, since I behold these other men relying on their bravery, and might, and valour, and their number, and possessing a dauntless host? Yet Jove wills the victory to us, rather than to the Danai; yet ye greatly tremble, nor fight.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but \u00c6neas, seeing him before him, recognized far-darting Apollo; and loudly shouting, addressed Hector:\n\u201cO Hector, and ye other leaders of the Trojans and allies, this now indeed is a shame, that we, subdued by cowardice, should go up to Ilium, [driven] by the warlike Ach\u00e6ans. For already even now some one of the gods, having stood near to me, declared that Jove, the highest counsellor, is an ally of the battle [to us]. Wherefore let us go direct against the Greeks, nor let them quietly move the dead Patroclus to the ships.\u201d\nThus he spoke, and then springing forth, stood far before the front ranks. But they rallied, and stood opposed to the Greeks. Then \u00c6neas wounded with his spear Leocritus, son of Arisbas, the brave companion of Lycomedes. Him falling, warlike Lycomedes pitied, and advancing very near, he stood, and hurled with his shining spear, and struck Apisaon, the son of Hippasis, shepherd of the people, in the liver, beneath the diaphragm, and immediately relaxed his limbs. He had come from fertile P\u00e6onia, and next to Asterop\u00e6us, was the bravest to fight. Warlike Asterop\u00e6us pitied him-fallen, and he rushed forward, willing to fight with the Greeks. But not yet could he [do so], for [those] standing around Patroclus were fenced in on every side with shields, and held their spears before them; for Ajax went eagerly among all, greatly cheering them on. He suffered not any one either to retire from the body, nor any of the Greeks to fight in front, excelling the others, but vigorously to stalk around for defence, and to combat in close fight. Thus did mighty Ajax command; but the earth was moistened with purple gore, whilst upon each other fell the dead bodies of the Trojans and courageous allies, and of the Greeks; for neither did they fight bloodlessly, although far fewer perished, because they were ever mindful throughout the tumult to repel severe labour from each other.\nThus indeed they fought, like a fire; nor would you say that the Sun was safe, or the Moon, for they were wrapt in dark haze in the combat, as many of the bravest as stood around the dead son of Men\u0153tius. The other Trojans and well-armed Greeks, however, fought at ease 557 beneath the atmosphere; the piercing splendour of the sun was expanded over them, and a cloud did not appear over all the earth, nor the mountains. Resting at intervals, they fought, avoiding the cruel weapons of each other, standing far asunder; whilst those in the middle suffered hardships from darkness and from war, and were afflicted by the ruthless brass, as many as were most brave. But two heroes, illustrious men, Thrasymedes and Antilochus, had not yet heard that blameless Patroclus was dead; but thought that, still alive, he was fighting with the Trojans in the foremost tumult. But these, watching the slaughter and flight of their companions, fought apart, since Nestor had so ordered, urging [them] on to battle from the black ships. But to these all day a mighty contest of severe strife arose, and ever incessantly the knees, the legs, and the feet of each under him, the hands and the eyes of those fighting around the brave companion of swift-footed \u00c6acides, were defiled with fatigue and perspiration. And as when a man gives the hide of a huge ox, saturated with grease, to his people to stretch, but they, having received, stretch it, standing apart from each other in a circle, and straightway the moisture exudes, and the oily matter enters, many pulling it, till it is stretched in every direction; so they, on both sides, dragged the body here and there in a small space; for the mind of the Trojans, on the one hand, eagerly hoped to draw him to Ilium, but of the Greeks, on the other, to the hollow ships. Around him arose a fierce tumult; nor could Mars, the exciter of troops, nor Minerva, having beheld it, have found fault, not even if wrath had particularly come upon her; such an evil labour of men and horses did Jove extend over Patroclus on that day. Nor as yet did noble Achilles at all know that Patroclus was dead, because they fought far from the swift ships, beneath the wall of the Trojans. He never thought in his mind that he was dead; but that alive, having approached the gates, he would return back, since he did not at all suppose that he could sack the city without him, for he had often heard this from his mother, hearing it apart, who used to tell him the design of mighty Jove. Yet his mother had not then told him so great an evil as had happened, that the companion by far most dear to him had perished.\nFootnote 557: (return) I.e. resting at intervals, as it is explained in ver. 373.\nBut they, ever around the dead body, holding their sharp spears, charged incessantly, and slaughtered one another, and thus would some of the brazen-mailed Greeks say:\n\u201cO friends, surely it will not be honourable for us to retreat to the hollow ships; but [rather] let the black earth here gape for all. This indeed would at once be better for us, than that we should permit the horse-breaking Trojans to drag him to their city, and obtain glory.\u201d\nAnd thus also would some one of the magnanimous Trojans say:\n\u201c\u039f friends, although it be our destiny that all be equally subdued beside this man, never let any one retire from the battle.\u201d\nThus, then, some one said, and aroused the spirit of each. Thus indeed were they fighting; and the iron clangour 558 reached the brazen heaven through the unfruitful air. But the horses of \u00c6acides being apart from the combat, wept, when first they perceived that their charioteer had fallen in the dust, beneath man-slaughtering Hector. Automedon, indeed, the brave son of Diores, frequently urged them on, beating them with the sharp lash, and frequently addressed them in mild terms and in threats; but they chose neither to go back to the ships towards the wide Hellespont nor into the battle among the Greeks; but, as a pillar remains firm, which stands at the tomb of a dead man or woman, so they remained detaining the splendid chariot motionless, and drooping their heads to the earth. But warm tears 559 flowed from their eyelids to the earth, complaining from desire of their charioteer; and their thick mane was defiled, flowing down on both sides from the collar at the yoke. But the son of Saturn beholding them lamenting, felt compassion, and shaking his head, communed with his own mind:\n\u201cAh! luckless pair, why did we give you to king Peleus, a mortal; for ye are free from old age, and immortal? Was it that ye might endure griefs with unhappy men? For there is not anything at all more wretched than man, 560 of all, as many as breathe and move over the earth. But Hector, the son of Priam, shall not be borne by you, even in the curiously-wrought chariot, for I will not permit it. Is it not enough that he both possesses those arms, and vainly boasts? But into your knees and spirit will I cast vigour, that ye may safely bear Automedon from the battle to the hollow ships; for still will I give glory to them (the Trojans), to slay, until they reach the well-benched ships, till the sun set, and sacred darkness come on.\u201d\nFootnote 558: (return) Clarke compares \u00c6n. xii. 284, from Ennius, apud Macrob. vi. 1: \u201cHastati spargunt hastas, fit ferreus imber.\u201d See Columna\u2019s notes. p. 82, ed. Hessel. The Scholiast rather interprets it, of a strong and violent shout, \u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03b5\u1f78\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u1f7a \u1f30\u03c3\u03c7\u03c5\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2.\nFootnote 559: (return) See Virg. \u00c6n. xi. 89, sqq. with Servius, Quintus Calab. iii. 740: \u039f\u03cd\u03b4\u1f72 \u03bc\u03b9\u03bd \u1f04\u03bc\u03b2\u03c1\u03bf\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9 \u1f35\u03c0\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9 \u1f00\u03c4\u03b1\u03c1\u03b2\u03ad\u03bf\u03c2 \u0391\u1f30\u03b1\u03ba\u03af\u03b4\u03b1\u03bf \u039c\u03af\u03bc\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd \u1f00\u03b4\u03ac\u03ba\u03c1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u1f70 \u03bd\u03ae\u03b5\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd' \u1f00\u03bb\u03bb\u1f70 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03bf\u1f76 \u039c\u03cd\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf \u03c3\u03c6\u03b5\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf \u03b4\u03b1\u03ca\u03ba\u03c4\u03b1\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bb\u1fc6\u03bf\u03c2. \u039f\u1f50\u03b4' \u1f14\u03b8\u03b5\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd \u03bc\u03bf\u03b3\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u1f14\u03c4' \u1f00\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03ac\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd, \u03bf\u1f50\u03b4\u1f72 \u03bc\u03b5\u03b8' \u1f35\u03c0\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2 \u039c\u03af\u03c3\u03b3\u03b5\u03c3\u03b8' \u1f08\u03c1\u03b3\u03b5\u03af\u03c9\u03bd, \u1f40\u03bb\u03bf\u1f78\u03bd \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u03c0\u03ad\u03bd\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f14\u03c7\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2.\nFootnote 560: (return) On this comfortable and satisfactory sentiment, see the lugubrious collection of parallel passages in Duport, p. 98.\nSo saying, he breathed strong vigour into the steeds; and they, shaking the dust from their manes to the ground, quickly bore the rapid car amongst the Trojans and Greeks. And against them 561 fought Automedon, though grieved for his companion, rushing along in his chariot like a vulture among the geese. For he fled easily from the tumult of the Trojans, and easily did he rush on, pursuing through the dense throng. Yet did he not slay the men when he pressed onward to pursue; for it was by no means possible for him, being alone in the sacred 562 car, to assault with the spear and to rein in the fleet steeds. At length, however, a companion, the hero Alcimedon, son of La\u00ebrceus, the son of \u00c6mon, beheld him with his eyes, and stood behind his chariot, and addressed Automedon:\nFootnote 561: (return) The Trojans.\nFootnote 562: (return) I.e. splendid, of surpassing workmanship. Others refer the epithet to the divine gift mentioned in ver. 443, to the fabrication of the chariot by the god Vulcan, or to the origin of Achilles himself from a goddess.\n\u201cWhich of the gods, O Automedon, has placed a foolish counsel in thy bosom, and taken from thee sound judgment; inasmuch as alone thou fightest in the foremost ranks with the Trojans? Thy companion indeed is slain; and Hector himself vaunts, having upon his shoulders the armour of \u00c6acides.\u201d\nHim then Automedon, the son of Diores, addressed:\n\u201cAlcimedon, what other of the Greeks, then, is like thee, to subdue and restrain the spirit of immortal steeds, unless Patroclus, whilst alive, a counsellor equal to the gods? Now, however, death and fate possess him. Nevertheless, do thou take the lash and beautiful reins; but I will descend from the chariot, that I may fight.\u201d  563\nFootnote 563: (return) Alcimedon in this address condemns the imprudence of his friend, who, in this moment of imminent danger, takes upon him the joint offices of warrior (\u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03b2\u03ac\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2) and charioteer (\u1f21\u03bd\u03af\u03bf\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2).\nThus he spoke, but Alcimedon, ascending the chariot, swift in war, instantly took in his hands the lash and reins, whilst Automedon leaped down; but illustrious Hector perceived this, and immediately addressed \u00c6neas, being near:\n\u201c\u00c6neas, counsellor of the brazen-mailed Trojans, I have observed these two steeds of Achilles proceeding through the battle with unskilful charioteers. I therefore may hope to capture them, if thou, at least, desire it in thy mind; for standing opposite, they will not dare to withstand us, rushing on to fight in battle.\u201d\nThus he spoke; nor did the brave son of Anchises disobey. Both advanced direct, covered as to their shoulders with bulls\u2019 hides, dry, thick; and upon them much brass was plated. But along with them went both Chromius and god-like Aretus: and their mind greatly hoped to slay them, and to drive away the long-necked steeds. Foolish, 564 for they were not destined to return back bloodlessly from Automedon, for he, having prayed to father Jove, was filled with fortitude and valour, as to his dark mind, and immediately addressed Alcimedon, his faithful comrade:\nFootnote 564: (return) Cf. \u00c6n. x. 501, sqq. So Milton, P.L. ix. 404:\u2014\n\n\n\u201cO much deceived, much failing, hapless Eve,\nOf thy presumed return! event perverse!\u201d\n\n\n\u201cO Alcimedon, do not now detain the steeds far from me; but [keep them] breathing closely at my back; for I do not think that Hector, the son of Priam, will abstain from violence, before that he has mounted the beautiful-maned horses of Achilles, having slain both of us, and put to rout the ranks of Grecian heroes; or himself be slain among the first.\u201d\nThus saying, he called upon the Ajaces, and Menelaus: \u201cYe Ajaces, leaders of the Greeks, and Menelaus, leave then the dead body to those, as many as are bravest, to defend it on all sides, and to repulse the ranks of men; but from us who are alive avert the merciless day. For hither violently rush through the lamentable fight Hector and \u00c6neas, who are the best of the Trojans. But all these things rest upon the knees of the gods; for I also will hurl, and all these things will be a care to Jove.\u201d\nHe said; and, brandishing, hurled his long-shadowed spear, and struck upon the shield of Aretus, equal on all sides; it however did not repel the spear, but the brass went entirely through, and passed through the belt into the bottom of his belly. And as when a man in youthful vigour, holding a sharp axe, cuts through the whole tendon, striking behind the horns of a wild bull; but it, leaping forward, falls; so he, springing forward, fell supine; and the sharp spear, quivering in his entrails, relaxed his limbs. Then Hector took aim at Automedon with his shining spear, but he, seeing it in front of him, avoided the brazen weapon; for he bent forward. But the long spear was fixed in the ground behind him; and moreover the nether end of the spear was shaken; but there then the strong weapon spent its force. Then truly they would have engaged hand to hand with their swords, had not the eager Ajaces, who came through the crowd, at the call of their companion, separated them. But Hector, \u00c6neas, and godlike Chromius, greatly dreading them, retired back again, and left Aretus lying there, lacerated as to his heart; but him Automedon, equal to swift Mars, despoiled of his armour, and, boasting, uttered this speech:\n\u201cSurely now I have a little relieved my heart of sorrow for the dead son of Men\u0153tius, although having slain but an inferior man.\u201d\nThus having spoken, seizing the gore-stained spoils, he placed them in the chariot, and mounted himself, bloody as to his feet and hands above, like some lion which has fed upon a bull. Again over Patroclus was the direful battle extended, grievous, lamentable; and Minerva excited the contention, descending from heaven; for far-sounding Jove sent her forth to encourage the Greeks, as his intention was now changed. As Jove extends a purple rainbow from heaven to mortals, to be a signal either of war, or of a chilling storm, which causes men to cease from their works upon the earth, and afflicts the cattle; so she, having obscured herself in a purple cloud, entered the army of the Greeks, and aroused every man. First, however, she addressed the son of Atreus, gallant Menelaus, inciting him, for he was near her, assimilating herself, in her form and unwearied voice, to Ph\u0153nix:\n\u201cThine, of a truth, will shame and disgrace now be, O Menelaus, if the swift dogs tear the faithful companion of illustrious Achilles beneath the wall of the Trojans; therefore bravely hold on, and urge on all the people.\u201d Whom, in return, Menelaus, good in the din of war, addressed: \u201cPh\u0153nix, father, old man long since born, would that Minerva would give me strength, and ward off the force of the weapons. Then indeed would I be willing to stand by and defend Patroclus; for dying, he greatly affected my mind with grief. But Hector has the dreadful force of fire, nor does he cease slaying with his spear; for to him Jove affords glory.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but the azure-eyed goddess Minerva rejoiced, because to her he had prayed first of all the gods. But in his shoulders and knees she put strength, and placed in his bosom the boldness of a fly, which, although frequently driven away from a human body, persists in biting,\u2014and the blood of man is sweet to it. With such confidence she filled his dark soul: and he advanced towards Patroclus, and took aim with his splendid spear. Now there was among the Trojans one Podes, the son of E\u00ebtion, rich and brave; whom of his people Hector chiefly honoured, for he was his dear companion in the banquet. Him yellow-haired Menelaus smote upon the belt while hastening to flight, and drove the brazen weapon quite through. He, falling, gave a crash, and Menelaus, the son of Atreus, dragged away the body from the Trojans to the crowd of his companions. But Apollo, standing near, excited Hector in the likeness of Ph\u0153nops, son of Asias, who, inhabiting dwellings at Abydos, was most dear to him of all his guests. Assimilating himself to him, far-darting Apollo spoke:\n\u201cHector, what other of the Greeks will any more fear thee, since now thou dreadest Menelaus, who indeed before was but an effeminate warrior, but now departs done, bearing off the dead corse from the Trojans? He has slain, in the front ranks, Podes, the son of E\u00ebtion, thy comrade, faithful and brave.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but him a dark cloud of grief overshadowed, and he went through the front ranks, armed in glittering brass. And then the son of Saturn took his \u00e6gis, fringed and splendid, and covered Ida with clouds; but having flashed his lightning, he thundered very loudly, and shook it (the mountain); and (he) gave victory to the Trojans, but put the Greeks to flight.\nPeneleus, the B\u0153otian, first was leader of the flight; for he was wounded slightly 565 on the tip of the shoulder with a spear, being always turned frontwards; but the spear of Polydamas grazed even to the bone, for he, coming close, had wounded him. Next Hector wounded Le\u00eftus, son of magnanimous Alectryon, on the hand at the wrist, and caused him to cease from battle. Then looking around him, he trembled, since he no longer hoped in his mind [to be able] to fight with the Trojans, holding his spear in his hand. But Idomeneus had struck, on the corslet, upon the breast near the pap, Hector rushing after Le\u00eftus: the long spear, however, was broken at the socket; and the Trojans shouted. But he [Hector] discharged his javelin at Idomeneus, the son of Deucalion, as he was standing in his car: him he missed by a little, but struck Coeranus, the attendant and charioteer of Meriones, who had followed him from well-situated Lyctus. For at first on foot, having left his equally-plied ships, he came, and would have secured a decided victory to the Trojans, had not Coeranus quickly driven on his swift-footed steeds: to him then he (Coeranus) came as a help, and warded off the merciless day; but he himself lost his life beneath man-slaughtering Hector. Him he smote beneath the jaw-bone and ear, and the extremity of the spear forced out his teeth and cut through the middle of his tongue. He fell from his chariot, and the reins dropped to the ground; and Meriones, stooping, lifted them from the plain in his own hands, and addressed Idomeneus:\n\u201cLash on, now, until thou reach the swift ships; for even thou thyself perceivest that victory is no longer on the side of the Ach\u00e6ans.\u201d\nFootnote 565: (return) \u1f18\u03c0\u03b9\u03bb\u03af\u03b3\u03b4\u03b7\u03bd, on the surface, \u03b4\u03b9' \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u1fc6\u03c2\u00b7\u2014Kennedy.\nThus he spake; and Idomeneus lashed on the beautiful-maned steeds to the hollow ships; for fear now seized his mind.\nNor did Jove escape notice of magnanimous Ajax and Menelaus, when he for the present gave the dubious victory to the Trojans; but to them the mighty Ajax, son of Telamon, began to speak:\n\u201cAlas! even he who is very stupid might now know that father Jove himself is aiding the Trojans; for the weapons of them all take effect, whoever may throw them, whether coward or brave man. Jove certainly directs them all. But the weapons of all of us fall to the earth in vain. Come, however, let us devise the best plan, both how we may drag off the corse, and how we ourselves may be a source of joy to our beloved comrades, having returned home. They, of a truth, beholding us here, are grieved, and think that we shall no longer resist the might and invincible hands of man-slaughtering Hector. But, would there were some companion who would quickly bring word to Achilles, since I think he has not yet heard the mournful tidings, that his dear comrade has died. But nowhere can I see such a person among the Greeks, for they and their steeds are together enveloped in darkness. O father Jove, liberate at least the sons of the Greeks from darkness; make a clear atmosphere, and grant us to see with our eyes; then destroy us in the light, 566 if thus it be pleasing to thee.\u201d\nFootnote 566: (return) A prayer well worthy of Ajax. Ammian. Marcell. xxviii.: \u201cPer horrorem tenebrarum\u2014quo tempore hebetari solent obstrict\u00e6 terroribus mentes; ut inter innumera multa Ajax quoque Homericus docet, optans perire potius luce, quam pati formidinis augmenta nocturn\u00e6.\u201d Cf. Longin. ix.\nThus he spoke; but the Sire felt compassion for him weeping, and immediately dissipated the haze, and removed the cloud. And the sun shone forth, and the whole battle was displayed, and then Ajax addressed Menelaus, good in the din of war:\n\u201cLook around now, O Jove-nurtured Menelaus, if anywhere thou canst perceive, yet alive, Antilochus, the son of magnanimous Nestor. Urge him, going speedily, to tell to warlike Achilles, that the comrade, by far most dear to him, has perished.\u201d\nThus he spoke; nor did Menelaus, good in the din of war, disobey. But he hastened to go, like some lion from a fold, which after that he is fatigued, harassing both dogs and men, who watching all night, suffer him not to carry off the fat of the oxen; but he, desirous of flesh, rushes on, but nothing profits; for many javelins fly against him from daring hands, and blazing torches, which, eager as he is, he dreads; but early in the morning he goes apart with saddened mind. So, most unwilling, from Patroclus went Menelaus, brave in the din of war; because he greatly feared lest the Greeks, through grievous terror, should leave him a prey to the enemy. And much, therefore, he exhorted Meriones and the Ajaces:\n\u201cYe Ajaces, leaders of the Greeks, and Meriones, now let each one be mindful of the gentleness of wretched Patroclus; for when alive, he knew how to be mild to all; but now, indeed, Death and Fate overtake him.\u201d\nThus then having spoken, yellow-haired Menelaus departed, gazing round in all directions, like an eagle, which, they say, sees most acutely of birds beneath the sky, and which, though being aloft, the swift-footed hare does not escape, when lying beneath the dense-foliaged thicket; but he pounces upon it, and quickly seizing it, deprives it of life. Thus, O Jove-nurtured Menelaus, were thy shining eyes turned round in all directions through the band of thy numerous companions, if anywhere thou mightst behold the son of Nestor, yet living. But him he very soon perceived upon the left of all the battle, encouraging his companions, and inciting them to fight; and standing near, yellow-haired Menelaus addressed [him]:\n\u201cHo! hither come, Antilochus, Jove-nurtured, that thou mayest hear the sad message which\u2014would that it had not happened. I think, indeed, that thou thyself looking, perceivest that a god rolls disaster upon the Greeks, but that victory is on the side of the Trojans; for Patroclus, the bravest of the Greeks, is slain; and a great longing [after him] has befallen the Greeks. But do thou quickly tell it to Achilles, running to the ships of the Greeks, if perchance quickly he may bring in safety to his ships the unarmed body; for crest-tossing Hector possesses the armour.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but Antilochus shuddered, hearing the news; and long did a want of words possess him; and his eyes were filled with tears, and his liquid voice was interrupted. Yet not even thus did he neglect the command of Menelaus; but he hastened to run, and gave his armour to Laodocus, his blameless companion, who, near him, managed the solid-hoofed steeds. Him, however, his feet bore, weeping, from the battle, about to communicate the evil news to Achilles, son of Peleus.\nNor, O Jove-nurtured Menelaus, was thy mind willing to aid the harassed comrades, in the place whence Antilochus had departed, and great longing after him was caused to the Pylians; but to them he sent noble Thrasymedes, and he himself went again towards the hero Patroclus; but arriving, he stood beside the Ajaces, and immediately addressed them:\n\u201cHim, indeed, I have now despatched to the swift ships, to go to swift-footed Achilles: yet I do not think that he will come, although greatly enraged with noble Hector; for being unarmed, he could by no means fight with the Trojans. Let even us then ourselves deliberate upon the best plan, as well how we shall draw off the body, as also how we ourselves may escape Death and Fate from the clamour of the Trojans.\u201d\nBut him mighty Telamonian Ajax then answered:\n\u201cAll things correctly hast thou spoken, O illustrious Menelaus. But do thou, and Meriones, stooping quickly under it, having lifted it up, bear the body from the fight; whilst we two of like name, possessing equal courage, will fight with the Trojans and with noble Hector, we who even formerly have sustained the sharp conflict, remaining by each other.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but they with great exertion lifted up the body in their arms from the ground: but the Trojan army shouted in their rear when they saw the Greeks raising up the dead body, and rushed on like dogs, which spring upon a wounded boar, before the youthful hunters. One while indeed they run, eager to tear him asunder, but again, when he turns upon them, relying on his strength, then they retreat, and fly in different directions hither and thither: so the Trojans sometimes steadily pursued in a body, striking with their swords and two-edged spears; but when again the Ajaces, turning round upon them, stood, then was their colour changed, nor dared any one, rushing forward, to combat for the corpse.\nThus they with alacrity bore the body from the fight towards the hollow ships; but the fierce battle was extended to them like a flame, which assailing, [and] being suddenly excited, sets fire to a city of men, and the houses diminish in the mighty blaze; whilst the force of the wind roars through it: so a horrid tumult of steeds and warlike heroes followed them departing. But as mules, exerting vast strength, 567 drag from a mountain along a rugged path either a beam or a large piece of timber for ship-building, but the spirit within them, as they hasten, is wearied equally with fatigue and perspiration; so they with alacrity bore away the body, whilst the Ajaces behind them checked [the enemy]; as a barrier of wood, stretched straight across a plain, restrains water; which checks the furious courses even of rapid rivers, and immediately turning them, directs the streams of all into the plain; nor can they at all burst through it, though flowing with violence. So the Ajaces in the rear always repulsed the attack of the Trojans, who, however, followed along with them; but two amongst them in particular, \u00c6neas, son of Anchises, and illustrious Hector. And as a cloud of starlings or jackdaws, shrilly chattering, 568 flies away when they perceive a hawk advancing, which brings death to small birds; so then from \u00c6neas and Hector departed the sons of the Greeks, loudly clamouring, and were forgetful of the fight. And much beautiful armour of the flying Greeks fell both in and about the trench; but there was no cessation from the battle.\nFootnote 567: (return) Literally, \u201cgirding themselves with strength.\u201d\nFootnote 568: (return) Or, \u201cshouting in presage of their doom,\u201d as Heyne and Kennedy would take it, a meaning borne out by \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u0390\u03b4\u03c9\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd. Cf. Longus. Past. ii. 12: \u039f\u1f31 \u03ba\u03c9\u03bc\u1fc6\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03c7\u03b8\u03ad\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2, \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03c0\u03ae\u03b4\u03c9\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2 \u1f61\u03c3\u03b5\u1f76 \u03c8\u1fb6\u03c1\u03b5\u03c2, \u1f22 \u03ba\u03bf\u03bb\u03bf \u03bf\u03af.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THE EIGHTEENTH.\nARGUMENT.\nThetis comforts her son for the death of Patroclus, and promises to procure him new armour from Vulcan. At the command of Juno, Achilles comes forth and strikes terror into the enemy. The body of Patroclus is rescued, and prepared for funeral rites, and Vulcan forges a suit of armour and a splendid shield for Achilles.\nThus they, then, 569 were fighting, like a blazing fire; but swift-footed Antilochus came as a messenger to Achilles. Him he found in front of his lofty-prowed ships, revolving in his mind those things which had already been accomplished; and then groaning, he communed with his own mind:\nFootnote 569: (return) This is to be taken in connection with ver. 148 of the last book, as the regular narrative is interrupted by the message of Antilochus and the grief of Achilles.\n\u201cAh me! why are the long-haired Ach\u00e6ans driven back in confusion to the ships, routed through the plain? [I fear] lest the gods have accomplished evil sorrows to my soul, as my mother once informed me, and told me that the bravest of the Myrmidons, I being yet alive, would leave the light of the sun, by the hands of the Trojans. Too surely now the valiant son of Men\u0153tius is dead,\u2014obstinate one! certainly I desired him, having repelled the hostile fire, to return to the ships, nor to fight bravely with Hector.\u201d\nWhilst he was revolving these things in his mind and in his soul, in the meantime the son of illustrious Nestor drew near, shedding warm tears, and delivered his sad message:\n\u201cAlas! O son of warlike Peleus, surely thou wilt hear a very grievous message, which\u2014would that it had not taken place. Patroclus lies low; and around his unarmed corse they are now fighting, whilst crest-tossing Hector possesses his armour.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but him a black cloud of grief overshadowed, and taking the burnt ashes with both hands, he poured them on his head, and denied his comely countenance; but the dark ashes everywhere adhered to his rich 570 tunic. But he, mighty, lay extended at great length in the dust, and tearing, he disordered his hair with his hands. The handmaids, whom Achilles and Patroclus had taken, grieved in their souls, shrieked aloud, and ran out of the door round warlike Achilles; and all smote their breasts with their hands, 571 and the limbs of each were relaxed. Antilochus, on the other side, lamented, shedding tears, holding the hands of Achilles; (and he kept groaning within his generous heart,) for he feared lest he should cut his throat with his sword. Then he moaned dreadfully, and his venerable mother heard him, sitting in the depths of the sea, beside her aged father, and immediately lamented: and all the goddesses assembled around her, as many Nere\u00efdes as were at the bottom of the sea. There were Glauce, Thaleia, and Cymodoce, Nes\u00e6a, Spio, Thoa, and large-eyed Halia, Cymotho\u00eb, Act\u00e6a, and Limnorea, Melita, I\u00e6ra, Amphitho\u00eb, and Agave, Doto, Proto, Pherusa, and Dynamene, Dexamene, Amphinome, and Callianira, Doris, Panope, and distinguished Galatea, Nemertes, Apseudes, and Callianassa. There were also Clymene, Ianira, and Ianassa, M\u00e6ra, Orithya, and fair-haired Amathea, and other Nere\u00efdes which were in the depths of the sea. But the resplendent cave was full of them, and all at once they beat their breasts; but Thetis began the lamentation:\nFootnote 570: (return) So \u03bd\u03b5\u03ba\u03c4\u03ac\u03c1\u03b5\u03bf\u03bd \u1f11\u03b1\u03bd\u03cc\u03bd, iii. 385.\u2014Heyne.\nFootnote 571: (return) In illustration of this custom of mourners, cf. Virg. \u00c6n. i. 484:\u2014\n\n\n\u201cCrinibus Iliades passis, peplumque ferebant\nSuppliciter tristes, et tuns\u00e6 pectora palmis.\u201d\n\n\nOvid, Fast. iv. 454: \u201cEt feriunt m\u0153st\u00e6 pectora nuda manus.\u201d Silius, xii. 528. Petronius, ciii. p. 509, ed. Burm.: \u201cSparsis prosequi crinibus, aut nudatum pectus plangere;\u201d cxv.: \u201cPercussi semel iterumque pectus.\u201d See Westerhov, on Ter. Hec. ii. 3, 49; Northmore on Tryphiodor. 34; and Blomf. on \u00c6sch. Choeph. 27.\n\u201cHear, sister Nere\u00efdes, that hearing ye may all well know what griefs are in my mind. Woe is me wretched! woe is me who have in an evil hour brought forth the bravest [of men], I who, after having borne a son, blameless and valiant, the chief of heroes, and he grew up 572 like a young tree: having reared him like a sapling in a fruitful spot of a field, I afterwards sent him forth in the curved ships to Ilium, to fight against the Trojans; but I shall not receive him again, having returned home to the palace of Peleus. But whilst he lives and beholds the light of the sun, he grieves, 573 nor can I, going to him, avail him aught. Yet will I go, that I may see my beloved son, and hear what grief comes upon him remaining away from the battle.\u201d\nThus having spoken, she left the cave; but they all went along with her, weeping, and the wave of the ocean was cleft around for them. 574 But when they reached fertile Troy, they in order ascended the shore, where the fleet ships of the Myrmidons were drawn up round swift Achilles. Then his venerable mother, shrilly wailing, stood near to him deeply lamenting, and took the head of her son, and, mourning, addressed to him winged words:\nFootnote 572: (return) \u1f08\u03bd\u03ad\u03b4\u03c1\u03b1\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd is used in the same way by Herodot. vii. 156, viii. 55; Theocrit. xviii. 29. It corresponds to our English phrase \u201cto run up.\u201d\nFootnote 573: (return) I.e. he continues to do so, and will, till his death.\nFootnote 574: (return) \u03a3\u03c6\u03af\u03c3\u03b9 is the dativus commodi.\n\u201cO son, why weepest thou, and what sorrow has come upon thy mind? Speak out, nor conceal it. Those things indeed are fulfilled for thee from Jove, as thou didst formerly pray, lifting up thy hands\u2014that all the sons of the Greeks, wanting thee, should, be collected at the ships, and suffer disgraceful deeds.\u201d\nBut her swift-footed Achilles addressed, deeply groaning:\n\u201cMother mine, these things indeed the Olympian king hath accomplished for me; but what pleasure is there in them to me, since Patroclus, my dear companion, is dead, whom I honoured beyond all my companions, equally with my own head? Him have I lost; and Hector, having slain him, has stripped off his mighty armour, a wonder to be seen, beautiful; which the other gods gave to Peleus, splendid gifts, on that day when they laid thee in the bed of a mortal man. Would that thou hadst dwelt there among the immortal marine inhabitants, and that Peleus had wedded a mortal spouse. But now [thou hast been wedded, to the end] that immeasurable grief may be upon thy mind for thy son slain, whom thou shalt not again receive, having returned home. Since even my mind urges me not to live nor have intercourse with men, unless Hector first lose his life, smitten by my spear, and pay the penalty for the slaughter 575 of Patroclus, the son of Men\u0153tius.\u201d\nBut him Thetis in turn addressed, pouring forth tears: \u201cShort-lived thou wilt be, O my son, as thou sayest, for fate is ready for thee immediately after Hector.\u201d Then, heavily sighing, swift-footed Achilles addressed her: \u201cMay I die then immediately, since it was not destined that I should aid my companion now slain; but he indeed hath perished far away from his native land, and longed for me to be an averter of his doom. But now 576\u2014since I shall not return to my dear father-land, nor have been a preservation 577 to Patroclus, or to my other companions, who have been subdued in great numbers by noble Hector; but sit beside the ships, an useless weight on the earth, being such as is none of the brazen-mailed Ach\u00e6ans in war, though in council there are others superior; would that therefore contention might be extinguished from gods and men; and anger, which is wont to impel even the very wisest to be harsh; and which, much sweeter than distilling honey, like smoke, rises in the breasts of men; so now did Agamemnon, king of men, enrage me: but although greatly grieved, let us leave these things to pass by as done, subduing, from necessity, our own spirit within our bosoms: but now will I go, that I may find Hector, the destroyer of my dear friend, and I will accept death whensoever Jove and the other immortal gods shall please to accomplish it. For not even the might of Hercules escaped death, who was very dear to king Jove, the son of Saturn; but fate subdued him, and the grievous wrath of Juno. So also shall I lie, when I am dead, if a similar fate be destined for me; but now may I bear away illustrious glory, and compel some one of the Trojan women and deep-robed Dardanians to sigh frequently, wiping away the tears from her tender cheeks with both hands; and may they know that I have long ceased from battle. 578 Wherefore do not hinder me from the combat, although loving me, for thou wilt not persuade me.\u201d\nFootnote 575: (return) \u0395\u03bb\u03ce\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1 is the more usual form, but \u1f14\u03bb\u03c9\u03c1\u03b1 is recognized by Hesychius. \u201cIf correct,\u201d Kennedy says, \u201cit may be explained by the existence of \u1f14\u03bb\u03c9\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd from \u1f14\u03bb\u03c9\u03c1 (Hesych. t.i. p. 1186, from Il. v. 488), signifying the price of slaughter, by the same analogy as \u03b8\u03c1\u03ad\u03c0\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd (iv. 478) the price of nutrition.\u201d\nFootnote 576: (return) Observe the long hyperbaton, resulting from the excitement of the speaker.\nFootnote 577: (return) Literally, \u201clight.\u201d\nFootnote 578: (return) I.e. they shall find out the difference when I make my appearance\nHim then the silver-footed goddess Thetis answered: \u201cCertainly this is true, O son, nor is it an evil thing to avert utter destruction from our friends when afflicted. But thy beautiful arms, brazen and shining, are detained among the Trojans, which crest-tossing Hector himself, having on his shoulders, boasts of: yet I suspect that he will not long glory in them, for death is near to him. But do thou by no means enter the slaughter of Mars before thou beholdest me with thine eyes coming hither. For at dawn I will return with the rising sun, bearing beautiful armour from king Vulcan.\u201d\nThus having spoken, she turned round from her son, and being turned, addressed her marine sisters: \u201cEnter ye now the broad bosom of the deep, about to behold the marine old man, and the mansions of my sire, and tell him all things; but I go to lofty Olympus, to Vulcan, the skilful artist, to try if he is willing to give my son illustrious, glittering armour.\u201d\nThus she spoke, but they immediately sank beneath the wave of the sea. But Thetis, the silver-footed goddess, again departed to Olympus, that she might bear the illustrious armour to her beloved son. Her, on the one hand, her feet bore towards Olympus: but the Greeks, flying with a heaven-sent uproar from man-slaughtering Hector, reached the ships and the Hellespont. Nor had the well-greaved Greeks drawn off the dead body of Patroclus, the attendant of Achilles, out of the reach of weapons; for now again both infantry and cavalry pursued him, and Hector, the son of Priam, like unto a flame in violence. Thrice did illustrious Hector seize him behind by the feet, eager to draw him away, and loudly shouted to the Trojans; and thrice did the two Ajaces, clad in impetuous might, forcibly repulse him from the corse; whilst he, with steady purpose, ever relying on his might, sometimes charged through the crowd, and sometimes again stopped, loudly shouting; but never retreated altogether. But as night-watching 579 shepherds are by no means able to drive away from a carcase a tawny lion, greatly hungering; so were the two warriors, the Ajaces, unable to drive away Hector, the son of Priam, from the body. And now indeed would he have dragged it off, and obtained great glory, had not fleet wind-footed Iris come as a messenger to the son of Peleus, running down from Olympus, that he should arm himself unknown to Jove and the other gods; for Juno sent her forth; and standing near, she addressed to him winged words:\nFootnote 579: (return) Cf. Luke ii. 8, with the notes of Wetstein and Kypke. Although \u1f04\u03b3\u03c1\u03b1\u03c5\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9 may simply mean \u201cdwelling in the fields,\u201d as in Apollon. Rh. iv. 317, it is better to follow the interpretation of Hesychius: \u039f\u1f31 \u1f10\u03bd \u1f00\u03b3\u03c1\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2 \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03bd\u03c5\u03ba\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03b5\u03cd\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2. But cf. Alberti, t.i. p. 64.\n\u201cArise, son of Peleus, most terrible of all men; defend Patroclus, for whom 580 a dire contest is maintained before the ships. But they are slaughtering each other, the one party fighting for the slain corpse, whilst the other, the Trojans, rush on, that they may drag him away to wind-swept Ilium; and above all, illustrious Hector desires to seize him, for his mind prompts him to fix his head upon stakes, having cut it from the tender neck. But up, nor lie longer; but let reverence 581 touch thy soul, that Patroclus should be a source of delight to Trojan dogs. A disgrace would be to thee, if the dead body should come at all defiled.\u201d\nFootnote 580: (return) I.e. for whose body.\nFootnote 581: (return) \u201c\u03a3\u03ad\u03b2\u03b1\u03c2 is commonly rendered pudor, nearly synonymous with \u03b1\u1f30\u03b4\u03ce\u03c2. Its meaning is however more forcible, viz. esteem it as an act of impiety to abandon the body to insult.\u201d\u2014Kennedy.\nBut her noble, swift-footed Achilles, then answered: \u201cWhich of the gods, O goddess Iris, sent thee as a messenger to me?\u201d\nBut him fleet, wind-footed Iris, again addressed: \u201cJuno sent me forth, the glorious spouse of Jove, nor does the lofty-throned son of Saturn know it, nor any other of the immortals who inhabit snowy Olympus.\u201d\nBut her swift-footed Achilles answering, addressed: \u201cAnd how can I go to the slaughter? for they possess my armour. Besides, my dear mother does not permit me to be armed, before that with my eyes I behold her coming, for she hath promised that she will bear me beautiful armour from Vulcan. But I indeed know not of another, whose splendid armour I could put on, 582 except the shield of Ajax, son of Telamon.\u201d\nFootnote 582: (return) \u1f08\u03bb\u03bb' \u03bf\u1f50\u03b4\u03b5\u03bd\u1f78\u03c2 \u03bf\u1f36\u03b4\u03b1 \u1f00\u03c1\u03bc\u03cc\u03b6\u03bf\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac\u03bd \u03bc\u03bf\u03b9 \u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03bf\u03c0\u03bb\u03af\u03b1\u03bd.\u2014Schol.\n\u201cBut he, I hope, mingles in the front ranks, slaying with his spear round the head of Patroclus.\u201d\nBut him fleet-footed Iris again addressed: \u201cWell too do we know that they possess thy distinguished armour: yet even thus, going towards the ditch, show thyself to the Trojans, if perchance the Trojans, terrified, may desist from battle, and the warlike, harassed sons of the Greeks may breathe again; and there be a short respite from fighting.\u201d  583\nFootnote 583: (return) Cf. xv. 42.\nThus indeed having spoken, swift-footed Iris departed; but Achilles, dear to Jove, arose; and around his strong shoulders Minerva threw her fringed \u00e6gis. And the divine one of goddesses crowned his head around with a golden cloud, and from it she kindled a shining flame. And as when smoke, ascending from a city, reaches the \u00e6ther from an island afar off, which foes invest, who [pouring out] from their city, contend all day in hateful fight: but with the setting sun torches blaze one after another, 584 and the splendour arises, rushing upwards, for [their] neighbours to behold, if perchance they may come with ships, as repellers of the war; thus did the flame from the head of Achilles reach the sky. He stood, having advanced from the wall to the trench, nor mingled with the Greeks, for he reverenced the prudent advice of his mother. There standing, he shouted, and Pallas Minerva, on the other side, vociferated, and stirred up immense tumult among the Trojans. And as the tone is very clear, when a trumpet sounds, while deadly foes are investing a city; so distinct then was the voice of the descendant of \u00c6acus. But when they heard the brazen voice of Achilles, the soul was disturbed to all, whilst the beautiful-maned steeds turned the chariots backwards, for they presaged sorrows in their mind. The charioteers were panic-struck when they beheld the terrific, indefatigable flame, blazing over the head of magnanimous Pelides; for the azure-eyed goddess Minerva lighted it. Thrice over the trench loudly shouted noble Achilles, and thrice were the Trojans and their illustrious allies thrown into confusion. There then perished twelve bravest heroes by their chariots and spears, whilst the Greeks, dragging Patroclus with joy out of the reach of weapons, stretched him on a bier; but his beloved companions stood round him mourning, and with them followed swift-footed Achilles, shedding warm tears, when he beheld his faithful comrade lying upon a bier, lacerated with the sharp brass: whom indeed he had sent forth with his horses and chariots to battle, but did not receive him again, having returned.\nFootnote 584: (return) Hesychius: \u1f10\u03c0\u03ae\u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9, \u1f00\u03bb\u03bb\u03b5\u03c0\u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03b7\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9. Cf. Oppian, Cyn. i. 321; iii. 275. The orthography \u1f10\u03c0\u03af\u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9 is equally correct, according to Abresch.\nBut the large-eyed, venerable Juno sent the unwearied sun, to return to the flowing of the ocean, against his inclination. The sun then set, and the noble Greeks desisted from the violent conflict, and the equally destructive battle. The Trojans again, on the other side, retiring from the violent combat, loosed their fleet steeds from their chariots. But they assembled in the council before they bethought them of their banquet. The assembly consisted of persons standing up, nor did any one dare to sit; for fear possessed all, because Achilles had appeared, who had long abstained from the direful combat. Among them prudent Polydamas, the son of Panthus, began to speak, for he alone saw both the future and the past. He was the companion of Hector, and they were born in one night, but the one excelled in counsel, and the other greatly in the spear. He wisely counselling, harangued them, and spoke:\n\u201cMy friends, consider well on both sides; for I advise that we now return to the city, nor await the sacred Morn in the plain near the ships; for we are far away from the wall. As long indeed as this man was wroth with noble Agamemnon, so long were the Greeks more easy to fight with. For even I was delighted, passing the night by the swift barks, expecting that we should take the equally-plied barks; but now greatly do I fear swift-footed Pelides: so violent is his soul, nor will he be content to remain in the plain, where usually the Trojans and Greeks in the intervening space divide 585 the force of war, but he will combat for the city and our wives. We will go, then, towards the city\u2014be persuaded by me\u2014for so it must be. Ambrosial night at present hath made swift-footed Pelides cease; but if, rushing forth to-morrow with his arms, he shall find us here, then will some one know him; for gladly will he reach sacred Ilium, whosoever shall escape: but dogs and vultures will devour many of the Trojans. O that such [tidings] may be far from our ears. 586 But if we be obedient to my words, although sad, we shall have protection 587 in the assembly during the night, and the towers and lofty gates, and the valves fitted to them, long, well polished, fastened together, will protect the city. But to-morrow, at early dawn, we will stand on the towers, arrayed in armour; and it would be difficult for him, even if he should wish it, coming from the ships, to fight with us around the wall. Back again will he go to the ships, after he has satiated his high-necked steeds with a varied course, driving beneath the city. But his mind will not permit him to rush within, nor will he ever lay it waste; sooner shall the fleet dogs devour him.\u201d\nFootnote 585: (return) This is expressive of the vicissitudes of the conflict.\nFootnote 586: (return) E\u1f34\u03b8\u03b5 \u03b4\u03ad \u03bc\u03bf\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c4\u03bf \u03bf\u1f50 \u03bc\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd \u03bc\u1f74 \u1f40\u03c6\u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03b7, \u1f00\u03bb\u03bb\u1f70 \u03bc\u03b7\u03b4\u1f72 \u1f00\u03ba\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03b7.\u2014Schol.\nFootnote 587: (return) One of the Scholiasts, however, would take \u03c3\u03b8\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 as=\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03b9\u1f70\u03bd, i.e. we shall keep the troops in a body. But see Kennedy.\nHim, then, crest-tossing Hector sternly regarding, addressed:\n\u201cNo longer, O Polydamas, dost thou speak these things agreeable to me, thou who advisest us, returning, to be cooped up in the city. Are ye not yet satiated with being shut up within the towers? Formerly indeed all articulate-speaking men pronounced the city of Priam rich in gold and in brass; but now have the rich treasures of our houses perished, and many possessions have already departed to Phrygia and agreeable M\u0153onia, to be sold, since mighty Jove was enraged. But at this crisis, when the son of politic Saturn has granted me to obtain glory at the ships, and to hem in the Greeks by the sea, no longer, foolish man, disclose these counsels to the people: for none of the Trojans will obey; nor will I permit them. But come, let us all obey as I shall advise. At present take supper in your ranks throughout the army; be mindful of the watch, and keep guard each [of you]; but whosoever of the Trojans is particularly anxious about his possessions, collecting them together, let him give them to the people to be publicly consumed; it is better that any of them should enjoy them than the Greeks. But to-morrow, with the dawn, arrayed in armour, let us excite sharp conflict at the hollow ships, and if truly noble Achilles has arisen at the ships, it will be the worse for him, if he wishes [to fight]: I indeed will not fly him from the horrid-sounding battle, but will stand very obstinately against him, whether he bear away great glory, or I bear it away. Mars [is] common, 588 and even slays the slayer.\u201d\nFootnote 588: (return) See Duport, p. 104, and Clarke\u2019s note. Livy translates it, \u201ccommunis Mars belli;\u201d observing, \u201ccommunis Mars, et incertus belli eventus.\u201d\nThus Hector harangued, and the Trojans shouted in applause: foolish men, for Pallas Minerva had taken their senses away from them. For they assented to Hector, advising destructive things, whilst no one [assented to] Polydamas, who advised prudent counsel. Then they took supper through the army. But the Greeks, lamenting all night, wept over Patroclus, but among them Pelides led the ceaseless lamentation, placing his man-slaying hands upon the breast of his companion, very frequently sighing; as the well-bearded lion, from whom the stag-hunter has stolen the cubs out of the thick forest; and he is grieved, coming afterwards. And through many valleys he goes, tracking the footsteps of the man, if anywhere he may find him; for very keen rage possesses him. So, deeply sighing, he addressed the Myrmidons:\n\u201cAlas! vain indeed was the promise I uttered on that day, encouraging the hero Men\u0153tius in our halls; for I said that I would bring back his illustrious son to Opus, having wasted Troy, and obtained a share of the spoil. But Jove fulfils not for men all their intentions; for it is fated that we shall both stain with blood the same earth here in Troy; but neither shall aged horse-driving Peleus receive me in his palaces, returning, nor my mother Thetis, but the earth shall here hold me. Now, however, O Patroclus! since after thee I go beneath the earth, I shall not perform thy funeral rites, before that I bring hither the arms and head of magnanimous Hector, thy murderer, and behead twelve illustrious sons of the Trojans, before thy pile, enraged on account of thee slain. Meanwhile thou shall lie thus at the crooked ships; and round thee Trojan [dames] and deep-bosomed Dardanians shall weep and shed tears night and day; whom we ourselves have toiled to get by our valour and the long spear, laying waste the rich cities of articulate-speaking men.\u201d\nThus having spoken, noble Achilles ordered his companions to surround a large tripod with fire, that as soon as possible they might wash away the bloody gore from Patroclus. They then placed a bathing tripod on the blazing fire, and poured water into it, and taking fagots, lighted them under it. The fire indeed encircled the belly of the tripod, and the water was warmed. But when the water boiled in the sonorous brass, then they both washed him, and anointed him with rich oil. And they filled up his wounds with ointment nine years old; and laying him upon a bed, they covered him with fine linen from head to foot; and over all, with a white mantle. 589 All night then the Myrmidons, lamenting Patroclus, wept around swift-footed Achilles. But Jove addressed Juno, his sister and wife:\n\u201cAnd at length thou hast accomplished thy object, O large-eyed, venerable Juno, having aroused swift-fooled Achilles. Surely the waving-crested Greeks are born from thy very self.\u201d\nFootnote 589: (return) Cf. Virg. \u00c6n. vi. 218, sqq.; xi. 36, sqq. I shall defer discussing the heroic funeral-rites till the twenty-third book.\nBut him large-eyed, venerable Juno then answered:\n\u201cMost imperious son of Saturn, what a word hast thou spoken? Surely now any man who is mortal, and knows not so many designs, might accomplish this against a man. How therefore ought not I, who boast myself to be chief of the goddesses, both from birth and also because I am called thy wife (and thou rulest over all the immortals), being enraged with the Trojans, to [be able to] design evils against them.\u201d\nThus indeed they conversed with one another. But silver-footed Thetis reached the abode of Vulcan, incorruptible, starry, remarkable amongst the immortals, brazen, which the lame-footed himself had constructed. Him she found sweating, exerting himself at the bellows, earnestly working; for he was making full twenty tripods to stand around the wall of his well-built palace. Under the base of each he placed golden wheels, that of their own accord they might enter the heavenly council, and again return home\u2014a wonder to be seen. So much finish had they, but he had not yet added the well-made handles, which he was preparing; and he was forging the rivets. Whilst he was toiling at these things with, skilful mind, meanwhile Thetis, the silver-footed goddess, came to him. But the beautiful and fair-veiled Charis, whom illustrious Vulcan had espoused, advancing, beheld her; and hung upon her hand, and addressed her, and spoke:\n\u201cWhy, O long-robed Thetis, venerable, beloved, dost thou visit our abode? Formerly thou wast not in the habit of coming frequently. 590 But follow farther onwards, that I may set before thee hospitable fare.\u201d\nThus having spoken, the divine of goddesses led on. Then indeed she placed her upon a silver-studded throne, beautiful, variously wrought, and there was a stool under her feet. But she called Vulcan, the distinguished artist, and spoke this word:\n\u201cCome hither, Vulcan, Thetis now has need of thee.\u201d\nBut her illustrious Vulcan then answered: \u201cAssuredly then an awful and revered goddess is within, who saved me when distress came upon me, fallen down far by the contrivance of my shameless mother, who wished to conceal me, being lame. 591 Then should I have suffered sorrows in my mind, had not Eurynome and Thetis received me in their bosom; Eurynome, daughter of the refluent Ocean. With them for nine years wrought I in brass many ingenious works of art, buckles, twisted bracelets, and clasp-tubes, in the hollow cave; whilst round us flowed the immense stream of Ocean, murmuring with foam: nor did any other either of gods or mortal men know it; but Thetis and Eurynome, who preserved me, knew it. She now comes to my house; wherefore there is need that I should repay all the rewards of my safety to fair-haired Thetis. But set now before her good hospitable fare, whilst I lay aside my bellows and all my tools.\u201d\nFootnote 590: (return) \u0398\u03b1\u03bc\u03af\u03b6\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd answers to the Latin \u201cvisere,\u201d \u201cfrequentare.\u201d Suidas, \u0398\u03b1\u03bc\u03af\u03b6\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2\u0387 \u03c0\u03c5\u03ba\u03bd\u03ac\u03b6\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2, \u03c3\u03c5\u03c7\u03bd\u03ac\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2. Plato, Rep. i. p. 410, B.: \u039f\u1f50\u03b4\u1f72 \u03b8\u03b1\u03bc\u03af\u03b6\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u1f21\u03bc\u1fd6\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03b2\u03b1\u03af\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd \u03b5\u1f30\u03c2 \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03b5\u03b9\u03c1\u03b1\u03b9\u1fb6. Themist. Or. v. p. 152: \u039c\u03b7\u03b4\u1f72 \u03b8\u03b1\u03bc\u03af\u03b6\u03b5\u03b9 \u03b4\u03bf\u03c1\u03c5\u03c6\u03bf\u03c1\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c3\u03b1 \u03b5\u1f30\u03c2 \u03c4\u1f70 \u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03af\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1. Philostr. Vit. Soph. i. 7, p. 254: \u0398\u03b1\u03bc\u03af\u03b6\u03c9\u03bd \u03b5\u1f30\u03c2 \u03c4\u1f70 \u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03cc\u03c0\u03b5\u03b4\u03b1. Cf. Alciphron, Ep. i. 4, p. 20, iii. 5, p. 286.\nFootnote 591: (return) \u201cHeph\u00e6stos is the son of H\u00ear\u00ea without a father, and stands to her in the same relation as Ath\u00ean\u00ea to Zeus: her pride and want of sympathy are manifested by her casting him out at once, in consequence of his deformity.\u201d\u2014Grote, vol. i. p. 79.\nHe spoke and rose, a wondrous bulk, 592 from his anvil-block, limping, and his weak legs moved actively beneath him. The bellows he laid apart from the fire, and all the tools with which he laboured he collected into a silver chest. With a sponge he wiped, all over, his face and both his hands, his strong neck and shaggy breast; then put on his tunic and seized his stout sceptre. But he went out of the doors limping, and golden handmaids, like unto living maidens, moved briskly about the king; and in their bosoms was prudence with understanding, and within them was voice and strength; and they are instructed in works by the immortal gods. These were busily occupied 593 by the king\u2019s side; but he, hobbling along, sat down upon a splendid throne near where Thetis was, and hung upon her hand, and spoke, and addressed her:\n\u201cWhy, long-robed Thetis, venerable and dear, hast thou come to our abode? For indeed thou didst not often come before. Make known what thou desirest, for my mind orders me to perform it, 594 if in truth I can perform it, and if it is to be performed.\u201d\nFootnote 592: (return) I have endeavoured to express Buttmann\u2019s idea respecting the meaning of \u03b1\u1f34\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd. See Lexil. p. 44-7. He concludes that it simply means great, but with a collateral notion of astonishment implied, connecting it with \u1f00\u03b3\u03b7\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2.\nFootnote 593: (return) See Buttmann, Lexil. p. 481.\nFootnote 594: (return) Virg. \u00c6n. i. 80:\n\n\n\u201c\u2014\u2014Tuus, \u00f4 regina, quid optes,\nExplorare labor: mini jussa capessere fas est.\u201d\n\n\nHim then Thetis, pouring forth tears, answered: \u201cO Vulcan, has any then, as many as are the goddesses in Olympus, endured so many bitter griefs in her mind, as, to me above all, Jove, the son of Saturn, has given sorrows? Me, from among the other marine inhabitants, has he subjected to a man, to Peleus, son of \u00c6acus; and I have endured the couch of a man very much against my will. He, indeed, now lies in his palaces, afflicted with grievous old age; but now other [woes] are my lot. After he had granted me to bring forth aud nurture a son, distinguished among heroes, and who grew up like a plant; him having reared, as a plant in a fertile spot of the field, I sent forth in the crooked barks to Ilium, to fight with the Trojans; but him I shall not receive again, having returned home to the mansion of Peleus. As long, however, as he lives to me, and beholds the light of the sun, he suffers sorrow, nor am I, going to him, able to avail him aught. The maid whom the sons of the Greeks selected as a reward for him, her hath king Agamemnon taken back again from his hands. Certainly, grieving for her, he has been wasting his soul; whilst the Trojans were hemming in the Greeks at the ships, nor suffered them to go beyond the gates: but the elders of the Greeks supplicated him, and named many distinguished presents. But then he refused to avert destruction, yet he clad Patroclus in his own armour, and sent him forth to the battle, and he gave with him much people. All day they fought round the Sc\u00e6an gates, and certainly on that day had overturned Troy, had not Apollo slain, among the foremost warriors, the gallant son of Men\u0153tius, after having done much mischief, and given glory to Hector. On this account do I now approach thy knees, if thou wilt give to my short-lived son a shield and helmet, and beautiful greaves, joined with clasps, and a corslet: for what were his, his faithful companion has lost, subdued by the Trojans; and he (Achilles) lies upon the ground, grieving in his soul.\u201d\nHer then illustrious Vulcan answered: \u201cTake courage, nor let these things be cause of uneasiness in thy mind; for would that I could so surely conceal him from dread-sounding death, when grievous fate approaches him, as that beautiful armour shall be ready for him, such as any one of many men shall hereafter admire, whosoever may behold it.\u201d\nSo saying, he left her there, and went towards the bellows, which he turned towards the fire, and commanded them to work. And full twenty bellows blew in the furnaces, exciting a varied well-regulated 595 blast, to be ready for him, at one time busy, at another the reverse, as Vulcan pleased, and that the work might be complete. He cast into the fire impenetrable brass, and tin, precious gold and silver; but next he placed the mighty anvil on the stock, and took in [one] hand his strong hammer, and with the other grasped the forceps.\nFootnote 595: (return) I.e. one that would either blow, or not, according as the progress of the work required. The student will do well to compare Virg. Georg. iv. 171, sqq., \u00c6n. viii. 449, sqq., and Callimach. in Dian. 59, sqq.\nFirst of all he formed a shield, 596 both large and solid, decorating it all over, and around it he threw a shining border, triple and glittering, and from it [there hung] a silver belt. Of the shield itself, there were five folds; but on it he formed many curious works, with cunning skill. On it he wrought the earth, and the heaven, and the sea, the unwearied sun, and the full moon. On it also [he represented] all the constellations with which the heaven is crowned, the Pleiades, the Hyades, and the strength of Orion, and the Bear, 597 which they also call by the appellation of the Wain, which there revolves, and watches Orion; 598 but it alone is free 599 from the baths of the ocean.\nFootnote 596: (return) See Coleridge, Classic Poets, p. 182, sqq.; Riccius, Dissert. Hom. t.i.p. 216; Feith, Antiq. Hom. iv. 10, 4. In reading this whole description, care must be taken to allow for the freedom of poetic description, as well as for the skill of the supposed artificer.\nFootnote 597: (return) Cf. Virg. Georg. i. 137; \u00c6n. i. 748, iii. 516.\nFootnote 598: (return) Orion ascends above the horizon, as though in pursuit of the Wain, which in return seems to observe his movements. Manilius, i. 500: \u201cArctos et Orion adversis frontibus ibant,\u201d which is compared by Scaliger, p. 28.\nFootnote 599: (return) Aratus, Dios. 48: \u1f0c\u03c1\u03ba\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9 \u03ba\u03c5\u03b1\u03bd\u03b5\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03c0\u03b5\u03c6\u03c5\u03bb\u03b1\u03b3\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b5\u03b1\u03bd\u03bf\u1fd6\u03bf. Virg. Georg. i. 246: \u201cArctos Oceani metuentes \u00e6quore tingi.\u201d The student of ancient astronomy will do well to compare Scaliger on Manil. i, p. 43, 2; Casaub. on Strabo, i. init.\nIn it likewise he wrought two fair cities 600 of articulate-speaking men. In the one, indeed, there were marriages and feasts; and they were conducting the brides from their chambers through the city with brilliant torches, 601 and many a bridal song 602 was raised. The youthful dancers were wheeling round, and amongst them pipes and lyres uttered a sound; and the women standing, each at her portals, admired. And people were crowded together in an assembly, and there a contest had arisen; for two men contended for the ransom-money of a slain man: the one affirmed that he had paid all, appealing to the people; but the other denied, [averring] that he had received nought: and both wished to find an end [of the dispute] before a judge. 603 The people were applauding both,\u2014supporters of either party, and the heralds were keeping back the people; but the elders sat upon polished stones, in a sacred 604 circle, and [the pleaders 605] held in their hands the staves of the clear-voiced heralds; with these then they arose, and alternately pleaded their cause. Moreover, in the midst lay two talents of gold, to give to him who should best establish his claim among them. But round the other city sat two armies of people glittering in arms; and one of two plans was agreeable to them, 606 either to waste it, or to divide all things into two parts,\u2014the wealth, whatever the pleasant city contained within it. They, however, had not yet complied, but were secretly arming themselves for an ambuscade. Meanwhile, their beloved wives and young children kept watch, standing above, and amongst them the men whom old age possessed. But they (the younger men) advanced; but Mars was their leader, and Pallas Minerva, both golden, and clad in golden dresses, beautiful and large, along with their armour, radiant all round, and indeed like gods; but the people were of humbler size. 607 But when they now had reached a place where it appeared fit to lay an ambuscade, by a river, where there was a watering-place for all sorts of cattle, there then they settled, clad in shining steel. There, apart from the people, sat two spies, watching when they might perceive the sheep and crooked-horned oxen. These, however, soon advanced, and two shepherds accompanied them, amusing themselves with their pipes, for they had not yet perceived the stratagem. Then they, discerning them, ran in upon them, and immediately slaughtered on all sides the herds of oxen, and the beautiful flocks of snow-white sheep; and slew the shepherds besides. But they, when they heard the great tumult amongst the oxen, previously sitting in front of the assembly, 608 mounting their nimble-footed steeds, pursued; and soon came up with them. Then, having marshalled themselves, they fought a battle on the banks of the river, and wounded one another with their brazen spears. Amongst them mingled Discord and Tumult, and destructive Fate, holding one alive, recently wounded, another unwounded, but a third, slain, she drew by the feet through the battle; and had the garment around her shoulders crimsoned with the gore of men. 609 But they turned about, like living mortals, and fought, and drew away the slaughtered bodies of each other.\nFootnote 600: (return) Cf. Hesiod, Scut. Herc. 270, sqq.\nFootnote 601: (return) The escort took place at even-tide.\nFootnote 602: (return) On the origin of this term, see Serv. on Virg. \u00c6n. i. 655.\nFootnote 603: (return) Or, \u201con the testimony of witnesses.\u201d See Kennedy.\nFootnote 604: (return) See Heyne on x. 56. So \u03c3\u03ad\u03bb\u03bc\u03b1 \u03c3\u03b5\u03bc\u03bd\u1f78\u03bd, \u201cthe seat of justice.\u201d\u2014\u00c6sch. Ag. 183.\nFootnote 605: (return) See Kennedy, who has collected the Homeric passages concerning lawsuits.\nFootnote 606: (return) I.e. the enemy. The alternative was that the townsmen should either surrender half their possessions, or submit to indiscriminate pillage. See Kennedy.\nFootnote 607: (return) This custom of representing gods and heroes of larger stature than ordinary folk prevails almost universally in the Egyptian monuments and sculptures.\nFootnote 608: (return) \u201c\u0395\u1f34\u03c1\u03b1 vel \u1f34\u03c1\u03b1 est locus concionis, et ipse c\u0153tus.\u201d\u2014Heyns.\nFootnote 609: (return) Cf. \u00c6n. vi.: \u201cTisiphoneque sedens, palla succincta cruenta.\u201d Stat. Theb. i. 109: \u201cRiget horrida tergo Palla, et c\u00e6rulei redeunt in pectore nodi.\u201d\nOn it he also placed a soft fallow field, 610 rich glebe, wide, thrice-ploughed; and in it many ploughmen drove hither and thither, turning round their teams. But when, returning, they reached the end of the field, then a man, advancing, gave into their hands a cup of very sweet wine; but they turned themselves in series, 611 eager to reach the [other] end of the deep fallow. But it was all black behind, similar to ploughed land, which indeed was a marvel beyond [all others].\nOn it likewise he placed a field of deep corn, where reapers were cutting, having sharp sickles in their hands. Some handfuls fell one after the other upon the ground along the furrow, and the binders of sheaves tied others with bands. Three binders followed [the reapers], whilst behind them boys gathering the handfuls, [and] bearing them in their arms, continually supplied them; and amongst them the master stood by the swathe 612 in silence, holding a sceptre, delighted in heart. But apart, beneath an oak, servants were preparing a banquet, and sacrificing a huge ox, they ministered; whilst women sprinkled much white barley 613 [on the meat], as a supper for the reapers.\nFootnote 610: (return) With the whole of this description of the shield of Achilles, the lover of poetry should compare Milton, P.L. xi. 638, sqq. with the remarks of Bishop Newton.\nFootnote 611: (return) But Hesychius by \u1f44\u03b3\u03bc\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 understood \u03b1\u1f54\u03bb\u03b1\u03ba\u03b1\u03c2, \u201cthe furrows.\u201d See Schneid. on Nicand. Ther. 371.\nFootnote 612: (return) I here follow the Oxford translator. The term \u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bb\u03b5\u1f7a\u03c2 is well in accordance with the simple manners of the early ages, when kings were farmers on a large scale. Many of our Saviour\u2019s parables present a similar association of agriculture with the regal dignity.\nFootnote 613: (return) Probably a religious rite. Cf. i. 449, 458.\nOn it likewise he placed a vineyard, heavily laden with grapes, beautiful, golden; but the clusters throughout were black; and it was supported throughout by silver poles. Round it he drew an azure trench, and about it a hedge 614 of tin; but there was only one path to it, by which the gatherers went when they collected the vintage. Young virgins and youths, of tender minds, bore the luscious fruit in woven baskets, 615 in the midst of whom a boy played sweetly on a shrill harp; and with tender voice sang gracefully to the chord; whilst they, beating [the ground] in unison with dancing and shouts, followed, skipping with their feet.\nFootnote 614: (return) \u1f18\u03c6\u03cd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c5\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd \u1f00\u03bc\u03c0\u03b5\u03bb\u1ff6\u03bd\u03b1, \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c6\u03c1\u03b1\u03b3\u03bc\u1f78\u03bd \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1ff7 \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03ad\u03b8\u03b7\u03ba\u03b5. Matt, xxi 33. See Rosem\u00fcller on Jer. v. 5.\nFootnote 615: (return) \u201cVimineis calathis,\u201d Copa, 16. Propert. iii. 11, 31.\nIn it he also wrought a herd of oxen with horns erect. But the kine were made of gold and of tin, and rushed out with a lowing from the stall to the pasture, beside a murmuring stream, along the breeze-waving reeds. 616 Four golden herdsmen accompanied the oxen, and nine dogs, swift of foot, followed. But two terrible lions detained the bull, roaring among the foremost oxen, and he was dragged away, loudly bellowing, and the dogs and youths followed for a rescue. They indeed, having torn off the skin of the great ox, lapped up his entrails and black blood; and the shepherds vainly pressed upon them, urging on their fleet dogs. These however refused to bite the lions, but, standing very near, barked, and shunned them.\nOn it illustrious Vulcan also formed a pasture in a beautiful grove full of white sheep, and folds, and covered huts and cottages.\nIllustrious Vulcan likewise adorned it with a dance, like unto that which, in wide Gnossus, D\u00e6dalus contrived for fair-haired Ariadne. There danced youths and alluring 617 virgins, holding each other\u2019s hands at the wrist. These wore fine linen robes, but those were dressed in well-woven tunics, shining 618 as with oil; these also had beautiful garlands, and those wore golden swords, [hanging] from silver belts. Sometimes, with skilful feet, they nimbly bounded [round]; as when a potter, sitting, shall make trial of a wheel fitted to his hands, whether it will run: and at other times again they ran back to their places through one another. But a great crowd surrounded the pleasing dance, amusing themselves; and amongst them two tumblers, beginning their song, spun round through the midst.\nFootnote 616: (return) See Knight and Kennedy.\nFootnote 617: (return) Literally, \u201cfinders of oxen,\u201d i.e. so attractive as to be certain of receiving a good dowry, paid, after the ancient custom, in cattle.\nFootnote 618: (return) This must have been some kind of oil-cloth, unless we read \u03c3\u03c4\u03af\u03bb\u03b2\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2 with Kennedy. The meaning is very obscure.\nBut in it he also formed the vast strength of the river Oceanus, near the last border of the well-formed shield.\nBut when he had finished the shield, large and solid, he next formed for him a corslet, brighter than the splendour of fire. He also made for him a strong helmet, fitted to his temples, beautiful and variously ornamented, and on it placed a golden crest; and made greaves for him of ductile tin.\nBut when renowned Vulcan had with toil made all the armour, lifting it up, he laid it before the mother of Achilles; but she, like a hawk, darted down from snowy Olympus, bearing from Vulcan the shining armour.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THE NINETEENTH.\nARGUMENT.\nThetis, having brought Achilles his new armour, and promised to preserve the body of Patroclus from corruption, he is reconciled to Agamemnon, and being miraculously invigorated by Minerva, goes forth to battle, regardless of the prediction of his fate by his horse Xanthus.\nSaffron-robed Morn was rising from the streams of ocean, that she might bear light to immortals and mortals; 619 but she (Thetis) came to the ships, bearing the gifts from the god. Her dear son she found lying upon Patroclus, bitterly lamenting, and his numerous companions were lamenting around him. But near to him stood the divine of goddesses, and hung upon his hand and spoke, and addressed him:\nFootnote 619: (return)\n\n\n\u201cTo resalute the world with sacred light\nLeucothea waked, and with fresh dews embalm\u2019d\nThe earth.\u201d\u2014Par. Lost. xi. 132.\n\n\n\u201cMy son, let us suffer him now to lie, grieved although we be, since first he has been laid low by the counsel of the gods: but do thou receive these distinguished arms from Vulcan, very beautiful, such as no man has ever worn upon his shoulders.\u201d\nHaving thus spoken, the goddess placed the armour before Achilles; and they, all curiously wrought, clashed aloud. Then tremor seized all the Myrmidons, nor did any one dare to look directly at them, but they fled in fear. But when Achilles saw them, the more rage entered him; and his eyes shone terribly beneath his eyelids, like a flame; and he was delighted, holding in his hands the splendid gifts of the god. But after he had delighted his mind, beholding these artificial works, he immediately addressed to his mother winged words:\n\u201cMother mine, the god hath indeed given arms, such as are fit to be works of immortals, nor that a mortal man could make. Truly now will I arm myself; but I very much fear lest, in the meantime, the flies, having entered the gallant son of Men\u0153tius, by his spear-inflicted wounds, create maggots, and pollute the corse, (for life in it is destroyed,) and all the parts of the body grow putrid.\u201d\nBut him the silver-footed goddess Thetis then answered:\n\u201cMy child, let not these things be a care to thy mind. I will endeavour to drive away from him the fierce swarms, the flies which devour heroes slain in battle. For although he lie an entire year, his body shall always be uncorrupted, or even better. But do thou, having summoned the Grecian heroes to an assembly, having renounced thy wrath towards Agamemnon, the shepherd of the people, arm thyself quickly for war, and put on thy might.\u201d\nThus, therefore, having spoken, she infused into him the most daring courage, and then instilled into Patroclus, through the nostrils, ambrosia and ruby nectar, 620 that his body might be uncorrupted.\nFootnote 620: (return) Milton, P.L. v. 633: \u201cwith angels\u2019 food, and rubied nectar flows.\u201d\nBut noble Achilles went along the shore of the sea, shouting fearfully, and aroused the Grecian heroes; so that even those who used formerly to remain in the assemblage of the ships, both those who were pilots, and who held the rudders of the ships, and the pursers [who] were at the ships, dispensers of food, even these then indeed went to the assembly, because Achilles appeared, for he had long abstained from the grievous battle. And two servants of Mars, the warlike son of Tydeus, and noble Ulysses, went limping, leaning upon a spear; for they still had painful wounds; and advancing, they sat in the front seats. But last came the king of men, Agamemnon, having a wound; for him also, in the sharp battle, Coon, son of Antenor, had wounded with his brazen spear. Then when all the Greeks were assembled, swift-footed Achilles, rising up amongst them, said:\n\u201cSon of Atreus, this would surely have been somewhat better for both thee and me, 621 when we two, grieved at heart, raged with soul-devouring contention for the sake of a girl. Would that Diana had slain her with an arrow in the ships on that day, when wasting, I took Lyrnessus; then indeed so many Greeks had not seized the mighty ground in their teeth under the hands of the enemy, I being continually enraged. This however was better for Hector and the Trojans, but I think the Greeks will long remember the contention of you and me. But let us leave these things as passed, although grieved, subduing from necessity the soul within our bosoms. And now I terminate my wrath, nor is it at all fit that I always obstinately be enraged; but come quickly, incite the long-haired Ach\u00e6ans to battle, in order that still I may make trial of the Trojans, going against them; if they wish to pass the night at the ships; but of them I think that any will very gladly bend the knee, whoever shall escape out of the destructive fight from my spear.\u201d\nFootnote 621: (return) I.e. it would have been better for us to have been friends, as we now are, than enemies. The construction is interrupted, to suit the agitation of the speaker.\nThus he spoke; but the well-greaved Greeks rejoiced, the magnanimous son of Peleus renouncing his wrath. But them, the king of men, Agamemnon, also addressed out of the same place, from his seat, nor advancing into the midst:\n\u201cO friends! heroes of the Greeks, servants of Mars, it is becoming indeed that ye should hearken to me, thus rising, nor is it convenient that thou shouldst interrupt; for [it is] difficult, even for one being skilled. 622 But in a great uproar of men, how can any one hear or speak? but he is interrupted, although being a clear-toned orator. I indeed will direct myself to the son of Peleus; but do ye, the other Greeks, understand, and carefully learn my meaning. Often already have the Greeks spoken this saying to me, and have rebuked me; but I am not to blame, 623 but Jove, and Fate, and Erinnys, roaming amid the shades, who, during the assembly, cast into my mind a sad injury, on that day, when I myself took away the reward of Achilles. But what could I do? for the deity accomplishes all things; pernicious At\u00e9, the venerable daughter of Jove, who injures all. Her feet are tender, for she does not approach the ground, but she walks over the heads of men, injuring mankind, and one at least 624 [she] fetters. For at one time she injured even Jove, who, they say, is the most powerful of men and gods; but him Juno, being a female, deceived by her guile on that day when Alemene was about to bring forth mighty Hercules in well-walled Thebes. He indeed, boasting, had said among all the gods:\n\u201cHear me, 625 all ye gods and all ye goddesses, whilst I speak those things which the mind within my bosom urges. This day Ilithyia, presiding over births, shall bring into the light a certain man, who shall be ruler over all his neighbours,\u2014[one] of those men of the blood of my race!\u201d\nFootnote 622: (return) I.e. even a good speaker can do nothing without a fair hearing.\nFootnote 623: (return) Cf. iii. 164. Seneca, (Ed. 1019) \u201cFati ista culpa est.\u201d Cf. Duport. p. 106. \u00c6sch. Choeph. 910: \u1f29 \u03bc\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd, \u1f67 \u03c4\u03ad\u03ba\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd, \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03b9\u03c4\u03af\u03b1.\nFootnote 624: (return) \u201cA delicate censure of Achilles.\u201d\u2014Oxford Transl.\nFootnote 625: (return) Cf. Pindar, Ol. iii. 50-105, and Il. v. iii. I have followed Heyne\u2019s construing, supplying \u03c4\u03b9\u03bd\u03b1.\nBut him the august Juno addressed, devising guile: \u201cThou shalt lie, nor shalt thou insure accomplishment to thy speech. But come, swear a firm oath to me, O Olympian! that he shall indeed be ruler over all his neighbours, who shall this day fall between the feet of a woman, among those men, who are of the blood of thy family.\u201d\nThus she spoke, but Jove perceived not her crafty design, but he swore the mighty oath, and afterwards was much befooled. 626 Then Juno springing forth, quitted the top of Olympus, and came speedily to Achaean Argos, where she knew the noble spouse of Sthenelus, the son of Perseus. And she, indeed, was pregnant of her beloved son; and the seventh month was at hand; and she brought him into light, being deficient the number of months; but kept back the delivery of Alemene, and restrained the Ilithyi\u00e6; and herself bearing the message, addressed Jove, the son of Saturn:\nFootnote 626: (return) Injured, vexed by his infatuation. Juno was thinking of Eurystheus but Jove of Hercules.\n\u201cFather Jove, hurler of the red lightning, I will put a certain matter in thy mind. A noble man is now born, who shall rule the Argives, Eurystheus, the son of Perseus, thy offspring; nor is it unbecoming that he should govern the Argives.\u201d\n\u201cThus she spoke; but sharp grief smote him in his deep mind; and immediately he seized At\u00e9 by her head of shining curls, enraged in his mind, and swore a powerful oath, that At\u00e9, who injures all, should never again return to Olympus and the starry heaven.\n\u201cThus saying, he cast her from the starry heaven, whirling her round in his hand, but she quickly reached the works of men. On her account he always groaned, 627 when he beheld his beloved son suffering unworthy toil under the labours of 628 Eurystheus.\n\u201cSo I also, when the great crest-tossing Hector was thus 629 destroying the Greeks at the sterns of the ships, was not able to forget the wrong which I had formerly foolishly committed. But since I have suffered harm, and Jove has taken away my reason, I am willing again to appease thee, and to give infinite presents. But arise to the battle, and incite the other people, and I myself [will pledge myself] to furnish all the presents, as many as noble Ulysses yesterday, going to thee, promised in thy tents. Yet, if thou wilt, wait a little, although hastening to battle, and my servants, taking the presents from my ship, shall bring them, that thou mayest see that I will present [thee] with appeasing offerings.\u201d\nBut him swift-footed Achilles answering, addressed; \u201cMost glorious son of Atreus, king of men, Agamemnon, whether thou wilt furnish gifts, as is meet, or keep them with thee, [will be seen]; but now let us very quickly be mindful of the contest; for it is not fitting to waste time in idle talk, 630 nor to delay; as a mighty work is yet undone. But as some one may again behold Achilles among the front ranks, destroying the phalanxes of the Trojans with his brazen spear, so also let some one of you, keeping this in mind, fight with [his] man.\u201d\nFootnote 627: (return) On the servitude of Hercules, see Grote, vol. i. p. 128.\nFootnote 628: (return) I.e. imposed by.\nFootnote 629: (return) \u201cThe parallel implied here is of the havoc occasioned by Hector, and the laborious tasks imposed by Eurystheus. Such appears to be the force of the particle.\u201d\u2014Kennedy.\nFootnote 630: (return) Hesych.; \u039a\u03bb\u03bf\u03c4\u03bf\u03c0\u03b5\u03cd\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd\u00b7 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03bb\u03bf\u03b3\u03af\u03b6\u03b5\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9...... \u03bf\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1\u03b3\u03b3\u03cd\u03b5\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9.\nBut him Ulysses, of many wiles, answering, addressed: \u201cNot thus, brave as thou art, O godlike Achilles, urge on the sons of the Greeks, fasting, towards Ilium, about to fight with the Trojans; for the conflict will not be for a short time only, when once the phalanxes of men shall mingle, and a god breathe might into both. But command the Greeks to be fed at the ships with food and wine, for this is might and vigour. For a man, unrefreshed by food, would not be able to fight against [the enemy] all day to the setting sun; for although he might desire in his mind to fight, yet his limbs gradually grow languid, and thirst and hunger come upon him, and his knees fail him as he goes. The man, on the other hand, who is satiated with wine and food, fights all day with hostile men, the heart within his breast is daring, nor are his limbs at all fatigued before that all retire from battle. But come, dismiss the people, and order a repast to be made ready; and let the king of men, Agamemnon, bring the gifts into the midst of the assembly, that all the Greeks may see them with their eyes, and thou mayest be delighted in thy mind. Let him, moreover, swear an oath to thee, standing up among the Greeks, that he has never ascended her bed, nor has been mingled with her, as is the custom, O king, of men and wives; and to thee thyself, also, let the soul within thy breast be placid. Then let him next conciliate thee by a rich banquet within his tents, that thou mayest not have aught wanting of redress. And for the future, O son of Atreus, thou wilt be more just towards another; for it is by no means unworthy that a king should appease a man, when he 631 may first have given offence.\u201d\nFootnote 631: (return) Understand \u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bb\u03b5\u03cd\u03c2.\nBut him the king of men, Agamemnon, in return addressed:\n\u201cI rejoice, O son of La\u00ebrtes, having heard thy speech, for with propriety hast thou gone through and enumerated all things. These things I am willing to swear, and my mind orders me, in presence of a god, nor will I perjure myself. But let Achilles remain here, at least for a little while, though hastening to battle, and do all ye others remain assembled, until they bring the gifts from my tent, and we strike faithful leagues. To thyself, however, [O Ulysses], I give this charge, and order thee, selecting the principal youths of all the Greeks, to bear from my ship the gifts, as many as we yesterday promised that we should give to Achilles, and to lead [hither] the women. But let Talthybius also quickly prepare for me through the wide army of the Greeks, a boar to sacrifice to Jove and the sun.\u201d\nHim answering, swift-footed Achilles then addressed:\n\u201cMost glorious son of Atreus, king of men, Agamemnon, at some other time ought they rather to attend to these things, when any cessation of battle hereafter be, and so much ardour be not in my bosom: but at present those lie mangled, whom Hector, son of Priam, subdued, when Jove gave him the glory: but ye urge [them] to food! Now indeed I should excite the sons of the Greeks to fight, fasting, but with the setting sun, to prepare a large supper, after we have revenged our disgrace. Before that neither drink nor food shall pass down my throat, my companion being slain, who lies in my tent, torn with the sharp brass, turned towards the vestibule, whilst his comrades mourn around these things are not a care to my mind, but slaughter and bloodshed, and the dreadful groans of heroes.\u201d\nBut him much-scheming Ulysses answering, addressed:\n\u201cO Achilles, son of Peleus, by far the bravest of the Greeks, thou art superior indeed to me, and not a little more valiant with the spear, but I indeed excel thee much in prudence; because I was born before thee, and know more: wherefore let thy mind be restrained by my words. Soon is there a satiety of contest to the men, a most abundant crop of whom the brass pours upon the earth; but the harvest is very small, when Jove, who is the umpire of the battle of men, inclines his scales. It is by no means fit that the Greeks should lament the dead with the stomach, for in great numbers and one upon another are they every day falling; when therefore could any one respire from toil? But it is necessary to bury him, whosoever may die, having a patient mind, weeping for a day. 632 But as many as survive the hateful combat should be mindful of drinking and of food, in order that we may ever the more ceaselessly contend with our enemies, clad as to our bodies in impenetrable brass; nor let any of the troops lie by awaiting another exhortation. For evilly will that exhortation come upon him, whoever may be left at the ships of the Greeks; but advancing in a body, let us stir up the keen battle against the horse-breaking Trojans.\u201d\nFootnote 632: (return) Libanius, Or. ix. in Julian.: \u1f6c \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u1f70 \u03c3\u03c5\u03b3\u03ba\u03b9\u03bd\u03ae\u03c3\u03b1\u03c2 \u1f10\u03c0\u1f76 \u03c3\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u1ff7 \u03b4\u03ac\u03ba\u03c1\u03c5\u03b1, \u03bf\u1f50\u03ba \u1f10\u03c0' \u1f24\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u1f70 \u03c4\u1f78 \u1f14\u03c0\u03bf\u03c2, \u1f40\u03bb\u03bf\u03c6\u03c5\u03c1\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9 \u03c4\u03c5\u03c7\u1ff6\u03bd. See Duport, p. 111.\nHe said, and chose as his companions the sons of glorious Nestor, and Meges, son of Phyleus, Thoas, and Meriones, Lycomedes, son of Creon, and Melanippus; and they proceeded to go towards the tent of Agamemnon, son of Atreus. Immediately after the word was spoken, and the work was perfected. Seven tripods they bore from the tent, which he had promised him, and twenty splendid goblets, and twelve steeds; and straightway led forth seven blameless women, skilled in works, but the eighth was fair-cheeked Brise\u00efs. But Ulysses, placing 633 ten whole talents of gold, led the way, and with him the other youths of the Greeks bore the presents, and placed them in the midst of the assembly; but Agamemnon rose up; and Talthybius, like unto a god in his voice, stood beside the shepherd of the people, holding a boar in his hands. Then the son of Atreus, drawing the knife with his hands, which always hung by the great scabbard of his sword, cutting off the forelock of the boar, prayed, lifting up his hands to Jove; but all the Greeks sat in silence in the same spot, listening in a becoming manner to the king. But praying, he spoke, looking towards the wide heaven:\nFootnote 633: (return) I.e. in the scale, in order to be weighed.\n\u201cNow first let Jove be witness, the most supreme and best of gods, and Earth, and Sun, and ye Furies, who beneath the earth chastise men, whoever may swear a falsehood; never have I laid hands upon the maid Brise\u00efs, needing her for the sake of the couch, or any other purpose; but inviolate has she remained in my tents. But if any of these things be false, may the gods inflict on me those very many distresses which they inflict when men sin in swearing.\u201d\nHe said, and cut the throat of the boar with the ruthless brass; which Talthybius, whirling round, cast into the mighty water of the hoary sea, as food for fishes. But Achilles, rising, said among the war-loving Greeks:\n\u201cO father Jove, certainly thou givest great calamities to men; for never could Atrides have so thoroughly aroused the indignation in my bosom, nor foolish, led away the girl, I being unwilling, but Jove for some intent wished death should happen to many Greeks. But now go to the repast, that we may join battle.\u201d\nThus then he spoke, and dissolved the assembly in haste. 634\nFootnote 634: (return) So Od. viii. 38: \u0398\u03bf\u1f74\u03bd \u1f00\u03bb\u03b5\u03b3\u03cd\u03bd\u03b5\u03c4\u03b5 \u03b4\u03b1\u1fd6\u03c4\u03b1, i.e. \u03b8\u03bf\u1ff6\u03c2. Virg. \u00c6n. iv. 226: \u201cCeleres defer mea dicta per auras,\u201d which Servius interprets, \u201cceler, vel celeriter.\u201d\nThey indeed were separated, each to his own ship; but the magnanimous Myrmidons were occupied about the gifts, and, bearing them, went to the ship of godlike Achilles. These they laid up in the tents, and placed the women in seats; but the illustrious attendants drove the horses to the stud. But afterwards Brise\u00efs, like unto golden Venus, when she beheld Patroclus lacerated with the sharp spear, throwing herself about him, wept aloud, and with her hands tore her breast and tender neck, and fair countenance. 635 Then the woman, like unto the goddesses, weeping, said:\n\u201cO Patroclus! most dear to my wretched soul, I left thee indeed alive, departing from my tent, but now returning, I find thee dead, O chieftain of the people! How in my case evil ever succeeds evil. The hero indeed to whom my father and venerable mother had given me, 636 I saw pierced with the sharp brass before the city; and three beloved brothers whom the same mother had brought forth to me, all drew on the destructive day. Nevertheless, thou didst not suffer me to weep, when swift Achilles slew my husband, and laid waste the city of divine Mynes, but thou saidst thou wouldst render me the wedded wife 637 of noble Achilles, lead me in the ships to Phthia, and prepare the nuptial feast amongst the Myrmidons. Therefore do I insatiably lament thee dead, being ever gentle.\u201d\nFootnote 635: (return) On these ancient signs of lamentation cf. Virg. \u00c6n. iv. 672; xii. 605; Silius, viii. 153; Tusc. Qu\u00e6st. iii. 26. \u00c6sch. Choeph. 22: \u03c1\u03ad\u03c0\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03ae\u03ca\u03c2 \u03c6\u03bf\u03b9\u03bd\u03af\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bc\u03c5\u03b3\u03bc\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2. Eur. Hel. 1098: \u03b1\u03c1\u1fc7\u03b4\u03b9 \u03c4' \u1f44\u03bd\u03c5\u03c7\u03b1 \u03c6\u03cc\u03bd\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd \u1f10\u03bc\u03b2\u03b1\u03bb\u1ff6 \u03c7\u03c1\u03bf\u03cc\u03c2. Orest. 950: \u03a4\u03b9\u03b8\u03b5\u1fd6\u03c3\u03b1 \u03bb\u03b5\u03c5\u03ba\u1f78\u03bd \u1f44\u03bd\u03c5\u03c7\u03b1 \u03b4\u03af\u1f70 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b7\u0390\u03b4\u03c9\u03bd, \u03b1\u1f31\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b7\u03c1\u1f78\u03bd \u1f04\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd. Artemidor. i. \u1f18\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2 \u03c0\u03ad\u03bd\u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03b9 \u03bb\u03ac\u03b2\u03c9\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u1f70\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b5\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 \u03bf\u1f31 \u1f04\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03c9\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9. See Comm. on Petron. cxi.\nFootnote 636: (return) The consent of both parents was necessary to a contract of marriage. See Feith, Antiq. Hom. ii. 13, 3.\nFootnote 637: (return) She appears to have been, at present, only betrothed.\nThus she spoke, weeping; and the women lamented for Patroclus, as a pretext, but [really] each for her own ills. And around him (Achilles) were collected the elders of the Greeks, entreating him to take refreshment; but he, moaning, refused:\n\u201cI entreat [you], if any of my beloved companions would be obedient to me, bid me not satiate my heart with food or drink, since heavy grief hath invaded me; but I will wait entirely till the setting sun, and will endure.\u201d\nSo saying, he dismissed the other kings: but two sons of Atreus remained; and noble Ulysses, Nestor, Idomeneus, and the aged knight Ph\u0153nix, constantly endeavouring to delight him sorrowing; nor was he at all delighted, before he should enter the mouth 638] of bloody war. But remembering [Patroclus], he frequently heaved [a sigh], and said:\nFootnote 638: (return) So Ennius, p. 128. Hessel.: \u201cBelli ferratos posteis portasque refregit.\u201d Virg. \u00c6n. i. 298: \u201cClaudentur belli port\u00e6.\u201d Stat. Theb. v. 136: \u201cMovet ostia belli.\u201d\n\u201cSurely once, thou too, O unhappy one! dearest of my companions, wouldst thyself have set before me a plentiful feast, within my tent, speedily and diligently, when the Greeks hastened to make tearful war upon the horse-breaking Trojans. But now thou liest mangled; but my heart is without drink and food, though they are within, from regret for thee; for I could not suffer anything worse, not even if I were to hear of my father being dead, who now perhaps sheds the tender tear in Phthia from the want of such a son; while I, in a foreign people, wage war against the Trojans, for the sake of detested Helen: or him, my beloved son, who is nurtured for me at Scyros, if indeed he still lives, godlike Neoptolemus. For formerly the mind within my bosom hoped that I alone should perish here in Troy, far from steed-nourishing Argos, and that thou shouldst return to Phthia, that thou mightst lead back my son in thy black ship from Scyros, and mightst show him everything, my property, my servants, and my great, lofty-domed abode. For now I suppose that Peleus is either totally deceased, or that he, barely alive, suffers pain from hateful old age, and that he is continually expecting bad news respecting me, when he shall hear of my being dead.\u201d\nThus he spoke, weeping; and the elders also groaned, remembering, each of them, the things which they had left in their dwellings. But the son of Saturn felt compassion, seeing them weeping, and immediately to Minerva addressed winged words:\n\u201cO daughter mine, thou entirely now desertest thy valiant hero. Is Achilles then no longer at all a care to thee in thy mind? He himself is sitting before his lofty-beaked ships, bewailing his dear companion; while the others have gone to a banquet; but he is unrefreshed and unfed. Go, therefore, instil into his breast nectar and delightful ambrosia, that hunger may come not upon him.\u201d\nSo saying, he urged on Minerva, who was before eager. But she, like unto a broad-winged, shrill-voiced harpy, leaped down from the heavens through the air. The Greeks, however, were then arming themselves throughout the camp, when she instilled into the bosom of Achilles nectar and delightful ambrosia, that unpleasant hunger might not come upon his limbs. Then she went to the solid mansion of her powerful sire, and they, apart, poured forth from the swift ships.\nAnd as when thick snow-flakes fly down from Jove, beneath the force of the cold, air-clearing Boreas; so from the ships were borne out crowded helmets, shining brightly, and bossed shields, strong-cavitied corslets, and ashen spears. But the sheen reached to heaven, and all the earth around smiled beneath the splendour of the brass; and a trampling of the feet of men arose beneath. In the midst noble Achilles was armed, and there was a gnashing of his teeth, and his eyes shone like a blaze of fire; but intolerable grief entered his heart within him, and, enraged against the Trojans, he put on the gifts of the god, which Vulcan, toiling, had fabricated for him. First around his legs he placed the beautiful greaves, joined with silver clasps, next he put on the corslet round his breast, and suspended from his shoulders the brazen, silver-studded sword; then he seized the shield, large and solid, the sheen of which went to a great distance, as of the moon. 639 And as when from the sea the blaze of a burning fire shines to mariners, which is lit aloft amongst the mountains in a solitary place; but the storm bears them against their inclination away from their friends over the fishy deep; so from the shield of Achilles, beautiful and skilfully made, the brightness reached the sky. But raising it, he placed the strong helmet upon his head; and the helmet, crested with horse-hair, shone like a star; and the golden tufts which Vulcan had diffused thick around the cone were shaken. Then noble Achilles tried himself in his arms if they would fit him, and if his fair limbs would move freely in them; but they were like wings to him, and lifted up the shepherd of the people. And from its sheath he drew forth his paternal spear, heavy, great, and stout, which no other of the Greeks was able to brandish, but Achilles alone knew how to hurl it\u2014a Pelian ash, which Chiron had cut for his father from the top of Pelion, to be a destruction to heroes. But Automedon and Alcimus, harnessing the steeds, yoked them; and beautiful collars were upon them. They put the bridles into their jaws, and drew back the reins towards the well-glued car, when Automedon, seizing the shining lash, fitted to his hand, leaped into the car; Achilles, armed for battle, mounted behind him, glittering in his armour like the shining sun; and terribly he gave command to the horses of his sire:\nFootnote 639: (return) Milton, P. L. i. 284:\n\n\n\u201c........ his pond\u2019rous shield\nEthereal temper, massy, large, and round,\nBehind him cast; the broad circumference\nHung on his shoulders like the moon.\u201d\n\n\n\u201cXanthus, and Balius, illustrious offspring of Podarges, resolve now in a different manner to bring back your charioteer in safety to the body of the Greeks, after we are satiated with battle, nor leave him there dead, like Patroclus.\u201d\nBut from beneath the yoke, Xanthus, his swift-footed steed, addressed him, and immediately hung down his head, and his whole mane, drooping from the ring which was near the yoke, reached the ground. But the white-armed goddess Juno gave him the power of speech:\n\u201cNow, at least, we will bear thee safe, O impetuous Achilles: but the fatal day draws nigh to thee; nor are we to blame, but a mighty deity and violent destiny. For not by our laziness, or sloth, have the Trojans stripped the armour from the shoulders of Patroclus; but the bravest of the gods, whom fair-haired Latona brought forth, slew him among the front ranks, and gave glory to Hector. And [though] we can run even with the blast of Zephyrus, which they say is the most fleet, yet to thyself it is fated that thou shouldst be violently subdued by a god and a man.\u201d\nOf him, having thus spoken, the Furies restrained the voice: but him swift-footed Achilles, greatly indignant, addressed:\n\u201cO Xanthus, why dost thou predict my death to me? For it is not at all necessary for thee. Well do I myself know that it is my fate to perish here, far away from my dear father and mother. Nevertheless I will not cease before the Trojans are abundantly satiated with war.\u201d\nHe spoke, and shouting amongst the front ranks, directed on his solid-hoofed steeds.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THE TWENTIETH\nARGUMENT.\nJove permits the gods to join in the battle, and they take their respective places on either side. \u00c6neas engages Achilles, but is rescued by Neptune. Hector, in revenge for the death of his brother Polydorus, also attacks Achilles, and is only saved from death by the intervention of Apollo. Achilles then slays many Trojans.\nThus around thee, O son of Peleus, were the Ach\u00e6ans armed, insatiable in fight, beside their crooked ships; and the Trojans, on the other side, on the acclivity 640 of the plain. But Jove ordered Themis to summon the gods to an assembly, from the top of many-valleyed Olympus, and she, going round, ordered them to proceed to the palace of Jove. Nor was any one of the rivers absent, save Oceanus, nor of the nymphs who inhabit the pleasant groves and springs of rivers, and the grassy meads. Then, coming to the habitation of cloud-compelling Jove, they sat down upon shining polished benches, which Vulcan with cunning skill had made for father Jove. Thus were they assembled within the palace of Jove: nor did Neptune disobey the goddess, but he came to them from the sea. Then he sat in the midst, and inquired the design of Jove:\nFootnote 640: (return) See x. 160; xi. 56.\n\u201cWhy again, O hurler of the glowing lightning, hast thou summoned the gods to an assembly? Dost thou deliberate anything respecting the Trojans and Greeks? For now their combat and the battle are on the point of being kindled.\u201d\nBut him cloud-compelling Jove answering, addressed:\n\u201cThou knowest, O earth-shaker, my design within my breast, [and] for whose sake I have assembled you; for though about to perish, they are a care to me. I will, however, remain sitting on the top of Olympus, whence looking, I shall delight my soul; but depart the rest of you, that ye may go to the Trojans and Greeks. Give aid to both, according as is the inclination of each. For if Achilles alone shall fight against the Trojans, they will not even for a little sustain the swift-footed son of Peleus. Formerly even beholding him, they fled terrified; but now when he is grievously enraged in his mind on account of his companion, I fear lest he overthrow the wall, even contrary to fate.\u201d\nThus spoke Saturnian Jove, and he stirred up the unyielding 641 contest; and the gods hastened to proceed to the battle, having discordant minds. Juno, indeed, and Pallas Minerva [went] to the assemblage of the ships, as well as earth-shaking Neptune, and useful Mercury, who excelled in a prudent mind, with whom went Vulcan, looking savage in his might, limping, and under him his weak limbs moved with all their force. But to the Trojans [went] crest-tossing Mars, and with him unshorn Ph\u0153bus, 642 and Diana, delighting in archery, Latona, Xanthus, and laughter-loving Venus. As long as the gods were apart from mortal men, so long the Greeks were greatly elated, because Achilles appeared, for he had long abstained from the dire battle; and a violent tremor came upon the Trojans, upon each of them as to their limbs, fearing because they beheld the swift-footed son of Peleus glittering in arms, equal to man-slaughtering Mars. But after the Olympians had come to the crowd of men, then arose fierce Contention, the exciter of the people, and Minerva shouted, sometimes standing beside the trench, outside the wall, at other times she loudly shouted along the echoing shores. But Mars yelled aloud on the other side, like unto a dark whirlwind, keenly animating the Trojans from the lofty city, at other times running along the Simo\u00efs over Callicolone. 643\nThus the blessed gods, inciting both sides, engaged, and among them made severe contention to break out. But dreadfully from above thundered the father of gods and men; whilst beneath Neptune shook the boundless earth and the lofty summits of the mountains. The roots and all the summits of many-rilled Ida were shaken, and the city of the Trojans, and the ships of the Greeks. Pluto himself, king of the nether world, trembled beneath, and leaped up from his throne, terrified, and shouted aloud, lest earth-shaking Neptune should rend asunder the earth over him, and disclose to mortals and immortals his mansions, terrible, squalid, which even the gods loathe. So great a tumult arose from the gods engaging in combat. Against king Neptune, indeed, stood Ph\u0153bus Apollo, having his winged shafts, and against Mars the azure-eyed goddess Minerva. Opposed to Juno stood the goddess of the golden bow, huntress Diana, rejoicing in archery, the sister of Apollo; and opposite Latona, the preserver, 644 useful Mercury. Against Vulcan also was the great deep-eddying river, which the gods call Xanthus, and men the Scamander.\nFootnote 641: (return) Buttm. Lexil. p. 406, 3: \u201cThe adjective \u03b1\u03bb\u03af\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2, literally unbending, unyielding, not to be turned, became the epithet of a violent, uncontrollable, incessant tumult, battle, lamentation, &amp;c, as at I\u03bb. M. 471; B. 797; \u03a9. 760; and as an adverb at \u03a9. 549.\u201d\nFootnote 642: (return) Hor. Od. i. xxii. 2: \u201cIntonsum, pueri, dicite Cynthium.\u201d Tibull. i. 4, 37: \u201cSolis \u00e6terna est Ph\u0153bo, Bacchoque juventa: hanc decet intonsus crinis utrumque Deum.\u201d Various reasons are assigned for this; such as, \u201cquia occidendo et renascendo semper est juvenior,\u201d Fulgent. Myth. i. 17; or, \u201cquod ipse sit sol, et sol ignis est, qui nunquam senescit,\u201d Lutat. on Stat. Theb. i. 694. The inhabitants of Hieropolis, however, worshipped a bearded Apollo.\u2014Macr. Sat. i. 17.\nFootnote 643: (return) A rising ground which lay on the road from Troy towards the sea-coast, on the other side of the Simo\u00efs, commanding the entire plain. Hence it is the rendezvous of the gods who favoured the Trojans.\nFootnote 644: (return) We find a collateral verb \u03c3\u03c9\u03ba\u03b5\u1fd6\u03b9\u03bd=valere, in \u00c6sch. Eum. 36. Apollon. Lex. p. 762; Hesych. t. ii. p. 1334, derive \u03c3\u1ff6\u03ba\u03c9\u03c2 from \u03c3\u03c9\u03c3\u03af\u03bf\u03b9\u03ba\u03bf\u03c2, the former connecting it with \u1f10\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03cd\u03bd\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2, \u1f41 \u03bc\u03b5\u03b3\u03ac\u03bb\u03c9\u03c2 \u1f40\u03bd\u03af\u03c3\u03ba\u03c9\u03bd, \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c4' \u1f14\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9 \u1f40\u03c6\u03b5\u03bb\u1ff6\u03bd.\nThus indeed gods went against gods; but Achilles chiefly longed to penetrate through the crowd against Hector, the son of Priam; for with his blood his mind particularly ordered him to satiate Mars, the invincible warrior. But Apollo, exciter of troops, immediately aroused \u00c6neas against the son of Peleus, and infused into him strong courage. And he likened himself in voice to Lycaon, the son of Priam, and having likened himself to him, Apollo, the son of Jove, said:\n\u201cO \u00c6neas, counsellor of the Trojans, where are thy threats which, whilst carousing, thou didst promise to the leaders of the Trojans, that thou wouldst fight against Achilles, the son of Peleus?\u201d\nBut him \u00c6neas, answering, addressed in turn:\n\u201cSon of Priam, why dost thou order me, not wishing it, these things, to fight against magnanimous Pelides? For shall I not now for the first time stand against swift-footed Achilles, but already, on another occasion, he chased me with his spear from Ida, when he attacked our cattle, and laid waste Lyrnessus and Pedasus: but Jove preserved me, who excited my strength and nimble limbs. Certainly I should have been subdued beneath the hands of Achilles, and Minerva, who, preceding, gave him victory, and encouraged him to slay the Lelegans and Trojans with his brazen spear. Wherefore it is not possible that a man should fight against Achilles, because one of the gods is ever beside him, who averts destruction. Besides, also, his weapon flies direct, nor stops before it has pierced through human flesh; though if the deity would extend an equal scale of victory, not very easily would he conquer me, although he boasts himself to be all brazen.\u201d\nBut him again king Apollo, the son of Jove, addressed:\n\u201cBut do thou also pray, O hero, to the immortal gods, for they say that thou too art sprung from Venus, the daughter of Jove, but he from an inferior goddess; for the one is from Jove, and the other from the aged sea-god. But direct thy invincible brass right against him, nor let him at all avert thee by haughty words and threats.\u201d\nThus saying, he breathed great courage into the shepherd of the people; and he advanced through the front ranks, accoutred in shining brass. Nor did the son of Anchises escape the notice of white-armed Juno, going against the son of Peleus through the ranks of men; but, calling the gods together, she addressed them:\n\u201cConsider now, both Neptune and Minerva, in your minds, how these things shall be. This \u00c6neas, accoutred in shining brass, has advanced against the son of Peleus; and Ph\u0153bus Apollo has urged him on. But come, let us, however, turn him back again; or let some one of us stand by Achilles, and give him great strength, nor let him at all be wanting in courage; that he may know that the mightiest of the immortals love him; and that those, on the contrary, are vain, who hitherto avert war and slaughter from the Trojans. But we have all come down from Olympus, about to participate in this battle, lest he should suffer anything among the Trojans to-day; but hereafter he shall suffer those things, as many as Fate at his birth wove in his thread [of destiny], 645 to him, what time his mother brought him forth. But if Achilles shall not learn these things from the voice of a god, he will afterwards be afraid when any god comes against him in battle; for the gods, when made manifest, are terrible to be seen manifestly.\u201d  646\nBut her then earth-shaking Neptune answered:\n\u201cJuno, be not beyond reason enraged; nor is it at all necessary. I, indeed, would not desire that we should engage the other gods in a battle, since we are much more powerful. 647 Rather let us, going out of the way, sit down upon a place of observation, 648 but the war shall be a care to mortals. But if Mars shall begin the combat, or Apollo, or shall restrain Achilles, and not suffer him to fight, then immediately shall the strife of contention there arise to us; and I think that they, having very speedily decided it, will return to Olympus, and mix with the assembly of other gods, violently subdued by necessity under our hands.\u201d\nThus then having spoken, the azure-haired [god] led the way to the lofty mound-raised wall of divine Hercules, which the Trojans and Pallas Minerva had made, that, flying, he might escape from the sea-monster, when pursued from the shore to the plain. There then Neptune sat down, and the other gods, and drew an indissoluble cloud around their shoulders; whilst on the other side they sat upon the tops of Callicolone, around thee, O archer Apollo, and Mars, the sacker of cities. Thus they sat on both sides, planning designs, yet both were unwilling to commence grievous war; but Jove, sitting aloft, cheered them on. All the plain, however, was filled with them, and glittered with the brass of men and horses, and the earth echoed under the feet of them rushing together. But two heroes, by far the most valiant, advanced towards [each other] into the midst of both armies, eager to fight,\u2014\u00c6neas, the son of Anchises, and noble Achilles. And first \u00c6neas, threatening, advanced, nodding with his strong casque; and before his breast he held his impetuous shield, and shook his brazen spear. But on the other side Pelides rushed against him like a destructive lion, which men assembled together, a whole village, are anxious to kill. He, however, at first despising them, proceeds; but when some one of vigorous youths has wounded him with a dart, yawning, he collects himself [for a spring], 649 and the foam arises round his teeth, and his valiant soul groans within his breast, and he lashes his sides and thighs on both sides with his tail, and rouses himself to battle; then, grimly glaring, he is borne straight on by his strength, if he can kill some of the men, or is himself destroyed in the first crowd. Thus did his might and noble soul urge Achilles to go against magnanimous \u00c6neas. But when now, advancing, they approached each other, swift-footed, noble Achilles first addressed the other:\nFootnote 645: (return) See Duport, p. 114. On the web woven by the Fates for man\u2019s life, see Virg. Ecl. iv. 46; Catullus, lxiv. 328. But this passage of Homer seems to imply the ancient notion, that the Fates might be delayed, but never set aside. Cf. Nemes. de Nat. Horn. i. 36; Censorin. de die Nat. xiv.; Serv. on \u00c6n. vii. 398.\nFootnote 646: (return) \u201cDeos manifesto in lumine vidi.\u201d\u2014Virg. \u00c6n. iv. 358. On the belief that the sight of a god was attended with danger, cf. Liv. i. xvi. where Proculus beseeches the apparition of Romulus \u201cut contra intueri fas esset.\u201d See intpp. on Exod. xxxiii. 20; Judges xiii. 22.\nFootnote 647: (return) I am half inclined to condemn this verse as spurious, with Ernesti. It is wanting in MS. Lips, and ed. Rom., and does not appear to have been read by Eustathius.\nFootnote 648: (return) Compare the \u201cContemplantes\u201d of Lucan, sub init., where the gods seek a similar place of observation.\nFootnote 649: (return) So \u1f00\u03bb\u03b5\u1f76\u03c2 in xv. 403. \u201cIt is also used in the same way of a warrior, who, whilst he is preparing to rush on his enemy, or expecting his attack, draws himself up together, or, as we say, puts himself in an attitude of attack or defence.\u201d\u2014Buttm. Lexil. p. 258.\n\u201cWhy, O \u00c6neas, coming through so great a length of crowd, dost thou stand against me? Does then thy soul urge thee to fight with me, hoping that thou wilt govern the horse-breaking Trojans in the place 650 of Priam? Yet even if thou shalt slay me, not thus will Priam place this reward in thy hand: for he has sons; and he is himself steady, nor inconstant. Or, if thou slayest me, have the Trojans cut off for thee an enclosure 651 of soil surpassing others, suited to vines and the plough, that thou mayest cultivate it? Still I hope thou wilt effect it with difficulty. For I think I have at some other time put thee to flight with my spear. Dost thou not remember when I impetuously drove thee, when alone, from the oxen, with rapid feet, down the Id\u00e6an mountains? Then indeed thou didst never turn round while flying, but didst escape thence into Lyrnessus; but I wasted it, having attacked it with the aid of Minerva and father Jove. The women also I led away captives, having taken away their day of freedom; but Jove and the other gods preserved thee. However, I do not think they will protect thee now, as thou castest in thy mind; but I exhort thee, retiring, to go into the crowd, nor stand against me, before thou suffer some evil; but [it is] a fool [who] knows a thing [only] when it is done.\u201d\nFootnote 650: (return) \u0386\u03b3\u03c4\u1f76..... \u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bb\u03b5\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 is Gaza\u2019s correct paraphrase.\nFootnote 651: (return) Cf 194.\nBut him \u00c6neas answered in turn, and said:\n\u201cDo not think, O son of Peleus, to affright me, like an infant boy, with words; since I also well know how to utter both threats and reproaches. But we know each other\u2019s race, and we know our parents, hearing the words of mortal men long since uttered; although by sight, indeed, neither dost thou know mine, nor I thine. They say, indeed, that thou art the offspring of renowned Peleus, and of thy mother Thetis, the fair-haired sea-nymph; whereas I boast myself to be sprung from magnanimous Anchises, and Venus is my mother. Of these the one or the other shall this day lament their beloved son; for I think we shall not return from the battle thus separated by childish words. But if thou desirest to be taught these matters, that thou mayest well know our race (for many men know it), cloud-compelling Jove indeed first begat Dardanus. 652 And he built Dardania, for sacred Ilium, the city of articulate-speaking men, was not as yet built in the plain, and they still dwelt at the foot of many-rilled Ida. Dardanus again begat a son, king Erichthonius, who was then the richest of mortal men; whose three thousand mares pastured through the marsh, rejoicing in their tender foals. Boreas, however, was enamoured of some of these when pasturing, and having likened himself to an azure-maned steed, covered them; and they, becoming pregnant, brought forth twelve female foals; which when they bounded upon the fruitful earth, ran over the highest fruit of the stalks of corn, nor did they break them: 653 but when they sported over the broad back of the ocean, they ran along the surface of the ridge of the hoary sea. But Erichthonius begat Tros, king of the Trojans. From Tros again were descended three illustrious sons, Ilus, Assaracus, and godlike Ganymede, who indeed was the handsomest of mortal men; and whom the gods caught up into heaven, to pour out wine for Jove, 654 that, on account of his beauty, he might be with the immortals. Ilus again begat his renowned son Laomedon; but Laomedon begat Tithonus and Priam, Lampus, Clytius, and Hicetaon, a branch of Mars; and Assaracus Capys, who also begat his son Anchises. But Anchises begat me, and Priam noble Hector. Of this race and blood do I boast myself to be. But Jove increases and diminishes valour to men, as he pleases; for he is the most powerful of all. But come, let us no longer talk of these things, like little boys, standing in the middle combat of the strife. For it is possible for both to utter very many reproaches, so that a hundred-oared galley 655 would not contain the burthen; for the language of mortals is voluble, 656 and the discourses in it numerous and varied: and vast is the distribution 657 of words here and there. Whatsoever word thou mayest speak, such also wilt thou hear. But what need is there to us of disputes and railing, that we should quarrel with each other like women, who, being angry with a soul-destroying strife, proceeding into the middle of the way, chide each other with many things true and not true: for rage also suggests those things? 658 With words, however, thou shalt not turn me, courageous, from my valour, before thou lightest against me with thy brass; but come, quickly let us make trial of each other with brazen spears.\u201d\nFootnote 652: (return) On Dardanus, the eponymus of Dardania, see Grote, vol. i. p. 387, where the whole legend of Troy is admirably discussed. Cf. Virg. \u00c6n. i. 292; iii. 167, where the Roman poet has made use of Homer in tracing the pedigree of \u00c6neas to Jove.\nFootnote 653: (return) This hyperbole has been emulated by numberless poets. Cf. Oppian, Cyn. i. 231; Apollon. Rh. i. 183; Quintus Calab. viii. 156; Virg. \u00c6n. vii. 808; Claudian in 3rd Cons. Hon. i. 97.\nFootnote 654: (return) Cf. Pindar, Ol. i. 69, and Serv. on \u00c6n. i. 32.\nFootnote 655: (return) Compare the Latin phrase, \u201cplaustra convitiorum,\u201d and Duport, p. 116.]\nFootnote 656: (return) \u03a3\u03c4\u03c1\u03b5\u03c0\u03c4\u03ae\u2014\u1f51y\u03c1a \u03ba\u03b1\u03af \u03b5\u03cd\u03bb\u03cd\u03b3\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2.\u2014Eustath.\nFootnote 657: (return) \u039d\u03bf\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2, \u03ad\u03c0\u03b9\u03bd\u03ad\u03bc\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 \u03ad\u03c6' \u03ad\u03ba\u03ac\u03c4\u03b5\u03bf\u03b1.\u2014Eustath. See Kennedy.\nFootnote 658: (return) \u201cI.e. prompts to utter all sorts of things, true and false.\u201d\u2014Oxf. Tr.\nHe spoke, and hurled his brazen spear against the dreadful shield, terrible [to be seen], and the huge buckler resounded with the stroke of the javelin. But the son of Peleus, alarmed, held the shield from him with his strong hand, for he supposed that the long spear of great-hearted \u00c6neas would easily penetrate; foolish! nor did he reflect in his mind and soul, that the glorious gifts of the gods are not easy to be subdued by mortal men, nor to yield. Nor then did the heavy spear of warlike \u00c6neas penetrate the shield; but the gold stopped it, the gift of the god. It penetrated, however, through two folds, but there were still three; since Vulcan had drawn five folds over it, two brazen, two inside of tin, and one golden; in which the brazen spear was stopped. But Achilles next sent forth his long-shadowed spear, and struck against the shield of \u00c6neas, equal on all sides, at the outside edge, where the thinnest brass ran round it, and the ox-hide was thinnest upon it; but the Pelian ash broke through, and the shield was crushed by it. But \u00c6neas crouched, 659 and being terrified, held the shield from him; whilst the spear [passing] over his back, stuck in the earth eager [to go on], for it had burst through both orbs of the mighty 660 shield. But he, having escaped the long spear, stood still, but immoderate sadness was poured over his eyes, terrified, because the weapon had stuck so near him. But Achilles eagerly sprang upon him, drawing his sharp sword, and shouting dreadfully. Then \u00c6neas seized in his hand a stone, a great weight, which not two men could bear, such as men now are; but he, though alone, easily wielded it. Then indeed had \u00c6neas smitten him, rushing on, with the stone, either upon the helmet or the shield, which kept off grievous destruction from him; and Pelides, in close fight, had taken away his life with the sword, had not earth-shaking Neptune quickly perceived it, and immediately addressed this speech to the immortal gods:\nFootnote 659: (return) See on ver. 168.\nFootnote 660: (return) Cf. Buttm. Lexil. p. 83. The Schol. and Hesych. t. i. p. 296, interpret it \u201cman-encircling.\u201d\n\u201cYe gods! certainly there now is grief to me, on account of magnanimous \u00c6neas, 661 who will quickly descend to Hades, subdued by the son of Peleus, foolish, being persuaded by the words of far-darting Apollo; nor can he by any means avert 662 sad destruction from him. But why now should this guiltless 663 man suffer evils gratuitously, on account of sorrows due to others, for he always presents gifts agreeable to the gods who inhabit the wide heaven? But come, let us withdraw him from death, lest even the son of Saturn be angry, if indeed Achilles slay this man: moreover, it is fated that he should escape, that the race of Dardanus, whom Jove loved above all the children that were descended from him and mortal women, may not perish without offspring, and become extinct. For already hath the son of Saturn hated the race of Priam, and the might of \u00c6neas shall now rule over the Trojans, and the sons of his sons, who may be born in after-times.\u201d\nFootnote 661: (return) The remarks of Grote, vol. i. p. 428, sqq. on the character and position of \u00c6neas throughout the Iliad, deserve much attention.\nFootnote 662: (return) \u201cThe examples of \u03c7\u03c1\u03b1\u03b9\u03c3\u03bc\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd are frequent enough in Homer to enable us safely to assert, from a comparison of them, that it never has (at least in his writings) the more general meaning of to be useful, to help, but, without an exception, the more definite sense of to ward off..... by examining passages we find, that even where no accusative is expressed, the evil to be warded off may always be inferred from the context.\u201d\u2014Buttm. Lexil. p. 542.\nFootnote 663: (return) He had wished to restore Helen. See Liv. i. 1.\nBut him large-eyed venerable Juno then answered:\n\u201cO earth-shaker! do thou thyself reflect within thy mind, with respect to \u00c6neas, whether thou wilt withdraw him, or suffer him, being brave, to be subdued by Achilles, the son of Peleus. For already we two, I and Pallas Minerva, have sworn many oaths amongst all the immortals, that we will never help to avert the evil day from the Trojans, not even when all Troy, fired, shall burn with consuming flame, and the warlike sons of the Greeks fire it.\u201d\nBut when earth-shaking Neptune heard this, he hastened to go through the battle and the clash of spears; and came where were \u00c6neas and renowned Achilles. And immediately he shed a darkness upon the eyes of Achilles, son of Peleus, and he drew out the ashen spear, well guarded with brass, from the shield of magnanimous \u00c6neas; and laid it before the feet of Achilles, and pushed on \u00c6neas, lifting him high up from the ground. But \u00c6neas leaped over many ranks of men and many of horses, impelled by the hand of the god, and came to the rear of the troubled fight, where the Caucones were arrayed for war. But very near him came earth-shaking Neptune, and addressing him, spoke winged words:\n\u201cO \u00c6neas, which of the gods commanded thee, thus mad, to combat against Achilles, who is at once more valiant than thou, and more dear to the immortals? But retire whenever thou shalt be opposed to him, lest, even contrary to fate, thou arrive at the habitation of Pluto. But when Achilles shall have attained his death and destiny, then again, being confident, fight among the front ranks, because no other of the Greeks shall slay thee.\u201d\nSo saying, he left him there, when he had told him all, and immediately afterwards dissipated the thick darkness from the eyes of Achilles, and he then saw very clearly with his eyes; whereupon groaning, he addressed his magnanimous soul:\n\u201cYe gods! certainly I behold this, a great marvel with mine eyes. The spear indeed lies upon the ground, nor do I at all perceive the man at whom I hurled it, desiring to kill him. Undoubtedly \u00c6neas, too, was dear to the immortal gods, although I supposed that he boasted thus idly. Let him go; there will be no spirit in him hereafter to make trial of me, who even now rejoicing, has escaped from death. But come, having encouraged the warlike Greeks, I will make trial of the other Trojans, going against them.\u201d\nHe spoke, and sprang into the ranks, and cheered on every man:\n\u201cNo longer now stand off from the Trojans, O noble Greeks, but on! let man advance against man, and let him be eager to engage. Difficult is it for me, although being valiant, to attack so many warriors, and to fight with them all. Not even Mars, who is an immortal god, nor yet Minerva, could charge and toil against the force of such a conflict. Yet whatever I can do with hands, with feet, and with strength, I declare that I will no longer be remiss, not ever so little; but I will go right through their line, nor do I think that any Trojan will rejoice, whoever may come near my javelin.\u201d\nThus he spoke, encouraging them; but illustrious Hector, upbraiding, animated the Trojans, and said that he would go against Achilles:\n\u201cYe magnanimous Trojans, fear not the son of Peleus. I, too, could fight with words even with the immortals, but with the spear it is difficult, for they are far more powerful. Nor shall Achilles give effect to all his words; but one part he shall fulfil, and the other leave half imperfect. Against him will I go, even though he were like to fire as to his hands; and to shining iron, as to his might.\u201d\nThus he spoke, inciting them; but the Trojans opposite quickly raised their spears; their strength was mingled together, and a shout arose. Then also Ph\u0153bus Apollo, standing near, addressed Hector:\n\u201cHector, do not at all fight in the van with Achilles, but receive him in the crowd, and from the tumult, lest by any chance he hit thee, or strike thee with the sword in close combat.\u201d\nThus he spoke, and Hector sunk back again into the thick body of men, dismayed when he heard the voice of the god speaking. But Achilles leaped among the Trojans, clad with courage as to his soul, shouting dreadfully; and first slew gallant Iphition, son of Otrynteus, the leader of many people, whom the nymph Na\u00efs bore to Otrynteus, the sacker of cities, under snowy Tmolus, in the rich district of Hyda. 664 Him, eagerly rushing straight forward, noble Achilles struck with his javelin in the middle of the head; and it was entirely split in two. He gave a crash as he fell, and noble Achilles boasted over him:\nFootnote 664: (return) A town of M\u00e6onia in Lydia. See Steph. Byz. s. v.\n\u201cO son of Otrynteus, most terrible of all men, thou liest; death is here upon thee. Thy birth, however, is at the Gyg\u00e6an lake, where is thy paternal land, beside fishy Hyllus, and eddying Hermus.\u201d\nThus he spoke, boasting; but darkness covered his (Iphition\u2019s) eyes, but the horses of the Greeks tore him with the tires of the wheels in the front ranks. After him Achilles smote Demoleon, son of Antenor, a brave repeller of the fight, in the temples, through his brazen-cheeked helmet. Nor indeed did the brazen casque resist it, but through it the eager javelin broke the bone, and the whole brain within was defiled; and he subdued him, ardent. Next he wounded with his spear in the back, Hippodamas, as he was leaping down from his chariot, while flying before him. But he breathed out his soul, and groaned, like as when a bull, dragged round the Heliconian king, 665 bellows, as the youths drag him; and the earth-shaker is delighted with them: so, as he moaned, his fierce soul left his bones. But he went with his spear against godlike Polydorus, 666 the son of Priam; but him his father did not permit to fight, because he was the youngest among all, and dearest to him, and surpassed all in speed. Then, indeed, through youthful folly, exhibiting the excellence of his speed, he ran among the front ranks till he lost his life. Him noble swift-footed Achilles smote rushing by, in the middle of the back, where the golden rings of his belt clasped together, and the doubled corslet met. Right through at the navel pierced the point of the spear, and uttering a groan, he fell upon his knees; a black cloud enveloped him, and stooping down, he gathered his intestines in his hands. But when Hector perceived his brother Polydorus holding his intestines in his hands, and rolled on the earth, a darkness was immediately poured over his eyes, nor could he any longer be employed afar off, but advanced towards Achilles, like unto a flame, brandishing his sharp spear. On the other hand, Achilles, as soon as he saw him, leaped up, and boasting, spoke:\n\u201cNear is the man who has most stung my soul, who has slain my cherished companion; no longer indeed let us dread each other through the bridges 667 of war.\u201d\nFootnote 665: (return) Neptune was a favourite god among the Ionians (cf. M\u00fcller, Dor. vol. i. p. 417), but derived this name from Helice, a town in the northern coast of the Peloponnese, out of which the principal Ach\u00e6an families were driven by Tisamenus, whose tomb was shown there. See M\u00fcller, id. p. 74.\nFootnote 666: (return) This is not the Polydorus of Virgil and Euripides, but the son of Laothoe, daughter of Altas, king of the Lelegans.\nFootnote 667: (return) See iv. 371.\nHe spoke, and sternly regarding [him], addressed noble Hector:\n\u201cCome nearer, that thou mayest the sooner reach the end of death.\u201d\nBut him, not daunted, crest-tossing Hector addressed:\n\u201cO son of Peleus, do not expect to terrify me now like a little boy, at least with words; since I myself also well know how to speak both revilings and reproaches. I know that thou indeed art brave, and that I am inferior to thee. But these things indeed are placed at the knees of the gods, whether, although being inferior, I shall take away thy life, striking thee with my spear, since my weapon also is sharp at the point.\u201d\nHe spoke, and, brandishing, sent forth his spear; and Minerva with a breath turned it back from glorious Achilles, having breathed very gently; but it came back to noble Hector, and lay before his feet. But Achilles, eager to slay him, rushed furiously on, shouting dreadfully; but Apollo, as a god, very easily snatched him away, and covered him with abundant haze. Thrice indeed swift-footed noble Achilles rushed on with his brazen spear, and thrice he smote the deep haze. But when he rushed on the fourth time, like unto a god, he, dreadfully chiding, addressed to him winged words:\n\u201cDog, now again hast thou escaped death. Assuredly evil came very near thee, but Ph\u0153bus Apollo has now again preserved thee, to whom thou art wont to pray, when going into the clang of spears. Yet will I certainly finish thee, meeting thee hereafter, if indeed any of the gods be an ally to me also. At present, however, I will go after others of the Trojans, whomsoever I can.\u201d\nSo saying, he struck Dryops with his spear in the middle of the neck, and he fell before his feet. Him then he left, and then detained Demuchus, son of Philetor, brave and great, wounding [him] in the knee, with his spear, whom then striking with his great sword, he deprived of life. But attacking both, he pushed Laogonus and Dardanus, the sons of Bias, from their chariot to the ground, wounding one with his spear, and striking the other in close combat with his sword. Also Tros, the son of Alastor, who came towards him, taking him by the knees, if on any terms he would spare him, and dismiss him alive, nor slay him, taking pity on their equal age: fool! who knew not that he would not be persuaded. For he was by no means a tender-minded nor gentle man, but very ferocious. He (Tros) indeed clasped his knees with his hands, desiring to supplicate him, but he (Achilles) wounded him in the liver with his sword; and his liver fell out, and the black blood from it filled his bosom, and darkness veiled his eyes, wanting life. But standing near Mulius, he smote him with his javelin on the ear, and immediately the brazen blade went through the other ear. Then, with his large-hilted sword, he smote Echeclus, son of Antenor, in the centre of the head, and the whole sword became tepid with blood; but purple Death and violent Fate seized his eyes. Then Deucalion, where the tendons of the elbow unite, there he pierced him through his hand with his brazen spear; but he, weighed down as to his hand, awaited him, perceiving death before him. But he (Achilles) smiting his neck with his sword, knocked the head off afar with its helmet, and the marrow sprang forth from the spine; and Deucalion lay extended on the ground. Then he hastened to go towards Rigmus, the renowned son of Pireus, who had come from fertile Thrace; whom he smote in the middle with his javelin, and the brass was fixed in his stomach; and he fell from his chariot: and Achilles wounded in the back, with his sharp javelin, Are\u00eftho\u00fcs, the attendant, while turning back the steeds, and threw him from the chariot: and the horses were thrown into confusion. And as the blazing fire burns through the deep dells of a dry mountain, and the dense forest is consumed, and the wind agitating, turns round the flame on all sides; thus he raged in every direction with his spear, like unto a deity, following those that were to be slain; and the black earth flowed with blood. As when any one yokes broad fore-headed bulls to trample out white barley on the well-levelled floor, and it easily becomes small beneath the feet of the bellowing oxen; so the solid-hoofed horses, driven by magnanimous Achilles, trod down together both corses and shields. And the whole axletree beneath was polluted with gore, and the rings which were round the chariot seat, which the drops from the horses\u2019 hoofs spattered, as well as from the felloes. But the son of Peleus was eager to bear away glory, and was polluted with gore as to his invincible hands.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THE TWENTY-FIRST.\nARGUMENT.\nHaving divided the Trojan army, Achilles drives one part towards the city, and the other into the Xanthus, where he takes twelve youths alive, in order to sacrifice them at the tomb of Patroclus. He then slays Lycaon and Asterop\u00e6us, deriding the river-god, Xanthus, as unable to aid his friends. The river endeavours to overwhelm him by the aid of Simo\u00efs, but Vulcan defends him from the danger. Single combats of the gods then follow, but they afterwards retire to Olympus. Apollo then leads Achilles away, assuming the form of Agenor, and the Trojans are thus enabled to regain the city.\nBut when they at last reached the course of the fairly-flowing river, the eddying Xanthus, which immortal Jove begat; there separating them, he pursued some indeed through the plain towards the city, by the [same] way that the Greeks, on the preceding day, being astounded, had fled, when illustrious Hector raged. By that way were they poured forth terrified; but Juno expanded a dense cloud before them, to check them: but the other half were rolled into the deep-flowing river, with silver eddies. But they fell in with a great noise; and the deep streams resounded, and the banks around murmured; but they, with clamour, swam here and there, whirled about in the eddies. 668 As when locusts, driven by the force of fire, fly into the air, to escape to a river, but the indefatigable fire, suddenly kindled, blazes, and they fall, through terror into the water: thus, by Achilles, was the resounding river of deep-eddied Xanthus filled promiscuously with horses and men. But the Jove-sprung [hero] left his spear upon the banks, leaning against a tamarisk; and he leaped in, like unto a god, having only his sword, and meditated destructive deeds in his mind. And he smote on all sides, and a shocking lamentation arose of those who were stricken by the sword, and the water was reddened with blood. And, as when the other fish, flying from a mighty dolphin, fill the inmost recesses of a safe-anchoring harbour, frightened; for he totally devours whatever he can catch; so the Trojans hid themselves in caves along the streams of the terrible river. But he, when he was wearied as to his hands, slaying, chose twelve youths alive out of the river, a penalty for dead Patroclus, the son of Men\u0153tius. These he led out [of the river], stupified, like fawns. And he bound their hands behind them 669 with well-cut straps, which they themselves bore upon their twisted tunics; and gave them to his companions to conduct to the hollow ships. But he rushed on again, desiring to slay.\nFootnote 668: (return) Virg. \u00c6n. i. 118: \u201cApparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto.\u201d With the following description may be compared \u00c6sch. Ag. 670: \u1f49\u03c1\u1ff6\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd \u1f00\u03bd\u03b8\u03bf\u1fe6\u03bd \u03c0\u03ad\u03bb\u03b1\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 \u0391\u1f30\u03b3\u03b1\u1fd6\u03bf\u03bd \u03bd\u03b5\u03ba\u03c1\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f00\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f08\u03c7\u03b1\u03af\u03c9\u03bd \u03bd\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c4' \u1f10\u03c1\u03b5\u03b9\u03c0\u03af\u03c9\u03bd. Aristid. Panath. p. 142: \u1f69\u03c2 \u03b4\u1f72 \u1f11\u03ce\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u03b8\u03ac\u03bb\u03b1\u03c4\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd \u03b1\u1f35\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1fe5\u03bf\u03b8\u03af\u1ff3 \u1fe5\u03ad\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd, \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1 \u03bd\u03ad\u03ba\u03c1\u03c9\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03bd\u03b1\u03c5\u03b1\u03b3\u03af\u03c9\u03bd \u03bc\u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u03ac.\nFootnote 669: (return) As was customary with captives. Cf. Virg. \u00c6n. ii. 57, and Moll. on Longus, ii. 9.\nThen did he encounter the son of Dardanian Priam, Lycaon, escaping from the river, whom he himself had formerly led away, taking him unwilling from his father\u2019s farm, having come upon him by night: but he, with the sharp brass, was trimming a wild fig-tree of its tender branches, that they might become the cinctures of a chariot. But upon him came noble Achilles, an unexpected evil; and then, conveying him in his ships, he sold him into well-inhabited Lemnos; but the son of Jason gave his price. 670 And from thence his guest, Imbrian E\u00ebtion, ransomed him, and gave him many things, and sent him to noble Arisbe; whence, secretly escaping, he reached his father\u2019s house. Returning from Lemnos, for eleven days he was delighted in his soul, with his friends; but on the twelfth the deity again placed him in the hands of Achilles, who was about to send him into the [habitation] of Hades, although not willing to go. But when swift-footed, noble Achilles perceived him naked, without helmet and shield, neither had he a spear, for all these, indeed, he had thrown to the ground, for the sweat overcame him, flying from the river, and fatigue subdued his limbs beneath; but [Achilles] indignant, thus addressed his own great-hearted soul:\nFootnote 670: (return) I.e. purchase him as a slave.\n\u201c\u039f gods! surely I perceive this, a great marvel, with mine eyes. Doubtless the magnanimous Trojans whom I have slain will rise again from the murky darkness, as now this man has returned, escaping the merciless day, having been sold in sacred Lemnos; nor has the depth of the sea restrained him, which restrains many against their will. But come now, he shall taste the point of my spear, that I may know in my mind, and learn, whether he will in like manner return thence, or whether the fruitful earth will detain him, which detains even the mighty.\u201d\nThus he pondered, remaining still; but near him came Lycaon, in consternation, anxious to touch his knees; for he very much wished in his mind to escape evil death and black fate. Meanwhile noble Achilles raised his long spear, desiring to wound him; but he ran in under it, and, stooping, seized his knees, but the spear stuck fixed in the earth over his back, eager to be satiated with human flesh. But he, having grasped his knees with one hand, supplicated him, and with the other held the sharp spear, nor did he let it go; and, supplicating, addressed to him winged words:\n\u201cO Achilles, embracing thy knees, I supplicate thee; but do thou respect and pity me. I am to thee in place of a suppliant, to be revered, O Jove-nurtured one! For with thee I first tasted the fruit of Ceres on that day when thou tookest me in the well-cultivated field, and didst sell 671 me, leading me away from my father and friends, to sacred Lemnos; and I brought thee the price of a hundred oxen. But now will I redeem myself, giving thrice as many. This is already the twelfth morning to me since I came to Troy, having suffered much, and now again pernicious fate has placed me in thy hands. Certainly I must be hated by father Jove, who has again given me to thee. For my mother Laotho\u00eb, the daughter of aged Altes, brought forth short-lived me, of Altes, who rules over the warlike Lelegans, possessing lofty Padasus, near the Satnio: and Priam possessed his daughter, as well as many others; but from her we two were born, but thou wilt slay both. Him, godlike Polydorus, thou hast subdued already among the foremost infantry, when thou smotest him with the sharp spear, and now will evil be to me here; for I do not think that I shall escape thy hands, since a deity has brought me near thee. Yet another thing will I tell thee, and do thou store it in thy mind. Do not slay me, for I am not of the same womb with Hector, who killed thy companion, both gentle and brave.\u201d Thus then, indeed, the noble son of Priam addressed him, supplicating with words; but he heard a stern reply.\nFootnote 671: (return) Hesych. \u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b5\u03af\u03c2\u03c4\u03bf \u03c0\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac\u03c3\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03c0\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03b1\u03c2, \u03ad\u03c0\u1f7d\u03bb\u03b7\u03c3\u03b1\u03c2. See Schol. on ver. 40.\n\u201cFool, talk not to me of ransom, nor, indeed, mention it. Before Patroclus fulfilled the fatal day, so long to me was it more agreeable in my mind to spare the Trojans, and many I took alive and sold. But now there is not [one] of all the Trojans, whom the deity shall put into my hands before Ilium, who shall escape death; but above all of the sons of Priam. But die thou also, my friend; why weepest thou thus? Patroclus likewise died, who was much better than thou. Seest thou not how great I am? both fair and great; and I am from a noble sire, and a goddess mother bore me; but Death and violent Fate will come upon thee and me, whether [it be] morning, evening, or mid-day; 672 whenever any one shall take away my life with a weapon, either wounding me with a spear, or with an arrow from the string.\u201d\nFootnote 672: (return) See Kennedy.\nThus he spoke; but his knees and dear heart were relaxed. He let go the spear, indeed, and sat down, stretching out both hands. But Achilles, drawing his sharp sword, smote [him] at the clavicle, near the neck. The two-edged sword penetrated totally, and he, prone upon the ground, lay stretched out, but the black blood flowed out, and moistened the earth. Then Achilles, seizing him by the foot, threw him into the river, to be carried along, and, boasting, spoke winged words:\n\u201cLie there now with the fishes, 673 which, without concern, will lap the blood of thy wound; nor shall thy mother 674 weep, placing thee upon the funeral couch, but the eddying Scamander shall bear thee into the wide bosom of the ocean. Some fish, bounding through the wave, will escape to the dark ripple, 675 in order that he may devour the white fat of Lycaon. Perish [ye Trojans], till we attain to the city of sacred Ilium, you flying, and I slaughtering in the rear: nor shall the wide-flowing, silver-eddying river, profit you, to which ye have already sacrificed many bulls, and cast solid-hoofed steeds alive into its eddies. But even thus shall ye die an evil death, until ye all atone for the death of Patroclus, and the slaughter of the Greeks, whom ye have killed at the swift ships, I being absent.\u201d\nFootnote 673: (return) Cf. Virg. \u00c6n. x. 555, sqq.; Longus, ii. 20: \u0386\u03bb\u03bb\u1f70 \u03b2\u03bf\u03c1\u1f70\u03bd [\u1f7b\u03bc\u1fb6\u03c2] \u1f77\u03c7\u03b8\u03cd\u03c9\u03bd \u03b8\u03ae\u03c3\u03c9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03b4\u03cd\u03c3\u03b1\u03c2.\nFootnote 674: (return) Cf. Soph. Electr. 1138, sqq. with my note.\nFootnote 675: (return) I.e. the surface.\nThus he spoke; but the River was the more enraged at heart, and revolved in his mind how he might make noble Achilles cease from labour, and avert destruction from the Trojans. But meanwhile the son of Peleus, holding his long-shadowed spear, leaped upon Asterop\u00e6us, son of Pelegon, desirous to kill him whom the wide-flowing Axius begat, and Perib\u0153a, eldest of the daughters of Accessamenus; for with her had the deep-eddying river been mingled. Against him Achilles rushed; but he, [emerging] from the river, stood opposite, holding two spears; for Xanthus had placed courage in his mind, because he was enraged on account of the youths slain in battle, whom Achilles had slain in the stream, nor pitied them. But when they were now near, advancing towards each other, him first swift-footed, noble Achilles addressed:\n\u201cWho, and whence art thou of men, thou who darest to come against me? Truly they are the sons of unhappy men who encounter my might.\u201d Him again the illustrious son of Pelegon addressed: \u201cO magnanimous son of Peleus, why dost thou ask my race? I am from fruitful P\u00e6onia, being far off, leading the long-speared P\u00e6onian heroes; and this is now the eleventh morning to me since I came to Troy. But my descent is from the wide-flowing Axius, who pours the fairest flood upon the earth, he who begat Pelegon, renowned for the spear; who, men say, begat me. But now, O illustrious Achilles, let us fight.\u201d\nThus he spake, threatening: but noble Achilles raised the Pelian ash; but the hero Asterop\u00e6us [took aim] with both spears at the same time, 676 for he was ambidexter. 677 With the one spear he struck the shield, nor did it pierce the shield completely through; for the gold restrained it, the gift of a god; and the other slightly wounded him upon the elbow of the right arm; and the black blood gushed out: but the [spear passing] over him, was fixed in the earth, longing to satiate itself with his body. But second Achilles hurled his straight-flying ashen spear at Asterop\u00e6us, anxiously desiring to slay him. From him indeed he erred, and struck the lofty bank, and drove the ashen spear up to the middle in the bank. Then the son of Peleus, drawing his sharp sword from his thigh, eagerly leaped upon him; but he was not able to pluck out, with his strong hand, the ashen spear of Achilles, from the bank. Thrice, indeed, he shook it, desiring to pluck it out, and thrice he failed in strength. And the fourth time he had determined in his mind, bending, to snap the ashen spear of \u00c6acides; but Achilles first, close at hand, took away his life with the sword; for he smote him upon the belly at the navel, and all his bowels were poured out upon the ground, and darkness veiled him, dying, as to his eyes. Then Achilles, leaping upon his breast, despoiled him of his arms, and boasting, spoke:\nFootnote 676: (return) \u1f09\u03bc\u03b1\u03c1\u03c4\u1fc7 is here an adverb.\nFootnote 677: (return) Symmachus, Epist. ix. 105: \u201cPari nitore atque gravitate senatorias actiones et Roman\u00e6 rei monumenta limasti, ut plane Homerica appellatione \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03b4\u03ad\u03be\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd, id est, \u00e6quimanum, te esse pronunciem.\u201d\n\u201cLie so: it is a difficult thing for thee, though descended from a River, to contend with the sons of the most mighty Saturnian [Jove]. Thou saidst thou wert of the race of a wide-flowing River, but I boast myself to be of the race of mighty Jove. The hero ruling over many Myrmidons begat me, Peleus, son of \u00c6acus; but \u00c6acus was from Jove; wherefore Jove is more powerful than Rivers flowing into the sea, and the race of Jove again is more powerful than that of a river. Besides, a very great River is at hand to thee, if it can aught defend thee; but it is not lawful to fight with Jove, the son of Saturn. With him neither does king Achelo\u00fcs vie, nor the mighty strength of deep-flowing Oceanus, from which flow all rivers, and every sea, and all fountains, and deep wells; but even he dreads the bolt of the great Jove, and the dreadful thunder, when it bellows from heaven.\u201d\nHe said, and plucked his brazen spear from the bank. But him he left there, after he had taken away his life, lying in the sand, and the dark water laved him. About him, indeed, the eels and fishes were busied, eating [and] nibbling the fat around his kidneys. But he (Achilles) hastened to go against the P\u00e6onian equestrian warriors, who were already turned to flight beside the eddying river, when they saw the bravest in the violent conflict bravely subdued by the hands and sword of the son of Peleus. Then he slew Thersilochus, Mydon, Astypylus, Mnesus, Thrasius, \u00c6nius, and Ophelestes. And now had swift Achilles slain even more P\u00e6onians, had not the deep-eddying River, enraged, addressed him, likening itself to a man, and uttered a voice from its deep vortex:\n\u201cO Achilles, thou excellest, it is true, in strength, but thou doest unworthy acts above [others], for the gods themselves always aid thee. If indeed the son of Saturn has granted to thee to destroy all the Trojans, at least having driven them from me, perform these arduous enterprises along the plain. For now are my agreeable streams full of dead bodies, nor can I any longer pour my tide into the vast sea, choked up by the dead; whilst thou slayest unsparingly. But come, even cease\u2014a stupor seizes me\u2014O chieftain of the people.\u201d\nBut him swift-footed Achilles, answering, addressed:\n\u201cThese things shall be as thou desirest, O Jove-nurtured Scamander. But I will not cease slaughtering the treaty-breaking 678 Trojans, before that I enclose them in the city, and make trial of Hector, face to face, whether he shall slay me, or I him.\u201d\nFootnote 678: (return) Although this meaning of \u03cd\u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03c6\u03af\u03b1\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2 is well suited to this passage, yet Buttmann, Lexil. p. 616, \u00a7 6, is against any such particular explanation of the word. See his whole dissertation.\nThus speaking, he rushed upon the Trojans like unto a god; and the deep-eddying River then addressed Apollo:\n\u201cAlas! O god of the silver bow, child of Jove, thou hast not observed the counsels of Jove, who very much enjoined thee to stand by and aid the Trojans, till the late setting evening 679 sun should come, and overshadow the fruitful earth.\u201d\nFootnote 679: (return) \u0394\u03b5\u03af\u03b5\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2 has been shown by Buttmann to be really the afternoon; but he observes, p. 223, that in the present passage, \u201cit is not the Attic \u03b4\u03b5\u03af\u03bb\u03b7 \u1f40\u03c8\u03af\u03b1, with which it has been compared, but by the force of \u03b4\u03cd\u03c9\u03bd, the actual sunset of evening. The \u1f40\u03c8\u03ad is therefore, strictly speaking, redundant, and appears to be used with reference only to the time past, something in this way: \u2018Thou shouldst assist the Trojans until the sun sinks late in the west.\u2019\u201d\nHe spoke, and spear-renowned Achilles leaped into the midst, rushing down from the bank. But he (the River) rushed on, raging with a swoln flood, and, turbid, excited all his waves. And it pushed along the numerous corpses, which were in him 680 in abundance, whom Achilles had slain. These he cast out, roaring like a bull, upon the shore; but the living he preserved in his fair streams, concealing them among his mighty deep gulfs. And terrible around Achilles stood the disturbed wave, and the stream, falling upon his shield, oppressed him, nor could he stand steady on his feet. But he seized with his hands a thriving, large elm; and it, falling from its roots, dislodged the whole bank, and interrupted the beautiful streams with its thick branches, and bridged over the river itself, 681 falling completely in. Then leaping up from the gulf, he hastened to fly over the plain on his rapid feet, terrified. Nor yet did the mighty god desist, but rushed after him, blackening on the surface, that he might make noble Achilles cease from toil, and avert destruction from the Trojans. But the son of Peleus leaped back as far as is the cast of a spear, having the impetuosity of a dark eagle, a hunter, which is at once the strongest and the swiftest of birds. Like unto it he rushed, but the brass clanked dreadfully upon his breast; but he, inclining obliquely, fled from it, and it, flowing from behind, followed with a mighty noise. As when a ditch-worker leads a stream of water from a black-flowing fountain through plantations and gardens, holding a spade in his hands, and throwing out the obstructions from the channel; all the pebbles beneath are agitated as it flows along, and, rapidly descending, it murmurs down a sloping declivity, and outstrips even him who directs it: so the water of the river always overtook Achilles, though being nimble; for the gods are more powerful than mortals. As often as swift-footed, noble Achilles attempted to oppose it, and to know whether all the immortals who possess the wide heaven put him to flight, so often did a great billow of the river, flowing from Jove, lave his shoulders from above; whilst he leaped up with his feet, sad in mind, and the rapid stream subdued his knees under him, and withdrew the sand from beneath his feet. But Pelides groaned, looking toward the wide heaven:\nFootnote 680: (return) I.e. in the river. One translator absurdly renders it \u201cthrough him,\u201d i.e. through Achilles.\nFootnote 681: (return) \u201cThe circumstance of a fallen tree, which is by Homer described as reaching from one of its banks to the other, affords a very just idea of the breadth of the Scamander at the season when we saw it.\u201d\u2014Wood on Homer, p. 328.\n\u201cO father Jove, how does none of the gods undertake to save me, miserable, from the river! Hereafter, indeed, I would suffer anything. 682 But no other of the heavenly inhabitants is so culpable to me as my mother, who soothed me with falsehoods, and said that I should perish by the fleet arrows of Apollo, under the wall of the armed Trojans. Would that Hector had slain me, who here was nurtured the bravest; then a brave man would he have slain, and have despoiled a brave man. But now it is decreed that I be destroyed by an inglorious death, overwhelmed in a mighty river, like a swine-herd\u2019s boy, whom, as he is fording it, the torrent overwhelms in wintry weather.\u201d\nFootnote 682: (return) I.e. grant that I may but escape a disgraceful death by drowning, and I care not how I perish afterwards. The Scholiast compares the prayer of Ajax in p. 647: \u1f18\u03bd \u03b4\u1f72 \u03c6\u03ac\u03b5\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f44\u03bb\u03b5\u03c3\u03c3\u03bf\u03bd. Cf. \u00c6n, i. 100, sqq. \u00c6sch. Choeph 340; Eur. Andr. 1184.\nThus he spoke; but Neptune and Minerva, very quickly advancing, stood near him (but in body they had likened themselves to men), and, taking his hand in their hands, strengthened him with words. But to them earth-shaking Neptune began discourse:\n\u201cO son of Peleus, neither now greatly fear, nor yet be at all dismayed; so great allies from among the gods are we to thee, Jove approving it, I and Pallas Minerva, so that it is not decreed that thou shouldst be overcome by a river. It, indeed, shall soon cease, and thou thyself shalt see it. But let us prudently suggest, if thou be obedient, not to stop thy hands from equally destructive war, before thou shalt have enclosed the Trojan army within the renowned walls of Troy, whoever, indeed, can escape: but do thou, having taken away the life of Hector, return again to the ships; for we grant to thee to bear away glory.\u201d\nThey indeed having thus spoken, departed to the immortals. But he proceeded towards the plain (for the command of the gods strongly impelled him), and it was all filled with the overflowed water. Much beautiful armour and corpses of youths slain in battle, floated along; but his knees bounded up against the course of it rushing straight forward; for Minerva had put great strength into him. Nor did Scamander remit his strength, but was the more enraged with the son of Peleus. And he swelled the wave of the stream, and, shouting, animated Simo\u00efs:\n\u201cO dear brother, let us both, at least, restrain the force of the man, since he will quickly destroy the great city of king Priam, for the Trojans resist him not in battle. But aid me very quickly, and fill thy streams of water from thy fountains, and rouse all thy rivulets, raise a great wave, and stir up a mighty confusion of stems and stones, that we may restrain this furious man, who now already is victorious, and is bent on deeds equal to the gods. For I think that neither his strength will defend him, nor his beauty at all, nor those beautiful arms, which shall lie everywhere in the very bottom of my gulf, covered with mud. Himself also will I involve in sand, pouring vast abundant silt around him; nor shall the Greeks know where to gather his bones, so much slime will I spread over him. And there forthwith shall be 683 his tomb, nor shall there be any want to him of entombing, when the Greeks perform his obsequies.\u201d\nFootnote 683: (return) Observe the force of \u03c4\u03b5\u03c4\u03b5\u03cd\u03be\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9.\nHe spoke, and raging aloft, turbid, he rushed upon Achilles, murmuring with foam, with blood, and with dead bodies. Immediately the purple water of the Jove-descended river being raised up, stood, and seized the son of Peleus. But Juno cried aloud, fearing for Achilles, lest the mighty deep-eddying river should sweep him away; and immediately addressed Vulcan, her beloved son:\n\u201cArise, Vulcan, my son; for we supposed that eddying Xanthus was equally matched in battle against thee; but give aid with all haste, and exhibit thy abundant flame. But I will go to excite a severe storm of Zephyrus, and rapid Notus from the sea, which bearing a destructive conflagration, may consume the heads and armour of the Trojans. Do thou, therefore, burn the trees upon the banks of Xanthus, and hurl at himself with fire, nor let him at all avert thee by kind words or threats: neither do thou previously restrain thy might; but when I, shouting, shall give the signal, then restrain thy indefatigable fire.\u201d\nThus she spoke; but Vulcan darted forth his fierce-burning fire. First, indeed, he kindled a fire in the plain, and burned many dead bodies, which were in abundance, over it, whom Achilles had slain; so that the whole plain was dried up, and the clear water restrained. And as when an autumnal north wind immediately dries a newly-watered garden, and gratifies him whoever cultivates it, so was the whole plain dried, and it consumed the dead; whereupon he turned his all-resplendent flame against the river. The elms were burned up, and the willows and tamarisks; the lotus was consumed, and the rushes and reeds, which grew in great abundance round the beautiful streams of the river. Harassed were the eels and the fishes, which through the whirlpools, [and] which through the fair streams dived here and there, exhausted by the breath of the various artificer Vulcan. The might of the river was burnt up, and he spake, and addressed him:\n\u201cNone of the gods, O Vulcan, can oppose thee on equal terms, nor can I contend with thee, thus burning with fire. Cease from combat, and let noble Achilles instantly expel the Trojans from their city; what have I to do with contest and assistance?\u201d\nHe spoke, scorched; and his fair streams boiled up. As a caldron pressed by much fire, glows, bubbling up within on all sides, while melting the fat of a delicately-fed sow, whilst the dry wood lies beneath it; so were his fair streams dried up with fire, and the water boiled; nor could he flow on, but was restrained, and the vapour [raised] by the might of crafty Vulcan harassed him. At length, supplicating much, he addressed to Juno winged words:\n\u201cO Juno, why does thy son press upon my stream, to annoy [me] beyond others? nor truly am I so much to blame as all the others, as many as are assistants to the Trojans, But I will, however, desist, if thou biddest it; and let him also cease; and I moreover will swear this, that I never will avert the evil day from the Trojans, not even when all burning Troy shall be consumed with destructive fire, and the warlike sons of the Greeks shall burn it.\u201d\nBut when the white-armed goddess Juno heard this, she straightway addressed her beloved son Vulcan: \u201cVulcan, my illustrious son, abstain; for it is not fitting thus to persecute an immortal god for the sake of mortals.\u201d\nThus she spoke; and Vulcan extinguished his glowing fire, and the refluent water immediately lowered its fair streams. But when the might of Xanthus was subdued, then indeed they rested; for Juno restrained herself, though enraged.\nAmong the other gods, however, grievous, troublesome contention fell out, and the inclination in their minds was borne in opposite directions. They engaged with a great tumult, and the wide earth re-echoed, and the mighty heaven resounded around. And Jove heard it, sitting upon Olympus, and his heart laughed with joy, when he beheld the gods engaging in contest. Then they did not long stand apart; for shield-piercing Mars began, and rushed first against Minerva, holding his brazen spear, and uttered an opprobrious speech:\n\u201cWhy thus, O most impudent, having boundless audacity, dost thou join the gods in battle? Has thy great soul incited thee? Dost thou not remember when thou didst urge Diomede, the son of Tydeus, to strike me? And taking the spear thyself, thou didst direct it right against me, and didst lacerate my fair flesh. Now, therefore, I think that I will chastise thee, for all that thou hast done against me.\u201d\nSo saying, he struck [her] on the fringed \u00e6gis, horrible, which not even the thunderbolt of Jove will subdue; on it gore-tainted Mars smote her with the long spear. But she, retiring, seized in her stout hand a stone lying in the plain, black, rugged, and great, which men of former days had set to be the boundary of a field. 684 With this she struck fierce Mars upon the neck, and relaxed his knees. Seven acres he covered, falling; as to his hair he was defiled with dust; and his armour rang round him. But Pallas Minerva laughed, and, boasting over him, addressed to him winged words:\nFootnote 684: (return) The student will find some rude representations of these boundary-stones at page 212, sqq. of Van Goes\u2019 edition of the Rei Agrimensoria scriptores.\n\u201cFool, hast thou not yet perceived how much I boast myself to be superior, that thou opposest thy strength to me? Thus indeed dost thou expiate the Erinnys of thy mother, who designs mischiefs against thee, enraged because thou hast deserted the Greeks, and dost aid the treaty-breaking Trojans.\u201d\nThus having spoken, she turned back her bright eyes. But Venus, the daughter of Jove, taking him by the hand, led him away, groaning very frequently; but he with difficulty collected his spirit. But when the white-armed goddess Juno perceived him, immediately to Minerva she addressed winged words:\n\u201cAlas! O child of aegis-bearing Jove, invincible, see how again she, most impudent, leads man-slaughtering Mars through the tumult, from the glowing battle. But follow.\u201d\nThus she spoke; but Minerva rushed after, and rejoiced in her mind; and springing upon her, smote her with her stout hand on the breast, and dissolved her knees and dear heart. Then both of them lay upon the fruitful earth; but she, boasting over them, spoke winged words:\n\u201cWould that all, as many as are allies to the Trojans, when they fight against the armed Greeks, were so bold and daring, as Venus came an assistant to Mars, to oppose my strength; then had we long since ceased from battle, having overthrown the well-built city of Ilium.\u201d\nThus she spoke; but the white-armed goddess Juno smiled. And the earth-shaking king addressed Apollo:\n\u201cPhoebus, why do we two stand apart? Nor is it becoming, since the others have begun. This would be disgraceful, if we return without fight to Olympus, and to the brazen-floored mansion of Jove. Commence, for thou art younger by birth; for it would not be proper for me, since I am elder, and know more things. Fool, since thou possessest a senseless heart; nor dost at all remember those things, how many evils we suffered round Ilium, when we alone of the gods, coming from Jove to haughty Laomedon, laboured for a year for a stipulated hire, and he, commanding, gave orders? I indeed built a city and wall for the Trojans, extensive and very beautiful, that the city might be impregnable; whilst thou, O Phoebus, didst feed, his stamping-footed, curved-horned oxen, among the lawns of many-valed, woody Ida. 685 But when now the jocund Hours had brought round the period of payment, then did violent Laomedon forcibly defraud us both of all reward, and having threatened, dismissed us. And beside, 686 he threatened that he would bind our feet and hands from above, and sell us into distant islands; and affirmed that he would cut off the ears of both with the brass: but we immediately returned back with indignant mind, enraged on account of the rewards which, having promised, he did not make good. Is it for this thou dost now gratify the people? Why dost thou not strive along with us, that the treaty-breaking Trojans may basely perish from the root, with their children and modest 687 wives?\u201d\nFootnote 685: (return) On this slavery of Apollo, see my note, p. 43, n. 2. Longus, Past. iv. 10: \u0395\u1fd6\u03c0\u03bf\u03c4\u03b5 \u1f08\u03c0\u03cc\u03bb\u03bb\u03c9\u03bd \u039b\u03b1\u03bf\u03bc\u03ad\u03b4\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9 \u03b8\u03b7\u03c4\u03b5\u03cd\u03c9\u03bd \u1f10\u03b2\u03bf\u03cd\u03ba\u03bf\u03bb\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5, \u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03cc\u03c3\u03b4\u03b5 \u1f26\u03bd, \u03bf\u1f37\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5 \u1f10\u03c6\u03ac\u03bd\u03b8\u03b7 \u0394\u03ac\u03c6\u03bd\u03b9\u03c2.\nFootnote 686: (return) \u03a3\u1f7a\u03bd \u03bc\u1f72\u03bd. I almost prefer \u03c3\u03bf\u1f76 \u03bc\u1f72\u03bd, with other MSS. and Clarke.\nFootnote 687: (return) Perhaps intended as a covert sneer at Helen.\nBut him the far-darting king, Apollo, in turn addressed:\n\u201cO Neptune, thou wouldst not say that I am prudent, if I should now contend with thee, for the sake of miserable mortals, who, like the leaves, are at one time very blooming, feeding on the fruit of the soil and at another again, perish without life. Rather let us cease from combat as soon as possible; and let them decide the matter themselves.\u201d\nThus having spoken, he turned himself back; for he was afraid to come to strife of hands with his uncle. But him his sister, rustic Diana, the mistress of wild beasts, harshly rebuked, and uttered this upbraiding speech:\n\u201cFliest thou, Far-darter? and hast thou yielded the whole victory to Neptune? and dost thou give easy glory to him? O Fool, why in vain dost thou hold an useless bow? No longer now shall I hear thee boasting in the halls of our sire, as formerly amongst the immortal gods, that thou wouldst fight in opposition to Neptune.\u201d\nThus she spoke; but her the far-darting Apollo by no means addressed. But the venerable spouse of Jove, enraged, rebuked [her] who rejoices in arrows, with reproaching words:\n\u201cHow darest thou now, fearless wretch, stand against me? A difficult match am I for thee to be opposed to my strength, although thou art a bow-bearer; for Jove has made thee a lioness among women, and suffered thee to kill whatever woman thou wilt. Certainly it is better to slay wild beasts among the mountains, or rustic stags, than to fight bravely with thy betters. But if thou desirest to have a knowledge of battle, come on, that thou mayest well know how much the better I am; since thou opposest strength to me.\u201d\nShe spoke, and with her left hand seized both her (Diana\u2019s) hands at the wrist, and with her right plucked the bow 688 from her shoulders. Smiling, she beat her about the ears with it, while she writhed herself; and the fleet arrows fell out [of her quiver, as she moved]. Then the goddess fled, weeping, like a dove which flies from a hawk to a hollow rock, her hiding-place, (for neither was it fated that she should be taken by it;) so she fled, weeping, and left her arrows there.\nFootnote 688: (return) I have followed Kennedy, who says: \u201cThe preferable meaning of \u03c4\u03cc\u03be\u03b1 is arcus. This Juno employs as an instrument of chastisement, to avoid the infliction of which, her antagonist turns from side to side, and whilst thus shifting her position lets fall her arrows, \u1f40\u03ca\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03af, ver. 492.\u201d Others by \u03c4\u03cc\u03be\u03b1 understood both bow and arrows.\nBut the messenger [Mercury], the slayer of Argos, addressed Latona:\n\u201cO Latona, I will by no means fight with thee; for difficult indeed would it be to combat with the wives of cloud-compelling Jove; but rather, very forward among the immortal gods, boast that thou hast conquered me by violent force.\u201d\nThus indeed he spoke; but Latona collected together the bent bow and the arrows 689 which had fallen here and there amid the whirl of dust. She, having taken the arrows, followed her daughter. But the daughter had arrived at Olympus, and at the brazen-floored palace of Jove, and had sat down at the knees of her father, weeping, whilst her ambrosial robe trembled around; and her the Saturnian father drew towards him, and, sweetly smiling, interrogated her:\n\u201cWhich now of the heavenly inhabitants, my dear child, has rashly done such things to thee, as if having done some evil openly?\u201d\nBut him the fair-crowned mistress of the chase 690 addressed in turn: \u201cThy spouse, the white-armed Juno, has injured me, O father, from whom contention and strife await 691 the immortals.\u201d\nFootnote 689: (return) \u03a4\u03cc\u03be\u03b1 here means both bow and arrows.\nFootnote 690: (return) A more literal version would be, \u201cthe fair crowned mistress of the cry,\u201d i.e. the hunting cry.\nFootnote 691: (return) \u0388\u03c6\u1fc6\u03c0\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9, \u201cimmitti solet.\u201d\u2014Heyne. See D\u2019Orville on Chariton, vii. 5, p. 582, ed. Lips.\nThus they indeed spoke such things with one another. But Phoebus Apollo came to sacred Ilium; for the wall of the well-built city was a care to him, lest the Greeks, contrary to fate, should overthrow it that day. The other ever-existing gods, however, repaired to Olympus, some indeed indignant, but others greatly boasting. And they sat down beside their father, the collector of dark clouds: but Achilles slew at once the Trojans themselves, and their solid-hoofed steeds. And as when a smoke, ascending from a burning city, reaches the wide heaven, but the wrath of the gods has excited it; it creates toil to all, and sends griefs upon many; so did Achilles cause toil and griefs to the Trojans.\nMeanwhile aged Priam stood upon a lofty tower, and observed huge Achilles: but by him the routed Trojans were easily thrown into confusion, nor was there any might in them. Then groaning, he descended from the tower to the ground, in order to direct the illustrious guards at the gates along the wall:\n\u201cHold the gates open in your hands until the people, flying, come into the city, for Achilles is at hand routing them. Now I think that destructive deeds will be. But, as soon as they revive, hemmed in within the wall, put to again the well-fitted doors, for I tremble lest this destructive man rush within the wall.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but they opened the gates and pushed back the bolts; and they being opened, afforded safety. But Apollo leaped out to meet them, that he might avert destruction from the Trojans. Then they, parched with thirst, and covered with dust, fled from the plain directly towards the city and the lofty wall; but he furiously pursued with his spear; for fierce madness constantly possessed his heart, and he burned to bear away glory. Then indeed the sons of the Greeks had taken lofty-gated Troy, had not Phoebus Apollo excited noble Agenor, a hero, the son of Antenor, both blameless and brave. And into his heart he threw courage, and he himself stood beside him, leaning against a beech-tree, that he might avert the heavy hands of death; but he was overshadowed by much darkness. But he, when he perceived Achilles, the destroyer of cities, stood still, and much his heart was darkened 692 as he remained; and sighing, he thus addressed his own great-hearted soul:\n\u201cAlas, me! if indeed I fly from terrible Achilles, in the way by which the others, routed, are flying, even thus will he seize me, and will slay me unwarlike; but if I suffer these to be thrown into confusion by Achilles, the son of Peleus, and fly in another direction on my feet from the wall through the Ilian plain, until I reach the lawns of Ida, and enter its thickets; then indeed, having bathed myself at evening in the river, I may return back to Troy, cleansed from sweat. But why does my mind commune these things? Truly he may observe me departing from the city towards the plain, and, quickly pursuing, may overtake me on his swift feet; then will it no longer be possible to escape Death and Fate; for he is very powerful beyond all men. But if I go against him in front of the city\u2014for his body also is without doubt vulnerable by the sharp brass, there is one soul in it, and men say that he is mortal; although Jove, the son of Saturn, affords him glory.\u201d\nSo saying, gathering himself up, 693 he awaited Achilles; and his valiant heart within him burned to combat and to fight. As a panther advances from a deep thicket against a huntsman, 694 nor is aught troubled in mind, nor put to flight, although it hears the yelling; and although anticipating it, he may have wounded, or stricken it, nevertheless, although pierced with a spear, it desists not from the combat, till either it be engaged in close fight, or be subdued. Thus noble Agenor, the son of renowned Antenor, would not fly till he had made trial of Achilles; but, on the contrary, held before him his shield, equal on all sides, and took aim at him with his spear, and shouted aloud:\nFootnote 692: (return) Cf. Donalson on Soph. Antig. 20, where there is a similar use of \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03c7\u03b1\u03af\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd. The present metaphor is taken from the troubled and darkling aspect of the sea before a storm.\nFootnote 693: (return) Cf. xvi. 403, 714.\nFootnote 694: (return) This pleonasm of \u1f00\u03bd\u1f74\u03c1 is very common; ii. 474, \u1f04\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b5\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f34\u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03b9\u03b9; iv. 187, \u1f04\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b5\u03c2 \u03c7\u03b1\u03bb\u03ba\u1fc6\u03b5\u03c2. Cf. iii. 170; xii. 41. So \u1f04\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b5\u03c2 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u1fd6\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9, Phlegon. Trall, p. 26. \u1f0c\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b5\u03c2 \u03b4\u03b7\u03bc\u03cc\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9, Aristoph. Plut. 254. \u1f08\u03bd\u1f74\u03c1 \u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bb\u03b5\u1f7a\u03c2, Pal\u00e6phatus, 39. \u1f08\u03bd\u1f74\u03c1 \u03bf\u1f30\u03ba\u03bf\u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2, Manetho, iv. 610.\n\u201cCertainly now thou art great in hopes in thy mind, O illustrious Achilles, that thou wilt this day devastate the city of the magnanimous Trojans. Fool! certainly many griefs will be effected over it, for in it we are numerous and valiant men, who will defend Ilium for our beloved parents, our wives, and our children. But thou shalt here fulfil thy destiny, although being so terrible, and a daring warrior.\u201d\nHe spoke, and hurled the sharp javelin from his heavy hand, and struck him in the shin below the knee, nor missed: but the greave of newly-wrought tin around [it] horribly resounded; and the brazen weapon recoiled from it stricken, nor penetrated: for the gifts of the god prevented it. Then the son of Peleus next attacked godlike Agenor; nor did Apollo permit him to obtain glory; but snatched him away, and covered him with much haze; and sent him to return peacefully from the battle.\nBut he by a stratagem averted the son of Peleus from the people; for the Far-darter, having likened himself in every respect to Agenor, stood before his feet; and he hastened to pursue him with his feet. Whilst he was pursuing him, running before at a small interval, over the corn-bearing plain, turned towards the deep-eddying river Scamander; (for Apollo beguiled him by deceit, so that he always expected to overtake him on his feet;) meanwhile the other Trojans being routed, came delighted in a crowd to the city; and the city was full of them shut in. Nor did they any longer dare to wait for each other without the city and the wall, and to inquire who had escaped, and who had fallen in the battle; but gladly they were poured into the city, whomsoever of them the feet and knees preserved.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THE TWENTY-SECOND.\nARGUMENT.\nHector persists in remaining outside the walls, despite the entreaties of his father. He flies thrice round Troy, fights, and is slain by Achilles, who drags his body to the fleet at the wheels of his chariot. The lamentations of his wife and parents follow.\nThus they, indeed, driven by fright through the city, like fawns, were refreshing themselves from sweat, and were drinking and allaying their thirst, leaning against the handsome battlements; but the Greeks were coming near the wall, resting their shields upon their shoulders. But Hector his destructive fate fettered to remain there, before Ilium and the Sc\u00e6an gates. And Ph\u0153bus Apollo thus addressed the son of Peleus:\n\u201cWhy, O son of Peleus, dost thou pursue me, an immortal god, with swift feet, thyself being a mortal? Nor yet hast thou at all discovered that I am a god; but thou incessantly ragest. For certainly the labour of the Trojans is not now a care to thee, whom thou hast routed, and who are now enclosed within their city, while thou art turned aside hither. Neither canst thou slay me, since I am not mortal.\u201d\nBut him swift-footed Achilles, greatly indignant, 695 addressed:\nFootnote 695: (return) Milton, P.L. ii. 708:\u2014\n\n\n\u2014\u201cOn th\u2019 other side\nIncensed with indignation Satan stood\nUnterrified, and like a comet burn\u2019d,\nThat fires the length of Ophiuchus huge\nIn th\u2019 arctic sky, and from his horrid hair\nShakes pestilence and war.\u201d\n\n\n\u201cThou hast injured me, O Far-darter, most destructive of all gods, having now turned me away hither from the wall; certainly many had now seized the earth with their teeth, before they had arrived at Ilium. But now hast thou deprived me of great glory, and hast preserved them easily, for thou didst not at all dread vengeance after. Certainly I would punish thee, if the power at least were mine.\u201d\nThus saying, he went towards the city greatly elate, hastening like a steed which bears away the prize, with his chariot, which striving hard, runs swiftly over the plain. So Achilles briskly moved his feet and his knees.\nBut him aged Priam first beheld with his eyes, rushing over the plain, all shining like a star which rises in autumn; and its resplendent rays shine among many stars in the depth of the night, which by name they call the dog of Orion. Very bright indeed is this, but it is a baleful sign, and brings violent heat upon miserable mortals. So shone the brass round the breast of him running. But the old man groaned, and smote his head with his hands, raising them on high, 696 and, groaning, he cried out greatly, supplicating his dear son. But he stood before the Sc\u00e6an gates, insatiably eager to fight with Achilles; but the old man piteously addressed him, stretching out his hands:\nFootnote 696: (return) On this gesture of grief, see Gorius, Monum. Columb. p. 12.\n\u201cO Hector, do not, my beloved son, await this man alone, without others; lest that thou shouldst speedily draw on fate, subdued by the son of Peleus; since he is much more powerful. Cruel! would that he were [only] as dear to the gods as he is to me; quickly then would the dogs and vultures devour him lying low; surely sad grief would then depart from my heart. He who has made me deprived of many and brave sons, slaying, and selling them into far-distant islands. For even now the Trojans being shut up in the city, I cannot see my two sons, Lycaon and Polydorus, whom Laotho\u00eb bore to me, queen among women. But if indeed they live at the camp, surely we will afterwards redeem them with brass and with gold; for it is within; for aged Altes, renowned by fame, gave many things to his daughter. But if they are already dead, and in the mansions of Hades, grief will be to my soul, and to their mother, we who gave them birth. But to the other people the grief will be shorter, if thou shouldst not die, subdued by Achilles. But come inside the wall, O my son, that thou mayest save the Trojan men and women, nor afford great glory to the son of Peleus, and thou thyself be deprived of thy dear life. Moreover, pity me, wretched, yet still preserving my senses, 697 unhappy, whom the Saturnian sire will destroy by grievous fate, upon the threshold of old age, having seen many evils, 698 my sons slain, my daughters dragged captives, their chambers plundered, and my infant children dashed upon the earth in dire hostility, and my daughters-in-law torn away by the pernicious hands of the Greeks. And myself perhaps the last\u2014the raw-devouring dogs, whom I have nourished in my palaces, the attendants of my table, the guards of my portals, will tear at the entrance of the gates, 699 after some one, having stricken or wounded me with the sharp brass, shall take away my soul from my limbs; and who, drinking my blood, will lie in the porch, infuriated in mind. To a young man, indeed, slain in battle, lacerated with the sharp brass, it is altogether becoming to lie, for all things are honourable to him dead, whatever may appear; but when dogs dishonour the grey head, the hoary beard, and privy members of an old man slain, that is indeed most pitiable among wretched mortals.\u201d\nFootnote 697: (return) I.e. alive. Cf. xxiii.\nFootnote 698: (return) On the proverbial woes of Priam, cf. Aristotle Eth. i. 9, 10; and Ennius, fragm. Andromach. p. 236\u20149, with the notes of Columna, ed. Hessel.\nFootnote 699: (return) Cf. Virg. \u00c6n. ii. 550, sqq., who has imitated this passage in his description of the death of Priam.\nThe old man spoke, and tore out the hoary locks with his hands, plucking them from his head; nor did he persuade the mind of Hector. But his mother, then on the other side, wailing, shed tears, laying bare her bosom, whilst with the other hand she laid forth her breast; and shedding tears, addressed to him winged words: \u201c\u039f Hector, my son, reverence these things, and pity me myself. If ever I afforded thee the grief-lulling breast, remember these things, O dear son; and being within the wall, repel [this] hostile man; nor stand a foremost adversary to him. Wretched one! for if he shall slay thee, neither shall I mourn thee on the couch, my dear offspring, whom I myself brought forth, nor will thy rich-dowered wife; but far away from us both, the swift dogs will devour thee at the ships of the Greeks.\u201d\nThus weeping, they twain addressed their dear son, supplicating him much; nor did they persuade the mind of Hector; but he awaited huge Achilles, coming near. And as a fierce serpent at its den, fed on evil poisons, awaits 700 a man, but direful rage enters it, and it glares horribly, coiling itself around its den; so Hector, possessing inextinguishable courage, retired not, leaning his splendid shield against a projecting tower; but, indignant, he thus addressed his own great-hearted soul: 701\n\u201cAh me, if indeed I enter the gates and the wall, Polydamas will first cast reproach upon me, 702 he who advised me to lead the Trojans towards the city in this disastrous night, when noble Achilles arose to battle. But I did not obey; certainly it would have been much better. And now, since by my injurious obstinacy I have destroyed the people, I fear the Trojan men, and the long-robed Trojan women, lest some one inferior to me should say, \u2018Hector, relying on his own strength, has destroyed the people.\u2019 Thus will they say; but it would have been far better for me, slaying Achilles in the encounter, 703 to return, or gloriously to be slain by him for the city. But if now I shall lay down my bossed shield and stout helmet, and, resting my spear against the wall, I myself going, shall come before renowned Achilles, and promise that we will give to the Atrides to lead away Helen, and all the numerous possessions along with her, whatever Paris brought to Troy in his hollow barks, and who was the origin of the contention, and at the same time that we will divide others, as many as this city contains, among the Greeks,\u2014but again I should exact an oath from the elders of the Trojans, 704 that they would conceal nothing, but divide all things into two portions, whatever treasure this delightful city contains within it. Yet why does my soul discuss such things? [I dread] lest I, going, should reach him, but he pity me not, nor at all respect me, but slay me, being thus naked, as a woman, after I have put off my armour. Nor, indeed, is it now allowed to converse with him from an oak, or from a rock, as a virgin and a youth; a virgin and youth converse with one another. But it is better to engage him in strife; that as soon as possible we may know to which, indeed, the Olympian [Jove] will give glory.\u201d\nFootnote 700: (return) Hesych. \u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03ac' \u03ae \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03ac\u03b4\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03bf\u03c6\u03b5\u03c9\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b4\u03c1\u03b1\u03ba\u03cc\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd.\nFootnote 701: (return) Milton, P.L. \u03bdi. III:\u2014\n\n\n\u201cAbdiel that sight endured not, where he stood\nAmong the mightiest, bent on highest deeds,\nAnd thus his own undaunted heart explores.\u201d\n\n\nFootnote 702: (return) Cf. Aristot. Eth. iii. 8, and Casaub. on Pers. Sat. i. 4. \u201cNe mihi Polydamas, et Troiades Labeonem Pr\u00e6tulerint.\u201d\nFootnote 703: (return) \u0391\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7\u03bd.\nFootnote 704: (return) This is perhaps the easiest way of expressing \u03b3\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd \u00f6\u03bf\u03c1\u03ba\u03bf\u03bd. It means an oath to be solemnly kept, an oath to which the elders might with propriety pledge themselves.\nThus he pondered, remaining; but near him came Achilles, like unto the helmet-shaking warrior, Mars, brandishing upon his right shoulder the dreadful Pelian ash; but the brass shone around, like unto the splendour either of a blazing fire, or of the rising sun. Then, as tremor seized Hector, he perceived him, nor could he remain there any longer, but he left the gates behind him, and fled affrighted; but the son of Peleus rushed on, trusting to his swift feet. As a falcon in the mountains, the swiftest of birds, easily dashes after a timid pigeon; she, indeed, flies away obliquely; but he, close at hand, shrilly screaming, frequently assails, and his spirit orders him to seize her: thus, eager, he flew right on; but Hector fled in terror under the wall of the Trojans, and moved his fleet limbs. Then they rushed by the prospect-ground and the wind-waving fig-tree, always under the wall along the public way, and reached the two fair-flowing springs, where the two springs of the eddying Scamander rise. The one, indeed, flows with tepid water, and a steam arises from it around, as of burning fire; whilst the other flows forth in the summer time, like unto hail, or cold snow, or ice from water. There, at them, are the wide, handsome stone basins, where the wives and fair daughters of the Trojans used to wash their splendid garments formerly in time of peace, before the sons of the Greeks arrived. In this direction they ran past [the one] flying, but the other pursuing from behind. A brave man, indeed, fled before, but a much braver swiftly pursued him; since they did not seek to obtain a victim or a bull\u2019s hide, such as are the rewards of men for speed, but they ran for the life of horse-breaking Hector. And as when prize-winning 705 solid-hoofed steeds ran very swiftly round the course, and a great reward is proposed, either a tripod, or a woman [in honour] of a deceased hero; so they thrice made the circuit of the city of Priam with their swift feet: and all the gods beheld. Then to them the father of men and gods commenced an address:\nFootnote 705: (return) I.e. race horses.\n\u201cAlas! certainly I behold with mine eyes a beloved hero pursued round the wall; and my heart is grieved on account of Hector, who has sacrificed many thighs of oxen to me, upon the tops of many-valed Ida, and at other times again in the highest [places of] the city; but now, indeed, noble Achilles pursues him, on swift feet, around the city of Priam. But come, deliberate, O ye gods, and consider, whether we shall preserve him from death, or shall subdue him now, being brave [at the hands of] Achilles, the son of Peleus.\u201d\nBut him the blue-eyed goddess Minerva then addressed:\n\u201cO father, hurler of the white thunder, [collector] of dark clouds, what a word hast thou spoken! Dost thou wish to liberate from sad death a man, being mortal, long ago destined to fate? Do it: but all we, the other gods, will not assent to thee.\u201d\nHer, then, the cloud-compelling Jupiter, answering, addressed: \u201cTake courage, Tritonia, beloved child: I by no means speak with serious mind, but I wish to be mild to thee. Do as is the inclination, nor delay at all.\u201d\nThus speaking, he incited Minerva, already prepared; and, springing forth, she descended down from the heights of Olympus.\nBut swift Achilles pursued Hector, incessantly pressing upon him. And as when a dog pursues the fawn of a deer in the mountains, having roused it from its lair, through both glens and thickets; and, although panic-stricken, it crouches down beneath a brake; yet tracking it, he runs continually on until he finds it; so Hector eluded not the swift-footed son of Peleus. As often as he would rush against the Dardanian gates, towards under the well-built towers, if perchance they might aid him with missile weapons from above, so often, previously anticipating him, he turned him away towards the plain; whilst he himself always flew on the side of the city. And as in a dream one cannot pursue a fugitive; neither can the one escape the other, nor the other pursue: so the one could not overtake the other in his speed, nor the other escape him. But how, then, could Hector have escaped the fates of death, if Apollo had not, for the very last time, met him, who aroused for him his courage and swift knees? But noble Achilles nodded to the people with his head, nor permitted them to cast their bitter weapons at Hector, lest some one, wounding him, should obtain the glory, and he himself come second. But when for the fourth time they arrived at the fountains, then, indeed, the Sire raised aloft his golden scales, and placed in them the two fates of death, bearing long sleep, this of Achilles, but that of horse-breaking Hector. Holding them by the middle, he poised them, and the fatal day of Hector inclined and sunk to Hades; but Ph\u0153bus Apollo left him.\nThen the blue-eyed goddess Minerva approached the son of Peleus, and, standing near, addressed to him winged words:\n\u201cNow, O illustrious Achilles, dear to Jove, I hope that we two shall bear back great glory to the Greeks at the ships, having slain Hector, although being insatiate of war. Now, certainly, it is no longer possible for him to escape us, not even if far-darting Apollo should toil much, throwing himself at the feet of the \u00e6gis-bearing father Jove. But do thou now stand and revive; but I, approaching with thee, will persuade him to engage thee face to face.\u201d\nThus spoke Minerva; but he obeyed, and rejoiced in his mind; and stood, leaning upon his ashen, brass-pointed spear. But she then left him, and overtook noble Hector, likening herself to De\u00efphobus, unwearied in her body and voice; and, standing near, she addressed to him winged words: \u201cO brother dear, certainly swift Achilles now greatly presses on thee, pursuing thee with rapid feet round the city of Priam. But come now, let us stand, and, awaiting, repulse him.\u201d\nBut her mighty crest-tossing Hector in turn addressed:\n\u201cDe\u00efphobus, surely thou wert ever before by far the dearest to me of my brothers, the sons whom Hecuba and Priam produced. But now I think in my mind that I honour thee still more, since thou hast dared for my sake, when thou dost behold [me] with thine eyes, to come out of the city; while others remain within.\u201d\nBut him the azure-eyed goddess Minerva in turn addressed:\n\u201cMy brother dear, my father and venerable mother indeed greatly supplicated me, by turn embracing my knees and my companions around, to remain there (so much do all tremble with fear); but my mind within was harassed with sad grief. But now let us forthwith eagerly engage, nor let there any longer be a sparing of our spears, that we may know whether Achilles, having slain us both, shall bear our bloody spoils to the hollow barks, or be subdued by thy spear.\u201d\nThus having spoken, Minerva also with deception led on. But when they were near advancing towards each other, him mighty crest-tossing Hector first addressed:\n\u201cNo longer, O son of Peleus, will I fly thee as before. Thrice have I fled round the great city of Priam, nor ever dared to await thee coming on; but now my mind urges me to stand against thee: certainly I shall slay, or be slain. But come, let us attest the gods; for they will be the best witnesses and observers of agreements. For neither will I cruelly insult thee, if indeed Jove shall give me the victory, and I take away thy life; but after I shall despoil thy beautiful armour, O Achilles, I will give back thy body to the Greeks; and so also do thou.\u201d\nBut him swift-footed Achilles sternly regarding, addressed:\n\u201cTalk not to me of covenants, O most cursed Hector. As there are not faithful leagues between lions and men, nor yet have wolves and lambs an according mind, 706 but ever meditate evils against each other; so it is not possible for thee and me to contract a friendship, nor shall there at all be leagues between us,\u2014first shall one, falling, satiate the invincible warrior Mars with his blood. Call to mind all thy valour; now it is very necessary for thee to be both a spearman and a daring warrior. Nor is there any longer any escape for thee, for Pallas Minerva at once subdues thee beneath my spear, and thou shalt now pay for all the accumulated sorrows of my companions, whom thou hast slain, raging with the spear.\u201d\nFootnote 706: (return) See Duport, p. 127; and cf. Hor. Epod. iv. 1.\nHe spoke, and brandishing it, sent forth his long-shadowed spear, and illustrious Hector, seeing it opposite, avoided it; for, looking before him, he sunk down, and the brazen spear passed over him, and was fixed in the earth. But Pallas Minerva plucked it out, and gave it back to Achilles, and escaped the notice of Hector, the shepherd of the people. Then Hector addressed the illustrious son of Peleus:\n\u201cThou hast erred, O godlike Achilles, nor art thou yet acquainted with my fate from Jove; certainly thou didst say so, but thou art a prater, and very subtle in words, in order that, dreading thee, I may be forgetful of my strength and courage. But not in my back, whilst flying, shalt thou thrust thy spear, but shalt drive it through my breast, rushing right on, if God grants this to thee. But now in turn avoid my brazen spear! would that thou mightst now receive it all in thy body. Then truly would the war become lighter to the Trojans, thou being slain; for thou art the greatest bane to them.\u201d\nHe spoke, and, brandishing, sent forth his long-shadowed spear, and struck the centre of Pelides\u2019 shield, nor missed; but the spear was repelled far away from the shield. But Hector was enraged because his swift weapon had fled in vain from his hand; and stood dejected, for he had not another ashen spear. Then he called upon the white-shielded De\u00efphobus, greatly shouting, [and] he asked him for a long spear; but he was not near him; and Hector perceived in his mind, and said:\n\u201cAlas! without doubt, now the gods have summoned me to death. For I indeed thought the hero De\u00efphobus was by my side; but he is within the wall, and Minerva has deceived me. But now is evil death near me, nor far away, neither is there escape. Certainly this long since was more agreeable to Jove and to the far-darting son of Jove, who formerly, propitious, preserved me; but now, on the contrary, Fate overtakes me. Nevertheless I will not perish cowardly and ingloriously at least, but having done some great deed to be heard of even by posterity.\u201d\nThus having spoken, he drew his sharp sword, which hung below his loins, both huge and strong, and, with collected might, rushed forward, like a lofty-soaring eagle, which swoops to the plain through the gloomy clouds, about to snatch either a tender lamb, or a timid hare; thus Hector rushed forward, brandishing his sharp sword. Achilles also rushed on, and filled his soul with fierce rage. He sheltered his breast in front with his shield, beautiful, curiously wrought and nodded with his shining helmet, four-coned; but the beautiful golden tufts, which Vulcan had diffused in great abundance round the cone, were shaken. As the star Hesperus, which is placed the brightest star in heaven, 707 proceeds amongst other stars in the unseasonable time of night, so it shone from the well-sharpened spear which Achilles, designing mischief to noble Hector, brandished in his right hand, eyeing his fair person, where it would best yield. But the beautiful brazen armour, of which he had despoiled great Patroclus, having slain him, covered the rest of his body so much; yet did there appear [a part] where the collar-bones separate the neck from the shoulders, and where the destruction of life is most speedy. There noble Achilles, eager, drove into him with the spear, and the point went out quite through his tender neck. However the ash, heavy with brass, did not cut away the windpipe, so that, answering in words, he could address him. But he fell in the dust, and noble Achilles vaunted over him:\n\u201cHector, thou didst once suppose, when spoiling Patroclus, that thou be safe, nor dreaded me, being absent. Fool! for I apart, a much braver avenger of him, was left behind at the hollow ships, I who have relaxed thy knees. The dogs, indeed, and birds shall dishonourably tear thee, but the Greeks shall perform his funeral rites.\u201d\nBut him crest-tossing Hector, growing languid, then addressed:\n\u201cI supplicate thee by thy soul, thy knees, thy parents, suffer not the dogs to tear me at the ships of the Greeks; but do thou indeed receive brass in abundance, and gold, which my father and venerable mother will give thee; and send my body home, that the Trojans and wives of the Trojans may make me, dead, partaker of a funeral pyre.\u201d  708\nFootnote 707: (return) Milton, P.L. v. 166:\u2014\n\n\n\u201cFairest of stars, last in the train of night,\nIf better thou belong not to the dawn.\u201d\n\n\nFootnote 708: (return) Cf. \u00c6n. x. 903; xii. 930, sqq.\nBut him swift-footed Achilles, sternly regarding, addressed;\n\u201cDog, supplicate me not by my knees, nor by my parents; for would that my might and mind in any manner urge me myself, tearing thy raw flesh to pieces, to devour it, such things hast thou done to me. So that there is not any one who can drive away the dogs from thy head, not even if they should place ten-fold and twenty-times such ransoms, bringing them hither, and even promise others; not even if Dardanian Priam should wish to compensate for thee with gold: 709 not even thus shall thy venerable mother lament [thee] whom she has borne, having laid thee upon a bier, but dogs and fowl shall entirely tear thee in pieces.\u201d\nBut him crest-tossing Hector, dying, addressed:\n\u201cSurely well knowing thee, I foresaw this, nor was I destined to persuade thee; for truly within thee there is an iron soul. Reflect now, lest to thee I be some cause of the wrath of the gods, on that day when Paris and Ph\u0153bus Apollo 710 shall kill thee, though being brave, at the Sc\u00e6an gates.\u201d\nAs he spoke thus, the end of death overshadowed him; and his soul flying from his limbs, descended to Hades, bewailing its destiny, relinquishing vigour and youth. But him, although dead, noble Achilles addressed:\n\u201cDie: but I will then receive my fate whensoever Jove may please to accomplish it, 711 and the other immortal gods.\u201d\nHe spoke, and plucked the spear from the corpse; and then laid it aside, but he spoiled the bloody armour from his shoulders. But the other sons of the Greeks ran round, who also admired the stature and wondrous form, of Hector; 712 nor did any stand by without inflicting a wound. And thus would some one say, looking to his neighbour: \u201cOh, strange! surely Hector is now much more gentle to be touched, than when he burned the ships with glowing fire.\u201d\nFootnote 709: (return) I.e. to give thy weight in gold. Theognis, 77: \u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u1f78\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bd\u1f74\u03c1 \u03c7\u03c1\u03c5\u03c3\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03c4\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03ac\u03c1\u03b3\u03cd\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03cd\u03c3\u03b1\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9 \u1f0c\u03be\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2.\nFootnote 710: (return) Grote, vol. i. p. 406, observes: \u201cAfter routing the Trojans, and chasing them into the town, Achilles was slain near the Sk\u00e6an gate by an arrow from the quiver of Paris, directed under the unerring auspices of Apollo,\u201d referring to Soph. Phil. 334; Virg. \u00c6n. vi. 56.\nFootnote 711: (return) \u201cI have conversed with some men who rejoiced in the death or calamity of others, and accounted it as a judgment upon them for being on the other side, and against them in the contention: but within the revolution of a few months, the same man met with a more uneasy and unhandsome death; which when I saw, I wept, and was afraid; for I knew that it must be so with all men; for we also die, and end our quarrels and contentions by passing to a final sentence.\u201d\u2014Taylor, Holy Dying, i. p. 305, ed. Bohn.\nFootnote 712: (return) Herodot. ix. 25: \u1f49 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03bd\u03b5\u03ba\u03c1\u1f78\u03c2 \u1f14\u03b7\u03bd \u03b8\u03ad\u03b7\u03c2 \u1f04\u03be\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b5\u03b3\u03ac\u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b5\u1f35\u03bd\u03b5\u03ba\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1 \u03ba\u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03b5\u03bf\u03c2.\nThus would some one say, and, standing by, would wound him. But swift-footed Achilles, after he had despoiled him, standing amongst the Greeks, spoke winged words:\n\u201cO friends, leaders and princes of the Greeks, since the gods have granted us to subdue this hero, he who did as many mischiefs, as did not all the others together; come! let us make trial round the city with our arms, that we may learn concerning the Trojans, what mind they have; whether they are about to desert the citadel, he being slain, or intend to remain, Hector being no more. But why does my mind within me deliberate these things? Patroclus lies at the ships, an unwept, unburied corse; and him I shall never forget, as long as I am amongst the living, and my dear knees move for me; and though they forget the dead in Hades, yet will I remember my beloved comrade even there. But come now, ye youths of the Greeks, singing a p\u00e6an, 713 let us return to the hollow ships, and let us bring him; we bear back great glory: we have slain noble Hector, whom the Trojans, throughout the city, worshipped as a god.\u201d\nHe spoke, and was meditating unseemly deeds against noble Hector. He perforated the tendons of both his feet behind, from the heel to the instep, and fastened in them leather thongs, and bound him from the chariot; but left his head to be trailed along. Then ascending his chariot, and taking up the splendid armour, he lashed (the horses) to go on, and they, not unwilling, flew. But the dust arose from him while trailed along, and his azure locks around approached [the ground], 714 and his entire head, once graceful, lay in the dust; for Jupiter had then granted to his enemies, to dishonour him in his own father-land. Thus indeed his whole head was denied with dust; but his mother plucked out her hair, and cast away her shining veil, and wept very loudly, having beheld her son. And his dear father groaned piteously, and all the people around were occupied in wailing and lamentation through the city; and it was very like to this, as if all Ilium, from its summit, were smouldering in fire. With difficulty indeed did the people detain the old man, indignant with grief anxious to rush out from the Dardanian gates: for rolling in the mud, he was supplicating all, addressing each man by name:\nFootnote 713: (return) \u201cThis hymn consisted in a repetition, cf. v. 393, 4, which Quintus Smyrn\u00e6us has imitated in \u0399\u03b4. 117, and Abronius Silo translated ap. Senec. Suas. c. 2. The most ancient hymn of this kind on record is that in the first book of Samuel, xviii. 7.\u201d\u2014Kennedy.\nFootnote 714: (return) Supply \u03bf\u1f54\u03b4\u03b5\u03b9 or \u03ba\u03bf\u03bd\u03af\u03b7.\n\u201cDesist, my friends, and permit me alone, grieved as I am, going out of the city, to approach the ships of the Greeks. I will supplicate this reckless, violent man, if perchance he may respect my time of life, and have compassion on my old age; for such is his father Peleus to him, he who begat and nurtured him a destruction to the Trojans; but particularly to me above all has he caused sorrows. For so many blooming youths has he slain to me, for all of whom I do not lament so much, although grieved, as for this one, Hector, keen grief for whom will bear me down even into Hades. 715 Would that he had died in my hands; for thus we should have been satisfied, weeping and lamenting, both his unhappy mother who bore him, and I myself.\u201d Thus he spoke, weeping, but the citizens also groaned. But among the Trojan dames, Hecuba began her continued lamentation:\nFootnote 715: (return) \u201cThen shall ye bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.\u201d \u2014Genes, xlii. 38\n\u201cO my son, why do wretched I live, having suffered grievous things, thou being dead? Thou who by night and day wast my boast throughout the town, and an advantage to the Trojan men and women throughout the city, who received thee as a god. For assuredly thou wast a very great glory to them when alive now, on the contrary, death and fate possess thee.\u201d\nThus she spoke, weeping; but the wife of Hector had not yet learned anything: no certain messenger going, informed her that her husband had remained without the gates; but she was weaving a web in a retired part of her lofty house; double, splendid, and was spreading on it various painted works. 716 And she had ordered her fair-haired attendants through the palace, to place a large tripod on the fire, that there might be a warm bath for Hector, returning from the battle. Foolish! nor knew she that, far away from baths, azure-eyed Minerva had subdued him by the hands of Achilles. But she heard the shriek and wailing from the tower, and her limbs were shaken, and the shuttle fell from her to the ground; and immediately she addressed her fair-haired attendants:\nFootnote 716: (return) \u03bf\u03b9\u03ba\u03af\u03bb\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1 is similarly used in vi. 294.\n\u201cCome hither, let two follow me, that I may see what deeds have been done. I heard the voice of my venerable mother-in-law, and to myself the heart within my breast leaps up to my mouth, and the limbs under me are benumbed. Surely some evil is now near the sons of Priam. O that the word may be [far] from my ear! I dread lest brave Achilles, having already cut off noble Hector alone from the city, may drive him towards the plain, and even now have made him desist from the fatal valour which possessed him; for he never remained among the throng of warriors, but leaped out far before, yielding in his valour to none.\u201d\nThus having spoken, she rushed through the palace like unto one deranged, greatly palpitating in heart; and her attendants went along with her. But when she reached the tower and the crowd of men, she stood looking round over the wall, and beheld him dragged before the city; but the fleet steeds drew him ruthlessly towards the ships of the Greeks. Then gloomy night veiled her over her eyes, and she fell backwards, and breathed out her soul in a swoon. But from her head fell the beautiful head-gear, the garland, the net, and the twisted fillet, and the veil which golden Venus had given to her on that day when crest-tossing Hector led her from the palace of E\u00ebtion, after he had presented many marriage-gifts. Around her in great numbers stood her sisters-in-law and sisters, who supported her amongst them, seized with stupor unto death. 717 But when she again revived, and her soul was collected in her breast, sobbing at intervals, she spoke among the Trojan dames:\nFootnote 717: (return) See Kennedy: \u1f65\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5 is to be understood before \u1f00\u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03ad\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9.\n\u201cHector, O wretched me! then we were both born to a like fate, thou indeed in Troy, in the mansion of Priam, but I in Thebe, beneath woody Placus, in the palace of E\u00ebtion; who, himself ill-fated, reared me, ill-fated, being yet a little child;\u2014would that he had not begotten me! Now, however, thou goest to the mansions of Hades beneath the recesses of the earth, but leavest me, in hateful grief, a widow in the dwelling; and thy boy, yet such an infant, to whom thou and I unfortunate gave birth; nor wilt thou be an advantage to him, O Hector, for thou art dead; nor he to thee. For even if he shall escape the mournful war of the Greeks, still will labour and hardship ever be to him hereafter; for others will deprive him of his fields by changing the landmarks. But the bereaving day renders a boy destitute of his contemporaries; he is ever dejected, and his cheeks are bedewed with tears. The boy in want shall go to the companions of his father, pulling one by the cloak, another by the tunic; and some of these pitying, shall present him with a very small cup; and he shall moisten his lips, but not wet his palate. Him also some one, enjoying both [parents], 718 shall push away from the banquet, striking him with his hands, and reviling him with reproaches: \u2018A murrain on thee! even thy father feasts not with us.\u2019 Then shall the boy Astyanax return weeping to his widowed mother,\u2014he who formerly, indeed, upon the knees of his own father, ate marrow alone, and the rich fat of sheep; but when sleep came upon him, and he ceased childishly crying, used to sleep on couches in the arms of a nurse, in a soft bed, full as to his heart with delicacies. But now, indeed, Astyanax, 719 whom the Trojans call by surname (because thou alone didst defend their gates and lofty walls for them), shall suffer many things, missing his dear father. But now shall the crawling worms devour thee, naked, at the curved ships, far away from thy parents, after the dogs shall have satiated themselves: but thy robes, fine and graceful, woven by the hands of women, lie in thy palaces. Truly all these will I consume with burning fire, being of no use to thee, for thou wilt not lie on them; but let them be a glory [to thee] before the Trojans and the Trojan dames.\u201d\nThus she spoke, weeping, and the females also mourned.\nFootnote 718: (return) \u1f08\u03bc\u03c6\u03b9\u03b8\u03b1\u03bb\u1f74\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b1\u1fd6\u03c2 \u1f78 \u1f00\u03bc\u03c6\u03bf\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03c9\u03b8\u03b5\u03bd \u03b8\u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03c9\u03bd, \u1f24\u03b3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd \u1fa6 \u1f04\u03bc\u03c6\u03c9 \u03bf\u1f76 \u03b3ov\u03b5\u1fd6\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03af\u03b5\u03b9\u03c3\u03b9.\nFootnote 719: (return) Playing on the signification of the name,\u2014\u201cking of the city.\u201d This piece of twaddle has not been omitted by Plato in his ridiculous Cratylus.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THE TWENTY-THIRD.\nARGUMENT.\nAchilles, admonished in a dream by the ghost of his friend, celebrates the funeral of Patroclus.\nThus they indeed were mourning through the city; but the Greeks, as soon as they reached the ships and the Hellespont, were separated each to his own ship. But Achilles did not permit the Myrmidons to be dispersed, but he spoke amongst his warlike companions [thus]:\n\u201cYe swift-horsed Myrmidons, comrades dear to me, let us not yet loose the solid-hoofed steeds from under our chariots, but with the very horses and chariots, going near, let us bewail Patroclus; for this is the honour of the dead. But when we have indulged 720 sad lamentation, unyoking our steeds, we will all sup here.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but they mourned in a body; and Achilles led the way. Thrice they drove their fair-maned steeds around the body, 721 grieving; and among them Thetis kindled a longing for lamentation. Moistened were the sands, and moistened were the arms of the men with tears; for so brave a master of the flight they longed. But among them the son of Peleus led the abundant lamentation, laying his man-slaughtering hands upon the breast of his companion:\nFootnote 720: (return) Excellently paraphrased by Gaza: \u1f18\u03c0\u03b5\u03b9\u03b4\u1f70\u03bd \u03b4\u1f72 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u1f44\u03bb\u03b5\u03b8\u03c1\u03af\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b8\u03c1\u03ae\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5 \u1f00\u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03b1\u03cd\u03c3\u03c9\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd. Ernesti well observes that \u03c4\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03c1\u03c0\u03ce\u03bc\u03b5\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1 implies \u201cdelight mingled with satiety.\u201d\nFootnote 721: (return) This was a frequent rite at funerals. Cf. Apollon. Rh. i. 1059; Virg. \u00c6n. xi. 188, sqq.; Heliodor. Ethiop. iii. p. 136: \u1f18\u03c0\u03b5\u03b9\u03b4\u1f74 \u03c4\u1f78 \u03bc\u03bd\u1fc6\u03bc\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u039d\u03b5\u03bf\u03c0\u03c4\u03bf\u03bb\u03ad\u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03c7\u03ae\u03c3\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf \u1f21 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bc\u03c0\u1f74, \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03bf\u1f31 \u1f14\u03c6\u03b7\u03b2\u03bf\u03b9 \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u1f35\u03c0\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03ae\u03bb\u03b1\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd, \u03bb\u03bf\u03bb\u03cd\u03be\u03b1\u03bd \u03bc\u1f72\u03bd \u03b1\u1f31 \u03b3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b1\u1fd6\u03ba\u03b5\u03c2, \u03bb\u03ac\u03bb\u03b1\u03be\u03b1\u03bd \u03b4\u1f72 \u03bf\u1f31 \u1f04\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b5\u03c2. Among the Romans this rite was called decursio. Cf. Liv. xxv. 17: Tacit. Ann. ii. 7; Sueton. Claud. \u00a7 i. According to Plutarch, Alexander the Great performed the same honours at the tomb of Achilles, that Achilles had bestowed upon the manes of his friend Patroclus. See also Bernart on Stat. Theb. vi. 217.\n\u201cHail! O Patroclus, even in the dwellings of Hades; for now shall I accomplish all those things which formerly I promised, that having dragged Hector hither, I would give him to the dogs to be devoured raw; and that before thy pile I would cut the necks of twelve illustrious sons of the Trojans, enraged on account of thee slain.\u201d\nHe spoke, and meditated unworthy deeds against noble Hector, having stretched him prone in the dust before the bier of Men\u0153tiades; but they each stripped off his brazen, glittering armour, and unyoked their high-sounding steeds. They sat also in crowds at the ship of swift-footed \u00c6acides; but he afforded to them an agreeable funeral feast. 722 Many white bulls 723 were stretched around by the axe, having their throats cut, and many sheep and bleating goats. Many white-tusked swine also, abounding in fat, were extended for roasting in the flame of Vulcan; and on every side around the dead body flowed abundant blood. But the chiefs of the Greeks led the king, the swift-footed son of Peleus, to noble Agamemnon, hardly persuading him enraged at heart on account of his companion. But when advancing they reached the tent of Agamemnon, he straightway ordered the clear-voiced heralds to place a large tripod on the fire, if he could persuade the son of Peleus to wash away the bloody gore. But he sternly refused, and besides swore an oath: 724\nFootnote 722: (return) \u03a4\u03ac\u03c6\u03bf\u03c2\u00b7 \u03c4\u1f78 \u03b3\u03b9\u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03af\u03b4\u03b5\u03b9\u03c0\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd \u1f10\u03c0\u1f76 \u03c4\u1fc7 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03c7\u03bf\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd \u03c4\u03b9\u03bc\u1fc7.\u2014Hesych.\nFootnote 723: (return) On these funeral sacrifices, see Comm. on \u00c6n. xi. l. c.; and Lomeier de Lustrationibus, \u00a7 xxxi.\nFootnote 724: (return) Buttm. Lexil. p. 436, after insisting strongly on the personification of \u1f4d\u03c1\u03ba\u03bf\u03c2, observes on this passage: \u201cI see no reason why we should not suppose that in the poet\u2019s mind Jupiter was put in opposition to \u1f45\u03c1\u03ba\u03bf\u03bd, exactly in the same sense as \u1f44\u03c1\u03ba\u03bf\u03c2 is actually found in opposition to \u0396\u03b5\u03cd\u03c2 in Pindar, Pyth. iv. 297. \u039a\u03ac\u03c1\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f45\u03c1\u03ba\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f04\u03bc\u03bc\u03b9 \u03bc\u03ac\u03c1\u03c4\u03c5\u03c2 \u1f14\u03c3\u03c4\u03c9 \u0396\u03b5\u1f7a\u03c2 \u1f41 \u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03ad\u03b8\u03bb\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ac\u03bc\u03c6\u03bf\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2. Further, the expressions \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1\u03c2 \u03cc\u03c1\u03ba\u03bf\u03c2, \u03ba\u03ac\u03c1\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f45\u03c1\u03ba\u03bf\u03c2 suit much better the idea of the witness or pledge of the oath, than they do the oath itself.\u201d\n\u201cNo, by Jove, who is both the supreme and the best of gods, it is not lawful that ablutions should come near my head, before I place Patroclus on the pile, and have thrown up a mound, and shorn my hair; for not to such a degree will sorrow a second time invade my heart, whilst I am among the living. But nevertheless let us now yield to the loathsome banquet. But on the morrow, \u039f king of men, Agamemnon, give orders to bring wood, and dispose it so as is proper that a dead body enjoying it, should descend beneath the obscure darkness; so that the indefatigable fire may consume him very quickly from our eyes, and the people may return to their occupations.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but they indeed readily listened to him, and obeyed. Then they, each sedulously preparing supper, feasted; nor did their mind lack aught of an equal feast. But when they had dismissed the desire of food and drink, some departed in order to lie down, each to his tent. But the son of Peleus, on the contrary, amid his many Myrmidons, lay near the shore of the far-sounding sea, heavily moaning, in a clear spot, where the waves plashed against the shore; when sweet 725 sleep, diffused around, took possession of him, relaxing the cares of his mind; for he was very much fatigued as to his fair knees, chasing Hector at wind-swept Ilium. But to him came the spirit of wretched Patroclus, like unto him in all things, as to bulk, and beautiful eyes, and his voice; and like garments also were around his body; and he stood over his head, and addressed him:\n\u201cSleepest thou, O Achilles, and art thou forgetful of me? Thou didst not indeed neglect me when alive, but [now that I am] dead. Bury me, that I may as soon as possible pass the gates of Hades. The spirits, the images of the deceased, 726 drive me far away, nor by any means permit me to be mingled with them beyond the river; but thus I do wander round the ample-gated dwelling of Hades. But give me thy hand, 727 I beseech thee, for I shall not again return from Hades after thou hast made me a partaker of the fire. For by no means shall we, being alive, sitting apart from our dear companions, deliberate counsels; but the hateful fate which befel me when born, has snatched me away. And to thyself also, O godlike Achilles, thy fate is to perish beneath the wall of the noble Trojans. But another thing I bid, and will command, O Achilles, if thou wilt obey, not to lay my bones apart from thine; but as we were nurtured together in thy palaces, when Men\u0153tius led me from Opus, a little boy, to thy home, on account of a melancholy homicide, on that day when, imprudent, I slew the son of Amphidamas, not wishing it, enraged about the dice: 728 then Peleus received me in his abode, carefully reared me, and named me thy attendant. So may the same tomb contain our bones, the golden vase which thy venerable mother gave thee.\u201d\nFootnote 725: (return) On the epithet \u03bd\u03ae\u03b4\u03bd\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2, cf. Buttm. p. 414, sqq.\nFootnote 726: (return) Buttm. Lexil. p. 372, in a very interesting discussion, regards \u03ba\u03b1\u03bc\u03cc\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2 as an euphemism, \u201cby which the dead, whom we consider as still acting and feeling, and consequently as the objects of our kind offices, of which they are conscious, are represented as still living in another state, but deprived of their earthly powers.\u201d\nFootnote 727: (return) Virg. \u00c6n. vi. 370: \u201cDa dextram misero.\u201d\nFootnote 728: (return) See the Quaint remarks of Jeremy Taylor, Holy Living, p. 224, ed. Bohn.\nBut him swift-footed Achilles, answering, addressed:\n\u201cWhy, O venerable friend, hast thou come to me, and commandest each of these things to me? Yet will I readily accomplish all these things for thee, and obey as thou commandest. But stand nearer to me, that embracing each other even for a little while, we may indulge in sad lamentation.\u201d\nThus then having spoken, he stretched out with his friendly arms, nor caught him; 729 for the spirit went gibbering 730 beneath the earth, like smoke. Then Achilles sprang up astonished, and clapped together his hands, and spoke this doleful speech:\n\u201cAlas! there is indeed then, even in the dwellings of Hades, a certain spirit and image, but there is no body 731 in it at all; for all night the spirit of miserable Patroclus stood by me, groaning and lamenting, and enjoined to me each particular, and was wonderfully like unto himself.\u201d\nFootnote 729: (return) Cf. Georg. iv. 499; \u00c6n. ii. 790, iv. 276; Lucan, iii. 34.\nFootnote 730: (return) See Odyss. xxiv. sub init, where the same word is applied to the shades of the suitors of Penelope.\nFootnote 731: (return) By \u03c6\u03c1\u03ad\u03bd\u03b5\u03c2 we may understand the power of using reason and judgment, with Duport, Gnom. p. 128, and Jeremy Taylor, Holy Dying, p. 524, ed. Bohn. But ver. 100 seems to require the interpretation which I have followed; Clarke rendering it \u201cpr\u00e6cordia.\u201d\nThus he spoke; and excited among them all a longing for lamentation; and rosy-fingered Morn appeared to them while weeping around the miserable corpse. But king Agamemnon incited everywhere from the tents both mules and men to bring wood; and for this a brave man was roused, Meriones, the servant of valour-loving Idomeneus. And they went, holding in their hands wood-lopping axes and well-twisted ropes; and before them went the mules. They passed over many ascents, 732 descents, and straight ways and crossways. But when they reached the forests of many-rilled Ida, hastening, they cut down the towering oaks with the keen-edged brass. These greatly resounding, fell; and the Greeks then splitting them, tied [them] upon the mules, but they pained the ground with their hoofs, eager to reach the plain through the close thickets. But all the wood-cutters carried trunks of trees, for so Meriones, the servant of valour-loving Idomeneus, ordered; and afterwards threw them in order upon the shore, where Achilles designed a mighty tomb for Patroclus, and for himself.\nBut when they had thrown on all sides immense quantities of wood, remaining there in a body, they sat down; but Achilles immediately ordered the warlike Myrmidons to gird on the brass, and to yoke each his horses to his chariot; but they arose, and were arrayed in their armour. And both the combatants and the charioteers ascended their chariots; the cavalry indeed first, but a cloud of infantry followed after in myriads; and in the midst his companions bore Patroclus. They covered all the dead body over with hair, which, cutting off, 733 they threw upon it; but noble Achilles held his head behind, grieving, for he was sending a blameless companion to Hades.\nFootnote 732: (return) A most remarkable and beautiful example of the appropriation of sound to sense. Pope has admirably imitated the original by the following translation:\u2014\n\n\n\u201cO\u2019er hills, o\u2019er dales, o\u2019er crags, o\u2019er rocks, they go.\u201d\n\n\nCowper less successfully:\u2014\n\n\n\u201cThey measured hill and dale,\nRight onward now, and now circuitous.\u201d\n\n\nCf. Milton, P.L. ii. 948:\u2014\n\n\n\u201cSo eagerly the fiend\nO\u2019er bog, or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare,\nWith head, hands, wings, or feet pursues his way,\nAnd swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.\u201d\n\n\nFootnote 733: (return) So in Senec. Hippol. 1176, \u201cPlacemus umbras, capitis exuvias cape, lacer\u00e6que frontis accipe abscissam comam.\u201d The custom is learnedly illustrated by Bernart on Stat. Theb. vi. 195, Lomeier de Lustrat. \u00a7 xxv.\nBut they, when they reached the place where Achilles pointed out to them, laid him down; and immediately heaped on abundant wood for him. Then again swift-footed Achilles remembered another thing. Standing apart from the pile, he cut off his yellow hair, which he had nurtured, blooming, for the river Sperchius; 734 and, moaning, he spake, looking upon the dark sea:\nFootnote 734: (return) On this custom, cf. Schol. Hesiod. Theog. 348: \u1f08\u03c0\u03cc\u03bb\u03bb\u03c9\u03bd\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c0\u03bf\u03c4\u03b1\u03bc\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2 \u03bf\u1f76 \u03bd\u03ad\u03bf\u03b9 \u1f00\u03c0\u03ad\u03c4\u03b5\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd \u03c4\u1f70\u03c2 \u03ba\u03cc\u03bc\u03b1\u03c2, \u03b4\u03b9\u1f70 \u03c4\u1f78 \u03b1\u03cd\u03be\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f00\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f30\u03c4\u03af\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b5\u1f37\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9. See Lindenbrog on Censorin. de Die Nat. i. p. 6, and Blomf. on \u00c6sch. Choeph. s. init., with my own note. Statius, Achill. i. 628, \u201cQu\u00e6risne meos, Sperchie, natatus, Promissasque comas?\u201d Cf. Pausan. i. 43, 4; Philostrat. Her. xi.\n\u201cIn vain, O Sperchius, did my father Peleus vow to thee, that I, returning to my dear native land, should there cut off my hair for thee, and offer a sacred hecatomb; and besides, that I would in the same place sacrifice fifty male sheep at the fountains, where are a grove and fragrant altar to thee. Thus the old man spake, but thou hast not fulfilled his will. And now, since I return not to my dear fatherland, I will give my hair to the hero Patroclus, to be borne [with him].\u201d Thus saying, he placed his hair in the hands of his dear companion; and excited amongst them all a longing for weeping. And the light of the sun had certainly set upon them, mourning, had not Achilles, standing beside, straightway addressed Agamemnon:\n\u201cO son of Atreus (for to thy words the people of the Greeks most especially hearken), it is possible to satiate oneself even with weeping; 735 but now do thou dismiss them from the pile, and order them to prepare supper. We, to whom the corpse is chiefly a care, will labour concerning these things; but let the chiefs remain with us.\u201d\nBut when the king of men, Agamemnon, heard this, he immediately dispersed the people among the equal ships; but the mourners remained there, and heaped up the wood. They formed a pile 736 a hundred feet this way and that, and laid the body upon the summit of the pile, grieving at heart.\nFootnote 735: (return) See Buttm. Lexil. p. 25. \u201cAchilles speaks of the expediency of terminating the lamentations of the army at large, and leaving what remains to be performed in honour of the deceased to his more particular friends.\u201d\u2014Kennedy.\nFootnote 736: (return) In illustration of the following rites, cf. Virg. \u00c6n. iii. 62; v. 96; vi. 215; x. 517; xi. 80, 197, sqq.; and the notes of Stephens on Saxo Grammat. p. 92.\nMany fat sheep, and stamping-footed, bent-horned oxen, they skinned and dressed before the pile; from all of which magnanimous Achilles, taking the fat, covered over the dead body [with it] from head to feet, and heaped around the skinned carcases. Leaning towards the bier, he likewise placed vessels of honey and oil, 737 and, sighing deeply, hastily threw upon the pyre four high-necked steeds. There were nine dogs, companions at the table of the [departed] king, and, slaying two of them, he cast them upon the pile; also twelve gallant sons 738 of the magnanimous Trojans, slaying them with the brass; and he designed evil deeds in his mind. Next he applied to it the iron strength of fire, that it might feed upon it: then he groaned aloud, and addressed his beloved companion by name: 739\nFootnote 737: (return) Cf. Alc\u00e6us apud Brunck, Ann. i. p. 490: \u039a\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c4\u03ac\u03c6\u03bf\u03bd \u1f51\u03c8\u03ce\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf, \u03b3\u03ac\u03bb\u03b1\u03ba\u03c4\u03b9 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b5\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f30\u03b3\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f1c\u1fe4\u1fe5\u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03bd \u03be\u03b1\u03bd\u03b8\u1ff7 \u03bc\u03b9\u03be\u03ac\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9 \u03bc\u03ad\u03bb\u03b9\u03c4\u03b9. Compare the similar libations to the dead in Eur. Orest. 114; Heliodor. Eth. vi.; Apul. Met. 3; Stat. Theb. vi. 209; Virg. \u00c6n. iii. 66.\nFootnote 738: (return) This cruel custom was in vogue amongst the followers of Odin. See Olaus Magnus, iii. 3, and Mallet, Northern Antiquities, p. 213, sq., ed. Bohn.\nFootnote 739: (return) On this \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03c6\u03ce\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2, or last address to the deceased, see my note on Eurip. Alcest. 625, t. i. p. 231, ed. Bohn; and Suppl. 773, 804; Virg. \u00c6n. iii. 68, v. 79; Propert. i. 17; Auson. Parent. 159, 10.\n\u201cHail! O Patroclus, even in the dwellings of Hades: for I now fulfil all things which I formerly promised thee; twelve brave sons of the magnanimous Trojans, all these, along with thee, shall the fire consume; but I will not suffer Hector, the son of Priam, to be devoured by fire, but by the dogs.\u201d\nThus he spoke, threatening; but about him the dogs were not busied; for Venus, the daughter of Jove, drove off the dogs both days and nights, and anointed him with a rosy unguent, ambrosial, that he might not lacerate him dragging him along. Over him also Ph\u0153bus Apollo drew a dark cloud from heaven to the plain, and overshadowed the whole space, as much as the dead body occupied, lest the influence of the sun should previously dry the body all around, with the nerves and limbs.\nYet the pile of dead Patroclus burnt not. Then again noble Achilles meditated other things. Standing apart from the pile, he prayed to two winds, Boreas and Zephyrus, and promised fair sacrifices; and, pouring out many libations with a golden goblet, he supplicated them to come, that they might burn the body with fire as soon as possible, and the wood might hasten to be burned. But swift Iris, hearing his prayers, went as a messenger to the winds. They, indeed, together at home with fierce-breathing Zephyrus, were celebrating a feast, when Iris, hastening, stood upon the stone threshold. But when they beheld her with their eyes, they rose up, and invited her to him, each of them. But she, on the contrary, refused to sit down, and spoke [this] speech:\n\u201cNo seat [for me]; for I return again to the flowings of the ocean, to the land of the \u00c6thiopians, where they sacrifice hecatombs to the immortals, that now I, too, may have a share in their offerings. But Achilles now supplicates Boreas, and sonorous Zephyrus, to come, that ye may kindle the pile to be consumed, on which lies Patroclus, whom all the Greeks bewail.\u201d\nShe, indeed, thus having spoken, departed; but they hastened to go with a great tumult, driving on the clouds before them. Immediately they reached the sea, blowing, and the billow was raised up beneath their sonorous blast: but they reached the very fertile Troad, and fell upon the pile, and mightily resounded the fiercely-burning fire. All night, indeed, did they together toss about the blaze of the pyre, shrilly blowing; and all night swift Achilles, holding a double cup, poured wine upon the ground, drawing it from a golden goblet, and moistened the earth, invoking the manes of wretched Patroclus. And as a father mourns, consuming the bones of his son, a bridegroom who, dying, has afflicted his unhappy parents, so mourned Achilles, burning the bones of his companion, pacing pensively beside the pile, groaning continually. But when Lucifer arrived, proclaiming light over the earth, after whom saffron-vested Morn is diffused over the sea, then the pyre grew languid, and the flame decayed; and the Winds departed again, to return home through the Thracian sea; but it (the sea) groaned indeed, raging with swelling billow.\nBut Pelides, going apart 740 from the pile, reclined fatigued, and upon him fell sweet sleep. The others, however, were assembling in crowds round the son of Atreus, the noise and tumult of whom, approaching, awoke him; and, being raised up, he sat, and addressed them:\nFootnote 740: (return) On \u03bb\u03b9\u03ac\u03b6\u03bf\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9, cf. Buttm. Lex. p. 404.\n\u201cO son of Atreus, and ye other chiefs of the Greeks, first, indeed, extinguish the whole pile, as much as the fire has seized, with dark wine; and then let us collect the bones of Patroclus, the son of Men\u0153tius, well discriminating them (for they are readily distinguished; for he lay in the centre of the pyre, but the others, both horses and men, were burned promiscuously at the extremity), and let us place them in a golden vessel, and with a double [layer of] fat, till I myself be hidden in Hades. And I wish that a tomb should be made, not very large, but of such 741 a size as is becoming; but do ye, O Ach\u00e6ans, hereafter, make it both broad and lofty, you who may be left behind me at the many-benched barks.\u201d\nThus he spoke; and they obeyed the swift-footed son of Peleus. First of all, indeed, they totally extinguished the pyre with dark wine, as much as the fire had invaded, and the deep ashes fell in; and, weeping, they collected the white bones of their mild companion into a golden vessel, and a double [layer of] fat; then, laying them in the tent, they covered them with soft 742 linen. Next they marked out the area for the tomb, and laid the foundations around the pile; and immediately upraised a mound of earth; and, heaping up the tomb, returned. But Achilles detained the people there, and made the wide assembly sit down; but from the ships he brought forth prizes, goblets, tripods, horses, mules, and sturdy heads of oxen, and slender-waisted women, and hoary 743 iron. First he staked as prizes for swift-footed steeds, a woman to be borne away, faultless, skilled in works, as well as a handled tripod of two-and-twenty measures, for the first; but for the second he staked a mare six years old, unbroken, pregnant with a young mule; for the third he staked a fireless tripod, beautiful, containing four measures, yet quite untarnished; 744 for the fourth he staked two talents of gold; and for the fifth he staked a double vessel, untouched by the fire. Erect he stood, and spoke this speech to the Greeks:\nFootnote 741: (return) Ernesti considers that \u03c4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03bf\u03bd is here added to indicate magnitude, and Heyne accordingly renders it: \u201cmagnitudine fere hac,\u201d the speaker being supposed to use a gesture while thus speaking.\nFootnote 742: (return) See Buttm. Lexil. pp. 236\u20149.\nFootnote 743: (return) \u201cErnesti conceives that the colour is here maintained to express, not merely the shining aspect, but the newness of the metal; as \u03bb\u03b5\u03bd\u03ba\u1f78\u03bd in 268. This is ingenious; but why not receive it as expressive of colour, and borrowed from that to which the metal itself supplies a well-known epithet, viz., the hair of age?\u201d\u2014Kennedy.\nFootnote 744: (return) \u0391\u1f55\u03c4\u03c9\u03c2 here designates \u201cthat which is original, unchanged, in opposition to common changes, \u03bb\u03b5\u03bd\u03ba\u1f78\u03bd \u1f14\u03b8\u0384 \u03b1\u1f55\u03c4\u03c9\u03c2, still in that its original state, completely unblackened with fire; and \u03c9. 413; of the body of Hector, \u1f00\u03bb\u03bb' \u1f14\u03c4\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b5\u1fd6\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9. \u0391\u1f55\u03c4\u03c9\u03c2, in that state in which he was before, still free from corruption.\u201d\u2014Buttm. Lexil. p. 173.\n\u201cO son of Atreus, and ye other well-greaved Greeks, these prizes lie in the circus, awaiting the charioteers. If now, indeed, in honour of another, we Grecians were contending, then truly would I, receiving, bear the first [prizes] to my tent. For ye know how much my steeds surpass in excellence; for they are both immortal, and Neptune gave them to my father Peleus, who, again, delivered them to me. But nevertheless I and my solid-hoofed steeds will remain apart [from the contest]; because they have lost the excellent might of such a charioteer, who very often poured the moist oil over their manes, having washed them with limpid water. They, indeed, standing, lament him, but their manes hang down upon the ground, and they stand, grieved at heart. However, do ye others through the army prepare, whoever of the Greeks confides in his steeds and well-fastened chariots.\u201d\nThus spoke the son of Peleus; but the swift charioteers arose. But, far the first, arose Eumelus, king of men, the dear son of Admetus, who surpassed in equestrian skill. After him arose the son of Tydeus, valiant Diomede, and led under the yoke the horses of Tros, which he formerly took from \u00c6neas; but Apollo preserved himself 745 alive; next to whom arose the most noble son of yellow-haired Atreus, Menelaus, and led beneath the yoke fleet steeds, Agamemnon\u2019s mare \u00c6the, and his own stallion, Podargus. Her Echepolus, the son of Anchises, had presented as a gift to Agamemnon, that he need not follow him to wind-swept Ilium, but staying there might be delighted; for Jove had given him great wealth, and he dwelt in wise Sicyon. Her, persevering in the race, he led under the yoke. But Antilochus, the fourth, harnessed his beautiful-maned steeds (the illustrious son of the magnanimous king Nestor, the son of Neleus), and swift-footed Pelian-born steeds drew his chariot for him; but his father, standing near, spoke for his good, advising him, though himself prudent:\nFootnote 745: (return) \u00c6neas.\n\u201cO Antilochus, assuredly indeed both Jove and Neptune have loved thee, although being young, and have taught thee all kinds of equestrian exercise; wherefore there is no great need to instruct thee. For thou knowest how to turn the goals with safety; but thy horses are very slow to run, wherefore I think that disasters may happen. Their horses, indeed, are more fleet, but they themselves know not how to manoeuvre better than thou thyself. But come now, beloved one, contrive every manner of contrivance in thy mind, lest the prizes by any chance escape thee. By skill is the wood-cutter much better than by strength; and, again, by skill the pilot directs upon the dark sea the swift ship, tossed about by the winds; and by skill charioteer excels charioteer. One man who is confident in his steeds and chariot, turns imprudently hither and thither over much [ground], and his steeds wander through the course, nor does he rein them in. But he, on the contrary, who is acquainted with stratagem [though] driving inferior steeds, always looking at the goal, turns it close, nor does it escape him in what manner he may first turn [the course] 746 with his leathern reins; but he holds on steadily, and watches the one who is before him. But I will show thee the goal, easily distinguished, nor shall it escape thy notice. A piece of dry wood, as much as a cubit, stands over the ground, either of oak or of larch, which is not rotted by rain; and two white stones are placed on either side, in the narrow part of the way; 747 but the racecourse around is level: either it is the monument 748 of some man long since dead, or perhaps it has been a goal in the time of former men, and now swift-footed noble Achilles has appointed it the goal. Approaching this very closely, drive thy chariot and horses near; but incline thyself gently towards the left of them (the steeds), in the well-joined chariot-seat; and, cheering on the right-hand horse, apply the whip, and give him the rein with thy hands. Let thy left-hand horse, however, be moved close to the goal, so that the nave of the well-made wheel may appear to touch, the top [of the post]; but avoid to touch upon the stone, lest thou both wound thy horses, and break thy chariot in pieces, and be a joy to the others, and a disgrace to thyself. But, my beloved son, mind to be on thy guard; for if at the goal thou couldst pass by in the course, there will not be one who could overtake thee in pursuit, nor pass thee by; not if behind he drives noble Arion, the swift steed of Adrastus, 749 which was from a god in race; or those of Laomedon, which, excellent, have here been reared.\u201d\nFootnote 746: (return) Or \u201cpull with his leathern reins.\u201d\u2014Oxf. Transl. \u201c\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd\u03cd\u03c3\u1fc3, viz. \u03b4\u03c1\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd \u03c3\u1f7a\u03bd \u1f31\u03bc\u1fb6\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd. Thus \u03c4\u03ac\u03b8\u03b7 \u03b4\u03c1\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2, ver. 375. The same ellipsis occurs in the following verse, in the case of \u1f14\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9, which, however, admits also of the construction \u1f14\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9 \u1f11\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd, one usual in the latter language.\u201d\u2014Kennedy.\nFootnote 747: (return) \u201cThe old interpreter explained \u1f10\u03bd \u03be\u03c5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c7\u1fc7\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u1f41\u03b4\u03bf\u1fe6, and I think correctly, of a wide track in the open plain becoming somewhat narrower at the point where the old monument stood; but \u1f00\u03bc\u03c6\u03af\u03c2 they took in the opposite sense of \u03c7\u03c9\u03c1\u03af\u03c2, or still more forced. Heyne, however, understood it quite correctly of the wide plain around, which was so suited to a chariot-race, and within which, in the distance, stood also the mark chosen by Achilles, ver. 359. Others see in this passage the course winding round the monument; but then it must have been an old course regularly drawn out for the purpose; whereas this monument was selected by Achilles for the goal or mark quite arbitrarily, and by his own choice; and Nestor, ver. 332, only conjectures that it might have formerly served for a goal.\u201d\u2014Buttm. Lexil. p. 95.\nFootnote 748: (return) Such monumental stones were frequently placed in public places. Cf. Theocrit. vi. 10; Virg. Eel. ix. 55; Dic\u00e6archus in Athen. xiii. p. 594.\nFootnote 749: (return) According to many authors, this horse was produced from the earth by a stroke of Neptune\u2019s trident. See Serv. on Virg. Georg. i. 12; Pausan. viii. p. 650; Apollodor. iii. 6, 8; and Bernart. on Stat. Theb. iv. 43.\nThus speaking, Neleian Nestor sat down again in his own place, when he had mentioned the most important points of each matter to his son; and Meriones, fifth, harnessed his beautiful-maned steeds. Then they ascended their chariots, and cast lots into [the helmet]. Achilles shook, and the lot of Antilochus, son of Nestor, leaped forth; after him king Eumelus was allotted; but after him spear-renowned Menelaus, son of Atreus, and Meriones was allotted to drive after him. But the son of Tydeus, by far the bravest, was allotted to drive his coursers last. Then they stood in order; and Achilles pointed out the goals, 750 far off in the level plain; and near it placed godlike Phoenix as an umpire, the armour-bearer of his own sire, that he might attend to the race, and report the truth.\nFootnote 750: (return) Cf. \u00c6n. v. 129; Quintus Calab. iv. 193: \u03a4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c3\u03b9 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03c3\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1\u03af\u03bd\u03b5\u03c3\u03ba\u03b5 \u03b4\u03c1\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03ad\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ba\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf \u1f08\u03c4\u03c1\u03b5\u03af\u03b4\u03b7\u03c2.\nThen they all at once raised their lashes over their steeds, and struck them with the reins, and cheered them on with words incessantly; but they rapidly flew over the plain, far away from the ships, swiftly, and beneath their breasts the excited dust stood up, raised like a cloud or a whirlwind; whilst their manes were tossed about by the breath of the wind. Sometimes, indeed, the chariots approached the fruitful earth, and at others bounded aloft; but the drivers stood erect in their chariots, and the heart of each of them, eager for victory, palpitated: and each animated his own steeds, but they flew along, stirring up dust from the plain. But when now the fleet steeds were performing the last course, back towards the hoary deep, then appeared the excellence of each, and the course was immediately extended to the horses; 751 and then the swift-footed steeds of the son of Pheres 752 swiftly bore him away. The male Trojan steeds of Diomede, however, bore [themselves] next to them; nor were they at all far distant, but very near; for they always seemed as if about to mount into the chariot. And with their breathing the back and broad shoulders of Eumelus were warmed; for they flew along, leaning their heads over him. And certainly he had either passed, or made [the victory] doubtful, had not Ph\u0153bus Apollo been enraged with the son of Tydeus, and accordingly shaken out of his hands the shining lash. Then from the eyes of him indignant tears poured, because indeed he beheld the others now going much swifter, whilst his [steeds] were injured, running without a goad. Neither did Apollo, fraudulently injuring Tydides, escape the notice of Minerva, but she very quickly overtook the shepherd of the people, and gave him his lash, and put vigour into his steeds. And to the son of Admetus, the goddess, indignant, advanced, and broke for him his horse-yoke; and so his mares ran on both sides out of the way, and the pole was dashed upon the ground. He himself was thrown from the driving-seat close by the wheel, and was lacerated all round in his arms, his mouth, and nostrils, and his forehead was bruised near the eyebrows; but his eyes were filled with tears, and his liquid voice was clogged. Then Diomede passing by, directed his hollow-hoofed steeds, bounding far before the others; for Minerva had put vigour into his steeds, and given him glory. But after him, however, the son of Atreus, yellow-haired Menelaus, drove; but Antilochus cheered on the steeds of his father:\nFootnote 751: (return) I.e. \u201cthe speed of the horses was immediately put to the stretch,\u201d as the Oxford Translator well, but freely, renders it.\nFootnote 752: (return) Eumelus.\n\u201cPush on! and exert yourselves, both of you, as fast as possible. I indeed do not order you to contend with the steeds of warlike Diomede, to which Minerva has now given speed, and given glory to him; but quickly overtake the horses of Atrides, nor be left behind, lest \u00c6the, being a mare, shed disgrace upon you both. Why should ye be left inferior, O best [of steeds]? For thus I tell you, and it shall surely be accomplished; attention will not be paid to you by Nestor, the shepherd of the people, but he will immediately slay you with the sharp brass, if we, remiss, bear off the less worthy prize. But follow, and hasten as fast as possible. These things will I myself manage and look to, to pass him by in the narrow way; nor shall it escape me.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but they, dreading the threat of their master, ran faster for a short time: but immediately then warlike Antilochus perceived the narrow of the hollow way. It was a fissure of the earth, where the wintry torrent collected, had broken away [part] of the road, and gullied the whole place; thither drove Menelaus, avoiding the clash of wheels. But Antilochus, deviating, guided his solid-hoofed horses out of the way, and turning aside, pursued him a little. But the son of Atreus feared, and shouted to Antilochus:\n\u201cAntilochus, rashly art thou driving thy horses; but check thy steeds for the road is narrow, and thou wilt soon drive past in a wider lest thou damage both [of us], running foul of [my] chariot.\u201d Thus he spoke; but Antilochus drove even much faster, urging [them] on with the lash, like unto one not hearing. As far as is the cast of a quoit, hurled from the shoulder, which a vigorous youth has thrown, making experiments of his youthful strength; so far they ran abreast; but those of Atrides fell back: for he himself voluntarily ceased to drive, lest the solid-hoofed steeds should clash in the road, and overturn the well-joined chariots, and they themselves should fall in the dust, while contending for the victory. And him yellow-haired Menelaus, chiding, addressed:\n\u201cO Antilochus, no other mortal is more pernicious than thou. Avaunt! for we Greeks untruly said that thou wast prudent. Yet not even thus shalt thou bear away the prize without an oath.\u201d  753 Thus saying, he cheered on his steeds, and spoke to them:\n\u201cBe not kept back, nor stand, grieving in your hearts: sooner will the feet and knees grow weary to them than to you; for they are both deprived of vigour.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but they, dreading the exhortation of their master, ran more fleetly, and became very near the others. But the Greeks sitting in assembly, 754 beheld the steeds, and they flew along, raising dust over the plain. Then first Idomeneus, leader of the Cretans, distinguished the horses; for he sat outside the circus, very high up, on an observatory; and hearing him, being far off, encouraging [his steeds], knew him. He also perceived a remarkable steed outstripping, which in every other part indeed was chesnut, but in its forehead was a white round spot, like the moon. And he stood erect, and delivered this speech amongst the Greeks:\nFootnote 753: (return) \u201cVidetur proverbii loco dictum in eos, qui non facile, non sine gravi labore ac difficultate consequi possent, quod peterent, sive qui rem valde difficilem peterent.\u201d\u2014Ernesti.\nFootnote 754: (return) See note on vii. p. 129, n. 2.\n\u201cO friends, leaders and chieftains of the Greeks, do I alone recognize the horses, or do ye also? Different steeds indeed appear to me to be foremost, and there seems a different charioteer; but those [mares] which hitherto were successful, are probably hurt upon the plain somewhere: for surely I first saw them turning round the goal, but now I can no longer see them, although my eyes survey the Trojan plain as I gaze around. Surely the reins have fled the charioteer, and he could not rein well round the goal, and did not succeed in turning. There I imagine he fell out, and at the same time broke his chariot, whilst they (the mares) bolted, when fury seized their mind. But do ye also, standing up, look, for I cannot well distinguish; it appears to me to be an \u00c6tolian hero by birth, and [who] rules amongst the Argives, the son of horse-breaking Tydeus, gallant Diomede.\u201d\nBut him swift Ajax, the son of O\u00efleus, bitterly reproached:\n\u201cIdomeneus, why dost thou prate endlessly? 755 Those high-prancing mares run over the vast plain afar. Neither art thou so much the youngest amongst the Greeks, nor do thine eyes see most sharply from thy head: but thou art always prating with words. Nor is it at all necessary for thee to be a prater, for others better than thou are present. For the mares of Eumelus are still 756 foremost, which were so before, and he himself is advancing, holding the reins.\u201d\nBut him the leader of the Cretans, indignant, answered in turn:\n\u201cAjax, best at abuse, reviler, but in all other things thou art inferior to the Greeks, because thy temper is morose; come now, let us stake a tripod 757 or a goblet, and let us both appoint Agamemnon, the son of Atreus, arbiter, which horses are foremost; that paying, thou mayest learn.\u201d\nFootnote 755: (return) \u201c \u03ac\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 implies habit, as in i. 553, particularly in connection with a verb of such import, as in xviii. 425.\u201d\u2014Kennedy.\nFootnote 756: (return) This is implied in \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1.\nFootnote 757: (return) \u201cUt supra, xxii. 254, erat \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03b4\u03cc\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9, pro \u03b4\u03cc\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03ac\u03c1\u03c4\u03c5\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2 \u1f10\u03c0\u03af \u03c4\u03b9\u03bd\u03b9 \u03c7\u03c1\u03ae\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b9, sic nunc \u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03c0\u03bf\u03b4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03b4\u03ce\u03bc\u03b5\u03b8\u03b1 est \u03b4\u03ce\u03bc\u03b5\u03b8\u03b1 \u1f45\u03c1\u03ba\u03bf\u03bd \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03c0\u03bf\u03b4\u03bf\u03c2, quem p\u0153n\u00e6 loco daturus erit uter nostrum temere contenderit.\u201d\u2014Heyne.\nThus he spoke; but swift Ajax, son of O\u00efleus, immediately rose to reply in harsh words. And now doubtless the strife would have proceeded farther to both, had not Achilles himself risen up, and spoke:\n\u201cNo longer now, O Ajax and Idomeneus, hold altercation in evil, angry words, for it is not fitting, and ye also would blame another, whoever should do such things; but, sitting down in the circus, look towards the steeds, which themselves will soon arrive, contending for victory; and then will ye know, each of you, the horses of the Greeks, which are second, and which first.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but the son of Tydeus came very near, pursuing, and always drove on [his horses] with the lash across the shoulders; whilst the steeds were raised up aloft into the air, quickly completing their course, and the drops of dust kept always bespattering their charioteer. The chariot, adorned with gold and tin, rolled on close to the swift-footed steeds; nor was there a deep trace of the tires behind in the fine dust, but they, hastening, flew. But he stood in the midst of the circus, and much perspiration exuded from the steeds, from their necks and chest to the ground. But he himself leaped to the ground from his all-shining chariot, and rested his scourge against the yoke; nor was gallant Sthenelus dilatory, but he eagerly seized the prize, and gave the woman to his magnanimous companions to escort, and the handled tripod to bear away; whilst he himself unyoked the steeds.\nNext to him Nelcian Antilochus drove his steeds, outstripping Menelaus by stratagem, not indeed by speed. Yet even thus Menelaus drove his swift horses near; but as far as a horse is distant from the wheel, which, exerting its speed with the chariot, draws its master through the plain, and the extreme hairs of its tail touch the wheel-tire, but it rolls very near, nor is there much space between, while it runs over the vast plain; so far was illustrious Menelaus left behind by Antilochus: although at first he was left behind as much as the cast of a quoit, yet he quickly overtook him; for the doughty strength of Agamemnon\u2019s mare, the beautiful-maned \u00c6the, was increased. And if the course had been still longer to both, he would surely have passed him by, nor left it doubtful. Meriones again, the good attendant of Idomeneus, was left behind a spear\u2019s throw by the illustrious Menelaus, for his fair-maned steeds were the slowest, and he himself least skilful in driving a chariot in the contest. But the son of Admetus came last of others, dragging his beauteous chariot, driving his steeds before him. But him swift-footed, noble Achilles seeing, pitied, and standing amongst the Greeks, spoke [to him] winged words:\n\u201cThe best man drives his solid-hoofed steeds the last. But come, let us give him, as is right, the second prize; and let the son of Tydeus bear away the first.\u201d\nThus he spoke; and all approved as he ordered. And now truly he had given the mare to him (for the Greeks approved it), had not Antilochus, the son of magnanimous Nestor, rising up, replied to Achilles, the son of Peleus, on the question of justice: 758\nFootnote 758: (return) Not \u201cwith justice,\u201d as the translators, following the Scholiast, have interpreted \u03b4\u03af\u03ba\u03b7. That would have required \u03c3\u1f7a\u03bd \u03b4\u03af\u03ba\u03b7, as in Soph. Antig. 23.\n\u201c\u039f Achilles, I shall be very indignant with thee, if thou fulfillest this promise; for thou art about to deprive me of my reward, considering these things, that his chariot and fleet steeds were injured, he himself being skilful; but he should have prayed to the immortals, then would he by no means have come up driving the last. But if thou pitiest him, and it be agreeable to thy mind, thou hast much gold and brass in thy tent, and cattle and maidens, and solid-hoofed steeds are thine. Taking from these, give him afterwards even a greater reward, or even now forthwith, that the Greeks may applaud thee. This, however, I will not resign, but let him of the warriors strive for her, whoever wishes to contend with me in strength of hands.\u201d\nThus he spoke; and swift-footed, noble Achilles smiled, favouring Antilochus, for he was a dear companion to him; and, answering, addressed to him winged words:\n\u201cO Antilochus, since thou now biddest me give something else to Eumelus from my house, this will I indeed accomplish. I will give him the corslet which I took from Asterop\u00e6us, brazen, around which there is entwined a rim of shining tin; and it is of great value.\u201d\nHe spoke; and ordered his dear comrade, Automedon, to bear it from the tent: and he went and brought it to him; then he placed it in the hands of Eumelus, and he received it rejoicing. But Menelaus also arose amongst them, grieving in his mind, vehemently enraged with Antilochus. Then a herald placed the sceptre in his hands, and ordered the Greeks to be silent; and then the godlike hero spoke:\n\u201cO Antilochus, hitherto prudent, what hast thou done? Thou hast disgraced my skill, and injured my steeds, driving thine before them, which indeed are greatly inferior. But come, ye leaders and chiefs of the Greeks, judge between us both, and not for favour; lest some one of the brazen-mailed Greeks should say: \u2018Menelaus having overcome Antilochus by falsehoods, came off, leading the mare [as a prize], for his steeds were very inferior, but he himself superior in skill and strength.\u2019 759 But come, I myself will decide, and I think that no other of the Greeks will blame me, for it will be just.\u201d\n\u201cO Antilochus, nurtured of Jove, come hither, I pray, as it is just, standing before thy horses and chariot, and holding in thy hands the pliant lash with which thou didst formerly drive, touching thy steeds, swear by earth-encompassing Neptune, that thou didst not willingly impede my chariot by stratagem.\u201d  760\nFootnote 759: (return) Cf. vers. 571, sq.\nFootnote 760: (return) See ver. 441.\nBut him prudent Antilochus in turn answered:\n\u201cHave patience now, since I am much younger than thou, O king Menelaus, and thou art older and superior. Thou knowest of what sort are the errors of a youth; for his mind is indeed more volatile, and his counsel weak. Therefore let thy heart endure, and I myself will give thee the steed which I have received. And if indeed thou demandest anything else greater from my house, I should be willing to give it immediately rather than fall for ever, \u039f Jove-nurtured, from thy good opinion, and be sinful towards the gods.\u201d\nHe spoke; and the son of magnanimous Nestor, leading the mare, placed it in the hands of Menelaus; but his 761 mind was cheered 762 as the dew [is diffused] over the ears of growing corn, when the fields are bristling. Thus indeed, \u039f Menelaus, was thy soul in thy breast cheered; and speaking, he addressed to him winged words:\nFootnote 761: (return) I.e. Menelaus.\nFootnote 762: (return) Or softened, melted. See Heyne.\n\u201cAntilochus, now indeed will I cease being enraged with thee, for formerly thou wert neither foolish nor volatile; though now youth has subdued reason. Avoid a second time overreaching thy superiors; for not another man of the Greeks would have easily appeased me. But thou hast already suffered much, and accomplished many deeds, as well as thy good father and brother, for my sake: therefore will I be persuaded by thee, supplicating, and will give the mare also, although being mine; that these too may perceive that my soul is never overbearing or unrelenting.\u201d\nHe spoke, and gave the steed to No\u00ebmon, the comrade of Antilochus, to lead away; and then he received the shining goblet [himself]. But Meriones, the fourth, took up the two talents of gold, in which order he drove; but the fifth prize was left, 763 which Achilles, bearing through the assembly of the Greeks, gave to Nestor, and standing by him, said:\n\u201cReceive now, and let this be a keepsake to thee, a memorial of the burial of Patroclus; for never more shalt thou behold him among the Greeks. I give this prize to thee even thus; 764 for thou indeed wilt not fight with the c\u00e6stus, nor wrestle, nor engage in the contest of hurling the javelin, nor run on the feet, for grievous old age now oppresses thee.\u201d\nFootnote 763: (return) Because Eumelus had received an extraordinary prize.\nFootnote 764: (return) I.e. although thou hast not shared the contests. See Kennedy.\nThus speaking, he placed it in his hands; but he rejoicing, accepted it, and addressing him, spoke in winged words:\n\u201cAssuredly, O my son, thou hast spoken all these things aright; for no longer are my limbs firm, my friend, nor my feet, nor yet do my hands move pliant on each side from my shoulders. Would that I were as young, and my strength was firm to me, as when the Epeans buried king Amarynceus at Byprasium, and his sons staked the prizes of the king. There no man was equal to me, neither of the Epeans, nor of the Pelians themselves, nor of the magnanimous \u00c6tolians. In the c\u00e6stus I conquered Clytomedes, the son of Enops; and in wrestling, Anc\u00e6us, the Pleuronian, who rose up against me; and on foot I outstripped Iphiclus, though being excellent; and with the spear hurled beyond Phyleus and Polydorus. The two sons of Actor drove by me by their steeds only, exceeding me in number, envying me the victory, for the greatest rewards were left for that contest. But they were two; the one indeed steadily directed the reins, whilst the other urged on with the lash. Thus I formerly was, but now let younger men undertake such deeds, as it becomes me to obey sad old age, though I then excelled amongst heroes. But go, and celebrate thy comrade\u2019s obsequies with games. This, indeed, I willingly accept, and my soul rejoices that thou art ever mindful of me; nor am I forgotten by thee, with what honour it becomes me to be honoured among the Greeks. And for these things may the gods give thee a proper return.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but the son of Peleus went through the great assemblage of the Greeks, when he had heard all the praise of Nestor. Then he proposed prizes for a laborious boxing-match. 765 Leading a mule, patient of toil, six years old, unbroken, which is most difficult to be tamed, he tied it in the circus; and for the conquered again he staked a two-handled cup: then he stood up, and spoke amongst the Greeks:\nFootnote 765: (return) Cf. Virg. \u00c6n. v. 365.\n\u201cO ye sons of Atreus, and other well-greaved Greeks, we invite two men, who are very expert, raising their hands aloft, to strike for these with the fist. But to whom Apollo indeed may give victory, and all the Greeks approve, leading away the mule, patient of labour, let him conduct it to his tent; but the vanquished shall bear away a double cup.\u201d\nThus he spoke; and immediately arose a man brave and great, skilled in the art of boxing, Ep\u00ebus, son of Panopeus; and grasping the patient-toiling mule, said:\n\u201cLet him draw near, whosoever will bear away the double cup; but I think that no other of the Greeks having conquered in boxing, will lead away the mule; for I boast myself to be the best man. Is it not enough that I am inferior in battle? 766 For it is by no means possible for a man to be skilled in every work. For thus I tell you, and it shall be accomplished, I will utterly fracture his body, and also break his bones. And let his friends remain here assembled, who may carry him away vanquished by my hands.\u201d\nFootnote 766: (return) \u201cI.e. is it not enough, that, though I am inferior in battle, I am superior in boxing?\u201d\u2014Oxford Transl.\nThus he spoke; but they were all mute, in silence. But Euryalus alone stood up against him, a godlike hero, son of king Mecisteus, a descendant of Tala\u00efon, who formerly came to Thebes to the funeral of the deceased \u0152dipus, and there vanquished all the Cadmeans. About him the spear-renowned son of Tydeus was busied, encouraging him with words, for he greatly wished victory to him. And first he threw around him his girdle, and then gave him the well-cut thongs [made of the hide] of a rustic ox. But they twain, having girded themselves, proceeded into the middle of the circus, and both at the same time engaged, with their strong hands opposite, raising [them up], and their heavy hands were mingled. Then a horrid crashing of jaws ensued, and the sweat flowed on all sides from their limbs. Then noble Ep\u00ebus rushed in, and smote him upon the cheek, while looking round, nor could he stand any longer; but his fair limbs tottered under him. And as when, from beneath the surface, rippled 767 by the north wind, a fish leaps out upon the weedy shore, and the dark billow covers it, so he, stricken, sprang up. But magnanimous Ep\u00ebus, taking [him] in his hands, lifted him up; and his dear comrades stood around, who conducted him through the circus on tottering feet, spitting out clotted gore, [and] drooping his head on each side; and then, leading, placed him among them, insensible, while they, departing, received the double cup.\nBut the son of Peleus quickly staked other third prizes for laborious wrestling, exhibiting [them] to the Greeks; for the conqueror, indeed, a large tripod, ready for the fire, 768 which the Greeks estimated amongst themselves at twelve oxen; and for the conquered person he placed a female in the midst. She understood various works, and they reckoned her at four oxen. But he stood up, and spoke this speech among the Greeks:\n\u201cArise, ye who will make trial of this contest.\u201d Thus he spoke; but then arose mighty Telamonian Ajax, and wise Ulysses stood up, skilled in stratagems. But these two, having girded themselves, advanced into the midst of the circus, and grasped each other\u2019s arms with their strong hands, like the rafters 769 of a lofty dome, which a renowned architect has fitted, guarding off the violence of the winds. Then their backs creaked, forcibly dragged by their powerful hands, and the copious 770 sweat poured down; and thick welds, purple with blood, arose upon their sides and shoulders. Yet always eagerly they sought desired victory, for the sake of the well-made tripod. Neither could Ulysses trip, nor throw him to the ground, nor could Ajax him, for the valiant might of Ulysses hindered him. But when at length they were wearying the well-greaved Greeks, then mighty Telamonian Ajax addressed him:\nFootnote 767: (return) See Kennedy.\nFootnote 768: (return) I.e. intended for domestic purposes, not a mere votive offering or ornament.\nFootnote 769: (return) '\u0391\u03bc\u03b5\u03af\u03b2\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2 \u03b4\u03cc\u03ba\u03bf\u03b9 \u03bc\u03b5\u03b3\u03ac\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9, \u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03ae\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03c0\u03af\u03c0\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9, \u1f65\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5 \u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03ac\u03b6\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd \u03c4\u03ae\u03bd \u1f40\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03ae\u03bd\u0387 \u03b1\u1f35\u03c4\u03b9\u03bd\u03b5\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c3\u03c5\u03c3\u03c4\u03ac\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03bf\u1fe6\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9.\u2014Schol.\nFootnote 770: (return) See Kennedy.\n\u201c\u039f most noble son of La\u00ebrtes, Ulysses of many wiles, either lift up me, or I thee, and all these things will be a care to Jove.\u201d\nSo saying, he lifted him up: but yet was not Ulysses unmindful of a stratagem. Aiming at his ham, he struck him behind, and relaxed his limbs, and threw him on his back; but Ulysses fell upon his breast; then the people admiring gazed, and were stupified. Next noble, much-enduring Ulysses, lifted him in turn, and moved him a little from the ground, nor did he lift him up completely; but he bent his knee; and both fell upon the ground near to each other, and were defiled with dust. And, getting up, they had surely wrestled for the third time, had not Achilles himself stood up and restrained them:\n\u201cNo longer contend, nor exhaust yourselves with evils; for there is victory to both: so depart, receiving equal rewards, in order that the other Greeks also may contend.\u201d Thus he spoke; but they indeed heard him willingly, and obeyed; and, wiping off the dust, put on their tunics. But the son of Peleus immediately staked other rewards of swiftness, a wrought silver cup, which contained, indeed, six measures, but in beauty much excelled [all] upon the whole earth, for the ingenious Sidonians had wrought it cunningly, and Ph\u0153nician men had carried it over the shadowy sea, and exposed it for sale in the harbours, and presented it as a gift to Thoas. Euneus, son of Jason, however, had given it to the hero Patroclus, as a ransom for Lycaon, son of Priam. This also Achilles offered as a new prize, to be contended for, in honour of his companion, whoever should be the nimblest on swift feet; for the second, again, he proposed an ox, large and luxuriant in fat; and for the last he staked half a talent of gold. But he stood upright, and spoke amongst the Greeks:\n\u201cArise, ye who will make trial of this contest also.\u201d Thus he spoke; and immediately swift Ajax, son of O\u00efleus, arose, and much-enduring Ulysses; and after them Antilochus, son of Nestor; for he, indeed, excelled all the youths in fleetness. But they stood in order, and Achilles pointed out the goal; and their course was stretched out from the goal. 771 Then swiftly leaped forth the son of O\u00efleus; but very close after him rushed noble Ulysses; as when a shuttle is at the breast of a well-girdled dame, which she throws very skilfully with her hands, drawing out the woof, [and inserting them] into the warp, and holds it near her breast: so ran Ulysses near him; and with his feet trod on his footsteps behind, before the dust was shed over them. But noble Ulysses, constantly running swiftly, exhaled his breath upon his head; and all the Greeks shouted to him, eager for victory, and encouraged him, hastening rapidly. But when they were now completing their last course, Ulysses forthwith prayed in his mind to azure-eyed Minerva:\nFootnote 771: (return) See Kennedy, and on the race of the \u03b4\u03af\u03b1\u03c5\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2, Smith\u2019s Dict. of Antiquities.\n\u201cHear, O goddess, come a propitious assistant to my feet.\u201d Thus he spoke, praying; but Pallas Minerva heard him; and she made his limbs nimble, his feet and his hands above. But when they were just about to fly in upon the prize, then Ajax slipped, while running (for Minerva did the mischief), where the dung of the deep-lowing slaughtered oxen was around, which swift-footed Achilles had slain in honour of Patroclus. Then much-enduring, noble Ulysses took up the goblet, as he came running the first; and illustrious Ajax received the ox. But he stood, holding the horn of the rustic ox in his hands; and, spitting out the dung, spoke amongst the Greeks:\n\u201cAlas! surely a goddess injured my feet, who ever of old stands by Ulysses as a mother, and assists him.\u201d\nThus he spoke; and they all then laughed heartily at him. But Antilochus next bore away the last prize, smiling, and spoke among the Greeks:\n\u201cI will tell you all, my friends, though now knowing it, that even still the immortals honour the aged. For Ajax, indeed, is a little older than I am: but he is of a former generation, and former men; and they say that he is of crude old age, and it is difficult for the Greeks to contend in swiftness with him, except for Achilles.\u201d\nThus he spoke; and praised the swift-footed son of Peleus. But Achilles, answering, addressed him with words:\n\u201cThy praise, O Antilochus, shall not be spoken in vain, but for thee I will add half a talent of gold.\u201d\nSo saying, he placed it in his hands; and he, rejoicing, received it. But the son of Peleus, bearing into the circus, laid down a long spear, and a shield, and helmet, the arms of Sarpedon, which Patroclus had stripped him of; and stood upright, and spoke amongst the Greeks:\n\u201cWe invite two warriors, whoever are bravest, having put; on these arms, [and] seizing the flesh-rending brass, to make trial of each other before the host for these. Whoever shall be the first to wound the fair flesh, and touch the entrails through the armour and black blood, to him, indeed, will I give this silver-studded, beautiful Thracian sword, which I formerly took from Asterop\u00e6us. But let both bear away these arms in common, and before them I will place a splendid banquet in my tents.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but then arose mighty Telamonian Ajax, and the son of Tydeus, valiant Diomede rose up. But they, after they had armed apart on either side from the ground, both came together into the midst, eager to fight, looking dreadfully; and stupor possessed all the Greeks. But when approaching each other, they were near, thrice indeed they rushed on, and thrice made the attack hand to hand. Then Ajax, indeed, pierced through his shield, equal on all sides, nor reached the flesh; for the corslet inside protected him. But next the son of Tydeus, with the point of his shining spear, endeavoured to reach the neck, over his great shield. And then, indeed, the Greeks, fearing for Ajax, desired them, ceasing, to take up equal rewards. The hero, however, gave the great sword to Diomede, bearing it both with the sheath and the well-cut belt.\nThen the son of Peleus deposited a rudely-molten mass of iron, which the great might of E\u00ebtion used formerly to hurl. But when swift-footed, noble Achilles slew him, he brought this also, with other possessions, in his ships. Then he stood up, and spoke amongst the Greeks:\n\u201cArise, you who will make trial of this contest also. Even if his rich fields be of very far and wide extent, using this he will have it even for five revolving years; for indeed neither will his shepherd nor his ploughman go into the city wanting iron, but [this] will furnish it.\u201d\nThus he spoke; then up arose warlike Polyp\u0153tes, and the valiant might of godlike Leonteus arose; also Telamonian Ajax, and noble Ep\u00ebus arose. Then they stood in order; but noble Ep\u00ebus seized the mass, and, whirling it round, threw it; but all the Greeks laughed at him. Next Leonteus, a branch of Mars, threw second; but third, mighty Telamonian Ajax hurled with his strong hand, and cast beyond the marks of all. But when now warlike Polyp\u0153tes had seized the mass, as far as a cow-herdsman throws his crook, which, whirled around, flies through the herds of oxen, so far, through the whole stadium, did he cast beyond; but they shouted aloud; and the companions of brave Polyp\u0153tes, rising up, bore away the prize of the king to the hollow ships.\nNext, for the archers, he staked iron fit for making arrows, 772 and laid down ten battle-axes, and also ten demi-axes. He also set upright the mast of an azure-prowed vessel, afar upon the sands; from [this] he fastened a timid dove by a slender cord, by the foot, at which he ordered [them] to shoot:\nFootnote 772: (return) I.e. well-tempered.\n\u201cWhosoever indeed shall strike the timid dove, taking up all the battle-axes, may bear [them] to his tent; but whosoever shall hit the cord, missing the bird (for he is inferior), let him bear off the demi-axes.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but then up rose the might of king Teucer, and up rose Meriones, the active attendant of Idomeneus; and taking the lots, they shook them in a brazen helmet. But Teucer was appointed first by lot; and straightway he shot an arrow strenuously, nor did he vow to sacrifice a celebrated hecatomb of firstling lambs to king [Apollo]. He missed the bird indeed, because Apollo envied him this, but he hit the string with which the bird was fastened, close to its foot; and the bitter arrow cut the cord quite through. Then indeed the bird ascended towards heaven, but the cord was sent down towards the earth: and the Greeks shouted applause. But Meriones, hastening, snatched the bow from his hand; and now held the arrow for a long time, as he had directed it; and immediately vowed to sacrifice to far-darting Apollo a noble hecatomb of firstling lambs. But he saw the timid dove on high beneath the clouds, which, as she was turning round, he hit in the middle under the wing, and the arrow pierced quite through. And it indeed again was fixed in the ground at the foot of Meriones: but the bird, alighting upon the mast of the azure-beaked galley, drooped its neck, and its close wings were at the same time expanded. And swift its soul flitted from its members, and it fell far from [the mast]; but the people wondering, beheld, and were stupified. Then Meriones took up all the ten battle-axes, and Teucer carried off the demi-axes to the hollow barks.\nThen the son of Peleus indeed, bearing it into the circus, staked a long spear, and also a caldron, untouched by fire, worth an ox, adorned with flowers; and immediately the spearmen arose. The son of Atreus rose up, wide-ruling Agamemnon, and Meriones, the expert attendant of Idomeneus; whom also swift-footed, noble Achilles addressed:\n\u201cO son of Atreus, for we know how much thou dost surpass all, as well as how much thou excellest in strength and in the javelin, wherefore thou indeed mayest repair to the hollow barks, possessing this reward; but let us give the spear to the hero Meriones, if, truly, thou dost thus wish it in thy mind; for I on my part advise it.\u201d\nThus he spoke; nor did the king of men, Agamemnon, disobey; but he gave the brazen spear to Meriones; and the hero himself gave the very splendid prize to the herald Talthybius.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THE TWENTY-FOURTH.\nARGUMENT.\nJove orders Thetis to go to Achilles, and demand the restoration of Hector\u2019s body. Mercury is also sent to Priam, whom he guides in safety through the Grecian camp, to the tent of Achilles. A pathetic interview follows, and Priam ransoms the body of his son, and obtains a twelve days\u2019 truce, during which he performs his funeral obsequies.\nThe assembly was dissolved, and the people were dispersed, to go each to their hollow barks. They indeed took care to indulge in the banquet and sweet slumber; but Achilles wept, remembering his dear companion, nor did all-subduing sleep possess him, but he was rolled here and there, longing for the vigour and valiant might of Patroclus. And whatever things he had accomplished with him, and hardships he had suffered, both [encountering] the battles of heroes, and measuring the grievous waves, remembering these things, he shed the warm tear, lying at one time upon his sides, 773 at others again on his back, and at other times on his face; but again starting up, he wandered about in sadness along the shore of the sea; nor did Morn, appearing over the sea and the shores, escape his notice. But he, when he had harnessed his fleet steeds to his chariot, bound Hector to be dragged after his chariot; and having drawn him thrice around the tomb of the dead son of Men\u0153tius, again rested in his tent; and left him there, having stretched him on his face in the dust. But Apollo kept off all pollution from his body, pitying the hero, although dead; and encircled him with the golden \u00e6gis, lest that, dragging, he might lacerate him.\nFootnote 773: (return) Cf. Heliodor. Ethiop. vii. p. 325: \u03b1\u03bd\u03bd\u03cd\u03c7\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b3\u03bf\u1fe6\u03bd \u1f14\u03ba\u03b5\u03b9\u03c4\u03bf, \u03c0\u03c5\u03ba\u03bd\u1f70 \u03bc\u1f72\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u1f78\u03c2 \u03ad\u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd \u03c0\u03bb\u03b5\u03c5\u03c1\u1f70\u03bd \u03c4\u1f78 \u03c3\u1ff6\u03bc\u03b1 \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03ad\u03c6\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b1. Chariton quotes the line of Homer, when describing the uneasy rest of a love-stricken being.\nThus he indeed, raging, was insulting noble Hector, but the blessed gods, looking towards him, commiserated, and incited the watchful slayer of Argus to steal him away. Now, to all the rest it was certainly pleasing, but by no means so to Juno, to Neptune, nor to the azure-eyed maid; but they were obstinate, 774 for sacred Ilium was odious to them from the first, and Priam and his people, on account of the infatuation of Paris, who had insulted the goddesses, when they came to his cottage, and preferred her who gratified his destructive lust. 775 But when the twelfth morning from that had arisen, then indeed Ph\u0153bus Apollo spoke amongst the immortals:\nFootnote 774: (return) After \u1f14\u03c7\u03bf\u03bd supply \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u03b4\u03b9\u03ac\u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd (with Schol.)=\u201ckept their determination.\u201d\nFootnote 775: (return) Payne Knight would reject vers. 23\u201430, considering the word \u03bc\u03b1\u03c7\u03bb\u03bf\u03c3\u03cd\u03bd\u03b7\u03bd as un-Homeric. If they are genuine, they furnish the earliest mention of the judgment of Paris. Cf. Mollus on Longus, Past. iii. 27; Intpp. on Hygin. Fab. xcii.\n\u201cCruel ye are, O gods, [and] injurious. Has not Hector indeed formerly burned for you the thighs of bulls and chosen goats? whom now, although being dead, ye will not venture to take away for his wife, and mother, his son, and his father Priam, and the people to behold; who would quickly burn him with fire, and perform his funeral rites. But ye wish to bestow favour, O gods, upon destructive Achilles, to whom there is neither just disposition, nor flexible feelings in his breast; who is skilled in savage deeds, as a lion, which, yielding to the impulse of his mighty strength and haughty soul, attacks the flocks of men, that he may take a repast. Thus has Achilles lost all compassion, nor in him is there sense of shame, which greatly hurts and profits men. For perhaps some one will lose another more dear, either a brother, or a son; yet does he cease weeping and lamenting, for the Destinies have placed in men an enduring mind. But this man drags godlike Hector around the tomb of his dear companion, binding him to his chariot, after he has taken away his dear life; yet truly this is neither more honourable, nor better for him. [Let him beware] lest we be indignant with him, brave as he is, because, raging, he insults even the senseless clay.\u201d\nBut him the white-armed Juno, indignant, addressed: \u201cThis truly might be our language, O God of the silver bow, if now thou assignest equal honour to Achilles and to Hector. Hector indeed is a mortal, and sucked a woman\u2019s breast; but Achilles is the offspring of a goddess, whom I myself both nurtured and educated, and gave as a wife to the hero Peleus, who is dear to the immortals in their heart: and ye were all present at the nuptials, 776 O gods; and thou didst feast amongst them, holding thy lyre, O companion of the evil, ever faithless.\u201d\nBut her cloud-compelling Jove, answering, addressed:\n\u201c\u039f Juno, be not now completely enraged with the gods; for their honour shall not be at all equal: but Hector also was the dearest of mortals to the gods, of [those] who are in Ilium; for thus was he to me; for never did he miss [offering] pleasing gifts. For never did my altar lack the fitting banquet, or incense, or odour: for this honour are we allotted. Yet let us forego to steal away bold Hector; (nor is it at all practicable without the knowledge of Achilles;) for he is ever by him both by night and day, like as a mother. But let some of the gods call Thetis near me, that to her I may tell prudent advice, in order that Achilles may receive gifts from Priam, and ransom Hector.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but Iris, swift as the whirlwind, rose up, about to bear his message. Half way between Samos and rugged Imbrus she plunged into the dark sea, and the ocean groaned. She sank to the bottom like unto a leaden ball, 777 which, [placed] along the horn of a wild bull, entering, descends, bearing death to the raw-devouring fishes. But she found Thetis in her hollow cave, and the other sea goddesses sat around her, assembled together; she indeed, in the midst, lamented the fate of her own blameless son, who was about to perish in fertile Troy, far away from his native land. But her swift-footed Iris, standing near, addressed:\nFootnote 776: (return) See Grote, vol. i. p. 257.\nFootnote 777: (return) The only clear explanation of this passage seems to be that of the traveller Clarke, quoted by Kennedy, as follows: \u201cThe Greeks in fishing let their line, with the lead at the end, run over a piece of horn fixed at the side of the boat,\u201d to prevent, as Kennedy remarks, the wear from friction. Pollux, x. 30, 31, merely mentions the \u03bc\u03bf\u03bb\u03c5\u03b2\u03b4\u03b1\u03af\u03bd\u03b7 among the implements of fishermen; but says nothing of the manner in which it was used.\n\u201cRise, O Thetis; Jove, skilled in imperishable counsels, calls thee.\u201d\nHer then the silver-footed goddess Thetis answered:\n\u201cWhy does that mighty god call me? I am ashamed to mix with the immortals, for I have innumerable griefs in my soul. Yet must I go; for the word which he utters will not be in vain.\u201d\nThus having spoken, the divine one of goddesses took her dark robe, than which no garment is blacker. And she set out to go, whilst wind-footed, fleet Iris led the way; and the water of the sea retired on each side of them. 778 Next ascending the shore, they were impelled up to heaven. They found the far-sounding son of Saturn; and all the other blessed immortal gods sat assembled around him; but she then sat down beside father Jove, and Minerva gave place to her. Then Juno placed a beautiful golden goblet in her hand, and consoled her with words; and Thetis having drunk, returned it. But to them the father of men and gods began discourse:\n\u201cThou hast come to Olympus, although sad, \u039f goddess Thetis, having in thy mind a grief not to be forgotten; and I know it. Yet even thus will I speak, and on this account have I called thee hither. Nine days has a contest already been excited amongst the immortals respecting the body of Hector, and Achilles the destroyer of cities, and they have urged the watchful slayer of Argus to steal him. But I bestow this glory 779 on Achilles, securing for the future thy respect and love. Descend very speedily to the camp, and give orders to thy son. Tell him that the gods are offended, and that I am angry above all the immortals, because with infuriated mind he detains Hector at the crooked barks, nor has released him: if perchance he will revere me, and restore Hector. Meanwhile I will despatch Iris to magnanimous Priam, that, going to the ships of the Greeks, he may ransom his beloved son, and carry offerings to Achilles, which may melt his soul.\u201d\nFootnote 778: (return) \u201cAt Il. \u03c8. 231: \u03b7\u03bb\u03b5\u03af\u03b4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b4' \u03ac\u03c0\u1f78 \u03c0\u03c5\u03c1\u03ba\u03b1\u0390\u03b7\u03c2 \u1f11\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03c9\u03c3\u03b5 \u03bb\u03b9\u03b1\u03c3\u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03c2, going away, or aside from the pyre. And so \u03bd\u03cc\u03c3\u03c6\u03b9 \u03bb\u03b9\u03b1\u03c3\u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03c2, II. \u03b1. 349, \u03bb. 80. One of the plainest instances of the same sense is at Il. \u03c9. 96, of the waves, which make way for the goddesses as they rise from the depths of the sea, which turn aside, and yield them a passage.\u201d\u2014Buttm. Lexil. p. 404.\nFootnote 779: (return) \u201cThe sense is: I have not sanctioned the proposal that the body of Hector should be removed furtively, in order that an opportunity might be offered to Achilles of receiving a ransom for it, which would redound to his glory.\u201d\u2014Kennedy.\nThus he spoke; nor did the silver-footed goddess Thetis disobey; but, rushing impetuously, she descended down from the tops of Olympus. Then she came to the tent of her son, and found him within, moaning continually, whilst around him his dear comrades were busily occupied, and prepared a feast, for a great thick-fleeced sheep had been slaughtered by them in the tent. But his venerable mother sat down very near him, and caressed him with her hand, and spoke, and addressed him:\n\u201cO my son, how long, grieving and bewailing, wilt thou afflict thine heart, being not at all mindful of either food or bed? But it is good to be mingled in love with a woman; for thou shalt not live long for me, but Death and stern Fate already stand near thee. But quickly attend to me, for I am a messenger to thee from Jove. He says that the gods are angry with thee, and that he himself above all the immortals is enraged, because with furious mind thou detainest Hector at the hollow ships, nor dost release him. But come, release him, and receive ransoms for the dead body.\u201d\nBut her swift-footed Achilles, answering, addressed:\n\u201cLet him approach hither, who may bear the ransoms, and bear away the body, if indeed the Olympian himself now commands it with a serious mind.\u201d Thus they indeed, the mother and the son, amongst the assemblage of the ships, spoke many winged words to each other; but the son of Saturn impelled Iris towards sacred Ilium:\n\u201cGo quickly, fleet Iris, having left the seat of Olympus, order magnanimous Priam to ransom his dear son to Ilium, going to the ships of the Greeks; and to carry gifts to Achilles, which may appease his mind, alone; nor let another man of the Trojans go with him. Let some aged herald accompany him, who may guide his mules and well-wheeled chariot, and may bear back to the city the dead body which noble Achilles has slain; nor let death at all be a cause of anxiety to his mind, nor at all a terror; such a conductor, the slayer of Argus, will we give to him, who shall lead him, until, directing, he shall place him beside Achilles. But when he shall have conducted him into the tent of Achilles, he will not kill him himself, and he will ward off all others; for he is neither imprudent, nor rash, nor profane; but will very humanely spare a suppliant man.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but wind-footed Iris rushed on, about to carry her message. She came to [the palace] of Priam, and found wailing and lamentation. His sons, sitting around their father within the hall, were drenching their robes with tears; whilst the old man sat in the midst, covered entirely 780 with a cloak; but much filth was around upon the head and neck of the aged man, which, while rolling [on the ground], he had abundantly collected 781 with his own hands. But his daughters and daughters-in-law throughout the dwelling lamented, remembering those who, many and brave, lay, having lost their lives by the hands of the Greeks. Then the ambassadress of Jove stood beside Priam, and addressed him in an under-tone; and tremor seized him as to his limbs:\n\u201cTake courage, O Dardanian Priam, in thy mind, nor fear at all; for indeed I come not hither boding 782 evil to thee, but meditating good; for I am an ambassadress from Jove to thee, who, though being far off, greatly cares for and pities thee. The Olympian bids thee ransom noble Hector, and bear presents to Achilles, which may melt his soul; thee alone, nor let another man of the Trojans go with thee. But let some aged herald accompany thee, who may guide thy mules and well-wheeled chariot, and bring back to the city the dead which noble Achilles has slain. Nor let death be a cause of anxiety to thy mind, nor fear at all such a conductor; the slayer of Argus shall attend thee, who shall lead thee, until, guiding, he shall bring thee near Achilles. But when he shall have led thee into the tent of Achilles, he will not slay thee himself, and he will ward off all others; for he is neither imprudent, nor rash, nor profane; but will very humanely spare a suppliant man.\u201d\nFootnote 780: (return) I take \u03ad\u03bd\u03c4\u03c5\u03c0\u1f70\u03c2 adverbially, with Eustathius, p. 1474, and understand that he was \u201cso completely enfolded, as to exhibit the entire contour of his person\u201d (Kennedy), with the Schol. Hesych. t.i.p. 1264. Phavorinus, Suidas, and the Schol. on Appoll. Rh. 264. Ernesti well expresses the idea: \u201c\u1f18\u03bd\u03c4\u03c5\u03c0\u1f70\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b5\u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03c5\u03bc\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 est, qui ita adstrinxit vestem, eique se involvit, ut tota corporis figura appareat, quod secus est in toga et pallio aut stola.\u201d\nFootnote 781: (return) Literally, \u201creaped, cropped.\u201d\nFootnote 782: (return) See Buttmann, Lexii. p. 445\nThus having spoken, swift-footed Iris departed. But he ordered his sons to prepare his well-wheeled mule-drawn chariot, and to tie a chest upon it; but he descended into an odoriferous chamber of cedar, lofty-roofed, which contained many rarities, and called in his wife Hecuba, and said:\n\u201cUnhappy one, an Olympian messenger has come to me from Jove, [that I should] ransom my dear son, going to the ships of the Greeks, and should bear gifts to Achilles, which may melt his soul. But come, tell this to me, what does it appear to thee in thy mind? For my strength and courage vehemently urge me myself to go thither to the ships, into the wide army of the Greeks.\u201d\nThus he spoke: but his spouse wept, and answered him in words:\n\u201cAh me, where now is thy prudence gone, for which thou wast formerly distinguished among foreigners, and among those whom thou dost govern? Why dost thou wish to go alone to the ships of the Greeks, before the eyes of the man who slew thy many and brave sons? Certainly an iron heart is thine. For if this cruel and perfidious man shall take and behold 783 thee with his eyes, he will not pity thee, nor will he at all respect thee. But let us now lament him apart, 784 sitting in the hall; but [let it be] as formerly to him, at his birth violent fate spun his thread, when I brought him forth, that he should satiate the swift-footed dogs at a distance from his own parents, with that fierce man, the very middle of whose liver I wish that I had hold of, that, clinging to it, I might devour it; then would the deeds done against my son be repaid; for he did not slay him behaving as a coward, but standing forth in defence of the Trojan men and deep-bosomed Trojan dames, neither mindful of flight nor of receding.\u201d\nFootnote 783: (return) A somewhat awkward inversion of the sense.\nFootnote 784: (return) I.e. without the body of Hector being at hand.\nBut her again the aged, godlike Priam addressed:\n\u201cDo not detain me, desirous to go, nor be thou thyself an evil-omen bird in my palaces; nor shalt thou persuade me. For if indeed any other of earthly beings had ordered me, whether they be prophets, soothsayers, or priests, we might have pronounced it a falsehood, and been the more averse. But now since I myself have heard it from a deity, and have beheld her face to face, I will go, nor shall this word be vain and if it be my fate to die at the ships of the brazen-mailed Greeks, I am willing; for Achilles will forthwith, slay me, embracing my son in my arms, after I have taken away the desire of weeping.\u201d\nHe spoke; and opened the beautiful lids of the chests, and took out thence twelve beautiful mantles, twelve single cloaks, as many tapestried rugs, and, in addition to these, as many tunics; and having weighed it, he took out ten whole talents of gold. He took out beside two glittering tripods, and four goblets, and a very beautiful cup, which the Thracian men had given him when going on an embassy, a mighty possession. Nor now did the old man spare even this in his palaces; for he greatly wished in his mind to ransom his dear son. And he drove away all the Trojans from his porch, chiding them with reproachful words:\n\u201cDepart, wretched, reproachful [creatures]; is there not indeed grief to you at home, that ye should come fretting me? Or do ye esteem it of little consequence that Jove, the son of Saturn, has sent sorrows upon me, that I should have lost my bravest son? But ye too shall perceive it, for ye will be much more easy for the Greeks to destroy now, he being dead; but I will descend even to the abode of Hades, before I behold with mine eyes the city sacked and plundered.\u201d\nHe spoke; and chased away the men with his staff; but they went out, the old man driving [them]. He indeed rebuked his own sons, reviling Helenus, Paris, and godlike Agathon, Pammon, Antiphonus, and Polites, brave in the din of battle, De\u00efphobus, Hippothous, and renowned Dius. To these nine the old man, reproaching, gave orders:\n\u201cHaste for me, O slothful children, disgraceful; would that you had all been slain at the swift ships, instead of Hector. Ah me! the most unhappy of all, since I have begotten the bravest sons in wide Troy; but none of whom I think is left: godlike Mestor, and Troulus, who fought from his chariot, and Hector, who was a god among men, for he did not appear to be the son of a mortal man, but of a god. These indeed has Mars destroyed to me; but all these disgraces remain, liars, dancers, 785 most skilled in the choirs, and public robbers of lambs and kids. Will ye not with all haste get ready my chariot, and place all these things upon it, that we may perform our journey?\u201d\nFootnote 785: (return) Cicero pro Mur\u00e6na, vi., \u201cSaltatorem appellat L. Mur\u00e6nam Cato Maledictum est, si vere objicitur, vehementis accusatoris.\u201d Cf. \u00c6n. ix. 614.\nThus he spoke; but they, dreading the reproach of their father, lifted out the well-wheeled, mule-drawn chariot, beautiful, newly built, and tied the chest 786 upon it. They then took down the yoke for the mules from the pin, made of box-wood, and embossed, well fitted with rings, and then they brought out the yoke-band, nine cubits in length, along with the yoke. And this indeed they adjusted carefully to the pole at its extremity, and threw the ring over the bolt. Thrice they lapped it on either side to the boss; and when they had fastened, they turned it evenly under the bend; then, bearing the inestimable ransoms of Hector\u2019s head from the chamber, they piled them upon the well-polished car. Then they yoked the strong-hoofed mules, patient in labour, which the Mysians formerly gave to Priam, splendid gifts. They also led under the yoke for Priam, the horses, which the old man himself had fed at the well-polished manger. These indeed the herald and Priam yoked in the lofty palace, having prudent counsels in their minds. But near them came Hecuba, with sad mind, bearing sweet wine in her right hand, in a golden goblet, in order that having made libations, they might depart. But she stood before the steeds, and spoke, and addressed them:\n\u201cTake, 787 offer a libation to father Jove, and pray that thou mayest return home again from the hostile men; since indeed thy mind urges thee to the ships, I at least not being willing. But do thou pray now to the dark, cloud-compelling Id\u00e6an son of Saturn, who looks down upon all Troy; but seek the fleet bird, his messenger, which to him is the most pleasing of birds, and whose strength is very great, on thy right hand, so that, marking him thyself with thine eyes, thou mayest go, relying on him, to the ships of the fleet-horsed Greeks. But if wide-viewing Jove will not give thee his own messenger, I would not at all then, urging, advise thee to go to the ships of the Greeks, though very eager.\u201d\nFootnote 786: (return) A kind of wicker hamper. Cf. Hesych. t. ii. p. 921.\nFootnote 787: (return) See \u03be. 219.\nBut her godlike Priam answering, addressed:\n\u201cO spouse, certainly I will not disobey thee, advising this; for it is good to raise one\u2019s hands to Jove, if perchance he may compassionate me.\u201d\nThe old man spoke, and bade the attending servant pour pure water upon his hands; for a handmaid stood by, holding in her hands a basin, and also an ewer; and having washed himself, he took the goblet from his wife. Then he prayed, standing in the midst of the enclosure, and poured out a libation of wine, looking towards heaven; and raising his voice, spoke:\n\u201cO father Jove, ruling from Ida, most glorious, most great, grant me to come acceptable and pitied to [the tent] of Achilles; and send the swift bird, thy messenger, which is the most agreeable of birds to thee, and whose strength is very great, on my right hand; that I myself, perceiving him with my eyes, may go, relying on him, to the ships of the fleet-horsed Greeks.\u201d\nThus he spoke, praying; but to him provident Jove hearkened, and immediately sent an eagle, the Black Hunter, the most certain augury of birds, which they also call Percnos. 788 As large as the well-bolted, closely-fitted door of the lofty-roofed chamber of a wealthy man, so great were its wings on each side; and it appeared to them, rushing on the right hand over the city. But they, having seen it, rejoiced, and the soul was overjoyed in their bosoms. Then the old man, hastening, mounted his polished car, and drove out of the vestibule and much-echoing porch. Before, indeed, the mules drew the four-wheeled car, which prudent Id\u00e6us drove; but after [came] the horses, which the old man cheered on, driving briskly through the city with his lash; but all his friends accompanied, greatly weeping for him, as if going to death. But when they had descended from the city, and reached the plain, his sons and sons-in-law then returned to Ilium. Nor did these two, advancing on the plain, escape the notice of far-seeing Jove; but, seeing the old man, he pitied him, and straightway addressed his beloved son:\nFootnote 788: (return) See Alberti on Hesych. t. ii. pp. 622, 941; Villois on Apoll. Lex. p. 556.\n\u201cO Mercury (for to thee it is peculiarly grateful to associate with man, and thou hearest whomsoever thou art willing), go now, and so convey Priam to the hollow ships of the Greeks, that neither any one may see him, nor indeed any of the other Greeks perceive him until he reach the son of Peleus.\u201d\nThus he spoke; nor did the messenger, the son of Argus. disobey. 789 Immediately then he fastened under his feet his beautiful sandals, ambrosial, golden, which carry him as well over the sea, as over the boundless earth, with the blasts of the wind. He also took his rod, with which he soothes the eyes of those men whom he wishes, and again excites others who are asleep; holding this in his hands, the powerful slayer of Argus flew along. But he immediately reached the Troad and the Hellespont, and hastened to go, like unto a princely youth, first springing into youth, whose youth is very graceful. And they, when they had driven by the great tomb of Ilus, stopped their mules and horses, that they might drink in the river; for even now twilight had come over the earth. But the herald, spying, observed Mercury near, and addressed Priam, and said:\nFootnote 789: (return) Compare Milton, P.L. v. 285, sqq., with Newton\u2019s note.\n\u201cBeware, O descendant of Dardanus; this is matter for prudent thought. I perceive a warrior, and I think that he will soon destroy us. But come, let us fly upon our steeds; or let us now, grasping his knees, entreat him, if he would pity us.\u201d Thus he spoke, but the mind of the old man was confounded, and he greatly feared; but the hair stood upright on his bending limbs. And he stood stupified; but Mercury himself coming near, taking the old man\u2019s hand, interrogated, and addressed him:\n\u201cWhither, O father, dost thou this way direct thy horses and mules during the ambrosial night, when other mortals are asleep? Dost thou not fear the valour-breathing Greeks, who, enemies and hostile to thee, are at hand? If any one of these should see thee in the dark and dangerous night, bearing off so many valuables, what intention would then be towards thee? Neither art thou young thyself, and this [is] an old man who accompanies thee, to repel a warrior when first any may molest thee. But I will not do thee injury, but will avert another from thee, for I think thee like my dear father.\u201d\nBut him Priam, the godlike old man, then answered:\n\u201cSurely these things are as thou sayest, my dear son. But hitherto some one of the gods has protected me with his hand, who has sent such a favourable conductor to meet me, so beautiful art thou in form and appearance. And thou art also prudent in mind, and of blessed parents.\u201d But him again the messenger, the slayer of Argus, addressed: \u201cO old man, thou hast certainly spoken all these things with propriety. But come, tell me this, and relate it truly; whither now dost thou send so many and such valuable treasures amongst foreigners? Whether that these, at least, may remain safe to thee? Or do ye all, now fearing, desert sacred Ilium? For so brave a hero, was he who died, thy son; he was not in aught inferior to the Greeks in battle.\u201d\nBut him Priam, the godlike old man, then answered:\n\u201cBut who art thou, O best one, and of what parents art thou, who speakest so honourably to me of the death of my luckless son?\u201d\nBut him again the messenger, the slayer of Argus, addressed:\n\u201cThou triest me, old man. and inquirest concerning noble Hector; whom I, indeed, have very often beheld with mine eyes in the glorious fight, when, routing the Greeks, he slew them at their ships, destroying [them] with his sharp spear; but we, standing, marvelled; for Achilles, enraged with the son of Atreus, did not permit us to fight. But I am his attendant, and the same well-made vessel brought us. I am [one] of the Myrmidons; Polyetor is my father, who, indeed, is rich, but now old as thou. To him there are six sons, but I am his seventh; with whom casting lots, the lot occurred to me to follow [Achilles] hither. And I came to the plain from the ships, for at dawn the rolling-eyed Greeks will raise a fight around the city. For they are indignant sitting quiet, nor can the chiefs of the Greeks restrain them, longing for war.\u201d\nBut him then Priam, the godlike old man, answered:\n\u201cIf indeed thou art one of the servants of Achilles, the son of Peleus, come now, tell all the truth to me, whether is my son still at the ships, or has Achilles, tearing him limb from limb, cast him to the dogs?\u201d\nBut him the messenger, the slayer of Argus, again addressed:\n\u201cO old man, neither have the dogs yet devoured him, nor the birds, but he still lies at the ship of Achilles, in the same plight as before, at his tents; and it is [now] the twelfth morning him lying, yet his body is not at all putrid, nor do the worms devour him, which consume men slain in battle. Doubtless he will drag him cruelly around the tomb of his dear companion when divine morn appears; but he does not defile him. Approaching, thou indeed thyself wouldst wonder how fresh 790 he lies, while the blood is washed away from around, nor [is he] polluted in any part. But all his wounds are closed, whatever were inflicted; for many thrust a spear into him. Thus do the happy gods regard thy son, though dead; for he was dear to them in their heart.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but the old man rejoiced, and answered in words:\n\u201cO son, surely it is good to give due gifts to the immortals, for my son, while he was yet in being, never neglected the gods who possess Olympus, in his palace; therefore are they mindful of him, although in the fate of death. But come now, accept from me this beautiful goblet; protect myself, 791 and, with the favour of the gods, conduct me until I come into the tent of the son of Peleus.\u201d\nFootnote 790: (return) Literally, \u201cdew-like,\u201d See Kennedy.\nFootnote 791: (return) Heyne prefers, \u201ceffect for me the ransom of the body,\u201d quoting Hesych., \u1fe5\u03cd\u03b5\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9, \u03bb\u03bf\u03c4\u03c1\u03ce\u03c3\u03b1\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9.\nBut him the slayer of Argus again addressed: \u201cOld man, thou triest me, [being] younger; nor wilt thou now persuade me; thou who orderest me to accept thy gifts unknown to Achilles; whom indeed I dread, and scruple in my heart to plunder, lest some evil should afterwards come upon me. Yet would I go as a conductor to thee even to renowned Argos, sedulously, in a swift ship, or accompanying thee on foot; nor, indeed, would any one contend with thee, despising thy guide.\u201d\nMercury spoke, and, leaping upon the chariot and horses, quickly took the scourge and the reins in his hands, and breathed bold vigour into the horses and mules. But when they had now reached the ramparts and trench of the ships, then the guards were just employed about their feast, and the messenger, the slayer of Argus, poured sleep upon them all; and immediately he opened the gates and pushed back the bars, and led in Priam, and the splendid gifts upon the car. But when they reached the lofty tent of Achilles which the Myrmidons had reared for their king, lopping fir timbers; and they roofed it over with a thatched roof, mowing it from the mead, and made a great fence around, with thick-set stakes, for their king: one bar only of fir held the door, which, indeed, three Greeks used to fasten, and three used to open the great fastening of the gates; but Achilles even alone used to shoot it. Then, indeed, profitable Mercury opened it for the old man, and led in the splendid presents to swift-footed Achilles; then he descended to the ground, from the chariot, and said:\n\u201cO old man, I indeed come, an immortal god, Mercury, to thee; for to thee my father sent me as companion. Yet shall I return indeed, nor be present before the eyes of Achilles; for it would indeed be invidious for an immortal god so openly to aid mortals. But do thou, entering, clasp the knees of the son of Peleus, and supplicate him by his father, and fair-haired mother, and his son; that thou mayest effect his mind.\u201d\nThus, indeed, having spoken, Mercury went to lofty Olympus; and Priam leaped from his chariot to the ground, and left Id\u00e6us there: but he remained, guarding the steeds and mules; while the old man went straight into the tent, where Achilles, dear to Jove, was sitting. Himself he found within; but his companions sat apart; but two alone, the hero Automedon, and Alcimus, a branch of Mars, standing near, were ministering to him (for, eating and drinking, he had just ceased from food, and the table still remained); but great Priam, entering, escaped his notice, and, standing near, he clasped the knees of Achilles with his hands, and kissed his dreadful man-slaughtering hands, which had slain many sons to him. And as when a dread sense of guilt has seized a man, who, having killed a man in his own country, comes to another people, to [the abode of] some wealthy man, 792 and stupor possesses the spectators; so Achilles wondered, seeing godlike Priam; and the others also wondered, and looked at one another. And Priam, supplicating, spoke [this] speech:\nFootnote 792: (return) Probably for the purpose of purification, although, as has been before observed, Homer does not mention this. Compare my note on \u00c6sch. Eum. p. 187, n. 5, and p. 187, n. 1, ed. Bonn.\n\u201cRemember thy own father, O Achilles, like unto the gods, of equal age with me, upon the sad threshold of old age. And perhaps indeed his neighbours around are perplexing him, nor is there any one to ward off war and destruction. Yet he indeed, hearing of thee being alive, both rejoices in his mind, and every day expects to see his dear son returned from Troy. But I [am] every way unhappy, for I begat the bravest sons in wide Troy, of whom I say that none are left. Fifty there were to me, when the sons of the Greeks arrived; nineteen indeed from one womb, but the others women bore to me in my palaces. And of the greater number fierce Mars indeed has relaxed the knees under them; but Hector, who was my favourite, 793 and defended the city and ourselves, thou hast lately slain, fighting for his country; on account of whom I now come to the ships of the Greeks, and bring countless ransoms, in order to redeem him from thee. But revere the gods, O Achilles, and have pity on myself, remembering thy father; for I am even more miserable, for I have endured what no other earthly mortal [has], to put to my mouth the hand of a man, the slayer of my son.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but in him he excited the desire of mourning for his father; and taking him by the hand, he gently pushed the old man from him. But they indeed, calling to mind, the one 794 wept copiously [for] man-slaughtering Hector, rolling [on the ground] before the feet of Achilles; but Achilles bewailed his father, and again in turn Patroclus; and their lamentation was aroused throughout the house. But when noble Achilles had satiated himself with grief, and the desire [for weeping] had departed from his heart and limbs, immediately rising from his seat, he lifted up the old man with his hand, compassionating both his hoary head and hoary chin; and, addressing him, spoke winged words:\nFootnote 793: (return) Literally, \u201cmy only son.\u201d\nFootnote 794: (return) Priam.\n\u201cAlas! wretched one, thou hast certainly suffered many evils in thy mind. How hast thou dared to come alone to the ships of the Greeks, into the sight of the man who slew thy many and brave sons? Assuredly thy heart is iron. But come now, sit upon a seat; and let us permit sorrows to sink to rest within thy mind, although grieved; for there is not any use in chill grief. For so have the gods destined to unhappy mortals, that they should live wretched; but they themselves are free from care. 795 Two casks of gifts, 796which he bestows, lie at the threshold of Jupiter, [the one] of evils, and the other of good. To whom thunder-rejoicing Jove, mingling, may give them, sometimes he falls into evil, but sometimes into good; but to whomsoever he gives of the evil, he makes him exposed to injury; and hungry calamity pursues him over the bounteous earth; and he wanders about, honoured neither by gods nor men. So indeed have the gods given illustrious gifts to Peleus from his birth; for he was conspicuous among men, both for riches and wealth, and he ruled over the Myrmidons, and to him, being a mortal, they gave a goddess for a wife. 797 But upon him also has a deity inflicted evil, for there was not to him in his palaces an offspring of kingly sons; but he begat one short-lived son; nor indeed do I cherish him, being old, for I remain in Troy, far away from my country, causing sorrow to thee and to thy sons. Thee too, old man, we learn to have been formerly wealthy: as much as Lesbos, above the seat of Macar, cuts off on the north, and Phrygia beneath, and the boundless Hellespont: among these, O old man, they say that thou wast conspicuous for thy wealth and thy sons. But since the heavenly inhabitants have brought this bane upon thee, wars and the slaying of men are constantly around thy city. Arise, nor grieve incessantly in thy mind; for thou wilt not profit aught, afflicting thyself for thy son, nor wilt thou resuscitate him before thou hast suffered another misfortune.\u201d\nFootnote 795: (return) This Epicurean sentiment is illustrated with great learning by Duport, pp. 140, sqq.\nFootnote 796: (return) See Duport, pp. 142, sqq.\nFootnote 797: (return) Catullus, lxii. 25: \u201cTeque adeo eximie t\u00e6dis felicibus aucte Thessali\u00e6 columen Peleu, quoi Juppiter ipse, Ipse suos div\u00fbm genitor concessit amores.\u201d\nBut him Priam, the godlike old man, then, answered:\n\u201cDo not at all place me on a seat, \u039f Jove-nurtured, whilst Hector lies unburied in thy tents; but redeem him as soon as possible, that I may behold him with mine eyes; and do thou receive the many ransoms which we bring thee; and mayest thou enjoy them, and reach thy father-land, since thou hast suffered me in the first place to live, and to behold the light of the sun.\u201d\nBut him swift-footed Achilles, sternly regarding, then addressed:\n\u201cDo not irritate me further, old man, for I also myself meditate ransoming Hector to thee; for the mother who bore me, the daughter of the marine old man, came as a messenger from Jove to me. And I perceive thee also, O Priam, in my mind, nor do thou deceive me, that some one of the gods has led thee to the swift ships of the Greeks; for a mortal would not have dared to come into the camp, not even in very blooming youth, for he could not have escaped the guards, nor indeed pushed back the bars of our gates. Wherefore do not move my mind more to sorrows, lest I leave thee not unharmed, old man, in my tents, though being a suppliant, and violate the commands of Jove.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but the old man feared, and obeyed. But the son of Peleus leaped forth, like a lion, from the door of the house, not alone; for two attendants accompanied him, the hero Automedon, and Alcimus, whom Achilles honoured most of his companions next after the deceased Patroclus. These then unharnessed the horses and mules from the yoke, and led in the clear-voiced herald of the old man, and placed him upon a seat. They also took down from the well-polished car the countless ransoms of Hector\u2019s head. But they left two cloaks and a well-woven tunic, in order that, having covered the body, he might give it to be borne home. But having called his female attendants, he ordered them to wash and anoint all round, taking it apart, that Priam might not see his son; lest, seeing his son, he might not restrain the wrath in his grieving heart, and might arouse the soul of Achilles, and he might slay him, and violate the commands of Jove. But when the servants had washed and anointed it with oil, they then threw over him a beautiful cloak, and a tunic; then Achilles himself, having raised him up, placed him upon a litter, and his companions, together with [him], lifted him upon the well-polished chariot. But he moaned, and called upon his dear companion by name:\n\u201cO Patroclus, be not wrathful with me, if thou shouldst hear, although being in Hades, that I have ransomed noble Hector to his beloved father, since he has not given me unworthy ransoms. Besides even of these will I give thee a share, whatever is just.\u201d\nNoble Achilles spoke, and returned into the tent, and sat down upon a well-made couch, whence he had risen, at the opposite wall, and addressed Priam:\n\u201cThy son is indeed redeemed to thee, as thou didst desire, and lies upon a bier; and with the early dawn thou shalt behold him, conveying [him away]: but now let us be mindful of the feast; for even fair-haired Niobe was mindful of food, although twelve children perished in her palaces, six daughters and six youthful sons; these indeed Apollo slew with his silver bow, enraged with Niobe; but those, arrow-rejoicing Diana, because, forsooth, she had compared herself with fair-cheeked Latona. She said that [Latona] had borne [only] two, whereas she had borne many; yet those, though being only two, destroyed all [her own]. Nine days indeed they lay in blood, nor was there any one to bury them, for the son of Saturn had made the people stones; but upon the tenth day the heavenly gods interred them. Still was she mindful of food, when she was fatigued with weeping. Now, indeed, ever amidst the rocks, in the desert mountains, in Sipylus, where, they say, the beds of the goddess Nymphs are, who lead the dance around Achelo\u00fcs, there, although being a stone, she broods over the sorrows [sent] from the gods. But come now, O noble old man, let us likewise attend to food, but afterwards thou mayest lament thy beloved son, conveying him into Troy; and he will be bewailed by thee with many tears.\u201d\nSwift Achilles spoke, and leaping up, slew a white sheep, and his companions flayed it well, and fitly dressed it; then they skilfully cut it in pieces, pierced them with spits, roasted them diligently, and drew them all off. Then Automedon, taking bread, distributed it over the table in beautiful baskets; whilst Achilles helped the meat, and they stretched out their hands to the prepared victuals lying before them. But when they had dismissed the desire of food and drink, Dardanian Priam indeed marvelled at Achilles, such and so great; for he was like unto the gods; but Achilles marvelled at Dardanian Priam, seeing his amiable countenance, and hearing his conversation. When, however, they were satisfied with gazing at each other, him Priam, the godlike old man, first addressed:\n\u201cSend me now to rest as soon as possible, \u039f Jove-nurtured, that we, reclining, may take our fill of sweet sleep; for never have these eyes been closed beneath my eyelids from the time when my son lost his life by thy hands; but I ever lament and cherish many woes, rolling in the dust within the enclosures of my palaces. But now I have tasted food, and poured sweet wine down my throat; for before indeed I had not tasted it.\u201d\nHe spoke; but Achilles ordered his companions, servants, and maids, to place couches beneath the porch, and to spread beautiful purple mats on them, and to strew embroidered carpets over them, and to lay on them well-napped cloaks, to be drawn over all. But they went out of the hall, having a torch in their hands, and hastening, they quickly spread two couches. But the swift-footed Achilles, jocularly addressing him, 798 said:\nFootnote 798: (return) \u201cAchilles, in a mood partly jocular and partly serious, reminds Priam of the real circumstances of his situation, not for the sake of alarming him, but of accounting for his choosing the place he did for the couch of the aged king.\u201d\u2014Kennedy.\n\u201cDo you lie without, O revered old man, lest some counsellor of the Greeks come hither, who, sitting with me, constantly meditate plans, as is just. If any of these should see thee in the dark and dangerous night, he would forthwith tell Agamemnon, the shepherd of the people, and perchance there would be a delay of the redemption of the body. But come, tell me this, and tell it accurately: How many days dost thou desire to perform the funeral rites of noble Hector, that I may myself remain quiet so long, and restrain the people?\u201d\nBut him Priam, the godlike old man, then answered:\n\u201cIf indeed thou desirest me to celebrate the funeral of noble Hector, thus doing, O Achilles, thou dost surely gratify me. For thou knowest how we are hemmed in within the city, and it is far to carry wood from the mountain; and the Trojans greatly dread [to do so]. Nine days indeed we would lament him in our halls, but on the tenth would bury him, and the people should feast; but upon the eleventh we would make a tomb to him, and on the twelfth we will fight, if necessary.\u201d But him swift-footed Achilles again addressed:\n\u201cThese things shall be to thee, O aged Priam, as thou desirest; for I will prevent the fight as long a time as thou desirest.\u201d\nThus having spoken, he grasped the right hand of the old man near the wrist, lest he should fear in his mind. They indeed, the herald and Priam, slept there in the porch of the house, having prudent counsels in their mind; while Achilles slept in the interior of the well-built tent; and beside him lay fair-cheeked Bris\u00ebis.\nThe other gods indeed and chariot-fighting men slept all night, subdued by gentle slumber; but sleep seized not Mercury, the author of good, revolving in his mind how he should convey away king Priam from the ships, having escaped the notice of the sacred gate-keeper. Accordingly he stood over his head, and addressed him:\n\u201cO aged man, certainly evil is not at all a care to thee, that thou sleepest thus amongst hostile men, after Achilles has suffered thee. Now indeed thou hast ransomed thy beloved son, and hast given much; but the sons left behind by thee would give three times as many ransoms for thee alive, if Agamemnon, the son of Atreus, should know of thy being here, and all the Greeks should know of it.\u201d\nThus he spoke; but the old man feared, and awoke the herald. Then for them Mercury yoked the horses and mules, and quickly drove them himself through the camp, nor did any one perceive. But when they reached the course of the fair-flowing river, eddying Xanthus, which immortal Jove begat, then indeed Mercury went away to lofty Olympus; and saffron-robed Morn was diffused over the whole earth. They indeed drove the horses towards the city with wailing and lamentation, and the mules bore the body; nor did any other of the men and well-girdled women previously perceive it; but Cassandra, like unto golden Venus, ascending Pergamus, discovered her dear father standing in the driving-seat, and the city-summoning herald. She beheld him also upon the mules, lying on the litter; then indeed she shrieked, and cried aloud throughout the whole city:\n\u201cO Trojans and Trojan women, going forth, behold Hector, if ever ye rejoiced at his returning alive from battle; for he was a great joy to the city, and to the whole people.\u201d\nThus she spoke; nor was there any man left in the city, nor woman; for insupportable grief came upon them all, and they met him near the gates bringing in the body. But his wife and venerable mother first rushing to the well-wheeled chariot, plucked out their hair, touching his head; and the crowd stood around, weeping. And they indeed would have wept the whole day till sunset before the gates, lamenting Hector, had not the old man addressed the people from his chariot:\n\u201cGive way to me, to pass through with the mules; but afterwards shall ye be satiated with weeping, after I shall carry him home.\u201d Thus he spoke; but they stood off, and made way for the chariot. But when they had brought him into the illustrious palace, they laid him upon perforated beds, and placed singers beside him, leaders of the dirges, who indeed sang a mournful ditty, while the women also uttered responsive groans. And amongst them white-armed Andromache began the lamentation, holding the head of man-slaughtering Hector between her hands:\n\u201cO husband, young in years hast thou died, and hast left me a widow in the palace. And besides, thy son is thus an infant, to whom thou and I, ill-fated, gave birth; nor do I think he will attain to puberty; for before that, this city will be overthrown from its summit. Certainly thou, the protector, art dead, who didst defend its very self, and didst protect its venerable wives and infant children; who will soon be carried away in the hollow ships, and I indeed amongst them. But thou, O my son, wilt either accompany me, where thou shalt labour unworthy tasks, toiling for a merciless lord; or some one of the Greeks, enraged, seizing thee by the hand, will hurl thee from a tower, to sad destruction; to whom doubtless Hector has slain a brother, or a father, or even a son; for by the hands of Hector very many Greeks have grasped the immense earth with their teeth. For thy father was not gentle in the sad conflict; wherefore indeed the people lament him throughout the city. But thou hast caused unutterable grief and sorrow to thy parents, O Hector, but chiefly to me are bitter sorrows left. For thou didst not stretch out thy hands to me from the couch when dying; nor speak any prudent word [of solace], which I might for ever remember, shedding tears night and day.\u201d\nThus she spoke, bewailing; but the women also lamented; and to them in turn Hecuba began her vehement lamentation:\n\u201cO Hector, far of all my sons dearest to my soul, certainly being alive to me, thou wert beloved by the gods, who truly have had a care of thee, even in the destiny of death. For swift-footed Achilles sold 799 all my other sons, whomsoever he seized, beyond the unfruitful sea, at Samos, Imbrus, and Lemnos without a harbour. But when he had taken away thy life with his long-bladed spear, he often dragged thee round the tomb of his comrade Patroclus, whom thou slewest; but he did not thus raise him up. But now thou liest, to my sorrow, in the palaces, fresh 800 and lately slain like him whom silver-bowed Apollo, attacking, has slain with his mild weapons.\u201d\nFootnote 799: (return) See Grote, vol. i. p. 399.\nFootnote 800: (return) See on ver. 419.\nThus she spoke, weeping; and aroused a vehement lamentation. But to them Helen then, the third, began her lamentation:\n\u201cO Hector, far dearest to my soul of all my brothers-in-law, for godlike Alexander is my husband, he who brought me to Troy:\u2014would that I had perished first. But now already this is the twentieth year to me from the time when I came from thence, and quitted my native land; yet have I never heard from thee a harsh or reproachful word; but if any other of my brothers-in-law, or sisters-in-law, or well-attired husband\u2019s brothers\u2019 wives, reproached me in the palaces, or my mother-in-law (for my father-in-law was ever gentle as a father), then thou, admonishing him with words, didst restrain him, both by thy gentleness and thy gentle words. So that, grieved at heart, I bewail at the same time thee and myself, unhappy; for there is not any other in wide Troy kind and friendly to me; but all abhor me.\u201d\nThus she spoke, weeping; and again the countless throng groaned. And aged Priam spoke [this] speech amongst the people:\n\u201cO Trojans, now bring wood to the city, nor at all fear in your mind a close ambuscade of the Greeks; for Achilles, dismissing me from the dark ships, thus promised me, that he would not commence hostilities, before the twelfth morning should arrive.\u201d\nThus he spoke; and they yoked both oxen and mules beneath the waggons; and then assembled before the city. For nine days indeed they brought together an immense quantity of wood; but when now the tenth morn, bearing light to mortals, had appeared, then indeed, weeping, they carried out noble Hector, and placed the body on the lofty pile, and cast in the fire.\nBut when the mother of dawn, rosy-fingered Morn, appeared, then were the people assembled round the pile of illustrious Hector. But after they were assembled, and collected together, first indeed they extinguished all the pyre with dark wine, as much as the force of the fire had possessed; but then his brothers and companions collected his white bones, weeping, and the abundant tear streamed down their cheeks. And, taking them, they placed them in a golden urn, covering them with soft purple robes, and forthwith deposited it in a hollow grave; and then strewed it above with numerous great stones. But they built up the tomb in haste, and watches sat around on every side, lest the well-greaved Greeks should make an attack too soon. And having heaped up the tomb, they returned; and then being assembled together in order, they feasted on a splendid banquet in the palaces of Priam, the Jove-nurtured king.\nThus indeed they performed the funeral of steed-breaking Hector.\nEND OF THE ILIAD.\nPRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET, AND CHARING CROSS.\n\n\n"}
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{"24269":"\nTranscriber's note\nThe spelling and hyphenation in the original are inconsistent, and have not been changed. A few obvious typographical errors have been corrected. They are marked with mouse-hover popups like this and are listed at the end of the etext. This e-text includes a number of phrases and passages in Greek. Transliterations are available through mouse-hover popups.\nContents\nBOOK I \u2022 BOOK II \u2022 BOOK III \u2022 BOOK IV \u2022 BOOK V \u2022 BOOK VI \u2022 BOOK VII \u2022 BOOK VIII \u2022 BOOK IX \u2022 BOOK X \u2022 BOOK XI \u2022 BOOK XII \u2022 BOOK XIII \u2022 BOOK XIV \u2022 BOOK XV \u2022 BOOK XVI \u2022 BOOK XVII \u2022 BOOK XVIII \u2022 BOOK XIX \u2022 BOOK XX \u2022 BOOK XXI \u2022 BOOK XXII \u2022 BOOK XXIII \u2022 BOOK XXIV \u2022 NOTES \u2022 EVERYMAN\u2019S LIBRARY\n\n\nTHE ODYSSEY\nOF HOMER\nTranslated by\nWILLIAM\nCOWPER\nLONDON: PUBLISHED\nby J\u00b7M\u00b7DENT\u00b7&amp;\u00b7SONS\u00b7LTD\nAND IN NEW YORK\nBY E\u00b7P\u00b7DUTTON &amp; CO\n\n\n\nTO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE\n\nCOUNTESS DOWAGER SPENCER\n\nTHE FOLLOWING TRANSLATION OF THE ODYSSEY, A POEM\nTHAT EXHIBITS IN THE CHARACTER OF ITS HEROINE\nAN EXAMPLE OF ALL DOMESTIC VIRTUE, IS WITH\nEQUAL PROPRIETY AND RESPECT INSCRIBED\nBY HER LADYSHIP\u2019S MOST DEVOTED\nSERVANT, THE AUTHOR.\n\n\n\n\nTHE ODYSSEY OF HOMER\nTRANSLATED INTO\nENGLISH BLANK VERSE\n\n\n\n\nBOOK I\nARGUMENT\nIn a council of the Gods, Minerva calls their attention to Ulysses, still a wanderer. They resolve to grant him a safe return to Ithaca. Minerva descends to encourage Telemachus, and in the form of Mentes directs him in what manner to proceed. Throughout this book the extravagance and profligacy of the suitors are occasionally suggested.\n\nMuse make the man thy theme, for shrewdness famed And genius versatile, who far and wide A Wand\u2019rer, after Ilium overthrown, Discover\u2019d various cities, and the mind And manners learn\u2019d of men, in lands remote. He num\u2019rous woes on Ocean toss\u2019d, endured, Anxious to save himself, and to conduct His followers to their home; yet all his care Preserved them not; they perish\u2019d self-destroy\u2019d By their own fault; infatuate! who devoured 10 The oxen of the all-o\u2019erseeing Sun, And, punish\u2019d for that crime, return\u2019d no more. Daughter divine of Jove, these things record, As it may please thee, even in our ears. The rest, all those who had perdition \u2019scaped By war or on the Deep, dwelt now at home; Him only, of his country and his wife Alike desirous, in her hollow grots Calypso, Goddess beautiful, detained Wooing him to her arms. But when, at length, 20 (Many a long year elapsed) the year arrived Of his return (by the decree of heav\u2019n) To Ithaca, not even then had he, Although surrounded by his people, reach\u2019d The period of his suff\u2019rings and his toils. Yet all the Gods, with pity moved, beheld His woes, save Neptune; He alone with wrath Unceasing and implacable pursued Godlike Ulysses to his native shores. But Neptune, now, the \u00c6thiopians fought, 30 (The \u00c6thiopians, utmost of mankind, These Eastward situate, those toward the West) Call\u2019d to an hecatomb of bulls and lambs. There sitting, pleas\u2019d he banqueted; the Gods In Jove\u2019s abode, meantime, assembled all, \u2019Midst whom the Sire of heav\u2019n and earth began. For he recall\u2019d to mind \u00c6gisthus slain By Agamemnon\u2019s celebrated son Orestes, and retracing in his thought That dread event, the Immortals thus address\u2019d. 40 Alas! how prone are human-kind to blame The Pow\u2019rs of Heav\u2019n! From us, they say, proceed The ills which they endure, yet more than Fate Herself inflicts, by their own crimes incur. So now \u00c6gisthus, by no force constrained Of Destiny, Atrides\u2019 wedded wife Took to himself, and him at his return Slew, not unwarn\u2019d of his own dreadful end By us: for we commanded Hermes down The watchful Argicide, who bade him fear 50 Alike, to slay the King, or woo the Queen. For that Atrides\u2019 son Orestes, soon As grown mature, and eager to assume His sway imperial, should avenge the deed. So Hermes spake, but his advice moved not \u00c6gisthus, on whose head the whole arrear Of vengeance heap\u2019d, at last, hath therefore fall\u2019n. Whom answer\u2019d then Pallas c\u00e6rulean-eyed. Oh Jove, Saturnian Sire, o\u2019er all supreme! And well he merited the death he found; 60 So perish all, who shall, like him, offend. But with a bosom anguish-rent I view Ulysses, hapless Chief! who from his friends Remote, affliction hath long time endured In yonder wood-land isle, the central boss Of Ocean. That retreat a Goddess holds, Daughter of sapient Atlas, who the abyss Knows to its bottom, and the pillars high Himself upbears which sep\u2019rate earth from heav\u2019n. His daughter, there, the sorrowing Chief detains, 70 And ever with smooth speech insidious seeks To wean his heart from Ithaca; meantime Ulysses, happy might he but behold The smoke ascending from his native land, Death covets. Canst thou not, Olympian Jove! At last relent? Hath not Ulysses oft With victims slain amid Achaia\u2019s fleet Thee gratified, while yet at Troy he fought? How hath he then so deep incensed thee, Jove? To whom, the cloud-assembler God replied. 80 What word hath pass\u2019d thy lips, Daughter belov\u2019d? Can I forget Ulysses? Him forget So noble, who in wisdom all mankind Excels, and who hath sacrific\u2019d so oft To us whose dwelling is the boundless heav\u2019n? Earth-circling Neptune\u2014He it is whose wrath Pursues him ceaseless for the Cyclops\u2019 sake Polypheme, strongest of the giant race, Whom of his eye Ulysses hath deprived. For Him, Tho\u00f6sa bore, Nymph of the sea 90 From Phorcys sprung, by Ocean\u2019s mighty pow\u2019r Impregnated in caverns of the Deep. E\u2019er since that day, the Shaker of the shores, Although he slay him not, yet devious drives Ulysses from his native isle afar. Yet come\u2014in full assembly his return Contrive we now, both means and prosp\u2019rous end; So Neptune shall his wrath remit, whose pow\u2019r In contest with the force of all the Gods Exerted single, can but strive in vain. 100 To whom Minerva, Goddess azure-eyed. Oh Jupiter! above all Kings enthroned! If the Immortals ever-blest ordain That wise Ulysses to his home return, Dispatch we then Hermes the Argicide, Our messenger, hence to Ogygia\u2019s isle, Who shall inform Calypso, nymph divine, Of this our fixt resolve, that to his home Ulysses, toil-enduring Chief, repair. Myself will hence to Ithaca, meantime, 110 His son to animate, and with new force Inspire, that (the Achaians all convened In council,) he may, instant, bid depart The suitors from his home, who, day by day, His num\u2019rous flocks and fatted herds consume. And I will send him thence to Sparta forth, And into sandy Pylus, there to hear (If hear he may) some tidings of his Sire, And to procure himself a glorious name. This said, her golden sandals to her feet 120 She bound, ambrosial, which o\u2019er all the earth And o\u2019er the moist flood waft her fleet as air, Then, seizing her strong spear pointed with brass, In length and bulk, and weight a matchless beam, With which the Jove-born Goddess levels ranks Of Heroes, against whom her anger burns, From the Olympian summit down she flew, And on the threshold of Ulysses\u2019 hall In Ithaca, and within his vestibule Apparent stood; there, grasping her bright spear, 130 Mentes1 she seem\u2019d, the hospitable Chief Of Taphos\u2019 isle\u2014she found the haughty throng The suitors; they before the palace gate With iv\u2019ry cubes sported, on num\u2019rous hides Reclined of oxen which themselves had slain. The heralds and the busy menials there Minister\u2019d to them; these their mantling cups With water slaked; with bibulous sponges those Made clean the tables, set the banquet on, And portioned out to each his plenteous share. 140 Long ere the rest Telemachus himself Mark\u2019d her, for sad amid them all he sat, Pourtraying in deep thought contemplative His noble Sire, and questioning if yet Perchance the Hero might return to chase From all his palace that imperious herd, To his own honour lord of his own home. Amid them musing thus, sudden he saw The Goddess, and sprang forth, for he abhorr\u2019d To see a guest\u2019s admittance long delay\u2019d; 150 Approaching eager, her right hand he seized, The brazen spear took from her, and in words With welcome wing\u2019d Minerva thus address\u2019d. Stranger, all hail! to share our cordial love Thou com\u2019st; the banquet finish\u2019d, thou shalt next Inform me wherefore thou hast here arrived. So saying, toward the spacious hall he moved, Follow\u2019d by Pallas, and, arriving soon Beneath the lofty roof, placed her bright spear Within a pillar\u2019s cavity, long time 160 The armoury where many a spear had stood, Bright weapons of his own illustrious Sire. Then, leading her toward a footstool\u2019d throne Magnificent, which first he overspread With linen, there he seated her, apart From that rude throng, and for himself disposed A throne of various colours at her side, Lest, stunn\u2019d with clamour of the lawless band, The new-arrived should loth perchance to eat, And that more free he might the stranger\u2019s ear 170 With questions of his absent Sire address, And now a maiden charg\u2019d with golden ew\u2019r, And with an argent laver, pouring first Pure water on their hands, supplied them, next, With a resplendent table, which the chaste Directress of the stores furnish\u2019d with bread And dainties, remnants of the last regale. Then, in his turn, the sewer2 with sav\u2019ry meats, Dish after dish, served them, of various kinds, And golden cups beside the chargers placed, 180 Which the attendant herald fill\u2019d with wine. Ere long, in rush\u2019d the suitors, and the thrones And couches occupied, on all whose hands The heralds pour\u2019d pure water; then the maids Attended them with bread in baskets heap\u2019d, And eager they assail\u2019d the ready feast. At length, when neither thirst nor hunger more They felt unsatisfied, to new delights Their thoughts they turn\u2019d, to song and sprightly dance, Enlivening sequel of the banquet\u2019s joys. 190 An herald, then, to Phemius\u2019 hand consign\u2019d His beauteous lyre; he through constraint regaled The suitors with his song, and while the chords He struck in prelude to his pleasant strains, Telemachus his head inclining nigh To Pallas\u2019 ear, lest others should his words Witness, the blue-eyed Goddess thus bespake. My inmate and my friend! far from my lips Be ev\u2019ry word that might displease thine ear! The song\u2014the harp,\u2014what can they less than charm 200 These wantons? who the bread unpurchased eat Of one whose bones on yonder continent Lie mould\u2019ring, drench\u2019d by all the show\u2019rs of heaven, Or roll at random in the billowy deep. Ah! could they see him once to his own isle Restored, both gold and raiment they would wish Far less, and nimbleness of foot instead. But He, alas! hath by a wretched fate, Past question perish\u2019d, and what news soe\u2019er We hear of his return, kindles no hope 210 In us, convinced that he returns no more. But answer undissembling; tell me true; Who art thou? whence? where stands thy city? where Thy father\u2019s mansion? In what kind of ship Cam\u2019st thou? Why steer\u2019d the mariners their course To Ithaca, and of what land are they? For that on foot thou found\u2019st us not, is sure. This also tell me, hast thou now arrived New to our isle, or wast thou heretofore My father\u2019s guest? Since many to our house 220 Resorted in those happier days, for he Drew pow\u2019rful to himself the hearts of all. Then Pallas thus, Goddess c\u00e6rulean-eyed. I will with all simplicity of truth Thy questions satisfy. Behold in me Mentes, the offspring of a Chief renown\u2019d In war, Anchialus; and I rule, myself, An island race, the Taphians oar-expert. With ship and mariners I now arrive, Seeking a people of another tongue 230 Athwart the gloomy flood, in quest of brass For which I barter steel, ploughing the waves To Temesa. My ship beneath the woods Of Ne\u00efus, at yonder field that skirts Your city, in the haven Rhethrus rides. We are hereditary guests; our Sires Were friends long since; as, when thou seest him next, The Hero old Laertes will avouch, Of whom, I learn, that he frequents no more The city now, but in sequester\u2019d scenes 240 Dwells sorrowful, and by an antient dame With food and drink supplied oft as he feels Refreshment needful to him, while he creeps Between the rows of his luxuriant vines. But I have come drawn hither by report, Which spake thy Sire arrived, though still it seems The adverse Gods his homeward course retard. For not yet breathless lies the noble Chief, But in some island of the boundless flood Resides a prisoner, by barbarous force 250 Of some rude race detained reluctant there. And I will now foreshow thee what the Gods Teach me, and what, though neither augur skill\u2019d Nor prophet, I yet trust shall come to pass. He shall not, henceforth, live an exile long From his own shores, no, not although in bands Of iron held, but will ere long contrive His own return; for in expedients, framed With wond\u2019rous ingenuity, he abounds. But tell me true; art thou, in stature such, 260 Son of himself Ulysses? for thy face And eyes bright-sparkling, strongly indicate Ulysses in thee. Frequent have we both Conversed together thus, thy Sire and I, Ere yet he went to Troy, the mark to which So many Princes of Achaia steer\u2019d. Him since I saw not, nor Ulysses me. To whom Telemachus, discrete, replied. Stranger! I tell thee true; my mother\u2019s voice Affirms me his, but since no mortal knows 270 His derivation, I affirm it not. Would I had been son of some happier Sire, Ordain\u2019d in calm possession of his own To reach the verge of life. But now, report Proclaims me his, whom I of all mankind Unhappiest deem.\u2014Thy question is resolved. Then answer thus Pallas blue-eyed return\u2019d. From no ignoble race, in future days, The Gods shall prove thee sprung, whom so endow\u2019d With ev\u2019ry grace Penelope hath borne. 280 But tell me true. What festival is this? This throng\u2014whence are they? wherefore hast thou need Of such a multitude? Behold I here A banquet, or a nuptial? for these Meet not by contribution3 to regale, With such brutality and din they hold Their riotous banquet! a wise man and good Arriving, now, among them, at the sight Of such enormities would much be wroth. To whom replied Telemachus discrete. 290 Since, stranger! thou hast ask\u2019d, learn also this. While yet Ulysses, with his people dwelt, His presence warranted the hope that here Virtue should dwell and opulence; but heav\u2019n Hath cast for us, at length, a diff\u2019rent lot, And he is lost, as never man before. For I should less lament even his death, Had he among his friends at Ilium fall\u2019n, Or in the arms of his companions died, Troy\u2019s siege accomplish\u2019d. Then his tomb the Greeks 300 Of ev\u2019ry tribe had built, and for his son, He had immortal glory atchieved; but now, By harpies torn inglorious, beyond reach Of eye or ear he lies; and hath to me Grief only, and unceasing sighs bequeath\u2019d. Nor mourn I for his sake alone; the Gods Have plann\u2019d for me still many a woe beside; For all the rulers of the neighbour isles, Samos, Dulichium, and the forest-crown\u2019d Zacynthus, others also, rulers here 310 In craggy Ithaca, my mother seek In marriage, and my household stores consume. But neither she those nuptial rites abhorr\u2019d, Refuses absolute, nor yet consents To end them; they my patrimony waste Meantime, and will not long spare even me. To whom, with deep commiseration pang\u2019d, Pallas replied. Alas! great need hast thou Of thy long absent father to avenge These num\u2019rous wrongs; for could he now appear 320 There, at yon portal, arm\u2019d with helmet, shield, And grasping his two spears, such as when first I saw him drinking joyous at our board, From Ilus son of Mermeris, who dwelt In distant Ephyre, just then return\u2019d, (For thither also had Ulysses gone In his swift bark, seeking some pois\u2019nous drug Wherewith to taint his brazen arrows keen, Which drug through fear of the eternal Gods Ilus refused him, and my father free 330 Gave to him, for he loved him past belief) Could now, Ulysses, clad in arms as then, Mix with these suitors, short his date of life To each, and bitter should his nuptials prove. But these events, whether he shall return To take just vengeance under his own roof, Or whether not, lie all in the Gods lap. Meantime I counsel thee, thyself to think By what means likeliest thou shalt expel These from thy doors. Now mark me: close attend. 340 To-morrow, summoning the Grecian Chiefs To council, speak to them, and call the Gods To witness that solemnity. Bid go The suitors hence, each to his own abode. Thy mother\u2014if her purpose be resolved On marriage, let her to the house return Of her own potent father, who, himself, Shall furnish forth her matrimonial rites, And ample dow\u2019r, such as it well becomes A darling daughter to receive, bestow. 350 But hear me now; thyself I thus advise. The prime of all thy ships preparing, mann\u2019d With twenty rowers, voyage hence to seek Intelligence of thy long-absent Sire. Some mortal may inform thee, or a word,4 Perchance, by Jove directed (safest source Of notice to mankind) may reach thine ear. First voyaging to Pylus, there enquire Of noble Nestor; thence to Sparta tend, To question Menelaus amber-hair\u2019d, 360 Latest arrived of all the host of Greece. There should\u2019st thou learn that still thy father lives, And hope of his return, although Distress\u2019d, thou wilt be patient yet a year. But should\u2019st thou there hear tidings that he breathes No longer, to thy native isle return\u2019d, First heap his tomb; then with such pomp perform His funeral rites as his great name demands, And make thy mother\u2019s spousals, next, thy care. These duties satisfied, delib\u2019rate last 370 Whether thou shalt these troublers of thy house By stratagem, or by assault, destroy. For thou art now no child, nor longer may\u2019st Sport like one. Hast thou not the proud report Heard, how Orestes hath renown acquired With all mankind, his father\u2019s murtherer \u00c6gisthus slaying, the deceiver base Who slaughter\u2019d Agamemnon? Oh my friend! (For with delight thy vig\u2019rous growth I view, And just proportion) be thou also bold, 380 And merit praise from ages yet to come. But I will to my vessel now repair, And to my mariners, whom, absent long, I may perchance have troubled. Weigh thou well My counsel; let not my advice be lost. To whom Telemachus discrete replied. Stranger! thy words bespeak thee much my friend, Who, as a father teaches his own son, Hast taught me, and I never will forget. But, though in haste thy voyage to pursue, 390 Yet stay, that in the bath refreshing first Thy limbs now weary, thou may\u2019st sprightlier seek Thy gallant bark, charged with some noble gift Of finish\u2019d workmanship, which thou shalt keep As my memorial ever; such a boon As men confer on guests whom much they love. Then Pallas thus, Goddess c\u00e6rulean-eyed. Retard me not, for go I must; the gift Which liberal thou desirest to bestow, Give me at my return, that I may bear 400 The treasure home; and, in exchange, thyself Expect some gift equivalent from me. She spake, and as with eagle-wings upborne, Vanish\u2019d incontinent, but him inspired With daring fortitude, and on his heart Dearer remembrance of his Sire impress\u2019d Than ever. Conscious of the wond\u2019rous change, Amazed he stood, and, in his secret thought Revolving all, believed his guest a God. The youthful Hero to the suitors then 410 Repair\u2019d; they silent, listen\u2019d to the song Of the illustrious Bard: he the return Deplorable of the Achaian host From Ilium by command of Pallas, sang. Penelope, Icarius\u2019 daughter, mark\u2019d Meantime the song celestial, where she sat In the superior palace; down she came, By all the num\u2019rous steps of her abode; Not sole, for two fair handmaids follow\u2019d her. She then, divinest of her sex, arrived 420 In presence of that lawless throng, beneath The portal of her stately mansion stood, Between her maidens, with her lucid veil Her lovely features mantling. There, profuse She wept, and thus the sacred bard bespake. Phemius! for many a sorrow-soothing strain Thou know\u2019st beside, such as exploits record Of Gods and men, the poet\u2019s frequent theme; Give them of those a song, and let themselves Their wine drink noiseless; but this mournful strain 430 Break off, unfriendly to my bosom\u2019s peace, And which of all hearts nearest touches mine, With such regret my dearest Lord I mourn, Rememb\u2019ring still an husband praised from side To side, and in the very heart of Greece. Then answer thus Telemachus return\u2019d. My mother! wherefore should it give thee pain If the delightful bard that theme pursue To which he feels his mind impell\u2019d? the bard Blame not, but rather Jove, who, as he wills, 440 Materials for poetic art supplies. No fault is his, if the disastrous fate He sing of the Achaians, for the song Wins ever from the hearers most applause That has been least in use. Of all who fought At Troy, Ulysses hath not lost, alone, His day of glad return; but many a Chief Hath perish\u2019d also. Seek thou then again Thy own apartment, spindle ply and loom, And task thy maidens; management belongs 450 To men of joys convivial, and of men Especially to me, chief ruler here. She heard astonish\u2019d; and the prudent speech Reposing of her son deep in her heart, Again with her attendant maidens sought Her upper chamber. There arrived, she wept Her lost Ulysses, till Minerva bathed Her weary lids in dewy sleep profound. Then echoed through the palace dark-bedimm\u2019d With evening shades the suitors boist\u2019rous roar, 460 For each the royal bed burn\u2019d to partake, Whom thus Telemachus discrete address\u2019d. All ye my mother\u2019s suitors, though addict To contumacious wrangling fierce, suspend Your clamour, for a course to me it seems More decent far, when such a bard as this, Godlike, for sweetness, sings, to hear his song. To-morrow meet we in full council all, That I may plainly warn you to depart From this our mansion. Seek ye where ye may 470 Your feasts; consume your own; alternate feed Each at the other\u2019s cost; but if it seem Wisest in your account and best, to eat Voracious thus the patrimonial goods Of one man, rend\u2019ring no account of all,5 Bite to the roots; but know that I will cry Ceaseless to the eternal Gods, in hope That Jove, for retribution of the wrong, Shall doom you, where ye have intruded, there To bleed, and of your blood ask no account.5 480 He ended, and each gnaw\u2019d his lip, aghast At his undaunted hardiness of speech. Then thus Antino\u00fcs spake, Eupithes\u2019 son. Telemachus! the Gods, methinks, themselves Teach thee sublimity, and to pronounce Thy matter fearless. Ah forbid it, Jove! That one so eloquent should with the weight Of kingly cares in Ithaca be charged, A realm, by claim hereditary, thine. Then prudent thus Telemachus replied. 490 Although my speech Antino\u00fcs may, perchance, Provoke thee, know that I am not averse From kingly cares, if Jove appoint me such. Seems it to thee a burthen to be fear\u2019d By men above all others? trust me, no, There is no ill in royalty; the man So station\u2019d, waits not long ere he obtain Riches and honour. But I grant that Kings Of the Achaians may no few be found In sea-girt Ithaca both young and old, 500 Of whom since great Ulysses is no more, Reign whoso may; but King, myself, I am In my own house, and over all my own Domestics, by Ulysses gained for me. To whom Eurymachus replied, the son Of Polybus. What Grecian Chief shall reign In sea-girt Ithaca, must be referr\u2019d To the Gods\u2019 will, Telemachus! meantime Thou hast unquestionable right to keep Thy own, and to command in thy own house. 510 May never that man on her shores arrive, While an inhabitant shall yet be left In Ithaca, who shall by violence wrest Thine from thee. But permit me, noble Sir! To ask thee of thy guest. Whence came the man? What country claims him? Where are to be found His kindred and his patrimonial fields? Brings he glad tidings of thy Sire\u2019s approach Homeward? or came he to receive a debt Due to himself? How swift he disappear\u2019d! 520 Nor opportunity to know him gave To those who wish\u2019d it; for his face and air Him speak not of Plebeian birth obscure. Whom answered thus Telemachus discrete. Eurymachus! my father comes no more. I can no longer now tidings believe, If such arrive; nor he\u2019d I more the song Of sooth-sayers whom my mother may consult. But this my guest hath known in other days My father, and he came from Taphos, son 530 Of brave Anchialus, Mentes by name, And Chief of the sea-practis\u2019d Taphian race. So spake Telemachus, but in his heart Knew well his guest a Goddess from the skies. Then they to dance and heart-enlivening song Turn\u2019d joyous, waiting the approach of eve, And dusky evening found them joyous still. Then each, to his own house retiring, sought Needful repose. Meantime Telemachus To his own lofty chamber, built in view 540 Of the wide hall, retired; but with a heart In various musings occupied intense. Sage Euryclea, bearing in each hand A torch, preceded him; her sire was Ops, Pisenor\u2019s son, and, in her early prime, At his own cost Laertes made her his, Paying with twenty beeves her purchase-price, Nor in less honour than his spotless wife He held her ever, but his consort\u2019s wrath Fearing, at no time call\u2019d her to his bed. 550 She bore the torches, and with truer heart Loved him than any of the female train, For she had nurs\u2019d him in his infant years. He open\u2019d his broad chamber-valves, and sat On his couch-side: then putting off his vest Of softest texture, placed it in the hands Of the attendant dame discrete, who first Folding it with exactest care, beside His bed suspended it, and, going forth, Drew by its silver ring the portal close, 560 And fasten\u2019d it with bolt and brace secure. There lay Telemachus, on finest wool Reposed, contemplating all night his course Prescribed by Pallas to the Pylian shore.\n\n\n\n1 We are told that Homer was under obligations to Mentes, who had frequently given him a passage in his ship to different countries which he wished to see, for which reason he has here immortalised him.\n\n\n2 Milton uses the word\u2014Sewers and seneschals.\n\n\n3 \u1f1c\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2, a convivial meeting, at which every man paid his proportion, at least contributed something; but it seems to have been a meeting at which strict sobriety was observed, else Pallas would not have inferred from the noise and riot of this, that it was not such a one.\n\n\n4 \u039f\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1\u2014a word spoken, with respect to the speaker, casually; but with reference to the inquirer supposed to be sent for his information by the especial appointment and providential favour of the Gods.\n\n\n5 There is in the Original an evident stress laid on the word \u039d\u1f75\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9, which is used in both places. It was a sort of Lex Talionis which Telemachus hoped might be put in force against them; and that Jove would demand no satisfaction for the lives of those who made him none for the waste of his property.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK II\nARGUMENT\nTelemachus having convened an assembly of the Greecians, publicly calls on the Suitors to relinquish the house of Ulysses. During the continuance of the Council he has much to suffer from the petulance of the Suitors, from whom, having informed them of his design to undertake a voyage in hope to obtain news of Ulysses, he asks a ship, with all things necessary for the purpose. He is refused, but is afterwards furnished with what he wants by Minerva, in the form of Mentor. He embarks in the evening without the privity of his mother, and the Goddess sails with him.\n\nAurora, rosy daughter of the dawn, Now ting\u2019d the East, when habited again, Uprose Ulysses\u2019 offspring from his bed. Athwart his back his faulchion keen he flung, His sandals bound to his unsullied feet, And, godlike, issued from his chamber-door. At once the clear-voic\u2019d heralds he enjoin\u2019d To call the Greeks to council; they aloud Gave forth the summons, and the throng began. When all were gather\u2019d, and the assembly full, 10 Himself, his hand arm\u2019d with a brazen spear, Went also; nor alone he went; his hounds Fleet-footed follow\u2019d him, a faithful pair. O\u2019er all his form Minerva largely shed Majestic grace divine, and, as he went, The whole admiring concourse gaz\u2019d on him, The seniors gave him place, and down he sat On his paternal Throne. Then grave arose The Hero, old \u00c6gyptius; bow\u2019d with age Was he, and by experience deep-inform\u2019d. 20 His son had with Ulysses, godlike Chief, On board his fleet to steed-fam\u2019d Ilium gone, The warrior Antiphus, whom in his cave The savage Cyclops slew, and on his flesh At ev\u2019ning made obscene his last regale. Three sons he had beside, a suitor one, Eurynomus; the other two, employ Found constant managing their Sire\u2019s concerns. Yet he forgat not, father as he was Of these, his absent eldest, whom he mourn\u2019d 30 Ceaseless, and thus his speech, weeping, began. Hear me, ye men of Ithaca, my friends! Nor council here nor session hath been held Since great Ulysses left his native shore. Who now convenes us? what especial need Hath urged him, whether of our youth he be, Or of our senators by age matured? Have tidings reach\u2019d him of our host\u2019s return, Which here he would divulge? or brings he aught Of public import on a diff\u2019rent theme? 40 I deem him, whosoe\u2019er he be, a man Worthy to prosper, and may Jove vouchsafe The full performance of his chief desire! He ended, and Telemachus rejoiced In that good omen. Ardent to begin, He sat not long, but, moving to the midst, Received the sceptre from Pisenor\u2019s hand, His prudent herald, and addressing, next, The hoary Chief \u00c6gyptius, thus began. Not far remote, as thou shalt soon thyself 50 Perceive, oh venerable Chief! he stands, Who hath convened this council. I, am He. I am in chief the suff\u2019rer. Tidings none Of the returning host I have received, Which here I would divulge, nor bring I aught Of public import on a different theme, But my own trouble, on my own house fall\u2019n, And two-fold fall\u2019n. One is, that I have lost A noble father, who, as fathers rule Benign their children, govern\u2019d once yourselves; 60 The other, and the more alarming ill, With ruin threatens my whole house, and all My patrimony with immediate waste. Suitors, (their children who in this our isle Hold highest rank) importunate besiege My mother, though desirous not to wed, And rather than resort to her own Sire Icarius, who might give his daughter dow\u2019r, And portion her to whom he most approves, (A course which, only named, moves their disgust) 70 They chuse, assembling all within my gates Daily to make my beeves, my sheep, my goats Their banquet, and to drink without restraint My wine; whence ruin threatens us and ours; For I have no Ulysses to relieve Me and my family from this abuse. Ourselves are not sufficient; we, alas! Too feeble should be found, and yet to learn How best to use the little force we own; Else, had I pow\u2019r, I would, myself, redress 80 The evil; for it now surpasses far All suff\u2019rance, now they ravage uncontroul\u2019d, Nor show of decency vouchsafe me more. Oh be ashamed6 yourselves; blush at the thought Of such reproach as ye shall sure incur From all our neighbour states, and fear beside The wrath of the Immortals, lest they call Yourselves one day to a severe account. I pray you by Olympian Jove, by her Whose voice convenes all councils, and again 90 Dissolves them, Themis, that henceforth ye cease, That ye permit me, oh my friends! to wear My days in solitary grief away, Unless Ulysses, my illustrious Sire, Hath in his anger any Greecian wrong\u2019d, Whose wrongs ye purpose to avenge on me, Inciting these to plague me. Better far Were my condition, if yourselves consumed My substance and my revenue; from you I might obtain, perchance, righteous amends 100 Hereafter; you I might with vehement suit O\u2019ercome, from house to house pleading aloud For recompense, till I at last prevail\u2019d. But now, with darts of anguish ye transfix My inmost soul, and I have no redress. He spake impassion\u2019d, and to earth cast down His sceptre, weeping. Pity at that sight Seiz\u2019d all the people; mute the assembly sat Long time, none dared to greet Telemachus With answer rough, till of them all, at last, 110 Antino\u00fcs, sole arising, thus replied. Telemachus, intemp\u2019rate in harangue, High-sounding orator! it is thy drift To make us all odious; but the offence Lies not with us the suitors; she alone Thy mother, who in subtlety excels, And deep-wrought subterfuge, deserves the blame. It is already the third year, and soon Shall be the fourth, since with delusive art Practising on their minds, she hath deceived 120 The Greecians; message after message sent Brings hope to each, by turns, and promise fair, But she, meantime, far otherwise intends. Her other arts exhausted all, she framed This stratagem; a web of amplest size And subtlest woof beginning, thus she spake. Princes, my suitors! since the noble Chief Ulysses is no more, press not as yet My nuptials, wait till I shall finish, first, A fun\u2019ral robe (lest all my threads decay) 130 Which for the antient Hero I prepare, Laertes, looking for the mournful hour When fate shall snatch him to eternal rest; Else I the censure dread of all my sex, Should he, so wealthy, want at last a shroud. So spake the Queen, and unsuspicious, we With her request complied. Thenceforth, all day She wove the ample web, and by the aid Of torches ravell\u2019d it again at night. Three years by such contrivance she deceived 140 The Greecians; but when (three whole years elaps\u2019d) The fourth arriv\u2019d, then, conscious of the fraud, A damsel of her train told all the truth, And her we found rav\u2019ling the beauteous work. Thus, through necessity she hath, at length, Perform\u2019d the task, and in her own despight. Now therefore, for the information clear Of thee thyself, and of the other Greeks, We answer. Send thy mother hence, with charge That him she wed on whom her father\u2019s choice 150 Shall fall, and whom she shall, herself, approve. But if by long procrastination still She persevere wearing our patience out, Attentive only to display the gifts By Pallas so profusely dealt to her, Works of surpassing skill, ingenious thought, And subtle shifts, such as no beauteous Greek (For aught that we have heard) in antient times E\u2019er practised, Tyro, or Alcemena fair, Or fair Mycene, of whom none in art 160 E\u2019er match\u2019d Penelope, although we yield To this her last invention little praise, Then know, that these her suitors will consume So long thy patrimony and thy goods, As she her present purpose shall indulge, With which the Gods inspire her. Great renown She to herself insures, but equal woe And devastation of thy wealth to thee; For neither to our proper works at home Go we, of that be sure, nor yet elsewhere, 170 Till him she wed, to whom she most inclines. Him prudent, then, answer\u2019d Telemachus. Antino\u00fcs! it is not possible That I should thrust her forth against her will, Who both produced and reared me. Be he dead, Or still alive, my Sire is far remote, And should I, voluntary, hence dismiss My mother to Icarius, I must much Refund, which hardship were and loss to me. So doing, I should also wrath incur 180 From my offended Sire, and from the Gods Still more; for she, departing, would invoke Erynnis to avenge her, and reproach Beside would follow me from all mankind. That word I, therefore, never will pronounce. No, if ye judge your treatment at her hands Injurious to you, go ye forth yourselves, Forsake my mansion; seek where else ye may Your feasts; consume your own; alternate feed Each at the other\u2019s cost. But if it seem 190 Wisest in your account and best to eat Voracious thus the patrimonial goods Of one man, rend\u2019ring no account of all, Bite to the roots; but know that I will cry Ceaseless to the eternal Gods, in hope That Jove, in retribution of the wrong, Shall doom you, where ye have intruded, there To bleed, and of your blood ask no account. So spake Telemachus, and while he spake, The Thund\u2019rer from a lofty mountain-top 200 Turn\u2019d off two eagles; on the winds, awhile, With outspread pinions ample side by side They floated; but, ere long, hov\u2019ring aloft, Right o\u2019er the midst of the assembled Chiefs They wheel\u2019d around, clang\u2019d all their num\u2019rous plumes, And with a downward look eyeing the throng, Death boded, ominous; then rending each The other\u2019s face and neck, they sprang at once Toward the right, and darted through the town. Amazement universal, at that sight, 210 Seized the assembly, and with anxious thought Each scann\u2019d the future; amidst whom arose The Hero Halitherses, antient Seer, Offspring of Mastor; for in judgment he Of portents augural, and in forecast Unerring, his coevals all excell\u2019d, And prudent thus the multitude bespake. Ye men of Ithaca, give ear! hear all! Though chief my speech shall to the suitors look, For, on their heads devolved, comes down the woe. 220 Ulysses shall not from his friends, henceforth, Live absent long, but, hasting to his home, Comes even now, and as he comes, designs A bloody death for these, whose bitter woes No few shall share, inhabitants with us Of pleasant Ithaca; but let us frame Effectual means maturely to suppress Their violent deeds, or rather let themselves Repentant cease; and soonest shall be best. Not inexpert, but well-inform\u2019d I speak 230 The future, and the accomplishment announce Of all which when Ulysses with the Greeks Embark\u2019d for Troy, I to himself foretold. I said that, after many woes, and loss Of all his people, in the twentieth year, Unknown to all, he should regain his home, And my prediction shall be now fulfill\u2019d. Him, then, Eurymachus thus answer\u2019d rough The son of Polybus. Hence to thy house, Thou hoary dotard! there, prophetic, teach 240 Thy children to escape woes else to come. Birds num\u2019rous flutter in the beams of day, Not all predictive. Death, far hence remote Hath found Ulysses, and I would to heav\u2019n That, where he died, thyself had perish\u2019d too. Thou hadst not then run o\u2019er with prophecy As now, nor provocation to the wrath Giv\u2019n of Telemachus, in hope to win, Perchance, for thine some favour at his hands. But I to thee foretell, skilled as thou art 250 In legends old, (nor shall my threat be vain) That if by artifice thou move to wrath A younger than thyself, no matter whom, Woe first the heavier on himself shall fall, Nor shalt thou profit him by thy attempt, And we will charge thee also with a mulct, Which thou shalt pay with difficulty, and bear The burthen of it with an aching heart. As for Telemachus, I him advise, Myself, and press the measure on his choice 260 Earnestly, that he send his mother hence To her own father\u2019s house, who shall, himself, Set forth her nuptial rites, and shall endow His daughter sumptuously, and as he ought. For this expensive wooing, as I judge, Till then shall never cease; since we regard No man\u2014no\u2014not Telemachus, although In words exub\u2019rant; neither fear we aught Thy vain prognostics, venerable sir! But only hate thee for their sake the more. 270 Waste will continue and disorder foul Unremedied, so long as she shall hold The suitors in suspense, for, day by day, Our emulation goads us to the strife, Nor shall we, going hence, seek to espouse Each his own comfort suitable elsewhere. To whom, discrete, Telemachus replied. Eurymachus, and ye the suitor train Illustrious, I have spoken: ye shall hear No more this supplication urged by me. 280 The Gods, and all the Greeks, now know the truth. But give me instantly a gallant bark With twenty rowers, skill\u2019d their course to win To whatsoever haven; for I go To sandy Pylus, and shall hasten thence To Lacedemon, tidings to obtain Of my long-absent Sire, or from the lips Of man, or by a word from Jove vouchsafed Himself, best source of notice to mankind. If, there inform\u2019d that still my father lives, 290 I hope conceive of his return, although Distress\u2019d, I shall be patient yet a year. But should I learn, haply, that he survives No longer, then, returning, I will raise At home his tomb, will with such pomp perform His fun\u2019ral rites, as his great name demands, And give my mother\u2019s hand to whom I may. This said, he sat, and after him arose Mentor, illustrious Ulysses\u2019 friend, To whom, embarking thence, he had consign\u2019d 300 All his concerns, that the old Chief might rule His family, and keep the whole secure. Arising, thus the senior, sage, began. Hear me, ye Ithacans! be never King Henceforth, benevolent, gracious, humane Or righteous, but let every sceptred hand Rule merciless, and deal in wrong alone, Since none of all his people, whom he sway\u2019d With such paternal gentleness and love, Remembers the divine Ulysses more! 310 That the imperious suitors thus should weave The web of mischief and atrocious wrong, I grudge not; since at hazard of their heads They make Ulysses\u2019 property a prey, Persuaded that the Hero comes no more. But much the people move me; how ye sit All mute, and though a multitude, yourselves, Opposed to few, risque not a single word To check the license of these bold intruders! Then thus Liocritus, Evenor\u2019s son. 320 Injurious Mentor! headlong orator! How dar\u2019st thou move the populace against The suitors? Trust me they should find it hard, Numerous as they are, to cope with us, A feast the prize. Or should the King himself Of Ithaca, returning, undertake T\u2019 expell the jovial suitors from his house, Much as Penelope his absence mourns, His presence should afford her little joy; For fighting sole with many, he should meet 330 A dreadful death. Thou, therefore, speak\u2019st amiss. As for Telemachus, let Mentor him And Halytherses furnish forth, the friends Long valued of his Sire, with all dispatch; Though him I judge far likelier to remain Long-time contented an enquirer here, Than to perform the voyage now proposed. Thus saying, Liocritus dissolved in haste The council, and the scattered concourse sought Their sev\u2019ral homes, while all the suitors flock\u2019d 340 Thence to the palace of their absent King. Meantime, Telemachus from all resort Retiring, in the surf of the gray Deep First laved his hands, then, thus to Pallas pray\u2019d. O Goddess! who wast yesterday a guest Beneath my roof, and didst enjoin me then A voyage o\u2019er the sable Deep in quest Of tidings of my long regretted Sire! Which voyage, all in Ithaca, but most The haughty suitors, obstinate impede, 350 Now hear my suit and gracious interpose! Such pray\u2019r he made; then Pallas, in the form, And with the voice of Mentor, drawing nigh, In accents wing\u2019d, him kindly thus bespake. Telemachus! thou shalt hereafter prove Nor base, nor poor in talents. If, in truth, Thou have received from heav\u2019n thy father\u2019s force Instill\u2019d into thee, and resemblest him In promptness both of action and of speech, Thy voyage shall not useless be, or vain. 360 But if Penelope produced thee not His son, I, then, hope not for good effect Of this design which, ardent, thou pursuest. Few sons their fathers equal; most appear Degenerate; but we find, though rare, sometimes A son superior even to his Sire. And since thyself shalt neither base be found Nor spiritless, nor altogether void Of talents, such as grace thy royal Sire, I therefore hope success of thy attempt. 370 Heed not the suitors\u2019 projects; neither wise Are they, nor just, nor aught suspect the doom Which now approaches them, and in one day Shall overwhelm them all. No long suspense Shall hold thy purposed enterprise in doubt, Such help from me, of old thy father\u2019s friend, Thou shalt receive, who with a bark well-oar\u2019d Will serve thee, and myself attend thee forth. But haste, join thou the suitors, and provide, In sep\u2019rate vessels stow\u2019d, all needful stores, 380 Wine in thy jars, and flour, the strength of man, In skins close-seam\u2019d. I will, meantime, select Such as shall voluntary share thy toils. In sea-girt Ithaca new ships and old Abound, and I will chuse, myself, for thee The prime of all, which without more delay We will launch out into the spacious Deep. Thus Pallas spake, daughter of Jove; nor long, So greeted by the voice divine, remain\u2019d Telemachus, but to his palace went 390 Distress\u2019d in heart. He found the suitors there Goats slaying in the hall, and fatted swine Roasting; when with a laugh Antino\u00fcs flew To meet him, fasten\u2019d on his hand, and said, Telemachus, in eloquence sublime, And of a spirit not to be controul\u2019d! Give harbour in thy breast on no account To after-grudge or enmity, but eat, Far rather, cheerfully as heretofore, And freely drink, committing all thy cares 400 To the Achaians, who shall furnish forth A gallant ship and chosen crew for thee, That thou may\u2019st hence to Pylus with all speed, Tidings to learn of thy illustrious Sire. To whom Telemachus, discrete, replied. Antino\u00fcs! I have no heart to feast With guests so insolent, nor can indulge The pleasures of a mind at ease, with you. Is\u2019t not enough, suitors, that ye have used My noble patrimony as your own 410 While I was yet a child? now, grown mature, And competent to understand the speech Of my instructors, feeling, too, a mind Within me conscious of augmented pow\u2019rs, I will attempt your ruin, be assured, Whether at Pylus, or continuing here. I go, indeed, (nor shall my voyage prove Of which I speak, bootless or vain) I go An humble passenger, who neither bark Nor rowers have to boast my own, denied 420 That honour (so ye judg\u2019d it best) by you. He said, and from Antino\u00fcs\u2019 hand his own Drew sudden. Then their delicate repast The busy suitors on all sides prepar\u2019d, Still taunting as they toil\u2019d, and with sharp speech Sarcastic wantoning, of whom a youth, Arrogant as his fellows, thus began. I see it plain, Telemachus intends Our slaughter; either he will aids procure From sandy Pylus, or will bring them arm\u2019d 430 From Sparta; such is his tremendous drift. Even to fruitful Ephyre, perchance, He will proceed, seeking some baneful herb Which cast into our cup, shall drug us all. To whom some haughty suitor thus replied. Who knows but that himself, wand\u2019ring the sea From all his friends and kindred far remote, May perish like Ulysses? Whence to us Should double toil ensue, on whom the charge To parcel out his wealth would then devolve, 440 And to endow his mother with the house For his abode whom she should chance to wed. So sported they; but he, ascending sought His father\u2019s lofty chamber, where his heaps He kept of brass and gold, garments in chests, And oils of fragrant scent, a copious store. There many a cask with season\u2019d nectar fill\u2019d The grape\u2019s pure juice divine, beside the wall Stood orderly arranged, waiting the hour (Should e\u2019er such hour arrive) when, after woes 450 Num\u2019rous, Ulysses should regain his home. Secure that chamber was with folding doors Of massy planks compact, and night and day, Within it antient Euryclea dwelt, Guardian discrete of all the treasures there, Whom, thither call\u2019d, Telemachus address\u2019d. Nurse! draw me forth sweet wine into my jars, Delicious next to that which thou reserv\u2019st For our poor wand\u2019rer; if escaping death At last, divine Ulysses e\u2019er return. 460 Fill twelve, and stop them close; pour also meal Well mill\u2019d (full twenty measures) into skins Close-seam\u2019d, and mention what thou dost to none. Place them together; for at even-tide I will convey them hence, soon as the Queen, Retiring to her couch, shall seek repose. For hence to Sparta will I take my course, And sandy Pylus, tidings there to hear (If hear I may) of my lov\u2019d Sire\u2019s return. He ceas\u2019d, then wept his gentle nurse that sound 470 Hearing, and in wing\u2019d accents thus replied. My child! ah, wherefore hath a thought so rash Possess\u2019d thee? whither, only and belov\u2019d, Seek\u2019st thou to ramble, travelling, alas! To distant climes? Ulysses is no more; Dead lies the Hero in some land unknown, And thou no sooner shalt depart, than these Will plot to slay thee, and divide thy wealth. No, stay with us who love thee. Need is none That thou should\u2019st on the barren Deep distress 480 Encounter, roaming without hope or end. Whom, prudent, thus answer\u2019d Telemachus. Take courage, nurse! for not without consent Of the Immortals I have thus resolv\u2019d. But swear, that till eleven days be past, Or twelve, or, till enquiry made, she learn Herself my going, thou wilt not impart Of this my purpose to my mother\u2019s ear, Lest all her beauties fade by grief impair\u2019d. He ended, and the antient matron swore 490 Solemnly by the Gods; which done, she fill\u2019d With wine the vessels and the skins with meal, And he, returning, join\u2019d the throng below. Then Pallas, Goddess azure-eyed, her thoughts Elsewhere directing, all the city ranged In semblance of Telemachus, each man Exhorting, at the dusk of eve, to seek The gallant ship, and from No\u00ebmon, son Renown\u2019d of Phronius, ask\u2019d, herself, a bark, Which soon as ask\u2019d, he promis\u2019d to supply. 500 Now set the sun, and twilight dimm\u2019d the ways, When, drawing down his bark into the Deep, He gave her all her furniture, oars, arms And tackle, such as well-built galleys bear, Then moor\u2019d her in the bottom of the bay. Meantime, his mariners in haste repair\u2019d Down to the shore, for Pallas urged them on. And now on other purposes intent, The Goddess sought the palace, where with dews Of slumber drenching ev\u2019ry suitor\u2019s eye, 510 She fool\u2019d the drunkard multitude, and dash\u2019d The goblets from their idle hands away. They through the city reeled, happy to leave The dull carousal, when the slumb\u2019rous weight Oppressive on their eye-lids once had fall\u2019n. Next, Pallas azure-eyed in Mentor\u2019s form And with the voice of Mentor, summoning Telemachus abroad, him thus bespake. Telemachus! already at their oars Sit all thy fellow-voyagers, and wait 520 Thy coming; linger not, but haste away. This said, Minerva led him thence, whom he With nimble steps follow\u2019d, and on the shore Arrived, found all his mariners prepared, Whom thus the princely voyager address\u2019d. Haste, my companions! bring we down the stores Already sorted and set forth; but nought My mother knows, or any of her train Of this design, one matron sole except. He spake, and led them; they, obedient, brought 530 All down, and, as Ulysses\u2019 son enjoin\u2019d, Within the gallant bark the charge bestow\u2019d. Then, led by Pallas, went the prince on board, Where down they sat, the Goddess in the stern, And at her side Telemachus. The crew Cast loose the hawsers, and embarking, fill\u2019d The benches. Blue-eyed Pallas from the West Call\u2019d forth propitious breezes; fresh they curled The sable Deep, and, sounding, swept the waves. He loud-exhorting them, his people bade 540 Hand, brisk, the tackle; they, obedient, reared The pine-tree mast, which in its socket deep They lodg\u2019d, then strain\u2019d the cordage, and with thongs Well-twisted, drew the shining sail aloft. A land-breeze fill\u2019d the canvas, and the flood Roar\u2019d as she went against the steady bark That ran with even course her liquid way. The rigging, thus, of all the galley set, Their beakers crowning high with wine, they hail\u2019d The ever-living Gods, but above all 550 Minerva, daughter azure-eyed of Jove. Thus, all night long the galley, and till dawn Had brighten\u2019d into day, cleaved swift the flood.\n\n\n\n6 The reader is to be reminded that this is not an assembly of the suitors only, but a general one, which affords Telemachus an opportunity to apply himself to the feelings of the Ithacans at large.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK III\nARGUMENT\nTelemachus arriving at Pylus, enquires of Nestor concerning Ulysses. Nestor relates to him all that he knows or has heard of the Greecians since their departure from the siege of Troy, but not being able to give him any satisfactory account of Ulysses, refers him to Menelaus. At evening Minerva quits Telemachus, but discovers herself in going. Nestor sacrifices to the Goddess, and the solemnity ended, Telemachus sets forth for Sparta in one of Nestor\u2019s chariots, and accompanied by Nestor\u2019s son, Pisistratus.\n\nThe sun, emerging from the lucid waves, Ascended now the brazen vault with light For the inhabitants of earth and heav\u2019n, When in their bark at Pylus they arrived, City of Neleus. On the shore they found The people sacrificing; bulls they slew Black without spot, to Neptune azure-hair\u2019d. On ranges nine of seats they sat; each range Received five hundred, and to each they made Allotment equal of nine sable bulls. 10 The feast was now begun; these eating sat The entrails, those stood off\u2019ring to the God The thighs, his portion, when the Ithacans Push\u2019d right ashore, and, furling close the sails, And making fast their moorings, disembark\u2019d. Forth came Telemachus, by Pallas led, Whom thus the Goddess azure-eyed address\u2019d. Telemachus! there is no longer room For bashful fear, since thou hast cross\u2019d the flood With purpose to enquire what land conceals 20 Thy father, and what fate hath follow\u2019d him. Advance at once to the equestrian Chief Nestor, within whose bosom lies, perhaps, Advice well worthy of thy search; entreat Himself, that he will tell thee only truth, Who will not lye, for he is passing wise. To whom Telemachus discrete replied. Ah Mentor! how can I advance, how greet A Chief like him, unpractis\u2019d as I am In manag\u2019d phrase? Shame bids the youth beware 30 How he accosts the man of many years. But him the Goddess answer\u2019d azure-eyed, Telemachus! Thou wilt, in part, thyself Fit speech devise, and heav\u2019n will give the rest; For thou wast neither born, nor hast been train\u2019d To manhood, under unpropitious Pow\u2019rs. So saying, Minerva led him thence, whom he With nimble steps attending, soon arrived Among the multitude. There Nestor sat, And Nestor\u2019s sons, while, busily the feast 40 Tending, his num\u2019rous followers roasted, some, The viands, some, transfix\u2019d them with the spits. They seeing guests arrived, together all Advanced, and, grasping courteously their hands, Invited them to sit; but first, the son Of Nestor, young Pisistratus, approach\u2019d, Who, fast\u2019ning on the hands of both, beside The banquet placed them, where the beach was spread With fleeces, and where Thrasymedes sat His brother, and the hoary Chief his Sire. 50 To each a portion of the inner parts He gave, then fill\u2019d a golden cup with wine, Which, tasted first, he to the daughter bore Of Jove the Thund\u2019rer, and her thus bespake. Oh guest! the King of Ocean now adore! For ye have chanced on Neptune\u2019s festival; And, when thou hast, thyself, libation made Duly, and pray\u2019r, deliver to thy friend The gen\u2019rous juice, that he may also make Libation; for he, doubtless, seeks, in prayer 60 The Immortals, of whose favour all have need. But, since he younger is, and with myself Coeval, first I give the cup to thee. He ceas\u2019d, and to her hand consign\u2019d the cup, Which Pallas gladly from a youth received So just and wise, who to herself had first The golden cup presented, and in pray\u2019r Fervent the Sov\u2019reign of the Seas adored. Hear, earth-encircler Neptune! O vouchsafe To us thy suppliants the desired effect 70 Of this our voyage; glory, first, bestow On Nestor and his offspring both, then grant To all the Pylians such a gracious boon As shall requite their noble off\u2019ring well. Grant also to Telemachus and me To voyage hence, possess\u2019d of what we sought When hither in our sable bark we came. So Pallas pray\u2019d, and her own pray\u2019r herself Accomplish\u2019d. To Telemachus she gave The splendid goblet next, and in his turn 80 Like pray\u2019r Ulysses\u2019 son also preferr\u2019d. And now (the banquet from the spits withdrawn) They next distributed sufficient share To each, and all were sumptuously regaled. At length, (both hunger satisfied and thirst) Thus Nestor, the Gerenian Chief, began. Now with more seemliness we may enquire, After repast, what guests we have received. Our guests! who are ye? Whence have ye the waves Plough\u2019d hither? Come ye to transact concerns 90 Commercial, or at random roam the Deep Like pirates, who with mischief charged and woe To foreign States, oft hazard life themselves? Him answer\u2019d, bolder now, but still discrete, Telemachus. For Pallas had his heart With manly courage arm\u2019d, that he might ask From Nestor tidings of his absent Sire, And win, himself, distinction and renown. Oh Nestor, Neleus\u2019 son, glory of Greece! Thou askest whence we are. I tell thee whence. 100 From Ithaca, by the umbrageous woods Of Neritus o\u2019erhung, by private need, Not public, urged, we come. My errand is To seek intelligence of the renown\u2019d Ulysses; of my noble father, prais\u2019d For dauntless courage, whom report proclaims Conqueror, with thine aid, of sacred Troy. We have already learn\u2019d where other Chiefs Who fought at Ilium, died; but Jove conceals Even the death of my illustrious Sire 110 In dull obscurity; for none hath heard Or confident can answer, where he dy\u2019d; Whether he on the continent hath fall\u2019n By hostile hands, or by the waves o\u2019erwhelm\u2019d Of Amphitrite, welters in the Deep. For this cause, at thy knees suppliant, I beg That thou would\u2019st tell me his disast\u2019rous end, If either thou beheld\u2019st that dread event Thyself, or from some wanderer of the Greeks Hast heard it: for my father at his birth 120 Was, sure, predestin\u2019d to no common woes. Neither through pity, or o\u2019erstrain\u2019d respect Flatter me, but explicit all relate Which thou hast witness\u2019d. If my noble Sire E\u2019er gratified thee by performance just Of word or deed at Ilium, where ye fell So num\u2019rous slain in fight, oh, recollect Now his fidelity, and tell me true. Then Nestor thus Gerenian Hero old. Young friend! since thou remind\u2019st me, speaking thus, 130 Of all the woes which indefatigable We sons of the Achaians there sustain\u2019d, Both those which wand\u2019ring on the Deep we bore Wherever by Achilles led in quest Of booty, and the many woes beside Which under royal Priam\u2019s spacious walls We suffer\u2019d, know, that there our bravest fell. There warlike Ajax lies, there Peleus\u2019 son; There, too, Patroclus, like the Gods themselves In council, and my son beloved there, 140 Brave, virtuous, swift of foot, and bold in fight, Antilochus. Nor are these sorrows all; What tongue of mortal man could all relate? Should\u2019st thou, abiding here, five years employ Or six, enquiring of the woes endured By the Achaians, ere thou should\u2019st have learn\u2019d The whole, thou would\u2019st depart, tir\u2019d of the tale. For we, nine years, stratagems of all kinds Devised against them, and Saturnian Jove Scarce crown\u2019d the difficult attempt at last. 150 There, no competitor in wiles well-plann\u2019d Ulysses found, so far were all surpass\u2019d In shrewd invention by thy noble Sire, If thou indeed art his, as sure thou art, Whose sight breeds wonder in me, and thy speech His speech resembles more than might be deem\u2019d Within the scope of years so green as thine. There, never in opinion, or in voice Illustrious Ulysses and myself Divided were, but, one in heart, contrived 160 As best we might, the benefit of all. But after Priam\u2019s lofty city sack\u2019d, And the departure of the Greeks on board Their barks, and when the Gods had scatter\u2019d them, Then Jove imagin\u2019d for the Argive host A sorrowful return; for neither just Were all, nor prudent, therefore many found A fate disast\u2019rous through the vengeful ire Of Jove-born Pallas, who between the sons Of Atreus sharp contention interposed. 170 They both, irregularly, and against Just order, summoning by night the Greeks To council, of whom many came with wine Oppress\u2019d, promulgated the cause for which They had convened the people. Then it was That Menelaus bade the general host Their thoughts bend homeward o\u2019er the sacred Deep, Which Agamemnon in no sort approved. His counsel was to slay them yet at Troy, That so he might assuage the dreadful wrath 180 Of Pallas, first, by sacrifice and pray\u2019r. Vain hope! he little thought how ill should speed That fond attempt, for, once provok\u2019d, the Gods Are not with ease conciliated again. Thus stood the brothers, altercation hot Maintaining, till at length, uprose the Greeks With deaf\u2019ning clamours, and with diff\u2019ring minds. We slept the night, but teeming with disgust Mutual, for Jove great woe prepar\u2019d for all. At dawn of day we drew our gallies down 190 Into the sea, and, hasty, put on board The spoils and female captives. Half the host, With Agamemnon, son of Atreus, stay\u2019d Supreme commander, and, embarking, half Push\u2019d forth. Swift course we made, for Neptune smooth\u2019d The waves before us of the monstrous Deep. At Tenedos arriv\u2019d, we there perform\u2019d Sacrifice to the Gods, ardent to reach Our native land, but unpropitious Jove, Not yet designing our arrival there, 200 Involved us in dissension fierce again. For all the crews, followers of the King, Thy noble Sire, to gratify our Chief, The son of Atreus, chose a diff\u2019rent course, And steer\u2019d their oary barks again to Troy. But I, assured that evil from the Gods Impended, gath\u2019ring all my gallant fleet, Fled thence in haste, and warlike Diomede Exhorting his attendants, also fled. At length, the Hero Menelaus join\u2019d 210 Our fleets at Lesbos; there he found us held In deep deliberation on the length Of way before us, whether we should steer Above the craggy Chios to the isle Psyria, that island holding on our left, Or under Chios by the wind-swept heights Of Mimas. Then we ask\u2019d from Jove a sign, And by a sign vouchsafed he bade us cut The wide sea to Eub\u0153a sheer athwart, So soonest to escape the threat\u2019ned harm. 220 Shrill sang the rising gale, and with swift prows Cleaving the fishy flood, we reach\u2019d by night Ger\u00e6stus, where arrived, we burn\u2019d the thighs Of num\u2019rous bulls to Neptune, who had safe Conducted us through all our perilous course. The fleet of Diomede in safety moor\u2019d On the fourth day at Argos, but myself Held on my course to Pylus, nor the wind One moment thwarted us, or died away, When Jove had once commanded it to blow. 230 Thus, uninform\u2019d, I have arrived, my son! Nor of the Greecians, who are saved have heard, Or who have perish\u2019d; but what news soe\u2019er I have obtain\u2019d, since my return, with truth I will relate, nor aught conceal from thee. The spear-famed Myrmidons, as rumour speaks, By Neoptolemus, illustrious son Of brave Achilles led, have safe arrived; Safe, Philoctetes, also son renown\u2019d Of P\u00e6as; and Idomeneus at Crete 240 Hath landed all his followers who survive The bloody war, the waves have swallow\u2019d none. Ye have yourselves doubtless, although remote, Of Agamemnon heard, how he return\u2019d, And how \u00c6gisthus cruelly contrived For him a bloody welcome, but himself Hath with his own life paid the murth\u2019rous deed. Good is it, therefore, if a son survive The slain, since Agamemnon\u2019s son hath well Avenged his father\u2019s death, slaying, himself, 250 \u00c6gisthus, foul assassin of his Sire. Young friend! (for pleas\u2019d thy vig\u2019rous youth I view, And just proportion) be thou also bold, That thine like his may be a deathless name. Then, prudent, him answer\u2019d Telemachus. Oh Nestor, Neleus\u2019 son, glory of Greece! And righteous was that vengeance; his renown Achaia\u2019s sons shall far and wide diffuse, To future times transmitting it in song. Ah! would that such ability the Gods 260 Would grant to me, that I, as well, the deeds Might punish of our suitors, whose excess Enormous, and whose bitter taunts I feel Continual, object of their subtle hate. But not for me such happiness the Gods Have twined into my thread; no, not for me Or for my father. Patience is our part. To whom Gerenian Nestor thus replied. Young friend! (since thou remind\u2019st me of that theme) Fame here reports that num\u2019rous suitors haunt 270 Thy palace for thy mother\u2019s sake, and there Much evil perpetrate in thy despight. But say, endur\u2019st thou willing their controul Imperious, or because the people, sway\u2019d By some response oracular, incline Against thee? But who knows? the time may come When to his home restored, either alone, Or aided by the force of all the Greeks, Ulysses may avenge the wrong; at least, Should Pallas azure-eyed thee love, as erst 280 At Troy, the scene of our unnumber\u2019d woes, She lov\u2019d Ulysses (for I have not known The Gods assisting so apparently A mortal man, as him Minerva there) Should Pallas view thee also with like love And kind solicitude, some few of those Should dream, perchance, of wedlock never more. Then answer thus Telemachus return\u2019d. That word\u2019s accomplishment I cannot hope; It promises too much; the thought alone 290 O\u2019erwhelms me; an event so fortunate Would, unexpected on my part, arrive, Although the Gods themselves should purpose it. But Pallas him answer\u2019d c\u00e6rulean-eyed. Telemachus! what word was that which leap\u2019d The iv\u2019ry guard7 that should have fenced it in? A God, so willing, could with utmost ease Save any man, howe\u2019er remote. Myself, I had much rather, many woes endured, Revisit home, at last, happy and safe, 300 Than, sooner coming, die in my own house, As Agamemnon perish\u2019d by the arts Of base \u00c6gisthus and the subtle Queen. Yet not the Gods themselves can save from death All-levelling, the man whom most they love, When Fate ordains him once to his last sleep. To whom Telemachus, discrete, replied. Howe\u2019er it interest us, let us leave This question, Mentor! He, I am assured, Returns no more, but hath already found 310 A sad, sad fate by the decree of heav\u2019n. But I would now interrogate again Nestor, and on a different theme, for him In human rights I judge, and laws expert, And in all knowledge beyond other men; For he hath govern\u2019d, as report proclaims, Three generations; therefore in my eyes He wears the awful impress of a God. Oh Nestor, son of Neleus, tell me true; What was the manner of Atrides\u2019 death, 320 Wide-ruling Agamemnon? Tell me where Was Menelaus? By what means contrived \u00c6gisthus to inflict the fatal blow, Slaying so much a nobler than himself? Had not the brother of the Monarch reach\u2019d Achaian Argos yet, but, wand\u2019ring still In other climes, his long absence gave \u00c6gisthus courage for that bloody deed? Whom answer\u2019d the Gerenian Chief renown\u2019d. My son! I will inform thee true; meantime 330 Thy own suspicions border on the fact. Had Menelaus, Hero, amber hair\u2019d, \u00c6gisthus found living at his return From Ilium, never on his bones the Greeks Had heap\u2019d a tomb, but dogs and rav\u2019ning fowls Had torn him lying in the open field Far from the town, nor him had woman wept Of all in Greece, for he had foul transgress\u2019d. But we, in many an arduous task engaged, Lay before Ilium; he, the while, secure 340 Within the green retreats of Argos, found Occasion apt by flatt\u2019ry to delude The spouse of Agamemnon; she, at first, (The royal Clytemnestra) firm refused The deed dishonourable (for she bore A virtuous mind, and at her side a bard Attended ever, whom the King, to Troy Departing, had appointed to the charge.) But when the Gods had purposed to ensnare \u00c6gisthus, then dismissing far remote 350 The bard into a desart isle, he there Abandon\u2019d him to rav\u2019ning fowls a prey, And to his own home, willing as himself, Led Clytemnestra. Num\u2019rous thighs he burn\u2019d On all their hallow\u2019d altars to the Gods, And hung with tap\u2019stry, images, and gold Their shrines, his great exploit past hope atchiev\u2019d. We (Menelaus and myself) had sailed From Troy together, but when we approach\u2019d Sunium, headland of th\u2019 Athenian shore, 360 There Ph\u0153bus, sudden, with his gentle shafts Slew Menelaus\u2019 pilot while he steer\u2019d The volant bark, Phrontis, Onetor\u2019s son, A mariner past all expert, whom none In steerage match\u2019d, what time the tempest roar\u2019d. Here, therefore, Menelaus was detained, Giving his friend due burial, and his rites Funereal celebrating, though in haste Still to proceed. But when, with all his fleet The wide sea traversing, he reach\u2019d at length 370 Malea\u2019s lofty foreland in his course, Rough passage, then, and perilous he found. Shrill blasts the Thund\u2019rer pour\u2019d into his sails, And wild waves sent him mountainous. His ships There scatter\u2019d, some to the Cydonian coast Of Crete he push\u2019d, near where the Jardan flows. Beside the confines of Gortyna stands, Amid the gloomy flood, a smooth rock, steep Toward the sea, against whose leftward point Ph\u00e6stus by name, the South wind rolls the surge 380 Amain, which yet the rock, though small, repells. Hither with part he came, and scarce the crews Themselves escaped, while the huge billows broke Their ships against the rocks; yet five he saved, Which winds and waves drove to the \u00c6gyptian shore. Thus he, provision gath\u2019ring as he went And gold abundant, roam\u2019d to distant lands And nations of another tongue. Meantime, \u00c6gisthus these enormities at home Devising, slew Atrides, and supreme 390 Rul\u2019d the subjected land; sev\u2019n years he reign\u2019d In opulent Mycen\u00e6, but the eighth From Athens brought renown\u2019d Orestes home For his destruction, who of life bereaved \u00c6gisthus base assassin of his Sire. Orestes, therefore, the funereal rites Performing to his shameless mother\u2019s shade And to her lustful paramour, a feast Gave to the Argives; on which self-same day The warlike Menelaus, with his ships 400 All treasure-laden to the brink, arrived. And thou, young friend! from thy forsaken home Rove not long time remote, thy treasures left At mercy of those proud, lest they divide And waste the whole, rend\u2019ring thy voyage vain. But hence to Menelaus is the course To which I counsel thee; for he hath come Of late from distant lands, whence to escape No man could hope, whom tempests first had driv\u2019n Devious into so wide a sea, from which 410 Themselves the birds of heaven could not arrive In a whole year, so vast is the expanse. Go, then, with ship and shipmates, or if more The land delight thee, steeds thou shalt not want Nor chariot, and my sons shall be thy guides To noble Lacedemon, the abode Of Menelaus; ask from him the truth, Who will not lye, for he is passing wise. While thus he spake, the sun declined, and night Approaching, blue-eyed Pallas interposed. 420 O antient King! well hast thou spoken all. But now delay not. Cut ye forth the tongues,8 And mingle wine, that (Neptune first invoked With due libation, and the other Gods) We may repair to rest; for even now The sun is sunk, and it becomes us not Long to protract a banquet to the Gods Devote, but in fit season to depart. So spake Jove\u2019s daughter; they obedient heard. The heralds, then, pour\u2019d water on their hands, 430 And the attendant youths, filling the cups, Served them from left to right. Next all the tongues They cast into the fire, and ev\u2019ry guest Arising, pour\u2019d libation to the Gods. Libation made, and all with wine sufficed, Godlike Telemachus and Pallas both Would have return\u2019d, incontinent, on board, But Nestor urged them still to be his guests. Forbid it, Jove, and all the Pow\u2019rs of heav\u2019n! That ye should leave me to repair on board 440 Your vessel, as I were some needy wretch Cloakless and destitute of fleecy stores Wherewith to spread the couch soft for myself, Or for my guests. No. I have garments warm An ample store, and rugs of richest dye; And never shall Ulysses\u2019 son belov\u2019d, My frend\u2019s own son, sleep on a galley\u2019s plank While I draw vital air; grant also, heav\u2019n, That, dying, I may leave behind me sons Glad to accommodate whatever guest! 450 Him answer\u2019d then Pallas c\u00e6rulean-eyed. Old Chief! thou hast well said, and reason bids Telemachus thy kind commands obey. Let him attend thee hence, that he may sleep Beneath thy roof, but I return on board Myself, to instruct my people, and to give All needful orders; for among them none Is old as I, but they are youths alike, Coevals of Telemachus, with whom They have embark\u2019d for friendship\u2019s sake alone. 460 I therefore will repose myself on board This night, and to the Caucons bold in arms Will sail to-morrow, to demand arrears Long time unpaid, and of no small amount. But, since he is become thy guest, afford My friend a chariot, and a son of thine Who shall direct his way, nor let him want Of all thy steeds the swiftest and the best. So saying, the blue-eyed Goddess as upborne On eagle\u2019s wings, vanish\u2019d; amazement seized 470 The whole assembly, and the antient King O\u2019erwhelmed with wonder at that sight, the hand Grasp\u2019d of Telemachus, whom he thus bespake. My friend! I prophesy that thou shalt prove Nor base nor dastard, whom, so young, the Gods Already take in charge; for of the Pow\u2019rs Inhabitants of heav\u2019n, none else was this Than Jove\u2019s own daughter Pallas, who among The Greecians honour\u2019d most thy gen\u2019rous Sire. But thou, O Queen! compassionate us all, 480 Myself, my sons, my comfort; give to each A glorious name, and I to thee will give For sacrifice an heifer of the year, Broad-fronted, one that never yet hath borne The yoke, and will incase her horns with gold. So Nestor pray\u2019d, whom Pallas gracious heard. Then the Gerenian warrior old, before His sons and sons in law, to his abode Magnificent proceeded: they (arrived Within the splendid palace of the King) 490 On thrones and couches sat in order ranged, Whom Nestor welcom\u2019d, charging high the cup With wine of richest sort, which she who kept That treasure, now in the eleventh year First broach\u2019d, unsealing the delicious juice. With this the hoary Senior fill\u2019d a cup, And to the daughter of Jove \u00c6gis-arm\u2019d Pouring libation, offer\u2019d fervent pray\u2019r. When all had made libation, and no wish Remain\u2019d of more, then each to rest retired, 500 And Nestor the Gerenian warrior old Led thence Telemachus to a carved couch Beneath the sounding portico prepared. Beside him he bade sleep the spearman bold, Pisistratus, a gallant youth, the sole Unwedded in his house of all his sons. Himself in the interior palace lay, Where couch and cov\u2019ring for her antient spouse The consort Queen had diligent prepar\u2019d. But when Aurora, daughter of the dawn, 510 Had tinged the East, arising from his bed, Gerenian Nestor issued forth, and sat Before his palace-gate on the white stones Resplendent as with oil, on which of old His father Neleus had been wont to sit, In council like a God; but he had sought, By destiny dismiss\u2019d long since, the shades. On those stones therefore now, Nestor himself, Achaia\u2019s guardian, sat, sceptre in hand, Where soon his num\u2019rous sons, leaving betimes 520 The place of their repose, also appeared, Echephron, Stratius, Perseus, Thrasymedes, Aretus and Pisistratus. They placed Godlike Telemachus at Nestor\u2019s side, And the Gerenian Hero thus began. Sons be ye quick\u2014execute with dispatch My purpose, that I may propitiate first Of all the Gods Minerva, who herself Hath honour\u2019d manifest our hallow\u2019d feast. Haste, one, into the field, to order thence 530 An ox, and let the herdsman drive it home. Another, hasting to the sable bark Of brave Telemachus, bring hither all His friends, save two, and let a third command Laerceus, that he come to enwrap with gold The victim\u2019s horns. Abide ye here, the rest, And bid my female train (for I intend A banquet) with all diligence provide Seats, stores of wood, and water from the rock. He said, whom instant all obey\u2019d. The ox 540 Came from the field, and from the gallant ship The ship-mates of the brave Telemachus; Next, charged with all his implements of art, His mallet, anvil, pincers, came the smith To give the horns their gilding; also came Pallas herself to her own sacred rites. Then Nestor, hoary warrior, furnish\u2019d gold, Which, hammer\u2019d thin, the artist wrapp\u2019d around The victim\u2019s horns, that seeing him attired So costly, Pallas might the more be pleased. 550 Stratius and brave Echephron introduced The victim by his horns; Aretus brought A laver in one hand, with flow\u2019rs emboss\u2019d, And in his other hand a basket stored With cakes, while warlike Thrasymedes, arm\u2019d With his long-hafted ax, prepared to smite The ox, and Perseus to receive the blood. The hoary Nestor consecrated first Both cakes and water, and with earnest pray\u2019r To Pallas, gave the forelock to the flames. 560 When all had worshipp\u2019d, and the broken cakes Sprinkled, then godlike Thrasymedes drew Close to the ox, and smote him. Deep the edge Enter\u2019d, and senseless on the floor he fell. Then Nestor\u2019s daughters, and the consorts all Of Nestor\u2019s sons, with his own consort, chaste Eurydice, the daughter eldest-born Of Clymenus, in one shrill orison Vocif\u2019rous join\u2019d, while they, lifting the ox, Held him supported firmly, and the prince 570 Of men, Pisistratus, his gullet pierced. Soon as the sable blood had ceased, and life Had left the victim, spreading him abroad, With nice address they parted at the joint His thighs, and wrapp\u2019d them in the double cawl, Which with crude slices thin they overspread. Nestor burn\u2019d incense, and libation pour\u2019d Large on the hissing brands, while him beside, Busy with spit and prong, stood many a youth Train\u2019d to the task. The thighs consumed, each took His portion of the maw, then, slashing well 581 The remnant, they transpierced it with the spits Neatly, and held it reeking at the fire. Meantime the youngest of the daughters fair Of Nestor, beauteous Polycaste, laved, Anointed, and in vest and tunic cloathed Telemachus, who, so refresh\u2019d, stepp\u2019d forth From the bright laver graceful as a God, And took his seat at antient Nestor\u2019s side. The viands dress\u2019d, and from the spits withdrawn, 590 They sat to share the feast, and princely youths Arising, gave them wine in cups of gold. When neither hunger now nor thirst remain\u2019d Unsated, thus Gerenian Nestor spake. My sons, arise, lead forth the sprightly steeds, And yoke them, that Telemachus may go. So spake the Chief, to whose commands his sons, Obedient, yoked in haste the rapid steeds, And the intendant matron of the stores Disposed meantime within the chariot, bread 600 And wine, and dainties, such as princes eat. Telemachus into the chariot first Ascended, and beside him, next, his place Pisistratus the son of Nestor took, Then seiz\u2019d the reins, and lash\u2019d the coursers on. They, nothing loth, into the open plain Flew, leaving lofty Pylus soon afar. Thus, journeying, they shook on either side The yoke all day, and now the setting sun To dusky evening had resign\u2019d the roads, 610 When they to Pher\u00e6 came, and the abode Reach\u2019d of Diocles, whose illustrious Sire Orsilochus from Alpheus drew his birth, And there, with kindness entertain\u2019d, they slept. But when Aurora, daughter of the dawn, Look\u2019d rosy from the East, yoking the steeds, They in their sumptuous chariot sat again. The son of Nestor plied the lash, and forth Through vestibule and sounding portico The royal coursers, not unwilling, flew. 620 A corn-invested land receiv\u2019d them next, And there they brought their journey to a close, So rapidly they moved; and now the sun Went down, and even-tide dimm\u2019d all the ways.\n\n\n\n7 \u0395\u03c1\u03ba\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bf\u03b4\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd. Prior, alluding to this expression, ludicrously renders it\u2014\n\n\u201cWhen words like these in vocal breath Burst from his twofold hedge of teeth.\u201d\n\n\n\n8 It is said to have been customary in the days of Homer, when the Greeks retired from a banquet to their beds, to cut out the tongues of the victims, and offer them to the Gods in particular who presided over conversation.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK IV\nARGUMENT\nTelemachus, with Pisistratus, arrives at the palace of Menelaus, from whom he receives some fresh information concerning the return of the Greecians, and is in particular told on the authority of Proteus, that his father is detained by Calypso. The suitors, plotting against the life of Telemachus, lie in wait to intercept him in his return to Ithaca. Penelope being informed of his departure, and of their designs to slay him, becomes inconsolable, but is relieved by a dream sent to her from Minerva.\n\nIn hollow Laced\u00e6mon\u2019s spacious vale Arriving, to the house they drove direct Of royal Menelaus; him they found In his own palace, all his num\u2019rous friends Regaling at a nuptial banquet giv\u2019n Both for his daughter and the prince his son. His daughter to renown\u2019d Achilles\u2019 heir He sent, to whom he had at Troy engaged To give her, and the Gods now made her his. With chariots and with steeds he sent her forth 10 To the illustrious city where the prince, Achilles\u2019 offspring, ruled the Myrmidons. But to his son he gave a Spartan fair, Alector\u2019s daughter; from an handmaid sprang That son to Menelaus in his age, Brave Megapenthes; for the Gods no child To Helen gave, made mother, once, of her Who vied in perfect loveliness of form With golden Venus\u2019 self, Hermione. Thus all the neighbour princes and the friends 20 Of noble Menelaus, feasting sat Within his spacious palace, among whom A sacred bard sang sweetly to his harp, While, in the midst, two dancers smote the ground With measur\u2019d steps responsive to his song. And now the Heroes, Nestor\u2019s noble son And young Telemachus arrived within The vestibule, whom, issuing from the hall, The noble Eteoneus of the train Of Menelaus, saw; at once he ran 30 Across the palace to report the news To his Lord\u2019s ear, and, standing at his side, In accents wing\u2019d with haste thus greeted him. Oh Menelaus! Heav\u2019n descended Chief! Two guests arrive, both strangers, but the race Of Jove supreme resembling each in form. Say, shall we loose, ourselves, their rapid steeds, Or hence dismiss them to some other host? But Menelaus, Hero golden-hair\u2019d, Indignant answer\u2019d him. Boethe\u2019s son! 40 Thou wast not, Eteoneus, heretofore, A babbler, who now pratest as a child. We have ourselves arrived indebted much To hospitality of other men, If Jove shall, even here, some pause at last Of woe afford us. Therefore loose, at once, Their steeds, and introduce them to the feast. He said, and, issuing, Eteoneus call\u2019d The brisk attendants to his aid, with whom He loos\u2019d their foaming coursers from the yoke. 50 Them first they bound to mangers, which with oats And mingled barley they supplied, then thrust The chariot sidelong to the splendid wall.9 Themselves he, next, into the royal house Conducted, who survey\u2019d, wond\u2019ring, the abode Of the heav\u2019n-favour\u2019d King; for on all sides As with the splendour of the sun or moon The lofty dome of Menelaus blazed. Satiate, at length, with wonder at that sight, They enter\u2019d each a bath, and by the hands 60 Of maidens laved, and oil\u2019d, and cloath\u2019d again With shaggy mantles and resplendent vests, Sat both enthroned at Menelaus\u2019 side. And now a maiden charged with golden ew\u2019r, And with an argent laver, pouring first Pure water on their hands, supplied them next With a bright table, which the maiden, chief In office, furnish\u2019d plenteously with bread And dainties, remnants of the last regale. Then came the sew\u2019r, who with delicious meats 70 Dish after dish, served them, and placed beside The chargers cups magnificent of gold, When Menelaus grasp\u2019d their hands, and said. Eat and rejoice, and when ye shall have shared Our nuptial banquet, we will then inquire Who are ye both, for, certain, not from those Whose generation perishes are ye, But rather of some race of sceptred Chiefs Heav\u2019n-born; the base have never sons like you. So saying, he from the board lifted his own 80 Distinguish\u2019d portion, and the fatted chine Gave to his guests; the sav\u2019ry viands they With outstretch\u2019d hands assail\u2019d, and when the force No longer now of appetite they felt, Telemachus, inclining close his head To Nestor\u2019s son, lest others should his speech Witness, in whisper\u2019d words him thus address\u2019d. Dearest Pisistratus, observe, my friend! How all the echoing palace with the light Of beaming brass, of gold and amber shines 90 Silver and ivory! for radiance such Th\u2019 interior mansion of Olympian Jove I deem. What wealth, how various, how immense Is here! astonish\u2019d I survey the sight! But Menelaus, golden-hair\u2019d, his speech O\u2019erhearing, thus in accents wing\u2019d replied My children! let no mortal man pretend Comparison with Jove; for Jove\u2019s abode And all his stores are incorruptible. But whether mortal man with me may vie 100 In the display of wealth, or whether not, This know, that after many toils endured, And perilous wand\u2019rings wide, in the eighth year I brought my treasures home. Remote I roved To Cyprus, to Ph\u0153nice, to the shores Of \u00c6gypt; \u00c6thiopia\u2019s land I reach\u2019d, Th\u2019 Erembi, the Sidonians, and the coasts Of Lybia, where the lambs their foreheads shew At once with horns defended, soon as yean\u2019d. There, thrice within the year the flocks produce, 110 Nor master, there, nor shepherd ever feels A dearth of cheese, of flesh, or of sweet milk Delicious, drawn from udders never dry. While, thus, commodities on various coasts Gath\u2019ring I roam\u2019d, another, by the arts Of his pernicious spouse aided, of life Bereav\u2019d my brother privily, and when least He fear\u2019d to lose it. Therefore little joy To me results from all that I possess. Your fathers (be those fathers who they may) 120 These things have doubtless told you; for immense Have been my suff\u2019rings, and I have destroy\u2019d A palace well inhabited and stored With precious furniture in ev\u2019ry kind; Such, that I would to heav\u2019n! I own\u2019d at home Though but the third of it, and that the Greeks Who perish\u2019d then, beneath the walls of Troy Far from steed-pastured Argos, still survived. Yet while, sequester\u2019d here, I frequent mourn My slaughter\u2019d friends, by turns I sooth my soul 130 With tears shed for them, and by turns again I cease; for grief soon satiates free indulged. But of them all, although I all bewail, None mourn I so as one, whom calling back To memory, I both sleep and food abhor. For, of Achaia\u2019s sons none ever toiled Strenuous as Ulysses; but his lot Was woe, and unremitting sorrow mine For his long absence, who, if still he live, We know not aught, or be already dead. 140 Him doubtless, old Laertes mourns, and him Discrete Penelope, nor less his son Telemachus, born newly when he sail\u2019d. So saying, he kindled in him strong desire To mourn his father; at his father\u2019s name Fast fell his tears to ground, and with both hands He spread his purple cloak before his eyes; Which Menelaus marking, doubtful sat If he should leave him leisure for his tears, Or question him, and tell him all at large. 150 While thus he doubted, Helen (as it chanced) Leaving her fragrant chamber, came, august As Dian, goddess of the golden bow. Adrasta, for her use, set forth a throne, Alcippe with soft arras cover\u2019d it, And Philo brought her silver basket, gift Of fair Alcandra, wife of Polybus, Whose mansion in \u00c6gyptian Thebes is rich In untold treasure, and who gave, himself, Ten golden talents, and two silver baths 160 To Menelaus, with two splendid tripods Beside the noble gifts which, at the hand Of his illustrious spouse, Helen receiv\u2019d; A golden spindle, and a basket wheel\u2019d, Itself of silver, and its lip of gold. That basket Philo, her own handmaid, placed At beauteous Helen\u2019s side, charged to the brim With slender threads, on which the spindle lay With wool of purple lustre wrapp\u2019d around. Approaching, on her foot-stool\u2019d throne she sat, 170 And, instant, of her royal spouse enquired. Know we, my Menelaus, dear to Jove! These guests of ours, and whence they have arrived? Erroneous I may speak, yet speak I must; In man or woman never have I seen Such likeness to another (wonder-fixt I gaze) as in this stranger to the son Of brave Ulysses, whom that Hero left New-born at home, when (shameless as I was) For my unworthy sake the Greecians sailed 180 To Ilium, with fierce rage of battle fir\u2019d. Then Menelaus, thus, the golden-hair\u2019d. I also such resemblance find in him As thou; such feet, such hands, the cast of eye10 Similar, and the head and flowing locks. And even now, when I Ulysses named, And his great sufferings mention\u2019d, in my cause, The bitter tear dropp\u2019d from his lids, while broad Before his eyes his purple cloak he spread. To whom the son of Nestor thus replied. 190 Atrides! Menelaus! Chief renown\u2019d! He is in truth his son, as thou hast said, But he is modest, and would much himself Condemn, if, at his first arrival here, He should loquacious seem and bold to thee, To whom we listen, captived by thy voice, As if some God had spoken. As for me, Nestor, my father, the Gerenian Chief Bade me conduct him hither, for he wish\u2019d To see thee, promising himself from thee 200 The benefit of some kind word or deed. For, destitute of other aid, he much His father\u2019s tedious absence mourns at home. So fares Telemachus; his father strays Remote, and, in his stead, no friend hath he Who might avert the mischiefs that he feels. To whom the Hero amber-hair\u2019d replied. Ye Gods! the offspring of indeed a friend Hath reach\u2019d my house, of one who hath endured Arduous conflicts num\u2019rous for my sake; 210 And much I purpos\u2019d, had Olympian Jove Vouchsaf\u2019d us prosp\u2019rous passage o\u2019er the Deep, To have receiv\u2019d him with such friendship here As none beside. In Argos I had then Founded a city for him, and had rais\u2019d A palace for himself; I would have brought The Hero hither, and his son, with all His people, and with all his wealth, some town Evacuating for his sake, of those Ruled by myself, and neighb\u2019ring close my own. 220 Thus situate, we had often interchanged Sweet converse, nor had other cause at last Our friendship terminated or our joys, Than death\u2019s black cloud o\u2019ershadowing him or me. But such delights could only envy move Ev\u2019n in the Gods, who have, of all the Greeks, Amerc\u2019d him only of his wish\u2019d return. So saying, he kindled the desire to weep In ev\u2019ry bosom. Argive Helen wept Abundant, Jove\u2019s own daughter; wept as fast 230 Telemachus and Menelaus both; Nor Nestor\u2019s son with tearless eyes remain\u2019d, Calling to mind Antilochus11 by the son12 Illustrious of the bright Aurora slain, Rememb\u2019ring whom, in accents wing\u2019d he said. Atrides! antient Nestor, when of late Conversing with him, we remember\u2019d thee, Pronounced thee wise beyond all human-kind. Now therefore, let not even my advice Displease thee. It affords me no delight 240 To intermingle tears with my repast, And soon, Aurora, daughter of the dawn, Will tinge the orient. Not that I account Due lamentation of a friend deceased Blameworthy, since, to sheer the locks and weep, Is all we can for the unhappy dead. I also have my grief, call\u2019d to lament One, not the meanest of Achaia\u2019s sons, My brother; him I cannot but suppose To thee well-known, although unknown to me 250 Who saw him never;13 but report proclaims Antilochus superior to the most, In speed superior, and in feats of arms. To whom, the Hero of the yellow locks. O friend belov\u2019d! since nought which thou hast said Or recommended now, would have disgraced A man of years maturer far than thine, (For wise thy father is, and such art thou, And easy is it to discern the son Of such a father, whom Saturnian Jove 260 In marriage both and at his birth ordain\u2019d To great felicity; for he hath giv\u2019n To Nestor gradually to sink at home Into old age, and, while he lives, to see His sons past others wise, and skill\u2019d in arms) The sorrow into which we sudden fell Shall pause. Come\u2014now remember we the feast; Pour water on our hands, for we shall find, (Telemachus and I) no dearth of themes For mutual converse when the day shall dawn. 270 He ended; then, Asphalion, at his word, Servant of glorious Menelaus, poured Pure water on their hands, and they the feast Before them with keen appetite assail\u2019d. But Jove-born Helen otherwise, meantime, Employ\u2019d, into the wine of which they drank A drug infused, antidote to the pains Of grief and anger, a most potent charm For ills of ev\u2019ry name. Whoe\u2019er his wine So medicated drinks, he shall not pour 280 All day the tears down his wan cheek, although His father and his mother both were dead, Nor even though his brother or his son Had fall\u2019n in battle, and before his eyes. Such drugs Jove\u2019s daughter own\u2019d, with skill prepar\u2019d, And of prime virtue, by the wife of Thone, \u00c6gyptian Polydamna, giv\u2019n her. For \u00c6gypt teems with drugs, yielding no few Which, mingled with the drink, are good, and many Of baneful juice, and enemies to life. 290 There ev\u2019ry man in skill medicinal Excels, for they are sons of P\u00e6on all. That drug infused, she bade her servant pour The bev\u2019rage forth, and thus her speech resumed. Atrides! Menelaus! dear to Jove! These also are the sons of Chiefs renown\u2019d, (For Jove, as pleases him, to each assigns Or good or evil, whom all things obey) Now therefore, feasting at your ease reclin\u2019d, Listen with pleasure, for myself, the while, 300 Will matter seasonable interpose. I cannot all rehearse, nor even name, (Omitting none) the conflicts and exploits Of brave Ulysses; but with what address Successful, one atchievement he perform\u2019d At Ilium, where Achaia\u2019s sons endured Such hardship, will I speak. Inflicting wounds Dishonourable on himself, he took A tatter\u2019d garb, and like a serving-man Enter\u2019d the spacious city of your foes. 310 So veil\u2019d, some mendicant he seem\u2019d, although No Greecian less deserved that name than he. In such disguise he enter\u2019d; all alike Misdeem\u2019d him; me alone he not deceived Who challeng\u2019d him, but, shrewd, he turn\u2019d away. At length, however, when I had myself Bathed him, anointed, cloath\u2019d him, and had sworn Not to declare him openly in Troy Till he should reach again the camp and fleet, He told me the whole purpose of the Greeks. 320 Then, (many a Trojan slaughter\u2019d,) he regain\u2019d The camp, and much intelligence he bore To the Achaians. Oh what wailing then Was heard of Trojan women! but my heart Exulted, alter\u2019d now, and wishing home; For now my crime committed under force Of Venus\u2019 influence I deplored, what time She led me to a country far remote, A wand\u2019rer from the matrimonial bed, From my own child, and from my rightful Lord 330 Alike unblemish\u2019d both in form and mind. Her answer\u2019d then the Hero golden-hair\u2019d. Helen! thou hast well spoken. All is true. I have the talents fathom\u2019d and the minds Of num\u2019rous Heroes, and have travell\u2019d far Yet never saw I with these eyes in man Such firmness as the calm Ulysses own\u2019d; None such as in the wooden horse he proved, Where all our bravest sat, designing woe And bloody havoc for the sons of Troy. 340 Thou thither cam\u2019st, impell\u2019d, as it should seem, By some divinity inclin\u2019d to give Victory to our foes, and with thee came Godlike Deiphobus. Thrice round about The hollow ambush, striking with thy hand Its sides thou went\u2019st, and by his name didst call Each prince of Greece feigning his consort\u2019s voice. Myself with Diomede, and with divine Ulysses, seated in the midst, the call Heard plain and loud; we (Diomede and I) 350 With ardour burn\u2019d either to quit the horse So summon\u2019d, or to answer from within. But, all impatient as we were, Ulysses Controul\u2019d the rash design; so there the sons Of the Achaians silent sat and mute, And of us all Anticlus would alone Have answer\u2019d; but Ulysses with both hands Compressing close his lips, saved us, nor ceased Till Pallas thence conducted thee again. Then thus, discrete, Telemachus replied. 360 Atrides! Menelaus! prince renown\u2019d! Hard was his lot whom these rare qualities Preserved not, neither had his dauntless heart Been iron, had he scaped his cruel doom. But haste, dismiss us hence, that on our beds Reposed, we may enjoy sleep, needful now. He ceas\u2019d; then Argive Helen gave command To her attendant maidens to prepare Beds in the portico with purple rugs Resplendent, and with arras, overspread, 370 And cover\u2019d warm with cloaks of shaggy pile. Forth went the maidens, bearing each a torch, And spread the couches; next, the herald them Led forth, and in the vestibule the son Of Nestor and the youthful Hero slept, Telemachus; but in the interior house Atrides, with the loveliest of her sex Beside him, Helen of the sweeping stole. But when Aurora, daughter of the dawn, Glow\u2019d in the East, then from his couch arose 380 The warlike Menelaus, fresh attir\u2019d; His faulchion o\u2019er his shoulders slung, he bound His sandals fair to his unsullied feet, And like a God issuing, at the side Sat of Telemachus, to whom he spake. Hero! Telemachus! what urgent cause Hath hither led thee, to the land far-famed Of Laced\u00e6mon o\u2019er the spacious Deep? Public concern or private? Tell me true. To whom Telemachus discrete replied. 390 Atrides! Menelaus! prince renown\u2019d! News seeking of my Sire, I have arrived. My household is devour\u2019d, my fruitful fields Are desolated, and my palace fill\u2019d With enemies, who while they mutual wage Proud competition for my mother\u2019s love, My flocks continual slaughter, and my beeves. For this cause, at thy knees suppliant, I beg That thou wouldst tell me his disastrous end, If either thou beheld\u2019st with thine own eyes 400 His death, or from some wand\u2019rer of the Greeks Hast heard it; for no common woes, alas! Was he ordain\u2019d to share ev\u2019n from the womb. Neither through pity or o\u2019erstrain\u2019d respect Flatter me, but explicit all relate Which thou hast witness\u2019d. If my noble Sire E\u2019er gratified thee by performance just Of word or deed at Ilium, where ye fell So num\u2019rous slain in fight, oh recollect Now his fidelity, and tell me true! 410 Then Menelaus, sighing deep, replied. Gods! their ambition is to reach the bed Of a brave man, however base themselves. But as it chances, when the hart hath lay\u2019d Her fawns new-yean\u2019d and sucklings yet, to rest Within some dreadful lion\u2019s gloomy den, She roams the hills, and in the grassy vales Feeds heedless, till the lion, to his lair Return\u2019d, destroys her and her little-ones, So them thy Sire shall terribly destroy. 420 Jove, Pallas and Apollo! oh that such As erst in well-built Lesbos, where he strove With Philomelides, and threw him flat, A sight at which Achaia\u2019s sons rejoic\u2019d, Such, now, Ulysses might assail them all! Short life and bitter nuptials should be theirs. But thy enquiries neither indirect Will I evade, nor give thee false reply, But all that from the Antient of the Deep14 I have receiv\u2019d will utter, hiding nought. 430 As yet the Gods on \u00c6gypt\u2019s shore detained Me wishing home, angry at my neglect To heap their altars with slain hecatombs. For they exacted from us evermore Strict rev\u2019rence of their laws. There is an isle Amid the billowy flood, Pharos by name, In front of \u00c6gypt, distant from her shore Far as a vessel by a sprightly gale Impell\u2019d, may push her voyage in a day. The haven there is good, and many a ship 440 Finds wat\u2019ring there from riv\u2019lets on the coast. There me the Gods kept twenty days, no breeze Propitious granting, that might sweep the waves, And usher to her home the flying bark. And now had our provision, all consumed, Left us exhausted, but a certain nymph Pitying saved me. Daughter fair was she Of mighty Proteus, Antient of the Deep, Idothea named; her most my sorrows moved; She found me from my followers all apart 450 Wand\u2019ring (for they around the isle, with hooks The fishes snaring roamed, by famine urged) And standing at my side, me thus bespake. Stranger! thou must be ideot born, or weak At least in intellect, or thy delight Is in distress and mis\u2019ry, who delay\u2019st To leave this island, and no egress hence Canst find, although thy famish\u2019d people faint. So spake the Goddess, and I thus replied. I tell thee, whosoever of the Pow\u2019rs 460 Divine thou art, that I am prison\u2019d here Not willingly, but must have, doubtless, sinn\u2019d Against the deathless tenants of the skies. Yet say (for the Immortals all things know) What God detains me, and my course forbids Hence to my country o\u2019er the fishy Deep? So I; to whom the Goddess all-divine. Stranger! I will inform thee true. A seer Oracular, the Antient of the Deep, Immortal Proteus, the \u00c6gyptian, haunts 470 These shores, familiar with all Ocean\u2019s gulphs, And Neptune\u2019s subject. He is by report My father; him if thou art able once To seize and bind, he will prescribe the course With all its measured distances, by which Thou shalt regain secure thy native shores. He will, moreover, at thy suit declare, Thou favour\u2019d of the skies! what good, what ill Hath in thine house befall\u2019n, while absent thou Thy voyage difficult perform\u2019st and long. 480 She spake, and I replied\u2014Thyself reveal By what effectual bands I may secure The antient Deity marine, lest, warn\u2019d Of my approach, he shun me and escape. Hard task for mortal hands to bind a God! Then thus Idothea answer\u2019d all-divine. I will inform thee true. Soon as the sun Hath climb\u2019d the middle heav\u2019ns, the prophet old, Emerging while the breezy zephyr blows, And cover\u2019d with the scum of ocean, seeks 490 His spacious cove, in which outstretch\u2019d he lies. The phoc\u00e615 also, rising from the waves, Offspring of beauteous Halosydna, sleep Around him, num\u2019rous, and the fishy scent Exhaling rank of the unfathom\u2019d flood. Thither conducting thee at peep of day I will dispose thee in some safe recess, But from among thy followers thou shalt chuse The bravest three in all thy gallant fleet. And now the artifices understand 500 Of the old prophet of the sea. The sum Of all his phoc\u00e6 numb\u2019ring duly first, He will pass through them, and when all by fives He counted hath, will in the midst repose Content, as sleeps the shepherd with his flock. When ye shall see him stretch\u2019d, then call to mind That moment all your prowess, and prevent, Howe\u2019er he strive impatient, his escape. All changes trying, he will take the form Of ev\u2019ry reptile on the earth, will seem 510 A river now, and now devouring fire; But hold him ye, and grasp him still the more. And when himself shall question you, restored To his own form in which ye found him first Reposing, then from farther force abstain; Then, Hero! loose the Antient of the Deep, And ask him, of the Gods who checks thy course Hence to thy country o\u2019er the fishy flood. So saying, she plunged into the billowy waste. I then, in various musings lost, my ships 520 Along the sea-beach station\u2019d sought again, And when I reach\u2019d my galley on the shore We supp\u2019d, and sacred night falling from heav\u2019n, Slept all extended on the ocean-side. But when Aurora, daughter of the dawn, Look\u2019d rosy forth, pensive beside the shore I walk\u2019d of Ocean, frequent to the Gods Praying devout, then chose the fittest three For bold assault, and worthiest of my trust. Meantime the Goddess from the bosom wide 530 Of Ocean rising, brought us thence four skins Of phoc\u00e6, and all newly stript, a snare Contriving subtle to deceive her Sire. Four cradles in the sand she scoop\u2019d, then sat Expecting us, who in due time approach\u2019d; She lodg\u2019d us side by side, and over each A raw skin cast. Horrible to ourselves Proved that disguise whom the pernicious scent Of the sea-nourish\u2019d phoc\u00e6 sore annoy\u2019d; For who would lay him down at a whale\u2019s side? 540 But she a potent remedy devised Herself to save us, who the nostrils sooth\u2019d Of each with pure ambrosia thither brought Odorous, which the fishy scent subdued. All morning, patient watchers, there we lay; And now the num\u2019rous phoc\u00e6 from the Deep Emerging, slept along the shore, and he At noon came also, and perceiving there His fatted monsters, through the flock his course Took regular, and summ\u2019d them; with the first 550 He number\u2019d us, suspicion none of fraud Conceiving, then couch\u2019d also. We, at once, Loud-shouting flew on him, and in our arms Constrain\u2019d him fast; nor the sea-prophet old Call\u2019d not incontinent his shifts to mind. First he became a long-maned lion grim, Then dragon, panther then, a savage boar, A limpid stream, and an o\u2019ershadowing tree. We persevering held him, till at length The Antient of the Deep, skill\u2019d as he is 560 In wiles, yet weary, question\u2019d me, and said. Oh Atreus\u2019 son, by what confed\u2019rate God Instructed liest thou in wait for me, To seize and hold me? what is thy desire? So He; to whom thus answer I return\u2019d. Old Seer! thou know\u2019st; why, fraudful, should\u2019st thou ask? It is because I have been prison\u2019d long Within this isle, whence I have sought in vain Deliv\u2019rance, till my wonted courage fails. Yet say (for the Immortals all things know) 570 What God detains me, and my course forbids Hence to my country o\u2019er the fishy Deep? So I; when thus the old one of the waves. But thy plain duty16 was to have adored Jove, first, in sacrifice, and all the Gods, That then embarking, by propitious gales Impell\u2019d, thou might\u2019st have reach\u2019d thy country soon. For thou art doom\u2019d ne\u2019er to behold again Thy friends, thy palace, or thy native shores, Till thou have seen once more the hallow\u2019d flood 580 Of \u00c6gypt, and with hecatombs adored Devout, the deathless tenants of the skies. Then will they speed thee whither thou desir\u2019st. He ended, and my heart broke at his words, Which bade me pass again the gloomy gulph To \u00c6gypt; tedious course, and hard to atchieve! Yet, though in sorrow whelm\u2019d, I thus replied. Old prophet! I will all thy will perform. But tell me, and the truth simply reveal; Have the Achaians with their ships arrived 590 All safe, whom Nestor left and I, at Troy? Or of the Chiefs have any in their barks, Or in their followers\u2019 arms found a dire death Unlook\u2019d for, since that city\u2019s siege we closed? I spake, when answer thus the God return\u2019d. Atrides, why these questions? Need is none That thou should\u2019st all my secrets learn, which once Reveal\u2019d, thou would\u2019st not long dry-eyed remain. Of those no few have died, and many live; But leaders, two alone, in their return 600 Have died (thou also hast had war to wage) And one, still living, roams the boundless sea. Ajax,17 surrounded by his galleys, died. Him Neptune, first, against the bulky rocks The Gyr\u00e6 drove, but saved him from the Deep; Nor had he perish\u2019d, hated as he was By Pallas, but for his own impious boast In frenzy utter\u2019d that he would escape The billows, even in the Gods\u2019 despight. Neptune that speech vain-glorious hearing, grasp\u2019d 610 His trident, and the huge Gyr\u00e6an rock Smiting indignant, dash\u2019d it half away; Part stood, and part, on which the boaster sat When, first, the brainsick fury seiz\u2019d him, fell, Bearing him with it down into the gulphs Of Ocean, where he drank the brine, and died. But thy own brother in his barks escaped That fate, by Juno saved; yet when, at length, He should have gain\u2019d Malea\u2019s craggy shore, Then, by a sudden tempest caught, he flew 620 With many a groan far o\u2019er the fishy Deep To the land\u2019s utmost point, where once his home Thyestes had, but where Thyestes\u2019 son Dwelt then, \u00c6gisthus. Easy lay his course And open thence, and, as it pleased the Gods, The shifted wind soon bore them to their home. He, high in exultation, trod the shore That gave him birth, kiss\u2019d it, and, at the sight, The welcome sight of Greece, shed many a tear. Yet not unseen he landed; for a spy, 630 One whom the shrewd \u00c6gisthus had seduced By promise of two golden talents, mark\u2019d His coming from a rock where he had watch\u2019d The year complete, lest, passing unperceived, The King should reassert his right in arms. Swift flew the spy with tidings to this Lord, And He, incontinent, this project framed Insidious. Twenty men, the boldest hearts Of all the people, from the rest he chose, Whom he in ambush placed, and others charged 640 Diligent to prepare the festal board. With horses, then, and chariots forth he drove Full-fraught with mischief, and conducting home The unsuspicious King, amid the feast Slew him, as at his crib men slay an ox. Nor of thy brother\u2019s train, nor of his train Who slew thy brother, one survived, but all, Welt\u2019ring in blood together, there expired. He ended, and his words beat on my heart As they would break it. On the sands I sat 650 Weeping, nor life nor light desiring more. But when I had in dust roll\u2019d me, and wept To full satiety, mine ear again The oracle of Ocean thus address\u2019d. Sit not, O son of Atreus! weeping here Longer, for remedy can none be found; But quick arising, trial make, how best Thou shalt, and soonest, reach thy home again. For either him still living thou shalt find, Or ere thou come, Orestes shall have slain 660 The traytor, and thine eyes shall see his tomb. He ceas\u2019d, and I, afflicted as I was, Yet felt my spirit at that word refresh\u2019d, And in wing\u2019d accents answer thus return\u2019d. Of these I am inform\u2019d; but name the third Who, dead or living, on the boundless Deep Is still detain\u2019d; I dread, yet wish to hear. So I; to whom thus Proteus in return. Laertes\u2019 son, the Lord of Ithaca\u2014 Him in an island weeping I beheld, 670 Guest of the nymph Calypso, by constraint Her guest, and from his native land withheld By sad necessity; for ships well-oar\u2019d, Or faithful followers hath he none, whose aid Might speed him safely o\u2019er the spacious flood. But, Menelaus dear to Jove! thy fate Ordains not thee the stroke of death to meet In steed-fam\u2019d Argos, but far hence the Gods Will send thee to Elysium, and the earth\u2019s Extremest bounds; (there Rhadamanthus dwells, 680 The golden-hair\u2019d, and there the human kind Enjoy the easiest life; no snow is there, No biting winter, and no drenching show\u2019r, But zephyr always gently from the sea Breathes on them to refresh the happy race) For that fair Helen is by nuptial bands Thy own, and thou art son-in-law of Jove. So saying, he plunged into the billowy waste, I then, with my brave comrades to the fleet Return\u2019d, deep-musing as I went, and sad. 690 No sooner had I reach\u2019d my ship beside The ocean, and we all had supp\u2019d, than night From heav\u2019n fell on us, and, at ease reposed Along the margin of the sea, we slept. But when Aurora, daughter of the dawn, Look\u2019d rosy forth, drawing our galleys down Into the sacred Deep, we rear\u2019d again The mast, unfurl\u2019d the sail, and to our seats On board returning, thresh\u2019d the foamy flood. Once more, at length, within the hallow\u2019d stream 700 Of \u00c6gypt mooring, on the shore I slew Whole hecatombs, and (the displeasure thus Of the immortal Gods appeased) I reared To Agamemnon\u2019s never-dying fame A tomb, and finishing it, sail\u2019d again With such a gale from heaven vouchsafed, as sent My ships swift-scudding to the shores of Greece. But come\u2014eleven days wait here, or twelve A guest with me, when I will send thee hence Nobly, and honour\u2019d with illustrious gifts, 710 With polish\u2019d chariot, with three princely steeds, And with a gorgeous cup, that to the Gods Libation pouring ever while thou liv\u2019st From that same cup, thou may\u2019st remember me. Him, prudent, then answer\u2019d Telemachus. Atrides, seek not to detain me here Long time; for though contented I could sit The year beside thee, nor regret my home Or parents, (so delightful thy discourse Sounds in my ear) yet, even now, I know, 720 That my attendants to the Pylian shore Wish my return, whom thou thus long detain\u2019st. What boon soe\u2019er thou giv\u2019st me, be it such As I may treasur\u2019d keep; but horses none Take I to Ithaca; them rather far Keep thou, for thy own glory. Thou art Lord Of an extended plain, where copious springs The lotus, herbage of all savours, wheat, Pulse, and white barley of luxuriant growth. But Ithaca no level champaign owns, 730 A nursery of goats, and yet a land Fairer than even pastures to the eye. No sea-encircled isle of ours affords Smooth course commodious and expanse of meads, But my own Ithaca transcends them all! He said; the Hero Menelaus smiled, And stroaking tenderly his cheek, replied. Dear youth! thy speech proclaims thy noble blood. I can with ease supply thee from within With what shall suit thee better, and the gift 740 Of all that I possess which most excels In beauty, and the noblest shall be thine. I give thee, wrought elaborate, a cup Itself all silver, bound with lip of gold. It is the work of Vulcan, which to me The Hero Ph\u00e6dimus imparted, King Of the Sidonians, when on my return His house received me. That shall be thy own. Thus they conferr\u2019d; and now the busy train Of menials culinary,18 at the gate 750 Enter\u2019d of Menelaus, Chief renown\u2019d; They brought him sheep, with heart-ennobling wine, While all their wives, their brows with frontlets bound, Came charg\u2019d with bread. Thus busy they prepared A banquet in the mansion of the King. Meantime, before Ulysses\u2019 palace gate The suitors sported with the quoit and spear On the smooth area, customary scene Of all their strife and angry clamour loud. There sat Antino\u00fcs, and the godlike youth 760 Eurymachus, superior to the rest And Chiefs among them, to whom Phronius\u2019 son No\u00ebmon drawing nigh, with anxious mien Question\u2019d Antino\u00fcs, and thus began. Know we, Antino\u00fcs! or know we not, When to expect Telemachus at home Again from Pylus? in my ship he went, Which now I need, that I may cross the sea To Elis, on whose spacious plain I feed Twelve mares, each suckling a mule-colt as yet 770 Unbroken, but of which I purpose one To ferry thence, and break him into use. He spake, whom they astonish\u2019d heard; for him They deem\u2019d not to Nel\u00ebian Pylus gone, But haply into his own fields, his flocks To visit, or the steward of his swine. Then thus, Eupithes\u2019 son, Antino\u00fcs, spake. Say true. When sail\u2019d he forth? of all our youth, Whom chose he for his followers? his own train Of slaves and hirelings? hath he pow\u2019r to effect 780 This also? Tell me too, for I would learn\u2014 Took he perforce thy sable bark away, Or gav\u2019st it to him at his first demand? To whom No\u00ebmon, Phronius\u2019 son, replied. I gave it voluntary; what could\u2019st thou, Should such a prince petition for thy bark In such distress? Hard were it to refuse. Brave youths (our bravest youths except yourselves) Attend him forth; and with them I observed Mentor embarking, ruler o\u2019er them all, 790 Or, if not him, a God; for such he seem\u2019d. But this much moves my wonder. Yester-morn I saw, at day-break, noble Mentor here, Whom shipp\u2019d for Pylus I had seen before. He ceas\u2019d; and to his father\u2019s house return\u2019d; They, hearing, sat aghast. Their games meantime Finish\u2019d, the suitors on their seats reposed, To whom Eupithes\u2019 son, Antino\u00fcs, next, Much troubled spake; a black storm overcharged His bosom, and his vivid eyes flash\u2019d fire. 800 Ye Gods, a proud exploit is here atchieved, This voyage of Telemachus, by us Pronounced impracticable; yet the boy In downright opposition to us all, Hath headlong launched a ship, and, with a band Selected from our bravest youth, is gone. He soon will prove more mischievous, whose pow\u2019r Jove wither, ere we suffer its effects! But give me a swift bark with twenty rowers, That, watching his return within the streights 810 Of rocky Samos and of Ithaca, I may surprise him; so shall he have sail\u2019d To seek his Sire, fatally for himself. He ceased and loud applause heard in reply, With warm encouragement. Then, rising all, Into Ulysses\u2019 house at once they throng\u2019d. Nor was Penelope left uninformed Long time of their clandestine plottings deep, For herald Medon told her all, whose ear Their councils caught while in the outer-court 820 He stood, and they that project framed within. Swift to Penelope the tale he bore, Who as he pass\u2019d the gate, him thus address\u2019d. For what cause, herald! have the suitors sent Thee foremost? Wou\u2019d they that my maidens lay Their tasks aside, and dress the board for them? Here end their wooing! may they hence depart Never, and may the banquet now prepared, This banquet prove your last!19 who in such throngs Here meeting, waste the patrimony fair 830 Of brave Telemachus; ye never, sure, When children, heard how gracious and how good Ulysses dwelt among your parents, none Of all his people, or in word or deed Injuring, as great princes oft are wont, By favour influenc\u2019d now, now by disgust. He no man wrong\u2019d at any time; but plain Your wicked purpose in your deeds appears, Who sense have none of benefits conferr\u2019d. Then Medon answer\u2019d thus, prudent, return\u2019d. 840 Oh Queen! may the Gods grant this prove the worst. But greater far and heavier ills than this The suitors plan, whose counsels Jove confound! Their base desire and purpose are to slay Telemachus on his return; for he, To gather tidings of his Sire is gone To Pylus, or to Sparta\u2019s land divine. He said; and where she stood, her trembling knees Fail\u2019d under her, and all her spirits went. Speechless she long remain\u2019d, tears filled her eyes, 850 And inarticulate in its passage died Her utt\u2019rance, till at last with pain she spake. Herald! why went my son? he hath no need On board swift ships to ride, which are to man His steeds that bear him over seas remote. Went he, that, with himself, his very name Might perish from among mankind for ever? Then answer, thus, Medon the wise return\u2019d. I know not whether him some God impell\u2019d Or his own heart to Pylus, there to hear 860 News of his Sire\u2019s return, or by what fate At least he died, if he return no more. He said, and traversing Ulysses\u2019 courts, Departed; she with heart consuming woe O\u2019erwhelm\u2019d, no longer could endure to take Repose on any of her num\u2019rous seats, But on the threshold of her chamber-door Lamenting sat, while all her female train Around her moan\u2019d, the antient and the young, Whom, sobbing, thus Penelope bespake. 870 Hear me, ye maidens! for of women born Coeval with me, none hath e\u2019er received Such plenteous sorrow from the Gods as I, Who first my noble husband lost, endued With courage lion-like, of all the Greeks The Chief with ev\u2019ry virtue most adorn\u2019d, A prince all-excellent, whose glorious praise Through Hellas and all Argos flew diffused. And now, my darling son,\u2014him storms have snatch\u2019d Far hence inglorious, and I knew it not. 880 Ah treach\u2019rous servants! conscious as ye were Of his design, not one of you the thought Conceived to wake me when he went on board. For had but the report once reach\u2019d my ear, He either had not gone (how much soe\u2019er He wish\u2019d to leave me) or had left me dead. But haste ye,\u2014bid my antient servant come, Dolion, whom (when I left my father\u2019s house He gave me, and whose office is to attend My num\u2019rous garden-plants) that he may seek 890 At once Laertes, and may tell him all, Who may contrive some remedy, perchance, Or fit expedient, and shall come abroad To weep before the men who wish to slay Even the prince, godlike Ulysses\u2019 son. Then thus the gentle Euryclea spake, Nurse of Telemachus. Alas! my Queen! Slay me, or spare, deal with me as thou wilt, I will confess the truth. I knew it all. I gave him all that he required from me. 900 Both wine and bread, and, at his bidding, swore To tell thee nought in twelve whole days to come, Or till, enquiry made, thou should\u2019st thyself Learn his departure, lest thou should\u2019st impair Thy lovely features with excess of grief. But lave thyself, and, fresh attired, ascend To thy own chamber, there, with all thy train, To worship Pallas, who shall save, thenceforth, Thy son from death, what ills soe\u2019er he meet. Add not fresh sorrows to the present woes 910 Of the old King, for I believe not yet Arcesias\u2019 race entirely by the Gods Renounced, but trust that there shall still be found Among them, who shall dwell in royal state, And reap the fruits of fertile fields remote. So saying, she hush\u2019d her sorrow, and her eyes No longer stream\u2019d. Then, bathed and fresh attired, Penelope ascended with her train The upper palace, and a basket stored With hallow\u2019d cakes off\u2019ring, to Pallas pray\u2019d. 920 Hear matchless daughter of Jove \u00c6gis-arm\u2019d! If ever wise Ulysses offer\u2019d here The thighs of fatted kine or sheep to thee, Now mindful of his piety, preserve His darling son, and frustrate with a frown The cruelty of these imperious guests! She said, and wept aloud, whose earnest suit Pallas received. And now the spacious hall And gloomy passages with tumult rang And clamour of that throng, when thus, a youth, 930 Insolent as his fellows, dared to speak. Much woo\u2019d and long, the Queen at length prepares To chuse another mate,20 and nought suspects The bloody death to which her son is doom\u2019d. So he; but they, meantime, themselves remain\u2019d Untaught, what course the dread concern elsewhere Had taken, whom Antino\u00fcs thus address\u2019d. Sirs! one and all, I counsel you, beware Of such bold boasting unadvised; lest one O\u2019erhearing you, report your words within. 940 No\u2014rather thus, in silence, let us move To an exploit so pleasant to us all. He said, and twenty chose, the bravest there, With whom he sought the galley on the shore, Which drawing down into the deep, they placed The mast and sails on board, and, sitting, next, Each oar in order to its proper groove, Unfurl\u2019d and spread their canvas to the gale. Their bold attendants, then, brought them their arms, And soon as in deep water they had moor\u2019d 950 The ship, themselves embarking, supp\u2019d on board, And watch\u2019d impatient for the dusk of eve. But when Penelope, the palace stairs Remounting, had her upper chamber reach\u2019d, There, unrefresh\u2019d with either food or wine, She lay\u2019d her down, her noble son the theme Of all her thoughts, whether he should escape His haughty foes, or perish by their hands. Num\u2019rous as are the lion\u2019s thoughts, who sees, Not without fear, a multitude with toils 960 Encircling him around, such num\u2019rous thoughts Her bosom occupied, till sleep at length Invading her, she sank in soft repose. Then Pallas, teeming with a new design, Set forth an airy phantom in the form Of fair Iphthima, daughter of the brave Icarius, and Eumelus\u2019 wedded wife In Pher\u00e6. Shaped like her the dream she sent Into the mansion of the godlike Chief Ulysses, with kind purpose to abate 970 The sighs and tears of sad Penelope. Ent\u2019ring the chamber-portal, where the bolt Secured it, at her head the image stood, And thus, in terms compassionate, began. Sleep\u2019st thou, distress\u2019d Penelope? The Gods, Happy in everlasting rest themselves, Forbid thy sorrows. Thou shalt yet behold Thy son again, who hath by no offence Incurr\u2019d at any time the wrath of heav\u2019n. To whom, sweet-slumb\u2019ring in the shadowy gate 980 By which dreams pass, Penelope replied. What cause, my sister, brings thee, who art seen Unfrequent here, for that thou dwell\u2019st remote? And thou enjoin\u2019st me a cessation too From sorrows num\u2019rous, and which, fretting, wear My heart continual; first, my spouse I lost With courage lion-like endow\u2019d, a prince All-excellent, whose never-dying praise Through Hellas and all Argos flew diffused; And now my only son, new to the toils 990 And hazards of the sea, nor less untaught The arts of traffic, in a ship is gone Far hence, for whose dear cause I sorrow more Than for his Sire himself, and even shake With terror, lest he perish by their hands To whom he goes, or in the stormy Deep; For num\u2019rous are his foes, and all intent To slay him, ere he reach his home again. Then answer thus the shadowy form return\u2019d. Take courage; suffer not excessive dread 1000 To overwhelm thee, such a guide he hath And guardian, one whom many wish their friend, And ever at their side, knowing her pow\u2019r, Minerva; she compassionates thy griefs, And I am here her harbinger, who speak As thou hast heard by her own kind command. Then thus Penelope the wise replied. Oh! if thou art a goddess, and hast heard A Goddess\u2019 voice, rehearse to me the lot Of that unhappy one, if yet he live 1010 Spectator of the cheerful beams of day, Or if, already dead, he dwell below. Whom answer\u2019d thus the fleeting shadow vain. I will not now inform thee if thy Lord Live, or live not. Vain words are best unspoken. So saying, her egress swift beside the bolt She made, and melted into air. Upsprang From sleep Icarius\u2019 daughter, and her heart Felt heal\u2019d within her, by that dream distinct Visited in the noiseless night serene. 1020 Meantime the suitors urged their wat\u2019ry way, To instant death devoting in their hearts Telemachus. There is a rocky isle In the mid sea, Samos the rude between And Ithaca, not large, named Asteris. It hath commodious havens, into which A passage clear opens on either side, And there the ambush\u2019d Greeks his coming watch\u2019d.\n\n\n\n9 Hesychius tells us, that the Greecians ornamented with much attention the front wall of their courts for the admiration of passengers.\n\n\n10 \u039f\u03c6\u03b8\u03b1\u03bb\u03bc\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c4\u03b5 \u03b2\u03bf\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9.\n\n\n11 Antilochus was his brother.\n\n\n12 The son of Aurora, who slew Antilochus, was Memnon.\n\n\n13 Because Pisistratus was born after Antilochus had sailed to Troy.\n\n\n14 Proteus\n\n\n15 Seals, or sea-calves.\n\n\n16 From the abruptness of this beginning, Virgil, probably, who has copied the story, took the hint of his admired exordium.\n\nNam quis te, juvenum confidentissime, nostras. Egit adire domos.\n\n\n\n17 Son of O\u00efleus.\n\n\n18 \u0394\u03b1\u03b9\u03c4\u03c5\u03bc\u03c9\u03bd\u2014generally signifies the founder of a feast; but we are taught by Eustathius to understand by it, in this place, the persons employed in preparing it.\n\n\n19 This transition from the third to the second person belongs to the original, and is considered as a fine stroke of art in the poet, who represents Penelope in the warmth of her resentment, forgetting where she is, and addressing the suitors as if present.\n\n\n20 Mistaking, perhaps, the sound of her voice, and imagining that she sang.\u2014Vide Barnes in loco.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK V\nARGUMENT\nMercury bears to Calypso a command from Jupiter that she dismiss Ulysses. She, after some remonstrances, promises obedience, and furnishes him with instruments and materials, with which he constructs a raft. He quits Calypso\u2019s island; is persecuted by Neptune with dreadful tempests, but by the assistance of a sea nymph, after having lost his raft, is enabled to swim to Ph\u00e6acia.\n\nAurora from beside her glorious mate Tithonus now arose, light to dispense Through earth and heav\u2019n, when the assembled Gods In council sat, o\u2019er whom high-thund\u2019ring Jove Presided, mightiest of the Pow\u2019rs above. Amid them, Pallas on the num\u2019rous woes Descanted of Ulysses, whom she saw With grief, still prison\u2019d in Calypso\u2019s isle. Jove, Father, hear me, and ye other Pow\u2019rs Who live for ever, hear! Be never King 10 Henceforth to gracious acts inclined, humane, Or righteous, but let ev\u2019ry sceptred hand Rule merciless, and deal in wrong alone, Since none of all his people whom he sway\u2019d With such paternal gentleness and love Remembers, now, divine Ulysses more. He, in yon distant isle a suff\u2019rer lies Of hopeless sorrow, through constraint the guest Still of the nymph Calypso, without means Or pow\u2019r to reach his native shores again, 20 Alike of gallant barks and friends depriv\u2019d, Who might conduct him o\u2019er the spacious Deep. Nor is this all, but enemies combine To slay his son ere yet he can return From Pylus, whither he hath gone to learn There, or in Sparta, tidings of his Sire. To whom the cloud-assembler God replied. What word hath pass\u2019d thy lips, daughter belov\u2019d? Hast thou not purpos\u2019d that arriving soon At home, Ulysses shall destroy his foes? 30 Guide thou, Telemachus, (for well thou canst) That he may reach secure his native coast, And that the suitors baffled may return. He ceas\u2019d, and thus to Hermes spake, his son. Hermes! (for thou art herald of our will At all times) to yon bright-hair\u2019d nymph convey Our fix\u2019d resolve, that brave Ulysses thence Depart, uncompanied by God or man. Borne on a corded raft, and suff\u2019ring woe Extreme, he on the twentieth day shall reach, 40 Not sooner, Scherie the deep-soil\u2019d, possess\u2019d By the Ph\u00e6acians, kinsmen of the Gods. They, as a God shall reverence the Chief, And in a bark of theirs shall send him thence To his own home, much treasure, brass and gold And raiment giving him, to an amount Surpassing all that, had he safe return\u2019d, He should by lot have shared of Ilium\u2019s spoil. Thus Fate appoints Ulysses to regain His country, his own palace, and his friends. 50 He ended, nor the Argicide refused, Messenger of the skies; his sandals fair, Ambrosial, golden, to his feet he bound, Which o\u2019er the moist wave, rapid as the wind, Bear him, and o\u2019er th\u2019 illimitable earth, Then took his rod with which, at will, all eyes He closes soft, or opes them wide again. So arm\u2019d, forth flew the valiant Argicide. Alighting on Pieria, down he stoop\u2019d To Ocean, and the billows lightly skimm\u2019d 60 In form a sew-mew, such as in the bays Tremendous of the barren Deep her food Seeking, dips oft in brine her ample wing. In such disguise o\u2019er many a wave he rode, But reaching, now, that isle remote, forsook The azure Deep, and at the spacious grot, Where dwelt the amber-tressed nymph arrived, Found her within. A fire on all the hearth Blazed sprightly, and, afar-diffused, the scent Of smooth-split cedar and of cypress-wood 70 Odorous, burning, cheer\u2019d the happy isle. She, busied at the loom, and plying fast Her golden shuttle, with melodious voice Sat chaunting there; a grove on either side, Alder and poplar, and the redolent branch Wide-spread of Cypress, skirted dark the cave. There many a bird of broadest pinion built Secure her nest, the owl, the kite, and daw Long-tongued, frequenter of the sandy shores. A garden-vine luxuriant on all sides 80 Mantled the spacious cavern, cluster-hung Profuse; four fountains of serenest lymph Their sinuous course pursuing side by side, Stray\u2019d all around, and ev\u2019ry where appear\u2019d Meadows of softest verdure, purpled o\u2019er With violets; it was a scene to fill A God from heav\u2019n with wonder and delight. Hermes, Heav\u2019n\u2019s messenger, admiring stood That sight, and having all survey\u2019d, at length Enter\u2019d the grotto; nor the lovely nymph 90 Him knew not soon as seen, for not unknown Each to the other the Immortals are, How far soever sep\u2019rate their abodes. Yet found he not within the mighty Chief Ulysses; he sat weeping on the shore, Forlorn, for there his custom was with groans Of sad regret t\u2019 afflict his breaking heart. Looking continual o\u2019er the barren Deep. Then thus Calypso, nymph divine, the God Question\u2019d, from her resplendent throne august. 100 Hermes! possessor of the potent rod! Who, though by me much reverenc\u2019d and belov\u2019d, So seldom com\u2019st, say, wherefore comest now? Speak thy desire; I grant it, if thou ask Things possible, and possible to me. Stay not, but ent\u2019ring farther, at my board Due rites of hospitality receive. So saying, the Goddess with ambrosial food Her table cover\u2019d, and with rosy juice Nectareous charged the cup. Then ate and drank 110 The argicide and herald of the skies, And in his soul with that repast divine Refresh\u2019d, his message to the nymph declared. Questionest thou, O Goddess, me a God? I tell thee truth, since such is thy demand. Not willing, but by Jove constrain\u2019d, I come. For who would, voluntary, such a breadth Enormous measure of the salt expanse, Where city none is seen in which the Gods Are served with chosen hecatombs and pray\u2019r? 120 But no divinity may the designs Elude, or controvert, of Jove supreme. He saith, that here thou hold\u2019st the most distrest Of all those warriors who nine years assail\u2019d The city of Priam, and, (that city sack\u2019d) Departed in the tenth; but, going thence, Offended Pallas, who with adverse winds Opposed their voyage, and with boist\u2019rous waves. Then perish\u2019d all his gallant friends, but him Billows and storms drove hither; Jove commands 130 That thou dismiss him hence without delay, For fate ordains him not to perish here From all his friends remote, but he is doom\u2019d To see them yet again, and to arrive At his own palace in his native land. He said; divine Calypso at the sound Shudder\u2019d, and in wing\u2019d accents thus replied. Ye are unjust, ye Gods, and envious past All others, grudging if a Goddess take A mortal man openly to her arms! 140 So, when the rosy-finger\u2019d Morning chose Orion, though ye live yourselves at ease, Yet ye all envied her, until the chaste Diana from her golden throne dispatch\u2019d A silent shaft, which slew him in Ortygia. So, when the golden-tressed Ceres, urged By passion, took I\u00e4sion to her arms In a thrice-labour\u2019d fallow, not untaught Was Jove that secret long, and, hearing it, Indignant, slew him with his candent bolt. 150 So also, O ye Gods, ye envy me The mortal man, my comfort. Him I saved Myself, while solitary on his keel He rode, for with his sulph\u2019rous arrow Jove Had cleft his bark amid the sable Deep. Then perish\u2019d all his gallant friends, but him Billows and storms drove hither, whom I lov\u2019d Sincere, and fondly destin\u2019d to a life Immortal, unobnoxious to decay. But since no Deity may the designs 160 Elude or controvert of Jove supreme, Hence with him o\u2019er the barren Deep, if such The Sov\u2019reign\u2019s will, and such his stern command. But undismiss\u2019d he goes by me, who ships Myself well-oar\u2019d and mariners have none To send with him athwart the spacious flood; Yet freely, readily, my best advice I will afford him, that, escaping all Danger, he may regain his native shore. Then Hermes thus, the messenger of heav\u2019n. 170 Act as thou say\u2019st, fearing the frown of Jove, Lest, if provoked, he spare not even thee. So saying, the dauntless Argicide withdrew, And she (Jove\u2019s mandate heard) all-graceful went, Seeking the brave Ulysses; on the shore She found him seated; tears succeeding tears Delug\u2019d his eyes, while, hopeless of return, Life\u2019s precious hours to eating cares he gave Continual, with the nymph now charm\u2019d no more. Yet, cold as she was am\u2019rous, still he pass\u2019d 180 His nights beside her in the hollow grot, Constrain\u2019d, and day by day the rocks among Which lined the shore heart-broken sat, and oft While wistfully he eyed the barren Deep, Wept, groaned, desponded, sigh\u2019d, and wept again. Then, drawing near, thus spake the nymph divine. Unhappy! weep not here, nor life consume In anguish; go; thou hast my glad consent. Arise to labour; hewing down the trunks Of lofty trees, fashion them with the ax 190 To a broad raft, which closely floor\u2019d above, Shall hence convey thee o\u2019er the gloomy Deep. Bread, water, and the red grape\u2019s cheering juice Myself will put on board, which shall preserve Thy life from famine; I will also give New raiment for thy limbs, and will dispatch Winds after thee to waft thee home unharm\u2019d, If such the pleasure of the Gods who dwell In yonder boundless heav\u2019n, superior far To me, in knowledge and in skill to judge. 200 She ceas\u2019d; but horror at that sound the heart Chill\u2019d of Ulysses, and in accents wing\u2019d With wonder, thus the noble Chief replied. Ah! other thoughts than of my safe return Employ thee, Goddess, now, who bid\u2019st me pass The perilous gulph of Ocean on a raft, That wild expanse terrible, which even ships Pass not, though form\u2019d to cleave their way with ease, And joyful in propitious winds from Jove. No\u2014let me never, in despight of thee, 210 Embark on board a raft, nor till thou swear, O Goddess! the inviolable oath, That future mischief thou intend\u2019st me none. He said; Calypso, beauteous Goddess, smiled, And, while she spake, stroaking his cheek, replied. Thou dost asperse me rudely, and excuse Of ignorance hast none, far better taught; What words were these? How could\u2019st thou thus reply? Now hear me Earth, and the wide Heav\u2019n above! Hear, too, ye waters of the Stygian stream 220 Under the earth (by which the blessed Gods Swear trembling, and revere the awful oath!) That future mischief I intend thee none. No, my designs concerning thee are such As, in an exigence resembling thine, Myself, most sure, should for myself conceive. I have a mind more equal, not of steel My heart is form\u2019d, but much to pity inclined. So saying, the lovely Goddess with swift pace Led on, whose footsteps he as swift pursued. 230 Within the vaulted cavern they arrived, The Goddess and the man; on the same throne Ulysses sat, whence Hermes had aris\u2019n, And viands of all kinds, such as sustain The life of mortal man, Calypso placed Before him, both for bev\u2019rage and for food. She opposite to the illustrious Chief Reposed, by her attendant maidens served With nectar and ambrosia. They their hands Stretch\u2019d forth together to the ready feast, 240 And when nor hunger more nor thirst remain\u2019d Unsated, thus the beauteous nymph began. Laertes\u2019 noble son, for wisdom famed And artifice! oh canst thou thus resolve To seek, incontinent, thy native shores? I pardon thee. Farewell! but could\u2019st thou guess The woes which fate ordains thee to endure Ere yet thou reach thy country, well-content Here to inhabit, thou would\u2019st keep my grot And be immortal, howsoe\u2019er thy wife 250 Engage thy ev\u2019ry wish day after day. Yet can I not in stature or in form Myself suspect inferior aught to her, Since competition cannot be between Mere mortal beauties, and a form divine. To whom Ulysses, ever-wise, replied. Awful Divinity! be not incensed. I know that my Penelope in form And stature altogether yields to thee, For she is mortal, and immortal thou, 260 From age exempt; yet not the less I wish My home, and languish daily to return. But should some God amid the sable Deep Dash me again into a wreck, my soul Shall bear that also; for, by practice taught, I have learned patience, having much endured By tempest and in battle both. Come then This evil also! I am well prepared. He ended, and the sun sinking, resign\u2019d The earth to darkness. Then in a recess 270 Interior of the cavern, side by side Reposed, they took their amorous delight. But when Aurora, daughter of the dawn, Look\u2019d rosy forth, Ulysses then in haste Put on his vest and mantle, and, the nymph Her snowy vesture of transparent woof, Graceful, redundant; to her waist she bound Her golden zone, and veil\u2019d her beauteous head, Then, musing, plann\u2019d the noble Chief\u2019s return. She gave him, fitted to the grasp, an ax 280 Of iron, pond\u2019rous, double-edg\u2019d, with haft Of olive-wood, inserted firm, and wrought With curious art. Then, placing in his hand A polish\u2019d adze, she led, herself, the way To her isles\u2019 utmost verge, where tallest trees But dry long since and sapless stood, which best Might serve his purposes, as buoyant most, The alder, poplar, and cloud-piercing fir. To that tall grove she led and left him there, Seeking her grot again. Then slept not He, 290 But, swinging with both hands the ax, his task Soon finish\u2019d; trees full twenty to the ground He cast, which, dext\u2019rous, with his adze he smooth\u2019d, The knotted surface chipping by a line. Meantime the lovely Goddess to his aid Sharp augres brought, with which he bored the beams, Then, side by side placing them, fitted each To other, and with long cramps join\u2019d them all. Broad as an artist, skill\u2019d in naval works, The bottom of a ship of burthen spreads, 300 Such breadth Ulysses to his raft assign\u2019d. He deck\u2019d her over with long planks, upborne On massy beams; He made the mast, to which He added suitable the yard;\u2014he framed Rudder and helm to regulate her course, With wicker-work he border\u2019d all her length For safety, and much ballast stow\u2019d within. Meantime, Calypso brought him for a sail Fittest materials, which he also shaped, And to his sail due furniture annex\u2019d 310 Of cordage strong, foot-ropes, and ropes aloft, Then heav\u2019d her down with levers to the Deep. He finish\u2019d all his work on the fourth day, And on the fifth, Calypso, nymph divine, Dismiss\u2019d him from her isle, but laved him first, And cloath\u2019d him in sweet-scented garments new. Two skins the Goddess also placed on board, One charg\u2019d with crimson wine, and ampler one With water, nor a bag with food replete Forgot, nutritious, grateful to the taste, 320 Nor yet, her latest gift, a gentle gale And manageable, which Ulysses spread, Exulting, all his canvas to receive. Beside the helm he sat, steering expert, Nor sleep fell ever on his eyes that watch\u2019d Intent the Pleiads, tardy in decline Bootes, and the Bear, call\u2019d else the Wain, Which, in his polar prison circling, looks Direct toward Orion, and alone Of these sinks never to the briny Deep. 330 That star the lovely Goddess bade him hold Continual on his left through all his course. Ten days and sev\u2019n, he, navigating, cleav\u2019d The brine, and on the eighteenth day, at length, The shadowy mountains of Ph\u00e6acia\u2019s land Descried, where nearest to his course it lay Like a broad buckler on the waves afloat. But Neptune, now returning from the land Of Ethiopia, mark\u2019d him on his raft Skimming the billows, from the mountain-tops 340 Of distant Solyma.21 With tenfold wrath Inflamed that sight he view\u2019d, his brows he shook, And thus within himself, indignant, spake. So then\u2014new counsels in the skies, it seems, Propitious to Ulysses, have prevail\u2019d Since \u00c6thiopia hath been my abode. He sees Ph\u00e6acia nigh, where he must leap The bound\u2019ry of his woes; but ere that hour Arrive, I will ensure him many a groan. So saying, he grasp\u2019d his trident, gather\u2019d dense 350 The clouds and troubled ocean; ev\u2019ry storm From ev\u2019ry point he summon\u2019d, earth and sea Darkening, and the night fell black from heav\u2019n. The East, the South, the heavy-blowing West, And the cold North-wind clear, assail\u2019d at once His raft, and heaved on high the billowy flood. All hope, all courage, in that moment, lost, The Hero thus within himself complain\u2019d. Wretch that I am, what destiny at last Attends me! much I fear the Goddess\u2019 words 360 All true, which threaten\u2019d me with num\u2019rous ills On the wide sea, ere I should reach my home. Behold them all fulfill\u2019d! with what a storm Jove hangs the heav\u2019ns, and agitates the Deep! The winds combined beat on me. Now I sink! Thrice blest, and more than thrice, Achaia\u2019s sons At Ilium slain for the Atrid\u00e6\u2019 sake! Ah, would to heav\u2019n that, dying, I had felt That day the stroke of fate, when me the dead Achilles guarding, with a thousand spears 370 Troy\u2019s furious host assail\u2019d! Funereal rites I then had shared, and praise from ev\u2019ry Greek, Whom now the most inglorious death awaits. While thus he spake, a billow on his head Bursting impetuous, whirl\u2019d the raft around, And, dashing from his grasp the helm, himself Plunged far remote. Then came a sudden gust Of mingling winds, that in the middle snapp\u2019d His mast, and, hurried o\u2019er the waves afar, Both sail and sail-yard fell into the flood. 380 Long time submerged he lay, nor could with ease The violence of that dread shock surmount, Or rise to air again, so burthensome His drench\u2019d apparel proved; but, at the last, He rose, and, rising, sputter\u2019d from his lips The brine that trickled copious from his brows. Nor, harass\u2019d as he was, resign\u2019d he yet His raft, but buffetting the waves aside With desp\u2019rate efforts, seized it, and again Fast seated on the middle deck, escaped. 390 Then roll\u2019d the raft at random in the flood, Wallowing unwieldy, toss\u2019d from wave to wave. As when in autumn, Boreas o\u2019er the plain Conglomerated thorns before him drives, They, tangled, to each other close adhere, So her the winds drove wild about the Deep. By turns the South consign\u2019d her to be sport For the rude North-wind, and, by turns, the East Yielded her to the worrying West a prey. But Cadmus\u2019 beauteous daughter (Ino once, 400 Now named Leucothea) saw him; mortal erst Was she, and trod the earth,22 but nymph become Of Ocean since, in honours shares divine. She mark\u2019d his anguish, and, while toss\u2019d he roam\u2019d, Pitied Ulysses; from the flood, in form A cormorant, she flew, and on the raft Close-corded perching, thus the Chief address\u2019d. Alas! unhappy! how hast thou incensed So terribly the Shaker of the shores, That he pursues thee with such num\u2019rous ills? 410 Sink thee he cannot, wish it as he may. Thus do (for I account thee not unwise) Thy garments putting off, let drive thy raft As the winds will, then, swimming, strive to reach Ph\u00e6acia, where thy doom is to escape. Take this. This ribbon bind beneath thy breast, Celestial texture. Thenceforth ev\u2019ry fear Of death dismiss, and, laying once thy hands On the firm continent, unbind the zone, Which thou shalt cast far distant from the shore 420 Into the Deep, turning thy face away. So saying, the Goddess gave into his hand The wond\u2019rous zone, and, cormorant in form, Plunging herself into the waves again Headlong, was hidden by the closing flood. But still Ulysses sat perplex\u2019d, and thus The toil-enduring Hero reason\u2019d sad. Alas! I tremble lest some God design T\u2019 ensnare me yet, bidding me quit the raft. But let me well beware how I obey 430 Too soon that precept, for I saw the land Of my foretold deliv\u2019rance far remote. Thus, therefore, will I do, for such appears My wiser course. So long as yet the planks Mutual adhere, continuing on board My raft, I will endure whatever woes, But when the waves shall shatter it, I will swim, My sole resource then left. While thus he mused, Neptune a billow of enormous bulk Hollow\u2019d into an overwhelming arch 440 On high up-heaving, smote him. As the wind Tempestuous, falling on some stubble-heap, The arid straws dissipates ev\u2019ry way, So flew the timbers. He, a single beam Bestriding, oar\u2019d it onward with his feet, As he had urged an horse. His raiment, then, Gift of Calypso, putting off, he bound His girdle on, and prone into the sea With wide-spread palms prepar\u2019d for swimming, fell. Shore-shaker Neptune noted him; he shook 450 His awful brows, and in his heart he said, Thus, suff\u2019ring many mis\u2019ries roam the flood, Till thou shalt mingle with a race of men Heav\u2019n\u2019s special favourites; yet even there Fear not that thou shalt feel thy sorrows light. He said, and scourging his bright steeds, arrived At \u00c6g\u00e6, where his glorious palace stands. But other thoughts Minerva\u2019s mind employ\u2019d Jove\u2019s daughter; ev\u2019ry wind binding beside, She lull\u2019d them, and enjoin\u2019d them all to sleep, 460 But roused swift Boreas, and the billows broke Before Ulysses, that, deliver\u2019d safe From a dire death, the noble Chief might mix With maritime Ph\u00e6acia\u2019s sons renown\u2019d. Two nights he wander\u2019d, and two days, the flood Tempestuous, death expecting ev\u2019ry hour; But when Aurora, radiant-hair\u2019d, had brought The third day to a close, then ceas\u2019d the wind, And breathless came a calm; he, nigh at hand The shore beheld, darting acute his sight 470 Toward it, from a billow\u2019s tow\u2019ring top. Precious as to his children seems the life Of some fond father through disease long time And pain stretch\u2019d languid on his couch, the prey Of some vindictive Pow\u2019r, but now, at last, By gracious heav\u2019n to ease and health restored, So grateful to Ulysses\u2019 sight appear\u2019d Forests and hills. Impatient with his feet To press the shore, he swam; but when within Such distance as a shout may fly, he came, 480 The thunder of the sea against the rocks Then smote his ear; for hoarse the billows roar\u2019d On the firm land, belch\u2019d horrible abroad, And the salt spray dimm\u2019d all things to his view. For neither port for ships nor shelt\u2019ring cove Was there, but the rude coast a headland bluff Presented, rocks and craggy masses huge. Then, hope and strength exhausted both, deep-groan\u2019d The Chief, and in his noble heart complain\u2019d. Alas! though Jove hath given me to behold, 490 Unhoped, the land again, and I have pass\u2019d, Furrowing my way, these num\u2019rous waves, there seems No egress from the hoary flood for me. Sharp stones hem in the waters; wild the surge Raves ev\u2019ry where; and smooth the rocks arise; Deep also is the shore, on which my feet No standing gain, or chance of safe escape. What if some billow catch me from the Deep Emerging, and against the pointed rocks Dash me conflicting with its force in vain? 500 But should I, swimming, trace the coast in search Of sloping beach, haven or shelter\u2019d creek, I fear lest, groaning, I be snatch\u2019d again By stormy gusts into the fishy Deep, Or lest some monster of the flood receive Command to seize me, of the many such By the illustrious Amphitrite bred; For that the mighty Shaker of the shores Hates me implacable, too well I know. While such discourse within himself he held, 510 A huge wave heav\u2019d him on the rugged coast, Where flay\u2019d his flesh had been, and all his bones Broken together, but for the infused Good counsel of Minerva azure-eyed. With both hands suddenly he seized the rock, And, groaning, clench\u2019d it till the billow pass\u2019d. So baffled he that wave; but yet again The refluent flood rush\u2019d on him, and with force Resistless dash\u2019d him far into the sea. As pebbles to the hollow polypus 520 Extracted from his stony bed, adhere, So he, the rough rocks clasping, stripp\u2019d his hands Raw, and the billows now whelm\u2019d him again. Then had the hapless Hero premature Perish\u2019d, but for sagacity inspired By Pallas azure-eyed. Forth from the waves Emerging, where the surf burst on the rocks, He coasted (looking landward as he swam) The shore, with hope of port or level beach. But when, still swimming, to the mouth he came 530 Of a smooth-sliding river, there he deem\u2019d Safest th\u2019 ascent, for it was undeform\u2019d By rocks, and shelter\u2019d close from ev\u2019ry wind. He felt the current, and thus, ardent, pray\u2019d. O hear, whate\u2019er thy name, Sov\u2019reign, who rul\u2019st This river! at whose mouth, from all the threats Of Neptune \u2019scap\u2019d, with rapture I arrive. Even the Immortal Gods the wand\u2019rer\u2019s pray\u2019r Respect, and such am I, who reach, at length, Thy stream, and clasp thy knees, after long toil. 540 I am thy suppliant. Oh King! pity me. He said; the river God at once repress\u2019d His current, and it ceas\u2019d; smooth he prepared The way before Ulysses, and the land Vouchsafed him easy at his channel\u2019s mouth. There, once again he bent for ease his limbs Both arms and knees, in conflict with the floods Exhausted; swoln his body was all o\u2019er, And from his mouth and nostrils stream\u2019d the brine. Breathless and speechless, and of life well nigh 550 Bereft he lay, through dreadful toil immense. But when, revived, his dissipated pow\u2019rs He recollected, loosing from beneath His breast the zone divine, he cast it far Into the brackish stream, and a huge wave Returning bore it downward to the sea, Where Ino caught it. Then, the river\u2019s brink Abandoning, among the rushes prone He lay, kiss\u2019d oft the soil, and sighing, said, Ah me! what suff\u2019rings must I now sustain, 560 What doom, at last, awaits me? If I watch This woeful night, here, at the river\u2019s side, What hope but that the frost and copious dews, Weak as I am, my remnant small of life Shall quite extinguish, and the chilly air Breath\u2019d from the river at the dawn of day? But if, ascending this declivity I gain the woods, and in some thicket sleep, (If sleep indeed can find me overtoil\u2019d And cold-benumb\u2019d) then I have cause to fear 570 Lest I be torn by wild beasts, and devour\u2019d. Long time he mused, but, at the last, his course Bent to the woods, which not remote he saw From the sea-brink, conspicuous on a hill. Arrived, between two neighbour shrubs he crept, Both olives, this the fruitful, that the wild; A covert, which nor rough winds blowing moist Could penetrate, nor could the noon-day sun Smite through it, or unceasing show\u2019rs pervade, So thick a roof the ample branches form\u2019d 580 Close interwoven; under these the Chief Retiring, with industrious hands a bed Collected broad of leaves, which there he found Abundant strew\u2019d, such store as had sufficed Two travellers or three for cov\u2019ring warm, Though winter\u2019s roughest blasts had rag\u2019d the while. That bed with joy the suff\u2019ring Chief renown\u2019d Contemplated, and occupying soon The middle space, hillock\u2019d it high with leaves. As when some swain hath hidden deep his torch 590 Beneath the embers, at the verge extreme Of all his farm, where, having neighbours none, He saves a seed or two of future flame Alive, doom\u2019d else to fetch it from afar, So with dry leaves Ulysses overspread His body, on whose eyes Minerva pour\u2019d The balm of sleep copious, that he might taste Repose again, after long toil severe.\n\n\n\n21 The Solymi were the ancient inhabitants of Pisidia in Asia-Minor.\n\n\n22 The Translator finding himself free to chuse between \u1f00\u03c5\u03b4\u03b7\u1f73\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1 and \u1f20\u03b4\u03b7\u1f73\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1, has preferred the latter.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK VI\nARGUMENT\nMinerva designing an interview between the daughter of Alcino\u00fcs and Ulysses, admonishes her in a dream to carry down her clothes to the river, that she may wash them, and make them ready for her approaching nuptials. That task performed, the Princess and her train amuse themselves with play; by accident they awake Ulysses; he comes forth from the wood, and applies himself with much address to Nausicaa, who compassionating his distressed condition, and being much affected by the dignity of his appearance, interests herself in his favour, and conducts him to the city.\n\nThere then the noble suff\u2019rer lay, by sleep Oppress\u2019d and labour; meantime, Pallas sought The populous city of Ph\u00e6acia\u2019s sons. They, in old time, in Hypereia dwelt The spacious, neighbours of a giant race The haughty Cyclops, who, endued with pow\u2019r Superior, troubled them with frequent wrongs. Godlike Nausitho\u00fcs then arose, who thence To Scheria led them, from all nations versed In arts of cultivated life, remote; 10 With bulwarks strong their city he enclosed, Built houses for them, temples to the Gods, And gave to each a portion of the soil. But he, already by decree of fate Had journey\u2019d to the shades, and in his stead Alcino\u00fcs, by the Gods instructed, reign\u2019d. To his abode Minerva azure-eyed Repair\u2019d, neglecting nought which might advance Magnanimous Ulysses\u2019 safe return. She sought the sumptuous chamber where, in form 20 And feature perfect as the Gods, the young Nausicaa, daughter of the King, reposed. Fast by the pillars of the portal lay Two damsels, one on either side, adorn\u2019d By all the Graces, and the doors were shut. Soft as a breathing air, she stole toward The royal virgin\u2019s couch, and at her head Standing, address\u2019d her. Daughter she appear\u2019d Of Dymas, famed for maritime exploits, Her friend and her coeval; so disguised 30 C\u00e6rulean-eyed Minerva thus began. Nausicaa! wherefore hath thy mother borne A child so negligent? Thy garments share, Thy most magnificent, no thought of thine. Yet thou must marry soon, and must provide Robes for thyself, and for thy nuptial train. Thy fame, on these concerns, and honour stand; These managed well, thy parents shall rejoice. The dawn appearing, let us to the place Of washing, where thy work-mate I will be 40 For speedier riddance of thy task, since soon The days of thy virginity shall end; For thou art woo\u2019d already by the prime Of all Ph\u00e6acia, country of thy birth. Come then\u2014solicit at the dawn of day Thy royal father, that he send thee forth With mules and carriage for conveyance hence Of thy best robes, thy mantles and thy zones. Thus, more commodiously thou shalt perform The journey, for the cisterns lie remote. 50 So saying, Minerva, Goddess azure-eyed, Rose to Olympus, the reputed seat Eternal of the Gods, which never storms Disturb, rains drench, or snow invades, but calm The expanse and cloudless shines with purest day. There the inhabitants divine rejoice For ever, (and her admonition giv\u2019n) C\u00e6rulean-eyed Minerva thither flew. Now came Aurora bright-enthroned, whose rays Awaken\u2019d fair Nausicaa; she her dream 60 Remember\u2019d wond\u2019ring, and her parents sought Anxious to tell them. Them she found within. Beside the hearth her royal mother sat, Spinning soft fleeces with sea-purple dyed Among her menial maidens, but she met Her father, whom the Nobles of the land Had summon\u2019d, issuing abroad to join The illustrious Chiefs in council. At his side She stood, and thus her filial suit preferr\u2019d. Sir!23 wilt thou lend me of the royal wains 70 A sumpter-carriage? for I wish to bear My costly cloaths but sullied and unfit For use, at present, to the river side. It is but seemly that thou should\u2019st repair Thyself to consultation with the Chiefs Of all Ph\u00e6acia, clad in pure attire; And my own brothers five, who dwell at home, Two wedded, and the rest of age to wed, Are all desirous, when they dance, to wear Raiment new bleach\u2019d; all which is my concern. 80 So spake Nausicaa; for she dared not name Her own glad nuptials to her father\u2019s ear, Who, conscious yet of all her drift, replied. I grudge thee neither mules, my child, nor aught That thou canst ask beside. Go, and my train Shall furnish thee a sumpter-carriage forth High-built, strong-wheel\u2019d, and of capacious size. So saying, he issued his command, whom quick His grooms obey\u2019d. They in the court prepared The sumpter-carriage, and adjoin\u2019d the mules. 90 And now the virgin from her chamber, charged With raiment, came, which on the car she placed, And in the carriage-chest, meantime, the Queen, Her mother, viands of all kinds disposed, And fill\u2019d a skin with wine. Nausicaa rose Into her seat; but, ere she went, received A golden cruse of oil from the Queen\u2019s hand For unction of herself, and of her maids. Then, seizing scourge and reins, she lash\u2019d the mules. They trampled loud the soil, straining to draw 100 Herself with all her vesture; nor alone She went, but follow\u2019d by her virgin train. At the delightful rivulet arrived Where those perennial cisterns were prepared With purest crystal of the fountain fed Profuse, sufficient for the deepest stains, Loosing the mules, they drove them forth to browze On the sweet herb beside the dimpled flood. The carriage, next, light\u2019ning, they bore in hand The garments down to the unsullied wave, 110 And thrust them heap\u2019d into the pools, their task Dispatching brisk, and with an emulous haste. When they had all purified, and no spot Could now be seen, or blemish more, they spread The raiment orderly along the beach Where dashing tides had cleansed the pebbles most, And laving, next, and smoothing o\u2019er with oil Their limbs, all seated on the river\u2019s bank, They took repast, leaving the garments, stretch\u2019d In noon-day fervour of the sun, to dry. 120 Their hunger satisfied, at once arose The mistress and her train, and putting off Their head-attire, play\u2019d wanton with the ball, The princess singing to her maids the while. Such as shaft-arm\u2019d Diana roams the hills, T\u00e4ygetus sky-capt, or Erymanth, The wild boar chasing, or fleet-footed hind, All joy; the rural nymphs, daughters of Jove, Sport with her, and Latona\u2019s heart exults; She high her graceful head above the rest 130 And features lifts divine, though all be fair, With ease distinguishable from them all; So, all her train, she, virgin pure, surpass\u2019d. But when the hour of her departure thence Approach\u2019d (the mules now yoked again, and all Her elegant apparel folded neat) Minerva azure-eyed mused how to wake Ulysses, that he might behold the fair Virgin, his destin\u2019d guide into the town. The Princess, then, casting the ball toward 140 A maiden of her train, erroneous threw And plunged it deep into the dimpling stream. All shrieked; Ulysses at the sound awoke, And, sitting, meditated thus the cause. Ah me! what mortal race inhabit here? Rude are they, contumacious and unjust? Or hospitable, and who fear the Gods? So shrill the cry and feminine of nymphs Fills all the air around, such as frequent The hills, clear fountains, and herbaceous meads. 150 Is this a neighbourhood of men endued With voice articulate? But what avails To ask; I will myself go forth and see. So saying, divine Ulysses from beneath His thicket crept, and from the leafy wood A spreading branch pluck\u2019d forcibly, design\u2019d A decent skreen effectual, held before. So forth he went, as goes the lion forth, The mountain-lion, conscious of his strength, Whom winds have vex\u2019d and rains; fire fills his eyes, 160 And whether herds or flocks, or woodland deer He find, he rends them, and, adust for blood, Abstains not even from the guarded fold, Such sure to seem in virgin eyes, the Chief, All naked as he was, left his retreat, Reluctant, by necessity constrain\u2019d. Him foul with sea foam horror-struck they view\u2019d, And o\u2019er the jutting shores fled all dispersed. Nausicaa alone fled not; for her Pallas courageous made, and from her limbs, 170 By pow\u2019r divine, all tremour took away. Firm she expected him; he doubtful stood, Or to implore the lovely maid, her knees Embracing, or aloof standing, to ask In gentle terms discrete the gift of cloaths, And guidance to the city where she dwelt. Him so deliberating, most, at length, This counsel pleas\u2019d; in suppliant terms aloof To sue to her, lest if he clasp\u2019d her knees, The virgin should that bolder course resent. 180 Then gentle, thus, and well-advised he spake. Oh Queen! thy earnest suppliant I approach. Art thou some Goddess, or of mortal race? For if some Goddess, and from heaven arrived, Diana, then, daughter of mighty Jove I deem thee most, for such as hers appear Thy form, thy stature, and thy air divine. But if, of mortal race, thou dwell below, Thrice happy then, thy parents I account, And happy thrice thy brethren. Ah! the joy 190 Which always for thy sake, their bosoms fill, When thee they view, all lovely as thou art, Ent\u2019ring majestic on the graceful dance. But him beyond all others blest I deem, The youth, who, wealthier than his rich compeers, Shall win and lead thee to his honour\u2019d home. For never with these eyes a mortal form Beheld I comparable aught to thine, In man or woman. Wonder-wrapt I gaze. Such erst, in Delos, I beheld a palm 200 Beside the altar of Apollo, tall, And growing still; (for thither too I sail\u2019d, And num\u2019rous were my followers in a voyage Ordain\u2019d my ruin) and as then I view\u2019d That palm long time amazed, for never grew So strait a shaft, so lovely from the ground, So, Princess! thee with wonder I behold, Charm\u2019d into fixt astonishment, by awe Alone forbidden to embrace thy knees, For I am one on whom much woe hath fall\u2019n. 210 Yesterday I escaped (the twentieth day Of my distress by sea) the dreary Deep; For, all those days, the waves and rapid storms Bore me along, impetuous from the isle Ogygia; till at length the will of heav\u2019n Cast me, that I might also here sustain Affliction on your shore; for rest, I think, Is not for me. No. The Immortal Gods Have much to accomplish ere that day arrive. But, oh Queen, pity me! who after long 220 Calamities endured, of all who live Thee first approach, nor mortal know beside Of the inhabitants of all the land. Shew me your city; give me, although coarse, Some cov\u2019ring (if coarse cov\u2019ring thou canst give) And may the Gods thy largest wishes grant, House, husband, concord! for of all the gifts Of heav\u2019n, more precious none I deem, than peace \u2019Twixt wedded pair, and union undissolved; Envy torments their enemies, but joy 230 Fills ev\u2019ry virtuous breast, and most their own. To whom Nausicaa the fair replied. Since, stranger! neither base by birth thou seem\u2019st, Nor unintelligent, (but Jove, the King Olympian, gives to good and bad alike Prosperity according to his will, And grief to thee, which thou must patient bear,) Now, therefore, at our land and city arrived, Nor garment thou shalt want, nor aught beside Due to a suppliant guest like thee forlorn. 240 I will both show thee where our city stands, And who dwell here. Ph\u00e6acia\u2019s sons possess This land; but I am daughter of their King The brave Alcino\u00fcs, on whose sway depends For strength and wealth the whole Ph\u00e6acian race. She said, and to her beauteous maidens gave Instant commandment\u2014My attendants, stay! Why flee ye thus, and whither, from the sight Of a mere mortal? Seems he in your eyes Some enemy of ours? The heart beats not, 250 Nor shall it beat hereafter, which shall come An enemy to the Ph\u00e6acian shores, So dear to the immortal Gods are we. Remote, amid the billowy Deep, we hold Our dwelling, utmost of all human-kind, And free from mixture with a foreign race. This man, a miserable wand\u2019rer comes, Whom we are bound to cherish, for the poor And stranger are from Jove, and trivial gifts To such are welcome. Bring ye therefore food 260 And wine, my maidens, for the guest\u2019s regale, And lave him where the stream is shelter\u2019d most. She spake; they stood, and by each other\u2019s words Encouraged, placed Ulysses where the bank O\u2019erhung the stream, as fair Nausicaa bade, Daughter of King Alcino\u00fcs the renown\u2019d. Apparel also at his side they spread, Mantle and vest, and, next, the limpid oil Presenting to him in the golden cruse, Exhorted him to bathe in the clear stream. 270 Ulysses then the maidens thus bespake. Ye maidens, stand apart, that I may cleanse, Myself, my shoulders from the briny surf, And give them oil which they have wanted long. But in your presence I bathe not, ashamed To show myself uncloath\u2019d to female eyes. He said; they went, and to Nausicaa told His answer; then the Hero in the stream His shoulders laved, and loins incrusted rough With the salt spray, and with his hands the scum 280 Of the wild ocean from his locks express\u2019d. Thus wash\u2019d all over, and refresh\u2019d with oil, He put the garments on, Nausicaa\u2019s gift. Then Pallas, progeny of Jove, his form Dilated more, and from his head diffused His curling locks like hyacinthine flowers. As when some artist, by Minerva made And Vulcan wise to execute all tasks Ingenious, binding with a golden verge Bright silver, finishes a graceful work, 290 Such grace the Goddess o\u2019er his ample chest Copious diffused, and o\u2019er his manly brows. Retiring, on the beach he sat, with grace And dignity illumed, where, viewing him, The virgin Princess, with amazement mark\u2019d His beauty, and her damsels thus bespake. My white-arm\u2019d maidens, listen to my voice! Not hated, sure, by all above, this man Among Ph\u00e6acia\u2019s godlike sons arrives. At first I deem\u2019d him of plebeian sort 300 Dishonourable, but he now assumes A near resemblance to the Gods above. Ah! would to heaven it were my lot to call Husband, some native of our land like him Accomplish\u2019d, and content to inhabit here! Give him, my maidens, food, and give him wine. She ended; they obedient to her will, Both wine and food, dispatchful, placed, and glad, Before Ulysses; he rapacious ate, Toil-suff\u2019ring Chief, and drank, for he had lived 310 From taste of aliment long time estranged. On other thoughts meantime intent, her charge Of folded vestments neat the Princess placed Within the royal wain, then yoked the mules, And to her seat herself ascending, call\u2019d Ulysses to depart, and thus she spake. Up, stranger! seek the city. I will lead Thy steps toward my royal Father\u2019s house, Where all Ph\u00e6acia\u2019s Nobles thou shalt see. But thou (for I account thee not unwise) 320 This course pursue. While through the fields we pass, And labours of the rural hind, so long With my attendants follow fast the mules And sumpter-carriage. I will be thy guide. But, once the summit gain\u2019d, on which is built Our city with proud bulwarks fenced around, And laved on both sides by its pleasant port Of narrow entrance, where our gallant barks Line all the road, each station\u2019d in her place, And where, adjoining close the splendid fane 330 Of Neptune, stands the forum with huge stones From quarries thither drawn, constructed strong, In which the rigging of their barks they keep, Sail-cloth and cordage, and make smooth their oars; (For bow and quiver the Ph\u00e6acian race Heed not, but masts and oars, and ships well-poised, With which exulting they divide the flood) Then, cautious, I would shun their bitter taunts Disgustful, lest they mock me as I pass; For of the meaner people some are coarse 340 In the extreme, and it may chance that one, The basest there seeing us shall exclaim\u2014 What handsome stranger of athletic form Attends the Princess? Where had she the chance To find him? We shall see them wedded soon. Either she hath received some vagrant guest From distant lands, (for no land neighbours ours) Or by her pray\u2019rs incessant won, some God Hath left the heav\u2019ns to be for ever hers. \u2019Tis well if she have found, by her own search, 350 An husband for herself, since she accounts The Nobles of Ph\u00e6acia, who her hand Solicit num\u2019rous, worthy to be scorn\u2019d\u2014 Thus will they speak, injurious. I should blame A virgin guilty of such conduct much, Myself, who reckless of her parents\u2019 will, Should so familiar with a man consort, Ere celebration of her spousal rites. But mark me, stranger! following my advice, Thou shalt the sooner at my father\u2019s hands 360 Obtain safe conduct and conveyance home. Sacred to Pallas a delightful grove Of poplars skirts the road, which we shall reach Ere long; within that grove a fountain flows, And meads encircle it; my father\u2019s farm Is there, and his luxuriant garden plot; A shout might reach it from the city-walls. There wait, till in the town arrived, we gain My father\u2019s palace, and when reason bids Suppose us there, then ent\u2019ring thou the town, 370 Ask where Alcino\u00fcs dwells, my valiant Sire. Well known is his abode, so that with ease A child might lead thee to it, for in nought The other houses of our land the house Resemble, in which dwells the Hero, King Alcino\u00fcs. Once within the court received Pause not, but, with swift pace advancing, seek My mother; she beside a column sits In the hearth\u2019s blaze, twirling her fleecy threads Tinged with sea-purple, bright, magnificent! 380 With all her maidens orderly behind. There also stands my father\u2019s throne, on which Seated, he drinks and banquets like a God. Pass that; then suppliant clasp my mother\u2019s knees, So shalt thou quickly win a glad return To thy own home, however far remote. Her favour, once, and her kind aid secured, Thenceforth thou may\u2019st expect thy friends to see, Thy dwelling, and thy native soil again. So saying, she with her splendid scourge the mules 390 Lash\u2019d onward. They (the stream soon left behind) With even footsteps graceful smote the ground; But so she ruled them, managing with art The scourge, as not to leave afar, although Following on foot, Ulysses and her train. The sun had now declined, when in that grove Renown\u2019d, to Pallas sacred, they arrived, In which Ulysses sat, and fervent thus Sued to the daughter of Jove \u00c6gis-arm\u2019d. Daughter invincible of Jove supreme! 400 Oh, hear me! Hear me now, because when erst The mighty Shaker of the shores incensed Toss\u2019d me from wave to wave, thou heard\u2019st me not. Grant me, among Ph\u00e6acia\u2019s sons, to find Benevolence and pity of my woes! He spake, whose pray\u2019r well-pleas\u2019d the Goddess heard, But, rev\u2019rencing the brother of her sire,24 Appear\u2019d not to Ulysses yet, whom he Pursued with fury to his native shores.\n\n\n\n23 In the Original, she calls him, pappa! a more natural stile of address and more endearing. But ancient as this appellative is, it is also so familiar in modern use, that the Translator feared to hazard it.\n\n\n24 Neptune.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK VII\nARGUMENT\nNausicaa returns from the river, whom Ulysses follows. He halts, by her direction, at a small distance from the palace, which at a convenient time he enters. He is well received by Alcino\u00fcs and his Queen; and having related to them the manner of his being cast on the shore of Scheria, and received from Alcino\u00fcs the promise of safe conduct home, retires to rest.\n\nSuch pray\u2019r Ulysses, toil-worn Chief renown\u2019d, To Pallas made, meantime the virgin, drawn By her stout mules, Ph\u00e6acia\u2019s city reach\u2019d, And, at her father\u2019s house arrived, the car Stay\u2019d in the vestibule; her brothers five, All godlike youths, assembling quick around, Released the mules, and bore the raiment in. Meantime, to her own chamber she return\u2019d, Where, soon as she arrived, an antient dame Eurymedusa, by peculiar charge 10 Attendant on that service, kindled fire. Sea-rovers her had from Epirus brought Long since, and to Alcino\u00fcs she had fall\u2019n By public gift, for that he ruled, supreme, Ph\u00e6acia, and as oft as he harangued The multitude, was rev\u2019renced as a God. She waited on the fair Nausicaa, she Her fuel kindled, and her food prepared. And now Ulysses from his seat arose To seek the city, around whom, his guard 20 Benevolent, Minerva, cast a cloud, Lest, haply, some Ph\u00e6acian should presume T\u2019 insult the Chief, and question whence he came. But ere he enter\u2019d yet the pleasant town, Minerva azure-eyed met him, in form A blooming maid, bearing her pitcher forth. She stood before him, and the noble Chief Ulysses, of the Goddess thus enquired. Daughter! wilt thou direct me to the house Of brave Alcino\u00fcs, whom this land obeys? 30 For I have here arrived, after long toil, And from a country far remote, a guest To all who in Ph\u00e6acia dwell, unknown. To whom the Goddess of the azure-eyes. The mansion of thy search, stranger revered! Myself will shew thee; for not distant dwells Alcino\u00fcs from my father\u2019s own abode: But hush! be silent\u2014I will lead the way; Mark no man; question no man; for the sight Of strangers is unusual here, and cold 40 The welcome by this people shown to such. They, trusting in swift ships, by the free grant Of Neptune traverse his wide waters, borne As if on wings, or with the speed of thought. So spake the Goddess, and with nimble pace Led on, whose footsteps he, as quick, pursued. But still the seaman-throng through whom he pass\u2019d Perceiv\u2019d him not; Minerva, Goddess dread, That sight forbidding them, whose eyes she dimm\u2019d With darkness shed miraculous around 50 Her fav\u2019rite Chief. Ulysses, wond\u2019ring, mark\u2019d Their port, their ships, their forum, the resort Of Heroes, and their battlements sublime Fenced with sharp stakes around, a glorious show! But when the King\u2019s august abode he reach\u2019d, Minerva azure-eyed, then, thus began. My father! thou behold\u2019st the house to which Thou bad\u2019st me lead thee. Thou shalt find our Chiefs And high-born Princes banqueting within. But enter fearing nought, for boldest men 60 Speed ever best, come whencesoe\u2019er they may. First thou shalt find the Queen, known by her name Areta; lineal in descent from those Who gave Alcino\u00fcs birth, her royal spouse. Neptune begat Nausitho\u00fcs, at the first, On Perib\u00e6a, loveliest of her sex, Latest-born daughter of Eurymedon, Heroic King of the proud giant race, Who, losing all his impious people, shared The same dread fate himself. Her Neptune lov\u2019d, 70 To whom she bore a son, the mighty prince Nausitho\u00fcs, in his day King of the land. Nausitho\u00fcs himself two sons begat, Rhexenor and Alcino\u00fcs. Phoebus slew Rhexenor at his home, a bridegroom yet, Who, father of no son, one daughter left, Areta, wedded to Alcino\u00fcs now, And whom the Sov\u2019reign in such honour holds, As woman none enjoys of all on earth Existing, subjects of an husband\u2019s pow\u2019r. 80 Like veneration she from all receives Unfeign\u2019d, from her own children, from himself Alcino\u00fcs, and from all Ph\u00e6acia\u2019s race, Who, gazing on her as she were divine, Shout when she moves in progress through the town. For she no wisdom wants, but sits, herself, Arbitress of such contests as arise Between her fav\u2019rites, and decides aright. Her count\u2019nance once and her kind aid secured, Thou may\u2019st thenceforth expect thy friends to see, 90 Thy dwelling, and thy native soil again. So Pallas spake, Goddess c\u00e6rulean-eyed, And o\u2019er the untillable and barren Deep Departing, Scheria left, land of delight, Whence reaching Marathon, and Athens next, She pass\u2019d into Erectheus\u2019 fair abode. Ulysses, then, toward the palace moved Of King Alcino\u00fcs, but immers\u2019d in thought Stood, first, and paused, ere with his foot he press\u2019d The brazen threshold; for a light he saw 100 As of the sun or moon illuming clear The palace of Ph\u00e6acia\u2019s mighty King. Walls plated bright with brass, on either side Stretch\u2019d from the portal to th\u2019 interior house, With azure cornice crown\u2019d; the doors were gold Which shut the palace fast; silver the posts Rear\u2019d on a brazen threshold, and above, The lintels, silver, architraved with gold. Mastiffs, in gold and silver, lined the approach On either side, by art celestial framed 110 Of Vulcan, guardians of Alcino\u00fcs\u2019 gate For ever, unobnoxious to decay. Sheer from the threshold to the inner house Fixt thrones the walls, through all their length, adorn\u2019d, With mantles overspread of subtlest warp Transparent, work of many a female hand. On these the princes of Ph\u00e6acia sat, Holding perpetual feasts, while golden youths On all the sumptuous altars stood, their hands With burning torches charged, which, night by night, 120 Shed radiance over all the festive throng. Full fifty female menials serv\u2019d the King In household offices; the rapid mills These turning, pulverize the mellow\u2019d grain, Those, seated orderly, the purple fleece Wind off, or ply the loom, restless as leaves Of lofty poplars fluttering in the breeze; Bright as with oil the new-wrought texture shone.25 Far as Ph\u00e6acian mariners all else Surpass, the swift ship urging through the floods, 130 So far in tissue-work the women pass All others, by Minerva\u2019s self endow\u2019d With richest fancy and superior skill. Without the court, and to the gates adjoin\u2019d A spacious garden lay, fenced all around Secure, four acres measuring complete. There grew luxuriant many a lofty tree, Pomegranate, pear, the apple blushing bright, The honied fig, and unctuous olive smooth. Those fruits, nor winter\u2019s cold nor summer\u2019s heat 140 Fear ever, fail not, wither not, but hang Perennial, whose unceasing zephyr breathes Gently on all, enlarging these, and those Maturing genial; in an endless course Pears after pears to full dimensions swell, Figs follow figs, grapes clust\u2019ring grow again Where clusters grew, and (ev\u2019ry apple stript) The boughs soon tempt the gath\u2019rer as before. There too, well-rooted, and of fruit profuse, His vineyard grows; part, wide-extended, basks, 150 In the sun\u2019s beams; the arid level glows; In part they gather, and in part they tread The wine-press, while, before the eye, the grapes Here put their blossom forth, there, gather fast Their blackness. On the garden\u2019s verge extreme Flow\u2019rs of all hues smile all the year, arranged With neatest art judicious, and amid The lovely scene two fountains welling forth, One visits, into ev\u2019ry part diffus\u2019d, The garden-ground, the other soft beneath 160 The threshold steals into the palace-court, Whence ev\u2019ry citizen his vase supplies. Such were the ample blessings on the house Of King Alcino\u00fcs by the Gods bestow\u2019d. Ulysses wond\u2019ring stood, and when, at length, Silent he had the whole fair scene admired, With rapid step enter\u2019d the royal gate. The Chiefs he found and Senators within Libation pouring to the vigilant spy Mercurius, whom with wine they worshipp\u2019d last 170 Of all the Gods, and at the hour of rest. Ulysses, toil-worn Hero, through the house Pass\u2019d undelaying, by Minerva thick With darkness circumfus\u2019d, till he arrived Where King Alcino\u00fcs and Areta sat. Around Areta\u2019s knees his arms he cast, And, in that moment, broken clear away The cloud all went, shed on him from above. Dumb sat the guests, seeing the unknown Chief, And wond\u2019ring gazed. He thus his suit preferr\u2019d. 180 Areta, daughter of the Godlike Prince Rhexenor! suppliant at thy knees I fall, Thy royal spouse imploring, and thyself, (After ten thousand toils) and these your guests, To whom heav\u2019n grant felicity, and to leave Their treasures to their babes, with all the rights And honours, by the people\u2019s suffrage, theirs! But oh vouchsafe me, who have wanted long And ardent wish\u2019d my home, without delay Safe conduct to my native shores again! 190 Such suit he made, and in the ashes sat At the hearth-side; they mute long time remain\u2019d, Till, at the last, the antient Hero spake Echeneus, eldest of Ph\u00e6acia\u2019s sons, With eloquence beyond the rest endow\u2019d, Rich in traditionary lore, and wise In all, who thus, benevolent, began. Not honourable to thyself, O King! Is such a sight, a stranger on the ground At the hearth-side seated, and in the dust. 200 Meantime, thy guests, expecting thy command, Move not; thou therefore raising by his hand The stranger, lead him to a throne, and bid The heralds mingle wine, that we may pour To thunder-bearing Jove, the suppliant\u2019s friend. Then let the cat\u2019ress for thy guest produce Supply, a supper from the last regale. Soon as those words Alcino\u00fcs heard, the King, Upraising by his hand the prudent Chief Ulysses from the hearth, he made him sit, 210 On a bright throne, displacing for his sake Laodamas his son, the virtuous youth Who sat beside him, and whom most he lov\u2019d. And now, a maiden charg\u2019d with golden ew\u2019r And with an argent laver, pouring, first, Pure water on his hands, supply\u2019d him, next, With a resplendent table, which the chaste Directress of the stores furnish\u2019d with bread And dainties, remnants of the last regale. Then ate the Hero toil-inured, and drank, 220 And to his herald thus Alcino\u00fcs spake. Pontono\u00fcs! mingling wine, bear it around To ev\u2019ry guest in turn, that we may pour To thunder-bearer Jove, the stranger\u2019s friend, And guardian of the suppliant\u2019s sacred rights. He said; Pontono\u00fcs, as he bade, the wine Mingled delicious, and the cups dispensed With distribution regular to all. When each had made libation, and had drunk Sufficient, then, Alcino\u00fcs thus began. 230 Ph\u00e6acian Chiefs and Senators, I speak The dictates of my mind, therefore attend! Ye all have feasted\u2014To your homes and sleep. We will assemble at the dawn of day More senior Chiefs, that we may entertain The stranger here, and to the Gods perform Due sacrifice; the convoy that he asks Shall next engage our thoughts, that free from pain And from vexation, by our friendly aid He may revisit, joyful and with speed, 240 His native shore, however far remote. No inconvenience let him feel or harm, Ere his arrival; but, arrived, thenceforth He must endure whatever lot the Fates Spun for him in the moment of his birth. But should he prove some Deity from heav\u2019n Descended, then the Immortals have in view Designs not yet apparent; for the Gods Have ever from of old reveal\u2019d themselves At our solemnities, have on our seats 250 Sat with us evident, and shared the feast; And even if a single traveller Of the Ph\u00e6acians meet them, all reserve They lay aside; for with the Gods we boast As near affinity as do themselves The Cyclops, or the Giant race profane.26 To whom Ulysses, ever-wise, replied. Alcino\u00fcs! think not so. Resemblance none In figure or in lineaments I bear To the immortal tenants of the skies, 260 But to the sons of earth; if ye have known A man afflicted with a weight of woe Peculiar, let me be with him compared; Woes even passing his could I relate, And all inflicted on me by the Gods. But let me eat, comfortless as I am, Uninterrupted; for no call is loud As that of hunger in the ears of man; Importunate, unreas\u2019nable, it constrains His notice, more than all his woes beside. 270 So, I much sorrow feel, yet not the less Hear I the blatant appetite demand Due sustenance, and with a voice that drowns E\u2019en all my suff\u2019rings, till itself be fill\u2019d. But expedite ye at the dawn of day My safe return into my native land, After much mis\u2019ry; and let life itself Forsake me, may I but once more behold All that is mine, in my own lofty abode. He spake, whom all applauded, and advised, 280 Unanimous, the guest\u2019s conveyance home, Who had so fitly spoken. When, at length, All had libation made, and were sufficed, Departing to his house, each sought repose. But still Ulysses in the hall remain\u2019d, Where, godlike King, Alcino\u00fcs at his side Sat, and Areta; the attendants clear\u2019d Meantime the board, and thus the Queen white-arm\u2019d, (Marking the vest and mantle, which he wore And which her maidens and herself had made) 290 In accents wing\u2019d with eager haste began. Stranger! the first enquiry shall be mine; Who art, and whence? From whom receiv\u2019dst thou these? Saidst not\u2014I came a wand\u2019rer o\u2019er the Deep? To whom Ulysses, ever-wise, replied. Oh Queen! the task were difficult to unfold In all its length the story of my woes, For I have num\u2019rous from the Gods receiv\u2019d; But I will answer thee as best I may. There is a certain isle, Ogygia, placed 300 Far distant in the Deep; there dwells, by man Alike unvisited, and by the Gods, Calypso, beauteous nymph, but deeply skill\u2019d In artifice, and terrible in pow\u2019r, Daughter of Atlas. Me alone my fate Her miserable inmate made, when Jove Had riv\u2019n asunder with his candent bolt My bark in the mid-sea. There perish\u2019d all The valiant partners of my toils, and I My vessel\u2019s keel embracing day and night 310 With folded arms, nine days was borne along. But on the tenth dark night, as pleas\u2019d the Gods, They drove me to Ogygia, where resides Calypso, beauteous nymph, dreadful in pow\u2019r; She rescued, cherish\u2019d, fed me, and her wish Was to confer on me immortal life, Exempt for ever from the sap of age. But me her offer\u2019d boon sway\u2019d not. Sev\u2019n years I there abode continual, with my tears Bedewing ceaseless my ambrosial robes, 320 Calypso\u2019s gift divine; but when, at length, (Sev\u2019n years elaps\u2019d) the circling eighth arrived, She then, herself, my quick departure thence Advised, by Jove\u2019s own mandate overaw\u2019d, Which even her had influenced to a change. On a well-corded raft she sent me forth With num\u2019rous presents; bread she put and wine On board, and cloath\u2019d me in immortal robes; She sent before me also a fair wind Fresh-blowing, but not dang\u2019rous. Sev\u2019nteen days 330 I sail\u2019d the flood continual, and descried, On the eighteenth, your shadowy mountains tall When my exulting heart sprang at the sight, All wretched as I was, and still ordain\u2019d To strive with difficulties many and hard From adverse Neptune; he the stormy winds Exciting opposite, my wat\u2019ry way Impeded, and the waves heav\u2019d to a bulk Immeasurable, such as robb\u2019d me soon Deep-groaning, of the raft, my only hope; 340 For her the tempest scatter\u2019d, and myself This ocean measur\u2019d swimming, till the winds And mighty waters cast me on your shore. Me there emerging, the huge waves had dash\u2019d Full on the land, where, incommodious most, The shore presented only roughest rocks, But, leaving it, I swam the Deep again, Till now, at last, a river\u2019s gentle stream Receiv\u2019d me, by no rocks deform\u2019d, and where No violent winds the shelter\u2019d bank annoy\u2019d. 350 I flung myself on shore, exhausted, weak, Needing repose; ambrosial night came on, When from the Jove-descended stream withdrawn, I in a thicket lay\u2019d me down on leaves Which I had heap\u2019d together, and the Gods O\u2019erwhelm\u2019d my eye-lids with a flood of sleep. There under wither\u2019d leaves, forlorn, I slept All the long night, the morning and the noon, But balmy sleep, at the decline of day, Broke from me; then, your daughter\u2019s train I heard 360 Sporting, with whom she also sported, fair And graceful as the Gods. To her I kneel\u2019d. She, following the dictates of a mind Ingenuous, pass\u2019d in her behaviour all Which even ye could from an age like hers Have hoped; for youth is ever indiscrete. She gave me plenteous food, with richest wine Refresh\u2019d my spirit, taught me where to bathe, And cloath\u2019d me as thou seest; thus, though a prey To many sorrows, I have told thee truth. 370 To whom Alcino\u00fcs answer thus return\u2019d. My daughter\u2019s conduct, I perceive, hath been In this erroneous, that she led thee not Hither, at once, with her attendant train, For thy first suit was to herself alone. Thus then Ulysses, wary Chief, replied. Blame not, O Hero, for so slight a cause Thy faultless child; she bade me follow them, But I refused, by fear and awe restrain\u2019d, Lest thou should\u2019st feel displeasure at that sight 380 Thyself; for we are all, in ev\u2019ry clime, Suspicious, and to worst constructions prone. So spake Ulysses, to whom thus the King. I bear not, stranger! in my breast an heart Causeless irascible; for at all times A temp\u2019rate equanimity is best. And oh, I would to heav\u2019n, that, being such As now thou art, and of one mind with me, Thou would\u2019st accept my daughter, would\u2019st become My son-in-law, and dwell contented here! 390 House would I give thee, and possessions too, Were such thy choice; else, if thou chuse it not, No man in all Ph\u00e6acia shall by force Detain thee. Jupiter himself forbid! For proof, I will appoint thee convoy hence To-morrow; and while thou by sleep subdued Shalt on thy bed repose, they with their oars Shall brush the placid flood, till thou arrive At home, or at what place soe\u2019er thou would\u2019st, Though far more distant than Eub\u0153a lies, 400 Remotest isle from us, by the report Of ours, who saw it when they thither bore Golden-hair\u2019d Rhadamanthus o\u2019er the Deep, To visit earth-born Tityus. To that isle They went; they reach\u2019d it, and they brought him thence Back to Ph\u00e6acia, in one day, with ease. Thou also shalt be taught what ships I boast Unmatch\u2019d in swiftness, and how far my crews Excel, upturning with their oars the brine. He ceas\u2019d; Ulysses toil-inur\u2019d his words 410 Exulting heard, and, praying, thus replied. Eternal Father! may the King perform His whole kind promise! grant him in all lands A never-dying name, and grant to me To visit safe my native shores again! Thus they conferr\u2019d; and now Areta bade Her fair attendants dress a fleecy couch Under the portico, with purple rugs Resplendent, and with arras spread beneath, And over all with cloaks of shaggy pile. 420 Forth went the maidens, bearing each a torch, And, as she bade, prepared in haste a couch Of depth commodious, then, returning, gave Ulysses welcome summons to repose. Stranger! thy couch is spread. Hence to thy rest. So they\u2014Thrice grateful to his soul the thought Seem\u2019d of repose. There slept Ulysses, then, On his carv\u2019d couch, beneath the portico, But in the inner-house Alcino\u00fcs found His place of rest, and hers with royal state 430 Prepared, the Queen his consort, at his side.\n\n\n\n25\n\n\u039a\u03b1\u03b9\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u1f73\u03c9\u03bd \u03b4\u2019 \u03bf\u03b8\u03bf\u03bd\u03b5\u03c9\u03bd \u1f00\u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03b5\u1f77\u03b2\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u1f51\u03b3\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd \u1f14\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd.\n\nPope has given no translation of this line in the text of his work, but has translated it in a note. It is variously interpreted by commentators; the sense which is here given of it is that recommended by Eustathius.\n\n\n26 The Scholiast explains the passage thus\u2014We resemble the Gods in righteousness as much as the Cyclops and Giants resembled each other in impiety. But in this sense of it there is something intricate and contrary to Homer\u2019s manner. We have seen that they derived themselves from Neptune, which sufficiently justifies the above interpretation.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK VIII\nARGUMENT\nThe Ph\u00e6acians consult on the subject of Ulysses. Preparation is made for his departure. Antino\u00fcs entertains them at his table. Games follow the entertainment. Demodocus the bard sings, first the loves of Mars and Venus, then the introduction of the wooden horse into Troy. Ulysses, much affected by his song, is questioned by Alcino\u00fcs, whence, and who he is, and what is the cause of his sorrow.\n\nBut when Aurora, daughter of the dawn, Blush\u2019d in the East, then from his bed arose The sacred might of the Ph\u00e6acian King. Then uprose also, city-waster Chief, Ulysses, whom the King Alcino\u00fcs Led forth to council at the ships convened. There, side by side, on polish\u2019d stones they sat Frequent; meantime, Minerva in the form Of King Alcino\u00fcs\u2019 herald ranged the town, With purpose to accelerate the return 10 Of brave Ulysses to his native home, And thus to ev\u2019ry Chief the Goddess spake. Ph\u00e6acian Chiefs and Senators, away! Haste all to council on the stranger held, Who hath of late beneath Alcino\u00fcs\u2019 roof Our King arrived, a wand\u2019rer o\u2019er the Deep, But, in his form, majestic as a God. So saying, she roused the people, and at once The seats of all the senate-court were fill\u2019d With fast-assembling throngs, no few of whom 20 Had mark\u2019d Ulysses with admiring eyes. Then, Pallas o\u2019er his head and shoulders broad Diffusing grace celestial, his whole form Dilated, and to the statelier height advanced, That worthier of all rev\u2019rence he might seem To the Ph\u00e6acians, and might many a feat Atchieve, with which they should assay his force. When, therefore, the assembly now was full, Alcino\u00fcs, them addressing, thus began. Ph\u00e6acian Chiefs and Senators! I speak 30 The dictates of my mind, therefore attend. This guest, unknown to me, hath, wand\u2019ring, found My palace, either from the East arrived, Or from some nation on our western side. Safe conduct home he asks, and our consent Here wishes ratified, whose quick return Be it our part, as usual, to promote; For at no time the stranger, from what coast Soe\u2019er, who hath resorted to our doors, Hath long complain\u2019d of his detention here. 40 Haste\u2014draw ye down into the sacred Deep A vessel of prime speed, and, from among The people, fifty and two youths select, Approved the best; then, lashing fast the oars, Leave her, that at my palace ye may make Short feast, for which myself will all provide. Thus I enjoin the crew; but as for those Of sceptred rank, I bid them all alike To my own board, that here we may regale The stranger nobly, and let none refuse. 50 Call, too, Demodocus, the bard divine, To share my banquet, whom the Gods have blest With pow\u2019rs of song delectable, unmatch\u2019d By any, when his genius once is fired. He ceas\u2019d, and led the way, whom follow\u2019d all The sceptred senators, while to the house An herald hasted of the bard divine. Then, fifty mariners and two, from all The rest selected, to the coast repair\u2019d, And, from her station on the sea-bank, launched 60 The galley down into the sacred Deep. They placed the canvas and the mast on board, Arranged the oars, unfurl\u2019d the shining sail, And, leaving her in depth of water moor\u2019d, All sought the palace of Alcino\u00fcs. There, soon, the portico, the court, the hall Were fill\u2019d with multitudes of young and old, For whose regale the mighty monarch slew Two beeves, twelve sheep, and twice four fatted brawns. They slay\u2019d them first, then busily their task 70 Administ\u2019ring, prepared the joyous feast. And now the herald came, leading with care The tuneful bard; dear to the muse was he, Who yet appointed him both good and ill; Took from him sight, but gave him strains divine. For him, Pontono\u00fcs in the midst disposed An argent-studded throne, thrusting it close To a tall column, where he hung his lyre Above his head, and taught him where it hung. He set before him, next, a polish\u2019d board 80 And basket, and a goblet fill\u2019d with wine For his own use, and at his own command. Then, all assail\u2019d at once the ready feast, And when nor hunger more nor thirst they felt, Then came the muse, and roused the bard to sing Exploits of men renown\u2019d; it was a song, In that day, to the highest heav\u2019n extoll\u2019d. He sang of a dispute kindled between The son of Peleus, and Laertes\u201927 son, Both seated at a feast held to the Gods. 90 That contest Agamemnon, King of men, Between the noblest of Achaia\u2019s host Hearing, rejoiced; for when in Pytho erst He pass\u2019d the marble threshold to consult The oracle of Apollo, such dispute The voice divine had to his ear announced; For then it was that, first, the storm of war Came rolling on, ordain\u2019d long time to afflict Troy and the Greecians, by the will of Jove. So sang the bard illustrious; then his robe 100 Of purple dye with both hands o\u2019er his head Ulysses drew, behind its ample folds Veiling his face, through fear to be observed By the Ph\u00e6acians weeping at the song; And ever as the bard harmonious ceased, He wiped his tears, and, drawing from his brows The mantle, pour\u2019d libation to the Gods. But when the Chiefs (for they delighted heard Those sounds) solicited again the bard, And he renew\u2019d the strain, then cov\u2019ring close 110 His count\u2019nance, as before, Ulysses wept. Thus, unperceiv\u2019d by all, the Hero mourn\u2019d, Save by Alcino\u00fcs; he alone his tears, (Beside him seated) mark\u2019d, and his deep sighs O\u2019erhearing, the Ph\u00e6acians thus bespake. Ph\u00e6acia\u2019s Chiefs and Senators, attend! We have regaled sufficient, and the harp Heard to satiety, companion sweet And seasonable of the festive hour. Now go we forth for honourable proof 120 Of our address in games of ev\u2019ry kind, That this our guest may to his friends report, At home arriv\u2019d, that none like us have learn\u2019d To leap, to box, to wrestle, and to run. So saying, he led them forth, whose steps the guests All follow\u2019d, and the herald hanging high The sprightly lyre, took by his hand the bard Demodocus, whom he the self-same way Conducted forth, by which the Chiefs had gone Themselves, for that great spectacle prepared. 130 They sought the forum; countless swarm\u2019d the throng Behind them as they went, and many a youth Strong and courageous to the strife arose. Upstood Acroneus and Ocyalus, Elatreus, Nauteus, Prymneus, after whom Anchialus with Anabeesineus Arose, Eretmeus, Ponteus, Proreus bold, Amphialus and Th\u00f6on. Then arose, In aspect dread as homicidal Mars, Euryalus, and for his graceful form 140 (After Laodamas) distinguish\u2019d most Of all Ph\u00e6acia\u2019s sons, Naubolides. Three also from Alcino\u00fcs sprung, arose, Laodamas, his eldest; Halius, next, His second-born; and godlike Clytoneus. Of these, some started for the runner\u2019s prize. They gave the race its limits.28 All at once Along the dusty champaign swift they flew. But Clytoneus, illustrious youth, outstripp\u2019d All competition; far as mules surpass 150 Slow oxen furrowing the fallow ground, So far before all others he arrived Victorious, where the throng\u2019d spectators stood. Some tried the wrestler\u2019s toil severe, in which Euryalus superior proved to all. In the long leap Amphialus prevail\u2019d; Elatreus most successful hurled the quoit, And at the cestus,29 last, the noble son Of Scheria\u2019s King, Laodamas excell\u2019d. When thus with contemplation of the games 160 All had been gratified, Alcino\u00fcs\u2019 son Laodamas, arising, then address\u2019d. Friends! ask we now the stranger, if he boast Proficiency in aught. His figure seems Not ill; in thighs, and legs, and arms he shews Much strength, and in his brawny neck; nor youth Hath left him yet, though batter\u2019d he appears With num\u2019rous troubles, and misfortune-flaw\u2019d. Nor know I hardships in the world so sure To break the strongest down, as those by sea. 170 Then answer thus Euryalus return\u2019d. Thou hast well said, Laodamas; thyself Approaching, speak to him, and call him forth. Which when Alcino\u00fcs\u2019 noble offspring heard, Advancing from his seat, amid them all He stood, and to Ulysses thus began. Stand forth, oh guest, thou also; prove thy skill (If any such thou hast) in games like ours, Which, likeliest, thou hast learn\u2019d; for greater praise Hath no man, while he lives, than that he know 180 His feet to exercise and hands aright. Come then; make trial; scatter wide thy cares, We will not hold thee long; the ship is launch\u2019d Already, and the crew stand all prepared. To whom replied the wily Chief renown\u2019d Wherefore, as in derision, have ye call\u2019d Me forth, Laodamas, to these exploits? No games have I, but many a grief, at heart, And with far other struggles worn, here sit Desirous only of conveyance home, 190 For which both King and people I implore. Then him Euryalus aloud reproach\u2019d. I well believ\u2019d it, friend! in thee the guise I see not of a man expert in feats Athletic, of which various are perform\u2019d In ev\u2019ry land; thou rather seem\u2019st with ships Familiar; one, accustom\u2019d to controul Some crew of trading mariners; well-learn\u2019d In stowage, pilotage, and wealth acquired By rapine, but of no gymnastic pow\u2019rs. 200 To whom Ulysses, frowning dark, replied. Thou hast ill spoken, sir, and like a man Regardless whom he wrongs. Therefore the Gods Give not endowments graceful in each kind, Of body, mind, and utt\u2019rance, all to one. This man in figure less excels, yet Jove Crowns him with eloquence; his hearers charm\u2019d Behold him, while with modest confidence He bears the prize of fluent speech from all, And in the streets is gazed on as a God! 210 Another, in his form the Pow\u2019rs above Resembles, but no grace around his words Twines itself elegant. So, thou in form Hast excellence to boast; a God, employ\u2019d To make a master-piece in human shape, Could but produce proportions such as thine; Yet hast thou an untutor\u2019d intellect. Thou much hast moved me; thy unhandsome phrase Hath roused my wrath; I am not, as thou say\u2019st, A novice in these sports, but took the lead 220 In all, while youth and strength were on my side. But I am now in bands of sorrow held, And of misfortune, having much endured In war, and buffeting the boist\u2019rous waves. Yet, though with mis\u2019ry worn, I will essay My strength among you; for thy words had teeth Whose bite hath pinch\u2019d and pain\u2019d me to the proof. He said; and mantled as he was, a quoit Upstarting, seized, in bulk and weight all those Transcending far, by the Ph\u00e6acians used. 230 Swiftly he swung, and from his vig\u2019rous hand Sent it. Loud sang the stone, and as it flew The maritime Ph\u00e6acians low inclined Their heads beneath it; over all the marks, And far beyond them, sped the flying rock. Minerva, in a human form, the cast Prodigious measur\u2019d, and aloud exclaim\u2019d. Stranger! the blind himself might with his hands Feel out the \u2019vantage here. Thy quoit disdains Fellowship with a crowd, borne far beyond. 240 Fear not a losing game; Ph\u00e6acian none Will reach thy measure, much less overcast. She ceased; Ulysses, hardy Chief, rejoiced That in the circus he had found a judge So favorable, and with brisker tone, As less in wrath, the multitude address\u2019d. Young men, reach this, and I will quickly heave Another such, or yet a heavier quoit. Then, come the man whose courage prompts him forth To box, to wrestle with me, or to run; 250 For ye have chafed me much, and I decline No strife with any here, but challenge all Ph\u00e6acia, save Laodamas alone. He is mine host. Who combats with his friend? To call to proof of hardiment the man Who entertains him in a foreign land, Would but evince the challenger a fool, Who, so, would cripple his own interest there. As for the rest, I none refuse, scorn none, But wish for trial of you, and to match 260 In opposition fair my force with yours. There is no game athletic in the use Of all mankind, too difficult for me; I handle well the polish\u2019d bow, and first Amid a thousand foes strike whom I mark, Although a throng of warriors at my side Imbattled, speed their shafts at the same time. Of all Achaia\u2019s sons who erst at Troy Drew bow, the sole who bore the prize from me Was Philoctetes; I resign it else 270 To none now nourish\u2019d with the fruits of earth. Yet mean I no comparison of myself With men of antient times, with Hercules, Or with Oechalian Eurytus, who, both, The Gods themselves in archery defied. Soon, therefore, died huge Eurytus, ere yet Old age he reach\u2019d; him, angry to be call\u2019d To proof of archership, Apollo slew. But if ye name the spear, mine flies a length By no man\u2019s arrow reach\u2019d; I fear no foil 280 From the Ph\u00e6acians, save in speed alone; For I have suffer\u2019d hardships, dash\u2019d and drench\u2019d By many a wave, nor had I food on board At all times, therefore I am much unstrung. He spake; and silent the Ph\u00e6acians sat, Of whom alone Alcino\u00fcs thus replied. Since, stranger, not ungraceful is thy speech, Who hast but vindicated in our ears Thy question\u2019d prowess, angry that this youth Reproach\u2019d thee in the presence of us all, 290 That no man qualified to give his voice In public, might affront thy courage more; Now mark me, therefore, that in time to come, While feasting with thy children and thy spouse, Thou may\u2019st inform the Heroes of thy land Even of our proficiency in arts By Jove enjoin\u2019d us in our father\u2019s days. We boast not much the boxer\u2019s skill, nor yet The wrestler\u2019s; but light-footed in the race Are we, and navigators well-inform\u2019d. 300 Our pleasures are the feast, the harp, the dance, Garments for change; the tepid bath; the bed. Come, ye Ph\u00e6acians, beyond others skill\u2019d To tread the circus with harmonious steps, Come, play before us; that our guest, arrived In his own country, may inform his friends How far in seamanship we all excel, In running, in the dance, and in the song. Haste! bring ye to Demodocus his lyre Clear-toned, left somewhere in our hall at home. 310 So spake the godlike King, at whose command The herald to the palace quick return\u2019d To seek the charming lyre. Meantime arose Nine arbiters, appointed to intend The whole arrangement of the public games, To smooth the circus floor, and give the ring Its compass, widening the attentive throng. Ere long the herald came, bearing the harp, With which Demodocus supplied, advanced Into the middle area, around whom 320 Stood blooming youths, all skilful in the dance. With footsteps justly timed all smote at once The sacred floor; Ulysses wonder-fixt, The ceaseless play of twinkling30 feet admired. Then, tuning his sweet chords, Demodocus A jocund strain began, his theme, the loves Of Mars and Cytherea chaplet-crown\u2019d; How first, clandestine, they embraced beneath The roof of Vulcan, her, by many a gift Seduced, Mars won, and with adult\u2019rous lust 330 The bed dishonour\u2019d of the King of fire. The sun, a witness of their amorous sport, Bore swift the tale to Vulcan; he, apprized Of that foul deed, at once his smithy sought, In secret darkness of his inmost soul Contriving vengeance; to the stock he heav\u2019d His anvil huge, on which he forged a snare Of bands indissoluble, by no art To be untied, durance for ever firm. The net prepared, he bore it, fiery-wroth, 340 To his own chamber and his nuptial couch, Where, stretching them from post to post, he wrapp\u2019d With those fine meshes all his bed around, And hung them num\u2019rous from the roof, diffused Like spiders\u2019 filaments, which not the Gods Themselves could see, so subtle were the toils. When thus he had encircled all his bed On ev\u2019ry side, he feign\u2019d a journey thence To Lemnos, of all cities that adorn The earth, the city that he favours most. 350 Nor kept the God of the resplendent reins Mars, drowsy watch, but seeing that the famed Artificer of heav\u2019n had left his home, Flew to the house of Vulcan, hot to enjoy The Goddess with the wreath-encircled brows. She, newly from her potent Sire return\u2019d The son of Saturn, sat. Mars, ent\u2019ring, seiz\u2019d Her hand, hung on it, and thus urg\u2019d his suit. To bed, my fair, and let us love! for lo! Thine husband is from home, to Lemnos gone, 360 And to the Sintians, men of barb\u2019rous speech. He spake, nor she was loth, but bedward too Like him inclined; so then, to bed they went, And as they lay\u2019d them down, down stream\u2019d the net Around them, labour exquisite of hands By ingenuity divine inform\u2019d. Small room they found, so prison\u2019d; not a limb Could either lift, or move, but felt at once Entanglement from which was no escape. And now the glorious artist, ere he yet 370 Had reach\u2019d the Lemnian isle, limping, return\u2019d From his feign\u2019d journey, for his spy the sun Had told him all. With aching heart he sought His home, and, standing in the vestibule, Frantic with indignation roar\u2019d to heav\u2019n, And roar\u2019d again, summoning all the Gods.\u2014 Oh Jove! and all ye Pow\u2019rs for ever blest! Here; hither look, that ye may view a sight Ludicrous, yet too monstrous to be borne, How Venus always with dishonour loads 380 Her cripple spouse, doating on fiery Mars! And wherefore? for that he is fair in form And sound of foot, I ricket-boned and weak. Whose fault is this? Their fault, and theirs alone Who gave me being; ill-employ\u2019d were they Begetting me, one, better far unborn. See where they couch together on my bed Lascivious! ah, sight hateful to my eyes! Yet cooler wishes will they feel, I ween, To press my bed hereafter; here to sleep 390 Will little please them, fondly as they love. But these my toils and tangles will suffice To hold them here, till Jove shall yield me back Complete, the sum of all my nuptial gifts Paid to him for the shameless strumpet\u2019s sake His daughter, as incontinent as fair. He said, and in the brazen-floor\u2019d abode Of Jove the Gods assembled. Neptune came Earth-circling Pow\u2019r; came Hermes friend of man, And, regent of the far-commanding bow, 400 Apollo also came; but chaste reserve Bashful kept all the Goddesses at home. The Gods, by whose beneficence all live, Stood in the portal; infinite arose The laugh of heav\u2019n, all looking down intent On that shrewd project of the smith divine, And, turning to each other, thus they said. Bad works speed ill. The slow o\u2019ertakes the swift. So Vulcan, tardy as he is, by craft Hath outstript Mars, although the fleetest far 410 Of all who dwell in heav\u2019n, and the light-heel\u2019d Must pay the adult\u2019rer\u2019s forfeit to the lame. So spake the Pow\u2019rs immortal; then the King Of radiant shafts thus question\u2019d Mercury. Jove\u2019s son, heaven\u2019s herald, Hermes, bounteous God! Would\u2019st thou such stricture close of bands endure For golden Venus lying at thy side? Whom answer\u2019d thus the messenger of heav\u2019n Archer divine! yea, and with all my heart; And be the bands which wind us round about 420 Thrice these innumerable, and let all The Gods and Goddesses in heav\u2019n look on, So I may clasp Vulcan\u2019s fair spouse the while. He spake; then laugh\u2019d the Immortal Pow\u2019rs again. But not so Neptune; he with earnest suit The glorious artist urged to the release Of Mars, and thus in accents wing\u2019d he said. Loose him; accept my promise; he shall pay Full recompense in presence of us all. Then thus the limping smith far-famed replied. 430 Earth-circler Neptune, spare me that request. Lame suitor, lame security.31 What bands Could I devise for thee among the Gods, Should Mars, emancipated once, escape, Leaving both debt and durance, far behind? Him answer\u2019d then the Shaker of the shores. I tell thee, Vulcan, that if Mars by flight Shun payment, I will pay, myself, the fine. To whom the glorious artist of the skies. Thou must not, canst not, shalt not be refused. 440 So saying, the might of Vulcan loos\u2019d the snare, And they, detain\u2019d by those coercive bands No longer, from the couch upstarting, flew, Mars into Thrace, and to her Paphian home The Queen of smiles, where deep in myrtle groves Her incense-breathing altar stands embow\u2019r\u2019d. Her there, the Graces laved, and oils diffused O\u2019er all her form, ambrosial, such as add Fresh beauty to the Gods for ever young, And cloath\u2019d her in the loveliest robes of heav\u2019n. 450 Such was the theme of the illustrious bard. Ulysses with delight that song, and all The maritime Ph\u00e6acian concourse heard. Alcino\u00fcs, then, (for in the dance they pass\u2019d All others) call\u2019d his sons to dance alone, Halius and Laodamas; they gave The purple ball into their hands, the work Exact of Polybus; one, re-supine, Upcast it high toward the dusky clouds, The other, springing into air, with ease 460 Received it, ere he sank to earth again. When thus they oft had sported with the ball Thrown upward, next, with nimble interchange They pass\u2019d it to each other many a time, Footing the plain, while ev\u2019ry youth of all The circus clapp\u2019d his hands, and from beneath The din of stamping feet fill\u2019d all the air. Then, turning to Alcino\u00fcs, thus the wise Ulysses spake: Alcino\u00fcs! mighty King! Illustrious above all Ph\u00e6acia\u2019s sons! 470 Incomparable are ye in the dance, Ev\u2019n as thou said\u2019st. Amazement-fixt I stand! So he, whom hearing, the imperial might Exulted of Alcino\u00fcs, and aloud To his oar-skill\u2019d Ph\u00e6acians thus he spake. Ph\u00e6acian Chiefs and Senators, attend! Wisdom beyond the common stint I mark In this our guest; good cause in my account, For which we should present him with a pledge Of hospitality and love. The Chiefs 480 Are twelve, who, highest in command, controul The people, and the thirteenth Chief am I. Bring each a golden talent, with a vest Well-bleach\u2019d, and tunic; gratified with these, The stranger to our banquet shall repair Exulting; bring them all without delay; And let Euryalus by word and gift Appease him, for his speech was unadvised. He ceas\u2019d, whom all applauded, and at once Each sent his herald forth to bring the gifts, 490 When thus Euryalus his Sire address\u2019d. Alcino\u00fcs! o\u2019er Ph\u00e6acia\u2019s sons supreme! I will appease our guest, as thou command\u2019st. This sword shall be his own, the blade all steel. The hilt of silver, and the unsullied sheath Of iv\u2019ry recent from the carver\u2019s hand, A gift like this he shall not need despise. So saying, his silver-studded sword he gave Into his grasp, and, courteous, thus began. Hail, honour\u2019d stranger! and if word of mine 500 Have harm\u2019d thee, rashly spoken, let the winds Bear all remembrance of it swift away! May the Gods give thee to behold again Thy wife, and to attain thy native shore, Whence absent long, thou hast so much endured! To whom Ulysses, ever-wise, replied. Hail also thou, and may the Gods, my friend, Grant thee felicity, and may never want Of this thy sword touch thee in time to come, By whose kind phrase appeas\u2019d my wrath subsides! 510 He ended, and athwart his shoulders threw The weapon bright emboss\u2019d. Now sank the sun, And those rich gifts arrived, which to the house Of King Alcino\u00fcs the heralds bore. Alcino\u00fcs\u2019 sons receiv\u2019d them, and beside Their royal mother placed the precious charge. The King then led the way, at whose abode Arrived, again they press\u2019d their lofty thrones, And to Areta thus the monarch spake. Haste, bring a coffer; bring thy best, and store 520 A mantle and a sumptuous vest within; Warm for him, next, a brazen bath, by which Refresh\u2019d, and viewing in fair order placed The noble gifts by the Ph\u00e6acian Lords Conferr\u2019d on him, he may the more enjoy Our banquet, and the bard\u2019s harmonious song. I give him also this my golden cup Splendid, elaborate; that, while he lives What time he pours libation forth to Jove And all the Gods, he may remember me. 530 He ended, at whose words Areta bade Her maidens with dispatch place o\u2019er the fire A tripod ample-womb\u2019d; obedient they Advanced a laver to the glowing hearth, Water infused, and kindled wood beneath The flames encircling bright the bellied vase, Warm\u2019d soon the flood within. Meantime, the Queen Producing from her chamber-stores a chest All-elegant, within it placed the gold, And raiment, gifts of the Ph\u00e6acian Chiefs, 540 With her own gifts, the mantle and the vest, And in wing\u2019d accents to Ulysses said. Now take, thyself, the coffer\u2019s lid in charge; Girdle it quickly with a cord, lest loss Befall thee on thy way, while thou perchance Shalt sleep secure on board the sable bark. Which when Ulysses heard, Hero renown\u2019d, Adjusting close the lid, he cast a cord Around it which with many a mazy knot He tied, by Circe taught him long before. 550 And now, the mistress of the household charge Summon\u2019d him to his bath; glad he beheld The steaming vase, uncustom\u2019d to its use E\u2019er since his voyage from the isle of fair Calypso, although, while a guest with her, Ever familiar with it, as a God. Laved by attendant damsels, and with oil Refresh\u2019d, he put his sumptuous tunic on And mantle, and proceeding from the bath To the symposium, join\u2019d the num\u2019rous guests; 560 But, as he pass\u2019d, the Princess all divine Beside the pillars of the portal, lost In admiration of his graceful form, Stood, and in accents wing\u2019d him thus address\u2019d. Hail, stranger! at thy native home arrived Remember me, thy first deliv\u2019rer here. To whom Ulysses, ever-wise, replied. Nausicaa! daughter of the noble King Alcino\u00fcs! So may Jove, high-thund\u2019ring mate Of Juno, grant me to behold again 570 My native land, and my delightful home, As, even there, I will present my vows To thee, adoring thee as I adore The Gods themselves, virgin, by whom I live! He said, and on his throne beside the King Alcino\u00fcs sat. And now they portion\u2019d out The feast to all, and charg\u2019d the cups with wine, And introducing by his hand the bard Ph\u00e6acia\u2019s glory, at the column\u2019s side The herald placed Demodocus again. 580 Then, carving forth a portion from the loins Of a huge brawn, of which uneaten still Large part and delicate remain\u2019d, thus spake Ulysses\u2014Herald! bear it to the bard For his regale, whom I will soon embrace In spite of sorrow; for respect is due And veneration to the sacred bard From all mankind, for that the muse inspires Herself his song, and loves the tuneful tribe. He ended, and the herald bore his charge 590 To the old hero who with joy received That meed of honour at the bearer\u2019s hand. Then, all, at once, assail\u2019d the ready feast, And hunger now, and thirst both satisfied, Thus to Demodocus Ulysses spake. Demodocus! I give thee praise above All mortals, for that either thee the muse Jove\u2019s daughter teaches, or the King, himself, Apollo; since thou so record\u2019st the fate, With such clear method, of Achaia\u2019s host, 600 Their deeds heroic, and their num\u2019rous toils, As thou hadst present been thyself, or learnt From others present there, the glorious tale. Come, then, proceed; that rare invention sing, The horse of wood, which by Minerva\u2019s aid Epeus framed, and which Ulysses erst Convey\u2019d into the citadel of Troy With warriors fill\u2019d, who lay\u2019d all Ilium waste. These things rehearse regular, and myself Will, instant, publish in the ears of all 610 Thy fame, reporting thee a bard to whom Apollo free imparts celestial song. He ended; then Apollo with full force Rush\u2019d on Demodocus, and he began What time the Greeks, first firing their own camp Steer\u2019d all their galleys from the shore of Troy. Already, in the horse conceal\u2019d, his band Around Ulysses sat; for Ilium\u2019s sons Themselves had drawn it to the citadel. And there the mischief stood. Then, strife arose 620 Among the Trojans compassing the horse, And threefold was the doubt; whether to cleave The hollow trunk asunder, or updrawn Aloft, to cast it headlong from the rocks, Or to permit the enormous image, kept Entire, to stand an off\u2019ring to the Gods, Which was their destined course; for Fate had fix\u2019d Their ruin sure, when once they had received Within their walls that engine huge, in which Sat all the bravest Greecians with the fate 630 Of Ilium charged, and slaughter of her sons. He sang, how, from the horse effused, the Greeks Left their capacious ambush, and the town Made desolate. To others, in his song, He gave the praise of wasting all beside, But told how, fierce as Mars, Ulysses join\u2019d With godlike Menelaus, to the house Flew of Deiphobus; him there engaged In direst fight he sang, and through the aid Of glorious Pallas, conqu\u2019ror over all. 640 So sang the bard illustrious, at whose song Ulysses melted, and tear after tear Fell on his cheeks. As when a woman weeps, Her husband, who hath fallen in defence Of his own city and his babes before The gates; she, sinking, folds him in her arms And, gazing on him as he pants and dies, Shrieks at the sight; meantime, the enemy Smiting her shoulders with the spear to toil Command her and to bondage far away, 650 And her cheek fades with horror at the sound; Ulysses, so, from his moist lids let fall, The frequent tear. Unnoticed by the rest Those drops, but not by King Alcino\u00fcs, fell Who, seated at his side, his heavy sighs Remark\u2019d, and the Ph\u00e6acians thus bespake. Ph\u00e6acian Chiefs and Senators attend! Now let Demodocus enjoin his harp Silence, for not alike grateful to all His music sounds; during our feast, and since 660 The bard divine began, continual flow The stranger\u2019s sorrows, by remembrance caused Of some great woe which wraps his soul around. Then, let the bard suspend his song, that all (As most befits th\u2019 occasion) may rejoice, Both guest and hosts together; since we make This voyage, and these gifts confer, in proof Of hospitality and unfeign\u2019d love, Judging, with all wise men, the stranger-guest And suppliant worthy of a brother\u2019s place. 670 And thou conceal not, artfully reserv\u2019d, What I shall ask, far better plain declared Than smother\u2019d close; who art thou? speak thy name, The name by which thy father, mother, friends And fellow-citizens, with all who dwell Around thy native city, in times past Have known thee; for of all things human none Lives altogether nameless, whether good Or whether bad, but ev\u2019ry man receives Ev\u2019n in the moment of his birth, a name. 680 Thy country, people, city, tell; the mark At which my ships, intelligent, shall aim, That they may bear thee thither; for our ships No pilot need or helm, as ships are wont, But know, themselves, our purpose; know beside All cities, and all fruitful regions well Of all the earth, and with dark clouds involv\u2019d Plough rapid the rough Deep, fearless of harm, (Whate\u2019er betide) and of disast\u2019rous wreck. Yet thus, long since, my father I have heard 690 Nausitho\u00fcs speaking; Neptune, he would say, Is angry with us, for that safe we bear Strangers of ev\u2019ry nation to their home; And he foretold a time when he would smite In vengeance some Ph\u00e6acian gallant bark Returning after convoy of her charge, And fix her in the sable flood, transform\u2019d Into a mountain, right before the town. So spake my hoary Sire, which let the God At his own pleasure do, or leave undone. 700 But tell me truth, and plainly. Where have been Thy wand\u2019rings? in what regions of the earth Hast thou arrived? what nations hast thou seen, What cities? say, how many hast thou found Harsh, savage and unjust? how many, kind To strangers, and disposed to fear the Gods? Say also, from what secret grief of heart Thy sorrows flow, oft as thou hear\u2019st the fate Of the Achaians, or of Ilium sung? That fate the Gods prepared; they spin the thread 710 Of man\u2019s destruction, that in after days The bard may make the sad event his theme. Perish\u2019d thy father or thy brother there? Or hast thou at the siege of Ilium lost Father-in-law, or son-in-law? for such Are next and dearest to us after those Who share our own descent; or was the dead Thy bosom-friend, whose heart was as thy own? For worthy as a brother of our love The constant friend and the discrete I deem. 720\n\n\n\n27 Agamemnon having inquired at Delphos, at what time the Trojan war would end, was answered that the conclusion of it should happen at a time when a dispute should arise between two of his principal commanders. That dispute occurred at the time here alluded to, Achilles recommending force as most likely to reduce the city, and Ulysses stratagem.\n\n\n28 \u03a4\u03bf\u03b9\u03c3\u03b9 \u03b4\u2019 \u03b1\u03c0\u03bf \u03bd\u03c5\u03c3\u03bf\u03b7\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf \u03b4\u03c1\u03bf\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2\u2014This expression is by the commentators generally understood to be significant of the effort which they made at starting, but it is not improbable that it relates merely to the measurement of the course, otherwise, \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03c0\u03b1\u03bb\u03b9\u03bc\u03c9\u03c2 \u03b5\u03c0\u03b5\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf will be tautologous.\n\n\n29 In boxing.\n\n\n30 The Translator is indebted to Mr Grey for an epithet more expressive of the original (\u039c\u03b1\u03c1\u03bc\u03b1\u03c1\u03c5\u03b3\u03b1\u03c2) than any other, perhaps, in all our language. See the Ode on the Progress of Poetry.\n\n\u201cTo brisk notes in cadence beating, Glance their many-twinkling feet\u201d\n\n\n\n31 The original line has received such a variety of interpretations, that a Translator seems free to choose. It has, however, a proverbial turn, which I have endeavoured to preserve, and have adopted the sense of the words which appears best to accord with what immediately follows. Vulcan pleads his own inability to enforce the demand, as a circumstance that made Neptune\u2019s promise unacceptable.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK IX\nARGUMENT\nUlysses discovers himself to the Ph\u00e6acians, and begins the history of his adventures. He destroys Ismarus, city of the Ciconians; arrives among the Lotophagi; and afterwards at the land of the Cyclops. He is imprisoned by Polypheme in his cave, who devours six of his companions; intoxicates the monster with wine, blinds him while he sleeps, and escapes from him.\n\nThen answer, thus, Ulysses wise return\u2019d. Alcino\u00fcs! King! illustrious above all Ph\u00e6acia\u2019s sons, pleasant it is to hear A bard like this, sweet as the Gods in song. The world, in my account, no sight affords More gratifying than a people blest With cheerfulness and peace, a palace throng\u2019d With guests in order ranged, list\u2019ning to sounds Melodious, and the steaming tables spread With plenteous viands, while the cups, with wine 10 From brimming beakers fill\u2019d, pass brisk around. No lovelier sight know I. But thou, it seems, Thy thoughts hast turn\u2019d to ask me whence my groans And tears, that I may sorrow still the more. What first, what next, what last shall I rehearse, On whom the Gods have show\u2019r\u2019d such various woes? Learn first my name, that even in this land Remote I may be known, and that escaped From all adversity, I may requite Hereafter, this your hospitable care 20 At my own home, however distant hence. I am Ulysses, fear\u2019d in all the earth For subtlest wisdom, and renown\u2019d to heaven, The offspring of Laertes; my abode Is sun-burnt Ithaca; there waving stands The mountain Neritus his num\u2019rous boughs, And it is neighbour\u2019d close by clust\u2019ring isles All populous; thence Samos is beheld, Dulichium, and Zacynthus forest-clad. Flat on the Deep she lies, farthest removed 30 Toward the West, while, situate apart, Her sister islands face the rising day; Rugged she is, but fruitful nurse of sons Magnanimous; nor shall these eyes behold, Elsewhere, an object dear and sweet as she. Calypso, beauteous Goddess, in her grot Detain\u2019d me, wishing me her own espoused; \u00c6\u00e6an Circe also, skill\u2019d profound In potent arts, within her palace long Detain\u2019d me, wishing me her own espoused; 40 But never could they warp my constant mind. So much our parents and our native soil Attract us most, even although our lot Be fair and plenteous in a foreign land. But come\u2014my painful voyage, such as Jove Gave me from Ilium, I will now relate. From Troy the winds bore me to Ismarus, City of the Ciconians; them I slew, And laid their city waste; whence bringing forth Much spoil with all their wives, I portion\u2019d it 50 With equal hand, and each received a share. Next, I exhorted to immediate flight My people; but in vain; they madly scorn\u2019d My sober counsel, and much wine they drank, And sheep and beeves slew num\u2019rous on the shore. Meantime, Ciconians to Ciconians call\u2019d, Their neighbours summoning, a mightier host And braver, natives of the continent, Expert, on horses mounted, to maintain Fierce fight, or if occasion bade, on foot. 60 Num\u2019rous they came as leaves, or vernal flow\u2019rs At day-spring. Then, by the decree of Jove, Misfortune found us. At the ships we stood Piercing each other with the brazen spear, And till the morning brighten\u2019d into noon, Few as we were, we yet withstood them all; But, when the sun verged westward, then the Greeks Fell back, and the Ciconian host prevail\u2019d. Six warlike Greecians from each galley\u2019s crew Perish\u2019d in that dread field; the rest escaped. 70 Thus, after loss of many, we pursued Our course, yet, difficult as was our flight, Went not till first we had invoked by name Our friends, whom the Ciconians had destroy\u2019d. But cloud-assembler Jove assail\u2019d us soon With a tempestuous North-wind; earth alike And sea with storms he overhung, and night Fell fast from heav\u2019n. Their heads deep-plunging oft Our gallies flew, and rent, and rent again Our tatter\u2019d sail-cloth crackled in the wind. 80 We, fearing instant death, within the barks Our canvas lodg\u2019d, and, toiling strenuous, reach\u2019d At length the continent. Two nights we lay Continual there, and two long days, consumed With toil and grief; but when the beauteous morn Bright-hair\u2019d, had brought the third day to a close, (Our masts erected, and white sails unfurl\u2019d) Again we sat on board; meantime, the winds Well managed by the steersman, urged us on. And now, all danger pass\u2019d, I had attain\u2019d 90 My native shore, but, doubling in my course Malea, waves and currents and North-winds Constrain\u2019d me devious to Cythera\u2019s isle. Nine days by cruel storms thence was I borne Athwart the fishy Deep, but on the tenth Reach\u2019d the Lotophagi, a race sustain\u2019d On sweetest fruit alone. There quitting ship, We landed and drew water, and the crews Beside the vessels took their ev\u2019ning cheer. When, hasty, we had thus our strength renew\u2019d, 100 I order\u2019d forth my people to inquire (Two I selected from the rest, with whom I join\u2019d an herald, third) what race of men Might there inhabit. They, departing, mix\u2019d With the Lotophagi; nor hostile aught Or savage the Lotophagi devised Against our friends, but offer\u2019d to their taste The lotus; of which fruit what man soe\u2019er Once tasted, no desire felt he to come With tidings back, or seek his country more, 110 But rather wish\u2019d to feed on lotus still With the Lotophagi, and to renounce All thoughts of home. Them, therefore, I constrain\u2019d Weeping on board, and dragging each beneath The benches, bound him there. Then, all in haste, I urged my people to ascend again Their hollow barks, lest others also, fed With fruit of lotus, should forget their home. They quick embark\u2019d, and on the benches ranged In order, thresh\u2019d with oars the foamy flood. 120 Thence, o\u2019er the Deep proceeding sad, we reach\u2019d The land at length, where, giant-sized32 and free From all constraint of law, the Cyclops dwell. They, trusting to the Gods, plant not, or plough, But earth unsow\u2019d, untill\u2019d, brings forth for them All fruits, wheat, barley, and the vinous grape Large cluster\u2019d, nourish\u2019d by the show\u2019rs of Jove. No councils they convene, no laws contrive, But in deep caverns dwell, found on the heads Of lofty mountains, judging each supreme 130 His wife and children, heedless of the rest. In front of the Cyclopean haven lies A level island, not adjoining close Their land, nor yet remote, woody and rude. There, wild goats breed numberless, by no foot Of man molested; never huntsman there, Inured to winter\u2019s cold and hunger, roams The dreary woods, or mountain-tops sublime; No fleecy flocks dwell there, nor plough is known, But the unseeded and unfurrow\u2019d soil, 140 Year after year a wilderness by man Untrodden, food for blatant goats supplies. For no ships crimson-prow\u2019d the Cyclops own, Nor naval artizan is there, whose toil Might furnish them with oary barks, by which Subsists all distant commerce, and which bear Man o\u2019er the Deep to cities far remote Who might improve the peopled isle, that seems Not steril in itself, but apt to yield, In their due season, fruits of ev\u2019ry kind. 150 For stretch\u2019d beside the hoary ocean lie Green meadows moist, where vines would never fail; Light is the land, and they might yearly reap The tallest crops, so unctuous is the glebe. Safe is its haven also, where no need Of cable is or anchor, or to lash The hawser fast ashore, but pushing in His bark, the mariner might there abide Till rising gales should tempt him forth again. At bottom of the bay runs a clear stream 160 Issuing from a cove hemm\u2019d all around With poplars; down into that bay we steer\u2019d Amid the darkness of the night, some God Conducting us; for all unseen it lay, Such gloom involved the fleet, nor shone the moon From heav\u2019n to light us, veil\u2019d by pitchy clouds. Hence, none the isle descried, nor any saw The lofty surge roll\u2019d on the strand, or ere Our vessels struck the ground; but when they struck, Then, low\u2019ring all our sails, we disembark\u2019d, 170 And on the sea-beach slept till dawn appear\u2019d. Soon as Aurora, daughter of the dawn, Look\u2019d rosy forth, we with admiring eyes The isle survey\u2019d, roaming it wide around. Meantime, the nymphs, Jove\u2019s daughters, roused the goats Bred on the mountains, to supply with food The partners of my toils; then, bringing forth Bows and long-pointed javelins from the ships, Divided all into three sep\u2019rate bands We struck them, and the Gods gave us much prey. 180 Twelve ships attended me, and ev\u2019ry ship Nine goats received by lot; myself alone Selected ten. All day, till set of sun, We eating sat goat\u2019s flesh, and drinking wine Delicious, without stint; for dearth was none Of ruddy wine on board, but much remain\u2019d, With which my people had their jars supplied What time we sack\u2019d Ciconian Ismarus. Thence looking forth toward the neighbour-land Where dwell the Cyclops, rising smoke we saw, 190 And voices heard, their own, and of their flocks. Now sank the sun, and (night o\u2019ershadowing all) We slept along the shore; but when again The rosy-finger\u2019d daughter of the dawn Look\u2019d forth, my crews convened, I thus began. Companions of my course! here rest ye all, Save my own crew, with whom I will explore This people, whether wild, they be, unjust, And to contention giv\u2019n, or well-disposed To strangers, and a race who fear the Gods. 200 So speaking, I embark\u2019d, and bade embark My followers, throwing, quick, the hawsers loose. They, ent\u2019ring at my word, the benches fill\u2019d Well-ranged, and thresh\u2019d with oars the foamy flood. Attaining soon that neighbour-land, we found At its extremity, fast by the sea, A cavern, lofty, and dark-brow\u2019d above With laurels; in that cavern slumb\u2019ring lay Much cattle, sheep and goats, and a broad court Enclosed it, fenced with stones from quarries hewn, 210 With spiry firs, and oaks of ample bough. Here dwelt a giant vast, who far remote His flocks fed solitary, converse none Desiring, sullen, savage, and unjust. Monster, in truth, he was, hideous in form, Resembling less a man by Ceres\u2019 gift Sustain\u2019d, than some aspiring mountain-crag Tufted with wood, and standing all alone. Enjoining, then, my people to abide Fast by the ship which they should closely guard, 220 I went, but not without a goat-skin fill\u2019d With sable wine which I had erst received From Maron, offspring of Evanthes, priest Of Ph\u0153bus guardian god of Ismarus, Because, through rev\u2019rence of him, we had saved Himself, his wife and children; for he dwelt Amid the grove umbrageous of his God. He gave me, therefore, noble gifts; from him Sev\u2019n talents I received of beaten gold, A beaker, argent all, and after these 230 No fewer than twelve jars with wine replete, Rich, unadult\u2019rate, drink for Gods; nor knew One servant, male or female, of that wine In all his house; none knew it, save himself, His wife, and the intendant of his stores. Oft as they drank that luscious juice, he slaked A single cup with twenty from the stream, And, even then, the beaker breath\u2019d abroad A scent celestial, which whoever smelt, Thenceforth no pleasure found it to abstain. 240 Charged with an ample goat-skin of this wine I went, and with a wallet well supplied, But felt a sudden presage in my soul That, haply, with terrific force endued, Some savage would appear, strange to the laws And privileges of the human race. Few steps convey\u2019d us to his den, but him We found not; he his flocks pastur\u2019d abroad. His cavern ent\u2019ring, we with wonder gazed Around on all; his strainers hung with cheese 250 Distended wide; with lambs and kids his penns Close-throng\u2019d we saw, and folded separate The various charge; the eldest all apart, Apart the middle-aged, and the new-yean\u2019d Also apart. His pails and bowls with whey Swam all, neat vessels into which he milk\u2019d. Me then my friends first importuned to take A portion of his cheeses, then to drive Forth from the sheep-cotes to the rapid bark His kids and lambs, and plow the brine again. 260 But me they moved not, happier had they moved! I wish\u2019d to see him, and to gain, perchance, Some pledge of hospitality at his hands, Whose form was such, as should not much bespeak When he appear\u2019d, our confidence or love. Then, kindling fire, we offer\u2019d to the Gods, And of his cheeses eating, patient sat Till home he trudged from pasture. Charged he came With dry wood bundled, an enormous load Fuel by which to sup. Loud crash\u2019d the thorns 270 Which down he cast before the cavern\u2019s mouth, To whose interior nooks we trembling flew. At once he drove into his spacious cave His batten\u2019d flock, all those which gave him milk, But all the males, both rams and goats, he left Abroad, excluded from the cavern-yard. Upheaving, next, a rocky barrier huge To his cave\u2019s mouth, he thrust it home. That weight Not all the oxen from its place had moved Of twenty and two wains; with such a rock 280 Immense his den he closed. Then down he sat, And as he milk\u2019d his ewes and bleating goats All in their turns, her yeanling gave to each; Coagulating, then, with brisk dispatch, The half of his new milk, he thrust the curd Into his wicker sieves, but stored the rest In pans and bowls\u2014his customary drink. His labours thus perform\u2019d, he kindled, last, His fuel, and discerning us, enquired, Who are ye, strangers? from what distant shore 290 Roam ye the waters? traffic ye? or bound To no one port, wander, as pirates use, At large the Deep, exposing life themselves, And enemies of all mankind beside? He ceased; we, dash\u2019d with terrour, heard the growl Of his big voice, and view\u2019d his form uncouth, To whom, though sore appall\u2019d, I thus replied. Of Greece are we, and, bound from Ilium home, Have wander\u2019d wide the expanse of ocean, sport For ev\u2019ry wind, and driven from our course, 300 Have here arrived; so stood the will of Jove. We boast ourselves of Agamemnon\u2019s train, The son of Atreus, at this hour the Chief Beyond all others under heav\u2019n renown\u2019d, So great a city he hath sack\u2019d and slain Such num\u2019rous foes; but since we reach, at last, Thy knees, we beg such hospitable fare, Or other gift, as guests are wont to obtain. Illustrious lord! respect the Gods, and us Thy suitors; suppliants are the care of Jove 310 The hospitable; he their wrongs resents And where the stranger sojourns, there is he. I ceas\u2019d, when answer thus he, fierce, return\u2019d. Friend! either thou art fool, or hast arrived Indeed from far, who bidd\u2019st me fear the Gods Lest they be wroth. The Cyclops little heeds Jove \u00c6gis-arm\u2019d, or all the Pow\u2019rs of heav\u2019n. Our race is mightier far; nor shall myself, Through fear of Jove\u2019s hostility, abstain From thee or thine, unless my choice be such. 320 But tell me now. Where touch\u2019d thy gallant bark Our country, on thy first arrival here? Remote or nigh? for I would learn the truth. So spake he, tempting me; but, artful, thus I answer\u2019d, penetrating his intent. My vessel, Neptune, Shaker of the shores, At yonder utmost promontory dash\u2019d In pieces, hurling her against the rocks With winds that blew right thither from the sea, And I, with these alone, escaped alive. 330 So I, to whom, relentless, answer none He deign\u2019d, but, with his arms extended, sprang Toward my people, of whom seizing two At once, like whelps against his cavern-floor He dash\u2019d them, and their brains spread on the ground. These, piece-meal hewn, for supper he prepared, And, like a mountain-lion, neither flesh Nor entrails left, nor yet their marrowy bones. We, viewing that tremendous sight, upraised Our hands to Jove, all hope and courage lost. 340 When thus the Cyclops had with human flesh Fill\u2019d his capacious belly, and had quaff\u2019d Much undiluted milk, among his flocks Out-stretch\u2019d immense, he press\u2019d his cavern-floor. Me, then, my courage prompted to approach The monster with my sword drawn from the sheath, And to transfix him where the vitals wrap The liver; but maturer thoughts forbad. For so, we also had incurred a death Tremendous, wanting pow\u2019r to thrust aside 350 The rocky mass that closed his cavern-mouth By force of hand alone. Thus many a sigh Heaving, we watch\u2019d the dawn. But when, at length, Aurora, day-spring\u2019s daughter rosy-palm\u2019d Look\u2019d forth, then, kindling fire, his flocks he milk\u2019d In order, and her yeanling kid or lamb Thrust under each. When thus he had perform\u2019d His wonted task, two seizing, as before, He slew them for his next obscene regale. His dinner ended, from the cave he drove 360 His fatted flocks abroad, moving with ease That pond\u2019rous barrier, and replacing it As he had only closed a quiver\u2019s lid. Then, hissing them along, he drove his flocks Toward the mountain, and me left, the while, Deep ruminating how I best might take Vengeance, and by the aid of Pallas win Deathless renown. This counsel pleas\u2019d me most. Beside the sheep-cote lay a massy club Hewn by the Cyclops from an olive stock, 370 Green, but which dried, should serve him for a staff. To us consid\u2019ring it, that staff appear\u2019d Tall as the mast of a huge trading bark, Impell\u2019d by twenty rowers o\u2019er the Deep. Such seem\u2019d its length to us, and such its bulk. Part amputating, (an whole fathom\u2019s length) I gave my men that portion, with command To shave it smooth. They smooth\u2019d it, and myself, Shaping its blunt extremity to a point, Season\u2019d it in the fire; then cov\u2019ring close 380 The weapon, hid it under litter\u2019d straw, For much lay scatter\u2019d on the cavern-floor. And now I bade my people cast the lot Who of us all should take the pointed brand, And grind it in his eye when next he slept. The lots were cast, and four were chosen, those Whom most I wish\u2019d, and I was chosen fifth. At even-tide he came, his fleecy flocks Pasturing homeward, and compell\u2019d them all Into his cavern, leaving none abroad, 390 Either through some surmise, or so inclined By influence, haply, of the Gods themselves. The huge rock pull\u2019d into its place again At the cave\u2019s mouth, he, sitting, milk\u2019d his sheep And goats in order, and her kid or lamb Thrust under each; thus, all his work dispatch\u2019d, Two more he seiz\u2019d, and to his supper fell. I then, approaching to him, thus address\u2019d The Cyclops, holding in my hands a cup Of ivy-wood, well-charg\u2019d with ruddy wine. 400 Lo, Cyclops! this is wine. Take this and drink After thy meal of man\u2019s flesh. Taste and learn What precious liquor our lost vessel bore. I brought it hither, purposing to make Libation to thee, if to pity inclined Thou would\u2019st dismiss us home. But, ah, thy rage Is insupportable! thou cruel one! Who, thinkest thou, of all mankind, henceforth Will visit thee, guilty of such excess? I ceas\u2019d. He took and drank, and hugely pleas\u2019d33 410 With that delicious bev\u2019rage, thus enquir\u2019d. Give me again, and spare not. Tell me, too, Thy name, incontinent, that I may make Requital, gratifying also thee With somewhat to thy taste. We Cyclops own A bounteous soil, which yields us also wine From clusters large, nourish\u2019d by show\u2019rs from Jove; But this\u2014this is from above\u2014a stream Of nectar and ambrosia, all divine! He ended, and received a second draught, 420 Like measure. Thrice I bore it to his hand, And, foolish, thrice he drank. But when the fumes Began to play around the Cyclops\u2019 brain, With show of amity I thus replied. Cyclops! thou hast my noble name enquired, Which I will tell thee. Give me, in return, The promised boon, some hospitable pledge. My name is Outis,34 Outis I am call\u2019d At home, abroad; wherever I am known. So I; to whom he, savage, thus replied. 430 Outis, when I have eaten all his friends, Shall be my last regale. Be that thy boon. He spake, and, downward sway\u2019d, fell resupine, With his huge neck aslant. All-conqu\u2019ring sleep Soon seized him. From his gullet gush\u2019d the wine With human morsels mingled, many a blast Sonorous issuing from his glutted maw. Then, thrusting far the spike of olive-wood Into the embers glowing on the hearth, I heated it, and cheer\u2019d my friends, the while, 440 Lest any should, through fear, shrink from his part. But when that stake of olive-wood, though green, Should soon have flamed, for it was glowing hot, I bore it to his side. Then all my aids Around me gather\u2019d, and the Gods infused Heroic fortitude into our hearts. They, seizing the hot stake rasp\u2019d to a point, Bored his eye with it, and myself, advanced To a superior stand, twirled it about. As when a shipwright with his wimble bores 450 Tough oaken timber, placed on either side Below, his fellow-artists strain the thong Alternate, and the restless iron spins, So, grasping hard the stake pointed with fire, We twirl\u2019d it in his eye; the bubbling blood Boil\u2019d round about the brand; his pupil sent A scalding vapour forth that sing\u2019d his brow, And all his eye-roots crackled in the flame. As when the smith an hatchet or large axe Temp\u2019ring with skill, plunges the hissing blade 460 Deep in cold water, (whence the strength of steel) So hiss\u2019d his eye around the olive-wood. The howling monster with his outcry fill\u2019d The hollow rock, and I, with all my aids, Fled terrified. He, plucking forth the spike From his burnt socket, mad with anguish, cast The implement all bloody far away. Then, bellowing, he sounded forth the name Of ev\u2019ry Cyclops dwelling in the caves Around him, on the wind-swept mountain-tops; 470 They, at his cry flocking from ev\u2019ry part, Circled his den, and of his ail enquired. What grievous hurt hath caused thee, Polypheme! Thus yelling to alarm the peaceful ear Of night, and break our slumbers? Fear\u2019st thou lest Some mortal man drive off thy flocks? or fear\u2019st Thyself to die by cunning or by force? Them answer\u2019d, then, Polypheme from his cave. Oh, friends! I die! and Outis gives the blow. To whom with accents wing\u2019d his friends without. 480 If no man35 harm thee, but thou art alone, And sickness feel\u2019st, it is the stroke of Jove, And thou must bear it; yet invoke for aid Thy father Neptune, Sovereign of the floods. So saying, they went, and in my heart I laugh\u2019d That by the fiction only of a name, Slight stratagem! I had deceived them all. Then groan\u2019d the Cyclops wrung with pain and grief, And, fumbling, with stretch\u2019d hands, removed the rock From his cave\u2019s mouth, which done, he sat him down 490 Spreading his arms athwart the pass, to stop Our egress with his flocks abroad; so dull, It seems, he held me, and so ill-advised. I, pondering what means might fittest prove To save from instant death, (if save I might) My people and myself, to ev\u2019ry shift Inclined, and various counsels framed, as one Who strove for life, conscious of woe at hand. To me, thus meditating, this appear\u2019d The likeliest course. The rams well-thriven were, 500 Thick-fleeced, full-sized, with wool of sable hue. These, silently, with osier twigs on which The Cyclops, hideous monster, slept, I bound, Three in one leash; the intermediate rams Bore each a man, whom the exterior two Preserved, concealing him on either side. Thus each was borne by three, and I, at last, The curl\u2019d back seizing of a ram, (for one I had reserv\u2019d far stateliest of them all) Slipp\u2019d underneath his belly, and both hands 510 Enfolding fast in his exub\u2019rant fleece, Clung ceaseless to him as I lay supine. We, thus disposed, waited with many a sigh The sacred dawn; but when, at length, aris\u2019n, Aurora, day-spring\u2019s daughter rosy-palm\u2019d Again appear\u2019d, the males of all his flocks Rush\u2019d forth to pasture, and, meantime, unmilk\u2019d, The wethers bleated, by the load distress\u2019d Of udders overcharged. Their master, rack\u2019d With pain intolerable, handled yet 520 The backs of all, inquisitive, as they stood, But, gross of intellect, suspicion none Conceiv\u2019d of men beneath their bodies bound. And now (none left beside) the ram approach\u2019d With his own wool burthen\u2019d, and with myself, Whom many a fear molested. Polypheme The giant stroak\u2019d him as he sat, and said, My darling ram! why latest of the flock Com\u2019st thou, whom never, heretofore, my sheep Could leave behind, but stalking at their head, 530 Thou first was wont to crop the tender grass, First to arrive at the clear stream, and first With ready will to seek my sheep-cote here At evening; but, thy practice chang\u2019d, thou com\u2019st, Now last of all. Feel\u2019st thou regret, my ram! Of thy poor master\u2019s eye, by a vile wretch Bored out, who overcame me first with wine, And by a crew of vagabonds accurs\u2019d, Followers of Outis, whose escape from death Shall not be made to-day? Ah! that thy heart 540 Were as my own, and that distinct as I Thou could\u2019st articulate, so should\u2019st thou tell, Where hidden, he eludes my furious wrath. Then, dash\u2019d against the floor his spatter\u2019d brain Should fly, and I should lighter feel my harm From Outis, wretch base-named and nothing-worth. So saying, he left him to pursue the flock. When, thus drawn forth, we had, at length, escaped Few paces from the cavern and the court, First, quitting my own ram, I loos\u2019d my friends, 550 Then, turning seaward many a thriven ewe Sharp-hoof\u2019d, we drove them swiftly to the ship. Thrice welcome to our faithful friends we came From death escaped, but much they mourn\u2019d the dead. I suffer\u2019d not their tears, but silent shook My brows, by signs commanding them to lift The sheep on board, and instant plow the main. They, quick embarking, on the benches sat Well ranged, and thresh\u2019d with oars the foamy flood; But distant now such length as a loud voice 560 May reach, I hail\u2019d with taunts the Cyclops\u2019 ear. Cyclops! when thou devouredst in thy cave With brutal force my followers, thou devour\u2019dst The followers of no timid Chief, or base, Vengeance was sure to recompense that deed Atrocious. Monster! who wast not afraid To eat the guest shelter\u2019d beneath thy roof! Therefore the Gods have well requited thee. I ended; he, exasp\u2019rate, raged the more, And rending from its hold a mountain-top, 570 Hurl\u2019d it toward us; at our vessel\u2019s stern Down came the mass, nigh sweeping in its fall The rudder\u2019s head. The ocean at the plunge Of that huge rock, high on its refluent flood Heav\u2019d, irresistible, the ship to land. I seizing, quick, our longest pole on board, Back thrust her from the coast and by a nod In silence given, bade my companions ply Strenuous their oars, that so we might escape. Procumbent,36 each obey\u2019d, and when, the flood 580 Cleaving, we twice that distance had obtain\u2019d,37 Again I hail\u2019d the Cyclops; but my friends Earnest dissuaded me on ev\u2019ry side. Ah, rash Ulysses! why with taunts provoke The savage more, who hath this moment hurl\u2019d A weapon, such as heav\u2019d the ship again To land, where death seem\u2019d certain to us all? For had he heard a cry, or but the voice Of one man speaking, he had all our heads With some sharp rock, and all our timbers crush\u2019d 590 Together, such vast force is in his arm. So they, but my courageous heart remain\u2019d Unmoved, and thus again, incensed, I spake. Cyclops! should any mortal man inquire To whom thy shameful loss of sight thou ow\u2019st, Say, to Ulysses, city-waster Chief, Laertes\u2019 son, native of Ithaca. I ceas\u2019d, and with a groan thus he replied. Ah me! an antient oracle I feel Accomplish\u2019d. Here abode a prophet erst, 600 A man of noblest form, and in his art Unrivall\u2019d, Telemus Eurymedes. He, prophesying to the Cyclops-race, Grew old among us, and presaged my loss Of sight, in future, by Ulysses\u2019 hand. I therefore watch\u2019d for the arrival here, Always, of some great Chief, for stature, bulk And beauty prais\u2019d, and cloath\u2019d with wond\u2019rous might. But now\u2014a dwarf, a thing impalpable, A shadow, overcame me first by wine, 610 Then quench\u2019d my sight. Come hither, O my guest! Return, Ulysses! hospitable cheer Awaits thee, and my pray\u2019rs I will prefer To glorious Neptune for thy prosp\u2019rous course; For I am Neptune\u2019s offspring, and the God Is proud to be my Sire; he, if he please, And he alone can heal me; none beside Of Pow\u2019rs immortal, or of men below. He spake, to whom I answer thus return\u2019d. I would that of thy life and soul amerced, 620 I could as sure dismiss thee down to Hell, As none shall heal thine eye\u2014not even He. So I; then pray\u2019d the Cyclops to his Sire With hands uprais\u2019d towards the starry heav\u2019n. Hear, Earth-encircler Neptune, azure-hair\u2019d! If I indeed am thine, and if thou boast Thyself my father, grant that never more Ulysses, leveller of hostile tow\u2019rs, Laertes\u2019 son, of Ithaca the fair, Behold his native home! but if his fate 630 Decree him yet to see his friends, his house, His native country, let him deep distress\u2019d Return and late, all his companions lost, Indebted for a ship to foreign aid, And let affliction meet him at his door. He spake, and Ocean\u2019s sov\u2019reign heard his pray\u2019r. Then lifting from the shore a stone of size Far more enormous, o\u2019er his head he whirl\u2019d The rock, and his immeasurable force Exerting all, dismiss\u2019d it. Close behind 640 The ship, nor distant from the rudder\u2019s head, Down came the mass. The ocean at the plunge Of such a weight, high on its refluent flood Tumultuous, heaved the bark well nigh to land. But when we reach\u2019d the isle where we had left Our num\u2019rous barks, and where my people sat Watching with ceaseless sorrow our return, We thrust our vessel to the sandy shore, Then disembark\u2019d, and of the Cyclops\u2019 sheep Gave equal share to all. To me alone 650 My fellow-voyagers the ram consign\u2019d In distribution, my peculiar meed. Him, therefore, to cloud-girt Saturnian Jove I offer\u2019d on the shore, burning his thighs In sacrifice; but Jove my hallow\u2019d rites Reck\u2019d not, destruction purposing to all My barks, and all my followers o\u2019er the Deep. Thus, feasting largely, on the shore we sat Till even-tide, and quaffing gen\u2019rous wine; But when day fail\u2019d, and night o\u2019ershadow\u2019d all, 660 Then, on the shore we slept; and when again Aurora rosy daughter of the Dawn, Look\u2019d forth, my people, anxious, I enjoin\u2019d To climb their barks, and cast the hawsers loose. They all obedient, took their seats on board Well-ranged, and thresh\u2019d with oars the foamy flood. Thus, \u2019scaping narrowly, we roam\u2019d the Deep With aching hearts and with diminish\u2019d crews.\n\n\n\n32 So the Scholium interprets in this place, the word \u1f51\u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03b8\u03b9\u03b1\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2.\n\n\n33 \u039b\u03b9\u03bd\u03c9\u03c2\n\n\n34 Clarke, who has preserved this name in his marginal version, contends strenuously, and with great reason, that Outis ought not to be translated, and in a passage which he quotes from the Acta eruditorum, we see much fault found with Giphanius and other interpreters of Homer for having translated it. It is certain that in Homer the word is declined not as \u03bf\u03c5\u03c4\u03b9\u03c2-\u03c4\u03b9\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 which signifies no man, but as \u03bf\u03c5\u03c4\u03b9\u03c2-\u03c4\u03b9\u03b4\u03bf\u03c2 making \u03bf\u03c5\u03c4\u03b9\u03bd in the accusative, consequently as a proper name. It is sufficient that the ambiguity was such as to deceive the friends of the Cyclops. Outis is said by some (perhaps absurdly) to have been a name given to Ulysses on account of his having larger ears than common.\n\n\n35 Outis, as a name could only denote him who bore it; but as a noun, it signifies no man, which accounts sufficiently for the ludicrous mistake of his brethren.\n\n\n36\n\n\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c0\u03b5\u03c3\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2 \u2014\u2014\u2014Olli certamine summo Procumbunt. Virgil\n\n\n\n37 The seeming incongruity of this line with line 560, is reconciled by supposing that Ulysses exerted his voice, naturally loud, in an extraordinary manner on this second occasion. See Clarke.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK X\nARGUMENT\nUlysses, in pursuit of his narrative, relates his arrival at the island of \u00c6olus, his departure thence, and the unhappy occasion of his return thither. The monarch of the winds dismisses him at last with much asperity. He next tells of his arrival among the L\u00e6strygonians, by whom his whole fleet, together with their crews, are destroyed, his own ship and crew excepted. Thence he is driven to the island of Circe. By her the half of his people are transformed into swine. Assisted by Mercury, he resists her enchantments himself, and prevails with the Goddess to recover them to their former shape. In consequence of Circe\u2019s instructions, after having spent a complete year in her palace, he prepares for a voyage to the infernal regions.\n\nWe came to the \u00c6olian isle; there dwells \u00c6olus, son of Hippotas, belov\u2019d By the Immortals, in an isle afloat. A brazen wall impregnable on all sides Girds it, and smooth its rocky coast ascends. His children, in his own fair palace born, Are twelve; six daughters, and six blooming sons. He gave his daughters to his sons to wife; They with their father hold perpetual feast And with their royal mother, still supplied 10 With dainties numberless; the sounding dome Is fill\u2019d with sav\u2019ry odours all the day, And with their consorts chaste at night they sleep On stateliest couches with rich arras spread. Their city and their splendid courts we reach\u2019d. A month complete he, friendly, at his board Regaled me, and enquiry made minute Of Ilium\u2019s fall, of the Achaian fleet, And of our voyage thence. I told him all. But now, desirous to embark again, 20 I ask\u2019d dismission home, which he approved, And well provided for my prosp\u2019rous course. He gave me, furnish\u2019d by a bullock slay\u2019d In his ninth year, a bag; ev\u2019ry rude blast Which from its bottom turns the Deep, that bag Imprison\u2019d held; for him Saturnian Jove Hath officed arbiter of all the winds, To rouse their force or calm them, at his will. He gave me them on board my bark, so bound With silver twine that not a breath escaped, 30 Then order\u2019d gentle Zephyrus to fill Our sails propitious. Order vain, alas! So fatal proved the folly of my friends. Nine days continual, night and day we sail\u2019d, And on the tenth my native land appear\u2019d. Not far remote my Ithacans I saw Fires kindling on the coast; but me with toil Worn, and with watching, gentle sleep subdued; For constant I had ruled the helm, nor giv\u2019n That charge to any, fearful of delay. 40 Then, in close conference combined, my crew Each other thus bespake\u2014He carries home Silver and gold from \u00c6olus received, Offspring of Hippotas, illustrious Chief\u2014 And thus a mariner the rest harangued. Ye Gods! what city or what land soe\u2019er Ulysses visits, how is he belov\u2019d By all, and honour\u2019d! many precious spoils He homeward bears from Troy; but we return, (We who the self-same voyage have perform\u2019d) 50 With empty hands. Now also he hath gain\u2019d This pledge of friendship from the King of winds. But come\u2014be quick\u2014search we the bag, and learn What stores of gold and silver it contains. So he, whose mischievous advice prevailed. They loos\u2019d the bag; forth issued all the winds, And, caught by tempests o\u2019er the billowy waste, Weeping they flew, far, far from Ithaca. I then, awaking, in my noble mind Stood doubtful, whether from my vessel\u2019s side 60 Immersed to perish in the flood, or calm To endure my sorrows, and content to live. I calm endured them; but around my head Winding my mantle, lay\u2019d me down below, While adverse blasts bore all my fleet again To the \u00c6olian isle; then groan\u2019d my people. We disembark\u2019d and drew fresh water there, And my companions, at their galley\u2019s sides All seated, took repast; short meal we made, When, with an herald and a chosen friend, 70 I sought once more the hall of \u00c6olus. Him banqueting with all his sons we found, And with his spouse; we ent\u2019ring, on the floor Of his wide portal sat, whom they amazed Beheld, and of our coming thus enquired. Return\u2019d? Ulysses! by what adverse Pow\u2019r Repuls\u2019d hast thou arrived? we sent thee hence Well-fitted forth to reach thy native isle, Thy palace, or what place soe\u2019er thou would\u2019st. So they\u2014to whom, heart-broken, I replied. 80 My worthless crew have wrong\u2019d me, nor alone My worthless crew, but sleep ill-timed, as much. Yet heal, O friends, my hurt; the pow\u2019r is yours! So I their favour woo\u2019d. Mute sat the sons, But thus their father answer\u2019d. Hence\u2014be gone\u2014 Leave this our isle, thou most obnoxious wretch Of all mankind. I should, myself, transgress, Receiving here, and giving conduct hence To one detested by the Gods as thou. Away\u2014for hated by the Gods thou com\u2019st. 90 So saying, he sent me from his palace forth, Groaning profound; thence, therefore, o\u2019er the Deep We still proceeded sorrowful, our force Exhausting ceaseless at the toilsome oar, And, through our own imprudence, hopeless now Of other furth\u2019rance to our native isle. Six days we navigated, day and night, The briny flood, and on the seventh reach\u2019d The city erst by Lamus built sublime, Proud L\u00e6strygonia, with the distant gates. 100 The herdsman, there, driving his cattle home,38 Summons the shepherd with his flocks abroad. The sleepless there might double wages earn, Attending, now, the herds, now, tending sheep, For the night-pastures, and the pastures grazed By day, close border, both, the city-walls. To that illustrious port we came, by rocks Uninterrupted flank\u2019d on either side Of tow\u2019ring height, while prominent the shores And bold, converging at the haven\u2019s mouth 110 Leave narrow pass. We push\u2019d our galleys in, Then moor\u2019d them side by side; for never surge There lifts its head, or great or small, but clear We found, and motionless, the shelter\u2019d flood. Myself alone, staying my bark without, Secured her well with hawsers to a rock At the land\u2019s point, then climb\u2019d the rugged steep, And spying stood the country. Labours none Of men or oxen in the land appear\u2019d, Nor aught beside saw we, but from the earth 120 Smoke rising; therefore of my friends I sent Before me two, adding an herald third, To learn what race of men that country fed. Departing, they an even track pursued Made by the waggons bringing timber down From the high mountains to the town below. Before the town a virgin bearing forth Her ew\u2019r they met, daughter of him who ruled The L\u00e6strygonian race, Antiphatas. Descending from the gate, she sought the fount 130 Artacia; for their custom was to draw From that pure fountain for the city\u2019s use. Approaching they accosted her, and ask\u2019d What King reign\u2019d there, and over whom he reign\u2019d. She gave them soon to know where stood sublime The palace of her Sire; no sooner they The palace enter\u2019d, than within they found, In size resembling an huge mountain-top, A woman, whom they shudder\u2019d to behold. She forth from council summon\u2019d quick her spouse 140 Antiphatas, who teeming came with thoughts Of carnage, and, arriving, seized at once A Greecian, whom, next moment, he devoured. With headlong terrour the surviving two Fled to the ships. Then sent Antiphatas His voice through all the town, and on all sides, Hearing that cry, the L\u00e6strygonians flock\u2019d Numberless, and in size resembling more The giants than mankind. They from the rocks Cast down into our fleet enormous stones, 150 A strong man\u2019s burthen each; dire din arose Of shatter\u2019d galleys and of dying men, Whom spear\u2019d like fishes to their home they bore, A loathsome prey. While them within the port They slaughter\u2019d, I, (the faulchion at my side Drawn forth) cut loose the hawser of my ship, And all my crew enjoin\u2019d with bosoms laid Prone on their oars, to fly the threaten\u2019d woe. They, dreading instant death tugg\u2019d resupine Together, and the galley from beneath 160 Those beetling39 rocks into the open sea Shot gladly; but the rest all perish\u2019d there. Proceeding thence, we sigh\u2019d, and roamed the waves, Glad that we lived, but sorrowing for the slain. We came to the \u00c6\u00e6an isle; there dwelt The awful Circe, Goddess amber-hair\u2019d, Deep-skill\u2019d in magic song, sister by birth Of the all-wise \u00c6\u00e6tes; them the Sun, Bright luminary of the world, begat On Perse, daughter of Oceanus. 170 Our vessel there, noiseless, we push\u2019d to land Within a spacious haven, thither led By some celestial Pow\u2019r. We disembark\u2019d, And on the coast two days and nights entire Extended lay, worn with long toil, and each The victim of his heart-devouring woes. Then, with my spear and with my faulchion arm\u2019d, I left the ship to climb with hasty steps An airy height, thence, hoping to espie Some works of man, or hear, perchance, a voice. 180 Exalted on a rough rock\u2019s craggy point I stood, and on the distant plain, beheld Smoke which from Circe\u2019s palace through the gloom Of trees and thickets rose. That smoke discern\u2019d, I ponder\u2019d next if thither I should haste, Seeking intelligence. Long time I mused, But chose at last, as my discreter course, To seek the sea-beach and my bark again, And, when my crew had eaten, to dispatch Before me, others, who should first enquire. 190 But, ere I yet had reach\u2019d my gallant bark, Some God with pity viewing me alone In that untrodden solitude, sent forth An antler\u2019d stag, full-sized, into my path. His woodland pastures left, he sought the stream, For he was thirsty, and already parch\u2019d By the sun\u2019s heat. Him issuing from his haunt, Sheer through the back beneath his middle spine, I wounded, and the lance sprang forth beyond. Moaning he fell, and in the dust expired. 200 Then, treading on his breathless trunk, I pluck\u2019d My weapon forth, which leaving there reclined, I tore away the osiers with my hands And fallows green, and to a fathom\u2019s length Twisting the gather\u2019d twigs into a band, Bound fast the feet of my enormous prey, And, flinging him athwart my neck, repair\u2019d Toward my sable bark, propp\u2019d on my lance, Which now to carry shoulder\u2019d as before Surpass\u2019d my pow\u2019r, so bulky was the load. 210 Arriving at the ship, there I let fall My burthen, and with pleasant speech and kind, Man after man addressing, cheer\u2019d my crew. My friends! we suffer much, but shall not seek The shades, ere yet our destined hour arrive. Behold a feast! and we have wine on board\u2014 Pine not with needless famine! rise and eat. I spake; they readily obey\u2019d, and each Issuing at my word abroad, beside The galley stood, admiring, as he lay, 220 The stag, for of no common bulk was he. At length, their eyes gratified to the full With that glad spectacle, they laved their hands, And preparation made of noble cheer. That day complete, till set of sun, we spent Feasting deliciously without restraint, And quaffing generous wine; but when the sun Went down, and darkness overshadow\u2019d all, Extended, then, on Ocean\u2019s bank we lay; And when Aurora, daughter of the dawn, 230 Look\u2019d rosy forth, convening all my crew To council, I arose, and thus began. My fellow-voyagers, however worn With num\u2019rous hardships, hear! for neither West Know ye, nor East, where rises, or where sets The all-enlight\u2019ning sun. But let us think, If thought perchance may profit us, of which Small hope I see; for when I lately climb\u2019d Yon craggy rock, plainly I could discern The land encompass\u2019d by the boundless Deep. 240 The isle is flat, and in the midst I saw Dun smoke ascending from an oaken bow\u2019r. So I, whom hearing, they all courage lost, And at remembrance of Antiphatas The L\u00e6strygonian, and the Cyclops\u2019 deeds, Ferocious feeder on the flesh of man, Mourn\u2019d loud and wept, but tears could nought avail. Then numb\u2019ring man by man, I parted them In equal portions, and assign\u2019d a Chief To either band, myself to these, to those 250 Godlike Eurylochus. This done, we cast The lots into the helmet, and at once Forth sprang the lot of bold Eurylochus. He went, and with him of my people march\u2019d Twenty and two, all weeping; nor ourselves Wept less, at separation from our friends. Low in a vale, but on an open spot, They found the splendid house of Circe, built With hewn and polish\u2019d stones; compass\u2019d she dwelt By lions on all sides and mountain-wolves 260 Tamed by herself with drugs of noxious pow\u2019rs. Nor were they mischievous, but as my friends Approach\u2019d, arising on their hinder feet, Paw\u2019d them in blandishment, and wagg\u2019d the tail. As, when from feast he rises, dogs around Their master fawn, accustom\u2019d to receive The sop conciliatory from his hand, Around my people, so, those talon\u2019d wolves And lions fawn\u2019d. They, terrified, that troop Of savage monsters horrible beheld. 270 And now, before the Goddess\u2019 gates arrived, They heard the voice of Circe singing sweet Within, while, busied at the loom, she wove An ample web immortal, such a work Transparent, graceful, and of bright design As hands of Goddesses alone produce. Thus then Polites, Prince of men, the friend Highest in my esteem, the rest bespake. Ye hear the voice, comrades, of one who weaves An ample web within, and at her task 280 So sweetly chaunts that all the marble floor Re-echoes; human be she or divine I doubt, but let us call, that we may learn. He ceas\u2019d; they call\u2019d; soon issuing at the sound, The Goddess open\u2019d wide her splendid gates, And bade them in; they, heedless, all complied, All save Eurylochus, who fear\u2019d a snare. She, introducing them, conducted each To a bright throne, then gave them Pramnian wine, With grated cheese, pure meal, and honey new, 290 But medicated with her pois\u2019nous drugs Their food, that in oblivion they might lose The wish of home. She gave them, and they drank,\u2014 When, smiting each with her enchanting wand, She shut them in her sties. In head, in voice, In body, and in bristles they became All swine, yet intellected as before, And at her hand were dieted alone With acorns, chestnuts, and the cornel-fruit, Food grateful ever to the grovelling swine. 300 Back flew Eurylochus toward the ship, To tell the woeful tale; struggling to speak, Yet speechless, there he stood, his heart transfixt With anguish, and his eyes deluged with tears. Me boding terrours occupied. At length, When, gazing on him, all had oft enquired, He thus rehearsed to us the dreadful change. Renown\u2019d Ulysses! as thou bad\u2019st, we went Through yonder oaks; there, bosom\u2019d in a vale, But built conspicuous on a swelling knoll 310 With polish\u2019d rock, we found a stately dome. Within, some Goddess or some woman wove An ample web, carolling sweet the while. They call\u2019d aloud; she, issuing at the voice, Unfolded, soon, her splendid portals wide, And bade them in. Heedless they enter\u2019d, all, But I remain\u2019d, suspicious of a snare. Ere long the whole band vanish\u2019d, none I saw Thenceforth, though, seated there, long time I watch\u2019d. He ended; I my studded faulchion huge 320 Athwart my shoulder cast, and seized my bow, Then bade him lead me thither by the way Himself had gone; but with both hands my knees He clasp\u2019d, and in wing\u2019d accents sad exclaim\u2019d. My King! ah lead me not unwilling back, But leave me here; for confident I judge That neither thou wilt bring another thence, Nor come thyself again. Haste\u2014fly we swift With these, for we, at least, may yet escape. So he, to whom this answer I return\u2019d. 330 Eurylochus! abiding here, eat thou And drink thy fill beside the sable bark; I go; necessity forbids my stay. So saying, I left the galley and the shore. But ere that awful vale ent\u2019ring, I reach\u2019d The palace of the sorceress, a God Met me, the bearer of the golden wand, Hermes. He seem\u2019d a stripling in his prime, His cheeks cloath\u2019d only with their earliest down, For youth is then most graceful; fast he lock\u2019d 340 His hand in mine, and thus, familiar, spake. Unhappy! whither, wand\u2019ring o\u2019er the hills, Stranger to all this region, and alone, Go\u2019st thou? Thy people\u2014they within the walls Are shut of Circe, where as swine close-pent She keeps them. Comest thou to set them free? I tell thee, never wilt thou thence return Thyself, but wilt be prison\u2019d with the rest. Yet hearken\u2014I will disappoint her wiles, And will preserve thee. Take this precious drug; 350 Possessing this, enter the Goddess\u2019 house Boldly, for it shall save thy life from harm. Lo! I reveal to thee the cruel arts Of Circe; learn them. She will mix for thee A potion, and will also drug thy food With noxious herbs; but she shall not prevail By all her pow\u2019r to change thee; for the force Superior of this noble plant, my gift, Shall baffle her. Hear still what I advise. When she shall smite thee with her slender rod, 360 With faulchion drawn and with death-threat\u2019ning looks Rush on her; she will bid thee to her bed Affrighted; then beware. Decline not thou Her love, that she may both release thy friends, And may with kindness entertain thyself. But force her swear the dreaded oath of heav\u2019n That she will other mischief none devise Against thee, lest she strip thee of thy might, And, quenching all thy virtue, make thee vile. So spake the Argicide, and from the earth 370 That plant extracting, placed it in my hand, Then taught me all its pow\u2019rs. Black was the root, Milk-white the blossom; Moly is its name In heav\u2019n; not easily by mortal man Dug forth, but all is easy to the Gods. Then, Hermes through the island-woods repair\u2019d To heav\u2019n, and I to Circe\u2019s dread abode, In gloomy musings busied as I went. Within the vestibule arrived, where dwelt The beauteous Goddess, staying there my steps, 380 I call\u2019d aloud; she heard me, and at once Issuing, threw her splendid portals wide, And bade me in. I follow\u2019d, heart-distress\u2019d. Leading me by the hand to a bright throne With argent studs embellish\u2019d, and beneath Footstool\u2019d magnificent, she made me sit. Then mingling for me in a golden cup My bev\u2019rage, she infused a drug, intent On mischief; but when I had drunk the draught Unchanged, she smote me with her wand, and said. 390 Hence\u2014seek the sty. There wallow with thy friends. She spake; I drawing from beside my thigh My faulchion keen, with death-denouncing looks Rush\u2019d on her; she with a shrill scream of fear Ran under my rais\u2019d arm, seized fast my knees, And in wing\u2019d accents plaintive thus began. Who? whence? thy city and thy birth declare. Amazed I see thee with that potion drench\u2019d, Yet uninchanted; never man before Once pass\u2019d it through his lips, and liv\u2019d the same; 400 But in thy breast a mind inhabits, proof Against all charms. Come then\u2014I know thee well. Thou art Ulysses artifice-renown\u2019d, Of whose arrival here in his return From Ilium, Hermes of the golden wand Was ever wont to tell me. Sheath again Thy sword, and let us, on my bed reclined, Mutual embrace, that we may trust thenceforth Each other, without jealousy or fear. The Goddess spake, to whom I thus replied. 410 O Circe! canst thou bid me meek become And gentle, who beneath thy roof detain\u2019st My fellow-voyagers transform\u2019d to swine? And, fearing my escape, invit\u2019st thou me Into thy bed, with fraudulent pretext Of love, that there, enfeebling by thy arts My noble spirit, thou may\u2019st make me vile? No\u2014trust me\u2014never will I share thy bed Till first, O Goddess, thou consent to swear The dread all-binding oath, that other harm 420 Against myself thou wilt imagine none. I spake. She swearing as I bade, renounced All evil purpose, and (her solemn oath Concluded) I ascended, next, her bed Magnificent. Meantime, four graceful nymphs Attended on the service of the house, Her menials, from the fountains sprung and groves, And from the sacred streams that seek the sea. Of these, one cast fine linen on the thrones, Which, next, with purple arras rich she spread; 430 Another placed before the gorgeous seats Bright tables, and set on baskets of gold. The third, an argent beaker fill\u2019d with wine Delicious, which in golden cups she served; The fourth brought water, which she warm\u2019d within An ample vase, and when the simm\u2019ring flood Sang in the tripod, led me to a bath, And laved me with the pleasant stream profuse Pour\u2019d o\u2019er my neck and body, till my limbs Refresh\u2019d, all sense of lassitude resign\u2019d. 440 When she had bathed me, and with limpid oil Anointed me, and cloathed me in a vest And mantle, next, she led me to a throne Of royal state, with silver studs emboss\u2019d, And footstool\u2019d soft beneath; then came a nymph With golden ewer charged and silver bowl, Who pour\u2019d pure water on my hands, and placed The polish\u2019d board before me, which with food Various, selected from her present stores, The cat\u2019ress spread, then, courteous, bade me eat. 450 But me it pleas\u2019d not; with far other thoughts My spirit teem\u2019d, on vengeance more intent. Soon, then, as Circe mark\u2019d me on my seat Fast-rooted, sullen, nor with outstretch\u2019d hands Deigning to touch the banquet, she approach\u2019d, And in wing\u2019d accents suasive thus began. Why sits Ulysses like the Dumb, dark thoughts His only food? loaths he the touch of meat, And taste of wine? Thou fear\u2019st, as I perceive, Some other snare, but idle is that fear, 460 For I have sworn the inviolable oath. She ceas\u2019d, to whom this answer I return\u2019d. How can I eat? what virtuous man and just, O Circe! could endure the taste of wine Or food, till he should see his prison\u2019d friends Once more at liberty? If then thy wish That I should eat and drink be true, produce My captive people; let us meet again. So I; then Circe, bearing in her hand Her potent rod, went forth, and op\u2019ning wide 470 The door, drove out my people from the sty, In bulk resembling brawns of the ninth year. They stood before me; she through all the herd Proceeding, with an unctuous antidote Anointed each, and at the wholesome touch All shed the swinish bristles by the drug Dread Circe\u2019s former magic gift, produced. Restored at once to manhood, they appear\u2019d More vig\u2019rous far, and sightlier than before. They knew me, and with grasp affectionate 480 Hung on my hand. Tears follow\u2019d, but of joy, And with loud cries the vaulted palace rang. Even the awful Goddess felt, herself, Compassion, and, approaching me, began. Laertes\u2019 noble son, for wiles renown\u2019d! Hence to the shore, and to thy gallant bark; First, hale her safe aground, then, hiding all Your arms and treasures in the caverns, come Thyself again, and hither lead thy friends. So spake the Goddess, and my gen\u2019rous mind 490 Persuaded; thence repairing to the beach, I sought my ship; arrived, I found my crew Lamenting miserably, and their cheeks With tears bedewing ceaseless at her side. As when the calves within some village rear\u2019d Behold, at eve, the herd returning home From fruitful meads where they have grazed their fill, No longer in the stalls contain\u2019d, they rush With many a frisk abroad, and, blaring oft, With one consent, all dance their dams around, 500 So they, at sight of me, dissolved in tears Of rapt\u2019rous joy, and each his spirit felt With like affections warm\u2019d as he had reach\u2019d Just then his country, and his city seen, Fair Ithaca, where he was born and rear\u2019d. Then in wing\u2019d accents tender thus they spake. Noble Ulysses! thy appearance fills Our soul with transports, such as we should feel Arrived in safety on our native shore. Speak\u2014say how perish\u2019d our unhappy friends? 510 So they; to whom this answer mild I gave. Hale we our vessel first ashore, and hide In caverns all our treasures and our arms, Then, hasting hence, follow me, and ere long Ye shall behold your friends, beneath the roof Of Circe banqueting and drinking wine Abundant, for no dearth attends them there. So I; whom all with readiness obey\u2019d, All save Eurylochus; he sought alone To stay the rest, and, eager, interposed. 520 Ah whither tend we, miserable men? Why covet ye this evil, to go down To Circe\u2019s palace? she will change us all To lions, wolves or swine, that we may guard Her palace, by necessity constrain\u2019d. So some were pris\u2019ners of the Cyclops erst, When, led by rash Ulysses, our lost friends Intruded needlessly into his cave, And perish\u2019d by the folly of their Chief. He spake, whom hearing, occupied I stood 530 In self-debate, whether, my faulchion keen Forth-drawing from beside my sturdy thigh, To tumble his lopp\u2019d head into the dust, Although he were my kinsman in the bonds Of close affinity; but all my friends As with one voice, thus gently interposed. Noble Ulysses! we will leave him here Our vessel\u2019s guard, if such be thy command, But us lead thou to Circe\u2019s dread abode. So saying, they left the galley, and set forth 540 Climbing the coast; nor would Eurylochus Beside the hollow bark remain, but join\u2019d His comrades by my dreadful menace awed. Meantime the Goddess, busily employ\u2019d, Bathed and refresh\u2019d my friends with limpid oil, And clothed them. We, arriving, found them all Banqueting in the palace; there they met; These ask\u2019d, and those rehearsed the wond\u2019rous tale, And, the recital made, all wept aloud Till the wide dome resounded. Then approach\u2019d 550 The graceful Goddess, and address\u2019d me thus. Laertes\u2019 noble son, for wiles renown\u2019d! Provoke ye not each other, now, to tears. I am not ignorant, myself, how dread Have been your woes both on the fishy Deep, And on the land by force of hostile pow\u2019rs. But come\u2014Eat now, and drink ye wine, that so Your freshen\u2019d spirit may revive, and ye Courageous grow again, as when ye left The rugged shores of Ithaca, your home. 560 For now, through recollection, day by day, Of all your pains and toils, ye are become Spiritless, strengthless, and the taste forget Of pleasure, such have been your num\u2019rous woes. She spake, whose invitation kind prevail\u2019d, And won us to her will. There, then, we dwelt The year complete, fed with delicious fare Day after day, and quaffing gen\u2019rous wine. But when (the year fulfill\u2019d) the circling hours Their course resumed, and the successive months 570 With all their tedious days were spent, my friends, Summoning me abroad, thus greeted me. Sir! recollect thy country, if indeed The fates ordain thee to revisit safe That country, and thy own glorious abode. So they; whose admonition I receiv\u2019d Well-pleas\u2019d. Then, all the day, regaled we sat At Circe\u2019s board with sav\u2019ry viands rare, And quaffing richest wine; but when, the sun Declining, darkness overshadow\u2019d all, 580 Then, each within the dusky palace took Custom\u2019d repose, and to the Goddess\u2019 bed Magnificent ascending, there I urged My earnest suit, which gracious she receiv\u2019d, And in wing\u2019d accents earnest thus I spake. O Circe! let us prove thy promise true; Dismiss us hence. My own desires, at length, Tend homeward vehement, and the desires No less of all my friends, who with complaints Unheard by thee, wear my sad heart away. 590 So I; to whom the Goddess in return. Laertes\u2019 noble son, Ulysses famed For deepest wisdom! dwell not longer here, Thou and thy followers, in my abode Reluctant; but your next must be a course Far diff\u2019rent; hence departing, ye must seek The dreary house of Ades and of dread Persephone there to consult the Seer Theban Tiresias, prophet blind, but blest With faculties which death itself hath spared. 600 To him alone, of all the dead, Hell\u2019s Queen Gives still to prophesy, while others flit Mere forms, the shadows of what once they were. She spake, and by her words dash\u2019d from my soul All courage; weeping on the bed I sat, Reckless of life and of the light of day. But when, with tears and rolling to and fro Satiate, I felt relief, thus I replied. O Circe! with what guide shall I perform This voyage, unperform\u2019d by living man? 610 I spake, to whom the Goddess quick replied. Brave Laertiades! let not the fear To want a guide distress thee. Once on board, Your mast erected, and your canvas white Unfurl\u2019d, sit thou; the breathing North shall waft Thy vessel on. But when ye shall have cross\u2019d The broad expanse of Ocean, and shall reach The oozy shore, where grow the poplar groves And fruitless willows wan of Proserpine, Push thither through the gulphy Deep thy bark, 620 And, landing, haste to Pluto\u2019s murky abode. There, into Acheron runs not alone Dread Pyriphlegethon, but Cocytus loud, From Styx derived; there also stands a rock, At whose broad base the roaring rivers meet. There, thrusting, as I bid, thy bark ashore, O Hero! scoop the soil, op\u2019ning a trench Ell-broad on ev\u2019ry side; then pour around Libation consecrate to all the dead, First, milk with honey mixt, then luscious wine, 630 Then water, sprinkling, last, meal over all. Next, supplicate the unsubstantial forms Fervently of the dead, vowing to slay, (Return\u2019d to Ithaca) in thy own house, An heifer barren yet, fairest and best Of all thy herds, and to enrich the pile With delicacies such as please the shades; But, in peculiar, to Tiresias vow A sable ram, noblest of all thy flocks. When thus thou hast propitiated with pray\u2019r 640 All the illustrious nations of the dead, Next, thou shalt sacrifice to them a ram And sable ewe, turning the face of each Right toward Erebus, and look thyself, Meantime, askance toward the river\u2019s course. Souls num\u2019rous, soon, of the departed dead Will thither flock; then, strenuous urge thy friends, Flaying the victims which thy ruthless steel Hath slain, to burn them, and to sooth by pray\u2019r Illustrious Pluto and dread Proserpine. 650 While thus is done, thou seated at the foss, Faulchion in hand, chace thence the airy forms Afar, nor suffer them to approach the blood, Till with Tiresias thou have first conferr\u2019d. Then, glorious Chief! the Prophet shall himself Appear, who will instruct thee, and thy course Delineate, measuring from place to place Thy whole return athwart the fishy flood. While thus she spake, the golden dawn arose, When, putting on me my attire, the nymph 660 Next, cloath\u2019d herself, and girding to her waist With an embroider\u2019d zone her snowy robe Graceful, redundant, veil\u2019d her beauteous head. Then, ranging the wide palace, I aroused My followers, standing at the side of each\u2014 Up! sleep no longer! let us quick depart, For thus the Goddess hath, herself, advised. So I, whose early summons my brave friends With readiness obey\u2019d. Yet even thence I brought not all my crew. There was a youth, 670 Youngest of all my train, Elpenor; one Not much in estimation for desert In arms, nor prompt in understanding more, Who overcharged with wine, and covetous Of cooler air, high on the palace-roof Of Circe slept, apart from all the rest. Awaken\u2019d by the clamour of his friends Newly arisen, he also sprang to rise, And in his haste, forgetful where to find The deep-descending stairs, plunged through the roof. 680 With neck-bone broken from the vertebr\u00e6 Outstretch\u2019d he lay; his spirit sought the shades. Then, thus to my assembling friends I spake. Ye think, I doubt not, of an homeward course, But Circe points me to the drear abode Of Proserpine and Pluto, to consult The spirit of Tiresias, Theban seer. I ended, and the hearts of all alike Felt consternation; on the earth they sat Disconsolate, and plucking each his hair, 690 Yet profit none of all their sorrow found. But while we sought my galley on the beach With tepid tears bedewing, as we went, Our cheeks, meantime the Goddess to the shore Descending, bound within the bark a ram And sable ewe, passing us unperceived. For who hath eyes that can discern a God Going or coming, if he shun the view?\n\n\n\n38 It is supposed by Eustathius that the pastures being infested by gad flies and other noxious insects in the day-time, they drove their sheep a-field in the morning, which by their wool were defended from them, and their cattle in the evening, when the insects had withdrawn. It is one of the few passages in Homer that must lie at the mercy of conjecture.\n\n\n39 The word has the authority of Shakspeare, and signifies overhanging.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK XI\nARGUMENT\nUlysses relates to Alcino\u00fcs his voyage to the infernal regions, his conference there with the prophet Tiresias concerning his return to Ithaca, and gives him an account of the heroes, heroines, and others whom he saw there.\n\nArriving on the shore, and launching, first, Our bark into the sacred Deep, we set Our mast and sails, and stow\u2019d secure on board The ram and ewe, then, weeping, and with hearts Sad and disconsolate, embark\u2019d ourselves. And now, melodious Circe, nymph divine, Sent after us a canvas-stretching breeze, Pleasant companion of our course, and we (The decks and benches clear\u2019d) untoiling sat, While managed gales sped swift the bark along. 10 All day, with sails distended, e\u2019er the Deep She flew, and when the sun, at length, declined, And twilight dim had shadow\u2019d all the ways, Approach\u2019d the bourn of Ocean\u2019s vast profound. The city, there, of the Cimmerians stands With clouds and darkness veil\u2019d, on whom the sun Deigns not to look with his beam-darting eye, Or when he climbs the starry arch, or when Earthward he slopes again his west\u2019ring wheels,40 But sad night canopies the woeful race. 20 We haled the bark aground, and, landing there The ram and sable ewe, journey\u2019d beside The Deep, till we arrived where Circe bade. Here, Perimedes\u2019 son Eurylochus Held fast the destined sacrifice, while I Scoop\u2019d with my sword the soil, op\u2019ning a trench Ell-broad on ev\u2019ry side, then pour\u2019d around Libation consecrate to all the dead, First, milk with honey mixt, then luscious wine, Then water, sprinkling, last, meal over all. 30 This done, adoring the unreal forms And shadows of the dead, I vow\u2019d to slay, (Return\u2019d to Ithaca) in my own abode, An heifer barren yet, fairest and best Of all my herds, and to enrich the pile With delicacies, such as please the shades. But, in peculiar, to the Theban seer I vow\u2019d a sable ram, largest and best Of all my flocks. When thus I had implored With vows and pray\u2019r, the nations of the dead, 40 Piercing the victims next, I turn\u2019d them both To bleed into the trench; then swarming came From Erebus the shades of the deceased, Brides, youths unwedded, seniors long with woe Oppress\u2019d, and tender girls yet new to grief. Came also many a warrior by the spear In battle pierced, with armour gore-distain\u2019d, And all the multitude around the foss Stalk\u2019d shrieking dreadful; me pale horror seized. I next, importunate, my people urged, 50 Flaying the victims which myself had slain, To burn them, and to supplicate in pray\u2019r Illustrious Pluto and dread Proserpine. Then down I sat, and with drawn faulchion chased The ghosts, nor suffer\u2019d them to approach the blood, Till with Tiresias I should first confer. The spirit, first, of my companion came, Elpenor; for no burial honours yet Had he received, but we had left his corse In Circe\u2019s palace, tombless, undeplored, 60 Ourselves by pressure urged of other cares. Touch\u2019d with compassion seeing him, I wept, And in wing\u2019d accents brief him thus bespake. Elpenor! how cam\u2019st thou into the realms Of darkness? Hast thou, though on foot, so far Outstripp\u2019d my speed, who in my bark arrived? So I, to whom with tears he thus replied. Laertes\u2019 noble son, for wiles renown\u2019d! Fool\u2019d by some d\u00e6mon and the intemp\u2019rate bowl, I perish\u2019d in the house of Circe; there 70 The deep-descending steps heedless I miss\u2019d, And fell precipitated from the roof. With neck-bone broken from the vertebr\u00e6 Outstretch\u2019d I lay; my spirit sought the shades. But now, by those whom thou hast left at home, By thy Penelope, and by thy fire, The gentle nourisher of thy infant growth, And by thy only son Telemachus I make my suit to thee. For, sure, I know That from the house of Pluto safe return\u2019d, 80 Thou shalt ere long thy gallant vessel moor At the \u00c6\u00e6an isle. Ah! there arrived Remember me. Leave me not undeplored Nor uninhumed, lest, for my sake, the Gods In vengeance visit thee; but with my arms (What arms soe\u2019er I left) burn me, and raise A kind memorial of me on the coast, Heap\u2019d high with earth; that an unhappy man May yet enjoy an unforgotten name. Thus do at my request, and on my hill 90 Funereal, plant the oar with which I row\u2019d, While yet I lived a mariner of thine. He spake, to whom thus answer I return\u2019d. Poor youth! I will perform thy whole desire. Thus we, there sitting, doleful converse held, With outstretch\u2019d faulchion, I, guarding the blood, And my companion\u2019s shadowy semblance sad Meantime discoursing me on various themes. The soul of my departed mother, next, Of Anticleia came, daughter of brave 100 Autolycus; whom, when I sought the shores Of Ilium, I had living left at home. Seeing her, with compassion touch\u2019d, I wept, Yet even her, (although it pain\u2019d my soul) Forbad, relentless, to approach the blood, Till with Tiresias I should first confer. Then came the spirit of the Theban seer Himself, his golden sceptre in his hand, Who knew me, and, enquiring, thus began. Why, hapless Chief! leaving the cheerful day, 110 Arriv\u2019st thou to behold the dead, and this Unpleasant land? but, from the trench awhile Receding, turn thy faulchion keen away, That I may drink the blood, and tell thee truth. He spake; I thence receding, deep infix\u2019d My sword bright-studded in the sheath again. The noble prophet then, approaching, drank The blood, and, satisfied, address\u2019d me thus. Thou seek\u2019st a pleasant voyage home again, Renown\u2019d Ulysses! but a God will make 120 That voyage difficult; for, as I judge, Thou wilt not pass by Neptune unperceiv\u2019d, Whose anger follows thee, for that thou hast Deprived his son Cyclops of his eye. At length, however, after num\u2019rous woes Endur\u2019d, thou may\u2019st attain thy native isle, If thy own appetite thou wilt controul And theirs who follow thee, what time thy bark Well-built, shall at Thrinacia\u2019s shore arrive,41 Escaped from perils of the gloomy Deep. 130 There shall ye find grazing the flocks and herds Of the all-seeing and all-hearing Sun, Which, if attentive to thy safe return, Thou leave unharm\u2019d, though after num\u2019rous woes, Ye may at length arrive in Ithaca. But if thou violate them, I denounce Destruction on thy ship and all thy band, And though thyself escape, late shalt thou reach Thy home and hard-bested,42 in a strange bark, All thy companions lost; trouble beside 140 Awaits thee there, for thou shalt find within Proud suitors of thy noble wife, who waste Thy substance, and with promis\u2019d spousal gifts Ceaseless solicit her to wed; yet well Shalt thou avenge all their injurious deeds. That once perform\u2019d, and ev\u2019ry suitor slain Either by stratagem, or face to face, In thy own palace, bearing, as thou go\u2019st, A shapely oar, journey, till thou hast found A people who the sea know not, nor eat 150 Food salted; they trim galley crimson prow\u2019d Have ne\u2019er beheld, nor yet smooth-shaven oar, With which the vessel wing\u2019d scuds o\u2019er the waves. Well thou shalt know them; this shall be the sign\u2014 When thou shalt meet a trav\u2019ler, who shall name The oar on thy broad shoulder borne, a van,43 There, deep infixing it within the soil, Worship the King of Ocean with a bull, A ram, and a lascivious boar, then seek Thy home again, and sacrifice at home 160 An hecatomb to the Immortal Gods, Adoring each duly, and in his course. So shalt thou die in peace a gentle death, Remote from Ocean; it shall find thee late, In soft serenity of age, the Chief Of a blest people.\u2014I have told thee truth. He spake, to whom I answer thus return\u2019d. Tiresias! thou, I doubt not, hast reveal\u2019d The ordinance of heav\u2019n. But tell me, Seer! And truly. I behold my mother\u2019s shade; 170 Silent she sits beside the blood, nor word Nor even look vouchsafes to her own son. How shall she learn, prophet, that I am her\u2019s? So I, to whom Tiresias quick replied. The course is easy. Learn it, taught by me. What shade soe\u2019er, by leave of thee obtain\u2019d, Shall taste the blood, that shade will tell thee truth; The rest, prohibited, will all retire. When thus the spirit of the royal Seer Had his prophetic mind reveal\u2019d, again 180 He enter\u2019d Pluto\u2019s gates; but I unmoved Still waited till my mother\u2019s shade approach\u2019d; She drank the blood, then knew me, and in words Wing\u2019d with affection, plaintive, thus began. My son! how hast thou enter\u2019d, still alive, This darksome region? Difficult it is For living man to view the realms of death. Broad rivers roll, and awful floods between, But chief, the Ocean, which to pass on foot, Or without ship, impossible is found. 190 Hast thou, long wand\u2019ring in thy voyage home From Ilium, with thy ship and crew arrived, Ithaca and thy consort yet unseen? She spake, to whom this answer I return\u2019d. My mother! me necessity constrain\u2019d To Pluto\u2019s dwelling, anxious to consult Theban Tiresias; for I have not yet Approach\u2019d Achaia, nor have touch\u2019d the shore Of Ithaca, but suff\u2019ring ceaseless woe Have roam\u2019d, since first in Agamemnon\u2019s train 200 I went to combat with the sons of Troy. But speak, my mother, and the truth alone; What stroke of fate slew thee? Fell\u2019st thou a prey To some slow malady? or by the shafts Of gentle Dian suddenly subdued? Speak to me also of my ancient Sire, And of Telemachus, whom I left at home; Possess I still unalienate and safe My property, or hath some happier Chief Admittance free into my fortunes gain\u2019d, 210 No hope subsisting more of my return? The mind and purpose of my wedded wife Declare thou also. Dwells she with our son Faithful to my domestic interests, Or is she wedded to some Chief of Greece? I ceas\u2019d, when thus the venerable shade. Not so; she faithful still and patient dwells Thy roof beneath; but all her days and nights Devoting sad to anguish and to tears. Thy fortunes still are thine; Telemachus 220 Cultivates, undisturb\u2019d, thy land, and sits At many a noble banquet, such as well Beseems the splendour of his princely state, For all invite him; at his farm retired Thy father dwells, nor to the city comes, For aught; nor bed, nor furniture of bed, Furr\u2019d cloaks or splendid arras he enjoys, But, with his servile hinds all winter sleeps In ashes and in dust at the hearth-side, Coarsely attired; again, when summer comes, 230 Or genial autumn, on the fallen leaves In any nook, not curious where, he finds There, stretch\u2019d forlorn, nourishing grief, he weeps Thy lot, enfeebled now by num\u2019rous years. So perish\u2019d I; such fate I also found; Me, neither the right-aiming arch\u2019ress struck, Diana, with her gentle shafts, nor me Distemper slew, my limbs by slow degrees But sure, bereaving of their little life, 240 But long regret, tender solicitude, And recollection of thy kindness past, These, my Ulysses! fatal proved to me. She said; I, ardent wish\u2019d to clasp the shade Of my departed mother; thrice I sprang Toward her, by desire impetuous urged, And thrice she flitted from between my arms, Light as a passing shadow or a dream. Then, pierced by keener grief, in accents wing\u2019d With filial earnestness I thus replied. 250 My mother, why elud\u2019st thou my attempt To clasp thee, that ev\u2019n here, in Pluto\u2019s realm, We might to full satiety indulge Our grief, enfolded in each other\u2019s arms? Hath Proserpine, alas! only dispatch\u2019d A shadow to me, to augment my woe? Then, instant, thus the venerable form. Ah, son! thou most afflicted of mankind! On thee, Jove\u2019s daughter, Proserpine, obtrudes No airy semblance vain; but such the state 260 And nature is of mortals once deceased. For they nor muscle have, nor flesh, nor bone; All those (the spirit from the body once Divorced) the violence of fire consumes, And, like a dream, the soul flies swift away. But haste thou back to light, and, taught thyself These sacred truths, hereafter teach thy spouse. Thus mutual we conferr\u2019d. Then, thither came, Encouraged forth by royal Proserpine, Shades female num\u2019rous, all who consorts, erst, 270 Or daughters were of mighty Chiefs renown\u2019d. About the sable blood frequent they swarm\u2019d. But I, consid\u2019ring sat, how I might each Interrogate, and thus resolv\u2019d. My sword Forth drawing from beside my sturdy thigh, Firm I prohibited the ghosts to drink The blood together; they successive came; Each told her own distress; I question\u2019d all. There, first, the high-born Tyro I beheld; She claim\u2019d Salmoneus as her sire, and wife 280 Was once of Cretheus, son of \u00c6olus. Enamour\u2019d of Enipeus, stream divine, Loveliest of all that water earth, beside His limpid current she was wont to stray, When Ocean\u2019s God, (Enipeus\u2019 form assumed) Within the eddy-whirling river\u2019s mouth Embraced her; there, while the o\u2019er-arching flood, Uplifted mountainous, conceal\u2019d the God And his fair human bride, her virgin zone He loos\u2019d, and o\u2019er her eyes sweet sleep diffused. 290 His am\u2019rous purpose satisfied, he grasp\u2019d Her hand, affectionate, and thus he said. Rejoice in this my love, and when the year Shall tend to consummation of its course, Thou shalt produce illustrious twins, for love Immortal never is unfruitful love. Rear them with all a mother\u2019s care; meantime, Hence to thy home. Be silent. Name it not. For I am Neptune, Shaker of the shores. So saying, he plunged into the billowy Deep. 300 She pregnant grown, Pelias and Neleus bore, Both, valiant ministers of mighty Jove. In wide-spread I\u00e4olchus Pelias dwelt, Of num\u2019rous flocks possess\u2019d; but his abode Amid the sands of Pylus Neleus chose. To Cretheus wedded next, the lovely nymph Yet other sons, \u00c6son and Pheres bore, And Amythaon of equestrian fame. I, next, the daughter of Asopus saw, Antiope; she gloried to have known 310 Th\u2019 embrace of Jove himself, to whom she brought A double progeny, Amphion named And Zethus; they the seven-gated Thebes Founded and girded with strong tow\u2019rs, because, Though puissant Heroes both, in spacious Thebes Unfenced by tow\u2019rs, they could not dwell secure. Alcmena, next, wife of Amphitryon I saw; she in the arms of sov\u2019reign Jove The lion-hearted Hercules conceiv\u2019d, And, after, bore to Creon brave in fight 320 His daughter Megara, by the noble son Unconquer\u2019d of Amphitryon espoused. The beauteous Epicaste44 saw I then, Mother of Oedipus, who guilt incurr\u2019d Prodigious, wedded, unintentional, To her own son; his father first he slew, Then wedded her, which soon the Gods divulged. He, under vengeance of offended heav\u2019n, In pleasant Thebes dwelt miserable, King Of the Cadmean race; she to the gates 330 Of Ades brazen-barr\u2019d despairing went, Self-strangled by a cord fasten\u2019d aloft To her own palace-roof, and woes bequeath\u2019d (Such as the Fury sisters execute Innumerable) to her guilty son. There also saw I Chloris, loveliest fair, Whom Neleus woo\u2019d and won with spousal gifts Inestimable, by her beauty charm\u2019d She youngest daughter was of Iasus\u2019 son, Amphion, in old time a sov\u2019reign prince 340 In Minu\u00ebian Orchomenus, And King of Pylus. Three illustrious sons She bore to Neleus, Nestor, Chromius, And Periclymenus the wide-renown\u2019d, And, last, produced a wonder of the earth, Pero, by ev\u2019ry neighbour prince around In marriage sought; but Neleus her on none Deign\u2019d to bestow, save only on the Chief Who should from Phylace drive off the beeves (Broad-fronted, and with jealous care secured) 350 Of valiant Iphicles. One undertook That task alone, a prophet high in fame, Melampus; but the Fates fast bound him there In rig\u2019rous bonds by rustic hands imposed. At length (the year, with all its months and days Concluded, and the new-born year begun) Illustrious Iphicles releas\u2019d the seer, Grateful for all the oracles resolved,45 Till then obscure. So stood the will of Jove. Next, Leda, wife of Tyndarus I saw, 360 Who bore to Tyndarus a noble pair, Castor the bold, and Pollux cestus-famed. They pris\u2019ners in the fertile womb of earth, Though living, dwell, and even there from Jove High priv\u2019lege gain; alternate they revive And die, and dignity partake divine. The comfort of Alo\u00ebus, next, I view\u2019d, Iphimedeia; she th\u2019 embrace profess\u2019d Of Neptune to have shared, to whom she bore Two sons; short-lived they were, but godlike both, 370 Otus and Ephialtes far-renown\u2019d. Orion sole except, all-bounteous Earth Ne\u2019er nourish\u2019d forms for beauty or for size To be admired as theirs; in his ninth year Each measur\u2019d, broad, nine cubits, and the height Was found nine ells of each. Against the Gods Themselves they threaten\u2019d war, and to excite The din of battle in the realms above. To the Olympian summit they essay\u2019d To heave up Ossa, and to Ossa\u2019s crown 380 Branch-waving Pelion; so to climb the heav\u2019ns. Nor had they failed, maturer grown in might, To accomplish that emprize, but them the son46 Of radiant-hair\u2019d Latona and of Jove Slew both, ere yet the down of blooming youth Thick-sprung, their cheeks or chins had tufted o\u2019er. Ph\u00e6dra I also there, and Procris saw, And Ariadne for her beauty praised, Whose sire was all-wise Minos. Theseus her From Crete toward the fruitful region bore 390 Of sacred Athens, but enjoy\u2019d not there, For, first, she perish\u2019d by Diana\u2019s shafts In Dia, Bacchus witnessing her crime.47 M\u00e6ra and Clymene I saw beside, And odious Eriphyle, who received The price in gold of her own husband\u2019s life. But all the wives of Heroes whom I saw, And all their daughters can I not relate; Night, first, would fail; and even now the hour Calls me to rest either on board my bark, 400 Or here; meantime, I in yourselves confide, And in the Gods to shape my conduct home. He ceased; the whole assembly silent sat, Charm\u2019d into ecstacy by his discourse Throughout the twilight hall, till, at the last, Areta iv\u2019ry arm\u2019d them thus bespake. Ph\u00e6acians! how appears he in your eyes This stranger, graceful as he is in port, In stature noble, and in mind discrete? My guest he is, but ye all share with me 410 That honour; him dismiss not, therefore, hence With haste, nor from such indigence withhold Supplies gratuitous; for ye are rich, And by kind heav\u2019n with rare possessions blest. The Hero, next, Echeneus spake, a Chief Now ancient, eldest of Ph\u00e6acia\u2019s sons. Your prudent Queen, my friends, speaks not beside Her proper scope, but as beseems her well. Her voice obey; yet the effect of all Must on Alcino\u00fcs himself depend. 420 To whom Alcino\u00fcs, thus, the King, replied. I ratify the word. So shall be done, As surely as myself shall live supreme O\u2019er all Ph\u00e6acia\u2019s maritime domain. Then let the guest, though anxious to depart, Wait till the morrow, that I may complete The whole donation. His safe conduct home Shall be the gen\u2019ral care, but mine in Chief, To whom dominion o\u2019er the rest belongs. Him answer\u2019d, then, Ulysses ever-wise. 430 Alcino\u00fcs! Prince! exalted high o\u2019er all Ph\u00e6acia\u2019s sons! should ye solicit, kind, My stay throughout the year, preparing still My conduct home, and with illustrious gifts Enriching me the while, ev\u2019n that request Should please me well; the wealthier I return\u2019d, The happier my condition; welcome more And more respectable I should appear In ev\u2019ry eye to Ithaca restored. To whom Alcino\u00fcs answer thus return\u2019d. 440 Ulysses! viewing thee, no fears we feel Lest thou, at length, some false pretender prove, Or subtle hypocrite, of whom no few Disseminated o\u2019er its face the earth Sustains, adepts in fiction, and who frame Fables, where fables could be least surmised. Thy phrase well turn\u2019d, and thy ingenuous mind Proclaim thee diff\u2019rent far, who hast in strains Musical as a poet\u2019s voice, the woes Rehears\u2019d of all thy Greecians, and thy own. 450 But say, and tell me true. Beheld\u2019st thou there None of thy followers to the walls of Troy Slain in that warfare? Lo! the night is long\u2014 A night of utmost length; nor yet the hour Invites to sleep. Tell me thy wond\u2019rous deeds, For I could watch till sacred dawn, could\u2019st thou So long endure to tell me of thy toils. Then thus Ulysses, ever-wise, replied. Alcino\u00fcs! high exalted over all Ph\u00e6acia\u2019s sons! the time suffices yet 460 For converse both and sleep, and if thou wish To hear still more, I shall not spare to unfold More pitiable woes than these, sustain\u2019d By my companions, in the end destroy\u2019d; Who, saved from perils of disast\u2019rous war At Ilium, perish\u2019d yet in their return, Victims of a pernicious woman\u2019s crime.48 Now, when chaste Proserpine had wide dispers\u2019d Those female shades, the spirit sore distress\u2019d Of Agamemnon, Atreus\u2019 son, appear\u2019d; 470 Encircled by a throng, he came; by all Who with himself beneath \u00c6gisthus\u2019 roof Their fate fulfill\u2019d, perishing by the sword. He drank the blood, and knew me; shrill he wail\u2019d And querulous; tears trickling bathed his cheeks, And with spread palms, through ardour of desire He sought to enfold me fast, but vigour none, Or force, as erst, his agile limbs inform\u2019d. I, pity-moved, wept at the sight, and him, In accents wing\u2019d by friendship, thus address\u2019d. 480 Ah glorious son of Atreus, King of men! What hand inflicted the all-numbing stroke Of death on thee? Say, didst thou perish sunk By howling tempests irresistible Which Neptune raised, or on dry land by force Of hostile multitudes, while cutting off Beeves from the herd, or driving flocks away, Or fighting for Achaia\u2019s daughters, shut Within some city\u2019s bulwarks close besieged? I ceased, when Agamemnon thus replied. 490 Ulysses, noble Chief, Laertes\u2019 son For wisdom famed! I neither perish\u2019d sunk By howling tempests irresistible Which Neptune raised, nor on dry land received From hostile multitudes the fatal blow, But me \u00c6gisthus slew; my woeful death Confed\u2019rate with my own pernicious wife He plotted, with a show of love sincere Bidding me to his board, where as the ox Is slaughter\u2019d at his crib, he slaughter\u2019d me. 500 Such was my dreadful death; carnage ensued Continual of my friends slain all around, Num\u2019rous as boars bright-tusk\u2019d at nuptial feast, Or feast convivial of some wealthy Chief. Thou hast already witness\u2019d many a field With warriors overspread, slain one by one, But that dire scene had most thy pity moved, For we, with brimming beakers at our side, And underneath full tables bleeding lay. Blood floated all the pavement. Then the cries 510 Of Priam\u2019s daughter sounded in my ears Most pitiable of all. Cassandra\u2019s cries, Whom Clytemnestra close beside me slew. Expiring as I lay, I yet essay\u2019d To grasp my faulchion, but the trayt\u2019ress quick Withdrew herself, nor would vouchsafe to close My languid eyes, or prop my drooping chin Ev\u2019n in the moment when I sought the shades. So that the thing breathes not, ruthless and fell As woman once resolv\u2019d on such a deed 520 Detestable, as my base wife contrived, The murther of the husband of her youth. I thought to have return\u2019d welcome to all, To my own children and domestic train; But she, past measure profligate, hath poured Shame on herself, on women yet unborn, And even on the virtuous of her sex. He ceas\u2019d, to whom, thus, answer I return\u2019d. Gods! how severely hath the thund\u2019rer plagued The house of Atreus even from the first, 530 By female counsels! we for Helen\u2019s sake Have num\u2019rous died, and Clytemnestra framed, While thou wast far remote, this snare for thee! So I, to whom Atrides thus replied. Thou, therefore, be not pliant overmuch To woman; trust her not with all thy mind, But half disclose to her, and half conceal. Yet, from thy consort\u2019s hand no bloody death, My friend, hast thou to fear; for passing wise Icarius\u2019 daughter is, far other thoughts, 540 Intelligent, and other plans, to frame. Her, going to the wars we left a bride New-wedded, and thy boy hung at her breast, Who, man himself, consorts ere now with men A prosp\u2019rous youth; his father, safe restored To his own Ithaca, shall see him soon, And he shall clasp his father in his arms As nature bids; but me, my cruel one Indulged not with the dear delight to gaze On my Orestes, for she slew me first. 550 But listen; treasure what I now impart.49 Steer secret to thy native isle; avoid Notice; for woman merits trust no more. Now tell me truth. Hear ye in whose abode My son resides? dwells he in Pylus, say, Or in Orchomenos, or else beneath My brother\u2019s roof in Sparta\u2019s wide domain? For my Orestes is not yet a shade. So he, to whom I answer thus return\u2019d. Atrides, ask not me. Whether he live, 560 Or have already died, I nothing know; Mere words are vanity, and better spared. Thus we discoursing mutual stood, and tears Shedding disconsolate. The shade, meantime, Came of Achilles, Peleus\u2019 mighty son; Patroclus also, and Antilochus Appear\u2019d, with Ajax, for proportion just And stature tall, (Pelides sole except) Distinguish\u2019d above all Achaia\u2019s sons. The soul of swift \u00c6acides at once 570 Knew me, and in wing\u2019d accents thus began. Brave Laertiades, for wiles renown\u2019d! What mightier enterprise than all the past Hath made thee here a guest? rash as thou art! How hast thou dared to penetrate the gloom Of Ades, dwelling of the shadowy dead, Semblances only of what once they were? He spake, to whom I, answ\u2019ring, thus replied. O Peleus\u2019 son! Achilles! bravest far Of all Achaia\u2019s race! I here arrived 580 Seeking Tiresias, from his lips to learn, Perchance, how I might safe regain the coast Of craggy Ithaca; for tempest-toss\u2019d Perpetual, I have neither yet approach\u2019d Achaia\u2019s shore, or landed on my own. But as for thee, Achilles! never man Hath known felicity like thine, or shall, Whom living we all honour\u2019d as a God, And who maintain\u2019st, here resident, supreme Controul among the dead; indulge not then, 590 Achilles, causeless grief that thou hast died. I ceased, and answer thus instant received. Renown\u2019d Ulysses! think not death a theme Of consolation; I had rather live The servile hind for hire, and eat the bread Of some man scantily himself sustain\u2019d, Than sov\u2019reign empire hold o\u2019er all the shades. But come\u2014speak to me of my noble boy; Proceeds he, as he promis\u2019d, brave in arms, Or shuns he war? Say also, hast thou heard 600 Of royal Peleus? shares he still respect Among his num\u2019rous Myrmidons, or scorn In Hellas and in Phthia, for that age Predominates in his enfeebled limbs? For help is none in me; the glorious sun No longer sees me such, as when in aid Of the Achaians I o\u2019erspread the field Of spacious Troy with all their bravest slain. Oh might I, vigorous as then, repair50 For one short moment to my father\u2019s house, 610 They all should tremble; I would shew an arm, Such as should daunt the fiercest who presumes To injure him, or to despise his age. Achilles spake, to whom I thus replied. Of noble Peleus have I nothing heard; But I will tell thee, as thou bidd\u2019st, the truth Unfeign\u2019d of Neoptolemus thy son; For him, myself, on board my hollow bark From Scyros to Achaia\u2019s host convey\u2019d. Oft as in council under Ilium\u2019s walls 620 We met, he ever foremost was in speech, Nor spake erroneous; Nestor and myself Except, no Greecian could with him compare. Oft, too, as we with battle hemm\u2019d around Troy\u2019s bulwarks, from among the mingled crowd Thy son sprang foremost into martial act, Inferior in heroic worth to none. Beneath him num\u2019rous fell the sons of Troy In dreadful fight, nor have I pow\u2019r to name Distinctly all, who by his glorious arm 630 Exerted in the cause of Greece, expired. Yet will I name Eurypylus, the son Of Telephus, an Hero whom his sword Of life bereaved, and all around him strew\u2019d The plain with his Cetean warriors, won To Ilium\u2019s side by bribes to women giv\u2019n.51 Save noble Memnon only, I beheld No Chief at Ilium beautiful as he. Again, when we within the horse of wood Framed by Epe\u00fcs sat, an ambush chos\u2019n 640 Of all the bravest Greeks, and I in trust Was placed to open or to keep fast-closed The hollow fraud; then, ev\u2019ry Chieftain there And Senator of Greece wiped from his cheeks The tears, and tremors felt in ev\u2019ry limb; But never saw I changed to terror\u2019s hue His ruddy cheek, no tears wiped he away, But oft he press\u2019d me to go forth, his suit With pray\u2019rs enforcing, griping hard his hilt And his brass-burthen\u2019d spear, and dire revenge 650 Denouncing, ardent, on the race of Troy. At length, when we had sack\u2019d the lofty town Of Priam, laden with abundant spoils He safe embark\u2019d, neither by spear or shaft Aught hurt, or in close fight by faulchion\u2019s edge, As oft in war befalls, where wounds are dealt Promiscuous at the will of fiery Mars. So I; then striding large, the spirit thence Withdrew of swift \u00c6acides, along The hoary mead pacing,52 with joy elate 660 That I had blazon\u2019d bright his son\u2019s renown. The other souls of men by death dismiss\u2019d Stood mournful by, sad uttering each his woes; The soul alone I saw standing remote Of Telamonian Ajax, still incensed That in our public contest for the arms Worn by Achilles, and by Thetis thrown Into dispute, my claim had strongest proved, Troy and Minerva judges of the cause. Disastrous victory! which I could wish 670 Not to have won, since for that armour\u2019s sake The earth hath cover\u2019d Ajax, in his form And martial deeds superior far to all The Greecians, Peleus\u2019 matchless son except. I, seeking to appease him, thus began. O Ajax, son of glorious Telamon! Canst thou remember, even after death, Thy wrath against me, kindled for the sake Of those pernicious arms? arms which the Gods Ordain\u2019d of such dire consequence to Greece, 680 Which caused thy death, our bulwark! Thee we mourn With grief perpetual, nor the death lament Of Peleus\u2019 son, Achilles, more than thine. Yet none is blameable; Jove evermore With bitt\u2019rest hate pursued Achaia\u2019s host, And he ordain\u2019d thy death. Hero! approach, That thou may\u2019st hear the words with which I seek To sooth thee; let thy long displeasure cease! Quell all resentment in thy gen\u2019rous breast! I spake; nought answer\u2019d he, but sullen join\u2019d 690 His fellow-ghosts; yet, angry as he was, I had prevail\u2019d even on him to speak, Or had, at least, accosted him again, But that my bosom teem\u2019d with strong desire Urgent, to see yet others of the dead. There saw I Minos, offspring famed of Jove; His golden sceptre in his hand, he sat Judge of the dead; they, pleading each in turn, His cause, some stood, some sat, filling the house Whose spacious folding-gates are never closed. 700 Orion next, huge ghost, engaged my view, Droves urging o\u2019er the grassy mead, of beasts Which he had slain, himself, on the wild hills, With strong club arm\u2019d of ever-during brass. There also Tityus on the ground I saw Extended, offspring of the glorious earth; Nine acres he o\u2019erspread, and, at his side Station\u2019d, two vultures on his liver prey\u2019d, Scooping his entrails; nor sufficed his hands To fray them thence; for he had sought to force 710 Latona, illustrious concubine of Jove, What time the Goddess journey\u2019d o\u2019er the rocks Of Pytho into pleasant Panopeus. Next, suff\u2019ring grievous torments, I beheld Tantalus; in a pool he stood, his chin Wash\u2019d by the wave; thirst-parch\u2019d he seem\u2019d, but found Nought to assuage his thirst; for when he bow\u2019d His hoary head, ardent to quaff, the flood Vanish\u2019d absorb\u2019d, and, at his feet, adust The soil appear\u2019d, dried, instant, by the Gods. 720 Tall trees, fruit-laden, with inflected heads Stoop\u2019d to him, pomegranates, apples bright, The luscious fig, and unctuous olive smooth; Which when with sudden grasp he would have seized, Winds hurl\u2019d them high into the dusky clouds. There, too, the hard-task\u2019d Sisyphus I saw, Thrusting before him, strenuous, a vast rock.53 With hands and feet struggling, he shoved the stone Up to a hill-top; but the steep well-nigh Vanquish\u2019d, by some great force repulsed,54 the mass 730 Rush\u2019d again, obstinate, down to the plain. Again, stretch\u2019d prone, severe he toiled, the sweat Bathed all his weary limbs, and his head reek\u2019d. The might of Hercules I, next, survey\u2019d; His semblance; for himself their banquet shares With the Immortal Gods, and in his arms Enfolds neat-footed Hebe, daughter fair Of Jove, and of his golden-sandal\u2019d spouse. Around him, clamorous as birds, the dead Swarm\u2019d turbulent; he, gloomy-brow\u2019d as night, 740 With uncased bow and arrow on the string Peer\u2019d terrible from side to side, as one Ever in act to shoot; a dreadful belt He bore athwart his bosom, thong\u2019d with gold. There, broider\u2019d shone many a stupendous form, Bears, wild boars, lions with fire-flashing eyes, Fierce combats, battles, bloodshed, homicide. The artist, author of that belt, none such Before, produced, or after. Me his eye No sooner mark\u2019d, than knowing me, in words 750 By sorrow quick suggested, he began. Laertes\u2019 noble son, for wiles renown\u2019d! Ah, hapless Hero! thou art, doubtless, charged, Thou also, with some arduous labour, such As in the realms of day I once endured. Son was I of Saturnian Jove, yet woes Immense sustain\u2019d, subjected to a King Inferior far to me, whose harsh commands Enjoin\u2019d me many a terrible exploit. He even bade me on a time lead hence 760 The dog, that task believing above all Impracticable; yet from Ades him I dragg\u2019d reluctant into light, by aid Of Hermes, and of Pallas azure-eyed. So saying, he penetrated deep again The abode of Pluto; but I still unmoved There stood expecting, curious, other shades To see of Heroes in old time deceased. And now, more ancient worthies still, and whom I wish\u2019d, I had beheld, Piritho\u00fcs 770 And Theseus, glorious progeny of Gods, But nations, first, numberless of the dead Came shrieking hideous; me pale horror seized, Lest awful Proserpine should thither send The Gorgon-head from Ades, sight abhorr\u2019d! I, therefore, hasting to the vessel, bade My crew embark, and cast the hawsers loose. They, quick embarking, on the benches sat. Down the Oceanus55 the current bore My galley, winning, at the first, her way 780 With oars, then, wafted by propitious gales.\n\n\n\n40 Milton.\n\n\n41 The shore of Scilly commonly called Trinacria, but Euphonic\u00e8 by Homer, Thrinacia.\n\n\n42 The expression is used by Milton, and signifies\u2014Beset with many difficulties.\n\n\n43 Mistaking the oar for a corn-van. A sure indication of his ignorance of maritime concerns.\n\n\n44 By the Tragedians called\u2014Jocasta.\n\n\n45 Iphicles had been informed by the Oracles that he should have no children till instructed by a prophet how to obtain them; a service which Melampus had the good fortune to render him.\n\n\n46 Apollo.\n\n\n47 Bacchus accused her to Diana of having lain with Theseus in his temple, and the Goddess punished her with death.\n\n\n48 Probably meaning Helen.\n\n\n49 This is surely one of the most natural strokes to be found in any Poet. Convinced, for a moment, by the virtues of Penelope, he mentioned her with respect; but recollecting himself suddenly, involves even her in his general ill opinion of the sex, begotten in him by the crimes of Clytemnestra.\n\n\n50 Another most beautiful stroke of nature. Ere yet Ulysses has had opportunity to answer, the very thought that Peleus may possibly be insulted, fires him, and he takes the whole for granted. Thus is the impetuous character of Achilles sustained to the last moment!\n\n\n51 \u0393\u03c5\u03bd\u03b1\u1f77\u03c9\u03bd \u03b5\u03b9\u03bd\u03b5\u03ba\u03b1 \u03b4\u1f7d\u03c1\u03c9\u03bd\u2014Priam is said to have influenced by gifts the wife and mother of Eurypylus, to persuade him to the assistance of Troy, he being himself unwilling to engage. The passage through defect of history has long been dark, and commentators have adapted different senses to it, all conjectural. The Ceteans are said to have been a people of Mysia, of which Eurypylus was King.\n\n\n52 \u039a\u03b1\u03c4\u2019 \u03b1\u03c3\u03c6\u03bf\u03b4\u03b5\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd \u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03bc\u03c9\u03bd\u03b1\u2014Asphodel was planted on the graves and around the tombs of the deceased, and hence the supposition that the Stygian plain was clothed with asphodel. F.\n\n\n53 \u0392\u03b1\u03c3\u03b1\u03b6\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1 must have this sense interpreted by what follows. To attempt to make the English numbers expressive as the Greek is a labour like that of Sisyphus. The Translator has done what he could.\n\n\n54 It is now, perhaps, impossible to ascertain with precision what Homer meant by the word \u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u1f77\u03c2, which he uses only here, and in the next book, where it is the name of Scylla\u2019s dam.\u2014\u0391\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9\u03b4\u03b7\u03c2\u2014is also of very doubtful explication.\n\n\n55 The two first lines of the following book seem to ascertain the true meaning of the conclusion of this, and to prove sufficiently that by \u1f68\u03ba\u03b5\u03b1\u03bd\u1f78\u03c2 here Homer could not possibly intend any other than a river. In those lines he tells us in the plainest terms that the ship left the stream of the river Oceanus, and arrived in the open sea. Diodorus Siculus informs us that \u1f68\u03ba\u03b5\u03b1\u03bd\u1f78\u03c2 had been a name anciently given to the Nile. See Clarke.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK XII\nARGUMENT\nUlysses, pursuing his narrative, relates his return from the shades to Circe\u2019s island, the precautions given him by that Goddess, his escape from the Sirens, and from Scylla and Charybdis; his arrival in Sicily, where his companions, having slain and eaten the oxen of the Sun, are afterward shipwrecked and lost; and concludes the whole with an account of his arrival, alone, on the mast of his vessel, at the island of Calypso.\n\nAnd now, borne seaward from the river-stream Of the Oceanus, we plow\u2019d again The spacious Deep, and reach\u2019d th\u2019 \u00c6\u00e6an isle, Where, daughter of the dawn, Aurora takes Her choral sports, and whence the sun ascends. We, there arriving, thrust our bark aground On the smooth beach, then landed, and on shore Reposed, expectant of the sacred dawn. But soon as day-spring\u2019s daughter rosy-palm\u2019d Look\u2019d forth again, sending my friends before, 10 I bade them bring Elpenor\u2019s body down From the abode of Circe to the beach. Then, on the utmost headland of the coast We timber fell\u2019d, and, sorrowing o\u2019er the dead, His fun\u2019ral rites water\u2019d with tears profuse. The dead consumed, and with the dead his arms, We heap\u2019d his tomb, and the sepulchral post Erecting, fix\u2019d his shapely oar aloft. Thus, punctual, we perform\u2019d; nor our return From Ades knew not Circe, but attired 20 In haste, ere long arrived, with whom appear\u2019d Her female train with plenteous viands charged, And bright wine rosy-red. Amidst us all Standing, the beauteous Goddess thus began. Ah miserable! who have sought the shades Alive! while others of the human race Die only once, appointed twice to die! Come\u2014take ye food; drink wine; and on the shore All day regale, for ye shall hence again At day-spring o\u2019er the Deep; but I will mark 30 Myself your future course, nor uninform\u2019d Leave you in aught, lest, through some dire mistake, By sea or land new mis\u2019ries ye incur. The Goddess spake, whose invitation kind We glad accepted; thus we feasting sat Till set of sun, and quaffing richest wine; But when the sun went down and darkness fell, My crew beside the hawsers slept, while me The Goddess by the hand leading apart, First bade me sit, then, seated opposite, 40 Enquired, minute, of all that I had seen, And I, from first to last, recounted all. Then, thus the awful Goddess in return. Thus far thy toils are finish\u2019d. Now attend! Mark well my words, of which the Gods will sure Themselves remind thee in the needful hour. First shalt thou reach the Sirens; they the hearts Enchant of all who on their coast arrive. The wretch, who unforewarn\u2019d approaching, hears The Sirens\u2019 voice, his wife and little-ones 50 Ne\u2019er fly to gratulate his glad return, But him the Sirens sitting in the meads Charm with mellifluous song, while all around The bones accumulated lie of men Now putrid, and the skins mould\u2019ring away. But, pass them thou, and, lest thy people hear Those warblings, ere thou yet approach, fill all Their ears with wax moulded between thy palms; But as for thee\u2014thou hear them if thou wilt. Yet let thy people bind thee to the mast 60 Erect, encompassing thy feet and arms With cordage well-secured to the mast-foot, So shalt thou, raptur\u2019d, hear the Sirens\u2019 song. But if thou supplicate to be released, Or give such order, then, with added cords Let thy companions bind thee still the more. When thus thy people shall have safely pass\u2019d The Sirens by, think not from me to learn What course thou next shalt steer; two will occur; Delib\u2019rate chuse; I shall describe them both. 70 Here vaulted rocks impend, dash\u2019d by the waves Immense of Amphitrite azure-eyed; The blessed Gods those rocks, Erratic, call. Birds cannot pass them safe; no, not the doves Which his ambrosia bear to Father Jove, But even of those doves the slipp\u2019ry rock Proves fatal still to one, for which the God Supplies another, lest the number fail. No ship, what ship soever there arrives, Escapes them, but both mariners and planks 80 Whelm\u2019d under billows of the Deep, or, caught By fiery tempests, sudden disappear. Those rocks the billow-cleaving bark alone The Argo, further\u2019d by the vows of all, Pass\u2019d safely, sailing from \u00c6\u00e6ta\u2019s isle; Nor she had pass\u2019d, but surely dash\u2019d had been On those huge rocks, but that, propitious still To Jason, Juno sped her safe along. These rocks are two; one lifts his summit sharp High as the spacious heav\u2019ns, wrapt in dun clouds 90 Perpetual, which nor autumn sees dispers\u2019d Nor summer, for the sun shines never there; No mortal man might climb it or descend, Though twice ten hands and twice ten feet he own\u2019d, For it is levigated as by art. Down scoop\u2019d to Erebus, a cavern drear Yawns in the centre of its western side; Pass it, renown\u2019d Ulysses! but aloof So far, that a keen arrow smartly sent Forth from thy bark should fail to reach the cave. 100 There Scylla dwells, and thence her howl is heard Tremendous; shrill her voice is as the note Of hound new-whelp\u2019d, but hideous her aspect, Such as no mortal man, nor ev\u2019n a God Encount\u2019ring her, should with delight survey. Her feet are twelve, all fore-feet; six her necks Of hideous length, each clubb\u2019d into a head Terrific, and each head with fangs is arm\u2019d In triple row, thick planted, stored with death. Plunged to her middle in the hollow den 110 She lurks, protruding from the black abyss Her heads, with which the rav\u2019ning monster dives In quest of dolphins, dog-fish, or of prey More bulky, such as in the roaring gulphs Of Amphitrite without end abounds. It is no seaman\u2019s boast that e\u2019er he slipp\u2019d Her cavern by, unharm\u2019d. In ev\u2019ry mouth She bears upcaught a mariner away. The other rock, Ulysses, thou shalt find Humbler, a bow-shot only from the first; 120 On this a wild fig grows broad-leav\u2019d, and here Charybdis dire ingulphs the sable flood. Each day she thrice disgorges, and each day Thrice swallows it. Ah! well forewarn\u2019d, beware What time she swallows, that thou come not nigh, For not himself, Neptune, could snatch thee thence. Close passing Scylla\u2019s rock, shoot swift thy bark Beyond it, since the loss of six alone Is better far than shipwreck made of all. So Circe spake, to whom I thus replied. 130 Tell me, O Goddess, next, and tell me true! If, chance, from fell Charybdis I escape, May I not also save from Scylla\u2019s force My people; should the monster threaten them? I said, and quick the Goddess in return. Unhappy! can exploits and toils of war Still please thee? yield\u2019st not to the Gods themselves? She is no mortal, but a deathless pest, Impracticable, savage, battle-proof. Defence is vain; flight is thy sole resource. 140 For should\u2019st thou linger putting on thy arms Beside the rock, beware, lest darting forth Her num\u2019rous heads, she seize with ev\u2019ry mouth A Greecian, and with others, even thee. Pass therefore swift, and passing, loud invoke Cratais, mother of this plague of man, Who will forbid her to assail thee more. Thou, next, shalt reach Thrinacia; there, the beeves And fatted flocks graze num\u2019rous of the Sun; Sev\u2019n herds; as many flocks of snowy fleece; 150 Fifty in each; they breed not, neither die, Nor are they kept by less than Goddesses, Lampetia fair, and Ph\u00e4ethusa, both By nymph Ne\u00e6ra to Hyperion borne. Them, soon as she had train\u2019d them to an age Proportion\u2019d to that charge, their mother sent Into Thrinacia, there to dwell and keep Inviolate their father\u2019s flocks and herds. If, anxious for a safe return, thou spare Those herds and flocks, though after much endured, 160 Ye may at last your Ithaca regain; But should\u2019st thou violate them, I foretell Destruction of thy ship and of thy crew, And though thyself escape, thou shalt return Late, in ill plight, and all thy friends destroy\u2019d. She ended, and the golden morning dawn\u2019d. Then, all-divine, her graceful steps she turn\u2019d Back through the isle, and, at the beach arrived, I summon\u2019d all my followers to ascend The bark again, and cast the hawsers loose. 170 They, at my voice, embarking, fill\u2019d in ranks The seats, and rowing, thresh\u2019d the hoary flood. And now, melodious Circe, nymph divine, Sent after us a canvas-stretching breeze, Pleasant companion of our course, and we (The decks and benches clear\u2019d) untoiling sat, While managed gales sped swift the bark along. Then, with dejected heart, thus I began. Oh friends! (for it is needful that not one Or two alone the admonition hear 180 Of Circe, beauteous prophetess divine) To all I speak, that whether we escape Or perish, all may be, at least, forewarn\u2019d. She bids us, first, avoid the dang\u2019rous song Of the sweet Sirens and their flow\u2019ry meads. Me only she permits those strains to hear; But ye shall bind me with coercion strong Of cordage well-secured to the mast-foot, And by no struggles to be loos\u2019d of mine. But should I supplicate to be released 190 Or give such order, then, with added cords Be it your part to bind me still the more. Thus with distinct precaution I prepared My people; rapid in her course, meantime, My gallant bark approach\u2019d the Sirens\u2019 isle, For brisk and favourable blew the wind. Then fell the wind suddenly, and serene A breathless calm ensued, while all around The billows slumber\u2019d, lull\u2019d by pow\u2019r divine. Up-sprang my people, and the folded sails 200 Bestowing in the hold, sat to their oars, Which with their polish\u2019d blades whiten\u2019d the Deep. I, then, with edge of steel sev\u2019ring minute A waxen cake, chafed it and moulded it Between my palms; ere long the ductile mass Grew warm, obedient to that ceaseless force, And to Hyperion\u2019s all-pervading beams. With that soft liniment I fill\u2019d the ears Of my companions, man by man, and they My feet and arms with strong coercion bound 210 Of cordage to the mast-foot well secured. Then down they sat, and, rowing, thresh\u2019d the brine. But when with rapid course we had arrived Within such distance as a voice may reach, Not unperceived by them the gliding bark Approach\u2019d, and, thus, harmonious they began. Ulysses, Chief by ev\u2019ry tongue extoll\u2019d, Achaia\u2019s boast, oh hither steer thy bark! Here stay thy course, and listen to our lay! These shores none passes in his sable ship 220 Till, first, the warblings of our voice he hear, Then, happier hence and wiser he departs. All that the Greeks endured, and all the ills Inflicted by the Gods on Troy, we know, Know all that passes on the boundless earth. So they with voices sweet their music poured Melodious on my ear, winning with ease My heart\u2019s desire to listen, and by signs I bade my people, instant, set me free. But they incumbent row\u2019d, and from their seats 230 Eurylochus and Perimedes sprang With added cords to bind me still the more. This danger past, and when the Sirens\u2019 voice, Now left remote, had lost its pow\u2019r to charm, Then, my companions freeing from the wax Their ears, deliver\u2019d me from my restraint. The island left afar, soon I discern\u2019d Huge waves, and smoke, and horrid thund\u2019rings heard. All sat aghast; forth flew at once the oars From ev\u2019ry hand, and with a clash the waves 240 Smote all together; check\u2019d, the galley stood, By billow-sweeping oars no longer urged, And I, throughout the bark, man after man Encouraged all, addressing thus my crew. We meet not, now, my friends, our first distress. This evil is not greater than we found When the huge Cyclops in his hollow den Imprison\u2019d us, yet even thence we \u2019scaped, My intrepidity and fertile thought Opening the way; and we shall recollect 250 These dangers also, in due time, with joy. Come, then\u2014pursue my counsel. Ye your seats Still occupying, smite the furrow\u2019d flood With well-timed strokes, that by the will of Jove We may escape, perchance, this death, secure. To thee the pilot thus I speak, (my words Mark thou, for at thy touch the rudder moves) This smoke, and these tumultuous waves avoid; Steer wide of both; yet with an eye intent On yonder rock, lest unaware thou hold 260 Too near a course, and plunge us into harm. So I; with whose advice all, quick, complied. But Scylla I as yet named not, (that woe Without a cure) lest, terrified, my crew Should all renounce their oars, and crowd below. Just then, forgetful of the strict command Of Circe not to arm, I cloath\u2019d me all In radiant armour, grasp\u2019d two quiv\u2019ring spears, And to the deck ascended at the prow, Expecting earliest notice there, what time 270 The rock-bred Scylla should annoy my friends. But I discern\u2019d her not, nor could, although To weariness of sight the dusky rock I vigilant explored. Thus, many a groan Heaving, we navigated sad the streight, For here stood Scylla, while Charybdis there With hoarse throat deep absorb\u2019d the briny flood. Oft as she vomited the deluge forth, Like water cauldron\u2019d o\u2019er a furious fire The whirling Deep all murmur\u2019d, and the spray 280 On both those rocky summits fell in show\u2019rs. But when she suck\u2019d the salt wave down again, Then, all the pool appear\u2019d wheeling about Within, the rock rebellow\u2019d, and the sea Drawn off into that gulph disclosed to view The oozy bottom. Us pale horror seized. Thus, dreading death, with fast-set eyes we watch\u2019d Charybdis; meantime, Scylla from the bark Caught six away, the bravest of my friends. With eyes, that moment, on my ship and crew 290 Retorted, I beheld the legs and arms Of those whom she uplifted in the air; On me they call\u2019d, my name, the last, last time Pronouncing then, in agony of heart. As when from some bold point among the rocks The angler, with his taper rod in hand, Casts forth his bait to snare the smaller fry, He swings away remote his guarded line,56 Then jerks his gasping prey forth from the Deep, So Scylla them raised gasping to the rock, 300 And at her cavern\u2019s mouth devour\u2019d them loud- Shrieking, and stretching forth to me their arms In sign of hopeless mis\u2019ry. Ne\u2019er beheld These eyes in all the seas that I have roam\u2019d, A sight so piteous, nor in all my toils. From Scylla and Charybdis dire escaped, We reach\u2019d the noble island of the Sun Ere long, where bright Hyperion\u2019s beauteous herds Broad-fronted grazed, and his well-batten\u2019d flocks. I, in the bark and on the sea, the voice 310 Of oxen bellowing in hovels heard, And of loud-bleating sheep; then dropp\u2019d the word Into my memory of the sightless Seer, Theban Tiresias, and the caution strict Of Circe, my \u00c6\u00e6an monitress, Who with such force had caution\u2019d me to avoid The island of the Sun, joy of mankind. Thus then to my companions, sad, I spake. Hear ye, my friends! although long time distress\u2019d, The words prophetic of the Theban seer 320 And of \u00c6\u00e6an Circe, whose advice Was oft repeated to me to avoid This island of the Sun, joy of mankind. There, said the Goddess, dread your heaviest woes, Pass the isle, therefore, scudding swift away. I ceased; they me with consternation heard, And harshly thus Eurylochus replied. Ulysses, ruthless Chief! no toils impair Thy strength, of senseless iron thou art form\u2019d, Who thy companions weary and o\u2019erwatch\u2019d 330 Forbidd\u2019st to disembark on this fair isle, Where now, at last, we might with ease regale. Thou, rash, command\u2019st us, leaving it afar, To roam all night the Ocean\u2019s dreary waste; But winds to ships injurious spring by night, And how shall we escape a dreadful death If, chance, a sudden gust from South arise Or stormy West, that dash in pieces oft The vessel, even in the Gods\u2019 despight? Prepare we rather now, as night enjoins, 340 Our evening fare beside the sable bark, In which at peep of day we may again Launch forth secure into the boundless flood. He ceas\u2019d, whom all applauded. Then I knew That sorrow by the will of adverse heav\u2019n Approach\u2019d, and in wing\u2019d accents thus replied. I suffer force, Eurylochus! and yield O\u2019er-ruled by numbers. Come, then, swear ye all A solemn oath, that should we find an herd Or num\u2019rous flock, none here shall either sheep 350 Or bullock slay, by appetite profane Seduced, but shall the viands eat content Which from immortal Circe we received. I spake; they readily a solemn oath Sware all, and when their oath was fully sworn, Within a creek where a fresh fountain rose They moor\u2019d the bark, and, issuing, began Brisk preparation of their evening cheer. But when nor hunger now nor thirst remain\u2019d Unsated, recollecting, then, their friends 360 By Scylla seized and at her cave devour\u2019d, They mourn\u2019d, nor ceased to mourn them, till they slept. The night\u2019s third portion come, when now the stars Had travers\u2019d the mid-sky, cloud-gath\u2019rer Jove Call\u2019d forth a vehement wind with tempest charged, Menacing earth and sea with pitchy clouds Tremendous, and the night fell dark from heav\u2019n. But when Aurora, daughter of the day, Look\u2019d rosy forth, we haled, drawn inland more, Our bark into a grot, where nymphs were wont 370 Graceful to tread the dance, or to repose. Convening there my friends, I thus began. My friends! food fails us not, but bread is yet And wine on board. Abstain we from the herds, Lest harm ensue; for ye behold the flocks And herds of a most potent God, the Sun! Whose eye and watchful ear none may elude. So saying, I sway\u2019d the gen\u2019rous minds of all. A month complete the South wind ceaseless blew, Nor other wind blew next, save East and South, 380 Yet they, while neither food nor rosy wine Fail\u2019d them, the herds harm\u2019d not, through fear to die. But, our provisions failing, they employed Whole days in search of food, snaring with hooks Birds, fishes, of what kind soe\u2019er they might. By famine urged. I solitary roam\u2019d Meantime the isle, seeking by pray\u2019r to move Some God to shew us a deliv\u2019rance thence. When, roving thus the isle, I had at length Left all my crew remote, laving my hands 390 Where shelter warm I found from the rude blast, I supplicated ev\u2019ry Pow\u2019r above; But they my pray\u2019rs answer\u2019d with slumbers soft Shed o\u2019er my eyes, and with pernicious art Eurylochus, the while, my friends harangued. My friends! afflicted as ye are, yet hear A fellow-suff\u2019rer. Death, however caused, Abhorrence moves in miserable man, But death by famine is a fate of all Most to be fear\u2019d. Come\u2014let us hither drive 400 And sacrifice to the Immortal Pow\u2019rs The best of all the oxen of the Sun, Resolving thus\u2014that soon as we shall reach Our native Ithaca, we will erect To bright Hyperion an illustrious fane, Which with magnificent and num\u2019rous gifts We will enrich. But should he chuse to sink Our vessel, for his stately beeves incensed, And should, with him, all heav\u2019n conspire our death, I rather had with open mouth, at once, 410 Meeting the billows, perish, than by slow And pining waste here in this desert isle. So spake Eurylochus, whom all approved. Then, driving all the fattest of the herd Few paces only, (for the sacred beeves Grazed rarely distant from the bark) they stood Compassing them around, and, grasping each Green foliage newly pluck\u2019d from saplings tall, (For barley none in all our bark remain\u2019d) Worshipp\u2019d the Gods in pray\u2019r. Pray\u2019r made, they slew And flay\u2019d them, and the thighs with double fat 421 Investing, spread them o\u2019er with slices crude. No wine had they with which to consecrate The blazing rites, but with libation poor Of water hallow\u2019d the interior parts. Now, when the thighs were burnt, and each had shared His portion of the maw, and when the rest All-slash\u2019d and scored hung roasting at the fire, Sleep, in that moment, suddenly my eyes Forsaking, to the shore I bent my way. 430 But ere the station of our bark I reach\u2019d, The sav\u2019ry steam greeted me. At the scent I wept aloud, and to the Gods exclaim\u2019d. Oh Jupiter, and all ye Pow\u2019rs above! With cruel sleep and fatal ye have lull\u2019d My cares to rest, such horrible offence Meantime my rash companions have devised. Then, flew long-stoled Lampetia to the Sun At once with tidings of his slaughter\u2019d beeves, And he, incensed, the Immortals thus address\u2019d. 440 Jove, and ye everlasting Pow\u2019rs divine! Avenge me instant on the crew profane Of Laertiades; Ulysses\u2019 friends Have dared to slay my beeves, which I with joy Beheld, both when I climb\u2019d the starry heav\u2019ns, And when to earth I sloped my \u201cwestring wheels,\u201d But if they yield me not amercement due And honourable for my loss, to Hell I will descend and give the ghosts my beams. Then, thus the cloud-assembler God replied. 450 Sun! shine thou still on the Immortal Pow\u2019rs, And on the teeming earth, frail man\u2019s abode. My candent bolts can in a moment reach And split their flying bark in the mid-sea. These things Calypso told me, taught, herself, By herald Hermes, as she oft affirm\u2019d. But when, descending to the shore, I reach\u2019d At length my bark, with aspect stern and tone I reprimanded them, yet no redress Could frame, or remedy\u2014the beeves were dead. 460 Soon follow\u2019d signs portentous sent from heav\u2019n. The skins all crept, and on the spits the flesh Both roast and raw bellow\u2019d, as with the voice Of living beeves. Thus my devoted friends Driving the fattest oxen of the Sun, Feasted six days entire; but when the sev\u2019nth By mandate of Saturnian Jove appeared, The storm then ceased to rage, and we, again Embarking, launch\u2019d our galley, rear\u2019d the mast, And gave our unfurl\u2019d canvas to the wind. 470 The island left afar, and other land Appearing none, but sky alone and sea, Right o\u2019er the hollow bark Saturnian Jove Hung a c\u00e6rulean cloud, dark\u2019ning the Deep. Not long my vessel ran, for, blowing wild, Now came shrill Zephyrus; a stormy gust Snapp\u2019d sheer the shrouds on both sides; backward fell The mast, and with loose tackle strew\u2019d the hold; Striking the pilot in the stern, it crush\u2019d His scull together; he a diver\u2019s plunge 480 Made downward, and his noble spirit fled. Meantime, Jove thund\u2019ring, hurl\u2019d into the ship His bolts; she, smitten by the fires of Jove, Quaked all her length; with sulphur fill\u2019d she reek\u2019d, And o\u2019er her sides headlong my people plunged Like sea-mews, interdicted by that stroke Of wrath divine to hope their country more. But I, the vessel still paced to and fro, Till, fever\u2019d by the boist\u2019rous waves, her sides Forsook the keel now left to float alone. 490 Snapp\u2019d where it join\u2019d the keel the mast had fall\u2019n, But fell encircled with a leathern brace, Which it retain\u2019d; binding with this the mast And keel together, on them both I sat, Borne helpless onward by the dreadful gale. And now the West subsided, and the South Arose instead, with mis\u2019ry charged for me, That I might measure back my course again To dire Charybdis. All night long I drove, And when the sun arose, at Scylla\u2019s rock 500 Once more, and at Charybdis\u2019 gulph arrived. It was the time when she absorb\u2019d profound The briny flood, but by a wave upborne I seized the branches fast of the wild-fig.57 To which, bat-like, I clung; yet where to fix My foot secure found not, or where to ascend, For distant lay the roots, and distant shot The largest arms erect into the air, O\u2019ershadowing all Charybdis; therefore hard I clench\u2019d the boughs, till she disgorg\u2019d again 510 Both keel and mast. Not undesired by me They came, though late; for at what hour the judge, After decision made of num\u2019rous strifes58 Between young candidates for honour, leaves The forum for refreshment\u2019 sake at home, Then was it that the mast and keel emerged. Deliver\u2019d to a voluntary fall, Fast by those beams I dash\u2019d into the flood, And seated on them both, with oary palms Impell\u2019d them; nor the Sire of Gods and men 520 Permitted Scylla to discern me more, Else had I perish\u2019d by her fangs at last. Nine days I floated thence, and, on the tenth Dark night, the Gods convey\u2019d me to the isle Ogygia, habitation of divine Calypso, by whose hospitable aid And assiduity, my strength revived. But wherefore this? ye have already learn\u2019d That hist\u2019ry, thou and thy illustrious spouse; I told it yesterday, and hate a tale 530 Once amply told, then, needless, traced again.\n\n\n\n56 They passed the line through a pipe of horn, to secure it against the fishes\u2019 bite.\n\n\n57 See line 120.\n\n\n58 He had therefore held by the fig-tree from sunrise till afternoon.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK XIII\nARGUMENT\nUlysses, having finished his narrative, and received additional presents from the Ph\u00e6acians, embarks; he is conveyed in his sleep to Ithaca, and in his sleep is landed on that island. The ship that carried him is in her return transformed by Neptune to a rock.\nMinerva meets him on the shore, enables him to recollect his country, which, till enlightened by her, he believed to be a country strange to him, and they concert together the means of destroying the suitors. The Goddess then repairs to Sparta to call thence Telemachus, and Ulysses, by her aid disguised like a beggar, proceeds towards the cottage of Eum\u00e6us.\n\nHe ceas\u2019d; the whole assembly silent sat, Charm\u2019d into ecstacy with his discourse Throughout the twilight hall. Then, thus the King. Ulysses, since beneath my brazen dome Sublime thou hast arrived, like woes, I trust, Thou shalt not in thy voyage hence sustain By tempests tost, though much to woe inured. To you, who daily in my presence quaff Your princely meed of gen\u2019rous wine and hear The sacred bard, my pleasure, thus I speak. 10 The robes, wrought gold, and all the other gifts To this our guest, by the Ph\u00e6acian Chiefs Brought hither in the sumptuous coffer lie. But come\u2014present ye to the stranger, each, An ample tripod also, with a vase Of smaller size, for which we will be paid By public impost; for the charge of all Excessive were by one alone defray\u2019d. So spake Alcino\u00fcs, and his counsel pleased; Then, all retiring, sought repose at home. 20 But when Aurora, daughter of the dawn, Look\u2019d rosy forth, each hasted to the bark With his illustrious present, which the might Of King Alcino\u00fcs, who himself her sides Ascended, safe beneath the seats bestowed, Lest it should harm or hinder, while he toil\u2019d In rowing, some Ph\u00e6acian of the crew. The palace of Alcino\u00fcs seeking next, Together, they prepared a new regale. For them, in sacrifice, the sacred might59 30 Of King Alcino\u00fcs slew an ox to Jove Saturnian, cloud-girt governor of all. The thighs with fire prepared, all glad partook The noble feast; meantime, the bard divine Sang, sweet Demodocus, the people\u2019s joy. But oft Ulysses to the radiant sun Turn\u2019d wistful eyes, anxious for his decline, Nor longer, now, patient of dull delay. As when some hungry swain whose sable beeves Have through the fallow dragg\u2019d his pond\u2019rous plow 40 All day, the setting sun views with delight For supper\u2019 sake, which with tir\u2019d feet he seeks, So welcome to Ulysses\u2019 eyes appear\u2019d The sun-set of that eve; directing, then, His speech to maritime Ph\u00e6acia\u2019s sons, But to Alcino\u00fcs chiefly, thus he said. Alcino\u00fcs, o\u2019er Ph\u00e6acia\u2019s realm supreme! Libation made, dismiss ye me in peace, And farewell all! for what I wish\u2019d, I have, Conductors hence, and honourable gifts 50 With which heav\u2019n prosper me! and may the Gods Vouchsafe to me, at my return, to find All safe, my spotless consort and my friends! May ye, whom here I leave, gladden your wives And see your children blest, and may the pow\u2019rs Immortal with all good enrich you all, And from calamity preserve the land! He ended, they unanimous, his speech Applauded loud, and bade dismiss the guest Who had so wisely spoken and so well. 60 Then thus Alcino\u00fcs to his herald spake. Pontono\u00fcs! charging high the beaker, bear To ev\u2019ry guest beneath our roof the wine, That, pray\u2019r preferr\u2019d to the eternal Sire, We may dismiss our inmate to his home. Then, bore Pontono\u00fcs to ev\u2019ry guest The brimming cup; they, where they sat, perform\u2019d Libation due; but the illustrious Chief Ulysses, from his seat arising, placed A massy goblet in Areta\u2019s hand, 70 To whom in accents wing\u2019d, grateful, he said. Farewell, O Queen, a long farewell, till age Arrive, and death, the appointed lot of all! I go; but be this people, and the King Alcino\u00fcs, and thy progeny, thy joy Yet many a year beneath this glorious roof! So saying, the Hero through the palace-gate Issued, whom, by Alcino\u00fcs\u2019 command, The royal herald to his vessel led. Three maidens also of Areta\u2019s train 80 His steps attended; one, the robe well-bleach\u2019d And tunic bore; the corded coffer, one; And food the third, with wine of crimson hue. Arriving where the galley rode, each gave Her charge to some brave mariner on board, And all was safely stow\u2019d. Meantime were spread Linen and arras on the deck astern, For his secure repose. And now the Chief Himself embarking, silent lay\u2019d him down. Then, ev\u2019ry rower to his bench repair\u2019d; 90 They drew the loosen\u2019d cable from its hold In the drill\u2019d rock, and, resupine, at once With lusty strokes upturn\u2019d the flashing waves. His eye-lids, soon, sleep, falling as a dew, Closed fast, death\u2019s simular, in sight the same. She, as four harness\u2019d stallions o\u2019er the plain Shooting together at the scourge\u2019s stroke, Toss high their manes, and rapid scour along, So mounted she the waves, while dark the flood Roll\u2019d after her of the resounding Deep. 100 Steady she ran and safe, passing in speed The falcon, swiftest of the fowls of heav\u2019n; With such rapidity she cut the waves, An hero bearing like the Gods above In wisdom, one familiar long with woe In fight sustain\u2019d, and on the perilous flood, Though sleeping now serenely, and resign\u2019d To sweet oblivion of all sorrow past. The brightest star of heav\u2019n, precursor chief Of day-spring, now arose, when at the isle 110 (Her voyage soon perform\u2019d) the bark arrived. There is a port sacred in Ithaca To Phorcys, hoary ancient of the Deep, Form\u2019d by converging shores, prominent both And both abrupt, which from the spacious bay Exclude all boist\u2019rous winds; within it, ships (The port once gain\u2019d) uncabled ride secure. An olive, at the haven\u2019s head, expands Her branches wide, near to a pleasant cave Umbrageous, to the nymphs devoted named 120 The Naiads. In that cave beakers of stone And jars are seen; bees lodge their honey there; And there, on slender spindles of the rock The nymphs of rivers weave their wond\u2019rous robes. Perennial springs water it, and it shows A twofold entrance; ingress one affords To mortal man, which Northward looks direct, But holier is the Southern far; by that No mortal enters, but the Gods alone. Familiar with that port before, they push\u2019d 130 The vessel in; she, rapid, plow\u2019d the sands With half her keel, such rowers urged her on. Descending from the well-bench\u2019d bark ashore, They lifted forth Ulysses first, with all His splendid couch complete, then, lay\u2019d him down Still wrapt in balmy slumber on the sands. His treasures, next, by the Ph\u00e6acian Chiefs At his departure given him as the meed Due to his wisdom, at the olive\u2019s foot They heap\u2019d, without the road, lest, while he slept 140 Some passing traveller should rifle them. Then homeward thence they sped. Nor Ocean\u2019s God His threats forgot denounced against divine Ulysses, but with Jove thus first advised. Eternal Sire! I shall no longer share Respect and reverence among the Gods, Since, now, Ph\u00e6acia\u2019s mortal race have ceas\u2019d To honour me, though from myself derived. It was my purpose, that by many an ill Harass\u2019d, Ulysses should have reach\u2019d his home, 150 Although to intercept him, whose return Thyself had promis\u2019d, ne\u2019er was my intent. But him fast-sleeping swiftly o\u2019er the waves They have conducted, and have set him down In Ithaca, with countless gifts enrich\u2019d, With brass, and tissued raiment, and with gold; Much treasure! more than he had home convey\u2019d Even had he arrived with all his share Allotted to him of the spoils of Troy. To whom the cloud-assembler God replied. 160 What hast thou spoken, Shaker of the shores, Wide-ruling Neptune? Fear not; thee the Gods Will ne\u2019er despise; dangerous were the deed To cast dishonour on a God by birth More ancient, and more potent far than they. But if, profanely rash, a mortal man Should dare to slight thee, to avenge the wrong Some future day is ever in thy pow\u2019r. Accomplish all thy pleasure, thou art free. Him answer\u2019d, then, the Shaker of the shores. 170 Jove cloud-enthroned! that pleasure I would soon Perform, as thou hast said, but that I watch Thy mind continual, fearful to offend. My purpose is, now to destroy amid The dreary Deep yon fair Ph\u00e6acian bark, Return\u2019d from safe conveyance of her freight; So shall they waft such wand\u2019rers home no more, And she shall hide their city, to a rock Transform\u2019d of mountainous o\u2019ershadowing size. Him, then, Jove answer\u2019d, gath\u2019rer of the clouds. 180 Perform it, O my brother, and the deed Thus done, shall best be done\u2014What time the people Shall from the city her approach descry, Fix her to stone transform\u2019d, but still in shape A gallant bark, near to the coast, that all May wonder, seeing her transform\u2019d to stone Of size to hide their city from the view. These words once heard, the Shaker of the shores Instant to Scheria, maritime abode Of the Ph\u00e6acians, went. Arrived, he watch\u2019d. 190 And now the flying bark full near approach\u2019d, When Neptune, meeting her, with out-spread palm Depress\u2019d her at a stroke, and she became Deep-rooted stone. Then Neptune went his way. Ph\u00e6acia\u2019s ship-ennobled sons meantime Conferring stood, and thus, in accents wing\u2019d, Th\u2019 amazed spectator to his fellow spake. Ah! who hath sudden check\u2019d the vessel\u2019s course Homeward? this moment she was all in view. Thus they, unconscious of the cause, to whom 200 Alcino\u00fcs, instructing them, replied. Ye Gods! a prophecy now strikes my mind With force, my father\u2019s. He was wont to say\u2014 Neptune resents it, that we safe conduct Natives of ev\u2019ry region to their home. He also spake, prophetic, of a day When a Ph\u00e6acian gallant bark, return\u2019d After conveyance of a stranger hence, Should perish in the dreary Deep, and changed To a huge mountain, cover all the town. 210 So spake my father, all whose words we see This day fulfill\u2019d. Thus, therefore, act we all Unanimous; henceforth no longer bear The stranger home, when such shall here arrive; And we will sacrifice, without delay, Twelve chosen bulls to Neptune, if, perchance, He will commiserate us, and forbear To hide our town behind a mountain\u2019s height. He spake, they, terrified, the bulls prepared. Thus all Ph\u00e6acia\u2019s Senators and Chiefs 220 His altar compassing, in pray\u2019r adored The Ocean\u2019s God. Meantime, Ulysses woke, Unconscious where; stretch\u2019d on his native soil He lay, and knew it not, long-time exiled. For Pallas, progeny of Jove, a cloud Drew dense around him, that, ere yet agnized By others, he might wisdom learn from her, Neither to citizens, nor yet to friends Reveal\u2019d, nor even to his own espoused, Till, first, he should avenge complete his wrongs 230 Domestic from those suitors proud sustained. All objects, therefore, in the Hero\u2019s eyes Seem\u2019d alien, foot-paths long, commodious ports, Heav\u2019n-climbing rocks, and trees of amplest growth. Arising, fixt he stood, his native soil Contemplating, till with expanded palms Both thighs he smote, and, plaintive, thus began. Ah me! what mortal race inhabits here? Rude are they, contumacious and unjust, Or hospitable, and who fear the Gods? 240 Where now shall I secrete these num\u2019rous stores? Where wander I, myself? I would that still Ph\u00e6acians own\u2019d them, and I had arrived In the dominions of some other King Magnanimous, who would have entertain\u2019d And sent me to my native home secure! Now, neither know I where to place my wealth, Nor can I leave it here, lest it become Another\u2019s prey. Alas! Ph\u00e6acia\u2019s Chiefs Not altogether wise I deem or just, 250 Who have misplaced me in another land, Promis\u2019d to bear me to the pleasant shores Of Ithaca, but have not so perform\u2019d. Jove, guardian of the suppliant\u2019s rights, who all Transgressors marks, and punishes all wrong, Avenge me on the treach\u2019rous race!\u2014but hold\u2014 I will revise my stores, so shall I know If they have left me here of aught despoiled. So saying, he number\u2019d carefully the gold, The vases, tripods bright, and tissued robes, 260 But nothing miss\u2019d of all. Then he bewail\u2019d His native isle, with pensive steps and slow Pacing the border of the billowy flood, Forlorn; but while he wept, Pallas approach\u2019d, In form a shepherd stripling, girlish fair In feature, such as are the sons of Kings; A sumptuous mantle o\u2019er his shoulders hung Twice-folded, sandals his nice feet upbore, And a smooth javelin glitter\u2019d in his hand. Ulysses, joyful at the sight, his steps 270 Turn\u2019d brisk toward her, whom he thus address\u2019d. Sweet youth! since thee, of all mankind, I first Encounter in this land unknown, all hail! Come not with purposes of harm to me! These save, and save me also. I prefer To thee, as to some God, my pray\u2019r, and clasp Thy knees a suppliant. Say, and tell me true, What land? what people? who inhabit here? Is this some isle delightful, or a shore Of fruitful main-land sloping to the sea? 280 Then Pallas, thus, Goddess c\u00e6rulean-eyed. Stranger! thou sure art simple, or hast dwelt Far distant hence, if of this land thou ask. It is not, trust me, of so little note, But known to many, both to those who dwell Toward the sun-rise, and to others placed Behind it, distant in the dusky West. Rugged it is, not yielding level course To the swift steed, and yet no barren spot, However small, but rich in wheat and wine; 290 Nor wants it rain or fertilising dew, But pasture green to goats and beeves affords, Trees of all kinds, and fountains never dry. Ithaca therefore, stranger, is a name Known ev\u2019n at Troy, a city, by report, At no small distance from Achaia\u2019s shore. The Goddess ceased; then, toil-enduring Chief Ulysses, happy in his native land, (So taught by Pallas, progeny of Jove) In accents wing\u2019d her answ\u2019ring, utter\u2019d prompt 300 Not truth, but figments to truth opposite, For guile, in him, stood never at a pause. O\u2019er yonder flood, even in spacious Crete60 I heard of Ithaca, where now, it seems, I have, myself, with these my stores arrived; Not richer stores than, flying thence, I left To my own children; for from Crete I fled For slaughter of Orsilochus the swift, Son of Idomeneus, whom none in speed Could equal throughout all that spacious isle. 310 His purpose was to plunder me of all My Trojan spoils, which to obtain, much woe I had in battle and by storms endured, For that I would not gratify his Sire, Fighting beside him in the fields of Troy, But led a diff\u2019rent band. Him from the field Returning homeward, with my brazen spear I smote, in ambush waiting his return At the road-side, with a confed\u2019rate friend. Unwonted darkness over all the heav\u2019ns 320 That night prevailed, nor any eye of man Observed us, but, unseen, I slew the youth. No sooner, then, with my sharp spear of life I had bereft him, than I sought a ship Mann\u2019d by renown\u2019d Ph\u00e6acians, whom with gifts Part of my spoils, and by requests, I won. I bade them land me on the Pylian shore, Or in fair Elis by th\u2019 Epeans ruled, But they, reluctant, were by violent winds Driv\u2019n devious thence, for fraud they purposed none. 330 Thus through constraint we here arrived by night, And with much difficulty push\u2019d the ship Into safe harbour, nor was mention made Of food by any, though all needed food, But, disembark\u2019d in haste, on shore we lay. I, weary, slept profound, and they my goods Forth heaving from the bark, beside me placed The treasures on the sea-beach where I slept, Then, reimbarking, to the populous coast Steer\u2019d of Sidonia, and me left forlorn. 340 He ceased; then smiled Minerva azure-eyed And stroaked his cheek, in form a woman now, Beauteous, majestic, in all elegant arts Accomplish\u2019d, and with accents wing\u2019d replied. Who passes thee in artifice well-framed And in imposture various, need shall find Of all his policy, although a God. Canst thou not cease, inventive as thou art And subtle, from the wiles which thou hast lov\u2019d Since thou wast infant, and from tricks of speech 350 Delusive, even in thy native land? But come, dismiss we these ingenious shifts From our discourse, in which we both excel; For thou of all men in expedients most Abound\u2019st and eloquence, and I, throughout All heav\u2019n have praise for wisdom and for art. And know\u2019st thou not thine Athen\u00e6an aid, Pallas, Jove\u2019s daughter, who in all thy toils Assist thee and defend? I gave thee pow\u2019r T\u2019 engage the hearts of all Ph\u00e6acia\u2019s sons, 360 And here arrive ev\u2019n now, counsels to frame Discrete with thee, and to conceal the stores Giv\u2019n to thee by the rich Ph\u00e6acian Chiefs On my suggestion, at thy going thence. I will inform thee also what distress And hardship under thy own palace-roof Thou must endure; which, since constraint enjoins, Bear patiently, and neither man apprize Nor woman that thou hast arrived forlorn And vagabond, but silent undergo 370 What wrongs soever from the hands of men. To whom Ulysses, ever-wise, replied. O Goddess! thou art able to elude, Wherever met, the keenest eye of man, For thou all shapes assum\u2019st; yet this I know Certainly, that I ever found thee kind, Long as Achaia\u2019s Heroes fought at Troy; But when (the lofty tow\u2019rs of Priam laid In dust) we re-embark\u2019d, and by the will Of heav\u2019n Achaia\u2019s fleet was scatter\u2019d wide, 380 Thenceforth, O daughter wise of Jove, I thee Saw not, nor thy appearance in my ship Once mark\u2019d, to rid me of my num\u2019rous woes, But always bearing in my breast a heart With anguish riv\u2019n, I roam\u2019d, till by the Gods Relieved at length, and till with gracious words Thyself didst in Ph\u00e6acia\u2019s opulent land Confirm my courage, and becam\u2019st my guide. But I adjure thee in thy father\u2019s name\u2014 O tell me truly, (for I cannot hope 390 That I have reach\u2019d fair Ithaca; I tread Some other soil, and thou affirm\u2019st it mine To mock me merely, and deceive) oh say\u2014 Am I in Ithaca? in truth, at home? Thus then Minerva the c\u00e6rulean-eyed. Such caution in thy breast always prevails Distrustful; but I know thee eloquent, With wisdom and with ready thought endued, And cannot leave thee, therefore, thus distress\u2019d For what man, save Ulysses, new-return\u2019d 400 After long wand\u2019rings, would not pant to see At once his home, his children, and his wife? But thou preferr\u2019st neither to know nor ask Concerning them, till some experience first Thou make of her whose wasted youth is spent In barren solitude, and who in tears Ceaseless her nights and woeful days consumes. I ne\u2019er was ignorant, but well foreknew That not till after loss of all thy friends Thou should\u2019st return; but loth I was to oppose 410 Neptune, my father\u2019s brother, sore incensed For his son\u2019s sake deprived of sight by thee. But, I will give thee proof\u2014come now\u2014survey These marks of Ithaca, and be convinced. This is the port of Phorcys, sea-born sage; That, the huge olive at the haven\u2019s head; Fast by it, thou behold\u2019st the pleasant cove Umbrageous, to the nymphs devoted named The Naiads; this the broad-arch\u2019d cavern is Where thou wast wont to offer to the nymphs 420 Many a whole hecatomb; and yonder stands The mountain Neritus with forests cloath\u2019d. So saying, the Goddess scatter\u2019d from before His eyes all darkness, and he knew the land. Then felt Ulysses, Hero toil-inured, Transport unutterable, seeing plain Once more his native isle. He kiss\u2019d the glebe, And with uplifted hands the nymphs ador\u2019d. Nymphs, Naiads, Jove\u2019s own daughters! I despair\u2019d To see you more, whom yet with happy vows 430 I now can hail again. Gifts, as of old, We will hereafter at your shrines present, If Jove-born Pallas, huntress of the spoils, Grant life to me, and manhood to my son. Then Pallas, blue-eyed progeny of Jove. Take courage; trouble not thy mind with thoughts Now needless. Haste\u2014delay not\u2014far within This hallow\u2019d cave\u2019s recess place we at once Thy precious stores, that they may thine remain, Then muse together on thy wisest course. 440 So saying, the Goddess enter\u2019d deep the cave Caliginous, and its secret nooks explored From side to side; meantime, Ulysses brought All his stores into it, the gold, the brass, And robes magnificent, his gifts received From the Ph\u00e6acians; safe he lodg\u2019d them all, And Pallas, daughter of Jove \u00c6gis-arm\u2019d, Closed fast, herself, the cavern with a stone. Then, on the consecrated olive\u2019s root Both seated, they in consultation plann\u2019d 450 The deaths of those injurious suitors proud, And Pallas, blue-eyed Goddess, thus began. Laertes\u2019 noble son, Ulysses! think By what means likeliest thou shalt assail Those shameless suitors, who have now controuled Three years thy family, thy matchless wife With language amorous and with spousal gifts Urging importunate; but she, with tears Watching thy wish\u2019d return, hope gives to all By messages of promise sent to each, 460 Framing far other purposes the while. Then answer thus Ulysses wise return\u2019d. Ah, Agamemnon\u2019s miserable fate Had surely met me in my own abode, But for thy gracious warning, pow\u2019r divine! Come then\u2014Devise the means; teach me, thyself, The way to vengeance, and my soul inspire With daring fortitude, as when we loos\u2019d Her radiant frontlet from the brows of Troy. Would\u2019st thou with equal zeal, O Pallas! aid 470 Thy servant here, I would encounter thrice An hundred enemies, let me but perceive Thy dread divinity my prompt ally. Him answer\u2019d then Pallas c\u00e6rulean-eyed. And such I will be; not unmark\u2019d by me, (Let once our time of enterprize arrive) Shalt thou assail them. Many, as I judge, Of those proud suitors who devour thy wealth Shall leave their brains, then, on thy palace floor. But come. Behold! I will disguise thee so 480 That none shall know thee! I will parch the skin On thy fair body; I will cause thee shed Thy wavy locks; I will enfold thee round In such a kirtle as the eyes of all Shall loath to look on; and I will deform With blurring rheums thy eyes, so vivid erst; So shall the suitors deem thee, and thy wife, And thy own son whom thou didst leave at home, Some sordid wretch obscure. But seek thou first Thy swine-herd\u2019s mansion; he, alike, intends 490 Thy good, and loves, affectionate, thy son And thy Penelope; thou shalt find the swain Tending his herd; they feed beneath the rock Corax, at side of Arethusa\u2019s fount, On acorns dieted, nutritious food To them, and drinking of the limpid stream. There waiting, question him of thy concerns, While I from Sparta praised for women fair Call home thy son Telemachus, a guest With Menelaus now, whom to consult 500 In spacious Laced\u00e6mon he is gone, Anxious to learn if yet his father lives. To whom Ulysses, ever-wise, replied. And why, alas! all-knowing as thou art, Him left\u2019st thou ignorant? was it that he, He also, wand\u2019ring wide the barren Deep, Might suffer woe, while these devour his wealth? Him answer\u2019d then Pallas c\u00e6rulean-eyed. Grieve thou not much for him. I sent him forth Myself, that there arrived, he might acquire 510 Honour and fame. No suff\u2019rings finds he there, But in Atrides\u2019 palace safe resides, Enjoying all abundance. Him, in truth, The suitors watch close ambush\u2019d on the Deep, Intent to slay him ere he reach his home, But shall not as I judge, till of themselves The earth hide some who make thee, now, a prey. So saying, the Goddess touch\u2019d him with a wand. At once o\u2019er all his agile limbs she parch\u2019d The polish\u2019d skin; she wither\u2019d to the root 520 His wavy locks; and cloath\u2019d him with the hide Deform\u2019d of wrinkled age; she charged with rheums His eyes before so vivid, and a cloak And kirtle gave him, tatter\u2019d, both, and foul, And smutch\u2019d with smoak; then, casting over all An huge old deer-skin bald, with a long staff She furnish\u2019d him, and with a wallet patch\u2019d On all sides, dangling by a twisted thong. Thus all their plan adjusted, diff\u2019rent ways They took, and she, seeking Ulysses\u2019 son, 530 To Laced\u00e6mon\u2019s spacious realm repair\u2019d.\n\n\n\n59 \u1f39\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd \u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u0391\u03bb\u03ba\u03b9\u03bd\u03bf\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf.\n\n\n60 Homer dates all the fictions of Ulysses from Crete, as if he meant to pass a similar censure on the Cretans to that quoted by St. Paul\u2014\u03ba\u03c1\u03b7\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2 \u03b1\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c8\u03b5\u03c5\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK XIV\nARGUMENT\nUlysses arriving at the house of Eum\u00e6us, is hospitably entertained, and spends the night there.\n\nLeaving the haven-side, he turn\u2019d his steps Into a rugged path, which over hills Mantled with trees led him to the abode By Pallas mention\u2019d of his noble friend61 The swine-herd, who of all Ulysses\u2019 train Watch\u2019d with most diligence his rural stores. Him sitting in the vestibule he found Of his own airy lodge commodious, built Amidst a level lawn. That structure neat Eum\u00e6us, in the absence of his Lord, 10 Had raised, himself, with stones from quarries hewn, Unaided by Laertes or the Queen. With tangled thorns he fenced it safe around, And with contiguous stakes riv\u2019n from the trunks Of solid oak black-grain\u2019d hemm\u2019d it without. Twelve penns he made within, all side by side, Lairs for his swine, and fast-immured in each Lay fifty pregnant females on the floor. The males all slept without, less num\u2019rous far, Thinn\u2019d by the princely wooers at their feasts 20 Continual, for to them he ever sent The fattest of his saginated charge. Three hundred, still, and sixty brawns remained. Four mastiffs in adjoining kennels lay, Resembling wild-beasts nourish\u2019d at the board Of the illustrious steward of the styes. Himself sat fitting sandals to his feet, Carved from a stain\u2019d ox-hide. Four hinds he kept, Now busied here and there; three in the penns Were occupied; meantime, the fourth had sought 30 The city, whither, for the suitors\u2019 use, With no good will, but by constraint, he drove A boar, that, sacrificing to the Gods, Th\u2019 imperious guests might on his flesh regale. Soon as those clamorous watch-dogs the approach Saw of Ulysses, baying loud, they ran Toward him; he, as ever, well-advised, Squatted, and let his staff fall from his hand. Yet foul indignity he had endured Ev\u2019n there, at his own farm, but that the swain, 40 Following his dogs in haste, sprang through the porch To his assistance, letting fall the hide. With chiding voice and vollied stones he soon Drove them apart, and thus his Lord bespake. Old man! one moment more, and these my dogs Had, past doubt, worried thee, who should\u2019st have proved, So slain, a source of obloquy to me. But other pangs the Gods, and other woes To me have giv\u2019n, who here lamenting sit My godlike master, and his fatted swine 50 Nourish for others\u2019 use, while he, perchance, A wand\u2019rer in some foreign city, seeks Fit sustenance, and none obtains, if still Indeed he live, and view the light of day. But, old friend! follow me into the house, That thou, at least, with plenteous food refresh\u2019d, And cheer\u2019d with wine sufficient, may\u2019st disclose Both who thou art, and all that thou hast borne. So saying, the gen\u2019rous swine-herd introduced Ulysses, and thick bundles spread of twigs 60 Beneath him, cover\u2019d with the shaggy skin Of a wild goat, of which he made his couch Easy and large; the Hero, so received, Rejoiced, and thus his gratitude express\u2019d. Jove grant thee and the Gods above, my host, For such beneficence thy chief desire! To whom, Eum\u00e6us, thou didst thus reply. My guest! I should offend, treating with scorn The stranger, though a poorer should arrive Than ev\u2019n thyself; for all the poor that are, 70 And all the strangers are the care of Jove. Little, and with good will, is all that lies Within my scope; no man can much expect From servants living in continual fear Under young masters; for the Gods, no doubt, Have intercepted my own Lord\u2019s return, From whom great kindness I had, else, received, With such a recompense as servants gain From gen\u2019rous masters, house and competence, And lovely wife from many a wooer won, 80 Whose industry should have requited well His goodness, with such blessing from the Gods As now attends me in my present charge. Much had I, therefore, prosper\u2019d, had my Lord Grown old at home; but he hath died\u2014I would That the whole house of Helen, one and all, Might perish too, for she hath many slain Who, like my master, went glory to win For Agamemnon in the fields of Troy. So saying, he girdled, quick, his tunic close, 90 And, issuing, sought the styes; thence bringing two Of the imprison\u2019d herd, he slaughter\u2019d both, Singed them, and slash\u2019d and spitted them, and placed The whole well-roasted banquet, spits and all, Reeking before Ulysses; last, with flour He sprinkled them, and filling with rich wine His ivy goblet, to his master sat Opposite, whom inviting thus he said. Now, eat, my guest! such as a servant may I set before thee, neither large of growth 100 Nor fat; the fatted\u2014those the suitors eat, Fearless of heav\u2019n, and pitiless of man. Yet deeds unjust as theirs the blessed Gods Love not; they honour equity and right. Even an hostile band when they invade A foreign shore, which by consent of Jove They plunder, and with laden ships depart, Even they with terrours quake of wrath divine. But these are wiser; these must sure have learn\u2019d From some true oracle my master\u2019s death, 110 Who neither deign with decency to woo, Nor yet to seek their homes, but boldly waste His substance, shameless, now, and sparing nought. Jove ne\u2019er hath giv\u2019n us yet the night or day When with a single victim, or with two They would content them, and his empty jars Witness how fast the squand\u2019rers use his wine. Time was, when he was rich indeed; such wealth No Hero own\u2019d on yonder continent, Nor yet in Ithaca; no twenty Chiefs 120 Could match with all their treasures his alone; I tell thee their amount. Twelve herds of his The mainland graze;62 as many flocks of sheep; As many droves of swine; and hirelings there And servants of his own seed for his use, As many num\u2019rous flocks of goats; his goats, (Not fewer than eleven num\u2019rous flocks) Here also graze the margin of his fields Under the eye of servants well-approved, And ev\u2019ry servant, ev\u2019ry day, brings home 130 The goat, of all his flock largest and best. But as for me, I have these swine in charge, Of which, selected with exactest care From all the herd, I send the prime to them. He ceas\u2019d, meantime Ulysses ate and drank Voracious, meditating, mute, the death Of those proud suitors. His repast, at length, Concluded, and his appetite sufficed, Eum\u00e6us gave him, charged with wine, the cup From which he drank himself; he, glad, received 140 The boon, and in wing\u2019d accents thus began. My friend, and who was he, wealthy and brave As thou describ\u2019st the Chief, who purchased thee? Thou say\u2019st he perish\u2019d for the glory-sake Of Agamemnon. Name him; I, perchance, May have beheld the Hero. None can say But Jove and the inhabitants of heav\u2019n That I ne\u2019er saw him, and may not impart News of him; I have roam\u2019d through many a clime. To whom the noble swine-herd thus replied. 150 Alas, old man! no trav\u2019ler\u2019s tale of him Will gain his consort\u2019s credence, or his son\u2019s; For wand\u2019rers, wanting entertainment, forge Falsehoods for bread, and wilfully deceive. No wand\u2019rer lands in Ithaca, but he seeks With feign\u2019d intelligence my mistress\u2019 ear; She welcomes all, and while she questions each Minutely, from her lids lets fall the tear Affectionate, as well beseems a wife Whose mate hath perish\u2019d in a distant land. 160 Thou could\u2019st thyself, no doubt, my hoary friend! (Would any furnish thee with decent vest And mantle) fabricate a tale with ease; Yet sure it is that dogs and fowls, long since, His skin have stript, or fishes of the Deep Have eaten him, and on some distant shore Whelm\u2019d in deep sands his mould\u2019ring bones are laid. So hath he perish\u2019d; whence, to all his friends, But chiefly to myself, sorrow of heart; For such another Lord, gentle as he, 170 Wherever sought, I have no hope to find, Though I should wander even to the house Of my own father. Neither yearns my heart So feelingly (though that desiring too) To see once more my parents and my home, As to behold Ulysses yet again. Ah stranger; absent as he is, his name Fills me with rev\u2019rence, for he lov\u2019d me much, Cared for me much, and, though we meet no more, Holds still an elder brother\u2019s part in me. 180 Him answer\u2019d, then, the Hero toil-inured. My friend! since his return, in thy account, Is an event impossible, and thy mind Always incredulous that hope rejects, I shall not slightly speak, but with an oath\u2014 Ulysses comes again; and I demand No more, than that the boon such news deserves, Be giv\u2019n me soon as he shall reach his home. Then give me vest and mantle fit to wear, Which, ere that hour, much as I need them both, 190 I neither ask, nor will accept from thee. For him whom poverty can force aside From truth\u2014I hate him as the gates of hell. Be Jove, of all in heav\u2019n, my witness first, Then, this thy hospitable board, and, last, The household Gods of the illustrious Chief Himself, Ulysses, to whose gates I go, That all my words shall surely be fulfill\u2019d. In this same year Ulysses shall arrive, Ere, this month closed, another month succeed, 200 He shall return, and punish all who dare Insult his consort and his noble son. To whom Eum\u00e6us, thou didst thus reply. Old friend! that boon thou wilt ne\u2019er earn from me; Ulysses comes no more. But thou thy wine Drink quietly, and let us find, at length, Some other theme; recall not this again To my remembrance, for my soul is grieved Oft as reminded of my honour\u2019d Lord. Let the oath rest, and let Ulysses come 210 Ev\u2019n as myself, and as Penelope, And as his ancient father, and his son Godlike Telemachus, all wish he may. Ay\u2014there I feel again\u2014nor cease to mourn His son Telemachus; who, when the Gods Had giv\u2019n him growth like a young plant, and I Well hoped that nought inferior he should prove In person or in mind to his own sire, Hath lost, through influence human or divine, I know not how, his sober intellect, 220 And after tidings of his sire is gone To far-famed Pylus; his return, meantime, In ambush hidden the proud suitors wait, That the whole house may perish of renown\u2019d Arcesias, named in Ithaca no more. But whether he have fallen or \u2019scaped, let him Rest also, whom Saturnian Jove protect! But come, my ancient guest! now let me learn Thy own afflictions; answer me in truth. Who, and whence art thou? in what city born? 230 Where dwell thy parents; in what kind of ship Cam\u2019st thou? the mariners, why brought they thee To Ithaca? and of what land are they? For, that on foot thou found\u2019st us not, is sure. Him answer\u2019d, then, Ulysses, ever-wise. I will with truth resolve thee; and if here Within thy cottage sitting, we had wine And food for many a day, and business none But to regale at ease while others toiled, I could exhaust the year complete, my woes 240 Rehearsing, nor, at last, rehearse entire My sorrows by the will of heav\u2019n sustained. I boast me sprung from ancestry renown\u2019d In spacious Crete; son of a wealthy sire, Who other sons train\u2019d num\u2019rous in his house, Born of his wedded wife; but he begat Me on his purchased concubine, whom yet Dear as his other sons in wedlock born Castor Hylacides esteem\u2019d and lov\u2019d, For him I boast my father. Him in Crete, 250 While yet he liv\u2019d, all reverenc\u2019d as a God, So rich, so prosp\u2019rous, and so blest was he With sons of highest praise. But death, the doom Of all, him bore to Pluto\u2019s drear abode, And his illustrious sons among themselves Portion\u2019d his goods by lot; to me, indeed, They gave a dwelling, and but little more, Yet, for my virtuous qualities, I won A wealthy bride, for I was neither vain Nor base, forlorn as thou perceiv\u2019st me now. 260 But thou canst guess, I judge, viewing the straw What once was in the ear. Ah! I have borne Much tribulation; heap\u2019d and heavy woes. Courage and phalanx-breaking might had I From Mars and Pallas; at what time I drew, (Planning some dread exploit) an ambush forth Of our most valiant Chiefs, no boding fears Of death seized me, but foremost far of all I sprang to fight, and pierced the flying foe. Such was I once in arms. But household toils 270 Sustain\u2019d for children\u2019s sake, and carking cares T\u2019 enrich a family, were not for me. My pleasures were the gallant bark, the din Of battle, the smooth spear and glitt\u2019ring shaft, Objects of dread to others, but which me The Gods disposed to love and to enjoy. Thus diff\u2019rent minds are diff\u2019rently amused; For ere Achaia\u2019s fleet had sailed to Troy, Nine times was I commander of an host Embark\u2019d against a foreign foe, and found 280 In all those enterprizes great success. From the whole booty, first, what pleased me most Chusing, and sharing also much by lot I rapidly grew rich, and had thenceforth Among the Cretans rev\u2019rence and respect. But when loud-thund\u2019ring Jove that voyage dire Ordain\u2019d, which loos\u2019d the knees of many a Greek, Then, to Idomeneus and me they gave The charge of all their fleet, which how to avoid We found not, so importunate the cry 290 Of the whole host impell\u2019d us to the task. There fought we nine long years, and in the tenth (Priam\u2019s proud city pillag\u2019d) steer\u2019d again Our galleys homeward, which the Gods dispersed. Then was it that deep-planning Jove devised For me much evil. One short month, no more, I gave to joys domestic, in my wife Happy, and in my babes, and in my wealth, When the desire seiz\u2019d me with sev\u2019ral ships Well-rigg\u2019d, and furnish\u2019d all with gallant crews, 300 To sail for \u00c6gypt; nine I fitted forth, To which stout mariners assembled fast. Six days the chosen partners of my voyage Feasted, to whom I num\u2019rous victims gave For sacrifice, and for their own regale. Embarking on the sev\u2019nth from spacious Crete, Before a clear breeze prosp\u2019rous from the North We glided easily along, as down A river\u2019s stream; nor one of all my ships Damage incurr\u2019d, but healthy and at ease 310 We sat, while gales well-managed urged us on. The fifth day thence, smooth-flowing Nile we reach\u2019d, And safe I moor\u2019d in the \u00c6gyptian stream. Then, charging all my mariners to keep Strict watch for preservation of the ships, I order\u2019d spies into the hill-tops; but they Under the impulse of a spirit rash And hot for quarrel, the well-cultur\u2019d fields Pillaged of the \u00c6gyptians, captive led Their wives and little ones, and slew the men. 320 Soon was the city alarm\u2019d, and at the cry Down came the citizens, by dawn of day, With horse and foot, and with the gleam of arms Filling the plain. Then Jove with panic dread Struck all my people; none found courage more To stand, for mischiefs swarm\u2019d on ev\u2019ry side. There, num\u2019rous by the glittering spear we fell Slaughter\u2019d, while others they conducted thence Alive to servitude. But Jove himself My bosom with this thought inspired, (I would 330 That, dying, I had first fulfill\u2019d my fate In \u00c6gypt, for new woes were yet to come!) Loosing my brazen casque, and slipping off My buckler, there I left them on the field, Then cast my spear away, and seeking, next, The chariot of the sov\u2019reign, clasp\u2019d his knees, And kiss\u2019d them. He, by my submission moved, Deliver\u2019d me, and to his chariot-seat Raising, convey\u2019d me weeping to his home. With many an ashen spear his warriors sought 340 To slay me, (for they now grew fiery wroth) But he, through fear of hospitable Jove, Chief punisher of wrong, saved me alive. Sev\u2019n years I there abode, and much amass\u2019d Among the \u00c6gyptians, gifted by them all; But, in the eighth revolving year, arrived A shrewd Ph\u0153nician, in all fraud adept, Hungry, and who had num\u2019rous harm\u2019d before, By whom I also was cajoled, and lured T\u2019 attend him to Ph\u0153nicia, where his house 350 And his possessions lay; there I abode A year complete his inmate; but (the days And months accomplish\u2019d of the rolling year, And the new seasons ent\u2019ring on their course) To Lybia then, on board his bark, by wiles He won me with him, partner of the freight Profess\u2019d, but destin\u2019d secretly to sale, That he might profit largely by my price. Not unsuspicious, yet constrain\u2019d to go, With this man I embark\u2019d. A cloudless gale 360 Propitious blowing from the North, our ship Ran right before it through the middle sea, In the offing over Crete; but adverse Jove Destruction plann\u2019d for them and death the while. For, Crete now left afar, and other land Appearing none, but sky alone and sea, Right o\u2019er the hollow bark Saturnian Jove A cloud c\u00e6rulean hung, dark\u2019ning the Deep. Then, thund\u2019ring oft, he hurl\u2019d into the bark His bolts; she smitten by the fires of Jove, 370 Quaked all her length; with sulphur fill\u2019d she reek\u2019d, And, o\u2019er her sides precipitated, plunged Like gulls the crew, forbidden by that stroke Of wrath divine to hope their country more. But Jove himself, when I had cast away All hope of life, conducted to my arms The strong tall mast, that I might yet escape. Around that beam I clung, driving before The stormy blast. Nine days complete I drove, And, on the tenth dark night, the rolling flood 380 Immense convey\u2019d me to Thesprotia\u2019s shore. There me the Hero Phidon, gen\u2019rous King Of the Thesprotians, freely entertained; For his own son discov\u2019ring me with toil Exhausted and with cold, raised me, and thence Led me humanely to his father\u2019s house, Who cherish\u2019d me, and gave me fresh attire. There heard I of Ulysses, whom himself Had entertain\u2019d, he said, on his return To his own land; he shew\u2019d me also gold, 390 Brass, and bright steel elab\u2019rate, whatsoe\u2019er Ulysses had amass\u2019d, a store to feed A less illustrious family than his To the tenth generation, so immense His treasures in the royal palace lay. Himself, he said, was to Dodona gone, There, from the tow\u2019ring oaks of Jove to ask Counsel divine, if openly to land (After long absence) in his opulent realm Of Ithaca, be best, or in disguise. 400 To me the monarch swore, in his own hall Pouring libation, that the ship was launch\u2019d, And the crew ready for his conduct home. But me he first dismiss\u2019d, for, as it chanced, A ship lay there of the Thesprotians, bound To green Dulichium\u2019s isle. He bade the crew Bear me to King Acastus with all speed; But them far other thoughts pleased more, and thoughts Of harm to me, that I might yet be plunged In deeper gulphs of woe than I had known. 410 For, when the billow-cleaving bark had left The land remote, framing, combined, a plot Against my liberty, they stripp\u2019d my vest And mantle, and this tatter\u2019d raiment foul Gave me instead, which thy own eyes behold. At even-tide reaching the cultur\u2019d coast Of Ithaca, they left me bound on board With tackle of the bark, and quitting ship Themselves, made hasty supper on the shore. But me, meantime, the Gods easily loos\u2019d 420 By their own pow\u2019r, when, with wrapper vile Around my brows, sliding into the sea At the ship\u2019s stern, I lay\u2019d me on the flood. With both hands oaring thence my course, I swam Till past all ken of theirs; then landing where Thick covert of luxuriant trees I mark\u2019d, Close couchant down I lay; they mutt\u2019ring loud, Paced to and fro, but deeming farther search Unprofitable, soon embark\u2019d again. Thus baffling all their search with ease, the Gods 430 Conceal\u2019d and led me thence to the abode Of a wise man, dooming me still to live. To whom, Eum\u00e6us, thou didst thus reply, Alas! my most compassionable guest! Thou hast much moved me by this tale minute Of thy sad wand\u2019rings and thy num\u2019rous woes. But, speaking of Ulysses, thou hast pass\u2019d All credence; I at least can give thee none. Why, noble as thou art, should\u2019st thou invent Palpable falsehoods? as for the return 440 Of my regretted Lord, myself I know That had he not been hated by the Gods Unanimous, he had in battle died At Troy, or (that long doubtful war, at last, Concluded,) in his people\u2019s arms at home. Then universal Greece had raised his tomb, And he had even for his son atchiev\u2019d Immortal glory; but alas! by beaks Of harpies torn, unseemly sight, he lies. Here is my home the while; I never seek 450 The city, unless summon\u2019d by discrete Penelope to listen to the news Brought by some stranger, whencesoe\u2019er arrived. Then, all, alike inquisitive, attend, Both who regret the absence of our King, And who rejoice gratuitous to gorge His property; but as for me, no joy Find I in list\u2019ning after such reports, Since an \u00c6tolian cozen\u2019d me, who found (After long wand\u2019ring over various lands 460 A fugitive for blood) my lone retreat. Him warm I welcom\u2019d, and with open arms Receiv\u2019d, who bold affirm\u2019d that he had seen My master with Idomeneus at Crete His ships refitting shatter\u2019d by a storm, And that in summer with his godlike band He would return, bringing great riches home, Or else in autumn. And thou ancient guest Forlorn! since thee the Gods have hither led, Seek not to gratify me with untruths 470 And to deceive me, since for no such cause I shall respect or love thee, but alone By pity influenced, and the fear of Jove. To whom Ulysses, ever-wise, replied. Thou hast, in truth, a most incredulous mind, Whom even with an oath I have not moved, Or aught persuaded. Come then\u2014let us make In terms express a cov\u2019nant, and the Gods Who hold Olympus, witness to us both! If thy own Lord at this thy house arrive, 480 Thou shalt dismiss me decently attired In vest and mantle, that I may repair Hence to Dulichium, whither I would go. But, if thy Lord come not, then, gath\u2019ring all Thy servants, headlong hurl me from a rock, That other mendicants may fear to lie. To whom the generous swine-herd in return. Yes, stranger! doubtless I should high renown Obtain for virtue among men, both now And in all future times, if, having first 490 Invited thee, and at my board regaled, I, next, should slay thee; then my pray\u2019rs would mount, Past question, swiftly to Saturnian Jove. But the hour calls to supper, and, ere long, The partners of my toils will come prepared To spread the board with no unsav\u2019ry cheer. Thus they conferr\u2019d. And now the swains arrived, Driving their charge, which fast they soon enclosed Within their customary penns, and loud The hubbub was of swine prison\u2019d within. 500 Then call\u2019d the master to his rustic train. Bring ye the best, that we may set him forth Before my friend from foreign climes arrived, With whom ourselves will also feast, who find The bright-tusk\u2019d multitude a painful charge, While others, at no cost of theirs, consume Day after day, the profit of our toils. So saying, his wood for fuel he prepared, And dragging thither a well-fatted brawn Of the fifth year his servants held him fast 510 At the hearth-side. Nor failed the master swain T\u2019 adore the Gods, (for wise and good was he) But consecration of the victim, first, Himself performing, cast into the fire The forehead bristles of the tusky boar, Then pray\u2019d to all above, that, safe, at length, Ulysses might regain his native home. Then lifting an huge shive that lay beside The fire, he smote the boar, and dead he fell, Next, piercing him, and scorching close his hair, 520 They carv\u2019d him quickly, and Eum\u00e6us spread Thin slices crude taken from ev\u2019ry limb O\u2019er all his fat, then other slices cast, Sprinkling them first with meal, into the fire. The rest they slash\u2019d and scored, and roasted well, And placed it, heap\u2019d together, on the board. Then rose the good Eum\u00e6us to his task Of distribution, for he understood The hospitable entertainer\u2019s part. Sev\u2019n-fold partition of the banquet made, 530 He gave, with previous pray\u2019r, to Maia\u2019s son63 And to the nymphs one portion of the whole, Then served his present guests, honouring first Ulysses with the boar\u2019s perpetual chine; By that distinction just his master\u2019s heart He gratified, and thus the Hero spake. Eum\u00e6us! be thou as belov\u2019d of Jove As thou art dear to me, whom, though attired So coarsely, thou hast served with such respect! To whom, Eum\u00e6us, thou didst thus reply. 540 Eat, noble stranger! and refreshment take Such as thou may\u2019st; God64 gives, and God denies At his own will, for He is Lord of all. He said, and to the everlasting Gods The firstlings sacrificed of all, then made Libation, and the cup placed in the hands Of city-spoiler Laertiades Sitting beside his own allotted share. Meantime, Mesaulius bread dispensed to all, Whom, in the absence of his Lord, himself 550 Eum\u00e6us had from Taphian traders bought With his own proper goods, at no expence Either to old Laertes or the Queen. And now, all stretch\u2019d their hands toward the feast Reeking before them, and when hunger none Felt more or thirst, Mesaulius clear\u2019d the board. Then, fed to full satiety, in haste Each sought his couch. Black came a moonless night, And Jove all night descended fast in show\u2019rs, With howlings of the ever wat\u2019ry West. 560 Ulysses, at that sound, for trial sake Of his good host, if putting off his cloak He would accommodate him, or require That service for him at some other hand, Addressing thus the family, began. Hear now, Eum\u00e6us, and ye other swains His fellow-lab\u2019rers! I shall somewhat boast, By wine befool\u2019d, which forces ev\u2019n the wise To carol loud, to titter and to dance, And words to utter, oft, better suppress\u2019d. 570 But since I have begun, I shall proceed, Prating my fill. Ah might those days return With all the youth and strength that I enjoy\u2019d, When in close ambush, once, at Troy we lay! Ulysses, Menelaus, and myself Their chosen coadjutor, led the band. Approaching to the city\u2019s lofty wall Through the thick bushes and the reeds that gird The bulwarks, down we lay flat in the marsh, Under our arms, then Boreas blowing loud, 580 A rueful night came on, frosty and charged With snow that blanch\u2019d us thick as morning rime, And ev\u2019ry shield with ice was crystall\u2019d o\u2019er. The rest with cloaks and vests well cover\u2019d, slept Beneath their bucklers; I alone my cloak, Improvident, had left behind, no thought Conceiving of a season so severe; Shield and belt, therefore, and nought else had I. The night, at last, nigh spent, and all the stars Declining in their course, with elbow thrust 590 Against Ulysses\u2019 side I roused the Chief, And thus address\u2019d him ever prompt to hear. Laertes\u2019 noble son, for wiles renown\u2019d! I freeze to death. Help me, or I am lost. No cloak have I; some evil d\u00e6mon, sure, Beguil\u2019d me of all prudence, that I came Thus sparely clad; I shall, I must expire. So I; he, ready as he was in arms And counsel both, the remedy at once Devised, and thus, low-whisp\u2019ring, answer\u2019d me. 600 Hush! lest perchance some other hear\u2014He said, And leaning on his elbow, spake aloud. My friends! all hear\u2014a monitory dream Hath reach\u2019d me, for we lie far from the ships. Haste, therefore, one of you, with my request To Agamemnon, Atreus\u2019 son, our Chief, That he would reinforce us from the camp. He spake, and at the word, Andr\u00e6mon\u2019s son Thoas arose, who, casting off his cloak, Ran thence toward the ships, and folded warm 610 Within it, there lay I till dawn appear\u2019d. Oh for the vigour of such youth again! Then, some good peasant here, either for love Or for respect, would cloak a man like me, Whom, now, thus sordid in attire ye scorn. To whom, Eum\u00e6us, thou didst thus reply. My ancient guest! I cannot but approve Thy narrative, nor hast thou utter\u2019d aught Unseemly, or that needs excuse. No want Of raiment, therefore, or of aught beside 620 Needful to solace penury like thine, Shall harm thee here; yet, at the peep of dawn Gird thy own tatters to thy loins again; For we have no great store of cloaks to boast, Or change of vests, but singly one for each. But when Ulysses\u2019 son shall once arrive, He will himself with vest and mantle both Cloath thee, and send thee whither most thou would\u2019st. So saying, he rose, and nearer made his couch To the hearth-side, spreading it thick with skins 630 Of sheep and goats; then lay the Hero down, O\u2019er whom a shaggy mantle large he threw, Which oft-times served him with a change, when rough The winter\u2019s blast and terrible arose. So was Ulysses bedded, and the youths Slept all beside him; but the master-swain Chose not his place of rest so far remote From his rude charge, but to the outer court With his nocturnal furniture, repair\u2019d, Gladd\u2019ning Ulysses\u2019 heart that one so true 640 In his own absence kept his rural stores. Athwart his sturdy shoulders, first, he flung His faulchion keen, then wrapp\u2019d him in a cloak Thick-woven, winter-proof; he lifted, next, The skin of a well-thriven goat, in bulk Surpassing others, and his javelin took Sharp-pointed, with which dogs he drove and men. Thus arm\u2019d, he sought his wonted couch beneath A hollow rock where the herd slept, secure From the sharp current of the Northern blast. 650\n\n\n\n61 \u0394\u1fd6\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f51\u03c6\u03bf\u03c1\u03b2\u03bf\u03c2.\u2014The swineherd\u2019s was therefore in those days, and in that country, an occupation honourable as well as useful. Barnes deems the epithet \u03b4\u1fd6\u03bf\u03c2 significant of his noble birth. Vide Clarke in loco.\n\n\n62 It may be proper to suggest that Ulysses was lord of part of the continent opposite to Ithaca\u2014viz.\u2014of the peninsula Nericus or Leuca, which afterward became an island, and is now called Santa Maura. F.\n\n\n63 Mercury.\n\n\n64 \u0398\u03b5\u03bf\u03c2\u2014without a relative, and consequently signifying God in the abstract, is not unfrequently found in Homer, though fearing to give offence to serious minds unacquainted with the original, I have not always given it that force in the translation. But here, the sentiment is such as fixes the sense intended by the author with a precision that leaves no option. It is observable too, that \u03b4\u03c5\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b3\u03b1\u03c1 \u03b1\u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u2014is an ascription of power such as the poet never makes to his Jupiter.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK XV\nARGUMENT\nTelemachus, admonished by Minerva, takes leave of Menelaus, but ere he sails, is accosted by Theoclymenos, a prophet of Argos, whom at his earnest request he takes on board. In the meantime Eum\u00e6us relates to Ulysses the means by which he came to Ithaca. Telemachus arriving there, gives orders for the return of his bark to the city, and repairs himself to Eum\u00e6us.\n\nMeantime to Laced\u00e6mon\u2019s spacious vale Minerva went, that she might summon thence Ulysses\u2019 glorious son to his own home. Arrived, she found Telemachus reposed And Nestor\u2019s son beneath the vestibule Of Menelaus, mighty Chief; she saw Pisistratus in bands of gentle sleep Fast-bound, but not Telemachus; his mind No rest enjoy\u2019d, by filial cares disturb\u2019d Amid the silent night, when, drawing near 10 To his couch side, the Goddess thus began. Thou canst no longer prudently remain A wand\u2019rer here, Telemachus! thy home Abandon\u2019d, and those haughty suitors left Within thy walls; fear lest, partition made Of thy possessions, they devour the whole, And in the end thy voyage bootless prove. Delay not; from brave Menelaus ask Dismission hence, that thou may\u2019st find at home Thy spotless mother, whom her brethren urge 20 And her own father even now to wed Eurymachus, in gifts and in amount Of proffer\u2019d dow\u2019r superior to them all. Some treasure, else, shall haply from thy house Be taken, such as thou wilt grudge to spare. For well thou know\u2019st how woman is disposed; Her whole anxiety is to encrease His substance whom she weds; no care hath she Of her first children, or remembers more The buried husband of her virgin choice. 30 Returning then, to her of all thy train Whom thou shalt most approve, the charge commit Of thy concerns domestic, till the Gods Themselves shall guide thee to a noble wife. Hear also this, and mark it. In the frith Samos the rude, and Ithaca between, The chief of all her suitors thy return In vigilant ambush wait, with strong desire To slay thee, ere thou reach thy native shore, But shall not, as I judge, till the earth hide 40 Many a lewd reveller at thy expence. Yet, steer thy galley from those isles afar, And voyage make by night; some guardian God Shall save thee, and shall send thee prosp\u2019rous gales. Then, soon as thou attain\u2019st the nearest shore Of Ithaca, dispatching to the town Thy bark with all thy people, seek at once The swine-herd; for Eum\u00e6us is thy friend. There sleep, and send him forth into the town With tidings to Penelope, that safe 50 Thou art restored from Pylus home again. She said, and sought th\u2019 Olympian heights sublime. Then, with his heel shaking him, he awoke The son of Nestor, whom he thus address\u2019d. Rise, Nestor\u2019s son, Pisistratus! lead forth The steeds, and yoke them. We must now depart. To whom the son of Nestor thus replied. Telemachus! what haste soe\u2019er we feel, We can by no means prudently attempt To drive by night, and soon it will be dawn. 60 Stay, therefore, till the Hero, Atreus\u2019 son, Spear-practis\u2019d Menelaus shall his gifts Place in the chariot, and with kind farewell Dismiss thee; for the guest in mem\u2019ry holds Through life, the host who treats him as a friend. Scarce had he spoken, when the golden dawn Appearing, Menelaus, from the side Of beauteous Helen ris\u2019n, their bed approach\u2019d, Whose coming when Telemachus perceived, Cloathing himself hastily in his vest 70 Magnificent, and o\u2019er his shoulders broad Casting his graceful mantle, at the door He met the Hero, whom he thus address\u2019d. Atrides, Menelaus, Chief renown\u2019d! Dismiss me hence to Ithaca again, My native isle, for I desire to go. Him answer\u2019d Menelaus famed in arms. Telemachus! I will not long delay Thy wish\u2019d return. I disapprove alike The host whose assiduity extreme 80 Distresses, and whose negligence offends; The middle course is best; alike we err, Him thrusting forth whose wish is to remain, And hind\u2019ring the impatient to depart. This only is true kindness\u2014To regale The present guest, and speed him when he would. Yet stay, till thou shalt see my splendid gifts Placed in thy chariot, and till I command My women from our present stores to spread The table with a plentiful repast. 90 For both the honour of the guest demands, And his convenience also, that he eat Sufficient, ent\u2019ring on a length of road. But if through Hellas thou wilt take thy way And traverse Argos, I will, then, myself Attend thee; thou shalt journey with my steeds Beneath thy yoke, and I will be thy guide To many a city, whence we shall not go Ungratified, but shall in each receive Some gift at least, tripod, or charger bright, 100 Or golden chalice, or a pair of mules. To whom Telemachus, discrete, replied. Atrides, Menelaus, Chief renown\u2019d! I would at once depart, (for guardian none Of my possessions have I left behind) Lest, while I seek my father, I be lost Myself, or lose what I should grudge to spare. Which when the valiant Menelaus heard, He bade his spouse and maidens spread the board At once with remnants of the last regale. 110 Then Eteoneus came, Boetheus\u2019 son Newly aris\u2019n, for nigh at hand he dwelt, Whom Menelaus bade kindle the fire By which to dress their food, and he obey\u2019d. He next, himself his fragrant chamber sought, Not sole, but by his spouse and by his son Attended, Megapenthes. There arrived Where all his treasures lay, Atrides, first, Took forth, himself, a goblet, then consign\u2019d To his son\u2019s hand an argent beaker bright. 120 Meantime, beside her coffers Helen stood Where lay her variegated robes, fair works Of her own hand. Producing one, in size And in magnificence the chief, a star For splendour, and the lowest placed of all, Loveliest of her sex, she bore it thence. Then, all proceeding through the house, they sought Telemachus again, whom reaching, thus The Hero of the golden locks began. May Jove the Thunderer, dread Juno\u2019s mate, 130 Grant thee, Telemachus! such voyage home As thy own heart desires! accept from all My stores selected as the richest far And noblest gift for finish\u2019d beauty\u2014This. I give thee wrought elaborate a cup, Itself all silver, bound with lip of gold. It is the work of Vulcan, which to me The Hero Ph\u00e6dimus imparted, King Of the Sidonians, when, on my return, Beneath his roof I lodg\u2019d. I make it thine. 140 So saying, the Hero, Atreus\u2019 son, the cup Placed in his hands, and Megapenthes set Before him, next, the argent beaker bright; But lovely Helen drawing nigh, the robe Presented to him, whom she thus address\u2019d. I also give thee, oh my son, a gift, Which seeing, thou shalt think on her whose hands Wrought it; a present on thy nuptial day For thy fair spouse; meantime, repose it safe In thy own mother\u2019s keeping. Now, farewell! 150 Prosp\u2019rous and happy be thy voyage home! She ceas\u2019d, and gave it to him, who the gift Accepted glad, and in the chariot-chest Pisistratus the Hero all disposed, Admiring them the while. They, following, next, The Hero Menelaus to his hall Each on his couch or on his throne reposed. A maiden, then, with golden ewer charged And silver bowl, pour\u2019d water on their hands, And spread the polish\u2019d table, which with food 160 Various, selected from her present stores, The mistress of the household charge supplied. Boetheus\u2019 son stood carver, and to each His portion gave, while Megapenthes, son Of glorious Menelaus, serv\u2019d the cup. Then, all with outstretch\u2019d hands the feast assail\u2019d, And when nor hunger more nor thirst of wine They felt, Telemachus and Nestor\u2019s son Yoked the swift steeds, and, taking each his seat In the resplendent chariot, drove at once 170 Right through the sounding portico abroad. But Menelaus, Hero amber-hair\u2019d, A golden cup bearing with richest wine Replete in his right hand, follow\u2019d them forth, That not without libation first perform\u2019d They might depart; he stood before the steeds, And drinking first, thus, courteous, them bespake. Health to you both, young friends! and from my lips Like greeting bear to Nestor, royal Chief, For he was ever as a father kind 180 To me, while the Achaians warr\u2019d at Troy. To whom Telemachus discrete replied. And doubtless, so we will; at our return We will report to him, illustrious Prince! Thy ev\u2019ry word. And oh, I would to heav\u2019n That reaching Ithaca, I might at home Ulysses hail as sure, as I shall hence Depart, with all benevolence by thee Treated, and rich in many a noble gift. While thus he spake, on his right hand appear\u2019d 190 An eagle; in his talons pounced he bore A white-plumed goose domestic, newly ta\u2019en From the house-court. Ran females all and males Clamorous after him; but he the steeds Approaching on the right, sprang into air. That sight rejoicing and with hearts reviv\u2019d They view\u2019d, and thus Pisistratus his speech Amid them all to Menelaus turn\u2019d. Now, Menelaus, think, illustrious Chief! If us, this omen, or thyself regard. 200 While warlike Menelaus musing stood What answer fit to frame, Helen meantime, His spouse long-stoled preventing him, began. Hear me; for I will answer as the Gods Teach me, and as I think shall come to pass. As he, descending from his place of birth The mountains, caught our pamper\u2019d goose away, So shall Ulysses, after many woes And wand\u2019rings to his home restored, avenge His wrongs, or even now is at his home 210 For all those suitors sowing seeds of woe. To whom Telemachus, discrete, replied. Oh grant it Jove, Juno\u2019s high-thund\u2019ring mate! So will I, there arrived, with vow and pray\u2019r Thee worship, as thou wert, thyself, divine. He said, and lash\u2019d the coursers; fiery they And fleet, sprang through the city to the plain. All day the yoke on either side they shook, Journeying swift; and now the setting sun To gloomy evening had resign\u2019d the roads, 220 When they to Pher\u00e6 came, and in the house Of good Diocles slept, their lib\u2019ral host, Whose sire Orsilochus from Alpheus sprang. But when Aurora, daughter of the Dawn, Look\u2019d rosy from the East, yoking their steeds, They in the sumptuous chariot sat again. Forth through the vestibule they drove, and through The sounding portico, when Nestor\u2019s son Plied brisk the scourge, and willing flew the steeds. Thus whirl\u2019d along, soon they approach\u2019d the gates 230 Of Pylus, when Telemachus, his speech Turning to his companion, thus began. How, son of Nestor! shall I win from thee Not promise only, but performance kind Of my request? we are not bound alone To friendship by the friendship of our sires, But by equality of years, and this Our journey shall unite us still the more. Bear me not, I intreat thee, noble friend! Beyond the ship, but drop me at her side, 240 Lest ancient Nestor, though against my will, Detain me in his palace through desire To feast me, for I dread the least delay. He spake; then mused Pisistratus how best He might effect the wishes of his friend, And thus at length resolved; turning his steeds With sudden deviation to the shore He sought the bark, and placing in the stern Both gold and raiment, the illustrious gifts Of Menelaus, thus, in accents wing\u2019d 250 With ardour, urged Telemachus away. Dispatch, embark, summon thy crew on board, Ere my arrival notice give of thine To the old King; for vehement I know His temper, neither will he let thee hence, But, hasting hither, will himself enforce Thy longer stay, that thou may\u2019st not depart Ungifted; nought will fire his anger more. So saying, he to the Pylian city urged His steeds bright-maned, and at the palace-gate 260 Arrived of Nestor speedily; meantime Telemachus exhorted thus his crew. My gallant friends! set all your tackle, climb The sable bark, for I would now return. He spake; they heard him gladly, and at once All fill\u2019d the benches. While his voyage he Thus expedited, and beside the stern To Pallas sacrifice perform\u2019d and pray\u2019d, A stranger, born remote, who had escaped From Argos, fugitive for blood, a seer 270 And of Melampus\u2019 progeny, approach\u2019d. Melampus, in old time, in Pylus dwelt, Mother of flocks, alike for wealth renown\u2019d And the magnificence of his abode. He, flying from the far-famed Pylian King, The mighty Neleus65, migrated at length Into another land, whose wealth, the while, Neleus by force possess\u2019d a year complete. Meantime, Melampus in the house endured Of Phylacus imprisonment and woe, 280 And burn\u2019d with wrath for Neleus\u2019 daughter sake By fell Erynnis kindled in his heart. But, \u2019scaping death, he drove the lowing beeves From Phylace to Pylus, well avenged His num\u2019rous injuries at Neleus\u2019 hands Sustain\u2019d, and gave into his brother\u2019s arms King Neleus\u2019 daughter fair, the promis\u2019d bride. To Argos steed-renown\u2019d he journey\u2019d next, There destin\u2019d to inhabit and to rule Multitudes of Achaians. In that land 290 He married, built a palace, and became Father of two brave sons, Antiphates And Mantius; to Antiphates was born The brave O\u00efcleus; from O\u00efcleus sprang Amphiara\u00fcs, demagogue renown\u2019d, Whom with all tenderness, and as a friend Alike the Thund\u2019rer and Apollo prized; Yet reach\u2019d he not the bounds of hoary age. But by his mercenary consort\u2019s arts66 Persuaded, met his destiny at Thebes. 300 He \u2019gat Alcm\u00e6on and Amphilocus. Mantius was also father of two sons, Clytus and Polyphides. Clytus pass\u2019d From earth to heav\u2019n, and dwells among the Gods, Stol\u2019n by Aurora for his beauty\u2019s sake. But (brave Amphiara\u00fcs once deceased) Ph\u0153bus exalted Polyphides far Above all others in the prophet\u2019s part. He, anger\u2019d by his father, roam\u2019d away To Hyperesia, where he dwelt renown\u2019d 310 Throughout all lands the oracle of all. His son, named Theoclymenus, was he Who now approach\u2019d; he found Telemachus Libation off\u2019ring in his bark, and pray\u2019r, And in wing\u2019d accents ardent him address\u2019d. Ah, friend! since sacrificing in this place I find thee, by these sacred rites and those Whom thou ador\u2019st, and by thy own dear life, And by the lives of these thy mariners I beg true answer; hide not what I ask. 320 Who art thou? whence? where born? and sprung from whom? To whom Telemachus, discrete, replied. I will inform thee, stranger! and will solve Thy questions with much truth. I am by birth Ithacan, and Ulysses was my sire. But he hath perish\u2019d by a woeful death, And I, believing it, with these have plow\u2019d The ocean hither, int\u2019rested to learn A father\u2019s fate long absent from his home. Then answer\u2019d godlike Theoclymenus. 330 I also am a wand\u2019rer, having slain A man of my own tribe; brethren and friends Num\u2019rous had he in Argos steed-renown\u2019d, And pow\u2019rful are the Achaians dwelling there. From them, through terrour of impending death, I fly, a banish\u2019d man henceforth for ever. Ah save a suppliant fugitive! lest death O\u2019ertake me, for I doubt not their pursuit. Whom thus Telemachus answer\u2019d discrete. I shall not, be assured, since thou desir\u2019st 340 To join me, chace thee from my bark away. Follow me, therefore, and with us partake, In Ithaca, what best the land affords. So saying, he at the stranger\u2019s hand received His spear, which on the deck he lay\u2019d, then climb\u2019d Himself the bark, and, seated in the stern, At his own side placed Theoclymenus. They cast the hawsers loose; then with loud voice Telemachus exhorted all to hand The tackle, whom the sailors prompt obey\u2019d. 350 The tall mast heaving, in its socket deep They lodg\u2019d it, and its cordage braced secure, Then, straining at the halyards, hoised the sail. Fair wind, and blowing fresh through \u00e6ther pure Minerva sent them, that the bark might run Her nimblest course through all the briny way. Now sank the sun, and dusky ev\u2019ning dimm\u2019d The waves, when, driven by propitious Jove, His bark stood right for Pher\u00e6; thence she stretch\u2019d To sacred Elis where the Epeans rule, 360 And through the sharp Echinades he next Steer\u2019d her, uncertain whether fate ordain\u2019d His life or death, surprizal or escape. Meantime Ulysses and the swine-herd ate Their cottage-mess, and the assistant swains Theirs also; and when hunger now and thirst Had ceased in all, Ulysses thus began, Proving the swine-herd, whether friendly still, And anxious for his good, he would intreat His stay, or thence hasten him to the town. 370 Eum\u00e6us, and all ye his servants, hear! It is my purpose, lest I wear thee out, Thee and thy friends, to seek at early dawn The city, there to beg\u2014But give me first Needful instructions, and a trusty guide Who may conduct me thither; there my task Must be to roam the streets; some hand humane Perchance shall give me a small pittance there, A little bread, and a few drops to drink. Ulysses\u2019 palace I shall also seek, 380 And to discrete Penelope report My tidings; neither shall I fail to mix With those imperious suitors, who, themselves Full-fed, may spare perhaps some boon to me. Me shall they find, in whatsoe\u2019er they wish Their ready servitor, for (understand And mark me well) the herald of the skies, Hermes, from whom all actions of mankind Their grace receive and polish, is my friend, So that in menial offices I fear 390 No rival, whether I be called to heap The hearth with fuel, or dry wood to cleave, To roast, to carve, or to distribute wine, As oft the poor are wont who serve the great. To whom, Eum\u00e6us! at those words displeased, Thou didst reply. Gods! how could such a thought Possess thee, stranger? surely thy resolve Is altogether fixt to perish there, If thou indeed hast purposed with that throng To mix, whose riot and outrageous acts 400 Of violence echo through the vault of heav\u2019n. None, such as thou, serve them; their servitors Are youths well-cloak\u2019d, well-vested; sleek their heads, And smug their countenances; such alone Are their attendants, and the polish\u2019d boards Groan overcharg\u2019d with bread, with flesh, with wine. Rest here content; for neither me nor these Thou weariest aught, and when Ulysses\u2019 son Shall come, he will with vest and mantle fair Cloath thee, and send thee whither most thou would\u2019st. 410 To whom Ulysses, toil-inured. I wish thee, O Eum\u00e6us! dear to Jove As thou art dear to me, for this reprieve Vouchsafed me kind, from wand\u2019ring and from woe! No worse condition is of mortal man Than his who wanders; for the poor man, driv\u2019n By woe and by misfortune homeless forth, A thousand mis\u2019ries, day by day, endures. Since thou detain\u2019st me, then, and bidd\u2019st me wait His coming, tell me if the father still 420 Of famed Ulysses live, whom, going hence, He left so nearly on the verge of life? And lives his mother? or have both deceased Already, and descended to the shades? To whom the master swine-herd thus replied. I will inform thee, and with strictest truth, Of all that thou hast ask\u2019d. Laertes lives, But supplication off\u2019ring to the Gods Ceaseless, to free him from a weary life, So deeply his long-absent son he mourns, 430 And the dear consort of his early youth, Whose death is his chief sorrow, and hath brought Old age on him, or ere its date arrived. She died of sorrow for her glorious son, And died deplorably;67 may never friend Of mine, or benefactor die as she! While yet she liv\u2019d, dejected as she was, I found it yet some solace to converse With her, who rear\u2019d me in my childish days, Together with her lovely youngest-born 440 The Princess Ctimena; for side by side We grew, and I, scarce honour\u2019d less than she. But soon as our delightful prime we both Attain\u2019d, to Samos her they sent, a bride, And were requited with rich dow\u2019r; but me Cloath\u2019d handsomely with tunic and with vest, And with fair sandals furnish\u2019d, to the field She order\u2019d forth, yet loved me still the more. I miss her kindness now; but gracious heav\u2019n Prospers the work on which I here attend; 450 Hence have I food, and hence I drink, and hence Refresh, sometimes, a worthy guest like thee. But kindness none experience I, or can, From fair Penelope (my mistress now) In word or action, so is the house curs\u2019d With that lewd throng. Glad would the servants be Might they approach their mistress, and receive Advice from her; glad too to eat and drink, And somewhat bear each to his rural home, For perquisites are ev\u2019ry servant\u2019s joy. 460 Then answer thus, Ulysses wise return\u2019d. Alas! good swain, Eum\u00e6us, how remote From friends and country wast thou forced to roam Ev\u2019n in thy infancy! But tell me true. The city where thy parents dwelt, did foes Pillage it? or did else some hostile band Surprizing thee alone, on herd or flock Attendant, bear thee with them o\u2019er the Deep, And sell thee at this Hero\u2019s house, who pay\u2019d Doubtless for thee no sordid price or small? 470 To whom the master swine-herd in reply. Stranger! since thou art curious to be told My story, silent listen, and thy wine At leisure quaff. The nights are longest now, And such as time for sleep afford, and time For pleasant conf\u2019rence; neither were it good That thou should\u2019st to thy couch before thy hour, Since even sleep is hurtful, in excess. Whoever here is weary, and desires Early repose, let him depart to rest, 480 And, at the peep of day, when he hath fed Sufficiently, drive forth my master\u2019s herd; But we with wine and a well-furnish\u2019d board Supplied, will solace mutually derive From recollection of our sufferings past; For who hath much endured, and wander\u2019d far, Finds the recital ev\u2019n of sorrow sweet. Now hear thy question satisfied; attend! There is an island (thou hast heard, perchance, Of such an isle) named Syria;68 it is placed 490 Above Ortigia, and a dial owns69 True to the tropic changes of the year. No great extent she boasts, yet is she rich In cattle and in flocks, in wheat and wine. No famine knows that people, or disease Noisome, of all that elsewhere seize the race Of miserable man; but when old age Steals on the citizens, Apollo, arm\u2019d With silver bow and bright Diana come, Whose gentle shafts dismiss them soon to rest. 500 Two cities share between them all the isle, And both were subject to my father\u2019s sway Ctesius Ormenides, a godlike Chief. It chanced that from Ph\u0153nicia, famed for skill In arts marine, a vessel thither came By sharpers mann\u2019d, and laden deep with toys. Now, in my father\u2019s family abode A fair Ph\u0153nician, tall, full-sized, and skill\u2019d In works of elegance, whom they beguiled. While she wash\u2019d linen on the beach, beside 510 The ship, a certain mariner of those Seduced her; for all women, ev\u2019n the wise And sober, feeble prove by love assail\u2019d. Who was she, he enquired, and whence? nor she Scrupled to tell at once her father\u2019s home. I am of Sidon,70 famous for her works In brass and steel; daughter of Arybas, Who rolls in affluence; Taphian pirates thence Stole me returning from the field, from whom This Chief procured me at no little cost. 520 Then answer thus her paramour return\u2019d. Wilt thou not hence to Sidon in our ship, That thou may\u2019st once more visit the abode Of thy own wealthy parents, and themselves? For still they live, and still are wealthy deem\u2019d. To whom the woman. Even that might be, Would ye, ye seamen, by a solemn oath Assure me of a safe conveyance home. Then sware the mariners as she required, And, when their oath was ended, thus again 530 The woman of Ph\u0153nicia them bespake. Now, silence! no man, henceforth, of you all Accost me, though he meet me on the road, Or at yon fountain; lest some tattler run With tidings home to my old master\u2019s ear, Who, with suspicion touch\u2019d, may me confine In cruel bonds, and death contrive for you. But be ye close; purchase your stores in haste; And when your vessel shall be freighted full, Quick send me notice, for I mean to bring 540 What gold soever opportune I find, And will my passage cheerfully defray With still another moveable. I nurse The good man\u2019s son, an urchin shrewd, of age To scamper at my side; him will I bring, Whom at some foreign market ye shall prove Saleable at what price soe\u2019er ye will. So saying, she to my father\u2019s house return\u2019d. They, there abiding the whole year, their ship With purchased goods freighted of ev\u2019ry kind, 550 And when, her lading now complete, she lay For sea prepared, their messenger arrived To summon down the woman to the shore. A mariner of theirs, subtle and shrewd, Then, ent\u2019ring at my father\u2019s gate, produced A splendid collar, gold with amber strung. My mother (then at home) with all her maids Handling and gazing on it with delight, Proposed to purchase it, and he the nod Significant, gave unobserv\u2019d, the while, 560 To the Ph\u0153nician woman, and return\u2019d. She, thus informed, leading me by the hand Went forth, and finding in the vestibule The cups and tables which my father\u2019s guests Had used, (but they were to the forum gone For converse with their friends assembled there) Convey\u2019d three cups into her bosom-folds, And bore them off, whom I a thoughtless child Accompanied, at the decline of day, When dusky evening had embrown\u2019d the shore. 570 We, stepping nimbly on, soon reach\u2019d the port Renown\u2019d, where that Ph\u0153nician vessel lay. They shipp\u2019d us both, and all embarking cleav\u2019d Their liquid road, by favourable gales, Jove\u2019s gift, impell\u2019d. Six days we day and night Continual sailed, but when Saturnian Jove Now bade the sev\u2019nth bright morn illume the skies, Then, shaft-arm\u2019d Dian struck the woman dead. At once she pitch\u2019d headlong into the bilge Like a sea-coot, whence heaving her again, 580 The seamen gave her to be fishes\u2019 food, And I survived to mourn her. But the winds And rolling billows them bore to the coast Of Ithaca, where with his proper goods Laertes bought me. By such means it chanced That e\u2019er I saw the isle in which I dwell. To whom Ulysses, glorious Chief, replied. Eum\u00e6us! thou hast moved me much, thy woes Enumerating thus at large. But Jove Hath neighbour\u2019d all thy evil with this good, 590 That after num\u2019rous sorrows thou hast reach\u2019d The house of a kind master, at whose hands Thy sustenance is sure, and here thou lead\u2019st A tranquil life; but I have late arrived, City after city of the world explored. Thus mutual they conferr\u2019d, nor leisure found Save for short sleep, by morning soon surprized. Meantime the comrades of Telemachus Approaching land, cast loose the sail, and lower\u2019d Alert the mast, then oar\u2019d the vessel in. 600 The anchors heav\u2019d aground,71 and hawsers tied Secure, themselves, forth-issuing on the shore, Breakfast prepared, and charged their cups with wine. When neither hunger now, nor thirst remained Unsatisfied, Telemachus began. Push ye the sable bark without delay Home to the city. I will to the field Among my shepherds, and, (my rural works Survey\u2019d,) at eve will to the town return. To-morrow will I set before you wine 610 And plenteous viands, wages of your toil. To whom the godlike Theoclymenus. Whither must I, my son? who, of the Chiefs Of rugged Ithaca, shall harbour me? Shall I to thine and to thy mother\u2019s house? Then thus Telemachus, discrete, replied. I would invite thee to proceed at once To our abode, since nought should fail thee there Of kind reception, but it were a course Now not adviseable; for I must myself, 620 Be absent, neither would my mother\u2019s eyes Behold thee, so unfrequent she appears Before the suitors, shunning whom, she sits Weaving continual at the palace-top. But I will name to thee another Chief Whom thou may\u2019st seek, Eurymachus, the son Renown\u2019d of prudent Polybus, whom all The people here reverence as a God. Far noblest of them all is he, and seeks More ardent than his rivals far, to wed 630 My mother, and to fill my father\u2019s throne. But, He who dwells above, Jove only knows If some disastrous day be not ordain\u2019d For them, or ere those nuptials shall arrive. While thus he spake, at his right hand appear\u2019d, Messenger of Apollo, on full wing, A falcon; in his pounces clench\u2019d he bore A dove, which rending, down he pour\u2019d her plumes Between the galley and Telemachus. Then, calling him apart, the prophet lock\u2019d 640 His hand in his, and thus explain\u2019d the sign. Not undirected by the Gods his flight On our right hand, Telemachus! this hawk Hath wing\u2019d propitious; soon as I perceived I knew him ominous\u2014In all the isle No family of a more royal note Than yours is found, and yours shall still prevail. Whom thus Telemachus answer\u2019d discrete. Grant heav\u2019n, my guest! that this good word of thine Fail not, and soon thou shalt such bounty share 650 And friendship at my hands, that, at first sight, Whoe\u2019er shall meet thee shall pronounce thee blest. Then, to Pir\u00e6us thus, his friend approved. Pir\u00e6us, son of Clytius! (for of all My followers to the shore of Pylus, none More prompt than thou hath my desires perform\u2019d) Now also to thy own abode conduct This stranger, whom with hospitable care Cherish and honour till myself arrive. To whom Pir\u00e6us answer\u2019d, spear-renown\u2019d. 660 Telemachus! however long thy stay, Punctual I will attend him, and no want Of hospitality shall he find with me. So saying, he climb\u2019d the ship, then bade the crew Embarking also, cast the hawsers loose, And each, obedient, to his bench repair\u2019d. Meantime Telemachus his sandals bound, And lifted from the deck his glitt\u2019ring spear. Then, as Telemachus had bidden them, Son of divine Ulysses, casting loose 670 The hawsers, forth they push\u2019d into the Deep And sought the city, while with nimble pace Proceeding thence, Telemachus attain\u2019d The cottage soon where good Eum\u00e6us slept, The swine-herd, faithful to his num\u2019rous charge.\n\n\n\n65 Iphyclus the son of Phylacus had seized and detained cattle belonging to Neleus; Neleus ordered his nephew Melampus to recover them, and as security for his obedience seized on a considerable part of his possessions. Melampus attempted the service, failed, and was cast into prison; but at length escaping, accomplished his errand, vanquished Neleus in battle, and carried off his daughter Pero, whom Neleus had promised to the brother of Melampus, but had afterward refused her.\n\n\n66 His wife Eryphyle, bribed by Polynices, persuaded him, though aware that death awaited him at that city, to go to Thebes, where he fell accordingly.\n\n\n67 She is said to have hanged herself.\n\n\n68 Not improbably the isthmus of Syracuse, an island, perhaps, or peninsula at that period, or at least imagined to be such by Homer. The birth of Diana gave fame to Ortygia. F.\n\n\n69 \u1f4d\u03b8\u03b9 \u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c0\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f20\u03b5\u03bb\u1f77\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf\u2014The Translator has rendered the passage according to that interpretation of it to which several of the best expositors incline. Nothing can be so absurd as to suppose that Homer, so correct in his geography, could mean to place a Mediterranean island under the Tropic.\n\n\n70 A principal city of Ph\u0153nicia.\n\n\n71 The anchors were lodged on the shore, not plunged as ours.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK XVI\nARGUMENT\nTelemachus dispatches Eum\u00e6us to the city to inform Penelope of his safe return from Pylus; during his absence, Ulysses makes himself known to his son. The suitors, having watched for Telemachus in vain, arrive again at Ithaca.\n\nIt was the hour of dawn, when in the cot Kindling fresh fire, Ulysses and his friend Noble Eum\u00e6us dress\u2019d their morning fare, And sent the herdsmen with the swine abroad. Seeing Telemachus, the watchful dogs Bark\u2019d not, but fawn\u2019d around him. At that sight, And at the sound of feet which now approach\u2019d, Ulysses in wing\u2019d accents thus remark\u2019d. Eum\u00e6us! certain, either friend of thine Is nigh at hand, or one whom well thou know\u2019st; 10 Thy dogs bark not, but fawn on his approach Obsequious, and the sound of feet I hear. Scarce had he ceased, when his own son himself Stood in the vestibule. Upsprang at once Eum\u00e6us wonder-struck, and from his hand Let fall the cups with which he was employ\u2019d Mingling rich wine; to his young Lord he ran, His forehead kiss\u2019d, kiss\u2019d his bright-beaming eyes And both his hands, weeping profuse the while, As when a father folds in his embrace 20 Arrived from foreign lands in the tenth year His darling son, the offspring of his age, His only one, for whom he long hath mourn\u2019d, So kiss\u2019d the noble peasant o\u2019er and o\u2019er Godlike Telemachus, as from death escaped, And in wing\u2019d accents plaintive thus began. Light of my eyes, thou com\u2019st; it is thyself, Sweetest Telemachus! I had no hope To see thee more, once told that o\u2019er the Deep Thou hadst departed for the Pylian coast. 30 Enter, my precious son; that I may sooth My soul with sight of thee from far arrived, For seldom thou thy feeders and thy farm Visitest, in the city custom\u2019d much To make abode, that thou may\u2019st witness there The manners of those hungry suitors proud. To whom Telemachus, discrete, replied. It will be so. There is great need, my friend! But here, for thy sake, have I now arrived, That I may look on thee, and from thy lips 40 Learn if my mother still reside at home, Or have become spouse of some other Chief, Leaving untenanted Ulysses\u2019 bed To be by noisome spiders webb\u2019d around. To whom the master swine-herd in return. Not so, she, patient still as ever, dwells Beneath thy roof, but all her cheerless days Despairing wastes, and all her nights in tears. So saying, Eum\u00e6us at his hand received His brazen lance, and o\u2019er the step of stone 50 Enter\u2019d Telemachus, to whom his sire Relinquish\u2019d, soon as he appear\u2019d, his seat, But him Telemachus forbidding, said\u2014 Guest, keep thy seat; our cottage will afford Some other, which Eum\u00e6us will provide. He ceased, and he, returning at the word, Reposed again; then good Eum\u00e6us spread Green twigs beneath, which, cover\u2019d with a fleece, Supplied Ulysses\u2019 offspring with a seat. He, next, disposed his dishes on the board 60 With relicts charged of yesterday; with bread, Alert, he heap\u2019d the baskets; with rich wine His ivy cup replenish\u2019d; and a seat Took opposite to his illustrious Lord Ulysses. They toward the plenteous feast Stretch\u2019d forth their hands, (and hunger now and thirst Both satisfied) Telemachus, his speech Addressing to their gen\u2019rous host, began. Whence is this guest, my father? How convey\u2019d Came he to Ithaca? What country boast 70 The mariners with whom he here arrived? For, that on foot he found us not, is sure. To whom Eum\u00e6us, thou didst thus reply. I will with truth answer thee, O my son! He boasts him sprung from ancestry renown\u2019d In spacious Crete, and hath the cities seen Of various lands, by fate ordain\u2019d to roam. Ev\u2019n now, from a Thesprotian ship escaped, He reach\u2019d my cottage\u2014but he is thy own; I yield him to thee; treat him as thou wilt; 80 He is thy suppliant, and depends on thee. Then thus, Telemachus, discrete, replied. Thy words, Eum\u00e6us, pain my very soul. For what security can I afford To any in my house? myself am young, Nor yet of strength sufficient to repel An offer\u2019d insult, and my mother\u2019s mind In doubtful balance hangs, if, still with me An inmate, she shall manage my concerns, Attentive only to her absent Lord 90 And her own good report, or shall espouse The noblest of her wooers, and the best Entitled by the splendour of his gifts. But I will give him, since I find him lodg\u2019d A guest beneath thy roof, tunic and cloak, Sword double-edged, and sandals for his feet, With convoy to the country of his choice. Still, if it please thee, keep him here thy guest, And I will send him raiment, with supplies Of all sorts, lest he burthen thee and thine. 100 But where the suitors come, there shall not he With my consent, nor stand exposed to pride And petulance like theirs, lest by some sneer They wound him, and through him, wound also me; For little is it that the boldest can Against so many; numbers will prevail. Him answer\u2019d then Ulysses toil-inured. Oh amiable and good! since even I Am free to answer thee, I will avow My heart within me torn by what I hear 110 Of those injurious suitors, who the house Infest of one noble as thou appear\u2019st. But say\u2014submittest thou to their controul Willingly, or because the people, sway\u2019d By some response oracular, incline Against thee? Thou hast brothers, it may chance, Slow to assist thee\u2014for a brother\u2019s aid Is of importance in whatever cause. For oh that I had youth as I have will, Or that renown\u2019d Ulysses were my sire, 120 Or that himself might wander home again. Whereof hope yet remains! then might I lose My head, that moment, by an alien\u2019s hand, If I would fail, ent\u2019ring Ulysses\u2019 gate, To be the bane and mischief of them all. But if alone to multitudes opposed I should perchance be foiled; nobler it were With my own people, under my own roof To perish, than to witness evermore Their unexampled deeds, guests shoved aside, 130 Maidens dragg\u2019d forcibly from room to room, Casks emptied of their rich contents, and them Indulging glutt\u2019nous appetite day by day Enormous, without measure, without end. To whom, Telemachus, discrete, replied. Stranger! thy questions shall from me receive True answer. Enmity or hatred none Subsists the people and myself between, Nor have I brothers to accuse, whose aid Is of importance in whatever cause, 140 For Jove hath from of old with single heirs Our house supplied; Arcesias none begat Except Laertes, and Laertes none Except Ulysses, and Ulysses me Left here his only one, and unenjoy\u2019d. Thence comes it that our palace swarms with foes; For all the rulers of the neighbour isles, Samos, Dulichium, and the forest-crown\u2019d Zacynthus, others also rulers here In craggy Ithaca, my mother seek 150 In marriage, and my household stores consume. But neither she those nuptial rites abhorr\u2019d Refuses absolute, nor yet consents To end them; they my patrimony waste Meantime, and will destroy me also soon, As I expect, but heav\u2019n disposes all. Eum\u00e6us! haste, my father! bear with speed News to Penelope that I am safe, And have arrived from Pylus; I will wait Till thou return; and well beware that none 160 Hear thee beside, for I have many foes. To whom Eum\u00e6us, thou didst thus reply. It is enough. I understand. Thou speak\u2019st To one intelligent. But say beside, Shall I not also, as I go, inform Distress\u2019d Laertes? who while yet he mourn\u2019d Ulysses only, could o\u2019ersee the works, And dieted among his menials oft As hunger prompted him, but now, they say, Since thy departure to the Pylian shore, 170 He neither eats as he was wont, nor drinks, Nor oversees his hinds, but sighing sits And weeping, wasted even to the bone. Him then Telemachus answer\u2019d discrete. Hard though it be, yet to his tears and sighs Him leave we now. We cannot what we would. For, were the ordering of all events Referr\u2019d to our own choice, our first desire Should be to see my father\u2019s glad return. But once thy tidings told, wander not thou 180 In quest of Him, but hither speed again. Rather request my mother that she send Her household\u2019s governess without delay Privately to him; she shall best inform The ancient King that I have safe arrived. He said, and urged him forth, who binding on His sandals, to the city bent his way. Nor went Eum\u00e6us from his home unmark\u2019d By Pallas, who in semblance of a fair Damsel, accomplish\u2019d in domestic arts, 190 Approaching to the cottage\u2019 entrance, stood Opposite, by Ulysses plain discern\u2019d, But to his son invisible; for the Gods Appear not manifest alike to all. The mastiffs saw her also, and with tone Querulous hid themselves, yet bark\u2019d they not. She beckon\u2019d him abroad. Ulysses saw The sign, and, issuing through the outer court, Approach\u2019d her, whom the Goddess thus bespake. Laertes\u2019 progeny, for wiles renown\u2019d! 200 Disclose thyself to thy own son, that, death Concerting and destruction to your foes, Ye may the royal city seek, nor long Shall ye my presence there desire in vain, For I am ardent to begin the fight. Minerva spake, and with her rod of gold Touch\u2019d him; his mantle, first, and vest she made Pure as new-blanch\u2019d; dilating, next, his form, She gave dimensions ampler to his limbs; Swarthy again his manly hue became, 210 Round his full face, and black his bushy chin. The change perform\u2019d, Minerva disappear\u2019d, And the illustrious Hero turn\u2019d again Into the cottage; wonder at that sight Seiz\u2019d on Telemachus; askance he look\u2019d, Awe-struck, not unsuspicious of a God, And in wing\u2019d accents eager thus began. Thou art no longer, whom I lately saw, Nor are thy cloaths, nor is thy port the same. Thou art a God, I know, and dwell\u2019st in heav\u2019n. 220 Oh, smile on us, that we may yield thee rites Acceptable, and present thee golden gifts Elaborate; ah spare us, Pow\u2019r divine! To whom Ulysses, Hero toil-inured. I am no God. Why deem\u2019st thou me divine? I am thy father, for whose sake thou lead\u2019st A life of woe, by violence oppress\u2019d. So saying, he kiss\u2019d his son, while from his cheeks Tears trickled, tears till then, perforce restrained. Telemachus, (for he believed him not 230 His father yet) thus, wond\u2019ring, spake again. My father, said\u2019st thou? no. Thou art not He, But some Divinity beguiles my soul With mock\u2019ries to afflict me still the more; For never mortal man could so have wrought By his own pow\u2019r; some interposing God Alone could render thee both young and old, For old thou wast of late, and foully clad, But wear\u2019st the semblance, now, of those in heav\u2019n! To whom Ulysses, ever-wise, replied. 240 Telemachus! it is not well, my son! That thou should\u2019st greet thy father with a face Of wild astonishment, and stand aghast. Ulysses, save myself, none comes, be sure. Such as thou seest, after ten thousand woes Which I have borne, I visit once again My native country in the twentieth year. This wonder Athen\u00e6an Pallas wrought, She cloath\u2019d me even with what form she would, For so she can. Now poor I seem and old, 250 Now young again, and clad in fresh attire. The Gods who dwell in yonder heav\u2019n, with ease Dignify or debase a mortal man. So saying, he sat. Then threw Telemachus His arms around his father\u2019s neck, and wept. Desire intense of lamentation seized On both; soft murmurs utt\u2019ring, each indulged His grief, more frequent wailing than the bird, (Eagle, or hook-nail\u2019d vulture) from whose nest Some swain hath stol\u2019n her yet unfeather\u2019d young. 260 So from their eyelids they big drops distill\u2019d Of tend\u2019rest grief, nor had the setting sun Cessation of their weeping seen, had not Telemachus his father thus address\u2019d. What ship convey\u2019d thee to thy native shore, My father! and what country boast the crew? For, that on foot thou not arriv\u2019dst, is sure. Then thus divine Ulysses toil-inured. My son! I will explicit all relate. Conducted by Ph\u00e6acia\u2019s maritime sons 270 I came, a race accustom\u2019d to convey Strangers who visit them across the Deep. Me, o\u2019er the billows in a rapid bark Borne sleeping, on the shores of Ithaca They lay\u2019d; rich gifts they gave me also, brass, Gold in full bags, and beautiful attire, Which, warn\u2019d from heav\u2019n, I have in caves conceal\u2019d. By Pallas prompted, hither I repair\u2019d That we might plan the slaughter of our foes, Whose numbers tell me now, that I may know 280 How pow\u2019rful, certainly, and who they are, And consultation with my dauntless heart May hold, if we be able to contend Ourselves with all, or must have aid beside. Then, answer thus his son, discrete, return\u2019d. My father! thy renown hath ever rung In thy son\u2019s ears, and by report thy force In arms, and wisdom I have oft been told. But terribly thou speak\u2019st; amazement-fixt I hear; can two a multitude oppose, 290 And valiant warriors all? for neither ten Are they, nor twenty, but more num\u2019rous far. Learn, now, their numbers. Fifty youths and two Came from Dulichium; they are chosen men, And six attendants follow in their train; From Samos twenty youths and four arrive, Zacynthus also of Achaia\u2019s sons Sends twenty more, and our own island adds, Herself, her twelve chief rulers; Medon, too, Is there the herald, and the bard divine, 300 With other two, intendants of the board. Should we within the palace, we alone, Assail them all, I fear lest thy revenge Unpleasant to thyself and deadly prove, Frustrating thy return. But recollect\u2014 Think, if thou canst, on whose confed\u2019rate arm Strenuous on our behalf we may rely. To him replied his patient father bold. I will inform thee. Mark. Weigh well my words. Will Pallas and the everlasting Sire 310 Alone suffice? or need we other aids? Then answer thus Telemachus return\u2019d. Good friends indeed are they whom thou hast named, Though throned above the clouds; for their controul Is universal both in earth and heav\u2019n. To whom Ulysses, toil-worn Chief renown\u2019d. Not long will they from battle stand aloof, When once, within my palace, in the strength Of Mars, to sharp decision we shall urge The suitors. But thyself at early dawn 320 Our mansion seek, that thou may\u2019st mingle there With that imperious throng; me in due time Eum\u00e6us to the city shall conduct, In form a miserable beggar old. But should they with dishonourable scorn Insult me, thou unmov\u2019d my wrongs endure, And should they even drag me by the feet Abroad, or smite me with the spear, thy wrath Refraining, gently counsel them to cease From such extravagance; but well I know 330 That cease they will not, for their hour is come. And mark me well; treasure what now I say Deep in thy soul. When Pallas shall, herself, Suggest the measure, then, shaking my brows, I will admonish thee; thou, at the sign, Remove what arms soever in the hall Remain, and in the upper palace safe Dispose them; should the suitors, missing them, Perchance interrogate thee, then reply Gently\u2014I have removed them from the smoke; 340 For they appear no more the arms which erst Ulysses, going hence to Ilium, left, But smirch\u2019d and sullied by the breath of fire. This weightier reason (thou shalt also say) Jove taught me; lest, intoxicate with wine, Ye should assault each other in your brawls, Shaming both feast and courtship; for the view Itself of arms incites to their abuse. Yet leave two faulchions for ourselves alone, Two spears, two bucklers, which with sudden force 350 Impetuous we will seize, and Jove all-wise Their valour shall, and Pallas, steal away. This word store also in remembrance deep\u2014 If mine in truth thou art, and of my blood, Then, of Ulysses to his home returned Let none hear news from thee, no, not my sire Laertes, nor Eum\u00e6us, nor of all The menials any, or ev\u2019n Penelope, That thou and I, alone, may search the drift Of our domestic women, and may prove 360 Our serving-men, who honours and reveres And who contemns us both, but chiefly thee So gracious and so worthy to be loved. Him then thus answer\u2019d his illustrious son. Trust me, my father! thou shalt soon be taught That I am not of drowsy mind obtuse. But this I think not likely to avail Or thee or me; ponder it yet again; For tedious were the task, farm after farm To visit of those servants, proving each, 370 And the proud suitors merciless devour Meantime thy substance, nor abstain from aught. Learn, if thou wilt, (and I that course myself Advise) who slights thee of the female train, And who is guiltless; but I would not try From house to house the men, far better proved Hereafter, if in truth by signs from heav\u2019n Inform\u2019d, thou hast been taught the will of Jove. Thus they conferr\u2019d. The gallant bark, meantime, Reach\u2019d Ithaca, which from the Pylian shore 380 Had brought Telemachus with all his band. Within the many-fathom\u2019d port arrived His lusty followers haled her far aground, Then carried thence their arms, but to the house Of Clytius the illustrious gifts convey\u2019d. Next to the royal mansion they dispatch\u2019d An herald charg\u2019d with tidings to the Queen, That her Telemachus had reach\u2019d the cot Of good Eum\u00e6us, and the bark had sent Home to the city; lest the matchless dame 390 Should still deplore the absence of her son. They, then, the herald and the swine-herd, each Bearing like message to his mistress, met, And at the palace of the godlike Chief Arriving, compass\u2019d by the female throng Inquisitive, the herald thus began. Thy son, O Queen! is safe; ev\u2019n now return\u2019d. Then, drawing nigh to her, Eum\u00e6us told His message also from her son received, And, his commission punctually discharged, 400 Leaving the palace, sought his home again. Grief seized and anguish, at those tidings, all The suitors; issuing forth, on the outside Of the high wall they sat, before the gate, When Polybus\u2019 son, Eurymachus, began. My friends! his arduous task, this voyage, deem\u2019d By us impossible, in our despight Telemachus hath atchieved. Haste! launch we forth A sable bark, our best, which let us man With mariners expert, who, rowing forth 410 Swiftly, shall summon our companions home. Scarce had he said, when turning where he sat, Amphinomus beheld a bark arrived Just then in port; he saw them furling sail, And seated with their oars in hand; he laugh\u2019d Through pleasure at that sight, and thus he spake. Our message may be spared. Lo! they arrive. Either some God inform\u2019d them, or they saw, Themselves, the vessel of Telemachus Too swiftly passing to be reach\u2019d by theirs. 420 He spake; they, rising, hasted to the shore. Alert they drew the sable bark aground, And by his servant each his arms dispatch\u2019d To his own home. Then, all, to council those Assembling, neither elder of the land Nor youth allow\u2019d to join them, and the rest Eupithes\u2019 son, Antino\u00fcs, thus bespake. Ah! how the Gods have rescued him! all day Perch\u2019d on the airy mountain-top, our spies Successive watch\u2019d; and, when the sun declined, 430 We never slept on shore, but all night long Till sacred dawn arose, plow\u2019d the abyss, Hoping Telemachus, that we might seize And slay him, whom some Deity hath led, In our despight, safe to his home again. But frame we yet again means to destroy Telemachus; ah\u2014let not Him escape! For end of this our task, while he survives, None shall be found, such prudence he displays And wisdom, neither are the people now 440 Unanimous our friends as heretofore. Come, then\u2014prevent him, ere he call the Greeks To council; for he will not long delay, But will be angry, doubtless, and will tell Amid them all, how we in vain devised His death, a deed which they will scarce applaud, But will, perhaps, punish and drive us forth From our own country to a distant land.\u2014 Prevent him, therefore, quickly; in the field Slay him, or on the road; so shall his wealth 450 And his possessions on ourselves devolve Which we will share equally, but his house Shall be the Queen\u2019s, and his whom she shall wed. Yet, if not so inclined, ye rather chuse That he should live and occupy entire His patrimony, then, no longer, here Assembled, let us revel at his cost, But let us all with spousal gifts produced From our respective treasures, woo the Queen, Leaving her in full freedom to espouse 460 Who proffers most, and whom the fates ordain. He ceased; the assembly silent sat and mute. Then rose Amphinomus amid them all, Offspring renown\u2019d of Nisus, son, himself, Of King Aretias. He had thither led The suitor train who from the pleasant isle Corn-clad of green Dulichium had arrived, And by his speech pleased far beyond them all Penelope, for he was just and wise, And thus, well-counselling the rest, began. 470 Not I, my friends! far be the thought from me To slay Telemachus! it were a deed Momentous, terrible, to slay a prince. First, therefore, let us counsel ask of heav\u2019n, And if Jove\u2019s oracle that course approve, I will encourage you, and will myself Be active in his death; but if the Gods Forbid it, then, by my advice, forbear. So spake Amphinomus, whom all approved. Arising then, into Ulysses\u2019 house 480 They went, where each his splendid seat resumed. A novel purpose occupied, meantime, Penelope; she purposed to appear Before her suitors, whose design to slay Telemachus she had from Medon learn\u2019d, The herald, for his ear had caught the sound. Toward the hall with her attendant train She moved, and when, most graceful of her sex, Where sat the suitors she arrived, between The columns standing of the stately dome, 490 And covering with her white veil\u2019s lucid folds Her features, to Antino\u00fcs thus she spake. Antino\u00fcs, proud, contentious, evermore To mischief prone! the people deem thee wise Past thy compeers, and in all grace of speech Pre-eminent, but such wast never thou. Inhuman! why is it thy dark design To slay Telemachus? and why with scorn Rejectest thou the suppliant\u2019s pray\u2019r,72 which Jove Himself hath witness\u2019d? Plots please not the Gods. 500 Know\u2019st not that thy own father refuge found Here, when he fled before the people\u2019s wrath Whom he had irritated by a wrong Which, with a band of Taphian robbers joined, He offer\u2019d to the Thesprots, our allies? They would have torn his heart, and would have laid All his delights and his possessions waste, But my Ulysses slaked the furious heat Of their revenge, whom thou requitest now Wasting his goods, soliciting his wife, 510 Slaying his son, and filling me with woe. But cease, I charge thee, and bid cease the rest. To whom the son of Polybus replied, Eurymachus.\u2014Icarius\u2019 daughter wise! Take courage, fair Penelope, and chace These fears unreasonable from thy mind! The man lives not, nor shall, who while I live, And faculty of sight retain, shall harm Telemachus, thy son. For thus I say, And thus will I perform; his blood shall stream 520 A sable current from my lance\u2019s point That moment; for the city-waster Chief Ulysses, oft, me placing on his knees, Hath fill\u2019d my infant grasp with sav\u2019ry food, And giv\u2019n me ruddy wine. I, therefore, hold Telemachus of all men most my friend, Nor hath he death to fear from hand of ours. Yet, if the Gods shall doom him, die he must. So he encouraged her, who yet, himself, Plotted his death. She, re-ascending, sought 530 Her stately chamber, and, arriving there, Deplored with tears her long-regretted Lord Till Athen\u00e6an Pallas azure-eyed Dews of soft slumber o\u2019er her lids diffused. And now, at even-tide, Eum\u00e6us reach\u2019d Ulysses and his son. A yearling swine Just slain they skilfully for food prepared, When Pallas, drawing nigh, smote with her wand Ulysses, at the stroke rend\u2019ring him old, And his apparel sordid as before, 540 Lest, knowing him, the swain at once should seek Penelope, and let the secret forth. Then foremost him Telemachus address\u2019d. Noble Eum\u00e6us! thou art come; what news Bring\u2019st from the city? Have the warrior band Of suitors, hopeless of their ambush, reach\u2019d The port again, or wait they still for me? To whom Eum\u00e6us, thou didst thus reply. No time for such enquiry, nor to range, Curious, the streets had I, but anxious wish\u2019d 550 To make my message known, and to return. But, as it chanced, a nimble herald sent From thy companions, met me on the way, Who reach\u2019d thy mother first. Yet this I know, For this I saw. Passing above the town Where they have piled a way-side hill of stones To Mercury, I beheld a gallant bark Ent\u2019ring the port; a bark she was of ours, The crew were num\u2019rous, and I mark\u2019d her deep- Laden with shields and spears of double edge. 560 Theirs I conjectured her, and could no more. He spake, and by Eum\u00e6us unperceived, Telemachus his father eyed and smiled. Their task accomplish\u2019d, and the table spread, They ate, nor any his due portion miss\u2019d, And hunger, now, and thirst both sated, all To rest repair\u2019d, and took the gift of sleep.\n\n\n\n72 Alluding probably to entreaties made to him at some former time by herself and Telemachus, that he would not harm them. Clarke.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK XVII\nARGUMENT\nTelemachus returns to the city, and relates to his mother the principal passages of his voyage; Ulysses, conducted by Eum\u00e6us, arrives there also, and enters among the suitors, having been known only by his old dog Argus, who dies at his feet. The curiosity of Penelope being excited by the account which Eum\u00e6us gives her of Ulysses, she orders him immediately into her presence, but Ulysses postpones the interview till evening, when the suitors having left the palace, there shall be no danger of interruption. Eum\u00e6us returns to his cottage.\n\nNow look\u2019d Aurora from the East abroad, When the illustrious offspring of divine Ulysses bound his sandals to his feet; He seiz\u2019d his sturdy spear match\u2019d to his gripe, And to the city meditating quick Departure now, the swine-herd thus bespake. Father! I seek the city, to convince My mother of my safe return, whose tears, I judge, and lamentation shall not cease Till her own eyes behold me. But I lay 10 On thee this charge. Into the city lead, Thyself, this hapless guest, that he may beg Provision there, a morsel and a drop From such as may, perchance, vouchsafe the boon. I cannot, vext and harass\u2019d as I am, Feed all, and should the stranger take offence, The worse for him. Plain truth is my delight. To whom Ulysses, ever-wise, replied. Nor is it my desire to be detained. Better the mendicant in cities seeks 20 His dole, vouchsafe it whosoever may, Than in the villages. I am not young, Nor longer of an age that well accords With rural tasks, nor could I all perform That it might please a master to command. Go then, and when I shall have warm\u2019d my limbs Before the hearth, and when the risen sun Shall somewhat chase the cold, thy servant\u2019s task Shall be to guide me thither, as thou bidd\u2019st, For this is a vile garb; the frosty air 30 Of morning would benumb me thus attired, And, as ye say, the city is remote. He ended, and Telemachus in haste Set forth, his thoughts all teeming as he went With dire revenge. Soon in the palace-courts Arriving, he reclined his spear against A column, and proceeded to the hall. Him Euryclea, first, his nurse, perceived, While on the variegated seats she spread Their fleecy cov\u2019ring; swift with tearful eyes 40 She flew to him, and the whole female train Of brave Ulysses swarm\u2019d around his son, Clasping him, and his forehead and his neck Kissing affectionate; then came, herself, As golden Venus or Diana fair, Forth from her chamber to her son\u2019s embrace, The chaste Penelope; with tears she threw Her arms around him, his bright-beaming eyes And forehead kiss\u2019d, and with a murmur\u2019d plaint Maternal, in wing\u2019d accents thus began. 50 Thou hast return\u2019d, light of my eyes! my son! My lov\u2019d Telemachus! I had no hope To see thee more when once thou hadst embark\u2019d For Pylus, privily, and with no consent From me obtain\u2019d, news seeking of thy sire. But haste; unfold. Declare what thou hast seen. To whom Telemachus, discrete, replied. Ah mother! let my sorrows rest, nor me From death so lately \u2019scaped afflict anew, But, bathed and habited in fresh attire, 60 With all the maidens of thy train ascend To thy superior chamber, there to vow A perfect hecatomb to all the Gods, When Jove shall have avenged our num\u2019rous wrongs. I seek the forum, there to introduce A guest, my follower from the Pylian shore, Whom sending forward with my noble band, I bade Pir\u00e6us to his own abode Lead him, and with all kindness entertain The stranger, till I should myself arrive. 70 He spake, nor flew his words useless away. She, bathed and habited in fresh attire, Vow\u2019d a full hecatomb to all the Gods, Would Jove but recompense her num\u2019rous wrongs. Then, spear in hand, went forth her son, two dogs Fleet-footed following him. O\u2019er all his form Pallas diffused a dignity divine, And ev\u2019ry eye gazed on him as he pass\u2019d. The suitors throng\u2019d him round, joy on their lips And welcome, but deep mischief in their hearts. 80 He, shunning all that crowd, chose to himself A seat, where Mentor sat, and Antiphus, And Halytherses, long his father\u2019s friends Sincere, who of his voyage much enquired. Then drew Pir\u00e6us nigh, leading his guest Toward the forum; nor Telemachus Stood long aloof, but greeted his approach, And was accosted by Pir\u00e6us thus. Sir! send thy menial women to bring home The precious charge committed to my care, 90 Thy gifts at Menelaus\u2019 hands received. To whom Telemachus, discrete, replied. Pir\u00e6us! wait; for I not yet foresee The upshot. Should these haughty ones effect My death, clandestine, under my own roof, And parcel my inheritance by lot, I rather wish those treasures thine, than theirs. But should I with success plan for them all A bloody death, then, wing\u2019d with joy, thyself Bring home those presents to thy joyful friend. 100 So saying, he led the anxious stranger thence Into the royal mansion, where arrived, Each cast his mantle on a couch or throne, And plung\u2019d his feet into a polish\u2019d bath. There wash\u2019d and lubricated with smooth oils, From the attendant maidens each received Tunic and shaggy mantle. Thus attired, Forth from the baths they stepp\u2019d, and sat again. A maiden, next, with golden ewer charged, And silver bowl, pour\u2019d water on their hands, 110 And spread the polish\u2019d table, which with food Of all kinds, remnants of the last regale, The mistress of the household charge supplied. Meantime, beside a column of the dome His mother, on a couch reclining, twirl\u2019d Her slender threads. They to the furnish\u2019d board Stretch\u2019d forth their hands, and, hunger now and thirst Both satisfied, Penelope began. Telemachus! I will ascend again, And will repose me on my woeful bed; 120 For such it hath been, and with tears of mine Ceaseless bedew\u2019d, e\u2019er since Ulysses went With Atreus\u2019 sons to Troy. For not a word Thou would\u2019st vouchsafe me till our haughty guests Had occupied the house again, of all That thou hast heard (if aught indeed thou hast) Of thy long-absent father\u2019s wish\u2019d return. Her answer\u2019d then Telemachus discrete. Mother, at thy request I will with truth Relate the whole. At Pylus shore arrived 130 We Nestor found, Chief of the Pylian race. Receiving me in his august abode, He entertain\u2019d me with such welcome kind As a glad father shews to his own son Long-lost and newly found; so Nestor me, And his illustrious offspring, entertain\u2019d, But yet assured me that he nought had heard From mortal lips of my magnanimous sire, Whether alive or dead; with his own steeds He sent me, and with splendid chariot thence 140 To spear-famed Menelaus, Atreus\u2019 son. There saw I Helen, by the Gods\u2019 decree Auth\u2019ress of trouble both to Greece and Troy. The Hero Menelaus then enquired What cause had urged me to the pleasant vale Of Laced\u00e6mon; plainly I rehearsed The occasion, and the Hero thus replied. Ye Gods! they are ambitious of the bed Of a brave man, however base themselves. But, as it chances when the hart hath laid 150 Her fawns new-yean\u2019d and sucklings yet, to rest In some resistless lion\u2019s den, she roams, Meantime, the hills, and in the grassy vales Feeds heedless, but the lion to his lair Returning soon, both her and hers destroys, So shall thy father, brave Ulysses, them. Jove! Pallas! and Apollo! oh that such As erst in well-built Lesbos, where he strove With Philomelides, whom wrestling, flat He threw, when all Achaia\u2019s sons rejoiced, 160 Ulysses, now, might mingle with his foes! Short life and bitter nuptials should be theirs, But thy enquiries neither indirect Will I evade, nor give thee false reply, But all that from the Ancient of the Deep73 I have received will utter, hiding nought. The God declared that he had seen thy sire In a lone island, sorrowing, and detain\u2019d An inmate in the grotto of the nymph Calypso, wanting also means by which 170 To reach the country of his birth again, For neither gallant barks nor friends had he To speed his passage o\u2019er the boundless waves. So Menelaus spake, the spear-renown\u2019d. My errand thus accomplish\u2019d, I return\u2019d\u2014 And by the Gods with gales propitious blest, Was wafted swiftly to my native shore. He spake, and tumult in his mother\u2019s heart So speaking, raised. Consolatory, next, The godlike Theoclymenus began. 180 Consort revered of Laertiades! Little the Spartan knew, but list to me, For I will plainly prophesy and sure. Be Jove of all in heav\u2019n my witness first, Then this thy hospitable board, and, last, The household Gods of the illustrious Chief Ulysses, at whose hearth I have arrived,74 That, even now, within his native isle Ulysses somewhere sits, or creeps obscure, Witness of these enormities, and seeds 190 Sowing of dire destruction for his foes; So sure an augury, while on the deck Reclining of the gallant bark, I saw, And with loud voice proclaim\u2019d it to thy son. Him answer\u2019d then Penelope discrete. Grant heav\u2019n, my guest, that this good word of thine Fail not! then shalt thou soon such bounty share And friendship at my hands, that at first sight Whoe\u2019er shall meet thee shall pronounce thee blest. Thus they conferr\u2019d. Meantime the suitors hurl\u2019d 200 The quoit and lance on the smooth area spread Before Ulysses\u2019 gate, the custom\u2019d scene Of their contentions, sports, and clamours rude. But when the hour of supper now approach\u2019d, And from the pastures on all sides the sheep Came with their wonted drivers, Medon then (For he of all the heralds pleas\u2019d them most, And waited at the board) them thus address\u2019d. Enough of play, young princes! ent\u2019ring now The house, prepare we sedulous our feast, 210 Since in well-timed refreshment harm is none. He spake, whose admonition pleas\u2019d. At once All, rising, sought the palace; there arrived, Each cast his mantle off, which on his throne Or couch he spread, then, brisk, to slaughter fell Of many a victim; sheep and goats and brawns They slew, all fatted, and a pastur\u2019d ox, Hast\u2019ning the banquet; nor with less dispatch Ulysses and Eum\u00e6us now prepared To seek the town, when thus the swain began. 220 My guest! since thy fixt purpose is to seek This day the city as my master bade, Though I, in truth, much rather wish thee here A keeper of our herds, yet, through respect And rev\u2019rence of his orders, whose reproof I dread, for masters seldom gently chide, I would be gone. Arise, let us depart, For day already is far-spent, and soon The air of even-tide will chill thee more. To whom Ulysses, ever-wise, replied. 230 It is enough. I understand. Thou speak\u2019st To one intelligent. Let us depart, And lead, thyself, the way; but give me, first, (If thou have one already hewn) a staff To lean on, for ye have described the road Rugged, and ofttimes dang\u2019rous to the foot. So saying, his tatter\u2019d wallet o\u2019er his back He cast, suspended by a leathern twist, Eum\u00e6us gratified him with a staff, And forth they went, leaving the cottage kept 240 By dogs and swains. He city-ward his King Led on, in form a squalid beggar old, Halting, and in unseemly garb attired. But when, slow-travelling the craggy way, They now approach\u2019d the town, and had attain\u2019d The marble fountain deep, which with its streams Pellucid all the citizens supplied, (Ithacus had that fountain framed of old With Neritus and Polyctor, over which A grove of water-nourish\u2019d alders hung 250 Circular on all sides, while cold the rill Ran from the rock, on whose tall summit stood The altar of the nymphs, by all who pass\u2019d With sacrifice frequented, still, and pray\u2019r) Melantheus, son of Dolius, at that fount Met them; the chosen goats of ev\u2019ry flock, With two assistants, from the field he drove, The suitors\u2019 supper. He, seeing them both, In surly accent boorish, such as fired Ulysses with resentment, thus began. 260 Ay\u2014this is well\u2014The villain leads the vile\u2014 Thus evermore the Gods join like to like. Thou clumsy swine-herd, whither would\u2019st conduct This morsel-hunting mendicant obscene, Defiler base of banquets? many a post Shall he rub smooth that props him while he begs Lean alms, sole object of his low pursuit, Who ne\u2019er to sword or tripod yet aspired. Would\u2019st thou afford him to me for a guard Or sweeper of my stalls, or to supply 270 My kids with leaves, he should on bulkier thewes Supported stand, though nourish\u2019d but with whey. But no such useful arts hath he acquired, Nor likes he work, but rather much to extort From others food for his unsated maw. But mark my prophecy, for it is true, At famed Ulysses\u2019 house should he arrive, His sides shall shatter many a footstool hurl\u2019d Against them by the offended princes there. He spake, and drawing nigh, with his rais\u2019d foot, 280 Insolent as he was and brutish, smote Ulysses\u2019 haunch, yet shook not from his path The firm-set Chief, who, doubtful, mused awhile Whether to rush on him, and with his staff To slay him, or uplifting him on high, Downward to dash him headlong; but his wrath Restraining, calm he suffer\u2019d the affront. Him then Eum\u00e6us with indignant look Rebuking, rais\u2019d his hands, and fervent pray\u2019d. Nymphs of the fountains, progeny of Jove! 290 If e\u2019er Ulysses on your altar burn\u2019d The thighs of fatted lambs or kidlings, grant This my request. O let the Hero soon, Conducted by some Deity, return! So shall he quell that arrogance which safe Thou now indulgest, roaming day by day The city, while bad shepherds mar the flocks. To whom the goat-herd answer thus return\u2019d Melantheus. Marvellous! how rare a speech The subtle cur hath framed! whom I will send 300 Far hence at a convenient time on board My bark, and sell him at no little gain. I would, that he who bears the silver bow As sure might pierce Telemachus this day In his own house, or that the suitors might, As that same wand\u2019rer shall return no more! He said, and them left pacing slow along, But soon, himself, at his Lord\u2019s house arrived; There ent\u2019ring bold, he with the suitors sat Opposite to Eurymachus, for him 310 He valued most. The sewers his portion placed Of meat before him, and the maiden, chief Directress of the household gave him bread. And now, Ulysses, with the swain his friend Approach\u2019d, when, hearing the harmonious lyre, Both stood, for Phemius had begun his song. He grasp\u2019d the swine-herd\u2019s hand, and thus he said. This house, Eum\u00e6us! of Ulysses seems Passing magnificent, and to be known With ease for his among a thousand more. 320 One pile supports another, and a wall Crested with battlements surrounds the court; Firm, too, the folding doors all force of man Defy; but num\u2019rous guests, as I perceive, Now feast within; witness the sav\u2019ry steam Fast-fuming upward, and the sounding harp, Divine associate of the festive board. To whom, Eum\u00e6us, thou didst thus reply. Thou hast well-guess\u2019d; no wonder, thou art quick On ev\u2019ry theme; but let us well forecast 330 This business. Wilt thou, ent\u2019ring first, thyself, The splendid mansion, with the suitors mix, Me leaving here? or shall I lead the way While thou remain\u2019st behind? yet linger not, Lest, seeing thee without, some servant strike Or drive thee hence. Consider which were best. Him answer\u2019d, then, the patient Hero bold. It is enough. I understand. Thou speak\u2019st To one intelligent. Lead thou the way Me leaving here, for neither stripes nor blows 340 To me are strange. Much exercised with pain In fight and on the Deep, I have long since Learn\u2019d patience. Follow, next, what follow may! But, to suppress the appetite, I deem Impossible; the stomach is a source Of ills to man, an avaricious gulph Destructive, which to satiate, ships are rigg\u2019d, Seas travers\u2019d, and fierce battles waged remote. Thus they discoursing stood; Argus the while, Ulysses\u2019 dog, uplifted where he lay 350 His head and ears erect. Ulysses him Had bred long since, himself, but rarely used, Departing, first, to Ilium. Him the youths In other days led frequent to the chace Of wild goat, hart and hare; but now he lodg\u2019d A poor old cast-off, of his Lord forlorn, Where mules and oxen had before the gate Much ordure left, with which Ulysses\u2019 hinds Should, in due time, manure his spacious fields. There lay, with dog-devouring vermin foul 360 All over, Argus; soon as he perceived Long-lost Ulysses nigh, down fell his ears Clapp\u2019d close, and with his tail glad sign he gave Of gratulation, impotent to rise And to approach his master as of old. Ulysses, noting him, wiped off a tear Unmark\u2019d, and of Eum\u00e6us quick enquired. I can but wonder seeing such a dog Thus lodg\u2019d, Eum\u00e6us! beautiful in form He is, past doubt, but whether he hath been 370 As fleet as fair I know not; rather such Perchance as masters sometimes keep to grace Their tables, nourish\u2019d more for shew than use. To whom, Eum\u00e6us, thou didst thus reply. He is the dog of one dead far remote. But had he now such feat-performing strength As when Ulysses left him, going hence To Ilium, in one moment thou shouldst mark, Astonish\u2019d, his agility and force. He never in the sylvan deep recess 380 The wild beast saw that \u2019scaped him, and he track\u2019d Their steps infallible; but he hath now No comfort, for (the master dead afar) The heedless servants care not for his dog. Domestics, missing once their Lord\u2019s controul, Grow wilful, and refuse their proper tasks; For whom Jove dooms to servitude, he takes At once the half of that man\u2019s worth away. He said, and, ent\u2019ring at the portal, join\u2019d The suitors. Then his destiny released 390 Old Argus, soon as he had lived to see Ulysses in the twentieth year restored. Godlike Telemachus, long ere the rest, Marking the swine-herd\u2019s entrance, with a nod Summon\u2019d him to approach. Eum\u00e6us cast His eye around, and seeing vacant there The seat which the dispenser of the feast Was wont to occupy while he supplied The num\u2019rous guests, planted it right before Telemachus, and at his table sat, 400 On which the herald placed for him his share Of meat, and from the baskets gave him bread. Soon after him, Ulysses enter\u2019d slow The palace, like a squalid beggar old, Staff-propp\u2019d, and in loose tatters foul attired. Within the portal on the ashen sill He sat, and, seeming languid, lean\u2019d against A cypress pillar by the builder\u2019s art Polish\u2019d long since, and planted at the door. Then took Telemachus a loaf entire 410 Forth from the elegant basket, and of flesh A portion large as his two hands contained, And, beck\u2019ning close the swine-herd, charged him thus. These to the stranger; whom advise to ask Some dole from ev\u2019ry suitor; bashful fear Ill suits the mendicant by want oppress\u2019d. He spake; Eum\u00e6us went, and where he sat Arriving, in wing\u2019d accents thus began. Telemachus, oh stranger, sends thee these, And counsels thee to importune for more 420 The suitors, one by one; for bashful fear Ill suits the mendicant by want oppress\u2019d. To whom Ulysses, ever-wise, replied. Jove, King of all, grant ev\u2019ry good on earth To kind Telemachus, and the complete Accomplishment of all that he desires! He said, and with both hands outspread, the mess Receiving as he sat, on his worn bag Disposed it at his feet. Long as the bard Chaunted, he ate, and when he ceas\u2019d to eat, 430 Then also ceas\u2019d the bard divine to sing. And now ensued loud clamour in the hall And tumult, when Minerva, drawing nigh To Laertiades, impell\u2019d the Chief Crusts to collect, or any pittance small At ev\u2019ry suitor\u2019s hand, for trial\u2019s sake Of just and unjust; yet deliv\u2019rance none From evil she design\u2019d for any there. From left to right75 his progress he began Petitioning, with outstretch\u2019d hands, the throng, 440 As one familiar with the beggar\u2019s art. They, pitying, gave to him, but view\u2019d him still With wonder, and enquiries mutual made Who, and whence was he? Then the goat-herd rose Melanthius, and th\u2019 assembly thus address\u2019d. Hear me, ye suitors of th\u2019 illustrious Queen! This guest, of whom ye ask, I have beheld Elsewhere; the swine-herd brought him; but himself I know not, neither who nor whence he is. So he; then thus Antino\u00fcs stern rebuked 450 The swine-herd. Ah, notorious as thou art, Why hast thou shewn this vagabond the way Into the city? are we not enough Infested with these troublers of our feasts? Deem\u2019st it a trifle that such numbers eat At thy Lord\u2019s cost, and hast thou, therefore, led This fellow hither, found we know not where? To whom, Eum\u00e6us, thou didst thus reply. Antino\u00fcs! though of high degree, thou speak\u2019st Not wisely. What man to another\u2019s house 460 Repairs to invite him to a feast, unless He be of those who by profession serve The public, prophet, healer of disease, Ingenious artist, or some bard divine Whose music may exhilarate the guests? These, and such only, are in ev\u2019ry land Call\u2019d to the banquet; none invites the poor, Who much consume, and no requital yield. But thou of all the suitors roughly treat\u2019st Ulysses\u2019 servants most, and chiefly me; 470 Yet thee I heed not, while the virtuous Queen Dwells in this palace, and her godlike son. To whom Telemachus, discrete, replied. Peace! answer not verbose a man like him. Antino\u00fcs hath a tongue accustom\u2019d much To tauntings, and promotes them in the rest. Then, turning to Antino\u00fcs, quick he said\u2014 Antino\u00fcs! as a father for his son Takes thought, so thou for me, who bidd\u2019st me chase The stranger harshly hence; but God forbid!76 480 Impart to him. I grudge not, but myself Exhort thee to it; neither, in this cause, Fear thou the Queen, or in the least regard Whatever menial throughout all the house Of famed Ulysses. Ah! within thy breast Dwells no such thought; thou lov\u2019st not to impart To others, but to gratify thyself. To whom Antino\u00fcs answer thus return\u2019d. High-soaring and intemp\u2019rate in thy speech How hast thou said, Telemachus? Would all 490 As much bestow on him, he should not seek Admittance here again three months to come. So saying, he seized the stool which, banqueting, He press\u2019d with his nice feet, and from beneath The table forth advanced it into view. The rest all gave to him, with bread and flesh Filling his wallet, and Ulysses, now, Returning to his threshold, there to taste The bounty of the Greeks, paused in his way Beside Antino\u00fcs, whom he thus address\u2019d. 500 Kind sir! vouchsafe to me! for thou appear\u2019st Not least, but greatest of the Achaians here, And hast a kingly look. It might become Thee therefore above others to bestow, So should I praise thee wheresoe\u2019er I roam. I also lived the happy owner once Of such a stately mansion, and have giv\u2019n To num\u2019rous wand\u2019rers (whencesoe\u2019er they came) All that they needed; I was also served By many, and enjoy\u2019d all that denotes 510 The envied owner opulent and blest. But Jove (for so it pleas\u2019d him) hath reduced My all to nothing, prompting me, in league With rovers of the Deep, to sail afar To \u00c6gypt, for my sure destruction there. Within th\u2019 \u00c6gyptian stream my barks well-oar\u2019d I station\u2019d, and, enjoining strict my friends To watch them close-attendant at their side, Commanded spies into the hill-tops; but they, Under the impulse of a spirit rash 520 And hot for quarrel, the well-cultur\u2019d fields Pillaged of the \u00c6gyptians, captive led Their wives and little-ones, and slew the men. Ere long, the loud alarm their city reach\u2019d. Down came the citizens, by dawn of day, With horse and foot and with the gleam of arms Filling the plain. Then Jove with panic dread Struck all my people; none found courage more To stand, for mischiefs swarm\u2019d on ev\u2019ry side. There, num\u2019rous by the glitt\u2019ring spear we fell 530 Slaughter\u2019d, while others they conducted thence Alive to servitude; but me they gave To Dmetor, King in Cyprus, Jasus\u2019 son; He entertained me liberally, and thence This land I reach\u2019d, but poor and woe-begone. Then answer thus Antino\u00fcs harsh return\u2019d. What d\u00e6mon introduced this nuisance here, This troubler of our feast? stand yonder, keep Due distance from my table, or expect To see an \u00c6gypt and a Cyprus worse 540 Than those, bold mendicant and void of shame! Thou hauntest each, and, inconsid\u2019rate, each Gives to thee, because gifts at other\u2019s cost Are cheap, and, plentifully serv\u2019d themselves, They squander, heedless, viands not their own. To whom Ulysses while he slow retired. Gods! how illib\u2019ral with that specious form! Thou wouldst not grant the poor a grain of salt From thy own board, who at another\u2019s fed So nobly, canst thou not spare a crust to me. 550 He spake; then raged Antino\u00fcs still the more, And in wing\u2019d accents, louring, thus replied. Take such dismission now as thou deserv\u2019st, Opprobrious! hast thou dared to scoff at me? So saying, he seized his stool, and on the joint Of his right shoulder smote him; firm as rock He stood, by no such force to be displaced, But silent shook his brows, and dreadful deeds Of vengeance ruminating, sought again His seat the threshold, where his bag full-charged 560 He grounded, and the suitors thus address\u2019d. Hear now, ye suitors of the matchless Queen, My bosom\u2019s dictates. Trivial is the harm, Scarce felt, if, fighting for his own, his sheep Perchance, or beeves, a man receive a blow. But me Antino\u00fcs struck for that I ask\u2019d Food from him merely to appease the pangs Of hunger, source of num\u2019rous ills to man. If then the poor man have a God t\u2019 avenge His wrongs, I pray to him that death may seize 570 Antino\u00fcs, ere his nuptial hour arrive! To whom Antino\u00fcs answer thus return\u2019d, Son of Eupithes. Either seated there Or going hence, eat, stranger, and be still; Lest for thy insolence, by hand or foot We drag thee forth, and thou be flay\u2019d alive. He ceased, whom all indignant heard, and thus Ev\u2019n his own proud companions censured him. Antino\u00fcs! thou didst not well to smite The wretched vagabond. O thou art doom\u2019d 580 For ever, if there be a God in heav\u2019n;77 For, in similitude of strangers oft, The Gods, who can with ease all shapes assume, Repair to populous cities, where they mark The outrageous and the righteous deeds of men. So they, for whose reproof he little cared. But in his heart Telemachus that blow Resented, anguish-torn, yet not a tear He shed, but silent shook his brows, and mused Terrible things. Penelope, meantime, 590 Told of the wand\u2019rer so abused beneath Her roof, among her maidens thus exclaim\u2019d. So may Apollo, glorious archer, smite Thee also. Then Eurynome replied, Oh might our pray\u2019rs prevail, none of them all Should see bright-charioted Aurora more. Her answer\u2019d then Penelope discrete. Nurse! they are odious all, for that alike All teem with mischief; but Antino\u00fcs\u2019 looks Remind me ever of the gloom of death. 600 A stranger hath arrived who, begging, roams The house, (for so his penury enjoins) The rest have giv\u2019n him, and have fill\u2019d his bag With viands, but Antino\u00fcs hath bruised His shoulder with a foot-stool hurl\u2019d at him. While thus the Queen conversing with her train In her own chamber sat, Ulysses made Plenteous repast. Then, calling to her side Eum\u00e6us, thus she signified her will. Eum\u00e6us, noble friend! bid now approach 610 Yon stranger. I would speak with him, and ask If he has seen Ulysses, or have heard Tidings, perchance, of the afflicted Chief, For much a wand\u2019rer by his garb he seems. To whom, Eum\u00e6us, thou didst thus reply. Were those Achaians silent, thou shouldst hear, O Queen! a tale that would console thy heart. Three nights I housed him, and within my cot Three days detain\u2019d him, (for his ship he left A fugitive, and came direct to me) 620 But half untold his hist\u2019ry still remains. As when his eye one fixes on a bard From heav\u2019n instructed in such themes as charm The ear of mortals, ever as he sings The people press, insatiable, to hear, So, in my cottage, seated at my side, That stranger with his tale enchanted me. Laertes, he affirms, hath been his guest Erewhile in Crete, where Minos\u2019 race resides, And thence he hath arrived, after great loss, 630 A suppliant to the very earth abased; He adds, that in Thesprotia\u2019s neighbour realm He of Ulysses heard, both that he lives, And that he comes laden with riches home. To whom Penelope, discrete, replied. Haste; call him. I would hear, myself, his tale. Meantime, let these, or in the palace gate Sport jocular, or here; their hearts are light, For their possessions are secure; their wine None drinks, or eats their viands, save their own, 640 While my abode, day after day, themselves Haunting, my beeves and sheep and fatted goats Slay for the banquet, and my casks exhaust Extravagant, whence endless waste ensues; For no such friend as was Ulysses once Have I to expel the mischief. But might he Revisit once his native shores again, Then, aided by his son, he should avenge, Incontinent, the wrongs which now I mourn. Then sneezed Telemachus with sudden force, 650 That all the palace rang; his mother laugh\u2019d, And in wing\u2019d accents thus the swain bespake. Haste\u2014bid him hither\u2014hear\u2019st thou not the sneeze Propitious of my son? oh might it prove A presage of inevitable death To all these revellers! may none escape! Now mark me well. Should the event his tale Confirm, at my own hands he shall receive Mantle and tunic both for his reward. She spake; he went, and where Ulysses sat 660 Arriving, in wing\u2019d accents thus began. Penelope, my venerable friend! Calls thee, the mother of Telemachus. Oppress\u2019d by num\u2019rous troubles, she desires To ask thee tidings of her absent Lord. And should the event verify thy report, Thy meed shall be (a boon which much thou need\u2019st) Tunic and mantle; but she gives no more; Thy sustenance thou must, as now, obtain,78 Begging it at their hands who chuse to give. 670 Then thus Ulysses, Hero toil-inured. Eum\u00e6us! readily I can relate Truth, and truth only, to the prudent Queen Icarius\u2019 daughter; for of him I know Much, and have suff\u2019red sorrows like his own. But dread I feel of this imperious throng Perverse, whose riot and outrageous acts Of violence echo through the vault of heav\u2019n. And, even now, when for no fault of mine Yon suitor struck me as I pass\u2019d, and fill\u2019d 680 My flesh with pain, neither Telemachus Nor any interposed to stay his arm. Now, therefore, let Penelope, although Impatient, till the sun descend postpone Her questions; then she may enquire secure When comes her husband, and may nearer place My seat to the hearth-side, for thinly clad Thou know\u2019st I am, whose aid I first implored. He ceas\u2019d; at whose reply Eum\u00e6us sought Again the Queen, but ere he yet had pass\u2019d 690 The threshold, thus she greeted his return. Com\u2019st thou alone, Eum\u00e6us? why delays The invited wand\u2019rer? dreads he other harm? Or sees he aught that with a bashful awe Fills him? the bashful poor are poor indeed. To whom, Eum\u00e6us, thou didst thus reply. He hath well spoken; none who would decline The rudeness of this contumelious throng Could answer otherwise; thee he entreats To wait till sun-set, and that course, O Queen, 700 Thou shalt thyself far more commodious find, To hold thy conf\u2019rence with the guest, alone. Then answer thus Penelope return\u2019d. The stranger, I perceive, is not unwise, Whoe\u2019er he be, for on the earth are none Proud, insolent, and profligate as these. So spake the Queen. Then (all his message told) The good Eum\u00e6us to the suitors went Again, and with his head inclined toward Telemachus, lest others should his words 710 Witness, in accents wing\u2019d him thus address\u2019d. Friend and kind master! I return to keep My herds, and to attend my rural charge, Whence we are both sustain\u2019d. Keep thou, meantime, All here with vigilance, but chiefly watch For thy own good, and save thyself from harm; For num\u2019rous here brood mischief, whom the Gods Exterminate, ere yet their plots prevail! To whom Telemachus, discrete, replied. So be it, father! and (thy evening-mess 720 Eaten) depart; to-morrow come again, Bringing fair victims hither; I will keep, I and the Gods, meantime, all here secure. He ended; then resumed once more the swain His polish\u2019d seat, and, both with wine and food Now satiate, to his charge return\u2019d, the court Leaving and all the palace throng\u2019d with guests; They (for it now was evening) all alike Turn\u2019d jovial to the song and to the dance.\n\n\n\n73 Proteus.\n\n\n74 The hearth was the altar on which the lares or household-gods were worshipped.\n\n\n75 That he might begin auspiciously. Wine was served in the same direction. F.\n\n\n76 Here again \u0398\u03b5\u1f78\u03c2 occurs in the abstract.\n\n\n77\n\n\u0395\u03b9 \u03b4\u03b7 \u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b5\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b5\u03c3\u03b9\n\nEustathius, and Clarke after him, understand an aposiopesis here, as if the speaker meant to say\u2014what if there should be? or\u2014suppose there should be? But the sentence seems to fall in better with what follows interpreted as above, and it is a sense of the passage not unwarranted by the opinion of other commentators. See Schaufelbergerus.\n\n\n78 This seems added by Eum\u00e6us to cut off from Ulysses the hope that might otherwise tempt him to use fiction.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK XVIII\nARGUMENT\nThe beggar Irus arrives at the palace; a combat takes place between him and Ulysses, in which Irus is by one blow vanquished. Penelope appears to the suitors, and having reminded them of the presents which she had a right to expect from them, receives a gift from each. Eurymachus, provoked by a speech of Ulysses, flings a foot-stool at him, which knocks down the cup-bearer; a general tumult is the consequence, which continues, till by the advice of Telemachus, seconded by Amphinomus, the suitors retire to their respective homes.\n\nNow came a public mendicant, a man Accustom\u2019d, seeking alms, to roam the streets Of Ithaca; one never sated yet With food or drink; yet muscle had he none, Or strength of limb, though giant-built in show. Arn\u00e6us was the name which at his birth His mother gave him, but the youthful band Of suitors, whom as messenger he served, All named him Irus. He, arriving, sought To drive Ulysses forth from his own home, 10 And in rough accents rude him thus rebuked. Forth from the porch, old man! lest by the foot I drag thee quickly forth. Seest not how all Wink on me, and by signs give me command To drag thee hence? nor is it aught but shame That checks me. Yet arise, lest soon with fists Thou force me to adjust our diff\u2019rence. To whom Ulysses, low\u2019ring dark, replied. Peace, fellow! neither word nor deed of mine Wrongs thee, nor feel I envy at the boon, 20 However plentiful, which thou receiv\u2019st. The sill may hold us both; thou dost not well To envy others; thou appear\u2019st like me A vagrant; plenty is the gift of heav\u2019n. But urge me not to trial of our fists, Lest thou provoke me, and I stain with blood Thy bosom and thy lips, old as I am. So, my attendance should to-morrow prove More tranquil here; for thou should\u2019st leave, I judge, Ulysses\u2019 mansion, never to return. 30 Then answer\u2019d Irus, kindling with disdain. Gods! with what volubility of speech The table-hunter prates, like an old hag Collied with chimney-smutch! but ah beware! For I intend thee mischief, and to dash With both hands ev\u2019ry grinder from thy gums, As men untooth a pig pilf\u2019ring the corn. Come\u2014gird thee, that all here may view the strife\u2014 But how wilt thou oppose one young as I? Thus on the threshold of the lofty gate 40 They, wrangling, chafed each other, whose dispute The high-born youth Antino\u00fcs mark\u2019d; he laugh\u2019d Delighted, and the suitors thus address\u2019d. Oh friends! no pastime ever yet occurr\u2019d Pleasant as this which, now, the Gods themselves Afford us. Irus and the stranger brawl As they would box. Haste\u2014let us urge them on. He said; at once loud-laughing all arose; The ill-clad disputants they round about Encompass\u2019d, and Antino\u00fcs thus began. 50 Attend ye noble suitors to my voice. Two paunches lie of goats here on the fire, Which fill\u2019d with fat and blood we set apart For supper; he who conquers, and in force Superior proves, shall freely take the paunch Which he prefers, and shall with us thenceforth Feast always; neither will we here admit Poor man beside to beg at our repasts. He spake, whom all approved; next, artful Chief Ulysses thus, dissembling, them address\u2019d. 60 Princes! unequal is the strife between A young man and an old with mis\u2019ry worn; But hunger, always counsellor of ill, Me moves to fight, that many a bruise received, I may be foil\u2019d at last. Now swear ye all A solemn oath, that none, for Irus\u2019 sake Shall, interposing, smite me with his fist Clandestine, forcing me to yield the prize. He ceas\u2019d, and, as he bade, all present swore A solemn oath; then thus, amid them all 70 Standing, Telemachus majestic spake. Guest! if thy courage and thy manly mind Prompt thee to banish this man hence, no force Fear thou beside, for who smites thee, shall find Yet other foes to cope with; I am here In the host\u2019s office, and the royal Chiefs Eurymachus and Antino\u00fcs, alike Discrete, accord unanimous with me. He ceas\u2019d, whom all approved. Then, with his rags Ulysses braced for decency his loins 80 Around, but gave to view his brawny thighs Proportion\u2019d fair, and stripp\u2019d his shoulders broad, His chest and arms robust; while, at his side, Dilating more the Hero\u2019s limbs and more Minerva stood; the assembly with fixt eyes Astonish\u2019d gazed on him, and, looking full On his next friend, a suitor thus remark\u2019d. Irus shall be in Irus found no more. He hath pull\u2019d evil on himself. What thewes And what a haunch the senior\u2019s tatters hid! 90 So he\u2014meantime in Irus\u2019 heart arose Horrible tumult; yet, his loins by force Girding, the servants dragg\u2019d him to the fight Pale, and his flesh all quiv\u2019ring as he came; Whose terrors thus Antino\u00fcs sharp rebuked. Now, wherefore liv\u2019st, and why wast ever born Thou mountain-mass of earth! if such dismay Shake thee at thought of combat with a man Ancient as he, and worn with many woes? But mark, I threaten not in vain; should he 100 O\u2019ercome thee, and in force superior prove, To Echetus thou go\u2019st; my sable bark Shall waft thee to Epirus, where he reigns Enemy of mankind; of nose and ears He shall despoil thee with his ruthless steel, And tearing by the roots the parts away79 That mark thy sex, shall cast them to the dogs. He said; His limbs new terrors at that sound Shook under him; into the middle space They led him, and each raised his hands on high. 110 Then doubtful stood Ulysses toil-inured, Whether to strike him lifeless to the earth At once, or fell him with a managed blow. To smite with managed force at length he chose As wisest, lest, betray\u2019d by his own strength, He should be known. With elevated fists Both stood; him Irus on the shoulder struck, But he his adversary on the neck Pash\u2019d close beneath his ear; he split the bones, And blood in sable streams ran from his mouth. 120 With many an hideous yell he dropp\u2019d, his teeth Chatter\u2019d, and with his heels he drumm\u2019d the ground. The wooers, at that sight, lifting their hands In glad surprize, laugh\u2019d all their breath away. Then, through the vestibule, and right across The court, Ulysses dragg\u2019d him by the foot Into the portico, where propping him Against the wall, and giving him his staff, In accents wing\u2019d he bade him thus farewell. There seated now, dogs drive and swine away, 130 Nor claim (thyself so base) supreme controul O\u2019er other guests and mendicants, lest harm Reach thee, hereafter, heavier still than this. So saying, his tatter\u2019d wallet o\u2019er his back He threw suspended by its leathern twist, And tow\u2019rd the threshold turning, sat again, They laughing ceaseless still, the palace-door Re-enter\u2019d, and him, courteous, thus bespake. Jove, and all Jove\u2019s assessors in the skies Vouchsafe thee, stranger, whatsoe\u2019er it be, 140 Thy heart\u2019s desire! who hast our ears reliev\u2019d From that insatiate beggar\u2019s irksome tone. Soon to Epirus he shall go dispatch\u2019d To Echetus the King, pest of mankind. So they, to whose propitious words the Chief Listen\u2019d delighted. Then Antino\u00fcs placed The paunch before him, and Amphinomus Two loaves, selected from the rest; he fill\u2019d A goblet also, drank to him, and said, My father, hail! O stranger, be thy lot 150 Hereafter blest, though adverse now and hard! To whom Ulysses, ever-wise, replied. To me, Amphinomus, endued thou seem\u2019st With much discretion, who art also son Of such a sire, whose fair report I know, Dulichian Nysus, opulent and good. Fame speaks thee his, and thou appear\u2019st a man Judicious; hear me, therefore; mark me well. Earth nourishes, of all that breathe or creep, No creature weak as man; for while the Gods 160 Grant him prosperity and health, no fear Hath he, or thought, that he shall ever mourn; But when the Gods with evils unforeseen Smite him, he bears them with a grudging mind; For such as the complexion of his lot By the appointment of the Sire of all, Such is the colour of the mind of man. I, too, have been familiar in my day With wealth and ease, but I was then self-will\u2019d, And many wrong\u2019d, embolden\u2019d by the thought 170 Of my own father\u2019s and my brethren\u2019s pow\u2019r. Let no man, therefore, be unjust, but each Use modestly what gift soe\u2019er of heav\u2019n. So do not these. These ever bent I see On deeds injurious, the possessions large Consuming, and dishonouring the wife Of one, who will not, as I judge, remain Long absent from his home, but is, perchance, Ev\u2019n at the door. Thee, therefore, may the Gods Steal hence in time! ah, meet not his return 180 To his own country! for they will not part, (He and the suitors) without blood, I think, If once he enter at these gates again! He ended, and, libation pouring, quaff\u2019d The generous juice, then in the prince\u2019s hand Replaced the cup; he, pensive, and his head Inclining low, pass\u2019d from him; for his heart Forboded ill; yet \u2019scaped not even he, But in the snare of Pallas caught, his life To the heroic arm and spear resign\u2019d 190 Of brave Telemachus. Reaching, at length, The seat whence he had ris\u2019n, he sat again. Minerva then, Goddess, c\u00e6rulean-eyed, Prompted Icarius\u2019 daughter to appear Before the suitors; so to expose the more Their drift iniquitous, and that herself More bright than ever in her husband\u2019s eyes Might shine, and in her son\u2019s. Much mirth she feign\u2019d,80 And, bursting into laughter, thus began. I wish, Eurynome! (who never felt 200 That wish till now) though I detest them all, To appear before the suitors, in whose ears I will admonish, for his good, my son, Not to associate with that lawless crew Too much, who speak him fair, but foul intend. Then answer thus Eurynome return\u2019d. My daughter! wisely hast thou said and well. Go! bathe thee and anoint thy face, then give To thy dear son such counsel as thou wilt Without reserve; but shew not there thy cheeks 210 Sullied with tears, for profit none accrues From grief like thine, that never knows a change. And he is now bearded, and hath attained That age which thou wast wont with warmest pray\u2019r To implore the Gods that he might live to see. Her answer\u2019d then Penelope discrete. Persuade not me, though studious of my good, To bathe, Eurynome! or to anoint My face with oil; for all my charms the Gods Inhabitants of Olympus then destroy\u2019d, 220 When he, embarking, left me. Go, command Hippodamia and Auton\u00f6e That they attend me to the hall, and wait Beside me there; for decency forbids That I should enter to the men, alone. She ceas\u2019d, and through the house the ancient dame Hasted to summon whom she had enjoin\u2019d. But Pallas, Goddess of the azure eyes, Diffused, meantime, the kindly dew of sleep Around Icarius\u2019 daughter; on her couch 230 Reclining, soon as she reclin\u2019d, she dozed, And yielded to soft slumber all her frame. Then, that the suitors might admire her more, The glorious Goddess cloath\u2019d her, as she lay, With beauty of the skies; her lovely face She with ambrosia purified, with such As Cytherea chaplet-crown\u2019d employs Herself, when in the eye-ensnaring dance She joins the Graces; to a statelier height Beneath her touch, and ampler size she grew, 240 And fairer than the elephantine bone Fresh from the carver\u2019s hand. These gifts conferr\u2019d Divine, the awful Deity retired. And now, loud-prattling as they came, arrived Her handmaids; sleep forsook her at the sound, She wiped away a tear, and thus she said. Me gentle sleep, sad mourner as I am, Hath here involved. O would that by a death As gentle chaste Diana would herself This moment set me free, that I might waste 250 My life no longer in heart-felt regret Of a lamented husband\u2019s various worth And virtue, for in Greece no Peer had he! She said, and through her chambers\u2019 stately door Issuing, descended; neither went she sole, But with those two fair menials of her train. Arriving, most majestic of her sex, In presence of the num\u2019rous guests, beneath The portal of the stately dome she stood Between her maidens, with her lucid veil 260 Mantling her lovely cheeks. Then, ev\u2019ry knee Trembled, and ev\u2019ry heart with am\u2019rous heat Dissolv\u2019d, her charms all coveting alike, While to Telemachus her son she spake. Telemachus! thou art no longer wise As once thou wast, and even when a child. For thriven as thou art, and at full size Arrived of man, so fair proportion\u2019d, too, That ev\u2019n a stranger, looking on thy growth And beauty, would pronounce thee nobly born, 270 Yet is thy intellect still immature. For what is this? why suffer\u2019st thou a guest To be abused in thy own palace? how? Know\u2019st not that if the stranger seated here Endure vexation, the disgrace is thine? Her answer\u2019d, then, Telemachus discrete. I blame thee not, my mother, that thou feel\u2019st Thine anger moved; yet want I not a mind Able to mark and to discern between Evil and good, child as I lately was, 280 Although I find not promptitude of thought Sufficient always, overaw\u2019d and check\u2019d By such a multitude, all bent alike On mischief, of whom none takes part with me. But Irus and the stranger have not fought, Urged by the suitors, and the stranger prov\u2019d Victorious; yes\u2014heav\u2019n knows how much I wish That, (in the palace some, some in the court) The suitors all sat vanquish\u2019d, with their heads Depending low, and with enfeebled limbs, 290 Even as that same Irus, while I speak, With chin on bosom propp\u2019d at the hall-gate Sits drunkard-like, incapable to stand Erect, or to regain his proper home. So they; and now addressing to the Queen His speech, Eurymachus thus interposed. O daughter of Icarius! could all eyes Throughout I\u00e4sian Argos81 view thy charms, Discrete Penelope! more suitors still Assembling in thy courts would banquet here 300 From morn to eve; for thou surpassest far In beauty, stature, worth, all womankind. To whom replied Penelope discrete. The Gods, Eurymachus! reduced to nought My virtue, beauty, stature, when the Greeks, Whom my Ulysses follow\u2019d, sail\u2019d to Troy. Could he, returning, my domestic charge Himself intend, far better would my fame Be so secured, and wider far diffused. But I am wretched now, such storms the Gods 310 Of woe have sent me. When he left his home, Clasping my wrist with his right hand, he said. My love! for I imagine not that all The warrior Greeks shall safe from Troy return, Since fame reports the Trojans brave in fight, Skill\u2019d in the spear, mighty to draw the bow, And nimble vaulters to the backs of steeds High-mettled, which to speediest issue bring The dreadful struggle of all-wasting war\u2014 I know not, therefore, whether heav\u2019n intend 320 My safe return, or I must perish there. But manage thou at home. Cherish, as now, While I am absent, or more dearly still My parents, and what time our son thou seest Mature, then wed; wed even whom thou wilt, And hence to a new home.\u2014Such were his words, All which shall full accomplishment ere long Receive. The day is near, when hapless I, Lost to all comfort by the will of Jove, Must meet the nuptials that my soul abhors. 330 But this thought now afflicts me, and my mind Continual haunts. Such was not heretofore The suitors\u2019 custom\u2019d practice; all who chose To engage in competition for a wife Well-qualitied and well-endow\u2019d, produced From their own herds and fatted flocks a feast For the bride\u2019s friends, and splendid presents made, But never ate as ye, at others\u2019 cost. She ceased; then brave Ulysses toil-inured Rejoiced that, soothing them, she sought to draw 340 From each some gift, although on other views, And more important far, himself intent. Then thus Antino\u00fcs, Eupithes\u2019 son. Icarius\u2019 daughter wise! only accept Such gifts as we shall bring, for gifts demand That grace, nor can be decently refused; But to our rural labours, or elsewhere Depart not we, till first thy choice be made Of the Achaian, chief in thy esteem. Antino\u00fcs spake, whose answer all approved. 350 Then each dispatch\u2019d his herald who should bring His master\u2019s gift. Antino\u00fcs\u2019 herald, first A mantle of surpassing beauty brought, Wide, various, with no fewer clasps adorn\u2019d Than twelve, all golden, and to ev\u2019ry clasp Was fitted opposite its eye exact. Next, to Eurymachus his herald bore A necklace of wrought gold, with amber rich Bestudded, ev\u2019ry bead bright as a sun. Two servants for Eurydamas produced 360 Ear-pendants fashion\u2019d with laborious art, Broad, triple-gemm\u2019d, of brilliant light profuse. The herald of Polyctor\u2019s son, the prince Pisander, brought a collar to his Lord, A sumptuous ornament. Each Greecian gave, And each a gift dissimilar from all. Then, loveliest of her sex, turning away, She sought her chamber, whom her maidens fair Attended, charged with those illustrious gifts. Then turn\u2019d, they all to dance and pleasant song 370 Joyous, expecting the approach of ev\u2019n. Ere long the dusky evening came, and them Found sporting still. Then, placing in the hall Three hearths that should illumine wide the house, They compass\u2019d them around with fuel-wood Long-season\u2019d and new-split, mingling the sticks With torches. The attendant women watch\u2019d And fed those fires by turns, to whom, himself, Their unknown Sov\u2019reign thus his speech address\u2019d. Ye maidens of the long-regretted Chief 380 Ulysses! to the inner-courts retire, And to your virtuous Queen, that following there Your sev\u2019ral tasks, spinning and combing wool, Ye may amuse her; I, meantime, for these Will furnish light, and should they chuse to stay Till golden morn appear, they shall not tire My patience aught, for I can much endure. He said; they, titt\u2019ring, on each other gazed. But one, Melantho with the blooming cheeks, Rebuked him rudely. Dolius was her sire, 390 But by Penelope she had been reared With care maternal, and in infant years Supplied with many a toy; yet even she Felt not her mistress\u2019 sorrows in her heart, But, of Eurymachus enamour\u2019d, oft His lewd embraces met; she, with sharp speech Reproachful, to Ulysses thus replied. Why\u2014what a brainsick vagabond art thou! Who neither wilt to the smith\u2019s forge retire For sleep, nor to the public portico, 400 But here remaining, with audacious prate Disturb\u2019st this num\u2019rous company, restrain\u2019d By no respect or fear; either thou art With wine intoxicated, or, perchance, Art always fool, and therefore babblest now. Say, art thou drunk with joy that thou hast foiled The beggar Irus? Tremble, lest a man Stronger than Irus suddenly arise, Who on thy temples pelting thee with blows Far heavier than his, shall drive thee hence 410 With many a bruise, and foul with thy own blood. To whom Ulysses, frowning stern, replied. Snarler! Telemachus shall be inform\u2019d This moment of thy eloquent harangue, That he may hew thee for it, limb from limb. So saying, he scared the women; back they flew Into the house, but each with falt\u2019ring knees Through dread, for they believ\u2019d his threats sincere. He, then illumin\u2019d by the triple blaze, Watch\u2019d close the lights, busy from hearth to hearth, 420 But in his soul, meantime, far other thoughts Revolved, tremendous, not conceived in vain. Nor Pallas (that they might exasp\u2019rate more Laertes\u2019 son) permitted to abstain From heart-corroding bitterness of speech Those suitors proud, of whom Eurymachus, Offspring of Polybus, while thus he jeer\u2019d Ulysses, set the others in a roar. Hear me, ye suitors of the illustrious Queen! I shall promulge my thought. This man, methinks, 430 Not unconducted by the Gods, hath reach\u2019d Ulysses\u2019 mansion, for to me the light Of yonder torches altogether seems His own, an emanation from his head, Which not the smallest growth of hair obscures. He ended; and the city-waster Chief Himself accosted next. Art thou disposed To serve me, friend! would I afford thee hire, A labourer at my farm? thou shalt not want Sufficient wages; thou may\u2019st there collect 440 Stones for my fences, and may\u2019st plant my oaks, For which I would supply thee all the year With food, and cloaths, and sandals for thy feet. But thou hast learn\u2019d less creditable arts, Nor hast a will to work, preferring much By beggary from others to extort Wherewith to feed thy never-sated maw. Then answer, thus, Ulysses wise return\u2019d. Forbear, Eurymachus; for were we match\u2019d In work against each other, thou and I, 450 Mowing in spring-time, when the days are long, I with my well-bent sickle in my hand, Thou arm\u2019d with one as keen, for trial sake Of our ability to toil unfed Till night, grass still sufficing for the proof.\u2014 Or if, again, it were our task to drive Yoked oxen of the noblest breed, sleek-hair\u2019d, Big-limb\u2019d, both batten\u2019d to the full with grass, Their age and aptitude for work the same Not soon to be fatigued, and were the field 460 In size four acres, with a glebe through which The share might smoothly slide, then should\u2019st thou see How strait my furrow should be cut and true.\u2014 Or should Saturnian Jove this day excite Here, battle, or elsewhere, and were I arm\u2019d With two bright spears and with a shield, and bore A brazen casque well-fitted to my brows, Me, then, thou should\u2019st perceive mingling in fight Amid the foremost Chiefs, nor with the crime Of idle beggary should\u2019st upbraid me more. 470 But thou art much a railer, one whose heart Pity moves not, and seem\u2019st a mighty man And valiant to thyself, only because Thou herd\u2019st with few, and those of little worth. But should Ulysses come, at his own isle Again arrived, wide as these portals are, To thee, at once, too narrow they should seem To shoot thee forth with speed enough abroad. He ceased\u2014then tenfold indignation fired Eurymachus; he furrow\u2019d deep his brow 480 With frowns, and in wing\u2019d accents thus replied. Wretch, I shall roughly handle thee anon, Who thus with fluent prate presumptuous dar\u2019st Disturb this num\u2019rous company, restrain\u2019d By no respect or fear. Either thou art With wine intoxicated, or, perchance, Art always fool, and therefore babblest now; Or thou art frantic haply with delight That thou hast foil\u2019d yon vagabond obscure. So saying, he seized a stool; but to the knees 490 Ulysses flew of the Dulichian Prince Amphinomus, and sat, fearing incensed Eurymachus; he on his better hand Smote full the cup-bearer; on the hall-floor Loud rang the fallen beaker, and himself Lay on his back clamouring in the dust. Strait through the dusky hall tumult ensued Among the suitors, of whom thus, a youth, With eyes directed to the next, exclaim\u2019d. Would that this rambling stranger had elsewhere 500 Perish\u2019d, or ever he had here arrived, Then no such uproar had he caused as this! This doth the beggar; he it is for whom We wrangle thus, and may despair of peace Or pleasure more; now look for strife alone. Then in the midst Telemachus upstood Majestic, and the suitors thus bespake. Sirs! ye are mad, and can no longer eat Or drink in peace; some d\u00e6mon troubles you. But since ye all have feasted, to your homes 510 Go now, and, at your pleasure, to your beds; Soonest were best, but I thrust no man hence. He ceased; they gnawing stood their lips, aghast With wonder that Telemachus in his speech Such boldness used. Then rose Amphinomus, Brave son of Nisus offspring of the King Aretus, and the assembly thus address\u2019d. My friends! let none with contradiction thwart And rude reply words rational and just; Assault no more the stranger, nor of all 520 The servants of renown\u2019d Ulysses here Harm any. Come. Let the cup-bearer fill To all, that due libation made, to rest We may repair at home, leaving the Prince To accommodate beneath his father\u2019s roof The stranger, for he is the Prince\u2019s guest. He ended, whose advice none disapproved. The Hero Mulius then, Dulichian-born, And herald of Amphinomus, the cup Filling, dispensed it, as he stood, to all; 530 They, pouring forth to the Immortals, quaff\u2019d The luscious bev\u2019rage, and when each had made Libation, and such measure as he would Of wine had drunk, then all to rest retired.\n\n\n\n79 Tradition says that Echetus, for a love-affair, condemned his daughter to lose her eyes, and to grind iron barley-grains, while her lover was doomed to suffer what Antino\u00fcs threatens to Irus. F.\n\n\n80 This seems the sort of laughter intended by the word \u0391\u03c7\u03c1\u03b5\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd.\n\n\n81 From I\u00e4sus, once King of Peloponnesus.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK XIX\nARGUMENT\nUlysses and Telemachus remove the arms from the hall to an upper-chamber. The Hero then confers with Penelope, to whom he gives a fictitious narrative of his adventures. Euryclea, while bathing Ulysses, discovers him by a scar on his knee, but he prevents her communication of that discovery to Penelope.\n\nThey went, but left the noble Chief behind In his own house, contriving by the aid Of Pallas, the destruction of them all, And thus, in accents wing\u2019d, again he said. My son! we must remove and safe dispose All these my well-forged implements of war; And should the suitors, missing them, enquire Where are they? thou shalt answer smoothly thus\u2014 I have convey\u2019d them from the reach of smoke, For they appear no more the same which erst 10 Ulysses, going hence to Ilium, left, So smirch\u2019d and sullied by the breath of fire. This weightier reason (thou shalt also say) Some God suggested to me,\u2014lest, inflamed With wine, ye wound each other in your brawls, Shaming both feast and courtship; for the view Itself of arms incites to their abuse. He ceased, and, in obedience to his will, Calling the ancient Euryclea forth, His nurse, Telemachus enjoin\u2019d her thus. 20 Go\u2014shut the women in; make fast the doors Of their apartment, while I safe dispose Elsewhere, my father\u2019s implements of war, Which, during his long absence, here have stood Till smoke hath sullied them. For I have been An infant hitherto, but, wiser grown, Would now remove them from the breath of fire. Then thus the gentle matron in return. Yes truly\u2014and I wish that now, at length, Thou would\u2019st assert the privilege of thy years, 30 My son, thyself assuming charge of all, Both house and stores; but who shall bear the light? Since they, it seems, who would, are all forbidden. To whom Telemachus discrete replied. This guest; for no man, from my table fed, Come whence he may; shall be an idler here. He ended, nor his words flew wing\u2019d away, But Euryclea bolted every door. Then, starting to the task, Ulysses caught, And his illustrious son, the weapons thence, 40 Helmet, and bossy shield, and pointed spear, While Pallas from a golden lamp illumed The dusky way before them. At that sight Alarm\u2019d, the Prince his father thus address\u2019d. Whence\u2014whence is this, my father? I behold A prodigy! the walls of the whole house, The arches, fir-tree beams, and pillars tall Shine in my view, as with the blaze of fire! Some Pow\u2019r celestial, doubtless, is within. To whom Ulysses, ever-wise, replied. 50 Soft! ask no questions. Give no vent to thought, Such is the custom of the Pow\u2019rs divine. Hence, thou, to bed. I stay, that I may yet Both in thy mother and her maidens move More curiosity; yes\u2014she with tears Shall question me of all that I have seen. He ended, and the Prince, at his command, Guided by flaming torches, sought the couch Where he was wont to sleep, and there he slept On that night also, waiting the approach 60 Of sacred dawn. Thus was Ulysses left Alone, and planning sat in solitude, By Pallas\u2019 aid, the slaughter of his foes. At length, Diana-like, or like herself, All golden Venus, (her apartment left) Enter\u2019d Penelope. Beside the hearth Her women planted her accustom\u2019d seat With silver wreathed and ivory. That throne Icmalius made, artist renown\u2019d, and join\u2019d A footstool to its splendid frame beneath, 70 Which ever with an ample fleece they spread. There sat discrete Penelope; then came Her beautiful attendants from within, Who cleared the litter\u2019d bread, the board, and cups From which the insolent companions drank. They also raked the embers from the hearths Now dim, and with fresh billets piled them high, Both for illumination and for warmth. Then yet again Melantho with rude speech Opprobrious, thus, assail\u2019d Ulysses\u2019 ear. 80 Guest\u2014wilt thou trouble us throughout the night Ranging the house? and linger\u2019st thou a spy Watching the women? Hence\u2014get thee abroad Glad of such fare as thou hast found, or soon With torches beaten we will thrust thee forth. To whom Ulysses, frowning stern, replied. Petulant woman! wherefore thus incensed Inveigh\u2019st thou against me? is it because I am not sleek? because my garb is mean? Because I beg? thanks to necessity\u2014 90 I would not else. But such as I appear, Such all who beg and all who wander are. I also lived the happy owner once Of such a stately mansion, and have giv\u2019n To num\u2019rous wand\u2019rers, whencesoe\u2019er they came, All that they needed; I was also served By many, and enjoy\u2019d all that denotes The envied owner opulent and blest. But Jove (for so it pleas\u2019d him) hath reduced My all to nothing. Therefore well beware 100 Thou also, mistress, lest a day arrive When all these charms by which thou shin\u2019st among Thy sister-menials, fade; fear, too, lest her Thou should\u2019st perchance irritate, whom thou serv\u2019st, And lest Ulysses come, of whose return Hope yet survives; but even though the Chief Have perish\u2019d, as ye think, and comes no more, Consider yet his son, how bright the gifts Shine of Apollo in the illustrious Prince Telemachus; no woman, unobserved 110 By him, can now commit a trespass here; His days of heedless infancy are past. He ended, whom Penelope discrete O\u2019erhearing, her attendant sharp rebuked. Shameless, audacious woman! known to me Is thy great wickedness, which with thy life Thou shalt atone; for thou wast well aware, (Hearing it from myself) that I design\u2019d To ask this stranger of my absent Lord, For whose dear sake I never cease to mourn. 120 Then to her household\u2019s governess she said. Bring now a seat, and spread it with a fleece, Eurynome! that, undisturb\u2019d, the guest May hear and answer all that I shall ask. She ended. Then the matron brought in haste A polish\u2019d seat, and spread it with a fleece, On which the toil-accustom\u2019d Hero sat, And thus the chaste Penelope began. Stranger! my first enquiry shall be this\u2014 Who art thou? whence? where born? and sprung from whom? 130 Then answer thus Ulysses, wise, return\u2019d. O Queen! uncensurable by the lips Of mortal man! thy glory climbs the skies Unrivall\u2019d, like the praise of some great King Who o\u2019er a num\u2019rous people and renown\u2019d Presiding like a Deity, maintains Justice and truth. The earth, under his sway, Her produce yields abundantly; the trees Fruit-laden bend; the lusty flocks bring forth; The Ocean teems with finny swarms beneath 140 His just controul, and all the land is blest. Me therefore, question of what else thou wilt In thy own palace, but forbear to ask From whom I sprang, and of my native land, Lest thou, reminding me of those sad themes, Augment my woes; for I have much endured; Nor were it seemly, in another\u2019s house, To pass the hours in sorrow and in tears, Wearisome when indulg\u2019d with no regard To time or place; thy train (perchance thyself) 150 Would blame me, and I should reproach incur As one tear-deluged through excess of wine. Him answer\u2019d then Penelope discrete. The immortal Gods, O stranger, then destroy\u2019d My form, my grace, my beauty, when the Greeks Whom my Ulysses follow\u2019d, sail\u2019d to Troy. Could he, returning, my domestic charge Himself intend, far better would my fame Be so secured, and wider far diffused. But I am wretched now, such storms of woe 160 The Gods have sent me; for as many Chiefs As hold dominion in the neighbour isles Samos, Dulichium, and the forest-crown\u2019d Zacynthus; others, also, rulers here In pleasant Ithaca, me, loth to wed, Woo ceaseless, and my household stores consume. I therefore, neither guest nor suppliant heed, Nor public herald more, but with regret Of my Ulysses wear my soul away. They, meantime, press my nuptials, which by art 170 I still procrastinate. Some God the thought Suggested to me, to commence a robe Of amplest measure and of subtlest woof, Laborious task; which done, I thus address\u2019d them. Princes, my suitors! since the noble Chief Ulysses is no more, enforce not now My nuptials; wait till I shall finish first A fun\u2019ral robe (lest all my threads be marr\u2019d) Which for the ancient Hero I prepare Laertes, looking for the mournful hour 180 When fate shall snatch him to eternal rest. Else, I the censure dread of all my sex, Should he, so wealthy, want at last a shroud. Such was my speech; they, unsuspicious all, With my request complied. Thenceforth, all day I wove the ample web, and, by the aid Of torches, ravell\u2019d it again at night. Three years by artifice I thus their suit Eluded safe; but when the fourth arrived, And the same season after many moons 190 And fleeting days return\u2019d, passing my train Who had neglected to release the dogs, They came, surprized and reprimanded me. Thus, through necessity, not choice, at last I have perform\u2019d it, in my own despight. But no escape from marriage now remains, Nor other subterfuge for me; meantime My parents urge my nuptials, and my son (Of age to note it) with disgust observes His wealth consumed; for he is now become 200 Adult, and abler than myself to rule The house, a Prince distinguish\u2019d by the Gods, Yet, stranger, after all, speak thy descent; Say whence thou art; for not of fabulous birth Art thou, nor from the oak, nor from the rock. Her answer\u2019d then Ulysses, ever-wise. O spouse revered of Laertiades! Resolv\u2019st thou still to learn from whom I sprang? Learn then; but know that thou shalt much augment My present grief, natural to a man 210 Who hath, like me, long exiled from his home Through various cities of the sons of men Wander\u2019d remote, and num\u2019rous woes endured. Yet, though it pain me, I will tell thee all. There is a land amid the sable flood Call\u2019d Crete; fair, fruitful, circled by the sea. Num\u2019rous are her inhabitants, a race Not to be summ\u2019d, and ninety towns she boasts. Diverse their language is; Achaians some, And some indigenous are; Cydonians there, 220 Crest-shaking Dorians, and Pelasgians dwell. One city in extent the rest exceeds, Cnossus; the city in which Minos reign\u2019d, Who, ever at a nine years\u2019 close, conferr\u2019d With Jove himself; from him my father sprang The brave Deucalion; for Deucalion\u2019s sons Were two, myself and King Idomeneus. To Ilium he, on board his gallant barks, Follow\u2019d the Atrid\u00e6. I, the youngest-born, By my illustrious name, \u00c6thon, am known, 230 But he ranks foremost both in worth and years. There I beheld Ulysses, and within My walls receiv\u2019d him; for a violent wind Had driv\u2019n him from Malea (while he sought The shores of Troy) to Crete. The storm his barks Bore into the Amnisus, for the cave Of Ilythia known, a dang\u2019rous port, And which with difficulty he attain\u2019d. He, landing, instant to the city went, Seeking Idomeneus; his friend of old, 240 As he affirm\u2019d, and one whom much he lov\u2019d. But he was far remote, ten days advanced, Perhaps eleven, on his course to Troy. Him, therefore, I conducted to my home, Where hospitably, and with kindest care I entertain\u2019d him, (for I wanted nought) And for himself procured and for his band,\u2014 By public contribution, corn, and wine, And beeves for food, that all might be sufficed. Twelve days his noble Greecians there abode, 250 Port-lock\u2019d by Boreas blowing with a force Resistless even on the land, some God So roused his fury; but the thirteenth day The wind all fell, and they embark\u2019d again. With many a fiction specious, as he sat, He thus her ear amused; she at the sound Melting, with fluent tears her cheeks bedew\u2019d; And as the snow by Zephyrus diffused, Melts on the mountain tops, when Eurus breathes, And fills the channels of the running streams, 260 So melted she, and down her lovely cheeks Pour\u2019d fast the tears, him mourning as remote Who sat beside her. Soft compassion touch\u2019d Ulysses of his consort\u2019s silent woe; His eyes as they had been of steel or horn, Moved not, yet artful, he suppress\u2019d his tears, And she, at length with overflowing grief Satiate, replied, and thus enquired again. Now, stranger, I shall prove thee, as I judge, If thou, indeed, hast entertain\u2019d in Crete 270 My spouse and his brave followers, as thou say\u2019st. Describe his raiment and himself; his own Appearance, and the appearance of his friends. Then her Ulysses answer\u2019d, ever-wise. Hard is the task, O Queen! (so long a time Hath since elaps\u2019d) to tell thee. Twenty years Have pass\u2019d since he forsook my native isle, Yet, from my best remembrance, I will give A likeness of him, such as now I may. A double cloak, thick-piled, M\u0153onian dyed, 280 The noble Chief had on; two fast\u2019nings held The golden clasp, and it display\u2019d in front A well-wrought pattern with much art design\u2019d. An hound between his fore-feet holding fast A dappled fawn, gaped eager on his prey. All wonder\u2019d, seeing, how in lifeless gold Express\u2019d, the dog with open mouth her throat Attempted still, and how the fawn with hoofs Thrust trembling forward, struggled to escape. That glorious mantle much I noticed, soft 290 To touch, as the dried garlick\u2019s glossy film; Such was the smoothness of it, and it shone Sun-bright; full many a maiden, trust me, view\u2019d The splendid texture with admiring eyes. But mark me now; deep treasure in thy mind This word. I know not if Ulysses wore That cloak at home, or whether of his train Some warrior gave it to him on his way, Or else some host of his; for many loved Ulysses, and with him might few compare. 300 I gave to him, myself, a brazen sword, A purple cloak magnificent, and vest Of royal length, and when he sought his bark, With princely pomp dismiss\u2019d him from the shore. An herald also waited on the Chief, Somewhat his Senior; him I next describe. His back was bunch\u2019d, his visage swarthy, curl\u2019d His poll, and he was named Eurybates; A man whom most of all his followers far Ulysses honour\u2019d, for their minds were one. 310 He ceased; she recognising all the proofs Distinctly by Ulysses named, was moved Still more to weep, till with o\u2019erflowing grief Satiate, at length she answer\u2019d him again. Henceforth, O stranger, thou who hadst before My pity, shalt my rev\u2019rence share and love, I folded for him (with these hands) the cloak Which thou describ\u2019st, produced it when he went, And gave it to him; I that splendid clasp Attach\u2019d to it myself, more to adorn 320 My honour\u2019d Lord, whom to his native land Return\u2019d secure I shall receive no more. In such an evil hour Ulysses went To that bad city never to be named. To whom Ulysses, ever-wise, replied. Consort revered of Laertiades! No longer let anxiety impair Thy beauteous form, nor any grief consume Thy spirits more for thy Ulysses\u2019 sake. And yet I blame thee not; a wife deprived 330 Of her first mate to whom she had produced Fair fruit of mutual love, would mourn his loss, Although he were inferior far to thine, Whom fame affirms the semblance of the Gods. But cease to mourn. Hear me. I will relate A faithful tale, nor will from thee withhold Such tidings of Ulysses living still, And of his safe return, as I have heard Lately, in yon neighb\u2019ring opulent land Of the Thesprotians. He returns enrich\u2019d 340 With many precious stores from those obtain\u2019d Whom he hath visited; but he hath lost, Departing from Thrinacia\u2019s isle, his bark And all his lov\u2019d companions in the Deep, For Jove was adverse to him, and the Sun, Whose beeves his followers slew. They perish\u2019d all Amid the billowy flood; but Him, the keel Bestriding of his bark, the waves at length Cast forth on the Ph\u00e6acian\u2019s land, a race Allied to heav\u2019n, who rev\u2019renced like a God 350 Thy husband, honour\u2019d him with num\u2019rous gifts, And willing were to have convey\u2019d him home. Ulysses, therefore, had attained long since His native shore, but that he deem\u2019d it best To travel far, that he might still amass More wealth; so much Ulysses all mankind Excels in policy, and hath no peer. This information from Thesprotia\u2019s King I gain\u2019d, from Phidon; to myself he swore, Libation off\u2019ring under his own roof, 360 That both the bark was launch\u2019d, and the stout crew Prepared, that should conduct him to his home. But me he first dismiss\u2019d; for, as it chanced, A ship lay there of the Thesprotians, bound To corn-enrich\u2019d Dulichium. All the wealth He shew\u2019d me by the Chief amass\u2019d, a store To feed the house of yet another Prince To the tenth generation; so immense His treasures were within that palace lodg\u2019d. Himself he said was to Dodona gone, 370 Counsel to ask from the oracular oaks Sublime of Jove, how safest he might seek, After long exile thence, his native land, If openly were best, or in disguise. Thus, therefore, he is safe, and at his home Well-nigh arrived, nor shall his country long Want him. I swear it with a solemn oath. First Jove be witness, King and Lord of all! Next these domestic Gods of the renown\u2019d Ulysses, in whose royal house I sit, 380 That thou shalt see my saying all fulfill\u2019d. Ulysses shall this self-same year return, This self-same month, ere yet the next begin. Him answer\u2019d then Penelope discrete. Grant heav\u2019n, my guest, that this good word of thine Fail not! then, soon shalt thou such bounty share And friendship at my hands, that, at first sight, Whoe\u2019er shall meet thee shall pronounce thee blest. But ah! my soul forebodes how it will prove; Neither Ulysses will return, nor thou 390 Receive safe conduct hence; for we have here None, such as once Ulysses was, to rule His household with authority, and to send With honourable convoy to his home The worthy guest, or to regale him here. Give him the bath, my maidens; spread his couch With linen soft, with fleecy gaberdines82 And rugs of splendid hue, that he may lie Waiting, well-warm\u2019d, the golden morn\u2019s return. Attend him also at the peep of day 400 With bath and unction, that, his seat resumed Here in the palace, he may be prepared For breakfast with Telemachus; and woe To him who shall presume to incommode Or cause him pain; that man shall be cashier\u2019d Hence instant, burn his anger as it may. For how, my honour\u2019d inmate! shalt thou learn That I in wisdom \u0153conomic aught Pass other women, if unbathed, unoiled, Ill-clad, thou sojourn here? man\u2019s life is short, 410 Whoso is cruel, and to cruel arts Addict, on him all men, while yet he lives, Call plagues and curses down, and after death Scorn and proverbial mock\u2019ries hunt his name. But men, humane themselves, and giv\u2019n by choice To offices humane, from land to land Are rumour\u2019d honourably by their guests, And ev\u2019ry tongue is busy in their praise. Her answer\u2019d then, Ulysses, ever-wise. Consort revered of Laertiades! 420 Warm gaberdines and rugs of splendid hue To me have odious been, since first the sight Of Crete\u2019s snow-mantled mountain-tops I lost, Sweeping the billows with extended oars. No; I will pass, as I am wont to pass The sleepless night; for on a sordid couch Outstretch\u2019d, full many a night have I reposed Till golden-charioted Aurora dawn\u2019d. Nor me the foot-bath pleases more; my foot Shall none of all thy ministring maidens touch, 430 Unless there be some ancient matron grave Among them, who hath pangs of heart endured Num\u2019rous, and keen as I have felt myself; Her I refuse not. She may touch my feet. Him answer\u2019d then prudent Penelope. Dear guest! for of all trav\u2019llers here arrived From distant regions, I have none received Discrete as thou, or whom I more have lov\u2019d, So just thy matter is, and with such grace Express\u2019d. I have an ancient maiden grave, 440 The nurse who at my hapless husband\u2019s birth Receiv\u2019d him in her arms, and with kind care Maternal rear\u2019d him; she shall wash thy feet, Although decrepid. Euryclea, rise! Wash one coeval with thy Lord; for such The feet and hands, it may be, are become Of my Ulysses now; since man beset With sorrow once, soon wrinkled grows and old. She said, then Euryclea with both hands Cov\u2019ring her face, in tepid tears profuse 450 Dissolved, and thus in mournful strains began. Alas! my son, trouble for thy dear sake Distracts me. Jove surely of all mankind Thee hated most, though ever in thy heart Devoutly giv\u2019n; for never mortal man So many thighs of fatted victims burn\u2019d, And chosen hecatombs produced as thou To Jove the Thund\u2019rer, him entreating still That he would grant thee a serene old age, And to instruct, thyself, thy glorious son. 460 Yet thus the God requites thee, cutting off All hope of thy return\u2014oh ancient sir! Him too, perchance, where\u2019er he sits a guest Beneath some foreign roof, the women taunt, As all these shameless ones have taunted thee, Fearing whose mock\u2019ry thou forbidd\u2019st their hands This office, which Icarius\u2019 daughter wise To me enjoins, and which I, glad perform. Yes, I will wash thy feet; both for her sake And for thy own,\u2014for sight of thee hath raised 470 A tempest in my mind. Hear now the cause! Full many a guest forlorn we entertain, But never any have I seen, whose size, The fashion of whose foot and pitch of voice, Such likeness of Ulysses show\u2019d, as thine. To whom Ulysses, ever-shrewd, replied. Such close similitude, O ancient dame! As thou observ\u2019st between thy Lord and me, All, who have seen us both, have ever found. He said; then taking the resplendent vase 480 Allotted always to that use, she first Infused cold water largely, then, the warm. Ulysses (for beside the hearth he sat) Turn\u2019d quick his face into the shade, alarm\u2019d Lest, handling him, she should at once remark His scar, and all his stratagem unveil. She then, approaching, minister\u2019d the bath To her own King, and at first touch discern\u2019d That token, by a bright-tusk\u2019d boar of old Impress\u2019d, what time he to Parnassus went 490 To visit there Autolycus and his sons, His mother\u2019s noble sire, who all mankind In furtive arts and fraudful oaths excell\u2019d.83 For such endowments he by gift receiv\u2019d From Hermes\u2019 self, to whom the thighs of kids He offer\u2019d and of lambs, and, in return, The watchful Hermes never left his side. Autolycus arriving in the isle Of pleasant Ithaca, the new-born son Of his own daughter found, whom on his knees 500 At close of supper Euryclea placed, And thus the royal visitant address\u2019d. Thyself, Autolycus! devise a name For thy own daughter\u2019s son, by num\u2019rous pray\u2019rs Of thine and fervent, from the Gods obtained. Then answer thus Autolycus return\u2019d. My daughter and my daughter\u2019s spouse! the name Which I shall give your boy, that let him bear. Since after provocation and offence To numbers giv\u2019n of either sex, I come, 510 Call him Ulysses;84 and when, grown mature, He shall Parnassus visit, the abode Magnificent in which his mother dwelt, And where my treasures lie, from my own stores I will enrich and send him joyful home. Ulysses, therefore, that he might obtain Those princely gifts, went thither. Him arrived, With right-hand gratulation and with words Of welcome kind, Autolycus received, Nor less his offspring; but the mother most 520 Of his own mother clung around his neck, Amphithea; she with many a fervent kiss His forehead press\u2019d, and his bright-beaming eyes. Then bade Autolycus his noble sons Set forth a banquet. They, at his command, Led in a fatted ox of the fifth year, Which slaying first, they spread him carved abroad, Then scored his flesh, transfixed it with the spits, And roasting all with culinary skill Exact, gave each his portion. Thus they sat 530 Feasting all day, and till the sun declined, But when the sun declined, and darkness fell, Each sought his couch, and took the gift of sleep. Then, soon as day-spring\u2019s daughter rosy-palm\u2019d Aurora look\u2019d abroad, forth went the hounds, And, with the hounds Ulysses, and the youths, Sons of Autolycus, to chase the boar. Arrived at the Parnassian mount, they climb\u2019d His bushy sides, and to his airy heights Ere long attain\u2019d. It was the pleasant hour 540 When from the gently-swelling flood profound The sun, emerging, first smote on the fields. The hunters reach\u2019d the valley; foremost ran, Questing, the hounds; behind them, swift, the sons Came of Autolycus, with whom advanced The illustrious Prince Ulysses, pressing close The hounds, and brandishing his massy spear. There, hid in thickest shades, lay an huge boar. That covert neither rough winds blowing moist Could penetrate, nor could the noon-day sun 550 Smite through it, or fast-falling show\u2019rs pervade, So thick it was, and underneath the ground With litter of dry foliage strew\u2019d profuse. Hunters and dogs approaching him, his ear The sound of feet perceived; upridging high His bristly back and glaring fire, he sprang Forth from the shrubs, and in defiance stood Near and right opposite. Ulysses, first, Rush\u2019d on him, elevating his long spear Ardent to wound him; but, preventing quick 560 His foe, the boar gash\u2019d him above the knee. Much flesh, assailing him oblique, he tore With his rude tusk, but to the Hero\u2019s bone Pierced not; Ulysses his right shoulder reach\u2019d; And with a deadly thrust impell\u2019d the point Of his bright spear through him and far beyond. Loud yell\u2019d the boar, sank in the dust, and died. Around Ulysses, then, the busy sons Throng\u2019d of Autolycus; expert they braced The wound of the illustrious hunter bold, 570 With incantation staunched the sable blood, And sought in haste their father\u2019s house again, Whence, heal\u2019d and gratified with splendid gifts They sent him soon rejoicing to his home, Themselves rejoicing also. Glad their son His parents saw again, and of the scar Enquired, where giv\u2019n, and how? He told them all, How to Parnassus with his friends he went, Sons of Autolycus to hunt, and how A boar had gash\u2019d him with his iv\u2019ry tusk. 580 That scar, while chafing him with open palms, The matron knew; she left his foot to fall; Down dropp\u2019d his leg into the vase; the brass Rang, and o\u2019ertilted by the sudden shock, Poured forth the water, flooding wide the floor. Her spirit joy at once and sorrow seized; Tears fill\u2019d her eyes; her intercepted voice Died in her throat; but to Ulysses\u2019 beard Her hand advancing, thus, at length, she spake. Thou art himself, Ulysses. Oh my son! 590 Dear to me, and my master as thou art, I knew thee not, till I had touch\u2019d the scar. She said, and to Penelope her eyes Directed, all impatient to declare Her own Ulysses even then at home. But she, nor eye nor ear for aught that pass\u2019d Had then, her fixt attention so entire Minerva had engaged. Then, darting forth His arms, the Hero with his right-hand close Compress\u2019d her throat, and nearer to himself 600 Drawing her with his left, thus caution\u2019d her. Why would\u2019st thou ruin me? Thou gav\u2019st me milk Thyself from thy own breast. See me return\u2019d After long suff\u2019rings, in the twentieth year, To my own land. But since (some God the thought Suggesting to thee) thou hast learn\u2019d the truth, Silence! lest others learn it from thy lips. For this I say, nor shall the threat be vain; If God vouchsafe to me to overcome The haughty suitors, when I shall inflict 610 Death on the other women of my house, Although my nurse, thyself shalt also die. Him answer\u2019d Euryclea then, discrete. My son! oh how could so severe a word Escape thy lips? my fortitude of mind Thou know\u2019st, and even now shalt prove me firm As iron, secret as the stubborn rock. But hear and mark me well. Should\u2019st thou prevail, Assisted by a Pow\u2019r divine, to slay The haughty suitors, I will then, myself, 620 Give thee to know of all the female train Who have dishonour\u2019d thee, and who respect. To whom Ulysses, ever-wise, replied. My nurse, it were superfluous; spare thy tongue That needless task. I can distinguish well Myself, between them, and shall know them all; But hold thy peace. Hush! leave it with the Gods. So he; then went the ancient matron forth, That she might serve him with a second bath, For the whole first was spilt. Thus, laved at length, 630 And smooth\u2019d with oil, Ulysses nearer pull\u2019d His seat toward the glowing hearth to enjoy More warmth, and drew his tatters o\u2019er the scar. Then, prudent, thus Penelope began. One question, stranger, I shall yet propound, Though brief, for soon the hour of soft repose Grateful to all, and even to the sad Whom gentle sleep forsakes not, will arrive. But heav\u2019n to me immeasurable woe Assigns,\u2014whose sole delight is to consume 640 My days in sighs, while here retired I sit, Watching my maidens\u2019 labours and my own; But (night return\u2019d, and all to bed retired) I press mine also, yet with deep regret And anguish lacerated, even there. As when at spring\u2019s first entrance, her sweet song The azure-crested nightingale renews, Daughter of Pandarus; within the grove\u2019s Thick foliage perch\u2019d, she pours her echoing voice Now deep, now clear, still varying the strain 650 With which she mourns her Itylus, her son By royal Zethus, whom she, erring, slew,85 So also I, by soul-distressing doubts Toss\u2019d ever, muse if I shall here remain A faithful guardian of my son\u2019s affairs, My husband\u2019s bed respecting, and not less My own fair fame, or whether I shall him Of all my suitors follow to his home Who noblest seems, and offers richest dow\u2019r. My son while he was infant yet, and own\u2019d 660 An infant\u2019s mind, could never give consent That I should wed and leave him; but at length, Since he hath reached the stature of a man, He wishes my departure hence, the waste Viewing indignant by the suitors made. But I have dream\u2019d. Hear, and expound my dream. My geese are twenty, which within my walls I feed with sodden wheat; they serve to amuse Sometimes my sorrow. From the mountains came An eagle, huge, hook-beak\u2019d, brake all their necks, 670 And slew them; scatter\u2019d on the palace-floor They lay, and he soar\u2019d swift into the skies. Dream only as it was, I wept aloud, Till all my maidens, gather\u2019d by my voice, Arriving, found me weeping still, and still Complaining, that the eagle had at once Slain all my geese. But, to the palace-roof Stooping again, he sat, and with a voice Of human sound, forbad my tears, and said\u2014 Courage! O daughter of the far-renown\u2019d 680 Icarius! no vain dream thou hast beheld, But, in thy sleep, a truth. The slaughter\u2019d geese Denote thy suitors. I who have appear\u2019d An eagle in thy sight, am yet indeed Thy husband, who have now, at last, return\u2019d, Death, horrid death designing for them all. He said; then waking at the voice, I cast An anxious look around, and saw my geese Beside their tray, all feeding as before. Her then Ulysses answer\u2019d, ever-wise. 690 O Queen! it is not possible to miss Thy dream\u2019s plain import, since Ulysses\u2019 self Hath told thee the event; thy suitors all Must perish; not one suitor shall escape. To whom Penelope discrete replied. Dreams are inexplicable, O my guest! And oft-times mere delusions that receive No just accomplishment. There are two gates Through which the fleeting phantoms pass; of horn Is one, and one of ivory.86 Such dreams 700 As through the thin-leaf\u2019d iv\u2019ry portal come Sooth, but perform not, utt\u2019ring empty sounds; But such as through the polish\u2019d horn escape, If, haply seen by any mortal eye, Prove faithful witnesses, and are fulfill\u2019d. But through those gates my wond\u2019rous dream, I think, Came not; thrice welcome were it else to me And to my son. Now mark my words; attend. This is the hated morn that from the house Removes me of Ulysses. I shall fix, 710 This day, the rings for trial to them all Of archership; Ulysses\u2019 custom was To plant twelve spikes, all regular arranged87 Like galley-props, and crested with a ring, Then standing far remote, true in his aim He with his whizzing shaft would thrid them all. This is the contest in which now I mean To prove the suitors; him, who with most ease Shall bend the bow, and shoot through all the rings, I follow, this dear mansion of my youth 720 Leaving, so fair, so fill\u2019d with ev\u2019ry good, Though still to love it even in my dreams. Her answer\u2019d then Ulysses, ever-wise. Consort revered of Laertiades! Postpone not this contention, but appoint Forthwith the trial; for Ulysses here Will sure arrive, ere they, (his polish\u2019d bow Long tamp\u2019ring) shall prevail to stretch the nerve, And speed the arrow through the iron rings. To whom Penelope replied discrete. 730 Would\u2019st thou with thy sweet converse, O my guest! Here sooth me still, sleep ne\u2019er should influence These eyes the while; but always to resist Sleep\u2019s pow\u2019r is not for man, to whom the Gods Each circumstance of his condition here Fix universally. Myself will seek My own apartment at the palace-top, And there will lay me down on my sad couch, For such it hath been, and with tears of mine Ceaseless bedew\u2019d, e\u2019er since Ulysses went 740 To that bad city, never to be named. There will I sleep; but sleep thou here below, Either, thyself, preparing on the ground Thy couch, or on a couch by these prepared. So saying, she to her splendid chamber thence Retired, not sole, but by her female train Attended; there arrived, she wept her spouse, Her lov\u2019d Ulysses, till Minerva dropp\u2019d The balm of slumber on her weary lids.\n\n\n\n82 A gaberdine is a shaggy cloak of coarse but warm materials. Such always make part of Homer\u2019s bed-furniture.\n\n\n83 Homer\u2019s morals seem to allow to a good man dissimulation, and even an ambiguous oath, should they be necessary to save him from a villain. Thus in Book XX. Telemachus swears by Zeus, that he does not hinder his mother from marrying whom she pleases of the wooers, though at the same time he is plotting their destruction with his father. F.\n\n\n84 In the Greek \u1f48\u0394\u03a5\u03a3\u03a3\u0395\u03a5\u03a3 from the verb \u1f40\u03b4\u03c5\u03c3\u03c3\u03c9\u2014Irascor, I am angry.\n\n\n85 She intended to slay the son of her husband\u2019s brother Amphion, incited to it by the envy of his wife, who had six children, while herself had only two, but through mistake she slew her own son Itylus, and for her punishment was transformed by Jupiter into a nightingale.\n\n\n86 The difference of the two substances may perhaps serve to account for the preference given in this case to the gate of horn; horn being transparent, and as such emblematical of truth, while ivory, from its whiteness, promises light, but is, in fact, opaque. F.\n\n\n87 The translation here is somewhat pleonastic for the sake of perspicuity; the original is clear in itself, but not to us who have no such practice. Twelve stakes were fixt in the earth, each having a ring at the top; the order in which they stood was so exact, that an arrow sent with an even hand through the first ring, would pass them all.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK XX\nARGUMENT\nUlysses, doubting whether he shall destroy or not the women servants who commit lewdness with the suitors, resolves at length to spare them for the present. He asks an omen from Jupiter, and that he would grant him also to hear some propitious words from the lips of one in the family. His petitions are both answered. Preparation is made for the feast. Whilst the suitors sit at table, Pallas smites them with a horrid frenzy. Theoclymenus, observing the strange effects of it, prophesies their destruction, and they deride his prophecy.\n\nBut in the vestibule the Hero lay On a bull\u2019s-hide undress\u2019d, o\u2019er which he spread The fleece of many a sheep slain by the Greeks, And, cover\u2019d by the household\u2019s governess With a wide cloak, composed himself to rest. Yet slept he not, but meditating lay Woe to his enemies. Meantime, the train Of women, wonted to the suitors\u2019 arms, Issuing all mirth and laughter, in his soul A tempest raised of doubts, whether at once 10 To slay, or to permit them yet to give Their lusty paramours one last embrace. As growls the mastiff standing on the start For battle, if a stranger\u2019s foot approach Her cubs new-whelp\u2019d\u2014so growl\u2019d Ulysses\u2019 heart, While wonder fill\u2019d him at their impious deeds. But, smiting on his breast, thus he reproved The mutinous inhabitant within. Heart! bear it. Worse than this thou didst endure When, uncontroulable by force of man, 20 The Cyclops thy illustrious friends devour\u2019d. Thy patience then fail\u2019d not, till prudence found Deliv\u2019rance for thee on the brink of fate. So disciplined the Hero his own heart, Which, tractable, endured the rigorous curb, And patient; yet he turn\u2019d from side to side. As when some hungry swain turns oft a maw Unctuous and sav\u2019ry on the burning coals, Quick expediting his desired repast, So he from side to side roll\u2019d, pond\u2019ring deep 30 How likeliest with success he might assail Those shameless suitors; one to many opposed. Then, sudden from the skies descending, came Minerva in a female form; her stand Above his head she took, and thus she spake. Why sleep\u2019st thou not, unhappiest of mankind? Thou art at home; here dwells thy wife, and here Thy son; a son, whom all might wish their own. Then her Ulysses answer\u2019d, ever-wise. O Goddess! true is all that thou hast said, 40 But, not without anxiety, I muse How, single as I am, I shall assail Those shameless suitors who frequent my courts Daily; and always their whole multitude. This weightier theme I meditate beside; Should I, with Jove\u2019s concurrence and with thine Prevail to slay them, how shall I escape, Myself, at last?88 oh Goddess, weigh it well. Him answer\u2019d then Pallas c\u00e6rulean-eyed. Oh faithless man! a man will in his friend 50 Confide, though mortal, and in valour less And wisdom than himself; but I who keep Thee in all difficulties, am divine. I tell thee plainly. Were we hemm\u2019d around By fifty troops of shouting warriors bent To slay thee, thou should\u2019st yet securely drive The flocks away and cattle of them all. But yield to sleep\u2019s soft influence; for to lie All night thus watchful, is, itself, distress. Fear not. Deliv\u2019rance waits, not far remote. 60 So saying, she o\u2019er Ulysses\u2019 eyes diffused Soft slumbers, and when sleep that sooths the mind And nerves the limbs afresh had seized him once, To the Olympian summit swift return\u2019d. But his chaste spouse awoke; she weeping sat On her soft couch, and, noblest of her sex, Satiate at length with tears, her pray\u2019r address\u2019d First to Diana of the Pow\u2019rs above. Diana, awful progeny of Jove! I would that with a shaft this moment sped 70 Into my bosom, thou would\u2019st here conclude My mournful life! or, oh that, as it flies, Snatching me through the pathless air, a storm Would whelm me deep in Ocean\u2019s restless tide! So, when the Gods their parents had destroy\u2019d, Storms suddenly the beauteous daughters snatch\u2019d89 Of Pandarus away; them left forlorn Venus with curds, with honey and with wine Fed duly; Juno gave them to surpass All women in the charms of face and mind, 80 With graceful stature eminent the chaste Diana bless\u2019d them, and in works of art Illustrious, Pallas taught them to excel. But when the foam-sprung Goddess to the skies A suitress went on their behalf, to obtain Blest nuptials for them from the Thund\u2019rer Jove, (For Jove the happiness, himself, appoints, And the unhappiness of all below) Meantime, the Harpies ravishing away Those virgins, gave them to the Furies Three, 90 That they might serve them. O that me the Gods Inhabiting Olympus so would hide From human eyes for ever, or bright-hair\u2019d Diana pierce me with a shaft, that while Ulysses yet engages all my thoughts, My days concluded, I might \u2019scape the pain Of gratifying some inferior Chief! This is supportable, when (all the day To sorrow giv\u2019n) the mourner sleeps at night; For sleep, when it hath once the eyelids veil\u2019d, 100 All reminiscence blots of all alike, Both good and ill; but me the Gods afflict Not seldom ev\u2019n in dreams, and at my side, This night again, one lay resembling him; Such as my own Ulysses when he join\u2019d Achaia\u2019s warriors; my exulting heart No airy dream believed it, but a truth. While thus she spake, in orient gold enthroned Came forth the morn; Ulysses, as she wept, Heard plain her lamentation; him that sound 110 Alarm\u2019d; he thought her present, and himself Known to her. Gath\u2019ring hastily the cloak His cov\u2019ring, and the fleeces, them he placed Together on a throne within the hall, But bore the bull\u2019s-hide forth into the air. Then, lifting high his hands to Jove, he pray\u2019d. Eternal Sire! if over moist and dry Ye have with good-will sped me to my home After much suff\u2019ring, grant me from the lips Of some domestic now awake, to hear 120 Words of propitious omen, and thyself Vouchsafe me still some other sign abroad. Such pray\u2019r he made, and Jove omniscient heard. Sudden he thunder\u2019d from the radiant heights Olympian; glad, Ulysses heard the sound. A woman, next, a labourer at the mill Hard by, where all the palace-mills were wrought, Gave him the omen of propitious sound. Twelve maidens, day by day, toil\u2019d at the mills, Meal grinding, some, of barley, some, of wheat, 130 Marrow of man.90 The rest (their portion ground) All slept; she only from her task as yet Ceas\u2019d not, for she was feeblest of them all; She rested on her mill, and thus pronounced The happy omen by her Lord desired. Jove, Father, Governor of heav\u2019n and earth! Loud thou hast thunder\u2019d from the starry skies By no cloud veil\u2019d; a sign propitious, giv\u2019n To whom I know not; but oh grant the pray\u2019r Of a poor bond-woman! appoint their feast 140 This day, the last that in Ulysses\u2019 house The suitors shall enjoy, for whom I drudge, With aching heart and trembling knees their meal Grinding continual. Feast they here no more! She ended, and the list\u2019ning Chief received With equal joy both signs; for well he hoped That he should punish soon those guilty men. And now the other maidens in the hall Assembling, kindled on the hearth again Th\u2019 unwearied blaze; then, godlike from his couch 150 Arose Telemachus, and, fresh-attired, Athwart his shoulders his bright faulchion slung, Bound his fair sandals to his feet, and took His sturdy spear pointed with glitt\u2019ring brass; Advancing to the portal, there he stood, And Euryclea thus, his nurse, bespake. Nurse! have ye with respectful notice serv\u2019d Our guest? or hath he found a sordid couch E\u2019en where he might? for, prudent though she be, My mother, inattentive oft, the worse 160 Treats kindly, and the better sends away. Whom Euryclea answer\u2019d, thus, discrete. Blame not, my son! who merits not thy blame. The guest sat drinking till he would no more, And ate, till, question\u2019d, he replied\u2014Enough. But when the hour of sleep call\u2019d him to rest, She gave commandment to her female train To spread his couch. Yet he, like one forlorn, And, through despair, indiff\u2019rent to himself, Both bed and rugs refused, and in the porch 170 On skins of sheep and on an undress\u2019d hide Reposed, where we threw cov\u2019ring over him. She ceas\u2019d, and, grasping his bright-headed spear, Forth went the Prince attended, as he went, By his fleet hounds; to the assembled Greeks In council with majestic gait he moved, And Euryclea, daughter wise of Ops, Pisenor\u2019s son, call\u2019d to the serving-maids. Haste ye! be diligent! sweep the palace-floor And sprinkle it; then give the sumptuous seats 180 Their purple coverings. Let others cleanse With sponges all the tables, wash and rince The beakers well, and goblets rich-emboss\u2019d; Run others to the fountain, and bring thence Water with speed. The suitors will not long Be absent, but will early come to-day, For this day is a public festival.91 So she; whom all, obedient, heard; forth went Together, twenty to the crystal fount, While in their sev\u2019ral provinces the rest 190 Bestirr\u2019d them brisk at home. Then enter\u2019d all The suitors, and began cleaving the wood. Meantime, the women from the fountain came, Whom soon the swine-herd follow\u2019d, driving three His fattest brawns; them in the spacious court He feeding left, and to Ulysses\u2019 side Approaching, courteously bespake the Chief. Guest! look the Greecians on thee with respect At length, or still disdainful as before? Then, answer thus Ulysses wise return\u2019d. 200 Yes\u2014and I would that vengeance from the Gods Might pay their insolence, who in a house Not theirs, dominion exercise, and plan Unseemly projects, shameless as they are! Thus they conferr\u2019d; and now Melanthius came The goat-herd, driving, with the aid of two His fellow-swains, the fattest of his goats To feast the suitors. In the sounding porch The goats he tied, then, drawing near, in terms Reproachful thus assail\u2019d Ulysses\u2019 ear. 210 How, stranger? persever\u2019st thou, begging, still To vex the suitors? wilt thou not depart? Scarce shall we settle this dispute, I judge, Till we have tasted each the other\u2019s fist; Thou art unreasonable thus to beg Here always\u2014have the Greeks no feasts beside? He spake, to whom Ulysses answer none Return\u2019d, but shook his brows, and, silent, framed Terrible purposes. Then, third, approach\u2019d Chief o\u2019er the herds, Phil\u0153tius; fatted goats 220 He for the suitors brought, with which he drove An heifer; (ferry-men had pass\u2019d them o\u2019er, Carriers of all who on their coast arrive) He tied them in the sounding porch, then stood Beside the swine-herd, to whom thus he said. Who is this guest, Eum\u00e6us, here arrived So lately? from what nation hath he come? What parentage and country boasts the man? I pity him, whose figure seems to speak Royalty in him. Heav\u2019n will surely plunge 230 The race of common wand\u2019rers deep in woe, If thus it destine even Kings to mourn. He ceas\u2019d; and, with his right hand, drawing nigh, Welcom\u2019d Ulysses, whom he thus bespake. Hail venerable guest! and be thy lot Prosp\u2019rous at least hereafter, who art held At present in the bonds of num\u2019rous ills. Thou, Jupiter, of all the Gods, art most Severe, and spar\u2019st not to inflict distress Even on creatures from thyself derived.92 240 I had no sooner mark\u2019d thee, than my eyes Swam, and the sweat gush\u2019d from me at the thought Of dear Ulysses; for if yet he live And see the sun, such tatters, I suppose, He wears, a wand\u2019rer among human-kind. But if already with the dead he dwell In Pluto\u2019s drear abode, oh then, alas For kind Ulysses! who consign\u2019d to me, While yet a boy, his Cephalenian herds, And they have now encreas\u2019d to such a store 250 Innumerable of broad-fronted beeves, As only care like mine could have produced. These, by command of others, I transport For their regale, who neither heed his son, Nor tremble at the anger of the Gods, But long have wish\u2019d ardently to divide And share the substance of our absent Lord. Me, therefore, this thought occupies, and haunts My mind not seldom; while the heir survives It were no small offence to drive his herds 260 Afar, and migrate to a foreign land; Yet here to dwell, suff\u2019ring oppressive wrongs While I attend another\u2019s beeves, appears Still less supportable; and I had fled, And I had served some other mighty Chief Long since, (for patience fails me to endure My present lot) but that I cherish still Some hope of my ill-fated Lord\u2019s return, To rid his palace of those lawless guests. To whom Ulysses, ever-wise, replied. 270 Herdsman! since neither void of sense thou seem\u2019st, Nor yet dishonest, but myself am sure That thou art owner of a mind discrete, Hear therefore, for I swear! bold I attest Jove and this hospitable board, and these The Lares93 of the noble Chief, whose hearth Protects me now, that, ere thy going hence, Ulysses surely shall have reach\u2019d his home, And thou shalt see him, if thou wilt, thyself, Slaying the suitors who now lord it here. 280 Him answer\u2019d then the keeper of his beeves. Oh stranger! would but the Saturnian King Perform that word, thou should\u2019st be taught (thyself Eye-witness of it) what an arm is mine. Eum\u00e6us also ev\u2019ry power of heav\u2019n Entreated, that Ulysses might possess His home again. Thus mutual they conferr\u2019d. Meantime, in conf\u2019rence close the suitors plann\u2019d Death for Telemachus; but while they sat Consulting, on their left the bird of Jove 290 An eagle soar\u2019d, grasping a tim\u2019rous dove. Then, thus, Amphinomus the rest bespake. Oh friends! our consultation how to slay Telemachus, will never smoothly run To its effect; but let us to the feast. So spake Amphinomus, whose counsel pleased. Then, all into the royal house repaired, And on the thrones and couches throwing off Their mantles, slew the fatted goats, the brawns, The sheep full-sized, and heifer of the herd. 300 The roasted entrails first they shared, then fill\u2019d The beakers, and the swine-herd placed the cups, Phil\u0153tius, chief intendant of the beeves, Served all with baskets elegant of bread, While all their cups Melanthius charged with wine, And they assail\u2019d at once the ready feast. Meantime Telemachus, with forecast shrewd, Fast by the marble threshold, but within The spacious hall his father placed, to whom A sordid seat he gave and scanty board. 310 A portion of the entrails, next, he set Before him, fill\u2019d a golden goblet high, And thus, in presence of them all, began. There seated now, drink as the suitors drink. I will, myself, their biting taunts forbid, And violence. This edifice is mine, Not public property; my father first Possess\u2019d it, and my right from him descends. Suitors! controul your tongues, nor with your hands Offend, lest contest fierce and war ensue. 320 He ceas\u2019d: they gnawing, sat, their lips, aghast With wonder that Telemachus in his speech Such boldness used. Then spake Eupithes\u2019 son, Antino\u00fcs, and the assembly thus address\u2019d. Let pass, ye Greeks! the language of the Prince, Harsh as it is, and big with threats to us. Had Jove permitted, his orations here, Although thus eloquent, ere now had ceased. So spake Antino\u00fcs, whom Ulysses\u2019 son Heard unconcern\u2019d. And now the heralds came 330 In solemn pomp, conducting through the streets A sacred hecatomb, when in the grove Umbrageous of Apollo, King shaft-arm\u2019d, The assembled Greecians met. The sav\u2019ry roast Finish\u2019d, and from the spits withdrawn, each shared His portion of the noble feast, and such As they enjoy\u2019d themselves the attendants placed Before Ulysses, for the Hero\u2019s son Himself, Telemachus, had so enjoined. But Pallas (that they might exasp\u2019rate more 340 Ulysses) suffer\u2019d not the suitor Chiefs To banquet, guiltless of heart-piercing scoffs Malign. There was a certain suitor named Ctesippus, born in Samos; base of mind Was he and profligate, but, in the wealth Confiding of his father, woo\u2019d the wife Of long-exiled Ulysses. From his seat The haughty suitors thus that man address\u2019d. Ye noble suitors, I would speak; attend! The guest is served; he hath already shared 350 Equal with us; nor less the laws demand Of hospitality; for neither just It were nor decent, that a guest, received Here by Telemachus, should be denied His portion of the feast. Come then\u2014myself Will give to him, that he may also give To her who laved him in the bath, or else To whatsoever menial here he will. So saying, he from a basket near at hand Heav\u2019d an ox-foot, and with a vig\u2019rous arm 360 Hurl\u2019d it. Ulysses gently bow\u2019d his head, Shunning the blow, but gratified his just Resentment with a broad sardonic smile94 Of dread significance. He smote the wall. Then thus Telemachus rebuked the deed. Ctesippus, thou art fortunate; the bone Struck not the stranger, for he shunn\u2019d the blow; Else, I had surely thrust my glitt\u2019ring lance Right through thee; then, no hymen\u00e6al rites Of thine should have employ\u2019d thy father here, 370 But thy funereal. No man therefore treat Me with indignity within these walls, For though of late a child, I can discern Now, and distinguish between good and ill. Suffice it that we patiently endure To be spectators daily of our sheep Slaughter\u2019d, our bread consumed, our stores of wine Wasted; for what can one to all opposed? Come then\u2014persist no longer in offence And hostile hate of me; or if ye wish 380 To slay me, pause not. It were better far To die, and I had rather much be slain, Than thus to witness your atrocious deeds Day after day; to see our guests abused, With blows insulted, and the women dragg\u2019d With a licentious violence obscene From side to side of all this fair abode. He said, and all sat silent, till at length Thus Agela\u00fcs spake, Diastor\u2019s son. My friends! let none with contradiction thwart 390 And rude reply, words rational and just; Assault no more the stranger, nor of all The servants of renown\u2019d Ulysses here Harm any. My advice, both to the Queen And to Telemachus, shall gentle be, May it but please them. While the hope survived Within your bosoms of the safe return Of wise Ulysses to his native isle, So long good reason was that she should use Delay, and hold our wooing in suspence; 400 For had Ulysses come, that course had proved Wisest and best; but that he comes no more Appears, now, manifest. Thou, therefore, Prince! Seeking thy mother, counsel her to wed The noblest, and who offers richest dow\u2019r, That thou, for thy peculiar, may\u2019st enjoy Thy own inheritance in peace and ease, And she, departing, find another home. To whom Telemachus, discrete, replied. I swear by Jove, and by my father\u2019s woes, 410 Who either hath deceased far from his home, Or lives a wand\u2019rer, that I interpose No hindrance to her nuptials. Let her wed Who offers most, and even whom she will. But to dismiss her rudely were a deed Unfilial\u2014That I dare not\u2014God forbid! So spake Telemachus. Then Pallas struck The suitors with delirium; wide they stretch\u2019d Their jaws with unspontaneous laughter loud; Their meat dripp\u2019d blood; tears fill\u2019d their eyes, and dire Presages of approaching woe, their hearts. 421 Then thus the prophet Theoclymenus.95 Ah miserable men! what curse is this That takes you now? night wraps itself around Your faces, bodies, limbs; the palace shakes With peals of groans\u2014and oh, what floods ye weep! I see the walls and arches dappled thick With gore; the vestibule is throng\u2019d, the court On all sides throng\u2019d with apparitions grim Of slaughter\u2019d men sinking into the gloom 430 Of Erebus; the sun is blotted out From heav\u2019n, and midnight whelms you premature. He said, they, hearing, laugh\u2019d; and thus the son Of Polybus, Eurymachus replied. This wand\u2019rer from a distant shore hath left His wits behind. Hoa there! conduct him hence Into the forum; since he dreams it night Already, teach him there that it is day. Then answer\u2019d godlike Theoclymenus. I have no need, Eurymachus, of guides 440 To lead me hence, for I have eyes and ears, The use of both my feet, and of a mind In no respect irrational or wild. These shall conduct me forth, for well I know That evil threatens you, such, too, as none Shall \u2019scape of all the suitors, whose delight Is to insult the unoffending guest Received beneath this hospitable roof. He said, and, issuing from the palace, sought Pir\u00e6us\u2019 house, who gladly welcom\u2019d him. 450 Then all the suitors on each other cast A look significant, and, to provoke Telemachus the more, fleer\u2019d at his guests. Of whom a youth thus, insolent began. No living wight, Telemachus, had e\u2019er Guests such as thine. Witness, we know not who, This hungry vagabond, whose means of life Are none, and who hath neither skill nor force To earn them, a mere burthen on the ground. Witness the other also, who upstarts 460 A prophet suddenly. Take my advice; I counsel wisely; send them both on board Some gallant bark to Sicily for sale; Thus shall they somewhat profit thee at last. So spake the suitors, whom Telemachus Heard unconcern\u2019d, and, silent, look\u2019d and look\u2019d Toward his father, watching still the time When he should punish that licentious throng. Meantime, Icarius\u2019 daughter, who had placed Her splendid seat opposite, heard distinct 470 Their taunting speeches. They, with noisy mirth, Feasted deliciously, for they had slain Many a fat victim; but a sadder feast Than, soon, the Goddess and the warrior Chief Should furnish for them, none shall ever share. Of which their crimes had furnish\u2019d first the cause.\n\n\n\n88 That is, how shall I escape the vengeance of their kindred?\n\n\n89 A\u0115don, Cleothera, Merope.\n\n\n90 \u03bc\u03c5\u03b5\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd \u03b1\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03c9\u03bd.\n\n\n91 The new moon.\n\n\n92 He is often called\u2014\u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03b7\u03c1 \u03b1\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03c9\u03bd \u03c4\u03b5 \u03b8\u03b5\u03c9\u03bd \u03c4\u03b5.\n\n\n93 Household Gods who presided over the hearth.\n\n\n94 A smile of displeasure.\n\n\n95 Who had sought refuge in the ship of Telemachus when he left Sparta, and came with him to Ithaca.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK XXI\nARGUMENT\nPenelope proposes to the suitors a contest with the bow, herself the prize. They prove unable to bend the bow; when Ulysses having with some difficulty possessed himself of it, manages it with the utmost ease, and dispatches his arrow through twelve rings erected for the trial.\n\nMinerva, now, Goddess c\u00e6rulean-eyed, Prompted Icarius\u2019 daughter, the discrete Penelope, with bow and rings to prove Her suitors in Ulysses\u2019 courts, a game Terrible in conclusion to them all. First, taking in her hand the brazen key Well-forged, and fitted with an iv\u2019ry grasp, Attended by the women of her train She sought her inmost chamber, the recess In which she kept the treasures of her Lord, 10 His brass, his gold, and steel elaborate. Here lay his stubborn bow, and quiver fill\u2019d With num\u2019rous shafts, a fatal store. That bow He had received and quiver from the hand Of godlike Iphitus Eurytides, Whom, in Messenia,96 in the house he met Of brave Orsilochus. Ulysses came Demanding payment of arrearage due From all that land; for a Messenian fleet Had borne from Ithaca three hundred sheep, 20 With all their shepherds; for which cause, ere yet Adult, he voyaged to that distant shore, Deputed by his sire, and by the Chiefs Of Ithaca, to make the just demand. But Iphitus had thither come to seek Twelve mares and twelve mule colts which he had lost, A search that cost him soon a bloody death. For, coming to the house of Hercules The valiant task-performing son of Jove, He perish\u2019d there, slain by his cruel host 30 Who, heedless of heav\u2019n\u2019s wrath, and of the rights Of his own board, first fed, then slaughter\u2019d him; For in his house the mares and colts were hidden. He, therefore, occupied in that concern, Meeting Ulysses there, gave him the bow Which, erst, huge Eurytus had borne, and which Himself had from his dying sire received. Ulysses, in return, on him bestowed A spear and sword, pledges of future love And hospitality; but never more 40 They met each other at the friendly board, For, ere that hour arrived, the son of Jove Slew his own guest, the godlike Iphitus. Thus came the bow into Ulysses\u2019 hands, Which, never in his gallant barks he bore To battle with him, (though he used it oft In times of peace) but left it safely stored At home, a dear memorial of his friend. Soon as, divinest of her sex, arrived At that same chamber, with her foot she press\u2019d 50 The oaken threshold bright, on which the hand Of no mean architect had stretch\u2019d the line, Who had erected also on each side The posts on which the splendid portals hung, She loos\u2019d the ring and brace, then introduced The key, and aiming at them from without,97 Struck back the bolts. The portals, at that stroke, Sent forth a tone deep as the pastur\u2019d bull\u2019s, And flew wide open. She, ascending, next, The elevated floor on which the chests 60 That held her own fragrant apparel stood, With lifted hand aloft took down the bow In its embroider\u2019d bow-case safe enclosed. Then, sitting there, she lay\u2019d it on her knees, Weeping aloud, and drew it from the case. Thus weeping over it long time she sat, Till satiate, at the last, with grief and tears, Descending by the palace steps she sought Again the haughty suitors, with the bow Elastic, and the quiver in her hand 70 Replete with pointed shafts, a deadly store. Her maidens, as she went, bore after her A coffer fill\u2019d with prizes by her Lord, Much brass and steel; and when at length she came, Loveliest of women, where the suitors sat, Between the pillars of the stately dome Pausing, before her beauteous face she held Her lucid veil, and by two matrons chaste Supported, the assembly thus address\u2019d. Ye noble suitors hear, who rudely haunt 80 This palace of a Chief long absent hence, Whose substance ye have now long time consumed, Nor palliative have yet contrived, or could, Save your ambition to make me a bride\u2014 Attend this game to which I call you forth. Now suitors! prove yourselves with this huge bow Of wide-renown\u2019d Ulysses; he who draws Easiest the bow, and who his arrow sends Through twice six rings, he takes me to his home, And I must leave this mansion of my youth 90 Plenteous, magnificent, which, doubtless, oft I shall remember even in my dreams. So saying, she bade Eum\u00e6us lay the bow Before them, and the twice six rings of steel. He wept, received them, and obey\u2019d; nor wept The herdsman less, seeing the bow which erst His Lord had occupied; when at their tears Indignant, thus, Antino\u00fcs began. Ye rural drones, whose purblind eyes see not Beyond the present hour, egregious fools! 100 Why weeping trouble ye the Queen, too much Before afflicted for her husband lost? Either partake the banquet silently, Or else go weep abroad, leaving the bow, That stubborn test, to us; for none, I judge, None here shall bend this polish\u2019d bow with ease, Since in this whole assembly I discern None like Ulysses, whom myself have seen And recollect, though I was then a boy. He said, but in his heart, meantime, the hope 110 Cherish\u2019d, that he should bend, himself, the bow, And pass the rings; yet was he destin\u2019d first Of all that company to taste the steel Of brave Ulysses\u2019 shaft, whom in that house He had so oft dishonour\u2019d, and had urged So oft all others to the like offence. Amidst them, then, the sacred might arose Of young Telemachus, who thus began. Saturnian Jove questionless hath deprived Me of all reason. My own mother, fam\u2019d 120 For wisdom as she is, makes known to all Her purpose to abandon this abode And follow a new mate, while, heedless, I Trifle and laugh as I were still a child. But come, ye suitors! since the prize is such, A woman like to whom none can be found This day in all Achaia; on the shores Of sacred Pylus; in the cities proud Of Argos or Mycen\u00e6; or even here In Ithaca; or yet within the walls 130 Of black Epirus; and since this yourselves Know also, wherefore should I speak her praise? Come then, delay not, waste not time in vain Excuses, turn not from the proof, but bend The bow, that thus the issue may be known. I also will, myself, that task essay; And should I bend the bow, and pass the rings, Then shall not my illustrious mother leave Her son forlorn, forsaking this abode To follow a new spouse, while I remain 140 Disconsolate, although of age to bear, Successful as my sire, the prize away. So saying, he started from his seat, cast off His purple cloak, and lay\u2019d his sword aside, Then fix\u2019d, himself, the rings, furrowing the earth By line, and op\u2019ning one long trench for all, And stamping close the glebe. Amazement seized All present, seeing with how prompt a skill He executed, though untaught, his task. Then, hasting to the portal, there he stood. 150 Thrice, struggling, he essay\u2019d to bend the bow, And thrice desisted, hoping still to draw The bow-string home, and shoot through all the rings.98 And now the fourth time striving with full force He had prevail\u2019d to string it, but his sire Forbad his eager efforts by a sign. Then thus the royal youth to all around\u2014 Gods! either I shall prove of little force Hereafter, and for manly feats unapt, Or I am yet too young, and have not strength 160 To quell the aggressor\u2019s contumely. But come\u2014 (For ye have strength surpassing mine) try ye The bow, and bring this contest to an end. He ceas\u2019d, and set the bow down on the floor, Reclining it against the shaven pannels smooth That lined the wall; the arrow next he placed, Leaning against the bow\u2019s bright-polish\u2019d horn, And to the seat, whence he had ris\u2019n, return\u2019d. Then thus Eupithes\u2019 son, Antino\u00fcs spake. My friends! come forth successive from the right,99 170 Where he who ministers the cup begins. So spake Antino\u00fcs, and his counsel pleased. Then, first, Leiodes, \u0152nop\u2019s son, arose. He was their soothsayer, and ever sat Beside the beaker, inmost of them all. To him alone, of all, licentious deeds Were odious, and, with indignation fired, He witness\u2019d the excesses of the rest. He then took foremost up the shaft and bow, And, station\u2019d at the portal, strove to bend 180 But bent it not, fatiguing, first, his hands Delicate and uncustom\u2019d to the toil. He ceased, and the assembly thus bespake. My friends, I speed not; let another try; For many Princes shall this bow of life Bereave, since death more eligible seems, Far more, than loss of her, for whom we meet Continual here, expecting still the prize. Some suitor, haply, at this moment, hopes That he shall wed whom long he hath desired, 190 Ulysses\u2019 wife, Penelope; let him Essay the bow, and, trial made, address His spousal offers to some other fair Among the long-stoled Princesses of Greece, This Princess leaving his, whose proffer\u2019d gifts Shall please her most, and whom the Fates ordain. He said, and set the bow down on the floor, Reclining it against the shaven pannels smooth That lined the wall; the arrow, next, he placed, Leaning against the bow\u2019s bright-polish\u2019d horn, 200 And to the seat whence he had ris\u2019n return\u2019d. Then him Antino\u00fcs, angry, thus reproved. What word, Leiodes, grating to our ears Hath scap\u2019d thy lips? I hear it with disdain. Shall this bow fatal prove to many a Prince, Because thou hast, thyself, too feeble proved To bend it? no. Thou wast not born to bend The unpliant bow, or to direct the shaft, But here are nobler who shall soon prevail. He said, and to Melanthius gave command, 210 The goat-herd. Hence, Melanthius, kindle fire; Beside it place, with fleeces spread, a form Of length commodious; from within procure A large round cake of suet next, with which When we have chafed and suppled the tough bow Before the fire, we will again essay To bend it, and decide the doubtful strife. He ended, and Melanthius, kindling fire Beside it placed, with fleeces spread, a form Of length commodious; next, he brought a cake 220 Ample and round of suet from within, With which they chafed the bow, then tried again To bend, but bent it not; superior strength To theirs that task required. Yet two, the rest In force surpassing, made no trial yet, Antino\u00fcs, and Eurymachus the brave. Then went the herdsman and the swine-herd forth Together; after whom, the glorious Chief Himself the house left also, and when all Without the court had met, with gentle speech 230 Ulysses, then, the faithful pair address\u2019d. Herdsman! and thou, Eum\u00e6us! shall I keep A certain secret close, or shall I speak Outright? my spirit prompts me, and I will. What welcome should Ulysses at your hands Receive, arriving suddenly at home, Some God his guide; would ye the suitors aid, Or would ye aid Ulysses? answer true. Then thus the chief intendant of his herds. Would Jove but grant me my desire, to see 240 Once more the Hero, and would some kind Pow\u2019r, Restore him, I would shew thee soon an arm Strenuous to serve him, and a dauntless heart. Eum\u00e6us, also, fervently implored The Gods in pray\u2019r, that they would render back Ulysses to his home. He, then, convinced Of their unfeigning honesty, began. Behold him! I am he myself, arrived After long suff\u2019rings in the twentieth year! I know how welcome to yourselves alone 250 Of all my train I come, for I have heard None others praying for my safe return. I therefore tell you truth; should heav\u2019n subdue The suitors under me, ye shall receive Each at my hands a bride, with lands and house Near to my own, and ye shall be thenceforth Dear friends and brothers of the Prince my son. Lo! also this indisputable proof That ye may know and trust me. View it here. It is the scar which in Parnassus erst 260 (Where with the sons I hunted of renown\u2019d Autolycus) I from a boar received. So saying, he stripp\u2019d his tatters, and unveil\u2019d The whole broad scar; then, soon as they had seen And surely recognized the mark, each cast His arms around Ulysses, wept, embraced And press\u2019d him to his bosom, kissing oft His brows and shoulders, who as oft their hands And foreheads kiss\u2019d, nor had the setting sun Beheld them satisfied, but that himself 270 Ulysses thus admonished them, and said. Cease now from tears, lest any, coming forth, Mark and report them to our foes within. Now, to the hall again, but one by one, Not all at once, I foremost, then yourselves, And this shall be the sign. Full well I know That, all unanimous, they will oppose Deliv\u2019ry of the bow and shafts to me; But thou, (proceeding with it to my seat) Eum\u00e6us, noble friend! shalt give the bow 280 Into my grasp; then bid the women close The massy doors, and should they hear a groan Or other noise made by the Princes shut Within the hall, let none set step abroad, But all work silent. Be the palace-door Thy charge, my good Phil\u0153tius! key it fast Without a moment\u2019s pause, and fix the brace.100 He ended, and, returning to the hall, Resumed his seat; nor stay\u2019d his servants long Without, but follow\u2019d their illustrious Lord. 290 Eurymachus was busily employ\u2019d Turning the bow, and chafing it before The sprightly blaze, but, after all, could find No pow\u2019r to bend it. Disappointment wrung A groan from his proud heart, and thus he said. Alas! not only for myself I grieve, But grieve for all. Nor, though I mourn the loss Of such a bride, mourn I that loss alone, (For lovely Greecians may be found no few In Ithaca, and in the neighbour isles) 300 But should we so inferior prove at last To brave Ulysses, that no force of ours Can bend his bow, we are for ever shamed. To whom Antino\u00fcs, thus, Eupithes\u2019 son. Not so; (as even thou art well-assured Thyself, Eurymachus!) but Ph\u0153bus claims This day his own. Who then, on such a day, Would strive to bend it? Let it rather rest. And should we leave the rings where now they stand, I trust that none ent\u2019ring Ulysses\u2019 house 310 Will dare displace them. Cup-bearer, attend! Serve all with wine, that, first, libation made, We may religiously lay down the bow. Command ye too Melanthius, that he drive Hither the fairest goats of all his flocks At dawn of day, that burning first, the thighs To the ethereal archer, we may make New trial, and decide, at length, the strife. So spake Antino\u00fcs, and his counsel pleased. The heralds, then, pour\u2019d water on their hands, 320 While youths crown\u2019d high the goblets which they bore From right to left, distributing to all. When each had made libation, and had drunk Till well sufficed, then, artful to effect His shrewd designs, Ulysses thus began. Hear, O ye suitors of the illustrious Queen, My bosom\u2019s dictates. But I shall entreat Chiefly Eurymachus and the godlike youth Antino\u00fcs, whose advice is wisely giv\u2019n. Tamper no longer with the bow, but leave 330 The matter with the Gods, who shall decide The strife to-morrow, fav\u2019ring whom they will. Meantime, grant me the polish\u2019d bow, that I May trial make among you of my force, If I retain it still in like degree As erst, or whether wand\u2019ring and defect Of nourishment have worn it all away. He said, whom they with indignation heard Extreme, alarm\u2019d lest he should bend the bow, And sternly thus Antino\u00fcs replied. 340 Desperate vagabond! ah wretch deprived Of reason utterly! art not content? Esteem\u2019st it not distinction proud enough To feast with us the nobles of the land? None robs thee of thy share, thou witnessest Our whole discourse, which, save thyself alone, No needy vagrant is allow\u2019d to hear. Thou art befool\u2019d by wine, as many have been, Wide-throated drinkers, unrestrain\u2019d by rule. Wine in the mansion of the mighty Chief 350 Piritho\u00fcs, made the valiant Centaur mad Eurytion, at the Lapith\u00e6an feast.101 He drank to drunkenness, and being drunk, Committed great enormities beneath Piritho\u00fcs\u2019 roof, and such as fill\u2019d with rage The Hero-guests; who therefore by his feet Dragg\u2019d him right through the vestibule, amerced Of nose and ears, and he departed thence Provoked to frenzy by that foul disgrace, Whence war between the human kind arose 360 And the bold Centaurs\u2014but he first incurred By his ebriety that mulct severe. Great evil, also, if thou bend the bow, To thee I prophesy; for thou shalt find Advocate or protector none in all This people, but we will dispatch thee hence Incontinent on board a sable bark To Echetus, the scourge of human kind, From whom is no escape. Drink then in peace, And contest shun with younger men than thou. 370 Him answer\u2019d, then, Penelope discrete. Antino\u00fcs! neither seemly were the deed Nor just, to maim or harm whatever guest Whom here arrived Telemachus receives. Canst thou expect, that should he even prove Stronger than ye, and bend the massy bow, He will conduct me hence to his own home, And make me his own bride? No such design His heart conceives, or hope; nor let a dread So vain the mind of any overcloud 380 Who banquets here, since it dishonours me. So she; to whom Eurymachus reply\u2019d, Offspring of Polybus. O matchless Queen! Icarius\u2019 prudent daughter! none suspects That thou wilt wed with him; a mate so mean Should ill become thee; but we fear the tongues Of either sex, lest some Achaian say Hereafter, (one inferior far to us) Ah! how unworthy are they to compare With him whose wife they seek! to bend his bow 390 Pass\u2019d all their pow\u2019r, yet this poor vagabond, Arriving from what country none can tell, Bent it with ease, and shot through all the rings. So will they speak, and so shall we be shamed. Then answer, thus, Penelope return\u2019d. No fair report, Eurymachus, attends Their names or can, who, riotous as ye, The house dishonour, and consume the wealth Of such a Chief. Why shame ye thus yourselves? The guest is of athletic frame, well form\u2019d, 400 And large of limb; he boasts him also sprung From noble ancestry. Come then\u2014consent\u2014 Give him the bow, that we may see the proof; For thus I say, and thus will I perform; Sure as he bends it, and Apollo gives To him that glory, tunic fair and cloak Shall be his meed from me, a javelin keen To guard him against men and dogs, a sword Of double edge, and sandals for his feet, And I will send him whither most he would. 410 Her answer\u2019d then prudent Telemachus. Mother\u2014the bow is mine; and, save myself, No Greek hath right to give it, or refuse. None who in rock-bound Ithaca possess Dominion, none in the steed-pastured isles Of Elis, if I chose to make the bow His own for ever, should that choice controul. But thou into the house repairing, ply Spindle and loom, thy province, and enjoin Diligence to thy maidens; for the bow 420 Is man\u2019s concern alone, and shall be mine Especially, since I am master here. She heard astonish\u2019d, and the prudent speech Reposing of her son deep in her heart, Withdrew; then mounting with her female train To her superior chamber, there she wept Her lost Ulysses, till Minerva bathed With balmy dews of sleep her weary lids. And now the noble swine-herd bore the bow Toward Ulysses, but with one voice all 430 The suitors, clamorous, reproved the deed, Of whom a youth, thus, insolent exclaim\u2019d. Thou clumsy swine-herd, whither bear\u2019st the bow, Delirious wretch? the hounds that thou hast train\u2019d Shall eat thee at thy solitary home Ere long, let but Apollo prove, at last, Propitious to us, and the Pow\u2019rs of heav\u2019n. So they, whom hearing he replaced the bow Where erst it stood, terrified at the sound Of such loud menaces; on the other side 440 Telemachus as loud assail\u2019d his ear. Friend! forward with the bow; or soon repent That thou obey\u2019dst the many. I will else With huge stones drive thee, younger as I am, Back to the field. My strength surpasses thine. I would to heav\u2019n that I in force excell\u2019d As far, and prowess, every suitor here! So would I soon give rude dismission hence To some, who live but to imagine harm. He ceased, whose words the suitors laughing heard. 450 And, for their sake, in part their wrath resign\u2019d Against Telemachus; then through the hall Eum\u00e6us bore, and to Ulysses\u2019 hand Consign\u2019d the bow; next, summoning abroad The ancient nurse, he gave her thus in charge. It is the pleasure of Telemachus, Sage Euryclea! that thou key secure The doors; and should you hear, perchance, a groan Or other noise made by the Princes shut Within the hall, let none look, curious, forth, 460 But each in quietness pursue her work. So he; nor flew his words useless away, But she, incontinent, shut fast the doors. Then, noiseless, sprang Phil\u0153tius forth, who closed The portals also of the palace-court. A ship-rope of \u00c6gyptian reed, it chanced, Lay in the vestibule; with that he braced The doors securely, and re-entring fill\u2019d Again his seat, but watchful, eyed his Lord. He, now, assaying with his hand the bow, 470 Made curious trial of it ev\u2019ry way, And turn\u2019d it on all sides, lest haply worms Had in its master\u2019s absence drill\u2019d the horn. Then thus a suitor to his next remark\u2019d. He hath an eye, methinks, exactly skill\u2019d In bows, and steals them; or perhaps, at home, Hath such himself, or feels a strong desire To make them; so inquisitive the rogue Adept in mischief, shifts it to and fro! To whom another, insolent, replied. 480 I wish him like prosperity in all His efforts, as attends his effort made On this same bow, which he shall never bend. So they; but when the wary Hero wise Had made his hand familiar with the bow Poising it and examining\u2014at once\u2014 As when in harp and song adept, a bard Unlab\u2019ring strains the chord to a new lyre, The twisted entrails of a sheep below With fingers nice inserting, and above, 490 With such facility Ulysses bent His own huge bow, and with his right hand play\u2019d The nerve, which in its quick vibration sang Clear as the swallow\u2019s voice. Keen anguish seized The suitors, wan grew ev\u2019ry cheek, and Jove Gave him his rolling thunder for a sign. That omen, granted to him by the son Of wily Saturn, with delight he heard. He took a shaft that at the table-side Lay ready drawn; but in his quiver\u2019s womb 500 The rest yet slept, by those Achaians proud To be, ere long, experienced. True he lodg\u2019d The arrow on the centre of the bow, And, occupying still his seat, drew home Nerve and notch\u2019d arrow-head; with stedfast sight He aimed and sent it; right through all the rings From first to last the steel-charged weapon flew Issuing beyond, and to his son he spake. Thou need\u2019st not blush, young Prince, to have received A guest like me; neither my arrow swerved, 510 Nor labour\u2019d I long time to draw the bow; My strength is unimpair\u2019d, not such as these In scorn affirm it. But the waning day Calls us to supper, after which succeeds102 Jocund variety, the song, the harp, With all that heightens and adorns the feast. He said, and with his brows gave him the sign. At once the son of the illustrious Chief Slung his keen faulchion, grasp\u2019d his spear, and stood Arm\u2019d bright for battle at his father\u2019s side. 520\n\n\n\n96 A province of Laconia.\n\n\n97 The reader will of course observe, that the whole of this process implies a sort of mechanism very different from that with which we are acquainted.\u2014The translation, I believe, is exact.\n\n\n98 This first attempt of Telemachus and the suitors was not an attempt to shoot, but to lodge the bow-string on the opposite horn, the bow having been released at one end, and slackened while it was laid by.\n\n\n99 Antino\u00fcs prescribes to them this manner of rising to the trial for the good omen\u2019s sake, the left-hand being held unpropitious.\n\n\n100 The \u03b4\u03b5\u03c3\u03bc\u1f78\u03c2 seems to have been a strap designed to close the only aperture by which the bolt could be displaced, and the door opened.\n\n\n101 When Piritho\u00fcs, one of the Lapith\u00e6, married Hippodamia, daughter of Adrastus, he invited the Centaurs to the wedding. The Centaurs, intoxicated with wine, attempted to ravish the wives of the Lapith\u00e6, who in resentment of that insult, slew them.\n\n\n102 This is an instance of the \u03a3\u03b1\u03c1\u03b4\u03b1\u03bd\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd \u03bc\u03b1\u03bb\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd mentioned in Book XX.; such as, perhaps, could not be easily paralleled. I question if there be a passage, either in ancient or modern tragedy, so truly terrible as this seeming levity of Ulysses, in the moment when he was going to begin the slaughter.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK XXII\nARGUMENT\nUlysses, with some little assistance from Telemachus, Eum\u00e6us and Phil\u0153tius, slays all the suitors, and twelve of the female servants who had allowed themselves an illicit intercourse with them, are hanged. Melanthius also is punished with miserable mutilation.\n\nThen, girding up his rags, Ulysses sprang With bow and full-charged quiver to the door; Loose on the broad stone at his feet he pour\u2019d His arrows, and the suitors, thus, bespake. This prize, though difficult, hath been atchieved. Now for another mark which never man Struck yet, but I will strike it if I may, And if Apollo make that glory mine. He said, and at Antino\u00fcs aimed direct A bitter shaft; he, purposing to drink, 10 Both hands advanced toward the golden cup Twin-ear\u2019d, nor aught suspected death so nigh. For who, at the full banquet, could suspect That any single guest, however brave, Should plan his death, and execute the blow? Yet him Ulysses with an arrow pierced Full in the throat, and through his neck behind Started the glitt\u2019ring point. Aslant he droop\u2019d; Down fell the goblet, through his nostrils flew The spouted blood, and spurning with his foot 20 The board, he spread his viands in the dust. Confusion, when they saw Antino\u00fcs fall\u2019n, Seized all the suitors; from the thrones they sprang, Flew ev\u2019ry way, and on all sides explored The palace-walls, but neither sturdy lance As erst, nor buckler could they there discern, Then, furious, to Ulysses thus they spake. Thy arrow, stranger, was ill-aimed; a man Is no just mark. Thou never shalt dispute Prize more. Inevitable death is thine. 30 For thou hast slain a Prince noblest of all In Ithaca, and shalt be vultures\u2019 food. Various their judgments were, but none believed That he had slain him wittingly, nor saw Th\u2019 infatuate men fate hov\u2019ring o\u2019er them all. Then thus Ulysses, louring dark, replied. O dogs! not fearing aught my safe return From Ilium, ye have shorn my substance close, Lain with my women forcibly, and sought, While yet I lived, to make my consort yours, 40 Heedless of the inhabitants of heav\u2019n Alike, and of the just revenge of man. But death is on the wing; death for you all. He said; their cheeks all faded at the sound, And each with sharpen\u2019d eyes search\u2019d ev\u2019ry nook For an escape from his impending doom, Till thus, alone, Eurymachus replied. If thou indeed art he, the mighty Chief Of Ithaca return\u2019d, thou hast rehears\u2019d With truth the crimes committed by the Greeks 50 Frequent, both in thy house and in thy field. But he, already, who was cause of all, Lies slain, Antino\u00fcs; he thy palace fill\u2019d With outrage, not solicitous so much To win the fair Penelope, but thoughts Far diff\u2019rent framing, which Saturnian Jove Hath baffled all; to rule, himself, supreme In noble Ithaca, when he had kill\u2019d By an insidious stratagem thy son. But he is slain. Now therefore, spare thy own, 60 Thy people; public reparation due Shall sure be thine, and to appease thy wrath For all the waste that, eating, drinking here We have committed, we will yield thee, each, Full twenty beeves, gold paying thee beside And brass, till joy shall fill thee at the sight, However just thine anger was before. To whom Ulysses, frowning stern, replied, Eurymachus, would ye contribute each His whole inheritance, and other sums 70 Still add beside, ye should not, even so, These hands of mine bribe to abstain from blood, Till ev\u2019ry suitor suffer for his wrong. Ye have your choice. Fight with me, or escape (Whoever may) the terrours of his fate, But ye all perish, if my thought be true. He ended, they with trembling knees and hearts All heard, whom thus Eurymachus address\u2019d. To your defence, my friends! for respite none Will he to his victorious hands afford, 80 But, arm\u2019d with bow and quiver, will dispatch Shafts from the door till he have slain us all. Therefore to arms\u2014draw each his sword\u2014oppose The tables to his shafts, and all at once Rush on him; that, dislodging him at least From portal and from threshold, we may give The city on all sides a loud alarm, So shall this archer soon have shot his last. Thus saying, he drew his brazen faulchion keen Of double edge, and with a dreadful cry 90 Sprang on him; but Ulysses with a shaft In that same moment through his bosom driv\u2019n Transfix\u2019d his liver, and down dropp\u2019d his sword. He, staggering around his table, fell Convolv\u2019d in agonies, and overturn\u2019d Both food and wine; his forehead smote the floor; Woe fill\u2019d his heart, and spurning with his heels His vacant seat, he shook it till he died. Then, with his faulchion drawn, Amphinomus Advanced to drive Ulysses from the door, 100 And fierce was his assault; but, from behind, Telemachus between his shoulders fix\u2019d A brazen lance, and urged it through his breast. Full on his front, with hideous sound, he fell. Leaving the weapon planted in his spine Back flew Telemachus, lest, had he stood Drawing it forth, some enemy, perchance, Should either pierce him with a sudden thrust Oblique, or hew him with a downright edge. Swift, therefore, to his father\u2019s side he ran, 110 Whom reaching, in wing\u2019d accents thus he said. My father! I will now bring thee a shield, An helmet, and two spears; I will enclose Myself in armour also, and will give Both to the herdsmen and Eum\u00e6us arms Expedient now, and needful for us all. To whom Ulysses, ever-wise, replied. Run; fetch them, while I yet have arrows left, Lest, single, I be justled from the door. He said, and, at his word, forth went the Prince, 120 Seeking the chamber where he had secured The armour. Thence he took four shields, eight spears, With four hair-crested helmets, charged with which He hasted to his father\u2019s side again, And, arming first himself, furnish\u2019d with arms His two attendants. Then, all clad alike In splendid brass, beside the dauntless Chief Ulysses, his auxiliars firm they stood. He, while a single arrow unemploy\u2019d Lay at his foot, right-aiming, ever pierced 130 Some suitor through, and heaps on heaps they fell. But when his arrows fail\u2019d the royal Chief, His bow reclining at the portal\u2019s side Against the palace-wall, he slung, himself, A four-fold buckler on his arm, he fix\u2019d A casque whose crest wav\u2019d awful o\u2019er his brows On his illustrious head, and fill\u2019d his gripe With two stout spears, well-headed both, with brass. There was a certain postern in the wall103 At the gate-side, the customary pass 140 Into a narrow street, but barr\u2019d secure. Ulysses bade his faithful swine-herd watch That egress, station\u2019d near it, for it own\u2019d One sole approach; then Agela\u00fcs loud Exhorting all the suitors, thus exclaim\u2019d. Oh friends, will none, ascending to the door Of yonder postern, summon to our aid The populace, and spread a wide alarm? So shall this archer soon have shot his last. To whom the keeper of the goats replied 150 Melanthius. Agela\u00fcs! Prince renown\u2019d! That may not be. The postern and the gate104 Neighbour too near each other, and to force The narrow egress were a vain attempt; One valiant man might thence repulse us all. But come\u2014myself will furnish you with arms Fetch\u2019d from above; for there, as I suppose, (And not elsewhere) Ulysses and his son Have hidden them, and there they shall be found. So spake Melanthius, and, ascending, sought 160 Ulysses\u2019 chambers through the winding stairs And gall\u2019ries of the house. Twelve bucklers thence He took, as many spears, and helmets bright As many, shagg\u2019d with hair, then swift return\u2019d And gave them to his friends. Trembled the heart Of brave Ulysses, and his knees, at sight Of his opposers putting armour on, And shaking each his spear; arduous indeed Now seem\u2019d his task, and in wing\u2019d accents brief Thus to his son Telemachus he spake. 170 Either some woman of our train contrives Hard battle for us, furnishing with arms The suitors, or Melanthius arms them all. Him answer\u2019d then Telemachus discrete. Father, this fault was mine, and be it charged On none beside; I left the chamber-door Unbarr\u2019d, which, more attentive than myself, Their spy perceived. But haste, Eum\u00e6us, shut The chamber-door, observing well, the while, If any women of our train have done 180 This deed, or whether, as I more suspect, Melanthius, Dolius\u2019 son, have giv\u2019n them arms. Thus mutual they conferr\u2019d; meantime, again Melanthius to the chamber flew in quest Of other arms. Eum\u00e6us, as he went, Mark\u2019d him, and to Ulysses\u2019 thus he spake. Laertes\u2019 noble son, for wiles renown\u2019d! Behold, the traytor, whom ourselves supposed, Seeks yet again the chamber! Tell me plain, Shall I, should I superior prove in force, 190 Slay him, or shall I drag him thence to thee, That he may suffer at thy hands the doom Due to his treasons perpetrated oft Against thee, here, even in thy own house? Then answer thus Ulysses shrewd return\u2019d. I, with Telemachus, will here immew The lordly suitors close, rage as they may. Ye two, the while, bind fast Melanthius\u2019 hands And feet behind his back, then cast him bound Into the chamber, and (the door secured) 200 Pass underneath his arms a double chain, And by a pillar\u2019s top weigh him aloft Till he approach the rafters, there to endure, Living long time, the mis\u2019ries he hath earned. He spake; they prompt obey\u2019d; together both They sought the chamber, whom the wretch within Heard not, exploring ev\u2019ry nook for arms. They watching stood the door, from which, at length, Forth came Melanthius, bearing in one hand A casque, and in the other a broad shield 210 Time-worn and chapp\u2019d with drought, which in his youth Warlike Laertes had been wont to bear. Long time neglected it had lain, till age Had loosed the sutures of its bands. At once Both, springing on him, seized and drew him in Forcibly by his locks, then cast him down Prone on the pavement, trembling at his fate. With painful stricture of the cord his hands They bound and feet together at his back, As their illustrious master had enjoined, 220 Then weigh\u2019d him with a double chain aloft By a tall pillar to the palace-roof, And thus, deriding him, Eum\u00e6us spake. Now, good Melanthius, on that fleecy bed Reclined, as well befits thee, thou wilt watch All night, nor when the golden dawn forsakes The ocean stream, will she escape thine eye, But thou wilt duly to the palace drive The fattest goats, a banquet for thy friends. So saying, he left him in his dreadful sling. 230 Then, arming both, and barring fast the door, They sought brave Laertiades again. And now, courageous at the portal stood Those four, by numbers in the interior house Opposed of adversaries fierce in arms, When Pallas, in the form and with the voice Approach\u2019d of Mentor, whom Laertes\u2019 son Beheld, and joyful at the sight, exclaim\u2019d. Help, Mentor! help\u2014now recollect a friend And benefactor, born when thou wast born. 240 So he, not unsuspicious that he saw Pallas, the heroine of heav\u2019n. Meantime The suitors fill\u2019d with menaces the dome, And Agela\u00fcs, first, Damastor\u2019s son, In accents harsh rebuked the Goddess thus. Beware, oh Mentor! that he lure thee not To oppose the suitors and to aid himself, For thus will we. Ulysses and his son Both slain, in vengeance of thy purpos\u2019d deeds Against us, we will slay thee next, and thou 250 With thy own head shalt satisfy the wrong. Your force thus quell\u2019d in battle, all thy wealth Whether in house or field, mingled with his, We will confiscate, neither will we leave Or son of thine, or daughter in thy house Alive, nor shall thy virtuous consort more Within the walls of Ithaca be seen. He ended, and his words with wrath inflamed Minerva\u2019s heart the more; incensed, she turn\u2019d Towards Ulysses, whom she thus reproved. 260 Thou neither own\u2019st the courage nor the force, Ulysses, now, which nine whole years thou showd\u2019st At Ilium, waging battle obstinate For high-born Helen, and in horrid fight Destroying multitudes, till thy advice At last lay\u2019d Priam\u2019s bulwark\u2019d city low. Why, in possession of thy proper home And substance, mourn\u2019st thou want of pow\u2019r t\u2019oppose The suitors? Stand beside me, mark my deeds, And thou shalt own Mentor Alcimides 270 A valiant friend, and mindful of thy love. She spake; nor made she victory as yet Entire his own, proving the valour, first, Both of the sire and of his glorious son, But, springing in a swallow\u2019s form aloft, Perch\u2019d on a rafter of the splendid roof. Then, Agela\u00fcs animated loud The suitors, whom Eurynomus also roused, Amphimedon, and Demoptolemus, And Polyctorides, Pisander named, 280 And Polybus the brave; for noblest far Of all the suitor-chiefs who now survived And fought for life were these. The bow had quell\u2019d And shafts, in quick succession sent, the rest. Then Agela\u00fcs, thus, harangued them all. We soon shall tame, O friends, this warrior\u2019s might, Whom Mentor, after all his airy vaunts Hath left, and at the portal now remain Themselves alone. Dismiss not therefore, all, Your spears together, but with six alone 290 Assail them first; Jove willing, we shall pierce Ulysses, and subduing him, shall slay With ease the rest; their force is safely scorn\u2019d. He ceas\u2019d; and, as he bade, six hurl\u2019d the spear Together; but Minerva gave them all A devious flight; one struck a column, one The planks of the broad portal, and a third105 Flung right his ashen beam pond\u2019rous with brass Against the wall. Then (ev\u2019ry suitor\u2019s spear Eluded) thus Ulysses gave the word\u2014 300 Now friends! I counsel you that ye dismiss Your spears at them, who, not content with past Enormities, thirst also for our blood. He said, and with unerring aim, all threw Their glitt\u2019ring spears. Ulysses on the ground Stretch\u2019d Demoptolemus; Euryades Fell by Telemachus; the swine-herd slew El[)a]tus; and the keeper of the beeves Pisander; in one moment all alike Lay grinding with their teeth the dusty floor. 310 Back flew the suitors to the farthest wall, On whom those valiant four advancing, each Recover\u2019d, quick, his weapon from the dead. Then hurl\u2019d the desp\u2019rate suitors yet again Their glitt\u2019ring spears, but Pallas gave to each A frustrate course; one struck a column, one The planks of the broad portal, and a third Flung full his ashen beam against the wall. Yet pierced Amphimedon the Prince\u2019s wrist, But slightly, a skin-wound, and o\u2019er his shield 320 Ctesippus reach\u2019d the shoulder of the good Eum\u00e6us, but his glancing weapon swift O\u2019erflew the mark, and fell. And now the four, Ulysses, dauntless Hero, and his friends All hurl\u2019d their spears together in return, Himself Ulysses, city-waster Chief, Wounded Eurydamas; Ulysses\u2019 son Amphimedon; the swine-herd Polybus; And in his breast the keeper of the beeves Ctesippus, glorying over whom, he cried. 330 Oh son of Polytherses! whose delight Hath been to taunt and jeer, never again Boast foolishly, but to the Gods commit Thy tongue, since they are mightier far than thou. Take this\u2014a compensation for thy pledge Of hospitality, the huge ox-hoof, Which while he roam\u2019d the palace, begging alms, Ulysses at thy bounteous hand received. So gloried he; then, grasping still his spear, Ulysses pierced Damastor\u2019s son, and, next, 340 Telemachus, enforcing his long beam Sheer through his bowels and his back, transpierced Leiocritus, he prostrate smote the floor. Then, Pallas from the lofty roof held forth Her host-confounding \u00c6gis o\u2019er their heads, With\u2019ring their souls with fear. They through the hall Fled, scatter\u2019d as an herd, which rapid-wing\u2019d The gad-fly dissipates, infester fell Of beeves, when vernal suns shine hot and long. But, as when bow-beak\u2019d vultures crooked-claw\u2019d106 350 Stoop from the mountains on the smaller fowl; Terrified at the toils that spread the plain The flocks take wing, they, darting from above, Strike, seize, and slay, resistance or escape Is none, the fowler\u2019s heart leaps with delight, So they, pursuing through the spacious hall The suitors, smote them on all sides, their heads Sounded beneath the sword, with hideous groans The palace rang, and the floor foamed with blood. Then flew Leiodes to Ulysses\u2019 knees, 360 Which clasping, in wing\u2019d accents thus he cried. I clasp thy knees, Ulysses! oh respect My suit, and spare me! Never have I word Injurious spoken, or injurious deed Attempted \u2019gainst the women of thy house, But others, so transgressing, oft forbad. Yet they abstain\u2019d not, and a dreadful fate Due to their wickedness have, therefore, found. But I, their soothsayer alone, must fall, Though unoffending; such is the return 370 By mortals made for benefits received! To whom Ulysses, louring dark, replied. Is that thy boast? Hast thou indeed for these The seer\u2019s high office fill\u2019d? Then, doubtless, oft Thy pray\u2019r hath been that distant far might prove The day delectable of my return, And that my consort might thy own become To bear thee children; wherefore thee I doom To a dire death which thou shalt not avoid. So saying, he caught the faulchion from the floor 380 Which Agela\u00fcs had let fall, and smote Leiodes, while he kneel\u2019d, athwart his neck So suddenly, that ere his tongue had ceased To plead for life, his head was in the dust. But Phemius, son of Terpius, bard divine, Who, through compulsion, with his song regaled The suitors, a like dreadful death escaped. Fast by the postern, harp in hand, he stood, Doubtful if, issuing, he should take his seat Beside the altar of Herc\u00e6an Jove,107 390 Where oft Ulysses offer\u2019d, and his sire, Fat thighs of beeves, or whether he should haste, An earnest suppliant, to embrace his knees. That course, at length, most pleased him; then, between The beaker and an argent-studded throne He grounded his sweet lyre, and seizing fast The Hero\u2019s knees, him, suppliant, thus address\u2019d. I clasp thy knees, Ulysses! oh respect My suit, and spare me. Thou shalt not escape Regret thyself hereafter, if thou slay 400 Me, charmer of the woes of Gods and men. Self-taught am I, and treasure in my mind Themes of all argument from heav\u2019n inspired, And I can sing to thee as to a God. Ah, then, behead me not. Put ev\u2019n the wish Far from thee! for thy own beloved son Can witness, that not drawn by choice, or driv\u2019n By stress of want, resorting to thine house I have regaled these revellers so oft, But under force of mightier far than I. 410 So he; whose words soon as the sacred might Heard of Telemachus, approaching quick His father, thus, humane, he interposed. Hold, harm not with the vengeful faulchion\u2019s edge This blameless man; and we will also spare Medon the herald, who hath ever been A watchful guardian of my boyish years, Unless Phil\u0153tius have already slain him, Or else Eum\u00e6us, or thyself, perchance, Unconscious, in the tumult of our foes. 420 He spake, whom Medon hearing (for he lay Beneath a throne, and in a new-stript hide Enfolded, trembling with the dread of death) Sprang from his hiding-place, and casting off The skin, flew to Telemachus, embraced His knees, and in wing\u2019d accents thus exclaim\u2019d. Prince! I am here\u2014oh, pity me! repress Thine own, and pacify thy father\u2019s wrath, That he destroy not me, through fierce revenge Of their iniquities who have consumed 430 His wealth, and, in their folly scorn\u2019d his son. To whom Ulysses, ever-wise, replied, Smiling complacent. Fear not; my own son Hath pleaded for thee. Therefore (taught thyself That truth) teach others the superior worth Of benefits with injuries compared. But go ye forth, thou and the sacred bard, That ye may sit distant in yonder court From all this carnage, while I give command, Myself, concerning it, to those within. 440 He ceas\u2019d; they going forth, took each his seat Beside Jove\u2019s altar, but with careful looks Suspicious, dreading without cease the sword. Meantime Ulysses search\u2019d his hall, in quest Of living foes, if any still survived Unpunish\u2019d; but he found them all alike Welt\u2019ring in dust and blood; num\u2019rous they lay Like fishes when they strew the sinuous shore Of Ocean, from the grey gulph drawn aground In nets of many a mesh; they on the sands 450 Lie spread, athirst for the salt wave, till hot The gazing sun dries all their life away; So lay the suitors heap\u2019d, and thus at length The prudent Chief gave order to his son. Telemachus! bid Euryclea come Quickly, the nurse, to whom I would impart The purpose which now occupies me most. He said; obedient to his sire, the Prince Smote on the door, and summon\u2019d loud the nurse. Arise thou ancient governess of all 460 Our female menials, and come forth; attend My father; he hath somewhat for thine ear. So he; nor flew his words useless away, For, throwing wide the portal, forth she came, And, by Telemachus conducted, found Ere long Ulysses amid all the slain, With blood defiled and dust; dread he appear\u2019d As from the pastur\u2019d ox newly-devoured The lion stalking back; his ample chest With gory drops and his broad cheeks are hung, 470 Tremendous spectacle! such seem\u2019d the Chief, Blood-stain\u2019d all over. She, the carnage spread On all sides seeing, and the pools of blood, Felt impulse forcible to publish loud That wond\u2019rous triumph; but her Lord repress\u2019d The shout of rapture ere it burst abroad, And in wing\u2019d accents thus his will enforced. Silent exult, O ancient matron dear! Shout not, be still. Unholy is the voice Of loud thanksgiving over slaughter\u2019d men. 480 Their own atrocious deeds and the Gods\u2019 will Have slain all these; for whether noble guest Arrived or base, they scoff\u2019d at all alike, And for their wickedness have, therefore, died. But say; of my domestic women, who Have scorn\u2019d me, and whom find\u2019st thou innocent? To whom good Euryclea thus replied. My son! I will declare the truth; thou keep\u2019st Female domestics fifty in thy house, Whom we have made intelligent to comb 490 The fleece, and to perform whatever task. Of these, twice six have overpass\u2019d the bounds Of modesty, respecting neither me, Nor yet the Queen; and thy own son, adult So lately, no permission had from her To regulate the women of her train. But I am gone, I fly with what hath pass\u2019d To the Queen\u2019s ear, who nought suspects, so sound She sleeps, by some divinity composed. Then answer, thus, Ulysses wise returned. 500 Hush, and disturb her not. Go. Summon first Those wantons, who have long deserved to die. He ceas\u2019d; then issued forth the ancient dame To summon those bad women, and, meantime, Calling his son, Phil\u0153tius, and Eum\u00e6us, Ulysses in wing\u2019d accents thus began. Bestir ye, and remove the dead; command Those women also to your help; then cleanse With bibulous sponges and with water all The seats and tables; when ye shall have thus 510 Set all in order, lead those women forth, And in the centre of the spacious court, Between the scull\u2019ry and the outer-wall Smite them with your broad faulchions till they lose In death the mem\u2019ry of their secret loves Indulged with wretches lawless as themselves. He ended, and the damsels came at once All forth, lamenting, and with tepid tears Show\u2019ring the ground; with mutual labour, first, Bearing the bodies forth into the court, 520 They lodged them in the portico; meantime Ulysses, stern, enjoin\u2019d them haste, and, urged By sad necessity, they bore all out. With sponges and with water, next, they cleansed The thrones and tables, while Telemachus Beesom\u2019d the floor, Eum\u00e6us in that work Aiding him and the keeper of the beeves, And those twelve damsels bearing forth the soil. Thus, order giv\u2019n to all within, they, next, Led forth the women, whom they shut between 530 The scull\u2019ry and the outer-wall in close Durance, from which no pris\u2019ner could escape, And thus Telemachus discrete began. An honourable death is not for these By my advice, who have so often heap\u2019d Reproach on mine and on my mother\u2019s head, And held lewd commerce with the suitor-train. He said, and noosing a strong galley-rope To an huge column, led the cord around The spacious dome, suspended so aloft 540 That none with quiv\u2019ring feet might reach the floor. As when a flight of doves ent\u2019ring the copse, Or broad-wing\u2019d thrushes, strike against the net Within, ill rest, entangled, there they find, So they, suspended by the neck, expired All in one line together. Death abhorr\u2019d! With restless feet awhile they beat the air, Then ceas\u2019d. And now through vestibule and hall They led Melanthius forth. With ruthless steel They pared away his ears and nose, pluck\u2019d forth 550 His parts of shame, destin\u2019d to feed the dogs, And, still indignant, lopp\u2019d his hands and feet. Then, laving each his feet and hands, they sought Again Ulysses; all their work was done, And thus the Chief to Euryclea spake. Bring blast-averting sulphur, nurse, bring fire! That I may fumigate my walls; then bid Penelope with her attendants down, And summon all the women of her train. But Euryclea, thus, his nurse, replied. 560 My son! thou hast well said; yet will I first Serve thee with vest and mantle. Stand not here In thy own palace cloath\u2019d with tatters foul And beggarly\u2014she will abhor the sight. Then answer thus Ulysses wise return\u2019d. Not so. Bring fire for fumigation first. He said; nor Euryclea his lov\u2019d nurse Longer delay\u2019d, but sulphur brought and fire, When he with purifying steams, himself, Visited ev\u2019ry part, the banquet-room, 570 The vestibule, the court. Ranging meantime His house magnificent, the matron call\u2019d The women to attend their Lord in haste, And they attended, bearing each a torch. Then gather\u2019d they around him all, sincere Welcoming his return; with close embrace Enfolding him, each kiss\u2019d his brows, and each His shoulders, and his hands lock\u2019d fast in hers. He, irresistible the impulse felt To sigh and weep, well recognizing all. 580\n\n\n\n103 If the ancients found it difficult to ascertain clearly the situation of this \u03bf\u03c1\u03c4\u03bf\u03b8\u03c5\u03c1\u03b7, well may we. The Translator has given it the position which to him appeared most probable.\u2014There seem to have been two of these posterns, one leading to a part from which the town might be alarmed, the other to the chamber to which Telemachus went for armour. There was one, perhaps, on each side of the portal, and they appear to have been at some height above the floor.\n\n\n104 At which Ulysses stood.\n\n\n105 The deviation of three only is described, which must be understood, therefore, as instances of the ill success of all.\n\n\n106 In this simile we seem to have a curious account of the ancient manner of fowling. The nets (for \u03bd\u03b5\u03c6\u03b5\u03b1 is used in that sense by Aristophanes) were spread on a plain; on an adjoining rising ground were stationed they who had charge of the vultures (such Homer calls them) which were trained to the sport. The alarm being given to the birds below, the vultures were loosed, when if any of them escaped their talons, the nets were ready to enclose them. See Eustathius Dacier. Clarke.\n\n\n107 So called because he was worshipped within the \u1f18\u03c1\u03ba\u03bf\u03c2 or wall that surrounded the court.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK XXIII\nARGUMENT\nUlysses with some difficulty, convinces Penelope of his identity, who at length, overcome by force of evidence, receives him to her arms with transport. He entertains her with a recital of his adventures, and in his narration the principal events of the poem are recapitulated. In the morning, Ulysses, Telemachus, the herdsman and the swine-herd depart into the country.\n\nAnd now, with exultation loud the nurse Again ascended, eager to apprize The Queen of her Ulysses\u2019 safe return; Joy braced her knees, with nimbleness of youth She stepp\u2019d, and at her ear, her thus bespake. Arise, Penelope! dear daughter, see With thy own eyes thy daily wish fulfill\u2019d. Ulysses is arrived; hath reach\u2019d at last His native home, and all those suitors proud Hath slaughter\u2019d, who his family distress\u2019d, 10 His substance wasted, and controul\u2019d his son. To whom Penelope discrete replied. Dear nurse! the Gods have surely ta\u2019en away Thy judgment; they transform the wise to fools, And fools conduct to wisdom, and have marr\u2019d Thy intellect, who wast discrete before. Why wilt thou mock me, wretched as I am, With tales extravagant? and why disturb Those slumbers sweet that seal\u2019d so fast mine eyes? For such sweet slumbers have I never known 20 Since my Ulysses on his voyage sail\u2019d To that bad city never to be named. Down instant to thy place again\u2014begone\u2014 For had another of my maidens dared Disturb my sleep with tidings wild as these, I had dismiss\u2019d her down into the house More roughly; but thine age excuses thee. To whom the venerable matron thus. I mock thee not, my child; no\u2014he is come\u2014 Himself, Ulysses, even as I say, 30 That stranger, object of the scorn of all. Telemachus well knew his sire arrived, But prudently conceal\u2019d the tidings, so To insure the more the suitors\u2019 punishment. So Euryclea she transported heard, And springing from the bed, wrapp\u2019d in her arms The ancient woman shedding tears of joy, And in wing\u2019d accents ardent thus replied. Ah then, dear nurse inform me! tell me true! Hath he indeed arriv\u2019d as thou declar\u2019st? 40 How dared he to assail alone that band Of shameless ones, for ever swarming here? Then Euryclea, thus, matron belov\u2019d. I nothing saw or knew; but only heard Groans of the wounded; in th\u2019 interior house We trembling sat, and ev\u2019ry door was fast. Thus all remain\u2019d till by his father sent, Thy own son call\u2019d me forth. Going, I found Ulysses compass\u2019d by the slaughter\u2019d dead. They cover\u2019d wide the pavement, heaps on heaps. 50 It would have cheer\u2019d thy heart to have beheld Thy husband lion-like with crimson stains Of slaughter and of dust all dappled o\u2019er; Heap\u2019d in the portal, at this moment, lie Their bodies, and he fumigates, meantime, The house with sulphur and with flames of fire, And hath, himself, sent me to bid thee down. Follow me, then, that ye may give your hearts To gladness, both, for ye have much endured; But the event, so long your soul\u2019s desire, 60 Is come; himself hath to his household Gods Alive return\u2019d, thee and his son he finds Unharm\u2019d and at your home, nor hath he left Unpunish\u2019d one of all his enemies. Her answer\u2019d, then, Penelope discrete. Ah dearest nurse! indulge not to excess This dang\u2019rous triumph. Thou art well apprized How welcome his appearance here would prove To all, but chief, to me, and to his son, Fruit of our love. But these things are not so; 70 Some God, resentful of their evil deeds, And of their biting contumely severe, Hath slain those proud; for whether noble guest Arrived or base, alike they scoff\u2019d at all, And for their wickedness have therefore died. But my Ulysses distant far, I know, From Greece hath perish\u2019d, and returns no more. To whom thus Euryclea, nurse belov\u2019d. What word my daughter had escaped thy lips, Who thus affirm\u2019st thy husband, now within 80 And at his own hearth-side, for ever lost? Canst thou be thus incredulous? Hear again\u2014 I give thee yet proof past dispute, his scar Imprinted by a wild-boar\u2019s iv\u2019ry tusk. Laving him I remark\u2019d it, and desired, Myself, to tell thee, but he, ever-wise, Compressing with both hands my lips, forbad. Come, follow me. My life shall be the pledge. If I deceive thee, kill me as thou wilt. To whom Penelope, discrete, replied. 90 Ah, dearest nurse, sagacious as thou art, Thou little know\u2019st to scan the counsels wise Of the eternal Gods. But let us seek My son, however, that I may behold The suitors dead, and him by whom they died. So saying, she left her chamber, musing much In her descent, whether to interrogate Her Lord apart, or whether to imprint, At once, his hands with kisses and his brows. O\u2019erpassing light the portal-step of stone 100 She enter\u2019d. He sat opposite, illumed By the hearth\u2019s sprightly blaze, and close before A pillar of the dome, waiting with eyes Downcast, till viewing him, his noble spouse Should speak to him; but she sat silent long, Her faculties in mute amazement held. By turns she riveted her eyes on his, And, seeing him so foul attired, by turns She recognized him not; then spake her son Telemachus, and her silence thus reprov\u2019d. 110 My mother! ah my hapless and my most Obdurate mother! wherefore thus aloof Shunn\u2019st thou my father, neither at his side Sitting affectionate, nor utt\u2019ring word? Another wife lives not who could endure Such distance from her husband new-return\u2019d To his own country in the twentieth year, After much hardship; but thy heart is still As ever, less impressible than stone, To whom Penelope, discrete, replied. 120 I am all wonder, O my son; my soul Is stunn\u2019d within me; pow\u2019r to speak to him Or to interrogate him have I none, Or ev\u2019n to look on him; but if indeed He be Ulysses, and have reach\u2019d his home, I shall believe it soon, by proof convinced Of signs known only to himself and me. She said; then smiled the Hero toil-inured, And in wing\u2019d accents thus spake to his son. Leave thou, Telemachus, thy mother here 130 To sift and prove me; she will know me soon More certainly; she sees me ill-attired And squalid now; therefore she shews me scorn, And no belief hath yet that I am he. But we have need, thou and myself, of deep Deliberation. If a man have slain One only citizen, who leaves behind Few interested to avenge his death, Yet, flying, he forsakes both friends and home; But we have slain the noblest Princes far 140 Of Ithaca, on whom our city most Depended; therefore, I advise thee, think! Him, prudent, then answer\u2019d Telemachus. Be that thy care, my father! for report Proclaims thee shrewdest of mankind, with whom In ingenuity may none compare. Lead thou; to follow thee shall be our part With prompt alacrity; nor shall, I judge, Courage be wanting to our utmost force. Thus then replied Ulysses, ever-wise. 150 To me the safest counsel and the best Seems this. First wash yourselves, and put ye on Your tunics; bid ye, next, the maidens take Their best attire, and let the bard divine Harping melodious play a sportive dance, That, whether passenger or neighbour near, All may imagine nuptials held within. So shall not loud report that we have slain All those, alarm the city, till we gain Our woods and fields, where, once arriv\u2019d, such plans 160 We will devise, as Jove shall deign to inspire. He spake, and all, obedient, in the bath First laved themselves, then put their tunics on; The damsels also dress\u2019d, and the sweet bard, Harping melodious, kindled strong desire In all, of jocund song and graceful dance. The palace under all its vaulted roof Remurmur\u2019d to the feet of sportive youths And cinctured maidens, while no few abroad, Hearing such revelry within, remark\u2019d\u2014 170 The Queen with many wooers, weds at last. Ah fickle and unworthy fair! too frail Always to keep inviolate the house Of her first Lord, and wait for his return. So spake the people; but they little knew What had befall\u2019n. Eurynome, meantime, With bath and unction serv\u2019d the illustrious Chief Ulysses, and he saw himself attired Royally once again in his own house. Then, Pallas over all his features shed 180 Superior beauty, dignified his form With added amplitude, and pour\u2019d his curls Like hyacinthine flow\u2019rs down from his brows. As when some artist by Minerva made And Vulcan, wise to execute all tasks Ingenious, borders silver with a wreath Of gold, accomplishing a graceful work, Such grace the Goddess o\u2019er his ample chest Copious diffused, and o\u2019er his manly brows. He, godlike, stepping from the bath, resumed 190 His former seat magnificent, and sat Opposite to the Queen, to whom he said. Penelope! the Gods to thee have giv\u2019n Of all thy sex, the most obdurate heart. Another wife lives not who could endure Such distance from her husband new-return\u2019d To his own country in the twentieth year, After such hardship. But prepare me, nurse, A bed, for solitary I must sleep, Since she is iron, and feels not for me. 200 Him answer\u2019d then prudent Penelope. I neither magnify thee, sir! nor yet Depreciate thee, nor is my wonder such As hurries me at once into thy arms, Though my remembrance perfectly retains, Such as he was, Ulysses, when he sail\u2019d On board his bark from Ithaca\u2014Go, nurse, Prepare his bed, but not within the walls Of his own chamber built with his own hands. Spread it without, and spread it well with warm 210 Mantles, with fleeces, and with richest rugs. So spake she, proving him,108 and not untouch\u2019d With anger at that word, thus he replied. Penelope, that order grates my ear. Who hath displaced my bed? The task were hard E\u2019en to an artist; other than a God None might with ease remove it; as for man, It might defy the stoutest in his prime Of youth, to heave it to a different spot. For in that bed elaborate, a sign, 220 A special sign consists; I was myself The artificer; I fashion\u2019d it alone. Within the court a leafy olive grew Lofty, luxuriant, pillar-like in girth. Around this tree I built, with massy stones Cemented close, my chamber, roof\u2019d it o\u2019er, And hung the glutinated portals on. I lopp\u2019d the ample foliage and the boughs, And sev\u2019ring near the root its solid bole, Smooth\u2019d all the rugged stump with skilful hand, 230 And wrought it to a pedestal well squared And modell\u2019d by the line. I wimbled, next, The frame throughout, and from the olive-stump Beginning, fashion\u2019d the whole bed above Till all was finish\u2019d, plated o\u2019er with gold, With silver, and with ivory, and beneath Close interlaced with purple cordage strong. Such sign I give thee. But if still it stand Unmoved, or if some other, sev\u2019ring sheer The olive from its bottom, have displaced 240 My bed\u2014that matter is best known to thee. He ceas\u2019d; she, conscious of the sign so plain Giv\u2019n by Ulysses, heard with flutt\u2019ring heart And fault\u2019ring knees that proof. Weeping she ran Direct toward him, threw her arms around The Hero, kiss\u2019d his forehead, and replied. Ah my Ulysses! pardon me\u2014frown not\u2014 Thou, who at other times hast ever shewn Superior wisdom! all our griefs have flow\u2019d From the Gods\u2019 will; they envied us the bliss 250 Of undivided union sweet enjoy\u2019d Through life, from early youth to latest age. No. Be not angry now; pardon the fault That I embraced thee not as soon as seen, For horror hath not ceased to overwhelm My soul, lest some false alien should, perchance, Beguile me, for our house draws num\u2019rous such. Jove\u2019s daughter, Argive Helen, ne\u2019er had given Free entertainment to a stranger\u2019s love, Had she foreknown that the heroic sons 260 Of Greece would bring her to her home again. But heav\u2019n incited her to that offence, Who never, else, had even in her thought Harbour\u2019d the foul enormity, from which Originated even our distress. But now, since evident thou hast described Our bed, which never mortal yet beheld, Ourselves except and Actoris my own Attendant, giv\u2019n me when I left my home By good Icarius, and who kept the door, 270 Though hard to be convinced, at last I yield. So saying, she awaken\u2019d in his soul Pity and grief; and folding in his arms His blameless consort beautiful, he wept. Welcome as land appears to those who swim, Whose gallant bark Neptune with rolling waves And stormy winds hath sunk in the wide sea, A mariner or two, perchance, escape The foamy flood, and, swimming, reach the land, Weary indeed, and with incrusted brine 280 All rough, but oh, how glad to climb the coast! So welcome in her eyes Ulysses seem\u2019d, Around whose neck winding her snowy arms, She clung as she would loose him never more. Thus had they wept till rosy-finger\u2019d morn Had found them weeping, but Minerva check\u2019d Night\u2019s almost finish\u2019d course, and held, meantime, The golden dawn close pris\u2019ner in the Deep, Forbidding her to lead her coursers forth, Lampus and Pha\u00ebton that furnish light 290 To all the earth, and join them to the yoke. Then thus, Ulysses to Penelope. My love; we have not yet attain\u2019d the close Of all our sufferings, but unmeasured toil Arduous remains, which I must still atchieve. For so the spirit of the Theban seer Inform\u2019d me, on that day, when to enquire Of mine and of my people\u2019s safe return I journey\u2019d down to Pluto\u2019s drear abode. But let us hence to bed, there to enjoy 300 Tranquil repose. My love, make no delay. Him answer\u2019d then prudent Penelope. Thou shalt to bed at whatsoever time Thy soul desires, since the immortal Gods Give thee to me and to thy home again. But, thou hast spoken from the seer of Thebes Of arduous toils yet unperform\u2019d; declare What toils? Thou wilt disclose them, as I judge, Hereafter, and why not disclose them now? To whom Ulysses, ever-wise, replied. 310 Ah conversant with woe! why would\u2019st thou learn That tale? but I will tell it thee at large. Thou wilt not hear with joy, nor shall myself With joy rehearse it; for he bade me seek City after city, bearing, as I go, A shapely oar, till I shall find, at length, A people who the sea know not, nor eat Food salted; they trim galley crimson-prow\u2019d Have ne\u2019er beheld, nor yet smooth-shaven oar With which the vessel wing\u2019d scuds o\u2019er the waves. 320 He gave me also this authentic sign, Which I will tell thee. In what place soe\u2019er I chance to meet a trav\u2019ler who shall name The oar on my broad shoulder borne, a van;109 He bade me, planting it on the same spot, Worship the King of Ocean with a bull, A ram, and a lascivious boar, then seek My home again, and sacrifice at home An hecatomb to the immortal Gods Inhabitants of the expanse above. 330 So shall I die, at length, the gentlest death Remote from Ocean; it shall find me late, In soft serenity of age, the Chief Of a blest people.\u2014Thus he prophesied. Him answer\u2019d then Penelope discrete. If heav\u2019n appoint thee in old age a lot More tranquil, hope thence springs of thy escape Some future day from all thy threaten\u2019d woes. Such was their mutual conf\u2019rence sweet; meantime Eurynome and Euryclea dress\u2019d 340 Their bed by light of the clear torch, and when Dispatchful they had spread it broad and deep, The ancient nurse to her own bed retired. Then came Eurynome, to whom in trust The chambers appertain\u2019d, and with a torch Conducted them to rest; she introduced The happy pair, and went; transported they To rites connubial intermitted long, And now recover\u2019d, gave themselves again.110 Meantime, the Prince, the herdsman, and the good 350 Eum\u00e6us, giving rest each to his feet, Ceased from the dance; they made the women cease Also, and to their sev\u2019ral chambers all Within the twilight edifice repair\u2019d. At length, with conjugal endearment both Satiate, Ulysses tasted and his spouse The sweets of mutual converse. She rehearsed, Noblest of women, all her num\u2019rous woes Beneath that roof sustain\u2019d, while she beheld The profligacy of the suitor-throng, 360 Who in their wooing had consumed his herds And fatted flocks, and drawn his vessels dry; While brave Ulysses, in his turn, to her Related his successes and escapes, And his afflictions also; he told her all; She listen\u2019d charm\u2019d, nor slumber on his eyes Fell once, or ere he had rehearsed the whole. Beginning, he discoursed, how, at the first He conquer\u2019d in Ciconia, and thence reach\u2019d The fruitful shores of the Lotophagi; 370 The Cyclops\u2019 deeds he told her next, and how He well avenged on him his slaughter\u2019d friends Whom, pitiless, the monster had devour\u2019d. How to the isle of \u00c6olus he came, Who welcom\u2019d him and safe dismiss\u2019d him thence, Although not destin\u2019d to regain so soon His native land; for o\u2019er the fishy deep Loud tempests snatch\u2019d him sighing back again. How, also at Telepylus he arrived, Town of the L\u00e6strygonians, who destroyed 380 His ships with all their mariners, his own Except, who in his sable bark escaped. Of guileful Circe too he spake, deep-skill\u2019d In various artifice, and how he reach\u2019d With sails and oars the squalid realms of death, Desirous to consult the prophet there Theban Tiresias, and how there he view\u2019d All his companions, and the mother bland Who bare him, nourisher of his infant years. How, next he heard the Sirens in one strain 390 All chiming sweet, and how he reach\u2019d the rocks Erratic, Scylla and Charybdis dire, Which none secure from injury may pass. Then, how the partners of his voyage slew The Sun\u2019s own beeves, and how the Thund\u2019rer Jove Hurl\u2019d down his smoky bolts into his bark, Depriving him at once of all his crew, Whose dreadful fate he yet, himself, escaped. How to Ogygia\u2019s isle he came, where dwelt The nymph Calypso, who, enamour\u2019d, wish\u2019d 400 To espouse him, and within her spacious grot Detain\u2019d, and fed, and promis\u2019d him a life Exempt for ever from the sap of age, But him moved not. How, also, he arrived After much toil, on the Ph\u00e6acian coast, Where ev\u2019ry heart revered him as a God, And whence, enriching him with brass and gold, And costly raiment first, they sent him home. At this last word, oblivious slumber sweet Fell on him, dissipating all his cares. 410 Meantime, Minerva, Goddess azure-eyed, On other thoughts intent, soon as she deem\u2019d Ulysses with connubial joys sufficed, And with sweet sleep, at once from Ocean rous\u2019d The golden-axled chariot of the morn To illumine earth. Then from his fleecy couch The Hero sprang, and thus his spouse enjoined. Oh consort dear! already we have striv\u2019n Against our lot, till wearied with the toil, My painful absence, thou with ceaseless tears 420 Deploring, and myself in deep distress Withheld reluctant from my native shores By Jove and by the other pow\u2019rs of heav\u2019n. But since we have in this delightful bed Met once again, watch thou and keep secure All my domestic treasures, and ere long I will replace my num\u2019rous sheep destroy\u2019d By those imperious suitors, and the Greeks Shall add yet others till my folds be fill\u2019d. But to the woodlands go I now\u2014to see 430 My noble father, who for my sake mourns Continual; as for thee, my love, although I know thee wise, I give thee thus in charge. The sun no sooner shall ascend, than fame Shall wide divulge the deed that I have done, Slaying the suitors under my own roof. Thou, therefore, with thy maidens, sit retired In thy own chamber at the palace-top, Nor question ask, nor, curious, look abroad. He said, and cov\u2019ring with his radiant arms 440 His shoulders, called Telemachus; he roused Eum\u00e6us and the herdsman too, and bade All take their martial weapons in their hand. Not disobedient they, as he enjoin\u2019d, Put armour on, and issued from the gates Ulysses at their head. The earth was now Enlighten\u2019d, but Minerva them in haste Led forth into the fields, unseen by all.\n\n\n\n108 The proof consisted in this\u2014that the bed being attached to the stump of an olive tree still rooted, was immovable, and Ulysses having made it himself, no person present, he must needs be apprized of the impossibility of her orders, if he were indeed Ulysses; accordingly, this demonstration of his identity satisfies all her scruples.\n\n\n109 See the note on the same passage, Book XI.\n\n\n110 Aristophanes the grammarian and Aristarchus chose that the Odyssey should end here; but the story is not properly concluded till the tumult occasioned by the slaughter of so many Princes being composed, Ulysses finds himself once more in peaceful possession of his country.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK XXIV\nARGUMENT\nMercury conducts the souls of the suitors down to Ades. Ulysses discovers himself to Laertes, and quells, by the aid of Minerva, an insurrection of the people resenting the death of the suitors.\n\nAnd now Cyllenian Hermes summon\u2019d forth The spirits of the suitors; waving wide The golden wand of pow\u2019r to seal all eyes In slumber, and to ope them wide again, He drove them gibb\u2019ring down into the shades,111 As when the bats within some hallow\u2019d cave Flit squeaking all around, for if but one Fall from the rock, the rest all follow him, In such connexion mutual they adhere, So, after bounteous Mercury, the ghosts, 10 Troop\u2019d downward gibb\u2019ring all the dreary way.111 The Ocean\u2019s flood and the Leucadian rock, The Sun\u2019s gate also and the land of Dreams They pass\u2019d, whence, next, into the meads they came Of Asphodel, by shadowy forms possess\u2019d, Simulars of the dead. They found the souls Of brave Pelides there, and of his friend Patroclus, of Antilochus renown\u2019d, And of the mightier Ajax, for his form And bulk (Achilles sole except) of all 20 The sons of the Achaians most admired. These waited on Achilles. Then, appear\u2019d The mournful ghost of Agamemnon, son Of Atreus, compass\u2019d by the ghosts of all Who shared his fate beneath \u00c6gisthus\u2019 roof, And him the ghost of Peleus\u2019 son bespake. Atrides! of all Heroes we esteem\u2019d Thee dearest to the Gods, for that thy sway Extended over such a glorious host At Ilium, scene of sorrow to the Greeks. 30 But Fate, whose ruthless force none may escape Of all who breathe, pursued thee from the first. Thou should\u2019st have perish\u2019d full of honour, full Of royalty, at Troy; so all the Greeks Had rais\u2019d thy tomb, and thou hadst then bequeath\u2019d Great glory to thy son; but Fate ordain\u2019d A death, oh how deplorable! for thee. To whom Atrides\u2019 spirit thus replied. Blest son of Peleus, semblance of the Gods, At Ilium, far from Argos, fall\u2019n! for whom 40 Contending, many a Trojan, many a Chief Of Greece died also, while in eddies whelm\u2019d Of dust thy vastness spread the plain,112 nor thee The chariot aught or steed could int\u2019rest more! All day we waged the battle, nor at last Desisted, but for tempests sent from Jove. At length we bore into the Greecian fleet Thy body from the field; there, first, we cleansed With tepid baths and oil\u2019d thy shapely corse, Then placed thee on thy bier, while many a Greek 50 Around thee wept, and shore his locks for thee. Thy mother, also, hearing of thy death With her immortal nymphs from the abyss Arose and came; terrible was the sound On the salt flood; a panic seized the Greeks, And ev\u2019ry warrior had return\u2019d on board That moment, had not Nestor, ancient Chief, Illumed by long experience, interposed, His counsels, ever wisest, wisest proved Then also, and he thus address\u2019d the host. 60 Sons of Achaia; fly not; stay, ye Greeks! Thetis arrives with her immortal nymphs From the abyss, to visit her dead son. So he; and, by his admonition stay\u2019d, The Greeks fled not. Then, all around thee stood The daughters of the Ancient of the Deep, Mourning disconsolate; with heav\u2019nly robes They clothed thy corse, and all the Muses nine Deplored thee in full choir with sweetest tones Responsive, nor one Greecian hadst thou seen 70 Dry-eyed, such grief the Muses moved in all. Full sev\u2019nteen days we, day and night, deplored Thy death, both Gods in heav\u2019n and men below, But, on the eighteenth day, we gave thy corse Its burning, and fat sheep around thee slew Num\u2019rous, with many a pastur\u2019d ox moon-horn\u2019d. We burn\u2019d thee clothed in vesture of the Gods, With honey and with oil feeding the flames Abundant, while Achaia\u2019s Heroes arm\u2019d, Both horse and foot, encompassing thy pile, 80 Clash\u2019d on their shields, and deaf\u2019ning was the din. But when the fires of Vulcan had at length Consumed thee, at the dawn we stored thy bones In unguent and in undiluted wine; For Thetis gave to us a golden vase Twin-ear\u2019d, which she profess\u2019d to have received From Bacchus, work divine of Vulcan\u2019s hand. Within that vase, Achilles, treasured lie Thine and the bones of thy departed friend Patroclus, but a sep\u2019rate urn we gave 90 To those of brave Antilochus, who most Of all thy friends at Ilium shared thy love And thy respect, thy friend Patroclus slain. Around both urns we piled a noble tomb, (We warriors of the sacred Argive host) On a tall promontory shooting far Into the spacious Hellespont, that all Who live, and who shall yet be born, may view Thy record, even from the distant waves. Then, by permission from the Gods obtain\u2019d, 100 To the Achaian Chiefs in circus met Thetis appointed games. I have beheld The burial rites of many an Hero bold, When, on the death of some great Chief, the youths Girding their loins anticipate the prize, But sight of those with wonder fill\u2019d me most, So glorious past all others were the games By silver-footed Thetis giv\u2019n for thee, For thou wast ever favour\u2019d of the Gods. Thus, hast thou not, Achilles! although dead, 110 Foregone thy glory, but thy fair report Is universal among all mankind; But, as for me, what recompense had I, My warfare closed? for whom, at my return, Jove framed such dire destruction by the hands Of fell \u00c6gisthus and my murth\u2019ress wife. Thus, mutual, they conferr\u2019d; meantime approach\u2019d, Swift messenger of heav\u2019n, the Argicide, Conducting thither all the shades of those Slain by Ulysses. At that sight amazed 120 Both moved toward them. Agamemnon\u2019s shade Knew well Amphimedon, for he had been Erewhile his father\u2019s guest in Ithaca, And thus the spirit of Atreus\u2019 son began. Amphimedon! by what disastrous chance, Co\u0153vals as ye seem, and of an air Distinguish\u2019d all, descend ye to the Deeps? For not the chosen youths of a whole town Should form a nobler band. Perish\u2019d ye sunk Amid vast billows and rude tempests raised 130 By Neptune\u2019s pow\u2019r? or on dry land through force Of hostile multitudes, while cutting off Beeves from the herd, or driving flocks away? Or fighting for your city and your wives? Resolve me? I was once a guest of yours. Remember\u2019st not what time at your abode With godlike Menelaus I arrived, That we might win Ulysses with his fleet To follow us to Troy? scarce we prevail\u2019d At last to gain the city-waster Chief, 140 And, after all, consumed a whole month more The wide sea traversing from side to side. To whom the spirit of Amphimedon. Illustrious Agamemnon, King of men! All this I bear in mind, and will rehearse The manner of our most disastrous end. Believing brave Ulysses lost, we woo\u2019d Meantime his wife; she our detested suit Would neither ratify nor yet refuse, But, planning for us a tremendous death, 150 This novel stratagem, at last, devised. Beginning, in her own recess, a web Of slend\u2019rest thread, and of a length and breadth Unusual, thus the suitors she address\u2019d. Princes, my suitors! since the noble Chief Ulysses is no more, enforce not yet My nuptials; wait till I shall finish first A fun\u2019ral robe (lest all my threads decay) Which for the ancient Hero I prepare, Laertes, looking for the mournful hour 160 When fate shall snatch him to eternal rest; Else, I the censure dread of all my sex, Should he so wealthy, want at last a shroud. So spake the Queen; we, unsuspicious all, With her request complied. Thenceforth, all day She wove the ample web, and by the aid Of torches ravell\u2019d it again at night. Three years she thus by artifice our suit Eluded safe, but when the fourth arrived, And the same season, after many moons 170 And fleeting days, return\u2019d, a damsel then Of her attendants, conscious of the fraud, Reveal\u2019d it, and we found her pulling loose The splendid web. Thus, through constraint, at length, She finish\u2019d it, and in her own despight. But when the Queen produced, at length, her work Finish\u2019d, new-blanch\u2019d, bright as the sun or moon, Then came Ulysses, by some adverse God Conducted, to a cottage on the verge Of his own fields, in which his swine-herd dwells; 180 There also the illustrious Hero\u2019s son Arrived soon after, in his sable bark From sandy Pylus borne; they, plotting both A dreadful death for all the suitors, sought Our glorious city, but Ulysses last, And first Telemachus. The father came Conducted by his swine-herd, and attired In tatters foul; a mendicant he seem\u2019d, Time-worn, and halted on a staff. So clad, And ent\u2019ring on the sudden, he escaped 190 All knowledge even of our eldest there, And we reviled and smote him; he although Beneath his own roof smitten and reproach\u2019d, With patience suffer\u2019d it awhile, but roused By inspiration of Jove \u00c6gis-arm\u2019d At length, in concert with his son convey\u2019d To his own chamber his resplendent arms, There lodg\u2019d them safe, and barr\u2019d the massy doors Then, in his subtlety he bade the Queen A contest institute with bow and rings 200 Between the hapless suitors, whence ensued Slaughter to all. No suitor there had pow\u2019r To overcome the stubborn bow that mock\u2019d All our attempts; and when the weapon huge At length was offer\u2019d to Ulysses\u2019 hands, With clamour\u2019d menaces we bade the swain Withhold it from him, plead he as he might; Telemachus alone with loud command, Bade give it him, and the illustrious Chief Receiving in his hand the bow, with ease 210 Bent it, and sped a shaft through all the rings. Then, springing to the portal steps, he pour\u2019d The arrows forth, peer\u2019d terrible around, Pierced King Antino\u00fcs, and, aiming sure His deadly darts, pierced others after him, Till in one common carnage heap\u2019d we lay. Some God, as plain appear\u2019d, vouchsafed them aid, Such ardour urged them, and with such dispatch They slew us on all sides; hideous were heard The groans of dying men fell\u2019d to the earth 220 With head-strokes rude, and the floor swam with blood. Such, royal Agamemnon! was the fate By which we perish\u2019d, all whose bodies lie Unburied still, and in Ulysses\u2019 house, For tidings none have yet our friends alarm\u2019d And kindred, who might cleanse from sable gore Our clotted wounds, and mourn us on the bier, Which are the rightful privilege of the dead. Him answer\u2019d, then, the shade of Atreus\u2019 son. Oh happy offspring of Laertes! shrewd 230 Ulysses! matchless valour thou hast shewn Recov\u2019ring thus thy wife; nor less appears The virtue of Icarius\u2019 daughter wise, The chaste Penelope, so faithful found To her Ulysses, husband of her youth. His glory, by superior merit earn\u2019d, Shall never die, and the immortal Gods Shall make Penelope a theme of song Delightful in the ears of all mankind. Not such was Clytemnestra, daughter vile 240 Of Tyndarus; she shed her husband\u2019s blood, And shall be chronicled in song a wife Of hateful memory, by whose offence Even the virtuous of her sex are shamed. Thus they, beneath the vaulted roof obscure Of Pluto\u2019s house, conferring mutual stood. Meantime, descending from the city-gates, Ulysses, by his son and by his swains Follow\u2019d, arrived at the delightful farm Which old Laertes had with strenuous toil 250 Himself long since acquired. There stood his house Encompass\u2019d by a bow\u2019r in which the hinds Who served and pleased him, ate, and sat, and slept. An ancient woman, a Sicilian, dwelt There also, who in that sequester\u2019d spot Attended diligent her aged Lord. Then thus Ulysses to his followers spake. Haste now, and, ent\u2019ring, slay ye of the swine The best for our regale; myself, the while, Will prove my father, if his eye hath still 260 Discernment of me, or if absence long Have worn the knowledge of me from his mind. He said, and gave into his servants\u2019 care His arms; they swift proceeded to the house, And to the fruitful grove himself as swift To prove his father. Down he went at once Into the spacious garden-plot, but found Nor Dolius there, nor any of his sons Or servants; they were occupied elsewhere, And, with the ancient hind himself, employ\u2019d 270 Collecting thorns with which to fence the grove. In that umbrageous spot he found alone Laertes, with his hoe clearing a plant; Sordid his tunic was, with many a patch Mended unseemly; leathern were his greaves, Thong-tied and also patch\u2019d, a frail defence Against sharp thorns, while gloves secured his hands From briar-points, and on his head he bore A goat-skin casque, nourishing hopeless woe. No sooner then the Hero toil-inured 280 Saw him age-worn and wretched, than he paused Beneath a lofty pear-tree\u2019s shade to weep. There standing much he mused, whether, at once, Kissing and clasping in his arms his sire, To tell him all, by what means he had reach\u2019d His native country, or to prove him first. At length, he chose as his best course, with words Of seeming strangeness to accost his ear, And, with that purpose, moved direct toward him. He, stooping low, loosen\u2019d the earth around 290 A garden-plant, when his illustrious son Now, standing close beside him, thus began. Old sir! thou art no novice in these toils Of culture, but thy garden thrives; I mark In all thy ground no plant, fig, olive, vine, Pear-tree or flow\u2019r-bed suff\u2019ring through neglect. But let it not offend thee if I say That thou neglect\u2019st thyself, at the same time Oppress\u2019d with age, sun-parch\u2019d and ill-attired. Not for thy inactivity, methinks, 300 Thy master slights thee thus, nor speaks thy form Or thy surpassing stature servile aught In thee, but thou resemblest more a King. Yes\u2014thou resemblest one who, bathed and fed, Should softly sleep; such is the claim of age. But tell me true\u2014for whom labourest thou, And whose this garden? answer me beside, For I would learn; have I indeed arrived In Ithaca, as one whom here I met Ev\u2019n now assured me, but who seem\u2019d a man 310 Not overwise, refusing both to hear My questions, and to answer when I ask\u2019d Concerning one in other days my guest And friend, if he have still his being here, Or have deceas\u2019d and journey\u2019d to the shades. For I will tell thee; therefore mark. Long since A stranger reach\u2019d my house in my own land, Whom I with hospitality receiv\u2019d, Nor ever sojourn\u2019d foreigner with me Whom I lov\u2019d more. He was by birth, he said, 320 Ithacan, and Laertes claim\u2019d his sire, Son of Arcesias. Introducing him Beneath my roof, I entertain\u2019d him well, And proved by gifts his welcome at my board. I gave him seven talents of wrought gold, A goblet, argent all, with flow\u2019rs emboss\u2019d, Twelve single cloaks, twelve carpets, mantles twelve Of brightest lustre, with as many vests, And added four fair damsels, whom he chose Himself, well born and well accomplish\u2019d all. 330 Then thus his ancient sire weeping replied. Stranger! thou hast in truth attain\u2019d the isle Of thy enquiry, but it is possess\u2019d By a rude race, and lawless. Vain, alas! Were all thy num\u2019rous gifts; yet hadst thou found Him living here in Ithaca, with gifts Reciprocated he had sent thee hence, Requiting honourably in his turn Thy hospitality. But give me quick Answer and true. How many have been the years 340 Since thy reception of that hapless guest My son? for mine, my own dear son was he. But him, far distant both from friends and home, Either the fishes of the unknown Deep Have eaten, or wild beasts and fowls of prey, Nor I, or she who bare him, was ordain\u2019d To bathe his shrouded body with our tears, Nor his chaste wife, well-dow\u2019r\u2019d Penelope To close her husband\u2019s eyes, and to deplore His doom, which is the privilege of the dead. 350 But tell me also thou, for I would learn, Who art thou? whence? where born? and sprung from whom? The bark in which thou and thy godlike friends Arrived, where is she anchor\u2019d on our coast? Or cam\u2019st thou only passenger on board Another\u2019s bark, who landed thee and went? To whom Ulysses, ever-wise, replied. I will with all simplicity relate What thou hast ask\u2019d. Of Alybas am I, Where in much state I dwell, son of the rich 360 Apheidas royal Polypemon\u2019s son, And I am named Eperitus; by storms Driven from Sicily I have arrived, And yonder, on the margin of the field That skirts your city, I have moor\u2019d my bark. Five years have pass\u2019d since thy Ulysses left, Unhappy Chief! my country; yet the birds At his departure hovered on the right, And in that sign rejoicing, I dismiss\u2019d Him thence rejoicing also, for we hoped 370 To mix in social intercourse again, And to exchange once more pledges of love. He spake; then sorrow as a sable cloud Involved Laertes; gath\u2019ring with both hands The dust, he pour\u2019d it on his rev\u2019rend head With many a piteous groan. Ulysses\u2019 heart Commotion felt, and his stretch\u2019d nostrils throbb\u2019d With agony close-pent, while fixt he eyed His father; with a sudden force he sprang Toward him, clasp\u2019d, and kiss\u2019d him, and exclaim\u2019d. 380 My father! I am he. Thou seest thy son Absent these twenty years at last return\u2019d. But bid thy sorrow cease; suspend henceforth All lamentation; for I tell thee true, (And the occasion bids me briefly tell thee) I have slain all the suitors at my home, And all their taunts and injuries avenged. Then answer thus Laertes quick return\u2019d. If thou hast come again, and art indeed My son Ulysses, give me then the proof 390 Indubitable, that I may believe. To whom Ulysses, ever-wise, replied. View, first, the scar which with his iv\u2019ry tusk A wild boar gave me, when at thy command And at my mother\u2019s, to Autolycus Her father, on Parnassus, I repair\u2019d Seeking the gifts which, while a guest of yours, He promis\u2019d should be mine. Accept beside This proof. I will enum\u2019rate all the trees Which, walking with thee in this cultured spot 400 (Boy then) I begg\u2019d, and thou confirm\u2019dst my own. We paced between them, and thou mad\u2019st me learn The name of each. Thou gav\u2019st me thirteen pears,113 Ten apples,113 thirty figs,113 and fifty ranks Didst promise me of vines, their alleys all Corn-cropp\u2019d between. There, oft as sent from Jove The influences of the year descend, Grapes of all hues and flavours clust\u2019ring hang. He said; Laertes, conscious of the proofs Indubitable by Ulysses giv\u2019n, 410 With fault\u2019ring knees and fault\u2019ring heart both arms Around him threw. The Hero toil-inured Drew to his bosom close his fainting sire, Who, breath recov\u2019ring, and his scatter\u2019d pow\u2019rs Of intellect, at length thus spake aloud. Ye Gods! oh then your residence is still On the Olympian heights, if punishment At last hath seized on those flagitious men. But terrour shakes me, lest, incensed, ere long All Ithaca flock hither, and dispatch 420 Swift messengers with these dread tidings charged To ev\u2019ry Cephallenian state around. Him answer\u2019d then Ulysses ever-wise. Courage! fear nought, but let us to the house Beside the garden, whither I have sent Telemachus, the herdsman, and the good Eum\u00e6us to prepare us quick repast. So they conferr\u2019d, and to Laertes\u2019 house Pass\u2019d on together; there arrived, they found Those three preparing now their plenteous feast, 430 And mingling sable wine; then, by the hands Of his Sicilian matron, the old King Was bathed, anointed, and attired afresh, And Pallas, drawing nigh, dilated more His limbs, and gave his whole majestic form Encrease of amplitude. He left the bath. His son, amazed as he had seen a God Alighted newly from the skies, exclaim\u2019d. My father! doubtless some immortal Pow\u2019r Hath clothed thy form with dignity divine. 440 Then thus replied his venerable sire. Jove! Pallas! Ph\u0153bus! oh that I possess\u2019d Such vigour now, as when in arms I took Nericus, continental city fair, With my brave Cephallenians! oh that such And arm\u2019d as then, I yesterday had stood Beside thee in thy palace, combating Those suitors proud, then had I strew\u2019d the floor With num\u2019rous slain, to thy exceeding joy. Such was their conference; and now, the task 450 Of preparation ended, and the feast Set forth, on couches and on thrones they sat, And, ranged in order due, took each his share. Then, ancient Dolius, and with him, his sons Arrived toil-worn, by the Sicilian dame Summon\u2019d, their cat\u2019ress, and their father\u2019s kind Attendant ever in his eve of life. They, seeing and recalling soon to mind Ulysses, in the middle mansion stood Wond\u2019ring, when thus Ulysses with a voice 460 Of some reproof, but gentle, them bespake. Old servant, sit and eat, banishing fear And mute amazement; for, although provoked By appetite, we have long time abstain\u2019d, Expecting ev\u2019ry moment thy return. He said; then Dolius with expanded arms Sprang right toward Ulysses, seized his hand, Kiss\u2019d it, and in wing\u2019d accents thus replied. Oh master ever dear! since thee the Gods Themselves in answer to our warm desires, 470 Have, unexpectedly, at length restored, Hail, and be happy, and heav\u2019n make thee such! But say, and truly; knows the prudent Queen Already thy return, or shall we send Ourselves an herald with the joyful news? To whom Ulysses, ever-wise, replied. My ancient friend, thou may\u2019st release thy mind From that solicitude; she knows it well. So he; then Dolius to his glossy seat Return\u2019d, and all his sons gath\u2019ring around 480 Ulysses, welcom\u2019d him and grasp\u2019d his hand, Then sat beside their father; thus beneath Laertes\u2019 roof they, joyful, took repast. But Fame with rapid haste the city roam\u2019d In ev\u2019ry part, promulging in all ears The suitors\u2019 horrid fate. No sooner heard The multitude that tale, than one and all Groaning they met and murmuring before Ulysses\u2019 gates. Bringing the bodies forth, They buried each his friend, but gave the dead 490 Of other cities to be ferried home By fishermen on board their rapid barks. All hasted then to council; sorrow wrung Their hearts, and, the assembly now convened, Arising first Eupithes spake, for grief Sat heavy on his soul, grief for the loss Of his Antino\u00fcs by Ulysses slain Foremost of all, whom mourning, thus he said. My friends! no trivial fruits the Greecians reap Of this man\u2019s doings. Those he took with him 500 On board his barks, a num\u2019rous train and bold, Then lost his barks, lost all his num\u2019rous train, And these, our noblest, slew at his return. Come therefore\u2014ere he yet escape by flight To Pylus or to noble Elis, realm Of the Epeans, follow him; else shame Attends us and indelible reproach. If we avenge not on these men the blood Of our own sons and brothers, farewell then All that makes life desirable; my wish 510 Henceforth shall be to mingle with the shades. Oh then pursue and seize them ere they fly. Thus he with tears, and pity moved in all. Then, Medon and the sacred bard whom sleep Had lately left, arriving from the house Of Laertiades, approach\u2019d; amid The throng they stood; all wonder\u2019d seeing them, And Medon, prudent senior, thus began. Hear me, my countrymen! Ulysses plann\u2019d With no disapprobation of the Gods 520 The deed that ye deplore. I saw, myself, A Pow\u2019r immortal at the Hero\u2019s side, In semblance just of Mentor; now the God, In front apparent, led him on, and now, From side to side of all the palace, urged To flight the suitors; heaps on heaps they fell. He said; then terrour wan seiz\u2019d ev\u2019ry cheek, And Halitherses, Hero old, the son Of Mastor, who alone among them all Knew past, and future, prudent, thus began. 530 Now, O ye men of Ithaca! my words Attentive hear! by your own fault, my friends, This deed hath been perform\u2019d; for when myself And noble Mentor counsell\u2019d you to check The sin and folly of your sons, ye would not. Great was their wickedness, and flagrant wrong They wrought, the wealth devouring and the wife Dishonouring of an illustrious Chief Whom they deem\u2019d destined never to return. But hear my counsel. Go not, lest ye draw 540 Disaster down and woe on your own heads. He ended; then with boist\u2019rous roar (although Part kept their seats) upsprang the multitude, For Halitherses pleased them not, they chose Eupithes\u2019 counsel rather; all at once To arms they flew, and clad in dazzling brass Before the city form\u2019d their dense array. Leader infatuate at their head appear\u2019d Eupithes, hoping to avenge his son Antino\u00fcs, but was himself ordain\u2019d 550 To meet his doom, and to return no more. Then thus Minerva to Saturnian Jove. Oh father! son of Saturn! Jove supreme! Declare the purpose hidden in thy breast. Wilt thou that this hostility proceed, Or wilt thou grant them amity again? To whom the cloud-assembler God replied. Why asks my daughter? didst thou not design Thyself, that brave Ulysses coming home Should slay those profligates? act as thou wilt, 560 But thus I counsel, since the noble Chief Hath slain the suitors, now let peace ensue Oath-bound, and reign Ulysses evermore! The slaughter of their brethren and their sons To strike from their remembrance, shall be ours. Let mutual amity, as at the first, Unite them, and let wealth and peace abound. So saying, he animated to her task Minerva prompt before, and from the heights Olympian down to Ithaca she flew. 570 Meantime Ulysses (for their hunger now And thirst were sated) thus address\u2019d his hinds. Look ye abroad, lest haply they approach. He said, and at his word, forth went a son Of Dolius; at the gate he stood, and thence Beholding all that multitude at hand, In accents wing\u2019d thus to Ulysses spake. They come\u2014they are already arrived\u2014arm all! Then, all arising, put their armour on, Ulysses with his three, and the six sons 580 Of Dolius; Dolius also with the rest, Arm\u2019d and Laertes, although silver-hair\u2019d, Warriors perforce. When all were clad alike In radiant armour, throwing wide the gates They sallied, and Ulysses led the way. Then Jove\u2019s own daughter Pallas, in the form And with the voice of Mentor, came in view, Whom seeing Laertiades rejoiced, And thus Telemachus, his son, bespake. Now, oh my son! thou shalt observe, untold 590 By me, where fight the bravest. Oh shame not Thine ancestry, who have in all the earth Proof given of valour in all ages past. To whom Telemachus, discrete, replied. My father! if thou wish that spectacle, Thou shalt behold thy son, as thou hast said, In nought dishonouring his noble race. Then was Laertes joyful, and exclaim\u2019d, What sun hath ris\u2019n to-day?114 oh blessed Gods! My son and grandson emulous dispute 600 The prize of glory, and my soul exults. He ended, and Minerva drawing nigh To the old King, thus counsell\u2019d him. Oh friend Whom most I love, son of Arcesias! pray\u2019r Preferring to the virgin azure-eyed, And to her father Jove, delay not, shake Thy lance in air, and give it instant flight. So saying, the Goddess nerved his arm anew. He sought in pray\u2019r the daughter dread of Jove, And, brandishing it, hurl\u2019d his lance; it struck 610 Eupithes, pierced his helmet brazen-cheek\u2019d That stay\u2019d it not, but forth it sprang beyond, And with loud clangor of his arms he fell. Then flew Ulysses and his noble son With faulchion and with spear of double edge To the assault, and of them all had left None living, none had to his home return\u2019d, But that Jove\u2019s virgin daughter with a voice Of loud authority thus quell\u2019d them all. Peace, O ye men of Ithaca! while yet 620 The field remains undeluged with your blood. So she, and fear at once paled ev\u2019ry cheek. All trembled at the voice divine; their arms Escaping from the grasp fell to the earth, And, covetous of longer life, each fled Back to the city. Then Ulysses sent His voice abroad, and with an eagle\u2019s force Sprang on the people; but Saturnian Jove, Cast down, incontinent, his smouldring bolt At Pallas\u2019 feet, and thus the Goddess spake. 630 Laertes\u2019 noble son, for wiles renown\u2019d! Forbear; abstain from slaughter; lest thyself Incur the anger of high thund\u2019ring Jove. So Pallas, whom Ulysses, glad, obey\u2019d. Then faithful covenants of peace between Both sides ensued, ratified in the sight Of Pallas progeny of Jove, who seem\u2019d, In voice and form, the Mentor known to all.\n\n\n\n111\n\n\u03a4\u03c1\u1f77\u03b6\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9\u2014\u03c4\u03b5\u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03b3\u1fe6\u03b9\u03b1\u03b9\u2014the ghosts Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets. Shakspeare.\n\n\n\n112\n\n\u2014Behemoth, biggest born of earth, Upheav\u2019d his vastness. Milton.\n\n\n\n113 The fruit is here used for the tree that bore it, as it is in the Greek; the Latins used the same mode of expression, neither is it uncommon in our own language.\n\n\n114 \u03a4\u1f77\u03c2 \u03bd\u1f7b \u03bc\u03bf\u03b9 \u1f21\u03bc\u1f73\u03c1\u03b7 \u1f25\u03b4\u03b5;\u2014So Cicero, who seems to translate it\u2014Proh dii immortales! Quis hic illuxit dies! See Clarke in loco.\n\n\nEND OF THE ODYSSEY\n\n\n\n\nNOTES\nNOTE I.\nBk. x. l. 101-106 (Hom. x. l. 81-86).\u2014It is held now that this passage should be explained by the supposition that the Homeric bards had heard tales of northern latitudes, where, in summer-time, the darkness was so short that evening was followed almost at once by morning. Thus the herdsman coming home in the twilight at one day\u2019s close might meet and hail the shepherd who was starting betimes for the next day\u2019s work.\nLine 86 in the Greek ought probably to be translated, \u201cFor the paths of night and day are close together,\u201d i.e., the entrance of day follows hard on the entrance of night.\nNOTE II.\nBk. xi. l. 162, 163 (Hom. xi. l. 134, 135).\u2014\n\n\u03b8\u1f71\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b4\u1f73 \u03c4\u03bf\u03b9 \u1f10\u03be \u1f01\u03bb\u1f78\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1ff7 \u1f00\u03b2\u03bb\u03b7\u03c7\u03c1\u1f78\u03c2 \u03bc\u1f71\u03bb\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f10\u03bb\u03b5\u1f7b\u03c3\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9.\n\nOthers translate, \u201cAnd from the sea shall thy own death come,\u201d suggesting that Ulysses after all was lost at sea. This is the rendering followed by Tennyson in his poem \u201cUlysses\u201d (and see Dante, Inferno, Canto xxvi.). It is a more natural translation of the Greek, and gives a far more wonderful vista for the close of the Wanderer\u2019s life.\nNOTE III.\nBk. xix. l. 712 (Hom. xix. l. 573).\u2014The word \u03c0\u03b5\u03bb\u1f73\u03ba\u03b5\u03b1\u03c2, for which Cowper gives as a paraphrase \u201cspikes, crested with a ring,\u201d elsewhere means axes, and ought so to be translated here. For since Cowper\u2019s day an axe-head of the Mycen\u00e6an period has been discovered with the blade pierced so as to form a hole through which an arrow could pass. (See Tsountas and Manatt, The Mycen\u00e6an Age.) Axes of this type were not known to Cowper, and hence the hypothesis in his text. He realised correctly the essential conditions of the feat proposed: the axes must have been set up, one behind the other, in the way he suggested for his ringed stakes.\nNOTE IV.\nBk. xxii. l. 139-162 (Hom. xxii. l. 126-143).\u2014How Melanthius got out of the hall remains a puzzle. Cowper assumes a second postern, but there is no evidence for this, and l. 139 ff. (l. 126 ff. in the Greek) suggest rather strongly that there was only one. Unfortunately, the crucial word \u1fe5\u1ff6\u03b3\u03b5\u03c2 which occurs in the line describing Melanthius\u2019 exit is not found elsewhere. \u201cHe went up,\u201d the poet says, \u201cthrough the \u1fe5\u1ff6\u03b3\u03b5\u03c2 of the hall.\u201d Merry suggests that \u201che scrambled up to the loopholes that were pierced in the wall.\u201d Others suppose that there was a ladder at the inner end of the hall leading to the upper story, and on through passages to the armoury.\nIn l. 141 (l. 128 in the Greek) the word translated \u201cstreet\u201d by Cowper is usually rendered \u201ccorridor.\u201d\nF. M. S.\n\nMade At The Temple Press Letchworth Great Britain\n\n\n\n\n\nEVERYMAN\u2019S LIBRARY\nA LIST OF THE 812 VOLUMES ARRANGED UNDER AUTHORS\nAnonymous works are given under titles.\nAnthologies, etc., are arranged at the end of the list.\n\nAbbott\u2019s Rollo at Work, etc., 275\nAddison\u2019s Spectator, 164-167\n\u00c6schylus\u2019 Lyrical Dramas, 62\n\u00c6sop\u2019s and Other Fables, 657\nAimard\u2019s The Indian Scout, 428\nAinsworth\u2019s Tower of London, 400\n\n\u201d Old St. Paul\u2019s, 522\n\u201d Windsor Castle, 709\n\u201d The Admirable Crichton, 804\n\n\nA\u2019Kempis\u2019 Imitation of Christ, 484\nAlcott\u2019s Little Women, and Good Wives, 248\n\n\u201d Little Men, 512\n\n\nAlpine Club. Peaks, Passes and Glaciers, 778\nAndersen\u2019s Fairy Tales, 4\nAnglo-Saxon Poetry, 794\nAnson\u2019s Voyages, 510\nAristophanes\u2019 The Acharnians, etc., 344\n\n\u201d The Frogs, etc., 516\n\n\nAristotle\u2019s Nicomachean Ethics, 547\n\n\u201d Politics, 605\n\n\nArmour\u2019s Fall of the Nibelung, 312\nArnold\u2019s (Matthew) Essays, 115\n\n\u201d Poems, 334\n\u201d Study of Celtic Literature, etc., 458\n\n\nAucassin and Nicolette, 497\nAugustine\u2019s (Saint) Confessions, 200\nAurelius\u2019 (Marcus) Golden Book, 9\nAusten\u2019s (Jane) Sense and Sensibility, 21\n\n\u201d Pride and Prejudice, 22\n\u201d Mansfield Park, 23\n\u201d Emma, 24\n\u201d Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion, 25\n\n\n\n\nBacon\u2019s Essays, 10\n\n\u201d Advancement of Learning, 719\n\n\nBagehot\u2019s Literary Studies, 520, 521\nBaker\u2019s (Sir S. W.) Cast up by the Sea, 539\nBallantyne\u2019s Coral Island, 245\n\n\u201d Martin Rattler, 246\n\u201d Ungava, 276\n\n\nBalzac\u2019s Wild Ass\u2019s Skin, 26\n\n\u201d Eug\u00e9nie Grandet, 169\n\u201d Old Goriot, 170\n\u201d Atheist\u2019s Mass, etc., 229\n\u201d Christ in Flanders, etc., 284\n\u201d The Chouans, 285\n\u201d Quest of the Absolute, 286\n\u201d Cat and Racket, etc., 349\n\u201d Catherine de Medici, 419\n\u201d Cousin Pons, 463\n\u201d The Country Doctor, 520\n\u201d Rise and Fall of C\u00e9sar Birotteau, 596\n\u201d Lost Illusions, 656\n\u201d The Country Parson, 686\n\u201d Ursule Mirou\u00ebt, 733\n\n\nBarbusse\u2019s Under Fire, 798\nBarca\u2019s (Mme. C. de la) Life in Mexico, 664\nBates\u2019 Naturalist on the Amazons, 446\nBeaumont and Fletcher\u2019s Select Plays, 506\nBeaumont\u2019s (Mary) Joan Seaton, 597\nBede\u2019s Ecclesiastical History, etc., 479\nBelt\u2019s The Naturalist in Nicaragua, 561\nBerkeley\u2019s (Bishop) Principles of Human Knowledge, New Theory of Vision, etc., 483\nBerlioz (Hector), Life of, 602\nBinns\u2019 Life of Abraham Lincoln, 783\nBj\u00f6rnson\u2019s Plays, 625, 696\nBlackmore\u2019s Lorna Doone, 304\n\n\u201d Springhaven, 350\n\n\nBlackwell\u2019s Pioneer Work for Women, 667\nBlake\u2019s Poems and Prophecies, 792\nBoehme\u2019s The Signature of All Things, etc., 569\nBonaventura\u2019s The Little Flowers, The Life of St. Francis, etc., 485\nBorrow\u2019s Wild Wales, 49\n\n\u201d Lavengro, 119\n\u201d Romany Rye, 120\n\u201d Bible in Spain, 151\n\u201d Gypsies in Spain, 697\n\n\nBoswell\u2019s Life of Johnson, 1, 2\n\n\u201d Tour in the Hebrides, etc., 387\n\n\nBoult\u2019s Asgard and Norse Heroes, 689\nBoyle\u2019s The Sceptical Chymist, 559\nBright\u2019s (John) Speeches, 252\nBront\u00eb\u2019s (A.) The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, 685\nBront\u00eb\u2019s (C.) Jane Eyre, 287\n\n\u201d Shirley, 288\n\u201d Villette, 351\n\u201d The Professor, 417\n\n\nBront\u00eb\u2019s (E.) Wuthering Heights, 243\nBrooke\u2019s (Stopford A.) Theology in the English Poets, 493\nBrown\u2019s (Dr. John) Rab and His Friends, etc., 116\nBrowne\u2019s (Frances) Grannie\u2019s Wonderful Chair, 112\nBrowne\u2019s (Sir Thos.) Religio Medici, etc., 92\nBrowning\u2019s Poems, 1833-1844, 41\n\n\u201d    \u201d 1844-1864, 42\n\u201d The Ring and the Book, 502\n\n\nBuchanan\u2019s Life and Adventures of Audubon, 601\nBulfinch\u2019s The Age of Fable, 472\n\n\u201d Legends of Charlemagne, 556\n\n\nBunyan\u2019s Pilgrim\u2019s Progress, 204\nBurke\u2019s American Speeches and Letters, 340\n\n\u201d Reflections on the French Revolution, etc., 460\n\n\nBurnet\u2019s History of His Own Times, 85\nBurney\u2019s Evelina, 352\nBurns\u2019 Poems and Songs, 94\nBurrell\u2019s Volume of Heroic Verse, 574\nBurton\u2019s East Africa, 500\nButler\u2019s Analogy of Religion, 90\nBuxton\u2019s Memoirs, 773\nByron\u2019s Complete Poetical and Dramatic Works, 486-488\n\n\nC\u00e6sar\u2019s Gallic War, etc., 702\nCanton\u2019s Child\u2019s Book of Saints, 61\nCanton\u2019s Invisible Playmate, etc., 566\nCarlyle\u2019s French Revolution, 31, 32\n\n\u201d Letters, etc., of Cromwell, 266-268\n\u201d Sartor Resartus, 278\n\u201d Past and Present, 608\n\u201d Essays, 703, 704\n\n\nCastiglione\u2019s The Courtier, 807\nCellini\u2019s Autobiography, 51\nCervantes\u2019 Don Quixote, 385, 386\nChaucer\u2019s Canterbury Tales, 307\nChr\u00e9tien de Troyes\u2019 Eric and Enid, 698\nCibber\u2019s Apology for his Life, 668\nCicero\u2019s Select Letters and Orations, 345\nClarke\u2019s Tales from Chaucer, 537\n\n\u201d Shakespeare\u2019s Heroines, 109-111\n\n\nCobbett\u2019s Rural Rides, 638, 639\nColeridge\u2019s Biographia, 11\n\n\u201d Golden Book, 43\n\u201d Lectures on Shakespeare, 162\n\n\nCollins\u2019 Woman in White, 464\nCollodi\u2019s Pinocchio, 538\nConverse\u2019s Long Will, 328\nCook\u2019s Voyages, 99\nCooper\u2019s The Deerslayer, 77\n\n\u201d The Pathfinder, 78\n\u201d Last of the Mohicans, 79\n\u201d The Pioneer, 171\n\u201d The Prairie, 172\n\n\nCousin\u2019s Biographical Dictionary of English Literature, 449\nCowper\u2019s Letters, 774\nCox\u2019s Tales of Ancient Greece, 721\nCraik\u2019s Manual of English Literature, 346\nCraik (Mrs.). See Mulock.\nCreasy\u2019s Fifteen Decisive Battles, 300\nCr\u00e8vec\u0153ur\u2019s Letters from an American Farmer, 640\nCurtis\u2019s Prue and I, and Lotus, 418\nCurtis and Robinson\u2019s Fairy Tales from the Arabian Nights, 249\n\n\nDana\u2019s Two Years Before the Mast, 588\nDante\u2019s Divine Comedy, 308\nDarwin\u2019s Origin of Species, 811\nDarwin\u2019s Voyage of the Beagle, 104\nDasent\u2019s The Story of Burnt Njal, 558\nDaudet\u2019s Tartarin of Tarascon, 423\nDefoe\u2019s Robinson Crusoe, 59\n\n\u201d Captain Singleton, 74\n\u201d Memoirs of a Cavalier, 283\n\u201d Journal of Plague, 289\n\n\nDe Joinville\u2019s Memoirs of the Crusades, 333\nDemosthenes\u2019 Select Orations, 546\nDennis\u2019 Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, 183, 184\nDe Quincey\u2019s Lake Poets, 163\n\n\u201d Opium-Eater, 223\n\u201d English Mail Coach, etc., 609\n\n\nDe Retz (Cardinal), Memoirs of, 735, 736\nDescartes\u2019 Discourse on Method, 570\nDickens\u2019 Barnaby Rudge, 76\n\n\u201d Tale of Two Cities, 102\n\u201d Old Curiosity Shop, 173\n\u201d Oliver Twist, 233\n\u201d Great Expectations, 234\n\u201d Pickwick Papers, 235\n\u201d Bleak House, 236\n\u201d Sketches by Boz, 237\n\u201d Nicholas Nickleby, 238\n\u201d Christmas Books, 239\n\u201d Dombey &amp; Son, 240\n\u201d Martin Chuzzlewit, 241\n\u201d David Copperfield, 242\n\u201d American Notes, 290\n\u201d Child\u2019s History of England, 291\n\u201d Hard Times, 292\n\u201d Little Dorrit, 293\n\u201d Our Mutual Friend, 294\n\u201d Christmas Stories, 414\n\u201d Uncommercial Traveller, 536\n\u201d Edwin Drood, 725\n\u201d Reprinted Pieces, 744\n\n\nDisraeli\u2019s Coningsby, 535\nDixon\u2019s Fairy Tales from Arabian Nights, 249\nDodge\u2019s Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates, 620\nDostoieffsky\u2019s Crime and Punishment, 501\n\n\u201d The House of the Dead, or Prison Life in Siberia, 533\n\u201d Letters from the Underworld, etc., 654\n\u201d The Idiot, 682\n\u201d Poor Folk, and the Gambler, 711\n\u201d The Brothers Karamazov, 802, 803\n\n\nDowden\u2019s Life of R. Browning, 701\nDryden\u2019s Dramatic Essays, 568\nDufferin\u2019s Letters from High Latitudes, 499\nDumas\u2019 The Three Musketeers, 81\n\n\u201d The Black Tulip, 174\n\u201d Twenty Years After, 175\n\u201d Marguerite de Valois, 326\n\u201d The Count of Monte Cristo, 393, 394\n\u201d The Forty-Five, 420\n\u201d Chicot the Jester, 421\n\u201d Vicomte de Bragelonne, 593-595\n\n\nDumas\u2019 Le Chevalier de Maison Rouge, 614\nDuruy\u2019s History of France, 737, 738\n\n\nEdgar\u2019s Cressy and Poictiers, 17\n\n\u201d Runnymede and Lincoln Fair, 320\n\u201d Heroes of England, 471\n\n\nEdgeworth\u2019s Castle Rackrent, etc., 410\nEdwardes and Spence\u2019s Dictionary of Non-Classical Mythology, 632\nEliot\u2019s Adam Bede, 27\n\n\u201d Silas Marner, 121\n\u201d Romola, 231\n\u201d Mill on the Floss, 325\n\u201d Felix Holt, 353\n\u201d Scenes of Clerical Life, 468\n\n\nElizabethan Drama (Minor), 491, 492\nElyot\u2019s Gouernour, 227\nEmerson\u2019s Essays, 12\n\n\u201d Representative Men, 279\n\u201d Nature, Conduct of Life, etc., 322\n\u201d Society and Solitude, etc., 567\n\u201d Poems, 715\n\n\nEpictetus\u2019 Moral Discourses, etc., 404\nErckmann-Chatrian\u2019s The Conscript and Waterloo, 354\n\n\u201d Story of a Peasant, 706, 707\n\n\nEuripides\u2019 Plays, 63, 271\nEvans\u2019 Holy Graal, 445\nEvelyn\u2019s Diary, 220, 221\nEveryman, and Other Interludes, 381\nEwing\u2019s (Mrs.) Mrs. Overtheway\u2019s Remembrances, and other Stories, 730\n\n\u201d Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin\u2019s Dovecot, and The Story of a Short Life, 731\n\n\n\n\nFaraday\u2019s Experimental Researches in Electricity, 576\nFielding\u2019s Tom Jones, 355, 356\n\n\u201d Joseph Andrews, 467\n\n\nFinlay\u2019s Byzantine Empire, 33\n\n\u201d Greece under the Romans, 185\n\n\nFlaubert\u2019s Madame Bovary, 808\nFletcher\u2019s (Beaumont and) Select Plays, 506\nFord\u2019s Gatherings from Spain, 152\nForster\u2019s Life of Dickens, 781, 782\nFox\u2019s Journal, 754\nFox\u2019s Selected Speeches, 759\nFrancis\u2019 (Saint), The Little Flowers, etc., 485\nFranklin\u2019s Journey to Polar Sea, 447\nFreeman\u2019s Old English History for Children, 540\nFroissart\u2019s Chronicles, 57\nFroude\u2019s Short Studies, 13, 705\n\n\u201d Henry VIII., 372-374\n\u201d Edward VI., 375\n\u201d Mary Tudor, 477\n\u201d History of Queen Elizabeth\u2019s Reign, 583-587\n\u201d Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Lord Beaconsfield, 666\n\n\n\n\nGait\u2019s Annals of the Parish, 427\nGalton\u2019s Inquiries into Human Faculty, 263\nGaskell\u2019s Cranford, 83\n\n\u201d Charlotte Bronte, 318\n\u201d Sylvia\u2019s Lovers, 524\n\u201d Mary Barton, 598\n\u201d Cousin Phillis, etc., 615\n\u201d North and South, 680\n\n\nGatty\u2019s Parables from Nature, 158\nGeoffrey of Monmouth\u2019s Histories of the Kings of Britain, 577\nGeorge\u2019s Progress and Poverty, 560\nGibbon\u2019s Roman Empire, 434-436, 474-476\n\n\u201d Autobiography, 511\n\n\nGilfillan\u2019s Literary Portraits, 348\nGiraldus Cambrensis, 272\nGleig\u2019s Life of Wellington, 341\n\n\u201d The Subaltern, 708\n\n\nGoethe\u2019s Faust (Parts I. and II.), 335\n\n\u201d Wilhelm Meister, 599, 600\n\n\nGogol\u2019s Dead Souls, 726\n\n\u201d Taras Bulba, 740\n\n\nGoldsmith\u2019s Vicar of Wakefield, 295\n\n\u201d Poems and Plays, 415\n\n\nGorki\u2019s Through Russia, 741\nGotthelf\u2019s Ulric the Farm Servant, 228\nGray\u2019s Poems and Letters, 628\nGreen\u2019s Short History of the English People, 727, 728. The cloth edition is in 2 vols. or 1 vol. All other editions are in 1 vol.\nGrettir Saga, 699\nGrimms\u2019 Fairy Tales, 56\nGrote\u2019s History of Greece, 186-197\nGuest\u2019s (Lady) Mabinogion, 97\n\n\nHahnemann\u2019s The Organon of the Rational Art of Healing, 663\nHakluyt\u2019s Voyages, 264, 265, 313, 314, 338, 339, 388, 389\nHallam\u2019s Constitutional History, 621-623\nHamilton\u2019s The Federalist, 519\nHarte\u2019s Luck of Roaring Camp, 681\nHarvey\u2019s Circulation of Blood, 262\nHawthorne\u2019s Wonder Book, 5\n\n\u201d The Scarlet Letter, 122\n\u201d House of Seven Gables, 176\n\u201d The Marble Faun, 424\n\u201d Twice Told Tales, 531\n\u201d Blithedale Romance, 592\n\n\nHazlitt\u2019s Shakespeare\u2019s Characters, 65\n\n\u201d Table Talk, 321\n\u201d Lectures, 411\n\u201d Spirit of the Age and Lectures on English Poets, 459\n\n\nHebbel\u2019s Plays, 694\nHeimskringla, 717\nHelps\u2019 (Sir Arthur) Life of Columbus, 332\nHerbert\u2019s Temple, 309\nHerodotus (Rawlinson\u2019s), 405, 406\nHerrick\u2019s Hesperides, 310\nHobbes\u2019 Leviathan, 691\nHolinshed\u2019s Chronicle, 800\nHolmes\u2019 Life of Mozart, 564\nHolmes\u2019 (O. W.) Autocrat, 66\n\n\u201d Professor, 67\n\u201d Poet, 68\n\n\nHomer\u2019s Iliad, 453\n\n\u201d Odyssey, 454\n\n\nHooker\u2019s Ecclesiastical Polity, 201, 202\nHorace\u2019s Complete Poetical Works, 515\nHoughton\u2019s Life and Letters of Keats, 801\nHughes\u2019 Tom Brown\u2019s Schooldays, 58\nHugo\u2019s (Victor) Les Mis\u00e9rables, 363, 364\n\n\u201d Notre Dame, 422\n\u201d Toilers of the Sea, 509\n\n\nHume\u2019s Treatise of Human Nature, etc., 548, 549\nHutchinson\u2019s (Col.) Memoirs, 317\nHutchinson\u2019s (W. M. L.) Muses\u2019 Pageant, 581, 606, 671\nHuxley\u2019s Man\u2019s Place in Nature, 47\n\n\u201d Select Lectures and Lay Sermons, 498\n\n\n\n\nIbsen\u2019s The Doll\u2019s House, etc., 494\n\n\u201d Ghosts, etc., 552\n\u201d Pretenders, Pillars of Society, etc., 659\n\u201d Brand, 716\n\u201d Lady Inger, etc., 729\n\u201d Peer Gynt, 747\n\n\nIngelow\u2019s Mopsa the Fairy, 619\nIngram\u2019s Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 624\nIrving\u2019s Sketch Book, 117\n\n\u201d Conquest of Granada, 478\n\u201d Life of Mahomet, 513\n\n\n\n\nJames\u2019 (G. P. R.) Richelieu, 357\nJames (Wm.), Selections from, 739\nJohnson\u2019s (Dr.) Lives of the Poets, 770-771\nJohnson\u2019s (R. B.) Book of English Ballads, 572\nJonson\u2019s (Ben) Plays, 489, 490\nJosephus\u2019 Wars of the Jews, 712\n\n\nKalidasa\u2019s Shakuntala, 629\nKeats\u2019 Poems, 101\nKeble\u2019s Christian Year, 690\nKing\u2019s Life of Mazzini, 562\nKinglake\u2019s Eothen, 337\nKingsley\u2019s (Chas.) Westward Ho!, 20\n\n\u201d Heroes, 113\n\u201d Hypatia, 230\n\u201d Water Babies and Glaucus, 277\n\u201d Hereward the Wake, 296\n\u201d Alton Locke, 462\n\u201d Yeast, 611\n\u201d Madam How and Lady Why, 777\n\u201d Poems, 793\n\n\nKingsley\u2019s (Henry) Ravenshoe, 28\n\n\u201d Geoffrey Hamlyn, 416\n\n\nKingston\u2019s Peter the Whaler, 6\n\n\u201d Three Midshipmen, 7\n\n\nKirby\u2019s Kalevala, 259-60\nKoran, 380\n\n\nLamb\u2019s Tales from Shakespeare, 8\n\n\u201d Essays of Elia, 14\n\u201d Letters, 342, 343\n\n\nLane\u2019s Modern Egyptians, 315\nLangland\u2019s Piers Plowman, 571\nLatimer\u2019s Sermons, 40\nLaw\u2019s Serious Call, 91\nLayamon\u2019s (Wace and) Arthurian Chronicles, 578\nLear (and others), A Book of Nonsense, 806\nLe Sage\u2019s Gil Blas, 437, 438\nLeslie\u2019s Memoirs of John Constable, 563\nLever\u2019s Harry Lorrequer, 177\nLewes\u2019 Life of Goethe, 269\nLincoln\u2019s Speeches, etc., 206\nLivy\u2019s History of Rome, 603, 669, 670, 749, 755, 756\nLocke\u2019s Civil Government, 751\nLockhart\u2019s Life of Napoleon, 3\n\n\u201d Life of Scott, 55\n\u201d Burns, 156\n\n\nLongfellow\u2019s Poems, 382\nL\u00f6nnrott\u2019s Kalevala, 259, 260\nLover\u2019s Handy Andy, 178\nLowell\u2019s Among My Books, 607\nLucretius: Of the Nature of Things, 750\nL\u00fctzow\u2019s History of Bohemia, 432\nLyell\u2019s Antiquity of Man, 700\nLytton\u2019s Harold, 15\n\n\u201d Last of the Barons, 18\n\u201d Last Days of Pompeii, 80\n\u201d Pilgrims of the Rhine, 390\n\u201d Rienzi, 532\n\n\n\n\nMacaulay\u2019s England, 34-36\n\n\u201d Essays, 225, 226\n\u201d Speeches on Politics, etc., 399\n\u201d Miscellaneous Essays, 439\n\n\nMacDonald\u2019s Sir Gibbie, 678\n\n\u201d Phantastes, 732\n\n\nMachiavelli\u2019s Prince, 280\n\n\u201d Florence, 376\n\n\nMaine\u2019s Ancient Law, 734\nMalory\u2019s Le Morte D\u2019Arthur, 45, 46\nMalthus on the Principles of Population, 692, 693\nMandeville\u2019s Travels, 812\nManning\u2019s Sir Thomas More, 19\n\n\u201d Mary Powell, and Deborah\u2019s Diary, 324\n\n\nMarcus Aurelius\u2019 Golden Book, 9\nMarlowe\u2019s Plays and Poems, 383\nMarryat\u2019s Mr. Midshipman Easy, 82\n\n\u201d Little Savage, 159\n\u201d Masterman Ready, 160\n\u201d Peter Simple, 232\n\u201d Children of New Forest, 247\n\u201d Percival Keene, 358\n\u201d Settlers in Canada, 370\n\u201d King\u2019s Own, 580\n\n\nMarryat\u2019s Jacob Faithful, 618\nMartineau\u2019s Feats on the Fjords, 429\nMartinengo-Cesaresco\u2019s Folk-Lore and Other Essays, 673\nMason\u2019s French Mediaeval Romances, 557\nMaurice\u2019s Kingdom of Christ, 146, 147\nMazzini\u2019s Duties of Man, etc., 224\nMelville\u2019s Moby Dick, 179\n\n\u201d Typee, 180\n\u201d Omoo, 297\n\n\nMerivale\u2019s History of Rome, 433\nMignet\u2019s French Revolution, 713\nMill\u2019s Utilitarianism, Liberty, Representative Government, 482\nMiller\u2019s Old Red Sandstone, 103\nMilman\u2019s History of the Jews, 377, 378\nMilton\u2019s Areopagitica and other Prose Works, 795\nMilton\u2019s Poems, 384\nMommsen\u2019s History of Rome, 542-545\nMontagu\u2019s (Lady) Letters, 69\nMontaigne, Florio\u2019s, 440-442\nMore\u2019s Utopia, and Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation, 461\nMorier\u2019s Hajji Baba, 679\nMorris\u2019 (Wm.) Early Romances, 261\n\n\u201d Life and Death of Jason, 575\n\n\nMotley\u2019s Dutch Republic, 86-88\nMulock\u2019s John Halifax, 123\n\n\nNeale\u2019s Fall of Constantinople, 655\nNewcastle\u2019s (Margaret, Duchess of) Life of the First Duke of Newcastle, etc., 722\nNewman\u2019s Apologia Pro Vita Sua, 636\n\n\u201d On the Scope and Nature of University Education, and a Paper on Christianity and Scientific Investigation, 723\n\n\n\n\nOliphant\u2019s Salem Chapel, 244\nOsborne (Dorothy), Letters of, 674\nOwen\u2019s A New View of Society, etc., 799\n\n\nPaine\u2019s Rights of Man, 718\nPalgrave\u2019s Golden Treasury, 96\nPaltock\u2019s Peter Wilkins, 676\nPark (Mungo), Travels of, 205\nParkman\u2019s Conspiracy of Pontiac, 302, 303\nParry\u2019s Letters of Dorothy Osborne, 674\nPaston Letters, 752, 753\nPaton\u2019s Two Morte D\u2019Arthur Romances, 634\nPeacock\u2019s Headlong Hall, 327\nPenn\u2019s The Peace of Europe, Some Fruits of Solitude, etc., 724\nPepys\u2019 Diary, 53, 54\nPercy\u2019s Reliques, 148, 149\nPitt\u2019s Orations, 145\nPlato\u2019s Republic, 64\n\n\u201d Dialogues, 456, 457\n\n\nPlutarch\u2019s Lives, 407-409\n\n\u201d Moralia, 565\n\n\nPoe\u2019s Tales of Mystery and Imagination, 336\nPoe\u2019s Poems and Essays, 791\nPolo\u2019s (Marco) Travels, 306\nPope\u2019s Complete Poetical Works, 760\nPrescott\u2019s Conquest of Peru, 301\n\n\u201d Conquest of Mexico, 397, 398\n\n\nProcter\u2019s Legends and Lyrics, 150\n\n\nRamayana and Mahabharata, 403\nRawlinson\u2019s Herodotus, 405, 406\nReade\u2019s The Cloister and the Hearth, 29\n\n\u201d Peg Woffington, 299\n\n\nReid\u2019s (Mayne) Boy Hunters of the Mississippi, 582\n\n\u201d The Boy Slaves, 797\n\n\nRenan\u2019s Life of Jesus, 805\nRestoration Plays, 604\nReynolds\u2019 Discourses, 118\nRhys\u2019 Fairy Gold, 157\n\n\u201d New Golden Treasury, 695\n\u201d Anthology of British Historical Speeches and Orations, 714\n\u201d Political Liberty, 745\n\u201d Golden Treasury of Longer Poems, 746\n\u201d Prelude to Poetry, 789\n\u201d Mother Goose, 473\n\n\nRicardo\u2019s Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, 590\nRichardson\u2019s Pamela, 683, 684\nRoberts\u2019 (Morley) Western Avernus, 762\nRobertson\u2019s Religion and Life, 37\n\n\u201d Christian Doctrine, 38\n\u201d Bible Subjects, 39\n\n\nRobinson\u2019s (Wade) Sermons, 637\nRoget\u2019s Thesaurus, 630, 631\nRossetti\u2019s (D. G.) Poems, 627\nRousseau\u2019s Emile, 518\n\n\u201d Social Contract and Other Essays, 660\n\n\nRuskin\u2019s Seven Lamps of Architecture, 207\n\n\u201d Modern Painters, 208-212\n\u201d Stones of Venice, 213-215\n\u201d Unto this Last, etc., 216\n\u201d Elements of Drawing, etc., 217\n\u201d Pre-Raphaelitism, etc., 218\n\u201d Sesame and Lilies, 219\n\u201d Ethics of the Dust, 282\n\u201d Crown of Wild Olive, and Cestus of Aglaia, 323\n\u201d Time and Tide, with other Essays, 450\n\u201d The Two Boyhoods, 688\n\n\nRussell\u2019s Life of Gladstone, 661\nRussian Short Stories, 758\n\n\nSand\u2019s (George) The Devil\u2019s Pool, and Fran\u00e7ois the Waif, 534\nScheffel\u2019s Ekkehard: A Tale of the 10th Century, 529\nScott\u2019s (M.) Tom Cringle\u2019s Log, 710\nScott\u2019s (Sir W.) Ivanhoe, 16\n\n\u201d Fortunes of Nigel, 71\n\u201d Woodstock, 72\n\u201d Waverley, 75\n\u201d The Abbot, 124\n\u201d Anne of Geierstein, 125\n\u201d The Antiquary, 126\n\u201d Highland Widow, and Betrothed, 127\n\u201d Black Dwarf, Legend of Montrose, 128\n\u201d Bride of Lammermoor, 129\n\u201d Castle Dangerous, Surgeon\u2019s Daughter, 130\n\u201d Robert of Paris, 131\n\u201d Fair Maid of Perth, 132\n\u201d Guy Mannering, 133\n\u201d Heart of Midlothian, 134\n\u201d Kenilworth, 135\n\u201d The Monastery, 136\n\u201d Old Mortality, 137\n\u201d Peveril of the Peak, 138\n\u201d The Pirate, 139\n\u201d Quentin Durward, 140\n\u201d Redgauntlet, 141\n\u201d Rob Roy, 142\n\u201d St. Ronan\u2019s Well, 143\n\u201d The Talisman, 144\n\u201d Lives of the Novelists, 331\n\u201d Poems and Plays, 550, 551\n\n\nSeebohm\u2019s Oxford Reformers, 665\nSeeley\u2019s Ecce Homo, 305\nSewell\u2019s (Anna) Black Beauty, 748\nShakespeare\u2019s Comedies, 153\n\n\u201d Histories, etc., 154\n\u201d Tragedies, 155\n\n\nShelley\u2019s Poetical Works, 257, 258\nShelley\u2019s (Mrs.) Frankenstein, 616\nSheppard\u2019s Charles Auchester, 505\nSheridan\u2019s Plays, 95\nSismondi\u2019s Italian Republics, 250\nSmeaton\u2019s Life of Shakespeare, 514\nSmith\u2019s Wealth of Nations, 412, 413\nSmith\u2019s (George) Life of Wm. Carey, 395\nSmith\u2019s (Sir Wm.) Smaller Classical Dictionary, 495\nSmollett\u2019s Roderick Random, 790\nSophocles, Young\u2019s, 114\nSouthey\u2019s Life of Nelson, 52\nSpeke\u2019s Source of the Nile, 50\nSpence\u2019s Dictionary of Non-Classical Mythology, 632\nSpencer\u2019s (Herbert) Essays on Education, 504\nSpenser\u2019s Faerie Queene, 443, 444\nSpinoza\u2019s Ethics, etc., 481\nSpyri\u2019s Heidi, 431\nStanley\u2019s Memorials of Canterbury, 89\n\n\u201d Eastern Church, 251\n\n\nSteele\u2019s The Spectator, 164-167\nSterne\u2019s Tristram Shandy, 617\nSterne\u2019s Sentimental Journey and Journal to Eliza, 796\nStevenson\u2019s Treasure Island and Kidnapped, 763\n\n\u201d Master of Ballantrae and The Black Arrow, 764\n\u201d Virginibus Puerisque and Familiar Studies of Men and Books, 765\n\u201d An Inland Voyage, Travels with a Donkey, and Silverado Squatters, 766\n\u201d Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Merry Men, etc., 767\n\u201d Poems, 768\n\u201d In the South Seas and Island Nights\u2019 Entertainments, 769\n\n\nSt. Francis, The Little Flowers of, etc., 485\nStopford Brooke\u2019s Theology in the English Poets, 493\nStow\u2019s Survey of London, 589\nStowe\u2019s Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin, 371\nStrickland\u2019s Queen Elizabeth, 100\nSwedenborg\u2019s Heaven and Hell, 379\n\n\u201d Divine Love and Wisdom, 635\n\u201d Divine Providence, 658\n\n\nSwift\u2019s Gulliver\u2019s Travels, 60\n\n\u201d Journal to Stella, 757\n\u201d Tale of a Tub, etc., 347\n\n\nSwiss Family Robinson, 430\n\n\nTacitus\u2019 Annals, 273\n\n\u201d Agricola and Germania,274\n\n\nTaylor\u2019s Words and Places, 517\nTennyson\u2019s Poems, 44, 626\nThackeray\u2019s Esmond, 73\n\n\u201d Vanity Fair, 298\n\u201d Christmas Books, 359\n\u201d Pendennis, 425, 426\n\u201d Newcomes, 465, 466\n\u201d The Virginians, 507, 508\n\u201d English Humorists, and The Four Georges, 610\n\u201d Roundabout Papers, 687\n\n\nThierry\u2019s Norman Conquest, 198, 199\nThoreau\u2019s Walden, 281\nThucydides\u2019 Peloponnesian War, 455\nTolstoy\u2019s Master and Man, and Other Parables and Tales, 469\n\n\u201d War and Peace, 525-527\n\u201d Childhood, Boyhood and Youth, 591\n\u201d Anna Karenina, 612, 613\n\n\nTrench\u2019s On the Study of Words and English Past and Present, 788\nTrollope\u2019s Barchester Towers, 30\n\n\u201d Framley Parsonage, 181\n\u201d Golden Lion of Granpere, 701\n\u201d The Warden, 182\n\u201d Dr. Thorne, 360\n\u201d Small House at Allington, 361\n\u201d Last Chronicles of Barset, 391, 392\n\n\nTrotter\u2019s The Bayard of India, 396\n\n\u201d Hodson, of Hodson\u2019s Horse, 401\n\u201d Warren Hastings, 452\n\n\nTurgeniev\u2019s Virgin Soil, 528\n\n\u201d Liza, 677\n\u201d Fathers and Sons, 742\n\n\nTyndall\u2019s Glaciers of the Alps, 98\nTytler\u2019s Principles of Translation, 168\n\n\nVasari\u2019s Lives of the Painters, 784-7\nVerne\u2019s (Jules) Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, 319\n\n\u201d Dropped from the Clouds, 367\n\u201d Abandoned, 368\n\u201d The Secret of the Island, 369\n\u201d Five Weeks in a Balloon and Around the World in Eighty Days, 779\n\n\nVirgil\u2019s \u00c6neid, 161\n\n\u201d Eclogues and Georgics, 222\n\n\nVoltaire\u2019s Life of Charles XII., 270\n\n\u201d Age of Louis XIV., 780\n\n\n\n\nWace and Layamon\u2019s Arthurian Chronicles, 578\nWalpole\u2019s Letters, 775\nWalton\u2019s Compleat Angler, 70\nWaterton\u2019s Wanderings in South America, 772\nWesley\u2019s Journal, 105-108\nWhite\u2019s Selborne, 48\nWhitman\u2019s Leaves of Grass (I.) and Democratic Vistas, etc., 573\nWhyte-Melville\u2019s Gladiators, 523\nWood\u2019s (Mrs. Henry) The Channings, 84\nWoolman\u2019s Journal, etc., 402\nWordsworth\u2019s Shorter Poems, 203\n\n\u201d Longer Poems, 311\n\n\nWright\u2019s An Encyclop\u00e6dia of Gardening, 555\n\n\nXenophon\u2019s Cyrop\u00e6dia, 672\n\n\nYellow Book, 503\nYonge\u2019s The Dove in the Eagle\u2019s Nest, 329\n\n\u201d The Book of Golden Deeds, 330\n\u201d The Heir of Redclyffe, 362\n\u201d The Little Duke, 470\n\u201d The Lances of Lynwood, 579\n\n\nYoung\u2019s (Arthur) Travels in France and Italy, 720\nYoung\u2019s (Sir George) Sophocles, 114\n\n\nA Century of Essays. An Anthology, 653\nA Dictionary of Dates, 554\nA Dictionary of Quotations and Proverbs, 809-810\nAn Anthology of English Prose: From Bede to Stevenson, 675\nAncient Hebrew Literature, 4 vols., 253-256\nAnnals of Fairyland, 365, 366, 541\nAtlas of Classical Geography, 451\nEnglish Short Stories. An Anthology, 743\nEveryman\u2019s English Dictionary, 776\nLiterary and Historical Atlases: Europe, 496; America, 553; Asia, 633; Africa and Australasia, 662\nThe New Testament, 93\n1st and 2nd Prayer Books of King Edward VI., 448\n\n\nNote\u2014The following numbers are at present out of print:\n110, 111, 146, 228, 244, 275, 390, 418, 597\nLONDON: J. M. DENT &amp; SONS LTD.\nNEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON &amp; CO.\n\nTranscriber\u2019s note\nThe spelling and hyphenation in the original are inconsistent, and have not been changed. A few obvious typographical errors have been corrected, as listed below.\nBook III, line 447. \u201cMy frend\u2019s own son\u201d no change made.\nBook IV, line 454. \u201cthou must be ideot born\u201d no change made.\nBook VII, line 294. \u201cSaidst not\u201d no change made.\nBook IX, Argument. \u201cbinds him while he sleeps\u201d changed to \u201cblinds him while he sleeps\u201d.\nBook IX, line 428, footnote. \u201cIt is certian\u201d changed to \u201cIt is certain\u201d.\nBook XV, line 276. Footnote marker missing from original.\nBook XVII, line 378. \u201cin one moment thou shouldst\u201d no change made.\nBook XVII, line 508. \u201c(whencesoe\u2019er they came\u201d closing bracket added.\nBook XVII, line 616. \u201cthou shouldst hear\u201d no change made.\nBook XIX, line 317. \u201c(with these hands\u201d closing bracket added.\nBook XXI, line 468. \u201cand re-entring fill\u2019d\u201d no change made.\nBook XXIII, line 209. \u201cwith his own bands\u201d changed to \u201cwith his own hands\u201d.\nBook XXIV, line 629. \u201chis smouldring bolt\u201d no change made.\nNote II. \u201c\u1f00\u03b2\u03bb\u03b7\u03c7\u03c1\u1f79\u03c2\u201d changed to \u201c\u1f00\u03b2\u03bb\u03b7\u03c7\u03c1\u1f78\u03c2\u201d.\n\n"}
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{"24385":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n [Illustration: Portraits of Fellow Officers in Prison\n\n Left to right--Top line: Capt. Cook, Capt. Burrage\n Middle line: Adj't. Gardner, Col. Sprague, Capt. Howe\n Lower line: Lieut. Estabrooks, Adj't. Putnam]\n\n\n\n\n           _\"Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit\"_\n\n\n                     Lights and Shadows in\n                      Confederate Prisons\n\n                     A Personal Experience\n                            1864-5\n\n\n                              By\n\n                    Homer B. Sprague, Ph.D.\n                 Bvt.-Colonel 13th Conn. Vols.\n\n Sometime Professor in Cornell and President of the University\n                        of North Dakota\n\n   Author of \"History of the 13th Conn. Inf. Vols.,\" \"Right\n         and Wrong in our War between the States,\" and\n            \"The European War, Its Cause and Cure\"\n\n\n                       _With Portraits_\n\n\n                      G. P. Putnam's Sons\n                      New York and London\n                    The Knickerbocker Press\n                             1915\n\n\n\n\n COPYRIGHT, 1915\n BY\n HOMER B. SPRAGUE\n\n The Knickerbocker Press, New York\n\n\nTranscriber's Note:\n\n    Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note, whilst\n    more significant amendments have been listed at the end of the text.\n    Dialect and archaic spellings have been retained. The letter 'e'\n    with a macron has been transcribed as [=e].\n\n\n\n\n                       TO\n                 THE ALUMNI OF\n              THE UNIVERSITIES OF\n        YALE, CORNELL, AND NORTH DAKOTA\n\n      IN WHICH RESPECTIVELY THE AUTHOR WAS\n         STUDENT, PROFESSOR, PRESIDENT;\n                       TO\n      THOUSANDS OF HIS PUPILS YET LIVING;\n                       TO\n      HIS COMPANIONS OF THE LOYAL LEGION,\n  COMRADES OF THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC,\n      ALL SURVIVING OFFICERS AND SOLDIERS\n             UNION OR CONFEDERATE;\n ALL WHO CHERISH THE MEMORY OF THE PATRIOT DEAD\n             AND ALL WHO HATE WAR,\n         THIS RECORD IS AFFECTIONATELY\n                   DEDICATED\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThis narrative of prison life differs from all others that I have seen,\nin that it is careful to put the best possible construction upon the\ntreatment of Union prisoners by the Confederates, and to state and\nemphasize kindnesses and courtesies received by us from them.\n\nFor the accuracy of the facts stated I am indebted to a diary kept from\nday to day during the whole of my imprisonment, and to the best\nobtainable records. The exact language of conversations cannot of course\nalways be remembered, but I aim always to give correctly the substance.\n\nI am aware that the opinions I express in regard to Sheridan's strategy\nat the Battle of Winchester are not those generally entertained. But I\ngive reasons. His own account of the battle is sadly imperfect. To\ncapture but five guns and nine battle flags at a cost of four thousand\nsix hundred and eighty killed and wounded, and leave almost the entire\nrebel army in shape to fight two great battles within a month, was not\nthe programme he had planned. Early said \"Sheridan should have been\ncashiered.\"\n\nI shall be blamed more for venturing to question Lincoln's policy of\nsubjugation. He had proclaimed with great power and in the most\nunmistakable language in Congress that \"any portion of any people had a\nperfect right to throw off their old government and establish a new\none.\" But now, instead of standing strictly on the defensive, or\nattempting by diplomacy to settle the conflict which had become\nvirtually international, he entered upon a war of conquest.\n\nI do not blame him for refusing to exchange prisoners, nor President\nDavis for allowing them to starve and freeze. Both were right, _if war\nis right_. It was expedient that thirty, fifty, or a hundred thousand of\nus should perish, or be rendered physically incapable of bearing arms\nagain. The \"deep damnation of the taking off\" was due not to individual\ndepravity but to military necessity.\n\n                                                              H. B. S.\n BRIGHTON, MASS., U. S. A.,\n          _1915_.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                                                      PAGE\n PREFACE                                                                 v\n\n                               CHAPTER I\n\n The First, or Forenoon, Battle of Winchester, Indecisive--Sheridan's\n     and Early's Mistakes--The Capture                                   1\n\n                               CHAPTER II\n\n At Winchester--On the Road thence to Tom's Brook, New Market, and\n     Staunton                                                           17\n\n                               CHAPTER III\n\n At Staunton--Thence to Waynesboro, Meacham's, and Richmond             32\n\n                               CHAPTER IV\n\n At Libby--Thence to Clover, Danville, Greensboro, and\n     Salisbury--Effort to Pledge us not to Attempt Escape               43\n\n                               CHAPTER V\n\n At Salisbury--Great Plot to Escape--How Frustrated                     60\n\n                               CHAPTER VI\n\n From Salisbury to Danville--The Forlorn Situation--Effort to\n     \"Extract Sunshine from Cucumbers\"--The Vermin--The Prison\n     Commandant a Yale Man--Proposed Theatricals--Rules\n     Adopted--Studies--Vote in Prison for Lincoln and\n     McClellan--Killing Time                                            77\n\n                               CHAPTER VII\n\n Exact Record of Rations in Danville--Opportunity to Cook--Daily\n     Routine of Proceedings from Early Dawn till Late at Night          93\n\n                               CHAPTER VIII\n\n Continual Hope of Exchange of Prisoners--\"Flag-of-Truce\n     Fever!\"--Attempted Escape by Tunneling--Repeated Escapes by\n     Members of Water Parties, and how we Made the Roll-Call\n     Sergeant's Count Come Out all Right every Time--Plot to Break\n     Out by Violence, and its Tragic End                               106\n\n                               CHAPTER IX\n\n Kind Clergymen Visit us and Preach Excellent Discourses--Colonel\n     Smith's Personal Good Will to me--His Offer--John F. Ficklin's\n     Charity--My Good Fortune--Supplies of Clothing\n     Distributed--Deaths in Prison                                     120\n\n                               CHAPTER X\n\n Results and Reflections--The Right and the Wrong of it All            138\n\n APPENDIX                                                              153\n\n INDEX                                                                 157\n\n\n\n\nLights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons\n\n\n\n\nLights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\n  The First, or Forenoon, Battle of Winchester, Indecisive--Sheridan's\n    and Early's Mistakes--The Capture.\n\n\n\"War is Hell,\" said our great strategist, General W. T. Sherman.\nAccording to its latest code, with few or no exceptions, the end\njustifies the means, and, if necessary to success, it is right to do\nwrong.\n\nFifty years ago one of the fairest regions on earth was that portion of\nVirginia extending southwesterly about a hundred and twenty miles from\nHarper's Ferry to the divide beyond Staunton, where rise the headwaters\nof the James. Walled in by the Blue Ridge on the southeast and parallel\nranges of the Alleghanies on the northwest, it takes its name from the\nbeautiful river which winds along its length, and which the Indians\npoetically christened Shenandoah (Daughter of the Stars!). When some\nthree hundred of us prisoners of war walked wearily a hundred miles from\nWinchester to Staunton in September, 1864, it was still rich and lovely.\nA few weeks later, the necessities of war made it a scene of utter\ndesolation.\n\n    Grant had rightly concluded [says Sheridan[1]], that it was time to\n    bring the war home to a people engaged in raising crops from a\n    prolific soil to feed the country's enemies, and devoting to the\n    Confederacy its best youth. I endorsed the program in all its parts;\n    for the stores of meat and grain that the valley provided, and the\n    men it furnished for Lee's depleted regiments, were the strongest\n    auxiliaries he possessed.\n\nAccordingly Grant issued orders with increasing emphasis, particularly\nin August and September, to make the whole region \"a barren waste,\" to\n\n    destroy or carry off the crops and animals; do all possible damage\n    to railroads; seize stock of every description; take away all negro\n    laborers so as to prevent further planting; hold as prisoners of\n    war, if sympathizing with the rebellion, all male citizens under\n    fifty years of age capable of bearing arms, etc.\n\nIn obedience to these commands, Sheridan engaged with alacrity in the\nwork of destruction. In a few weeks he reported as follows:\n\n    I have destroyed 2000 barns filled with wheat, hay, and farming\n    implements; over 70 mills filled with flour and wheat; and driven in\n    front of my army 4000 head of stock.\n\nSaid one of his officers who knew whereof he was speaking, \"A crow\nflying through the valley would have to carry his own rations, for he\ncould pick up nothing!\"\n\nAt Winchester, the principal town in the Shenandoah Valley, one hundred\nand fifty miles N. N. W. of Richmond, with a population of about four\nthousand, the 19th of that September was a day of glory but also of\nsorrow. Four thousand six hundred and eighty of the Union Army, killed\nand wounded, told how dearly Sheridan's first great victory was gained.\n\nThe battle was fought over three, four, or five square miles, east and\nnorth from Winchester, for the most part near the Opequon Creek, from\nwhich it is sometimes called the \"Battle of the Opequon.\" To reach the\nfield, the bulk of Sheridan's army, starting at three o'clock in the\nmorning from Berryville ten miles east, had to pass through a gorge in\nwhich for a considerable distance the turnpike extends towards\nWinchester. Sheridan's plan at first was to bring his army, except\nMerritt's and Averell's Divisions of Torbert's Cavalry, through the\ndefile, post the Sixth Corps on the left, the Nineteenth on the right,\nthrow Crook's Army of West Virginia across the Staunton turnpike\n(leading southwest from Winchester), and so cut off all retreat up the\nvalley. Meanwhile those two cavalry divisions were to make a long detour\non our right to the north from Berryville, and close in upon the\nConfederate left. Sheridan felt sure of victory, for we outnumbered the\nenemy nearly two to one. Had our army got into position early in the\nmorning, we should have captured or destroyed the whole of them.\n\nAt early dawn McIntosh's Brigade of Wilson's Division of Torbert's\nCavalry dashed through the ravine, closely followed by Chapman's Brigade\nand five batteries of horse artillery. Sheridan and his staff followed.\nThey surprised and captured a small earthwork, and, though fiercely\nassaulted, held it till the van of the Sixth Corps relieved them.\n\nThe narrow pass of the Berryville pike was so obstructed by artillery,\nambulances, ammunition wagons, etc., that it was nearly eight o'clock\nbefore the Sixth Corps, which should have been in position with Wilson's\nCavalry at sunrise, began to arrive; and it was fully two hours later\nwhen the Nineteenth Corps debouched and deployed. Here was\nmiscalculation or bad management or both.\n\nThis long delay, which the quick-moving cavalry leader Sheridan had not\nforeseen nor provided for, gave time for Early to call in the strong\ndivisions of Generals Gordon, Breckenridge, and Rodes, from the vicinity\nof Stephenson's Depot several miles away. They left Patton's Brigade of\nInfantry, and a part of Fitzhugh Lee's Cavalry to oppose Torbert.\n\nHearing nothing from Torbert, who had now been gone seven or eight hours\non his circuitous route, Sheridan suddenly changed his whole plan of\naction, a perilous maneuver in the face of an active enemy while the\nbattle is already raging intermittently. Instead of flinging Crook's\nArmy of West Virginia, 17 regiments and 3 batteries, across the Staunton\npike, to front northeasterly and cut off all possible retreat of the\nConfederates, he determined to move it to our right and deploy it in\nline with the Nineteenth. Doubtless this was best under the\ncircumstances, though it left to the enemy the broad smooth highway as a\nline of retreat up the valley.\n\nGrover's Division (2d of the Nineteenth Corps) in four brigades formed\nline of battle in front and to the right of the gorge. In touch on the\nleft was Ricketts' Division of the Sixth Corps, and resting on Ricketts'\nleft was Getty's Division of the same corps. Getty had 16 regiments in\nline; Ricketts, 12 with 6 batteries; Grover, 20 with 3 batteries.\n\nHad Sheridan been able to strike Early by half-past eight with the Sixth\nand Nineteenth, he would have crushed him in detail. Had Early massed\nthe divisions of Gordon, Breckenridge, and Rodes, and hurled them at the\nmouth of the canyon at ten o'clock while half of the Nineteenth was\nstill entangled in it, he would probably have split our army into three\nparts, and destroyed those already arrived.\n\nIt was now eleven o'clock, and the Army of West Virginia at last emerged\nfrom the defile. To make room for its movement in our rear behind\nGrover's Division, and to hold the enemy in play until it should have\ntaken its place on the right of the Nineteenth, and perhaps to await\nthere the appearance of Torbert's Cavalry, it was desirable that Grover\nshould advance. Sheridan of course meant the whole front of the Sixth\nand Nineteenth to keep in a continuous line. At first it seemed to me\nthat the regiments of the Nineteenth overlapped; but the lines of\nadvance were slightly divergent, and wide breaks began to appear between\nbattalions. Especially on the left of the Nineteenth a large and\nwidening gap appeared; for Ricketts had been instructed to guide on the\nBerryville pike, and that bore away to the left and south.\n\nMy battalion, the veteran Thirteenth Conn. Infantry, should have been\nled by my Colonel, C. D. Blinn: but he was sick the night before, and in\nthe morning, at the crossing of the Opequon, he fell out, and left the\ncommand to me. He had no part in the battle. Our Thirteenth deserves a\npassing notice. It was the favorite regiment of General Birge, its first\ncolonel.[2] When he was made brigadier, the regiment entered the brigade\ncommanded by Colonel E. L. Molineux. Birge was never so happy as when\nriding into action, and Molineux, who had been severely wounded in the\nsame battle with me, was not over-cautious. My regiment and both\nbrigades, the first and second of Grover's Division, had caught the\nspirit of those two commanders. Quite generally they mistook the\nforward movement for an immediate charge.\n\nWe had been under an intermittent fire for some time, but now the\nadvance intensified the conflict. The chief anxiety of good soldiers at\nsuch a time, as I often noticed, is to get at the enemy as soon as\npossible, and cease to be mere targets. Their enthusiasm now accelerated\ntheir pace to a double-quick, and was carrying them too far to the\nfront. Birge and Molineux endeavored in vain to check their rapidity. My\nbattalion, I think, was nearest the rebel line.\n\nBetween eleven and twelve the divisions of Getty, Ricketts, and Grover,\nforty-eight regiments in all, to which were attached eight light\nbatteries with reserve artillery, began to move forward. It was a grand\nspectacle. At first the movement was steady, and we thought of Scott's\nlines,\n\n    The host moves like a deep-sea wave,\n    Where rise no rocks its pride to brave,\n    High-swelling, dark, and slow.\n\nBut all is quickly changed.\n\nLooking back upon that scene after the lapse of more than fifty years,\nits magnificence has not yet faded. I see as in a dream our long bending\nwave of blue rolling slowly at first but with increasing speed,\nfoam-tipped with flags here and there and steel-crested with Birge's\nbayonets yonder; glimpses of cavalry in the distance moving as if on\nwings with the lightness of innumerable twinkling feet; numberless jets\nof smoke across the fields marking the first line of Confederate\ninfantry, their musketry rattling precisely like exploding bunches of\nfirecrackers; batteries galloping to position, the thunder of a dozen\nsmiting the ear more rapidly than one could count; the buzz, hiss,\nwhistle, shriek, crash, hurricane of projectiles; the big shot from\nbatteries in front and from Braxton's artillery on our right ripping up\nthe ground and bounding away to the rear and the left; horses and riders\ndisappearing in the smoke of exploding shells; the constant shouting of\nour officers indistinctly heard, and now and then the peculiar\nwell-known \"rebel yell\"; and finally the command, HALT! LIE DOWN!\nMolineux and Birge were too far to the front, and the line must be\nrectified. Ricketts, as we pressed forward, had thrown Keifer's Brigade\n(2d of Third Division, Sixth Corps), seven regiments, into the\nbroadening interval directly in front of the mouth of the gorge; but it\nwas not sufficient.\n\nIt was now Early's opportunity; but he was hours too late, just as\nSheridan had been. He had seen our Sixth Corps and Nineteenth emerge\nand deploy, had beheld our rapid and somewhat disorderly approach, had\nnoted the widening spaces between our battalions and divisions, had\nobserved the havoc wrought by his artillery and musketry, ten thousand\nof our soldiers seeming to sink under it; had had time to mass his\nforces; and now it was \"up to him\" to hurl them against our centre. It\nwas the strategy inaugurated by Epaminondas at Leuctra and perfected by\nNapoleon in many a hard battle, breaking the enemy's centre by an\nirresistible charge, dividing and conquering. Rodes had been killed at a\nbattery in front of our brigade. His veterans and Gordon's, six thousand\nstrong[3] constituted the charging column. Neither Sheridan nor any\nother Federal historian appears to have done justice to this charge.\nPickett's at Gettysburg was not more brilliant.\n\nWith yells distinctly heard above the roar they advanced. The batteries\non each side redoubled their discharges. From our irregular line of\ninfantry extending more than a mile blazed incessant sheets and spurts\nof flame, the smoke at times hiding the combatants. Gordon was heading\ntoward the now nearly empty ravine. My horse had just been shot under\nme. I lost two in that fight. Dismounted I walked from the right of my\nbattalion to the left, cautioning my men against wasting their\nammunition, bidding them take sure aim, pick out the rebel officers, and\nnot fire too high. They were shooting from a recumbent position, or\nresting on one knee; lying flat on their backs to reload. As I reached\nthe left, I glanced to the right and saw several of them starting to\ntheir feet, and a little further on, two or three began to run back. I\nrushed to the spot shouting, \"Back to your places!\" I saw the cause: the\nregiments on our right were retreating. I was astounded, for we were\nexpecting an order to advance instantly. At that moment Lieutenant\nHandy, an aide of our brigade commander, rode up, pale, excited, his\nhands flung up as if in despair. My men were springing to their feet.\n\n\"What are those orders?\" I demanded.\n\n\"Retreat, retreat! get to the rear as fast as possible,\" he replied.\n\n\"Battalion, rise up; shoulder arms--\" I commanded. Before I could finish\nthe order, one of Sheridan's staff came on a swift gallop, his horse\nwhite with foam.\n\n\"For God's sake, what does this mean?\" said he; \"this retreat must be\nstopped!\"\n\n\"Battalion, lie down,\" I shouted; \"our brigade commander ordered\nretreat!\"\n\n\"It's all wrong. If this position's lost, all's lost. Here you have some\ncover. Hold it to the last. I'll bring supports immediately.\" Striking\nspurs into his steed, he vanished in the direction of the retreating\nregiments.\n\nExcept the few who had heard my command and remained in position,\nperhaps seventy-five or a hundred, who kept blazing away at the\nConfederates, rising a little to kneel and fire, Grover's Division, and\nall we could see of that of Ricketts, had gone to pieces, swept away\nlike chaff before a whirlwind. Not a Union flag now in sight, but plenty\nof the \"Stars and Bars!\" Our sputtering fire checked some directly in\nfront; but most of the on-rushing masses were deflected by the nature of\nthe ground.\n\nOut of our view and about half a mile in our rear was Dwight's Division,\nthe First of the Nineteenth Corps. It had been left in reserve. It was\nin line of battle and ready for the onset. The confused fragments of\nGrover were rallied behind it. Had the ground been favorable, and had no\nunexpected opposition been encountered, Gordon would have crushed\nDwight.\n\nBut in fewer minutes than we have occupied in describing this charge, a\ntremendous and prolonged roar and rattle told us that the battle was on\nbehind us more than in front. Amid the din arose a quick succession of\ndeafening crashes, and shot and shell came singing and howling over us\nfrom the left. Russell's Division (First of the Sixth Corps) comprising\neleven infantry regiments and one of heavy artillery, behind which the\nbroken battalions of Ricketts had been reassembling, was now smiting the\nright flank of Gordon's six thousand. Although the charge came too late\nwe cannot but admire the strategy that directed it, and the bravery of\nthe infantry of Gordon, Rodes, and Ramseur, as well as that of the\ncavalry of Lomax, Jackson, and Johnson, and of Fitzhugh Lee who fell\nseverely wounded. But they had not foreseen the terrible cross-fire from\nRussell, who died at the head of his division, a bullet piercing his\nbreast and a piece of shell tearing through his heart. Nor had they\ncalculated on confronting the long line of Dwight, nine regiments with\nthe Fifth New York Battery, all of which stood like a stone breakwater.\nAgainst it Gordon's masses, broken by the irregularities of the ground,\ndashed in vain. Under the ceaseless fire of iron and lead the refluent\nwaves came pouring back. Our army was saved.\n\nBut we few, who, in obedience to explicit orders from headquarters, had\nheld our position stiffly farthest to the front when all the rest of\nGrover's and Ricketts' thousands had retreated--we were lost. A column\nbehind a rebel flag was advancing straight upon us unchecked by our\nvigorous fire. Seeing that they meant business, I commanded, \"Fix\nBayonets!\" At that instant the gray surges converged upon us right and\nleft and especially in our rear. We seemed in the middle of the rebel\narmy. In the crater of such a volcano, fine-spun theories, poetic\nresolves to die rather than be captured--these are point-lace in a\nfurnace. A Union officer, Capt. W. Frank Tiemann of the 159th N. Y.,\nMolineux's Brigade, was showing fight, and half a dozen Confederates\nwith clubbed muskets were rushing upon him. I leaped to the spot, sword\nin hand, and shouted with all the semblance I could assume of fierce\nauthority,\n\n\"Down with those muskets! Stop! I command you.\" They lowered them.\n\n\"Who the hell are you?\" they asked.\n\n\"I'll let you know.\" Turning instantly to four or five Confederate\nofficers, I demanded: \"Do you mean to massacre my men?\"\n\nTwo or three replied: \"No. By G--! You've shown yourselves brave, and\nyou shall be respected. Yes, you fought d--d well, seein' you had the\nd--dest brigade to fight against in the whole Confederate Army.\"\n\n\"What brigade are you?\" I asked.\n\n\"Ramseur's old brigade; and there's nothin' this side o' hell can lick\nit.\"\n\n\"You're brave enough,\" said another; \"but damn you, you've killed our\nbest general.\"\n\n\"Who's that?\" I asked.\n\n\"Rodes; killed right in front of you.\"\n\n\"I thought Early was your best General.\"\n\n\"Not by a d-- sight. Old Jubal's drunk--drunk as a fool.\"\n\nI was never more highly complimented than at this moment; but the\nstunning consciousness of being a prisoner, the bitterest experience of\nmy life, the unspeakable disappointment, the intense mortification--these\nare even to this day poorly mitigated, much less compensated, by the\nexcessive praises heaped upon me by those Confederate officers for my\nsupposed bravery. That they were sincere I cannot doubt; for it was\ncustomary on the battle-field for the rebels to strip prisoners of all\nvaluables, but no one of the fifty or one hundred near me was robbed.\nTiemann, whose life I had perhaps saved, was even privileged to keep his\ncanteen of whiskey, of which he gave me a drink by and by to keep me in\ngood spirits! I realized the truth of Burns's lines:\n\n    Inspiring bold _John Barleycorn_!\n    What dangers thou canst make us scorn!\n    Wi' tippenny, we fear nae evil;\n    Wi' usquebaugh, we'll face the devil!\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] _Personal Memoirs_, vol. i., p. 487.\n\n[2] In New Orleans it was known as \"Butler's Dandy Regiment\"; for it was\nthen better dressed than any other. It wore dark blue, which Birge had\nprocured through his uncle, Buckingham, the war governor of Connecticut.\nAt the siege of Port Hudson it had distinguished itself above all other\nregiments by furnishing as volunteers nearly one-fourth of the\ncelebrated \"Storming Column\" of one thousand men called for by General\nN. P. Banks the second day after the disastrous assault on that fortress\n(June 14, 1863). Birge was selected by Banks to lead the forlorn hope.\n\n[3] Six thousand is Gordon's statement in his _Reminiscences_, page 320.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n  At Winchester--On the Road thence to Tom's Brook, New Market, and\n    Staunton.\n\n\nThere were two battles that Monday between Sheridan and Early, the first\nindecisive, though bloody, a drawn game; the second, after a comparative\nlull of several hours, a fierce struggle in which the whole front of the\nSixth, Nineteenth, and Crook's Corps simultaneously advanced, and\nTorbert's Cavalry, arriving at last after their unaccountable delay upon\nour extreme right, made a magnificent charge crumpling up all the\nenemy's left. The victory was real, but not so complete as it should\nhave been. Sheridan ought to have captured or destroyed the whole of\nEarly's army. Instead, he had left them an open line of retreat. He took\nonly five pieces of artillery, nine battle-flags, and some twelve or\nfifteen hundred prisoners; and, to use his own words, \"sent the\nConfederates whirling up the valley.\"\n\nIn the recoil of Gordon's brilliant charge of six thousand about noon,\nwe prisoners were swept along into Winchester, and then locked in the\nold Masonic Hall. The sociable guards took pains to emphasize the\nstatement that George Washington, \"glorious rebel\" they called him, had\npresided as Grand Master in that very room!\n\nAfter several hours we heard a great noise in the streets. Looking out\nwe saw men, women, children, moving rapidly hither and thither, the\ncurrent for the most part setting toward the southwest. The din\nincreased; the panic became general; the Union Army was advancing on\nWinchester!\n\nWe were hustled into the street now filled with retreating hundreds, and\nwere marched rapidly along the turnpike toward the setting sun. The road\ncrowded with artillery, army wagons, common carriages, all pouring along\nin the stampede; a formidable provost guard enclosing us prisoners in a\nsort of hollow column; cavalry in front, flank, and rear; the fields on\neither side swarming with infantry, the whole of Early's army in\nretreat, we apparently in the middle of it; Sheridan's guns still\nbooming in our rear--such was the scene as we two or three hundred\nprisoners were driven on. Our mingled emotions can be better imagined\nthan described. The bitter regret that we had not been slain; the\nconsciousness that we had done our whole duty in facing unflinchingly\nthe storm of shot and shell, never retreating an inch; the evident\nrespect and even courtesy with which I was personally treated; the\ninspiring certainty that our army was victorious, the unspeakable\nmortification of being ourselves prisoners of war!--we sorely needed all\nour philosophy and all our religion to sustain us.\n\nMarching moodily along I was aroused from a sort of reverie by an\nexperience far too common in those days. I had been sick the night\nbefore, and had worn my overcoat into battle. My horse was shot. The\nblood was spurting from him. As he seemed likely to fall, I leaped down.\nWe were in the midst of a rapid advance and I had not time to throw off\nmy overcoat. I was now carrying it swung over my arm. It was growing\ndark. A mounted soldier, whom I took to be an officer, rode up to my\nside and seized hold of the coat. He said, \"I want that overcoat.\" I\nreplied, \"You can't have it.\" \"I must have it.\" \"You shan't have it.\" He\ntugged and I tugged, and as I was on foot and sober I nearly dragged him\nfrom his horse before he let go. During the tussle I repeatedly shouted,\n\"Captain of the Guard--Help! Help!\" The provost captain instantly came\nriding to the spot. \"What's the matter?\" he asked. \"That rascal has\ntried to rob me of my overcoat,\" I answered, pointing to the villain\nwho was beginning to slink away. The captain appeared to recognize him,\nsaid not a word to him, but whispered to me a moment later, \"You are\nentitled to keep your overcoat.\"\n\nWe had had little breakfast and no dinner nor supper, but we suffered\nmore from thirst than hunger. Can we ever forget it? Will the long\nflight never end? On through Kerrstown without halting we march, with\npromise of rest and water at Newtown; no rest nor water there. On from\nNewtown with assurance of water at Middletown. Five minutes at\nMiddletown, and a little muddy water that seems to aggravate our thirst.\nFarther on we cross a bridge under which the water is dashing as if in\nmockery, and the cry \"Water! water!\" rises from a hundred lips, the\nguard joining, for they are suffering like ourselves. Some comfort in\nthat! Past midnight we reach Strasburg and are halted around an old\nwooden pump. It is broken! No water there. Still on and on at a\nsnail-pace, up and over the almost interminable stretch of Fisher's\nHill. At three o'clock in the morning we arrive at a place known by the\nclassical name of Tom's Brook about twenty-five miles from Winchester.\nNever was nectar more delicious than the water of this stream, nor downy\npillow more welcome than the sod on its banks. Without blankets or\ncovering we sank in each other's arms for mutual warmth on the\ndew-drenched grass; and blistered feet and aching limbs and hunger and\nthirst and suffocating despair are all forgotten!\n\nMorning came unnoticed, except by those whom the keen cold permitted to\nsleep no longer. Towards noon we rose, washed without soap or towel,\nwere made to form line, had our names taken, and received as rations a\npint of flour per man, with a little salt, nothing else. How to cook or\nprepare the flour? We learned of the rebel guards a process not laid\ndown in the cook-books. Mixing with water they made a stiff paste or\ndough. This they put around the end of a stick about the size and half\nthe length of a walking cane. The end thus thickly coated they hold over\na little fire till the smoke and flame have sufficiently hardened it.\nThen pull out your stick and you have a thick chunk or cylinder of\nbread, not quite so tough as a gun-barrel, but substantial!\n\nI contrived to keep a little memorandum book. In it I noted down that\nthere were three hundred and eleven of us prisoners; two\nlieutenant-colonels, two majors, four captains, nine lieutenants, and\ntwo hundred and ninety-four enlisted men. These were in the march from\nWinchester. A few may have been added to our number at Tom's Brook.\n\nI have stated how it happened that none of those near me were robbed\nwhen captured. Those at a distance were not so fortunate; for, if\ncircumstances permitted, the Confederates, being themselves sadly in\nwant, often improved the opportunity to grab every article of value. At\nTom's Brook I noted in my diary the following:\n\n    Major A. W. Wakefield, 49th Pa. Cav., was robbed of hat, blanket,\n    and $100 in money. Adjt. J. A. Clark, 17th Pa. Cav., was robbed of\n    cap, boots, mug, pocket-book and money. Lieut. Harrison, 2d Regular\n    Cav., was robbed of gold watch and money. Capt. John R. Rouzer, 6th\n    Md. Inf., was robbed by an officer of hat and $20 in money. Lieut.\n    Wesley C. Howe, 2d Mass. Cav., who recently died at Kansas City,\n    Mo., was robbed by Lieut. Housel of the 6th Va. Cav., of silver\n    watch, spurs, gloves, and $10 in money. Major August Haurand, 4th N.\n    Y. Cav., was robbed of a watch and $60 in money.\n\nIt was a common practice to snatch from a Union prisoner his cap, and\nclap on in lieu of it a worn-out slouched hat; pull off his boots, and\nsubstitute a pair of clumsy old shoes. The plundering was so thoroughly\ndone that it was poetically termed \"going through\" a captive!\n\nAs I was the senior officer among the prisoners, and we seemed likely to\nremain a long time there, I went to the Confederate commander and\nbesought him to allow our three hundred prisoners to occupy a barn near\nby. He refused. I then asked that we be allowed to build wigwams for\nshelter, as there was abundant material at hand. This too was not\npermitted. I also begged in vain that a surgeon should be got to dress\nthe wounds of some of the prisoners.\n\nThe second morning after our arrival, the sleeping men were aroused by\nthe loud voice of Lieutenant Sargent of the 14th New Hampshire Regiment\nexclaiming: \"If you give me any more of your lip, I'll annihilate you!\nI've but one arm\" (his right arm was disabled by a shot), \"but even with\none arm I'll annihilate you on the spot, if you give me any more of your\nlip!\" This was exceedingly gratifying, for it proved that at least two\nof us were not yet \"annihilated!\"\n\nDuring our sojourn at Tom's Brook the Confederates labored hard to\ninduce us to exchange our greenbacks for their paper currency. Our own\nwas sadly depreciated, one dollar of silver or gold being equal to two\nof greenbacks; but one in United States paper was equal in purchasing\npower to eight of theirs. They argued that our money would certainly be\nforcibly taken from us by rapacious guards farther south, and kindly\noffered us four for one. Sergeant Reed of the Provost Guard was quite a\ncharacter. Like Gratiano in _The Merchant of Venice_, he talked loud and\nlong, speaking \"an infinite deal of nothing.\" He had a mania for\nwatches. He told me he now had twenty-seven which he had obtained from\nYankee prisoners, always paying them in good Confederate money. He set\nhis heart upon a little silver watch of mine, which he said he wished to\nbuy and present to one of his lady admirers. I asked:\n\n\"Why do they admire you?\"\n\n\"Because of my bravery,\" he replied; \"none but the brave deserve the\nfair.\"\n\n\"If you are so brave, why are you back here? Why are you not at the\nfront?\"\n\n\"Colonel, I've been in the forefront of the hottest battles. I've been\nfearfully wounded. I'll be hanged if I haven't been one of the bravest\nof the brave. Twice, Colonel, I was shot all into inch pieces; and so\nnow I'm put on light duty!\"\n\nOn Thursday, the third day after our arrival, two \"india-rubber men,\"\ncircus performers, of the 22d Indiana Regiment, gave an exhibition of\n\"ground and lofty tumbling\" for the entertainment of their fellow\nprisoners. They had somehow contrived to retain the gaudy costume of the\nring. They were really skillful. While we were watching with interest\nthe acrobatic performance, a squadron of the Confederate General\nImboden's Cavalry dashed past us. Sergeant Reed, who had just made me an\noffer for my watch, sprang to his feet, exclaiming: \"I swear! there must\nbe a battle going on in front, for there goes Jimboden's Cavalry to the\nrear! Sure sign! I'll be hanged if we ain't gettin' licked again!\" We\nhad heard the cannonading in the distance, but paid little attention to\nit. The Richmond papers, announcing that Fisher's Hill was impregnable\nto the whole Yankee army, were said to have been received about an hour\nbefore the heights were actually carried by storm. Again Early's army\nwas not captured, but sent \"whirling up the valley.\"\n\nWe prisoners thoroughly enjoyed the changed aspect of affairs. At first\nthey marched us directly back a short distance up the slope towards the\nadvancing Yankees; but they seemed suddenly to discover their mistake;\nthey halted, faced about, and marched down. Hilarious and saucy, our\nboys struck up the song and three hundred voices swelled the chorus:\n\n    Rally round the flag, boys, rally once again,\n    Shouting the battle-cry of Freedom--\n      The Union forever! hurrah, boys, hurrah!\n      Down with the traitor! up with the star! etc.\n\ntill Captain Haslett of the provost guard came riding into the midst\nwith savage oaths shouting, \"_Silence!_ SILENCE! SILENCE!\"\n\nTwenty-seven miles, first through stifling dust and then through pelting\nrain, past Hawkinstown, Woodstock, Edenburg, Mount Jackson, brought us\nto New Market. On the march Colonel Brinton of a Pennsylvania regiment,\na new arrival, planned with me an escape. He had campaigned through the\nvalley, was familiar with the lay of the land, and said he had friends\namong the inhabitants. Our plan was to run past the guards in the\ndarkness. As a preliminary step I cut off my shoulder-straps which were\nvery bright. Within half an hour Sergeant Reed came up to me and asked,\n\"Colonel, where's your shoulder-straps?\" I replied, \"I don't wear\nshoulder-straps now I'm a prisoner.\" \"But, Colonel,\" he answered, \"I've\nbeen lookin' at them shoulder-straps since we left Tom's Brook. I wanted\nto buy 'em of you for a present to one of my girls. I'll be hanged if I\ndon't believe you're goin' to try to escape, and so you've cut off your\nbright shoulder-straps. But, Colonel, it's impossible. I'll be hanged if\nI hadn't rather lose any six of the others than to lose you.\" The fellow\nstuck closer to me than a brother all the rest of that night; so close\nthat he lost sight of Colonel Brinton, who actually escaped about\nmidnight at a place called Edenburg! Almost immediately Sergeant Reed\ncame to me and asked, \"Colonel, where's that other Colonel?\" I answered:\n\"You ought to know; _I_ don't!\"--\"I'll be hanged,\" said he, \"if I\nhaven't lost him, a-watchin' you!\"\n\nAt New Market they put us into a dilapidated church building. \"The\nwicked flea, when no man pursueth but the righteous, is bold as a lion,\"\nwas repeatedly misquoted from the _Book of Proverbs_, and not without\nreason. We concluded if that interpretation was correct, we had reason\nenough for obeying the injunction in _Ecclesiastes_, \"Be not righteous\novermuch\"; for the little jumpers were fearless and countless. They were\nreinforced by a Confederate deacon, who recommended two things:\nConfederate paper and \"gospel piety\"; the one would carry us safely\nthrough this world; the other through the next. He would be only too\nhappy to furnish us the currency in exchange for our greenbacks.\n\"Confederate treasury bills and true religion\" was the burden of his\nsong, till one of our literary officers, it was said, squelched him:\n\"Deacon, your recipe of happiness, rebel paper and godliness--Confederate\nmoney and a Christian spirit!--reminds me of what Byron says in one of\nhis wicked poems:\n\n    'Beyond all doubt there's nought the spirit cheers\n    Like rum and true religion!'\"\n\nHe subsided.\n\nWe left New Market at noon, Saturday, September 24th, and marched all\nthe afternoon and all night, past Harrisonburg, Mount Crawford, Mount\nSidney, and Willow Springs, reaching Staunton, Va., about nine in the\nmorning. On the march, forty-three miles in twenty-one hours, we were\nhungry; for the morning ration at New Market was scanty, and they gave\nus nothing more, except a small loaf of wheat bread. Some of the guard\nwere kind to us. One of them, private John Crew, Co. E, 11th Alabama\nRegiment, unsolicited by us, and, so far as I am aware, without hope of\nany reward, would endeavor to bring us apples or other food, whenever we\nhalted. I was careful to write his name in my diary.\n\nAs we trudged along, a lively discussion of slavery ensued. Lieutenant\nHoward of the provost guard was a learned champion of the \"peculiar\ninstitution,\" and I was a pronounced abolitionist. He was an ardent\n\"fire-eater,\" to use the term then in vogue, and I, who had lost my\nposition as principal of the Worcester High School by my defense of John\nBrown, was equally intense. Both were pretty well \"posted\" on the\nsubject. He seemed to be familiar with the Bible and the proslavery\narguments, including drunken Noah's \"Cursed Canaan!\" Moses Stuart's\n_Conscience and the Constitution_, Nehemiah Adams's _Southside View of\nSlavery_, and Rev. Dr. ---- (the name is gone from me) of Baltimore's\nSermons. I was fresh from reading the arguments of George B. Cheever,\nHorace Bushnell, Henry Ward Beecher, Garrison, Phillips, and the rest.\nHe proved that slavery among the Hebrews was a divine institution. I\nanswered they were commanded to \"undo the heavy burdens, let the\noppressed go free, and break every yoke.\" He said Paul sent back the\nfugitive slave Onesimus to his master Philemon; I rejoined, \"Paul said,\n'I send him back, not as a servant, but above a servant, a brother\nbeloved; receive him as myself.'\" He quoted the Constitution of the\nUnited States, the article commanding that fugitive slaves should be\ndelivered back to their masters; in reply I quoted from Deuteronomy the\n\"Higher Law,\" \"Thou shalt _not_ deliver unto his master the servant\nwhich is escaped from his master unto thee.\" He quoted from the great\nspeech of the magnificent Webster in the Senate, March 7, 1850, in which\nhe urged all good citizens to obey the Fugitive Slave Law \"with\nalacrity.\" Waxing hot, I quoted from Beecher:\n\n    As to those provisions which concern aid to fugitive slaves, may God\n    do so to us, yea and more also, if we do not spurn them as we would\n    any other mandate of Satan! If in God's providence fugitives ask\n    bread or shelter, raiment or conveyance at my hands, my own children\n    shall lack bread ere they; my own flesh shall sting with cold ere\n    they shall lack raiment. And whatsoever defense I would put forth\n    for mine own children, that shall these poor, despised, persecuted\n    creatures have at my hands and on the road. The man that would do\n    otherwise, that would obey this law to the peril of his soul and the\n    loss of his manhood, were he brother, son, or father, shall never\n    pollute my hand with grasp of hideous friendship, nor cast his\n    swarthy shadow athwart my threshold!\n\nThe lieutenant finally cited the examples of \"those glorious southern\npatriots who led the rebellion against England during the first American\nConfederacy,\" Washington, Patrick Henry, Madison, Jefferson, \"every one\na slaveholder,\" he proudly exclaimed. I happened to be cognizant of\ntheir views, and responded with some vehemence: \"But Washington's hands\nwere tied so that he could not free slaves till his death. He said it\nwas among his first wishes to see some plan adopted for putting an end\nto slavery. Patrick Henry declared, 'I will not, I cannot justify it.'\nMadison expressed strongly his unwillingness to admit in the national\nConstitution 'the idea that can hold property in man.'\" In a rather\nloud voice I quoted Jefferson, who, in view of our inconsistency in\nviolating the \"self-evident truth\" that \"all men are created equal,\"\nsolemnly affirmed, \"_I tremble for my country, when I remember that God\nis just, and that his justice cannot sleep forever_!\" I had some\nreputation as an elocutionist in those days, and Sergeant Reed, who was\nlistening with open mouth, broke in with, \"I'll be hanged, Colonel, if\nyou warn't cut out for a preacher! By-- I should like to hear you\npreach.\" The best reply I could make was: \"You'll undoubtedly be hanged\nsometime; and if I were a minister, nothing would give me more\nsatisfaction than to be present at your execution and preach your\nfuneral sermon.\" He replied: \"Now, Colonel, you don't mean that. You\ndon't think I'll ever be hanged!\"--\"Indeed I do, if you don't stop your\nprofanity and general cussedness.\"--\"I'll be hanged, if I will,\" was his\nlast word to me.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\n  At Staunton--Thence to Waynesboro, Meacham's, and Richmond.\n\n\nAt Staunton we got a little more light on the value of Confederate\npaper. A chivalrous surgeon who accompanied the provost guard\n(Fontleroy, I think, was his name[4]) politely invited Captain Dickerman\nof the 26th Massachusetts and myself to take breakfast with him in a\nrestaurant. We needed no urging. The Provost Marshal gave consent. The\nsaloon was kept by a negro named Jackson. His entire stock of provisions\nconsisted of nine eggs, the toughest kind of neck beef, bread and salt,\ncoffee very weak, butter very strong. As we sat waiting, the doctor\nremarked with a lordly air that under ordinary circumstances he would\nnot deign to eat with Yankees. I answered good-naturedly: \"I'm as much\nashamed as you can be; and if _you'll_ never tell of it, _I_ won't!\" The\nfood, notwithstanding its toughness, rapidly disappeared. Near the last\nmouthful the doctor said: \"You two will have to pay for this breakfast,\nfor I've no money.\" I had fifteen Confederate dollars remaining of\ntwenty which I had received for a five-dollar greenback at Tom's Brook,\nand I answered: \"Give yourself no anxiety; I'll foot the bill.\"--\"Well,\nJackson,\" said I to the sable proprietor, \"what's the damage?\" He\nreplied, \"I shan't charge you-ones full price. Let's see! Beef, seven;\neggs, two--nine; coffee, three--twelve; bread and butter,\nthree--fifteen; three of you--forty-five. I'll call it only thirty-six\ndollars!\" I paid my fifteen; Captain Dickerman pleaded poverty; and the\ndignified doctor, who had so cordially invited us to partake of his\nhospitality, promised the disappointed Jackson that he would pay the\nbalance at some future day (\"the futurest kind of a day,\" was added in\nan undertone).\n\nRejoining the three or four hundred prisoners, we found, besides the\nConfederate guards, a great crowd of spectators swarming around us. One\nof them, a fine-looking young man, wearing the blue uniform of a United\nStates captain, made his way through the group, and handed me a\ntwenty-dollar Confederate bill! The following dialogue ensued:\n\n\"Here, Colonel, take that.\"\n\n\"I thank you much. Who are you, so kind to a stranger and an enemy?\"\n\n\"I'm one whom you Yanks would hang, if you could catch me.\"\n\n\"Why so? Who are you?\"\n\n\"I'm one of Morgan's guerrillas; wouldn't you hang me?\"\n\n\"I think I should, if you had much of this stuff about you\" (holding up\nthe twenty-dollar bill); \"I've just paid fifteen Confederate dollars for\nan imaginary breakfast.\"\n\n\"Good for you, Colonel. Here, take another twenty. Now you've forty.\nThat'll pay for an imaginary dinner. Good-bye, Colonel! I have an\nengagement--to meet some of your cavalry. Remember, Morgan's guerrillas\nare not rascals, but gentlemen. Good-bye!\" He vanished.\n\nAbout noon those of us who appeared unable to march farther were put on\ntop of freight cars, and carried about a dozen miles east to Waynesboro.\nHere the railway crosses a stream, which encircles a little island just\nnorth of the bridge. The majority had to walk. At dusk that Sunday\nevening all had come. They put us on the island carefully guarded on all\nsides. Never was I more thankful. I had had something good to eat at\nStaunton; had got rested riding on the roof of the car; and I had my\novercoat. Davy Crockett preferred a heap of chestnut burs for a pillow;\nbut I followed the patriarch's example and chose a flat stone. People\nnever allowed me to sing; but I dropped asleep repeating the stanza in\nMrs. Adams's exquisite hymn.\n\n    Though, like the wanderer,\n      The sun gone down,\n    Darkness be over me,\n      My rest a stone,\n    Yet in my dreams I'd be\n    Nearer, my God, to thee!\n\nTowards midnight the cold became so keen that I rose and went to the\nside of a flickering fire. Here excessive misery was for a moment\nhardening the hearts it should have softened. Several prisoners were\nquarreling for a position nearest the embers, each angrily claiming that\nhe had brought the fagots that were burning! Two or three hours later\nseveral of us attempted to slip past the sentries in the darkness, but\nwere stopped before we reached the water.\n\nAt earliest streak of dawn we were marched away. About two miles brought\nus to the Blue Ridge where the railroad tunnel pierces its foundations.\nWe toiled up and on in time to see the sun rise. An ocean of fog lay\naround us. Never shall we forget how royally the King of Day scaled the\ngreat wall that seemed to hem in on every side the wide valley, and how\nthe sea of mist and cloud visibly fled before the inrolling flood of\nlight, unveiling green and yellow fields, flocks and herds, dark\nwoodlands, dwellings yet asleep in peace and plenty, here and there the\nsilver thread of a winding stream with lakes that mirrored the sky, and\nyonder the long stretches of those titanic fortifications encompassing\nall. We were reminded of Shakespeare's sunrise:\n\n    Full many a glorious morning have I seen\n    Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,\n    Kissing with golden face the meadows green,\n    Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy.\n\nAt that instant a train of cars from Charlottesville came sliding along,\nand shot\n\n    Into the tunnel, like a lightning wedge\n    By great Thor hammers driven through the rock!\n\nThe scene startled us by its sublimity, and for a few minutes the hungry\nforgot their craving, the footsore their pain, the hopeless their\ndespair.\n\nThat day's march, though not so long was as severe as any; we were\nexhausted. Private Dolan, Co. K, 159th N. Y., was barefoot. His feet\nwere blistered and bleeding. I begged the commander of the provost\nguard, Captain Haslett, to allow him to get into an ambulance. My\nrequest was not granted. But we soon afterwards passed a large mansion\nin front of which were several girls and women apparently making fun of\nthe unwashed \"Yank\" and evidently enjoying the spectacle. We were halted\njust as Dolan came limping along supported on one side by a stronger\ncomrade. They saw his miserable plight, his distress, his swollen feet,\nand they heard of the stern command to shoot any prisoner who fell out\nor lagged behind. Their faces changed. With tears one or two implored\nthe Captain to let him ride in the ambulance. He yielded to their\nentreaties. Southern ladies almost always seemed handsome to us, but\nthese in my memory have the fairest faces. I thought of Lady Clare in\n_Marmion_, and the words still recur:\n\n    O Woman! in our hours of ease,\n    Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,\n    And variable as the shade\n    By the light quivering aspen made;\n    When pain and anguish wring the brow,\n    A ministering angel thou!\n\nTwo miles before we reached our temporary destination, Meacham's\nStation, my own strength utterly failed. I had borne up so long, partly\nto set an example of cheerful endurance, and partly from something like\nMark Tapley's pride at coming out strong and jolly under the most\ndepressing circumstances. I lay beside the road, remarking to Captain\nHaslett, who immediately came riding to the spot, \"Captain, here's a\nfine chance to try your marksmanship; I can't march any further; shan't\ntry to.\"--\"Colonel,\" he replied with something of pity in his tone and\nmanner, \"I'm sorry to see you so used up. I'm sorry to be obliged to\nmarch you prisoners so hard. I have to keep out of the way of your\ndamned cavalry. You may get into the ambulance.\" So into the ambulance I\nclimbed with some difficulty, and immediately commenced my freemasonry\non the driver. He responded to the signs. He proved to be an\nacquaintance of the Redwoods, a family in Mobile, one of whom had been a\nclassmate of mine at Yale. He gave me some nice milk and some fine wheat\nbread. \"As a Mason,\" said he, \"I'll feed you; share the last crumb with\nyou; but as a Confederate soldier I'll fight you till the last drop of\nblood and the last ditch.\"--\"I hardly know which to admire most, your\nspunk or your milk,\" I replied. Thereupon he gave me another drink, and\ninsisted on my imbibing a little of what he called \"apple-jack.\" I was a\n\"teetotaler\"; but thinking the occasion warranted, I \"smiled\" upon it,\n\"strictly as a medicine!\" \"Apple-jack\" seemed to me the same thing as\n\"Jersey lightning.\" He became quite friendly, but was horribly profane.\n\"Look here,\" said he, \"you seem to be a sort of Christian; cuss me if\nyou don't! What in h--l are you Yanks all comin' down here for?\"--\"You\nhave a gift at swearing,\" I said; \"did you, among your other oaths, ever\nswear to support the Constitution of the United States?\"--\"Well,\nyes.\"--\"That's what's the matter with us,\" I said, \"we're keeping our\noaths and you are breaking yours.\"--\"To h--l with the Constitution of\nthe United States! Our first duty is to our own State. We've a right to\nbe an independent nation, and we will. I'm a guerrilla. If our armies\nare defeated, I'll fight you on my own hook. I'll fire on you from\nbehind every tree and every rock. I'll assassinate every invader. I want\nyou to remember that I'm a guerrilla.\"--\"I like your _spirits_,\" I said.\n\"They are worthy of a better cause.\"--\"Take another swallow of 'em,\" he\nreplied, handing me the canteen. I toasted him: \"Here's hoping you\ngorillas will outlive the Southern Confederacy!\"--\"A d--d equivocal\nsentiment,\" observed my fire-eating, fire-drinking Masonic brother; \"but\nhere we are at Meacham's Station. Good-bye, Yank!\"\n\nAfter our nineteen miles' march it was a most welcome relief to be\nplaced on platform cars, though packed so closely that we could hardly\nstir. We objected that the cars had no tops. \"All the better opportunity\nto study astronomy,\" they replied.--\"The cars have no sides to keep off\nthe wind.\"--\"The scenery is magnificent,\" they rejoined, \"and they'll\nanswer for 'observation cars'; you have an unobstructed view.\"--\"But the\nnights are growing cold.\"--\"You'll keep warm by contact with each\nother.\" Mad at this mockery, hungry, half-frozen, squeezed like fish in\na basket, we took little note of scenery or stars; but it was a comfort\nto believe that our discomfort was caused by the rapid advance of\nSheridan's cavalry.\n\nMore dead than alive, though hardly dead enough to bury, having been\njolted along all the afternoon and all night, we reached Richmond about\nsunrise, Tuesday, September 27th. Numbering now nearly four hundred we\nwere escorted through the streets to the notorious Libby prison and\nhalted in front. The Union officers inside thronged the windows to see\nus come. On every face was a sad, despondent, pitying look, the most\ndiscouraging sight I ever saw. No smiles there nor among us. Conspicuous\namong them was the sorrowful countenance of Lieut.-Col. Charles H.\nHooper of the 24th Massachusetts Infantry, with his long handsome auburn\nbeard. Some one inside whispered loud enough for several of our \"Four\nHundred\" to hear, \"Hide your greenbacks!\" We passed the word down the\ncolumn, \"Hide your greenbacks!\"\n\nA few minutes revealed its significance. We were taken in a body in upon\nthe lower floor. There Major Nat. Turner, prison inspector, cousin of\nthe celebrated Dick Turner of unlovely reputation, made us a speech.\n\n    You will empty your pockets of all valuables. Such as are not\n    contraband of war, you will be allowed to retain. You will deliver\n    up all your Federal money. An equivalent amount in Confederate money\n    will be given you in instalments from time to time, or the whole\n    will be returned to you when you are exchanged. You will turn\n    pockets inside out. If you attempt to conceal anything, it will be\n    confiscated.\n\nWe were made to step forward singly, and were searched. Our coats and\nvests were taken off, also our boots and shoes; and a Confederate\nofficer felt very carefully of all our clothing to make sure that\nnothing was hidden. I \"remembered to forget\" that I had two ten-dollar\ngreenbacks compressed into a little wad in one corner of my watch fob;\nand that corner escaped inspection. Dick Turpin never was the richer for\nthat money. They examined suspiciously a pocket edition of the New\nTestament in the original Greek; but I assured them it was not some\ndiabolical Yankee cipher, and they allowed me to keep it. I made the\nmost of my freemasonry, and they permitted me to retain my overcoat. One\nof our prisoners, it was whispered, had secretly stuffed $1300 in\ngreenbacks into his canteen, but all canteens were taken from us as\ncontraband of war, and nobody but \"Uncle Sam\" profited by the\nconcealment.\n\nHaving \"gone through\" us, they incarcerated the officers in one room,\nthe enlisted men in another.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[4] Dr. Fontleroy was a brother of Mrs. Major Whittlesey, one of my\nfellow professors, instructor in military tactics, at Cornell\nUniversity. Whittlesey was a graduate of West Point, and, while there,\nhad had cadet U. S. Grant under his command!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\n  At Libby--Thence to Clover, Danville, Greensboro, and\n    Salisbury--Effort to Pledge us not to Attempt Escape.\n\n\nThe two rooms at Libby adjoined each other on the second floor, but a\nsolid brick wall was between them. When we entered, about a hundred and\nfifty officers were already there. The first thing that attracted my\nattention was an officer putting a loaf of bread through a small hole in\nthe partition where one or two bricks were removable. He was feeding a\nhungry prisoner. A cap or hat nicely concealed the perforation.\n\nLibby has a hard name, but it was the most comfortable of the six\nConfederate prisons of which I saw the interior. With all his alleged\nbrutal severity, of which I saw no manifestation, and his ravenous\nappetite for greenbacks, for which we could not blame him, Dick Turner\nseemed an excellent disciplinarian. Everything went like clockwork. We\nknew what to expect or rather what not to expect, and _when_! My diary\nfor Wednesday, September 28, 1864, the day after our arrival, reads as\nfollows:\n\n    The issue to us daily is\n                One gill of boiled beans,\n                One quarter gill of bean broth,\n                One half loaf of soft bread,\n                (Four ounces meat) and\n                A little salt.\n\nThere was one inestimable boon, a copious supply of pure water.\n\nThere were at this time no panes of glass, in fact no sashes, in the\nwindows, and the wind swept freely through. The nights were becoming\ncold. Confederate sentries were on the lower floor and outside. They\nkept up a custom rather unusual, I think, during the war, of calling out\nin sing-song tones every hour the number of the post and the time, with\noccasional variations; _e. g._: \"Post number fourteen, two o'clock, and\nall's well.\" Then the next sentinel would sing out, \"Post number\nfifteen, two o'clock, and all's well.\" Then the melodious voice of the\nnext, farther away and sadly unorthodox, \"Post number sixteen, two\no'clock, and cold as h--l!\"\n\nExcept one or two rickety tables and two or three old chairs, there was\nno furniture in the prison. Some of the officers had contrived to save\na little money when searched, and with money it was possible to procure\nsmall articles slyly smuggled in contrary to orders; but most of us were\ndisposed to sing with old Isaac Watts,\n\n    Dear Lord, and shall we ever live\n    At this poor dying rate?\n\nFrom the rear windows we were occasionally entertained with the sight of\nexploding shells, which the indefatigable Grant was daily projecting\ntowards Richmond. Particularly was this the case on the thirtieth of the\nmonth, when the boys in blue captured Fort Harrison, and the next day\nwhen the Confederates made several gallant but unsuccessful attempts to\nretake it. At such times we could see some of the steeples or high roofs\nin Richmond thronged with non-combatants gazing anxiously towards\nPetersburg. The belief that our prison was undermined, a vast quantity\nof gunpowder stored in the cellar, and that Dick Turner had threatened\nand was desperate enough to blow us all into eternity in case of a\nsudden dash of our cavalry into Richmond, somewhat marred the\nsatisfaction with which we contemplated the evident progress of the\nsiege. We could sympathize with the Philadelphia Friend, who said to his\nwife on the introduction of gun-cotton, \"What comfort can thee take,\neven when sitting in thy easy chair, when thee knows not but the very\ncushion underneath thee is an enormous bomb-shell, ready upon the\nslightest concussion to blow thee to everlasting glory?\"\n\nAt three o'clock, Sunday morning, October 2d, we were roused by the\nentry of armed men with lanterns. They furnished each of us with a dirty\nhaversack containing what they called two days' rations of corn bread\nand meat. Then they moved us single-file down stairs. As we passed, they\ntook from each his blanket, even those the officers had just bought and\npaid for. If we expostulated, we were told we were going to a place\nwhere we should not need blankets! For my freemasonry or some other\nunexpressed reason, they allowed me to pass, wearing my overcoat. Then\nthey took us by bridge across the James River, packed us in box-cars on\nthe railway, forty to sixty in each car, and started the train southwest\ntowards Danville.\n\nThe road-bed was bad and the fences on either side were gone. We made\nbut four or five miles an hour. One of our officers declared that they\nkept a boy running ahead of the engine with hammer and nails to repair\nthe track! also that they put the cow-catcher on behind the last car to\nprevent cattle from running over the train! At nine o'clock in the\nevening we reached a place called Clover. We passed the night in Clover!\non the bank beside the railroad, where we studied astronomy! and\nmeditated!\n\nNext morning they repacked us, and we were transported seventy miles\nfarther to Danville. My memorandum book mentions a conversation I had on\nthe way with a very young and handsome rebel, one of the guard. He was\nevidently ingenuous and sincere, pious and lovable. After a few pleasant\nremarks he suddenly asked:\n\n\"What are you Northerners fighting for?\"\n\n\"In defense of the Constitution and the Union. What are _you_ fighting\nfor?\"\n\n\"Every right that is sacred and dear to man.\"\n\n\"What right that is sacred and dear to man had the United States ever\nviolated before you fired on Fort Sumter?\"\n\nOf course he fell back on the Declaration of American Independence, that\n\"Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed\";\nalso on the doctrine so emphatically expressed by Abraham Lincoln in his\nspeech in Congress in 1846; viz.:\n\n    Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the\n    right to raise up and shake off the existing government, and form a\n    new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most\n    sacred right, a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the\n    world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people\n    of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of\n    such people, that can, may revolutionize and make their own of as\n    much territory as they inhabit.\n\nWe arrived at Danville at noon. A heavy rain began to fall. Having been\ntwo days without opportunity to wash, we were drenched for an hour or\ntwo by the sweet shower that seemed to pour from the open windows of\nheaven. When our thoughtful guards concluded that we were sufficiently\ncleansed and bleached, they sheltered us by putting us into coal cars,\nwhere the black dust was an inch deep. That dust was fine! but the\nthought seemed to strike them that our nicely laundered garments might\nget soiled. So in half an hour they took us out and placed us in corn\ncars. It rather went against the grain, but finally I sat down with the\nother kernels on the floor. The weather being inclement, they felt it\ntheir duty to keep us in doors, lest we should catch cold!\n\nIn these elegant and commodious vehicles we were transported next day\ntill we reached Greensboro, North Carolina, about fifty miles southwest\nfrom Danville. Disgorged like poor old Jonah after three days' living\nburial, we were placed in the beautiful open square, and never before\ndid air, earth, trees, and skies seem lovelier. Here they gave each of\nus three horny crackers, \"rebel hardtack,\" out of which some of us\ncarved finger rings that might have passed for bone.\n\nIn those days I was too much addicted to making public speeches, a habit\nwhich I had contracted in Yale College. On the edge of the public green,\nbacked by a hundred prisoners, I was haranguing a crowd of curious\nspectators, telling them how abominably we were treated, exhibiting to\nthem our single ration of flinty biscuit, and consigning them all to\neverlasting perdition, when a well-dressed young man elbowed his way to\nme at the fence. He had a large black shiny haversack swung under his\nleft arm. Patting it with his right hand, he asked:\n\n\"Will you have a snack?\"\n\n\"A what?\" I answered.\n\n\"A snack, a snack,\" he said.\n\n\"I don't know what a 'snack' is, unless it's a _snake_. Yes, I think I\ncould eat a copperhead--_cooked_. Snake for one, if you please; well\ndone.\"\n\nHe thrust his hand into his haversack; took out and gave me the most\ndelicious sandwich I ever tasted. Seeing how I enjoyed it, he emptied\nthe satchel, giving all his food to my hungry fellow prisoners. He told\nme he was just starting on a long journey, and had laid in a good stock\nof provisions. I took pains to write in my journal his name and\nresidence--\"George W. Swepson, Alamance, North Carolina. Lives near the\nCourt House.\" To which I added \"_Vir et Amicus_.\"--\"The blessing of him\nthat was ready to perish\" was upon George W. Swepson.\n\nThat night we slept again on the ground and without covering under the\nopen sky; and again several prisoners, Captain Howe and myself among\nthem, attempted in vain to slip past the sentinels.\n\nNext morning we re\u00ebntered the freight cars. A twelve hours' ride brought\nus at nine o'clock, Wednesday evening, October 5th, to our destination,\nSalisbury, North Carolina. As the \"Four Hundred\" passed into the dark\nenclosure, we were greeted with the cry, \"Fresh fish! Fresh fish!\" which\nin those days announced the arrival of a new lot of prisoners. We field\nofficers were quartered that night in a brick building near the\nentrance, where we passed an hour of horrors. We were attacked by what\nappeared to be an organized gang of desperadoes, made up of thieves,\nrobbers, Yankee deserters, rebel deserters, and villains generally,\nmaddened by hunger, or bent on plunder, who rejoiced in the euphonious\nappellation of _Muggers_! We had been warned against them by kindly\ndisposed guards, and were not wholly unprepared. They attacked us with\nclubs, fists, and knives, but were repeatedly driven off, pitched\nheadlong downstairs. \"_Muggers!_\"\n\nSalisbury prison, then commonly called \"Salisbury penitentiary,\" was in\nthe general form of a right-angled triangle with base of thirty or forty\nrods, perpendicular eighty or ninety. In a row parallel to the base and\nfour or five rods from it were four empty log houses with a space of\nabout four rods between each two. These, a story and a half high, had\nformerly been negro quarters. On each side of the great triangle was a\nstout tight board fence twelve or fifteen feet high. Some two or three\nfeet from the top of this, but out of our sight because on the other\nside, there was evidently a board walk, on which sentinels, four or five\nrods apart, perpetually paced their beats, each being able to see the\nwhole inside of the enclosure. At each angle of the base was a shotted\nfield-piece pointing through the narrow opening. We could see that\nbehind each cannon there was a number of muskets stacked and vigilant\nsoldiers watching every movement inside. Close to the fence outside\nthere were three camps of Confederates, variously estimated to contain\nfrom seven hundred to two thousand in all.\n\nThe number of Union officers in prison after our arrival was about three\nhundred and twenty; the number of non-commissioned officers and privates\nwas suddenly increased from about two thousand to some eight thousand.\nAmong these were non-combatants, refugees, lighthouse keepers, and other\ngovernment employees. Albert D. Richardson, then well-known as a\ncorrespondent of the New York _Tribune_, whose romantic marriage to Abby\nSage by Henry Ward Beecher and whose tragic death created a sensation in\nthe newspaper world, had been held as a prisoner there for several\nmonths. He told us he had found Salisbury a comfortable place. It\nimmediately ceased to be such.\n\nThere stood the empty log houses. We besought the rebel commandant,\nMajor Gee, to allow us officers to occupy those buildings. He said he\nwould permit it on condition that we should sign a stringent parole,\nbinding us on our honor not to attempt to escape! We objected to it as a\npreposterous requirement that, remaining under strict guard and wholly\ncut off from communication with the outside world, we should sign such\na pledge as the only condition on which we could receive decent shelter.\nI asked Major Gee if the rigor of our confinement would be in any way\nrelaxed. He answered bluntly, \"No.\"--\"Well, where's the reciprocity?\" I\ndemanded; \"what are you giving up?\"--\"Well,\" he replied, \"if you don't\nchoose to sign the parole, you can't have the buildings. Other Federal\nofficers have not objected to signing it.\" He showed us the signature of\nGen. Michael Corcoran, who had been colonel of the 69th New York, was\ncaptured at the first battle of Bull Run, was promoted to be brigadier,\nand who raised the so-called \"Corcoran Legion.\" Our senior officer,\nBrig.-Gen. Joseph Hayes of the Fifth Corps, now called a meeting of the\nfield officers, and submitted the question, \"Shall we sign the parole,\nand so obtain shelter? Or shall we hold ourselves free to escape if we\ncan, and so share the privations of our enlisted men, who have no bed\nbut the ground and no covering but the sky?\" I spoke strongly against\nmaking any promise. We voted almost unanimously against it.\n\nGeneral Hayes and others then urged upon the commandant the absurdity\nand meanness of requiring it. It was clear to us and must have been so\nto him that it was for his interest to separate the three or four\nhundred officers from the thousands of prisoners accustomed to obey our\norders. He finally consented that we should occupy the houses without\nimposing any conditions.\n\nParallel to the front of these buildings, about five rods from them and\nextending across the enclosure, was a so-called \"dead line,\" on which\nnine sentinels paced their beats. Another \"dead line\" about four rods\nfrom the high fence paralleled the whole length of each side of the\nprison. It was death to come near these.\n\nAbout eighty officers were assigned to each of the four houses. In each\nan officer was elected to serve as house-commissary. His duty was to\nreceive the rations from Lieutenant-Colonel Hooper, already mentioned,\nacting as commissary-general, to whom the Confederate authorities\ndelivered them in bulk. The house-commissary distributed the food and\nacted as agent representing the house in all communications with\nConfederate headquarters. Col. Gilbert G. Prey of the 104th N. Y. Vols.\nwas elected commissary of house number one; Capt. D. Tarbell, of Groton,\nN. Y., commissary of house number two; Lieutenant Reilly of\nPhiladelphia, of house number three; and I of house four.\n\nEach house contained but two rooms, a lower and an upper, both empty,\nfor the most part without glass windows or even sashes; the spaces\nbetween the crooked logs not stopped up; a single fireplace in each\nhouse, but not half enough wood to keep a blaze; without tables,\nbenches, or chairs; without cooking utensils; without table, knife,\nfork, spoon, or plate; often without cup or dish; without blankets, or\nany clothing but the scantiest summer outfit; without books or papers;\nwithout water sufficient for washing, or soap, if we could possibly get\nwater; we were in a sorry plight as the nights grew colder. And if the\nprospect was bad for us, how much worse for our soldiers across the\n\"dead line,\" who had no shelter, hardly a scrap of blanket! Every rain\nmade their beds a pool or mass of mire. It is not pleasant, but it is a\nduty to record some of the shadows of our prison life, \"lest we forget.\"\n\nOn the open ground outside of what was called the \"hospital,\" October\n8th, a sergeant-major was found dead; October 9th, two private soldiers;\nOctober 13th, five; October 14th, two; October 16th, eleven; October\n17th, seven; October 18th, nine. We could tell how severe the weather\nhad been at night by the number found dead in the morning.\n\nNot far from the prison enclosure was an abundance of growing timber.\nMore than once I besought Major Gee to allow our men to go, under guard\non parole, to get wood for fires and for barracks. He refused. He said\nhe was intending to build barracks for the prisoners as soon as he could\nprocure lumber. I presume that he was sincere in this. I asked in vain\nfor blankets for the men; for tents, but none came till December, and\nthen but one \"Sibley\" tent and one \"A\" tent per hundred prisoners, not\nenough for one-third of them.\n\nWe procured water from a deep well on the grounds. The supply was so\nscanty for the thousands of prisoners that it was always exhausted\nbefore sunrise. Soon after we came the Confederates commenced digging\ntwo new wells. At their rate of progress we reckoned it would take\nseveral months to finish either.\n\nMy memorandum book shows that the issue of food daily at Salisbury,\nthough sometimes partly withheld, was for each prisoner \"one half loaf\nof soft bread; two, three, four, or five ounces of meat; a gill of\nboiled rice, and a little salt.\" I have no doubt that Major Gee meant to\ndeal fairly with us; but he was unprepared for the avalanche that had\ndescended upon him. We are too much in the habit of blaming individual\ncombatants for severities and cruelties that are inherent in the whole\nbusiness of war, either civil or international, and inseparable from it.\nSaid our Lieut.-Gen. S. M. B. Young at a banquet in Philadelphia, \"War\nis necessarily cruel; it is kill and burn, and burn and kill, and again\nkill and burn.\" The truth was more bluntly expressed by the British\nRear-Admiral Lord Fisher, now the first sea lord of the British\nAdmiralty:\n\n    Humanizing war? [said he]; you might as well talk of humanizing\n    hell! When a silly ass got up at the first Hague Peace Conference in\n    1899, and talked about the \"amenities of warfare\" and putting your\n    prisoners' feet in warm water and giving them gruel, my reply, I\n    regret to say, was considered brutally unfit for publication. As if\n    war could be \"civilized\"! If I am in command when war breaks out, I\n    shall issue as my orders, \"The essence of war is violence.\n    Moderation is imbecility. _Hit first, hit hard, hit everywhere._\"\n\nIn this light we may view more charitably the slaying, on the 16th of\nOctober at Salisbury, of Second Lieutenant John Davis of the 155th N. Y.\nIt was a Sunday morning about half-past ten o'clock. One of our fellow\nprisoners, Rev. Mr. Emerson, chaplain of a Vermont regiment, had\ncirculated notice that he would conduct religious services in the open\nair between houses number three and four. The officers were beginning to\nassemble when the sharp report of a musket near by was heard. Rushing to\nthe spot, we found the lieutenant lying on his back dying at the \"dead\nline.\" The sentinel on the fence, a mere boy, had fired upon him, and\nwas now reloading. One of our number, Captain William Cook, unable to\nrestrain his anger, hurled a large stone at him. But the hundreds of\nConfederates in the camps just beyond the fence had sprung to arms at\nthe sound of the firing; the top of the fence was being lined with\nsoldiers; and the vigilant cannoneers at the angles were training their\nartillery upon our dense mass of officers. We prisoners regarded the\nshooting as a brutal murder. The religious exercises were turned into a\nfuneral service. Chaplain Emerson prayed, \"O God! our only refuge in\nthis dark hour, avenge the atrocious murder of our beloved comrade;\nprotect that widow so cruelly robbed of one dearer to her than life; and\nespecially grant that this accursed Confederacy may speedily sink into\nits native hell!\" His text was from _Isaiah_ viii, 12: \"Say ye not a\nConfederacy!\" Next day I asked the officer of the guard if any\npunishment was to be inflicted upon the sentinel. He answered: \"No; we\ndon't punish men for doing their duty.\"\n\nSo vitally important is the point of view in deciding upon the right or\nwrong of an act.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\n  At Salisbury--Great Plot to Escape--How Frustrated.\n\n\nWhen we arrived at Salisbury early in October, we found there a brave\nand sagacious officer, Lieut. Wm. C. Manning of the 2d Massachusetts\nCavalry. He told us he had been held as a hostage in solitary\nconfinement, and would have starved but for the rats he caught and ate.\nHe had been notified that his own life depended upon the fate of a\nperson held in federal hands as a spy. He determined to attempt an\nescape. He was assigned to my house. Taking up a part of the floor, he\ncommenced digging a tunnel. He wrote a solemn pledge which all the\nofficers in the house signed, binding them not to divulge the scheme.\nThe tunnel would have had to be about eight rods long, and its outlet\nwould necessarily have been near a group of rebel tents. Of course it\nwould have been discovered on the morning after its completion, and not\nall could hope to find egress that way. But he believed that his life\nwas still in special danger, and he at once began excavating. The house\nhad no cellar, but there was plenty of room under it for stowing away\nthe loose earth. The ground was not hard, yet it was quite firm, and on\nthe whole favorable for such operations. The work was progressing\nfinely, till the officers were suddenly removed from Salisbury in\nconsequence of the discovery of a great plot.\n\nI had become a good deal interested in Manning and his tunnel plan, and\non the morning of Wednesday, October 12th, I introduced him to General\nHayes, our senior officer. He told us he had for several days been\nconsidering the possibility of organizing the three or four hundred\nofficers, and the five to ten thousand soldiers. He believed that by a\nsimultaneous assault at many points we could seize the artillery, break\nthe fence, capture the three rebel camps, then arm and ration this\nextemporized army, and march away. He showed us a good map of North\nCarolina. He invited all of the field officers to meet that evening in\nthe garret of house number two. All of them accordingly, about thirty in\nnumber, were present. Posting sentinels to keep out intruders, and\nstopping the open windows so that the faint light of a tallow candle\nmight not betray us or create suspicion, we sat down in the gloom.\n\nThe general had modestly absented himself, in order that we might be\nuninfluenced by him in reaching a decision; but our first step was to\nsend for him, and then insist on his taking the chair--_the_ chair, for\nwe had but one! As he had made a careful study of the subject, we\npressed him to give his views. He proceeded to state the grounds of his\nbelief that it was practicable to strike an effective blow for our\nliberation. He told us that he had communicated with a Union man\noutside, and had learned the number and location of the Confederate\ntroops we should be likely to encounter on our march to East Tennessee.\nHe explained at some length the details of his plan, the obstacles we\nshould encounter, and how to overcome them. I shall never forget the\nconclusion of his speech. These were almost exactly his words:\n\n    We must organize; organize victory. The sooner we act the better,\n    provided we have a well-arranged plan. We can capture this town,\n    ration our men, provide them with shoes, clothing, and muskets, and\n    have a formidable army right here at once. It need not take more\n    than half a day. Certainly we can march off within twenty-four hours\n    after the first blow is struck, if we begin right. The enemy have a\n    few guns on the hill, but they are not \"in battery\". We can take\n    these and take the artillery here right along with us. The\n    principal obstacle is here; make the beginning right; master these\n    prisons and these camps, and we are safe. Organize is the word;\n    _organize_. If any one shall betray us, or aid the rebels, or be\n    guilty of robbery or other outrage, I am in favor of a drumhead\n    court martial and a summary execution. Now, gentlemen, I am ready to\n    serve in any capacity, whether to lead or to follow.\n\nColonel Ralston of the 24th N. Y. \"dismounted cavalry,\" as they were\ncalled, spoke next. He was an energetic and dashing officer who fell\nnear me in an attempt to break out of Danville prison on the tenth of\nthe following December. He entered into the particulars of a plan of\naction, showing how easy it would be, with the probable loss of but few\nlives, to capture the three camps with the Salisbury arsenal and the\nartillery. As his particular share in the work, he said he would\nundertake with a small company to disarm the twenty or thirty sentinels\ninside the enclosure, and instantly thereupon to capture the\nheadquarters of Major Gee.\n\nOther officers gave valuable suggestions. Being called upon for my\nopinion, I spoke of the duty we owed our enlisted men to extricate them\nfrom their shocking condition, for they were beginning to die every\nnight on the bare ground, and would soon be perishing by scores. I urged\nthe effect the escape of some eight thousand prisoners would have upon\nthe nation, being equivalent to a great victory; and, better than\nvictory, it would add so many thousands of trained soldiers at once to\nour armies in the field. I insisted that this success would be cheaply\nbought, even if it cost, as it probably would, a hundred lives.\n\nOf all our thirty field officers, only one opposed the scheme\n(Lieut.-Col. G----). He was acknowledged to be brave,[5] but seemingly\nlacking in enterprise. He said in substance, \"I have carefully examined\nthe situation, and have come to the conclusion that it is utterly\nuseless to attempt to escape by force. It can't be done at present. We\nshould be slaughtered by the hundred. If you all vote to try it, I will\njoin you; but in my opinion it is perfect madness.\"\n\nWith but one dissenting voice it was resolved to go ahead. A committee\nof five was immediately appointed to prepare and present a plan of\naction. This committee were Colonel Ralston; Col. W. Ross Hartshorne,\n190th Pa. (the famous \"Bucktail Regiment,\" whose first colonel, O'Neil,\nmy Yale classmate, was killed at Antietam); Col. James Carle, 191st Pa.;\nMajor John Byrne, 155th N. Y.; and myself, Lieutenant-Colonel of the\n13th Conn. We were supposed to be fighting men, and had all been wounded\nin battle.\n\nA similar meeting of field officers was held the following evening. For\ntwo days the committee was almost continually in consultation with\nGeneral Hayes. Great pains was taken to have the plans fully understood\nby all the officers and to secure their hearty co\u00f6peration. By ingenious\nmethods frequent communication was had with the enlisted men across the\n\"dead line\"; sometimes by hurling written communications ballasted with\nstone; several times by Lieutenant Manning and others running swiftly\npast the sentinels in the dark; best of all, because least liable to\ndiscovery, by the use of the deaf-and-dumb alphabet. We were suffering\nfor want of water, and several officers got permission to go outside the\nenclosure ostensibly to procure it, but really to reconnoitre.\n\nThe committee reported the following plan, which was unanimously\nadopted:\n\nThe first object in the movement being to get into a hand-to-hand fight\nas soon as possible; seven columns, each several hundred strong, were to\nmake simultaneous assaults upon six or seven different points. The fence\nbeing the first impediment, every man's haversack and pockets were to\nbe filled with stones to keep down the sentinels who would fire on us\nfrom the top. Some got levers to wrench off boards, others logs to serve\nas rude battering rams, others sharpened stakes which Ralston called\n\"Irish pikes,\" others clubs, or any possible weapon. I had a rusty old\nbayonet.\n\nMajor David Sadler, 2d Pennsylvania Heavy Artillery, with his battalion\nwas to rush and seize the cannon and muskets at the angle on the right;\nMajor John Byrne and his column at the same instant were to pounce upon\nthe big gun and muskets at the angle on our left; simultaneously Colonel\nRalston and his men are to dash upon the nine sentinels on the \"dead\nline\" in front of the officers' houses, in a moment disarming them and\nthe nine of the relief just arriving; then spring to the assistance of\nMajor August Haurand of the 4th N. Y. Cavalry and his battalion who are\ncapturing Major Gee's headquarters and guards and camp on our right.\nCol. James Carle, 191st Pa., with his hundreds is breaking through the\nfence and capturing the rebel camp in rear of the officers' quarters.\nColonel, afterwards General, W. Ross Hartshorne and his 330 men of the\n190th Pa. are to break the fence just above the main rebel camp which is\non our left. My own column of about three hundred men of the Nineteenth\nCorps are to break the fence just below the rebel camp; then Hartshorne\nand I are to leap from opposite sides upon this, the main camp. These\nseven battalions were to some extent organized with field, staff, and\ncompany officers. Every officer and soldier was to be on the _qui vive_\na little before five o'clock in the morning, watching intently for the\nsignal. This was to be the waving of a fire-brand by General Hayes in\nfront of house number two.\n\nQuite a number of officers had no faith in the plot, and they regarded\nit with indifference. A few expressed hostility to it. One captain, who\nhad been a prisoner before and seemed glad to have been captured again,\na bloated, overgrown, swaggering, filthy bully, of course a coward,\nformerly a keeper of a low groggery and said to have been commissioned for\npolitical reasons, was repeatedly heard to say in sneering tones in the\nhearing of rebel sentries, \"_Some of our officers have got escape on the\nbrain_,\" with other words to the like effect. Colonel Hartshorne finally\nstopped such traitorous language by saying with tremendous emphasis:\n\"Captain D----, I've heard a good deal of your attempts to discourage\nofficers from escaping, and your loud talk about officers having 'escape\non the brain.' Now, sir, I give you notice that if you're again guilty of\nanything of the sort, I'LL--BREAK--YOUR--HEAD--WITH--A--CLUB!\"\n\nThe time agreed upon for the seven simultaneous attacks was about an\nhour before sunrise the morning of October 15th.\n\nAs we had feared, the rebel authorities, whether through suspected\ntreachery or otherwise, got wind of our purpose. Towards evening of\nOctober 14th extraordinary vigilance on their part became apparent.\nTroops were paraded, posts strengthened, guards doubled, privileges\nrestricted, and word was passed around in our hearing that a battalion\nof Confederates had just arrived. Their watchfulness seemed unrelaxed\nthrough the night. The shooting of Lieutenant Davis next morning was\ndoubtless in obedience to orders for a more rigorous enforcement of\nrules.\n\nOur outbreak was countermanded and postponed, but preparations\ncontinued. The delay enabled us to perfect our plans, and make our\norganizations more complete. The early morning of October 20th, the 19th\nbeing the anniversary of my birth, was now fixed upon for the\n\"insurrection.\" We essayed to disarm suspicion by an air of quiet\nacquiescence in the lazy routine of prison life, or absorption in the\nsimplest and most innocent occupations whenever any Confederate might\nbe looking on.\n\nWe recognized united and instantaneous action at the signal on the part\nof three hundred officers and several thousand men as the most vitally\nimportant element of success. It was necessary that this should be\nthoroughly understood and emphasized, so that every soldier should be in\nperfect readiness at the critical moment.\n\nSeveral of us had formed a class for oral instruction in French. Our\nteacher was Captain Cook of the 9th U. S. colored troops, a graduate of\nYale. About ten o'clock in the morning of October 18th, as we were\nseated on the ground near house number four, loudly imitating Professor\nCook's _parlez-vous_, Lieut. Wm. C. Gardner, adjutant of one of those\nextemporized battalions of prisoners, brought me a letter he was\nintending to throw across the \"dead line\" to Sergt. Wallace W. Smith,\nrequesting him to notify all enlisted men of the battalion when and\nwhere to assemble silently next morning in the dark, how to arm\nthemselves, from whom to take orders, what signal to watch for, and\nother important matters. I glanced through it, and immediately said:\n\"You'd better not entrust the communication to so hazardous a channel;\nwait an hour till I've done with my French lesson, and I'll cause it to\nbe transmitted by the deaf-and-dumb alphabet.\" If I recollect rightly,\neither Lieutenant Tobey or Lieutenant Morton, both of the 58th\nMassachusetts, was in the class, and promised to convey the contents of\nthe letter safely across to the soldiers by adroit finger manipulation.\nWe were just finishing the French exercise, when Adjutant Gardner came\ngreatly excited, and this conversation followed:\n\n\n\"Good God, Colonel, the rebs have got that letter! I tied it to a stone\nand flung it a long ways over the 'dead line' to Wallace Smith. He\nappeared afraid to pick it up. A reb sentinel stepped away from his beat\nand got it.\"\n\n\"I requested you to wait till I'd done reciting French, and I told you\nI'd then communicate it by the deaf-and-dumb alphabet.\"\n\n\"Well, Colonel, I ought to have done so; but I was anxious to have the\nwork done promptly, and I thought it was perfectly safe. I've tossed\nletters over to Smith several times. I'm worried to death about it.\nWhat's best to do?\"\n\n\"Was your name signed to it?\"\n\n\"No; but my name was on the envelope--an old letter envelope that I had\nwhen we came here.\"\n\n\"Well, Gardner, this is a pretty piece of business! That letter of\ncourse will go very soon to Major Gee's headquarters, and then--there'll\nbe the devil to pay!\"\n\n\"The sentinel handed the letter to the officer of the guard. What had I\nbetter say, if they send for me?\"\n\n\"Say you intended the letter to fall into their hands; that you meant it\nas a practical joke, wanted to get up another scare, and see the\nJohnnies prick up their ears again.\"\n\n\"But, Colonel, like a fust-class fool I put a ten-dollar Confederate\nbill in the envelope. I wanted to give it to Sergeant Smith. That don't\nlook as if I meant it to fall into their hands--does it?\"\n\n\"Gardner, this thing has an ugly look. You've knocked our plans of\nescape in the head--at least for the present. You've got yourself into a\nfix. They'll haul you up to headquarters. They'll prove by the letter\nthat you've been deep in a plot that would have cost a good many lives.\nThey're feeling ugly. They may hang or shoot you before sundown, as a\nwarning to the rest of us to stop these plots to escape. They may send\nfor you at any minute.\"\n\n\"What had I better say or do?\"\n\n\"You'd better make yourself scarce for a while, till you've got a\nplausible story made up. Better disguise yourself and pass yourself off\nas somebody else; so gain time.\"\n\n\"I have it, Colonel; I'll pass myself off as Estabrooks.\"\n\n\nEstabrooks was an officer of the 26th Mass., who had escaped at the\ncrossing of the river Yadkin two weeks previously when we came from\nRichmond. Gardner was a handsome man and perhaps the best-dressed\nofficer in prison; but he now disguised himself.[6] The transformation\nwas complete. In half an hour a man came to me wearing a slouched hat\nand a very ragged suit of Confederate gray. He had been a play-actor\nbefore the war and knew how to conceal his identity. By his voice I\nrecognized him as Gardner! \"Well, Gardner,\" said I, \"this surpasses His\nSatanic Majesty; or, as you would say, beats the devil!\"--\"Colonel,\" he\nreplied, \"I'm not Gardner. Gardner escaped; escaped at the crossing of\nthe Yadkin River. I'm Estabrooks, H. L. Estabrooks, 2d Lieutenant, 26th\nMass. Call me Estabrooks if you please.\"--\"All right, Estabrooks it is.\"\n\nHardly had we had time to whisper around this change of name, when the\nConfederate officer of the guard made his appearance with two or three\nsoldiers, inquiring for the commissary of house number four. I was\npointed out to him. In substance and almost in the exact words this\ndialogue ensued:\n\n\n\"Colonel Sprague, are you commissary of this house?\"\n\n\"I have that honor.\"\n\n\"I want to find Lieutenant Gardner.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"Lieutenant Gardner.\"\n\n\"Who's Lieutenant Gardner?\"\n\n\"I am told he's an officer in house number four; and as you are\ncommissary, you can probably tell me where he is _at_.\"\n\n\"Where he's what?\"\n\n\"Where he's _at_.\"\n\n\nThis was the first time I had ever heard the word _at_ so used at the\nend of a sentence; but it expresses the meaning with admirable\nprecision. I had a slight qualm at lying; but I remembered that even\nGeorge Washington could tell a lie if necessary in war. Pacifying my\nconscience with the fact that we were _outside_ the house at the time, I\nsaid:\n\n\n\"There's no such officer in house four. But I remember an officer of\nthat name at Libby, handsomely dressed, a perfect dandy. I heard that he\nescaped at the crossing of the Yadkin River two weeks ago. Has he been\nrecaptured, and is he going to be shot or hanged? Or have you a letter\nfor him? What's the good news about Gardner?\"\n\n\"I only know,\" he replied, \"that he's wanted at Major Gee's office, and\nhe's an officer in house number four.\"\n\n\"Estabrooks,\" said I to the man at my side, \"do you know of a Lieutenant\nGardner?\"\n\n\"I did know slightly such a man at Libby. You have described him well; a\nfop, a beau, a dandy; just about my size, but he didn't wear rags like I\ndo.\"\n\n\n\"Come with me,\" said I to the Confederate. \"We'll go into the house and\ninquire if any one knows of a Lieutenant Gardner.\" We went in. There\nwere perhaps thirty or forty inside who had got wind of what was going\non. As we entered, I asked in a loud voice, \"Does any officer in this\nhouse know anything of a Lieutenant Gardner?\" Several smiled and\ndeclared it a very singular name. One wanted to know how it was spelled!\nA number were speaking at once. One said he escaped at the Yadkin; he\nknew he got away, for he \"watched him till he got a long distance out of\nsight.\" Another knew a Henry J. Gardner, \"a Know-Nothing\" governor of\nMassachusetts, who knew enough to keep out of the army. Another affirmed\nthat Gardner was dead; he had heard him say \"I'm a dead man,\" and he\nwouldn't tell a lie! My memory is somewhat indistinct of all that was\nsaid; but Gardner is alleged to have whispered the officer thus: \"I have\nbeen a gardener myself; and if Major Gee will parole me and give me good\nclothes and something to eat, I wouldn't mind becoming again a gardener\nin his employ.\" I recollect distinctly that the officer grew impatient\nand he finally asked me, \"Do you say on your honor, Colonel, that you\ndon't know a Lieut. Wm. O. Gardner in this house?\" I answered, \"I do\";\nbut I left him to guess whether I meant \"I do _know_\" or \"I do _say_!\" I\nquieted my conscientious scruples by remembering that the lieutenant's\ntrue name was not Wm. O. but Wm. C.! The baffled officer left very\nangry, and \"_Where's Gardner at?_\" passed into a conundrum.\n\nLate that afternoon, as I was engaged in the delightful employment of\nwashing my fall-and-winter shirt, having for the first time since our\narrival in Salisbury obtained sufficient water for that purpose, the\norder came for all officers to fall in and take the cars for Danville,\nVa. The juxtaposition of three or four hundred Yankee officers with\neight thousand of their enlisted comrades-in-arms was getting\ndangerous.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[5] He had killed three men with his sword at the time of his capture.\n\n[6] \"We run the boy into one of the houses, clipped his hair, shaved\nhim, and placed a new robe on him.\"--_Letter_ of Capt. Wesley C. Howe to\nColonel Sprague, Jan. 30, 1914.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\n  From Salisbury to Danville--The Forlorn Situation--Effort to \"Extract\n    Sunshine from Cucumbers\"--The Vermin--The Prison Commandant a Yale\n    Man--Proposed Theatricals--Rules Adopted--Studies--Vote in Prison\n    for Lincoln and McClellan--Killing Time.\n\n\nAt six o'clock, Wednesday evening, October 19, 1864, we officers, about\n350 in number, were packed in five freight cars, and the train was\nstarted for Danville, Va. The tops of the cars were covered with armed\nguards, two or three being also stationed within at the side door of\neach car. In the darkness about half-past nine Lieut. Joseph B. Simpson\nof the 11th Indiana slyly stole all the food from the haversacks of the\nguards at the door of our car and passed it round to us, while we loudly\n\"cussed and discussed\" slavery and secession! About midnight Captain\nLockwood, Lieutenant Driscoll, and eight or ten other officers leaped\nfrom the cars. The guards opened fire upon them. Lockwood was shot dead.\nSeveral were recaptured, and some probably reached the Union lines in\nsafety. We arrived at Danville at noon October 20th.\n\nThe town at this time contained four, formerly six, military prisons,\neach a tobacco house about eighty to a hundred feet long by forty to\nfifty wide, three stories high, built of brick, low between joints. The\nofficers were put into the building known as prison number three. We\nwere informed by the guards that it had formerly contained about two\nhundred negro prisoners; but that some had died, others had been\ndelivered to their masters or set at work on fortifications, and the\nnumber remaining just before our arrival was only sixty-four. These were\nremoved to make room for us.\n\nExcept about twenty large stout wooden boxes called spittoons, there was\nno furniture whatever in prison number three. Conjecture was rife as to\nthe purpose of the Confederates in supplying us with spittoons and\nnothing else. They were too short for coffins, too large for wash bowls,\ntoo shallow for bathing tubs, too deep for tureens! To me much\nmeditating on final causes, a vague suspicion at length arose that there\nwas some mysterious relation between those twenty oblong boxes and a\nscore of hogsheads of plug tobacco, said to be stored in the basement. A\n_tertium_ QUID, a solution of the tobacco, might afford a solution of\nthe spittoon mystery!\n\nA dozen water buckets were put into each of the two upper rooms to which\nall the officers were restricted; also a small cylinder coal stove;\nnothing else until December, when another small stove was placed there.\nWinter came early and unusually cold. The river Dan froze thick. It was\nsome weeks before we prevailed upon the prison commandant to replace\nwith wood the broken-out glass in the upper rooms. The first floor was\nuninhabitable.\n\nSo with no bed nor blanket; no chairs, benches, nor tables; no\ntable-ware nor cooking utensils; not even shovel, poker, or coal-scoop;\nmost of us were in a sorry plight. The little stoves, heated white-hot,\nwould have been entirely inadequate to warm those rooms; but the coal\nwas miserably deficient in quality as well as quantity. The fire often\nwent out. To rekindle it, there was no other way than to upset the\nwhole, emptying ashes and cinders on the floor. At best, the heat was\nobstructed by a compact ring of shivering officers, who had pre\u00ebmpted\npositions nearest the stoves. They had taken upon themselves to \"run\"\nthe thing; and they did it well. We called them \"The Stove Brigade.\" In\nspite of their efforts, they like the rest suffered from cold.\n\nThree or four of us, as a sanitary measure, made it a point to see, if\npossible, the funny, or at least the bright side of everything, turn\nmelancholy to mirth, shadow to sunshine. When every officer complained\nof cold, we claimed to anticipate the philosophers, Tyndall, Huxley, and\nthe other physicists, in declaring that \"heat is a mode of _motion_,\"\nand brisk bodily exercise will infallibly demonstrate the fact! When, as\nwas usually the case, all were hungry, we announced as a sure cure for\nindigestion, \"stop _eating_!\" When our prisoner chaplain Emerson on a\nSunday afternoon prayed for the dear ones we expected to see no more,\nand even the roughest and most profane were in tears, we said with old\nHomer, \"_Agathoi aridakrues andres_\" (\"Gallant men are easily moved to\ntears\"), or with Bayard Taylor, \"The bravest are the tenderest, the\nloving are the daring.\"\n\nMost humiliating of all was the inevitable plague of vermin. \"Hard\nindeed,\" one officer was accustomed to say, \"must have been Pharaoh's\nheart, and tougher yet his epidermis, if the lice of the third Egyptian\nplague were like those of Danville, and yet he would not 'let Israel\ngo.'\" Wearing the same clothing night and day, sitting on the bare\nfloors, sleeping there in contact with companions not over-nice, no\npatient labor, no exterminating unguent, afforded much relief. We lost\nall squeamishness, all delicacy on the subject, all inclination for\nconcealment. It was not a returned Danville prisoner who was reported to\nhave gone into a drug store in New York stealthily scratching and\nsaying, \"I want some unguentum; don't want it for myself; only want it\nfor a friend.\" But it was reported and believed that in April one of\nthem entered an apothecary shop in Annapolis plying his finger-nails and\nhurriedly asking, \"Have you any bmsquintum?\"--\"From your manner,\"\nanswered the courteous druggist, \"I think what you want is\nunguentum.\"--\"Yes, _run git 'em_; I guess that _is_ the true\nname.\"--\"Unguentum, sir\"; said the shopkeeper. \"How much unguentum do\nyou want?\"--\"Well, I reckon about two pound!\"--\"My dear sir, two pounds\nwould kill all the lice in Maryland.\"--\"Well, I vow I believe I've got\n'em!\"\n\nLieut.-Col. Robert C. Smith of Baltimore, who took command of the\nDanville prisons soon after our arrival, appeared to be kind-hearted,\ncompassionate, but woefully destitute of what Mrs. Stowe calls\n\"faculty.\" He was of medium height, spare build, fair complexion, sandy\nhair, blue eyes, of slightly stooping figure; on the whole rather\ngood-looking. He was slow of speech, with a nasal twang that reminded me\nof Dr. Horace Bushnell. His face always wore a sad expression. He had\nbeen a student at Yale in the forties a few years before me. Once a\nprisoner himself in our hands and fairly treated, he sympathized with\nus. He had been wounded, shot through the right shoulder. When I visited\non parole the other Danville prisons in February, a Yankee soldier was\npointed out to me as wearing Colonel Smith's blood-stained coat, and\nanother was said to be wearing his vest. I had repeated interviews with\nhim, in which he expressed regret at not being able to make us more\ncomfortable. He said more than once to me, \"I have no heart for this\nbusiness. It requires a man without any heart to keep a military prison.\nI have several times asked to be relieved and sent to the front.\" An\nofficer of forceful executive ability might have procured for us lumber\nfor benches, more coal or wood for the stoves, some straw or hay for\nbedding, blankets or cast-off clothing for the half naked; possibly a\nlittle food, certainly a supply of reading matter from the charitably\ndisposed. Single instances of his compassion I have mentioned. I shall\nhave occasion to speak of another. But the spectacle of the hopeless\nmass of misery in the four Danville prisons seemed to render him\npowerless, if not indifferent. As Mrs. Browning puts it:\n\n                            A red-haired child,\n    Sick in a fever, if you touch him once,\n    Though but so little as with a finger-tip,\n    Will set you weeping; but a million sick!\n    You could as soon weep for the rule of three,\n    Or compound fractions!\n\nLike too many officers both Union and Confederate, he was often in\nliquor; liquor was always in him. This \"knight of the rueful\ncountenance,\" of the sad heart, the mourning voice, the disabled right\narm, and the weakness for apple-jack!--his only hope was to have an\nexchange of prisoners; but Lincoln and Stanton and Grant would not\nconsent to that. The last I heard of him was when a letter of his was\nshown me by Lieutenant Washington, a Confederate, a distant relative of\nthe great George. In it Smith, who had been absent a week from Danville,\ncomplained that he had had \"no liquor for three days,\" and that he was\n\"painfully sober\"!\n\n\"Necessity,\" says the old apothegm, \"is the mother of invention.\" It was\nsurprising, how much we accomplished in a few weeks towards making\nourselves comfortable. Bone or wood was carved into knives, forks,\nspoons, buttons, finger-rings, masonic or army badges, tooth-picks,\nbosom pins, and other ornaments; corn-cobs were made into smoking\npipes; scraps of tin or sheet-iron were fashioned into plates for eating\nor dishes for cooking; shelves were made by tying long wood splinters\ntogether; and many \"spittoons,\" which were soon rendered superfluous,\nbecause the two entire rooms were transformed into vast spittoons, were\ninverted, and made useful as seats which we called sofas.\n\nMany ingeniously wrought specimens of Yankee ingenuity were sold\nclandestinely to the rebel guards, who ventured to disobey strict\norders. No skinflint vender of wooden nutmegs, leather pumpkin-seeds,\nhorn gunflints, shoe-peg oats, huckleberry-leaf tea, bass-wood cheeses,\nor white-oak hams, ever hankered more for a trade. Besides the products\nof our prison industry, they craved watches, rings, gold chains, silver\nspurs, gilt buttons, genuine breast-pins, epaulets; anything that was\nnot manufactured in the Confederacy. Most of all, they longed for\ngreenbacks in exchange for rebel currency. So in one way or another many\nof us contrived to get a little money of some sort. With it we could buy\nof the sutler, who visited us from time to time, rice, flour, beans,\nbacon, onions, dried apple, red peppers, sorghum syrup, vinegar, etc.\n\nPerhaps the best result of our engaging in handicraft work was the\nrelief from unspeakable depression of spirits. Some of us saw the\nimportance of making diversion on a large scale. To this end we planned\nto start a theatre. Major Wm. H. Fry, of the 16th Pa. Cavalry, who knew\nall about vaudeville in Philadelphia, was a wise adviser. Young Gardner,\nwho had been an actor, heartily joined in the movement. I procured a\nworn-out copy of Shakespeare. It seemed best to begin with the\npresentation of the first act in _Hamlet_. Colonel Smith and other rebel\nofficers promised to aid us. We assigned the parts and commenced\nstudying and rehearsing. Gardner was to be Hamlet; Lieut.-Col. Theodore\nGregg, 45th Pa., was to be Claudius, the usurping king; the smooth-faced\nCapt. William Cook was to be the queen-mother Gertrude; Capt. W. F.\nTiemann, 159th N. Y., was to personate Marcellus; Lieut. C. H. Morton of\nFairhaven, Mass., I think, was Horatio; and I, having lost about forty\npounds of flesh since my capture--it was thought most appropriate that I\nshould be the Ghost! Every morning for some weeks on the empty first\nfloor we read and rehearsed, and really made fine progress. But when we\ngot ready to produce in theatric style, with slight omissions, the first\nact, the rebels seemed suspicious of some ulterior design. They refused\nto furnish a sword for Hamlet, a halberd for Marcellus, muskets for\nBernardo and Francisco, a calico gown for the queen, or even a white\nshirt for the Ghost. This was discouraging. When the lovely queen-mother\nGertrude appealed to her son--\n\n    Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off,--\n\nhe answered, \"I swear I can't do it!\" One November morning, as we were\nrehearsing and shivering on the windy first floor, he ejaculated with\nsome emphasis, and with ungentle expletives not found in the original\ntext,\n\n    The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold;\n\n\"I move, Colonel, that we 'bust up' this theatre.\" So the \"legitimate\ndrama\" vanished from Danville.\n\nAbout this time my copy of the Greek New Testament was stolen from me,\nan instance, perhaps, of piety run mad.\n\nA week or two before this, the lower room, in which I then lodged,\ncontaining about a hundred and seventy officers, was getting into such a\ncondition that I felt it my duty to call a meeting to see what measures\ncould be adopted to promote comfort and decency. I was not the senior in\nrank, but Colonel Carle did not feel himself authorized to issue\norders. Some sort of government must be instituted at once. Nearly all\nrecognized the necessity of prompt action and strict discipline. A\ncommittee was appointed consisting of myself, Major John W. Byron, 88th\nN. Y., and another officer whose name escapes me, to draw up rules and\nregulations. We presented the following:\n\n    RULES UNANIMOUSLY ADOPTED IN THE LOWER ROOM,\n    DANVILLE, VA., PRISON, OCT. 26, 1864:\n\n    1. The room shall be thoroughly policed (swept, etc.) four times\n        each day by the messes in succession; viz., at sunrise and\n        sunset, and immediately after breakfast and dinner.\n\n    2. There shall be no washing in this room.\n\n    3. No emptying slops into spittoons.\n\n    4. No washing in the soup buckets or water buckets.\n\n    5. No shaking of clothes or blankets in this room.\n\n    6. No cooking inside the stoves.\n\n    7. No loitering in the yard to the inconvenience of others.\n\n    8. No person shall be evidently filthy or infested with vermin.\n\n    9. No indecent, profane, or ungentlemanly language in this room.\n\n    10. No conduct unbecoming an officer and gentleman about these\n        premises.\n\n    11. No talking aloud at night after nine o'clock.\n\n    12. An officer of the day shall be appointed daily by the senior\n        officer, whose duty shall be to see that these rules are\n        strictly enforced, and to report to the senior officer any\n        violation thereof.\n\n    13. In case of any alleged violation of any of these rules, the\n        senior officer of the room shall appoint a Court[7] to consist\n        of thirteen disinterested officers, who shall fairly try and\n        determine the matter, and in case of conviction the offender's\n        rations shall be stopped, or the commander of the prison be\n        requested to confine the offender in a cell according to the\n        sentence of the Court; and it shall be the duty of every officer\n        to have such offender court-martialed after rejoining his\n        command.\n\n        For the Committee. H. B. Sprague, Oct, 26, 1864.\n\nThe prison commandant promised that he would execute any sentence short\nof capital punishment. But one case was tried by such court. The offense\nwas a gross violation of rule 9. The culprit was let off with a sharp\nreprimand by General Hayes; but my first act after the exchange of\nprisoners was to prefer charges and specifications against him. The\nbeast was court-martialed at Annapolis in the latter part of July, '65.\n\nThe observance of these rules wrought wonders in correcting evils which\nhad become almost unendurable, and in promoting cheerfulness, good\nbehavior, and mutual esteem.\n\nMany letters were written to us. Few of them reached their destination.\nThe first I received was from Miss Martha Russell, a lady of fine\nliterary ability, a friend of Edgar A. Poe, living at North Branford,\nConn. In raising my company (Co. H., 13th Conn.), I had enlisted her\nbrother Alfred. Under strict military discipline he had become a\nvaluable soldier, and I had appointed him my first sergeant. At the\nbattle of Irish Bend, La., in which I was myself wounded, he was shot\nthrough the neck. The wound seemed mortal, but I secured special care\nfor him, and his life was spared as by miracle. His sister's letter\nbrought a ray of sunshine to several of us. It assured us that we were\ntenderly cared for at home. She quoted to cheer us the fine lines of the\nCavalier poet Lovelace,\n\n    Stone walls do not a prison make,\n      Nor iron bars a cage;\n    Minds innocent and quiet take\n      That for a hermitage.\n\nA well-grounded conviction prevailed among the prisoners that the\nConfederate government was anxious to secure an exchange of prisoners,\nbut that the Federal government would not consent. The reason was\nevident enough. The Confederate prisoners in the North, as a rule, were\nfit for military duty; the Union prisoners in the South were physically\nunfit. A general exchange would have placed at once, say, more than\nforty thousand fresh soldiers in the rebel ranks, but very few in ours.\nConscription for military service had been tried in the North with\nresults so bitter that it seemed unwise to attempt it again. Better let\nthe unfortunates in southern prisons perish in silence--that appeared\nthe wisest policy. But to us prisoners it appeared a mistake and gross\nneglect of duty. Between our keen sense of the wrong in allowing us to\nstarve, and our love for Lincoln and the Union, there was a struggle.\nOur patriotism was put to the test on the day of the Presidential\nelection, Tuesday, November 8th. Discouraging as was the outlook for us\npersonally, we had confidence in the government and in the justice of\nour cause. Pains was taken to obtain a full and fair vote in the\nofficers' prison. There were two hundred seventy-six for Lincoln;\nninety-one for McClellan. Under the circumstances the result was\nsatisfactory.\n\nVery earnest, if not acrimonious, were the discussions that immediately\npreceded and followed. Some of us realized their importance, not so much\nin arriving at a correct decision on the questions at issue, as in\npreventing mental stagnation likely to result in imbecility if not\nactual idiocy. By the stimulus of employment of some kind we must fight\nagainst the apathy, the hopeless loss of will power, into which several\nof our comrades seemed sinking. Mrs. Browning well says:\n\n                        Get leave to work\n    In this world,--'tis the best you get at all.\n                    ... Get work; get work;\n    Be sure 'tis better than what you work to get!\n\nSome of us started historical debates, and new views were presented\nwhich furnished both amusement and instruction. One colonel, more\nredoubtable in battle than in dialectics, who had been shot through from\nbreast to back, gravely informed us that the geometer Euclid was an\nearly English writer! A kindly visitor, Dr. Holbrook, made me a present\nof Hitchcock's _Elementary Geology_. It was not quite up to date, having\nbeen published about twenty-five years before, but I found the study\ninteresting. Grieved at having lost from my books three years in\nmilitary service, I endeavored with three or four companions to make up\nfor the deficiency by taking lessons in French. Our teacher was Captain\nCook, already mentioned as teaching us French at Salisbury. As we had no\nbooks, the instruction was oral. I was delighted to observe how much a\nknowledge of Latin facilitated the acquisition of the modern tongue. A\nfew weeks later upon the arrival of Major George Haven Putnam, Adjutant\nat that time of the 176th N. Y., several of us commenced under him the\nstudy of German. Here too the teaching was oral; but I was able to buy\nOehlschl\u00e4ger's _German Reader_; took special pleasure in memorizing some\nof the selections, particularly from the poets Gleim, Claudius, Goethe,\nSchiller, and Uhland; and I was already familiar with some stanzas of\nArndt's noble _The German Fatherland_, sung so often to me by my\nLieutenant Meisner, slain by my side in battle. Some of those songs\nstill ring in my ears. General Hayes, Major Putnam, and two or three\nothers took lessons in Spanish from a native of Mexico, 2d Lieut. John\nGayetti (I think that was his name), of Battery B, 2d Pa. Artillery.\n\nCheckerboards and chessboards were prepared from the rudest materials,\nand many were the games with which some of our comrades sought to\nbeguile the weary hours. Capt. Frank H. Mason of the 12th Cavalry had\nthe reputation of being our best chess player and young Adjutant Putnam\nwas his most persistent opponent.\n\nNo one needs to be told that old soldiers are great story-tellers,\ndrawing upon their imagination for facts. This talent was assiduously\ncultivated in our prison.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[7] See Appendix.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\n  Exact Record of Rations in Danville--Opportunity to Cook--Daily\n    Routine of Proceedings from Early Dawn till Late at Night.\n\n\nOur imprisonment at Danville lasted from October 20, '64, to February\n17, '65, one hundred and twenty days. I kept a careful daily record of\nthe rations issued to us, as did also Lieut. Watson W. Bush, 2d N. Y.\n\"Mounted Rifles.\" After our removal from Danville to Richmond for\nexchange, we compared our memoranda, and found they substantially\nagreed. During the one hundred and twenty days the issues were as\nfollows:\n\n    _Bread._ A loaf every morning. It was made of unsifted corn-meal,\n    ground \"cobs and all.\" Pieces several inches in length of cobs\n    unground were sometimes contained in it. It always seemed wholesome,\n    though moist, almost watery. Its dimensions were a little less than\n    7 inches long, 3 or 4 wide, and 3 thick. I managed to bring home a\n    loaf, and we were amazed at the shrinkage to a quarter of its\n    original size. It had become very hard. We broke it in two, and\n    found inside what appeared to be a dishcloth!\n\n    _Meat._ Forty-three times. I estimated the weight at from 2 to 5 or\n    6 ounces. In it sometimes were hides, brains, heads, tails, jaws\n    with teeth, lights, livers, kidneys, intestines, and nameless\n    portions of the animal economy.\n\n    _Soup._ Sixty-two times; viz., bean soup forty-seven times; cabbage\n    nine times; gruel six. It was the thinnest decoction of small black\n    beans, the slightest infusion of cabbage, or the most attenuated\n    gruel of corn-cob meal, that a poetic imagination ever dignified\n    with the name of _soup_!\n\n    _Potatoes._ Seven times. Seldom was one over an inch in diameter.\n\n    _Salt fish._ Five times. They call it \"hake.\" It was good. \"Hunger\n    the best sauce.\"\n\n    _Sorghum syrup._ Three times. It was known as \"corn-stalk molasses.\"\n    It was not bad.\n\nNothing else was given us for food by the Confederates at Danville. The\nrations appeared to deteriorate and diminish as the winter advanced. My\ndiary shows that in the fifty-three days after Christmas we received\nmeat only three times.\n\nManifestly such supplies are insufficient to sustain life very long. By\npurchase from the rebel sutler who occasionally visited us, or by\nsurreptitious trading with the guards, we might make additions to our\nscanty allowance. I recollect that two dollars of irredeemable treasury\nnotes would buy a gill of rice or beans or corn, a turnip, onion,\nparsnip, or small pickled cucumber!\n\nThe Confederate cooking needed to be supplemented. Here the cylinder\ncoal-stoves were made useful. The tops of them were often covered with\ntoasting corn bread. Tin pails and iron kettles of various capacities,\nfrom a pint to several quarts, suspended from the top by wooden hooks a\nfoot or two in length, each vessel resting against the hot stove and\ncontaining rice, beans, Indian corn, dried apple, crust coffee, or other\ndelicacy potable or edible slowly preparing, made the whole look like a\nbig black chandelier with pendants. We were rather proud of our prison\ncuisine. Cooking was also performed on and in an old worn-out\ncook-stove, which a few of our millionaires, forming a joint-stock\ncompany for the purpose, had bought for two hundred Confederate dollars\nlate in the season, and which the kind prison commander had permitted\nthem to place near the southwest end of the upper room, running the pipe\nout of a window. Culinary operations were extensively carried on also in\nthe open yard outside, about forty feet by twenty, at the northeast end\nof the building. Here the officer would build a diminutive fire of chips\nor splinters between bricks, and boil or toast or roast his allowance.\nWe were grouped in messes of five to ten or twelve each. Happy the club\nof half a dozen that could get money enough and a big enough kettle to\nhave their meal prepared jointly.\n\nSuch was the case with my own group after the lapse of about two months.\nWe had been pinched; but one morning Captain Cook came to me with\nradiant face and said: \"Colonel, I have good news for you. _I_'m going\nto run this mess. My folks in New York have made arrangement with\nfriends in England to supply me with money, and I've just received\nthrough the lines a hundred dollars. We'll live like fighting-cocks!\"\nAdjt. J. A. Clark, 17th Pa. Cav., was our delighted cook. Shivering for\nan hour over the big kettle amid the ice and snow of the back yard, he\nwould send up word, \"Colonel, set the table for dinner.\" To \"set the\ntable\" consisted in sweeping a space six or eight feet square, and\ndepositing there the plates, wood, tin, or earthen (mine was of wood; it\nhad cost me a week's labor in carving). The officers already mentioned,\nCook, Clark, Bush, Sprague, with Lieut. E. H. Wilder, 9th N. Y. Cav.,\nsit around in the elegant Turkish fashion, or more classical recline\nlike the ancients in their symposia, each resting on his left elbow,\nwith face as near as possible to the steaming kettle, that not a smell\nmay be lost!\n\nWood was scarce. It was used with most rigid economy. Many joists\noverhead had been sawed off by Lieut. Lewis R. Titus of the _Corps\nD'Afrique_, using a notched table-knife for a saw. In this way the\nVermont Yankee obtained pieces for cooking, but he weakened the\nstructure till some officers really feared the roof might come tumbling\nabout our heads; and I remember that the prison commandant, visiting the\nupper room and gazing heavenward, more than once ejaculated irreverently\nthe name of the opposite region!\n\nThrough the kindness of a Confederate officer or bribing the guards a\nlog four or five feet in length is sometimes brought in. Two or three\ninstantly attack it with a blunt piece of iron hoop to start the\ncleaving, and in less time than one could expect such a work to be done\nwith axes it is split fine with wooden wedges.\n\nNaturally one of the ever-recurring topics of discussion was the\nglorious dishes we could prepare, if we but had the materials, or of\nwhich we would partake if we ever got home again. In our memorandum\nbooks we are careful to note down the street and number of the most\nfamous restaurant in each of the largest cities, like Delmonico's in New\nYork or Young's in Boston.\n\nWith few exceptions one day is like another. At earliest dawn each of\nthe two floors is covered with about a hundred and seventy-five\nprostrate forms of officers who have been trying to sleep. Soon some one\nof them calls in a loud voice. \"_Buckets for water!_\" The call is\nrepeated. Five or six, who have predetermined to go early to the river\nDan that seemed nearly a quarter of a mile distant, start up and seize\nlarge wooden pails. They pass to the lower floor. One of them says to\nthe sentinel on duty at the southwest corner door, \"Sentry, call the\nsergeant of the guard; we want to go for water.\" He complies. In five,\nten, or fifteen minutes, a non-commissioned officer, with some half a\ndozen heavily armed soldiers, comes, the bolts slide, the doors swing,\nour squad passes out. They are escorted down the hill to the river, and\nback to prison. By this time it is broad daylight. Many are still lying\nsilent on the floor. Most have risen. Some are washing, or rather wiping\nwith wet handkerchief, face and hands; others are preparing to cook,\nsplitting small blocks of wood for a fire of splinters; a few are\nnibbling corn bread; here and there one is reading the New Testament.\nThere is no change or adjustment of clothing, for the night dress is the\nsame as the day dress. We no longer wonder how the cured paralytic in\nScripture could obey the command, \"Take up thy bed and walk\"; for at\nheaviest the bed is but a blanket!\n\nNow, for a half-hour, vengeance on vermin that have plagued us during\nthe night! We daily solve the riddle of the fishermen's answer to \"What\nluck?\" the question which puzzled to death\n\n    \"The blind old bard of Scio's rocky isle,\"\n\n    \"_As many as we caught we left; as many as we could not catch we\n    carry with us_!\"\n\nAbout eight o'clock the cry is heard from the southwest end of the room,\n\"Fall in for roll-call! fall in!\" to which several would impudently add,\n\"Here he comes! here he is!\" A tall, slim, stooping, beardless,\nlight-haired phenomenon, known as \"the roll-call sergeant,\" enters with\ntwo musketeers. We officers having formed in two ranks on the northwest\nside of the room, he passes down the front from left to right slowly\ncounting. Setting down the number in a memorandum book, he commands in a\nsqueaky feminine voice, \"Break ranks,\" which most of us have already\ndone. Much speculation arose as to the nature and status of this\nsingular being. His face was smooth and childlike, yet dry and wrinkled,\nso that it was impossible to tell whether he was fifteen or fifty. A\ncommittee was said to have waited upon him, and with much apparent\ndeference asked him as to his nativity, his age, and whether he was\nhuman or divine, married or single, man or woman. They said he answered\nsadly, \"Alas! I'm no angel, but a married man, thirty-seven years old,\nfrom South Carolina. I have three children who resemble me.\"\n\nImmediately after roll-call, corn bread is brought in for breakfast. It\nis in large squares about two feet in length and breadth, the top of\neach square being marked for cutting into twenty or twenty-five rations.\nColonel Hooper and Capt. D. Tarbell receive the whole from the rebel\ncommissary, and then distribute to each mess its portion. The mess\ncommissary endeavors to cut it into equal oblong loaves. To make sure of\na fair distribution, one officer turns his back, and one after another\nlays his hand upon a loaf and asks, \"Whose is this?\" The officer who has\nfaced about names some one as the recipient.\n\nClear the way now for sweepers. From one end of the room to the other\nthey ply their coarse wooden brooms. Some officers are remarkably neat,\nand will scrape their floor space with pieces of glass from the broken\nwindows; a few are listless, sullen, utterly despondent, regardless of\nsurroundings, apparently sinking into imbecility; the majority are\ntaking pains to keep up an appearance of respectability.\n\nMany who have been kept awake through the night by cold or rheumatism\nnow huddle around the stoves and try to sleep. Most of the remainder, as\nthe weeks pass, glide into something like a routine of occupations. For\nseveral weeks I spent an hour or two every day carving with a broken\nknife-blade a spoon from a block of hard wood. Sporadic wood-splitting\nis going on, and cooking appears to be one of the fine arts. An hour\ndaily of oral exercises in French, German, Spanish, Latin, or Italian,\nunder competent teachers, after the Sauveur or Berlitz method, amused\nand to some extent instructed many. Our cavalry adjutant, Dutch Clark,\nso called from his skill in the \"Pennsylvania Dutch\" dialect made\nperhaps a hundred familiar with the morning salutation, \"_Haben Sie gut\ngeschlafen?_\" (\"Have you slept well?\") Lieut. Henry Vander Weyde, A. D.\nC., 1st Div., 6th Corps, the artist chum of our principal German\ninstructor, amused many by his pencil portraits of \"Slim Jim,\" the\nnondescript \"roll-call sergeant\" of uncertain age and gender; also of\nsome of the sentries, and one or two of his fellow prisoners. A worn-out\npack of fifty-two cards, two or three chess and checker boards of our\nmanufacture, and twenty-four rudely carved checker-men and thirty-two\nfantastic chess-men, furnished frequent amusement to those who\nunderstood the games.\n\nOn an average once in two days we received about one o'clock what was\ncalled soup. We were told, and we believed it to be true, that all the\nrich nitrogenous portion had been carefully skimmed off for use\nelsewhere; not thrown away as the fresh maid threw the \"scum\" that\nformed on top of the milk!\n\nThe topic of most frequent discussion was the prospect of an exchange of\nprisoners. Our would-be German conversationalists never forgot to ask,\n\"_Haben Sie etwas geh\u00f6rten von Auswechseln der Gefangenen?_\" (\"Have you\nheard anything of exchange of prisoners?\") It was hard to believe that\nour government would leave us to die of starvation.\n\nAt the close of the soup hour and after another turn at sweeping, almost\nevery officer again sat down or sat up to rid himself of the _pediculid\u00e6\nvestimenti_. We called it \"skirmishing\"; it was rather a pitched battle.\nThe humblest soldier and the brevet major-general must daily strip and\nfight. Ludicrous, were it not so abominable, was this mortifying\nnecessity. No account of prison life in Danville would be complete\nwithout it. Pass by it hereafter in sorrow and silence, as one of those\nduties which Cicero says are to be done but not talked about.\n\nThe occupations of the morning are now largely resumed, but many prefer\nto lie quiet on the floor for an hour.\n\nAn interesting incident that might happen at any time is the arrival in\nprison of a Confederate newspaper. A commotion near the stairway! Fifty\nor a hundred cluster around an officer with a clear strong voice, and\nlisten as he reads aloud the news, the editorials, and the selections.\nThe rebels are represented as continually gaining victories, but\nsingularly enough the northern armies are always drawing nearer!\n\nToward sunset many officers walk briskly half an hour to and fro the\nlength of the room for exercise.\n\nAnother roll-call by the mysterious heterogeneous if not\nhermaphroditical Carolina sergeant!\n\nBrooms again by the mess on duty. Again oral language-lessons by Cook\nand Putnam. Then discussions or story-telling.\n\nIt is growing dark. A candle is lighted making darkness visible. We have\nmany skilful singers, who every evening \"discourse most excellent\nmusic.\" They sing _Just before the battle, mother; Do they miss me at\nhome? We shall meet, but we shall miss him_ (a song composed on the\ndeath of one of my Worcester pupils by Hon. Charles Washburn); _Nearer,\nMy God, to thee_, etc. From the sweet strains of affection or devotion,\nwhich suffuse the eyes as we begin to lie down for the night, the music\npasses to the _Star-spangled Banner_, _Rally round the flag_, _John\nBrown's body lies a'mouldering in the grave_, and the like. Often the\n\"concert\" concludes with a comic Dutch song by Captain Cafferty, Co. D,\n1st N. Y. Cav.\n\nSleep begins to seal many eyelids, when someone with a loud voice heard\nthrough the whole room starts a series of sharp critical questions,\namusing or censorious, thus:\n\n\n\"Who don't skirmish?\" This is answered loudly from another quarter.\n\n\"Slim Jim.\" The catechism proceeds, sometimes with two or three distinct\nresponses.\n\n\"Who cheats the graveyard?\"\n\n\"Colonel Sprague.\"\n\n\"Who sketched Fort Darling?\"\n\n\"Captain Tripp.\" (He was caught sketching long before, and was refused\nexchange.)\n\n\"Who never washes?\"\n\n\"Lieutenant Screw-my-upper-jaw-off.\" (His was an unpronounceable foreign\nname.)\n\n\"Who knows everything?\"\n\n\"General Duffi\u00e9.\" (Duffi\u00e9 was a brave officer, of whom more anon.)\n\n\"Who don't know anything?\"\n\n\"The fools that talk when they should be asleep.\" (The querists subside\nat last.)\n\n\nFor warmth we lie in contact with each other \"spoon-fashion,\" in groups\nof three or more. I had bought a heavy woolen shawl for twenty\nConfederate dollars, and under it were Captain Cook, Adjutant Clark, and\nLieutenant Wilder; I myself wearing my overcoat, and snuggling up to my\nfriend Cook. All four lay as close as possible facing in the same\ndirection. The night wears slowly away. When the floor seemed\nintolerably hard, one of us would say aloud, \"Spoon!\" and all four would\nflop over, and rest on the other side. So we vibrated back and forth\nfrom nine o'clock till dawn. We were not comfortable, but in far better\ncircumstances than most of the prisoners. Indeed Captain Cook repeatedly\ndeclared he owed his life to our blanket.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\n  Continual Hope of Exchange of Prisoners--\"Flag-of-Truce\n    Fever!\"--Attempted Escape by Tunneling--Repeated Escapes by Members\n    of Water Parties, and how we Made the Roll-Call Sergeant's Count\n    Come Out all Right every Time--Plot to Break Out by Violence, and\n    its Tragic End.\n\n\nOur principal hope for relief from the increasing privations of prison\nlife and from probable exhaustion, sickness, and death, lay in a\npossible exchange of prisoners. A belief was prevalent that the patients\nin hospital would be the first so favored. Hence strenuous efforts were\nsometimes made to convince the apothecary whom we called doctor, and who\noften visited us, that a prisoner was ill enough to require removal.\nOnce in the institution, the patients got better food, something like a\nbed, medical attendance daily, and a more comfortable room. Some of them\nwere shamming, lying in two senses and groaning when the physicians were\npresent, but able to sit up and play euchre the rest of the day and half\nthe night. This peculiar disease, this eagerness to get into hospital or\nremain there till exchanged by flag of truce, was known as the\n\"flag-of-truce fever\" or \"flag-of-truce-on-the-brain!\"\n\nI recall one striking instance. Lieutenant Gardner, already mentioned,\nhad received six or eight hundred dollars in Confederate currency as the\nprice of a gold watch. But like the prodigal in Scripture he was now in\na far country, and had wasted his substance in what he called\n\"righteous\" living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty\nfamine in that corner of the lower room, and he began to be in want. And\nhe would fain have filled his belly with corn-cob-meal bread, or spoiled\nblack beans, or the little potatoes which the swine didn't eat. And no\nman gave him enough. And he determined to go to hospital. He gave out\nthat he was desperately sick. I at this time had \"quarters\" on the floor\nabove. Word was brought to me that my friend was mortally ill, and would\nthank me to come down and take his last message to his relatives.\nAlarmed, I instantly went down. I found him with two or three splitting\na small log of wood!\n\n\n\"Gardner, I hear you are a little 'under the weather.'\"\n\n\"Dying, Colonel, dying!\"\n\n\"What appears to be your disease?\"\n\n\"Flag-o'-truce-on-the-brain!\"\n\n\"Ah, you've got the exchange fever?\"\n\n\"Yes; bad.\"\n\n\"Pulse run high?\"\n\n\"Three hundred a minute.\"\n\n\"Anything I can do for you?\"\n\n\"Yes, Colonel, beseech that fool doctor to send me to hospital. Tell him\nI'm on my last legs. Tell him I only want to die there. Appeal to him in\nbehalf of my poor wife and babies.\" (Gardner, as I well knew, was a\nbachelor, and had no children--to speak of.)\n\n\"Well, Lieutenant, I'll do anything I properly can for you. Is there\nanything else?\"\n\n\"Yes, Colonel; lend me your overcoat to wear to hospital; I'll send it\nback at once.\"\n\n\"But, Lieutenant, you can't get into the hospital. Your cheeks are too\nrosy; you're the picture of health.\"\n\n\"I'm glad you mentioned that, Colonel. I'll fix that. You'll see.\"\n\n\nNext morning he watched at the window, and when he saw the doctor\ncoming, he swallowed a large pill of plug tobacco. The effect was more\nserious than he expected. In a few minutes he became sick in earnest,\nand was frightened. A deathlike pallor supervened. When the doctor\nreached him, there was a genuine fit of vomiting. The story runs that\nCaptain Tiemann made a pathetic appeal in behalf of the imaginary twin\nbabies, that the doctor diagnosed it as a clear case of puerperal (which\nhe pronounced \"puerp[=e]rial\") fever complicated with symptoms of\ncholera infantum, and ordered him to hospital at once! I loaned the\npatient my overcoat, which he sent back directly. His recovery seemed\nmiraculous. In a week or two he returned from his delightful outing.\nThis was in the latter part of November.\n\nPreviously, for some weeks, Captain Howe and three or four other strong\nand determined officers managed to get into the cellar of a one-story\nbuilding contiguous to ours and thence to excavate a tunnel out beyond\nthe line on which the sentinels were perpetually pacing to and fro. I\nwas too feeble to join in the enterprise, but hoped to improve the\nopportunity to escape when the work was done. Unfortunately the arching\ntop of the tunnel was too near the surface of the ground, and the thin\ncrust gave way under the weight of a sentry. He yelled \"Murder!\" Two or\nthree of our diggers came scurrying back. The guard next to him shouted,\n\"You Yanks! you G--d d--d Yanks!\" and fired into the deep hole. No more\ntunneling at Danville.[8]\n\nMore successful and more amusing were several attempts by individual\nofficers one at a time. The water parties of four to eight went under a\nstrong guard two or three times a day down a long hill to the river Dan.\nOn the slope alongside the path were a number of large brick ovens,[9]\nin which, we were told, the Confederates used to bake those big squares\nof corn bread. The iron doors when we passed were usually open. On the\nway back from the river, one officer on some pretense or other would lag\nbehind the rearmost soldier of the guard, who would turn to hurry him\nup. The next officer, as soon as the soldier's back was turned, would\ndodge into an open oven, and the careless guards now engaged in a loud\nand passionate controversy about slavery or secession would not miss\nhim! Then, as night came on, the negroes in the vicinity, who, like all\nthe rest of the colored people, were friendly to us, would supply the\nescaped officer with food and clothing, and pilot him on his way\nrejoicing toward the Union lines. One by one, six officers escaped in\nthat way, and many of us began to look forward to the time when our turn\nwould come to try the baking virtues of those ovens!\n\nBut it was important that the escaped officer should not be missed. How\nshould we deceive the nondescript that we called \"the roll-call\nsergeant\"? Morning and evening he carefully counted every one. How make\nthe census tally with the former enumerations? Yankee ingenuity was here\nput to a severe test; but Lieutenant Titus, before mentioned, solved the\nproblem. With his table-knife saw he cut a hole about two feet square in\nthe floor near the northeast corner of the upper room. A nicely fitting\ntrapdoor completed the arrangement. Through this hole, helped by a rude\nrope ladder of strips of rags, and hoisted to the shoulders of a tall\nman by strong arms from below, a nimble officer could quickly ascend.\nNow those in the lower room were counted first. When they broke ranks,\nand the human automaton faced to the west and moved slowly towards the\nstairs with three or four \"Yanks\" clustering at his side in earnest\nconversation, the requisite number of spry young prisoners would \"shin\nup\" the ladder, emerge, \"deploy,\" and be counted over again in the upper\nroom! The thing worked to a charm. Not one of the six was missed.\n\nUnfortunately, however, two or three of them were recaptured and again\nincarcerated in Libby. The Richmond authorities thereupon telegraphed to\nColonel Smith, asking how those officers escaped from Danville. Smith,\nsurprised, ordered a recount. The trapdoor did its duty. \"All present!\"\nFinally he answered, \"No prisoner has escaped from Danville.\" The rebel\ncommissary of prisons at Richmond, Gen. J. H. Winder, then telegraphed\nthe names of the recaptured officers. Smith looks on his books: there\nare those names, sure enough! The mystery must be solved. He now sends\nhis adjutant to count us about noon. We asked him what it meant. He told\nus it was reported that several officers had escaped. We replied,\n\"That's too good to be true.\" He counted very slowly and with\nextraordinary precision. He kept his eye on the staircase as he\napproached it. Six officers flew up the ladder as we huddled around him.\nIt was almost impossible to suppress laughter at the close, when he\ndeclared, \"I'll take my oath no prisoner has escaped from this prison.\"\nBut there were those names of the missing, and there was our\nill-disguised mirth. Smith resorted to heroic measures. He came in with\ntwo or three of his staff and a man who was said to be a professor of\nmathematics. This was on the 8th of November, 1864. He made all officers\nof the lower room move for a half-hour into the upper room, and there\nfall in line with the rest. His adjutant called the roll in reality.\nEach as his name was read aloud was made to step forward and cross to\nthe other side. Of course no one could answer for the absent six. I\ndoubt if he ever learned the secret of that trapdoor. The professor of\nmathematics promised to bring me a Geometry. About two weeks later,\nNovember 24th, he brought me a copy of Davies's _Legendre_.\n\nOn the 9th of December, while our senior officer, General Hayes, was\nsick in hospital, the next in rank, Gen. A. N. Duffi\u00e9, of the First\nCavalry Division of Sheridan's army, fresh from the French service, with\nwhich he had campaigned in Algeria, where he was wounded nine times,\nsuddenly conceived a plot to break out and escape. Two companies of\ninfantry had arrived in the forenoon and stacked their arms in plain\nsight on the level ground about twenty rods distant. Duffi\u00e9's plan was\nto rush through the large open door when a water party returning with\nfilled buckets should be entering, seize those muskets, overpower the\nguard, immediately liberate the thousand or fifteen hundred Union\nprisoners in the three other Danville prisons, and push off to our lines\nin East Tennessee. He had Sheridan's _\u00e9lan_, not Grant's cool-headed\nstrategy. With proper preparation and organization, such as Hayes would\nhave insisted upon, it might have been a success. He called us, field\nofficers about twenty, together and laid the matter before us. No vote\nwas taken, but I think a majority were opposed to the whole scheme. He\nwas disposed to consider himself, though a prisoner, as still vested\nwith authority to command all of lower rank, and he expected them to\nobey him without question. In this view many acquiesced, but others\ndissented. By his request, though doubtful of his right to command and\nin feeble health, I drew up a pledge for those to sign who were willing\nto engage in the projected rising and would promise to obey. It was\nfound that at least one hundred and fifty could be counted on. Colonel\nRalston, previously mentioned, was the chief opponent of the outbreak,\nbut he recognized Duffi\u00e9's authority and insisted upon our submission\nto it. Similar appeared to be the attitude of the following colonels:\n\nGilbert H. Prey, 104th N. Y.\n\nJames Carle, 191st Pa.\n\nT. B. Kaufman, 209th Pa.\n\nW. Ross Hartshorne, 190th Pa.\n\nOf the lieutenant-colonels, most of the following doubted the success,\nbut would do their best to promote it, if commanded:\n\nCharles H. Tay, 10th N. J.\n\nTheodore Gregg, 45th Pa.\n\nG. A. Moffett, 94th N. Y.\n\nJ. S. Warner, 121st Pa.\n\nGeorge Hamett, 147th N. Y.\n\nCharles H. Hooper, 24th Mass.\n\nHomer B. Sprague, 13th Conn.\n\nSo the following majors: A. W. Wakefield, 49th Pa.; G. S. Horton, 58th\nMass.; E. F. Cooke, 2d N. Y. Cav.; John G. Wright, 51st N. Y.; J. V.\nPeale, 4th Pa. Cav.; John W. Byron, 88th N. Y.; David Sadler, 2d Pa.\nHeavy Art.; John Byrne, 155th N. Y.; E. O. Shepard, 32d Mass.; J. A.\nSonders, 8th Ohio Cav.; Charles P. Mattocks, 17th Maine; E. S. Moore,\nPaymaster; Wm. H. Fry, 16th Pa. Cav.; Milton Wendler, 191st Pa.; James\nE. Deakins, 8th Tenn. Cav.; Geo. Haven Putnam, Adjt. and later\nBvt.-Major, 176th N. Y.\n\nAll of the foregoing then present and not on the sick list should have\nbeen most thoroughly instructed as to their duties, and should have been\nenabled to communicate all needed information to the forty-six captains\nand one hundred and thirty-three lieutenants, who, though many were\nsadly reduced in vitality, were accounted fit for active service. I had\nrepeatedly noticed in battle the perplexity of company, regimental, or\neven brigade commanders, from lack of information as to the necessary\nmovements in unforeseen emergencies. It is not enough to say, as one\ncorps commander (Hancock?) is said to have done during the Battle of the\nWilderness in May, 1864, to a newly arrived colonel with his regiment,\nwho inquired, \"Where shall I go in?\" \"Oh, anywhere; there's lovely\nfighting all along the line!\"\n\nHere the step most vital to success, the _sine qua non_, was to keep\nthat outside door open for the outrush of two hundred men. To this end,\neight of our strongest and most determined, under a dashing leader like\nColonel Hartshorne or Lieutenant-Colonel Gregg, should have been sent\nout as a water party. Instead, Captain Cook, who was brave enough, but\nthen physically weak, hardly able to carry a pail of water, was the\nleader of an average small squad, \"the spirit indeed willing, but the\nflesh weak.\"\n\nHardly less important was it to select a dozen or twenty of the most\nfierce and energetic, to be at the head of the stairs in perfect\nreadiness to dash instantly through the opening door and assist the\nwater party in disarming their guards, and, without a moment's pause,\nfollowed by the whole two hundred, pounce upon the guard house. Ralston\nor Duffi\u00e9 himself should have headed this band. Simultaneously, without\na second's interval, three or four desperate, fiery, powerful officers,\ndetailed for the purpose, should have grappled with the sentinel on duty\nin the middle of the lower room and disarmed and gagged him.\n\nBesides the field officers, we had with us many subordinates of great\nintelligence like Capt. Henry S. Burrage of the 36th Mass., Lieut. W. C.\nB. Goff of the 1st D. C. Cav., Lieut. W. C. Howe, 2d Mass. Cav., Adjt.\nJames A. Clark, 17th Pa. Cav., and the artist, Lieut. Henry Vander\nWeyde; and nothing would have been easier than for Duffi\u00e9 to communicate\nthrough them to every officer the most complete and precise information\nand instructions.\n\nScarcely any of these precautions were taken. The general was impatient.\nThe next day, December 10th, he issued his command in these words: \"I\norder the attempt to be made, and I call upon all of you, who have not\nforgotten how to obey orders, to follow.\" The water party was\nimmediately sent out, and its return was watched for. He and Ralston,\nwithout the help of a third, made the mistake of personally grappling\nwith the floor sentry, a brave, strong, red-headed fellow, and they\ntackled him a moment too soon. He stoutly resisted. They wrested his\nmusket from him. He yelled. They tried to stop his mouth. Instantly the\ndoor began to swing open a little. The water party, too few and too\nweak, paralyzed, failed to act. The foremost of us sprang from the\nstairs to the door. Before we could reach it, it was slammed to, bolted\nand barred against us! With several others I rushed to the windows and\ntried to tear off the heavy bars. In vain. The soldiers outside began\nfiring through the broken panes. Ralston was shot through the body. We\nassisted him up the stairs while the bullets were flying. In less than\nfive minutes from the moment when he and Duffi\u00e9 seized the sentinel, it\nwas all over. In about a quarter of an hour, Colonel Smith came in with\nhis adjutant and two or three guards, and ordered Ralston removed to\nhospital. As he was carried out, one of us expressed the hope that the\nwound was not serious. He answered in the language of Mercutio, \"No,\n'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door; but 'tis\nenough, 'twill serve.\" He knew it was mortal, and expressed a\nwillingness to die for his country in the line of duty. He passed away\nnext morning. Colonel Smith expressed sorrow for him, and surprise at\nthe ingratitude of us who had been guilty of insurrection against his\ngentle sway!\n\nA strict search for possible weapons followed during which we were told\nwe must give up our United States money. I saved a ten-dollar greenback\nby concealing it in my mouth \"as an ape doth nuts in the corner of his\njaw,\" all the while munching corn bread, gnawing two holes in the bill!\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[8] \"You will doubtless recall the man-hole worked through the heavy\nbrick wall, made during the 'stilly nights,' opening into the attic of\nan annex to the main building. We found our way down by means of a rope\nladder, and started our tunnel under the basement floor. But for the\nexposure we would have emptied the prison. To find the way down we gave\nthem a lively hunt!--And those _epithets_!--I have a blouse with a rent\nin the back made in going through that hole in the wall.\"--Howe's\n_Letter_ of Jan. 30, 1914.\n\nFor further particulars of this attempt to tunnel out, see Major\nPutnam's _A Prisoner of War in Virginia_, pp. 55-60.\n\n[9] Putnam describes them as disused furnaces. They may have been both.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\n  Kind Clergymen Visit us and Preach Excellent Discourses--Colonel\n    Smith's Personal Good Will to me--His Offer--John F. Ficklin's\n    Charity--My Good Fortune--Supplies of Clothing Distributed--Deaths\n    in Prison.\n\n\nUnion men never looked upon Confederates as mortal enemies. Whenever a\nflag of truce was flying, both were disposed to shake hands and exchange\nfavors. I recollect that our Captain Burrage complained that he was\nunfairly captured when he was engaged in a friendly deal with a\nConfederate between the lines. At Port Hudson, when the white signal was\nto go down, we gave the \"Johnnies\" fair warning, shouting, \"RATS! TO\nYOUR HOLES!\" before we fired on them. But war cannot be conducted on\npeace principles, and in a flash a man acts like a devil. In an open\nwindow near the spot where I slept, an officer upset a cup of water, and\na few drops fell on the head of the guard outside. Instantly he fired.\nThe bullet missed, passed through the window below and the floor above,\nand lodged in the hand or arm of another officer. I had an opportunity\nto express to Colonel Smith my angry disgust at such savagery. He\nagreed that the fellow ought to be punished--\"at least for not being\nable to shoot straighter!\"[10]\n\nKindly visits were sometimes paid us. Two young men from the Richmond\nYoung Men's Christian Association came. The wicked said, \"One came 'to\npray with us all right,' the other 'to prey upon us all wrong'\"; for the\nlatter tried to induce us to exchange greenbacks for rebel currency!\n\nSeveral times we were visited by kind clergymen who preached excellent\nsermons. The first was Rev. ---- Dame of Danville. He was, I think, an\nEpiscopal minister. He was a high Mason, a gentleman of very striking\nappearance, with a beautiful flowing beard, that would have done honor\nto Moses or Aaron. As we sat on the hard floor, two hundred listening\nreverently to his choice language, he seemed to foresee the doom which\nmany of us had begun to fear, and he very appropriately and with much\nearnestness bade us consider our latter end. Mentioning his name with\ngratitude some thirty years afterwards in a lecture at the Mountain Lake\nChautauqua, Md., one of my audience gave me a photograph of the\nminister's handsome face, and told me he was greatly beloved. I doubt\nnot he deserved it.\n\nRev. Charles K. Hall of Danville, a Methodist Episcopal clergyman, came\nto us a little later. His first sermon was an eloquent discourse on\nCharity. He practiced what he preached; for he never came empty-handed.\nOn his first visit he brought armfuls of tobacco, each plug wrapped in a\npious tract. He asked us to fall in line, for he had something for each.\nWhen he came to me in the distribution, I declined it, saying \"I never\nuse tobacco in any form.\" \"Oh take it,\" said he; \"you read the tract,\nand give the tobacco to your neighbor.\" On subsequent Sundays he brought\neggs and other delicacies for the sick. We admired him as a preacher,\nand regarded him with affection as a man. Secession and slavery aside,\nfor he believed in the rightfulness of both, as we learned on arguing\nwith him, it would be hard to find a more lovable character than Charles\nK. Hall. And the South was full of such, who would have been glad, if\npermitted and opportunity offered, to be good Samaritans, neighbors to\nhim who had fallen among foes; pure, gentle, kindly spirits, to whom it\nwill be said in the last great day, \"I was an hungred and ye gave me\nmeat; I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto\nme.\"\n\nFrom the lack of sufficient and proper food, clothing, and exercise, the\nhealth of all suffered. Much of the time it was impossible to keep warm.\nThe most prevalent diseases, I think, were rheumatism and scurvy. I\nsuffered from both. Anti-scorbutics were scarce. The pain from\nrheumatism was slight during the day; but at evening it began in the\njoints of the fingers and became more severe as night advanced,\nascending from the hands to the wrists, arms, and shoulders. It was\nworst at midnight and through the small hours, then gradually diminished\ntill daylight. The prison physician did his best to help us with\nliniment, but in those winter nights the treatment was ineffective.\n\nUpon the total failure of our attempt to break out on the 10th of\nDecember, and having come reluctantly to the conclusion that Colonel\nSmith had told us the truth when he said that Lincoln and Grant would\nnot consent to an exchange of prisoners, I foresaw that death was\ninevitable after a few months, perhaps a few weeks, unless the situation\nshould materially change for the better. I determined, though without\nmuch hope of success, to appeal to Colonel Smith for personal favor. On\nthe 15th of December I sent word to him that I wished an interview with\nhim. He immediately sent a soldier to bring me to his office. He\nreceived me courteously; for he was a gentleman. I told him it was\nnecessary for me, if I was to live much longer, that I should at least\nhave better food and more of it. I asked him if it would not be possible\nfor an arrangement to be effected whereby some of my relatives in the\nnorth should furnish a Confederate prisoner with food, clothing, and\ncomforts, and that prisoner's relatives in the south should reciprocate\nby supplying me. He answered that it might be possible, but he did not\nknow of any such southern captive's friends likely to respond. After a\nfew minutes of silence he said:\n\n\"Colonel Sprague, I'd like to do something for you, and I'll make you an\noffer.\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"Your government has adopted the devilish policy of no exchange of\nprisoners.\"\n\n\"I am afraid it's true.\"\n\n\"I know it's true.\"\n\n\"Well, what's your proposition?\"\n\n\"I am overworked here. I must do my duty to my government. Our cause is\njust.\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"I should like to have you assist me by doing writing regularly for me\nat these headquarters. I would parole you. You shall have a room to\nyourself, a good bed, plenty of food, and a good deal of liberty. You\nmust give me your word of honor not to attempt to escape.\"\n\n\"Colonel Smith, I thank you. I appreciate the friendly spirit in which\nyou make the offer, and I am very grateful for it. But I can't\nconscientiously accept it. I am in the Union Army, bound to do\neverything in my power to destroy your government. I must do nothing to\nhelp it. If Lincoln refuses to exchange us prisoners, it may be best for\nthe United States, though hard on us. What happens to us is a minor\nmatter. It's a soldier's business to die for his country rather than\nhelp its enemies in the slightest degree. I can't entertain your\nproposal.\"\n\nSo the conference ended sadly. As I was leaving his office he introduced\nme to a Confederate soldier who sat there and who had heard the whole\nconversation. Next day this soldier entered the prison by permission of\nColonel Smith and brought me some nice wheat bread, some milk, pickles,\nand other food, a pair of thick woolen stockings, and a hundred dollars\nin Confederate money. He gave me his name, John F. Ficklin, of the\nVirginia _Black Horse Cavalry_. He whispered to me that he was at heart\na Union man, but had been forced by circumstances to enter the\nConfederate service; that by simulating illness he had got relieved from\nduty at the front and assigned to service at Colonel Smith's\nheadquarters; that he was confident he could bring about such an\narrangement for reciprocal supplies as I had proposed, and had so\ninformed Smith, who approved of the plan; that until such a plan should\nbe put in operation he would furnish me from his own table. He said to\nme very privately that he was greatly moved by what I had said the day\nbefore. \"But,\" he added, \"I am not entirely unselfish in this. I foresee\nthat the Confederacy can't last very long; certainly not a year. I give\nit till next September; and, frankly, when it goes to smash, I want to\nstand well with you officers.\" At my suggestion he gave a few other\nprisoners food and money.\n\nIn a few days I was again called to headquarters to meet a Mr. Jordan,\nwho, through Ficklin's efforts, had been invited to meet me. His son,\nHenry T. Jordan, Adjutant of the 55th North Carolina Regiment, was at\nthat time a prisoner at Johnson's Island, Ohio. Mr. Jordan agreed to\nmake out a list of articles which he wished my relatives to send to his\nson. In a day or two he did so. I likewise made out a statement of my\nimmediate wants, as follows:\n\n    Wood for cooking;\n    Cup, plate, knife, fork, spoon;\n    Turnips, salt, pepper, rice, vinegar;\n    Pickled cucumbers, dried apple, molasses;\n    Or any other substantial food.\n\nI asked Jordan to send me those things _at once_. He answered after some\ndelay that he would do so immediately on receiving an acknowledgment\nfrom his son that my friends had furnished him what he wanted; and he\nwould await such a message! As my relatives were in Massachusetts and\nConnecticut, it would take considerable time for them to negotiate with\nthe prison commandant and other parties in Ohio and have the\nstipulations distinctly understood and carried into effect there.\nBesides, there were likely to be provoking delays in communicating by\nmail between the north and the south, and it might be a month or six\nweeks before he got assurances from his son; by which time I should\nprobably be in a better world than Danville, and in no need of wood,\nfood, or table-ware. I wrote him to that effect, and requested him to\nmake haste, but received no reply.\n\nMy friend Mr. Ficklin came to the rescue. As a pretext to deceive, if\nneed were, the prison authorities, and furnish to them and others a\nsufficient reason for bringing me supplies, he pretended that he had a\nfriend, a Confederate prisoner of war at Camp Douglas near Chicago, and\nthat Colonel Sprague's friends had been exceedingly kind to him,\nministering most liberally to his wants! The name of this imaginary\nfriend was J. H. Holland, a private soldier of the 30th Virginia\nCavalry. Ficklin forged a letter purporting to come from Holland to him,\nwhich he showed to Colonel Smith, in which he spoke with much gratitude\nof my friends' bounty, and besought Ficklin to look tenderly after my\ncomfort in return! The ruse succeeded. Ficklin's generosity to me was\nrepeated from time to time, and perhaps saved my life.\n\nA year after the close of the war Ficklin wrote to me that he wished to\nsecure a position in the Treasury Department of the United States, and\nhe thought it would aid him if I would certify to what I knew of his\nkindness to Union prisoners. I accordingly drew up a strong detailed\nstatement of his timely and invaluable charities to us in our distress.\nI accompanied it with vouchers for my credibility signed by Hon. N. D.\nSperry, General Wm. H. Russell, and President Theodore D. Woolsey, all\nof New Haven, and Governor Wm. A. Buckingham of Norwich, Conn. These\ndocuments I forwarded to Ficklin. I do not know the result.\n\nFrom Sergeant Wilson F. Smith, chief clerk at Colonel Smith's\nheadquarters, a paroled prisoner, member of Co. F., 6th Pa. Cav., the\ncompany of Captain Furness, son or brother of my Shakespearian friend,\nDr. Horace Howard Furness, and from Mr. Strickland, undertaker, who\nfurnished the coffins and buried the dead of the Danville prisons, both\nof whom I talked with when I was on parole in February, '65, I obtained\nstatistics mutually corroborative of the number of deaths in the\nDanville prisons. In November there were 130; in December, 140; from\nJanuary 1st to January 24th, 105. The negro soldiers suffered most.\nThere were sixty-four of them living in prison when we reached Danville,\nOctober 20, '64. Fifty-seven of them were dead on the 12th of February,\n'65, when I saw and talked with the seven survivors in Prison No. Six.\nFrom one of the officers (I think it was Captain Stuart) paroled like\nmyself in February to distribute supplies of clothing sent by the United\nStates through the lines, and who performed that duty in Salisbury, and\nfrom soldiers of my own regiment there imprisoned, I learned that in the\nhundred days ending February 1st, out of eight or ten thousand\nprisoners, more than thirty a day, more than three thousand in all, had\ndied! Of Colonel Hartshorne's splendid \"Bucktail Regiment,\" the 190th\nPa., formerly commanded by my Yale classmate Colonel O'Neil who fell at\nAntietam, there were 330 at Salisbury, October 19th, the day we left;\n116 of them were dead before February 1st, one company losing 22 out of\n33 men.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhy this fearful mortality? Men do not die by scores, hundreds,\nthousands, without some extraordinary cause. It was partly for want of\nclothing. They were thinly clad when captured.\n\nPursuant to agreement entered into early in December, 1864, between the\nFederal and Confederate authorities, supplies of clothing for Union\nprisoners in Richmond, Danville, and Salisbury, were sent through the\nlines. They did not reach Danville till February. Colonel Carle, 191st\nPa. and myself, with another officer (I think he was Colonel Gilbert G.\nPrey, 104th N. Y.) were paroled to distribute coats (or blouses),\ntrousers, and shoes, among the enlisted men in their three prisons. Then\nfor the first time Union officers saw the interior of those jails. By\npermission of Colonel Smith, Mr. Ficklin accompanied us on one of these\nvisits, and I saw him give fifty dollars in Confederate money to one of\nour suffering soldiers. My part in the distribution was to sign as\nwitness opposite the name of each one receiving. Those rolls should be\nin the archives at Washington.\n\nOn the 12th of February we issued shoes and clothing in the jail known\nas Prison No. Six. It contained that day 308 of our men. There were the\nseven surviving colored soldiers, and the one wearing our prison\ncommander's coat. We requested them all to form line, and each as his\nname was called to come forward and receive what he most needed. Some of\nthem were so feeble that they had to be assisted in coming down from the\nupper floor, almost carried in the arms of stronger comrades. Many were\nunable to remain standing long, and sank helpless on the floor. Nearly\nall were half-clad, or wearing only the thinnest of garments. Some were\nwhite with vermin. Several were so far gone that they had forgotten\ntheir company or regiment. Every one seemed emaciated. Many kept asking\nme why our government did not exchange prisoners; for they were told\nevery day the truth that the Confederate government desired it. There\nwas a stove, but no fuel. The big rooms were not heated. The cold was\nsevere. About a third of them had apparently given up all hope of\nkeeping their limbs and bodies warm; but they kept their heads, necks,\nshoulders, and chests, carefully wrapped. The dismal coughing at times\ndrowned all other sounds, and made it difficult to proceed with our work\nof distribution. There were two little fires of chips and splinters on\nbricks, one of them near the middle, the other near the far end. In\ncontact with these were tin or earthen cups containing what passed for\nfood or drink. There was no outlet for smoke. It blackened the hands and\nfaces of those nearest, and irritated the lungs of all.\n\nThis prison was the worst. It was colder than the others. But all were\nuncomfortably cold. All were filled with smoke and lice. From each there\nwent every day to the hospital a wagon-load of half-starved and\nbroken-hearted soldiers who would never return. I visited the hospital\nto deliver to two of the patients letters which Colonel Smith had handed\nto me for them. They were both dead. I looked down the long list. The\nword \"Died,\" with the date, was opposite most of the names. As I left\nthe hospital I involuntarily glanced up at the lintel, half expecting to\nsee inscribed there as over the gate to Dante's Hell,\n\n    ALL HOPE ABANDON, YE WHO ENTER HERE!\n\nAt the rate our enlisted men were dying at Danville and Salisbury during\nthe winter of 1864-65, all would have passed away in a few months,\ncertainly in less than a year; AND THEY KNEW IT.\n\nIs it any wonder that some of them, believing our government had\nabandoned them to starvation rather than again risk its popularity by\nresorting to conscription for the enrollment of recruits and by possibly\nstirring up draft riots such as had cost more than a thousand lives in\nthe city of New York in July, 1863, accepted at last the terms which the\nConfederates constantly held out to them, took the oath of allegiance to\nthe Confederacy, and enlisted in the rebel army? I was credibly informed\nthat more than forty did it in Prison No. Four at Danville, and more\nthan eleven hundred at Salisbury. Confederate recruiting officers and\nsergeants were busy in those prisons, offering them the choice between\ndeath and life. No doubt multitudes so enlisted under the Confederate\nflag with full determination to desert to our lines at the first\nconvenient opportunity. Such was the case with private J. J. Lloyd, Co.\nA, of my battalion, who rejoined us in North Carolina. _The great\nmajority chose to die._\n\nThe last communication that I received from enlisted men of my\nbattalion, fellow prisoners with me at Salisbury, whom I had exhorted\nnot to accept the offers of the Confederates, but to be true to their\ncountry and their flag, read thus: \"Colonel, don't be discouraged. Our\nboys all say they'll starve to death in prison sooner than take the oath\nof allegiance to the Confederacy.\" And true to this resolve did indeed\nstarve or freeze to death Sergeant Welch, Sergeant Twichell, Privates\nVogel, Plaum, Barnes, Geise, Andrews, Bishop, Weldon, who had stood by\nme in many a battle, and who died at last for the cause they loved.\n\nIt is comparatively easy to face death in battle. No great courage or\nmerit in that. The soldier is swept along with the mass. Often he cannot\nshirk if he would. The chances usually are that he will come out alive.\nHe may be inspired with heroism,\n\n    And the stern joy which warriors feel\n    In foeman worthy of their steel.\n\nThere is a consciousness of irresistible strength as he beholds the\ngleaming lines, the dense columns, the smoking batteries, the dancing\nflags, the cavalry with flying feet.\n\n    'Twere worth ten years of peaceful life,\n    One glance at their array.\n\nOr nobler, he feels that he represents a nation or a grand cause, and\nthat upon his arm depends victory. In his enthusiasm he even fancies\nhimself a vicegerent of the Almighty, commissioned to fight in His\ncause, to work His will, to save His earth from becoming a hell. \"From\nthe heights of yonder pyramids,\" said Napoleon to the French battling\nagainst the Mamelukes, \"forty centuries are looking down upon you.\" Our\nsoldier in battle imagined the world looking on, that for him there was\nfame undying; should he fall wounded, his comrades would gently care for\nhim; if slain, his country's flag would be his shroud.\n\nBy no such considerations were our imprisoned comrades cheered. Not in\nthe glorious rush and shock of battle; not in hope of victory or\nfadeless laurels; no angel charities, or parting kiss, or sympathetic\nvoice bidding the soul look heavenward while the eye was growing dim; no\ndear star-spangled banner for a winding sheet. But wrapped in rags;\nunseen, unnoticed, dying by inches, in the cold, in the darkness, often\nin rain or sleet, houseless, homeless, friendless, on the hard floor or\nthe bare ground, starving, freezing, broken-hearted.\n\n    O the long and dreary winter!\n    O the cold and cruel winter!\n\nIt swept them away at Salisbury by tens, twenties, even fifties in a\nsingle night.\n\nThese men preferred death to dishonor. When we are told that our people\nare not patriotic, or sigh of America as Burke did of France a century\nand a quarter ago, that the age of chivalry is gone, we may point to\nthis great martyrdom, the brightest painting on the darkest background\nin all our history--thousands choosing to die for the country which\nseemed to disown them!\n\nMy diary records, and I believe it correct, that on the 17th of\nFebruary, there were ten deaths in the Danville prisons. A little before\nmidnight of that day the Danville prisoners were loaded into box cars,\nand the train was started for Richmond. Three, it was reported, died in\nthe cars that night, and one next morning in the street on the way to\nLibby.\n\nDuring the next three days I obtained the autographs of two hundred and\nfifteen of my fellow officers there. The little book is precious. A few\nstill survive; but the great majority have joined the faithful whom they\ncommanded.\n\n    On Fame's eternal camping ground\n      Their silent tents are spread,\n    And Glory guards with solemn round\n      The bivouac of the dead!\n\nOn the twenty-second we were taken for exchange down the James. As we\npassed through the lines into what we were accustomed fondly to call\n\"God's Country,\" salvos of artillery and signs of universal rejoicing\ngreeted us. Our reception made us imagine for an hour that our arrival\nperceptibly heightened the general joy of the Washington anniversary.\nBut many of us could not help wishing we were asleep with the thousands\nwho were filling nameless graves at Danville and Salisbury.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[10] See Putnam's account of this incident in his _A Prisoner of War in\nVirginia_, p. 67.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\n  Results and Reflections--The Right and the Wrong of it All.\n\n\nA few days of waiting in the buildings of the Naval Academy at Annapolis\nwhile exchange papers were preparing gave us opportunity for a\nmuch-needed transformation. Our old clothing, encrusted with dirt and\ninfested with vermin, in many cases had to be destroyed. One of our\nnumber especially unkempt, Captain T., who gave up for an hour or two\nhis beloved trousers, found to his surprise and horror when he called\nfor their return that they had been burned with four hundred dollars in\ngreenbacks sewed up in the lining! We smiled at his irrepressible grief;\nit was poetic justice. He had carefully concealed the fact of his being\nflush, pretending all along to be like the rest _in forma pauperis_, and\ncontriving, it was said, to transfer in crooked ways our pennies into\nhis pockets!\n\nFumigated, parboiled, scrubbed, barbered, decently clothed, \"the\ndeformed transformed\" were once more presentable in civilized society.\nThen followed a brief leave of absence if desired, to visit relatives.\nTo them it seemed a veritable resurrection after our months of living\nburial; yet the joy of reunion was sometimes tinged with sorrow. I\nlearned that in the very week in which the tidings of my capture came\nour home circle had been sadly broken by the death of a beloved sister,\nand just then the telegraph told of the loss by fever in the army at\nNewbern of our household darling,\n\n    Younger by fifteen years than myself,\n    Brother at once and son.\n\nAs previously stated we who held commissions fared better on the whole\nthan the non-commissioned officers and privates, though receiving from\nthe commissary rations exactly equal to theirs. Commonly older and\ntherefore of larger experience and superior intelligence, a good officer\nis as a father looking out for the physical welfare of his men as well\nas himself. Then there were some who, like Gardner, had been fortunate\nin keeping clothing, money, or other valuable at the instant of capture\nor in hiding it when searched by Dick Turpin at Libby. Several like\nCaptain Cook had obtained pecuniary assistance from influential friends\nacross the lines, or in a few instances had been favored by brother\nfreemasons or by charitably disposed visitors who gave us a little food,\na few old books, or even Confederate currency. Several sold to the\nsentinels watches, rings, chains, breast-pins, society badges, silver\nspurs, military boots, or curiously wrought specimens of Yankee\ningenuity carved with infinite pains. The \"Johnnies\" appeared to hanker\nfor any article not produced in the Confederacy. An officer of the guard\noffered Putnam three hundred dollars for a nearly worn-out tooth-brush!\n\nThe educational standard among our officers was quite respectable. I\nthink that West Point had a representative among us, as well as Bowdoin\nand several other colleges. Certainly we had ex-students from at least\nfive universities, Brown, Yale, Harvard, the Sorbonne, and G\u00f6ttingen.\n\nTo afford diversion and as an antidote to depression, as well as for\nintellectual improvement, some of us studied mathematics[11] or\n_Shakespeare_. Three or four classes were formed in modern languages.\nWe had card-playing with packs soiled and worn; checkers and chess on\nextemporized boards with rudely whittled \"pieces\"; occasional\ndiscussions historical, literary, political, or religious; many of us\nquite regular physical exercises in brisk walks on the empty lowest\nfloor; story-telling; at times, though not often, the reading aloud of a\nConfederate newspaper, to a group of fifty or more listeners; at\nevening, sweet singing, riddles, jests, or loud-voiced sarcastic\nconundrums and satirical responses. Many found interest and pleasure in\ncarving with the utmost nicety wood or bone.[12]\n\nSomething like military discipline prevailed among the two hundred in\nthe upper room where the superior rank of General Hayes was often\nrecognized. Among a hundred and fifty or more in the lower room, where\nfor a month or two I was the senior but was unwilling to assume\nprecedence, I secured with the aid of Major Byron, Captain Howe, and a\nfew others a sort of civil government with semi-military features.\n\nThese measures and the favoring circumstances that have been mentioned\ntended of course to the preservation of health among the officers. There\nwas severe suffering from hunger, cold, rheumatism, and scurvy, from all\nof which I was for weeks a victim and at one time seemed doomed to\nperish. I recall, however, the names of but two officers (there were\nsaid to be four) who died at Danville. Some of us, though enfeebled,\nwere soon able to rejoin our commands; as Putnam his at Newbern in\nApril, Gardner and I ours at Morehead City the day after Lee's surrender\nat Appomattox.\n\nOf the effect in after-life of these strange experiences it is safe to\nsay that to some extent they were a spur to intellectual effort. At\nleast they should have made all sadder and wiser; and they certainly\nwere in some cases an equipment for descriptive authorship. Major (Adner\nA.) Small wrote a valuable account of prison life. Dr. Burrage's\nnarratives of his capture and its results are entertaining and\ninstructive. Major Putnam's _A Prisoner of War in Virginia_ (reprinted\nin his _Memories of My Youth_) is an important contribution to our\nmilitary history.[13] Lieutenant Estabrooks's _Adrift in Dixie_ is\ncharmingly told.[14] \"Dutch Clark\" (Adjutant James A. Clark, 17th Pa.\nCav.), one of the four who nightly tried to sleep under my blanket,\nstarted and edited with ability at Scranton _The Public Code_, for which\nI was glad to furnish literary material. He afterwards became prominent\nin theosophic circles. Others distinguished themselves. Captain (Frank\nH.) Mason, in prison our best chess player, was long Consul-General at\nParis. Cook studied five or six years in Germany, France, and Italy,\nthen was for eight or ten years assistant professor in German at\nHarvard, and afterwards for two years, until his untimely death,\nprofessor in the same department at the Institute of Technology in\nBoston. In addressing a Sunday-school in Brooklyn, 1871, I unexpectedly\nlighted upon Captain Tiemann doing good work as a teacher. Captain\nGardner continued for many months a model military officer in\nGeorgia.[15] I remained in the service a full year, often on\ncourts-martial, military commissions, and \"reconstruction\" duty.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAs already described, the condition of the enlisted men strongly\ncontrasted with ours. The Report of the Confederate Inspector of Prisons\nnow on file in the _War Records_ of our government, though the reports\nof his subordinate officers are significantly missing, covers the few\nmonths next preceding January, 1865. It sharply censures the immediate\nprison authorities, stating, as the result of the privations, that the\ndeaths at Danville were at the rate of about five per day! I think they\nwere more numerous in January and February. None of my battalion were\nthere, but at Salisbury three-sevenths of them died in less than three\nmonths!\n\nIt is hard to refrain from the expression of passionate indignation at\nthe treatment accorded to our non-commissioned officers and privates in\nthose southern hells. For years we were accustomed to ask, \"In what\nmilitary prison of the north, in what common jail of Europe, in what\ndungeon of the civilized or savage world, have captives taken in\nwar--nay, condemned criminals--been systematically exposed to a\nlingering death by cold and hunger? The foulest felon--his soul black\nwith sacrilege, his hands reeking with parricide--has enough of food, of\nclothing, of shelter; a chair to sit in, a fire to warm him, a blanket\nto hide his nakedness, a bed of straw to die on!\"\n\nBut listen a moment to the other side. Alexander H. Stephens,\nVice-President of the Confederacy, afterwards for eight years a\nrepresentative in our Congress, a man of unquestioned integrity, shows\nin his _War between the States_ (pub. 1868-70) by quotation from the\nReport of our then Secretary of War (July 19, 1866) that only 22,576\nFederal prisoners died in Confederate hands during the war, whilst\n26,436 Confederate prisoners died in Federal hands. He shows also from\nthe United States Surgeon-General Joseph K. Barnes's Report that the\nnumber of Federal prisoners in southern prisons was about 270,000, but\nthe number of Confederate prisoners in northern prisons was about\n220,000; so that the percentage of deaths in southern prisons was under\nnine, while the percentage of deaths in northern prisons was over\ntwelve![16]\n\nHad there been, from the first, prompt exchanges of prisoners between\nthe north and the south, few of these forty-nine thousand lives would\nhave been lost. _Who, then, blocked the exchange?_\n\nStephens declares (_War between the States_, vol. ii):\n\n    \"It is now well understood to have been a part of the settled policy\n    of the Washington authorities in conducting the war, not to exchange\n    prisoners. The grounds upon which this extraordinary course was\n    adopted were, that it was humanity to the northern men in the field\n    to let their captured comrades perish in prison rather than to let\n    an equal number of Confederate soldiers be released on exchange to\n    meet them in battle.\"\n\nTo the same effect our Secretary Stanton in one of his letters in 1864\npointed out \"that it would not be good policy to send back to be placed\non the firing line 70,000 able-bodied Confederates, and to receive in\nexchange men who, with but few exceptions, were not strong enough to\nhold their muskets.\"\n\nThe responsibility, then, for this refusal and the consequent enormous\nsacrifice of life with all the accompanying miseries, must rest in part\nupon the Government of the United States.[17]\n\nBlame not the tender-hearted Lincoln for this.\n\nDid he not judge wisely? Was it not best for the nation that we\nprisoners should starve and freeze?\n\nThe pivotal question for him and Grant and Stanton was, \"Shall we\nexchange and thereby enable the South to reinforce their armies with\nfifty to a hundred thousand trained soldiers?\n\n\"If yes, then we must draft many more than that; for they being on the\ndefensive we must outnumber them in battle. If no, then we must either\nstop their cruelties by equally cruel retaliation, as Washington hung\nAndr\u00e9 for the execution of Hale, or we must, more cruelly still, leave\nmyriads of our soldiers to sink into imbecility and death.\"\n\nThe North had not the excuse of destitution which the South had, and it\ncould not bring itself to make reprisals in kind. To draft again, as\nevinced in the terrible riots of July, 1863, would have been extremely\nunpopular and perhaps overthrown the administration and defeated the\npolicy of the government. To exchange would pretty surely have prolonged\nthe war, and might have resulted in permanent disunion.\n\nAs to the right or wrong of the refusal to exchange, it is hardly\nrelevant to insist that the triumph of the South would have perpetuated\nslavery. Lincoln's Proclamation, January 1, 1863, did not touch slavery\nin the Border States. And from the southern nation, denuded of slaves by\ntheir escape to the North and confronted by the growing anti-slavery\nsentiment of the civilized world, the \"peculiar institution\" would soon\nhave died out.\n\nNeed we attempt, as is often done, to justify our government's attitude\nin this matter by affirming that the nation was in a life-and-death\nstruggle for its very existence? Did that existence depend upon its\nterritorial limits? Would it have gone to pieces if the victorious North\nhad relinquished its hold on the defeated South? Had a boundary line\nbeen drawn half-way across the continent, separating the twenty-three\nloyal States from the eleven seceding, the twenty-two millions of the\nNorth from the nine or ten millions of the South, would it not have\nremained a mighty nation with no cause for further disunion, and able as\nthe war had shown to place in the field more than two million fighting\nmen?\n\nIs it not equally unnecessary to urge, as if it were a valid excuse for\nour government's refusal to exchange, that between the two nations there\nwould have been frequent if not perpetual hostilities? Why so, any more\nthan between the United States and Canada, where for fifty (it is now a\nhundred) years, along a boundary line of thirty-eight hundred miles,\nthere had been unbroken peace and no fort nor warship?\n\nLet us not raise the question whether Lincoln made a colossal blunder\nwhen he renounced his favorite doctrine so emphatically set forth in his\nCongressional speech (page 47). The die was cast when Sumter was fired\non. The question which confronted him in 1863-64--What to do with the\nperishing Union prisoners?--was simply one of military necessity.\n\nAccording to the ethics of war was he not fully justified in sacrificing\nus rather than imperiling the great cause which he had at heart?\n\nAre we, then, to blame President Davis, or the Confederate Commissioner\nRobert Ould, or Gen. John H. Winder, Superintendent of Military Prisons,\nfor allowing the Federal prisoners to starve and freeze and die by\nthousands? Must we not admit the truth of their contention that their\nsoldiers needed the food, clothing, and medical care for want of which\ntheir prisoners were suffering? And if the shocking conditions at\nAndersonville, Salisbury, Danville, and other prisons could easily have\nbeen avoided, or even if they were made more distressing by the\ndeliberate inhumanity of those in immediate charge, ought not such facts\nto have intensified a desire on the part of both governments to effect a\nspeedy exchange?\n\nThe southern people were threatened with subjugation, their government\nwith annihilation. In such a critical situation, what measures are\nallowable?\n\nWe endeavor to look at the matter from both standpoints.\n\nThis brings up the whole question of the rightfulness of war. If it must\nbe waged, is success the highest duty? If military necessity demands,\nmay any and every law of God and man be disregarded?\n\nWhile we write these concluding pages, the European conflict is raging,\nand the voice of the most warlike nation on the globe is heard\ncontinually affirming that war is useful and highly honorable, and that\nany means, however frightful, if necessary to ensure or hasten victory\nis praise-worthy!\n\nThen both presidents were right!\n\nBut is not international war murder on a great scale? It is glorious to\ndie for one's country; but how about killing for our country? killing\ninnocent men, too? for the soldiers on either side honestly believe they\nare doing their duty in shooting and stabbing as many as possible! \"The\nbusiness of war,\" said John Wesley, \"is the business of devils.\" So it\nwould seem; but at heart few are enemies, none devils.\n\nIt has been a pleasure in this narrative to record instances of a very\ndifferent spirit. Surely, in proportion to population such were not\nfewer in the South than in the North. Like Whittier's _Angels of Buena\nVista_ they rescue us from pessimism. They are prophetic of a better\nday.\n\n    Not wholly lost, O Father, is this evil world of ours!\n    Upward through the blood and ashes spring afresh the Eden flowers:\n    From its smoking hell of battle, Love and Pity send their prayer,\n    And still thy white-winged angels hover dimly in our air!\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[11] I still possess the copy of Davies's _Legendre_ which I bought on\nthe 8th of November for twenty Confederate dollars, and of which I\nmemorized three books in prison. As to the _Shakespeare_, see _ante_, p.\n85.\n\n[12] I retain with pride the wooden spoon which did me good service when\nI was _in limbo_. It cost me over two weeks' labor in shaping it with\nhalf a knife-blade and pieces of broken glass. For the little block of\nwood I paid the sentry one \"rebel dollar!\"\n\n[13] Many years after the war he rendered financial aid to fellow\nprisoners, his chum, artist Vander Weyde, and General Hayes. Author of\nseveral valuable works, he is now head of the publishing house of G. P.\nPutnam's Sons.\n\n[14] It was a special pleasure after the lapse of fifty years to meet\nEstabrooks at the Massachusetts Commandery of the Loyal Legion, where,\nwithout knowing of his presence, I had just made honorable mention of\nhim in an address on prison life.\n\n[15] In my own case the prison experience was peculiar: it changed the\ncourse of my whole subsequent life. I had studied law, been admitted to\nthe bar in two states, and \"practiced\" with fair success, \"though,\" as a\nfriend was accustomed to remark, \"not enough to do much harm!\" Many\ntimes one of the best men I ever knew, my father, had said to me at\nparting, \"Do all the good you can.\" Much meditating while in the army\nand especially while in prison, I finally resolved to pursue an\neducational career. Of course I felt sadly the loss of years of study\nthat might have better equipped me; but it seemed a duty. I had had some\nexperience which, I thought, proved me not wholly unqualified. While a\nstudent in college and while reading law I had partly supported myself\nby giving instruction to private pupils and in the schools of General\nRussell and Mayor Skinner. Afterwards, before the war, I had taught\nGreek in the Worcester (Mass.) Academy; and English literature, Greek,\nand Latin for more than three years as principal of the Worcester public\nhigh school. I knew the vocation would be congenial. So I became\nprincipal of a state normal school, of two high schools, of a large\nacademy; house chairman of a (Conn.) legislative committee securing the\nenactment of three school measures of importance; later, president of a\ncollege, professor in a theological seminary and in Cornell University;\nfounder and for three years first president of the earliest and long the\nlargest of the world's general _summer_ schools (which now in the United\nStates number nearly 700); lecturer in many Chautauqua assemblies,\ncolleges, vacation schools, and university extension centres; President\nof the State University of North Dakota; editor, with biographic\nsketches and copious notes, of many masterpieces as text-books in higher\nEnglish literature; author of a history of my regiment; also of a\ntreatise on _Voice and Gesture_, of many monographs and magazine\narticles mostly educational; associate founder and first president of\n_The Watch and Ward Society_; one of the directors and executive\ncommittee of the _American Peace Society_; director of the\n_Massachusetts Peace Society_; president of _The American Institute of\nInstruction_; translator, annotator, and essayist of _The Book of Job_;\netc.\n\nIt may be proper to add that among those indebted in some degree to my\ninstruction or training were several who captured Yale's highest prize\nfor rhetorical excellence (the hundred dollar gold medal of which I was\nthe first recipient): one college president; six college professors;\nthree university presidents; two governors of states; two United States\nSenators; and many others eminent as clergymen, authors, judges,\neditors, and business men.\n\n[16] The higher death-rate (if that be conceded) of southern soldiers is\neasily accounted for. The northern soldiers had been carefully selected\nby competent surgeons. They were physically perfect, or nearly so. They\nwere in the bloom of early manhood or the strength of middle age--not an\nold man among them, not a diseased man among them, not a broken-down\nconstitution among them. But multitudes of the southern, enrolled by\nconscription, were physically unfit. Many were much too old or too\nyoung. Said our General Grant, \"To fill their ranks, they have robbed\nthe cradle and the grave!\"\n\n[17] The exchange is said to have been stopped in 1862-63 by the refusal\nof the Confederates to give up captured negro soldiers in return for\nsouthern captives in the North, the United States properly insisting\nupon perfect equality in the treatment of black and white. But early in\n1864, if not previously, the Confederates yielded the point and were\nanxious to surrender man for man.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX\n\n\n(From the original record. See p. 88.)\n\nProceedings of a Court Martial convened at Danville Mil. Pris. by virtue\nof the following Order:\n\n                                  DANVILLE MIL. PRISON, Oct. 29, 1864.\n\nGeneral Order\n\nNo. 1.\n\nPursuant to the Regulations adopted by the Union Officers of the 2d\nFloor Military Prison, Danville, Va., Oct. 26, 1864, a Court Martial is\nhereby appointed to convene at 10 o'clock A.M. on the 29th inst. or as\nsoon thereafter as may be practicable, for the Trial of Captain [I omit\nfrom the record the name of the accused], 104th N. Y. Vols., and such\nother officers as may be brought before it.\n\n               Detail for the Court.\n\n Lt. Col. W. A. LEACH,      [Here follow the names\n   90th P. V.               of Captains Bryant,\n Lt. Col. THEO. GREGG,      Black, Clapp, Burkart,\n   45th P. V.               Weiss (?), Reilly (?),\n Major J. W. BYRON,         Moody, and the name\n   88th N. Y. V.            of the Judge Advocate,\n Capt. G. M. DICKERMAN,     Lt. and Adjt. James A.\n   26th Mass. V.            Clark, 17th Pa. Cav.]\n\n                           By order of the Officers of the 2d Floor,\n                                                 JAMES CARLE,\n                                 Col. 190th Pa. Vols., Senior Officer.\n\n\nDANVILLE MIL. PRISON, VA., 10 o'clock A.M., 31st, Oct. 1864.\n\nThe Court met pursuant to the foregoing order. Present all the members.\nThe Court then proceeded to the trial of Capt. [we again omit the name\nof the accused], 104th N. Y. Vols.\n\nThe Judge Advocate stated that he had acquainted the accused of the\norder convening the Court, to which he replied in the words following,\nto wit: \"What is that to do with me? I recognize no authority in this\nprison to convene a court martial,\" or words to that effect.\n\nThe accused having refused to appear, the members of the Court were duly\nsworn by the Judge Advocate, and the Judge Advocate was duly sworn by\nthe President of the Court. The accused, Capt. [again we omit the name],\n104th N. Y. Vols., was arraigned on the following charges and\nspecifications:\n\nCharge--Conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.\n\nSpecification--In this: That Capt. [we again omit], 104th N. Y. Vols.,\nwithout provocation, did say in the hearing of several officers to\nLieut. Col. Homer B. Sprague, 13th C. V., speaking in coarse and\nungentlemanly manner the words following, to wit: [here we omit the\nlanguage uttered as being too vile and filthy to print]; that he did\nseveral times repeat the same in a coarse and angry tone, and used other\nvulgar and indecent expressions in an insulting tone and manner. This at\nDanville Mil. Prison, Va., in the lower room thereof on the 29th day of\nOctober, 1864.\n\nThe accused refusing to appear, the Judge Advocate was directed by the\nPresident to enter the plea of Not Guilty.\n\n    To the Specification,  Not Guilty.\n    To the Charge,         Not Guilty.\n\nLieut. G. C. Wilson, 2d P. Artillery, and Lieut. Wm. Shuler, 107th P.\nVols., witnesses for the prosecution, stated that they had cognizance of\nthe facts set forth in the Specification.\n\nThe proceedings of the Court having been reviewed by the Judge Advocate,\nhe submitted the case without argument. The Court was then cleared for\ndeliberation, and having maturely considered the evidence adduced find\nthe accused\n\nOn the Specification, Guilty; with the exception of the words \"and used\nother vulgar and indecent expressions.\"\n\nOf the Charge, Guilty. And do therefore sentence him to be reprimanded\nby the Senior Officer.\n\nThe Court is thus lenient owing to this being the first case of the kind\nbrought before it.\n\n WM. A. LEACH, Lt. Col. 90th Regt. Pa. Vols., Pres.;\n JAS. A. CLARK, Adjt. 17th Pa. Cavalry, Judge Advocate.\n\nThe Proceedings and Findings in the foregoing case are hereby\nrespectfully submitted to Brig.-Gen. Hayes for his consideration.\n\nJAMES CARLE, Col. 191st Pa. Vols., Senior Officer, 2d Floor.\n\n\nCONFED. MIL. PRISON, DANVILLE, VA., Nov. 1, 1864.\n\nThe Proceedings and Findings of the Court Martial of which Lt. Col. W.\nA. Leach, 90th Pa. Vols., was President, having been submitted to\nBrig.-Gen. Hayes, the Senior Officer present, are approved. The extreme\nleniency of the Court must be apparent to all, and can only be excused\nby the novelty of the case brought before it. Language fails to convey\ncensure adequate to the gross vulgarity and ungentlemanly conduct of the\naccused. Captain [we omit the name] seems to forget or misconceive his\nresponsibility in his present circumstances. An officer being a prisoner\nof war is not relieved from his responsibility to his government nor\nfrom his liability to the regulations of the service as far as may be\napplied to his dishonor by ungentlemanly and unofficer-like conduct; and\nmany other offenses committed by an officer when a prisoner of war are\nas punishable as if that officer were serving with his command. And it\nis well the officers in the prison have organized a Court for the\nsummary punishment of those of their number, who, forgetful of their\nposition and their honor, would bring shame upon themselves and their\nassociates.\n\nIt is to be hoped that Capt. [name we omit]'s conduct in the future will\nbe such as will cause to be forgotten his mistakes of the past.\n\n                                  JOSEPH HAYES, Brig. Gen. U. S. Vols.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\nA\n\n Adams, Dr. Nehemiah, 29\n\n Adams, Sarah F., quoted, 35\n\n ambulance, 37, 38\n\n annihilation threatened, 23\n\n apothecary doctor, 108, 109\n\n Appendix, court record, 153-156\n\n apple-jack, 39\n\n Army of West Va., 4, 5, 6\n\n artillery, trained on us, 51, 58\n\n _at_ in \"Where is he at?\" 73, 75\n\n attempt to break out, 113, 118\n\n autographs, officers', 136\n\n\nB\n\n Barnes, J. K., Surgeon-Gen., 146\n\n battle, pomp of, 8, 134\n\n battle-field, Winchester, 3 +\n\n beans, soup of, ration, 44, 94, 102\n\n Beecher, Henry Ward, quoted, 30\n\n Beecher, married by, 52\n\n Berryville, 3\n\n Berryville pike, 3, 4, 7\n\n Birge, Gen. H. W., 7, 9\n\n blanket for several, 105\n\n blankets \"confiscated,\" 46\n\n blankets, not to be shaken, 87\n\n Blinn, Col. C. D., ill, 7\n\n Blue Ridge, 1, 35, 36\n\n Braxton's Confed. artillery, 9\n\n bread, corn-cob-meal, 44, 93, 100\n\n breakfast at Staunton, 32, 33\n\n breakfast at Tom's Brook, 21\n\n Breckenridge, Confed. Gen., 5\n\n Brinton, Col., escape of, 26, 27\n\n brooms in prison, 100, 102\n\n Brown, John, defended, 28\n\n Brownell, H. H., quoted, 137\n\n Browning, Mrs., quoted, 36, 83, 91\n\n buckets for water, 98, 110, 116\n\n Buckingham, Gov. of Conn., 7, 129\n\n \"Bucktail Regiment,\" 64, 130\n\n burning $400, 138\n\n Burrage, Major H. S., 117, 120, 142\n\n Bush, Lieut. W. W., 93, 96\n\n \"Butler's dandy regiment,\" 7 (note)\n\n Byron, Lord, quoted, 28\n\n Byron, Major John W., 87\n\n Byrne, Major John, 64, 66, 141\n\n\nC\n\n cards, playing, 102, 106, 141\n\n Carle, Col. James, 64, 66, 80\n\n carving in prison, 49, 83, 101, 141\n\n cavalry, 4, 5, 6, 13, 25, 34, 40, 45\n\n chaplain, prisoner, 57, 58, 80\n\n charge, Gordon's brilliant, 10, 12\n\n Chautauqua, Mountain Lake, 121\n\n checkers, 92, 102, 141\n\n Cheever, Dr. Geo. B., 29\n\n chess, 92, 102, 141\n\n choosing death, 124, 125, 133, 134, 136, 143, 153\n\n Clarke, Adjt. James A., 22, 96, 101, 117, 143, 153\n\n clergymen's visits, 121, 122\n\n Clover, in it at night, 47\n\n coal, poor and scanty, 79\n\n coal dust, very fine! 48\n\n cold, severe and fatal, 79, 132, 142\n\n communication, finger signs, 65, 70\n\n communication, secret, 43, 70\n\n Confederate currency, 27, 32, 33, 34, 94, 121, 140\n\n Cook, Capt. William, 58, 85, 96, 103, 105, 143\n\n cooking, how and where, 21, 95\n\n Constitution, U. S., 29, 39, 47\n\n Corcoran, Gen. Michael, 53\n\n corn-cob-meal bread, 44, 93, 100, 107\n\n corn-cob-meal soup, 94, 102\n\n court martial in prison, 88; and Appendix, 153\n\n Crew, John, a kind enemy, 28\n\n Crook, Gen. George, 4\n\n\nD\n\n daily routine, Danville, 97-105, 140, 141\n\n Dame, Rev., preaches to us, 121\n\n Dan river, 79, 98\n\n Danville, arrival at, 47, 48;\n   again, 77\n\n Danville death record, 129, 132, 142, 144\n\n Danville prisons, 98, 129\n\n Davies's _Legendre_, 140 (note)\n\n Davis, Jefferson, 150\n\n Davis, Lieut., death of, 57, 58, 68\n\n dead lines, Salisbury, 54\n\n deaf-and-dumb alphabet, 65, 70\n\n deaths at Salisbury, 55, 130, 134, 136, 145\n\n deaths of Confederates in northern prisons, 146\n\n deaths at Danville, 129, 132, 136, 145\n\n Declaration of Independence, 47\n\n defile, Berryville, 3, 4, 7\n\n devastation by Sheridan, 2, 3\n\n diary kept, 22, 28, 44\n\n Dickerman, Capt. G. M., 32\n\n discussion with Lieut. Howard, 28, 29, 30\n\n discussions in prison, 47, 90, 91, 102, 110, 141\n\n distribution of rations, 54, 100\n\n Dolan, pitied by Confederate ladies, 37\n\n Duffi\u00e9, Gen. O. N., 113-117\n\n Dwight, Gen. William, 12, 13\n\n\nE\n\n Early, Gen. Jubal A., 5, 9, 14, 17\n\n Edenburg village, 26\n\n education in prison, 69, 70, 91, 92, 140\n\n Eighth Corps, W. Va. Army, 4, 5, 6\n\n Election votes in prison, 90\n\n Emerson, Rev., prison chaplain, 58, 80\n\n enlist or die, choice to, 133, 134\n\n Epaminondas, strategy at Leuctra, 10\n\n \"escape on the brain,\" 67\n\n escapes attempted, 26, 50, 110\n\n Estabrooks, Lieut. H. L., 72, 74, 142, 143 (note)\n\n exchange of prisoners, 83, 89, 102, 131\n\n exchange blocked, 89, 90, 106, 107, 124, 131, 147-151\n\n\nF\n\n Ficklin, J. F., his kindness, 125-129, 131\n\n Fisher, First Sea Lord, quoted, 57\n\n Fisher's Hill, battle, 25\n\n Fisher's Hill reached, 20\n\n \"flag-of-truce fever,\" 106, 107, 108\n\n fleas, wicked, 27\n\n flour ration, how cooked, 21\n\n Fontleroy, Dr., his hospitality, 32, 33\n\n freemasonry, very useful, 38, 40, 42, 46\n\n French, oral lessons in, 69, 70\n\n Fry, Major W. H., 85\n\n fugitive slave law, 29, 30\n\n fun, critical and sarcastic, 104, 105\n\n fun, sanitary, 79, 80\n\n furnace way of escape, 110\n\n Furness, Horace Howard, 129\n\n\nG\n\n Gardner, Adjt. W. C., 69, 70, 71, 74, 85, 107, 108, 109, 142, 143\n\n Gee, Confed. Major, 52, 53, 56, 74\n\n German, oral lessons in, 92\n\n Ghost in _Hamlet_, 85, 86\n\n \"God's Country,\" 137\n\n God's fugitive slave law, 29\n\n \"going through\" prisoners, 22\n\n Gordon, Confed. Gen. J. B., 5, 10, 17\n\n Gordon's brilliant charge, 10, 13\n\n gorge of Berryville pike, 3, 4, 10\n\n gorilla or guerrilla, which? 39, 40\n\n grain cars at Danville, 48\n\n Grant's merciless orders, 2\n\n Greek Testament, kept, 42;\n   stolen, 80\n\n greenbacks burned, 138\n\n greenbacks, relative value of, 23, 24, 41, 140\n\n Greensboro, N. Carolina, 48\n\n Gregg, Lieut.-Col. Theodore, 64, 85\n\n Grover, Gen. Cuvier, 5, 6, 8, 12\n\n guerrilla, \"I'm a guerrilla,\" 59\n\n guerrilla, Morgan's, a kind gentleman, 34\n\n gun cotton, cushion suspected, 45, 46\n\n\nH\n\n hake, issued in rations, 94\n\n Hall, Rev. Charles K., kind, 122\n\n _Hamlet_, rehearsal, 85, 86\n\n Handy, Lieut., aide to Molineux, 11\n\n Hartshorne, Col. W. Ross, 64, 66, 67, 68, 115, 130\n\n Haslett, Capt., Provost Marshal, 26, 37, 38\n\n Haurand, Major August, 22, 66\n\n Hayes, Gen. Joseph, 53, 61, 65, 67, 92, 141\n\n Hayes, Gen., on court martial, Appendix, 156\n\n health, surely failing, 123\n\n Henry, Patrick, cited, 30\n\n \"Hide your greenbacks,\" 41\n\n hole in the brick wall, 43\n\n Holland, J. H., imaginary, 128\n\n Homer, quoted, 80;\n   puzzled to death, 99\n\n Hooper, Lieut.-Col. C. H., 41, 54, 100, 115\n\n horse lost in battle, 10, 11, 19\n\n hospital in Danville, 106, 132\n\n hostage, Lt. Manning held as, 60\n\n Howard, Confed. Lieut., 28, 29, 30\n\n Howe, Capt. Wesley C., 22, 50, 72, 109, 110, 141\n\n\nI\n\n Imboden, J. D., Confed. Gen., 25\n\n Indiana soldiers, acrobats, 24\n\n innocent deliberately slain, 152\n\n international war, 152\n\n Irish Bend, La., battle, wounded in, 89\n\n\nJ\n\n James river, 46, 137\n\n Jefferson, Thomas, quoted, 31\n\n Jersey lightning, apple-jack? 39\n\n Johnson's Island prison, 126\n\n Jonah, disgorged like, 49\n\n Jordan, H. T., 126, 127\n\n\nK\n\n Keifer, Gen. J. W., 9\n\n Kerrstown, 20\n\n\nL\n\n Ladies, Confed., kind and handsome, 37\n\n Lee, Gen. Fitzhugh, 5;\n   wounded, 13\n\n _Legendre_, Davies's, 113, 140 (note)\n\n letters from outside, 88, 89, 96, 132\n\n Libby prison, 40-44, 112, 144\n\n lice in prison, 102, 103, 132\n\n lice of Egypt, not \"in it,\" 80\n\n Lincoln, Abraham, quoted, 47, 48\n\n Lincoln on exchange of prisoners, 89, 90, 125\n\n Lincoln on right of revolution, 47, 48\n\n Lloyd, J. J., returns from desertion, 133\n\n Lockwood, Capt., killed, 77\n\n log houses for officers, 52, 53\n\n Longfellow, quoted, 136\n\n Lovelace, poet, quoted, 89\n\n\nM\n\n Manning, Lieut. W. C., tunnel, 60, 61, 65\n\n Mark Tapley's \"jolly\" example, 38\n\n _Marmion_, Scott's, quoted, 37\n\n martyrs in reality, 133, 134, 136\n\n Mason, Capt. Frank H., 92, 143\n\n Masonic Hall, Winchester, 18\n\n McIntosh's cavalry, 4\n\n Meacham's Station, 38, 40\n\n meat ration, 44, 93, 94\n\n Mercutio's wound, 118, 119\n\n Middletown in Shenandoah Valley, 20\n\n Molineux, Col. E. L., 7, 9, 14\n\n money concealed, 42, 119, 138\n\n money, Confederate, 23, 32, 33, 34, 113, 140\n\n Morgan's guerrillas, 34\n\n Mortality in prison. _See_ under \"deaths\"\n\n \"Muggers,\" 51\n\n\nN\n\n Napoleon, his strategy, 10;\n   quoted, 135\n\n nationality, northern, 149, 150\n\n nationality, southern, 39, 150, 151\n\n necessity, military, defies every law, 151\n\n negroes, loyal and kind, 111\n\n negroes, prisoners of war, 78, 129\n\n New Market, Va., 26, 27, 28\n\n Newtown, V., 20\n\n Nineteenth Corps, 4, 5, 6, 10, 66, 67\n\n\nO\n\n occupations, 83, 84, 85, 91, 92; 97-105\n\n O'Neil, Col., Yale classmate, killed, 64, 130\n\n Opequon battle, 3-15\n\n Opequon Creek, 3, 7\n\n order to retreat, 11\n\n Ould, R., Confed. Agt. for exchange, 151\n\n ovens for baking, 110\n\n overcoat saved, 19, 20, 42, 46, 105, 108, 109\n\n\nP\n\n \"painfully sober,\" 85\n\n parole given, 53, 129\n\n parole rejected, 53\n\n _pediculid\u00e6 vestimenti, non capitis_, 99, 100\n\n Petersburg shelled, 45\n\n Pharaoh's epidermis and obstinacy, 80\n\n Pickett's charge at Gettysburg, 10\n\n plots to break out, 61-75; 113-119\n\n policing prison, 87, 100\n\n prayer of chaplain Emerson, 58, 80\n\n prey and pray, 121\n\n Prey, Col. Gilbert G., 54, 115, 130\n\n prison number 3, officers', 78, +\n\n prison 6, the worst of all, 131, 132\n\n prison rules adopted, 87, 88\n\n profanity of soldiers, 14, 15, 39, 87\n\n Putnam, Adjt. G. Haven, 91, 92, 101, 110, 121, 140, 142\n\n\nQ\n\n questions, amusing or ugly, 104, 105, 141\n\n\nR\n\n Ralston, Col., killed, 61, 64, 66, 114, 118\n\n Ramseur, S. D., Confed. Gen., 13, 15\n\n rations, 44, 49, 56, 93, 94, 100, 102, 107, 124, 139\n\n recapture of escaped officers, 112\n\n recount made futile by trick, 111, 112\n\n Redwood of Mobile, Yale classmate, 38\n\n Reed, \"shot into inch pieces,\" 24, 25, 26, 31\n\n retaliation threatened, 60;\n   done, 148\n\n rheumatism, 123, 142\n\n Richardson, Albert D., of _Tribune_, 52\n\n Richmond, arrival at, 40, 136\n\n Richmond, watching exploding shells, 45\n\n Ricketts' Division, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12\n\n riddle, fatal to the old poet, 99\n\n riots in July, 1863, 133, 149\n\n robbery of captives, 15, 22, 46\n\n Rodes, Confed. General, 5;\n   killed, 10, 13\n\n roll-call nullified, 111, 112\n\n roll-call sergt., queer, 99-103, 111, 112\n\n rope ladder, twisted rags, 111, 112\n\n rules adopted in prison, 87, 88, 141, 153\n\n Russell, Sergt. Alfred, 89\n\n Russell, Gen. D. A., killed, 13\n\n Russell, Martha, 89\n\n Russell, Gen. W. H., 128\n\n\nS\n\n Sadler, Major David, 66\n\n Salisbury prison, 50-55; 61, 130, 133, 134, 136\n\n sandwiches, G. W. Swepson's, 49\n\n sanitary measures, 79, 80, 103, 141, 142\n\n Sargent, Lieut, of 14th N. H., 23\n\n Scott, Sir Walter, quoted, 8, 37, 134, 135\n\n scurvy prevalent, 123, 142\n\n searching of prisoners, 41, 42, 119\n\n seceded states, a real nation? 150, 151\n\n sentries' sing-song call, 44\n\n sermons in prison, 57, 58, 121, 122\n\n \"Set the table for dinner,\" 96\n\n Shakespeare, quoted, 36, 118, 119\n\n Shakespeare's _Hamlet_, 85, 140\n\n shelter, lack of at Salisbury, 53, 55, 136\n\n Shenandoah river and valley, 1, 2\n\n Sheridan's devastation, 1, 2, 3\n\n Sherman, Gen. W. T., quoted, 1\n\n \"shot twice into inch pieces,\" 24\n\n Simpson, Lieut. J. B.; his sly trick, 77\n\n singing at evening at Danville, 104, 141\n\n Sixth Corps, 4, 5, 6, 10, 13\n\n \"skirmishing\" a misnomer, 102, 103\n\n slavery doomed in any event, 149\n\n \"Slim Jim,\" 101\n\n Small, Major Adner A., 142\n\n Smith, Robert C., Confed. commandant, 81, 82\n\n Smith, Col. Robert C., Yale man, kind, 82, +\n\n Smith, Sergt. W. F., clerk, 129\n\n \"snack?\" or snake? 49\n\n sorghum syrup issued, 94\n\n soup, so called (or broth), 44, 94, 102\n\n spittoon mystery, solved? 78\n\n spoon, carving of, 83, 141 (note)\n\n \"spoon fashion,\" lying in, 105\n\n \"_Spoon_\"! significance of, 105\n\n Sprague, Bvt. Col. H. B., _passim_, and 143 (note)\n\n stampede, Yankee, 11, 12;\n   Confederate, 18, 23\n\n Stanton, E. M., War Secretary, 147, 148\n\n State, allegiance to, 39\n\n Staunton, Va., march to, 2, 28\n\n Staunton, arrival and breakfast at, 32, 33\n\n Staunton, Morgan's guerrilla kind at, 33, 34\n\n stealing rations from guards, haversacks, 77\n\n Stephens, Hon. Alexander H., 146, 147\n\n \"Storming Column\" at Port Hudson, 7\n\n \"Stove Brigade,\" at Danville, 79\n\n stoves in prison at Danville, 79, 95\n\n Strasburg, Va., 20\n\n Strickland, undertaker, 129\n\n Stuart, Dr. Moses, on slavery, 29\n\n subjugation policy, Lincoln's, 151\n\n sunrise on the Blue Ridge, 36\n\n sutler, Confederate, 84\n\n swearing, copious, of two kinds, 14, 15, 39\n\n sweeping the floors, 87, 100\n\n Swepson, George W., very kind, 49, 50\n\n\nT\n\n table-knife saw, Lieut. Titus's, 97, 111\n\n Tarbell, Capt. Doctor, assistant commissary, 54, 100\n\n Taylor, Bayard, quoted, 80\n\n _tertium quid_, solution of mystery, 78\n\n theatrical collapse at Danville, 85, 86\n\n Thirteenth Conn. Regt., very patriotic, 7\n\n Tiemann, Capt. W. F., 14, 15, 85, 109, 143\n\n Titus, Lieut. L. B., invents useful saw, 97, 111\n\n tobacco and the spittoon mystery, 78\n\n tobacco given us by kind clergyman, 122\n\n Tom's Brook, 20, 22, 23\n\n tooth-brush, second-hand, $300 offered, 140\n\n Torbert, Gen. Alfred T., 3, 4, 5, 6, 17\n\n trading with Confed. sentinels, 54, 120\n\n tunnel through the Blue Ridge, 35, 36\n\n tunneling at Salisbury, 60, 61;\n   Danville, 109, 110\n\n Turner, Nathaniel, inspector, Libby, 41\n\n Turner, Richard, commandant at Libby, 41, 45\n\n\nU\n\n unguentum, two pounds called for, 81\n\n university students in prison at Danville, 140\n\n\nV\n\n Vander Weyde, Lieut. Henry, artist, 101, 117\n\n vermin at Danville, 80, 81, 87, 131, 132\n\n view-point, all-important, 57\n\n votes in prison for President, Nov. 8, 90\n\n\nW\n\n war, Admiral Fisher on its essence, 57\n\n war, Lieut. Gen. S. B. M. Young, quoted on, 57\n\n war, Gen. Wm. T. Sherman's \"War is hell,\" 1\n\n Washington, George, Commander-in-chief, 73, 148\n\n Washington, Lieutenant, a Confederate, 83\n\n Washington, President, a Mason at Winchester, 18\n\n Washington wished slavery somehow ended, 30\n\n water parties under guard, 98, 110\n\n water scarce _en route_, 20;\n   at Salisbury, 56, 65, 75\n\n Watts, Isaac, quoted, 45\n\n Waynesboro, Va., 34, 35\n\n Webster, Daniel, 29\n\n Wesley, John, quoted, 152\n\n West Virginia, Army of, 4, 5\n\n \"Where is he at?\" 73\n\n Whittier, John G., quoted, 152\n\n Wilson, Cav. Gen. J. H., 4\n\n Winchester, Va., battle of, 3-15\n\n Winder, Confed. Gen. J. H., Supt. Prisons, 112\n\n wood, split without edge-tools, 97, 107\n\n Woolsey, T. D., President of Yale, 128\n\n\nY\n\n Yadkin river crossing, 72, 75\n\n Yale College men, 38, 49, 64, 69, 82\n\n Yankee ingenuity and skill, 83, 84, 97\n\n Y. M. C. A., of Richmond, 121\n\n Young, Lieut.-Gen. S. B. M., on war, 57\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's Endnotes:\n\n    The following significant errors have been corrected:\n\n      Portrait Caption, \"Gardiner\" to _Gardner_.\n\n      Page 102 & 160, \"peculid\u00e6\" to _pediculid\u00e6_, could be amended to\n        _pediculus_ however the former seems more in keeping with the\n        original intent.\n\n      Spelling errors occurring solely in the Index have been corrected\n        to match the main text.\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"24856":"\n\n\nODYSSEUS AS A YOUTH AT HOME WITH HIS MOTHER\n\n\nODYSSEUS AS A YOUTH AT HOME WITH HIS MOTHER\n\n\n\n\n\n\nODYSSEUS\nTHE HERO OF ITHACA\n\nADAPTED FROM THE THIRD BOOK OF THE PRIMARY\nSCHOOLS OF ATHENS, GREECE\n\n\nBY\nMARY E. BURT\nAuthor of \"Literary Landmarks,\" \"Stories from Plato,\" \"Story of the\nGerman Iliad,\" \"The Child-Life Reading Study\"; Editor of\n\"Little Nature Studies\"; Teacher in the John A.\nBrowning School, New York City\n\n\nAND\nZENA\u00cfDE A. RAGOZIN\nAuthor of \"The Story of Chaldea,\" \"The Story of Assyria,\" \"The Story\nof Media, Babylon, and Persia,\" \"The Story of Vedic India\";\nMember of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and\nIreland, of the American Oriental Society, of the\nSoci\u00e9t\u00e9 Ethnologique of Paris, etc.\n\n\n\n\n\nCHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS\nNEW YORK             CHICAGO            BOSTON\n\n\n\n\nCOPYRIGHT, 1898, BY\nCHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS\n\nPrinted in the United States of America\n\n\n\n\nTo\n\nTHE TEACHER\n\nWHOSE INTEGRITY AND PEDAGOGICAL SPIRIT\n\nHAVE CREATED A SCHOOL WHEREIN THE IDEAL MAY\n\nPROVE ITSELF THE PRACTICAL\n\nAND\n\nTHOSE ENTHUSIASTIC PUPILS\n\nWHO LOVE THE LOYALTY AND BRAVERY OF ODYSSEUS\n\nTHIS BOOK IS DEDICATED\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\n\nPART I\nAN INTRODUCTION TO THE LIFE OF THE HERO, ODYSSEUS\n\n\n     CHAPTER\n \n\n\nI.\nAbout Troy and the Journey of Paris to Greece\n\n\nII.\nThe Flight of Helen\n\n\nIII.\nThe Greeks Sail for Troy\n\n\nIV.\nThe Fall of Troy\n\n\n\n\n\nPART II\nTHE RETURN OF ODYSSEUS TO HIS OWN COUNTRY\n\n\n     CHAPTER\n \n\n\nV.\nOdysseus on the Island of Calypso\n\n\nVI.\nOdysseus Constructs a Raft and Leaves the Island\n\n\nVII.\nOdysseus is Saved on the Island of Scheria\n\n\nVIII.\nNausica\u00e4 is Sent to the River by Athena\n\n\nIX.\nOdysseus Arrives at the Palace of Alkino\u00f6s\n\n\nX.\nOdysseus in the Halls of Alkino\u00f6s\n\n\nXI.\nThe Banquet in Honor of Odysseus\n\n\nXII.\nOdysseus Relates His Adventures\n\n\nXIII.\nThe Lotus-Eaters and the Cyclops\n\n\nXIV.\nThe Cave of the Cyclops\n\n\nXV.\nThe Blinding of the Cyclops\n\n\nXVI.\nOdysseus and His Companions Leave the Land of the Cyclops\n\n\nXVII.\nThe Adventures of Odysseus on the Island of \u00c6olus\n\n\nXVIII.\nOdysseus at the Home of Circ\u00e8\n\n\nXIX.\nCirc\u00e8 Instructs Odysseus Concerning His Descent to Hades\n\n\nXX.\nThe Adventures of Odysseus in Hades\n\n\nXXI.\nOdysseus Converses with His Mother and Agamemnon\n\n\nXXII.\nConversation with Achilles and Other Heroes\n\n\nXXIII.\nThe Return of Odysseus to the Island of Circ\u00e8\n\n\nXXIV.\nOdysseus Meets the Sirens, Skylla, and Charybdis\n\n\nXXV.\nOdysseus on the Island of H\u0113lios\n\n\nXXVI.\nThe Departure of Odysseus from the Island of Scheria\n\n\nXXVII.\nOdysseus Arrives at Ithaca\n\n\nXXVIII.\nOdysseus Seeks the Swineherd\n\n\n\n\n\nPART III\nTHE TRIUMPH OF ODYSSEUS\n\n\nCHAPTER\n \n\n\nXXIX.\nAthena Advises Telemachos\n\n\nXXX.\nTelemachos Astonishes the Wooers\n\n\nXXXI.\nPenelope's Web\n\n\nXXXII.\nThe Journey of Telemachos\n\n\nXXXIII.\nTelemachos in Pylos\n\n\nXXXIV.\nTelemachos in Sparta\n\n\nXXXV.\nMenelaos Relates His Adventures\n\n\nXXXVI.\nThe Conspiracy of the Suitors\n\n\nXXXVII.\nTelemachos Returns to Ithaca\n\n\nXXXVIII.\nTelemachos and the Swineherd\n\n\nXXXIX.\nTelemachos Recognizes Odysseus\n\n\nXL.\nTelemachos Returns to the Palace\n\n\nXLI.\nOdysseus is Recognized by His Dog\n\n\nXLII.\nOdysseus Comes, a Beggar, to His Own House\n\n\nXLIII.\nConversation of Odysseus and Penelope\n\n\nXLIV.\nEurycleia Recognizes Odysseus\n\n\nXLV.\nPenelope's Dream\n\n\nXLVI.\nAthena Encourages Odysseus\n\n\nXLVII.\nThe Last Banquet of the Suitors\n\n\nXLVIII.\nOdysseus Bends the Bow\n\n\nXLIX.\nDeath of the Suitors\n\n\nL.\nEurycleia Announces the Return of Odysseus to Penelope\n\n\nLI.\nOdysseus Visits His Father\n\n\n \nVocabulary and Notes\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS\n\nODYSSEUS AS A YOUTH AT HOME WITH HIS MOTHER\nTHE SILVER-FOOTED THETIS RISING FROM THE WAVES\nODYSSEUS AND MENELAOS PERSUADING AGAMEMNON TO SACRIFICE IPHIGENEIA\nALPHEUS AND ARETHUSA\nTHE SWINEHERD TELLING HIS STORY TO ODYSSEUS\nODYSSEUS FEIGNS MADNESS\n\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\nIt has long been the opinion of many of the more progressive teachers of the United States that, next to Herakles, Odysseus is the hero closest to child-life, and that the stories from the \"Odyssey\" are the most suitable for reading-lessons. These conclusions have been reached through independent experiments not related to educational work in foreign countries.\nWhile sojourning in Athens I had the pleasure of visiting the best schools, both public and private, and found the reading especially spirited. I examined the books in use and found the regular reading-books to consist of the classic tales of the country, the stories of Herakles, Theseus, Perseus, and so forth, in the reader succeeding the primer, and the stories of Odysseus, or Ulysses, as we commonly call him, following as a third book, answering to our second or third reader. This book I brought home with me and had a careful, literal translation made. I submitted this translation to that notable scholar, Zena\u00efde A. Ragozin, with whom I faithfully traversed the ground, word by word and sentence by sentence. This version I have carefully compared with Bryant and rewritten, making the language as simple as could be consistent with the dignity of the subject-matter.\nThe introduction to the original book as I found it in Greece contains many interesting points, since it shows that educators in foreign countries, notably in Germany, had come to the same conclusion with our best American teachers. The editor of the little Greek reading-book says:\n\"In editing this work we have made use not only of Homer's 'Odyssey,' but also of that excellent reader which is used in the public schools of Germany, Willman's 'Lesebuch aus Homer.' We have divided the little volume into three parts, the first of which gives a short resum\u00e9 of the war against Troy and the destruction of that city, the second the wanderings of Odysseus till his arrival in Ithaca, the third his arrival and the killing of the wooers. We have no apology to make in presenting this book to the public as a school-book, since many people superior to us have shown the need of such books in school-work. The new public schools, as is well known, have a mission of the highest importance. They do not aim, as formerly, at absolute knowledge pounded into the heads of children in a mechanical way. Their aim is the mental and ethical development of the pupils. Reading and writing lead but half way to this goal. With all nations the readers used in the public schools are a collection of the noblest thoughts of their authors.\"\nThe Greek editor had never read the inane rat and cat stories of American school \"readers\" when he wrote that. He continues:\n\"Happily the Greek nation, more than any other, abounds in literary masterpieces. Nearly all of the Greek writings contain an abundance of practical wisdom and virtue. Their worth is so great that even the most advanced European nations do not hesitate to introduce them into their schools. The Germans do this, although their habits and customs are so different from ours. They especially admire Homer's works. These books, above all others, afford pleasure to the young, and the reason for it is clearly set forth by the eminent educator Herbart:\n\"'The little boy is grieved when told that he is little. Nor does he enjoy the stories of little children. This is because his imagination reaches out and beyond his environments. I find the stories from Homer to be more suitable reading for young children than the mass of juvenile books, because they contain grand truths.'\n\"Therefore these stories are held in as high esteem by the German children as by the Greek. In no other works do children find the grand and noble traits in human life so faithfully and charmingly depicted as in Homer. Here all the domestic, civic, and religious virtues of the people are marvellously brought to light and the national feeling is exalted. The Homeric poetry, and especially the 'Odyssey,' is adapted to very young children, not only because it satisfies so well the needs which lead to mental development, but also for another reason. As with the people of olden times bravery was considered the greatest virtue, so with boys of this age and all ages. No other ethical idea has such predominance as that of prowess. Strength of body and a firm will characterize those whom boys choose as their leaders. Hence the pleasure they derive from the accounts of celebrated heroes of yore whose bravery, courage, and prudence they admire.\"\nThe editor further extols the advantages arising from the study of Homer, it making the youthful students acquainted with the earliest periods of Greek history, the manners and customs of the people, and he ends by quoting from Herbart:\n\"Boys must first get acquainted with the noisy market-place of Ithaca and then be led to the Athens of Miltiades and Themistokles.\"\nWith equal truth the American can say that the child whose patriotism is kindled by the Homeric fire will the more gladly respond to the ideals set forth in the history of a Columbus or a Washington.\nMARY E. BURT.    \n\n\n\n\nPART I\nAN INTRODUCTION TO THE LIFE\nOF THE HERO, ODYSSEUS\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\nABOUT TROY AND THE JOURNEY OF PARIS TO GREECE\n\nOn the northern shore of Asia Minor there lies a plateau watered by many small rivers and surrounded on all sides by mountains, only on the north it slopes gently to the sea. On this plateau, between the Simois and Scamandros rivers, in the oldest times there stood a very rich and powerful city, whose name was Troy. It was the capital of a large and fertile district, known as the Troad.\nThere, about 1200 B.C., reigned a king by the name of Priam, possessed of great power and boundless wealth. He had many sons and daughters. It was said, indeed, that he had fifty sons who were all married and living in their own homes, which they had built by the king's wish around the royal palace.\nThey were all handsome and heroic young men. One of the youngest, Paris, also named Alexandros, surpassed the others in beauty. He was a restless youth and not fond of his home, as were the others. He had set his heart on travelling and seeing strange countries and cities. King Priam was extremely fond of his large family, and took pride in having all his children about him, so that at first he was greatly opposed to the wishes of Paris.\nBut the youth was so persistent and unhappy that the king at last consented to let him go. Without delay, Paris called together a few friends with tastes as adventurous as his own. They embarked in a new ship well provided with all that travellers need, and set sail for the famous land on the shores of the \u00c6gean Sea, of which they had heard so many wonderful things, and which was called Hellas.\nNearly in the middle of the plain which forms the southern part of Hellas was the city of Sparta. It was on the river Eurotas, and was the capital of a large district called Laced\u00e6mon, and it was to this city that Paris came.\nNow, there was a mysterious reason for this strange desire of Paris\u2014his passionate longing to travel. In his early youth, while he was still minding his herds on the rich pastures of Mount Ida, he received a visit from the three greatest goddesses of Olympos.\nHera, the queen of Heaven and consort of Zeus\u2014Athena, the goddess of wisdom, and Zeus's favorite daughter\u2014and Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, had a dispute among themselves.\nEach thought herself the most beautiful of the three, and they would have come to high words about it had not Athena proposed that they should ask the handsomest man in the world to settle the question. This happened to be the young royal shepherd, Paris. So the three goddesses floated down to the slope of Mount Ida on a snowy cloud and placed the question before him, each promising to reward him royally if he gave his verdict in her favor.\nParis, as might have been expected, decided in favor of Aphrodite, who had promised him that the fairest woman living in the whole world should be his wife. This promise had to be kept, being given by a goddess, but it was the source of endless misfortune, for Paris had a young and lovely wife who was tenderly attached to him, while the fairest of living women\u2014acknowledged as such by fame in all known countries\u2014was Queen Helen of Sparta, herself the wife of another man.\nHer husband was one of the most renowned heroes of Hellas, King Menelaos, a son of Atreus and brother of the leader of the Greek chiefs, Agamemnon, King of Mycen\u00e6. It was Aphrodite, then, who inspired Paris with an insane desire to forsake his parents, brothers, and wife. It was her secret guidance which led him across the seas and through the dangers lurking among the hundreds of islands of the Archipelagos straight to the land of Laced\u00e6mon. This is the central of the three peninsulas in which the Peloponnesus ends, and might be called the middle finger of that large hand of which Arcadia is the palm.\nParis landed, with all his companions, on the shores of Laced\u00e6mon, where the people received him kindly and helped him on his journey to Sparta, where Menelaos and Helen gave him a cordial welcome.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\nTHE FLIGHT OF HELEN\n\nAphrodite, while leading Paris to the shores of Laced\u00e6mon, had not forgotten her promise, and in Sparta itself she was at work at its fulfilment. She inspired Queen Helen with a growing discontent and restlessness of spirit. Menelaos had not noticed any change in her, and it was with an utterly unsuspicious mind that he received the fatal strangers and made them welcome guests in his land and home.\nMore than that, having heard the news from Crete that his presence there was desirable on account of some urgent business, he did not hesitate to set sail for that island, in the expectation of finding Paris and his companions still enjoying the hospitality of his palace after a short absence.\nThis was the chance which wily Aphrodite had contrived for Paris. He took the hint and carried Helen away to his ship, together with as much treasure as they could lay hands on, and then they sailed for Troy. Little did he heed, in his mad desire to call the most beautiful woman in the world his wife, that she was already the wife of a hero who had received him as an honored guest in his house, and that he was about to destroy the peace and honor of his host.\nAs soon as Menelaos heard of the flight of his wife, he hastened back to Sparta, where he found his palace deserted and his treasure-house robbed.\nThen his heart was filled with great wrath. He set out at once to see his brother, Agamemnon, to consult with him about what was to be done. Agamemnon was ruler over Mycen\u00e6, and highly respected in all Hellas on account of his power and riches.\nAfter the two brothers had talked over this grave affair, they announced to all the leaders in Hellas the great and detestable crime, and asked them for their assistance. All the king's chiefs of Hellas lent a willing ear to this demand, for in this breach of hospitality, committed against one of them, each felt himself personally aggrieved and bound to help in the punishment of what, in those times, was considered the most unpardonable of all crimes. Only one of the kings held back for awhile and needed much persuasion to join the league. This was Odysseus of Ithaca, who could well consider himself at the time the happiest of mortals, for he had lately married Penelope, one of the fairest and most virtuous maidens of Greece. He had an infant son of great beauty and promise, and he owned much land and countless herds of cattle, sheep, and swine. Added to that, all the petty nobles of the island acknowledged him as their chief.\nBut a soothsayer, or seer, had greatly disturbed him by informing him that if he went to a great war he would be kept away from his home for the space of twenty years, and even then return to it in the guise of a beggar, after having suffered wrecks, captivity, endless wanderings, and loss of comrades.\nNo one could doubt that Odysseus was brave, but no one could blame him for wishing to be excused from taking part in the war against Troy. Menelaos and his brother, however, would accept no excuse from him, as he was the wisest and craftiest of all the leaders, and when Odysseus finally consented to join them he set about arming and directing the young Greek warriors with all his heart and soul.\nThere was another young prince whom it was absolutely necessary to secure, for a much venerated oracle had given it as a decree of the gods that Troy could never be taken without his help. This was Achilles, son of Peleus, king of the Myrmidons in Thessaly, and of the beauteous ocean nymph, Thetis. Notwithstanding his extreme youth, his father would not disappoint the whole country, and he let him go with those who came for him. But he sent along with him his adopted son, Patroklos, who was several years older, and to whom the boy was passionately attached, and also his oldest and most trusted servant, Ph\u0153nix. These two, the old man and the youth, he charged, as they hoped for the mercy of Zeus, to keep watchful guard over Achilles, whose exceedingly impetuous and reckless temper exposed him to many dangers which might be averted by a sensible and loving word spoken in time.\n\n\n\nTHE SILVER-FOOTED THETIS RISING FROM THE WAVES\n\n\nTHE SILVER-FOOTED THETIS RISING FROM THE WAVES\n\n\nThe Greeks took counsel together, and it was resolved that Menelaos should go in person to Troy and demand back his wife, Helen, as well as his treasure and a suitable apology for the wrong done to him and to all Hellas. He chose for his companion the cunning Odysseus. On their arrival in Troy, Menelaos and Odysseus presented themselves before Priam and demanded the return of Helen and the treasures.\nThe king at once called his people together to deliberate upon the matter, and the two Greek kings bravely denounced the mean act of Paris. But the Trojans, stirred up by that youth, abused the ambassadors and drove them out of their city.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\nTHE GREEKS SAIL FOR TROY\n\nThe kings and chieftains of Hellas, having heard that Odysseus and Menelaos had been driven out of Troy, hastened to call together their fleets and armies at Aulis, a city of B\u0153otia on a ridge of rock running out into the sea between two little bays, each of which was a harbor for many ships. A hundred thousand men and a thousand ships were gathered there under the leadership of the celebrated and heroic chiefs. The commander-in-chief of the whole army was Agamemnon.\nAmong the renowned leaders were Menelaos, the sagacious Odysseus, Ajax, and many others. Just as they were offering a sacrifice to the gods, in order to start out to the war with their good will, a great miracle happened. A fearful snake crept from under the altar and climbed a tree in which there was a sparrow's nest nearly hidden by the leaves. There were eight young sparrows in the nest, nine birds with the mother. The snake devoured the fluttering little birds, around which the mother circled as if overcome by grief.\nThen the snake darted at the mother-bird and swallowed it, when Zeus changed the reptile into a stone. The Greeks wondered at the sight, but the soothsayer, Calchas, said to them: \"Why do ye wonder at this? The all-powerful Zeus has sent us this sign because our deeds shall live forever in the minds of men. Just as the snake has devoured the eight little sparrows and their mother, so shall the war swallow up the nine coming years, and in the tenth we shall overcome Troy.\"\nThe ships of the Greeks lay in the bays of Aulis while the warriors waited impatiently to set sail. But the winds were contrary; they would not blow, and the boats waited there year after year; for a sacred hind had been slain by Agamemnon, one that belonged to the goddess Artemis, and it was ordered by that goddess that no wind should arise to take them on toward Troy until her wrath had been appeased.\nSo Agamemnon went to Calchas, the seer, and asked his advice, whereupon the old prophet told him to send for his lovely young daughter, Iphigeneia, and offer her up on the altar as the only acceptable sacrifice to Artemis. When he had placed her upon the altar and the priest was raising his knife, the goddess took pity on Agamemnon and carried the girl away in a cloud, leaving a fine white doe instead.\n\n\n\nODYSSEUS AND MENELAOS PERSUADING AGAMEMNON TO SACRIFICE IPHIGENEIA\n\n\nODYSSEUS AND MENELAOS PERSUADING AGAMEMNON TO SACRIFICE IPHIGENEIA\n\n\nAnd now arose a favorable wind, and the Greeks arrived safely before Troy. How they fought with the Trojans, how many of the heroes outlived the struggle, and how many fell in the battle, all this we can learn from an old book called the \"Iliad.\" We shall select from it only those things which refer to our hero, Odysseus; and to complete the history of that hero we shall go to another book, called the \"Odyssey.\"\nBoth of these books are the work of the great poet Homer, who lived many years after the war with Troy. That we may understand better what happened later on, we must give a short account of the fall of Troy and of the return of Menelaos and Agamemnon to their own country.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\nTHE FALL OF TROY\n\nThe war lasted nine years, and in the tenth the Greeks conquered Troy, not in battle, but by means of a trick which had come into the mind of Odysseus. He told a skilful carpenter to build a wooden horse of gigantic size, and in it he hid the bravest Greek warriors. When he had done this he advised all the other Greeks to depart without leaving anything behind them, and so lead the Trojans to believe that they had given up the fight and gone home.\nSo the Greeks burned their tents and put off to sea, while the Trojans from their walls watched them with great joy, thinking themselves well rid of an enemy. When the last ship had gone, the Trojans threw open the gates of their city and rushed down into the plain where the Greeks had had their camp, to see how the place looked.\nThere they found the wooden horse, and one of the Greeks tied to a tree, who told them he was left there as a punishment, and that the wooden horse was an offering to the gods. The Trojans made up their minds to carry it into their city and give it the best place on their highest hill.\nThen Laoco\u00f6n, a priest of Apollo, stepped forth, and said to them: \"Unhappy people! what madness possesses you? Do ye think the enemy gone? Do ye know Odysseus so little? There are Greek warriors hidden in this horse, or else some other mischief is lurking there. Fear the Greeks even when they bring gifts.\"\nWith these words, he thrust his spear into the flank of the horse, and the arms of the hidden enemy clashed with a loud noise. Just then two snakes of great size, sent by Athena, rose from the sea, and sprang upon Laoco\u00f6n and his two sons, and, coiling around them, bit them to death. The Trojans, in great fear at the sight, took this as a sign from the gods that the horse was sacred and that they must protect it, and they moved it at once into their city, breaking down a part of their wall to get it in.\nHaving done this, they gave themselves up to feasting and making merry, without the slightest thought that any evil was in store for them. But when night had come, and all were in a deep sleep, the ships of the Greeks, which had been hiding all the while behind a neighboring island, came back. The warriors who were concealed in the wooden horse sprang out and rushing wildly through the city, slew the Trojans right and left without mercy. From all sides came wailings and groans, and the flames of the burning city rose up to the sky.\nA deadly struggle took place between the Trojans and the Greeks. Priam was slain, and Paris and many other heroes. The victory was to the Greeks. Troy fell never to rise again, and the women and children were led off to become slaves to their conquerors.\nThus was destroyed in one night the great and glorious city of Troy, all on account of the crime which Paris had committed against the laws of hospitality.\nThe trials of the Greeks were not yet at an end. After their victory at Troy they embarked in their ships and started eagerly for their homes. But Zeus prepared a sad fate for them, because Ajax had violently dragged Cassandra, the beautiful daughter of Priam, from the altar of Athena and had made her his slave. Thus many of the leaders perished in the sea far from home, and some were cast on foreign shores to die.\nMenelaos was thrown by wind and waves on the island of Crete, and he lost many of the ships on the cliffs. Thence he strayed to the island of Cyprus, noted for its mines; and he roved through other lands until he came to Egypt, where he wandered about for eight years, when he returned to Sparta, taking Helen with him. He became reconciled to his wife, and they lived a quiet life far removed from the enchantments of the wily Aphrodite.\nBut the saddest fate of all overtook Agamemnon, who met his death in his own house at the hands of his wife and brother.\nAgamemnon, without any accident at sea, reached his native land. Full of gratitude, he kissed the earth and wept tears of joy at the thought of meeting his wife and son.\nHe entered his home with a glad heart, and his faithless wife came to meet him, but she had prepared a hot bath for him, and there he met his death, entangled in a net which she threw over him, for she had not forgotten the loss of her beautiful daughter, Iphigeneia, whom she believed to have been offered up as a sacrifice on the altar of Artemis.\nShe was assisted in this dreadful deed by her husband's brother, who became ruler over the land, holding sway eight years, when Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, slew him and regained the kingdom.\nAnd now we come to the return of Odysseus, the wisest of the Greeks, who wandered to the remotest part of the earth and learned the customs of many people, and who suffered terrible things by land and sea.\n\n\n\n\nPART II\nTHE RETURN OF ODYSSEUS TO\nHIS OWN COUNTRY\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\nODYSSEUS ON THE ISLAND OF CALYPSO\n\nAll the Greeks who had escaped from the destruction of Troy and had been spared the terrors of the sea returned to their homes. But the unfortunate Odysseus was delayed by the fair nymph Calypso on her island, where she made her home in a cool and beautiful grotto. There he wept and mourned, desiring to see his wife again and his native land. Each of the gods save one, Poseidon, god of the sea, wished to help him to find the way home. Odysseus had brought Poseidon's wrath upon himself through inflicting a terrible injury upon the favorite son of that deity, and for that reason the wrath of the god fell on him and he was wrecked. One day all the other gods had assembled in the hall of Zeus, on Mount Olympos, when Athena, the favorite daughter of Zeus and firm friend of Odysseus, knowing that her father in his heart was well-disposed toward the hero, began to plead for him in a way to excite greater pity still.\n\"O my father, thou great king among the gods,\" she said, \"my heart is troubled on account of the wise Odysseus, who lingers on an island, far away from home, and suffers greatly; for a nymph lives on the island, the daughter of great Atlas, and with sweet words she strives to make Odysseus forget his native land. But he bewails his fate and is full of sorrow, his only wish being to have a glimpse of the smoke of his beloved country.\"\nZeus thereupon ordered Hermes to depart at once for the island and tell the nymph to send Odysseus to his home without delay. Hermes obeyed quickly. He bound his winged sandals to his feet, and, taking his golden wand in his hand, flew like a meteor over land and sea till he reached the island where the nymph Calypso made her abode. He found her within the grotto, singing sweetly while she wove a fine web on a golden loom.\nAll about the grotto there was a grove of cypress-trees in which birds of gay colors were sporting and springs of pure water bubbling, and the fragrance of strange flowers filled the air. When Hermes had gazed upon these wonders he entered the grotto. It was bright with a blazing fire on a spacious hearth, and fragrant with the odor of burning cedar and cypress.\nCalypso saw him as he came in and knew him. She bade him sit down on a throne dazzling with jewels, and, placing a table before him laden with nectar and ambrosia, invited him to eat and drink. After he had finished his repast, Hermes told her that Zeus had sent him to her with the command that she should send Odysseus without delay to his native land. Having given this message, he disappeared, leaving Calypso in great grief.\nOdysseus in the meantime sat by the shore mourning and gazing out upon the sea. Calypso found him there, sitting alone, weeping and longing for his home. She stood by him and said: \"Odysseus, my unhappy friend, do not waste thy life any longer in sorrow. The end of thy grief has come. Arise and prepare to depart for thy home. Build thee a raft of the trunks of trees which thou shalt hew down. I will put bread and water and delicate wine on board; and I will clothe thee in comfortable garments, and send a favorable wind that thou mayest safely reach thy native land.\"\nThus spoke the lovely goddess, but Odysseus could hardly believe her, and said: \"I fear, O goddess, that thou hast some other thought in thy mind, and that thou dost not wish to send me home when thou biddest me sail over this stormy and dangerous sea. I shall never go on to the raft against thy wish, and thou must swear the great oath of the gods that no harm shall come to me.\"\nThe goddess smiled at these words, and, taking the hero by the hand, rejoined: \"Thou art a wise man, and thy answer is well made. I will pledge thee a solemn oath, by the heavens and the earth, and the waters of the Styx, that I have no plan of evil against thee. And I advise thee to do as I have instructed thee, to be ready for any crisis.\"\nSpeaking thus, the goddess went into the grotto and Odysseus followed her. When he had come into the spacious hall, he sat down on his throne and the nymph brought him rich food and wine. Then she took a seat opposite him, and her attendants brought her ambrosia and nectar, which she would gladly have shared with Odysseus, that he, too, might become an immortal.\nWhen the repast was over, Calypso narrated to him all the trials he would have to undergo before he could reach his native land. While she was relating these things the sun sank down, and darkness came upon the island, and all who had their abode in the grotto sought rest and slumber.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\nODYSSEUS CONSTRUCTS A RAFT AND LEAVES THE ISLAND\n\nAt daybreak the goddess gave Odysseus a large axe and a sharp adze, and led him to the heights of the island, where the largest trees grew. He went to work at once and cut down twenty trees, which he hewed into proper shape, and then tied them together with ropes which he himself made of bark.\nIn this way he built a raft which was very large and strong enough to stand the onset of the waves. He wove a railing of willow and fitted it around the sides of the raft, to protect himself against the dashing waves; and he raised a strong mast with sails shaped to it, and tightly bound by cords and ropes. He filled the crevices of the raft with wax and pitch and attached a rudder.\nAt the end of the fourth day his work was all done, and his little ship was ready to be launched. On the fifth day the beautiful goddess prepared the hero a bath and gave him new garments fragrant with perfumes. She went down to the boat with him and put on board a skin of dark-red wine, a larger one full of water, and a bag of dainty food. Then she bade Odysseus a kind farewell, and sent a gentle and friendly wind to waft him over the waves.\nOdysseus was wild with joy at the thought that he was really on his way home once more. He spread his sails to catch the breeze and took his seat at the helm, steering the vessel with great skill. He did not dare to take any sleep, for he had to watch the sky and stars constantly and use them as guides on his course. He sailed along in this way seventeen days. On the eighteenth he spied land in the distance. It was the land of the Ph\u00e6acians, lying like a dark spot off in the sea.\nThen Poseidon, who was returning from Ethiopia, saw him, and his wrath grew hot against the hero. He raised up his head and said to himself: \"Alas! the gods have strangely changed their minds about Odysseus during my absence in Africa. Behold! in a little while he will be in the land of the Ph\u00e6acians, where he will find an end to his troubles. Nevertheless, it is in my power to chastise him.\"\nSpeaking thus, Poseidon called the clouds together, and seizing his trident he stirred up the sea; then he set loose all the winds until there was a general hurricane, and he wrapped heaven and earth in the thick darkness of night.\nThe mighty waves dashed over the raft, and Odysseus sank on his knees and trembled. With a deep groan he said: \"Ah me, unhappy! Am I to bear more disasters? I fear that the warning of the goddess was too true, and that I shall be for a long time cast about on the waves before I reach home. With what dark clouds Zeus has shrouded the sky! The storm grows wild. What terrible waves are these! Helplessly I must perish. Happy the Greeks who fell before Troy, fighting for their country! Would that I, too, had met death the day when the Trojans hurled their spears at me as they strove to take the body of Achilles. If I had died then, the Greeks would have buried me with great honors. Now I shall die an inglorious death.\"\nAs he spoke a huge wave struck the raft with such terrible force that it whirled it around and overturned it. The helm was wrung from his hand and he fell into the angry breakers. The mast was snapped in two and the ropes and sails flew off into the sea.\nOdysseus was under water a long time, striving in vain to come to the surface. Finally he rose, spitting the bitter brine out of his mouth. Although he was in such a desperate plight, his mind was on the raft. Battling bravely with the waves he reached it, and springing on board sat down in the middle of it. Thus he escaped death.\nThe angry waves tossed him hither and thither as the wind scatters the leaves over a field. Then Ino, the daughter of Cadmus, saw him and took pity on him. She took the form of a bird, and, perching on his raft, she said to him: \"O, luckless man! why is Poseidon so angry with thee? Fear nothing, however; he cannot take thy life. Obey me and thou shalt not suffer much longer. Lay aside thy clothes, leave the raft to the mercy of the winds and waves, and swim to the land. Take my veil and wind it about thy breast, and thou shalt not have anything to fear. As soon as thou hast reached the land, take it off and throw it back into the sea. Then hurry away inland.\"\nOdysseus hesitated to follow Ino's advice, fearing some treachery. But Poseidon sent a huge wave which struck him and scattered the raft as if it were dry chaff. Then Odysseus at once got astride of the swimming timber. He bound the veil around his breast and bravely plunged into the boiling waters.\nPoseidon saw him, and shaking his head he said: \"I verily believe thou wilt come out alive from the sea. But the sea has had thee long enough, so that thou wilt know its power hereafter and fear it.\" Saying this he lashed up his horses and drove off.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\nODYSSEUS IS SAVED ON THE ISLAND OF SCHERIA\n\nAthena, the daughter of Zeus, seeing Odysseus struggling through the waves, pitied him, and bade the winds become quiet. Two days and two nights Odysseus floated about, but on the third the wind calmed down and the sea became smooth.\nIn a short time he found himself near land once more. But the shore was wild and full of sharp rocks and high cliffs. He could see no place on which to set foot, and he grew downhearted. His knees gave way, and, groaning deeply, he cried out: \"O, luckless one! In vain have I braved the dangers of the sea to escape death. Now all hope has abandoned me, since there is no way for me to get out of the water. I fear that when I try to approach the land the waves will throw me against the cliffs, and should I try to find a safe landing-place by swimming, the surf may carry me back into the wild sea, where some sea-monster will swallow me up. Whatever I may do, I see no help for me.\"\nWhile he pondered over these things a huge wave cast him on the foamy shore. His bones were nearly broken, and he lay exhausted until the wave returned, when he was hurled again with great force back into the sea. Now the unfortunate wanderer took to swimming as his last resort, and reached the mouth of a river, where he was able to land.\nToo tired to breathe or speak, he sank down in a swoon. His knees and arms trembled, and his whole body was bruised and swollen. When his senses returned he rose and untied the veil that Ino had given him and cast it back into the sea. Then he knelt down and kissed the earth, and moved to a sheltered spot where a wild and a tame olive-tree were standing close together, whose branches had mingled with one another, and there he found a safe hiding-place.\nThen the godlike Odysseus lay down on a bed of dry leaves, covering himself up as one does an ember, lest it should go out. Athena came and poured sweet sleep over his eyes, that he might find quiet rest after all his toils.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\nNAUSICA\u00c4 IS SENT TO THE RIVER BY ATHENA\n\nWhile Odysseus lay in a deep sleep, the goddess Athena went to the royal dwelling of the king of the Ph\u00e6acians, Alkino\u00f6s, in order to hasten the return of Odysseus to his native land. She entered the house, where she found Nausica\u00e4, the king's daughter, sleeping in her beautiful chamber. Near her lay two maids who served her.\nAthena came as softly as a breath of air, and caused the maiden to dream that her marriage-day was near and that it was her duty to arise and hasten to the place by the river where they washed their clothing. In her dream the princess seemed to hear Athena say: \"Nausica\u00e4, why art thou so slothful? Thy beautiful robes lie neglected and thy wedding-day is at hand, on which thou surely shouldst wear garments of dazzling whiteness, and thou shouldst give such garments to those maidens who lead thee forth to thy bridegroom. Therefore, as soon as day breaks thou must ask thy father to give thee a pair of mules, and we will hasten to the washing-place down by the river.\"\nAt the first dawn of day Nausica\u00e4 went in haste to her father and mother to tell them of her dream. She found them in their splendid hall. Her mother sat with her maidens spinning, and the king stood on the threshold, just going forth to meet his chiefs in council. The princess approached her father and said: \"Dearest father, I pray that thou wilt give me two mules and a wagon, that I may go with my maids to the river and take all the clothes that need washing, for it becomes the king and his sons to wear clean garments when they go to the council of the chiefs. Thou hast five sons, three of whom are youths not wedded, and they should be provided with fresh robes; they will need them in the dance.\"\nThe king smiled, for he saw what was in her mind, and he ordered the mules. Then his beautiful daughter brought from the linen-room the soiled garments and put them on the wagon, while the queen prepared a goodly lunch of cold meat and bread and a skin of sweet wine.\nNausica\u00e4 further received from her mother a bottle of fragrant oil with which to anoint herself after the washing. Then she mounted the wagon, seized the whip and reins, and drove out of the city, the maidens of her train following her on foot.\nWhen they came to the place where the river was flowing bright and clear, they unhitched the mules and let them browse along the bank. Then they took their garments down from the wagon and tossed them into the marble vats which they had filled with the limpid water of the stream. When they had washed them clean they spread them on the white pebbles to dry. Having finished the task, they took a bath and anointed themselves with oil. Then they sat down on the shore and ate their lunch.\nThe repast over, they began to play ball. First the white-armed Nausica\u00e4 threw the ball. She looked as tall and royal among her maids as did Artemis, the daughter of Zeus, among her nymphs.\nNausica\u00e4 sang a song as they frolicked on the sand.\nWhen it was time to go home they put the clean garments upon the wagon and harnessed up the mules. Just as they started, Nausica\u00e4 once more threw the ball to one of the maidens, who failed to catch it. The ball rebounded from the rocks and fell into the river, at which the girls raised such a shout that Odysseus, who was sleeping close by, awoke.\nHe opened his eyes and sat up, saying to himself: \"Woe is me! Have I reached a country where people dwell? Are they wild and inhospitable, or friendly to the stranger and god-fearing? It seems to me I heard cries of women. Perhaps they were those of the nymphs who inhabit the mountain heights, the springs of rivers, and the green meadows, or those of people who live near by. But I will see who they are.\"\nSo Odysseus clothed himself as best he could, by winding slender branches covered with leaves about him, and left the thicket where he was hidden. He went in the direction of the voices, stalking along like a great lion. When the girls saw him they shrieked and scattered in every direction. Nausica\u00e4 alone stood her ground, for Athena gave her courage. When Odysseus saw her he wondered which would be the better, to throw himself at the feet of the maiden and beg her to give him some clothes and to show him the way to the city, or to speak to her with more formality.\nIt seemed better to him to remain at a distance, and so he addressed her gently, saying: \"O queen, I know not whether thou art a goddess or a woman. If thou art a goddess, I should take thee to be Artemis, because thou art so tall and graceful. If, however, thou art a mortal, thrice happy thy father and honored mother. Greatly must they rejoice when they see their beautiful child in the choral dance. But he will be the happiest who shall win thee for a bride.\n\"I once saw a young palm-tree growing up beside Apollo's altar in the island of D\u0113los. It was the most beautiful tree the earth ever produced, and I gazed upon it with wonder and reverence. So am I amazed at thy beauty, and I fear to approach thee and throw myself as a suppliant at thy feet, although I am in sore distress, for great misfortunes have befallen me.\n\"It was only last night that I escaped from the sea. On my way from Calypso's isle I was driven about for twenty days by the angry waves in a violent storm. Now some god has cast me on this shore to make me undergo new trials, for I do not believe my sufferings have come to an end. Have pity on me, O queen, because thou art the first human being I have met after so many misfortunes.\n\"I do not know one person in this country. Show me thy city, I pray, and give me an old robe to wear, no matter how coarse and poor, and may the gods bestow all blessings upon thee.\"\nNausica\u00e4 looked at Odysseus in pity and answered: \"Stranger, thou dost not seem to me to be a man of mean birth or breeding, and thou art surely in distress. But it is Zeus who distributes gifts to mortals, both the good and the evil things of life, and thou must submit to his will with patience.\n\"Since thou hast come into our land devoid of all things, even garments, and art helpless, I will give thee clothing and tell thee the way to the city. And I will tell thee about the people living in it, for I am the daughter of the king, Alkino\u00f6s, who reigns over this island.\" When Nausica\u00e4 had spoken thus to Odysseus, she turned to her maids and commanded them not to flee from the wanderer, but to bring him food and drink, since Zeus sent the poor and the stranger to be cared for.\nAnd she told them to lead him to some lonely spot by the side of the river, where he might bathe at his ease. So the maids came back and led the hero to a sheltered place and laid a cloak and tunic on the sand, and the bottle of oil which the queen had given Nausica\u00e4, that Odysseus might anoint and clothe himself after his bath; then they ran back to the princess.\nOdysseus bathed in the fresh water of the river and washed the salt sea-foam from his hair, and when the bath was over he put on the robes that Nausica\u00e4 had sent. Athena shed a halo of beauty over him and caused him to look taller and stronger than before.\nAs he walked along the beach to rejoin the maidens, they admired his noble and kingly bearing, and Nausica\u00e4 said to her maids: \"Surely this man does not come among our godlike brothers against the will of the gods. I thought him rough and homely, but now he seems like one of the immortals. I would that I might call a man like him my husband. Make haste to give him food and wine, for he has fasted a long time.\"\nThe maids hastened to obey. They looked over what was left of the abundant lunch and bade Odysseus eat and drink, which he was glad to do. The princess then yoked up the mules and they started for home.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\nODYSSEUS ARRIVES AT THE PALACE OF ALKINO\u00d6S\n\nAfter Nausica\u00e4 had mounted to her seat on the cart, she said to Odysseus: \"Get ready now, stranger, and we will lead thee to my father's palace, where thou wilt meet the chiefs of the Ph\u00e6acians. If thou art wise, take well to heart what I shall say to thee. As long as we are at a good distance from the city there is no harm in going along with us. Just follow close to the wagon with my maids.\n\"But when we come near to the town thou must go more slowly and tarry behind a little, till we have reached my father's hall, because I dread the gossip of the baser sort of people whom we may meet. After thou hast seen us enter the city, then thou mayest enter it also and inquire the way to the king's palace. It is very beautiful. Thou mayest easily find it by thyself, for there is no other house in the city as large as ours.\n\"Enter at once and find my mother and sue to her for protection and help, that thou mayest reach thy native land and thy dear ones again.\"\nHaving spoken these words, Nausica\u00e4 touched the mules with her long whip and they quickly left the river, wending their way toward the city. They reached it at sunset, but Odysseus sat down in the sacred grove of Athena, outside of the city to wait, and prayed to the goddess that he might receive pity from the people of Ph\u00e6acia.\nWhile he prayed, the damsels went on and soon reached the king's palace. Nausica\u00e4's brothers came out and welcomed them, and unhitched the mules. When Odysseus had given them time to get home, he arose and found his way to the town. He had hardly entered it when Athena, in the form of a young girl carrying a pitcher of water, met him.\n\"My daughter,\" Odysseus said to her, \"canst thou show me the way to the king's palace? I am a stranger, and here for the first time.\" Athena answered him: \"With pleasure, stranger; the king is our neighbor. Follow me, and I will lead thee thither. But on the way do not greet anyone or ask questions, for the people here are not fond of those who come from other lands.\"\nThus spoke Athena and pursued her way with Odysseus following her. She threw a veil of darkness over the hero to hide him from rude gazers. Odysseus beheld the beautiful port with astonishment\u2014the large ships, the great market-place, and the high walls of the city.\nWhen they reached the palace, the girl stopped and said: \"This is the house of the king. Go in without any fear, for they love brave men, even when they come from afar. The first thing to do is to find the queen, whose name is Aret\u00e8.\n\"She is greatly honored by the king, and all the people treat her as if she were a goddess, on account of her gentleness and virtue. In case the queen looks upon thee with favor, thou mayest be sure of safely reaching home.\"\nHaving spoken these words, the goddess took a friendly leave of the hero, and he entered the outer hall of Alkino\u00f6s, where he was bewildered by the splendor. The walls were of brass, the doors of gold, and the thresholds and lintels of pure silver. On each side of the main entrance gold and silver dogs stood guard. They were endowed with life and were immortal, the work and gift of the divine Heph\u00e6stus.\nThere were two rows of splendid seats in the large dining-hall. They were covered with costly mats, and the Ph\u00e6acian leaders were wont to sit there and enjoy themselves. Golden statues of boys with lighted torches in their hands stood on beautiful pedestals and spread light over the merry banquets. There were fifty maid-servants in the palace. Some of them were grinding corn in the mill. Some spent their time in spinning and weaving, for as the men were renowned sailors, the women also were famous for making fine cloth.\nThere was a large orchard all around the palace, surrounded by a thick hedge. In the orchard there was a great variety of fruit-trees\u2014pear, apple, pomegranate, olive, and fig. The trees were never bare of fruit, either in summer or in winter, for an ever-blowing west wind created such a mild climate that the trees were constantly blooming and ripening their fruit.\nThere was to be seen a tree full of blossoms, while another bent down under the load of ripe fruit. Thus it was with the grape-vines in the vineyard close to the orchard. Some were blooming, others had only begun to form fruit-buds, while some were loaded with ripe clusters ready for the wine-press. At the end of the orchard there was a magnificent flower-garden, in which the most fragrant flowers were blooming. Two springs also bubbled from the ground. One watered the orchard, and the other ran to the very door of the palace, and all the people filled their pitchers there. Such were the gifts Alkino\u00f6s had received from the gods.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\nODYSSEUS IN THE HALLS OF ALKINO\u00d6S\n\nAfter Odysseus had contemplated these wonders to his heart's content, he entered the main hall. There he found the leaders of the Ph\u00e6acians bringing offerings of wine to Hermes, as the hour of sleep had arrived, and this was always their last ceremony before seeking slumber. No one saw Odysseus as he crossed the spacious room and came close to the king and queen, for he was still concealed in the thick mist which Athena had thrown round him. Suddenly the cloud vanished, and Odysseus threw himself at the feet of Aret\u00e8, and raised his voice in supplication.\n\"Aret\u00e8,\" he prayed, \"I have come to thy husband and to thy feet through many hardships and sorrows. May the gods give thee a long and happy life. For many years I have been a wanderer from home and all I love. I beg that thou wilt give me a guide and send me to my own land.\"\nWhen Odysseus had spoken these words he sat down amidst the ashes, close to the fire, and all the guests grew silent and looked at him with wonder. Then the oldest of the chiefs arose and said: \"Alkino\u00f6s, this is not a royal seat for a stranger, among the cinders of the hearth. I pray thee, raise him up and place him on a throne, and order the heralds to fill a cup with wine, that we may pour a libation to Zeus, the protector of suppliants, and bid the guest welcome to our good cheer.\"\nThen Alkino\u00f6s arose and took Odysseus by the hand. He led him to a splendid throne but little lower than his own, while the herald placed a table before him loaded with dainty food. When Odysseus had eaten and drunk, the attendants filled the cups to pour libations in honor of Zeus, and Alkino\u00f6s said to them: \"Listen, ye leaders and chiefs of the Ph\u00e6acians. To-morrow we shall greet the stranger in our palace with honors and offer a great sacrifice to the gods. And then we will consider the best way of sending him home. But if we should find that he is a god instead of a mortal, we will do what seems best, for the gods do sometimes visit us in human shape.\"\nThen said Odysseus: \"Nay, Alkino\u00f6s, I am not a god, nor like the gods in form or looks. I am only a wanderer, and I could tell of fearful sorrows; and I would willingly die if I could only see my home once more.\"\nThe guests all greeted Odysseus with approving words, and promised to aid him. Then they rose, and each man went to his own home.\nOdysseus remained in the hall with Aret\u00e8 and Alkino\u00f6s. As they conversed, the queen noticed the garments of Odysseus, because she had woven them herself, and she said to him: \"Stranger, who art thou, and from what land? Didst thou not say thou hadst come here after many wanderings and voyages on the stormy sea? Who gave thee garments of my weaving?\"\nOdysseus answered her: \"It would not be easy, gracious queen, to tell about all my hardships and sufferings. Yet I will do thy bidding. I was shipwrecked long since, and thrown upon an island far out in the sea, where Calypso, the daughter of Atlas, lives. She cared for me most kindly, and would have made me, like herself, an immortal, but I chose instead the hope of seeing my own native land.\n\"The goddess detained me seven long years on her island before she bade me start for home. I built a raft, which she stored with food, and she sent a pleasant breeze to carry me across the waters. But Poseidon stirred the winds and waves against me, and I was thrown upon the shores of this island, near the lavers, where thy daughter and her maids went to wash the household linen. There the princess found me, and supplied me with food and the garments I have on.\"\n\"One duty my daughter left undone,\" Alkino\u00f6s said. \"She should have brought thee home with her.\" \"Do not blame her, I entreat,\" replied Odysseus, \"for she bade me come with her maids, but I lingered in a grove to offer a prayer to Athena.\" When Alkino\u00f6s had heard this tale from Odysseus, he promised once more to give him a ship and sailors to escort him home.\nMeanwhile the queen bade her servants prepare a bed for the hero out on the portico, and they covered a couch with shaggy rugs and purple tapestries, where he could rest. With a grateful heart Odysseus arose, and, thanking the king for his generous hospitality, sought the bed, where he gave himself to happy dreams.\nOdysseus rose early the next morning and went with Alkino\u00f6s to the market-place, close to the sea, where all the Ph\u00e6acians had assembled. The people gazed with admiration at their stranger-guest, for Athena lent him greater dignity and beauty, and she went among the crowds, moving their hearts to sympathy with him.\nAlkino\u00f6s then addressed the assembled multitude: \"Hear me, ye chiefs of the Ph\u00e6acians,\" he said. \"This stranger has come to our land after many wanderings and adventures. And he asks me to send him back to his own country. Let us fit out a ship for him quickly and launch it, and give him fifty-two young men from among our best sailors, who shall get everything ready for the long journey.\n\"While they are doing this the stranger shall come to my halls with the chiefs and princes, where we will make a great banquet. Summon also the bard, Demodokos, that he may enliven the festival with his harp and songs.\"\nHaving spoken, Alkino\u00f6s rose and led his guest back to the palace, the princes following him. Fifty-two youths were soon chosen from among the best seamen, and they launched a ship speedily and went up to the royal palace.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\nTHE BANQUET IN HONOR OF ODYSSEUS\n\nAlkino\u00f6s now ordered a sumptuous feast in honor of his guest. When the table was spread, the herald who had gone for Demodokos came in leading the bard, who was blind. The gods had deprived him of sight, but had bestowed upon him the gift of song. They gave him a seat on a silver throne, amid the guests, and hung his harp against a lofty pillar, close above his head, where he could easily reach it.\nWhen all had eaten and drunk as much as they desired, Demodokos took his lyre and began to sing about the heroes of Troy. It was a song whose fame had reached over the whole world, the story of a friendly strife between Achilles and Odysseus before Troy, in which Achilles held that Troy would fall by force, but Odysseus maintained that it would come to an end through the cunning of a few brave Greeks.\nAll the guests enjoyed listening to the thrilling song, but Odysseus was deeply touched, and tears fell from his eyes. He brushed them away stealthily, so that no one should observe them, and drew a large purple veil over his face until the song was finished, when he put it away and took a goblet of wine, which he poured out on the ground as a libation to the gods.\nAgain the minstrel took his harp and sang, and again Odysseus wept. Alkino\u00f6s noticed that the song of Demodokos moved Odysseus to tears, and thought it might be well to stay the music awhile and begin the games, that the stranger might witness the athletic skill of the Ph\u00e6acians. All the princes instantly arose and walked down to the market-place, the king leading and the people following.\nWhen the chiefs had taken their seats a great number of young men hastened forward to begin the games. Some of them darted over the plain in a foot-race, raising a cloud of dust. Others strove with all their might in wrestling-matches, while some threw the quoit or played at boxing and leaping. After they had enjoyed looking at the games, Laodamas, a son of Alkino\u00f6s, said to his friends: \"Let us ask the stranger to take part in the games. His strong arms and legs and powerful neck show that he is no weakling. Nor has he lost his youthful vigor after all his hardships, although nothing tires a man so much as being tossed about on the sea.\"\nThen the friends of Laodamas advised him to challenge Odysseus to take part in the games; and this seemed right to the prince, so he said to him: \"Father, I think thou must be skilful in these games. Let us see thee try them. We will not delay thee long. Thy ship is ready for thee on the sea, and the crew is there, waiting. But there is no greater glory or pleasure for a man than to excel in swiftness of foot and strength of muscle.\"\nOdysseus answered him: \"Why dost thou urge me, O Laodamas? How can I take part in the games or find any pleasure in them after all that I have suffered? Here I sit, a suppliant, praying to be sent back to my wife and home.\" Then Euryalos scoffed at him, saying: \"Thou art right, stranger, for thy countenance shows thou art anything but an athlete.\n\"Methinks thou art the owner of some merchant-vessel. Thou art a trader, whose head is full of bargains. Such men can take heed of nothing except how to increase wealth.\"\nThese mocking words vexed Odysseus, and he retorted: \"My friend, thou dost not speak like a man of good mind. The gods do not bestow their gifts equally on all men. To thee they have given great beauty, but they have denied thee wit. Thy words carry no weight. Learn, then, that I am not unskilled in the games. When I was young and strong I was one of the best athletes. But even now, after all my shipwrecks and hardships, I will strive with thee, for thy words are offensive and challenge me to the proof.\"\nHaving said this, Odysseus seized a much larger and heavier quoit than the Ph\u00e6acian prince could use, and swinging it in his powerful hand he hurled it forth. The stone whirred through the air and fell to the ground away beyond the marks of the other disks. Then Athena took the form of a Ph\u00e6acian and set a mark where the quoit fell, and exclaimed as she did so: \"Stranger, even a blind man could easily find thy mark, for it is far beyond the others. Sit down in peace and do not fear that anybody else can throw so far.\" Odysseus was pleased when he heard these friendly words. With a light heart he said to the Ph\u00e6acian youths: \"Reach my mark, if you can, young men, and I will send a stone farther yet. But if you cannot reach it, and prefer a match at boxing or wrestling or foot-race, come forth. I am ready to try any of the games with you. I can throw a spear farther than any of you can shoot an arrow. I fear nothing unless it may be the foot-race, for I have lost my strength with want of food and being tossed by the waves.\"\nHe ended, and King Alkino\u00f6s stepped forward, for the young men were all silent. \"Stranger,\" he said, \"thou art our dearly loved guest, and no one can doubt thy bravery. We do not boast that we are fine boxers or wrestlers. We excel in the dance and are unsurpassed in sailing ships. Come, then, young men, show your skill in dancing, that our guest may tell his people when he reaches his home how much we outdo all others in that art. And let a herald hasten to the palace and bring the lyre of Demodokos, which has been left there.\"\nThe young men arranged themselves in two rows on the polished floors and began the dance, while the minstrel, standing in their midst, played on the lyre and sang most sweetly. Odysseus looked on and greatly admired the swift and rhythmical movements of their feet. All danced very well; but two of the sons of the king came out and danced alone, for none of the others equalled them. One of them held a golden ball in his hand, and bending backward threw it so high that it seemed to touch the clouds. The other sprang up and caught it easily before it touched the ground.\nThey both danced, going through intricate and rhythmical figures, while the other young men stood around in a circle and clapped their hands, keeping time. Then Odysseus said to Alkino\u00f6s: \"Truly, no one excels the Ph\u00e6acian princes in dancing. I see the twinkling of their feet with amazement.\"\nThese words pleased Alkino\u00f6s greatly, and he said to his people: \"Listen, my chiefs, for our guest seems to be a wise man. It becomes us now to bestow upon him the gifts of hospitality. In this land there are twelve kings. I am the thirteenth. Let each one of us bring a fine cloak, and a tunic, and a talent of gold, that our guest may see them before he partakes of the evening banquet. And let Euryalos, who spoke such scoffing words to him, try to win back his friendship and bring a costly gift.\" All the chiefs approved the words of King Alkino\u00f6s, and each one sent a servant to his house to bring a valuable present.\nEuryalos cheerfully obeyed the king. He brought a brass sword with a silver hilt to Odysseus, and said: \"My father, if I have uttered any offensive word to thee, may the winds scatter all remembrance of it. May the gods grant thee a speedy return to thy country, where thou shalt see thy wife and friends from whom thou hast so long been separated.\"\nOdysseus answered: \"Hail to thee, also, my friend! May the gods give thee all that there is good, and may no need of this sword ever come to thee.\" Odysseus took the sword and threw it across his shoulders.\nThe sun had set, and the servants carried the gifts to the royal palace, where the queen took care of them. King Alkino\u00f6s led the way to the palace, his guest at his side and the princes following. When they had taken their seats on high thrones, the king told his wife to lay the royal presents in a chest, adding a much richer cloak and tunic than anyone else had given as a gift from himself.\nAret\u00e8 did as her husband wished, and placed a beautiful cup of gold also in the chest, and led Odysseus up to look at the presents. Then she taught him how to lock the chest and unlock it, and her maids called him to a warm bath, after which he anointed himself with fragrant oil and put on fresh garments.\nWhile he was wending his way to the men who sat before their wine, he met Nausica\u00e4 in her goddess-like beauty, standing near a pillar. \"Stranger, farewell,\" she said. \"I wish thee joy and a safe return to thy native land. Do not forget that I was the first to befriend thee in the land of the Ph\u00e6acians.\"\nOdysseus answered: \"May the gods be as sure to favor my return to my home as I shall be to make a prayer daily in thy behalf, fair maiden, who hath saved my life.\" Then Odysseus entered the great hall and took his place at the feast.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\nODYSSEUS RELATES HIS ADVENTURES\n\nWhen they had all eaten and drunk to their hearts' content, the hero begged Demodokos to sing about the invention of the wooden horse with which Odysseus had artfully tricked the Trojans to their own destruction.\nThe minstrel felt the inspiration of the song, and began where the Greeks threw firebrands into their own tents and sailed away from Troy, pretending that they had given up the war.\nHe told how the Trojans wondered what to do with the huge wooden horse which the enemy had left in their city, whether to hew it to pieces and burn it, or to drag it to the edge of a high rock and throw it over, or whether to spare it as an act of reverence to the gods. This last was done, and in the night Odysseus and his men came out of the great wooden trap and set fire to the city while the men of Troy slept.\nAs Demodokos sang, tears rolled down the cheeks of Odysseus. but no one noticed his weeping except the king, who said: \"It is better to stop the song of Demodokos, as it does not delight us all. Ever since the bard began to sing, our guest has been weeping. He carries some great trouble in his heart. Let the song cease, and let us all make merry. Let no grief mar our banquet. And, honored stranger, tell us the name of thy father, and the city which is thy home. Our seamen shall take thee safely to thine own land, although there is a prophecy that one of our good ships shall be changed into a high rock, to stand forever in front of our city, if we show such courtesies to strangers.\n\"Tell us truly who thou art and whither thou hast roamed, what tribes of men thou hast seen, and why thou dost weep when the minstrel sings of Troy. Didst thou lose a noble kinsman there, or a dear friend? For a friend is often dearer than a brother.\" Odysseus replied: \"In truth, O king, it is a pleasant thing to listen to a bard like Demodokos, for his voice is as sweet as the voice of a god.\n\"And I cannot think of anything more delightful than the joy of a contented people listening to a great poet and singer while seated at a feast in a royal hall. But I pine to be at home, and I will declare my name and tell the story of my sufferings.\n\"I am the chieftain Odysseus, son of Laertes, and widely known to fame. I dwell in sunny Ithaca, whose high mountains are seen from afar, covered with rustling trees. Around it are many smaller islands, full of people. Ithaca has low shores on the east. It is a rugged island, but it is the sweetest land on earth, and has a noble race of mortals. When the Trojan war was at an end, I started for home with my twelve ships, but a contrary wind drove us to Ismaros, the city of the Kikonians.\n\"We captured it and put the inhabitants to the sword. Then I exhorted my comrades to fly, but, like madmen, they remained on the sea-shore. Then they slaughtered a large number of sheep and oxen and made a feast. The Kikonians called on their strong neighbors to come and help them, and they came in swarms with their brazen spears. They fell upon our men and killed six of them from each ship, and drove the rest back to their boats.\n\"Brisk handling of our oars soon carried us out into the sea, but Jove sent a hurricane that tore our sails and split our masts, so that our sailors drew them into the ships in fear. Two days and nights we lay helpless in our boats, worn out with fear and grief, but the third day the sun shone on us again, and we raised the masts and sails to take the breeze, hoping to reach our own land.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\nTHE LOTUS-EATERS AND THE CYCLOPS\n\n\"We sailed onward in a westerly direction, heading for the Grecian shore, and thought our trials would soon be at an end. But in this we were disappointed, for when we were about to round the cape at the southern point of Greece, we met an evil wind which always blows there, and it drove us far to the east, beyond the island of Cythera.\n\"Nine days and nine nights we were driven about on the sea by the violent storm, and on the tenth we reached the land of the Lotus-eaters. These men eat flowers that look like water-lilies, and they have no other food. We landed on the shore of the mainland, and my comrades took their evening meal close to the boats.\n\"When our hunger was satisfied, I sent out two of the best men to explore the country about and find out what sort of people the Lotus-eaters were. I sent a herald with them, whom they might send back with the news.\n\"They soon found themselves among the Lotus-eaters, who were gentle and friendly, and gave them the lotus plant to eat. This food is pleasant to the taste, but dangerous; for anyone who eats of it loses all desire to return to his own home. He forgets his cares and troubles, but also his friends.\n\"As soon as my comrades had eaten of the lotus, they became attached to the Lotus-eaters, and desired to remain with them. They wept bitterly when I commanded them to return to the ships, and I was obliged to force them to go.\n\"I bound them down to the benches in the ships, and the whole company went on board in haste lest they should never think of their homes again. Each man bent to his oars, and the waves were soon white with the beating of the ships against them as we sailed with all haste in the direction of our own land.\n\"We sailed about on unknown seas and with sorrowing hearts until we came to the land of the Cyclops. They are a wild people who have no laws. They never plough the fields nor plant them, for everything grows of its own accord\u2014wheat, and barley, and the vine. The grapes yield good wine. The Cyclops do not come together in a friendly way, but live in caves near the mountain tops, each one in his own den. They do not care much for one another, and each rules his wife and children as he likes.\n\"There is a little woody island lying at the entrance to the land of the Cyclops, on which swarm numberless wild goats, never disturbed by human beings, for the Cyclops have no ships to take them over. This island is very fertile, but there are no sheep to eat the grass and no people to plough the fields. The goats are the only inhabitants. The island has a harbor which is safe, and the ships that enter it have no need of anchors or fastenings.\n\"In the midst of the harbor there is a cliff, from which bubbles forth a spring of excellent water, and poplar-trees grow all around it. The soil is so rich it might bear all kinds of fruit, if there were anyone to plant them. There are beautiful meadows all along the coast, which are gay with yellow fruit and pink blossoms.\n\"We were shaping our course toward this island, and a good breeze brought us there on a dark night. The moon did not shine and none of the crew saw the land until we were upon the shore. We lowered our sails and rested there until morning. When daylight appeared we beheld with wonder the island where the wild goats abounded. My comrades walked around, admiring the beauty of the place, while the nymphs, daughters of Zeus, roused the goats that they might give us milk. We took our bows and arrows from the ships immediately and, forming three hunting-parties, killed a great number of the nimble creatures. Each of my twelve ships received nine goats as its share, but mine received ten. The remainder of the day we passed in eating and drinking.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\nTHE CAVE OF THE CYCLOPS\n\n\"The next day I started with twelve men, the crew of my own ship, to find out what kind of men inhabited the country opposite us, leaving all the other boats and their men on the island. When we sailed up to the coast of the mainland, we heard the voices of giants, and the bleating of their sheep and goats. And we saw a cave with a high roof, over whose entrance grew laurel shrubs, and many cattle, sheep, and goats were lying around at rest. We found an enclosure of rough stone in the form of a court, with tall pines and leafy oaks at the mouth of the cave.\n\"The largest giant of all the race of Cyclops dwelt there and took care of his cattle all alone. Usually he spent his time prowling all by himself around the mountains. He had nothing to do with his neighbors, but led a solitary life, plotting wicked deeds. He looked more like a huge mountain top, with shaggy overhanging forests, towering above other mountains, than a human being.\n\"We were soon inside the cave, but we did not find the owner at home. We had carried with us a wine-skin full of wine which a priest of Apollo had given us. The wine was very fragrant and so pleasant that no one who had once tasted it, could let it alone. We had taken along a basket of food also, for fear of meeting with men of great strength and no sense of the courtesy due to strangers.\n\"As we looked around the cave we wondered at what we saw. There were baskets all about heaped with cheeses, and pens of lambs separated into three folds, the older in one pen, the younger in another, and the youngest in a third. And there were pails full of whey, and buckets of milk. My companions ate as much of the cheese as they liked, after which they begged to drive all the lambs and kids down to the ship.\n\"But I would not allow this. It was my wish to stay there and see the cave-dweller and find out what kind of a man he was. I thought he would give me a handsome present, according to the laws of hospitality. It was cold in the cave, so we lit a fire and sat down to wait for the owner to arrive.\n\"He came toward evening, carrying a load of wood on his back, which he threw down with such a crash that my men ran with terror into the corners of the cave. The giant drove all such sheep and goats as would give him milk into the cave, leaving the others in the outside court, and then closed up the entrance with a rock so large that twenty-four four-wheeled wagons could not have moved it. Having done this, he sat down and milked the sheep and goats and gave to each its young one.\n\"Next, he curdled half of the milk and put the curd into woven baskets, but he kept the other half for his evening meal. When he had ended this work he lit a fire, and seeing the strangers he began to ask them questions, to find out who they were. His voice was deep and frightful, like the rumbling of a volcano, and our hearts trembled, but I found words to answer him: 'We are Greeks, and come from Troy. It was our intention to return home, but contrary winds have driven us on this shore.\n\"'We belong to the army of Agamemnon, whose fame is very great because he has overcome a strong city and conquered many nations. But now we throw ourselves at thy feet and pray that thou wilt receive us as guests, or else give us the gifts that are due to strangers, lest the gods avenge us.'\n\"Having said this, I stopped, but the Cyclops told us that we were fools to believe in the gods. 'The Cyclops,' he said, 'care nothing for the gods. We are better than they are. If I spare thee it will be of my own free will, and not for fear of the gods. But where are thy ships? Are they near here or far off?' This he said hoping to deceive us, but I saw through his trick, and replied: 'The storm has thrown our ships upon the cliffs and broken them to pieces, and we had to swim for our lives.'\n\"The cruel monster did not answer me again, but he seized two of my companions and dashed them to the ground with such force that they died on the spot. He devoured them as a lion devours his prey. He left nothing of them, neither bones nor flesh nor hair. We wept aloud and prayed to Zeus with our hearts full of despair.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\nTHE BLINDING OF THE CYCLOPS\n\n\"When the monster had filled himself with food, he stretched out on the floor of the cave to sleep. Then the thought came to me to thrust a sword into his heart. But this was not a wise course to take, because we should never have been able to remove the stone from the entrance to the cave.\n\"We passed the night in mourning and lamentations. As soon as daylight appeared, the Cyclops woke up and lit a fire and milked his sheep again. Then he seized two more of my companions and devoured them. When his morning meal was done he rolled the stone back from the door and drove his beasts out, not forgetting to secure the entrance. We could hear his noisy shouts afar off as he led his flocks over the grassy heights, and we began to make plans to destroy him.\n\"We found a great club of green olive-wood in the cave; one that the Cyclops had cut for his own use. It was as large as the mast of a ship, and he had laid it away to dry. I cut off a fathom's length from this club and handed the piece to my companions, who smoothed off its sides and sharpened it at one end. This being done, I put the sharp end of it into the fire. The stick became very hard, and then I hid the weapon under a heap of litter which was piled up in the cave. We cast lots to see who should assist me to put out the eye of the Cyclops when he was asleep.\n\"When evening came the Cyclops returned to the cave with his fat sheep and kids. He seemed to suspect that there was mischief afoot, for he did not leave any of them outside. After milking the ewes and goats he again seized two of my companions and made his supper of them. But I filled a large drinking-vessel with the wine from our wine-skin and stepped boldly out and said to him: 'Here is a cup of wine which I brought, hoping that thou wouldst spare my life, O Cyclops, for thy wrath is boundless.' He took the cup and drank. The wine delighted him greatly, and he handed me the cup after emptying it and said: 'Give me another draught and tell me thy name. I will give thee a generous gift, such as becomes a host. We, too, have wine, but not such as yours. That tastes like nectar and ambrosia.'\n\"Three times I filled the cup and brought it to him, and three times the Cyclops drank it like a madman. When the wine had overpowered him, I said to him: 'Cyclops, thou dost wish to know my name, and I will tell it, but thou must give me the present thou hast promised. My name is Nobody. My father and mother gave me this name and my friends all call me by it.' 'Then,' said the Cyclops, 'I shall eat Nobody last of all. This is my present.'\n\"After these words he fell asleep and, being very drunk, he began to spew out the wine and flesh he had taken. I took the piece of olive-wood which my men had sharpened and put the point of it into the fire and held it there until it was a glowing coal. My comrades stood near me and I encouraged them with brave words. We thrust the burning stick into the Cyclops' eye and put it out. He howled with pain, and, stung to madness, he seized the stick and flung it across the cave.\n\"He called to the other Cyclops, who lived in divers caves on the surrounding mountains, while we hid ourselves in fear in the most remote corners of the cave. The giants heard him and came running to help him, but they could not get into the cave. They stood near the stone, close to the door, and called out: 'What ails thee, Polyphemus? Is anyone trying to kill thee?' 'Woe is me!' cried Polyphemus, 'Nobody is trying to kill me.' 'Then why dost thou shout and cry for help?' said they. 'If nobody hurts thee, then thou art not hurt.'\n\"With these words they went off, and we rejoiced greatly that my trick had deceived them.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\nODYSSEUS AND HIS COMPANIONS LEAVE THE LAND OF THE CYCLOPS\n\n\"Polyphemus, groaning with pain, tried to feel his way with his hands to the mouth of the cavern. Having succeeded in this, he rolled back the stone and sat down at the entrance and stretched out his hands in order to catch us if we should happen to try to get out among the sheep.\n\"But we were not so foolish as to be caught in this way. There were in the cave a number of stout and woolly rams. Of these I put three abreast and tied them together with twigs that happened to be in the cave. Under each middle ram I tied one of my companions. The two sheep, one on each side of him, hid the man completely. For myself I selected the stoutest ram of the flock, and, seizing his long shaggy wool with my hands, held fast to him with my knees and arms.\n\"The sun rose and the animals began to hasten out to the pastures. The Cyclops, though nearly exhausted with pain, passed his hands over the backs of the sheep to find out whether any of us were trying to ride out of the cave. He did not find out our trick, and my companions all escaped safely. Last of all, the ram that carried me came to the door, because I was so heavy that he could hardly walk with me hanging to him.\n\"Polyphemus felt of his back and recognized him at once as his favorite ram, and said: 'Dearest of all my sheep, why dost thou go last? Commonly thou wert the first of the flock to hasten to the rich pasture and the cool spring, just as thou wert the first in the evening to return to thy manger. But to-day thou art last of all. Dost thou grieve because thy master hath lost his eye, which Nobody has put out? But wait a little. He shall not escape death. Couldst thou only speak, my ram, thou wouldst tell me at once where the scoundrel is; then thou shouldst see how I would dash him against the rocks.'\n\"Speaking such words as these, he let the ram go. When we were safely out of the cave, we gladly took to our feet and drove the fat sheep down to our boat with all haste. Our friends received us with tears of joy, for they thought we had surely perished. I made signs to them not to weep aloud, and to hurry the sheep on board the ship. They did this with all haste, and each man took his place at the oars.\n\"When we were beyond the reach of the Cyclops, I called out to tease him, 'Ha! Cyclops, Cyclops, thou hast not been entertaining a coward. Zeus and the other gods have avenged the brave men whom thou didst so cruelly destroy.'\n\"The Cyclops heard my words and grew furious. He seized a large rock and threw it with all his might toward the place where he had heard my voice.\n\"The rock fell in front of my ship, and the waves which it raised carried us back on shore. I seized a large pole and shoved the boat back into the water, commanding my men to ply their oars vigorously, that we might escape destruction. My companions begged me not to excite the dangerous monster further; but when we were a long way out I shouted to him: 'Cyclops, if ever anybody asks thee who put out thine eye, tell him it was Odysseus, the son of Laertes, conqueror of Troy.'\n\"When Polyphemus heard these words he gave a deep groan, and said to me: 'Truly did the wise seer, Telemos, foretell that I was to be blinded by Odysseus. But I thought there would come a large and powerful man, not such an insignificant little fellow who would cheat me with wine. Come back, Odysseus, and let me bestow upon you the gifts which are due to strangers. I will pray to my father, Poseidon, to give thee a safe and speedy return to thy native land. He can restore my eye whenever he will, so I cherish no anger against thee.'\n\"I knew his deceit, however, and replied: 'I would rather take thy life, and send thee down to the dark halls of the dead, where thy father could never restore thy sight.'\n\"As soon as Polyphemus heard this, he raised his hands to heaven and prayed to Poseidon, 'My father,' he said, 'hear me, if in truth I am thy son. Grant me this prayer. May Odysseus never return to his own country, or, if it be thy will that he reach home and friends again, let his return be late and sorrowful. May his comrades all be lost, and may he go back in a borrowed ship, and find new troubles waiting for him in his house.'\n\"Poseidon was moved to wrath against me by this prayer, and determined to take vengeance on me. The Cyclops seized another stone, much larger than the last, and swinging it round, threw it at us with tremendous strength. It fell close to the ship, but this time it drove the boat out into the sea and in the direction of the island where we first landed.\n\"When we reached the island we found the friends we had left there waiting anxiously for our return. My men drew their boat up on to the smooth sand and stepped upon the beach, taking the sheep along with them. Each man took an equal share, but they gave me the ram which had saved my life. We took him out upon the beach and offered him up as a sacrifice to Zeus.\n\"But sacrifices were vain, for Zeus had more evil for us in his mind. We spent the rest of the day on the island, eating and drinking, and when the sun went down we camped on the shore for the night. In the morning I called my men to climb the decks and cut the ropes that kept us fastened to the shore. With all speed they went aboard and took their oars in hand and set sail for home, glad to escape, but sorrowing for our lost companions.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\nTHE ADVENTURES OF ODYSSEUS ON THE ISLAND OF \u00c6OLUS\n\n\"We sailed about on unknown seas for many days, when we reached the island where \u00c6olus made his abode. This island was surrounded by smooth rocks and guarded by a wall of shining brass.\n\"\u00c6olus had twelve children, six sons and six daughters, and they banqueted on an endless variety of meats from day to day all the year round. \u00c6olus was a kindly, genial god; he was master of the winds, and one could hear the music of sweet pipes in his halls all day, and the air was fresh and fragrant there.\n\"\u00c6olus welcomed us hospitably and kept us with him a whole month. He inquired of the fate of all our companions in the war with Troy, and we stated what had happened to them. Then we prayed him to send us home, and the god very kindly gave us a sack made of skin in which he had tied up all the contrary winds, leaving only the west wind free to carry us safely home.\n\"I took the great bag of winds and bound it fast to the main mast of the ship with a silver chain, so that no rude wind could escape and blow us out of our way. We sailed along nine days and nine nights, blown by the friendly breeze from the west, and on the tenth we saw in the distance the mountain tops of Ithaca and the fires along the shore.\n\"And now I was overcome by a heavy sleep, for I had been guiding the ship, not daring to trust it to the hand of any of the crew. While I lay unconscious of what was going on, my companions talked among themselves and said they believed that the bag which \u00c6olus had given me contained vast amounts of gold and silver. And they spoke with great jealousy of the prizes which I had received wherever we had landed, while they went empty-handed.\n\"The more they talked to one another the more jealous and angry they grew. They untied the sack and the winds rushed out, much to their astonishment, and seized the ship, driving it round and round in a furious storm. I started out of my sleep suddenly and found the bag open I had so carefully guarded and my companions weeping bitterly.\n\"For a moment I had a mind to throw myself into the sea and make an end of my troubles forever. But the thought came to me that such an action would not be noble, so I hid my head in my mantle and lay down in the bottom of the ship while the violent winds and towering waves drove us back to the island we had left. We landed there again, and, having partaken of some food and wine, I sought the halls of \u00c6olus.\n\"I found the king and his wife and children at table taking their evening meal. When \u00c6olus saw me he was amazed, and asked me what had happened to me. I told him about the senseless action of my companions, and begged him to assist me once more. But with a terrible voice he replied: 'Begone as fast as thou canst out of my island. I will not befriend a man who is hated of the gods.' In this unkind way he sent me off, and we sadly entered our ships and made for the open sea, trusting to the mercy of the winds.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\nODYSSEUS AT THE HOME OF CIRC\u00c8\n\n\"For six days and six nights we sailed without interruption, but on the seventh day we reached the city of the L\u00e6strygonians. There the pastures are so rich in grass that the fields, which are grazed by one flock of sheep during the day, yield abundant food for another flock by night. The inhabitants were not only inhospitable, but they received us with a shower of stones, which they hurled at us and at our galleys. They broke our ships and killed my companions, spearing them like fish. Then they carried them ashore to be devoured. With the greatest difficulty I succeeded in saving one ship and a few companions from the hands of these giants, and I fled with them out to the high sea.\n\"Sadly we continued our course until we reached an island, where the goddess Circ\u00e8, a daughter of the Sun and Ocean, lived. We landed silently, and gave two days and nights to rest, for we were worn out with toil and grief. On the third day I climbed to the top of a high hill and looked over the island. Down below I saw a marble palace, surrounded by a thick forest. There was smoke rising from the grounds, so I resolved to return to my men and send out some of them to look about and explore.\n\"A large stag ran down into my path, on his way to a river to drink, and I thrust my spear through him and flung him across my neck and took him to the ship. I threw him at the feet of my men, who were astonished at his size. They prepared a banquet at once, and we feasted upon the meat.\n\"That night we slept on the shore again, and in the morning I told them that I had seen a palace standing in a thick wood, and that I wanted to send several men there to try to get food. When my companions thought of all their comrades who had been slain they wept aloud. But their tears were useless. I divided them into two equal bands, and we cast lots to see which party should make the adventure.\n\"The lot fell to Eurylochos and his band of men. They started forth, and soon came to a beautiful valley, in which was the splendid house of Circ\u00e8, which was built of well-hewn stone. There were beasts of prey, lions and wolves, around it. The animals were tame; they wagged their tails and fawned like dogs, but the men were afraid of them. Circ\u00e8 was weaving in the palace and singing a beautiful song. She had bright, sunny hair and a sweet voice. The men heard her as she went back and forth weaving, and they called aloud. She came to the door and threw it wide open and bade them enter.\n\"Eurylochos alone did not go in, for he feared that some evil would come of it. The others followed her, and Circ\u00e8 seated them on thrones and gave them food and wine, but in the wine she had secretly infused a magic juice which made them forget home and friends and all desire to see their native land.\n\"When they had eaten and drunk to their hearts' content, she waved her wand over them, and at once the poor wretches were changed into grunting pigs, which she shut up in pigsties and threw acorns and other food fit for swine before them. Although thus transformed and covered with bristles, they still retained the human mind.\n\"Eurylochos stayed a long time outside awaiting the return of his companions. But as they tarried so long, he hastened back to the ship to tell the news. Thereupon I quickly hung my sword over my shoulder and, taking my bow and arrows, hurried off alone, and soon found myself not far from Circ\u00e8's palace.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX\nCIRC\u00c8 INSTRUCTS ODYSSEUS CONCERNING HIS DESCENT TO HADES\n\n\"As I lingered in that dangerous valley there appeared to me a youth whom I knew at once to be Hermes, the messenger of the gods. He gently took hold of my hand and, looking compassionately on me, said: 'Thou most unhappy man! Why art thou roaming alone in these wild parts? Or art thou bound on the errand of delivering thy friends who have all been changed by Circ\u00e8 into swine? Much do I fear that thou mayest meet with the same fate. Listen to my words and heed them well if thou wouldst destroy the treacherous schemes of Circ\u00e8.\n\"'Take this little flower. Its name is Moly among the gods, and no wicked sorcery can hurt the man who treasures it carefully. Its root is black. Its blossom is as white as milk, and it is hard for men to tear it from the ground. Take this herb and go fearlessly into the dwelling of the sorceress; it will guard thee against all mishap. She will bring thee a bowl of wine mingled with the juice of enchantment, but do not fear to eat or drink anything she may offer thee, and when she touches thy head with her magic wand, then rush upon her quickly with drawn sword as though about to slay her. She will crouch in fear and entreat thee with soft words to spare her. But do not give way to her until she has pledged herself by the great oath of the gods to do thee no harm.'\n\"When Hermes had spoken thus he left me, to return to high Olympos, and I walked to the house of Circ\u00e8 with a braver heart. As I came near the palace I called out to the goddess with a loud voice, and she threw open the doors for me to enter. She bade me sit down on a beautiful throne and placed a golden foot-stool under my feet. Then she gave me the dangerous cup and I drank it off, but her charm did not work.\n\"Scarcely had I drained the cup when the goddess struck me with her wand and said: 'Off with you! Go to the pigsty, where friends await thy coming!' In a twinkling I had my sword in hand and rushed upon her as if to kill her. Circ\u00e8 shrieked with fear and fell on her knees to implore my mercy. 'Who art thou and whence dost thou come?' said Circ\u00e8. 'Thou art the first man over whom my magic wine has had no power. Art thou really that Odysseus of whom Hermes told me that he was to come here after many wanderings? But put up thy sword and cease to be angry with me and let us trust each other.'\n\"I answered her: 'O, goddess, how can I have faith in thy words, since thou hast changed my companions into swine and dost plot the same fate for me? Swear me the great oath that thou wilt not harm me, and I shall trust thy words.'\n\"Circ\u00e8 at once took the great oath, that she would never again try to do me any harm, and she ordered her servants to spread a feast before me. But I had no desire to eat. I sat down in silence, my mind full of grief and doubt.\n\"When Circ\u00e8 saw that I did not touch the food she said: 'Why art thou so quiet and speechless? And why dost thou not taste the food and wine? I have pledged myself by the great oath to do thee no harm!' But I answered: 'What man with a loyal heart, O goddess, could eat and drink with any pleasure while his comrades are kept in bondage and degradation? If thou art really kind and wouldst have me enjoy this bounteous feast, O let me see my dear companions free once more!'\n\"The goddess took her wand and went to the pen and drove out the swine. She then anointed them with a magic ointment, and their bristles fell off and they stood up and were men again. They knew me, and each one seized my hand, shedding tears of joy. Then I sent for the rest of my men at the ship, who eagerly came up, and together we entered the halls of Circ\u00e8, all of us weeping with joy.\n\"Circ\u00e8's heart was softened also, and she said to me: 'Son of Laertes, noble Odysseus, do not weep and grieve any longer. I know what hardships thou hast endured on land and sea. Take courage, for thy sufferings will soon be at an end. Go down to the sea and hide thy boat near the shore and come back to my halls, thou and all thy men, where I will make it a happy home for all until thou art rested and ready to sail again for thy native land.'\n\"We stayed a whole year on the island of Circ\u00e8, feasting and enjoying ourselves, and fully recovered our strength. The desire of reaching my beloved Ithaca grew stronger within me day by day, and at last I begged Circ\u00e8 to allow us to depart. 'I am not willing, O son of Laertes,' Circ\u00e8 answered, 'that thou shouldst remain here against thy wish, but it is necessary that thou shouldst, before departing from my island, descend into Hades, to the palace of Pluto and Persephone, to consult the spirit of the Theban seer, Tiresias, on whom Persephone has bestowed the priceless gift of preserving his memory even in Hades, whereas all the other souls are moving about as empty shadows.'\n\"Hearing this, I grew desperate and no longer had any desire to live or see the light of day. I said to the goddess: 'Who will show me the way to Hades? for no living mortal has ever gone there before.' She replied: 'Do not worry about a guide, Odysseus, for there will be no need of one. Launch thy boat, unfurl the sails, and quietly sit down. The north wind will waft thee to the shore of Hades. There flows the river Styx, black and terrible. It flows between the poplars and willows in the groves of Persephone, and meets the broad waters of Okeanos. Sail up its dark stream until thou dost reach the rock where its two branches meet and swirl and roar. There leave thy boat and dig a ditch in the ground, a foot deep and a foot wide, in which thou shalt pour honey, milk, wine, and water as an offering to the dead.\n\"'At the same time pray to the gods of Hades, and promise the shades of the dead that after thou hast arrived in Ithaca thou wilt sacrifice to them a whole heifer, the best of thy flock, and to Tiresias especially a black ram. Then take two sheep, a male and a female, kill them, and burn them as a sacrifice to the nations of the dead.\n\"'At once there will arrive the souls of the departed. They will come by thousands, anxious to drink of the blood, that they may have their minds again. But draw thy sword and hold them back until the spirit of Tiresias arrives. He will tell thee how to get back to thy native land.'\n\"As Circ\u00e8 said this the daylight appeared, and I woke my companions and told them to make ready to go with me. We started at once for our ship, and got everything in readiness to leave. I told them that before setting out for our own country we had, by the advice of Circ\u00e8, to go down to Hades in order to consult the seer Tiresias about our journey. When they heard this they sat down, and wept, and began to tear the hair from their heads.\n\"Circ\u00e8 meantime came up by stealth, and put two sheep into the ship, and we sailed sadly away.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX\nTHE ADVENTURES OF ODYSSEUS IN HADES\n\n\"With a heavy heart we sailed from Circ\u00e8's island bound for the gloomy Hades. As the wind was favorable, we soon reached the place of which the goddess had told us. There we left the ship and did those things which Circ\u00e8 had counselled us to do. As soon as the dark blood of the sheep began to flow into the trench countless souls came flocking from Hades and begged to taste of the blood, that their mortal minds might be restored to them.\n\"Young wives and girls, old men and young warriors who had fallen in battle, airy forms, ghosts of all kinds of people, flitted like bats around me in that dark place with fearful cries, and I turned pale with fear. I drew my sword and waved them back until I should question the soul of Tiresias.\n\"But first came the soul of Elpenor, one of my companions who had gone with me to the palace of Circ\u00e8. We had left him dead in the halls of the goddess, since we had no time to bury him. Now, when I saw him a great pity stirred my heart, and I shed tears and said to him: 'Elpenor, how didst thou come into these dread regions of darkness? Thou hast come more quickly on foot than I in my quick ship.'\n\"The phantom knew me, for, being as yet unburied, he was not one of the shades, and had not lost his memory or voice, nor did he need to drink of the blood. He moaned and replied: 'Noble Odysseus, it was an evil fate which the gods had decreed for me. I drank too much wine and that caused my death. I lay down to sleep on the roof of Circ\u00e8's palace and could not remember the way to the stairs when thou didst call us to the ships. In my haste I fell from the roof and broke my neck, and my soul came down to Hades.\n\"'I pray thee now by all those whom thou dost love\u2014thy wife, thy father, and thy son\u2014that thou leave not my body unburied in the palace halls, lest I bring on thee the anger of the gods. But on thy return to Circ\u00e8's isle burn my body, together with my armor, and pile up a mound of earth over my ashes. Plant my oar upon my tomb\u2014the oar with which I used to row while I was living.'\n\"I made the promise, but at this moment the soul of my mother, whom I had left hale and strong among the living when I went to the war, approached and tried to get at the trench. I wept to see her, but with a heavy heart I forbade her coming nearer until I had spoken with Tiresias. At this moment troops of souls came flocking out of Hades, and from the countless throng the Theban seer came leaning on a golden staff, and he ordered me to lay aside my sword and permit him to drink of the blood.\n\"When he had drunk, he spoke to me and said: 'Odysseus, man of many woes, why dost thou leave the light of the sun and come down among the dead? Doubtless thy heart's desire is to return safely home. But much suffering is in store for thee. Poseidon will not permit it, because thou hast blinded his son, Polyphemus. Still, thou mayest overcome all difficulties and see Ithaca at last, if thou dost not harm the cattle and fat sheep of the Sun on the island of Trinacria.\n\"'But if thou dost kill them and eat of their flesh, I warn thee that nothing will save thy comrades or thy ships. Even then thou mayest be saved, but it will be on a strange ship, alone, and after dreadful sufferings. And at home thou wilt find other misfortunes awaiting thee.\n\"'There will be a mob of lawless men rioting in thy house, squandering thy riches, and trying to get thy wife to marry one of them. Thou shalt kill these violent men in thy halls by craft or in open fight. After that thou shalt reach a good and prosperous old age, and find a peaceful death far away from the sea. All that I tell thee shall surely happen.'\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI\nODYSSEUS CONVERSES WITH HIS MOTHER AND AGAMEMNON\n\n\"When Tiresias had gone, my mother came back to the dark trench and drank of the blood. She knew me at once and cried out: 'Oh, my child, how didst thou ever come down to this gloomy place alive? Art thou on thy way home from Troy? And hast thou not seen Ithaca yet, nor thy wife and child?'\n\"I answered her: 'Dear mother, I was compelled to come down here in order to consult the soul of the prophet Tiresias about my return; for I have not yet touched foot to Grecian soil. I have been driven about on strange seas from year to year, and have suffered misfortune after misfortune. Oh, tell me, my mother, how didst thou die? Did some lingering disease waste thy life, or didst thou meet a sudden, painless death?\n\"'Tell me of my father and of my son. Do they still hold rule over Ithaca? Or has someone snatched it away from them, thinking I was never to return? How fares my wife, Penelope? Is she still faithful to the husband of her youth, or has she married another?'\n\"To all this my mother answered: 'My son, Penelope is in the home where thou didst leave her, and she weeps for thee day and night. Nobody has usurped thy kingdom, and Telemachos has charge of thy royal estates. But thy father dwells on thy farm, and shares the life of the servants. He seldom goes down to the city. The grief he feels for loss of thee has made him old, and will hasten his death, as it caused mine, for I could not live without thee.'\n\"So spake my mother, and I longed to clasp her to my heart. Three times I threw my arms around her, and three times she passed through them like a shadow. Then I cried out in sorrow: 'Oh, my dear mother! why can I not clasp thee to my heart and hold thee in my arms, that we may lose for a while our sense of loneliness and misery?'\n\"My mother spoke and said: 'It is the lot of all our race when they are dead. When life departs we have no bones and flesh, but the soul flies off and flits about from one place to another. Hasten back to the pleasant daylight, and when thou dost reach home tell thy wife what I have said.'\n\"When my mother had gone, I saw the soul of Agamemnon approaching, together with the shades of those of his companions who had perished with him. The moment he had drunk of the blood he knew me and raised a loud wail. He stretched out his hands to me, and I tried to seize them, but I clutched only the empty air.\n\"Then I began to weep, too, and said to him: 'Famous son of Atreus, King Agamemnon, tell me how thou didst die. Did Poseidon wreck thee on the sea in a terrible storm, or didst thou fall in war, fighting on the land?'\n\"Whereupon the king told me the dire story of his home-coming and his death at traitors' hands. 'When I trod my native soil again after a long absence,' he said, 'I was overcome with joy at the thought of seeing my wife and children once more. But I was slain in my own home, and my wife did not even close my eyes as my soul came on its way to these dark realms.'\n\"I answered: 'Alas! how the gods must hate the family of Atreus on account of the unfaithfulness of its women!'\n\"Agamemnon replied: 'Oh, son of Laertes, thou art a fortunate man, for thou hast a faithful wife. Penelope is wise and virtuous. I remember, when we were ready to start for Troy she was a young wife with a little babe in her arms, which she pressed to her bosom. He must be a man now. Thou art a happy father. Thou wilt see thy son at home in Ithaca.\n\"'No such good fortune can ever come to me. My wife did not even let me see my son before she slew me. Tell me about him, I beseech thee, how he is. Does he still live in Sparta?'\n\"'Son of Atreus,' I said, 'do not ask me where thy son is. I cannot tell whether he is alive or not, and this is no time for idle conjectures;' and we wept as I spoke.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII\nCONVERSATION WITH ACHILLES AND OTHER HEROES\n\n\"While we were conversing thus, the shades of Achilles and Patroklos came near. The soul of Achilles recognized me, and he said: 'Odysseus, son of Laertes, how darest thou descend into the gloomy habitation of the dead? This is the greatest labor thou hast undertaken.'\n\"I answered: 'Godlike Achilles, I came here to consult the seer Tiresias about my return to my own country, for I have never yet reached Grecian soil, but have wandered about suffering great misfortunes. No one is happier than thou art, O Achilles. When thou wert alive all men honored thee as if thou wert a god, and now thou art a king and rulest over the dead.'\n\"Then he replied: 'Do not try to console me, Odysseus. I would rather be the slave of a poor man, and in the light of the sun, than to be in Hades and rule over all the dead. But tell me, Odysseus, how fares my noble son? Does he fight in the wars, and is he in the front ranks? And Peleus, my aged father, tell me of him. Is he still king of the Myrmidons? Or do they hold him in contempt, now that he is old, and I am not there to uphold him?'\n\"I answered him: 'I know nothing about thy aged father, O Achilles, but I have many things to tell thee about thy son. I brought him from Skyros, myself, in a ship to Troy, and placed him in the Greek army. There he surpassed everyone except Nestor and myself in the wisdom of his advice, and when we went forth to battle he fought among the foremost, slaying many illustrious foes.\n\"'Above all, his powers shone forth when we were hidden in the wooden horse. All the other leaders of the Greeks gave signs of fear. They grew white and shed tears; but his face never turned pale, and no tear came into his eyes. He called on me to leave the horse and rush upon the foe, and he smote the Trojans, carrying death and destruction among them. When we finally subdued the city, thy son took rich booty and safely reached his own country.'\n\"As soon as Achilles heard this news he rejoiced. He strode proudly off over the field of Elysian asphodels, well pleased that he had left such a mighty son on earth.\n\"After Achilles had departed, many other souls came and talked with me. Only the soul of Ajax kept aloof, still angry over a victory which I gained near the ships when I took the weapons of Achilles as my share of the booty. Little did that victory and the arms please me, since they caused the grave to close over such a hero as Ajax.\n\"I spoke to his soul in gentle words: 'Ajax, son of Telamon, did not even death appease the anger against me which thou didst feel on account of my receiving the arms that brought such a calamity upon the Greeks? For thou wast our tower of strength, and the weapons proved fatal to thee. Come nearer and speak to me, for I bewail thy death.' I spoke soothingly yet Ajax gave no answer. His spirit vanished away among the other spirits.\n\"Then I beheld Minos, the lawgiver of Crete, who held a golden sceptre in his hand and judged the dead. He had under him the great wrong-doers of one part of Hades. With him I saw Tantalos, who stood in a pool of water, suffering at the same time a painful thirst. As often as he tried to put his lips to the water it sank down away from him so that he could not reach it.\n\"I saw Sisyphos, also, who suffered great punishment, for he rolled a large rock uphill with both hands, straining every muscle of his body to the utmost to move it. No sooner had he pushed it to the top of the hill than it rolled back with deafening noise to the bottom of the valley. Again the unfortunate man toiled to move it upward, the sweat covering his body and clouds of dust hovering over his head.\n\"Then I saw the shade of Herakles, but the hero himself sits among the gods on Mount Olympos. And there came myriads of souls, making a terrible noise, which filled me with dread, lest I might look upon the Gorgon, and I hastened back to the ship. I ordered the crew to go on board, and they took their oars and rowed until we reached the open sea, where favorable winds caught by the sails wafted us back to Circ\u00e8's isle.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII\nTHE RETURN OF ODYSSEUS TO THE ISLAND OF CIRC\u00c8\n\n\"When we reached Circ\u00e8's isle, we dragged our vessel up on to the beach, and lay down to sleep on the shore. At break of day I sent my comrades forth to bring the body of Elpenor from the palace. We took it out to a rocky place on the shore, and cut down trees to build a funeral pyre. There we burned the body and performed the funeral rites, and we built a tomb and placed an oar at the top of it.\n\"All this was done quietly, but Circ\u00e8 saw us and came with her maids, bringing a generous supply of food and wine. Standing in our midst, she said: 'Brave men, who living have gone down to Hades, all men die once, but you are permitted to die twice. Take food, eat and drink all day long, and to-morrow at daylight depart for your native land. I will show you the way and teach you how to avoid all danger.'\n\"We spent the whole day on the shore, eating and drinking, but when the sun sank down and the earth was covered with darkness my companions went near the ship to seek rest. But I sat down by Circ\u00e8, who questioned me about my visit to Hades. After I had told her everything, she said: 'Odysseus, so far all is well, but there are a great many new dangers ahead. Listen carefully to what I say. First, thou must pass the Sirens, who bewitch with their melodious voices all who listen to them. Woe to him who allows his ship to go near them! He will never reach his native land, or see his wife and children again. The Sirens sit in a green field and sing, while the bones of dead men lie in heaps near them. Do not listen to them, but pass them by unnoticed.\n\"'Or, if thou wouldst enjoy the matchless singing and not pay the forfeit with thy life, let thy men bind thee hand and foot to the mast of thy ship, so that thou canst not by any effort stir a limb when the great longing seizes thee. And give thy men strict orders to make thy bonds tighter shouldst thou entreat them to loose thee. Before thou art bound, thou shalt knead soft wax in thy palms and fill the ears of thy companions with it, that no sound may enter.\n\"'Thence thou wilt come to the narrows where Skylla and Charybdis dwell. On each side of the narrows is a steep cliff, one of which is so high that its sharp top reaches the sky. It is so slippery that no one is able to climb up or down its sides, nor could he if he had twenty hands and feet. Not even a bird can safely perch on it.\n\"'No boat has ever come to the spot and left it without being wrecked, except Jason's, when he was in search of the Golden Fleece, and he escaped because a goddess was his guide, to pilot him through. A dark gray fog forever broods over the head of the cliff, and on its western side there yawns a fearful cave, where Skylla lives.\n\"'She is a terrible monster that barks like a savage dog, day and night. She has twelve shapeless feet, and six heads set on long necks. Each of her mouths shows three rows of deadly teeth. Half of her body is hidden in the rock, but she thrusts out her heads and snatches her prey, fish, whales, dolphins, or men. No sailor escapes, or, indeed, any living creature that passes that way.\n\"'The other cliff is not so high, but is still more dangerous. There, under the foliage of a wild fig-tree, Charybdis dwells, who sucks in the dark waters of the sea three times a day and belches them forth again three times with a terrible noise. Woe to thee if thou art near when she sucks the waters down, for not even Poseidon himself could save thee. It would be better far to steer close to Skylla, for then only six of thy men would be snatched from the benches, but if Charybdis seizes thy ship all must perish.\n\"'These pests are immortal. Do not try to overcome them. They cannot die. It is better to fly from them with all haste. It would be rashness and not courage to attack them.\n\"'Next in thy voyage thou wilt come to the island of Trinacria, where the fine flocks of H\u0113lios are feeding. Two shining nymphs, daughters of the Sun, tend them. There are seven herds of oxen and seven herds of sheep, fifty in each herd and flock. These creatures are immortal, and greatly beloved of H\u0113lios, who will send destruction to thy ship and crew if any harm come to them. Forbid thy men to touch the cattle, even though suffering for food. If thou art wise enough to escape these dangers, thou shalt reach thy home without further mischance.'\n\"As the goddess finished, day broke. Circ\u00e8 sought her own dwelling, while we put to sea with a favorable wind, and soon the island faded from our sight.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV\nODYSSEUS MEETS THE SIRENS, SKYLLA, AND CHARYBDIS\n\n\"When I saw that we were near the home of the Sirens, I said to my men: 'It is not wise that only one of us should know the oracles of Circ\u00e8, and I will tell you all she said to me, that ye may escape from the perils before us; and I disclosed her sayings to them. Then I took a handful of wax and warmed it in the sun until it was soft, and carefully clogged up their ears.\n\"They, in turn, tied me to the mast, hand and foot, so firmly that I could not stir a limb, having first received my command that they should not loose my bonds on any account. Then they bent to their oars, and rowed close to the Sirens, so that they could see me and I could hear their bewitching songs.\n\"'Come to us, O renowned Odysseus,' they sang; 'pride of the Greeks, come and listen to our voices. No one ever yet passed us without stopping and admiring our sweet songs. Come, that we may sing to thee about Troy and thy friends, for we know everything that is going on in the whole world.'\n\"Thus they sang, and their songs thrilled me. A great desire came over me to stop and listen to them, and with nods I entreated my comrades to set me free. But they sprang up and bound other cords about me, so that I struggled in vain. Then all the men plied their oars until the water was white with foam, and when we were out of sight of the island and could no longer hear the songs of the Sirens, my men set me free, and I took the wax from their ears.\n\"Hardly had we escaped from the Sirens when we beheld a black fog and towering waves and heard a frightful noise. My men were so scared that the oars fell from their hands and the ship stood still. I hastened from one end of the boat to the other, speaking cheerful words to each rower. 'My dear friends,' I said, 'have no fear. This is not the first time we have encountered danger. We have been saved from the hands of the Cyclops through our own valor and clever devices, and we are not going to break down now. Listen, and I will tell you what is to be done. Keep your seats and ply your oars with all your might; but thou, O helmsman, steer thy ship clear of that fog and the whirling waves.' Thus I spoke, and they willingly obeyed my words.\n\"Yet I said nothing to them about Skylla, lest they should lose heart and hide in the bottom of the ship. Thus we passed in between the two cliffs, the one of which harbored Skylla and the other Charybdis, who, with a terrible noise, swallowed the brine of the sea and belched it out again with a roar like the mingling of fire and water.\n\"But I forgot the command of Circ\u00e8 to fly from these monsters without fighting. I put on my shining armor and took a spear in each hand, and went on deck, and stood in warlike attitude ready to attack Skylla if she should raise a hand to seize one of my men. I looked for a long time, but I could not see her.\n\"We sailed on, the uproar increasing. My men grew white with fear. The salt waters whirled so that we could look into a deep watery pit and see the blue sand. The rocks were hidden by a thick mist. Suddenly Skylla thrust forth a mighty hand and snatched six of my brave men, as a fisherman pulls out fish with a hook. I saw their hands outstretched toward me as they were lifted up into the air, and I heard their cries for help. Woe is me! This sight will haunt me as long as I have life.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV\nODYSSEUS ON THE ISLAND OF H\u0112LIOS\n\n\"When we had escaped from the terrible Skylla and Charybdis, we came to the island of H\u0113lios, the island of the Sun, and heard from afar the lowing of the cattle and the bleating of the sheep. Then I remembered the words of Tiresias and Circ\u00e8, and I advised my companions not to land there at all, but to go right on, lest we suffer some new disaster.\n\"My crew would not listen to me. They commanded me to land on the isle. I then made them take an oath not even to look at any of the cattle. We prepared our evening meal, and when it was over we talked of our dear companions whom Skylla had devoured, and we mourned over them until we fell asleep.\n\"We remained a whole month on this island, on account of unfavorable winds. We found the roomy grot where the nymphs danced, and the seats where they sat\u2014the nymphs who tended the flocks of H\u0113lios.\n\"As long as we had a plenty of bread and wine my comrades were satisfied and spared the cattle. But when our store of food was exhausted they roamed all over the island to see what they could get to appease their hunger. They snared birds and caught fish with hooks, and lived on them or anything else that came to hand. But they grew poor and lean with hunger and nearly starved. I went off alone into the island, where I had found a quiet nook, and sent up prayers to the gods to show us the way out of our difficulties. There I fell asleep.\n\"While I slumbered, Eurylochos called my men together, and said: 'All kinds of death are bad enough, my brave friends, but death by starvation is the worst. Let us kill the best of these cattle and offer sacrifices to the gods, and then eat and live. If we ever get to Ithaca we will make restitution, for we will build altars to the Sun and place costly gifts upon his shrine. But if it is his will to destroy us in his anger, then let us die amid the billows of the deep, for that is better than to die by famine.'\n\"Thus spoke Eurylochos, and the others lent a willing ear. They seized the best of the cattle at once, and slaughtered them, and prepared a hearty meal. They offered up petitions to the gods, standing round their victims with young oak-leaves in their hands. Then they covered the thighs with caul, and laid slices of fat over these, and poured on water and roasted it until it was consumed. All the rest was cut into smaller portions and scorched on iron prongs.\n\"At this moment I awoke and hurried down to the ship, and with horror found the dreadful meal prepared. One of the nymphs, immortal shepherdess, flew to the Sun to tell him that my men had slain his cattle. H\u0113lios was deeply angered, and spoke thus before the assembled gods: 'Father Zeus and all ye immortal gods, behold the comrades of Odysseus! They have slaughtered my heifers, which gladdened my heart as I went up to heaven and down to earth.\n\"'If they do not pay me well for this great wrong, I shall go down among the dead and give them light, but I will give no light to the living.' 'Shine on, O Sun, in the bright sky,' said Zeus, 'for I will cut their ship to pieces with a thunder-bolt, as it tosses on a black sea.' I could only chide my comrades. I could not think of any sufficient redress, for the cattle were dead.\n\"And here happened a wonder which amazed my comrades. The skins of the dead animals crawled over the ground, and the flesh lowed as they had done when alive. Nevertheless, my companions continued to kill and eat the best oxen in the herds for six days, when a favorable wind sprang up, and we went on board and set sail once more.\n\"After we had lost sight of land, and nothing was before us but sky and sea, a sudden darkness shrouded the heavens, and there arose a violent storm. The vessel was hurled hither and thither by the towering billows; the hurricane tore the sails and dashed the mast against the pilot's head, crushing the bones, and he was cast headlong into the sea.\n\"Then Zeus sent a thunder-bolt into the ship, and broke it nearly in two. The boat was filled with a sulphurous smoke, and my comrades were shaken off into the sea and drowned. They floated round me, but I moved about in the ship until the bottom and the sides had broken away from each other and the mast had snapped off at its base. I took the mast, which had a thong of bull's-hide round it, and tied it to the keel. I took my seat upon this frail craft, and the storm whirled me about.\n\"After awhile the west wind ceased, and the south wind began to blow, which was still worse for me, since it took me back to dread Charybdis. All night long I was tossed on the waves, and at dawn I drew near to Charybdis. As the monster was swallowing the salt brine, I caught hold of the fig-tree and clung to it like a bat till she should throw up my poor raft. I waited long, but at last the timbers were thrown out of the whirlpool, and I dropped down upon them, and sat on them and rowed with my hands. I floated about on the waters for nine long days, and on the tenth I came to Calypso's island. She welcomed me, and detained me seven years, as I have already told thee, O Aret\u00e8, and why should I repeat a tale already narrated?\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI\nTHE DEPARTURE OF ODYSSEUS FROM THE ISLAND OF SCHERIA\n\nAll the guests had listened with deep attention to the recital of Odysseus; all were greatly interested, and when he ended they did not stir or speak a word. Alkino\u00f6s was the first to break the silence, and he said: \"Renowned Odysseus, since thou hast come to our country, I hope that thy sufferings are at an end and that thou wilt reach thy native land safely and soon.\" Then the King turned to his guests and addressed them: \"Ph\u00e6acians, let us each present one more gift, a large tripod and a vase, to the hero who has come among us.\"\nThe Ph\u00e6acians received his words approvingly, and each went at once to his home to sleep. But when morning came they all sent their gifts to the ship, where they were packed carefully under the benches by the King himself, and the guests returned to the palace, where a banquet was spread for them.\nAlkino\u00f6s sacrificed an ox to Zeus, and they sat down at the table. The enjoyment ran high, and the old poet, Demodokos, sang sweet songs. They feasted all day, and when the sun was near its setting Odysseus said: \"King Alkino\u00f6s, let us pour out the last libation and offer up the last prayer, for all things have come to pass that my soul desired. May the gods bless thy gifts. May I find my home, my wife and child, and friends. I pray the gods to grant thee all that is good, and may no evil ever befall thy land. Be pleased to send me hence, and fare thee well.\"\nThus he spoke, right glad that the day was done and eager to set sail. The people approved his timely words, and seizing their goblets they poured out wine on to the ground, an offering to the gods, and they wished godspeed to their guest. Odysseus arose and placed a goblet in the hands of the Queen, addressing her thus: \"Farewell, O Queen, I wish thee a long and happy life, a peaceful old age down to the grave, from which no one may escape; rejoice in the possession of thy home, thy people, thy children, and the King, thy husband.\"\nSo spoke Odysseus, and left the hall. The King sent a herald to show him the way to the port where the ship was waiting for him. At the same time Aret\u00e8 also sent down some maids, who carried a new cloak and tunic, a well-wrought coffer full of gifts, and an abundance of food for the journey.\nThese things the crew took from their hands and stowed away in the hold of the vessel. They spread a nice bed for him on the deck, where he might sleep quietly. When every thing was ready, Odysseus embarked, and the sailors slipped the cables and took their seats at the oars. Odysseus fell into a deep, sweet slumber, but the ship flew forward faster than a bird could fly, making rapid headway toward the island of Ithaca.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVII\nODYSSEUS ARRIVES AT ITHACA\n\nWhen the morning star arose the ship reached Ithaca. It entered a harbor called Phorkys, where there was a grotto sacred to the nymphs, and it was shaded at the entrance by an olive-tree. Stone vases stood around in the grotto, and there bees had stored up honey. The nymphs spun their fine thread from stone spindles there, and wove their sea-purple robes. Springs of cool water flowed through the grotto, and there was an entrance for mortals and one which was kept holy for the gods.\nWhen the ship touched the beach the sailors disembarked and carried the sleeping Odysseus on a rug on to the shore and laid him down. They brought his presents also from under the ship's benches and laid them under the olive-tree, a short distance from the road, for fear that some evil-minded person would take them before Odysseus woke up.\nThen the crew sailed homeward, but Poseidon saw them and was angry because his purpose to cause Odysseus endless suffering had been thwarted. He at once complained to Zeus that the Ph\u00e6acians had restored Odysseus to his native land, with gifts finer and more valuable than anything he could have brought from Troy. Zeus listened to his complaint and gave him authority to destroy the Ph\u00e6acian boat and its crew. Poseidon promptly repaired to the island of Scheria, and when the ship came in sight of the town he transformed it into a towering rock, that it might hide the island from mariners and the Ph\u00e6acians would no longer be tempted to escort strangers to their homes.\nThe ship had gone, and it was broad daylight when Odysseus awoke. He did not recognize his own country, he had been away from it for such a long time, and besides that, Athena had spread a dense fog over it. His first thought was that the Ph\u00e6acians had deceived him and left him on an unknown shore. He began to accuse them of treachery, and prayed to Zeus to punish them. He looked around and found that his gifts had been carefully placed, so he knew that he had not been robbed. He counted his gifts and examined them.\nThere were tripods and vases of gold and brass and beautiful hand-woven garments. He paced up and down the shore and wept and wailed aloud. Then Athena appeared to him disguised as a shepherd lad.\nWhen Odysseus saw her, he hastened to her and said: \"Hail, fair youth! I am a stranger and find myself for the first time in this place. I entreat thee to tell me the name of this country, and what kind of people inhabit it.\" The goddess answered him: \"Truly, stranger, thou must come from a far-off land that thou dost not know Ithaca, which is known from the rising to the setting of the sun.\n\"It is indeed a stony island but it is not barren, nor is it a good place for raising horses. It is rich in grain and grapes. It has an abundance of dew and rain, and most delicious wine is made here. Nowhere can be found handsomer goats or finer cattle. Every kind of tree grows in its forests, and its springs are never dry. The fame of Ithaca has reached even as far as Troy itself which, I am told, lies far from Hellas.\"\nOdysseus was overjoyed to find that he was in his own country. But he did not venture to tell his name to the shepherd, nor whence he came. Instead of that he told a long story that he came from Crete, which he had been obliged to leave because he had killed the King's son, who had robbed him.\nAthena smiled and, assuming the form of a beautiful woman, took him by the hand and said: \"Thou crafty man, why dost thou tell such lies? Dost thou not know Athena, daughter of Zeus, who has protected thee everywhere and saved thee from all danger? I have just come again to assist thee in hiding thy treasures and to tell thee what thou must encounter in thine own palace. But thou must not repeat anything which I tell thee, nor make thyself known to any man or woman. And thou must bear many indignities in silence until the right time comes, for there are many violent men in thy halls.\"\nOdysseus's heart was filled with joy. He knelt down and kissed the soil of his native land. \"Tell me, is it true,\" he said, \"that I am in my own beloved Ithaca? I pray thee, goddess, do not jest with me.\"\n\"Thy native land! Such ever is thy thought,\" answered the goddess. \"Any other man would have hastened with all speed to his wife and home. But thou must wait and come not at once into the presence of Penelope. She sits within thy palace, weeping night and day because thou dost not come. Hide thy gifts here in this grotto, and I will tell thee what to do next.\"\nWith a glad heart Odysseus saluted the nymphs of the cave and spring: \"Hail to you, nymphs of my native land, daughters of Zeus! I thought I should never see you again. I shall bring you rich gifts in days to come, if it please Athena to keep me from harm.\" After he had carried the presents into the grotto and carefully hidden them, he sat down with the goddess among the gnarled roots of the olive-tree, and they laid plots to destroy Penelope's impudent suitors. Athena told him about the trouble they had caused her; how they had established themselves in her own home, trying to win her for a wife. For three years the noble Penelope had kept these arrogant men in suspense, deluded with empty hopes, while she waited for her husband's return. When Odysseus heard these words he was greatly disturbed, and said: \"Woe is me! I might have been slain in my own home but for these timely words. Now I am forearmed. Stand by me, I pray, in my great need, and give me strength to meet my enemies. If thou art my helper, I can resist, single-handed, three hundred foes.\"\n\"Take courage,\" said the goddess. \"But to carry out our plans I must change thee to a miserable old man with a wrinkled face and clad in ragged garments, so that no one can recognize thee.\n\"Then must thou go to thy faithful swineherd, Eumaios, who loves thy wife and child and thy whole house.\n\"Thou wilt find him as he feeds the swine on acorns in a field near the mountain, Korax, and the spring, Arethusa. He will tell thee all the doings in thy house. Meantime I will take my way to Sparta. Telemachos, thy son, is there. He went to visit Menelaos and try to find out if there were any news of thee. I will call him to return to Ithaca.\"\nThe goddess touched Odysseus with her magic wand. At once he shrank and withered into a wrinkled, shabby, old beggar. Then she gave him a staff and a tattered sack and sent him to his loyal swineherd while she took her way to Sparta.\n\n\n\nALPHEUS AND ARETHUSA\n\n\nALPHEUS AND ARETHUSA\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII\nODYSSEUS SEEKS THE SWINEHERD\n\nOdysseus left the haven by a narrow stony path and took his way to the dwelling of his faithful swineherd, who thought more of the welfare of his master than did all the rest of the servants whom Odysseus had. He found him seated in the yard which he himself had made of stone for the swine of the absent King, and had enclosed with a thick hedge of thorns. He had driven strong posts of oak around it, also. Inside the yard he had made twelve sties, and in each sty there were fifty sows with their little ones. The males were kept outside and were fewer in number, for Eumaios was compelled to send a very fat one to the suitors every day, and therefore there were only eighteen score.\nNear them were four large savage dogs as guards. They were more like wolves than dogs. Eumaios was busy making a pair of sandals from an ox-hide, for his own use. The other swineherds had gone on errands, three of them to drive pigs to pasture, while the fourth had taken a hog to the suitors in the city.\nWhen the dogs saw Odysseus they barked and rushed upon him, and they would have torn him to pieces, but Eumaios drove them off with stones and said: \"Thou poor old man, the dogs came very near tearing thee limb from limb, and that would have been a great shame and sorrow to me.\n\"The gods have already sent me trouble enough. Here I sit weeping and mourning for my beloved master, and take care of his swine in order that strangers may eat them. Who knows where he may be wandering as a beggar among people who speak another tongue? But come, old man, let us go into my lodge and eat, and then thou mayest tell me who thou art and what misfortunes thou hast suffered.\"\nOdysseus followed the swineherd into the cabin. Eumaios threw an armful of rushes on the floor and covered it with a rug of goat-skin and bade his guest be seated.\nOdysseus was gratified at this kind reception, and said to the swineherd: \"May Zeus and all the other immortal gods give thee, my host, all the good of earth for thy hospitality.\"\nThe good swineherd answered him: \"My guest, I should consider it a great sin not to receive a stranger hospitably, even if he looked more miserable than thou. Strangers and beggars are children of Zeus. The hospitality I can extend to thee is slight but sincere, for servants have little to offer, especially when, like me, they have new masters. Odysseus loved me much. Would that the gods might send him back to us. He would have paid me for my toil. He would have given me a home, a little land, and a wife. But he is dead. May the whole race of Helen be destroyed, for it was she who brought noble men to destruction.\"\nThe swineherd drew his belt around him and hastened to the pen where the pigs were shut up. He seized two little pigs and slew them and roasted them on a spit over the fire. He sprinkled salt over the savory meat and brought it to Odysseus. And he brought delicate wine in a wooden cup, as well.\nThen he said: \"Eat, stranger, for this is the best I have to give. The suitors, who fear neither god nor man, eat the fat hogs. They gorge themselves with the costliest food in the house, both wine and meat, and only these little lean porkers are left for us. Yet there is still an abundance, for my master was very rich. He had twelve herds of horned cattle and as many swine on the mainland, and twelve flocks of sheep and goats. Here, on the island, graze eleven flocks of goats, tended by as many trusty herdsmen, each of whom has to send a fattened goat for the table of the suitors every day. As for myself, I take care of these swine, and each day I choose the best to send to the city.\"\nOdysseus ate the flesh and drank the wine while Eumaios was telling him these things, and could hardly keep from giving vent to his anger. But he kept silence and meditated vengeance on the suitors. When the meal was done he said: \"Tell me, I pray thee, all about thy rich and kind master. Thou didst say that he went out with Agamemnon to fight the Trojans. Perhaps I know him and can give thee some information concerning him.\"\nThe noble swineherd answered: \"Be silent, aged man, for we have ceased to believe the tales told us by wanderers. Every beggar who comes this way calls on my mistress and tells her falsehoods about seeing Odysseus, and tries to make her think that he will come home in a short time. Then she treats him kindly and loads him with gifts.\n\"How shall we know but thou dost make up just such a story in order to receive a tunic and a mantle? It is a fact that my master does not return. Who knows on what spot of the earth his bones are mouldering, or what dogs and birds have devoured him? I shall never cease to grieve for him. He loved me as he would have loved a son. I shall never find such a kind master again. Even my father and mother were not so good to me. Although he will never be with us any more, I keep on doing his will.\"\n\n\n\nTHE SWINEHERD TELLING HIS STORY TO ODYSSEUS\n\n\nTHE SWINEHERD TELLING HIS STORY TO ODYSSEUS\n\n\nOdysseus replied: \"Thou dost see that I am half naked for want of clothing, but I will never take a reward, even though I am in rags, until Odysseus is really here. I hate the wretch who tells lies to enrich himself as I hate death. I call Zeus to witness, and this hospitable board and the hearth of Odysseus, that what I tell thee will come true. Odysseus will be here at the end of this month, and he will be avenged on those men who have robbed him and insulted his wife and son.\"\n\"And yet I will not give thee any reward for thy news, old man,\" said Eumaios, \"for Odysseus is dead. He will never come again. Drink in peace and let us talk of other things. Do not take this great oath, as much as we wish\u2014Laertes, Penelope, Telemachos, and I\u2014that Odysseus might come. But now, as if we had not troubles enough, a new one has come upon us. I know not what evil demon put it into the mind of Telemachos to go to Sparta to inquire about his father. And the ungodly suitors have sent out a ship to watch for him, and kill him on his return. We shall lose him, too, if Zeus does not hold a protecting hand over him.\n\"But tell me, dear old man, from what country dost thou come? Who are thy parents? Tell me of thy toils and sufferings.\"\nThe time had not yet come when Odysseus thought it best to reveal himself. He wanted to stay with the swineherd until his son should return, and he had had the opportunity of making the best plan for ridding his house of the suitors. So he told the swineherd a long string of stories. He said he was a son of the King of Crete; that he went to Troy, where he met Odysseus and fought by his side. Returning, he wandered about, and, after many adventures, met Odysseus again getting ready to return to Ithaca. As for himself, he had been robbed even to his clothing and cast on this island.\nHe told the tale so well that the swineherd believed him, and even killed a fat hog in his honor. And he made him welcome to his lodge and prepared a good bed for him near the fire, and covered him with goat-skins. The night was cold and damp, and a cutting wind was blowing outside. The other servants lay down near Odysseus to sleep, but Eumaios took a sharp sword and thick mantle and went out near the pens to watch the swine all night. Odysseus saw with gratitude how faithfully this servant attended to his duty.\n\n\n\n\nPART III\nTHE TRIUMPH OF ODYSSEUS\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIX\nATHENA ADVISES TELEMACHOS\n\nAt the time when Odysseus was wrecked, after his comrades had eaten of the cattle of H\u0113lios, and he was cast up on to the island of Calypso, Athena prayed to Zeus, her mighty sire, that he might be restored to Ithaca, his native land. She prayed that Hermes, the messenger of the gods, might be sent to Calypso with the express command that she should send Odysseus home. Zeus smiled and granted the request.\nThen Athena tied golden sandals under her feet and taking a long, heavy spear, she rushed like a whirlwind down from the heights of Olympos and stood at the doorway of Odysseus' house, among the men of Ithaca. She found the haughty suitors assembled there eating and drinking.\nTelemachos saw the goddess before anyone else. She was disguised to resemble Mentor, a wise chief who had led the Taphians in the Trojan war. Telemachos rose at once, like a gracious host, and took the right hand of the stranger and gave him a hearty welcome. Athena saw with anger how the ungodly wooers ate and drank and rioted gluttonously, while the servants of Telemachos were obliged to administer to their wants. Some of them were kept mixing the wines and water in large craters; others had to clear and clean the tables, and others again prepared and carved the meats and carried them round to the suitors.\nTelemachos led the stranger away from this noisy hall, that he might not be annoyed by their boisterous behavior. He bade him sit down on a throne, and placed a foot-stool under his feet. Then he drew his own chair from among the suitors and sat near the stranger, hoping to hear news of his absent father. A maid brought a silver pitcher and basin and let the stranger wash his hands. A table was placed before him, laden with the choicest viands, while a herald filled a goblet with wine for him. When they had enjoyed their meal, Telemachos asked the stranger his name and country.\n\"I am Mentor, son of the Taphian King,\" said Athena. \"I came here in my ship with a crew of friends, on a journey to the Isle of Cyprus, in search of copper, and I brought iron to give in exchange. I am an old friend of Odysseus. I have left my ship in the bay, back of the forest. Laertes will tell thee who I am. It is said that he does not come to the palace any more, but lives alone in the country, mourning over the loss of his son day and night. It seems that the gods have long delayed Odysseus. Who knows where he is? I am sure that he is not dead. And now tell me, what feast is going on here, and who are these men? Are they invited guests? Is it a banquet I see, or is there to be a wedding? It is not a pleasant sight in any case, for the men are coarse in their actions and ungodly in their speech. Every friend of Odysseus must feel sad to see them in this place.\"\n\"As long as my father was here,\" answered Telemachos, \"our house was respectable and rich. But the gods have forsaken us, and we are destined to destruction. No news of my father's death has ever reached us; nevertheless, all the young men of the first families of Ithaca and the surrounding isles flock to our house and seek my mother for a wife and squander my father's riches. My mother does not favor the idea of another marriage, and has not promised herself to any of the suitors. She fears them, and so she does not reject their suits, yet she will not end the trouble by marrying one of them. They will not go away, but make themselves at home here and eat up my inheritance. They only want a favorable opportunity to kill me.\"\nAthena grew angry at this, and said: \"I would that Odysseus might come this very moment to chastise these atrocious fellows. Woe to them if he should appear at the door with his helmet and shield and two tough spears, just as he looked when I first beheld him in my own home. Then these suitors would find a bitter marriage-feast and a speedy end. Vengeance, however, rests with the gods.\n\"Now, let me consider the best way to get these suitors out of the house. As an old friend of thy father, let me advise thee. To-morrow call thy people together in council and tell the suitors to depart. If thy mother has any inclination to wed again, send her to her father's house. He is rich and powerful, and can give her a splendid wedding, such as is suitable for the daughter of a king, and bestow an ample dower.\n\"Then launch thy finest ship. Man it with twenty good oarsmen and put out to sea in search of thy father. Sail to Pylos first and consult with Nestor, and go to Sparta next and see Menelaos, who has returned from Troy recently. Stay with him awhile if he can assure thee that thy father lives. But if he tells thee that thy father is surely dead, return as quickly as possible and build a mound to him, and cause the altar to be piled high with sacrifices and the funeral games to take place. Then let thy mother marry again.\n\"Thou art no longer a child, and it is not seemly to allow such indignities. Be brave and act without fear, that men may honor thee. When thou hast performed these deeds, let thy care be to drive out the suitors. But now I must return to my ship, for my companions will be uneasy over my long absence.\"\n\"Thou hast spoken to me as a father speaks to a son,\" answered Telemachos. \"I shall bear thy words in mind. And now I pray thee stay awhile to rest and bathe. I cannot let thee go to thy ship without some handsome gift, such as one always bestows upon an honored guest.\"\n\"Telemachos, do not detain me longer,\" replied Athena. \"I must depart at once. Keep thy gift until I return, and then I will take it to my home.\" She vanished as she spoke, and all that Telemachos saw was a fleet-winged bird flying upward high in the air. Telemachos was astonished, and knew that he had been talking face to face with some deity. He thought over all that the goddess had told him, and resolved to do exactly as he had been instructed.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXX\nTELEMACHOS ASTONISHES THE WOOERS\n\nThe feast continued. The wooers ate and drank but were silent, for an illustrious bard was singing to them of the Trojan war. Telemachos walked forth in the midst of them, his heart inspired with courage. Penelope had heard the song as she sat in her chamber over the hall, and she came down the lofty stairway attended by two maids. She implored the bard, with tears to change the song, since it was the one most sacred to her and made her sad.\nThen said Telemachos: \"My mother, let thy heart be strong to bear this song which all men love. The bard must sing the song with which he is inspired. Retire now, I pray thee, to thy room, and take thy maids with thee. There teach them to spin and weave\u2014a task meet for a princess. But leave to me the ordering of the feast and the care of the suitors. Such a duty belongs to a man, and the authority is mine.\" Penelope was amazed at his words. She withdrew to her own rooms with her attendants and wept and mourned for her absent lord until she fell asleep.\nWhen the minstrel had finished his song, the suitors began to be noisy and riotous again. Telemachos could no longer restrain himself. \"Ye insolent suitors of my mother,\" he said to them, \"cease your uproar. Your lawlessness knows no bounds. To-morrow I will call a general assembly of all the Ithacans and warn you to depart. If ye remain in my house wasting my goods and eating food that is not your own I will call down vengeance from the gods, and ye shall die in this very palace.\"\nThe suitors were astonished at his courage and his words. He had never before spoken out with authority. Antino\u00f6s and Eurymachos, the most insolent of them, began to ridicule him and excite the others to make fun of him. And they asked Telemachos what guest he had been entertaining so secretly and what news he had brought from his father. The suitors danced and sang, eating and drinking, until evening, before they went home.\nTelemachos then sought his own couch. His old nurse, Eurycleia, led the way with two torches. She had been a faithful servant since Laertes, in his early manhood, had bought her for the price of a hundred oxen.\nTelemachos sat down on his bed, and removing his tunic handed it to the nurse, who folded it and smoothed it and hung it up. He lay down and covered himself with soft fleeces, while Eurycleia went out and carefully locked the door. But sleep did not come to him. All night he thought of what the coming day would bring.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXI\nPENELOPE'S WEB\n\nThe next morning, at dawn of day, Telemachos rose from his bed and put on his garments. He hung his sword over his shoulder and fastened his sandals on his feet and strode bravely forth. He summoned his heralds at once and bade them call a council of the Ithacans. The people came at the appointed time, and Telemachos, sceptre in hand, took his place before the assembly and called it to order.\n\"I have not summoned you, my friends,\" he said, \"in order that ye may see some entertaining show, but out of dire necessity. I bring no news of war and I have nothing to say that concerns the public good. You all know the grief which has befallen me on account of my father, your king and leader, who loved you as a parent loves his children. But Odysseus is gone and there is no hope of his return. This misfortune is not enough, for every day the young men of the leading families of Ithaca and the surrounding isles meet in my house and vex my mother with unseemly and importunate offers of marriage.\n\"There they are now installed, eating our food, drinking our wine, and wasting our money, for Odysseus is not here to drive them out. I have no way of expelling them from my home. My friends, consider these wrongs and help me to drive these robbers from the house of your king. It would be a shame to the people of Ithaca if it were noised around that they left the son of their chief in the hands of plunderers without giving him help.\"\nThus spoke Telemachos, the tears running down his cheeks, and he threw the sceptre on the ground. The people were greatly moved, and felt pity for the youth who had to suffer such wrongs, but they were silent. Only Antino\u00f6s, the most insolent of the suitors, took up the word and said: \"Shameless Telemachos, how dost thou dare to chide us for this state of things! Thy mother is the one to blame. She has been leading us on for three whole years. She is skilful and crafty. She promised, three years ago, to choose one of us for a husband as soon as she should finish the winding-sheets for old Laertes in case of his death.\n\"Then she began to weave upon her loom a dainty web of vast length and width. And she said to each one of us: 'Do not urge me to marry, I pray, until I finish these shrouds for the hero Laertes, when his hour of death shall come. I have spun an abundance of fine thread, and it must not be wasted. Besides that, the dames of Greece would speak ill of me if I should leave my husband's father without a shroud, for he has had great wealth all his life.' In this way Penelope gave us hope, and we were too generous to persist in forcing her to choose at once.\n\"She went on in this way, weaving the great web by day, and every night she unravelled by torchlight all that she had woven by sunlight. She has deceived us long enough. We have discovered her fraud; for a woman who has seen her unravelling the web has told us all about it. She must finish the work and make her choice among her suitors. If thou dost wish us to leave thy house, thou shalt send thy mother to her parents and let her father command her to marry one of us, according to her choice. When this is done no one will disturb thee any longer.\n\"If, however, Penelope prefers to treat the noble sons of Greece with such malice and craft, we will go right on consuming thy goods. She will thus make a great name for herself, but she will impoverish thee.\"\n\"I shall never send my mother away from her husband's house,\" rejoined Telemachos. \"Living or dead, my father is in distant lands, and if I should dismiss his wife of my own will, I should invite the hatred of the gods on my guilty head. She would call upon the Furies to haunt me; all men would curse me; and her father would demand ample satisfaction of me. I will never speak the word to send her forth. Now, get you gone and cease squandering my riches or I will call down the wrath of the gods on you.\"\nHaving said this, Telemachos sat down, and Zeus sent two eagles flying over the heads of the wooers, close to each other. They looked down upon the crowd of people and tore each other's heads and vanished. The Ithacans saw the deadly omen, and a venerable prophet among them stood up and said: \"Noble youths, I advise you seriously to depart from this royal house, for this is a sign that Odysseus is coming home. Woe to you if he finds you in his palace. You will all meet a direful end.\"\nEurymachos answered him: \"Old man, keep thy advice and thy forebodings for thine own children. We do not need them. Advise Telemachos to change his mind and send his mother home to her father, instead of prating foolishly to us. As long as he keeps her here we shall continue to consume his wealth, until he has nothing left. And we will punish thee severely if thou dost incite this young man to violence.\"\nTelemachos, thinking it best to be discreet, replied: \"Now hear me, Eurymachos, and all ye suitors. Give me a good ship and twenty men, that I may go from land to land in search of my father. If I find that he lives and may return, I will wait one year longer for him to reach home. But if I hear that he is not alive, I will come back and build a mound to his memory and give him a funeral worthy of such a king. Then shall my mother make her choice and wed.\"\nMentor, the stanch friend and adviser of Odysseus, sat among the Ithacans in the assembly. When he saw how Telemachos was put to shame, he grew angry. He rose to his feet, and addressed the people: \"No king ever again should be wise and good. He should be hard and unjust, since no one of you has enough love for Odysseus to stand by his son. I am less ashamed of the impudent suitors, than I am of the weaklings who see what they are doing and who dare not interfere.\"\n\"Foolish old Mentor,\" said one of the suitors, \"what art thou saying! If Odysseus, himself, should come hither, he would not be able to drive us out. If anyone thinks himself strong enough to do it, let him try it. Ye Ithacans disperse to your homes, and leave Mentor to provide the boy with a ship.\" So saying he dispersed the crowd, and the wooers all went into the palace to continue their revelry.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXII\nTHE JOURNEY OF TELEMACHOS\n\nTelemachos left the assembly and went down to the sea-shore alone, and washing his hands in the surf called on the goddess who had appeared to him the day before to come to his assistance. At once Athena stood by his side in the guise and with the voice of Mentor. She urged him to hasten his journey. Telemachos took new courage, and returned at once to his house where he found his old nurse, Eurycleia, alone. He revealed to her his intention, and asked her to assist him in getting everything ready for the journey. He bade her draw twelve jars of the best wine, and twelve skins of the finest meal to put aboard the ship.\nWhen the old nurse heard this she wept and beat her breast. \"Dear child,\" she said, \"who has put such a thought into thy mind? Why shouldst thou, an only son and well beloved, wander off to a distant land? Be warned by what thy father had to suffer because he left his own country. The suitors will plot to kill thee and divide thy wealth. Stay here, at home; there is no need that thou shouldst venture over the fearful sea.\"\nTelemachos answered her: \"Take courage, my good nurse; this journey is advised of a god. Do not let my mother know of my departure for eleven or twelve days, lest she weep and mourn.\"\nThe nurse promised most solemnly that she would keep his secret and execute his orders. She drew the wine into the jars and filled the strong skins with meal. Meantime, Athena, blue-eyed goddess, taking the form of Telemachos, went through the city and urged the men to repair to the ships at sundown, for she had chosen the best boats in Ithaca for the youth, and found for him a crew that was glad to serve him.\nThen the blue-eyed maid went to the palace and poured sleep upon the eyelids of the drunken suitors. They gladly sought their beds in their own homes. Taking the form of Mentor, she next appeared to Telemachos and bade him follow her to the beach. When they reached the galley, he found his comrades waiting. They hurried up to the palace for the wine and meal, which they soon brought to the ship and stored in the hold. Then the crew slipped the cables which held the ship to the shore. Athena took her seat at the stern and Telemachos sat near her. The sails were spread and the sailors began to ply their oars. Athena raised a favorable breeze and the vessel glided forward cutting her way through the roaring waters.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIII\nTELEMACHOS IN PYLOS\n\nAt sunrise the ship arrived at Pylos. The people of that town were all assembled on the shore, where they were sacrificing coal-black oxen to Poseidon. Some were burning fat upon the altar, and others were distributing food among those who were offering up the sacrifices, while all were eating.\nThe Ithacans touched land. Telemachos and Athena disembarked, leaving the crew to guard the ship, and went up to the crowd. On the way Athena cheered Telemachos and advised him what to say to the people. When they had come near enough to the inhabitants to be seen by them, the people rose and came to meet the strangers. First of all, the son of Nestor, Peisistratos, approached and took each of them by the hand and led them to the feast. He bade them be seated near his father and brought them the choicest meat.\nAfter the strangers had eaten, Peisistratos filled a golden goblet with wine, and handed it to Mentor, as the elder. Mentor was pleased with the young man's good breeding and he took the goblet and poured out a part of it on the ground as a sacrifice to Poseidon, with a prayer for a safe return. Then he handed the goblet to Telemachos, and he did likewise.\nWhen the feast was over, Nestor, the King of Pylos, said to his guests: \"The time has come, dear strangers, when it is fitting to ask your names, and from what land you come. Do you roam the seas as pirates, or do you come on an errand?\"\n\"We are Greeks,\" said Telemachos. \"We come from Ithaca to seek tidings of my father, the unfortunate Odysseus, who went to war against Troy with thee and the other Greek chiefs. We have never heard anything of him during all these long years and do not know whether he is living or dead. I pray thee tell me anything thou may'st know about him, and conceal nothing.\"\n\"My son,\" Nestor replied, \"thou dost call to mind the great sufferings borne by the men of Greece ere we succeeded in conquering Priam's town. It would take years to tell thee of the brave deeds of the Greeks, how they fought and where they fell. We passed nine years in worrying the enemy, and there was no man who gave better counsel or performed nobler deeds than did Odysseus. Art thou then his son? I look on thee in wonder. Yes, thou art like him. How strange to hear so young a man speak as he did!\n\"After the destruction of Troy, the surviving Greeks embarked, and we set out for home. But when we reached Tenedos, thy father returned to Troy to join Agamemnon and the others, who had stayed behind, to appease the wrath of Athena, for a Greek had committed sacrilege in her temple.\n\"Our voyage was prosperous, and we all reached home except Menelaos, who wandered about in Crete and Egypt for a long time. It is said that the noble son of Achilles returned home safely, and that Agamemnon was slain in his own house, and his son took vengeance on his murderers. There is a rumor, too, that many suitors hang about thy mother, and, in spite of thy remonstrances, consume thy riches. Be brave, my son, and yield not. Odysseus may come again. Go at once to Menelaos, for he may have news of thy father. I will give thee swift horses and a chariot, and my sons will drive.\"\nAll day Telemachos discoursed with Nestor, and when the sun went down, they poured wine on the earth and burned an offering to the gods. Telemachos and Mentor arose to retire to their ship, but Nestor begged them to be his guests and go to the royal palace. Mentor, as the elder of the two, excused himself, in order to join the crew, and suddenly disappeared. Nestor recognized that Telemachos was attended by the goddess, and offered a prayer to her. The assembly dispersed, and Nestor, with his guest and his sons, retired to his palace.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIV\nTELEMACHOS IN SPARTA\n\nBefore the sun was fairly up, they all arose and seated themselves on the smooth stone benches that loomed up in the gloaming, white and shining, before the gates of the palace. Nestor bade one of his sons to prepare an offering to Athena, of the best heifer in the fields. He sent another son to call a skilled workman to plate the heifer's horns with gold, and two others yet to bring the crew from the ship. He told the remaining two sons to bid the maids prepare a sumptuous feast in honor of their guest.\nIn a moment there was a busy scene. The heifer was brought up from the fields, and her horns were adorned with pure gold in hopes that Athena would see it and be pleased. The sailors came from the ship, except two who were left as guards. The heifer was slain and parts were burned as an offering to the goddess, and cakes and wine also were thrown into the flames to complete the sacrifice. They roasted the flesh on long iron forks with five prongs, and feasted upon it.\nThen Nestor said to his sons: \"Bring now the chariot and horses and let our guest depart in search of news concerning his renowned father.\" The horses were soon harnessed to the car, which was stored with wine and bread and dainties fit for a prince. Telemachos climbed into the seat. Peisistratos took his place beside him and grasped the reins. The horses dashed off in high spirit, and Pylos was soon left in the distance. All day the horses sped along. At night they rested by the way and early the next morning went on again as swiftly as before. As the sun went down they found themselves in Sparta, the land of plenty, and at the gates of Menelaos, the king.\nHere they found many guests assembled at the wedding banquet of Hermione, the daughter of Menelaos. That day she had been given as a bride to Neoptolemos, the son of Achilles. A minstrel was playing a harp and singing, while two dancers performed graceful feats to give life to the feast.\nOne of the attendants of Menelaos saw the strangers drive up, and stepped out to see who was coming. Then he hastened back to Menelaos and told him that two strangers of princely bearing were at the palace gate, and asked if he should unharness their horses or send them on their way. Menelaos was vexed that any of his servants should be so lax in hospitality, and told him he had acted like a foolish child, and reminded him of the gifts that had been showered on them when they wandered so long in foreign lands. And he bade him hasten to unharness the steeds, and give them oats and barley, and bid the strangers welcome to the feast.\nTelemachos and Peisistratos were amazed at the beauty of the palace. They bathed in the marble baths, rubbed themselves with oil and put on the splendid tunics that were brought them. After that they entered the great hall, where each was seated on a throne near the king. A handmaid brought a golden pitcher and a silver bowl for their hands, and a table was placed before them laden with choice food. When they had eaten enough, golden beakers of wine were handed them, and then the monarch gave his hand to each of them, saying: \"Ye have come in good time, my friends. As soon as ye have finished your feast, I will ask your names and whence ye come, for ye look like sons of kings.\"\nAs they sat there Telemachos, bending his head toward Peisistratos, said, in a low tone, so that he thought no one else would hear: \"Surely, O son of Nestor, the Olympian home of Zeus himself could not be more glorious than this palace. See the gold and ivory, and shining brass. These things are beyond price in richness.\" Menelaos caught the words, although he spoke so low, and said: \"My sons, there is no palace that can compare with the home of the gods. The riches which you look at in astonishment I collected while wandering in Egypt and in Crete. I find no pleasure in them, however, for I found my brother, King Agamemnon slain when I reached home. Would that the men who fought before Troy had their share of this wealth! I often weep and mourn for them in my palace, and am unable to eat or sleep on account of the misery I have brought upon my friends.\n\"For none of them do I mourn so much as I do for Odysseus, who suffered the most of all on my behalf. I would gladly give all my wealth, if I only knew him to be safe. But we do not know whether he is dead or living. How much his old father must have grieved for him. How many tears his wife, Penelope, must have shed, and his high-minded son, Telemachos, what sorrow he has suffered.\"\nNew despair filled the heart of Telemachos, and tears fell from his eyes. He held his purple mantle to hide his grief and wept in silence. When Menelaos saw this, he at once suspected that the young man was no other than the sorrowing son of Odysseus, and he felt perplexed for want of suitable words. He could not decide whether to question him about his father, or to wait and let the youth speak out of his own will.\nJust then Helen entered the hall from her high-roofed chamber, looking like a goddess in her dazzling beauty. She sat down at her husband's feet, while servants ran to bring the mat which she was weaving and the distaff filled with fine-spun purple thread. Her fingers flew over the dainty work while she questioned the king: \"Didst thou ask the strangers their names? It is not possible that there can be any man so like to Odysseus except his son, as is this youth! I see him with astonishment. His father left him at home a little babe, when the Greeks went forth to war for my sake. Is it not true that this is Telemachos?\"\nMenelaos replied: \"My wife, I think thou hast spoken truly. The young man has the hands, the feet, and the features of Odysseus, and he cannot hide his grief at the mention of that hero's name.\" Peisistratos took up the word and said: \"He is, indeed, the son of Odysseus, O king! My father, Nestor, sent me with him to inquire what you might know of the long-lost chieftain, and to beg you to give him advice, for he has to suffer great wrongs in his house and there is no one to assist him.\"\nMenelaos was heartily glad to hear that his guest was really Telemachos. But the remembrance of his old friend overcame him and he wept bitter tears. \"I thought when I was in Troy,\" he said, \"that I should one day welcome Odysseus to my home. I would have given him land and cities and brought to Sparta all his people and his wealth. Then we would always have lived close together and nothing could have parted us. But he has never returned.\" The tears fell from his eyes and Helen wept as well. Peisistratos then said to Menelaos: \"Son of Atreus, my father says that thou art good and wise. Let us not, I entreat, continue this sad discourse, since this is a day that should not be given to lamentations. I lost a brother, also, at Troy. But we will honor these heroes at a proper time, with tears and by cutting off our locks. Let us not spoil the feast with mourning.\"\nThey spent the rest of the day in making the festival as cheerful as if there were no grief to be hidden, and when night came the Argive Helen ordered the servants to prepare beds for them in the portico and cover them with tapestries, while she poured for them a soothing wine and dismissed them to their slumbers. The heralds led them to their couches, where they found a welcome rest.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXV\nMENELAOS RELATES HIS ADVENTURES\n\nThe next morning Menelaos rose from his couch very early, put on his garments, hung his sword over his shoulder, laced his sandals, and went into his hall looking like a god. He sat down near Telemachos, and asked him to tell him frankly why he had come to Sparta.\nTelemachos then told him of the evil deeds of the suitors, and besought him to give him every possible clew to his father's whereabouts. Menelaos was indignant over the young man's wrongs.\n\"Shame on the cowards who wish to rule over thy father's house,\" he said. \"Let Odysseus return and he will tear them to pieces as a lion tears a young deer. Grant, O father Zeus, and Athena, and Apollo, that Odysseus may yet give those ungodly suitors a bitter wedding feast. But I will tell thee of my travels and what was told me by the Ancient Spirit of the sea.\n\"It happened that the gods detained me many days in Egypt to sacrifice and do penance, for I had forgotten to make proper offerings to them. The island of Pharos lies just off the coast of Egypt. There I remained until the daughter of the Ancient Sea King, seeing my distress, came to my rescue.\n\"My men and I had wandered over the island in search of food until we were nearly starved, when she discovered us, and told us that our efforts would be useless unless we consulted with her father. 'If thou canst ensnare him and hold him in thy grasp,' she said, 'he will tell thee how to reach thy home. He is a seer, and can tell thee all that has taken place there during thy absence. At noon-tide he comes out from the ocean caves covered with brine, and lies down among the sea-calves, rank with the smell of salt. He counts them five at a time, and then he stretches himself out among them and goes to sleep. He is very shrewd, and when thou hast caught him he will struggle and take all sorts of forms to escape thee. He will turn into a reptile, and into fire and then will change to water. But hold him fast, and when he looks as he did when first perceived by thee, ask him how to find thy home.'\n\"The next morning, I sought the aged sea-god as I had been bidden. I took three old comrades whom I knew to be trusty, and we went down into the depths of the sea. The goddess brought us four fresh hides that had just been taken from sea-calves newly slaughtered, and we dressed ourselves in them to deceive her father. She scooped out places for us to lie in on the sands and we waited for him to come. The smell was sickening and beyond endurance, so the goddess put ambrosia under our noses. When the sun was highest in the heavens, the sea-calves came in groups and ranged themselves around in rows on the sand. The old seer came out and counted all, and did not notice our fraud. Then he lay down to sleep. At once, we rushed upon him and caught him. He began to take all kinds of shapes. First, he was a lion; then a serpent, a panther, a boar, a fountain of water, and a tree. We held on until he was tired of trying to escape.\n\"At last he took his proper form, and began to question me. 'Son of Atreus,' he said, 'who hath taught thee how to make me a prisoner? What is it thou wouldst know?' 'Tell me what god is angry with me, O Proteus,' I replied. 'Why am I detained on this island? Why can I not reach my home?' 'Thou didst not make acceptable sacrifices to Zeus,' said Proteus. 'And thou wilt never see thy home again until thou hast offered up a hundred oxen to the immortal gods.'\n\"'I will perform that rite speedily, oh prophet,' I replied. 'But tell me about my comrades in the Trojan war. Did they reach home in safety?'\n\"Then Proteus told me all; how Ajax died amid his ships; how Agamemnon was slain in his own hall; and of Laertes' son he said that he had seen him sitting in a grotto on Calypso's Isle. There upon the rocks or at the ocean-side he weeps and mourns day after day, and gazes out upon the deep. His comrades are lost, and he has no ship with which to return to Ithaca. And after he had spoken he plunged into the sea while I returned to my ships, offered up the hundred oxen to Zeus and sailed for home. And now, Telemachos, I pray thee remain awhile with me, and I will dismiss thee with a chariot and swift horses, and a cup of priceless worth with which to pour libations to the gods.\"\nTelemachos took new courage when he heard that his father still lived, and begged that he might go back at once to Pylos to join his crew. In a moment all were busy in the palace of Menelaos preparing gifts and a feast that the youths might depart on the morrow.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVI\nTHE CONSPIRACY OF THE SUITORS\n\nOne day while Telemachos was in Sparta, the guest of Menelaos, the suitors were more riotous than usual. They diverted themselves in the palace of Odysseus by throwing the discus and javelin. Only Antino\u00f6s and the handsome Eurymachos kept apart from them. Then No\u00ebmon, who had given Telemachos his ship a few days before, approached them and said: \"Antino\u00f6s, I would gladly know when Telemachos will return from Pylos. I lent him my ship, and I need it for I intend to go to Elis, where I have business.\"\nThe suitors were completely taken by surprise, for they had not heard that Telemachos had gone to Pylos. They thought that he was out at the farm with his swineherd. Antino\u00f6s asked: \"When did Telemachos sail, and what crew did he take? Did he use force in getting thy ship or didst thou lend it willingly?\"\n\"He was welcome to the ship,\" replied No\u00ebmon. \"Who would not have done such a service to a man who has had so much to endure? The young men who went with him belong to the best families of Ithaca.\" No\u00ebmon could not get any news of Telemachos, so he went home; but the suitors conspired to kill Telemachos. They decided that Antino\u00f6s should man a ship with a crew of twenty men, and lie in ambush in the waters near Ithaca, in order that they might catch Telemachos, on his return.\nThis wicked plot of the suitors was betrayed to the queen, by her faithful herald, Medon. Penelope was overcome with grief, and wept bitterly, and her loyal attendants mourned with her. \"What new grief is this which befalls me now?\" she said. \"Is it not enough that death has robbed me of my husband? Am I also to lose my only child, without even having seen him before his departure? Alas! why did no one tell me he was going, that I might have prevented his journey? Haste ye to Laertes and tell him what has happened, that he may make some plan to upset this plot to destroy his heir, the son of Odysseus.\"\nThen Eurycleia, the nurse, tried to console her with these soothing words: \"My daughter, I will not hide the truth from thee any longer. I gave Telemachos a generous supply of food and wine, all that he could use on his journey. And I promised him solemnly that I would not tell thee of his departure, since he had a great dread that thou wouldst weep and mourn, and spoil thy lovely face and injure thy health. Now dry thy tears and bathe, and put on fresh robes. Then go to thine altar in the upper chamber with thy maids. There pray to Athena and burn incense to her. Do not alarm good old Laertes needlessly.\"\nPenelope followed the old nurse's advice. She went to the altar, at the highest part of the house, and there she prayed to Athena: \"Hear me, daughter of Zeus! If ever my beloved husband has sacrificed to thee the fat limbs of oxen or sheep, and has built thee altars, save my son, Telemachos, and destroy the suitors, who fain would destroy him.\" The goddess heard her prayer, and sent sweet slumber and a pleasant dream to assuage her grief. In her sleep she saw her sister, who said to her: \"Be of good cheer, Penelope; no harm will come to thy son, for a god goes with him.\" To her, the wise Penelope, yet dreaming, answered: \"My sister, why is it thou hast never come to me before? Thy home is far away. I weep because I have lost my noble husband, and now his enemies conspire to slay my only son.\" The dream replied: \"Take heart. Do not fear. Athena sent me to tell thee that she will protect thy son.\"\n\"Oh, tell me,\" cried the queen, in her dreams, \"tell me if my husband lives, since thou art sent by a goddess.\" But the shadow vanished through the closed door, and mingled with the air. Penelope awoke with a glad heart, cheered by the prophetic dream.\nIn the meantime the suitors spoke among themselves, for they were too foolish to understand the spirit of the queen. \"Surely,\" they said, \"Penelope is making ready for her wedding. She does not suspect that we have planned to kill her son.\" \"Do not deceive yourselves, my friends,\" said Antino\u00f6s. \"Be silent and act.\" Then he chose twenty men, and they went down to a well-fitted ship, and took their places at the oars. They waited until it was dark, when they quietly rowed out into a narrow strait, through which, they thought, Telemachos was sure to sail on his return, and there they waited.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVII\nTELEMACHOS RETURNS TO ITHACA\n\nHaving encouraged Penelope, the goddess Athena sped to Sparta, where she found Telemachos, with Nestor's son, asleep upon the porch. She stood beside his bed, and warned him that he ought to return home, since Penelope's father had given her counsel to wed the richest of the suitors, and had promised a generous dower. \"Do not delay,\" the goddess said to him; \"no one can tell what a woman will do to help the man she is to marry.\n\"And also beware of the suitors, whom thou hast offended. They lie in wait in the narrow passage between Samos and Ithaca. They hope to catch thee on thy way home and slay thee. Do not go that way. Sail only when it is dark. A god will watch over thee. When thou dost come to the first harbor in Ithaca, disembark, and let thy crew go on in the ship and take it back to the town. But thou shalt make thy way to the hut of thy loyal swineherd, and he will take tidings of thy safe return to thy mother.\"\nAthena said this and vanished. Telemachos turned to Peisistratos and said: \"Let us arise and set forth on our journey with all haste, oh son of Nestor.\" But Peisistratos begged him to wait until it was fairly light. Menelaos had slept lightly, he was so agitated with the great event of seeing his beloved comrade's son, and he rose as soon as it was light. Telemachos heard him approaching, and hastily threw on his tunic and cloak and went to meet him.\nTelemachos urged a hasty departure and Menelaos did not think it proper to try to detain him. He said: \"A host is hateful who is too affectionate. It is as wrong to keep a guest who is in a hurry to go as it is to thrust a stranger out when he wants to stay. Let me bring thee costly gifts, and when thou hast had thy morning meal I will hasten thee on thy way.\" The car was heaped with gifts, a golden goblet, a silver beaker, a robe that glistened with hand-wrought embroidery, the work of Helen, a goblet of silver with golden lips. Peisistratos gazed with wonder at their beauty as he placed them in the car.\nThey washed their hands in a silver bowl and ate and drank from the bounty which had been placed before them. Then they mounted the car which had been brought to the palace gates. Nestor's son took the reins, Menelaos poured wine on the ground, an offering to the gods for their safety and prosperity, and off they sped over the plain. Two birds flew on before them, an eagle that had clutched a goose and bore it off in its talons, a sign that Odysseus would come and put an end to the suitors, and this omen cheered Telemachos.\nAll day the horses bounded on shaking their splendid harness. The son of Nestor plied the lash. At night they rested in a friendly lodge and the second day they reached Pylos. They drove directly to the ship, lest Nestor, in his great love for his guest, should detain him. With an offering and a prayer to Athena he set sail. A prospering breeze swept over the sea and bore them rapidly along. At night Telemachos landed at the nearest port and sent the crew on to take the ship to the town.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVIII\nTELEMACHOS AND THE SWINEHERD\n\nWhen daylight appeared Odysseus and Eumaios rose from their beds and sent the serving men out into the fields with their swine, but they themselves remained at home and prepared breakfast. In a little while they heard footsteps outside. The dogs pricked up their ears and wagged their tails without barking.\nOdysseus, perceiving this, said to the swineherd: \"There must be some friend of thine coming, since the dogs do not bark.\" The words had hardly passed his lips when Telemachos entered the hut. Eumaios started to his feet and hastened to welcome his young master. He took him in his arms as a father would a son who had been away a long time, and kissed his face and hands.\nTears dropped from his eyes and he said: \"My dear Telemachos, I did not dare to hope ever to behold thee again. Come in that I may rejoice with all my heart at seeing thee once more enter my cabin after thy return from a strange country. Seldom dost thou come to see thy servants, for thou dost live in town, where thou must watch the suitor train consume thy wealth day by day.\"\nTo this Telemachos made answer: \"This is quite true, my father; but I come here to learn of thee how matters are at the palace. Is my mother there, or has some wooer won her for a bride?\"\n\"Thy mother is still at home,\" replied the sturdy swineherd. \"She has a loyal heart, but she wastes her life in weeping.\" Saying this he took the lance from the young prince, who had come farther into the cabin. Odysseus arose to give him his seat, but Telemachos said to him: \"Keep thy seat, stranger, I will sit elsewhere.\"\nOdysseus sat down again. The swineherd took an armful of twigs and covered it with fleeces, and Telemachos seated himself upon it. Next he brought bread and meat and set them before his young master, who, when he had eaten, asked his faithful servant who the stranger was and whence he came.\n\"The stranger says that he came from Crete,\" answered Eumaios. \"Lately he has run away from a ship where he was robbed, and has come here. I leave him to thee, however; do with him as thou dost like.\" \"Thy words do not please me, Eumaios,\" said Telemachos. \"How can I receive a stranger in my house, since I cannot protect him there if any of the godless wooers insult him. It would be better for him to stay here; and lest he be a burden to you I will send out food and clothes for him, and I will help him to go wherever he wishes.\"\nTo him the sagacious Odysseus replied: \"My friend, I hear with grief the story of thy wrongs. Art thou willing to let this go on? If I were as young as thou art I would lose my life before I would suffer such things\u2014thy guests insulted, thy servants beaten, thy riches thrown away, thy food consumed by gluttons.\"\n\"Thy words are sharp, dear stranger, and I shall answer them with the truth,\" said Telemachos. \"Thou dost not yet understand that there is a great crowd of suitors; not simply five or ten. What can I do single-handed against such a multitude? But you, Eumaios, hasten to the city, secretly, and tell my mother that I have returned and am staying here. Then come back at once and let no one know where I am, for the lovers are plotting a bloody death for me.\" The swineherd hastily bound his sandals on to his feet, took his staff, and hurried off.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIX\nTELEMACHOS RECOGNIZES ODYSSEUS\n\nIt was not long after Eumaios had left the cabin when Athena, in the guise of a beautiful woman, appeared to Odysseus and beckoned him to come outside. Telemachos was opposite to her, but he did not see her, for the gods are not visible to all. Only Odysseus and the dogs were conscious of her presence. The dogs did not bark but ran into a corner of the cabin, crouching and whining. Odysseus left the room and stood before the goddess, who spoke to him in these words: \"Son of Laertes, of noble birth and great wisdom, make thyself known to thy son. Tell him all the truth. Advise with him how to put an end to that insolent crowd of suitors. I shall never be far from thee myself and will help thee. I long to see them attacked.\"\nWhen she had finished speaking she touched Odysseus with her golden wand. That touch changed him instantly into a handsome, well-made man in the full vigor of robust manhood. His rags became seemly garments. His cheeks flushed with renewed health and the heavy beard on his chin grew dark again. After the goddess had done this she vanished and Odysseus went back into the lodge. His son glanced at him in amazement and then turned his eyes away from him lest he should irreverently look upon a god.\n\"Stranger,\" he said, \"I think thou art an immortal whose home is in the heavens, for thou hast been transformed in looks and garb. Let me bring a sacrifice and offer it to thee, together with beautiful gifts, and perhaps thou wilt be gracious to us and keep us from harm.\"\nOdysseus replied: \"Nay, I am not a god, nor like the gods. I am thy father, he for whom thou hast mourned and endured so many sufferings.\" Saying this he kissed his son and wept.\n\"I pray thee do not deceive me,\" said Telemachos. \"Thou surely art a deity and not my father. No mortal could change from a ragged old beggar to a young and stately man in a moment.\"\nOdysseus answered him: \"Telemachos, it is not like a son to gaze upon thy father with astonishment. No other Odysseus will ever come into this cabin. I am thy father. I have wandered twenty years in foreign lands, and now have come to my own home. Thou hast seen a miracle which Athena wrought, for she makes me look like a beggar or a king as she pleases. The gods have all power to put men in high places or to humble them.\"\nOdysseus sat down and his dear son approached him and threw his arms around him in a loving embrace, and together they wept tears of joy. At last Telemachos inquired: \"Dear father, in what ship hast thou come, and what sailors brought thee hither? Thou couldst not have come on foot.\"\n\"The Ph\u00e6acians brought me across the sea and left me sleeping on the shore in Ithaca,\" replied Odysseus. \"And they gave me rich presents of gold, and silver, and brass, and embroidered garments hand-woven from their own looms.\n\"These have I hidden, and Athena has sent me to advise with thee how best to destroy the arrogant crew of suitors that so long has robbed my house and vexed my wife. Tell me now how many there are and what kind of men, so that I can judge whether we two alone may attack them, or whether we need the help of others.\"\n\"My father,\" answered Telemachos, \"thy sweet fame has resounded through our halls, my whole life long. How often have I heard of thy courage and the strength of thy powerful arm. But how is it possible for us two to fight against such a multitude? Fifty-two of the wooers come from one town with six servants. Twenty-four come from Samos, and twenty more from Zakynthos, and twelve from Ithaca. If we attack them all I fear that we shall come to grief. It is better for us to look around and find an ally.\"\nAgain Odysseus made reply: \"Dear son, take courage. Zeus and Athena, most powerful of the gods, are on our side. Early to-morrow thou must go to the city and mingle with the suitors. The swineherd shall lead me disguised as an old beggar to my palace. Keep down thy wrath if the wooers speak insultingly to me. Do not resent it except to administer a gentle reproof, though they strike me with their spears and abuse me with bad language. The day of their death is at hand. When Athena gives me the sign, I will nod to thee and thou shalt remove my weapons from the great hall to an upper room. Tell the suspicious suitors that the arms gather too much dust where they now hang on the walls, and besides that, a god has warned thee that in their drunken brawls, the wooers may harm each other. Let no one know of my arrival, not even Laertes, Eumaios, or my wife, Penelope.\"\nAll day the illustrious father and his son conversed and laid their plans. At noon they killed a yearling pig, and roasted it and made a hearty lunch. Once more Athena touched Odysseus with her wand and changed him into a poor old beggar, that Eumaios should not recognize him. At evening the swineherd returned. On entering his cabin he told his young master that the suitors had learned of his safe return to Ithaca. Then he prepared a supper for them, and they ate and drank to their hearts' content, when they retired to rest.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XL\nTELEMACHOS RETURNS TO THE PALACE\n\nEarly the next morning Telemachos rose, tied his shining sandals under his feet, took his spear and stood ready to go to the city. He called the swineherd to him, and said: \"Eumaios, I am going back to the town to see my mother. I know that she will not cease to be anxious about me until she sees me in my own home. Take this stranger there, too, where he may beg, and thus supply his wants. I cannot receive every poor man into my own house; my trials are too great. It makes no difference to me whether he likes it or not. I am forced to tell the truth about it.\"\n\"My friend,\" said Odysseus, \"I do not care to stay any longer. I think myself it is better for me to go to the city, where a beggar may have a fair chance. I am too old to be of service here. Go thy way, my son, and let thy servant lead me hence, as thou hast commanded. But let me first warm me at the fire, for I am cold and the way is long.\"\nThen Telemachos went out of the lodge and sped toward the city. His old nurse, Eurycleia, was the first to see him, and she ran out to welcome him, and the other servants came around rejoicing. Next came Penelope, as beautiful as Artemis, and threw her arms about her son, and kissed him on his brow and eyes. \"Hast thou indeed returned, Telemachos, my son? I never hoped to see thee again. Tell me about thy father. Hast thou any news of him? What has happened? What hast thou seen?\" So did the queen greet her son.\n\"Dear mother, do not waken my grief again,\" Telemachos replied. \"I have barely escaped a cruel death. But go to thy bath and put fresh garments on, and then pray to the gods and promise them great sacrifices if Zeus will avenge our wrongs.\" Penelope willingly did her son's bidding, but Telemachos betook himself to the market place to show himself to the people.\nWhen Telemachos came into the public square the suitors thronged around him with smooth speeches, but in their hearts they kept on plotting his death. He wanted them to see that he was in Ithaca, but he did not care to be in their company, so he took his place among some friends of his father. One of the crew came up to ask where he might deposit the splendid gifts of Menelaos, and Telemachos told him to hide them until the suitors had been defeated or had won the victory.\nThen Telemachos came back to the palace in company with a stranger who had joined his crew at Pylos, and they sat down near the queen, who was spinning. The servants brought them wine and food, and after they had eaten, Penelope begged that her son would recite to her the story of his journey. In the meantime Odysseus and Eumaios had started for the city. When they reached the spring where the citizens of the city went for water, they encountered Melanthios, a goatherd, driving goats into town. Two servants followed, helping him. As soon as he saw Eumaios and his guest, he said: \"Look! There is one knave leading another. Verily, the gods bring like and like together. Thou miserable swineherd, whither dost thou take that worthless beggar, this vagabond who rubs his shoulders on every door-post, asking for crusts, eating gluttonously, and telling tales of woe?\n\"Just hand him over to me to guard my stables and clean my yard, and I will give him whey to drink, which will fatten his limbs. But work does not suit such a fellow. He would rather ramble idly about and beg for food to fill his empty stomach. Let him once come to the palace of Odysseus and the guests that woo the queen will fling footstools at him.\" With that Melanthios kicked him in the thigh. Odysseus hesitated a moment and considered whether it were better to slay the goatherd with a blow from his staff, or whether he should submit to the indignity in silence. The latter seemed the better course.\nBut Eumaios grew angry and said: \"Melanthios, wait till Odysseus returns. He will give thee thy deserts, thou villain! All day long dost thou loaf in the city, leaving thy master's flocks to take care of themselves.\" Melanthios answered him: \"Just hear what this cur has to say! I shall take him off and sell him for a slave some day. Would that Telemachos might die this moment under the hands of the suitors, and go down to Hades to join his father!\" With these words he hurried off to the house of his master where he sat down among the crowd of wooers.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLI\nODYSSEUS IS RECOGNIZED BY HIS DOG\n\nAfter awhile Odysseus and Eumaios came to the house. As they drew near they waited a little to listen to the music, for a minstrel had begun a song, and while singing he played the lyre. \"Surely, Eumaios,\" said Odysseus, \"anyone would know that this is the palace of a king. See how stately the structure is, and how spacious the court beyond the massive gates! And there are walls and towers and countless rooms. No one but Odysseus could have built such a fortress. I hear the sound of the lute and perceive the tempting odor of roasting meat, and there are crowds of guests coming and going. There must be a banquet within.\"\nEumaios replied: \"True, my friend, this is the house of Odysseus. Now, let us consider what we are to do. Shall I take the lead and go in first, or wilt thou go first and let me follow?\" Odysseus, the sagacious, made answer: \"Go in before me, and I will follow by and by.\"\nThey were standing near the stable doors while talking. The filth from the stalls of the mules and oxen had been piled there by slovenly servants, who should have removed it day by day to fertilize the fields. There, on the unwholesome heap, a poor, neglected dog was lying, devoured by noxious insects and vermin. It was Argus, whom Odysseus himself had raised before he went to Troy. In times gone by, the young men of Ithaca had made him most useful in the chase. He had scented the stag, the hare, and the wild goat for them many a time. But now that he was old no one cared for him, and he was left to die.\nAs soon as he saw Odysseus drawing near he pricked up his ears and wagged his tail. But he had not strength enough to get up and come to his master, although he moved as if he would gladly have done so. Odysseus saw this and burst into tears, but he turned his face away in hopes that Eumaios would not notice it.\nBut the good swineherd saw it and so Odysseus questioned him: \"Eumaios, what dog is this that lies upon this filth? He is well built, and surely is of a fine stock. Is he fleet in the chase or a mere house-dog kept for show?\"\n\"This dog, stranger,\" answered Eumaios, \"belongs to my dear master. If thou hadst only seen him before Odysseus went to Troy thou wouldst have been astonished at his swiftness. He performed wonders in the chase. No wild animal was able to escape him. But his master has died far from home, and the careless servants will not even throw him a bone.\"\nThe swineherd passed on into the hall where the suitors sat, but Odysseus stood looking at the faithful beast, the only creature that had recognized him. The joy of seeing his old master was too great, and Argus sank down and died.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLII\nODYSSEUS COMES, A BEGGAR, TO HIS OWN HOUSE\n\nTelemachos was the first to notice the swineherd entering the hall, and he made a sign for him to come and sit by him. Presently Odysseus, too, entered in the guise of a forlorn old beggar, and sat down near the door. Telemachos handed Eumaios a whole loaf of bread and as much meat as he could hold in his two hands, and bade him take it to the beggar. And he told him to tell the poor old man to ask a pittance from every suitor present.\nOdysseus took the food, and after thanking Telemachos, prayed to the gods to give him everything good. Then he placed his food in a wallet on the ground, and began to eat, while a minstrel entertained the assembly with sweet music. When the bard ceased his singing, the suitors began a noisy conversation, and having a signal from Athena, Odysseus arose and went from one wooer to another asking alms. Each one gave him something, and asked him who he was and whence he came.\nMelanthios, the goatherd, and the favorite of Eurymachos, wishing to make mischief, told them that Eumaios had brought the old man along but did not, himself, know who he was. Antino\u00f6s hearing this, said: \"Eumaios, foolish swineherd, why didst thou bring that vile beggar here? Are there not beggars enough to eat up the wealth of thy master without him?\"\nEumaios answered him most courteously: \"Antino\u00f6s, though thou art high born thou art not well bred. Thou hast always spoken contemptuously to all the servants of Odysseus, but chiefly to me. Beggars come as they like. No one expects to invite them. Only people of rank are invited to a feast. But I heed not thy abuse so long as I can serve the wise Penelope and her powerful son.\"\nThen Telemachos, seeing that a quarrel was brewing, interposed: \"Hold thy peace, Eumaios, make no words with Antino\u00f6s. He takes delight in ugly words. Nothing pleases him more than to stir up ill-feeling. Surely Antino\u00f6s, thou art a father to me when thou dost bid me turn a stranger into the street and insult him. Pray let the old beggar approach thee and receive a pittance, for thou shouldst not feast on the food belonging to others and never bestow any gifts. All the suitors except thyself have given him a dole.\"\nAntino\u00f6s made response: \"Telemachos, thou boaster, if each suitor would bestow upon him such a gift as I will make, he would not come here again very soon.\" With that he seized a footstool and held it up where all could see it. The beggar approached him with a pitiful story of wanderings and hardships. Antino\u00f6s spurned him saying: \"What demon hath brought this chattering beggar to spoil our pleasure? Get thee gone, or thou wilt soon be much the worse for coming. Thou art a bold and impudent old beggar.\"\nOdysseus withdrew, saying as he went: \"How strange it is that so fine a form can conceal so foul a mind. Thou wouldst not give even salt to a suppliant, nor a crust of bread from thine own table, without begrudging it. But thou dost feed gluttonously at the table of an absent chief.\" Antino\u00f6s grew more angry, and rejoined: \"Thou insolent beggar, thou shalt not leave this hall unpunished.\" With that he raised the footstool and struck Odysseus on the shoulder. The chief stood like a rock, not in the least disturbed. But he made menacing motions with his head and retired to the door, where he put down his wallet and lifted up his voice to call down vengeance from the gods.\nAntino\u00f6s spoke again with insulting words, and one of the guests rebuked him. He was so angry, however, that he did not heed it. Telemachos saw the blow, and could hardly restrain his anger. Word was carried to Penelope that a penniless stranger had been insulted and struck in her halls, and she said to her maids: \"I would that Apollo with his bow might strike Antino\u00f6s down.\"\nThen she called the swineherd to her apartment and said: \"Bring the beggar hither. I should like to speak with him. It may be that he has seen Odysseus, for he seems to have wandered far.\"\nThe swineherd took the queen's message to the stranger, but he begged that he might not comply with the request until the suitors had left the house. \"I knew Odysseus well,\" he said, \"but I dread these violent men. Therefore, ask Penelope to let me wait until sunset when I can sit by the fire and warm myself, and tell her all that she shall inquire.\"\nThe queen thought the beggar's answer was a prudent one, and was satisfied. At sundown the swineherd left the palace to return to his hut. The suitors kept up the revel until late in the evening, and then went home leaving Odysseus in his own palace.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIII\nCONVERSATION OF ODYSSEUS AND PENELOPE\n\nAfter the revellers had left the palace, Odysseus said to his son: \"Now is the time to hide all these weapons where the suitors cannot find them, when their hour of need shall come. If they ask for them tell them that the arms were losing their polish in these smoky rooms, and also that the gods had warned thee to remove them since some dispute might arise in which the wooers heated with wine and anger would attack each other.\"\nTelemachos at once obeyed. He called his old nurse to see that the servants were in their own apartments and the doors of the palace made fast while he removed the arms to an upper room. Then he retired to rest, leaving Odysseus sitting by the hearth in the large dining-hall awaiting the arrival of Penelope. She was not long in coming. Her maids placed a chair, inlaid with silver and ivory, for her near the fire, and threw a large woolly rug before it for her feet.\nThe queen, stately as a goddess, took her seat there while her maids carried away the dishes and food left by the suitors. They heaped great logs on the fire. Then Melantho, an impudent maid, said to Odysseus: \"Art thou here, thou beggar! Begone, or I will take a firebrand and drive thee out!\" Odysseus rejoined: \"Such is the fate of beggars. They must wander far and take abuse. It is true that I am ragged, but I am not unclean. Once I was rich and had my own palace. I often gave to beggars and I had many servants. But it pleased the gods to make me poor. Thou pert woman, surely the queen, Penelope, never taught thee, and thy bad conduct will not escape the eye of Telemachos.\"\nPenelope saw and heard all this and the high-breeding of the beggar did not escape her keen notice. She turned to the saucy maid and said: \"Shame on thee, thou bold creature. Thou dost know full well that this stranger has remained here at my own request, that I might inquire if he knows aught of my husband.\"\nThen the queen asked her matron to spread a rug for the poor old man. Odysseus sat down and Penelope began to question him. \"Who art thou, stranger?\" she asked. \"Where is thy home? Whence hast thou come?\" Odysseus answered her: \"My gracious queen, I am the son of a king and I come from Crete. I am a man of sorrows and have wandered far. But do not ask me of these things, for I do not wish to lament over unhappy days.\n\"Strong ties of friendship bind me to Odysseus. Twenty years ago, when he went to Troy, I received him as a guest in my house, because contrary winds and a stormy sea had thrown him upon my island. I led him to my palace and gave him the best of food and wine. Twelve days he remained with me, both himself and his companions. On the thirteenth a favorable wind arose and they went on to Troy.\"\nOdysseus kept on inventing one tale after another, such as might seem probable, and the tears rolled down Penelope's cheeks. Odysseus could have wept, too, when he saw how deep her loyalty and affection were rooted. The lady had no doubt of the genuine character of her guest, but she cautiously strove to prove the truth of his words, so she questioned him yet farther, asking him to describe Odysseus and his comrades\u2014how he looked and what dress he wore.\nOdysseus responded truthfully: \"He wore a cloak of purple wool, with two clasps of gold, hand-wrought. The pattern showed a hound struggling with a spotted fawn, intent to kill it. Besides this he had on a delicate tunic of shining cloth, spun, doubtless, by his queen, for the women gazed at it in wonder.\n\"He was accompanied by a herald named Eurybates, a hunchback with a dark complexion, but Odysseus seemed to value him above all the rest, for he was a clever and a faithful man.\"\nWhen Odysseus had finished speaking, Penelope exclaimed, with a burst of passionate grief: \"Stranger, I was moved to pity when I first saw thee in my halls, but thou shalt be held as an honored guest from this time forward. Thou hast spoken truly of the garments, for I shaped the folds in them myself and put on the clasps. Alas! I shall never see him again. It was a cruel fate that took him from me.\"\nOdysseus was deeply moved, and tried to speak consoling words. \"Weep not,\" he said, \"for grief will wear away thy beauty and thy health. Odysseus lives and will return. I met him lately on his homeward way, laden with wealth which he had gathered in the country of the Thesprotians.\n\"He will come alone, for his comrades were destroyed off the island of Trinacria, for they had slain the oxen of the Sun. He would have arrived here before me, only that he stopped to consult an oracle whether to come secretly or not. He is safe and will not long remain away from thee. Here I take the great oath that Odysseus will come within a month.\"\nThe wise queen answered him: \"I would that thy words might prove true, O stranger, but the thought is deep in my heart that Odysseus is no more. My maidens, lead this guest to the bath and spread a couch for him where he can rest quietly, and to-morrow he shall share the morning meal with Telemachos.\"\nThen said Odysseus to her: \"Fair queen, I care not for fine covers and soft beds. Wilt thou permit me to lie down on the floor near the fire, as I am used to do? I care not for the bath, either, unless there is some old servant who knows how to give a foot-bath to aged feet.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIV\nEURYCLEIA RECOGNIZES ODYSSEUS\n\nPenelope admired the prudence of the poor old beggar, and called Eurycleia, bidding her to bathe the stranger's feet as carefully as if they were the feet of her master. The nurse filled a bright brass basin with warm water and knelt down to execute the command of her royal mistress, saying: \"My poor Odysseus! My heart is sore for him. Who knows but he may be wandering like thee, weary and footsore! Perhaps he is an object of ridicule among serving-women who will not suffer him to come near the bath.\n\"Stranger, I will wash thy feet for the sake of my absent master, and to please that gracious queen who has commanded me to do so; but most of all because thou art in need of it through suffering. Surely I never saw anyone who bore so close a resemblance to my lord as thou.\"\nOdysseus replied: \"It has often been said that I look like Odysseus by those who knew us both, O aged dame.\" Then he turned his feet away from the light, for fear that Eurycleia would recognize a scar and discover who he was. But it was in vain, for as soon as she passed her hand over it she knew it. It was a scar that came where a wild boar had once torn the flesh when Odysseus was hunting on Parnassos.\nThe old servant was so overcome with joy that she laughed and cried at the same time. She let his foot fall against the basin, which was upset with a loud clang, while the water was spilled over the floor. She laid her hand on Odysseus' beard, and said in a voice trembling with emotion: \"Dear son, thou art Odysseus. I knew thee the moment that I touched the scar.\"\nThen Eurycleia turned to tell Penelope that her lord had come, for the queen had not seen the upsetting of the basin. But Odysseus laid his finger on the old servant's lips, and with his left hand drew her closer and said: \"Be silent. Let no one know that I have come, for I must slay the suitors by stratagem. If they know that I am here they will prevent me and destroy us all.\"\nThe loyal handmaid arose to bring another basin of water. She bathed his feet and anointed them. And he moved to the fire and took his seat, while he pulled his ragged garments over the scar to hide it, lest it might betray him.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLV\nPENELOPE'S DREAM\n\nWhen Odysseus was again seated by the hearth, Penelope began to speak to him further: \"Stranger, one more question I must ask thee, and then I will leave thee, for the hour of sleep is near. All day long I keep at my tasks to try to forget my grief, for the gods have visited me with sore misfortunes. I teach my maids to spin and weave and care for the palace. But when night comes strange dreams flit through my mind, and new sorrows spring up in my heart.\n\"There are from day to day assembled in my home all the young men of the best families of Ithaca and the neighboring isles, who insist that I shall choose one of them for a husband. But as I am not willing to comply, they remain in my house and destroy my property. I am not able to drive them out, and do not know how to help myself. Listen to a dream I had the other night. Perhaps thou canst explain it to me.\n\"I dreamt that there was a flock of twenty geese in my court-yard, and they picked corn out of the water and ate greedily. Suddenly an eagle swooped down upon them from above and broke their necks and tore them to pieces. Then he flew off, leaving them scattered about the yard. I bitterly bewailed the loss of my geese, and so did my maids. After awhile the eagle came back and, perching on the roof, said to me: 'Take courage, Penelope, this is no dream. The geese are the wooers, but I, the eagle, am thy husband, and I have come to kill those impudent robbers that vex thee.'\"\nOdysseus answered her: \"The eagle gave the right explanation, O lady. The dream could not have had any other meaning. Odysseus will come and slay the wooers, and not one shall escape him.\"\n\"Dreams do not always come to pass,\" rejoined Penelope, \"but I heartily wish that this might be fulfilled. Be patient a little longer, for I have one thing more to say. To-morrow is a decisive day, for it may be the one that drives me from the palace. I shall propose a contest for my hand. Twenty years ago Odysseus set up twelve axes, one behind the other, in the court. Through the rings of the handles he shot an arrow, although he stood at a great distance. I will challenge the suitors to take the same bow and send the arrow through the rings as Odysseus did. He who succeeds shall lead me forth a bride, to his own palace.\"\nOdysseus responded: \"Do not let the contest be put off. Odysseus will be at hand a long time before any of the suitors can bend his bow.\"\n\"Thy words, O stranger, are comforting,\" said Penelope. \"I could sit and listen to thee all night. But as thou art in need of rest, I will retire to my apartment, and the maids shall spread rugs before the fire for thee.\" Penelope, having said this, went up to her room, her maids following her, and she wept, thinking of her royal lord, until Athena closed her eyes in sleep.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVI\nATHENA ENCOURAGES ODYSSEUS\n\nOdysseus was lying on his bed, but he could not sleep, for he was thinking how he might destroy the suitors. Suddenly Athena appeared to him, and said: \"Odysseus, why dost thou lie awake? Thou art in thine own house and near thy wife and child.\" \"All this is true, O goddess,\" answered Odysseus. \"But I am only one and the suitors are many. How shall I, single-handed, meet this multitude of men?\"\n\"Sleep in peace, Odysseus,\" returned Athena. \"To lie awake saps the life and strength of men. The time has come when all thy sufferings shall end. The gods protect thee and they are stronger than armed warriors.\" Thus spoke the goddess, and, closing his eyelids with sweet slumber, she flew up to Olympos.\nWhile Odysseus was sleeping, his wife had waked, and, sitting on her bed, addressed a prayer to Artemis: \"Rather let me die, O goddess, than become the wife of any other man than Odysseus. The very thought vexes me day and night. Just now I had a dream. I seemed to see Odysseus just as he was when he started out for Troy. I was so glad that I could not believe that it was not a reality.\"\nShe prayed aloud, and soon daylight appeared. Odysseus heard the voice and it filled his heart with anxiety. He arose and hastily placed the rugs on which he had slept on a bench in the palace. Then he went out into the open air. Telemachos had risen also, and he went forth to the market-place. Eurycleia called the servants together and ordered them to be quick about their work, for a festival was to be celebrated that day and the wooers would come early.\nThere was a busy time. The menials obeyed, some bringing water, some sweeping the floors, others polishing the benches and covering them with royal tapestries. The servants of the suitors came also and cut wood for the fires. Eumaios arrived early, driving three fat hogs. He saluted Odysseus and asked him if he were well treated by the suitors, or if they continued to scoff at him. Odysseus answered him: \"May the gods punish the ruthless men who perpetrate such wrongs in a stranger's home.\" While they were talking together the goatherd joined him, and repeated the sneers and abuse of the preceding day. Odysseus took no notice of it, except to shake his head as one who plans direful things.\nThe master herdsman now came along with a fat heifer and choice goats for the day's banquet. Offering his hand to Odysseus, he exclaimed: \"Hail to thee, stranger! A long and happy life be thine! Methinks my master must be clothed in rags and wandering like thee. Thou dost bring his image to my mind. I hope he may return and drive these suitors out of his palace.\" \"Be sure that he will come, herdsman; thou wilt see him with thine own eyes, when he slays the ruthless suitors, and then thou wilt know who is lord of the palace,\" replied Odysseus.\nThe suitors were talking apart from the rest and conspiring to take the life of Telemachos, when an eagle wheeled over their heads, tearing a timid dove. With hearts foreboding ill at this omen, they went into the hall to begin the banquet, while the herdsman went his way first saying, \"When Odysseus comes, call on me, and I will show how strong my arm is to deal a blow at his enemies.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVII\nTHE LAST BANQUET OF THE SUITORS\n\nThe suitors had now arrived in the great banquet-hall and taken their places at the tables. The servants brought bread and meat and placed it before them, while Melanthios filled their goblets with wine. Telemachos placed Odysseus near the door, and gave him an ample supply of food, saying: \"Eat and drink, stranger, without fear. None of the wooers shall assail thee, for I will stand guard.\"\nOne of the suitors, an evil-minded man with a rich father, said to his companions: \"My friends, this stranger enjoys his meal greatly. It does not become any one of us to begrudge good things to the guests of Telemachos. I, too, wish to give him a present, which he in turn may bestow on some other beggar.\" With that he seized an ox's foot and hurled it at Odysseus.\nOdysseus dodged it by holding down his head. Telemachos grew angry and rebuked the suitor in these words: \"Ktesippos, thou hast escaped death. It is well that this stranger avoided thy blow, for if thou hadst struck him, my sharp spear would have pinned thee to the wall, and thy father would have prepared a burial instead of a wedding for thee.\"\nDreadful forebodings of woe began to fill the hearts of the suitors. Their speech became rambling and they laughed insanely. They ate and drank like men deranged.\nPenelope now entered the great hall and took her seat upon a magnificent throne, right in front of the suitors. She heard the maudlin laughter and saw the gluttonous feasting as the revel ran high. Then Athena came and moved her mind to immediate action, and she went up to the farthest chamber with her maids, where the arms of Odysseus were stored. His bow and deadly arrows, so long unused, were there, with rich treasures and perfumed garments. She wept as she took the bow from its case and went out, followed by the servants, who carried down costly prizes, such as Odysseus gave when festivals with games were held in his halls.\nShe took her place, standing before the suitors, and addressed them: \"Ye noble suitors, listen to my words. Cease to eat and drink and come to the contest. Too long have ye lived at my table, giving as an excuse that ye would win me as a bride. The suitor who can bend this bow and send this arrow through these twelve axes shall claim me as his wife, and I will follow him to his home.\"\nPenelope called to the swineherd and the herdsmen to place the rings and carry the bow to the suitors. Each in turn tried to do so, but were overcome with grief at seeing their master's weapons, and laid them down.\nAntino\u00f6s lifted up his voice and chid them: \"Ye foolish peasants, must your eyes flow with tears at this feast? Bring the bow or leave the palace. Methinks we shall have hard work to bend this bow, for none of us have such sinews as had Odysseus.\"\nThen Telemachos took up the bow and laughed. \"I must have lost my wits,\" he said, \"for I am glad that this contest will take place. There is not such another woman in Greece as my stately mother. Make no delay then. I long to see the man who can bend the bow. I would that I might bend it myself and win the right to keep her in her own home. Then I should be spared the grief of losing her.\"\nTelemachos took off his cloak and laid his sword aside. He placed the axes in a row and took the bow and made three attempts to bend it, but did not succeed. He would have accomplished the feat if he had made one more effort, but Odysseus made a sign to him to desist, so he set the bow against the wall and went back to his seat.\nThe first suitor to make the trial had never been pleased with the insolence of the wooers, and had great foresight and was called their seer. His hands were soft and delicate. He could not bend the bow, but he predicted that it would be the instrument to bring death to the whole crew.\nAntino\u00f6s reproached him for his prophecies, and ordered Melanthios to light a fire and bring a slice of fat, that the bow might be warmed and oiled to make it pliable. They warmed it and rubbed it with oil, and tried to bend it. One after another, each in turn, they made trials, but all in vain.\nIn the meantime Odysseus went to the swineherd and the master of the herds, who had displayed such loyalty. He said to them: \"My friends, what if Odysseus should come; would you take part with him, or join the crowd of suitors? Speak truly.\" The two men answered, appealing to the gods to bear witness, that they would stand by their master to the end.\n\"Behold,\" said Odysseus, \"I am the master that you love. I have come to my own land after twenty years of suffering, and among all my servants I hear none pray for my return save you two. And now that you may surely recognize me I will show you the scar made by a boar on Parnassos.\" He raised his ragged tunic for a moment and they looked at the scar. They recognized their long-lost master, and threw their arms around him and wept, and kissed his hands and feet.\nOdysseus begged them to desist, lest the suitors should notice it and discover him. And he instructed them to bring the bow to him and place it in his hands, after all the wooers had failed to bend it. And he told them to shut and lock the doors, so that the maid-servants could not hear the groans of the dying men, for they might run out and warn the town.\nEurymachos and Antino\u00f6s were the last to make trial of the bow. Eurymachos sat before the fire and warmed it on both sides, but he could not bend it. He was vexed beyond measure, and said: \"It is not that I care for Penelope, for there are other women that would suit me just as well, but if we are weaker than Odysseus our sons will hear of it in future times and be ashamed of us.\"\nAntino\u00f6s took up the word: \"Eurymachos,\" he said, \"this is a day held sacred to Apollo, god of the silver bow. He should have no rival. Let the bow alone, lest the god be angry and leave the axes standing in a row. No one will dare to touch them. Let Melanthios bring goats, and we will offer up sacrifices to the god and invite his aid. Then we shall have strength to win in this struggle.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVIII\nODYSSEUS BENDS THE BOW\n\nThe suitors approved the words of Antino\u00f6s. The heralds filled their cups with wine, and the wise Odysseus waited until they had drunk to their hearts' content.\nThen he lifted up his voice and said: \"Hear me, ye suitors of Penelope, while I advise that you defer this trial of your strength until another day. Apollo will then bestow the power on one of you to triumph over the others. Let me practise with the bow to-day, to see if I have any of my youthful strength, or if I have lost it through suffering and want.\"\nThe suitors were moved with desperate fear and anger. \"Thou senseless beggar,\" said Antino\u00f6s, \"is it not enough that we allow thee to sit at a banquet with the proudest men alive? Thou art drunk and thy mind wanders. What would come to thee if thou shouldst bend this bow? Verily we would sell thee for a slave to the great enemy of men.\"\nThen said Penelope: \"Indeed, Antino\u00f6s, it is not large-minded to deny this poor old man the pleasure of trying the bow.\n\"Dost thou think I would go forth as the wife of a beggar? Nay, the stranger has no hope of that. Do not let your minds be teased with such thoughts.\"\nEurymachos, the leading suitor, rejoined: \"Our care is not that thou wilt wed this man. But we fear the ridicule of the people, who will say, 'These are great men, indeed, who are outdone in strength and skill by a miserable old beggar.' It would be a never-ending shame to us.\"\n\"Nay, Eurymachos,\" replied Penelope, \"real shame comes on him who robs a good man and brings trouble to his family. This beggar claims to be of good blood, and his arm is sinewy. Let him try the bow. I make a solemn promise that if Apollo grant him the honor of bending the bow, I shall do no less than bestow upon him a tunic and a cloak, and sandals, and I will give him a sword with which he can defend himself. Then he can go where he likes.\"\nTelemachos saw that the great crisis was at hand. \"Mother,\" he said, \"it rests with me to give the bow or withhold it. Such matters belong to men, and in this palace the authority is mine. Take thy maids, then, and retire to thy apartments, and ply the tasks most suitable to women.\"\nThe queen recognized her son's wisdom, and withdrew with her maids to the upper rooms. There she wept for the beloved monarch, her absent lord, until Athena sent a soothing sleep to comfort her.\nIn the meanwhile the swineherd took up the bow and undertook to carry it to Odysseus. The suitors shouted their disapproval, and he became confused and set it down. Telemachos called out above the clamor and gave command for him to carry it along. The suitors laughed to hear the young man's voice ring out like a trumpet and drown all other noises. Odysseus took the bow and turned it from side to side, examining it in every part. Telemachos, in a low tone, bade Eurycleia make fast all the doors, and the master herdsman tied the gates of the outer court with a ship's cable.\nThe suitors grew uneasy, and one of them said to another: \"See the beggar, how he turns the bow this way and that! He would have us think that he is an expert in the use of bows.\" Odysseus stretched the cord and made it fast from end to end. He put it to his ear to try its tenseness as a minstrel tunes his harp. It sang like a bird. With perfect ease he drew the cord and let the arrow fly. It screamed like a swallow and went through every ring from the first one to the last. The suitors turned pale. Zeus sent a loud thunder-clap and Odysseus rejoiced at the omen. He sprang to the threshold with his bow in hand and a quiver full of arrows at his side, and shouted: \"The contest is ended. Now I will choose another target.\"\nAntino\u00f6s had just put a golden goblet to his lips, and was about to drink the delicious wine. An arrow pierced his throat. He dropped the cup and fell to the ground, and as he fell his feet struck the table. The bread and meat were scattered in every direction over the floor. The suitors sprang to their feet and looked for the weapons on the walls. The spears were gone, and the lances and all the armor.\nEven yet they were blind to the fact that the stranger had slain Antino\u00f6s purposely. They poured out threats. \"Fool,\" they said, \"what art thou doing? How couldst thou be so careless! Thou hast slain the noblest man in Ithaca. Dogs and vultures shall devour thee. Never again shalt thou be allowed a trial with the bow.\"\n\"Dogs,\" cried Odysseus, \"ye little thought your chief would ever return from Troy, and therefore ye have robbed me of my wealth and vexed my wife with offers of marriage, regardless of the laws of god and man. But now the hour of your death has come and your doom is certain.\"\nThe suitors trembled and looked for some open door through which to fly for safety. Only Eurymachos took courage to make a defence. \"If thou art indeed Odysseus, thou hast good cause to complain of wrongs,\" he said. \"But thou hast slain the leader, Antino\u00f6s, who prompted us to do these wrongs. He had no thought of love for thy wife. He wanted to gain thy land and rule over thy people. Spare the rest of us and we will make ample restitution.\"\nA dreadful frown spread over Odysseus' face, and he replied: \"Eurymachos, I will not take thy wealth nor will I spare thy life. Now choose between the two, either to fight or fly from death. Be sure no suitor shall escape my vengeance.\"\nThe suitors all grew faint with fear. Eurymachos cried out to them: \"Ye Ithacans, this man will stand there at the door and shoot us all down one by one. Out with your swords! Hold up the tables for shields, and rush upon him, all of you, at once. Drive him out of the gates, and then hurry through the city and give a general alarm.\"\nWith a fearful shout Eurymachos then drew his own sword and sprang toward Odysseus. A deadly arrow from the famous bow met him and he fell upon the table, upsetting it, and he went spinning round with it on the paved floor, while the food and cup of wine were scattered all about. His head struck upon a stone and his feet against a chair. Death closed his eyes.\nAnother suitor drew his sword and rushed toward Odysseus. Telemachos met him with a lance and slew him. Then Telemachos sprang to his father's side and said: \"My father, I will bring thee javelins and a shield, and I will arm myself and the swineherd and the master herdsmen.\" \"Make haste, my son,\" responded Odysseus, \"for I have but few arrows left.\"\nTelemachos hastened to the room where the arms had been stored and clothed himself in brass. His loyal herdsmen also put on splendid armor, and they hastened back to Odysseus with a complete outfit for him. The chief had used up his arrows, and now he dressed himself in armor and took the lances. Just then he perceived that the suitors had by some means been supplied with armor also. He called to Telemachos, who had left the door ajar leading to the apartment where the arms had been placed for safety.\nMelanthios, the goatherd, had sneaked in and was slyly bringing shields and helmets down to them. Telemachos saw him, and gave orders to the herdsmen to lock the doors of the armory and secure the spy. They hastened to the armory and found Melanthios, who had come back for a second load. They cast him on the floor and tied his arms down so that he could not move them. Then they took a rope and made two loops in it and swung him safely to the timbers in the roof, saying: \"Melanthios, thou hast a soft bed, and it is where thou canst keep watch. In the morning thou canst drive thy goats to the suitors' banquet.\" They locked the doors and left him there and took their places at Odysseus' side.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIX\nDEATH OF THE SUITORS\n\nThe combat grew more stubborn. Athena, in the guise of Mentor, stood near Odysseus and cheered him on. \"Woe unto thee, Mentor, if thou dost dare to help Odysseus,\" cried one of the suitors. \"We will not spare thee when we have slain him. More yet, we will drive thy wife and children out of Ithaca and keep thy wealth.\" The goddess, in great anger at this audacity, turned toward Odysseus and said: \"Thou art not so swift and terrible in fighting, O Chieftain, as thou wert before the walls of Troy.\"\nAthena said this to spur Odysseus on, but she did not remain at his side. She changed herself into a swallow and perched upon a rafter of the great hall, to put his prowess to a greater test. When she had gone, the suitors grew braver and threw their spears at Odysseus thick and fast. But their aim was uncertain, and they struck pillars and panels and the wall, for the goddess turned their shafts aside.\nOdysseus and Telemachos and their faithful servants hurled their lances, and the weapons always hit the mark. The cowherd struck Ktesippos in the breast and exclaimed, as the suitor fell: \"Ktesippos, I give thee this spear in exchange for the ox's foot which thou didst throw at Odysseus as a gift when he asked alms of thee.\"\nFour of the wooers fell to the ground at once and the remainder retreated to the farthest corner of the hall. Still they rallied for another onset. Odysseus rushed in upon them and cut them down right and left, while Athena from above shook her fearful \u00e6gis. The surviving wooers were stricken with terror and ran about like a herd of oxen chased by a swarm of gadflies. Only the minstrel Phemios and the herald Medon were spared. Both of them had served the suitors most unwillingly and had secretly advised with Telemachos.\nOdysseus searched up and down the hall to see if any suitor could be found alive. As fishes lie upon the beach when they have been poured out from the nets upon the sand, so lay the multitude of wooers. Not one survived.\nThen Odysseus called Eurycleia and bade her summon all of the impudent and unfaithful servants who had taken sides with the suitors. They came into the hall and with loud laments took up the slain and carried them out as they were commanded, and placed them in a walled court. Then they cleaned the hall with water and sponges, and polished the wood and set everything in order.\nWhen this was done, they were driven like a flock of birds into a narrow place outside and hung to a beam to die wretchedly. Melanthios also was brought down from the armory and cast among the dogs to die.\nThe palace now was purged with the smoke of sulphur, and the air was purified with incense. The loyal servants crowded about their chieftain and welcomed him with glad salutations. They kissed his hands and face, and wept and laughed for joy. Odysseus was deeply moved and sobbed aloud.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER L\nEURYCLEIA ANNOUNCES THE RETURN OF ODYSSEUS TO PENELOPE\n\nEurycleia, with an exulting heart, now hurried up the lofty stairs and stood by the queen in her royal chamber. \"Penelope,\" she cried, \"my child, Odysseus has come. Thy husband is here, and he has slain the whole crew of insolent suitors who squandered his riches and scoffed at his son.\" Prudent Penelope answered her: \"Eurycleia, thou art mad. The gods have taken thy wits away. Do not mock me with such idle tales. If any other maid had come on such an errand and waked me from sleep, I would have dismissed her with anger.\"\n\"Nay, dear child, I do not mock thee; Odysseus has come and is now sitting by the hearth. The beggar whom they scoffed at in the hall was Odysseus. Telemachos knew it, but dared not tell thee until the suitors should be slain.\"\nPenelope rose from her couch and seized Eurycleia by the hands.\n\"Tell me, dear nurse,\" she said, \"tell me truly, if in fact my husband has returned, how was it possible that he alone could destroy such a multitude of haughty men!\" \"I did not see it,\" responded the old nurse, \"but I heard the groans of the dying men as I sat with the other maids in our own rooms. The doors were locked to bar us from the hall. When Telemachos called me, I found Odysseus surrounded by the slain. When we had washed the hall and purged it with smoke and purified the air with incense, thy husband ordered me to call thee. Follow me now, my child, that your heart may be gladdened after it has been oppressed so long with sorrows.\"\nPenelope replied again: \"Nay, I cannot believe it. The gods may have slain the suitors under the guise of Odysseus, but he has perished far away from home and never will return.\"\n\"My daughter,\" said the aged nurse, \"what words are these? I recognized Odysseus myself by the well-known scar made by the boar's tusk. I turned to tell thee, but he laid his finger on my lips and said: 'Be silent. Let no one know that I am here until the suitors all are slain, or else they will destroy me.' Now follow me. I pledge my life that I speak the truth.\"\nPenelope descended from her royal bower uncertain how to meet her lord. She crossed the threshold and sat down at the hearth, opposite Odysseus, who was seated beside a stately column in the blazing light of the fire. He did not lift his eyes to look at his wife, but waited for her to make the way open for him to speak. Penelope was speechless. She looked at her husband and seemed sometimes to recognize him, and then the resemblance faded out and he did not seem at all like Odysseus.\nTelemachos became impatient and spoke to her, chiding her. \"Mother,\" he said, \"thou art hard-hearted and unkind. Any other woman would extend a hearty welcome to her husband after he had suffered so many years of hardship, wandering in foreign lands. Take thy place at my father's side and question him. Verily thy heart is harder than a stone.\" \"My son,\" answered Penelope, \"I seem to have lost the power to speak. I am dazed and cannot even command myself to look at him. If this is indeed Odysseus we soon shall know each other, for there are secrets known to us two only.\"\nOdysseus smiled and said: \"My son, be patient, and let thy mother put me to the test. She does not know me in these rags, but she will soon be convinced that I am Odysseus. It is more important now to prevent the news that the suitors have been slain from spreading. They have friends all over the city. Who knows but what they may rise up against us. I deem it best that we bathe and put on fresh garments, and let the servants do the same.\n\"And let the minstrel bring his lyre and strike up such music as prompts the dance, so that those living near us may report that a wedding is being celebrated. Then we may safely venture forth and see what is to be done.\"\nThus spoke the monarch, and his commands were gladly obeyed. Telemachos and the servants went their way to the baths and arrayed themselves in splendid clothing. The bard took his harp and woke the pleasing strains, and the palace halls resounded with mirth and dancing.\nAfter awhile those outside were heard to say: \"Shame on Penelope! She weds a second time, and does not even know whether her absent lord is dead or living. She might have waited for him to return.\"\nMeantime Odysseus followed a servant to the bath, and when he had been bathed and anointed he put on garments suitable for a king. Athena gave him a more majestic appearance, and caused his hair to fall in heavy curls, like the petals of the hyacinth. When he came back to the great hall and stood before the queen, he looked like an immortal.\n\"Lady,\" he said, \"the gods have given thee a stubborn heart. Any other woman would have given a glad welcome to her husband after he had been absent twenty years.\" To this Penelope responded: \"Not so; I have no pride nor a cold heart. But I should be unworthy of my lord if I accepted a stranger without putting him to the proof. I remember well when thou didst go to Troy. Thou didst command Eurycleia to carry thy massive bed out into the open air and cover it with fleeces.\"\n\"Nay, woman, no living man could perform such a feat. I built that massive frame myself. It was a tall olive-tree that grew within one of the courts. Round it I built a royal bower, and, cutting off the great limbs of the tree, shaped them and fastened them to the trunk. In this wise I built the frame, and no one could move it without dragging the tree out by the roots. That is a secret known only to thee and me.\"\nPenelope had put the final test, and knew that this was surely Odysseus. She rose from where she sat and ran to him and threw her arms about his neck and kissed his brow. \"Odysseus, do not be angry with me,\" she said. \"Many are they who have tried to practise deception upon me. Thou hast made me believe in thee.\" These words pierced Odysseus' heart and brought him the relief of tears. He pressed his faithful wife to his bosom again and again.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LI\nODYSSEUS VISITS HIS FATHER\n\nEarly the next morning Odysseus dressed himself in his splendid armor and bade his son and servants accompany him to the farm. They took their weapons and went forth, Odysseus leading the way. It was not long before they came to the green fields which were cared for by Laertes. He had built his house there, and surrounded it with cabins, where his servants slept.\nOdysseus was anxious to know whether his father would recognize him or not, so he said to one of the men: \"Go into the house and call my father. Let me see whether he will know me, after I have been so long away.\" Placing his weapons in their hands, he went down into the orchard. There were no servants about, for they had all gone off to gather thorns with which to build a fence.\nThere Odysseus saw his father working around a young tree that he had just planted. He was clad in old, coarse clothes that had been repeatedly patched, a goat-skin cap, and gloves to protect his hands from the briers.\nIt was pitiful to see the want of hope in the old man's face as he moved about brooding over his troubles. Odysseus was uncertain whether he should throw his arms about his father's neck and clasp him to his heart and kiss him, or whether it were better to question him.\nHe approached Laertes gently and, having greeted him, said: \"My friend, thou art a skilful farmer. Every fig and vine and pear and olive has been carefully trained. But no one seems to care for thee. Thy master treats thee badly, for thou art ill-clad and unkempt. An old man deserves better things. Thy face does not look like the face of a servant. Indeed one might take thee for a king. Now tell me, who owns this orchard? And tell me also if this land is Ithaca. I desire to learn what became of Odysseus, the son of Laertes. He was once my guest and one that I made most welcome.\"\nLaertes wept. \"Thou art indeed in Ithaca, O stranger,\" he said. \"But thou dost seek in vain for Odysseus. The land is full of wicked men, and there is no host to load thee with generous gifts, a recompense for thy hospitality. Oh, tell me of my son; when did he lodge with thee? Woe is me! The beasts and birds have long since devoured him. No mother folded his shroud about him, nor did his father or his loyal wife weep upon his bier. Tell me, what is thy name? Where is thy ship? How didst thou come here?\"\nOdysseus was overcome with pity, and invented a tale to prepare Laertes for his unexpected coming. Then he clasped the dear old man in his arms and kissed his trembling hands, and said: \"I am thy son, my father; I am the Odysseus of whom thou dost inquire. Here is the scar given me by the wild boar as I hunted on Parnassos. And for further proof I will tell thee of the orchard-trees thou gavest me when I was a child. There were thirteen pear-trees, forty fig-trees, and ten apple-trees. Forbear thy weeping and cease to mourn. I have slain the suitor-robbers who were destroying my riches, and I have taken possession of my house again.\"\nOverwhelmed with joy, the old king trembled from head to foot. The sturdy chieftain, Odysseus, saw it and drew him to his heart to keep him from fainting, and held him there until his strength came back. Then they went up to the house, where a supper had been prepared, and Telemachos was waiting. Laertes went to the bath and came back clad like a king. The grief had left his face, and he took on his old majestic appearance. As they sat at the banquet, relating the experiences of the past years, Dolius and his sons, the servants who had gone in search of thorns, returned. Dolius recognized Odysseus and seized him by the hand and saluted him with joyful greetings, and his sons gathered round the chieftain eager to take his hand.\nMeantime the souls of the suitors had gone down to the abode of Pluto. Hermes led them, and they followed, crying and wailing like bats in a dark cave. The shades of Achilles, Agamemnon, Ajax, and other heroes saw them and constrained them to relate the mishaps that had brought them there. Then Agamemnon's ghost responded: \"Fortunate Odysseus! His fame shall last forever, and poets shall sing the praises of Penelope in all the coming ages.\"\nEre Odysseus and Laertes had finished their feast, the news of the dreadful death of the suitors spread over the city. The wooers had many friends, and they came to the palace weeping and mourning, ready to avenge their slaughter. Finding that Odysseus was not at home, they proceeded to the market-place. The father of Antino\u00f6s arose and lifted up his voice crying for vengeance, but Medon, the herald, warned them that a god had taken part against them and that strife would be useless.\nHalitherses, a wise and reverend citizen, took up the word: \"Ye men of Ithaca,\" he said, \"give ear to what I have to say. Odysseus was not the cause of your misfortunes, but you, yourselves. Ye would not check the insolence of the suitors, even when Mentor bade you do it. Contend not with Odysseus nor bring down his wrath upon us.\"\nThe Ithacans were now divided against themselves. Half of them took up arms to make war on Odysseus, and started for his father's house. In this adversity Athena did not forget her favorite chief, but armed herself, and, taking on the guise of Mentor, placed herself at Odysseus' side. A son of Dolius was first to announce that a crowd was marching against them, when they all arose quickly, donned their armor, and went outside.\nThen Odysseus cried out to Telemachos: \"Now is the moment to show thyself a hero, my son. Do not bring disgrace upon thy forefathers, for they are renowned over the whole world for their bravery.\" Telemachos responded: \"There is no danger of that, my dear father, as I shall show thee presently.\" When Laertes heard this he rejoiced and said: \"This is a happy day for me. How blest am I to see my son and grandson rivals in brave deeds.\"\nAthena now drew near to the old king, and inspired him with youthful courage. He swung his spear aloft and threw it at the leader of the host and smote him to the earth. Odysseus and Telemachos rushed into the fray with double-edged swords. They would have made an end of the whole multitude, but Athena called aloud: \"People of Ithaca, cease from fighting! Retire at once from this contest and shed no more blood.\"\nThe Ithacans grew pale with fright at hearing the voice of the goddess. They threw down their weapons and ran toward the city in a panic of fear. Odysseus shouted in triumph as he gave chase, but Zeus sent a thunder-bolt down as a sign to Athena that she should restrain him. The goddess called to him to cease the pursuit, and, taking the guise of Mentor, she moved the minds of Odysseus and his enemies to mutual pledges of peace and good-will.\n\n\n\n\n\nVOCABULARY AND NOTES\n\nA chil' les\u2014also called Pelides, the hero of the \"Iliad.\" He was the son of Peleus (king of Phthia in Thessaly) and the sea-nymph, Thetis.\n\u00c6 g\u0113' an\u2014a sea east of Greece.\n\u00c6' o lus\u2014the keeper of the winds, and king of Lipara, one of the \u00c6olian isles north of Sicily.\nAg a mem' non\u2014leader of all the Greek chiefs in the Trojan war.\nA' jax, or Aias\u2014king of Salamis and cousin of Achilles. He was the son of Telamon and was called Ajax the Greater.\nAl ex \u0103n' dr\u014fs\u2014Paris, son of Priam.\nAl kin' \u014f \u00f6s\u2014king of Scheria, father of Nausica\u00e4. He gave aid to Odysseus when he was stranded on the island.\nAn tin' o \u00f6s\u2014the boldest of the suitors.\nAph ro d\u012b' te\u2014Venus, the goddess of love and beauty. The island of Kythera (Cythera), south of Greece, was the seat of her worship.\nA p\u014fl' lo\u2014the Sun-god, brother of Artemis and son of Zeus and Leto. The island of D\u0113los was his mythical birthplace and his principal oracle was at Delphi.\nAr ca' di a, or Arkadia\u2014the central district of the Peloponnesus.\nA re' t\u00e8 (\u00e4 r\u0101' t\u0101)\u2014wife of Alkino\u00f6s and queen of Scheria.\nAr e th\u016b' sa\u2014a spring \"where the swine of Eumaios ate 'abundance of acorns and drank the black water.'\" (See Baedeker's Greece\u2014Ithaca.) Arethusa was also the name of a water-nymph inhabiting the spring.\nAr' gus, or Argos\u2014the most celebrated dog known to fame. He belonged to Odysseus.\nAr' te mis, or Diana\u2014goddess of the moon and sister to Apollo. She was called the hunter-goddess and the protector of animals.\nAs' ph\u014d del\u2014a flower sacred to Persephone. The souls of the departed were supposed to wander in meadows adorned with these beautiful flowers.\nA th\u0113' n\u0113, or Athena; Latin, Minerva\u2014the patron deity of Athens. The city was named for her. Ruskin calls her the \"Queen of the Air,\" and explains her real significance as being the inspiration of the soul, which corresponds to the physical vigor and life received by inhaling the pure air. She is always called the \"Goddess of Wisdom.\"\nA' treus (a' tr\u016bse)\u2014son of Pelops and father of Agamemnon.\nAu' lis\u2014a bay and town on the coast of Greece, about thirty miles north of Athens. \"The scanty ruins of Aulis lie on the rugged ridge of rock which stretches into the sea between the two bays. The little town never attained any importance, for its site was unfavorable for the development of a community; but the two sheltered bays were excellently adapted to be the rendezvous of a fleet.\" (See Baedeker's Greece\u2014Aulis.)\nCad' mus, or Kadmos\u2014the founder of Thebes in B\u0153otia. According to tradition, he came from Ph\u0153nicia and brought the alphabet to the Greeks and the knowledge of working in metals.\nCal' chas, or Kalchas\u2014a soothsayer. He offended Agamemnon by declaring that the Greeks suffered from the wrath of the gods through his offences.\nCa lyp' so\u2014the goddess of Silence, daughter of Oceanos and Tethys, and queen of Ogygia. She tried by every art to detain Odysseus on his way home from Troy.\nCas san' dra\u2014a daughter of Priam, and a prophetess, taken captive in the Trojan war and awarded to Agamemnon.\nCha ryb' dis\u2014a whirlpool off the coast of Sicily, a little to the north of Messina.\nCir' c\u00e8, or Kirk\u0113\u2014the daughter of H\u0113lios, the Sun. She was an enchantress who lived on the island \u00c6\u00e6a. She infused into the vine the intoxicating quality found in the juice of the grape. \"The grave of Circe used to be pointed out on the island of St. George, close to Salamis.\" (See Baedeker's Greece\u2014Salamis.)\nCy' clops, or Kyklops, also called Polyphemus\u2014a monstrous one-eyed giant. He was the son of Poseidon. It was due to his prayer for revenge that Odysseus was kept so long wandering on the sea.\nCy the' ra, or Kythera\u2014a rocky island lying south of Greece. It was the seat of the worship of Aphrodite.\nD\u0113' los\u2014an island about sixty miles southeast of Athens. It is the mythical birthplace of Apollo and Artemis.\nD\u0113 mod' o kos\u2014a bard at the court of Alkino\u00f6s.\nE' lis\u2014a district and a city in the northwestern part of the Peloponnesus. Like Sparta, the city had no walls. It was protected by the sacred peace of Olympia.\nThe plain or precinct of Olympia is situated in the district of Elis. Pyrgos is the nearest railroad station. \"Olympia owed its high importance throughout the entire Grecian world to the famous Olympic games in honor of Zeus, which took place periodically for centuries. Excavations there have brought to light many magnificent pieces of sculpture, among them the Hermes of Praxiteles.\"\nEl p\u0113' nor\u2014one of the comrades of Odysseus. He fell from the roof of Circ\u00e8's palace and was killed.\nE lys' ian\u2014pertaining to Elysium, the abode of dead heroes and other happy spirits.\nEu mai' os, or Eum\u00e6us\u2014the swineherd of Odysseus.\nEu r\u014d' tas\u2014a river of southern Greece.\nEu ry' a los\u2014a son of Alkino\u00f6s.\nEu ry clei' a (\u016b ry cl\u012b' \u00e4)\u2014the nurse of Odysseus and Telemachos.\nEu ry' l\u014f chos, or Eurylochus\u2014one of the companions of Odysseus.\nEu ry' ma chos, or Eurymachus\u2014one of the suitors of Penelope.\nGor' gon\u2014a monster of fearful aspect, a daughter of Phorkys and Ceto. Her hair was entwined with serpents, her hands were of brass, her body covered with scales, and anyone gazing upon her was turned into stone.\nHel' en, or Helen\u0113\u2014a daughter of Tyndareus and Leda. She was the wife of Menelaos and was always called \"the most beautiful woman in the world.\"\nHel' las\u2014Greece, the land of the Hellenes.\nH\u0113' li os\u2014the god of the Sun.\nHe phais' tos, or Heph\u00e6stus\u2014Vulcan. He was the blacksmith god, the god of fire, and a worker in metals.\nH\u0113' ra, H\u0113r\u0113\u2014Juno, the wife of Zeus. She was worshipped as the queen of heaven and was regarded as a model of womanly virtue. Argos was the chief centre of the worship of Hera.\nH\u0113r' a kles, or Hercules\u2014a celebrated hero whose deeds are connected with many localities. There is a cave near Nemea where he is said to have slain a lion, not far from Stymphalos, where he put the Harpies to flight, and Erymanthos, the scene of the killing of the Erymanthian boar. There are traditions of his heroism connected with Thessaly (Thebes) and Locris, also.\nHer' bart\u2014a German philosopher and pedagogian.\nHer' m\u0113s, or Mercury\u2014the messenger of the gods, also their herald.\nHer mi' \u014f ne\u2014the daughter of Menelaos and Helen.\nHo' mer\u2014the greatest of the Greek poets and author of the \"Iliad\" and \"Odyssey.\"\nI' da\u2014a mountain of Asia Minor, east of Troy.\nIl' i ad\u2014an epic poem, probably the greatest ever written, devoted to the deeds of Achilles, and taken by the best scholars of modern times as an interpretation of Greek life, Greek thought, and the Greek religion.\nI' no, or Leucothea\u2014a daughter of Cadmus, a sea-nymph who helped Odysseus by giving him an enchanted veil.\nIph i gen ei' a\u2014the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. \"Ulrichs has discovered the site of the famous Temple of Artemis or Diana, where Agamemnon was on the point of sacrificing his daughter Iphigeneia, before the departure of the Greek fleet for Troy.\" (See Baedeker's Greece\u2014Aulis.) To appreciate the character of this famous woman one must read the \"Iphigeneia in Aulis\" of Euripides and the \"Iphigeneia in Tauris\" of Goethe.\nIth' a ca, or Ithaka, Greek Ith\u00e1k\u0113\u2014rocky island with an area of 37\u00bd square miles and 12,500 inhabitants. \"The world-wide fame of this little island is of course due to the Homeric epic of the Odyssey, in which the misfortunes and wiles, the wanderings, and home-coming of Ulysses (Odysseus), King of Ithaca, have been handed down to posterity in undying verse. Even if the person of the hero be relegated to the realm of myths, it is indisputable that the descriptions of the poem rest upon a more or less exact local knowledge; and this is evident not only in the account of the situation and general character of the island but also in numerous small details.... The island became almost entirely depopulated in the middle ages, in consequence of the raids of pirates and the Turkish wars, and did not begin to recover until the Venetian epoch. But similar conditions of life make the modern islanders resemble the ancient. To this day the Ithacans are distinguished by their bold seamanship, their love of home, and their hospitality.\" (See Baedeker's Greece\u2014Ithaca.)\nJa' son, or Iason\u2014the hero who undertook the expedition in search of the Golden Fleece.\nKtes ip' pos, or Ctesippus\u2014one of the suitors of Penelope.\nLak e dai' mon, or Laced\u00e6mon\u2014a district in southeastern Greece. Sparta was its capital.\nLa \u00ebr' tes\u2014the father of Odysseus.\nLa o' da m\u00e0s\u2014a son of Alkino\u00f6s.\nLa o' co \u00f6n, or Laoko\u00f6n\u2014a young priest of Apollo. He warned the Trojans not to accept the wooden horse left by the Greeks and was destroyed by a serpent.\nLo' tus\u2014the Egyptian water-lily, also a tree. The lotus-eaters ate of the fruit of the lotus-tree and forgot their homes and friends.\nMe l\u0103n' thi os\u2014a servant of Odysseus, a goatherd who sympathized with the suitors and served them.\nMen e l\u0101' os, or Menelaus\u2014a son of Atreus and brother of Agamemnon. Menelaos was the king of Sparta and husband of Helen.\nMen' tor\u2014the wise counsellor of Telemachos.\nMil t\u012b' \u00e4 des\u2014the hero of the battle of Marathon, fought 490 B.C. In this battle the Greeks, numbering 10,000 men, conquered ten times as many Persians.\nMi' nos\u2014a son of Zeus and ruler over Crete.\nMo' ly\u2014a fabulous plant having magic properties. It had a white blossom and a black root.\nMy c\u0113' n\u00e6, or Myk\u0113nai\u2014an ancient city of Argolis, in the northeastern Peloponnesus. \"Dr. Henry Schliemann, in 1876, made rich discoveries there, weapons, ornaments, vessels of gold, silver and clay,\" skeletons \"surrounded by bands of gold, golden shovels engraved with battle-scenes,\" etc. (See Baedeker's Greece\u2014Mycen\u00e6 and Athens.)\nMyr' m\u012d d\u014fns\u2014a warlike people of Thrace, ruled by Achilles and taken by him to the Trojan war as followers.\nNau sic' a \u00e4\u2014the daughter of Alkino\u00f6s.\nN\u0113 \u014fp t\u014fl' \u0115 m\u014fs\u2014the son of Achilles.\nN\u0115s' tor\u2014the leader of the warriors of Pylos, in southwestern Greece.\nO ke' a nos, or Oceanus\u2014the god of the river Oceanus, and son of Heaven and Earth.\nOd ys' seus (s\u016bse), or Ulysses\u2014the son of Laertes and Anticleia and the hero of Homer's Odyssey. Being summoned to the Trojan war, he feigned madness, and harnessed a mule and a cow to a plough and began ploughing the sea-shore. Palamedes, to test his madness, placed his infant son, Telemachos, in front of the plough, and Odysseus quickly turned it aside. He became famous for his bravery and craft in the war. He is looked upon by critics as the most perfect type of adult Greek ideals.\n\n\n\nODYSSEUS FEIGNS MADNESS\n\n\nODYSSEUS FEIGNS MADNESS\n\n\nO lymp' os, or Olympus\u2014a mountain in Thrace. The home of the gods.\nO r\u0115s' t\u0113s\u2014the son of Agamemnon.\nPar' is, or Alexandros\u2014a son of Priam. At his birth there was a prophecy that he would be the ruin of his country; hence he was cast out upon Mount Ida, where he was found and rescued by a shepherd. (See Introduction.)\nPar nas' sos\u2014a mountain near the north coast of the Corinthian Gulf. It is 8,070 feet high and commands a view of Mount Olympos to the north, Eub\u0153a on the east, the islands of the Archipelago, the Peloponnesus, and even Mount Korax.\nPat' r\u014f klos, or Patroclus\u2014the intimate friend of Achilles. His death at the hands of the Trojans provoked Achilles to action.\nPei sis' tra tos\u2014a son of Nestor.\nP\u0113' leus\u2014the father of Achilles.\nPel op on n\u0113s' us\u2014the peninsula of lower Greece.\nPe nel' o pe\u2014the wife of Odysseus. The greatest heroine of ancient romance.\nP\u0115r s\u0115ph' \u014d ne, or Proserpine\u2014daughter of Demeter (Ceres). \"She was the goddess of Spring and was allowed to spend two-thirds of the year with her mother, while the remaining time she dwelt with her husband, Hades, in his underground abode.\" Eleusis, twelve miles west of Athens, was the centre of the worship of Demeter and Persephone. (See Baedeker's Greece\u2014Eleusis.)\nPhai a' ki ans, or Ph\u00e6acians\u2014the people of the island of Scheria, over whom Alkino\u00f6s ruled.\nPh\u0113' mi os\u2014a bard at the court of Odysseus.\nPhor' kys\u2014the harbor where the Ph\u00e6acians landed Odysseus on his return to Ithaca. \"The Bay of Vathy,\" says Baedeker, \"disputes with the Bay of Dexi\u00e1 the honor of being the Harbour of Phorkys.\"\nPlu' to, or Hades\u2014a son of Rhea and Kronos and brother of Zeus and Poseidon. Pluto was the ruler of the lower world.\nPo sei' don, or Neptune\u2014brother of Zeus and Hades. Poseidon was the ruler of the seas and was the first to train and employ horses.\nPol y phe' mus, or Polyphemos or Cyclops\u2014the son of Poseidon. He was one of the Cyclops or Kyklops who were said to live in the heart of burning mountains, particularly in Mount \u00c6tna.\nPri' am, or Priamos\u2014king of Troy and father of Paris.\nPro' teus\u2014an ocean deity who lived at the bottom of the sea. He took care of Poseidon's sea-calves and was famous for his evasiveness.\nPy' los\u2014a town (and bay) in the southwestern part of lower Greece. It was the centre of Nestor's kingdom.\nSa' mos\u2014\"at present a little village on the island of Cephalonia, the starting-point of the boats to Ithaca. In Homer, the island of Cephalonia, or its east part, is called Sam\u0113; and in the latter part of the Odyssey, Samos appears as belonging to the kingdom of Ithaca.\" (Baedeker.) Samos, a large island near Asia Minor, is not related to the Samos of the Odyssey.\nSka man' dros, or Scamander\u2014a river of the Troad or plains of Troy.\nScher' i a\u2014an island northwest of Greece. \"The ancients identified Corf\u00f9 with the Ph\u00e6acian island of Scheria, mentioned in the 'Odyssey,' as ruled over by Alkino\u00f6s.\" (Baedeker.)\nSkyl' la\u2014a rock in southwestern Italy. It was supposed to be the abode of a monster with many heads and hands.\nSky' ros\u2014a large island east of Greece.\nSim' o is\u2014a river in the Troad, and a branch of the Scamander.\nSi' rens\u2014daughters of Achel\u00f6os and a Muse, or, according to another account, daughters of Phorkys. They failed to care for Persephone when Pluto seized her to carry her off, and Demeter took revenge by transforming them into monsters half woman and half bird.\nSis' y phos\u2014a hero who secured a fountain to the citadel of Corinth by betraying Zeus. Sisyphos was punished by being obliged to roll stones up-hill in Hades.\nSpar' ta\u2014a town in the southern part of the Peloponnesus, on the Eurotas. It was the chief city of Laced\u00e6mon and the home of Menelaos and Helen. It had no walls, but its acropolis was covered with temples. Ancient Sparta was noted for the bravery of its people. At present Sparta has about 3,600 inhabitants. There are few relics of its ancient greatness.\nStyx\u2014a stream of water in central lower Greece. \"The thread of water descends from a huge cliff against a background of dark moss, which has earned for the brook the name of 'Black Water.' At the bottom of the cliff the water loses itself in a chaos of rocks. The ancients saw in the icy coldness of the water and in the barren tract around an image of the underworld.\" (See Baedeker's Greece.) To swear by the Styx was to take \"the great oath of the gods.\"\nTan' ta los\u2014a king of Phrygia punished by the gods for treachery and for cruelty to his son. He was doomed to suffer from hunger and thirst while standing close to food and water which he could not reach.\nT\u0113 l\u0115' ma chos\u2014the son of Odysseus and Penelope.\nTen' e dos\u2014an island in the neighborhood of Troy or Ilium.\nThem is' to kles\u2014a great statesman of Athens, and a leader of the Greeks in the Persian war when the Greeks won the battle of Salamis.\nThe' seus (Th\u0113' s\u016bse)\u2014a son of \u00c6geus and \u00c6thra. Like his counterpart Herakles, Theseus performed wonderful deeds, and finally became ruler of Athens.\nThes' sa ly\u2014a large province of northern Greece.\nTh\u0115' tis\u2014a sea-nymph, the mother of Achilles.\nTi res' ias, or Teiresias\u2014a Theban seer. He retained his consciousness after death, and Odysseus descended into Hades to consult with him before he could reach Ithaca.\nTroy, Ilios, or Ilium\u2014a city of Asia Minor and the scene of the Trojan war. Dr. Schliemann has identified the city with Hissarlik, and in his excavations there found many evidences of the war, such as spears, helmets, etc.\nZeus, or Jupiter\u2014a son of Kronos and Rhea. His abode was supposed to be on Mount Olympos, in Thessaly. He was considered the highest of the gods, ruler of the heavens and the earth.\nZa' kyn thos, or Zante\u2014an island near Corf\u00f9.\n\n\n\n\n[Transcriber's note: The publishers of this book used an unusual convention in which only a single pair of quotation marks surround a quote, even when the quote extends over multiple paragraphs or multiple chapters. This transcription has conventional usage of quotation marks.]\n\n"}
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{"25188":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE FLAG\n\nBy\n\nHOMER GREENE\n\n\nAuthor of\n\"The Unhallowed Harvest,\"\n\"Pickett's Gap,\" \"The Blind Brother,\" etc.\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\nPHILADELPHIA\nGEORGE W. JACOBS & CO\nPUBLISHERS\n\n\n\n\n_Copyright, 1917\nGeorge W. Jacobs & Company_\n\n_All rights reserved\nPrinted in U. S. A._\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: He Glared Defiantly About Him]\n\n\n\n\nList of Illustrations\n\n\n    He Glared Defiantly About Him                       _Frontispiece_\n\n    Aleck Turned it Upside Down and Rightside Up,\n    But Failed to Find the Place                        _Facing p. 54_\n\n    Into the Face of Death He Led the Remnant of\n    His Brave Platoon                                       \"      274\n\n    The French Hospital's Greeting to the\n    American Colonel                                        \"      316\n\n\n\n\nTHE FLAG\n\nCHAPTER I\n\n\nSnow everywhere; freshly fallen, white and beautiful. It lay unsullied\non the village roofs, and, trampled but not yet soiled, in the village\nstreets. The spruce trees on the lawn at Bannerhall were weighted with\nit, and on the lawn itself it rested, like an ermine blanket, soft and\nsatisfying. Down the steps of the porch that stretched across the\nfront of the mansion, a boy ran, whistling, to the street.\n\nHe was slender and wiry, agile and sure-footed. He had barely reached\nthe gate when the front door of the square, stately old brick house\nwas opened and a woman came out on the porch and called to him.\n\n\"Pen!\"\n\n\"Yes, Aunt Millicent.\" He turned to listen to her.\n\n\"Pen, don't forget that your grandfather's going to New York on the\nfive-ten train, and that you are to be at the station to see him off.\"\n\n\"I won't forget, auntie.\"\n\n\"And then come straight home.\"\n\n\"Straight as a string, Aunt Milly.\"\n\n\"All right! Good-by!\"\n\n\"Good-by!\"\n\nHe passed through the gate, and down the street toward the center of\nthe village. It was the noon recess and he was on his way back to\nschool where he must report at one-fifteen sharp. He had an abundance\nof time, however, and he stopped in front of the post-office to talk\nwith another boy about the coasting on Drake's Hill. It was while he\nwas standing there that some one called to him from the street. Seated\nin an old-fashioned cutter drawn by an old gray horse were an old man\nand a young woman. The woman's face flushed and brightened, and her\neyes shone with gladness, as Pen leaped from the sidewalk and ran\ntoward her.\n\n\"Why, mother!\" he cried. \"I didn't expect to see you. Are you in for a\nsleigh-ride?\"\n\nShe bent over and kissed him and patted his cheek before she replied,\n\n\"Yes, dearie. Grandpa had to come to town; and it's so beautiful after\nthe snow that I begged to come along.\"\n\nThen the old man, round-faced and rosy, with a fringe of gray whiskers\nunder his chin, and a green and red comforter about his neck, reached\nout a mittened hand and shook hands with Pen.\n\n\"Couldn't keep her to hum,\" he said, \"when she seen me hitchin' up old\nCharlie.\"\n\nHe laughed good-naturedly and tucked the buffalo-robe in under him.\n\n\"How's grandma?\" asked Pen.\n\n\"Jest about as usual,\" was the reply. \"When you comin' out to see us?\"\n\n\"I don't know. Maybe a week from Saturday. I'll see.\"\n\nThen Pen's mother spoke again.\n\n\"You were going to school, weren't you? We won't keep you. Give my\nlove to Aunt Millicent; and come soon to see us.\"\n\nShe kissed him again; the old man clicked to his horse, and succeeded,\nafter some effort, in starting him, and Pen returned to the sidewalk\nand resumed his journey toward school.\n\nIt was noticeable that no one had spoken of Colonel Butler, the\ngrandfather with whom Pen lived at Bannerhall on the main street of\nChestnut Hill. There was a reason for that. Colonel Butler was Pen's\npaternal grandfather; and Colonel Butler's son had married contrary to\nhis father's wish. When, a few years later, the son died, leaving a\nwidow and an only child, Penfield, the colonel had so far relented as\nto offer a home to his grandson, and to provide an annuity for the\nwidow. She declined the annuity for herself, but accepted the offer of\na home for her son. She knew that it would be a home where, in charge\nof his aunt Millicent, her boy would receive every advantage of care,\neducation and culture. So she kissed him good-by and left him there,\nand she herself, ill, penniless and wretched, went back to live with\nher father on the little farm at Cobb's Corners, five miles away. But\nall that was ten years before, and Pen was now fourteen. That he had\nbeen well cared for was manifest in his clothing, his countenance,\nhis bearing and his whole demeanor as he hurried along the partly\nswept pavement toward his destination.\n\nA few blocks farther on he overtook a school-fellow, and, as they\nwalked together, they discussed the war.\n\nFor war had been declared. It had not only been declared, it was in\nactual progress.\n\nEquipped and generalled, stubborn and aggressive, the opposing forces\nhad faced each other for weeks. Yet it had not been a sanguinary\nconflict. Aside from a few bruised shins and torn coats and missing\ncaps, there had been no casualties worth mentioning. It was not a\ncountry-wide war. It was, indeed, a war of which no history save this\nveracious chronicle, gives any record.\n\nThe contending armies were composed of boys. And the boys were\nresidents, respectively, of the Hill and the Valley; two villages,\nunited under the original name of Chestnut Hill, and so closely joined\ntogether that it would have been impossible for a stranger to tell\nwhere one ended and the other began. The Hill, back on the plateau,\nhad the advantage of age and the prestige that wealth gives. The\nValley, established down on the river bank when the railroad was built\nthrough, had the benefit of youth and the virtue of aggressiveness.\nYet they were mutually interdependent. One could not have prospered\nwithout the aid of the other. When the new graded-school building was\nerected, it was located on the brow of the hill in order to\naccommodate pupils from both villages. From that time the boys who\nlived on the hill were called Hilltops, and those who lived in the\nvalley were called Riverbeds. Just when the trouble began, or what was\nthe specific cause of it, no one seemed exactly to know. Like Topsy,\nit simply grew. With the first snow of the winter came the first\nphysical clash between the opposing forces of Hilltops and Riverbeds.\nIt was a mild enough encounter, but it served to whet the appetites of\nthe young combatants for more serious warfare. Miss Grey, the\nprincipal of the school, was troubled and apprehensive. She had\nencouraged a friendly rivalry between the two sets of boys in matters\nof intellectual achievement, but she greatly deprecated such a state\nof hostility as would give rise to harsh feelings or physical\nviolence. She knew that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to\ncoerce them into peace and harmony, so she set about to contrive some\nmethod by which the mutual interest of the boys could be aroused and\nblended toward the accomplishment of a common object.\n\nThe procuring of an American flag for the use of the school had long\nbeen talked of, and it occurred to her now that if she could stimulate\na friendly rivalry among her pupils, in an effort to obtain funds for\nthe purchase of a flag, it might divert their minds from thoughts of\nhostility to each other, into channels where a laudable competition\nwould be provocative of harmony. So she decided, after consultation\nwith the two grade teachers, to prepare two subscription blanks, each\nwith its proper heading, and place them respectively in the hands of\nPenfield Butler captain of the Hilltops, and Alexander Sands commander\nof the Riverbeds. The other pupils would be instructed to fall in\nbehind these leaders and see which party could obtain, not necessarily\nthe most money, but the largest number of subscriptions. She felt\nthat interest in the flag would be aroused by the numbers contributing\nrather than by the amount contributed. It was during the session of\nthe school that afternoon that she made the announcement of her plan,\nand delivered the subscription papers to the two captains. She aroused\nmuch enthusiasm by the little speech she made, dwelling on the beauty\nand symbolism of the flag, and the patriotic impulse that would be\naroused and strengthened by having it always in sight.\n\nNo one questioned the fact that Pen Butler was the leader of the\nHilltops, nor did any one question the similar fact that Aleck Sands\nwas the leader of the Riverbeds. There had never been any election or\nappointment, to be sure, but, by common consent and natural selection,\nthese two had been chosen in the beginning as commanders of the\nseparate hosts.\n\nWhen, therefore, the subscription blanks were put into the hands of\nthese boys as leaders, every one felt that nothing would be left\nundone by either to win fame and honor for his party in the matter of\nthe flag.\n\nSo, when the afternoon session of school closed, every one had\nforgotten, for the time being at least, the old rivalry, and was ready\nto enlist heartily in the new one.\n\nThere was fine coasting that day on Drake's Hill. The surface of the\nroad-bed, hard and smooth, had been worn through in patches, but the\nsnow-fall of the night before had so dressed it over as to make it\nquite perfect for this exhilarating winter sport.\n\nAs he left the school-house Pen looked at his watch, a gift from his\ngrandfather Butler on his last birthday, and found that he would have\nmore than half an hour in which to enjoy himself at coasting before it\nwould be necessary to start for the railroad station to see Colonel\nButler off on the train. So, with his companions, he went to Drake's\nHill. It was fine sport indeed. The bobs had never before descended so\nswiftly nor covered so long a stretch beyond the incline. But, no\nmatter how fascinating the sport, Pen kept his engagement in mind and\nintended to leave the hill in plenty of time to meet it. There were\nespecial reasons this day why he should do so. In the first place\nColonel Butler would be away from home for nearly a week, and it had\nalways been Pen's custom to see his grandfather off on a journey, even\nthough he were to be gone but a day. And in the next place he wanted\nto be sure to get Colonel Butler's name at the head of his flag\nsubscription list. This would doubtless be the most important\ncontribution to be made to the fund.\n\nAt half-past four he decided to take one more ride and then start for\nthe station. But on that ride an accident occurred. The bobs on which\nthe boys were seated collapsed midway of the descent, and threw the\ncoasters into a heap in the ditch. None of them was seriously hurt,\nthough the loose stones among which they were thrown were not\nsufficiently cushioned by the snow to prevent some bruises, and\nabrasions of the skin. Of course there was much confusion and\nexcitement. There was scrambling, and rubbing of hurt places, and an\nimmediate investigation into the cause of the wreck. In the midst of\nit all Pen forgot about his engagement. When the matter did recur to\nhis mind he glanced at his watch and found that it lacked but twelve\nminutes of train time. It would be only by hard sprinting and rare\ngood luck that he would be able to reach the station in time to see\nhis grandfather off. Without a word of explanation to his fellows he\nstarted away on a keen run. They looked after him in open-mouthed\nwonder. They could not conceive what had happened to him. One boy\nsuggested that he had been frightened out of his senses by the shock\nof the accident; and another that he had struck his head against a\nrock and had gone temporarily insane, and that he ought to be followed\nto see that he did no harm to himself. But no one offered to go on\nsuch a mission, and, after watching the runner out of sight, they\nturned their attention again to the wrecked bobs.\n\nAleck Sands went straight from school to his home in the valley. There\nwere afternoon chores to be done, and he was anxious to finish them as\nsoon as possible in order that he might start out with his\nsubscription paper.\n\nHe did not hope to equal Pen in the amount of contributions, for he\nhad no wealthy grandfather on whom to depend, but he did intend to\nexcel him in the number of subscribers. And it was desirable that he\nshould be early in the field.\n\nIt was almost dusk when he started from home to go to the grist-mill\nof which his father was the proprietor. He wanted to get his father's\nsignature first, both as a matter of policy and as a matter of filial\ncourtesy.\n\nAs he approached the railroad station, which it was necessary for him\nto pass on his way to the mill, he saw Colonel Butler pacing up and\ndown the platform which faced the town, and, at every turn, looking\nanxiously up the street.\n\nIt was evident that the colonel was waiting for the train, and it was\njust as evident that he was expecting some one, probably Pen, to come\nto the station to see him off. And Pen was nowhere in sight.\n\nA brilliant and daring thought entered Aleck's mind. While,\nordinarily, he was neither brilliant nor daring, yet he was\nintelligent, quick and resourceful. He was always ready to meet an\nemergency. The idea that had taken such sudden possession of him was\nnothing more nor less than an impulse to solicit Colonel Butler for a\nsubscription to the flag fund and thus forestall Pen. And why not? He\nknew of nothing to prevent. Pen had no exclusive right to\nsubscriptions from the Hill, any more than he, Aleck, had to\nsubscriptions from the Valley. And if he could be first to obtain a\ncontribution from Colonel Butler, the most important citizen of\nChestnut Hill, if not of the whole county, what plaudits would he not\nreceive from his comrades of the Riverbeds?\n\nHaving made up his mind he was not slow to act. He was already within\nfifty feet of the platform on which the gray-mustached and stern-faced\nveteran of the civil war was impatiently marching up and down. An\nempty sleeve was pinned to the breast of the old soldier's coat; but\nhe stood erect, and his steps were measured with soldierly precision.\nHe had stopped for a moment to look, with keener scrutiny, up the\nstreet which led to the station. Aleck stepped up on the platform and\napproached him.\n\n\"Good evening, Colonel Butler!\" he said.\n\nThe man turned and faced him.\n\n\"Good evening, sir!\" he replied. \"You have somewhat the advantage of\nme, sir.\"\n\n\"My name is Aleck Sands,\" explained the boy. \"My father has the\ngrist-mill here. Miss Grey, she is our teacher at the graded school,\nand she gave me a paper--\"\n\nColonel Butler interrupted him.\n\n\"A pupil at the graded school are you, sir? Do you chance to know a\nlad there by the name of Penfield Butler; and if you know him can you\ngive me any information concerning his whereabouts this evening?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. I know him. After school he started for Drake's Hill with\nsome other Hill boys to go a coasting.\"\n\n\"Ah! Pleasure before duty. He was to have met me here prior to the\nleaving of the train. I have little patience, sir, with boys who\nneglect engagements to promote their own pleasures.\"\n\nHe had such an air of severity as he said it, that Aleck was not sure\nwhether, after all, he would dare to reapproach him on the subject of\nthe subscription. But he plucked up courage and started in anew.\n\n\"Our teacher, Miss Grey, gave me this paper to get subscriptions on\nfor the new flag. I'd be awful glad if you'd give something toward\nit.\"\n\n\"What's that?\" asked the man as he took the paper from Aleck's hand.\n\"A flag for the school? And has the school no flag?\"\n\n\"No, sir; not any.\"\n\n\"The directors have been derelict in their duty, sir. They should have\nprovided a flag on the erection of the building. No public school\nshould be without an American flag. Let me see.\"\n\nHe unhooked his eye-glasses from the breast of his waistcoat and put\nthem on, shook out the paper dexterously with his one hand, and began\nto read it aloud.\n\n    \"We, the undersigned, hereby agree to pay the sums set opposite\n    our respective names, for the purpose of purchasing an American\n    flag for the Chestnut Hill public school. All subscriptions to be\n    payable to a collector hereafter to be appointed.\"\n\nColonel Butler removed his glasses from his nose and stood for a\nmoment in contemplation.\n\n\"I approve of the project,\" he said at last. \"Our youth should be made\nfamiliar with the sight of the flag. They should be taught to\nreverence it. They should learn of the gallant deeds of those who have\nfought for it through many great wars. I shall be glad to affix my\nname, sir, to the document, and to make a modest contribution. How\nlarge a fund is it proposed to raise?\"\n\nAleck stammered a little as he replied. He had not expected so ready a\ncompliance with his request. And it was beginning to dawn on him that\nit might be good policy, as well as a matter of common fairness, to\ntell the colonel frankly that Pen also had been authorized to solicit\nsubscriptions. There might indeed be such a thing as revoking a\nsubscription made under a misleading representation, or a suppression\nof facts. And if that should happen--\n\n\"Why,\" said Aleck, \"why--Miss Grey said she thought we ought to get\ntwenty-five dollars. We've got to get a pole too, you know.\"\n\n\"Certainly you must have a staff, and a good one. Twenty-five dollars\nis not enough money, young man. You should have forty dollars at\nleast. Fifty would be better. I'll give half of that amount myself.\nThere should be no skimping, no false economy, in a matter of such\nprime importance. I shall see Miss Grey about it personally when I\nreturn from New York. Kindly accompany me to the station-agent's\noffice where I can procure pen and ink.\"\n\nAleck knew that the revelation could be no longer delayed.\n\n\"But,\" he stammered, \"but, Colonel Butler, you know Pen's got one\ntoo.\"\n\nThe colonel turned back again.\n\n\"Got what?\" he asked.\n\n\"Why, one of these, now, subscription papers.\"\n\n\"Has he?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nColonel Butler stood for a moment, apparently in deep thought. Then he\nlooked out again from under his bushy eye-brows, searchingly, up the\nstreet. He took his watch from his pocket and glanced at it. After\nthat he spoke.\n\n\"Under normal conditions, sir, my grandson would have preference in a\nmatter of this kind, and I am obliged to you for unselfishly making\nthe suggestion. But, as he has failed to perform a certain duty toward\nme, I shall consider myself relieved, for the time being, of my duty\nof preference toward him. Kindly accompany me to the station-master's\noffice.\"\n\nWith Aleck in his wake he strode down the platform and across the\nwaiting-room, among the people who had gathered to wait for or depart\nby the train, and spoke to the ticket-agent at the window.\n\n\"Will you kindly permit me, sir, to use your table and pen and ink to\nsign a document of some importance?\"\n\n\"Certainly!\"\n\nThe man at the window opened the door of the agent's room and bade the\ncolonel and Aleck to enter. He pushed a chair up to the table and\nplaced ink and pens within reach.\n\n\"Help yourself, Colonel Butler,\" he said. \"We're glad to accommodate\nyou.\"\n\nBut the colonel had barely seated himself before a new thought\nentered his mind. He pondered for a moment, and then swung around in\nthe swivel-chair and faced the boy who stood waiting, cap in hand.\n\n\"Young man,\" he said, \"it just occurs to me that I can serve your\nschool as well, and please myself better, by making a donation of the\nflag instead of subscribing to the fund. Does the idea meet with your\napproval?\"\n\nThe proposition came so unexpectedly, and the question so suddenly,\nthat Aleck hardly knew how to respond.\n\n\"Why, yes, sir,\" he said hesitatingly, \"I suppose so. You mean you'll\ngive us the flag?\"\n\n\"Yes; I'll give you the flag. I am about starting for New York. I will\npurchase one while there. And in the spring I will provide a proper\nstaff for it, in order that it may be flung to the breeze.\"\n\nBy this time Aleck comprehended the colonel's plan.\n\n\"Why,\" he exclaimed enthusiastically, \"that'll be great! May I tell\nMiss Grey?\"\n\n\"You may be the sole bearer of my written offer to your respected\nteacher.\"\n\nHe swung around to the table and picked up a pen.\n\n\"Your teacher's given name is--?\" he inquired.\n\n\"Why,\" stammered Aleck, \"it's--it's--why, her name's Miss Helen Grey.\"\n\nThe colonel began to write rapidly on the blank page of the\nsubscription paper.\n\n    \"_To Miss Helen Grey;_\n      \"_Principal of the Public School_\n        \"_Chestnut Hill._\n\n    \"My Dear Madam:\n\n    \"I am informed by one of your pupils, Master--\"\n\nHe stopped long enough to ask the boy for his full name, and then\ncontinued to write--\n\n    \"Alexander McMurtrie Sands, that it is your patriotic purpose to\n    procure an American flag for use in your school. With this purpose\n    I am in hearty accord. It will therefore give me great pleasure,\n    my dear madam, to procure for you at once, at my sole expense, and\n    present to your school, an appropriate banner, to be followed in\n    due season by a fitting staff. I trust that my purpose and desire\n    may commend themselves to you. I wish also that your pupil, the\n    aforesaid Master Sands, shall have full credit for having so\n    successfully called this matter to my attention; and to that end I\n    make him sole bearer of this communication.\n\n      \"I remain, my dear madam,\n        \"Your obedient servant,\n          \"Richard Butler.\"\n\n    January 12th.\n\n\nColonel Butler read the letter over slowly aloud, folded the\nsubscription paper on which it had been written, and handed it to\nAleck.\n\n\"There, young man,\" he said, \"are your credentials, and my offer.\"\n\nThe shrieking whistle had already announced the approach of the train,\nand the easy puffing of the locomotive indicated that it was now\nstanding at the station. The colonel rose from his chair and started\nacross the room, followed by Aleck.\n\n\"You're very kind to do that,\" said the boy. And he added: \"Have you a\ngrip that I can carry to the train for you?\"\n\n\"No, thank you! A certain act--rash perhaps, but justifiable,--in the\ncivil war, cost me an arm. Since then, when traveling, I have found it\nconvenient to check my baggage.\"\n\nHe pushed his way through the crowd on the platform, still followed by\nAleck, and mounted the rear steps of the last coach on the train. The\nengine bell was ringing. The conductor cried, \"All aboard!\" and\nsignalled to the engineer, and the train moved slowly out.\n\nOn the rear platform, scanning the crowd at the station, stood Colonel\nButler, tall, soldierly, impressive. He saw Aleck and waved his hand\nto him. And at that moment, capless, breathless, hopeless, around the\ncorner of the station into sight, dashed Pen Butler.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n\nPen was not only exhausted by his race, he was disappointed and\ndistressed as well.\n\nWhether or not his grandfather had seen him as the train moved out he\ndid not know. He simply knew that for him not to have been there on\ntime was little less than tragical. He dropped down limply on a\nconvenient trunk to regain his breath.\n\nAfter a minute he was aware that some one was standing near by,\nlooking at him. He glanced up and saw that it was Aleck Sands. He was\nnettled. He knew of no reason why Aleck should stand there staring at\nhim.\n\n\"Well,\" he asked impatiently, \"is there anything about me that's\nparticularly astonishing?\"\n\n\"Not particularly,\" replied Aleck. \"You seem to be winded, that's\nall.\"\n\n\"You'd be winded too, if you'd run all the way from Drake's Hill.\"\n\n\"Too bad you missed your grandfather. He was looking for you.\"\n\n\"How do you know?\"\n\n\"He told me so. He wanted to know if I'd seen you.\"\n\n\"What did you tell him?\"\n\n\"I told him you'd gone to Drake's Hill, coasting.\"\n\nPen rose slowly to his feet. What right, he asked himself, had this\nfellow to be telling tales about him? What right had he to be talking\nto Colonel Butler, anyway? However, he did not choose to lower his\ndignity further by inquiry. He turned as if to leave the station. But\nAleck, who had been turning the matter over carefully in his mind, had\ndecided that Pen ought to know about the proposed gift of the flag. He\nought not to be permitted, unwittingly, to go on securing\nsubscriptions to a fund which, by reason of Colonel Butler's proposed\ngift, had been made unnecessary. That would be cruel and humiliating.\nSo, as Pen turned away, he said to him:\n\n\"I've put in some work for the flag this afternoon.\"\n\n\"I s'pose so,\" responded Pen. \"But it does not follow that by getting\nthe first start you'll come out best in the end.\"\n\n\"Maybe not; but I'd like to show you what I've done.\"\n\nHe took the subscription paper from his pocket and began to unfold it.\n\n\"Oh,\" replied Pen, \"I don't care what you've done. It's none of my\nbusiness. You get your subscriptions and I'll get mine.\"\n\nAleck looked for a moment steadily at his opponent. Then he folded up\nhis paper and put it back into his pocket.\n\n\"All right!\" he said. \"Only don't forget that I offered to show it to\nyou to-day.\"\n\nBut Pen was both resentful and scornful. He did not propose to treat\nhis rival's offer seriously, nor to give him the satisfaction of\nlooking at his paper.\n\n\"You can't bluff me that way,\" he said. \"And besides, I'm not\ninterested in what you're doing.\"\n\nAnd he walked around the corner of the station platform and out into\nthe street.\n\nWhen Aleck Sands tramped up the hill to school on the following\nmorning it was with no great sense of jubilation over his success. He\nhad an uneasy feeling that he had not done exactly the fair thing in\nsoliciting a subscription from Pen Butler's grandfather. It was, in a\nway, trenching on Pen's preserves. But he justified himself on the\nground that he had a perfect right to get his contributions where he\nchose. His agency had been conditioned by no territorial limits. And\nif, by his diligence, he had outwitted Pen, surely he had nothing to\nregret. So far as his failure to disclose to his rival the fact of\nColonel Butler's gift was concerned, that, he felt, was Pen's own\nfault. If, by his offensive conduct, the other boy had deprived\nhimself of his means of knowledge, and had humiliated himself and made\nhimself ridiculous by procuring unnecessary subscriptions, certainly\nhe, Aleck, was not to blame. Under any circumstances, now that he had\ngone so far in the matter, he would not yield an inch nor make a\nsingle concession. On that course he was fully determined.\n\nOn the walk, as he approached the school-house door, Pen was standing,\nwith a group of Hill boys. They were discussing the accident that had\noccurred on Drake's Hill the day before. They paid little attention to\nAleck as he passed by them, but, just as he was mounting the steps,\nPen called out to him.\n\n\"Oh, Aleck! You wanted to show me your subscription paper last night.\nI'll look at it now, and you look at mine, and we'll leave it to the\nfellows here who's got the most names and the most money promised. And\nI haven't got my grandfather on it yet, either.\"\n\nAleck turned and faced him. \"Remember what you said to me last night?\"\nhe asked. \"Well, I'll say the same thing to you this morning. I'm not\ninterested in your paper. It's none of my business. You get your\nsubscriptions and I'll get mine.\"\n\nAnd he mounted the steps and entered the school-room.\n\nMiss Grey was already at her desk, and he went straight to her.\n\n\"I've brought back my subscription blank, Miss Grey,\" he said, and he\nhanded the paper to her.\n\nShe looked up in surprise.\n\n\"You haven't completed your canvass, have you?\" she asked.\n\n\"No. If you'll read the paper you'll see it wasn't necessary.\"\n\nShe unfolded the paper and read the letter written on it. Her face\nflushed; but whether with astonishment or anxiety it would have been\ndifficult to say.\n\n\"Did Colonel Butler know,\" she inquired, \"when he wrote this, that Pen\nalso had a subscription paper?\"\n\n\"Yes. I met him at the station last night, when he was starting for\nNew York, and I told him all about it.\"\n\n\"Was Pen there?\"\n\n\"No; he didn't get there till after the train started.\"\n\n\"Does he know about this letter?\"\n\n\"Not from me. I offered to show it to him but he wouldn't look at it.\"\n\n\"Aleck, there's something strange about this. I don't quite understand\nit. Is Pen outside?\"\n\n\"Yes; he was when I came.\"\n\n\"Call him in, please; and return with him.\"\n\nAleck went to the door, his resolution to stand by his conduct growing\nstronger every minute. He called to Pen.\n\n\"Miss Grey wants to see you,\" he said.\n\n\"What for?\" inquired Pen.\n\n\"She'll tell you when you come in.\"\n\nBoth boys returned to the teacher.\n\n\"Pen,\" she inquired, \"have you obtained any subscriptions to your\npaper for the flag fund?\"\n\n\"Yes, Miss Grey,\" he replied. \"I think I've done pretty well\nconsidering my grandfather's not home.\"\n\nHe handed his paper to her with a show of pardonable pride; but she\nmerely glanced at the long list of names.\n\n\"Did you know,\" she asked, \"that Colonel Butler has decided to give\nthe flag to the school?\"\n\nPen opened his eyes in astonishment.\n\n\"No,\" he said. \"Has he?\"\n\n\"Read this letter, please.\"\n\nShe handed the colonel's letter to him and he began to read it. His\nface grew red and his eyes snapped. He had been outwitted. He knew in\na moment when, where and how it had been done. He handed the paper\nback to Miss Grey.\n\n\"All right!\" he said. \"But I think it was a mean, underhanded,\ncontemptible trick.\"\n\nThen Aleck, slow to wrath, woke up.\n\n\"There was nothing mean nor underhanded about it,\" he retorted. \"I had\na perfect right to ask Colonel Butler for a subscription. And if he\nchose to give the whole flag, that was his lookout. And,\" turning to\nPen, \"if you'd been half way decent last night, you'd have known all\nabout this thing then, and maybe saved yourself some trouble.\"\n\nBefore Pen could flash back a reply, Miss Grey intervened.\n\n\"That will do, boys. I'm not sure who is in the wrong here, if any one\nis. I propose to find out about that, later. It's an unfortunate\nsituation; but, in justice to Colonel Butler, we must accept it.\" She\nhanded Pen's paper back to him, and added: \"I think you had better\ntake this back to your subscribers, and ask them to cancel their\nsubscriptions. I will consult with my associates at noon, and we will\ndecide upon our future course. In the meantime I charge you both,\nstrictly, to say nothing about this matter until after I have made my\nannouncement at the afternoon session. You may take your seats.\"\n\nThe school bell had already ceased ringing, and the pupils had filed\nin and had taken their proper places. So Aleck and Pen went down the\naisle, the one with stubborn resolution marking his countenance, the\nother with keen resentment flashing from his eyes.\n\nAnd poor Miss Grey, mild and peace-loving, but now troubled and\ndespondent, who had thought to restore harmony among her pupils,\nforesaw, instead, only a continued and more bitter rivalry.\n\nNotwithstanding her admonition, rumors of serious trouble between\nAleck and Pen filtered through the school-room during the morning\nsession, and were openly discussed at the noon recess. But both boys\nkept silent.\n\nIt was not until the day's work had been finally disposed of, and the\nclosing hour had almost arrived, that Miss Grey made her announcement.\n\nWith all the composure at her command she called the attention of the\nschool to the plan for a flag fund.\n\n\"Our end has been accomplished,\" she added, \"much more quickly and\nsuccessfully than we had dared to hope, as you will see by this letter\nwhich I shall read to you.\"\n\nWhen she had finished reading the letter there was a burst of\napplause. The school had not discovered the currents under the\nsurface.\n\nShe continued:\n\n\"This, of course, will do away with the necessity of obtaining\nsubscriptions. Honors appear to be nearly even. A prominent citizen of\nChestnut Hill has given us the flag--\" (Loud applause from the\nHilltops;) \"and a pupil from Chestnut Valley has the distinction of\nhaving procured the gift.\" (Cheers for Aleck Sands from the\nRiverbeds.) \"Now let rivalry cease, and let us unite in a fitting\nacceptance of the gift. I have consulted with my associates, and we\nhave appointed a committee to wait upon Colonel Butler and to\ncooperate with him in fixing a day for the presentation of the flag to\nthe school. We will make a half-holiday for the occasion, and will\nprepare an order of exercises. We assume that Colonel Butler will make\na speech of presentation, and we have selected Penfield Butler as the\nmost appropriate person to respond on behalf of the school. Penfield\nwill prepare himself accordingly.\"\n\nBy making this appointment Miss Grey had hoped to pour oil upon the\ntroubled waters, and to bring about at least a semblance of harmony\namong the warring elements. But, as the event proved, she had counted\nwithout her host. For she had no sooner finished her address than Pen\nwas on his feet. His face was pale and there was a strange look in his\neyes, but he did not appear to be unduly excited.\n\n\"May I speak, Miss Grey?\" he asked.\n\n\"Certainly,\" she replied.\n\n\"Then I want to say that I'm very much obliged to you for appointing\nme, but I decline the appointment. I'm glad the school's going to have\na flag, and I'm glad my grandfather's going to give it; and I thank\nyou, Miss Grey, for trying to please me; but I don't propose to be\nmade the tail of Aleck Sands' kite. If he thinks it's an honor to get\nthe flag the way he got it, let him have the honor of accepting it.\"\n\nPen sat down. There was no applause. Even his own followers were too\ngreatly amazed for the moment to applaud him. And, before they got\ntheir wits together, Miss Grey had again taken the reins in hand.\n\n\"I am sure we all regret,\" she said, \"that Penfield does not see fit\nto accept this appointment, and we should regret still more the\nattitude of mind that leads him to decline it. However, in accordance\nwith his suggestion, I will name Alexander Sands as the person who\nwill make the response to Colonel Butler's presentation speech. That\nis all to-day. When school is dismissed you will not loiter about the\nschool grounds, but go immediately to your homes.\"\n\nIt was a wise precaution on Miss Grey's part to direct her pupils to\ngo at once to their homes. There is no telling what disorder might\nhave taken place had they been permitted to remain. The group of\nHilltops that surrounded Pen as he marched up the street and explained\nthe situation to them, was loud in its condemnation of the meanness\nand trickery of Aleck Sands; and the party of Riverbeds that walked\ndown with Aleck was jubilant over the clever way in which he had\noutwitted his opponent, and had, by obtaining honor for himself,\nconferred honor also upon them.\n\nColonel Butler returned, in due season, from New York.\n\nPen met him at the station on his arrival. There was no delay on this\noccasion. Indeed, the boy had paced up and down the platform for at\nleast fifteen minutes before the train drew in. During the ride up to\nBannerhall, behind the splendid team of blacks with their jingling\nbells, nothing was said about the gift of the flag. It was not until\ndinner had been served and partly eaten that the subject was\nmentioned, and the colonel himself was the first one to mention it.\n\n\"By the way, Penfield,\" he said, \"I have ordered, and I expect to\nreceive in a few days, an American flag which I shall present to your\npublic school. I presume you have heard something concerning it?\"\n\n\"Yes, grandfather. Your letter was read to the school by Miss Grey the\nday after you went to New York.\"\n\n\"Did she seem pleased over the gift?\"\n\n\"Yes, very much so, I think. It was awfully nice of you to give it.\"\n\n\"A--was any arrangement made about receiving it?\"\n\n\"Yes, Miss Grey appointed a committee to see you. There's to be a\nhalf-holiday, and exercises.\"\n\n\"I presume--a--Penfield, that I will be expected to make a brief\naddress?\"\n\n\"Of course. Miss Grey's counting on it.\"\n\n\"Now, father,\" interrupted Aunt Millicent, \"I do hope it will be a\nreally brief address. You're so long-winded. That speech you made when\nthe school-house was dedicated was twice too long. Everybody got\ntired.\"\n\nHis daughter Millicent was the only person on earth from whom Colonel\nButler would accept criticism or reproof. And from her he not only\naccepted it, but not infrequently acted upon it in accordance with her\nwish. He had always humored her, because she had always lived with\nhim, except during the time she was away at boarding school; and since\nthe death of his wife, a dozen years before, she had devoted herself\nto his comfort. But he was fond, nevertheless, of getting into a mild\nargument with her, and being vanquished, as he expected to be now.\n\n\"My dear daughter,\" he said, \"I invariably gauge the length of my\nspeech by the importance of the occasion. The occasion to which you\nrefer was an important one, as will be the occasion of the\npresentation of this flag. It will be necessary for me, therefore, to\naddress the pupils and the assembled guests at sufficient length to\nimpress upon them the desirability, you may say the necessity, of\nhaving a patriotic emblem, such as is the American flag, constantly\nbefore the eyes of our youth.\"\n\nHis daughter laughed a little. She was never awed by his stately\nmanner of speech.\n\n\"All the same,\" she replied; \"I shall get a seat in the front row, and\nif you exceed fifteen minutes--fifteen minutes to a minute, mind\nyou--I shall hold up a warning finger; and if you still trespass, I\nshall go up and drag you off the platform by your coat tails; and then\nyou'd look pretty, wouldn't you?\"\n\nApparently he did not find it profitable to prolong the argument with\nher on this occasion, for he laughed and turned again to Pen.\n\n\"By the way, Penfield,\" he said, \"I missed you at the train the day I\nleft home. I suppose something of major importance detained you?\"\n\nPen blushed a little, but he replied frankly:\n\n\"I was awfully sorry, grandfather; I meant to have written you about\nit. I didn't exactly forget; but I was coasting on Drake's Hill, and\nthere was an accident, and I was very much excited, and it got\ntrain-time before I knew it. Then I ran as fast as I could, but it\nwasn't any use.\"\n\n\"I see. I trust that no one was seriously injured?\"\n\n\"No, sir. I bruised my shin a little, and Elmer scraped his knee, and\nthe bobs were wrecked; that's about all.\"\n\nColonel Butler adjusted his glasses and leaned back in his chair; a\nhabit he had when about to deliver himself of an opinion which he\ndeemed important.\n\n\"Penfield,\" he said, \"a gentleman should never permit anything to\ninterfere with the keeping of his engagements. If the matter in hand\nis of sufficient importance to call for an engagement, it is of\nsufficient importance to keep the engagement so made. It is an\nelementary principle of good conduct that a gentleman should always\nkeep his word. Otherwise the relations of men with each other would\nbecome chaotic.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" replied Pen.\n\nColonel Butler removed his glasses and again applied himself to the\ndisposal of his food which had been cut into convenient portions by\nhis devoted daughter.\n\nBut his mind soon recurred to the subject of the flag.\n\n\"A--Penfield,\" he inquired, \"do you chance to know whether any person\nhas been chosen to make a formal response to my speech of\npresentation?\"\n\nPen felt that the conversation was approaching an embarrassing stage,\nbut there was no hesitancy in his manner as he replied:\n\n\"Yes, sir. The boy that got your offer, Aleck Sands, will make the\nresponse.\"\n\n\"H'm! I was hoping, expecting in fact, that you, yourself, would be\nchosen to perform that pleasing duty. Had you been, we could have\nprepared our several speeches with a view to their proper relation to\neach other. It occurred to me that your teacher, Miss Grey, would have\nthis fact in mind. Do you happen to know of any reason why she should\nnot have appointed you?\"\n\nFor the first time in the course of the conversation Pen hesitated and\nstammered.\n\n\"Why, I--she--she did appoint me.\"\n\n\"Haven't you just told me, sir, that--\"\n\n\"But, grandfather, I declined.\"\n\nAunt Millicent dropped her hands into her lap in astonishment.\n\n\"Pen Butler!\" she exclaimed, \"why haven't you told me a word of this\nbefore?\"\n\n\"Because, Aunt Milly, it wasn't a very agreeable incident, and I\ndidn't want to bother you telling about it.\"\n\nColonel Butler had, in the meantime, again put on his glasses in order\nthat he might look more searchingly at his grandson.\n\n\"Permit me to inquire,\" he asked, \"why you should have declined so\ndistinct an honor?\"\n\nThen Pen blurted out his whole grievance.\n\n\"Because Aleck Sands didn't do the fair thing. He got you to give the\nflag through him instead of through me, by a mean trick. He gets the\ncredit of getting the flag; now let him have the honor of accepting\nit. I won't play second fiddle to such a fellow as he is, and that's\nall there is to it.\"\n\nHe pushed his chair back from the table and sat, with flaming cheeks\nand defiant eyes, as if ready to meet all comers.\n\nAunt Millicent, more astonished than ever, exclaimed:\n\n\"Why, Pen Butler, I'm shocked!\"\n\nBut the colonel did not seem to be shocked. Back of his glasses there\nwas a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes which Pen could not see. Here\nwas the old Butler pride and independence manifesting itself; the\nspirit which had made the family prosperous and prominent. He was not\nill-pleased. Nevertheless he leaned back in his chair and spoke\nimpressively:\n\n\"Now let us consider the situation. You received from your teacher a\ncopy of the same subscription blank which was handed to your\nfellow-pupil. Had you met your engagement at the station, and called\nthe matter to my attention, you would doubtless have received my\nsubscription, or been the bearer of my offer, in preference to any one\nelse. In your absence your school-fellow seized a legitimate\nopportunity to present his case. My regret at your failure to appear,\nand my appreciation of his alertness, led me to favor him. I am unable\nto see why, under these circumstances, he should be charged with\nimproper conduct.\"\n\n\"Well,\" responded Pen, hotly, \"he might at least have told you that I\nhad a subscription blank too.\"\n\n\"He did so inform me. And his fairness and frankness in doing so was\nan inducing cause of my favorable consideration of his request.\"\n\nPen felt that the ground was being cut away from under his feet, but\nhe still had one grievance left.\n\n\"Anyway,\" he exclaimed, \"he might have told me about your giving the\nwhole flag, instead of letting me go around like a monkey, collecting\npennies for nothing.\"\n\n\"Very true, Penfield, he should have told you. Didn't he intimate to\nyou in any way what I had done? Didn't he offer to show you his\nsubscription blank containing my letter?\"\n\n\"Why--why, yes, I believe he did.\"\n\n\"And you declined to look at it?\"\n\n\"Yes, I declined to look at it. I considered it none of my business.\nBut he might have told me what was on it.\"\n\n\"My dear grandson; this is a case in which the alertness of your\nschool-fellow, added to your failure to keep an engagement and to\ngrasp a situation, has led to your discomfiture. Let this be a lesson\nto you to be diligent, vigilant and forearmed. Only thus are great\nbattles won.\"\n\nAgain the colonel placed his glasses on the hook on the breast of his\nwaistcoat, and resumed his activity in connection with his evening\nmeal. It was plain that he considered the discussion at an end.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\n\nIt was on an afternoon late in January that the flag was finally\npresented to the school. It was a day marked with fierce winds and\nflurries of snow, like a day in March.\n\nBut the inclement weather did not prevent people from coming to the\npresentation exercises. The school room was full; even the aisles were\nfilled, and more than one late-comer was turned away because there was\nno more room.\n\nNotwithstanding the fact that the Riverbeds were to have the lion's\nshare of the honors of the occasion, and the further fact that\nresentment in the ranks of the Hilltops ran strong and deep, and\ndoubly so since the outwitting of their leader, no attempt was made to\nblock the program, or to interfere, in any way, with the success of\nthe occasion.\n\nThere were, indeed, some secret whisperings in a little group of which\nElmer Cuddeback was the center; but, if any mischief was brewing, Pen\ndid not know of it.\n\nMoreover, was it not Pen's grandfather who had given the flag, and who\nwas to be the chief guest of the school, and was it not up to the\nHilltops to see that he was treated with becoming courtesy? At any\nrate that was the \"consensus of opinion\" among them. Colonel Butler\nhad prepared his presentation speech with great care. Twice he had\nread it aloud in his library to his grandson and to his daughter\nMillicent.\n\nHis grandson had only favorable comment to make, but his daughter\nMillicent criticised it sharply. She said that it was twice too long,\nthat it had too much \"spread eagle\" in it, and that it would be away\nover the heads of his audience anyway. So the colonel modified it\nsomewhat; but, unfortunately, he neither made it simpler nor\nappreciably shorter.\n\nAleck, too, under the supervision of his teacher, had prepared a\nfitting and patriotic response which he had committed to memory and\nhad rehearsed many times. Pupils taking part in the rest of the\nprogram had been carefully and patiently drilled, and every one\nlooked forward to an occasion which would be marked as a red-letter\nday in the history of the Chestnut Hill school.\n\nThe exercises opened with the singing of \"The Star Spangled Banner,\"\nby the school. There was a brief prayer by the pastor of one of the\nvillage churches. Next came a recitation, \"Barbara Frietchie,\" by a\nsmall girl. Then another girl read a brief history of the American\nflag. She was followed by James Garfield Morrissey, the crack\nelocutionist of the school, who recited, in fine form, a well-known\npatriotic poem, written to commemorate the heroism of American sailors\nwho cheered the flag as they went down with the sinking flag-ship\n_Trenton_ in a hurricane which swept the Samoan coast in 1889.\n\n            THE BANNER OF THE SEA\n\n    By wind and wave the sailor brave has fared\n            To shores of every sea;\n    But, never yet have seamen met or dared\n            Grim death for victory,\n      In braver mood than they who died\n      On drifting decks in Apia's tide\n      While cheering every sailor's pride,\n              The Banner of the Free.\n\n    Columbia's men were they who then went down,\n            Not knights nor kings of old;\n    But brighter far their laurels are than crown\n            Or coronet of gold.\n      Our sailor true, of any crew,\n      Would give the last long breath he drew\n      To cheer the old Red, White and Blue,\n              The Banner of the Bold.\n\n    With hearts of oak, through storm and smoke and flame,\n            Columbia's seamen long\n    Have bravely fought and nobly wrought that shame\n            Might never dull their song.\n      They sing the Country of the Free,\n      The glory of the rolling sea,\n      The starry flag of liberty,\n              The Banner of the Strong.\n\n    We ask but this, and not amiss the claim;\n            A fleet to ride the wave,\n    A navy great to crown the state with fame,\n            Though foes or tempests rave.\n      Then, as our fathers did of yore,\n      We'll sail our ships to every shore,\n      On every ocean wind will soar\n              The Banner of the Brave.\n\n    Oh! this we claim that never shame may ride\n            On any wave with thee,\n    Thou ship of state whose timbers great abide\n            The home of liberty.\n      For, so, our gallant Yankee tars,\n      Of daring deeds and honored scars,\n      Will make the Banner of the Stars\n              The Banner of the Sea.\n\nThe school having been roused to a proper pitch of enthusiasm by the\nreading of these verses, Colonel Butler rose in an atmosphere already\nsurcharged with patriotism to make his presentation speech. Hearty\napplause greeted the colonel, for, notwithstanding his well-known\nidiosyncrasies, he was extremely popular in Chestnut Hill. He had been\na brave soldier, an exemplary neighbor, a prominent and\npublic-spirited citizen. Why should he not receive a generous welcome?\nHe graciously bowed his acknowledgment, and when the hand-clapping\nceased he began:\n\n\"Honored teachers, diligent pupils, faithful directors, patriotic\ncitizens, and friends. This is a most momentous occasion. We are met\nto-day to do honor to the flag of our country, a flag for which--and I\nsay it with pardonable pride--I, myself, have fought on many a bloody\nand well-known field.\"\n\nThere was a round of applause.\n\nThe colonel's face flushed with pleasure, his voice rose and expanded,\nand in many a well-rounded phrase and burst of eloquence he appealed\nto the latent patriotism of his hearers.\n\nAt the end of fifteen minutes he glanced at his watch which was lying\non a table at his side, and then looked at his daughter Millicent who\nwas occupying a chair in the front row as she had said she would. She\nfrowned at him forbiddingly. But he was as yet scarcely half through\nhis speech. He picked up his manuscript from the table and glanced at\nit, and then looked appealingly at her. She was obdurate. She held a\nwarning forefinger in the air.\n\n\"I am reminded,\" he said, \"by one in the audience whose judgment I am\nbound to respect, that the time allotted to me in this program has\nnearly elapsed.\"\n\n\"Fully elapsed,\" whispered his daughter with pursed lips, in such\nmanner that, looking at her, he could not fail to catch the words.\n\n\"Therefore,\" continued the colonel, with a sigh, \"I must hasten to my\nconclusion. I wish to acknowledge my deep indebtedness to your\nfaithful teacher, Miss Grey, by reason of whose patriotic initiative\nthe opportunity was presented to me to make this gift. I wish also to\ncommend the vigilance and effort of the young gentleman who brought\nthe matter to my immediate and personal attention, and who, I am\ninformed, will fittingly and eloquently respond to this brief and\nsomewhat unsatisfactory address, Master Alexander Sands.\"\n\nBack somewhere in the audience, at the sound of the name, there was an\naudible sniff which was immediately drowned by loud hand-clapping on\nthe part of the Riverbeds. But Colonel Butler was not yet quite\nthrough. Avoiding any ominous look which might have been aimed at him\nby his daughter, he hurried on:\n\n\"And now, in conclusion, as I turn this flag over into your custody,\nlet me charge you to guard it with exceeding care. It should be\ntreated with reverence because it symbolizes our common country.\nWhoever regards it with indifference has no patriotic blood in his\nveins. Whoever lays wanton hands on it is a traitor to it. And whoever\ninsults or defames it in any way, deserves, and will receive, the open\nscorn and lasting contempt of all his countrymen. Ladies and\ngentlemen, I have done.\"\n\nThe colonel resumed his seat amid a roar of applause, and when it had\nsubsided Miss Grey arose to introduce the respondent.\n\n\"This beautiful flag,\" she said, \"will now be accepted, on behalf of\nthe school, in an address by one of our pupils: Master Alexander\nSands.\"\n\nAleck arose and made his way to the platform. The Riverbeds applauded\nhim vigorously, and the guests mildly, as he went. He started out\nbravely enough on his speech.\n\n\"Colonel Butler, teachers and guests: It gives me pleasure, on behalf\nof the Chestnut Hill public school, to accept this beautiful flag--\"\n\nHe made a sweeping gesture toward the right-hand corner of the\nplatform, as he had done at rehearsals, only to discover that the flag\nhad, at the last moment, been shifted to the left-hand corner, and he\nhad, perforce, to turn and repeat his gesture in that direction. There\nwas nothing particularly disconcerting about this, but it broke the\ncontinuity of his effort, it interfered with his memory, he halted,\ncolored, and cudgeled his brains to find what came next. Back, in the\nrear of the room, where the Hilltops were gathered, there was an\naudible snicker; but Aleck was too busy to hear it, and Miss Grey,\nprepared for just such an emergency as this, glanced at a manuscript\nshe had in her hand, and prompted him:\n\n\"So graciously given to us--\"\n\nAleck caught the words and went on:\n\n\"--so graciously given to us by our honored townsman and patriotic\ncitizen, Colonel Richard Butler.\"\n\nAnother pause. Again Miss Grey came to the rescue.\n\n\"No words of mine--\" she said.\n\n\"No words of mine,\" repeated Aleck.\n\n\"Sure, they're no words of yours,\" said some one in a stage-whisper,\nfar down in the audience.\n\nSuspicion pointed to Elmer Cuddeback, but he stood there against the\nwall, with such an innocent, sober look on his round face, that people\nthought they must be mistaken. The words had not failed to reach to\nthe platform, however, and Miss Grey, more troubled than before, again\nhad recourse to her manuscript for the benefit of Aleck, who was\nfloundering more deeply than ever in the bogs of memory.\n\n\"--can properly express--\"\n\n\"--can properly express--\"\n\nAnother pause. Again the voice back by the wall:\n\n\"Express broke down; take local.\"\n\nThe situation was growing desperate. Miss Grey was almost at her wit's\nend. Then a bright idea struck her. She thrust the manuscript into\nAleck's hand.\n\n\"Oh, Aleck,\" she exclaimed, \"take it and read it!\"\n\nHe grasped it like the proverbial drowning man, turned it upside down\nand right side up, but failed to find the place where he had left off.\n\n[Illustration: Aleck Turned it Upside Down and Rightside Up, But\nFailed to Find the Place]\n\nAgain the insistent, high-pitched whisper from the rear, breaking\ndistinctly into the embarrassing silence:\n\n\"Can't read it, cause teacher wrote it.\"\n\nThis was the last straw. Slow to wrath as he always was, Aleck had\nthus far kept his temper. But this charge filled him with sudden anger\nand resentment. He turned his eyes, blazing with fury, toward the boy\nby the rear wall, whom he knew was baiting him, and shouted:\n\n\"That's a lie, Elmer Cuddeback, and you know it!\"\n\nAt once confusion reigned. People stood up and looked around to get a\npossible glimpse of the object of Aleck's denunciation. Some one\ncried: \"Put him out!\"\n\nTwo or three members of the Riverbeds started threateningly toward\nElmer, and his friends struggled to get closer to him. An excitable\nwoman in the audience screamed. Miss Grey was pounding vigorously with\nher gavel, but to no effect. Then Colonel Butler himself took matters\nin hand. He rose to his feet, stretched out his arm, and shouted:\n\n\"Order! Order! Resume your seats!\"\n\nPeople sat down again. The belligerent boys halted in their tracks.\nEveryone felt that the colonel must be obeyed. He waited, in\ncommanding attitude, until order had been restored, then he continued:\n\n\"The young gentleman who undertook to respond to my address was\nstricken with what is commonly known as stage-fright. That is no\ndiscredit to him. It is a malady that attacked so great a man and so\nbrave a warrior as General Grant. I may add that I, myself, have\nsuffered from it on occasion. And now that order has been restored we\nwill proceed with the regular program, and Master Sands will finish\nthe delivery of his address.\"\n\nHe stepped back to give the respondent the floor; but Master Sands was\nnowhere in sight. In the confusion he had disappeared. The colonel\nlooked around him expectantly for a moment, and then again advanced to\nthe front of the platform.\n\n\"In the absence of our young friend,\" he said, \"whose address, I am\nsure, would have been received with the approbation it deserves, I,\nmyself, will occupy a portion of the time thus made vacant, in still\nfurther expounding to you--\"\n\nBut at this moment, notwithstanding his effort to avoid it, he again\ncaught his daughter's warning look, and saw her forefinger held\nthreateningly in the air.\n\n\"I am reminded, however,\" he continued, \"by one in the audience whose\njudgment I am bound to respect, that it is not appropriate for me to\nmake both the speech of presentation and the address on behalf of the\nrecipient. I will, therefore, conclude by thanking you for your\nattendance and your attention, and by again adjuring you to honor,\nprotect and preserve this beautiful emblem of our national liberties.\"\n\nHe had scarcely taken his seat amid the applause that his words always\nevoked, before Miss Grey was on her feet announcing the closing number\nof the program, the song \"America,\" by the entire audience.\n\nWhether it was due to the excitement of the occasion, or, as the\ncolonel afterward modestly suggested, to the spirit of patriotism\naroused by his remarks, it is a fact that no one present had ever\nbefore heard the old song sung with more vim and feeling.\n\nThe audience was dismissed.\n\nColonel Butler's friends came forward to congratulate and thank him.\nThe Hilltops, chuckling gleefully, with Elmer Cuddeback in their\ncenter, marched off up-town. The Riverbeds, downcast and revengeful,\nmade their way down the hill. But Aleck Sands was not with them. He\nhad already left the school-building and had gone home. He was angry\nand bitterly resentful. He felt that he could have faced any one, at\nany time, in open warfare, but to be humiliated and ridiculed in\npublic, that was more than even his phlegmatic nature could stand. He\ncould not forget it. He could not forgive those who had caused it.\nDays, weeks, years were not sufficient to blot entirely from his heart\nthe feeling of revenge that entered it that winter afternoon.\n\nIt was late on the same day that Colonel Butler stood with his back to\nthe blazing wood-fire in the library, waiting for his supper to be\nserved, and looking out into the hall on the folds of the handsome,\nsilk, American flag draped against the wall. There had always been a\nflag in the hall. Colonel Butler's father had placed one there when he\nbuilt the house and went to live in it. And when, later on, the\ncolonel fell heir to the property, and rebuilt and modernized the\nhome, he replaced the old flag of bunting with the present one of\nsilk. Indeed, it was on account of the place and prominence given to\nthe flag that the homestead had been known for many years as\nBannerhall.\n\nPen sat at the library table preparing his lessons for the following\nday.\n\n\"Well, Penfield,\" said the colonel, \"a--what did you think of my\nspeech to-day?\"\n\n\"I thought it was great,\" replied Pen. \"Pretty near as good as the one\nyou delivered last Memorial Day.\"\n\nThe colonel smiled with satisfaction. \"Yes,\" he remarked, \"I, myself,\nthought it was pretty good; or would have been if your aunt Millicent\nhad permitted me to complete it. It was also unfortunate that your\nyoung friend was not able fully to carry out his part of the program.\"\n\n\"You mean Aleck Sands?\"\n\n\"I believe that is the young gentleman's name.\"\n\n\"He's not my friend, grandfather.\"\n\n\"Tut! Tut! You should not harbor resentment because of his having\noutwitted you in the matter of procuring the flag. Especially in view\nof his discomfiture of to-day.\"\n\n\"It wasn't my fault that he flunked.\"\n\n\"I am not charging you with that responsibility, sir. I am simply\nappealing to your generosity. By the way, I understand--I have learned\nthis afternoon, that there exists what may be termed a feud between\nthe boys of Chestnut Hill and those of Chestnut Valley. Have I been\ncorrectly informed?\"\n\n\"Why, yes; I guess--I suppose you might call it that.\"\n\n\"And I have been informed also that you are the leader of what are\nfacetiously termed the 'Hilltops,' and that our young friend, Master\nSands, is the leader of what are termed, still more facetiously, the\n'Riverbeds.' Is this true?\"\n\nPen closed his book and hesitated. He felt that a reproof was coming,\nto be followed, perhaps, by strict orders concerning his own\nneutrality.\n\n\"Well,\" he stammered, \"I--I guess that's about right. Anyway our\nfellows sort o' depend on me to help 'em hold their own.\"\n\nPen was not looking at his grandfather. If he had been he would have\nseen a twinkle of satisfaction in the old gentleman's eyes. It was\nsomething for a veteran of the civil war to have a grandson who had\nbeen chosen to the leadership of his fellows for the purpose of\nengaging in juvenile hostilities. So there was no shadow of reproof in\nthe colonel's voice as he asked his next question.\n\n\"And what, may I inquire, is, or has been, the _casus belli_?\"\n\n\"The what, sir?\"\n\n\"The--a--cause or causes which have produced the present state of\nhostility.\"\n\n\"Why, I don't know--nothing in particular, I guess--only they're all\nthe time doing mean things, and boasting they can lick us if we give\n'em a chance; and I--I'm for giving 'em the chance.\"\n\nReproof or no reproof, he had spoken his mind. He had risen from his\nchair, and stood before his grandfather with determination written in\nevery line of his flushed face. Colonel Butler looked at him and\nchuckled.\n\n\"Very good!\" he said. He chuckled again and repeated: \"Very good!\"\n\nPen stared at him in astonishment. He could not quite understand his\nattitude.\n\n\"Now, Penfield,\" continued the old gentleman, \"mind you, I do not\napprove of petty jealousies and quarrelings, nor of causeless\nassaults. But, when any person is assailed, it is his peculiar\nprivilege, sir, to hit back. And when he hits he should hit hard. He\nshould use both strategy and force. He should see to it, sir, that his\nenemy is punished. Have your two hostile bodies yet met in open\nconflict on the field?\"\n\n\"Why,\" replied Pen, still amazed at the course things were taking,\n\"we've had one or two rather lively little scraps. But I suppose,\nafter what happened to-day, they'll want to fight. If they do want to,\nwe're ready for 'em.\"\n\nThe colonel had left his place in front of the fire, and was pacing up\nand down the room.\n\n\"Very good!\" he exclaimed, \"very good! Men and nations should always\nbe prepared for conflict. To that end young men should learn the art\nof fighting, so that when the call to arms comes, as I foresee that it\nwill come, the nation will be ready.\"\n\nHe stopped in his walk and faced his grandson.\n\n\"Not that I deprecate the arts of peace, Penfield. By no means! It is\nby those arts that nations have grown great. But, in my humble\njudgment, sir, as a citizen and a soldier, the only way to preserve\npeace, and to ensure greatness, is to be at all times ready for war.\nWe must instil the martial spirit into our young men, we must rouse\ntheir fighting blood, we must teach them the art of war, so that if\nthe flag is ever insulted or assailed they will be ready to protect it\nwith their bodies and their blood. Learn to fight; to fight honorably,\nbravely, skillfully, and--to fight--hard.\"\n\n\"Father Richard Butler!\"\n\nIt was Aunt Millicent who spoke. She had come on them from the hall\nunawares, and had overheard the final words of the colonel's\nadjuration.\n\n\"Father Richard Butler,\" she repeated, \"what heresy is this you are\nteaching to Pen?\"\n\nHe made a brave but hopeless effort to justify his course.\n\n\"I am teaching him,\" he replied, \"the duty that devolves upon every\npatriotic citizen.\"\n\n\"Patriotic fiddlesticks!\" she exclaimed. \"I have no patience with such\nblood-thirsty doctrines. And, Pen, listen! If I ever hear of your\nfighting with anybody, at any time, you'll have your aunt Millicent to\ndeal with, I promise you that. Now come to supper, both of you.\"\n\nIt was not until nearly the close of the afternoon session on the\nfollowing day that Miss Grey referred to the unfortunate incident of\nthe day before. She expressed her keen regret, and her sense of\nhumiliation, over the occurrence that had marred the program, and\nrequested Elmer Cuddeback, Aleck Sands and Penfield Butler to remain\nafter school that she might confer with them concerning some proper\nform of apology to Colonel Butler. But when she had the three boys\nalone with her, and referred to the shameful discourtesy with which\nthe donor of the flag had been treated, tears came into her eyes, and\nher voice trembled to the point of breaking. No one could have helped\nfeeling sorry for her; especially the three boys who were most\nconcerned.\n\n\"I don't think,\" said Pen, consolingly, \"that grandfather minded it\nvery much. He doesn't talk as if he did.\"\n\n\"Let us hope,\" she replied, \"that he was not too greatly shocked, or\ntoo deeply disgusted. Elmer, your conduct was wholly inexcusable, and\nI'm going to punish you. But, Pen, you and Aleck are the leaders, and\nI want this disgraceful feud between you up-town and down-town boys to\nstop. I want you both to promise me that this will be the end of it.\"\n\nShe looked from one to the other appealingly, but, for a moment,\nneither boy replied. Then Aleck spoke up.\n\n\"Our fellows,\" he said, \"feel pretty sore over the way I was treated\nyesterday; and I don't believe they'd be willing to give up till they\nget even somehow.\"\n\nTo which Pen responded:\n\n\"They're welcome to try to get even if they want to. Were ready for\n'em.\"\n\nMiss Grey threw up her hands in despair.\n\n\"Oh boys! boys!\" she exclaimed. \"Why will you be so foolish and\nobstinate? What kind of men do you suppose you'll make if you spend\nyour school-days quarreling and fighting with each other?\"\n\n\"Well, I don't know,\" replied Pen. \"My grandfather thinks it isn't\nsuch a bad idea for boys to try their mettle on each other, so long as\nthey fight fair. He thinks they'll make better soldiers sometime. And\nhe says the country is going to need soldiers after awhile.\"\n\nShe looked up in surprise.\n\n\"But I don't want my boys to become soldiers,\" she protested. \"I don't\nwant war. I don't believe in it. I hate it.\"\n\nShe had reason to hate war, for her own father had been wounded at\nChancellorsville, and she remembered her mother's long years of\nprivation and sorrow. Again her lip trembled and her eyes filled with\ntears. There was an awkward pause; for each boy sympathized with her\nand would have been willing to help her had a way been opened that\nwould not involve too much of sacrifice. Elmer Cuddeback, even in the\nface of his forthcoming punishment, was still the most tenderhearted\nof the three, and he struggled to her relief.\n\n\"Can't--can't we make some sort o' compromise?\" he suggested.\n\nBut Pen, too, had been thinking, and an idea had occurred to him. And\nbefore any reply could be made to Elmer's suggestion he offered his\nown solution to the difficulty.\n\n\"I'll tell you what I'll do, Miss Grey,\" he said, \"and what I'll get\nour fellows to do. We'll have one, big snowball fight. And the side\nthat gets licked 'll stay licked till school's out next spring. And\nthere won't be any more scrapping all winter. We'll do that, won't we,\nElmer?\"\n\n\"Sure we will,\" responded Elmer confidently.\n\nAleck did not reply. Miss Grey thought deeply for a full minute.\nPerhaps, after all, Pen's proposition pointed to the best way out of\nthe difficulty. Indeed, it was the only way along which there now\nseemed to be any light. She turned to Aleck.\n\n\"Well,\" she asked, \"what do you think of it?\"\n\n\"Why, I don't know,\" he replied. \"I'd like to talk with some of our\nfellows about it first.\"\n\nHe was always cautious, conservative, slow to act unless the emergency\ncalled for action.\n\n\"No,\" replied Pen. \"I won't wait. It's a fair offer, and you'll take\nit now or let it alone.\"\n\n\"Then,\" said Aleck, doggedly, \"I'll take it, and you'll be sorry you\never made it.\"\n\nLest active hostilities should break out at once, Miss Grey\ninterrupted:\n\n\"Now, boys, I don't approve of it. I don't approve of it at all. I\nthink young men like you should be in better business than pelting\neach other, even with snowballs. But, as it appears to be the only way\nout of the difficulty, and in the hope that it will put an end to this\nridiculous feud, I'm willing that you should go ahead and try it. Do\nit and have it over with as soon as possible, and don't let me know\nwhen it's going to happen, or anything about it, until you're all\nthrough.\"\n\nIt was with deep misgivings concerning the success of the plan that\nshe dismissed the boys; and more than once during the next few days\nshe was on the point of withdrawing her permission for the fight to\ntake place. Many times afterwards she regretted keenly that she had\nnot done so.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\n\nWhen Pen told his grandfather that a snowball fight had been decided\nupon as the method of settling the controversy between the Hilltops\nand the Riverbeds, and that Miss Grey had given her permission to that\neffect, the old gentleman chuckled gleefully.\n\n\"A very wise young woman,\" he said; \"very wise indeed. When will the\nsanguinary conflict take place?\"\n\n\"Why,\" replied Pen, \"the first day the snow melts good.\"\n\n\"I see. I suppose you will lead the forces of Chestnut Hill?\"\n\n\"I expect to; yes, sir.\"\n\n\"And our young friend, Master Sands, will marshal the troops of the\nValley?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir; I suppose so.\"\n\n\"You will have to look out for that young man, Penfield. He strikes me\nas being very much of a strategist.\"\n\n\"I'm not afraid of him.\"\n\n\"Don't be over-confident. Over-confidence has lost many a battle.\"\n\n\"Well, we'll lick 'em anyway. We've got to.\"\n\n\"That's the proper spirit. Determination, persistence, bravery,\nhard-fighting--Hush! Here comes your aunt Millicent.\"\n\nColonel Butler was as bold as a lion in the presence of every one save\nhis daughter. Against her determination his resolution melted like\nApril snow. She loved him devotedly, she cared for him tenderly, but\nshe ruled him with a rod of iron. In only one matter did his stubborn\nwill hold out effectually against hers. No persuasion, no demand on\nher part, could induce him to change his attitude towards Pen's\nmother. He chose to consider his daughter-in-law absolutely and\npermanently outside of his family, and outside of his consideration,\nand there the matter had rested for a decade, and was likely to rest\nso long as he drew breath.\n\nThat night, after Pen had retired to his room, there came a gentle\nknock at his open door. His grandfather stood there, holding in his\nhand a small volume of Upton's military tactics which he had used in\nthe Civil War.\n\n\"I thought this book might be of some service to you, Penfield,\" he\nexplained. \"It will give you a good idea of the proper methods to be\nused in handling large or small bodies of troops.\"\n\n\"Thank you, grandfather,\" said Pen, taking the book. \"I'll study it.\nI'm sure it'll help me.\"\n\n\"Nevertheless,\" continued the colonel, \"there must be courage and\npersistency as well as tactics, if battles are to be won. You\nunderstand?\"\n\n\"Yes, grandfather.\"\n\nThe old man turned away, but turned back again.\n\n\"A--Penfield,\" he said, \"when you are absent from your room will you\nkindly have the book in such a locality that your Aunt Millicent will\nnot readily discover it?\"\n\n\"Yes, grandfather.\"\n\nThe winter weather at Chestnut Hill was not favorable for war. The\nmercury lingered in the neighborhood of zero day after day. Snow\nfell, drifted, settled; but did not melt. It was plain that ammunition\ncould not be made of such material. So the battle was delayed. But the\nopposing forces nevertheless utilized the time. There were secret\ndrills. There were open discussions. Plans of campaign were regularly\nadopted, and as regularly discarded. Yet both sides were constantly\nready.\n\nA strange result of the situation was that there had not been better\nfeeling between the factions for many months. Good-natured boasts\nthere were, indeed. But of malice, meanness, open resentment, there\nwas nothing. Every one was willing to waive opportunities for\nskirmishing, in anticipation of the one big battle.\n\nIt was well along in February before the weather moderated. Then, one\nnight, it grew warm. The next morning gray fog lay over all the\nsnow-fields. Rivulets of water ran in the gutters, and little pools\nformed in low places everywhere. War time had at last come. Evidently\nnature intended this to be the battle day. It was Saturday and there\nwas no session of the school.\n\nThe commander of the Hilltops called his forces together early, and a\nplan of battle was definitely formed. Messengers, carrying a flag of\ntruce, communicated with the Riverbeds, and it was agreed that the\nfight should take place that afternoon on the vacant plot in the rear\nof the school building. It was thought best by the Hilltops, however,\nto reconnoiter in force, and to prepare the field for the conflict.\nSo, sixteen strong, they went forth to the place selected for the\nfray. They saw nothing of the enemy; the lot was still vacant. They\nbegan immediately to throw up breast-works. They rolled huge snowballs\ndown the slightly sloping ground to the spot selected for a fort.\nThese snowballs were so big that, by the time they reached their\ndestination, it took at least a half dozen boys to put each one into\nplace. They squared them up, and laid them carefully in a curved line\nten blocks long and three blocks high, with the requisite embrasures.\nThen they prepared their ammunition. They made snowballs by the\nscore, and piled them in convenient heaps inside the barricade. By the\ntime this work was finished it was noon. Then, leaving a sufficient\nforce to guard the fortifications, the remainder of the troops sallied\nforth to luncheon, among them the leader of the Hilltops. At the\nluncheon table Pen took advantage of the temporary absence of his aunt\nto inform his grandfather, in a stage-whisper, that the long\nanticipated fight was scheduled for that afternoon.\n\n\"And,\" he added, \"we've got the biggest snow fort you ever saw, and\ndead loads of snowballs inside.\"\n\nThe colonel smiled and his eyes twinkled.\n\n\"Good!\" he whispered back. \"Smite them hip and thigh. Hold the fort!\n'Stand: the ground's your own, my braves!'\"\n\n\"We're ready for anything.\"\n\n\"Bravo! Beware of the enemy's strategy, and fight hard. Fight as\nif--ah! your Aunt Millicent's coming.\"\n\nAt one o'clock the first division returned and relieved the garrison;\nand at two every soldier was back and in his place. The breast-works\nwere strengthened, more ammunition was made, and heaps of raw material\nfor making still more were conveniently placed. But the enemy did not\nput in an appearance. A half hour went by, and another half hour, and\nthe head of the first hostile soldier was yet to be seen approaching\nabove the crest of the hill. Crowds of small boys, non-combatants,\nwere lined up against the school-house, awaiting, with anxiety and\nawe, the coming battle. Out in the road a group of girls, partisans of\nthe Hilltops, was assembled to cheer their friends on to victory. Men,\npassing by on foot and with teams, stopped to inquire concerning the\nwar-like preparations, and some of them, on whose hands it may be that\ntime was hanging heavily, stood around awaiting the outbreak of\nhostilities.\n\nStill the enemy was nowhere in sight. A squad, under command of\nLieutenant Cuddeback, was sent out to the road to reconnoiter. They\nreturned and reported that they had been to the brow of the hill, but\nhad failed to discover any hostile troops. Was it possible that the\nRiverbeds had weakened, backed out, decided, like the cowards that\nthey were, not to fight, after all? It was in the midst of an animated\ndiscussion over this possibility that the defenders of the fort were\nstartled by piercing yells from the neighborhood of the stone fence\nthat bounded the school-house lot in the rear. Looking in that\ndirection they were thunderstruck to see the enemy's soldiers pouring\nover the wall and advancing vigorously toward them. With rare strategy\nthe Riverbeds, instead of approaching by the front, had come up the\nhill on the back road, crept along under cover of barns and fences\nuntil the school-house lot was reached, and now, with terrific shouts,\nwere crossing the stone-wall to hurl themselves impetuously on the\nfoe.\n\nFor a moment consternation reigned within the fort. The surprise was\noverwhelming. Pen was the first one, as he should have been, to\nrecover his wits. He remembered his grandfather's warning against the\nenemy's strategy.\n\n\"It's a trick!\" he shouted. \"Don't let 'em scare you! Load up and at\n'em!\"\n\nEvery boy seized his complement of snowballs, and, led by their\ncaptain, the Hilltops started out, on double-quick, to meet the enemy.\n\nThe next moment the air was filled with flying missiles. They were\nfired at close range, and few, from either side, failed to find their\nmark.\n\nThe battle was swift and fierce. An onslaught from the Riverbeds'\nleft, drove the right wing of the Hilltops back into the shadow of the\nfort. But the center held its ground and fought furiously. Then the\nbroken right wing, supplied with fresh ammunition from the reserve\npiles, rallied, forced the invaders back, turned their flank, and fell\non them from the rear. The Riverbeds, with ammunition all but\nexhausted, were hard beset. They fought bravely and persistently but\nthey could not stand up before the terrific rain of missiles that was\npoured in on them. They yielded, they retreated, but they went with\ntheir faces to the foe. There was only one avenue of escape, and that\nwas down by the side of the school-house to the public road. It was\ninch by inch that they withdrew. No army ever beat a more stubborn or\nmasterly retreat. In the face of certain defeat, at scarcely arm's\nlength from their shouting and exultant foe, they fought like heroes.\n\nPen Butler was in the thickest and hottest of the fray. He urged his\ntroops to the assault, and was not afraid to lead them. The militant\nblood of his ancestors burned in his veins, and, if truth must be\ntold, it trickled in little streams down his face from a battered nose\nand a cut lip received at a close quarter's struggle with the enemy.\n\nThe small boys by the school-house, seeing the line of battle\napproaching them, beat a retreat to a less hazardous position. The\ngirls in the road clung to each other and looked on, fascinated and\nawe-stricken at the furious fight, forgetting to wave a single\nhandkerchief, or emit a single cheer. The men on the side-path clapped\ntheir hands and yelled encouragement to one or other of the contending\nforces, in accordance with their sympathies.\n\nThe first of the retreating troops, still contesting stubbornly the\nfoe's advance, reached the corner of the school-house nearest the\npublic road. By some chance the entrance door of the building was\najar. A soldier's quick eye discovered it. Here was shelter,\nprotection, a chance to recuperate and reform. He shouted the good\nnews to his comrades, pushed the door open and entered. By twos and\nthrees, and then in larger groups, they followed him until the very\nlast man of them was safe inside, and the door was slammed shut and\nlocked in the faces of the foe. Under the impetus of the charge the\nvictorious troops broke against the barrier, but it held firm. That it\ndid so hold was one of the providential occurrences of the day. So, at\nlast, the Hilltops were foiled and baffled. Their victory was not\ncomplete. Pen stood on the top step at the entrance, his face smeared\nwith blood, and angrily declared his determination, by one means or\nanother, to hunt the enemy out from their place of shelter, and drive\nthem down the hill into their own riverbed, where they belonged. But,\nin spite of his extravagant declaration, nothing could be done without\na breach of the law. Doors and windows must not be broken.\nTemporarily, at least, the enemy was safe.\n\nAfter a consultation among the Hilltops it was decided to take up a\nposition across the road from the school-house, and await the\nemergence of the foe. But the foe appeared to be in no haste to\nemerge. It was warm inside. They were safe from attack. They could\ntake their ease and wait. And they did. The minutes passed. A half\nhour went by. A drizzling rain had set in, and the young soldiers at\nthe roadside were getting uncomfortably wet. The small boys, who had\nlooked on, departed by twos and threes. The girls, after cheering the\nheroes of the fight, also sought shelter. The men, who had been\ninterested spectators while the battle was on, drifted away. It isn't\nencouraging to stand out in the rain, doing nothing but stamping wet\nfeet, and wait for a beaten foe to come out. Enthusiasm for a cause is\napt to wane when one has to stand, shivering, in rain-soaked clothes,\nand wait for something to occur. And enthusiasm did wane. A majority\nof the boys wanted to call it a victory and go home. But Pen would not\nlisten to such a proposal.\n\n\"They've run into the school-house,\" he said, \"like whipped dogs, and\nlocked the door; and now, if we go home, they'll come out and boast\nthat we were afraid to meet 'em again. They'll say that we slunk away\nbefore the fight was half over. I won't let 'em say that. I'll stay\nhere all night but what I'll give 'em the final drubbing.\"\n\nBut his comrades were not equally determined. The war spirit seemed to\nhave died out in their breasts, and, try as he would, Pen was not able\nto restore it.\n\nYet, even as he argued, the school-house door opened and the besieged\narmy marched forth. They marched forth, indeed, but this time they had\nan American flag at the head of their column. It was carried by, and\nfolded and draped around the body of, Alexander Sands. It was the flag\nthat Colonel Butler had given to the school. Whose idea it was to use\nit thus has never been disclosed. But surely no more effective means\ncould have been adopted to cover an orderly retreat. The Hilltop\nforces stared at the spectacle in amazement and stood silent in their\ntracks. Pen was the first to recover his senses. If he had been angry\nwhen the enemy came upon them unawares from the stone-wall, he was\nfurious now.\n\n\"It's another trick!\" he cried, \"a mean, contemptible trick! They\nthink the flag'll save 'em but it won't! Come on! We'll show 'em!\"\n\nHe started toward the advancing column, firing his first snowball as\nhe went; a snowball that flattened and spattered against the\nflag-covered breast of Aleck Sands. But his soldiers did not follow\nhim. No leader, however magnetic, could have induced them to assault a\nbody of troops marching under the protecting folds of the American\nflag. They revered the colors, and they stood fast in their places.\nPen leaped the ditch, and, finding himself alone, stopped to look\nback.\n\n\"What's the matter?\" he cried. \"Are you all afraid?\"\n\n\"It's the flag,\" answered Elmer Cuddeback, \"and I won't fight anybody\nthat carries it.\"\n\n\"Nor I,\" said Jimmie Morrissey.\n\n\"Nor I;\" \"Nor I,\" echoed one after another.\n\nThen, indeed, Pen's temper went to fever heat. He faced his own troops\nand denounced them.\n\n\"Traitors!\" he yelled. \"Cowards! every one of you! To be scared by a\nmere piece of bunting! Babies! Go home and have your mothers put you\nto bed! I'll fight 'em single-handed!\"\n\nHe was as good as his word. He plunged toward the head of the column,\nwhich had already reached the middle of the public road.\n\n\"Don't you dare to touch the flag!\" cried Aleck.\n\n\"And don't you dare to tell me what I shall not touch,\" retorted Pen.\n\"Drop it, or I'll tear it off of you.\"\n\nBut Aleck only drew the folds more tightly about him and braced\nhimself for the onset. He clutched the staff with one hand; and the\nother hand, duly clenched, he thrust into his adversary's face. For a\nmoment Pen was staggered by the blow, then he gathered himself\ntogether and leaped upon his opponent. The fight was on: fast and\nfurious. The followers of each leader, appalled at the fierceness of\nthe combat, stood as though frozen in their places. The flag, clutched\nby both fighters, was in danger of being torn from end to end. Then\ncame the clinch. Gripping, writhing, twisting, tangled in the colors,\nthe lithe young bodies wavered to their fall. And when they fell the\nflag fell with them, into the grime and slush of the road. In an\ninstant Pen was on his feet again, but Aleck did not rise. He pulled\nhimself slowly to his elbow and looked around him as though\nhalf-dazed.\n\nThat Pen was the victor there was no doubt. His face streaked with\nblood and distorted with passion, he stood there and glared\ntriumphantly on friend and foe alike. That he was standing on the flag\nmattered little to him in that moment. He was like one crazed. Some\none shouted to him:\n\n\"Get off the flag! You're standing on it!\"\n\n\"What's that to you?\" he yelled back. \"I'll stand where I like!\"\n\n\"It's the flag of your country. Get off of it!\"\n\n\"What do I care for my country or for you. I've won this fight,\nsingle-handed, in spite of any flag, or any country, or any coward\nhere, and I'll stand where I choose!\"\n\nHe stood fast in his place and glared defiantly about him, and in all\nthe company there was not one who dared approach him.\n\nBut it was only for a moment. Some impulse moved him to look down.\nUnder his heels the white stars on their blue field were being ground\ninto the mire. A sudden revulsion of feeling swept over him, a sense\nof horror at his own conduct. His arms fell to his sides. His face\npaled till the blood splashes on it stood out startlingly distinct. He\nmoved slowly and carefully backward till the folds of the banner were\nno longer under his feet. He cast one fleeting glance at his worsted\nadversary who was still half-lying, half-sitting, with the flag under\nhis elbows, then, his passion quenched, shame and remorse over his\nunpatriotic conduct filling his heart, without another word he turned\nhis back on his companions, thrust his bleeding hands into his\npockets, and started up the road, toward home; his one thought being\nto leave as quickly and quietly as possible the scene of his disgrace.\nNo one followed him, no one called after him; he went alone. He was\nhatless and ragged. His rain-soaked garments clung to him with an\nindescribable chill. The fire of his anger had burned itself out, and\nhad left in its place the ashes of despondency and despair. Yet, even\nin that hour of depression and self-accusation, he did not dream of\nthe far-reaching consequences of this one unpremeditated act of\ninexcusable folly of which he had just been guilty. He bent down and\ngathered some wet snow into his hands and bathed his face, and sopped\nit half dry with his handkerchief, already soaked. Then, not caring,\nin his condition, to show himself on the main street of the village,\nhe crossed over to the lane that skirted the out-lots, and went thence\nby a circuitous and little traveled route, to Bannerhall.\n\nIn the meantime, back in the road by the school-house, Aleck Sands had\npicked himself up, still a little dazed, but not seriously hurt, and\nsoldiers who had recently faced each other in battle came with\nunanimity to the rescue of the flag. Hilltops and Riverbeds alike, all\ndifferences and enmities forgotten in this new crisis, they joined in\ngathering up the wet and muddy folds, and in bearing them to the\nwarmth and shelter of the school-house. Here they washed out the\nstains, and stretched the banner out to dry, and at dusk, exhausted\nand sobered by the events of the day, with serious faces and\napprehensive hearts, they went to their several homes.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\n\nWhen Pen reached home on that afternoon after the battle of Chestnut\nHill, he found that his Aunt Millicent was out, and that his\ngrandfather had not yet returned from Lowbridge, the county seat,\nfourteen miles away. He had therefore an opportunity, unseen and\nunquestioned, to change his wet clothing for dry, and to bathe and\nanoint and otherwise care for his cuts and bruises. When it was all\ndone he went down to the library and lighted the gas, and found a book\nand tried to read. But the words he read were meaningless. Try as he\nwould he could not keep his mind on the printed page. Nor was it so\nmuch the snowball fight that occupied his thoughts. He was not now\nexulting at any victory he had obtained over his foes. He was not even\ndwelling on the strategy and trickery displayed by Aleck Sands and his\nfollowers in seeking protection under the folds of the flag; strategy\nand trickery which had led so swiftly and sharply to his own undoing.\nIt was his conduct in that last, fierce moment of the fight that was\nblazoned constantly before his eyes with ever increasing strength of\naccusation. To think that he, Penfield Butler, grandson of the owner\nof Bannerhall, had permitted himself, in a moment of passion, no\nmatter what the provocation, to grind his country's flag into the\nslush under his heels; the very flag given by his grandfather to the\nschool of which he was himself a member. How should he ever square\nhimself with Colonel Richard Butler? How should he ever make it right\nwith Miss Grey? How should he ever satisfy his own accusing\nconscience? Excuses for his conduct were plenty enough indeed; his\nexcitement, his provocation, his freedom from malice; he marshalled\nthem in orderly array; but, under the cold logic of events, one by one\nthey crumbled and fell away. More and more heavily, more and more\ndepressingly the enormity of his offense weighed upon him as he\nconsidered it, and what the outcome of it all would be he did not even\ndare to conjecture.\n\nAt half past five his Aunt Millicent returned. She looked in at him\nfrom the hall, greeted him pleasantly, said something about the\nmiserable weather, and then went on about her household duties.\n\nDinner had been waiting for fifteen minutes before Colonel Butler\nreached home, and, in the mild excitement attendant upon his return,\nPen's injuries escaped notice. But, at the dinner-table, under the\nbrightness of the hanging lamps, he could no longer conceal his\ncondition. Aunt Millicent was the first to discover it.\n\n\"Why, Pen!\" she exclaimed, \"what on earth has happened to you?\"\n\nAnd Pen answered, frankly enough:\n\n\"I've been in a snowball fight, Aunt Milly.\"\n\n\"Well, I should say so!\" she replied. \"Your face is a perfect sight.\nFather, just look at Pen's face.\"\n\nColonel Butler adjusted his eye-glasses deliberately, and looked as he\nwas bidden to do.\n\n\"Some rather severe contusions,\" he remarked. \"A bit painful,\nPenfield?\"\n\n\"Not so very,\" replied Pen, \"I washed 'em off and put on some Pond's\nextract, and some court-plaster, and I guess they'll be all right.\"\n\nThe colonel was still looking at Pen's wounds, and smiling as he\nlooked.\n\n\"The nature of the injuries,\" he said, \"indicates that the fighting\nmust have been somewhat strenuous. But honorable scars, won on the\nfield of battle, are something in which any man may take pardonable--\"\n\n\"Father Richard Butler!\" exclaimed Aunt Millicent. \"Aren't you ashamed\nof yourself! Pen, let this be the last snowball fight you indulge in\nwhile you live in this house. Do you hear me?\"\n\n\"Yes, Aunt Millicent. There won't be any more; not any more at all.\"\n\n\"I should hope not,\" she replied; \"with such a looking face as you've\ngot.\"\n\nColonel Butler was temporarily subdued. Only the merry twinkle in his\neyes, and the smile that hovered about the corners of his mouth, still\nattested the satisfaction he was feeling in his grandson's military\nprowess. He could not, however, restrain his curiosity until the end\nof the meal, and, at the risk of evoking another rebuke from his\ndaughter, he inquired of Pen:\n\n\"A--Penfield, may I ask in which direction the tide of battle finally\nturned?\"\n\n\"I believe we licked 'em, grandfather,\" replied Pen. \"We drove 'em\ninto the school-house anyway.\"\n\n\"Not, I presume, before some severe preliminary fighting had taken\nplace?\"\n\n\"There you go again, father!\" exclaimed Aunt Millicent. \"It's nothing\nbut 'fighting, fighting,' from morning to night. What kind of a man do\nyou think Pen will grow up to be, with such training as this?\"\n\n\"A very useful, brave and patriotic citizen, I hope, my dear.\"\n\n\"Fiddlesticks!\" It was Aunt Millicent's favorite ejaculation. But the\ncolonel did not refer to the battle again at the table. It was not\nuntil after he had retired to the library, and had taken up his\nfavorite position, his back to the fire, his eyes resting on the\nsilken banner in the hall, that he plied Pen with further questions.\nHis daughter not being in the room he felt that he might safely resume\nthe subject of the fight.\n\n\"I would like a full report of the battle, Penfield,\" he said. \"It\nappears to me that it is likely to go down as a most important event\nin the history of the school.\"\n\nPen shook his head deprecatingly, but he did not at once reply.\nImpatient at the delay, which he ascribed to the modesty\ncharacteristic of the brave and successful soldier, the colonel began\nto make more definite inquiry.\n\n\"In what manner was the engagement opened, Penfield?\"\n\nAnd Pen replied:\n\n\"Well, you know we built a snow fort in the school-house lot; and they\nsneaked up the back road, and cut across lots where we couldn't see\n'em, and jumped on us suddenly from the stone-wall.\"\n\n\"Strategy, my boy. Military strategy deserving of a good cause. And\nhow did you meet the attack?\"\n\n\"Why, we pulled ourselves together and went for 'em.\"\n\n\"Well? Well? What happened?\"\n\nThe colonel was getting excited and impatient.\n\n\"Well, we fought 'em and drove 'em down to the front of the\nschool-house, and then they opened the door and sneaked in, just as I\ntold you, and locked us out.\"\n\n\"Ah! more strategy. The enemy had brains. But you should have laid\nsiege and starved him out.\"\n\n\"We did lay siege, grandfather.\"\n\n\"And did you starve him out?\"\n\n\"No, they came out.\"\n\n\"And you renewed the attack?\"\n\n\"Some of us did.\"\n\n\"Well, go on! go on! What happened? Don't compel me to drag the story\nout of you piecemeal, this way.\"\n\n\"Why, they--they played us another mean trick.\"\n\n\"What was the nature of it?\"\n\n\"Well--you know that flag you gave the school?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"They carried that flag ahead of 'em, Aleck Sands had it wrapped\naround him, and then--our fellows were afraid to fight.\"\n\n\"Strategy again. Military genius, indeed! But it strikes me, Penfield,\nthat the strategy was a bit unworthy.\"\n\n\"I thought it was a low-down trick.\"\n\n\"Well--a--let us say that it was not the act of a brave and generous\nfoe. The flag--the flag, Penfield, should be used for purposes of\ninspiration rather than protection. However, the enemy, having placed\nhimself under the auspices and protection of the flag which should, in\nany event, be unassailable, I presume he marched away in safety and\nsecurity?\"\n\n\"Why, no--not exactly.\"\n\n\"Penfield, I trust that no one had the hardihood to assault the bearer\nof his country's flag?\"\n\n\"Grandfather, I couldn't help it. He made me mad.\"\n\n\"Don't tell me, sir, that you so far forgot yourself as to lead an\nattack on the colors?\"\n\n\"No, I didn't. I pitched into him alone. I had to lick him, flag or no\nflag.\"\n\n\"Penfield, I'm astounded! I wouldn't have thought it of you. And what\nhappened, sir?\"\n\n\"Why, we clinched and went down.\"\n\n\"But, the flag? the flag?\"\n\n\"That went down too.\"\n\nColonel Butler left his place at the fire-side and crossed over to the\ntable where Pen sat, in order that he might look directly down on him.\n\n\"Am I to understand,\" he said, \"that the colors of my country have\nbeen wantonly trailed in the mire of the street?\"\n\nUnder the intensity of that look, and the trembling severity of that\nvoice, Pen wilted and shrank into the depths of his cushioned chair.\nHe could only gasp:\n\n\"I'm afraid so, grandfather.\"\n\nAfter that, for a full minute, there was silence in the room. When the\ncolonel again spoke his voice was low and tremulous. It was evident\nthat his patriotic nature had been deeply stirred.\n\n\"In what manner,\" he asked, \"was the flag rescued and restored to its\nproper place?\"\n\nAnd Pen answered truthfully:\n\n\"I don't know. I came away.\"\n\nThe boy was still sunk deep in his chair, his hands were desperately\nclutching the arms of it, and on his pale face the wounds and bruises\nstood out startlingly distinct.\n\nIn the colonel's breast grief and indignation were rapidly giving way\nto wrath.\n\n\"And so,\" he added, his voice rising with every word, \"you added\ninsult to injury; and having forced the nation's banner to the earth,\nyou deliberately turned your back on it and came away?\"\n\nPen did not answer. He could not.\n\n\"I say,\" repeated the colonel, \"you deliberately turned your back on\nit, and came away?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nColonel Butler crossed back to the fire-place, and then he strode into\nthe hall. He put on his hat and was struggling into his overcoat when\nhis daughter came in from the dining-room and discovered him.\n\n\"Why, father!\" she exclaimed, \"where are you going?\"\n\n\"I am going,\" he replied, \"to perform a patriotic duty.\"\n\n\"Oh, don't go out again to-night,\" she pleaded. \"You've had a hard\ntrip to-day, and you're tired. Let Pen do your errand. Pen, come\nhere!\"\n\nThe boy came at her bidding. The colonel paused to consider.\n\n\"On second thought,\" he said, finally, \"it may be better that I should\nnot go in person. Penfield, you will go at once, wherever it may be\nnecessary, and inquire as to the present condition and location of the\nAmerican flag belonging to the Chestnut Hill school, and return and\nreport to me.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nPen put on his hat and coat, took his umbrella, and went out into the\nrain. Six blocks away he stopped at Elmer Cuddeback's door and rang\nthe bell. Elmer himself came in answer to the ring.\n\n\"Come out on the porch a minute,\" said Pen. \"I want to speak to you.\"\n\nElmer came out and closed the door behind him.\n\n\"Tell me,\" continued Pen, \"what became of the flag this afternoon,\nafter I left.\"\n\n\"Oh, we picked it up and carried it into the school-house. Why?\"\n\n\"My grandfather wants to know.\"\n\n\"Well, you can tell him it isn't hurt much. It got tore a little bit\nin one corner; and it had some dirt on it. But we cleaned her up, and\ndried her out, and put her back in her place.\"\n\n\"Thank you for doing it.\"\n\n\"Oh, that's all right. But, say, Pen, I'm sorry for you.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"On account of what happened.\"\n\n\"Did I hurt Aleck much?\"\n\nA sudden fear of worse things had entered Pen's mind.\n\n\"No, not much. He limped home by himself.\"\n\n\"Then, what is it?\"\n\nPen knew, well enough, what it was; but he could not do otherwise than\nask.\n\n\"Why, it's because of what you did to the flag. Everybody's talking\nabout it.\"\n\n\"Let 'em talk. I don't care.\"\n\nBut he did care, nevertheless. He went back home in a fever of\napprehension and anxiety. Suppose his grandfather should learn the\nwhole truth, as, sooner or later he surely would. What then? Pen\ndecided that it would be better to tell him now.\n\nAt eight o'clock, when he returned home, he found Colonel Butler still\nseated in the library, busy with a book. He removed his cap and coat\nin the hall, and went in. The colonel looked up inquiringly.\n\n\"The flag,\" reported Pen, \"was picked up by the boys, and carried back\nto the school-house. It was cleaned and dried, and put in its proper\nplace.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir; that is all.\"\n\nThe colonel turned his attention again to his book.\n\nPen stood, for a moment, irresolute, before proceeding with his\nconfession. Then he began:\n\n\"Grandfather, I'm very sorry for what occurred, and especially--\"\n\n\"I do not care to hear any more to-night. Further apologies may be\ndeferred to a more appropriate time.\"\n\nAgain the colonel resumed his reading.\n\nThe next day was Sunday; but, on account of the unattractive\nappearance of his face, Pen was excused from attending either church\nor Sunday-school. Monday was Washington's birthday, and a holiday, and\nthere was no school. So that Pen had two whole days in which to\nrecover from his wounds. But he did not so easily recover from his\ndepression. Nothing more had been said by Colonel Butler about the\nbattle, and Pen, on his part, did not dare again to broach the\nsubject. Yet every hour that went by was filled with apprehension, and\npunctuated with false alarms. It was evident that the colonel had not\nyet heard the full story, and it was just as evident that the portion\nof it that he had heard had disturbed him almost beyond precedent. He\nwas taciturn in speech, and severe and formal in manner. To misuse and\nneglect the flag of his country was, indeed, no venial offense in his\neyes.\n\nPen had not been out all day Monday, save to go on one or two\nunimportant errands for his aunt. Why he had not cared to go out was\nnot quite clear, even to himself. Ordinarily he would have sought his\nschoolfellows, and would have exhibited his wounds, these silent and\nsubstantial witnesses of his personal prowess, with \"pardonable\npride.\" Nor did his schoolfellows come to seek him. That was strange\ntoo. Why had they not dropped in, as was their custom, to talk over\nthe battle? It was almost dark of the second day, and not a single boy\nhad been to see him or inquire for him. It was more than strange; it\nwas ominous.\n\nAfter the evening meal Colonel Butler went out; a somewhat unusual\noccurrence, as, in his later years, he had become increasingly fond of\nhis books and papers, his wood-fire and his easy chair. But, on this\nparticular evening, there was to be a meeting of a certain patriotic\nsociety of which he was an enthusiastic member, and he felt that he\nmust attend it. After he had gone Pen tried to study, but he could not\nkeep his thought on his work. Then he took up a stirring piece of\nfiction and began to read: but the most exciting scenes depicted in it\nfloated hazily across his mind. His Aunt Millicent tried to engage him\nin conversation, but he either could not or did not wish to talk. At\nnine o'clock he said good-night to his aunt, and retired to his room.\nAt half past nine Colonel Butler returned home. His daughter went into\nthe hall and greeted him and helped him off with his coat, but he\nscarcely spoke to her. When he came in under the brighter lights of\nthe library, she saw that his face was haggard, his jaws set, and his\neyes strangely bright.\n\n\"What is it, father?\" she said. \"Something has happened.\"\n\nHe did not reply to her question, but he asked:\n\n\"Has Penfield retired?\"\n\n\"He went to his room a good half hour ago, father.\"\n\n\"I desire to see him.\"\n\n\"He may have gone to bed.\"\n\n\"I desire to see him under any circumstances. You will please\ncommunicate my wish to him.\"\n\n\"But, father--\"\n\n\"Did you hear me, daughter?\"\n\n\"Father! What terrible thing has happened?\"\n\n\"A thing so terrible that I desire confirmation of it from Penfield's\nlips before I shall fully believe it. You will please call him.\"\n\nShe could not disobey that command. She went tremblingly up the stairs\nand returned in a minute or two to say:\n\n\"Pen had not yet gone to bed, father. He will be down as soon as he\nputs on his coat and shoes.\"\n\n\"Very well.\"\n\nColonel Butler seated himself in his accustomed chair and awaited the\nadvent of his grandson.\n\nWhen Pen entered the library a few minutes later, his Aunt Millicent\nwas still in the room.\n\n\"Millicent,\" said the colonel, \"will you be good enough to retire for\na time? I wish to speak to Penfield alone.\"\n\nShe rose and started toward the hall, but turned back again.\n\n\"Father,\" she said, \"if Pen is to be reprimanded for anything he has\ndone, I wish to know about it.\"\n\n\"This is a matter,\" replied the colonel, severely, \"that can be\nadjusted only between Penfield and me.\"\n\nShe saw that he was determined, and left the room.\n\nWhen the rustle attendant upon her ascent of the staircase had died\ncompletely out, the colonel turned toward Pen. He spoke quietly\nenough, but with an emotion that was plainly suppressed.\n\n\"Penfield, you may stand where you are and answer certain questions\nthat I shall ask you.\"\n\n\"Yes, grandfather.\"\n\n\"While in attendance this evening, upon a meeting of gentlemen\ngathered for a patriotic purpose, I was told that you, Penfield\nButler, had, on Saturday last, on the school-house grounds, trodden\ndeliberately on the American flag lying in the slush of the street. Is\nthe story true, sir?\"\n\n\"Well, grandfather, it was this way. I was--\"\n\n\"I desire, sir, a categorical reply. Did you, or did you not, stand\nupon the American flag?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir; I believe I did.\"\n\n\"I am also credibly informed that you spoke disdainfully of this\nparticular American flag as a mere piece of bunting? Did you use\nthose words?\"\n\n\"I don't know what I said, grandfather.\"\n\n\"Is it possible that you could have spoken thus disrespectfully of\nyour country's flag?\"\n\n\"It is possible; yes, sir.\"\n\n\"I am further informed that, on the same occasion, in language of\nwhich I have no credible report, you expressed your contempt for your\ncountry herself. Is my information correct?\"\n\n\"I may have done so.\"\n\nPen felt himself growing weak and unsteady under this fire of\nquestions, and he moved forward a little and grasped the back of a\nchair for support. The colonel, paying no heed to the boy's pitiable\ncondition, went on with his examination.\n\n\"Now, then, sir,\" he said, \"if you have any explanation to offer you\nmay give it.\"\n\n\"Well, grandfather, I was very angry at the use they'd put the flag\nto, and I--well, I didn't just know what I was doing.\"\n\nPen's voice had died away almost to a whisper.\n\n\"And that,\" said the colonel, \"is your only excuse?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. Except that I didn't mean it; not any of it.\"\n\n\"Of course you didn't mean it. If you had meant it, it would have been\na crime instead of a gross offense. But the fact remains that, in the\nheat of passion, without forethought, without regard to your patriotic\nancestry, you have wantonly defamed your country and heaped insults on\nher flag.\"\n\nPen tried to speak, but he could not. He clung to the back of his\nchair and stood mute while the colonel went on:\n\n\"My paternal grandfather, sir, fought valiantly in the army of General\nPutnam in the Revolutionary war, and my maternal grandfather was an\naide to General Washington. My father helped to storm the heights of\nChapultepec in 1847 under that invincible commander, General Worth. I,\nmyself, shared the vicissitudes of the Army of the Potomac, through\nthree years of the civil war. And now it has come to this, that my\ngrandson has trodden under his feet the flag for which his gallant\nancestors fought, and has defamed the country for which they shed\ntheir blood.\"\n\nThe colonel's voice had risen as he went on, until now, vibrant with\nemotion, it echoed through the room. He rose from his chair and began\npacing up and down the library floor.\n\nStill Pen stood mute. Even if he had had the voice to speak there was\nnothing more that he could say. It seemed to him that it was hours\nthat his grandfather paced the floor, and it was a relief to have him\nstop and speak again, no matter what he should say.\n\n\"I have decided,\" said the colonel, \"that you shall apologize for your\noffense. It is the least reparation that can be made. Your apology\nwill be in public, at your school, and will be directed to your\nteacher, to your country, to your flag, and to Master Sands who was\nbearing the colors at the time of the assault.\"\n\nBefore his teacher, his country and his flag, Pen would have been\nwilling to humble himself into the dust. But, to apologize to Aleck\nSands!\n\nColonel Butler did not wait for a reply, but sat down at his desk and\narranged his materials for writing.\n\n\"I shall communicate my purpose to Miss Grey,\" he said, \"in a letter\nwhich you will take to her to-morrow.\"\n\nThen, for the first time in many minutes, Pen found his voice.\n\n\"Grandfather, I shall be glad to apologize to Miss Grey, and to my\ncountry, and to the flag, but is it necessary for me to apologize to\nAleck Sands?\"\n\nColonel Butler swung around in his swivel-chair, and faced the boy\nalmost savagely:\n\n\"Do you presume, sir,\" he exclaimed, \"to dictate the conditions of\nyour pardon? I have fixed the terms. They shall be complied with to\nthe letter--to the letter, sir. And if you refuse to abide by them you\nwill be required to withdraw to the home of your maternal grandfather,\nwhere, I have no doubt, your conduct will be disregarded if not\napproved. But I will not harbor, under the roof of Bannerhall, a\nperson who has been guilty of such disloyalty as yours, and who\ndeclines to apologize for his offense.\"\n\nHaving delivered himself of this ultimatum, the colonel again turned\nto his writing-desk and proceeded to prepare his letter to Miss Grey.\nApparently it did not occur to him that his demand, thus definitely\nmade, might still be refused.\n\nAfter what seemed to Pen to be an interminable time, his grandfather\nceased writing, laid aside his pen, and turned toward him holding a\nwritten sheet from which he read:\n\n    \"Bannerhall, Chestnut Hill, Pa.\n                       February 22.\n\n    \"_My dear Miss Grey:_\n\n    \"It is with the deepest regret that I have to advise you that my\n    grandson, Penfield Butler, on Saturday last, by his own\n    confession, dishonored the colors belonging to your school, and\n    made certain derogatory remarks concerning his country and his\n    flag, for which offenses he desires now to make reparation. Will\n    you therefore kindly permit him, at the first possible\n    opportunity, to apologize for his reprehensible conduct, publicly,\n    to his teacher, to his country and to his flag, and especially to\n    Master Alexander Sands, the bearer of the flag, who, though not\n    without fault in the matter, was, nevertheless, at the time,\n    under the protection of the colors.\n\n    \"Master Butler will report to me the fulfillment of this request.\n    With personal regards and apologies, I remain,\n\n      \"Your obedient servant,\n        \"Richard Butler.\"\n\nHe folded the letter, placed it in an envelope, and handed it to Pen.\n\n\"You will deliver this to Miss Grey,\" he said, \"on your arrival at\nschool to-morrow morning. That is all to-night. You may retire.\"\n\nPen took the letter, thanked his grandfather, bade him good-night,\nturned and went out into the hall, and up-stairs to his room.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\n\nIt is little wonder that Pen passed a sleepless night, after the\ninterview with his grandfather. He realized now, perhaps better than\nany one else, the seriousness of his offense. Knowing, so well as he\ndid, Colonel Butler's reverence for all things patriotic, he did not\nwonder that he should be so deeply indignant. Pen, himself, felt that\nthe least he could do, under the circumstances, was to publicly\napologize for his conduct, bitter and humiliating as it would be to\nmake such an apology. And he was willing to apologize to any one, to\nanything--save Alexander Sands. To this point of reparation he could\nnot bring himself. This was the problem with which he struggled\nthrough the night hours. It was not a question, he told himself, over\nand over again, of whether he should leave Bannerhall, with its ease\nand luxury and choice traditions, and go to live on the little farm at\nCobb's Corners. It was a question of whether he was willing to yield\nhis self-respect and manhood to the point of humbling himself before\nAlexander Sands. It was not until he heard the clock in the hall\nstrike three that he reached his decision.\n\nAnd his decision was, to comply, in full, with his grandfather's\ndemand--and remain at Bannerhall.\n\nAt the breakfast table the next morning Colonel Butler was still\nreticent and taciturn. He had passed an uncomfortable night and was in\nno mood for conversation. He did not refer, in any way, to the matters\nwhich had been discussed the evening before; and when Pen, with the\nletter in his pocket, started for school, the situation was entirely\nunchanged. But, somehow, in the freshness of the morning, under the\ncheerful rays of an unclouded sun, the task that had been set for Pen\ndid not seem to him to be quite so difficult and repulsive as it had\nseemed the night before. He even deigned to whistle as he went down\nthe path to the street. But he noticed, as he passed along through the\nbusiness section of the town, that people whom he knew looked at him\ncuriously, and that those who spoke to him did so with scant courtesy.\nAcross the street, from the corner of his eye, he saw one man call\nanother man's attention to him, and both men turned their heads, for a\nmoment, to watch him. A little farther along he caught sight of Elmer\nCuddeback, his bosom companion, a half block ahead, and he called out\nto him:\n\n\"Hey! Elmer, wait a minute!\"\n\nBut Elmer did not wait. He looked back to see who had called to him,\nand then he replied:\n\n\"I can't! I got to catch up with Jimmie Morrissey.\"\n\nAnd he started off on a run. This was the cut direct. There was no\nmistaking it. It sent a new fear to Pen's heart. It served to explain\nwhy his schoolfellows had not been to see him and sympathize with him.\nHe had not before fully considered what effect his conduct of the\nprevious Saturday might have upon those who had been his best friends.\nBut Elmer's action was suspiciously expressive. It was more than that,\nit was ominous and forbidding. Pen trudged on alone. A group of a\nhalf dozen boys who had heretofore recognized him as their leader,\nturned a corner into Main street, and went down on the other side. He\ndid not call to them, nor did they pay any attention to him, except\nthat, once or twice, some of them looked back, apparently to see\nwhether he was approaching them. But his ears burned. He knew they\nwere discussing his fault.\n\nIn the school-house yard another group of boys was gathered. They were\nso earnestly engaged in conversation that they did not notice Pen's\napproach until he was nearly on them. Then one of them gave a low\nwhistle and instantly the talking ceased.\n\n\"Hello, fellows!\" Pen made his voice and manner as natural and easy as\ndetermined effort could make them.\n\nTwo or three of them answered \"Hello!\" in an indifferent way;\notherwise none of them spoke to him.\n\nIf the battle of Chestnut Hill had ended when the enemy had been\ndriven into the school-house, and if the conquering troops had then\ngone home proclaiming their victory, these same boys who were now\ntreating him with such cold indifference, would have been flinging\ntheir arms about his shoulders this morning, and proclaiming him to\nthe world as a hero; and Pen knew it. With flushed face and sinking\nheart he turned away and entered the school-house.\n\nAleck Sands was already there, sitting back in a corner, surrounded by\nsympathizing friends. He still bore marks of the fray.\n\nAs Pen came in some one in the group said:\n\n\"Here he comes now.\"\n\nAnother one added:\n\n\"Hasn't he got the nerve though, to show himself after what he done to\nthe flag?\"\n\nAnd a third one, not to be outdone, declared:\n\n\"Aw! He's a reg'lar Benedic' Arnold.\"\n\nPen heard it all, as they had intended he should. He stopped in the\naisle and faced them. The grief and despair that he had felt outside\nwhen his own comrades had ignored him, gave place now to a sudden\nblazing up of the old wrath. He did not raise his voice; but every\nword he spoke was alive with anger.\n\n\"You cowardly puppies! You talk about the flag! The only flag you're\nfit to live under is the black flag, with skull and cross-bones on\nit.\"\n\nThen he turned on his heel and marched up the aisle to where Miss Grey\nwas seated at her desk. He took Colonel Butler's letter from his\npocket and handed it to her.\n\n\"My grandfather,\" he said, \"wishes me to give you this letter.\"\n\nShe looked up at him with a grieved and troubled face.\n\n\"Oh, Pen!\" she exclaimed, despairingly, \"what have you done, and why\ndid you do it?\"\n\nShe was fond of the boy. He was her brightest and most gentlemanly\npupil. On only one or two other occasions, during the years of her\nauthority, had she found it necessary to reprimand him for giving way\nto sudden fits of passion leading to infraction of her rules. So that\nit was with deep and real sorrow that she deplored his recent conduct\nand his present position.\n\n\"I don't know,\" he answered her. \"I guess my temper got the best of\nme, that's all.\"\n\n\"But, Pen, I don't know what to do. I'm simply at my wit's end.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry to have given you so much trouble, Miss Grey,\" he replied.\n\"But when it comes to punishing me, I think the letter will help you\nout.\"\n\nThe bell had stopped ringing. The boys and girls had crowded in and\nwere already seated, awaiting the opening of school. Pen turned away\nfrom his teacher and started down the aisle toward his seat, facing\nhis fellow-pupils as he went.\n\nAnd then something happened; something unusual and terrible; something\nso terrible that Pen's face went pale, he paused a moment and looked\nahead of him as though in doubt whether his ears had deceived him, and\nthen he dropped weakly into his seat. They had hissed him. From a far\ncorner of the room came the first sibilant sound, followed at once by\na chorus of hisses that struck straight to the boy's heart, and echoed\nthrough his mind for years.\n\nMiss Grey sprang to her feet. For the first time in all the years she\nhad taught them her pupils saw her fired with anger. She brought her\ngavel down on the table with a bang.\n\n\"This is disgraceful!\" she exclaimed. \"We are in a school-room, not in\na goose-pond, nor in a den of snakes. I want every one who has hissed\nto remain here when school closes at noon.\"\n\nBut it was not until after the opening exercises had been concluded,\nand the younger children had gone out to the room of the assistant\nteacher, that she found an opportunity to read Colonel Butler's\nletter. It did help her out, as Pen had said it would. She resolved to\nact immediately upon the request contained in it, before calling any\nclasses. She rose in her place.\n\n\"I have an unpleasant duty to perform,\" she said. \"I hoped, when I\ngave you boys permission to have the snowball fight, that it would\nresult in permanent peace among you. It has, apparently, served only\nto embitter you more deeply against each other. The school colors have\nbeen removed from the building without authority. With those guilty of\nthis offense I shall deal hereafter. The flag has been abused and\nthrown into the slush of the street. As to this I shall not now decide\nwhose was the greater fault. But one, at least, of those concerned in\nsuch treatment of our colors has realized the seriousness of his\nmisconduct, and desires to apologize for it, to his teacher, to his\ncountry, to his flag, and to the one who was carrying it at the time\nof the assault. Penfield, you may come to the platform.\"\n\nBut Pen did not stir. He sat there as though made of stone, that awful\nhiss still sounding in his ears. Miss Grey's voice came to him as from\nsome great distance. He did not seem to realize what she was saying to\nhim. She saw his white face, and the vacant look in his eyes, and she\npitied him; but she had her duty to perform.\n\n\"Penfield,\" she repeated, \"will you please come to the platform? We\nare waiting for your apology.\"\n\nThis time Pen heard her and roused himself. He rose slowly to his\nfeet; but he did not move from his place. He spoke from where he\nstood.\n\n\"Miss Grey,\" he said, \"after what has occurred here this morning, I\nhave decided--not--to--apologize.\"\n\nHe bent over, picked up his books from the desk in front of him,\nstepped out into the aisle, walked deliberately down between rows of\nastounded schoolmates to the vestibule, put on his cap and coat, and\nwent out into the street.\n\nNo one called him back. He would not have gone if any one had. He\nturned his face toward home. Whether or not people looked at him\ncuriously as he passed, he neither knew nor cared. He had been hissed\nin public by his schoolfellows. No condemnation could be more severe\nthan this, or lead to deeper humiliation. Strong men have quailed\nunder this repulsive and terrible form of public disapproval. It is\nlittle wonder that a mere schoolboy should be crushed by it. That he\ncould never go back to Miss Grey's school was perfectly plain to him.\nThat, having refused to apologize, he could not remain at Bannerhall,\nwas equally certain. One path only remained open to him, and that was\nthe snow-filled, country road leading to his grandfather Walker's\nhumble abode at Cobb's Corners.\n\nWhen he reached home he found that his grandfather and his Aunt\nMillicent had gone down the river road for a sleigh-ride. He did not\nwait to consider anything, for there was really nothing to consider.\nHe went up to his room, packed his suit-case with some clothing and a\nfew personal belongings, and came down stairs and left his baggage in\nthe hall while he went into the library and wrote a letter to his\ngrandfather. When it was finished he read it over to himself, aloud:\n\n    \"_Dear Grandfather:_\n\n    \"After what happened at school this morning it was impossible for\n    me to apologize, and keep any of my self-respect. So I am going to\n    Cobb's Corners to live with my mother and Grandpa Walker, as you\n    wished. Good-by!\n\n      \"Your affectionate grandson,\n        \"Penfield Butler.\"\n\n    \"P. S. Please give my love to Aunt Millicent.\"\n\nHe enclosed the letter in an envelope, addressed it, and left it lying\non the library table. Then he put on his cap and coat, took his\nsuit-case, and went out into the sunlight of the winter morning. At\nthe entrance gate he turned and looked back at Bannerhall, the wide\nlawn, the noble trees, the big brick house with its hospitable porch,\nthe window of his own room, facing the street. Something rose in his\nthroat and choked him a little, but his eyes were dry as he turned\naway. He knew the road to Cobb's Corners very well indeed. He had made\nfrequent visits to his mother there in the summer time. For,\nnotwithstanding his forbidding attitude, Colonel Butler recognized the\ninstinct that drew mother and child together, and never sought to deny\nit proper expression. But it was hard traveling on the road to-day,\nespecially with a burden to carry, and Pen was glad when Henry Cobb, a\nneighbor of Grandpa Walker, came along with horse and sleigh and\ninvited him to ride.\n\nIt was just after noon when he reached his grandfather's house, and\nthe members of the family were at dinner. They looked up in\nastonishment when he entered.\n\n\"Why, Pen!\" exclaimed his mother, \"whatever brings you here to-day?\"\n\n\"I've come to stay with you awhile, mother,\" he replied, \"if grandpa\n'll take me in.\"\n\n\"Of course grandpa 'll take you in.\"\n\nAnd then, as mothers will, especially surprised mothers, she fell on\nhis neck and kissed him, and smiled through her tears.\n\n\"Well, I dunno,\" said Grandpa Walker, facetiously, balancing a\ngood-sized morsel of food carefully on the blade of his knife, \"that\ndepen's on wuther ye're willin' to take pot-luck with us or not.\"\n\n\"I'm willing to take anything with you,\" replied Pen, \"if you'll give\nme a home till I can shift for myself.\"\n\nHe went around the table and kissed his grandmother who had, for\nyears, been partially paralyzed, shook hands with his Uncle Joseph and\nAunt Miranda, and greeted their little brood of offspring cheerfully.\n\n\"What's happened to ye, anyhow?\" asked Grandpa Walker when the\ngreetings were over and a place had been prepared for Pen at the\ntable. \"Dick Butler kick ye out; did he?\"\n\n\"Not exactly,\" was the reply. \"But he told me I couldn't stay there\nunless I did a certain thing, and I didn't do it--I couldn't do\nit--and so I came away.\"\n\n\"Jes' so. That's Dick Butler to a T. Ef ye don't give him his own way\nin everything he aint no furder use for ye. Well, eat your dinner now,\nan' tell us about it later.\"\n\nSo Pen ate his dinner. He was hungry, and, for the time being at\nleast, the echo of that awful hiss was not ringing in his ears. But\nthey would not let him finish eating until he had told them, in\ndetail, the cause of his coming. He made the story as brief as\npossible, neither seeking to excuse himself nor to lay the blame on\nothers.\n\n\"Well,\" was Grandpa Walker's comment when the recital was finished, \"I\ndunno but what ye done all right enough. They ain't one o' them blame\nlittle scalawags down to Chestnut Valley, but what deserves a good\nthrashin' on gen'al principles. They yell names at me every time I go\ndown to mill, an' then cut an' run like blazes 'fore I can git at 'em\nwith a hoss-whip. I'm glad somebody's hed the grace to wallop 'em. And\nes for Dick Butler; he's too allfired pompous an' domineerin' for\nanybody to live with, anyhow. Lets on he was a great soldier! Humph!\nI've known him--\"\n\n\"Hush, father!\"\n\nIt was Pen's mother who spoke. The old man turned toward her abruptly.\n\n\"You ain't got no call,\" he said, \"to stick up for Dick Butler.\"\n\n\"I know,\" she replied. \"But he's Pen's grandfather, and it isn't nice\nto abuse him in Pen's presence.\"\n\n\"Well, mebbe that's so.\"\n\nHe rose from the table, got his pipe from the mantel, filled it and\nlighted it, and went over and deposited his somewhat ponderous body in\na cushioned chair by the window. Pen's mother and aunt pushed the\nwheel-chair in which Grandma Walker sat, to one side of the room, and\nbegan to clear the dishes from the table.\n\n\"Well,\" said the old man, between his puffs of smoke, \"now ye're here,\nwhat ye goin' to do here?\"\n\n\"Anything you have for me to do, grandpa,\" replied Pen.\n\n\"I don't see's I can send ye to school.\"\n\n\"I'd rather not go to school. I'd rather work--do chores, anything.\"\n\n\"All right! I guess we can keep ye from rustin'. They's plenty to do,\nand I ain't so soople as I was at sixty.\"\n\nHe looked the embodiment of physical comfort, with his round, fresh\nface, and the fringe of gray whiskers under his chin, as he sat at\nease in his big chair by the window, puffing lazily at his pipe.\n\nSo Pen stayed. There was no doubt but that he earned his keep. He did\nchores. He chopped wood. He brought water from the well. He fed the\nhorse and the cows, the chickens and the pigs. He drove Old Charlie in\nthe performance of any work requiring the assistance of a horse. He\nwas busy from morning to night. He slept in a cold room, he was up\nbefore daylight, he was out in all kinds of weather, he did all kinds\nof tasks. There were sore muscles and aching bones, indeed, before he\nhad hardened himself to his work; for physical labor was new to him;\nbut he never shirked nor complained. Moreover he was treated kindly,\nhe had plenty to eat, and he shared in whatever diversions the family\ncould afford. Then, too, he had his mother to comfort him, to cheer\nhim, to sympathize with him, and to be, ever more and more, his\nconfidante and companion.\n\nAnd Grandpa Walker, relieved of nearly all laborious activities about\nthe place, much to his enjoyment, spent his time reading, smoking and\ndozing through the days of late winter and early spring, and\ndiscussing politics and big business in the country store at the\ncross-roads of an evening.\n\nOne afternoon, about the middle of March, as the old man was rousing\nhimself from his after-dinner nap, two men drove up to the Walker\nhomestead, tied their horse at the gate, came up the path to the house\nand knocked at the door. He, himself, answered the knock.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said in response to their inquiry, \"I'm Enos Walker, and I'm\nto hum.\"\n\nThe spokesman of the two was a tall young man with a very black\nmoustache and a merry twinkle in his eyes.\n\n\"We're glad to see you, Mr. Walker,\" he declared. \"My name is Hubert\nMorrissey, and the gentleman who is with me is Mr. Frank Campbell.\nWe're on a hunting expedition.\"\n\n\"Perty late in the season fer huntin', ain't it? The law's on most\neverything now.\"\n\n\"I don't think the law's on what we're hunting for.\"\n\n\"What ye huntin' fer?\"\n\n\"Spruce trees.\"\n\n\"Eh?\"\n\n\"Spruce trees. Or, rather, one spruce tree.\"\n\n\"Well, ye wouldn't have to shoot so allfired straight to hit one in\nthese parts. I've got a swamp full of 'em down here.\"\n\n\"So we understand. But we want a choice one.\"\n\n\"I've got some that can't be beat this side the White mountains.\"\n\n\"We've learned that also. We took the liberty of looking over your\nspruce grove on our way up here.\"\n\n\"Well; they didn't nobody hender ye, did they?\"\n\n\"No. We found what we were looking for, all right.\"\n\n\"Jes' so. Come in an' set down.\"\n\nGrandpa Walker moved ponderously from the doorway in which he had been\nstanding, to his comfortable chair by the window, seated himself,\npicked up his pipe from the window-sill, filled it, lighted it and\nbegan puffing. The two men entered the room, closing the door behind\nthem, and found chairs for themselves and occupied them. Then the\nconversation was renewed.\n\n\"We'll be perfectly frank with you, Mr. Walker,\" said Hubert\nMorrissey, \"and tell you what we want and why we want it. It is\nproposed to erect a first-class liberty-pole in the school-yard at\nChestnut Hill. A handsome American flag has already been given to the\nschool. The next thing in order of course is the pole. Mr. Campbell\nand I have been authorized to find a spruce tree that will fill the\nbill, buy it, and have it cut and trimmed and hauled to town while the\nsnow is still on. It has to be dressed, seasoned, painted, and ready\nto plant by the time the frost goes out, and there isn't a day to\nlose. There, Mr. Walker, that is our errand.\"\n\n\"Jes' so. Found the tree did ye? down in my swamp?\"\n\n\"We certainly did.\"\n\n\"Nice tree, is it? What ye was lookin' fer?\"\n\n\"It's a beauty! Just what we want. I know it isn't just the thing to\ncrack up the goods you're trying to buy from the other fellow, but we\nwant to be perfectly fair with you, Mr. Walker. We want to pay you\nwhat the tree is worth. Suppose we go down the hill and look it over,\nand then you can doubtless give us your price on it.\"\n\n\"'Tain't ne'sary to go down an' look it over. I know the tree ye've\ngot your eye on.\"\n\n\"How do you know?\"\n\n\"Oh, sort o' guessed it. It's the one by the corner o' the rail fence\non the fu'ther side o' the brook as ye go in from the road.\"\n\n\"That's a good guess. It's the very tree. Now then, what about the\nprice?\"\n\nThe old man pulled on his pipe for a moment with rather more than his\nusual vigor, then removed it from his mouth and faced his visitors.\n\n\"Want to buy that tree, do ye?\" he asked.\n\n\"Sure we want to buy it.\"\n\n\"Cash down, jedgment note, or what?\"\n\nThe man with the black moustache smiled broadly, showing an even row\nof white teeth.\n\n\"Cash down,\" he replied. \"Gold, silver or greenbacks as you prefer.\nEvery dollar in your hands before an axe touches the tree.\"\n\nGrandpa Walker inserted the stem of his pipe between his teeth, and\nagain lapsed into a contemplative mood. After a moment he broke the\nsilence by asking:\n\n\"Got the flag, hev ye?\"\n\n\"Yes; we have the flag.\"\n\n\"Might I be so bold as to ask what the flag cost?\"\n\n\"It was given to the school.\"\n\n\"Air ye tellin' who give it?\"\n\n\"Why, there's no secret about it. Colonel Butler gave the flag.\"\n\n\"Dick Butler?\"\n\n\"Colonel Richard Butler; yes.\"\n\nIt was gradually filtering into the mind of Mr. Hubert Morrissey that\nfor some reason the owner of the tree was harboring a resentment\nagainst the giver of the flag. Then he suddenly recalled the fact that\nMr. Walker was the father of Colonel Butler's daughter-in-law, and\nthat the relation between the two men had been somewhat strained. But\nGrandpa Walker was now ready with another question:\n\n\"Is Colonel Richard Butler a givin' the pole too?\"\n\n\"Why, yes, I believe he furnishes the pole also.\"\n\n\"It was him 't sent ye out here a lookin' fer one; was it?\"\n\n\"He asked us to hunt one up for him, certainly.\"\n\n\"Told ye, when ye found one 't was right, to git it? Not to haggle\nabout the price, but git it an' pay fer it? Told ye that, didn't he?\"\n\n\"Well, if it wasn't just that it was first cousin to it.\"\n\n\"Jes' so. Well, you go back to Chestnut Hill, an' you go to Colonel\nRichard Butler, an' you tell Colonel Richard Butler that ef he wants\nto buy a spruce tree from Enos Walker of Cobb's Corners, to come here\nan' bargain fer it himself. He'll find me to hum most any day. How's\nthe sleighin'?\"\n\n\"Pretty fair. But, Mr. Walker--\"\n\n\"No buts, ner ifs, ner ands. Ye heard what I said, an' I stan' by it\ntill the crack o' jedgment.\"\n\nThe old man rose, knocked the ashes out of his pipe and put the pipe\nin his vest pocket, stretched himself, and reached for his cap. It was\nplain that he considered the interview at an end. The persuasive Mr.\nMorrissey tried to get a wedge in somewhere to reopen it, but he tried\nin vain. Enos Walker was adamant. So, disappointed and discomfited,\nthe emissaries of Colonel Richard Butler bade \"good-day,\" to the\noracle of Cobb's Corners, and drove back to Chestnut Hill.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\n\nOn the morning after the interview with Enos Walker, Mr. Morrissey and\nMr. Campbell went up to Bannerhall to report to Colonel Richard\nButler. But they went hesitatingly. Indeed, it had been a question in\ntheir minds whether it would not be wiser to say nothing to Colonel\nButler concerning their experience at Cobb's Corners, and simply to go\nelsewhere and hunt up another tree. But Mr. Walker's tree was such a\nmodel of perfection for their purpose, the possibility of finding\nanother one that would even approach it in suitability was so\nextremely remote, that the two gentlemen, after serious discussion of\nthe question, being well aware of Colonel Butler's idiosyncrasies,\ndecided, finally, to put the whole case up to him, and to accept\ncheerfully whatever he might have in store for them. There was one\nchance in a hundred that the colonel, instead of scornfully resenting\nEnos Walker's proposal, might take the matter philosophically and\naccept the old man's terms. They thought it better to take that\nchance.\n\nThey found Colonel Butler in his office adjoining the library. He was\nin an ordinarily cheerful mood, although the deep shadows under his\neyes, noticeable only within the last few weeks, indicated that he had\nbeen suffering either in mind or in body, perhaps in both.\n\n\"Well, gentlemen,\" he said when his visitors were seated; \"what about\nthe arboreal errand? Did you find a tree?\"\n\nMr. Hubert Morrissey, as he had been the day before, was again,\nto-day, the spokesman for his committee of two.\n\n\"We found a tree,\" he replied.\n\n\"One in all respects satisfactory I hope?\" the colonel inquired.\n\n\"Eminently satisfactory,\" was the answer. \"In fact a perfect beauty. I\ndoubt if it has its equal in this section of the state. Wouldn't you\nsay so, Mr. Campbell?\"\n\n\"I fully agree with you,\" replied Mr. Campbell. \"It's without a peer.\"\n\n\"How will it measure?\" inquired the colonel.\n\n\"I should say,\" responded Mr. Morrissey, \"that it will dress up to\nabout twelve inches at the base, and will stand about fifty feet to\nthe ball on the summit. Shouldn't you say so, Mr. Campbell?\"\n\n\"Just about,\" was the reply. \"Not an inch under those figures, in my\njudgment.\"\n\n\"Good!\" exclaimed the colonel. \"Permit me to congratulate you,\ngentlemen. You have performed a distinct public service. You deserve\nthe thanks of the entire community.\"\n\n\"But, colonel,\" said Mr. Morrissey with some hesitation, \"we were not\nquite able to close a satisfactory bargain with the owner of the\ntree.\"\n\n\"That is unfortunate, gentlemen. You should not have permitted a few\ndollars to stand in the way of securing your prize. I thought I gave\nyou a perfectly free hand to do as you thought best.\"\n\n\"So you did, colonel. But the hitch was not so much over a matter of\nprice as over a matter of principle.\"\n\n\"Over a matter of principle? I don't understand you, sir. How could\nany citizen of this free country object, as a matter of principle, to\nhaving his tree converted into a staff from the summit of which the\nemblem of liberty might be flung to the breeze? Especially when he was\nfree to name his own price for the tree.\"\n\n\"But he wouldn't name any price.\"\n\n\"Did he refuse to sell?\"\n\n\"Not exactly; but he wouldn't bargain except on a condition that we\nwere unable to meet.\"\n\n\"What condition? Who is the man? Where does he live?\"\n\nColonel Butler was growing plainly impatient over the obstructive\ntactics in which the owner of the tree had indulged.\n\n\"He lives,\" replied Mr. Morrissey, \"at Cobb's Corners. His name is\nEnos Walker. His condition is that you go to him in person to bargain\nfor the tree. There's the situation, colonel. Now you have it all.\"\n\nThe veteran of the Civil War straightened up in his chair, threw back\nhis shoulders, and gazed at his visitors in silence. Surprise, anger,\ncontempt; these were the emotions the shadows of which successively\noverspread his face.\n\n\"Gentlemen,\" he said, at last, \"are you aware what a preposterous\nproposition you have brought to me?\"\n\n\"It is not our proposition, colonel.\"\n\n\"I know it is not, sir. You are simply the bearers of it. Permit me to\nask you, however, if it is your recommendation that I yield to the\ndemand of this crude highwayman of Cobb's Corners?\"\n\n\"Why, Mr. Campbell and I have talked the matter over, and, in view of\nthe fact that this appears to be the only available tree within easy\nreach, and is so splendidly adapted to our purposes, we have thought\nthat possibly you might suggest some method whereby--\"\n\n\"Gentlemen--\" Colonel Butler had risen from his chair and was pacing\nangrily up and down the room. His face was flushed and his fingers\nwere working nervously. \"Gentlemen--\" he interrupted--\"my fortune is\nat your disposal. Purchase the tree where you will; on the hills of\nMaine, in the swamps of Georgia, on the plains of California. But do\nnot suggest to me, gentlemen; do not dare to suggest to me that I\nyield to the outrageous demand of this person who has made you the\nbearers of his impertinent ultimatum.\"\n\nMr. Morrissey rose in his turn, followed by Mr. Campbell.\n\n\"Very well, colonel,\" said the spokesman. \"We will try to procure the\ntree elsewhere. We thought it no more than right to report to you\nfirst what we had done. That is the situation is it not, Mr.\nCampbell?\"\n\n\"That is the situation, exactly,\" assented Mr. Campbell.\n\nThe colonel had reached the window in his round of the room, and had\nstopped there.\n\n\"That was quite the thing to do, gentlemen,\" he replied.\n\"A--quite--the thing--to do.\"\n\nHe stood gazing intently out through the window at the banks of snow\nsettling and wasting under the bright March sunshine. Not that his\neyes had been attracted to anything in particular on his lawn, but\nthat a thought had entered his mind which demanded, for the moment,\nhis undivided attention.\n\nHis two visitors stood waiting, somewhat awkwardly, for him to turn\nagain toward them, but he did not do so. At last Mr. Morrissey plucked\nup courage to break in on his host's reverie.\n\n\"I--I think we understand you now, colonel,\" he said. \"We'll go\nelsewhere and do the best we can.\"\n\nColonel Butler faced away from the window and came back into the room.\n\n\"Pardon me, gentlemen,\" he said. \"My mind was temporarily occupied by\na thought that has come to me in this matter. Upon further\nconsideration it occurs to me that it may be expedient for me to yield\non this occasion to Mr. Walker's request, and visit him in person. In\nthe meantime you may suspend operations. I will advise you later of\nthe outcome of my plans.\"\n\n\"You are undoubtedly wise, colonel,\" replied Mr. Morrissey, \"to make a\nfurther effort to secure this particular tree. Wouldn't you say so,\nMr. Campbell?\"\n\n\"Undoubtedly!\" replied Mr. Campbell with some warmth.\n\nSo the matter was left in that way. Colonel Butler was to inform his\nagents what, if anything, he had been able to accomplish by means of a\npersonal interview with Mr. Walker, always assuming that he should\nfinally and definitely decide to seek such an interview. And Mr.\nHubert Morrissey and Mr. Frank Campbell bowed themselves out of\nColonel Butler's presence.\n\nWhile the cause of this sudden change of attitude on Colonel Butler's\npart remained a mystery to his two visitors, it was, in reality, not\nfar to seek. For, as he looked out at his window that March morning,\nhe saw, not the bare trees on the lawn, not the brown hedge or the\nbeaten roadway; he saw, out somewhere among the snow-covered fields,\nlaboring as a farmer's boy, enduring the privations of a humble home,\nand the limitations of a narrow environment, the lad who for a dozen\nyears had been his solace and his pride, the light and the life of\nBannerhall. How sadly he missed the boy, no one, save perhaps his\nfaithful daughter, had any conception. And she knew it, not because of\nany word of complaint that had escaped his lips, but because every\nlook and mood and motion told her the story. He would not send for\nhis grandson; he would not ask him to come back; he would not force\nhim to come. It was a piece of childish folly on the boy's part no\ndoubt, this going away; due to his impetuous nature and his immature\nyears; but, he had made his bed, now let him lie in it till he should\ncome to a realization of what he had done, and, like the prodigal son\nof old, should come back of his own accord, and ask to be forgiven.\nYet the days went by, and the weeks grew long, and no prodigal\nreturned. There was no abatement of determination on the grandfather's\npart, but the idea grew slowly in his mind that if by some chance, far\nremoved from even the suspicion of design, they should encounter each\nother, he and the boy, face to face, in the village street, on the\nopen road, in field or farm-house, something might be said or done\nthat would lead to the longed-for reconciliation. It was the practical\napplication of this thought that led to his change of attitude that\nmorning in the presence of his visitors. He would have a legitimate\nerrand to the home of Enos Walker. The incidental opportunities that\nmight lie in the path of such an errand properly fulfilled, were not\nto be lightly ignored nor peremptorily dismissed. At any rate the\nmatter was worth careful consideration. He considered it, and made his\ndecision.\n\nThat afternoon, after his daughter Millicent had gone down into the\nvillage in entire ignorance of any purpose that he might have had to\nleave the house, he ordered his horse and cutter for a drive. Later he\nchanged the order, and directed that his team and two-seated sleigh be\nbrought to the door. It had occurred to him that there was a bare\npossibility that he might have a passenger on his return trip. Then he\narrayed himself in knee-high rubber boots, a heavy overcoat, and a fur\ncap. At three o'clock he entered his sleigh and directed his driver to\nproceed with all reasonable haste to Cobb's Corners.\n\nOut in the country where the winds of winter had piled the snow into\nlong heaps, the beaten track was getting soft, and it was necessary to\nexercise some care in order to prevent the horses from slumping\nthrough the drifts to the road-bed. And on the westerly slope of\nBaldwin's Hill the ground in the middle of the road was bare for at\nleast forty rods. But, from that point on, whether his progress was\nfast or slow, Colonel Butler scrutinized the way ahead of him, and the\nfarm-houses that he passed, with painstaking care. He was not looking\nfor any spruce tree here, no matter how straight and tall. But if\nhaply some farmer's boy should be out on an errand for the master of\nthe farm, it would be inexcusable to pass him negligently by; that was\nall. And yet his vigilance met with no reward. He had not caught the\nremotest glimpse of such a boy when his sleigh drew up at Enos\nWalker's gate.\n\nThe unusual jingling of bells brought Sarah Butler and her sister to\nthe window of the sitting-room to see who it was that was bringing\nsuch a flood of tinkling music up the road.\n\n\"For the land sakes!\" exclaimed the sister; \"it's Richard Butler, and\nhe's stopping here. I bet a cookie he's come after Pen.\"\n\nBut Pen's mother did not respond. Her heart was beating too fast, she\ncould not speak.\n\n\"You've got to go to the door, Sarah,\" continued the sister; \"I'm not\ndressed.\"\n\nColonel Butler was already on his way up the path, and, a moment\nlater, his knock was heard at the door. It was opened by Sarah Butler\nwho stood there facing him with outward calmness. Evidently the\ncolonel had not anticipated seeing her, and, for the moment, he was\napparently disconcerted. But he recovered himself at once and inquired\ncourteously if Mr. Walker was at home. It was the third time in his\nlife that he had spoken to his daughter-in-law. The first time was\nwhen she returned from her bridal trip, and the interview on that\noccasion had been brief and decisive. The second time was when her\nhusband was lying dead in the modest home to which he had taken her.\nNow he had spoken to her again, and this time there was no bitterness\nin his tone nor iciness in his manner.\n\n\"Yes,\" she replied; \"father is somewhere about. If you will please\ncome in and be seated I will try to find him.\"\n\nHe followed her into the sitting-room, and took the chair that she\nplaced for him.\n\n\"I beg that you will not put yourself to too much trouble,\" he said,\n\"in trying to find him; although I desire to see him on a somewhat\nimportant errand.\"\n\n\"It will not be the slightest trouble,\" she assured him.\n\nBut, as she turned to go, he added as though a new thought had come to\nhim:\n\n\"Perhaps you have some young person about the premises whom you could\nsend out in search of Mr. Walker, and thus save yourself the effort of\nfinding him.\"\n\n\"No,\" she replied. \"There is no young person here. I will go myself.\nIt will take but a minute or two.\"\n\nIt was a feeble attempt on his part, and it had been quickly foiled.\nSo there was nothing for him to do but to sit quietly in the chair\nthat had been placed for him, and await the coming of Enos Walker.\n\nYet he could not help but wonder as he sat there, what had become of\nPen. She had said that there was no young person there. Was the boy's\nabsence only temporary, or had he left the home of his maternal\ngrandfather and gone to some place still more remote and\ninaccessible? He was consumed with a desire to know; but he would not\nhave made the inquiry, save as a matter of life and death.\n\nIt was fully five minutes later that the guest in the sitting-room\nheard some one stamping the snow off his boots in the kitchen\nadjoining, then the door of the room was opened, and Enos Walker stood\non the threshold. His trousers were tucked into the tops of his boots,\nhis heavy reefer jacket was tightly buttoned, and his cloth cap was\nstill on his head.\n\n\"Good afternoon, Mr. Butler,\" he said. \"I'm pleased to see ye. I\ndidn't know as ye'd think it wuth while to come.\"\n\n\"It is always worth while,\" replied the colonel, \"to meet a business\nproposition frankly and fairly. I am here, at your suggestion, to\ndiscuss with you the matter of the purchase of a certain tree.\"\n\nGrandpa Walker advanced into the room, closing the door behind him,\nwent over to the window, laid aside his cap, and dropped into his\naccustomed chair.\n\n\"Jes' so,\" he said. \"Set down, an' we'll talk it over.\" When the\ncolonel was seated he continued: \"They tell me ye want to buy a\nspruce tree. Is that right?\"\n\n\"That is correct.\"\n\n\"Want it fer a flag-pole, eh?\"\n\n\"Yes. It is proposed to erect a staff on the school grounds at\nChestnut Hill.\"\n\n\"Jes' so. In that case ye want a perty good one. Tall, straight,\nslender, small-limbed; proper in every way.\"\n\n\"Exactly.\"\n\n\"Well, I've got it.\"\n\n\"So I have heard. I have come to bargain for it.\"\n\n\"All right! Want to look at it fust, I s'pose.\"\n\n\"I have come prepared to inspect it.\"\n\n\"That's business. I'll go down to the swamp with ye an' we'll look her\nover.\"\n\nGrandpa Walker rose from his chair and replaced his cap on his head.\n\n\"Is the tree located at some distance from the house?\" inquired the\ncolonel.\n\n\"Oh, mebbe a quarter of a mile; mebbe not so fer.\"\n\n\"A--have you some young person about, whom you could send with me to\ninspect it, and thus save yourself the trouble of tramping through the\nsnow?\"\n\nGrandpa Walker looked at his visitor curiously before replying.\n\n\"No,\" he said, after a moment, \"I ain't. I've got a young feller\nstoppin' with me; but he started up to Henry Cobb's about two o'clock.\nHow fer beyond Henry's he's got by this time I can't say. I ain't so\nsoople as I was once, that's a fact. But when it comes to trampin'\nthrough the woods, snow er no snow, I reckon I can hold up my end with\nanybody that wears boots. Ef ye're ready, come along!\"\n\nA look of disappointment came into the colonel's face. He did not\nmove. After a moment he said:\n\n\"On second thought, I believe I will not take the time nor the trouble\nto inspect the tree.\"\n\n\"Don't want it, eh?\"\n\n\"Yes, I want it. I'll take it on your recommendation and that of my\nagents, Messrs. Morrissey and Campbell. If you'll name your price I'll\npay you for it.\"\n\nGrandpa Walker went back and sat down in his cushioned chair by the\nwindow. He laid his cap aside, picked up his pipe from the\nwindow-sill, lighted it, and began to smoke.\n\n\"Well,\" he said, at last, \"that's a prime tree. That tree's wuth\nmoney.\"\n\n\"Undoubtedly, sir; undoubtedly; but how much money?\"\n\nThe old man puffed for a moment in silence. Then he asked:\n\n\"Want it fer a liberty-pole, do ye?\"\n\n\"I want it for a liberty-pole.\"\n\n\"To put the school flag on?\"\n\n\"To put the school flag on.\"\n\nThere was another moment of silence.\n\n\"They say,\" remarked the old man, inquiringly, \"that you gave the\nflag?\"\n\n\"I gave the flag.\"\n\n\"Then, by cracky! I'll give the pole.\"\n\nEnos Walker rose vigorously to his feet in order properly to emphasize\nhis offer. Colonel Butler did not respond. This sudden turn of affairs\nhad almost taken away his breath. Then a grim smile stole slowly into\nhis face. The humor of the situation began to appeal to him.\n\n\"Permit me to commend you,\" he said, \"for your liberality and\npatriotism.\"\n\n\"I didn't fight in no Civil War,\" added the old man, emphatically;\n\"but I ain't goin' to hev it said by nobody that Enos Walker ever\nprofited a penny on a pole fer his country's flag.\"\n\nThe old soldier's smile broadened.\n\n\"Good!\" he exclaimed. \"That's very good. We'll stand together as joint\ndonors of the emblem of freedom.\"\n\n\"And I ain't ashamed of it nuther,\" cried the new partner, \"an' here's\nmy hand on it.\"\n\nThe two men shook hands, and this time Colonel Richard Butler laughed\noutright.\n\n\"This is fine,\" he said. \"I'll send men to-morrow to cut the tree\ndown, trim it, and haul it to town. There's no time to lose. The roads\nare getting soft. Why, half of Baldwin's Hill is already bare.\"\n\nHe started toward the door, but his host called him back.\n\n\"Don't be in a hurry,\" said Grandpa Walker. \"Set down a while, can't\nye? Have a piece o' pie or suthin. Or a glass o' cider.\"\n\n\"Thank you! Nothing at all. I'm in some haste. It's getting late.\nAnd--I desire to make a brief call on Henry Cobb before returning\nhome.\"\n\nThe old man made no further effort to detain his visitor; but he gave\nhim a cordial invitation to come again, shook hands with him at the\ndoor, and watched him half way down to the gate. When he turned and\nre-entered his house he found his two daughters already in the\nsitting-room.\n\n\"Did he come for Pen?\" asked Sarah Butler, breathlessly.\n\n\"Ef he did,\" replied her father, \"he didn't say so. He wanted my\nspruce tree, and I give it to him. And I want to tell ye one thing\nfu'ther. I've got a sort o' sneakin' notion that Colonel Richard\nButler of Chestnut Hill ain't more'n about one-quarter's bad as he's\nbe'n painted.\"\n\nHenry Cobb's residence was scarcely a half mile beyond the home of\nEnos Walker. It was the most imposing farm-house in that\nneighborhood, splendidly situated on high ground, with a rare outlook\nto the south and east. Mr. Cobb himself was just emerging from the\nopen door of a great barn that fronted the road as Colonel Butler\ndrove up. He came out to the sleigh and greeted the occupant of it\ncordially. The two men were old friends.\n\n\"It's a magnificent view you have here,\" said the colonel;\n\"magnificent!\"\n\n\"Yes,\" was the reply, \"we rather enjoy it. I've lived in this\nneighborhood all my life, and the longer I live here the better I like\nit.\"\n\n\"That's the proper spirit, sir, the proper spirit.\"\n\nFor a moment both men looked off across the snow-mantled valleys and\nthe wooded slopes, to the summit of the hill-range far to the east,\ntouched with the soft light of the sinking sun.\n\n\"You're quite a stranger in these parts,\" said Henry Cobb, breaking\nthe silence.\n\n\"Yes,\" was the reply. \"I don't often get up here. I came up to-day to\nmake an arrangement with your neighbor, Mr. Walker, for the purchase\nof a very fine spruce tree on his property.\"\n\n\"So? Did you succeed in closing a bargain with him?\"\n\n\"Yes. He has consented to let it go.\"\n\n\"You don't say so! I would hardly have believed it. Now, I don't want\nto be curious nor anything; but would you mind telling me what you had\nto pay for it?\"\n\n\"Nothing. He gave it to us.\"\n\n\"He--what?\"\n\n\"He gave it to us to be used as a flag-staff on the grounds of the\npublic school at Chestnut Hill.\"\n\n\"You don't mean that he gave you that wonderful spruce that stands\ndown in the corner of his swamp; the one Morrissey and Campbell were\nup looking at yesterday?\"\n\n\"I believe that is the one.\"\n\n\"Why, colonel, that spruce was the apple of his eye. If I've heard him\nbrag that tree up once, I've heard him brag it up fifty times. He\nnever gave away anything in his life before. What's come over the old\nman, anyway?\"\n\n\"Well, when he learned that I had donated the flag, he declared that\nhe would donate the staff. I suppose he didn't want to be outdone in\nthe matter of patriotism.\"\n\n\"Good for him!\" exclaimed Henry Cobb. \"He'll be a credit to his\ncountry yet;\" and he laughed merrily. Then, sobering down, he added:\n\"But, say; look here! can't you let me in on this thing too? I don't\nwant to be outdone by either of you. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll\ncut the tree, and trim it, and haul it to town to-morrow, free gratis\nfor nothing. What do you say?\"\n\nThen the colonel laughed in his turn, and he reached out his one hand\nand shook hands warmly with Henry Cobb.\n\n\"Splendid!\" he cried. \"This efflorescence of patriotism in the rural\ndistricts is enough to delight an old soldier's heart!\"\n\n\"All right! I'll have the pole there by four o'clock to-morrow\nafternoon, and you can depend on it.\"\n\n\"I will. And I thank you, sir; not only on my own account, but also in\nthe name of the public of Chestnut Hill, and on behalf of our beloved\ncountry. Now I must go. I have decided, in returning, to drive across\nby Darbytown, strike the creek road, and go down home by that route\nin order to avoid drifts and bare places. Oh, by the way, there's a\nlittle matter I neglected to speak to Mr. Walker about. It's of no\ngreat moment, but I understand his grandson came up here this\nafternoon, and, if he is still here, I will take the opportunity to\nsend back word by him.\"\n\nHe made the inquiry with as great an air of indifference as he could\nassume, but his breath came quick as he waited for an answer.\n\n\"Why,\" replied Henry Cobb, \"Pen was here along about three o'clock. He\nwas looking for a two-year old heifer that strayed away yesterday. He\nwent over toward Darbytown. You might run across him if you're going\nthat way. But I'll send your message down to Enos Walker if you wish.\"\n\n\"Thank you! It doesn't matter. I may possibly see the young man along\nthe road. Good night!\"\n\n\"Good night, colonel!\"\n\nThe impatient horses were given rein once more, and dashed away to the\nmusic of the two score bells that hung from their shining harness.\n\nBut, although Colonel Richard Butler scanned every inch of the way\nfrom Henry Cobb's to Darbytown, with anxious and longing eyes, he did\nnot once catch sight of any farmer's boy searching for a two-year old\nheifer that had strayed from its home.\n\nAt dusk he stepped wearily from his sleigh and mounted the steps that\nled to the porch of Bannerhall. His daughter met him at the door.\n\n\"For goodness' sake, father!\" she exclaimed; \"where on earth have you\nbeen?\"\n\n\"I have been to Cobb's Corners,\" was the quiet reply.\n\n\"Did you get Pen?\" she asked, excitedly.\n\n\"I did not.\"\n\n\"Wouldn't Mr. Walker let him come?\"\n\n\"I made no request of any one for my grandson's return. I went to\nobtain a spruce tree from Mr. Walker, out of which to make a\nflag-staff for the school grounds. I obtained it.\"\n\n\"That's a wonder.\"\n\n\"It is not a wonder, Millicent. Permit me to say, as one speaking from\nexperience, that when accused of selfishness, Enos Walker has been\ngrossly maligned. I have found him to be a public-spirited citizen,\nand a much better man, in all respects, than he has been painted.\"\n\nHis daughter made no further inquiries, for she saw that he was not in\na mood to be questioned. But, from that day forth, the shadow of\nsorrow and of longing grew deeper on his care-furrowed face.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\n\nIt was well along in April, that year, before the last of the winter's\nsnow disappeared, and the robins and blue-birds darted in and out\namong the naked trees. But, as the sun grew high, and the days long,\nand the spring languor filled the air, Pen felt an ever-increasing\ndissatisfaction with his position in his grandfather Walker's\nhousehold, and an ever-increasing desire to relinquish it. Not that he\nwas afraid or ashamed to work; he had sufficiently demonstrated that\nhe was not. Not that he ever expected to return to Bannerhall, for he\nhad no such thought. To beg to be taken back was unthinkable; that he\nshould be invited back was most improbable. He had not seen his\ngrandfather Butler since he came away, nor had he heard from him,\nexcept for the vivid and oft-repeated recital by Grandpa Walker of the\nspruce tree episode, and save through his Aunt Millicent who made\noccasional visits to the family at Cobb's Corners. That he deplored\nPen's departure there could be no doubt, but that he would either\ninvite or compel him to return was beyond belief. So Pen's tasks had\ncome to be very irksome to him, and his mode of life very\ndissatisfying. If he worked he wanted to work for himself, at a task\nin which he could take interest and pride. At Cobb's Corners he could\nsee no future for himself worthy of the name. Many times he discussed\nthe situation with his mother, and, painful as it would be to her to\nlose him, she agreed with him that he must go. He waited only the\nopportunity.\n\nOne day, late in April, Robert Starbird dropped in while the members\nof the Walker family were at dinner. He was a wool-buyer for the\nStarbird Woolen Company of Lowbridge, and a nephew of its president.\nHaving completed a bargain with Grandpa Walker for his scanty spring\nclipping of fleece, he turned to Pen.\n\n\"Haven't I seen you at Colonel Butler's, down at Chestnut Hill?\" he\ninquired.\n\n\"Yes,\" replied Pen, \"I'm his grandson. I used to live there.\"\n\n\"I thought so. Staying here now, are you?\"\n\n\"Until I can get regular work; yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Want a job, do you?\"\n\n\"I'd like one, very much.\"\n\n\"Well, we'll need a bobbin-boy at the mills pretty soon. I suppose--\"\n\nAnd then Grandpa Walker interrupted.\n\n\"I guess,\" he said, \"'t we can keep the young man busy here for a\nwhile yet.\"\n\nRobert Starbird looked curiously for a moment, from man to boy, and\nthen, saying that he must go on up to Henry Cobb's to make a deal with\nhim for his fleece, he went out to his buggy, got in and drove away.\n\nPen went back to his work in the field with a sinking heart. It had\nnot before occurred to him that Grandpa Walker would object to his\nleaving him whenever he should find satisfactory and profitable\nemployment elsewhere. But it was now evident that, if he went, he must\ngo against his grandfather's will. His first opportunity had already\nbeen blocked. What opposition he would meet with in the future he\ncould only conjecture.\n\nWith Old Charlie hitched to a stone-boat, he was drawing stones from\na neighbor's field to the roadside, where men were engaged in laying\nup a stone wall. He had not been long at work since the dinner hour,\nwhen, chancing to look up, he saw Robert Starbird driving down the\nhill from Henry Cobb's on his way back to Chestnut Hill. A sudden\nimpulse seized him. He threw the reins across Old Charlie's back, left\nhim standing willingly in his tracks, and started on a run across the\nlot to head off Robert Starbird at the roadside. The man saw him\ncoming and stopped his horse.\n\nPanting a little, both from exertion and excitement, Pen leaped the\nfence and came up to the side of the buggy.\n\n\"Mr. Starbird,\" he said, \"if that job is still open, I--I think I'll\ntake it--if you'll give it to me.\"\n\nThe man, looking at him closely, saw determination stamped on his\ncountenance.\n\n\"Why, that's all right,\" he said. \"You could have the job; but what\nabout your grandfather Walker? He doesn't seem to want you to leave.\"\n\n\"I know. But my mother's willing. And I'll make it up to Grandpa\nWalker some way. I can't stay here, Mr. Starbird; and--I'm not going\nto. They're good enough to me here. I've no complaint to make. But--I\nwant a real job and a fair chance.\"\n\nHe paused, out of breath. The intensity of his desire, and the\nfixedness of his purpose were so sharply manifest that the man in the\nwagon did not, for the moment, reply. He placed his whip slowly in its\nsocket, and seemed lost in thought. At last he said:\n\n\"Henry Cobb has been telling me about you. He gives you a very good\nname.\"\n\nHe paused a moment and then added:\n\n\"I'll tell you what I'll do. If you'll give the old gentleman fair\nnotice--and not sneak away from him like a vagabond--I won't harbor\nany runaways--why, I'll see that you get the job.\"\n\nPen drew a long breath, and his face lighted up with pleasure.\n\n\"Thank you, Mr. Starbird!\" he exclaimed. \"Thank you very much. When\nmay I come?\"\n\n\"Well, let's see. To-day's Wednesday. Suppose you report for duty next\nMonday.\"\n\n\"All right! I'll be there. I'll leave here Monday morning. I'll speak\nto Grandpa Walker to-night.\"\n\n\"Very well. See you Monday. Good-by!\"\n\n\"Good-by!\"\n\nRobert Starbird chirruped to his horse, started on, and was soon lost\nto sight around a bend in the road.\n\nAnd Pen strode back across the field, prouder and happier than he had\never been before in all his life.\n\nBut he still had Grandpa Walker to settle with.\n\nAt supper time, on the evening after his talk with Robert Starbird,\nPen had no opportunity to inform his grandfather of the success of his\napplication for employment. For, almost as soon as he left the table,\nGrandpa Walker got his hat and started down to the store to discuss\npolitics and statecraft with his loquacious neighbors. But Pen felt\nthat his grandfather should know, that night, of the arrangement he\nhad made for employment, and so, after his evening chores were done,\nhe went down to the gate at the roadside to wait for the old man to\ncome home.\n\nThe air was as balmy as though it had been an evening in June.\nSomewhere in the trees by the fence a pair of wakeful birds was\nchirping. From the swamp below the hill came the hoarse croaking of\nbull-frogs. Above the summit of the wooded slope that lay toward\nChestnut Hill the full moon was climbing, and, aslant the road, the\nmaples cast long shadows toward the west.\n\nTo Pen, as he stood there waiting, came his mother. A wrap was around\nher shoulders, and a light scarf partly covered her head. She had\nfinished her evening work and had come out to find him.\n\n\"Are you waiting for grandpa?\" she asked; though she knew without\nasking, that he was.\n\n\"Yes,\" was the reply. \"I want to see him about leaving. I had a talk\nwith Mr. Starbird this afternoon, in the road, and he's given me the\njob he spoke about. I wasn't going to tell you until after I'd seen\ngrandpa, and the trouble was all over.\"\n\n\"You dear boy! And if grandpa objects to your going?\"\n\n\"Well, I--I think I'll go anyway. Look here, mother,\" he continued,\nhastily; \"I don't want to be mean nor anything like that; and\ngrandpa's been kind to me; but, mother--I can't stay here. Don't you\nsee I can't stay here?\"\n\nHe held his arms out to her appealingly, and she took them and put\nthem about her neck.\n\n\"I know, dear,\" she said; \"I know. And grandfather must let you go. I\nshall die of loneliness, but--you must have a chance.\"\n\n\"Thank you, mother! And as soon as I can earn enough you shall come to\nlive with me.\"\n\n\"I shall come anyway before very long, dearie. I worked for other\npeople before I was married. I can do it again.\"\n\nShe laughed a little, but on her cheeks tears glistened in the\nmoonlight.\n\nThen, suddenly, they were aware that Grandpa Walker was approaching\nthem. He was coming up the road, talking to himself as was his custom\nwhen alone, especially if his mind was ill at ease. And his mind was\nnot wholly at ease to-night. The readiness with which Pen had, that\nday, accepted a suggestion of employment elsewhere, had given him\nsomething of a turn. He could not contemplate, with serenity, the\nprospect of resuming the burdens of which his grandson had, for the\nlast two months, relieved him. To become again a \"hewer of wood and\ndrawer of water\" for his family was a prospect not wholly to his\nliking. He became suddenly aware that two people were standing at his\ngate in the moonlight. He stopped in the middle of the road, to look\nat them inquiringly.\n\n\"It's I, father!\" his daughter called out to him. \"Pen and I. We've\nbeen waiting for you.\"\n\n\"Eh? Waitin' for me?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yes, Pen has something he wants to say to you.\"\n\nThe old man crossed over to the roadside fence and leaned on it. The\nannouncement was ominous. He looked sharply at Pen.\n\n\"Well,\" he said. \"I'm listenin'.\"\n\n\"Grandpa,\" began Pen, \"I want you to be willing that I should take\nthat job that Mr. Starbird spoke about to-day.\"\n\n\"So, that's it, is it? Ye've got the rovin' bee a buzzin' in your\nhead, have ye? Don't ye know 't 'a rollin' stone gethers no moss'?\"\n\n\"Well, grandpa, I'm not contented here. Not but what you're good\nenough to me, and all that, but I'm unhappy here. And I saw Mr.\nStarbird again this afternoon, and he said I could have that job.\"\n\n\"Think a job in a mill's better'n a job on a farm?\"\n\n\"I think it is for me, grandpa.\"\n\n\"Work too hard for ye here?\"\n\n\"Why, I'm not complaining about the work being hard. It's just because\nfarm work does not suit me.\"\n\n\"Don't suit most folks 'at ain't inclined to dig into it.\"\n\nThen Pen's mother spoke up.\n\n\"Now, father,\" she said, \"you know Pen's done a man's work since he's\nbeen here, and he's never whimpered about it. And it isn't quite fair\nfor you to insinuate that he's been lazy.\"\n\n\"I ain't insinuatin' nothin',\" replied the old man, doggedly. \"I ain't\nfindin' no fault with what he's done sence he's been here; I'm just\ngittin' at what he thinks he's goin' to do.\" He turned again to Pen.\n\"Made up yer mind to go, hev ye?\"\n\n\"Yes, grandpa.\"\n\n\"When?\"\n\n\"Next Monday morning.\"\n\n\"Wuther I'm willin' or no?\"\n\n\"I want you to be willing.\"\n\n\"I say, wuther I'm willin' or no?\"\n\nIn the moonlight the old man's face bore a look of severity that\naugured ill for any happy completion to Pen's plan. A direct question\nhad been asked, and it called for a direct answer. And with the answer\nwould come the clash of wills. Pen felt it coming, and, although he\nwas apprehensive to the verge of alarm, he braced himself to meet it\ncalmly. His answer was frank, and direct.\n\n\"Yes, grandpa.\"\n\n\"Well, I'm willin'.\"\n\n\"Why, grandpa!\"\n\n\"Father! you old dear!\" from Pen's mother.\n\n\"I say I'm willin',\" repeated the old man. \"I hed hoped 't Pen'd stay\nhere to hum an' help me out with the farm work. I ain't so soople as I\nuse to be. An' Mirandy's man's got a stiddy job a-teamin'. An' the boy\nseemed to take to the work natural, and I thought he liked it, and I\nrested easy and took my comfort till Robert Starbird put that notion\nin his head to-day. Sence then I ain't had no hope.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry to leave you, grandpa, and it's awfully good of you to let\nme go, and you know I wouldn't go if I thought I could possibly stay\nand be contented.\"\n\n\"I understand. It's the same with most young fellers. They see suthin'\nbetter away from hum. And I ain't willin' to stand in the way o' no\nyoung feller that thinks he can better himself some'eres else. When I\nwas fifteen I wanted to go down to Chestnut Hill and work in Sampson's\nplanin' factory; but my father wouldn't let me. Consekence is I never\ngot spunk enough agin to leave the farm. So I ain't goin' to stand in\nnobody else's way, you can go Monday mornin' or any other mornin', and\nI'll just say God bless ye, an' good luck to ye, an' start in agin on\nthe chores.\"\n\nThen Pen's mother, like a girl still in her sympathies and impulses,\nflung her arms around her father's neck, and hugged him till he was\npositively obliged to use force to release himself. And they all\nwalked up the path together in the moonlight, and entered the house\nand told Grandma Walker and Aunt Miranda of Pen's contemplated\ndeparture, to which Grandpa Walker, with martyrlike countenance, added\nthe story of his own unhappy prospect.\n\nWhen Monday morning came Pen was up long before his usual hour for\nrising. He did all the chores, picked up a dozen odds and ends, and\nleft everything ship-shape for his grandfather who was now to succeed\nhim in doing the morning work. Then he changed his clothes, packed his\nsuit-case and came down to breakfast. Grandpa Walker had offered to\ntake him into town with Old Charlie, but Pen had learned, the night\nbefore, that Henry Cobb was going down to Chestnut Hill in the\nmorning, and when Mr. Cobb heard that Pen also was going, he gave him\nan invitation to ride with him. He and the boy had become fast\nfriends during Pen's sojourn at Cobb's Corners, and both of them\nanticipated, with pleasure, the ride into town.\n\nAfter breakfast Grandpa Walker lighted his pipe and put on his hat but\nhe did not go to the store, as had been his custom; he stayed to say\ngood-by to Pen, and to bid him Godspeed, as he had said he would, and\nto tell him that when he lacked for work, or wanted a home, there was\na latch-string at Cobb's Corners that was always hanging out for him.\nHe did more than that. He shoved into Pen's hands enough money to pay\nfor a few weeks' board at Lowbridge, and told him that if he needed\nmore, to write and ask for it.\n\n\"It's comin' to ye,\" he said, when Pen protested. \"Ye ain't had\nnothin' sence ye been here, and I kind o' calculate ye've earned it.\"\n\nPen's mother went with him to the gate to wait for Henry Cobb to come\nalong; and when they saw Mr. Cobb driving down the hill toward them,\nshe kissed Pen good-by, adjured him to be watchful of his health, and\nto write frequently to her, and then went back up the path toward the\nhouse she could not see for the tears that filled her eyes.\n\nHenry Cobb drove a smart horse, and a buggy that was spick and span,\nand it was a pleasure to ride with him. He pulled up at the gate with\na flourish, and told Pen to put his suit-case under the seat, and to\njump in.\n\nIt was not until after they had left the Corners some distance behind\nthem that the object of Pen's journey was mentioned. Then Henry Cobb\nasked:\n\n\"How does the old gentleman like your leaving?\"\n\n\"I don't think he likes it very well,\" was the reply. \"But he's been\nlovely about it. He gave me some money and his blessing.\"\n\n\"You don't say so!\"\n\nHenry Cobb stared at the boy in astonishment. It was not an unheard of\nthing for Grandpa Walker to give his blessing; but that he should give\nmoney besides, was, to say the least, unusual.\n\n\"Yes,\" replied Pen, \"he couldn't have treated me better if I'd lived\nwith him always.\"\n\nMr. Cobb cast a contemplative eye on the landscape, and, for a full\nminute, he was silent. Then he turned again to Pen.\n\n\"I don't want to be curious or anything,\" he said; \"but would you mind\ntelling me how much money the old gentleman gave you?\"\n\n\"Not at all,\" was the prompt reply. \"He gave me eighteen dollars.\"\n\n\"Good for him!\" exclaimed the man. \"He's got more good stuff in him\nthan I gave him credit for. I was afraid he might have given you only\na dollar or two, and I was going to lend you a little to help you out.\nI will yet if you need it. I will any time you need it.\"\n\nHenry Cobb was not prodigal with his money, but he was kind-hearted,\nand he had seen enough of Pen to feel that he was taking no risk.\n\n\"You're very kind,\" replied the boy, \"but grandpa's money will last me\na good while, and I shall get wages enough to keep me comfortably, and\nI shall not need any more.\"\n\nAfter a while Mr. Cobb's thoughts turned again to Grandpa Walker.\n\n\"He'll miss you terribly,\" he said to Pen. \"He hasn't had so easy a\ntime in all his life before as he's had this spring, with you to do\nall the farm chores and help around the house. It'll be like pulling\nteeth for him to get into harness again.\"\n\nHenry Cobb gave a little chuckle. He knew how fond Grandpa Walker was\nof comfortable ease.\n\n\"Well,\" replied Pen, \"I'm sorry to go, and leave him with all the work\nto do; but you know how it is, Mr. Cobb.\"\n\n\"Yes, I know; I know. And you're going with splendid people. I've\nknown the Starbirds all my life. None better in the country.\"\n\nThey had reached the summit of the elevation overlooking the valley\nthat holds Chestnut Hill. Spring lay all about them in a riot of fresh\ngreen. The world, to boyish eyes, had never before looked so fair, nor\nhad the present ever before been filled with brighter promises for the\nfuture. But the morning ride, delightful as it had been, was drawing\nto an end.\n\nComing from Cobb's Corners into Chestnut Hill you go down the Main\nstreet past Bannerhall. Pen looked as he went by, but he saw no one\nthere. The lawn was rich with a carpet of fresh, young grass, the\ncrocus beds and the tulip plot were ablaze with color, and the\nswelling buds that crowned the maples with a haze and halo of elusive\npink foretold the luxury of summer foliage. But no human being was in\nsight. The street looked strange to Pen as they drove along; as\nstrange as though he had been away two years instead of two months.\nThey stopped in front of the post-office, and he remained in the wagon\nand minded the horse while Henry Cobb went into a hardware store near\nby. People passed back and forth, and some of them looked at him and\nsaid \"good-morning,\" in a distant way, as though it were an effort for\nthem to speak to him. He knew the cause of their indifference and he\ndid not resent it, though it cut him deeply. Last winter it would have\nbeen different. But last winter he was the grandson of Colonel Richard\nButler, and lived with that old patriot amid the memories and luxuries\nof Bannerhall. To-day he was the grandson of Enos Walker, of Cobb's\nCorners, leaving the farm to seek a petty job in a mill, discredited\nin the eyes of the community because of his disloyalty to his\ncountry's flag. He was musing on these things when some one called to\nhim from the sidewalk. It was Aunt Millicent.\n\n\"Pen Butler!\" she cried, \"get right down here and kiss me.\"\n\nPen did her bidding.\n\n\"What in the world are you doing here?\" she continued.\n\n\"I'm on my way to Lowbridge,\" he said. \"I have a job up there in the\nStarbird woolen mills, as bobbin-boy.\"\n\n\"Well, for goodness sake! Who would have thought it? Pen Butler going\nto work as a bobbin-boy! And Lowbridge is fourteen miles away, and we\nshall never see you again.\"\n\nPen comforted her as best he could, and explained his reasons for\ngoing, and then he asked after the health of his grandfather Butler.\n\n\"Don't ask me,\" she said disconsolately. \"He's grieving himself into\nhis grave about you. But he doesn't say a word, and he won't let me\nsay a word. Oh, dear!\"\n\nThen Henry Cobb came out and greeted Aunt Millicent, and, after a few\nmore inquiries and admonitions, she kissed Pen good-by and went on her\nway.\n\nMr. Cobb was going on down to Chestnut Valley, but, as the train to\nLowbridge did not leave until afternoon, Pen said he would go down\nlater. So he was left on the sidewalk there alone. He did not quite\nknow what to do with himself. The boys were, doubtless, all in school.\nHe walked up the street a little way, and then he walked back again.\nHe had no reason for entering any of the stores, and no desire to do\nso. There was really no place for him to go. Finally he decided that\nhe would go down to the Valley and wait there for the train. So he\nstarted on down the hill. People whom he met, acquaintances of the old\ndays, looked at him askance, spoke to him indifferently, or ignored\nhim altogether. It seemed to him that he was like a stranger in an\nalien land.\n\nAs he passed by the school-house a boy whom he did not know was\nlingering about the steps. Otherwise there was no one in sight.\n\nThen, suddenly, there burst upon his view a sight for which he was\nnot prepared. In the yard on the lower side of the school-house, the\nyard through which he and his victorious troops had driven the\nretreating enemy at the battle of Chestnut Hill, a flag-staff was\nstanding; tall, straight, symmetrical, and from its summit floated the\nStar-Spangled Banner; the very banner that he had trodden under his\nfeet that February day. It was as though some one had struck him on\nthe breast with an ice-cold hand. He gasped and stood still, his eyes\nfixed immovably on the flag. Then something stirred within him, a\nstrange impulse that ran the quick gamut of his nerves; and when he\ncame to himself he was standing in the street, with head bared and\nbowed, and his eyes filled with tears. Like Saul of Tarsus he had been\nstricken in the way, and ever afterward, whenever and wherever he saw\nhis country's flag, his soul responded to the sight, and thrilled with\nmemories of that April day when first he discovered that rare quality\nof patriotism that had hitherto lain dormant in his breast.\n\nSo he walked on down to the railroad station in Chestnut Valley, and\nwent into the waiting-room and sat down.\n\nIt was very lonely there and it was very tiresome waiting for the\ntrain.\n\nAt noon he went out to a bakery and bought for himself a light\nluncheon. As he was returning to the depot he came suddenly upon Aleck\nSands, who had had his dinner and was starting back to school. There\nwas no time for either boy to consider what kind of greeting he should\ngive to the other. They were face to face before either of them\nrealized it. As for Pen, he bore no resentment now, toward any one.\nHis heart had been wrung dry from that feeling through two months of\nlabor and of contemplation. So, when the first shock of surprise was\nover, he held out his hand.\n\n\"Let's be friends, Aleck,\" he said, \"and forget what's gone by.\"\n\n\"I'm not willing,\" was the reply, \"to be friends with any one who's\ndone what you've done.\" And he made a wide detour around the\nastonished boy, and marched off up the hill.\n\nFrom that moment until the train came and he boarded it, Pen could\nnever afterward remember what happened. His mind was in a tumult.\nWould the cruel echo of one minute of inconsiderate folly on a\nFebruary day, keep sounding in his ears and hammering at his heart so\nlong as he should live?\n\nIt was mid-afternoon when Pen reached Lowbridge, and he went at once\nto the Starbird mill on the outskirts of the town. He caught sight of\nRobert Starbird in the mill-yard, and went over to him. The man did\nnot at first recognize him.\n\n\"I'm Penfield Butler,\" said the boy, \"with whom you were talking last\nweek.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes. Now I know you. You look a little different, some way. I've\nbeen watching out for you. How did you make out with your Grandpa\nWalker?\"\n\n\"Well, Grandpa Walker found it a little hard to take up the work I'd\nbeen doing, but he was quite willing I should come, and helped me very\nmuch.\"\n\n\"I see.\" An amused twinkle came into the man's eyes; just such a\ntwinkle as had come into the eyes of Henry Cobb that morning on the\nway to Chestnut Hill.\n\n\"Well,\" he added, \"I guess it's all right. Come over to the office.\nWe'll see what we can do for you.\"\n\nThey crossed the mill-yard and entered the office. An elderly,\nbenevolent looking man with white side-whiskers, wearing a Grand Army\nbutton on the lapel of his coat, was seated at a table, writing. Three\nor four clerks were busy at their desks, and a girl was working at a\ntype-writer in a remote corner of the room.\n\n\"Major Starbird,\" said the man who had brought Pen in, \"this is the\nboy whom I told you last week I had hired as a bobbin-boy. He's a\ngrandson of Enos Walker out at Cobb's Corners.\"\n\nThe man with white side-whiskers laid down his pen, removed his\nglasses, and looked up scrutinizingly at Pen.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, \"I know Mr. Walker.\"\n\n\"He is also,\" added Robert Starbird, \"a grandson of Colonel Richard\nButler at Chestnut Hill.\"\n\n\"Indeed! Colonel Butler is a warm friend of mine. I was not aware\nthat--is your name Penfield Butler?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" replied Pen. Something in the man's changed tone of voice\nsent a sudden fear to his heart.\n\n\"Are you the boy who is said to have mistreated the American flag on\nthe school grounds at Chestnut Hill?\"\n\n\"I--suppose I am. Yes, sir.\"\n\nPen's heart was now in his shoes. The man with white side-whiskers\nraked him from head to foot with a look that boded no good. He turned\nto his nephew.\n\n\"I've heard of that incident,\" he said. \"I do not think we want this\nyoung man in our employ.\"\n\nRobert Starbird looked first at his uncle and then at Pen. It was\nplain that he was puzzled. It was equally plain that he was\ndisappointed.\n\n\"I didn't know about this,\" he said. \"I'm sorry if it's anything that\nnecessitates our depriving him of the job. Penfield, suppose you\nretire to the waiting-room for a few minutes. I'll talk this matter\nover with Major Starbird.\"\n\nSo Pen, with the ghosts of his misdeeds haunting and harassing him,\nand a burden of disappointment, too heavy for any boy to bear,\nweighing him down, retired to the waiting-room. For the first time\nsince his act of disloyalty he felt that his punishment was greater\nthan he deserved. Not that he bore resentment now against any person,\nbut he believed the retribution that was following him was unjustly\nproportioned to the gravity of his offense. And if Major Starbird\nrefused to receive him, what could he do then?\n\nIn the midst of these cruel forebodings he heard his name called, and\nhe went back into the office.\n\nMajor Starbird's look was still keen, and his voice was still\nforbidding.\n\n\"I do not want,\" he said, \"to be too hasty in my judgments. My nephew\ntells me that Henry Cobb has given you an excellent recommendation,\nand we place great reliance on Mr. Cobb's opinion. It may be that your\noffense has been exaggerated, or that you have some explanation which\nwill mitigate it. If you have any excuse to offer I shall be glad to\nhear it.\"\n\n\"I don't think,\" replied Pen frankly, \"that there was any excuse for\ndoing what I did. Only--it seems to me--I've suffered enough for it.\nAnd I never--never had anything against the flag.\"\n\nHe was so earnest, and his voice was so tremulous with emotion, that\nthe heart of the old soldier could not help but be stirred with pity.\n\n\"I have fought for my country,\" he said, \"and I reverence her flag.\nAnd I cannot have, in my employ, any one who is disloyal to it.\"\n\n\"I am not disloyal to it, sir. I--I love it.\"\n\n\"Would you be willing to die for it, as I have been?\"\n\n\"I would welcome the chance, sir.\"\n\nMajor Starbird turned to his nephew.\n\n\"I think we may trust him,\" he said. \"He has good blood in his veins,\nand he ought to develop into a loyal citizen.\"\n\nPen said: \"Thank you!\" But he said it with a gulp in his throat. The\nreaction had quite unnerved him.\n\n\"I am sure,\" replied Robert Starbird, \"that we shall make no mistake.\nPenfield, suppose you come with me. I will introduce you to the\nforeman of the weaving-room. He may be able to take you on at once.\"\n\nSo Pen, with tears of gratitude in his eyes, followed his guide and\nfriend. They went through the store-room between great piles of\nblankets, through the wool-room filled with big bales of fleece, and\nup-stairs into the weaving-room amid the click and clatter and roar of\nthree score busy and intricate looms. Pen was introduced to the\nforeman, and his duties as bobbin-boy were explained to him.\n\n\"It's easy enough,\" said the foreman, \"if you only pay attention to\nyour work. You simply have to take the bobbins in these little\nrunning-boxes to the looms as the weavers call for them and give you\ntheir numbers. Perhaps you had better stay here this afternoon and let\nDan Larew show you how. I'll give him a loom to-morrow morning, and\nyou can take his place.\"\n\nSo Pen stayed. And when the mills were shut down for the day, when the\nbig wheels stopped, and the cylinders were still, and the clatter of\na thousand working metal fingers ceased, and the voices of the mill\ngirls were no longer drowned by the rattle and roar of moving\nmachinery, he went with Dan to his home, a half mile away, where he\nfound a good boarding-place.\n\nAt seven o'clock the next morning he was at the mill, and, at the end\nof his first day's real work for real wages, he went to his new home,\ntired indeed, but happier than he had ever been before in all his\nlife.\n\nSo the days went by; and spring blossomed into summer, and summer\nmelted into autumn, and winter came again and dropped her covering of\nsnow upon the landscape, whiter and softer than any fleece that was\never scoured or picked or carded at the Starbird mills. And then Pen\nhad a great joy. His mother came to Lowbridge to live with him. Death\nhad kindly released Grandma Walker from her long suffering, and there\nwas no longer any need for his mother to stay on the little farm at\nCobb's Corners. She was an expert seamstress and she found more work\nin the town than she could do. And the very day on which she\ncame--Major Starbird knew that she was coming--Pen was promoted to a\nloom. One thing only remained to cloud his happiness. He was still\nestranged from the dear, tenderhearted, but stubborn old patriot at\nChestnut Hill.\n\nWith only his daughter to comfort him, the old man lived his lonely\nlife, grieving silently, ever more and more, at the fate which\nseparated him from this brave scion of his race, aging as only the\nsorrowing can age, yet, with a stubborn pride, and an unyielding\npurpose, refusing to make the first advance toward a reconciliation.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\n\nPen made good use of his leisure time at Lowbridge. There was no night\nschool there, but the courses of a correspondence school were\navailable, and through that medium he learned much, not only of that\nwhich pertained to his calling as a textile worker, but of that also\nwhich pertained to general science and broad culture. History had a\nspecial fascination for him; the theory of government, the struggles\nof the peoples of the old world toward light and liberty. The working\nout of the idea of democracy in a country like England which still\nretained its monarchical form and much of its aristocratic flavor, was\na theme on which he dwelt with particular pleasure. Back somewhere in\nthe line of descent his paternal ancestors had been of English blood,\nand he was proud of the heroism, the spirit and the energy which had\nmade Great Britain one of the mighty nations of the earth.\n\nTo France also, fighting and forging her way, often through great\ntribulation, into the family of democracies, he gave almost unstinted\npraise. Always splendid and chivalric, whether as monarchy, empire or\nrepublic, he felt that if he were to-day a soldier he would, next to\nhis own beautiful Star Spangled Banner, rather fight and die under the\ntri-color of France than under the flag of any other nation.\n\nBut of course it was to the study and contemplation of his own beloved\ncountry that he gave most of the time he had for reading and research.\nHe delved deeply into her history, he examined her constitution and\nher laws, he put himself in touch with the spirit of her organized\ninstitutions, and with the fundamental ideas, carefully worked out,\nthat had made her free and prosperous and great. And by and by he came\nto realize, in a way that he had never done before, what it meant to\nall her citizens, and especially what it meant to him, Penfield\nButler, to have a country such as this. He thought of her in those\ndays not only as a thing of vast territorial limit and of splendid\nresources of power and wealth and intellect, not only as a mighty\nmachine for humane and just government, but he thought of her also as\na beloved and beautiful personality, claiming and deserving affection\nand fealty from all her children. And he never saw the flag, he never\nthought of it, he never dreamed of it, that it did not arouse in him\nthe same tender and reverent feeling, the same lofty inspiration he\nhad felt that day when he first saw it floating from its staff against\na back-ground of clear blue sky on the school-house lawn at Chestnut\nHill.\n\nHe held himself closely to his tasks. Only twice since he came away\nhad he gone back with his mother for a holiday visit at Cobb's\nCorners. Grandpa Walker had a hearty handshake for him, and an\naffectionate greeting. The boy was forging ahead in his calling, was\ndeveloping into a fine specimen of physical young manhood, and the old\nman was proud of him. But he did not hesitate to remind him that if a\nday of adversity should come the latch-string of the old house was\nstill out, and he would always be as welcome there as he was on that\nwinter day when he had come to them as an exile from Bannerhall.\n\nOne Memorial Day, as Pen stood at the entrance to the cemetery bridge\nwatching the procession of those going in to do honor to the patriotic\ndead, he was especially impressed with the fine appearance of the\nlocal company of the National Guard which was acting as an escort to\nthe veterans of the Grand Army post. The young men composing the\ncompany were dressed in khaki, handled their rifles with ease and\naccuracy, and marched with a soldierly bearing and precision that were\nadmirable. It occurred to Pen that it might be advisable for him to\njoin this body of citizen soldiery provided he had the necessary\nqualifications and could be admitted to membership. It was not so much\nthe show and glamour of the military life that appealed to him as it\nwas the opportunity that such a membership might afford to be of\nservice to his country. Even then Europe was being devastated by a war\nwhich had no equal in history. The German armies, trained to a point\nof unexampled efficiency, with the aid of their Allies, had\noverwhelmed Belgium and had almost succeeded in entering Paris and in\nlaying the whole of France under tribute. Beaten back at a crucial\nmoment they had dug themselves into the soil of the invaded country\nand were holding at bay the combined forces of their Allied enemies.\nHalf of Europe was in arms. The tragedies of the seas were appalling.\nInternational complications were grave and unending. More than one\nstatesman of prophetic foresight had predicted that a continuance of\nthe war must of necessity draw into the maelstrom the government of\nthe United States. In such an event the country would need soldiers\nand many of them, and the sooner they could be put into training to\nmeet such a possible emergency the better.\n\nMoreover it was not necessary to look across the ocean to foresee the\nnecessity for military readiness. Our neighbor to the south was in the\ngrip of armed lawlessness and terrorism. Northern Mexico was infested\nwith banditti which were a constant menace to the safety of our\nborder. Such government as the stricken country had was either unable\nor unwilling to hold them in check. It appeared to be inevitable that\nthe United States, by armed intervention, must sooner or later come to\nthe protection of its citizens. In that event the little handful of\ntroops of the regular army must of necessity be reinforced by units of\nthe state militia. It might be that soldiers of the National Guard\nwould be used only for patrolling the border, and it might well be\nthat they would be sent, as was one of Penfield Butler's ancestors,\ninto the heart of Mexico to enforce permanent peace and tranquility at\nthe point of the bayonet.\n\nSo this was the situation, and this was the appeal to Pen's patriotic\nardor. And the appeal was a strong one. But he did not at once respond\nto it. His work and his study absorbed his time and thought. It was\nnot until late in the fall of that year, the year 1915, when the\ncrises, both at home and abroad, seemed rapidly approaching, that Pen\ntook up for earnest consideration the question of his enlistment in\nthe National Guard. Given by nature to acting impulsively, he\nnevertheless, in these days, weighed carefully any proposed line of\nconduct on his part which might have an important bearing on his\nfuture. But he resolved, after due consideration, to join the militia\nif he could.\n\nHe went to a young fellow, a wool-sorter in the mills, who was a\ncorporal in the militia, to obtain the necessary information to make\nhis application. The corporal promised to take the matter up for him\nwith the captain of the local company, and in due time brought him an\napplication blank to be filled out stating his qualifications for\nmembership. It was necessary that the paper should be signed by his\nmother as evidence of her consent to his enlistment since he was not\nyet twenty-one years of age. She signed it readily enough, for she\nquite approved of his ambition, and she took a motherly pride in the\nevidences of patriotism that he was constantly manifesting.\n\nArmed with this document he presented himself, on a drill-night, to\nCaptain Perry in the officers' quarters at the armory. The captain\nglanced at the paper, then he laid it on the table and looked up at\nPen. There was a troubled expression on his face.\n\n\"I'm sorry, Butler,\" he said, \"but I'm afraid we can't enlist you.\"\n\nThe announcement came as a shock, but not utterly as a surprise. For\ndays the boy had felt a kind of foreboding that something of this sort\nwould happen. Yet he did not at once give way to his disappointment\nnor accept without question the captain's pronouncement.\n\n\"May I inquire,\" he asked, \"what your reason is for rejecting me?\"\n\nCaptain Perry sat back in his chair and thrust his legs under the\ntable. It was apparent that he was embarrassed, but it was apparent\nalso that he would remain firm in the matter of his decision. Nor was\nPen at such a loss to understand the reason for his rejection as his\nquestion might imply. He knew, instinctively, that the old story of\nhis disloyalty to the flag had come up again, after all these years,\nto plague and to thwart him. He was quite right.\n\n\"I will tell you frankly, Butler,\" replied the captain, \"what the\ntrouble is. Since it became known that you wanted to enlist, some\nmembers of my company have come to me with a protest against\naccepting you. They say they represent the bulk of sentiment among the\nenlisted men. You see, under these circumstances, I can't very well\ntake you. We are citizen soldiers, not under the iron discipline of\nthe regular army, and in matters which are really not essential I must\nyield more or less to the wishes of my boys. They like, in a way, to\nchoose their associates.\"\n\nHe ended with an apologetic wave of the hand, and a smile intended to\nbe conciliatory. Chagrined and wounded, but not abashed nor silenced,\nPen stood his ground. He resolved to see the thing through, cost what\npain and humiliation it might.\n\n\"Would you mind telling me,\" he inquired, \"what it is they have\nagainst me?\"\n\n\"Why, if you want to know, yes. They say you're not patriotic. To be\nmore explicit they say that up at Chestnut Hill, where you used to\nlive, you--\"\n\nPen interrupted him. His patience was exhausted, his calmness gone.\n\"Oh, yes!\" he exclaimed, \"I know. They say I mistreated the flag. They\nsay I insulted it, threw it into the mud and trampled on it. That's\nwhat they say, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Yes, substantially that. Now, I don't know whether it's true or\nnot--\"\n\n\"Oh, it's true enough! I don't deny it. And they say also that on\naccount of it all I had to leave Colonel Butler's house and go and\nlive with my grandfather Walker at Cobb's Corners. They say that,\ndon't they?\"\n\n\"Something of that kind, I believe.\"\n\n\"Well, that's true too. But they don't say that it all happened half a\ndozen years ago, when I was a mere boy, that I did it in a fit of\nanger at another boy, and had nothing whatever against the flag, and\nthat I was sorry for it the next minute and have suffered and repented\never since. They don't say that that flag is just as dear to me as it\nis to any man in America, that I love the sight of it; that I'd follow\nit anywhere, and die for it on any battlefield,--they don't say that,\ndo they?\"\n\nHis cheeks were blazing, his eyes were flashing, every muscle of his\nbody was tense under the storm of passionate indignation that swept\nover him. Captain Perry, amazed and thrilled by the boy's\nearnestness, straightened up in his chair and looked him squarely in\nthe face.\n\n\"No,\" he replied, \"they don't say that. But I believe it's true. And\nso far as I'm concerned--\"\n\nPen again interrupted him.\n\n\"Oh, I'm not blaming you, Captain Perry; you couldn't do anything else\nbut turn me down. But some day, some way--I don't know how\nto-night--but some way I'm going to prove to these people that have\nbeen hounding me that I'm as good a patriot and can be as good a\nsoldier as the best man in your company!\"\n\n\"Good! That's splendid!\" Captain Perry rose to his feet and grasped\nthe boy's hand. \"And I'll tell you what I'll do, Butler; if you're\nwilling to face the ordeal I'll enlist you. I believe in you.\"\n\nBut Pen would not listen to it.\n\n\"No,\" he said, \"I can't do that. It wouldn't be fair to you, nor to\nyour men, nor to me. I'll meet the thing some other way. I'm grateful\nto you all the same though.\"\n\n\"Very well; just as you choose. But when you need me in your fight\nI'm at your service. Remember that!\"\n\nOn his way home from the armory it was necessary that Pen should pass\nthrough the main street of the town. Many of the shops were still open\nand were brilliantly lighted, and people were strolling carelessly\nalong the walk, laughing and chatting as though the agony and horror\nand brutality of the mighty conflict just across the sea were all in\nsome other planet, billions of miles away; as though the war cloud\nitself were not pushing its ominous black rim farther and farther\nabove the horizon of our own beloved land. Now and then Pen met,\nsingly or in pairs, khaki clad young men on their way to the armory\nfor the weekly drill. Two or three of them nodded to him as they\npassed by, others looked at him askance and hurried on. The resentment\nthat had been roused in his breast at Captain Perry's announcement\nflamed up anew; but as he turned into the quieter streets on his\nhomeward route this feeling gave way to one of envy, and then to one\nof self-pity and grief. Hard as his lot had been in comparison with\nthe luxury he might have had had he remained at Bannerhall, he had\nnever repined over it, nor had he been envious of those whose lines\nhad been cast in pleasanter places. But to-night, after looking at\nthese sturdy young fellows in military garb preparing to serve their\nstate and their country in the not improbable event of war, an intense\nand passionate longing filled his breast to be, like them, ready to\nfight, to kill or to be killed in defense of that flag which day by\nday claimed his ever-increasing love and devotion. That he was not\npermitted to do so was heart-rending. That it was by his own fault\nthat he was not permitted to do so was agony indeed. And yet it was\nall so bitterly unjust. Had he not paid, a thousand times over, the\nfull penalty for his offense, trivial or terrible whichever it might\nhave been? Why should the accusing ghost of it come back after all\nthese years, to hound and harass him and make his whole life wretched?\n\nIt was in no cheerful or contented mood that he entered his home and\nresponded to the affectionate greeting of his mother.\n\n\"You're home early, dear,\" she said.\n\n\"Didn't they keep you for drill? How does it seem to be a soldier?\"\n\n\"I didn't enlist, mother.\"\n\n\"Didn't enlist? Why not? I thought that was the big thing you were\ngoing to do.\"\n\n\"They wouldn't take me.\"\n\n\"Why, Pen! what was the matter? I thought it was all as good as\nsettled.\"\n\n\"Well, you know that old trouble about the flag at Chestnut Hill?\"\n\n\"I know. I've never forgotten it. But every one else has, surely.\"\n\n\"No, mother, they haven't. That's the reason they wouldn't take me.\"\n\n\"But, Pen, that was years and years ago. You were just a baby. You've\npaid dearly enough for that. It's not fair! It's not human!\"\n\nShe, too, was aroused to the point of indignant but unavailing\nprotest; for she too knew how the boy, long years ago, had expiated to\nthe limit of repentance and suffering the one sensational if venial\nfault of his boyhood.\n\n\"I know, mother. That's all true. I know it's horribly unjust; but\nwhat can you do? It's a thing you can't explain because it's partly\ntrue. It will keep cropping up always, and how I am ever going to live\nit down I don't know. Oh, I don't know!\"\n\nHe flung himself into a chair, thrust his hands deep into his\ntrousers' pockets and stared despairingly into some forbidding\ndistance. She grew sympathetic then, and consoling, and went to him\nand put her arm around his neck and laid her face against his head and\ntried to comfort him.\n\n\"Never mind, dearie! So long as you, yourself, know that you love the\nflag, and so long as I know it, we can afford to wait for other people\nto find it out.\"\n\n\"No, mother, we can't. They've got to be shown. I can't live this way.\nSome way or other I've got to prove that I'm no coward and I'm no\ntraitor.\"\n\n\"You're too severe with yourself, Pen. There are other ways, perhaps\nbetter ways, for men to prove that they love their country besides\nfighting for her. To be a good citizen may be far more patriotic than\nto be a good soldier.\"\n\n\"I know. That's one of the things I've learned, and I believe it. And\nthat'll do for most fellows, but it won't do for me. My case is\ndifferent. I mistreated the flag once with my hands and arms and feet\nand my whole body, and I've got to give my hands and arms and feet and\nmy whole body now to make up for it. There's no other way. I couldn't\nmake the thing right in a thousand years simply by being a good\ncitizen. Don't you see, mother? Don't you understand?\"\n\nHe looked up into her face with tear filled eyes. The thought that had\nlong been with him that he must prove his patriotism by personal\nsacrifice, had grown during these last few days into a settled\nconviction and a great desire. He wanted her to see the situation as\nhe saw it, and to feel with him the bitterness of his disappointment.\nAnd she did. She twined her arm more closely about his neck and\npressed her lips against his hair.\n\nBut her heart-felt sympathy made too great a draft on his emotional\nnature. It silenced his voice and flooded his eyes. So she drew her\nchair up beside him, and he laid his head in her lap as he had used\nto do when he was a very little boy, and wept out his disappointment\nand grief.\n\nAnd as he lay there a new thought came to him. Swiftly as a whirlwind\nforms and sweeps across the land, it took on form and motion and swept\nthrough the channels of his mind. He sprang to his feet, dashed the\ntears from his face, and looked down on his mother with a countenance\ntransformed.\n\n\"Mother!\" he exclaimed, \"I have an idea!\"\n\n\"Why, Pen; how you startled me! What is it?\"\n\n\"I have an idea, mother. I'm going to--\"\n\nHe paused and looked away from her.\n\n\"Going to what, Pen?\"\n\nHe did not reply at once, but after a moment he said:\n\n\"I'll tell you later, mother, after it's all worked out and I'm sure\nof it. I'm not going to bring home to you any more disappointments.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\n\nIt was three days later that Pen came home one evening, alert of step,\nbright-eyed, his countenance beaming with satisfaction and delight.\n\n\"Well, mother,\" he cried as he entered the house; \"it's settled. I'm\ngoing!\"\n\nShe looked up in surprise and alarm.\n\n\"What's settled, Pen? Where are you going?\"\n\n\"I'm going to war.\"\n\nShe dropped the work at which she had been busy and sat down weakly in\na chair by her dining-room table. He went to her and laid an\naffectionate hand on her shoulder.\n\n\"Pardon me, mother!\" he continued, \"I didn't mean to frighten you, but\nI'm so happy over it.\"\n\nShe looked up into his face.\n\n\"To war, Pen? What war?\"\n\n\"The big war, mother. The war in France. Do you remember the other\nnight when I told you I had an idea?\"\n\n\"Yes, I remember.\"\n\n\"Well, that was it. It occurred to me, then, that if I couldn't fight\nfor my own country, under my own flag, I would fight for those other\ncountries, under their flags. They are making a desperate and a\nsplendid war to uphold the rights of civilized nations.\"\n\nHe stood there, erect, manly, resolute, his face lighted with the glow\nof his enthusiasm. She could but admire him, even though her heart\nsank under the weight of his announced purpose. Many times, of an\nevening, they had talked together of the mighty conflict in Europe.\nFrom the very first Pen's sympathies had been with France and her\nAllies. He could not get over denouncing the swiftness and savagery of\nthe raid into Belgium, the wanton destruction of her cities and her\nmonuments of art, the hardships and brutalities imposed upon her\npeople. The Bryce report, with its details of outrage and crime,\nstirred his nature to its depths. The tragedy of the _Lusitania_\nfilled him with indignation and horror. Now, suddenly, had come the\ndesire and the opportunity to fight with those peoples who were\nstruggling to save their ideals from destruction.\n\n\"I'm going to Canada,\" he continued, \"to enlist in the American\nLegion. They say hundreds and thousands of young men from the United\nStates who are willing to fight under the Union Jack, have gone up\ninto Canada for training and are this very minute facing the gray\ncoats of the German enemy in northern France.\"\n\n\"But, Pen,\" she protested, \"this is such a horrible war. The soldiers\nlive in the muddiest, foulest kinds of trenches. They kill each other\nwith gases and blazing oil. They slaughter each other by thousands\nwith guns that go by machinery. It's simply terrible!\"\n\n\"I know, mother. It's modern warfare. It's up to date. It's no pink\ntea as some one has said. But the more awful it is the sooner it'll be\nover, and the more credit there'll be to us who fight in it.\"\n\n\"And you'll be so far away.\"\n\nShe looked up at him, pale-faced, with appealing eyes. He knew how\nuncontrollably she shrank from the thought of losing him in this wild\nvortex of savagery. He patted her cheek tenderly.\n\n\"But you'll be a good patriot,\" he said, \"and let me go. It's my duty\nto fight, and it's your duty to let me fight. There isn't any doubt\nabout that. Besides, this isn't really France's war nor England's war\nany more than it is our war, or any more than it is the war of any\ncountry that wants to maintain the ideals of modern civilization. I\nshall be serving my country almost the same as though I were fighting\nunder the Stars and Stripes. And I'll be answering in the only way\nit's possible for me to answer, those people who have been charging me\nwith disloyalty to the flag. Oh, I must show you what Grandfather\nButler says. He made a speech yesterday at the flag-raising at\nChestnut Valley, and it's all in the Lowbridge _Citizen_ this morning.\nListen! Here's the way he winds up.\"\n\nHe drew a newspaper from his pocket and read:\n\n\"'So, fellow citizens, let me predict that before this great war\nshall come to an end the Stars and Stripes will wave over every\nbattlefield in Europe. Sooner or later we must enter the conflict; and\nthe sooner the better. For it's our war. It's the war of every country\nthat loves liberty and justice. Up to this moment the Allies have been\nfighting for the freedom of the world, your freedom and mine, my\nfriends, as well as their own. It is high time the Government at\nWashington, impelled by the patriotic ardor of our thinking citizens,\ndeclared the enemies of England and France to be our enemies, and\njoined hands with those heroic countries to stamp out forever the\nteutonic menace to liberty and civilization. In the meantime I say to\nthe red-blooded youth of America: Glory awaits you on the war-scarred\nfields of France. Go forth! There is no barrier in the way. Remember\nthat when the ragged troops of Washington were locked in a death-grip\nwith the red-coated soldiers of King George, Lafayette, Rochambeau and\nde Grasse came to our aid with six and twenty thousand of the bravest\nsons of France. It is your turn now to spring to the aid of this\nstricken land and prove that you are worthy descendants of the\ngrateful patriots of old.'\"\n\nPen finished his reading and laid down the paper. There had been a\ntremor in his voice at the end, and his eyes were wet.\n\n\"That's grandfather,\" he said, \"all over. I knew he'd feel that way\nabout it. I had decided to go before I read that speech. Now I\ncouldn't stay at home if I tried. I'm his grandson yet, mother, and I\nshall answer his call to arms.\"\n\nAfter that he sat down quietly and unfolded to his mother all of his\nplans. He told her that he had gone to Major Starbird and had confided\nto him his desire to serve with the Allied armies. The old soldier,\nveteran of many battles, had sympathized with his ambition and had\nprocured for him the necessary information concerning enlistment and\ntraining in Canada. He was to go to New York and report to a certain\nconfidential agent there at an address which had been given him, where\nhe would receive the necessary credentials for enlistment in the new\nAmerican Legion then in process of formation. And Major Starbird had\nsaid to him that when he returned, if at all, his place at the mill\nwould still be open to him and he would be welcomed back. He told it\nall with a quiet enthusiasm that evidenced not only his fixed purpose,\nbut also the fact that his whole heart was in the adventure, and that\nthere would be no turning back.\n\nAnd his mother gave her consent that he should go. What else was there\nfor her to do? Mothers have sent their sons to war from time\nimmemorial. It is thus that they suffer and bleed for their country.\nAnd who shall say that their sacrifice is not as great in its way as\nis the sacrifice of those who offer up their lives in battle? But that\nnight, through sleepless hours, when she thought of the loneliness\nthat would be hers, and the hazards and horrors that would be his, and\nof how, after all, he was such a mere boy, to be petted and spoiled\nand kept at home rather than to be sent out to meet the trials and\nterrors of the most cruel war in history, her heart failed her, and\nshe wept in unspeakable dread. It is the women, in the long run, who\nare the greater sufferers from the armed clash of nations!\n\n    The mother who conceals her grief\n      While to her breast her son she presses,\n    Then breathes a few brave words and brief,\n      Kissing the patriot brow she blesses,\n    With no one but her secret God\n      To know the pain that weighs upon her,\n    Sheds holy blood as e'er the sod\n      Received on Freedom's field of honor!\n\nIt was three days later that Pen went away. There were many little\nmatters to which he must attend before going. His mother must be\nsafeguarded and her comfort looked after during his absence. His own\nprivate affairs must be left in such shape that in the event of his\nnot returning they could easily be closed up. He permitted nothing to\nremain at loose ends. But to no one save to his employer and his\nmother did he confide his plans. He did not care to publish a purpose\nthat lay so near to his heart. He went on the early morning train.\nMajor Starbird was at the station to wring his hand and bid him\nGodspeed and wish him a safe return. But his mother was not there. She\nwas in her room at home, her white face against the window, gazing\nwith tear-wet eyes toward the south. She heard the distant rumble of\nthe cars as they came, and the blasts from the far away whistle fell\nsoftly on her ears. And, by and by, the ever lengthening and fading\nline of smoke against the far horizon told her that the train bearing\nher only child to unknown and possibly dreadful destiny was on its\nway.\n\nPen had been in New York before. On several memorable occasions, as a\nboy, he had accompanied his grandfather Butler to the city and had\nenjoyed the sights and sounds of the great metropolis, and had learned\nsomething of its ways and byways. He had no difficulty, therefore, in\nfinding the address that had been given him by Major Starbird, and,\nhaving found it, he was made welcome there. He learned, what indeed he\nalready knew, that Canada was not averse to filling out her quota of\nloyal troops for the great war by enlisting and training young men of\ngood character and robust physique from the States. Armed with\nconfidential letters of introduction and commendation, and certain\nother requisite documents, he left the quiet office on the busy street\nfeeling that at last the desire of his heart was to be fully\ngratified. It was now late afternoon. He was to take a night train\nfrom the Grand Central station which would carry him by way of Albany\nto Toronto. Borne along by the crowd of home-going people he found\nhimself on Broadway facing Trinity Church. The dusk of evening was\nalready falling, and here and there the glow of electric lamps began\nto pierce the gloom. On one occasion he had wandered, with his\ngrandfather, through Trinity Churchyard, and had read and been\nthrilled by inscriptions on ancient tomb-stones marking the graves of\nthose who had served their country well in her early and struggling\nyears. Had it been still day he would not have been able to resist the\nimpulse to repeat that experience of his boyhood. As it was, he stood,\nfor many minutes, peering through the iron railing that separated the\nliving, hurrying throngs on the pavement from the narrow homes of\nthose who, more than a century before, had served their generation by\nthe will of God and had fallen on sleep.\n\nAs he turned his eyes away from the deepening shadows of the graveyard\nit occurred to him that he would go to a hotel formerly frequented by\nColonel Butler, and get his dinner there before going to the train. It\nwould seem like old times, for it was there that they had stayed when\nhe had accompanied his grandfather on those trips of his boyhood. To\nbe sure the colonel would not be there, but delightful memories would\nbe stirred by revisiting the place, and he felt that those memories\nwould be most welcome this night.\n\nEver more and more, in these latter days, his thoughts had turned\ntoward his boyhood home. After six years of absence and estrangement\nthere was still no tenderer spot in his heart, save the one occupied\nby his mother, than the spot in which reposed his memories of his\nchildhood's hero, the master of Bannerhall. He wished that there might\nhave been a reconciliation between them before he went to war. He\nwould have given much if only he could have seen the stern face with\nits gray moustache and its piercing eyes, if he could have felt the\nwarm grasp of the hand, if he could have heard the firm and kindly\nvoice speak to him one word of farewell and Godspeed. He sighed as he\nturned in at the subway kiosk and descended the steps to the platform\nto join the pushing and the jostling crowd on its homeward way. At the\nGrand Central Station he procured his railway tickets and checked his\nbaggage and then came out into Forty-second street. After a few\nminutes of bewildered turning he located himself and made his way\nwithout further trouble to his hotel. But the place seemed strange to\nhim now; not as spacious as when he was a boy, not as ornate, not as\nwonderful. It was only after he had eaten his dinner and come out\nagain into the lobby that it took on any kind of a familiar air, and\nnot until he was ready to depart that he could have imagined the erect\nform of Colonel Butler, with its imposing and attractive personality,\napproaching him through the crowd as he had so often seen it in other\nyears.\n\nThen, as he turned toward the street door, a strange thing happened. A\nfamiliar figure emerged from a side corridor and came out into the\nmain lobby in full view of the departing boy. It needed no second\nglance to convince Pen that this was indeed his grandfather. The\nstern face, the white, drooping moustache, the still soldierly\nbearing, could belong to no one else. The colonel stopped for a minute\nto make inquiry and obtain information from a hotel attendant, then,\nhaving apparently learned what he wished to know, he stood looking\nsearchingly about him.\n\nPen stood still in his tracks and wondered what he should do. The\nvision had come upon him so suddenly that it had quite taken away his\nbreath. But it did not take long for him to decide. He would do the\nobvious and manly thing and let the consequences take care of\nthemselves. He stepped forward and held out his hand.\n\n\"How do you do, grandfather,\" he said.\n\nColonel Butler turned an unrecognizing glance on the boy.\n\n\"You have the advantage of me, sir,\" he replied. \"I--\"\n\nHe stopped speaking suddenly, his face flushed, and a look of glad\nsurprise came into his eyes.\n\n\"Why, Penfield!\" he exclaimed, \"is this you?\"\n\nBut, before Pen had time to respond, either by word or movement, to\nthe greeting, the old man's gloved hand which had been thrust partly\nforward, fell back to his side, the light of recognition left his\neyes, and he stood, as stern-faced and determined as he had stood on\nthat February night, years ago, asking about a boy and a flag.\n\n\"Yes, grandfather,\" said Pen, \"it is I.\"\n\nThe colonel did not turn away, nor did any harsh word come to his\nlips. He spoke with cold courtesy, as he might have spoken to any\ncasual acquaintance.\n\n\"This is a surprise, sir. I had not expected to see you here.\"\n\nHe made a brave effort to control his voice, but it trembled in spite\nof him.\n\nPen's heart was stirred with sudden pity. He saw as he looked on his\ngrandfather's face, that age and sorrow had made sad inroads during\nthese few years. The hair and moustache, iron-gray before, were now\ncompletely white, the countenance was deep-lined and sallow, the eyes\nhad lost their piercing brightness. But Pen did not permit his\nsurprise, or his sorrow, or his grief at the manner of his reception,\nto show itself by any word or look.\n\n\"Nor did I expect to see you,\" he said. \"Have you been long in the\ncity?\"\n\n\"I arrived less than an hour ago. I expect to meet here my friend\nColonel Marshall with whom I shall discuss the state of the country.\"\n\n\"Did--did you come alone?\"\n\nIt was the wrong thing to say, and Pen knew it the moment he had said\nit. But the old man's appearance of feebleness had aroused in him the\nsudden thought that he ought not to be traveling alone, and,\nimpulsively, he had given expression to the thought. Colonel Butler\nstraightened his shoulders and turned upon his grandson a look of fine\nscorn.\n\n\"I came alone, sir,\" he replied. \"How else did you expect me to come?\"\n\n\"Why, I thought possibly Aunt Milly might have come along.\"\n\n\"In troublous times like these the woman's place is at the fire-side.\nThe man's duty should lead him wherever his country calls, or wherever\nhe can be of service to a people defending themselves against the\nonslaught of armed autocracy.\"\n\n\"Yes, grandfather.\"\n\n\"I am therefore here to take counsel with certain men of judgment\nconcerning the participation of this country in the bloody struggle\nthat is going on abroad. After that I shall proceed to Washington to\nurge upon the heads of our government my belief that the time is ripe\nto throw the weight of our influence, and the weight of our wealth,\nand the weight of our armies, into the scale with France and Great\nBritain for the subjugation of those central powers that are waging\nupon these gallant countries a most unjust and unrighteous war.\"\n\n\"Yes, grandfather; I agree with you.\"\n\n\"Of course you do, sir. No right-minded man could fail to agree with\nme. And I shall tender my sword and my services, to be at the disposal\nof my country, in whatever branch of the service the Secretary of War\nmay see fit to assign me as soon as war is declared. As a matter of\nfact, sir, we are already at war with Germany. Both by land and sea\nshe has, for the last year, been making open war upon our commerce,\non our citizens, on the integrity of our government. It is\nexasperating, sir, exasperating beyond measure, to see the authorities\nat Washington drifting aimlessly and unpreparedly into an armed\nconflict which is bound to come. Our president should demand from\ncongress at once a declaration that a state of war exists with\nGermany, and with that declaration should go a system of organized\npreparedness, and then, sir, we should go to Europe and fight, and,\nthus fighting, help our Allies and save our native land. It shall be\nmy errand to Washington to urge such an aggressive course.\"\n\nOf his belief in his theory there could be no doubt. Of his\nearnestness in advocating it there was not the slightest question. His\nprofound sympathy with the Allies did credit to his heart as well as\nhis judgment. And the devotion of this one-armed and enfeebled veteran\nto the cause of his own country, his eagerness to serve her in the\nfield and his confidence in his ability still to do so, were pathetic\nas well as inspiring. It was all so big, and patriotic, and splendid,\neven in its childish egotism and simplicity, that the pure absurdity\nof it found no place in the mind of this affectionate and\nmanly-hearted boy.\n\n\"I believe you are right, grandfather,\" he said, \"and it's noble of\nyou to offer your services that way.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir!\"\n\nThe colonel turned as if to move toward the information desk at the\noffice, and then turned back.\n\n\"Pardon me!\" he said, \"but I forgot to inquire concerning your own\nerrand in the city.\"\n\n\"I am on my way to Canada, grandfather.\"\n\nA look of surprise came into the old man's eyes, followed at once by\nan expression of infinite scorn. He remembered that, in the days of\nthe civil war, slackers and rebel sympathizers who wished to evade the\ndraft made their way across the national border into Canada. They had\nreceived the contempt of their own generation and had drawn a\nfigurative bar-sinister across the shield of their descendants. Could\nit be possible that this grandchild of his was about to add disgrace\nto disloyalty? That, in addition to heaping insults on the flag of his\ncountry as a boy, he was now, as a man, taking time by the forelock\nand escaping to the old harbor of safety to avoid some possible future\nconscription? The absurdity and impracticability of such a proposition\ndid not occur to him at the moment, only the humiliation and the\nhorror of it.\n\n\"To Canada, sir?\" he demanded; \"the refuge of cowards and copperheads!\nWhy to Canada, sir, in the face of this impending crisis in your\ncountry's affairs?\"\n\nHis voice rose at the end in angry protest. The look of scorn that\nblazed from under his gray eye-brows was withering in its intensity.\nPen, who was sufficiently familiar with the history of the civil war\nto know what lay in his grandfather's mind, answered quickly but\nquietly:\n\n\"I am going to Canada to enlist.\"\n\n\"To--to what? Enlist?\"\n\n\"Yes; in the American Legion; to fight under the Union Jack in\nFrance.\"\n\nA pillar stood near by, and the colonel backed up against it for\nsupport. The shock of the surprise, the sudden revulsion of feeling,\nleft him nerveless.\n\n\"And you--you are going to war?\"\n\nHe could not quite believe it yet. He wanted confirmation.\n\n\"Yes, grandfather; I'm going to war. I couldn't stay out of it. Until\nmy own country takes up arms I'll fight under another flag. When she\ndoes get into it I hope to fight under the Stars and Stripes.\"\n\nA wonderful look came into the old man's face, a look of pride, of\nsatisfaction, of unadulterated joy. His mouth twitched as though he\ndesired to speak and could not. Then, suddenly, he thrust out his one\narm and seized Pen's hand in a mighty and affectionate grip. In that\nmoment the sorrow, the bitterness, the estrangement of years vanished,\nnever to return.\n\n\"I am proud of you, sir!\" he said. \"You are worthy of your illustrious\nancestors. You are maintaining the best traditions of Bannerhall.\"\n\n\"I'm glad you're pleased, grandfather.\"\n\n\"Pleased is too mild an expression. I am rejoiced. It is the proudest\nmoment of my life.\" He stepped away from the pillar, straightened his\nshoulders, and gazed benignantly on his grandson. \"Not that I\nespecially desire,\" he added after a moment, \"that you should be\nsubjected to the hazards and the hardships of a soldier's life. That\ngoes without saying. But it is the hazards and the hardships he faces\nthat make the soldier a hero. Death itself has no terrors for the\npatriotic brave. '_Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori._'\"\n\nHis eyes wandered away into some alluring distance and his thought\ninto the fields of memory, and for a moment he was silent. Nor did Pen\nspeak. He felt that the occasion was too momentous, the event too\nsacred to be spoiled by unnecessary words from him.\n\nIt was the colonel who at last broke the silence.\n\n\"It is not an opportune time,\" he said, \"to speak of the past. But, as\nto the future, you may rest in confidence. While you are absent your\nmother shall be looked after. Her every want shall be supplied. It\nwill be my delight to attend to the matter personally.\"\n\nSwift tears sprang to Pen's eyes. Surely the beautiful, the tender\nside of life was again turning toward him. It was with difficulty that\nhe was able sufficiently to control his voice to reply:\n\n\"Thank you, grandfather! You are very good to us.\"\n\n\"Do not mention it! How about your own wants? Have you money\nsufficient to carry you to your destination?\"\n\n\"Thank you! I have all the money I need.\"\n\n\"Very well. I shall communicate with you later, and see that you lack\nnothing for your comfort. Will you kindly send me your address when\nyou are permanently located in your training camp?\"\n\n\"Yes, I will.\"\n\nPen glanced at his watch and saw that he had but a few minutes left in\nwhich to catch his train.\n\n\"I'm sorry, grandfather,\" he said, \"but when I met you I was just\nstarting for the station to take my train north; and now, if I don't\nhurry, I'll get left.\"\n\nHe held out his hand and the old man grasped it anew.\n\n\"Penfield, my boy;\" his voice was firm and brave as he spoke.\n\"Penfield, my boy, quit yourself like the man that you are! Remember\nwhose blood courses in your veins! Remember that you are an American\ncitizen and be proud of it. Farewell!\"\n\nHe parted his white moustache, bent over, pressed a kiss upon his\ngrandson's forehead, swung him about to face the door, and watched his\nform as he retreated. When he turned again he found his friend,\nColonel Marshall, standing at his side.\n\n\"I have just bidden farewell,\" he said proudly, \"to my grandson,\nMaster Penfield Butler, who is leaving on the next train for Canada\nwhere he will go into training with the American Legion, and\neventually fight under the Union Jack, on the war-scarred fields of\nFrance.\"\n\n\"He is a brave and patriotic boy,\" replied Colonel Marshall.\n\n\"It is in his blood and breeding, sir. No Butler of my line was ever\nyet a coward, or ever failed to respond to a patriotic call.\"\n\nAnd as for Pen, midnight found him speeding northward with a heart\nmore full and grateful, and a purpose more splendidly fixed, than his\nlife had ever before known.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\n\nIt was late in the day following his departure from New York that Pen\nreached his destination in Canada. In a certain suburban town not far\nfrom Toronto he found a great training camp. It was here that selected\nunits of the new Dominion armies received their military instruction\nprior to being sent abroad. It was here also that many of the young\nmen from the States, desirous of fighting under the Union Jack, came\nto enlist with the Canadian troops and to receive their first lessons\nin the science of warfare. Canada was stirred as she had never been\nstirred before in all her history. Her troops already at the front had\nreceived their first great baptism of fire at Langemarck. They had\nfought desperately, they had won splendidly, but their losses had been\nappalling. So the young men of Canada, eager to avenge the slaughter\nof their countrymen, were hastening to fill the depleted ranks, and\nthe young men from the States were proud to bear them company.\n\nBut life in the training camps was no holiday. It was hard, steady,\nstrenuous business, carried on under the most rigid form of\ndiscipline. Yet the men were well clothed, well fed, had comfortable\nquarters, enjoyed regular periods of recreation, and were content with\ntheir lot, save that their eagerness to complete their training and\nget to the firing line inevitably manifested itself in expressions of\nimpatience.\n\nTo get up at 5:30 in the morning and drill for an hour before\nbreakfast was no great task, nor two successive hours of fighting with\ntipped bayonets, nor throwing of real bombs and hand-grenades, nor was\nthe back-breaking digging of trenches, nor the exhaustion from long\nmarches, if only by such experiences they could fit themselves\neventually to fight their enemy not only with courage but also with\nthat skill and efficiency which counts for so much in modern warfare.\n\nIt was ten days after Pen's enlistment that, being off duty, he\ncrossed the parade ground one evening and went into the large reading\nand recreation room of the Young Men's Christian Association,\nestablished and maintained there for the benefit of the troops in\ntraining. He had no errand except that he wished to write a letter to\nhis mother, and the conveniences offered made it a favorite place for\nletter writing.\n\nThere were few people in the room, for it was still early, and the\nwriting tables were comparatively unoccupied. But at one of them, with\nhis back to the entrance, sat a young man in uniform busy with his\ncorrespondence. Pen glanced at him casually as he sat down to write;\nhis quarter face only was visible. But the glance had left an\nimpression on his mind that the face and figure were those of some one\nhe had at some time known. He selected his writing paper and took up a\npen, but the feeling within him that he must look again and see if he\ncould possibly recognize his comrade in arms was too strong to be\nresisted. Apparently the feeling was mutual, for when Pen did turn his\neyes in the direction of the other visitor, he found that the young\nman had ceased writing, and was sitting erect in his chair and\nlooking squarely at him. It needed no second glance to convince him\nthat his companion was none other than Aleck Sands. For a moment there\nwas an awkward pause. It was apparent that the recognition was mutual,\nbut it was apparent also that in the shock of surprise neither boy\nknew quite what to do. It was Aleck who made the first move. He rose,\ncrossed the room to where Pen was sitting, and held out his hand.\n\n\"Pen,\" he said, \"are you willing to shake hands with me now? You know\nI was dog enough once to refuse a like offer from you.\"\n\n\"I'm not only willing but glad to, if you want to let bygones be\nbygones.\"\n\n\"I'll agree to that if you will agree to forgive me for what I've done\nagainst you and against the flag.\"\n\n\"What you've done against the flag?\"\n\nPen was staring at him in surprise. When had the burden of that guilt\nbeen shifted?\n\n\"Yes, I,\" answered Aleck. \"I did far more against the flag that day at\nChestnut Hill than you ever thought of doing. I haven't realized it\nuntil lately, but now that I do know it, I'm trying in every way I\npossibly can to make it right.\"\n\n\"Why, you didn't trample on it, nor speak of it disrespectfully, nor\nrefuse to apologize to it; it was I who did all that.\"\n\n\"I know, but I dogged you into it. If I myself had paid proper respect\nto the flag you would never have got into that trouble. Pen, I never\ndid a more unpatriotic, contemptible thing in my life than I did when\nI wrapped that flag around me and dared you to molest me. It was a\ncowardly use to make of the Stars and Stripes. Moreover, I did it\ndeliberately, and you--you acted on the impulse of the moment. It was\nI who committed the real fault, and it has been you who have suffered\nfor it.\"\n\n\"Well, I gave you a pretty good punching, didn't I?\"\n\n\"Yes, but the punching you gave me was not a thousandth part of what I\ndeserved; and, if you think it would even matters up any, I'd be\nperfectly willing to stand up to-night and let you knock me down a\ndozen times. Since this war came on I've despised myself more than I\ncan tell you for my treatment of the flag that day, and for my\ntreatment of you ever since.\"\n\nThat he was in dead earnest there could be no doubt. Phlegmatic and\nconservative by nature, when he was once roused he was not easily\nsuppressed. Pen began to feel sorry for him.\n\n\"You're too hard on yourself,\" he said. \"I think you did make a\nmistake that day, so did I. But we were both kids, and in a way we\nwere irresponsible.\"\n\n\"Yes, I know. There's something in that, to be sure. But that doesn't\nexcuse me for letting the thing go as I got older and knew better, and\nletting you bear all the blame and all the punishment, and never\nlifting a finger to try to help you out. That was mean and\ncontemptible.\"\n\n\"Well, it's all over now, so forget it.\"\n\n\"But I haven't been able to forget it. I've thought of it night and\nday for a year. A dozen times I've started to hunt you up and tell\nyou what I'm telling you to-night, and every time I've backed out. I\ncouldn't bear to face the music. And when I heard that they turned you\ndown when you tried to enlist in the Guard at Lowbridge, on account of\nthe old trouble, that capped the climax. I couldn't stand it any\nlonger; I felt that I had to shoulder my part of that burden somehow,\nand that the very best way for me to do it was to go and fight; and if\nI couldn't fight under my own flag, then to go and fight under the\nnext best flag, the Union Jack. I felt that after I'd had my baptism\nof fire I'd have the face and courage to go to you and tell you what\nI've been telling you now. But I'm glad it's over. My soul! I'm glad\nit's over!\"\n\nHe dropped into a chair by the table and rested his head on his open\nhand as though the recital of his story had exhausted him. Pen stood\nover him and laid a comforting arm about his shoulder.\n\n\"It's all right, old man!\" he said. \"You've done the fair thing, and a\ngreat lot more. Now let's call quits and talk about something else.\nWhen did you come up here?\"\n\n\"Five days ago. I'm just getting into the swing.\"\n\n\"Well, you're exactly the right sort. I'm mighty glad you're here.\nWe'll fix it so we can be in the same company, and bunk together. What\ndo you say?\"\n\n\"Splendid! if you're willing. Can it be done? I'm in company M of the\n--th Battalion.\"\n\n\"I know of the same thing having been done since I've been here. We'll\ntry it on, anyway.\"\n\nThey did try it on, and three days later the transfer was made. After\nthat they were comrades indeed, occupying the same quarters, marching\nshoulder to shoulder with each other in the ranks, sharing with each\nother all the comforts and privations of life in the barracks, moved\nby a common impulse of patriotism and chivalry, longing for the day to\ncome when they could prove their mettle under fire.\n\nBut it was not until February 1916 that they went abroad. After three\nmonths of intensive training they were hardened, supple, and skillful.\nBut their military education was not yet complete. Commanders of\narmies know that raw or semi-raw troops are worse than useless in\nmodern warfare. Soldiers in these days must know their business\nthoroughly if they are to meet an enemy on equal terms. They must be\nartisans as well as soldiers, laborers as well as riflemen, human\nmachines compounded of blood and courage.\n\nSo, in a great camp not far from London, there were three months more\nof drill and discipline and drastic preparation for the firing line.\n\nBut at last, in late May, when the young grass was green on England's\nlawns, and the wings of birds were flashing everywhere in the\nsunshine, and nature was rioting in leaf and flower, a troop-ship,\nladen to the gunwales with the finest and the best of Canada's young\npatriots and many of the most stalwart youth of the States, landed on\nthe welcoming shore of France. In England evidences of the great war\nhad been marked, abundant and harrowing. But here, in the country\nwhose soil had been invaded, the grim and stirring actualities of the\nmighty conflict were brought home to the onlooker with startling\ndistinctness. At the railroad station, where the troops entrained for\nthe front, every sight and sound was eloquent with the tenseness of\npreparation and the tragedy of the long fight. Soldiers were\neverywhere. Coats of blue, trousers of red, jackets of green, gave\ncolor and variety to the prevailing mass of sober khaki. Here too,\ndotting the hurrying throng, were the pathetic figures of the stricken\nand wounded, haggard, bandaged, limping, maimed, on canes and\ncrutches, back from the front, released from the hospitals, seeking\nthe rest and quiet that their sacrifices and heroism had so well\nearned. And here too, ministering to the needs of the suffering and\nthe helpless, were many of the white-robed nurses of the Red Cross.\n\nIt was evening when the train bearing the first section of the --th\nBattalion of Canadian Light Infantry to which Pen and Aleck belonged\nsteamed slowly out of the station. All night, in the darkness, across\nthe fields and through the fine old forests of northern France the\nslow rumble of the coaches, interrupted by many stops, kept up. But in\nthe gray of the early morning, a short distance beyond Amiens, in the\nmidst of a mist covered meadow, the train pulled up for the last time.\nThis had been fighting ground. Here the invading hosts of Germany had\nbeen met and driven back. Ruined farm houses, shattered trees, lines\nof old trenches scarring the surface of the meadow, all told their\neloquent tale of ruthless and devastating war. And yonder, in the\nvalley, the slow-moving Somme wound its shadowy way between green\nbanks and overhanging foliage as peacefully and beautifully as though\nits silent waters had never been flecked with the blood of dying men.\nEven now, as the troops detrained and marched to the sections of the\nfield assigned them, the dull and continuous roar of cannon in the\ndistance came to their ears with menacing distinctness.\n\n\"It's the thunder of the guns!\" exclaimed Pen. \"I hope to-morrow finds\nus where they're firing them.\"\n\n\"I'm with you,\" responded Aleck. \"I shall be frightened to death when\nthey first put me under fire, but the sooner I'm hardened to it the\nbetter.\"\n\n\"Tut! You'll be as brave as a lion. It's your kind that wins battles.\"\n\nPen turned his face toward a horizon lost in a haze of smoke, and the\nlook in his eyes showed that he at least, would be no coward when the\nsupreme moment came. Lieutenant Davis of their company strolled by;\nimpatiently waiting for further orders. He was a strict disciplinarian\nindeed, but he was very human and his men all loved him. Pen pointed\nin the direction from which came the muffled sounds of warfare.\n\n\"When shall we be there, Lieutenant?\" he asked.\n\n\"I don't know, Butler,\" was the response. \"It may be to-morrow; it may\nbe next month. Only those in high command know and they're not\ntelling. We may camp right here for weeks.\"\n\nBut they did not camp there. In the early evening there came marching\norders, and, under cover of darkness, the entire battalion swung into\na muddy and congested road and tramped along it for many hours. But\nthey got no nearer to the fighting line. Weary, hungry and thirsty,\nthey stopped at last on the face of a gently sloping hill protected\nfrom the north by a forest which had not yet suffered destruction\neither at the hands of sappers or from the violence of shells. It was\napparent that this had been a camp for a large body of troops before\nthe advancement of the lines. It was deserted now, but there were many\ncaves in the hillside, and hundreds of little huts made of earth and\nwood under the sheltering trunks and branches of the trees. It was in\none of these huts that Pen and Aleck, together with four of their\ncomrades, were billeted. It was not long after their arrival before\nhastily built fires were burning, and coffee, hot and fragrant, was\nbrewing, to refresh the tired bodies of the men, until the arrival of\nthe provision trains should supply them with a more substantial\nbreakfast. There was plenty of straw, however, and on that the weary\ntroops threw themselves down and slept.\n\nAt this camp the battalion remained until the middle of June. There\nwere drills, marching and battalion maneuvers by day, such recreation\nin the evenings as camp life could afford, sound sleeping on beds of\nstraw at night, and always, from the distance, sometimes loud and\ncontinuous, sometimes faint and occasional, the thunder of the guns.\nAnd always, too, along the muddy high-road at the foot of the slope, a\nnever-ending procession of provision and munition trains laboring\ntoward the front, and the human wreckage of the firing line, and\ntroops released from the trenches, passing painfully to the rear. No\nwonder the men grew impatient and longed for the activities of the\nfront even though their ears were ever filled with tales of horror\nfrom the lips of those who had survived the ordeal of battle.\n\nBut, soon after the middle of June, their desires were realized.\nOrders came to break camp and prepare to march, to what point no one\nseemed to know, but every one hoped and expected it would be to the\ntrenches. There was a day of bustle and hurry. The men stocked up\ntheir haversacks, filled their canteens and cartridge-boxes, put their\nguns in complete readiness, and at five o'clock in the afternoon were\nassembled and began their march. The road was ankle-deep with mud,\nfor there had been much rain, and it was congested with endless\nconvoys. There were many delays. A heavy mist fell and added to the\nuncertainty, the weariness and discomfort. But no complaint escaped\nfrom any man's lips, for they all felt that at last they were going\ninto action. Four hours of marching brought them into the neighborhood\nof the British heavy artillery concealed under branches broken from\ntrees or in mud huts, directing their fire on the enemy's lines by the\naid of signals from lookouts far in advance or in the air. The noise\nof these big guns was terrific, but inspiring. At nine o'clock there\nwas a halt of sufficient length to serve the men with coffee and\nbread, and then the march was resumed. By and by shells from the guns\nof the Allies began to shriek high over the heads of the marching men,\nand were replied to by the enemy shells humming and whining by,\nseeking out and endeavoring to silence the Allied artillery. Now and\nthen one of these missiles would burst in the rear of the column,\nsending up a glare of flame and a cloud of dust and debris, but at\nwhat cost in life no one in the line knew.\n\nAs the men advanced the mud grew deeper, the way narrower, the\ncongestion greater. The passing of enemy shells was less frequent, but\nprecautions for safety were increased. Advantage was taken of ravines,\nof fences, of fourth and fifth line trenches. The troops ere not\nbeyond range of the German sharpshooters, and the swish of bullets was\nheard occasionally in the air above the heads of the marchers.\n\nIt was toward morning that the destination of the column was reached,\nand, in single file, the men of Pen's section passed down an incline\ninto their first communicating trench, and then past a maze of lateral\ntrenches to the opening into the salients they were to supply. It was\nhere that the soldiers whom they were to relieve filed out by them.\nGoing forward, they took the places of the retiring section. At last\nthey were in the first line trench, with the enemy trenches scarcely a\nhundred meters in front of them. Sentries were placed at the\nloop-holes made in the earth embankment, and the remainder of the\nsection retired to their dug-outs. These under-ground rooms, built\ndown and out from the trench, and bomb-proof, were capable of holding\nfrom eight to a dozen men. They were carpeted with straw, some of them\nhad shelves, and in many of them discarded bayonets were driven into\nthe walls to form hooks. It was in these places that the men who were\noff duty rested and ate and slept.\n\nIn the gray light of the early June morning, Pen, who had been posted\nat one of the loop-holes as a listening sentry, looked out to see what\nlay in front of him. But the most that could be seen were the long and\nwinding earth embankments that marked the lines of the German\nentrenchments, and between, on \"no man's land,\" a maze of barbed wire\nentanglements. No living human being was in sight, but, at one place,\ncrumpled up, partly sustained by meshes of wire, there was a ragged\nheap, the sight of which sent a chill to the boy's heart. It required\nno second glance to discover that this was the unrescued body of a\nsoldier who had been too daring. Pen had seen his first war-slain\ncorpse. Indeed, war was becoming to him now a reality. For, suddenly,\na little of the soft earth at his side spattered into his face. An\nenemy bullet had struck there. In his eagerness to see he had exposed\ntoo much of his head and shoulders and had become the target for Boche\nsharpshooters. Other bullets pattered down around his loop-hole, and\nonly by seeking the quick shelter of the trench did he escape injury\nor death. It was his first lesson in self-protection on the\nfiring-line, but he profited by it. Two hours later he and Aleck, who\nhad also been doing duty on a lookout platform, were relieved by their\ncomrades, and threw themselves down on the straw of their dug-out and,\nwearied to the point of exhaustion, slept soundly. With the dawning of\nday the noise of cannonading increased, the whining of deadly missiles\ngrew more incessant, the crash of exploding shells more frequent, but,\nuntil they were roused by their sergeant and bidden to eat their\nbreakfast which had been brought by a ration-party, both boys slept.\nSo soon had the menacing sounds of war become familiar to their ears.\nAfter breakfast those who were not on sentry duty were put to work\nrepairing trenches, filling sand-bags, enlarging dug-outs, pumping\nwater from low places, cleaning rifles, performing a hundred tasks\nwhich were necessary to make trench life endurable and reasonably\nsafe. The food was good and was still abundant. There were fresh meat,\nbacon, canned soups and vegetables, bread, butter, jam and coffee. The\ntwo hours on sentry duty were by far the most strenuous in the daily\nroutine. To remain in one position, with eyes glued to the narrow slit\nin the embankment, gas mask at hand, hand-grenades in readiness, rifle\nin position ready to be discharged on the second, the fate of the\nwhole army perhaps resting on one man's vigilance, this was no easy\ntask.\n\nBut there were no complaints. The men were on the firing line, ready\nto obey orders, whatever they might be; they asked only one thing\nmore, and that was to fight. But, in these days, there was a lull in\nthe actual fighting. The \"big drive\" had not yet been launched. Aside\nfrom a skirmish now and then, a fierce bombardment for a few hours,\nan attempt, on one side or the other, to rush a trench, there was\nlittle aggressive warfare in this neighborhood, and few casualties;\nnor was there any material variance in the front lines of trenches on\neither side. There were six days of this kind of duty and then the men\nof Pen's company were relieved and sent to the rear for a week's rest,\nto act as reserves, and to be called during that time only in case of\nan emergency. But the following week saw them again at the front; not\nin the same trench where they had first served, but in an advanced\nposition farther to the south. The trenches here were not so roomy nor\nso dry as had been those of the first assignment. There was much mud,\nslippery and deep, to be contended with, and the walls at the sides\nwere continually caving in. The duties of the men, however, were not\nmaterially different from those with which they were already familiar.\nClashes had been more frequent here, and the dead bodies of soldiers,\ncrumpled up in the trench or lying, unrescued, on the scarred and\nfire-swept surface of \"no man's land\" were not an unusual sight. But\nthe \"rookies\" were becoming hardened now to many of the horrors of\nwar.\n\nIt was while they were in this trench that Pen had his \"baptism of\nfire.\" Late one afternoon the German artillery began shelling fiercely\nthe first line of Allied trenches. Aleck and Pen were both on sentry\nduty. Just beyond them Lieutenant Davis stood at an advanced lookout\npost intent on studying the outside situation by means of his\nperiscope. At irregular intervals machine guns, deftly hidden from the\nsight of the enemy, poked their menacing mouths toward the Boche\nlines. Now and then, finding its mark at some point in the course of\nthe winding trench, an enemy shell would explode throwing clouds of\ndust and debris into the air, wrecking the earthworks where it fell,\ntaking its toll of human lives and limbs. Twice Pen was thrown off his\nfeet by the shock of near-by explosions, but he escaped injury, as did\nalso Aleck. It was apparent that the Germans were either making a\nfeint for the purpose of attacking at some unexpected point, or else\nthat they were preparing for a charge on the trenches which they were\nbombarding. It developed that the latter theory was the correct one,\nfor, after a while, they directed their fire to the rear of the first\nline trenches, and set up a still more furious bombardment. This, as\nevery one knew, was for the purpose of preventing the British from\nbringing up reinforcements, and to give their own troops the\nopportunity to charge into the Allied front. The charge was not long\ndelayed. A gray wave poured over the parapet of the German first line\ntrench, rolled through the prepared openings in their own barbed-wire\nentanglements, and advanced, alternately running and creeping, toward\nthe Allied line. But when the Germans were once in the open a terrible\nthing happened to them. The machine guns from all along the British\ntrenches met them with a rain of bullets that mowed them down as grain\nfalls to the blades of the farmer's reaper. The rifles of the men in\nkhaki, resting on the benches of the parapet, spit constant and deadly\nfire at them. The artillery to the rear, in constant telephone touch\nwith the first line, quickly found the range and dropped shells into\nthe charging mass with terrible effect. A second body of gray-clad\nsoldiers with fixed bayonets swarmed out of the German trenches and\ncame to the help of their hard-beset comrades, and met a similar fate.\nThen a third platoon came on, and a fourth. The resources of the enemy\nin men seemed endless, their persistence remarkable, their\nrecklessness in the face of sure death almost unbelievable. The noise\nwas terrific; the constant rattle of the machine guns, the spitting of\nrifles, the booming of the artillery, the whining and crashing of\nshells, the yells of the charging troops, the shrieks of the wounded.\nIn the British trenches the men were assembled, ready to pour out at\nthe whistle and repel the assault on open ground; but it was not\nnecessary for them to do so. The German ranks, unable to withstand the\nfire that devoured them as they met it, a fire that it was humanly\nimpossible for any troops to withstand, turned back and sought the\nshelter of their trenches, leaving their dead and wounded piled and\nsprawled by the hundreds on the ground they had failed to cross.\n\nThe casualties among the Canadian troops were not large, and they had\noccurred mostly before the charge had been launched, but it was in\ndeep sorrow that the men from across the ocean gathered up from the\nshattered trenches the pierced and broken bodies of their comrades,\nand sent them to the rear, the living to be cared for in the\nhospitals, the dead to be buried on the soil of France where they had\nbravely fought and nobly died.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\n\nThe great Somme drive began on July 1, 1916, after a week's\ndevastating bombardment of the German lines. The enemy trenches had\nbeen torn and shattered, and when the Allied armies, in great numbers\nand with abundant ammunition, swept out and down upon them, the\nimpetus and force of the advance were irresistible. Trenches were\nblotted out. Towns were taken. The German lines melted away over wide\nareas. Victory, decisive and permanent, rested on the Allied banners.\nOn the third of the month the British took La Boiselle and four\nthousand three hundred prisoners. But on the fourth the enemy troops\nturned and fought like wild animals at bay. This was the day on which\nAleck received his wounds. In the morning, as they lay sprawled in a\nravine which had been captured the night before, waiting for orders to\npush still farther on, Aleck had said to Pen:\n\n\"You know what day this is, comrade?\"\n\n\"Indeed I do!\" was the reply, \"it's Independence Day.\"\n\n\"Right you are. I wish I could get sight of an American flag. It will\nbe the first time in my life that I haven't seen 'Old Glory' somewhere\non the Fourth of July.\"\n\n\"True. Back yonder in the States they'll be having parades and\nspeeches, and the flag will be flying from every masthead. If only\nthey could be made to realize that it's really that flag that we're\nfighting for, you and I, and drop this cloak of neutrality, and come\nover here as a nation and help us, wouldn't that be glorious?\"\n\nPen's face was grimy, his uniform was torn and stained, his hair was\ntousled; somewhere he had lost his cap and the times were too\nstrenuous to get another; but out from his eyes there shone a\ntenderness, a longing, a determination that marked him as a true\nsoldier of the American Legion.\n\nThe cannonading had again begun. Shells were whining and whistling\nabove their heads and exploding in the enemy lines not far beyond.\nOff to the right, a village in flames sent up great clouds of smoke,\nand the roar of the conflagration was joined to the noise of\nartillery. Back of the lines the ground was strewn with wreckage,\npitted with shell-holes, ghastly with its harvest of bodies of the\nslain. With rifles gripped, bayonets ready, hand grenades near by, the\nboys lay waiting for the word of command.\n\n\"Aleck?\"\n\n\"Yes, comrade.\"\n\n\"Over yonder at Chestnut Hill, on the school-grounds, the flag will be\nfloating from the top of the staff to-day.\"\n\n\"Yes, I know. It will be a pretty sight. I used to be ashamed to look\nat it. You know why. To-day I could stare at it and glory in it for\nhours.\"\n\n\"That flag at the school-house is the most beautiful American flag in\nthe world. I never saw it but once, but it thrilled me then\nunspeakably. I have loved it ever since. I can think of but one other\nsight that would be more beautiful and thrilling.\"\n\n\"And what is that?\"\n\n\"To see 'Old Glory' waving from the top of a flag-staff here on the\nsoil of France, signifying that our country has taken up the cause of\nthe Allies and thrown herself, with all her heart and might into this\nwar.\"\n\n\"Wait; you will see it, comrade, you will see it. It can't be delayed\nfor long now.\"\n\nThen the order came to advance. In a storm of shrapnel, bullets and\nflame, the British host swept down again upon the foe. The Germans\ngave desperate and deadly resistance. They fought hand to hand, with\nbayonets and clubbed muskets and grenades. It was a death grapple,\nwith decisive victory on neither side. In the wild onrush and terrific\nclash, Pen lost touch with his comrade. Only once he saw him after the\ncharge was launched. Aleck waved to him and smiled and plunged into\nthe thick of the carnage. Two hours later, staggering with shock and\nheat and superficial wounds, and choking with thirst and the smoke and\ndust of conflict, Pen made his way with the survivors of his section\nback over the ground that had been traversed, to find rest and\nrefreshment at the rear. They had been relieved by fresh troops sent\nin to hold the narrow strip of territory that had been gained.\nStumbling along over the torn soil, through wreckage indescribable,\namong dead bodies lying singly and in heaps, stopping now and then to\naid a dying man, or give such comfort as he could to a wounded and\nhelpless comrade, Pen struggled slowly and painfully toward a resting\nspot.\n\nAt one place, through eyes half blinded by sweat and smoke and\ntrickling blood, he saw a man partially reclining against a post to\nwhich a tangled and broken mass of barbed wire was still clinging. The\nman was evidently making weak and ineffectual attempts to care for his\nown wounds. Pen stopped to assist him if he could. Looking down into\nhis face he saw that it was Aleck. He was not shocked, nor did he\nmanifest any surprise. He had seen too much of the actuality of war to\nbe startled now by any sight or sound however terrible. He simply\nsaid:\n\n\"Well, old man, I see they got you. Here, let me help.\"\n\nHe knelt down by the side of his wounded comrade, and, with shaking\nhands, endeavored to staunch the flow of blood and to bind up two\ndreadful wounds, a gaping, jagged hole in the breast beneath the\nshoulder, made by the thrust and twist of a Boche bayonet, and a torn\nand shattered knee.\n\nAleck did not at first recognize him, but a moment later, seeing who\nit was that had stopped to help him, he reached up a trembling hand\nand laid it on his friend's face. Something in his mouth or throat had\ngone wrong and he could not speak.\n\nAfter exhausting his comrade's emergency kit and his own in first aid\ntreatment of the wounds, Pen called for assistance to a soldier who\nwas staggering by, and between them, across the torn field with its\ncrimson and ghastly fruitage, with fragments of shrapnel hurtling\nabove them, and with bodies of soldiers, dead and living, tossed into\nthe murky air by constantly exploding shells, they half carried, half\ndragged the wounded man across the ravine and up the hill to a\ncaptured German trench, and turned him over to the stretcher-bearers\nto be taken to the ambulances.\n\nIt was after this day's fighting that Pen, \"for conspicuous bravery in\naction,\" was promoted to the rank of sergeant. He wore his honor\nmodestly. It gave him, perhaps, a better opportunity to do good work\nfor Britain and for France, and to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of\nhis own countrymen; otherwise it did not matter.\n\nSo the fighting on the Somme went on day after day, week after week,\npersistent, desperate, bloody. It was early in August, after the\nterrific battle by which the whole of Delville Wood passed into\nBritish control, that Pen's battalion was relieved and sent far to the\nrear for a long rest. Even unwounded men cannot stand the strain of\ncontinuous battle for many weeks at a stretch. The nervous system,\ndelicate and complicated, must have relief, or the physical\norganization will collapse, or the mind give way, or both.\n\nAt the end of the first night's march from the front the battalion\ncamped in the streets of a little, half-wrecked village on the banks\nof the Avre. Up on the hillside was a long, rambling building which\nhad once been a convent but was now a hospital. Pen knew that\nsomewhere in a hospital back of the Somme Aleck was still lying, too\nill to be moved farther to the rear. It occurred to him that he might\nfind him here. So, in the hazy moonlight of the August evening, having\nobtained the necessary leave, he set out to make inquiry. He passed up\nthe winding walk, under a canopy of fine old trees, and reached the\nentrance to the building. From the porch, looking to the north, toward\nthe valley of the Somme, he could see on the horizon the dull gleam of\nred that marked the battle line, and he could hear the faint\nreverberations of the big guns that told of the fighting still in\nprogress. But here it was very quiet, very peaceful, very beautiful.\nFor the first time since his entrance into the great struggle he\nlonged for an end of the strife, and a return to the calm, sweet,\nlovely things of life. But he did not permit this mood to remain long\nwith him. He knew that the war must go on until the spirit that\nlaunched it was subdued and crushed, and that he must go with it to\nwhatever end God might will.\n\nHe found Aleck there. He had felt that he would, and while he was\ndelighted he was not greatly surprised. There was little emotion\nmanifested at the meeting of the two boys. The horrors of war were too\nclose and too vivid yet for that. But the fact that they were glad to\nlook again into one another's eyes admitted of no doubt. Aleck had\nrecovered the use of his voice, but he was still too weak to talk at\nany length. The bayonet wound in his shoulder had healed nicely, but\nhis shattered knee had come terribly near to costing him his life.\nThere had been infection. Amputation of the leg had been imminent. The\nsurgeons and the nurses had struggled with the case for weeks and had\nfinally conquered.\n\n\"I shall still have two legs,\" said Aleck jocosely, \"and I'll be glad\nof that; but I'm afraid this one will be a weak brother for a long\ntime. I won't be kicking football this fall, anyway.\"\n\n\"It's the fortune of war,\" replied Pen.\n\n\"I know. I'm not complaining, and I'm not sorry. I've had my chance.\nI've seen war. I've fought for France. I'm satisfied.\"\n\nHe lay back on the pillow, pale-faced, emaciated, weak; but in his\neyes was a glow of patriotic pride in his own suffering, and pride in\nthe knowledge that he had entered the fight and had fought bravely and\nwell.\n\n\"America ought to be proud of you,\" said Pen, \"and of all the other\nboys from the States who have fought and suffered, and of those who\nhave died in this war. I told you you'd be no coward when the time\ncame to fight, and, my faith! you were not. I can see you now, with a\nsmile and a wave of the hand plunging into that bloody chaos.\"\n\n\"Thank you, comrade! I may never fight again, but I can go back home\nnow and face the flag and not be ashamed.\"\n\n\"Indeed, you can! And when will you go?\"\n\n\"I don't know. They'll take me across the channel as soon as I'm able\nto leave here, and then, when I can travel comfortably I suppose I'll\nbe invalided home.\"\n\n\"Well, old man, when you get there, you say to my mother and my aunt\nMilly, and my dear old grandfather Butler, that when you saw me last\nI was well, and contented, and glad to be doing my bit.\"\n\n\"I will, Pen.\"\n\n\"And, Aleck?\"\n\n\"Yes, comrade.\"\n\n\"If you should chance to go by the school-house, and see the old flag\nwaving there, give it one loving glance for me, will you?\"\n\n\"With all my heart!\"\n\n\"So, then, good-by!\"\n\n\"Good-by!\"\n\nIt was in the spacious grounds of an old French ch\u00e2teau not far from\nBeauvais on the river Andelle that Pen's battalion camped for their\nperiod of rest and recuperation. There were long, sunshiny days,\nnights of undisturbed and refreshing sleep, recreation and\nentertainment sufficient to divert tired brains, and a freedom from\nundue restraint that was most welcome. Moreover there were letters and\nparcels from home, with plenty of time to read them and to re-read\nthem, to dwell upon them and to enjoy them. If the loved ones back in\nthe quiet cities and villages and countryside could only realize how\nmuch letters and parcels from home mean to the tired bodies and\nstrained nerves of the war-worn boys at the front, there would never\nbe a lack of these comforts and enjoyments that go farther than\nanything else to brighten the lives and hearten the spirits of the\nsoldier-heroes in the trenches and the camps.\n\nPen had his full share of these pleasures. His mother, his Aunt\nMillicent, Colonel Butler, and even Grandpa Walker from Cobb's\nCorners, kept him supplied with news, admonition, encouragement and\naffection. And these little waves of love and commendation, rolling up\nto him at irregular intervals, were like sweet and fragrant draughts\nof life-giving air to one who for months had breathed only the smoke\nof battle and the foulness of the trenches.\n\nAt the end of August, orders came for the battalion to return to the\nfront. There were two days of bustling preparation, and then the\ntroops entrained and were carried back to where the noise of the\nseventy-fives on the one side and the seventy-sevens on the other,\ncame rumbling and thundering again to their ears, and the pall of\nsmoke along the horizon marked the location of the firing line.\n\nBut their destination this time was farther to the south, on the\nBritish right wing, where French and English soldiers touched elbows\nwith each other, and Canadian and Australian fraternized in a common\nenterprise. Here again the old trench life was resumed; sentinel duty,\ndaring adventures, wild charges, the shock and din of constant battle,\nbrief periods of rest and recuperation. But the process of attrition\nwas going on, the enemy was being pushed back, inch by inch it seemed,\nbut always, eventually, back. As for Pen, he led a charmed life. Men\nfell to right of him and to left of him, and were torn into shreds at\nhis back; but, save for superficial wounds, for temporary\nstrangulation from gas, for momentary insensibility from shock, he was\nunharmed.\n\nIt was in October, after Lieutenant Davis had been promoted to the\ncaptaincy, that Pen was made second lieutenant of his company. He well\ndeserved the honor. There was a little celebration of the event among\nhis men, for his comrades all loved him and honored him. They said it\nwould not be long before he would be wearing the Victoria Cross on his\nbreast. Yet few of them had been with him from the beginning. Of those\nwho had landed with him upon French soil the preceding May only a\npitifully small percentage remained. Killed, wounded, missing, one by\none and in groups, they had dropped out, and the depleted ranks had\nbeen filled with new blood.\n\nIn November they were sent up into the Arras sector, but in December\nthey were back again in their old quarters on the Somme. And yet it\nwas not their old quarters, for the British front had been advanced\nover a wide area, for many miles in length, and imperturbable Tommies\nwere now smoking their pipes in many a reversed trench that had\ntheretofore been occupied by gray-clad Boches. But they were not\npleasant trenches to occupy. They were very narrow and very muddy, and\nparts of the bodies of dead men protruded here and there from their\nwalls and parapets. Moreover, in December it is very cold in northern\nFrance, and, muffle as they would, even the boys from Canada suffered\nfrom the severity of the weather. They asked only to be permitted to\nkeep their blood warm by aggressive action against their enemy. And,\njust before the Christmas holidays, the aggressive action they had\nlonged for came.\n\nIt was no great battle, no important historic event, just an incident\nin the policy of attrition which was constantly wearing away the\nGerman lines. An attempt was to be made to drive a wedge into the\nenemy's front at a certain vital point, and, in order to cover the\nreal thrust, several feints were to be made at other places not far\naway. One of these latter expeditions had been intrusted to a part of\nPen's battalion. At six o'clock in the afternoon the British artillery\nwas to bombard the first line of enemy trenches for an hour and a\nhalf. Then the artillery fire was to lift to the second line, and the\nCanadian troops were to rush the first line with the bayonet, carry\nit, and when the artillery fire lifted to the third line they were to\npass on to the second hostile trench and take and hold that for a\nsufficient length of time to divert the enemy from the point of real\nattack, and then they were to withdraw to their own lines. Permanent\noccupation of the captured trenches at the point seemed inadvisable at\nthis time, if not wholly impossible.\n\nIt was not a welcome task that had been assigned to these troops.\nSoldiers like to hold the ground they have won in any fight; and to\nretire after partial victory was not to their liking. But it was part\nof the game and they were content. So far as his section was concerned\nPen assembled his men, explained the situation to them, and told them\nfrankly what they were expected to do.\n\n\"It's going to be a very pretty fight,\" he added, \"probably the\nhardest tussle we've had yet. The Boches are well dug in over there,\nand they're well backed with artillery, and they're not going to give\nup those trenches without a protest. Some of us will not come back;\nand some of us who do come back will never fight again. You know that.\nBut, whatever happens, Canada and the States will have no reason to\nblush for us. We're fighting in a splendid cause, and we'll do our\npart like the soldiers we are.\"\n\n\"Aye! that we will!\" \"Right you are!\" \"Give us the chance!\" \"Wherever\nyou lead, we follow!\"\n\nIt seemed as though every man in the section gave voice to his\nwillingness and enthusiasm.\n\n\"Good!\" exclaimed Pen. \"I knew you'd feel that way about it. I've\nnever asked a man of you to go where I wouldn't go myself, and I never\nshall. I simply wanted to warn you that it's going to be a hot place\nover there to-night, and you must be prepared for it.\"\n\n\"We're ready! All you've got to do is to say the word.\"\n\nNo undue familiarity was intended; respect for their commander was in\nno degree lessened, but they loved him and would have followed him\nanywhere, and they wanted him to know it.\n\nThe unusual activity in the Allied trenches, observed by enemy\naircraft, combined with the terrific cannonading of their lines, had\nevidently convinced the enemy that some aggressive movement against\nthem was in contemplation, for their artillery fire now, at seven\no'clock, was directed squarely upon the outer lines of British\ntrenches, bringing havoc and horror in the wake of the exploding\nshells.\n\nIt was under this galling bombardment that the men of the second\nsection adjusted their packs, buckled the last strap of their\nequipment, took firm bold of their rifles, and crouched against the\nfront wall of their trench, ready for the final spring.\n\n[Illustration: Into the Face of Death He Led the Remnant of His Brave\nPlatoon]\n\nAt seven-thirty o'clock the order came. It was a sharp blast of a\nwhistle, made by the commanding officer. The next moment, led by\nLieutenant Butler, the men were up, sliding over the parapet, worming\ntheir way through gaps in their own wire entanglements, and forming in\nthe semblance of a line outside. It all took but a minute, and then\nthe rush toward the enemy trenches began. It seemed as though every\ngun of every calibre in the German army was let loose upon them. The\nartillery shortened its range and dropped exploding shells among them\nwith dreadful effect. Machine guns mowed them down in swaths.\nHand-grenades tore gaps in their ranks. Rifle bullets, hissing like\nhail, took terrible toll of them. Out of the blackness overhead, lit\nwith the flame of explosions, fell a constant rain of metal, of clods\nof earth, of fragments of equipment, of parts of human bodies. The\nexperience was wild and terrible beyond description.\n\nPen took no note of the whining and crashing missiles about him, nor\nof the men falling on both sides of him, nor of the shrieking,\ngesticulating human beings behind him. Into the face of death, his\neyes fixed on the curtain of fire before him, heroic and inspired, he\nled the remnant of his brave platoon. Through the gaps torn out of the\nenemy entanglements by the preliminary bombardment, and on into the\nfirst line of Boche entrenchments they pounded and pushed their way.\nThen came fighting indeed; hand to hand, with fixed bayonets and\nclubbed muskets and death grapples in the darkness, and everywhere,\nsmearing and soaking the combatants, the blood of men. But the first\ntrench, already battered into a shapeless and shallow ravine, was won.\nCanada was triumphant. The curtain of artillery fire lifted and fell\non the enemy's third line. So, now, forward again, leaving the\n\"trench cleaners\" to hunt out those of the enemy who had taken\nrefuge in holes and caves. Again the rain of hurtling and hissing and\ncrashing steel. Human fortitude and endurance were indeed no match for\nthis. Again the clubs and bayonets and wild men reaching with\nblood-smeared hands for each other's throats in the darkness.\n\nAnd then, to Penfield Butler, at last, came the soldier's destiny. It\nseemed as though some mighty force had struck him in the breast,\nwhirled him round and round, toppled him to earth, and left him lying\nthere, crushed, bleeding and unconscious. How long it was that he lay\noblivious of the conflict he did not know. But when he awakened to\nsensibility the rush of battle had ceased. There was no fighting\naround him. He had a sense of great suffocation. He knew that he was\nspitting blood. He tried to raise his hand, and his revolver fell from\nthe nerveless fingers that were still grasping it. A little later he\nraised his other hand to his breast and felt that his clothing was\ntorn and soaked. He lifted his head, and in the light of an enemy\nflare he looked about him. He saw only the torn soil covered with\ncrouched and sprawling bodies of the wounded and the dead, and with\nwreckage indescribable. Bullets were humming and whistling overhead,\nand spattering the ground around him. Men in the agony of their wounds\nwere moaning and crying near by. He lay back and tried to think. By\nthe light of the next flare he saw the rough edge of a great\nshell-hole a little way beyond him toward the British lines. In the\ndarkness he tried to crawl toward it. It would be safer there than in\nthis whistling cross-fire of bullets. He did not dare try to rise. He\ncould not turn himself on his stomach, the pain and sense of\nsuffocation were too great when he attempted it. So he pulled himself\nalong in the darkness on his back to the cavity, and sought shelter\nwithin it. Bodies of others who had attempted to run or creep to it,\nand had been caught by Boche bullets on the way, were hanging over its\nedge. Under its protecting shoulder were many wounded, treating their\nown injuries, helping others as they could in the darkness and by the\nfitful light of the German flares. Some one, whose friendly voice was\nhalf familiar, yet sounded strange and far away, dragged the exhausted\nboy still farther into shelter, felt of his blood-soaked chest, and\nendeavored, awkwardly and crudely, for he himself was wounded, to give\nfirst aid. And then again came unconsciousness.\n\nSo, in the black night, in the shell-made cavern with the pall of\nflame-streaked battle smoke hanging over it, and the whining,\nscreaming missiles from guns of friend and foe weaving a curtain of\ntangled threads above it, this young soldier of the American Legion,\nhis breast shot half in two, his rich blood reddening the soil of\nFrance, lay steeped in merciful oblivion.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\n\nWhen Colonel Butler declared his intention of going to New York and\nWashington to consult with his friends about the great war, to urge\nactive participation in it by the United States, and to offer to the\nproper authorities, his services as a military expert and commander,\nhis daughter protested vigorously. It was absurd, she declared, for\nhim, at his age, to think of doing anything of the kind; utterly\npreposterous and absurd. But he would not listen to her. His mind was\nmade up, and she was entirely unable to divert him from his purpose.\n\n\"Then I shall go with you,\" she declared.\n\n\"May I ask,\" he inquired, \"what your object is in wishing to accompany\nme?\"\n\n\"Because you're not fit to go alone. You're too old and feeble, and\nsomething might happen to you.\"\n\nHe turned on her a look of infinite scorn.\n\n\"Age,\" he replied, \"is no barrier to patriotism. A man's obligation to\nserve his country is not measured by his years. I have never been more\ncapable of taking the field against an enemy of civilization than I am\nat this moment. To suggest that I am not fit to travel unless\naccompanied by a female member of my family falls little short of\nbeing gross disrespect. I shall go alone.\"\n\nAgain she protested, but she was utterly unable to swerve him a hair's\nbreadth from his determination and purpose. So she was obliged to see\nhim start off by himself on his useless and Quixotic errand. She knew\nthat he would return disappointed, saddened, doubly depressed, and ill\nboth in body and mind.\n\nSince Pen's abrupt departure to seek a home with his Grandpa Walker,\nColonel Butler had not been so obedient to his daughter's wishes. He\nhad changed in many respects. He had grown old, white-haired, feeble\nand despondent. He was often ill at ease, and sometimes morose. That\nhe grieved over the boy's absence there was not a shadow of doubt. Yet\nhe would not permit the first suggestion of a reconciliation that did\nnot involve the humble application of his grandson to be forgiven and\ntaken back. But such an application was not made. The winter days went\nby, spring blossomed into summer, season followed season, and not yet\nhad the master of Bannerhall seen coming down the long, gray road to\nthe old home the figure of a sorrowful and suppliant boy.\n\nWhen the world war began, his mind was diverted to some extent from\nhis sorrow. From the beginning his sympathies had been with the\nAllies. Old soldier that he was he could not denounce with sufficient\nbitterness the spirit of militarism that seemed to have run rampant\namong the Central Powers. At the invasion of Belgium and at the\nmistreatment of her people, especially of her women and children, at\nthe bombardment of the cathedral of Rheims, at the sinking of the\n_Lusitania_, at the execution of Edith Cavell, at all the outrages of\nwhich German militarism was guilty, he grew more and more indignant\nand denunciatory. His sense of fairness, his spirit of chivalry, his\nideas of honorable warfare and soldierly conduct were inexpressibly\nshocked. The murder of sleeping women and children in country villages\nby the dropping of bombs from airships, the suffocation of brave\nsoldiers by the use of deadly gases, the hurling of liquid fire into\nthe ranks of a civilized enemy; these things stirred him to the\ndepths. He talked of the war by day, he dreamed of it at night. He\nchafed bitterly at the apparent attempt of the Government at\nWashington to preserve the neutrality of this country against the most\nprovoking wrongs. It was our war, he declared, as much as it was the\nwar of any nation in Europe, and it was our duty to get into it for\nthe sake of humanity, at the earliest possible moment and at any cost.\nHis intense feeling and profound conviction in the matter led finally\nto his determination to make the trip to New York and Washington in\norder to present his views and make his recommendations, and to offer\nhis services in person, in quarters where he believed they would be\nwelcomed and acted on. So he went on what appeared to his daughter to\nbe the most preposterous errand he had ever undertaken.\n\nHe returned even sooner than she had expected him to come. In response\nto his telegram she sent the carriage to the station to meet him on\nthe arrival of the afternoon train. When she heard the rumbling of the\nwheels outside she went to the door, knowing that it would require her\nbest effort to cheerfully welcome the disappointed, dejected and\nenfeebled old man. Then she had the surprise of her life. Colonel\nButler alighted from the carriage and mounted the porch steps with the\nelasticity of youth. He was travel-stained and weary, indeed; but his\nface, from which half the wrinkles seemed to have disappeared, was\nbeaming with happiness. He kissed his daughter, and, with\nold-fashioned courtesy, conducted her to a porch chair. In her mind\nthere could be but one explanation for his extraordinary appearance\nand conduct; the purpose of his journey had been accomplished and his\nlast absurd wish had been gratified.\n\n\"I suppose,\" she said, with a sigh, \"they have agreed to adopt your\nplans, and take you back into the army.\"\n\n\"Into the what, my dear?\"\n\n\"Into the army. Didn't you go to Washington for the purpose of getting\nback into service?\"\n\n\"Why, yes. I believe I did. Pardon me, but, in view of matters of much\ngreater importance, the result of this particular effort had slipped\nmy mind.\"\n\n\"Matters of greater importance?\"\n\n\"Yes. I was about to inform you that while I was in New York I\nunexpectedly ran across my grandson, Master Penfield Butler.\"\n\nShe sat up with a look of surprise and apprehension in her eyes.\n\n\"Ran across Pen? What was he doing there?\"\n\n\"He was on his way to Canada to join those forces of the Dominion\nGovernment which will eventually sail for France, and help to free\nthat unhappy country from the heel of the barbarian.\"\n\n\"You mean--?\"\n\n\"I mean that Penfield was to enlist, has doubtless now already\nenlisted, with the Canadian troops which, after a period of drilling\nat home, will enter the war on the firing line in northern France.\"\n\n\"Well, for goodness sake!\" It was all that Aunt Millicent could say,\nand when she had said that she practically collapsed.\n\n\"Yes,\" he rejoined, \"he felt as did I, that the time had come for\nAmerican citizens, both old and young, with red blood in their veins,\nto spill that blood, if necessary, in fighting for the liberty of the\nworld. Patriotism, duty, the spirit of his ancestors, called him, and\nhe has gone.\"\n\nColonel Butler was radiant. His eyes were aglow with enthusiasm. His\nown recommendations for national conduct had gone unheeded indeed, and\nhis own offer of military service had been civilly declined; but these\nfacts were of small moment compared with the proud knowledge that a\nyoung scion of his race was about to carry the family traditions and\nprestige into the battle front of the greatest war for liberty that\nthe world had ever known.\n\nIn Pen's second letter home from Canada he told of the arrival and\nenlistment of Aleck Sands, and of the complete blotting out of the old\nfeud that had existed between them. Later on he wrote them, in many\nletters, all about his barrack life, and of how contented and happy he\nwas, and how eagerly he was looking forward to the day when he and his\ncomrades should cross the water to those countries where the great war\nwas a reality. The letter that he wrote the day before he sailed was\nfilled with the brightness of enthusiasm and the joy of anticipation.\nAnd while the long period of drill on English soil became somewhat\nirksome to him, as one reading between the lines could readily\ndiscover, he made no direct complaint. It was simply a part of the\ngame. But it was when he had reached the front, and his letters\nbreathed the sternness of the conflict and echoed the thunder of the\nguns, that he was at his best in writing. Mere salutations some of\nthem were, written from the trenches by the light of a dug-out candle,\nbut they pulsated with patriotism and heroism and a determination to\nlive up to the best traditions of a soldier's career.\n\nColonel Butler devoured every scrap of news that came from the front\nin the half dozen papers that he read daily. He kept in close touch\nwith the international situation, he fumed constantly at the\ninactivity of his own government in view of her state of\nunpreparedness for a war into which she must sooner or later be\ninevitably plunged. He lost all patience with what he considered the\ntimidity of the President, and what he called the stupidity of\ncongress. Was not the youngest and the reddest and the best of the\nButler blood at the fighting line, ready at any moment to be spilled\nto the death on the altar of the world's liberty? Why then should the\ngovernment of the United States sit supinely by and see the finest\nyoung manhood of her own and other lands fighting and perishing in the\ncause of humanity when, by voicing the conscience of her people, and\ndeclaring and making war on the Central Powers, she could most\neffectually aid in bringing to a speedy and victorious end this\nmonstrous example of modern barbarism? Why, indeed!\n\nOne day Colonel Butler suggested to his daughter that she go up to\nLowbridge and again inquire whether Pen's mother had any needs of any\nkind that he could possibly supply.\n\n\"And,\" he added, \"I wish you to invite her to Bannerhall for a visit\nof indefinite duration. In these trying and critical times my\ndaughter-in-law's place is in the ancestral home of her deceased\nhusband.\"\n\nAunt Millicent, delighted with the purport of her mission, went up to\nLowbridge and extended the invitation, and, with all the eloquence at\nher command, urged its acceptance. But Sarah Butler was unyielding and\nwould not come. She had been wounded too deeply in years gone by.\n\nSo spring came, and blade, leaf and flower sprang into beautiful and\nrejoicing existence. No one had ever before seen the orchard trees so\nsuperbly laden with blossoms. No one had ever before seen a brighter\npromise of a more bountiful season. And the country was still at\npeace, enriching herself with a mintage coined of blood and sorrow\nabroad, though drifting aimlessly and ever closer to the verge of\nwar.\n\nThere was a time early in July when, for two weeks, no letter came\nfrom Pen. The suspense was almost unbearable. For days Colonel Butler\nhaunted the post-office. His self-assurance left him, his confident\nand convincing voice grew weak, a haunting fear of what news might\ncome was with him night and day.\n\nAt last he received a letter from abroad. It was from Pen, addressed\nin his own hand-writing. The colonel himself took it from his box at\nthe post-office in the presence of a crowd of his neighbors and\nfriends awaiting the distribution of their mail. It was scrawled in\npencil on paper that had never been intended to be used for\ncorrespondence purposes.\n\nPen had just learned, he wrote, that the messenger who carried a\nformer letter from the trenches for him had been killed en route by an\nexploding shell, and the contents of his mail pouch scattered and\ndestroyed. Moreover he had been very busy. Fighting had been brisk,\nthere had been a good many casualties in his company, but he himself,\nsave for some superficial wounds received on the Fourth of July, was\nunhurt and reasonably well.\n\n    \"I am sorry to report, however,\" the letter continued, \"that my\n    comrade, Aleck Sands, has been severely wounded. We were engaged\n    in a brisk assault on the enemy's lines on the Fourth of July, and\n    captured some of their trenches. During the engagement Aleck\n    received a bayonet wound in the shoulder, and a badly battered\n    knee. I was able to help him off the field and to an ambulance. I\n    believe he is somewhere now in a hospital not far to the rear of\n    us. I mean to see him soon if I can find out where he is and get\n    leave. Tell his folks that he fought like a hero. I never saw a\n    braver man in battle.\n\n    \"You will be glad to learn that since the engagement on the fourth\n    I have been made a sergeant, 'for conspicuous bravery in action,'\n    the order read.\n\n    \"I suppose the flag is flying on the school-house staff these\n    days. How I would like to see it. If I could only see the Stars\n    and Stripes over here, and our own troops under it, I should be\n    perfectly happy. The longer I fight here the more I'm convinced\n    that the cause we're fighting for is a just and glorious one, and\n    the more willing I am to die for it.\n\n    \"Give my dear love to Aunt Milly. I have just written to mother.\n\n      \"Your affectionate grandson,\n        \"Penfield Butler.\"\n\n\nColonel Butler looked up from the reading with moist eyes and glowing\nface, to find a dozen of his townsmen who knew that the letter had\ncome, waiting to hear news from Pen.\n\n\"On Independence Day,\" said the colonel, in answer to their inquiries,\n\"he participated in a gallant and bloody assault on the enemy's lines,\nin which many trenches were taken. Save for superficial wounds, easily\nhealed in the young and vigorous, he came out of the mel\u00e9e unscathed.\"\n\n\"Good for him!\" exclaimed one.\n\n\"Bravo!\" shouted another.\n\n\"And, gentlemen,\" the colonel's voice rose and swelled moderately as\nhe proceeded, \"I am proud to say that, following that engagement, my\ngrandson, for conspicuous bravery in action, was promoted to the rank\nof sergeant in the colonial troops of Great Britain.\"\n\n\"Splendid!\"\n\n\"He's the boy!\"\n\n\"We're proud of him!\"\n\nThe colonel's eyes were flashing now; his head was erect, his one hand\nwas thrust into the bosom of his waistcoat.\n\n\"I thank you, gentlemen!\" he said, \"on behalf of my grandson. To pass\ninherited patriotism from father to son, from generation to\ngeneration, and to see it find its perfect fulfillment in the latest\nscion of the race, is to live in the golden age, gentlemen, and to\npartake of the fountain of youth.\"\n\nHis voice quavered a little at the end, and he waited for a moment to\nrecover it, and possibly to give his eloquence an opportunity to sink\nin more deeply, and then he continued:\n\n\"I regret to say, gentlemen, that in the fierce engagement of the\nfourth instant, my grandson's gallant comrade, Master Alexander Sands,\nwas severely wounded both in the shoulder and the knee, and is now\nsomewhere in a hospital in northern France, well back of the lines,\nrecuperating from his injuries. I shall communicate this information\nat once to his parents, together with such encouragement as is\ncontained in my grandson's letter.\"\n\nProud as a king, he turned from the sympathetic group, entered his\ncarriage and was driven toward Chestnut Valley.\n\nIt was late in September when Aleck Sands came home. The family at\nBannerhall, augmented within the last year by the addition of Colonel\nButler's favorite niece, was seated at the supper table one evening\nwhen Elmer Cuddeback, now grown into a fine, stalwart youth, hurried\nin to announce the arrival.\n\n\"I happened to be at the station when Aleck came,\" he said. \"He looked\nlike a skeleton and a ghost rolled into one. He couldn't walk at all,\nand he was just able to talk. But he said he'd been having a fine time\nand was feeling bully. Isn't that nerve for you?\"\n\n\"Splendid!\" exclaimed the colonel, holding his napkin high in the air\nin his excitement. \"A marvelous young man! I shall do myself the honor\nto call on him in person to-morrow morning, and compliment him on his\nbravery, and congratulate him on his escape from mortal injury.\"\n\nHe was as good as his word. He and his daughter both went down to\nCherry Valley and called on Aleck Sands. He was lying propped up in\nbed, attended by a thankful and devoted mother, trying to give rest to\na tired and irritated body, and to enjoy once more the sights and\nsounds of home. He was too weak to do much talking, but almost his\nfirst words were an anxious inquiry about Pen. They told him what they\nknew.\n\n\"He came to see me at the hospital in August,\" said Aleck. \"It was\nlike a breeze from heaven. If he doesn't come back here alive and well\nat the end of this war, with the Victoria Cross on his breast, I shall\nbe ashamed to go out on the street; he is so much the braver soldier\nand the better man of the two of us.\"\n\n\"He has written to us,\" said the colonel, and his eyes were moist, and\nhis voice choked a little as he spoke, \"that you, yourself, in the\nmatter of courage in battle, upheld the best traditions of American\nbravery, and I am proud of you, sir, as are all of your townsmen.\"\n\nThe colonel would have remained to listen to further commendation of\nhis grandson, and to discuss with one who had actually been on the\nfighting line, the conditions under which the war was being waged;\nbut his daughter, seeing that the boy needed rest, brought the visit\nto a speedy close.\n\n\"Give my love to Pen when you write to him,\" said Aleck, as he bade\nthem good-by; \"the bravest soldier--and the dearest comrade--that ever\ncarried a gun.\"\n\nAfter the winter holidays a week went by with no letter from Pen. The\ncolonel began to grow anxious, but it was not until the end of the\nsecond week that he really became alarmed. And when three weeks had\ngone by, and neither the mails nor the cable nor the wireless had\nbrought any news of the absent soldier, Colonel Butler was on the\nverge of despair. He had haunted the post-office as before, he had\nmade inquiry at the state department at Washington, he had telegraphed\nto Canada for information, but nothing came of it all. Aleck Sands had\nheard absolutely nothing. Pen's mother, almost beside herself,\ntelephoned every day to Bannerhall for news, and received none. The\nstrain of apprehensive waiting became almost unbearable for them all.\n\nOne day, unable longer to withstand the heart-breaking tension, the\nold patriot sent an agent post-haste to Toronto, with instructions to\nspare no effort and no expense in finding out what had become of his\ngrandson.\n\nThree days later, from his agent came a telegram reading as follows:\n\n    \"Lieutenant Butler in hospital near Rouen. Wound severe. Suffering\n    now from pneumonia. Condition serious but still hopeful. Details\n    by letter.\"\n\nThis telegram was received at Bannerhall in the morning. In the early\nafternoon of the same day Pen's mother received a letter written three\nweeks earlier by his nurse at the hospital. She was an American girl\nwho had been long in France, and who, from the beginning of the war,\nhad given herself whole-heartedly to the work at the hospitals.\n\n    \"Do not be unduly alarmed,\" she wrote, \"he is severely wounded;\n    evidently a hand-grenade exploded against his breast; but if we\n    are able to ward off pneumonia he will recover. He has given me\n    your name and address, and wished me to write. I think an early\n    and cheerful letter from you would be a great comfort to him, and\n    I hope he will be able to appreciate some gifts and dainties from\n    home by the time they could reach here. Let me add that he is a\n    model patient, quiet and uncomplaining, and I am told that he was\n    among the bravest of all the brave Americans fighting with the\n    Canadian forces on the Somme.\"\n\nBetween Bannerhall and Sarah Butler's home at Lowbridge the telephone\nlines were busy that day. It was a relief to all of them to know that\nPen was living and being cared for; it was a source of apprehension\nand grief to them that his condition, as intimated in the telegram,\nwas still so critical.\n\nAs for Colonel Butler he was in a fever of excitement and distress.\nLate in the afternoon he went to his room and, with his one hand,\nbegan, hastily and confusedly, to pack a small steamer trunk. His\ndaughter found him so occupied.\n\n\"What in the world are you doing?\" she asked him.\n\n\"I am preparing to go to Rouen,\" he replied, \"to see that my grandson\nis cared for in his illness in a manner due to one who has placed his\nlife in jeopardy for France.\"\n\n\"Father, stand up! Look at me! Listen to me!\" The very essence of\ndetermination was in her voice and manner, and he obeyed her. \"You are\nnot to stir one step from this town. Sarah Butler and I are going to\nFrance to be with Pen; we have talked it over and decided on it; and\nyou are going to stay right here at Bannerhall, where you can be of\nsupreme service to us, instead of burdening us with your company.\"\n\nHe looked at her steadily for a moment, but he saw only rigid\nresolution and determination in her eyes; he was too unstrung and\nbroken to protest, or to insist on his right as head of the house, and\nso--he yielded. Later in the day, however, a compromise was effected.\nIt was agreed that he should accompany his daughter and his\ndaughter-in-law to New York, aid them in securing passage, passports\nand credentials, and see them safely aboard ship for their perilous\njourney, after which he was to return home and spend the time quietly\nwith his niece Eleanor, and make necessary preparations for the\nreturn of the invalid, later on, to Bannerhall.\n\nHe carried out his part of the New York program in good faith, and had\nthe satisfaction, three days later, of bidding the two women good-by\non the deck of a French liner bound for Havre. He had no apprehension\nconcerning the fitness of his daughter to go abroad unaccompanied save\nby her sister-in-law. She had been with him on three separate trips to\nthe continent, and, in his judgment, for a woman, she had displayed\nmarked traveling ability. His only fear was of German submarines.\n\n\"A most cowardly, dastardly, uncivilized way,\" he declared, \"of waging\nwar upon an enemy's women and children.\"\n\nHe was in good spirits as the vessel sailed. His parting words to his\ndaughter were:\n\n\"If you should have occasion to discuss with our friends in France the\nattitude of this nation toward the war, you may say that it is my\nopinion that the conscience of the country is now awake, and that\nbefore long we shall be shoulder to shoulder with them in the\ndestruction of barbarism.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\n\nFor twenty-five years there has stood, in one of the faubourgs of\nRouen, not far from the right bank of the Seine, a long two-story\nbrick building, with a wing reaching back to the base of the hill. Up\nto the year 1915 it was used as a factory for the making of silk\nribbons. Rouen had been a center of the cotton manufacturing industry\nfrom time immemorial. Why therefore should not the making of silk be\nadded? It was added, and the enterprise grew and became prosperous.\nThen came the war, vast, terrible, bringing in its train suffering,\npoverty, a drastic curtailment of all the luxuries of life. Silk\nribbons are a luxury; they go with soft living. So, then; _voil\u00e0\ntout!_ Before the end of the first year of the conflict the factory\nwas transformed into a hospital. The clatter of looms and the chatter\nof girls gave place to the moanings of sick and wounded men, and the\ngentle voices of white and blue clad nurses. It was no longer bales\nof raw silk that were carted up to the big doors of the factory, and\nboxes of rolled ribbon that were trundled down the drive to the\nstreet, to the warehouses, and thence to the admiring eyes of\nbeauty-loving women. The human freight that was brought to the big\ndoors in these days consisted of the pierced and mutilated bodies of\nmen; soldiers for whom the final taps would soon sound. If they\nchanced to be of the British troops, and held fast to the spark of\nlife within them, then they were close enough to the seaport to be\ntaken across the channel for final convalescence under English skies.\n\nIt was to this hospital that Lieutenant Penfield Butler was brought\nfrom the battlefield of the Somme. His battalion had done the work\nassigned to it in the fight, had done it well, and had withdrawn to\nits trenches, leaving a third of its men dead or wounded between the\nlines. Later on, under cover of a galling artillery fire, rescue\nparties had gone out to bring in the wounded. They had found Pen in\nthe shelter of the shell-hole, still unconscious. They had brought him\nback across the fire-swept field, and down through the winding,\nnarrow trenches, to the first-aid station, from which, after a hurried\nexamination and superficial treatment of his wounds, he was taken in a\nguard-car to a field hospital in the rear of the lines. But space in\nthese field hospitals is too precious to permit of wounded men who can\nbe moved without fatal results, remaining in them for long periods.\nThe stream of newcomers is too constant and too pressing. So, after\nfive days, Pen was sent, by way of Amiens, to the hospital in the\nsuburbs of Rouen. He, himself, knew little of where he was or of what\nwas being done for him. A bullet had grazed his right arm, and a\nclubbed musket or revolver had laid his scalp open to the bone. But\nthese were slight injuries in comparison with the awful wound in his\nbreast. Torn flesh, shattered bones, pierced lungs, these things left\nlife hanging by the slenderest thread. When the _m\u00e9decin-chef_ of the\nhospital near Rouen took his first look at the boy after his arrival,\nhe had him put under the influence of an anaesthetic in order that he\ncould the more readily and effectively examine, probe and dress the\nwound, and remove any irritating splinters of bone that might be the\ncause of the continuous leakage from the lungs. But when he had\nfinished his delicate and strenuous task he turned to the nurse at his\nside and gave a hopeless shake of his head and shrug of his shoulders.\n\n\"_Fichu!_\" he said; \"_le laisser tranquille_.\"\n\n\"But I am not going to let him die,\" she replied; \"he is too young,\ntoo handsome, too brave, and _he is an American_.\"\n\nHe smiled, shook his head again and passed on to the next case. The\ngirl was an American too, and these American nurses were always so\noptimistic, so faithfully persistent, she might pull him through,\nbut--the smile of incredulity still lay on the lips of the\n_m\u00e9decin-chef_.\n\nThe next day the young soldier was better. The leakage had not yet\nwholly ceased; but the wound was apparently beginning to heal. He was\nstill dazed, and his pain was still too severe to be endured without\nopiates. It was five days later that he came fully to his senses, was\nable to articulate, and to frame intelligent sentences. He indicated\nto his nurse, Miss Byron, that he wished to have his mother written\nto.\n\n\"No especial message,\" he whispered, \"just that I am here--have been\nwounded--recovering.\"\n\nBut the nurse had already learned from other men of Pen's company,\nless seriously wounded than he, who were at the same hospital,\nsomething about the boy's desperate bravery, and how his stern\nfighting qualities were combined with great tenderness of heart and a\nmost loving disposition, and she could not avoid putting an echo of it\nin her letter to his mother.\n\nLater on Pen developed symptoms of pneumonia, a disease that follows\nso often on an injury to the structure of the lungs.\n\nWhen the _m\u00e9decin-chef_ came and noted the increase in temperature and\nthe decrease in vitality, he looked grave. Every day, with true French\ncourtesy, he had congratulated Miss Byron on her remarkable success in\nnursing the young American back to life. But now, perhaps, after all,\nthe efforts of both of them would be wasted. Pneumonia is a hard foe\nto fight when it attacks wounded lungs. So an English physician was\ncalled in and joined with the French surgeon and the American nurse to\ncombat the dreaded enemy. It seemed, somehow, as if each of them felt\nthat the honor of his or her country was at stake in this battle with\ndisease and death across that hospital bed in the old factory near\nRouen.\n\nIt was late in February when Pen's mother and his Aunt Millicent\nreached Havre, and took the next available train up to Rouen. They had\nnot heard from Pen since sailing, and they were almost beside\nthemselves with anxiety and apprehension. But the telephone service\nbetween the city and its faubourgs is excellent, Aunt Millicent could\nspeak French with comparative fluency, and it was not many minutes\nafter their arrival before they had obtained connection with the\nhospital and were talking with Miss Byron.\n\n\"He is very ill,\" she said, \"but we feel that the crisis of his\ndisease has passed, and we hope for his recovery.\"\n\nSo, then, he was still living, and there was hope. In the early\ntwilight of the winter evening the two women rode out to the suburban\ntown and went up to the hospital to see him. He did not open his eyes,\nnor recognize them in any way, he did not even know that they were\nwith him.\n\n\"There have been many complications of the illness from his wound,\"\nsaid the nurse; \"double pneumonia, typhoid symptoms, and what not; we\ndared not hope for him for a while, but we feel now that perhaps the\nworst is over. He has made a splendid fight for his life,\" she added;\n\"he deserves to win. And he is the favorite of the hospital. Every one\nloves him. The first question all my patients ask me when I make my\nfirst round for the day is 'How is the young American lieutenant this\nmorning?' Oh, if good wishes and genuine affection can keep him with\nus, he will stay.\"\n\nSo, with tear-wet faces, grateful yet still anxious, the two women\nleft him for the night and sought hospitality at a modest _pension_ in\nthe neighborhood of the hospital.\n\nBut a precious life still hung in the balance. As he had lain for many\ndays, so the young soldier continued to lie, for many days to come,\napparently without thought or vitality, save that those who watched\nhim could catch now and then a low murmur from his lips, and could see\nthe faint rise and fall of his scarred and bandaged breast.\n\nThen, so slowly that it seemed to those who looked lovingly on that\nages were going by, he began definitely to mend. He could open his\neyes, and move his head and hands, and he seemed to grasp, by degrees,\nthe fact that his mother and his Aunt Millicent were often sitting at\nhis bedside. But when he tried to speak his tongue would not obey his\nwill.\n\nOne day, when he awakened from a refreshing sleep, he seemed brighter\nand stronger than he had been at any time before. The two women whom\nhe most loved were sitting on opposite sides of his cot, and his\ndevoted and delighted nurse stood near by, smiling down on him. He\nsmiled back up at each of them in turn, but he made no attempt to\nspeak. He seemed to know that he had not yet the power of\narticulation.\n\nHis cot, in an alcove at the end of the main aisle, was so placed\nthat, when the curtains were drawn aside, he could, at will, look\ndown the long rows of beds where once the looms had clattered, and\nwatch wan faces, and recumbent forms under the white spreads, and\nnurses, some garbed in white, and some in blue, and some in more sober\ncolors, moving gently about among the sufferers in performance of\ntheir thrice-blest and most angelic tasks. It was there that he was\nlooking now, and the two women at his bedside who were watching him,\nsaw that his eyes were fixed, with strange intensity, on some object\nin the distance. They turned to see what it was. To their utter\nastonishment and dismay they discovered, marching up the aisle,\naccompanied by an _infirmi\u00e8re_, Colonel Richard Butler. Whence, when,\nand how he had come, they knew not. He stopped at the entrance to the\nalcove, and held up his hand as though demanding silence. And there\nwas silence. No one spoke or stirred. He looked down at Pen who lay,\nstill speechless, staring up at him in surprise and delight.\n\nInto the colonel's glowing face there came a look of tenderness, of\nrapt sympathy, of exultant pride, that those who saw it will never\nforget.\n\nHe stepped lightly forward and took Pen's limp hand in his and pressed\nit gently.\n\n\"God bless you, my boy!\" he said.\n\nNo one had ever heard Richard Butler say \"God bless you\" before, and\nno one ever heard him say it again. But when he said it that day to\nthe dark-haired, white faced, war-worn soldier on the cot in the\nhospital near Rouen, the words came straight from a big, and brave,\nand tender heart.\n\nHe laid Pen's hand slowly back on the counterpane, and then he parted\nhis white moustache, as he had done that night at the hotel in New\nYork, and bent over and kissed the boy's forehead. It may have been\nthe rapture of the kiss that did it; God knows; but at that moment\nPen's tongue was loosened, his lips parted, and he cried out:\n\n\"Grandfather!\"\n\nWith a judgment and a self-denial rare among men, the colonel answered\nthe boy's greeting with another gentle hand-clasp, and a beneficent\nsmile, and turned and marched proudly and gratefully back down the\nlong aisle, stopping here and there to greet some sick soldier who had\ngiven him a friendly look or smile, until he stood in the open doorway\nand lifted up his eyes to gaze on the blue line of distant hills\nacross the Seine.\n\nLater, when the two women came to him, and he went with them to the\n_pension_ where they were staying, he explained to them the cause of\nhis sudden and unheralded appearance. He had received their cablegrams\nindeed; but these, instead of serving to allay his anxiety, had made\nit only the more acute. To wait now for letters was impossible. His\npatience was utterly exhausted. He could no more have remained quietly\nat home than he could have shut up his eyes and ears and mouth and\nlain quietly down to die. The call that came to him from the bed of\nhis beloved grandson in France, that sounded in his ears day-time and\nnight-time as he paced the floors of Bannerhall, was too insistent and\nimperious to be resisted. Against the vigorous protests of his niece,\nand the timid remonstrances of the few friends who were made aware of\nhis purpose, he put himself in readiness to sail on the next\nout-going steamer that would carry him to his longed-for destination.\nAnd it was only after he had boarded the vessel, and had felt the slow\nmovement of the ship as she was warped out into the stream, that he\nbecame contented, comfortable, thoroughly at ease in body and mind,\nand ready to await patiently whatever might come to him at the end of\nhis journey.\n\nSo it was in good health and spirits that he landed at Havre, came up\nto Rouen, and made his way to the hospital.\n\nAnd for once in her life his daughter did not chide him. Instinctively\nshe felt the power of the great tenderness and yearning in his breast\nthat had impelled him to come, and, so far as any word of disapproval\nwas concerned, she was silent.\n\nHe talked much about Pen. He asked what they had learned concerning\nhis bravery in battle, the manner in which he had received his wounds,\nthe nature of his long illness, and the probability of his continued\nconvalescence.\n\n\"I hope,\" said Pen's mother, \"that I shall be able to take him back\nto Lowbridge next month.\"\n\nThe old man looked up in surprise and alarm.\n\n\"To Lowbridge?\" he said, and added: \"Not to Lowbridge, Sarah Butler.\nMy grandson will return to Bannerhall, the home of his ancestors.\"\n\n\"Colonel Butler, my son's home is with me.\"\n\n\"And your home,\" replied the colonel, \"is with me. My son's widow must\nno longer live under any other roof than mine. The day of estrangement\nhas fully passed. You will find welcome and affection, and, I hope, an\nabundance of happiness at Bannerhall.\"\n\nShe did not answer him; she could not. Nor did he demand an answer. He\nseemed to take it for granted that his wish in the matter would be\ncomplied with, and his will obeyed. But it was not until his daughter\nMillicent, by much argument and persuasion, through many days, had\nconvinced her that her place was with them, that her son's welfare and\nhis grandfather's length of days depended on both mother and son\ncomplying with Colonel Butler's wish and demand, that she consented\nto blot out the past and to go to live at Bannerhall.\n\nIt was on the second day of April, 1917, that the President of the\nUnited States read his world famous message to Congress, asking that\nbody to \"declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government\nto be in fact nothing less than war against the Government and people\nof the United States\" and to \"employ all of its resources to bring the\nGovernment of Germany to terms and to end the war.\"\n\nAnd it was on the third day of April that Colonel Richard Butler,\nwalking up the long aisle of the war hospital near Rouen in the late\nafternoon, smiled and nodded to right and left and said:\n\n\"At last we are with you; we are with you. America has answered the\ncall of her conscience, she will now come into her own.\"\n\nAnd they smiled back at him, did these worn and broken men, for the\nnews of the President's declaration had already filtered through the\nwards; and they waved their hands to the brave American colonel with\nthe white moustache, stern visage, and tender heart, and in sturdy\nEnglish and voluble French and musical Italian, they congratulated him\nand his noble grandson, and the charming ladies of his family, on the\nsplendid words of his President, to which words the patriotic Congress\nwould surely respond.\n\nAnd Congress did respond. The Senate on April 4, and the House on\nApril 6, by overwhelming majorities, passed a resolution in full\naccordance with the President's recommendation, declaring that a state\nof war had been thrust upon the United States by the German\ngovernment, and authorizing and directing the President \"to employ the\nentire naval and military forces of the United States, and the\nresources of the government, to carry on war against the Imperial\nGerman government.\"\n\nColonel Richard Butler was at last content.\n\n\"I am proud of my country,\" he declared, \"and of my President and\nCongress. I have cabled the congressman from my district to tender my\ncongratulations to Mr. Wilson, and to offer my services anew in\nwhatever capacity my government can use them.\"\n\nIf he had favored the Allied cause before going abroad he was now\nthrice the partisan that he had been. For he had seen France. He had\nseen her, bled white in her heroic endeavor to drive the invader from\nher soil. He had seen her ruined homes, and cities, and temples of\nart. He had seen her women and her aged fathers and her young children\ndoing the work of her able-bodied men who were on the fighting line,\nreplacing those hundreds of thousands who were lying in heroes'\ngraves. He had been, by special favor, taken to the front, where he\nhad seen the still grimmer visage of war, had caught a glimpse of life\nin the trenches, of death on the field, and had heard the sweep and\nthe rattle and the roar of unceasing conflict. And in his eyes and\nvoice as he walked up and down the aisles of the hospital near Rouen,\nor sat at the bedside of his grandson, was always a reflection of\nthese things that he himself had seen and heard.\n\nAnd he was a favorite in the wards. Not alone because he so often came\nwith his one arm laden with little material things to cheer and\ncomfort them, but because these men with the pierced and broken and\nmutilated bodies admired and liked him. Whenever they saw the familiar\nfigure, tall, soldierly, the sternly benevolent countenance with its\nwhite moustache and kindling eyes, enter at the hospital doors and\nwalk up between the long rows of cots, their faces would light up with\npleasure and admiration, and the friendliness of their greetings would\nbe hearty and unalloyed.\n\nSomehow they seemed to look upon him as the symbol and representative\nof his country, the very embodiment of the spirit of his own United\nStates. And now that his government had definitely entered into the\nwar, he was in their eyes, thrice the hero and the benefactor that he\nhad been before.\n\nWhen he entered the hospital the morning after news of America's war\ndeclaration had been received, and turned to march up the aisle toward\nhis grandson's alcove, he was surprised and delighted to see from\nevery cot in the ward, and from every nurse on the floor, a hand\nthrust up holding a tiny American flag. It was the hospital's greeting\nto the American colonel, in honor of his country. He stood, for a\nmoment, thrilled and amazed. The demonstration struck so deeply into\nhis big and patriotic heart that his voice choked and his eyes filled\nwith tears as he passed up the long aisle.\n\nThere were many greetings as he went by.\n\n\"Hurrah for the President!\"\n\n\"Vive l'Amerique!\"\n\nAnd one deep-throated Briton, in a voice that rolled from end to end\nof the ward shouted:\n\n\"God bless the United States!\"\n\n[Illustration: The French Hospital's Greeting To the American Colonel]\n\nBut perhaps no one was more rejoiced over the fact of America's\nentrance into the war than was Penfield Butler. From the moment when\nhe heard the news of the President's message he seemed to take on new\nlife. And as each day's paper recorded the developing movements, and\nthe almost universal sentiment of the American people in sustaining\nthe government at Washington, his pulses thrilled, color came into his\nblanched face, and new light into eyes that not long before had looked\nfor many weeks at material things and had seen them not.\n\nHe was sitting up in his bed that morning, and had seen his\ngrandfather come up the aisle amid the forest of little flags and the\nsound of cheering voices.\n\nGrouped around him were' his mother, his Aunt Millicent, the\n_m\u00e9decin-chef_, and his devoted nurse, the American girl, Miss Byron.\nShe was waving a small, silk American flag that had long been one of\nher cherished possessions.\n\n\"We are so proud of America to-day, Colonel Butler,\" she exclaimed,\n\"that we can't help cheering and waving flags.\"\n\nAnd the _m\u00e9decin-chef_ shouted joyously:\n\n\"_\u00c0 la bonne heure, mon Colonel!_\"\n\nPen, looking on with glowing eyes and cheeks flushed with enthusiasm,\ncalled out:\n\n\"Grandfather, isn't it glorious? If I could only fight it all over\nagain, now, under my own American flag!\"\n\nColonel Butler's face had never before been so radiant, his eyes so\ntender, or his voice so vibrant with emotion as when standing on the\nraised edge of the alcove, he replied:\n\n\"On behalf of my beloved country, ladies and gentlemen, I thank you.\nShe has taken her rightful place on the side of humanity. Her flag,\nsplendid and spotless, floats, to-day, side by side with the tri-color\nand the Union Jack, over the manhood of nations united to save the\nworld from bondage and barbarism.\"\n\nHe faced the _m\u00e9decin-chef_ and continued: \"Your cry to us to 'come\nover into Macedonia and help' you, shall no longer go unheeded. Our\nwealth, our brains, our brawn shall be poured into your country as\nfreely as water, to aid you in bringing the German tyrant to his\nknees, and, as our great President has said: 'To make the world safe\nfor democracy.'\"\n\nHe turned toward the rapt faces of the listening scores who lined the\nwards: \"And men, my brothers, I say to you that you have not fought\nand suffered in vain. We shall win this war; and out of our great\nvictory shall come that thousand years of peace foretold by holy men\nof old, in which your flag, and yours, and yours, and mine, floating\nover the heads of freemen in each beloved land, will be the most\ninspiring, the most beautiful, the most splendid thing on which the\nsun's rays shall ever fall.\"\n\n\n\n\nShort Historical Sketch of the United States Flag\n\n\nAfter the war of the Revolution, it became necessary for the newly\nformed United States of America to devise a symbol, representing their\nfreedom. During the war the different colonies had displayed various\nflags, but no national emblem had been selected. The American\nCongress, consequently, on the 14th of June, 1777, passed the\nfollowing Resolution:\n\n    \"Resolved, That the flag of the thirteen united states shall be\n    thirteen stripes, alternate red and white, that the union be\n    thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new\n    constellation.\"\n\nBetsy Ross, an upholsterer, living at 239 Arch Street, Philadelphia,\nPa., had the honor of making the first flag for the new republic. The\nlittle house where she lived is still standing, and preserved as a\nmemorial. This flag contained the thirteen stripes as at present, but\nthe stars were arranged in a circle. This arrangement was later\nchanged to horizontal lines, and the flag continued to have thirteen\nstars and thirteen stripes until 1795. When Vermont and Kentucky were\nadded to the Union, two more stripes, as well as two more stars, were\nadded. In 1817, it was seen that it would not be practicable to add a\nnew stripe for each new state admitted to the Union, so after\ndeliberation, Congress, in 1818, passed the following Act:\n\n    \"An Act to establish the flag of the United States.\n\n    \"Sec. 1. That from and after the 4th of July next, the flag of the\n    United States be thirteen horizontal stripes, alternate red and\n    white--that the Union have twenty stars, white in a blue field.\n\n    \"Sec. 2. Be it further enacted, that on the admission of every new\n    State into the Union, one star be added to the Union of the flag,\n    and that such addition shall take effect on the 4th of July next\n    succeeding such admission.\"\n\nSince the passing of this Act, star after star has been added to the\nblue field until it now contains forty-eight, each one representing a\nstaunch and loyal adherent.\n\n\n\n\nBoy Scouts Pledge to the Flag\n\n\n\"I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the Republic for which it\nstands; one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.\"\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"28815":"Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)\n\n\n\nNote: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this\n      file which includes the original illustrations.\n      See 28815-h.htm or 28815-h.zip:\n      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28815/28815-h/28815-h.htm)\n      or\n      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28815/28815-h.zip)\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE BRIDGE OF THE GODS\n\n[Illustration: \"_What think you now, Tohomish?_\"]\n\n\nTHE BRIDGE OF THE GODS\n\nA Romance of Indian Oregon\n\nby\n\nF. H. BALCH\n\nWith eight full-page illustrations by L. Maynard Dixon\n\nNINETEENTH EDITION\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nChicago . A. C. McClurg & Co.\nNineteen Hundred & Fifteen\n\nCopyright\nA. C. McClurg & Co.\n1890 and 1902\n\nW. F. Hall Printing Company, Chicago\n\n\n\n\nPUBLISHERS' NOTE\n\n\nEncouraged by the steady demand for Mr. Balch's \"The Bridge of the\nGods,\" since its publication twelve years ago, the publishers have\ndecided to issue a new edition beautified with drawings from the\npencil of Mr. L. Maynard Dixon. This tale of the Indians of the far\nWest has fairly earned its lasting popularity, not only by the intense\ninterest of the story, but by its faithful delineations of Indian\ncharacter.\n\nIn his boyhood Mr. Balch enjoyed exceptional opportunities to inform\nhimself regarding the character and manners of the Indians: he visited\nthem in their homes, watched their industries, heard their legends,\nsaw their gambling games, listened to their conversation; he\nquestioned the Indians and the white pioneers, and he read many books\nfor information on Indian history, traditions, and legends. By\npersonal inquiry among old natives he learned that the Bridge which\nsuggested the title of his romance was no fabric of the imagination,\nbut was a great natural bridge that in early days spanned the\nColumbia, and later, according to tradition, was destroyed by an\nearthquake.\n\nBefore his death the author had the satisfaction of knowing that his\nwork was stamped with the approval of the press and the public; his\nsatisfaction would have been more complete could he have foreseen that\nthat approval would be so lasting.\n\n   JULY 1, 1902.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nIn attempting to present with romantic setting a truthful and\nrealistic picture of the powerful and picturesque Indian tribes that\ninhabited the Oregon country two centuries ago, the author could not\nbe indifferent to the many serious difficulties inseparable from such\nan enterprise. Of the literary success with which his work has been\naccomplished, he must of course leave others to judge; but he may\nwithout immodesty speak briefly of his preparation for his task, and\nof the foundation of some of the facts and legends which form the\nframework of his story. Indian life and character have long been a\nfavorite study with him, and in these pages he has attempted to\ndescribe them, not from an ideal standpoint, but as he knew them in\nhis own boyhood on the Upper Columbia. Many of the incidents related\nin the story have come under his personal observation; others have\nbeen told him by aged pioneers, or gleaned from old books of\nNorthwestern travel. The every-day life of the Indians, their food,\ntheir dress, their methods of making their mats, of building their\nhouses, of shaping their canoes, their gambling games, their religious\nbeliefs, their legends, their subjects of conversation, the sports and\npastimes of their children,--all these have been studied at first\nhand, and with the advantages of familiar and friendly intercourse\nwith these people in their own homes. By constant questioning, many\nfacts have been gained regarding their ancestry, and the fragments of\nhistory, tradition, and legend that have come down from them. Indian\nantiquities have been studied through every available source of\ninformation. All the antiquarian collections in Oregon and California\nhave been consulted, old trading-posts visited, and old pioneers and\nearly missionaries conversed with. Nothing has been discarded as\ntrivial or insignificant that could aid in the slightest degree in\naffording an insight into Indian character and customs of a by-gone\nage.\n\nAs to the great Confederacy of the Wauna, it may be said that Gray's\n\"History of Oregon\" tells us of an alliance of several tribes on the\nUpper Columbia for mutual protection and defence; and students of\nNorthwestern history will recall the great confederacy that the Yakima\nwar-chief Kamyakin formed against the whites in the war of 1856, when\nthe Indian tribes were in revolt from the British Possessions to the\nCalifornia line. Signal-fires announcing war against the whites leaped\nfrom hill to hill, flashing out in the night, till the line of fire\nbeginning at the wild Okanogan ended a thousand miles south, on the\nfoot-hills of Mount Shasta. Knowing such a confederacy as this to be\nan historical fact, there seems nothing improbable in that part of the\nlegend which tells us that in ancient times the Indian tribes on\neither side of the Cascade Range united under the great war-chief\nMultnomah against their hereditary foes the Shoshones. Even this would\nnot be so extensive a confederacy as that which Kamyakin formed a\nhundred and fifty years later.\n\nIt may be asked if there was ever a great natural bridge over the\nColumbia,--a \"Bridge of the Gods,\" such as the legend describes. The\nanswer is emphatically, \"Yes.\" Everywhere along the mid-Columbia the\nIndians tell of a great bridge that once spanned the river where the\ncascades now are, but where at that time the placid current flowed\nunder an arch of stone; that this bridge was _tomanowos_, built by the\ngods; that the Great Spirit shook the earth, and the bridge crashed\ndown into the river, forming the present obstruction of the cascades.\nAll of the Columbian tribes tell this story, in different versions and\nin different dialects, but all agreeing upon its essential features as\none of the great facts of their past history.\n\n\"_Ancutta_ (long time back),\" say the Tumwater Indians, \"the salmon he\nno pass Tumwater falls. It too much big leap. Snake Indian he no catch\num fish above falls. By and by great _tomanowos_ bridge at cascades he\nfall in, dam up water, make river higher all way up to Tumwater; then\nsalmon he get over. Then Snake Indian all time catch um plenty.\"\n\n\"My father talk one time,\" said an old Klickitat to a pioneer at White\nSalmon, Washington; \"long time ago liddle boy, him in canoe, his\nmother paddle, paddle up Columbia, then come to _tomanowos_ bridge.\nSquaw paddle canoe under; all dark under bridge. He look up, all like\none big roof, shut out sky, no see um sun. Indian afraid, paddle\nquick, get past soon, no good. Liddle boy no forget how bridge look.\"\n\nLocal proof also is not wanting. In the fall, when the freshets are\nover and the waters of the Columbia are clear, one going out in a\nsmall boat just above the cascades and looking down into the\ntransparent depths can see submerged forest trees beneath him, still\nstanding upright as they stood before the bridge fell in and the river\nwas raised above them. It is a strange, weird sight, this forest\nbeneath the river; the waters wash over the broken tree-tops, fish\nswim among the leafless branches: it is desolate, spectre-like, beyond\nall words. Scientific men who have examined the field with a view to\ndetermining the credibility of the legend about the bridge are\nconvinced that it is essentially true. Believed in by many tribes,\nattested by the appearance of the locality, and confirmed by\ngeological investigation, it is surely entitled to be received as a\nhistoric fact.\n\nThe shipwreck of an Oriental vessel on the Oregon coast, which\nfurnishes one of the most romantic elements in our story, is an\naltogether probable historic incident, as explained more fully in a\nfoot-note on page 75.\n\nThe spelling of Indian names, in which authorities differ so widely,\nhas been made as accurate as possible; and, as in the name \"Wallulah,\"\nthe oldest and most Indian-like form has been chosen. An exception has\nbeen made in the case of the modernized and corrupted \"Willamette,\"\nwhich is used instead of the original Indian name, \"Wallamet.\" But the\nmeaningless \"Willamette\" has unfortunately passed into such general\nuse that one is almost compelled to accept it. Another verbal\nirregularity should be noticed: Wauna, the name given by all the\nIndians in the story to the Columbia, was only the Klickitat name for\nit. The Indians had no general name for the Columbia, but each tribe\nhad a special name, if any, for it. Some had no name for it at all. It\nwas simply \"the big water,\" \"_the_ river,\" \"the big salmon water.\"\nWhat Wauna, the Klickitat name, or Wemath, the Wasco name, signifies,\nthe author has been unable to learn, even from the Indians who gave\nhim the names. They do not know; they say their fathers knew, but it\nis forgotten now.\n\nA rich and splendid treasure of legend and lore has passed away with\nthe old pioneers and the Indians of the earlier generation. All that\nmay be found interesting in this or any other book on the Indians,\ncompared to what has been lost, is like \"a torn leaf from some old\nromance.\"\n\n  F. H. B.\n\n  OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA,\n    September, 1890.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n  Book I.\n\n  _THE APOSTLE TO THE INDIANS._\n\n  CHAPTER                                     PAGE\n\n       I.  THE NEW ENGLAND MEETING              13\n      II.  THE MINISTER'S HOME                  21\n     III.  A DARKENED FIRESIDE                  31\n      IV.  THE COUNCIL OF ORDINATION            39\n       V.  INTO TRACKLESS WILDS                 47\n\n  Book II.\n\n  _THE OPENING OF THE DRAMA._\n\n       I.  SHALL THE GREAT COUNCIL BE HELD?     53\n      II.  THE WAR-CHIEF AND THE SEER           69\n     III.  WALLULAH                             74\n      IV.  SENDING OUT THE RUNNERS              87\n\n  Book III.\n\n  _THE GATHERING OF THE TRIBES._\n\n       I.  THE BROKEN PEACE-PIPE                91\n      II.  ON THE WAY TO THE COUNCIL           103\n     III.  THE GREAT CAMP ON THE ISLAND        120\n      IV.  AN INDIAN TRIAL                     131\n       V.  SENTENCED TO THE WOLF-DEATH         142\n\n  Book IV.\n\n  _THE LOVE TALE._\n\n       I.  THE INDIAN TOWN                     151\n      II.  THE WHITE WOMAN IN THE WOOD         159\n     III.  CECIL AND THE WAR-CHIEF             169\n      IV.  ARCHERY AND GAMBLING                176\n       V.  A DEAD QUEEN'S JEWELS               181\n      VI.  THE TWILIGHT TALE                   191\n     VII.  ORATOR AGAINST ORATOR               200\n    VIII.  IN THE DARK                         210\n      IX.  QUESTIONING THE DEAD                217\n\n  Book V.\n\n  _THE SHADOW OF THE END._\n\n       I.  THE HAND OF THE GREAT SPIRIT        227\n      II.  THE MARRIAGE AND THE BREAKING UP    241\n     III.  AT THE CASCADES                     248\n      IV.  MULTNOMAH'S DEATH-CANOE             260\n       V.  AS WAS WRIT IN THE BOOK OF FATE     268\n\n\n\n\nILLUSTRATIONS.\n\n  \"'What think you now, Tohomish?'\"                    _Frontispiece_\n  \"'I have spoken; I will not turn back from\n       my words'\"                                   _Facing page_  50\n  \"'The Earth hears us, the Sun sees us'\"           _Facing page_  88\n  The Great \"Witch Mountain\" of the Indians         _Facing page_ 108\n  \"'I Will kill him!'\"                              _Facing page_ 168\n  \"It was the Death-song of the Willamettes\"        _Facing page_ 204\n  \"'Come back! Come back!'\"                         _Facing page_ 224\n  Multnomah's Death-canoe                           _Facing page_ 264\n\n\n\n\n                 What tall and tawny men were these,\n                 As sombre, silent, as the trees\n                 They moved among! and sad some way\n                 With tempered sadness, ever they,\n                 Yet not with sorrow born of fear,\n                 The shadows of their destinies\n                 They saw approaching year by year,\n                 And murmured not.\n\n                      .     .     .     .     .\n\n                 They turned to death as to a sleep,\n                 And died with eager hands held out\n                 To reaching hands beyond the deep;\n                 And died with choicest bow at hand,\n                 And quiver full and arrow drawn\n                 For use, when sweet to-morrow's dawn\n                 Should wake them in the Spirit Land.\n\n                                    JOAQUIN MILLER.\n\n\n\n\nTHE BRIDGE OF THE GODS.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK I.\n\n\n_THE APOSTLE TO THE INDIANS._\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nTHE NEW ENGLAND MEETING.\n\n   Such as sit in darkness and the shadow of death.--_Bible_.\n\n\nOne Sabbath morning more than two hundred years ago, the dawn broke\nclear and beautiful over New England. It was one of those lovely\nmornings that seem like a benediction, a smile of God upon the earth,\nso calm are they, so full of unutterable rest and quiet. Over the sea,\nwith its endless line of beach and promontory washed softly by the\nocean swells; over the towns of the coast,--Boston and Salem,--already\nlarge, giving splendid promise of the future; over the farms and\nhamlets of the interior, and into the rude clearings where the outer\nlimits of civilization mingled with the primeval forest, came a flood\nof light as the sun rose above the blue line of eastern sea. And still\nbeyond, across the Alleghanies, into the depth of the wilderness,\npassed the sweet, calm radiance, as if bearing a gleam of gospel\nsunshine to the Indians of the forest.\n\nNowhere did the Sunday seem more peaceful than in a sheltered valley\nin Massachusetts. Beautiful indeed were the thrifty orchards, the\nrustic farmhouses, the meadows where the charred stumps that marked\nthe last clearing were festooned with running vines, the fields green\nwith Indian corn, and around all the sweep of hills dark with the\nancient wood. Even the grim unpainted meeting-house on the hill, which\nwas wont to look the very personification of the rigid Calvinistic\ntheology preached within it, seemed a little less bare and forbidding\non that sweet June Sabbath.\n\nAs the hour for morning service drew near, the drummer took his\naccustomed stand before the church and began to thunder forth his\nsummons,--a summons not unfitting those stern Puritans whose idea of\nreligion was that of a life-long warfare against the world, the flesh,\nand the devil.\n\nSoon the people began to gather,--grave men and women, dressed in the\nsober-colored garb of the day, and little children, clad in their\n\"Sunday best,\" undergoing the awful process of \"going to meeting,\" yet\nsome of them, at least, looking at the cool shadowed wood as they\npassed, and thinking how pleasant it would be to hunt berries or\nbirds' nests in those sylvan retreats instead of listening to a two\nhours' sermon, under imminent danger of perdition if they went to\nsleep,--for in such seductive guise did the Evil One tempt the souls\nof these youthful Puritans. Solemn of visage and garb were the groups,\nalthough here and there the gleam of a bit of ribbon at the throat of\nsome young maiden, or a bonnet tastefully adorned, showed that \"the\nworld, the flesh, and the devil\" were not yet wholly subdued among\nthem.\n\nAs the audience filed through the open door, the men and women\ndivided, the former taking one side of the house, the latter the\nother,--the aisle forming a dividing line between them. The floor was\nuncarpeted, the walls bare, the pulpit undraped, and upon it the\nhour-glass stood beside the open Bible. Anything more stiff and barren\nthan the interior of the meeting-house it would be difficult to find.\n\nAn unwonted stir breaks the silence and solemnity of the waiting\ncongregation, as an official party enters. It is the Governor of the\ncolony and his staff, who are making a tour of the province, and have\nstopped over Sunday in the little frontier settlement,--for although\nthe Governor is an august man, even he may not presume to travel on\nthe Sabbath in this land of the Puritans. The new-comers are richly\ndressed. There is something heavy, massive, and splendid in their\ngarb, especially in the Governor's. He is a stately military-looking\nman, and wears his ample vestments, his embroidered gloves, his lace\nand ruffles, with a magisterial air.\n\nA rustle goes through the audience as the distinguished visitors pass\nup the aisle to the front seats assigned, as the custom was, to\ndignitaries. Young people steal curious glances at them; children turn\naround in their seats to stare, provoking divers shakes of the head\nfrom their elders, and in one instance the boxing of an ear, at which\nthe culprit sets up a smothered howl, is ignominiously shaken, and\nsits swelling and choking with indignant grief during the remainder of\nthe service.\n\nAt length the drum ceased, indicating both the arrival of the minister\nand the time for service to begin.\n\nThe minister took his place in the pulpit. He was a young man, of\ndelicate mould, with a pale and intellectual face. Exquisite\nsensitiveness was in the large gray eyes, the white brow, the delicate\nlips, the long slender fingers; yet will and energy and command were\nin them all. His was that rare union of extreme sensibility with\nstrong resolution that has given the world its religious leaders,--its\nSavonarolas and Chrysostoms; men whose nerves shrank at a discord in\nmusic, but when inspired by some grand cause, were like steel to\nsuffer and endure.\n\nSomething of this was in the minister's aspect, as he stood before the\npeople that morning. His eyes shone and dilated, and his slight figure\ngathered dignity as his gaze met that of the assembly. There was no\norgan, that instrument being deemed a device of the Prince of Darkness\nto lead the hearts of the unwary off to popery; but the opening hymn\nwas heartily sung. Then came the Scripture reading,--usually a very\nmonotonous performance on the part of Puritan divines; but as given in\nthe young minister's thoughtfully modulated voice, nothing could have\nbeen more expressive. Every word had its meaning, every metaphor was a\npicture; the whole psalm seemed to breathe with life and power: \"Lord,\nthou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations.\"\n\nMajestic, mournful, yet thrilling with deathless hope, was the\nminister's voice; and the people were deeply moved. The prayer\nfollowed,--not the endless monologue of the average Puritan\nclergyman, but pointed, significant, full of meaning. Again his face\nwas lifted before them as he rose to announce the text. It was paler\nnow; the eyes were glowing and luminous; the long, expressive fingers\nwere tremulous with excitement. It was evident to all that no common\nsubject was to be introduced, no common effort to be made. Always\ncomposed, the audience grew more quiet still. The very children felt\nthe hush of expectation, and gazed wonderingly at the minister. Even\nthat great man, the Governor, lost his air of unbending grandeur, and\nleaned expectantly forward.\n\nThe subject was Paul's vision of the man in Macedonia crying for help.\nThe speaker portrayed in burning words the condition of Macedonia, the\nheathen gloom and utter hopelessness of her people, the vision that\ncame to Paul, and his going to preach to them. Then, passing to\nEngland under the Druids, he described the dark paganism, the\nblood-stained altars, the brutal priesthood of the age; and told of\nthe cry that went forth for light,--a cry that touched the heart of\nthe Roman Gregory into sending missionaries to show them the better\nway.\n\nLike some royal poem was the discourse, as it showed how, through the\nstorms and perils of more than a thousand years, amid the persecution\nof popes, the wars of barons, and the tyranny of kings, England had\nkept the torch burning, till in these latter times it had filled the\nworld with light. Beautiful was the tribute he paid to the more recent\ndefenders of the faith, and most intense the interest of the\nlisteners; for men sat there who had come over the seas because of\ntheir loyalty to the faith,--old and grizzled men, whose youth had\nknown Cromwell and Charles Stuart, and who had in more recent years\nfought for \"King Monmouth\" and shared the dark fortunes of Argyle.\n\nThe old Governor was roused like a veteran war-horse at the sound of\nthe trumpet; many faces were flushed with martial ardor. The young\nminister paused reflectively at the enthusiasm he had kindled. A\nsorrowful smile flitted around his lips, though the glow of\ninspiration was still burning in his eyes. Would they be as\nenthusiastic when he made the application of his discourse?\n\nAnd yet England, yea, even New England, was false, disloyal. She had\nbut half kept the faith. When the cry of pagan England had gone forth\nfor light, it had been heard; the light had been given. But now in her\nday of illumination, when the Macedonian cry came to her, she closed\nher ears and listened not. On her skirts was the blood of the souls of\nmen; and at the last day the wail of the heathen as they went down\ninto the gulf of flame would bear witness against her.\n\nGrave and impassioned, with an undertone of warning and sorrow, rang\nthe voice of the minister, and the hearts of the people were shaken as\nthough a prophet were speaking.\n\n\"Out from the forests around us come the cry of heathen folk, and ye\nwill not listen. Ye have the light, and they perish in darkness and go\ndown to the pit. Generation after generation has grown up here in\nforest and mountain, and has lived and died without God and without\nhope. Generation has followed generation, stumbling blindly downward\nto the dust like the brutes that perish. And now their children,\nbound in iron and sitting under the shadow of death, reach out their\nhands from the wilderness with a blind cry to you for help. Will ye\nhear?\"\n\nHe lifted his hands to them as he spoke; there was infinite pathos in\nhis voice; for a moment it seemed as if all the wild people of the\nwilderness were pleading through him for light. Tears were in many\neyes; yet in spite of the wonderful power of his oratory, there were\nfaces that grew stern as he spoke,--for only a few years had passed\nsince the Pequod war, and the feeling against the Indians was bitter.\nThe Governor now sat erect and indignant.\n\nStrong and vehement was the minister's plea for missionaries to be\nsent to the Indians; fearlessly was the colonial government arraigned\nfor its deficiencies in this regard; and the sands in the hour-glass\nwere almost run out when the sermon was concluded and the minister\nsank flushed and exhausted into his seat.\n\nThe closing psalm was sung, and the audience was dismissed. Slow and\nlingering were the words of the benediction, as if the preacher were\nconscious of defeat and longed to plead still further with his people.\nThen the gathering broke up, the congregation filing out with the same\nsolemnity that had marked the entrance. But when the open air was\nreached, the pent-up excitement burst forth in a general murmur of\ncomment.\n\n\"A good man,\" remarked the Governor to his staff, \"but young, quite\nyoung.\" And they smiled approvingly at the grim irony of the tone.\n\n\"Our pastor is a fine speaker,\" said another, \"but why will he bring\nsuch unpleasant things into the pulpit? A good doctrinal sermon, now,\nwould have strengthened our faith and edified us all.\"\n\n\"Ay, a sermon on the errors of Episcopacy, for instance.\"\n\n\"Such talk makes me angry,\" growled a third. \"Missionaries for the\nIndians! when the bones of the good folk they have killed are yet\nbleaching amid the ashes of their cabins! Missionaries for those red\ndemons! an' had it been powder and shot for them it had been a\nrighteous sermon.\"\n\nSo the murmur of disapprobation went on among those slowly dispersing\ngroups who dreaded and hated the Indian with an intensity such as we\nnow can hardly realize. And among them came the minister, pale and\ndowncast, realizing that he had dashed himself in vain against the\nstern prejudice of his people and his age.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nTHE MINISTER'S HOME.\n\n               Sore have I panted at the sun's decline,\n               To pass with him into the crimson West,\n               And see the peoples of the evening.\n\n                                          EDWIN ARNOLD.\n\n\nThe Reverend Cecil Grey,--for such was our young minister's\nname,--proceeded immediately after the service to his home. Before we\ncross its threshold with him, let us pause for a moment to look back\nover his past life.\n\nBorn in New England, he first received from his father, who was a fine\nscholar, a careful home training, and was then sent to England to\ncomplete his education. At Magdalen College, Oxford, he spent six\nyears. Time passed very happily with him in the quiet cloisters of\nthat most beautiful of English colleges, with its memories of Pole and\nRupert, and the more courtly traditions of the state that Richard and\nEdward had held there. But when, in 1687, James II. attempted to\ntrample on the privileges of the Fellows and force upon them a popish\npresident, Cecil was one of those who made the famous protest against\nit; and when protests availed nothing, he left Oxford, as also did a\nnumber of others. Returning to America, he was appointed pastor of a\nNew England church, becoming one of the many who carried the flower\nof scholarship and eloquence into the bleak wilds of the New World.\n\nRestless, sensitive, ardent, he was a man to whom a settled pastorate\nwas impossible. Daring enterprises, great undertakings of a religious\nnature yet full of peril, were the things for which he was naturally\nfitted; and amid the monotonous routine of parish duties he longed for\na greater activity. Two centuries later he might have become\ndistinguished as a revivalist or as a champion of new and startling\nviews of theology; earlier, he might have been a reformer, a follower\nof Luther or Loyola; as it was, he was out of his sphere.\n\nBut for a time the Reverend Mr. Grey tried hard to mould himself to\nhis new work. He went with anxious fidelity through all the labors of\nthe country pastorate. He visited and prayed with the sick, he read\nthe Bible to the old and dim-sighted, he tried to reconcile petty\nquarrels, he wrestled with his own discontent, and strove hard to\ngrind down all the aspirations of his nature and shut out the larger\nhorizon of life.\n\nAnd for a time he was successful; but during it he was induced to take\na very fatal step. He was young, handsome, a clergyman, and unmarried.\nNow a young unmarried minister is pre-eminently one of sorrows and\nacquainted with grief. For that large body of well-meaning people who\nare by nature incapacitated from attending to their own business take\nhim in hand without mercy. Innumerable are the ways in which he is\ninformed that he ought to be married. Subtle and past finding out are\nthe plots laid by all the old ladies and match-makers of his church\nto promote that desired event. He is told that he can never succeed\nin the ministry till he is married. The praises of Matilda Jane\nTompkins or Lucinda Brown are sounded in his ears till he almost\nwishes that both were in a better world,--a world more worthy their\nvirtues. At length, wearily capitulating, he marries some wooden-faced\nor angular saint, and is unhappy for life.\n\nNow there was in Mr. Grey's church a good, gentle girl, narrow but not\nwooden-faced, famous for her neatness and her housekeeping abilities,\nwho was supposed to be the pattern for a minister's wife. In time gone\nby she had set her heart on a graceless sailor lad who was drowned at\nsea, much to the relief of her parents. Ruth Anderson had mourned for\nhim quietly, shutting up her sorrow in her own breast and going about\nher work as before; for hers was one of those subdued, practical\nnatures that seek relief from trouble in hard work.\n\nShe seemed in the judgment of all the old women in the church the\n\"very one\" for Mr. Grey; and it likewise seemed that Mr. Grey was the\n\"very one\" for her. So divers hints were dropped and divers things\nwere said, until each began to wonder if marriage were not a duty. The\nReverend Cecil Grey began to take unusual pains with his toilet, and\nwended his way up the hill to Mr. Anderson's with very much the aspect\nof a man who is going to be hanged. And his attempts at conversation\nwith the maiden were not at all what might have been expected from the\nyoung minister whose graceful presence and fluent eloquence had been\nthe boast of Magdalen. On her part the embarrassment was equally\ngreat. At length they were married,--a marriage based on a false idea\nof duty on each side. But no idea of duty, however strong or however\nfalse, could blind the eyes of this married pair to the terrible fact\nthat not only love but mental sympathy was wanting. Day by day Cecil\nfelt that his wife did not love him, that her thoughts were not for\nhim, that it was an effort for her to act the part of a wife toward\nhim. Day by day she felt that his interests lay beyond her reach, and\nthat all the tenderness in his manner toward her came from a sense of\nduty, not from love.\n\nBut she strove in all ways to be a faithful wife, and he tried hard to\nbe a kind and devoted husband. He had been especially attentive to her\nof late, for her health had been failing, and the old doctor had\nshaken his head very gravely over her. For a week or more she had\ngrown steadily worse, and was now unable even to walk without help.\nHer malady was one of those that sap away the life with a swift and\ndeadly power against which all human skill seems unavailing.\n\nMr. Grey on returning from church entered the living room. The invalid\nsat at the window, a heavy shawl wrapped about her, her pale face\nturned to the far blue line of sea, visible through a gap in the\nhills. A pang wrenched his heart keenly at the sight. Why _would_ she\nalways sit at that window looking so sorrowfully, so abstractedly at\nthe sea, as if her heart was buried there with her dead lover?\n\nShe started as she heard his footstep, and turned her head quickly\ntoward him, a faint flush tinging her cheek and a forced smile\nquivering around her lips. Her greeting was very gentle, and he saw\nthat her heart was reproaching her for being so disloyal to him as to\nthink of her lost lover; and yet he felt her fingers tremble and\nshrink away from his as he took her hand.\n\n\"God forgive me!\" he thought, with infinite self-accusation. \"How\nrepugnant I must be to her,--an intruder, thrusting myself into the\nheart that is sacred to the dead.\"\n\nBut he let her see nothing of this in his voice or manner as he\ninquired how she had been. She replied wearily that she was no better,\nthat she longed to get well again and be at work.\n\n\"I missed your sermon to-day,\" she said, with that strained, pathetic\nsmile upon her lips again. \"You must tell me about it now.\"\n\nHe drew his chair to her side and began to give an outline of the\nsermon. She listened, but it was with forced attention, without\nsympathy, without in the least entering into the spirit of what he was\nsaying. It pained him. He knew that her nature was so narrow, so\nconventional, that it was impossible for her to comprehend his grand\nscheme of Indian evangelization. But he checked his impatience, and\ngave her a full synopsis of the discourse.\n\n\"It is useless, useless. They cannot understand. A whole race is\nperishing around them, and they will not put forth a hand save to\nmistreat a Quaker or throw a stone at a Churchman. Our Puritanism is\nlike iron to resist tyranny,--but alas! it is like iron, too, when one\ntries to bend it to some generous undertaking.\"\n\nHe stopped, checking back other and more bitter words. All his soul\nrose up in revolt against the prejudice by which he was surrounded.\nThen Ruth spoke timidly.\n\n\"Seeing that it is so, would it not be best to let this missionary\nsubject go, and preach on practical every-day matters? I am not wise\nin these things, I know; but would it not be better to preach on\ncommon subjects, showing us how we ought to live from day to day, than\nto discourse of those larger things that the people do not\nunderstand?\"\n\nHis face darkened, though not angrily. This was the same prejudice he\nhad just encountered in the meeting-house, though in a different form.\nHe arose and paced back and forth with quick, impatient steps. Then he\ncame and stood before her with folded arms and resolute face.\n\n\"Ruth, I have tried that so often, tried it with prayers and tears,\nbut it is utterly impossible. I cannot bring myself to it. You know\nwhat the physicians say of my disease of the heart,--that my life may\nbe very short; and I want it to be noble. I want to live for the\ngreatest possibilities within my reach. I want to set some great work\nin motion that will light up thousands of darkened lives,--yea, and\ngrow in might and power even after my lips are sealed in death.\"\n\nThe little figure on the chair moved uneasily under his animated\nthough kindly gaze.\n\n\"I do not quite comprehend you. I think the best work is to do what\nGod gives us to do, and to do it well. To me he has given to labor in\ncaring for the house,\"--there was a patient weariness in her tone that\ndid not escape Cecil,--\"to you he has given the duties of a pastor, to\nstrengthen the weak, cheer the sorrowing, comfort the old. Is it not\nbetter to do those things faithfully than to spend our time longing\nfor some more ideal work not given us?\"\n\n\"But suppose the ideal work is given? Suppose a man is called to\nproclaim new truths, and be the leader in a new reform? For him the\nquiet pastorate is impossible; nay, were it possible, it would be\nwrong, for would he not be keeping back the message God had given him?\nHe would be one called to a work, yet entering not upon it; and upon\nhim would come the curse that fell on the unfaithful prophets of\nold.\"\n\nAll the gloom of the theology of his age was on him as he spoke.\nRefined and poetic as was his nature, it was thoroughly imbued with\nthe Calvinism of early New England.\n\nShe lifted her hand wearily and passed it over her aching brow.\n\n\"I do not know,\" she said; \"I have never thought of such things, only\nit seems to me that God knew best when he gave us our lots in life.\nSurely wherever we find ourselves, there he intended us to be, and\nthere we should patiently work, leaving our higher aspirations to his\nwill. Is not the ideal life, after all, the one that is kindest and\nhumblest?\"\n\n\"But, Ruth,\" replied the minister, sadly, \"while the work you describe\nis certainly noble, I have yet felt for a long time that it is not\nwhat God calls me to. Day after day, night after night, I think of the\nwild races that roam the forests to the west, of which no man knows\nthe end. Sometimes I think that I am called to stand before the rulers\nof the colony and plead that missionaries be sent to the Indians.\nSometimes I feel that I am called to go and preach to them myself.\nOften in my dreams I plead with dark-browed sachems or with mighty\ngatherings of warriors to cast away their blood-stained weapons and\naccept Christ, till I awake all trembling with the effort. And always\nthe deadly pain at my heart warns me that what is done must be done\nquickly.\"\n\nThe burning ardor that had given such intensity to his sermon came\ninto his voice as he spoke. The invalid moved nervously on her chair,\nand he saw that his enthusiasm merely jarred on her without awakening\nany response.\n\n\"Forgive me,\" he said hurriedly, \"I forgot that you were not well\nenough to talk of those things. Sometime when you are better we will\nspeak of them again.\"\n\nAnd then he talked of other and to her more interesting topics, while\na keen pang rankled in his breast to find her irresponsive to that\nwhich was so dear to him.\n\nBut he was very kind to her; and when after a while the old Indian\nwoman, Cecil's nurse in childhood and their only servant now, came to\ntell him that dinner was ready, he would not go until he had first\nbrought his wife her dinner and waited on her with his own hands.\n\nAfter his own repast was finished he must hasten away to preach his\nafternoon sermon. But he came to her first and bent over her; for\nthough love never had been, perhaps never could be, between them,\nthere was a deep domestic feeling in his nature.\n\n\"How good and patient you are in your sickness,\" he said, gazing down\ninto the quiet, wistful face that was so honest and true, yet so\nthoroughly prosaic and commonplace. \"What a sermon you have been\npreaching me, sitting here so uncomplainingly.\"\n\n\"Do you think so?\" she said, looking up gratefully. \"I am glad. I so\nwant to do my duty by you.\"\n\nHe had meant to kiss her as he bent over her, though such caresses\nwere rare between them, but there was something in her tones that\nchilled him, and he merely raised a tress of her hair to his lips\ninstead. At the door he bade her a pleasant farewell, but his\ncountenance grew sorrowful as he went down the path.\n\n\"Duty,\" he murmured, \"always duty, never love. Well, the fault is my\nown that we were ever married. God help me to be true and kind to her\nalways. She shall never know that I miss anything in her.\"\n\nAnd he preached to his congregation that afternoon a sermon on\nburden-bearing, showing how each should bear his own burden\npatiently,--not darkening the lives of others by complaint, but always\nsaying loving words, no matter how much of heartache lay beneath them.\nHe told how near God is to us all, ready to heal and to strengthen;\nand closed by showing how sweet and beautiful even a common life may\ngrow through brave and self-sacrificing endurance of trouble.\n\nIt was a helpful sermon, a sermon that brought the listeners nearer\nGod. More than one heart was touched by those earnest words that\nseemed to breathe divine sympathy and compassion.\n\nHe went home feeling more at peace than he had done for many days. His\nwife's room was still, as he entered it. She was in her easy-chair at\nthe window, lying back among the pillows asleep. Her face was flushed\nand feverish, her long lashes wet with tears. The wraps had fallen\naway from her, and he stooped over to replace them. As he did so her\nlips moved in her half-delirious slumber, and she murmured some name\nsounding like his own. A wild throb of joy thrilled through him, and\nhe bent closer to listen. Again she spoke the name, spoke it\nsorrowfully, longingly. It was the name of her lover drowned at sea.\n\nThe long, nervous fingers that held the half-drawn wraps shook\nconvulsively as with acutest pain, then drew the coverings gently\naround her.\n\n\"God help her, God help her!\" he murmured, as he turned softly away,\nhis eyes filling with tears,--tears for her sorrow rather than his\nown.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nA DARKENED FIRESIDE.\n\n                  ... Her way is parted from my way;\n        Out of sight, beyond light, at what goal may we meet?\n\n                                              DANTE ROSSETTI.\n\n\nRuth was much worse in the evening, but at last, after Cecil had\nwatched at her side till a late hour, she sank into a troubled sleep.\nThen the old Indian servant insisted on taking his place at the\nsufferer's bedside, for she saw that he was much worn by the labors of\nthe day and by anxiety for his wife. At first he refused; but she was\na skilled nurse, and he knew that the invalid would fare better in her\nhands than his own, so at last he consented on condition that she\nwould call him if his wife grew worse. The woman promised, and he\nwithdrew into the library, where a temporary bed had been made for\nhim. At the door he turned and looked back.\n\nHis wife lay with closed eyes and flushed face amid the white pillows.\nThe robe over her breast stirred with her difficult breathing, and her\nhead turned now and then from side to side while she uttered broken,\nfeverish words. By her sat the swarthy nurse, watching her every\nmovement and ready with observant eye and gentle touch to minister to\nall her needs.\n\nA yearning tenderness and pity came into his gaze. \"Poor child, poor\nchild!\" he thought. \"If I could only make her well and happy! If I\ncould only bring her dead lover back to life, how gladly would I put\nher in his arms and go away forever!\" And it seemed to him in some dim\nway that he had wronged the poor sufferer; that he was to blame for\nher sorrow.\n\nHe went on into the library. A lamp was burning on the table; a Hebrew\nBible and a copy of Homer lay beside it. Along the walls were arranged\nthose heavy and ponderous tomes in which the theology of the age was\nwont to clothe itself.\n\nHe seated himself at the table and took up his Homer; for he was too\nagitated to sleep. But it was in vain that he tried to interest\nhimself in it. The rhythm had lost its music, the thought its power;\nit was in vain that he tried to forget himself in the reply of\nAchilles, or the struggle over the body of Patroclus.\n\nHawthorne tells us that a person of artistic temperament may at a time\nof mental depression wander through the Roman galleries and see\nnothing in the finest masterpieces of Raphael or Angelo. The grace is\ngone from the picture, the inspiration from the marble; the one is a\nmeaningless collection of colors, the other a dull effigy carved in\nstone.\n\nSomething of this mood was on Cecil to-night. Irresponsive to the\ngrand beauty of the poem he felt only its undertone of heartache and\nwoe.\n\n\"It is like human life,\" he thought, as he listlessly turned the\npages; \"it is bright on the surface, but dark and terrible with pain\nbelow. What a black mystery is life! what bitter irony of justice!\nHector is dragged at Achilles' chariot-wheel, and Paris goes free.\nHelen returns to her home in triumph, while Andromache is left\ndesolate. Did Homer write in satire, and is the Iliad but a splendid\nmockery of justice, human and divine? Or is life so sad that every\ntale woven of it must needs become a tragedy?\"\n\nHe pondered the gloomy puzzle of human existence long that night. At\nlength his brain grew over-weary, and he slept sitting in his chair,\nhis head resting on the pages of the open book.\n\nHow long he slept he knew not, but he awoke with a start to find a\nhand laid on his shoulder and the tall figure of the Indian woman\nstanding beside him. He sprang up in sudden fear.\n\n\"Is she worse?\" he cried. But the woman, with that light noiseless\nstep, that mute stolidity so characteristic of her race, had already\nglided to the door; and there was no need for her to answer, for\nalready his own apprehensions had replied.\n\nHe was in the room almost as soon as she. His wife was much worse; and\nhastening through the night to a neighboring farmhouse, he roused its\ninmates, despatched a messenger for the physician, and returned,\naccompanied by several members of the neighbor's family.\n\nThe slow moments dragged away like years as they watched around her.\nIt seemed as if the doctor would never come. To the end of his life\nCecil never forgot the long-drawn agony of that night.\n\nAt length their strained hearing caught the quick tread of horses'\nhoofs on the turf without.\n\n\"The doctor, the doctor!\" came simultaneously from the lips of Cecil\nand the watchers. The doctor,--there was hope in the very name.\n\nHow eagerly they watched his face as he bent over the patient! It was\na calm, self-contained face, but they saw a shadow flit over it, a\nsudden almost imperceptible change of expression that said \"Death\" as\nplainly as if he had spoken it. They could do nothing, he\nsaid,--nothing but wait for the end to come.\n\nHow the moments lingered! Sometimes Cecil bent over the sufferer with\nevery muscle quivering to her paroxysms; sometimes he could endure it\nno longer and went out into the cool night air or into the library,\nwhere with the mere mechanical instinct of a student he picked up a\nbook, reading a few lines in it, then throwing it aside. Yet wherever\nhe was he felt her sufferings as acutely as when standing by her side.\nHis whole frame was in keenest sympathy with hers, his whole being\nfull of pain. So sharp were his sensations that they imparted an\nabnormal vigor to his mind. Every line his eyes met in reading stood\nout on the page with wonderful distinctness. The words seemed\npictorial, and his mind grasped abstruse propositions or involved\nexpressions with marvellous facility.\n\nHe noted it, and remembered afterward that he thought at the time how\ncurious it was that his tortured sympathies should give him such\nstartling acuteness of perception.\n\nThe slow night waned, the slow dawn crept over the eastern hills.\nCecil stood with haggard eyes at the foot of the bed, watching the\nsleeper's face. As the daylight brightened, blending with the light of\nthe still burning lamps, he saw a change come over her countenance;\nthe set face relaxed, the look lost its wildness. A great hope shone\nin his hollow eyes.\n\n\"She is getting better, she is coming out of her sufferings,\" he\nwhispered to the doctor.\n\n\"She will be out of her sufferings very soon,\" he replied sadly; and\nthen Cecil knew that the end was at hand. Was it because the peace,\nthe profound serenity which sometimes is the prelude of death, filling\nher being, penetrated his, that he grew so strangely calm? An\ninexpressible solemnity came to him as he looked at her, and all his\nagitation left him.\n\nHer face grew very sweet and calm, and full of peace. Her eyes met\nCecil's, and there was in them something that seemed to thank him for\nall his goodness and patience,--something that was both benediction\nand farewell. Her lips moved, but she was past the power of speech,\nand only her eyes thanked him in a tender, grateful glance.\n\nThe sun's edge flashed above the horizon, and its first rays fell\nthrough the uncurtained window full upon her face. She turned toward\nthem, smiling faintly, and her face grew tenderly, radiantly\nbeautiful, as if on that beam of sunshine the spirit of her dead lover\nhad come to greet her from the sea. Then the sparkle died out of her\neyes and the smile faded from her lips. It was only a white, dead face\nthat lay there bathed in golden light.\n\nA moment after, Cecil left the house with swift footsteps and plunged\ninto the adjacent wood. There under a spreading oak he flung himself\nprone upon the earth, and buried his face in his hands. A seething\nturmoil of thoughts swept his mind. The past rose before him like a\npanorama. All his married life rushed back upon him, and every memory\nwas regret and accusation.\n\n\"I might have been kinder to her, I might have been better,\" he\nmurmured, while the hot tears gushed from his eyes. \"I might have\nbeen so much better to her,\" he repeated over and over,--he, whose\nwhole thought had been to shut up his sorrow in his own heart and show\nher only tenderness and consideration.\n\nBy and by he grew calmer and sat up, leaning against the tree and\nlooking out into vacancy with dim eyes that saw nothing. His heart was\ndesolate, emptied of everything. What was he to do? What was he to set\nbefore himself? He had not loved her, but still she had been a part of\nhis life; with what was he to fill it now?\n\nAs he sat there depressed and troubled, a strange thing happened.\n\nHe was looking, as has been said, blindly into vacancy. It may have\nbeen an optical illusion, it may have been a mere vagary born of an\nover-wrought brain; but a picture formed before him. In the distance,\ntoward the west, he saw something that looked like a great arch of\nstone, a natural bridge, rugged with crags and dark with pine. Beneath\nit swept a wide blue river, and on it wild horsemen were crossing and\nrecrossing, with plumed hair and rude lances. Their faces were Indian,\nyet of a type different from any he had ever seen. The bridge was in\nthe heart of a mighty mountain-range. On either side rose sharp and\nlofty peaks, their sides worn by the action of water in some remote\nage.\n\nThese details he noted as in a dream; then the strangeness of it all\nburst upon him. Even as it did so, the vision dissolved; the bridge\nwavered and passed away, the mountain-peaks sank in shadow. He leaped\nto his feet and gazed eagerly. A fine mist seemed passing before his\nsight; then he saw only the reach of hill and woodland, with the\nmorning light resting upon it.\n\nWhile the vision faded, he felt springing up within him an\nirrepressible desire to follow it. A mysterious fascination seized\nhim, a wild desire to seek the phantom bridge. His whole being was\nswayed as by a supernatural power toward the west whence the vision\nhad passed. He started forward eagerly, then checked himself in\nbewilderment. What could it mean?\n\nIn the nineteenth century, one similarly affected would think it meant\na fevered, a disordered brain; but in the seventeenth, when statesmen\nlike Cromwell believed in dreams and omens, and _rou\u00e9s_ like Monmouth\ncarried charms in their pockets, these things were differently\nregarded.\n\nThe Puritan ministry, whose minds were imbued with the gloomy\nsupernaturalism of the Old Testament on which they fed, were\nespecially men to whom anything resembling an apparition had a\nprophetic significance. And Cecil Grey, though liberal beyond most New\nEngland clergymen, was liable by the keenness of his susceptibilities\nand the extreme sensitiveness of his organization to be influenced by\nsuch delusions,--if delusions they be. So he stood awed and trembling,\nquestioning within himself, like some seer to whom a dark and\nuncertain revelation has been made.\n\nSuddenly the answer came.\n\n\"The Lord hath revealed his will unto me and shown me the path wherein\nI am to walk,\" he murmured in a hushed and stricken tone. \"Ruth was\ntaken from me that I might be free to go where he should send me. The\nvision of the Indians and the bridge which faded into the west, and\nthe strange desire that was given me to follow it, show that the Lord\nhas another work for me to do. And when I find the land of the bridge\nand of the wild people I saw upon it, then will I find the mission\nthat God has given me to do. 'Lord God of Israel, I thank Thee. Thou\nhast shown me the way, and I will walk in it, though all its stones be\nfire and its end be death.'\"\n\nHe stood a moment with bowed head, communing with his God. Then he\nreturned to his lonely home.\n\nThe friends whose kindly sympathies had brought them to the house of\nmourning wondered at the erect carriage, the rapt, exalted manner of\nthe man. His face was pale, almost as pale as that within the darkened\nroom; but his eyes shone, and his lips were closely, resolutely set.\n\nA little while, and that determined face was all sorrowful and pitying\nagain, as he bent over the still, cold body of his dead.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nTHE COUNCIL OF ORDINATION.\n\n   Friends were assembled together; the Elder and Magistrate also\n   Graced the scene with their presence, and stood like the Law and\n        the Gospel....\n   After the Puritan way and the laudable custom of Holland.\n\n                                 _The Courtship of Miles Standish._\n\n\nA few days after the funeral, letters missive from the little society\nwent out to all the neighboring churches, calling a council to ordain\nthe Reverend Cecil Grey a missionary to the Indians.\n\nIt was a novel thing, in spite of the noble example that Roger\nWilliams had set not many years before; and the summons met with a\ngeneral response.\n\nAll the churches, far and near, sent delegates. If one could only have\ntaken a peep, the day before the council, into the households of that\npart of New England, what a glimpse he would have gotten of Puritan\ndomestic life! What a brushing up there was of black coats, what a\ncareful starching and ironing of bands; and above all, in Cecil's own\nneighborhood, what a mighty cookery for the ordination dinner the next\nday! For verily the capacity of the clerical stomach is marvellous,\nand is in fact the one thing in theology that does not change. New\ndepartures alter doctrines, creeds are modified, but the appetite of\nthe clergy is not subject to such mutations.\n\nThe morrow came, and with it the expected guests. The meeting house\nwas crowded. There were many ministers and lay delegates in the\ncouncil. In the chair sat a venerable preacher, not unknown in the\nrecords of those days,--a portly man, with a shrewd and kindly face.\nSterner faces were there also. The council wore a grave aspect, more\nlike a court of judges before whom a criminal is cited to appear than\nan assembly of clergymen about to ordain a missionary.\n\nAfter some preliminaries, Cecil was called on to give a statement of\nhis reasons for wishing to go as an evangelist to the Indians. He rose\nbefore them. There was a singular contrast between his slight form and\nexpressive features and the stout frames and grim countenances of the\nothers. But the graceful presence of the man had in it a quiet dignity\nthat commanded the respect of all.\n\nIn obedience to the command, he told how he had thought of the unknown\ntribes beyond the Alleghanies, living in the gloom of paganism and\nperishing in darkness, till an intangible sympathy inclined him toward\nthem,--till, as it seemed to him, their great desire for light had\nentered into and possessed him, drawing him toward them by a\nmysterious and irresistible attraction. He felt called of God to go\nand minister to their spiritual needs, and that it was his duty to\nleave everything and obey the call.\n\n\"Is this all?\" he was asked.\n\nHe hesitated a moment, and then described his vision in the wood the\nmorning of his wife's death. It made a deep impression on his hearers.\nThere was scarcely a man in the assembly who was not tinged with the\nsuperstition of the age; and all listened, not lightly or sceptically,\nbut in awe, as if it brought them to the threshold of the\nsupernatural.\n\nWhen the narration was ended, the chairman requested him to retire,\npending the decision of the council; but first he was asked,--\n\n\"Are you willing to abide by the decision of this council, whatever it\nmay be?\"\n\nHe raised his head confidently, and his reply came frank and\nfearless.\n\n\"I shall respect the opinions of my brethren, no matter how they may\ndecide; but I shall abide by the will of God and my own convictions of\nduty.\"\n\nThe grave Puritan bent his head, half in acknowledgment of the reply,\nhalf in involuntary admiration of its brave manhood; then Cecil left\nthe room, the silent, watchful crowd that filled the aisles parting\nrespectfully to let him pass.\n\n\"Now, brethren,\" said the chairman, \"the matter is before you. Let us\nhear from each his judgment upon it.\"\n\nSolemn and weighty were the opinions delivered. One brother thought\nthat Mr. Grey had plenty of work to do at home without going off on a\nwild-goose chase after the heathen folk of the wilderness. His church\nneeded him; to leave it thus would be a shameful neglect of duty.\n\nAnother thought that the Indians were descendants of the ten lost\ntribes of Israel, and as such should be left in the hands of God. To\nattempt to evangelize them was to fly in the face of Providence.\n\nAnother thought the same; but then, how about that vision of Mr.\nGrey? He couldn't get around that vision.\n\n\"I don't know, brethren, I don't know!\" he concluded, shaking his\nhead.\n\nStill another declared positively for Mr. Grey. The good people of the\ncolonies owed it to the savages to do something for their religious\nenlightenment. It was wrong that so little had been done. They had\ntaken their land from them, they had pushed them back into the wilds\nat the point of the sword; now let them try to save their souls. This\nman had been plainly called of God to be an apostle to the Indians;\nthe least that they could do was to bid him Godspeed and let him go.\n\nSo it went on. At length the venerable chairman, who had twice turned\nthe hour-glass upon the table before him, rose to close the\ndiscussion. His speech was a singular mixture of shrewdness,\nbenevolence, and superstition.\n\nHe said that, as Christians, they certainly owed a duty to the\nIndians,--a duty that had not been performed. Mr. Grey wished to help\nfulfil that neglected obligation, and would go at his own expense. It\nwould not cost the church a shilling. His vision was certainly a\nrevelation of the will of the Lord, and _he_ dared not stand in the\nway.\n\nA vote was taken, and the majority were found to be in favor of\nordination. The chairman pronounced himself pleased, and Mr. Grey was\nrecalled and informed of the result.\n\n\"I thank you,\" he said simply, with a glad and grateful smile.\n\n\"Now, brethren,\" said the worthy chairman with much unction, \"the\nhour of dinner is nigh at hand, and the good people of this place have\nprepared entertainment for us; so we will e'en put off the ceremony of\nordination till the afternoon. Let us look to the Lord for his\nblessing, and be dismissed.\"\n\nAnd so with a murmur of talk and comment the council broke up, its\nmembers going to the places where they were to be entertained. Happy\nwas the man who returned to his home accompanied by a minister, while\nthose not so fortunate were fain to be content with a lay delegate.\nIndeed, the hospitality of the settlement was so bounteous that the\nsupply exceeded the demand. There were not enough visitors to go\naround; and more than one good housewife who had baked, boiled, and\nroasted all the day before was moved to righteous indignation at the\nsight of the good man of the house returning guestless from the\nmeeting.\n\nEarly in the afternoon entertainers and entertained gathered again at\nthe meeting-house. Almost the entire country side was there,--old and\nyoung alike. The house was packed, for never before had that part of\nNew England seen a man ordained to carry the gospel to the Indians. It\noccurred, too, in that dreary interval between the persecution of the\nQuakers and the persecution of the witches, and was therefore doubly\nwelcome.\n\nWhen Cecil arrived, the throng made way reverently for him. Was he not\ngoing, perchance like the martyrs of old, to the fagot and the stake?\nTo those who had long known him he seemed hardly like the same man. He\nwas lifted to a higher plane, surrounded by an atmosphere of sanctity\nand heroism, and made sacred by the high mission given him of God, to\nwhich was now to be added the sanction of holy men.\n\nSo they made way for him, as the Florentines had made way for \"il\nFrate\" and as the people of God had made way for Francis Xavier when\nhe left them to stir the heart of the East with his eloquence, and,\nalas! to die on the bleak sea-coast of China, clasping the crucifix to\nhis breast and praying for those who had cast him out.\n\nCecil's face, though pale, was calm and noble. All his nature\nresponded to the moral grandeur of the occasion. It would be difficult\nto put into words the reverent and tender exaltation of feeling that\nanimated him that day. Perhaps only those upon whose own heads the\nhands of ordination have been laid can enter into or understand it.\n\nThe charge was earnest, but it was not needed, for Cecil's ardent\nenthusiasm went far beyond all that the speaker urged upon him. As he\nlistened, pausing as it were on the threshold of an unknown future, he\nwondered if he should ever hear a sermon again,--he, so soon to be\nswallowed by darkness, swept, self-yielded, into the abyss of\nsavagery.\n\nHeartfelt and touching was the prayer of ordination,--that God might\naccept and bless Cecil's consecration, that the divine presence might\nalways abide with him, that savage hearts might be touched and\nsoftened, that savage lives might be lighted up through his\ninstrumentality, and that seed might be sown in the wilderness which\nwould spring up and cause the waste places to be glad and the desert\nto blossom as the rose.\n\n\"And so,\" said the old minister, his voice faltering and his hands\ntrembling as they rested on Cecil's bowed head, \"so we give him into\nThine own hand and send him forth into the wilderness. Thou only\nknowest what is before him, whether it be a harvest of souls, or\ntorture and death. But we know that, for the Christian, persecutions\nand trials are but stepping-stones leading to God; yea, and that death\nitself is victory. And if he is faithful, we know that whatever his\nlot may be it will be glorious; that whatever the end may be, it will\nbe but a door opening into the presence of the Most High.\"\n\nStrong and triumphant rang the old man's tones, as he closed his\nprayer committing Cecil into the hands of God. To him, as he listened,\nit seemed as if the last tie that bound him to New England was\nsevered, and he stood consecrated and anointed for his mission. When\nhe raised his face, more than one of the onlookers thought of those\nwords of the Book where it speaks of Stephen,--\"And they saw his face\nas it had been the face of an angel.\"\n\nA psalm was sung, the benediction given, and the solemn service was\nover. It was long, however, before the people left the house. They\nlingered around Cecil, bidding him farewell, for he was to go forth at\ndawn the next day upon his mission. They pressed his hand, some with\nwarm words of sympathy, some silently and with wet eyes. Many\naffectionate words were said, for they had never known before how much\nthey loved their pastor; and now he seemed no longer a pastor, but a\nmartyr and a saint. More than one mother brought him her child to\nbless;--others strangers from a distance--lifted their children up,\nso that they could see him above the press, while they whispered to\nthem that they must always remember that they had seen the good Mr.\nGrey, who was going far off into the west to tell the Indians about\nGod.\n\nLong afterward, when nearly all that generation had passed away and\nthe storm of the Revolution was beginning to gather over the colonies,\nthere were a few aged men still living who sometimes told how, when\nthey were children, they had seen Cecil Grey bidding the people\nfarewell at the old meeting-house; and through all the lapse of years\nthey remembered what a wonderful brightness was on his face, and how\nsweet and kind were his words to each as he bade them good-by\nforever.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nINTO TRACKLESS WILDS.\n\n             \"I will depart,\" he said, \"the hour is come,\n              And in the silence of yon sky I read\n              My fated message flashing.\"\n\n                                            EDWIN ARNOLD.\n\n\nThe next morning Cecil rose early after a sleepless night. On that day\nhe was to go out from all that was sweet and precious in life and take\nthe path into the wilderness. At first his heart sank within him; then\nhis strength of purpose revived, and he was resolute again.\n\nHe must go, and soon. The briefer the parting the briefer the pang. He\nhad already bidden his friends good-by; his parents were long since\ndead; it only remained to part from the old Indian woman, his nurse in\nchildhood, now his faithful housekeeper and the only inmate of his\nhome.\n\nHe went to the kitchen,--for usually at this hour she was up and\npreparing breakfast. She was not there, and the room looked cold and\ncheerless in the gray dawn. He went to her door and knocked; there was\nno response. He called her; the room was as still as death. Alarmed,\nhe opened the door; no one was within; she was gone,--had evidently\nbeen gone all night, for the bed was untouched.\n\nHe was pained and bewildered at this desertion, for only the day\nbefore he had given her a paper legally drawn up, securing to her the\nlittle property he possessed and making her independent for the rest\nof her life. She had taken it, listened in silence to the kindly\nexpressions that accompanied the gift, and turned away without a word.\nNow she was gone; what could it mean?\n\nSlowly he made the simple preparations that were needed for the\njourney--putting a little food, his Bible, and other necessaries into\na kind of knapsack and strapping it upon his back. Then taking his\nstaff, he went out from his home, never to return.\n\nThe sun was rising, the air was fresh and dewy, but his heart was sad.\nYet through it ran a strange thrill of joy, a strange blending of pain\nand gladness.\n\n\"The parting is bitter, bitter almost unto death, but He will keep\nme,\" murmured the white lips, as he went down the walk.\n\nThe sound of voices fell on his ears, and he looked up. At the gate,\nawaiting him, was a group of his parishioners, who had come to look\nonce more on the face of their pastor. One by whose bedside he had\nprayed in the hour of sickness; another, whom his counsel had saved\nwhen direly tempted; a little lame child, who loved him for his\nkindness; and an aged, dim-sighted woman, to whom he had often read\nthe Scriptures.\n\nHe opened the gate and came out among them.\n\n\"God bless you, sir,\" said the old woman, \"we wanted to see your bonny\nface again before you left us.\"\n\nThe little lame boy said nothing, but came up to Cecil, took his hand,\nand pressed it to his cheek in a manner more eloquent than words.\n\n\"Friends,\" said Cecil, in a faltering voice, \"I thank you. It is very\nsweet to know that you care for me thus.\"\n\nOne by one they came and clasped his hand in tearful farewell. For\neach he had a loving word. It was an impressive scene,--the\nsorrow-stricken group, the pastor with his pale spiritual face full of\ncalm resolve, and around them the solemn hush of morning.\n\nWhen all had been spoken, the minister reverently uncovered his head;\nthe others did the same. \"It is for the last time,\" he said; \"let us\npray.\"\n\nAfter a few earnest words commending them to the care of God, he drew\nhis hand gently from the lame boy's cheek and rested it on his head in\nsilent benediction. Then giving them one last look of unutterable\nlove, a look they never forgot,--\n\n\"Good-by,\" he said softly, \"God bless you all.\"\n\n\"Good-by, God bless _you_, sir,\" came back in answer; and they saw his\nface no more.\n\nOne more farewell was yet to be said. The winding path led close by\nthe country graveyard. He entered it and knelt by the side of the\nnew-made grave. Upon the wooden headboard was inscribed the name of\nher who slept beneath,--\"Ruth Grey.\"\n\nHe kissed the cold sod, his tears falling fast upon it.\n\n\"Forgive me,\" he whispered, as if the dull ear of death could hear.\n\"Forgive me for everything wherein I failed you. Forgive me,\nand--Farewell.\"\n\nAgain he was on his way. At the entrance to the wood he saw a figure\nsitting on a rock beside the path. As he drew nearer he observed it\nwas clad in Indian garb, and evidently awaited his coming. Who was\nit? Might it not be some chief, who, having heard of his intended\nmission, had come forth to meet him?\n\nHe hastened his steps. When he came nearer, he saw that it was only an\nIndian woman; a little closer, and to his inexpressible astonishment\nhe recognized his old nurse.\n\n\"What does this mean?\" he exclaimed. \"What are you doing here, and in\nIndian garb, too?\"\n\nShe rose to her feet with simple, natural dignity.\n\n\"It means,\" she said, \"that I go with you. Was I not your nurse in\nchildhood? Did I not carry you in my arms then, and has not your roof\nsheltered me since? Can I forsake him who is as my own child? My heart\nhas twined around you too long to be torn away. Your path shall be my\npath; we go together.\"\n\nIt was in vain that Cecil protested, reasoned, argued.\n\n\"I have spoken,\" she said. \"I will not turn back from my words while\nlife is left me.\"\n\nHe would have pleaded longer, but she threw a light pack upon her back\nand went on into the forest. She had made her decision, and he knew\nshe would adhere to it with the inflexible obstinacy of her race.\n\nHe could only follow her regretfully; and yet he could not but be\ngrateful for her loyalty.\n\n[Illustration: \"_I have spoken; I will not turn back from my\nwords._\"]\n\nAt the edge of the wood he paused and looked back. Before him lay the\nfarms and orchards of the Puritans. Here and there a flock of sheep\nwas being driven from the fold into the pasture, and a girl, bucket in\nhand, was taking her way to the milking shed. From each farmhouse a\ncolumn of smoke rose into the clear air. Over all shone the glory of\nthe morning sun. It was civilization; it was New England; it was\n_home_.\n\nFor a moment, the scene seemed literally to lay hold of him and pull\nhim back. For a moment, all the domestic feelings, all the refinement\nin his nature, rose up in revolt against the rude contact with\nbarbarism before him. It seemed as if he could not go on, as if he\nmust go back. He shook like a leaf with the mighty conflict.\n\n\"My God!\" he cried out, throwing up his arms with a despairing\ngesture, \"must I give up everything, everything?\"\n\nHe felt his resolution giving way; his gray eyes were dark and dilated\nwith excitement and pain; his long fingers twitched and quivered;\nbefore he knew what he was doing, he was walking back toward the\nsettlement.\n\nThat brought him to himself; that re-awakened the latent energy and\ndecision of his character.\n\n\"What! shall I turn back from the very threshold of my work? God\nforgive me--never!\"\n\nHis delicate frame grew strong and hardy under the power of his\nindomitable spirit. Again his dauntless enthusiasm came back; again he\nwas the Apostle to the Indians.\n\nOne long last look, and he disappeared in the shadows of the wood,\npassing forever from the ken of the white man; for only vague rumors\nfloated back to the colonies from those mysterious wilds into which he\nhad plunged. The strange and wondrous tale of his after-life New\nEngland never knew.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK II.\n\n\n_THE OPENING OF THE DRAMA._\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nSHALL THE GREAT COUNCIL BE HELD?\n\n               The comet burns the wings of night,\n                 And dazzles elements and spheres;\n               Then dies in beauty and a blaze of light\n                 Blown far through other years.\n\n                                        JOAQUIN MILLER.\n\n\nTwo hundred years ago--as near as we can estimate the time from the\ndim and shadowy legends that have come down to us--the confederacy of\nthe Wauna or Columbia was one of the most powerful the New World has\never seen. It was apparently not inferior to that of the Six Nations,\nor to the more transitory leagues with which Tecumseh or Pontiac\nstayed for a moment the onward march of the white man. It was a union\nof the Indian tribes of Oregon and Washington, with the Willamettes at\nthe head, against their great hereditary enemies, the Nootkas, the\nShoshones, and the Spokanes.\n\nSonorous and picturesque was the language of the old Oregon Indians in\ntelling the first white traders the story of the great alliance.\n\n\"Once, long before my father's time and before his father's time, all\nthe tribes were as one tribe and the Willamettes were _tyee_ [chief].\nThe Willamettes were strong and none could stand against them. The\nheart of the Willamette was battle and his hand was blood. When he\nlifted his arm in war, his enemy's lodge became ashes and his council\nsilence and death.\n\n\"The war-trails of the Willamette went north and south and east, and\nthere was no grass on them. He called the Chinook and Sound Indians,\nwho were weak, his children, and the Yakima, Cayuse, and Wasco, who\nloved war, his brothers; but _he_ was elder brother. And the Spokanes\nand the Shoshones might fast and cut themselves with thorns and\nknives, and dance the medicine dance, and drink the blood of horses,\nbut nothing could make their hearts as strong as the hearts of the\nWillamettes; for the One up in the sky had told the old men and the\ndreamers that the Willamettes should be the strongest of all the\ntribes as long as the Bridge of the Gods should stand. That was their\n_tomanowos_.\"\n\nBut whenever the white listener asked about this superstition of the\nbridge and the legend connected with it, the Indian would at once\nbecome uncommunicative, and say, \"You can't understand,\" or more\nfrequently, \"I don't know.\" For the main difficulty in collecting\nthese ancient tales--\"old-man talk,\" as the Siwashes call them--was,\nthat there was much superstition interwoven with them; and the Indians\nwere so reticent about their religious beliefs, that if one was not\nexceedingly cautious, the lively, gesticulating talker of one moment\nwas liable to become the personification of sullen obstinacy the\nnext.\n\nBut if the listener was fortunate enough to strike the golden mean,\nbeing neither too anxious nor too indifferent, and if above all he had\nby the gift of bounteous _muck-a-muck_ [food] touched the chord to\nwhich the savage heart always responds, the Indian might go on and\ntell in broken English or crude Chinook the strange, dark legend of\nthe bridge, which is the subject of our tale.\n\nAt the time our story opens, this confederacy was at the height of its\npower. It was a rough-hewn, barbarian realm, the most heterogeneous,\nthe most rudimentary of alliances. The exact manner of its union, its\nlaws, its extent, and its origin are all involved in the darkness\nwhich everywhere covers the history of Indian Oregon,--a darkness into\nwhich our legend casts but a ray of light that makes the shadows seem\nthe denser. It gives us, however, a glimpse of the diverse and squalid\ntribes that made up the confederacy. This included the \"Canoe Indians\"\nof the Sound and of the Oregon sea-coast, whose flat heads, greasy\nsquat bodies, and crooked legs were in marked contrast with their\nskill and dexterity in managing their canoes and fish-spears; the\nhardy Indians of the Willamette Valley and the Cascade Range; and the\nbold, predatory riders of eastern Oregon and Washington,--buffalo\nhunters and horse tamers, passionately fond, long before the advent of\nthe white man, of racing and gambling. It comprised also the\nOkanogans, who disposed of their dead by tying them upright to a tree;\nthe Yakimas, who buried them under cairns of stone; the Klickitats,\nwho swathed them like mummies and laid them in low, rude huts on the\n_mimaluse_, or \"death islands\" of the Columbia; the Chinooks, who\nstretched them in canoes with paddles and fishing implements by their\nside; and the Kalamaths, who burned them with the maddest saturnalia\nof dancing, howling, and leaping through the flames of the funeral\npyre. Over sixty or seventy petty tribes stretched the wild empire,\nwelded together by the pressure of common foes and held in the grasp\nof the hereditary war-chief of the Willamettes.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe chiefs of the Willamettes had gathered on Wappatto Island, from\ntime immemorial the council-ground of the tribes. The white man has\nchanged its name to \"Sauvie's\" Island; but its wonderful beauty is\nunchangeable. Lying at the mouth of the Willamette River and extending\nfor many miles down the Columbia, rich in wide meadows and crystal\nlakes, its interior dotted with majestic oaks and its shores fringed\nwith cottonwoods, around it the blue and sweeping rivers, the wooded\nhills, and the far white snow peaks,--it is the most picturesque spot\nin Oregon.\n\nThe chiefs were assembled in secret council, and only those of pure\nWillamette blood were present, for the question to be considered was\nnot one to be known by even the most trusted ally.\n\nAll the confederated tribes beyond the Cascade Range were in a ferment\nof rebellion. One of the petty tribes of eastern Oregon had recently\nrisen up against the Willamette supremacy; and after a short but\nbloody struggle, the insurrection had been put down and the rebels\nalmost exterminated by the victorious Willamettes.\n\nBut it was known that the chief of the malcontents had passed from\ntribe to tribe before the struggle commenced, inciting them to revolt,\nand it was suspected that a secret league had been formed; though when\nmatters came to a crisis, the confederates, afraid to face openly the\nfierce warriors of the Willamette, had stood sullenly back, giving\nassistance to neither side. It was evident, however, that a spirit of\nangry discontent was rife among them. Threatening language had been\nused by the restless chiefs beyond the mountains; braves had talked\naround the camp-fire of the freedom of the days before the yoke of the\nconfederacy was known; and the gray old dreamers, with whom the\n_mimaluse tillicums_ [dead people] talked, had said that the fall of\nthe Willamettes was near at hand.\n\nThe sachems of the Willamettes, advised of everything, were met in\ncouncil in the soft Oregon spring-tide. They were gathered under the\ncottonwood trees, not far from the bank of the Columbia. The air was\nfresh with the scent of the waters, and the young leaves were just\nputting forth on the \"trees of council,\" whose branches swayed gently\nin the breeze. Beneath them, their bronze faces more swarthy still as\nthe dancing sunbeams fell upon them through the moving boughs, thirty\nsachems sat in close semi-circle before their great war-chief,\nMultnomah.\n\nIt was a strange, a sombre assembly. The chiefs were for the most part\ntall, well-built men, warriors and hunters from their youth up. There\nwas something fierce and haughty in their bearing, something menacing,\nviolent, and lawless in their saturnine faces and black, glittering\neyes. Most of them wore their hair long; some plaited, others flowing\nloosely over their shoulders. Their ears were loaded with _hiagua_\nshells; their dress was composed of buckskin leggings and moccasins,\nand a short robe of dressed skin that came from the shoulders to the\nknees, to which was added a kind of blanket woven of the wool of the\nmountain sheep, or an outer robe of skins or furs, stained various\ncolors and always drawn close around the body when sitting or\nstanding. Seated on rude mats of rushes, wrapped each in his outer\nblanket and doubly wrapped in Indian stoicism, the warriors were\nranged before their chief.\n\nHis garb did not differ from that of the others, except that his\nblanket was of the richest fur known to the Indians, so doubled that\nthe fur showed on either side. His bare arms were clasped each with a\nrough band of gold; his hair was cut short, in sign of mourning for\nhis favorite wife, and his neck was adorned with a collar of large\nbear-claws, showing he had accomplished that proudest of all\nachievements for the Indian,--the killing of a grizzly.\n\nUntil the last chief had entered the grove and taken his place in the\nsemi-circle, Multnomah sat like a statue of stone. He leaned forward\nreclining on his bow, a fine unstrung weapon tipped with gold. He was\nabout sixty years old, his form tall and stately, his brow high, his\neyes black, overhung with shaggy gray eyebrows and piercing as an\neagle's. His dark, grandly impassive face, with its imposing\nregularity of feature, showed a penetration that read everything, a\nreserve that revealed nothing, a dominating power that gave strength\nand command to every line. The lip, the brow, the very grip of the\nhand on the bow told of a despotic temper and an indomitable will.\nThe glance that flashed out from this reserved and resolute\nface--sharp, searching, and imperious--may complete the portrait of\nMultnomah, the silent, the secret, the terrible.\n\nWhen the last late-entering chief had taken his place, Multnomah rose\nand began to speak, using the royal language; for like the Cayuses and\nseveral other tribes of the Northwest, the Willamettes had two\nlanguages,--the common, for every-day use, and the royal, spoken only\nby the chiefs in council.\n\nIn grave, strong words he laid before them the troubles that\nthreatened to break up the confederacy and his plan for meeting them.\nIt was to send out runners calling a council of all the tribes,\nincluding the doubtful allies, and to try before them and execute the\nrebellious chief, who had been taken alive and was now reserved for\nthe torture. Such a council, with the terrible warning of the rebel's\ndeath enacted before it, would awe the malcontents into submission or\ndrive them into open revolt. Long enough had the allies spoken with\ntwo tongues; long enough had they smoked the peace-pipe with both the\nWillamettes and their enemies. They must come now to peace that should\nbe peace, or to open war. The chief made no gestures, his voice did\nnot vary its stern, deliberate accents from first to last; but there\nwas an indefinable something in word and manner that told how his\nwarlike soul thirsted for battle, how the iron resolution, the\nferocity beneath his stoicism, burned with desire of vengeance.\n\nThere was perfect attention while he spoke,--not so much as a glance\nor a whisper aside. When he had ceased and resumed his seat, silence\nreigned for a little while. Then Tla-wau-wau, chief of the Klackamas,\na sub-tribe of the Willamette, rose. He laid aside his outer robe,\nleaving bare his arms and shoulders, which were deeply scarred; for\nTla-wau-wau was a mighty warrior, and as such commanded. With measured\ndeliberation he spoke in the royal tongue.\n\n\"Tla-wau-wau has seen many winters, and his hair is very gray. Many\ntimes has he watched the grass spring up and grow brown and wither,\nand the snows come and go, and those things have brought him wisdom,\nand what he has seen of life and death has given him strong thoughts.\nIt is not well to leap headlong into a muddy stream, lest there be\nrocks under the black water. Shall we call the tribes to meet us here\non the island of council? When they are all gathered together they are\nmore numerous than we. Is it wise to call those that are stronger than\nourselves into our wigwam, when their hearts are bitter against us?\nWho knows what plots they might lay, or how suddenly they might fall\non us at night or in the day when we were unprepared? Can we trust\nthem? Does not the Klickitat's name mean 'he that steals horses'? The\nYakima would smoke the peace-pipe with the knife that was to stab you\nhid under his blanket. The Wasco's heart is a lie, and his tongue is a\ntrap.\n\n\"No, let us wait. The tribes talk great swelling words now and their\nhearts are hot, but if we wait, the fire will die down and the words\ngrow small. Then we can have a council and be knit together again. Let\nus wait till another winter has come and gone; then let us meet in\ncouncil, and the tribes will listen.\n\n\"Tla-wau-wau says, 'wait, and all will be well.'\"\n\nHis earnest, emphatic words ended, the chief took his seat and resumed\nhis former look of stolid indifference. A moment before he had been\nall animation, every glance and gesture eloquent with meaning; now he\nsat seemingly impassive and unconcerned.\n\nThere was another pause. It was so still that the rustling of the\nboughs overhead was startlingly distinct. Saving the restless glitter\nof black eyes, it was a tableau of stoicism. Then another spoke,\nadvising caution, setting forth the danger of plunging into a contest\nwith the allies. Speaker followed speaker in the same strain.\n\nAs they uttered the words counselling delay, the glance of the\nwar-chief grew ever brighter, and his grip upon the bow on which he\nleaned grew harder. But the cold face did not relax a muscle. At\nlength rose Mishlah the Cougar, chief of the Mollalies. His was one of\nthe most singular faces there. His tangled hair fell around a\nsinister, bestial countenance, all scarred and seamed by wounds\nreceived in battle. His head was almost flat, running back from his\neyebrows so obliquely that when he stood erect he seemed to have no\nforehead at all; while the back and lower part of his head showed an\nenormous development,--a development that was all animal. He knew\nnothing but battle, and was one of the most dreaded warriors of the\nWillamettes.\n\nHe spoke,--not in the royal language, as did the others, but in the\ncommon dialect, the only one of which he was master.\n\n\"My heart is as the heart of Multnomah. Mishlah is hungry for war. If\nthe tribes that are our younger brothers are faithful, they will come\nto the council and smoke the pipe of peace with us; if they are not,\nlet us know it. Mishlah knows not what it is to wait. You all talk\nwords, words, words; and the tribes laugh and say, 'The Willamettes\nhave become women and sit in the lodge sewing moccasins and are afraid\nto fight.' Send out the runners. Call the council. Let us find who are\nour enemies; then let us strike!\"\n\nThe hands of the chief closed involuntarily as if they clutched a\nweapon, and his voice rang harsh and grating. The eyes of Multnomah\nflashed fire, and the war-lust kindled for a moment on the dark faces\nof the listeners.\n\nThen rose the grotesque figure of an Indian, ancient, withered, with\nmatted locks and haggard face, who had just joined the council,\ngliding in noiselessly from the neighboring wood. His cheek-bones were\nunusually high, his lower lip thick and protruding, his eyes deeply\nsunken, his face drawn, austere, and dismal beyond description. The\nmis-shapen, degraded features repelled at first sight; but a second\nglance revealed a great dim sadness in the eyes, a gloomy foreboding\non brow and lip that were weirdly fascinating, so sombre were they, so\nfull of woe. There was a wild dignity in his mien; and he wore the\nrobe of furs, though soiled and torn, that only the richest chiefs\nwere able to wear. Such was Tohomish, or Pine Voice, chief of the\nSantiam tribe of the Willamettes, the most eloquent orator and potent\nmedicine or _tomanowos_ man in the confederacy.\n\nThere was a perceptible movement of expectation, a lighting up of\nfaces as he arose, and a shadow of anxiety swept over Multnomah's\nimpassive features. For this man's eloquence was wonderful, and his\nsoft magnetic tones could sway the passions of his hearers to his will\nwith a power that seemed more than human to the superstitious Indians.\nWould he declare for the council or against it; for peace or for war?\n\nHe threw back the tangled locks that hung over his face, and spoke.\n\n\"Chiefs and warriors, who dwell in lodges and talk with men, Tohomish,\nwho dwells in caves and talks with the dead, says greeting, and by him\nthe dead send greeting also.\"\n\nHis voice was wonderfully musical, thrilling, and pathetic; and as he\nspoke the salutation from the dead, a shudder went through the wild\naudience before him,--through all but Multnomah, who did not shrink\nnor drop his searching eyes from the speaker's face. What cared he for\nthe salutation of the living or the dead? Would this man whose\ninfluence was so powerful declare for action or delay?\n\n\"It has been long since Tohomish has stood in the light of the sun and\nlooked on the faces of his brothers or heard their voices. Other faces\nhas he looked upon and other voices has he heard. He has learned the\nlanguage of the birds and the trees, and has talked with the People of\nOld who dwell in the serpent and the cayote; and they have taught him\ntheir secrets. But of late terrible things have come to Tohomish.\"\n\nHe paused, and the silence was breathless, for the Indians looked on\nthis man as a seer to whom the future was as luminous as the past. But\nMultnomah's brow darkened; he felt that Tohomish also was against\nhim, and the soul of the warrior rose up stern and resentful against\nthe prophet.\n\n\"A few suns ago, as I wandered in the forest by the Santiam, I heard\nthe death-wail in the distance. I said, 'Some one is dead, and that is\nthe cry of the mourners. I will go and lift up my voice with them.'\nBut as I sought them up the hill and through the thickets the cry grew\nfainter and farther, till at last it died out amid distant rocks and\ncrags. And then I knew that I had heard no human voice lamenting the\ndead, but that it was the Spirit Indian-of-the-Wood wailing for the\nliving whose feet go down to the darkness and whose faces the sun\nshall soon see no more. Then my heart grew heavy and bitter, for I\nknew that woe had come to the Willamettes.\n\n\"I went to my den in the mountains, and sought to know of those that\ndwell in the night the meaning of this. I built the medicine-fire, I\nfasted, I refused to sleep. Day and night I kept the fire burning; day\nand night I danced the _tomanowos_ dance around the flames, or leaped\nthrough them, singing the song that brings the _Spee-ough_, till at\nlast the life went from my limbs and my head grew sick and everything\nwas a whirl of fire. Then I knew that the power was on me, and I fell,\nand all grew black.\n\n\"I dreamed a dream.\n\n\"I stood by the death-trail that leads to the spirit-land. The souls\nof those who had just died were passing; and as I gazed, the wail I\nhad heard in the forest came back, but nearer than before. And as the\nwail sounded, the throng on the death-trail grew thicker and their\ntread swifter. The warrior passed with his bow in his hand and his\nquiver swinging from his shoulder; the squaw followed with his food\nupon her back; the old tottered by. It was a whole people on the way\nto the spirit-land. But when I tried to see their faces, to know them,\nif they were Willamette or Shoshone or our brother tribes, I could\nnot. But the wail grew ever louder and the dead grew ever thicker as\nthey passed. Then it all faded out, and I slept. When I awoke, it was\nnight; the fire had burned into ashes and the medicine wolf was\nhowling on the hills. The voices that are in the air came to me and\nsaid, 'Go to the council and tell what you have seen;' but I refused,\nand went far into the wood to avoid them. But the voices would not let\nme rest, and my spirit burned within me, and I came. Beware of the\ngreat council. Send out no runners. Call not the tribes together.\nVoices and omens and dreams tell Tohomish of something terrible to\ncome. The trees whisper it; it is in the air, in the waters. It has\nmade my spirit bitter and heavy until my drink seems blood and my food\nhas the taste of death. Warriors, Tohomish has shown his heart. His\nwords are ended.\"\n\nHe resumed his seat and drew his robe about him, muffling the lower\npart of his face. The matted hair fell once more over his drooping\nbrow and repulsive countenance, from which the light faded the moment\nhe ceased to speak. Again the silence was profound. The Indians sat\nspell-bound, charmed by the mournful music of the prophet's voice and\nawed by the dread vision he had revealed. All the superstition within\nthem was aroused. When Tohomish took his seat, every Indian was ready\nto oppose the calling of the council with all his might. Even Mishlah,\nas superstitious as blood-thirsty, was startled and perplexed. The\nwar-chief stood alone.\n\nHe knew it, but it only made his despotic will the stronger. Against\nthe opposition of the council and the warning of Tohomish, against\n_tomanowos_ and _Spee-ough_, ominous as they were even to him, rose up\nthe instinct which was as much a part of him as life itself,--the\ninstinct to battle and to conquer. He was resolved with all the grand\nstrength of his nature to bend the council to his will, and with more\nthan Indian subtility saw how it might be done.\n\nHe rose to his feet and stood for a moment in silence, sweeping with\nhis glance the circle of chiefs. As he did so, the mere personality of\nthe man began to produce a reaction. For forty years he had been the\ngreat war-chief of the tribes of the Wauna, and had never known\ndefeat. The ancient enemies of his race dreaded him; the wandering\nbands of the prairies had carried his name far and wide; and even\nbeyond the Rockies, Sioux and Pawnee had heard rumors of the powerful\nchief by the Big River of the West. He stood before them a huge, stern\nwarrior, himself a living assurance of victory and dominion.\n\nAs was customary with Indian orators in preparing the way for a\nspecial appeal, he began to recount the deeds of the fathers, the\nvalor of the ancient heroes of the race. His stoicism fell from him as\nhe half spoke, half chanted the harangue. The passion that was burning\nwithin him made his words like pictures, so vivid they were, and\nthrilled his tones with electric power. As he went on, the sullen\nfaces of his hearers grew animated; the superstitious fears that\nTohomish had awakened fell from them. Again they were warriors, and\ntheir blood kindled and their pulses throbbed to the words of their\ninvincible leader. He saw it, and began to speak of the battles they\nthemselves had fought and the victories they had gained. More than one\ndark cheek flushed darker and more than one hand moved unconsciously\nto the knife. He alluded to the recent war and to the rebellious tribe\nthat had been destroyed.\n\n\"_That_,\" said he, \"was the people Tohomish saw passing over the\ndeath-trail in his dream. What wonder that the thought of death should\nfill the air, when we have slain a whole people at a single blow! Do\nwe not know too that their spirits would try to frighten our dreamers\nwith omens and bad _tomanowos_? Was it not bad _tomanowos_ that\nTohomish saw? It could not have come from the Great Spirit, for he\nspoke to our fathers and said that we should be strongest of all the\ntribes as long as the Bridge of the Gods should stand. Have the stones\nof that bridge begun to crumble, that our hearts should grow weak?\"\n\nHe then described the natural bridge which, as tradition and geology\nalike tell us, spanned at that time the Columbia at the Cascades. The\nGreat Spirit, he declared, had spoken; and as he had said, so it would\nbe. Dreams and omens were mist and shadow, but the bridge was rock,\nand the word of the Great Spirit stood forever. On this tradition the\nchief dwelt with tremendous force, setting against the superstition\nthat Tohomish had roused the still more powerful superstition of the\nbridge,--a superstition so interwoven with every thought and hope of\nthe Willamettes that it had become a part of their character as a\ntribe.\n\nAnd now when their martial enthusiasm and fatalistic courage were all\naglow, when the recital of their fathers' deeds had stirred their\nblood and the portrayal of their own victories filled them again with\nthe fierce joy of conflict, when the mountain of stone that arched the\nColumbia had risen before them in assurance of dominion as eternal as\nitself,--now, when in every eye gleamed desire of battle and every\nheart was aflame, the chief made (and it was characteristic of him) in\none terse sentence his crowning appeal,--\n\n\"Chiefs, speak your heart. Shall the runners be sent out to call the\ncouncil?\"\n\nThere was a moment of intense silence. Then a low, deep murmur of\nconsent came from the excited listeners: a half-smothered war-cry\nburst from the lips of Mishlah, and the victory was won.\n\nOne only sat silent and apart, his robe drawn close, his head bent\ndown, seemingly oblivious of all around him, as if resigned to\ninevitable doom.\n\n\"To-morrow at dawn, while the light is yet young, the runners will go\nout. Let the chiefs meet here in the grove to hear the message given\nthem to be carried to the tribes. The talk is ended.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nTHE WAR-CHIEF AND THE SEER.\n\n               Cassandra's wild voice prophesying woe.\n\n                                PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON.\n\n\nThe war-chief left the grove as soon as he had dismissed the council.\nTohomish went with him. For some distance they walked together, the\none erect and majestic, the other gliding like a shadow by his side.\n\nAt length Multnomah stopped under a giant cottonwood and looked\nsternly at Tohomish.\n\n\"You frightened the council to-day with bad _mimaluse_ [death] talk.\nWhy did you do it? Why did you bring into a council of warriors dreams\nfit only for old men that lie sleeping in the sun by the door of the\nwigwam?\"\n\n\"I said what my eyes saw and my ears heard, and it was true.\"\n\n\"It cannot be true, for the Great Spirit has said that the Willamettes\nshall rule the tribes as long as the bridge shall stand; and how can\nit fall when it is a mountain of stone?\"\n\nA strange expression crossed Tohomish's sullen face.\n\n\"Multnomah, beware how you rest on the prophecy of the bridge. Lean\nnot your hand on it, for it is as if you put it forth to lean it on a\ncoiled rattlesnake.\"\n\n\"Your sayings are dark,\" replied the chief impatiently. \"Speak\nplainly.\"\n\nTohomish shook his head, and the gloomy look habitual to him came\nback.\n\n\"I cannot. Dreams and omens I can tell, but the secret of the bridge\nis the secret of the Great Spirit; and I cannot tell it lest he become\nangry and take from me my power of moving men with burning words.\"\n\n\"The secret of the Great Spirit! What black thing is it you are hiding\nand covering up with words? Bring it forth into the light, that I may\nsee it.\"\n\n\"No, it is my _tomanowos_. Were I to tell it the gift of eloquence\nwould go from me, the fire would die from my heart and the words from\nmy lips, and my life would wither up within me.\"\n\nMultnomah was silent. Massive and commanding as was his character he\nwas still an Indian, and the words of the seer had touched the latent\nsuperstition in his nature. They referred to that strongest and most\npowerful of all the strange beliefs of the Oregon savages,--the spirit\npossession or devil worship of the _tomanowos_.\n\nAs soon as an Oregon Indian was old enough to aspire to a place among\nthe braves, he was sent into the hills alone. There he fasted, prayed,\nand danced, chanted the medicine-chant, and cut himself with knife or\nthorn till he fell exhausted to the ground. Whatever he saw then, in\nwaking delirium or feverish sleep, was the charm that was to control\nhis future. Be it bird or beast, dream or mystic revelation, it was\nhis _totem_ or _tomanowos_, and gave him strength, cunning, or\nswiftness, sometimes knowledge of the future, imparting to him its own\ncharacteristics. But _what_ it was, its name or nature, was the one\nsecret that must go with him to his grave. Woe unto him if he told the\nname of his _totem_. In that moment it would desert him, taking from\nhim all strength and power, leaving him a shattered wreck, an outcast\nfrom camp and war-party.\n\n\"Multnomah says well that it is a black secret, but it is my _totem_\nand may not be told. For many winters Tohomish has carried it in his\nbreast, till its poisoned sap has filled his heart with bitterness,\ntill for him gladness and warmth have gone out of the light, laughter\nhas grown a sob of pain, and sorrow and death have become what the\nfeast, the battle, and the chase are to other men. It is the black\nsecret, the secret of the coming trouble, that makes Tohomish's voice\nlike the voice of a pine; so that men say it has in it sweetness and\nmystery and haunting woe, moving the heart as no other can. And if he\ntells the secret, eloquence and life go with it. Shall Tohomish tell\nit? Will Multnomah listen while Tohomish shows what is to befall the\nbridge and the Willamettes in the time that is to come?\"\n\nThe war-chief gazed at him earnestly. In that troubled, determined\nlook, superstition struggled for a moment and then gave way to the\ninvincible obstinacy of his resolve.\n\n\"No. Multnomah knows that his own heart is strong and will not fail\nhim, come what may; and that is all he cares to know. If you told me,\nthe _tomanowos_ would be angry, and drain your spirit from you and\ncast you aside as the serpent casts its skin. And you must be the most\neloquent of all at the great council; for there the arm of Multnomah\nand the voice of Tohomish must bend the bad chiefs before them.\"\n\nHis accents had the same undertone of arbitrary will, of inflexible\ndetermination, that had been in them when he spoke in the council.\nThough the shadows fell more and more ominous and threatening across\nhis path, to turn back did not occur to him. The stubborn tenacity of\nthe man could not let go his settled purpose.\n\n\"Tohomish will be at the council and speak for his chief and his\ntribe?\" asked Multnomah, in a tone that was half inquiry, half\ncommand; for the seer whose mysterious power as an orator gave him so\nstrong an influence over the Indians must be there.\n\nTohomish's haggard and repulsive face had settled back into the look\nof mournful apathy habitual to him. He had not, since the council,\nattempted to change the chief's decision by a single word, but seemed\nto have resigned himself with true Indian fatalism to that which was\nto come.\n\n\"Tohomish will go to the council,\" he said in those soft and lingering\naccents, indescribably sweet and sad, with which his degraded face\ncontrasted so strongly. \"Yes, he will go to the council, and his voice\nshall bend and turn the hearts of men as never before. Strong will be\nthe words that he shall say, for with him it will be sunset and his\nvoice will be heard no more.\"\n\n\"Where will you go when the council is ended, that we shall see you no\nmore?\" asked Multnomah.\n\n\"On the death-trail to the spirit-land,--nor will I go alone,\" was the\nstartling reply; and the seer glided noiselessly away and disappeared\namong the trees.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nWALLULAH.\n\n                                 Ne'er was seen\n             In art or nature, aught so passing sweet\n             As was the form that in its beauteous frame\n             Inclosed her, and is scattered now in dust.\n\n                                         CAREY: _Dante_.\n\n\nMultnomah passed on to seek the lodge of his daughter Wallulah, a half\nAsiatic, and the most beautiful woman in all the land of the Wauna.\n\nReader, would you know the tale of the fair oriental of whom was born\nthe sweet beauty of Wallulah?\n\nEighteen years before the time of our story, an East Indian ship was\nwrecked on the Columbia bar, the crew and cargo falling into the hands\nof the Indians. Among the rescued was a young and exceedingly lovely\nwoman, who was hospitably entertained by the chief of the tribe. He\nand his people were deeply impressed by the grace of the fair\nstranger, whose dainty beauty won for her the name of \"Sea-Flower,\"\nbecause the sea, that is ever drifting weeds, had for once wafted a\nflower to the shore.\n\nAs she sat on the mat in the rude bark lodge, the stern chief softened\nhis voice, trying to talk with her; the uncouth women gently stroked\nher long soft hair, and some of the bolder and more curious touched\nher white hands wonderingly, while the throng of dusky faces pressed\nclose round the pale, sweet creature whose eyes looked at them with a\ndeep, dumb woe they could not understand.\n\nWhen she had become familiar with the Willamette tongue, she told them\nthat she was the daughter of a chief far away across the great water,\nwho ruled a country as broad as the land of the Wauna and far richer.\nHe had sent her as a bride to the ruler of another land, with a\nfabulous dowry of jewels and a thousand gifts besides. But the ship\nthat bore her and her splendid treasures had been turned from its\ncourse by a terrible storm. Day after day it was driven through a\nwaste of blackness and foam,--the sails rent, the masts swept away,\nthe shattered hulk hurled onward like a straw by the fury of the wind.\nWhen the tempest had spent itself, they found themselves in a strange\nsea under strange stars. Compass and chart were gone; they knew not\nwhere they were, and caught in some unknown current, they could only\ndrift blindly on and on. Never sighting land, seeing naught but the\neverlasting sweep of wave and sky, it began to be whispered in terror\nthat this ocean had no further shore, that they might sail on forever,\nseeing nothing but the boundless waters. At length, when the\nsuperstitious sailors began to talk of throwing their fair charge\noverboard as an offering to the gods, the blue peaks of the Coast\nRange rose out of the water, and the ever rain-freshened green of the\nOregon forests dawned upon them. Then came the attempt to enter the\nColumbia, and the wreck on the bar.[1]\n\nMultnomah made the lovely princess his wife, and Sea-Flower showed the\nspirit of a queen. She tried to introduce among the Indians something\nof the refinement of her oriental home. From her the degraded\nmedicine-men and dreamers caught a gleam of the majestic lore of\nBuddha; to the chiefs-in-council she taught something of the grave,\ninexorable justice of the East, that seemed like a higher development\nof their own grim unwritten code. Her influence was very great, for\nshe was naturally eloquent and of noble presence. More than one sachem\nfelt the inspiration of better, purer thoughts than he had ever known\nbefore when the \"war-chief's woman\" spoke in council. Strange\ngatherings were those: blood-stained chiefs and savage warriors\nlistening all intent to the sweetest of Indian tongues spoken in\nmodulations that were music; the wild heart of the empire stirred by\nthe perfumed breath of a woman!\n\nShe had died three years before the events we have been narrating, and\nhad left to her daughter the heritage of her refinement and her\nbeauty. Wallulah was the only child of the war-chief and his Asiatic\nwife, the sole heir of her father's sovereignty.\n\nTwo miles from the council grove, in the interior of the island, was\nWallulah's lodge. The path that Multnomah took led through a pleasant\nsylvan lawn. The grass was green, and the air full of the scent of\nbuds and flowers. Here and there a butterfly floated like a sunbeam\nthrough the woodland shadows, and a humming-bird darted in winged\nbeauty from bloom to bloom. The lark's song came vibrating through the\nair, and in the more open spaces innumerable birds flew twittering in\nthe sun. The dewy freshness, the exquisite softness of spring, was\neverywhere.\n\nIn the golden weather, through shadowed wood and sunny opening, the\nwar-chief sought his daughter's lodge.\n\nSuddenly a familiar sound attracted his attention, and he turned\ntoward it. A few steps, and he came to the margin of a small lake.\nSeveral snow-white swans were floating on it; and near the edge of the\nwater, but concealed from the swans by the tall reeds that grew along\nthe shore, was his daughter, watching them.\n\nShe was attired in a simple dress of some oriental fabric. Her form\nwas small and delicately moulded; her long black hair fell in rich\nmasses about her shoulders; and her profile, turned toward him, was\nsweetly feminine. The Indian type showed plainly, but was softened\nwith her mother's grace. Her face was sad, with large appealing eyes\nand mournful lips, and full of haunting loveliness; a face whose\nstrange mournfulness was deepened by the splendor of its beauty; a\nface the like of which is rarely seen, but once seen can never be\nforgotten.\n\nThere was something despondent even in her pose, as she sat with her\nshoulders drooping slightly forward and her dark eyes fixed absently\non the swans, watching them through the bending reeds. Now one uttered\nits note, and she listened, seeming to vibrate to the deep, plaintive\ncry; then she raised to her lips a flute that she held in her hands,\nand answered it with a perfect intonation,--an intonation that\nbreathed the very spirit of the swan. So successful was the mimicry\nthat the swans replied, thinking it the cry of a hidden mate; and\nagain she softly, rhythmically responded.\n\n\"Wallulah!\" said the chief.\n\nShe sprang to her feet and turned toward him. Her dark face lighted\nwith an expressive flash, her black eyes shone, her features glowed\nwith joy and surprise. It was like the breaking forth of an inner\nillumination. There was now nothing of the Indian in her face.\n\n\"My father!\" she exclaimed, springing to him and kissing his hand,\ngreeting him as her mother had taught her to do from childhood.\n\"Welcome! Were you searching for me?\"\n\n\"Yes, you were well hidden, but Multnomah is a good hunter and can\nalways track the fawn to its covert,\" replied the chief, with the\nfaint semblance of a smile. All that there was of gentleness in his\nnature came out when talking with his daughter.\n\n\"You have come from the council? Are you not weary and hungry? Come to\nthe lodge, and let Wallulah give you food, and spread a mat for you\nto rest upon.\"\n\n\"No, I am hungry only to see Wallulah and hear her talk. Sit down on\nthe log again.\" She seated herself, and her father stood beside her\nwith an abstracted gaze, his hand stroking her long, soft tresses. He\nwas thinking of the darker, richer tresses of another, whose proud,\nsad face and mournful eyes with their wistful meaning, so like\nWallulah's own, he, a barbarian prince, could never understand.\n\nAlthough, according to the superstitious custom of the Willamettes, he\nnever spoke the name of Sea-Flower or alluded to her in any way, he\nloved his lost wife with a deep and unchanging affection. She had been\na fair frail thing whose grace and refinement perplexed and fascinated\nhim, moving him to unwonted tenderness and yearning. He had brought to\nher the spoils of the chase and of battle. The finest mat was braided\nfor her lodge, the choicest skins and furs spread for her bed, and the\nchieftainess's string of _hiagua_ shells and grizzly bear's claws had\nbeen put around her white neck by Multnomah's own hand. In spite of\nall this, she drooped and saddened year by year; the very hands that\nsought to cherish her seemed but to bruise; and she sickened and died,\nthe delicate woman, in the arms of the iron war-chief, like a flower\nin the grasp of a mailed hand.\n\nWhy did she die? Why did she always seem so sad? Why did she so often\nsteal away to weep over her child? Was not the best food hers, and the\nwarm place by the lodge fire, and the softest bearskin to rest on; and\nwas she not the wife of Multnomah,--the big chief's woman? Why then\nshould she droop and die like a winged bird that one tries to tame by\ntying it to the wigwam stake and tossing it food?\n\nOften the old chief brooded over these questions, but it was unknown\nto all, even to Wallulah. Only his raven tresses, cut close year by\nyear in sign of perpetual mourning, told that he had not forgotten,\ncould never forget.\n\nThe swans had taken flight, and their long lingering note sounded\nfaint in the distance.\n\n\"You have frightened away my swans,\" said Wallulah, looking up at him\nsmilingly.\n\nA shadow crossed his brow.\n\n\"Wallulah,\" he said, and his voice had now the stern ring habitual to\nit, \"you waste your life with the birds and trees and that thing of\nsweet sounds,\"--pointing to the flute. \"Better be learning to think on\nthe things a war-chief's daughter should care for,--the feast and the\ncouncil, the war-parties and the welcome to the braves when they come\nback to the camp with the spoil.\"\n\nThe bright look died out of her face.\n\n\"You say those words so often,\" she replied sorrowfully, \"and I try to\nobey, but cannot. War is terrible to me.\"\n\nHis countenance grew harsher, his hand ceased to stroke her hair.\n\n\"And has Multnomah, chief of the Willamettes and war-chief of the\nWauna, lived to hear his daughter say that war is terrible to her?\nHave you nothing of your father in you? Remember the tales of the\nbrave women of Multnomah's race,--the women whose blood is in your\nveins. Remember that they spoke burning words in the council, and went\nforth with the men to battle, and came back with their own garments\nstained with blood. You shudder! Is it at the thought of blood?\"\n\nThe old wistful look came back, the old sadness was on the beautiful\nface again. One could see now why it was there.\n\n\"My father,\" she said sorrowfully, \"Wallulah has tried to love those\nthings, but she cannot. She cannot change the heart the Great Spirit\nhas given her. She cannot bring herself to be a woman of battle any\nmore than she can sound a war-cry on her flute,\" and she lifted it as\nshe spoke.\n\nHe took it into his own hands.\n\n\"It is this,\" he said, breaking down the sensitive girl in the same\ndespotic way in which he bent the wills of warriors; \"it is this that\nmakes you weak. Is it a charm that draws the life from your heart? If\nso, it can be broken.\"\n\nAnother moment and the flute would have been broken in his ruthless\nhands and its fragments flung into the lake; but Wallulah, startled,\ncaught it from him with a plaintive cry.\n\n\"It was my mother's. If you break it you will break my heart!\"\n\nThe chief's angry features quivered at the mention of her mother, and\nhe instantly released the flute. Wallulah clasped it to her bosom as\nif it represented in some way the mother she had lost, and her eyes\nfilled with tears. Again her father's hand rested on her head, and she\nknew that he too was thinking of her mother. Her nature rose up in\nrevolt against the Indian custom which forbade talking of the dead.\nOh, if she might only talk with her father about her mother, though it\nwere but a few brief words! Never since her mother's death had her\nname been mentioned between them. She lifted her eyes, pathetic with\nthree years' hunger, to his. As their glances met, it seemed as if the\nveil that had been between their diverse natures was for a moment\nlifted, and they understood each other better than they ever had\nbefore. While his look imposed silence and sealed her lips as with a\nspoken command, there was a gleam of tenderness in it that said, \"I\nunderstand, I too remember; but it must not be spoken.\"\n\nThere came to her a sense of getting closer to her father's heart,\neven while his eyes held her back and bade her be silent.\n\nAt length the chief spoke, this time very gently.\n\n\"Now I shall talk to you not as to a girl but as to a woman. You are\nMultnomah's only child. When he dies there will be no one but you to\ntake his place. Are your shoulders strong enough to bear the weight of\npower, the weight that crushes men? Can you break down revolt and read\nthe hearts of plotters,--yes, and detect conspiracy when it is but a\nwhisper in the air? Can you sway council and battle to your will as\nthe warrior bends his bow? No; it takes men, men strong of heart, to\nrule the races of the Wauna. Therefore there is but one way left me\nwhereby the line of Multnomah may still be head of the confederacy\nwhen he is gone. I must wed you to a great warrior who can take my\nplace when I am dead and shelter you with his strength. Then the name\nand the power of Multnomah will still live among the tribes, though\nMultnomah himself be crumbled into dust.\"\n\nShe made no reply, but sat looking confused and pained, by no means\nelated at the future he had described.\n\n\"Have you never thought of this,--that some time I must give you to a\nwarrior?\"\n\nHer head drooped lower and her cheek faintly flushed.\n\n\"Sometimes.\"\n\n\"But you have chosen no one?\"\n\n\"I do not know,\" she faltered.\n\nHer father's hand still rested on her head, but there was an\nexpression on his face that showed he would not hesitate to sacrifice\nher happiness to his ambition.\n\n\"You have chosen, then? Is he a chief? No, I will not ask that; the\ndaughter of Multnomah could love no one but a chief. I have already\nselected a husband for you. Tear this other love from your heart and\ncast it aside.\"\n\nThe flush died out of her cheek, leaving it cold and ashen; and her\nfingers worked nervously with the flute in her lap.\n\nHe continued coldly,--\n\n\"The fame of your beauty has gone out through all the land. The chief\nof the Chopponish[2] has offered many horses for you, and the chief of\nthe Spokanes, our ancient foes, has said there would be peace between\nus if I gave you to him. But I have promised you to another. Your\nmarriage to him will knit the bravest tribe of the confederacy to us;\nhe will take my place when I am dead, and our people will still be\nstrong.\"\n\nShe made no reply. What could she do against her father's granite\nwill? All the grace and mobility were gone from her face, and it was\ndrooping and dull almost to impassiveness. She was only an Indian girl\nnow, waiting to learn the name of him who was to be her master.\n\n\"What is the name of the one you love? Speak it once, then never speak\nit again.\"\n\n\"Snoqualmie, chief of the Cayuses,\" faltered her tremulous lips.\n\nA quick change of expression came into the gaze that was bent on her.\n\n\"Now lift your head and meet your fate like the daughter of a chief.\nDo not let me see your face change while I tell you whom I have\nchosen.\"\n\nShe lifted her face in a tumult of fear and dread, and her eyes\nfastened pathetically on the chief.\n\n\"His name is--\" she clasped her hands and her whole soul went out to\nher father in the mute supplication of her gaze--\"the chief\nSnoqualmie, him of whom you have thought.\"\n\nHer face was bewilderment itself for an instant; the next, the sudden\nlight, the quick flash of expression which transfigured it in a moment\nof joy or surprise, came to her, and she raised his hand and kissed\nit. Was that all? Remember she had in her the deep, mute Indian nature\nthat meets joy or anguish alike in silence. She had early learned to\nrepress and control her emotions. Perhaps that was why she was so sad\nand brooding now.\n\n\"Where have you seen Snoqualmie?\" asked Multnomah. \"Not in your\nfather's lodge, surely, for when strange chiefs came to him you always\nfled like a frightened bird.\"\n\n\"Once only have I seen him,\" she replied, flushing and confused. \"He\nhad come here alone to tell you that some of the tribes were plotting\nagainst you. I saw him as he went back through the wood to the place\nwhere his canoe was drawn up on the bank of the river. He was tall;\nhis black hair fell below his shoulders; and his look was very proud\nand strong. His back was to the setting sun, and it shone around him\nrobing him with fire, and I thought he looked like the Indian\nsun-god.\"\n\n\"I am glad it is pleasant for you to obey me. Now, listen while I tell\nyou what you must do as the wife of Snoqualmie.\"\n\nStilling the sweet tumult in her breast, she tried hard to listen\nwhile he told her of the plans, the treaties, the friendships, and the\nenmities she must urge on her husband, when he became war-chief and\nwas carrying on her father's work; and in part she understood, for her\nimagination was captivated by the splendid though barbarian dream of\nempire he set before her.\n\nAt length, as the sun was setting, one came to tell Multnomah that a\nrunner from a tribe beyond the mountains had come to see him. Then her\nfather left her; but Wallulah still sat on the mossy log, while all\nthe woodland was golden in the glory of sunset.\n\nHer beloved flute was pressed close to her cheek, and her face was\nbright and joyous; she was thinking of Snoqualmie, the handsome\nstately chief whom she had seen but once, but whose appearance, as\nshe saw him then, had filled her girlish heart.\n\nAnd all the time she knew not that this Snoqualmie, to whom she was to\nbe given, was one of the most cruel and inhuman of men, terrible even\nto the grim warriors of the Wauna for his deeds of blood.\n\n\n-----\n\n [1] Shipwrecks of Asiatic vessels are not uncommon on the\n     Pacific Coast, several having occurred during the present\n     century,--notably that of a Japanese junk in 1833, from which\n     three passengers were saved at the hands of the Indians; while\n     the cases of beeswax that have been disinterred on the sea-coast,\n     the oriental words that are found ingrafted in the native\n     languages, and the Asiatic type of countenance shown by many of\n     the natives, prove such wrecks to have been frequent in\n     prehistoric times. One of the most romantic stories of the Oregon\n     coast is that which the Indians tell of a buried treasure at\n     Mount Nehalem, left there generations ago by shipwrecked men of\n     strange garb and curious arms,--treasure which, like that of\n     Captain Kidd, has been often sought but never found. There is\n     also an Indian legend of a shipwrecked white man named Soto, and\n     his comrades (See Mrs. Victor's \"Oregon and Washington\"), who\n     lived long with the mid-Columbia Indians and then left them to\n     seek some settlement of their own people in the south. All of\n     these legends point to the not infrequent occurrence of such a\n     wreck as our story describes.\n\n [2] Indian name of the Nez Perc\u00e9s.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nSENDING OUT THE RUNNERS.\n\n              Speed, Malise, speed; the dun deer's hide\n              On fleeter foot was never tied;\n              Herald of battle, fate and fear\n              Stretch around thy fleet career.\n\n                                                 SCOTT.\n\n\nAt early morning, the sachems had gathered in the council-grove,\nMultnomah on the seat of the war-chief, and twenty runners before him.\nThey were the flower of the Willamette youth, every one of royal\nbirth, handsome in shape and limb, fleet-footed as the deer. They were\nslender and sinewy in build, with aquiline features and sharp\nsearching eyes.\n\nTheir garb was light. Leggins and moccasins had been laid aside; even\nthe _hiagua_ shells were stripped from their ears. All stood nerved\nand eager for the race, waiting for the word that was to scatter them\nthroughout the Indian empire, living thunderbolts bearing the summons\nof Multnomah.\n\nThe message had been given them, and they waited only to pledge\nthemselves to its faithful delivery.\n\n\"You promise,\" said the chief, while his flashing glance read every\nmessenger to the heart, \"you promise that neither cougar nor cataract\nnor ambuscade shall deter you from the delivery of this summons; that\nyou will not turn back, though the spears of the enemy are thicker in\nyour path than ferns along the Santiam? You promise that though you\nfall in death, the summons shall go on?\"\n\nThe spokesman of the runners, the runner to the Chopponish, stepped\nforward. With gestures of perfect grace, and in a voice that rang\nlike a silver trumpet, he repeated the ancient oath of the\nWillamettes,--the oath used by the Shoshones to-day.\n\n\"The earth hears us, the sun sees us. Shall we fail in fidelity to our\nchief?\"\n\nThere was a pause. The distant cry of swans came from the river; the\ngreat trees of council rustled in the breeze. Multnomah rose from his\nseat, gripping the bow on which he leaned. Into that one moment he\nseemed gathering yet repressing all the fierceness of his passion, all\nthe grandeur of his will. Far in the shade he saw Tohomish raise his\nhand imploringly, but the eyes of the orator sank once more under the\nglance of the war-chief.\n\n\"Go!\"\n\nAn electric shock passed through all who heard; and except for the\nchiefs standing on its outskirts like sombre shadows, the grove was\nempty in a moment.\n\nBeyond the waters that girdled the island, one runner took the trail\nto Puyallup, one the trail to Umatilla, one the path to Chelon, and\none the path to Shasta; another departed toward the volcano-rent\ndesert of Klamath, and still another toward the sea-washed shores of\nPuget Sound.\n\nThe irrevocable summons had gone forth; the council was\ninevitable,--the crisis must come.\n\n[Illustration: \"_The Earth hears us, the Sun sees us._\"]\n\nLong did Multnomah and his chiefs sit in council that day. Resolute\nwere the speeches that came from all, though many secretly regretted\nthat they had allowed Multnomah's oratory to persuade them into\ndeclaring for the council: but there was no retreat.\n\nAcross hills and canyons sped the fleet runners, on to the huge bark\nlodges of Puget Sound, the fisheries of the Columbia, and the crowded\nrace-courses of the Yakima. Into camps of wandering prairie tribes,\nwhere the lodges stood like a city to-day and were rolled up and\nstrapped on the backs of horses to-morrow; into councils where\nsinister chiefs were talking low of war against the Willamettes; into\nwild midnight dances of plotting dreamers and medicine-men,--they came\nwith the brief stern summons, and passed on to speak it to the tribes\nbeyond.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK III.\n\n\n_THE GATHERING OF THE TRIBES._\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nTHE BROKEN PEACE-PIPE.\n\n                  My full defiance, hate, and scorn.\n\n                                              SCOTT.\n\n\nIt is the day after the departure of the runners to call the great\ncouncil,--eight years since Cecil Grey went out into the wilderness.\nSmoke is curling slowly upward from an Indian camp on the prairie not\nfar from the Blue Mountains of eastern Oregon. Fifteen or twenty\ncone-shaped lodges, each made of mats stretched on a frame-work of\npoles, compose the village. It swarms with wolfish-looking dogs and\ndirty, unclad children. Heaps of refuse, heads and feet of game, lie\ndecaying among the wigwams, tainting the air with their disgusting\nodor. Here and there an ancient withered specimen of humanity sits in\nthe sun, absorbing its rays with a dull animal-like sense of\nenjoyment, and a group of warriors lie idly talking. Some of the\nsquaws are preparing food, boiling it in water-tight willow baskets by\nfilling them with water and putting in hot stones.[3] Horses are\ntethered near the lodges, and others are running loose on the\nprairie.\n\nThere are not many of them. The Indians have only scores now where a\ncentury later Lewis and Clark found thousands; and there are old men\nin the camp who can recall the time when the first horses ever seen\namong them were bought or stolen from the tribes to the south.\n\nOn every side the prairie sweeps away in long grassy swells and\nhollows, rolling off to the base of the Blue Mountains.\n\nThe camp has the sluggish aspect that an Indian camp always presents\nat noonday.\n\nSuddenly a keen-sighted warrior points to a dim speck far over the\nprairie toward the land of the Bannocks. A white man would have\nscarcely noticed it; or if he had, would have thought it only some\nwandering deer or antelope. But the Indians, glancing at the moving\nobject, have already recognized it as a horseman coming straight\ntoward the camp.\n\nSome messenger it is, doubtless, from the Bannocks. Once the whole\ncamp would have rushed to arms at the approach of a rider from that\ndirection, for the two tribes had been at bitter enmity; but of late\nthe peace-pipe has been smoked between them, and the old feud is at an\nend. Still, the sight arouses considerable curiosity and much\nspeculation as to the object of the visitor.\n\nHe is a good rider, his horse is fleet, and in less time than would\nhave been thought possible reaches the camp. He gallops up, stops near\nthe lodges that are farthest out, and springs lightly to the ground.\nHe does not go on into the camp, but stands beside his horse till\nadvances are made on the other side.\n\nThe dogs bark at him; his steed, a fiery black, tosses its head and\npaws the ground; he stands beside it immovably, and to all appearance\nis ready so to stand till sunset. Some of the warriors recognize him\nas one of the bravest of the Bannocks. He looks like a daring,\nresolute man, yet wary and self-contained.\n\nAfter a while one of the Cayuse warriors (for this was a camp of the\nCayuses) advanced toward him, and a grave salutation was exchanged.\nThen the Bannock said that he wanted to see the Cayuse chief,\nSnoqualmie, in the council-lodge, for the chief of the Bannocks had\nsent a \"talk\" to the Cayuses.\n\nThe warrior left him to speak with Snoqualmie. In a short time he\nreturned, saying that the chief and the warriors had gone to the\ncouncil-lodge and were ready to hear the \"talk\" that their brother,\nthe chief of the Bannocks, had sent them. The messenger tied his horse\nby its lariat, or long hair-rope, to a bush, and followed the brave to\nthe lodge.\n\nIt was a large wigwam in the centre of the village. A crowd of old\nmen, women, and children had already gathered around the door. Within,\non one side of the room, sat in three rows a semi-circle of braves,\nfacing the chief, who sat on the opposite side. Near the door was a\nclear space where the messenger was to stand while speaking.\n\nHe entered, and the doorway behind him was immediately blocked up by\nthe motley crowd excluded from the interior. Not a warrior in the\ncouncil looked at him; even the chief, Snoqualmie, did not turn his\nhead. The messenger advanced a few paces into the room, stopped, and\nstood as impassive as the rest. Then, when the demands of Indian\nstoicism had been satisfied, Snoqualmie turned his face, a handsome\nbut treacherous and cruel face, upon the messenger.\n\n\"The warrior comes to speak the words of our brother, the chief of the\nBannocks; he is welcome. Shall we smoke the pipe of peace before we\nhear our brother's words?\"\n\nThe Bannock gazed steadily at Snoqualmie. In that fierce and proud\nregard was something the Cayuse could not fathom.\n\n\"Why should the peace-pipe be smoked?\" he asked. \"Was it not smoked in\nthe great council a moon ago? Did not Snoqualmie say then that the two\ntribes should henceforth be as one tribe, and that the Bannocks should\nbe the brethren of the Cayuses forever?\"\n\n\"Those were the words,\" replied the chief with dignity. \"Snoqualmie\nhas not forgotten them.\"\n\nAll eyes were now turned on the messenger; they saw that something\nunexpected was coming. The Bannock drew his form up to its full\nheight, and his resolute features expressed the bitterest scorn.\n\n\"Nor have the Bannocks forgotten. At the council you talked 'peace,\npeace.' Last night some of your young men surprised a little camp of\nBannocks,--a few old men and boys who were watching horses,--and slew\nthem and ran off the horses. Is that your peace? The Bannocks will\nhave no such peace. _This_ is the word the chief of the Bannocks sends\nyou!\"\n\nHolding up the peace-pipe that had been smoked at the great council\nand afterward given to the medicine-men of the Bannocks as a pledge of\nCayuse sincerity, he broke the long slender stem twice, thrice,\ncrushed the bowl in his fingers, and dashed the pieces at Snoqualmie's\nfeet. It was a defiance, a contemptuous rejection of peace, a\ndeclaration of war more disdainful than any words could have made it.\n\nThen, before they could recover from their astonishment, the Bannock\nturned and leaped through the crowd at the door,--for an instant's\nstay was death. Even as he leaped, Snoqualmie's tomahawk whizzed after\nhim, and a dozen warriors were on their feet, weapon in hand. But the\nswift, wild drama had been played like lightning, and he was gone.\nOnly, a brave who had tried to intercept his passage lay on the ground\noutside the lodge, stabbed to the heart. They rushed to the door in\ntime to see him throw himself on his horse and dash off, looking back\nto give a yell of triumph and defiance.\n\nIn less time than it takes to describe it, the horses tethered near\nthe lodges were mounted and twenty riders were in pursuit. But the\nBannock was considerably in advance now, and the fine black horse he\nrode held its own nobly. Out over the prairie flew the pursuing\nCayuses, yelling like demons, the fugitive turning now and then to\nutter a shout of derision.\n\nBack at the lodges, the crowd of spectators looked on with excited\ncomments.\n\n\"His horse is tired, ours are fresh!\" \"They gain on him!\" \"No, he is\ngetting farther from them!\" \"See, he throws away his blanket!\" \"They\nare closer, closer!\" \"No, no, his horse goes like a deer.\"\n\nOut over the prairies, fleeting like the shadow of a hurrying cloud,\npassed the race, the black horse leading, the Cayuse riders close\nbehind, their long hair outstreaming, their moccasins pressed against\ntheir horses' sides, their whips falling without mercy. Down a canyon\nthey swept in pursuit and passed from the ken of the watchers at the\ncamp, the black horse still in the van.\n\nBut it could not cope with the fresh horses of the Cayuses, and they\ngained steadily. At last the pursuers came within bowshot, but they\ndid not shoot; the fugitive knew too well the reason why. Woe unto him\nif he fell alive into their hands! He leaned low along his horse's\nneck, chanting a weird refrain as if charming it to its utmost speed,\nand ever and anon looked back with that heart-shaking shout of\ndefiance. But steadily his pursuers gained on him; and one,\noutstripping the rest, rode alongside and reached out to seize his\nrein. Even as he touched it, the Bannock's war-club swung in air and\nthe Cayuse reeled dead from his saddle. A howl of rage burst from the\nothers, a whoop of exultation from the fugitive.\n\nBut at length his horse's breath grew short and broken, he felt its\nbody tremble as it ran, and his enemies closed in around him.\n\nThrice the war-club rose and fell, thrice was a saddle emptied; but\nall in vain. Quickly his horse was caught, he was dragged from the\nsaddle and bound hand and foot.\n\nHe was thrown across a horse and brought back to the village. What a\nchorus of triumph went up from the camp, when it was seen that they\nwere bringing him back! It was an ominous sound, with something of\nwolfish ferocity in it. But the Bannock only smiled grimly.\n\nHe is bound to a post,--a charred, bloodstained post to which others\nof his race have been bound before him. The women and children taunt\nhim, jeer at him, strike him even. The warriors do not. They will\npresently do more than that. Some busy themselves building a fire near\nby; others bring pieces of flint, spear points, jagged fragments of\nrock, and heat them in it. The prisoner, dusty, torn, parched with\nthirst, and bleeding from many wounds, looks on with perfect\nindifference. Snoqualmie comes and gazes at him; the prisoner does not\nnotice him, is seemingly unconscious of his presence.\n\nBy and by a band of hunters ride up from a long excursion. They have\nheard nothing of the trouble. With them is a young Bannock who is\nvisiting the tribe. He rides up with his Cayuse comrades, laughing,\ngesticulating in a lively way. The jest dies on his lips when he\nrecognizes the Bannock who is tied to the stake. Before he can even\nthink of flight, he is dragged from his horse and bound,--his whilom\ncomrades, as soon as they understand the situation, becoming his\nbitterest assailants.\n\nFor it is war again, war to the death between the tribes, until, two\ncenturies later, both shall alike be crushed by the white man.\n\nAt length the preparations are complete, and the women and children,\nwho have been swarming around and taunting the captives, are brushed\naside like so many flies by the stern warriors. First, the young\nBannock who has just come in is put where he must have a full view of\nthe other. Neither speaks, but a glance passes between them that is\nlike a mutual charge to die bravely. Snoqualmie comes and stands\nclose by the prisoner and gives directions for the torture to begin.\n\nThe Bannock is stripped. The stone blades that have been in the fire\nare brought, all red and glowing with heat, and pressed against his\nbare flesh. It burns and hisses under the fiery torture, but the\nwarrior only sneers.\n\n\"It doesn't hurt; you can't hurt me. You are fools. You don't know how\nto torture.\"[4]\n\nNo refinement of cruelty could wring a complaint from him. It was in\nvain that they burned him, cut the flesh from his fingers, branded his\ncheek with the heated bowl of the pipe he had broken.\n\n\"Try it again,\" he said mockingly, while his flesh smoked. \"I feel no\npain. We torture your people a great deal better, for we make them cry\nout like little children.\"\n\nMore and more murderous and terrible grew the wrath of his tormentors,\nas this stream of vituperation fell on their ears. Again and again\nweapons were lifted to slay him, but Snoqualmie put them back.\n\n\"He can suffer more yet,\" he said; and the words were like a glimpse\ninto the cold, merciless heart of the man. Other and fiercer tortures\nwere devised by the chief, who stood over him, pointing out where and\nhow the keenest pain could be given, the bitterest pang inflicted on\nthat burned and broken body. At last it seemed no longer a man, but a\nbleeding, scorched, mutilated mass of flesh that hung to the stake;\nonly the lips still breathed defiance and the eyes gleamed deathless\nhate. Looking upon one and another, he boasted of how he had slain\ntheir friends and relatives. Many of his boasts were undoubtedly\nfalse, but they were very bitter.\n\n\"It was by my arrow that you lost your eye,\" he said to one; \"I\nscalped your father,\" to another; and every taunt provoked\ncounter-taunts accompanied with blows.\n\nAt length he looked at Snoqualmie,--a look so ghastly, so disfigured,\nthat it was like something seen in a horrible dream.\n\n\"I took your sister prisoner last winter; you never knew,--you thought\nshe had wandered from home and was lost in a storm. We put out her\neyes, we tore out her tongue, and then we told her to go out in the\nsnow and find food. Ah-h-h! you should have seen her tears as she went\nout into the storm, and----\"\n\nThe sentence was never finished. While the last word lingered on his\nlips, his body sunk into a lifeless heap under a terrific blow, and\nSnoqualmie put back his blood-stained tomahawk into his belt.\n\n\"Shall we kill the other?\" demanded the warriors, gathering around the\nsurviving Bannock, who had been a stoical spectator of his companion's\nsufferings. A ferocious clamor from the women and children hailed the\nsuggestion of new torture; they thronged around the captive, the\nchildren struck him, the women abused him, spat upon him even, but not\na muscle of his face quivered; he merely looked at them with stolid\nindifference.\n\n\"Kill him, kill him!\" \"Stretch him on red hot stones!\" \"We will make\n_him_ cry!\"\n\nSnoqualmie hesitated. He wished to save this man for another purpose,\nand yet the Indian blood-thirst was on him; chief and warrior alike\nwere drunken with fury, mad with the lust of cruelty.\n\nAs he hesitated, a white man clad in the garb of an Indian hunter\npushed his way through the crowd. Silence fell upon the throng; the\nclamor of the women, the fierce questioning of the warriors ceased.\nThe personality of this man was so full of tenderness and sympathy, so\nstrong and commanding, that it impressed the most savage nature. Amid\nthe silence, he came and looked first at the dead body that yet hung\nmotionless from the stake, then sorrowfully, reproachfully, at the\ncircle of faces around. An expression half of sullen shame, half of\ndefiance, crossed more than one countenance as his glance fell upon\nit.\n\n\"Friends,\" said he, sadly, pointing at the dead, \"is this your peace\nwith the Bannocks,--the peace you prayed the Great Spirit to bless,\nthe peace that was to last forever?\"\n\n\"The Bannocks sent back the peace-pipe by this man, and he broke it\nand cast the pieces in our teeth,\" answered one, stubbornly.\n\n\"And you slew him for it? Why not have sent runners to his tribe\nasking why it was returned, and demanding to know what wrong you had\ndone, that you might right it? Now there will be war. When you lie\ndown to sleep at night, the surprise may be on you and massacre come\nwhile your eyes are heavy with slumber; when you are gone on the\nbuffalo trail the tomahawk may fall on the women and children at home.\nDeath will lurk for you in every thicket and creep round every\nencampment. The Great Spirit is angry because you have stained your\nhands in blood without cause.\"\n\nThere was no reply. This white man, coming from far eastern lands\nlying they knew not where, who told them God had sent him to warn them\nto be better, had a singular influence over them. There was none of\nhis hearers who did not dimly feel that he had done wrong in burning\nand scarring the poor mass of humanity before him, and that the Great\nSpirit was angry with him for it.\n\nBack in the crowd, some of the children, young demons hungering for\nblood, began to clamor again for the death of the surviving Bannock.\nCecil Grey looked at him pityingly.\n\n\"At least you can let him go.\"\n\nThere was no answer. Better impulses, better desires, were struggling\nin their degraded minds; but cruelty was deeply rooted within them,\nthe vague shame and misgiving his words had roused was not so strong\nas the dark animalism of their natures.\n\nCecil turned to Snoqualmie.\n\n\"I saved your life once, will you not give me his?\"\n\nThe chief regarded him coldly.\n\n\"Take it,\" he said after a pause. Cecil stooped over and untied the\nthongs that bound the captive, who rose to his feet amid a low angry\nmurmur from those around. Snoqualmie silenced it with an imperious\ngesture. Then he turned to the young Bannock.\n\n\"Dog, one of a race of dogs! go back to your people and tell them what\nyou have seen to-day. Tell them how we burned and tortured their\nmessenger, and that we let you go only to tell the tale. Tell them,\ntoo, that Snoqualmie knows his sister died by their hand last winter,\nand that for every hair upon her head he will burn a Bannock warrior\nat the stake. Go, and be quick, lest my war-party overtake you on the\ntrail.\"\n\nThe Bannock left without a word, taking the trail across the prairie\ntoward the land of his tribe.\n\n\"The gift was given, but there was that given with it that made it\nbitter. And now may I bury this dead body?\"\n\n\"It is only a Bannock; who cares what is done with it?\" replied\nSnoqualmie. \"But remember, my debt is paid. Ask of me no more gifts,\"\nand the chief turned abruptly away.\n\n\"Who will help me bury this man?\" asked Cecil. No one replied; and he\nwent alone and cut the thongs that bound the body to the stake. But as\nhe stooped to raise it, a tall fine-looking man, a renegade from the\nShoshones, who had taken no part in the torture, came forward to help\nhim. Together they bore the corpse away from the camp to the hillside;\ntogether they hollowed out a shallow grave and stretched the body in\nit, covering it with earth and heaping stones on top, that the cayote\nmight not disturb the last sleep of the dead.\n\nWhen they returned to the camp, they found a war-party already in the\nsaddle, with Snoqualmie at their head, ready to take the Bannock\ntrail. But before they left the camp, a runner entered it with a\nsummons from Multnomah calling them to the great council of the tribes\non Wappatto Island, for which they must start on the morrow.\n\n\n-----\n\n [3] See Bancroft's \"Native Races,\" vol. i., p. 270.\n\n [4] See Ross Cox's \"Adventures on the Columbia River\" for a\n     description of torture among the Columbia tribes.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nON THE WAY TO THE COUNCIL.\n\n               They arrived at the village of Wishram.\n\n                                    IRVING: _Astoria_.\n\n\nThe camp was all astir at dawn, for sunset must see them far on the\nway. They must first cross the prairies to the northward till they\nstruck the Columbia, then take the great trail leading down it to the\nWillamette valley. It was a two days' journey at the least.\n\nSquaws were preparing a hurried meal; lodge-poles were being taken\ndown and the mats that covered them rolled up and strapped on the\nbacks of horses; Indians, yelling and vociferating, were driving up\nbands of horses from which pack and riding ponies were to be selected;\nunbroken animals were rearing and plunging beneath their first\nburdens, while mongrel curs ran barking at their heels. Here and there\nunskilful hands were throwing the lasso amid the jeers and laughter of\nthe spectators. All was tumult and excitement.\n\nAt length they were under way. First rode the squaws, driving before\nthem pack-horses and ponies, for the herds and entire movable property\nof the tribe accompanied it in all its marches. The squaws rode\nastride, like men, in the rude wooden saddles that one yet sees used\nby the wilder Indians of eastern Oregon and Idaho,--very high, both\nbefore and behind, looking like exaggerated pack-saddles. A hair rope,\ntied around the lower jaw of the horse, answered for a bridle. To this\nmust be added the quirt, a short double-lashed whip fastened into a\nhollow and curiously carved handle. The application of this whip was\nso constant as to keep the right arm in continual motion; so that even\nto-day on the frontier an Indian rider can be distinguished from a\nwhite man, at a distance, by the constant rising and falling of the\nwhip arm. With the squaws were the children, some of whom, not over\nfour, five, and six years of age, rode alone on horseback, tied in the\nhigh saddles; managing their steeds with instinctive skill, and when\nthe journey became fatiguing, going to sleep, secured by their\nfastenings from falling off.\n\nNext came the men, on the best horses, unencumbered by weight of any\nkind and armed with bow and arrow. Here and there a lance pointed with\nflint, a stone knife or hatchet, or a heavy war-club, hung at the\nsaddle; but the bow and arrow constituted their chief weapon.\n\nThe men formed a kind of rear-guard, protecting the migrating tribe\nfrom any sudden assault on the part of the Bannocks. There were\nperhaps two hundred fighting-men in all. Snoqualmie was at their head,\nand beside him rode the young Willamette runner who had brought the\nsummons from Multnomah the day before. The Willamette was on horseback\nfor the first time in his life. The inland or prairie tribes of\neastern Oregon, coming as they did in contact with tribes whose\nneighbors bordered on Mexico, had owned horses for perhaps a\ngeneration; but the sea-board tribes owned very few, and there were\ntribes on Puget Sound and at the mouth of the Columbia who had never\nseen them. Even the Willamettes, sovereign tribe of the confederacy\nthough they were, had but few horses.\n\nThis morning the young Willamette had bought a colt, giving for it a\nwhole string of _hiagua_ shells. It was a pretty, delicate thing, and\nhe was proud of it, and had shown his pride by slitting its ears and\ncutting off its tail, as was the barbarous custom with many of the\nIndians. He sat on the little creature now; and loaded as it was with\nthe double weight of himself and the heavy wooden saddle, it could\nhardly keep pace with the older and stronger horses.\n\nIn the rear of all rode Cecil Grey and the Shoshone renegade who had\nhelped him bury the dead Bannock the evening before. Cecil's form was\nas slight and graceful in its Indian garb as in days gone by, and his\nface was still the handsome, sensitive face it had been eight years\nbefore. It was stronger now, more resolute and mature, and from long\nintercourse with the Indians there had come into it something grave\nand Indian-like; but it only gave more of dignity to his mien. His\nbrown beard swept his breast, and his face was bronzed; but the lips\nquivered under the beard, and the cheek flushed and paled under the\nbronze.\n\nWhat had he been doing in the eight years that had elapsed since he\nleft his New England home? Let us listen to his story in his own words\nas he tells it to the Shoshone renegade by his side.\n\n\"I lived in a land far to the east, beside a great water. My people\nwere white like myself. I was one of an order of men whom the Great\nSpirit had appointed to preach of goodness, mercy, and truth, and to\nexplain to the people the sayings of a mighty book which he had given\nto the fathers,--a book that told how men should live in this world,\nand said that a beautiful place in the next would be given those who\nare good and true in this. But by and by the Great Spirit began to\nwhisper to me of the Indians in the wilderness who knew nothing of the\nbook or the hope within it, and a longing rose within me to go and\ntell them; but there were ties that held me to my own people, and I\nknew not what to do. Death cut those ties; and in my hour of grief\nthere came to me a vision of a great bridge far in the west, and of\nIndians passing over it, and a voice spoke to me and bade me go and\nseek the land of the bridge, for the Great Spirit had a mission for me\nthere; and I went forth into the wilderness. I met many tribes and\ntarried with them, telling them of God. Many were evil and treated me\nharshly, others were kind and listened. Some loved me and wished me to\nabide always in their lodges and be one of them. But even while they\nspoke the Great Spirit whispered to me to go on, and an unrest rose\nwithin me, and I could not stay.\n\n\"So the years went by, and I wandered farther and farther to the west,\nacross rivers and deserts, till I reached this tribe; and they said\nthat farther on, toward the land of the Willamettes, a great river\nflowed through the mountains, and across it was a bridge of stone\nbuilt by the gods when the world was young. Then I knew that it was\nthe bridge of my vision, and the unrest came back and I arose to go.\nBut the tribe kept me, half as guest and half as prisoner, and would\nnot let me depart; until last night the runner came summoning them to\nthe council. Now they go, taking me with them. I shall see the land of\nthe bridge and perform the work the Great Spirit has given me to do.\"\n\nThe old grand enthusiasm shone in his look as he closed. The Shoshone\nregarded him with grave attention.\n\n\"What became of the book that told of God?\" he asked earnestly.\n\n\"A chief took it from me and burned it; but its words were written on\nmy heart, and they could not be destroyed.\"\n\nThey rode on for a time in silence. The way was rugged, the country a\nsuccession of canyons and ridges covered with green and waving grass\nbut bare of trees. Behind them, the Blue Mountains were receding in\nthe distance. To the west, Mt. Hood, the great white \"Witch Mountain\"\nof the Indians, towered over the prairie, streaking the sky with a\nlong floating wreath of volcanic smoke. Before them, as they journeyed\nnorthward toward the Columbia, stretched out the endless prairie. Now\nthey descended into a deep ravine, now they toiled up a steep\nhillside. The country literally rolled, undulating in immense ridges\naround and over which the long file of squaws and warriors, herds and\npack-horses, wound like a serpent. From the bands ahead came shouts\nand outcries,--the sounds of rude merriment; and above all the\nlong-drawn intonation so familiar to those who have been much with\nIndian horsemen,--the endlessly repeated \"ho-ha, ho-ha, ho-ha,\" a kind\nof crude riding-song.\n\nAfter a while Cecil said, \"I have told you the story of my life, will\nyou not tell me the story of yours?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said the renegade, after a moment's thought; \"you have shown me\nyour heart as if you were my brother. Now I will show you mine.\n\n\"I was a Shoshone warrior.[5] There was a girl in our village whom I\nhad loved from childhood. We played together; we talked of how, when I\nbecame a man and a warrior, she should become my wife; she should keep\nmy wigwam; we would always love one another. She grew up, and the\nchief offered many horses for her. Her father took them. She became\nthe chief's wife, and all my heart withered up. Everything grew dark.\nI sat in my wigwam or wandered in the forest, caring for nothing.\n\n\"When I met her, she turned her face aside, for was she not the wife\nof another? Yet I knew her heart hungered for me. The chief knew it\ntoo, and when he spoke to her a cloud was ever on his brow and sharp\nlightning on his tongue. But she was true. Whose lodge was as clean as\nhis? The wood was always carried, the water at hand, the meat cooked.\nShe searched the very thought that was in his heart to save him the\ntrouble of speaking. He could never say, 'Why is it not done?' But her\nheart was mine, and he knew it; and he treated her like a dog and not\nlike a wife.\n\n\"Me too he tried to tread under foot. One day we assembled to hunt the\nbuffalo. Our horses were all collected. Mine stood before my tent, and\nhe came and took them away, saying that they were his. What could I\ndo? He was a chief.\n\n[Illustration: _The Great \"Witch Mountain\" of the Indians._]\n\n\"I came no more to the council, I shared no more in the hunt and the\nwar-dance. I was unhorsed, degraded, dishonored. He told his wife what\nhe had done, and when she wept he beat her.\n\n\"One evening I stood on a knoll overlooking the meadow where the\nhorses were feeding; the chief's horses were there, and mine with\nthem. I saw _him_ walking among them. The sight maddened me; my blood\nburned; I leaped on him; with two blows I laid him dead at my feet. I\ncovered him with earth and strewed leaves over the place. Then I went\nto _her_ and told her what I had done, and urged her to fly with me.\nShe answered only with tears. I reminded her of all she had suffered,\nand told her I had done only what was just. I urged her again to fly.\nShe only wept the more, and bade me go. My heart was heavy but my eyes\nwere dry.\n\n\"'It is well,' I said, 'I will go alone to the desert. None but the\nwild beasts of the wilderness will be with me. The seekers of blood\nwill follow on my trail; they may come on me while I am asleep and\nslay me, but you will be safe. I will go alone.'\n\n\"I turned to go. She sprang after me. 'No,' she cried, 'you shall not\ngo alone. Wherever you go I will go: you shall never part from me.'\n\n\"While we were talking, one who had seen me slay the chief and had\nroused the camp, came with others. We heard their steps approaching\nthe door, and knew that death came with them. We escaped at the back\nof the lodge, but they saw us and their arrows flew. She fell, and I\ncaught her in my arms and fled into the wood. When we were safe I\nlooked at her I carried, and she was dead. An arrow had pierced her\nheart. I buried her that night beneath a heap of stones, and fled to\nthe Cayuses. That is my story.\"\n\n\"What will you do now?\" asked Cecil, deeply touched.\n\n\"I shall live a man's life. I shall hunt and go on the war-trail, and\nsay strong words in the council. And when my life is ended, when the\nsunset and the night come to me and I go forth into the darkness, I\nknow I shall find her I love waiting for me beside the death-trail\nthat leads to the spirit-land.\"\n\nThe tears came into Cecil's eyes.\n\n\"I too have known sorrow,\" he said, \"and like you I am a wanderer from\nmy own people. We are going together into an unknown land, knowing not\nwhat may befall us. Let us be friends.\"\n\nAnd he held out his hand. The Indian took it,--awkwardly, as an Indian\nalways takes the hand of a white man, but warmly, heartily.\n\n\"We are brothers,\" he said simply. And as Cecil rode on with the wild\ntroop into the unknown world before him, he felt that there was one\nbeside him who would be faithful, no matter what befell.\n\nThe long day wore on; the sun rose to the zenith and sunk, and still\nthe Indians pushed forward. It was a long, forced march, and Cecil was\nterribly fatigued when at last one of the Indians told him that they\nwere near a big river where they would camp for the night.\n\n\"One sun more,\" said the Indian, pointing to the sun now sinking in\nthe west, \"and you will see the Bridge of the Gods.\"\n\nThe news re-animated Cecil, and he hurried on. A shout rose from the\nIndians in advance. He saw the head of the long train of horses and\nriders pause and look downward and the Indians at the rear gallop\nforward. Cecil and his friend followed and joined them.\n\n\"The river! the river!\" cried the Indians, as they rode up. The scene\nbelow was one of gloomy but magnificent beauty. Beneath them opened an\nimmense canyon, stupendous even in that land of canyons,--the great\ncanyon of the Columbia. The walls were brown, destitute of verdure,\nsinking downward from their feet in yawning precipices or steep\nslopes. At the bottom, more than a thousand feet below, wound a wide\nblue river, the gathered waters of half a continent. Beneath them, the\nriver plunged over a long low precipice with a roar that filled the\ncanyon for miles. Farther on, the flat banks encroached upon the\nstream till it seemed narrowed to a silver thread among the jutting\nrocks. Still farther, it widened again, swept grandly around a bend in\nthe distance, and passed from sight.\n\n\"_Tuum, tuum_,\" said the Indians to Cecil, in tones that imitated the\nroar of the cataract. It was the \"Tum\" of Lewis and Clark, the\n\"Tumwater\" of more recent times; and the place below, where the\ncompressed river wound like a silver thread among the flat black\nrocks, was the far-famed Dalles of the Columbia. It was superb, and\nyet there was something profoundly lonely and desolate about it,--the\nmajestic river flowing on forever among barren rocks and crags, shut\nin by mountain and desert, wrapped in an awful solitude where from age\nto age scarce a sound was heard save the cry of wild beasts or wilder\nmen.\n\n\"It is the very river of death and of desolation,\" thought Cecil. \"It\nlooks lonely, forsaken, as if no eye had beheld it from the day of\ncreation until now.\"\n\nLooking again at the falls, he saw, what he had not before noticed, a\nlarge camp of Indians on the side nearest them. Glancing across the\nriver, he descried on a knoll on the opposite bank--what? Houses! He\ncould not believe his eyes; could it be possible? Yes, they certainly\nwere long, low houses, roofed as the white man roofs his. A sudden\nwild hope thrilled him; his brain grew dizzy. He turned to one of the\nIndians.\n\n\"Who built those houses?\" he exclaimed; \"white men like me?\"\n\nThe other shook his head.\n\n\"No, Indians.\"\n\nCecil's heart died within him. \"After all,\" he murmured, \"it was\nabsurd to expect to find a settlement of white men here. How could I\nthink that any but Indians had built those houses?\"\n\nStill, as they descended the steep zigzag pathway leading down to the\nriver, he could not help gazing again and again at the buildings that\nso reminded him of home.\n\nIt was Wishram, the ancient village of the falls, whose brave and\ninsolent inhabitants, more than a century later, were the dread of the\nearly explorers and fur traders of the Columbia. It was built at the\nlast and highest fishery on the Columbia, for the salmon could not at\nthat time ascend the river above the falls. All the wandering tribes\nof the Upper Columbia came there to fish or to buy salmon of the\nWishram fishers. There too the Indians of the Lower Columbia and the\nWillamette met them, and bartered the _hiagua_ shells, the dried\nberries, and _wappatto_ of their country for the bear claws and\nbuffalo robes of the interior. It was a rendezvous where buying,\nselling, gambling, dancing, feasting took the place of war and the\nchase; though the ever burning enmities of the tribes sometimes flamed\ninto deadly feuds and the fair-ground not infrequently became a field\nof battle.\n\nThe houses of Wishram were built of logs, the walls low, the lower\nhalf being below the surface of the ground, so that they were\nvirtually half cellar. At a distance, the log walls and arched roofs\ngave them very much the appearance of a frontier town of the whites.\n\nAs they descended to the river-side, Cecil looked again and again at\nthe village, so different from the skin or bark lodges of the Rocky\nMountain tribes he had been with so long. But the broad and sweeping\nriver flowed between, and his gaze told him little more than his first\nglance had done.\n\nThey were now approaching the camp. Some of the younger braves at the\nhead of the Cayuse train dashed toward it, yelling and whooping in the\nwildest manner. Through the encampment rang an answering shout.\n\n\"The Cayuses! the Cayuses! and the white medicine-man!\"\n\nThe news spread like wildfire, and men came running from all\ndirections to greet the latest arrivals. It was a scene of abject\nsqualor that met Cecil's eyes as he rode with the others into the\ncamp. Never had he seen among the Indian races aught so degraded as\nthose Columbia River tribes.\n\nThe air was putrid with decaying fish; the very skins and mats that\ncovered the lodge-poles were black with rancid salmon and filth. Many\nof the men were nude; most of the women wore only a short garment of\nskin or woven cedar bark about the waist, falling scarcely to the\nknees. The heads of many had been artificially flattened; their faces\nwere brutal; their teeth worn to the gums with eating sanded salmon;\nand here and there bleared and unsightly eyes showed the terrible\nprevalence of ophthalmia. Salmon were drying in the sun on platforms\nraised above the reach of dogs. Half-starved horses whose raw and\nbleeding mouths showed the effect of the hair-rope bridles, and whose\nprojecting ribs showed their principal nutriment to be sage-brush and\nwhip-lash, were picketed among the lodges. Cayote-like dogs and unclad\nchildren, shrill and impish, ran riot, fighting together for\nhalf-dried, half-decayed pieces of salmon. Prevailing over everything\nwas the stench which is unique and unparalleled among the stenches of\nthe earth,--the stench of an Indian camp at a Columbia fishery.[6]\n\nPerhaps ten of the petty inland tribes had assembled there as their\nstarting-point for the great council at Wappatto Island. All had heard\nrumors of the white man who had appeared among the tribes to the south\nsaying that the Great Spirit had sent him to warn the Indians to\nbecome better, and all were anxious to see him. They pointed him out\nto one another as he rode up,--the man of graceful presence and\ndelicate build; they thronged around him, naked men and half-clad\nwomen, squalid, fierce as wild beasts, and gazed wonderingly.\n\n\"It is he, the white man,\" they whispered among themselves. \"See the\nlong beard.\" \"See the white hands.\" \"Stand back, the Great Spirit sent\nhim; he is strong _tomanowos_; beware his anger.\"\n\nNow the horses were unpacked and the lodges pitched, under the eyes of\nthe larger part of the encampment, who watched everything with\ninsatiable curiosity, and stole all that they could lay their hands\non. Especially did they hang on every motion of Cecil; and he sank\nvery much in their estimation when they found that he helped his\nservant, the old Indian woman, put up his lodge.\n\n\"Ugh, he does squaw's work,\" was the ungracious comment. After awhile,\nwhen the lodge was up and Cecil lay weary and exhausted upon his mat\nwithin it, a messenger entered and told him that the Indians were all\ncollected near the river bank and wished him to come and give them the\n\"talk\" he had brought from the Great Spirit.\n\nWorn as he was, Cecil arose and went. It was in the interval between\nsunset and dark. The sun still shone on the cliffs above the great\ncanyon, but in the spaces below the shadows were deepening. On the\nflat rocks near the bank of the river, and close by the falls of\nTumwater, the Indians were gathered to the number of several hundred,\nawaiting him,--some squatting, Indian fashion, on the ground, others\nstanding upright, looking taller than human in the dusky light.\nMingled with the debased tribes that made up the larger part of the\ngathering, Cecil saw here and there warriors of a bolder and superior\nrace,--Yakimas and Klickitats, clad in skins or wrapped in blankets\nwoven of the wool of the mountain sheep.\n\nCecil stood before them and spoke, using the Willamette tongue, the\nlanguage of common intercourse between the tribes, all of whom had\ndifferent dialects. The audience listened in silence while he told\nthem of the goodness and compassion of the Great Spirit; how it\ngrieved him to see his children at war among themselves, and how he,\nCecil, had been sent to warn them to forsake their sins and live\nbetter lives. Long familiarity with the Indians had imparted to him\nsomewhat of their manner of thinking and speaking; his language had\nbecome picturesque with Indian imagery, and his style of oratory had\nacquired a tinge of Indian gravity. But the intense and vivid\nspirituality that had ever been the charm of his eloquence was in it\nstill. There was something in his words that for the moment, and\nunconsciously to them, lifted his hearers to a higher plane. When he\nclosed there was upon them that vague remorse, that dim desire to be\nbetter, that indefinable wistfulness, which his earnest, tender words\nnever failed to arouse in his hearers.\n\nWhen he lifted his hands at the close of his \"talk,\" and prayed that\nthe Great Spirit might pity them, that he might take away from them\nthe black and wicked heart of war and hate and give them the new heart\nof peace and love, the silence was almost breathless, broken only by\nthe unceasing roar of the falls and the solemn pleading of the\nmissionary's voice.\n\nHe left them and returned through the deepening shadows to his lodge.\nThere he flung himself on the couch of furs the old Indian woman had\nspread for him. Fatigued with the long ride of the day and the heavy\ndraught his address had made on an overtaxed frame, he tried to\nsleep.\n\nBut he could not. The buildings of the town of Wishram across the\nriver, so like the buildings of the white man, had awakened a thousand\nmemories of home. Vivid pictures of his life in New England and in the\ncloisters of Magdalen came before his sleepless eyes. The longing for\nthe refined and pleasant things that had filled his life rose strong\nand irrepressible within him. Such thoughts were never entirely absent\nfrom his mind, but at times they seemed to dominate him completely,\ndriving him into a perfect fever of unrest and discontent. After\ntossing for hours on his couch, he arose and went out into the open\nair.\n\nThe stars were bright; the moon flooded the wide canyon with lustre;\nthe towering walls rose dim and shadowy on either side of the river\nwhose waters gleamed white in the moonlight; the solemn roar of the\nfalls filled the silence of the night.\n\nAround him was the barbarian encampment, with here and there a fire\nburning and a group of warriors talking beside it. He walked forth\namong the lodges. Some were silent, save for the heavy breathing of\nthe sleepers; others were lighted up within, and he could hear the\nmurmur of voices.\n\nAt one place he found around a large fire a crowd who were feasting,\nlate as was the hour, and boasting of their exploits. He stood in the\nshadow a moment and listened. One of them concluded his tale by\nspringing to his feet, advancing a few paces from the circle of\nfirelight, and making a fierce speech to invisible foes. Looking\ntoward the land of the Shoshones, he denounced them with the utmost\nfury, dared them to face him, scorned them because they did not\nappear, and ended by shaking his tomahawk in their direction, amid the\napplause of his comrades.\n\nCecil passed on and reached the outer limit of the camp. There, amid\nsome large bowlders, he almost stumbled on a band of Indians engaged\nin some grisly ceremony. He saw them, however, in time to escape\nobservation and screen himself behind one of the rocks.\n\nOne of the Indians held a rattlesnake pinned to the ground with a\nforked stick. Another held out a piece of liver to the snake and was\nprovoking him to bite it. Again and again the snake, quivering with\nfury and rattling savagely, plunged his fangs into the liver. Several\nIndians stood looking on, with arrows in their hands. At length, when\nthe meat was thoroughly impregnated with the virus, the snake was\nreleased and allowed to crawl away. Then they all dipped the points of\ntheir arrows in the poisoned liver,[7] carefully marking the shaft of\neach in order to distinguish it from those not poisoned. None of them\nsaw Cecil, and he left without being discovered.\n\nWhy did they wish to go to the council with poisoned arrows?\n\nFurther on, among the rocks and remote from the camp, he saw a great\nlight and heard a loud hallooing. He went cautiously toward it. He\nfound a large fire in an open space, and perhaps thirty savages,\nstripped and painted, dancing around it, brandishing their weapons\nand chanting a kind of war-chant. On every face, as the firelight fell\non it, was mad ferocity and lust of war. Near them lay the freshly\nkilled body of a horse whose blood they had been drinking. Drunk with\nfrenzy, drunk with blood, they danced and whirled in that wild\nsaturnalia till Cecil grew dizzy with the sight.[8]\n\nHe made his way back to the camp and sought his lodge. He heard the\nwolves howling on the hills, and a dark presentiment of evil crept\nover him.\n\n\"It is not to council that these men are going, but to war,\" he\nmurmured, as he threw himself on his couch. \"God help me to be\nfaithful, whatever comes! God help me to keep my life and my words\nfilled with his spirit, so that these savage men may be drawn to him\nand made better, and my mission be fulfilled! I can never hope to see\nthe face of white man again, but I can live and die faithful to the\nlast.\"\n\nSo thinking, a sweet and restful peace came to him, and he fell\nasleep. And even while he thought how impossible it was for him ever\nto reach the land of the white man again, an English exploring-ship\nlay at anchor at Yaquina Bay, only two days' ride distant; and on it\nwere some who had known and loved him in times gone by, but who had\nlong since thought him lost in the wilderness forever.\n\n\n-----\n\n [5] See Bonneville's Adventures, chapters xiii, and xlviii.\n\n [6] See Townsend's Narrative, pages 137, 138. Both Lewis and\n     Clark and Ross Cox substantiate his description; indeed, very\n     much the same thing can be seen at the Tumwater Fishery to-day.\n\n [7] See Bancroft's _Native Races_, article \"Columbians.\" A bunch\n     of arrows so poisoned is in the Museum of the Oregon State\n     University at Eugene.\n\n [8] Irving's \"Astoria,\" chap. xli.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHE GREAT CAMP ON THE ISLAND.\n\n                Of different language, form and face,\n                      A various race of men.\n\n                                               SCOTT.\n\n\n\"You say that we shall see the Bridge of the Gods to-day?\" asked Cecil\nof the young Willamette runner the next morning. \"Tell me about it; is\nit high?\"\n\nThe young Willamette rose to his full height, arched his right hand\nabove his eyes, looked skyward with a strained expression as if gazing\nup at an immense height, and emitted a prolonged \"ah-h-h!\"\n\nThat was all, but it was enough to bring the light to Cecil's eyes and\na sudden triumphant gladness to his heart. At last he approached the\nland of his vision, at last he should find the bridge whose wraith had\nfaded before him into the west eight years before!\n\nThe Cayuse band had started early that morning. The chief Snoqualmie\nwas impatient of delay, and wished to be one of the earliest at the\ncouncil; he wanted to signalize himself in the approaching struggle by\nhis loyalty to Multnomah, whose daughter he was to marry and whom he\nwas to succeed as war-chief.\n\nThe women were in advance, driving the pack-horses; Cecil rode behind\nthem with the Shoshone renegade and the young Willamette runner;\nwhile Snoqualmie brought up the rear, looking sharply after\nstragglers,--for some of his young men were very much inclined to\nlinger at the rendezvous and indulge in a little gambling and\nhorse-racing with the other bands, who were not to start till later in\nthe day.\n\nThe young Willamette still rode the pretty little pony whose ears and\ntail he had so barbarously mutilated. It reeled under him from sheer\nweakness, so young was it and so worn by the journey of the day\nbefore. In vain did Cecil expostulate. With true Indian obtuseness and\nbrutality, the Willamette refused to see why he should be merciful to\na horse.\n\n\"Suppose he rode me, what would _he_ care? Now I ride him, what do I\ncare? Suppose he die, plenty more _hiagua_ shells, plenty more\nhorses.\"\n\nAfter which logical answer he plied the whip harder than ever, making\nthe pony keep up with the stronger and abler horses of the other\nriders. The long train of squaws and warriors wound on down the trail\nby the river-side. In a little while Wishram and Tumwater passed from\nsight. The wind began to blow; the ever drifting sand of the Columbia\ncame sifting in their faces. They passed the Dalles of the Columbia;\nand the river that, as seen from the heights the evening before, wound\nlike a silver thread among the rocks, was found to be a compressed\ntorrent that rushed foaming along the narrow passage,--literally, as\nit has been described, \"a river turned on edge.\"\n\nThere too they passed the camp of the Wascos, who were preparing to\nstart, but suspended their preparations at the approach of the\ncavalcade and stood along the path eager to see the white man. Cecil\nnoticed that as they descended the river the language of the local\ntribes became more gutteral, and the custom of flattening the head\nprevailed more and more.[9]\n\nBelow, the scenery was less barren; the river entered the Cascade\nRange, and the steep banks, along which wound the trail, grew dark\nwith pines, relieved here and there with brighter verdure. They saw\nbands of Indians on the opposite shore, descending the trail along\nthat side on the way to the council. Many were on foot, though some\nhorses were among them. They were Indians of the nine tribes of the\nKlickitat, and as yet had but few horses. A century later they owned\nthousands. Indian women never accompanied war-parties; and Cecil\nnoticed that some of the bands were composed entirely of men, which\ngave them the appearance of going to war. It had an ominous and\ndoubtful look.\n\nAt the Wau-coma (place of cottonwoods), the modern Hood River, they\nfound the tribe that inhabited that beautiful valley already on the\nmarch, and the two bands mingled and went on together. The Wau-comas\nseemed to be peaceably inclined, for their women were with them.\n\nA short distance below the Wau-coma, the young Willamette's horse,\nurged till it could go no farther, fell beneath him. The blood gushed\nfrom its nostrils; in a few moments it was dead. The Willamette\nextricated himself from it. \"A bad horse, _cultus_ [no good]!\" he\nsaid, beating it with his whip. After venting his anger on it in that\nway, he strode forward on foot.\n\nAnd now Cecil was all expectation, on the alert for the first sight of\nthe bridge.\n\n\"Shall we see it soon?\" he asked the young Willamette.\n\n\"When the sun is there, we shall see it,\" replied the Indian, pointing\nto the zenith. The sun still lacked several hours of noon, and Cecil\nhad to restrain his impatience as best he could.\n\nJust then an incident occurred that for the time effectually\nobliterated all thought of the bridge, and made him a powerful enemy\nwhere he least desired one.\n\nAt a narrow place in the trail, the loose horses that were being\ndriven at the head of the column became frightened and ran back upon\ntheir drivers. In a moment, squaws, pack-horses, and ponies were all\nmingled together. The squaws tried in vain to restore order; it seemed\nas if there was going to be a general stampede. The men dashed up from\nthe rear, Snoqualmie and Cecil among them. Cecil's old nurse happened\nto be in Snoqualmie's way. The horse she rode was slow and obstinate;\nand when she attempted to turn aside to let Snoqualmie pass he would\nnot obey the rein, and the chief's way was blocked. To Snoqualmie an\nold Indian woman was little more than a dog, and he raised his whip\nand struck her across the face.\n\nLike a flash, Cecil caught the chief's rein and lifted his own whip.\nAn instant more, and the lash would have fallen across the Indian's\nface; but he remembered that he was a missionary, that he was\nviolating his own precepts of forgiveness in the presence of those\nwhom he hoped to convert.\n\nThe blow did not fall; he grappled with his anger and held it back;\nbut Snoqualmie received from him a look of scorn so withering, that it\nseemed when Cecil's flashing eyes met his own as if he had been\nstruck, and he grasped his tomahawk. Cecil released the rein and\nturned away without a word. Snoqualmie seemed for a moment to\ndeliberate within himself; then he let go his weapon and passed on.\nOrder was restored and the march resumed.\n\n\"You are strong,\" said the Shoshone renegade to Cecil. He had seen the\nwhole of the little drama. \"You are strong; you held your anger down,\nbut your eyes struck him as if he were a dog.\"\n\nCecil made no reply, but rode on thinking that he had made an enemy.\nHe regretted what had happened; and yet, when he recalled the insult,\nhis blood burned and he half regretted that the blow had not been\ngiven. So, absorbed in painful thought, he rode on, till a murmur\npassing down the line roused him.\n\n\"The bridge! The bridge!\"\n\nHe looked up hastily, his whole frame responding to the cry. There it\nwas before him, and only a short distance away,--a great natural\nbridge, a rugged ridge of stone, pierced with a wide arched tunnel\nthrough which the waters flowed, extending across the river. It was\ncovered with stunted pine and underbrush growing in every nook and\ncrevice; and on it were Indian horsemen with plumed hair and rude\nlances. It was the bridge of the Wauna, the Bridge of the Gods, the\nbridge he had seen in his vision eight years before.\n\nFor a moment his brain reeled, everything seemed shadowy and unreal,\nand he half expected to see the bridge melt, like the vision, into\nmist before his eyes.\n\nLike one in a dream, he rode with the others to the place where the\npath turned abruptly and led over the bridge to the northern bank of\nthe Columbia. Like one in a dream he listened, while the young\nWillamette told him in a low tone that this bridge had been built by\nthe gods when the world was young, that it was the _tomanowos_ of the\nWillamettes, that while it stood they would be strongest of all the\ntribes, and that if it fell they would fall with it. As they crossed\nit, he noted how the great arch rung to his horse's hoofs; he noted\nthe bushes growing low down to the tunnel's edge; he noted how\nmajestic was the current as it swept into the vast dark opening below,\nhow stately the trees on either bank. Then the trail turned down the\nriver-bank again toward the Willamette, and the dense fir forest shut\nout the mysterious bridge from Cecil's backward gaze.\n\nSolemnity and awe came to him. He had seen the bridge of his vision;\nhe had in truth been divinely called to his work. He felt that the\nsight of the bridge was both the visible seal of God upon his mission\nand a sign that its accomplishment was close at hand. He bowed his\nhead involuntarily, as in the presence of the Most High. He felt that\nhe rode to his destiny, that for him all things converged and\nculminated at the great council.\n\nThey had not advanced far into the wood ere the whole train came to a\nsudden halt. Riding forward, Cecil found a band of horsemen awaiting\nthem. They were Klickitats, mounted on good ponies; neither women nor\npack-horses were with them; they were armed and painted, and their\nstern and menacing aspect was more like that of men who were on the\nwar-trail than of men who were riding to a \"peace-talk.\"\n\nThe Cayuses halted a short distance away. Snoqualmie rode forward and\nmet the Klickitat chief in the space between the two bands. A few\nwords passed, fierce and questioning on the part of the Klickitat,\nguarded and reserved on the part of the Cayuse. Then the Klickitat\nseemed to suggest something at which the Cayuse shook his head\nindignantly. The other instantly wheeled his horse, rode back to his\nband, and apparently reported what Snoqualmie had said; for they all\nset up a taunting shout, and after flinging derisive words and\ngestures at the Cayuses, turned around and dashed at full gallop down\nthe trail, leaving the Cayuses covered with a cloud of dust.\n\nAnd then Cecil knew that the spectacle meant war.\n\nThe air grew softer and more moist as they descended the western slope\nof the Cascade Range. The pines gave way to forests of fir, the\nunderwood became denser, and ferns grew thick along the trail. It had\nrained the night before, and the boughs and bushes hung heavy with\npendant drops. Now and then an Indian rider, brushing against some\nvine or maple or low swaying bough, brought down upon himself a\ndrenching shower. The disgusted \"ugh!\" of the victim and the laughter\nof the others would bring a smile to even Cecil's lips.\n\nAnd so approaching the sea, they entered the great, wooded, rainy\nvalley of the lower Columbia. It was like a different world from the\ndesert sands and prairies of the upper Columbia. It seemed as if they\nwere entering a land of perpetual spring. They passed through groves\nof spreading oaks; they skirted lowlands purple with blooming _camas_;\nthey crossed prairies where the grass waved rank and high, and sunny\nbanks where the strawberries were ripening in scarlet masses. And ever\nand anon they caught sight of a far snow peak lifted above the endless\nreach of forest, and through openings in the trees caught glimpses of\nthe Columbia spreading wide and beautiful between densely wooded\nshores whose bending foliage was literally washed by the waters.\n\nAt length, as the sun was setting, they emerged from the wood upon a\nwide and level beach. Before them swept the Columbia, broader and\ngrander than at any previous view, steadily widening as it neared the\nsea. Opposite them, another river, not as large as the Columbia, but\nstill a great river, flowed into it.\n\n\"Willamette,\" said the young runner, pointing to this new river.\n\"Wappatto Island,\" he added, indicating a magnificent prospect of wood\nand meadow that lay just below the mouth of the Willamette down along\nthe Columbia. Cecil could not see the channel that separated it from\nthe mainland on the other side, and to him it seemed, not an island,\nbut a part of the opposite shore.\n\nAround them on the beach were groups of Indians, representatives of\nvarious petty tribes who had not yet passed to the island of council.\nHorses were tethered to the driftwood strewed along the beach; packs\nand saddles were heaped on the banks awaiting the canoes that were to\ncarry them over. Across the river, Cecil could see upon the island\nscattered bands of ponies feeding and many Indians passing to and fro.\nInnumerable lodges showed among the trees. The river was dotted with\ncanoes. Never before had he beheld so large an encampment, not even\namong the Six Nations or the Sioux. It seemed as if all the tribes of\nPuget Sound and the Columbia were there.\n\nAs they halted on the bank, a little canoe came skimming over the\nwater like a bird. It bore a messenger from Multnomah, who had seen\nthe Cayuses as soon as they emerged on the beach.\n\n\"Send your packs over in canoes, swim your horses, camp on the\nisland,\" was the laconic message. Evidently, in view of the coming\nstruggle, Multnomah wanted the loyal Cayuses close at hand.\n\nIn a little while the horses were stripped of their packs, which were\nheaped in the canoes that had followed the messenger, and the crossing\nbegan. A hair rope was put around the neck of a horse, and the end\ngiven to a man in a canoe. The canoe was then paddled out into the\nstream, and the horse partly pulled, partly pushed into the river. The\nothers after much beating followed their leader; and in a little while\na long line of half submerged horses and riders was struggling across\nthe river, while the loaded canoes brought up the rear. The rapid\ncurrent swept them downward, and they landed on the opposite bank at a\npoint far below that from which they started.\n\nOn the bank of the Columbia, near Morgan's Lake, an old gnarled\ncottonwood still marks the ancient landing-place; and traces remain of\nthe historic trail which led up from the river-bank into the interior\nof the island,--a trail traversed perhaps for centuries,--the great\nIndian road from the upper Columbia to the Willamette valley.\n\nThe bank was black with people crowding out to see the latest\narrivals. It was a thronging multitude of dusky faces and diverse\ncostumes. The Nootka with his tattooed face was there, clad in his\nwoollen blanket, his gigantic form pushing aside the short Chinook of\nthe lower Columbia, with his crooked legs, his half-naked body\nglistening with grease, his slit nose and ears loaded with _hiagua_\nshells. Choppunish women, clad in garments of buckskin carefully\nwhitened with clay, looked with scorn on the women of the Cowlitz and\nClatsop tribes, whose only dress was a fringe of cedar bark hanging\nfrom the waist. The abject Siawash of Puget Sound, attired in a scanty\npatch-work of rabbit and woodrat skin, stood beside the lordly Yakima,\nwho wore deerskin robe and leggins. And among them all, conscious of\nhis supremacy, moved the keen and imperious Willamette.\n\nThey all gazed wonderingly at Cecil, \"the white man,\" the \"long\nbeard,\" the \"man that came from the Great Spirit,\" the \"_shaman_ of\nstrong magic,\"--for rumors of Cecil and his mission had spread from\ntribe to tribe.\n\nThough accustomed to savage sights, this seemed to Cecil the most\nsavage of all. Flat heads and round heads; faces scarred, tattooed,\nand painted; faces as wild as beasts'; faces proud and haughty,\ndegraded and debased; hair cut close to the head, tangled, matted,\nclogged with filth, carefully smoothed and braided,--every phase of\nbarbarism in its most bloodthirsty ferocity, its most abject squalor,\nmet his glance as he looked around him. It seemed like some wild\nphantasmagoria, some weird and wondrous dream; and the discord of\ntongues, the confusion of dialects, completed the bewildering scene.\n\nThrough the surging crowd they found their way to the place where\ntheir lodges were to be pitched.\n\nOn the morrow the great council was to begin,--the council that to the\npassions of that mob of savages might be as the torch to dry\nbrushwood. On the morrow Multnomah would try and would condemn to\ndeath a rebel chief in the presence of the very ones who were in\nsecret league with him; and the setting sun would see the Willamette\npower supreme and undisputed, or the confederacy would be broken\nforever in the death-grapple of the tribes.\n\n-----\n\n [9] Lewis and Clark. See also Irving's \"Astoria.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nAN INDIAN TRIAL.\n\n                   Like flame within the naked hand\n                   His body bore his burning heart.\n\n                                    DANTE ROSSETTI.\n\n\nWappatto Island had seen many gatherings of the tribes, but never\nbefore had it seen so large an assembly as on the opening day of the\ncouncil. The great cottonwoods of the council-grove waved over an\naudience of sachems and warriors the like of which the oldest living\nIndian could not remember.\n\nNo weapons were to be seen, for Multnomah had commanded that all arms\nbe left that day in the lodges. But the dissatisfied Indians had come\nwith weapons hidden under their robes of deer or wolf skin, which no\none should have known better than Multnomah. Had he taken any\nprecautions against surprise? Evidently not. A large body of\nWillamette warriors, muffled in their blankets, lounged carelessly\naround the grove, with not a weapon visible among them; behind them\nthronged the vast and motley assemblage of doubtful allies; and back\nof them, on the outskirts of the crowd, were the faithful Cayuses,\nunarmed like the Willamettes. Had Multnomah's wonderful astuteness\nfailed him now when it was never needed more?\n\nHe was on the council-seat, a stone covered with furs; the Willamette\nsachems sat in their places facing him; and mats were spread for the\nchiefs of the tributaries. On a bearskin before the stern war-chief\nlay a peace-pipe and a tomahawk; and to the Indians, accustomed to\nsigns and symbols, the two had a grim significance.\n\nOne by one the chiefs entered the circle and took their seats on the\nmats provided for them. Those who were friendly to Multnomah first\nlaid presents before him; those who were not, took their places\nwithout offering him either gift or salutation. Multnomah, however,\nseemed unconscious of any neglect.\n\nThe chief of a Klamath tribe offered him a brilliantly dyed blanket;\nanother, a finely fringed quiver, full of arrows; another, a long and\nmassive string of _hiagua_ shells. Each laid his gift before Multnomah\nand took his seat in silence.\n\nThe chief of the Chopponish presented him with a fine horse, the best\nbelonging to his tribe. Multnomah accepted it, and a slave led it\naway. Then came Snoqualmie, bringing with him Cecil Grey. The chief's\nhour of vengeance was at hand.\n\n\"Behold the white man from the land where the sun rises, the white\n_shaman_ of whom all the tribes have heard. He is thine. Let him be\nthe white slave of Multnomah. All the chiefs have slaves, but who will\nhave a white slave like Multnomah?\"\n\nCecil saw the abyss of slavery yawning before him, and grew pale to\nthe lips. His heart sank within him; then the resolute purpose that\nnever failed him in time of peril returned; he lifted his head and met\nMultnomah's gaze with dignity. The war-chief bent on him the glance\nwhich read men to the heart.\n\n\"The white stranger has been a chief among his own people,\" he said to\nCecil, more in the manner of one asserting a fact than asking a\nquestion.\n\n\"I have often spoken to my people in the gatherings to hear the word\nof the Great Spirit.\"\n\nAgain the keen, inscrutable gaze of the great chief seemed to probe\nhis being to its core; again the calm, grave stranger met it without\nshrinking. The instinct, so common among savage races, of in some way\n_knowing_ what a man is, of intuitively grasping his true merit, was\npossessed by Multnomah in a large degree; and the royalty in his\nnature instinctively recognized the royalty in Cecil's.\n\n\"The white guest who comes into the land of Multnomah shall be to him\nas a guest; the chief should still be chief in any land. White\nstranger, Multnomah gives you welcome; sit down among the chiefs.\"\n\nCecil took his place among them with all the composure he could\ncommand, well knowing that he who would be influential among the\nIndians must seem to be unmoved by any change of fortune. He felt,\nhowever, not only the joy of personal deliverance, but mingled with it\ncame the glad, triumphant thought that he had now a voice in the\ndeliberations of the chiefs; it was a grand door opened for Indian\nevangelization. As for Snoqualmie, his face was as impassive as\ngranite. One would have said that Cecil's victory was to him a matter\nof no moment at all. But under the guise of indifference his anger\nburned fierce and deadly,--not against Multnomah but against Cecil.\n\nThe last chief had taken his place in the council. There was a long,\nceremonious pause. Then Multnomah arose. He looked over the council,\nupon the stern faces of the Willamettes and the loyal tributaries,\nupon the sullen faces of the malcontents, upon the fierce and lowering\nmultitude beyond. Over the throng he looked, and felt as one feels who\nstands on the brink of a volcano; yet his strong voice never rang\nstronger, the grand old chief never looked more a chief than then.\n\n\"He is every inch a king,\" thought Cecil. The chief spoke in the\ncommon Willamette language, at that time the medium of intercourse\nbetween the tribes as the Chinook is now. The royal tongue was not\nused in a mixed council.\n\n\"Warriors and chiefs, Multnomah gives you welcome. He spreads the\nbuffalo-robe.\" He made the Indian gesture of welcome, opening his\nhands to them with a backward and downward gesture, as of one\nspreading a robe. \"To the warriors Multnomah says, 'The grass upon my\nprairies is green for your horses; behold the wood, the water, the\ngame; they are yours.' To the chiefs he says, 'The mat is spread for\nyou in my own lodge and the meat is cooked.' The hearts of the\nWillamettes change not as the winters go by, and your welcome is the\nsame as of old. Word came to us that the tribes were angry and had\nspoken bitter things against the Willamettes; yes, that they longed\nfor the confederacy to be broken and the old days to come again when\ntribe was divided against tribe and the Shoshones and Spokanes\ntrampled upon you all. But Multnomah trusted his allies; for had they\nnot smoked the peace-pipe with him and gone with him on the\nwar-trail? So he stopped his ears and would not listen, but let those\nrumors go past him like thistle-down upon the wind.\n\n\"Warriors, Multnomah has shown his heart. What say you? Shall the\npeace-pipe be lighted and the talk begin?\"\n\nHe resumed his seat. All eyes turned to where the peace-pipe and the\ntomahawk lay side by side before the council. Multnomah seemed waiting\nfor them to choose between the two.\n\nThen Snoqualmie, the bravest and most loyal of the tributaries,\nspoke.\n\n\"Let the peace-pipe be lighted; we come not for strife, but to be knit\ntogether.\"\n\nThe angry malcontents in the council only frowned and drew their\nblankets closer around them. Tohomish the seer, as the oldest chief\nand most renowned medicine-man present, came forward and lighted the\npipe,--a long, thin piece of carving in black stone, the workmanship\nof the Nootkas or Hydahs, who made the more elaborate pipes used by\nthe Indians of the Columbia River.\n\nMuttering some mystical incantation, he waved it to the east and the\nwest, to the north and the south; and when the charm was complete,\ngave it to Multnomah, who smoked it and passed it to Snoqualmie. From\nchief to chief it circled around the whole council, but among them\nwere those who sat with eyes fixed moodily on the ground and would not\nso much as touch or look at it. As the pipe passed round there was a\nsubdued murmur and movement in the multitude, a low threatening\nclamor, as yet held in check by awe of Multnomah and dread of the\nWillamette warriors. But the war-chief seemed unconscious that any had\nrefused the pipe. He now arose and said,--\n\n\"The pipe is smoked. Are not our hearts as one? Is there not perfect\ntrust between us? Now let us talk. First of all, Multnomah desires\nwise words from his brethren. Last winter one of the tribes rose up\nagainst Multnomah, saying that he should no longer be elder brother\nand war-chief of the tribes. But the rebels were beaten and all of\nthem slain save the chief, who was reserved to be tried before you.\nYou in your wisdom shall decide what shall be done with the warrior\nwho has rebelled against his chief and stained his hands with the\nblood of his brethren.\"\n\nTwo Willamette braves then entered the circle, bringing with them one\nwhose hands were tied behind him, whose form was emaciated with hunger\nand disease, but whose carriage was erect and haughty. Behind came a\nsquaw, following him into the very presence of Multnomah, as if\nresolved to share his fortunes to the last. It was his wife. She was\ninstantly thrust back and driven with brutal blows from the council.\nBut she lingered on the outskirts of the crowd, watching and waiting\nwith mute, sullen fidelity the outcome of the trial. No one looked at\nher, no one cared for her; even her husband's sympathizers jostled the\npoor shrinking form aside,--for she was only a squaw, while he was a\ngreat brave.\n\nHe looked a great brave, standing there before Multnomah and the\nchiefs with a dignity in his mien that no reverse could crush, no\ntorture could destroy. Haggard, starved, bound, his eyes gleamed\ndeathless and unconquerable hate on council and war-chief alike.\nThere were dark and menacing looks among the malcontents; in the\ncaptive they saw personified their own loss of freedom and the hated\ndomination of the Willamettes.\n\n\"Speak! You that were a chief, you whose people sleep in the\ndust,--what have you to say in your defence? The tribes are met\ntogether, and the chiefs sit here to listen and to judge.\"\n\nThe rebel sachem drew himself up proudly and fixed his flashing eyes\non Multnomah.\n\n\"The tongue of Multnomah is a trap. I am brought not to be tried but\nto be condemned and slain, that the tribes may see it and be afraid.\nNo one knows this better than Multnomah. Yet I will speak while I\nstill live, and stand here in the sun; for I go out into the darkness,\nand the earth will cover my face, and my voice shall be heard no more\namong men.\n\n\"Why should the Willamettes rule the other tribes? Are they better\nthan we? The Great Spirit gave us freedom, and who may make himself\nmaster and take it away?\n\n\"I was chief of a tribe; we dwelt in the land the Great Spirit gave\nour fathers; their bones were in it; it was ours. But the Willamettes\nsaid to us, 'We are your elder brethren, you must help us. Come, go\nwith us to fight the Shoshones.' Our young men went, for the\nWillamettes were strong and we could not refuse them. Many were slain,\nand the women wailed despairingly. The Willamettes hunted on our\nhunting-grounds and dug the _camas_ on our prairies, so that there was\nnot enough for us; and when winter came, our children cried for food.\nThen the runners of the Willamettes came to us through the snow,\nsaying, 'Come and join the war-party that goes to fight the\nBannocks.'\n\n\"But our hearts burned within us and we replied, 'Our hunting-grounds\nand our food you have taken; will you have our lives also? Go back and\ntell your chief that if we must fight, we will fight him and not the\nBannocks.' Then the Willamettes came upon us and we fought them, for\ntheir tyranny was so heavy that we could not breathe under it and\ndeath had become better than life. But they were the stronger, and\nwhen did the heart of a Willamette feel pity? To-day I only am left,\nto say these words for my race.\n\n\"Who made the Willamettes masters over us? The Great Spirit gave us\nfreedom, and none may take it away. Was it not well to fight? Yes;\nfree my hands and give me back my people from the cairns and the\ndeath-huts, and we will fight again! I go to my death, but the words I\nhave spoken will live. The hearts of those listening here will\ntreasure them up; they will be told around the lodge-fires and\nrepeated in the war-dance. The words I speak will go out among the\ntribes, and no man can destroy them. Yes, they go out words, but they\nwill come back arrows and war in the day of vengeance when the tribes\nshall rise against the oppressor.\n\n\"I have spoken, my words are done.\"\n\nHe stood erect and motionless. The wrath and disdain passed from his\nfeatures, and stoicism settled over them like a mask of stone.\nMultnomah's cold regard had not faltered a moment under the chief's\ninvective. No denunciation could shake that iron self-control.\n\nThe rebellious chiefs interchanged meaning glances; the throng of\nmalcontents outside the grove pressed closer upon the ring of\nWillamette warriors, who were still standing or squatting idly around\nit. More than one weapon could be seen among them in defiance of the\nwar-chief's prohibition; and the presage of a terrible storm darkened\non those grim, wild faces. The more peaceably disposed bands began to\ndraw themselves apart. An ominous silence crept through the crowd as\nthey felt the crisis approaching.\n\nBut Multnomah saw nothing, and the circle of Willamette warriors were\nstolidly indifferent.\n\n\"Can they not see that the tribes are on the verge of revolt?\" thought\nCecil, anxiously, fearing a bloody massacre.\n\n\"You have heard the words of the rebel. What have you to say? Let the\nwhite man speak first, as he was the last to join us.\"\n\nCecil rose and pictured in the common Willamette tongue, with which he\nhad familiarized himself during his long stay with the Cayuses, the\nterrible results of disunion, the desolating consequences of\nwar,--tribe clashing against tribe and their common enemies trampling\non them all. Even those who were on the verge of insurrection listened\nreverently to the \"white wizard,\" who had drawn wisdom from the Great\nSpirit; but it did not shake their purpose. Their own dreamers had\ntalked with the Great Spirit too, in trance and vision, and had\npromised them victory over the Willamettes.\n\nTohomish followed; and Cecil, who had known some of the finest orators\nin Europe, listened in amazement to a voice the most musical he had\never heard. He looked in wonder on the repulsive features that seemed\nso much at variance with those melodious intonations. Tohomish pleaded\nfor union and for the death of the rebel. It seemed for a moment as if\nhis soft, persuasive accents would win the day, but it was only for a\nmoment; the spell was broken the instant he ceased. Then Snoqualmie\nspoke. One by one, the great sachems of the Willamettes gave their\nvoices for death. Many of the friendly allies did not give their\ndecision at all, but said to Multnomah,--\n\n\"You speak for us; your word shall be our word.\"\n\nWhen the dissatisfied chiefs were asked for their counsel, the sullen\nreply was given,--\n\n\"I have no tongue to-day;\" or \"I do not know.\"\n\nMultnomah seemed not to notice their answers. Only those who knew him\nbest saw a gleam kindling in his eyes that told of a terrible\nvengeance drawing near. The captive waited passively, seeming neither\nto see nor hear.\n\nAt length all had spoken or had an opportunity to speak, and Multnomah\nrose to give the final decision. Beyond the circle of Willamettes, who\nwere still indifferent and unconcerned, the discontented bands had\nthrown aside all concealment, and stood with bared weapons in their\nhands; all murmurs had ceased; there was a deathlike silence in the\ndense mob, which seemed gathering itself together for a forward\nrush,--the commencement of a fearful massacre.\n\nBehind it were the friendly Cayuses, but not a weapon could be seen\namong them. The chief saw all; saw too that his enemies only waited\nfor him to pronounce sentence upon the captive,--that that was the\npreconcerted signal for attack. Now among some of the tribes sentence\nwas pronounced not by word but by gesture; there was the gesture for\nacquittal, the gesture for condemnation.\n\nMultnomah lifted his right hand. There was breathless suspense. What\nwould it be? Fixing his eyes on the armed malcontents who were waiting\nto spring, he clinched his hand and made a downward gesture, as if\nstriking a blow. It was the death-signal, the death-sentence.\n\nIn an instant a deafening shout rang through the grove, and the\nbloodthirsty mob surged forward to the massacre.\n\nThen, so suddenly that it blended with and seemed a part of the same\nshout, the dreaded Willamette war-cry shook the earth. Quick as\nthought, the Willamettes who had been lounging so idly around the\ngrove were on their feet, their blankets thrown aside, the weapons\nthat had been concealed under them ready in their hands. A wall of\nindomitable warriors had leaped up around the grove. At the same\nmoment, the Cayuses in the rear bared their weapons and shouted back\nthe Willamette war-cry.\n\nThe rebels were staggered. The trap was sprung on them before they\nknew that there was a trap. Those in front shrank back from the iron\nwarriors of Multnomah, those in the rear wavered before the fierce\nCayuses. They paused, a swaying flood of humanity, caught between two\nlines of rock.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nSENTENCED TO THE WOLF-DEATH.\n\n                The other, great of soul, changed not\n                Countenance stern.\n\n                                               DANTE.\n\n\nIn that momentary pause Multnomah did something that showed the cold\ndisdainfulness of his character as nothing else could have done. He\nhad given the death-sign; he had not yet told how or when death was to\nbe inflicted. He gave the sentence _now_, as if in utter scorn of the\nbattle-cloud that hung quivering, ready to burst.\n\n\"He would have torn the confederacy to pieces; let him be left bound\nin the wood of the wolves, and torn limb from limb by them as he would\nhave rent the tribes asunder.\"\n\nThe two warriors who had brought the criminal into the council came\nforward, flung a covering over his head and face, and led him away.\nPerhaps no custom of the northwestern Indians was more sombre than\nthis,--the covering of the culprit's eyes from the time of his\nsentence till his death. Never again were those eyes to behold the\nsun.\n\nThen, and not till then, did Multnomah turn his gaze on the\nmalcontents, who stood, desperate but hesitating, hemmed in by the\nWillamettes and the Cayuses.\n\n\"You have chosen the tomahawk instead of the peace-pipe. Shall\nMultnomah choose the tomahawk also? Know you not that Multnomah holds\nyour lives in his hand, and that he can crush you like an eggshell if\nhe chooses?\"\n\nThe war-chief lifted his arm as he spoke, and slowly closed his\nfingers till his hand was clinched. The eyes of Willamette and\ntributary alike hung on those slowly closing fingers, with their own\nstrained on their tomahawks. That was half the death-signal! Would he\ngive the other half,--the downward gesture? The baffled rebels tasted\nall the bitterness of death in that agonizing suspense. They felt that\ntheir lives were literally in his grasp; and so the stern autocrat\nwished them to feel, for he knew it was a lesson they would never\nforget.\n\nAt length he spoke.\n\n\"Drop your weapons and Multnomah will forget what he has seen, and all\nwill be well. Strike but a blow, and not one of you will ever go back\nover the trail to his home.\"\n\nThen he turned to the chiefs, and there was that in his tones which\ntold them to expect no mercy.\n\n\"How comes it that your braves lift their tomahawks against Multnomah\nin his own council and on his own land? Speak! chiefs must answer for\ntheir people.\"\n\nThere was sullen silence for a little time; then one of them muttered\nthat it was the young men; their blood was hot, they were rash, and\nthe chiefs could not control them.\n\n\"Can you not control your young men? Then you are not fit to be\nchiefs, and are chiefs no longer.\" He gave a signal to certain of the\nWillamettes who had come up behind the rebellious leaders, as they\nstood confused and hesitating in the council. They were seized and\ntheir hands bound ere they could defend themselves; indeed, they made\nno effort to do so, but submitted doggedly.\n\n\"Take them down the Wauna in the sea-canoes and sell them as slaves to\nthe Nootkas who hunt seal along the coast. Their people shall see\ntheir faces no more. Slaves in the ice-land of the North shall they\nlive and die.\"\n\nThe swarthy cheeks of the captives grew ashen, and a shudder went\nthrough that trapped and surrounded mob of malcontents. Indian slavery\nwas always terrible; but to be slaves to the brutal Indians of the\nnorth, starved, beaten, mutilated, chilled, and benumbed in a land of\nperpetual frost; to perish at last in the bleak snow and winter of\nalmost arctic coasts,--that was a fate worse than the torture-stake.\n\nDreadful as it was, not a chief asked for mercy. Silently they went\nwith their captors out of the grove and down the bank to the river's\nedge. A large sea-canoe, manned by Chinook paddlers, was floating at\nthe beach. They quickly embarked, the paddles dipped, the canoe glided\nout into the current and down the stream. In a few moments the\ncottonwood along the river's edge hid it from sight, and the rebels\nwere forever beyond the hope of rescue.\n\nSwift and merciless had the vengeance of Multnomah fallen, and the\ninsurrection had been crushed at a blow. It had taken but a moment,\nand it had all passed under the eyes of the malcontents, who were\nstill surrounded by the loyal warriors.\n\nWhen the canoe had disappeared and the gaze of that startled and awed\nmultitude came back to Multnomah, he made a gesture of dismissal. The\nlines drew aside and the rebels were free.\n\nWhile they were still bewildered and uncertain what to do, Multnomah\ninstantly and with consummate address called the attention of the\ncouncil to other things, thereby apparently assuming that the trouble\nwas ended and giving the malcontents to understand that no further\npunishment was intended. Sullenly, reluctantly, they seemed to accept\nthe situation, and no further indications of revolt were seen that\nday.\n\nPopular young men, the bravest of their several tribes, were appointed\nby Multnomah to fill the vacant chieftainships; and that did much\ntoward allaying the discontent. Moreover, some troubles between\ndifferent tribes of the confederacy, which had been referred to him\nfor arbitration, were decided with rare sagacity. At length the\ncouncil ended for the day, the star of the Willamettes still in the\nascendant, the revolt seemingly subdued.\n\nSo the first great crisis passed.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nThat evening a little band of Willamette warriors led the rebel\nsachem, still bound and blindfolded, down to the river's bank, where a\ncanoe lay waiting them. His wife followed and tried to enter it with\nhim, as if determined to share his fortunes to the very last; but the\nguard thrust her rudely away, and started the canoe. As it moved away\nshe caught the prow wildly, despairingly, as if she could not let her\nwarrior go. One of the guards struck her hands brutally with his\npaddle, and she released her hold. The boat glided out into the river.\nNot a word of farewell had passed between the condemned man and his\nwife, for each disdained to show emotion in the presence of the enemy.\nShe remained on the bank looking after him, mute and despondent,--a\nforlorn creature clothed in rags and emaciated with hunger, an outcast\nfrom all the tribes. She might have been regarded as a symbolic figure\nrepresenting woman among the Indians, as she stood there with her\nbruised hands, throbbing with pain where the cruel blow had fallen,\nhanging, in sullen scorn of pain, uncared for by her side. So she\nstood watching the canoe glide down the river, till it was swallowed\nup in the gathering shadows of evening.\n\nThe canoe dropped down the river to a lonely point on the northern\nshore, a place much frequented by wolves. There, many miles below the\nencampment on the island, they disembarked and took the captive into\nthe wood. He walked among them with a firm and even tread; there was\nno sign of flinching, though he must have known that his hour was\nclose at hand. They bound him prostrate at the foot of an oak, tying\nhim to the hard, tough roots that ran over the ground like a network,\nand from which the earth had been washed away, so that thongs could be\npassed around them.\n\nHead and foot they bound him, drawing the rawhide thongs so tight that\nthey sank into the flesh, and knotting them, till no effort possible\nto him could have disentangled him. It was on his lips to ask them to\nleave one arm free, so that he might at least die fighting, though it\nwere with but one naked hand. But he hated them too much to ask even\nthat small favor, and so submitted in disdainful silence.\n\nThe warriors all went back to the canoe, except one, an old hunter,\nfamed for his skill in imitating every cry of bird or beast. Standing\nbeside the bound and prostrate man, he sent forth into the forest the\ncry of a wolf. It rang in a thousand echoes and died away, evoking no\nresponse. He listened a moment with bated breath, but could hear\nnothing but the deep heart-beat of the man at his feet. Another cry,\nwith its myriad echoes, was followed by the oppressive sense of\nstillness that succeeds an outcry in a lonely wood. Then came a faint,\na far-off sound, the answer of a wolf to a supposed mate. The Indian\nreplied, and the answer sounded nearer; then another blended with it,\nas the pack began to gather. Again the Indian gave the cry, wild and\nwolfish, as only a barbarian, half-beast by virtue of his own nature,\ncould have uttered it. An awful chorus of barking and howling burst\nthrough the forest as the wolves came on, eager for blood.\n\nThe Indian turned and rejoined his comrades at the canoe. They pushed\nout into the river, but held the boat in the current by an occasional\npaddle-stroke, and waited listening. Back at the foot of the tree the\ncaptive strained every nerve and muscle in one mighty effort to break\nthe cords that bound him; but it was useless, and he lay back with set\nteeth and rigid muscles, while his eyes sought in vain through their\nthick covering to see the approach of his foes. Presently a fierce\noutburst of howls and snarls told the listeners that the wolves had\nfound their prey. They lingered and listened a little longer, but no\nsound or cry was heard to tell of the last agony under those rending\nfangs; the chief died in silence. Then the paddles were dipped again\nin the water, and the canoe glided up the river to the camp.\n\nWhen they reached the shore they found the rebel's wife awaiting them\nin the place where they had left her. She asked no questions; she only\ncame close and looked at their faces in the dusk, and read there the\nthing she sought to know. Then she went silently away. In a little\nwhile the Indian wail for the dead was sounding through the forest.\n\n\"What is that?\" asked the groups around the camp fires.\n\n\"The rebel chief's wife wailing the death-wail for her husband,\" was\nthe low reply; and in that way the tribes knew that the sentence had\nbeen carried out. Many bands were there, of many languages, but all\nknew what that death-wail meant the instant it fell upon their ears.\nMultnomah heard it as he sat in council with his chiefs, and there was\nsomething in it that shook even his iron heart; for all the wilder,\nmore superstitious elements of the Indians thrilled to two\nthings,--the war-cry and the death-wail. He dismissed his chiefs and\nwent to his lodge. On the way he encountered Tohomish, lurking, as was\nhis wont, under the shadow of the trees.\n\n\"What think you now, Tohomish, you who love darkness and shadow, what\nthink you? Is not the arm of the Willamette strong? Has it not put\ndown revolt to-day, and held the tribes together?\"\n\nThe Pine Voice looked at him sorrowfully.\n\n\"The vision I told in the council has come back to me again. The cry\nof woe I heard far off then is nearer now, and the throng on the\ndeath-trail passes thicker and swifter. That which covered their faces\nis lifted, and their faces are the faces of Willamettes, and Multnomah\nis among them. The time is close at hand.\"\n\n\"Say this before our enemies, and, strong _tomanowos_ though you are,\nyou die!\" said the chief, laying his hand on his tomahawk. But the\nseer was gone, and Multnomah stood alone among the trees.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nEvery evening at dusk, the widow of the rebel sachem went out into the\nwoods near the camp and wailed her dead. Every night that wild,\ndesolate lament was lifted and rang through the great encampment,--a\ncry that was accusation, defiance, and lament; and even Multnomah\ndared not silence her, for among the Indians a woman lamenting her\ndead was sacred. So, while Multnomah labored and plotted for union by\nday, that mournful cry raised the spirit of wrath and rebellion by\nnight. And thus the dead liberator was half avenged.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK IV.\n\n\n_THE LOVE TALE._\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nTHE INDIAN TOWN.\n\n            The bare ground with hoarie mosse bestrowed\n            Must be their bed, their pillow was unsowed\n            And the frutes of the forrest was their feast.\n\n                                      _The Fa\u00ebrie Queene._\n\n\nNever before had there come to Cecil so grand an opportunity for\ndisseminating gospel truth. The work of half a lifetime might be done\nin a few days.\n\n\"The tribes are all gathered together in one encampment, and I can\ntalk with them all, tell them of God, of the beauty of heaven and of\nthe only Way. Then, when they disperse, they will carry my teaching in\nevery direction, and so it will be scattered throughout all this wild\nland.\"\n\nThis was the thought that came to Cecil when he awoke on the morning\nafter the trial. Now was the time to work! Now was the time for every\nelement of argument, persuasion, and enthusiasm to be exerted to the\nutmost.\n\nEarnestly did he pray that morning, kneeling in his lodge beside his\ncouch of furs, that God would be with and help him. And as he prayed,\nwarm and glowing was the love and tenderness that filled his heart.\nWhen the day was a little more advanced, he entered upon his work. The\ncamp was astir with life; nearly all had finished their morning meal,\nand the various employments and diversions of the day were begun. Each\ntribe or band had pitched its lodges apart, though not far from the\nothers. It was not so much an encampment as a group of many\nencampments, and the whole made up a scattered town of huts and\nwigwams.\n\nA precarious and uncertain quiet had succeeded the agitation of the\nday before. Multnomah's energy had awed the malcontents into temporary\nsubmission, and the different bands were mingling freely with one\nanother; though here and there a chief or warrior looked on\ncontemptuously, standing moodily apart, wrapped in his blanket. Now\nand then when a Willamette passed a group who were talking and\ngesticulating animatedly they would become silent all at once till the\nrepresentative of the dreaded race was out of hearing, when a storm of\nindignant gutterals would burst forth; but there were no other\nindications of hostility.\n\nGroups were strolling from place to place observing curiously the\nhabits and customs of other tribes; the common Willamette tongue,\nprecursor of the more modern Chinook jargon, furnishing a means of\nintercourse. Everywhere Cecil found talk, barter, diversion. It was a\nrude caricature of civilization, the picture of society in its\ninfancy, the rough dramatization of that phase through which every\nrace passes in its evolution from barbarism.\n\nAt one place, a hunter from the interior was bartering furs for\n_hiagua_ shells to a native of the sea-coast. At another, a brave\nskilled in wood-work had his stock of bows and arrows spread out\nbefore him, and an admiring crowd were standing around looking on. But\nthe taciturn brave sat coolly polishing and staining his arrows as if\nhe were totally unconscious of spectators, until the magical word\n\"buy\" was mentioned, when he at once awoke to life and drove a bargain\nin bow and quiver _versus_ dried berries and \"ickters\" that would have\ndone credit to a Yankee.\n\nAt one place sat an old warrior from the upper Columbia, making\narrow-heads, chipping off the little scales of flint with infinite\npatience, literally _wearing_ the stone into the requisite shape.\nBeside him lay a small pack of flints brought from beyond the\nmountains, for such stone was rarely found along the lower Columbia.\nSquaws sat in front of their wigwams sewing mats,--carefully sorting\nthe rushes, putting big ends with little ends, piercing each with a\nbodkin, and sewing them all together with a long bone needle threaded\nwith buckskin or sinew. Others were weaving that water-tight\nwickerwork which was, perhaps, the highest art to which the Oregon\nIndians ever attained. Here a band of Indians were cooking, feasting,\nlaughing, shouting around a huge sturgeon captured the night before.\nThere a circle of gamblers were playing \"hand,\"--passing a small stick\nsecretly from hand to hand and guessing whose hand contained\nit,--singing as they played that monotonous \"ho-ha, ho-ha, ho-ha,\"\nwhich was the inseparable accompaniment of dancing, gambling, and\nhorseback riding.\n\nAmong them all Cecil moved with the calm dignity he had acquired from\nlong intercourse with the Indians. Wherever he went there was silence\nand respect, for was he not the great white medicine-man? Gambling\ncircles paused in the swift passage of the stick and the monotone of\nthe chant to look and to comment; buyers and sellers stopped to gaze\nand to question; children who had been building miniature wigwams of\nsticks or floating bark canoes in the puddles, ran away at his\napproach and took shelter in the thickets, watching him with twinkling\nblack eyes.\n\nWherever there was opportunity, he stopped and talked, scattering\nseed-thoughts in the dark minds of the Indians. Wherever he paused a\ncrowd would gather; whenever he entered a wigwam a throng collected at\nthe door.\n\nLet us glance for a moment into the domestic life of the Indians as\nCecil saw it that morning.\n\nHe enters one of the large bark huts of the Willamette Indians, a\nlong, low building, capable of sheltering sixty or seventy persons.\nThe part around the door is painted to represent a man's face, and the\nentrance is through the mouth. Within, he finds a spacious room\nperhaps eighty or a hundred feet long by twenty wide, with rows of\nrude bunks rising tier above tier on either side. In the centre are\nthe stones and ashes of the hearth; above is an aperture in the roof\nfor the escape of smoke; around the hearth mats are spread to sit\nupon; the bare ground, hard and trodden, forms the only floor, and the\nroof is made of boards that have been split out with mallet and\nwedges.\n\nCecil enters and stands a moment in silence; then the head of the\nhouse advances and welcomes him. The best mat is spread for him to sit\nupon; food is brought,--pounded fish, nuts, and berries, and a kind of\nbread made of roots cooked, crushed together, and cut in slices when\ncold. All this is served on a wooden platter, and he must eat whether\nhungry or not; for to refuse would be the grossest affront that could\nbe offered a Willamette host, especially if it were presented by his\nown hands. The highest honor that a western Oregon Indian could do his\nguest was to wait on him instead of letting his squaw do it. The\nIndian host stands beside Cecil and says, in good-humored hospitality,\n\"Eat, eat much,\" nor is he quite pleased if he thinks that his visitor\nslights the offered food. When the guest can be no longer persuaded to\neat more, the food is removed, the platter is washed in water, and\ndried with a wisp of twisted grass; a small treasure of tobacco is\nproduced from a little buckskin pocket and a part of it carefully\nmixed with dried leaves;[10] the pipe is filled and smoked. Then, and\nnot till then, may the Indian host listen to the talk of the white\nman.\n\nSo it was in lodge after lodge; he must first eat, be it ever so\nlittle. Two centuries later, the Methodist and Congregational\nmissionaries found themselves confronted with the same oppressive\nhospitality among the Rocky Mountain Indians.[11] Nay, they need not\nvisit a wigwam; let them but stroll abroad through the village, and if\nthey were popular and the camp was well supplied with buffalo-meat,\nmessengers would come with appalling frequency, bearing the laconic\ninvitation, \"Come and eat;\" and the missionary must go, or give\noffence, even though he had already gone to half a dozen wigwams on\nthe same errand. There is a grim humor in a missionary's eating fresh\nbuffalo-meat in the cause of religion until he is like to burst, and\nyet heroically going forth to choke down a few mouthfuls more, lest he\noffend some dusky convert.\n\nAt one house Cecil witnessed a painful yet comical scene. The\nWillamettes were polygamists, each brave having as many wives as he\nwas able to buy; and Cecil was in a lodge where the brother of the\nhead man of that lodge brought home his second wife. At the entrance\nof the second wife, all gay in Indian finery, the first did not\nmanifest the sisterly spirit proper for the occasion. After sitting\nawhile in sullen silence, she arose and began to kick the fire about,\naccompanying that performance with gutteral exclamations addressed to\nno one in particular; she struck the dog, which chanced to be in the\nway, sending it yelping from the wigwam; and then, having worked\nherself into a rage, began to scold her husband, who listened grimly\nbut said nothing. At last she turned on her new-found sister, struck\nher, and began to lay rending hands on the finery that their mutual\nhusband had given her. That was instantly resented; and in a few\nmoments the squaws were rolling on the floor, biting, scratching, and\npulling each other's hair with the fury of devils incarnate. The dogs,\nattracted by the tumult, ran in and began to bark at them; the Indians\noutside the hut gathered at the door, looking in and laughing; the\nhusband contemplated them as they rolled fighting at his feet, and\nthen looked at Cecil. It was undoubtedly trying to Indian dignity but\nthe warrior sustained his admirably. \"Bad, very bad,\" was the only\ncomment he allowed himself to make. Cecil took his leave, and the\nbrave kept up his air of indifference until the white man had gone.\nThen he quietly selected a cudgel from the heap of fire-wood by the\ndoorway, and in a short time peace reigned in the wigwam.\n\nIn a lodge not far away, Cecil witnessed another scene yet more\nbarbarous than this. He found a little blind boy sitting on the ground\nnear the fire, surrounded by a quantity of fish-bones which he had\nbeen picking. He was made a subject for the taunting jibes and\nlaughter of a number of men and women squatting around him. His mother\nsat by in the most cruel apathy and unconcern, and only smiled when\nCecil expressed commiseration for her unfortunate and peculiarly\nunhappy child. It had been neglected and seemed almost starved. Those\naround apparently took pleasure in tormenting it and rendering it\nmiserable, and vied with each other in applying to it insulting and\ndegrading epithets. The little articles that Cecil gave to it, in the\nhope that the Indians seeing him manifest an interest in it would\ntreat it more tenderly, it put to its mouth eagerly; but not finding\nthem eatable, it threw them aside in disgust. Cecil turned away sick\nat heart. Worn, already weary, this last sight was intolerable; and he\nwent out into the woods, away from the camp.\n\nBut as he walked along he seemed to see the child again, so vividly\nhad it impressed his imagination. It rose before him in the wood, when\nthe noise of the camp lay far behind; it seemed to turn its sightless\neyes upon him and reach out its emaciated arms as if appealing for\nhelp.[12]\n\nOut in the wood he came across an Indian sitting on a log, his face\nburied in his hands, his attitude indicating sickness or despondency.\nHe looked up as Cecil approached. It was the young Willamette runner\nwho had been his companion on the journey down the Columbia. His face\nwas haggard; he was evidently very sick. The missionary stopped and\ntried to talk with him, but could evoke little response, except that\nhe did not want to talk, and that he wanted to be left alone. He\nseemed so moody and irritable that Cecil thought it best to leave him.\nHis experience was that talking with a sick Indian was very much like\nstirring up a wounded rattlesnake. So he left the runner and went on\ninto the forest, seeking the solitude without which he could scarcely\nhave lived amid the degrading barbarism around him. His spirit\nrequired frequent communion with God and Nature, else he would have\ndied of weariness and sickness of heart.\n\nWandering listlessly, he went on further and further from the camp,\nnever dreaming of what lay before him, or of the wild sweet destiny to\nwhich that dim Indian trail was leading him through the shadowy wood.\n\n-----\n\n[10] Lewis and Clark.\n\n[11] See Parkman's \"Oregon Trail,\" also, Parker's work on\n     Oregon.\n\n[12] See Townsend's Narrative, pages 182-183.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nTHE WHITE WOMAN IN THE WOOD.\n\n       I seek a sail that never looms from out the purple haze\n       At rosy dawn, or fading eve, or in the noontide's blaze.\n\n                                                 CELIA THAXTER.\n\n\nCecil walked listlessly on through the wood. He was worn out by the\nday's efforts, though it was as yet but the middle of the afternoon.\nThere was a feeling of exhaustion in his lungs, a fluttering pain\nabout his heart, the result of years of over-work upon a delicate\nframe. With this feeling of physical weakness came always the fear\nthat his strength might give way ere his work was done. Nor was this\nall. In these times of depression, the longing to see again the faces\nof his friends, to have again the sweet graceful things of the life\nthat was forever closed to him, rushed over him in a bitter flood.\n\nThe trail led him to the bank of the Columbia, some distance below the\nencampment. He looked out over the blue river sweeping majestically\non, the white snow-peaks, the canyons deep in the shadows of\nafternoon, the dense forest beyond the river extending away to the\nunknown and silent North as far as his eyes could reach.\n\n\"It is wonderful, wonderful!\" he thought. \"But I would give it all to\nlook upon one white face.\"\n\nSo musing, he passed on down the bank of the river. He was now perhaps\ntwo miles from the camp and seemingly in complete solitude. After a\nlittle the path turned away from the beach and led toward the\ninterior. As he entered the woodland he came upon several Indian\nsentinels who lay, bow in hand, beside the path. They sprang up, as if\nto intercept his passage; but seeing that it was the white _shaman_\nwhom Multnomah had honored, and who had sat at the council with the\ngreat sachems, they let him go on. Cecil indistinctly remembered\nhaving heard from some of the Indians that this part of the island was\nstrictly guarded; he had forgotten why. So absorbed was he in his\ngloomy reflections that he did not stop to question the sentinels, but\nwent on, not thinking that he might be treading on forbidden ground.\nBy and by the path emerged from the wood upon a little prairie; the\ncottonwoods shut out the Indians from him, and he was again alone. The\nsunshine lay warm and golden on the little meadow, and he strolled\nforward mechanically, thinking how like it was to some of the sylvan\nlawns of his own New England forests. Again the shade of trees fell\nover the path. He looked up, his mind full of New England memories,\nand saw something that made his heart stand still. For there, not far\nfrom him, stood a girl clad in soft flowing drapery, the dress of a\nwhite woman. In Massachusetts a woman's dress would have been the last\nthing Cecil would have noticed. Now, so long accustomed to the Indian\nsquaws' rough garments of skin or plaited bark, the sight of that\ngraceful woven cloth sent through him an indescribable thrill.\n\nHe went on, his eager eyes drinking in the welcome sight, yet scarcely\nbelieving what he saw.\n\nShe had not yet observed him. The profile of her half-averted face was\nvery sweet and feminine; her form was rounded, and her hair fell in\nlong black ringlets to the shoulders. He was in the presence of a\nyoung and beautiful woman,--a white woman! All this he noted at a\nglance; noted, too, the drooping lashes, the wistful lines about the\nlips, the mournful expression that shadowed the beauty of her face.\n\nWho was she? Where could she have come from?\n\nShe heard the approaching footsteps and turned toward him. Absolute\nbewilderment was on her face for a moment, and then it glowed with\nlight and joy. Her dark, sad eyes sparkled. She was radiant, as if\nsome great, long-looked for happiness had come to her. She came\neagerly toward him, holding out her hands in impetuous welcome; saying\nsomething in a language he did not understand, but which he felt could\nnot be Indian, so refined and pleasing were the tones.\n\nHe answered he knew not what, in his own tongue, and she paused\nperplexed. Then he spoke again, this time in Willamette.\n\nShe shrank back involuntarily.\n\n\"That language?\" she replied in the same tongue, but with a tremor of\ndisappointment in her voice. \"I thought you were of my mother's race\nand spoke her language. But you _are_ white, like her people?\"\n\nShe had given him both her hands, and he stood holding them; looking\ndown into her eager, lifted face, where a great hope and a great doubt\nin mingled light and shadow strove together.\n\n\"I am a white man. I came from a land far to the East. But who are\nyou, and how came you here?\"\n\nShe did not seem to hear the last words, only the first.\n\n\"No, no,\" she protested eagerly, \"you came not from the East but from\nthe West, the land across the sea that my mother came from in the ship\nthat was wrecked.\" And she withdrew one hand and pointed toward the\nwooded range beyond which lay the Pacific.\n\nHe shook his head. \"No, there are white people in those lands too, but\nI never saw them. I came from the East,\" he said, beginning to surmise\nthat she must be an Asiatic. She drew away the hand that he still held\nin his, and her eyes filled with tears.\n\n\"I thought you were one of my mother's people,\" she murmured; and he\nfelt that the pang of an exceeding disappointment was rilling her\nheart.\n\n\"Who are you?\" he asked gently.\n\n\"The daughter of Multnomah.\"\n\nCecil remembered now what he had heard of the dead white wife of\nMultnomah, and of her daughter, who, it was understood among the\ntribes, was to be given to Snoqualmie. He noticed, too, for the first\ntime the trace of the Indian in her expression, as the light faded\nfrom it and it settled back into the despondent look habitual to it.\nAll that was chivalrous in his nature went out to the fair young\ncreature; all his being responded to the sting of her disappointment.\n\n\"I am not what you hoped I was, but your face is like the face of the\nwomen of my own land. Shall we not be friends?\"\n\nShe looked up wistfully at the handsome and noble countenance above\nher, so different from the stolid visages she had known so long.\n\n\"Yes; you are not Indian.\"\n\nIn that one expression she unconsciously told Cecil how her sensitive\nnature shrank from the barbarism around her; how the tastes and\naspirations she had inherited from her mother reached out for better\nand higher things.\n\nIn a little while they were seated on a grassy bank in the shade of\nthe trees, talking together. She bade him tell her of his people. She\nlistened intently; the bright, beautiful look came back as she heard\nthe tale.\n\n\"They are kind to women, instead of making them mere burden-bearers;\nthey have pleasant homes; they dwell in cities? Then they are like my\nmother's people.\"\n\n\"They are gentle, kind, humane. They have all the arts that light up\nlife and make it beautiful,--not like the tribes of this grim,\nbloodstained land.\"\n\n\"_This_ land!\" Her face darkened and she lifted her hand in a quick,\nrepelling gesture. \"This land is a grave. The clouds lie black and\nheavy on the spirit that longs for the sunlight and cannot reach it.\"\nShe turned to him again. \"Go on, your words are music.\"\n\nHe continued, and she listened till the story of his country and his\nwanderings was done. When he ended, she drew a glad, deep breath; her\neyes were sparkling with joy.\n\n\"I am content,\" she said, in a voice in which there was a deep\nheart-thrill of happiness. \"Since my mother died I have been alone,\nall alone; and I longed, oh so often, for some one who talked and felt\nas she did to come to me, and now you have come. I sat cold and\nshivering in the night a long time, but the light and warmth have come\nat last. Truly, Allah is good!\"\n\n\"Allah!\"\n\n\"Yes; he was my mother's God, as the Great Spirit is my father's.\"\n\n\"They are both names for the same All Father,\" replied Cecil. \"They\nmean the same thing, even as the sun is called by many names by many\ntribes, yet there is but the one sun.\"\n\n\"Then I am glad. It is good to learn that both prayed to the one God,\nthough they did not know it. But my mother taught me to use the name\nof Allah, and not the other. And while my father and the tribes call\nme by my Indian name, 'Wallulah,' she gave me another, a secret name,\nthat I was never to forget.\"\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"I have never told it, but I will tell you, for you can understand.\"\n\nAnd she gave him a singularly melodious name, of a character entirely\ndifferent from any he had ever heard, but which he guessed to be\nArabic or Hindu.\n\n\"It means, 'She who watches for the morning.' My mother told me never\nto forget it, and to remember that I was not to let myself grow to be\nlike the Indians, but to pray to Allah, and to watch and hope, and\nthat sometime the morning would come and I would be saved from the\nthings around me. And now you have come and the dawn comes with\nyou.\"\n\nHer glad, thankful glance met his; the latent grace and mobility of\nher nature, all roused and vivid under his influence, transfigured her\nface, making it delicately lovely. A great pang of longing surged\nthrough him.\n\n\"Oh,\" he thought, \"had I not become a missionary, I might have met and\nloved some one like her! I might have filled my life with much that is\nnow gone from it forever!\"\n\nFor eight years he had seen only the faces of savage women and still\nmore savage men; for eight years his life had been steeped in\nbitterness, and all that was tender or romantic in his nature had been\ncramped, as in iron fetters, by the coarseness and stolidity around\nhim. Now, after all that dreary time, he met one who had the beauty\nand the refinement of his own race. Was it any wonder that her glance,\nthe touch of her dress or hair, the soft tones of her voice, had for\nhim an indescribable charm? Was it any wonder that his heart went out\nto her in a yearning tenderness that although not love was dangerously\nakin to it?\n\nHe was startled at the sweet and burning tumult of emotion she was\nkindling within him. What was he thinking of? He must shake these\nfeelings off, or leave her. Leave her! The gloom of the savagery that\nawaited him at the camp grew tenfold blacker than ever. All the light\nearth held for him seemed gathered into the presence of this dark-eyed\ngirl who sat talking so musically, so happily, by his side.\n\n\"I must go,\" he forced himself to say at length, \"The sun is almost\ndown.\"\n\n\"Must you go so soon?\"\n\n\"I will come again if you wish.\"\n\n\"But you must not go yet; wait till the sun reaches the mountain-tops\nyonder. I want you to tell me more about your own land.\"\n\nSo he lingered and talked while the sun sank lower and lower in the\nwest. It seemed to him that it had never gone down so fast before.\n\n\"I must go now,\" he said, rising as the sun's red disk sank behind the\nmountains.\n\n\"It is not late; see, the sun is shining yet on the brow of the snow\nmountains.\"\n\nBoth looked at the peaks that towered grandly in the light of the\nsunken sun while all the world below lay in shadow. Together they\nwatched the mighty miracle of the afterglow on Mount Tacoma, the soft\nrose-flush that transfigured the mountain till it grew transparent,\ndelicate, wonderful.\n\n\"That is what my life is now,--since you have brought the light to the\n'watcher for the morning;'\" and she looked up at him with a bright,\ntrustful smile.\n\n\"Alas?\" thought Cecil, \"it is not the light of morning but of\nsunset.\"\n\nSlowly the radiance faded, the rose tint passed; the mountain grew\nwhite and cold under their gaze, like the face of death. Wallulah\nshuddered as if it were a prophecy.\n\n\"You will come back to-morrow?\" she said, looking at him with her\nlarge, appealing eyes.\n\n\"I will come,\" he said.\n\n\"It will seem long till your return, yet I have lived so many years\nwaiting for that which has come at last that I have learned to be\npatient.\"\n\n\"Ask God to help you in your hours of loneliness and they will not\nseem so long and dark,\" said Cecil, whose soul was one tumultuous\nself-reproach that he had let the time go by without telling her more\nof God.\n\n\"Ah!\" she said in a strange, wistful way, \"I have prayed to him so\nmuch, but he could not fill _all_ my heart. I wanted so to touch a\nhand and look on a face like my mother's. But God has sent you, and so\nI know he must be good.\"\n\nThey parted, and he went back to the camp.\n\n\"Is my mission a failure?\" he thought, as he walked along, clinching\nhis hands in furious anger with himself. \"Why do I let a girl's beauty\nmove me thus, and she the promised wife of another? How dare I think\nof aught beside the work God has sent me here to do? Oh, the shame and\nguilt of such weakness! I will be faithful. I will never look upon her\nface again!\"\n\nHe emerged from the wood into the camp; its multitudinous sounds were\nall around him, and never had the coarseness and savagery of Indian\nlife seemed so repellent as now, when he came back to it with his mind\nfull of Wallulah's grace and loveliness. It was harsh discord after\nmusic.\n\nStripped and painted barbarians were hallooing, feasting, dancing; the\nwhole camp was alive with boisterous hilarity, the result of a day of\ngood fellowship. Mothers were calling their children in the dusk and\nyoung men were sportively answering, \"Here I am, mother.\" Here and\nthere, Indians who had been feasting all day lay like gorged anacondas\nbeside the remnant of their meal; others, who had been gambling, were\ntalking loudly of the results of the game.\n\nThrough it all the white man walked with swift footsteps, looking\nneither to the right nor the left, till he gained his lodge. He flung\nhimself on his bed and lay there, his fingers strained together\nconvulsively, his nerves throbbing with pain; vainly struggling with\nregret, vainly repeating to himself that he cared nothing for love and\nhome, that he had put all those things from him, that he was engrossed\nnow only in his work.\n\n\"Never, never! It can never be.\"\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd the English exploring-ship in Yaquina Bay was to weigh anchor on\nthe morrow, and sail up nearer along the unknown coast. The Indians\nhad all deserted the sea-board for the council. Would Cecil hear?\nWould any one see the sail and bring the news?\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: \"_I Will kill him!_\"]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nCECIL AND THE WAR-CHIEF.\n\n          Children of the sun, with whom revenge is virtue.\n\n                                                     YOUNG.\n\n\nOn the next day came the races, the great diversion of the Indians.\nEach tribe ran only one horse,--the best it had. There were thirty\ntribes or bands, each with its choicest racer on the track. The Puget\nSound and lower Columbia Indians, being destitute of horses, were not\nrepresented. There had been races every day on a small scale, but they\nwere only private trials of speed, while to-day was the great day of\nracing for all the tribes, the day when the head chiefs ran their\nhorses.\n\nThe competition was close, but Snoqualmie the Cayuse won the day. He\nrode the fine black horse he had taken from the Bannock he had\ntortured to death. Multnomah and the chiefs were present, and the\nvictory was won under the eyes of all the tribes. The haughty,\ninsolent Cayuse felt that he had gained a splendid success. Only, as\nin the elation of victory his glance swept over the crowd, he met the\nsad, unapplauding gaze of Cecil, and it made his ever burning\nresentment grow hotter still.\n\n\"I hate that man,\" he thought. \"I tried to thrust him down into\nslavery, and Multnomah made him a chief. My heart tells me that he is\nan enemy. I hate him. I will kill him.\"\n\n\"Poor Wallulah!\" Cecil was thinking. \"What a terrible future is before\nher as the wife of that inhuman torturer of men!\"\n\nAnd his sympathies went out to the lonely girl, the golden thread of\nwhose life was to be interwoven with the bloodstained warp and woof of\nSnoqualmie's. But he tried hard not to think of her; he strove\nresolutely that day to absorb himself in his work, and the effort was\nnot unsuccessful.\n\nAfter the races were over, a solemn council was held in the grove and\nsome important questions discussed and decided. Cecil took part,\nendeavoring in a quiet way to set before the chiefs a higher ideal of\njustice and mercy than their own. He was heard with grave attention,\nand saw that more than one chief seemed impressed by his words. Only\nSnoqualmie was sullen and inattentive, and Mishlah the Cougar was\nwatchful and suspicious.\n\nAfter the council was over Cecil went to his lodge. On the way he\nfound the young Willamette runner sitting on a log by the path,\nlooking even more woebegone than he had the day before. Cecil stopped\nto inquire how he was.\n\n\"_Cultus_ [bad],\" was grunted in response.\n\n\"Did you see the races?\"\n\n\"Races bad. What do I care?\"\n\n\"I hope you will be better soon.\"\n\n\"Yes, better or worse by and by. What do I care?\"\n\n\"Can I do anything for you?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"Go.\"\n\nAnd he dropped his hand upon his knees, doubled himself together, and\nrefused to say another word. As Cecil turned to go he found Multnomah\nstanding close by, watching him.\n\n\"Come,\" said the stern despot, briefly. \"I want to talk with you.\"\n\nHe led the way back through the noisy encampment to the now deserted\ngrove of council. Everything there was quiet and solitary; the thick\ncircle of trees hid them from the camp, though its various sounds\nfloated faintly to them. They were quite alone. Multnomah seated\nhimself on the stone covered with furs, that was his place in the\ncouncil. Cecil remained standing before him, wondering what was on his\nmind. Was the war-chief aware of his interview with Wallulah? If so,\nwhat then? Multnomah fixed on him the gaze which few men met without\nshrinking.\n\n\"Tell me,\" he said, while it seemed to Cecil as if that eagle glance\nread every secret of his innermost heart, \"tell me where your land is,\nand why you left it, and the reason for your coming among us. Keep no\nthought covered, for Multnomah will see it if you do.\"\n\nCecil's eye kindled, his cheek flushed. Wallulah was forgotten; his\nmission, and his mission only, was remembered. He stood before one who\nheld over the many tribes of the Wauna the authority of a prince: if\n_he_ could but be won for Christ, what vast results might follow!\n\nHe told it all,--the story of his home and his work, his call of God\nto go to the Indians, his long wanderings, the message he had to\ndeliver, how it had been received by some and rejected by many; now\nhe was here, a messenger sent by the Great Spirit to tell the tribes\nof the Wauna the true way of life. He told it all, and never had he\nbeen so eloquent. It was a striking contrast, the grim Indian sitting\nthere leaning on his bow, his sharp, treacherous gaze bent like a bird\nof prey on the delicately moulded man pleading before him.\n\nHe listened till Cecil began to talk of love and forgiveness as duties\nenjoined by the Great Spirit. Then he spoke abruptly.\n\n\"When you stood up in the council the day the bad chief was tried, and\ntold of the weakness and the wars that would come if the confederacy\nwas broken up, you talked wisely and like a great chief and warrior;\nnow you talk like a woman. Love! forgiveness!\" He repeated the words,\nlooking at Cecil with a kind of wondering scorn, as if he could not\ncomprehend such weakness in one who looked like a brave man. \"War and\nhate are the life of the Indian. They are the strength of his heart.\nTake them away, and you drain the blood from his veins; you break his\nspirit; he becomes a squaw.\"\n\n\"But my people love and forgive, yet they are not squaws. They are\nbrave and hardy in battle; their towns are great; their country is\nlike a garden.\"\n\nAnd he told Multnomah of the laws, the towns, the schools, the settled\nhabits and industry of New England. The chief listened with growing\nimpatience. At length he threw his arm up with an indescribable\ngesture of freedom, like a man rejecting a fetter.\n\n\"How can they breathe, shut in, bound down like that? How can they\nlive, so tied and burdened?\"\n\n\"Is not that better than tribe forever warring against tribe? Is it\nnot better to live like men than to lurk in dens and feed on roots\nlike beasts? Yet we will fight, too; the white man does not love war,\nbut he will go to battle when his cause is just and war must be.\"\n\n\"So will the deer and the cayote fight when they can flee no longer.\nThe Indian loves battle. He loves to seek out his enemy, to grapple\nwith him, and to tread him down. That is a man's life!\"\n\nThere was a wild grandeur in the chief's tone. All the tameless spirit\nof his race seemed to speak through him, the spirit that has met\ndefeat and extermination rather than bow its neck to the yoke of\ncivilization. Cecil realized that on the iron fibre of the war-chief's\nnature his pleading made no impression whatever, and his heart sank\nwithin him.\n\nAgain he tried to speak of the ways of peace, but the chief checked\nhim impatiently.\n\n\"That is talk for squaws and old men. Multnomah does not understand\nit. Talk like a man, if you wish him to listen. Multnomah does not\nforgive; Multnomah wants no peace with his enemies. If they are weak\nhe tramples on them and makes them slaves; if they are strong he\nfights them. When the Shoshones take from Multnomah, he takes from\nthem; if they give him war he gives them war; if they torture one\nWillamette at the stake, Multnomah stretches two Shoshones upon\nred-hot stones. Multnomah gives hate for hate and war for war. This is\nthe law the Great Spirit has given the Indian. What law he has given\nthe white man, Multnomah knows not nor cares!\"\n\nBaffled in his attempt, Cecil resorted to another line of persuasion.\nHe set before Multnomah the arts, the intelligence, the splendor of\nthe white race.\n\n\"The Indian has his laws and customs, and that is well; but why not\ncouncil with the white people, even as chiefs council together? Send\nan embassy to ask that wise white men be sent you, so that you may\nlearn of their arts and laws; and what seems wise and good you can\naccept, what seems not so can be set aside. I know the ways that lead\nback to the land of the white man; I myself would lead the embassy.\"\n\nIt was a noble conception,--that of making a treaty between this\nmagnificent Indian confederacy and New England for the purpose of\nintroducing civilization and religion; and for a moment he lost sight\nof the insurmountable obstacles in the way.\n\n\"No,\" replied the chief, \"neither alone nor as leader of a peace party\nwill your feet ever tread again the path that leads back to the land\nof the white man. We want not upon our shoulders the burden of his\narts and laws. We want not his teachers to tell us how to be women. If\nthe white man wants us, let him find his way over the desert and\nthrough the mountains, and we will grapple with him and see which is\nthe strongest.\"\n\nSo saying, the war-chief rose and left him.\n\n\"He says that I shall never be allowed to go back,\" thought Cecil,\nwith a bitter consciousness of defeat. \"Then my mission ends here in\nthe land of the Bridge, even as I have so often dreamed that it would.\nSo be it; I shall work the harder now that I see the end approaching.\nI shall gather the chiefs in my own lodge this evening and preach to\nthem.\"\n\nWhile he was forming his resolution, there came the recollection that\nWallulah would look for him, would be expecting him to come to her.\n\n\"I cannot,\" he thought, though he yearned to go to her. \"I cannot go;\nI must be faithful to my mission.\"\n\nMany chiefs came that night to his lodge; among them, to his surprise,\nTohomish the seer. Long and animated was Cecil's talk; beautiful and\nfull of spiritual fervor were the words in which he pointed them to a\nbetter life. Tohomish was impassive, listening in his usual brooding\nway. The others seemed interested; but when he was done they all rose\nup and went away without a word,--all except the Shoshone renegade who\nhad helped him bury the dead Bannock. He came to Cecil before leaving\nthe lodge.\n\n\"Sometime,\" he said, \"when it will be easier for me to be good than it\nis now, I will try to live the life you talked about to-night.\"\n\nThen he turned and went out before Cecil could reply.\n\n\"There is one at least seeking to get nearer God,\" thought Cecil,\njoyfully. After awhile his enthusiasm faded away, and he remembered\nhow anxiously Wallulah must have waited for him, and how bitterly she\nmust have been disappointed. Her face, pale and stained with tears,\nrose plainly before him. A deep remorse filled his heart.\n\n\"Poor child! I am the first white person she has seen since her mother\ndied; no wonder she longs for my presence! I must go to her to-morrow.\nAfter all, there is no danger of my caring for her. To me my work is\nall in all.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nARCHERY AND GAMBLING.\n\n    To gambling they are no less passionately addicted in the\n    interior than on the coast.--BANCROFT: _Native Races_.\n\n\nThe next morning came the archery games. The best marksmen of each\ntribe contended together under the eyes of Multnomah, and Snoqualmie\nthe Cayuse won the day.\n\nThese diversions were beginning to produce the result that the politic\nchief had intended they should. Better feeling was springing up. The\nspirit of discontent that had been rife was disappearing. Every day\ngood-fellowship grew more and more between the Willamettes and their\nallies. Every day Snoqualmie the Cayuse became more popular among the\ntribes, and already he was second in influence to none but Multnomah\nhimself.\n\nThe great war-chief had triumphed over every obstacle; and he waited\nnow only for the last day of the council, when his daughter should be\ngiven to Snoqualmie and the chiefs should recognize him as the future\nhead of the confederacy.\n\nKnowing this, the sight of Snoqualmie's successful archery was almost\nintolerable to Cecil, and he turned away from the place where the\ngames were held.\n\n\"I will seek the young Willamette who is sick,\" he said to himself.\n\"Then this evening I will go and visit Wallulah.\"\n\nThe thought sent the blood coursing warmly through his veins, but he\nchided himself for it. \"It is but duty, I go to her only as a\nmissionary,\" he repeated to himself over and over again.\n\nHe went to the lodge of the young Willamette and asked for him.\n\n\"He is not here,\" the father of the youth told him. \"He is in the\nsweat-house. He is sick this morning, _hieu_ sick.\"\n\nAnd the old man emphasized the _hieu_ [much], with a prolonged\nintonation and a comprehensive gesture as if the young man were very\nsick indeed. To the sweat-house went Cecil forthwith. He found it to\nbe a little arched hut, made by sticking the ends of bent willow-wands\ninto the ground and covering them over with skins, leaving only a\nsmall opening for entrance. When a sick person wished to take one of\nthose \"sweat baths\" so common among the Indians, stones were heated\nred hot and put within the hut, and water was poured on them. The\ninvalid, stripped to the skin, entered, the opening was closed behind\nhim, and he was left to steam in the vapors.\n\nWhen Cecil came up, the steam was pouring between the overlapping\nedges of the skins, and he could hear the young Willamette inside,\nchanting a low monotonous song, an endlessly repeated invocation to\nhis _totem_ to make him well. How he could sing or even breathe in\nthat stifling atmosphere was a mystery to Cecil.\n\nBy and by the Willamette raised the flap that hung over the entrance\nand crawled out, hot, steaming, perspiring at every pore. He rushed\nwith unsteady footsteps down to the river, only a few yards away, and\nplunged into the cold water. After repeatedly immersing himself, he\nwaded back to the shore and lay down to dry in the sun. The shock to\nhis nervous system of plunging from a hot steam-bath into ice-cold\nwater fresh from the snow peaks of the north had roused all his latent\nvitality. He had recovered enough to be sullen and resentful to Cecil\nwhen he came up; and after vainly trying to talk with or help him, the\nmissionary left him.\n\nIt is characteristic of the Indian, perhaps of most half-animal races,\nthat their moral conduct depends on physical feeling. Like the animal,\nthey are good-humored, even sportive, when all is well; like the\nanimal, they are sluggish and unreasoning in time of sickness.\n\nCecil went back to the camp. He found that the archery games were\nover, and that a great day of gambling had begun. He was astonished at\nthe eagerness with which all the Indians flung themselves into it.\nMultnomah alone took no part, and Tohomish, visible only at the\ncouncil, was not there. But with those two exceptions, chiefs,\nwarriors, all flung themselves headlong into the game.\n\nFirst, some of the leading chiefs played at \"hand,\" and each tribe\nbacked its chief. Furs, skins, weapons, all manner of Indian wealth\nwas heaped in piles behind the gamblers, constituting the stakes; and\nthey were divided among the tribes of the winners,--each player\nrepresenting a tribe, and his winnings going, not to himself, but to\nhis people. This rule applied, of course, only to the great public\ngames; in private games of \"hand\" each successful player kept his own\nspoils.\n\nAmid the monotonous chant that always accompanied gambling, the two\npolished bits of bone (the winning one marked, the other not) were\npassed secretly from hand to hand. The bets were made as to who held\nthe marked stick and in which hand, then a show of hands was made and\nthe game was lost and won.\n\nFrom \"hand\" they passed to _ahikia_, a game like that of dice, played\nwith figured beaver teeth or disks of ivory, which were tossed up,\neverything depending on the combination of figures presented in their\nfall. It was played recklessly. The Indians were carried away by\nexcitement. They bet anything and everything they had. Wealthy chiefs\nstaked their all on the turn of the ivory disks, and some were\nbeggared, some enriched. Cecil noticed in particular Mishlah the\nCougar, chief of the Molallies. He was like a man intoxicated. His\nhuge bestial face was all ablaze with excitement, his eyes were\nglowing like coals. He had scarcely enough intellect to understand the\ngame, but enough combativeness to fling himself into it body and soul.\nHe bet his horses and lost them; he bet his slaves and lost again; he\nbet his lodges, with their rude furnishings of mat and fur, and lost\nonce more. Maddened, furious, like a lion in the toils, the desperate\nsavage staked his wives and children on the throw of the _ahikia_, and\nthey were swept from him into perpetual slavery.\n\nThen he rose up and glared upon his opponents, with his tomahawk\nclinched in his hand,--as if feeling dimly that he had been wronged,\nthirsting for vengeance, ready to strike, yet not knowing upon whom\nthe blow should fall. There was death in his look, and the chiefs\nshrunk from him, when his eyes met Multnomah's, who was looking on;\nand the war-chief checked and awed him with his cold glance, as a\ntamer of beasts might subdue a rebellious tiger. Then the Molallie\nturned and went away, raging, desperate, a chief still, but a chief\nwithout lodge or wife or slave.\n\nThe sight was painful to Cecil, and he too went away while the game\nwas at its height. Drawn by an influence that he could not resist, he\ntook the trail that led down the bank of the river to the retreat of\nWallulah.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nA DEAD QUEEN'S JEWELS.\n\n             For round about the walls yclothed were\n             With goodly arras of great maiesty,\n             Woven with golde and silke so close and nere\n             That the rich metall lurked privily.\n\n                                     _The Fa\u00ebrie Queene._\n\n\nHe found the sentinels by the pathway half reluctant to let him pass,\nbut they did not forbid him. Evidently it was only their awe of him as\nthe \"Great White Prophet,\" to whom Multnomah had added the dignity of\nan Indian sachem, that overcame their scruples. It was with a sense of\ndoing wrong that he went on. \"If Multnomah knew,\" he thought, \"what\nwould he do?\" And brave as Cecil was, he shuddered, thinking how\ndeadly the wrath of the war-chief would be, if he knew of these secret\nvisits to his daughter.\n\n\"It is an abuse of hospitality; it is clandestine, wrong,\" he thought\nbitterly. \"And yet she is lonely, she needs me, and I must go to her;\nbut I will never go again.\"\n\nWhere he had met her before, he found her waiting for him now, a\nsmall, graceful figure, standing in the shadow of the wood. She heard\nhis footsteps before he saw her, and the melancholy features were\ntransfigured with joy. She stood hesitating a moment like some shy\ncreature of the forest, then sprang eagerly forward to meet him.\n\n\"I knew you were coming!\" she cried rapturously. \"I felt your approach\nlong before I heard your footsteps.\"\n\n\"How is that?\" said Cecil, holding her hands and looking down into her\nradiant eyes. Something of the wild Indian mysticism flashed in them\nas she replied:\n\n\"I cannot tell; I knew it! my spirit heard your steps long before my\nears could catch the sound. But oh!\" she cried in sudden transition,\nher face darkening, her eyes growing large and pathetic, \"why did you\nnot come yesterday? I so longed for you and you did not come. It\nseemed as if the day would never end. I thought that perhaps the\nIndians had killed you; I thought it might be that I should never see\nyou again; and all the world grew dark as night, I felt so terribly\nalone. Promise me you will never stay away so long again!\"\n\n\"Never!\" exclaimed Cecil, on the impulse of the moment. An instant\nlater he would have given the world to have recalled the word.\n\n\"I am so glad!\" she cried, clapping her hands in girlish delight; and\nhe could not pain her by an explanation.\n\n\"After a while I will tell her how impossible it is for me to come\nagain,\" he thought. \"I cannot tell her now.\" And he seized upon every\nword and look of the lovely unconscious girl, with a hunger of heart\nborn of eight years' starvation.\n\n\"Now you must come with me to my lodge; you are my guest, and I shall\nentertain you. I want you to look at my treasures.\"\n\nCecil went with her, wondering if they would meet Multnomah at her\nlodge, and if so, what he would say. He felt that he was doing wrong,\nyet so sweet was it to be in her presence, so much did her beauty fill\nthe mighty craving of his nature, that it was not possible for him to\ntear himself away.\n\nSome fifteen minutes' walk brought them to Wallulah's lodge. It was a\nlarge building, made of bark set upright against a frame-work of\npoles, and roofed with cedar boards,--in its external appearance like\nall Willamette lodges. Several Indian girls, neatly dressed and of\nmore than ordinary intelligence, were busied in various employments\nabout the yard. They looked in surprise at the white man and their\nmistress, but said nothing. The two entered the lodge. Cecil muttered\nan exclamation of amazement as he crossed the threshold.\n\nThe interior was a glow of color, a bower of richness. Silken\ntapestries draped and concealed the bark walls; the floor of trodden\nearth was covered with a superbly figured carpet. It was like the hall\nof some Asiatic palace. Cecil looked at Wallulah, and her eyes\nsparkled with merriment at his bewildered expression. \"I knew you\nwould be astonished,\" she cried. \"Is not this as fair as anything in\nyour own land? No, wait till I show you another room!\"\n\nShe led the way to an inner apartment, drew back the tapestry that\nhung over the doorway, and bade him enter.\n\nNever, not even at St. James or at Versailles, had he seen such\nmagnificence. The rich many-hued products of Oriental looms covered\nthe rough walls; the carpet was like a cushion; mirrors sparkling\nwith gems reflected his figure; luxurious divans invited to repose.\nEverywhere his eye met graceful draperies and artistically blended\ncolors. Silk and gold combined to make up a scene that was like a\ndream of fable. Cecil's dazzled eyes wandered over all this splendor,\nthen came back to Wallulah's face again.\n\n\"I have seen nothing like this in my own land, not even in the King's\npalace. How came such beautiful things here among the Indians?\"\n\n\"They were saved from the vessel that was wrecked. They were my\nmother's, and she had them arranged thus. This was her lodge. It is\nmine now. I have never entered any other. I have never been inside an\nIndian wigwam. My mother forbade it, for fear that I might grow like\nthe savage occupants.\"\n\nCecil knew now how she had preserved her grace and refinement amid her\nfierce and squalid surroundings. Again her face changed and the\nwistful look came back. Her wild delicate nature seemed to change\nevery moment, to break out in a hundred varying impulses.\n\n\"I love beautiful things,\" she said, drawing a fold of tapestry\nagainst her cheek. \"They seem half human. I love to be among them and\nfeel their influence. These were my mother's, and it seems as if part\nof her life was in them. Sometimes, after she died, I used to shut my\neyes and put my cheek against the soft hangings and try to think it\nwas the touch of her hand; or I would read from her favorite poets and\ntry to think that I heard her repeating them to me again!\"\n\n\"Read!\" exclaimed Cecil; \"then you have books?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, I will show you all my treasures.\"\n\nShe went into another apartment and returned with a velvet case and a\nrichly enchased casket. She opened the case and took out several rolls\nof parchment.\n\n\"Here they are, my dear old friends, that have told me so many\nbeautiful things.\"\n\nCecil unrolled them with a scholar's tenderness. Their touch thrilled\nhim; it was touching again some familiar hand parted from years ago.\nThe parchments were covered with strange characters, in a language\nentirely unknown to him. The initial letters were splendidly\nilluminated, the margins ornamented with elaborate designs. Cecil\ngazed on the scrolls, as one who loves music but who is ignorant of\nits technicalities might look at a sonata of Beethoven or an opera of\nWagner, and be moved by its suggested melodies.\n\n\"I cannot read it,\" he said a little sadly.\n\n\"Sometime I will teach you,\" she replied; \"and you shall teach me your\nown language, and we will talk in it instead of this wretched Indian\ntongue.\"\n\n\"Tell me something about it now,\" asked Cecil, still gazing at the\nunknown lines.\n\n\"Not now, there is so much else to talk about; but I will to-morrow.\"\n\nTo-morrow! The word pierced him like a knife. For him, a missionary\namong barbarians, for her, the betrothed of a savage chief, the morrow\ncould bring only parting and woe; the sweet, fleeting present was all\nthey could hope for. For them there could be no to-morrow. Wallulah,\nhowever, did not observe his dejection. She had opened the casket, and\nnow placed it between them as they sat together on the divan. One by\none, she took out the contents and displayed them. A magnificent\nnecklace of diamonds, another of pearls; rings, brooches, jewelled\nbracelets, flashed their splendor on him. Totally ignorant of their\ngreat value, she showed them only with a true woman's love of\nbeautiful things, showed them as artlessly as if they were but pretty\nshells or flowers.\n\n\"Are they not bright?\" she would say, holding them up to catch the\nlight. \"How they sparkle!\"\n\nOne she took up a little reluctantly. It was an opal, a very fine one.\nShe held it out, turning it in the light, so that he might see the\nsplendid jewel glow and pale.\n\n\"Is it not lovely?\" she said; \"like sun-tints on the snow. But my\nmother said that in her land it is called the stone of misfortune. It\nis beautiful, but it brings trouble with it.\"\n\nHe saw her fingers tremble nervously as they held it, and she dropped\nit from them hurriedly into the casket, as if it were some bright\npoisonous thing she dreaded to touch.\n\nAfter a while, when Cecil had sufficiently admired the stones, she put\nthem back into the casket and took it and the parchments away. She\ncame back with her flute, and seating herself, looked at him closely.\n\n\"You are sad; there are heavy thoughts on your mind. How is that? He\nwho brings me sunshine must not carry a shadow on his own brow. Why\nare you troubled?\"\n\nThe trouble was that he realized now, and was compelled to acknowledge\nto himself, that he loved this gentle, clinging girl, with a\npassionate love; that he yearned to take her in his arms and shelter\nher from the terrible savagery before her; and that he felt it could\nnot, must not be.\n\n\"It is but little,\" he replied. \"Every heart has its burden, and\nperhaps I have mine. It is the lot of man.\"\n\nShe looked at him with a vague uneasiness; her susceptible nature\nresponded dimly to the tumultuous emotions that he was trying by force\nof will to shut up in his own heart.\n\n\"Trouble? Oh, do I not know how bitter it is! Tell me, what do your\npeople do when they have trouble? Do they cut off their hair and\nblacken their faces, as the Indians do, when they lose one they\nlove?\"\n\n\"No, they would scorn to do anything so degrading. He is counted\nbravest who makes the least display of grief and yet always cherishes\na tender remembrance of the dead.\"\n\n\"So would I. My mother forbade me to cut off my hair or blacken my\nface when she died, and so I did not, though some of the Indians\nthought me bad for not doing so. And your people are not afraid to\ntalk of the dead?\"\n\n\"Most certainly not. Why should we be? We know that they are in a\nbetter world, and their memories are dear to us. It is very sweet\nsometimes to talk of them.\"\n\n\"But the Willamettes never talk of their dead, for fear they may hear\ntheir names spoken and come back. Why should they dread their coming\nback? Ah, if my mother only _would_ come back! How I used to long and\npray for it!\"\n\nCecil began to talk to her about the love and goodness of God. If he\ncould only see her sheltered in the Divine compassion, he could trust\nher to slip from him into the unknown darkness of her future. She\nlistened earnestly.\n\n\"Your words are good,\" she said in her quaint phraseology; \"and if\ntrouble comes to me again I shall remember them. But I am very happy\nnow.\"\n\nThe warmth and thankfulness of her glance sent through him a great\nthrill of blended joy and pain.\n\n\"You forget,\" he said, forcing himself to be calm, \"that you are soon\nto leave your home and become the wife of Snoqualmie.\"\n\nWallulah raised her hand as if to ward off a blow, her features\nquivering with pain. She tried to reply, but for an instant the words\nfaltered on her lips. He saw it, and a fierce delight leaped up in his\nheart. \"She does not love him, it is I whom she cares for,\" he\nthought; and then he thrust the thought down in indignant\nself-reproach.\n\n\"I do not care for Snoqualmie; I once thought I did, but--\"\n\nShe hesitated, the quick color flushed her face; for the first time\nshe seemed in part, though not altogether, aware of why she had\nchanged.\n\nFor an instant Cecil felt as if he must speak; but the consequences\nrose before him while the words were almost on his lips. If he spoke\nand won her love, Multnomah would force her into a marriage with\nSnoqualmie just the same; and if the iron despot were to consent and\ngive her to Cecil, the result would be a bloody war with Snoqualmie.\n\n\"I cannot, I must not,\" thought Cecil. He rose to his feet; his one\nimpulse was to get away, to fight out the battle with himself.\nWallulah grew pale.\n\n\"You are going?\" she said, rising also. \"Something in your face tells\nme you are not coming back,\" and she looked at him with strained, sad,\nwistful eyes.\n\nHe stood hesitating, torn by conflicting emotions, not knowing what to\ndo.\n\n\"If you do not come back, I shall die,\" she said simply.\n\nAs they stood thus, her flute slipped from her relaxed fingers and\nfell upon the floor. He picked it up and gave it to her, partly\nthrough the born instinct of the gentleman, which no familiarity with\nbarbarism can entirely crush out, partly through the tendency in time\nof intense mental strain to relieve the mind by doing any little\nthing.\n\nShe took it, lifted it to her lips, and, still looking at him, began\nto play. The melody, strange, untaught, artless as the song of a\nwood-bird, was infinitely sorrowful and full of longing. Her very life\nseemed to breathe through the music in fathomless yearning. Cecil\nunderstood the plea, and the tears rushed unbidden into his eyes. All\nhis heart went out to her in pitying tenderness and love; and yet he\ndared not trust himself to speak.\n\n\"Promise to come back,\" said the music, while her dark eyes met his;\n\"promise to come back. You are my one friend, my light, my all; do not\nleave me to perish in the dark. I shall die without you, I shall die,\nI shall die!\"\n\nCould any man resist the appeal? Could Cecil, of all men, thrilling\nthrough all his sensitive and ardent nature to the music, thrilling\nstill more to a mighty and resistless love?\n\n\"I will come back,\" he said, and parted from her; he dared not trust\nhimself to say another word. But the parting was not so abrupt as to\nprevent his seeing the swift breaking-forth of light upon the\nmelancholy face that was becoming so beautiful to him and so dear.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nTHE TWILIGHT TALE.\n\n                 That eve I spoke those words again,\n                 And then she hearkened what I said.\n\n                                     DANTE ROSSETTI.\n\n\nThe next day the Indians had a great hunt. A circle of men on foot and\non horseback was drawn around a large tract of forest on the western\nside of the Willamette River. Gradually, with much shouting,\nhallooing, and beating of bushes, the circle closed upon the game\nwithin it, like the folds of a mighty serpent.\n\nThere was a prodigious slaughter, a mad scene of butchery, in which\nthe Indians exulted like fiends. Late in the afternoon they returned\nto camp, stained with blood and loaded with the spoils of the chase.\nSnoqualmie distinguished himself by killing a large bear, and its\nclaws, newly severed and bleeding, were added to his already ample\nnecklace of similar trophies.\n\nCecil remained in the almost deserted camp. He tried in vain to talk\nwith the few chiefs who had not gone out to join in the hunt.\nMissionary work was utterly impossible that day. Wallulah and the\nproblem of his love filled his thoughts. His mind, aroused and\nburning, searched and analyzed the question upon every side.\n\nShould he tell Multnomah of Snoqualmie's cruelty, representing his\nunfitness to be the husband of the gentle Wallulah?\n\nTo the stern war-chief that very cruelty would be an argument in\nSnoqualmie's favor. Should he himself become a suitor for her hand? He\nknew full well that Multnomah would reject him with disdain; or, were\nhe to consent, it would involve the Willamettes in a war with the\nhaughty and vindictive Cayuse. Finally, should he attempt to fly with\nher to some other land? Impossible. All the tribes of the northwest\nwere held in the iron grip of Multnomah. They could never escape; and\neven if they could, the good he had done among the Indians, the good\nhe hoped would grow from generation to generation, would be all\ndestroyed if it were told among them that he who claimed to come to\nthem with a message from God had ended by stealing the chief's\ndaughter. And had he a right to love any one?--had he a right to love\nat all? God had sent him to do a work among the Indians; was it not\nwicked for him to so much as look either to the right or to the left\ntill that work was done?\n\nAmid this maze of perplexities, his tense, agonized soul sought in\nvain for some solution, some conclusion. At times he sat in his lodge\nand brooded over these things till he seemed wrought up almost to\nmadness, till his form trembled with excitement, and the old pain at\nhis heart grew sharp and deadly.\n\nThen again, trying to shake it off, he went out among the few Indians\nwho were left in the camp and attempted to do missionary work; but\nenthusiasm was lacking, the glow and tenderness was gone from his\nwords, the grand devotion that had inspired him so long failed him at\nlast. He was no longer a saintly apostle to the Indians; he was only a\nhuman lover, torn by stormy human doubts and fears.\n\nEven the Indians felt that some intangible change had come over him,\nand as they listened their hearts no longer responded to his\neloquence; they felt somehow that the life was gone from his words. He\nsaw it too, and it gave him a keen pang.\n\nHe realized that the energy and concentration of his character was\ngone, that a girl's beauty had drawn him aside from the mission on\nwhich God had sent him.\n\n\"I will go and see her. I will, without letting her know that I love\nher, give her to understand my position and her own. She shall see how\nimpossible it is for us ever to be aught to each other. And I shall\nurge her to cling to God and walk in the path he has appointed for\nher, while I go on in mine.\"\n\nSo thinking, he left his lodge that evening and took the path to\nWallulah's home.\n\nSome distance from the encampment he met an Indian funeral procession.\nThe young Willamette runner had died that morning, and now they were\nbearing him to the river, down which a canoe was to waft the body and\nthe mourners to the nearest _mimaluse_ island. The corpse was swathed\nin skins and tied around with thongs; the father bore it on his\nshoulder, for the dead had been but a slender lad. Behind them came\nthe mother and a few Indian women. As they passed, the father chanted\na rude lament.\n\n\"Oh, Mox-mox, my son, why did you go away and leave our wigwam empty?\nYou were not weak nor sickly, and your life was young. Why did you go?\nOh, Mox-mox, dead, dead, dead!\"\n\nThen the women took up the doleful refrain,--\n\n\"Oh, Mox-mox, dead, dead, dead!\"\n\nThen the old man again,--\n\n\"Oh, Mox-mox, the sun was warm and food was plenty, yet you went away;\nand when we reach out for you, you are not there. Oh Mox-mox, dead,\ndead, dead!\"\n\nThen the women again,--\n\n\"Oh, Mox-mox, dead, dead, dead!\"\n\nAnd so it went on, till they were embarked and the canoe bore them\nfrom sight and hearing. Down on some _mimaluse_ island or rocky point,\nthey would stretch the corpse out in a canoe, with the bow and arrows\nand fishing spear used in life beside it; then turn over it another\ncanoe like a cover, and so leave the dead to his long sleep.\n\nThe sight gave an added bitterness to Cecil's meditations.\n\n\"After all,\" he thought, \"life is so short,--a shadow fleeting onward\nto the night,--and love is so sweet! Why not open my heart to the\nbliss it brings? The black ending comes so soon! Why not fling all\nthought of consequences to the winds, and gather into my arms the love\nthat is offered me? why not know its warmth and thrill for one golden\nmoment, even though that moment ends in death?\"\n\nThe blood rushed wildly through his veins, but he resolutely put down\nthe temptation. No, he would be faithful, he would not allow himself\neven to think of such a thing.\n\nReluctantly, as before, the sentinels made way for him and he went on\nthrough the wood to the trysting-place, for such it had come to be.\nShe was waiting. But there was no longer the glad illumination of\nface, the glad springing forward to meet him. She advanced shyly, a\ndelicate color in her cheek, a tremulous grace in her manner, that he\nhad not observed before; the consciousness of love had come to her and\nmade her a woman. Never had she seemed so fair to Cecil; yet his\nresolution did not falter.\n\n\"I have come, you see,--come to tell you that I can come no more, and\nto talk with you about your future.\"\n\nHer face grew very pale.\n\n\"Are you going away?\" she asked sorrowfully, \"and shall I never see\nyou again?\"\n\n\"I cannot come back,\" he replied gently. The sight of her suffering\ncut him to the heart.\n\n\"It has been much to see you,\" he continued, while she stood before\nhim, looking downward, without reply. \"It has been like meeting one of\nmy own people. I shall never forget you.\"\n\nShe raised her head and strove to answer, but the words died on her\nlips. How he loathed himself, talking so smoothly to her while he\nhungered to take her in his arms and tell her how he loved her!\n\nAgain he spoke.\n\n\"I hope you will be happy with Snoqualmie, and--\"\n\nShe lifted her eyes with a sudden light flashing in their black\ndepths.\n\n\"Do you want me to hate him? Never speak his name to me again!\"\n\n\"He is to be your husband; nay, it is the wish of your father, and the\ngreat sachems approve it.\"\n\n\"Can the sachems put love in my heart? Can the sachems make my heart\nreceive him as its lord? Ah, this bitter custom of the father giving\nhis daughter to whomsoever he will, as if she were a dog! And your\nlips sanction it!\"\n\nHer eyes were full of tears. Scarcely realizing what he did, he tried\nto take her hand. The slender fingers shrank from his and were drawn\naway.\n\n\"I do not sanction it, it is a bitter custom; but it is to be, and I\nonly wished to smooth your pathway. I want to say or do something that\nwill help you when I am gone.\"\n\n\"Do you know what it would be for me to be an Indian's wife? To cut\nthe wood, and carry the water, and prepare the food,--that would be\nsweet to do for one I loved. But to toil amid dirt and filth for a\nsavage whom I could only abhor, to feel myself growing coarse and\nsqualid with my surroundings,--I could not live!\"\n\nShe shuddered as she spoke, as if the very thought was horrible.\n\n\"You hate this degraded Indian life as much as I do, and yet it is the\nlife you would push me into,\" she continued, in a tone of mournful\nheart-broken reproach. It stung him keenly.\n\n\"It is not the life I would push you into. God knows I would give my\nlife to take one thorn from yours,\" The mad longing within him rushed\ninto his voice in spite of himself, making it thrill with a passionate\ntenderness that brought the color back into her pallid cheek. \"But I\ncannot remain,\" he went on, \"I dare not; all that I can do is to say\nsomething that may help you in the future.\"\n\nShe looked at him with dilated eyes full of pain and bewilderment.\n\n\"I have no future if you go away. Why must you go? What will be left\nme after you are gone? Think how long I was here alone after my mother\ndied, with no one to understand me, no one to talk to. Then you came,\nand I was happy. It was like light shining in the darkness; now it\ngoes out and I can never hope again. Why must you go away and leave\nWallulah in the dark?\"\n\nThere was a childlike plaintiveness and simplicity in her tone; and\nshe came close to him, looking up in his face with wistful, pleading\neyes, the beautiful face wan and drawn with bewilderment and pain, yet\nnever so beautiful as now.\n\nCecil felt the unspeakable cruelty of his attitude toward her, and his\nface grew white as death in an awful struggle between love and duty.\nBut he felt that he must leave her or be disloyal to his God.\n\n\"I do not wish to go away. But God has called me to a great work, and\nI must do it. I dare not turn aside. You cannot know how dear your\npresence is to me, or how bitter it is for me to part from you. But\nour parting must be, else the work I have done among the tribes will\nbe scattered to the winds and the curse of God will be on me as a\nfalse and fallen prophet.\"\n\nHe spoke with a kind of fierceness, striving blindly to battle down\nthe mad longing within, and his tones had a harshness that he was too\nagitated to notice. She drew back involuntarily. There came into her\nface a dignity he had never seen before. She was but a recluse and a\ngirl, but she was of royal lineage by right of both her parents, and\nhis words had roused a spirit worthy the daughter of Multnomah.\n\n\"Am I a weight on you? Are you afraid I will bring a curse upon you?\nDo not fear, I shall no longer ask you to stay. Wallulah shall take\nherself out of your life.\"\n\nShe gave him a look full of despair, as if seeing all hope go from her\nforever; then she said simply, \"Farewell,\" and turned away.\n\nBut in spite of her dignity there was an anguish written on her sweet\npale face that he could not resist. All his strength of resolve, all\nhis conviction of duty, crumbled into dust as she turned away; and he\nwas conscious only that he loved her, that he could not let her go.\n\nHow it happened he never knew, but she was clasped in his arms, his\nkisses were falling on brow and cheek in a passionate outburst that\ncould be kept back no longer. At first, she trembled in his arms and\nshrank away from him; then she nestled close, as if sheltering herself\nin the love that was hers at last. After awhile she lifted a face over\nwhich a shadow of pain yet lingered.\n\n\"But you said I would bring you a curse; you feared--\"\n\nHe stopped her with a caress.\n\n\"Even curses would be sweet if they came through you. Forget what I\nsaid, remember only that I love you!\"\n\nAnd she was content.\n\nAround them the twilight darkened into night; the hours came and went\nunheeded by these two, wrapped in that golden love-dream which for a\nmoment brings Eden back again to this gray old earth, all desolate as\nit is with centuries of woe and tears.\n\nBut while they talked there was on him a vague dread, an indefinable\nmisgiving, a feeling that he was disloyal to his mission, disloyal to\nher; that their love could have but one ending, and that a dark one.\n\nStill he strove hard to forget everything, to shut out all the\nworld,--drinking to the full the bliss of the present, blinding his\neyes to the pain of the future.\n\nBut after they parted, when her presence was withdrawn and he was\nalone, he felt like a man faithless and dishonored; like a prophet who\nhad bartered the salvation of the people to whom he had been sent, in\nexchange for a woman's kisses, which could bring him only disgrace and\ndeath.\n\nAs he went back to the camp in the stillness of midnight, he was\nstartled by a distant roar, and saw through the tree-tops flames\nbursting from the far-off crater of Mount Hood. The volcano was\nbeginning one of its periodical outbursts. But to Cecil's mind, imbued\nwith the gloomy supernaturalism of early New England, and\nunconsciously to himself, tinged in later years with the superstition\nof the Indians among whom he had lived so long, that ominous roar,\nthose flames leaping up into the black skies of night, seemed a sign\nof the wrath of God.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nORATOR AGAINST ORATOR.\n\n    The gravity, fixed attention, and decorum of these sons of the\n    forest was calculated to make for them a most favorable\n    impression.--GRAY: _History of Oregon_.\n\n\nThe next day all the Indians were gathered around the council grove.\nMultnomah presided, and every sachem was in his place.\n\nThere was to be a trial of eloquence,--a tourney of orators, to see\nwhich tribe had the best. Only one, the most eloquent of each tribe,\nwas to speak; and Multnomah was to decide who was victor. The mother\nof Wallulah had introduced the custom, and it had become popular among\nthe Indians.\n\nCecil was in his place among the chiefs, with worn face and abstracted\nair; Snoqualmie was present, with hawk-like glance and imperious mien;\nthere was Mishlah, with his sullen and brutal features; there, too,\nwrapped closely in his robe of fur, sat Tohomish, brooding,\ngloomy,--the wild empire's mightiest master of eloquence, and yet the\nmost repulsive figure of them all.\n\nThe Indians were strangely quiet that morning; the hush of a\nsuperstitious awe was upon them. The smoking mountains, Hood and Adams\nas the white man calls them, Au-poo-tah and Au-ka-ken in the Indian\ntongue, were becoming active of late. The previous night flame had\nbeen seen bursting from the top of Mount Hood and thick black smoke\nstill puffed upward from it, and on Mount Adams rested a heavy cloud\nof volcanic vapors. Were the mountains angry? Aged men told how in the\nold time there had been a terrible outburst of flame and ashes from\nMount Hood; a rain of fire and stones had fallen over all the\nWillamette valley; the very earth had trembled at the great mountain's\nwrath.\n\nAs the lower animals feel in the air the signs of a coming storm, so\nthese savages felt, by some kindred intuition, that a mysterious\nconvulsion of Nature was at hand. They talked in low tones, they were\nsubdued in manner; any one coming suddenly upon them would have been\nimpressed by the air of uneasiness and apprehension that everywhere\nprevailed. But the chiefs were stoical, and Multnomah impassive as\never.\n\nCould it have been that the stormy influences at work in Nature lent\nenergy to the orators that day? They were unusually animated, at least\nfor Indians, though a white man would have found them intolerably\nbombastic. Each speech was a boastful eulogy of the speaker's tribe,\nand an exaggerated account of the wonderful exploits of its warriors.\n\nThis was rather dangerous ground; for all the tribes had been at\nenmity in days gone by, and some of their most renowned victories had\nbeen won over each other. Every one took it in good part, however,\nexcept Mishlah. When We-math, chief of the Klamaths, recounting the\nexploits of his race, told how in ancient times they had lorded it\nover the Mollalies, Mishlah glared at him as if tempted to leap upon\nhim and strike him down. Fortunately the orator passed on to other\nthings, and the wrath of the Mollalie chief gradually cooled.\n\nThen came Cecil. It was a grand opening. He could speak of his own\npeople, of their ancient savagery and present splendor, and show how\nthe gospel of love and justice had been the cause of their elevation.\nThen would come the appeal to the Indians to accept this faith as\ntheir own and share in its uplifting power. It was a magnificent\nopportunity, the opportunity of a life-time.\n\nBut the mental conflict he had just passed through had rent his mind\nlike a volcanic upheaval. It possessed no longer the intense\nconcentration which had been the source of its strength. Tenderness,\nbenevolence, missionary zeal, were still there, but no longer\nsovereign. Other passions divided his heart; a hopeless and burning\nlove consumed his being.\n\nHe spoke, but the fire was gone from his delivery and the vividness\nfrom his imagination. His eloquence was not what it had been; his\nheart was no longer in his work, and his oration was a failure.\n\nEven the Indians noticed that something was lacking in his oratory,\nand it no longer moved them as it had done. Cecil realized it, and\nstrove to speak with more energy, but in vain; he could not arouse\nhimself; and it was with a consciousness of failure that he brought\nhis speech to a close and resumed his seat.\n\nTo a man of his morbid conscientiousness only one conclusion was\npossible.\n\n\"God sent me to proclaim salvation to these children of darkness,\" he\nthought, \"and I have turned aside to fill my heart with a woman's\nlove. His wrath is on me. He has taken his spirit from me. I am a\nthing rejected and accursed, and this people will go down to death\nbecause I have failed in my mission.\"\n\nWhile he sat absorbed in these bitter, self-accusing thoughts, the\nspeaking went on. Wau-ca-cus the Klickitat made a strong \"talk,\"\npicturesque in Indian metaphor, full of energy. But the chief that\nfollowed surpassed him. Orator caught fire from orator; thoughts not\nunworthy a civilized audience were struck out by the intensity of the\nemulation; speakers rose to heights which they had never reached\nbefore, which they were destined never to reach again. In listening to\nand admiring their champions, the tribes forgot the smoking mountains\nand the feeling of apprehension that had oppressed them. At length\nSnoqualmie made a speech breathing his own daring spirit in every\nword. It went immeasurably beyond the others; it was the climax of all\nthe darkly splendid eloquence of the day.\n\nNo, not of all. From his place among the chiefs rose a small and\nemaciated figure; the blanket that had muffled his face was thrown\naside, and the tribes looked on the mis-shapen and degraded features\nof Tohomish the Pine Voice. He stood silent at first, his eyes bent on\nthe ground, like a man in a trance. For a moment the spectators forgot\nthe wonderful eloquence of the man in his ignoble appearance. What\ncould he do against Wau-ca-cus the Klickitat and Snoqualmie the\nCayuse, whose sonorous utterances still rang in their ears, whose\nmajestic presence still filled their minds!\n\n\"The Willamettes are beaten at last,--the Willamette speakers can no\nmore be called the best,\" was the one exultant thought of the allies,\nand the Willamettes trembled for the fame of their orators. Back in\nthe shadow of the cottonwoods, an old Willamette warrior put an arrow\non the string and bent his bow unseen on Tohomish.\n\n\"He cannot beat them, and it shall never be said that Tohomish\nfailed,\" he muttered. At that moment, even as death hung over him, the\norator's voice was heard beginning his \"talk;\" and the warrior's hand\nfell, the bent bow was relaxed, the arrow dropped from the string. For\nwith the first accents of that soft and lingering voice the tribes\nwere thrilled as with the beginning of music.\n\nThe orator's head was still bent down, his manner abstracted; he spoke\nof the legends and the glories of the Willamette tribe, but spoke of\nthem as if that tribe belonged to the past, as if it had perished from\nthe earth, and he was telling the tale of a great dead race. His tones\nwere melodious but indescribably mournful. When at length he lifted\nhis face, his eyes shone with a misty light, and his brutal features\nwere illuminated with a weird enthusiasm. A shudder went through the\nvast and motley assembly. No boastful rant was this, but a majestic\nstory of the past, the story of a nation gone forever. It was the\ndeath-song of the Willamettes, solemnly rendered by the last and\ngreatest orator of the race.\n\nAt length he spoke of Multnomah and of the power of the confederacy in\nhis time, but spoke of it as of old time, seen dimly through the lapse\nof years. Then, when as it seemed he was about to go on and tell how\nthis power came to fall, he hesitated; the words faltered on his lips;\nhe suddenly broke off, took his seat, and drew his robe again over his\nface.\n\n[Illustration: \"_It was the Death-song of the Willamettes._\"]\n\nThe effect was indescribable. The portentous nature of the whole\nspeech needed only that last touch of mystery. It sent through every\nheart a wild and awesome thrill, as at the shadow of approaching\ndestiny.\n\nThe multitude were silent; the spell of the prophet's lofty and\nmournful eloquence still lingered over them. Multnomah rose. With him\nrested the decision as to who was the greatest orator. But the proud\nold war-chief knew that all felt that Tohomish had far surpassed his\ncompetitors, and he was resolved that not his lips but the voice of\nthe tribes should proclaim their choice.\n\n\"Multnomah was to decide who has spoken best, but he leaves the\ndecision with you. You have heard them all. Declare who is the\ngreatest, and your word shall be Multnomah's word.\"\n\nThere was an instant's silence; then in a murmur like the rush of the\nsea came back the voice of the multitude.\n\n\"Tohomish! Tohomish! he is greatest!\"\n\n\"He is greatest,\" said Multnomah. But Tohomish, sitting there\ndejectedly, seemed neither to see nor hear.\n\n\"To-morrow,\" said the war-chief, \"while the sun is new, the chiefs\nwill meet in council and the great talk shall be ended. And after it\nends, Multnomah's daughter will be given to Snoqualmie, and Multnomah\nwill bestow a rich _potlatch_ [a giving of gifts] on the people. And\nthen all will be done.\"\n\nThe gathering broke up. Gradually, as the Indians gazed on the smoking\nmountains, the excitement produced by the oratory they had just heard\nwore off. Only Tohomish's sombre eloquence, so darkly in unison with\nthe menacing aspect of Nature, yet lingered in every mind. They were\nfrightened and startled, apprehensive of something to come. Legends,\nsuperstitious lore of by-gone time connected with the \"smoking\nmountains,\" were repeated that afternoon wherever little groups of\nIndians had met together. Through all these gathered tribes ran a\ndread yet indefinable whisper of apprehension, like the first low\nrustle of the leaves that foreruns the coming storm.\n\nOver the valley Mount Adams towered, wrapped in dusky cloud; and from\nMount Hood streamed intermittent bursts of smoke and gleams of fire\nthat grew plainer as the twilight fell. Louder, as the hush of evening\ndeepened, came the sullen roar from the crater of Mount Hood. Below\nthe crater, the ice-fields that had glistened in unbroken whiteness\nthe previous day were now furrowed with wide black streaks, from which\nthe vapor of melting snow and burning lava ascended in dense wreaths.\nMen wiser than these ignorant savages would have said that some\nterrible convulsion was at hand.\n\nMultnomah's announcement in the council was a dreadful blow to Cecil,\nthough he had expected it. His first thought was of a personal appeal\nto the chief, but one glance at the iron features of the autocrat told\nhim that it would be a hopeless undertaking. No appeal could turn\nMultnomah from his purpose. For Cecil, such an undertaking might be\ndeath; it certainly would be contemptuous refusal, and would call down\non Wallulah the terrible wrath before which the bravest sachem\nquailed.\n\nCecil left the grove with the other chiefs and found his way to his\nlodge. There he flung himself down on his face upon his couch of furs.\nThe Indian woman, his old nurse, who still clung to him, was absent,\nand for some time he was alone. After a while the flap that hung over\nthe entrance was lifted, and some one came in with the noiseless tread\nof the Indian. Cecil, lying in a maze of bitter thought, became aware\nof the presence of another, and raised his head. The Shoshone renegade\nstood beside him. His gaze rested compassionately on Cecil's sad, worn\nface.\n\n\"What is it?\" he asked. \"Your words were slow and heavy to-day. There\nwas a weight on your spirit; what is it? You said that we were\nfriends, so I came to ask if I could help.\"\n\n\"You are good, and like a brother,\" replied Cecil, gently, \"but I\ncannot tell you my trouble. Yet this much I can tell,\"--and he sat\nupon the couch, his whole frame trembling with excitement. \"I have\nsinned a grievous sin, therefore the Great Spirit took away the words\nfrom my lips to-day. My heart has become evil, and God has punished\nme.\"\n\nIt was a relief to his over-burdened conscience to say those harsh\nthings of himself, yet the relief was bitter. Over the bronzed face of\nthe Indian came an expression of deep pity.\n\n\"The white man tears himself with his own claws like a wounded beast,\nbut it does not give him peace. Has he done evil? Then let him\nremember what he has so often told the Indians: 'Forsake evil, turn\nfrom sin, and the Great Spirit will forgive.' Let my white brother do\nthis, and it will be well with him.\"\n\nHe gazed at Cecil an instant longer; then, with a forbearance that\nmore civilized men do not always show, he left the lodge without\nanother word.\n\nBut what he said had its effect. Through Cecil's veins leaped the\nimpulse of a sudden resolve,--a resolve that was both triumph and\nagony. He fell on his knees beside the couch.\n\n\"Thou hast shown me my duty by the lips of the Indian, and I will\nperform it. I will tear this forbidden love from my heart. Father,\nhelp me. Once before I resolved to do this and failed. Help me that I\nfail not now. Give me strength. Give me the mastery over the flesh, O\nGod! Help me to put this temptation from me. Help me to fulfil my\nmission.\"\n\nThe struggle was long and doubtful, but the victory was won at last.\nWhen Cecil arose from his knees, there was the same set and resolute\nlook upon his face that was there the morning he entered the\nwilderness, leaving friends and home behind him forever,--the look\nthat some martyr of old might have worn, putting from him the clinging\narms of wife or child, going forth to the dungeon and the stake.\n\n\"It is done,\" murmured the white lips. \"I have put her from me. My\nmission to the Indians alone fills my heart. But God help her! God\nhelp her!\"\n\nFor the hardest part of it all was that he sacrificed her as well as\nhimself.\n\n\"It must be,\" he thought; \"I must give her up. I will go now and tell\nher; then I will never look upon her face again. But oh! what will\nbecome of her?\"\n\nAnd his long fingers were clinched as in acutest pain. But his\nsensitive nerves, his intense susceptibilities were held in abeyance\nby a will that, once roused, was strong even unto death.\n\nHe went out. It was dark. Away to the east Mount Hood lifted its\nblazing crater into the heavens like a gigantic torch, and the roar of\nthe eruption came deep and hoarse through the stillness of night.\nOnce, twice it seemed to Cecil that the ground trembled slightly under\nhis feet. The Indians were huddled in groups watching the burning\ncrest of the volcano. As the far-off flickering light fell on their\nfaces, it showed them to be full of abject fear.\n\n\"It is like the end of the world,\" thought Cecil. \"Would that it were;\nthen she and I might die together.\"\n\nHe left the camp and took the trail through the wood to the\ntrysting-place; for, late as it was, he knew that she awaited him.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nIN THE DARK.\n\n             There is not one upon life's weariest way,\n             Who is weary as I am weary of all but death.\n\n                                               SWINBURNE.\n\n\nThe grim sentinels by the pathway, who had been so reluctant to let\nCecil pass the day before, were still more reluctant this evening. One\nof them planted himself in the trail directly in front of Cecil, and\ndid not offer to let him go on, but stood sullenly blocking the way.\nCecil touched the warrior's arm and bade him stand aside. For an\ninstant it seemed that he would refuse, but his superstitious respect\nfor the white _tomanowos_ overcame his obstinacy,--and he stepped\nunwillingly back.\n\nBut as Cecil went on he felt, and felt rightly, that they would not\nlet him pass again,--that the last act, be it what it might, in his\nlove drama, was drawing to a close.\n\nA few moments' walk, and he saw in the dark the little figure awaiting\nhim under the trees. She came slowly forward to meet him. He saw that\nher face was very pale, her eyes large and full of woe. She gave him\nher hands; they felt like ice. He bent over her and kissed her with\nquivering lips.\n\n\"Poor child,\" he said, putting his arms around her slender form and\ndrawing it close in his embrace, \"how can I ever tell you what I have\nto tell you to-night!\"\n\nShe did not respond to his caress. At length, looking up in a\nlifeless, stricken way, she spoke in a mechanical voice, a voice that\ndid not sound like her own,--\n\n\"I know it already. My father came and told me that to-morrow I\nmust--\" She shuddered; her voice broke; then she threw her arms around\nhis neck and clung to him passionately. \"But they can never tear me\naway from you; never, never!\"\n\nHow could he tell her that he came to put her away from him, that he\ncame to bid her farewell? He clasped her the tighter in his arms. For\nan instant his mind swept all the chances of flight with her, only to\nrealize their utter hopelessness; then he remembered that even to\nthink of such a thing was treachery to the resolves he had just made.\nHe shook from head to foot with stormy emotion.\n\nShe lifted her head from his breast, where it was pillowed.\n\n\"Let us get horses or a canoe, and fly to-night to the desert or the\nsea,--anywhere, anywhere, only to be away from here! Let us take the\ntrail you came on, and find our way to your people.\"\n\n\"Alas,\" replied Cecil, \"how could we escape? Every tribe, far and\nnear, is tributary to your father. The runners would rouse them as\nsoon as we were missed. The swiftest riders would be on our trail;\nambuscades would lurk for us in every thicket; we could never escape;\nand even if we should, a whole continent swarming with wild tribes\nlies between us and my land.\"\n\nShe looked at him in anguish, with dim eyes, and her arms slipped from\naround his neck.\n\n\"Do you no longer love Wallulah? Something tells me that you would not\nwish to fly with me, even if we could escape. There is something you\nhave not told me.\"\n\nClasping her closely to him, he told her how he felt it was the will\nof God that they must part. God had sent him on a sacred mission, and\nhe dared not turn aside. Either her love or the redemption of the\ntribes of the Wauna must be given up; and for their sake love must be\nsacrificed.\n\n\"To-day God took away the words from my lips and the spirit from my\nheart. My soul was lead. I felt like one accursed. Then it came to me\nthat it was because I turned aside from my mission to love you. We\nmust part. Our ways diverge. I must walk my own pathway alone\nwheresoever it leads me. God commands, and I must obey.\"\n\nThe old rapt look came back, the old set, determined expression which\nshowed that that delicate organization could grow as strong as granite\nin its power to endure.\n\nWallulah shrank away from him, and strove to free herself from his\nembrace.\n\n\"Let me go,\" she said, in a low, stifled tone. \"Oh, if I could only\ndie!\"\n\nBut he held her close, almost crushing the delicate form against his\nbreast. She felt his heart beat deeply and painfully against her own,\nand in some way it came to her that every throb was agony, that he was\nin the extremity of mental and physical suffering.\n\n\"God help me!\" he said; \"how can I give you up?\"\n\nShe realized by woman's intuition that his whole soul was wrung with\npain, with an agony darker and bitterer than her own; and the\nexceeding greatness of his suffering gave her strength. A sudden\nrevulsion of feeling affected her. She looked up at him with infinite\ntenderness.\n\n\"I wish I could take all the pain away from you and bear it myself.\"\n\n\"It is God's will; we must submit to it.\"\n\n\"His will!\" Her voice was full of rebellion. \"Why does he give us such\nbitter suffering? Doesn't he care? I thought once that God was good,\nbut it is all dark now.\"\n\n\"Hush, you must not think so. After all, it will be only a little\nwhile till we meet in heaven, and there no one can take you from me.\"\n\n\"Heaven is so far off. The present is all that I can see, and it is as\nblack as death. Death! it would be sweet to die now with your arms\naround me; but to _live_ year after year with him! How can I go to\nhim, now that I have known you? How can I bear his presence, his\ntouch?\"\n\nShe shuddered there in Cecil's arms. All her being shrunk in\nrepugnance at the thought of Snoqualmie.\n\n\"Thank God for death!\" said Cecil, brokenly.\n\n\"It is so long to wait,\" she murmured, \"and I am so young and\nstrong.\"\n\nHis kisses fell on cheek and brow. She drew down his head and put her\ncheek against his and clung to him as if she would never let him go.\n\nIt was a strange scene, the mournful parting of the lovers in the\ngloom of the forest and the night. To the east, through the black\nnet-work of leaves and branches, a dull red glow marked the crater of\nMount Hood, and its intermittent roar came to them through the\nsilence. It was a night of mystery and horror,--a fitting night for\ntheir tragedy of love and woe. The gloom and terror of their\nsurroundings seemed to throw a supernatural shadow over their\nfarewell.\n\n\"The burning mountain is angry to-night,\" said Wallulah, at last.\n\"Would that it might cover us up with its ashes and stones, as the\nIndians say it once did two lovers back in the old time.\"\n\n\"Alas, death never comes to those who wish for it. When the grace and\nsweetness are all fled from our lives, and we would be glad to lie\ndown in the grave and be at rest, then it is that we must go on\nliving. Now I must go. The longer we delay our parting the harder it\nwill be.\"\n\n\"Not yet, not yet!\" cried Wallulah. \"Think how long I must be\nalone,--always alone until I die.\"\n\n\"God help us!\" said Cecil, setting his teeth. \"I will dash my mission\nto the winds and fly with you. What if God does forsake us, and our\nsouls are lost! I would rather be in the outer darkness with you than\nin heaven without you.\"\n\nHis resolution had given way at last. But in such cases, is it not\nalways the woman that is strongest?\n\n\"No,\" she said, \"you told me that your God would forsake you if you\ndid. It must not be.\"\n\nShe withdrew herself from his arms and stood looking at him. He saw in\nthe moonlight that her pale tear-stained face had upon it a sorrowful\nresignation, a mournful strength, born of very hopelessness.\n\n\"God keep you, Wallulah!\" murmured Cecil, brokenly. \"If I could only\nfeel that he would shelter and shield you!\"\n\n\"That may be as it will,\" replied the sweet, patient lips. \"I do not\nknow. I shut my eyes to the future. I only want to take myself away\nfrom you, so that your God will not be angry with you. Up there,\" she\nsaid, pointing, \"I will meet you sometime and be with you forever. God\nwill not be angry then. Now farewell.\"\n\nHe advanced with outstretched arms. She motioned him back.\n\n\"It will make it harder,\" she said.\n\nFor a moment she looked into his eyes, her own dark, dilated, full of\nlove and sadness; for a moment all that was within him thrilled to the\npassionate, yearning tenderness of her gaze; then she turned and went\naway without a word.\n\nHe could not bear to see her go, and yet he knew it must end thus; he\ndared not follow her or call her back. But so intense was his desire\nfor her to return, so vehemently did his life cry out after her, that\nfor an instant it seemed to him he _had_ called out, \"Come back! come\nback!\" The cry rose to his lips; but he set his teeth and held it\nback. They _must_ part; was it not God's will? The old pain at his\nheart returned, a faintness was on him, and he reeled to the ground.\n\nCould it be that her spirit felt that unuttered cry, and that it\nbrought her back? Be this as it may, while he was recovering from his\ndeadly swoon he dimly felt her presence beside him, and the soft cool\ntouch of her fingers on his brow. Then--or did he imagine it?--her\nlips, cold as those of the dead, touched his own. But when\nconsciousness entirely returned, he was alone in the forest.\n\nBlind, dizzy, staggering with weakness, he found his way to the camp.\nSuddenly, as he drew near it he felt the earth sway and move beneath\nhim like a living thing. He caught hold of a tree to escape being\nthrown to the ground. There came an awful burst of flame from Mount\nHood. Burning cinders and scoria lit up the eastern horizon like a\nfountain of fire. Then down from the great canyon of the Columbia,\nfrom the heart of the Cascade Range, broke a mighty thundering sound,\nas if half a mountain had fallen. Drowning for a moment the roar of\nthe volcano, the deep echo rolled from crag to crag, from hill to\nhill. A wild chorus of outcries rang from the startled camp,--the\nfierce, wild cry of many tribes mad with fear yet breathing forth\ntremulous defiance, the cry of human dread mingling with the last\nechoes of that mysterious crash.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nQUESTIONING THE DEAD.\n\n         Then he said: \"Cold lips and breast without breath,\n         Is there no voice, no language of death?\"\n\n                                               EDWIN ARNOLD.\n\n\nWhile Cecil was on his way that evening to seek Wallulah, a canoe with\nbut a single occupant was dropping down the Columbia toward one of the\nmany _mimaluse_, or death-islands, that are washed by its waters.\n\nAn Indian is always stealthy, but there was an almost more than Indian\nstealthiness about this canoe-man's movements. Noiselessly, as the\ntwilight deepened into darkness, the canoe glided out of a secluded\ncove not far from the camp; noiselessly the paddle dipped into the\nwater, and the canoe passed like a shadow into the night.\n\nOn the rocky _mimaluse_ island, some distance below the mouth of the\nWillamette, the Indian landed and drew his boat up on the beach. He\nlooked around for a moment, glanced at the red glow that lit the\nfar-off crest of Mount Hood, then turned and went up the pathway to\nthe ancient burial hut.\n\nWho was it that had dared to visit the island of the dead after dark?\nThe bravest warriors were not capable of such temerity. Old men told\nhow, away back in the past, some braves had ventured upon the island\nafter nightfall, and had paid the awful forfeit. They were struck by\nunseen hands. Weapons that had lain for years beside the decaying\ncorpses of forgotten warriors wounded them in the dark. Fleeing to\ntheir canoes in swiftest fear, they found the shadowy pursuit was\nswifter still, and were overtaken and struck down, while the whole\nisland rung with mocking laughter. One only escaped, plunging all torn\nand bruised into the river and swimming to the farther shore. When he\nlooked back, the island was covered with moving lights, and the shrill\necho of fiendish mirth came to him across the water. His companions\nwere never seen again. A little while afterward the dogs barked all\nnight around his lodge, and in the morning he was found lying dead\nupon his couch, his face ghastly and drawn with fear, as if at some\nfrightful apparition.\n\n\"He disturbed the _mimaluse tillicums_ [dead people], and they came\nfor him,\" said the old medicine men, as they looked at him.\n\nSince then, no one had been on the island except in the daytime.\nLittle bands of mourners had brought hither the swathed bodies of\ntheir dead, laid them in the burial hut, lifted the wail over them,\nand left upon the first approach of evening.\n\nWho, then, was this,--the first for generations to set foot on the\n_mimaluse illahee_ after dark?\n\nIt could be but one, the only one among all the tribes who would have\ndared to come, and to come alone,--Multnomah, the war-chief, who knew\nnot what it was to fear the living or the dead.\n\nStartled by the outburst of the great smoking mountains, which always\npresaged woe to the Willamettes, perplexed by Tohomish's mysterious\nhints of some impending calamity, weighed down by a dread\npresentiment, he came that night on a strange and superstitious\nerrand.\n\nOn the upper part of the island, above reach of high water, the burial\nhut loomed dark and still in the moonlight as the chief approached\nit.\n\nSome of the Willamettes, like the Chinooks, practised canoe burial,\nbut the greater part laid their dead in huts, as did also the\nKlickitats and the Cascades.\n\nThe war-chief entered the hut. The rude boards that covered the roof\nwere broken and decayed. The moonlight shone through many openings,\nlighting up the interior with a dim and ghostly radiance. There,\nswathed in crumbling cerements, ghastly in shrunken flesh and\nprotruding bone, lay the dead of the line of Multnomah,--the chiefs of\nthe blood royal who had ruled the Willamettes for many generations.\nThe giant bones of warriors rested beside the more delicate skeletons\nof their women, or the skeletons, slenderer still, of little children\nof the ancient race. The warrior's bow lay beside him with rotting\nstring; the child's playthings were still clasped in fleshless\nfingers; beside the squaw's skull the ear-pendants of _hiagua_ shells\nlay where they had fallen from the crumbling flesh years before.\n\nNear the door, and where the slanting moonbeams fell full upon it, was\nthe last who had been borne to the death hut, the mother of Wallulah.\nSix years before Multnomah had brought her body,--brought it alone,\nwith no eye to behold his grief; and since then no human tread had\ndisturbed the royal burial-place.\n\nHe came now and looked down upon the body. It had been tightly\nswathed, fold upon fold, in some oriental fabric; and the wrappings,\nstiffened by time still showed what had once been a rare symmetry of\nform. The face was covered with a linen cloth, yellow now through age\nand fitting like a mask to the features. The chief knelt down and drew\naway the face-cloth. The countenance, though shrunken, was almost\nperfectly preserved. Indeed, so well preserved were many of the\ncorpses the first white settlers found on these _mimaluse_ islands as\nto cause at one time a belief that the Indians had some secret process\nof embalming their dead. There was no such process, however,--nothing\nsave the antiseptic properties of the ocean breeze which daily fanned\nthe burial islands of the lower Columbia.\n\nLovely indeed must the mother of Wallulah have been in her life.\nWithered as her features were, there was a delicate beauty in them\nstill,--in the graceful brow, the regular profile, the exquisitely\nchiselled chin. Around the shoulders and the small shapely head her\nhair had grown in rich luxuriant masses.\n\nThe chief gazed long on the shrunken yet beautiful face. His iron\nfeatures grew soft, as none but Wallulah had ever seen them grow. He\ntouched gently the hair of his dead wife, and put it back from her\nbrow with a wistful, caressing tenderness. He had never understood\nher; she had always been a mystery to him; the harsh savagery of his\nnature had never been able to enter into or comprehend the refined\ngrace of hers; but he had loved her with all the fierce, tenacious,\nsecretive power of his being, a power that neither time nor death\ncould change. Now he spoke to her, his low tones sounding weird in\nthat house of the dead,--a strange place for words of love.\n\n\"My woman,--mine yet, for death itself cannot take from Multnomah that\nwhich is his own; my bird that came from the sea and made its nest for\na little while in the heart of Multnomah and then flew away and left\nit empty,--I have been hungry to see you, to touch your hair and look\nupon your face again. Now I am here, and it is sweet to be with you,\nbut the heart of Multnomah listens to hear you speak.\"\n\nHe still went on stroking her hair softly, reverently. It seemed the\nonly caress of which he was capable, but it had in it a stern and\nmournful tenderness.\n\n\"Speak to me! The dead talk to the _tomanowos_ men and the dreamers.\nYou are mine; talk to me; I am in need. The shadow of something\nterrible to come is over the Willamette. The smoking mountains are\nangry; the dreamers see only bad signs; there are black things before\nMultnomah, and he cannot see what they are. Tell me,--the dead are\nwise and know that which comes,--what is this unknown evil which\nthreatens me and mine?\"\n\nHe looked down at her with intense craving, intense desire, as if his\nimperious will could reanimate that silent clay and force to the mute\nlips the words he so desired. But the still lips moved not, and the\nface lay cold under his burning and commanding gaze. The chief leaned\ncloser over her; he called her name aloud,--something that the\nWillamette Indians rarely did, for they believed that if the names of\nthe dead were spoken, even in conversation, it would bring them back;\nso they alluded to their lost ones only indirectly, and always\nreluctantly and with fear.\n\n\"Come back!\" said he, repeating the name he had not spoken for six\nyears. \"You are my own, you are my woman. Hear me, speak to me, you\nwhom I love; you who, living or dead, are still the wife of\nMultnomah.\"\n\nNo expression flitted over the changeless calm of the face beneath\nhim: no sound came back to his straining ears except the low\nintermittent roar of the far-off volcano.\n\nA sorrowful look crossed his face. As has been said, there was an\nindefinable something always between them, which perhaps must ever be\nbetween those of diverse race. It had been the one mystery that\npuzzled him while she was living, and it seemed to glide, viewless yet\nimpenetrable, between them now. He rose to his feet.\n\n\"It comes between us again,\" he thought, looking down at her\nmournfully. \"It pushed me back when she was living, and made me feel\nthat I stood outside her heart even while my arms were around her. It\ncomes between us now and will not let her speak. If it was only\nsomething I could see and grapple with!\"\n\nAnd the fierce warrior felt his blood kindle within him, that not only\ndeath but something still more mysterious and incomprehensible should\nseparate him from the one he loved. He turned sadly away and passed on\nto the interior of the hut. As he gazed on the crumbling relics of\nhumanity around him, the wonted look of command came back to his brow.\nThese _should_ obey; by iron strength of will and mystic charm he\nwould sway them to his bidding. The withered lips of death, or spirit\nvoices, should tell him what he wished to know. Abjectly superstitious\nas was the idea it involved, there was yet something grand in his\nsavage despotic grasp after power that, dominating all he knew of\nearth, sought to bend to his will even the spirit-land.\n\nThe chief believed that the departed could talk to him if they would;\nfor did they not talk to the medicine men and the dreamers? If so, why\nnot to him, the great chief, the master of all the tribes of the\nWauna?\n\nHe knelt down, and began to sway his body back and forth after the\nmanner of the Nootka _shamans_, and to chant a long, low, monotonous\nsong, in which the names of the dead who lay there were repeated over\nand over again.\n\n\"Kamyah, Tlesco, Che-aqah, come back! come back and tell me the\nsecret, the black secret, the death secret, the woe that is to come.\nWinelah, Sic-mish, Tlaquatin, the land is dark with signs and omens;\nthe hearts of men are heavy with dread; the dreamers say that the end\nis come for Multnomah and his race. Is it true? Come and tell me. I\nwait, I listen, I speak your names; come back, come back!\"\n\nTohomish himself would not have dared to repeat those names in the\ncharnel hut, lest those whom he invoked should spring upon him and\ntear him to pieces. No more potent or more perilous charm was known to\nthe Indians.\n\nEver as Multnomah chanted, the sullen roar of the volcano came like an\nundertone and filled the pauses of the wild incantation. And as he\nwent on, it seemed to the chief that the air grew thick with ghostly\npresences. There was a sense of breathing life all around him. He felt\nthat others, many others, were with him; yet he saw nothing. When he\npaused for some voice, some whisper of reply, this sense of\nhyper-physical perception became so acute that he could almost _see_,\nalmost _hear_, in the thick blackness and the silence; yet no answer\ncame.\n\nAgain he resumed his mystic incantation, putting all the force of his\nnature into the effort, until it seemed that even those shadowy things\nof the night must yield to his blended entreaty and command. But there\ncame no response. Thick and thronging the viewless presences seemed to\ngather, to look, and to listen; but no reply came to his ears, and no\nsight met his eyes save the swathed corpses and the white-gleaming\nbones on which the shifting moonbeams fell.\n\nMultnomah rose to his feet, baffled, thwarted, all his soul glowing\nwith anger that he should be so scorned.\n\n\"Why is this?\" said his stern voice in the silence. \"You come, but you\ngive no reply; you look, you listen, but you make no sound. Answer me,\nyou who know the future; tell me this secret!\"\n\nStill no response. Yet the air seemed full of dense, magnetic life, of\nmuffled heart-beats, of voiceless, unresponsive, uncommunicative forms\nthat he could almost touch.\n\nFor perhaps the first time in his life the war-chief found himself set\nat naught. His form grew erect; his eyes gleamed with the terrible\nwrath which the tribes dreaded as they dreaded the wrath of the Great\nSpirit.\n\n[Illustration: \"_Come back! Come back!_\"]\n\n\"Do you mock Multnomah? Am I not war-chief of the Willamettes? Though\nyou dwell in shadow and your bodies are dust, you are Willamettes, and\nI am still your chief. Give up your secret! If the Great Spirit has\nsealed your lips so that you cannot speak, give me a sign that will\ntell me. Answer by word or sign; I say it,--I, Multnomah, your chief\nand master.\"\n\nSilence again. The roar of the volcano had ceased; and an ominous\nstillness brooded over Nature, as if all things held their breath,\nanticipating some mighty and imminent catastrophe. Multnomah's hands\nwere clinched, and his strong face had on it now a fierceness of\ncommand that no eye had ever seen before. His indomitable will reached\nout to lay hold of those unseen presences and compel them to reply.\n\nA moment of strained, commanding expectation: then the answer came;\nthe sign was given. The earth shook beneath him till he staggered,\nalmost fell; the hut creaked and swayed like a storm-driven wreck; and\nthrough the crevices on the side toward Mount Hood came a blinding\nburst of flame. Down from the great gap in the Cascade Range through\nwhich flows the Columbia rolled the far-off thundering crash which had\nso startled Cecil and appalled the tribes. Then, tenfold louder than\nbefore, came again the roar of the volcano.\n\nToo well Multnomah knew what had gone down in that crash; too well did\nhe read the sign that had been given. For a moment it seemed as if all\nthe strength of his heart had broken with that which had fallen; then\nthe proud dignity of his character reasserted itself, even in the face\nof doom.\n\n\"It has come at last, as the wise men of old said it would. The end is\nat hand; the Willamettes pass like a shadow from the earth. The Great\nSpirit has forsaken us, our _tomanowos_ has failed us. But my own\nheart fails me not, and my own arm is strong. Like a war-chief will I\nmeet that which is to come. Multnomah falls, but he falls as the\nBridge has fallen, with a crash that will shake the earth, with a ruin\nthat shall crush all beneath him even as he goes down.\"\n\nTurning away, his eyes fell on the body of his wife as he passed\ntoward the door. Aroused and desperate as he was, he stopped an\ninstant and looked down at her with a long, lingering look, a look\nthat seemed to say, \"I shall meet you ere many suns. Death and ruin\nbut give you back to me the sooner. There will be nothing between us\nthen; I shall understand you at last.\"\n\nThen he drew his robe close around him, and went out into the night.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK V.\n\n\n_THE SHADOW OF THE END._\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nTHE HAND OF THE GREAT SPIRIT.\n\n              \"We view as one who hath an evil sight,\"\n              He answered, \"plainly objects far remote.\"\n\n                                         CAREY: _Dante_.\n\n\nThe night came to an end at last,--a night not soon forgotten by the\nOregon Indians, and destined to be remembered in tale and _tomanowos_\nlore long after that generation had passed away. The sky was thick\nwith clouds; the atmosphere was heavy with smoke, which, dense and\nlow-hanging in the still weather, shut out the entire horizon. The\nvolcano was invisible in the smoky air, but its low mutterings came to\nthem from time to time.\n\nThe chiefs met early in the grove of council. Multnomah's countenance\ntold nothing of the night before, but almost all the rest showed\nsomething yet of superstitious fear. Mishlah's face was haggard, his\nair startled and uneasy, like that of some forest animal that had been\nterribly frightened; and even Snoqualmie looked worn. But the greatest\nchange of all was in Tohomish. His face was as ghastly as that of a\ncorpse, and he came into the council walking in a dull lifeless way,\nas if hardly aware of what he was doing. Those nearest to him shrank\naway, whispering to one another that the seer looked like a dead man.\n\nCecil came last. The severe mental conflict of the past night had told\nalmost fatally on a frame already worn out by years of toil and\nsickness. His cheek was pale, his eye hollow, his step slow and\nfaltering like one whose flame of life is burning very low. The pain\nat his heart, always worse in times of exhaustion, was sharp and\npiercing.\n\nHe looked agitated and restless; he had tried hard to give Wallulah\ninto the hands of God and feel that she was safe, but he could not.\nFor himself he had no thought; but his whole soul was wrung with pain\nfor her. By virtue of his own keen sympathies, he anticipated and felt\nall that the years had in store for her,--the loneliness, the\nheartache, the trying to care for one she loathed; until he shrank\nfrom her desolate and hopeless future as if it had been his own. All\nhis soul went out to her in yearning tenderness, in passionate desire\nto shield her and to take away her burden.\n\nBut his resolution never wavered. Below the ebb and flow of feeling,\nthe decision to make their separation final was as unchanging as\ngranite. He could not bear to look upon her face again; he could not\nbear to see her wedded to Snoqualmie. He intended to make one last\nappeal to the Indians this morning to accept the gospel of peace; then\nhe would leave the council before Wallulah was brought to it. So he\nsat there now, waiting for the \"talk\" to begin.\n\nThe bands gathered around the grove were smaller than usual. Many had\nfled from the valley at dawn to escape from the dreaded vicinity of\nthe smoking mountains; many hundreds remained, but they were awed and\nfrightened. No war could have appalled them as they were appalled by\nthe shaking of the solid earth under their feet. All the abject,\nsuperstition of their natures was roused. They looked like men who\nfelt themselves caught in the grasp of some supernatural power.\n\nMultnomah opened the council by saying that two runners had arrived\nwith news that morning; the one from the sea-coast, the other from up\nthe Columbia. They would come before the council and tell the news\nthey had brought.\n\nThe runner from the upper Columbia spoke first. He had come thirty\nmiles since dawn. He seemed unnerved and fearful, like one about to\nannounce some unheard-of calamity. The most stoical bent forward\neagerly to hear.\n\n\"_The Great Spirit has shaken the earth, and the Bridge of the Gods\nhas fallen!_\"\n\nThere was the silence of amazement; then through the tribes passed in\nmany tongues the wild and wondering murmur, \"The Bridge of the Gods\nhas fallen! The Bridge of the Gods has fallen!\" With it, too, went the\nrecollection of the ancient prophecy that when the Bridge fell the\npower of the Willamettes would also fall. Now the Bridge was broken,\nand the dominion of the Willamettes was broken forever with it. At\nanother time the slumbering jealousy of the tribes would have burst\nforth in terrific vengeance on the doomed race. But they were dejected\nand afraid. In the fall of the Bridge they saw the hand of the Great\nSpirit, a visitation of God. And so Willamette and tributary alike\nheard the news with fear and apprehension. Only Multnomah, who knew\nthe message before it was spoken, listened with his wonted composure.\n\n\"It is well,\" he said, with more than Indian duplicity; \"the daughter\nof Multnomah is to become the wife of Snoqualmie the Cayuse, and the\nnew line that commences with their children will give new chiefs to\nhead the confederacy of the Wauna. The old gives way to the new. That\nis the sign that the Great Spirit gives in the fall of the Bridge.\nThink you it means that the war-strength is gone from us, that we\nshall no longer prevail in battle? No, no! who thinks it?\"\n\nThe proud old sachem rose to his feet; his giant form towered over the\nmultitude, and every eye fell before the haughty and scornful glance\nthat swept council and audience like a challenge to battle.\n\n\"Is there a chief here that thinks it? Let him step out, let him\ngrapple with Multnomah in the death-grapple, and see. Is there a tribe\nthat thinks it? We reach out our arms to them; we are ready. Let them\nmeet us in battle now, to-day, and know if our hearts have become the\nhearts of women. Will you come? We will give you dark and bloody proof\nthat our tomahawks are still sharp and our arms are strong.\"\n\nHe stood with outstretched arms, from which the robe of fur had fallen\nback. A thrill of dread went through the assembly at the grim\ndefiance; then Snoqualmie spoke.\n\n\"The heart of all the tribes is as the heart of Multnomah. Let there\nbe peace.\"\n\nThe chief resumed his seat. His force of will had wrung one last\nvictory from fate itself. Instantly, and with consummate address,\nMultnomah preoccupied the attention of the council before anything\ncould be said or done to impair the effect of his challenge. He bade\nthe other runner, the one from the sea-coast, deliver his message.\n\nIt was, in effect, this:--\n\nA large canoe, with great white wings like a bird, had come gliding\nover the waters to the coast near the mouth of the Wauna. Whence it\ncame no one could tell; but its crew were pale of skin like the great\nwhite _shaman_ there in the council, and seemed of his race. Some of\nthem came ashore in a small canoe to trade with the Indians, but\ntrouble rose between them and there was a battle. The strangers slew\nmany Indians with their magic, darting fire at them from long black\ntubes. Then they escaped to the great canoe, which spread its wings\nand passed away from sight into the sea. Many of the Indians were\nkilled, but none of the pale-faced intruders. Now the band who had\nsuffered demanded that the white man of whom they had heard--the white\nchief at the council--be put to death to pay the blood-debt.\n\nAll eyes turned on Cecil, and he felt that his hour was come. Weak,\nexhausted in body and mind, wearied almost to death, a sudden and\nawful peril was on him. For a moment his heart sank, his brain grew\ndizzy. How _could_ he meet this emergency? All his soul went out to\nGod with a dumb prayer for help, with an overwhelming sense of\nweakness. Then he heard Multnomah speaking to him in cold, hard\ntones.\n\n\"The white man has heard the words of the runner. What has he to say\nwhy his life should not pay the blood-debt?\"\n\nCecil rose to his feet. With one last effort he put Wallulah, himself,\nhis mission, into the hands of God; with one last effort he forced\nhimself to speak.\n\nMen of nervous temperament, like Cecil, can bring out of an exhausted\nbody an energy, an outburst of final and intense effort, of which\nthose of stronger physique do not seem capable. But it drains the\nremaining vital forces, and the reaction is terrible. Was it this\nflaming-up of the almost burned-out embers of life that animated Cecil\nnow? Or was it the Divine Strength coming to him in answer to prayer?\nBe this as it may, when he opened his lips to speak, all the power of\nhis consecration came back; physical weakness and mental anxiety left\nhim; he felt that Wallulah was safe in the arms of the Infinite\nCompassion; he felt his love for the Indians, his deep yearning to\nhelp them, to bring them to God, rekindling within him; and never had\nhe been more grandly the Apostle to the Indians than now.\n\nIn passionate tenderness, in burning appeal, in living force and power\nof delivery, it was the supreme effort of his life. He did not plead\nfor himself; he ignored, put aside, forgot his own personal danger;\nbut he set before his hearers the wickedness of their own system of\nretaliation and revenge; he showed them how it overshadowed their\nlives and lay like a deadening weight on their better natures. The\nhorror, the cruelty, the brute animalism of the blood-thirst, the\nwar-lust, was set over against the love and forgiveness to which the\nGreat Spirit called them.\n\nThe hearts of the Indians were shaken within them. The barbarism which\nwas the outcome of centuries of strife and revenge, the dark and\ncumulative growth of ages, was stirred to its core by the strong and\ntender eloquence of this one man. As he spoke, there came to all those\nswarthy listeners, in dim beauty, a glimpse of a better life; there\ncame to them a moment's fleeting revelation of something above their\nown vindictiveness and ferocity. That vague longing, that indefinable\nwistfulness which he had so often seen on the faces of his savage\naudiences was on nearly every face when he closed.\n\nAs he took his seat, the tide of inspiration went from him, and a\ndeadly faintness came over him. It seemed as if in that awful reaction\nthe last spark of vitality was dying out; but somehow, through it all,\nhe felt at peace with God and man. A great quiet was upon him; he was\nanxious for nothing, he cared for nothing, he simply rested as on the\nliving presence of the Father.\n\nUpon the sweet and lingering spell of his closing words came\nMultnomah's tones in stern contrast.\n\n\"What is the word of the council? Shall the white man live or die?\"\n\nSnoqualmie was on his feet in an instant.\n\n\"Blood for blood. Let the white man die at the torture-stake.\"\n\nOne by one the chiefs gave their voice for death. Shaken for but a\nmoment, the ancient inherited barbarism which was their very life\nreasserted itself, and they could decide no other way. One, two,\nthree of the sachems gave no answer, but sat in silence. They were men\nwhose hearts had been touched before by Cecil, and who were already\ndesiring the better life They could not condemn their teacher.\n\nAt length it came to Tohomish. He arose. His face, always repulsive,\nwas pallid now in the extreme. The swathed corpses on _mimaluse_\nisland looked not more sunken and ghastly.\n\nHe essayed to speak; thrice the words faltered on his lips; and when\nat last he spoke, it was in a weary, lifeless way. His tones startled\nthe audience like an electric shock. The marvellous power and\nsweetness were gone from his voice; its accents were discordant,\nuncertain. Could the death's head before them be that of Tohomish?\nCould those harsh and broken tones be those of the Pine Voice? He\nseemed like a man whose animal life still survived, but whose soul was\ndead.\n\nWhat he said at first had no relation to the matter before the\ncouncil. Every Indian had his _tomanowos_ appointed him by the Great\nSpirit from his birth, and that _tomanowos_ was the strength of his\nlife. Its influence grew with his growth; the roots of his being were\nfed in it; it imparted its characteristics to him. But the name and\nnature of his _tomanowos_ was the one secret that must go with him to\nthe grave. If it was told, the charm was lost and the _tomanowos_\ndeserted him.\n\nTohomish's _tomanowos_ was the Bridge and the foreknowledge of its\nfall: a black secret that had darkened his whole life, and imparted\nthe strange and mournful mystery to his eloquence. Now that the Bridge\nwas fallen, the strength was gone from Tohomish's heart, the music\nfrom his words.\n\n\"Tohomish has no voice now,\" he continued; \"he is as one dead. He\ndesires to say only this, then his words shall be heard no more among\nmen. The fall of the Bridge is a sign that not only the Willamettes\nbut all the tribes of the Wauna shall fall and pass away. Another\npeople shall take our place, another race shall reign in our stead,\nand the Indian shall be forgotten, or remembered only as a dim memory\nof the past.\n\n\"And who are they who bring us our doom? Look on the face of the white\nwanderer there; listen to the story of your brethren slain at the\nsea-coast by the white men in the canoe, and you will know. They come;\nthey that are stronger, and push us out into the dark. The white\nwanderer talks of peace; but the Great Spirit has put death between\nthe Indian and the white man, and where he has put death there can be\nno peace.\n\n\"Slay the white man as the white race will slay your children in the\ntime that is to come. Peace? love? There can be only war and hate.\nStriking back blow for blow like a wounded rattlesnake, shall the red\nman pass; and when the bones of the last Indian of the Wauna lie\nbleaching on the prairie far from the _mimaluse_ island of his\nfathers, then there will be peace.\n\n\"Tohomish has spoken; his words are ended, and ended forever.\"\n\nThe harsh, disjointed tones ceased. All eyes fell again on Cecil, the\nrepresentative of the race by which the Willamettes were doomed. The\nwrath of all those hundreds, the vengeance of all those gathered\ntribes of the Wauna, the hatred of the whole people he had come to\nsave, seemed to rise up and fall upon him the frail invalid with the\nsharp pain throbbing at his heart.\n\nBut that strange peace was on him still, and his eyes, dilated and\nbrilliant in the extremity of physical pain, met those lowering brows\nwith a look of exceeding pity.\n\nMultnomah rose to pronounce sentence. For him there could be but one\ndecision, and he gave it,--the clinched hand, the downward gesture,\nthat said, \"There is death between us. We will slay as we shall be\nslain.\"\n\nCecil was on his feet, though it seemed as if he must fall within the\nmoment. He fought down the pain that pierced his heart like a knife;\nhe gathered the last resources of an exhausted frame for one more\neffort. The executioners sprang forward with the covering for his eyes\nthat was to shut out the light forever. His glance, his gesture held\nthem back; they paused irresolutely, even in the presence of\nMultnomah; weak as Cecil was, he was the great white _tomanowos_\nstill, and they dared not touch him. There was a pause, an intense\nsilence.\n\n\"I gave up all to come and tell you of God, and you have condemned me\nto die at the torture-stake,\" said the soft, low voice, sending\nthrough their stern hearts its thrill and pathos for the last time.\n\"But you shall not bring this blood-stain upon your souls. The hand of\nthe Great Spirit is on me; he takes me to himself. Remember--what I\nhave said. The Great Spirit loves you. Pray--forgive--be at peace.\nRemember--\"\n\nThe quiver of agonizing pain disturbed the gentleness of his look; he\nreeled, and sank to the ground. For a moment the slight form shuddered\nconvulsively and the hands were clinched; then the struggle ceased and\na wonderful brightness shone upon his face. His lips murmured\nsomething in his own tongue, something into which came the name of\nWallulah and the name of God. Then his eyes grew dim and he lay very\nstill. Only the expression of perfect peace still rested on the face.\nSachems and warriors gazed in awe upon the beauty, grand in death, of\nthe one whom the Great Spirit had taken from them. Perhaps the iron\nheart of the war-chief was the only one that did not feel remorse and\nself-reproach.\n\nEre the silence was broken, an old Indian woman came forward from the\ncrowd into the circle of chiefs. She looked neither to the right nor\nto the left, but advanced among the warrior-sachems, into whose\npresence no woman had dared intrude herself, and bent over the dead.\nShe lifted the wasted body in her arms and bore it away, with shut\nlips and downcast eyes, asking no permission, saying no word. The\ncharm that had been around the white _shaman_ in life seemed to invest\nher with its power; for grim chieftains made way, the crowd opened to\nlet her pass, and even Multnomah looked on in silence.\n\nThat afternoon, a little band of Indians were assembled in Cecil's\nlodge. Some of them were already converts; some were only awakened and\nimpressed; but all were men who loved him.\n\nThey were gathered, men of huge frame, around a dead body that lay\nupon a cougar skin. Their faces were sad, their manner was solemn. In\nthe corner sat an aged squaw, her face resting in her hands, her long\ngray hair falling dishevelled about her shoulders. In that\nheart-broken attitude she had sat ever since bringing Cecil to the\nhut. She did not weep or sob but sat motionless, in stoical, dumb\ndespair.\n\nAround the dead the Indians stood or sat in silence, each waiting for\nthe other to say what was in the hearts of all. At length the Shoshone\nrenegade who had so loved Cecil, spoke.\n\n\"Our white brother is gone from us, but the Great Spirit lives and\ndies not. Let us turn from blood and sin and walk in the way our\nbrother showed us. He said, 'Remember;' and shall we forget? I choose\nnow, while he can hear me, before he is laid in the cold ground. I put\naway from me the old heart of hate and revenge. I ask the Great Spirit\nto give me the new heart of love and peace. I have chosen.\"\n\nOne by one each told his resolve, the swarthy faces lighting up, the\nstern lips saying unwonted words of love. Dim and misty, the dawn had\ncome to them; reaching out in the dark, they had got hold of the hand\nof God and felt that he was a Father. One would have said that their\ndead teacher lying there heard their vows, so calm and full of peace\nwas the white still face.\n\nThat night the first beams of the rising moon fell on a new-made grave\nunder the cottonwoods, not far from the bank of the river. Beneath it,\nsilent in the last sleep, lay the student whose graceful presence had\nbeen the pride of far-off Magdalen, the pastor whose memory still\nlingered in New England, the evangelist whose burning words had\nthrilled the tribes of the wilderness like the words of some prophet\nof old.\n\nBeside the grave crouched the old Indian woman, alone and forsaken in\nher despair,--the one mourner out of all for whom his life had been\ngiven.\n\nNo, not the only one; for a tall warrior enters the grove; the\nShoshone renegade bends over her and touches her gently on the\nshoulder.\n\n\"Come,\" he says kindly, \"our horses are saddled; we take the trail up\nthe Wauna to-night, I and my friends. We will fly from this fated\nvalley ere the wrath of the Great Spirit falls upon it. Beyond the\nmountains I will seek a new home with the Spokanes or the Okanogans.\nCome; my home shall be your home, because you cared for him that is\ngone.\"\n\nShe shook her head and pointed to the grave.\n\n\"My heart is there; my life is buried with him. I cannot go.\"\n\nAgain he urged her.\n\n\"No, no,\" she replied, with Indian stubbornness; \"I cannot leave him.\nWas I not like his mother? How can I go and leave him for others? The\nroots of the old tree grow not in new soil. If it is pulled up it\ndies.\"\n\n\"Come with me,\" said the savage, with a gentleness born of his new\nfaith. \"Be _my_ mother. We will talk of him; you shall tell me of him\nand his God. Come, the horses wait.\"\n\nAgain she shook her head; then fell forward on the grave, her arms\nthrown out, as if to clasp it in her embrace. He tried to lift her;\nher head fell back, and she lay relaxed and motionless in his arms.\n\nAnother grave was made by Cecil's; and the little band rode through\nthe mountain pass that night, toward the country of the Okanogans,\nwithout her.\n\nAnd that same night, an English exploring vessel far out at sea sailed\nsouthward, leaving behind the unknown shores of Oregon,--her crew\nnever dreaming how near they had been to finding the lost wanderer,\nCecil Grey.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nTHE MARRIAGE AND THE BREAKING UP.\n\n            Remembering love and all the dead delight,\n            And all that time was sweet with for a space.\n\n                                               SWINBURNE.\n\n\nAfter Cecil had been borne from the council-grove, the Indians,\nrousing themselves from the spell of the strange scene they had just\nwitnessed, looked around for Tohomish the seer. He was gone. No one\ncould remember seeing him go, yet he was missing from his accustomed\nplace, and never was he seen or heard of more. Upon his fate, lost in\nthe common ruin that engulfed his race, the legend casts no ray of\nlight. It is certain that the fall of the Bridge, with which his life\nwas interwoven, had a disastrous effect upon him, and as he said, that\nthe strength of his life was broken. It is probable that the\norator-seer, feeling within himself that his power was gone, crept\naway into the forest to die. Perhaps, had they searched for him, they\nwould have found him lying lifeless upon the leaves in some dense\nthicket or at the foot of some lonely crag.\n\nWhatever his fate, the Indians never looked upon his face again.\n\nMultnomah made no comment on the death of Cecil, or on the prophecy of\nTohomish, so much at variance with his own interpretation of the fall\nof the Bridge. Whatever he had to say was evidently held in reserve\nfor the closing talk with which he would soon dismiss the council.\n\n\"You shall see Multnomah's daughter given to Snoqualmie, and then\nMultnomah will open his hand and make you rich.\"\n\nSo said the war-chief; and a runner was dispatched with a summons to\nWallulah. In a little while a band of Indian girls was seen\napproaching the grove. Surrounded by the maidens, as if they were a\nguard of honor, came Wallulah, all unconscious of the tragedy that had\njust been enacted.\n\nAmong the chiefs they passed, and stopped before Multnomah. As they\npaused, Wallulah looked around for Cecil in one quick glance; then,\nnot seeing him, she cast down her eyes despondingly. Multnomah rose\nand beckoned Snoqualmie to him. He came forward and stood beside the\nwar-chief. The Indian girls stepped back a little, in involuntary awe\nof the two great sachems, and left Wallulah standing alone before\nthem.\n\nHer face wore a patient look, as of one who is very worn and weary,\ntired of the burdens of life, yet going forward without hope, without\nthought even, to other and still heavier burdens. She was clad in a\nsoft oriental fabric; her hair fell in luxuriant tresses upon her\nshoulders; her flute hung at her belt by a slender chain of gold.\n\nThere was something unspeakably sad and heart-broken in her\nappearance, as she stood there, a listless, dejected figure, before\nthose two grim warriors, awaiting her doom.\n\nMultnomah took her hand; the fingers of the other were clasped around\nher beloved flute, pressing it closely, as if seeking help from its\nmute companionship. The chief gave her hand into Snoqualmie's; a\nshudder passed through her as she felt his touch, and she trembled\nfrom head to foot; then she controlled herself by a strong effort.\nSnoqualmie's fierce black eyes searched her face, as if looking\nthrough and through her, and she flushed faintly under their\npenetrating gaze.\n\n\"She is yours,\" said the war-chief. \"Be kind to her, for though she is\nyour wife she is the daughter of Multnomah.\" So much did the Indian\nsay for love of his child, wondering at her strange, sad look, and\nfeeling vaguely that she was unhappy. She tried to withdraw her\nfingers from Snoqualmie's clasp the moment her father was done\nspeaking. He held them tightly, however, and bending over her, spoke\nin a low tone.\n\n\"My band starts for home at mid-day. Be ready to go when I send for\nyou.\"\n\nShe looked up with startled, piteous eyes.\n\n\"To-day?\" she asked in a choked voice.\n\n\"To-day,\" came the abrupt reply; too low for the others to hear, yet\nharsh enough to sting her through and through. \"Do you think\nSnoqualmie goes back to his _illahee_ and leaves his woman behind?\"\n\nHer spirit kindled in resentment. Never had the chief's daughter been\nspoken to so harshly; then all at once it came to her that he\n_knew_,--that he must have followed Cecil and witnessed one of their\nlast interviews. Jealous, revengeful, the Indian was her master now.\nShe grew pale to the lips. He released her hand, and she shrank away\nfrom him, and left the council with her maidens. No one had heard the\nfew half-whispered words that passed between them but those who stood\nnearest noticed the deadly pallor that came over her face while\nSnoqualmie was speaking. Multnomah saw it, and Snoqualmie caught from\nhim a glance that chilled even his haughty nature--a glance that said,\n\"Beware; she is the war-chief's daughter.\"\n\nBut even if he had known all, Multnomah would have sacrificed her. His\nplans must be carried out even though her heart be crushed.\n\nNow followed the _potlatch_,--the giving of gifts. At a signal from\nthe war-chief, his slaves appeared, laden with presents. Large heaps\nof rich furs and skins were laid on the ground near the chiefs. The\nfinest of bows and arrows, with gaily decorated quivers and store of\nbow-strings, were brought. Untold treasure of _hiagua_ shells, money\nas well as ornament to the Oregon Indians, was poured out upon the\nground, and lay glistening in the sun in bright-colored masses. To the\nIndians they represented vast and splendid wealth. Multnomah was the\nrichest of all the Indians of the Wauna; and the gifts displayed were\nthe spoil of many wars, treasures garnered during forty years of\nsovereignty.\n\nAnd now they were all given away. The chief kept back nothing, except\nsome cases of oriental fabrics that had been saved from the wreck when\nWallulah's mother was cast upon the shore. Well would it have been for\nhim and his race had they been given too; for, little as they dreamed\nit, the fate of the Willamettes lay sealed up in those unopened cases\nof silk and damask.\n\nAgain and again the slaves of Multnomah added their burdens to the\nheaps, and went back for more, till a murmur of wonder rose among the\ncrowd. His riches seemed exhaustless. At length, however, all was\nbrought. The chief stood up, and, opening his hands to them in the\nIndian gesture for giving, said,--\n\n\"There is all that was Multnomah's; it is yours; your hands are full\nnow and mine are empty.\"\n\nThe chiefs and warriors rose up gravely and went among the heaps of\ntreasure; each selecting from furs and skins, arms and _hiagua_\nshells, that which he desired. There was no unseemly haste or\nsnatching; a quiet decorum prevailed among them. The women and\nchildren were excluded from sharing in these gifts, but\nprovisions--dried meats and berries, and bread of _camas_ or Wappatto\nroot--were thrown among them on the outskirts of the crowd where they\nwere gathered. And unlike the men, they scrambled for it like hungry\nanimals; save where here and there the wife or daughter of a chief\nstood looking disdainfully on the food and those who snatched at it.\n\nSuch giving of gifts, or _potlatches_, are still known among the\nIndians. On Puget Sound and the Okanogan, one occasionally hears of\nsome rich Indian making a great _potlatch_,--giving away all his\npossessions, and gaining nothing but a reputation for disdain of\nwealth, a reputation which only Indian stoicism would crave.\nMultnomah's object was not that so much as to make, before the\ndispersal of the tribes, a last and most favorable impression.\n\nWhen the presents were all divided, the chiefs resumed their places to\nhear the last speech of Multnomah,--the speech that closed the\ncouncil.\n\nIt was a masterpiece of dignity, subtility, and command. The prophecy\nof Tohomish was evaded, the fall of the Bridge wrested into an omen\npropitious to the Willamettes; and at last his hearers found\nthemselves believing as he wished them to believe, without knowing how\nor why, so strongly did the overmastering personality of Multnomah\npenetrate and sway their lesser natures. He particularly dwelt on the\nidea that they were all knit together now and were as one race. Yet\nthrough the smooth words ran a latent threat, a covert warning of the\nresult of any revolt against his authority based on what plotting\ndreamers might say of the fall of the Bridge,--a half-expressed\nmenace, like the gleam of a sword half drawn from the scabbard. And he\nclosed by announcing that ere another spring the young men of all the\ntribes would go on the war-path against the Shoshones and come back\nloaded with spoil. And so, kindling the hatred of the chiefs against\nthe common enemy, Multnomah closed the great council.\n\nIn a little while the camp was all astir with preparation for\ndeparture. Lodges were being taken down, the mats that covered them\nrolled up and packed on the backs of horses; all was bustle and\ntumult. Troop after troop crossed the river and took the trail toward\nthe upper Columbia.\n\nBut when the bands passed from under the personal influence of\nMultnomah, they talked of the ominous things that had just happened;\nthey said to each other that the Great Spirit had forsaken the\nWillamettes, and that when they came into the valley again it would be\nto plunder and to slay. Multnomah had stayed the tide but for a\nmoment. The fall of the ancient _tomanowos_ of the Willamettes had a\ntremendous significance to the restless tributaries, and already the\nconfederacy of the Wauna was crumbling like a rope of sand. Those\ntribes would meet no more in peace on the island of council.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nAT THE CASCADES.\n\n            Wails on the wind, fades out the sunset quite,\n            And in my heart and on the earth is night.\n\n                                    PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON.\n\n\nThe main body of Snoqualmie's followers crossed to the north bank of\nthe Columbia and took the trail leading up the river toward the inland\nprairies. But Snoqualmie and Wallulah went by canoe as far as the now\nruined Bridge of the Gods. There were three canoes in their train.\nSnoqualmie and Wallulah occupied the first; the other two were laden\nwith the rich things that had once made her lodge so beautiful. It\nstood all bare and deserted now, the splendor stripped from its rough\nbark walls even as love and hope had been reft from the heart of its\nmistress. Tapestries, divans, carpets, mirrors, were heaped in the\ncanoes like spoil torn from the enemy.\n\nThe farewell between Wallulah and her father had been sorrowful. It\nwas remembered afterward, by those who were witnesses of it, that the\nwar-chief had shown a tenderness unusual with him, that he had seemed\nreluctant to part with his daughter, and that she had clung to him,\npale and tearful, as if he were her last hope on earth.\n\nWhen Snoqualmie took her hand to lead her away, she shuddered,\nwithdrew her fingers from his clasp, and walked alone to the canoe.\nHe entered after her: the canoe-men dipped their paddles into the\nwater, and the vessel glided away from the island.\n\nShe sat reclining on a heap of furs, her elbows sunk in them, her\ncheek resting on her hand, her eyes turned back toward her island\nhome. Between it and her the expanse of waters grew ever broader, and\nthe trail the canoe left behind it sparkled in a thousand silvery\nripples. The island, with its green prairies and its stately woods,\nreceded fast. She felt as she looked back as if everything was\nslipping away from her. Lonely as her life had been before Cecil came\ninto it, she had still had her music and her beautiful rooms in the\nbark lodge; and they seemed infinitely sweet and precious now as she\nrecalled them. Oh, if she could only have them back again! And those\ninterviews with Cecil. How love and grief shook the little figure as\nshe thought! How loathingly she shrunk from the presence of the\nbarbarian at her side! And all the time the island receded farther and\nfarther in the distance, and the canoe glided forward like a merciless\nfate bearing her on and on toward the savagery of the inland desert.\n\nSnoqualmie sat watching her with glittering, triumphant eyes. To him\nshe was no more than some lovely animal of which he had become the\nowner; and ownership of course brought with it the right to tantalize\nand to torture. A malicious smile crossed his lips as he saw how\nsorrowfully her gaze rested on her old home.\n\n\"Look forward,\" he said, \"not back; look forward to your life with\nSnoqualmie and to the lodge that awaits you in the land of the\nCayuses.\"\n\nShe started, and her face flushed painfully; then without looking at\nhim she replied,--\n\n\"Wallulah loves her home, and leaving it saddens her.\"\n\nA sparkle of vindictive delight came into his eyes.\n\n\"Do the women of the Willamette feel sad when they go to live with\ntheir husbands? It is not so with the Cayuse women. They are glad;\n_they_ care for the one they belong to. They love to sit in the sun at\nthe door of the wigwam and say to the other women, 'My man is brave;\nhe leads the war party; he has many scalps at his belt. Who is brave\nlike my man?'\"\n\nWallulah shuddered. He saw it, and the sparkle of malice in his eyes\nflashed into sudden anger.\n\n\"Does the young squaw tremble at these things? Then she must get used\nto them. She must learn to bring wood and water for Snoqualmie's\nlodge, too. She must learn to wait on him as an Indian's wife ought.\nThe old wrinkled squaws, who are good for nothing but to be beasts of\nburden, shall teach her.\"\n\nThere came before her a picture of the ancient withered hags, the\nburden-bearers, the human vampires of the Indian camps, the vile in\nword and deed, the first to cry for the blood of captives, the most\neager to give taunts and blows to the helpless; were they to be her\nassociates, her teachers? Involuntarily she lifted her hand, as if to\npush from her a future so dreadful.\n\n\"Wallulah will bring the wood and the water. Wallulah will work. The\nold women need not teach her.\"\n\n\"That is well. But one thing more you must learn; and that is to hold\nup your head and not look like a drooping captive. Smile, laugh, be\ngay. Snoqualmie will have no clouded face, no bent head in his\nlodge.\"\n\nShe looked at him imploringly. The huge form, the swarthy face, seemed\nto dominate her, to crush her down with their barbarian strength and\nferocity. She dropped her eyes again, and lay there on the furs like\nsome frightened bird shrinking from the glance of a hawk.\n\n\"I will work; I will bear burdens,\" she repeated, in a trembling tone.\n\"But I cannot smile and laugh when my heart is heavy.\"\n\nHe watched her with a half angry, half malicious regard, a regard that\nseemed ruthlessly probing into every secret of her nature.\n\nShe knew somehow that he was aware of her love for Cecil, and she\ndreaded lest he should taunt her with it. Anything but that. He knew\nit, and held it back as his last and most cruel blow. Over his bronzed\nface flitted no expression of pity. She was to him like some delicate\nwounded creature of the forest, that it was a pleasure to torture. So\nhe had often treated a maimed bird or fawn,--tantalizing it, delighted\nby its fluttering and its pain, till the lust of torture was gratified\nand the death-blow was given.\n\nHe sat regarding her with a sneering, malicious look for a little\nwhile; then he said,--\n\n\"It is hard to smile on Snoqualmie; but the white man whom you met in\nthe wood, it was not so with him. It was easy to smile and look glad\nat him, but it is hard to do so for Snoqualmie.\"\n\nWallulah shrunk as if he had struck her a blow; then she looked at him\ndesperately, pleadingly.\n\n\"Do not say such cruel things. I will be a faithful wife to you. I\nwill never see the white man again.\"\n\nThe sneering malice in his eyes gave way to the gleam of exultant\nanger.\n\n\"Faithful! You knew you were to be my woman when you let him put his\narms around you and say soft things to you. Faithful! You would leave\nSnoqualmie for him now, could it be so. But you say well that you will\nnever see him again.\"\n\nShe gazed at him in terror.\n\n\"What do you mean? Has anything happened to him? Have they harmed\nhim?\"\n\nOver the chief's face came the murderous expression that was there\nwhen he slew the Bannock warrior at the torture stake.\n\n\"Harmed him! Do you think that he could meet you alone and say sweet\nthings to you and caress you,--you who were the same as my squaw,--and\nI not harm him? He is dead; I slew him.\"\n\nFalse though it was, in so far as Snoqualmie claimed to have himself\nslain Cecil, it was thoroughly in keeping with Indian character. White\ncaptives were often told, \"I killed your brother,\" or, \"This is your\nhusband's scalp,\" when perhaps the person spoken of was alive and\nwell.\n\n\"Dead!\"\n\nHe threw his tomahawk at her feet.\n\n\"His blood is on it. You are Snoqualmie's squaw; wash it off.\"\n\nDead, dead, her lover was dead! That was all she could grasp.\nSnoqualmie's insulting command passed unheeded. She sat looking at the\nIndian with bright, dazed eyes that saw nothing. All the world seemed\nblotted out.\n\n\"I tell you that he is dead, and I slew him. Are you asleep that you\nstare at me so? Awaken and do as I bid you; wash your lover's blood\noff my tomahawk.\"\n\nAt first she had been stunned by the terrible shock, and she could\nrealize only that Cecil was dead. Now it came to her, dimly at first,\nthen like a flash of fire, that Snoqualmie had slain him. All her\nspirit leaped up in uncontrollable hatred. For once, she was the\nwar-chief's daughter. She drew her skirts away from the tomahawk in\nunutterable horror; her eyes blazed into Snoqualmie's a defiance and\nscorn before which his own sunk for the instant.\n\n\"You killed him! I hate you. I will never be your wife. You have\nthrown the tomahawk between us; it shall be between us forever.\nMurderer! You have killed the one I love. Yes, I loved him; and I hate\nyou and will hate you till I die.\"\n\nThe passion in her voice thrilled even the canoe-men, and their paddle\nstrokes fell confusedly for an instant, though they did not\nunderstand; for both Wallulah and Snoqualmie had spoken in the royal\ntongue of the Willamettes. He sat abashed for an instant, taken\nutterly by surprise.\n\nThen the wild impulse of defiance passed, and the awful sense of\nbereavement came back like the falling of darkness over a sinking\nflame. Cecil was gone from her, gone for all time. The world seemed\nunreal, empty. She sunk among the furs like one stricken down.\nSnoqualmie, recovering from his momentary rebuff, heaped bitter\nepithets and scornful words upon her; but she neither saw nor heard,\nand lay with wide, bright, staring eyes. Her seeming indifference\nmaddened him still more, and he hurled at her the fiercest abuse. She\nlooked at him vaguely. He saw that she did not even know what he was\nsaying, and relapsed into sullen silence. She lay mute and still, with\na strained expression of pain in her eyes. The canoe sped swiftly on.\n\nOne desolating thought repeated itself again and again,--the thought\nof hopeless and irreparable loss. By it past and present were blotted\nout. By and by, when she awoke from the stupor of despair and realized\nher future, destined to be passed with the murderer of her lover, what\nthen? But now she was stunned with the shock of a grief that was mercy\ncompared with the awakening that must come.\n\nThey were in the heart of the Cascade Mountains, and a low deep roar\nbegan to reach their ears, rousing and startling all but Wallulah. It\nwas the sound of the cascades, of the new cataract formed by the fall\nof the Great Bridge. Rounding a bend in the river they came in sight\nof it. The mighty arch, the long low mountain of stone, had fallen in,\ndamming up the waters of the Columbia, which were pouring over the\nsunken mass in an ever-increasing volume. Above, the river, raised by\nthe enormous dam, had spread out like a lake, almost submerging the\ntrees that still stood along the former bank. Below the new falls the\nriver was comparatively shallow, its rocky bed half exposed by the\nsudden stoppage of the waters.\n\nThe Indians gazed with superstitious awe on the vast barrier over\nwhich the white and foaming waters were pouring. The unwonted roar of\nthe falls, a roar that seemed to increase every moment as the swelling\nwaters rushed over the rocks; the sight of the wreck of the mysterious\nbridge, foreshadowing the direst calamities,--all this awed the wild\nchildren of the desert. They approached the falls slowly and\ncautiously.\n\nA brief command from Snoqualmie, and they landed on the northern side\nof the river, not far from the foot of the falls. There they must\ndisembark, and the canoes be carried around the falls on the shoulders\nof Indians and launched above.\n\nThe roar of the Cascades roused Wallulah from her stupor. She stepped\nashore and looked in dazed wonder on the strange new world around her.\nSnoqualmie told her briefly that she must walk up the bank to the\nplace where the canoe was to be launched again above the falls. She\nlistened mutely, and started to go. But the way was steep and rocky;\nthe bank was strewn with the d\u00e9bris of the ruined bridge; and she was\nunused to such exertion. Snoqualmie saw her stumble and almost fall.\nIt moved him to a sudden and unwonted pity, and he sprang forward to\nhelp her. She pushed his hand from her as if it had been the touch of\na serpent, and went on alone. His eyes flashed: for all this the\nreckoning should come, and soon; woe unto her when it came.\n\nThe rough rocks bruised her delicately shod feet, the steep ascent\ntook away her breath. Again and again she felt as if she must fall;\nbut the bitter scorn and loathing that Snoqualmie's touch had kindled\ngave her strength, and at last she completed the ascent.\n\nAbove the falls and close to them, she sat down upon a rock; a slight,\ndrooping figure, whose dejected pose told of a broken heart.\n\nBefore her, almost at her feet, the pent-up river was widened to a\nvast flood. Here and there a half-submerged pine lifted its crown\nabove it; the surface was ruffled by the wind, and white-crested waves\nwere rolling among the green tree-tops. She looked with indifference\nupon the scene. She had not heard that the Bridge had fallen, and was,\nof course, ignorant of these new cascades; and they did not impress\nher as being strange.\n\nHer whole life was broken up; all the world appeared shattered by the\nblow that had fallen on her, and nothing could startle her now. She\nfelt dimly that some stupendous catastrophe had taken place; yet it\ndid not appear unnatural. A strange sense of unreality possessed her;\neverything seemed an illusion, as if she were a shadow in a land of\nshadows. The thought came to her that she was dead, and that her\nspirit was passing over the dim ghost trail to the shadow-land. She\ntried to shake off the fancy, but all was so vague and dreamlike that\nshe hardly knew where or what she was; yet over it all brooded the\nconsciousness of dull, heavy, torturing pain, like the dumb agony that\ncomes to us in fevered sleep, burdening our dreams with a black\noppressing weight of horror.\n\nHer hand, hanging listlessly at her side, touched her flute, which was\nstill suspended from her belt by the golden chain. She raised it to\nher lips, but only a faint inharmonious note came from it. The music\nseemed gone from the flute, as hope was gone from her heart. To her\noverwrought nerves, it was the last omen of all. The flute dropped\nfrom her fingers; she covered her face with her hands, and the hot\ntears coursed slowly down her cheeks.\n\nSome one spoke to her, not ungently, and she looked up. One of the\ncanoe-men stood beside her. He pointed to the canoe, now launched near\nby. Snoqualmie was still below, at the foot of the falls,\nsuperintending the removal of the other.\n\nSlowly and wearily she entered the waiting canoe and resumed her seat.\nThe Indian paddlers took their places. They told her that the chief\nSnoqualmie had bidden them take her on without him. He would follow in\nthe other canoe. It was a relief to be free from his presence, if only\nfor a little while; and the sadness on her face lightened for a moment\nwhen they told her.\n\nA few quick paddle-strokes, and the boat shot out into the current\nabove the cascades and then glided forward. No, _not_ forward. The\ncanoe-men, unfamiliar with the new cataract, had launched their vessel\ntoo close to the falls; and the mighty current was drawing it back. A\ncry of horror burst from their lips as they realized their danger, and\ntheir paddles were dashed into the water with frenzied violence. The\ncanoe hung quivering through all its slender length between the\ndesperate strokes that impelled it forward and the tremendous suction\nthat drew it down. Had they been closer to the bank, they might have\nsaved themselves; but they were too far out in the current. They felt\nthe canoe slipping back in spite of their frantic efforts, slowly at\nfirst, then more swiftly; and they knew there was no hope.\n\nThe paddles fell from their hands. One boatman leaped from the canoe\nwith the desperate idea of swimming ashore, but the current instantly\nswept him under and out of sight; the other sat motionless in his\nplace, awaiting the end with Indian stolidity.\n\nThe canoe was swept like a leaf to the verge of the fall and downward\ninto a gulf of mist and spray. As it trembled on the edge of the\ncataract, and its horrors opened beneath her, Wallulah realized her\ndoom for the first time; and in the moment she realised it, it was\nupon her. There was a quick terror, a dreamlike glimpse of white\nplunging waters, a deafening roar, a sudden terrible shock as the\ncanoe was splintered on the rocks at the foot of the fall; then all\nthings were swallowed up in blackness, a blackness that was death.\n\nBelow the falls, strong swimmers, leaping into the water, brought the\ndead to land. Beneath a pine-tree that grew close by the great\nColumbia trail and not far from the falls, the bodies were laid. The\ndaughter of Multnomah lay in rude state upon a fawn-skin; while at her\nfeet were extended the brawny forms of the two canoe-men who had died\nwith her, and who, according to Indian mythology, were to be her\nslaves in the Land of the Hereafter. Her face was very lovely, but its\nmournfulness remained. Her flute, broken in the shock that had killed\nher, was still attached to her belt. The Indians had placed her hand\nat her side, resting upon the flute; and they noticed in superstitious\nwonder that the cold fingers seemed to half close around it, as if\nthey would clasp it lovingly, even in death. Indian women knelt beside\nher, fanning her face with fragrant boughs of pine. Troop after\ntroop, returning over the trail to their homes, stopped to hear the\ntale, and to gaze at the dead face that was so wonderfully beautiful\nyet so sad.\n\nAll day long the bands gathered; each stopping, none passing\nindifferently by. At length, when evening came and the shadow of the\nwood fell long and cool, the burials began. A shallow grave was\nscooped at Wallulah's feet for the bodies of the two canoe-men. Then\nchiefs--for they only might bury Multnomah's daughter--entombed her in\na cairn; being Upper Columbia Indians, they buried her, after the\nmanner of their people, under a heap of stone. Rocks and bowlders were\nbuilt around and over her body, yet without touching it, until the sad\ndead face was shut out from view. And still the stones were piled\nabove her; higher and higher rose the great rock-heap, till a mighty\ncairn marked the last resting-place of Wallulah. And all the time the\nwomen lifted the death-wail, and Snoqualmie stood looking on with\nfolded arms and sullen baffled brow. At length the work was done. The\nwail ceased; the gathering broke up, and the sachems and their bands\nrode away, Snoqualmie and his troop departing with them.\n\nOnly the roar of the cascades broke the silence, as night fell on the\nwild forest and the lonely river. The pine-tree beside the trail\nswayed its branches in the wind with a low soft murmur, as if lulling\nthe sorrow-worn sleeper beneath it into still deeper repose. And she\nlay very still in the great cairn,--the sweet and beautiful\ndead,--with the grim warriors stretched at her feet, stern guardians\nof a slumber never to be broken.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nMULTNOMAH'S DEATH-CANOE.\n\n                                     Gazing alone\n                    To him are wild shadows shown.\n                    Deep under deep unknown.\n\n                                   DANTE ROSSETTI.\n\n\nIf Multnomah was grieved at his daughter's death, if his heart sunk at\nthe unforeseen and terrible blow that left his empire without an heir\nand withered all his hopes, no one knew it; no eye beheld his woe.\nSilent he had ever been, and he was silent to the last. The grand,\nstrong face only grew grander, stronger, as the shadows darkened\naround him; the unconquerable will only grew the fiercer and the more\nunflinching. But ere the moon that shone first on Wallulah's new-made\ncairn had rounded to the full, there was that upon him before which\neven his will bowed and gave way,--death, swift and mysterious. And it\ncame in this wise.\n\nWe have told how at the great _potlatch_ he gave away his all, even to\nthe bear-skins from his couch, reserving only those cases of Asiatic\ntextures never yet opened,--all that now remained of the richly laden\nship of the Orient wrecked long ago upon his coast. They were opened\nnow. His bed was covered with the magnificent fabrics; they were\nthrown carelessly over the rude walls and seats, half-trailing on the\nfloor; exquisite folds of velvet and damask swept the leaves and\ndust,--so that all men might see how rich the chief still was, though\nhe had given away so much. And with his ostentation was mixed a secret\npride and tenderness that his dead wife had indirectly given him this\nwealth. The war-chief's woman had brought him these treasures out of\nthe sea; and now that he had given away his all, even to the bare\npoles of his lodge, she filled it with fine things and made him rich\nagain,--she who had been sleeping for years in the death-hut on\n_mimaluse_ island. Those treasures, ere the vessel that carried them\nwas wrecked, had been sent as a present from one oriental prince to\nanother. Could it be that they had been purposely impregnated with\ndisease, so that while the prince that sent them seemed to bestow a\ngraceful gift, he was in reality taking a treacherous and terrible\nrevenge? Such things were not infrequent in Asiatic history; and even\nthe history of Europe, in the middle ages, tells us of poisoned masks,\nof gloves and scarfs charged with disease.\n\nCertain it is that shortly after the cases were opened, a strange and\nfatal disease broke out among Multnomah's attendants. The howling of\nmedicine-men rang all day long in the royal lodge; each day saw\nswathed corpses borne out to the funeral pyre or _mimaluse_ island.\nAnd no concoction of herbs,--however skilfully compounded with stone\nmortar and pestle,--no incantation of medicine-men or steaming\natmosphere of sweat-house, could stay the mortality.\n\nAt length Multnomah caught the disease. It seemed strange to the\nIndians that the war-chief should sicken, that Multnomah should show\nany of the weaknesses of common flesh and blood; yet so it was. But\nwhile the body yielded to the inroad of disease, the spirit that for\nalmost half a century had bent beneath it the tribes of the Wauna\nnever faltered. He lay for days upon his couch, his system wasting\nwith the plague, his veins burning with fever, holding death off only\nby might of will. He touched no remedies, for he felt them to be\nuseless; he refused the incantations of the medicine-men; alone and in\nhis own strength the war-chief contended with his last enemy.\n\nAll over the Willamette Valley, through camp and fishery, ran the\nwhisper that Multnomah was dying; and the hearts of the Indians sunk\nwithin them. Beyond the mountains the whisper passed to the allied\ntribes, once more ripe for revolt, and the news rang among them like a\ntrumpet call; it was of itself a signal for rebellion. The fall of the\nmagic Bridge, the death of Wallulah, and the fatal illness of\nMultnomah had sealed the doom of the Willamettes. The chiefs stayed\ntheir followers only till they knew that he was dead. But the grand\nold war-chief seemed determined that he would not die. He struggled\nwith disease; he crushed down his sufferings; he fought death with the\nsame silent, indomitable tenacity with which he had overthrown the\nobstacles of life.\n\nIn all his wasting agony he was the war-chief still, and held his\nsubjects in his grip. To the tribes that were about to rebel he sent\nmessages, short, abrupt, but terrible in their threat of\nvengeance,--messages that shook and awed the chiefs and pushed back\ninvasion. To the last, the great chief overawed the tribes; the\ngeneration that had grown up under the shadow of his tyranny, even\nwhen they knew he was dying, still obeyed him.\n\nAt length, one summer evening a few weeks after the burial of\nWallulah, there burst forth from the war-chief's lodge that peculiar\nwail which was lifted only for the death of one of the royal blood. No\nneed to ask who it was, for only _one_ remained of the ancient line\nthat had so long ruled the Willamettes; and for him, the last of his\nrace, was the wail lifted. It was re-echoed by the inmates of the\nsurrounding lodges; it rang, foreboding, mournful, through the\nencampment on Wappatto Island.\n\nSoon, runners were seen departing in every direction to bear the fatal\nnews throughout the valley. Twilight fell on them; the stars came out;\nthe moon rose and sunk; but the runners sped on, from camp to camp,\nfrom village to village. Wherever there was a cluster of Willamette\nlodges, by forest, river, or sea, the tale was told, the wail was\nlifted. So all that night the death-wail passed through the valley of\nthe Willamette; and in the morning the trails were thronged with bands\nof Indians journeying for the last time to the isle of council, to\nattend the obsequies of their chief, and consult as to the choice of\none to take his place.\n\nThe pestilence that had so ravaged the household of Multnomah was\nspread widely now; and every band as it departed from the camp left\ndeath behind it,--aye, took death with it; for in each company were\nthose whose haggard, sickly faces told of disease, and in more than\none were those so weakened that they lagged behind and fell at last\nbeside the trail to die.\n\nThe weather was very murky. It was one of the smoky summers of Oregon,\nlike that of the memorable year 1849, when the smoke of wide-spread\nforest fires hung dense and blinding over Western Oregon for days, and\nit seemed to the white settlers as if they were never to breathe the\nclear air or see the sky again. But even that, the historic \"smoky\ntime\" of the white pioneers, was scarcely equal to the smoky period of\nmore than a century and a half before. The forest fires were raging\nwith unusual fury; Mount Hood was still in course of eruption; and all\nthe valley was wrapped in settled cloud. Through the thick atmosphere\nthe tall firs loomed like spectres, while the far-off roar of flames\nin the forest and the intermittent sounds of the volcano came weirdly\nto the Indians as they passed on their mournful way. What wonder that\nthe distant sounds seemed to them wild voices in the air, prophecying\nwoe; and objects in the forest, half seen through the smoke, grotesque\nforms attending them as they marched! And when the bands had all\ngathered on the island, the shuddering Indians told of dim and shadowy\nphantoms that had followed and preceded them all the way; and of\ngigantic shapes in the likeness of men that had loomed through the\nsmoke, warning them back with outstretched arms. Ominous and unknown\ncries had come to them through the gloom; and the spirits of the dead\nhad seemed to marshal them on their way, or to oppose their\ncoming,--they knew not which.\n\nSo, all day long, troop after troop crossed the river to the island,\nemerging like shadows from the smoke that seemed to wrap the\nworld,--each with its sickly faces, showing the terrible spread of the\npestilence; each helping to swell the great horror that brooded over\nall, with its tale of the sick and dead at home, and the wild things\nseen on the way. Band after band the tribes gathered, and when the sun\nwent down the war-chief's obsequies took place.\n\n[Illustration: _Multnomah's Death-canoe._]\n\nIt was a strange funeral that they gave Multnomah, yet it was in\nkeeping with the dark, grand life he had lived.\n\nA large canoe was filled with pitch and with pine-knots,--the most\ninflammable materials an Oregon forest could furnish. Upon them was\nheaped all that was left of the chief's riches, all the silks and\nvelvets that remained of the cargo of the shipwrecked vessel lost upon\nthe coast long before. And finally, upon the splendid heap of\ntextures, upon the laces and the damasks of the East, was laid the\ndead body of Multnomah, dressed in buckskin; his moccasins on his\nfeet, his tomahawk and his pipe by his side, as became a chief\nstarting on his last journey.\n\nThen as night came on, and the smoky air darkened into deepest gloom,\nthe canoe was taken out into the main current of the Columbia, and\nfire was set to the dry knots that made up the funeral pyre. In an\ninstant the contents of the canoe were in a blaze, and it was set\nadrift in the current. Down the river it floated, lighting the night\nwith leaping flames. On the shore, the assembled tribe watched it in\nsilence, mute, dejected, as they saw their great chief borne from them\nforever. Promontory and dusky fir, gleaming water and level beach,\nwere brought into startling relief against the background of night, as\nthe burning vessel neared them; then sank into shadow as it passed\nonward. Overhead, the playing tongues of fire reddened the smoke that\nhung dense over the water, and made it assume distorted and fantastic\nshapes, which moved and writhed in the wavering light, and to the\nIndians seemed spectres of the dead, hovering over the canoe, reaching\nout their arms to receive the soul of Multnomah.\n\n\"It is the dead people come for him,\" the Willamettes whispered to one\nanother, as they stood upon the bank, watching the canoe drift farther\nand farther from them, with the wild play of light and shadow over it.\nDown the river, like some giant torch that was to light the war-chief\nalong the shadowy ways of death, passed the burning canoe. Rounding a\nwooded point, it blazed a moment brilliantly beside it, and as it\ndrifted to the farther side, outlined the intervening trees with fire,\ntill every branch was clearly relieved against a flaming background;\nthen, passing slowly on beyond the point, the light waned gradually,\nand at last faded quite away.\n\nAnd not till then was a sound heard among the silent and impassive\nthrong on the river-bank. But when the burning canoe had vanished\nutterly, when black and starless night fell again on wood and water,\nthe death-wail burst from the Indians with one impulse and one\nvoice,--a people's cry for its lost chief, a great tribe's lament for\nthe strength and glory that had drifted from it, never to return.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAmong a superstitious race, every fact becomes mingled more or less\nwith fable; every occurrence, charged with fantastic meanings. And\nthere sprang up among the Indians, no one could tell how, a prophecy\nthat some night when the Willamettes were in their direst need, a\ngreat light would be seen moving on the waters of the Columbia, and\nthe war-chief would come back in a canoe of fire to lead them to\nvictory as of old.\n\nDire and awful grew their need as the days went on; swift and sweeping\nwas the end. Long did the few survivors of his race watch and wait for\nhis return,--but never more came back Multnomah to his own.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nAS WAS WRIT IN THE BOOK OF FATE.\n\n             A land of old upheaven from the abyss\n             By fire, to sink into the abyss again,\n             Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwelt.\n\n                                               TENNYSON.\n\n\nAnd now our tale draws to a close. There remains but to tell how the\nlast council was held on Wappatto Island; how Mishlah the Cougar,\nchief of the Mollalies, died; and how the prophecy of the Bridge was\nfulfilled.\n\nThe morning after the obsequies of Multnomah, the chiefs met in the\ngrove where the great council of the tribes had been held only a few\nweeks before. The leaves, which had been green and glossy then, were\nturning yellow and sickly now in the close hot weather. All Nature\nseemed full of decay.\n\nThe chiefs were grouped before the vacant seat of Multnomah; and the\nWillamette tribe, gathered from canyon and prairie and fishery, looked\non, sole spectators of the proceedings,--for none of the allies were\npresent. The ravages of the pestilence had been terrible. Many\nwarriors were missing from the spectators; many chiefs were absent\nfrom the council. And there were some present from whom the others\nshrunk away, whose hot breath and livid faces showed that they too\nwere stricken with the plague. There were emaciated Indians among the\naudience, whose gaunt forms and hollow eyes told that they had dragged\nthemselves to the council-grove to die. The wailing of the women at\nthe camp, lamenting those just dead; the howling of the medicine-men\nin the distance, performing their incantations over the sick; the\nmysterious sounds that came from the burning forest and the\nvolcano,--all these were heard. Round the council the smoke folded\nthick and dark, veiling the sun, and shutting out the light of heaven\nand the mercy of the Great Spirit.\n\nThe chiefs sat long in silence, each waiting for the other to speak.\nAt length arose a stately warrior famous among the Willamettes for\nwisdom and prudence.\n\n\"We perish,\" said the chief, \"we melt away before the breath of the\npestilence, like snow before the breath of the warm spring wind. And\nwhile we die of disease in our lodges, war gathers against us beyond\nthe ranges. Even now the bands of our enemies may be descending the\nmountains, and the tomahawk may smite what the disease has spared.\nWhat is to be done? What say the wise chiefs of the Willamettes?\nMultnomah's seat is empty: shall we choose another war-chief?\"\n\nA pale and ghastly chief rose to reply. It was evident that he was in\nthe last extremity of disease.\n\n\"Shall we choose another war-chief to sit in Multnomah's place? We\nmay; but will he be Multnomah? The glory of the Willamettes is dead!\nTalk no more of war, when our war-strength is gone from us. The Bridge\nis fallen, the Great Spirit is against us. Let those who are to live\ntalk of war. It is time for us to learn how to die.\"\n\nHe sunk flushed and exhausted upon the ground. Then rose an aged\nchief, so old that it seemed as if a century of time had passed over\nhim. His hair was a dirty gray, his eyes dull and sunken, his face\nwithered. He supported himself with tremulous bony hands upon his\nstaff. His voice was feeble, and seemed like an echo from the\nlong-perished past.\n\n\"I am old, the oldest of all the Willamettes. I have seen so many\nwinters that no man can count them. I knew Multnomah's father. I went\nforth to battle with his father's father; and even before that I knew\nothers, warriors of a forgotten time. Or do I dream? I know not. The\nweight of the time that I have lived is very heavy, and my mind sinks\nunder it. My form is bowed with the burden of winters. Warriors, I\nhave seen many councils, many troubles, but never a trouble like this.\nOf what use is your council? Can the words of wise men stay disease?\nCan the edge of the tomahawk turn back sickness? Can you fight against\nthe Great Spirit? He sent the white man to tell us of our sins and\nwarn us to be better, and you closed your ears and would not listen.\nNay, you would have slain him had not the Great Spirit taken him away.\nThese things would not have come upon us had you listened to the white\n_shaman_. You have offended the Great Spirit, and he has broken the\nBridge and sent disease upon us; and all that your wisdom may devise\ncan avail naught to stay his wrath. You can but cover your faces in\nsilence, and die.\"\n\nFor a moment the council was very still. The memory of the white\nwanderer, his strong and tender eloquence, his fearless denunciation,\nhis loving and passionate appeal, was on them all. _Was_ the Great\nSpirit angry with them because they had rejected him?\n\n\"Who talks of dying?\" said a fierce warrior, starting to his feet.\n\"Leave that to women and sick men! Shall we stay here to perish while\nlife is yet strong within us? The valley is shadowed with death; the\nair is disease; an awful sickness wastes the people; our enemies rush\nin upon us. Shall we then lie down like dogs and wait for death? No.\nLet us leave this land; let us take our women and children, and fly.\nLet us seek a new home beyond the Klamath and the Shasta, in the South\nLand, where the sun is always warm, and the grass is always green, and\nthe cold never comes. The spirits are against us here, and to stay is\nto perish. Let us seek a new home, where the spirits are not angry;\neven as our fathers in the time that is far back left their old home\nin the ice country of the Nootkas and came hither. I have spoken.\"\n\nHis daring words kindled a moment's animation in the despondent\naudience; then the ceaseless wailing of the women and the panting of\nthe sick chiefs in the council filled the silence, and their hearts\nsank within them again.\n\n\"My brother is brave,\" said the grave chief who had opened the\ncouncil, \"but are his words wise? Many of our warriors are dead, many\nare sick, and Multnomah is gone. The Willamettes are weak; it is\nbitter to the lips to say it, but it is true. Our enemies are strong.\nAll the tribes who were once with us are against us. The passes are\nkept by many warriors; and could we fight our way through them to\nanother land, the sickness would go with us. Why fly from the disease\nhere, to die with it in some far-off land?\"\n\n\"We cannot leave our own land,\" said a dreamer, or medicine-man. \"The\nGreat Spirit gave it to us, the bones of our fathers are in it. It is\n_our_ land,\" he repeated with touching emphasis. \"The Willamette\ncannot leave his old home, though the world is breaking up all around\nhim. The bones of our people are here. Our brothers lie in the\ndeath-huts on _mimaluse_ island;--how can we leave them? Here is the\nplace where we must live; here, if death comes, must we die!\"\n\nA murmur of assent came from the listeners. It voiced the decision of\nthe council. With stubborn Indian fatalism, they would await the end;\nfighting the rebels if attacked, and sullenly facing the disease if\nunmolested. Now a voice was heard that never had been heard in accents\nof despair,--a voice that was still fierce and warlike in its\nresentment of the course the council was taking. It was the voice of\nMishlah the Cougar, chief of the Mollalies. He, too, had the plague,\nand had just reached the grove, walking with slow and tottering steps,\nunlike the Mishlah of other days. But his eyes glittered with all the\nold ferocity that had given him the name of Cougar. Alas, he was but a\ndying cougar now.\n\n\"Shall we stay here to die?\" thundered the wild chief, as he stood\nleaning on his stick, his sunken eyes sweeping the assembly with a\nglance of fire. \"Shall we stand and tremble till the pestilence slays\nus all with its arrows, even as a herd of deer, driven into a deep\ngulch and surrounded, stand till they are shot down by the hunters?\nShall we stay in our lodges, and die without lifting a hand? Shall\ndisease burn out the life of our warriors, when they might fall in\nbattle? No! Let us slay the women and children, cross the mountains,\nand die fighting the rebels! Is it not better to fall in battle like\nwarriors than to perish of disease like dogs?\"\n\nThe chief looked from face to face, but saw no responsive flash in the\neyes that met his own. The settled apathy of despair was on every\ncountenance. Then the medicine-man answered,--\n\n\"_You_ could never cross the mountains, even if we did this thing.\nYour breath is hot with disease; the mark of death is on your face;\nthe snake of the pestilence has bitten you. If we went out to battle,\nyou would fall by the wayside to die. Your time is short. To-day you\ndie.\"\n\nThe grim Mollalie met the speaker's glance, and for a moment wavered.\nHe felt within himself that the words were true, that the plague had\nsapped his life, that his hour was near at hand. Then his hesitation\npassed, and he lifted his head with scornful defiance.\n\n\"So be it! Mishlah accepts his doom. Come, you that were once the\nwarriors of Multnomah, but whose hearts are become the hearts of\nwomen; come and learn from a Mollalie how to die!\"\n\nAgain his glance swept the circle of chiefs as if summoning them to\nfollow him,--then, with weak and staggering footsteps, he left the\ngrove; and it was as if the last hope of the Willamettes went with\nhim. The dense atmosphere of smoke soon shut his form from view.\nSilence fell on the council. The hearts of the Indians were dead\nwithin them. Amid their portentous surroundings,--the appalling signs\nof the wrath of the Great Spirit,--the fatal apathy which is the curse\nof their race crept over them.\n\nThen rose the medicine-man, wild priest of a wild and debasing\nsuperstition, reverenced as one through whom the dead spoke to the\nliving.\n\n\"Break up your council!\" he said with fearful look and gesture.\n\"Councils are for those who expect to live! and you!--the dead call\nyou to them. Choose no chief, for who will be left for him to rule?\nYou talk of plans for the future. Would you know what that future will\nbe? I will show you; listen!\" He flung up his hand as if imposing\nsilence; and, taken by surprise, they listened eagerly, expecting to\nhear some supernatural voice or message prophetic of the future. On\ntheir strained hearing fell only the labored breathing of the sick\nchiefs in the council, the ominous muttering of the far-off volcano,\nand loud and shrill above all the desolate cry of the women wailing\ntheir dead.\n\n\"You hear it? That death-wail tells all the future holds for you.\nBefore yonder red shadow of a sun\"--pointing to the sun, which shone\ndimly through the smoke--\"shall set, the bravest of the Mollalies will\nbe dead. Before the moon wanes to its close, the Willamette race will\nhave passed away. Think you Multnomah's seat is empty? The Pestilence\nsits in Multnomah's place, and you will all wither in his hot and\npoisonous breath. Break up your council. Go to your lodges. The sun of\nthe Willamettes is set, and the night is upon us. Our wars are done;\nour glory is ended. We are but a tale that old men tell around the\ncamp-fire, a handful of red dust gathered from _mimaluse_\nisland,--dust that once was man. Go, you that are as the dead leaves\nof autumn; go, whirled into everlasting darkness before the wind of\nthe wrath of the Great Spirit!\"\n\nHe flung out his arms with a wild gesture, as if he held all their\nlives and threw them forth like dead leaves to be scattered upon the\nwinds. Then he turned away and left the grove. The crowd of warriors\nwho had been looking on broke up and went away, and the chiefs began\nto leave the council, each muffled in his blanket. The grave and\nstately sachem who had opened the council tried for a little while to\nstay the fatal breaking up, but in vain. And when he saw that he could\ndo nothing, he too left the grove, wrapped in stoical pride, sullenly\nresigned to whatever was to come.\n\nAnd so the last council ended, in hopeless apathy, in stubborn\nindecision,--indecision in everything save the recognition that a doom\nwas on them against which it was useless to struggle.\n\nAnd Mishlah? He returned to his lodge, painted his face as if he were\ngoing to battle, and then went out to a grove near the place where the\nwar-dances of the tribe were held. His braves followed him; others\njoined them; all watched eagerly, knowing that the end was close at\nhand, and wondering how he would die.\n\nHe laid aside his blanket, exposing his stripped body; and with his\neagle plume, in his hair and his stone tomahawk in his hand, began to\ndance the war-dance of his tribe and to chant the song of the battles\nhe had fought.\n\nAt first his utterance was broken and indistinct, his step feeble. But\nas he went on his voice rang clearer and stronger; his step grew\nquicker and firmer. Half reciting, half chanting, he continued the\nwild tale of blood, dancing faster and faster, haranguing louder and\nlouder, until he became a flame of barbaric excitement, until he\nleaped and whirled in the very madness of raging passion,--the Indian\nwar-frenzy.\n\nBut it could not last long. His breath came quick and short; his words\ngrew inarticulate; his eyes gleamed like coals of fire; his feet\nfaltered in the dance. With a final effort he brandished and flung his\ntomahawk, uttering as he did so a last war-cry, which thrilled all who\nheard it as of old when he led them in battle. The tomahawk sunk to\nthe head in a neighboring tree, the handle breaking off short with the\nviolence of the shock; and the chief fell back--dead.\n\nThus passed the soul of the fierce Mollalie. For years afterward, the\ntomahawk remained where it had sunk in the tree, sole monument of\nMishlah. His bones lay unburied beneath, wasted by wind and rain, till\nthere was left only a narrow strip of red earth, with the grass\nspringing rankly around it, to show where the body had been. And the\nfew survivors of the tribe who lingered in the valley were wont to\npoint to the tomahawk imbedded in the tree, and tell the tale of the\nwarrior and how he died.\n\nWhy dwell longer on scenes so terrible? Besides, there is but little\nmore to tell. The faithless allies made a raid on the valley; but the\nshrouding atmosphere of smoke and the frightful rumors they heard of\nthe great plague appalled them, and they retreated. The pestilence\nprotected the Willamettes. The Black Death that the medicine-men saw\nsitting in Multnomah's place turned back the tide of invasion better\nthan the war-chief himself could have done.\n\nThrough the hot months of summer the mortality continued. The valley\nwas swept as with the besom of destruction, and the drama of a\npeople's death was enacted with a thousand variations of horror. When\nspring came, the invaders entered the valley once more. They found it\ndeserted, with the exception of a few wretched bands, sole survivors\nof a mighty race. They rode through villages where the decaying mats\nhung in tatters from the half-bare skeleton-like wigwam poles, where\nthe ashes had been cold for months at the camp-fires; they rode by\nfisheries where spear and net were rotting beside the canoe upon the\nbeach. And the dead--the dead lay everywhere: in the lodges, beside\nthe fisheries, along the trail where they had been stricken down while\ntrying to escape,--everywhere were the ghastly and repulsive forms.\n\nThe spirit of the few survivors was broken, and they made little\nresistance to the invaders. Mongrel bands from the interior and the\ncoast settled in the valley after the lapse of years; and, mixing with\nthe surviving Willamettes, produced the degenerate race our own\npioneers found there at their coming. These hybrids were, within the\nmemory of the white man, overrun and conquered by the Yakimas, who\nsubjugated all the Indians upon Wappatto Island and around the mouth\nof the Willamette in the early part of the present century. Later on,\nthe Yakimas were driven back by the whites; so that there have been\nthree conquests of the lower Willamette Valley since the fall of the\nancient race,--two Indian conquests before the white.\n\nThe once musical language of the Willamettes has degenerated into the\nuncouth Chinook, and the blood of the ancient race flows mixed and\ndebased in the veins of abject and squalid descendants; but the story\nof the mighty bridge that once spanned the Columbia at the Cascades is\nstill told by the Oregon Indians. Mingled with much of fable, overlaid\nwith myth and superstition, it is nevertheless one of the historic\nlegends of the Columbia, and as such will never be forgotten.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nOne word more of Cecil Gray, and our tale is done.\n\nThe Shoshone renegade, who resolved at Cecil's death to become a\nChristian, found his way with a few followers to the Flat-Heads, and\nsettled among that tribe. He told them of what he had learned from\nCecil,--of the Way of Peace; and the wise men of the tribe pondered\nhis sayings in their hearts. The Shoshone lived and died among them;\nbut from generation to generation the tradition of the white man's God\nwas handed down, till in 1832 four Flat-Heads were sent by the tribe\nto St. Louis, to ask that teachers be given them to tell them about\nGod.\n\nEvery student of history knows how that appeal stirred the heart of\nthe East, and caused the sending out of the first missionaries to\nOregon; and from the movement then inaugurated have since sprung all\nthe missions to the Indians of the West.\n\nThus he who gave his life for the Indians, and died seemingly in vain,\nsowed seed that sprung up and bore a harvest long after his death. And\nto-day, two centuries since his body was laid in the lonely grave on\nWappatto Island, thousands of Indians are the better for his having\nlived. No true, noble life can be said to have been lived in vain.\nDefeated and beaten though it may seem to have been, there has gone\nout from it an influence for the better that has helped in some degree\nto lighten the great heartache and bitterness of the world. Truth,\ngoodness, and self-sacrifice are never beaten,--no, not by death\nitself. The example and the influence of such things is deathless, and\nlives after the individual is gone, flowing on forever in the broad\nlife of humanity.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nI write these last lines on Sauvie's Island--the Wappatto of the\nIndians,--sitting upon the bank of the river, beneath the gnarled and\nancient cottonwood that still marks the spot where the old Columbia\ntrail led up from the water to the interior of the island. Stately and\nbeautiful are the far snow-peaks and the sweeping forests. The woods\nare rich in the colors of an Oregon autumn. The white wappatto blooms\nalong the marshes, its roots ungathered, the dusky hands that once\nreaped the harvest long crumbled into dust. Blue and majestic in the\nsunlight flows the Columbia, river of many names,--the Wauna and\nWemath of the Indians, the St. Roque of the Spaniards, the Oregon of\npoetry,--always vast and grand, always flowing placidly to the sea.\nSteamboats of the present; batteaux of the fur traders; ships, Grey's\nand Vancouver's, of discovery; Indian canoes of the old unknown\ntime,--the stately river has seen them all come and go, and yet holds\nits way past forest and promontory, still beautiful and unchanging.\nGeneration after generation, daring hunter, ardent discoverer, silent\nIndian,--all the shadowy peoples of the past have sailed its waters as\nwe sail them, have lived perplexed and haunted by mystery as we live,\nhave gone out into the Great Darkness with hearts full of wistful\ndoubt and questioning, as we go; and still the river holds its course,\nbright, beautiful, inscrutable. It stays; _we go_. Is there anything\n_beyond_ the darkness into which generation follows generation and\nrace follows race? Surely there is an after-life, where light and\npeace shall come to all who, however defeated, have tried to be true\nand loyal; where the burden shall be lifted and the heartache shall\ncease; where all the love and hope that slipped away from us here\nshall be given back to us again, and given back forever.\n\n_Via crucis, via lucis._\n\n\n\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's note:\n\n  Variations in the spelling of the Molalla Indian tribe have been\n  retained.\n\n  Missing or extra quotation marks and minor inconsistencies of\n  punctuationwere silently corrected. However, punctuation has not\n  been changed to comply with modern standards. Inconsistency in\n  hyphenation also has been retained.\n\n  Footnotes have been renumbered consecutively and placed at the end\n  of each chapter.\n\n  Illustrations have been moved where necessary so that they are not\n  in the middle of a paragraph.\n\n  All missing page numbers were intentionally omitted in the original\n  publication.\n\n  Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved as printed in the\n  original book except for the following changes:\n\n    List of Illustrations: Multomah's changed to Multnomah's\n    (Multnomah's Death-canoe)\n\n    Page 137: that changed to than (No one knows this better than\n    Multnomah.)\n\n    Page 261: or changed to on (To the funeral pyre on _mimaluse_\n    island.)\n\n    Illustration facing page 264: Multomah's changed to Multnomah's\n    (Multnomah's Death-canoe)\n\n\n"}
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{"3059":"and Jim Tinsley <jtinsley@pobox.com>\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE ILIAD OF HOMER\n\n\n\nPREFATORY NOTE\n\n\n\nThe execution of this version of the ILIAD has been entrusted to the\nthree Translators in the following three parts:\n\n     Books      I. - IX.     .  .  .  .  W. Leaf.\n       \"        X. - XVI.    .  .  .  .  A. Lang.\n       \"     XVII. - XXIV.   .  .  .  .  E. Myers.\n\nEach Translator is therefore responsible for his own portion; but\nthe whole has been revised by all three Translators, and the\nrendering of passages or phrases recurring in more than one portion\nhas been determined after deliberation in common. Even in these,\nhowever, a certain elasticity has been deemed desirable.\n\nOn a few doubtful points, though very rarely, the opinion of two of\nthe translators has had to be adopted to the suppression of that\nheld by the third. Thus, for instance, the Translator of Books\nX. - XVI. Would have preferred \"c\" and \"us\" to \"k\" and \"os\" in the\nspelling of all proper names.\n\nThe text followed has been that of La Roche (Leipzig, 1873), except\nwhere the adoption of a different reading has been specified in a\nfootnote. Where the balance of evidence, external and internal, has\nseemed to the Translator to be against the genuineness of the\npassage, such passage has been enclosed in brackets [].\n\nThe Translator of Books X. - XVI. Has to thank Mr. R.W. Raper,\nFellow of Trinity College, Oxford, for his valuable aid in revising\nthe proof-sheets of these Books.\n\n\nNOTE TO REVISED EDITION\n\n\nIn the present Edition the translation has been carefully revised\nthroughout, and numerous minor corrections have been made. The Notes\nat the end of the volume have been, with a few exceptions, omitted;\none of the Translators hopes to publish very shortly a Companion to\nthe Iliad for English readers, which will deal fully with most of\nthe points therein referred to.\n\nThe use of square brackets has in this edition been restricted to\npassages where there is external evidence, such as absence from the\nbest MSS., for believing in interpolation. One or two departures\nfrom this Rule are noticed in footnotes.\n\nNovember 1891\n\n\n\nThe reader will perhaps also be helped by the following list of the\nGreek and Latin names of the gods and goddesses who play important\nparts in the narrative. When the Greek names are new to him, the\ncorresponding Latin names may be more familiar.\n\n      Greek                 Latin\n      -----                 -----\n      Zeus.                 Jupiter.\n      Hera.                 Juno.\n      (Pallas) Athene.      Minerva.\n      Aphrodite.            Venus.\n      Poseidon.             Neptune.\n      Ares.                 Mars.\n      Hephaestus.           Vulcan.\n\n\n\n\n\n    The sacred soil of Ilios is rent\n      With shaft and pit; foiled waters wander slow\n    Through plains where Simois and Scamander went\n      To war with gods and heroes long ago.\n    Not yet to dark Cassandra lying low\n      In rich Mycenae do the Fates relent;\n    The bones of Agamemnon are a show,\n      And ruined is his royal monument.\n    The dust and awful treasures of the dead\n      Hath learning scattered wide; but vainly thee,\n    Homer, she meteth with her Lesbian lead,\n      And strives to rend thy songs, too blind is she\n    To know the crown on thine immortal head\n      Of indivisible supremacy.                      A.L.\n\n\n    Athwart the sunrise of our western day\n      The form of great Achilles, high and clear,\n      Stands forth in arms, wielding the Pelian spear.\n    The sanguine tides of that immortal fray,\n    Swept on by gods, around him surge and sway,\n      Wherethrough the helms of many a warrior peer,\n      Strong men and swift, their tossing plumes uprear.\n    But stronger, swifter, goodlier he than they,\n    More awful, more divine. Yet mark anigh;\n      Some fiery pang hath rent his soul within,\n       Some hovering shade his brows encompasseth.\n    What gifts hath Fate for all his chivalry?\n      Even such as hearts heroic oftenest win;\n       Honour, a friend, anguish, untimely death.   E.M.\n\n\n\n\nTHE ILIAD OF HOMER\n\n\nBOOK I.\n\n    How Agamemnon and Achilles fell out at the siege of Troy;\n    and Achilles withdrew himself from battle, and won from Zeus\n    a pledge that his wrong should be avenged on Agamemnon and\n    the Achaians.\n\nSing, goddess, the wrath of Achilles Peleus' son, the ruinous wrath that\nbrought on the Achaians woes innumerable, and hurled down into Hades\nmany strong souls of heroes, and gave their bodies to be a prey to dogs\nand all winged fowls; and so the counsel of Zeus wrought out its\naccomplishment from the day when first strife parted Atreides king of\nmen and noble Achilles.\n\nWho among the gods set the twain at strife and variance? Apollo, the son\nof Leto and of Zeus; for he in anger at the king sent a sore plague upon\nthe host, so that the folk began to perish, because Atreides had done\ndishonour to Chryses the priest. For the priest had come to the\nAchaians' fleet ships to win his daughter's freedom, and brought a\nransom beyond telling; and bare in his hands the fillet of Apollo the\nFar-darter upon a golden staff; and made his prayer unto all the\nAchaians, and most of all to the two sons of Atreus, orderers of the\nhost; \"Ye sons of Atreus and all ye well-greaved Achaians, now may the\ngods that dwell in the mansions of Olympus grant you to lay waste the\ncity of Priam, and to fare happily homeward; only set ye my dear child\nfree, and accept the ransom in reverence to the son of Zeus, far-darting\nApollo.\"\n\nThen all the other Achaians cried assent, to reverence the priest and\naccept his goodly ransom; yet the thing pleased not the heart of\nAgamemnon son of Atreus, but he roughly sent him away, and laid stern\ncharge upon him, saying: \"Let me not find thee, old man, amid the hollow\nships, whether tarrying now or returning again hereafter, lest the staff\nand fillet of the god avail thee naught. And her will I not set free;\nnay, ere that shall old age come on her in our house, in Argos, far from\nher native land, where she shall ply the loom and serve my couch. But\ndepart, provoke me not, that thou mayest the rather go in peace.\"\n\nSo said he, and the old man was afraid and obeyed his word, and fared\nsilently along the shore of the loud-sounding sea. Then went that aged\nman apart and prayed aloud to king Apollo, whom Leto of the fair locks\nbare: \"Hear me, god of the silver bow, that standest over Chryse and\nholy Killa, and rulest Tenedos with might, O Smintheus! If ever I built\na temple gracious in thine eyes, or if ever I burnt to thee fat flesh of\nthighs of bulls or goats, fulfil thou this my desire; let the Danaans\npay by thine arrows for my tears.\"\n\nSo spake he in prayer, and Phoebus Apollo heard him, and came down from\nthe peaks of Olympus wroth at heart, bearing on his shoulders his bow\nand covered quiver. And the arrows clanged upon his shoulders in wrath,\nas the god moved; and he descended like to night. Then he sate him aloof\nfrom the ships, and let an arrow fly; and there was heard a dread\nclanging of the silver bow. First did the assail the mules and fleet\ndogs, but afterward, aiming at the men his piercing dart, he smote; and\nthe pyres of the dead burnt continually in multitude.\n\nNow for nine days ranged the god's shafts through the host; but on the\ntenth Achilles summoned the folk to assembly, for in his mind did\ngoddess Hera of white arms put the thought, because she had pity on the\nDanaans when she beheld them perishing. Now when they had gathered and\nwere met in assembly, then Achilles fleet of foot stood up and spake\namong them: \"Son of Atreus, now deem I that we shall return wandering\nhome again--if verily we might escape death--if war at once and\npestilence must indeed ravage the Achaians. But come, let us now inquire\nof some soothsayer or priest, yea, or an interpreter of dreams--seeing\nthat a dream too is of Zeus--who shall say wherefore Phoebus Apollo is\nso wroth, whether he blame us by reason of vow or hecatomb; if perchance\nhe would accept the savour of lambs or unblemished goats, and so would\ntake away the pestilence from us.\"\n\nSo spake he and sate him down; and there stood up before them Kalchas\nson of Thestor, most excellent far of augurs, who knew both things that\nwere and that should be and that had been before, and guided the ships\nof the Achaians to Ilios by his soothsaying that Phoebus Apollo bestowed\non him. He of good intent made harangue and spake amid them: \"Achilles,\ndear to Zeus, thou biddest me tell the wrath of Apollo, the king that\nsmiteth afar. Therefore will I speak; but do thou make covenant with me,\nand swear that verily with all thy heart thou wilt aid me both by word\nand deed. For of a truth I deem that I shall provoke one that ruleth all\nthe Argives with might, and whom the Achaians obey. For a king is more\nof might when he is wroth with a meaner man; even though for the one day\nhe swallow his anger, yet doth he still keep his displeasure thereafter\nin his breast till he accomplish it. Consider thou, then, if thou wilt\nhold me safe.\"\n\nAnd Achilles fleet of foot made answer and spake to him: \"Yea, be of\ngood courage, speak whatever soothsaying thou knowest; for by Apollo\ndear to Zeus, him by whose worship thou, O Kalchas, declarest thy\nsoothsaying to the Danaans, not even if thou mean Agamemnon, that now\navoweth him to be greatest far of the Achaians.\"\n\nThen was the noble seer of good courage, and spake: \"Neither by reason\nof a vow is he displeased, nor for any hecatomb, but for his priest's\nsake to whom Agamemnon did despite, and set not his daughter free and\naccepted not the ransom; therefore hath the Far-darter brought woes upon\nus, yea, and will bring. Nor will he ever remove the loathly pestilence\nfrom the Danaans till we have given the bright-eyed damsel to her\nfather, unbought, unransomed, and carried a holy hecatomb to Chryse;\nthen might we propitiate him to our prayer.\"\n\nSo said he and sate him down, and there stood up before them the hero\nson of Atreus, wide-ruling Agamemnon, sore displeased; and his dark\nheart within him was greatly filled with anger, and his eyes were like\nflashing fire. To Kalchas first spake he with look of ill: \"Thou seer of\nevil, never yet hast thou told me the thing that is pleasant. Evil is\never the joy of thy heart to prophesy, but never yet didst thou tell any\ngood matter nor bring to pass. And now with soothsaying thou makest\nharangue among the Danaans, how that the Far-darter bringeth woes upon\nthem because, forsooth, I would not take the goodly ransom of the damsel\nChryseis, seeing I am the rather fain to keep her own self within mine\nhouse. Yea, I prefer her before Klytaimnestra my wedded wife; in no wise\nis she lacking beside her, neither in favour nor stature, nor wit nor\nskill. Yet for all this will I give her back, if that is better; rather\nwould I see my folk whole than perishing. Only make ye me ready a prize\nof honour forthwith, lest I alone of all the Argives be disprized, which\nthing beseemeth not; for ye all behold how my prize is departing from\nme.\"\n\nTo him then made answer fleet-footed goodly Achilles: \"Most noble son of\nAtreus, of all men most covetous, how shall the great-hearted Achaians\ngive thee a meed of honour? We know naught of any wealth of common\nstore, but what spoil soe'er we took from captured cities hath been\napportioned, and it beseemeth not to beg all this back from the folk.\nNay, yield thou the damsel to the god, and we Achaians will pay thee\nback threefold and fourfold, if ever Zeus grant us to sack some\nwell-walled town of Troy-land.\"\n\nTo him lord Agamemnon made answer and said: \"Not in this wise, strong as\nthou art, O godlike Achilles, beguile thou me by craft; thou shalt not\noutwit me nor persuade me. Dost thou wish, that thou mayest keep thy\nmeed of honour, for me to sit idle in bereavement, and biddest me give\nher back? Nay, if the great-hearted Achaians will give me a meed suited\nto my mind, that the recompense be equal--but if they give it not, then\nI myself will go and take a meed of honour, thine be it or Aias', or\nOdysseus' that I will take unto me; wroth shall he be to whomsoever I\ncome. But for this we will take counsel hereafter; now let us launch a\nblack ship on the great sea, and gather picked oarsmen, and set therein\na hecatomb, and embark Chryseis of the fair cheeks herself, and let one\nof our counsellors be captain, Aias or Idomeneus or goodly Odysseus, or\nthou, Peleides, most redoubtable of men, to do sacrifice for us and\npropitiate the Far-darter.\"\n\nThen Achilles fleet of foot looked at him scowling and said: \"Ah me,\nthou clothed in shamelessness, thou of crafty mind, how shall any\nAchaian hearken to thy bidding with all his heart, be it to go a journey\nor to fight the foe amain? Not by reason of the Trojan spearmen came I\nhither to fight, for they have not wronged me; never did they harry mine\noxen nor my horses, nor ever waste my harvest in deep-soiled Phthia, the\nnurse of men; seeing there lieth between us long space of shadowy\nmountains and sounding sea; but thee, thou shameless one, followed we\nhither to make thee glad, by earning recompense at the Trojans' hands\nfor Menelaos and for thee, thou dog-face! All this thou threatenest\nthyself to take my meed of honour, wherefor I travailed much, and the\nsons of the Achaians gave it me. Never win I meed like unto thine, when\nthe Achaians sack any populous citadel of Trojan men; my hands bear the\nbrunt of furious war, but when the apportioning cometh then is thy meed\nfar ampler, and I betake me to the ships with some small thing, yet my\nown, when I have fought to weariness. Now will I depart to Phthia,\nseeing it is far better to return home on my beaked ships; nor am I\nminded here in dishonour to draw thee thy fill of riches and wealth.\"\n\nThen Agamemnon king of men made answer to him \"yea, flee, if thy soul be\nset thereon. It is not I that beseech thee to tarry for my sake; I have\nothers by my side that shall do me honour, and above all Zeus, lord of\ncounsel. Most hateful art thou to me of all kings, fosterlings of Zeus;\nthou ever lovest strife and wars and fightings. Though thou be very\nstrong, yet that I ween is a gift to thee of God. Go home with thy ships\nand company and lord it among thy Myrmidons; I reck not aught of thee\nnor care I for thine indignation; and all this shall be my threat to\nthee: seeing Phoebus Apollo bereaveth me of Chryseis, her with my ship\nand my company will I send back; and mine own self will I go to thy hut\nand take Briseis of the fair cheeks, even that thy meed of honour, that\nthou mayest well know how far greater I am than thou, and so shall\nanother hereafter abhor to match his words with mine and rival me to my\nface.\"\n\nSo said he, and grief came upon Peleus' son, and his heart within his\nshaggy breast was divided in counsel, whether to draw his keen blade\nfrom his thigh and set the company aside and so slay Atreides, or to\nassuage his anger and curb his soul. While yet he doubted thereof in\nheart and soul, and was drawing his great sword from his sheath, Athene\ncame to him from heaven, sent forth of the white-armed goddess Hera,\nwhose heart loved both alike and had care for them. She stood behind\nPeleus' son and caught him by his golden hair, to him only visible, and\nof the rest no man beheld her. Then Achilles marvelled, and turned him\nabout, and straightway knew Pallas Athene; and terribly shone her eyes.\nHe spake to her winged words, and said: \"Why now art thou come hither,\nthou daughter of aegis-bearing Zeus? Is it to behold the insolence of\nAgamemnon, son of Atreus. Yea, I will tell thee that I deem shall even\nbe brought to pass: by his own haughtinesses shall he soon lose his\nlife.\"\n\nThen the bright-eyed goddess Athene spake to him again: \"I came from\nheaven to stay thine anger, if perchance thou wilt hearken to me, being\nsent forth if the white-armed goddess Hera, that loveth you twain alike\nand careth for you. Go to now, cease from strife, and let not thine hand\ndraw the sword; yet with words indeed revile him, even as it shall come\nto pass. For thus will I say to thee, and so it shall be fulfilled;\nhereafter shall goodly gifts come to thee, yea in threefold measure, by\nreason of this despite; hold thou thine hand, and hearken to us.\"\n\nAnd Achilles fleet of foot made answer and said to her: \"Goddess, needs\nmust a man observe the saying of you twain, even though he be very wroth\nat heart; for so is the better way. Whosoever obeyeth the gods, to him\nthey gladly hearken.\"\n\nHe said, and stayed his heavy hand on the silver hilt, and thrust the\ngreat Sword back into the sheath, and was not disobedient to the saying\nof Athene; and she forthwith was departed to Olympus, to the other gods\nin the palace of aegis-bearing Zeus.\n\nThen Peleus' son spake again with bitter words to Atreus' son, and in no\nwise ceased from anger: \"Thou heavy with wine, thou with face of dog and\nheart of deer, never didst thou take courage to arm for battle among thy\nfolk or to lay ambush with the princes of the Achaians; that to thee\nwere even as death. Far better booteth it, for sooth, to seize for\nthyself the meed of honour of every man through the wide host of the\nAchaians that speaketh contrary to thee. Folk-devouring king! seeing\nthou rulest men of naught; else were this despite, thou son of Atreus,\nthy last. But I will speak my word to thee, and swear a mighty oath\ntherewith: verily by this staff that shall no more put forth leaf or\ntwig, seeing it hath for ever left its trunk among the hills, neither\nshall it grow green again, because the axe hath stripped it of leaves\nand bark; and now the sons of the Achaians that exercise judgment bear\nit in their hands, even they that by Zeus' command watch over the\ntraditions--so shall this be a mighty oath in thine eyes--verily shall\nlonging for Achilles come hereafter upon the sons of the Achaians one\nand all; and then wilt thou in no wise avail to save them, for all thy\ngrief, when multitudes fall dying before manslaying Hector. Then shalt\nthou tear thy heart within thee for anger that thou didst in no wise\nhonour the best of the Achaians.\"\n\nSo said Peleides and dashed to earth the staff studded with golden\nnails, and himself sat down; and over against him Atreides waxed\nfurious. Then in their midst rose up Nestor, pleasant of speech, the\nclear-voiced orator of the Pylians, he from whose tongue flowed\ndiscourse sweeter than honey. Two generations of mortal men already had\nhe seen perish, that had been of old time born and nurtured with him in\ngoodly Pylos, and he was king among the third. He of good intent made\nharangue to them and said: \"Alas, of a truth sore lamentation cometh\nupon the land of Achaia. Verily Priam would be glad and Priam's sons,\nand all the Trojans would have great joy of heart, were they to hear all\nthis tale of strife between you twain that are chiefest of the Danaans\nin counsel and chiefest in battle. Nay, hearken to me; ye are younger\nboth than I. Of old days held I converse with better men even than you,\nand never did they make light of me. Yea, I never beheld such warriors,\nnor shall behold, as were Peirithoos and Dryas shepherd of the host and\nKaineus and Exadios and godlike Polyphemos [and Theseus son of Aigeus,\nlike to the Immortals]. Mightiest of growth were they of all men upon\nthe earth; mightiest they were and with the mightiest fought they, even\nthe wild tribes of the Mountain caves, and destroyed them utterly. And\nwith these held I converse, being come from Pylos, from a distant land\nafar; for of themselves they summoned me. So I played my part in fight;\nand with them could none of men that are now on earth do battle. And\nthey laid to heart my counsels and hearkened to my voice. Even so\nhearken ye also, for better is it to hearken. Neither do thou, though\nthou art very great, seize from him his damsel, but leave her as she was\ngiven at the first by the sons of the Achaians to be a meed of honour;\nnor do thou, son of Peleus, think to strive with a king, might against\nmight; seeing that no common honour pertaineth to a sceptred king to\nwhom Zeus apportioneth glory. Though thou be strong, and a goddess\nmother bare thee, yet his is the greater place, for he is king over\nmore. And thou, Atreides, abate thy fury; nay, it is even I that beseech\nthee to let go thine anger with Achilles, who is made unto all the\nAchaians a mighty bulwark of evil war.\"\n\nThen lord Agamemnon answered and said: \"Yea verily, old man, all this\nthou sayest is according unto right. But this fellow would be above all\nothers, he would be lord of all and king among all and captain to all;\nwherein I deem none will hearken to him. Though the immortal gods made\nhim a spearman, do they therefore put revilings in his mouth for him to\nutter?\"\n\nThen goodly Achilles brake in on him and answered: \"Yea, for I should be\ncalled coward and man of naught, if I yield to thee in every matter,\nhowsoe'er thou bid. To others give now thine orders, not to me [play\nmaster; for thee I deem that I shall no more obey]. This, moreover, will\nI say to thee, and do thou lay it to thy heart. Know that not by\nviolence will I strive for the damsel's sake, neither with thee nor any\nother; ye gave and ye have taken away. But of all else that is mine\nbeside my fleet black ship, thereof shalt thou not take anything or bear\nit away against my will. Yea, go to now, make trial, that all these may\nsee; forthwith thy dark blood shall gush about my spear.\"\n\nNow when the twain had thus finished the battle of violent words, they\nstood up and dissolved the assembly beside the Achaian ships. Peleides\nwent his way to his huts and trim ships with Menoitios' son [Patroklos]\nand his company; and Atreides launched a fleet ship on the sea, and\npicked twenty oarsmen therefor, and embarked the hecatomb for the god,\nand brought Chryseis of the fair cheeks and set her therein; and\nOdysseus of many devices went to be their captain.\n\nSo these embarked and sailed over the wet ways; and Atreides bade the\nfolk purify themselves. So they purified themselves, and cast the\ndefilements into the sea and did sacrifice to Apollo, even unblemished\nhecatombs of bulls and goats, along the shore of the unvintaged sea; and\nthe sweet savour arose to heaven eddying amid the smoke.\n\nThus were they busied throughout the host; but Agamemnon ceased not from\nthe strife wherewith he threatened Achilles at the first; he spake to\nTalthybios and Eurybates that were his heralds and nimble squires: \"Go\nye to the tent of Achilles Peleus' son, and take Briseis of the fair\ncheeks by the hand and lead her hither; and if he give her not, then\nwill I myself go, and more with me, and seize her; and that will be yet\nmore grievous for him.\"\n\nSo saying he sent them forth, and laid stern charge upon them.\nUnwillingly went they along the beach of the unvintaged sea, and came to\nthe huts and ships of the Myrmidons. Him found they sitting beside his\nhut and black ship; nor when he saw them was Achilles glad. So they in\ndread and reverence of the king stood, and spake to him no word, nor\nquestioned him. But he knew in his heart, and spake to them: \"All hail,\nye heralds, messengers of Zeus and men, come near; ye are not guilty in\nmy sight, but Agamemnon that sent you for the sake of the damsel\nBriseis. Go now, heaven-sprung Patroklos, bring forth the damsel, and\ngive them her to lead away. Moreover, let the twain themselves be my\nwitnesses before the face of the blessed gods and mortal men, yea and of\nhim, that king untoward, against the day when there cometh need of me\nhereafter to save them all from shameful wreck. Of a truth he raveth\nwith baleful mind, and hath not knowledge to look before and after, that\nso his Achaians might battle in safety beside their ships.\"\n\nSo said he, and Patroklos hearkened to his dear comrade, and led forth\nfrom the hut Briseis of the fair cheeks, and gave them her to lead away.\nSo these twain took their way back along the Achaians' ships, and with\nthem went the woman all unwilling. Then Achilles wept anon, and sat him\ndown apart, aloof from his comrades on the beach of the grey sea, gazing\nacross the boundless main; he stretched forth his hands and prayed\ninstantly to his dear mother: \"Mother, seeing thou didst of a truth bear\nme to so brief span of life, honour at the least ought the Olympian to\nhave granted me, even Zeus that thundereth on high; but now doth he not\nhonour me, no, not one whit. Verily Atreus' son, wide-ruling Agamemnon,\nhath done me dishonour; for he hath taken away my meed of honour and\nkeepeth her of his own violent deed.\"\n\nSo spake he weeping, and his lady mother heard him as she sate in the\nsea-depths beside her aged sire. With speed arose she from the grey sea,\nlike a mist, and sate her before the face of her weeping son, and\nstroked him with her hand, and spake and called on his name: \"My child,\nwhy weepest thou? What sorrow hath entered into they heart? Speak it\nforth, hide it not in thy mind, that both may know it.\"\n\nThen with heavy moan Achilles fleet of foot spake to her: \"Thou knowest\nit; why should I tell this to thee that knowest all! We had fared to\nThebe, the holy city of Eetion, and laid it waste and carried hither all\nthe spoils. So the sons of the Achaians divided among them all aright;\nand for Atreides they set apart Chryseis of the fair cheeks. But\nChryses, priest of Apollo the Far-darter, came unto the fleet ships of\nthe mail-clad Achaians to win his daughter's freedom, and brought a\nransom beyond telling, and bare in his hands the fillet of Apollo the\nFar-darter upon a golden staff, and made his prayer unto all the\nAchaians, and most of all to the two sons of Atreus, orderers of the\nhost. Then all the other Achaians cried assent, to reverence the priest\nand accept his goodly ransom; yet the thing pleased not the heart of\nAgamemnon son of Atreus, but he roughly sent him away and laid stern\ncharge upon him. So the old man went back in anger; and Apollo heard his\nprayers, seeing he loved him greatly, and he aimed against the Argives\nhis deadly darts. So the people began to perish in multitudes, and the\ngod's shafts ranged everywhither throughout the wide host of the\nAchaians. Then of full knowledge the seer declared to us the oracle of\nthe Far-darter. Forthwith I first bade propitiate the god; but wrath gat\nhold upon Atreus' son thereat, and anon he stood up and spake a\nthreatening word, that hath now been accomplished. Her the glancing-eyed\nAchaians are bringing on their fleet ship to Chryse, and bear with\nthem offerings to the king; and the other but now the heralds went and\ntook from my hut, even the daughter of Briseus, whom the sons of the\nAchaians gave me. Thou therefore, if indeed thou canst, guard thine own\nson; betake thee to Olympus and beseech Zeus by any word whereby thou\never didst make glad his heart. For oft have I heard thee proclaiming in\nmy father's halls and telling that thou alone amid the immortals didst\nsave the son of Kronos, lord of the storm-cloud, from shameful wreck,\nwhen all the other Olympians would have bound him, even Hera and\nPoseidon and Pallas Athene. Then didst thou, O goddess, enter in and\nloose him from his bonds, having with speed summoned to high Olympus him\nof the hundred arms whom gods call Briareus, but all men call Aigaion;\nfor he is mightier even than his father--so he sate him by Kronion's\nside rejoicing in his triumph, and the blessed gods feared him withal\nand bound not Zeus. This bring thou to his remembrance and sit by him\nand clasp his knees, if perchance he will give succour to the Trojans;\nand for the Achaians, hem them among their ships' sterns about the bay,\ngiven over to slaughter; that they may make trial of their king, and\nthat even Atreides, wide-ruling Agamemnon, may perceive his blindness,\nin that he honoured not at all the best of the Achaians.\"\n\nThen Thetis weeping made answer to him: \"Ah me, my child, why reared I\nthee, cursed in my motherhood? Would thou hadst been left tearless and\ngriefless amid the ships, seeing thy lot is very brief and endureth no\nlong while; but now art thou made short-lived alike and lamentable\nbeyond all men; in an evil hour I bare thee in our halls. But I will go\nmyself to snow-clad Olympus to tell this thy saying to Zeus, whose joy\nis in the thunder, [perhaps rather, \"hurler of the thunderbolt.\"] if\nperchance he may hearken to me. But tarry thou now amid thy fleet-faring\nships, and continue wroth with the Achaians, and refrain utterly from\nbattle: for Zeus went yesterday to Okeanos, unto the noble Ethiopians\nfor a feast, and all the gods followed with him; but on the twelfth day\nwill he return to Olympus, and then will I fare to Zeus' palace of the\nbronze threshold, and will kneel to him and think to win him.\"\n\nSo saying she went her way and left him there, vexed in spirit for the\nfair-girdled woman's sake, whom they had taken perforce despite his\nwill: and meanwhile Odysseus came to Chryse with the holy hecatomb. When\nthey were now entered within the deep haven, they furled their sails and\nlaid them in the black ship, and lowered the mast by the forestays and\nbrought it to the crutch with speed, and rowed her with oars to the\nanchorage. Then they cast out the mooring stones and made fast the\nhawsers, and so themselves went forth on to the sea-beach, and forth\nthey brought the hecatomb for the Far-darter Apollo, and forth came\nChryseis withal from the seafaring ship. Then Odysseus of many counsels\nbrought her to the altar and gave her into her father's arms, and spake\nunto him: \"Chryses, Agamemnon king of men sent me hither to bring thee\nthy daughter, and to offer to Phoebus a holy hecatomb on the Danaans'\nbehalf, wherewith to propitiate the king that hath now brought sorrow\nand lamentation on the Argives.\"\n\nSo saying he gave her to his arms, and he gladly took his dear child;\nand anon they set in order for the god the holy hecatomb about his\nwell-builded altar; next washed they their hands and took up the barley\nmeal. Then Chryses lifted up his hands and prayed aloud for them:\n\"Hearken to me, god of the silver bow that standest over Chryse and holy\nKilla, and rulest Tenedos with might; even as erst thou heardest my\nprayer, and didst me honour, and mightily afflictest the people of the\nAchaians, even so now fulfil me this my desire: remove thou from the\nDanaans forthwith the loathly pestilence.\"\n\nSo spake he in prayer, and Phoebus Apollo heard him. Now when they had\nprayed and sprinkled the barley meal, first they drew back the victims'\nheads and slaughtered them and flayed them, and cut slices from the\nthighs and wrapped them in fat, making a double fold, and laid raw\ncollops thereon, and the old man burnt them on cleft wood and made\nlibation over them of gleaming wine; and at his side the young men in\ntheir hands held five-pronged forks. Now when the thighs were burnt and\nthey had tasted the vitals, then sliced they all the rest and pierced it\nthrough with spits, and roasted it carefully, and drew all off again. So\nwhen they had rest from the task and had made ready the banquet, they\nfeasted, nor was their heart aught stinted of the fair banquet. But when\nthey had put away from them the desire of meat and drink, the young men\ncrowned the bowls with wine, and gave each man his portion after the\ndrink-offering had been poured into the cups. So all day long worshipped\nthey the god with music, singing the beautiful paean, the sons of the\nAchaians making music to the Far-darter [or, \"the Averter\" (of\npestilence)]; and his heart was glad to hear. And when the sun went down\nand darkness came on them, they laid them to sleep beside the ship's\nhawsers; and when rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, the child of morning,\nthen set they sail for the wide camp of the Achaians; and Apollo the\nFar-darter sent them a favouring gale. They set up their mast and spread\nthe white sails forth, and the wind filled the sail's belly and the dark\nwave sang loud about the stem as the ship made way, and she sped across\nthe wave, accomplishing her journey. So when they were now come to the\nwide camp of the Achaians, they drew up their black ship to land high\nupon the sands, and set in line the long props beneath her; and\nthemselves were scattered amid their huts and ships.\n\nBut he sat by his swift-faring ships, still wroth, even the heaven-sprung\nson of Peleus, Achilles fleet of foot; he betook him neither to the\nassembly that is the hero's glory, neither to war, but consumed his\nheart in tarrying in his place, and yearned for the war-cry and for\nbattle.\n\nNow when the twelfth morn thereafter was come, then the gods that are\nfor ever fared to Olympus all in company, led of Zeus. And Thetis forgat\nnot her son's charge, but rose up from the sea-wave, and at early morn\nmounted up to great heaven and Olympus. There found she Kronos' son of\nthe far-sounding voice sitting apart from all on the topmost peak of\nmany-ridged Olympus. So she sat before his face and with her left hand\nclasped his knees, and with her right touched him beneath his chin, and\nspake in prayer to king Zeus son of Kronos: \"Father Zeus, if ever I gave\nthee aid amid the immortal gods, whether by word or deed, fulfil thou\nthis my desire: do honour to my son, that is doomed to earliest death of\nall men: now hath Agamemnon king of men done him dishonour, for he hath\ntaken away his meed of honour and keepeth her of his own violent deed.\nBut honour thou him, Zeus of Olympus, lord of counsel; grant thou\nvictory to the Trojans the while until the Achaians do my son honour and\nexalt him with recompense.\"\n\nSo spake she; but Zeus the cloud-gatherer said no word to her, and sat\nlong time in silence. But even as Thetis had clasped his knees, so held\nshe by him clinging, and questioned him yet a second time: \"Promise me\nnow this thing verily, and bow thy head thereto; or else deny me, seeing\nthere is naught for thee to fear; that I may know full well how I among\nall gods am least in honour.\"\n\nThen Zeus the cloud-gatherer, sore troubled, spake to her: \"Verily it is\na sorry matter, if thou wilt set me at variance with Hera, whene'er she\nprovoketh me with taunting words. Even now she upbraideth me ever amid\nthe immortal gods, and saith that I aid the Trojans in battle. But do\nthou now depart again, lest Hera mark aught; and I will take thought for\nthese things to fulfil them. Come now, I will bow my head to thee, that\nthou mayest be of good courage; for that, of my part, is the surest\ntoken amid the immortals; no word of mine is revocable nor false nor\nunfulfilled when the bowing of my head hath pledged it.\"\n\nKronion spake, and bowed his dark brow, and the ambrosial locks waved\nfrom the king's immortal head; and he made great Olympus quake.\n\nThus the twain took counsel and parted; she leapt therewith into the\ndeep sea from glittering Olympus, and Zeus fared to his own palace. All\nthe gods in company arose from their seats before their father's face;\nneither ventured any to await his coming, but stood up all before him.\nSo he sate him there upon his throne; but Hera saw, and was not ignorant\nhow that the daughter of the Ancient of the sea, Thetis the\nsilver-footed, had devised counsel with him. Anon with taunting words\nspake she to Zeus the son of Kronos: \"Now who among the gods, thou\ncrafty of mind, hath devised counsel with thee? It is ever thy good\npleasure to hold aloof from me and in secret meditation to give thy\njudgments, nor of thine own good will hast thou ever brought thyself to\ndeclare unto me the thing thou purposest.\"\n\nThen the father of gods and men made answer her: \"Hera, think not thou\nto know all my sayings; hard they are for thee, even though thou art my\nwife. But whichsoever it is seemly for thee to hear, none sooner than\nthou shall know, be he god or man. Only when I will to take thought\naloof from the gods, then do not thou ask of every matter nor make\nquestion.\"\n\nThen Hera the ox-eyed queen made answer to him. \"Most dread son of\nKronos, what word is this thou hast spoken? Yea, surely of old I have\nnot asked thee nor made question, but in my heart sore afraid lest thou\nhave been won over by silver-footed Thetis, daughter of the Ancient of\nthe sea, for she at early morn sat by thee and clasped thy knees. To her\nI deem thou gavest a sure pledge that thou wilt do honour to Achilles,\nand lay many low beside the Achaians' ships.\"\n\nTo her made answer Zeus the cloud-gatherer: \"Lady, Good lack! ever art\nthou imagining, nor can I escape thee; yet shalt thou in no wise have\npower to fulfil, but wilt be the further from my heart; that shall be\neven the worse for thee. And if it be so, then such must my good\npleasure be. Abide thou in silence and hearken to my bidding, lest all\nthe gods that are in Olympus keep not off from thee my visitation, when\nI put forth my hands unapproachable against thee.\"\n\nHe said, and Hera the ox-eyed queen was afraid, and sat in silence,\ncurbing her heart; but throughout Zeus' palace the gods of heaven were\ntroubled. Then Hephaistos the famed craftsman began to make harangue\namong them, to do kindness to his mother, white-armed Hera: \"Verily this\nwill be a sorry matter, neither any more endurable, if ye twain thus\nfight for mortals' sakes, and bring wrangling among the gods; neither\nwill there any more be joy of the goodly feast, seeing that evil\ntriumpheth. So I give counsel to my mother, though herself is wise, to\ndo kindness to our dear father Zeus, that our father upbraid us not\nagain and cast the banquet in confusion. What if the Olympian, the lord\nof the lightning, will to dash us from our seats! for he is strongest\nfar. Nay, approach thou him with gentle words, then will the Olympian\nforthwith be gracious unto us.\"\n\nSo speaking he rose up and sat in his dear mother's hand the twy-handled\ncup, and spake to her: \"Be of good courage, mother mine, and endure,\nthough thou art vexed, lest I behold thee, thou art so dear, chastised\nbefore mine eyes, and then shall I not be able for all my sorrow to save\nthee; for the Olympian is a hard foe to face. Yea, once ere this, when I\nwas fain to save thee, he caught me by my foot and hurled me from the\nheavenly threshold; all day I flew, and at the set of sun I fell in\nLemnos, and little life was in me. There did the Sintian folk forthwith\ntend me for my fall.\"\n\nHe spake, and the white-armed goddess Hera smiled, and smiling took the\ncup at her son's hand. Then he poured wine to all the other gods from\nright to left, ladling the sweet nectar from the bowl. And laughter\nunquenchable arose amid the blessed gods to see Hephaistos bustling\nthrough the palace.\n\nSo feasted they all day till the setting of the sun; nor was their soul\naught stinted of the fair banquet, nor of the beauteous lyre that Apollo\nheld, and the Muses singing alternately with sweet voice.\n\nNow when the bright light of the sun was set, these went each to his own\nhouse to sleep, where each one had his palace made with cunning device\nby famed Hephaistos the lame god; and Zeus the Olympian, the lord of\nlightning, departed to his couch where he was wont of old to take his\nrest, whenever sweet sleep visited him. There went he up and slept, and\nbeside him was Hera of the golden throne.\n\n\n\nBOOK II.\n\n    How Zeus beguiled Agamemnon by a dream; and of the assembly\n    of the Achaians and their marching forth to battle. And of\n    the names and numbers of the hosts of the Achaians and the\n    Trojans.\n\nNow all other gods and chariot-driving men slept all night long, only\nZeus was not holden of sweet sleep; rather was he pondering in his heart\nhow he should do honour to Achilles and destroy many beside the\nAchaians' ships. And this design seemed to his mind the best, to wit, to\nsend a baneful dream upon Agamemnon son of Atreus. So he spake, and\nuttered to him winged words: \"Come now, thou baneful Dream, go to the\nAchaians' fleet ships, enter into the hut of Agamemnon son of Atreus,\nand tell him every word plainly as I charge thee. Bid him call to arms\nthe flowing-haired Achaians with all speed, for that now he may take the\nwide-wayed city of the Trojans. For the immortals that dwell in the\nhalls of Olympus are no longer divided in counsel, since Hera hath\nturned the minds of all by her beseeching, and over the Trojans sorrows\nhang.\"\n\nSo spake he, and the Dream went his way when he had heard the charge.\nWith speed he came to the Achaians' fleet ships, and went to Agamemnon\nson of Atreus, and found him sleeping in his hut, and ambrosial slumber\npoured over him. So he stood over his head in seeming like unto the son\nof Neleus, even Nestor, whom most of all the elders Agamemnon honoured;\nin his likeness spake to him the heavenly Dream:\n\n\"Sleepest thou, son of wise Atreus tamer of horses? To sleep all night\nthrough beseemeth not one that is a counsellor, to whom peoples are\nentrusted and so many cares belong. But now hearken straightway to me,\nfor I am a messenger to thee from Zeus, who though he be afar yet hath\ngreat care for thee and pity. He biddeth thee call to arms the\nflowing-haired Achaians with all speed, for that now thou mayest take\nthe wide-wayed city of the Trojans. For the immortals that dwell in the\nhalls of Olympus are no longer divided in counsel, since Hera hath\nturned the minds of all by her beseeching, and over the Trojans sorrows\nhang by the will of Zeus. But do thou keep this in thy heart, not let\nforgetfulness come upon thee when honeyed sleep shall leave thee.\"\n\nSo spake the Dream, and departed and left him there, deeming in his mind\nthings that were not to be fulfilled. For indeed he thought to take\nPriam's city that very day; fond man, in that he knew not the plans that\nZeus had in mind, who was willed to bring yet more grief and wailing on\nTrojans alike and Danaans throughout the course of stubborn fights. Then\nwoke he from sleep, and the heavenly voice was in his ears. So he rose\nup sitting, and donned his soft tunic, fair and bright, and cast around\nhim his great cloak, and beneath his glistering feet he bound his fair\nsandals, and over his shoulders cast his silver-studded sword, and\ngrasped his sires' sceptre, imperishable for ever, wherewith he took his\nway amid the mail-clad Achaians' ships.\n\nNow went the goddess Dawn to high Olympus, foretelling daylight to Zeus\nand all the immortals; and the king bade the clear-voiced heralds summon\nto the assembly the flowing-haired Achaians. So did those summon, and\nthese gathered with speed.\n\nBut first the council of the great-hearted elders met beside the ship of\nking Nestor the Pylos-born. And he that had assembled them framed his\ncunning counsel: \"Hearken, my friends. A dream from heaven came to me in\nmy sleep through the ambrosial night, and chiefly to goodly Nestor was\nvery like in shape and bulk and stature. And it stood over my head and\ncharged me saying: 'Sleepest thou, son of wise Atreus tamer of horses?\nTo sleep all night through beseemeth not one that is a counsellor, to\nwhom peoples are entrusted and so many cares belong. But now hearken\nstraightway to me, for I am a messenger to thee from Zeus, who though he\nbe afar yet hath great care for thee and pity. He biddeth thee call to\narms the flowing-haired Achaians with all speed, for that now thou\nmayest take the wide-wayed city of the Trojans. For the immortals that\ndwell in the palaces of Olympus are no longer divided in counsel, since\nHera hath turned the minds of all by her beseeching, and over the\nTrojans sorrows hang by the will of Zeus. But do thou keep this in thy\nheart.' So spake the dream and was flown away, and sweet sleep left me.\nSo come, let us now call to arms as we may the sons of the Achaians. But\nfirst I will speak to make trial of them as is fitting, and bid them\nflee with their benched ships; only do ye from this side and from that\nspeak to hold them back.\"\n\nSo spake he and sate him down; and there stood up among them Nestor, who\nwas king of sandy Pylos. He of good intent made harangue to them and\nsaid: \"My friends, captains and rulers of the Argives, had any other of\nthe Achaians told us this dream we might deem it a false thing, and\nrather turn away therefrom; but now he hath seen it who of all Achaians\navoweth himself far greatest. So come, let us call to arms as we may the\nsons of the Achaians.\"\n\nSo spake he, and led the way forth from the council, and all the other\nsceptred chiefs rose with him and obeyed the shepherd of the host; and\nthe people hastened to them. Even as when the tribes of thronging bees\nissue from the hollow rock, ever in fresh procession, and fly clustering\namong the flowers of spring, and some on this hand and some on that fly\nthick; even so from ships and huts before the low beach marched forth\ntheir many tribes by companies to the place of assembly. And in their\nmidst blazed forth Rumour, messenger of Zeus, urging them to go; and so\nthey gathered. And the place of assemblage was in an uproar, and the\nearth echoed again as the hosts sate them down, and there was turmoil.\nNine heralds restrained them with shouting, if perchance they might\nrefrain from clamour, and hearken to their kings, the fosterlings of\nZeus. And hardly at the last would the people sit, and keep them to\ntheir benches and cease from noise. Then stood up lord Agamemnon bearing\nhis sceptre, that Hephaistos had wrought curiously. Hephaistos gave it\nto king Zeus son of Kronos, and then Zeus gave it to the messenger-god\nthe slayer of Argus [Or, possibly, \"the swift-appearing\"]; and king\nHermes gave it to Pelops the charioteer, and Pelops again gave it to\nAtreus shepherd of the host. And Atreus dying left it to Thyestes rich\nin flocks, and Thyestes in his turn left it to Agamemnon to bear, that\nover many islands and all Argos he should be lord. Thereon he leaned and\nspake his saying to the Argives:\n\n\"My friends, Danaan warriors, men of Ares' company, Zeus Kronos' son\nhath bound me with might in grievous blindness of soul; hard of heart is\nhe, for that erewhile he promised me and pledged his nod that not till I\nhad wasted well-walled Ilios should I return; but now see I that he\nplanned a cruel wile and biddeth me return to Argos dishonoured, with\nthe loss of many of my folk. So meseems it pleaseth most mighty Zeus,\nwho hath laid low the head of many a city, yea, and shall lay low; for\nhis is highest power. Shame is this even for them that come after to\nhear; how so goodly and great a folk of the Achaians thus vainly warred\na bootless war, and fought scantier enemies, and no end thereof is yet\nseen. For if perchance we were minded, both Achaians and Trojans, to\nswear a solemn truce, and to number ourselves, and if the Trojans should\ngather together all that have their dwellings in the city, and we\nAchaians should marshal ourselves by tens, and every company choose a\nTrojan to pour their wine, then would many tens lack a cup-bearer: so\nmuch, I say, do the sons of the Achaians outnumber the Trojans that\ndwell within the city. But allies from many cities, even warriors that\nwield the spear, are therein, and they hinder me perforce, and for all\nmy will suffer me not to waste the populous citadel of Ilios. Already\nhave nine years of great Zeus passed away, and our ships' timbers have\nrotted and the tackling is loosed; while there our wives and little\nchildren sit in our halls awaiting us; yet is our task utterly\nunaccomplished wherefor we came hither. So come, even as I bid let us\nall obey. Let us flee with our ships to our dear native land; for now\nshall we never take wide-wayed Troy.\"\n\nSo spake he, and stirred the spirit in the breasts of all throughout the\nmultitude, as many as had not heard the council. And the assembly swayed\nlike high sea-waves of the Icarian Main that east wind and south wind\nraise, rushing upon them from the clouds of father Zeus; and even as\nwhen the west wind cometh to stir a deep cornfield with violent blast,\nand the ears bow down, so was all the assembly stirred, and they with\nshouting hasted toward the ships; and the dust from beneath their feet\nrose and stood on high. And they bade each man his neighbor to seize the\nships and drag them into the bright salt sea, and cleared out the\nlaunching-ways, and the noise went up to heaven of their hurrying\nhomewards; and they began to take the props from beneath the ships.\n\nThen would the Argives have accomplished their return against the will\nof fate, but that Hera spake a word to Athene: \"Out on it, daughter of\naegis-bearing Zeus, unwearied maiden! Shall the Argives thus indeed flee\nhomeward to their dear native land over the sea's broad back? But they\nwould leave to Priam and the Trojans their boast, even Helen of Argos,\nfor whose sake many an Achaian hath perished in Troy, far away from his\ndear native land. But go thou now amid the host of the mail-clad\nAchaians; with thy gentle words refrain thou every man, neither suffer\nthem to draw their curved ships down to the salt sea.\"\n\nSo spake she, and the bright-eyed goddess Athene disregarded not; but\nwent darting down from the peaks of Olympus, and came with speed to the\nfleet ships of the Achaians. There found she Odysseus standing, peer of\nZeus in counsel, neither laid he any hand upon his decked black ship,\nbecause grief had entered into his heart and soul. And bright-eyed\nAthene stood by him and said: \"Heaven-sprung son of Laertes, Odysseus of\nmany devices, will ye indeed fling yourselves upon your benched ships to\nflee homeward to your dear native land? But ye would leave to Priam and\nthe Trojans their boast, even Helen of Argos, for whose sake many an\nAchaian hath perished in Troy, far from his dear native land. But go\nthou now amid the host of the Achaians, and tarry not; and with gentle\nwords refrain every man, neither suffer them to draw their curved ships\ndown to the salt sea.\"\n\nSo said she, and he knew the voice of the goddess speaking to him, and\nset him to run, and cast away his mantle, the which his herald gathered\nup, even Eurybated of Ithaca, that waited on him. And himself he went to\nmeet Agamemnon son of Atreus, and at his hand received the sceptre of\nhis sires, imperishable for ever, wherewith he took his way amid the\nships of the mail-clad Achaians.\n\nWhenever he found one that was a captain and a man of mark, he stood by\nhis side, and refrained him with gentle words: \"Good sir, it is not\nseemly to affright thee like a coward, but do thou sit thyself and make\nall thy folk sit down. For thou knowest not yet clearly what is the\npurpose of Atreus' son; now is he but making trial, and soon he will\nafflict the sons of the Achaians. And heard we not all of us what he\nspake in the council? Beware lest in his anger he evilly entreat the\nsons of the Achaians. For proud is the soul of heaven-fostered kings;\nbecause their honour is of Zeus, and the god of counsel loveth them.\"\n\nBut whatever man of the people he saw and found him shouting, him he\ndrave with his sceptre and chode him with loud words: \"Good sir, sit\nstill and hearken to the words of others that are thy betters; but thou\nart no warrior, and a weakling, never reckoned whether in battle or in\ncouncil. In no wise can we Achaians all be kings here. A multitude of\nmasters is no good thing; let there be one master, one king, to whom the\nson of crooked-counselling Kronos hath granted it, [even the sceptre and\njudgments, that he may rule among you\"].\n\nSo masterfully ranged he the host; and they hasted back to the assembly\nfrom ships and huts, with noise as when a wave of loud-sounding sea\nroareth on the long beach and the main resoundeth.\n\nNow all the rest sat down and kept their place upon the benches, only\nThersites still chattered on, the uncontrolled speech, whose mind was\nfull of words many and disorderly, wherewith to strive against the\nchiefs idly and in no good order, but even as he deemed that he should\nmake the Argives laugh. And he was ill-favored beyond all men that came\nto Ilios. Bandy-legged was he, and lame of one foot, and his two\nshoulders rounded, arched down upon his chest; and over them his head\nwas warped, and a scanty stubble sprouted on it. Hateful was he to\nAchilles above all and to Odysseus, for them he was wont to revile. But\nnow with shrill shout he poured forth his upbraidings upon goodly\nAgamemnon. With him the Achaians were sore vexed and had indignation in\ntheir souls. But he with loud shout spake and reviled Agamemnon:\n\"Atreides, for what art thou now ill content and lacking? Surely thy\nhuts are full of bronze and many women are in they huts, the chosen\nspoils that we Achaians give thee first of all, whene'er we take a town.\nCan it be that thou yet wantest gold as well, such as some one of the\nhorse-taming Trojans may bring from Ilios to ransom his son, whom I\nperchance or some other Achaian have led captive; or else some young\ngirl, to know in love, whom thou mayest keep apart to thyself? But it is\nnot seemly for one that is their captain to bring the sons of the\nAchaians to ill. Soft fools, base things of shame, ye women of Achaia\nand men no more, let us depart home with our ships, and leave this\nfellow here in Troy-land to gorge him with meeds of honour, that he may\nsee whether our aid avail him aught or no; even he that hath now done\ndishonour to Achilles, a far better man than he; for he hath taken away\nhis meed of honour and keepeth it by his own violent deed. Of a very\nsurety is there no wrath at all in Achilles' mind, but he is slack; else\nthis despite, thou son of Atreus, were thy last.\"\n\nSo spake Thersites, reviling Agamemnon shepherd of the host. But goodly\nOdysseus came straight to his side, and looking sternly at him with hard\nwords rebuked him: \"Thersites, reckless in words, shrill orator though\nthou art, refrain thyself, nor aim to strive singly against kings. For I\ndeem that no mortal is baser than thou of all that with the sons of\nAtreus came before Ilios. Therefore were it well that thou shouldest not\nhave kings in thy mouth as thou talkest, and utter revilings against\nthem and be on the watch for departure. We know not yet clearly how\nthese things shall be, whether we sons of the Achaians shall return for\ngood or ill. Therefore now dost thou revile continually Agamemnon son of\nAtreus, shepherd of the host, because the Danaan warriors give him many\ngifts, and so thou talkest tauntingly. But I will tell thee plain, and\nthat I say shall even be brought to pass: if I find thee again raving as\nnow thou art, then may Odysseus' head no longer abide upon his\nshoulders, nor may I any more be called father of Telemachos, if I take\nthee not and strip from thee thy garments, thy mantle and tunic that\ncover thy nakedness, and for thyself send thee weeping to the fleet\nships, and beat thee out of the assembly with shameful blows.\"\n\nSo spake he, and with his staff smote his back and shoulders: and he\nbowed down and a big tear fell from him, and a bloody weal stood up from\nhis back beneath the golden sceptre. Then he sat down and was amazed,\nand in pain with helpless look wiped away the tear. But the rest, though\nthey were sotty, laughed lightly at him, and thus would one speak\nlooking at another standing by: \"Go to, of a truth Odysseus hath wrought\ngood deeds without number ere now, standing foremost in wise counsels\nand setting battle in array, but now is this thing the best by far that\nhe hath wrought among the Argives, to wit, that he hath stayed this\nprating railer from his harangues. Never again, forsooth, will his proud\nsoul henceforth bid him revile the kings with slanderous words.\"\n\nSo said the common sort; but up rose Odysseus waster of cities, with\nsceptre in his hand. And by his side bright-eyed Athene in the likeness\nof a herald bade the multitude keep silence, that the sons of the\nAchaians, both the nearest and the farthest, might hear his words\ntogether and give heed to his counsel. He of good intent made harangue\nto them and said: \"Atreides, now surely are the Achaians for making\nthee, O king, most despised among all mortal men, nor will they fulfil\nthe promise that they pledged thee when they still were marching hither\nfrom horse-pasturing Argos; that thou shouldest not return till thou\nhadst laid well-walled Ilios waste. For like young children or widow\nwomen do they wail each to the other of returning home. Yea, here is\ntoil to make a man depart disheartened. For he that stayeth away but one\nsingle month far from his wife in his benched ship fretteth himself when\nwinter storms and the furious sea imprison him; but for us, the ninth\nyear of our stay here is upon us in its course. Therefore do I not\nmarvel that the Achaians should fret beside their beaked ships; yet\nnevertheless is it shameful to wait long and to depart empty. Be of good\nheart, my friends, and wait a while, until we learn whether Kalchas be a\ntrue prophet or no. For this thing verily we know well in our hearts,\nand ye all are witnesses thereof, even as many as the fates of death\nhave not borne away. It was as it were but yesterday or the day before\nthat the Achaians' ships were gathering in Aulis, freighted with trouble\nfor Priam and the Trojans; and we round about a spring were offering on\nthe holy altars unblemished hecatombs to the immortals, beneath a fair\nplane-tree whence flowed bright water, when there was seen a great\nportent: a snake blood-red on the back, terrible, whom the god of\nOlympus himself had sent forth to the light of day, sprang from beneath\nthe altar and darted to the plane-tree. Now there were there the brood\nof a sparrow, tender little ones, upon the topmost branch, nestling\nbeneath the leaves; eight were they and the mother of the little ones\nwas the ninth, and the snake swallowed these cheeping pitifully. And the\nmother fluttered around wailing for her dear little ones; but he coiled\nhimself and caught her by the wing as she screamed about him. Now when\nhe had swallowed the sparrow's little ones and the mother with them, the\ngod who revealed him made of him a sign; for the son of\ncrooked-counselling Kronos turned him to stone, and we stood by and\nmarvelled to see what was done. So when the dread portent brake in upon\nthe hecatombs of the gods, then did Kalchas forthwith prophesy, and\nsaid: 'Why hold ye your peace, ye flowing-haired Achaians? To us hath\nZeus the counsellor shown this great sign, late come, of late\nfulfilment, the fame whereof shall never perish. Even as he swallowed\nthe sparrow's little ones and herself, the eight wherewith the mother\nthat bare the little ones was the ninth, so shall we war there so many\nyears, but in the tenth year shall we take the wide-wayed city.' So\nspake the seer; and now are all these things being fulfilled. So come,\nabide ye all, ye well-greaved Achaians, even where ye are, until we have\ntaken the great city of Priam.\"\n\nSo spake he, and the Argives shouted aloud, and all round the ships\nechoed terribly to the voice of the Achaians as they praised the saying\nof god-like Odysseus. And then spake among them knightly Nestor of\nGerenia: \"Out on it; in very truth ye hold assembly like silly boys that\nhave no care for deeds of war. What shall come of our covenants and our\noaths? Let all counsels be cast into the fire and all devices of\nwarriors and the pure drink-offerings and the right hands of fellowship\nwherein we trusted. For we are vainly striving with words nor can we\nfind any device at all, for all our long tarrying here. Son of Atreus,\ndo thou still, as erst, keep steadfast purpose and lead the Argives amid\nthe violent fray; and for these, let them perish, the one or two\nAchaians that take secret counsel--to depart to Argos first, before they\nknow whether the promise of aegis-bearing Zeus be a lie or no. Yea, for\nI say that most mighty Kronion pledged us his word that day when the\nArgives embarked upon their fleet ships, bearing unto the Trojans death\nand fate; for by his lightning upon our right he manifested signs of\ngood. Therefore let Trojan's wife and paid back his strivings and groans\nfor Helen's sake. But if any man is overmuch desirous to depart homewards,\nlet him lay his hand upon his decked black ship, that before all men he\nmay encounter death and fate. But do thou, my king, take good counsel\nthyself, and whate'er it be, shall not be cast away. Separate thy\nwarriors by tribes and by clans, Agamemnon, that clan may give aid to\nclan and tribe to tribe. If thou do thus and the Achaians hearken to\nthee, then wilt thou know who among thy captains and who of the common\nsort is a coward, and who too is brave; for they will fight each after\ntheir sort. So wilt thou know whether it is even by divine command that\nthou shalt not take the city, or by the baseness of thy warriors and\ntheir ill skill in battle.\"\n\nAnd lord Agamemnon answered and said to him: \"Verily hast thou again\noutdone the sons of the Achaians in speech, old man. Ah, father Zeus and\nAthene and Apollo, would that among the Achaians I had ten such\ncouncillors; then would the city of king Priam soon bow beneath our\nhands, captive and wasted. But aegis-bearing Zeus, the son of Kronos,\nhath brought sorrows upon me, in that he casteth my lot amid fruitless\nwranglings and strifes. For in truth I and Achilles fought about a\ndamsel with violent words, and I was first to be angry; but if we can\nonly be at one in council, then will there no more be any putting off\nthe day of evil for the Trojans, no not for an instant. But now go ye to\nyour meal that we may join battle. Let each man sharpen well his spear\nand bestow well his shield, and let him well give his fleet-footed\nsteeds their meal, and look well to his chariot on every side and take\nthought for battle, that all day long we may contend in hateful war. For\nof respite shall there intervene no, not a whit, only that the coming of\nnight shall part the fury of warriors. On each man's breast shall the\nbaldrick of his covering shield be wet with sweat, and his hand shall\ngrow faint about the spear, and each man's horse shall sweat as he\ndraweth the polished chariot. And whomsoever I perceive minded to tarry\nfar from the fight beside the beaked ships, for him shall there be no\nhope hereafter to escape the dogs and birds of prey.\"\n\nSo spake he, and the Argives shouted aloud, like to a wave on a steep\nshore, when the south wind cometh and stirreth it; even on a jutting\nrock, that is never left at peace by the waves of all winds that rise\nfrom this side and from that. And they did sacrifice each man to one of\nthe everlasting gods, praying for escape from death and the tumult of\nbattle. But Agamemnon king of men slew a fat bull of five years to most\nmighty Kronion, and called the elders, the princes of the Achaian host,\nNestor first and king Idomeneus, and then the two Aiantes and Tydeus'\nson, and sixthly Odysseus peer of Zeus in counsel. And Menelaos of the\nloud war-cry came to him unbidden, for he knew in his heart how his\nbrother toiled. Then stood they around the bull and took the\nbarley-meal. And Agamemnon made his prayer in their midst and said:\n\"Zeus, most glorious, most great, god of the storm-cloud, that dwellest\nin the heaven, vouchsafe that the sun set not upon us nor the darkness\ncome near, till I have laid low upon the earth Priam's palace smirched\nwith smoke, and burnt the doorways thereof with consuming fire, and rent\non Hector's breast his doublet cleft with the blade; and about him may\nfull many of his comrades prone in the dust bite the earth.\"\n\nSo spake he, but not as yet would Kronion grant him fulfilment; he\naccepted the sacrifice, but made toil to wax increasingly.\n\nNow when they had prayed and sprinkled the barley-meal they first drew\nback the bull's head and cut his throat and flayed him, and cut slices\nfrom the thigh's and wrapped them in fat, making a double fold, and laid\nraw collops thereon. And these they burnt on cleft wood stript of\nleaves, and spitted the vitals and held them over Hephaistos' flame. Now\nwhen the thighs were burnt and they had tasted the vitals, then sliced\nthey all the rest and pierced it through with spits, and roasted it\ncarefully and drew all off again. So when they had rest from the task\nand had made ready the banquet, they feasted, nor was their heart aught\nstinted of the fair banquet. But when they had put away from them the\ndesire of meat and drink, then did knightly Nestor of Gerenia open his\nsaying to them: \"Most noble son of Atreus, Agamemnon king of men, let us\nnot any more hold long converse here, nor for long delay the work that\ngod putteth in our hands; but come, let the heralds of the mail-clad\nAchaians make proclamation to the folk and gather them throughout the\nships; and let us go thus in concert through the wide host of the\nAchaians, that the speedier we may arouse keen war.\"\n\nSo spake he and Agamemnon king of men disregarded not. Straightway he\nbade the clear-voiced heralds summon to battle the flowing-haired\nAchaians. So those summoned and these gathered with all speed. And the\nkings, the fosterlings of Zeus that were about Atreus' son, eagerly\nmarshalled them, and bright-eyed Athene in the midst, bearing the holy\naegis that knoweth neither age nor death, whereon wave an hundred\ntassels of pure gold, all deftly woven and each one an hundred oxen\nworth. Therewith she passed dazzling through the Achaian folk, urging\nthem forth; and in every man's heart she roused strength to battle\nwithout ceasing and to fight. So was war made sweeter to them than to\ndepart in their hollow ships to their dear native land. Even as ravaging\nfire kindleth a boundless forest on a mountain's peaks, and the blaze is\nseen from afar, even so as they marched went the dazzling gleam from the\ninnumerable bronze through the sky even unto the heavens.\n\nAnd as the many tribes of feathered birds, wild geese or cranes or\nlong-necked swans, on the Asian mead by Kaystrios' stream, fly hither\nand thither joying in their plumage, and with loud cries settle ever\nonwards, and the mead resounds; even so poured forth the many tribes of\nwarriors from ships and huts into the Skamandrian plain. And the earth\nechoed terribly beneath the tread of men and horses. So stood they in\nthe flowery Skamandrian plain, unnumbered as are leaves and flowers in\ntheir season. Even as the many tribes of thick flies that hover about a\nherdsman's steading in the spring season, when milk drencheth the pails,\neven in like number stood the flowing-haired Achaians upon the plain in\nface of the Trojans, eager to rend them asunder. And even as the\ngoatherds easily divide the ranging flocks of goats when they mingle in\nthe pasture, so did their captains marshal them on this side and that,\nto enter into the fray, and in their midst lord Agamemnon, his head and\neyes like unto Zeus whose joy is in the thunder, and his waist like unto\nAres and his breast unto Poseidon. Even as a bull standeth out far\nforemost amid the herd, for his is pre-eminent amid the pasturing kine,\neven such did Zeus make Atreides on that day, pre-eminent among many and\nchief amid heroes.\n\nTell me now, ye Muses that dwell in the mansions of Olympus--seeing that\nye are goddesses and are at hand and know all things, but we hear only a\nrumour and know not anything--who were the captains of the Danaans and\ntheir lords. But the common sort could I not number nor name, nay, not\nif ten tongues were mine and ten mouths, and a voice unwearied, and my\nheart of bronze within me, did not the Muses of Olympus, daughters of\naegis-bearing Zeus, put into my mind all that came to Ilios. So will I\ntell the captains of the ships and all the ships in order.\n\nOf the Boiotians Peneleos and Leitos were captains, and Arkesilaos and\nProthoenor and Klonios; these were they that dwelt in Hyria and rocky\nAulis and Schoinos and Skolos and Eteonos full of ridges, Thespeia and\nGraia and Mykalessos with wide lawns; and that dwelt about Harma and\nEilesion and Erythrai, and they that possessed Eleon and Peteon and\nHyle, Okalea and the stablished fortress of Medeon, Kopai and Eutresis\nand Thisbe haunt of doves; and they of Koroneia and grassy Haliartos,\nand that possessed Plataia and that dwelt in Glisas, and that possessed\nthe stablished fortress of lesser Thebes and holy Onchestos, Poseidon's\nbright grove; and that possessed Arne rich in vineyards, and Mideia and\nsacred Nisa and Anthedon on the furthest borders. Of these there came\nfifty ships, and in each one embarked young men of the Boiotians an\nhundred and twenty. And they that dwelt in Aspledon and Orchomenos of\nthe Minyai were led of Askalaphos and Ialmenos, sons of Ares, whom\nAstyoche conceived of the mighty god in the palace of Aktor son of\nAzeus, having entered her upper chamber, a stately maiden; for mighty\nAres lay with her privily. And with them sailed thirty hollow ships.\n\nAnd the Phokians were led of Schedios and Epistrophos, sons of\ngreat-hearted Iphitos son of Naubolos; these were they that possessed\nKyparissos and rocky Pytho and sacred Krisa and Daulis and Panopeus, and\nthey that dwelt about Anemoreia and Hyampolis, yea, and they that lived\nby the goodly river Kephisos and possessed Lilaia by Kephisos' springs.\nAnd with them followed thirty black ships. So they marshalled the ranks\nof the Phokians diligently, and had their station hard by the Boiotians\non the left.\n\nAnd of the Lokrians the fleet son of Oileus was captain, Aias the less,\nthat was not so great as was the Telamonian Aias but far less. Small was\nhe, with linen corslet, but with the spear he far outdid all the\nHellenes and Achaians. These were they that dwelt in Kynos and Opus and\nKalliaros and Bessa and Skarphe and lovely Augeiai and Tarphe and\nThronion, about the streams of Boagrios. And with Aias followed forty\nblack ships of the Lokrians that dwell over against holy Euboia.\n\nAnd the Abantes breathing fury, they that possessed Euboia and Chalkis\nand Eiretria and Histiaia rich in vines, and Kerinthos by the sea and\nthe steep fortress of Dios and they that possessed Karytos, and they\nthat dwelt in Styra, all these again were led of Elephenor of the stock\nof Ares, even the son of Chalkodon, and captain of the proud Abantes.\nAnd with him followed the fleet Abantes with hair flowing behind,\nspearmen eager with ashen shafts outstretched to tear the corslets on\nthe breasts of the foes. And with him forty black ships followed.\n\nAnd they that possessed the goodly citadel of Athens, the domain of\nErechtheus the high-hearted, whom erst Athene daughter of Zeus fostered\nwhen Earth, the grain-giver, brought him to birth;--and she gave him a\nresting-place in Athens in her own rich sanctuary; and there the sons of\nthe Athenians worship him with bulls and rams as the years turn in their\ncourses--these again were led of Menestheus son of Peteos. And there was\nno man upon the face of earth that was like him for the marshalling of\nhorsemen and warriors that bear the shield. Only Nestor rivalled him,\nfor he was the elder by birth. And with him rivalled him, for he was the\nelder by birth. And with him fifty black ships followed.\n\nAnd Aias led twelve ships from Salamis, [and brought them and set them\nwhere the battalions of the Athenians stood.]\n\nAnd they that possessed Argos and Tiryns of the great walls, Hermione\nand Asine that enfold the deep gulf, Troizen and Eionai and Epidauros\nfull of vines, and the youths of the Achaians that possessed Aigina and\nMases, these were led of Diomedes of the loud war-cary and Sthenelos,\ndear son of famous Kapaneus. And the third with them came Euryalos, a\ngodlike warrior, the son of king Mekisteus son of Talaos. But Diomedes\nof the loud war-cry was lord over all. And with them eighty black ships\nfollowed.\n\nAnd of them that possessed the stablished fortress of Mykene and wealthy\nCorinth and stablished Kleonai, and dwelt in Orneiai and lovely\nAraithyrea and Sikyon, wherein Adrestos was king at the first; and of\nthem that possessed Hyperesie and steep Gonoessa and Pellene, and dwelt\nabout Aigion and through all the coast-land and about broad Helike, of\nthem did lord Agamemnon son of Atreus lead an hundred ships. With him\nfollowed most and goodliest folk by far; and in their midst himself was\nclad in flashing bronze, all glorious, and was pre-eminent amid all\nwarriors, because he was goodliest and led folk far greatest in number.\n\nAnd of them that possessed Lakedaimon lying low amid the rifted hills,\nand Pharis and Sparta and Messe, the haunt of doves, and dwelt in\nBryseiai and lovely Augeiai, and of them too that possessed Amyklai and\nthe sea-coast fortress of Helos, and that possessed Laas and dwelt about\nOitylos, of these was the king's brother leader, even Menelaos of the\nloud war-cry, leader of sixty ships, and these were arrayed apart. And\nhimself marched among them confident in his zeal, urging his men to\nbattle: and his heart most of all was set to take vengeance for his\nstrivings and groans for Helen's sake [Or, \"for Helen's searchings of\nheart and groans.\"].\n\nAnd of them that dwelt in Pylos and lovely Arene and Thryon the\nfording-place of Alpheios, and in established Aipy, and were inhabitants\nof Kyparisseis and Amphigeneia and Pteleos and Helos and Dorion--where\nthe Muses met Thamyris the Thracian, and made an end of his singing, as\nhe was faring from Oichalia, from Eurytos the Oichalian; for he averred\nwith boasting that he would conquer, even did the Muses themselves sing\nagainst him, the daughters of aegis-bearing Zeus; but they in their\nanger maimed him, moreover they took from him the high gift of song and\nmade him to forget his harping--of all these was knightly Nestor of\nGerenia leader, and with him sailed ninety hollow ships.\n\nAnd of them that possessed Arkadia beneath the steep mountain of\nKyllene, beside the tomb of Aipytos, where are warriors that fight hand\nto hand; and of them that dwelt in Pheneos and Orchomenos abounding in\nflocks, and Rhipe and Stratie and windy Enispe, and that possessed Tegea\nand lovely Mantineia, and possessed Stymphelos and dwelt in Parhasie, of\nthese was Ankaios' son lord Agapenor leader, even of sixty ships; and in\neach ship embarked many Arkadian warriors skilled in fight. For\nAgamemnon king of men himself gave them benched ships wherewith to cross\nthe wine-dark sea, even he the son of Atreus; for matters of seafaring\nconcerned them not.\n\nAnd they too that inhabited Bouprasion and goodly Elis, so much thereof\nas Hyrmine and Myrsinos upon the borders and the Olenian rock and\nAleision bound between them, of these men there were four captains, and\nten swift ships followed each one, and many Epeians embarked thereon. So\nsome were led of Amphimachos and Thalpios, of the lineage of Aktor, sons\none of Kteatos and one of Eurytos; and of some was stalwart Diores\ncaptain, son of Amarynkes; and of the fourth company godlike Polyxeinos\nwas captain, son of king Agasthenes Augeias' son.\n\nAnd them of Doulichion and the holy Echinean Isles that stand beyond the\nsea over against Elis, even these did Meges lead, the peer of Ares,\nPhyleides to wit, for he was begotten of knightly Phyleus dear to Zeus,\nhim that erst changed his habitation to Doulichion for anger against his\nfather. And with him followed forty black ships.\n\nAnd Odysseus led the great-hearted Kephallenians, them that possessed\nIthaka and Neriton with quivering leafage, and dwelt in Krokyleia and\nrugged Aigilips, and them that possessed Zakynthos and that dwelt in\nSamos, and possessed the mainland and dwelt in the parts over against\nthe isles. Them did Odysseus lead, the peer of Zeus in counsel, and with\nhim followed twelve ships with vermillion prow.\n\nAnd of the Aitolians Thoas was captain, the son of Andraimon, even of\nthem that dwelt in Pleuron and Olenos and Pylene, and Chalkis on the\nsea-shore and rocky Kalydon. For the sons of great-hearted Oineus were\nno more, neither did he still live, and golden-haired Meleagros was\ndead, to whose hands all had been committed, for him to be king of the\nAitolians. And with Thoas there followed forty black ships.\n\nAnd of the Cretans Idomeneus the famous spearman was leader, even of\nthem that possessed Knosos and Gortys of the great walls, Lyktos and\nMiletos and chalky Lykastos and Phaistos and Rhytion, stablished cities\nall; and of all others that dwelt in Crete of the hundred cities. Of\nthese men was Idomeneus the famous spearman leader, and Meriones peer of\nthe man-slaying war-god. With these followed eighty black ships.\n\nAnd Tlepolemmos, Herakles' son goodly and tall, led from Rhodes nine\nships of the lordly Rhodians, that dwelt in Rhodes in threefold\nordering, in Lindos and Ialysos and chalky Kameiros. These were led of\nTlepolemos the famous spearman, that was born to great Herakles by\nAstyocheia, whom he had brought away from Ephyre by the river Selleeis,\nwhen he laid waste many cities of strong men, fosterlings of Zeus. Now\nwhen Tlepolemos had grown to manhood within the strong palace walls,\nanon he slew his own father's dear uncle, an old man now, Likymnios of\nthe stock of Ares. Then with speed built he ships and gathered much folk\ntogether, and went fleeing across the deep, because the other sons and\ngrandsons of great Herakles threatened him. So he came to Rhodes a\nwanderer, enduring hardships, and his folk settled by kinship in three\ntribes, and were loved of Zeus that is king among gods and men; and\nKronion poured upon them exceeding great wealth.\n\nNireus, moreover, led three trim ships from Syme, Nireus son of Aglaia\nand king Charopos, Nireus the most beauteous man that came up under\nIlios of all the Danaans, after the noble son of Peleus. Howbeit he was\na weakling, and a scanty host followed him.\n\nAnd of them that possessed Nisyros and Krapathos and Kasos and Kos the\ncity of Eurypylos, and the Kalydnian Isles, of them Pheidippos and\nAntiphos were leaders, the two sons of king Thessalos son of Herakles.\nWith them were arrayed thirty hollow ships.\n\nNow all moreover that dwelt in the Pelasgian Argos and inhabited Alos\nand Alope and Trachis and possessed Phthia and Hellas the home of fair\nwomen, and were called Myrmidons and Hellenes and Achaians; of all\nthese, even fifty ships, Achilles was captain. But these took no thought\nof noisy war; for there was no man to array them in line of battle. For\nfleet-footed goodly Achilles lay idle amid the ships, wroth for the sake\nof a damsel, Briseis of the lovely hair, whom he had won from Lyrnessos\nand the walls of Thebe, and overthrew Mynes and Epistrophos, warriors\nthat bare the spear, sons of king Euenos Selepos' son. For her sake lay\nAchilles sorrowing; but soon was he to arise again.\n\nAnd of them that possessed Phylake and flowery Pyrasos, Demeter's\nsanctuary, and Iton mother of flocks, and Antron by the sea-shore and\nPteleos couched in grass, of all these was warlike Protesilaos leader\nwhile yet he lived; but now ere this the black earth held him fast. His\nwife with marred visage was left alone in Phylake, yea, and his bridal\nchamber half builded; for a Dardanian warrior slew him as he leapt from\nhis ship far first of the Achaians. Yet neither were his men leaderless,\nthough they sorrowed for their leader; for Podarkes of the stock of Ares\nmarshalled them, son of Phylakos' son Iphiklos was he, the lord of many\nflocks, own brother of great-hearted Protesilaos, and younger-born than\nhe: but the other was alike the elder and the braver, even Protesilaos,\nthat mighty man of war. Yet did not the host lack at all a leader, only\nthey yearned for the noble dead. With him followed forty black ships.\n\nAnd of them that dwelt in Pherai by the Boibeian mere, in Boibe and\nGlaphyre and stablished Iolkos, of them, even eleven ships, Admetos'\ndear son was leader, Eumelos whom Alkestis, fair among women, bare to\nAdmetos, she that was most beauteous to look upon of the daughters of\nPelias.\n\nAnd of them that dwelt in Methone and Thaumakie, and possessed Meliboia\nand rugged Olizon, of these, even seven ships, was Philoktetes leader,\nthe cunning archer; and in each ship sailed fifty oarsmen skilled to\nfight amain with the bow. But their captain lay enduring sore pain in\nthe isle of goodly Lemnos, where the sons of the Achaians left him sick\nof a grievous wound from a deadly water-snake. There lay he pining; yet\nwere the Argives soon to bethink them beside their ships of king\nPhiloktetes. Yet neither were his men leaderless, only they sorrowed for\ntheir leader; but Medon marshalled them, Oileus' bastard son, whom Rhene\nbare to Oileus waster of cities.\n\nAnd of them that possessed Trikke and terraced ithome and that possessed\nOichalia city of Eurytos the Oichalian, of these again Asklepios' two\nsons were leaders, the cunning leeches Podaleirios and Machaon. And with\nthem were arrayed thirty hollow ships.\n\nAnd of them that possessed Ormenios and the fountain of Hypereia, and\npossessed Asterion and the white crests of Titanos, of these was\nEurypylos leader, Euaimon's glorious son; and with him, forty black\nships followed.\n\nAnd of them that possessed Argissa and dwelt in Gyrtona, Orthe and\nElone and the white city of Olooson, of these was captain unflinching\nPolypoites, son of Peirithoos that immortal Zeus begat: and Polypoites\ndid famed Hippodameia conceive of Peirithoos on that day when he took\nvengeance of the shaggy wild folk, and thrust them forth from Pelion and\ndrave them to the Aithikes. And Polypoites ruled not alone, but with him\nwas Leonteus of the stock of Ares, son of high-hearted Koronos Kaineus'\nson. And with them forty black ships followed.\n\nAnd Gouneus from Kyphos led two-and-twenty ships, and with him followed\nthe Enienes and unflinching Peraibians that had pitched their homes\nabout wintry Dodona, and dwelt on the tilth about lovely Titaresios that\npoureth his fair-flowing stream into Peneios. Yet doth he not mingle\nwith the silver eddies of Peneios, but floweth on over him like unto\noil, seeing that he is an offspring from the water of Styx, the dread\nriver of the oath.\n\nAnd the Magnetes were led of Prothoos son of Tenthredon, even they that\ndwelt about Peneios and Pelion with trembling leafage. These did fleet\nProthoos lead, and with him forty black ships followed.\n\nSo these were the leaders of the Danaans and their captains. Now tell\nme, O Muse, who among them was first and foremost, of warriors alike and\nhorses that followed the sons of Atreus. Of horses they of Pheres' son\nwere far goodliest, those that Eumelos drave, swift as birds, like of\ncoat, like of age, matched to the measure of a levelling line across\ntheir backs. These were reared in Peraia by Apollo of the silver bow,\ntwo mares carrying onward the terror of battle. But of warriors far best\nwas the Telamonian Aias, while the wrath of Achilles yet endured; for he\nwas greatest of all, he and his horses that bore him, even Peleus' noble\nson. But he lay idle among his seafaring ships, in sore wrath against\nAgamemnon Atreus' son, shepherd of the host; and his folk along the\nsea-shore sported with quoits and with casting of javelins and archery;\nand the horses each beside his own chariot stood idle, champing clover\nand parsley of the marsh, and their lords' chariots lay well covered up\nwithin the huts, while the men yearned for their warrior chief, and\nwandered hither and thither through the camp and fought not.\n\nSo marched they then as though all the land were consuming with fire;\nand the earth groaned beneath them as at the wrath of Zeus whose joy is\nin the thunder, when he lasheth the earth about Typhoeus in the country\nof the Arimoi, where men say is Typhoeus' couch. Even so groaned the\nearth aloud at their tread as they went: and with speed advanced they\nacross the plain.\n\nNow fleet Iris the wind-footed went to the Trojans, a messenger from\naegis-bearing Zeus, with a grievous message. These were holding assembly\nat Priam's gate, being gathered all together both young men and old. And\nfleet-footed Iris stood hard by and spake to them; and she made her\nvoice like to the voice of Polites son of Priam, who was the sentinel of\nthe Trojans and was wont to sit trusting in his fleetness upon the\nbarrow of Aisyetes of old, and on the top thereof wait the sallying of\nthe Achaians forth from their ships. Even in his likeness did\nfleet-footed Iris speak to Priam: \"Old man, words beyond number are\nstill pleasant to thee as erst in the days of peace; but war without\nrespite is upon us. Of a truth have I very oft ere now entered into\nbattles of the warriors, yet have I never seen so goodly a host and so\ngreat; for in the very likeness of the leaves of the forest or the sands\nof the sea are they marching along the plain to fight against the city.\nBut Hector, thee do I charge beyond all to do even as I shall say.\nSeeing that the allies are very many throughout Priam's great city, and\ndiverse men, being scattered abroad, have diverse tongues; therefore let\neach one give the word to those whose chieftain he is, and them let him\nlead forth and have the ordering of his countrymen.\"\n\nSo spake she, and Hector failed not to know the voice of the goddess,\nand straightway dismissed the assembly, and they rushed to arms. And the\ngates were thrown open wide, and the host issued forth, footmen and\nhorsemen, and mighty din arose.\n\nNow there is before the city a certain steep mound apart in the plain,\nwith a clear way about it on this side and on that; and men indeed call\nthis \"Batieia,\" but the immortals call it \"The tomb of lithe Myrine.\"\nThere did the Trojans and their allies divide their companies.\n\nAmid the Trojans great Hector of the glancing helm was leader, the son\nof Priam; with him the greatest hosts by far and the goodliest were\narrayed, eager warriors of the spear.\n\nBut the Dardanians were led of the princely son of Anchises, Aineias,\nwhom bright Aphrodite conceived to Anchises amids the spurs of Ida, a\ngoddess wedded to a mortal. Neither was he alone; with him were\nAntenor's two sons, Archelochos and Akamas, well skilled in all the ways\nof war.\n\nAnd of them that dwelt in Zeleia beneath the nethermost foot of Ida, the\nmen of substance that drink the dark waters of Aisepos, even the Troes;\nof these Lykaon's glorious son was leader, Pandaros, to whom Apollo\nhimself gave the bow.\n\nAnd of them that possessed Adresteia and the land of Apaisos and\npossessed Pityeia and the steep hill of Tereia, of these Adrestos was\ncaptain, and Amphios of the linen corslet, the two sons of Merops of\nPerkote, that beyond all men knew soothsaying, and would have hindered\nhis children marching to murderous war. But they gave him no heed, for\nthe fates of black death led them on.\n\nAnd they that dwelt about Perkote and Praktios and possessed Sestos and\nAbydos and bright Arisbe, these were led of Hyrtakos' son Asios, a\nprince of men, Asios son of Hyrtakos, whom his tall sorrel steeds\nbrought from Arisbe, from the river Selleeis.\n\nAnd Hippothoos led the tribes of the Pelasgians that fight with spears,\nthem that inhabited deep-soiled Larisa. These were led of Hippothoos and\nPylaios of the stock of Ares, twain sons of Pelasgian Lethos son of\nTeutamos.\n\nAnd the Thracians were led of Akamas and hero Peiroos, even all they\nthat the strong stream of Hellespont shutteth in. And Euphemos was\ncaptain of the Kikonian spearmen, the son of Troizenos Keos' son,\nfosterling of Zeus.\n\nBut Pyraichmes led the Paionians with curving bows, from far away in\nAmydon, from the broad stream of Axios, Axios whose water is the fairest\nthat floweth over the face of the earth.\n\nAnd Pylaimenes of rugged heart led the Paphlagonians from the land of\nthe Eneti, whence is the breed of wild mules. This folk were they that\npossessed Kytoros and dwelt about Sesamon, and inhabited their famed\ndwellings round the river Parthenios and Kromna and Aigialos and lofty\nErythini.\n\nAnd the Alizones were led of Odios and Epistrophos, from far away in\nAlybe, where is the birthplace of silver.\n\nAnd the Mysians were led of Chromis and Ennomos the augur, yet with all\nhis auguries warded he not black fate from him, but was vanguished by the\nhand of fleet-footed Aiakides in the river, when he made havoc of the\nTrojans there and of the rest.\n\nAnd Phorkys and godlike Askanios led the Phrygians from far Askania, and\nthese were eager to fight in the battle-throng.\n\nAnd the Maionians were commanded of Mesthles and Antiphos, Talaimenes'\ntwo sons, whose mother was the Gygaian mere. So these led the Maionians,\nwhose birthplace was under Tmolos.\n\nBut Nastes led the Karians, uncouth of speech, that possessed Miletos\nand the mountain of Phthires, of leafage numberless, and the streams of\nMaiandros and the steep crest of Mykale. These were led of Amphimachos\nand Nastes: Nastes and Amphimachos the glorious children of Nomion. And\nhe came, forsooth, to battle with golden attire like a girl--fond man:\nthat held not back in any wise grievous destruction, but he was\nvanguished by the hands of fleet-footed Aiakides in the river, and\nwise-hearted Achilles carried away his gold.\n\nAnd Sarpedon and blameless Glaukos led the Lykians from far away in\nLykia by eddying Xanthos.\n\n\n\nBOOK III.\n\n    How Menelaos and Paris fought in single combat; and\n    Aphrodite rescued Paris. And how Helen and Priam beheld the\n    Achaian host from the walls of Troy.\n\nNow when they were arrayed, each company with their captains, the\nTrojans marched with clamour and with shouting like unto birds, even as\nwhen there goeth up before heaven a clamour of cranes which flee from\nthe coming of winter and sudden rain, and fly with clamour towards the\nstreams of ocean, bearing slaughter and fate to the Pigmy men, and in\nearly morn offer cruel battle. But on the other side marched the\nAchaians in silence breathing courage, eager at heart to give succour\nman to man.\n\nEven as when the south wind sheddeth mist over the crests of a mountain,\nmist unwelcome to the shepherd, but to the robber better than night,\nand a man can see no further than he casteth a stone; even so thick\narose the gathering dust-clouds at their tread as they went; and\nwith all speed they advanced across the plain.\n\nSo when they were now come nigh in onset on each other, godlike\nAlexandros played champion to the Trojans, wearing upon his shoulders\npanther-skin and curved bow and sword; and he brandished two\nbronze-headed spears and challenged all the chieftains of the Argives to\nfight him man to man in deadly combat. But when Menelaos dear to Ares\nmarked him coming in the forefront of the multitude with long strides,\nthen even as a lion is glad when he lighteth upon a great carcase, a\nhorned stag, or a wild goat that he hath found, being an hungered; and\nso he devoureth it amain, even though the fleet hounds and lusty youths\nset upon him; even thus was Menelaos glad when his eyes beheld godlike\nAlexandros; for he thought to take vengeance upon the sinner. So\nstraightway he leap in his armour from his chariot to the ground.\n\nBut when godlike Alexandros marked him appear amid the champions, his\nheart was smitten, and he shrank back into the host of his comrades,\navoiding death. And even as a man that hath seen a serpent in a mountain\nglade starteth backward and trembling seizeth his feet beneath him,\nand he retreateth back again, and paleness hath hold of his cheeks, even\nso did godlike Alexandros for fear of Atreus' son shrink back into the\nthrong of lordly Trojans. But Hector beheld and upbraided him with\nscornful words: \"Ill Paris, most fair in semblance, thou deceiver\nwoman-mad, would thou hadst been unborn and died unwed. Yea, that were\nmy desire, and it were far better than thus to be our shame and looked\nat askance of all men. I ween that the flowing-haired Achaians laugh,\ndeeming that a prince is our champion only because a goodly favour is\nhis; but in his heart is there no strength nor any courage. Art thou\nindeed such an one that in thy seafaring ships thou didst sail over the\ndeep with the company of thy trusty comrades, and in converse with\nstrangers didst bring back a fair woman from a far country, one that was\nby marriage daughter to warriors that bear the spear, that she might be\na sore mischief to they father and city and all the realm, but to our\nfoes a rejoicing, and to thyself a hanging of the head? And canst thou\nnot indeed abide Menelaos dear to Ares? Thou mightest see what sort of\nwarrior is he whose lovely wife thou hast. Thy lyre will not avail thee\nnor the gifts of Aphrodite, those thy locks and fair favour, when thou\ngrovellest in the dust. But the Trojans are very cowards: else ere this\nhadst thou donned a robe of stone [i.e., been stoned by the people] for\nall the ill thou hast wrought.\"\n\nAnd godlike Alexandros made answer to him again: \"Hector, since in\nmeasure thou chidest me and not beyond measure--they heart is ever keen,\neven as an axe that pierceth a beam at the hand of a man that shapeth a\nship's timber with skill, and thereby is the man's blow strengthened;\neven such is thy heart undaunted in thy breast. Cast not in my teeth the\nlovely gifts of golden Aphrodite; not to be flung aside are the gods'\nglorious gifts that of their own good will they give; for by his desire\ncan no man win them. But now if thou wilt have me do battle and fight,\nmake the other Trojans sit down and all the Achaians, and set ye me in\nthe midst, and Menelaos dear to Ares, to fight for Helen and all her\nwealth. And whichsoever shall vanquish and gain the upper hand, let him\ntake all the wealth aright, and the woman, and bear them home. And let\nthe rest pledge friendship and sure oaths; so may ye dwell in\ndeep-soiled Troy, and let them depart to Argos pasture-land of horses,\nand Achaia home of fair women.\"\n\nSo spake he, and Hector rejoiced greatly to hear his saying, and went\ninto the midst and restrained the battalions of the Trojans, with his\nspear grasped by the middle; and they all sate them down. But the\nflowing-haired Achaians kept shooting at him, aiming with arrows and\ncasting stones. But Agamemnon king of men cried aloud: \"Refrain, ye\nArgives; shoot not, ye sons of the Achaians; for Hector of the glancing\nhelm hath set himself to say somewhat.\"\n\nSo spake he, and they refrained from battle and made silence speedily.\nAnd Hector spake between the two hosts, \"Hear of me, Trojans and\nwell-greaved Achaians, the saying of Alexandros, for whose sake strife\nhath come about. He biddeth the other Trojans and all the Achaians to\nlay down their goodly armour on the bounteous earth, and himself in the\nmidst and Menelaos dear to Ares to fight alone for Helen and all her\nwealth. And whichsoever shall vanquish and gain the upper hand, let him\ntake all the wealth aright, and the woman, and bear them home; but let\nall of us pledge friendship and sure oaths.\"\n\nSo spake he, and they all kept silence and were still. Then in their\nmidst spake Menelaos of the loud war-cry: \"Hearken ye now to me, too;\nfor into my heart most of all is grief entered; and I deem that the\nparting of Argives and Trojans hath come at last; seeing ye have endured\nmany ills because of my quarrel and the first sin of Alexandros. And for\nwhichsoever of us death and fate are prepared, let him lie dead: and be\nye all parted with speed. Bring ye two lambs, one white ram and one\nblack ewe, for earth and sun; and let us bring one for Zeus. And call\nhither great Priam, that he may pledge the oath himself, seeing he hath\nsons that are overweening and faithless, lest any by transgression do\nviolence to the oath of Zeus; for young men's hearts are ever lifted up.\nBut wheresoever an old man entereth in, he looketh both before and\nafter, whereby the best issue shall come for either side.\"\n\nSo spake he, and Achaians and Trojans were glad, deeming that they\nshould have rest from grievous war. So they refrained their chariots to\nthe ranks, and themselves alighted and doffed their arms. And these they\nlaid upon the earth each close to each, and there was but small space\nbetween. And Hector sent two heralds to the city will all speed, to\nbring the lambs, and to call Priam. And lord Agamemnon sent forth\nTalthybios to go to the hollow ships, and bade him bring a ram; and he\nwas not disobedient to noble Agamemnon.\n\nNow Iris went with a message to white-armed Helen in the likeness of her\nhusband's sister, the spouse of Antenor's son, even her that lord\nHelikaon Antenor's son had to wife, Laodike fairest favoured of Priam's\ndaughters. And in the hall she found Helen weaving a great purple web of\ndouble fold, and embroidering thereon many battles of horse-taming\nTrojans and mail-clad Achaians, that they had endured for her sake at\nthe hands of Ares. So fleet-footed Iris stood by her side and said:\n\"Come hither, dear sister, that thou mayest see the wondrous doings of\nhorse-taming Trojans and mail-clad Achaians. They that erst waged\ntearful war upon each other in the plain, eager for deadly battle, even\nthey sit now in silence, and the tall spears are planted by their sides.\nBut Alexandros and Menelaos dear to Ares will fight with their tall\nspears for thee; and thou wilt be declared the dear wife of him that\nconquereth.\"\n\nSo spake the goddess, and put into her heart sweet longing for her\nformer husband and her city and parents.\n\nForthwith she veiled her face in shining linen, and hastened from her\nchamber, letting fall a round tear; not unattended, for there followed\nwith her two handmaidens, Aithre daughter of Pittheus and ox-eyed\nKlymene. Then came she straightway to the place of the Skaian gates. And\nthey that were with Priam and Panthoos and Thymoites and Lampos and\nKlytios and Hiketaon of the stock of Ares, Oukalegon withal and Antenor,\ntwain sages, being elders of the people, sat at the Skaian gates. These\nhad now ceased from battle for old age, yet were they right good\norators, like grasshoppers that in a forest sit upon a tree and utter\ntheir lily-like [supposed to mean \"delicate\" or \"tender\"] voice; even so\nsat the elders of the Trojans upon the tower. Now when they saw Helen\ncoming to the tower they softly spake winged words one to the other:\n\"Small blame is it that Trojans and well-greaved Achaians should for\nsuch a woman long time suffer hardships; marvellously like is she to the\nimmortal goddesses to look upon. Yet even so, though she be so goodly,\nlet her go upon their ships and not stay to vex us and our children\nafter us.\"\n\nSo said they, and Priam lifted up his voice and called to Helen: \"Come\nhither, dear child, and sit before me, that thou mayest see thy former\nhusband and they kinsfolk and thy friends. I hold thee not to blame;\nnay, I hold the gods to blame who brought on me the dolorous war of the\nAchaians--so mayest thou now tell me who is this huge hero, this Achaian\nwarrior so goodly and great. Of a truth there are others even taller by\na head; yet mine eyes never behold a man so beautiful nor so royal; for\nhe is like unto one that is a king.\"\n\nAnd Helen, fair among women, spake and answered him: \"Reverend art thou\nto me and dread, dear father of my lord; would that sore death had been\nmy pleasure when I followed thy son hither, and left my home and my\nkinsfolk and my daughter in her girlhood and the lovely company of mine\nage-fellows. But that was not so, wherefore I pine with weeping. Now\nwill I tell thee that whereof thou askest me and enquirest. This is\nAtreides, wide-ruling Agamemnon, one that is both a goodly king and\nmighty spearman. And he was my husband's brother to me, ah shameless me;\nif ever such an one there was.\"\n\nSo said she, and the old man marvelled at him, and said: \"Ah, happy\nAtreides, child of fortune, blest of heaven; now know I that many sons\nof the Achaians are subject to thee. Erewhile fared I to Phrygia, the\nland of vines, and there saw I that the men of Phrygia, they of the\nnimble steeds, were very many, even the hosts of Otreus and godlike\nMygdon, that were then encamped along the banks of Sangarios. For I too\nbeing their ally was numbered among them on the day that the Amazons\ncame, the peers of men. Yet were not even they so many as are the\nglancing-eyed Achaians.\"\n\nAnd next the old man saw Odysseus, and asked: \"Come now, tell me of this\nman too, dear child, who is he, shorter by a head than Agamemnon son of\nAtreus, but broader of shoulder and of chest to behold? His armour lieth\nupon the bounteous earth, and himself like a bell-wether rangeth the\nranks of warriors. Yea, I liken him to a thick-fleeced ram ordering a\ngreat flock of ewes.\"\n\nThen Helen sprung of Zeus made answer to him: \"Now this is Laertes' son,\ncrafty Odysseus, that was reared in the realm of Ithaka, rugged though\nit be, and skilled in all the ways of wile and cunning device.\"\n\nThen sage Antenor made answer to her: \"Lady, verily the thing thou\nsayest is true indeed, for erst came goodly Odysseus hither also on an\nembassage for thee, in the company of Menelaos dear to Ares; and I gave\nthem entertainment and welcomed them in my halls, and learnt the aspect\nof both and their wise devices. Now when they mingled with the Trojans\nin the assembly, while all stood up Menelaos overpassed them all by the\nmeasure of his broad shoulders; but when both sat down, Odysseus was the\nmore stately. And when they began to weave the web of words and counsel\nin the face of all, then Menelaos harangued fluently, in few words, but\nvery clearly, seeing he was not long of speech, neither random, though\nin years he was the younger. But whenever Odysseus full of wiles rose\nup, he stood and looked down, with eyes fixed upon the ground, and waved\nnot his staff whether backwards or forwards, but held it stiff, like to\na man of no understanding; one would deem him to be churlish, and naught\nbut a fool. But when he uttered his great voice from his chest, and\nwords like unto the snowflakes of winter, then could no mortal man\ncontend with Odysseus; then marvelled we not thus to behold Odysseus'\naspect.\"\n\nAnd thirdly the old man say Aias, and asked: \"Who then is this other\nAchaian warrior, goodly and great, preeminent among the Archives by the\nmeasure of his head and broad shoulders?\"\n\nAnd long-robed Helen, fair among women, answered: \"This is huge Aias,\nbulwark of the Achaians. And on the other side amid the Cretans standeth\nIdomeneus like a god, and about him are gathered the captains of the\nCretans. Oft did Menelaos dear to Ares entertain him in our house\nwhene'er he came from Crete. And now behold I all the other\nglancing-eyed Achaians, whom well I could discern and tell their names;\nbut two captains of the host can I not see, even Kastor tamer of horses\nand Polydeukes the skilful boxer, mine own brethren, whom the same mother\nbare. Either they came not in the company from lovely Lakedaimon; or\nthey came hither indeed in their seafaring ships, but now will not enter\ninto the battle of the warriors, for fear of the many scornings and\nrevilings that are mine.\"\n\nSo said she; but them the life-giving earth held fast there in\nLakedaimon, in their dear native land.\n\nMeanwhile were the heralds bearing through the city the holy\noath-offerings, two lambs and strong-hearted wine, the fruit of the\nearth, in a goat-skin bottle. And the herald Idaios bare the shining\nbowl and golden cups; and came to the old man and summoned him and said:\n\"Rise, thou son of Laomedon. The chieftains of the horse-taming Trojans\nand mail-clad Achaians call on thee to go down into the plain, that ye\nmay pledge a trusty oath. But Alexandros and Menelaos dear to Ares will\nfight with their long spears for the lady's sake; and let lady and\ntreasure go with him that shall conquer. And may we that are left pledge\nfriendship and trusty oaths and dwell in deep-soiled Troy, and they\nshall depart to Argos pasture-land of horses and Achaia home of fair\nwomen.\"\n\nSo said he, and the old man shuddered and base his companions yoke the\nhorses; and they with speed obeyed. Then Priam mounted and drew back the\nreins, and by his side Antenor mounted the splendid chariot. So the two\ndrave the fleet horses through the Skaian gates to the plain. And when\nthey had come even to the Trojans and Achaians, they went down from the\nchariots upon the bounteous earth, and marched into the midst of Trojans\nand Achaians. Then forthwith rose up Agamemnon king of men, and up rose\nOdysseus the man of wiles; and the lordly heralds gathered together the\nholy oath-offerings of the gods, and mingled the wine in a bowl, and\npoured water over the princes' hands. And Atreides put forth his hand\nand drew his knife that hung ever beside his sword's great sheath, and\ncut the hair from off the lambs' heads; and then the heralds portioned\nit among the chief of the Trojans and Achaians. Then in their midst\nAtreus' son lifted up his hands and prayed aloud: \"Father Zeus, that\nrulest from Ida, most glorious, most great, and thou Sun that seest all\nthings and hearest all things, and ye Rivers and thou Earth, and ye that\nin the underworld punish men outworn, whosoever sweareth falsely; be ye\nwitnesses, and watch over the faithful oath. If Alexandros slay\nMenelaos, then let him have Helen to himself and all her possessions;\nand we will depart on our seafaring ships. But if golden-haired Menelaos\nslay Alexandros, then let the Trojans give back Helen and all her\npossessions and pay the Argives the recompense that is seemly, such as\nshall live among men that shall be hereafter. But if so be that Priam\nand Priam's sons will not pay the recompense unto me when Alexandros\nfalleth, then will I fight on thereafter for the price of sin, and abide\nhere till I compass the end of war.\"\n\nSo said he, and cut the lambs' throats with the pitiless knife. Them he\nlaid gasping upon the ground, failing of breath, for the knife had taken\ntheir strength from them; and next they drew the wine from the bowl into\nthe cups, and poured it forth and prayed to the gods that live for ever.\nAnd thus would say many an one of Achaians and Trojans: \"Zeus most\nglorious, most great, and all ye immortal gods, which folk soe'er be\nfirst to sin against the oaths, may their brains be so poured forth upon\nthe earth even as this wine, theirs and their children's; and let their\nwives be made subject unto strangers.\"\n\nSo spake they, but the son of Kronos vouchsafed not yet fulfilment. And\nin their midst Priam of the seed of Dardanos uttered his saying:\n\"Hearken to me, Trojans and well-greaved Achaians. I verily will return\nback to windy Ilios, seeing that I can in no wise bear to behold with\nmine eyes my dear son fighting with Menelaos dear to Ares. But Zeus\nknoweth, and all the immortal gods, for whether of the twain the doom of\ndeath is appointed.\"\n\nSo spake the godlike man, and laid the lambs in his chariot, and entered\nin himself, and drew back the reins; and by his side Antenor mounted the\nsplendid chariot. So they departed back again to Ilios; and Hector son\nof Priam and goodly Odysseus first meted out a space, and then they took\nthe lots, and shook them in a bronze-bound helmet, to know whether of\nthe twain should first cast his spear of bronze. And the people prayed\nand lifted up their hands to the gods; and thus would say many an one of\nAchaians and Trojans: \"Father Zeus, that rulest from Ida, most glorious,\nmost great; whichsoe'er it be that brought this trouble upon both\npeoples, vouchsafe that he may die and enter the house of Hades; that so\nfor us peace may be assured and trusty oaths.\"\n\nSo said they; and great Hector of the glancing plume shook the helmet,\nlooking behind him; and quickly leapt forth the lot of Paris. Then the\npeople sat them down by ranks where each man's high-stepping horses and\ninwrought armour lay. And upon his shoulders goodly Alexandros donned\nhis beauteous armour, even he that was lord to Helen of the lovely hair.\nFirst upon his legs set he his greaves, beautiful, fastened with silver\nankle-clasps; next upon his breast he donned the corslet of his brother\nLykaon, and fitted it upon himself. And over his shoulders cast he his\nsilver-studded sword of bronze, and then a shield great and sturdy. And\non his mighty head he set a wrought helmet of horse-hair crest,\nwhereover the plume nodded terribly, and he took him a strong spear\nfitted to his grasp. And in like wise warlike Menelaos donned his\narmour.\n\nSo when they had armed themselves on either side in the throng, they\nstrode between Trojans and Achaians, fierce of aspect, and wonder came\non them that beheld, both on the Trojans tamers of horses and on the\nwell-greaved Achaians. Then took they their stand near together in the\nmeasured space, brandishing their spears in wrath each against other.\nFirst Alexandros hurled his far shadowing spear, and smote on Atreides'\nround shield; but the bronze brake not through, for its point was turned\nin the stout shield. Next Menelaos son of Atreus lifted up his hand to\ncast, and made prayer to father Zeus: \"King Zeus, grant me revenge on\nhim that was first to do me wrong, even on goodly Alexandros, and subdue\nthou him at my hands; so that many an one of men that shall be hereafter\nmay shudder to wrong his host that hath shown him kindness.\"\n\nSo said he, and poised his far-shadowing spear, and hurled, and smote on\nthe round shield of the son of Priam. Through the bright shield went the\nponderous spear and through the inwrought breastplate it pressed on; and\nstraight beside his flank the spear rent the tunic, but he swerved and\nescaped black death. Then Atreides drew his silver-studded sword, and\nlifted up his hand and smote the helmet-ridge; but the sword shattered\nupon it into three, yea four, and fell from his hand. Thereat Atreides\nlooked up to the wide heaven and cried: \"Father Zeus, surely none of the\ngods is crueller than thou. Verily I thought to have gotten vengeance on\nAlexandros for his wickedness, but now my sword breaketh in my hand, and\nmy spear sped from my grasp in vain, and I have not smitten him.\"\n\nSo saying, he leapt upon him and caught him by his horse-hair crest, and\nswinging him round dragged him towards the well-greaved Achaians; and he\nwas strangled by the embroidered strap beneath his soft throat, drawn\ntight below his chin to hold his helm. Now would Menelaos have dragged\nhim away and won glory unspeakable, but that Zeus' daughter Aphrodite\nwas swift to mark, and tore asunder for him the strap of slaughtered\nox's hide; so the helmet came away empty in his stalwart hand. Thereat\nMenelaos cast it with a swing toward the well-greaved Achaians, and his\ntrusty comrades took it up; and himself sprang back again eager to slay\nhim with spear of bronze. But Aphrodite snatched up Paris, very easily\nas a goddess may, and hid him in thick darkness, and sent him down in\nhis fragrant perfumed chamber; and herself went to summon Helen. Her she\nfound on the high tower, and about her the Trojan women thronged. So\nwith her hand she plucked her perfumed raiment and shook it and spake to\nher in the likeness of an aged dame, a wool-comber that was wont to work\nfor her fair wool when she dwelt in Lakedaimon, whom too she greatly\nloved. Even in her likeness fair Aphrodite spake: \"Come hither;\nAlexandros summoneth thee to go homeward. There is he in his chamber and\ninlaid bed, radiant in beauty and vesture; nor wouldst thou deem him to\nbe come from fighting his foe, but rather to be faring to the dance, or\nfrom the dance to be just resting and set down.\"\n\nSo said she, and stirred Helen's soul within her breast; and when now\nshe marked the fair neck and lovely breast and sparkling eyes of the\ngoddess, she marvelled straightway and spake a word and called upon her\nname: \"Strange queen, why art thou desirous now to beguile me? Verily\nthou wilt lead me further on to some one of the people cities of Phrygia\nor lovely Maionia, if there too thou hast perchance some other darling\namong mortal men, because even now Menelaos hath conquered goodly\nAlexandros, and will lead me, accursed me, to his home. Therefore thou\ncomest hither with guileful intent. Go and sit thou by his side and\ndepart from the way of the gods; neither let thy feet ever bear thee\nback to Olympus, but still be vexed for his sake and guard him till he\nmake thee his wife or perchance his slave. But thither will I not go--\nthat were a sinful thing--to array the bed of him; all the women of Troy\nwill blame me thereafter; and I have griefs untold within my soul.\"\n\nThen in wrath bright Aphrodite spake to her: \"Provoke me not, rash\nwoman, lest in mine anger I desert thee, and hate thee even as now I\nlove thee beyond measure, and lest I devise grievous enmities between\nboth, even betwixt Trojans and Achaians, and so thou perish in evil\nwise.\"\n\nSo said she, and Helen sprung of Zeus was afraid, and went wrapped in\nher bright radiant vesture, silently, and the Trojan women marked her\nnot; and the goddess led the way.\n\nNow when they were come to the beautiful house of Alexandros the\nhandmaidens turned straightway to their tasks, and the fair lady went to\nthe high-roofed chamber; and laughter-loving Aphrodite took for her a\nchair and brought it, even she the goddess, and set it before the face\nof Paris. There Helen took her seat, the child of aegis-bearing Zeus,\nand with eyes turned askance spake and chode her lord: \"Thou comest back\nfrom battle; would thou hadst perished there, vanquished of that great\nwarrior that was my former husband. Verily it was once thy boast that\nthou wast a better man than Menelaos dear to Ares, in the might of thine\narm and thy spear. But go now, challenge Menelaos, dear to Ares to fight\nthee again face to face. Nay, but I, even I, bid thee refrain, nor fight\na fight with golden-haired Menelaos man to man, neither attack him\nrecklessly, lest perchance thou fall to his spear anon.\"\n\nAnd Paris made answer to her and said: \"Chide not my soul, lady, with\ncruel taunts. For now indeed hath Menelaos vanquished me with Athene's\naid, but another day may I do so unto him; for we too have gods with us.\nBut come now, let us have joy of love upon our couch; for never yet hath\nlove so enwrapped my heart--not even then when first I snatched thee\nfrom lovely Lakedaimon and sailed with thee on my sea-faring ships, and\nin the isle of Kranae had converse with thee upon thy couch in love--as\nI love thee now and sweet desire taketh hold upon me.\" So saying he led\nthe way to the couch, and the lady followed with him.\n\nThus laid they them upon their fretted couch; but Atreides the while\nstrode through the host like to a wild beast, if anywhere he might set\neyes on godlike Alexandros. But none of the Trojans or their famed\nallies could discover Alexandros to Menelaos dear to Ares. Yet surely\ndid they in no wise hide him for kindliness, could any have seen him;\nfor he was hated of all even as black death. So Agamemnon king of men\nspake among them there: \"Hearken to me, Trojans and Dardanians and\nallies. Now is victory declared for Menelaos dear to Ares; give ye back\nHelen of Argos and the possessions with her, and pay ye the recompense\nsuch as is seemly, that it may live even among men that shall be\nhereafter.\" So said Atreides, and all the Achaians gave assent.\n\n\n\nBOOK IV.\n\n    How Pandaros wounded Menelaos by treachery; and Agamemnon\n    exhorted his chief captains to battle.\n\nNow the gods sat by Zeus and held assembly on the golden floor, and in\nthe midst the lady Hebe poured them their nectar: they with golden\ngoblets pledged one another, and gazed upon the city of the Trojans.\nThen did Kronos' son essay to provoke Hera with vexing words, and spake\nmaliciously: \"Twain goddesses hath Menelaos for his helpers, even Hera\nof Argos and Alalkomenean Athene. Yet these sit apart and take there\npleasure in beholding; but beside that other ever standeth\nlaughter-loving Aphrodite and wardeth off fate from him, and now hath\nshe saved him as he thought to perish. But of a truth the victory is to\nMenelaos dear to Ares; so let us take thought how these things shall be;\nwhether once more we shall arouse ill war and the dread battle-din, or\nput friendship between the foes. Moreover if this were welcome to all\nand well pleasing, may the city of king Priam yet be an habitation, and\nMenelaos take back Helen of Argos.\"\n\nSo said he, but Athene and Hera murmured thereat, who were sitting by\nhim and devising ills for the Trojans. Now Athene held her peace and\nsaid not anything, for wrath at father Zeus, and fierce anger gat hold\nupon her: But Hera's breast contained not her anger, and she spake:\n\"Most dread son of Kronos, what word is this thou hast spoken? How hast\nthou the will to make my labour void and of none effect, and the sweat\nof my toil that I sweated, when my horses were wearied with my summoning\nof the host, to be the plague of Priam and his sons? Do as thou wilt;\nbut we other gods do not all approve thee.\"\n\nThen in sore anger Zeus the cloud-gatherer spake to her: \"Good lack, how\nhave Priam and Priam's sons done thee such great wrong that thou art\nfuriously minded to sack the established citadel of Ilios? Perchance\nwert thou to enter within the gates and long walls and devour Priam raw,\nand Priam's sons and all the Trojans, then mightest thou assuage thine\nanger. Do as thou art minded, only let not this quarrel hereafter be to\nme and thee a sore strife between us both. And this moreover will I say\nto thee, and do thou lay it to they heart; whene'er I too be of eager\nmind to lay waste to a city where is the race of men that are dear to\nthee, hinder thou not my wrath, but let me be, even as I yield to thee\nof free will, yet with soul unwilling. For all cities beneath sun and\nstarry heaven that are the dwelling of mortal men, holy Ilios was most\nhonoured of my heart, and Priam and the folk of Priam of the good ashen\nspear. For never did mine altar lack the seemly feast, even\ndrink-offering and burnt-offering, the worship that is our due.\"\n\nThen Helen the ox-eyed queen made answer to him: \"Of a surety three\ncities are there that are dearest far to me, Argos and Sparta and\nwide-wayed Mykene; these lay thou waste whene'er they are found hateful\nto thy heart; not for them will I stand forth, nor do I grudge thee\nthem. For even if I be jealous and would forbid thee to overthrow them,\nyet will my jealousy not avail, seeing that thou art stronger far than\nI. Still must my labour too not be made of none effect; for I also am a\ngod, and my lineage is even as thine, and Kronos the crooked counsellor\nbegat me to the place of honour in double wise, by birthright, and\nbecause I am named thy spouse, and thou art king among all the\nimmortals. Let us indeed yield each to other herein, I to thee and thou\nto me, and the rest of the immortal gods will follow with us; and do\nthou with speed charge Athene to betake her to the fierce battle din of\nTrojans and Achaians, and to essay that the Trojans may first take upon\nthem to do violence to the Achaians in their triumph, despite the\noaths.\"\n\nSo said she, and the father of men and gods disregarded not; forthwith\nhe spake to Athene winged words: \"Betake thee with all speed to the\nhost, to the midst of Trojans and Achaians, and essay that the Trojans\nmay first take upon them to do violence to the Achaians in their\ntriumph, despite the oaths.\"\n\nSo spake he, and roused Athene that already was set thereon; and from\nOlympus' heights she darted down. Even as the son of Kronos the crooked\ncounsellor sendeth a star, a portent for mariners or a wide host of\nmen, bright shining, and therefrom are scattered sparks in multitude;\neven in such guise sped Pallas Athene to earth, and leapt into their\nmidst; and astonishment came on them that beheld, on horse-taming\nTrojans and well-greaved Achaians. And thus would many an one say,\nlooking at his neighbor: \"Of a surety either shall sore war and the\nfierce battle din return again; or else Zeus doth stablish peace between\nthe foes, even he that is men's dispenser of battle.\"\n\nThus would many an one of Achaians and Trojans say. Then the goddess\nentered the throng of Trojans in the likeness of a man, even Antenor's\nson Laodokos, a stalwart warrior, and sought for godlike Pandaros, if\nhaply she might find him. Lykaon's son found she, the noble and\nstalwart, standing, and about him the stalwart ranks of the\nshield-bearing host that followed him from the streams of Aisepos. So\nshe came near and spake winged words: \"Wilt thou now hearken to me, thou\nwise son of Lykaon? Then wouldst thou take heart to shoot a swift arrow\nat Menelaos, and wouldst win favour and glory before all the Trojans,\nand before king Alexandros most of all. Surely from him first of any\nwouldst thou receive glorious gifts, if perchance he see Menelaos,\nAtreus' warrior son, vanquished by thy dart and brought to the grievous\npyre. Go to now, shoot at glorious Menelaos, and vow to Apollo, the son\nof light [Or, perhaps, \"the Wolf-born\"], the lord of archery, to\nsacrifice a goodly hecatomb of firstling lambs when thou art returned to\nthy home, in the city of holy Zeleia.\"\n\nSo spake Athene, and persuaded his fool's heart. Forthwith he unsheathed\nhis polished bow of horn of a wild ibex that he himself had erst smitten\nbeneath the breast as it came forth from a rock, the while he awaited in\na lurking-place; and had pierced it in the chest, so that it fell\nbackward on the rock. Now from its head sprang there horns of sixteen\npalms; these the artificer, even the worker in horn, joined cunningly\ntogether, and polished them all well and set the top of gold thereon. So\nhe laid it down when he had well strung it, by resting it upon the\nground; and his staunch comrades held their shields before him, lest the\nwarrior sons of the Achaians should first set on them, ere Menelaos,\nAtreus' son, were smitten. Then opened he the lid of his quiver and took\nforth a feathered arrow, never yet shot, a source of grievous pangs; and\nanon he laid the bitter dart upon the string and vowed to Apollo, the\nson of light, the lord of archery, to sacrifice a goodly hecatomb of\nfirstling lambs when he should have returned to his home in the city of\nholy Zeleia. Then he took the notch and string of oxes' sinew together,\nand drew, bringing to his breast the string, and to the bow the iron\nhead. So when he had now bent the great bow into a round, the horn\ntwanged, and the string sang aloud, and the keen arrow leapt eager to\nwing his way amid the throng.\n\nBut the blessed gods immortal forgat not thee, Menelaos; and before all\nthe daughter of Zeus, the driver of the spoil, who stood before thee and\nwarded off the piercing dart. She turned it just aside from the flesh,\neven as a mother driveth a fly from her child that lieth in sweet\nslumber; and with her own hand guided it where the golden buckles of the\nbelt were clasped and the doubled breastplate met them. So the bitter\narrow lighted upon the firm belt; through the inwrought belt it sped and\nthrough the curiously wrought breastplate it pressed on and through the\ntaslet [and apron or belt set with metal, worn below the corslet] he\nwore to shield his flesh, a barrier against darts; and this best\nshielded him, yet it passed on even through this. Then did the arrow\ngraze the warrior's outermost flesh, and forthwith the dusky blood\nflowed from the wound.\n\nAs when some woman of Maionia or Karia staineth ivory with purple, to\nmake a cheek-piece for horses, and it is laid up in the treasure\nchamber, and many a horseman prayeth for it to wear; but it is laid up\nto be a king's boast, alike an adornment for his horse and a glory for\nhis charioteer; even in such wise, Menelaos, were thy shapely thighs\nstained with blood and thy legs and thy fair ankles beneath.\n\nThereat shuddered Agamemnon king of men when he saw the black blood\nflowing from the wound. And Menelaos dear to Ares likewise shuddered;\nbut when he saw how thread [by which the iron head was attached to the\nshaft] and bards were without, his spirit was gathered in his breast\nagain. Then lord Agamemnon moaned deep, and spake among them, holding\nMenelaos by the hand; and his comrades made moan the while: \"Dear\nbrother, to thy death, meseemeth, pledged I these oaths, setting thee\nforth to fight the Trojans alone before the face of the Achaians; seeing\nthat the Trojans have so smitten thee, and trodden under floor the trusty\noaths. Yet in no wise is an oath of none effect, and the blood of lambs\nand pure drink-offerings and the right hands of fellowship wherein we\ntrusted. For even if the Olympian bring not about the fulfilment\nforthwith, yet doth he fulfil at last, and men make dear amends, even\nwith their own heads and their wives and little ones. Yea of a surety I\nknow this in heart and soul; the day shall come for holy Ilios to be\nlaid low, and Priam and the folk of Priam of the good ashen spear; and\nZeus the son of Kronos enthroned on high, that dwelleth in the heaven,\nhimself shall brandish over them all his lowring aegis, in indignation\nat this deceit. Then shall all this not be void; yet shall I have sore\nsorrow for thee, Menelaos, if thou die and fulfil the lot of life. Yea\nin utter shame should I return to thirsty Argos, seeing that the\nAchaians will forthwith bethink them of their native land, and so should\nwe leave to Priam and the Trojans their boast, even Helen of Argos. And\nthe earth shall rot thy bones as thou liest in Troy with thy task\nunfinished: and thus shall many an overweening Trojan say as he leapeth\nupon the tomb of glorious Menelaos: 'Would to God Agamemnon might so\nfulfil his wrath in every matter, even as now he led hither the host of\nthe Achaians for naught, and hath gone home again to his dear native\nland with empty ships, and hath left noble Menelaos behind.' Thus shall\nmen say hereafter: in that day let the wide earth gape for me.\"\n\nBut golden-haired Menelaos encouraged him and said: \"Be of good courage,\nneither dismay at all the host of the Achaians. The keen dart lighted\nnot upon a deadly spot; my glistening belt in front stayed it, and the\nkirtle of mail beneath, and the taslet that the coppersmiths fashioned.\"\n\nThen lord Agamemnon answered him and said: \"Would it may be so, dear\nMenelaos. But the leech shall feel the wound, and lay thereon drugs that\nshall assuage thy dire pangs.\"\n\nSo saying he spake to godlike Talthybios, his herald: \"Talthybios, with\nall speed call Machaon hither, the hero son of Asklepios the noble\nleech, to see Menelaos, Atreus' warrior son, whom one well skilled in\narchery, some Trojan or Lykian, hath wounded with a bow-shot, to his\nglory and our grief.\"\n\nSo said he, and the herald heard him and disregarded not, and went his\nway through the host of mail-clad Achaians to spy out the hero Machaon.\nHim he found standing, and about him the stalwart ranks of the\nshield-bearing host that followed him from Trike, pasture land of\nhorses. So he came near and spake his winged words: \"Arise, thou son of\nAsklepios. Lord Agamemnon calleth thee to see Menelaos, captain of the\nAchaians, whom one well skilled in archery, some Trojan or Lykian, hath\nwounded with a bow-shot, to his glory and our grief.\"\n\nSo saying he aroused his spirit in his breast, and they went their way\namid the throng, through the wide host of the Achaians. And when they\nwere now come where was golden-haired Menelaos wounded, and all as many\nas were chieftains gathered around him in a circle, the godlike hero\ncame and stood in their midst, and anon drew forth the arrow from the\nclasped belt; and as it was drawn forth the keen barbs were broken\nbackwards. Then he loosed the glistering belt and kirtle of mail beneath\nand taslet that the coppersmiths fashioned; and when he saw the wound\nwhere the bitter arrow had lighted, he sucked out the blood and\ncunningly spread thereon soothing drugs, such as Cheiron of his good\nwill had imparted to his sire.\n\nWhile these were tending Menelaos of the loud war-cry, the ranks of\nshield-bearing Trojans came on; so the Achaians donned their arms again,\nand bethought them of the fray. Now wouldest thou not see noble\nAgamemnon slumbering, nor cowering, unready to fight, but very eager for\nglorious battle. He left his horses and his chariot adorned with bronze;\nand his squire, even Eurymedon son of Ptolemaios Peiraieus' son, kept\napart the snorting steeds; and he straitly charged him to have them at\nhand whenever weariness should come upon his limbs with marshalling so\nmany; and thus on foot ranged he through the ranks of warriors. And\nwhomsoever of all the fleet-horsed Danaans he found eager, he stood by\nthem and by his words encouraged them: \"Ye Argives, relax not in any\nwise your impetuous valour; for father Zeus will be no helper of liars,\nbut as these were first to transgress against the oaths, so shall their\nown tender flesh be eaten of the vultures, and we shall bear away their\ndear wives and little children in our ships, when once we take the\nstronghold.\"\n\nBut whomsoever he found shrinking from hateful battle, these he chode\nsore with angry words: \"Ye Argives, warriors of the bow, ye men of\ndishonour, have ye no shame? Why stand ye thus dazed like fawns that are\nweary with running over the long plain and so stand still, and no valour\nis found in their hearts at all? Even thus stand ye dazed, and fight\nnot. Is it that ye wait for the Trojans to come near where your good\nships' sterns are drawn up on the shore of the grey sea, to see if\nKronion will stretch his arm over you indeed?\"\n\nSo masterfully ranged he through the ranks of warriors. Then came he to\nthe Cretans as he went through the throng of warriors; and these were\ntaking arms around wise Idomeneus; Idomeneus amid the foremost, valiant\nas a wild boar, and Meriones the while was hastening his hindermost\nbattalions. Then Agamemnon king of men rejoiced to see them, and anon\nspake to Idomeneus with kindly words: \"Idomeneus, more than all the\nfleet-horsed Danaans do I honour thee, whether in war or in task of\nother sort or in the feast, when the chieftains of the Argives mingle in\nthe bowl the gleaming wine of the counsellor. For even though all the\nother flowing-haired Achaians drink one allotted portion, yet thy cup\nstandeth ever full even as mine, to drink as oft as they soul biddeth\nthee. Now arouse thee to war like such an one as thou avowest thyself to\nbe of old.\"\n\nAnd Idomeneus the captain of the Cretans made answer to him: \"Atreides,\nof very truth will I be to thee a trusty comrade even as at the first I\npromised and gave my pledge; but do thou urge on all the flowing-haired\nAchaians, that we may fight will all speed, seeing the Trojans have\ndisannulled the oaths. But for all that death and sorrow hereafter shall\nbe their lot, because they were the first to transgress against the\noaths.\"\n\nSo said he, and Agamemnon passed on glad at heart. Then came he to the\nAiantes as he went through the throng of warriors; and these twain were\narming, and a cloud of footmen followed with them. Even as when a\ngoatherd from a place of outlook seeth a cloud coming across the deep\nbefore the blast of the west wind; and to him being afar it seemeth ever\nblacker, even as pitch, as it goeth along the deep, and bringeth a great\nwhirlwind, and he shuddereth to see it and driveth his flock beneath a\ncave; even in such wise moved the serried battalions of young men, the\nfosterlings of Zeus, by the side of the Aiantes into furious war,\nbattalions dark of line, bristling with shields and spears. And lord\nAgamemnon rejoiced to see them and spake to them winged words, and said:\n\"Aiantes, leaders of the mail-clad Argives, to you twain, seeing it is\nnot seemly to urge you, give I no charge; for of your own selves ye do\nindeed bid your folk to fight amain. Ah, father Zeus and Athene and\nApollo, would that all had like spirit in their breasts; then would king\nPriam's city soon bow captive and wasted beneath our hands.\"\n\nSo saying he left them there, and went to others. Then found he Nestor,\nthe clear-voiced orator of the Pylians, arraying his comrades, and\nurging them to fight, around great Pelegon and Alastor and Chromios and\nlord Haimon and Bias shepherd of the host. And first he arrayed the\nhorsemen with horses and chariots, and behind them the footmen many and\nbrave, to be a bulwark of battle; but the cowards he drave into the\nmidst, that every man, even though he would not, yet of necessity must\nfight. First he laid charge upon the horsemen; these he bade hold in\ntheir horses nor be entangled in the throng. \"Neither let any man,\ntrusting in his horsemanship and manhood, be eager to fight the Trojans\nalone and before the rest, nor yet let him draw back, for so will ye be\nenfeebled. But whomsoever a warrior from the place of his own car can\ncome at a chariot of the foe, let him thrust forth with his spear; even\nso is the far better way. Thus moreover did men of old time lay low\ncities and walls, because they had this mind and spirit in their\nbreasts.\"\n\nSo did the old man charge them, being well skilled of yore in battles.\nAnd lord Agamemnon rejoiced to see hem, and spake to him winged words,\nand said: \"Old man, would to god that, even as thy spirit is in thine\nown breast, thy limbs might obey and thy strength be unabated. But the\ncommon lot of age is heavy upon thee; would that it had come upon some\nother man, and thou wert amid the young.\"\n\nThen knightly Nestor of Gerenia answered him: \"Atreides, I verily, even\nI too, would wish to be as on the day when I slew noble Ereuthalion. But\nthe gods in no wise grant men all things at once. As I was then a youth,\nso doth old age now beset me. Yet even so will I abide among the\nhorsemen and urge them by counsel and words; for that is the right of\nelders. But the young men shall wield the spear, they that are more\nyouthful than I and have confidence in their strength.\"\n\nSo spake he, and Atreides passed on glad at heart. He found Menestheus\nthe charioteer, the son of Peteos, standing still, and round him were\nthe Athenians, masters of the battle-cry. And hard by stood crafty\nOdysseus, and round about him the ranks of Kephallenians, no feeble\nfolk, stood still; for their host had not yet heard the battle-cry,\nseeing the battalions of horse-taming Trojans and Achaians had but just\nbestirred them to move; so these stood still tarrying till some other\ncolumn of the Achaians should advance to set upon the Trojans and begin\nthe battle. But when Agamemnon king of men saw it, he upbraided them,\nand spake to them winged words, saying: \"O son of king Peteos fosterling\nof Zeus, and thou skilled in evil wiles, thou cunning of mind, why stand\nye shrinking apart, and tarry for others? You beseemeth it to stand in\nyour place amid the foremost and to front the fiery battle; for ye are\nthe first to hear my bidding to the feast, as oft as we Achaians prepare\na feast for the counsellors. Then are ye glad to eat roast meat and\ndrink your cups of honey-sweet wine as long as ye will. But now would ye\ngladly behold it, yea, if ten columns of Achaians in front of you were\nfighting with the pitiless sword.\"\n\nBut Odysseus of many counsels looked fiercely at him and said:\n\"Atreides, what word is this that hath escaped the barrier of thy lips?\nHow sayest thou that we are slack in battle? When once our [Or, \"that we\nare slack in battle, when once we Achaians,\" putting the note of\ninterrogation after \"tamers of horses.\"] Achaians launch furious war on\nthe Trojans, tamers of horses, then shalt thou, if thou wilt, and if\nthou hast any care therefor, behold Telemachos' dear father mingling\nwith the champions of the Trojans, the tamers of horses. But that thou\nsayest is empty as air.\"\n\nThen lord Agamemnon spake to him smiling, seeing how he was wroth, and\ntook back his saying: \"Heaven-sprung son of Laertes, Odysseus full of\ndevices, neither do I chide thee beyond measure nor urge thee; for I\nknow that thy heart within thy breast is kindly disposed; for thy\nthoughts are as my thoughts. Go to, we will make amends hereafter, if\nany ill word hath been spoken now; may the gods bring it all to none\neffect.\"\n\nSo saying he left them there and went on to others. The son of Tydeus\nfound he, high-hearted Diomedes, standing still with horses and chariot\nwell compact; and by him stood Sthenelos son of Kapaneus. Him lord\nAgamemnon saw and upbraided, and spake to him winged words, and said:\n\"Ah me, thou son of wise Tydeus tamer of horses, why shrinkest thou, why\ngazest thou at the highways of the battle? Not thus was Tydeus wont to\nshrink, but rather to fight his enemies far in front of his dear comrades,\nas they say that beheld him at the task; for never did I meet him\nnor behold him, but men say that he was preeminent amid all. Of a truth\nhe came to Mykene, not in enmity, but as a guest with godlike\nPolyneikes, to raise him an army for the war that they were levying\nagainst the holy walls of Thebes; and they besought earnestly that\nvaliant allies might be given them, and our folk were fain to grant them\nand made assent to their entreaty, only Zeus showed omens of ill and\nturned their minds. So when these were departed and were come on their\nway, and had attained to Asopos deep in rushes, that maketh his bed in\ngrass, there did the Achaians appoint Tydeus to be their ambassador. So\nhe went and found the multitude of the sons of Kadmos feasting in the\npalace of mighty Eteokles. Yet was knightly Tydeus, even though a\nstranger, not afraid, being alone amid the multitude of the Kadmeians,\nbut challenged them all to feats of strength, and in every one\nvanquished he them easily; so present a helper was Athene unto him. But\nthe Kadmeians, the urgers of horses, were wroth, and as he fared back\nagain they brought and set a strong ambush, even fifty young men, whose\nleaders were twain, Maion son of Haimon, like to the immortals, and\nAutophonos' son Polyphontes staunch in battle. Still even on the Tydeus\nbrought shameful death; he slew them all, save one that he sent home\nalone; Maion to wit he sent away in obedience to the omens of heaven.\nSuch was Tydeus of Aitolia; but he begat a son that in battle is worse\nthan he; only in harangue is he the better.\"\n\nSo said he, and stalwart Diomedes made no answer, but had respect to the\nchiding of the king revered. But the son of glorious Kapaneus answered\nhim: \"Atreides, utter not falsehood, seeing thou knowest how to speak\ntruly. We avow ourselves to be better men by far than our fathers were:\nwe did take the seat of Thebes the seven gated, though we led a scantier\nhost against a stronger wall, because we followed the omens of the gods\nand the salvation of Zeus; but they perished by their own iniquities. Do\nnot thou therefore in any wise have our fathers in like honour with us.\"\n\nBut stalwart Diomedes looked sternly at him, and said: \"Brother, sit\nsilent and obey my saying. I grudge not that Agamemnon shepherd of the\nhost should urge on the well-greaved Achaians to fight; for him the\nglory will attend if the Achaians lay the Trojans low and take holy\nIlios; and his will be the great sorrow if the Achaians be laid low. Go\nto now, let us too bethink us of impetuous valour.\"\n\nHe spake and leapt in his armour from the chariot to earth, and terribly\nrang the bronze upon the chieftain's breast as he moved; thereat might\nfear have come even upon one stout-hearted.\n\nAs when on the  echoing beach the sea-wave lifteth up itself in close\narray before the driving of the west wind; out on the deep doth it first\nraise its head, and then breaketh upon the land and belloweth aloud and\ngoeth with arching crest about the promontories, and speweth the foaming\nbrine afar; even so in close array moved the battalions of the Danaans\nwithout pause to battle. Each captain gave his men the word, and the\nrest went silently; thou wouldest not deem that all the great host\nfollowing them had any voice within their breasts; in silence feared\nthey their captains. On every man glittered the inwrought armour\nwherewith they went clad. But for the Trojans, like sheep beyond number\nthat stand in the courtyard of a man of great substance, to be milked of\ntheir white milk, and bleat without ceasing to hear their lambs' cry,\neven so arose the clamour of the Trojans through the wide host. For they\nhad not all like speech nor one language, but their tongues were\nmingled, and they were brought from many lands. These were urged on of\nAres, and those of bright-eyed Athene, and Terror and Rout, and Strife\nwhose fury wearieth not, sister and friend of murderous Ares; her crest\nis but lowly at the first, but afterward she holdeth up her head in\nheaven and her feet walk upon the earth. She now cast common discord in\ntheir midst, as she fared through the throng and made the lamentation of\nmen to wax.\n\nNow when they were met together and come unto one spot, then clashed\nthey targe and spear and fury of bronze-clad warrior; the bossed shields\npressed each on each and mighty din arose. Then were heard the voice of\ngroaning and the voice of triumph together of the slayers and the slain,\nand the earth streamed with blood. As when two winter torrents flow down\nthe mountains to a watersmeet and join their furious flood within the\nravine from their great springs, and the shepherd heareth the roaring\nfar off among the hills: even so from the joining of battle came there\nforth shouting and travail. Antilochos first slew a Trojan warrior in\nfull array, valiant amid the champions, Echepolos son of Thalysios; him\nwas he first to smite upon the ridge of his crested helmet, and he drave\nthe spear into his brow and the point of bronze passed within the bone;\ndarkness clouded his eyes, and he crashed like a tower amid the press of\nfight. As he fell lord Elephenor caught him by the foot, Chalkodon's\nson, captain of the great-hearted Abantes, and dragged him from beneath\nthe darts, eager with all speed to despoil him of his armour. Yet but\nfor a little endured his essay; great-hearted Agenor saw him haling away\nthe corpse, and where his side was left uncovered of his buckler as he\nbowed him down, there smote he him with bronze-tipped spear-shaft and\nunstrung his limbs. So his life departed from him, and over his corpse\nthe task of Trojans and Achaians grew hot; like wolves leapt they one at\nanother, and man lashed at man.\n\nNext Telamonian Aias smote Anthemion's son, the lusty stripling\nSimoeisios, whose erst is mother bare beside the banks of Simoeis on the\nway down from Ida whither she had followed with her parents to see their\nflocks. Therefore they called him Simoeisios, but he repaid not his dear\nparents the recompense of his nurture; scanty was his span of life by\nreason of the spear of great-hearted Aias that laid him low. For as he\nwent he first was smitten on his right breast beside the pap; straight\nthough his shoulder passed the spear of bronze, and he fell to the\nground in the dust like a poplar-tree, that hath grown up smooth in the\nlowland of a great marsh, and its branches grow upon the top thereof;\nthis hath a wainwright felled with gleaming steel, to bend him a felloe\nfor a goodly chariot, and so it lies drying by a river's banks. In such\na fashion did heaven-sprung Aias slay Simoeisios son of Anthemion; then\nat him Antiphos of the glancing corslet, Priam's son, made a cast with\nhis keen javelin across the throng. Him he missed, but smote Odysseus'\nvaliant comrade Leukos in the groin as he drew the corpse his way, so\nthat he fell upon it and the body dropped from his hands. Then Odysseus\nwas very wroth at heart for the slaying of him, and strode through the\nforefront of the battle harnessed in flashing bronze, and went and stood\nhard by and glanced around him, and cast his bright javelin; and the\nTrojans shrank before the casting of the hero. He sped not the dart in\nvain, but smote Demokoon, Priam's bastard son that had come to him from\ntending his fleet mares in Abydos. Him Odysseus, being wroth for his\ncomrade's sake, smote with his javelin on one temple; and through both\ntemples passed the point of bronze, and darkness clouded his eyes, and\nhe fell with a crash and his armour clanged upon him. Then the\nforefighters and glorious Hector yielded, and the Argives shouted aloud,\nand drew the bodies unto them, and pressed yet further onward. But\nApollo looked down from Pergamos, and had indignation, and with a shout\ncalled to the Trojans: \"Arise, ye Trojans, tamers of horses; yield not\nto the Argives in fight; not of stone nor iron is their flesh, that it\nshould resist the piercing bronze when they are smitten. Moreover\nAchilles, son of Thetis of the fair tresses, fighteth not, but amid the\nships broodeth on his bitter anger.\"\n\nSo spake the dread god from the city; and the Achaians likewise were\nurged on of Zeus' daughter the Triton-born, most glorious, as she passed\nthrough the throng wheresoever she beheld them slackening.\n\nNext was Diores son of Amrynkeus caught in the snare of fate; for he was\nsmitten by a jagged stone on the right leg hard by the ankle, and the\ncaster thereof was captain of the men of Thrace, Peirros son of Imbrasos\nthat had come from Ainos. The pitiless stone crushed utterly the two\nsinews and the bones; back fell he in the dust, and stretched out both\nhis hands to his dear comrades, gasping out his soul. Then he that smote\nhim, even Peiroos, sprang at him and pierced him with a spear beside the\nnavel; so all his bowels gushed forth upon the ground, and darkness\nclouded his eyes. But even as Peiroos departed from him Thoas of Aitolia\nsmote with a spear his chest above the pap, and the point fixed in his\nlung. Then Thoas came close, and plucked out from his breast the\nponderous spear, and drew his sharp sword, wherewith he smote his belly\nin the midst, and took his life. Yet he stripped not off his armour; for\nhis comrades, the men of Thrace that wear the top-knot, stood around,\ntheir long spears in their hands, and albeit he was great and valiant\nand proud they drave him off from them and he gave ground reeling. So\nwere the two captains stretched in the dust side by side, he of the\nThracians and he of the mail-clad Epeians; and around them were many\nothers likewise slain.\n\nNow would none any more enter in and make light of the battle, could it\nbe that a man yet unwounded by dart or thrust of keen bronze might roam\nin the midst, being led of Pallas Athene by the hand, and by her guarded\nfrom the flying shafts. For many Trojans that day and many Achaians were\nlaid side by side upon their faces in the dust.\n\n\n\nBOOK V.\n\n    How Diomedes by his great valour made havoc of the Trojans,\n    and wounded even Aphrodite and Ares by the help of Athene.\n\nBut now to Tydeus' son Diomedes Athene gave might and courage, for him\nto be pre-eminent amid all the Argives and win glorious renown. She\nkindled flame unwearied from his helmet and shield, like to the star of\nsummer that above all others glittereth bright after he hath bathed in\nthe ocean stream. In such wise kindled she flame from his head and\nshoulders and sent him into the midst, where men thronged the thickest.\n\nNow there was amid the Trojans one Dares, rich and noble, priest of\nHephaistos; and he had two sons, Phegeus and Idaios, well skilled in all\nthe art of battle. These separated themselves and assailed him face to\nface, they setting on him from their car and he on foot upon the ground.\nAnd when they were now come near in onset on each other, first Phegeus\nhurled his far-shadowing spear; and over Tydeides' left shoulder the\nspear point passed, and smote not his body. Then next Tydeides made a\nspear-cast, and the javelin sped not from his hand in vain, but smote\nhis breast between the nipples, and thrust him from the chariot. So\nIdaios sprang away, leaving his beautiful car, and dared not to bestride\nhis slain brother; else had neither he himself escaped black fate: but\nHephaistos guarded him and saved him in a veil of darkness, that he\nmight not have his aged priest all broken with sorrow. And the son of\ngreat-hearted Tydeus drave away the horses and gave them to his men to\ntake to the hollow ships. But when the great-hearted Trojans beheld the\nsons of Dares, how one was fled, and one was slain beside his chariot,\nthe spirit of all was stirred. But bright-eyed Athene took impetuous\nAres by the hand and spake to him and said: \"Ares, Ares, blood-stained\nbane of mortals, thou stormer of walls, can we not now leave the Trojans\nand Achaians to fight, on whichsoever it be that father Zeus bestoweth\nglory? But let us twain give place, and escape the wrath of Zeus.\"\n\nSo saying she led impetuous Ares from the battle.  Then she made him sit\ndown beside loud Skamandros, and the Danaans pushed the Trojans back.\n\nSo they laboured in the violent mellay; but of Tydeides man could not\ntell with whom he were joined, whether he consorted with Trojans or with\nAchaians. For he stormed across the plain like a winter torrent at the\nfull, that in swift course scattereth the causeys [Causeways.]; neither\ncan the long lines of causeys hold it in, nor the fences of fruitful\norchards stay its sudden coming when the rain of heaven driveth it; and\nbefore it perish in multitudes the fair works of the sons of men. Thus\nbefore Tydeides the serried battalions of the Trojans were overthrown,\nand they abode him not for all they were so many.\n\nBut when Lykaon's glorious son marked him storming across the plain,\noverthrowing battalions before him, anon he bent his crooked bow against\nTydeides, and smote him as he sped onwards, hitting hard by his right\nshoulder the plate of his corslet; the bitter arrow flew through and\nheld straight upon its way, and the corslet was dabbled with blood. Over\nhim then loudly shouted Lykaon's glorious son: \"Bestir you,\ngreat-hearted Trojans, urgers of horses; the best man of the Achaians is\nwounded, and I deem that he shall not for long endure the violent dart.\"\n\nSo spake he boasting; yet was the other not vanquished of the swift\ndart, only he gave place and stood before his horses and his chariot and\nspake to Sthenelos son of Kapaneus: \"Haste thee, dear son of Kapaneus;\ndescend from thy chariot, to draw me from my shoulder the bitter arrow.\"\n\nSo said he, and Sthenelos leapt from his chariot to earth and stood\nbeside him and drew the swift shaft right through, out of his shoulder;\nand the blood darted up through the pliant tunic. Then Diomedes of the\nloud war-cry prayed thereat: \"Hear me, daughter of aegis-bearing Zeus,\nunwearied maiden! If ever in kindly mood thou stoodest by my father in\nthe heat of battle, even so now be thou likewise kind to me, Athene.\nGrant me to slay this man, and bring within my spear-cast him that took\nadvantage to shoot me, and boasteth over me, deeming that not for long\nshall I see the bright light of the sun.\"\n\nSo spake he in prayer, and Pallas Athene heard him, and made his limbs\nnimble, his feet and his hands withal, and came near and spake winged\nwords: \"Be of good courage now, Diomedes, to fight the Trojans; for in\nthy breast I have set thy father's courage undaunted, even as it was in\nknightly Tydeus, wielder of the buckler. Moreover I have taken from\nthine eyes the mist that erst was on them, that thou mayest well discern\nboth god and man. Therefore if any god come hither to make trial of\nthee, fight not thou face to face with any of the immortal gods; save\nonly if Aphrodite daughter of Zeus enter into the battle, her smite thou\nwith the keen bronze.\"\n\nSo saying bright-eyed Athene went her way and Tydeides returned and\nentered the forefront of the battle; even though erst his soul was eager\nto do battle with the Trojans, yet now did threefold courage come upon\nhim, as upon a lion whom some shepherd in the field guarding his fleecy\nsheep hath wounded, being sprung into the fold, yet hath not vanquished\nhim; he hath roused his might, and then cannot beat him back, but\nlurketh amid the steading, and his forsaken flock is affrighted; so the\nsheep are cast in heaps, one upon the other, and the lion in his fury\nleapeth out of the high fold; even so in fury mingled mighty Diomedes\nwith the Trojans.\n\nHim Aineias beheld making havoc of the ranks of warriors, and went his\nway along the battle and amid the hurtling of spears, seeking godlike\nPandaros, if haply he might find him. Lykaon's son he found, the noble\nand stalwart, and stood before his face, and spake a word unto him.\n\"Pandaros, where now are thy bow and thy winged arrows, and the fame\nwherein no man of this land rivalleth thee, nor any in Lykia boasteth to\nbe thy better? Go to now, lift thy hands in prayer to Zeus and shoot thy\ndart at this fellow, whoe'er he be that lordeth it here and hath already\nwrought the Trojans much mischief, seeing he hath unstrung the knees of\nmany a brave man; if indeed it be not some god wroth with the Trojans,\nin anger by reason of sacrifices; the wrath of god is a sore thing to\nfall on men.\"\n\nAnd Lykaon's glorious son made answer to him: \"Aineias, counsellor of\nthe mail-clad Trojans, in everything liken I him to the wise son of\nTydeus; I discern him by his shield and crested helmet, and by the\naspect of his horses; yet know I not surely if it be not a god. But if\nit be the man I deem, even the wise son of Tydeus, then not without help\nof a god is he thus furious, but some immortal standeth beside him with\na cloud wrapped about his shoulders and turned aside from him my swift\ndart even as it lighted. For already have I shot my dart at him and\nsmote his right shoulder right through the breastplate of his corslet,\nyea and I thought to hurl him headlong to Aidoneus, yet I vanquished him\nnot; surely it is some wrathful god. Already have I aimed at two\nprinces, Tydeus' and Atreus' sons, and both I smote and surely drew\nforth blood, yet only roused them the more. Therefore in an evil hour I\ntook from the peg my curved bow on that day when I led my Trojans to\nlovely Ilios, to do noble Hector pleasure. But if I return and mine eyes\nbehold my native land and wife and great palace lofty-roofed, then may\nan alien forthwith cut my head from me if I break not this bow with mine\nhands and cast it upon the blazing fire; worthless is its service to me\nas air.\"\n\nThen Aineias captain of the Trojans answered him: \"Nay, talk not thus;\nnaught shall be mended before that we with horses and chariot have gone\nto face this man, and made trial of him in arms. Come then, mount upon\nmy car that thou mayest see of what sort are the steeds of Tros, well\nskilled for following or for fleeing hither or thither very fleetly\nacross the plain; they will e'en bring us to the city safe and sound,\neven though Zeus hereafter give victory to Diomedes son of Tydeus. Come\ntherefore, take thou the lash and shining reins, and I will stand upon\nthe car to fight; or else withstand thou him, and to the horses will I\nlook.\"\n\nTo him made answer Lykaon's glorious son: \"Aineias, take thou thyself\nthe reins and thine own horses; better will they draw the curved car for\ntheir wonted charioteer, if perchance it hap that we must flee from\nTydeus' son; lest they go wild for fear and will not take us from the\nfight, for lack of thy voice, and so the son of great-hearted Tydeus\nattack us and slay us both and drive away the whole-hooved horses. So\ndrive thou thyself thy chariot and thy horses, and I will await his\nonset with my keen spear.\" So saying mounted they upon the well dight\nchariot, and eagerly drave the fleet horses against Tydeides, And\nSthenelos, the glorious son of Kapaneus, saw them, and anon spake to\nTydeides winged words: \"Diomedes son of Tydeus, dear to mine heart, I\nbehold two stalwart warriors eager to fight against thee, endued with\nmight beyond measure. The one is well skilled in the bow, even Pandaros,\nand he moreover boasteth him to be Lykaon's son; and Aineias boasteth\nhimself to be born son of great-hearted Anchises, and his mother is\nAphrodite. Come now, let us give place upon the chariot, neither rage\nthou thus, I pray thee, in the forefront of battle, lest perchance thou\nlose thy life.\"\n\nThen stalwart Diomedes looked sternly at him and said: \"Speak to me no\nword of flight, for I ween that thou shalt not at all persuade me; not\nin my blood is it to fight a skulking fight or cower down; my force is\nsteadfast still. I have no mind to mount the chariot, nay, even as I am\nwill I go to face them; Pallas Athene biddeth me not be afraid. And as\nfor these, their fleet horses shall not take both back from us again,\neven if one or other escape. And this moreover tell I thee, and lay thou\nit to heart: if Athene rich in counsel grant me this glory, to slay them\nboth, then refrain thou here these my fleet horses, and bind the reins\ntight to the chariot rim; and be mindful to leap upon Aineias' horses,\nand drive them forth from the Trojans amid the well-greaved Achaians.\nFor they are of that breed whereof farseeing Zeus gave to Tros\nrecompense for Ganymede his child, because they were the best of all\nhorses beneath the daylight and the sun.\"\n\nIn such wise talked they one to the other, and anon those other twain\ncame near, driving their fleet horses. First to him spake Lykaon's\nglorious son: \"O thou strong-souled and cunning, son of proud Tydeus,\nverily my swift dart vanquished thee not, the bitter arrow; so now will\nI make trial with my spear if I can hit thee.\"\n\nHe spake and poised and hurled his far-shadowing spear, and smote upon\nTydeides' shield; right through it sped the point of bronze and reached\nthe breastplate. So over him shouted loudly Lykaon's glorious son: \"Thou\nart smitten on the belly right through, and I ween thou shalt not long\nhold up thine head; so thou givest me great renown.\"\n\nBut mighty Diomedes unaffrighted answered him: \"Thou hast missed, and\nnot hit; but ye twain I deem shall not cease till one or other shall\nhave fallen and glutted with blood Ares the stubborn god of war.\"\n\nSo spake he and hurled; and Athene guided the dart upon his nose beside\nthe eye, and it pierced through his white teeth. So the hard bronze cut\nthrough his tongue at the root and the point issued forth by the base of\nthe chin. He fell from his chariot, and his splendid armour gleaming\nclanged upon him, and the fleet-footed horses swerved aside; so there\nhis soul and strength were unstrung.\n\nThen Aineias leapt down with shield and long spear, fearing lest\nperchance the Achaians might take from him the corpse; and strode over\nhim like a lion confident in his strength, and held before him his spear\nand the circle of his shield, eager to slay whoe'er should come to face\nhim, crying his terrible cry. Then Tydeides grasped in his hand a\nstone--a mighty deed--such as two men, as men now are, would not avail\nto lift; yet he with ease wielded it all alone. Therewith he smote\nAineias on the hip where the thigh turneth in the hip joint, and this\nmen call the \"cup-bone.\" So he crushed his cup-bone, and brake both\nsinews withal, and the jagged stone tore apart the skin. Then the hero\nstayed fallen upon his knees and with stout hand leant upon the earth;\nand the darkness of night veiled his eyes. And now might Aineias king of\nmen have perished, but that Aphrodite daughter of Zeus was swift to\nmark. About her dear son wound she her white arms, and spread before his\nface a fold of her radiant vesture, to be a covering from the darts,\nlest any of the fleet-horsed Danaans might hurl the spear into his\nbreast and take away his life.\n\nSo was she bearing her dear son away from battle; but the son of\nKapaneus forgat not the behest that Diomedes of the loud war-cry had\nlaid upon him; he refrained his own whole-hooved horses away from the\ntumult, binding the reins tight to the chariot-rim, and leapt on the\nsleek-coated horses of Aineias, and drave them from the Trojans to the\nwell-greaved Achaians, and gave them to Deipylos his dear comrade whom\nhe esteemed above all that were his age-fellows, because he was\nlike-minded with himself; and bade him drive them to the hollow ships.\nThen did the hero mount his own chariot and take the shining reins and\nforthwith drive his strong-hooved horses in quest of Tydeides, eagerly.\nNow Tydeides had made onslaught with pitiless weapon on Kypris\n[Aphrodite], knowing how she was a coward goddess and none of those that\nhave mastery in battle of the warriors. Now when he had pursued her\nthrough the dense throng and come on her, then great-hearted Tydeus' son\nthrust with his keen spear, and leapt on her and wounded the skin of her\nweak hand; straight through the ambrosial raiment that the Graces\nthemselves had woven her pierced the dart into the flesh, above the\nspringing of the palm. Then flowed the goddess's immortal blood, such\nichor as floweth in the blessed gods; for they eat no bread neither\ndrink they gleaming wine, wherefore they are bloodless and are named\nimmortals. And she with a great cry let fall her son: him Phoebus Apollo\ntook into his arms and saved him in a dusky cloud, lest any of the\nfleet-horsed Danaans might hurl the spear into his breast and take away\nhis life. But over her Diomedes of the loud war-cry shouted afar:\n\"Refrain thee, thou daughter of Zeus, from war and fighting. Is it not\nenough that thou beguilest feeble women? But if in battle thou wilt\nmingle, verily I deem that thou shalt shudder at the name of battle, if\nthou hear it even afar off.\"\n\nSo spake he, and she departed in amaze and was sore troubled: and\nwind-footed Iris took her and led her from the throng tormented with her\npain, and her fair skin was stained. There found she impetuous Ares\nsitting, on the battle's left; and his spear rested upon a cloud, and\nhis fleet steeds. Then she fell on her knees and with instant prayer\nbesought of her dear brother his golden-frontleted steeds: \"Dear\nbrother, save me and give me thy steeds, that I may win to Olympus,\nwhere is the habitation of the immortals. Sorely am I afflicted with a\nwound wherewith a mortal smote me, even Tydeides, who now would fight\neven with father Zeus.\"\n\nSo spake she, and Ares gave her his golden-frontleted steeds, and she\nmounted on the chariot sore at heart. By her side mounted Iris, and in\nher hands grasped the reins and lashed the horses to start them; and\nthey flew onward nothing loth. Thus soon they came to the habitation of\nthe gods, even steep Olympus. There wind-footed fleet Iris loosed the\nhorses from the chariot and stabled them, and set ambrosial forage\nbefore them; but fair Aphrodite fell upon Dione's knees that was her\nmother. She took her daughter in her arms and stroked her with her hand,\nand spake and called upon her name: \"Who now of the sons of heaven, dear\nchild, hath entreated thee thus wantonly, as though thou wert a\nwrong-doer in the face of all?\"\n\nThen laughter-loving Aphrodite made answer to her: \"Tydeus' son wounded\nme, high-hearted Diomedes, because I was saving from the battle my dear\nson Aineias, who to me is dearest far of all men. For no more is the\nfierce battle-cry for Trojans and Achaians, but the Danaans now are\nfighting even the immortals.\"\n\nThen the fair goddess Dione answered her: \"Be of good heart, my child,\nand endure for all thy pain; for many of us that inhabit the mansions of\nOlympus have suffered through men, in bringing grievous woes one upon\nanother.\"\n\nSo saying with both hands she wiped the ichor from the arm; her arm was\ncomforted, and the grievous pangs assuaged. But Athene and Hera beheld,\nand with bitter words provoked Zeus the son, of Kronos. Of them was the\nbright-eyed goddess Athene first to speak: \"Father Zeus, wilt thou\nindeed be wroth with me whate'er I say? Verily I ween that Kypris was\nurging some woman of Achaia to join her unto the Trojans whom she so\nmarvellously loveth; and stroking such an one of the fair-robed women of\nAchaia, she tore upon the golden brooch her delicate hand.\"\n\nSo spake she, and the father of gods and men smiled, and called unto him\ngolden Aphrodite and said: \"Not unto thee, my child, are given the works\nof war; but follow thou after the loving tasks of wedlock, and to all\nthese things shall fleet Ares and Athene look.\"\n\nNow while they thus spake in converse one with the other, Diomedes of\nthe loud war-cry leapt upon Aineias, knowing full well that Apollo\nhimself had spread his arms over him; yet reverenced he not even the\ngreat god, but still was eager to slay Aineias and strip from him his\nglorious armour. So thrice he leapt on him, fain to slay him, and thrice\nApollo beat back his glittering shield. And when the fourth time he\nsprang at him like a god, then Apollo the Far-darter spake to him with\nterrible shout: \"Think, Tydeides, and shrink, nor desire to match thy\nspirit with gods; seeing there is no comparison of the race of immortal\ngods and of men that walk upon the earth.\"\n\nSo said he, and Tydeides shrank a short space backwards, to avoid the\nwrath of Apollo the Far-darter. Then Apollo set Aineias away from the\nthrong in holy Pergamos where his temple stood. There Leto and Archer\nArtemis healed him in the mighty sanctuary, and gave him glory; but\nApollo of the silver bow made a wraith like unto Aineias' self, and in\nsuch armour as his; and over the wraith Trojans and goodly Achaians each\nhewed the others' bucklers on their breasts, their round shields and\nfluttering targes.\n\nThen to impetuous Ares said Phoebus Apollo: \"Ares, Ares, blood-stained\nbane of mortals, thou stormer of walls, wilt thou not follow after this\nman and withdraw him from the battle, this Tydeides, who now would fight\neven with father Zeus? First in close fight he wounded Kypris in her\nhand hard by the wrist, and then sprang he upon myself like unto a god.\"\n\nSo saying he sate himself upon the height of Pergamos, and baleful Ares\nentered among the Trojan ranks and aroused them in the likeness of fleet\nAkamas, captain of the Thracians. On the heaven-nurtured sons of Priam\nhe called saying: \"O ye sons of Priam, the heaven-nurtured king, how\nlong will ye yet suffer your host to be slain of the Achaians? Shall it\nbe even until they fight about our well-builded gates? Low lieth the\nwarrior whom we esteemed like unto goodly Hector, even Aineias son of\nAnchises great of heart. Go to now, let us save from the tumult our\nvaliant comrade.\"\n\nSo saying he aroused the spirit and soul of every man. Thereat Sarpedon\nsorely chode noble Hector: \"Hector, where now is the spirit gone that\nerst thou hadst? Thou saidst forsooth that without armies or allies thou\nwouldest hold the city, alone with thy sisters' husbands and thy\nbrothers; but now can I not see any of these neither perceive them, but\nthey are cowering like hounds about a lion; and we are fighting that are\nbut allies among you.\"\n\nSo spake Sarpedon, and his word stung Hector to the heart, Forthwith he\nleapt from his chariot in his armour to the earth, and brandishing two\nkeen spears went everywhere through the host, urging them to fight, and\nroused the dread battle-cry. So they were rallied and stood to face the\nAchaians: and the Argives withstood them in close array and fled not.\nEven as a wind carrieth the chaff about the sacred threshing-floors when\nmen are winnowing, and the chaff-heaps grow white--so now grew the\nAchaians white with falling dust which in their midst the horses' hooves\nbeat up into the brazen heaven, as fight was joined again, and the\ncharioteers wheeled round. Thus bare they forward the fury of their\nhands: and impetuous Ares drew round them a veil of night to aid the\nTrojans in the battle, ranging everywhere. And Apollo himself sent forth\nAineias from his rich sanctuary and put courage in the heart of him,\nshepherd of the hosts. So Aineias took his place amid his comrades, and\nthey were glad to see him come among them alive and sound and full of\nvaliant spirit. Yet they questioned him not at all, for all the toil\nforbade them that the god of the silver bow was stirring and Ares bane\nof men and Strife raging insatiably.\n\nAnd on the other side the two Aiantes and Odysseus and Diomedes stirred\nthe Danaans to fight; yet these of themselves feared neither the\nTrojans' violence nor assaults, but stood like mists that Kronos' son\nsetteth in windless air on the mountain tops, at peace, while the might\nof the north wind sleepeth and of all the violent winds that blow with\nkeen breath and scatter apart the shadowing clouds. Even so the Danaans\nwithstood the Trojans steadfastly and fled not. And Atreides ranged\nthrough the throng exhorting instantly: \"My friends, quit you like men\nand take heart of courage, and shun dishonour in one another's eyes amid\nthe stress of battle. Of men that shun dishonour more are saved than\nslain, but for them that flee is neither glory found nor any safety.\"\n\nSo saying he darted swiftly with his javelin and smote a foremost\nwarrior, even great-hearted Aineias' comrade Deikoon son of Pergasos,\nwhom the Trojans held in like honour with Priam's sons, because he was\nswift to do battle amid the foremost. Him lord Agamemnon smote with his\ndart upon the shield, and it stayed not the spear, but the point passed\nthrough, so that he drave it through the belt into his nethermost belly:\nand he fell with a crash and his armour clanged upon him.\n\nThen did Aineias slay two champions of the Danaans, even the sons of\nDiokles, Krethon and Orsilochos. Like them, two lions on the mountain\ntops are nurtured by their dam in the deep forest thickets; and these\nharry the kine and goodly sheep and make havoc of the farmsteads of men,\ntill in their turn they too are slain at men's hands with the keen\nbronze; in such wise were these twain vanquished at Aineias' hands and\nfell like tall pine-trees.\n\nBut Menelaos dear to Ares had pity of them in their fall, and strode\nthrough the forefront, harnessed in flashing bronze, brandishing his\nspear; and Ares stirred his courage, with intent that he might fall\nbeneath Aineias' hand. But Antilochos, great-hearted Nestor's son,\nbeheld him, and strode through the forefront; because he feared\nexceedingly for the shepherd of the host, lest aught befall him and\ndisappoint them utterly of their labour. So those two were now holding\nforth their hands and sharp spears each against the other, eager to do\nbattle; when Antilochos came and stood hard by the shepherd of the host.\nBut Aineias faced them not, keen warrior though he was, when he beheld\ntwo men abiding side by side; so these haled away the corpses to the\nAchaians' host, and laid the hapless twain in their comrades' arms, and\nthemselves turned back and fought on amid the foremost.\n\nBut Hector marked them across the ranks, and sprang on them with a\nshout, and the battalions of the Trojans followed him in their might:\nand Ares led them on and dread Enyo, she bringing ruthless turmoil of\nwar, the while Ares wielded in his hands his monstrous spear, and ranged\nnow before Hector's face, and now behind.\n\nThen Diomedes of the loud war-cry shuddered to behold him; and even as a\nshiftless man crossing a great plain cometh on a swift-streaming river\nflowing on to the sea, and seeing it boil with foam springeth backwards,\neven so now Tydeides shrank back and spake to the host: \"Friends, how\nmarvel we that noble Hector is a spearman and bold man of war! Yet ever\nis there beside him some god that wardeth off destruction; even as now\nAres is there by him in likeness of a mortal man. But with faces towards\nthe Trojans still give ground backwards, neither be desirous to fight\namain with gods.\"\n\nNow the Argives before the face of Ares and mail-clad Hector neither\nturned them round about toward their black ships, nor charged forward in\nbattle, but still fell backward, when they heard of Ares amid the\nTrojans. But when the white-armed goddess Hera marked them making havoc\nof the Argives in the press of battle, anon she spake winged words to\nAthene: \"Out on it, thou daughter of aegis-bearing Zeus, unwearied\nmaiden! Was it for naught we pledged our word to Menelaos, that he\nshould not depart till he had laid waste well-walled Ilios,--if thus we\nlet baleful Ares rage? Go to now, let us twain also take thought of\nimpetuous valour.\"\n\nSo said she, and the bright-eyed goddess Athene disregarded not. So Hera\nthe goddess queen, daughter of Kronos, went her way to harness the\ngold-frontleted steeds. And Athene, daughter of aegis-bearing Zeus, cast\ndown at her father's threshold her woven vesture many-coloured, that\nherself had wrought and her hands had fashioned, and put on her the\ntunic of Zeus the cloud-gatherer, and arrayed her in her armour for\ndolorous battle. About her shoulders cast she the tasselled aegis\nterrible, whereon is Panic as a crown all round about, and Strife is\ntherein and Valour and horrible Onslaught withal, and therein is the\ndreadful monster's Gorgon head, dreadful and grim, portent of\naegis-bearing Zeus. Upon her head set she the two-crested golden helm\nwith fourfold plate, bedecked with men-at-arms of a hundred cities. Upon\nthe flaming chariot set she her foot, and grasped her heavy spear, great\nand stout, wherewith she vanquisheth the ranks of men, even of heroes\nwith whom she of the awful sire is wroth. Then Hera swiftly smote the\nhorses with the lash; self-moving groaned upon their hinges the gates of\nheaven whereof the Hours are warders, to whom is committed great heaven\nand Olympus, whether to throw open the thick cloud or set it to. There\nthrough the gates guided they their horses patient of the lash. And they\nfound the son of Kronos sitting apart from all the gods on the topmost\npeak of many-ridged Olympus. Then the white-armed goddess Hera stayed\nher horses and questioned the most high Zeus, the son of Kronos, and\nsaid: \"Father Zeus, hast thou no indignation with Ares for these violent\ndeeds? How great and goodly a company of Achaians hath he destroyed\nrecklessly and in unruly wise, unto my sorrow. But here in peace Kypris\nand Apollo of the silver bow take their pleasure, having set on this mad\none that knoweth not any law. Father Zeus, wilt thou at all be wroth\nwith me if I smite Ares and chase him from the battle in sorry plight?\"\n\nAnd Zeus the cloud-gatherer answered and said to her: \"Go to now, set\nupon him Athene driver of the spoil, who most is wont to bring sore pain\nupon him.\"\n\nSo spake he, and the white-armed goddess Hera disregarded not, and\nlashed her horses; they nothing loth flew on between earth and starry\nheaven. As far as a man seeth with his eyes into the haze of distance as\nhe sitteth on a place of outlook and gazeth over the wine-dark sea, so\nfar leap the loudly neighing horses of the gods. Now when they came to\nTroy and the two flowing rivers, even to where Simoeis and Skamandros\njoin their streams, there the white-armed goddess Hera stayed her horses\nand loosed them from the car and poured thick mist round about them, and\nSimoeis made ambrosia spring up for them to graze. So the goddesses went\ntheir way with step like unto turtle-doves, being fain to bring succour\nto the men of Argos. And when they were now come where the most and most\nvaliant stood, thronging about mighty Diomedes tamer of horses, in the\nsemblance of ravening lions or wild boars whose strength is nowise\nfeeble, then stood the white-armed goddess Hera and shouted in the\nlikeness of great-hearted Stentor with voice of bronze, whose cry was\nloud as the cry of fifty other men: \"Fie upon you, Argives, base things\nof shame, so brave in semblance! While yet noble Achilles entered\ncontinually into battle, then issued not the Trojans even from the\nDardanian gate; for they had dread of his terrible spear. But now fight\nthey far from the city at the hollow ships.\"\n\nSo saying she aroused the spirit and soul of every man. And to Tydeides'\nside sprang the bright-eyed goddess Athene. That lord she found beside\nhis horses and chariot, cooling the wound that Pandaros with his dart\nhad pierced, for his sweat vexed it by reason of the broad baldrick of\nhis round shield; therewith was he vexed and his arm grew weary, so he\nwas lifting up the baldrick and wiping away the dusky blood. Then the\ngoddess laid her hand on his horses' yoke, and said: \"Of a truth Tydeus\nbegat a son little after his own likeness. Tydeus was short of stature,\nbut a man of war.\"\n\nAnd stalwart Diomedes made answer to her and said: \"I know thee, goddess\ndaughter of aegis-bearing Zeus: therefore with my whole heart will I\ntell thee my thought and hide it not. Neither hath disheartening terror\ntaken hold upon me, nor any faintness, but I am still mindful of thy\nbehest that thou didst lay upon me. Thou forbadest me to fight face to\nface with all the blessed gods, save only if Zeus' daughter Aphrodite\nshould enter into battle, then to wound her with the keen bronze.\nTherefore do I now give ground myself and have bidden all the Argives\nlikewise to gather here together; for I discern Ares lording it in the\nfray.\"\n\nThen the bright-eyed goddess Athene answered him: \"Diomedes son of\nTydeus, thou joy of mine heart, fear thou, for that, neither Ares nor\nany other of the immortals; so great a helper am I to thee. Go to now,\nat Ares first guide thou thy whole-hooved horses, and smite him hand to\nhand, nor have any awe of impetuous Ares, raving here, a curse incarnate,\nthe renegade that of late in converse with me and Hera pledged him\nto fight against the Trojans and give succour to the Argives, but now\nconsorteth with the Trojans and hath forgotten these.\"\n\nSo speaking, with her hand she drew back Sthenelos and thrust him from\nthe chariot to earth, and instantly leapt he down; so the goddess\nmounted the car by noble Diomedes' side right eagerly. The oaken axle\ncreaked loud with its burden, bearing the dread goddess and the man of\nmight. Then Athene grasped the whip and reins; forthwith against Ares\nfirst guided she the whole-hooved horses. Now he was stripping huge\nPeriphas, most valiant far of the Aitolians, Ochesios' glorious son. Him\nwas blood-stained Ares stripping; and Athene donned the helm of Hades,\nthat terrible Ares might not behold her. Now when Ares scourge of\nmortals beheld noble Diomedes, he left huge Periphas lying there, where\nat the first he had slain him and taken away his life, and made straight\nat Diomedes tamer of horses. Now when they were come nigh in onset on\none another, first Ares thrust over the yoke and horse's reins with\nspear of bronze, eager to take away his life. But the bright-eyed\ngoddess Athene with her hand seized the spear and thrust it up over the\ncar, to spend itself in vain. Next Diomedes of the loud war-cry attacked\nwith spear of bronze; and Athene drave it home against Ares' nethermost\nbelly, where his taslets were girt about him. There smote he him and\nwounded him, rending through his fair skin, and plucked forth the spear\nagain. Then brazen Ares bellowed loud as nine thousand warriors or ten\nthousand cry in battle as they join in strife and fray. Thereat\ntrembling gat hold of Achaians and Trojans for fear, so mightily\nbellowed Ares insatiate of battle.\n\nEven as gloomy mist appeareth from the clouds when after beat a stormy\nwind ariseth, even so to Tydeus' son Diomedes brazen Ares appeared amid\nclouds, faring to wide heaven. Swiftly came he to the gods' dwelling,\nsteep Olympus, and sat beside Zeus son of Kronos with grief at heart,\nand shewed the immortal blood flowing from the wound, and piteously\nspake to him winged words: \"Father Zeus, hast thou no indignation to\nbehold these violent deeds? For ever cruelly suffer we gods by one\nanother's devices, in shewing men grace. With thee are we all at\nvariance, because thou didst beget that reckless maiden and baleful,\nwhose thought is ever of iniquitous deeds. For all the other gods that\nare in Olympus hearken to thee, and we are subject every one; only her\nthou chastenest not, neither in deed nor word, but settest her on,\nbecause this pestilent one is thine own offspring. Now hath she urged on\nTydeus' son, even overweening Diomedes, to rage furiously against the\nimmortal gods. Kypris first he wounded in close fight, in the wrist of\nher hand, and then assailed he me, even me, with the might of a god.\nHowbeit my swift feet bare me away; else had I long endured anguish\nthere amid the grisly heaps of dead, or else had lived strengthless from\nthe smitings of the spear.\"\n\nThen Zeus the cloud-gatherer looked sternly at him and said: \"Nay, thou\nrenegade, sit not by me and whine. Most hateful to me art thou of all\ngods that dwell in Olympus: thou ever lovest strife and wars and\nbattles. Truly thy mother's spirit is intolerable, unyielding, even\nHera's; her can I scarce rule with words. Therefore I deem that by her\nprompting thou art in this plight. Yet will I no longer endure to see\nthee in anguish; mine offspring art thou, and to me thy mother bare\nthee.\"\n\nSo spake he and bade Paieon heal him.  And Paieon laid assuaging drugs\nupon the wound. Even as fig juice maketh haste to thicken white milk,\nthat is liquid but curdleth speedily as a man stirreth, even so swiftly\nhealed he impetuous Ares. And Hebe bathed him, and clothed him in\ngracious raiment, and he sate him down by Zeus son of Kronos, glorying\nin his might.\n\nThen fared the twain back to the mansion of great Zeus, even Hera and\nAthene, having stayed Ares scourge of mortals from his man-slaying.\n\n\n\nBOOK VI.\n\n    How Diomedes and Glaukos, being about to fight, were known\n    to each other, and parted in friendliness. And how Hector\n    returning to the city bade farewell to Andromache his wife.\n\nSo was the dread fray of Trojans and Achaians left to itself, and the\nbattle swayed oft this way and that across the plain, as they aimed\nagainst each other their bronze-shod javelins, between Simoeis and the\nstreams of Xanthos.\n\nNow had the Trojans been chased again by the Achaians, dear to Ares, up\ninto Ilios, in their weakness overcome, but that Prism's son Helenos,\nfar best of augurs, stood by Aineias' side and Hector's, and spake to\nthem: \"Aineias and Hector, seeing that on you lieth the task of war in\nchief of Trojans and Lykians, because for every issue ye are foremost\nboth for fight and counsel, stand ye your ground, and range the host\neverywhither to rally them before the gates, ere yet they fall fleeing\nin their women's arms, and be made a rejoicing to the foe. Then when ye\nhave aroused all our battalions we will abide here and fight the\nDanaans, though in sore weariness; for necessity presseth us hard: but\nthou, Hector, go into the city, and speak there to thy mother and mine;\nlet her gather the aged wives to bright-eyed Athene's temple in the\nupper city, and with her key open the doors of the holy house; and let\nher lay the robe, that seemeth to her the most gracious and greatest in\nher hall and far dearest unto herself, upon the knees of\nbeauteous-haired Athene; and vow to her to sacrifice in her temple\ntwelve sleek kine, that have not felt the goad, if she will have mercy\non the city and the Trojans' wives and little children. So may she\nperchance hold back Tydeus' son from holy Ilios, the furious spearman,\nthe mighty deviser of rout, whom in good sooth I deem to have proved\nhimself mightiest of the Achaians. Never in this wise feared we\nAchilles, prince of men, who they say is born of a goddess; nay, but he\nthat we see is beyond measure furious; none can match him for might.\"\n\nSo spake he, and Hector disregarded not his brother's word, but leapt\nforthwith from his chariot in his armour to earth, and brandishing two\nsharp spears passed everywhere through the host, rousing them to battle,\nand stirred the dread war-cry. So they were rallied and stood to face\nthe Achaians, and the Argives gave ground and ceased from slaughter, and\ndeemed that some immortal had descended from starry heaven to bring the\nTrojans succour, in such wise rallied they. Then Hector called to the\nTrojans with far-reaching shout: \"O high-souled Trojans and ye far-famed\nallies, quit you like men, my friends, and take thought of impetuous\ncourage, while I depart to Ilios and bid the elders of the council and\nour wives pray to the gods and vow them hecatombs.\"\n\nSo saying Hector of the glancing helm departed, and the black hide beat\non either side against his ankles and his neck, even the rim that ran\nuttermost about his bossed shield.\n\nNow Glaukos son of Hippolochos and Tydeus' son met in the mid-space of\nthe foes, eager to do battle. Thus when the twain were come nigh in\nonset on each other, to him first spake Diomedes of the loud war-cry:\n\"Who art thou, noble sir, of mortal men? For never have I beheld thee in\nglorious battle ere this, yet now hast thou far outstripped all men in\nthy hardihood, seeing thou abidest my far-shadowing spear. Luckless are\nthe fathers whose children face my might. But if thou art some immortal\ncome down from heaven, then will not I fight with heavenly gods. But if\nthou art of men that eat the fruit of the field, come nigh, that anon\nthou mayest enter the toils of destruction.\"\n\nThen Hippolochos' glorious son made answer to him: \"Great-hearted\nTydeides, why enquirest thou of my generation? Even as are the\ngenerations of leaves such are those likewise of men; the leaves that be\nthe wind scattereth on the earth, and the forest buddeth and putteth\nforth more again, when the season of spring is at hand; so of the\ngenerations of men one putteth forth and another ceaseth. Yet if thou\nwilt, have thine answer, that thou mayest well know our lineage, whereof\nmany men have knowledge. Hippolochos, son of Bellerophon, begat me, and\nof him do I declare me to be sprung; he sent me to Troy and bade me very\ninstantly to be ever the best and to excel all other men, nor put to\nshame the lineage of my fathers that were of noblest blood in Ephyre and\nin wide Lykia. This is the lineage and blood whereof I avow myself to\nbe.\"\n\nSo said he, and Diomedes of the loud war-cry was glad. He planted his\nspear in the bounteous earth and with soft words spake to the shepherd\nof the host: \"Surely then thou art to me a guest-friend of old times\nthrough my father: for goodly Oineus of yore entertained noble\nBellerophon in his halls and kept him twenty days. Moreover they gave\neach the other goodly gifts of friendship; Oineus gave a belt bright\nwith purple, and Bellerophon a gold two-handled cup. Therefore now am I\nto thee a dear guest-friend in midmost Argos, and thou in Lykia,\nwhene'er I fare to your land. So let us shun each other's spears, even\namid the throng; Trojans are there in multitudes and famous allies for\nme to slay, whoe'er it be that God vouchsafeth me and my feet overtake;\nand for thee are there Achaians in multitude, to slay whome'er thou\ncanst. But let us make exchange of arms between us, that these also may\nknow how we avow ourselves to be guest-friends by lineage.\"\n\nSo spake the twain, and leaping from their cars clasped each the other\nby his hand, and pledged their faith. But now Zeus son of Kronos took\nfrom Glaukos his wits, in that he made exchange with Diomedes Tydeus'\nson of golden armour for bronze, the price of five score oxen for the\nprice of nine.\n\nNow when Hector came to the Skaian gates and to the oak tree, there came\nrunning round about him the Trojans' wives and daughters, enquiring of\nsons and brethren and friends and husbands. But he bade them thereat all\nin turn pray to the gods; but sorrow hung over many.\n\nBut when he came to Priam's beautiful palace, adorned with polished\ncolonnades--and in it were fifty chambers of polished stone, builded\nhard by one another, wherein Priam's sons slept beside their wedded\nwives; and for his daughters over against them on the other side within\nthe courtyard were twelve roofed chambers of polished stone builded hard\nby one another, wherein slept Priam's sons-in-law beside their chaste\nwives--then came there to meet him his bountiful mother, leading with\nher Laodike, fairest of her daughters to look on; and she clasped her\nhand in his, and spake, and called upon his name: \"My son, why hast thou\nleft violent battle to come hither. Surely the sons of the\nAchaians--name of evil!--press thee hard in fight about thy city, and so\nthy spirit hath brought thee hither, to come and stretch forth thy hands\nto Zeus from the citadel. But tarry till I bring thee honey-sweet wine,\nthat thou mayest pour libation to Zeus and all the immortals first, and\nthen shalt thou thyself also be refreshed if thou wilt drink. When a man\nis awearied wine greatly maketh his strength to wax, even as thou art\nawearied in fighting for thy fellows.\"\n\nThen great Hector of the glancing helm answered her: \"Bring me no\nhoney-hearted wine, my lady mother, lest thou cripple me of my courage\nand I be forgetful of my might. But go thou to the temple of Athene,\ndriver of the spoil, with offerings, and gather the aged wives together;\nand the robe that seemeth to thee the most gracious and greatest in thy\npalace, and dearest unto thyself, that lay thou upon the knees of\nbeauteous-haired Athene, and vow to her to sacrifice in her temple\ntwelve sleek kine, that have not felt the goad, if she will have mercy\non the city and the Trojans' wives and little children. So go thou to\nthe temple of Athene, driver of the spoil; and I will go after Paris, to\nsummon him, if perchance he will hearken to my voice. Would that the\nearth forthwith might swallow him up! The Olympian fostered him to be a\nsore bane to the Trojans and to great-hearted Priam, and to Priam's\nsons. If I but saw him going down to the gates of death, then might I\ndeem that my heart had forgotten its sorrows.\"\n\nSo said he, and she went unto the hall, and called to her handmaidens,\nand they gathered the aged wives throughout the city. Then she herself\nwent down to her fragrant chamber where were her embroidered robes, the\nwork of Sidonian women, whom godlike Alexandros himself brought from\nSidon, when he sailed over the wide sea, that journey wherein he brought\nhome high-born Helen. Of these Hekabe took one to bear for an offering\nto Athene, the one that was fairest for adornment and greatest, and\nshone like a star, and lay nethermost of all. Then went she her way and\nthe multitude of aged wives hasted after her. And Hector was come to\nAlexandros' fair palace, that himself had builded with them that were\nmost excellent carpenters then in deep-soiled Troy-land; these made him\nhis chamber and hall and courtyard hard by to Priam and Hector, in the\nupper city. There entered in Hector dear to Zeus, and his hand bare his\nspear, eleven cubits long: before his face glittered the bronze\nspear-point, and a ring of gold ran round about it. And he found Paris\nin his chamber busied with his beauteous arms, his shield and\nbreastplate, and handling his curved bow; and Helen of Argos sate among\nher serving-women and appointed brave handiwork for her handmaidens.\nThen when Hector saw him he rebuked him with scornful words: \"Good sir,\nthou dost not well to cherish this rancour in thy heart. The folk are\nperishing about the city and high wall in battle, and for thy sake the\nbattle-cry is kindled and war around this city; yes thyself wouldest\nthou fall out with another, didst thou see him shrinking from hateful\nwar. Up then, lest the city soon be scorched with burning fire.\"\n\nAnd godlike Alexandros answered him: \"Hector, since in measure thou\nchidest me and not beyond measure, therefore will I tell thee; lay thou\nit to thine heart and hearken to me. Not by reason so much of the\nTrojans, for wrath and indignation, sate I me in my chamber, but fain\nwould I yield me to my sorrow. Even now my wife hath persuaded me with\nsoft words, and urged me into battle; and I moreover, even I, deem that\nit will be better so; for victory shifteth from man to man. Go to then,\ntarry awhile, let me put on my armour of war; or else fare thou forth,\nand I will follow; and I think to overtake thee.\"\n\nSo said he, but Hector of the glancing helm answered him not a word. But\nHelen spake to him with gentle words: \"My brother, even mine that am a\ndog, mischievous and abominable, would that on the day when my mother\nbare me at the first, an evil storm-wind had caught me away to a\nmountain or a billow of the loud-sounding sea, where the billow might\nhave swept me away before all these things came to pass. Howbeit, seeing\nthe gods devised all these ills in this wise, would that then I had been\nmated with a better man, that felt dishonour and the multitude of men's\nreproachings. But as for him, neither hath he now sound heart, nor ever\nwill have; thereof deem I moreover that he will reap the fruit. But now\ncome, enter in and sit thee here upon this bench, my brother, since thy\nheart chiefly trouble hath encompassed, for the sake of me, that am a\ndog, and for Alexandros' sin; on whom Zeus bringeth evil doom, that even\nin days to come we may be a song in the ears of men that shall be\nhereafter.\"\n\nThen great Hector of the glancing helm answered her: \"Bid me not sit,\nHelen, of thy love; thou wilt not persuade me. Already my heart is set\nto succour the men of Troy, that have great desire for me that am not\nwith them. But rouse thou this fellow, yea let himself make speed, to\novertake me yet within the city. For I shall go into mine house to\nbehold my housefolk and my dear wife, and infant boy; for I know not if\nI shall return home to them again, or if the gods will now overthrow me\nat the hands of the Achaians.\"\n\nSo spake Hector of the glancing helm and departed; and anon he came to\nhis well-stablished house. But he found not white-armed Andromache in\nthe halls; she with her boy and fair-robed handmaiden had taken her\nstand upon the tower, weeping and wailing. And when Hector found not his\nnoble wife within, he came and stood upon the threshold and spake amid\nthe serving women: \"Come tell me now true, my serving women. Whither\nwent white-armed Andromache forth from the hall? Hath she gone out to my\nsisters or unto my brothers' fair-robed wives, or to Athene's temple,\nwhere all the fair-tressed Trojan women propitiate the awful goddess?\"\n\nThen a busy housedame spake in answer to him: \"Hector, seeing thou\nstraitly chargest us tell thee true, neither hath she gone out to any of\nthy sisters or thy brothers' fair-robed wives, neither to Athene's\ntemple, where all the fair-tressed Trojan women are propitiating the\nawful goddess; but she went to the great tower of Ilios, because she\nheard the Trojans were hard pressed, and great victory was for the\nAchaians. So hath she come in haste to the wall, like unto one frenzied;\nand the nurse with her beareth the child.\"\n\nSo spake the housedame, and Hector hastened from his house back by the\nsame way down the well-builded streets. When he had passed through the\ngreat city and was come to the Skaian gates, whereby he was minded to\nissue upon the plain, then came his dear-won wife, running to meet him,\neven Andromache daughter of great-hearted Eetion. So she met him now,\nand with her went the handmaid bearing in her bosom the tender boy, the\nlittle child, Hector's loved son, like unto a beautiful star. Him Hector\ncalled Skamandrios, but all the folk Astyanax [Astyanax = \"City King.\"];\nfor only Hector guarded Ilios. So now he smiled and gazed at his boy\nsilently, and Andromache stood by his side weeping, and clasped her hand\nin his, and spake and called upon his name. \"Dear my lord, this thy\nhardihood will undo thee, neither hast thou any pity for thine infant\nboy, nor for me forlorn that soon shall be thy widow; for soon will the\nAchaians all set upon thee and slay thee. But it were better for me to\ngo down to the grave if I lose thee; for never more will any comfort be\nmine, when once thou, even thou, hast met thy fate, but only sorrow.\nNay, Hector, thou art to me father and lady mother, yea and brother,\neven as thou art my goodly husband. Come now, have pity and abide here\nupon the tower, lest thou make thy child an orphan and thy wife a\nwidow.\"\n\nThen great Hector of the glancing helm answered her: \"Surely I take\nthought for all these things, my wife; but I have very sore shame of the\nTrojans and Trojan dames with trailing robes, if like a coward I shrink\naway from battle. Moreover mine own soul forbiddeth me, seeing I have\nlearnt ever to be valiant and fight in the forefront of the Trojans,\nwinning my father's great glory and mine own. Yea of a surety I know\nthis in heart and soul; the day shall come for holy Ilios to be laid\nlow, and Priam and the folk of Priam of the good ashen spear. Yet doth\nthe anguish of the Trojans hereafter not so much trouble me, neither\nHekabe's own, neither king Priam's, neither my brethren's, the many and\nbrave that shall fall in the dust before their foemen, as doth thine\nanguish in the day when some mail-clad Achaian shall lead thee weeping\nand rob thee of the light of freedom. So shalt thou abide in Argos and\nply the loom at another woman's bidding, and bear water from fount\nMesseis or Hypereia, being grievously entreated, and sore constraint\nshall be laid upon thee. And then shall one say that beholdeth thee\nweep: 'This is the wife of Hector, that was foremost in battle of the\nhorse-taming Trojans when men fought about Ilios.' Thus shall one say\nhereafter, and fresh grief will be thine for lack of such an husband as\nthou hadst to ward off the day of thraldom. But me in death may the\nheaped-up earth be covering, ere I hear thy crying and thy carrying into\ncaptivity.\"\n\nSo spake glorious Hector, and stretched out his arm to his boy. But the\nchild shrunk crying to the bosom of his fair-girdled nurse, dismayed at\nhis dear father's aspect, and in dread at the bronze and horse-hair\ncrest that he beheld nodding fiercely from the helmet's top. Then his\ndear father laughed aloud, and his lady mother; forthwith glorious\nHector took the helmet from his head, and laid it, all gleaming, upon\nthe earth; then kissed he his dear son and dandled him in his arms, and\nspake in prayer to Zeus and all the gods, \"O Zeus and all ye gods,\nvouchsafe ye that this my son may likewise prove even as I, pre-eminent\namid the Trojans, and as valiant in might, and be a great king of Ilios.\nThen may men say of him, 'Far greater is he than his father' as he\nreturneth home from battle; and may he bring with him blood-stained\nspoils from the foeman he hath slain, and may his mother's heart be\nglad.\"\n\nSo spake he, and laid his son in his dear wife's arms; and she took him\nto her fragrant bosom, smiling tearfully. And her husband had pity to\nsee her, and caressed her with his hand, and spake and called upon her\nname: \"Dear one, I pray thee be not of oversorrowful heart; no man\nagainst my fate shall hurl me to Hades; only destiny, I ween, no man\nhath escaped, be he coward or be he valiant, when once he hath been\nborn. But go thou to thine house and see to thine own tasks, the loom\nand distaff, and bid thine handmaidens ply their work; but for war shall\nmen provide, and I in chief of all men that dwell in Ilios.\"\n\nSo spake glorious Hector, and took up his horse-hair crested helmet; and\nhis dear wife departed to her home, oft looking back, and letting fall\nbig tears. Anon she came to the well-stablished house of man-slaying\nHector, and found therein her many handmaidens, and stirred lamentation\nin them all. So bewailed they Hector, while yet he lived, within his\nhouse: for they deemed that he would no more come back to them from\nbattle, nor escape the fury of the hands of the Achaians.\n\nNeither lingered Paris long in his lofty house, but clothed on him his\nbrave armour, bedight with bronze, and hasted through the city, trusting\nto his nimble feet. Even as when a stalled horse, full-fed at the\nmanger, breaketh his tether and speedeth at the gallop across the plain,\nbeing wont to bathe him in the fair-flowing stream, exultingly; and\nholdeth his head on high, and his mane floateth about his shoulders, and\nhe trusteth in his glory, and nimbly his limbs bear him to the haunts\nand pasturages of mares; even so Priam's son Paris, glittering in his\narmour like the shining sun, strode down from high Pergamos laughingly,\nand his swift feet bare him. Forthwith he overtook his brother noble\nHector, even as he was on the point to turn him away from the spot where\nhe had dallied with his wife. To him first spake godlike Alexandros:\n\"Sir, in good sooth I have delayed thee in thine haste by my tarrying,\nand came not rightly as thou badest me.\"\n\nAnd Hector of the glancing helm answered him and said: \"Good brother, no\nman that is rightminded could make light of thy doings in fight, seeing\nthou art strong: but thou art wilfully remiss and hast no care; and for\nthis my heart is grieved within me, that I hear shameful words\nconcerning thee in the Trojans' mouths, who for thy sake endure much\ntoil. But let us be going; all this will we make good hereafter, if Zeus\never vouchsafe us to set before the heavenly gods that are for\neverlasting the cup of deliverance in our halls, when we have chased out\nof Troy-land the well-greaved Achaians.\"\n\n\n\nBOOK VII.\n\n    Of the single combat between Aias and Hector, and of the\n    burying of the dead, and the building of a wall about the\n    Achaian ships.\n\nSo spake glorious Hector and issued from the gates, and with him went\nhis brother Alexandros; and both were eager of soul for fight and\nbattle. Even as God giveth to longing seamen fair wind when they have\ngrown weary of beating the main with polished oars, and their limbs are\nfordone with toil, even so appeared these to the longing Trojans.\n\nNow when the goddess bright-eyed Athene marked them making havoc of the\nArgives in the press of battle, she darted down from the crests of\nOlympus to holy Ilios. But Apollo rose to meet her, for he beheld her\nfrom Pergamos, and would have victory for the Trojans. So the twain met\neach the other by the oak-tree. To her spake first king Apollo son of\nZeus: \"Why now art thou come thus eagerly from Olympus, thou daughter of\ngreat Zeus, and why hath thy high heart sent thee? Surely it is to give\nthe Danaans unequal victory in battle! seeing thou hast no mercy on the\nTrojans, that perish. But if thou wouldest hearken to me--and it were\nfar better so--let us now stay battle and warring for the day; hereafter\nshall they fight again, till they reach the goal of Ilios, since thus it\nseemeth good to your hearts, goddesses immortal, to lay waste this\ncity.\"\n\nAnd the goddess bright-eyed Athene made answer to him: \"So be it,\nFar-darter; in this mind I likewise came from Olympus to the midst of\nTrojans and Achaians. But come, how thinkest thou to stay the battle of\nthe warriors?\"\n\nAnd king Apollo, son of Zeus, made answer to her: \"Let us arouse the\nstalwart spirit of horse-taming Hector, if so be he will challenge some\none of the Danaans in single fight man to man to meet him in deadly\ncombat. So shall the bronze-greaved Achaians be jealous and stir up one\nto fight singly with goodly Hector.\" So spake he and the bright-eyed\ngoddess Athene disregarded not. Now Helenos Priam's dear son understood\nin spirit their resolve that the gods in counsel had approved; and he\nwent to Hector and stood beside him, and spake a word to him: \"Hector\nson of Priam, peer of Zeus in counsel, wouldest thou now hearken at all\nto me? for I am thy brother. Make the other Trojans sit, and all the\nAchaians, and thyself challenge him that is best of the Achaians to meet\nthee man to man in deadly combat. It is not yet thy destiny to die and\nmeet thy doom; for thus heard I the voice of the gods that are from\neverlasting.\" So said he, and Hector rejoiced greatly to hear his\nsaying, and went into the midst and refrained the battalions of the\nTrojans with his spear grasped by the middle; and they all sate them\ndown: and Agamemnon made the well-greaved Achaians sit. And Athene\nwithal and Apollo of the silver bow, in the likeness of vulture birds,\nsate them upon a tall oak holy to aegis-bearing father Zeus, rejoicing\nin their warriors; and the ranks of all of them sate close together,\nbristling with shields and plumes and spears. Even as there spreadeth\nacross the main the ripple of the west wind newly risen, and the sea\ngrows black beneath it, so sate the ranks of Achaians and Trojans upon\nthe plain. And Hector spake between both hosts: \"Hearken to me, Trojans\nand well-greaved Achaians, that I may speak what my mind within my\nbreast biddeth me. Our oaths of truce Kronos' son, enthroned on high,\naccomplished not; but evil is his intent and ordinance for both our\nhosts, until either ye take fair-towered Troy or yourselves be\nvanquished beside your seafaring ships. But in the midst of you are the\nchiefest of all the Achaians; therefore now let the man whose heart\nbiddeth him fight with me come hither from among you all to be your\nchampion against goodly Hector. And this declare I, and be Zeus our\nwitness thereto; if that man slay me with the long-edged sword, let him\nspoil me of my armour and bear it to the hollow ships, but give back my\nbody to my home, that Trojans and Trojans' wives may give me my due of\nburning in my death. But if I slay him and Apollo vouchsafe me glory, I\nwill spoil him of his armour and bear it to holy Ilios and hang it upon\nthe temple of far-darting Apollo, but his corpse will I render back to\nthe well-decked ships, that the flowing-haired Achaians may entomb him,\nand build him a barrow beside wide Hellespont. So shall one say even of\nmen that be late born, as he saileth in his benched ship over the\nwine-dark sea: 'This is the barrow of a man that died in days of old, a\nchampion whom glorious Hector slew.' So shall a man say hereafter, and\nthis my glory shall never die.\"\n\nSo spake he and they all were silent and held their peace; to deny him\nthey were ashamed, and feared to meet him. But at the last stood up\nMenelaos and spake amid them and chiding upbraided them, and groaned\ndeep at heart: \"Ah me, vain threateners, ye women of Achaia and no more\nmen, surely all this shall be a shame, evil of evil, if no one of the\nDanaans now goeth to meet Hector. Nay, turn ye all to earth and water,\nsitting there each man disheartened, helplessly inglorious; against him\nwill I myself array me; and from on high the threads of victory are\nguided of the immortal gods.\"\n\nSo spake he and donned his fair armour. And now, O Menelaos, had the end\nof life appeared for thee at Hector's hands, seeing he was stronger far,\nbut that the princes of the Achaians started up and caught thee. And\nAtreus' son himself, wide-ruling Agamemnon, took him by his right hand\nand spake a word and called upon his name: \"Thou doest madly, Menelaos\nfosterling of Zeus; yet is it no time for this thy madness. Draw back,\nthough it be with pain, nor think for contention's sake to fight with\none better than thou, with Hector Priam's son, whom others beside thee\nabhor. Yea, this man even Achilles dreadeth to meet in battle, wherein\nis the warrior's glory; and Achilles is better far than thou. Go\ntherefore now and sit amid the company of thy fellows; against him shall\nthe Achaians put forth another champion. Fearless though he be and\ninsatiate of turmoil, I ween that he shall be fain to rest his knees, if\nhe escape from the fury of war and terrible fray.\"\n\nSo spake the hero and persuaded his brother's heart with just counsel;\nand he obeyed. So his squires thereat with gladness took his armour from\nhis shoulders; and Nestor stood up and spake amid the Argives: \"Fie upon\nit, verily sore lamentation cometh on the land of Achaia. Verily old\nPeleus driver of chariots would groan sore, that goodly counsellor of\nthe Myrmidons and orator, who erst questioned me in his house, and\nrejoiced greatly, inquiring of the lineage and birth of all the Argives.\nIf he heard now of those that all were cowering before Hector, then\nwould he lift his hands to the immortals, instantly praying that his\nsoul might depart from his limbs down to the house of Hades. Would to\nGod I were thus young and my strength were sound; then would Hector of\nthe glancing helm soon find his combat. But of those of you that be\nchieftains of the host of the Achaians, yet desireth no man of good\nheart to meet Hector face to face.\" So the old man upbraided them, and\nthere stood up nine in all. Far first arose Agamemnon king of men, and\nafter him rose Tydeus' son stalwart Diomedes, and after them the Aiantes\nclothed with impetuous might, and after them Idomeneus and Idomeneus'\nbrother-in-arms Meriones, peer of Enyalios slayer of men, and after them\nEurypylos Euaimon's glorious son; and up rose Thoas Andraimon's son and\ngoodly Odysseus. So all these were fain to fight with goodly Hector. And\namong them spake again knightly Nestor of Gerenia: \"Now cast ye the lot\nfrom the first unto the last, for him that shall be chosen: for he shall\nin truth profit the well-greaved Achaians, yea and he shall have profit\nof his own soul, if he escape from the fury of war and terrible fray.\"\n\nSo said he, and they marked each man his lot and cast them in the helmet\nof Agamemnon Atreus' son; and the hosts prayed and lifted up their hands\nto the gods. And thus would one say, looking up to wide heaven: \"O\nfather Zeus, vouchsafe that the lot fall upon Aias or Tydeus' son, or\nelse on the king of Mykene rich in gold.\"\n\nSo spake they, and knightly Nestor of Gerenia shook the helmet, and\nthere leapt forth the lot that themselves desired, even the lot of Aias.\nAnd Aias saw and knew the token upon the lot, and rejoiced in heart, and\nspake: \"My friends, verily the lot is mine, yea and myself am glad at\nheart, because I deem that I shall vanquish goodly Hector. But come now,\nwhile I clothe me in my armour of battle, pray ye the while to Kronos'\nson king Zeus, in silence to yourselves, that the Trojans hear you\nnot--nay rather, openly if ye will, for we have no fear of any man\nsoever. For none by force shall chase me, he willing me unwilling,\nneither by skill; seeing I hope that not so skill-less, either, was I\nborn in Salamis nor nurtured.\"\n\nSo said he, and they prayed to Kronos' son, king Zeus; and thus would\none speak, looking up to wide heaven: \"O father Zeus that rulest from\nIda, most glorious, most great, vouchsafe to Aias victory and the\nwinning of great glory. But if thou so lovest Hector indeed, and carest\nfor him, grant unto either equal prowess and renown.\"\n\nSo said they, while Aias arrayed him in flashing bronze. And when he had\nnow clothed upon his flesh all his armour, then marched he as huge Ares\ncoming forth, when he goeth to battle amid heroes whom Kronos' son\nsetteth to fight in fury of heart-consuming strife. So rose up huge\nAias, bulwark of the Achaians, with a smile on his grim face: and went\nwith long strides of his feet beneath him, shaking his far-shadowing\nspear. Then moreover the Argives rejoiced to look upon him, but sore\ntrembling came upon the Trojans, on the limbs of every man, and Hector's\nown heart beat within his breast. But in no wise could he now flee nor\nshrink back into the throng of the host, seeing he had challenged him to\nbattle. And Aias came near bearing his tower-like shield of bronze, with\nsevenfold ox-hide, and stood near to Hector, and spake to him threatening:\n\"Hector, now verily shalt thou well know, man to man, what manner\nof princes the Danaans likewise have among them, even after Achilles,\nrender of men, the lion-hearted. But he amid his beaked seafaring ships\nlieth in sore wrath with Agamemnon shepherd of the host; yet are we such\nas to face thee, yea and many of us. But make thou beginning of war and\nbattle.\"\n\nAnd great Hector of the glancing helm answered him: \"Aias of the seed of\nZeus, son of Telamon, chieftain of the host, tempt not thou me like some\npuny boy or woman that knoweth not deeds of battle. But I well know wars\nand slaughterings. To right know I, to left know I the wielding of my\ntough targe; therein I deem is stalwart soldiership. And I know how to\ncharge into the mellay of fleet chariots, and how in close battle to\njoin in furious Ares' dance. Howbeit, I have no mind to smite thee,\nbeing such an one as thou art, by spying thee unawares; but rather\nopenly, if perchance I may hit thee.\"\n\nHe spake, and poised his far-shadowing spear, and hurled and smote Aias'\ndread shield of sevenfold hide upon the uttermost bronze, the eighth\nlayer that was thereon. Through six folds went the stubborn bronze\ncleaving, but in the seventh hide it stayed. Then heaven-sprung Aias\nhurled next his far-shadowing spear, and smote upon the circle of the\nshield of Priam's son. Through the bright shield passed the violent\nspear, and through the curiously wrought corslet pressed it on; and\nstraight forth beside the flank the spear rent his doublet; but he\nswerved aside and escaped black death. Then both together with their\nhands plucked forth their long spears and fell to like ravening lions or\nwild boars whose might is nowise feeble. Then Priam's son smote the\nshield's midst with his dart, but the bronze brake not through, for the\npoint turned back; but Aias leapt on him and pierced his buckler, and\nstraight through went the spear and staggered him in his onset, and\ncleft its way unto his neck, so that the dark blood gushed up. Yet even\nthen did not Hector of the glancing helm cease from fight, but yielded\nground and with stout hand seized a stone lying upon the plain, black\nand rugged and great; therewith hurled he and smote Aias' dread shield\nof sevenfold ox-hide in the midst upon the boss, and the bronze\nresounded. Next Aias lifted a far greater stone, and swung and hurled\nit, putting might immeasurable therein. So smote he the buckler and\nburst it inwards with the rock like unto a millstone, and beat down his\nknees; and he was stretched upon his back, pressed into his shield; but\nApollo straightway raised him up. And now had they been smiting hand to\nhand with swords, but that the heralds, messengers of gods and men,\ncame, one from the Trojans, one from the mail-clad Achaians, even\nTalthybios and Idaios, both men discreet. Between the two held they\ntheir staves, and herald Idaios spake a word, being skilled in wise\ncounsel: \"Fight ye no more, dear sons, neither do battle; seeing Zeus\nthe cloud-gatherer loveth you both, and both are men of war; that verily\nknow we all. But night already is upon us: it is well withal to obey the\nhest [behest] of night.\"\n\nThen Telamonian Aias answered and said to him: \"Idaios, bid ye Hector\nto speak those words; of his own self he challenged to combat all our\nbest. Let him be first, and I will surely follow as he saith.\"\n\nThen great Hector of the glancing helm said to him: \"Aias, seeing God\ngave thee stature and might and wisdom, and with the spear thou art\nexcellent above all the Achaians, let us now cease from combat and\nbattle for the day; but hereafter will we fight until God judge between\nas, giving to one of us the victory: But come, let us give each the\nother famous gifts, that men may thus say, Achaians alike and Trojans:\n'These, having fought for sake of heart-consuming strife, parted again\nreconciled in friendship.'\"\n\nSo said he, and gave him his silver-studded sword, with scabbard and\nwell-cut baldrick; and Aias gave his belt bright with purple. So they\nparted, and one went to the Achaian host, and one betook him to the\nthrong of Trojans. And these rejoiced to behold him come to them alive\nand sound, escaped from the fury of Aias and his hands unapproachable;\nand they brought him to the city saved beyond their hope. And Aias on\ntheir side the well-greaved Achaians brought to noble Agamemnon,\nexulting in his victory.\n\nSo when these were come unto the huts of Atreides, then did Agamemnon\nking of men slay them an ox, a male of five years old, for the most\nmighty son of Kronos. This they flayed and made ready, and divided it\nall, and minced it cunningly, and pierced it through with spits, and\nroasted it carefully, and drew all off again. Then as soon as they had\nrest from the task and had made ready the meal, they began the feast,\nnor was their soul aught stinted of the equal banquet. And the hero son\nof Atreus, wide-ruling Agamemnon, gave to Aias slices of the chine's\nfull length for his honour. And when they had put from them the desire\nof meat and drink, then first the old man began to weave the web of\ncounsel, even Nestor whose rede [counsel] of old time was proved most\nexcellent. He made harangue among them and said: \"Son of Atreus and ye\nother princes of the Achaians, seeing that many flowing-haired Achaians\nare dead, and keen Ares hath spilt their dusky blood about fair-flowing\nSkamandros, and their souls have gone down to the house of Hades;\ntherefore it behoveth thee to make the battle of the Achaians cease with\ndaybreak; and we will assemble to wheel hither the corpses with oxen and\nmules; so let us burn them; and let us heap one barrow about the pyre,\nrearing it from the plain for all alike; and thereto build with speed\nhigh towers, a bulwark for our ships and for ourselves. In the midst\nthereof let us make gates well compact, that through them may be a way\nfor chariot-driving. And without let us dig a deep foss hard by, to be\nabout it and to hinder horses and footmen, lest the battle of the lordly\nTrojans be heavy on us hereafter.\"\n\nSo spake he and all the chiefs gave assent. But meanwhile there was in\nthe high town of Ilios an assembly of the Trojans, fierce, confused,\nbeside Priam's gate. To them discreet Antenor began to make harangue:\n\"Hearken to me, Trojans and Dardanians and allies, that I may tell you\nthat my soul within my breast commandeth me. Lo, go to now, let us give\nHelen of Argos and the wealth with her for the sons of Atreus to take\naway. Now fight we in guilt against the oaths of faith; therefore is\nthere no profit for us that I hope to see fulfilled, unless we do thus.\"\n\nSo spake he and sate him down; and there stood up among them noble\nAlexandros, lord of Helen beautiful-haired; he made him answer and spake\nwinged words: \"Antenor, these words from thee are no longer to my\npleasure; yet thou hast it in thee to devise other sayings more\nexcellent than this. But if indeed thou sayest this in earnest, then\nverily the gods themselves have destroyed thy wit. But I will speak\nforth amid the horse-taming Trojans, and declare outright; my wife will\nI not give back; but the wealth I brought from Argos to our home, all\nthat I have a mind to give, and add more of mine own substance.\"\n\nSo spake he and sate him down, and there stood up among them Priam of\nthe seed of Dardanos, the peer of gods in counsel; he made harangue to\nthem, and said: \"Hearken to me, Trojans and Dardanians and allies, that\nI may tell you that my soul within my breast commandeth me. Now eat your\nsupper throughout the city as of old, and take thought to keep watch,\nand be wakeful every man. And at dawn let Idaios fare to the hollow\nships to tell to Atreus' sons Agamemnon and Menelaos the saying of\nAlexandros, for whose sake strife is come about: and likewise to ask\nthem this wise word, whether they are minded to refrain from noisy war\ntill we have burned our dead; afterwards will we fight again, till\nheaven part us and give one or other victory.\"\n\nSo spake he, and they hearkened diligently to him and obeyed: and at\ndawn Idaios fared to the hollow ships. He found the Danaans in assembly,\nthe men of Ares' company, beside the stern of Agamemnon's ship; and so\nthe loud-voiced herald stood in their midst and said unto them:\n\"Atreides and ye other princes of the Achaians, Priam and all the noble\nTrojans bade me tell you-if perchance it might find favour and\nacceptance with you-the saying of Alexandros, for whose sake strife hath\ncome about. The wealth that Alexandros brought in his hollow ships to\nTroy-would he had perished first!-all that he hath a mind to give, and\nto add more thereto of his substance. But the wedded wife of glorious\nMenelaos he saith he will not give; yet verily the Trojans bid him do\nit. Moreover they bade me ask this thing of you; whether ye are minded\nto refrain from noisy war until we have burned our dead; afterwards will\nwe fight again, till heaven part us and give one or other victory.\"\n\nSo said he and they all kept silence and were still. But at the last\nspake Diomedes of the loud war-cry in their midst: \"Let no man now\naccept Alexandros' substance, neither Helen's self; known is it, even to\nhim that hath no wit at all, how that the issues of destruction hang\nalready over the Trojans.\"\n\nSo spake he, and all the sons of the Achaians shouted, applauding the\nsaying of horse-taming Diomedes. And then lord Agamemnon spake to\nIdaios: \"Idaios, thyself thou hearest the saying of the Achaians, how\nthey answer thee; and the like seemeth good to me. But as concerning the\ndead, I grudge you not to burn them; for dead corpses is there no\nstinting; when they once are dead, of the swift propitiation of fire.\nAnd for the oaths let Zeus be witness, the loud-thundering lord of\nHera.\"\n\nSo saying he lifted up his sceptre in the sight of all the gods, and\nIdaios departed back to holy Ilios. Now Trojans and Dardanians sate in\nassembly, gathered all together to wait till Idaios should come; and he\ncame and stood in their midst and declared his message. Then they made\nthem ready very swiftly for either task, some to bring the dead, and\nsome to seek for wood. And on their part the Argives hasted from their\nwell-decked ships, some to bring the dead and some to seek for wood.\n\nNow the sun was newly beating on the fields as he climbed heaven from\nthe deep stream of gently-flowing Ocean, when both sides met together.\nThen was it a hard matter to know each man again; but they washed them\nwith water clean of clotted gore, and with shedding of hot tears lifted\nthem upon the wains. But great Priam bade them not wail aloud; so in\nsilence heaped they the corpses on the pyre, stricken at heart; and when\nthey had burned them with fire departed to holy Ilios. And in like\nmanner on their side the well-greaved Achaians heaped the corpses on the\npyre, stricken at heart, and when they had burned them with fire\ndeparted to the hollow ships.\n\nAnd when day was not yet, but still twilight of night, then was the\nchosen folk of the Achaians gathered together around the pyre, and made\none barrow about it, rearing it from the plain for all alike; and\nthereto built they a wall and lofty towers, a bulwark for their ships\nand for themselves. In the midst thereof made they gates well-compacted,\nthat through them might be a way for chariot-driving. And without they\ndug a deep foss beside it, broad and great, and planted a palisade\ntherein.\n\nThus toiled the flowing-haired Achaians: and the gods sate by Zeus, the\nlord of lightning, and marvelled at the great work of the mail-clad\nAchaians. And Poseidon shaker of earth spake first to them: \"O father\nZeus, is there any man throughout the boundless earth that will any more\ndeclare to the immortals his mind and counsel? Seest thou not how the\nflowing-haired Achaians have now again built them a wall before their\nships, and drawn a foss around it, but gave not excellent hecatombs to\nthe gods? Verily the fame thereof shall reach as far as the dawn\nspreadeth, and men will forget the wall that I and Phoebus Apollo built\nwith travail for the hero Laomedon.\"\n\nAnd Zeus the cloud-gatherer said to him, sore troubled: \"Out on it,\nfar-swaying Shaker of earth, for this thing thou sayest. Well might some\nother god fear this device, one that were far feebler than thou in the\nmight of his hands: but thine shall be the fame as far as the dawn\nspreadeth. Go to now, hereafter when the flowing-haired Achaians be\ndeparted upon their ships to their dear native land, then burst thou\nthis wall asunder and scatter it all into the sea, and cover the great\nsea-beach over with sand again, that the great wall of the Achaians be\nbrought to naught.\"\n\n\n\nBOOK VIII.\n\n    How Zeus bethought him of his promise to avenge Achilles'\n    wrong on Agamemnon; and therefore bade the gods refrain from\n    war, and gave victory to the Trojans.\n\nNow Dawn the saffron-robed was spreading over all the earth, and Zeus\nwhose joy is in the thunder let call an assembly of the gods upon the\ntopmost peak of many-ridged Olympus, and himself made harangue to them\nand all the gods gave ear: \"Hearken to me, all gods and all ye\ngoddesses, that I may tell you what my heart within my breast commandeth\nme. One thing let none essay, be it goddess or be it god, to wit, to\nthwart my saying; approve ye it all together, that with all speed I may\naccomplish these things. Whomsoever I shall perceive minded to go, apart\nfrom the gods, to succour Trojans or Danaans, chastened in no seemly\nwise shall he return to Olympus, or I will take and cast him into misty\nTartaros, right far away, where is the deepest gulf beneath the earth;\nthere are the gate of iron and threshold of bronze, as far beneath Hades\nas heaven is high above the earth: then shall he know how far I am\nmightiest of all gods. Go to now, ye gods, make trial that ye all may\nknow. Fasten ye a rope of gold from heaven, and all ye gods lay hold\nthereof and all goddesses; yet could ye not drag from heaven to earth\nZeus, counsellor supreme, not though ye toiled sore. But once I likewise\nwere minded to draw with all my heart, then should I draw you up with\nvery earth and sea withal. Thereafter would I bind the rope about a\npinnacle of Olympus, and so should all those things be hung in air. By\nso much am I beyond gods and beyond men.\"\n\nSo saying he let harness to his chariot his bronze-shod horses, fleet of\nfoot, with flowing manes of gold; and himself clad him with gold upon\nhis flesh, and grasped the whip of gold, well wrought, and mounted upon\nhis car, and lashed the horses to start them; they nothing loth sped on\nbetween earth and starry heaven. So fared he to many-fountained Ida,\nmother of wild beasts, even unto Gargaros, where is his demesne and\nfragrant altar. There did the father of men and gods stay his horses,\nand unloose them from the car, and cast thick mist about them; and\nhimself sate on the mountain-tops rejoicing in his glory, to behold the\ncity of the Trojans and ships of the Achaians.\n\nNow the flowing-haired Achaians took meat hastily among the huts and\nthereafter arrayed themselves. Likewise the Trojans on their side armed\nthem throughout the town--a smaller host, yet for all that were they\neager to fight in battle, of forceful need, for their children's sake\nand their wives'. And the gates were opened wide and the host issued\nforth, footmen and horsemen; and mighty din arose.\n\nSo when they were met together and come unto one spot, then clashed they\ntarge and spear and fury of bronze-clad warrior; the bossed shields\npressed each on each, and mighty din arose. Then were heard the voice of\ngroaning and the voice of triumph together of the slayers and the slain,\nand the earth streamed with blood.\n\nNow while it yet was morn and the divine day waxed, so long from either\nside lighted the darts amain and the people fell. But when the sun\nbestrode mid-heaven, then did the Father balance his golden scales, and\nput therein two fates of death that layeth men at their length, one for\nhorse-taming Trojans, one for mail-clad Achaians; and he took the\nscale-yard by the midst and lifted it, and the Achaians' day of destiny\nsank down. So lay the Achaians' fates on the bounteous earth, and the\nTrojans' fates were lifted up towards wide heaven. And the god thundered\naloud from Ida, and sent his blazing flash amid the host of the\nAchaians; and they saw and were astonished, and pale fear gat hold upon\nall.\n\nThen had Idomeneus no heart to stand, neither Agamemnon, neither stood\nthe twain Aiantes, men of Ares' company. Only Nestor of Gerenia stood\nhis ground, he the Warden of the Achaians; neither he of purpose, but\nhis horse was fordone, which noble Alexandros, beauteous-haired Helen's\nlord, had smitten with an arrow upon the top of the crest where the\nforemost hairs of horses grow upon the skull; and there is the most\ndeadly spot. So the horse leapt up in anguish and the arrow sank into\nhis brain, and he brought confusion on the steeds as he writhed upon the\ndart. While the old man leapt forth and with his sword began to hew the\ntraces, came Hector's fleet horses through the tumult, bearing a bold\ncharioteer, even Hecktor. And now had the old man lost his life, but\nthat Diomedes of the loud war-cry was swift to mark. Terribly shouted\nhe, summoning Odysseus: \"Heaven-born son of Laertes, Odysseus of many\nwiles, whither fleest thou with thy back turned, like a coward in the\nthrong? Beware lest as thou fleest one plant a spear between thy\nshoulders. Nay, stand thy ground, till we thrust back from the old man\nhis furious foe.\"\n\nSo spake he, but much-enduring noble Odysseus heard him not, but\nhastened by to the hollow ships of the Achaians. Yet Tydeides, though\nbut one, mingled amid the fighters in the forefront, and took his stand\nbefore the steeds of the old man, Neleus' son, and spake to him winged\nwords, and said: \"Old man, of a truth young warriors beset thee hard;\nand thy force is abated, and old age is sore upon thee, and thy squire\nis but a weakling, and thy steeds are slow. Come then, mount upon my\ncar, that thou mayest see of what sort are the steeds of Tros, well\nskilled for following or fleeing hither or thither very fleetly across\nthe plain, even those that erst I took from Aineias inspirer of fear.\nThine let our squires tend, and these let us guide straight against the\nhorse-taming Trojans, that even Hector may know whether my spear also\nrageth in my hands.\"\n\nSo said he, and knightly Nestor of Gerenia disregarded not. Then the two\nsquires tended Nestor's horses, even Sthenelos the valiant and kindly\nEurymedon: and the other twain both mounted upon Diomedes' car. And\nNestor took into his hands the shining reins, and lashed the horses; and\nsoon they drew nigh Hector. Then Tydeus' son hurled at him as he charged\nstraight upon them: him missed he, but his squire that drave his\nchariot, Eniopeus, high-hearted Thebaios' son, even him as he held the\nreins, he smote upon the breast beside the nipple. So he fell from out\nthe car, and his fleet-footed horses swerved aside; and there his soul\nand spirit were unstrung. Then sore grief encompassed Hector's soul for\nsake of his charioteer. Yet left he him there lying, though he sorrowed\nfor his comrade, and drave in quest of a bold charioteer; and his horses\nlacked not long a master, for anon he found Iphitos' son, bold\nArcheptolemos, and him he made mount behind his fleet horses, and gave\nthe reins into his hands.\n\nThen had destruction come and deeds beyond remedy been wrought, and so\nhad they been penned in Ilios like lambs, had not the father of gods and\nmen been swift to mark. So he thundered terribly and darted his white\nlightning and hurled it before Diomedes' steeds to earth; and there\narose a terrible flame of sulphur burning, and the two horses were\naffrighted and cowered beneath the car. And the shining reins dropped\nfrom Nestor's hands, and he was afraid at heart and spake to Diomedes:\n\"Come now Tydeides, turn back thy whole-hooved horses to flight: seest\nthou not that victory from Zeus attendeth not on thee? Now doth Kronos'\nson vouchsafe glory to this Hector, for the day; hereafter shall he\ngrant it us likewise, if he will. A man may not at all ward off the will\nof Zeus, not though one be very valiant; he verily is mightier far.\"\n\nThen Diomedes of the loud war-cry answered him: \"Yea verily, old man,\nall this thou sayest is according unto right. But this is the sore grief\nthat entereth my heart and soul: Hector some day shall say as he maketh\nharangue amid the Trojans: 'Tydeides betook him to the ships in flight\nbefore my face.' So shall he boast--in that day let the wide earth yawn\nfor me.\"\n\nSo spake he and turned the whole-hooved horses to flight, back through\nthe tumult; and the Trojans and Hector with wondrous uproar poured upon\nthem their dolorous darts. And over him shouted loudly great Hector of\nthe glancing helm: \"Tydeides, the fleet-horsed Danaans were wont to\nhonour thee with the highest place, and meats, and cups brimful, but now\nwill they disdain thee; thou art after all no better than a woman.\nBegone, poor puppet; not for my flinching shalt thou climb on our\ntowers, neither carry our wives away upon thy ships; ere that will I\ndeal thee thy fate.\"\n\nSo said he, and Tydeides was of divided mind, whether to wheel his\nhorses and fight him face to face. Thrice doubted he in heart and soul,\nand thrice from Ida's mountains thundered Zeus the lord of counsel, and\ngave to the Trojans a sign, the turning of the course of battle. And\nHector with loud shout called to the Trojans: \"Trojans and Lykians and\nDardanians that love close fight, be men, my friends, and bethink you of\nimpetuous valour. I perceive that of good will Kronion vouchsafest me\nvictory and great glory, and to the Danaans destruction. Fools, that\ndevised these walls weak and of none account; they shall not withhold\nour fury, and lightly shall our steeds overleap the delved foss. But\nwhen I be once come amid the hollow ships, then be thought taken of\nconsuming fire, that with fire I may burn the ships and slay the men.\"\n\nSo spake he and shouted to his steeds, and said: \"Xanthos, and thou\nPodargos, and Aithon and goodly Lampos, now pay me back your tending,\neven the abundance that Andromache, great-hearted Eetion's daughter, set\nbefore you of honey-hearted wheat, and mingled wine to drink at the\nheart's bidding. Pursue ye now and haste, that we may seize Nestor's\nshield, the fame whereof now reacheth unto heaven, how that it is of\ngold throughout, armrods and all; and may seize moreover from\nhorse-taming Diomedes' shoulders his richly dight breastplate that\nHephaistos wrought cunningly. Could we but take these, then might I hope\nthis very night to make the Achaians to embark on their fleet ships.\"\n\nAnd now had he burned the trim ships with blazing fire, but that queen\nHera put it in Agamemnon's heart himself to bestir him and swiftly\narouse the Achaians. So he went his way along the huts and ships of the\nAchaians, holding a great cloak of purple in his stalwart hand, and\nstood by Odysseus' black ship of mighty burden, that was in the midst,\nso that a voice could be heard to either end. Then shouted he in a\npiercing voice, and called to the Danaans aloud: \"Fie upon you, Argives,\nye sorry things of shame, so brave in semblance! Whither are gone our\nboastings when we said that we were bravest, the boasts ye uttered\nvaingloriously when in Lemnos, as ye ate your fill of flesh of\ntall-horned oxen and drank goblets crowned with wine, and said that\nevery man should stand in war to face fivescore yea tenscore Trojans?\nyet now can we not match one, even this Hector that anon will burn our\nships with flame of fire. O Father Zeus, didst ever thou blind with such\na blindness any mighty king, and rob him of great glory? Nay, Zeus, this\nhope fulfil thou me; suffer that we ourselves at least flee and escape,\nneither suffer that the Achaians be thus vanquished of the Trojans.\"\n\nSo spake he, and the Father had pity on him as he wept, and vouchsafed\nhim that his folk should be saved and perish not. Forthwith sent he an\neagle--surest sign among winged fowl--holding in his claws a fawn, the\nyoung of a fleet hind; beside the beautiful altar of Zeus he let fall\nthe fawn, where the Achaians did sacrifice unto Zeus lord of all\noracles. So when they saw that the bird was come from Zeus, they sprang\nthe more upon the Trojans and bethought them of the joy of battle.\n\nNow could no man of the Danaans, for all they were very many, boast that\nhe before Tydeus' son had guided his fleet horses forth, and driven them\nacross the trench and fought man to man; first by far was Tydeides to\nslay a warrior of the Trojans in full array, even Agelaos son of\nPhradmon. Now he had turned his steeds to flee; but as he wheeled the\nother plunged the spear into his back between his shoulders, and drave\nit through his breast. So fell he from his chariot, and his armour\nclanged upon him.\n\nAnd after him came Atreus' sons, even Agamemnon and Menelaos, and after\nthem the Aiantes clothed upon with impetuous valour, and after them\nIdomeneus and Idomeneus' brother in arms Meriones, peer of Enyalios\nslayer of men, and after them Eurypylos, Euaimon's glorious son. And\nninth came Teukros, stretching his back-bent bow, and took his stand\nbeneath the shield of Aias son of Telamon. And so Aias would stealthily\nwithdraw the shield, and Teukros would spy his chance; and when he had\nshot and smitten one in the throng, then fell such an one and gave up\nthe ghost, and Teukros would return, and as a child beneath his mother,\nso gat he him to Aias; who hid him with the shining shield.\n\nAnd Agamemnon king of men rejoiced to behold him making havoc with his\nstalwart bow of the battalions of the Trojans, and he came and stood by\nhis side and spake to him, saying: \"Teukros, dear heart, thou son of\nTelamon, prince of the host, shoot on in this wise, if perchance thou\nmayest be found the salvation of the Danaans and glory of thy father\nTelamon.\"\n\nAnd noble Teukros made answer and said to him: \"Most noble son of\nAtreus, why urgest thou me that myself am eager? Verily with such\nstrength as is in me forbear I not, but ever since we drave them towards\nIlios I watch with my bow to slay the foemen. Eight long-barbed arrows\nhave I now sped, and all are buried in the flesh of young men swift in\nbattle; only this mad dog can I not smite.\"\n\nHe said, and shot another arrow from the string right against Hector;\nand his heart was fain to smite him. Yet missed he once again, for\nApollo turned the dart away; but Archeptolemos, Hector's bold\ncharioteer, he smote on the breast beside the nipple as he hasted into\nbattle: so he fell from his car and his fleet-footed horses swerved\naside; and there his soul and spirit were unstrung. Then sore grief\nencompassed Hector's soul for his charioteer's sake; yet left he him,\nthough he sorrowed for his comrade, and bade Kebriones his own brother,\nbeing hard by, take the chariot reins; and he heard and disregarded not.\nAnd himself he leapt to earth from the resplendent car, with a terrible\nshout; and in his hand he caught a stone, and made right at Teukros, and\nhis heart bade him smite him. Now Teukros had plucked forth from his\nquiver a keen arrow, and laid it on the string; but even as he drew it\nback, Hector of the glancing helm smote him with the jagged stone, as he\naimed eagerly against him, even beside his shoulder, where the\ncollar-bone fenceth off neck and breast, and where is the most deadly\nspot; and he brake the bowstring, and his hand from the wrist grew numb,\nand he stayed fallen upon his knee, and his bow dropped from his hand.\nBut Aias disregarded not his brother's fall, but ran and strode across\nhim and hid him with his shield. Then two trusty comrades bent down to\nhim, even Mekisteus son of Echios and goodly Alastor, and bare him,\ngroaning sorely, to the hollow ships. And once again the Olympian\naroused the spirit of the Trojans. So they drove the Achaians straight\ntoward the deep foss, and amid the foremost went Hector exulting in his\nstrength. And even as when a hound behind wild boar or lion, with swift\nfeet pursuing snatcheth at him, at flank or buttock, and watcheth for\nhim as he wheeleth, so Hector pressed hard on the flowing-haired\nAchaians, slaying ever the hindmost, and they fled on. But when they\nwere passed in flight through palisade and foss, and many were fallen\nbeneath the Trojans' hands, then halted they and tarried beside the\nships, calling one upon another, and lifting up their hands to all the\ngods prayed each one instantly. But Hector wheeled round his\nbeauteous-maned steeds this way and that, and his eyes were as the eyes\nof Gorgon or Ares bane of mortals.\n\nNow at the sight of them the white-armed goddess Hera had compassion,\nand anon spake winged words to Athene: \"Out on it, thou child of\naegis-bearing Zeus, shall not we twain any more take thought for the\nDanaans that perish, if only for this last time? Now will they fill up\nthe measure of evil destiny and perish by one man's onslaught; seeing\nthat he is furious now beyond endurance, this Hector son of Priam, and\nverily hath wrought many a deed of ill.\"\n\nAnd the bright-eyed goddess Athene made answer to her, \"Yea in good\nsooth, may this fellow yield up strength and life, and perish at the\nArgives' hands in his native land; only mine own sire is furious, with\nno good intent, headstrong, ever sinful, the foiler of my purposes. But\nnow make thou ready our whole-hooved horses, while I enter into the\npalace of aegis-bearing Zeus and gird me in my armour for battle, that I\nmay see if Priam's son, Hector of the glancing helm, shall be glad at\nthe appearing of us twain amid the highways of the battle. Surely shall\nmany a Trojan likewise glut dogs and birds with fat and flesh, fallen\ndead at the ships of the Achaians.\"\n\nSo said she, and the white-armed goddess Hera disregarded not. But when\nfather Zeus beheld from Ida, he was sore wroth, and sped Iris\ngolden-winged to bear a message: \"Go thy way, fleet Iris, turn them\nback, neither suffer them to face me; for in no happy wise shall we join\nin combat. For thus will I declare, and even so shall the fulfilment be;\nI will maim their fleet horses in the chariot, and them will I hurl out\nfrom the car, and will break in pieces the chariot; neither within the\ncourses of ten years shall they heal them of the wounds the thunderbolt\nshall tear; that the bright-eyed one may know the end when she striveth\nagainst her father. But with Hera have I not so great indignation nor\nwrath: seeing it ever is her wont to thwart me, whate'er I have\ndecreed.\"\n\nSo said he, and whirlwind-footed Iris arose to bear the message, and\ndeparted from the mountains of Ida unto high Olympus. And even at the\nentrance of the gates of Olympus many-folded she met them and stayed\nthem, and told them the saying of Zeus.\n\nAnd father Zeus drave from Ida his fair-wheeled chariot and horses unto\nOlympus, and came unto the session of the gods. For him also the noble\nShaker of Earth unyoked the steeds, and set the car upon the stand, and\nspread a cloth thereover; and far-seeing Zeus himself sate upon his\ngolden throne, and beneath his feet great Olympus quaked. Only Athene\nand Hera sate apart from Zeus, and spake no word to him neither\nquestioned him. But he was ware thereof in his heart, and said, \"Why are\nye thus vexed, Athene and Hera? Surely ye are not wearied of making\nhavoc in glorious battle of the Trojans, for whom ye cherish bitter\nhate! Howsoever, seeing that my might is so great and my hands\ninvincible, all the gods that are in Olympus could not turn me: and for\nyou twain, trembling erst gat hold upon your bright limbs ere that ye\nbeheld war and war's fell deeds. For thus will I declare, and even so\nhad the fulfilment been--never had ye, once smitten with the\nthunderbolt, fared on your chariots back unto Olympus where is the\nhabitation of the immortals.\"\n\nSo spake he, and Athene and Hera murmured, that were sitting by him and\ndevising ills for the Trojans. Now Athene held her peace, and said not\nanything, for wrath at father Zeus, and fierce anger gat hold upon her;\nbut Hera's heart contained not her anger, and she spake: \"Most dread son\nof Kronos, what word is this thou hast said? Well know we, even we, that\nthy might is no wise puny; yet still have we pity for the Danaan\nspearmen, that now shall perish and fill up the measure of grievous\nfate.\"\n\nAnd Zeus the cloud-gatherer answered and said: \"At morn shalt thou\nbehold most mighty Kronion, if thou wilt have it so, O Hera, ox-eyed\nqueen, making yet more havoc of the vast army of Argive spearmen; for\nheadlong Hector shall not refrain from battle till that Peleus' son\nfleet of foot have arisen beside the ships, that day when these shall\nfight amid the sterns in most grievous stress, around Patroklos fallen.\nSuch is the doom of heaven. And for thine anger reck I not, not even\nthough thou go to the nethermost bounds of earth and sea, where sit\nIapetos and Kronos and have no joy in the beams of Hyperion the Sun-god,\nneither in any breeze, but deep Tartaros is round about them. Though\nthou shouldest wander till thou come even thither, yet reck I not of thy\nvexation, seeing there is no thing more unabashed than thou.\"\n\nSo said he, but white-armed Hera spake him no word. And the sun's bright\nlight dropped into Ocean, drawing black night across Earth the\ngrain-giver. Against the Trojans' will daylight departed, but welcome,\nthrice prayed for, to the Achaians came down the murky night.\n\nNow glorious Hector made an assembly of the Trojans, taking them apart\nfrom the ships, beside the eddying river, in an open space where was\nfound a spot clear of dead. And they came down from their chariots to\nthe ground to hear the word that Hector, dear unto Zeus, proclaimed. He\nin his hand held his spear eleven cubits long; before his face gleamed\nthe spearhead of bronze, and a ring of gold ran round about it. Thereon\nhe leaned and spake to the Trojans, saying: \"Hearken to me, Trojans and\nDardanians and allies. I thought but now to make havoc of the ships and\nall the Achaians and depart back again to windy Ilios; but dusk came too\nsoon, and that in chief hath now saved the Argives and the ships beside\nthe beach of the sea. So let us now yield to black night, and make our\nsupper ready; unyoke ye from the chariots your fair-maned horses, and\nset fodder beside them. And from the city bring kine and goodly sheep\nwith speed; and provide you with honey-hearted wine, and corn from your\nhouses, and gather much wood withal, that all night long until\nearly-springing dawn we may burn many fires, and the gleam may reach to\nheaven; lest perchance even by night the flowing-haired Achaians strive\nto take flight over the broad back of the sea. Verily must they not\nembark upon their ships unvexed, at ease: but see ye that many a one of\nthem have a wound to nurse even at home, being stricken with arrow or\nkeen-pointed spear as he leapeth upon his ship; that so many another man\nmay dread to wage dolorous war on the horse-taming men of Troy. And let\nthe heralds dear to Zeus proclaim throughout the city that young maidens\nand old men of hoary heads camp round the city on the battlements\nbuilded of the gods; and let the women folk burn a great fire each in\nher hall; and let there be a sure watch set, lest an ambush enter the\ncity when the host is absent. Howbeit for the night will we guard our\nown selves, and at morn by daybreak, arrayed in our armour, let us awake\nkeen battle at the hollow ships. I will know whether Tydeus' son\nstalwart Diomedes shall thrust me from the ships back to the wall, or I\nshall lay him low with my spear and bear away his gory spoils. To-morrow\nshall he prove his valour, whether he can abide the onslaught of my\nspear. Would that I were immortal and ageless all my days and honoured\nlike as Athene is honoured and Apollo, so surely as this day bringeth\nthe Argives ill.\"\n\nSo Hector made harangue, and the Trojans clamoured applause. And they\nloosed their sweating steeds from the yoke, and tethered them with\nthongs, each man beside his chariot; and from the city they brought kine\nand goodly sheep with speed, and provided them with honey-hearted wine\nand corn from their houses, and gathered much wood withal. And from the\nplain the winds bare into heaven the sweet savour. But these with high\nhopes sate them all night along the highways of the battle, and their\nwatchfires burned in multitude. Even as when in heaven the stars about\nthe bright moon shine clear to see, when the air is windless, and all\nthe peaks appear and the tall headlands and glades, and from heaven\nbreaketh open the infinite air, and all stars are seen, and the\nshepherd's heart is glad; even in like multitude between the ships and\nthe streams of Xanthos appeared the watchfires that the Trojans kindled\nin front of Ilios. A thousand fires burned in the plain and by the side\nof each sate fifty in the gleam of blazing fire. And the horses champed\nwhite barley and spelt, and standing by their chariots waited for the\nthroned Dawn.\n\n\n\nBOOK IX.\n\n    How Agamemnon sent an embassage to Achilles, beseeching him\n    to be appeased; and how Achilles denied him.\n\nThus kept the Trojans watch; but the Achaians were holden of heaven-sent\npanic, handmaid of palsying fear, and all their best were stricken to\nthe heart with grief intolerable. Like as two winds stir up the main,\nthe home of fishes, even the north wind and the west wind that blow from\nThrace, coming suddenly; and the dark billow straightway lifteth up its\ncrest and casteth much tangle out along the sea; even so was the\nAchaians' spirit troubled in their breast.\n\nBut Atreides was stricken to the heart with sore grief, and went about\nbidding the clear-voiced heralds summon every man by name to the\nassembly, but not to shout aloud; and himself he toiled amid the\nforemost. So they sat sorrowful in assembly, and Agamemnon stood up\nweeping like unto a fountain of dark water that from a beetling cliff\npoureth down its black stream; even so with deep groaning he spake amid\nthe Argives and said: \"My friends, leaders and captains of the Argives,\nZeus son of Kronos hath bound me with might in grievous blindness of\nsoul; hard of heart is he, for that erewhile he promised and gave his\npledge that not till I had laid waste well-walled Ilios should I depart,\nbut now hath planned a cruel wile, and biddeth me return in dishonour to\nArgos with the loss of many of my folk. Such meseemeth is the good\npleasure of most mighty Zeus, that hath laid low the heads of many\ncities, yea and shall lay low; for his is highest power. So come, even\nas I shall bid let us all obey; let us flee with our ships to our dear\nnative land, for now shall we never take wide-wayed Troy.\"\n\nSo said he, and they all held their peace and kept silence. Long time\nwere the sons of the Achaians voiceless for grief, but at the last\nDiomedes of the loud war-cry spake amid them and said: \"Atreides: with\nthee first in thy folly will I contend, where it is just, O king, even\nin the assembly; be not thou wroth therefor. My valour didst thou blame\nin chief amid the Danaans, and saidst that I was no man of war but a\ncoward; and all this know the Argives both young and old. But the son of\ncrooked-counselling Kronos hath endowed thee but by halves; he granted\nthee to have the honour of the sceptre above all men, but valour he gave\nthee not, wherein is highest power. Sir, deemest thou that the sons of\nthe Achaians are thus indeed cowards and weaklings as thou sayest? If\nthine own heart be set on departing, go thy way; the way is before thee,\nand thy ships stand beside the sea, even the great multitude that\nfollowed thee from Mykene. But all the other flowing-haired Achaians\nwill tarry here until we lay waste Troy. Nay, let them too flee on their\nships to their dear native land; yet will we twain, even I and\nSthenelos, fight till we attain the goal of Ilios; for in God's name are\nwe come.\"\n\nSo said he, and all the sons of the Achaians shouted aloud, applauding\nthe saying of horse-taming Diomedes. Then knightly Nestor arose and said\namid them: \"Tydeides, in battle art thou passing mighty, and in council\nart thou best among thine equals in years; none of all the Achaians will\nmake light of thy word nor gainsay it. Now let us yield to black night\nand make ready our meal; and let the sentinels bestow them severally\nalong the deep-delved foss without the wall. This charge give I to the\nyoung men; and thou, Atreides, lead then the way, for thou art the most\nroyal. Spread thou a feast for the councillors; that is thy place and\nseemly for thee. Thy huts are full of wine that the ships of the\nAchaians bring thee by day from Thrace across the wide sea; all\nentertainment is for thee, being king over many. In the gathering of\nmany shalt thou listen to him that deviseth the most excellent counsel;\nsore need have all the Achaians of such as is good and prudent, because\nhard by the ships our foemen are burning their watch-fires in multitude;\nwhat man can rejoice thereat? This night shall either destroy or save\nthe host.\"\n\nSo said he, and they gladly hearkened to him and obeyed. Forth sallied\nthe sentinels in their harness. Seven were the captains of the\nsentinels, and with each went fivescore young men bearing their long\nspears in their hands; and they took post midway betwixt foss and wall,\nand kindled a fire and made ready each man his meal.\n\nThen Atreides gathered the councillors of the Achaians, and led them to\nhis hut, and spread before them an abundant feast. So they put forth\ntheir hands to the good cheer that lay before them. And when they had\nput away from them the desire of meat and drink, then the old man first\nbegan to weave his counsel, even Nestor, whose rede of old time was\napproved the best. He spake to them and said: \"Most noble son of Atreus,\nAgamemnon king of men, in thy name will I end and with thy name begin,\nbecause thou art king over many hosts, and to thy hand Zeus hath\nentrusted sceptre and law, that thou mayest take counsel for thy folk.\nThee therefore more than any it behoveth both to speak and hearken, and\nto accomplish what another than thou may say. No other man shall have a\nmore excellent thought than this that I bear in mind from old time even\nuntil now, since the day when thou, O heaven-sprung king, didst go and\ntake the damsel Briseis from angry Achilles' hut by no consent of ours.\nNay, I right heartily dissuaded thee; but thou yieldedst to thy proud\nspirit, and dishonouredst a man of valour whom even the immortals\nhonoured; for thou didst take and keepest from him his meed of valour.\nStill let us even now take thought how we may appease him and persuade\nhim with gifts of friendship and kindly words.\"\n\nAnd Agamemnon king of men answered and said to him: \"Old sir, in no\nfalse wise hast thou accused my folly. Fool was I, I myself deny it not.\nWorth many hosts is he whom Zeus loveth in his heart, even as now he\nhonoureth this man and destroyeth the host of the Achaians. But seeing I\nwas a fool in that I yielded to my sorry passion, I will make amends and\ngive a recompense beyond telling. In the midst of you all I will name\nthe excellent gifts; seven tripods untouched of fire, and ten talents of\ngold and twenty gleaming caldrons, and twelve stalwart horses, winners\nin the race, that have taken prizes by their speed. No lackwealth were\nthat man whose substance were as great as the prizes my whole-hooved\nsteeds have borne me off. And seven women will I give, skilled in\nexcellent handiwork, Lesbians whom I chose me from the spoils the day\nthat he himself took stablished Lesbos, surpassing womankind in beauty.\nThese will I give him, and with them shall be she whom erst I took from\nhim, even the daughter of Briseus. All these things shall be set\nstraightway before him; and if hereafter the gods grant us to lay waste\nthe great city of Priam, then let him enter in when we Achaians be\ndividing the spoil, and lade his ship full of gold and bronze, and\nhimself choose twenty Trojan women, the fairest that there be after\nHelen of Argos. And if we win to the richest of lands, even Achaian\nArgos, he shall be my son and I will hold him in like honour with\nOrestes, my stripling boy that is nurtured in all abundance. Three\ndaughters are mine in my well-builded hall, Chrysothemis and Laodike and\nIphianassa; let him take of them which he will, without gifts of wooing,\nto Peleus' house; and I will add a great dower such as no man ever yet\ngave with his daughter. And seven well-peopled cities will I give him,\nKardamyle and Enope and grassy Hire and holy Pherai and Antheia deep in\nmeads, and fair Aipeia and Pedasos land of vines. And all are nigh to\nthe salt sea, on the uttermost border of sandy Pylos; therein dwell men\nabounding in flocks and kine, men that shall worship him like a god with\ngifts, and beneath his sway fulfil his prosperous ordinances. All this\nwill I accomplish so he but cease from wrath. Let him yield; Hades I\nween is not to be softened neither overcome, and therefore is he\nhatefullest of all gods to mortals. Yea, let him be ruled by me,\ninasmuch as I am more royal and avow me to be the elder in years.\"\n\nThen knightly Nestor of Gerenia answered and said: \"Most noble son of\nAtreus, Agamemnon king of men, now are these gifts not lightly to be\nesteemed that thou offerest king Achilles. Come therefore, let us speed\nforth picked men to go with all haste to the hut of Peleus' son\nAchilles. Lo now, whomsoever I appoint let them consent. First let\nPhoinix dear to Zeus lead the way, and after him great Aias and noble\nOdysseus; and for heralds let Odios and Eurybates be their companions.\nAnd now bring water for our hands, and bid keep holy silence, that we\nmay pray unto Zeus the son of Kronos, if perchance he will have mercy\nupon us.\"\n\nSo said he, and spake words that were well-pleasing unto all. Forthwith\nthe heralds poured water on their hands, and the young men crowned the\nbowls with drink and gave each man his portion after they had poured the\nlibation in the cups. And when they had made libation and drunk as their\nheart desired, they issued forth from the hut of Agamemnon son of\nAtreus. And knightly Nestor of Gerenia gave them full charge, with many\na glance to each, and chiefest to Odysseus, how they should essay to\nprevail on Peleus' noble son.\n\nSo the twain went along the shore of the loud-sounding sea, making\ninstant prayer to the earth-embracer, the Shaker of the Earth, that they\nmight with ease prevail on Aiakides' great heart. So they came to the\nhuts and ships of the Myrmidons, and found their king taking his\npleasure of a loud lyre, fair, of curious work, with a silver cross-bar\nupon it. Therein he was delighting his soul, and singing the glories of\nheroes. And over against him sate Patroklos alone in silence, watching\ntill Aiakides should cease from singing. So the twain came forward, and\nnoble Odysseus led the way, and they stood before his face; and Achilles\nsprang up amazed with the lyre in his hand, and left the seat where he\nwas sitting, and in like manner Patroklos when he beheld the men arose.\nThen Achilles fleet of foot greeted them and said: \"Welcome; verily ye\nare friends that are come--sore indeed is the need--even ye that are\ndearest of the Achaians to me even in my wrath.\"\n\nSo spake noble Achilles and led them forward, and made them sit on\nsettles and carpets of purple; and anon he spake to Patroklos being\nnear: \"Bring forth a greater bowl, thou son of Menoitios; mingle\nstronger drink, and prepare each man a cup, for dearest of men are these\nthat are under my roof.\"\n\nThen put they forth their hands to the good cheer lying before them. And\nwhen they had put from them the desire of meat and drink, Aias nodded to\nPhoinix. But noble Odysseus marked it, and filled a cup with wine and\npledged Achilles: \"Hail, O Achilles! The fair feast lack we not either\nin the hut of Agamemnon son of Atreus neither now in thine; for feasting\nis there abundance to our heart's desire, but our thought is not for\nmatters of the delicious feast; nay, we behold very sore destruction,\nthou fosterling of Zeus, and are afraid. Now is it in doubt whether we\nsave the benched ships or behold them perish, if thou put not on thy\nmight. Nigh unto ships and wall have the high-hearted Trojans and famed\nallies pitched their camp, and kindled many fires throughout their host,\nand ween that they shall no more be withheld but will fall on our black\nships. And Zeus son of Kronos sheweth them signs upon the right by\nlightning, and Hector greatly exulteth in his might and rageth\nfuriously, trusting in Zeus, and recketh not of god nor man, for mighty\nmadness hath possessed him. He prayeth bright Dawn to shine forth with\nall speed, for he bath passed his word to smite off from the ships the\nensigns' tops, and to fire the hulls with devouring flame, and hard\nthereby to make havoc of the Achaians confounded by the smoke. Therefore\nam I sore afraid in my heart lest the gods fulfil his boastings, and it\nbe fated for us to perish here in Troy-land, far from Argos pasture-land\nof horses. Up then! if thou art minded even at the last to save the\nfailing sons of the Achaians from the war-din of the Trojans. Eschew thy\ngrievous wrath; Agamemnon offereth thee worthy gifts, so thou wilt cease\nfrom anger. Lo now, hearken thou to me, and I will tell thee all the\ngifts that in his hut Agamemnon promised thee. But if Agamemnon be too\nhateful to thy heart, both he and his gifts, yet have thou pity on all\nthe Achaians that faint throughout the host; these shall honour thee as\na god, for verily thou wilt earn exceeding great glory at their hands.\nYea now mightest thou slay Hector, for he would come very near thee in\nhis deadly madness, because he deemeth that there is no man like unto\nhim among the Danaans that the ships brought hither.\"\n\nAnd Achilles fleet of foot answered and said unto him: \"Heaven-sprung\nson of Laertes, Odysseus of many wiles, in openness must I now declare\nunto you my saying, even as I am minded and as the fulfilment thereof\nshall be, that ye may not sit before me and coax this way and that. For\nhateful to me even as the gates of hell is he that hideth one thing in\nhis heart and uttereth another: but I will speak what meseemeth best.\nNot me, I ween, shall Agamemnon son of Atreus persuade, nor the other\nDanaans, seeing we were to have no thank for battling with the foemen\never without respite. He that abideth at home hath equal share with him\nthat fighteth his best, and in like honour are held both the coward and\nthe brave; death cometh alike to the untoiling and to him that hath\ntoiled long. Neither have I any profit for that I endured tribulation of\nsoul, ever staking my life in fight. Even as a hen bringeth her\nunfledged chickens each morsel as she winneth it, and with herself it\ngoeth hard, even so I was wont to watch out many a sleepless night and\npass through many bloody days of battle, warring with folk for their\nwomen's sake. Twelve cities of men have I laid waste from ship-board,\nand from land eleven, throughout deep-soiled Troy-land; out of all these\ntook I many goodly treasures and would bring and give them all to\nAgamemnon son of Atreus, and he staying behind amid the fleet ships\nwould take them and portion out some few but keep the most. Now some he\ngave to be meeds of honour to the princes and the kings, and theirs are\nleft untouched; only from me of all the Achaians took he my darling lady\nand keepeth her. But why must the Argives make war on the Trojans? why\nhath Atreides gathered his host and led them hither? is it not for\nlovely-haired Helen's sake? Do then the sons of Atreus alone of mortal\nmen love their wives? surely whatsoever man is good and sound of mind\nloveth his own and cherisheth her, even as I too loved mine with all my\nheart, though but the captive of my spear. But now that he hath taken my\nmeed of honour from mine arms and hath deceived me, let him not tempt me\nthat know him full well; he shall not prevail. Nay, Odysseus, let him\ntake counsel with thee and all the princes to ward from the ships the\nconsuming fire. Verily without mine aid he hath wrought many things, and\nbuilt a wall and dug a foss about it wide and deep, and set a palisade\ntherein; yet even so can he not stay murderous Hector's might. But so\nlong as I was fighting amid the Achaians, Hector had no mind to array\nhis battle far from the wall, but scarce came unto the Skaian gates and\nto the oak-tree; there once he awaited me alone and scarce escaped my\nonset. But now, seeing I have no mind to fight with noble Hector, I will\nto-morrow do sacrifice to Zeus and all the gods, and store well my ships\nwhen I have launched them on the salt sea--then shalt thou see, if thou\nwilt and hast any care therefor, my ships sailing at break of day over\nHellespont, the fishes' home, and my men right eager at the oar; and if\nthe great Shaker of the Earth grant me good journey, on the third day\nshould I reach deep-soiled Phthia. There are my great possessions that I\nleft when I came hither to my hurt; and yet more gold and ruddy bronze\nshall I bring from hence, and fair-girdled women and grey iron, all at\nleast that were mine by lot; only my meed of honour hath he that gave it\nme taken back in his despitefulness, even lord Agamemnon son of Atreus.\nTo him declare ye everything even as I charge you, openly, that all the\nAchaians likewise may have indignation, if haply he hopeth to beguile\nyet some other Danaan, for that he is ever clothed in shamelessness.\nVerily not in my face would he dare to look, though he have the front of\na dog. Neither will I devise counsel with him nor any enterprise, for\nutterly he hath deceived me and done wickedly; but never again shall he\nbeguile me with fair speech--let this suffice him. Let him begone in\npeace; Zeus the lord of counsel hath taken away his wits. Hateful to me\nare his gifts, and I hold him at a straw's worth. Not even if he gave me\nten times, yea twenty, all that now is his, and all that may come to him\notherwhence, even all the revenue of Orchomenos or Egyptian Thebes where\nthe treasure-houses are stored fullest--Thebes of the hundred gates,\nwhence sally forth two hundred warriors through each with horses and\nchariots--nay, nor gifts in number as sand or dust; not even so shall\nAgamemnon persuade my soul till he have paid me back all the bitter\ndespite. And the daughter of Agamemnon son of Atreus will I not wed, not\nwere she rival of golden Aphrodite for fairness and for handiwork\nmatched bright-eyed Athene--not even then will I wed her; let him choose\nhim of the Achaians another that is his peer and is more royal than I.\nFor if the gods indeed preserve me and I come unto my home, then will\nPeleus himself seek me a wife. Many Achaian maidens are there throughout\nHellas and Phthia, daughters of princes that ward their cities;\nwhomsoever of these I wish will I make my dear lady. Very often was my\nhigh soul moved to take me there a wedded wife, a help meet for me, and\nhave joy of the possessions that the old man Peleus possesseth. For not\nof like worth with life hold I even all the wealth that men say was\npossessed of the well-peopled city of Ilios in days of peace gone by,\nbefore the sons of the Achaians came; neither all the treasure that the\nstone threshold of the archer Phoebus Apollo encompasseth in rocky\nPytho. For kine and goodly flocks are to be had for the harrying, and\ntripods and chestnut horses for the purchasing; but to bring back man's\nlife neither harrying nor earning availeth when once it hath passed the\nbarrier of his lips. For thus my goddess mother telleth me, Thetis the\nsilver-footed, that twain fates are bearing me to the issue of death. If\nI abide here and besiege the Trojans' city, then my returning home is\ntaken from me, but my fame shall be imperishable; but if I go home to my\ndear native land, my high fame is taken from me, but my life shall\nendure long while, neither shall the issue of death soon reach me.\nMoreover I would counsel you all to set sail homeward, seeing ye shall\nnever reach your goal of steep Ilios; of a surety far-seeing Zeus\nholdeth his hand over her and her folk are of good courage. So go your\nway and tell my answer to the princes of the Achaians, even as is the\noffice of elders, that they may devise in their hearts some other better\ncounsel, such as shall save them their ships and the host of the\nAchaians amid the hollow ships: since this counsel availeth them naught\nthat they have now devised, by reason of my fierce wrath. But let\nPhoinix now abide with us and lay him to rest, that he may follow with\nme on my ships to our dear native land to-morrow, if he will; for I will\nnot take him perforce.\"\n\nSo spake he, and they all held their peace and were still, and marvelled\nat his saying; for he denied them very vehemently. But at the last spake\nto them the old knight Phoinix, bursting into tears, because he was sore\nafraid for the ships of the Achaians: \"If indeed thou ponderest\ndeparture in thy heart, glorious Achilles, and hast no mind at all to\nsave the fleet ships from consuming fire, because that wrath bath\nentered into thy heart; how can I be left of thee, dear son, alone\nthereafter? To thee did the old knight Peleus send me the day he sent\nthee to Agamemnon forth from Phthia, a stripling yet unskilled in equal\nwar and in debate wherein men wax pre-eminent. Therefore sent he me to\nteach thee all these things, to be both a speaker of words and a doer of\ndeeds. Yea, I reared thee to this greatness, thou godlike Achilles, with\nmy heart's love; for with none other wouldest thou go unto the feast,\nneither take meat in the hall, till that I had set thee upon my knees\nand stayed thee with the savoury morsel cut first for thee, and put the\nwine-cup to thy lips. Oft hast thou stained the doublet on my breast\nwith sputtering of wine in thy sorry helplessness. Thus I suffered much\nwith thee, and much I toiled, being mindful that the gods in nowise\ncreated any issue of my body; but I made thee my son, thou godlike\nAchilles, that thou mayest yet save me from grievous destruction.\nTherefore, Achilles, rule thy high spirit; neither beseemeth it thee to\nhave a ruthless heart. Nay, even the very gods can bend, and theirs\nwithal is loftier majesty and honour and might. Nay, come for the gifts;\nthe Achaians shall honour thee even as a god. But if without gifts thou\nenter into battle the bane of men, thou wilt not be held in like honour,\neven though thou avert the fray.\"\n\nAnd Achilles fleet of foot made answer and said to him: \"Phoinix my\nfather, thou old man fosterling of Zeus, such honour need I in no wise;\nfor I deem that I have been honoured by the judgment of Zeus, which\nshall abide upon me amid my beaked ships as long as breath tarrieth in\nmy body and my limbs are strong. Moreover I will say this thing to thee\nand lay thou it to thine heart; trouble not my soul by weeping and\nlamentation, to do the pleasure of warrior Atreides; neither beseemeth\nit thee to cherish him, lest thou be hated of me that cherish thee. It\nwere good that thou with me shouldest vex him that vexeth me. Be thou\nking even as I, and share my sway by halves, but these shall bear my\nmessage. So tarry thou here and lay thee to rest in a soft bed, and with\nbreak of day will we consider whether to depart unto our own, or to\nabide.\"\n\nHe spake, and nodded his brow in silence unto Patroklos to spread for\nPhoinix a thick couch, that the others might bethink them to depart from\nthe hut with speed. Then spake to them Aias, Telamon's godlike son, and\nsaid: \"Heaven-sprung son of Laertes, Odysseus of many wiles, let us go\nhence; for methinks the purpose of our charge will not by this journey\nbe accomplished; and we must tell the news, though it be no wise good,\nwith all speed unto the Danaans, that now sit awaiting. But Achilles\nhath wrought his proud soul to fury within him--stubborn man, that\nrecketh naught of his comrades' love, wherein we worshipped him beyond\nall men amid the ships--unmerciful! Yet doth a man accept recompense of\nhis brother's murderer or for his dead son; and so the man-slayer for a\ngreat price abideth in his own land, and the kinsman's heart is\nappeased, and his proud soul, when he hath taken the recompense. But for\nthee, the gods have put within thy breast a spirit implacable and evil,\nby reason of one single damsel. And now we offer thee seven damsels, far\nbest of all, and many other gifts besides; entertain thou then a kindly\nspirit, and have respect unto thine home; because we are guests of thy\nroof, sent of the multitude of Danaans, and we would fain be nearest to\nthee and dearest beyond all other Achaians, as many as there be.\"\n\nAnd Achilles fleet of foot made answer and said to him: \"Aias sprung of\nZeus, thou son of Telamon, prince of the folk, thou seemest to speak all\nthis almost after mine own mind; but my heart swelleth with wrath as oft\nas I bethink me of those things, how Atreides entreated me arrogantly\namong the Argives, as though I were some worthless sojourner. But go ye\nand declare my message; I will not take thought of bloody war until that\nwise Priam's son, noble Hector, come to the Myrmidons' huts and ships,\nslaying the Argives, and smirch the ships with fire. But about mine hut\nand black ship I ween that Hector, though he be very eager for battle,\nshall be refrained.\"\n\nSo said he, and they took each man a two-handled cup, and made libation\nand went back along the line of ships; and Odysseus led the way. And\nPatroklos bade his fellows and handmaidens spread with all speed a thick\ncouch for Phoinix; and they obeyed and spread a couch as he ordained,\nfleeces and rugs and fine flock of linen. Then the old man laid him down\nand tarried for bright Dawn.\n\nNow when those were come unto Atreides' huts, the sons of the Achaians\nstood up on this side and on that, and pledged them in cups of gold, and\nquestioned them; and Agamemnon king of men asked them first: \"Come now,\ntell me, Odysseus full of praise, thou great glory of the Achaians; will\nhe save the ships from consuming fire, or said he nay, and hath wrath\nyet hold of his proud spirit?\"\n\nAnd steadfast goodly Odysseus answered him: \"Most noble son of Atreus,\nAgamemnon king of men, he yonder hath no mind to quench his wrath, but\nis yet more filled of fury, and spurneth thee and thy gifts. He biddeth\nthee take counsel for thyself amid the Argives, how to save the ships\nand folk of the Achaians. And for himself he threateneth that at break\nof day he will launch upon the sea his trim well-benched ships. Moreover\nhe said that he would counsel all to sail for home, because ye now shall\nnever reach your goal of steep Ilios; surely far-seeing Zeus holdeth his\nhand over her and her folk are of good courage. Even so said he, and\nhere are also these to tell the tale that were my companions, Aias and\nthe two heralds, both men discreet. But the old man Phoinix laid him\nthere to rest, even as Achilles bade him, that he may follow with him on\nhis ships to his dear native land to-morrow, if he will; for he will not\ntake him perforce.\"\n\nSo said he, and they all held their peace and were still, marvelling at\nhis saying, for he harangued very vehemently. Long were the sons of the\nAchaians voiceless for grief, but at the last Diomedes of the loud\nwar-cry spake amid them: \"Most noble son of Atreus, Agamemnon king of\nmen, would thou hadst never besought Peleus' glorious son with offer of\ngifts innumerable; proud is he at any time, but now hast thou yet far\nmore encouraged him in his haughtiness. Howbeit we will let him bide,\nwhether he go or tarry; hereafter he shall fight, whenever his heart\nwithin him biddeth and god arouseth him. Come now, even as I shall say\nlet us all obey. Go ye now to rest, full to your hearts' desire of meat\nand wine, wherein courage is and strength; but when fair rosy-fingered\nDawn appeareth, array thou with all speed before the ships thy folk and\nhorsemen, and urge them on; and fight thyself amid the foremost.\"\n\nSo said he, and all the princes gave assent, applauding the saying of\nDiomedes tamer of horses. And then they made libation and went every man\nto his hut, and there laid them to rest and took the boon of sleep.\n\n\n\nBOOK X.\n\n    How Diomedes and Odysseus slew Dolon, a spy of the Trojans,\n    and themselves spied on the Trojan camp, and took the horses\n    of Rhesos, the Thracian king.\n\nNow beside the ships the other leaders of the whole Achaian host were\nsleeping all night long, by soft Sleep overcome, but Agamemnon son of\nAtreus, shepherd of the host, sweet Sleep held not, so many things he\ndebated in his mind. And even as when the lord of fair-tressed Hera\nlighteneth, fashioning either a mighty rain unspeakable, or hail, or\nsnow, when the flakes sprinkle all the ploughed lands, or fashioning\nperchance the wide mouth of bitter war, even so oft in his breast\ngroaned Agamemnon, from the very deep of his heart, and his spirits\ntrembled within him. And whensoever he looked toward that Trojan plain,\nhe marvelled at the many fires that blazed in front of Ilios, and at the\nsound of flutes and pipes, and the noise of men; but whensoever to the\nships he glanced and the host of the Achaians, then rent he many a lock\nclean forth from his head, to Zeus that is above, and greatly groaned\nhis noble heart.\n\nAnd this in his soul seemed to him the best counsel, to go first of all\nto Nestor son of Neleus, if perchance he might contrive with him some\nright device that should be for the warding off of evil from all the\nDanaans.\n\nThen he rose, and did on his doublet about his breast, and beneath his\nshining feet he bound on fair sandals, and thereafter clad him in the\ntawny skin of a lion fiery and great, a skin that reached to the feet,\nand he grasped his spear.\n\nAnd even in like wise did trembling fear take hold on Menelaos, (for\nneither on his eyelids did Sleep settle down,) lest somewhat should\nbefall the Argives, who verily for his sake over wide waters were come\nto Troy-land, with fierce war in their thoughts.\n\nWith a dappled pard's akin first he covered his broad shoulders, and he\nraised and set on his head a casque of bronze, and took a spear in his\nstrong hand. Then went he on his way to rouse his brother, that mightily\nruled over all the Argives, and as a god was honoured by the people. Him\nfound he harnessing his goodly gear about his shoulders, by the stern of\nthe ship, and glad to his brother was his coming. Then Menelaos of the\nloud war-cry first accosted him: \"Wherefore thus, dear brother, art thou\narming? Wilt thou speed forth any of thy comrades to spy on the Trojans?\nNay, terribly I fear lest none should undertake for thee this deed, even\nto go and spy out the foeman alone through the ambrosial night; needs\nmust he be a man right hardy of heart.\"\n\nThen the lord Agamemnon answered him and spake: \"Need of good counsel\nhave I and thou, Menelaos fosterling of Zeus, of counsel that will help\nand save the Argives and the ships, since the heart of Zeus hath turned\nagain. Surely on the sacrifices of Hector hath he set his heart rather\nthan on ours. For never did I see, nor heard any tell, that one man\ndevised so many terrible deeds in one day, as Hector, dear to Zeus, hath\nwrought on the sons of the Achaians, unaided; though no dear son of a\ngoddess is he, nor of a god. He hath done deeds that methinks will be a\nsorrow to the Argives, lasting and long, such evils hath he devised\nagainst the Achaians. But go now, run swiftly by the ships, and summon\nAias and Idomeneus, but I will betake me to noble Nestor, and bid him\narise, if perchance he will be fain to go to the sacred company of the\nsentinels and lay on them his command. For to him above others would\nthey listen, for his own son is chief among the sentinels, he and the\nbrother in arms of Idomeneus, even Meriones, for to them above all we\nentrusted this charge.\"\n\nThen Menelaos of the loud war-cry answered him: \"How meanest thou this\nword wherewith thou dost command and exhort me? Am I to abide there with\nthem, waiting till thou comest, or run back again to thee when I have\nwell delivered to them thy commandment?\"\n\nThen the king of men, Agamemnon, answered him again: \"There do thou\nabide lest we miss each other as we go, for many are the paths through\nthe camp. But call aloud, wheresoever thou goest, and bid men awake,\nnaming each man by his lineage, and his father's name, and giving all\ntheir dues of honour, nor be thou proud of heart. Nay rather let us\nourselves be labouring, for even thus did Zeus from our very birth\ndispense to us the heaviness of toil.\"\n\nSo he spake, and sent his brother away, having clearly laid on him his\ncommandment. Then went he himself after Nestor, the shepherd of the\nhost, whom he found by his hut and black ship, in his soft bed: beside\nhim lay his arms, a shield, and two spears, and a shining helmet. Beside\nhim lay his glittering girdle wherewith the old man was wont to gird\nhimself when he harnessed him for war, the bane of men, and led on the\nhost, for he yielded not to grievous old age. Then he raised him on his\nelbow, lifting his head, and spake to the son of Atreus, inquiring of\nhim with this word: \"Who art thou that farest alone by the ships,\nthrough the camp in the dark night, when other mortals are sleeping?\nSeekest thou one of thy mules, or of thy comrades? speak, and come not\nsilently upon me. What need hast thou?\"\n\nThen the king of men, Agamemnon, answered him: \"O Nestor, son of Neleus,\ngreat glory of the Achaians, thou shalt know Agamemnon, son of Atreus,\nwhom above all men Zeus hath planted for ever among labours, while my\nbreath abides within my breast, and my knees move. I wander thus, for\nthat sweet sleep rests not on mine eyes, but war is my care, and the\ntroubles of the Achaians. Yea, greatly I fear for the sake of the\nDanaans, nor is my heart firm, but I am tossed to and fro, and my heart\nis leaping from my breast, and my good knees tremble beneath me. But if\nthou wilt do aught, since neither on thee cometh sleep, let us go\nthither to the sentinels, that we may see them, lest they be fordone\nwith toil, and so are slumbering, and have quite forgotten to keep\nwatch. And hostile men camp hard by, nor know we at all but that they\nare keen to do battle in the night.\"\n\nThen knightly Nestor of Gerenia answered him: \"Verily will I follow\nafter thee, but let us also rouse others again, both the son of Tydeus,\nspearman renowned, and Odysseus, and swift Aias, and the strong son of\nPhyleus. But well it would be if one were to go and call those also, the\ngodlike Aias, and Idomeneus the prince; for their ships are furthest of\nall, and nowise close at hand. But Menelaos will I blame, dear as he is\nand worshipful, yea, even if thou be angry with me, nor will I hide my\nthought, for that he slumbereth, and to thee alone hath left the toil;\nnow should he be toiling among all the chiefs and beseeching them, for\nneed no longer tolerable is coming upon us.\"\n\nAnd the king of men, Agamemnon, answered him again: \"Old man, another\nday I even bid thee blame him, for often is he slack, and willeth not\nto labour, yielding neither to unreadiness nor heedlessness of heart,\nbut looking toward me, and expecting mine instance. But now he awoke\nfar before me, and came to me, and him I sent forward to call those\nconcerning whom thou inquirest. But let us be gone, and them shall\nwe find before the gates, among the sentinels, for there I bade them\ngather.\"\n\nThen knightly Nestor of Gerenia answered him: \"So will none of the\nArgives be wroth with him or disobey him, when soever he doth urge any\none, and give him his commands.\"\n\nSo spake he, and did on his doublet about his breast, and beneath his\nbright feet he bound goodly shoon, and all around him buckled a purple\ncloak, with double folds and wide, and thick down all over it.\n\nAnd he took a strong spear, pointed with sharp bronze, and he went among\nthe ships of the mail-clad Achaians. Then Odysseus first, the peer of\nZeus in counsel, did knightly Gerenian Nestor arouse out of sleep, with\nhis voice, and quickly the cry came all about his heart, and he came\nforth from the hut and spake to them saying: \"Wherefore thus among the\nships and through the camp do ye wander alone, in the ambrosial night;\nwhat so great need cometh upon you?\"\n\nThen knightly Nestor of Gerenia answered him: \"Laertes' son, be not\nwroth, for great trouble besetteth the Achaians. Nay follow, that we may\narouse others too, even all that it behoveth to take counsel, whether we\nshould fly, or fight.\"\n\nSo spake he, and Odysseus of the many counsels came to the hut, and cast\na shield about his shoulders, and went after them.\n\nAnd they went to seek Diomedes, son of Tydeus, and him they found\noutside his hut, with his arms, and around him his comrades were\nsleeping with their shields beneath their heads, but their spears were\ndriven into the ground erect on the spikes of the butts, and afar shone\nthe bronze, like the lightning of father Zeus. Now that hero was asleep,\nand under him was strewn the hide of an ox of the field, but beneath his\nhead was stretched a shining carpet. Beside him went and stood knightly\nNestor of Gerenia and stirred him with a touch of his foot, and aroused\nhim, chiding him to his face, saying: \"Wake, son of Tydeus, why all\nnight long dost thou sleep? Knowest thou not that the Trojans on the\nhigh place of the plain are camped near the ships, and but a little\nspace holdeth them apart?\"\n\nSo spake he, and Diomedes sprang swiftly up out of sleep, and spake to\nhim winged words: \"Hard art thou, old man, and from toil thou never\nceasest. Now are there not other younger sons of the Achaians, who might\nrouse when there is need each of the kings, going all around the host?\nbut thou, old man, art indomitable.\"\n\nAnd him knightly Nestor of Gerenia answered again, \"Nay verily, my son,\nall this that thou sayest is according unto right. Noble sons have I,\nand there be many of the host, of whom each man might go and call the\nothers. But a right great need hath assailed the Achaians. For now to\nall of us it standeth on a razor's edge, either pitiful ruin for the\nAchaians, or life. But come now, if indeed thou dost pity me, rouse\nswift Aias, and the son of Phyleus, for thou art younger than I.\"\n\nSo spake he, and Diomedes cast round his shoulders the skin of a great\nfiery lion, that reached to his feet, and he grasped his spear, and\nstarted on his way, and roused the others from their place and led them\non.\n\nNow when they had come among the assembled sentinels, they found not the\nleaders of the sentinels asleep, but they all sat wide awake with their\narms. And even as hounds keep difficult guard round the sheep in a fold,\nhaving heard a hardy wild beast that cometh through the wood among the\nhills, and much clamour riseth round him of hounds and men, and sleep\nperisheth from them, even so sweet sleep did perish from their eyes, as\nthey watched through the wicked night, for ever were they turning toward\nthe plains, when they heard the Trojans moving.\n\nAnd that old man was glad when he saw them, and heartened them with his\nsaying, and calling out to them he spake winged words: \"Even so now,\ndear children, do ye keep watch, nor let sleep take any man, lest we\nbecome a cause of rejoicing to them that hate us.\"\n\nSo saying he sped through the moat, and they followed with him, the\nkings of the Argives, who had been called to the council. And with them\nwent Meriones, and the glorious son of Nestor, for they called them to\nshare their counsel. So they went clean out of the delved foss, and sat\ndown in the open, where the mid-space was clear of dead men fallen,\nwhere fierce Hector had turned again from destroying the Argives, when\nnight covered all. There sat they down, and declared their saying each\nto the other, and to them knightly Nestor of Gerenia began discourse: \"O\nfriends, is there then no man that would trust to his own daring spirit,\nto go among the great-hearted Trojans, if perchance he might take some\nstraggler of the enemy, yea, or hear perchance some rumour among the\nTrojans, and what things they devise among themselves, whether they are\nfain to abide there by the ships, away from the city, or will retreat\nagain to the city, now that they have conquered the Achaians? All this\nmight such an one learn, and back to us come scathless: great would be\nhis fame under heaven among all men, and a goodly gift will be given\nhim. For all the best men that bear sway by the ships, each and all of\nthem will give him a black ewe, with her lamb at her foot, and ever will\nhe be present at feasts and clan-drinkings.\"\n\nSo spake he, and thereon were they all silent, holding their peace, but\nto them spake Diomedes of the loud war-cry: \"Nestor, my heart and manful\nspirit urge me to enter the camp of the foemen hard by, even of the\nTrojans: and if some other man will follow with me, more comfort and\nmore courage will there be. If two go together, one before another\nperceiveth a matter, how there may be gain therein; but if one alone\nperceive aught, even so his wit is shorter, and weak his device.\"\n\nSo spake he, and many were they that wished to follow Diomedes. The two\nAiantes were willing, men of Ares' company, and Meriones was willing,\nand right willing the son of Nestor, and the son of Atreus, Menelaos,\nspearman renowned, yea and the hardy Odysseus was willing to steal into\nthe throng of Trojans, for always daring was his heart within him. But\namong them spake the king of men, Agamemnon: \"Diomedes son of Tydeus,\njoy of mine heart, thy comrade verily shalt thou choose, whomsoever thou\nwilt, the best of them that be here, for many are eager. But do not\nthou, out of reverent heart, leave the better man behind, and give\nthyself the worse companion, yielding to regard for any, and looking to\ntheir lineage, even if one be more kingly born.\"\n\nSo spake he, but was in fear for the sake of fair-haired Menelaos. But\nto them again answered Diomedes of the loud war-cry: \"If indeed ye bid\nme choose myself a comrade, how then could I be unmindful of godlike\nOdysseus, whose heart is passing eager, and his spirit so manful in all\nmanner of toils; and Athene loveth him. But while he cometh with me,\neven out of burning fire might we both return, for he excelleth in\nunderstanding.\"\n\nThen him again answered the steadfast noble Odysseus: \"Son of Tydeus,\npraise me not overmuch, neither blame me aught, for thou speakest thus\namong the Argives that themselves know all. But let us be going, for\ntruly the night is waning, and near is the dawn, and the stars have gone\nonward, and the night has advanced more than two watches, but the third\nwatch is yet left.\"\n\nSo spake they, and harnessed them in their dread armour. To the son of\nTydeus did Thrasymedes steadfast in war give a two-edged sword (for his\nown was left by his ship) and a shield, and about his head set a helm of\nbull's hide, without cone or crest, that is called a skull-cap, and\nkeeps the heads of stalwart youths. And Meriones gave Odysseus a bow and\na quiver, and a sword, and on his head set a helm made of leather, and\nwith many a thong was it stiffly wrought within, while without the white\nteeth of a boar of flashing tusks were arrayed thick set on either side,\nwell and cunningly, and in the midst was fixed a cap of felt.\n\nSo when these twain had harnessed them in their dread armour, they set\nforth to go, and left there all the best of the host. And to them did\nPallas Athene send forth an omen on the right, a heron hard by the way,\nand they beheld it not with their eyes, through the dark night, but they\nheard its shrill cry. And Odysseus was glad in the omen of the bird, and\nprayed to Athene: \"Listen to me, thou child of aegis-bearing Zeus, that\never in all toils dost stand by me, nor doth any motion of mine escape\nthee: but now again above all be thou friendly to me, Athene, and grant\nthat we come back with renown to the ships, having wrought a great work,\nthat shall be sorrow to the Trojans.\"\n\nNext again prayed Diomedes of the loud war-cry: \"Listen now likewise to\nme, thou child of Zeus, unwearied maiden, and follow with me as when\nwith my father thou didst follow, even noble Tydeus, into Thebes, when\nhe went forth as a messenger from the Achaians. Even so now stand thou\nby me willingly, and protect me. And to thee will I sacrifice a yearling\nheifer, broad of brow, unbroken, that never yet hath man led below the\nyoke. Her will I sacrifice to thee, and gild her horns with gold.\"\n\nSo spake they in their prayer, and Pallas Athene heard them. And when\nthey had prayed to the daughter of mighty Zeus, they went forth on their\nway, like two lions, through the dark night, amid the slaughter, amid\nthe slain men, through the arms and the black blood.\n\nNay, nor the stout-hearted Trojans did Hector suffer to sleep, but he\ncalled together all the best of them, all that were chiefs and leaders\nof the Trojans, them did he call together, and contrived a crafty\ncounsel: \"Who is there that would promise and perform for me this deed,\nfor a great gift? yea his reward shall be sufficient. For I will give\nhim a chariot, and two horses of arching neck, the best that be at the\nswift ships of the Achaians, to whosoever shall dare the deed, and for\nhimself shall win glory. And the deed is this; to go near the\nswift-faring ships, and seek out whether the swift ships are guarded, as\nof old, or whether already, being subdued beneath our hands, the foes\nare devising of flight among themselves, and have no care to watch\nthrough the night, being fordone with dread weariness.\"\n\nSo spake he, but they were all silent and held their peace. Now there\nwas among the Trojans one Dolon, the son of Eumedes the godlike herald,\nand he was rich in gold, and rich in bronze: and verily he was ill\nfavoured to look upon, but swift of foot. So he spake then a word to the\nTrojans and to Hector: \"Hector, my heart and manful spirit urge me to go\nnear the swift-faring ships, and spy out all. But come, I pray thee,\nhold up the staff, and swear to me, that verily thou wilt give me the\nhorses and the chariots bedight with bronze that bear the noble son of\nPeleus. But to thee I will prove no vain spy, nor disappoint thy hope.\nFor I will go straight to the camp, until I may come to the ship of\nAgamemnon, where surely the chiefs are like to hold council, whether to\nfight or flee.\"\n\nSo spake he, and Hector took the staff in his hand, and sware to him:\n\"Now let Zeus himself be witness, the loud-thundering lord of Hera, that\nno other man of the Trojans shall mount those horses, but thou, I\ndeclare, shalt rejoice in them for ever.\"\n\nSo spake he, and sware a bootless oath thereto, and aroused Dolon to go.\nAnd straightway he cast on his shoulders his crooked bow, and did on\nthereover the skin of a grey wolf, and on his head a helm of\nferret-skin, and took a sharp javelin, and went on his way to the ships\nfrom the host. But he was not like to come back from the ships and bring\nword to Hector.\n\nBut when he had left the throng of men and horses, he went forth eagerly\non the way, and Odysseus of the seed of Zeus was ware of him as he\napproached, and said unto Diomedes: \"Lo, here is some man, Diomedes,\ncoming from the camp, I know not whether as a spy to our ships, or to\nstrip certain of the dead men fallen. But let us suffer him to pass by\nus a little way on the plain, and thereafter may we rush on him and take\nhim speedily, and if it chance that he outrun us by speed of foot, ever\ndo thou hem him in towards the ships and away from the camp, rushing on\nhim with thy spear, lest in any wise he escape towards the city.\"\n\nSo they spake, and turning out of the path they lay down among the\nbodies of the dead; and swiftly Dolon ran past them in his witlessness.\nBut when he was as far off as is the length of the furrow made by mules,\nthese twain ran after him, and he stood still when he heard the sound,\nsupposing in his heart that they were friends come from among the\nTrojans to turn him back, at the countermand of Hector. But when they\nwere about a spear-cast off, or even less, he knew them for foe-men, and\nstirred his swift limbs to fly, and speedily they started in pursuit.\n\nAnd as when two sharp-toothed hounds, well skilled in the chase, press\never hard on a doe or a hare through a wooded land, and it runs\nscreaming before them, even so Tydeus' son and Odysseus the sacker of\ncities cut Dolon off from the host, and ever pursued hard after him. But\nwhen he was just about to come among the sentinels, in his flight\ntowards the ships, then Athene poured strength into the son of Tydeus,\nthat none of the mail-clad Achaians might boast himself the first to\nsmite, and he come second. And strong Diomedes leaped upon him with the\nspear, and said: \"Stand, or I shall overtake thee with the spear, and\nmethinks that thou shalt not long avoid sheer destruction at my hand.\"\n\nSo spake he, and threw his spear, but of his own will he missed the man,\nand passing over his right shoulder the point of the polished spear\nstuck fast in the ground: and Dolon stood still, in great dread and\ntrembling, and the teeth chattered in his mouth, and he was green with\nfear. Then the twain came up with him, panting, and gripped his hands,\nand weeping he spake: \"Take me alive, and I will ransom myself, for\nwithin our house there is bronze, and gold, and smithied iron, wherefrom\nmy father would do you grace with ransom untold, if he should learn that\nI am alive among the ships of the Achaians.\"\n\nThen Odysseus of the many counsels answered him and said: \"Take courage,\nlet not death be in thy mind, but come speak and tell me truly all the\ntale, why thus from the host lost thou come all alone among the ships,\nthrough the black night, when other mortals are sleeping? Comest thou to\nstrip certain of the dead men fallen, or did Hector send thee forth to\nspy out everything at the hollow ships, or did thine own spirit urge\nthee on?\"\n\nThen Dolon answered him, his limbs trembling beneath him: \"With many a\nblind hope did Hector lead my wits astray, who vowed to give me the\nwhole-hooved horses of the proud son of Peleus, and his car bedight with\nbronze: and he bade me fare through the swift black night, and draw nigh\nthe foemen, and seek out whether the swift ships are guarded, as of old,\nor whether, already, being subdued beneath our hands, they are devising\nof flight among themselves, and have no care to watch through the night,\nbeing fordone with dread weariness.\"\n\nAnd smiling thereat did Odysseus of the many counsels make him answer:\n\"Verily now thy soul was set on great rewards, even the horses of the\nwise son of Aiakos, but hard are they for mortal men to master, and hard\nto drive, for any but Achilles only, whom a deathless mother bare. But\ncome, tell me all this truly, all the tale: where when thou camest\nhither didst thou leave Hector, shepherd of the host, and where lie his\nwarlike gear, and where his horses? And how are disposed the watches,\nand the beds of the other Trojans? And what counsel take they among\nthemselves; are they fain to abide there nigh the ships afar from the\ncity, or will they return to the city again, seeing that they have\nsubdued unto them the Achaiana?\"\n\nThen Dolon son of Eumedes made him answer again: \"Lo, now all these\nthings will I recount to thee most truly. Hector with them that are\ncounsellors holdeth council by the barrow of godlike Ilos, apart from\nthe din, but as for the guards whereof thou askest, oh hero, no chosen\nwatch nor guard keepeth the host. As for all the watch fires of the\nTrojans--on them is necessity, so that they watch and encourage each\nother to keep guard; but, for the allies called from many lands, they\nare sleeping and to the Trojans they leave it to keep watch, for no wise\nnear dwell the children and wives of the allies.\" Then Odysseus of the\nmany counsels answered him and said: \"How stands it now, do they sleep\namidst the horse-taming Trojans, or apart? tell me clearly, that I may\nknow.\"\n\nThen answered him Dolon son of Eumedes: \"Verily all this likewise will I\nrecount to thee truly. Towards the sea lie the Karians, and Paionians of\nthe bended bow, and the Leleges and Kaukones, and noble Pelasgoi. And\ntowards Thymbre the Lykians have their place, and the haughty Mysians,\nand the Phrygians that fight from chariots, and Maionians lords of\nchariots. But wherefore do ye inquire of me throughly concerning all\nthese things? for if ye desire to steal into the throng of Trojans, lo,\nthere be those Thracians, new comers, at the furthest point apart from\nthe rest, and among them their king Rhesos, son of Eioneus. His be the\nfairest horses that ever I beheld, and the greatest, whiter than snow,\nand for speed like the winds. And his chariot is fashioned well with\ngold and silver, and golden is his armour that he brought with him,\nmarvellous, a wonder to behold; such as it is in no wise fit for mortal\nmen to bear, but for the deathless gods. But bring me now to the swift\nships, or leave me here, when ye have bound me with a ruthless bond,\nthat ye may go and make trial of me whether I have spoken to you truth,\nor lies.\"\n\nThen strong Diomedes, looking grimly on him, said: \"Put no thought of\nescape, Dolon, in thy heart, for all the good tidings thou hast brought,\nsince once thou halt come into our hands. For if now we release thee or\nlet thee go, on some later day wilt thou come to the swift ships of the\nAchaians, either to play the spy, or to fight in open war, but if\nsubdued beneath my hands thou lose thy life, never again wilt thou prove\na bane to the Argives.\"\n\nHe spake, and that other with strong hand was about to touch his chin,\nand implore his mercy, but Diomedes smote him on the midst of the neck,\nrushing on him with the sword, and cut through both the sinews, and the\nhead of him still speaking was mingled with the dust. And they stripped\nhim of the casque of ferret's skin from off his head, and of his\nwolf-skin, and his bended bow, and his long spear, and these to Athene\nthe Giver of Spoil did noble Odysseus hold aloft in his hand, and he\nprayed and spake a word: \"Rejoice, O goddess, in these, for to thee\nfirst of all the immortals in Olympus will we call for aid; nay, but yet\nagain send us on against the horses and the sleeping places of the\nThracian men.\"\n\nSo spake he aloud, and lifted from him the spoils on high, and set them\non a tamarisk bush, and raised thereon a mark right plain to see,\ngathering together reeds, and luxuriant shoots of tamarisk, lest they\nshould miss the place as they returned again through the swift dark\nnight.\n\nSo the twain went forward through the arms, and the black blood, and\nquickly they came to the company of Thracian men. Now they were\nslumbering, fordone with toil, but their goodly weapons lay by them on\nthe ground, all orderly, in three rows, and by each man his pair of\nsteeds. And Rhesos slept in the midst, and beside him his swift horses\nwere bound with thongs to the topmost rim of the chariot. Him Odysseus\nspied from afar, and showed him unto Diomedes: \"Lo, Diomedes, this is\nthe man, and these are the horses whereof Dolon that we slew did give us\ntidings. But come now, put forth thy great strength; it doth not behove\nthee to stand idle with thy weapons: nay, loose the horses; or do thou\nslay the men, and of the horses will I take heed.\"\n\nSo spake he, and into that other bright-eyed Athene breathed might, and\nhe began slaying on this side and on that, and hideously went up their\ngroaning, as they were smitten with the sword, and the earth was\nreddened with blood. And like as a lion cometh on flocks without a\nherdsman, on goats or sheep, and leaps upon them with evil will, so set\nthe son of Tydeus on the men of Thrace, till he had slain twelve. But\nwhomsoever the son of Tydeus drew near and smote with the sword, him did\nOdysseus of the many counsels seize by the foot from behind, and drag\nhim out of the way, with this design in his heart, that the fair-maned\nhorses might lightly issue forth, and not tremble in spirit, when they\ntrod over the dead; for they were not yet used to dead men. But when the\nson of Tydeus came upon the king, he was the thirteenth from whom he\ntook sweet life away, as he was breathing hard, for an evil dream stood\nabove his head that night through the device of Athens. Meanwhile the\nhardy Odysseus loosed the whole-hooved horses, and bound them together\nwith thongs, and drave them out of the press, smiting them with his bow,\nsince he had not taken thought to lift the shining whip with his hands\nfrom the chariot; then he whistled for a sign to noble Diomedes.\n\nBut Diomedes stood and pondered what most daring deed he might do,\nwhether he should take the chariot, where lay the armour, and drag it\nout by the pole, or lift it upon high, and so bear it forth, or whether\nhe should take the life away from yet more of the Thracians. And while\nhe was pondering this in his heart, then Athene drew near, and stood,\nand spake to noble Diomedes: \"Bethink thee of returning, O son of\ngreat-hearted Tydeus, to the hollow ships, lest perchance thou come\nthither in flight, and perchance another god rouse up the Trojans\nlikewise.\"\n\nSo spake she, and he observed the voice of the utterance of the goddess,\nand swiftly he sprang upon the steeds, and Odysseus smote them with his\nbow, and they sped to the swift ships of the Achaians.\n\nNay, nor a vain watch kept Apollo of the silver bow, when he beheld\nAthene caring for the son of Tydeus; in wrath against her he stole among\nthe crowded press of Trojans, and aroused a counsellor of the Thracians,\nHippokoon, the noble kinsman of Rhesos. And he started out of sleep,\nwhen he beheld the place desolate where the swift horses had stood, and\nbeheld the men gasping in the death struggle; then he groaned aloud, and\ncalled out by name to his comrade dear. And a clamour arose and din\nunspeakable of the Trojans hasting together, and they marvelled at the\nterrible deeds, even all that the heroes had wrought, and had gone\nthereafter to the hollow ships.\n\nBut when those others came to the place where they had slain the spy of\nHector, there Odysseus, dear to Zeus, checked the swift horses, and\nTydeus' son, leaping to the ground, set the bloody spoil in the hands of\nOdysseus, and again mounted, and lashed the horses, and they sped onward\nnothing loth. But Nestor first heard the sound, and said: \"O friends,\nleaders and counsellors of the Argives, shall I be wrong or speak sooth?\nfor my heart bids me speak. The sound of swift-footed horses strikes\nupon mine ears. Would to god that Odysseus and that strong Diomedes may\neven instantly be driving the whole-hooved horses from among the\nTrojans; but terribly I fear in mine heart lest the bravest of the\nArgives suffer aught through the Trojans' battle din.\"\n\nNot yet was his whole word spoken, when they came themselves, and leaped\ndown to earth, but gladly the others welcomed them with hand-clasping,\nand with honeyed words. And first did knightly Nestor of Gerenia make\nquestion: \"Come, tell me now, renowned Odysseus, great glory of the\nAchaians, how ye twain took those horses? Was it by stealing into the\npress of Trojans? Or did some god meet you, and give you them? Wondrous\nlike are they to rays of the sun. Ever with the Trojans do I mix in\nfight, nor methinks do I tarry by the ships, old warrior as I am. But\nnever yet saw I such horses, nor deemed of such. Nay, methinks some god\nmust have encountered you and given you these. For both of you doth Zeus\nthe cloud-gatherer love, and the maiden of aegis-bearing Zeus,\nbright-eyed Athene.\"\n\nAnd him answered Odysseus of the many counsels: \"O Nestor, son of\nNeleus, great glory of the Achaians, lightly could a god, if so he\nwould, give even better steeds than these, for the gods are far stronger\nthan we. But as for these new-come horses, whereof, old man, thou askest\nme, they are Thracian, but their lord did brave Diomedes slay, and\nbeside him all the twelve best men of his company. The thirteenth man\nwas a spy we took near the ships, one that Hector and the other haughty\nTrojans sent forth to pry upon our camp.\"\n\nSo spake he, and drave the whole-hooved horses through the foss,\nlaughing; and the other Achaians went with him joyfully. But when they\nhad come to the well-built hut of the son of Tydeus, they bound the\nhorses with well-cut thongs, at the mangers where the swift horses of\nDiomedes stood eating honey-sweet barley.\n\nAnd Odysseus placed the bloody spoils of Dolon in the stern of the ship,\nthat they might make ready a sacred offering to Athene. But for\nthemselves, they went into the sea, and washed off the thick sweat from\nshins, and neck, and thighs. But when the wave of the sea had washed the\nthick sweat from their skin, and their hearts revived again, they went\ninto polished baths, and were cleansed.\n\nAnd when they had washed, and anointed them with olive oil, they sat\ndown at supper, and from the full mixing bowl they drew off the\nhoney-sweet wine, and poured it forth to Athene.\n\n\n\nBOOK XI.\n\n    Despite the glorious deeds of Agamemnon, the Trojans press\n    hard on the Achaians, and the beginning of evil comes on\n    Patroklos.\n\nNow Dawn arose from her couch beside proud Tithonos, to bring light to\nthe immortals and to mortal men. But Zeus sent forth fierce Discord unto\nthe fleet ships of the Achaians, and in her hands she held the signal of\nwar. And she stood upon the huge black ship of Odysseus, that was in the\nmidst, to make her voice heard on either side, both to the huts of Aias,\nson of Telamon, and to the huts of Achilles, for these twain, trusting\nin their valour and the might of their hands, had drawn up their trim\nships at the two ends of the line. There stood the goddess and cried\nshrilly in a great voice and terrible, and mighty strength she set in\nthe heart of each of the Achaians, to war and fight unceasingly. And\nstraightway to them war grew sweeter than to depart in the hollow ships\nto their dear native land.\n\nThen each man gave in charge his horses to his charioteer, to hold them\nin by the foss, well and orderly, and themselves as heavy men at arms\nwere hasting about, being harnessed in their gear, and unquenchable the\ncry arose into the Dawn. And long before the charioteers were they\narrayed at the foss, but after them a little way came up the drivers.\nAnd among them the son of Kronos aroused an evil din, and from above\nrained down dew danked with blood out of the upper air, for that he was\nabout to send many strong men down to Hades.\n\nBut the Trojans on the other side, on the high ground of the plain,\ngathered them around great Hector, and noble Polydamus, and Aineias that\nas a god was honoured by the people of the Trojans, and the three sons\nof Antenor, Polybos, and noble Agenor, and young Akamas like unto the\nimmortals. And Hector in the foremost rank bare the circle of his\nshield. And as from amid the clouds appeareth glittering a baneful star,\nand then again sinketh within the shadowy clouds, even so Hector would\nnow appear among the foremost ranks, and again would be giving command\nin the rear, and all in bronze he shone, like the lightning of\naegis-bearing father Zeus.\n\nAnd even as when reapers over against each other drive their swaths\nthrough a rich man's field of wheat or barley, and thick fall the\nhandfuls, even so the Trojans and Achaians leaped upon each other,\ndestroying, and neither side took thought of ruinous flight; and equal\nheads had the battle, and they rushed on like wolves. And woful Discord\nwas glad at the sight, for she alone of the gods was with them in the\nwar; for the other gods were not beside them, but in peace they sat\nwithin their halls, where the goodly mansion of each was builded in the\nfolds of Olympus. And they all were blaming the son of Kronos, lord of\nthe storm-cloud, for that he willed to give glory to the Trojans. But of\nthem took the father no heed, but aloof from the others he sat apart,\nglad in his glory, looking toward the city of the Trojans, and the ships\nof the Achaians, and the glitter of bronze, and the slayers and the\nslain.\n\nSo long as morning was, and the sacred day still waxed, so long did the\nshafts of both hosts strike, and the folk fell, but about the hour when\na woodman maketh ready his meal, in the dells of a mountain, when he\nhath tired his hands with felling tall trees, and weariness cometh on\nhis soul, and desire of sweet food taketh his heart, even then the\nDanaans by their valour brake the battalions, and called on their\ncomrades through the lines. And in rushed Agamemnon first of all, where\nthickest clashed the battalions, there he set on, and with him all the\nwell-greaved Achaians. Footmen kept slaying footmen as they were driven\nin flight, and horsemen slaying horsemen with the sword, and from\nbeneath them rose up the dust from the plain, stirred by the thundering\nhooves of horses. And the lord Agamemnon, ever slaying, followed after,\ncalling on the Argives. And as when ruinous fire falleth on dense\nwoodland, and the whirling wind beareth it everywhere, and the thickets\nfall utterly before it, being smitten by the onset of the fire, even so\nbeneath Agamemnon son of Atreus fell the heads of the Trojans as they\nfled; and many strong-necked horses rattled empty cars along the\nhighways of the battle, lacking their noble charioteers; but they on the\nearth were lying, far more dear to the vultures than to their wives. But\nHector did Zeus draw forth from the darts and the dust, from the\nman-slaying, and the blood, and the din, and the son of Atreus followed\non, crying eagerly to the Danaans. And past the tomb of ancient Ilos,\nson of Dardanos, across the mid plain, past the place of the wild\nfig-tree they sped, making for the city, and ever the son of Atreus\nfollowed shouting, and his invincible hands were defiled with gore. But\nwhen they were come to the Skaian gates, and the oak-tree, there then\nthey halted, and awaited each other. But some were still in full flight\nthrough the mid plain, like kine that a lion hath scattered, coming on\nthem in the dead of night; all hath he scattered, but to one sheer death\nappeareth instantly, and he breaketh her neck first, seizing her with\nstrong teeth, and thereafter swalloweth greedily the blood and all the\nguts; even so lord Agamemnon son of Atreus followed hard on the Trojans,\never slaying the hindmost man, and they were scattered in flight, and on\nface or back many of them fell from their chariots beneath the hands of\nAgamemnon, for mightily he raged with the spear. But when he was\nnowabout coming below the city, and the steep wall, then did the father\nof men and gods sit him down on the crests of many-fountained Ida, from\nheaven descending, with the thunderbolt in his hands.\n\nThen sent he forth Iris of the golden wings, to bear his word: \"Up and\ngo, swift Iris, and tell this word unto Hector: So long as he sees\nAgamemnon, shepherd of the host, raging among the foremost fighters, and\nruining the ranks of men, so long let him hold back, but bid the rest of\nthe host war with the foe in strong battle. But when, or smitten with\nthe spear or wounded with arrow shot, Agamemnon leapeth into his\nchariot, then will I give Hector strength to slay till he come even to\nthe well-timbered ships, and the sun go down, and sacred darkness draw\non.\"\n\nSo swift-footed Iris spake to Hector the words of Zeus and departed, but\nHector with his harness leaped from the chariot to the ground, and,\nshaking his sharp spears went through all the host, stirring up his men\nto fight, and he roused the dread din of battle. And they wheeled round,\nand stood and faced the Achaians, while the Argives on the other side\nstrengthened their battalions. And battle was made ready, and they stood\nover against each other, and Agamemnon first rushed in, being eager to\nfight far in front of all.\n\nTell me now, ye Muses that inhabit mansions in Olympus, who was he that\nfirst encountered Agamemnon, whether of the Trojans themselves, or of\ntheir allies renowned? It was Iphidamas, son of Antenor, great and\nmighty, who was nurtured in Thrace rich of soil, the mother of sheep; he\nit was that then encountered Agamemnon son of Atreus. And when they were\ncome near in onset against each other, Atreus' son missed, and his spear\nwas turned aside, but Iphidamas smote him on the girdle, below the\ncorslet, and himself pressed on, trusting to his heavy hand, but pierced\nnot the gleaming girdle, for long ere that the point struck on the\nsilver, and was bent like lead. Then wide-ruling Agamemnon caught the\nspear with his hand and drew it toward him furiously, like a lion, and\nsnatched it out of the hand of Iphidamas, and smote his neck with the\nsword, and unstrung his limbs. So even there he fell, and slept a sleep\nof bronze most piteously. Then did Agamemnon son of Atreus strip him,\nand went bearing his goodly harness into the throng of the Achaians.\n\nNow when Koon beheld him, Koon Antenor's eldest son, illustrious among\nmen, strong sorrow came on him, covering his eyes, for his brother's\nfall: and he stood on one side with his spear, and unmarked of noble\nAgamemnon smote him on the mid-arm, beneath the elbow, and clean through\nwent the point of the shining spear. Then Agamemnon king of men\nshuddered, yet not even so did he cease from battle and war, but rushed\nagainst Koon, grasping his wind-nurtured spear. Verily then Koon seized\nright lustily by the foot Iphidamas, his brother, and his father's son,\nand called to all the best of his men; but him, as he dragged the dead\nthrough the press, beneath his bossy shield Agamemnon wounded with a\nbronze-shod spear, and unstrung his limbs, and drew near and cut off his\nhead over Iphidamas. There the sons of Antenor, at the hands of\nAgamemnon the king, filled up the measure of their fate, and went down\nwithin the house of Hades.\n\nBut Agamemnon ranged among the ranks of men, with spear, and sword, and\ngreat stones for throwing, while yet the blood welled warm from his\nwound. But when the wound waxed dry, and the blood ceased to flow, then\nkeen pangs came on the might of the son of Atreus. Then leaped he into\nhis chariot, and bade his charioteer drive to the hollow ships, for he\nwas sore vexed at heart. And he called in a piercing voice, and shouted\nto the Danaans: \"O friends, leaders and counsellors of the Argives, do\nye now ward from the seafaring ships the harsh din of battle, for Zeus\nthe counsellor suffers me not all day to war with the Trojans.\"\n\nSo spake he, and his charioteer lashed the fair-maned steeds toward the\nhollow ships, and they flew onward nothing loth, and their breasts were\ncovered with foam, and their bellies were stained with dust, as they\nbore the wounded king away from the war.\n\nBut Hector, when he beheld Agamemnon departed, cried to the Trojans and\nLykians with a loud shout: \"Ye Trojans and Lykians, and Dardanians that\nwar in close fight, be men, my friends, and be mindful of your impetuous\nvalour. The best man of them hath departed and to me hath Zeus, the son\nof Kronos, given great renown. But straightway drive ye the whole-hooved\nhorses against the mighty Danaans, that ye may be the masters and bear\naway the higher glory.\"\n\nSo spake he, and aroused the might and spirit of every man. Himself with\nhigh thoughts he fared among the foremost, and fell upon the fight; like\na roaring blast, that leapeth down and stirreth the violet-coloured\ndeep. There whom first, whom last did he slay, even Hector, son of\nPriam, when Zeus vouchsafed him renown?\n\nAsaios first, and Autonoos, and Opites, and Dolops, son of Klytios, and\nOpheltios, and Agelaos, and Aisymnos, and Oros, and Hipponoos steadfast\nin the fight; these leaders of the Danaans he slew, and thereafter smote\nthe multitude, even as when the West Wind driveth the clouds of the\nwhite South Wind, smiting with deep storm, and the wave swelleth huge,\nrolling onward, and the spray is scattered on high beneath the rush of\nthe wandering wind; even so many heads of the host were smitten by\nHector.\n\nThere had ruin begun, and deeds remedeless been wrought, and now would\nall the Achaians have fled and fallen among the ships, if Odysseus had\nnot called to Diomedes, son of Tydeus: \"Tydeus' son, what ails us that\nwe forget our impetuous valour? Nay, come hither, friend, and take thy\nstand by me, for verily it will be shame if Hector of the glancing helm\ntake the ships.\"\n\nAnd to him strong Diomedes spake in answer: \"Verily will I abide and\nendure, but short will be all our profit, for Zeus, the cloud-gatherer,\nclearly desireth to give victory to the Trojans rather than to us.\"\n\nHe spake, and drave Thymbraios from his chariot to the ground, smiting\nhim with the spear in the left breast, and Odysseus smote Molion the\ngodlike squire of that prince. These then they let be, when they had\nmade them cease from war, and then the twain fared through the crowd\nwith a din, as when two boars full of valour fall on the hunting hounds;\nso rushed they on again, and slew the Trojans, while gladly the Achaians\ntook breath again in their flight from noble Hector.\n\nBut Hector quickly spied them among the ranks, and rushed upon them\nshouting, and with him followed the battalions of the Trojans. And\nbeholding him, Diomedes of the loud war-cry shuddered, and straightway\nspake to Odysseus that was hard by: \"Lo, on us this ruin, even mighty\nHector, is rolling: let us stand, and await him, and ward off his\nonset.\"\n\nSo spake he, and swayed and sent forth his far-shadowing spear, and\nsmote him nor missed, for he aimed at the head, on the summit of the\ncrest, and bronze by bronze was turned, nor reached his fair flesh, for\nit was stopped by the threefold helm with its socket, that Phoebus\nApollo to Hector gave. But Hector sprang back a wondrous way, and\nmingled with the throng, and he rested, fallen on his knee, and leaned\non the ground with his stout hand, and dark night veiled his eyes.\n\nBut while Tydeus' son was following after his spear-cast, far through\nthe foremost fighters, where he saw it sink into the earth, Hector gat\nbreath again, and leaping back into his chariot drave out into the\nthrong, and avoided black Fate. Then rushing on with his spear mighty\nDiomedes spake to him: \"Dog, thou art now again escaped from death; yet\ncame ill very nigh thee: but now hath Phoebus Apollo saved thee, to whom\nthou must surely pray when thou goest amid the clash of spears. Verily I\nwill slay thee yet when I meet thee hereafter, if any god is helper of\nme too. Now will I make after the rest, whomsoever I may seize.\"\n\nSo spake he, and stripped the son of Paeon, spearman renowned. But\nAlexandros, the lord of fair-tressed Helen, aimed with his arrows at\nTydeides, shepherd of the host; leaning as he aimed against a pillar on\nthe barrow, by men fashioned, of Ilos, son of Dardanos, an elder of the\npeople in time gone by. Now Diomedes was stripping the shining corslet\nof strong Agastrophos from about his breast, and the shield from his\nshoulders, and his strong helmet, when Paris drew the centre of his bow;\nnor vainly did the shaft fly from his hand, for he smote the flat of the\nright foot of Diomedes, and the arrow went clean through, and stood\nfixed in the earth; and right sweetly laughing Paris leaped up from his\nlair, and boasted, and said: \"Thou art smitten, nor vainly hath the dart\nflown forth; would that I had smitten thee in the nether belly, and\ntaken thy life away. So should the Trojans have breathed again from\ntheir trouble, they that shudder at thee, as bleating goats at a lion.\"\n\nBut him answered strong Diomedes, no wise dismayed: \"Bowman, reviler,\nproud in thy bow of horn, thou gaper after girls, verily if thou madest\ntrial in full harness, man to man, thy bow and showers of shafts would\nnothing avail thee, but now thou boastest vainly, for that thou hast\ngrazed the sole of my foot. I care not, more than if a woman had struck\nme or a senseless boy, for feeble is the dart of a craven man and a\nworthless. In other wise from my hand, yea, if it do but touch, the\nsharp shaft flieth, and straightway layeth low its man, and torn are the\ncheeks of his wife, and fatherless his children, and he, reddening the\nearth with his blood, doth rot away, more birds than women round him.\"\n\nSo spake he, and Odysseus, spearman renowned, drew near, and stood in\nfront of him, and Diomedes sat down behind him, and drew the sharp arrow\nfrom his foot, and a sore pang passed through his flesh. Then sprang he\ninto his car, and bade his charioteer drive back to the hollow ships,\nfor he was hurt at heart. Then Odysseus, spearman renowned, was left\nalone, nor did one of the Argives abide by him, for fear had fallen on\nthem all. Then in heaviness he spoke to his own great-hearted spirit:\n\"Ah me, what thing shall befall me! A great evil it is if I flee, in\ndread of the throng; yet worse is this, if I be taken all alone, for the\nother Danaans bath Kronion scattered in flight. But wherefore doth my\nheart thus converse with herself? for I know that they are cowards, who\nflee the fight, but whosoever is a hero in war, him it mainly behoves to\nstand stubbornly, whether he be smitten, or whether he smite another.\"\n\nWhile he pondered thus in heart and spirit, the ranks came on of the\nTrojans under shield, and hemmed him in the midst, setting among them\ntheir own bane. And even as when hounds and young men in their bloom\npress round a boar, and he cometh forth from his deep lair, whetting his\nwhite tusk between crooked jaws, and round him they rush, and the sound\nof the gnashing of tusks ariseth, and straightway they await his\nassault, so dread as he is, even so then round Odysseus, dear to Zeus,\nrushed the Trojans. And first he wounded noble Deiopites, from above, in\nthe shoulder, leaping on him with sharp spear, and next he slew Thoon\nand Ennomos, and next Chersidamas, being leapt down from his chariot, he\nsmote with the spear on the navel beneath the bossy shield, and he fell\nin the dust and clutched the ground with the hollow of his hand. These\nleft he, and wounded Charops, son of Hippasos, with the spear, the\nbrother of high-born Sokos. And to help him came Sokos, a godlike man,\nand stood hard by him, and spake saying: \"O renowned Odysseus,\ninsatiable of craft and toil, to-day shalt thou either boast over two\nsons of Hippasos, as having slain two such men of might, and stripped\ntheir harness, or smitten by my spear shaft lose thy life.\"\n\nSo spake he, and smote him on the circle of his shield; through the\nshining shield passed the strong spear, and through the fair-dight\ncorslet it was thrust, and tore clean off the flesh of the flanks, but\nPallas Athens did not suffer it to mingle with the bowels of the hero,\nand Odysseus knew that the dart had in nowise lighted on a deadly spot,\nand drawing backward, he spake unto Sokos \"Ah, wretched one, verily\nsheer destruction is come upon thee. Surely thou hast made me to cease\nfrom warring among the Trojans, but here to thee I declare that slaying\nand black Fate will be upon thee this day, and beneath my spear\noverthrown shalt thou give glory to me, and thy soul to Hades of the\nnoble steeds.\"\n\nHe spake, and the other turned, and started to flee, and in his back as\nhe turned he fixed the spear, between the shoulders, and drave it\nthrough the breast. Then he fell with a crash, and noble Odysseus\nboasted over him: \"Ah, Sokos, son of wise-hearted Hippasos the tamer of\nhorses, the end of death hath come upon and caught thee, nor hast thou\navoided. Ah, wretch, thy father and lady mother shall not close thine\neyes in death, but birds that eat flesh raw shall tear thee, shrouding\nthee in the multitude of their wings. But to me, if I die, the noble\nAchaians will yet give due burial.\"\n\nSo spake he, and drew the mighty spear of wise-hearted Sokos forth from\nhis flesh, and from his bossy shield, and his blood flowed forth when\nthe spear was drawn away, and afflicted his spirit. And the\ngreat-hearted Trojans when they beheld the blood of Odysseus, with\nclamour through the throng came all together against him. But he gave\nground, and shouted unto his comrades: thrice he shouted then, as loud\nas man's mouth might cry, and thrice did Menelaos dear to Zeus hear his\ncall, and quickly he spake to Aias that was hard by him: \"Aias, of the\nseed of Zeus, child of Telamon, lord of the hosts, the shout of Odysseus\nof the hardy heart rings round me, like as though the Trojans were\noppressing him alone among them, and had cut him off in the strong\nbattle. Nay, let us speed into the throng, for better it is to rescue\nhim. I fear lest he suffer some evil, being alone among the Trojans, so\nbrave as he is, and lest great sorrow for his loss come upon the\nDanaans.\"\n\nSo spake he, and led the way, and the other followed him, a godlike man.\nThen found they Odysseus dear to Zeus, and the Trojans beset him like\ntawny jackals from the hills round a wounded horned stag, that a man\nhath smitten with an arrow from the bow-string, and the stag hath fled\nfrom him by speed of foot, as long as the blood is warm and his limbs\nare strong, but when the swift arrow hath overcome him, then do the\nravening jackals rend him in the hills, in a dark wood, and then god\nleadeth a murderous lion thither, and the jackals flee before him, but\nhe rendeth them, so then, round wise-hearted Odysseus of the crafty\ncounsels, did the Trojans gather, many and mighty, but that hero\nthrusting on with the spear held off the pitiless day. Then Aias drew\nnear, bearing his shield like a tower, and stood thereby, and the\nTrojans fled from him, where each man might. Then warlike Menelaos led\nOdysseus out of the press, holding him by the hand, till the squire\ndrave up the horses.\n\nThen Aias leaped on the Trojans, and slew Doyrklos, bastard son of\nPriam, and thereafter wounded he Pandokos, and he wounded Lysandros, and\nPyrasos, and Pylartes. And as when a brimming river cometh down upon the\nplain, in winter flood from the hills, swollen by the rain of Zeus, and\nmany dry oaks and many pines it sucketh in, and much soil it casteth\ninto the sea, even so renowned Aias charged them, pursuing through the\nplain, slaying horses and men. Nor wist Hector thereof at all, for he\nwas fighting on the left of all the battle, by the banks of the river\nSkamandros, whereby chiefly fell the heads of men, and an unquenchable\ncry arose, around great Nestor and warlike Idomeneus. And Hector with\nthem was warring, and terrible things did he, with the spear and in\nhorsemanship, and he ravaged the battalions of the young men. Nor would\nthe noble Achaians have yet given ground from the path, if Alexandros,\nthe lord of fair-tressed Helen, had not stayed Machaon shepherd of the\nhost in his valorous deeds, and smitten him on the right shoulder with a\nthree-barbed arrow. Therefore were the Achaians, breathing valour, in\ngreat fear, lest men should seize Machaon in the turning of the fight.\n\nThen Idomeneus spake to noble Nestor: \"O Nestor, son of Neleus, great\nglory of the Achaians, arise, get thee up into thy chariot, and with\nthee let Machaon go, and swiftly drive to the ships the whole-hooved\nhorses. For a leech is worth many other men, to cut out arrows, and\nspread soothing medicaments.\"\n\nSo spake he, nor did knightly Nestor of Gerenia disobey him, but\nstraightway gat up into his chariot, and with him went Machaon, son of\nAsklepios the good leech, and he lashed the horses, and willingly flew\nthey forward to the hollow ships, where they desired to be.\n\nBut Kebriones, the charioteer of Hector, beheld the Trojans driven in\nflight, and spake to him, and said: \"Hector, here do we contend with the\nDanaans, at the limit of the wailful war, but, lo, the other Trojans are\ndriven in flight confusedly, men and horses. And Aias son of Telamon is\ndriving them; well I know him, for wide is the shield round his\nshoulders. Nay, let us too urge thither the horses and chariot, there\nwhere horsemen and footmen thickest in the forefront of evil strife are\nslaying each other, and the cry goes up unquenchable.\"\n\nSo spake he, and smote the fair-maned horses with the shrill-sounding\nwhip, and they felt the lash, and fleetly bore the swift chariot among\nthe Trojans and Achaians, treading on the dead, and the shields, and\nwith blood was sprinkled all the axle-tree beneath, and the rims round\nthe car with the drops from the hooves of the horses, and with drops\nfrom the tires about the wheels. And Hector was eager to enter the press\nof men, and to leap in and break through, and evil din of battle he\nbrought among the Danaans, and brief space rested he from smiting with\nthe spear. Nay, but he ranged among the ranks of other men, with spear,\nand sword, and with great stones, but he avoided the battle of Aias son\nof Telamon.\n\nNow father Zeus, throned in the highest, roused dread in Aias, and he\nstood in amaze, and cast behind him his sevenfold shield of bull's hide,\nand gazed round in fear upon the throng, like a wild beast, turning this\nway and that, and slowly retreating step by step. And as when hounds and\ncountry folk drive a tawny lion from the mid-fold of the kine, and\nsuffer him not to carry away the fattest of the herd; all night they\nwatch, and he in great desire for the flesh maketh his onset, but takes\nnothing thereby, for thick the darts fly from strong hands against him,\nand the burning brands, and these he dreads for all his fury, and in the\ndawn he departeth with vexed heart; even so at that time departed Aias,\nvexed at heart, from among the Trojans, right unwillingly, for he feared\nsore for the ships of the Achaians. And as when a lazy ass going past a\nfield hath the better of the boys with him, an ass that hath had many a\ncudgel broken about his sides, and he fareth into the deep crop, and\nwasteth it, while the boys smite him with cudgels, and feeble is the\nforce of them, but yet with might and main they drive him forth, when he\nhath had his fill of fodder, even so did the high-hearted Trojans and\nallies, called from many lands, smite great Aias, son of Telamon, with\ndarts on the centre of his shield, and ever followed after him. And Aias\nwould now be mindful of his impetuous valour, and turn again, and hold\nat bay the battalions of the horse-taming Trojans, and once more he\nwould turn him again to flee. Yet he hindered them all from making their\nway to the fleet ships, and himself stood and smote between the Trojans\nand the Achaians, and the spears from strong hands stuck some of them in\nhis great shield, fain to win further, and many or ever they reached his\nwhite body stood fast halfway in the earth, right eager to sate\nthemselves with his flesh.\n\nSo they fought like unto burning fire.\n\nBut the mares of Neleus all sweating bare Nestor out of the battle, and\nalso carried they Machaon, shepherd of the host. Then the noble\nAchilles, swift of foot, beheld and was ware of him, for Achilles was\nstanding by the stern of his great ship, watching the dire toil, and the\nwoful rout of battle. And straightway he spake to his own comrade,\nPatroklos, calling to him from beside the ship, and he heard, and from\nthe hut he came, like unto Ares; and this to him was the beginning of\nevil. Then the strong son of Menoitios spake first to Achilles: \"Why\ndost thou call me, Achilles, what need hast thou of me?\"\n\nThen swift-footed Achilles answered him and spake: \"Noble son of\nMenoitios, dear to my heart, now methinks that the Achaians will stand\nin prayer about my knees, for need no longer tolerable cometh upon them.\nBut go now, Patroklos dear to Zeus, and ask Nestor who is this that he\nbringeth wounded from the war. Verily from behind he is most like\nMachaon, that child of Asklepios, but I beheld not the eyes of the man,\nfor the horses sped past me, straining forward eagerly.\"\n\nSo spake he and Patroklos obeyed his dear comrade, and started and ran\npast the ships, and the huts of the Achaians.\n\nNow when they came to the hut of the son of Neleus, they lighted down on\nthe bounteous earth, and the squire, Eurymedon, loosed the horses of\nthat old man from the car, and they dried the sweat from their doublets,\nstanding before the breeze, by the shore of the sea, and thereafter came\nthey to the hut, and sat them down on chairs. And fair-tressed Hekamede\nmixed for them a mess, Hekamede that the old man won from Tenedos, when\nAchilles sacked it, and she was the daughter of great-hearted Arsinoos,\nand her the Achaians chose out for him, because always in counsel he\nexcelled them all. First she drew before them a fair table, polished\nwell, with feet of cyanus, and thereon a vessel of bronze, with onion,\nfor relish to the drink, and pale honey, and the grain of sacred barley,\nand beside it a right goodly cup, that the old man brought from home,\nembossed with studs of gold, and four handles there were to it, and\nround each two golden doves were feeding, and to the cup were two feet\nbelow. Another man could scarce have lifted the cup from the table, when\nit was full, but Nestor the Old raised it easily. In this cup the woman,\nlike unto the goddesses, mixed a mess for them, with Pramnian wine, and\ntherein grated cheese of goats' milk, with a grater of bronze, and\nscattered white barley thereover, and bade them drink, whenas she had\nmade ready the mess.\n\nSo when the twain had drunk, and driven away parching thirst, they took\ntheir pleasure in discourse, speaking each to the other. Now Patroklos\nstood at the doors, a godlike man, and when the old man beheld him, he\narose from his shining chair, and took him by the hand, and led him in,\nand bade him be seated. But Patroklos, from over against him, was for\nrefusing, and spake and said: \"No time to sit have I, old man,\nfosterling of Zeus, nor wilt thou persuade me. Revered and dreaded is he\nthat sent me forth to ask thee who this man is that thou bringest home\nwounded. Nay, but I know myself, for I see Machaon, shepherd of the\nhost. And now will I go back again, a messenger, to speak a word to\nAchilles. And well dost thou know, old man, fosterling of Zeus, how\nterrible a man he is; lightly would he blame even one that is\nblameless.\"\n\nThen knightly Nestor of Gerenia answered him again: \"Wherefore is\nAchilles thus sorry for the sons of the Achaians, for as many as are\nwounded with darts? He knoweth not at all what grief hath arisen in the\ncamp: for the best men lie in the ships, wounded by shaft or smitten by\nspear. Wounded with the shaft is strong Diomedes, son of Tydeus, and\nsmitten is Odysseus, spearman renowned, and Agamemnon, and this other\nhave I but newly carried out of battle, wounded with an arrow from the\nbowstring. But Achilles, for all his valiance, careth not for the\nDanaans, nor pities them at all. Doth he wait till the fleet ships hard\nby the shore shall burn in the consuming fire, and till we be slain one\nupon another? Nay, but even now speak thou thus and thus to wise-hearted\nAchilles, if perchance he will obey thee. Who knows but that, God\nhelping, thou mightst stir his spirit with thy persuading? and good is\nthe persuasion of a friend. But if in his heart he be shunning some\noracle of God, and his lady mother hath told him somewhat from Zeus,\nnatheless let him send forth thee, and let the rest of the host of the\nMyrmidons follow with thee, if perchance any light shall arise from thee\nto the Danaans; and let him give thee his fair harness, to bear into the\nwar, if perchance the Trojans may take thee for him, and withhold them\nfrom the strife, and the warlike sons of the Achaians might take breath,\nbeing wearied; for brief is the breathing time in battle. And lightly\nmight ye, being unwearied, drive men wearied in the war unto the city,\naway from the ships and the huts.\"\n\nSo spake he, and roused his heart within his breast, and he started and\nran by the ships to Achilles of the seed of Aiakos.\n\n\n\nBOOK XII.\n\n    How the Trojans and allies broke within the wall of the\n    Achaians.\n\nSo in the huts the strong son of Menortios was tending the wounded\nEurypylos, but still they fought confusedly, the Argives and Trojans.\nNor were the fosse of the Danaans and their wide wall above long to\nprotect them, the wall they had builded for defence of the ships, and\nthe fosse they had drawn round about; for neither had they given goodly\nhecatombs to the gods, that it might guard with its bounds their swift\nships and rich spoil. Nay, maugre the deathless gods was it builded,\nwherefore it abode steadfast for no long time. While Hector yet lived,\nand yet Achilles kept his wrath, and unsacked was the city of Priam the\nking, so long the great wall of the Achaians likewise abode steadfast.\nBut when all the bravest of the Trojans died, and many of the\nArgives,--some were taken, and some were left,--and the city of Priam\nwas sacked in the tenth year, and the Argives had gone back in their\nships to their own dear country, then verily did Poseidon and Apollo\ntake counsel to wash away the wall, bringing in the might of the rivers,\nof all that flow from the hills of Ida to the sea. Rhesos there was, and\nHeptaporos, and Karesos, and Rhodios, Grenikos, and Aisepos, and goodly\nSkamandros, and Simoeis, whereby many shields and helms fell in the\ndust, and the generation of men half divine; the mouths of all these\nwaters did Phoebus Apollo turn together, and for nine days he drave\ntheir stream against the wall; and still Zeus rained unceasingly, that\nthe quicker he might mingle the wall with the salt sea. And the Shaker\nof the earth, with his trident in his hands, was himself the leader, and\nsent forth into the waves all the foundations of beams and stones that\nthe Achaians had laid with toil, and made all smooth by the strong\ncurrent of the Hellespont, and covered again the great beach with sand,\nwhen he had swept away the wall, and turned the rivers back to flow in\ntheir channel, where of old they poured down their fair flow of water.\n\nSo were Poseidon and Apollo to do in the aftertime; but then war and the\ndin of war sounded about the well-builded wall, and the beams of the\ntowers rang beneath the strokes; while the Argives, subdued by the\nscourge of Zeus, were penned and driven in by the hollow ships, in dread\nof Hector, the mighty maker of flight, but he, as aforetime, fought like\na whirlwind. And as when, among hounds and hunting men, a boar or lion\nwheeleth him about, raging in his strength, and these array themselves\nin fashion like a tower, and stand up against him, casting many javelins\nfrom their hands; but never is his stout heart confused nor afraid, and\nhis courage is his bane, and often he wheeleth him about, and maketh\ntrial of the ranks of men, and wheresoever he maketh onset there the\nranks of men give way, even so Hector went and besought his comrades\nthrough the press, and spurred them on to cross the dyke. But his\nswift-footed horses dared not, but loud they neighed, standing by the\nsheer edge, for the wide fosse affrighted them, neither easy to leap\nfrom hard by, nor to cross, for overhanging banks stood round about it\nall on either hand, and above it was furnished with sharp stakes that\nthe sons of the Achaians had planted there, thick set and great, a\nbulwark against hostile men. Thereby not lightly might a horse enter,\ndrawing a well-wheeled chariot; but the footmen were eager, if they\nmight accomplish it. Then Polydamas drew near valiant Hector, and spake\nto him: \"Hector and ye other leaders of the Trojans and allies,\nfoolishly do we drive our fleet horses through the dyke; nay right hard\nit is to cross, for sharp stakes stand in it, and over against them the\nwall of the Achaians. Thereby none may go down and fight in chariots,\nfor strait is the place wherein, methinks, we might come by a mischief.\nFor if Zeus that thunders on high is utterly to destroy them in his evil\nwill, and is minded to help the Trojans, verily then I too would desire\nthat even instantly this might be, that the Achaians should perish here\nnameless far from Argos: but and if they turn again, and we flee back\nfrom among the ships, and rush into the delved ditch, then methinks that\nnot even one from among us to bear the tidings will win back to the city\nbefore the force of the Achaians when they rally. But come as I declare,\nlet us all obey. Let our squires hold the horses by the dyke, while we\nbeing harnessed in our gear as foot soldiers follow all together with\nHector, and the Achaians will not withstand us, if indeed the bands of\ndeath be made fast upon them.\"\n\nSo spake Polydamas, and his wise word pleased Hector well, and\nstraightway in his harness he leaped from his chariot to the ground. Nor\nwere the other Trojans gathered upon the chariots, but they all leaped\nforth, when they beheld goodly Hector. There each gave it into the\ncharge of his own charioteer, to keep the horses orderly there by the\nfosse. And they divided, and arrayed themselves, and ordered in five\ncompanies they followed with the leaders.\n\nNow they that went with Hector and noble Polydamas, these were most, and\nbravest, and most were eager to break the wall, and fight by the hollow\nships; and with them followed Kebriones for the third, for Hector had\nleft another man with his chariot, a weaker warrior than Kebriones. The\nsecond company Paris led, and Alkathoos, and Agenor: and the third\ncompany Helenos led, and godlike Deiphobos,--two sons of Priam,--the\nthird was the warrior Asios, Asios Hyrtakos' son, whom his tall sorrel\nsteeds brought out of Arisbe, from the river Selleeis. And of the fourth\ncompany was the brave son of Anchises leader, even Aineias; and with\nhim were two sons of Antenor, Archelochos and Akamas, both well skilled\nin all warfare.\n\nAnd Sarpedon led the glorious allies, and to be with him he chose\nGlaukos and warlike Asteropaios, for they seamed to him to be manifestly\nthe bravest of all after himself but he was excellent, yea, above all\nthe host. And these when they had arrayed one another with\nwell-fashioned shields of bulls' hide, went straight and eager against\nthe Danaans, nor deemed that they could longer resist them, but that\nthemselves should fall on the black ships.\n\nThen the rest of the Trojans and the far-famed allies obeyed the counsel\nof blameless Polydamas, but Asios, son of Hyrtakos, leader of men,\nwilled not to leave his horses there, and his squire the charioteer, but\nwith them he drew near the swift ships, fond man! for never was he,\navoiding evil Fates, to return, rejoicing in his horses and chariot,\nback from the ships to windy Ilios. Nay, ere that the Fate of ill name\nover-shadowed him, by the spear of Idomeneus, the haughty son of\nDeukalion. For Asios went against the left flank of the ships, whereby\nthe Achaians returned out of the plain with chariots and horses: there\nhe drave through his horses and his car, nor found he the doors shut on\nthe gates, and the long bar, but men were holding them open if perchance\nthey might save any of their comrades fleeing out of the battle towards\nthe ships. Straight thereby held he his horses with unswerving aim, and\nhis men followed him, crying shrilly, for they deemed that the Achaians\ncould no longer hold them off, but that themselves would fall on the\nblack ships: fools, for in the gates they found two men of the bravest,\nthe high-hearted sons of the warrior Lapithae, one the son of\nPeirithoos, strong Polypoites, and one Leonteus, peer of Ares the bane\nof men. These twain stood in front of the lofty gates, like high-crested\noak trees in the hills, that for ever abide the wind and rain, firm\nfixed with roots great and long; even so these twain, trusting to the\nmightiness of their hands, abode the coming of great Asios, and fled\nnot. But straight came the Trojans against the well-builded wall,\nholding their shields of dry bulls' hide on high, with mighty clamour,\nround the prince Asios, and Iamenos, and Orestes, and Adamas, son of\nAsios, and Thoon, and Oinomaos. But the other twain for a while, being\nwithin the wall, urged the well-greaved Achaians to fight for the ships;\nbut when they saw the Trojans assailing the wall, while the Danaans\ncried and turned in flight, then forth rushed the twain, and fought in\nfront of the gates like wild boars that in the mountains abide the\nassailing crew of men and dogs, and charging on either flank they\ncrush the wood around them, cutting it at the root, and the clatter of\ntheir tusks wages loud, till one smite them and take their life away: so\nclattered the bright bronze on the breasts of the twain, as they were\nsmitten in close fight, for right hardily they fought, trusting to the\nhost above them, and to their own strength.\n\nFor the men above were casting with stones from the well-builded\ntowers, in defence of themselves and of the huts, and of the\nswift-faring ships. And like snowflakes the stones fell earthward,\nflakes that a tempestuous wind, as it driveth the dark clouds, rains\nthickly down on the bounteous earth: so thick fell the missiles from the\nhands of Achaians and Trojans alike, and their helms rang harsh and\ntheir bossy shields, being smitten with mighty stones. Verily then\nAsios, son of Hyrtakos, groaned and smote both his thighs, and\nindignantly he spake: \"Zeus, verily thou too dost greatly love a lie,\nfor I deemed not that the Achaian heroes could withstand our might and\nour hands invincible. But they like wasps of nimble body, or bees that\nhave made their dwellings in a rugged path, and leave not their hollow\nhold, but abide and keep the hunters at bay for the sake of their little\nones, even so these men have no will to give ground from the gates,\nthough they are but two, ere they slay or be slain.\"\n\nSo spake he, nor with his speech did he persuade the mind of Zeus, for\nhis will was to give renown to Hector.\n\nBut the others were fighting about the other gates, and hard it were for\nme like a god to tell all these things, for everywhere around the wall\nof stone rose the fire divine; the Argives, for all their sorrow,\ndefending the ships of necessity; and all the gods were grieved at\nheart, as many as were defenders of the Danaans in battle. And together\nthe Lapithae waged war and strife.\n\nThere the son of Peirithoos, mighty Polypoites, smote Damasos with the\nspear, through the helmet with cheekpieces of bronze; nor did the bronze\nhelm stay the spear, but the point of bronze brake clean through the\nbone, and all the brain within was scattered, and the spear overcame him\nin his eagerness. Thereafter he slew Pylon and Ormenos. And Leonteus of\nthe stock of Ares smote Hippomachos, son of Antimachos, with the spear,\nstriking him on the girdle. Then again he drew his sharp sword from the\nsheath, and smote Antiphates first in close fight, rushing on him\nthrough the throng, that he fell on his back on the ground; and\nthereafter he brought down Menon, and Iamenos, and Orestes one after the\nother, to the bounteous earth.\n\nWhile they were stripping from these the shining arms, the young men who\nfollowed with Polydamas and Hector, they that were most in number and\nbravest, and most were eager to break the wall and set the ships on\nfire, these still stood doubtful by the fosse, for as they were eager to\npass over a bird had appeared to them, an eagle of lofty flight,\nskirting the host on the left hand. In its talons it bore a blood-red\nmonstrous snake, alive, and struggling still; yea, not yet had it\nforgotten the joy of battle, but writhed backward and smote the bird\nthat held it on the breast, beside the neck, and the bird cast it from\nhim down to the earth, in sore pain, and dropped it in the midst of the\nthrong; then with a cry sped away down the gusts of the wind. And the\nTrojans shuddered when they saw the gleaming snake lying in the midst of\nthem; an omen of aegis-bearing Zeus.\n\nThen verily Polydamas stood by brave Hector, and spake: \"Hector, ever\ndost thou rebuke me in the assemblies, though I counsel wisely; since it\nby no means beseemeth one of the people to speak contrary to thee, in\ncouncil or in war, but always to increase thy power; but now again will\nI say all that seemeth to me to be best. Let us not advance and fight\nwith the Danaans for the ships. For even thus, methinks, the end will\nbe, if indeed this bird hath come for the Trojans when they were eager\nto cross the dyke, this eagle of lofty flight, skirting the host on\nthe left hand, bearing in his talons a blood-red monstrous snake, yet\nliving; then straightway left he hold of him, before he reached his own\nnest, nor brought him home in the end to give to his nestlings. Even so\nshall we, though we burst with mighty force the gates and wall of the\nAchaians, and the Achaians give ground, even so we shall return in\ndisarray from the ships by the way we came; for many of the Trojans\nshall we leave behind, whom the Achaians will slay with the sword, in\ndefence of the ships. Even so would a soothsayer interpret that in his\nheart had clear knowledge of omens, and whom the people obeyed.\"\n\nThen Hector of the glancing helm lowered on him and said: \"Polydamas,\nthat thou speakest is no longer pleasing to me; yea, thou knowest how to\nconceive another counsel better than this. But if thou verily speakest\nthus in earnest, then the gods themselves have utterly destroyed thy\nwits; thou that bidst us forget the counsels of loud-thundering Zeus,\nthat himself promised me, and confirmed with a nod of his head! But thou\nbidst us be obedient to birds long of wing, whereto I give no heed, nor\ntake any care thereof, whether they fare to the right, to the dawn and\nto the sun, or to the left, to mist and darkness. Nay, for us, let us\ntrust to the counsel of mighty Zeus, who is king over all mortals and\nimmortals. One omen is best, to fight for our own country. And wherefore\ndost thou fear war and battle? For if all the rest of us be slain by the\nships of the Argives, yet needst thou not fear to perish, for thy heart\nis not warlike, nor enduring in battle. But if thou dost hold aloof from\nthe fight, or winnest any other with thy words to turn him from war,\nstraightway by my spear shalt thou be smitten, and lose thy life.\"\n\nSo spake he, and led on, and they followed with a wondrous din; and Zeus\nthat joyeth in the thunder roused from the hills of Ida, a blast of\nwind, which bare the dust straight against the ships; and he made weak\nthe heart of the Achaians, but gave renown to the Trojans and to Hector.\nTrusting then in his omens, and their might, they strove to break the\ngreat wall of the Achaians. They dragged down the machicolations\n[projecting galleries] of the towers, and overthrew the battlements, and\nheaved up the projecting buttresses, that the Achaians set first in the\nearth, to be the props of the towers. These they overthrew, and hoped to\nbreak the wall of the Achaians. Nor even now did the Danaans give ground\nfrom the path, but closed up the battlements with shields of bulls'\nhides, and cast from them at the foemen as they went below the walls.\n\nNow the two Aiantes went everywhere on the towers, ever urging, and\narousing the courage of the Achaians. One they would accost with honeyed\nwords, another with hard words they would rebuke, whomsoever they saw\nutterly giving ground from the fight: \"O friends, whosoever is eminent,\nor whosoever is of middle station among the Argives, ay, or lower yet,\nfor in no wise are all men equal in war, now is there work for all, and\nthis yourselves well know. Let none turn back to the ships, for that he\nhath heard one threatening aloud; nay, get ye forward, and cheer another\non, if perchance Olympian Zeus, the lord of lightning, will grant us to\ndrive back the assault, and push the foe to the city.\"\n\nSo these twain shouted in the front, and aroused the battle of the\nAchaians. But as flakes of snow fall thick on a winter day, when Zeus\nthe Counsellor bath begun to snow, showing forth these arrows of his\nto men, and he hath lulled the winds, and he snoweth continually, till\nhe hath covered the crests of the high hills, and the uttermost\nheadlands, and the grassy plains, and rich tillage of men; and the snow\nis scattered over the havens and shores of the grey sea, and only the\nwave as it rolleth in keeps off the snow, but all other things are\nswathed over, when the shower of Zeus cometh heavily, so from both sides\ntheir stones flew thick, some towards the Trojans, and some from the\nTrojans against the Achaians, while both sides were smitten, and over\nall the wall the din arose.\n\nYet never would the Trojans, then, and renowned Hector have broken the\ngates of the wall, and the long bar, if Zeus the Counsellor had not\nroused his son Sarpedon against the Argives, like a lion against the\nkine of crooked horn. Straightway he held forth his fair round shield,\nof hammered bronze, that the bronze-smith had hammered out, and within\nhad stitched many bulls' hides with rivets of gold, all round the\ncircle, this held he forth, and shook two spears; and sped on his way,\nlike a mountain-nurtured lion, that long lacketh meat, and his brave\nspirit urgeth him to make assail on the sheep, and come even against a\nwell-builded homestead. Nay, even if he find herdsmen thereby, guarding\nthe sheep with hounds and spears, yet hath he no mind to be driven\nwithout an effort from the steading, but he either leapeth on a sheep,\nand seizeth it, or himself is smitten in the foremost place with a dart\nfrom a strong hand. So did his heart then urge on the godlike Sarpedon\nto rush against the wall, and break through the battlements. And\ninstantly he spake to Glaukos, son of Hippolochos: \"Glaukos, wherefore\nhave we twain the chiefest honour,--seats of honour, and messes, and\nfull cups in Lykia, and all men look on us as gods? And wherefore hold\nwe a great demesne by the banks of Xanthos, a fair demesne of orchard-land,\nand wheat-bearing tilth? Therefore now it behoveth us to take our\nstand in the first rank of the Lykians, and encounter fiery battle,\nthat certain of the well-corsleted Lykians may say, 'Verily our kings\nthat rule Lykia be no inglorious men, they that eat fat sheep, and drink\nthe choice wine honey-sweet: nay, but they are also of excellent might,\nfor they war in the foremost ranks of the Lykians.' Ah, friend, if once\nescaped from this battle we were for ever to be ageless and immortal,\nneither would I fight myself in the foremost ranks, nor would I send\nthee into the war that giveth men renown, but now--for assuredly ten\nthousand fates of death do every way beset us, and these no mortal may\nescape nor avoid--now let us go forward, whether we shall give glory to\nother men, or others to us.\"\n\nSo spake he, and Glaukos turned not apart, nor disobeyed him, and they\ntwain went straight forward, leading the great host of the Lykians.\n\nThen Menestheus son of Peteos shuddered when he beheld them, for against\nhis tower they went, bringing with them ruin; and he looked along the\ntower of the Achaians if perchance he might see any of the leaders,\nthat would ward off destruction from his comrades, and he beheld the two\nAiantes, insatiate of war, standing there, and Teukros hard by, newly\ncome from his hut; but he could not cry to be heard of them, so great\nwas the din, and the noise went up unto heaven of smitten shields and\nhelms with horse-hair crests, and of the gates, for they had all been\nshut, and the Trojans stood beside them, and strove by force to break\nthem, and enter in. Swiftly then to Aias he sent the herald Thootes:\n\"Go, noble Thootes, and run, and call Aias: or rather the twain, for\nthat will be far the best of all, since quickly here will there be\nwrought utter ruin. For hereby press the leaders of the Lykians, who of\nold are fierce in strong battle. But if beside them too war and toil\narise, yet at least let the strong Telamonian Aias come alone and let\nTeukros the skilled bowman follow with him.\"\n\nSo spake he, and the herald listened and disobeyed him not, but started\nand ran by the wall of the mail-clad Achaians, and came, and stood by\nthe Aiantes, and straightway spake: \"Ye twain Aiantes, leaders of the\nmail-clad Achaians, the dear son of Peteos, fosterling of Zeus, biddeth\nyou go thither, that, if it be but for a little while, ye may take your\npart in battle: both of you he more desireth, for that will be far the\nbest of all, since quickly there will there be wrought utter ruin. For\nthereby press the leaders of the Lykians, who of old are fierce in\nstrong battle. But if beside you too war and toil arise, yet at least\nlet the strong Telamonian Aias come alone, and let Teukros the skilled\nbowman follow with him.\"\n\nSo spake he, nor did the strong Telamonian Aias disobey, but instantly\nspake winged words to the son of Oileus: \"Aias, do ye twain stand here,\nthyself and strong Lykomedes, and urge the Danaans to war with all their\nmight; but I go thither, to take my part in battle, and quickly will I\ncome again, when I have well aided them.\"\n\nSo spake Telamonian Aias and departed, and Teukros went with him, his\nbrother by the same father, and with them Pandion bare the bended bow\nof Teukros.\n\nNow when they came to the tower of great-hearted Menestheus, passing\nwithin the wall,--and to men sore pressed they came,--the foe were\nclimbing upon the battlements, like a dark whirlwind, even the strong\nleaders and counsellors of the Lykians; and they hurled together into\nthe war and the battle-cry arose. Now first did Aias Telamon's son slay\na man, Epikles great of heart, the comrade of Sarpedon. With a jagged\nstone he smote him, a great stone that lay uppermost within the wall, by\nthe battlements. Not lightly could a man hold it in both hands, however\nstrong in his youth, of such mortals as now are, but Aias lifted it, and\ncast it from above, and shattered the helm of fourfold crest, and broke\nthe bones of the head, and he fell like a diver from the lofty tower,\nand his life left his bones. And Teukros smote Glaukos, the strong son\nof Hippolochos, as he came on, with an arrow from the lofty wall; even\nwhere he saw his shoulder bare he smote him, and made him cease from\ndelight in battle. Back from the wall he leapt secretly, lest any of the\nAchaians should see him smitten, and speak boastfully. But sorrow came\non Sarpedon when Glaukos departed, so soon as he was aware thereof, but\nhe forgot not the joy of battle. He aimed at Alkmaon, son of Thestor,\nwith the spear, and smote him, and drew out the spear. And Alkmaon\nfollowing the spear fell prone, and his bronze-dight arms rang round\nhim. Then Sarpedon seized with strong hands the battlement, and dragged,\nand it all gave way together, while above the wall was stripped bare,\nand made a path for many.\n\nThen Aias and Teukros did encounter him: Teukros smote him with an\narrow, on the bright baldric of his covering shield, about the breast,\nbut Zeus warded off the Fates from his son, that he should not be\novercome beside the ships' sterns. Then Aias leaped on and smote his\nshield, nor did the spear pass clean through, yet shook he Sarpedon in\nhis eagerness. He gave ground a little way from the battlement, yet\nretreated not wholly, since his heart hoped to win renown. Then he\nturned and cried to the godlike Lykians: \"O Lykians, wherefore thus are\nye slack in impetuous valour. Hard it is for me, stalwart as I am, alone\nto break through, and make a path to the ships, nay, follow hard after\nme, for the more men, the better work.\"\n\nSo spake he, and they, dreading the rebuke of their king, pressed on the\nharder around the counsellor and king. And the Argives on the other side\nmade strong their battalions within the wall, and mighty toil began for\nthem. For neither could the strong Lykians burst through the wall of\nthe Danaans, and make a way to the ships, nor could the warlike Danaans\ndrive back the Lykians from the wall, when once they had drawn near\nthereto. But as two men contend about the marches of their land, with\nmeasuring rods in their hands, in a common field, when in narrow space\nthey strive for equal shares, even so the battlements divided them, and\nover those they smote the round shields of ox hide about the breasts of\neither side, and the fluttering bucklers. And many were wounded in the\nflesh with the ruthless bronze, whensoever the back of any of the\nwarriors was laid bare as he turned, ay, and many clean through the very\nshield. Yea, everywhere the towers and battlements swam with the blood\nof men shed on either side, by Trojans and Achaians. But even so they\ncould not put the Argives to rout, but they held their ground, as an\nhonest woman that laboureth with her hands holds the balance, and raises\nthe weight and the wool together, balancing them, that she may win scant\nwages for her children; so evenly was strained their war and battle,\ntill the moment when Zeus gave the greater renown to Hector, son of\nPriam, who was the first to leap within the wall of the Achaians. In a\npiercing voice he cried aloud to the Trojans: \"Rise, ye horse-taming\nTrojans, break the wall of the Argives, and cast among the ships fierce\nblazing fire.\"\n\nSo spake he, spurring them on, and they all heard him with their ears,\nand in one mass rushed straight against the wall, and with sharp spears\nin their hands climbed upon the machicolations of the towers. And\nHector seized and carried a stone that lay in front of the gates, thick\nin the hinder part, but sharp at point: a stone that not the two best\nmen of the people, such as mortals now are, could lightly lift from the\nground on to a wain, but easily he wielded it alone, for the son of\ncrooked-counselling Kronos made it light for him. And as when a shepherd\nlightly beareth the fleece of a ram, taking it in one hand, and little\ndoth it burden him, so Hector lifted the stone, and bare it straight\nagainst the doors that closely guarded the stubborn-set portals, double\ngates and tall, and two cross bars held them within, and one bolt\nfastened them. And he came, and stood hard by, and firmly planted\nhimself, and smote them in the midst, setting his legs well apart, that\nhis cast might lack no strength. And he brake both the hinges, and the\nstone fell within by reason of its weight, and the gates rang loud\naround, and the bars held not, and the doors burst this way and that\nbeneath the rush of the stone. Then glorious Hector leaped in, with face\nlike the sudden night, shining in wondrous mail that was clad about his\nbody, and with two spears in his hands. No man that met him could have\nheld him back when once he leaped within the gates: none but the gods,\nand his eyes shone with fire. Turning towards the throng he cried to the\nTrojans to overleap the wall, and they obeyed his summons, and speedily\nsome overleaped the wall, and some poured into the fair-wrought\ngateways, and the Danaans fled in fear among the hollow ships, and a\nceaseless clamour arose.\n\n\n\nBOOK XIII.\n\n    Poseidon stirreth up the Achaians to defend the ships.\n    The valour of Idomeneus.\n\nNow Zeus, after that he had brought the Trojans and Hector to the ships,\nleft them to their toil and endless labour there, but otherwhere again\nhe turned his shining eyes, and looked upon the land of the Thracian\nhorsebreeders, and the Mysians, fierce fighters hand to hand, and the\nproud Hippemolgoi that drink mare's milk, and the Abioi, the most\nrighteous of men. To Troy no more at all he turned his shining eyes, for\nhe deemed in his heart that not one of the Immortals would draw near, to\nhelp either Trojans or Danaans.\n\nBut the mighty Earth-shaker held no blind watch, who sat and marvelled on\nthe war and strife, high on the topmost crest of wooded Samothrace, for\nthence all Ida was plain to see; and plain to see were the city of\nPriam, and the ships of the Achaians. Thither did he go from the sea and\nsate him down, and he had pity on the Achaians, that they were subdued\nto the Trojans, and strong was his anger against Zeus.\n\nThen forthwith he went down from the rugged hill, faring with swift\nsteps, and the high hills trembled, and the woodland, beneath the\nimmortal footsteps of Poseidon as he moved. Three strides he made, and\nwith the fourth he reached his goal, even Aigae, and there was his\nfamous palace in the deeps of the mere, his glistering golden mansions\nbuilded, imperishable for ever. Thither went he, and let harness to the\ncar his bronze-hooved horses, swift of flight, clothed with their golden\nmanes. He girt his own golden array about his body, and seized the\nwell-wrought lash of gold, and mounted his chariot, and forth he drove\nacross the waves. And the sea beasts frolicked beneath him, on all\nsides out of the deeps, for well they knew their lord, and with gladness\nthe sea stood asunder, and swiftly they sped, and the axle of bronze was\nnot wetted beneath, and the bounding steeds bare him on to the ships\nof the Achaians.\n\nNow there is a spacious cave in the depths of the deep mere, between\nTenedos and rugged Imbros; there did Poseidon, the Shaker of the earth,\nstay his horses, and loosed them out of the chariot, and cast before\nthem ambrosial food to graze withal, and golden tethers he bound about\ntheir hooves, tethers neither to be broken nor loosed, that there the\nhorses might continually await their lord's return. And he went to the\nhost of the Achaians.\n\nNow the Trojans like flame or storm-wind were following in close array,\nwith fierce intent, after Hector, son of Priam. With shouts and cries\nthey came, and thought to take the ships of the Achaians, and to slay\nthereby all the bravest of the host. But Poseidon, that girdleth the\nworld, the Shaker of the earth, was urging on the Argives, and forth he\ncame from the deep salt sea, in form and untiring voice like unto\nKalchas. First he spake to the two Aiantes, that themselves were eager\nfor battle: \"Ye Aiantes twain, ye shall save the people of the Achaians,\nif ye are mindful of your might, and reckless of chill fear. For verily\nI do not otherwhere dread the invincible hands of the Trojans, that have\nclimbed the great wall in their multitude, nay, the well-greaved\nAchaians will hold them all at bay; but hereby verily do I greatly dread\nlest some evil befall us, even here where that furious one is leading\nlike a flame of fire, Hector, who boasts him to be son of mighty Zeus.\nNay, but here may some god put it into the hearts of you twain, to stand\nsturdily yourselves, and urge others to do the like; thereby might ye\ndrive him from the fleet-faring ships, despite his eagerness, yea, even\nif the Olympian himself is rousing him to war.\"\n\nTherewith the Shaker of the world, the girdler of the earth, struck the\ntwain with his staff, and filled them with strong courage, and their\nlimbs he made light, and their feet, and their hands withal. Then, even\nas a swift-winged hawk speeds forth to fly, poised high above a tall\nsheer rock, and swoops to chase some other bird across the plain, even\nso Poseidon sped from them, the Shaker of the world. And of the twain\nOileus' son, the swift-footed Aias, was the first to know the god, and\ninstantly he spake to Aias, son of Telamon: \"Aias, since it is one of\nthe gods who hold Olympus, that in the semblance of a seer commands us\nnow to fight beside the ships-not Kalchas is he, the prophet and\nsooth-sayer, for easily I knew the tokens of his feet and knees as he\nturned away, and the gods are easy to discern--lo, then mine own heart\nwithin my breast is more eagerly set on war and battle, and my feet\nbeneath and my hands above are lusting for the fight.\"\n\nThen Aias, son of Telamon, answered him saying: \"Even so, too, my hands\ninvincible now rage about the spear-shaft, and wrath has risen within\nme, and both my feet are swift beneath me; yea, I am keen to meet, even\nin single fight, the ceaseless rage of Hector son of Priam.\"\n\nSo they spake to each other, rejoicing in the delight of battle, which\nthe god put in their heart. Then the girdler of the earth stirred up the\nAchaians that were in the rear and were renewing their strength beside\nthe swift ships. Their limbs were loosened by their grievous toil, yea,\nand their souls filled with sorrow at the sight of the Trojans, that had\nclimbed over the great wall in their multitude. And they looked on them,\nand shed tears beneath their brows, thinking that never would they\nescape destruction. But the Shaker of the earth right easily came among\nthem, and urged on the strong battalions of warriors. Teukros first he\ncame and summoned, and Leitos, and the hero Peneleos, and Thoas, and\nDeipyros, and Meriones, and Antilochos, lords of the war-cry, all these\nhe spurred on with winged words: \"Shame on you, Argives, shame, ye\nstriplings, in your battle had I trusted for the salvation of our ships.\nBut if you are to withdraw from grievous war, now indeed the day doth\nshine that shall see us conquered by the Trojans. Out on it, for verily\na great marvel is this that mine eyes behold, a terrible thing that\nmethought should never come to pass, the Trojans advancing against our\nships! Of yore they were like fleeting hinds, that in the wild wood are\nthe prey of jackals, and pards, and wolves, and wander helpless,\nstrengthless, empty of the joy of battle. Even so the Trojans of old\ncared never to wait and face the wrath and the hands of the Achaians,\nnot for a moment. But now they are fighting far from the town, by the\nhollow ships, all through the baseness of our leader and the remissness\nof the people, who, being at strife with the chief, have no heart to\ndefend the swift-faring ships, nay, thereby they are slain. But if\nindeed and in truth the hero Agamemnon, the wide-ruling son of Atreus,\nis the very cause of all, for that he did dishonour the swift-footed son\nof Peleus, not even so may we refrain in any wise from war. Nay, let us\nright our fault with speed, for easily righted are the hearts of the\nbrave. No longer do ye well to refrain from impetuous might, all ye that\nare the best men of the host. I myself would not quarrel with one that,\nbeing a weakling, abstained from war, but with you I am heartily wroth.\nAh, friends, soon shall ye make the mischief more through this\nremissness,--but let each man conceive shame in his heart, and\nindignation, for verily great is the strife that hath arisen. Lo, the\nmighty Hector of the loud war-cry is fighting at the ships, and the\ngates and the long bar he hath burst in sunder.\"\n\nOn this wise did the Earth-enfolder call to and spur on the Achaians.\nAnd straightway they made a stand around the two Aiantes, strong bands\nthat Ares himself could not enter and make light of, nor Athene that\nmarshals the host. Yea, they were the chosen best that abode the Trojans\nand goodly Hector, and spear on spear made close-set fence, and shield\non serried shield, buckler pressed on buckler, and helm on helm, and man\non man. The horse-hair crests on the bright helmet-ridges touched each\nother as they nodded, so close they stood each by other, and spears\nbrandished in bold hands were interlaced; and their hearts were\nsteadfast and lusted for battle.\n\nThen the Trojans drave forward in close array, and Hector led them,\npressing straight onwards, like a rolling rock from a cliff, that the\nwinter-swollen water thrusteth from the crest of a hill, having broken\nthe foundations of the stubborn rock with its wondrous flood; leaping\naloft it flies, and the wood echoes under it, and unstayed it runs its\ncourse, till it reaches the level plain, and then it rolls no more for\nall its eagerness,--even so Hector for a while threatened lightly to\nwin to the sea through the huts and the ships of the Achaians, slaying\nas he came, but when he encountered the serried battalions, he was\nstayed when he drew near against them. But they of the other part, the\nsons of the Achaians, thrust with their swords and double-pointed\nspears, and drave him forth from them, that he gave ground and reeled\nbackward. Then he cried with a piercing voice, calling on the Trojans:\n\"Trojans, and Lykians, and close-fighting Dardanians, hold your ground,\nfor the Achaians will not long ward me off, nay, though they have\narrayed themselves in fashion like a tower. Rather, methinks, they will\nflee back before the spear, if verily the chief of gods has set me on,\nthe loud-thundering lord of Hera.\"\n\nTherewith he spurred on the heart and spirit of each man; and Deiphobos,\nthe son of Priam, strode among them with high thoughts, and held in\nfront of him the circle of his shield, and lightly he stepped with his\nfeet, advancing beneath the cover of his shield. Then Meriones aimed at\nhim with a shining spear, and struck, and missed not, but smote the\ncircle of the bulls-hide shield, yet no whit did he pierce it; nay,\nwell ere that might be, the long spear-shaft snapped in the socket. Now\nDeiphobos was holding off from him the bulls-hide shield, and his heart\nfeared the lance of wise Meriones, but that hero shrunk back among the\nthrong of his comrades, greatly in wrath both for the loss of victory,\nand of his spear, that he had shivered. So he set forth to go to the\nhuts and the ships of the Achaians, to bring a long spear, that he had\nleft in his hut.\n\nMeanwhile the others were fighting on, and there arose an\ninextinguishable cry. First Teukros, son of Telamon, slew a man, the\nspearman Imbrios, the son of Mentor rich in horses. In Pedaion he dwelt,\nbefore the coming of the sons of the Achaians, and he had for wife a\ndaughter of Priam, born out of wedlock, Medesikaste; but when the curved\nships of the Danaans came, he returned again to Ilios, and was\npre-eminent among the Trojans, and dwelt with Priam, who honoured him\nlike his own children. Him the son of Telemon pierced below the ear with\nhis long lance, and plucked back the spear. Then he fell like an ash\nthat on the crest of a far-seen hill is smitten with the axe of bronze,\nand brings its delicate foliage to the ground; even so he fell, and\nround him rang his armour bedight with bronze. Then Teukros rushed\nforth, most eager to strip his armour, and Hector cast at him as he came\nwith his shining spear. But Teukros, steadily regarding him, avoided by\na little the spear of bronze; so Hector struck Amphimachos, son of\nKteatos, son of Aktor, in the breast with the spear, as he was returning\nto the battle. With a crash he fell, and his armour rang upon him.\n\nThen Hector sped forth to tear from the head of great-hearted\nAmphimachos the helmet closely fitted to his temples, but Aias aimed at\nHector as he came, with a shining spear, yet in no wise touched his\nbody, for he was all clad in dread armour of bronze; but he smote the\nboss of his shield, and drave him back by main force, and he gave place\nfrom behind the two dead men, and the Achaians drew them out of the\nbattle. So Stichios and goodly Menestheus, leaders of the Athenians,\nconveyed Amphimachos back among the host of the Achaians, but Imbrios\nthe two Aiantes carried, with hearts full of impetuous might. And as\nwhen two lions have snatched away a goat from sharp-toothed hounds, and\ncarry it through the deep thicket, holding the body on high above the\nground in their jaws, so the two warrior Aiantes held Imbrios aloft and\nspoiled his arms. Then the son of Oileus cut his head from his delicate\nneck, in wrath for the sake of Amphimachos, and sent it rolling like a\nball through the throng, and it dropped in the dust before the feet of\nHector.\n\nThen verily was Poseidon wroth at heart, when his son's son fell in the\nterrible fray. [Kteatos, father of Amphimachos, was Poseidon's son.] So\nhe set forth to go by the huts and the ships of the Achaians, to spur on\nthe Danaans, and sorrows he was contriving for the Trojans. Then\nIdomeneus, spearman renowned, met him on his way from his comrade that\nhad but newly returned to him out of the battle, wounded on the knee\nwith the sharp bronze. Him his comrades carried forth, and Idomeneus\ngave charge to the leeches, and so went on to his hut, for he still was\neager to face the war. Then the mighty Shaker of the earth addressed\nhim, in the voice of Thoas, son of Andraimon, that ruled over the\nAitolians in all Pleuron, and mountainous Kalydon, and was honoured like\na god by the people: \"Idomeneus, thou counsellor of the Cretans, say,\nwhither have thy threats fared, wherewith the sons of the Achaians\nthreatened the Trojans?\"\n\nThen Idomeneus, leader of the Cretans, answered him again: \"O Thaos, now\nis there no man to blame, that I wot of, for we all are skilled in war.\nNeither is there any man that spiritless fear holds aloof, nor any that\ngives place to cowardice, and shuns the cruel war, nay, but even thus,\nmethinks, must it have seemed good to almighty Kronion, even that the\nAchaians should perish nameless here, far away from Argos. But Thoas,\nseeing that of old thou wert staunch, and dost spur on some other man,\nwheresoever thou mayst see any give ground, therefore slacken not now,\nbut call aloud to every warrior.\"\n\nThen Poseidon, the Shaker of the earth, answered him again: \"Idomeneus,\nnever may that man go forth out of Troy-land, but here may he be the\nsport of dogs, who this day wilfully is slack in battle. Nay, come, take\nthy weapons and away: herein we must play the man together, if any avail\nthere may be, though we are no more than two. Ay, and very cowards get\ncourage from company, but we twain know well how to battle even with the\nbrave.\"\n\nTherewith the god went back again into the strife of men, but Idomeneus,\nso soon as he came to his well-builded hut, did on his fair armour about\nhis body, and grasped two spears, and set forth like the lightning that\nKronion seizes in his hand and brandishes from radiant Olympus, showing\nforth a sign to mortal men, and far seen are the flames thereof. Even so\nshone the bronze about the breast of Idomeneus as he ran, and Meriones,\nhis good squire, met him, while he was still near his hut,--he was going\nto bring his spear of bronze,--and mighty Idomeneus spake to him:\n\"Meriones son of Molos, fleet of foot, dearest of my company, wherefore\nhast thou come hither and left the war and strife? Art thou wounded at\nall, and vexed by a dart's point, or dost thou come with a message for\nme concerning aught? Verily I myself have no desire to sit in the huts,\nbut to fight.\"\n\nThen wise Meriones answered him again, saying: \"I have come to fetch a\nspear, if perchance thou hast one left in the huts, for that which\nbefore I carried I have shivered in casting at the shield of proud\nDeiphobos.\"\n\nThen Idomeneus, leader of the Cretans, answered him again: \"Spears, if\nthou wilt, thou shalt find, one, ay, and twenty, standing in the hut,\nagainst the shining side walls, spears of the Trojans whereof I have\nspoiled their slain. Yea, it is not my mood to stand and fight with\nfoemen from afar, wherefore I have spears, and bossy shields, and helms,\nand corslets of splendid sheen.\"\n\nThen wise Meriones answered him again: \"Yea, and in mine own hut and my\nblack ship are many spoils of the Trojans, but not ready to my hand.\nNay, for methinks that neither am I forgetful of valour; but stand forth\namong the foremost to face the glorious war, whensoever ariseth the\nstrife of battle. Any other, methinks, of the mail-clad Achaians should\nsooner forget my prowess, but thou art he that knoweth it.\"\n\nThen Idomeneus, leader of the Cretans, answered him again: \"I know what\na man of valour thou art, wherefore shouldst thou tell me thereof? Nay,\nif now beside the ships all the best of us were being chosen for an\nambush--wherein the valour of men is best discerned; there the coward,\nand the brave man most plainly declare themselves: for the colour of the\ncoward changes often, and his spirit cannot abide firm within him, but\nnow he kneels on one knee, now on the other, and rests on either foot,\nand his heart beats noisily in his breast, as he thinks of doom, and his\nteeth chatter loudly. But the colour of the brave man does not change,\nnor is he greatly afraid, from the moment that he enters the ambush of\nheroes, but his prayer is to mingle instantly in woeful war. Were we\nbeing chosen for such an ambush, I say, not even then would any man\nreckon lightly of thy courage and thy strength. Nay, and even if thou\nwert stricken in battle from afar, or smitten in close fight, the dart\nwould not strike thee in the hinder part of the neck, nor in the back,\nbut would encounter thy breast or belly, as thou dost press on, towards\nthe gathering of the foremost fighters. But come, no more let us talk\nthus, like children, loitering here, lest any man be vehemently wroth,\nbut go thou to the hut, and bring the strong spear.\"\n\nThus he spake, and Meriones, the peer of swift Ares, quickly bare the\nspear of bronze from the hut, and went after Idomeneus, with high\nthoughts of battle. And even as Ares, the bane of men, goes forth into\nthe war, and with him follows his dear son Panic, stark and fearless,\nthat terrifies even the hardy warrior; and these twain leave Thrace, and\nharness them for fight with the Ephyri, or the great-hearted Phlegyans,\nyet hearken not to both peoples, but give honour to one only; like these\ngods did Meriones and Idomeneus, leaders of men, set forth into the\nfight, harnessed in gleaming bronze. And Meriones spake first to\nIdomeneus saying: \"Child of Deukalion, whither art thou eager to enter\ninto the throng: on the right of all the host, or in the centre, or on\nthe left? Ay, and no other where, methinks, are the flowing-haired\nAchaians so like to fail in fight.\"\n\nThen Idomeneus, the leader of the Cretans, answered him again: \"In the\ncentre of the ships there are others to bear the brunt, the two Aiantes,\nand Teukros, the best bowman of the Achaians, ay, and a good man in\nclose fight; these will give Hector Priam's son toil enough, howsoever\nkeen he be for battle; yea, though he be exceeding stalwart. Hard will\nhe find it, with all his lust for war, to overcome their strength and\ntheir hands invincible, and to fire the ships, unless Kronion himself\nsend down on the swift ships a burning brand. But not to a man would he\nyield, the great Telamonian Aias, to a man that is mortal and eateth\nDemeter's grain, and may be chosen with the sword of bronze, and with\nhurling of great stones. Nay, not even to Achilles the breaker of the\nranks of men would he give way, not in close fight; but for speed of\nfoot none may in any wise strive with Achilles. But guide us twain, as\nthou sayest, to the left hand of the host, that speedily we may learn\nwhether we are to win glory from others, or other men from us.\"\n\nSo he spake, and Meriones, the peer of swift Ares, led the way, till\nthey came to the host, in that place whither he bade him go.\n\nAnd when the Trojans saw Idomeneus, strong as flame, and his squire with\nhim, and their glorious armour, they all shouted and made for him\nthrough the press. Then their mellay began, by the sterns of the ships.\nAnd as the gusts speed on, when shrill winds blow, on a day when dust\nlies thickest on the roads, and the winds raise together a great cloud\nof dust, even so their battle clashed together, and all were fain of\nheart to slay each other in the press with the keen bronze. And the\nbattle, the bane of men, bristled with the long spears, the piercing\nspears they grasped, and the glitter of bronze from gleaming helmets\ndazzled the eyes, and the sheen of new-burnished corslets, and shining\nshields, as the men thronged all together. Right hardy of heart would he\nhave been that joyed and sorrowed not at the sight of this labour of\nbattle.\n\nThus the two mighty sons of Kronos, with contending will, were\ncontriving sorrow and anguish for the heroes. Zeus desired victory for\nthe Trojans and Hector, giving glory to swift-footed Achilles; yet he\ndid not wish the Achaian host to perish utterly before Ilios, but only\nto give renown to Thetis and her strong-hearted son. But Poseidon went\namong the Argives and stirred them to war, stealing secretly forth from\nthe grey salt sea: for he was sore vexed that they were overcome by\nthe Trojans, and was greatly in wrath against Zeus. Verily both were of\nthe same lineage and the same place of birth, but Zeus was the elder and\nthe wiser. Therefore also Poseidon avoided to give open aid, but\nsecretly ever he spurred them on, throughout the host, in the likeness\nof a man. These twain had strained the ends of the cords of strong\nstrife and equal war, and had stretched them over both Trojans and\nAchaians, a knot that none might break nor undo, for the loosening of\nthe knees of many.\n\nEven then Idomeneus, though his hair was flecked with grey, called on\nthe Danaans, and leaping among the Trojans, roused their terror. For he\nslew Othryoneus of Kabesos, a sojourner there, who but lately had\nfollowed after the rumour of war, and asked in marriage the fairest of\nthe daughters of Priam, Kassandra, without gifts of wooing, but with\npromise of mighty deed, namely that he would drive perforce out of\nTroy-land the sons of the Achaians. To him the old man Priam had\npromised and appointed that he would give her, so he fought trusting in\nhis promises. And Idomeneus aimed at him with a bright spear, and cast\nand smote him as he came proudly striding on, and the corslet of bronze\nthat he wore availed not, but the lance struck in the midst of his\nbelly. And he fell with a crash, and Idomeneus boasted over him, and\nlifted up his voice, saying: \"Othryoneus, verily I praise thee above all\nmortal men, if indeed thou shalt accomplish all that thou hast promised\nPriam, son of Dardanos, that promised thee again his own daughter. Yea,\nand we likewise would promise as much to thee, and fulfil it, and would\ngive thee the fairest daughter of the son of Atreus, and bring her from\nArgos, and wed her to thee, if only thou wilt aid us to take the\nfair-set citadel of Ilios. Nay, follow us that we may make a covenant of\nmarriage by the seafaring ships, for we are no hard exacters of gifts of\nwooing.\"\n\nTherewith the hero Idomeneus dragged him by the foot across the fierce\nmellay. But Asios came to his aid, on foot before his horses that the\ncharioteer guided so that still their breath touched the shoulders of\nAsios. And the desire of his heart was to cast at Idomeneus, who was\nbeforehand with him, and smote him with the spear in the throat, below\nthe chin, and drove the point straight through. And he fell as an oak\nfalls, or a poplar, or tall pine tree, that craftsmen have felled on the\nhills with new whetted axes, to be a ship's timber; even so he lay\nstretched out before the horses and the chariot, groaning, and clutching\nthe bloody dust. And the charioteer was amazed, and kept not his wits,\nas of old, and dared not turn his horses and avoid out of the hands of\nfoemen; and Antilochos the steadfast in war smote him, and pierced the\nmiddle of his body with a spear. Nothing availed the corslet of bronze\nhe was wont to wear, but he planted the spear fast in the midst of his\nbelly. Therewith he fell gasping from the well-wrought chariot, and\nAntilochos, the son of great-hearted Nestor, drave the horses out from\nthe Trojans, among the well-greaved Achaians. Then Deiphobos, in sorrow\nfor Asios, drew very nigh Idomeneus, and cast at him with his shining\nspear. But Idomeneus steadily watching him, avoided the spear of bronze,\nbeing hidden beneath the circle of his shield, the shield covered about\nwith ox-hide and gleaming bronze, that he allows bore, fitted with two\narm-rods: under this he crouched together, and the spear of bronze flew\nover. And his shield rang sharply, as the spear grazed thereon. Yet it\nflew not vainly from the heavy hand of Deiphobos, but smote Hypsenor,\nson of Hippasos, the shepherd of the hosts, in the liver, beneath the\nmidriff, and instantly unstrung his knees. And Deiphobos boasted over\nhim terribly, crying aloud: \"Ah, verily, not unavenged lies Asios, nay,\nmethinks, that even on his road to Hades, strong Warden of the gate, he\nwill rejoice at heart, since, lo, I have sent him escort for the way!\"\n\nSo spake he, but grief came on the Argives by reason of his boast, and\nstirred above all the soul of the wise-hearted Antilochos, yet,\ndespite his sorrow, he was not heedless of his dear comrade, but ran and\nstood over him, and covered him with his buckler. Then two trusty\ncompanions, Mekisteus, son of Echios, and goodly Alastor, stooped down\nand lifted him, and with heavy groaning bare him to the hollow ships.\n\nAnd Idomeneus relaxed not his mighty force, but ever was striving,\neither to cover some one of the Trojans with black night, or himself to\nfall in warding off death from the Achaians. There the dear son of\nAisyetes, fosterling of Zeus, even the hero Alkathoos, was slain, who\nwas son-in-law of Anchises, and had married the eldest of his daughters,\nHippodameia, whom her father and her lady mother dearly loved in the\nhalls, for she excelled all the maidens of her age in beauty, and skill,\nand in wisdom, wherefore the best man in wide Troy took her to wife.\nThis Alkathoos did Poseidon subdue to Idomeneus, throwing a spell over\nhis shining eyes, and snaring his glorious limbs; so that he might\nneither flee backwards, nor avoid the stroke, but stood steady as a\npillar, or a tree with lofty crown of leaves, when the hero Idomeneus\nsmote him in the midst of the breast with the spear, and rent the coat\nof bronze about him, that aforetime warded death from his body, but now\nrang harsh as it was rent by the spear. And he fell with a crash, and\nthe lance fixed in his heart, that, still beating, shook the butt-end of\nthe spear. Then at length mighty Ares spent its fury there; but\nIdomeneus boasted terribly, and cried aloud: \"Deiphobos, are we to deem\nit fair acquittal that we have slain three men for one, since thou\nboastest thus? Nay, sir, but stand thou up also thyself against me, that\nthou mayst know what manner of son of Zeus am I that have come hither!\nFor Zeus first begat Minos, the warden of Crete, and Minos got him a\nson, the noble Deukalion, and Deukalion begat me, a prince over many men\nin wide Crete, and now have the ships brought me hither, a bane to thee\nand thy father, and all the Trojans.\"\n\nThus he spake, but the thoughts of Deiphobos were divided, whether\nhe should retreat, and call to his aid some one of the great-hearted\nTrojans, or should try the adventure alone. And on this wise to his mind\nit seemed the better, to go after Aineias, whom he found standing the\nlast in the press, for Aineias was ever wroth against goodly Priam, for\nthat Priam gave him no honour, despite his valour among men. So\nDeiphobos stood by him, and spake winged words to him: \"Aineias, thou\ncounsellor of the Trojans, now verily there is great need that thou\nshouldst succour thy sister's husband, if any care for kin doth touch\nthee. Nay follow, let us succour Alkathoos, thy sister's husband, who of\nold did cherish thee in his hall, while thou wert but a little one, and\nnow, lo, spear-famed Idomeneus hath stripped him of his arms!\"\n\nSo he spake, and roused the spirit in the breast of Aineias, who went to\nseek Idomeneus, with high thoughts of war. But fear took not hold upon\nIdomeneus, as though he had been some tender boy, but he stood at bay,\nlike a boar on the hills that trusteth to his strength, and abides the\ngreat assailing throng of men in a lonely place, and he bristles up his\nback, and his eyes shine with fire, while he whets his tusks, and is\nright eager to keep at bay both men and hounds. Even so stood\nspear-famed Idomeneus at bay against Aineias, that came to the rescue,\nand gave ground no whit, but called on his comrades, glancing to\nAskalaphos, and Aphareus, and Deipyros, and Meriones, and Antilochos,\nall masters of the war-cry; them he spurred up to battle, and spake\nwinged words: \"Hither, friends, and rescue me, all alone as I am, and\nterribly I dread the onslaught of swift-footed Aineias, that is\nassailing me; for he is right strong to destroy men in battle, and he\nhath the flower of youth, the greatest avail that may be. Yea, if he and\nI were of like age, and in this spirit whereof now we are, speedily\nshould he or I achieve high victory.\"\n\nSo he spake, and they all, being of one spirit in their hearts, stood\nhard by each other, with buckler laid on shoulder. But Aineias, on the\nother side, cried to his comrades, glancing to Deiphobos, and Paris, and\nnoble Agenor, that with him were leaders of the Trojans; and then the\nhosts followed them, as sheep follow their leader to the water from the\npasture, and the shepherd is glad at heart; even so the heart of Aineias\nwas glad in his breast, when he saw the hosts of the people following to\naid him.\n\nThen they rushed in close fight around Alkathoos with their long spears,\nand round their breasts the bronze rang terribly, as they aimed at each\nother in the press, while two men of war beyond the rest, Aineias and\nIdomeneus, the peers of Ares, were each striving to hew the flesh of the\nother with the pitiless bronze. Now Aineias first cast at Idomeneus, who\nsteadily watching him avoided the spear of bronze, and the point of\nAineias went quivering in the earth, since vainly it had flown from his\nstalwart hand. But Idomeneus smote Oinomaos in the midst of the belly,\nand brake the plate of his corslet, and the bronze let forth the bowels\nthrough the corslet, and he fell in the dust and clutched the earth in\nhis palms. And Idomeneus drew forth the far-shadowing spear from the\ndead, but could not avail to strip the rest of the fair armour from his\nshoulders, for the darts pressed hard on him. Nay, and his feet no\nlonger served him firmly in a charge, nor could he rush after his own\nspear, nor avoid the foe. Wherefore in close fight he still held off the\npitiless day of destiny, but in retreat: his feet no longer bore him\nswiftly from the battle. And as he was slowly departing, Deiphobos aimed\nat him with his shining spear, for verily he ever cherished a steadfast\nhatred against Idomeneus. But this time, too, he missed him, and smote\nAskalapbos, the son of Enyalios, with his dart, and the strong spear\npassed through his shoulder, and he fell in the dust, and clutched the\nearth in his outstretched hand. But loud-voiced awful Ares was not yet\naware at all that his son had fallen in strong battle, but he was\nreclining on the peak of Olympus, beneath the golden clouds, being held\nthere by the design of Zeus, where also were the other deathless gods,\nrestrained from the war.\n\nNow the people rushed in close fight around Askalaphos, and Deiphobos\ntore from Askalaphos his shining helm, but Meriones, the peer of swift\nAres, leaped forward and smote the arm of Deiphobos with his spear, and\nfrom his hand the vizored casque fell clanging to the ground. And\nMeriones sprang forth instantly, like a vulture, and drew the strong\nspear from the shoulder of Deiphobos, and fell back among the throng of\nhis comrades. But the own brother of Deiphobos, Polites, stretched his\nhands round his waist, and led him forth from the evil din of war, even\ntill he came to the swift horses, that waited for him behind the battle\nand the fight, with their charioteer, and well-dight chariot. These bore\nhim heavily groaning to the city, worn with his hurt, and the blood ran\ndown from his newly wounded arm.\n\nBut the rest still were fighting, and the war-cry rose unquenched. There\nAineias rushed on Aphareus, son of Kaletor, and struck his throat, that\nchanced to be turned to him, with the keen spear, and his head dropped\ndown and his shield and helm fell with him, and death that slays the\nspirit overwhelmed him. And Antilochos watched Thoon as he turned the\nother way, and leaped on him, and wounded him, severing all the vein\nthat runs up the back till it reaches the neck; this he severed clean,\nand Thoon fell on his back in the dust, stretching out both his hands to\nhis comrades dear. Then Antilochos rushed on, and stripped the armour\nfrom his shoulders, glancing around while the Trojans gathered from here\nand there, and smote his wide shining shield, yet did not avail to\ngraze, behind the shield, the delicate flesh of Antilochos with the\npitiless bronze. For verily Poseidon, the Shaker of the earth, did guard\non every side the son of Nestor, even in the midst of the javelins. And\nnever did Antilochos get free of the foe, but turned him about among\nthem, nor ever was his spear at rest, but always brandished and shaken,\nand the aim of his heart was to smite a foeman from afar, or to set on\nhim at close quarters. But as he was aiming through the crowd, he\nescaped not the ken of Adamas, son of Asios, who smote the midst of his\nshield with the sharp bronze, setting on nigh at hand; but Poseidon of\nthe dark locks made his shaft of no avail, grudging him the life of\nAntilochos. And part of the spear abode there, like a burned stake, in\nthe shield of Antilochos, and half lay on the earth, and back retreated\nAdamas to the ranks of his comrades, avoiding Fate. But Meriones\nfollowing after him as he departed, smote him with a spear between the\nprivy parts and the navel, where a wound is most baneful to wretched\nmortals. Even there he fixed the spear in him and he fell, and writhed\nabout the spear, even as a bull that herdsmen on the hills drag along\nperforce when they have bound him with withes, so he when he was smitten\nwrithed for a moment, not for long, till the hero Meriones came near,\nand drew the spear out of his body. And darkness covered his eyes.\n\nAnd Helenos in close fight smote Deipyros on the temple, with a great\nThracian sword, and tore away the helm, and the helm, being dislodged,\nfell on the ground, and one of the Achaians in the fight picked it up as\nit rolled between his feet. But dark night covered the eyes of Deipyros.\n\nThen grief took hold of the son of Atreus, Menelaos of the loud war-cry,\nand he went with a threat against the warrior Helenos, the prince,\nshaking his sharp spear, while the other drew the centre-piece of his\nbow. And both at once were making ready to let fly, one with his sharp\nspear, the other with the arrow from the string. Then the son of Priam\nsmote Menelaos on the breast with his arrow, on the plate of the\ncorslet, and off flew the bitter arrow. Even as from a broad shovel in a\ngreat threshing floor, fly the black-skinned beans and pulse, before the\nwhistling wind, and the stress of the winnower's shovel, even so from\nthe corslet of the renowned Menelaos flew glancing far aside the bitter\narrow. But the son of Atreus, Menelaos of the loud war-cry, smote the\nhand of Helenos wherein he held the polished bow, and into the bow,\nclean through the hand, was driven the spear of bronze. Back he withdrew\nto the ranks of his comrades, avoiding Fate, with his hand hanging down\nat his side, for the ashen spear dragged after him. And the\ngreat-hearted Agenor drew the spear from his hand, and himself bound up\nthe hand with a band of twisted sheep's-wool, a sling that a squire\ncarried for him, the shepherd of the host.\n\nThen Peisandros made straight for renowned Menelaos, but an evil Fate\nwas leading him to the end of Death; by thee, Menelaos, to be overcome\nin the dread strife of battle. Now when the twain had come nigh in onset\nupon each other, the son of Atreus missed, and his spear was turned\naside, but Peisandros smote the shield of renowned Menelaos, yet availed\nnot to drive the bronze clean through, for the wide shield caught it,\nand the spear brake in the socket, yet Peisandros rejoiced in his heart,\nand hoped for the victory. But the son of Atreus drew his silver-studded\nsword, and leaped upon Peisandros. And Peisandros, under his shield,\nclutched his goodly axe of fine bronze, with long and polished haft of\nolive-wood, and the twain set upon each other. Then Peisandros smote the\ncrest of the helmet shaded with horse hair, close below the very plume,\nbut Menelaos struck the other, as he came forward, on the brow, above\nthe base of the nose, and the bones cracked, and the eyes, all bloody,\nfell at his feet in the dust. Then he bowed and fell, and Menelaos set\nhis foot on his breast, and stripped him of his arms, and triumphed,\nsaying: \"Even thus then surely, ye will leave the ships of the Danaans\nof the swift steeds, ye Trojans overweening, insatiate of the dread din\nof war. Yea, and ye shall not lack all other reproof and shame,\nwherewith ye made me ashamed, ye hounds of evil, having no fear in your\nhearts of the strong wrath of loud-thundering Zeus, the god of guest and\nhost, who one day will destroy your steep citadel. O ye that wantonly\ncarried away my wedded wife and many of my possessions, when ye were\nentertained by her, now again ye are fain to throw ruinous fire on the\nseafaring ships, and to slay the Achaian heroes. Nay, but ye will yet\nrefrain you from battle, for as eager as ye be. O Zeus, verily they say\nthat thou dost excel in wisdom all others, both gods and men, and all\nthese things are from thee. How wondrously art thou favouring men of\nviolence, even the Trojans, whose might is ever iniquitous, nor can they\nhave their fill of the din of equal war. Of all things there is satiety,\nyea, even of love and sleep, and of sweet song, and dance delectable,\nwhereof a man would sooner have his fill than of war, but the Trojans\nare insatiable of battle.\"\n\nThus noble Menelaos spake, and stripped the bloody arms from the body,\nand gave them to his comrades, and instantly himself went forth again,\nand mingled in the forefront of the battle. Then Harpalion, the son of\nking Pylaimenes, leaped out against him, Harpalion that followed his\ndear father to Troy, to the war, nor ever came again to his own country.\nHe then smote the middle of the shield of Atreus' son with his spear, in\nclose fight, yet availed not to drive the bronze clean through, but fell\nback into the host of his comrades, avoiding Fate, glancing round every\nway, lest one should wound his flesh with the bronze. But Meriones shot\nat him as he retreated with a bronze-shod arrow, and smote him in the\nright buttock, and the arrow went right through the bladder and came out\nunder the bone. And sitting down, even there, in the arms of his dear\ncomrades, he breathed away his soul, lying stretched like a worm on the\nearth, and out flowed the black blood, and wetted the ground. And the\nPaphlagonians great of heart, tended him busily, and set him in a\nchariot, and drove him to sacred Ilios sorrowing, and with them went his\nfather, shedding tears, and there was no atonement for his dead son.\n\nNow Paris was very wroth at heart by reason of his slaying, for he had\nbeen his host among the many Paphlagonions, wherefore, in wrath for his\nsake, he let fly a bronze-shod arrow. Now there was a certain Euchenor,\nthe son of Polyidos the seer, a rich man and a good, whose dwelling was\nin Corinth. And well he knew his own ruinous fate, when he went on\nship-board, for often would the old man, the good Polyidos, tell him,\nthat he must either perish of a sore disease in his halls, or go with\nthe ships of the Achaians, and be overcome by the Trojans. Wherefore he\navoided at once the heavy war-fine of the Achaians, and the hateful\ndisease, that so he might not know any anguish. This man did Paris smite\nbeneath the jaw and under the ear, and swiftly his spirit departed from\nhis limbs, and, lo, dread darkness overshadowed him.\n\nSo they fought like flaming fire, but Hector, beloved of Zeus had not\nheard nor knew at all that, on the left of the ships, his host was being\nsubdued by the Argives, and soon would the Achaians have won renown, so\nmighty was the Holder and Shaker of the earth that urged on the Argives;\nyea, and himself mightily defended them. But Hector kept where at first\nhe had leaped within the walls and the gate, and broken the serried\nranks of shield-bearing Danaans, even where were the ships of Aias and\nProtesilaos, drawn up on the beach of the hoary sea, while above the\nwall was builded lowest, and thereby chiefly the heroes and their horses\nwere raging in battle.\n\nThere the Boiotians, and Ionians with trailing tunics, and Lokrians and\nPhthians and illustrious Epeians scarcely availed to stay his onslaught\non the ships, nor yet could they drive back from them noble Hector, like\na flame of fire. And there were the picked men of the Athenians; among\nthem Menestheus son of Peteos was the leader; and there followed with\nhim Pheidas and Stichios, and brave Bias, while the Epeians were led by\nMeges, son of Phyleus, and Amphion and Drakios, and in front of the\nPhthians were Medon, and Podarkes resolute in war. Now the one, Medon,\nwas the bastard son of noble Oileus, and brother of Aias, and he dwelt\nin Phylake, far from his own country, for that he had slain a man, the\nbrother of his stepmother Eriopis, wife of Oileus. But the other,\nPodarkes, was the son of Iphiklos son of Phylakos, and they in their\narmour, in the van of the great-hearted Phthians, were defending the\nships, and fighting among the Boiotians.\n\nNow never at all did Aias, the swift son of Oileus, depart from the side\nof Aias, son of Telamon, nay, not for an instant, but even as in fallow\nland two wine-dark oxen with equal heart strain at the shapen plough,\nand round the roots of their horns springeth up abundant sweat, and\nnought sunders them but the polished yoke, as they labour through the\nfurrow, till the end of the furrow brings them up, so stood the two\nAiantes close by each other. Now verily did many and noble hosts of his\ncomrades follow with the son of Telamon, and bore his shield when labour\nand sweat came upon his limbs. But the Lokrians followed not with the\nhigh-hearted son of Oileus, for their hearts were not steadfast in close\nbrunt of battle, seeing that they had no helmets of bronze, shadowy with\nhorse-hair plumes, nor round shields, nor ashen spears, but trusting in\nbows and well-twisted slings of sheep's wool, they followed with him to\nIlios. Therewith, in the war, they shot thick and fast, and brake the\nranks of the Trojans. So the one party in front contended with the\nTrojans, and with Hector arrayed in bronze, while the others from behind\nkept shooting from their ambush, and the Trojans lost all memory of the\njoy of battle, for the arrows confounded them.\n\nThere then right ruefully from the ships and the huts would the Trojans\nhave withdrawn to windy Ilios, had not Polydamas come near valiant\nHector and said: \"Hector, thou art hard to be persuaded by them that\nwould counsel thee; for that god has given thee excellence in the works\nof war, therefore in council also thou art fain to excel other men in\nknowledge. But in nowise wilt thou be able to take everything on\nthyself. For to one man has god given for his portion the works of war,\n[to another the dance, to another the lute and song,] but in the heart\nof yet another hath far-seeing Zeus placed an excellent understanding,\nwhereof many men get gain, yea he saveth many an one, and himself best\nknoweth it. But, lo, I will speak even as it seemeth best to me. Behold\nall about thee the circle of war is blazing, but the great-hearted\nTrojans, now that they have got down the wall, are some with their arms\nstanding aloof and some are fighting, few men against a host, being\nscattered among the ships. Nay, withdraw thee, and call hither all the\nbest of the warriors. Thereafter shall we take all counsel carefully,\nwhether we should fall on the ships of many benches, if indeed god\nwilleth to give us victory, or after counsel held, should return\nunharmed from the ships. For verily I fear lest the Achaians repay their\ndebt of yesterday, since by the ships there tarrieth a man insatiate of\nwar, and never, methinks, will he wholly stand aloof from battle.\"\n\nSo spake Polydamas, and his safe counsel pleased Hector well, who spake\nto him winged words and said: \"Polydamas, do thou stay here all the best\nof the host, but I will go thither to face the war, and swiftly will\nreturn again, when I have straitly laid on them my commands.\"\n\nSo he spake, and set forth, in semblance like a snowy mountain, and\nshouting aloud he flew through the Trojans and allies. And they all sped\nto Polydamas, the kindly son of Panthoos, when they heard the voice of\nHector. But he went seeking Deiphobos, and the strong prince Helenos,\nand Adamas son of Asios, and Asios son of Hyrtakos, among the warriors\nin the foremost line, if anywhere he might find them. But them he found\nnot at all unharmed, nor free of bane, but, lo, some among the sterns of\nthe ships of the Achaians lay lifeless, slain by the hands of the\nArgives, and some were within the wall wounded by thrust or cast. But\none he readily found, on the left of the dolorous battle, goodly\nAlexandros, the lord of fair-tressed Helen, heartening his comrades and\nspeeding them to war. And he drew near to him, and addressed him with\nwords of shame: \"Thou evil Paris, fairest of face, thou that lustest for\nwomen, thou seducer, where, prithee, are Deiphobos, and the strong\nprince Helenos, and Adamas son of Asios, and Asios son of Hyrtakos, and\nwhere is Othryoneus? Now hath all high Ilios perished utterly. Now, too,\nthou seest, is sheer destruction sure.\"\n\nThen godlike Alexandros answered him again saying: \"Hector, since thy\nmind is to blame one that is blameless, some other day might I rather\nwithdraw me from the war, since my mother bare not even me wholly a\ncoward. For from the time that thou didst gather the battle of thy\ncomrades about the ships, from that hour do we abide here, and war with\nthe Danaans ceaselessly; and our comrades concerning whom thou inquirest\nare slain. Only Deiphobos and the strong prince Helenos have both\nwithdrawn, both of them being wounded in the hand with long spears, for\nKronion kept death away from them. But now lead on, wheresoever thy\nheart and spirit bid thee, and we will follow with thee eagerly, nor\nmethinks shall we lack for valour, as far as we have strength; but beyond\nhis strength may no man fight, howsoever eager he be.\"\n\nSo spake the hero, and persuaded his brother's heart, and they went\nforth where the war and din were thickest, round Kebriones, and noble\nPolydamas, and Phalkes, and Orthaios, and godlike Polyphetes, and\nPalmys, and Askanios, and Morys, son of Hippotion, who had come in their\nturn, out of deep-soiled Askanie, on the morn before, and now Zeus\nurged them to fight. And these set forth like the blast of violent\nwinds, that rushes earthward beneath the thunder of Zeus, and with\nmarvellous din doth mingle with the salt sea, and therein are many\nswelling waves of the loud roaring sea, arched over and white with foam,\nsome vanward, others in the rear; even so the Trojans arrayed in van and\nrear and shining with bronze, followed after their leaders.\n\nAnd Hector son of Priam was leading them, the peer of Ares, the bane of\nmen. In front he held the circle of his shield, thick with hides, and\nplates of beaten bronze, and on his temples swayed his shining helm. And\neverywhere he went in advance and made trial of the ranks, if perchance\nthey would yield to him as he charged under cover of his shield. But he\ncould not confound the heart within the breast of the Achaians. And\nAias, stalking with long strides, challenged him first: \"Sir, draw nigh,\nwherefore dost thou vainly try to dismay the Argives? We are in no wise\nignorant of war, but by the cruel scourge of Zeus are we Achaians\nvanquished. Surely now thy heart hopes utterly to spoil the ships, but\nwe too have hands presently to hold our own. Verily your peopled city\nwill long ere that beneath our hands be taken and sacked. But for thee, I\ntell thee that the time is at hand, when thou shalt pray in thy flight\nto Zeus, and the other immortal gods, that thy fair-maned steeds may be\nfleeter than falcons: thy steeds that are to bear thee to the city, as\nthey storm in dust across the plain.\"\n\nAnd even as he spake, a bird flew forth on the right hand, an eagle of\nlofty flight, and the host of the Achaians shouted thereat, encouraged\nby the omen, but renowned Hector answered: \"Aias, thou blundering\nboaster, what sayest thou! Would that indeed I were for ever as surely\nthe son of aegis-bearing Zeus, and that my mother were lady Hera, and\nthat I were held in such honour as Apollo and Athene, as verily this day\nis to bring utter evil on all the Argives! And thou among them shalt be\nslain, if thou hast the heart to await my long spear, which shall rend\nthy lily skin, and thou shalt glut with thy fat and flesh the birds and\ndogs of the Trojans, falling among the ships of the Achaians.\"\n\nSo he spake and led the way, and they followed with wondrous din, and\nthe whole host shouted behind. And the Argives on the other side\nanswered with a shout, and forgot not their valiance, but abode the\nonslaught of the bravest of the Trojans. And the cry of the two hosts\nwent up through the higher air, to the splendour of Zeus.\n\n\n\nBOOK XIV.\n\n    How Sleep and Hera beguiled Zeus to slumber on the heights\n    of Ida, and Poseidon spurred on the Achaians to resist\n    Hector, and how Hector was wounded.\n\nYet the cry of battle escaped not Nestor, albeit at his wine, but he\nspake winged words to the son of Asklepios: \"Bethink thee, noble\nMachaon, what had best be done; lo, louder waxes the cry of the strong\nwarriors by the ships. Nay, now sit where thou art, and drink the bright\nwine, till Hekamede of the fair tresses shall heat warm water for the\nbath, and wash away the clotted blood, but I will speedily go forth and\ncome to a place of outlook.\"\n\nTherewith he took the well-wrought shield of his son, horse-taming\nThrasymedes, which was lying in the hut, all glistering with bronze, for\nthe son had the shield of his father. And he seized a strong spear, with\na point of keen bronze, and stood outside the hut, and straightway\nbeheld a deed of shame, the Achaians fleeing in rout, and the\nhigh-hearted Trojans driving them, and the wall of the Achaians was\noverthrown. And as when the great sea is troubled with a dumb wave, and\ndimly bodes the sudden paths of the shrill winds, but is still unmoved\nnor yet rolled forward or to either side, until some steady gale comes\ndown from Zeus, even so the old man pondered,--his mind divided this\nway and that,--whether he should fare into the press of the Danaans of\nthe swift steeds, or go after Agamemnon, son of Atreus, shepherd of the\nhost. And thus as he pondered, it seemed to him the better counsel to go\nto the son of Atreus. Meanwhile they were warring and slaying each\nother, and the stout bronze rang about their bodies as they were thrust\nwith swords and double-pointed spears.\n\nNow the kings, the fosterlings of Zeus, encountered Nestor, as they went\nup from the ships, even they that were wounded with the bronze, Tydeus'\nson, and Odysseus, and Agamemnon, son of Atreus. For far apart from the\nbattle were their ships drawn up, on the shore of the grey sea, for\nthese were the first they had drawn up to the plain, but had builded the\nwall in front of the hindmost. For in no wise might the beach, wide as\nit was, hold all the ships, and the host was straitened. Wherefore they\ndrew up the ships row within row, and filled up the wide mouth of all\nthe shore that the headlands held between them. Therefore the kings were\ngoing together, leaning on their spears, to look on the war and fray,\nand the heart of each was sore within his breast. And the old man met\nthem, even Nestor, and caused the spirit to fail within the breasts of\nthe Achaians.\n\nAnd mighty Agamemnon spake and accosted him: \"O Nestor, son of Neleus,\ngreat glory of the Achaians, wherefore dost thou come hither and hast\ndeserted the war, the bane of men? Lo, I fear the accomplishment of the\nword that dread Hector spake, and the threat wherewith he threatened us,\nspeaking in the assembly of the Trojans, namely, that never would he\nreturn to Ilios from the ships, till he had burned the ships with fire,\nand slain the men. Even so he spake, and, lo, now all these things are\nbeing fulfilled. Alas, surely even the other well-greaved Achaians store\nwrath against me in their hearts, like Achilles, and have no desire to\nfight by the rearmost ships.\"\n\nThen Nestor of Gerenia the knight answered him saying \"Verily these\nthings are now at hand, and being accomplished, nor otherwise could Zeus\nhimself contrive them, he that thundereth on high. For, lo, the wall is\noverthrown, wherein we trusted that it should be an unbroken bulwark of\nthe ships and of our own bodies. But let us take counsel, how these\nthings may best be done, if wit may do aught: but into the war I counsel\nnot that we should go down, for in no wise may a wounded man do battle.\"\n\nThen Agamemnon king of men answered him again: \"Nestor, for that they\nare warring by the rearmost ships, and the well-builded wall hath\navailed not, nor the trench, whereat the Achaians endured so much\nlabour, hoping in their hearts that it should be the unbroken bulwark of\nthe ships, and of their own bodies--such it seemeth must be the will\nof Zeus supreme, [that the Achaians should perish here nameless far from\nArgos]. For I knew it when he was forward to aid the Danaans, and now I\nknow that he is giving to the Trojans glory like that of the blessed\ngods, and hath bound our hands and our strength. But come, as I declare,\nlet us all obey. Let us drag down the ships that are drawn up in the\nfirst line near to the sea, and speed them all forth to the salt sea\ndivine, and moor them far out with stones, till the divine night comes,\nif even at night the Trojans will refrain from war, and then might we\ndrag down all the ships. For there is no shame in fleeing from ruin,\nyea, even in the night. Better doth he fare who flees from trouble, than\nhe that is overtaken.\"\n\nThen, looking on him sternly, spake Odysseus of many counsels: \"Atreus'\nson, what word hath passed the door of thy lips? Man of mischief, sure\nthou shouldst lead some other inglorious army, not be king among us, to\nwhom Zeus hath given it, from youth even unto age, to wind the skein of\ngrievous wars, till every man of us perish. Art thou indeed so eager\nto leave the wide-wayed city of the Trojans, the city for which we\nendure with sorrow so many evils? Be silent, lest some other of the\nAchaians hear this word, that no man should so much as suffer to pass\nthrough his mouth, none that understandeth in his heart how to speak\nfit counsel, none that is a sceptred king, and hath hosts obeying him so\nmany as the Argives over whom thou reignest. And now I wholly scorn thy\nthoughts, such a word as thou hast uttered, thou that, in the midst of\nwar and battle, dost bid us draw down the well-timbered ships to the\nsea, that even more than ever the Trojans may possess their desire,\nalbeit they win the mastery even now, and sheer destruction fall upon\nus. For the Achaians will not make good the war, when the ships are\ndrawn down to the salt sea, but will look round about to flee, and\nwithdraw from battle. There will thy counsel work a mischief, O marshal\nof the host!\"\n\nThen the king of men, Agamemnon, answered him: \"Odysseus, right sharply\nhast thou touched my heart with thy stern reproof: nay, I do not bid the\nsons of the Achaians to drag, against their will, the well-timbered\nships to the salt sea. Now perchance there may be one who will utter a\nwiser counsel than this of mine,--a young man or an old,--welcome\nwould it be to me.\"\n\nThen Diomedes of the loud war-cry spake also among them: \"The man is\nnear,--not long shall we seek him, if ye be willing to be persuaded of\nme, and each of you be not resentful at all, because in years I am the\nyoungest among you. Nay, but I too boast me to come by lineage of a\nnoble sire, Tydeus, whom in Thebes the piled-up earth doth cover. For\nPortheus had three well-born children, and they dwelt in Pleuron, and\nsteep Kalydon, even Agrios and Melas, and the third was Oineus the\nknight, the father of my father, and in valour he excelled the others.\nAnd there he abode, but my father dwelt at Argos, whither he had\nwandered, for so Zeus and the other gods willed that it should be. And\nhe wedded one of the daughters of Adrastos, and dwelt in a house full of\nlivelihood, and had wheat-bearing fields enow, and many orchards of\ntrees apart, and many sheep were his, and in skill with the spear he\nexcelled all the Achaians: these things ye must have heard, if I speak\nsooth. Therefore ye could not say that I am weak and a coward by\nlineage, and so dishonour my spoken counsel, that well I may speak. Let\nus go down to the battle, wounded as we are, since we needs must; and\nthen might we hold ourselves aloof from the battle, beyond the range of\ndarts, lest any take wound upon wound; but the others will we spur on,\neven them that aforetime gave place to their passion, and stand apart,\nand fight not.\"\n\nSo he spake, and they all heard him readily, and obeyed him. And they\nset forth, led by Agamemnon the king of men.\n\nNow the renowned Earth-shaker held no vain watch, but went with them in\nthe guise of an ancient man, and he seized the right hand of Agamemnon,\nAtreus' son, and uttering winged words he spake to him, saying:\n\"Atreides, now methinks the ruinous heart of Achilles rejoices in his\nbreast, as he beholds the slaughter and flight of the Achaians, since he\nhath no wisdom, not a grain. Nay, even so may he perish likewise, and\ngod mar him. But with thee the blessed gods are not utterly wroth, nay,\neven yet methinks the leaders and rulers of the Trojans will cover the\nwide plain with dust, and thyself shalt see them fleeing to the city\nfrom the ships and the huts.\"\n\nSo spake he, and shouted mightily, as he sped over the plain. And loud\nas nine thousand men, or ten thousand cry in battle, when they join the\nstrife of war, so mighty was the cry that the strong Shaker of the earth\nsent forth from his breast, and great strength he put into the heart of\neach of the Achaians, to strive and war unceasingly.\n\nNow Hera of the golden throne stood on the peak of Olympus, and saw with\nher eyes, and anon knew him that was her brother and her lord's going to\nand fro through the glorious fight, and she rejoiced in her heart. And\nshe beheld Zeus sitting on the topmost crest of many-fountained Ida, and\nto her heart he was hateful. Then she took thought, the ox-eyed lady\nHera, how she might beguile the mind of aegis-bearing Zeus. And this\nseemed to her in her heart to be the best counsel, namely to fare to\nIda, when she had well adorned herself, if perchance a sweet sleep and a\nkindly she could pour on his eye lids and his crafty wits. And she set\nforth to her bower, that her dear son Hephaistos had fashioned, and\ntherein had made fast strong doors on the pillars, with a secret bolt,\nthat no other god might open. There did she enter in and closed the\nshining doors. With ambrosia first did she cleanse every stain from her\nwinsome body, and anointed her with olive oil, ambrosial, soft, and of a\nsweet savour; if it were but shaken, in the bronze-floored mansion of\nZeus, the savour thereof went right forth to earth and heaven. Therewith\nshe anointed her fair body, and combed her hair, and with her hands\nplaited her shining tresses, fair and ambrosial, flowing from her\nimmortal head. Then she clad her in her fragrant robe that Athene\nwrought delicately for her, and therein set many things beautifully\nmade, and fastened it over her breast with clasps of gold. And she\ngirdled it with a girdle arrayed with a hundred tassels, and she set\nearrings in her pierced ears, earrings of three drops, and glistering,\ntherefrom shone grace abundantly. And with a veil over all the peerless\ngoddess veiled herself, a fair new veil, bright as the sun, and beneath\nher shining feet she bound goodly sandals. But when she had adorned her\nbody with all her array, she went forth from her bower, and called\nAphrodite apart from the other gods, and spake to her, saying: \"Wilt\nthou obey me, dear child, in that which I shall tell thee? or wilt thou\nrefuse, with a grudge in thy heart, because I succour the Danaans, and\nthou the Trojans?\"\n\nThen Aphrodite the daughter of Zeus answered her: \"Hera, goddess queen,\ndaughter of mighty Kronos, say the thing that is in thy mind, my heart\nbids me fulfil it, if fulfil it I may, and if it may be accomplished.\"\n\nThen with crafty purpose the lady Hera answered her: \"Give me now Love\nand Desire wherewith thou dost overcome all the Immortals, and mortal\nmen. For I am going to visit the limits of the bountiful Earth, and\nOkeanos, father of the gods, and mother Tethys, who reared me well and\nnourished me in their halls, having taken me from Rhea, when far-seeing\nZeus imprisoned Kronos beneath the earth and the unvintaged sea. Them am\nI going to visit, and their endless strife will I loose, for already\nthis long time they hold apart from each other, since wrath hath settled\nin their hearts. If with words I might persuade their hearts, and bring\nthem back to love, ever should I be called dear to them and worshipful.\"\n\nThen laughter-loving Aphrodite answered her again: \"It may not be, nor\nseemly were it, to deny that thou askest, for thou steepest in the arms\nof Zeus, the chief of gods.\"\n\nTherewith from her breast she loosed the broidered girdle, fair-wrought,\nwherein are all her enchantments; therein are love, and desire, and\nloving converse, that steals the wits even of the wise. This girdle she\nlaid in her hands, and spake, and said: \"Lo now, take this girdle and\nlay it up in thy bosom, this fair-wrought girdle, wherein all things are\nfashioned; methinks thou wilt not return with that unaccomplished, which\nin thy heart thou desirest.\"\n\nSo spake she, and the ox-eyed lady Hera smiled, and smiling laid up the\nzone within her breast.\n\nThen the daughter of Zeus, Aphrodite, went to her house, and Hera,\nrushing down, left the peak of Olympus, and sped' over the snowy hills\nof the Thracian horsemen, even over the topmost crests, nor grazed the\nground with her feet, and from Athos she fared across the foaming sea,\nand came to Lemnos, the city of godlike Thoas. There she met Sleep, the\nbrother of Death, and clasped her hand in his, and spake and called him\nby name: \"Sleep, lord of all gods and of all men, if ever thou didst\nhear my word, obey me again even now, and I will be grateful to thee\nalways. Lull me, I pray thee, the shining eyes of Zeus beneath his\nbrows. And gifts I will give to thee, even a fair throne, imperishable\nfor ever, a golden throne, that Hephaistos the Lame, mine own child,\nshall fashion skilfully, and will set beneath it a footstool for the\nfeet, for thee to set thy shining feet upon, when thou art at a\nfestival. Nay come, and I will give thee one of the younger of the\nGraces, to wed and to be called thy wife.\"\n\nSo she spake, and Sleep was glad, and answered and said:--\"Come now,\nswear to me by the inviolable water of Styx, and with one of thy hands\ngrasp the bounteous earth, and with the other the shining sea, that all\nmay be witnesses to us, even all the gods below that are with Kronos,\nthat verily thou wilt give me one of the younger of the Graces, even\nPasithea, that myself do long for all my days.\"\n\nSo spake he, nor did she disobey, the white-armed goddess Hera; she\nsware as he bade her, and called all the gods by name, even those below\nTartaros that are called Titans. But when she had sworn and ended that\noath, the twain left the citadel of Lemnos, and of Imbros, clothed on in\nmist, and swiftly they accomplished the way. To many-fountained Ida they\ncame, the mother of wild beasts, to Lekton, where first they left the\nsea, and they twain fared above the dry land, and the topmost forest\nwaved beneath their feet. There Sleep halted, ere the eyes of Zeus\nbeheld him, and alighted on a tall pine tree, the loftiest pine that\nthen in all Ida rose through the nether to the upper air. But Hera\nswiftly drew nigh to topmost Gargaros, the highest crest of Ida, and\nZeus the cloud-gatherer beheld her. And as he saw her, so love came over\nhis deep heart, and he stood before her, and spoke, and said: \"Hera,\nwith what desire comest thou thus hither from Olympus, and thy horses\nand chariot are not here, whereon thou mightst ascend?\"\n\nThen with crafty purpose lady Hera answered him: \"I am going to visit\nthe limits of the bountiful Earth, and Okeanos, father of the gods, and\nmother Tethys, who reared me well and cherished me in their halls. Them\nam I going to visit, and their endless strife will I loose, for already\nthis long time they hold apart from each other, since wrath hath settled\nin their hearts. But my horses are standing at the foot of\nmany-fountained Ida, my horses that shall bear me over wet and dry. And\nnow it is because of thee that I am thus come hither, down from Olympus,\nlest perchance thou mightest be wroth with me hereafter, if silently I\nwere gone to the mansion of deep-flowing Okeanos.\"\n\nThen Zeus, the gatherer of the clouds, answered her and said: \"Hera,\nthither mayst thou go on a later day. For never once as thus did the\nlove of goddess or woman so mightily overflow and conquer the heart\nwithin my breast.\"\n\nThus slept the Father in quiet on the crest of Gargaros, by Sleep and\nlove overcome. But sweet Sleep started and ran to the ships of the\nAchaians, to tell his tidings to the god that holdeth and shaketh the\nearth. And he stood near him, and spake winged words: \"Eagerly now,\nPoseidon, do thou aid the Danaans, and give them glory for a little\nspace, while yet Zeus sleepeth, for over him have I shed soft slumber,\nand Hera hath beguiled him.\"\n\nSo he spake, and passed to the renowned tribes of men, and still the\nmore did he set on Poseidon to aid the Danaans, who straightway sprang\nfar afront of the foremost, and called to them: \"Argives, are we again\nto yield the victory to Hector, son of Priam, that he may take our ships\nand win renown? Nay, even so he saith and declareth that he will do, for\nthat Achilles by the hollow ships abides angered at heart. But for him\nthere will be no such extreme regret, if we spur us on to aid each the\nother. Nay come, as I command, let us all obey. Let us harness us in the\nbest shields that are in the host, and the greatest, and cover our heads\nwith shining helms, and take the longest spears in our hands, and so go\nforth. Yea, and I will lead the way, and methinks that Hector, son of\nPriam, will not long await us, for all his eagerness. And whatsoever man\nis steadfast in battle, and hath a small buckler on his shoulder, let\nhim give it to a worse man, and harness him in a larger shield.\"\n\nSo spake he, and they heard him eagerly and obeyed him. And them the\nkings themselves arrayed, wounded as they were, Tydeus' son, and\nOdysseus, and Agamemnon, son of Atreus. They went through all the host,\nand made exchange of weapons of war. The good arms did the good warrior\nharness him in, the worse he gave to the worse. But when they had done\non the shining bronze about their bodies, they started on the march, and\nPoseidon led them, the Shaker of the earth, with a dread sword of fine\nedge in his strong hand, like unto lightning; wherewith it is not\npermitted that any should mingle in woful war, but fear holds men afar\ntherefrom. But the Trojans on the other side was renowned Hector\narraying. Then did they now strain the fiercest strife of war, even\ndark-haired Poseidon and glorious Hector, one succouring the Trojans,\nthe other with the Argives. And the sea washed up to the huts and ships\nof the Argives, and they gathered together with a mighty cry. Not so\nloudly bellows the wave of the sea against the land, stirred up from the\ndeep by the harsh breath of the north wind, nor so loud is the roar of\nburning fire in the glades of a mountain, when it springs to burn up the\nforest, nor calls the wind so loudly in the high leafy tresses of the\ntrees, when it rages and roars its loudest, as then was the cry of the\nTrojans and Achaians, shouting dreadfully as they rushed upon each\nother.\n\nFirst glorious Hector cast with his spear at Aias, who was facing him\nfull, and did not miss, striking him where two belts were stretched\nacross his breast, the belt of his shield, and of his silver-studded\nsword; these guarded his tender flesh. And Hector was enraged because\nhis swift spear had flown vainly from his hand, and he retreated into\nthe throng of his fellows, avoiding Fate.\n\nThen as he was departing the great Telamonian Aias smote him with a huge\nstone; for many stones, the props of swift ships, were rolled among the\nfeet of the fighters; one of these he lifted, and smote Hector on the\nbreast, over the shield-rim, near the neck, and made him spin like a top\nwith the blow, that he reeled round and round. And even as when an oak\nfalls uprooted beneath the stroke of father Zeus, and a dread savour of\nbrimstone arises therefrom, and whoso stands near and beholds it has no\nmore courage, for dread is the bolt of great Zeus, even so fell mighty\nHector straightway in the dust. And the spear fell from his hand, but\nhis shield and helm were made fast to him, and round him rang his arms\nadorned with bronze.\n\nThen with a loud cry they ran up, the sons of the Achaians, hoping to\ndrag him away, and they cast showers of darts. But not one availed to\nwound or smite the shepherd of the host, before that might be the\nbravest gathered about him, Polydamas, and Aineias, and goodly Agenor,\nand Sarpedon, leader of the Lykians, and noble Glaukos, and of the rest\nnot one was heedless of him, but they held their round shields in front\nof him, and his comrades lifted him in their arms, and bare him out of\nthe battle, till he reached his swift horses that were standing waiting\nfor him, with the charioteer and the fair-dight chariot at the rear of\nthe combat and the war. These toward the city bore him heavily moaning.\nNow when they came to the ford of the fair-flowing river, of eddying\nXanthos, that immortal Zeus begat, there they lifted him from the\nchariot to the ground, and poured water over him, and he gat back his\nbreath, and looked up with his eyes, and sitting on his heels kneeling,\nhe vomited black blood. Then again he sank back on the ground, and black\nnight covered his eyes, the stroke still conquering his spirit.\n\n\n\nBOOK XV.\n\n    Zeus awakening, biddeth Apollo revive Hector, and restore\n    the fortunes of the Trojans. Fire is thrown on the ship of\n    Protesilaos.\n\nNow when they had sped in flight across the palisade and trench, and\nmany were overcome at the hands of the Danaans, the rest were stayed,\nand abode beside the chariots in confusion, and pale with terror, and\nZeus awoke, on the peaks of Ida, beside Hera of the golden throne. Then\nhe leaped up, and stood, and beheld the Trojans and Achaians, those in\nflight, and these driving them on from the rear, even the Argives, and\namong them the prince Poseidon. And Hector he saw lying on the plain,\nand around him sat his comrades, and he was gasping with difficult\nbreath, and his mind wandering, and was vomiting blood, for it was not\nthe weakest of the Achaians that had smitten him. Beholding him, the\nfather of men and gods had pity on him, and terribly he spoke to Hera,\nwith fierce look: \"O thou ill to deal with, Hera, verily it is thy\ncrafty wile that has made noble Hector cease from the fight, and has\nterrified the host. Nay, but yet I know not whether thou mayst not be\nthe first to reap the fruits of thy cruel treason, and I beat thee with\nstripes. Dost thou not remember, when thou wert hung from on high, and\nfrom thy feet I suspended two anvils, and round thy hands fastened a\ngolden bond that might not be broken? And thou didst hang in the clear\nair and the clouds, and the gods were wroth in high Olympus, but they\ncould not come round and unloose thee.\"\n\nSo spake he, and the ox-eyed lady Hera shuddered, and spake unto him\nwinged words, saying: \"Let earth now be witness hereto, and wide heaven\nabove, and that falling water of Styx, the greatest oath and the most\nterrible to the blessed gods, and thine own sacred head, and our own\nbridal bed, whereby never would I forswear myself, that not by my will\ndoes earth-shaking Poseidon trouble the Trojans and Hector, and succour\nthem of the other part. Nay, it is his own soul that urgeth and\ncommandeth him, and he had pity on the Achaians, when he beheld them\nhard pressed beside the ships. I would even counsel him also to go even\nwhere thou, lord of the storm-cloud, mayst lead him.\"\n\nSo spake she, and the father of gods and men smiled, and answering her\nhe spake winged words: \"If thou, of a truth, O ox-eyed lady Hera,\nwouldst hereafter abide of one mind with me among the immortal gods,\nthereon would Poseidon, howsoever much his wish be contrariwise, quickly\nturn his mind otherwhere, after thy heart and mine. But if indeed thou\nspeakest the truth and soothly, go thou now among the tribes of the\ngods, and call Iris to come hither, and Apollo, the renowned archer,\nthat Iris may go among the host of mail-clad Achaians and tell Poseidon\nthe prince to cease from the war, and get him unto his own house. But\nlet Phoebus Apollo spur Hector on to the war, and breathe strength into\nhim again, and make him forget his anguish, that now wears down his\nheart, and drive the Achaians back again, when he hath stirred in them\ncraven fear. Let them flee and fall among the many-benched ships of\nAchilles son of Peleus, and he shall rouse his own comrade, Patroklos;\nand him shall renowned Hector slay with the spear, in front of Ilios,\nafter that he has slain many other youths, and among them my son, noble\nSarpedon. In wrath therefor shall goodly Achilles slay Hector. From that\nhour verily will I cause a new pursuit from the ships, that shall endure\ncontinually, even until the Achaians take steep Ilios, through the\ncounsels of Athene. But before that hour neither do I cease in my wrath,\nnor will I suffer any other of the Immortals to help the Danaans there,\nbefore I accomplish that desire of the son of Peleus, as I promised him\nat the first, and confirmed the same with a nod of my head, on that day\nwhen the goddess Thetis clasped my knees, imploring me to honour\nAchilles, the sacker of cities.\"\n\nSo spake he, nor did the white-armed goddess Hera disobey him, and she\nsped down from the hills of Ida to high Olympus, and went among the\ngathering of the immortal gods. And she called Apollo without the hall\nand Iris, that is the messenger of the immortal gods, and she spake\nwinged words, and addressed them, saying: \"Zeus bids you go to Ida as\nswiftly as may be, and when ye have gone, and looked on the face of\nZeus, do ye whatsoever he shall order and command.\"\n\nAnd these twain came before the face of Zeus the cloud gatherer, and\nstood there, and he was nowise displeased at heart when he beheld them,\nfor that speedily they had obeyed the words of his dear wife. And to\nIris first he spake winged words: \"Go, get thee, swift Iris, to the\nprince Poseidon, and tell him all these things, nor be a false\nmessenger. Command him to cease from war and battle, and to go among the\ntribes of the gods, or into the bright sea. But if he will not obey my\nwords, but will hold me in no regard, then let him consider in his heart\nand mind, lest he dare not for all his strength to abide me when I come\nagainst him, since I deem me to be far mightier than he, and elder\nborn.\"\n\nSo spake he, nor did the wind-footed fleet Iris disobey him, but went\ndown the hills of Ida to sacred Ilios. And as when snow or chill hail\nfleets from the clouds beneath the stress of the North Wind born in the\nclear air, so fleetly she fled in her eagerness, swift Iris, and drew\nnear the renowned Earth-shaker and spake to him the message of Zeus. And\nhe left the host of the Achaians, and passed to the sea, and sank, and\nsorely they missed him, the heroes of the Achaians.\n\nThen Zeus, the gatherer of the clouds, spake to Apollo, saying: \"Go now,\ndear Phoebus, to Hector of the helm of bronze. Let glorious Hector be\nthy care, and rouse in him great wrath even till the Achaians come in\ntheir flight to the ships, and the Hellespont. And from that moment will\nI devise word and deed wherewithal the Achaians may take breath again\nfrom their toil.\"\n\nSo spake he, nor was Apollo deaf to the word of the Father, but he went\ndown the hills of Ida like a fleet falcon, the bane of doves, that is\nthe swiftest of flying things. And he found the son of wise-hearted\nPriam, noble Hector, sitting up, no longer lying, for he had but late\ngot back his life, and knew the comrades around him, and his gasping and\nhis sweat had ceased, from the moment when the will of aegis-bearing\nZeus began to revive him. Then far-darting Apollo stood near him, and\nspake to him: \"Hector, son of Priam, why dost thou sit fainting apart\nfrom the others? Is it perchance that some trouble cometh upon thee?\"\n\nThen, with faint breath answered him Hector of the glancing helm: \"Nay,\nbut who art thou, best of the gods, who enquirest of me face to face?\nDost thou not know that by the hindmost row of the ships of the\nAchaians, Aias of the loud war-cry smote me on the breast with a stone,\nas I was slaying his comrades, and made me cease from mine impetuous\nmight? And verily I deemed that this very day I should pass to the dead,\nand the house of Hades, when I had gasped my life away.\"\n\nThen prince Apollo the Far-darter answered him again: \"Take courage now,\nso great an ally hath the son of Kronos sent thee out of Ida, to stand\nby thee and defend thee, even Phoebus Apollo of the golden sword, me who\nof old defend thee, thyself and the steep citadel. But come now, bid thy\nmany charioteers drive their swift steeds against the hollow ships, and\nI will go before and make smooth all the way for the chariots, and will\nput to flight the Achaian heroes.\"\n\nSo he spake, and breathed great might into the shepherd of the host, and\neven as when a stalled horse, full fed at the manger, breaks his tether\nand speedeth at the gallop over the plain exultingly, being wont to\nbathe in the fair-flowing stream, and holds his head on high, and the\nmane floweth about his shoulders, and he trusteth in his glory, and\nnimbly his knees bear him to the haunts and pasture of the mares, even\nso Hector lightly moved his feet and knees, urging on his horsemen, when\nhe heard the voice of the god. But as when hounds and country folk\npursue a horned stag, or a wild goat, that steep rock and shady wood\nsave from them, nor is it their lot to find him, but at their clamour a\nbearded lion hath shown himself on the way, and lightly turned them all\ndespite their eagerness, even so the Danaans for a while followed on\nalways in their companies, smiting with swords and double-pointed\nspears, but when they saw Hector going up and down the ranks of men,\nthen were they afraid, and the hearts of all fell to their feet.\n\nThen to them spake Thoas, son of Andraimon, far the best of the\nAitolians, skilled in throwing the dart, and good in close fight, and in\ncouncil did few of the Achaians surpass him, when the young men were\nstriving in debate; he made harangue and spake among them: \"Alas, and\nverily a great marvel is this I behold with mine eyes, how he hath again\narisen, and hath avoided the Fates, even Hector. Surely each of us hoped\nin his heart, that he had died beneath the hand of Aias, son of Telamon.\nBut some one of the gods again hath delivered and saved Hector, who\nverily hath loosened the knees of many of the Danaans, as methinks will\nbefall even now, for not without the will of loud-thundering Zeus doth\nhe rise in the front ranks, thus eager for battle. But come, as I\ndeclare let us all obey. Let us bid the throng turn back to the ships,\nbut let us as many as avow us to be the best in the host, take our\nstand, if perchance first we may meet him, and hold him off with\noutstretched spears, and he, methinks, for all his eagerness, will fear\nat heart to enter into the press of the Danaans.\"\n\nSo spake he, and they heard him eagerly, and obeyed him. They that were\nwith Aias and the prince Idomeneus, and Teukros, and Neriones, and Meges\nthe peer of Ares, called to all the best of the warriors and sustained\nthe fight with Hector and the Trojans, but behind them the multitude\nreturned to the ships of the Achaians.\n\nNow the Trojans drave forward in close ranks, and with long strides\nHector led them, while in front of him went Phoebus Apollo, his\nshoulders wrapped in cloud, and still he held the fell aegis, dread,\ncircled with a shaggy fringe, and gleaming, that Hephaistos the smith\ngave to Zeus, to bear for the terror of men; with this in his hands did\nhe lead the host.\n\nNow the Argives abode them in close ranks, and shrill the cry arose on\nboth sides, and the arrows leaped from the bow-strings, and many spears\nfrom stalwart hands, whereof some stood fast in the flesh of young men\nswift in fight, but many halfway, ere ever they reached the white flesh,\nstuck in the ground, longing to glut themselves with flesh. Now so long\nas Phoebus Apollo held the aegis unmoved in his hands, so long the darts\nsmote either side amain, and the folk fell. But when he looked face to\nface on the Danaans of the swift steeds, and shook the aegis, and\nhimself shouted mightily, he quelled their heart in their breast, and\nthey forgot their impetuous valour. And as when two wild beasts drive in\nconfusion a herd of kine, or a great flock of sheep, in the dark hour of\nblack night, coming swiftly on them when the herdsman is not by, even so\nwere the Achaians terror-stricken and strengthless, for Apollo sent a\npanic among them, but still gave renown to the Trojans and Hector.\n\nAnd Hector smote his horses on the shoulder with the lash, and called\naloud on the Trojans along the ranks. And they all cried out, and level\nwith his held the steeds that drew their chariots, with a marvellous\ndin, and in front of them Phoebus Apollo lightly dashed down with his\nfeet the banks of the deep ditch, and cast them into the midst thereof,\nmaking a bridgeway long and wide as is a spear-cast, when a man throws\nto make trial of his strength. Thereby the Trojans poured forward in\ntheir battalions, while in their van Apollo held the splendid aegis. And\nmost easily did he cast down the wall of the Achaians, as when a boy\nscatters the sand beside the sea, first making sand buildings for sport\nin his childishness, and then again, in his sport, confounding them with\nhis feet and hands; even so didst thou, archer Apollo, confound the long\ntoil and labour of the Argives, and among them rouse a panic fear.\n\nSo they were halting, and abiding by the ships, calling each to other;\nand lifting their hands to all the gods did each man pray vehemently,\nand chiefly prayed Nestor, the Warden of the Achaians, stretching his\nhand towards the starry heaven: \"O father Zeus, if ever any one of us in\nwheat-bearing Argos did burn to thee fat thighs of bull or sheep, and\nprayed that he might return, and thou didst promise and assent thereto,\nof these things be thou mindful, and avert, Olympian, the pitiless day,\nnor suffer the Trojans thus to overcome the Achaians.\"\n\nSo spake he in his prayer, and Zeus, the Lord of counsel, thundered\nloudly, hearing the prayers of the ancient son of Neleus.\n\nBut the Trojans when they heard the thunder of aegis-bearing Zeus,\nrushed yet the more eagerly upon the Argives, and were mindful of the\njoy of battle. And as when a great wave of the wide sea sweeps over the\nbulwarks of a ship, the might of the wind constraining it, which chiefly\nswells the waves, even so did the Trojans with a great cry bound over\nthe wall, and drave their horses on, and at the hindmost row of the\nships were fighting hand to hand with double-pointed spears, the Trojans\nfrom the chariots, but the Achaians climbing up aloft, from the black\nships with long pikes that they had lying in the ships for battle at\nsea, jointed pikes shod at the head with bronze.\n\nNow the Trojans, like ravening lions, rushed upon the ships, fulfilling\nthe behests of Zeus, that ever was rousing their great wrath, but\nsoftened the temper of the Argives, and took away their glory, while he\nspurred on the others. For the heart of Zeus was set on giving glory to\nHector, the son of Priam, that withal he might cast fierce-blazing fire,\nunwearied, upon the beaked ships, and so fulfil all the presumptuous\nprayer of Thetis; wherefore wise-counselling Zeus awaited, till his eyes\nshould see the glare of a burning ship. For even from that hour was he\nto ordain the backward chase of the Trojans from the ships, and to give\nglory to the Danaans. With this design was he rousing Hector, Priam's\nson, that himself was right eager, against the hollow ships. For short\nof life was he to be, yea, and already Pallas Athene was urging against\nhim the day of destiny, at the hand of the son of Peleus. And fain he\nwas to break the ranks of men, trying them wheresoever he saw the\nthickest press, and the goodliest harness. Yet not even so might he\nbreak them for all his eagerness. Nay, they stood firm, and embattled\nlike a steep rock and a great, hard by the hoary sea, a rock that abides\nthe swift paths of the shrill winds, and the swelling waves that roar\nagainst it. Even so the Danaans steadfastly abode the Trojans and fled\nnot away. But Hector shining with fire on all sides leaped on the\nthrong, and fell upon them, as when beneath the storm-clouds a fleet\nwave reared of the winds falls on a swift ship, and she is all hidden\nwith foam, and the dread blast of the wind roars against the sail, and\nthe sailors fear, and tremble in their hearts, for by but a little way\nare they borne forth from death, even so the spirit was torn in the\nbreasts of the Achaians.\n\nSo again keen battle was set by the ships. Thou wouldst deem that\nunwearied and unworn they met each other in war, so eagerly they fought.\nAnd in their striving they were minded thus; the Achaians verily deemed\nthat never would they flee from the danger, but perish there, but the\nheart of each Trojan hoped in his breast, that they should fire the\nships, and slay the heroes of the Achaians. With these imaginations they\nstood to each other, and Hector seized the stern of a seafaring ship, a\nfair ship, swift on the brine, that had borne Protesilaos to Troia, but\nbrought him not back again to his own country. Now round his ship the\nAchaians and Trojans warred on each other hand to hand, nor far apart\ndid they endure the flights of arrows, nor of darts, but standing hard\neach by other, with one heart, with sharp axes and hatchets they fought,\nand with great swords, and double-pointed spears. And many fair brands,\ndark-scabbarded and hilted, fell to the ground, some from the hands,\nsome from off the shoulders of warring men, and the black earth ran with\nblood. But Hector, after that once he had seized the ship's stern, left\nnot his hold, keeping the ensign in his hands, and he called to the\nTrojans: \"Bring fire, and all with one voice do ye raise the war-cry;\nnow hath Zeus given us the dearest day of all,--to take the ships that\ncame hither against the will of the gods, and brought many woes upon us,\nby the cowardice of the elders, who withheld me when I was eager to\nfight at the sterns of the ships, and kept back the host. But if even\nthen far-seeing Zeus did harm our wits, now he himself doth urge and\ncommand us onwards.\" So spake he, and they set yet the fiercer on the\nArgives. And Aias no longer abode their onset, for he was driven back by\nthe darts, but he withdrew a little,--thinking that now he should\ndie,--on to the oarsman's bench of seven feet long, and he left the\ndecks of the trim ship. There then he stood on the watch, and with his\nspear he ever drave the Trojans from the ships, whosoever brought\nunwearied fire, and ever he shouted terribly, calling to the Danaans: \"O\nfriends, Danaan heroes, men of Ares' company, play the man, my friends,\nand be mindful of impetuous valour. Do we deem that there be allies at\nour backs, or some wall stronger than this to ward off death from men?\nVerily there is not hard by any city arrayed with towers, whereby we\nmight defend ourselves, having a host that could turn the balance of\nbattle. Nay, but we are set down in the plain of the mailed men of Troy,\nwith our backs against the sea, and far off from our own land. Therefore\nis safety in battle, and not in slackening from the fight.\" So spake he,\nand rushed on ravening for battle, with his keen spear. And whosoever of\nthe Trojans was coming against the ship with blazing fire, to pleasure\nHector at his urging, him would Aias wound, awaiting him with his long\nspear, and twelve men in front of the ships at close quarters did he\nwound.\n\n\n\nBOOK XVI.\n\n    How Patroklos fought in the armour of Achilles, and drove\n    the Trojans from the ships, but was slain at last by Hector.\n\nSo they were warring round the well-timbered ship, but Patroklos drew\nnear Achilles, shepherd of the host, and he shed warm tears, even as a\nfountain of dark water that down a steep cliff pours its cloudy stream.\nAnd noble swift-footed Achilles when he beheld him was grieved for his\nsake, and accosted him, and spake winged words, saying: \"Wherefore\nweepest thou, Patroklos, like a fond little maid, that runs by her\nmother's side, and bids her mother take her up, snatching at her gown,\nand hinders her in her going, and tearfully looks at her, till the\nmother takes her up? like her, Patroklos, dost thou let fall soft tears.\nHast thou aught to tell to the Myrmidons, or to me myself, or is it some\ntidings out of Phthia that thou alone hast beard? Or dost thou lament\nfor the sake of the Argives,--how they perish by the hollow ships\nthrough their own transgression? Speak out, and hide it not within thy\nspirit, that we may both know all.\"\n\nBut with a heavy groan didst thou speak unto him, O knight Patroklos: \"O\nAchilles, son of Peleus, far the bravest of the Achaians, be not wroth,\nseeing that so great calamity has beset the Achaians. For verily all of\nthem that aforetime were the best are lying among the ships, smitten and\nwounded. Smitten is the son of Tydeus, strong Diomedes, and wounded is\nOdysseus, spearman renowned, and Agamemnon; and smitten is Eurypylos on\nthe thigh with an arrow. And about them the leeches skilled in medicines\nare busy, healing their wounds, but thou art hard to reconcile,\nAchilles. Never then may such wrath take hold of me as that thou\nnursest; thou brave to the hurting of others. What other men later born\nshall have profit of thee, if thou dost not ward off base ruin from the\nArgives? Pitiless that thou art, the knight Peleus was not then thy\nfather, nor Thetis thy mother, but the grey sea bare thee, and the sheer\ncliffs, so untoward is thy spirit. But if in thy heart thou art shunning\nsome oracle, and thy lady mother hath told thee somewhat from Zeus, yet\nme do thou send forth quickly, and make the rest of the host of the\nMyrmidons follow me, if yet any light may arise from me to the Danaans.\nAnd give me thy harness to buckle about my shoulders, if perchance the\nTrojans may take me for thee, and so abstain from battle, and the\nwarlike sons of the Achaians may take breath, wearied as they be, for\nbrief is the breathing in war. And lightly might we that are fresh drive\nmen wearied with the battle back to the citadel, away from the ships and\nthe huts.\"\n\nSo he spake and besought him, in his unwittingness, for truly it was to\nbe his own evil death and fate that he prayed for. Then to him in great\nheaviness spake swift-footed Achilles: \"Ah me, Patroklos of the seed of\nZeus, what word hast thou spoken? Neither take I heed of any oracle that\nI wot of, nor yet has my lady mother told me somewhat from Zeus, but\nthis dread sorrow comes upon my heart and spirit, from the hour that a\nman wishes to rob me who am his equal, and to take away my prize, for\nthat he excels me in power. A dread sorrow to me is this, after all the\ntoils that my heart hath endured. The maiden that the sons of the\nAchaians chose out for me as my prize, and that I won with my spear when\nI sacked a well-walled city, her has mighty Agamemnon the son of Atreus\ntaken back out of my hands, as though I were but some sojourner\ndishonourable. But we will let bygones be bygones. No man may be angry\nof heart for ever, yet verily I said that I would not cease from my\nwrath, until that time when to mine own ships should come the war-cry\nand the battle. But do thou on thy shoulders my famous harness, and lead\nthe war-loving Myrmidons to the fight, to ward off destruction from the\nships, lest they even burn the ships with blazing fire, and take away\nour desired return. But when thou hast driven them from the ships,\nreturn, and even if the loud-thundering lord of Hera grant thee to win\nglory, yet long not thou apart from me to fight with the war-loving\nTrojans; thereby wilt thou minish mine honour. Neither do thou, exulting\nin war and strife, and slaying the Trojans, lead on toward Ilios, lest\none of the eternal gods from Olympus come against thee; right dearly\ndoth Apollo the Far-darter love them. Nay, return back when thou halt\nbrought safety to the ships, and suffer the rest to fight along the\nplain. For would, O father Zeus, and Athene, and Apollo, would that not\none of all the Trojans might escape death, nor one of the Argives, but\nthat we twain might avoid destruction, that alone we might undo the\nsacred coronal of Troy.\"\n\nSo spake they each to other, but Aias no longer abode the onset, for he\nwas overpowered by darts; the counsel of Zeus was subduing him, and the\nshafts of the proud Trojans; and his bright helmet, being smitten, kept\nringing terribly about his temples: for always it was smitten upon the\nfair-wrought cheek-pieces. Moreover his left shoulder was wearied, as\nsteadfastly he held up his glittering shield, nor yet could they make\nhim give ground, as they pressed on with their darts around him. And\never he was worn out with difficult breath, and much sweat kept running\nfrom all his limbs, nor had he a moment to draw breath, so on all sides\nwas evil heaped on evil.\n\nTell me now, ye Muses that have mansions in Olympus, how first fire fell\non the ships of the Achaians. Hector drew near, and the ashen spear of\nAias he smote with his great sword, hard by the socket, behind the\npoint, and shore it clean away, and the son of Telamon brandished in his\nhand no more than a pointless spear, and far from him the head of bronze\nfell ringing on the ground.\n\nAnd Aias knew in his noble heart, and shuddered at the deeds of the\ngods, even how Zeus that thundereth on high did utterly cut off from him\navail in war, and desired victory for the Trojans. Then Aias gave back\nout of the darts. But the Trojans cast on the swift ship unwearying\nfire, and instantly the inextinguishable flame streamed over her: so the\nfire begirt the stern, whereon Achilles smote his thighs, and spake to\nPatroklos: \"Arise, Patroklos of the seed of Zeus, commander of the\nhorsemen, for truly I see by the ships the rush of the consuming fire.\nUp then, lest they take the ships, and there be no more retreat; do on\nthy harness speedily, and I will summon the host.\"\n\nSo spake he, while Patroklos was harnessing him in shining bronze. His\ngoodly greaves, fitted with silver clasps, he first girt round his legs,\nand next did on around his breast the well-dight starry corslet of the\nswift-footed son of Aiakos. And round his shoulders he cast a sword of\nbronze, with studs of silver, and next took the great and mighty shield,\nand on his proud head set a well-wrought helm with a horse-hair crest,\nand terribly nodded the crest from above. Then seized he two strong\nlances that fitted his grasp, only he took not the spear of the noble\nson of Aiakos, heavy, and huge, and stalwart, that none other of the\nAchaians could wield. And Patroklos bade Automedon to yoke the horses\nspeedily, even Automedon whom most he honoured after Achilles, the\nbreaker of the ranks of men, and whom he held trustiest in battle to\nabide his call. And for him Automedon led beneath the yoke the swift\nhorses, Xanthos and Balios, that fly as swift as the winds, the horses\nthat the harpy Podarge bare to the West Wind, as she grazed on the\nmeadow by the stream of Okeanos. And in the side-traces he put the\ngoodly Pedasos, that Achilles carried away, when he took the city of\nEetion; and being but a mortal steed, he followed with the immortal\nhorses.\n\nMeanwhile Achilles went and harnessed all the Myrmidons in the huts with\narmour, and they gathered like ravening wolves with strength in their\nhearts unspeakable. And among them all stood warlike Achilles urging on\nthe horses and the targeteers. And he aroused the heart and valour of\neach of them, and the ranks were yet the closer serried when they heard\nthe prince. And as when a man builds the wall of a high house with\nclose-set stones, to avoid the might of the winds, even so close were\narrayed the helmets and bossy shields, and shield pressed on shield,\nhelm on helm, and man on man, and the horse-hair crests on the bright\nhelmet-ridges touched each other when they nodded, so close they stood\nby each other.\n\nAnd straightway they poured forth like wasps that have their dwelling by\nthe wayside, and that boys are ever wont to vex, always tormenting them\nin their nests beside the way in childish sport, and a common evil they\nmake for many. With heart and spirit like theirs the Myrmidons poured\nout now from the ships, and a cry arose unquenchable, and Patroklos\ncalled on his comrades, shouting aloud: \"Myrmidons, ye comrades of\nAchilles son of Peleus, be men, my friends, and be mindful of your\nimpetuous valour, that so we may win honour for the son of Peleus, that\nis far the bravest of the Argives by the ships, and whose close-fighting\nsquires are the best. And let wide-ruling Agamemnon the son of Atreus\nlearn his own blindness of heart, in that he nothing honoured the best\nof the Achaians.\"\n\nSo spake he, and aroused each man's heart and courage, and all in a mass\nthey fell on the Trojans, and the ships around echoed wondrously to the\ncry of the Achaians. But when the Trojans beheld the strong son of\nMenoitios, himself and his squire, shining in their armour, the heart\nwas stirred in all of them, and the companies wavered, for they deemed\nthat by the ships the swift-footed son of Peleus had cast away his\nwrath, and chosen reconcilement: then each man glanced round, to see\nwhere he might flee sheer destruction.\n\nBut Patroklos first with a shining spear cast straight into the press,\nwhere most men were thronging, even by the stern of the ship of\ngreat-hearted Protesilaos, and he smote Pyraichmes, who led his Paionian\nhorsemen out of Amydon, from the wide water of Axios; him he smote on\nthe right shoulder, and he fell on his back in the dust with a groan,\nand his comrades around him, the Paionians, were afraid, for Patroklos\nsent fear among them all, when he slew their leader that was ever the\nbest in fight. Then he drove them out from the ships, and quenched the\nburning fire. And the half-burnt ship was left there, and the Trojans\nfled, with a marvellous din, and the Danaans poured in among the hollow\nships, and ceaseless was the shouting. And as when from the high crest\nof a great hill Zeus, the gatherer of the lightning, hath stirred a\ndense cloud, and forth shine all the peaks, and sharp promontories, and\nglades, and from heaven the infinite air breaks open, even so the\nDanaans, having driven the blazing fire from the ships, for a little\nwhile took breath, but there was no pause in the battle. For not yet\nwere the Trojans driven in utter rout by the Achaians, dear to Ares,\nfrom the black ships, but they still stood up against them, and only\nperforce gave ground from the ships. But even as robber wolves fall on\nthe lambs or kids, choosing them out of the herds, when they are\nscattered on hills by the witlessness of the shepherd, and the wolves\nbehold it, and speedily harry the younglings that have no heart of\ncourage,--even so the Danaans fell on the Trojans, and they were mindful\nof ill-sounding flight, and forgot their impetuous valour.\n\nBut that great Aias ever was fain to cast his spear at Hector of the\nhelm of bronze, but he, in his cunning of war, covered his broad\nshoulders with his shield of bulls' hide, and watched the hurtling of\nthe arrows, and the noise of spears. And verily well he knew the change\nin the mastery of war, but even so he abode, and was striving to rescue\nhis trusty comrades.\n\nAnd as when from Olympus a cloud fares into heaven, from the sacred air,\nwhen Zeus spreadeth forth the tempest, even so from the ships came the\nwar-cry and the rout, nor in order due did they cross the ditch again.\nBut his swift-footed horses bare Hector forth with his arms, and he left\nthe host of Troy, whom the delved trench restrained against their will.\nAnd in the trench did many swift steeds that draw the car break the\nfore-part of the pole, and leave the chariots of their masters.\n\nBut Patroklos followed after, crying fiercely to the Danaans, and full\nof evil will against the Trojans, while they with cries and flight\nfilled all the ways, for they were scattered, and on high the storm of\ndust was scattered below the clouds, and the whole-hooved horses\nstrained back towards the city, away from the ships and the huts.\n\nBut even where Patroklos saw the folk thickest in the rout, thither did\nhe guide his horses with a cry, and under his axle-trees men fell prone\nfrom their chariots, and the cars were overturned with a din of\nshattering. But straight over the ditch, in forward flight, leaped the\nswift horses. And the heart of Patroklos urged him against Hector, for\nhe was eager to smite him, but his swift steeds bore Hector forth and\naway. And even as beneath a tempest the whole black earth is oppressed,\non an autumn day, when Zeus pours forth rain most vehemently, and all\nthe rivers run full, and many a scaur the torrents tear away, and down\nto the dark sea they rush headlong from the hills, roaring mightily, and\nminished are the works of men, even so mighty was the roar of the Trojan\nhorses as they ran.\n\nNow Patroklos when he had cloven the nearest companies, drave them\nbackward again to the ships, nor suffered them to approach the city,\ndespite their desire, but between the ships, and the river, and the\nlofty wall, he rushed on them, and slew them, and avenged many a comrade\nslain. There first he smote Pronoos with a shining spear, where the\nshield left bare the breast, and loosened his limbs, and he fell with a\ncrash. Then Thestor the son of Enops he next assailed, as he sat\ncrouching in the polished chariot, for he was struck distraught, and the\nreins flew from his hands. Him he drew near, and smote with the lance on\nthe right jaw, and clean pierced through his teeth. And Patroklos caught\nhold of the spear and dragged him over the rim of the car, as when a man\nsits on a jutting rock, and drags a sacred fish forth from the sea, with\nline and glittering hook of bronze; so on the bright spear dragged he\nThestor gaping from the chariot, and cast him down on his face and life\nleft him as he fell. Next, as Euryalos came on, he smote him on the\nmidst of the head with a stone, and all his head was shattered within\nthe strong helmet, and prone on the earth he fell, and death that\nslayeth the spirit overwhelmed him. Next Erymas, and Amphoteros, and\nEpaltes and Tlepolemos son of Damastor, and Echios and Pyris, and Ipheus\nand Euippos, and Polymelos son of Argeas, all these in turn he brought\nlow to the bounteous earth. But when Sarpedon beheld his comrades with\nungirdled doublets, subdued beneath the hands of Patroklos son of\nMenoitios, he cried aloud, upbraiding the godlike Lykians: \"Shame, ye\nLykians, whither do ye flee? Now be ye strong, for I will encounter this\nman that I may know who he is that conquers here, and verily many evils\nhath he wrought the Trojans, in that he hath loosened the knees of many\nmen and noble.\"\n\nSo spake he, and leaped with his arms from the chariot to the ground.\nBut Patroklos, on the other side, when he beheld him leaped from his\nchariot. And they, like vultures of crooked talons and curved beaks,\nthat war with loud yells on some high cliff, even so they rushed with\ncries against each other. And beholding then the son of Kronos of the\ncrooked counsels took pity on them, and he spake to Hera, his sister and\nwife: \"Ah woe is me for that it is fated that Sarpedon, the best-beloved\nof men to me, shall be subdued under Patroklos son of Menoitios. And in\ntwo ways my heart within my breast is divided, as I ponder whether I\nshould catch him up alive out of the tearful war, and set him down in\nthe rich land of Lykia, or whether I should now subdue him beneath the\nhands of the son of Menoitios.\"\n\nThen the ox-eyed lady Hera made answer to him: \"Most dread son of\nKronos, what word is this thou hast spoken? A mortal man long doomed to\nfate dost thou desire to deliver again from death of evil name? Work thy\nwill, but all we other gods will in no wise praise thee. And another\nthing I will tell thee, and do thou lay it up in thy heart; if thou dost\nsend Sarpedon living to his own house, consider lest thereon some other\ngod likewise desire to send his own dear son away out of the strong\nbattle. For round the great citadel of Priam war many sons of the\nImmortals, and among the Immortals wilt thou send terrible wrath. But if\nhe be dear to thee, and thy heart mourns for him, truly then suffer him\nto be subdued in the strong battle beneath the hands of Patroklos son of\nMenoitios, but when his soul and life leave that warrior, send Death and\nsweet Sleep to bear him, even till they come to the land of wide Lykia,\nthere will his kindred and friends bury him, with a barrow and a pillar,\nfor this is the due of the dead.\"\n\nSo spake she, nor did the father of gods and men disregard her. But he\nshed bloody raindrops on the earth, honouring his dear son, that\nPatroklos was about to slay in the deep-soiled land of Troia, far off\nfrom his own country. Now when they were come near each other in onset,\nthere verily did Patroklos smite the renowned Thrasymelos, the good\nsquire of the prince Sarpedon, on the lower part of the belly, and\nloosened his limbs. But Sarpedon missed him with his shining javelin, as\nhe in turn rushed on, but wounded the horse Pedasos on the right\nshoulder with the spear, and he shrieked as he breathed his life away,\nand fell crying in the dust, and his spirit fled from him. But the other\ntwain reared this way and that, and the yoke creaked, and the reins were\nconfused on them, when their trace-horse lay in the dust. But thereof\ndid Automedon, the spearman renowned, find a remedy, and drawing his\nlong-edged sword from his stout thigh, he leaped forth, and cut adrift\nthe horse, with no delay, and the pair righted themselves, and strained\nin the reins, and they met again in life-devouring war.\n\nThen again Sarpedon missed with his shining dart, and the point of the\nspear flew over the left shoulder of Patroklos and smote him not, but he\nin turn arose with the bronze, and his javelin flew not vainly from his\nhand, but struck Sarpedon even where the midriff clasps the beating\nheart. And he fell as falls an oak, or a silver poplar, or a slim pine\ntree, that on the hills the shipwrights fell with whetted axes, to be\ntimber for ship-building; even so before the horses and chariot he lay\nat length, moaning aloud, and clutching at the bloody dust. And as when\na lion hath fallen on a herd, and slain a bull, tawny and high of heart,\namong the kine of trailing gait, and he perishes groaning beneath the\nclaws of the lion, even so under Patroklos did the leader of the Lykian\nshieldmen rage, even in death, and he called to his dear comrade: \"Dear\nGlaukos, warrior among warlike men, now most doth it behove thee to be a\nspearman, and a hardy fighter: now let baneful war be dear to thee, if\nindeed thou art a man of might. First fare all about and urge on the\nheroes that be leaders of the Lykians, to fight for Sarpedon, and\nthereafter thyself do battle for me with the sword. For to thee even in\ntime to come shall I be shame and disgrace for ever, all thy days, if\nthe Achaians strip me of mine armour, fallen in the gathering of the\nships. Nay, hold out manfully, and spur on all the host.\"\n\nEven as he spake thus, the end of death veiled over his eyes and his\nnostrils, but Patroklos, setting foot on his breast drew the spear out\nof his flesh, and the midriff followed with the spear, so that he drew\nforth together the spear point, and the soul of Sarpedon; and the\nMyrmidons held there his panting steeds, eager to fly afar, since the\nchariot was reft of its lords.\n\nThen dread sorrow came on Glaukos, when he heard the voice of Sarpedon,\nand his heart was stirred, that he availed not to succour him. And with\nhis hand he caught and held his arm, for the wound galled him, the wound\nof the arrow wherewith, as he pressed on towards the lofty wall, Teukros\nhad smitten him, warding off destruction from his fellows. Then in\nprayer spake Glaukos to far-darting Apollo: \"Hear, O Prince that art\nsomewhere in the rich land of Lykia, or in Troia, for thou canst listen\neverywhere to the man that is in need, as even now need cometh upon me.\nFor I have this stark wound, and mine arm is thoroughly pierced with\nsharp pains, nor can my blood be stanched, and by the wound is my\nshoulder burdened, and I cannot hold my spear firm, nor go and fight\nagainst the enemy. And the best of men has perished, Sarpedon, the son\nof Zeus, and he succours not even his own child. But do thou, O Prince,\nheal me this stark wound, and lull my pains, and give me strength, that\nI may call on my Lykian kinsmen, and spur them to the war, and myself\nmay fight about the dead man fallen.\"\n\nSo spake he in his prayer, and Phoebus Apollo heard him.  Straightway he\nmade his pains to cease, and in the grievous wound stanched the black\nblood, and put courage into his heart. And Glaukos knew it within him,\nand was glad, for that the great god speedily heard his prayer. First\nwent he all about and urged on them that were leaders of the Lykians to\nfight around Sarpedon, and thereafter he went with long strides among\nthe Trojans, to Polydamas son of Panthoos and noble Agenor, and he went\nafter Aineias, and Hector of the helm of bronze, and standing by them\nspake winged words: \"Hector, now surely art thou utterly forgetful of\nthe allies, that for thy sake, far from their friends and their own\ncountry, breathe their lives away! but thou carest not to aid them!\nSarpedon lies low, the leader of the Lykian shieldmen, he that defended\nLykia by his dooms and his might, yea him hath mailed Ares subdued\nbeneath the spear of Patroklos. But, friends, stand by him, and be angry\nin your hearts lest the Myrmidons strip him of his harness, and\ndishonour the dead, in wrath for the sake of the Danaans, even them that\nperished, whom we slew with spears by the swift ships.\"\n\nSo spake he, and sorrow seized the Trojans utterly, ungovernable and not\nto be borne; for Sarpedon was ever the stay of their city, all a\nstranger as he was, for many people followed with him, and himself the\nbest warrior of them all. Then they made straight for the Danaans\neagerly, and Hector led them, being wroth for Sarpedon's sake. But the\nfierce heart of Patrokloa son of Menoitios urged on the Achaians. And he\nspake first to the twain Aiantes that themselves were right eager:\n\"Aiantes, now let defence be your desire, and be such as afore ye were\namong men, or even braver yet. That man lies low who first leaped on to\nthe wall of the Achaians, even Sarpedon. Nay, let us strive to take him,\nand work his body shame, and strip the harness from his shoulders, and\nmany a one of his comrades fighting for his sake let us subdue with the\npitiless bronze.\"\n\nSo spake he, and they themselves were eager in defence.  So on both\nsides they strengthened the companies, Trojans and Lykians, Myrmidons\nand Achaians, and they joined battle to fight around the dead man\nfallen; terribly they shouted, and loud rang the harness of men. And as\nthe din ariseth of woodcutters in the glades of a mountain, and the\nsound thereof is heard far away, so rose the din of them from the\nwide-wayed earth, the noise of bronze and of well-tanned bulls' hides\nsmitten with swords and double-pointed spears. And now not even a\nclear-sighted man could any longer have known noble Sarpedon, for with\ndarts and blood and dust was he covered wholly from head to foot. And\never men thronged about the dead, as in a steading flies buzz around the\nfull milk-pails, in the season of spring, when the milk drenches the\nbowls, even so thronged they about the dead. Nor ever did Zeus turn from\nthe strong fight his shining eyes, but ever looked down on them, and\nmuch in his heart he debated of the slaying of Patroklos, whether there\nand then above divine Sarpedon glorious Hector should slay him likewise\nin strong battle with the sword, and strip his harness from his\nshoulders, or whether to more men yet he should deal sheer labour of\nwar. And thus to him as he pondered it seemed the better way, that the\ngallant squire of Achilles, Peleus' son, should straightway drive the\nTrojans and Hector of the helm of bronze towards the city, and should\nrob many of their life. And in Hector first he put a weakling heart, and\nleaping into his car Hector turned in flight, and cried on the rest of\nthe Trojans to flee, for he knew the turning of the sacred scales of\nZeus. Thereon neither did the strong Lykians abide, but fled all in\nfear, when they beheld their king stricken to the heart, lying in the\ncompany of the dead, for many had fallen above him, when Kronion made\nfierce the fight. Then the others stripped from the shoulders of\nSarpedon his shining arms of bronze, and these the strong son of\nMenoitios gave to his comrades to bear to the hollow ships. Then Zeus\nthat gathereth the clouds spake to Apollo: \"Prithee, dear Phoebus, go\ntake Sarpedon out of range of darts, and cleanse the black blood from\nhim, and thereafter bear him far away, and bathe him in the streams of\nthe river, and anoint him with ambrosia, and clothe him in garments that\nwax not old, and send him to be wafted by fleet convoy, by the twin\nbrethren Sleep and Death, that quickly will set him in the rich land of\nwide Lykia. There will his kinsmen and clansmen give him burial, with\nbarrow and pillar, for such is the due of the dead.\"\n\nSo spake he, nor was Apollo disobedient to his father. He went down the\nhills of Ida to the dread battle din, and straight way bore goodly\nSarpedon out of the darts, and carried him far away and bathed him in\nthe streams of the river, and anointed him with ambrosia, and clad him\nin garments that wax not old, and sent him to be wafted by fleet convoy,\nthe twin brethren Sleep and Death, that swiftly set him down in the rich\nland of wide Lykia. But Patroklos cried to his horses and Automedon, and\nafter the Trojans and Lykians went he, and so was blindly forgetful, in\nhis witlessness, for if he had kept the saying of the son of Peleus,\nverily he should have escaped the evil fate of black death. But ever is\nthe wit of Zeus stronger than the wit of men, so now he roused the\nspirit of Patroklos in his breast. There whom first, whom last didst\nthou slay, Patroklos, when the gods called thee deathward? Adrestos\nfirst, and Autonoos, and Echeklos, and Perimos, son of Megas, and\nEpistor, and Melanippos, and thereafter Elasos, and Moulios, and\nPylartes; these he slew, but the others were each man of them fain of\nflight. Then would the sons of the Achaians have taken high-gated Troy,\nby the hands of Patroklos, for around and before him he raged with the\nspear, but that Phoebus Apollo stood on the well-builded wall, with\nbaneful thoughts towards Patroklos, and succouring the Trojans. Thrice\nclomb Patroklos on the corner of the lofty wall, and thrice did Apollo\nforce him back and smote the shining shield with his immortal hands. But\nwhen for the fourth time he came on like a god, then cried far-darting\nApollo terribly, and spake winged words: \"Give back, Patroklos of the\nseed of Zeus! Not beneath thy spear is it fated that the city of the\nvaliant Trojans shall fall, nay nor beneath Achilles, a man far better\nthan thou.\"\n\nSo spake he, and Patroklos retreated far back, avoiding the wrath of\nfar-darting Apollo. But Hector within the Skaian gates was restraining\nhis whole-hooved horses, pondering whether he should drive again into\nthe din and fight, or should call unto the host to gather to the wall.\nWhile thus he was thinking, Phoebus Apollo stood by him in the guise of\na young man and a strong, Asios, who was the mother's brother of\nhorse-taming Hector, being own brother of Hekabe, and son of Dymas, who\ndwelt in Phrygia, on the streams of Sangarios. In his guise spake\nApollo, son of Zeus, to Hector: \"Hector, wherefore dost thou cease from\nfight? It doth not behove thee. Would that I were as much stronger than\nthou as I am weaker, thereon quickly shouldst thou stand aloof from war\nto thy hurt. But come, turn against Patroklos thy strong-hooved horses,\nif perchance thou mayst slay him, and Apollo give thee glory.\"\n\nSo spake the god, and went back again into the moil of men. But renowned\nHector bade wise-hearted Kebriones to lash his horses into the war. Then\nApollo went and passed into the press, and sent a dread panic among the\nArgives, but to the Trojans and Hector gave he renown. And Hector let\nthe other Argives be, and slew none of them, but against Patroklos he\nturned his strong-hooved horses, and Patroklos on the other side leaped\nfrom his chariot to the ground, with a spear in his left hand, and in\nhis other hand grasped a shining jagged stone, that his hand covered.\nFirmly he planted himself and hurled it, nor long did he shrink from his\nfoe, nor was his cast in vain, but he struck Kebriones the charioteer of\nHector, the bastard son of renowned Priam, on the brow with the sharp\nstone, as he held the reins of the horses. Both his brows the stone\ndrave together, and his bone held not, but his eyes fell to the ground\nin the dust, there, in front of his feet. Then he, like a diver, fell\nfrom the well-wrought car, and his spirit left his bones. Then taunting\nhim didst thou address him, knightly Patroklos: \"Out on it, how nimble a\nman, how lightly he diveth! Yea, if perchance he were on the teeming\ndeep, this man would satisfy many by seeking for oysters, leaping from\nthe ship, even if it were stormy weather, so lightly now he diveth from\nthe chariot into the plain. Verily among the Trojans too there be diving\nmen.\"\n\nSo speaking he set on the hero Kebriones with the rush of a lion, that\nwhile wasting the cattle-pens is smitten in the breast, and his own\nvalour is his bane, even so against Kebriones, Patroklos, didst thou\nleap furiously. But Hector, on the other side, leaped from his chariot\nto the ground. And these twain strove for Kebriones like lions, that on\nthe mountain peaks fight, both hungering, both high of heart, for a\nslain hind. Even so for Kebriones' sake these two masters of the\nwar-cry, Patroklos son of Menoitios, and renowned Hector, were eager\neach to hew the other's flesh with the ruthless bronze.\n\nHector then seized him by the head, and slackened not hold, while\nPatroklos on the other side grasped him by the foot, and thereon the\nothers, Trojans and Danaans, joined strong battle. And as the East wind\nand the South contend with one another in shaking a deep wood in the\ndells of a mountain, shaking beech, and ash, and smooth-barked cornel\ntree, that clash against each other their long boughs with marvellous\ndin, and a noise of branches broken, so the Trojans and Achaians were\nleaping on each other and slaying, nor had either side any thought of\nruinous flight. And many sharp darts were fixed around Kebriones, and\nwinged arrows leaping from the bow-string, and many mighty stones smote\nthe shields of them that fought around him. But he in the whirl of dust\nlay mighty and mightily fallen, forgetful of his chivalry.\n\nNow while the sun was going about mid-heaven, so long the darts smote\neither side, and the host fell, but when the sun turned to the time of\nthe loosing of oxen, lo, then beyond their doom the Achaians proved the\nbetter. The hero Kebriones drew they forth from the darts, out of the\ntumult of the Trojans, and stripped the harness from his shoulders, and\nwith ill design against the Trojans, Patroklos rushed upon them. Three\ntimes then rushed he on, peer of swift Ares, shouting terribly, and\nthrice he slew nine men. But when the fourth time he sped on like a god,\nthereon to thee, Patroklos, did the end of life appear, for Phoebus met\nthee in the strong battle, in dreadful wise. And Patroklos was not ware\nof him coming through the press, for hidden in thick mist did he meet\nhim, and stood behind him, and smote his back and broad shoulders with a\ndown-stroke of his hand, and his eyes were dazed. And from his head\nPhoebus Apollo smote the helmet that rolled rattling away with a din\nbeneath the hooves of the horses, the helm with upright socket, and the\ncrests were defiled with blood and dust. And all the long-shadowed spear\nwas shattered in the hands of Patroklos, the spear great and heavy and\nstrong, and sharp, while from his shoulders the tasselled shield with\nthe baldric fell to the ground.\n\nAnd the prince Apollo, son of Zeus, loosed his corslet, and blindness\nseized his heart and his shining limbs were unstrung, and he stood in\namaze, and at close quarters from behind a Dardanian smote him on the\nback, between the shoulders, with a sharp spear, even Euphorbos, son of\nPanthoos, who excelled them of his age in casting the spear, and in\nhorsemanship, and in speed of foot. Even thus, verily, had he cast down\ntwenty men from their chariots, though then first had he come with his\ncar to learn the lesson of war. He it was that first smote a dart into\nthee, knightly Patroklos, nor overcame thee, but ran back again and\nmingled with the throng, first drawing forth from the flesh his ashen\nspear, nor did he abide the onset of Patroklos, unarmed as he was, in\nthe strife. But Patroklos, being overcome by the stroke of the god, and\nby the spear, gave ground, and retreated to the host of his comrades,\navoiding Fate. But Hector, when he beheld great-hearted Patroklos give\nground, being smitten with the keen bronze, came nigh unto him through\nthe ranks, and wounded him with a spear, in the lowermost part of the\nbelly, and drave the bronze clean through. And he fell with a crash, and\nsorely grieved the host of Achaians. And as when a lion hath overcome in\nbattle an untiring boar, they twain fighting with high heart on the\ncrests of a hill, about a little well, and both are desirous to drink,\nand the lion hath by force overcome the boar that draweth difficult\nbreath; so after that he had slain many did Hector son of Priam take the\nlife away from the strong son of Menoitios, smiting him at close\nquarters with the spear; and boasting over him he spake winged words:\n\"Patroklos, surely thou saidst that thou wouldst sack my town, and from\nTrojan women take away the day of freedom, and bring them in ships to\nthine own dear country: fool! nay, in front of these were the swift\nhorses of Hector straining their speed for the fight; and myself in\nwielding the spear excel among the war-loving Trojans, even I who ward\nfrom them the day of destiny: but thee shall vultures here devour. Ah,\nwretch, surely Achilles for all his valour, availed thee not, who\nstraitly charged thee as thou camest, he abiding there, saying, 'Come\nnot to me, Patroklos lord of steeds, to the hollow ships, till thou hast\ntorn the gory doublet of man-slaying Hector about his breast;' so,\nsurely, he spake to thee, and persuaded the wits of thee in thy\nwitlessness.\"\n\nThen faintly didst thou answer him, knightly Patroklos: \"Boast greatly,\nas now, Hector, for to thee have Zeus, son of Kronos, and Apollo given\nthe victory, who lightly have subdued me; for themselves stripped my\nharness from my shoulders. But if twenty such as thou had encountered\nme, here had they all perished, subdued beneath my spear. But me have\nruinous Fate and the son of Leto slain, and of men Euphorbos, but thou\nart the third in my slaying. But another thing will I tell thee, and do\nthou lay it up in thy heart: verily thou thyself art not long to live,\nbut already doth Death stand hard by thee, and strong Fate, that thou\nart to be subdued by the hands of noble Achilles, of the seed of\nAiakos.\"\n\nEven as so he spake the end of death overshadowed him. And his soul,\nfleeting from his limbs, went down to the house of Hades, wailing its\nown doom, leaving manhood and youth.\n\nThen renowned Hector spake to him even in his death: \"Patroklos,\nwherefore to me dolt thou prophesy sheer destruction? who knows but that\nAchilles, the child of fair-tressed Thetis, will first be smitten by my\nspear, and lose his life?\"\n\nSo spake he, and drew the spear of bronze from the wound, setting his\nfoot on the dead, and cast him off on his back from the spear. And\nstraightway with the spear he went after Automedon, the godlike squire\nof the swift-footed Aiakides, for he was eager to smite him; but his\nswift-footed immortal horses bare him out of the battle, horses that the\ngods gave to Peleus, a splendid gift.\n\n\n\nBOOK XVII.\n\n    Of the battle around the body of Patroklos.\n\nBut Atreus' son, Menelaos dear to Ares, was not unaware of the slaying\nof Patroklos by the Trojans in the fray. He went up through the front of\nthe fight harnessed in flashing bronze, and strode over the body as\nabove a first-born calf standeth lowing its mother. Thus above Patroklos\nstrode fair-haired Menelaos, and before him held his spear and the\ncircle of his shield, eager to slay whoever should encounter him. Then\nwas Panthoos' son of the stout ashen spear not heedless of noble\nPatroklos as he lay, and he smote on the circle of the shield of\nMenelaos, but the bronze spear brake it not, but the point was bent back\nin the stubborn shield. And Menelaos Atreus' son in his turn made at him\nwith his bronze spear, having prayed unto father Zeus, and as he gave\nback pierced the nether part of his throat, and threw his weight into\nthe stroke, following his heavy hand; and sheer through the tender neck\nwent the point of the spear. And he fell with a crash, and his armour\nrang upon him. In blood was his hair drenched that was like unto the\nhair of the Graces, and his tresses closely knit with bands of silver\nand gold.\n\nThen easily would the son of Atreus have borne off the noble spoils of\nPanthoos' son, had not Phoebus Apollo grudged it to him, and aroused\nagainst him Hector peer of swift Ares, putting on the semblance of a\nman, of Mentes chief of the Kikones. And he spake aloud to him winged\nwords: \"Hector, now art thou hasting after things unattainable, even the\nhorses of wise Aiakides; for hard are they to be tamed or driven by\nmortal man, save only Achilles whom an immortal mother bare. Meanwhile\nhath warlike Menelaos Atreus' son stridden over Patroklos and slain the\nbest of the Trojans there, even Panthoos' son Euphorbos, and hath stayed\nhim in his impetuous might.\"\n\nThus saying the god went back into the strife of men, but dire grief\ndarkened Hectors inmost soul, and then he gazed searchingly along the\nlines, and straightway was aware of the one man stripping off the noble\narms, and the other lying on the earth; and blood was flowing about the\ngaping wound. Then he went through the front of the fight harnessed in\nflashing bronze, crying a shrill cry, like unto Hephaistos' flame\nunquenchable. Not deaf to his shrill cry was Atreus' son, and sore\ntroubled he spake to his great heart: \"Ay me, if I shall leave behind me\nthese goodly arms, and Patroklos who here lieth for my vengeance' sake,\nI fear lest some Danaan beholding it be wroth against me. But if for\nhonour's sake I do battle alone with Hector and the Trojans, I fear lest\nthey come about me many against one; for all the Trojans is\nbright-helmed Hector leading hither. But if I might somewhere find Aias\nof the loud war-cry, then both together would we go and be mindful of\nbattle even were it against the power of heaven, if haply we might save\nhis dead for Achilles Peleus' son: that were best among these ills.\"\n\nWhile thus he communed with his mind and heart, therewithal the Trojan\nranks came onward, and Hector at their head. Then Menelaos gave\nbackward, and left the dead man, turning himself ever about like a\ndeep-waned lion which men and dogs chase from a fold with spears and\ncries; and his strong heart within him groweth chill, and loth goeth he\nfrom the steading; so from Patroklos went fair-haired Menelaos, and\nturned and stood, when he came to the host of his comrades, searching\nfor mighty Aias Telamon's son. Him very speedily he espied on the left\nof the whole battle, cheering his comrades and rousing them to fight,\nfor great terror had Phoebus Apollo sent on them; and he hasted him to\nrun, and straightway stood by him and said: \"This way, beloved Aias; let\nus bestir us for the dead Patroklos, if haply his naked corpse at least\nwe may carry to Achilles, though his armour is held by Hector of the\nglancing helm.\"\n\nThus spake he, and aroused the heart of wise Aias. And he went up\nthrough the front of the fight, and with him fair-haired Menelaos. Now\nHector, when he had stripped from Patroklos his noble armour, was\ndragging him thence that he might cut off the head from the shoulders\nwith the keen bronze and carry his body to give to the dogs of Troy. But\nAias came anigh, and the shield that he bare was as a tower; then Hector\ngave back into the company of his comrades, and sprang into his chariot;\nand the goodly armour he gave to the Trojans to carry to the city, to be\ngreat glory unto him. But Aias spread his broad shield over the son of\nMenoitios and stood as it were a lion before his whelps when huntsmen in\na forest encounter him as he leadeth his young. And by his side stood\nAtreus' son, Menelaos dear to Ares, nursing great sorrow in his breast.\n\nThen Hector called on the Trojans with a mighty shout; \"Trojans and\nLykians and Dardanians that fight hand to hand, be men, my friends, and\nbethink you of impetuous valour, until I do on me the goodly arms of\nnoble Achilles that I stripped from brave Patroklos when I slew him.\"\n\nThus having spoken went Hector of the glancing helm forth out of the\nstrife of war, and ran and speedily with fleet feet following overtook\nhis comrades, not yet far off, who were bearing to the city Peleides'\nglorious arms. And standing apart from the dolorous battle he changed\nhis armour; his own he gave the warlike Trojans to carry to sacred\nIlios, and he put on the divine arms of Achilles, Peleus' son.\n\nBut when Zeus that gathereth the clouds beheld from afar off Hector\narming him in the armour of Peleus' godlike son, he shook his head and\nspake thus unto his soul: \"Ah, hapless man, no thought is in thy heart\nof death that yet draweth nigh unto thee; thou doest on thee the divine\narmour of a peerless man before whom the rest have terror. His comrade,\ngentle and brave, thou hast slain, and unmeetly hast stripped the armour\nfrom his head and shoulders; yet now for a while at least I will give\ninto thy hands great might, in recompense for this, even that nowise\nshalt thou come home out of the battle, for Andromache to receive from\nthee Peleides' glorious arms.\"\n\nThus spake the son of Kronos, and bowed his dark brows therewithal.\n\nBut the armour fitted itself unto Hectors body, and Ares the dread\nwar-god entered into him, and his limbs were filled within with valour\nand strength. Then he sped among the noble allies with a mighty cry, and\nin the flashing of his armour he seemed to all of them like unto Peleus'\ngreat-hearted son. And he came to each and encouraged him with his\nwords--Mesthles and Glaukos and Medon and Thersilochos and Asteropaios\nand Deisenor and Hippothoos and Phorkys and Chromios and the augur\nEnnomos--these encouraged he and spake to them winged words: \"Listen, ye\ncountless tribes of allies that dwell round about. It was not for mere\nnumbers that I sought or longed when I gathered each of you from your\ncities, but that ye might zealously guard the Trojans' wives and infant\nlittle ones from the war-loving Achaians. For this end am I wearying my\npeople by taking gifts and food from them, and nursing thereby the\ncourage of each of you. Now therefore let all turn straight against the\nfoe and live or die, for such is the dalliance of war. And whoso shall\ndrag Patroklos, dead though he be, among the horse-taming men of Troy,\nand make Aias yield, to him will I award half the spoils and keep half\nmyself; so shall his glory be great as mine.\"\n\nThus spake he, and they against the Danaans charged with all their\nweight, levelling their spears, and their hearts were high of hope to\ndrag the corpse from under Aias, Telamon's son. Fond men! from full many\nreft he life over that corpse. And then spake Aias to Menelaos of the\nloud war-cry: \"Dear Menelaos, fosterling of Zeus, no longer count I that\nwe two of ourselves shall return home out of the war. Nor have I so much\ndread for the corpse of Patroklos, that shall soon glut the dogs and\nbirds of the men of Troy, as for thy head and mine lest some evil fall\nthereon, for all is shrouded by a storm-cloud of war, even by Hector,\nand sheer doom stareth in our face. But come, call thou to the best men\nof the Danaans, if haply any hear.\"\n\nThus spake he, and Menelaos of the loud war-cry disregarded him not, but\nshouted unto the Danaans, crying a far-heard cry: \"O friends, ye leaders\nand counsellors of the Argives, who by the side of the sons of Atreus,\nAgamemnon and Menelaos, drink at the common cost and are all commanders\nof the host, on whom wait glory and honour from Zeus, hard is it for me\nto distinguish each chief amid the press--such blaze is there of the\nstrife of war. But let each go forward of himself and be wroth at heart\nthat Patroklos should become a sport among the dogs of Troy.\"\n\nThus spake he, and Oileus' son fleet Aias heard him clearly, and was\nfirst to run along the mellay to meet him, and after him Idomeneus, and\nIdomeneus' brother-in-arms, Meriones, peer of the man-slaying war-god.\nAnd who shall of his own thought tell the names of the rest, even of all\nthat after these aroused the battle of the Achaians?\n\nNow the Trojans charged forward in close array, and Hector led them. And\nas when at the mouth of some heaven-born river a mighty wave roareth\nagainst the stream, and arouseth the high cliffs' echo as the salt sea\nbelloweth on the beach, so loud was the cry wherewith the Trojans came.\nBut the Achaians stood firm around Menoitios' son with one soul all,\nwalled in with shields of bronze. And over their bright helmets the son\nof Kronos shed thick darkness, for in the former time was Menoitios' son\nnot unloved of him, while he was yet alive and squire of Aiakides. So\nwas Zeus loth that he should become a prey of the dogs of his enemies at\nTroy, and stirred his comrades to do battle for him.\n\nNow first the Trojans thrust back the glancing-eyed Achaians, who shrank\nbefore them and left the dead, yet the proud Trojans slew not any of\nthem with spears, though they were fain, but set to hale the corpse. But\nlittle while would the Achaians hold back therefrom, for very swiftly\nAias rallied them, Aias the first in presence and in deeds of all the\nDanaans after the noble son of Peleus. Right through the fighters in the\nforefront rushed he like a wild boar in his might that in the mountains\nwhen he turneth at bay scattereth lightly dogs and lusty young men\nthrough the glades. Thus did proud Telamon's son the glorious Aias press\non the Trojan battalions and lightly scatter them, as they had bestrode\nPatroklos and were full fain to drag him to their city and win renown.\n\nThen would the Trojans in their turn in their weakness overcome have\nbeen driven back into Ilios by the Achaians dear to Ares, and the\nArgives would have won glory even against the appointment of Zeus by\ntheir power and might. But Apollo himself aroused Aineias, putting on\nthe semblance of Periphas the herald, the son of Epytos, who grew old\nwith his old father in his heraldship, of friendly thought toward\nAineias. In his similitude spake Apollo, son of Zeus: \"Aineias, how\ncould ye ever guard high Ilios if it were against the will of God? Other\nmen have I seen that trust in their own might and power and valour, and\nin their host, even though they have scant folk to lead. But here,\nalbeit Zeus is fainer far to give victory to us than to the Danaans, yet\nye are dismayed exceedingly and fight not.\"\n\nThus spake he, and Aineias knew far-darting Apollo when he looked upon\nhis face, and spake unto Hector, shouting loud \"Hector and ye other\nleaders of the Trojans and their allies, shame were this if in our\nweakness overcome we were driven back into Ilios by the Achaians dear to\nAres. Nay, thus saith a god, who standeth by my side: Zeus, highest\nOrderer, is our helper in this fight. Therefore let us go right onward\nagainst the Danaans. Not easily at least let them take the dead\nPatroklos to the ships.\"\n\nThus spake he, and leapt forth far before the fighters in the front. And\nthe Trojans rallied and stood up against the Achaians. Thus strove they\nas it had been fire, nor wouldst thou have thought there was still sun\nor moon, for over all the battle where the chiefs stood around the slain\nson of Menoitios they were shrouded in darkness, while the other Trojans\nand well-greaved Achaians fought at ease in the clear air, and piercing\nsunlight was spread over them, and on all the earth and hills there was\nno cloud seen; and they ceased fighting now sad again, avoiding each\nother's dolorous darts and standing far apart. But they who were in the\nmidst endured affliction of the darkness and the battle, and all the\nbest men of them were wearied by the pitiless weight of their bronze\narms.\n\nThus all day long waxed the mighty fray of their sore strife; and\nunabatingly ever with the sweat of toil were the knees and legs and feet\nof each man and arms anal eyes bedewed as the two hosts did battle\naround the brave squire of fleet Aiakides. And as when a man giveth the\nhide of a great bull to his folk to stretch, all soaked in fat, and they\ntake and stretch it standing in a circle, and straightway the moisture\nthereof departeth and the fat entereth in under the haling of many\nhands, and it is all stretched throughout,--thus they on both sides\nhaled the dead man this way and that in narrow space, for their hearts\nwere high of hope, the Trojans that they should drag him to Ilios and\nthe Achaians to the hollow ships; and around him the fray waxed wild,\nnor might Ares rouser of hosts nor Athene despise the sight thereof,\nalbeit their anger were exceeding great.\n\nSuch was the grievous travail of men and horses over Patroklos that Zeus\non that day wrought. But not as yet knew noble Achilles aught of\nPatroklos' death, for far away from the swift ships they were fighting\nbeneath the wall of the men of Troy. Therefore never deemed he in his\nheart that he was dead, but that he should come back alive, after that\nhe had touched the gates; for neither that other thought had he anywise,\nthat Patroklos should sack the stronghold without his aid.\n\nNow the rest continually around the dead man with their keen spears made\nonset relentlessly and slew each the other. And thus would one speak\namong the mail-clad Achaians: \"Friends, it were verily not glorious for\nus to go back to the hollow ships; rather let the black earth yawn for\nus all beneath our feet. Far better were that straightway for us if we\nsuffer the horse-taming Trojans to hale this man to their city and win\nrenown.\"\n\nAnd thus on the other side would one of the great-hearted Trojans say:\n\"Friends, though it were our fate that all together we be slain beside\nthis man, let none yet give backward from the fray.\"\n\nThus would one speak, and rouse the spirit of each. So they fought on,\nand the iron din went up through the high desert air unto the brazen\nheaven. But the horses of Aiakides that were apart from the battle were\nweeping, since first they were aware that their charioteer was fallen in\nthe dust beneath the hand of man-slaying Hector. Verily Automedon,\nDiores' valiant son, plied them oft with blows of the swift lash, and\noft with gentle words he spake to them and oft with chiding, yet would\nthey neither go back to the ships at the broad Hellespont nor yet to the\nbattle after the Achaians, but as a pillar abideth firm that standeth on\nthe tomb of a man or woman dead, so abode they immovably with the\nbeautiful chariot, abasing their heads unto the earth. And hot tears\nflowed from their eyes to the ground as they mourned in sorrow for their\ncharioteer, and their rich manes were soiled as they drooped from\nbeneath the yoke-cushion on both sides beside the yoke. And when the son\nof Kronos beheld them mourning he had compassion on them, and shook his\nhead and spake to his own heart: \"Ah, hapless pair, why gave we you to\nking Peleus, a mortal man, while ye are deathless and ever young? Was it\nthat ye should suffer sorrows among ill-fated men? For methinketh there\nis nothing more piteous than a man among all things that breathe and\ncreep upon the earth. But verily Hector Priam's son shall not drive you\nand your deftly-wrought car; that will I not suffer. Is it a small thing\nthat he holdeth the armour and vaunteth himself vainly thereupon? Nay, I\nwill put courage into your knees and heart that ye may bring Automedon\nalso safe out of the war to the hollow ships. For yet further will I\nincrease victory to the men of Troy, so that they slay until they come\nunto the well-timbered ships, and the sun set and divine night come\ndown.\"\n\nThus saying he breathed good courage into the horses. And they shook to\nearth the dust from their manes, and lightly bare the swift car amid\nTrojans and Achaians. And behind them fought Automedon, albeit in grief\nfor his comrade, swooping with his chariot as a vulture on wild geese;\nfor lightly he would flee out of the onset of the Trojans and lightly\ncharge, pursuing them through the thick mellay. Yet could he not slay\nany man as he halted to pursue them, for it was impossible that being\nalone in his sacred car he should at once assail them with the spear and\nhold his fleet horses. Then at last espied him a comrade, even Alkimedon\nson of Laerkes, son of Haimon, and he halted behind the car and spake\nunto Automedon: \"Automedon, what god hath put into thy breast\nunprofitable counsel and taken from thee wisdom, that thus alone thou\nart fighting against the Trojans in the forefront of the press? Thy\ncomrade even now was slain, and Hector goeth proudly, wearing on his own\nshoulders the armour of Aiakides.\"\n\nAnd Automedon son of Diores answered him, saying: \"Alkimedon, what other\nAchaian hath like skill to guide the spirit of immortal steeds, save\nonly Patroklos, peer of gods in counsel, while he yet lived? but now\nhave death and fate overtaken him. But take thou the lash and shining\nreins, and I will get me down from my horses, that I may fight.\"\n\nThus spake he, and Alkimedon leapt on the fleet war-chariot and swiftly\ntook the lash and reins in his hands, and Automedon leapt down. And\nnoble Hector espied them, and straightway spake unto Aineias as he stood\nnear: \"Aineias, counsellor of mail-clad Trojans, I espy here the two\nhorses of fleet Aiakides come forth to battle with feeble charioteers.\nTherefore might I hope to take them if thou in thy heart art willing,\nsince they would not abide our onset and stand to do battle against us.\"\n\nThus spake he, and the brave son of Anchises disregarded him not. And\nthey twain went right onward, their shoulders shielded by ox-hides dried\nand tough, and bronze thick overlaid. And with them went both Chromios\nand godlike Aretos, and their hearts were of high hope to slay the men\nand drive off the strong-necked horses--fond hope, for not without blood\nlost were they to get them back from Automedon. He praying to father\nZeus was filled in his inmost heart with valour and strength. And\nstraightway he spake to Alkimedon, his faithful comrade: \"Alkimedon,\nhold the horses not far from me, but with their very breath upon my\nback; for I deem that Hector the son of Priam will not refrain him from\nhis fury until he mount behind Achilles' horses of goodly manes after\nslaying us twain, and dismay the ranks of Argive men, or else himself\nfall among the foremost.\"\n\nThus said he, and called upon the Aiantes and Menelaos: \"Aiantes,\nleaders of the Argives, and Menelaos, lo now, commit ye the corpse unto\nwhoso may best avail to bestride it and resist the ranks of men, and\ncome ye to ward the day of doom from us who are yet alive, for here in\nthe dolorous war are Hector and Aineias, the best men of the Trojans,\npressing hard. Yet verily these issues lie in the lap of the gods: I too\nwill cast my spear, and the rest shall Zeus decide.\"\n\nHe said, and poised his far-shadowing spear and hurled it, and smote on\nthe circle of the shield of Aretos, and the shield sustained not the\nspear, but right through went the bronze, and he forced it into his\nbelly low down through his belt. And as when a strong man with a sharp\naxe smiting behind the horns of an ox of the homestead cleaveth the\nsinew asunder, and the ox leapeth forward and falleth, so leapt Aretos\nforward and fell on his back; and the spear in his entrails very\npiercingly quivering unstrung his limbs. And Hector hurled at Automedon\nwith his bright spear, but he looked steadfastly on the bronze javelin\nas it came at him and avoided it, for he stooped forward, and the long\nspear fixed itself in the ground behind, and the javelin-butt quivered,\nand there dread Ares took away its force. And then had they lashed at\neach other with their swords hand to hand, had not the Aiantes parted\nthem in their fury, when they were come through the mellay at their\ncomrades' call. Before them Hector and Aineias and godlike Chromios\nshrank backward and gave ground and left Aretos wounded to the death as\nhe lay. And Automedon, peer of swift Ares, stripped off the armour of\nthe dead, and spake exultingly: \"Verily, I have a little eased my heart\nof grief for the death of Menoitios' son, albeit a worse man than him\nhave I slain.\"\n\nThus saying he took up the gory spoils and set them in his car, and gat\nhim thereon, with feet and hands all bloody, as a lion that hath\ndevoured a bull.\n\nNow great-hearted Aias and Menelaos were aware of Zeus how he gave the\nTrojans their turn to victory. First of these to speak was great Aias\nson of Telamon: \"Ay me, now may any man, even though he be a very fool,\nknow that father Zeus himself is helping the Trojans. Come, let us\nourselves devise some excellent means, that we may both hale the corpse\naway and ourselves return home to the joy of our friends, who grieve as\nthey look hitherward and deem that no longer shall the fury of\nman-slaying Hector's unapproachable hand refrain itself, but fall upon\nthe black ships. And would there were some comrade to carry tidings with\nall speed unto the son of Peleus, since I deem that he hath not even\nheard the grievous tidings, how his dear comrade is slain. But nowhere\ncan I behold such an one among the Achaians, for themselves and their\nhorses likewise are wrapped in darkness. O father Zeus, deliver thou the\nsons of the Achaians from the darkness, and make clear sky and vouchsafe\nsight unto our eyes. In the light be it that thou slayest us, since it\nis thy good pleasure that we die.\"\n\nThen fair-haired Menelaos departed glancing everywhither, as an eagle\nwhich men say hath keenest sight of all birds under heaven, and though\nhe be far aloft the fleet-footed hare eludeth him not by crouching\nbeneath a leafy bush, but the eagle swoopeth thereon and swiftly seizeth\nher and taketh her life. Thus in that hour, Menelaos fosterling of Zeus,\nranged thy shining eyes everywhither through the multitude of the host\nof thy comrades, if haply they might behold Nestor's son yet alive. Him\nquickly he perceived at the left of the whole battle, heartening his\ncomrades and rousing them to fight. And fair-haired Menelaos came and\nstood nigh and said unto him: \"Antilochos, fosterling of Zeus, come\nhither that thou mayest learn woful tidings--would it had never been.\nEre now, I ween, thou too hast known by thy beholding that God rolleth\nmischief upon the Danaans, and with the Trojans is victory. And slain is\nthe best man of the Achaians, Patroklos, and great sorrow is wrought for\nthe Danaans. But run thou to the ships of the Achaians and quickly tell\nthis to Achilles, if haply he may straightway rescue to his ship the\nnaked corpse: but his armour is held by Hector of the glancing helmet.\"\n\nThus spake he, and Antilochos had horror of the word he heard. And long\ntime speechlessness possessed him, and his eyes were filled with tears,\nand his full voice choked. Yet for all this disregarded he not the\nbidding of Menelaos, but set him to run, when he had given his armour to\na noble comrade, Laodokos, who close anigh him was wheeling his\nwhole-hooved horses.\n\nSo him his feet bare out of the battle weeping, to Achilles son of\nPeleus carrying an evil tale. But thy heart, Menelaos fosterling of\nZeus, chose not to stay to aid the wearied comrades from whom Antilochos\ndeparted, and great sorrow was among the Pylians. But to them Menelaos\nsent noble Thrasymedes, and himself went again to bestride the hero\nPatroklos. And he hasted and stood beside the Aiantes and straightway\nspake to them: \"So have I sent that man to the swift ships to go to\nfleet-footed Achilles. Yet deem I not that he will now come, for all his\nwrath against noble Hector, for he could not fight unarmed against the\nmen of Troy. But let us ourselves devise some excellent means, both how\nwe may hale the dead away, and how we ourselves may escape death and\nfate amid the Trojans' battle-cry.\"\n\nThen answered him great Aias Telamon's son, saying: \"All this hast thou\nsaid well, most noble Menelaos. But do thou and Meriones put your\nshoulders beneath the dead and lift him and bear him swiftly out of the\nfray, while we twain behind you shall do battle with the Trojans and\nnoble Hector, one in heart as we are in name, for from of old time we\nare wont to await fierce battle side by side.\"\n\nThus spake he, and the others took the dead man in their arms and lifted\nhim mightily on high. But the Trojan host behind cried aloud when they\nsaw the Achaians lifting the corpse, and charged like hounds that spring\nin front of hunter-youths upon a wounded wild boar, and for a while run\nin haste to rend him, but when he wheeleth round among them, trusting in\nhis might, then they give ground and shrink back here and there. Thus\nfor a while the Trojans pressed on with all their power, striking with\nswords and double-headed spears, but when the Aiantes turned about and\nhalted over against them, then they changed colour, and none dared\nfarther onset to do battle around the dead.\n\n\n\nBOOK XVIII.\n\n    How Achilles grieved for Patroklos, and how Thetis asked for\n    him new armour of Hephaistos; and of the making of the\n    armour.\n\nThus fought the rest in the likeness of blazing fire, while to Achilles\ncame Antilochos, a messenger fleet of foot. Him found he in front of his\nships of upright horns, boding in his soul the things which even now\nwere accomplished. And sore troubled he spake to his great heart: \"Ay\nme, wherefore again are the flowing-haired Achaians flocking to the\nships and flying in rout over the plain? May the gods not have wrought\nagainst me the grievous fears at my heart, even as my mother revealed\nand told me that while I am yet alive the best man of the Myrmidons must\nby deed of the men of Troy forsake the light of the sun. Surely now must\nMenoitios' valiant son be dead--foolhardy! surely I bade him when he\nshould have beaten off the fire of the foe to come back to the ships nor\nwith Hector fight amain.\"\n\nWhile thus he held debate in his heart and soul, there drew nigh unto\nhim noble Nestor's son, shedding hot tears, and spake his grievous\ntidings: \"Ay me, wise Peleus' son, very bitter tidings must thou hear,\nsuch as I would had never been. Fallen is Patroklos, and they are\nfighting around his body, naked, for his armour is held by Hector of the\nglancing helm.\"\n\nThus spake he, and a black cloud of grief enwrapped Achilles, and with\nboth hands he took dark dust and poured it over his head and defiled his\ncomely face, and on his fragrant doublet black ashes fell. And himself\nin the dust lay mighty and mightily fallen, and with his own hands tore\nand marred his hair. And the handmaidens, whom Achilles and Patroklos\ntook captive, cried aloud in the grief of their hearts, and ran forth\naround valiant Achilles, and all beat on their breasts with their hands,\nand the knees of each of them were unstrung. And Antilochos on the other\nside wailed and shed tears, holding Achilles' hands while he groaned in\nhis noble heart, for he feared lest he should cleave his throat with the\nsword. Then terribly moaned Achilles; and his lady mother heard him as\nshe sate in the depths of the sea beside her ancient sire. And thereon\nshe uttered a cry, and the goddesses flocked around her, all the\ndaughters of Nereus that were in the deep of the sea. With these the\nbright cave was filled, and they all beat together on their breasts, and\nThetis led the lament: \"Listen, sister Nereids, that ye all hear and\nknow well what sorrows are in my heart. Ay me unhappy, ay me that bare\nto my sorrow the first of men! For after I had borne a son noble and\nstrong, the chief of heroes, and he shot up like a young branch, then\nwhen I had reared him as a plant in a very fruitful field I sent him in\nbeaked ships to Ilios to fight against the men of Troy; but never again\nshall I welcome him back to his home, to the house of Peleus. And while\nhe yet liveth in my sight and beholdeth the light of the sun, he\nsorroweth, neither can I help him any whit though I go unto him. But I\nwill go, that I may look upon my dear child, and learn what sorrow hath\ncome to him though he abide aloof from the war.\"\n\nThus spake she and left the cave; and the nymphs went with her weeping,\nand around them the surge of the sea was sundered. And when they came to\ndeep-soiled Troy-land they went up upon the shore in order, where the\nships of the Myrmidons were drawn up thickly around fleet Achilles. And\nas he groaned heavily his lady mother stood beside him, and with a\nshrill cry clasped the bead of her child, and spake unto him winged\nwords of lamentation: \"My child, why weepest thou? what sorrow hath come\nto thy heart? Tell it forth, hide it not. One thing at least hath been\naccomplished of Zeus according to the prayer thou madest, holding up to\nhim thy hands, that the sons of the Achaians should all be pent in at\nthe ships, through lack of thee, and should suffer hateful things.\"\n\nThen groaning heavily spake unto her Achilles fleet of foot: \"My mother,\nthat prayer truly hath the Olympian accomplished for me. But what\ndelight have I therein, since my dear comrade is dead, Patroklos, whom I\nhonoured above all my comrades as it were my very self! Him have I lost,\nand Hector that slew him hath stripped from him the armour great and\nfair, a wonder to behold, that the gods gave to Peleus a splendid gift,\non the day when they laid thee in the bed of a mortal man. Would thou\nhadst abode among the deathless daughters of the sea, and Peleus had\nwedded a mortal bride! But now, that thou mayest have sorrow a thousand\nfold in thy heart for a dead son, never shalt thou welcome him back\nhome, since my soul biddeth me also live no longer nor abide among men,\nif Hector be not first smitten by my spear and yield his life, and pay\nfor his slaughter of Patroklos, Menoitios' son.\"\n\nThen answered unto him Thetis shedding tears: \"Short-lived, I ween, must\nthou be then, my child, by what thou sayest, for straightway after\nHector is death appointed unto thee.\"\n\nThen mightily moved spake unto her Achilles fleet of foot: \"Straightway\nmay I die, since I might not succour my comrade at his slaying. He hath\nfallen afar from his country and lacked my help in his sore need. Now\ntherefore, since I go not back to my dear native land, neither have at\nall been succour to Patroklos nor to all my other comrades that have\nbeen slain by noble Hector, but I sit beside my ships a profitless\nburden of the earth, I that in war am such an one as is none else of the\nmail-clad Achaians, though in council are others better--may strife\nperish utterly among gods and men, and wrath that stirreth even a wise\nman to be vexed, wrath that far sweeter than trickling honey waxeth like\nsmoke in the breasts of men, even as I was wroth even now against\nAgamemnon king of men. But bygones will we let be, for all our pain,\ncurbing the heart in our breasts under necessity. Now go I forth, that I\nmay light on the destroyer of him I loved, on Hector: then will I accept\nmy death whensoever Zeus willeth to accomplish it and the other immortal\ngods. For not even the mighty Herakles escaped death, albeit most dear\nto Kronian Zeus the king, but Fate overcame him and Hera's cruel wrath.\nSo also shall I, if my fate hath been fashioned likewise, lie low when I\nam dead. But now let me win high renown, let me set some Trojan woman,\nsome deep-bosomed daughter of Dardanos, staunching with both hands the\ntears upon her tender cheeks and wailing bitterly; yea, let them know\nthat I am come back, though I tarried long from the war. Hold not me\nthen from the battle in thy love, for thou shalt not prevail with me.\"\n\nThen Thetis the silver-footed goddess answered him, saying: \"Yea verily,\nmy child, no blame is in this, that thou ward sheer destruction from thy\ncomrades in their distress. But thy fair glittering armour of bronze is\nheld among the Trojans. Hector of the glancing helm beareth it on his\nshoulders in triumph, yet not for long, I ween, shall he glory therein,\nfor death is hard anigh him. But thou, go not yet down into the mellay\nof war until thou see me with thine eyes come hither. In the morning\nwill I return, at the coming up of the sun, bearing fair armour from the\nking Hephaistos.\"\n\nThus spake she and turned to go from her son, and as she turned she\nspake among her sisters of the sea: \"Ye now go down within the wide\nbosom of the deep, to visit the Ancient One of the Sea and our father's\nhouse, and tell him all. I am going to high Olympus to Hephaistos of\nnoble skill, if haply he will give unto my son noble armour shining\ngloriously.\"\n\nThus spake she, and they forthwith went down beneath the surge of the\nsea. And the silver-footed goddess Thetis went on to Olympus that she\nmight bring noble armour to her son.\n\nSo her unto Olympus her feet bore. But the Achaians with terrible cries\nwere fleeing before man-slaying Hector till they came to the ships and\nto the Hellespont. Nor might the well-greaved Achaians drag the corpse\nof Patroklos Achilles' squire out of the darts, for now again overtook\nhim the host and the horses of Troy, and Hector son of Priam, in might\nas it were a flame of fire. Thrice did glorious Hector seize him from\nbehind by the feet, resolved to drag him away, and mightily called upon\nthe men of Troy. Thrice did the two Aiantes, clothed on with impetuous\nmight, beat him off from the dead man, but he nathless, trusting in his\nmight, anon would charge into the press, anon would stand and cry aloud,\nbut he gave ground never a whit. As when shepherds in the field avail\nnowise to chase a fiery lion in fierce hunger away from a carcase, so\navailed not the two warrior Aiantes to scare Hector son of Priam from\nthe dead. And now would he have won the body and gained renown\nunspeakable, had not fleet wind-footed Iris come speeding from Olympus\nwith a message to the son of Peleus to array him, unknown of Zeus and\nthe other gods, for Hera sent her. And she stood anigh and spake to him\nwinged words: \"Rouse thee, son of Peleus, of all men most redoubtable!\nSuccour Patroklos, for whose body is terrible battle afoot before the\nships. There slay they one another, these guarding the dead corpse,\nwhile the men of Troy are fierce to hale him unto windy Ilios, and\nchiefliest noble Hector is fain to drag him, and his heart biddeth him\nfix the head on the stakes of the wall when he hath sundered it from the\ntender neck. But arise, lie thus no longer! let awe enter thy heart to\nforbid that Patroklos become the sport of dogs of Troy. Thine were the\nshame if he go down mangled amid the dead.\"\n\nThen answered her fleet-footed noble Achilles: \"Goddess Iris, what god\nsent thee a messenger unto me?\"\n\nAnd to him again spake wind-footed fleet Iris: \"It was Hera that sent\nme, the wise wife of Zeus, nor knoweth the high-throned son of Kronos\nnor any other of the Immortals that on snowy Olympus have their\ndwelling-place.\"\n\nAnd Achilles fleet of foot made answer to her and said: \"And how may I\ngo into the fray? The Trojans hold my arms; and my dear mother bade me\nforbear to array me until I behold her with my eyes returned, for she\npromised to bring fair armour from Hephaistos. Other man know I none\nwhose noble armour I might put on, save it were the shield of Aias\nTelamon's son. But himself, I ween, is in the forefront of the press,\ndealing death with his spear around Patroklos dead.\"\n\nThen again spake unto him wind-footed fleet Iris: \"Well are we also\naware that thy noble armour is held from thee. But go forth unto the\ntrench as thou art and show thyself to the men of Troy, if haply they\nwill shrink back and refrain them from battle, and the warlike sons of\nthe Achaians take breath.\"\n\nThus spake fleet-footed Iris and went her way. But Achilles dear to Zeus\narose, and around his strong shoulders Athene cast her tasselled aegis,\nand around his head the bright goddess set a crown of a golden cloud,\nand kindled therefrom a blazing flame. And as when a smoke issueth from\na city and riseth up into the upper air, from an island afar off that\nfoes beleaguer, while the others from their city fight all day in\nhateful war,--but with the going down of the sun blaze out the\nbeacon-fires in line, and high aloft rusheth up the glare for dwellers\nround about to behold, if haply they may come with ships to help in\nneed--thus from the head of Achilles soared that blaze toward the\nheavens. And he went and stood beyond the wall beside the trench, yet\nmingled not among the Achaians, for he minded the wise bidding of his\nmother. There stood he and shouted aloud, and afar off Pallas Athene\nuttered her voice, and spread terror unspeakable among the men of Troy.\nClear as the voice of a clarion when it soundeth by reason of\nslaughterous foemen that beleaguer a city, so clear rang forth the voice\nof Aiakides. And when they heard the brazen voice of Aiakides, the souls\nof all of them were dismayed, and the horses of goodly manes were fain\nto turn the chariots backward, for they boded anguish in their hearts,\nAnd the charioteers were amazed when they saw the unwearying fire blaze\nfierce on the head of the great-hearted son of Peleus, for the\nbright-eyed goddess Athene made it blaze. Thrice from over the trench\nshouted mightily noble Achilles, and thrice were the men of Troy\nconfounded and their proud allies. Yea there and then perished twelve\nmen of their best by their own chariot wheels and spears. But the\nAchaians with joy drew Patroklos forth of the darts and laid him on a\nlitter, and his dear comrades stood around lamenting him; and among them\nfollowed fleet-footed Achilles, shedding hot tears, for his true comrade\nhe saw lying on the bier, mangled by the keen bronze. Him sent he forth\nwith chariot and horses unto the battle, but home again welcomed never\nmore.\n\nThen Hera the ox-eyed queen sent down the unwearying Sun to be gone\nunwillingly unto the streams of Ocean. So the Sun set, and the noble\nAchaians made pause from the stress of battle and the hazardous war.\n\nBut the Achaians all night made moan in lamentation for Patroklos. And\nfirst of them in the loud lamentation was the son of Peleus, laying upon\nthe breast of his comrade his man-slaying hands and moaning very sore,\neven as a deep-bearded lion whose whelps some stag-hunter hath snatched\naway out of a deep wood; and the lion coming afterward grieveth and\nthrough many glens he rangeth on the track of the footsteps of the man,\nif anywhere he might find him, for most bitter anger seizeth him;--thus\nAchilles moaning heavily spake among the Myrmidons: \"Ay me, vain verily\nwas the word I uttered on that day when I cheered the hero Menoitios in\nhis halls and said that I would bring back to Opoeis his son in glory\nfrom the sack of Ilios with the share of spoil that should fall unto\nhim. Not all the purposes of men doth Zeus accomplish for them. It is\nappointed that both of us redden the same earth with our blood here in\nTroy-land, for neither shall the old knight Peleus welcome me back home\nwithin his halls, nor my mother Thetis, but even here shall earth keep\nhold on me. Yet now, O Patroklos, since I follow thee under earth, I\nwill not hold thy funeral till I have brought hither the armour and the\nhead of Hector, thy high-hearted slayer, and before thy pyre I will cut\nthe throats of twelve noble sons of the men of Troy, for mine anger thou\nart slain. Till then beside the beaked ships shalt thou lie as thou art,\nand around thee deep-bosomed women, Trojan and Dardanian, shall mourn\nthee weeping night and day, even they whom we toiled to win by our\nstrength and, our long spears when we sacked rich cities of mortal men.\"\n\nThus spake noble Achilles, and bade his comrades set a great tripod on\nthe fire, that with all speed they might wash from Patroklos the bloody\ngore. So they set a tripod of ablution on the burning fire, and poured\ntherein water and took wood and kindled it beneath; and the fire wrapped\nthe belly of the tripod, and the water grew hot. And when the water\nboiled in the bright bronze, then washed they him and anointed with\nolive oil, and filled his wounds with fresh ointment, and laid him on a\nbier and covered him with soft cloth from head to foot, and thereover a\nwhite robe. Then all night around Achilles fleet of foot the Myrmidons\nmade lament and moan for Patroklos.\n\nMeanwhile Zeus spake unto Hera his sister and wife: \"Thou hast\naccomplished this, O Hera, ox-eyed queen, thou hast aroused Achilles\nfleet of foot. Verily of thine own children must the flowing-haired\nAchaians be.\"\n\nThen answered unto him Hera the ox-eyed queen: \"Most dread son of\nKronos, what is this word thou hast said? Truly even a man, I ween, is\nto accomplish what he may for another man, albeit he is mortal and hath\nnot wisdom as we. How then was I who avow me the first of goddesses both\nby birth and for that I am called thy wife, and thou art king among all\nImmortals--how was I not in mine anger to devise evil against the men of\nTroy?\"\n\nSo debated they on this wise with one another. But Thetis of the silver\nfeet came unto the house of Hephaistos, imperishable, starlike, far seen\namong the dwellings of Immortals, a house of bronze, wrought by the\ncrook-footed god himself. Him found she sweating in toil and busy about\nhis bellows, for he was forging tripods twenty in all to stand around\nthe wall of his stablished hall, and beneath the base of each he had set\ngolden wheels, that of their own motion they might enter the assembly of\nthe gods and again return unto his house, a marvel to look upon. Thus\nmuch were they finished that not yet were away from the fire, and\ngathered all his gear wherewith he worked into a silver chest; and with\na sponge he wiped his face and hands and sturdy neck and shaggy breast,\nand did on his doublet, and took a stout staff and went forth limping;\nbut there were handmaidens of gold that moved to help their lord, the\nsemblances of living maids. In them is understanding at their hearts, in\nthem are voice and strength, and they have skill of the immortal gods.\nThese moved beneath their lord, and he gat him haltingly near to where\nThetis was, and set him on a bright seat, and clasped her hand in his\nand spake and called her by her name: \"Wherefore, long-robed Thetis,\ncomest thou to our house, honoured that thou art and dear? No frequent\ncomer art thou hitherto. Speak what thou hast at heart; my soul is fain\nto accomplish it; if accomplish it I can, and if it be appointed for\naccomplishment.\"\n\nThen answered unto him Thetis shedding tears: \"Hephaistos, hath there\nverily been any of all goddesses in Olympus that hath endured so many\ngrievous sorrows at heart as are the woes that Kronian Zeus hath laid\nupon me above all others? He chose me from among the sisters of the sea\nto enthrall me to a man, even Peleus Aiakos' son, and with a man I\nendured wedlock sore against my will. Now lieth he in his halls forspent\nwith grievous age, but other griefs are mine. A son he gave me to bear\nand nourish, the chief of heroes, and he shot up like a young branch.\nLike a plant in a very fruitful field I reared him and sent him forth on\nbeaked ships to Ilios to fight against the men of Troy, but never again\nshall I welcome him back to his home within the house of Peleus. And\nwhile he yet liveth in my sight and beholdeth the light of the sun, he\nsorroweth, neither can I help him any whit though I go unto him. The\nmaiden whom the sons of the Achaians chose out to be his prize, her hath\nthe lord Agamemnon taken back out of his hands. In grief for her wasted\nhe his heart, while the men of Troy were driving the Achaians on their\nships, nor suffered them to come forth. And the elders of the Argives\nentreated him, and told over many noble gifts. Then albeit himself he\nrefused to ward destruction from them, he put his armour on Patroklos\nand sent him to the war, and much people with him. All day they fought\naround the Skaian gates and that same day had sacked the town, but that\nwhen now Menoitios' valiant son had wrought much harm, Apollo slew him\nin the forefront of the battle, and gave glory unto Hector. Therefore\nnow come I a suppliant unto thy knees, if haply thou be willing to give\nmy short-lived son shield and helmet, and goodly greaves fitted with\nankle-pieces, and cuirass. For the armour that he had erst, his trusty\ncomrade lost when he fell beneath the men of Troy; and my son lieth on\nthe earth with anguish in his soul.\"\n\nThen made answer unto her the lame god of great renown: \"Be of good\ncourage, let not these things trouble thy heart. Would that so might I\navail to hide him far from dolorous death, when dread fate cometh upon\nhim, as surely shall goodly armour be at his need, such as all men\nafterward shall marvel at, whatsoever may behold.\"\n\nThus saying he left her there and went unto his bellows and turned them\nupon the fire and bade them work. And the bellows, twenty in all, blew\non the crucibles, sending deft blasts on every side, now to aid his\nlabour and now anon howsoever Hephaistos willed and the work went on.\nAnd he threw bronze that weareth not into the fire, and tin and precious\ngold and silver, and next he set on an anvil-stand a great anvil, and\ntook in his hand a sturdy hammer, and in the other he took the tongs.\n\nFirst fashioned he a shield great and strong, adorning it all over, and\nset thereto a shining rim, triple, bright-glancing, and therefrom a\nsilver baldric. Five were the folds of the shield itself; and therein\nfashioned he much cunning work from his wise heart.\n\nThere wrought he the earth, and the heavens, and the sea, and the\nunwearying sun, and the moon waxing to the full, and the signs every one\nwherewith the heavens are crowned, Pleiads and Hyads and Orion's might,\nand the Bear that men call also the Wain, her that turneth in her place\nand watcheth Orion, and alone hath no part in the baths of Ocean.\n\nAlso he fashioned therein two fair cities of mortal men. In the one were\nespousals and marriage feasts, and beneath the blaze of torches they\nwere leading the brides from their chambers through the city, and loud\narose the bridal song. And young men were whirling in the dance, and\namong them flutes and viols sounded high; and women standing each at her\ndoor were marvelling. But the folk were gathered in the assembly place;\nfor there a strife was arisen, two men striving about the blood-price of\na man slain; the one claimed to pay full atonement, expounding to the\npeople, but the other denied him and would take naught. And the folk\nwere cheering both, as they took part on either side. And heralds kept\norder among the folk, while the elders on polished stones were sitting\nin the sacred circle, and holding in their hands staves from the\nloud-voiced heralds. Then before the people they rose up and gave\njudgment each in turn. And in the midst lay two talents of gold, to be\ngiven unto him who should plead among them most righteously.\n\nBut around the other city were two armies in siege with glittering arms.\nAnd two counsels found favour among them, either to sack the town or to\nshare all with the townsfolk even whatsoever substance the fair city\nheld within. But the besieged were not yet yielding, but arming for an\nambushment. On the wall there stood to guard it their dear wives and\ninfant children, and with these the old men; but the rest went forth,\nand their leaders were Ares and Pallas Athene, both wrought in gold, and\ngolden was the vesture they had on. Goodly and great were they in their\narmour, even as gods, far seen around, and the folk at their feet were\nsmaller. And when they came where it seemed good to them to lay ambush,\nin a river bed where there was a common watering-place of herds, there\nthey set them, clad in glittering bronze. And two scouts were posted by\nthem afar off to spy the coming of flocks and of oxen with crooked\nhorns. And presently came the cattle, and with them two herdsmen playing\non pipes, that took no thought of the guile. Then the others when they\nbeheld these ran upon them and quickly cut off the herds of oxen and\nfair flocks of white sheep, and slew the shepherds withal. But the\nbesiegers, as they sat before the speech-places [from which the orators\nspoke] and heard much din among the oxen, mounted forthwith behind their\nhigh-stepping horses, and came up with speed. Then they arrayed their\nbattle and fought beside the river banks, and smote one another with\nbronze-shod spears. And among them mingled Strife and Tumult, and fell\nDeath, grasping one man alive fresh-wounded, another without wound, and\ndragging another dead through the mellay by the feet; and the raiment on\nher shoulders was red with the blood of men. Like living mortals they\nhurled together and fought, and haled the corpses each of the other's\nslain.\n\nFurthermore he set in the shield a soft fresh-ploughed field, rich tilth\nand wide, the third time ploughed; and many ploughers therein drave\ntheir yokes to and fro as they wheeled about. Whensoever they came to\nthe boundary of the field and turned, then would a man come to each and\ngive into his hands a goblet of sweet wine, while others would be\nturning back along the furrows, fain to reach the boundary of the deep\ntilth. And the field grew black behind and seemed as it were\na-ploughing, albeit of gold, for this was the great marvel of the work.\n\nFurthermore he set therein the demesne-land of a king, where hinds were\nreaping with sharp sickles in their hands. Some armfuls along the swathe\nwere falling in rows to the earth, whilst others the sheaf-binders were\nbinding in twisted bands of straw. Three sheaf-binders stood over them,\nwhile behind boys gathering corn and bearing it in their arms gave it\nconstantly to the binders; and among them the king in silence was\nstanding at the swathe with his staff, rejoicing in his heart. And\nhenchmen apart beneath an oak were making ready a feast, and preparing a\ngreat ox they had sacrificed; while the women were strewing much white\nbarley to be a supper for the hinds.\n\nAlso he set therein a vineyard teeming plenteously with clusters,\nwrought fair in gold; black were the grapes, but the vines hung\nthroughout on silver poles. And around it he ran a ditch of cyanus, and\nround that a fence of tin; and one single pathway led to it, whereby the\nvintagers might go when they should gather the vintage. And maidens and\nstriplings in childish glee bare the sweet fruit in plaited baskets. And\nin the midst of them a boy made pleasant music on a clear-toned viol,\nand sang thereto a sweet Linos-song [probably a lament for departing\nsummer] with delicate voice; while the rest with feet falling together\nkept time with the music and song.\n\nAlso he wrought therein a herd of kine with upright horns, and the kine\nwere fashioned of gold and tin, and with lowing they hurried from the\nbyre to pasture beside a murmuring river, beside the waving reed. And\nherdsmen of gold were following with the kine, four of them, and nine\ndogs fleet of foot came after them. But two terrible lions among the\nforemost kine had seized a loud-roaring bull that bellowed mightily as\nthey haled him, and the dogs and the young men sped after him. The lions\nrending the great bull's hide were devouring his vitals and his black\nblood; while the herdsmen in vain tarred on their fleet dogs to set on,\nfor they shrank from biting the lions but stood hard by and barked and\nswerved away.\n\nAlso the glorious lame god wrought therein a pasture in a fair glen, a\ngreat pasture of white sheep, and a steading, and roofed huts, and\nfolds.\n\nAlso did the glorious lame god devise a dancing-place like unto that\nwhich once in wide Knosos Daidalos wrought for Ariadne of the lovely\ntresses. There were youths dancing and maidens of costly wooing, their\nhands upon one another's wrists. Fine linen the maidens had on, and the\nyouths well-woven doublets faintly glistening with oil. Fair wreaths had\nthe maidens, and the youths daggers of gold hanging from silver\nbaldrics. And now would they run round with deft feet exceeding lightly,\nas when a potter sitting by his wheel that fitteth between his hands\nmaketh trial of it whether it run: and now anon they would run in lines\nto meet each other. And a great company stood round the lovely dance in\njoy; and through the midst of them, leading the measure, two tumblers\nwhirled.\n\nAlso he set therein the great might of the River of Ocean around the\nuttermost rim of the cunningly-fashioned shield.\n\nNow when he had wrought the shield great and strong, then wrought he him\na corslet brighter than a flame of fire, and he wrought him a massive\nhelmet to fit his brows, goodly and graven, and set thereon a crest of\ngold, and he wrought him greaves of pliant tin.\n\nSo when the renowned lame god had finished all the armour, he took and\nlaid it before the mother of Achilles. Then she like a falcon sprang\ndown from snowy Olympus, bearing from Hephaistos the glittering arms.\n\n\n\nBOOK XIX.\n\n    How Achilles and Agamemnon were reconciled before the\n    assembly of the Achaians, and Achilles went forth with them\n    to battle.\n\nNow Morning saffron-robed arose from the streams of Ocean to bring light\nto gods and men, and Thetis came to the ships, bearing his gift from the\ngod. Her dear son she found fallen about Patroklos and uttering loud\nlament; and round him many of his company made moan. And the bright\ngoddess stood beside him in their midst, and clasped her hand in his and\nspake and called upon his name: \"My child, him who lieth here we must\nlet be, for all our pain, for by the will of gods from the beginning was\nhe brought low. But thou take from Hephaistos arms of pride, arms\npassing goodly, such as no man on his shoulders yet hath borne.\"\n\nThus spake the goddess and in front of Aehifies laid the arms, and they\nrang all again in their glory. And awe fell on all the Myrmidons, nor\ndared any to gaze thereon, for they were awe-stricken. But when Achilles\nlooked thereon, then came fury upon him the more, and his eyes blazed\nterribly forth as it were a flame beneath their lids: glad was he as he\nheld in his hands that splendid gift of a god. But when he had satisfied\nhis soul in gazing on the glory of the arms, straightway to his mother\nspake he winged words: \"My mother, the arms the god has given are such\nas it beseemeth that the work of Immortals should be, and that no mortal\nman should have wrought. Now therefore will I arm me in them, but I have\ngrievous fear lest meantime on the gashed wounds of Menoitios' valiant\nson flies light and breed worms therein, and defile his corpse--for the\nlife is slain out of him--and so all his flesh shall rot.\"\n\nThen answered him Thetis, goddess of the silver feet: \"Child, have no\ncare for this within thy mind. I will see to ward from him the cruel\ntribes of flies which prey on men slain in fight: for even though he lie\ntill a whole year's course be run, yet his flesh shall be sound\ncontinually, or better even than now. But call thou the Achaian warriors\nto the place of assembly, and unsay thy wrath against Agamemnon shepherd\nof the host, and then arm swiftly for battle, and clothe thee with thy\nstrength.\"\n\nThus saying she filled him with adventurous might, while on Patroklos\nshe shed ambrosia and red nectar through his nostrils, that his flesh\nmight abide the same continually.\n\nBut noble Achilles went down the beach of the sea, crying his terrible\ncry, and roused the Achaian warriors. And they who before were wont to\nabide in the circle of the ships, and they who were helmsmen and kept\nthe steerage of the ships, or were stewards there and dealt out food,\neven these came then to the place of assembly, because Achilles was come\nforth, after long ceasing from grievous war. Limping came two of Ares'\ncompany, Tydeus' son staunch in fight and noble Odysseus, each leaning\non his spear, for their wounds were grievous still; and they went and\nsate them down in the forefront of the assembly. And last came Agamemnon\nking of men, with his wound upon him, for him too in the stress of\nbattle Kooen Antenor's son had wounded with his bronze-tipped spear. But\nwhen all the Achaians were gathered, then uprose fleet-footed Achilles\nand spake in their midst: \"Son of Atreus, was this in any wise the\nbetter way for both thee and me, what time with grief at our hearts we\nwaxed fierce in soul-devouring strife for the sake of a girl? Would that\nArtemis had slain her with her arrow at the ships, on the day whereon I\ntook her to me, when I had spoiled Lyrnessos; so should not then so many\nAchaians have bitten the wide earth beneath their enemies' hands, by\nreason of my exceeding wrath. It hath been well for Hector and the\nTrojans, but the Achaians I think shall long remember the strife that\nwas betwixt thee and me. But bygones will we let be, for all our pain,\nand curb under necessity the spirit within our breasts. I now will stay\nmy anger: it beseems me not implacably for ever to be wroth; but come\nrouse speedily to the fight the flowing-haired Achaians, that I may go\nforth against the men of Troy and put them yet again to the proof, if\nthey be fain to couch hard by the ships. Methinks that some among them\nshall be glad to rest their knees when they are fled out of the\nfierceness of the battle, and from before our spear.\"\n\nHe spake, and the well-greaved Achaians rejoiced that the great-hearted\nson of Peleus had made renouncement of his wrath. Then among them spake\nAgamemnon king of men, speaking from the place where he sat, not arisen\nto stand forth in their midst: \"O Danaan friends and heroes, men of\nAres' company, seemly is it to listen to him who standeth up to speak,\nnor behoveth it to break in upon his words: even toward a skilled man\nthat were hard. For amid the uproar of many men how should one listen,\nor yet speak? even the clearest-voiced speech is marred. To the son of\nPeleus I will declare myself, but ye other Argives give heed, and each\nmark well my word. Oft have the Achaians spoken thus to me, and\nupbraided me; but it is not I who am the cause, but Zeus and Destiny and\nErinys that walketh in the darkness, who put into my soul fierce madness\non the day when in the assembly I, even I, bereft Achilles of his meed.\nWhat could I do? it is God who accomplisheth all. Eldest daughter of\nZeus is Ate who blindeth all, a power of bane: delicate are her feet,\nfor not upon the earth she goeth, but walketh over the heads of men,\nmaking men fall; and entangleth this one or that. Ye even Zeus was\nblinded upon a time, he who they say is greatest among gods and men; yet\neven him Hera with a female wile deceived, on the day when Alkmene in\nfair-crowned Thebes was to bring forth the strength of Herakles. For\nthen proclaimed he solemnly among the gods: 'Here me ye all, both gods\nand goddesses, while I utter the council of my soul within my heart.\nThis day shall Eileithuia, the help of travailing women, bring to the\nlight a man who shall be lord over all that dwell round about, among the\nraise of men who are sprung of me by blood.' And to him in subtlety\nqueen Hera spake: 'Though wilt play the cheat and not accomplish thy\nword. Come now, Olympian, swear me a firm oath that verily and indeed\nshall that man be lord over all that dwell round about, who this day\nshall fall between a woman's feet, even he among all men who are of the\nlineage of thy blood.' So spake she, and Zeus no wise perceived her\nsubtlety but sware a mighty oath, and therewith was he sore blinded. For\nHera darted from Olympus' peak and came swiftly to Achaian Argus, were\nshe knew was the stately wife of Sthenelos son of Perseus, who was also\ngreat with child, and her seventh month had come. Her son Hera brought\nto the light, though his tale of months was untold, but she stayed\nAlkmene's bearing and kept the Eileithuiai from her aid. Then she\nbrought the tidings herself and to Kronos' son Zeus she spake: 'Father\nZeus of the bright lightning, a word will I speak to thee for my heed.\nToday is born a man of valor who shall rule among the Archives,\nEurystheus, son of Sthenelos the son of Perseus, of thy lineage; not\nunmeet is it that he be lord among Argives.' She said, but sharp pain\nsmote him in the depths of his soul, and straightway he seized Ate by\nher bright-haired head in the anger of his soul, and sware a mighty oath\nthat never again to Olympus and the starry heaven should Ate come, who\nblindeth all alike. He said, and whirling her in his hand flung her from\nthe starry heaven, and quickly came she down among the works of men. Yet\never he groaned against her when he beheld his beloved son in cruel\ntravail at Eurystheus' hest. Thus also I, what time great Hector of the\nglancing helm was slaying Argives at the sterns of our ships, could not\nbe unmindful of Ate, who blinded me at the first. But since thus blinded\nwas I, and Zeus bereft me of my wit, fain am I to make amends, and\nrecompense manifold for the wrong. Only arise thou to the battle and\nrouse the rest of the host. Gifts am I ready to offer, even all that\nnoble Odysseus went yesterday to promise in thy hut. So, if thou wilt,\nstay awhile, though eager, from battle, and squires shall take the gifts\nfrom my ship and carry them to thee, that thou mayest see that what I\ngive sufficeth thee.\"\n\nThen answered him Achilles swift of foot: \"Most noble son of Atreus,\nAgamemnon king of men, for the gifts, to give them as it beseemeth, if\nso thou wilt, or to withhold, is in thy choice. But now let us bethink\nus of battle with all speed; this is no time to dally here with\nsubtleties, for a great work is yet undone. Once more must Achilles be\nseen in the forefront of the battle, laying waste with his brazen spear\nthe battalions of the men of Troy. Thereof let each of you think as he\nfighteth with his man.\"\n\nThen Odysseus of many counsels answered him and said: \"Nay yet, for all\nthy valour, godlike Achilles, not against Ilios lead thou the sons of\nAchaians fasting to fight the men of Troy, since not of short spell\nshall the battle be, when once the ranks of men are met, and God shall\nbreathe valour into both. But bid the Achaians taste at the swift ships\nfood and wine; for thence is vigour and might. For no man fasting from\nfood shall be able to fight with the foe all day till the going down of\nthe sun; for though his spirit be eager for battle yet his limbs unaware\ngrow weary, and thirst besetteth him, and hunger, and his knees in his\ngoing fail. But the man who having his fill of food and wine fighteth\nthus all day against the enemy, his heart is of good cheer within him,\nnor anywise tire his limbs, ere all give back from battle. So come,\ndisperse the host and bid them make ready their meal. And the gifts let\nAgamemnon king of men bring forth into the midst of the assembly, that\nall Achaians may behold them with their eyes, and thou be glad at heart.\nAnd let him swear to thee an oath, standing in the midst of the Argives,\nthat he hath never gone up into the damsel's bed or lain with her, [O\nprince, as is the wont of man with woman]; and let thine own spirit be\nplacable within thy breast. Then let him make thee a rich feast of\nreconcilement in his hut, that thou have nothing lacking of thy right.\nAnd thou, son of Atreus, toward others also shalt be more righteous\nhereafter; for no shame it is that a man that is a king should make\namends if he have been the first to deal violently.\"\n\nThen to him spake Agamemnon king of men: \"Son of Laertes, I rejoice to\nlisten to thy speech; for rightfully hast thou told over all. And the\noath I am willing to swear, yea my heart biddeth it, nor will I forswear\nmyself before God. Let Achilles abide for a space, eager for battle\nthough he be, and all ye others abide together, until the gifts come\nforth from my hut, and we make faithful oath with sacrifice. But thee\nthyself I thus charge and bid. Choose thee young men, princes of the\nAchaian folk, and bear my gifts from my ship, even all that we promised\nyesterday to Achilles, and take with thee the women. And let Talthybios\nspeedily make me ready a boar-swine in the midst of the wide Achaian\nhost, to sacrifice to Zeus and to the Sun.\"\n\nAnd to him in answer swift-footed Achilles spake: \"Most noble son of\nAtreus, Agamemnon king of men, at some other time were it even better ye\nshould be busied thus, when haply there shall be some pause of war, and\nthe spirit within my breast shall be less fierce. But now they lie\nmangled on the field--even they whom Hector son of Priam slew, when Zeus\ngave him glory--and ye call men to their food. Verily for my part I\nwould bid the sons of the Achaians to fight now unfed and fasting, and\nwith the setting sun make ready a mighty meal, when we shall have\navenged the shame. Till then down my throat at least nor food nor drink\nshall go, since my comrade is dead, who in my hut is lying mangled by\nthe sharp spear, with his feet toward the door, and round him our\ncomrades mourn, wherefore in my heart to no thought of those matters,\nbut of slaying, and blood, and grievous moans of men.\"\n\nThen answered him Odysseus of many counsels: \"O Achilles, Peleus' son,\nmightiest of Achaians far, better and mightier not a little art thou\nthan I with the spear, but in counsel I may surpass thee greatly, since\nI was born first and know more things: wherefore let thy heart endure to\nlisten to my speech. Quickly have men surfeit of battle, of that wherein\nthe sword streweth most straw yet is the harvest scantiest, [i.e., in a\npitched battle there is little plunder, the hope of which might help to\nsustain men's efforts in storming a town] when Zeus inclineth his\nbalance, who is disposer of the wars of men. But it cannot be that the\nAchaians fast to mourn a corpse; for exceeding many and thick fall such\non every day; when then should there be rest from toil? Nay, it behoveth\nto bury him who is dead, steeling our hearts, when once we have wept him\nfor a day; but such as are left alive from hateful war must take thought\nof meat and drink, that yet more against our foes we may fight\nrelentlessly ever, clad in unyielding bronze. Then let none of the host\nhold back awaiting other summons; this is the summons, and ill shall it\nbe for whoso is left behind at the Argive ships; but all together as one\nwe will rouse against the horse-taming Trojans the fury of war.\"\n\nHe spoke, and took with him the sons of noble Nestor, and Meges son of\nPhyleus, and Thoas, and Meriones, and Lykomedes son of Kreiontes, and\nMelanippos. And they went on their way to the hut of Agamemnon, Atreus'\nson. Forthwith as the word was spoken so was the deed done. Seven\ntripods they bare from the hut, as he promised him, and twenty bright\ncaldrons, and twelve horses, and anon they led forth women skilled in\ngoodly arts, seven, and the eighth was fair-faced Briseis. Then\nOdysseus, having weighed ten talents of gold in all, led the way, and\nwith him young men of the Achaians bare the gifts. These they set in the\nmidst of the place of assembly, and Agamemnon rose up, and beside that\nshepherd of the host stood Talthybios, whose voice was like a god's, and\nheld a boar between his hands. And the son of Atreus drawing with his\nhands his knife, which ever hung beside the mighty scabbard of his\nsword, cut off the first hairs from the boar, and lifting up his hands\nhe prayed to Zeus, and all the Argives sat silent in their places, duly\nhearkening to the king. And he prayed aloud, looking up to the wide\nheaven: \"Be Zeus before all witness, highest and best of the gods, and\nEarth, and Sun, and Erinyes, who under earth take vengeance upon men,\nwhosoever for-sweareth himself, that never have I laid hand on the\ndamsel Briseis, neither to lie with her nor anywise else, but she has\nabode untouched within my huts. And if aught that I swear be false, may\nthe gods give me all sorrows manifold, that they send on him who sinneth\nagainst them in his oath.\"\n\nHe said, and cut the boar's throat with the pitiless knife. And the body\nTaithybios whirled and threw into the great wash of the hoary sea, to be\nthe food of fishes; but Achilles arose up and spake in the midst of the\nwarrior Argives: \"Father Zeus, sore madness dealest thou verily to men.\nNever could the son of Atreus have stirred the soul within my breast,\nnor led off the damsel implacably against my will, had not Zeus willed\nthat on many of the Achaians death should come. But now go forth to your\nmeal, that we may join battle thereupon.\"\n\nThus he spake and dispersed the assembly with all speed. The rest were\nscattered each to his own ship, but the great-hearted Myrmidons took up\nthe gifts, and bare them to the ship of godlike Achilles. And they laid\nthem in the huts and set the women there, and gallant squires drave the\nhorses among their troop.\n\nBut Briseis that was like unto golden Aphrodite, when she beheld\nPatroklos mangled by the keen spear, fell about him and made shrill\nlament, and tore with her hands her breast and tender neck, and\nbeautiful face. And she spake amid her weeping, that woman like unto\ngoddesses: \"Patroklos, dearest to my hapless heart, alive I left thee\nwhen I left this hut, but now, O prince of the people, I am come back to\nfind thee dead; thus evil ever followeth evil in my lot. My husband,\nunto whom my father and lady mother gave me, I beheld before our city\nmangled with the keen spear, and my three brothers whom my own mother\nbore, my near and dear, who all met their day of doom. But thou, when\nswift Achilles slew my husband and wasted godlike Mynes' city, wouldest\never that I should not even weep, and saidest that thou wouldst make me\ngodlike Achilles' wedded wife, and that ye would take me in your ships\nto Phthia and make me a marriage feast among the Myrmidons. Therefore\nwith all my soul I mourn thy death, for thou wert ever kind.\"\n\nThus spake she weeping, and thereon the women wailed, in semblance for\nPatroklos, but each for her own woe. But round Achilles gathered the\nelders of the Achaians, praying him that he would eat; but he denied\nthem with a groan: \"I pray you, if any kind comrade will hearken to me,\nbid me not sate my heart with meat and drink, since terrible grief is\ncome upon me. Till the sun go down I will abide, and endure continually\nuntil then.\"\n\nHe spoke, and his speech made the other chiefs depart, but the two sons\nof Atreus stayed, and noble Odysseus, and Nestor and Idomeneus and\nPhoinox, ancient knight, soothing him in his exceeding sorrow, but he\ncould no whit be soothed until he had entered the mouth of bloody war.\nAnd bethinking him he sighed very heavily and spake aloud: \"Thou too, O\nhapless, dearest of my friends, thyself wouldst verily of yore set forth\nin out hut with ready speed a savoury meal, what time the Achaians\nhasted to wage against the horse-taming Trojans dolorous war. But now\nthou liest mangled, and my heart will none of meat and drink, that stand\nwithin, for desire of thee. Nought worse than this could I endure, not\nthough I should hear of my father's death, who now I ween in Phthia is\nshedding big tears for lack of a son so dear, even me that in an alien\nland for sake of baleful Helen do battle with the men of Troy; nor\nthough it were my beloved son who is reared for me in Skyros (if still\nat least is godlike Neoptolemos alive). For hitherto had my soul within\nme trusted that I alone should perish far from horse-pasturing Argos,\nhere in the Trojan land, but that thou shouldest return to Phthia, so\nthat thou mightest take me the child in thy swift black ship from Skyros\nand show him everything--my substance and servants, and high-roofed\nmighty hall. For Peleus I ween already must be dead and gone, or else in\nfeeble life he hath sorrow of age, and of waiting ever for bitter news\nof me, till he hear that I am dead.\"\n\nThus spake he weeping, and the elders mourned with him, bethinking them\nwhat each had left at home. And when the son of Kronos beheld them\nsorrowing he pitied them, and forthwith to Athene spake he winged words:\n\"My child, thou hast then left utterly the man of thy heart. Hath\nAchilles then no longer a place within thy thought? He before the\nsteep-prowed ships sits mourning his dear comrade; the rest are gone to\ntheir meal, but he is fasting and unfed. But go, distil into his breast\nnectar and pleasant ambrosia, that no pains of hunger come on him.\"\n\nThus saying he sped forward Athene who before was fain. And she, like a\nfalcon wide-winged and shrill-voiced, hurled herself forth from heaven\nthrough the upper air. So while the Achaians were arming presently\nthroughout the camp, she in Achilles' breast distilled nectar and\npleasant ambrosia, that grievous hunger might not assail his knees, and\nthen herself was gone to the firm house of her mighty father. Then the\nAchaians poured forth from the swift ships. As when thick snowflakes\nflutter down from Zeus, chill beneath the blast of Boreas born in the\nupper air, so thick from the ships streamed forth bright glittering\nhelms and bossy shields, strong-plaited cuirasses and ashen spears. And\nthe sheen thereof went up to heaven and all the earth around laughed in\nthe flash of bronze, and there went a sound beneath the feet of the men,\nand in the midst of them noble Achilles harnessed him. His teeth gnashed\ntogether, and his eyes blazed as it were the flame of a fire, for into\nhis heart was intolerable anguish entered in. Thus wroth against the men\nof Troy he put on the gift of the god, which Hephaistos wrought him by\nhis art. First on his legs he set the fair greaves fitted with silver\nankle-pieces, and next he donned the cuirass about his breast. Then\nround his shoulders he slung the bronze sword silver-studded; then\nlastly he took the great and strong shield, and its brightness shone\nafar off as the moon's. Or as when over the sea there appeareth to\nsailors the brightness of a burning fire, and it burneth on high among\nthe mountains in some lonely steading--sailors whom storm-blasts bear\nunwilling over the sea, the home of fishes, afar from them they love:--\nso from Achilles' goodly well-dight shield the brightness thereof shot\nup toward heaven. And he lifted the stout helmet and set it on his head,\nand like a star it shone, the horse-hair crested helmet, and around it\nwaved plumes of gold that Hephaistos had set thick about the crest. Then\nnoble Achilles proved him in his armour to know whether it fitted unto\nhim, and whether his glorious limbs ran free; and it became to him as it\nwere wings, and buoyed up the shepherd of hosts.\n\nAnd forth from its stand he drew his father's spear, heavy and great and\nstrong: that spear could none other of the Achaians wield, but Achilles\nalone awaited to wield it, the Pelian ashen spear that Cheiron gave to\nhis father dear, from a peak of Pelion, to be the death of warriors. And\nAutomedon and Alkimos went about to yoke the horses, and put on them\nfair breast-straps, and bits within their jaws, and stretched the reins\nbehind to the firm-built chariot. Then Automedon took the bright lash,\nfitted to his hand, and sprang up behind the horses, and after him\nmounted Achilles armed, effulgent in his armour like bright Hyperion.\nAnd terribly he called upon the horses of his sire: \"Xanthos and Balios,\nfamed children of Podarge, in other sort take heed to bring your\ncharioteer safe back to the Danaan host, when we have done with battle,\nand leave him not as ye left Patroklos to lie there dead.\"\n\nThen the horse Xanthos of glancing feet made answer unto him from\nbeneath the yoke;--and he bowed with his head, and all his mane fell\nfrom the yoke-cushion beside the yoke and touched the ground;--for the\nwhite-armed goddess Hera gave him speech: \"Yea verily for this hour,\ndread Achilles, we will still bear thee safe, yet is thy death day nigh\nat hand, neither shall we be cause thereof, but a mighty god, and\nforceful Fate. For not through sloth or heedlessness of ours did the men\nof Troy from Patrokios' shoulders strip his arms, but the best of the\ngods, whom bright-haired Leto bore, slew him in the forefront of the\nbattle, and to Hector gave renown. We even with the wind of Zephyr,\nswiftest, they say, of all winds, well might run; nathless to thee\nthyself it is appointed to be slain in fight by a god and by a man.\"\n\nNow when he had thus spoken the Erinyes stayed his voice. And sore\ntroubled did fleet-footed Achilles answer him: \"Xanthos, why prophesiest\nthou my death? no wise behoveth it thee. Well know I of myself that it\nis appointed me to perish here, far from my father dear and mother;\nhowbeit anywise I will not refrain till I give the Trojans surfeit of\nwar.\"\n\nHe said, and with a cry among the foremost held on his whole-hooved\nsteeds.\n\n\n\nBOOK XX.\n\n    How Achilles made havoc among the men of Troy.\n\nSo by the beaked ships around thee, son of Peleus, hungry for war, the\nAchaians armed; and over against them the men of Troy, upon the high\nground of the plain.\n\nBut Zeus bade Themis call the gods to council from many-folded Olympus'\nbrow; and she ranged all about and bade them to the house of Zeus. There\nwas no River came not up, save only Ocean, nor any nymph, of all that\nhaunt fair thickets and springs of rivers and grassy water-meadows. And\nthey came to the house of Zeus who gathereth the clouds, and sat them\ndown in the polished colonnades which Hephaistos in the cunning of his\nheart had wrought for father Zeus.\n\nThus gathered they within the doors of Zeus; nor was the Earthshaker\nheedless of the goddess' call, but from the salt sea came up after the\nrest, and set him in the midst, and inquired concerning the purpose of\nZeus: \"Wherefore, O Lord of the bright lightning, hast thou called the\ngods again to council? Say, ponderest thou somewhat concerning the\nTrojans and Achaians? for lo, the war and the fighting of them are\nkindled very nigh.\"\n\nAnd Zeus, who gathered the clouds, answered him, saying: \"Thou knowest,\nO Earthshaker, the purpose within my breast, wherefor I gathered you\nhither; even in their perishing have I regard unto them. But for me I\nwill abide here, sitting within a fold of Olympus, where I will gladden\nmy heart with gazing; but go all ye forth that ye come among the Trojans\nand Achaians and succour these or those, howsoever each of you hath a\nmind. For if Achilles alone shall fight against the Trojans, not even a\nlittle while shall they hold back the son of Peleus, the fleet of foot.\nNay, but even aforetime they trembled when they looked upon him; now\ntherefore that his wrath for his friend is waxen terrible I fear me lest\nhe overleap the bound of fate, and storm the wall.\"\n\nThus spake the son of Kronos, and roused unabating war. For on this side\nand on that the gods went forth to war: to the company of the ships went\nHera, and Pallas Athene, and Poseidon, Earth-enfolder, and the Helper\nHermes, pro-eminent in subtle thoughts; and with these went Hephaistos\nin the greatness of his strength, halting, but his shrunk legs moved\nnimbly under him: but to the Trojans went Ares of the glancing helm, and\nwith him Phoebus of the unshorn hair, and archer Artemis, and Leto and\nXanthos and laughter-loving Aphrodite.\n\nNow for so long as gods were afar from mortal men, so long waxed the\nAchaians glorious, for that Achilles was come forth among them, and his\nlong ceasing from grim battle was at an end. And the Trojans were\nsmitten with sore trembling in the limbs of every one of them, in terror\nwhen they beheld the son of Peleus, fleet of foot, blazing in his arms,\npeer of man-slaying Ares. But when among the mellay of men the Olympians\nwere come down, then leapt up in her might Strife, rouser of hosts, then\nsent forth Athene a cry, now standing by the hollowed trench without the\nwall, and now on the echoing shores she shouted aloud. And a shout\nuttered Ares against her, terrible as the blackness of the storm, now\nfrom the height of the city to the Trojans calling clear, or again along\nSimois shore over Kallikolon he sped.\n\nSo urged the blessed gods both hosts to battle, then themselves burst\ninto fierce war. And terribly thundered the father of gods and men from\nheaven above; and from beneath Poseidon made the vast earth shake and\nthe steep mountain tops. Then trembled all the spurs of many-fountained\nIda, and all her crests, and the city of the Trojans, and the ships of\nthe Achaians. And the Lord of the Underworld, Aiedoneus, had terror in\nhell, and leapt from his throne in that terror and cried aloud, lest the\nworld be cloven above him by Poseidon, Shaker of earth, and his\ndwelling-place be laid bare to mortals and immortals--grim halls, and\nvast, and lothly to the gods. So loud the roar rose of that battle of\ngods. For against King Poseidon stood Phoebus Apollo with his winged\narrows, and against Enyalios stood Athene, bright-eyed goddess, and\nagainst Hera she of the golden shafts and echoing chase, even archer\nArtemis, sister of the Far-darter; and against Leto the strong Helper\nHermes, and against Hephaistos the great deep-eddying River, whom gods\ncall Xanthos and men Skamandros.\n\nThus gods with gods were matched. Meanwhile Achilles yearned above all\nto meet Hector, son of Priam, in the fray; for with that blood\nchiefliest his spirit bade him sate Ares, stubborn lord of war. But\nstraightway Apollo, rouser of hosts, moved Aineias to go to meet the son\nof Peleus, and filled him with brave spirit: and he made his own voice\nlike the voice of Lykaon the son of Priam; in his semblance spake\nApollo, son of Zeus: \"Aineias, counsellor of Trojans, where now are thy\nthreats wherewith thou didst boast to the Trojan lords over thy wine,\nsaying thou wouldest stand up in battle against Achilles, Peleus' son?\"\n\nAnd to him Aineias answered and said: \"Son of Priam, why biddest thou me\nthus face the fierce son of Peleus in battle, though I be not fain\nthereto? Not for the first time now shall I match me with Achilles,\nfleet of foot; once before drave he me with his spear from Ida, when he\nharried our kine and wasted Lyrnessos and Pedasos; but Zeus delivered me\nout of his hand and put strength into my knees that they were swift.\nElse had I fallen beneath the hands of Achilles, and of Athene who went\nbefore and gave him light, and urged him to slay Leleges and Trojans\nwith his spear of bronze. Therefore it is impossible for man to face\nAchilles in fight, for that ever some god is at his side to ward off\ndeath. Ay, and at any time his spear flieth straight, neither ceaseth\ntill it have pierced through flesh of man. But if God once give us fair\nfield of battle, not lightly shall he overcome me, not though he boast\nhim made of bronze throughout.\"\n\nAnd to him in answer spake Apollo son of Zeus: \"Yea, hero, pray thou too\nto the everliving gods; for thou too, men say, wast born of Aphrodite\ndaughter of Zeus, and Achilles' mother is of less degree among the gods.\nFor thy mother is child of Zeus, his but of the Ancient One of the Sea.\nCome, bear up thy unwearying spear against him, let him no wise turn\nthee back with revilings and bitter words.\"\n\nHe said, and breathed high spirit into the shepherd of the host, and he\nwent onward through the forefront of the fighting, harnessed in flashing\nbronze. But white-armed Hera failed not to discern Anchises' son as he\nwent through the press of men to meet the son of Peleus, and gathering\nthe gods about her she spake among them thus: \"Consider ye twain,\nPoseidon and Athene, within your hearts, what shall come of these things\nthat are done. Here is Aineias gone forth harnessed in flashing bronze,\nto meet the son of Peleus, and it is Phoebus Apollo that hath sent him.\nCome then, be it ours to turn him back straightway; or else let some one\nof us stand likewise beside Achilles and give him mighty power, so that\nhe fail not in his spirit, but know that they who love him are the best\nof the Immortals, and that they who from of old ward war and fighting\nfrom the Trojans are vain as wind. All we from Olympus are come down to\nmingle in this fight that he take no hurt among the Trojans on this\nday--afterward he shall suffer whatsoever things Fate span for him with\nher thread, at his beginning, when his mother bare him. If Achilles\nlearn not this from voice divine, then shall he be afraid when some god\nshall come against him in the battle; for gods revealed are hard to look\nupon.\"\n\nThen to her made answer Poseidon, Shaker of the earth: \"Hera, be not\nfierce beyond wisdom; it behoveth thee not. Not fain am I at least to\nmatch gods with gods in strife. Let us go now into some high place apart\nand seat us there to watch, and battle shall be left to men. Only if\nAres or Phoebus Apollo fall to fighting, or put constraint upon Achilles\nand hinder him from fight, then straightway among us too shall go up the\nbattle-cry of strife; right soon, methinks, shall they hie them from the\nissue of the fray back to Olympus to the company of the gods, overcome\nby the force of our hands.\"\n\nThus spake the blue-haired god, and led the way to the mounded wall of\nheaven-sprung Herakles, that lofty wall built him by the Trojans and\nPallas Athene, that he might escape the monster and be safe from him,\nwhat time he should make his onset from the beach to the plain. There\nsate them down Poseidon and the other gods, and clothed their shoulders\nwith impenetrable cloud. And they of the other part sat down on the\nbrows of Kallikolon around thee, Archer Phoebus, and Ares waster of\ncities. Thus they on either side sat devising counsels, but shrank all\nfrom falling to grievous war, and Zeus from his high seat commanded\nthem.\n\nMeanwhile the whole plain was filled with men and horses and ablaze with\nbronze; and the earth rang with the feet of them as they rushed together\nin the fray. Two men far better than the rest were meeting in the midst\nbetween the hosts, eager for battle, Aineias, Anchises' son, and noble\nAchilles. First came on Aineias threateningly, tossing his strong helm;\nhis rapid shield he held before his breast, and brandished his bronze\nspear. And on the other side the son of Peleus rushed to meet him like a\nlion, a ravaging lion whom men desire to slay, a whole tribe assembled:\nand first he goeth his way unheeding, but when some warrior youth hath\nsmitten him with a spear, the he gathereth himself open-mouthed, and\nfoam cometh forth about his teeth, and his stout spirit groaneth in his\nheart, and with his tail he scourgeth either side his ribs and flanks\nand goadeth himself on to fight, and glaring is borne straight on them\nby his passion, to try whether he shall slay some man of them, or\nwhether himself shall perish in the forefront of the throng: thus was\nAchilles driven of his passion and valiant spirit to go forth to meet\nAineias great of heart. And when they were come near against each other,\nthen first to Aineias spake fleet-footed noble Achilles: \"Aineias,\nwherefore hast thou so far come forward from the crowd to stand against\nme: doth thy heart bid thee fight with me in hope of holding Priam's\nhonour and lordship among the horse-taming Trojans? Nay, though thou\nslay me, not for that will Priam lay his kingdom in thy hands, for he\nhath sons, and is sound and of unshaken mind. Or have the Trojans\nallotted thee some lot of ground more choice than all the rest, fair\nland of tilth and orchard, that thou mayest dwell therein, if thou slay\nme? But methinks thou wilt find the slaying hard; for once before, I\nween, have I made thee flee before my spear. Host thou forgotten the day\nwhen thou wert alone with the kine, and I made thee run swift-footed\ndown Ida's steeps in haste?--then didst thou not look behind thee in thy\nflight. Thence fleddest thou to Lernessos, but I wasted it, having\nfought against it with the help of Athene and of father Zeus, and\ncarried away women captive, bereaving them of their day of freedom: only\nthee Zeus shielded, and other gods. But not this time, methinks, shall\nthey shield thee, as thou imaginest in thy heart: therefore I bid thee\ngo back into the throng and come not forth against me, while as yet thou\nart unhurt--after the event even a fool is wise.\"\n\nThen to him in answer again Aineias spake: \"Son of Peleus, think not\nwith words to affright me as a child, since I too well know myself how\nto speak taunts and unjust speech. We know each other's race and lineage\nin that we have heard the fame proclaimed by mortal men, but never hast\nthou set eyes on my parents, or I on thine. Thou, they say, art son of\nnobie Peleus, and of Thetis of the fair tresses, the daughter of the\nsea: the sire I boast is Anchises great of heart, and my mother is\nAphrodite. Of these shall one pair or the other mourn their dear son\ntoday; for verily not with idle words shall we two satisfy our strife\nand depart out of the battle. But, if thou wilt, learn also this, that\nthou mayest well know our lineage, known to full many men: First Zeus\nthe cloud-gatherer begat Dardanos, and he stablished Dardania, for not\nyet was holy Ilios built upon the plain to be a city of mortal men, but\nstill they dwelt on slopes of many-fountained Ida. Then Dardanos begat a\nson, king Erichthonios, who became richest of mortal men. Three thousand\nmares had he that pastured along the marsh meadow, rejoicing in their\ntender foals. Of them was Boreas enamoured as they grazed, and in\nsemblance of a dark-maned horse he covered them: then they having\nconceived bare twelve fillies. These when they bounded over Earth the\ngrain-giver would run upon the topmost ripened ears of corn and break\nthem not; and when they bounded over the broad backs of the sea they\nwould run upon the crests of the breakers of the hoary brine. Then\nErichthonios begat Tros to be load over the Trojans, and to Tros three\nnoble sons were born, Ilos and Assarakos and godlike Ganymedes, who\nbecame the most beautiful of mortal men. Him the gods caught up to be\ncupbearer to Zeus, for sake of his beauty, that he might dwell among\nimmortals. Then Ilos again begat a son, noble Laomedon, and Laomedon\nbegat Tithonos and Priam and Lamppos and Klytios and Hiketaon, of the\nstock of Ares. And Assarakos begat Kapys, and Kapys Anchises, and\nAnchises me; but Priam begat the goodly Hector.\n\n\"Lo then of this blood and lineage declare I myself unto thee. But for\nvalour, Zeus increaseth it in men or minisheth it according as he will,\nfor he is lord of all. But come, let us talk thus together no longer\nlike children, standing in mid onset of war. For there are revilings in\nplenty for both of us to utter--a hundred-thwarted ship would not\nsuffice for the load of them. Glib is the tongue of man, and many words\nare therein of every kind, and wide is the range of his speech hither\nand thither. Whatsoever word thou speak, such wilt thou hear in answer.\nBut what need that we should bandy strife and wrangling each against\neach. Not by speech shalt thou turn me from the battle that I desire,\nuntil we have fought together, point to point: come then, and\nstraightway we will each try the other with bronze-headed spears.\"\n\nHe said, and against that other's dread and mighty shield hurled his\ngreat spear, and the shield rang loud beneath the spear-point. And the\nson of Peleus held away the shield from him with his stout hand, in\nfear, for he thought that the far-shadowing spear of Aineias great of\nheart would lightly pierce it through--fond man, and knew not in his\nmind and heart that not lightly do the glorious gifts of gods yield to\nforce of mortal men. So did not the great spear of wise Aineias pierce\nthat shield, for the gold resisted it, even the gift of the god. Yet\nthrough two folds he drave it, but three remained, for five folds had\nthe lame god welded, two bronze, and two inside of tin, and one of gold;\ntherein was stayed the ashen spear.\n\nThen Achilles in his turn hurled his far-shadowing spear, and smote upon\nthe circle of the shield of Aineias, beneath the edge of the rim, where\nthe bronze ran thinnest round, and the bull-hide was thinnest thereon;\nand right through sped the Pelian ashen spear, and the shield cracked\nunder it. And Aineias crouched and held up the shield away from him in\ndread; and the spear flew over his back and fixed itself in the earth,\nhaving divided asunder the two circles of the sheltering shield. And\nhaving escaped the long spear he stood still, and a vast anguish drowned\nhis eyes, affrighted that the spear was planted by him so nigh. But\nAchilles drew his sharp sword and furiously made at him, crying his\nterrible cry: then Aineias grasped in his hand a stone (a mighty deed)\nsuch as two men, as men now are, would not avail to lift, but he with\nease wielded it all alone. Then would Aineias have smitten him with the\nstone as he charged, either on helm or shield, which had warded from him\nbitter death, and then would the son of Peleus have closed and slain him\nwith his sword, had not Poseidon, Shaker of earth, marked it with speed,\nand straightway spoken among the immortal gods: \"Alas, woe is me for\nAineias great of heart, who quickly will go down to Hades slain by the\nson of Peleus, for that he will obey the words of Apollo the far-darter,\nfond man, but nowise shall the god help him from grievous death. But\nwherefore now is he to suffer ill in his innocence, causelessly for\nothers' wickedness, yet welcome ever are his offerings to the gods who\ninhabit the spacious heaven? Come, let us guide him out of death's way,\nlest the son of Kronos be wroth, if Achilles slay him; for it is\nappointed to him to escape, that the race of Dardanos perish not without\nseed or sign, even Dardanos whom the son of Kronos loved above all the\nchildren born to him from the daughters of men. For the race of Priam\nhath Zeus already hated. But thus shall the might of Aineias reign among\nthe Trojans, and his children's children, who shall be born in the\naftertime.\"\n\nAnd him then answered Hera the ox-eyed queen: \"Shaker of earth, thyself\nwith thine own mind take counsel, whether thou wilt save Aineias, or\nleave him [to be slain, brave though he be, by Achilles, Peleus' son].\nFor by many oaths among all the Immortals have we two sworn, even Pallas\nAthene and I, never to help the Trojans from their evil day, not even\nwhen all Troy shall burn in the burning of fierce fire, and they that\nburn her shall be the warlike sons of the Achaians.\"\n\nNow when Poseidon Shaker of earth heard that, he went up amid the battle\nand the clash of spears, and came where Aineias and renowned Achilles\nwere. Then presently he shed mist over the eyes of Achilles, Peleus'\nson, and drew the bronze-headed ashen spear from the shield of Aineias\ngreat of heart, and set it before Achilles' feet, and lifted Aineias\nand swung him high from off the earth. Over many ranks of warriors, of\nhorses many, sprang Aineias soaring in the hand of the god, and lighted\nat the farthest verge of the battle of many onsets, where the Kaukones\nwere arraying them for the fight. Then hard beside him came Poseidon,\nShaker of earth, and spake aloud to him winged words: \"Aineias, what god\nis it that biddeth thee fight infatuate against Peleus' vehement son,\nwho is both a better man than thou and dearer to Immortals? Rather\nwithdraw thee whensoever thou fallest in with him, lest even contrary to\nthy fate thou enter the house of Hades. But when Achilles shall have met\nhis death and doom, then be thou of good courage to fight among the\nforemost, for there shall none other of the Achaians slay thee.\"\n\nHe spoke, and left him there, when he had shown him all these things.\nThen quickly from Achilles' eyes he purged the magic mist; and he stared\nwith wide eyes, and in trouble spake unto his proud soul: \"Ha! verily a\ngreat marvel behold I here with mine eyes. My spear lieth here upon the\nground, nor can I anywise see the man at whom I hurled it with intent to\nslay him. Truly then is Aineias likewise dear to the immortal gods,\nhowbeit I deemed that his boosting thereof was altogether vanity. Away\nwith him! not again will he find heart to make trial of me, now that\nonce more he has escaped death to his joy. But come, I will call on the\nwarlike Danaans and go forth to make trial of some other Trojan face to\nface.\"\n\nHe said, and leapt along the lines, and called upon each man: \"No longer\nstand afar from the men of Troy, noble Achaians, but come let man match\nman and throw his soul into the fight. Hard is it for me, though I be\nstrong, to assail so vast a folk and fight them all: not even Ares,\nthough an immortal god, nor Athene, could plunge into the jaws of such a\nfray and toil therein. But to my utmost power with hands and feet and\nstrength no whit, I say, will I be slack, nay, never so little, but\nright through their line will I go forward, nor deem I that any Trojan\nshall be glad who shall come nigh my spear.\"\n\nThus spake he urging them. But to the Trojans glorious Hector called\naloud, and proclaimed that he would go forth against Achilles:\n\"High-hearted Trojans, fear not Peleus' son. I too in words could fight\neven Immortals, but with the spear it were hard, for they are stronger\nfar. Neither shall Achilles accomplish all his talk, but part thereof he\nis to accomplish, and part to break asunder in the midst. And against\nhim will I go forth, though the hands of him be even as fire, yea though\nhis hands be as fire and his fierceness as the flaming steel.\"\n\nThus spake he urging them, and the Trojans raised their spears for\nbattle; and their fierceness was mingled confusedly, and the battle-cry\narose. Then Phoebus Apollo stood by Hector and spake to him: \"Hector, no\nlonger challenge Achilles at all before the lines, but in the throng\nawait him and from amid the roar of the battle, lest haply he spear thee\nor come near and smite thee with his sword.\"\n\nThus spake he, and Hector again fell back into the crowd of men, for he\nwas amazed when he heard the sound of a god's voice.\n\nBut Achilles sprang in among the Trojans, his heart clothed with\nstrength, crying his terrible cry, and first he took Iphition,\nOtrynteus' valiant son, a leader of much people, born of a Naiad nymph\nto Otrynteus waster of cities, beneath snowy Tmolos, in Hyde's rich\ndomain. Him as he came right on did goodly Achilles smite with his\nhurled spear, down through the midst of his head, and it was rent\nasunder utterly. And he fell with a crash, and goodly Achilles exulted\nover him; \"here is thy death, thy birth was on the Gygaian lake, where is\nthy sire's demesne, by Hyllos rich in fish and eddying Hermos.\"\n\nThus spake he exultant, but darkness fell upon the eyes of Iphition: him\nthe chariots of the Achaians clave with their tires asunder in the\nforefront of the battle, and over him Achilles pierced in the temples,\nthrough his bronze-cheeked helmet, Demoleon, brave stemmer of battle,\nAntenor's son. No stop made the bronze helmet, but therethrough sped the\nspear-head and clave the bone, and the brain within was all scattered:\nthat stroke made ending of his zeal. Then Hippodamas, as he leapt from\nhis chariot and fled before him, Achilles wounded in the back with his\nspear: and he breathed forth his spirit with a roar, as when a dragged\nbull roareth that the young men drag to the altar of the Lord of Helike;\nfor in such hath the Earthshaker his delight: thus roared Hippodamas as\nfrom his bones fled forth his haughty spirit. But Achilles with his\nspear went on after godlike Polydoros, Priam's son. Him would his sire\ncontinually forbid to fight, for that among his children he was youngest\nborn and best beloved, and overcame all in fleetness of foot. Just then\nin boyish folly, displaying the swiftness of his feet, he was rushing\nthrough the forefighters, until he lost his life. Him in the midst did\nfleet-footed noble Achilles smite with a javelin, in his back as he\ndarted by, where his belt's golden buckles clasped, and the breast and\nback plates overlapped: and right through beside the navel went the\nspear-head, and he fell on his knee with a cry, and dark cloud covered\nhim round about, and he clasped his bowels to him with his hands as he\nsank.\n\nThen when Hector saw his brother Polydoros clasping his bowels with his\nhands, and sinking to the earth, a mist fell over his eyes, nor longer\nmight he endure to range so far apart, but he came up against Achilles\nbrandishing his sharp spear, and like flame of fire. And Achilles when\nhe saw him, sprang up, and spake exultingly: \"Behold the man who hath\ndeepest stricken into my soul, who slew my dear-prized friend; not long\nshall we now shrink from each other along the highways of the war.\"\n\nHe said, and looking grimly spake unto goodly Hector: \"Come thou near,\nthat the sooner thou mayest arrive at the goal of death.\"\n\nThen to him, unterrified, said Hector of the glancing helm: \"Son of\nPeleus, think not with words to affright me as a child, since I too know\nmyself how to speak taunts and unjust speech. And I know that thou art a\nman of might, and a far better man than I. Yet doth this issue lie in\nthe lap of the gods, whether I though weaker shall take thy life with my\nhurled spear, for mine too hath been found keen ere now.\"\n\nHe said, and poised his spear and hurled it, and Athene with a breath\nturned it back from glorious Achilles, breathing very lightly; and it\ncame back to goodly Hector, and fell there before his feet. Then\nAchilles set fiercely upon him, eager to slay him, crying his terrible\ncry. But Apollo caught Hector up, very easily, as a god may, and hid him\nin thick mist. Thrice then did fleet-footed noble Achilles make onset\nwith his spear of bronze, and thrice smote the thick mist. [But when the\nfourth time he had come godlike on,] then with dread shout he spake to\nhim winged words: \"Dog, thou art now again escaped from death; yet came\nill very nigh thee; but now hath Phoebus Apollo saved thee, to whom thou\nmust surely pray when thou goest forth amid the clash of spears. Verily\nI will slay thee yet when I meet thee hereafter, if any god is helper of\nme too. Now will I make after the rest, whomsoever I may seize.\"\n\nThus speaking he pierced Dryops in the midst of his neck with his spear,\nand he fell down before his feet. But he left him where he lay, and\nhurled at Demuchos Philetor's son, a good man and a tall, and stayed him\nwith a stroke upon his knees; then smote him with his mighty sword and\nreft him of life. Then springing on Laogonos and Dardanos, sons of Bias,\nhe thrust both from their chariot to the ground, one with a spear-cast\nsmiting and the other in close battle with his sword. Then Tros,\nAlastor's son--he came and clasped his knees to pray him to spare him,\nand let him live, and slay him not, having compassion on his like\nage, fond fool, and knew not that he might not gain his prayers; for\nnowise soft of heart or tender was that man, but of fierce mood--with\nhis hands he touched Achilles' knees, eager to entreat him, but he smote\nhim in the liver with his sword, and his liver fell from him, and black\nblood therefrom filled his bosom, and he swooned, and darkness covered\nhis eyes. Then Achilles came near and struck Mulios in the ear, and\nright through the other ear went the bronze spear-head. Then he smote\nAgenor's son Echeklos on the midst of the head with his hilted sword,\nand all the sword grew hot thereat with blood; and dark death seized his\neyes, and forceful fate. Then next Deukalion, just where the sinews of\nthe elbow join, there pierced he him through the forearm with his bronze\nspear-head; so abode he with his arm weighed down, beholding death\nbefore him; and Achilles smiting the neck with his sword swept far both\nhead and helm, and the marrow rose out of the backbone, and the corpse\nlay stretched upon the earth. Then went he onward after Peires' noble\nson, Rhigmos, who had come from deep-soiled Thrace: him in the midst he\nsmote with his hurled javelin, and the point fixed in his lung, and he\nfell forth of his chariot. And Areithoos his squire, as he turned the\nhorses round, he pierced in the back with his sharp spear, and thrust\nhim from the car, and the horse ran wild with fear.\n\nAs through deep glens rageth fierce fire on some parched mountain-side,\nand the deep forest burneth, and the wind driving it whirleth every way\nthe flame, so raged he every way with his spear, as it had been a god,\npressing hard on the men he slew; and the black earth ran with blood.\nFor even as when one yoketh wide-browed bulls to tread white barley in a\nstablished threshing-floor, and quickly is it trodden out beneath the\nfeet of the loud-lowing bulls, thus beneath great-hearted Achilles his\nwhole-hooved horses trampled corpses and shields together; and with\nblood all the axletree below was sprinkled and the rims that ran around\nthe car, for blood-drops from the horses' hooves splashed them, and\nblood-drops from the tires of the wheels. But the son of Peleus pressed\non to win him glory, flecking with gore his irresistible hands.\n\n\n\nBOOK XXI.\n\n    How Achilles fought with the River, and chased the men of\n    Troy within their gates.\n\nBut when now they came unto the ford of the fair-flowing river, even\neddying Xanthos, whom immortal Zeus begat, there sundering them he\nchased the one part to the plain toward the city, even where the\nAchaians were flying in affright the day before, when glorious Hector\nwas in his fury--thither poured some in flight, and Hera spread before\nthem thick mist to hinder them:--but half were pent into the\ndeep-flowing silver eddied river, and fell therein with a mighty noise,\nand the steep channel sounded, and the banks around rang loudly; for\nwith shouting they swam therein hither and thither whirled round the\neddies. And as when at the rush of fire locusts take wing to fly unto a\nriver, and the unwearying fire flameth forth on them with sudden onset,\nand they huddle in the water; so before Achilles was the stream of\ndeep-eddying Xanthos filled with the roar and the throng of horses and\nmen.\n\nThen the seed of Zeus left behind him his spear upon the bank, leant\nagainst tamarisk bushes, and leapt in, as it were a god, keeping his\nsword alone, and devised grim work at heart, and smote as he turned him\nevery way about: and their groaning went up ghastly as they were\nstricken by the sword, and the water reddened with blood. As before a\ndolphin of huge maw fly other fish and fill the nooks of some\nfair-havened bay, in terror, for he devoureth amain whichsoever of them\nhe may catch; so along the channels of that dread stream the Trojans\ncrouched beneath the precipitous sides. And when his hands were weary of\nslaughter he chose twelve young men alive out of the river, an atonement\nfor Patroklos, Menoitios' son that was dead. These brought he forth\namazed like fawns, and bound behind them their hands with well-cut\nthongs, which they themselves wore on their pliant doublets, and gave\nthem to his comrades to lead down to the hollow ships. Then again he\nmade his onset, athirst for slaying.\n\nThere met he a son of Dardanid Priam, in flight out of the river,\nLykaon, whom once himself he took and brought unwilling out of his\nfather's orchard, in a night assault; he was cutting with keen bronze\nyoung shoots of a wild fig tree, to be hand-rails of a chariot; but to\nhim an unlooked-for bane came goodly Achilles. And at that time he sold\nhim into well-peopled Lemnos, sending him on ship board, and the son of\nJason gave a price for him; and thence a guest friend freed him with a\ngreat ransom, Eetion of Imbros, and sent him to goodly Arisbe; whence\nflying secretly he came to his father's house. Eleven days he rejoiced\namong his friends after he was come from Lemnos, but on the twelfth once\nmore God brought him into the hands of Achilles, who was to send him to\nthe house of Hades though nowise fain to go. Him when fleet-footed noble\nAchilles saw bare of helm and shield, neither had he a spear, but had\nthrown all to the ground; for he sweated grievously as he tried to flee\nout of the river, and his knees were failing him for weariness: then in\nwrath spake Achilles to his great heart: \"Ha! verily great marvel is\nthis that I behold with my eyes. Surely then will the proud Trojans whom\nI have slain rise up again from beneath the murky gloom, since thus hath\nthis man come back escaped from his pitiless fate, though sold into\ngoodly Lemnos, neither hath the deep of the hoary sea stayed him, that\nholdeth many against their will. But come then, of our spear's point\nshall he taste, that I may see and learn in my mind whether likewise he\nshall come back even from beneath, or whether the life-giving Earth\nshall hold him down, she that holdeth so even the strong.\"\n\nThus pondered he in his place; but the other came near amazed, fain to\ntouch his knees, for his soul longed exceedingly to flee from evil death\nand black destruction. Then goodly Achilles lifted his long spear with\nintent to smite him, but he stooped and ran under it and caught his\nknees; and the spear went over his back and stood in the ground,\nhungering for flesh of men. Then Lykaon besought him, with one hand\nholding his knees, while with the other he held the sharp spear and\nloosed it not, and spake to him winged words: \"I cry thee mercy,\nAchilles; have thou regard and pity for me: to thee, O fosterling of\nZeus, am I in the bonds of suppliantship. For at thy table first I\ntasted meal of Demeter on the day when thou didst take me captive in the\nwell-ordered orchard, and didst sell me away from my father and my\nfriends unto goodly Lemnos, and I fetched thee the price of a hundred\noxen. And now have I been ransomed for thrice that, and this is my\ntwelfth morn since I came to Ilios after much pain. Now once again hath\nruinous fate delivered me unto thy hands; surely I must be hated of\nfather Zeus, that he hath given me a second time unto thee; and to short\nlife my mother bare me, Laothoe, old Altes' daughter--Altes who ruleth\namong the war-loving Leleges, holding steep Pedasos on the Satnioeis.\nHis daughter Priam had to wife, with many others, and of her were we two\nborn, and thou wilt butcher both. Him among the foremost of the\nfoot-soldiers didst thou lay low, even godlike Polydoros, when thou\nsmotest him with they sharp spear: and now will it go hard with me here,\nfor no hope have I to escape thy hands, since God hath delivered me\nthereunto. Yet one thing will I tell thee, and do thou lay it to heart:\nslay me not, since I am not of the same mother as Hector, who slew thy\ncomrade the gentle and brave.\"\n\nThus spake to him the noble son of Priam, beseeching him with words, but\nhe heard a voice implacable: \"Fond fool, proffer me no ransom, nor these\nwords. Until Patroklos met his fated day, then was it welcomer to my\nsoul to spare the men of Troy, and many I took alive and sold beyond the\nsea: but now there is none shall escape death, whomsoever before Ilios\nGod shall deliver into my hands--yes, even among all Trojans, but\nchiefest among Priam's sons. Ay, friend, thou too must die: why\nlamentest thou? Patroklos is dead, who was better far than thou. Seest\nthou not also what manner of man am I for might and goodliness? and a\ngood man was my father, and a goddess mother bare me. Yet over me too\nhang death and forceful fate. There cometh morn or eve or some noonday\nwhen my life too some man shall take in battle, whether with spear he\nsmite or arrow from the string.\"\n\nThus spake he, and the other's knees and heart were unstrung. He let go\nAchilles' spear, and sat with both hands outspread. But Achilles drew\nhis sharp sword and smote on the collar-bone beside the neck, and all\nthe two-edged sword sank into him, and he lay stretched prone upon the\nearth, and blood flowed dark from him and soaked the earth. Him seized\nAchilles by the foot and sent him down the stream, and over him exulting\nspake winged words: \"There lie thou among the fishes, which shall lick\noff thy wound's blood heedlessly, nor shall thy mother lay thee on a bed\nand mourn for thee, but Skamandros shall bear thee on his eddies into\nthe broad bosom of the sea. Leaping along the wave shall many a fish\ndart up to the dark ripple to eat of the white flesh of Lykaon. So\nperish all, until we reach the citadel of sacred Ilios, ye flying and I\nbehind destroying. Nor even the River, fair-flowing, silver-eddied,\nshall avail you, to whom long time forsooth ye sacrifice many bulls, and\namong his eddies throw whole-hooved horses down alive. For all this yet\nshall ye die the death, until ye pay all for Patroklos' slaying and the\nslaughter of Achaians whom at the swift ships ye slew while I tarried\nafar.\"\n\nThus spake he, but the River waxed ever more wroth in his heart, and\nsought in his soul how he should stay goodly Achilles from his work, and\nward destruction from the Trojans. Meanwhile the son of Peleus with his\nfar-shadowing spear leapt, fain to slay him, upon Asteropaios son of\nPelegon, whom wide-flowing Axios begat of Periboia eldest of the\ndaughters of Akessamenos. Upon him set Achilles, and Asteropaios stood\nagainst him from the river, holding two spears; for Xanthos put courage\ninto his heart, being angered for the slaughtered youths whom Achilles\nwas slaughtering along the stream and had no pity on them. Then when the\ntwain were come nigh in onset on each other, unto him first spake\nfleet-footed noble Achilles: \"Who and whence art thou of men, that\ndarest to come against me? Ill-fated are they whose children match them\nwith my might.\"\n\nAnd to him, made answer Pelegon's noble son: \"High-hearted son of\nPeleus, why askest thou my lineage? I come from deep-soiled Paionia, a\nland far off, leading Paionian men with their long spears, and this now\nis the eleventh morn since I am come to Ilios. My lineage is of\nwide-flowing Axios, who begat Pelegon famous with the spear, and he, men\nsay, was my father. Now fight we, noble Achilles!\"\n\nThus spake he in defiance, and goodly Achilles lifted the Pelian ash:\nbut the warrior Asteropaios hurled with both spears together, for he\ncould use both hands alike, and with the one spear smote the shield, but\npierced it not right through, for the gold stayed it, the gift of a god;\nand with the other he grazed the elbow of Achilles' right arm, and there\nleapt forth dark blood, but the point beyond him fixed itself in the\nearth, eager to batten on flesh. Then in his turn Achilles hurled on\nAsteropaios his straight-flying ash, fain to have slain him, but missed\nthe man and struck the high bank, and quivering half its length in the\nbank he left the ashen spear. Then the son of Peleus drew his sharp\nsword from his thigh and leapt fiercely at him, and he availed not to\ndraw with his stout hand Achilles' ashen shaft from the steep bank.\nThrice shook he it striving to draw it forth, and thrice gave up the\nstrain, but the fourth time he was fain to bend and break the ashen\nspear of the seed of Aiakos, but ere that Achilles closing on him reft\nhim of life with his sword. For in the belly he smote him beside the\nnavel, and all his bowels gushed out to the earth, and darkness covered\nhis eyes as he lay gasping. Then Achilles trampling on his breast\nstripped off his armour and spake exultingly: \"Lie there! It is hard to\nstrive against children of Kronos' mighty son, even though one be sprung\nfrom a River-god. Thou truly declarest thyself the seed of a\nwide-flowing River, but I avow me of the linkage of great Zeus. My sire\nis a man ruling many Myrmidons, Peleus the son of Aiakos, and Aiakos was\nbegotten of Zeus. As Zeus is mightier than seaward-murmuring rivers, so\nis the seed of Zeus made mightier than the seed of a river. Nay, there\nis hard beside thee a great river, if he may anywise avail; but against\nZeus the son of Kronos it is not possible to fight. For him not even\nking Acheloios is match, nor yet the great strength of deep-flowing\nOcean, from whom all rivers flow and every sea, and all springs and deep\nwells: yea, even he hath fear of the lightning of great Zeus and his\ndread thunder, when it pealeth out of heaven.\"\n\nHe said, and from the steep bank drew his bronze spear, and left there\nAsteropaios whom he had slain, lying in the sands, and the dark water\nflooded him. Around him eels and fishes swarmed, tearing and gnawing the\nfat about his kidneys. But Achilles went on after the charioted Paiones\nwho still along the eddying river huddled in fear, when they saw their\nbest man in the stress of battle slain violently by the hands and the\nsword of the son of Peleus. There slew he Thersilochos and Mydon and\nAstypylos and Mnesos and Thrasios and Ainios and Ophelestes; and more\nyet of the Paiones would swift Achilles have slain, had not the\ndeep-eddying River called unto him in wrath, in semblance of a man, and\nfrom an eddy's depth sent forth a voice: \"O Achilles, thy might and thy\nevil work are beyond the measure of men; for gods themselves are ever\nhelping thee. If indeed the son of Kronos hath delivered thee all the\nTrojans to destroy, at least drive them forth from me and do thy grim\ndeeds on the plain, for filled with dead men is my pleasant bed, nor\ncan I pour my stream to the great sea, being choked with dead, and thou\nslayest ruthlessly. Come then, let be; I am astonished, O captain of\nhosts.\"\n\nAnd to him answered Achilles fleet of foot: \"So be it, heaven-sprung\nSkamandros, even as thou biddest. But the proud Trojans I will not cease\nfrom slaying until I have driven them into their city, and have made\ntrial with Hector face to face whether he is to vanquish me or I him.\"\n\nThus saying, he set upon the Trojans, like a god. Then unto Apollo spake\nthe deep-eddying River: \"Out on it, lord of the silver bow, child of\nZeus, thou hast not kept the ordinance of Kronos' son, who charged thee\nstraitly to stand by the Trojans and to help them, until eve come with\nlight late-setting, and darken the deep-soiled earth.\"\n\nHe said, and spear-famed Achilles sprang from the bank and leapt into\nhis midst; but he rushed on him in a furious wave, and stirred up all\nhis streams in tumult, and swept down the many dead who lay thick in\nhim, slain by Achilles; these out to land he cast with bellowing like a\nbull, and saved the living under his fair streams, hiding them within\neddies deep and wide. But terribly around Achilles arose his tumultuous\nwave, and the stream smote violently against his shield, nor availed he\nto stand firm upon his feet. Then he grasped a tall fair-grown elm, and\nit fell uprooted and tore away all the bank, and reached over the fair\nriver bed with its thick shoots, and stemmed the River himself, falling\nall within him: and Achilles, struggling out of the eddy, made haste to\nfly over the plain with his swift feet, for he was afraid. But the great\ngod ceased not, but arose upon him with darkness on his crest, that he\nmight stay noble Achilles from slaughter, and ward destruction from the\nmen of Troy. And the son of Peleus rushed away a spear's throw, with the\nswoop of a black eagle, the mighty hunter, strongest at once and\nswiftest of winged birds. Like him he sped, and on his breast the bronze\nrang terribly as he fled from beneath the onset, and behind him the\nRiver rushed on with a mighty roar. As when a field-waterer from a dark\nspring leadeth water along a bed through crops and garden grounds, a\nmattock in his hands, casting forth hindrances from the ditch, and as it\nfloweth all pebbles are swept down, and swiftly gliding it murmureth\ndown a sloping place, and outrunneth him that is its guide:--thus ever\nthe river wave caught up Achilles for all his speed; for gods are\nmightier than men. For whensoever fleet-footed noble Achilles struggled\nto stand against it, and know whether all immortals be upon him who\ninhabit spacious heaven, then would a great wave of the heaven-sprung\nRiver beat upon his shoulders from above, and he sprang upward with his\nfeet, sore vexed at heart; and the River was wearying his knees with\nviolent rush beneath, devouring the earth from under his feet. Then the\nson of Peleus cried aloud, looking up to the broad heaven: \"Zeus,\nFather, how doth none of the gods take it on him in pity to save me from\nthe River! after that let come to me what may. None other of the\ninhabitants of Heaven is chargeable so much, but only my dear mother,\nwho beguiled me with false words, saying that under the wall of the\nmail-clad men of Troy I must die by the swift arrows of Apollo. Would\nthat Hector had slain me, the best of men bred here: then brave had been\nthe slayer, and a brave man had he slain. But now by a sorry death am I\ndoomed to die, pent in this mighty river, like a swineherd boy whom a\ntorrent sweepeth down as he essayeth to cross it in a storm.\"\n\nThus spake he, and quickly Poseidon and Athene came near and stood\nbeside him, in the likeness of men, and taking his hands in theirs\npledged him in words. And the first that spake was Poseidon, Shaker of\nthe earth: \"Son of Peleus, tremble not, neither be afraid; such helpers\nof thee are we from the gods, approved of Zeus, even Pallas Athene and\nI, for to be vanquished of a river is not appointed thee, but he will\nsoon give back, and thou wilt thyself perceive it: but we will give thee\nwise counsel, if thou wilt obey it; hold not thy hand from hazardous\nbattle until within Ilios' famous walls thou have pent the Trojan host,\neven all that flee before thee. But do thou, when thou hast taken the\nlife of Hector, go back unto the ships; this glory we give unto thee to\nwin.\"\n\nThey having thus spoken departed to the immortals, but he toward the\nplain--for the bidding of gods was strong upon him--went onward; and all\nthe plain was filled with water-flood, and many beautiful arms and\ncorpses of slain youths were drifting there. So upward sprang his knees\nas he rushed against the stream right on, nor stayed him the\nwide-flowing River, for Athene put great strength in him. Neither did\nSkamandros slacken his fierceness, but yet more raged against the son of\nPeleus, and he curled crestwise the billow of his stream, lifting\nhimself on high, and on Simoeis he called with a shout: \"Dear brother,\nthe strength of this man let us both join to stay, since quickly he will\nlay waste the great city of king Priam, and the Trojans abide not in the\nbattle. Help me with speed, and fill thy streams with water from thy\nsprings, and urge on all thy torrents, and raise up a great wave, and\nstir huge roaring of tree-stumps and stones, that we may stay the fierce\nman who now is lording it, and deeming himself match for gods. For\nneither, I ween, will strength avail him nor comeliness anywise, nor\nthat armour beautiful, which deep beneath the flood shall be o'erlaid\nwith slime, and himself I will wrap him in my sands and pour round him\ncountless shingle without stint, nor shall the Achaians know where to\ngather his bones, so vast a shroud of silt will I heap over them. Where\nhe dieth there shall be his tomb, neither shall he have need of any\nbarrow to be raised, when the Achaians make his funeral.\"\n\nHe said, and rushed in tumult on Achilles, raging from on high,\nthundering with foam and blood and bodies of dead men. Then did a dark\nwave of the heaven-sprung River stand towering up and overwhelm the son\nof Peleus. But Hera cried aloud in terror of Achilles, lest the great\ndeep-eddying River sweep him away, and straightway she called to\nHephaistos, her dear son: \"Rise, lame god, O my son; it was against thee\nwe thought that eddying Xanthos was matched in fight. Help with all\nspeed, put forth large blast of flame. Then will I go to raise a strong\nstorm out of the sea of the west wind and the white south which shall\nutterly consume the dead Trojans and their armour, blowing the angry\nflame. Thou along Xanthos' banks burn up his trees and wrap himself in\nfire, nor let him anywise turn thee back by soft words or by threat, nor\nstay thy rage--only when I cry to thee with my voice, then hold the\nunwearying fire.\"\n\nThus spake she, and Hephaistos made ready fierce-blazing fire. First on\nthe plain fire blazed, and burnt the many dead who lay there thick,\nslain by Achilles; and all the plain was parched and the bright water\nstayed. And as when in late summer the north wind swiftly parcheth a new\nwatered orchard, and he that tilleth it is glad, thus was the whole\nplain parched, and Hephaistos consumed the dead; then against the river\nhe turned his gleaming flame. Elms burnt and willow trees and tamarisks,\nand lotos burnt and rush and galingale which round the fair streams of\nthe river grew in multitude. And the eels and fishes beneath the eddies\nwere afflicted, which through the fair streams tumbled this way and\nthat, in anguish at the blast of crafty Hephaistos. And the strong River\nburned, and spake and called to him by name: \"Hephaistos, there is no\ngod can match with thee, nor will I fight thee thus ablaze with fire.\nCease strife, yea, let noble Achilles drive the Trojans forthwith out of\ntheir city; what have I to do with strife and succour?\"\n\nThus spake he, burnt with fire, for his fair streams were bubbling. And\nas a cauldron boileth within, beset with much fire, melting the lard of\nsome fatted hog spurting up on all sides, and logs of firewood lie\nthereunder,--so burned his fair streams in the fire, and the water\nboiled. He had no mind to flow, but refrained him, for the breath of\ncunning Hephaistos violently afflicted him. Then unto Hera, earnestly\nbeseeching her,' he spake winged words: \"Hera, wherefore hath thy son\nassailed my stream to vex it above others? I am less chargeable than all\nthe rest that are helpers of the Trojans. But lo, I will give over, if\nthou wilt, and let thy son give over too. And I further will swear even\nthis, that never will I ward the day of evil from the Trojans, not even\nwhen all Troy is burning in the blaze of hungry fire, and the warlike\nsons of Achaians are the burners thereof.\"\n\nThen when the white-armed goddess Hera heard his speech, straightway she\nspake unto Hephaistos her dear son: \"Hephaistos, hold, famed son; it\nbefitteth not thus for mortals' sake to do violence to an immortal god.\"\n\nThus said she and Hephaistos quenched the fierce-blazing fire, and the\nwave once more rolled down the fair river-bed.\n\nSo when the rage of Xanthos was overcome, both ceased, for Hera stayed\nthem, though in wrath. But among the other gods fell grievous bitter\nstrife, and their hearts were carried diverse in their breasts. And they\nclashed together with a great noise, and the wide earth groaned, and the\nclarion of great Heaven rang around. Zeus heard as he sate upon Olympus,\nand his heart within him laughed pleasantly when he beheld that strife\nof gods. Then no longer stood they asunder, for Ares piercer of shields\nbegan the battle and first made for Athene with his bronze spear, and\nspake a taunting word: \"Wherefore, O dogfly, dost thou match gods with\ngods in strife, with stormy daring, as thy great spirit moveth thee?\nRememberest thou not how thou movedst Diomedes Tydeus' son to wound me,\nand thyself didst take a visible spear and thrust it straight at me and\npierce through my fair skin? Therefore deem I now that thou shalt pay me\nfor all that thou hast done.\"\n\nThus saying he smote on the dread tasselled aegis that not even the\nlightning of Zeus can overcome--thereon smote bloodstained Ares with his\nlong spear. But she, giving back, grasped with stout hand a stone that\nlay upon the plain, black, rugged, huge, which men of old time set to be\nthe landmark of a field; this hurled she, and smote impetuous Ares on\nthe neck, and unstrung his limbs. Seven roods he covered in his fall,\nand soiled his hair with dust, and his armour rang upon him. And Pallas\nAthene laughed, and spake to him winged words exultingly: \"Fool, not\neven yet hast thou learnt how far better than thou I claim to be, that\nthus thou matchest thy might with mine. Thus shalt thou satisfy thy\nmother's curses, who deviseth mischief against thee in her wrath, for\nthat thou hast left the Achaians and givest the proud Trojan's aid.\"\n\nThus having said she turned from him her shining eyes. Him did Aphrodite\ndaughter of Zeus take by the hand and lead away, groaning continually,\nfor scarce gathered he his spirit back to him. But when the white-armed\ngoddess Hera was aware of them, straightway she spake unto Athene winged\nwords: \"Out on it, child of aegis-bearing Zeus, maiden invincible, lo\nthere the dogfly is leading Ares destroyer of men out of the fray of\nbattle down the throng--nay then, pursue her.\"\n\nShe said, and Athene sped after her with heart exultant, and made at her\nand smote her with stout hand upon the breast, and straightway her knees\nand heart were unstrung. So they twain lay on the bounteous earth, and\nshe spake winged words exultingly: \"Such let all be who give the Trojans\naid when they fight against the mailed Argives. Be they even so bold and\nbrave as Aphrodite when she came to succour Ares and defied my might.\nThen should we long ago have ceased from war, having laid waste the\nstablished citadel of Ilios.\"\n\n[She said, and the white-armed goddess Hera smiled.] Then to Apollo\nspake the earth-shaking lord: \"Phoebus, why stand we apart? It befitteth\nnot after the rest have begun: that were the more shameful if without\nfighting we should go to Olympus to the bronze-thresholded house of\nZeus. Begin, for thou art younger; it were not meet for me, since I was\nborn first and know more. Fond god, how foolish is thy heart! Thou\nrememberest not all the ills we twain alone of gods endured at Ilios,\nwhen by ordinance of Zeus we came to proud Laomedon and served him\nthrough a year for promised recompense, and he laid on us his commands.\nI round their city built the Trojans a wall, wide and most fair, that\nthe city might be unstormed, and thou Phoebus, didst herd shambling\ncrook-horned kine among the spurs of woody many-folded Ida. But when the\njoyous seasons were accomplishing the term of hire, then redoubtable\nLaomedon robbed us of all hire, and sent us off with threats. He\nthreatened that he would bind together our feet and hands and sell us\ninto far-off isles, and the ears of both of us he vowed to shear off\nwith the sword. So we went home with angry hearts, wroth for the hire he\npromised and gave us not. To his folk not thou showest favour, nor\nessayest with us how the proud Trojans may be brought low and perish\nmiserably with their children and noble wives.\"\n\nThen to him answered King Apollo the Far-darter: \"Shaker of the earth,\nof no sound mind wouldst thou repute me if I should fight against thee\nfor the sake of pitiful mortals, who like unto leaves now live in\nglowing life, consuming the fruit of the earth, and now again pine into\ndeath. Let us with all speed cease from combat, and let them do battle\nby themselves.\"\n\nThus saying he turned away, for he felt shame to deal in blows with his\nfather's brother. But his sister upbraided him sore, the queen of wild\nbeasts, huntress Artemis, and spake a taunting word: \"So then thou\nfleest, Far-darter, hast quite yielded to Poseidon the victory, and\ngiven him glory for naught! Fond god, why bearest thou an ineffectual\nbow in vain? Let me not hear thee again in the halls of our sire boast\nas before among the immortal gods thou wouldst stand up to fight against\nPoseidon.\"\n\nThus spake she, but far-darting Apollo answered her not. But angrily the\nnoble spouse of Zeus [upbraided the Archer Queen with taunting words:]\n\"How now art thou fain, bold vixen, to set thyself against me? Hard were\nit for thee to match my might, bow-bearer though thou art, since against\nwomen Zeus made thee a lion, and giveth thee to slay whomso of them thou\nwilt. Truly it is better on the mountains to slay wild beasts and deer\nthan to fight amain with mightier than thou. But if thou wilt, try war,\nthat thou mayest know well how far stronger am I, since thou matchest\nthy might with mine.\"\n\nShe said, and with her left hand caught both the other's hands by the\nwrist, and with her right took the bow from off her shoulders, and\ntherewith, smiling, beat her on the ears as she turned this way and\nthat; and the swift arrows fell out of her quiver. And weeping from\nbefore her the goddess fled like a dove that from before a falcon flieth\nto a hollow rock, a cleft--for she was not fated to be caught;--thus\nArtemis fled weeping, and left her bow and arrows where they lay. Then\nto Leto spake the Guide, the slayer of Argus: \"Leto, with thee will I no\nwise fight; a grievous thing it is to come to blows with wives of\ncloud-gathering Zeus; but boast to thy heart's content among the\nimmortal gods that thou didst vanquish me by might and main.\"\n\nThus said he, and Leto gathered up the curved bow and arrows fallen\nhither and thither amid the whirl of dust: so taking her daughter's bow\nshe went back. And the maiden came to Olympus, to the bronze-thresholded\nhouse of Zeus, and weeping set herself on her father's knee, while round\nher her divine vesture quivered: and her father, Kronos' son, took her\nto him and asked of her, laughing gently: \"Who of the inhabitants of\nheaven, dear child, hath dealt with thee thus [hastily, as though thou\nhadst been doing some wrong thing openly]?\"\n\nAnd to him in answer spake the fair-crowned queen of the echoing chase:\n\"It was thy wife that buffeted me, father, the white-armed Hera, from\nwhom are strife and contention come upon the immortals.\"\n\nThus talked they unto one another. Then Phoebus Apollo entered into\nsacred Ilios, for he was troubled for the wall of the well-builded city,\nlest the Danaans waste it before its hour upon that day. But the other\never-living gods went to Olympus, some angry and some greatly\ntriumphing, and sat down beside Zeus who hideth himself in dark clouds.\n\nNow Achilles was still slaying the Trojans, both themselves and their\nwhole-hooved horses. And as when a smoke goeth up to the broad heaven,\nwhen a city burneth, kindled by the wrath of gods, and causeth toil to\nall, and griefs to many, thus caused Achilles toil and griefs to the\nTrojans. And the old man Priam stood on the sacred tower, and was aware\nof dread Achilles, how before him the Trojans thronged in rout, nor was\nany succour found of them. Then with a cry he went down from the tower,\nto rouse the gallant warders along the walls: \"Hold open the gates in\nyour hands until the folk come to the city in their rout, for closely is\nAchilles chasing them--now trow I there will be deadly deeds. And when\nthey are gathered within the wall and are taking breath, then again shut\nback the gate-wings firmly builded; for I fear lest that murderous man\nspring in within the wall.\"\n\nThus spake he, and they opened the gates and thrust back the bolts; and\nthe gates flung back gave safety. Then Apollo leapt forth to the front\nthat he might ward destruction from the Trojans. They straight for the\ncity and the high wall were fleeing, parched with thirst and dust-grimed\nfrom the plain, and Achilles chased them vehemently with his spear, for\nstrong frenzy possessed his heart continually, and he thirsted to win\nhim renown. Then would the sons of the Achaians have taken high-gated\nTroy, had not Phoebus Apollo aroused goodly Agenor, Antenor's son, a\nprincely man and strong. In his heart he put good courage, and himself\nstood by his side that he might ward off the grievous visitations of\ndeath, leaning against the oak, and he was shrouded in thick mist. So\nwhen Agenor was aware of Achilles waster of cities, he halted, and his\nheart much wavered as he stood; and in trouble he spake to his great\nheart: \"Ay me, if I flee before mighty Achilles, there where the rest\nare driven terror-struck, nathless will he overtake me and slaughter me\nas a coward. Or what if I leave these to be driven before Achilles the\nson of Peleus, and flee upon my feet from the wall by another way to the\nIleian plain, until I come to the spurs of Ida, and hide me in the\nunderwood? So then at evening, having bathed in the river and refreshed\nme of sweat, I might return to Ilios. Nay, why doth my heart debate thus\nwithin me? Lest he might be aware of me as I get me from the city for\nthe plain, and speeding after overtake me with swift feet; then will it\nno more be possible to avoid the visitation of death, for he is\nexceeding mighty above all mankind. What then if in front of the city I\ngo forth to meet him? Surely his flesh too is penetrable by sharp\nbronze, and there is but one life within, and men say he is mortal,\nhowbeit Zeus the son of Kronos giveth him renown.\"\n\nThus saying, he gathered himself to await Achilles, and within him his\nstout heart was set to strive and fight. As a leopardess goeth forth\nfrom a deep thicket to affront a huntsman, nor is afraid at heart, nor\nfleeth when she heareth the bay of hounds; for albeit the man first\nsmite her with thrust or throw, yet even pierced through with the spear\nshe ceaseth not from her courage until she either grapple or be slain,\nso noble Antenor's son, goodly Agenor, refused to flee till he should\nput Achilles to the proof, but held before him the circle of his shield,\nand aimed at him with his spear, and cried aloud: \"Doubtless thou hopest\nin thy heart, noble Achilles, on this day to sack the city of the proud\nmen of Troy. Fond man, there shall many woful things yet be wrought\nbefore it, for within it we are many men and staunch, who in front of\nour parents dear and wives and sons keep Ilios safe; but thou shalt here\nmeet death, albeit so redoubtable and bold a man of war.\"\n\nHe said, and hurled his sharp spear with weighty hand, and smote him on\nthe leg beneath the knee, nor missed his mark, and the greave of\nnew-wrought tin rang terribly on him; but the bronze bounded back from\nhim it smote, nor pierced him, for the god's gift drave it back. Then\nthe son of Peleus in his turn made at godlike Agenor, but Apollo\nsuffered him not to win renown, but caught away Agenor, and shrouded him\nin thick mist, and sent him in peace to be gone out of the war. Then by\nwile kept the son of Peleus away from the folk, for in complete\nsemblance of Agenor himself he stood before the feet of Achilles, who\nhasted to run upon him and chase him. And while he chased him over the\nwheat-bearing plain, edging him toward the deep-eddying river\nSkamandros, as he ran but a little in front of him (for by wile Apollo\nbeguiled him that he kept ever hoping to overtake him in the race),\nmeantime the other Trojans in common rout came gladly unto their\nfastness, and the city was filled with the throng of them. Neither had\nthey heart to await one another outside the city and wall, and to know\nwho might have escaped and who had perished in the fight, but\nimpetuously they poured into the city, whomsoever of them his feet and\nknees might save.\n\n\n\nBOOK XXII.\n\n    How Achilles fought with Hector, and slew him, and brought\n    his body to the ships.\n\nThus they throughout the city, scared like fawns, were cooling their\nsweat and drinking and slaking their thirst, leaning on the fair\nbattlements, while the Achaians drew near the wall, setting shields to\nshoulders. But Hector deadly fate bound to abide in his place, in front\nof Ilios and the Skaian gates. Then to the son of Peleus spake Phoebus\nApollo: \"Wherefore, son of Peleus, pursuest thou me with swift feet,\nthyself being mortal and I a deathless god? Thou hast not even yet known\nme, that I am a god, but strivest vehemently. Truly thou regardest not\nthy task among the affliction of the Trojans whom thou affrightedst, who\nnow are gathered into the city, while thou heat wandered hither. Me thou\nwilt never slay, for I am not subject unto death.\"\n\nThen mightily moved spake unto him Achilles fleet of foot: \"Thou hast\nbaulked me, Far-darter, most mischievous of all the gods, in that thou\nhast turned me hither from the wall: else should full many yet have\nbitten the dust or ever within Ilios had they come. Now hast thou robbed\nme of great renown, and lightly hast saved them, because thou hadst no\nvengeance to fear thereafter. Verily I would avenge me on thee, had I\nbut the power.\"\n\nThus saying toward the city he was gone in pride of heart, rushing like\nsome victorious horse in a chariot, that runneth lightly at full speed\nover the plain; so swiftly plied Achilles his feet and knees. Him the\nold man Priam first beheld as he sped across the plain, blazing as the\nstar that cometh forth at harvest-time, and plain seen his rays shine\nforth amid the host of stars in the darkness of night, the star whose\nname men call Orion's Dog. Brightest of all is he, yet for an evil sign\nis he set, and bringeth much fever upon hapless men. Even so on\nAchilles' breast the bronze gleamed as he ran. And the old man cried\naloud and beat upon his head with his hands, raising them on high, and\nwith a cry called aloud beseeching his dear son; for he before the gates\nwas standing, all hot for battle with Achilles. And the old man spake\npiteously unto him, stretching forth his hands: \"Hector, beloved son, I\npray thee await not this man alone with none beside thee, lest thou\nquickly meet thy doom, slain by the son of Peleus, since he is mightier\nfar, a merciless man. Would the gods loved him even as do I! then\nquickly would dogs and vultures devour him on the field--thereby would\ncruel pain go from my heart--the man who hath bereft me of many valiant\nsons, slaying them and selling them captive into far-off isles. Ay even\nnow twain of my children, Lykaon and Polydoros, I cannot see among the\nTrojans that throng into the fastness, sons whom Laothoe bare me, a\nprincess among women. If they be yet alive amid the enemy's host, then\nwill we ransom them with bronze and gold, for there is store within, for\nmuch goods gave the old man famous Altes to his child. If they be dead,\nthen even in the house of Hades shall they be a sorrow to my soul and to\ntheir mother, even to us who gave them birth, but to the rest of the\nfolk a briefer sorrow, if but thou die not by Achilles' hand. Nay, come\nwithin the wall, my child, that thou preserve the men and women of Troy,\nneither give great triumph to the son of Peleus, and be thyself bereft\nof sweet life. Have compassion also on me, the helpless one, who still\ncan feel, ill-fated; whom the father, Kronos' son, will bring to naught\nby a grievous doom in the path of old age, having seen full many ills,\nhis sons perishing and his daughters carried away captive, and his\nchambers laid waste and infant children hurled to the ground in terrible\nwar, and his sons' wives dragged away by the ruinous hands of the\nAchaians. Myself then last of all at the street door will ravening dogs\ntear, when some one by stroke or throw of the sharp bronze hath bereft\nmy limbs of life--even the dogs I reared in my halls about my table and\nto guard my door, which then having drunk my blood, maddened at heart\nshall lie in the gateway. A young man all beseemeth, even to be slain in\nwar, to be torn by the sharp bronze and lie on the field; though he be\ndead yet is all honourable to him, whate'er be seen: but when dogs\ndefile the hoary head and hoary beard of an old man slain, this is the\nmost piteous thing that cometh upon hapless men.\"\n\nThus spake the old man, and grasped his hoary hairs, plucking them from\nhis head, but he persuaded not Hector's soul. Then his mother in her turn\nwailed tearfully, loosening the folds of her robe, while with the other\nhand she showed her breast; and through her tears spake to him winged\nwords: \"Hector, my child, have regard unto this bosom and pity me, if\never I gave thee consolation of my breast. Think of it, dear child, and\nfrom this side the wall drive back the foe, nor stand in front to meet\nhim. He is merciless; if he slay thee it will not be on a bed that I or\nthy wife shall bewail thee, my own dear child, but far away from us by\nthe ships of the Argives will swift dogs devour thee.\"\n\nThus they with wailing spake to their dear son, beseeching him sore, yet\nthey persuaded not Hector's soul, but he stood awaiting Achilles as he\ndrew nigh in giant might. As a serpent of the mountains upon his den\nawaiteth a man, having fed on evil poisons, and fell wrath hath entered\ninto him, and terribly he glared as he coileth himself about his den, so\nHector with courage unquenchable gave not back, leaning his shining\nshield against a jutting tower. Then sore troubled he spake to his great\nheart: \"Ay me, if I go within the gates and walls, Polydamas will be\nfirst to bring reproach against me, since he bade me lead the Trojans to\nthe city during this ruinous night, when noble Achilles arose. But I\nregarded him not, yet surely it had been better far. And now that I have\nundone the host by my wantonness, I am ashamed before the men of Troy\nand women of trailing robes, lest at any time some worse man than I\nshall say: 'Hector by trusting his own might undid the host.' So will\nthey speak; then to me would it be better far to face Achilles and\neither slay him and go home, or myself die gloriously before the city.\nOr what if I lay down my bossy shield and my stout helm, and lean my\nspear against the wall, and go of myself to meet noble Achilles and\npromise him that Helen, and with her all possessions that Alexandros\nbrought in hollow ships to Troy, the beginning of strife, we will give\nto the Sons of Atreus to take away, and therewithal to divide in half\nwith the Achaians all else that this city holdeth: and if thereafter I\nobtain from the Trojans an oath of the Elders that they will hide\nnothing but divide all in twain [whatever wealth the pleasant city hold\nwithin]? But wherefore doth my heart debate thus? I might come unto him\nand he would not pity or regard me at all, but presently slay me unarmed\nas it were but a woman, if I put off my armour. No time is it now to\ndally with him from oaktree or from rock, like youth with maiden, as\nyouth and maiden hold dalliance one with another. Better is it to join\nbattle with all speed: let us know upon which of us twain the Olympian\nshall bestow renown.\"\n\nThus pondered he as he stood, but nigh on him came Achilles, peer of\nEnyalios warrior of the waving helm, brandishing from his right shoulder\nthe Pelian ash, his terrible spear; and all around the bronze on him\nflashed like the gleam of blazing fire or of the Sun as he ariseth. And\ntrembling seized Hector as he was aware of him, nor endured he to abide\nin his place, but left the gates behind him and fled in fear. And the\nson of Peleus darted after him, trusting in his swift feet. As a falcon\nupon the mountains, swiftest of winged things, swoopeth fleetly after a\ntrembling dove; and she before him fleeth, while he with shrill screams\nhard at hand still darteth at her, for his heart urgeth him to seize\nher; so Achilles in hot haste flew straight for him, and Hector fled\nbeneath the Trojans' wall, and plied swift knees. They past the\nwatch-place and wind-waved wild fig-tree sped ever, away from under the\nwall, along the waggon-track, and came to the two fair-flowing springs,\nwhere two fountains rise that feed deep-eddying Skamandros. The one\nfloweth with warm water, and smoke goeth up therefrom around as it were\nfrom a blazing fire, while the other even in summer floweth forth like\ncold hail or snow or ice that water formeth. And there beside the\nsprings are broad washing-troughs hard by, fair troughs of stone, where\nwives and fair daughters of the men of Troy were wont to wash bright\nraiment, in the old time of peace, before the sons of the Achaians came.\nThereby they ran, he flying, he pursuing. Valiant was the flier but far\nmightier he who fleetly pursued him. For not for beast of sacrifice or\nfor an oxhide were they striving, such as are prizes for men's speed of\nfoot, but for the life of horse-taming Hector was their race. And as\nwhen victorious whole-hooved horses run rapidly round the\nturning-points, and some great prize lieth in sight, be it a tripod or a\nwoman, in honour of a man that is dead, so thrice around Priam's city\ncircled those twain with flying feet, and all the gods were gazing on\nthem. Then among them spake first the father of gods and men: \"Ay me, a\nman beloved I see pursued around the wall. My heart is woe for Hector,\nwho hath burnt for me many thighs of oxen amid the crests of many-folded\nIda, and other times on the city-height; but now is goodly Achilles\npursuing him with swift feet round Priam's town. Come, give your\ncounsel, gods, and devise whether we shall save him from death or now at\nlast slay him, valiant though he be, by the hand of Achilles Peleus'\nson.\"\n\nThen to him answered the bright-eyed goddess Athene: \"O Father, Lord of\nthe bright lightning and the dark cloud, what is this thou hast said? A\nman that is a mortal, doomed long ago by fate, wouldst thou redeem back\nfrom ill-boding death? Do it, but not all we other gods approve.\"\n\nAnd unto her in answer spake cloud-gathering Zeus: \"Be of good cheer,\nTrito-born, dear child: not in full earnest speak I, and I would fain be\nkind to thee. Do as seemeth good to thy mind, and draw not back.\"\n\nThus saying he roused Athene, that already was set thereon, and from the\ncrests of Olympus she darted down.\n\nBut after Hector sped fleet Achilles chasing him vehemently. And as when\non the mountains a hound hunteth the fawn of a deer, having started it\nfrom its covert, through glens and glades, and if it crouch to baffle\nhim under a bush, yet scenting it out the hound runneth constantly until\nhe find it; so Hector baffled not Peleus' fleet-footed son. Oft as he\nset himself to dart under the well-built walls over against the\nDardanian gates, if haply from above they might succour him with darts,\nso oft would Achilles gain on him and turn him toward the plain, while\nhimself he sped ever on the city-side. And as in a dream one faileth in\nchase of a flying man, the one faileth in his flight and the other in\nhis chase--so failed Achilles to overtake him in the race, and Hector to\nescape. And thus would Hector have avoided the visitation of death, had\nnot this time been utterly the last wherein Apollo came nigh to him, who\nnerved his strength and his swift knees. For to the host did noble\nAchilles sign with his head, and forbade them to hurl bitter darts\nagainst Hector, lest any smiting him should gain renown, and he himself\ncome second. But when the fourth time they had reached the springs, then\nthe Father hung his golden balances, and set therein two lots of dreary\ndeath, one of Achilles, one of horse-taming Hector, and held them by the\nmidst and poised. Then Hector's fated day sank down, and fell to the\nhouse of Hades, and Phoebus Apollo left him. But to Peleus' son came the\nbright-eyed goddess Athene, and standing near spake to him winged words:\n\"Now verily, glorious Achilles dear to Zeus, I have hope that we twain\nshall carry off great glory to the ships for the Achaians, having slain\nHector, for all his thirst for fight. No longer is it possible for him\nto escape us, not even though far-darting Apollo should travail sore,\ngrovelling before the Father, aegis-bearing Zeus. But do thou now stand\nand take breath, and I will go and persuade this man to confront thee in\nfight.\"\n\nThus spake Athene, and he obeyed, and was glad at heart, and stood\nleaning on his bronze-pointed ashen-spear. And she left him and came to\nnoble Hector, like unto Deiphobos in shape and in strong voice, and\nstanding near spake to him winged words: \"Dear brother, verily fleet\nAchilles doth thee violence, chasing thee round Priam's town with swift\nfeet: but come let us make a stand and await him on our defence.\"\n\nThen answered her great Hector of the glancing helm: \"Deiphobos, verily\naforetime wert thou far dearest of my brothers, but now methinks I shall\nhonour thee even more, in that thou hast dared for my sake, when thou\nsawest me, to come forth of the wall, while the others tarry within.\"\n\nThen to him again spake the bright-eyed goddess Athene: \"Dear brother,\nof a truth my father and lady mother and my comrades around besought me\nmuch, entreating me in turn, to tarry there, so greatly do they all\ntremble before him; but my heart within was sore with dismal grief. And\nnow fight we with straight-set resolve and let there be no sparing of\nspears, that we may know whether Achilles is to slay us and carry our\nbloody spoils to the hollow ships, or whether he might be vanquished by\nthy spear.\"\n\nThus saying Athene in her subtlety led him on. And when they were come\nnigh in onset on one another, to Achilles first spake great Hector of\nthe glancing helm: \"No longer, son of Peleus, will I fly thee, as before\nI thrice ran round the great town of Priam, and endured not to await thy\nonset. Now my heart biddeth me stand up against thee; I will either slay\nor be slain. But come hither and let us pledge us by our gods, for they\nshall be best witnesses and beholders of covenants: I will entreat thee\nin no outrageous sort, if Zeus grant me to outstay thee, and if I take\nthy life, but when I have despoiled thee of thy glorious armour, O\nAchilles, I will give back thy dead body to the Achaians, and do thou\nthe same.\"\n\nBut unto him with grim gaze spake Achilles fleet of foot: \"Hector, talk\nnot to me, thou madman, of covenants. As between men and lions there is\nno pledge of faith, nor wolves and sheep can be of one mind, but imagine\nevil continually against each other, so is it impossible for thee and me\nto be friends, neither shall be any pledge between us until one or other\nshall have fallen and glutted with blood Ares, the stubborn god of war.\nBethink thee of all thy soldiership: now behoveth it thee to quit thee\nas a good spearman and valiant man of war. No longer is there way of\nescape for thee, but Pallas Athene will straightway subdue thee to my\nspear; and now in one hour shalt thou pay back for all my sorrows for my\nfriends whom thou hast slain in the fury of thy spear.\"\n\nHe said, and poised his far-shadowing spear and hurled. And noble Hector\nwatched the coming thereof and avoided it; for with his eye on it he\ncrouched, and the bronze spear flew over him, and fixed itself in the\nearth; but Pallas Athene caught it up and gave it back to Achilles,\nunknown of Hector shepherd of hosts. Then Hector spake unto the noble\nson of Peleus: \"Thou hast missed, so no wise yet, godlike Achilles, has\nthou known from Zeus the hour of my doom, though thou thoughtest it.\nCunning of tongue art thou and a deceiver in speech, that fearing thee I\nmight forget my valour and strength. Not as I flee shalt thou plant thy\nspear in my reins, but drive it straight through my breast as I set on\nthee, if God hath given thee to do it. Now in thy turn avoid my spear of\nbronze. O that thou mightst take it all into thy flesh! Then would the\nwar be lighter to the Trojans, if but thou wert dead, for thou art their\ngreatest bane.\"\n\nHe said, and poised his long-shadowed spear and hurled it, and smote the\nmidst of the shield of Peleus' son, and missed him not: but far from the\nshield the spear leapt back. And Hector was wroth that his swift weapon\nhad left his hand in vain, and he stood downcast, for he had no second\nashen spear. And he called with a loud shout to Deiphobos of the white\nshield, and asked of him a long spear, but he was no wise nigh. Then\nHector knew he truth in his heart, and spake and said: \"Ay me, now\nverily the gods have summoned me to death. I deemed the warrior\nDeiphobos was by my side, but he is within the wall, and it was Athene\nwho played me false. Now therefore is evil death come very nigh me, not\nfar off, nor is there way of escape. This then was from of old the\npleasure of Zeus and of the far-darting son of Zeus, who yet before were\nfain to succour me: but now my fate hath found me. At least let me not\ndie without a struggle or ingloriously, but in some great deed of arms\nwhereof men yet to be born shall hear.\"\n\nThus saying he drew his sharp sword that by his flank hung great and\nstrong, and gathered himself and swooped like a soaring eagle that\ndarteth to the plain through the dark clouds to seize a tender lamb or\ncrouching hare. So Hector swooped, brandishing his sharp sword. And\nAchilles made at him, for his heart was filled with wild fierceness, and\nbefore his breast he made a covering with his fair graven shield, and\ntossed his bright four-plated helm; and round it waved fair golden\nplumes [that Hephaistos had set thick about the crest.]. As a star goeth\namong stars in the darkness of night, Hesperos, fairest of all stars set\nin heaven, so flashed there forth a light from the keen spear Achilles\npoised in his right hand, devising mischief against noble Hector, eyeing\nhis fair flesh to find the fittest place. Now for the rest of him his\nflesh was covered by the fair bronze armour he stripped from strong\nPatroklos when he slew him, but there was an opening where the collar\nbones coming from the shoulders clasp the neck, even at the gullet,\nwhere destruction of life cometh quickliest; there, as he came on, noble\nAchilles drave at him with his spear, and right through the tender neck\nwent the point. Yet the bronze-weighted ashen spear clave not the\nwindpipe, so that he might yet speak words of answer to his foe. And he\nfell down in the dust, and noble Achilles spake exultingly: \"Hector,\nthou thoughtest, whilst thou wert spoiling Patroklos, that thou wouldst\nbe safe, and didst reck nothing of me who was afar, thou fool. But away\namong the hollow ships his comrade, a mightier far, even I, was left\nbehind, who now have unstrung thy knees. Thee shall dogs and birds tear\nfoully, but his funeral shall the Achaians make.\"\n\nThen with faint breath spake unto him Hector of the glancing helm: \"I\npray thee by thy life and knees and parents leave me not for dogs of the\nAchaians to devour by the ships, but take good store of bronze and gold,\ngifts that my father and lady mother shall give to thee, and give them\nhome my body back again, that the Trojans and Trojans' wives give me my\ndue of fire after my death.\"\n\nBut unto him with grim gaze spake Achilles fleet of foot: \"Entreat me\nnot, dog, by knees or parents. Would that my heart's desire could so bid\nme myself to carve and eat raw thy flesh, for the evil thou hast wrought\nme, as surely is there none that shall keep the dogs from thee, not even\nshould they bring ten or twenty fold ransom and here weigh it out, and\npromise even more, not even were Priam Dardanos' son to bid pay thy\nweight in gold, not even so shall thy lady mother lay thee on a bed to\nmourn her son, but dogs and birds shall devour thee utterly.\"\n\nThen dying spake unto him Hector of the glancing helm: \"Verily I know\nthee and behold thee as thou art, nor was I destined to persuade thee;\ntruly thy heart is iron in thy breast. Take heed now lest I draw upon\nthee wrath of gods, in the day when Paris and Phoebus Apollo slay thee,\nfor all thy valour, at the Skaian gate.\"\n\nHe ended, and the shadow of death came down upon him, and his soul flew\nforth of his limbs and was gone to the house of Hades, wailing her fate,\nleaving her vigour and youth. Then to the dead man spake noble Achilles:\n\"Die: for my death, I will accept it whensoever Zeus and the other\nimmortal gods are minded to accomplish it.\"\n\nHe said, and from the corpse drew forth his bronze spear, and set it\naside, and stripped the bloody armour from the shoulders. And other sons\nof Achaians ran up around, who gazed upon the stature and marvellous\ngoodliness of Hector. Nor did any stand by but wounded him, and thus\nwould many a man say looking toward his neighbour: \"Go to, of a truth\nfar easier to handle is Hector now than when he burnt the ships with\nblazing fire.\" Thus would many a man say, and wound him as he stood hard\nby. And when fleet noble Achilles had despoiled him, he stood up among\nthe Achaians and spake winged words: \"Friends, chiefs and counsellors of\nthe Argives, since the gods have vouchsafed us to vanquish this man who\nhath done us more evil than all the rest together, come let us make\ntrial in arms round about the city, that we may know somewhat of the\nTrojans' purpose, whether since he hath fallen they will forsake the\ncitadel, or whether they are minded to abide, albeit Hector is no more.\nBut wherefore doth my heart debate thus? There lieth by the ships a dead\nman unbewailed, unburied, Patroklos; him will I not forget, while I\nabide among the living and my knees can stir. Nay if even in the house\nof Hades the dead forget their dead, yet will I even there be mindful of\nmy dear comrade. But come, ye sons of the Achaians, let us now, singing\nour song of victory, go back to the hollow ships and take with us our\nfoe. Great glory have we won; we have slain the noble Hector, unto whom\nthe Trojans prayed throughout their city, as he had been a god.\"\n\nHe said, and devised foul entreatment of noble Hector. The tendons of\nboth feet behind he slit from heel to ankle-joint, and thrust\ntherethrough thongs of ox-hide, and bound him to his chariot, leaving\nhis head to trail. And when he had mounted the chariot and lifted\ntherein the famous armour, he lashed his horses to speed, and they\nnothing loth flew on. And dust rose around him that was dragged, and his\ndark hair flowed loose on either side, and in the dust lay all his once\nfair head, for now had Zeus given him over to his foes to entreat foully\nin his own native land.\n\nThus was his head all grimed with dust. But his mother when she beheld\nher son, tore her hair and cast far from her her shining veil, and cried\naloud with an exceeding bitter cry. And piteously moaned his father, and\naround them the folk fell to crying and moaning throughout the town.\nMost like it seemed as though all beetling Ilios were burning utterly in\nfire. Scarcely could the folk keep back the old man in his hot desire to\nget him forth of the Dardanian gates. For he besought them all, casting\nhimself down in the mire, and calling on each man by his name: \"Hold,\nfriends, and though you love me leave me to get me forth of the city\nalone and go unto the ships of the Achaians. Let me pray this accursed\nhorror-working man, if haply he may feel shame before his age-fellows\nand pity an old man. He also hath a father such as I am, Peleus, who\nbegat and reared him to be a bane of Trojans--and most of all to me hath\nhe brought woe. So many sons of mine hath he slain in their flower--yet\nfor all my sorrow for the rest I mourn them all less than this one\nalone, for whom my sharp grief will bring me down to the house of\nHades--even Hector. Would that he had died in my arms; then would we\nhave wept and wailed our fill, his mother who bore him to her ill hap,\nand I myself.\"\n\nThus spake he wailing, and all the men of the city made moan with him.\nAnd among the women of Troy, Hekabe led the wild lament: \"My child, ah,\nwoe is me! wherefore should I live in my pain, now thou art dead, who\nnight and day wert my boast through the city, and blessing to all, both\nmen and women of Troy throughout the town, who hailed thee as a god, for\nverily an exceeding glory to them wert thou in thy life:--now death and\nfate have overtaken thee.\"\n\nThus spake she wailing. But Hector's wife knew not as yet, for no true\nmessenger had come to tell her how her husband abode without the gates,\nbut in an inner chamber of the lofty house she was weaving a double\npurple web, and broidering therein manifold flowers. Then she called to\nher goodly-haired handmaids through the house to set a great tripod on\nthe fire, that Hector might have warm washing when he came home out of\nthe battle fond heart, and was unaware how, far from all washings,\nbright-eyed Athene had slain him by the hand of Achilles. But she heard\nshrieks and groans from the battlements, and her limbs reeled, and the\nshuttle fell from her hands to earth. Then again among her goodly-haired\nmaids she spake: \"Come two of ye this way with me that I may see what\ndeeds are done. It was the voice of my husband's noble mother that I\nheard, and in my own breast my heart leapeth to my mouth and my knees\nare numbed beneath me: surely some evil thing is at hand against the\nchildren of Priam. Would that such word might never reach my ear! yet\nterribly I dread lest noble Achilles have cut off bold Hector from the\ncity by himself and chased him to the plain and ere this ended his\nperilous pride that possessed him, for never would he tarry among the\nthrong of men but ran out before them far, yielding place to no man in\nhis hardihood.\"\n\nThus saying she sped through the chamber like one mad, with beating\nheart, and with her went her handmaidens. But when she came to the\nbattlements and the throng of men, she stood still upon the wall and\ngazed, and beheld him dragged before the city:--swift horses dragged him\nrecklessly toward the hollow ships of the Achaians. Then dark night came\non her eyes and shrouded her, and she fell backward and gasped forth her\nspirit. From off her head she shook the bright attiring thereof,\nfrontlet and net and woven band, and veil, the veil that golden\nAphrodite gave her on the day when Hector of the glancing helm led her\nforth of the house of Eetion, having given bride-gifts untold. And\naround her thronged her husband's sisters and his brothers' wives, who\nheld her up among them, distraught even to death. But when at last she\ncame to herself and her soul returned into her breast, then wailing with\ndeep sobs she spake among the women of Troy: \"O Hector, woe is me! to\none fate then were we both born, thou in Troy in the house of Priam, and\nI in Thebe under woody Plakos, in the house of Eetion, who reared me\nfrom a little one--ill-fated sire of cruel-fated child. Ah, would he\nhave begotten me not. Now thou to the house of Hades beneath the secret\nplaces of the earth departest, and me in bitter mourning thou leavest a\nwidow in thy halls: and thy son is but an infant child--son of unhappy\nparents, thee and me--nor shalt thou profit him, Hector, since thou art\ndead, neither he thee. For even if he escape the Achaians' woful war,\nyet shall labour and sorrow cleave unto him hereafter, for other men\nshall seize his lands. The day of orphanage sundereth a child from his\nfellows, and his head is bowed down ever, and his cheeks are wet with\ntears. And in his need the child seeketh his father's friends, plucking\nthis one by cloak and that by coat, and one of them that pity him\nholdeth his cup a little to his mouth, and moisteneth his lips, but his\npalate he moisteneth not. And some child unorphaned thrusteth him from\nthe feast with blows and taunting words, 'Out with thee! no father of\nthine is at our board.' Then weeping to his widowed mother shall he\nreturn, even Astyanax, who erst upon his father's knee ate only marrow\nand fat flesh of sheep; and when sleep fell on him and he ceased from\nchildish play, then in bed in his nurse's arms he would slumber softly\nnested, having satisfied his heart with good things; but now that he\nhath lost his father he will suffer many ills, Astyanax--that name the\nTrojans gave him, because thou only wet the defence of their gates and\ntheir long walls. But now by the beaked ships, far from thy parents,\nshall coiling worms devour thee when the dogs have had their fill, as\nthou liest naked; yet in these halls lieth raiment of thine, delicate\nand fair, wrought by the hands of women. But verily all these will I\nconsume with burning fire--to thee no profit, since thou wilt never lie\ntherein, yet that his be honour to thee from the men and the women of\nTroy.\"\n\nThus spake she wailing, and the women joined their moan.\n\n\n\nBOOK XXIII.\n\n    Of the funeral of Patroklos, and the funeral games.\n\nThus they throughout the city made moan: but the Achaians when they were\ncome to the ships and to the Hellespont were scattered each to his own\nship: only the Myrmidons Achilles suffered not to be scattered, but\nspake among his comrades whose delight was in war: \"Fleet-horsed\nMyrmidons, my trusty comrades, let us not yet unyoke our whole-hooved\nsteeds from their cars, but with horses and chariots let us go near and\nmourn Patroklos, for such is the honour of the dead. Then when we have\nour fill of grievous wailing, we will unyoke the horses and all sup\nhere.\"\n\nHe said, and they with one accord made lamentation, and Achilles led\ntheir mourning. So thrice around the dead they drave their well-maned\nsteeds, moaning; and Thetis stirred among them desire of wailing.\nBedewed were the sands with tears, bedewed the warriors' arms; so great\na lord of fear they sorrowed for. And Peleus' son led their loud wail,\nlaying his man-slaying hands on his comrade's breast: \"All hail,\nPatroklos, even in the house of Hades; for all that I promised thee\nbefore am I accomplishing, seeing I have dragged hither Hector to give\nraw unto dogs to devour, and twelve noble children of the Trojans to\nslaughter before thy pyre, because of mine anger at thy slaying.\"\n\nHe said, and devised foul entreatment of noble Hector, stretching him\nprone in the dust beside the bier of Menoitios' son. And the rest put\noff each his glittering bronze arms, and unyoked their high-neighing\nhorses, and sate them down numberless beside the ship of fleet-footed\nAiakides, and he gave them ample funeral feast. Many sleek oxen were\nstretched out, their throats cut with steel, and many sheep and bleating\ngoats, and many white-tusked boars well grown in fat were spitted to\nsinge in the flame of Hephaistos; so on all sides round the corpse in\ncupfuls blood was flowing.\n\nBut the fleet-footed prince, the son of Peleus, was brought to noble\nAgamemnon by the Achaian chiefs, hardly persuading him thereto, for his\nheart was wroth for his comrade. And when they were come to Agamemnon's\nhut, forthwith they bade clear-voiced heralds set a great tripod on the\nfire, if haply they might persuade the son of Peleus to wash from him\nthe bloody gore. But he denied them steadfastly, and sware moreover an\noath: \"Nay, verily by Zeus, who is highest and best of gods, not lawful\nis it that water should come nigh my head or ever I shall have laid\nPatroklos on the fire, and heaped a barrow, and shaved my hair, since\nnever again shall second grief thus reach my heart, while I remain among\nthe living. Yet now for the present let us yield us to our mournful\nmeal: but with the morning, O king of men Agamemnon, rouse the folk to\nbring wood and furnish all that it beseemeth a dead man to have when he\ngoeth beneath the misty gloom, to the end that untiring fire may burn\nhim quickly from sight, and the host betake them to their work.\"\n\nThus spake he, and they listened readily to him and obeyed, and eagerly\nmaking ready each his meal they supped, and no lack had their soul of\nequal feast. But when they had put off from them the desire of meat and\ndrink, the rest went down each man to his tent to take his rest, but the\nson of Peleus upon the beach of the sounding sea lay groaning heavily,\namid the host of Myrmidons, in an open place, where waves were breaking\non the shore. Now when sleep took hold on him, easing the cares of his\nheart, deep sleep that fell about him, (for sore tired were his glorious\nknees with onset upon Hector toward windy Ilios), then came there unto\nhim the spirit of hapless Patroklos, in all things like his living self,\nin stature, and fair eyes, and voice, and the raiment of his body was\nthe same; and he stood above Achilles' head and spake to him: \"Thou\nsleepest, and hast forgotten me, O Achilles. Not in my life wast thou\never unmindful of me, but in my death. Bury me with all speed, that I\npass the gates of Hades. Far off the spirits banish me, the phantoms of\nmen outworn, nor suffer me to mingle with them beyond the River, but\nvainly I wander along the wide-gated dwelling of Hades. Now give me, I\npray pitifully of thee, thy hand, for never more again shall I come back\nfrom Hades, when ye have given me my due of fire. Never among the living\nshall we sit apart from our dear comrades and take counsel together, but\nme hath the harsh fate swallowed up which was appointed me even from my\nbirth. Yea and thou too thyself, Achilles peer of gods, beneath the wall\nof the noble Trojans art doomed to die. Yet one thing will I say, and\ncharge thee, if haply thou wilt have regard thereto. Lay not my bones\napart from thine, Achilles, but together, even as we were nurtured in\nyour house, when Menoitios brought me yet a little one from Opoeis to\nyour country by reason of a grievous man-slaying, on the day when I slew\nAmphidamas' son, not willing it, in childish wrath over the dice. Then\ntook me the knight Peleus into his house and reared me kindly and named\nme thy squire: so therefore let one coffer hide our bones [a golden\ncoffer, two handled, thy lady mother's gift].\"\n\nThen made answer unto him Achilles fleet of foot: \"Wherefore, O my\nbrother, hast thou come hither, and chargest me everything that I should\ndo? Verily I will accomplish all, and have regard unto thy bidding. But\nstand more nigh me; for one moment let us throw our arms around each\nother, and take our fill of dolorous lament.\"\n\nHe spake, and reached forth with his hands, but clasped him not; for\nlike a vapour the spirit was gone beneath the earth with a faint shriek.\nAnd Achilles sprang up marvelling, and smote his hands together, and\nspake a word of woe: \"Ay me, there remaineth then even in the house of\nHades a spirit and phantom of the dead, albeit the life be not anywise\ntherein: for all night long hath the spirit of hapless Patroklos stood\nover me, wailing and making moan, and charged me everything that I\nshould do, and wondrous like his living self it seemed.\"\n\nThus said he, and stirred in all of them yearning to make lament; and\nrosy-fingered Morn shone forth on them while they still made moan around\nthe piteous corpse. Then lord Agamemnon sped mules and men from all the\nhuts to fetch wood; and a man of valour watched thereover, even\nMeriones, squire of kindly Idomeneus. And they went forth with\nwood-cutting axes in their hands and well-woven ropes, and before them\nwent the mules, and uphill and downhill and sideways and across they\nwent. But when they came to the spurs of many-fountained Ida,\nstraightway they set them lustily to hew high-foliaged oaks with the\nlong-edged bronze, and with loud noise fell the trees. Then splitting\nthem asunder the Achaians bound them behind the mules, and they tore up\nthe earth with their feet as they made for the plain through the thick\nunderwood. And all the wood-cutters bare logs; for thus bade Meriones,\nsquire of kindly Idomeneus. And on the Shore they threw them down in\nline, where Achilles purposed a mighty tomb for Patroklos and for\nhimself.\n\nThen when they had laid down all about great piles of wood, they sate\nthem down all together and abode. Then straightway Achilles bade the\nwarlike Myrmidons gird on their arms and each yoke the horses to his\nchariot; and they arose and put their armour on, and mounted their\nchariots, both fighting men and charioteers. In front were the men in\nchariots, and a cloud of footmen followed after, numberless; and in the\nmidst his comrades bare Patroklos. And they heaped all the corpse with\ntheir hair that they cut off and threw thereon; and behind did goodly\nAchilles bear the head, sorrowing; for a noble comrade was he speeding\nforth unto the realm of Hades.\n\nAnd when they came to the place where Achilles had bidden them, they set\ndown the dead, and piled for him abundant wood. Then fleet-footed noble\nAchilles bethought him of one thing more: standing apart from the pyre\nhe shore off a golden lock, the lock whose growth he nursed to offer\nunto the River Spercheios, and sore troubled spake be, looking forth\nover the wine-dark sea: \"Spercheios, in other wise vowed my father\nPeleus unto thee that I returning thither to my native land should shear\nmy hair for thee and offer a holy hecatomb, and fifty rams should\nsacrifice there above thy springs, where is the sacred close and altar\nburning spice. So vowed the old man, but thou hast not accomplished him\nhis desire. And now since I return not to my dear native land, unto the\nhero Patroklos I may give this hair to take away.\"\n\nThus saying he set the hair in the hands of his dear comrade, and\nstirred in all of them yearning to make lament. And so would the light\nof the sun have gone down on their lamentation, had not Achilles said\nquickly to Agamemnon as he stood beside him: \"Son of Atreus--for to thy\nwords most will the host of the Achaians have regard--of lamentation\nthey may sate them to the full. But now disperse them from the burning\nand bid them make ready their meal, and we to whom the dead is dearest\nwill take pains for these things; yet let the chiefs tarry nigh unto\nus.\"\n\nThen when Agamemnon king of men heard that, he forthwith dispersed the\nhost among the trim ships, but the nearest to the dead tarried there and\npiled the wood, and made a pyre a hundred feet this way and that, and on\nthe pyre's top set the corpse, with anguish at their hearts. And many\nlusty sheep and shambling crook-horned oxen they flayed and made ready\nbefore the pyre; and taking from all of them the fat, great hearted\nAchilles wrapped the corpse therein from head to foot, and heaped the\nflayed bodies round. And he set therein two-handled jars of honey and\noil, leaning them against the bier; and four strong-necked horses he\nthrew swiftly on the pyre, and groaned aloud. Nine house-dogs had the\ndead chief: of them did Achilles slay twain and throw them on the pyre.\nAnd twelve valiant sons of great-hearted Trojans he slew with the\nsword--for he devised mischief in his heart and he set to the merciless\nmight of the fire, to feed thereon. Then moaned he aloud, and called on\nhis dear comrade by his name: \"All hail to thee, O Patroklos, even in\nthe house of Hades, for all that I promised thee before am I now\naccomplishing. Twelve valiant sons of great-hearted Trojans, behold\nthese all in company with thee the fire devoureth: but Hector son of\nPriam will I nowise give to the fire to feed upon, but to dogs.\"\n\nThus spake he threatening, but no dogs might deal with Hector, for day\nand night Aphrodite daughter of Zeus kept off the dogs, and anointed him\nwith rose-sweet oil ambrosial that Achilles might not tear him when he\ndragged him. And over him Phoebus Apollo brought a dark cloud from\nheaven to earth and covered all that place whereon the dead man lay,\nlest meanwhile the sun's strength shrivel his flesh round about upon his\nsinews and limbs.\n\nBut the pyre of dead Patroklos kindled not. Then fleet-footed noble\nAchilles had a further thought: standing aside from the pyre he prayed\nto the two Winds of North and West, and promised them fair offerings,\nand pouring large libations from a golden cup besought them to come,\nthat the corpses might blaze up speedily in the fire, and the wood make\nhaste to be enkindled. Then Iris, when she heard his prayer, went\nswiftly with the message to the Winds. They within the house of the\ngusty West Wind were feasting all together at meat, when Iris sped\nthither, and halted on the threshold of stone. And when they saw her\nwith their eyes, they sprang up and called to her every one to sit by\nhim. But she refused to sit, and spake her word: \"No seat for me; I must\ngo back to the streams of Ocean, to the Ethiopians' land where they\nsacrifice hecatombs to the immortal gods, that I too may feast at their\nrites. But Achilles is praying the North Wind and the loud West to come,\nand promising them fair offerings, that ye may make the pyre be kindled\nwhereon lieth Patroklos, for whom all the Achaians are making moan.\"\n\nShe having thus said departed, and they arose with a mighty sound,\nrolling the clouds before them. And swiftly they came blowing over the\nsea, and the wave rose beneath their shrill blast; and they came to\ndeep-soiled Troy, and fell upon the pile, and loudly roared the mighty\nfire. So all night drave they the flame of the pyre together, blowing\nshrill; and all night fleet Achilles, holding a two-handled cup, drew\nwine from a golden bowl, and poured it forth and drenched the earth,\ncalling upon the spirit of hapless Patroklos. As a father waileth when\nhe burneth the bones of his son, new-married, whose death is woe to his\nhapless parents, so wailed Achilles as he burnt the bones of his\ncomrade, going heavily round the burning pile, with many moans.\n\nBut at the hour when the Morning star goeth forth to herald light upon\nthe earth, the star that saffron-mantled Dawn cometh after, and\nspreadeth over the salt sea, then grew the burning faint, and the flame\ndied down. And the Winds went back again to betake them home over the\nThracian main, and it roared with a violent swell. Then the son of\nPeleus turned away from the burning and lay down wearied, and sweet\nsleep leapt on him. But they who were with Atreus' son gathered all\ntogether, and the noise and clash of their approach aroused him; and he\nsate upright and spake a word to them: \"Son of Atreus and ye other\nchiefs of the Achaians, first quench with gleaming wine all the burning\nso far as the fire's strength hath reached, and then let us gather up\nthe bones of Patroklos, Menoitios' son, singling them well, and easy are\nthey to discern, for he lay in the middle of the pyre, while the rest\napart at the edge burnt-confusedly, horses and men. And his bones let us\nput within a golden urn, and double-folded fat, until that I myself be\nhidden in Hades. But no huge barrow I bid you toil to raise--a seemly\none, no more: then afterward do ye Achaians build it broad and high,\nwhosoever of you after I am gone may be left in the benched ships.\"\n\nThus spake he, and they hearkened to the fleet-footed son of Peleus.\nFirst quenched they with gleaming wine the burning so far as the flame\nwent, and the ash had settled deep: then with lamentation they gathered\nup the white bones of their gentle comrade into a golden urn and\ndouble-folded fat, and placed the urn in the hut and covered it with a\nlinen veil. And they marked the circle of the barrow, and set the\nfoundations thereof around the pyre, and straightway heaped thereon a\nheap of earth. Then when they had heaped up the barrow they were for\ngoing back. But Achilles stayed the folk in that place, and made them\nsit in wide assembly, and from his ships he brought forth prizes,\ncaldrons and tripods, and horses and mules and strong oxen, and\nfair-girdled women, and grey iron.\n\nFirst for fleet chariot-racers he ordained a noble prize, a woman\nskilled in fair handiwork for the winner to lead home, and an eared\ntripod that held two-and-twenty measures; these for the first man; and\nfor the second he ordained a six-year-old mare unbroke with a mule foal\nin her womb; and for the third he gave a goodly caldron yet untouched by\nfire, holding four measures, bright as when first made; and for the\nfourth he ordained two talents of gold; and for the fifth a two-handled\nurn untouched of fire, Then he stood up and spake a word among the\nArgives: \"Son of Atreus and ye other well-greaved Achaians, for the\nchariot-racers these prizes lie awaiting them in the lists. If in some\nother's honour we Achaians were now holding our games, it would be I who\nshould win the first prize and bear it to my hut; for ye know how far my\npair of horses are first in excellence, for they are immortal and\nPoseidon gave them to my father Peleus, and he again to me. But verily I\nwill abide, I and my whole-hooved horses, so glorious a charioteer have\nthey lost, and one so kind, who on their manes full often poured smooth\noil, when he had washed them in clear water. For him they stand and\nmourn, and their manes are trailing on the ground, and there stand they\nwith sorrow at their hearts. But ye others throughout the host get ye to\nyour places, whosoever of the Achalans hath trust in his horses and\nfirm-jointed car.\"\n\nThus spake the son of Peleus, and the fleet chariot-racers were\ngathered. First of all arose up Eumelos king of men, Admetos' son, a\nskilful charioteer; and next to him arose Tydeus' son, valiant Diomedes,\nand yoked his horses of the breed of Tros, which on a time he seized\nfrom Aineias, when Apollo saved their lord. And after him arose Atreus'\nson, fair-haired heaven-sprung Menelaos, and yoked him a swift pair\nAithe, Agamemnon's mare, and his own horse Podargos. Her unto Agamemnon\ndid Anchises' son Echepolos give in fee, that he might escape from\nfollowing him to windy Ilios and take his pleasure at home; for great\nwealth had Zeus given him, and he dwelt in Sikyon of spacious lawns:--\nso Menelaos yoked her, and she longed exceedingly for the race. And\nfourth, Antilochos made ready his fair-maned horses, even the noble son\nof Nestor, high-hearted king, who was the son of Neleus; and fleet\nhorses bred at Pylos drew his car. And his father standing by his side\nspake counselling him to his profit, though himself was well advised:\n\"Antilochos, verily albeit thou art young, Zeus and Poseidon have loved\nthee and taught thee all skill with horses; wherefore to teach thee is\nno great need, for thou well knowest how to wheel round the post; yet\nare thy horses very slow in the race: therefore methinks there will be\nsad work for thee. For the horses of the others are fleeter, yet the men\nknow not more cunning than thou hast. So come, dear son, store thy mind\nwith all manner of cunning, that the prize escape thee not. By cunning\nis a woodman far better than by force; by cunning doth a helmsman on the\nwine-dark deep steer his swift ship buffeted by winds; by cunning hath\ncharioteer the better of charioteer. For whoso trusting in his horses\nand car alone wheeleth heedlessly and wide at either end, his horses\nswerve on the course, and he keepeth them not in hand. But whoso is of\ncrafty mind, though he drive worse horses, he ever keeping his eye upon\nthe post turneth closely by it, neither is unaware how far at first to\nforce his horses by the ox-hide reins, but holdeth them safe in hand and\nwatcheth the leader in the race. Now will I tell thee a certain sign,\nand it shall not escape thee. A fathom's height above the ground\nstandeth a withered stump, whether of oak or pine: it decayeth not in\nthe rain, and two white stones on either side thereof are fixed at the\njoining of the track, and all round it is smooth driving ground. Whether\nit be a monument of some man dead long ago, or have been made their goal\nin the race by ancient men, this now is the mark fixed by fleet-footed\nAchilles. Wherefore do thou drive close and bear thy horses and chariot\nhard thereon, and lean thy body on the well-knit car slightly to their\nleft, and call upon the off-horse with voice and lash, and give him rein\nfrom thy hand. But let the near horse hug the post so that the nave of\nthe well-wrought wheel seem to graze it--yet beware of touching the\nstone, lest thou wound the horses and break the chariot; so would that\nbe triumph to the rest and reproach unto thyself. But, dear son, be wise\nand on thy guard; for if at the turning-post thou drive past the rest,\nthere is none shall overtake thee from behind or pass thee by, not\nthough he drave the goodly Arion in pursuit, the fleet horse of\nAdrastos, of divine descent, or the horses of Laomedon, best of all bred\nin this land.\"\n\nThus spake Neleian Nestor and sate him down again in his place, when he\nhad told his son the sum of every matter.\n\nAnd Meriones was the fifth to make ready his sleek-coated steeds. Then\nwent they up into their chariots, and cast in the lots: and Achilles\nshook them, and forth leapt the lot of Antilochos Nestor's son, and the\nnext lot had lord Eumelos, and next to him the son of Atreus,\nspear-famed Menelaos, and next to him drew Meriones his place; then\nlastly Tydeides, far the best of all, drew his lot for his chariot's\nplace. Then they stood side by side, and Achilles showed to them the\nturning post, far off in the smooth plain; and beside it he placed an\numpire, godlike Phoinix, his father's follower, that he might note the\nrunning and tell the truth thereof.\n\nThen all together lifted the lash above their steeds, and smote them\nwith the reins, and called on them eagerly with words: and they\nforthwith sped swiftly over the plain, leaving the ships behind; and\nbeneath their breasts stood the rising dust like a cloud or whirlwind,\nand their manes waved on the blowing wind. And the chariots ran\nsometimes on the bounteous earth, and other whiles would bound into the\nair. And the drivers stood in the cars, and the heart of every man beat\nin desire of victory, and they called every man to his horses, that flew\namid their dust across the plain.\n\nBut when the fleet horses were now running the last part of the course,\nback toward the grey sea, then was manifest the prowess of each, and the\nhorses strained in the race; and presently to the front rushed the fleet\nmares of Pheres' grandson, and next to them Diomedes' stallions of the\nbreed of Tros, not far apart, but hard anigh, for they seemed ever as\nthey would mount Eumelos' car, and with their breath his back was warm\nand his broad shoulders, for they bent their heads upon him as they flew\nalong. Thus would Tydeus' son have either outstripped the other or made\nit a dead heat, had not Phoebus Apollo been wroth with him and smitten\nfrom his hand the shining lash. Then from his eyes ran tears of anger,\nfor that he saw the mares still at speed, even swiftlier than before,\nwhile his own horses were thrown out, as running without spur. But\nAthene was not unaware of Apollo's guile against Tydeides, and presently\nsped after the shepherd of hosts, and gave him back the lash, and put\nspirit into his steeds. Then in wrath after the son of Admetos was the\ngoddess gone, and brake his steeds' yoke, and the mares ran sideways off\nthe course, and the pole was twisted to the ground. And Eumelos was\nhurled out of the car beside the wheel, and his elbows and mouth and\nnose were flayed, and his forehead bruised above his eyebrows; and his\neyes filled with tears and his lusty voice was choked. Then Tydeides\nheld his whole-hooved horses on one side, darting far out before the\nrest, for Athene put spirit into his steeds and shed glory on himself.\nNow next after him came golden-haired Menelaos Atreus' son. But\nAntilochos called to his father's horses: \"Go ye too in, strain to your\nfleetest pace. Truly I nowise bid you strive with those, the horses of\nwise Tydeides, unto which Athene hath now given speed, and shed glory on\ntheir charioteer. But overtake Atreides' horses with all haste, and be\nnot outstripped by them, lest Aithe that is but a mare pour scorn on\nyou. Why are ye outstripped, brave steeds? Thus will I tell you, and\nverily it shall be brought to pass--ye will find no tendance with Nestor\nshepherd of hosts, but straightway he will slay you with the edge of the\nsword if through heedlessness we win but the worse prize. Have after\nthem at your utmost speed, and I for my part will devise a plan to pass\nthem in the strait part of the course, and this shall fail me not.\"\n\nThus spake he, and they fearing the voice of the prince ran swiftlier\nsome little while; and presently did the good warrior Antilochos espy a\nstrait place in a sunk part of the way. There was a rift in the earth,\nwhere torrent water gathered and brake part of the track away, and\nhollowed all the place; there drave Menelaos, shunning the encounter of\nthe wheels. But Antilochos turned his whole-hooved horses out of the\ntrack, and followed him a little at one side. And the son of Atreus took\nalarm and shouted to Antilochos: \"Antilochos, thou art driving\nrecklessly--hold in thy horses! The road is straitened, soon thou mayest\npass me in a wider place, lest thou foul my chariot and undo us both.\"\n\nThus spake he, but Antilochos drave even fiercelier than before, plying\nhis lash, as though he heard him not. As far as is the range of a disk\nswung from the shoulder when a young man hurleth it, making trial of his\nforce, even so far ran they on; then the mares of Atreus' son gave back,\nfor he ceased of himself to urge them on, lest the whole-hooved steeds\nshould encounter on the track, and overset the well-knit cars, and the\ndrivers fall in the dust in their zeal for victory. So upbraiding\nAntilochos spake golden-haired Menelaos: \"Antilochos, no mortal man is\nmore malicious than thou. Go thy mad way, since falsely have we Achaians\ncalled thee wise. Yet even so thou shalt not bear off the prize\nunchallenged to an oath.\"\n\nThus saying he called aloud to his horses: \"Hold ye not back nor stand\nstill with sorrow at heart. Their feet and knees will grow weary before\nyours, for they both lack youth.\"\n\nThus spake he, and they fearing the voice of the prince sped faster on,\nand were quickly close upon the others.\n\nNow the Argives sitting in concourse were gazing at the horses, and they\ncame flying amid their dust over the plain. And the first aware of them\nwas Idomeneus, chief of the Cretans, for he was sitting outside the\nconcourse in the highest place of view, and when he heard the voice of\none that shouted, though afar off, he knew it; and he was aware of a\nhorse showing plainly in the front, a chestnut all the rest of him, but\nin the forehead marked with a white star round like the moon. And he\nstood upright and spoke among the Argives: \"Friends, chiefs, and\ncounsellors of the Argives, is it I alone who see the horses, or do ye\nalso? A new pair seem to me now to be in front, and a new charioteer\nappeareth; the mares which led in the outward course must have been\nthrown out there in the plain. For I saw them turning first the hither\npost, but now can see them nowhere, though my eyes are gazing everywhere\nalong the Trojan plain. Did the reins escape the charioteer so that he\ncould not drive aright round the post and failed in the turn? There,\nmethinks, must he have been cast forth, and have broken his chariot, and\nthe mares must have left the course, in the wildness of their heart. But\nstand up ye too and look, for myself I discern not certainly, but the\nfirst man seemeth to me one of Aitolian race, and he ruleth among\nArgives, the son of horse-taming Tydeus, stalwart Diomedes.\"\n\nThen fleet Aias Oileus' son rebuked him in unseemly sort: \"Idomeneus,\nwhy art thou a braggart of old? As yet far off the high-stepping mares\nare coursing over the wide plain. Neither art thou so far the youngest\namong the Argives, nor do thy eyes look so far the keenliest from thy\nhead, yet continually braggest thou. It beseemeth thee not to be a\nbraggart, for there are here better men. And the mares leading are they\nthat led before, Eumelos' mares, and he standeth and holdeth the reins\nwithin the car.\"\n\nThen wrathfully in answer spake the chief of Cretans: \"Aias, master of\nrailing, ill-counselled, in all else art thou behind other Argives, for\nthy mind is unfriendly. Come then let us wager a tripod or caldron, and\nmake Agamemnon Atreus' son our umpire, which mares are leading, that\nthou mayest pay and learn.\"\n\nThus said he, and straightway fleet Aias Oileus' son arose angrily to\nanswer with harsh words: and strife between the twain would have gone\nfurther, had not Achilles himself stood up and spake a word: \"No longer\nanswer each other with harsh words, Aias and Idomeneus, ill words, for\nit beseemeth not. Surely ye are displeased with any other who should do\nthus. Sit ye in the concourse and keep your eyes upon the horses; soon\nthey in zeal for victory will come hither, and then shall ye know each\nof you the Argives' horses, which follow, and which lead.\"\n\nHe said, and the son of Tydeus came driving up, and with his lash smote\nnow and again from the shoulder, and his horses were stepping high as\nthey sped swiftly on their way. And sprinklings of dust smote ever the\ncharioteer, and his chariot overlaid with gold and tin ran behind his\nfleet-footed steeds, and small trace was there of the wheel-tires behind\nin the fine dust, as they flew speeding on. Then he drew up in the mid\nconcourse, and much sweat poured from the horses' heads and chests to\nthe ground. And Diomedes leapt to earth from the shining car, and leant\nhis lash against the yoke. Then stalwart Sthenelos tarried not, but\npromptly took the prize, and gave to his proud comrades the woman to\nlead and the eared tripod to bear away, and he loosed the horses from\nthe yoke.\n\nAnd next after him drave Neleian Antilochos his horses, by craft, not\nswiftness, having passed by Menelaos; yet even now Menelaos held his\nswift steeds hard anigh. As far as a horse is from the wheel, which\ndraweth his master, straining with the car over the plain--his hindmost\ntail-hairs touch the tire, for the wheel runneth hard anigh nor is much\nspace between, as he speedeth far over the plain--by so much was\nMenelaos behind high-born Antilochos, howbeit at first he was a whole\ndisk-cast behind, but quickly he was catching Antilochos up, for the\nhigh mettle of Agamemnon's mare, sleek-coated Aithe, was rising in her.\nAnd if yet further both had had to run he would have passed his rival\nnor left it even a dead heat. But Meriones, stout squire of Idomeneus,\ncame in a spear-throw behind famous Menelaos, for tardiest of all were\nhis sleek-coated horses, and slowest he himself to drive a chariot in\nthe race. Last of them all came Admetos' son, dragging his goodly car\ndriving his steeds in front. Him when fleet-footed noble Achilles beheld\nhe pitied him, and he stood up and spake winged words among the Argives:\n\"Last driveth his whole-hooved horses the best man of them all. But come\nlet us give him a prize, as is seemly, prize for the second place, but\nthe first let the son of Tydeus take.\"\n\nThus spake he, and all applauded that he bade. And he would have given\nhim the mare, for the Achaians applauded, had not Antilochos, son of\ngreat-hearted Nestor; risen up and answered Peleian Achilles on behalf\nof his right: \"O Achilles, I shall be sore angered with thee if thou\naccomplish this word, for thou art minded to take away my prize, because\nthou thinkest of how his chariot and fleet steeds miscarried, and\nhimself withal, good man though he be. Nay, it behoved him to pray to\nthe Immortals, then would he not have come in last of all in the race.\nBut if thou pitiest him and he be dear to thy heart, there is much gold\nin thy hut, bronze is there and sheep, hand-maids are there and\nwhole-hooved horses. Thereof take thou and give unto him afterward even\na richer prize, or even now at once, that the Achaians may applaud thee.\nBut the mare I will not yield; for her let what man will essay the\nbattle at my hands.\"\n\nThus spake he, and fleet-footed noble Achilles smiled, pleased with\nAntilochos, for he was his dear comrade; and spake in answer to him\nwinged words: \"Antilochos, if thou wouldst have me give Eumelos some\nother thing beside from out my house, that also will I do. I will give\nunto him a breast-plate that I took from Asteropaios, of bronze, whereon\na casting of bright tin is overlaid, and of great worth will it be to\nhim.\" He said, and bade his dear comrade Automedon bring it from the\nhut, and he went and brought it. [Then he placed it in Eumelos' hands,\nand he received it gladly.]\n\nBut Menelaos also arose among them, sore at heart, angered exceedingly\nagainst Antilochos; and the herald set the staff in his hand, and called\nfor silence among the Argives; then spake among them that godlike man:\n\"Antilochos, who once wert wise, what thing is this thou hast done? Thou\nhast shamed my skill and made my horses fail, thrusting thine own in\nfront that are far worse. Come now, ye chiefs and counsellors of the\nArgives, give judgment between us both, and favour neither: lest some\none of the mail-clad Achalans say at any time: 'By constraining\nAntilochos through false words hath Menelaos gone off with the mare, for\nhis horses were far worse, howbeit he hath advantage in rank and power.'\nNay, I myself will bring the issue about, and I deem that none other of\nthe Danaans shall reproach me, for the trial shall be just. Antilochos,\nfosterling of Zeus, come thou hither and as it is ordained stand up\nbefore thy horses and chariot and take in thy hand the pliant lash\nwherewith thou dravest erst, and touching thy horses swear by the\nEnfolder and Shaker of the earth that not wilfully didst thou hinder\nmy chariot by guile.\"\n\nThen answered him wise Antilochos: \"Bear with me now, for far younger am\nI than thou, king Menelaos, and thou art before me and my better. Thou\nknowest how a young man's transgressions come about, for his mind is\nhastier and his counsel shallow. So let thy heart suffer me, and I will\nof myself give to thee the mare I have taken. Yea, if thou shouldst ask\nsome other greater thing from my house, I were fain to give it thee\nstraightway, rather than fall for ever from my place in thy heart, O\nfosterling of Zeus, and become a sinner against the gods.\"\n\nThus spake great-hearted Nestor's son, and brought the mare and put her\nin the hand of Menelaos. And his heart was gladdened as when the dew\ncometh upon the ears of ripening harvest-corn, what time the fields are\nbristling. So gladdened was thy soul, Menelaos, within thy heart. And he\nspake unto Antilochos and uttered winged words: \"Antilochos, now will I\nof myself put away mine anger against thee, since no wise formerly wert\nthou flighty or light-minded, howbeit now thy reason was overcome of\nyouthfulness. Another time be loth to outwit better men. Not easily\nshould another of the Achaians have persuaded me, but thou hast suffered\nand toiled greatly, and thy brave father and brother, for my sake:\ntherefore will I hearken to thy prayer, and will even give unto thee the\nmare, though she is mine, that these also may know that my heart was\nnever overweening or implacable.\"\n\nHe said, and gave the mare to Noemon Antilochos' comrade to lead away,\nand then took the shining caldron. And Meriones took up the two talents\nof gold in the fourth place, as he had come in. So the fifth prize was\nleft unclaimed, a two-handled cup; to Nester gave Achilles this,\nbearing it to him through the concourse of Argives, and stood by him and\nsaid: \"Lo now for thee too, old man, be this a treasure, a memorial of\nPatroklos' burying; for no more shalt thou behold him among the Argives.\nNow give I thee this prize unwon, for not in boxing shalt thou strive,\nneither wrestle, nor enter on the javelin match, nor race with thy feet;\nfor grim old age already weigheth on thee.\"\n\nThus saying he placed it in his hand, and Nestor received it gladly, and\nspake unto him winged words: \"Ay, truly all this, my son, thou hast\nmeetly said; for no longer are my limbs, friend, firm, nor my feet, nor\ndo my arms at all swing lightly from my shoulders either side. Would\nthat my youth were such and my force so firm as when the Epeians were\nburying lord Amarynkes at Buprasion, and his sons held the king's\nfuneral games. Then was no man found like me, neither of the Epeians nor\nof the Pylians themselves or the great-hearted Aitolians. In boxing I\novercame Klytomedes, son of Enops, and in wrestling Ankaios of Pleuron,\nwho stood up against me, and in the foot-race I outran Iphiklos, a right\ngood man, and with the spear outthrew Phyleus and Polydoros; only in the\nchariot-race the two sons of Aktor beat me [by crowding their horses in\nfront of me, jealous for victory, because the chief prizes were left at\nhome.] Now they were twins--one ever held the reins, the reins he ever\nheld, the other called on the horses with the lash. Thus was I once, but\nnow let younger men join in such feats; I must bend to grievous age, but\nthen was I of mark among heroes. But come hold funeral for thy comrade\ntoo with with games. This gift do I accept with gladness, and my heart\nrejoiceth that thou rememberest ever my friendship to thee--(nor forget\nI thee)--and the honour wherewith it is meet that I be honoured among\nthe Achaians. And may the gods for this grant thee due grace.\"\n\nThus spake he, and Peleides was gone down the full concourse of\nAchaians, when he had hearkened to all the thanks of Neleus' son. Then\nhe ordained prizes of the violent boxing match; a sturdy mule he led\nforth and tethered amid the assembly, a six-year mule unbroken, hardest\nof all to break; and for the loser set a two-handled cup. Then he stood\nup and spake a word among the Argives: \"Son of Atreus and ye other\nwell-greaved Achaians, for these rewards we summon two men of the best\nto lift up their hands to box amain. He to whom Apollo shall grant\nendurance to the end, and all the Achaians acknowledge it, let him take\nthe sturdy mule and return with her to his hut; and the loser shall take\nwith him the two-handled-cup.\"\n\nThus spake he, and forthwith arose a man great and valiant and skilled\nin boxing, Epeios son of Panopeus, and laid his hand on the sturdy mule\nand said aloud: \"Let one come nigh to bear off the two-handled cup; the\nmule I say none other of the Achaians shall take for victory with his\nfists, for I claim to be the best man here. Sufficeth it not that I fall\nshort of you in battle? Not possible is it that in all arts a man be\nskilled. Thus proclaim I, and it shall be accomplished: I will utterly\nbruise mine adversary's flesh and break his bones, so let his friends\nabide together here to bear him forth when vanquished by my hands.\"\n\nThus spake he, and they all kept deep silence. And alone arose against\nhim Euryalos, a godlike man, son of king Mekisteus the son of Talaos,\nMekisteus, who came on a time to Thebes when Oedipus had fallen, to his\nburial, and there he overcame all the sons of Kadmos. Thus Tydeides\nfamous with the spear made ready Euryalos for the fight, cheering him\nwith speech, and greatly desired for him victory. And first he cast\nabout him a girdle, and next gave him well-cut thongs of the hide of an\nox of the field. And the two boxers being girt went into the midst of\nthe ring, and both lifting up their stalwart hands fell to, and their\nhands joined battle grievously. Then was there terrible grinding of\nteeth, and sweat flowed from all their limbs. And noble Epeios came on,\nand as the other spied for an opening, smote him on the cheek, nor could\nhe much more stand, for his limbs failed straightway under him. And as\nwhen beneath the North Wind's ripple a fish leapeth on a tangle-covered\nbeach, and then the black wave hideth it, so leapt up Euryalos at that\nblow. But great-hearted Epeios took him in his hands and set him\nupright, and his dear comrades stood around him, and led him through the\nring with trailing feet, spitting out clotted blood, drooping his head\nawry, and they set him down in his swoon among them and themselves went\nforth and fetched the two-handled cup.\n\nThen Peleus' son ordained straightway the prizes for a third contest,\noffering them to the Danaans, for the grievous wrestling match: for the\nwinner a great tripod for standing on the fire, prized by the Achaians\namong them at twelve oxens' worth; and for the loser he brought a woman\ninto the midst, skilled in manifold work, and they prized her at four\noxen. And he stood up and spake a word among the Argives: \"Rise, ye who\nwill essay this match.\"\n\nThus said he, and there arose great Aias son of Telamon, and Odysseus of\nmany wiles stood up, the crafty-minded. And the twain being girt went\ninto the midst of the ring, and clasped each the other in his arms with\nstalwart hands, like gable rafters of a lofty house which some famed\ncraftsman joineth, that he may baffle the wind's force. And their backs\ncreaked, gripped firmly under the vigorous hands, and sweat ran down in\nstreams, and frequent weals along their ribs and shoulders sprang up,\nred with blood, while ever they strove amain for victory, to win the\nwrought tripod. Neither could Odysseus trip Aias and bear him to the\nground, nor Aias him, for Odysseus' strength withheld him. But when they\nbegan to irk the well-greaved Achaians, then said to Odysseus great\nAias, Telamon's son: \"Heaven-sprung son of Laertes, Odysseus of many\nwiles, or lift thou me, or I will thee, and the issue shall be with\nZeus.\"\n\nHaving thus said he lifted him, but Odysseus was not unmindful of his\ncraft. He smote deftly from behind the hollow of Aias' knee, and loosed\nhis limbs, and threw him down backward, and Odysseus fell upon his\nchest, and the folk gazed and marvelled. Then in his turn much-enduring\nnoble Odysseus tried to lift, and moved him a little from the ground,\nbut lifted him not, so he crooked his knee within the other's, and both\nfell on the ground nigh to each other, and were soiled with dust, And\nnow starting up again a third time would they have wrestled, had not\nAchilles himself arisen and held them back: \"No longer press each the\nother, nor wear you out with pain. Victory is with both; take equal\nprizes and depart, that other Achaians may contend.\"\n\nThus spake he, and they were fain to hear and to obey, and wiped the\ndust from them and put their doublets on.\n\nThen straightway the son of Peleus set forth other prizes for fleetness\nof foot; a mixing-bowl of silver, chased; six measures it held, and in\nbeauty it was far the best in all the earth, for artificers of Sidon\nwrought it cunningly, and men of the Phoenicians brought it over the\nmisty sea, and landed it in harbour, and gave it a gift to Thoas; and\nEuneos son of Jason gave it to the hero Patroklos a ransom for Lykaon\nPriam's son. Now this cup did Achilles set forth as a prize in honour of\nhis friend, for whoso should be fleetest in speed of foot. For the\nsecond he set an ox great and very fat, and for the last prize half a\ntalent of gold. And he stood up and spake a word among the Argives:\n\"Rise, ye who will essay this match.\"\n\nThus spake he, and straightway arose fleet Aias Oileus' son, and\nOdysseus of many wiles, and after them Nestor's son Antilochos, for he\nwas best of all the youth in the foot-race. Then they stood side by\nside, and Achilles showed to them the goal. Right eager was the running\nfrom the start, but Oileus' son forthwith shot to the front, and close\nbehind him came noble Odysseus, as close as is a weaving-rod to a\nfair-girdled woman's breast when she pulleth it deftly with her hands,\ndrawing the spool along the warp, and holdeth the rod nigh her breast--\nso close ran Odysseus behind Aias and trod in his footsteps or ever the\ndust had settled there, and on his head fell the breath of noble\nOdysseus as he ran ever lightly on, and all the Achaians applauded his\nstruggle for the victory and called on him as he laboured hard. But when\nthey were running the last part of the course, forthwith Odysseus prayed\nin his soul to bright-eyed Athene: \"Hearken, goddess, come thou a good\nhelper of my feet.\"\n\nThus prayed he, and Pallas Athene hearkened to him, and made his limbs\nfeel light, both feet and hands. But when they, were now nigh darting on\nthe prize, then Aias slipped as he ran, for Athene marred his race,\nwhere filth was strewn from the slaughter of loud-bellowing oxen that\nfleet Achilles slew in honour of Patroklos: and Aias' mouth and nostrils\nwere filled with that filth of oxen. So much-enduring noble Odysseus, as\nhe came in first, took up the mixing-bowl, and famous Aias took the ox.\nAnd he stood holding in his hand the horn of the ox of the field,\nsputtering away the filth, and spake among the Argives: \"Out on it, it\nwas the goddess who marred my running, she who from of old like a mother\nstandeth by Odysseus' side and helpeth him.\"\n\nSo spake he, but they all laughed pleasantly to behold him. Then\nAntilochos smiling bore off the last prize, and spake his word among the\nArgives: \"Friends, ye will all bear me witness when I say that even\nherein also the immortals favour elder men. For Aias is a little older\nthan I, but Odysseus of an earlier generation and earlier race of men. A\ngreen old age is his, they say, and hard were it for any Achaian to\nrival him in speed, save only Achilles.\"\n\nThus spake he, and gave honour to the fleet son of Peleus. And Achilles\nanswered him and said: \"Antilochos, not unheeded shall thy praise be\ngiven; a half-talent of gold I will give thee over and above.\" He said,\nand set it in his hands, and Antilochos received it gladly.\n\nThen Peleus' son brought and set in the ring a far-shadowing spear and a\nchaldron that knew not the fire, an ox's worth, embossed with flowers;\nand men that were casters of the javelin arose up. There rose Atreus'\nson wide-ruling Agamemnon, and Meriones, Idomeneus' brave squire. And\nswift-footed noble Achilles spake among them: \"Son of Atreus, for that\nwe know how far thou excellest all, and how far the first thou art in\nthe might of thy throw, take thou this prize with thee to the hollow\nships, and to the hero Meriones let us give the spear, if thou art\nwilling in thy heart: thus I at least advise.\"\n\nThus spake he, nor disregarded him Agamemnon king of men. So to Meriones\nhe gave the spear of bronze, but to the herald Talthybios the hero gave\nthe goodliest prize.\n\n\n\nBOOK XXIV.\n\n    How the body of Hector was ransomed, and of his funeral.\n\nThen the assembly was broken up, and the tribes were scattered to betake\nthem each to their own swift ships. The rest bethought them of supper\nand sweet sleep to have joy thereof; but Achilles wept, remembering his\ndear comrade, nor did sleep that conquereth all take hold on him, but he\nkept turning him to this side and to that, yearning for Patroklos'\nmanhood and excellent valour, and all the toils he achieved with him and\nthe woes he bare, cleaving the battles of men and the grievous waves. As\nhe thought thereon be shed big tears, now lying on his side, now on his\nback, now on his face; and then anon he would arise upon his feet and\nroam wildly beside the beach of the salt sea. Nor would he be unaware of\nthe Dawn when she arose over the sea and shores. But when he had yoked\nthe swift steeds to his car he would bind Hector behind his chariot to\ndrag him withal; and having thrice drawn him round the barrow of the\ndead son of Menoitios he rested again in his hut, and left Hector lying\nstretched on his face in the dust. But Apollo kept away all defacement\nfrom his flesh, for he had pity on him even in death, and covered him\nall with his golden aegis, that Achilles might not tear him when he\ndragged him.\n\nThus Achilles in his anger entreated noble Hector shamefully; but the\nblessed gods when they beheld him pitied him, and urged the\nclear-sighted slayer of Argus to steal the corpse away. So to all the\nothers seemed it good, yet not to Hera or Poseidon or the bright-eyed\nMaiden, but they continued as when at the beginning sacred Ilios became\nhateful to them, and Priam and his people, by reason of the sin of\nAlexandros in that he contemned those goddesses when they came to his\nsteading, and preferred her who brought him deadly lustfulness. But when\nthe twelfth morn from that day arose, then spake among the Immortals\nPhoebus Apollo: \"Hard of heart are ye, O gods, and cruel Hath Hector\nnever burnt for you thigh-bones of unblemished bulls and goats? Now have\nye not taken heart to rescue even his corpse for his wife to look upon\nand his mother and his child and his father Priam and his people, who\nspeedily would burn him in the fire and make his funeral. But fell\nAchilles, O gods, ye are fain to abet, whose mind is nowise just nor the\npurpose in his breast to be turned away, but he is cruelly minded as a\nlion that in great strength and at the bidding of his proud heart goeth\nforth against men's flocks to make his meal; even thus Achilles hath\ncast out pity, neither hath he shame, that doth both harm and profit men\ngreatly. It must be that many a man lose even some dearer one than was\nthis, a brother of the same womb born or perchance a son; yet bringeth\nhe his wailing and lamentation to an end, for an enduring soul have the\nFates given unto men. But Achilles after bereaving noble Hector of his\nlife bindeth him behind his horses and draggeth him around the tomb of\nhis dear comrade: not, verily, is that more honourable or better for\nhim. Let him take heed lest we wax wroth with him, good man though he\nbe, for in his fury he is entreating shamefully the senseless clay.\"\n\nThen in anger spake unto him white-armed Hera: \"Even thus mightest thou\nspeak, O Lord of the silver bow, if ye are to give equal honour to\nAchilles and to Hector. Hector is but a mortal and was suckled at a\nwoman's breast, but Achilles is child of a goddess whom I myself bred up\nand reared and gave to a man to be his wife, even to Peleus who was\ndearest of all men to the Immortals' heart. And all ye gods came to her\nbridal, and thou among them wert feasting with thy lyre, O lover of ill\ncompany, faithless ever.\"\n\nThen to her in answer spake Zeus who gathereth the clouds: \"Hera, be not\nwroth utterly with the gods: for these men's honour is not to be the\nsame, yet Hector also was dearest to the gods of all mortals that are in\nIlios. So was he to me at least, for nowise failed he in the gifts I\nloved. Never did my altar lack seemly feast, drink-offering and the\nsteam of sacrifice, even the honour that falleth to our due. But verily\nwe will say no more of stealing away brave Hector, for it cannot be\nhidden from Achilles, for his mother abideth ever nigh to him night and\nday. But I were fain that some one of the gods would call Thetis to come\nnear to me, that I may speak unto her a wise word, so that Achilles may\ntake gifts from Priam and give Hector back.\" Thus spake he, and\nairy-footed Iris sped forth upon the errand and between Samothrace and\nrocky Imbros leapt into the black sea, and the waters closed above her\nwith a noise. And she sped to the bottom like a weight of lead that\nmounted on horn of a field-ox goeth down bearing death to ravenous\nfishes. And she found Thetis in a hollow cave; about her sat gathered\nother goddesses of the seas and she in their midst was wailing for the\nfate of her noble son who must perish in deep-soiled Troy, far from his\nnative land. And standing near, fleet-footed Iris spake to her: \"Rise,\nThetis; Zeus of immortal counsels calleth thee.\"\n\nAnd to her made answer Thetis the silver-footed goddess: \"Wherefore\nbiddeth me that mighty god? I shrink from mingling among the Immortals,\nfor I have countless woes at heart. Yet go I, nor shall his word be in\nvain, whatsoever he saith.\"\n\nThus having said the noble goddess took to her a dark-hued robe, no\nblacker raiment was there found than that. Then she went forth, and\nwind-footed swift Iris led the way before her, and around them the surge\nof the sea was sundered. And when they had come forth upon the shore\nthey sped up to heaven, and found the far-seeing son of Kronos, and\nround him sat gathered all the other blessed gods that are for ever.\nThen she sat down beside father Zeus, and Athene gave her place. And\nHera set a fair golden cup in her hand and cheered her with words, and\nThetis drank, and gave back the cup. Then began speech to them the\nfather of gods and men: \"Thou art come to Olympus, divine Thetis, in thy\nsorrow, with violent grief at thy heart; I know it of myself.\nNevertheless will I tell thee wherefore I called thee hither. Nine days\nhath dispute arisen among the Immortals concerning the corpse of Hector\nand Achilles waster of cities. Fain are they to send clear-sighted\nHermes to steal the body away, but now hear what glory I accord herein\nto Achilles, that I may keep through times to come thy honour and good\nwill. Go with all speed to the host and bear to thy son my bidding. Say\nto him that the gods are displeased at him, and that I above all\nImmortals am wroth, because with furious heart be holdeth Hector at the\nbeaked ships and hath not given him back, if haply he may fear me and\ngive Hector back. But I will send Iris to great-hearted Priam to bid him\ngo to the ships of the Achaians to ransom his dear son, and carry gifts\nto Achilles that may gladden his heart.\"\n\nThus spake he, and Thetis the silver-footed goddess was not disobedient\nto his word, and sped darting upon her way down from the peaks of\nOlympus. And she came to her son's hut; there found she him making\ngrievous moan, and his dear comrades round were swiftly making ready and\nfurnishing their early meal, and a sheep great and fleecy was being\nsacrificed in the hut. Then his lady-mother sate her down close beside\nhim, and stroked him with her hand and spake to him by his name: \"My\nchild, how long with lamentation and woe wilt thou devour thine heart,\ntaking thought of neither food nor rest? good were even a woman's\nembrace, for not long shalt thou be left alive to me; already death and\nforceful fate are standing nigh thee. But hearken forthwith unto me, for\nI am the messenger of Zeus to thee. He saith that the gods are\ndispleased at thee, and that himself above all Immortals is wroth,\nbecause with furious heart thou holdest Hector at the beaked ships and\nhast not given him back. But come restore him, and take ransom for the\ndead.\"\n\nThen to her in answer spake fleet-footed Achilles: \"So be it: whoso\nbringeth ransom let him take back the dead, if verily with heart's\nintent the Olympian biddeth it himself.\"\n\nSo they in the assembly of the ships, mother and son, spake to each\nother many winged words. But the son of Kronos thus bade Iris go to holy\nIlios: \"Go forth, fleet Iris, leave the abode of Olympus and bear my\nmessage within Ilios to great-hearted Priam that he go to the ships of\nthe Achaians and ransom his dear son and carry gifts to Achilles that\nmay gladden his heart; let him go alone, and no other man of the Trojans\ngo with him. Only let some elder herald attend on him to guide the mules\nand smooth-wheeled waggon and carry back to the city the dead man whom\nnoble Achilles slew. Let not death be in his thought nor any fear; such\nguide will we give unto him, even the slyer of Argus who shall lead him\nuntil his leading bring him to Achilles. And when he shall have led him\nwithin the hut, neither shall Achilles himself slay him nor suffer any\nother herein, for not senseless is he or unforeseeing or wicked, but\nwith all courtesy he will spare a suppliant man.\"\n\nThus spake he, and airy-footed Iris sped forth upon the errand. And she\ncame to the house of Priam, and found therein crying and moan. His\nchildren sitting around their father within the court were bedewing\ntheir raiment with their tears, and the old man in their midst was close\nwrapped all over in his cloak; and on his head and neck was much mire\nthat he had gathered in his hands as he grovelled upon the earth. And\nhis daughters and his sons' wives were wailing throughout the house,\nbethinking them of all those valiant men who had lost their lives at the\nhands of the Argives and were lying low. And the messenger of Zeus stood\nbeside Priam and spake softly unto him, and trembling came upon his\nlimbs: \"Be of good cheer in thy heart, O Priam son of Dardanos, and be\nnot dismayed for anything, for no evil come I hither to forebode to\nthee, but with good will. I am the messenger of Zeus to thee, who,\nthough he be afar off, hath great care and pity for thee. The Olympian\nbiddeth thee ransom noble Hector and carry gifts to Achilles that may\ngladden his heart: go thou alone, let none other of the Trojans go with\nthee. Only let some elder herald attend on thee to guide the mules and\nthe smooth-wheeled waggon to carry back to the city the dead man whom\nnoble Achilles slew. Let not death be in thy thought, nor any fear; such\nguide shall go with thee, even the slayer of Argus, who shall lead thee\nuntil his leading bring thee to Achilles. And when he shall have led\nthee into the hut, neither shall Achilles himself slay thee, nor suffer\nany other herein, for not senseless is he or unforeseeing or wicked, but\nwith all courtesy he will spare a suppliant man.\"\n\nThus having spoken fleet Iris departed from him; and he bade his sons\nmake ready the smooth-wheeled mule waggon, and bind the wicker carriage\nthereon. And himself he went down to his fragrant chamber, of cedar\nwood, high-roofed, that held full many jewels: and to Hekabe his wife he\ncalled and spake: \"Lady, from Zeus hath an Olympian messenger come to\nme, that I go to the ships of the Achaians and ransom my dear son, and\ncarry gifts to Achilles that may gladden his heart. Come tell me how\nseemeth it to thy mind, for of myself at least my desire and heart bid\nme mightily to go thither to the ships and enter the wide camp of the\nAchaians.\"\n\nThus spake he, but his wife lamented aloud and made answer to him: \"Woe\nis me, whither is gone thy mind whereby aforetime thou wert famous among\nstranger men and among them thou rulest? How art thou fain to go alone\nto the ships of the Achaians, to meet the eyes of the man who hath slain\nfull many of thy brave sons? of iron verily is thy heart. For if he\nlight on thee and behold thee with his eyes, a savage and ill-trusted\nman is this, and he will not pity thee, neither reverence thee at all.\nNay, now let us sit in the hall and make lament afar off. Even thus did\nforceful Fate erst spin for Hector with her thread at his beginning when\nI bare him, even I, that he should glut fleet-footed dogs, far from his\nparents, in the dwelling of a violent man whose inmost vitals I were\nfain to fasten and feed upon; then would his deeds against my son be\npaid again to him, for not playing the coward was he slain of him, but\nchampioning the men and deep-bosomed women of Troy, neither bethought he\nhim of shelter or of flight.\"\n\nThe to her in answer spake the old man godlike Priam: \"Stay me not, for\nI am fain to go, neither be thyself a bird of ill boding in my halls,\nfor thou wilt not change my mind. Were it some other and a child of\nearth that bade me this, whether some seer or of the priests that divine\nfrom sacrifice, then would we declare it false and have no part\ntherein; but now, since I have heard the voice of the goddess myself and\nlooked upon her face, I will go forth, and her word shall not be void.\nAnd if it be my fate to die by the ships of the mail-clad Achaians, so\nwould I have it; let Achilles slay me with all speed, when once I have\ntaken in my arms my son, and have satisfied my desire with moan.\"\n\nHe spake, and opened fair lids of chests wherefrom he chose twelve very\ngoodly women's robes and twelve cloaks of single fold and of coverlets a\nlike number and of fair sheets, and of doublets thereupon. And he\nweighed and brought forth talents of gold ten in all, and two shining\ntripods and four caldrons, and a goblet exceeding fair that men of\nThrace had given him when he went thither on an embassy, a chattel of\ngreat price, yet not that even did the old man grudge from his halls,\nfor he was exceeding fain at heart to ransom his dear son. Then he drave\nout all the Trojans from the colonnade, chiding them with words of\nrebuke: \"Begone, ye that dishonour and do me shame! Have ye no mourning\nof your own at home that ye come to vex me here? Think ye it a small\nthing that Zeus Kronos' son hath given me this sorrow, to lose him that\nwas the best man of my sons? Nay, but ye too shall feel it, for easier\nfar shall ye be to the Achaians to slay now he is dead. But for me, ere\nI behold with mine eyes the city sacked and wasted, let me go down into\nthe house of Hades.\"\n\nHe said, and with his staff chased forth the men, and they went forth\nbefore the old man in his haste. Then he called unto his sons, chiding\nHelenos and Paris and noble Agathon and Pammon and Antiphonos, and\nPolites of the loud war-cry, and Deiphobos and Hippothoos and proud\nDios; nine were they whom the old man called and bade unto him: \"Haste\nye, ill sons, my shame; would that ye all in Hector's stead had been\nslain at the swift ships! Woe is me all unblest, since I begat sons the\nbest men in wide Troy-land, but none of them is left for me to claim,\nneither godlike Mestor, nor Troilos with his chariot of war, nor Hector\nwho was a god among men, neither seemed he as the son of a mortal man\nbut of a god:--all these hath Ares slain, and here are my shames all\nleft to me, false-tongued, light-heeled, the heroes of dance, plunderers\nof your own people's sheep and kids. Will ye not make me ready a wain\nwith all speed, and lay all these thereon, that we get us forward on our\nway?\"\n\nThus spake he, and they fearing their father's voice brought forth the\nsmooth-running mule chariot, fair and new, and bound the body thereof on\nthe frame; and from its peg they took down the mule yoke, a boxwood yoke\nwith knob well fitted with guiding-rings; and they brought forth the\nyoke-band of nine cubits with the yoke. The yoke they set firmly on the\npolished pole on the rest at the end thereof, and slipped the ring over\nthe upright pin, which with three turns of the band they lashed to the\nknob, and then belayed it close round the pole and turned the tongue\nthereunder. Then they brought from the chamber and heaped on the\npolished wain the countless ransom of Hector's head, and yoked\nstrong-hooved harness mules, which on a time the Mysians gave to Priam,\na splendid gift. But to Priam's car they yoked the horses that the old\nman kept for his use and reared at the polished crib.\n\nThus in the high palace were Priam and the herald letting yoke their\ncars, with wise thoughts at their hearts, when nigh came Hekabe sore at\nheart, with honey-sweet wine in her right hand in a golden cup that they\nmight make libation ere they went. And she stood before the horses and\nspake a word to Priam by name: \"Lo now make libation to father Zeus and\npray that thou mayest come back home from among the enemy, since thy\nheart speedeth thee forth to the ships, though fain were I thou wentest\nnot. And next pray to Kronion of the Storm-cloud, the gods of Ida, that\nbeholdeth all Troy-land beneath, and ask of him a bird of omen, even the\nswift messenger that is dearest of all birds to him and of mightiest\nstrength, to appear upon thy right, that seeing the sign with thine own\neyes thou mayest go in trust thereto unto the ships of the fleet-horsed\nDanaans. But if far-seeing Zeus shall not grant unto thee his messenger,\nI at least shall not bid thee on to go among the ships of the Achaians\nhow fain soever thou mayest be.\"\n\nThen answered and spake unto her godlike Priam: \"Lady, I will not\ndisregard this hest of thine, for good it is to lift up hands to Zeus,\nif haply he will have pity.\"\n\nThus spake the old man, and bade a house-dame that served him pour pure\nwater on his hands; and she came near to serve him with water in a ewer\nto wash withal. And when he had washed his hands he took a goblet from\nhis wife: then he stood in the midst of the court and prayed and poured\nforth wine as he looked up to heaven, and spake a word aloud: \"Father\nZeus that bearest sway from Ida, most glorious and most great, grant\nthat I find welcome and pity under Achilles' roof, and send a bird of\nomen, even the swift messenger that is dearest of all birds to thee and\nof mightiest strength, to appear upon the right, that seeing this sign\nwith mine eyes I may go trusting therein unto the ships of the\nfleet-horsed Danaans.\"\n\nThus spake he praying, and Zeus of wise counsels hearkened unto him, and\nstraightway sent forth an eagle, surest omen of winged birds, the dusky\nhunter called of men the Black Eagle. Wide as the door, well locking,\nfitted close, of some rich man's high-roofed hall, so wide were his\nwings either way; and he appeared to them speeding on the right hand\nabove the city. And when they saw the eagle they rejoiced and all their\nhearts were glad within their breasts.\n\nThen the old man made haste to go up into his car, and drave forth from\nthe doorway and the echoing portico. In front the mules drew the\nfour-wheeled wain, and wise Idaios drave them; behind came the horses\nwhich the old man urged with the lash at speed along the city: and his\nfriends all followed lamenting loud as though he were faring to his\ndeath. And when they were come down from the city and were now on the\nplain, then went back again to Ilios his sons and marriage kin. But the\ntwo coming forth upon the plain were not unbeheld of far-seeing Zeus.\nBut he looked upon the old man and had compassion on him, and\nstraightway spake unto Hermes his dear son: \"Hermes, since unto thee\nespecially is it dear to companion men, and thou hearest whomsoever thou\nwilt, go forth and so guide Priam to the hollow ships of the Achaians\nthat no man behold or be aware of him, among all the Danaans' host,\nuntil he come to the son of Peleus.\"\n\nThus spake he, and the Messenger, the slayer of Argus, was not\ndisobedient unto his word. Straightway beneath his feet he bound on his\nfair sandals, golden, divine, that bare him over wet sea and over the\nboundless land with the breathings of the wind. And he took up his wand\nwherewith he entranceth the eyes of such men as he will, and others he\nlikewise waketh out of sleep: this did the strong slayer of Argus take\nin his hand, and flew. And quickly came he to Troy-land and the\nHellespont, and went on his way in semblance as a young man that is\na prince, with the new down on his chin, as when the youth of men is\nthe comeliest.\n\nNow the others, when they had driven beyond the great barrow of Ilios,\nhalted the mules and horses at the river to drink; for darkness was come\ndown over the earth. Then the herald beheld Hermes from hard by, and\nmarked him, and spake and said to Priam: \"Consider, son of Dardanos;\nthis is matter of prudent thought. I see a man, methinks we shall full\nsoon be rent in pieces. Come, let us flee in our chariot, or else at\nleast touch his knees and entreat him that he have mercy on us.\"\n\nThus spake he, and the old man was confounded, and he was dismayed\nexceedingly, and the hair on his pliant limbs stood up, and he stood\nstill amazed. But the Helper came nigh of himself and took the old man's\nhand, and spake and questioned him: \"Whither, father, dost thou thus\nguide these horses and mules through the divine night, when other\nmortals are asleep? Hadst thou no fear of the fierce-breathing Achaians,\nthy bitter foes that are hard anigh thee? If one of them should espy\nthee carrying such treasures through the swift black night, what then\nwould be thy thought? Neither art thou young thyself, and thy companion\nhere is old, that ye should make defence against a man that should\nassail thee first. But I will no wise harm thee, yea I will keep any\nother from thy hurt: for the similitude of my dear father I see in\nthee.\"\n\nAnd to him in answer spake the old man, godlike Priam: \"Even so, kind\nson, are all these things as thou sayest. Nevertheless hath some god\nstretched forth his hand even over me in that he hath sent a wayfarer\nsuch as thou to meet me, a bearer of good luck, by the nobleness of thy\nform and semblance; and thou art wise of heart and of blessed parents\nart thou sprung.\"\n\nAnd to him again spake the Messenger, the slayer of Argus: \"All this,\nold sire, hast thou verily spoken aright. But come say this and tell me\ntruly whether thou art taking forth a great and goodly treasure unto\nalien men, where it may abide for thee in safety, or whether by this ye\nare all forsaking holy Ilios in fear; so far the best man among you hath\nperished, even thy son; for of battle with the Achaians abated he never\na jot.\"\n\nAnd to him in answer spake the old man, godlike Priam, \"Who art thou,\nnoble sir, and of whom art born? For meetly hast thou spoken of the fate\nof my hapless son.\"\n\nAnd to him again spake the Messenger, the slayer of Argus: \"Thou art\nproving me, old sire, in asking me of noble Hector. Him have I full oft\nseen with mine eyes in glorious battle, and when at the ships he was\nslaying the Argives he drave thither, piercing them with the keen\nbronze, and we stood still and marvelled thereat, for Achilles suffered\nus not to fight, being wroth against Atreus' son. His squire am I, and\ncame in the same well-wrought ship. From the Myrmidons I come, and my\nfather is Polyktor. Wealthy is he, and an old man even as thou, and six\nother sons hath he, and I am his seventh. With the others I cast lots,\nand it fell to me to fare hither with the host. And now am I come from\nthe ships to the plain, for at day-break the glancing-eyed Achaians will\nset the battle in array around the town. For it chafeth them to be\nsitting here, nor can the Achaian lords hold in their fury for the\nfray.\"\n\nAnd the old man, godlike Priam, answered him, saying: \"If verily thou\nart a squire of Achilles Peleus' son, come tell me all the truth,\nwhether still my son is by the ships, or whether ere now Achilles hath\nriven him limb from limb and cast him to the dogs.\"\n\nThen to him again spake the Messenger the slayer of Argus: \"Old sire,\nnot yet have dogs or birds devoured him, but there lieth he still by\nAchilles' ship, even as he fell, among the huts, and the twelfth morn\nnow hath risen upon him, nor doth his flesh corrupt at all, neither\nworms consume it, such as devour men slain in war. Truly Achilles\ndraggeth him recklessly around the barrow of his dear comrade so oft as\ndivine day dawneth, yet marreth he him not; thou wouldst marvel if thou\ncouldst go see thyself how dewy fresh he lieth, and is washed clean of\nblood, nor anywhere defiled; and all his wounds wherewith he was\nstricken are closed; howbeit many of thy son, though he be but a dead\ncorpse, for they held him dear at heart.\"\n\nThus spake he, and the old man rejoiced, and answered him, saying: \"My\nson, it is verily a good thing to give due offerings withal to the\nImmortals, for never did my child--if that child indeed I had--forget\nin our halls the gods who inhabit Olympus. Therefore have they\nremembered this for him, albeit his portion is death. But come now take\nfrom me this goodly goblet, and guard me myself and guide me, under\nHeaven, that I may come unto the hut of Peleus' son.\"\n\nThen spake unto him again the Messenger the slayer of Argus: \"Thou art\nproving me, old sire, who am younger than thou, but thou wilt not\nprevail upon me, in that thou biddest me take gifts from thee without\nAchilles' privity. I were afraid and shamed at heart to defraud him,\nlest some evil come to pass on me hereafter. But as thy guide I would go\neven unto famous Argos, accompanying thee courteously in swift ship or\non foot. Not from scorn of thy guide would any assail thee then.\"\n\nThus spake the Helper, and leaping on the chariot behind the horses he\nswiftly took lash and reins into his hand, and breathed brave spirit\ninto horses and mules. But when they were come to the towers and trench\nof the ships, there were the sentinels just busying them about their\nsupper. Then the Messenger, the slayer of Argus, shed sleep upon them\nall, and straightway opened the gates and thrust back the bars, and\nbrought within Priam and the splendid gifts upon his wain. And they came\nto the lofty hut of the son of Peleus, which the Myrmidons made for\ntheir king and hewed therefor timber of the pine, and thatched it with\ndowny thatching-rush that they mowed in the meadows, and around it made\nfor him their lord a great court with close-set palisades; and the door\nwas barred by a single bolt of pine that three Achaians wont to drive\nhome, and three drew back that mighty bar--three of the rest, but\nAchilles by himself would drive it home. Then opened the Helper Hermes\nthe door for the old man, and brought in the splendid gifts for Peleus'\nfleet-footed son, and descended from the chariot to the earth and spake\naloud: \"Old sire, I that have come to thee am an immortal god, even\nHermes, for my father sent me to companion thee on thy way. But now\nwill I depart from thee nor come within Achilles' sight; it were cause\nof wrath that an immortal god should thus show favour openly unto\nmortals. But thou go in and clasp the knees of Peleus' son and entreat\nhim for his father's sake and his mother's of the lovely hair and for\nhis child's sake that thou mayest move his soul.\"\n\nThus Hermes spake, and departed unto high Olympus. But Priam leapt from\nthe car to the earth, and left Idaios in his place; he stayed to mind\nthe horses and mules; but the old man made straight for the house where\nAchilles dear to Zeus was wont to sit. And therein he found the man\nhimself, and his comrades sate apart: two only, the hero Automedon and\nAlkimos, of the stock of Ares, were busy in attendance; and he was\nlately ceased from meat, even from eating and drinking: and still the\ntable stood beside him. But they were unaware of great Priam as he came\nin, and so stood he anigh and clasped in his hands the knees of\nAchilles, and kissed his hands, terrible, man-slaying, that slew many of\nPriam's sons. And as when a grievous curse cometh upon a man who in his\nown country hath slain another and escapeth to a land of strangers, to\nthe house of some rich man, and wonder possesseth them that look on\nhim--so Achilles wondered when he saw godlike Priam, and the rest\nwondered likewise, and looked upon one another. Then Priam spake and\nentreated him, saying: \"Bethink thee, O Achilles like to gods, of thy\nfather that is of like years with me, on the grievous pathway of old\nage. Him haply are the dwellers round about entreating evilly, nor is\nthere any to ward from him ruin and bane. Nevertheless while he heareth\nof thee as yet alive he rejoiceth in his heart, and hopeth withal day\nafter day that he shall see his dear son returning from Troy-land. But\nI, I am utterly unblest, since I begat sons the best men in wide\nTroy-land, but declare unto thee that none of them is left. Fifty I had,\nwhen the sons of the Achaians came; nineteen were born to me of one\nmother, and concubines bare the rest within my halls. Now of the more\npart had impetuous Ares unstrung the knees, and he who was yet left and\nguarded city and men, him slewest thou but now as he fought for his\ncountry, even Hector. For his sake come I unto the ships of the Achaians\nthat I may win him back from thee, and I bring with me untold ransom.\nYea, fear thou the gods, Achilles, and have compassion on me, even me,\nbethinking thee of thy father. Lo, I am yet more piteous than he, and\nhave braved what none other man on earth hath braved before, to stretch\nforth my hand toward the face of the slayer of my sons.\"\n\nThus spake he, and stirred within Achilles desire to make lament for his\nfather. And he touched the old man's hand and gently moved him back. And\nas they both bethought them of their dead, so Priam for man-slaying\nHector wept sore as he was fallen before Achilles' feet, and Achilles\nwept for his own father, and now again for Patroklos, and their moan\nwent up throughout the house. But when noble Achilles had satisfied him\nwith lament, and the desire thereof departed from his heart and limbs,\nstraightway he sprang from his seat and raised the old man by his hand,\npitying his hoary head and hoary beard, and spake unto him winged words\nand said: \"Ah hapless! many ill things verily thou hast endured in thy\nheart. How durst thou come alone to the ships of the Achaians and to\nmeet the eyes of the man who hath slain full many of the brave sons? of\niron verily is thy heart. But come then set thee on a seat, and we will\nlet our sorrows lie quiet in our hearts for all our pain, for no avail\ncometh of chill lament. This is the lot the gods have spun for miserable\nmen, that they should live in pain; yet themselves are sorrowless. For\ntwo urns stand upon the floor of Zeus filled with his evil gifts, and\none with blessings. To whomsoever Zeus whose joy is in the lightning\ndealeth a mingled lot, that man chanceth now upon ill and now again on\ngood, but to whom he giveth but of the bad kind him he bringeth to\nscorn, and evil famine chaseth him over the goodly earth, and he is a\nwanderer honoured of neither gods nor men. Even thus to Peleus gave the\ngods splendid gifts from his birth, for he excelled all men in good\nfortune and wealth, and was king of the Myrmidons, and mortal though he\nwas the gods gave him a goddess to be his bride. Yet even on him God\nbrought evil, seeing that there arose to him no offspring of princely\nsons in his halls, save that he begat one son to an untimely death.\nNeither may I tend him as he groweth old, since very far from my country\nI am dwelling in Troy-land, to vex thee and thy children. And of thee,\nold sire, we have heard how of old time thou wert happy, even how of all\nthat Lesbos, seat of Makar, boundeth to the north thereof and Phrygia\nfarther up and the vast Hellespont--of all these folk, men say, thou\nwert the richest in wealth and in sons, but after that the Powers of\nHeaven brought this bane on thee, ever are battles and man-slayings\naround thy city. Keep courage, and lament not unabatingly in thy heart.\nFor nothing wilt thou avail by grieving for thy son, neither shalt thou\nbring him back to life or ever some new evil come upon thee.\"\n\nThen made answer unto him the old man, godlike Priam: \"Bid me not to a\nseat, O fosterling of Zeus, so long as Hector lieth uncared for at the\nhuts, but straightway give him back that I may behold him with mine\neyes; and accept thou the great ransom that we bring. So mayest thou\nhave pleasure thereof, and come unto thy native land, since thou hast\nspared me from the first.\"\n\nThen fleet-footed Achilles looked sternly upon him and said: \"No longer\nchafe me, old sire; of myself am I minded to give Hector back to thee,\nfor there came to me a messenger from Zeus, even my mother who bare me,\ndaughter of the Ancient One of the Sea. And I know, O Priam, in my mind,\nnor am unaware that some god it is that hath guided thee to the swift\nships of the Achaians. For no mortal man, even though in prime of youth,\nwould dare to come among the host, for neither could he escape the\nwatch, nor easily thrust back the bolt of our doors. Therefore now stir\nmy heart no more amid my troubles, lest I leave not even thee in peace,\nold sire, within my hut, albeit thou art my suppliant, and lest I\ntransgress the commandment of Zeus.\"\n\nThus spake he, and the old man feared, and obeyed his word. And the son\nof Peleus leapt like a lion through the door of the house, not alone,\nfor with him went two squires, the hero Automedon and Alkimos, they whom\nabove all his comrades Achilles honoured, save only Patroklos that was\ndead. They then loosed from under the yoke the horses and mules, and led\nin the old man's crier-herald and set him on a chair, and from the wain\nof goodly felloes they took the countless ransom set on Hector's head.\nBut they left two robes and a well-spun doublet, that Achilles might\nwrap the dead therein when he gave him to be carried home. And he called\nforth handmaids and bade them wash and anoint him when they had borne\nhim apart, so that Priam should not look upon his son, lest he should\nnot refrain the wrath at his sorrowing heart when he should look upon\nhis son, and lest Achilles' heart be vexed thereat and he slay him and\ntransgress the commandment of Zeus. So when the handmaids had washed the\nbody and anointed it with oil, and had thrown over it a fair robe and a\ndoublet, then Achilles himself lifted it and laid it on a bier, and his\ncomrades with him lifted it on to the polished waggon. Then he groaned\naloud and called on his dear comrade by his name: \"Patroklos, be not\nvexed with me if thou hear even in the house of Hades that I have given\nback noble Hector unto his dear father, for not unworthy is the ransom\nhe hath given me, whereof I will deal to thee again thy rightful share.\"\n\nThus spake noble Achilles, and went back into the hut, and sate him down\non the cunningly-wrought couch whence he had arisen by the opposite\nwall, and spake a word to Priam: \"Thy son, old sire, is given back as\nthou wouldest and lieth on a bier, and with the break of day thou shalt\nsee him thyself as thou carriest him. But now bethink we us of supper.\nFor even fair-haired Niobe bethought her of meat, she whose twelve\nchildren perished in her halls, six daughters and six lusty sons. The\nsons Apollo, in his anger against Niobe, slew with arrows from his\nsilver bow, and the daughters archer Artemis, for that Niobe matched\nherself against fair-cheeked Leto, saying that the goddess bare but\ntwain but herself many children: so they though they were but twain\ndestroyed the other all. Nine days they lay in their blood, nor was\nthere any to bury them, for Kronion turned the folk to stones. Yet on\nthe tenth day the gods of heaven buried them, and she then bethought her\nof meat, when she was wearied out with weeping tears. And somewhere now\namong the cliffs, on the lonely mountains, even on Sipylos, where they\nsay are the couching-places of nymphs that dance around Acheloos, there\nshe, albeit a stone, broodeth still over her troubles from the gods. But\ncome let us too, noble father, take thought of meat, and afterward thou\nshalt mourn over thy dear son as thou carriest him to Ilios; and many\ntears shall be his due.\"\n\nThus spake fleet Achilles, and sprang up, and slew a pure white sheep,\nand his comrades skinned and made it ready in seemly fashion, and\ndivided it cunningly and pierced it with spits, and roasted it carefully\nand drew all off. And Automedon took bread and served it on a table in\nfair baskets, while Achilles dealt out the flesh. And they stretched\nforth their hands to the good cheer lying ready before them. But when\nthey had put off the desire of meat and drink, then Priam son of\nDardanos marvelled at Achilles to see how great he was and how goodly,\nfor he was like a god to look upon. And Achilles marvelled at Priam son\nof Dardanos, beholding his noble aspect and hearkening to his words. But\nwhen they had gazed their fill upon one another, then first spake the\nold man, godlike Priam, to Achilles: \"Now presently give me whereon to\nlie, fosterling of Zeus, that of sweet sleep also we may now take our\nfill at rest: for never yet have mine eyes closed beneath their lids\nsince at thy hands my son lost his life, but I continually mourn and\nbrood over countless griefs, grovelling in the courtyard-close amid the\nmire. Now at last have I tasted bread and poured bright wine down my\nthroat, but till now I had tasted naught.\"\n\nHe said, and Achilles bade his comrades and handmaids to set a bedstead\nbeneath the portico, and to cast thereon fair shining rugs and spread\ncoverlets above and thereon to lay thick mantles to be a clothing over\nall. And the maids went forth from the inner hail with torches in their\nhands, and quickly spread two beds in haste. Then with bitter meaning\n[in his reference to Agamemnon] said fleet-footed Achilles unto Priam:\n\"Lie thou without, dear sire, lest there come hither one of the\ncounsellors of the Achaians, such as ever take counsel with me by my\nside, as custom is. If any of such should behold thee through the swift\nblack night, forthwith he might haply tell it to Agamemnon shepherd of\nthe host, and thus would there be delay in giving back the dead. But\ncome say this to me and tell it true, how many days' space thou art fain\nto make funeral for noble Hector, so that for so long I may myself abide\nand may keep back the host.\"\n\nAnd the old man, godlike Priam, answered him, saying: \"If thou art\nverily willing that I accomplish noble Hector's funeral, by doing as\nthou sayest, O Achilles, thou wilt do me grace. For thou knowest how we\nare pent within the city, and wood from the mountain is far to fetch,\nand the Trojans are much in fear. Nine days will we make moan for him in\nour halls, and on the tenth we will hold funeral and the folk shall\nfeast, and on the eleventh we will make, a barrow over him, and on the\ntwelfth we will do battle if need be.\"\n\nThen again spake the fleet noble Achilles unto him, saying: \"All this, O\nancient Priam, shall be as thou biddest; for I will hold back the battle\neven so long a time as thou tellest me.\"\n\nThus speaking he clasped the old man's right hand at the wrist, lest he\nshould be anywise afraid at heart. So they in the forepart of the house\nlaid them down, Priam and the herald, with wise thoughts at their\nhearts, but Achilles slept in a recess of the firm-wrought hut, and\nbeside him lay fair-cheeked Briseis.\n\nNow all other gods and warriors lords of chariots slumbered all night,\nby soft sleep overcome. But not on the Helper Hermes did sleep take hold\nas he sought within his heart how he should guide forth king Priam from\nthe ships unespied of the trusty sentinels. And he stood above his head\nand spake a word to him: \"Old sire, no thought then hast thou of any\nevil, seeing thou yet sleepest among men that are thine enemies, for\nthat Achilles spared thee. Truly now hast thou won back thy dear son,\nand at great price. But for thy life will thy sons thou hast left behind\nbe offering threefold ransom, if but Agamemnon Atreus' son be aware of\nthee, and aware be all the Achaians.\"\n\nThus spake he, and the old man feared, and roused the herald. And Hermes\nyoked the horses and mules for them, and himself drave them lightly\nthrough the camp, and none was aware of them.\n\nBut when they came to the ford of the fair-flowing river, [even eddying\nXanthos, begotten of immortal Zeus,] then Hermes departed up to high\nOlympus, and Morning of the saffron robe spread over all the earth. And\nthey with wail and moan drave the horses to the city, and the mules drew\nthe dead. Nor marked them any man or fair-girdled woman until Kassandra,\npeer of golden Aphrodite, having gone up upon Pergamos, was aware of her\ndear father as he stood in the car, and the herald that was crier to the\ntown. Then beheld she him that lay upon the bier behind the mules, and\nthereat she wailed and cried aloud throughout all the town: \"O men and\nwomen of Troy, come ye hither and look upon Hector, if ever while he was\nalive ye rejoiced when he came back from battle, since great joy was he\nto the city and all the folk.\"\n\nThus spake she, nor was man or woman left within the city, for upon all\ncame unendurable grief. And near the gates they met Priam bringing home\nthe dead. First bewailed him his dear wife and lady mother, as they cast\nthem on the fair-wheeled wain and touched his head; and around them\nstood the throng and wept. So all day long unto the setting of the sun\nthey had lamented Hector in tears without the gate, had not the old man\nspoken from the car among the folk: \"Give me place for the mules to pass\nthrough; hereafter ye shall have your fill of wailing, when I have\nbrought him unto his home.\"\n\nThus spake he, and they parted asunder and gave place to the wain. And\nthe others when they had brought him to the famous house, laid him on a\nfretted bed, and set beside him minstrel leaders of the dirge, who\nwailed a mournful lay, while the women made moan with them. And among\nthe women white-armed Andromache led the lamentation, while in her hands\nshe held the head of Hector slayer of men: \"Husband, thou art gone young\nfrom life, and leavest me a widow in thy halls. And the child is yet but\na little one, child of ill-fated parents, thee and me; nor methinks\nshall he grow up to manhood, for ere then shall this city be utterly\ndestroyed. For thou art verily perished who didst watch over it, who\nguardedst it and keptest safe its noble wives and infant little ones.\nThese soon shall be voyaging in the hollow ships, yea and I too with\nthem, and thou, my child, shalt either go with me unto a place where\nthou shalt toil at unseemly tasks, labouring before the face of some\nharsh lord, or else some Achaian will take thee by the arm and hurl thee\nfrom the battlement, a grievous death, for that he is wroth because\nHector slew his brother or father or son, since full many of the\nAchaians in Hector's hands have bitten the firm earth. For no light hand\nhad thy father in the grievous fray. Therefore the folk lament him\nthroughout the city, and woe unspeakable and mourning hast thou left to\nthy parents, Hector, but with me chiefliest shall grievous pain abide.\nFor neither didst thou stretch thy hands to me from a bed in thy death,\nneither didst speak to me some memorable word that I might have thought\non evermore as my tears fall night and day.\"\n\nThus spake she wailing, and the women joined their moan. And among them\nHekabe again led the loud lament: \"Hector, of all my children far\ndearest to my heart, verily while thou wert alive dear wert thou to the\ngods, and even in thy doom of death have they had care for thee. For\nother sons of mine whom he took captive would fleet Achilles sell beyond\nthe unvintaged sea unto Samos and Imbros and smoking Lemnos, but when\nwith keen-edged bronze he had bereft thee of thy life he was fain to\ndrag thee oft around the tomb of his comrade, even Patroklos whom thou\nslewest, yet might he not raise him up thereby. But now all dewy and\nfresh thou liest in our halls, like one on whom Apollo, lord of the\nsilver bow, hath descended and slain him with his gentle darts.\"\n\nThus spake she wailing, and stirred unending moan. Then thirdly Helen\nled their sore lament: \"Hector, of all my brethren of Troy far dearest\nto my heart! Truly my lord is godlike Alexandros who brought me to\nTroy-land--would I had died ere then. For this is now the twentieth year\nsince I went thence and am gone from my own native land, but never yet\nheard I evil or despiteful word from thee; nay, if any other haply\nupbraided me in the palace-halls, whether brother or sister of thine or\nbrother's fair-robed wife, or thy mother--but thy father is ever kind to\nme as he were my own--then wouldst thou soothe such with words and\nrefrain them, by the gentleness of thy spirit and by thy gentle words.\nTherefore bewail I thee with pain at heart, and my hapless self with\nthee, for no more is any left in wide Troy-land to be my friend and kind\nto me, but all men shudder at me.\"\n\nThus spake she wailing, and therewith the great multitude of the people\ngroaned. But the old man Priam spake a word among the folk: \"Bring wood,\nmen of Troy, unto the city, and be not anywise afraid at heart of a\ncrafty ambush of the Achaians; for this message Achilles gave me when he\nsent me from the black ships, that they should do us no hurt until the\ntwelfth morn arise.\"\n\nThus spake he, and they yoked oxen and mules to wains, and quickly then\nthey flocked before the city. So nine days they gathered great store of\nwood. But when the tenth morn rose with light for men, then bare they\nforth brave Hector, weeping tears, and on a lofty pyre they laid the\ndead man, and thereon cast fire.\n\nBut when the daughter of Dawn, rosy-fingered Morning, shone forth, then\ngathered the folk around glorious Hector's pyre. First quenched they\nwith bright wine all the burning, so far as the fire's strength went,\nand then his brethren and comrades gathered his white bones lamenting,\nand big tears flowed down their cheeks. And the bones they took and laid\nin a golden urn, shrouding them in soft purple robes, and straightway\nlaid the urn in a hollow grave and piled thereon great close-set stones,\nand heaped with speed a barrow, while watchers were set everywhere\naround, lest the well-greaved Achaians should make onset before the\ntime. And when they had heaped the barrow they went back, and gathered\nthem together and feasted right well in noble feast at the palace of\nPriam, Zeus-fostered king.\n\nThus held they funeral for Hector tamer of horses.\n\n\n\n"}
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Hitting data URL: http://bridges-data-server-gutenberg-t.bridgesuncc.org//book?id=30613
{"30613":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNote: The tonic system has been changed from polytonic to monotonic.\nA few corrections on typing mistakes have been included within brackets.\n\u03a3\u03b7\u03bc\u03b5\u03af\u03c9\u03c3\u03b7: \u039f \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd\u03b9\u03c3\u03bc\u03cc\u03c2 \u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac\u03be\u03b5\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd\u03b9\u03ba\u03cc \u03c3\u03b5 \u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03bf\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd\u03b9\u03ba\u03cc. \u039c\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03ba\u03ad\u03c2\n\u03c4\u03c5\u03c0\u03bf\u03b3\u03c1\u03b1\u03c6\u03b9\u03ba\u03ad\u03c2 \u03b4\u03b9\u03bf\u03c1\u03b8\u03ce\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c3\u03b7\u03bc\u03b5\u03b9\u03ce\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03b5 [].\n\u0392\u0399\u0392\u039b\u0399\u039f\u0398\u0397\u039a\u0397 \u03a6\u0395\u039e\u0397\n\u0391\u03a1\u03a7\u0391\u0399\u03a9\u039d \u0395\u039b\u039b\u0397\u039d\u03a9\u039d 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\u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u03ac\u03b8\u03b7\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03ce\u03c6\u03bb\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c5\u03bb\u03ae\u03c2, \u03ba' \u03b5\u03ba\u03c1\u03ac\u03c4\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf \u03ba\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03ac\u03c1\u03b9,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03be\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd, \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u039c\u03ad\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7, \u03ce\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03b1\u03b6\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03a4\u03ac\u03c6\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bb\u03ad\u03b1.\n105\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03b7\u03cd\u03c1\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b1\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b9\u03ba\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2, \u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03cd \u03c4\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b8\u03cd\u03c1\u03b1 \u03b5\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b5\u03c3\u03c3\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03be\u03b5\u03b4\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03bd, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03b9\u03c3\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bc\u03ac\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b2\u03c9\u03b4\u03b9\u03ce\u03bd, \u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03cd '\u03c7\u03b1\u03bd \u03c3\u03c6\u03ac\u03be\u03b5\u03b9 \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf\u03b9 \u03ba\u03ae\u03c1\u03c5\u03ba\u03b5\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf\u03b9 \u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03b8\u03c5\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9 \u03b8\u03b5\u03c1\u03ac\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2 \u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03b3\u03cd\u03c1\u03c9,\n\n\n\n\u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9 \u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03af \u03bc\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf \u03bd\u03b5\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd \u03ad\u03c3\u03bc\u03b9\u03b3\u03b1\u03bd '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2,\n110\n\n\n\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03c1\u03ac\u03c0\u03b5\u03b6\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9 \u03ad\u03c0\u03bb\u03b5\u03bd\u03b1\u03bd \u03bc\u03b5 \u03bf\u03bb\u03cc\u03c4\u03c1\u03c5\u03c0\u03b1 \u03c3\u03c6\u03bf\u03b3\u03b3\u03ac\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03b5\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 '\u03b2\u03ac\u03b6\u03b1\u03bd\u00b7 \u03ba\u03c1\u03ad\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac \u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03c1\u03ac\u03b6\u03b1\u03bd \u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u039a\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf \u03b8\u03b5\u03ca\u03ba\u03cc\u03c2 \u03a4\u03b7\u03bb\u03ad\u03bc\u03b1\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b5\u03af\u03b4\u03b5 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03cd \u03c0\u03c1\u03ce\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03bc\u03b5\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03ba\u03ac\u03b8\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd \u03bc\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03b4\u03b9\u03ac \u03b8\u03bb\u03b9\u03bc\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b7,\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03bd\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b8\u03c9\u03c1\u03ce\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1', \u03b1\u03bd \u03af\u03c3\u03c9\u03c2 \u03ad\u03bb\u03b8\u03b7\n115\n\n\n\u03ba\u03ac\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5\u03b8\u03b5, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03b4\u03ce\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c3\u03ba\u03bf\u03c1\u03c0\u03af\u03c3\u03b7 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03bd\u03b1 \u03bc\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b7 \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bb\u03b7\u03ac\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ba\u03cd\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03b2\u03b9\u03bf \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5.\n\n\n\n\u03bc' \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03bd\u03bf\u03c5, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03ae\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b1\u03b6\u03ae \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2, \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u0391\u03b8\u03ae\u03bd\u03b7\n\n\n\n\u03be\u03ac\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9\u03be\u03b5 \u03ba' \u03af\u03c3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c7\u03cd\u03b8\u03b7\u03ba\u03b5 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03b8\u03c5\u03c1\u03b1, \u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 \u03b5\u03bd\u03c4\u03c1\u03ac\u03c0\u03b7\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03cd\u03bd \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c3\u03c4\u03ad\u03ba\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd \u03bf \u03be\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b8\u03cd\u03c1\u03b1.\n120\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf \u03b4\u03b5\u03be\u03af \u03c7\u03ad\u03c1\u03b9 \u03ad\u03c0\u03b9\u03b1\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd, \u03b5\u03c0\u03ae\u03c1\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf \u03ba\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03ac\u03c1\u03b9,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03ae\u03bd \u03ac\u03bc' \u03b5\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03c6\u03ce\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c0\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03c9\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u00b7\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u03a9 \u03be\u03ad\u03bd\u03b5, \u03c7\u03b1\u03af\u03c1\u03b5, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c0' \u03b5\u03bc\u03ac\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c6\u03b9\u03bb\u03b5\u03c5\u03b8\u03ae\u03c2, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03c1\u03ce\u03c4\u03b1\n\n\n\n\u03bd\u03b1 \u03b3\u03b5\u03c5\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03af\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2, \u03ba' \u03cd\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03b1 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c0\u03ae\u03c2 \u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03ac\u03bd \u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c7\u03c1\u03b5\u03af\u03b1\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0395\u03af\u03c0\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03c1\u03b5\u03cd\u03b8\u03b7\u03ba\u03b5, \u03ba' \u03b7 \u0391\u03b8\u03ae\u03bd\u03b7 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03cc\u03c0\u03b9\u00b7\n125\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c0\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c5\u03c8\u03b7\u03bb\u03cc\u03bd \u03ac\u03bc' \u03ae\u03bb\u03b8\u03b1\u03bd \u03bc\u03ad\u03c3\u03b1, \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03bc\u03b1\u03ba\u03c1\u03cd \u03c3\u03c4\u03cd\u03bb\u03bf \u03ba\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03b7\u03c4\u03ac \u03ad\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf \u03ba\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03ac\u03c1\u03b9\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b8\u03ae\u03ba\u03b7 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03cc\u03be\u03c5\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03bd, \u03cc\u03c0' \u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03b1 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac \u03ae\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03b5\u03cc\u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03b4\u03bf\u03c5 \u039f\u03b4\u03c5\u03c3\u03c3\u03b7\u03ac \u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1 \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af \u03ba\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03ac\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03ae\u03bd \u03b5\u03ba\u03ac\u03b8\u03b9\u03c3' \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b8\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03af, '\u03c0' \u03ad\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03c9\u03c3\u03b5 \u03bc\u03b5 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\u03b5\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b7 \u03c3\u03b5\u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae \u03ba\u03b5\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03ac\u03c1\u03c4\u03bf \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03b8\u03ad\u03c4\u03b5\u03b9,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c0' \u03cc\u03c3\u03b1 \u03c6\u03cd\u03bb\u03b1\u03b3\u03b5 \u03c6\u03b1\u03b3\u03b9\u03ac \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03c6\u03ad\u03c1\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03af\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1.\n140\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ba\u03c1\u03ad\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1 \u03ba\u03ac\u03b8\u03b5 \u03bb\u03bf\u03b3\u03ae\u03c2 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03b9\u03bd\u03ac\u03ba\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c6\u03ad\u03c1\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9\n\n\n\n\u03bf \u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c2, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf\u03bb\u03cc\u03c7\u03c1\u03c5\u03c3\u03b1 \u03c0\u03bf\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1 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\u03cc\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03ac \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03ad\u03c1\u03c7\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03cc\u03bb\u03b9,\n\n\n\n\u03c9\u03c2 \u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd, \u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b1\u03b3\u03c1\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03c0\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03c0\u03b1\u03b8\u03b1\u03af\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9,\n190\n\n\n\u03bc\u03b5 \u03b3\u03c1\u03b1\u03af\u03b1\u03bd \u03c5\u03c0\u03b7\u03c1\u03ad\u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1\u03bd, \u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03cd \u03c0\u03b9\u03bf\u03c4\u03cc \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b2\u03c1\u03ce\u03c3\u03b9\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03b8\u03ad\u03c4\u03b5\u03b9, \u03cc\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bc\u03ad\u03bb\u03b7 \u03c0\u03ac\u03c1\u03b7 \u03bf \u03ba\u03cc\u03c0\u03bf\u03c2,\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03ba\u03ac\u03c1\u03c0\u03b9\u03bc\u03bf \u03b5\u03bd\u03ce 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\u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03bd\u03bf\u03b2\u03bf\u03bb\u03ac \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c6\u03ae\u03bc\u03b7.\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03a0\u03cd\u03bb\u03bf \u03c0\u03c1\u03ce\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03ae\u03b3\u03b1\u03b9\u03bd\u03b5, '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u039d\u03ad\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03bf,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03b8\u03b5 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03a3\u03c0\u03ac\u03c1\u03c4\u03b7, \u03c2' \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03be\u03b1\u03bd\u03b8\u03cc \u039c\u03b5\u03bd\u03ad\u03bb\u03b1\u03bf, \u03bd\u03b1 \u03b5\u03c1\u03c9\u03c4\u03ae\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2,\n285\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c4' \u03cd\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u0391\u03c7\u03b1\u03b9\u03ce\u03bd \u03c7\u03b1\u03bb\u03ba\u03bf\u03c7\u03b9\u03c4\u03ce\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd \u03ae\u03bb\u03b8\u03b5.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bd \u03bf \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2 \u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 \u03b6\u03b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b8\u03b1 \u03b3\u03c5\u03c1\u03af\u03c3\u03b7 \u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c2 \u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c7\u03c9\u03c1\u03b7\u03b8\u03ae\u03c2, \u03c5\u03c0\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd' \u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u03bd \u03c7\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bd \u03c0\u03ac\u03bb\u03b9\u03bd \u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c0\u03ad\u03b8\u03b1\u03bd\u03b5\u03bd \u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 \u03b5\u03c7\u03ac\u03b8\u03b7.\n\n\n\n\u03b3\u03cd\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03b5 \u03c4\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b3\u03bb\u03c5\u03ba\u03b5\u03b9\u03ac \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b3\u03b7 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03ba\u03ae \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5,\n290\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03bd\u03ae\u03bc\u03b1 \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c3\u03ae\u03ba\u03c9\u03c3\u03b5, \u03ba' \u03b5\u03bd\u03c4\u03ac\u03c6\u03b9\u03b1, \u03c9\u03c2 \u03c0\u03c1\u03ad\u03c0\u03b5\u03b9, \u03b4\u03ce\u03c1\u03b1\n\n\n\n\u03b4\u03cc\u03c3\u03b5 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c5\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b5\u03c5\u03c3\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03cc\u03c0\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03bc\u03b7\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bc' \u03b5\u03bd\u03b5\u03c1\u03b3\u03ae\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2 \u03cc\u03bb' \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac, \u03ba' \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03cc\u03bb\u03b1 \u03b4\u03ce\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2 \u03c4\u03ad\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2,\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03bd\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5 \u03bc\u03ad\u03c4\u03c1\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u03ae\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03b2\u03ac\u03b8\u03b7,\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03ce\u03c2 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03b4\u03b9\u03ba\u03ac \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03ba\u03cc\u03c8\u03b7\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2,\n295\n\n\n\u03b5\u03af\u03c4\u03b5 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03b4\u03cc\u03bb\u03bf \u03ae \u03c6\u03b1\u03bd\u03b5\u03c1\u03ac\u00b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03ac \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03c3\u03b5 \u03c3\u03c5\u03bc\u03c6\u03ad\u03c1\u03b5\u03b9\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03b1\u03b9\u03b4\u03b9\u03bf\u03cd \u03bd\u03b1 '\u03c7\u03b7\u03c2 \u03c6\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03ae\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1, \u03bc\u03b9\u03ba\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c6\u03bf\u03cd \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03af\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03c0\u03ce\u03c2 \u03bf \u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u039f\u03c1\u03ad\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b5\u03b4\u03bf\u03be\u03ac\u03c3\u03b8\u03b7\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03ba\u03cc\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd, \u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 \u03b5\u03c6\u03cc\u03bd\u03b5\u03c5\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b4\u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03c6\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd\n\n\n\n\u0391\u03af\u03b3\u03b9\u03c3\u03b8\u03bf, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c6\u03cc\u03bd\u03b5\u03c5\u03c3\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03ad\u03bd\u03b4\u03bf\u03be\u03bf\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1;\n300\n\n\n\u03c6\u03af\u03bb\u03b5, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c3\u03c5, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03cc\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1\u03c2, \u03c9\u03c2 \u03c3\u03b5 \u03b2\u03bb\u03ad\u03c0\u03c9,\n\n\n\n\u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03bd\u03b1\u03af\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b3\u03af\u03bd', \u03bf\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c3\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03b3\u03ae\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd.\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb' \u03ae\u03b4\u03b7 \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce '\u03c2 \u03c4' \u03bf\u03b3\u03bb\u03ae\u03b3\u03bf\u03c1\u03bf \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03b2\u03b9 \u03b8\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03af\u03b2\u03c9,\n\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03bf\u03b9 \u03c3\u03cd\u03bd\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03bf\u03af \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b1\u03b3\u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03ba\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03bd, \u03b8\u03b1\u03c1\u03c1\u03ce, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c3\u03c5 \u03bc\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c6\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9\u03b6\u03b5, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c8\u03ae\u03c6\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5 \u03cc,\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03c0\u03b1\u00bb.\n305\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u039a\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b5\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 \u03a4\u03b7\u03bb\u03ad\u03bc\u03b1\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u039e\u03ad\u03bd\u03b5, \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03cd \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bd\u03c9\u03bc\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2, \u03c9\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c0\u03b1\u03b9\u03b4\u03af \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c0' \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03bd\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03bf\u03c4\u03ad \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b8\u03b1 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c6\u03cd\u03b3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd.\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb' \u03ad\u03bb\u03b1 \u03bc\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b5, \u03bc' \u03cc\u03c3\u03b7 \u03b2\u03b9\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bd \u03ad\u03c7\u03b7\u03c2 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c4\u03b1\u03be\u03b5\u03af\u03b4\u03b9,\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c0\u03c9\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c6\u03bf\u03cd \u03c0\u03c1\u03ce\u03c4\u03b1 \u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b8\u03ae\u03c2 \u03ba' \u03b5\u03c5\u03c6\u03c1\u03ac\u03bd\u03b7\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u03ae \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5,\n310\n\n\n\u03b3\u03c5\u03c1\u03af\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2 '\u03c2 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\u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03ae\u03c2, \u03c4\u03b9 \u03b2\u03b9\u03ac\u03b6\u03bf\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b4\u03c1\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u00b7\n315\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b4\u03ce\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd, \u03cc\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd \u03b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03b4\u03b9\u03ac \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b4\u03ce\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd \u03b3\u03c5\u03c1\u03af\u03c3\u03c9 \u03b4\u03cc\u03c3\u03b5 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5, '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c3\u03c0\u03af\u03c4\u03b9 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c0\u03ac\u03c1\u03c9,\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03b5\u03cd\u03bc\u03bf\u03c1\u03c6\u03bf, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03b2\u03ae \u03b8' \u03b1\u03be\u03af\u03b6\u03b7 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b5\u03c3\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0395\u03af\u03c0\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bc' 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'\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b7\u03be\u03b5\u03cd\u03c1\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03b1\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03ac, \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03bd\u03ad\u03bf\u03bd\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03ba\u03b9\u03bd\u03ae\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03bf\u03c1\u03b3\u03ae \u03bc\u03b5 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd \u03c0\u03bb\u03b1\u03bd\u03ce\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03b1\u03b8\u03ae\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1 \u03bc\u03ac\u03b8\u03b5 \u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b8\u03b5 \u03bd' \u03b1\u03c5\u03be\u03ae\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd,\n190\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03af\u03c0\u03bf\u03c4' \u03b5\u03be \u03b1\u03b9\u03c4\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b8\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1\u03b8\u03ce\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 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\u03a4\u03b7\u03bb\u03ad\u03bc\u03b1\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c2 \u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03c5\u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2.\n200\n\n\n\u03bf\u03c5\u03b4\u03ad \u03c8\u03b7\u03c6\u03bf\u03cd\u03bc\u03b5, \u03b3\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1, \u03c4\u03b1 \u03cc\u03c3\u03b1 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03bc\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03cd\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c7\u03b1\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c0\u03bf\u03ba\u03c4\u03ac\u03c2 \u03c3\u03c6\u03bf\u03b4\u03c1\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf \u03c4\u03bf \u03bc\u03af\u03c3\u03bf\u03c2.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03bb\u03b5\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd\u03ac \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03b3\u03cd\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1 \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c4\u03c1\u03ce\u03b3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd,\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c3\u03bf\u03bd \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03ae '\u03c2 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\u03bb\u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03b5\u03b9, \u03bd\u03b1 \u03bc\u03ac\u03b8\u03c9 \u03b1\u03bd \u03b8\u03b1 '\u03bb\u03b8\u03b7,\n215\n\n\n\u03ae \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b8\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u03ce\u03bd \u03ba\u03ac\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c0\u03ae \u03ae \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c6\u03c9\u03bd\u03ae\u03bd \u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03c9,\n\n\n\n'\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u0394\u03af' \u03b5\u03c1\u03c7\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03b7 \u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03bd\u03bf\u03b2\u03bf\u03bb\u03ac \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c6\u03ae\u03bc\u03b7.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bd \u03bf \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2 \u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 \u03b6\u03b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b8\u03b1 \u03b3\u03c5\u03c1\u03af\u03c3\u03b7 \u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03c9,\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c2 \u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c7\u03c9\u03c1\u03b7\u03b8\u03ce, \u03ad\u03bd 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'\u03bb\u03b8\u03b7.\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03c0\u03af\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd \u03bb\u03b1\u03cc\u03bd \u03b1\u03b3\u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03ba\u03c4\u03ce, \u03c0\u03ce\u03c2 \u03cc\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9\n\n\n\n\u03ac\u03c6\u03c9\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9 \u03ba\u03ac\u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03b8\u03b5, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf\u03c5\u03b4\u03ad \u03bc\u03b5 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bd \u03ba\u03c4\u03c5\u03c0\u03ac\u03c4\u03b5,\n240\n\n\n\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03b4\u03b1\u03bc\u03ac\u03c3\u03b5\u03c4\u03b5 \u03bf\u03b9 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03af \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03c1\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u039a\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf \u0395\u03c5\u03b7\u03bd\u03bf\u03c1\u03af\u03b4\u03b7\u03c2 \u039b\u03b5\u03b9\u03ce\u03ba\u03c1\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd 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\u03bc\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b5\u03c2;\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03ce\u03c1\u03b1 \u03bf\u03c0' \u03ac\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2 \u03ad\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd\u03b1, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03cd\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03bb\u03b7\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03bf\u03c1\u03bf\u03cd\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9, \u03ba' \u03b7 \u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u03ae \u03bc\u03ad\u03c3\u03b1 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b4\u03c5\u03bd\u03b1\u03bc\u03cc\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9,\n315\n\n\n\u03bc\u03b1\u03cd\u03c1\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b7\u03bc\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b5\u03c3\u03ac\u03c2 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c6\u03ad\u03c1\u03c9 \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c3\u03c7\u03af\u03c3\u03c9,\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03a0\u03cd\u03bb\u03bf \u03b5\u03af\u03c4\u03b5 \u03c0\u03b7\u03b3\u03b1\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2, \u03ae \u03b5\u03b4\u03ce \u03bc\u03b5\u03c2 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\u0391\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9\u03bd\u03cc\u03bf\u03c5\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03cd\u03ba\u03bf\u03bb\u03b1\u00b7 \u03ba' \u03b5\u03c3\u03c5\u03b3\u03cd\u03c1\u03b9\u03b6\u03b1\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf \u03b3\u03b5\u03cd\u03bc' \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd \u03bf\u03b9 \u03bc\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b5\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03b5\u03ba\u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03af \u03ba' \u03b5\u03bc\u03c0\u03b1\u03af\u03b6\u03b1\u03bd \u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03be\u03cd \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03bd\u03b7\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c5\u03b2\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03af\u03c2 \u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03b3\u03b5 \u03ba\u03ac\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03b1\u00b7\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u0391\u03bb\u03ac\u03b8\u03b5\u03c5\u03c4\u03b1 \u03bf \u03a4\u03b7\u03bb\u03ad\u03bc\u03b1\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2 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\u039f\u03b4\u03c5\u03c3\u03c3\u03ad\u03b1;\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03ba\u03cc\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b1 \u03bc\u03b1\u03c2 \u03ad\u03b2\u03b1\u03b6\u03b5 \u03c4\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5, \u03bd\u03b1 \u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03b8\u03bf\u03cd\u03bc\u03b5\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03b1 \u03ba\u03c4\u03ae\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4' \u03cc\u03bb\u03b1, \u03b1\u03c6\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c3\u03c0\u03af\u03c4\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b7\u03c4\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5,\n335\n\n\n\u03bd\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b1 '\u03c7\u03b7 \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf \u03b3\u03b1\u03bc\u03b2\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ae\u03b8\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03ac\u03c1\u03b7 \u03bd\u03cd\u03bc\u03c6\u03b7\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u039a\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c5\u03c8\u03b7\u03bb\u03cc \u03b8\u03ac\u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03bf \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03ad\u03b2\u03b7\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03bb\u03b1\u03c4\u03cd\u03bd, \u03cc\u03c0' \u03ae\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd \u03c3\u03c9\u03c1\u03b5\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac \u03c7\u03ac\u03bb\u03ba\u03c9\u03bc\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c7\u03c1\u03c5\u03c3\u03ac\u03c6\u03b9,\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4' \u03b1\u03c1\u03bc\u03ac\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c6\u03bf\u03c1\u03ad\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c3\u03ac \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bc\u03cd\u03c1\u03b1.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03ad\u03c3\u03b1 \u03c0\u03b1\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03bf\u03cd \u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bf\u03cd \u03b3\u03bb\u03c5\u03ba\u03cd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03b9\u03b8\u03ac\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1\n340\n\n\n\u03c3\u03c4\u03ad\u03ba\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd, \u03cc\u03bb\u03b1 \u03b3\u03b5\u03bc\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03ac \u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03bf \u03c0\u03b9\u03bf\u03c4\u03cc \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03ba\u03c1\u03ac\u03c4\u03bf,\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u03af\u03c7\u03bf \u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03b4\u03b1 \u03ba\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03b7\u03c4\u03ac, \u03b1\u03bd \u03af\u03c3\u03c9\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03af \u03c0\u03bf\u03c4' \u03ad\u03bb\u03b8\u03b7\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03b4' \u03bf \u039f\u03b4\u03c5\u03c3\u03c3\u03b7\u03ac\u03c2, '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c4\u03ad\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b4\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd\u03ce\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5.\n\n\n\n\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd\u03af\u03b4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b5\u03af\u03c7\u03b5 \u03b4\u03af\u03c6\u03c5\u03bb\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c0\u03c5\u03ba\u03bd\u03ac \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b1\u03c1\u03bc\u03bf\u03c3\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03b7\u03bc\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1 \u03bd\u03cd\u03ba\u03c4\u03b1 \u03b5\u03c5\u03c1\u03af\u03c3\u03ba\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd 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\u03bf\u03c0\u03cc\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd\n\n\n\n\u03b8\u03b5 \u03bd' \u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9\u03b2\u03ae '\u03c2 \u03c4' \u03b1\u03bd\u03ce\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03bd' \u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03c0\u03b1\u03c5\u03b8\u03ae \u03b7 \u03bc\u03b7\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1.\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c0\u03ac\u03c9 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03a3\u03c0\u03ac\u03c1\u03c4\u03b7 \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b1\u03bc\u03bc\u03ce\u03b4\u03b7 \u03a0\u03cd\u03bb\u03bf,\n\n\n\n\u03bf \u03b1\u03b3\u03b1\u03c0\u03b7\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bd' \u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03c9 \u03b1\u03bd \u03b8\u03b1 \u03b3\u03c5\u03c1\u03af\u03c3\u03b7\u00bb.\n360\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0395\u03af\u03c0\u03b5, \u03ba' \u03b7 \u0395\u03c5\u03c1\u03cd\u03ba\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1 \u03b8\u03c1\u03ae\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd, \u03b7 \u03b1\u03b3\u03b1\u03c0\u03b7\u03c4\u03ae 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\u03bb\u03ac\u03bc\u03c8\u03b7,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b1\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b8\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b3\u03b7 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c3\u03b9\u03c4\u03bf\u03b4\u03ce\u03c1\u03b1.\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03ae\u03bd \u03a0\u03cd\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd \u03ad\u03c6\u03b8\u03b1\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd, \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03cc\u03bb\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u039d\u03b7\u03bb\u03ad\u03b1\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03ac\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1\u03bb\u03b1 \u03bf \u03bb\u03b1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03b8\u03c5\u03c3\u03af\u03b1\u03bd \u03b5\u03c4\u03b5\u03bb\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03b5,\n5\n\n\n\u03c4\u03b1\u03cd\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03bf\u03bb\u03cc\u03bc\u03b1\u03c5\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c3\u03c6\u03b1\u03b3\u03ae \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b3\u03bb\u03b1\u03c5\u03ba\u03bf\u03c7\u03b1\u03af\u03c4\u03b7 \u03c3\u03b5\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7.\n\n\n\n\u03ad\u03b4\u03c1\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03b4\u03b1 \u03ae\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd \u03b5\u03bd\u03bd\u03b7\u03ac, \u03ba\u03ac\u03b8\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd \u03c0\u03b5\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03ba\u03cc\u03c3\u03bf\u03b9\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03b5\u03bc\u03b9\u03ac, \u03ba' \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03b5\u03bc\u03b9\u03ac \u03c3\u03c6\u03ac\u03b6\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd \u03b5\u03bd\u03bd\u03b7\u03ac \u03c4\u03b1\u03cd\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9.\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c3\u03c0\u03bb\u03ac\u03b3\u03c7\u03bd\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9 \u03c9\u03c2 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03b3\u03b5\u03c5\u03b8\u03bf\u03cd\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bc\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03ac \u03bd\u03b1 \u03ba\u03ac\u03c8\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc, \u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9 \u03ad\u03bc\u03c0\u03b1\u03b9\u03bd\u03b1\u03bd\u00b7 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03b9\u03c3\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03b2\u03b9\n10\n\n\n\u03cc\u03bb\u03b1 \u03b5\u03bc\u03b1\u03b6\u03ce\u03be\u03b1\u03bd \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03b9\u03ac, \u03c4' \u03ac\u03c1\u03b1\u03be\u03b1\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ac\u03bc' \u03b5\u03b2\u03b3\u03ae\u03ba\u03b1\u03bd.\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03b2\u03b3\u03ae\u03ba\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf \u03a4\u03b7\u03bb\u03ad\u03bc\u03b1\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c9\u03b4\u03ae\u03b3\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b7 \u0391\u03b8\u03ae\u03bd\u03b7\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03c1\u03c9\u03c4\u03bf\u03bc\u03af\u03bb\u03b7\u03c3' \u03b7 \u03b8\u03b5\u03ac, \u03b7 \u03b3\u03bb\u03b1\u03c5\u03ba\u03bf\u03bc\u03bc\u03ac\u03c4' \u0391\u03b8\u03ae\u03bd\u03b7\u00b7\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u0394\u03b5\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03ad\u03c0\u03b5\u03b9 \u03bd\u03b1 '\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u03bd\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c0\u03b1\u03bb\u03cc\u03c2, \u03a4\u03b7\u03bb\u03ad\u03bc\u03b1\u03c7', \u03b5\u03c3\u03cd \u03c0\u03bb\u03ad\u03bf\u03bd\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03b3\u03b9' \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc \u03c4\u03bf \u03c0\u03ad\u03bb\u03b1\u03b3\u03bf \u03ad\u03c3\u03c7\u03b9\u03c3\u03b5\u03c2, \u03bd\u03b1 \u03bc\u03ac\u03b8\u03b7\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\n15\n\n\n\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf \u03c7\u03ce\u03bc\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03c3\u03ba\u03ad\u03c0\u03b1\u03c3\u03b5, \u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03b1 \u03bc\u03bf\u03af\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03c5\u03c1\u03ae\u03ba\u03b5.\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb' \u03af\u03c3\u03b9\u03b1 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b9\u03c0\u03c0\u03cc\u03b4\u03b1\u03bc\u03bf \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u039d\u03ad\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c0\u03bf\u03c1\u03b5\u03cd\u03bf\u03c5\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03c2 \u03bc\u03ac\u03b8\u03bf\u03c5\u03bc\u03b5 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03b8\u03b7 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03b1\u03bd \u03b3\u03bd\u03ce\u03bc\u03b7 \u03ba\u03c1\u03cd\u03b2\u03b5\u03b9 \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03ba\u03ac\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd, \u03cc\u03c0\u03c9\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03b7 \u03b1\u03bb\u03ae\u03b8\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03af\u03bd' \u03ac\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b5\u03c4\u03ce\u03c4\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2\u00b7 \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b8\u03ad\u03bb' \u03b5\u03b9\u03c0\u03ae \u03c4\u03bf \u03c8\u03ad\u03bc\u03bc\u03b1\u00bb.\n20\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u039a\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b5\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 \u03a4\u03b7\u03bb\u03ad\u03bc\u03b1\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u039c\u03ad\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1\u03b1, \u03c0\u03ce\u03c2 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c5\u03c0\u03ac\u03b3\u03c9 \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce, \u03c0\u03ce\u03c2 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c7\u03b1\u03b9\u03c1\u03b5\u03c4\u03ae\u03c3\u03c9;\n\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce '\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03ba\u03cc\u03bc\u03b7 \u03b1\u03b4\u03af\u03b4\u03b1\u03ba\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03c1\u03b7\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03b5\u03c1\u03c9\u03c4\u03ac \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b3\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1 \u03b5\u03c5\u03bb\u03ac\u03b2\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1\u03bd \u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9 \u03bf \u03bd\u03ad\u03bf\u03c2\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u03a4\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5 \u03b7 \u03b8\u03b5\u03ac \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b1\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd, \u03b7 \u03b3\u03bb\u03b1\u03c5\u03ba\u03bf\u03bc\u03bc\u03ac\u03c4' \u0391\u03b8\u03ae\u03bd\u03b7\u00b7\n25\n\n\n\u00ab\u0386\u03bb\u03bb\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b8\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9 \u03b5\u03c5\u03c1\u03ae\u03c2, \u03a4\u03b7\u03bb\u03ad\u03bc\u03b1\u03c7\u03b5, '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03bd\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03b1 \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03c2 \u03b8\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c0\u03ae\u00b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b8\u03b5\u03ce\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf \u03c0\u03b5\u03af\u03c3\u03bc\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03b8\u03b1\u03c1\u03c1\u03ce, \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03c3' \u03ad\u03c7' \u03b7 \u03bc\u03ac\u03bd\u03bd\u03b1 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03bd\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0395\u03af\u03c0', \u03b5\u03be\u03b5\u03ba\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3' \u03b7 \u03b8\u03b5\u03ac, \u03b3\u03bf\u03c1\u03b3\u03ac \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03cc\u03c0\u03b9\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03ad\u03c6\u03b8\u03b1\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03bf\u03bc\u03ae\u03b3\u03c5\u03c1\u03b9, '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03ad\u03b4\u03c1\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03a0\u03c5\u03bb\u03af\u03c9\u03bd\u00b7\n30\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03ac\u03bc' \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd \u03bc\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c5\u03b9\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03bf \u039d\u03ad\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03cc\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf\u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03c5\u03c1\u03ac \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03c5\u03c4\u03c1\u03ad\u03c0\u03b9\u03b6\u03b1\u03bd \u03bf\u03b9 \u03c6\u03af\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b8\u03c5\u03c3\u03af\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ba\u03c1\u03ad\u03b1\u03c4' \u03ad\u03c8\u03b7\u03bd\u03b1\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b5\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03b2\u03bb\u03af\u03b6\u03b1\u03bd.\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03be\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03ac\u03bc' \u03b5\u03af\u03b4\u03b1\u03bd \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03af, \u03ba\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd \u03cc\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9 \u03bf\u03bc\u03ac\u03b4\u03b9,\n\n\n\n\u03bc\u03b5 \u03b1\u03c3\u03c0\u03b1\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b4\u03ad\u03c7\u03b8\u03b7\u03ba\u03b1\u03bd, \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03b1\u03bd \u03bd\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03af\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd\u00b7\n35\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03c1\u03ce\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bf \u03a0\u03b5\u03b9\u03c3\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c0\u03bb\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03ac\u03b6\u03b5\u03b9 \u03bf \u039d\u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1\u03af\u03b4\u03b7\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c7\u03ad\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c3\u03c6\u03af\u03b3\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b4\u03c5\u03bf, '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c4\u03c1\u03ac\u03c0\u03b5\u03b6\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c6\u03ad\u03c1\u03b5\u03b9,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03b2\u03b9\u03b1\u03af\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b1\u03bb\u03b1\u03ba\u03b1\u03af\u03c2, '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03ac\u03bc\u03bc\u03bf, \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03af\u03b6\u03b5\u03b9,\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u0398\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03c5\u03bc\u03ae\u03b4\u03b7, \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b1\u03b4\u03b5\u03bb\u03c6\u03bf\u03cd, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2, '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7 \u03bc\u03ad\u03c3\u03b7.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c3\u03c0\u03bb\u03ac\u03c7\u03bd\u03b1 \u03b4\u03af\u03b4\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 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\u03bd\u03b1 \u03b3\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd \u03c7\u03ac\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03ad \u03bc\u03b1\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03c1\u03ce\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u039d\u03ad\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1\u03b1 \u03b5\u03c5\u03c4\u03c5\u03c7\u03b9\u03b1\u03af\u03c2 \u03b4\u03ce\u03c1\u03b5\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03b9\u03b4\u03b9\u03ce\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03cc\u03c0\u03b9\u03bd \u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c0\u03cc\u03b4\u03b9\u03b4\u03b5 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03cc\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03a0\u03c5\u03bb\u03af\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03c7\u03b1\u03c1\u03b9\u03c4\u03c9\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b7\u03bd \u03b1\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03b2\u03ae \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03be\u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c2 \u03b8\u03c5\u03c3\u03af\u03b1\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03a4\u03b7\u03bb\u03ad\u03bc\u03b1\u03c7\u03bf \u03ba' \u03b5\u03bc\u03ad, \u03bd\u03b1 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\u03bf\u03b4\u03cd\u03bd\u03b7.\n175\n\n\n\u03c0\u03c1\u03cd\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03cc\u03c4' \u03ad\u03c0\u03bd\u03b5\u03c5\u03c3\u03b5 \u03b7\u03c7\u03b7\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2\u00b7 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b9\u03c7\u03b8\u03c5\u03bf\u03c6\u03cc\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b4\u03c1\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03bb\u03bf\u03af\u03b1 \u03c4\u03c1\u03ad\u03c7\u03b1\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ac\u03c1\u03b1\u03be\u03b1\u03bd '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u0393\u03b5\u03c1\u03b1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03cc \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03bd\u03cd\u03ba\u03c4\u03b1.\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03a0\u03bf\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03b4\u03ce\u03bd\u03b1 \u03c4\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd \u03c4\u03b1\u03cd\u03c1\u03c9\u03bd \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac \u03bc\u03b5\u03c1\u03af\u03b1\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03ba\u03ac\u03c8\u03b1\u03bc\u03b5, \u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c0\u03ad\u03bb\u03b1\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1 \u03b5\u03af\u03c7\u03b1\u03bc\u03b5 \u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03c1\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03ad\u03c4\u03b1\u03c1\u03c4' \u03b7\u03bc\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1, \u03bf\u03b9 \u03c3\u03cd\u03bd\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03bf\u03b9 \u0394\u03b9\u03bf\u03bc\u03ae\u03b4\u03b7 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b9\u03c0\u03c0\u03bf\u03b4\u03ac\u03bc\u03bf\u03c5\n180\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bd\u03b5\u03c1\u03ac \u03c4' \u0386\u03c1\u03b3\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03ad\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd \u03c4\u03b1 \u03b9\u03c3\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03b2\u03b9\u03b1.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03ac \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03a0\u03cd\u03bb\u03bf \u03b1\u03c1\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b9\u03b6\u03b1 \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ac\u03ba\u03bf\u03c0\u03b1 \u03b5\u03c6\u03cd\u03c3\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03c9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03c9\u03c4\u03cc\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03b9\u03bb\u03b5 \u03bf \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03c2, \u03bf \u03ac\u03bd\u03b5\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bf \u03c0\u03c1\u03cd\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2.\n\n\n\n\u03b9\u03b4\u03bf\u03cd \u03c0\u03ce\u03c2 \u03ae\u03bb\u03b8' \u03b1\u03bd\u03ae\u03be\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2, \u03c0\u03b1\u03b9\u03b4\u03af \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5, \u03bf\u03c5\u03b4\u03ad \u03b3\u03bd\u03c9\u03c1\u03af\u03b6\u03c9\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u0391\u03c7\u03b1\u03b9\u03ce\u03bd \u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf\u03b9 \u03c7\u03ac\u03b8\u03b7\u03ba\u03b1\u03bd, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf\u03b9 \u03c0\u03ac\u03bb\u03b9 \u03b5\u03c3\u03c9\u03b8\u03ae\u03ba\u03b1\u03bd\u00b7\n185\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb' \u03cc\u03c3\u03b1 \u03b5\u03b4\u03ce \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03ae\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03cd\u03c9,\n\n\n\n\u03c9\u03c2 \u03c0\u03c1\u03ad\u03c0\u03b5\u03b9, \u03b8\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c0\u03ce, \u03c7\u03c9\u03c1\u03af\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03bf\u03c5\u03b4\u03ad\u03bd \u03bd\u03b1 \u03ba\u03c1\u03cd\u03c8\u03c9\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd \u03c0\u03c9\u03c2 \u03b5\u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03cc\u03c6\u03b8\u03b1\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd \u03bf\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b5\u03af\u03bf\u03b9 \u039c\u03c5\u03c1\u03bc\u03b9\u03b4\u03cc\u03bd\u03b5\u03c2,\n\n\n\n'\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c5\u03c8\u03b7\u03bb\u03cc\u03c6\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03b1 \u0391\u03c7\u03b9\u03bb\u03bb\u03b7\u03ac \u03c9\u03b4\u03ae\u03b3\u03b1 \u03bf \u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03b3\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf \u03c5\u03b9\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03a0\u03bf\u03af\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1, \u03bf \u03ad\u03bd\u03b4\u03bf\u03be\u03bf\u03c2 \u03a6\u03b9\u03bb\u03bf\u03ba\u03c4\u03ae\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2\u00b7\n190\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03cc\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03ac\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03ad\u03bc\u03c0\u03b1\u03c3\u03b5 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u039a\u03c1\u03ae\u03c4\u03b7 \u03bf \u0399\u03b4\u03bf\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03ad\u03b1\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c4' \u03ac\u03c6\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5 \u03bf \u03c0\u03cc\u03bb\u03b5\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2\u00b7 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03ba\u03cd\u03bc\u03b1 \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03c0\u03ae\u03c1\u03b5.\n\n\n\n\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u0391\u03c4\u03c1\u03b5\u03af\u03b4\u03b7 \u03b5\u03bc\u03ac\u03b8\u03b5\u03c4\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2, \u03bc\u03b1\u03ba\u03c1\u03ac\u03bd '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03af\u03c3\u03b8\u03b5,\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03ce\u03c2 \u03ae\u03bb\u03b8\u03b5, \u03c0\u03ce\u03c2 \u03b5\u03bb\u03b5\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd\u03cc \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03c4\u03bf\u03af\u03bc\u03b1\u03c3\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c4\u03ad\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03bf \u0391\u03af\u03b3\u03b9\u03c3\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2\u00b7 \u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac \u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03bc\u03b5\u03c1\u03ac \u03c4\u03bf \u03c0\u03bb\u03ad\u03c1\u03c9\u03c3\u03b5 \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2.\n195\n\n\n\u03c4\u03cc\u03c3\u03bf\u03bd \u03b1\u03be\u03af\u03b6\u03b5\u03b9 \u03ad\u03bd\u03b1 \u03c0\u03b1\u03b9\u03b4\u03af \u03bd' \u03b1\u03c6\u03af\u03bd\u03b7 \u03bf \u03b1\u03c0\u03b5\u03b8\u03b1\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03c9\u03c2 \u03b2\u03bb\u03ad\u03c0\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u0391\u03af\u03b3\u03b9\u03c3\u03b8\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b5\u03ba\u03b4\u03b9\u03ba\u03ae\u03b8\u03b7,\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b4\u03cc\u03bb\u03b9\u03bf, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03c6\u03cc\u03bd\u03b5\u03c5\u03c3\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03ad\u03bd\u03b4\u03bf\u03be\u03bf\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1.\n\n\n\n\u03a6\u03af\u03bb\u03b5, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c3\u03c5, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03cc\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1\u03c2, \u03c9\u03c2 \u03c3\u03b5 \u03b2\u03bb\u03ad\u03c0\u03c9,\n\n\n\n\u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03bd\u03b1\u03af\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b3\u03af\u03bd\u03b5, \u03bf\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c3\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03b3\u03ae\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd\u00bb.\n200\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u039a\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b5\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 \u03a4\u03b7\u03bb\u03ad\u03bc\u03b1\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u03a9 \u039d\u03b7\u03bb\u03b7\u03ac\u03b4\u03b7 \u039d\u03ad\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1\u03b1, \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u0391\u03c7\u03b1\u03b9\u03ce\u03bd \u03c9 \u03b4\u03cc\u03be\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03ba\u03b4\u03b9\u03ba\u03ae\u03b8\u03b7\u03ba\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c6\u03ae\u03bc\u03b7\n\n\n\n\u03b8\u03b5 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b1\u03c0\u03bb\u03ce\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd \u03bf\u03b9 \u0391\u03c7\u03b1\u03b9\u03bf\u03af \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03ad\u03b3\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd\u03ac \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2.\n\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03b5\u03af\u03b8\u03b5 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03b5\u03b6\u03ce\u03bd\u03b1\u03bd \u03bf\u03b9 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03af \u03ba' \u03b5\u03bc\u03ad \u03b4\u03cd\u03bd\u03b1\u03bc\u03b9\u03bd \u03c4\u03cc\u03c3\u03b7,\n205\n\n\n\u03bd\u03b1 \u03b5\u03ba\u03b4\u03b9\u03ba\u03b7\u03b8\u03ce \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b1\u03b4\u03b9\u03ba\u03b9\u03ac \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03c0\u03bf\u03bd\u03b7\u03c1\u03ce\u03bd \u03bc\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03c9\u03bd,\n\n\n\n'\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c5\u03b2\u03c1\u03af\u03b6\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ac\u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u03b1 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac \u03b5\u03bd\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9\u03b1 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bf\u03c1\u03b3\u03b1\u03bd\u03af\u03b6\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd.\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb' \u03bf\u03b9 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03af \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03ad\u03ba\u03bb\u03c9\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03b1\u03bd \u03b5\u03c5\u03c4\u03c5\u03c7\u03af\u03b1\u03bd\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1 \u03ba' \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b5\u03bc\u03ad\u00b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03b3\u03ba\u03b7 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c5\u03c0\u03bf\u03bc\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03c9\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u039a\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5 \u03bf \u0393\u03b5\u03c1\u03ae\u03bd\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bf \u039d\u03ad\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b9\u03c0\u03c0\u03cc\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2\u00b7\n210\n\n\n\u00ab\u03a6\u03af\u03bb', \u03b5\u03c0\u03b5\u03b9\u03b4\u03ae \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03bd\u03b8\u03cd\u03bc\u03b9\u03c3\u03b5\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c0\u03c1\u03ac\u03b3\u03bc' \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03c0\u03b5\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03bc\u03b7\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03af \u03b6\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03bd \u03bc\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b5\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c3\u03c0\u03af\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c3\u03b5 \u03c4\u03c5\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd\u03bf\u03cd\u03bd, \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb' \u03ac\u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u03b1 \u03bf\u03c1\u03b3\u03b1\u03bd\u03af\u03b6\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd.\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf \u03b8\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b4\u03b1\u03bc\u03ac\u03b6\u03b5\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9, \u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03b5 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5, \u03ae \u03c3' \u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9 \u03bc\u03af\u03c3\u03bf\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03bf \u03bb\u03b1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03cc\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2, \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03cd \u03c6\u03c9\u03bd\u03ae\u03bd \u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03b8\u03ce\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2;\n215\n\n\n\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u03be\u03b5\u03cd\u03c1\u03b5\u03b9 \u03bc\u03b7 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b2\u03af\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c0\u03bb\u03b5\u03c1\u03ce\u03c3\u03b7 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 \u03bc\u03af\u03b1\u03bd \u03ce\u03c1\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03bc\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2, \u03ae \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u0391\u03c7\u03b1\u03b9\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03c9\u03b4\u03b5\u03c5\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03cc\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2;\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bd \u03c3\u03b5 \u03b8\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9 \u03bd' \u03b1\u03b3\u03b1\u03c0\u03ac \u03b7 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\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5,\u2014\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bd \u03c3' \u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03b1 \u03b8\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9 \u03bd' \u03b1\u03b3\u03b1\u03c0\u03ac \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bd\u03ae \u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c3\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5 \u03b1\u03c0' \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03af, \u03b8\u03b1\u03c1\u03c1\u03ce, \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b3\u03ac\u03bc\u03bf \u03b8' \u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c7\u03ae\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u039a\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b5\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 \u03a4\u03b7\u03bb\u03ad\u03bc\u03b1\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u00b7\n225\n\n\n\u00ab\u0391\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2, \u03b3\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1, \u03bd\u03b1 \u03b3\u03af\u03bd\u03b7 \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03cd\u03c9\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03bc\u03b5\u03b3\u03ac\u03bb\u03bf \u03c4\u03bf '\u03c7\u03c9, \u03b8\u03b1\u03c5\u03bc\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03cc\u00b7 \u03c0\u03bf\u03c4\u03ad \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03bb\u03c0\u03af\u03b6\u03c9\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf \u03c0\u03c1\u03ac\u03b3\u03bc\u03b1 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1\u03b8\u03c9\u03b8\u03ae, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bd \u03bf\u03b9 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03af \u03b8\u03b5\u03bb\u03ae\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u039a\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd \u03c9\u03bc\u03af\u03bb\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd \u03b7 \u03b3\u03bb\u03b1\u03c5\u03ba\u03bf\u03bc\u03bc\u03ac\u03c4' \u0391\u03b8\u03ae\u03bd\u03b7\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u03a4\u03b7\u03bb\u03ad\u03bc\u03b1\u03c7\u03b5, \u03c4\u03b9 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03c6\u03c5\u03b3\u03b5 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03bf\u03b4\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9\u03ce\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf \u03c6\u03c1\u03ac\u03b3\u03bc\u03b1;\n230\n\n\n\u03ac\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b1 \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc \u03bc\u03b1\u03ba\u03c1\u03ac\u03bd, \u03b1\u03bd \u03b8\u03ad\u03bb\u03b7, \u03b5\u03cd\u03ba\u03bf\u03bb\u03b1 \u03c3\u03ce\u03b6\u03b5\u03b9,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03b9\u03ac '\u03c7\u03b1 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd\u03b9\u03c3\u03b8\u03ce, \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03cd \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03b4\u03b5\u03af\u03c1\u03c9,\n\n\n\n\u03c9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03b4\u03b1 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03b9\u03b4\u03ce, \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03b3\u03bf\u03bd\u03b9\u03ba\u03ac \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5\n\n\n\n\u03ac\u03bc\u03b1 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03ae\u03c3\u03c9, \u03bf \u03b8\u03ac\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03bc' \u03b5\u03cd\u03c1\u03b7, \u03c9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u0391\u03c4\u03c1\u03b5\u03af\u03b4\u03b7,\n\n\n\n'\u03c0\u03ce\u03c0\u03b5\u03c3\u03b5, \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9\u03ba\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b4\u03cc\u03bb\u03bf \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u0391\u03b9\u03b3\u03af\u03c3\u03b8\u03bf\u03c5.\n235\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb' \u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf \u03b8\u03ac\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ba\u03bf\u03b9\u03bd\u03cc\u03c2, \u03bf\u03c5\u03b4' \u03b7\u03bc\u03c0\u03bf\u03c1\u03bf\u03cd\u03bd \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c3\u03ce\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c6\u03af\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd \u03ac\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1' \u03bf\u03b9 \u03b1\u03b8\u03ac\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9, \u03bf\u03c0\u03cc\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd \u03ad\u03bb\u03b8' \u03b7 \u03bc\u03b1\u03cd\u03c1\u03b7\n\n\n\n\u03bc\u03bf\u03af\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03b5\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf\u03c0\u03bb\u03ac\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b8\u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5, \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c0\u03ac\u03c1\u03b7\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u039a\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b5\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 \u03a4\u03b7\u03bb\u03ad\u03bc\u03b1\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u039c\u03ad\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1', \u03b1\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b1\u03cd\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bc\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1\u00b7\n240\n\n\n\u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03b3\u03cd\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2\u00b7 \u03ba' \u03ae\u03b4\u03b7 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b1\u03c0\u03bf\u03c6\u03b1\u03c3\u03af\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd\n\n\n\n\u03b8\u03ac\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03bf\u03b9 \u03b1\u03b8\u03ac\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 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\u03ba\u03cd\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b2\u03c1\u03ac\u03c7\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03b2\u03b9\u03b1\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4' \u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03b1 \u03c0\u03ad\u03bd\u03c4' \u03b5\u03c4\u03c1\u03ac\u03b2\u03b9\u03be\u03b5 \u03bc\u03b1\u03c5\u03c1\u03cc\u03c0\u03bb\u03c9\u03c1\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03b2\u03b9\u03b1\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u0391\u03af\u03b3\u03c5\u03c0\u03c4\u03bf \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b8\u03ac\u03bb\u03b1\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b7 \u03bf\u03c1\u03bc\u03ae \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b1\u03bd\u03ad\u03bc\u03c9\u03bd.\n300\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03bb\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03b7 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03ac\u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03bc\u03b1 \u03b5\u03c3\u03cd\u03bd\u03b1\u03b6\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03b3\u03c5\u03c1\u03bd\u03ce\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b5 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\u03ac\u03c6\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03b2\u03b9\u03bf \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5, \u03ba' \u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03bc\u03ad\u03c3\u03b1\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c4\u03cc\u03c3\u03bf \u03c5\u03b2\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2, \u03bc\u03b7 \u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03b8\u03bf\u03cd\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c6\u03ac\u03b3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd\n315\n\n\n\u03cc\u03bb\u03bf \u03c4\u03bf \u03b2\u03b9\u03bf \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03b2\u03b3\u03b7 \u03c7\u03b1\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf \u03c4\u03bf \u03c4\u03b1\u03be\u03b5\u03af\u03b4\u03b9.\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u039c\u03b5\u03bd\u03ad\u03bb\u03b1\u03bf \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c2 \u03cc\u03bc\u03c9\u03c2 \u03c3\u03b5 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03b3\u03b3\u03ad\u03bb\u03bb\u03c9,\n\n\n\n'\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 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\u03c0\u03bb\u03b1\u03b3\u03b9\u03ac\u03c3\u03b7, \u03c9\u03c2 \u03cc\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b6\u03c9\u03ae\u03bd \u03b5\u03af\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9, \u03ba' \u03cd\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c4\u03ad\u03ba\u03bd\u03b1 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03cc\u03c3\u03bf \u03b6\u03ae\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd,\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03be\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c6\u03b9\u03bb\u03bf\u03be\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03cd\u03bd, '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c3\u03c0\u03af\u03c4\u03b9 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03cc\u03c3\u03bf\u03b9 \u03c4\u03cd\u03c7\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd\u00bb.\n355\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u039a' \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd \u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03b5\u03bd \u03b7 \u03b8\u03b5\u03ac, \u03b7 \u03b3\u03bb\u03b1\u03c5\u03ba\u03bf\u03bc\u03bc\u03ac\u03c4' \u0391\u03b8\u03ae\u03bd\u03b7\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u0393\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c6\u03af\u03bb\u03b5, \u03c9\u03bc\u03af\u03bb\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03c2 \u03bf\u03c1\u03b8\u03ac, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03cc\u03bd \u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03c3\u03ad \u03c4\u03ce\u03c1\u03b1 \u03bf \u03a4\u03b7\u03bb\u03ad\u03bc\u03b1\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2 '\u03c2 \u03cc,\u03c4' \u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03b5\u03c2 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c5\u03c0\u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03b7.\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c3\u03c0\u03af\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bd' \u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03c0\u03b1\u03c5\u03b8\u03ae \u03b8\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c3' \u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03b8\u03ae\u03c3\u03b7\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2, \u03ba' \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c5\u03c0\u03ac\u03b3\u03c9 \u03b5\u03c5\u03b8\u03cd\u03c2 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bc\u03b5\u03bb\u03b1\u03bd\u03cc \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03b2\u03b9,\n360\n\n\n\u03b5\u03bc\u03c8\u03cd\u03c7\u03c9\u03c3\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c3\u03c5\u03bc\u03b2\u03bf\u03c5\u03bb\u03ae \u03bd\u03b1 \u03b4\u03ce\u03c3\u03c9 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd 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\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ac\u03bc\u03b1\u03be\u03b1, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\n\n\n\n\u03ac\u03bb\u03bf\u03b3\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03b5\u03bb\u03b1\u03c6\u03c1\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03be\u03b9\u03ce\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1' \u03b1\u03c0' \u03cc\u03c3' \u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2\u00bb.\n370\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0391\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac '\u03c0\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03c7\u03ce\u03c1\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd \u03b7 \u03b3\u03bb\u03b1\u03c5\u03ba\u03bf\u03bc\u03bc\u03ac\u03c4' \u0391\u03b8\u03ae\u03bd\u03b7\n\n\n\n\u03bc\u03b5 \u03c3\u03c7\u03ae\u03bc' \u03b1\u03b5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u00b7 \u03be\u03b9\u03c0\u03c0\u03ac\u03c3\u03b8\u03b7\u03ba\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c0\u03bb\u03ae\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2 '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b5\u03af\u03b4\u03b5\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03b8\u03b1\u03cd\u03bc\u03b1\u03b6\u03b5\u03bd, \u03c9\u03c2 \u03b5\u03af\u03b4\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bc\u03ac\u03c4\u03b9\u03b1 \u03b5\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5, \u03bf \u03b3\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03a4\u03b7\u03bb\u03b5\u03bc\u03ac\u03c7\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ac\u03bc' \u03ad\u03c0\u03b9\u03b1\u03c3\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c7\u03ad\u03c1\u03b9, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03b5\u00b7\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u038f \u03c6\u03af\u03bb\u03b5, \u03b1\u03c7\u03c1\u03b5\u03af\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ac\u03bd\u03b1\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b1\u03c1\u03c1\u03ce \u03c0\u03c9\u03c2 \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b8\u03b5 \u03bd\u03b1 '\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9,\n375\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bd \u03bf\u03b4\u03b7\u03b3\u03bf\u03af '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bd\u03b5\u03b9\u03ac\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03af \u03c3\u03b5 \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03bf\u03b4\u03b5\u03cd\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 \u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2 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\u03b7\u03cd\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c3\u03c0\u03af\u03c4\u03b9 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03c6\u03af\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b5\u03af\u03c7\u03b5\n\n\n\n\u03b3\u03ac\u03bc\u03c9\u03bd \u03c7\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03af\u03c2 \u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c5\u03b9\u03cc \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b8\u03c5\u03b3\u03b1\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1.\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u0391\u03c7\u03b9\u03bb\u03bb\u03b7\u03ac \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c5\u03b9\u03cc \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ba\u03cc\u03c1\u03b7 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03b2\u03cc\u03b4\u03b1.\n5\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03a4\u03c1\u03bf\u03af\u03b1 \u03c0\u03c1\u03ce\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c5\u03c0\u03cc\u03c3\u03c7\u03b5\u03c3\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03c7\u03b5 \u03b4\u03ce\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03ce\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c4\u03ad\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ad\u03b2\u03b1\u03b6\u03b1\u03bd \u03bf\u03b9 \u03b1\u03b8\u03ac\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b3\u03ac\u03bc\u03bf.\n\n\n\n\u03bc\u03b5 \u03ac\u03bb\u03bf\u03b3\u03b1, \u03bc\u03b5 \u03ac\u03bc\u03b1\u03be\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ad\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03bb\u03bd\u03b5 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03cc\u03bb\u03b9\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u039c\u03c5\u03c1\u03bc\u03b9\u03b4\u03cc\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03ae\u03bd, \u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03cd '\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd \u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bb\u03ad\u03b1\u03c2.\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03c0\u03cc \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03a3\u03c0\u03ac\u03c1\u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ad\u03bc\u03c0\u03b1\u03b6\u03b5 \u03c4' \u0391\u03bb\u03ad\u03ba\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ba\u03cc\u03c1\u03b7\n10\n\n\n\u03bd\u03cd\u03bc\u03c6\u03b7 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bc\u03b5\u03b3\u03b1\u03bb\u03cc\u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c5\u03b9\u03bf\u03cd \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u039c\u03b5\u03b3\u03b1\u03c0\u03ad\u03bd\u03b8\u03b7,\n\n\n\n'\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c5\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03b3\u03ad\u03bd\u03b7\u03bd \u03ad\u03bb\u03b1\u03b2\u03b5 \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc \u03b4\u03bf\u03cd\u03bb\u03b7\u00b7 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u0395\u03bb\u03ad\u03bd\u03b7\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03ad\u03ba\u03bd\u03b1 \u03bf\u03b9 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03af \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03ad\u03b4\u03c9\u03ba\u03b1\u03bd, \u03b1\u03c6' \u03cc\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03af\u03c7\u03b5 \u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03bd\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u0395\u03c1\u03bc\u03b9\u03cc\u03bd\u03b7, '\u03c0\u03ce\u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03c0\u03b5 \u03c9\u03c3\u03ac\u03bd \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u0391\u03c6\u03c1\u03bf\u03b4\u03af\u03c4\u03b7.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n'\u03a3 \u03c4\u03bf \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1 \u03b4\u03ce\u03bc\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c5\u03c8\u03b7\u03bb\u03cc\u03bd \u03ad\u03c4\u03c3\u03b9 \u03b5\u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03c4\u03c1\u03ce\u03b3\u03b1\u03bd \u03cc\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9,\n15\n\n\n\u03bf\u03b9 \u03b3\u03b5\u03af\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd\u03b5\u03c2 \u03ba' \u03bf\u03b9 \u03c3\u03c5\u03b3\u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03b5\u03af\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03bd\u03b4\u03cc\u03be\u03bf\u03c5 \u039c\u03b5\u03bd\u03b5\u03bb\u03ac\u03bf\u03c5,\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03c0\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03bc\u03b5\u03c3\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b9\u03b8\u03ac\u03c1\u03b9\u03b6\u03b5\u03bd \u03bf \u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03bf\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03bf \u03b1\u03bf\u03b9\u03b4\u03cc\u03c2, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c9\u03c2 \u03ac\u03c1\u03c7\u03b9\u03b6\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c4\u03c1\u03b1\u03b3\u03bf\u03cd\u03b4\u03b9,\n\n\n\n\u03b4\u03c5\u03bf \u03c7\u03bf\u03c1\u03b5\u03c5\u03c4\u03b1\u03af\u03c2 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03bc\u03ad\u03c3\u03b7 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b7\u03b4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd \u03ba' \u03b5\u03b3\u03c5\u03c1\u03af\u03b6\u03b1\u03bd.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n'\u03a3 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03b8\u03c5\u03c1\u03b1 \u03bf \u03a4\u03b7\u03bb\u03ad\u03bc\u03b1\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bf \u03ae\u03c1\u03c9\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c9\u03c3\u03c4\u03cc\u03c3\u03bf,\n20\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf \u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u039d\u03ad\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c5\u03b9\u03cc\u03c2, \u03c4' \u03b1\u03bc\u03ac\u03be\u03b9 \u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd.\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03b2\u03b3\u03ae\u03ba' \u03b5\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03ba' \u03b5\u03af\u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03bf \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1\u03c2 \u0395\u03c4\u03b5\u03c9\u03bd\u03ad\u03b1\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03bf \u03b5\u03c0\u03b9\u03bc\u03b5\u03bb\u03ae\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b5\u03c1\u03ac\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03bd\u03b4\u03cc\u03be\u03bf\u03c5 \u039c\u03b5\u03bd\u03b5\u03bb\u03ac\u03bf\u03c5,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03bb\u03b1\u03ce\u03bd \u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03ac\u03c6\u03b7 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf \u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03b7.\n\n\n\n\u03c3\u03b9\u03bc\u03ac \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u03ac\u03b8\u03b7 \u03ba' \u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c0\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03c9\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u00b7\n25\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u039c\u03b5\u03bd\u03ad\u03bb\u03b1\u03b5 \u03b4\u03b9\u03cc\u03b8\u03c1\u03b5\u03c0\u03c4\u03b5, \u03bc\u03b1\u03c2 \u03ae\u03bb\u03b8\u03b1\u03bd \u03b4\u03cd\u03bf \u03be\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9,\n\n\n\n'\u03c0\u03bf\u03cd \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bc\u03b5\u03b3\u03ac\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u0394\u03b9\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03b3\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bf\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03ac\u03b6\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd.\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03b9\u03c0\u03ad\u03c2 \u03b1\u03bd \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03bb\u03cd\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bc\u03b5 \u03c4' \u03ac\u03bb\u03bf\u03b3' \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc \u03c4' \u03b1\u03bc\u03ac\u03be\u03b9,\n\n\n\n\u03ae \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03b2\u03bf\u03b4\u03ae\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bc\u03b5 '\u03c2 \u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03be\u03b5\u03bd\u03af\u03c3\u03b7\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u03a4\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5 \u03bf \u03be\u03b1\u03bd\u03b8\u03cc\u03c2 \u039c\u03b5\u03bd\u03ad\u03bb\u03b1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b5\u03b2\u03ac\u03c1\u03c5\u03bd\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03c0\u03b5\u00b7\n30\n\n\n\u00ab\u039c\u03c9\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03ae\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd 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\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b3\u03bf\u03bd\u03b5\u03af\u03c2 \u03c3\u03b1\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bd \u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9, \u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 \u03ad\u03c0\u03b1\u03b8\u03b1 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac, \u03ba' \u03ad\u03c7\u03b1\u03c3\u03b1 \u03c3\u03c0\u03af\u03c4\u03b9\n95\n\n\n\u03b5\u03c5\u03c4\u03c5\u03c7\u03b9\u03c3\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf \u03bc\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c5\u03c0\u03ad\u03c1\u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03af\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1.\n\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03ad\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03b3\u03b1 \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce '\u03c2 \u03c3\u03c0\u03af\u03c4\u03b9 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03c4\u03bf \u03bd\u03b1 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bc\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b7,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b6\u03c9\u03ae \u03bd\u03b1 \u03b5\u03c3\u03ce\u03b6\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd \u03bf\u03b9 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\u03b8\u03b1 \u03bc\u03b1\u03c2 \u03be\u03b5\u03c7\u03c9\u03c1\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03b5,\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03b9\u03bc\u03ae \u03c4\u03bf \u03bc\u03b1\u03cd\u03c1\u03bf \u03c3\u03cd\u03b3\u03bd\u03b5\u03c6\u03bf \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03ce\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b8\u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5.\n180\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb' \u03ae\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd \u03b4\u03b1 \u03bc\u03b5\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03c2 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c6\u03b8\u03bf\u03bd\u03ad\u03c3\u03b7,\n\n\n\n'\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bc\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4' \u03ac\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b3\u03c5\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03bc\u03cc\u03bd \u03b5\u03c0\u03ae\u03c1\u03b5\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0395\u03af\u03c0\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03cc\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03ba\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c0\u03cc\u03b8\u03bf \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b4\u03b1\u03ba\u03c1\u03cd\u03c9\u03bd\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ad\u03ba\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03b3' \u03b7 \u0395\u03bb\u03ad\u03bd' \u03b7 \u0386\u03c1\u03b3\u03b9\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1, \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u0394\u03af\u03b1 \u03b8\u03c5\u03b3\u03b1\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03ad\u03ba\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03b3\u03b5\u03bd \u03bf \u03a4\u03b7\u03bb\u03ad\u03bc\u03b1\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf \u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bb\u03b7\u03ac\u03c2 \u0391\u03c4\u03c1\u03b5\u03af\u03b4\u03b7\u03c2,\n185\n\n\n\u03bf\u03c5\u03b4' \u03b5\u03af\u03c7\u03b5\u03bd \u03bf \u03a0\u03b5\u03b9\u03c3\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b1\u03b4\u03ac\u03ba\u03c1\u03c5\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bc\u03ac\u03c4\u03b9\u03b1\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03ac\u03c8\u03b5\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd \u0391\u03bd\u03c4\u03af\u03bb\u03bf\u03c7\u03bf \u03b5\u03bd\u03b8\u03c5\u03bc\u03ae\u03b8\u03b7,\n\n\n\n'\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u0397\u03ce\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03c6\u03c9\u03c4\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd\u03ae\u03c2 \u03b5\u03af\u03c7\u03b5 \u03c6\u03bf\u03bd\u03b5\u03cd\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9 \u03bf \u03b3\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03bd\u03b8\u03c5\u03bc\u03ae\u03b8\u03b7 \u03ba' \u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03b3\u03b5 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c0\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03c9\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u00b7\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u0391\u03c4\u03c1\u03b5\u03af\u03b4\u03b7, \u03c3\u03b5 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c6\u03ce\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd \u03b1\u03c0' \u03cc\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b1\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2\n190\n\n\n\u03bf \u03b3\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03b5 \u039d\u03ad\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2, \u03cc\u03c4' \u03ae\u03bb\u03b8\u03b5 \u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c3\u03b5 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c3\u03c0\u03af\u03c4\u03b9, \u03c9\u03c2 \u03b5\u03c1\u03c9\u03c4\u03b9\u03ce\u03bc\u03b1\u03c3\u03b8\u03b5 \u03bf \u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03ce\u03c1', \u03b1\u03bd \u03b3\u03af\u03bd\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9, '\u03c2 \u03b5\u03bc\u03ad \u03c0\u03b5\u03af\u03b8\u03bf\u03c5\u00b7 \u03b3\u03b9\u03b1\u03c4\u03af '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b4\u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03bd\u03bf\n\n\n\n\u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b1\u03b3\u03b1\u03c0\u03ce \u03c4\u03b1 \u03ba\u03bb\u03ac\u03bc\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u00b7 \u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03cc\u03c1\u03b8\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b7 \u03ba\u03cc\u03c1\u03b7\n\n\n\n\u0397\u03ce \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03ac\u03bb\u03b9\u03bd \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c6\u03b1\u03bd\u03ae\u00b7 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03bf \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03c9\n195\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03c0\u03ae\u03c1\u03b5 \u03bf \u03b8\u03ac\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b7 \u03bc\u03bf\u03af\u03c1\u03b1, \u03bd\u03b1 \u03bc\u03b7\u03bd \u03ba\u03bb\u03b1\u03af\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03bf \u03bc\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd \u03ad\u03c7\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u03bf\u03b9 \u03bc\u03b1\u03cd\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9 \u03b8\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03af \u03b4\u03ce\u03c1\u03bf,\n\n\n\n\u03b7 \u03ba\u03cc\u03bc\u03b7 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03b8\u03b5\u03c1\u03af\u03b6\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9, \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c7\u03cd\u03bd\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf \u03b4\u03ac\u03ba\u03c1\u03c5\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 \u03ba' \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce '\u03c7\u03b1\u03c3' \u03b1\u03b4\u03b5\u03bb\u03c6\u03cc\u03bd, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bc\u03ad\u03c3\u03b1 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u0391\u03c1\u03b3\u03b5\u03af\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03ae\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd \u03bf \u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03c1\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03ad\u03c7\u03b7\u03c2 \u03bc\u03ac\u03b8\u03b5\u03b9\u00b7\n200\n\n\n\u03b5\u03b3\u03ce \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03b3\u03bd\u03ce\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03b1, \u03ba' \u03ad\u03be\u03bf\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd, \u03ae\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd,\n\n\n\n\u03bf \u0391\u03bd\u03c4\u03af\u03bb\u03bf\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2, \u03c4\u03b1\u03c7\u03cd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03ba\u03bb\u03cc\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03bc\u03ac\u03c7\u03b7\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u03a4\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5 \u03bf \u03be\u03b1\u03bd\u03b8\u03cc\u03c2 \u039c\u03b5\u03bd\u03ad\u03bb\u03b1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u03a9 \u03c6\u03af\u03bb\u03b5, \u03b1\u03c6\u03bf\u03cd \u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03b5\u03c2 \u03c6\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd\u03b9\u03bc\u03b1, \u03cc\u03c3' \u03ac\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03c9\u03c0\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03b3\u03bd\u03ce\u03c3\u03b9,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc \u03c3\u03b5 \u03bc\u03b5\u03b3\u03b1\u03bb\u03ae\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2, \u03ae\u03b8\u03b5\u03bb\u03b5 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c0\u03ae \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03c1\u03ac\u03be\u03b7\u00b7\n205\n\n\n\u03c4\u03ad\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2, \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b7\u03bc\u03c0\u03bf\u03c1\u03b5\u03af\u03c2 \u03ae \u03c6\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd\u03b9\u03bc\u03b1 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03b7\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bd\u03c9\u03c1' \u03b5\u03af\u03bd' \u03b7 \u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03b5\u03ac \u03c4' \u03b1\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2, \u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03cd \u03bf \u039a\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03af\u03b4\u03b7\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b3\u03ac\u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03b5\u03c4\u03ae\u03c2 \u03b5\u03c5\u03c4\u03cd\u03c7\u03b9\u03c3\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ce\u03c1\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03c9\u03c2 \u03ad\u03b4\u03c9\u03ba\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u039d\u03ad\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1\u03b1 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03ae\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u03c1\u03ae\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 \u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03ac '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c3\u03c0\u03af\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03b3\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03bd\u03ac\u03b7,\n210\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03c5\u03b9\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03ad\u03c7\u03b7 \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 '\u03c2 \u03c4' \u03ac\u03c1\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1 \u03bc\u03b5\u03b3\u03ac\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2.\n\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03b5\u03bc\u03b5\u03af\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03ba\u03bb\u03ac\u03bc\u03bc' \u03b1\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b1\u03cd\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd, \u03cc\u03c0' \u03b5\u03af\u03c7\u03b5 \u03b3\u03af\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c0\u03c1\u03ce\u03c4\u03b1\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b4\u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b1\u03c2 \u03ba\u03ac\u03bc\u03bf\u03c5\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd \u03b1\u03c1\u03c7\u03ae, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf \u03bd\u03b5\u03c1\u03cc '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c7\u03ad\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c7\u03cd\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03cd\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf \u03c4\u03bf \u03c4\u03b1\u03c7\u03cd \u03b8\u03b1 \u03b3\u03af\u03bd' \u03b7 \u03bf\u03bc\u03b9\u03bb\u03af\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03cd \u03bf \u03a4\u03b7\u03bb\u03ad\u03bc\u03b1\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ba' \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce \u03b8\u03b1 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c0\u03bf\u03cd\u03bc\u03b5 \u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03be\u03cd \u03bc\u03b1\u03c2\u00bb.\n215\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0395\u03af\u03c0\u03b5\u00b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf \u0391\u03c3\u03c6\u03ac\u03bb\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03bd\u03b5\u03c1\u03cc \u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03ad\u03c7\u03c5\u03c3\u03b5 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c7\u03ad\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03bf \u03b5\u03c0\u03b9\u03bc\u03b5\u03bb\u03ae\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b5\u03c1\u03ac\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03bd\u03b4\u03cc\u03be\u03bf\u03c5 \u039c\u03b5\u03bd\u03b5\u03bb\u03ac\u03bf\u03c5\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ac\u03c0\u03bb\u03c9\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd \u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03ad\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03bc\u03b1 \u03c6\u03b1\u03b3\u03b9\u03ac '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03c7\u03b1\u03bd \u03b5\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u039a' \u03b7 \u0395\u03bb\u03ad\u03bd\u03b7, \u03ba\u03cc\u03c1\u03b7 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 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\u03c7\u03ad\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1\n\n\n\n\u03c4' \u03b1\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b5\u03b9\u03c9\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1, \u03ba' \u03ad\u03c3\u03c9\u03c3\u03b5 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u0391\u03c7\u03b1\u03b9\u03ce\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf \u03b3\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03ce\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2, \u03c9\u03c2 '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03c0\u03ae\u03c1\u03b5 \u03c3\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03b8\u03b5 \u03b7 \u03a0\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac\u03b4' \u0391\u03b8\u03ae\u03bd\u03b7\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u039a\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b5\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 \u03a4\u03b7\u03bb\u03ad\u03bc\u03b1\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u00b7\n290\n\n\n\u00bb\u039c\u03b5\u03bd\u03ad\u03bb\u03b1\u03b5 \u03b4\u03b9\u03cc\u03b8\u03c1\u03b5\u03c0\u03c4\u03b5, \u03c0\u03b9\u03ba\u03c1\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bf \u03c0\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bd \u03bc' \u03cc\u03bb' \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03cc\u03bb\u03b5\u03b8\u03c1\u03bf \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03ad\u03c6\u03c5\u03b3\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03bf\u03c5\u03b4' \u03b1\u03bd \u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03b5 \u03c3\u03b9\u03b4\u03b7\u03c1\u03ae '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03b8\u03b7 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03b4\u03af\u03b1.\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ba\u03bb\u03af\u03bd\u03b7 \u03c6\u03ad\u03c1\u03c4\u03b5 \u03bc\u03b1\u03c2, \u03cc\u03c4' \u03ae\u03bb\u03b8\u03b5\u03bd \u03ae\u03b4' \u03b7 \u03ce\u03c1\u03b1\n\n\n\n\u03bd\u03b1 \u03c0\u03ad\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bc\u03b5, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b3\u03bb\u03c5\u03ba\u03cc \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03cd\u03c0\u03bd\u03bf \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c7\u03b1\u03c1\u03bf\u03cd\u03bc\u03b5\u00bb.\n295\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0391\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac '\u03c0\u03b5\u00b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 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\u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c0' \u03c4\u03bf \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03b2\u03b3\u03ae\u03ba\u03b1\u03bd, \u03ba' \u03b5\u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd\n300\n\n\n\u03c6\u03c9\u03c2 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c7\u03ad\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1, \u03ba' \u03ad\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03c9\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd\u00b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf \u03ba\u03ae\u03c1\u03c5\u03ba\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03be\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03ad\u03bc\u03c0\u03b1\u03c3\u03b5, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03b4\u03bf\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd \u03c0\u03bb\u03b1\u03b3\u03b9\u03ac\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd \u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9,\n\n\n\n\u03bf \u03ae\u03c1\u03c9\u03b1\u03c2 \u03a4\u03b7\u03bb\u03ad\u03bc\u03b1\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf \u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 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\u03ba\u03bb\u03af\u03bd\u03b7,\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03bd\u03b4\u03cd\u03b8\u03b7, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf \u03ba\u03bf\u03c6\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03cc '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03ce\u03bc\u03bf \u03ad\u03b6\u03c9\u03c3\u03b5 \u03be\u03af\u03c6\u03bf\u03c2.\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03ac \u03c0\u03cc\u03b4\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03ad\u03b4\u03b5\u03c3\u03b5 \u03c0\u03b5\u03b4\u03bf\u03cd\u03bb\u03b9\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03b5\u03ba\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5 \u03b1\u03c0' \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b8\u03ac\u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd \u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b1\u03b8\u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd.\n310\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03a4\u03b7\u03bb\u03b5\u03bc\u03ac\u03c7\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c9\u03bc\u03af\u03bb\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03ae\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c3\u03b9\u03bc\u03ac 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\u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u00b7\n315\n\n\n\u00ab\u039c\u03b5\u03bd\u03ad\u03bb\u03b1\u03b5 \u03b4\u03b9\u03cc\u03b8\u03c1\u03b5\u03c0\u03c4\u03b5, \u0391\u03c4\u03c1\u03b5\u03af\u03b4\u03b7 \u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bb\u03ad\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03ae\u03bb\u03b8' \u03af\u03c3\u03c9\u03c2 \u03ba\u03ac\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd \u03ac\u03ba\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03bc\u03b1 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03b7\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5.\n\n\n\n\u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03c1\u03ce\u03b3\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c3\u03c0\u03af\u03c4\u03b9 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5, \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c6\u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4' \u03bf\u03b9 \u03b1\u03b3\u03c1\u03bf\u03af \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5,\n\n\n\n\u03b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03ba\u03b9\u03ac \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03b3\u03ad\u03bc\u03b9\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03c7\u03b8\u03c1\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2, \u03bf\u03c0' \u03cc\u03bb' \u03b7\u03bc\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03c5\u03ba\u03bd\u03ac \u03c4' \u03b1\u03c1\u03bd\u03b9\u03ac \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c3\u03c6\u03ac\u03b6\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9, \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03c6\u03bf\u03c0\u03cc\u03b4\u03b1 \u03b2\u03ce\u03b4\u03b9\u03b1,\n320\n\n\n\u03bf\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc\u03ba\u03bf\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c5\u03b2\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u03bf\u03af \u03bc\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b5\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b7\u03c4\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5.\n\n\n\n\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03bf \u03c4\u03ce\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03c0\u03b5\u03c3\u03b1 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03b3\u03cc\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1, \u03bd\u03b1 \u03bc\u03ac\u03b8\u03c9\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03ce\u03c2 \u03b5\u03ba\u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03b8\u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03c4\u03b9\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2, \u03b1\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03af\u03b4\u03b5\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03bf \u03af\u03b4\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2, \u03ae \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bd \u03ac\u03ba\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b5\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c0' \u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03af\u03b4\u03b5\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03b4\u03c9\u03ba\u03b5, \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03b4\u03b1\u03c1\u03bc\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03b7 \u03bc\u03bf\u03af\u03c1\u03b1.\n325\n\n\n\u03bc\u03b7\u03b4' \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc \u03c3\u03ad\u03b2\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03bc\u03b7\u03b4\u03ad\u03bd, \u03ae \u03bb\u03cd\u03c0\u03b7, \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b3\u03bb\u03c5\u03ba\u03ac\u03bd\u03b7\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb' \u03cc,\u03c4' \u03b5\u03af\u03b4\u03b5\u03c2 \u03ae \u03ba' \u03ad\u03bc\u03b1\u03b8\u03b5\u03c2, \u03b5\u03b9\u03c0\u03ad \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ad\u03bd\u03b1 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9, \u03c3\u03b5 \u03b9\u03ba\u03b5\u03c4\u03b5\u03cd\u03c9, \u03b1\u03bd \u03bf \u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u039f\u03b4\u03c5\u03c3\u03c3\u03ad\u03b1\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd \u03ae \u03c0\u03c1\u03ac\u03be\u03b9 \u03b5\u03b4\u03ad\u03c7\u03b8\u03b7\u03ba\u03b5, \u03ba' \u03b5\u03c4\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03c9\u03c3\u03b5 \u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c3\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1,\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03a4\u03c1\u03bf\u03af\u03b1\u03bd, \u03cc\u03c0' \u03bf\u03b9 \u0391\u03c7\u03b1\u03b9\u03bf\u03af \u03b5\u03af\u03c7\u03b5\u03c4\u03b5 \u03bc\u03cd\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c0\u03ac\u03b8\u03b7,\n330\n\n\n\u03c4\u03ce\u03c1\u03b1 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03b8\u03c5\u03bc\u03b7\u03b8\u03ae\u03c2, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c0\u03ad \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b1\u03bb\u03ae\u03b8\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u039a\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf \u03be\u03b1\u03bd\u03b8\u03cc\u03c2 \u039c\u03b5\u03bd\u03ad\u03bb\u03b1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b5\u03b2\u03ac\u03c1\u03c5\u03bd\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03b5\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u03a9 \u0398\u03b5, '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ba\u03bb\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u03bd \u03ae\u03b8\u03b5\u03bb\u03b1\u03bd \u03b1\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03b1\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b5\u03b9\u03c9\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ac\u03bd\u03b1\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9, \u03c4\u03c9\u03cc\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c0\u03bb\u03b1\u03b3\u03b9\u03ac\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd!\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c9\u03c2 \u03b5\u03bb\u03b1\u03c6\u03af\u03bd\u03b1, \u03b1\u03bd \u03b4\u03c5\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd \u03bb\u03b5\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03cd '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03b3\u03bf\n335\n\n\n\u03ba\u03bf\u03b9\u03bc\u03af\u03c3\u03b7 \u03b2\u03c5\u03b6\u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03c1\u03b9\u03ba\u03b1 \u03bd\u03b5\u03bf\u03b3\u03ad\u03bd\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u03b1 \u03bb\u03b1\u03c6\u03ac\u03ba\u03b9\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c1\u03b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03cc\u03c0\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03b6\u03b7\u03c4\u03ac \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c7\u03bf\u03c1\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03ac \u03bb\u03b1\u03b3\u03ba\u03ac\u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\n\n\n\n\u03b2\u03cc\u03c3\u03ba\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ba\u03bf\u03af\u03c4\u03b7 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b3\u03c5\u03c1\u03af\u03b6\u03b5\u03b9 \u03ad\u03c0\u03b5\u03b9\u03c4\u03b1 \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03bc\u03b5\u03c1\u03ac \u03bc\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03b1\u03b9\u03b4\u03b9\u03ac \u03c7\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03bc\u03b7\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf '\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03bf \u039f\u03b4\u03c5\u03c3\u03c3\u03b7\u03ac\u03c2 \u03c6\u03c1\u03b9\u03ba\u03c4\u03cc \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c6\u03ad\u03c1\u03b7 \u03c4\u03ad\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2.\n340\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c9 \u0394\u03af', \u0391\u03b8\u03ae\u03bd\u03b7, \u0391\u03c0\u03cc\u03bb\u03bb\u03c9\u03bd\u03b1, \u03b1\u03bd \u03c4\u03ad\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2, \u03c9\u03c2 \u03b5\u03c6\u03ac\u03bd\u03b7\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u039b\u03ad\u03c3\u03b2\u03bf \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03cc\u03ba\u03c4\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b1\u03bc\u03ad\u03c3\u03c9\u03c2 \u03b5\u03c3\u03b7\u03ba\u03ce\u03b8\u03b7\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03ba\u03bb\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9, \u03ba' \u03b5\u03c0\u03ac\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03c3\u03b5 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd 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\u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03b5\u03af\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc' \u03b5\u03c1\u03c9\u03c4\u03ac\u03c2, \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b8\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\n\n\n\n\u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03b1 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c0\u03ce \u03be\u03b5\u03c6\u03b5\u03cd\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2, \u03bf\u03c5\u03b4\u03ad \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c3' \u03b1\u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03ae\u03c3\u03c9,\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb' \u03cc\u03c3\u03b1 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03c0\u03b5 \u03bf \u03ac\u03c8\u03b5\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b3\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac\u03c3\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ad\u03bd\u03b1 \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c0\u03ce, \u03ba\u03b1\u03bd\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1 \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b8\u03b1 \u03ba\u03c1\u03cd\u03c8\u03c9.\n350\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n'\u03a3 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u0391\u03af\u03b3\u03c5\u03c0\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03bf\u03b9 \u03b1\u03b8\u03ac\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9, \u03b5\u03bd\u03ce \u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03b4\u03c9 \u03ba\u03b9\u03bd\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03bc' \u03b5\u03ba\u03c1\u03ac\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd, \u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 '\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03ad\u03ba\u03b1\u03bc\u03b1 \u03b5\u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03cc\u03bc\u03b2\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03b5\u03bd\u03b8\u03c5\u03bc\u03bf\u03cd\u03bc\u03b5\u03b8\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03b3\u03b1\u03af\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b8\u03ad\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd.\n\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03af '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b8\u03ac\u03bb\u03b1\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03c5\u03ba\u03c5\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u0391\u03af\u03b3\u03c5\u03c0\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03a6\u03ac\u03c1\u03bf \u03c4' \u03bf\u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u03ac\u03b6\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd,\n355\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c0\u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c4\u03cc\u03c3\u03bf \u03b4\u03b9\u03ac\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1, \u03cc\u03c3\u03bf \u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03c1\u03ac \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03b2\u03b9,\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03cd\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ac\u03bd\u03b5\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c3\u03c6\u03bf\u03b4\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03bf\u03bb\u03ae\u03bc\u03b5\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c6\u03c5\u03c3\u03ae\u03c3\u03b7\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03bb\u03b9\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u03c2 \u03bc\u03ad\u03c3' \u03b1\u03ba\u03af\u03bd\u03b4\u03c5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2, \u03b1\u03c0' \u03cc\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03b2\u03b9\u03b1\n\n\n\n\u03b2\u03b3\u03ac\u03b6\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b8\u03ac\u03bb\u03b1\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd, \u03b1\u03c6\u03bf\u03cd \u03bc\u03b1\u03cd\u03c1\u03bf \u03bd\u03b5\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd \u03b5\u03c0\u03ae\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b5\u03b9 \u03bc' \u03b5\u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd \u03bf\u03b9 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03af \u03b5\u03af\u03ba\u03bf\u03c3' \u03b7\u03bc\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2, \u03bc\u03ae\u03c4\u03b5\n360\n\n\n\u03ac\u03bd\u03b5\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9 \u03b8\u03b1\u03bb\u03b1\u03c3\u03c3\u03cc\u03c0\u03bd\u03bf\u03bf\u03b9 \u03c6\u03b1\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03bb\u03bf\u03af\u03b1\n\n\n\n\u03be\u03b5\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03b2\u03bf\u03b4\u03bf\u03cd\u03bd '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03b4\u03b9\u03ac\u03c0\u03bb\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bd\u03ce\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac\u03c3\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b8\u03b5 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03b5\u03bb\u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03b1\u03bd \u03b7 \u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03b1\u03af\u03c2, \u03ba' \u03bf\u03b9 \u03ac\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b5\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b1 \u03b5\u03bc\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03bd,\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bd \u03bc\u03b9\u03b1 \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03bc' \u03b5\u03af\u03c7' \u03b5\u03bb\u03b5\u03b7\u03b8\u03ae \u03b8\u03b5\u03ac, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc' \u03b5\u03af\u03c7\u03b5 \u03c3\u03ce\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03cc\u03c1\u03b7 \u03c4' \u03b1\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b5\u03af\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b3\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b8\u03ac\u03bb\u03b1\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1\u03c2 \u03a0\u03c1\u03c9\u03c4\u03ad\u03b1,\n365\n\n\n\u03b7 \u0395\u03b9\u03b4\u03bf\u03b8\u03ad\u03b1, '\u03c0\u03ce\u03b3\u03b3\u03b9\u03be\u03b1 \u03bc\u03ac\u03bb\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4' \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03ae\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c3\u03c0\u03bb\u03ac\u03c7\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2.\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03ae \u03bc' \u03b7\u03cd\u03c1\u03b5 \u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03cd \u03c3\u03ad\u03c1\u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd, \u03c7\u03c9\u03c1\u03af\u03c2 \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03c4\u03c1\u03cc\u03c6\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2, \u03bc\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 \u03b5\u03b3\u03c5\u03c1\u03af\u03b6\u03b1\u03bd '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03af \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bb\u03af\u03b5\u03c5\u03b1\u03bd \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9,\n\n\n\n\u03bc\u03b5 \u03ba\u03c5\u03c1\u03c4' \u03b1\u03b3\u03ba\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1, \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c3\u03ba\u03bb\u03b7\u03c1\u03ae \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03bd \u03cc\u03c0\u03c9\u03c2 \u03c3\u03b9\u03b3\u03ac\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03ae \u03ba\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03ac \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u03ac\u03b8\u03b7\u03ba\u03b5, \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c9\u03bc\u03af\u03bb\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03b5\u00b7\n370\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u03a9 \u03be\u03ad\u03bd\u03b5, \u03c4\u03ac\u03c7' \u03b1\u03bd\u03cc\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b5\u03af\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9, '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b3\u03bd\u03ce\u03bc\u03b7 \u03c7\u03b1\u03cd\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03ae \u03b8\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c6\u03af\u03bd\u03b5\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9, \u03c3' \u03b1\u03c1\u03ad\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c0\u03b1\u03b8\u03b1\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u03c2;\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03cc\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u03c1\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03af \u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03b9\u03ad\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf\u03c5\u03b4\u03ad \u03c4\u03ad\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03b4\u03cd\u03bd\u03b1\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bd\u03b1\u03cd\u03c1\u03b7\u03c2, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03b4\u03b9\u03ac \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03b9\u03ac\u03c2 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bb\u03c5\u03cc\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0391\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac '\u03c0\u03b5, \u03ba' \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03ae\u03bd \u03b1\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03b1\u00b7\n375\n\n\n\u038c\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bd \u03ae\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b8\u03b5\u03ce\u03bd \u03b5\u03c3\u03cd, \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c3' \u03b1\u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03ae\u03c3\u03c9.\n\n\n\n\u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b8\u03ad\u03bb\u03c9 \u03c4\u03bf \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03c9 \u03b5\u03b4\u03ce, \u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b1\u03b8\u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd,\n\n\n\n'\u03c0\u03ce\u03c7\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1\u03bd \u03bf\u03c5\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd\u03cc\u03bd, \u03b1\u03bc\u03ac\u03c1\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b1, \u03bb\u03bf\u03b3\u03b9\u03ac\u03b6\u03c9.\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac \u03c3\u03c5 '\u03c0\u03b5 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5, \u2014 \u03ba' \u03bf\u03b9 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03af \u03b3\u03bd\u03c9\u03c1\u03af\u03b6\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1,\u2014\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bc' \u03b5\u03bc\u03c0\u03bf\u03b4\u03af\u03b6\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b8\u03b5\u03ce\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc' \u03ad\u03b4\u03b5\u03c3\u03b5 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b4\u03c1\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf,\n380\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03ce\u03c2, \u03c4\u03bf \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1 \u03c0\u03ad\u03bb\u03b1\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c3\u03c7\u03af\u03b6\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2, \u03bd\u03b1 \u03b3\u03c5\u03c1\u03af\u03c3\u03c9.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0391\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b7 \u03b8\u03b5\u03ac \u03bc' \u03b1\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd \u03b1\u03bc\u03ad\u03c3\u03c9\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u0398\u03b1 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bf\u03bc\u03b9\u03bb\u03ae\u03c3\u03c9, \u03be\u03ad\u03bd', \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce \u03bc\u03b5 \u03cc\u03bb\u03b7 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b1\u03bb\u03ae\u03b8\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03c3\u03c5\u03c7\u03bd\u03ac\u03b6\u03b5\u03b9 \u03b5\u03b4\u03ce \u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u03c2 \u03ac\u03c8\u03b5\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b3\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b5\u03bb\u03b1\u03b3\u03ae\u03c3\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03a0\u03c1\u03c9\u03c4\u03ad\u03b1\u03c2 \u03bf \u03b1\u03b8\u03ac\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2, \u0391\u03b9\u03b3\u03cd\u03c0\u03c4\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03b2\u03ac\u03b8\u03b7\n385\n\n\n\u03b3\u03bd\u03c9\u03c1\u03af\u03b6\u03b5\u03b9 \u03cc\u03bb\u03b7\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b8\u03ac\u03bb\u03b1\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1\u03c2, \u03b4\u03bf\u03cd\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03a0\u03bf\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03b4\u03ce\u03bd\u03b1.\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9, \u03c9\u03c2 \u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd, \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 \u03bc' \u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9 \u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03bd\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b9 \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b1\u03bd \u03b4\u03cd\u03bd\u03bf\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd \u03bd\u03b1 '\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c0\u03b9\u03ac\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b4\u03c1\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03bb\u03b5\u03b3\u03b5, \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03b1\u03be\u03b5\u03b9\u03b4\u03b9\u03bf\u03cd \u03c4\u03bf \u03bc\u03ac\u03ba\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03ce\u03c2, \u03c4\u03bf \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1 \u03c0\u03ad\u03bb\u03b1\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c3\u03c7\u03af\u03b6\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2, \u03bd\u03b1 \u03b3\u03c5\u03c1\u03af\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2.\n390\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 \u03b1\u03ba\u03cc\u03bc\u03b7 \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c0\u03ae, \u03b4\u03b9\u03cc\u03b8\u03c1\u03b5\u03c0\u03c4\u03b5, \u03b1\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf \u03b8\u03ad\u03bb\u03b7\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03cc,\u03c4\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03ba\u03cc '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c3\u03c0\u03af\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03cc,\u03c4\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03cc \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03ad\u03b2\u03b7,\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03bd\u03ce '\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03c0\u03b5\u03c2 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03bc\u03b1\u03ba\u03c1\u03c5\u03bd\u03cc \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b4\u03cd\u03c3\u03ba\u03bf\u03bb\u03bf \u03c4\u03b1\u03be\u03b5\u03af\u03b4\u03b9.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\u0391\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac '\u03c0\u03b5, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 '\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03ae\u03bd \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce \u03b1\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03b1\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03a4\u03ce\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b3\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c3\u03c5 \u03bd\u03b1\u03cd\u03c1\u03b7\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b9,\n395\n\n\n\u03bc\u03ae\u03c0\u03c9\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c6\u03cd\u03b3\u03b7, \u03b1\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03ca\u03b4\u03ae \u03c4\u03bf \u03c0\u03c1\u03ac\u03b3\u03bc\u03b1 \u03ae \u03c4\u03bf \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03bc\u03ac\u03b8\u03b7\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 \u03b8\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 \u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b2\u03b1\u03c1\u03cd \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03bd \u03bd\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03b2\u03ac\u03bb\u03b7.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0391\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b7 \u03b8\u03b5\u03ac \u03bc' \u03b1\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd \u03b1\u03bc\u03ad\u03c3\u03c9\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u0398\u03b1 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bf\u03bc\u03b9\u03bb\u03ae\u03c3\u03c9, \u03be\u03ad\u03bd', \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce \u03bc\u03b5 \u03cc\u03bb\u03b7 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b1\u03bb\u03ae\u03b8\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1.\n\n\n\n\u03bf \u0389\u03bb\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u03cc\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd \u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9\u03b2\u03ae \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bc\u03b5\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03c1\u03ac\u03bd\u03b9\u03b1 \u03bc\u03ad\u03c1\u03b7,\n400\n\n\n\u03ad\u03c1\u03c7\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b8\u03ac\u03bb\u03b1\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd \u03bf \u03ac\u03c8\u03b5\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bf \u03b3\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2,\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03bc\u03b1\u03cd\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd \u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03c7\u03b9\u03b1\u03c3\u03bc\u03b1, '\u03c0' \u03bf \u0396\u03ad\u03c6\u03c5\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c3\u03b7\u03ba\u03cc\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ac\u03bc' \u03ad\u03be\u03c9 \u03b2\u03b3\u03b7, '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c3\u03c0\u03ae\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03b8\u03bf\u03bb\u03c9\u03c4\u03ac \u03ba\u03bf\u03b9\u03bc\u03ac\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9.\n\n\n\n\u03b3\u03cd\u03c1\u03c9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b7 \u03c6\u03ce\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2, \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03ae\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9 \u0391\u03bb\u03bf\u03c3\u03cd\u03b4\u03bd\u03b7\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03bc\u03b1\u03b6\u03ae \u03c0\u03bb\u03b1\u03b3\u03b9\u03ac\u03b6\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd, \u03b2\u03b3\u03b1\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc \u03c4\u03bf \u03bb\u03b5\u03c5\u03ba\u03cc \u03ba\u03cd\u03bc\u03b1,\n405\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03b9\u03ba\u03c1\u03bf\u03c0\u03bd\u03ad\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b2\u03b1\u03b8\u03b5\u03b9\u03ac\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac\u03c3\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2 \u03bc\u03c5\u03c1\u03c9\u03b4\u03af\u03b1.\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af \u03c4\u03bf \u03b3\u03bb\u03c5\u03ba\u03bf\u03c7\u03ac\u03c1\u03b1\u03bc\u03bc\u03b1 \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c3' \u03bf\u03b4\u03b7\u03b3\u03ae\u03c3\u03c9,\n\n\n\n\u03b8\u03b1 \u03c3\u03b5 \u03c0\u03bb\u03b1\u03b3\u03b9\u03ac\u03c3\u03c9 \u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03b4\u03b9\u03ba\u03ce\u03c2, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03c1\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b5 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03bb\u03ad\u03be\u03b7\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03c4\u03c1\u03cc\u03c6\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2, \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03ae\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2, \u03cc\u03c0' \u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03b2\u03b9\u03b1.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03cc\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce \u03b8\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c0\u03ce \u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bd\u03b7\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1\u03af\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b3\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5\u00b7\n410\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c6\u03ce\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c0\u03c1\u03ce\u03c4\u03b1 \u03b8\u03b5 \u03bd\u03b1 '\u03bb\u03b8\u03ae, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c1\u03b9\u03b8\u03bc\u03ae\u03c3\u03b7\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9, \u03ac\u03bc' \u03cc\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b5\u03bc\u03ad\u03c4\u03c1\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5 \u03ba' \u03b5\u03b8\u03ce\u03c1\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5, \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c0\u03ad\u03c3\u03b7\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03bc\u03ad\u03c3\u03b7 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2, \u03c9\u03c2 \u03bf \u03b2\u03bf\u03c3\u03ba\u03cc\u03c2 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03bc\u03ad\u03c3\u03b7 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03b2\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b9\u03b4\u03ae\u03c4\u03b5, '\u03c0\u03ce\u03c0\u03b5\u03c3\u03b5 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03cd\u03c0\u03bd\u03bf, \u03c4\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5 \u03b1\u03bc\u03ad\u03c3\u03c9\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b4\u03cd\u03bd\u03b1\u03bc\u03b9 \u03b8\u03b1 \u03b2\u03ac\u03bb\u03b5\u03c4\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03b4\u03b9\u03ac \u03c3\u03b1\u03c2 \u03cc\u03bb\u03b7,\n415\n\n\n\u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03ce\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c2 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03c0\u03b1\u03b8\u03ae \u03bc' \u03b1\u03b3\u03ce\u03bd' \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c6\u03cd\u03b3\u03b7\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03b8\u03b1 \u03b4\u03bf\u03ba\u03b9\u03bc\u03ac\u03c3\u03b7, \u03b8\u03b1 \u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03ae '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b3\u03b7\u03bd \u03cc\u03c3\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b9\u03bd\u03bf\u03cd\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\n\n\n\n\u03b8\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03ac, \u03b8\u03b1 \u03b3\u03ad\u03bd\u03b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bd\u03b5\u03c1\u03cc, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03c5\u03c1 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03c6\u03bb\u03bf\u03b3\u03b9\u03c3\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf\u03c4\u03b5 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\u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c3\u03b5 \u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd\u03af\u03b6\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c4\u03ce\u03c1\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03ce\u03c2, \u03c4\u03bf \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1 \u03c0\u03ad\u03bb\u03b1\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c3\u03c7\u03af\u03b6\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2, \u03bd\u03b1 \u03b3\u03c5\u03c1\u03af\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0395\u03af\u03c0\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03b5\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b8\u03ac\u03bb\u03b1\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd, \u03cc\u03c0' \u03ac\u03c6\u03c1\u03b9\u03b6', \u03b5\u03b2\u03c5\u03b8\u03af\u03c3\u03b8\u03b7.\n425\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03bb\u03bf\u03af\u03b1 \u03ba\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03b1, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u03ad\u03ba\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03ac\u03bc\u03bc\u03bf,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03b4\u03b9\u03ac\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5, \u03c9\u03c2 \u03c0\u03ae\u03b3\u03b1\u03b9\u03bd\u03b1, \u03c4\u03b1 \u03b2\u03ac\u03b8\u03b7 \u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03b6\u03cc\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c6\u03bf\u03cd '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c0\u03bb\u03bf\u03af\u03bf\u03bd \u03ad\u03c6\u03b8\u03b1\u03c3\u03b1, '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ac\u03ba\u03c1\u03b7 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac\u03c3\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b4\u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03bc\u03ac\u03c3\u03b1\u03bc\u03b5, \u03ba' \u03b7 \u03ac\u03c6\u03b8\u03b1\u03c1' \u03ae\u03bb\u03b8\u03b5 \u03bd\u03cd\u03ba\u03c4\u03b1\u00b7\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03b3\u03b9\u03ac\u03bb\u03b9 \u03b5\u03c0\u03b9\u03ad\u03c3\u03b1\u03bc\u03b5 \u03c4\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5 \u03bd' \u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03c0\u03b1\u03c5\u03b8\u03bf\u03cd\u03bc\u03b5.\n430\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03b5\u03c6\u03ac\u03bd' \u03b7 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\u03c5\u03c0\u03bf\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03ae, \u03bc' \u03b1\u03b3\u03ce\u03bd\u03b1.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b7 \u03c6\u03ce\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c0' \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b8\u03ac\u03bb\u03b1\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd \u03ae\u03bb\u03b8\u03b1\u03bd \u03bc\u03b1\u03b6\u03ae, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03b4\u03b1\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4' \u03b1\u03ba\u03c1\u03bf\u03b3\u03b9\u03ac\u03bb\u03b9 \u03b5\u03c0\u03bb\u03ac\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc \u03c4\u03b1 \u03b2\u03ac\u03b8\u03b7 \u03bf \u03b3\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03ae\u03bb\u03b8\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03bc\u03b5\u03c3\u03ae\u03bc\u03b5\u03c1\u03b1, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd \u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c6\u03ce\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b7\u03cd\u03c1\u03b5,\n450\n\n\n\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c7\u03bf\u03c5\u03bb\u03b1\u03af\u03c2, \u03ba' \u03b5\u03be\u03ad\u03c4\u03b1\u03c3\u03b5 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\u03c7\u03c1\u03b5\u03af\u03b1;\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0391\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac '\u03c0\u03b5 \u03ba' \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd \u03b1\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03b1\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u0393\u03bd\u03c9\u03c1\u03af\u03b6\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2, \u03b3\u03ad\u03c1\u03b5, \u2014 \u03c4\u03b9 \u03b5\u03c1\u03c9\u03c4\u03ac\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03b1, \u03bd\u03b1 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03c0\u03bb\u03b1\u03bd\u03ad\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2; \u2014\n465\n\n\n'\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03af \u03c4\u03cc\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u03c1\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03b9\u03bf\u03cd\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf\u03c5\u03b4\u03ad \u03c4\u03ad\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03b4\u03cd\u03bd\u03b1\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bd\u03b1\u03cd\u03c1\u03c9, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03b4\u03b9\u03ac \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03b9\u03ac\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bb\u03c5\u03cc\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9.\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac \u03c3\u03c5 '\u03c0\u03ad \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5,\u2014\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf\u03b9 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03af \u03b3\u03bd\u03c9\u03c1\u03af\u03b6\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u2014\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bc' \u03b5\u03bc\u03c0\u03bf\u03b4\u03af\u03b6\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b8\u03b5\u03ce\u03bd, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc' \u03ad\u03b4\u03b5\u03c3\u03b5 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b4\u03c1\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03ce\u03c2, \u03c4\u03bf \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1 \u03c0\u03ad\u03bb\u03b1\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c3\u03c7\u03af\u03b6\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2, \u03bd\u03b1 \u03b3\u03c5\u03c1\u03af\u03c3\u03c9.\n470\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0391\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac '\u03c0\u03b1, \u03ba' \u03b5\u03c5\u03b8\u03cd\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03b4\u03c9\u03ba\u03b5\u03bd \u03b1\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03a4\u03bf\u03c5 \u0394\u03af\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03c9\u03bd \u03b1\u03b8\u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b8\u03c5\u03c3\u03af\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03c1\u03b9\u03bd \u03be\u03b5\u03ba\u03b9\u03bd\u03ae\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2, \u03ad\u03c0\u03c1\u03b5\u03c0\u03b5 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03ba\u03ac\u03bc\u03b7\u03c2, \u03cc\u03c0\u03c9\u03c2 \u03c6\u03b8\u03ac\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf \u03bc\u03b1\u03cd\u03c1\u03bf \u03c0\u03ad\u03bb\u03b1\u03bf \u03c3\u03c7\u03af\u03b6\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2, \u03b3\u03bb\u03ae\u03b3\u03bf\u03c1\u03b1 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03b4\u03b1.\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b8\u03ad\u03bb' \u03b7 \u03bc\u03bf\u03af\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03b9\u03b4\u03ae\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c0\u03bf\u03b8\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5,\n475\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf \u03c3\u03c0\u03af\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03af\u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b3\u03bb\u03c5\u03ba\u03b5\u03b9\u03ac \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03b4\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03b1\u03c1' \u03b1\u03c6\u03bf\u03cd \u03c0\u03ac\u03bb\u03b9\u03bd \u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9\u03b2\u03ae\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u0391\u03b9\u03b3\u03cd\u03c0\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c0\u03bf\u03c4\u03ac\u03bc\u03b9,\n\n\n\n'\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b2\u03b9\u03bf\u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03af\u03b2\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ba\u03ac\u03bc\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b5\u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03cc\u03bc\u03b2\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b1\u03b8\u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd, '\u03c0\u03ce\u03c7\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03bf\u03c5\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd\u03ce\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b8\u03cc\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b4\u03c1\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03bf\u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03c2, \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03af \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c7\u03b1\u03c1\u03af\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd.\n480\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u03a4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03b1 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03b5, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03b4\u03b9\u03ac \u03c3\u03c4\u03bf \u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03c1\u03c1\u03b1\u03b3\u03af\u03c3\u03b8\u03b7\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf \u03bc\u03b1\u03cd\u03c1\u03bf \u03c0\u03ad\u03bb\u03b1\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03b6\u03b5 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c3\u03c7\u03af\u03c3\u03c9\n\n\n\n\u03bf\u03c0\u03af\u03c3\u03c9 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u0391\u03af\u03b3\u03c5\u03c0\u03c4\u03bf\u00b7 \u03bc\u03b1\u03ba\u03c1\u03cd, \u03b2\u03b1\u03c1\u03cd \u03c4\u03b1\u03be\u03b5\u03af\u03b4\u03b9.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc' \u03cc\u03bb\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b1\u03cd\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd \u03c9\u03bc\u03af\u03bb\u03b7\u03c3\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03ac\u03bb\u03b9\u03bd\u00b7\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u03a4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03b1 \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c0\u03c1\u03ac\u03be\u03c9, \u03b3\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1, \u03cc\u03c0\u03c9\u03c2 \u03b5\u03c3\u03cd \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03c4\u03ac\u03b6\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2.\n485\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac \u03b6\u03b7\u03c4\u03ce \u03c3\u03b5 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c0\u03ae\u03c2 \u03bc' \u03b1\u03bb\u03ae\u03b8\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03bf, \u03b1\u03bd \u03cc\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9\n\n\n\n\u03ac\u03b2\u03bb\u03b1\u03c0\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03bb\u03bf\u03af\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03bf\u03b9 \u0391\u03c7\u03b1\u03b9\u03bf\u03af \u03b3\u03c5\u03c1\u03af\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd,\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf \u039d\u03ad\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c6\u03ae\u03c3\u03b1\u03bc\u03b5 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03a4\u03c1\u03bf\u03af\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03ae \u03b1\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03ba\u03cc '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b8\u03ac\u03bb\u03b1\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bd\u03b5\u03af\u03c2 \u03ad\u03bb\u03b1\u03b2\u03b5 \u03c4\u03ad\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03ae, \u03b1\u03c6\u03bf\u03cd \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c0\u03cc\u03bb\u03b5\u03bc\u03bf \u03ad\u03c0\u03bb\u03b5\u03be\u03b5\u03bd, \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c0\u03bf\u03b8\u03b7\u03c4\u03b1\u03af\u03c2 \u03b1\u03b3\u03ba\u03ac\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2.\n490\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0391\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac '\u03c0\u03b1, \u03ba' \u03b5\u03c5\u03b8\u03cd\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03b4\u03c9\u03ba\u03b5\u03bd 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\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03c1\u03c1\u03b1\u03b3\u03af\u03c3\u03b8\u03b7.\n\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03ad\u03ba\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03ae\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03ac\u03bc\u03bc\u03bf, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b7 \u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u03ae \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5\n\n\n\n\u03bd\u03b1 \u03b6\u03ae\u03c3\u03b7 \u03c0\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03ac \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03ae\u03b8\u03b5\u03bb\u03b5, \u03bd\u03b1 \u03b9\u03b4\u03ae \u03c4\u03bf \u03c6\u03c9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b7\u03bb\u03af\u03bf\u03c5.\n540\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c6\u03bf\u03cd \u03c7\u03ac\u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ba\u03c5\u03bb\u03b9\u03bf\u03cd\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b5\u03c7\u03cc\u03c1\u03c4\u03b1\u03c3\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf \u03ba\u03bb\u03ac\u03bc\u03bc\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03b5 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5 \u03bf \u03ac\u03c8\u03b5\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b3\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac\u03c3\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u03a4\u03cc\u03c3\u03bf \u03bc\u03b7\u03bd \u03ba\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03cd\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd, \u0391\u03c4\u03c1\u03b5\u03af\u03b4\u03b7, \u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf \u03ba\u03bb\u03ac\u03bc\u03bc\u03b1\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03af\u03c0\u03bf\u03c4\u03b5 \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03bc\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b2\u03bf\u03b7\u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u00b7 \u03bc\u03cc\u03bd' \u03af\u03b4\u03b5 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03b4\u03b1\n\n\n\n\u03bd\u03b1 \u03c6\u03b8\u03ac\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c4\u03b1\u03c7\u03cd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03ba\u03cc\u03bc\u03b7 \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03cd\u03c1\u03b7\u03c2,\n545\n\n\n\u03ae \u03b6\u03c9\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd\u03cc\u03bd, \u03ae \u03b5\u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03bb\u03b1\u03b2\u03b5\u03bd \u03bf \u039f\u03c1\u03ad\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03ba\u03cc\u03c8\u03b7\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03bd\u03b5\u03ba\u03c1\u03ce\u03c3\u03b9\u03bc\u03bf \u03c4\u03c1\u03b1\u03c0\u03ad\u03b6\u03b9 \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c6\u03b8\u03ac\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0391\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac '\u03c0\u03b5, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03b4\u03af\u03b1 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ba' \u03b7 \u03b1\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b9\u03ba\u03ae \u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u03ae \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5,\n\n\n\n\u03bc' \u03cc\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd \u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03cd \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03af\u03bb\u03c5\u03c0\u03b7, '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03b8\u03b7 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03b6\u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u03ac\u03b8\u03b7.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd \u03c9\u03bc\u03af\u03bb\u03b7\u03c3\u03b1 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c0\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03c9\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u00b7\n550\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u03a4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b7\u03be\u03b5\u03cd\u03c1\u03c9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2, \u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03b5 \u03bc' \u03ac\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b1\u03ba\u03cc\u03bc\u03b7 \u03b6\u03c9\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd\u03cc\u03c2 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03ad\u03bb\u03b1\u03b3\u03b1 \u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03b9\u03ad\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9,\n\n\n\n\u03ae \u03b1\u03c0\u03ad\u03b8\u03b1\u03bd\u03b5, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bd \u03bb\u03c5\u03c0\u03b7\u03b8\u03ce, \u03b8\u03ad\u03bb' \u03cc\u03bc\u03c9\u03c2 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c4' \u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03c9.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0391\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac '\u03c0\u03b1, \u03ba' \u03b5\u03c5\u03b8\u03cd\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03b4\u03c9\u03ba\u03b5\u03bd \u03b1\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u039f \u039b\u03b1\u03b5\u03c1\u03c4\u03b9\u03ac\u03b4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2, \u03ba\u03ac\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03ba\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u0399\u03b8\u03ac\u03ba\u03b7\u03c2.\n555\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03ad\u03bd\u03b1 \u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03af \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03af\u03b4\u03b1 \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce \u03b4\u03ac\u03ba\u03c1\u03c5 \u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03cc \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c7\u03cd\u03bd\u03b7,\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u039a\u03b1\u03bb\u03c5\u03c8\u03ce\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1, \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03bd\u03cd\u03bc\u03c6\u03b7\u03c2, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03cd \u03bc\u03b5 \u03b2\u03af\u03b1\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03b5\u03af \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b4\u03cd\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c6\u03b8\u03ac\u03c3\u03b7 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03b4\u03b1\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03b2\u03b9\u03b1 \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9, \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9 \u03bf\u03c5\u03b4\u03ad \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03c4\u03c1\u03cc\u03c6\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c0\u03c9\u03c2 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bd\u03ce\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03bb\u03b1\u03c4\u03b5\u03b9\u03ac \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c6\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac\u03c3\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2.\n560\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c3\u03c5, \u039c\u03b5\u03bd\u03ad\u03bb\u03b1\u03b5, \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u0394\u03b9\u03cc\u03c2 \u03b8\u03c1\u03ad\u03bc\u03bc\u03b1, \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b8\u03ad\u03bb' \u03b7 \u03bc\u03bf\u03af\u03c1\u03b1\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4' \u0386\u03c1\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4' \u03b1\u03bb\u03bf\u03b3\u03bf\u03b2\u03cc\u03c3\u03ba\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf \u03bd\u03b1 \u03ba\u03bb\u03b5\u03af\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b6\u03c9\u03ae \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03cc\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c3\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b3\u03b7\u03c2, \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b7\u03bb\u03cd\u03c3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c7\u03ce\u03c1\u03b1,\n\n\n\n'\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf \u03be\u03b1\u03bd\u03b8\u03cc\u03c2 \u03a1\u03b1\u03b4\u03ac\u03bc\u03b1\u03bd\u03b8\u03c5\u03c2, \u03bf\u03b9 \u03b1\u03b8\u03ac\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9 \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03af\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd,\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03bb\u03b1\u03c6\u03c1\u03cc\u03c4\u03b1\u03c4' \u03b7 \u03b6\u03c9\u03ae \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03b2\u03b1\u03af\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd 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\u0395\u03bb\u03ad\u03bd\u03b7.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0395\u03af\u03c0\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03b5\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b8\u03ac\u03bb\u03b1\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd, \u03cc\u03c0' \u03ac\u03c6\u03c1\u03b9\u03b6\u03b5, \u03b5\u03b2\u03c5\u03b8\u03af\u03c3\u03b8\u03b7\u00b7\n570\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03bb\u03bf\u03af\u03b1 \u03ba\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03b1 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03c4\u03c1\u03cc\u03c6\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03b4\u03b9\u03ac\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5, \u03c9\u03c2 \u03c0\u03ae\u03b3\u03b1\u03b9\u03bd\u03b1, \u03c4\u03b1 \u03b2\u03ac\u03b8\u03b7 \u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03b6\u03cc\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c6\u03bf\u03cd '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c0\u03bb\u03bf\u03af\u03bf \u03c6\u03b8\u03ac\u03c3\u03b1\u03bc\u03b5, '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd 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\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03b2\u03ac\u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u00b7\n605\n\n\n\u03c4\u03cc\u03c0\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b1\u03b9\u03b3\u03b9\u03b4\u03bf\u03b2\u03cc\u03c3\u03ba\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2, \u03b1\u03bb\u03bb' \u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c7\u03ac\u03c1\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03cc\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9 \u03bf \u03b1\u03bb\u03bf\u03b3\u03bf\u03b2\u03cc\u03c3\u03ba\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03ac \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9\n\n\n\n\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03b5 \u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03b2\u03ac\u03b4\u03b9 \u03bf\u03cd\u03c4' \u03ac\u03bb\u03bf\u03b3\u03b1\u00b7 \u03ba' \u03b5\u03be\u03cc\u03c7\u03c9\u03c2 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u0399\u03b8\u03ac\u03ba\u03b7\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0391\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac '\u03c0\u03b5\u00b7 \u03b5\u03b3\u03bb\u03c5\u03ba\u03bf\u03b3\u03ad\u03bb\u03b1\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd \u03bf \u03bc\u03b1\u03c7\u03b7\u03c4\u03ae\u03c2 \u039c\u03b5\u03bd\u03ad\u03bb\u03b1\u03bf\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03c7\u03ac\u03b9\u03b4\u03b5\u03c5\u03c3\u03ad \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd, \u03ad\u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03be\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4' \u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03c0\u03b5\u00b7\n610\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u0395\u03b9\u03c2 \u03cc,\u03c4\u03b9 \u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2, \u03c4\u03ad\u03ba\u03bd\u03bf \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5, \u03b1\u03c0' \u03b1\u03af\u03bc\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03cc \u03b4\u03b5\u03af\u03c7\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03b5\u03af\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c1\u03ba\u03b5\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c4' \u03ac\u03bb\u03bf\u03b3' \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac \u03bc' \u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf \u03bd\u03b1 \u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac\u03be\u03c9\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c0' \u03cc\u03c3\u03b1 \u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c3\u03c4\u03bf \u03c3\u03c0\u03af\u03c4\u03b9 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b8\u03b7\u03c3\u03b1\u03c5\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1 \u03b4\u03ce\u03c1\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03b5\u03cd\u03bc\u03bf\u03c1\u03c6\u03bf, \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03cd\u03c4\u03b9\u03bc\u03bf, \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c6\u03b9\u03bb\u03bf\u03b4\u03c9\u03c1\u03ae\u03c3\u03c9.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03bf\u03ba\u03ac\u03bc\u03c9\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b8\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b4\u03ce\u03c3\u03c9, '\u03c0' \u03cc\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2\n615\n\n\n\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c1\u03b3\u03c5\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2, \u03ba' \u03b5\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c9\u03b8\u03b5 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03c7\u03c1\u03c5\u03c3\u03c9\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1 \u03c7\u03b5\u03af\u03bb\u03b7,\n\n\n\n\u03ad\u03c1\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u0397\u03c6\u03b1\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u00b7 \u03bf \u03a6\u03b1\u03af\u03b4\u03b9\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ae\u03c1\u03c9\u03b1\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03bf '\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9 \u03b4\u03ce\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9,\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03a3\u03b9\u03b4\u03bf\u03bd\u03af\u03c9\u03bd \u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bb\u03b7\u03ac\u03c2, '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c3\u03ba\u03ad\u03c0\u03b7 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03cc\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd \u03ae\u03bb\u03b8\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03b2\u03ac\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b3\u03c5\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03bc\u03cc\u00b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c3\u03c5 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf '\u03c7\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b8\u03ad\u03bb\u03c9\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0391\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03b3\u03b1\u03bd \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03bc\u03b5\u03c3\u03cc\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2\u00b7\n620\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03b5\u03c3\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9 \u03b5\u03c0\u03ae\u03b3\u03b1\u03b9\u03bd\u03b1\u03bd '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bb\u03b7\u03ac \u03c4\u03bf \u03c3\u03c0\u03af\u03c4\u03b9\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9 \u03b5\u03c6\u03ad\u03c1\u03bd\u03b1\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03b2\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1, \u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9 \u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03ac \u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03bd\u03b1\u03af\u03b1\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ac\u03c1\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b7 \u03b5\u03cd\u03bc\u03bf\u03c1\u03c6\u03bf\u03bc\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b1\u03af\u03ba\u03b5\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u03ad\u03bb\u03bd\u03b1\u03bd,\n\n\n\n\u03ad\u03c4\u03c3\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd \u03bc\u03b5\u03c2 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03b4\u03ce\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b4\u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03bc\u03ac\u03b6\u03b1\u03bd.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u039a\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u039f\u03b4\u03c5\u03c3\u03c3\u03b7\u03ac \u03c4\u03bf \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1\u03c1\u03bf \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03ad\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03b8\u03b5 \u03bf\u03b9 \u03bc\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b5\u03c2\n625\n\n\n\u03bc\u03b5 \u03b4\u03af\u03c3\u03ba\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03c3\u03ba\u03ad\u03b4\u03b1\u03b6\u03b1\u03bd, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c1\u03af\u03c7\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b1\u03ba\u03cc\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9\u03b1,\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03c9\u03c4\u03ae\u03bd \u03b3\u03b7\u03bd, \u03cc\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b1\u03c0' \u03b1\u03c1\u03c7\u03ae\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ad\u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03c3\u03af \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b4\u03b5\u03af\u03c7\u03bd\u03b1\u03bd.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03bc\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03c9\u03bd \u03bf\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c1\u03c7\u03b7\u03b3\u03bf\u03af \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b1\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b5\u03af\u03b1 \u03c0\u03c1\u03ce\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9,\n\n\n\n\u03bf \u0391\u03bd\u03c4\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03c1\u03c6\u03bf\u03c2 \u0395\u03c5\u03c1\u03cd\u03bc\u03b1\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03cc\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd.\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03ae\u03bb\u03b8\u03b5 \u03bf \u039d\u03bf\u03ae\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03b1\u03c2, \u03bf \u03b3\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03a6\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03af\u03bf\u03c5,\n630\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u0391\u03bd\u03c4\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03bf\u03bd \u03c9\u03bc\u03af\u03bb\u03b7\u03c3' \u03b5\u03c1\u03c9\u03c4\u03ce\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u0391\u03bd\u03c4\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03b5, \u03c4\u03ac\u03c7\u03b1 \u03b7\u03be\u03b5\u03cd\u03c1\u03bf\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd, \u03ae \u03ac\u03b3\u03bd\u03c9\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf \u03bc\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9,\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03cc\u03c4' \u03ad\u03c1\u03c7\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf \u03a4\u03b7\u03bb\u03ad\u03bc\u03b1\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c0' \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b1\u03bc\u03bc\u03ce\u03b4\u03b7 \u03a0\u03cd\u03bb\u03bf;\n\n\n\n\u03bc\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03b2\u03b9 \u03bc' \u03ad\u03c6\u03c5\u03b3\u03b5, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf '\u03c7\u03c9 \u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03b3\u03ba\u03b7 \u03c4\u03ce\u03c1\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03bd\u03b1 \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03b2\u03ce '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u0389\u03bb\u03b9\u03b4\u03b1, \u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b4\u03ce\u03b4\u03b5\u03ba\u03b1 \u03c6\u03bf\u03c1\u03ac\u03b4\u03b5\u03c2\n635\n\n\n\u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b2\u03cc\u03c3\u03ba\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd, \u03ba' \u03ad\u03c7\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03b2\u03c5\u03b6\u03af \u03c6\u03b9\u03bb\u03cc\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd\u03b1 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\u00ab\u0394\u03b5\u03bd \u03b3\u03bd\u03c9\u03c1\u03af\u03b6\u03c9\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bd \u03ae\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03cd \u03ba\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1, \u03ae \u03bc\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u03ae\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5,\n\n\n\n'\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03a0\u03cd\u03bb\u03bf \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03ad\u03c3\u03c0\u03c1\u03c9\u03be\u03b5 \u03bd' \u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03b7, \u03b1\u03bd \u03bf \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03b8\u03b1 \u03b3\u03cd\u03c1\u03b7 \u03ae \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf \u03c3\u03c4\u03ac\u03b8\u03b7\u03ba\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c4\u03ad\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b6\u03c9\u03ae\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0391\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac '\u03c0\u03b5, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bd\u03b5\u03c7\u03ce\u03c1\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03b4\u03ce\u03bc\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u039f\u03b4\u03c5\u03c3\u03c3\u03ad\u03b1.\n715\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03ae\u03bd \u03bf \u03c0\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ad\u03b6\u03c9\u03c3\u03b5 \u03c3\u03ba\u03bb\u03b7\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03bc\u03c0\u03cc\u03c1\u03b5\u03b9\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03ac \u03bd\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03af\u03c3\u03b7 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03b8\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03af,\u2014\u03ba' \u03ae\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c3\u03c0\u03af\u03c4\u03b9\u2014\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03b5\u03c7\u03bd\u03b9\u03ba\u03ce\u03c4\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b8\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac\u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03bf \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03ce\u03c6\u03bb\u03b9\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03ba\u03ac\u03b8\u03b9\u03c3\u03b5 \u03b4\u03b1\u03ba\u03c1\u03cd\u03b6\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b9\u03ba\u03c1\u03ac, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b7 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\u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1\u03c6\u03ae\u03ba\u03b1\u03bd\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03c0' \u03ac\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b1 \u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03ce\u03c4' \u03ad\u03c7\u03b1\u03c3\u03b1, \u03bb\u03b5\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03cc\u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03b4\u03bf\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1\u03bd\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03cc\u03bb\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03ae\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1, '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u0394\u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03ce\u03bd \u03c4\u03b1 \u03b3\u03ad\u03bd\u03b7,\n725\n\n\n'\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u0395\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac\u03b4\u03b1 \u03b7 \u03b4\u03cc\u03be\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 '\u03c2 \u03c4' \u0386\u03c1\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bc\u03ad\u03c3\u03b1 \u03b5\u03b2\u03b3\u03ae\u03ba\u03b5.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03ce\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf \u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03ac\u03ba\u03c1\u03b9\u03b2\u03bf\u03bd \u03bf \u03ac\u03bd\u03b5\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03ae\u03c1\u03b5\n\n\n\n\u03ac\u03b4\u03bf\u03be' \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc \u03c4\u03bf \u03c3\u03c0\u03af\u03c4\u03b9 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5, \u03bf\u03cd\u03b4\u2019 \u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9\u03c9\u03c3\u03b1 '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03b2\u03b3\u03ae\u03ba\u03b5.\n\n\n\n\u03c3\u03ba\u03bb\u03b7\u03c1\u03b1\u03af\u03c2, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03c5\u03c1\u03ad\u03b8\u03b7\u03ba\u03b5 \u03bc\u03ad\u03c3' \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc \u03c3\u03b1\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bc\u03bc\u03af\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03bd\u03ce \u03c4\u03b1 \u03b7\u03be\u03b5\u03cd\u03c1\u03b5\u03c4\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac, \u03bd\u03b1 '\u03bb\u03b8\u03b7 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03bc' \u03b5\u03be\u03c5\u03c0\u03bd\u03af\u03c3\u03b7,\n730\n\n\n\u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ce\u03c1\u03b1 '\u03c0' \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 \u03ad\u03bc\u03c0\u03b1\u03b9\u03bd\u03b5 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03b2\u03b1\u03b8\u03bf\u03c5\u03bb\u03cc 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\u03c5\u03c6\u03ac\u03bd\u03b7,\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03bb\u03b1\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03b5\u03c1\u03c7\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03ba\u03bb\u03b1\u03c5\u03b8\u03ae, \u03c0\u03c9\u03c2 \u03b8\u03ad\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd\n740\n\n\n\u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u039f\u03b4\u03c5\u03c3\u03c3\u03b7\u03ac \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b3\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf \u03bd' \u03b1\u03c6\u03b1\u03bd\u03af\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u039a' \u03b7 \u0395\u03c5\u03c1\u03cd\u03ba\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd, \u03b7 \u03b1\u03b3\u03b1\u03c0\u03b7\u03c4\u03ae \u03b2\u03c5\u03b6\u03ac\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u0393\u03bb\u03c5\u03ba\u03b5\u03b9\u03ac \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bd\u03cd\u03bc\u03c6\u03b7, \u03bc\u03ac\u03c7\u03b1\u03b9\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd \u03ad\u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b5 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\u03b4\u03c9\u03b4\u03b5\u03ba\u03ac\u03c4\u03b7,\n\n\n\n\u03ae \u03bc\u03cc\u03bd\u03b7 \u03b5\u03c0\u03b9\u03b8\u03c5\u03bc\u03ae\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03ac\u03b8\u03b7\u03c2 \u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 \u03b5\u03b2\u03b3\u03ae\u03ba\u03b5,\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c0\u03c9\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b7 \u03c6\u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03c1\u03b7\u03c2 \u03ba\u03bb\u03b1\u03af\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b5\u03cd\u03bc\u03bf\u03c1\u03c6\u03b7\u03bd \u03b5\u03b9\u03b4\u03ae \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5.\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac, \u03c4\u03bf \u03c3\u03ce\u03bc' \u03b1\u03c6\u03bf\u03cd \u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b8\u03ae\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac \u03c6\u03bf\u03c1\u03ad\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2,\n750\n\n\n\u03c0\u03ac\u03c1\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c5\u03c0\u03b7\u03c1\u03ad\u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5, '\u03c2 \u03c4' \u03b1\u03bd\u03ce\u03b3\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03af\u03b2\u03b1 \u03ba' \u03b5\u03cd\u03c7\u03bf\u03c5\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u0391\u03b8\u03b7\u03bd\u03ac\u03c2, \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b8\u03c5\u03b3\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b1\u03b9\u03b3\u03b9\u03b4\u03bf\u03c6\u03cc\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5 \u0394\u03af\u03b1,\n\n\n\n'\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b8\u03ac\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf \u03c4\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5 \u03b7\u03bc\u03c0\u03bf\u03c1\u03b5\u03af \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c3\u03ce\u03c3\u03b7.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b3\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b1\u03bb\u03b1\u03af\u03c0\u03c9\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd \u03c3\u03c5 \u03bc\u03b7 \u03c4\u03b1\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03c0\u03c9\u03c1\u03ae\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03bf\u03c5\u03b4' \u03bf\u03b9 \u03b1\u03b8\u03ac\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9, \u03b8\u03b1\u03c1\u03c1\u03ce, \u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03ac\u03c0\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf \u03b3\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2\n755\n\n\n\u03c4' \u0391\u03c1\u03ba\u03b5\u03b9\u03c3\u03b9\u03ac\u03b4\u03b7 \u03b5\u03bc\u03af\u03c3\u03b7\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ba\u03ac\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b8' \u03b1\u03c0\u03bf\u03bc\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b7,\n\n\n\n\u03bd\u03b1 '\u03c7\u03b7 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c5\u03c8\u03b7\u03bb\u03ac \u03b4\u03ce\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c7\u03b5\u03af\u03c2 \u03b1\u03b3\u03c1\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0391\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac '\u03c0\u03b5, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03ae\u03c2 \u03ba\u03bf\u03af\u03bc\u03b9\u03c3\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b8\u03c1\u03ae\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bc\u03ac\u03c4\u03b9\u03b1\n\n\n\n\u03c3\u03c4\u03ad\u03b3\u03bd\u03c9\u03c3\u03b5\u00b7 \u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b7 \u03b5\u03bb\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03b8\u03b7\u03ba\u03b5 \u03ba' \u03b5\u03c6\u03cc\u03c1\u03b5\u03c3\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03ac\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1,\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4' \u03b1\u03bd\u03ce\u03b9 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b1\u03af\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b1\u03bd\u03ad\u03b2\u03b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf\u03c5\u03bb\u03bf\u03c7\u03cd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2\n760\n\n\n\u03ad\u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03ba\u03ac\u03bd\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u03c5\u03c7\u03cc\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u0391\u03b8\u03ae\u03bd\u03b7\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u0386\u03ba\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bc\u03b5, \u03ba\u03cc\u03c1\u03b7 \u03b1\u03b4\u03ac\u03bc\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b1\u03b9\u03b3\u03b9\u03b4\u03bf\u03c6\u03cc\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5 \u0394\u03af\u03b1\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03ac\u03bd \u03c0\u03bf\u03c4\u03b5 \u03bf \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03cd\u03b2\u03bf\u03c5\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2 '\u03c2 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\u03b1\u03b3\u03bd\u03bf\u03b5\u03af '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b3\u03af\u03bd\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c5\u03b9\u03bf\u03cd \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0391\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac \u03c0\u03b5, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b9 \u03b3\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u03ba\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9 \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b7\u03be\u03b5\u03cd\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c9\u03bc\u03af\u03bb\u03b9\u03c3' \u03bf \u0391\u03bd\u03c4\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03bf\u03c2 '\u03c2 \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03bc\u03ad\u03c3\u03b1, \u03ba' \u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03b5\u00b7\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u0394\u03b1\u03af\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03b5\u03c2, \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c5\u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03ae\u03c6\u03b1\u03bd\u03b1 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03bd' \u03b1\u03c6\u03ae\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5 \u03c4\u03ce\u03c1\u03b1\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03bb\u03b1 \u03bc\u03b1\u03b6\u03ae, \u03bc\u03ae\u03c0\u03c9\u03c2 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\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ac\u03c0\u03bb\u03c9\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bf\u03bb\u03cc\u03bb\u03b5\u03c5\u03ba\u03b1 \u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03af\u03b1\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bb\u03bc\u03b7\u03c1\u03bf\u03af \u03b8\u03b5\u03c1\u03ac\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03cc\u03c0\u03bb\u03b1 \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c6\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4' \u03ac\u03c1\u03b1\u03be\u03b1\u03bd \u03c3\u03b9\u03bc\u03ac '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b3\u03b7, \u03c8\u03b7\u03bb\u03ac\u00b7 \u03ba' \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9 \u03b5\u03b2\u03b3\u03ae\u03ba\u03b1\u03bd,\n785\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd \u03b4\u03b5\u03b9\u03c0\u03bd\u03ae\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bd\u03b1 '\u03bb\u03b8\u03ae \u03c4\u03bf \u03b5\u03c3\u03c0\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u03bd.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u039a\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd '\u03c2 \u03c4' \u03b1\u03bd\u03ce\u03b3' \u03b7 \u03c6\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd\u03b9\u03bc\u03b7 \u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd \u03a0\u03b7\u03bd\u03b5\u03bb\u03cc\u03c0\u03b7,\n\n\n\n\u03c7\u03c9\u03c1\u03af\u03c2 \u03c6\u03b1\u03b3\u03af, \u03c7\u03c9\u03c1\u03af\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b9\u03bf\u03c4\u03cc, \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03cd \u03c3\u03c5\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03b3\u03b9\u03c3\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b7,\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bd \u03bf \u03c5\u03b9\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03bf \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c7\u03ac\u03c1\u03bf \u03b8\u03b1 \u03be\u03b5\u03c6\u03cd\u03b3\u03b7,\n\n\n\n\u03ae \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03ac\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b6\u03c9\u03ae\u03bd \u03bf\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc\u03ba\u03bf\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9 \u03bc\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b5\u03c2.\n790\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03cc\u03c3\u03b1 \u03bb\u03b5\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03ac\u03c1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03bc\u03bd\u03ac, \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03ce\u03bd '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03bc\u03ad\u03c3\u03b7 \u03b1\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03c9\u03bd,\n\n\n\n\u03c6\u03bf\u03b2\u03bf\u03cd\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b4\u03bf\u03bb\u03b5\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u03cd '\u03c3\u03c5\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd \u03b3\u03cd\u03c1\u03c9 \u03ba\u03cd\u03ba\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd,\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03cc\u03c3\u03b1 \u03b5\u03bd\u03ce \u03c3\u03c5\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03b3\u03af\u03b6\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd, \u03b3\u03bb\u03c5\u03ba\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03ae\u03c1\u03b5\u03bd \u03cd\u03c0\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03ad\u03c0\u03b5\u03c3\u03b5, \u03b1\u03c0\u03bf\u03ba\u03bf\u03b9\u03bc\u03ae\u03b8\u03b7\u03ba\u03b5, \u03ba' \u03bf\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c1\u03bc\u03bf\u03af \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b5\u03bb\u03c5\u03b8\u03ae\u03ba\u03b1\u03bd.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u03a4\u03cc\u03c4' \u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf \u03b5\u03c6\u03b5\u03cd\u03c1\u03b7\u03ba\u03b5 \u03b7 \u03b8\u03b5\u03ac, \u03b7 \u03b3\u03bb\u03b1\u03c5\u03ba\u03bf\u03bc\u03bc\u03ac\u03c4' \u0391\u03b8\u03ae\u03bd\u03b7\u00b7\n795\n\n\n\u03c6\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c3\u03bc\u03b1 \u03c0\u03bb\u03ac\u03b8\u03b5\u03b9, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ce\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03b1\u03b6\u03b5 \u03b3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b1\u03af\u03ba\u03b1 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03bc\u03bf\u03c1\u03c6\u03ae \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5,\n\n\n\n\u03b7 \u0399\u03c6\u03b8\u03af\u03bc\u03b7, \u03ba\u03cc\u03c1\u03b7 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c5\u03c8\u03b7\u03bb\u03bf\u03cd '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c6\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1 \u0399\u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03af\u03bf\u03c5,\n\n\n\n'\u03c0' \u03bf \u0395\u03cd\u03bc\u03b7\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c0' \u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03a6\u03b5\u03c1\u03b1\u03af\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b5\u03af\u03c7\u03b5 \u03c0\u03ac\u03c1\u03b5\u03b9 \u03bd\u03cd\u03bc\u03c6\u03b7\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03ad\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03bb\u03bd\u03b5 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03b4\u03ce\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03bf\u03c5 \u039f\u03b4\u03c5\u03c3\u03c3\u03ad\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b5\u03b9, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03ba\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf\u03b4\u03cd\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd, \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03a0\u03b7\u03bd\u03b5\u03bb\u03cc\u03c0\u03b7 \u03bd\u03b1\u03cd\u03c1\u03b7,\n800\n\n\n\u03bd\u03b1 \u03c0\u03b1\u03cd\u03c3\u03b7 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03ae\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03ba\u03bb\u03ac\u03bc\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1, \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b8\u03c1\u03ae\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c3\u03b9\u03b3\u03ac\u03c3\u03b7.\n\n\n\n\u03c3\u03b9\u03bc\u03ac '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c3\u03cd\u03c1\u03c4\u03b7 \u03c4\u03bf 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\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03ba\u03cc\u03bc\u03b7 \u03b8\u03b1 \u03b3\u03c5\u03c1\u03af\u03c3\u03b7\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf \u03c4\u03ad\u03ba\u03bd\u03bf \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u00b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b8\u03b5\u03ce\u03bd \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03c4\u03b1\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u039a\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b7 \u03a0\u03b7\u03bd\u03b5\u03bb\u03cc\u03c0' \u03b7 \u03c6\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd\u03b9\u03bc\u03b7 \u03b1\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03cd \u03b3\u03bb\u03c5\u03ba\u03ac \u03c1\u03bf\u03c5\u03c7\u03ac\u03b6\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c0\u03cd\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03bf\u03bd\u03b5\u03af\u03c1\u03c9\u03bd\u00b7\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u0395\u03b4\u03ce \u03b3\u03b9\u03b1\u03c4\u03af '\u03bb\u03b8\u03b5\u03c2, \u03b1\u03b4\u03b5\u03bb\u03c6\u03ae; \u03c0\u03bf\u03c3\u03ce\u03c2 \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03c3' \u03b5\u03af\u03b4' \u03c9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03ce\u03c1\u03b1\n810\n\n\n\u03bd\u03b1 '\u03c1\u03c7\u03b5\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9, \u03b3\u03b9\u03b1\u03c4\u03af \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b1\u03ba\u03c1\u03c5' \u03b1\u03c0' \u03b5\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1, \u03c0\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1.\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03bb\u03cd\u03c0\u03b7 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03b3\u03b3\u03ad\u03bb\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03bd' \u03b1\u03c6\u03ae\u03c3\u03c9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c0\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03cd \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b8\u03bb\u03af\u03b2\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u03ae, \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c3\u03c0\u03bb\u03ac\u03c7\u03bd\u03b1 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03b6\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd,\n\n\n\n'\u03c0' \u03ac\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b1 \u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03ce\u03c4' \u03ad\u03c7\u03b1\u03c3\u03b1 \u03bb\u03b5\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03cc\u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03b4\u03bf\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1\u03bd\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03cc\u03bb\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03ae\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1, '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u0394\u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03ce\u03bd \u03c4\u03b1 \u03b3\u03ad\u03bd\u03b7,\n815\n\n\n'\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u0395\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac\u03b4\u03b1 \u03b7 \u03b4\u03cc\u03be\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 '\u03c2 \u03c4' \u0386\u03c1\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bc\u03ad\u03c3\u03b1 \u03b5\u03b2\u03b3\u03ae\u03ba\u03b5.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03ce\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c0\u03ac\u03bb\u03b9 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03c6\u03c5\u03b3\u03b5 \u03c4' \u03b1\u03b3\u03b1\u03c0\u03b7\u03c4\u03cc \u03c0\u03b1\u03b9\u03b4\u03af \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c0\u03bb\u03bf\u03af\u03bf, \u03ba' \u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bc\u03ac\u03b8\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03ac\u03be\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03b3' \u03bf\u03b4\u03cd\u03c1\u03bf\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03cd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac \u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd,\n\n\n\n\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03cc\u03bb\u03b7 \u03c4\u03c1\u03ad\u03bc\u03c9 \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce, \u03c6\u03bf\u03b2\u03bf\u03cd\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03b7 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03ac\u03b8\u03b7,\n820\n\n\n\u03ae '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03bb\u03b1\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd, \u03ae \u03bc\u03ad\u03c3\u03b1 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03b5\u03bb\u03ac\u03b3\u03b7\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c4' \u03b5\u03af\u03bd' \u03b5\u03c7\u03b8\u03c1\u03bf\u03af \u03ba\u03b1\u03ba\u03cc\u03b2\u03bf\u03c5\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03af, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bc\u03b7\u03c7\u03b1\u03bd\u03ce\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\n\n\n\n\u03bd\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c6\u03bf\u03bd\u03b5\u03cd\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd, \u03c0\u03c1\u03b9\u03bd \u03b5\u03bb\u03b8\u03ae \u03bf\u03c0\u03af\u03c3\u03c9 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03b4\u03b1\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u039a\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf \u03b8\u03b1\u03bc\u03c0\u03cc \u03c4\u03bf \u03c6\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c3\u03bc\u03b1 \u03b1\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u0398\u03ac\u03c1\u03c1\u03b5\u03c5\u03b5, \u03bc\u03b7\u03b4\u03ad \u03c6\u03bf\u03b2\u03b7\u03b8\u03ae\u03c2 \u03c4\u03cc\u03c3\u03bf \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03cd '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03bd\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u00b7\n825\n\n\n\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c0\u03bb\u03ac\u03b3\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bf\u03b4\u03b7\u03b3\u03cc\u03c2, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9 \u03b5\u03c0\u03b9\u03b8\u03c5\u03bc\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd,\u2014\n\n\n\n\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1\u03c4\u03af \u03bc\u03b5\u03b3\u03ac\u03bb\u03b1 \u03b4\u03cd\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9,\u2014\u03bd\u03ac \u03c3\u03c4\u03ad\u03ba\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c3\u03b9\u03bc\u03ac \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03b7 \u0391\u03b8\u03b7\u03bd\u03ac\u00b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03ce\u03c1' \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03ae \u03c3\u03b5 \u03c3\u03c5\u03bc\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd\u03b5\u03af, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ba\u03bb\u03b1\u03af\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc' \u03b5\u03be\u03b1\u03c0\u03cc\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03b9\u03bb\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03b4\u03ce, \u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03b1 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bf\u03bc\u03b9\u03bb\u03ae\u03c3\u03c9\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u039a' \u03b7 \u03a0\u03b7\u03bd\u03b5\u03bb\u03cc\u03c0' \u03b7 \u03c6\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd\u03b9\u03bc\u03b7 \u03b1\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u03c2\u00b7\n830\n\n\n\u00ab\u039a\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bd \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03c2 \u03b5\u03af\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03cd \u03c3\u03c5 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c6\u03c9\u03bd\u03ae\u03bd \u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03cd\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd \u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03b5 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5, \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03ac\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd,\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bd \u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03ba\u03cc\u03bc\u03b7 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b6\u03c9\u03ae, \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u0397\u03bb\u03b9\u03bf\u03cd \u03c4\u03bf \u03c6\u03c9\u03c2 \u03b1\u03bd \u03b2\u03bb\u03ad\u03c0\u03b7,\n\n\n\n\u03ae \u03b1\u03c0\u03ad\u03b8\u03b1\u03bd\u03b5, \u03ba' \u03b5\u03c5\u03c1\u03af\u03c3\u03ba\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03ba\u03b9\u03ac \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u0386\u03b4\u03b7\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u039a\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf \u03b8\u03b1\u03bc\u03c0\u03cc \u03c4\u03bf \u03c6\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c3\u03bc\u03b1 \u03b1\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u03c2\u00b7\n835\n\n\n\u00ab\u0393\u03b9' \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c0\u03ce \u03c1\u03b7\u03c4\u03ce\u03c2 \u03b1\u03bd \u03b6\u03b7 \u03b1\u03ba\u03cc\u03bc\u03b7,\n\n\n\n\u03ae \u03b1\u03c0\u03ad\u03b8\u03b1\u03bd\u03b5- \u03ba' \u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03ba\u03cc \u03bd\u03b1 \u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03c9\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bc\u03ac\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03b1\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0395\u03af\u03c0\u03b5, \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c3\u03cd\u03c1\u03c4\u03b7 \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc \u03c3\u03b9\u03bc\u03ac \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b8\u03cd\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf \u03b5\u03b2\u03b3\u03ae\u03ba\u03b5,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b1\u03bd\u03ad\u03bc\u03c9\u03bd \u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c0\u03bd\u03bf\u03b1\u03af\u03c2 \u03b5\u03c3\u03ba\u03cc\u03c1\u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03b5\u00b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b7 \u03ba\u03cc\u03c1\u03b7\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u0399\u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03af\u03bf\u03c5 \u03be\u03cd\u03c0\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b9\u03bb\u03ac\u03c1\u03c9\u03c3\u03b5 \u03b7 \u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u03ae \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2,\n840\n\n\n'\u03c0' \u03cc\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd \u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03c6\u03ac\u03bd\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03ae\u03bb\u03b8\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03b4\u03b5\u03af\u03bb\u03b9.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u039a\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ac\u03bc' \u03b1\u03bd\u03b5\u03b2\u03ae\u03ba\u03b1\u03bd \u03ad\u03c3\u03c7\u03b9\u03b6\u03b1\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf \u03c0\u03ad\u03bb\u03b1\u03b3\u03bf \u03bf\u03b9 \u03bc\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b5\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03a4\u03b7\u03bb\u03b5\u03bc\u03ac\u03c7\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b1\u03c6\u03b5\u03cd\u03b3\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c6\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf \u03bc\u03b5\u03bb\u03b5\u03c4\u03ce\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03b5\u03c4\u03c1\u03c9\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd \u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03af, '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03bc\u03ad\u03c3\u03b7 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac\u03c3\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u0399\u03b8\u03ac\u03ba\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03bc\u03b5\u03c3\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03c4\u03c1\u03b1\u03c7\u03b5\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 \u03a3\u03ac\u03bc\u03bf\u03c5,\n845\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c7\u03b9 \u03bc\u03b5\u03b3\u03ac\u03bb\u03bf, \u03b7 \u0391\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03af\u03c2, \u03bc' \u03b1\u03ba\u03af\u03bd\u03b4\u03c5\u03bd\u03b1 \u03bb\u03b9\u03bc\u03ac\u03bd\u03b9\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03b4\u03c5\u03bf \u03b4\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03bc\u03b1, \u03ba' \u03bf\u03b9 \u0391\u03c7\u03b1\u03b9\u03bf\u03af \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u03a1\u03b1\u03c8\u03c9\u03b4\u03af\u03b1 \u0395\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u039a\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ac\u03c6\u03b7\u03c3' \u03b7 \u0397\u03ce \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c5\u03c0\u03ad\u03c1\u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03a4\u03b9\u03b8\u03c9\u03bd\u03bf\u03cd \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ba\u03bb\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf \u03c6\u03c9\u03c2 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c6\u03ad\u03c1\u03b7 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b8\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u03ce\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ac\u03bc\u03b1 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b1\u03b8\u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c3\u03c5\u03b3\u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03af\u03b6\u03b1\u03bd \u03bf\u03b9 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03af \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 '\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03bc\u03ad\u03c3\u03b1 \u03bf \u0394\u03af\u03b1\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03bf \u03c5\u03c8\u03b7\u03bb\u03bf\u03b2\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03b5\u03af \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03ce\u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b5\u03be\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03af\u03b1.\n\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03b7 \u0391\u03b8\u03ae\u03bd\u03b7 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bd\u03b7\u03bc\u03cc\u03bd\u03b5\u03c5\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03ac\u03b8\u03b7 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u039f\u03b4\u03c5\u03c3\u03c3\u03ad\u03b1,\n5\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03b5\u03c3\u03cd\u03b3\u03ba\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9' \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03c5\u03c1\u03af\u03c3\u03ba\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03b4\u03ce\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03bd\u03cd\u03bc\u03c6\u03b7\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u03a0\u03b1\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1 \u0394\u03af\u03b1, \u03bc\u03ac\u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03b5\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03af, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf\u03c4' \u03b5\u03af\u03c3\u03b8\u03b5,\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03ac \u03c3\u03ba\u03b7\u03c0\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03cc\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bb\u03b7\u03ac\u03c2 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03bc\u03b7 \u03c6\u03b1\u03bd\u03ae \u03ba\u03b1\u03bd\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03b3\u03bb\u03c5\u03ba\u03cc\u03c2, \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03bf\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03b1\u03af\u03c1\u03b5\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b4\u03af\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03c1\u03ac\u03bf\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb' \u03b1\u03c2 \u03ae\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c3\u03ba\u03bb\u03b7\u03c1\u03cc\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4' \u03ac\u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u03b1 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c0\u03c1\u03ac\u03b6\u03b7\u00b7\n10\n\n\n\u03b1\u03c6\u03bf\u03cd \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03bf\u03bd \u039f\u03b4\u03c5\u03c3\u03c3\u03b7\u03ac \u03ba\u03b1\u03bd\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b8\u03c5\u03bc\u03ac\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03bb\u03b1\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bb\u03b7\u03ac \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03af\u03c7\u03b1\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03c4\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03af \u03bc\u03b5 \u03bb\u03cd\u03c0\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03c0\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2,\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u039a\u03b1\u03bb\u03c5\u03c8\u03ce\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03bd\u03cd\u03bc\u03c6\u03b7\u03c2, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03b2\u03af\u03b1\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03b5\u03af \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b4\u03cd\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c6\u03b8\u03ac\u03c3\u03b7 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03b4\u03b1.\n15\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03b2\u03b9\u03b1 \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9, \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9 \u03bf\u03c5\u03b4\u03ad \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03c4\u03c1\u03cc\u03c6\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2,\n\n\n\n'\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c6\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03bb\u03b1\u03c4\u03b5\u03b9\u03ac \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bd\u03ce\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac\u03c3\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03ce\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c0\u03ac\u03bb\u03b9 \u03bc\u03b5\u03bb\u03b5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03bd \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c3\u03c6\u03ac\u03be\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c5\u03b9\u03cc \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03ce\u03c2 \u03b3\u03c5\u03c1\u03af\u03b6\u03b5\u03b9, '\u03c0' \u03ac\u03ba\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03bc\u03b1 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03bc\u03ac\u03b8\u03b7 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\n\n\n\n'\u03b2\u03b3\u03ae\u03ba\u03b5 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u039b\u03b1\u03ba\u03b5\u03b4\u03b1\u03af\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03a0\u03cd\u03bb\u03bf \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b1\u03b3\u03af\u03b1\u00bb.\n20\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u039a\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf \u0394\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd \u03bf \u03bd\u03b5\u03c6\u03b5\u03bb\u03bf\u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03ac\u03ba\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u03a4\u03ad\u03ba\u03bd\u03bf, \u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03c6\u03c5\u03b3\u03b5 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03bf\u03b4\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9\u03ce\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf \u03c6\u03c1\u03ac\u03b3\u03bc\u03b1;\n\n\n\n\u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03af\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c3\u03c5, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03c3\u03ba\u03ad\u03c6\u03b8\u03b7\u03ba\u03b5\u03c2 \u03b7 \u03af\u03b4\u03b9\u03b1 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03ae\u03bd \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b3\u03bd\u03ce\u03bc\u03b7,\n\n\n\n\u03bd\u03b1 '\u03bb\u03b8\u03b7 \u03bf \u039f\u03b4\u03c5\u03c3\u03c3\u03b7\u03ac\u03c2, \u03ba' \u03b5\u03bd\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b5\u03ba\u03b4\u03af\u03ba\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c0\u03ac\u03c1\u03b7;\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03a4\u03b7\u03bb\u03ad\u03bc\u03b1\u03c7\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03c3\u03cd, \u03b3\u03b9\u03b1\u03c4' \u03b7\u03bc\u03c0\u03bf\u03c1\u03b5\u03af\u03c2, \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03b2\u03cc\u03b4\u03b1\n25\n\n\n\u03bc\u03b5 \u03b3\u03bd\u03ce\u03c3\u03b9, \u03cc\u03c0\u03c9\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c0\u03b5\u03af\u03c1\u03b1\u03ba\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c5\u03c0\u03ac\u03b3\u03b7 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03b4\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ac\u03c0\u03c1\u03b1\u03ba\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c0\u03bb\u03bf\u03af\u03bf \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b3\u03c5\u03c1\u03af\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd \u03bf\u03b9 \u03bc\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b5\u03c2\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0395\u03af\u03c0\u03b5, \u03ba' \u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03ac\u03c6\u03b7 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u0395\u03c1\u03bc\u03ae\u03bd \u03b1\u03bc\u03ad\u03c3\u03c9\u03c2, \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c5\u03b9\u03cc \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u0395\u03c1\u03bc\u03ae, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c3' \u03ad\u03c7\u03c9 \u03bc\u03b7\u03bd\u03c5\u03c4\u03ae\u03bd \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03cc\u03bb\u03b1, \u03b5\u03b9\u03c0\u03ad \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03bd\u03cd\u03bc\u03c6\u03b7\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03bf\u03c0\u03bb\u03ad\u03be\u03bf\u03c5\u03b4\u03b7\u03c2, \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03b1\u03c1\u03ae \u03b2\u03bf\u03c5\u03bb\u03ae \u03bc\u03b1\u03c2,\n30\n\n\n\u03bf \u039f\u03b4\u03c5\u03c3\u03c3\u03b7\u03ac\u03c2 \u03bf \u03b1\u03b4\u03ac\u03bc\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b3\u03b7 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03b5\u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03ad\u03bb\u03b8\u03b7,\n\n\n\n\u03c7\u03c9\u03c1\u03af\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03bd \u03ae \u03ac\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03c9\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd \u03b8\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd \u03bd\u03b1 '\u03c7\u03b7 \u03c3\u03b9\u03bc\u03ac \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb' \u03b1\u03c6\u03bf\u03cd '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03cd\u03b4\u03b5\u03c3\u03bc\u03b7 \u03c0\u03bb\u03c9\u03c4\u03ae \u03ba\u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03c0\u03b1\u03b8\u03ae\u03c3\u03b7,\n\n\n\n\u03b8\u03b1 \u03c6\u03b8\u03ac\u03c3\u03b7 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b5\u03b9\u03ba\u03bf\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03bd \u03b7\u03bc\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03a3\u03c7\u03b5\u03c1\u03af\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03b3\u03b7 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03a6\u03b1\u03b9\u03ac\u03ba\u03c9\u03bd \u03ba\u03ac\u03c1\u03c0\u03b9\u03bc\u03b7, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03af \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03b3\u03ad\u03bd\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03af '\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9,\n35\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c9\u03c3\u03ac\u03bd \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03bd \u03bf\u03bb\u03cc\u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u03b1 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd \u03b8\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b9\u03bc\u03ae\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03b2\u03b9 '\u03c2 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\u03b9\u03b4\u03ae \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c0\u03bf\u03b8\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2, \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c6\u03b8\u03ac\u03c3\u03b7\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c3\u03c0\u03af\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c5\u03c8\u03b7\u03bb\u03cc\u03c3\u03ba\u03b5\u03c0\u03bf, '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b3\u03b7 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03ba\u03ae \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0391\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac '\u03c0\u03b5\u00b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ac\u03bc\u03b1 \u03bf \u03b3\u03bb\u03ae\u03b3\u03bf\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c5\u03c0\u03ac\u03ba\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b5 \u03b1\u03c1\u03b3\u03bf\u03c6\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03b5\u03c5\u03b8\u03cd\u03c2 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03cc\u03b4\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03ad\u03b4\u03b5\u03c3\u03b5 \u03c0\u03b5\u03b4\u03bf\u03cd\u03bb\u03b9\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03bf\u03bb\u03cc\u03c7\u03c1\u03c5\u03c3\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 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\u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03ba\u03ae \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u00bb.\n115\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0386\u03ba\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b5 \u03b7 \u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03af\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7 \u03b8\u03b5\u03ac, \u03ba' \u03b5\u03c5\u03b8\u03cd\u03c2 \u03b5\u03c0\u03ac\u03b3\u03c9\u03c3' \u03cc\u03bb\u03b7\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03c6\u03ce\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c0\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03c9\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u00b7\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u0395\u03af\u03c3\u03b8' \u03ac\u03c3\u03c0\u03bb\u03b1\u03c7\u03bd', \u03b5\u03af\u03c3\u03b8\u03b5 \u03b2\u03ac\u03c3\u03ba\u03b1\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9, \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03af, \u03c3\u03b1\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03bd\u03b5\u03af\u03c2 \u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2,\n\n\n\n'\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03b8\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c6\u03b1\u03bd\u03b5\u03c1\u03cc \u03b8\u03b5\u03b1\u03af\u03c2 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c3\u03c5\u03b3\u03ba\u03bf\u03b9\u03bc\u03ce\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\n\n\n\n\u03c6\u03b8\u03bf\u03bd\u03b5\u03af\u03c4\u03b5, \u03b1\u03bd \u03ba\u03ac\u03bc\u03b7 \u03bf\u03bc\u03cc\u03ba\u03bb\u03b9\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03bc\u03bc\u03b9\u03ac \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c0\u03bf\u03b8\u03b7\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2.\n120\n\n\n\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03c1\u03bf\u03b4\u03bf\u03b4\u03ac\u03ba\u03c4\u03c5\u03bb\u03b7\u03c2 \u0397\u03ce\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03bb\u03b5\u03ba\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03a9\u03c1\u03af\u03c9\u03bd\u03b1 \u03b5\u03c6\u03b8\u03bf\u03bd\u03ad\u03c3\u03b5\u03c4\u03b5, \u03b5\u03c3\u03b5\u03af\u03c2 \u03bf\u03b9 \u03b5\u03c5\u03c4\u03c5\u03c7\u03b9\u03c3\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9,\n\n\n\n\u03c9\u03c2 '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b7 \u03c7\u03c1\u03c5\u03c3\u03cc\u03b8\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03b7 \u0386\u03c1\u03c4\u03b5\u03bc\u03b9\u03c2, \u03b7 \u03b1\u03b3\u03bd\u03ae, '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u039f\u03c1\u03c4\u03c5\u03b3\u03af\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03c4\u03cd\u03c0\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd \u03ba' \u03b5\u03c6\u03cc\u03bd\u03b5\u03c5\u03c3\u03b5 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bb\u03b5\u03c0\u03c4\u03ac \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b2\u03ad\u03bb\u03b7.\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03b1, \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03bf\u03c0\u03bb\u03ad\u03be\u03bf\u03c5\u03b4\u03b7 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u0394\u03ae\u03bc\u03b7\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd \u03bf \u03c0\u03cc\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2\n125\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c4' \u03ad\u03c6\u03b5\u03c1\u03b5 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b1\u03b3\u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03b9\u03ac \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c0\u03ad\u03c3\u03b7 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u0399\u03b1\u03c3\u03af\u03bf\u03c5,\n\n\n\n\u03bc\u03b5\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03cc\u03c1\u03b3\u03c9\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b1\u03b3\u03c1\u03cc, \u03c4\u03bf '\u03bc\u03ac\u03b8' \u03b5\u03c5\u03b8\u03cd\u03c2 \u03bf \u0394\u03af\u03b1\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\u03ac\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1\u03c8\u03b5 \u03ba' \u03b5\u03b8\u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd \u03bc' \u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c0\u03b5\u03bb\u03ad\u03ba\u03b9.\n\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03b5\u03bc\u03ad, \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03af, \u03c6\u03b8\u03bf\u03bd\u03b5\u03af\u03c4\u03b5 \u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2, '\u03c0\u03ce\u03c7\u03c9 \u03b8\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd \u03ba\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03ac \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5\n\n\n\n\u03ac\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b1\u00b7 \u03ba' \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03ad\u03c3\u03c9\u03c3\u03b1, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bc\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\n130\n\n\n\u03ad\u03c3\u03c6\u03b9\u03b3\u03b3\u03b5 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c3\u03ba\u03ad\u03bb\u03b7 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03c7\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf 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\u03b1\u03c0\u03b5\u03af\u03c1\u03b1\u03ba\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b3\u03bb\u03c5\u03ba\u03b5\u03b9\u03ac \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03b4\u03b1\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u039a\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf \u03b1\u03c1\u03b3\u03bf\u03c6\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b7\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u03ae\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03ad \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03ba' \u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03b5\u00b7\n145\n\n\n\u00ab\u039d\u03b1\u03b9, \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc\u03c0\u03b5\u03bc\u03c0\u03ad \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c6\u03bf\u03b2\u03bf\u03cd \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03cc\u03c1\u03b3\u03b7\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u0394\u03af\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03bc\u03ae\u03c0\u03c9\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03cc\u03c0\u03b9 \u03c7\u03bf\u03bb\u03b5\u03c5\u03b8\u03ae \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c3\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03ae\u03c3\u03b7\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0391\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac '\u03c0\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03c7\u03ce\u03c1\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd \u03bf \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c1\u03b3\u03bf\u03c6\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03bc\u03b5\u03b3\u03b1\u03bb\u03cc\u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03ba\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5 \u039f\u03b4\u03c5\u03c3\u03c3\u03ad\u03b1\n\n\n\n\u03b7 \u03bd\u03cd\u03bc\u03c6\u03b7, \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bc\u03b7\u03bd\u03cd\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c9\u03c2 \u03ac\u03ba\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u0394\u03af\u03b1.\n150\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03b1\u03ba\u03c1\u03bf\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1\u03bb\u03b9\u03ac \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03ae\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03cd\u03c1\u03b5, \u03bf\u03c5\u03b4' \u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03b3\u03bd\u03cc\u03bd\u03b1\u03bd\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03bf\u03c4\u03ad \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bc\u03ac\u03c4\u03b9\u03b1, \u03b1\u03bb\u03bb' \u03ad\u03bb\u03c5\u03bf\u03bd\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03bf\u03b8\u03b7\u03c4\u03ae \u03b6\u03c9\u03ae \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\n\n\n\n\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03b4\u03b1 \u03ba\u03bb\u03b1\u03af\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2, \u03bf\u03c5\u03b4' \u03ac\u03c1\u03b5\u03b3\u03ad \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03bb\u03ad\u03b1\n\n\n\n\u03b7 \u03bd\u03cd\u03bc\u03c6\u03b7, \u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac \u03b2\u03b9\u03b1\u03b6\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2, '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03b2\u03b1\u03b8\u03bf\u03c5\u03bb\u03ac \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c3\u03c0\u03ae\u03bb\u03b7\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03bc' \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03ae\u03bd, \u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03cd \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03ae\u03b8\u03b5\u03bb\u03b5\u03bd, \u03b1\u03b8\u03ad\u03bb\u03b7\u03c4\u03b1 \u03b5\u03be\u03b5\u03bd\u03cd\u03ba\u03c4\u03b1\u00b7\n155\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b7\u03bc\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03ba\u03ac\u03b8\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd '\u03c2 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\u03b5\u03b4\u03ce \u03c3\u03c5 \u03c0\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03ac, \u03bc\u03b7 \u03c6\u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03c1\u03b7\u03c2\n160\n\n\n\u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b6\u03c9\u03ae \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5, \u03ba' \u03ae\u03b4\u03b7 \u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03b8\u03c5\u03bc\u03b1 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03cd \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c3' \u03b1\u03c0\u03bf\u03c0\u03ad\u03bc\u03c8\u03c9.\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb' \u03ad\u03bb\u03b1, \u03be\u03cd\u03bb\u03b1 \u03bc\u03b1\u03ba\u03c1\u03b9\u03bd\u03ac \u03bc\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b1\u03be\u03af\u03bd\u03b1 \u03ba\u03cc\u03c8\u03b5,\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03bb\u03b1\u03c4\u03b5\u03b9\u03ac \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03ac\u03c1\u03bc\u03bf\u03c3\u03b5 \u03c0\u03bb\u03c9\u03c4\u03ae, \u03ba' \u03b5\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c9 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03ae\u03c2 \u03c3\u03b1\u03bd\u03af\u03b4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5 \u03c5\u03c8\u03b7\u03bb\u03b1\u03af\u03c2, '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c3\u03ba\u03bf\u03c4\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd\u03ac \u03c0\u03b5\u03bb\u03ac\u03b3\u03b7 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c3\u03b5 \u03c6\u03ad\u03c1\u03b7.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ac\u03c1\u03c4\u03bf, \u03bd\u03b5\u03c1\u03cc, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ba\u03cc\u03ba\u03ba\u03b9\u03bd\u03bf \u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03af, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b4\u03c5\u03bd\u03b1\u03bc\u03cc\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9,\n165\n\n\n\u03b5\u03b3\u03ce \u03b8\u03b1 \u03b2\u03ac\u03bb\u03c9 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03bb\u03c9\u03c4\u03ae, \u03bc\u03b7 \u03c0\u03ac\u03b8\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc \u03c0\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b1.\n\n\n\n\u03b8\u03b1 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c6\u03bf\u03c1\u03ad\u03c3\u03c9 \u03c6\u03bf\u03c1\u03b5\u03c3\u03b9\u03b1\u03af\u03c2, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03c1\u03cd\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03af\u03bb\u03c9,\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c0\u03c9\u03c2 \u03c3\u03c5 \u03c6\u03b8\u03ac\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2 \u03ac\u03b2\u03bb\u03b1\u03c0\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03bf\u03b8\u03b7\u03c4\u03ae \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03b4\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03bf \u03b1\u03c1\u03ad\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b8\u03b5\u03ce\u03bd \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03bf\u03c5\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd\u03bf\u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03af\u03ba\u03c9\u03bd,\n\n\n\n\u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03cd \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03ae\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1' \u03b1\u03c0' \u03b5\u03bc\u03ad \u03bd\u03bf\u03bf\u03cd\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c0\u03bf\u03c6\u03b1\u03c3\u03af\u03b6\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd\u00bb.\n170\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0391\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac '\u03c0\u03b5\u00b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03cd\u03c0\u03b1\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b5\u03c0\u03ac\u03b3\u03c9\u03c3\u03b5 \u039f\u03b4\u03c5\u03c3\u03c3\u03ad\u03b1\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u03bd \u03b5\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03c6\u03ce\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c0\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03c9\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u00b7\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u0386\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03bd\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2, \u03b8\u03b5\u03ac, \u03c0\u03bf\u03c4\u03ad \u03bd\u03b1 \u03bc' \u03b1\u03c0\u03bf\u03c0\u03ad\u03bc\u03c8\u03b7\u03c2,\n\n\n\n'\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03c0\u03bb\u03c9\u03c4\u03ae \u03bd\u03b1 \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03b2\u03ce \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac\u03c3\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf \u03c6\u03c1\u03b9\u03ba\u03c4\u03cc \u03c7\u03ac\u03c3\u03bc\u03b1, \u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03cd \u03b3\u03bf\u03c1\u03b3\u03ac \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03c3\u03c7\u03af\u03b6\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd \u03af\u03c3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c0\u03bb\u03bf\u03af\u03b1\n175\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03cc\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03c6\u03b1\u03bd\u03b5\u03cd\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03ac\u03bd\u03b5\u03bc\u03bf \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u0394\u03af\u03b1.\n\n\n\n\u03bf\u03c5\u03b4\u03ad \u03b8\u03b5 \u03bd\u03b1 '\u03bc\u03c0\u03c9 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03bb\u03c9\u03c4\u03ae '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c0\u03b5\u03af\u03c3\u03bc\u03b1 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03bf\u03c4\u03ad \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5,\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bd \u03bc\u03b7 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bb\u03ae\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2, \u03c9 \u03b8\u03b5\u03ac, \u03bd\u03b1 \u03bf\u03bc\u03cc\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2 \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1\u03bd \u03cc\u03c1\u03ba\u03bf,\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03ba\u03cc \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03bc\u03b5\u03bb\u03b5\u03c4\u03ac\u03c2 \u03b5\u03bd\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9\u03b1 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bd\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0391\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac '\u03c0\u03b5\u00b7 \u03c4\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5 \u03b7 \u03b8\u03b1\u03c5\u03bc\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae \u03b8\u03b5\u03ac \u03b3\u03bb\u03c5\u03ba\u03bf\u03b3\u03b5\u03bb\u03ce\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2\n180\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c7\u03ac\u03b9\u03b4\u03b5\u03c8\u03b5, \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03ad\u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03be\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4' \u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u03b1, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03c0\u03b5\u00b7\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u03a0\u03bf\u03bd\u03b7\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03b5\u03af\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bb\u03b7\u03b8\u03b9\u03bd\u03ac, \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03af\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03bf\u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03bf\u03af\u03bf\u03bd \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03c3\u03bf\u03c6\u03af\u03c3\u03b8\u03b7\u03ba\u03b5\u03c2 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03b2\u03b3\u03ac\u03bb\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c0' \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c7\u03b5\u03af\u03bb\u03b7!\n\n\n\n\u03bc\u03ac\u03c1\u03c4\u03c5\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b7 \u03b3\u03b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf \u03bf\u03c5\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c0\u03bb\u03b1\u03c4\u03cd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b5\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c9,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03a3\u03c4\u03c5\u03b3\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c1\u03b5\u03cd\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c7\u03cd\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u0386\u03b4\u03b7,\n185\n\n\n\u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03cd '\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03c1\u03ce\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c6\u03c1\u03b9\u03ba\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b1\u03b8\u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03cc\u03c1\u03ba\u03bf\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03ba\u03cc \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03bc\u03b5\u03bb\u03b5\u03c4\u03ce \u03b5\u03bd\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bd\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb' \u03cc\u03c3\u03b1 \u03b8\u03b1 \u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c7\u03ac\u03b6\u03bf\u03bc\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd, \u03b1\u03bd \u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03b1 \u03bc' 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\u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\n\n\n\n\u03bf\u03b3\u03bb\u03ae\u03b3\u03bf\u03c1\u03b1\u00b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03cc\u03c0\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 \u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03b8\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03b5,\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03b2\u03b1\u03b8\u03cd \u03c3\u03c0\u03ae\u03bb\u03b7\u03bf\u03bd \u03ad\u03c6\u03b8\u03b1\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd \u03b7 \u03b1\u03b8\u03ac\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf \u03ac\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03b8\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03af \u03ba\u03ac\u03b8\u03b9\u03c3\u03b5 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03c7\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03af\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c0\u03c1\u03ce\u03c4\u03b1\n195\n\n\n\u03bf \u0395\u03c1\u03bc\u03ae\u03c2\u00b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03b5 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c6\u03ac\u03b3\u03b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c0\u03af\u03b7\n\n\n\n\u03b7 \u03bd\u03cd\u03bc\u03c6\u03b7 \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c6\u03b1\u03b3\u03b7\u03c4\u03ac, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03c1\u03ad\u03c6\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b1\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03b3\u03bd\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b7 \u03b5\u03ba\u03ac\u03b8\u03b9\u03c3\u03b5 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03bf\u03bd \u039f\u03b4\u03c5\u03c3\u03c3\u03ad\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bd\u03ad\u03ba\u03c4\u03b1\u03c1 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd \u03b7 \u03b4\u03bf\u03cd\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bc\u03b2\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03af\u03b1.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ac\u03c0\u03bb\u03c9\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd \u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03ad\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03bc\u03b1 \u03c6\u03b1\u03b3\u03b9\u03ac, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 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\u03c0\u03bf\u03b8\u03b7\u03c4\u03ae \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03b4\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03b8\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b5\u03c5\u03b8\u03cd\u03c2 \u03c4\u03ce\u03c1\u03b1 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c2; \u03b1\u03c2 \u03b3\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u00b7 \u03c7\u03b1\u03b9\u03c1\u03b5\u03c4\u03ce \u03c3\u03b5.\n205\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb' \u03b1\u03bd '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03bd\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03b3\u03bd\u03ce\u03c1\u03b9\u03b6\u03b5\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03cc\u03c3\u03b1 \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c5\u03c0\u03bf\u03c6\u03ad\u03c1\u03b7\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03ac\u03b8\u03b7, \u03cc\u03c0\u03c9\u03c2 \u03b8\u03ad\u03bb' \u03b7 \u03bc\u03bf\u03af\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5, \u03c0\u03c1\u03b9\u03bd \u03c6\u03b8\u03ac\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03b4\u03b1,\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03b4\u03ce\u03bc\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03bf \u03b1\u03c3\u03ac\u03bb\u03b5\u03c5\u03c4\u03b1 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'\u03c0' \u03ac\u03bc\u03b1\u03be\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03bf\u03cd\u03bd, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd \u03b3\u03c5\u03c1\u03af\u03b6\u03b5\u03b9\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf\u03c4\u03b5, \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03a9\u03c1\u03af\u03c9\u03bd\u03b1 \u03b1\u03c3\u03ac\u03bb\u03b5\u03c5\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c1\u03ce\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03b7 \u03bc\u03cc\u03bd\u03b7, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4' \u03a9\u03ba\u03b5\u03b1\u03bd\u03bf\u03cd \u03c4\u03bf \u03bb\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03bc\u03b1 \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b3\u03bd\u03c9\u03c1\u03af\u03b6\u03b5\u03b9.\n275\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c4' \u03b5\u03af\u03c7\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b7 \u039a\u03b1\u03bb\u03c5\u03c8\u03ce \u03b4\u03b9\u03b4\u03ac\u03be\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c4\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5 \u03b7 \u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u03bd \u03ad\u03c7\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b6\u03b5\u03c1\u03b2\u03b9\u03ac '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03ad\u03bb\u03b1\u03b3\u03b1 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c0\u03bb\u03ad\u03b7.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0397\u03bc\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03ad\u03c0\u03bb\u03b5\u03b5 \u03b4\u03b5\u03ba\u03b1\u03b5\u03c0\u03c4\u03ac, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b4\u03b5\u03ba\u03ac\u03c4\u03b7 \u03bf\u03b3\u03b4\u03cc\u03b7\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03b1 \u03b9\u03c3\u03ba\u03b9\u03c9\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1 \u03b5\u03c6\u03ac\u03bd\u03b7\u03ba\u03b1\u03bd \u03c4\u03b1 \u03cc\u03c1\u03b7 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03a6\u03b1\u03b9\u03ac\u03ba\u03c9\u03bd,\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b3\u03b7\u03c2, \u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03cd \u03b5\u03b3\u03b3\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03b7\u03bd '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b4\u03c1\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b1\u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03b5\u00b7\n280\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c9\u03c3\u03ac\u03bd \u03b1\u03c3\u03c0\u03af\u03b4\u03b1 \u03b5\u03c6\u03b1\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 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\u03bd\u03b1 \u03c6\u03cd\u03b3\u03b7, \u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03cd \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9.\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac \u03b8\u03b1\u03c1\u03c1\u03ce '\u03c0' \u03b1\u03ba\u03cc\u03bc\u03b7 \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c7\u03bf\u03c1\u03c4\u03ac\u03c3\u03c9 \u03c0\u03ac\u03b8\u03b7\u00bb.\n290\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0395\u03af\u03c0\u03b5, \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bd\u03ad\u03c6\u03b7 \u03b5\u03c3\u03cd\u03bd\u03b1\u03be\u03b5 \u03ba' \u03b5\u03c4\u03ac\u03c1\u03b1\u03be\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c0\u03cc\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd,\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03c1\u03c0\u03ac\u03b6\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03b1\u03b9\u03bd\u03b1, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b1\u03bd\u03ad\u03bc\u03c9\u03bd \u03cc\u03bb\u03c9\u03bd\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b6\u03ac\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03ad\u03c3\u03c0\u03c1\u03c9\u03be\u03b5\u03bd \u03bf\u03bc\u03bf\u03cd, \u03ba' \u03b5\u03c4\u03cd\u03bb\u03b9\u03be\u03b5 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\u03c6\u03b8\u03ac\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03cc\u03bc\u03c9\u03c2, \u03b8\u03b1\u03c1\u03c1\u03ce, \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b8\u03b1 \u03ba\u03bb\u03b1\u03c5\u03b8\u03ae\u03c2 \u03c0\u03c9\u03c2 \u03ad\u03c0\u03b1\u03b8\u03b5\u03c2 \u03bf\u03bb\u03af\u03b3\u03b1\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u039a\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03cc\u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03c7' \u03ac\u03bb\u03bf\u03b3\u03b1 \u03c1\u03ac\u03b2\u03b4\u03b9\u03c3\u03b5 \u03ba' \u03ad\u03c6\u03b8\u03b1\u03c3' \u03ac\u03bc\u03b1\n380\n\n\n\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u0391\u03c5\u03b3\u03b1\u03af\u03c2, \u03cc\u03c0' \u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c5\u03c0\u03ad\u03c1\u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c0\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac\u03c4\u03b9\u03b1.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u039a\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03cc\u03c4' \u03b7 \u0391\u03b8\u03ae\u03bd\u03b7, \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u0394\u03b9\u03cc\u03c2 \u03ba\u03cc\u03c1\u03b7, \u03b5\u03c3\u03bf\u03c6\u03af\u03c3\u03b8\u03b7\u03ba' \u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ad\u03c6\u03c1\u03b1\u03be\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03ac\u03c3\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03c9\u03bd \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b1\u03bd\u03ad\u03bc\u03c9\u03bd,\n\n\n\n\u03bd\u03b1 \u03c0\u03b1\u03cd\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b5\u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03be\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c3\u03b9\u03b3\u03ac\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd \u03cc\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b3\u03bf\u03c1\u03b3\u03cc \u03c4\u03bf\u03cd \u03b5\u03ba\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5 \u0392\u03bf\u03c1\u03b7\u03ac \u03ba' \u03ad\u03c3\u03c0\u03b1\u03c3' \u03b5\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\n385\n\n\n\u03c4\u03b1 \u03ba\u03cd\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1, '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03bd\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 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\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb' \u03ad\u03b3\u03c5\u03c1\u03b5 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03bf\u03c1\u03bc\u03ae \u03c4\u03bf \u03ba\u03cd\u03bc\u03b1 \u03bf\u03c0\u03af\u03c3\u03c9,\n430\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03ad\u03ba\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3', \u03b5\u03c0\u03ad\u03c4\u03b1\u03be\u03b5\u03bd \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c0\u03bb\u03ac\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac\u03c3\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c9\u03c2 \u03cc\u03c4\u03b5, \u03b1\u03c0' \u03c4\u03bf \u03b8\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac\u03bc\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b1\u03bd \u03c3\u03cd\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd \u03c4' \u03bf\u03ba\u03c4\u03b1\u03c0\u03cc\u03b4\u03b9,\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bc\u03b1\u03b6\u03ac\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ba\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03cd\u03bd \u03c0\u03c5\u03ba\u03bd\u03cc\u03c4\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c7\u03b1\u03bb\u03af\u03ba\u03b9\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03b1 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 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\u03b2\u03ac\u03b8\u03b7\n445\n\n\n\u03c9\u03c2 \u03c6\u03b5\u03cd\u03b3\u03c9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c6\u03bf\u03b2\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c3\u03b5\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7 \u03a0\u03bf\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03b4\u03ce\u03bd\u03b1.\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03c0\u03bb\u03b1\u03bd\u03ce\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd \u03ba' \u03bf\u03b9 \u03b1\u03b8\u03ac\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9 \u03ad\u03c7\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd \u03c3\u03ad\u03b2\u03b1\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03ce\u03c2 \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c1\u03b5\u03cd\u03bc\u03b1 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03ce\u03c1' \u03ae\u03bb\u03b8\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03c0\u03ad\u03c6\u03c4\u03c9\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03b3\u03cc\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03ac \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5, \u03b1\u03c0' \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03ac\u03b8\u03b7 \u03bd' \u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03c3\u03ac\u03bd\u03c9.\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03bb\u03ad\u03b7\u03c3\u03ad \u03bc\u03b5, \u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bb\u03b7\u03ac, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b9\u03ba\u03ad\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c5\u03c7\u03b9\u03bf\u03cd\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9\u00bb.\n450\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u03a0\u03ac\u03c1\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03b1 \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c1\u03bf\u03ae \u03c0\u03b1\u03cd\u03b5\u03b9, \u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03b5\u03af \u03c4\u03bf \u03ba\u03cd\u03bc\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03b5\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03ce\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c3\u03b9\u03b3\u03b1\u03bb\u03b9\u03ac, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 '\u03c2 \u03c4' \u03ac\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9\u03b3\u03bc\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c3\u03ce\u03b6\u03b5\u03b9\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03bf\u03c4\u03b1\u03bc\u03bf\u03cd\u00b7 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03b3\u03cc\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4' 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\u03bc\u03b1\u03ba\u03c1\u03ac\u03bd \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b5\u03c5\u03c1\u03b5\u03c4\u03ce\u03bd \u03b1\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03c9\u03bd.\n\n\n\n\u03bc\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b5\u03af\u03c7\u03b7 \u03c0\u03cc\u03bb\u03b9\u03bd \u03ad\u03ba\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd, \u03ad\u03ba\u03c4\u03b9\u03c3\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03ba\u03af\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bd\u03b1\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03ad\u03ba\u03b1\u03bc\u03b5 \u03b8\u03b5\u03ce\u03bd, \u03ba' \u03b5\u03bc\u03bf\u03af\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c4\u03cc\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2.\n10\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u0386\u03b4\u03b7 \u03bf \u03b8\u03ac\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03af\u03c7\u03b5 \u03c0\u03ac\u03c1\u03b5\u03b9,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf \u0391\u03bb\u03ba\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b5\u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03af\u03bb\u03b5\u03c5\u03b5, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b3\u03bd\u03ce\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u03b5\u03af\u03c7\u03b5 \u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03b1.\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03b4\u03ce\u03bc\u03b1 \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ae\u03bb\u03b8\u03b5 \u03b7 \u03b8\u03b5\u03ac, \u03b7 \u0391\u03b8\u03ae\u03bd\u03b7, \u03bc\u03b5\u03bb\u03b5\u03c4\u03ce\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9\u03cc\u03c6\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03b1 \u039f\u03b4\u03c5\u03c3\u03c3\u03b7\u03ac \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c6\u03ad\u03c1\u03b7 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03b4\u03b1.\n\n\n\n\u03ae\u03bb\u03b8\u03b5 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03c5\u03b4\u03b1\u03af\u03b4\u03b1\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd \u03ba\u03bf\u03b9\u03c4\u03ce\u03bd\u03b1, \u03cc\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03ba\u03bf\u03b9\u03bc\u03ce\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd\n15\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03ba\u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 '\u03c2 \u03c4' \u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u03ae \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b8\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u0391\u03bb\u03ba\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c5\u03c8\u03b7\u03bb\u03cc\u03c6\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03b1 \u03b7 \u03ba\u03cc\u03c1\u03b7 \u039d\u03b1\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03ba\u03ac\u03b1.\n\n\n\n\u03c3\u03b9\u03bc\u03ac \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b4\u03c5\u03bf \u03b8\u03b5\u03c1\u03ac\u03c0\u03b1\u03b9\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2, \u03bc\u03b5 \u03ba\u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03b7 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03a7\u03b1\u03c1\u03af\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd,\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03b4\u03c5\u03cc \u03c0\u03bb\u03ac\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03ce\u03bd \u03b8\u03c5\u03c1\u03ce\u03bd, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03cd '\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd \u03ba\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03c3\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c9\u03c2 \u03b1\u03cd\u03c1\u03b1 \u03b5\u03c7\u03cd\u03b8\u03b7 \u03b1\u03bd\u03ad\u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03ae '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03ba\u03bf\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03ac\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ba\u03bb\u03af\u03bd\u03b7,\n20\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ba\u03b5\u03c6\u03b1\u03bb\u03ae \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03c3\u03c4\u03ac\u03b8\u03b7\u03ba\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03b5,\n\n\n\n\u03bc\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03bc\u03bf\u03c1\u03c6\u03ae \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b8\u03c5\u03b3\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b8\u03b1\u03bb\u03b1\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\n\n\n\n\u0394\u03cd\u03bc\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03c7\u03b5 \u03bf\u03bc\u03ae\u03bb\u03b9\u03ba\u03b7\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03c5\u03b1\u03b3\u03b1\u03c0\u03b7\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b7\u03bd\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03ae\u03c2 \u03c9\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03ce\u03b8\u03b7, \u03ba' \u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03b3\u03b5\u03bd \u03b7 \u03b3\u03bb\u03b1\u03c5\u03ba\u03bf\u03bc\u03bc\u03ac\u03c4' \u0391\u03b8\u03ae\u03bd\u03b7\u00b7\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u03a9 \u039d\u03b1\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03ba\u03ac, \u03c4\u03cc\u03c3' \u03bf\u03ba\u03bd\u03b7\u03c1\u03ae\u03bd \u03c3' \u03b5\u03b3\u03ad\u03bd\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3' \u03b7 \u03bc\u03b7\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1;\n25\n\n\n\u03c4\u03b1 \u03bf\u03bb\u03cc\u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03ac \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03bd\u03b4\u03cd\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1 \u03ba\u03ac\u03b8\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bc\u03b5\u03bb\u03b7\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03bf \u03b3\u03ac\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ae\u03b4\u03b7 \u03c3\u03af\u03bc\u03c9\u03c3\u03b5, '\u03c0' \u03b5\u03cd\u03bc\u03bf\u03c1\u03c6\u03b1 \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c6\u03bf\u03c1\u03ad\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c7\u03b1\u03c1\u03af\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b5\u03cd\u03bc\u03bf\u03c1\u03c6\u03b1 '\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c3\u03b5 \u03c0\u03ac\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac '\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 '\u03c0' \u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03cc \u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03bd\u03bf\u03cd\u03bd \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b1\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03ce\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5 \u03bf \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c7\u03b1\u03af\u03c1\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b7 \u03c3\u03b5\u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae \u03bc\u03b7\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1.\n30\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb' \u03b1\u03c2 \u03c0\u03ac\u03bc\u03b5 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c0\u03bb\u03cd\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd, \u03b7 \u03b1\u03c5\u03b3\u03bf\u03cd\u03bb' \u03ac\u03bc\u03b1 \u03c7\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03be\u03b7\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce \u03b8\u03b5 \u03bd\u03ac\u03bb\u03b8\u03c9 \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b5\u03c1\u03b3\u03ae \u03c3\u03b9\u03bc\u03ac \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5, \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03b8\u03ac\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03bd\u03b1 \u03b5\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03bc\u03b1\u03c3\u03b8\u03ae\u03c2, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bd\u03cd\u03bc\u03c6\u03b5\u03c5\u03c4\u03b7 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03cd\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u03c1\u03cc \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b8\u03b1 '\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9.\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03c0\u03b5\u03b9\u03b4\u03ae \u03c3\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1 \u03ae\u03b4\u03b7 \u03b6\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03bd '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03cc\u03bb\u03b9 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03a6\u03b1\u03b9\u03ac\u03ba\u03c9\u03bd\n\n\n\n\u03bf\u03b9 \u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03ba\u03c1\u03b9\u03c4' \u03cc\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9, \u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03cd \u03bc' \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf \u03c4\u03bf \u03b3\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2.\n35\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb' \u03ad\u03bb\u03b1, \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c7\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03bc\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03ad\u03bd\u03b4\u03bf\u03be\u03bf\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\n\n\n\n\u03bd\u03b1 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03c5\u03c4\u03c1\u03b5\u03c0\u03af\u03c3\u03b7 \u03b6\u03ae\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5 \u03b1\u03bc\u03ac\u03be\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5\u03bb\u03ac\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03b6\u03ce\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2, \u03c9\u03c1\u03b7\u03ac \u03c3\u03ba\u03b5\u03c0\u03ac\u03c3\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03ad\u03c0\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c6\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c3\u03ad\u03bd' \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03ae\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c3\u03c5\u03bc\u03c6\u03ad\u03c1\u03b5\u03b9, \u03ae \u03bc\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03cc\u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\n\n\n\n\u03bd\u03b1 \u03c0\u03ac\u03c2\u00b7 \u03b3\u03b9\u03b1\u03c4\u03af \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03bb\u03c5\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03c1\u03b5\u03b9\u03ac \u03bc\u03b1\u03ba\u03c1\u03c5' \u03b1\u03c0' \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03cc\u03bb\u03b9\u03bd \u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9\u00bb.\n40\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0391\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac '\u03c0\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03c7\u03ce\u03c1\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd \u03b7 \u03b3\u03bb\u03b1\u03c5\u03ba\u03bf\u03bc\u03bc\u03ac\u03c4' \u0391\u03b8\u03ae\u03bd\u03b7,\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u038c\u03bb\u03c5\u03bc\u03c0\u03bf, \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ac\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b1\u03b8\u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03ad\u03b4\u03c1\u03b1\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c4\u03b9\u03bd\u03ac\u03b6\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd \u03ac\u03bd\u03b5\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9, \u03bc\u03ae\u03c4\u03b5 \u03b2\u03c1\u03bf\u03c7\u03ae \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b4\u03ad\u03c1\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9,\n\n\n\n\u03bc\u03ae\u03c4\u03b5 \u03c7\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd\u03b9\u03ac \u03c3\u03b9\u03bc\u03cc\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd, \u03bc\u03cc\u03bd' \u03ac\u03c0\u03b5\u03b9\u03c1\u03b7 \u03b3\u03b1\u03bb\u03ae\u03bd\u03b7\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bd\u03ad\u03c6\u03b5\u03bb\u03b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bb\u03b5\u03c5\u03ba\u03cc \u03c6\u03c9\u03c2 \u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03cd\u03b8\u03b5 \u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c7\u03c5\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u00b7\n45\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b5\u03b9 \u03bc\u03ad\u03c3\u03b1 \u03bf\u03b9 \u03bc\u03ac\u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03b5\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03af \u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b1\u03b9\u03ce\u03bd\u03b1.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd \u03c0\u03ae\u03b3\u03b5, \u03b1\u03c6\u03bf\u03cd \u03b4\u03af\u03b4\u03b1\u03be\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ba\u03cc\u03c1\u03b7, \u03b7 \u03b3\u03bb\u03b1\u03c5\u03ba\u03bf\u03bc\u03bc\u03ac\u03c4\u03b1.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u039a\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03cc\u03b8\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd' \u03ae\u03bb\u03b8' \u0397\u03ce \u03ba' \u03ad\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9\u03c1\u03b5 \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ba\u03bb\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03cc\u03c1\u03bf \u039d\u03b1\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03ba\u03ac, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03c2 \u03c4' \u03cc\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9\u03c1\u03bf \u03b1\u03c0\u03bf\u03c1\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03b5\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b3\u03bf\u03bd\u03ad\u03c9\u03bd \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf \u03b5\u03b9\u03c0\u03ae, \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b1\u03b3\u03b1\u03c0\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2\n50\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b7\u03c4\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2, \u03ba\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3' \u03b5\u03c5\u03b8\u03cd\u03c2, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03ad\u03c3\u03b1 \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b7\u03cd\u03c1\u03b5.\n\n\n\n\u03bc\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b5\u03c1\u03ac\u03c0\u03b1\u03b9\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03ae \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03cc\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b3\u03c9\u03bd\u03af\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03bc\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03af \u03b3\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac\u03b6\u03b9\u03bf \u03ba\u03bb\u03ce\u03b8\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2\u00b7 \u03b1\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd,\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b5\u03bd\u03b4\u03cc\u03be\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bb\u03b5\u03af\u03c2 \u03c9\u03c2 \u03ae\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd \u03ba\u03b9\u03bd\u03b7\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b2\u03bf\u03c5\u03bb\u03ae, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03cd \u03bf\u03b9 \u03b8\u03b1\u03c5\u03bc\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03af \u03a6\u03b1\u03af\u03b1\u03ba\u03b5\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd.\n55\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c0\u03bf\u03b8\u03b7\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b5\u03c3\u03af\u03bc\u03c9\u03c3\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 '\u03c0\u03b5\u00b7\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u03a0\u03b1\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1, \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03c4\u03bf\u03af\u03bc\u03b1\u03b6\u03b5\u03c2 \u03ad\u03bd\u03b1 \u03c5\u03c8\u03b7\u03bb\u03cc\u03bd \u03b1\u03bc\u03ac\u03be\u03b9\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03cc\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c7\u03bf, \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bf\u03bb\u03cc\u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c6\u03bf\u03c1\u03ad\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c0\u03ac\u03c1\u03c9,\n\n\n\n'\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ba\u03ac\u03b8\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03af \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b1\u03ba\u03ac\u03b8\u03b1\u03c1\u03c4\u03b1, \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c0\u03bb\u03cd\u03bd\u03c9 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c0\u03bf\u03c4\u03ac\u03bc\u03b9;\n\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03b5\u03c3\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1 \u03c0\u03c1\u03ad\u03c0\u03b5\u03b9, \u03bf\u03c0' \u03ad\u03be\u03bf\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c0\u03c1\u03ce\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03bc\u03ad\u03c3\u03b1 \u03c5\u03c0\u03ac\u03c1\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2.\n60\n\n\n\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b2\u03bf\u03c5\u03bb\u03b1\u03af\u03c2 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03ba\u03ac\u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc' \u03b5\u03bd\u03b4\u03cd\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03ac\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03ad\u03bd\u03c4' \u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c3\u03c0\u03af\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c5\u03b9\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03b1\u03b3\u03b1\u03c0\u03b7\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03b4\u03c5\u03bf \u03bd\u03c5\u03bc\u03c6\u03b5\u03c5\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c4\u03c1\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2, \u03ba\u03b1\u03bc\u03b1\u03c1\u03c9\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd' \u03b1\u03b3\u03cc\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03af \u03b8\u03ad\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd \u03bc\u03b5 \u03bd\u03b7\u03cc\u03c0\u03bb\u03c5\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf\u03c4\u03b5 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c0\u03b7\u03b3\u03b1\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c7\u03bf\u03c1\u03cc\u00b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b3\u03b9' \u03cc\u03bb' \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac \u03c6\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03af\u03b6\u03c9 \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03cc\u03bd\u03b7\u00bb.\n65\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0391\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac '\u03c0\u03b5\u03bd, \u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03b5\u03bd\u03c4\u03c1\u03ac\u03c0\u03b7 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03ad\u03c1\u03b7\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03c0\u03bd\u03cc\u03bd \u03b3\u03ac\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u00b7 \u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9\u03c9\u03b8\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03cc\u03bb\u03b1, \u03ba' \u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03b5\u00b7\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u039a\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5\u03bb\u03ac\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1, \u03c4\u03ad\u03ba\u03bd\u03bf \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5, \u03bb\u03ac\u03b2\u03b5, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03cc,\u03c4\u03b9 \u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf \u03b8\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ac\u03bc\u03b5, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c3\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ac\u03bc\u03b1\u03be\u03b1\u03bd \u03bf\u03b9 \u03b4\u03bf\u03cd\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9 \u03b8' \u03b1\u03c1\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03ce\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd,\n\n\n\n\u03bd\u03b1 '\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c5\u03c8\u03b7\u03bb\u03ae, \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03cc\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c7\u03b7, \u03bc\u03b5 \u03ba\u03ac\u03bb\u03b1\u03b8\u03bf\u03bd \u03b5\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c9\u00bb.\n70\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0395\u03af\u03c0\u03b5, \u03ba' \u03b5\u03c5\u03b8\u03cd\u03c2 \u03b5\u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03be\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b4\u03bf\u03cd\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c5\u03c0\u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c1\u03bc\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03cc\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c7\u03bf \u03c6\u03bf\u03c1\u03c4\u03c9\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u03cc\u03bd \u03b1\u03bc\u03ac\u03be\u03b9,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b6\u03c5\u03b3\u03cc\u03bd \u03c5\u03c0\u03cc\u03c4\u03b1\u03be\u03b1\u03bd \u03ba' \u03ad\u03b6\u03b5\u03c8\u03b1\u03bd \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5\u03bb\u03ac\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1.\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c6\u03c9\u03c4\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd\u03ac \u03c6\u03bf\u03c1\u03ad\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1 \u03bc\u03ad\u03c3' \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03ba\u03bf\u03b9\u03c4\u03ce\u03bd\u03b1\n\n\n\n\u03ad\u03c6\u03b5\u03c1\u03bd\u03b5 \u03b7 \u03ba\u03cc\u03c1\u03b7 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\u03b5\u03ba\u03c4\u03cd\u03c0\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd \u03b1\u03c7\u03cc\u03c2 '\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc \u03ba\u03bf\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03af\u03b4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03bd\u03cd\u03bc\u03c6\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03ba\u03bf\u03cd\u03bd '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03ba\u03bf\u03c1\u03c5\u03c6\u03b1\u03af\u03c2, '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03cc\u03c1\u03b7,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b7\u03b3\u03b1\u03af\u03c2 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03c0\u03bf\u03c4\u03b1\u03bc\u03ce\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c7\u03bb\u03c9\u03c1\u03ac \u03bb\u03b9\u03b2\u03ac\u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ae \u03c3\u03b9\u03bc\u03ac \u03b5\u03c5\u03c1\u03af\u03c3\u03ba\u03bf\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b8\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03b3\u03bb\u03ce\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd \u03b1\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03c9\u03c0\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u03bd;\n125\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb' \u03ad\u03bb\u03b1, \u03bc\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bc\u03ac\u03c4\u03b9\u03b1 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b8\u03b1 \u03b9\u03b4\u03ce \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b8\u03b1 \u03b5\u03be\u03b5\u03c4\u03ac\u03c3\u03c9\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u039a' \u03b5\u03b2\u03b3\u03ae\u03ba\u03b5 \u03b1\u03c0' \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c7\u03b1\u03bc\u03cc\u03b4\u03b5\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b1 \u03bf \u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03bf\u03c2 \u039f\u03b4\u03c5\u03c3\u03c3\u03ad\u03b1\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c7\u03ad\u03c1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c4\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd\u03cc \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03cd\u03c6\u03c5\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf \u03b1\u03c0' \u03c4\u03bf \u03b4\u03ac\u03c3\u03bf\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03cc\u03c0\u03c4\u03b5\u03b9 \u03ba\u03bb\u03b1\u03b4\u03af, '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c3\u03ce\u03bc\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b3\u03cd\u03bc\u03bd\u03c9\u03c3\u03b9 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03ba\u03c1\u03cd\u03c8\u03b7\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c9\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b1\u03c1\u03c1\u03b5\u03c4\u03cc '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b4\u03cd\u03bd\u03b1\u03bc\u03b9, \u03b8\u03c1\u03ad\u03bc\u03bc\u03b1 \u03b2\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd\u03bf\u03cd, \u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03ac\u03c1\u03b9,\n130\n\n\n'\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bc' \u03cc\u03bb\u03bf \u03c4' \u03b1\u03bd\u03b5\u03bc\u03cc\u03b2\u03c1\u03bf\u03c7\u03bf \u03ba\u03b9\u03bd\u03ac, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03ad\u03c3\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03af\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03b1 \u03bc\u03ac\u03c4\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u00b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c7\u03cd\u03bd\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03b2\u03ce\u03b4\u03b9\u03b1 \u03ae \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 '\u03c2 \u03c4' \u03b1\u03c1\u03bd\u03af\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03ae '\u03c2 \u03c4' \u03ac\u03b3\u03c1\u03b9' \u03b5\u03bb\u03ac\u03c6\u03b9\u03b1, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b6\u03b7\u03c4\u03b5\u03af, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03ce\u03c2 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\u03b1\u03c3\u03ac\u03bb\u03b5\u03c5\u03c4\u03b7\u00b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u03b4\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03b6' \u03bf \u039f\u03b4\u03c5\u03c3\u03c3\u03ad\u03b1\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03b4\u03b5\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03ba\u03bf\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03ac\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03b3\u03cc\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03c4' \u03b1\u03bd \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c0\u03b9\u03ac\u03c3\u03b7,\n\n\n\n\u03ae \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc \u03bc\u03b1\u03ba\u03c1\u03c5\u03ac \u03b8\u03b1 \u03b4\u03b5\u03b7\u03b8\u03ae \u03bc\u03b5 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03bc\u03b5\u03bb\u03c9\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03cc\u03bb\u03b9 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b4\u03b5\u03af\u03be\u03b7 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03ae \u03ba' \u03ad\u03bd\u03b4\u03c5\u03bc\u03b1 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b4\u03ce\u03c3\u03b7.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03bf \u03c3\u03c5\u03bc\u03c6\u03b5\u03c1\u03ce\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf 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\u03b8\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u03ae '\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bd \u03b5\u03af\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03af\u03b1 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b8\u03b5\u03ce\u03bd, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03ba\u03bf\u03cd\u03bd '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bf\u03c5\u03c1\u03ac\u03bd\u03b9\u03b1,\n150\n\n\n\u03b5\u03c3\u03ad \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u0391\u03c1\u03c4\u03ad\u03bc\u03b9\u03b4\u03b1, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03cd \u03ba\u03cc\u03c1' \u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u0394\u03af\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b5\u03b9\u03b4\u03ae, '\u03c2 \u03c4' \u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1, '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03bb\u03ac\u03c3\u03b9, \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce \u03c3\u03c5\u03b3\u03ba\u03c1\u03af\u03bd\u03c9,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bd \u03b5\u03af\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03af\u03b1 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b8\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u03ce\u03bd, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 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\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c7\u03bf\u03c1\u03cc \u03bd\u03b1 \u03bb\u03ac\u03bc\u03c0\u03b7.\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac '\u03c2 \u03cc\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03bc\u03b5\u03c3\u03b1 \u03c7\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03ac\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b1 \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd,\n\n\n\n'\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5, \u03b1\u03c6\u03bf\u03cd '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03b4\u03ce\u03c1\u03b1 \u03b5\u03bd\u03af\u03ba\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd, \u03b5\u03c3\u03ad \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c0\u03ac\u03c1\u03b7 \u03bd\u03cd\u03bc\u03c6\u03b7.\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bc\u03ac\u03c4\u03b9\u03b1 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03bf\u03c4\u03ad \u03b8\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u03cc \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03af\u03b4\u03b1\u03bd \u03c0\u03bb\u03ac\u03c3\u03bc\u03b1,\n160\n\n\n\u03ac\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b1 \u03ae \u03b3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b1\u03af\u03ba\u03b1, \u03c9\u03c3\u03ac\u03bd \u03b5\u03c3\u03ad\u00b7 \u03b8\u03b1\u03c5\u03bc\u03ac\u03b6' \u03cc\u03c3\u03bf \u03c3\u03b5 \u03b2\u03bb\u03ad\u03c0\u03c9\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03b1 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u0394\u03ae\u03bb\u03bf, '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b2\u03c9\u03bc\u03cc \u03c4' \u0391\u03c0\u03cc\u03bb\u03bb\u03c9\u03bd\u03b1 \u03c0\u03bb\u03b7\u03c3\u03af\u03bf\u03bd,\n\n\n\n\u03c6\u03bf\u03b9\u03bd\u03b9\u03ba\u03b9\u03ac\u03bd \u03b5\u03af\u03b4\u03b1 \u03c4\u03c1\u03c5\u03c6\u03b5\u03c1\u03ae, '\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03b2\u03bb\u03ac\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03bd\u03b5 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03c7\u03ac\u03c1\u03b9\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 \u03ba' \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03b8' \u03b5\u03c0\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03c3\u03b1, \u03bc' \u03ac\u03c0\u03b5\u03b9\u03c1\u03b7 \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03bf\u03b4\u03af\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c4\u03b1\u03be\u03b5\u03af\u03b4\u03b9 '\u03c0\u03ce\u03bc\u03b5\u03bb\u03bb\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c0\u03ac\u03b8\u03b7 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03bc\u03b5 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\u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9 \u03c0\u03c1\u03ce\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u00bb.\n185\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u039a\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b7 \u03bb\u03b5\u03c5\u03ba\u03bf\u03c7\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1 \u039d\u03b1\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03ba\u03ac \u03b1\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03ad \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ba' \u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03b5\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u038c\u03c7\u03b9, \u03b1\u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03ae\u03c2 \u03ae \u03b1\u03bd\u03cc\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2, \u03c9 \u03be\u03ad\u03bd', \u03b5\u03c3\u03cd \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b4\u03b5\u03af\u03c7\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b5\u03c5\u03c4\u03c5\u03c7\u03af\u03b1 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b8\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u03ce\u03bd \u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03c1\u03ac\u03b6' \u03bf \u039f\u03bb\u03cd\u03bc\u03c0\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u0394\u03af\u03b1\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b5\u03c5\u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03ce\u03bd, \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b1\u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03ce\u03bd, \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03b5\u03bd\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c9\u03c2 \u03b8\u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c3\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c3' \u03ad\u03b4\u03c9\u03ba\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03b3\u03ba\u03b7 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c5\u03c0\u03bf\u03bc\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u03c2.\n190\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb' \u03b1\u03c6\u03bf\u03cd \u03c0\u03ac\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03c2 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b3\u03b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c7\u03ce\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd \u03b9\u03b4\u03b9\u03ba\u03ae \u03bc\u03b1\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bb\u03b5\u03af\u03c8\u03b7 \u03c6\u03cc\u03c1\u03b5\u03bc\u03b1, \u03bf\u03cd\u03c4' \u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf \u03b1\u03c0' \u03cc\u03c3\u03b1 \u03c0\u03c1\u03ad\u03c0\u03b5\u03b9\n\n\n\n\u03bd\u03b1 \u03bb\u03ac\u03b2\u03b7, \u03cc\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03ad\u03c1\u03c7\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9, \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03cd\u03b8\u03bb\u03b9\u03b2\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b9\u03ba\u03ad\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2.\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03cc\u03bb\u03b9 \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b4\u03b5\u03af\u03be\u03c9 \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03bb\u03b1\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c3' \u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03c9\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03cc\u03bb\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b3\u03b7\u03bd \u03bf\u03b9 \u03a6\u03b1\u03af\u03b1\u03ba\u03b5\u03c2 \u03ba\u03c1\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03b9,\n195\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce '\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9\u03cc\u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03b4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b7 \u03ba\u03cc\u03c1\u03b7 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u0391\u03bb\u03ba\u03b9\u03bd\u03cc\u03bf\u03c5,\n\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03bf\u03b9 \u03a6\u03b1\u03af\u03b1\u03ba\u03b5\u03c2 \u03bf\u03b9 \u03b4\u03c5\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03af '\u03c2 \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd \u03ba\u03c1\u03ad\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4' \u03cc\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u039a' \u03b5\u03c5\u03b8\u03cd\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03bf\u03c0\u03bb\u03ad\u03be\u03bf\u03c5\u03b4\u03b5\u03c2 \u03b5\u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03be\u03b5 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b8\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u03a3\u03c4\u03b1\u03b8\u03ae\u03c4' \u03b5\u03b4\u03ce, \u03b8\u03b5\u03c1\u03ac\u03c0\u03b1\u03b9\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2\u00b7 \u03b3\u03b9\u03b1\u03c4' \u03b5\u03af\u03b4\u03b5\u03c4' \u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u03bd \u03ac\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03bf\u03cd \u03c6\u03b5\u03cd\u03b3\u03b5\u03c4\u03b5; \u03ba\u03ac\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b5\u03c7\u03b8\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c6\u03bf\u03b2\u03b5\u03af\u03c3\u03b8' \u03cc\u03c4' \u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2;\n200\n\n\n\u03ac\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c6\u03bf\u03b2\u03b5\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2, \u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03b5 \u03c0\u03bf\u03c4\u03ad \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c5\u03c0\u03ac\u03c1\u03c7\u03b7,\n\n\n\n\u03bd\u03b1 '\u03bb\u03b8\u03b7 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c6\u03ad\u03c1\u03b7 \u03c0\u03cc\u03bb\u03b5\u03bc\u03bf '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c7\u03ce\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03a6\u03b1\u03b9\u03ac\u03ba\u03c9\u03bd\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 \u03b5\u03af\u03bc\u03b1\u03c3\u03b8\u03b5\u03bd \u03b1\u03b3\u03b1\u03c0\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03af \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03cd \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b1\u03b8\u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03b5\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ac\u03b3\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1 \u03b8\u03ac\u03bb\u03b1\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd \u03cd\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03ba\u03bf\u03cd\u03bc\u03b5,\n\n\n\n\u03bf\u03c5\u03b4\u03ad \u03bc' \u03b7\u03bc\u03ac\u03c2 \u03c3\u03c5\u03b3\u03ba\u03bf\u03b9\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd\u03b5\u03af \u03ba\u03b1\u03bd\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b1\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03c9\u03bd.\n205\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb' \u03ae\u03bb\u03b8\u03b5 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 \u03bf \u03b4\u03cd\u03c3\u03c4\u03c5\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c0\u03bb\u03b1\u03bd\u03ce\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 '\u03b4\u03c9 \u03c0\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03c1\u03ad\u03c0\u03b5\u03b9 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03be\u03b5\u03bd\u03af\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u00b7 \u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 \u03ad\u03c1\u03c7\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c0' \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u0394\u03af\u03b1\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03c4\u03c9\u03c7\u03bf\u03af \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03be\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9\u00b7 \u03bf\u03bb\u03b9\u03b3\u03bf\u03c3\u03c4\u03cc \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03b3\u03b1\u03c0\u03b7\u03c4\u03cc \u03c4\u03bf \u03b4\u03ce\u03c1\u03bf.\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac \u03b4\u03cc\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5, \u03b8\u03b5\u03c1\u03ac\u03c0\u03b1\u03b9\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2, \u03b2\u03c1\u03ce\u03c3\u03b9, \u03c0\u03b9\u03bf\u03c4\u03cc, \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03be\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bb\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c0\u03bf\u03c4\u03b1\u03bc\u03cc, '\u03c2 \u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03bd\u03b5\u03bc\u03b7 \u03b3\u03c9\u03bd\u03af\u03b1\u00bb.\n210\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0395\u03af\u03c0\u03b5, \u03ba' \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03ad\u03bc\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd\u03b1\u03bd, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9\u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03ba\u03b9\u03bd\u03ce\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd,\n\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03b5\u03ba\u03ac\u03b8\u03b9\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u039f\u03b4\u03c5\u03c3\u03c3\u03b7\u03ac '\u03c2 \u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03bd\u03b5\u03bc\u03b7 \u03b3\u03c9\u03bd\u03af\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c0\u03c9\u03c2 \u03b7 \u03ba\u03cc\u03c1\u03b7 \u039d\u03b1\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03ba\u03ac \u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b5\u03af\u03c7\u03b5 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03b3\u03b3\u03b5\u03af\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9.\n\n\n\n\u03c3\u03b9\u03bc\u03ac \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ad\u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd \u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03b1\u03be\u03b9\u03ac, \u03c7\u03b9\u03c4\u03ce\u03bd\u03b1, \u03b5\u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03c9\u03c6\u03cc\u03c1\u03b9,\n\n\n\n\u03bc\u03ad\u03c3\u03b1 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03bf\u03bb\u03cc\u03c7\u03c1\u03c5\u03c3\u03bf \u03c1\u03bf\u0390 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ad\u03b4\u03c9\u03ba\u03b1\u03bd \u03c5\u03b3\u03c1\u03cc \u03bb\u03ac\u03b4\u03b9,\n215\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b8\u03ae \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03ad\u03bb\u03b5\u03b3\u03b1\u03bd '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03bf\u03c4\u03b1\u03bc\u03bf\u03cd \u03c4\u03bf \u03c1\u03b5\u03cd\u03bc\u03b1.\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03cc\u03c4' \u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03b5 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 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\u03cc\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c0\u03c1\u03ce\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03cd\u03c9 \u03b1\u03c0\u03cc \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03a6\u03b1\u03af\u03b1\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b1 \u03b9\u03b4\u03ae\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b8\u03b1 \u03b3\u03bd\u03c9\u03c1\u03af\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2.\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb' \u03ad\u03bb\u03b1 \u03ba\u03ac\u03bc\u03b5 \u03cc,\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c0\u03ce\u00b7 \u03b8\u03b1\u03c1\u03c1\u03ce \u03c0\u03c9\u03c2 \u03b3\u03bd\u03ce\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2.\n\n\n\n\u03cc\u03c3\u03bf\u03bd \u03b1\u03b3\u03c1\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03b2\u03b1\u03af\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03bc\u03b5, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b1\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03c9\u03bd \u03ad\u03c1\u03b3\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03bc\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b5\u03c1\u03ac\u03c0\u03b1\u03b9\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b1\u03b6\u03ae \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03cc\u03c0\u03b9\u03bd \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4' \u03b1\u03bc\u03ac\u03be\u03b9\n260\n\n\n\u03bf\u03b3\u03bb\u03ae\u03b3\u03bf\u03c1' \u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03cd\u03b8\u03b1 \u03bc\u03b5, \u03ba' \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b4\u03c1\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf \u03b4\u03b5\u03af\u03c7\u03bd\u03c9,\n\n\n\n\u03ad\u03c9\u03c2 \u03cc\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b8\u03b5 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c6\u03b8\u03ac\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bc\u03b5 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03cc\u03bb\u03b9\u03bd, \u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03cd \u03c0\u03cd\u03c1\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03b6\u03ce\u03bd' \u03c5\u03c8\u03b7\u03bb\u03cc\u03c2, \u03ba' \u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2 \u03bb\u03b9\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b4\u03c5\u03bf '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03bb\u03ac\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1.\n\n\n\n\u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf \u03ad\u03bc\u03c0\u03b1\u03c3\u03bc\u03b1 \u03bb\u03b5\u03c0\u03c4\u03cc\u00b7 \u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c7\u03c9\u03c1\u03bf\u03cd\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b4\u03c1\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03b1 \u03ba\u03c5\u03c1\u03c4\u03ac \u03c0\u03bb\u03bf\u03af\u03b1 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c3\u03ba\u03b5\u03c0\u03b1\u03af\u03c2, '\u03c0\u03ce\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03c2 \u03b4\u03b9\u03ba\u03ae \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5.\n265\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03b5\u03af\u03bd' \u03b7 \u03b1\u03b3\u03bf\u03c1\u03ac \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2, '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03cd \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03bc\u03ad\u03c3\u03b7 \u03a0\u03bf\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03b4\u03af\u03bf\u03c5,\n\n\n\n\u03bc\u03b5 \u03c3\u03c5\u03c1\u03c4\u03b1\u03af\u03c2 \u03c0\u03ad\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2, '\u03c0\u03ce\u03c7\u03c9\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd \u03b2\u03b1\u03b8\u03b5\u03b9\u03ac, \u03b8\u03b5\u03bc\u03b5\u03bb\u03b9\u03c9\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b7.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd \u03c4' \u03ac\u03c1\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03b1 \u03b5\u03c1\u03b3\u03ac\u03b6\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03c3\u03c9\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd \u03c0\u03bb\u03bf\u03af\u03c9\u03bd,\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03ac\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1, \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03b9\u03ac, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03be\u03c5\u03bf\u03cd\u03bd \u03ba\u03bf\u03c5\u03c0\u03af\u03b1.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf\u03b9 \u03a6\u03b1\u03af\u03b1\u03ba\u03b5\u03c2 \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03b1\u03b3\u03b1\u03c0\u03bf\u03cd\u03bd \u03c6\u03b1\u03c1\u03ad\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1 \u03bf\u03c5\u03b4\u03ad \u03b4\u03bf\u03be\u03ac\u03c1\u03b9,\n270\n\n\n\u03bc\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03b9\u03ac, \u03bc\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd \u03ba\u03bf\u03c5\u03c0\u03b9\u03ac, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b9\u03c3\u03cc\u03c0\u03bb\u03b5\u03c5\u03c1\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03b2\u03b9\u03b1,\n\n\n\n\u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03cd \u03b3\u03b9' \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03ae\u03c6\u03b1\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf \u03bb\u03b5\u03c5\u03ba\u03cc \u03ba\u03cd\u03bc\u03b1 \u03c3\u03c7\u03af\u03b6\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd.\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03be\u03b5\u03c6\u03b5\u03cd\u03b3\u03c9 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03b9\u03ba\u03c1\u03ae \u03b3\u03bb\u03ce\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1, \u03bc\u03b7 \u03bc' \u03bf\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9\u03b4\u03af\u03c3\u03b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03bd\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u03c2, \u03cc\u03c4' \u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bb\u03b1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03ae\u03c6\u03b1\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c5\u03b8\u03ac\u03b4\u03b7\u03c2.\n\n\n\n\u03ac\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c3\u03c5\u03bc\u03b2\u03b1\u03af\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c3\u03c4\u03c5\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03b9\u03b4\u03ae, \u03ba' \u03b5\u03c5\u03b8\u03cd\u03c2 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03b7\u00b7\n275\n\n\n\u03bf 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\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03bf\u03bb\u03cc\u03b8\u03b5\u03c1\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b5\u03c5\u03c7\u03b1\u03af\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03ad\u03b2\u03b7\u03ba\u03b5 \u03bf\u03c5\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd\u03cc\u03b8\u03b5\u03bd\n280\n\n\n\u03ba\u03ac\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03c2, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b8\u03b1 '\u03c7\u03b7 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b7 \u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03b6\u03c9\u03ae\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2;\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03ae\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1' \u03b1\u03bd \u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03ac\u03c7\u03b7 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b5\u03b6\u03ae\u03c4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5 \u03ba' \u03b5\u03c5\u03c1\u03ae\u03ba\u03b5\n\n\n\n\u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03b8\u03b5\u03bd \u03ac\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b1\u00b7 \u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c8\u03b7\u03c6\u03ac \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf\u03c0\u03af\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03cc\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03a6\u03b1\u03af\u03b1\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2, \u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03cd \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03af \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf\u03b9 \u03c0\u03c1\u03ce\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b6\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03b9.\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03ac \u03b8\u03b1 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c0\u03bf\u03cd\u03bd, \u03ba' \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce \u03b5\u03bd\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c0\u03ae \u03c4\u03b1 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03b1 \u03b8\u03b1 '\u03c7\u03c9.\n285\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03b5\u03b3\u03ce '\u03b8\u03b5\u03bb\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03b7\u03b3\u03bf\u03c1\u03ce \u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03b7\u03bd, \u03b1\u03bd \u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c0\u03c1\u03ac\u03be\u03b7,\n\n\n\n\u03c7\u03c9\u03c1\u03af\u03c2 \u03bd\u03b1 '\u03c7\u03b7 \u03c4\u03bf \u03b8\u03ad\u03bb\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03c0\u03bf\u03b8\u03b7\u03c4\u03ce\u03bd \u03b3\u03bf\u03bd\u03ad\u03c9\u03bd,\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03c1\u03b9\u03bd \u03ad\u03bb\u03b8' \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b3\u03ac\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd \u03c6\u03b1\u03bd\u03b5\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd, \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03ac\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c3\u03b9\u03bc\u03cc\u03bd\u03b7.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03ce\u03c1\u03b1, \u03be\u03ad\u03bd\u03b5, \u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c3\u03b5\u03c7\u03b5, \u03b1\u03bd \u03b8\u03ad\u03bb\u03b7\u03c2 \u03bf \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03b4\u03b1 \u03bf\u03b3\u03bb\u03ae\u03b3\u03bf\u03c1\u03b1 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c3\u03b5 \u03be\u03b5\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03b2\u03bf\u03b4\u03ae\u03c3\u03b7.\n290\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b4\u03c1\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf \u03b8\u03b1\u03cd\u03c1\u03b7\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd \u03bb\u03b5\u03c5\u03ba\u03ce\u03bd\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u0391\u03b8\u03ae\u03bd\u03b7\u03c2\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03bc\u03ad\u03c3' \u03b1\u03bd\u03b1\u03b2\u03c1\u03cd\u03b6\u03b5\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd \u03c0\u03b7\u03b3\u03ae, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b3\u03cd\u03c1\u03c9 \u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9 \u03bb\u03b9\u03b2\u03ac\u03b4\u03b9\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd '\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b7 \u03b3\u03b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf \u03b1\u03bd\u03b8\u03bf\u03cd\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bf \u03ba\u03ae\u03c0\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5,\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03c0\u03cc \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03cc\u03bb\u03b9 \u03b4\u03b9\u03ac\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1, '\u03c0' \u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03cd\u03b5\u03c3' \u03b1\u03bd \u03b2\u03bf\u03ae\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2.\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd \u03bc\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03ae\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2, \u03ad\u03c9\u03c2 \u03cc\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03bc\u03b5\u03af\u03c2 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03cc\u03bb\u03b9\n295\n\n\n\u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03ae\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bc\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c6\u03b8\u03ac\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bc\u03b5 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c3\u03c0\u03af\u03c4\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ac\u03bc\u03b1 \u03bb\u03bf\u03b3\u03b9\u03ac\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2 \u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 '\u03bc\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c3\u03c0\u03af\u03c4\u03b9 \u03ad\u03c7\u03bf\u03c5\u03bc\u03b5 \u03c6\u03b8\u03ac\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9,\n\n\n\n\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03a6\u03b1\u03b9\u03ac\u03ba\u03c9\u03bd \u03b2\u03ac\u03b4\u03b9\u03c3\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03cc\u03bb\u03b9, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ac\u03bc' \u03b5\u03c1\u03ce\u03c4\u03b1\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c3\u03c0\u03af\u03c4\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9\u03cc\u03ba\u03b1\u03c1\u03b4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5 \u0391\u03bb\u03ba\u03b9\u03bd\u03cc\u03bf\u03c5.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bd\u03c9\u03c1\u03b1 \u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9\u00b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03c9\u03c1\u03cc \u03c0\u03b1\u03b9\u03b4\u03af \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03b4\u03b5\u03af\u03be\u03b7\n300\n\n\n\u03b4\u03cd\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u00b7 \u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03ba\u03c4\u03b9\u03c3\u03b8\u03ae\u03ba\u03b1\u03bd \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c3\u03c0\u03af\u03c4\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03a6\u03b1\u03b9\u03ac\u03ba\u03c9\u03bd,\n\n\n\n\u03c9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac\u03c4\u03b9\u03b1 \u03ba\u03c4\u03af\u03c3\u03b8\u03b7\u03ba\u03b1\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03ae\u03c1\u03c9\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u0391\u03bb\u03ba\u03b9\u03bd\u03cc\u03bf\u03c5\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03cc\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd \u03bf\u03b9 \u03b4\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9 \u03b3\u03cd\u03c1\u03c9\u03b8\u03b5 \u03ba' \u03b7 \u03b1\u03c5\u03bb\u03ae \u03c3\u03b5 \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03bb\u03ac\u03b2\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd,\n\n\n\n\u03b4\u03b9\u03ac\u03b2\u03b1 \u03b5\u03c5\u03b8\u03cd\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1\u03c1\u03bf \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c6\u03b8\u03ac\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03bc\u03b7\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1,\n\n\n\n'\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b3\u03c9\u03bd\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1 \u03ba\u03ac\u03b8\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9, '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03bb\u03ac\u03bc\u03c8\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03c6\u03c9\u03c4\u03af\u03b1\u03c2,\n305\n\n\n\u03b3\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac\u03b6\u03b9\u03bf \u03ba\u03bb\u03ce\u03b8\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03af, \u03b8\u03b1\u03c5\u03bc\u03ac\u03c3\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd, \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c3\u03c4\u03cd\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd\n\n\n\n\u03b1\u03c0\u03b9\u03b8\u03c9\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b7, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03cc\u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03b8\u03b5\u03bd \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03ae\u03c2 \u03ba\u03ac\u03b8\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b7 \u03b4\u03bf\u03cd\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c6\u03c9\u03c4\u03b9\u03ac \u03c3\u03b9\u03bc\u03ac \u03b8\u03b1 \u03b9\u03b4\u03ae\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03b8\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5,\n\n\n\n'\u03c0' \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd \u03c0\u03af\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03ae\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2, \u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u03b1\u03b8\u03b1\u03bd\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd.\n\n\n\n\u03be\u03b5\u03c0\u03ad\u03c1\u03bd' \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd, \u03c4\u03b1 \u03b3\u03cc\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1, \u03c3\u03c5 \u03c0\u03b9\u03ac\u03c3\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b7\u03c4\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5,\n310\n\n\n\u03b1\u03bd \u03b8\u03b5\u03c2 \u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c3\u03b5 \u03c7\u03b1\u03c1\u03bc\u03cc\u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf\u03b3\u03bb\u03ae\u03b3\u03bf\u03c1\u03b1 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c6\u03ad\u03be\u03b7\n\n\n\n\u03b7 \u03b7\u03bc\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u03b5\u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03ae\u03c2, \u03cc\u03b8\u03b5\u03bd \u03bc\u03b1\u03ba\u03c1\u03c5\u03ac \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bd \u03ae\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03bd \u03af\u03c3\u03c9\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c3' \u03b5\u03bb\u03b5\u03b7\u03b8\u03ae \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c3' \u03b1\u03b3\u03b1\u03c0\u03ae\u03c3\u03b7 \u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b7,\n\n\n\n\u03b8\u03ac\u03c1\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5, \u03b8\u03b1 \u03b9\u03b4\u03ae\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c0\u03bf\u03b8\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2, \u03bf\u03b3\u03bb\u03ae\u03b3\u03bf\u03c1\u03b1 \u03b8\u03b1 \u03c6\u03b8\u03ac\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2,\n\n\n\n'\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03c3\u03c0\u03af\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03cc\u03ba\u03c4\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd, \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03b3\u03bb\u03c5\u03ba\u03b5\u03b9\u03ac \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03b4\u03b1\u00bb.\n315\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0395\u03af\u03c0\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03bc\u03ac\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03b3\u03b1 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c6\u03c9\u03c4\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd\u03ae \u03c1\u03b1\u03b2\u03b4\u03af\u03b6\u03b5\u03b9\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03b1 \u03bc\u03bf\u03c5\u03bb\u03ac\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4' \u03ac\u03c6\u03b7\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c0\u03bf\u03c4\u03b1\u03bc\u03bf\u03cd \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ac\u03ba\u03c1\u03b7,\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03c5\u03b8\u03cd\u03c2, \u03ba' \u03b5\u03c4\u03c1\u03ad\u03c7\u03b1\u03bd \u03c4\u03b1\u03ba\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u03ac, \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03ac \u03c4\u03b5\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1\u03c0\u03bf\u03b4\u03af\u03b6\u03b1\u03bd.\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03c5\u03b2\u03b5\u03c1\u03bd\u03ac \u03b7 \u03ba\u03cc\u03c1\u03b7 \u03b5\u03cd\u03bc\u03bf\u03c1\u03c6\u03b1, \u03c0\u03b5\u03b6\u03bf\u03af \u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03b8\u03ac\u03c3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd\n\n\n\n\u03b7 \u03b4\u03bf\u03cd\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u039f\u03b4\u03c5\u03c3\u03c3\u03b7\u03ac\u00b7 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03bd\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c1\u03b1\u03b2\u03b4\u03af\u03b6' \u03b7 \u03ba\u03cc\u03c1\u03b7.\n320\n\n\n\u03ba' \u03ad\u03ba\u03bb\u03b9\u03bd' \u03bf \u03ae\u03bb\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2, \u03ba' \u03ad\u03c6\u03b8\u03b1\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd '\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 \u0391\u03b8\u03b7\u03bd\u03ac\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf \u03b4\u03ac\u03c3\u03bf\u03c2\n\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf \u03ad\u03bd\u03b4\u03bf\u03be\u03bf, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd \u03ba\u03ac\u03b8\u03b9\u03c3\u03b5\u03bd \u03bf \u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03bf\u03c2 \u039f\u03b4\u03c5\u03c3\u03c3\u03ad\u03b1\u03c2,\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bc\u03b5\u03b3\u03ac\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u0394\u03b9\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03ba\u03cc\u03c1\u03b7 \u03b5\u03c5\u03b8\u03cd\u03c2 \u03b5\u03c5\u03c7\u03ae\u03b8\u03b7\u00b7\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u00ab\u0386\u03ba\u03bf\u03c5 \u03bc\u03b5, \u03ba\u03cc\u03c1\u03b7 \u03b1\u03b4\u03ac\u03bc\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7, \u03c4' \u03b1\u03b9\u03b3\u03b9\u03b4\u03bf\u03c6\u03cc\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5 \u0394\u03af\u03b1\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03b9\u03c3\u03ac\u03ba\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03ad \u03bc\u03b5, '\u03c0' \u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03c4\u03b5 \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03bc' \u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b5\u03b9\u03c3\u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9,\n325\n\n\n'\u03c0\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03c5\u03c7\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd, \u03cc\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd \u03bc' \u03ad\u03ba\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5\u03b5\u03bd \u03bf \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1\u03c2 \u03ba\u03bf\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03c3\u03b5\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2.\n\n\n\n\u03b4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bd\u03b1 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03b9\u03b4\u03bf\u03cd\u03bd \u03bf\u03b9 \u03a6\u03b1\u03af\u03b1\u03ba\u03b5\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b5 \u03c3\u03c0\u03bb\u03ac\u03c7\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bc' \u03b1\u03b3\u03ac\u03c0\u03b7\u00bb.\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\u0395\u03c5\u03c7\u03ae\u03b8\u03b7, \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03ac\u03ba\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b5 \u03c4\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5 \u03b7 \u03a0\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03ac\u03b4' \u0391\u03b8\u03ae\u03bd\u03b7\u00b7\n\n\n\n\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b4\u03b5\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b5\u03c6\u03bf\u03bd\u03b5\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd \u03b5\u03bc\u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u03c5, \u03cc\u03c4\u03b9 \u03b5\u03c6\u03bf\u03b2\u03cc\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03bd\n\n\n\n\u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03bd\u03b7 \u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03ac\u03b4\u03b5\u03bb\u03c6\u03bf\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 \u03b5\u03bc\u03af\u03c3\u03b1 \u03c3\u03c6\u03cc\u03b4\u03c1\u03b1\n330\n\n\n\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd \u03bf\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03cc\u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03bd \u039f\u03b4\u03c5\u03c3\u03c3\u03b7\u03ac, \u03c0\u03c1\u03b9\u03bd \u03c6\u03b8\u03ac\u03c3' \u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b7\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03b4\u03b1.\n\n\n\n\n\n\u03a4\u0395\u039b\u039f\u03a3 \u0391' \u03a4\u039f\u039c\u039f\u03a5\n\n\n\n\n"}
Computing distances between 80 books..
max, min distance:2.22507e-308, 1.79769e+308
0,1: 0.86006
0,2: 0.887243
0,3: 1.93686
0,4: 0.712249
0,5: 0.76743
0,6: 0.69029
0,7: 1.97155
0,8: 0.788535
0,9: 1.87381
0,10: 1.04506
0,11: 0.853302
0,12: 0.672035
0,13: 1.9742
0,14: 0.873449
0,15: 0.706517
0,16: 1.08157
0,17: 0.675574
0,18: 0.723125
0,19: 1.50527
0,20: 1.06587
0,21: 1.21973
0,22: 1.19862
0,23: 1.03841
0,24: 1.17549
0,25: 1.12605
0,26: 1.17782
0,27: 1.14971
0,28: 1.16459
0,29: 1.21672
0,30: 1.15211
0,31: 1.16916
0,32: 1.18426
0,33: 1.13625
0,34: 1.14689
0,35: 1.16105
0,36: 1.15173
0,37: 1.17477
0,38: 1.11028
0,39: 1.09663
0,40: 0.736174
0,41: 0.84011
0,42: 1.94116
0,43: 0.899514
0,44: 0.852548
0,45: 0.718378
0,46: 0.833753
0,47: 0.858899
0,48: 0.883047
0,49: 0.8477
0,50: 0.863884
0,51: 0.844586
0,52: 0.822368
0,53: 0.87828
0,54: 0.950288
0,55: 0.79558
0,56: 0.916815
0,57: 0.872308
0,58: 0.841466
0,59: 1.94283
0,60: 0.730506
0,61: 1.06856
0,62: 0.874281
0,63: 1.07314
0,64: 1.95709
0,65: 1.9551
0,66: 1.10544
0,67: 0.988939
0,68: 0.798155
0,69: 0.96978
0,70: 0.804415
0,71: 0.921722
0,72: 1.06828
0,73: 1.1371
0,74: 0.966125
0,75: 0.877582
0,76: 0.766611
0,77: 0.836703
0,78: 1.04026
0,79: 1.99847
1,2: 0.866754
1,3: 1.9689
1,4: 0.822214
1,5: 0.871807
1,6: 0.819625
1,7: 1.99625
1,8: 0.972943
1,9: 1.91703
1,10: 1.00668
1,11: 0.898367
1,12: 0.816574
1,13: 1.99766
1,14: 0.937632
1,15: 0.812085
1,16: 1.06043
1,17: 0.829901
1,18: 0.892179
1,19: 1.48163
1,20: 1.1007
1,21: 1.21917
1,22: 1.25458
1,23: 1.12115
1,24: 1.18438
1,25: 1.14267
1,26: 1.1964
1,27: 1.15886
1,28: 1.15
1,29: 1.21793
1,30: 1.17151
1,31: 1.15173
1,32: 1.16964
1,33: 1.1308
1,34: 1.14985
1,35: 1.16996
1,36: 1.15727
1,37: 1.1476
1,38: 1.09286
1,39: 1.0814
1,40: 0.843903
1,41: 0.925255
1,42: 1.97555
1,43: 0.967589
1,44: 0.881994
1,45: 0.85078
1,46: 0.85885
1,47: 0.905653
1,48: 0.953162
1,49: 0.925454
1,50: 0.847908
1,51: 0.858428
1,52: 0.895883
1,53: 0.888809
1,54: 0.974469
1,55: 0.925426
1,56: 1.00447
1,57: 0.891956
1,58: 0.873782
1,59: 1.9762
1,60: 0.912171
1,61: 1.15863
1,62: 1.00737
1,63: 1.1342
1,64: 1.983
1,65: 1.97999
1,66: 1.2024
1,67: 1.11819
1,68: 0.874036
1,69: 1.04522
1,70: 0.935383
1,71: 0.989256
1,72: 1.15831
1,73: 1.22873
1,74: 1.06802
1,75: 0.996631
1,76: 0.947154
1,77: 0.985275
1,78: 1.11034
1,79: 1.99744
2,3: 1.96193
2,4: 0.890014
2,5: 0.918609
2,6: 0.805259
2,7: 1.9946
2,8: 0.98399
2,9: 1.9187
2,10: 0.971537
2,11: 0.963791
2,12: 0.843004
2,13: 1.99611
2,14: 0.957737
2,15: 0.887782
2,16: 1.07893
2,17: 0.80397
2,18: 0.858755
2,19: 1.51823
2,20: 1.07208
2,21: 1.20056
2,22: 1.18805
2,23: 1.11041
2,24: 1.18004
2,25: 1.12914
2,26: 1.17885
2,27: 1.14282
2,28: 1.13826
2,29: 1.19903
2,30: 1.14235
2,31: 1.11842
2,32: 1.12165
2,33: 1.09829
2,34: 1.14005
2,35: 1.16085
2,36: 1.12334
2,37: 1.12449
2,38: 1.08061
2,39: 1.08789
2,40: 0.869621
2,41: 0.990448
2,42: 1.97321
2,43: 1.00877
2,44: 0.956294
2,45: 0.897785
2,46: 0.92508
2,47: 0.976925
2,48: 0.99614
2,49: 0.968993
2,50: 0.908844
2,51: 0.885244
2,52: 0.933369
2,53: 0.942319
2,54: 1.06383
2,55: 0.947498
2,56: 1.01458
2,57: 0.940836
2,58: 0.893388
2,59: 1.97342
2,60: 0.968527
2,61: 1.18616
2,62: 1.01341
2,63: 1.14124
2,64: 1.98316
2,65: 1.97724
2,66: 1.20606
2,67: 1.13473
2,68: 0.895814
2,69: 1.04045
2,70: 1.02115
2,71: 1.00666
2,72: 1.15191
2,73: 1.21322
2,74: 1.10469
2,75: 1.00305
2,76: 0.996316
2,77: 0.995317
2,78: 1.10769
2,79: 1.99104
3,4: 1.95497
3,5: 1.96268
3,6: 1.95493
3,7: 1.85016
3,8: 1.96022
3,9: 1.8857
3,10: 1.96853
3,11: 1.96042
3,12: 1.95307
3,13: 1.85127
3,14: 1.96338
3,15: 1.95586
3,16: 1.97627
3,17: 1.95757
3,18: 1.95691
3,19: 1.98904
3,20: 1.95504
3,21: 1.96327
3,22: 1.9738
3,23: 1.96152
3,24: 1.96171
3,25: 1.963
3,26: 1.96263
3,27: 1.9607
3,28: 1.96524
3,29: 1.96313
3,30: 1.96226
3,31: 1.96361
3,32: 1.96483
3,33: 1.96521
3,34: 1.96074
3,35: 1.9614
3,36: 1.96235
3,37: 1.9635
3,38: 1.96103
3,39: 1.96037
3,40: 1.95632
3,41: 1.95794
3,42: 0.793594
3,43: 1.96808
3,44: 1.9656
3,45: 1.95527
3,46: 1.96634
3,47: 1.9688
3,48: 1.96818
3,49: 1.96356
3,50: 1.96474
3,51: 1.96449
3,52: 1.96449
3,53: 1.96527
3,54: 1.97178
3,55: 1.9557
3,56: 1.96153
3,57: 1.96329
3,58: 1.96483
3,59: 0.794096
3,60: 1.95808
3,61: 1.96365
3,62: 1.96021
3,63: 1.96398
3,64: 1.07377
3,65: 1.00475
3,66: 1.95867
3,67: 1.96329
3,68: 1.95856
3,69: 1.96086
3,70: 1.96142
3,71: 1.95816
3,72: 1.96047
3,73: 1.95897
3,74: 1.9556
3,75: 1.96065
3,76: 1.95895
3,77: 1.96273
3,78: 1.96328
3,79: 1.99968
4,5: 0.788195
4,6: 0.620047
4,7: 1.99434
4,8: 0.759033
4,9: 1.90871
4,10: 1.01319
4,11: 0.815295
4,12: 0.59761
4,13: 1.99619
4,14: 0.794467
4,15: 0.518277
4,16: 1.03863
4,17: 0.635704
4,18: 0.683855
4,19: 1.46151
4,20: 1.00649
4,21: 1.17543
4,22: 1.20755
4,23: 0.986302
4,24: 1.12755
4,25: 1.09842
4,26: 1.15335
4,27: 1.12332
4,28: 1.1561
4,29: 1.1735
4,30: 1.1468
4,31: 1.16611
4,32: 1.18115
4,33: 1.09924
4,34: 1.10227
4,35: 1.11426
4,36: 1.13068
4,37: 1.13998
4,38: 1.08495
4,39: 1.06503
4,40: 0.702138
4,41: 0.771715
4,42: 1.95731
4,43: 0.837232
4,44: 0.792523
4,45: 0.71465
4,46: 0.785088
4,47: 0.842645
4,48: 0.88232
4,49: 0.797071
4,50: 0.877194
4,51: 0.860887
4,52: 0.827168
4,53: 0.858785
4,54: 0.968461
4,55: 0.748339
4,56: 0.814665
4,57: 0.798623
4,58: 0.768295
4,59: 1.95938
4,60: 0.752062
4,61: 0.911671
4,62: 0.819842
4,63: 0.918314
4,64: 1.97673
4,65: 1.97573
4,66: 1.01528
4,67: 0.928687
4,68: 0.741074
4,69: 0.906217
4,70: 0.801837
4,71: 0.854634
4,72: 0.985972
4,73: 1.09418
4,74: 0.850674
4,75: 0.812936
4,76: 0.765032
4,77: 0.781142
4,78: 0.982358
4,79: 1.9988
5,6: 0.737253
5,7: 1.99493
5,8: 0.878345
5,9: 1.91355
5,10: 1.01282
5,11: 0.859224
5,12: 0.748648
5,13: 1.99729
5,14: 0.880715
5,15: 0.787128
5,16: 1.04239
5,17: 0.745783
5,18: 0.786149
5,19: 1.47106
5,20: 1.07998
5,21: 1.19117
5,22: 1.22762
5,23: 1.06444
5,24: 1.15282
5,25: 1.11727
5,26: 1.16341
5,27: 1.12917
5,28: 1.13973
5,29: 1.18948
5,30: 1.14598
5,31: 1.16592
5,32: 1.17186
5,33: 1.1169
5,34: 1.12135
5,35: 1.14028
5,36: 1.14827
5,37: 1.1525
5,38: 1.08383
5,39: 1.07164
5,40: 0.817069
5,41: 0.867882
5,42: 1.96915
5,43: 0.913017
5,44: 0.872529
5,45: 0.810617
5,46: 0.85724
5,47: 0.886339
5,48: 0.906791
5,49: 0.878002
5,50: 0.892805
5,51: 0.862851
5,52: 0.867254
5,53: 0.893622
5,54: 0.967902
5,55: 0.834863
5,56: 0.931455
5,57: 0.877801
5,58: 0.859839
5,59: 1.96889
5,60: 0.824554
5,61: 1.10257
5,62: 0.944257
5,63: 1.08774
5,64: 1.98285
5,65: 1.98013
5,66: 1.1522
5,67: 1.04605
5,68: 0.849217
5,69: 1.01917
5,70: 0.884428
5,71: 0.967913
5,72: 1.11224
5,73: 1.18032
5,74: 1.00106
5,75: 0.9336
5,76: 0.857718
5,77: 0.9025
5,78: 1.08596
5,79: 1.99346
6,7: 1.99327
6,8: 0.772622
6,9: 1.91086
6,10: 0.915978
6,11: 0.816922
6,12: 0.585621
6,13: 1.99486
6,14: 0.776789
6,15: 0.636512
6,16: 0.998656
6,17: 0.596507
6,18: 0.65505
6,19: 1.46338
6,20: 0.914675
6,21: 1.08729
6,22: 1.13584
6,23: 0.923419
6,24: 1.05699
6,25: 1.01443
6,26: 1.07092
6,27: 1.02593
6,28: 1.07439
6,29: 1.0865
6,30: 1.04401
6,31: 1.05959
6,32: 1.05928
6,33: 1.01315
6,34: 1.02732
6,35: 1.03827
6,36: 1.03141
6,37: 1.05128
6,38: 0.987748
6,39: 0.985013
6,40: 0.639546
6,41: 0.796997
6,42: 1.95857
6,43: 0.863688
6,44: 0.809912
6,45: 0.683135
6,46: 0.78591
6,47: 0.838865
6,48: 0.86315
6,49: 0.807736
6,50: 0.832643
6,51: 0.79595
6,52: 0.78795
6,53: 0.835268
6,54: 0.958688
6,55: 0.724857
6,56: 0.80797
6,57: 0.81404
6,58: 0.756282
6,59: 1.96016
6,60: 0.747105
6,61: 0.969463
6,62: 0.814754
6,63: 0.976721
6,64: 1.97539
6,65: 1.9726
6,66: 1.02254
6,67: 0.948514
6,68: 0.72177
6,69: 0.893901
6,70: 0.841856
6,71: 0.863138
6,72: 1.00025
6,73: 1.0582
6,74: 0.911331
6,75: 0.813277
6,76: 0.768318
6,77: 0.796214
6,78: 0.984794
6,79: 1.9987
7,8: 1.99396
7,9: 1.91666
7,10: 1.99534
7,11: 1.99519
7,12: 1.9949
7,13: 0.963877
7,14: 1.99534
7,15: 1.99414
7,16: 1.99643
7,17: 1.99148
7,18: 1.99258
7,19: 1.99601
7,20: 1.99368
7,21: 1.99526
7,22: 1.99528
7,23: 1.99545
7,24: 1.9929
7,25: 1.99464
7,26: 1.99467
7,27: 1.99533
7,28: 1.99382
7,29: 1.99517
7,30: 1.99565
7,31: 1.99505
7,32: 1.99566
7,33: 1.99372
7,34: 1.99364
7,35: 1.99536
7,36: 1.9945
7,37: 1.99548
7,38: 1.99376
7,39: 1.99482
7,40: 1.99548
7,41: 1.99532
7,42: 1.85232
7,43: 1.99565
7,44: 1.99561
7,45: 1.99559
7,46: 1.99499
7,47: 1.99517
7,48: 1.99583
7,49: 1.99519
7,50: 1.99538
7,51: 1.99601
7,52: 1.99602
7,53: 1.99604
7,54: 1.99604
7,55: 1.9958
7,56: 1.99571
7,57: 1.99601
7,58: 1.99503
7,59: 1.84777
7,60: 1.99483
7,61: 1.99331
7,62: 1.99501
7,63: 1.99447
7,64: 1.85554
7,65: 1.85205
7,66: 1.99553
7,67: 1.99383
7,68: 1.9957
7,69: 1.99585
7,70: 1.99591
7,71: 1.99646
7,72: 1.99385
7,73: 1.99553
7,74: 1.99372
7,75: 1.99494
7,76: 1.99524
7,77: 1.99457
7,78: 1.99662
7,79: 1.9994
8,9: 1.90897
8,10: 1.12852
8,11: 0.921775
8,12: 0.778049
8,13: 1.99705
8,14: 0.907419
8,15: 0.777434
8,16: 1.14736
8,17: 0.734019
8,18: 0.753028
8,19: 1.51282
8,20: 1.0232
8,21: 1.19067
8,22: 1.17059
8,23: 1.02933
8,24: 1.11439
8,25: 1.07095
8,26: 1.12203
8,27: 1.10254
8,28: 1.15878
8,29: 1.18677
8,30: 1.13459
8,31: 1.1799
8,32: 1.19618
8,33: 1.12188
8,34: 1.0996
8,35: 1.09947
8,36: 1.13864
8,37: 1.16607
8,38: 1.09995
8,39: 1.06885
8,40: 0.815399
8,41: 0.878348
8,42: 1.96066
8,43: 0.913606
8,44: 0.905519
8,45: 0.818123
8,46: 0.893627
8,47: 0.913745
8,48: 0.952562
8,49: 0.889908
8,50: 0.998278
8,51: 0.920447
8,52: 0.895926
8,53: 0.913591
8,54: 1.03413
8,55: 0.835108
8,56: 0.928309
8,57: 0.932064
8,58: 0.855055
8,59: 1.96333
8,60: 0.804285
8,61: 1.03906
8,62: 0.776857
8,63: 1.06881
8,64: 1.9781
8,65: 1.97722
8,66: 1.00965
8,67: 0.93624
8,68: 0.82023
8,69: 0.888284
8,70: 0.88217
8,71: 0.859121
8,72: 0.968708
8,73: 1.07967
8,74: 0.981075
8,75: 0.831326
8,76: 0.820944
8,77: 0.815421
8,78: 0.915489
8,79: 1.99679
9,10: 1.92431
9,11: 1.91049
9,12: 1.91103
9,13: 1.92336
9,14: 1.91707
9,15: 1.90829
9,16: 1.92368
9,17: 1.91177
9,18: 1.91327
9,19: 1.9587
9,20: 1.93317
9,21: 1.93927
9,22: 1.93792
9,23: 1.93177
9,24: 1.93681
9,25: 1.93193
9,26: 1.93969
9,27: 1.93326
9,28: 1.93475
9,29: 1.9396
9,30: 1.93636
9,31: 1.94217
9,32: 1.94477
9,33: 1.93428
9,34: 1.93727
9,35: 1.93669
9,36: 1.93988
9,37: 1.93871
9,38: 1.93715
9,39: 1.93247
9,40: 1.9123
9,41: 1.91393
9,42: 1.88589
9,43: 1.91655
9,44: 1.91901
9,45: 1.9115
9,46: 1.91162
9,47: 1.91488
9,48: 1.9149
9,49: 1.91549
9,50: 1.91739
9,51: 1.91808
9,52: 1.91483
9,53: 1.9176
9,54: 1.9182
9,55: 1.91152
9,56: 1.91714
9,57: 1.91667
9,58: 1.91465
9,59: 1.88162
9,60: 1.91167
9,61: 1.92168
9,62: 1.91453
9,63: 1.93483
9,64: 1.89946
9,65: 1.89448
9,66: 1.93063
9,67: 1.92276
9,68: 1.91235
9,69: 1.92085
9,70: 1.90792
9,71: 1.91603
9,72: 1.92731
9,73: 1.93802
9,74: 1.91605
9,75: 1.91336
9,76: 1.91415
9,77: 1.91172
9,78: 1.92472
9,79: 1.99978
10,11: 1.0438
10,12: 0.964984
10,13: 1.99754
10,14: 1.0577
10,15: 1.02573
10,16: 1.07284
10,17: 0.974302
10,18: 1.00272
10,19: 1.48147
10,20: 1.18265
10,21: 1.25046
10,22: 1.26714
10,23: 1.18957
10,24: 1.25621
10,25: 1.21559
10,26: 1.25629
10,27: 1.23043
10,28: 1.22361
10,29: 1.24841
10,30: 1.2267
10,31: 1.20795
10,32: 1.18434
10,33: 1.19273
10,34: 1.22702
10,35: 1.2367
10,36: 1.20151
10,37: 1.20005
10,38: 1.1527
10,39: 1.17788
10,40: 0.997534
10,41: 1.04284
10,42: 1.98043
10,43: 1.10589
10,44: 1.04188
10,45: 0.998373
10,46: 1.01804
10,47: 1.08238
10,48: 1.08032
10,49: 1.09302
10,50: 1.00133
10,51: 0.993476
10,52: 1.07086
10,53: 1.06417
10,54: 1.12587
10,55: 1.07345
10,56: 1.06371
10,57: 0.977355
10,58: 1.04211
10,59: 1.97998
10,60: 1.09318
10,61: 1.24592
10,62: 1.13883
10,63: 1.16488
10,64: 1.98562
10,65: 1.97882
10,66: 1.32088
10,67: 1.23339
10,68: 1.02044
10,69: 1.16901
10,70: 1.11662
10,71: 1.15534
10,72: 1.26351
10,73: 1.32396
10,74: 1.20143
10,75: 1.11709
10,76: 1.12094
10,77: 1.12686
10,78: 1.24582
10,79: 1.99918
11,12: 0.801457
11,13: 1.99698
11,14: 0.897639
11,15: 0.812646
11,16: 1.07456
11,17: 0.839879
11,18: 0.878546
11,19: 1.47838
11,20: 1.12281
11,21: 1.22463
11,22: 1.2376
11,23: 1.07369
11,24: 1.17683
11,25: 1.14919
11,26: 1.19193
11,27: 1.16844
11,28: 1.17545
11,29: 1.21933
11,30: 1.18422
11,31: 1.19829
11,32: 1.20489
11,33: 1.16089
11,34: 1.16305
11,35: 1.16277
11,36: 1.18203
11,37: 1.18091
11,38: 1.12725
11,39: 1.10437
11,40: 0.838478
11,41: 0.848288
11,42: 1.97281
11,43: 0.895768
11,44: 0.864473
11,45: 0.835269
11,46: 0.857939
11,47: 0.88651
11,48: 0.916276
11,49: 0.864639
11,50: 0.904924
11,51: 0.874538
11,52: 0.878021
11,53: 0.869281
11,54: 0.932065
11,55: 0.863672
11,56: 0.937994
11,57: 0.879275
11,58: 0.872332
11,59: 1.9735
11,60: 0.885503
11,61: 1.09279
11,62: 0.953559
11,63: 1.07352
11,64: 1.98414
11,65: 1.97871
11,66: 1.14772
11,67: 1.05034
11,68: 0.882992
11,69: 1.02294
11,70: 0.908969
11,71: 0.967327
11,72: 1.10438
11,73: 1.20151
11,74: 1.00029
11,75: 0.942327
11,76: 0.885511
11,77: 0.921845
11,78: 1.08577
11,79: 1.99849
12,13: 1.99605
12,14: 0.756464
12,15: 0.602206
12,16: 1.02598
12,17: 0.611349
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